Beer Sampling Made Easy, and Elegant

September 3rd, 2010

Move over cans and bottles, the future of beer is here. Well, maybe not the future, but a damn cool looking beer sampling unit: the BeerVault. There seems to be some high-tech science behind the newest creation from Australian design firm Jones Chijoff.

The BeerVault fits the high-end beer bottles into UV-filtering clear acrylic canisters, which are backlit and suspended above the bar. Each beer is kept under the same pressure as it was while in the bottle, thus preserving its taste, while also keeping it chilled and ready-to-serve via a clear volume of liquid glycol that surrounds it and circulates through a chiller.

It also makes ordering beers easier. One of the ideas behind the whole bar is that people will be able to order their beers based on the color!

BornRich — Australian firm designs BeerVault for high-end beers

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Have Divers Found the World’s Oldest Drinkable Beer?

September 2nd, 2010

Someone get Sam Calagione on this case immediately. It looks like some divers searching for buried treasure..er…champagne off the coast of Sweden in the Baltic Sea have unearthed what could be the world’s oldest drinkable beer, dating to somewhere around the early 1800s. That sounds great, but too bad the beer is clearly bad by now and undrinkable. What’s that? Someone tried it?

Bjorn Haggblom, a spokesman for the researchers, says they found a handful of beer bottles this week while salvaging champagne discovered near the Aland Islands in July.

He said researchers who tried drops of the dark, foamy liquid liked the taste of it.

Swedish beer expert Goran Winbergh questioned whether it would still be drinkable because beer is perishable.

Um, so who’s waiting for the “Divers Die After Trying Beer from Ancient Shipwreck” headline that will show up in the newspapers in a few more hours? This is why we need Sam. Get him over there; have him test it; and have him replicate it. We can even go ahead and just call it something badass like Pirate’s Blood. There, we already have a name. You have your assignment, Sam.

The Associated Press — Recovering bubbly in Baltic Sea, divers find beer

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Beer Review: Ommegang Bière de Mars

September 1st, 2010

Sour. But not in the good way. (Photo via MK Heisler)

For all the hubbub surrounding Brewery Ommegang, I’m quite surprised that this is the first time I’ll be addressing any beer from the New York rarity. If you’re unfamiliar with the place, they specialize in bringing true, Belgian style ales to the United States. Sure, a few American breweries will toss out a tripel or a Belgian style IPA occasionally, but Ommegang only specializes in Belgians. I’ve said for quite sometime now that I’m not the biggest fan of Belgian style beers. I can find them a bit too fruity or boozy for my liking, and I’m often nonplussed by the massive presence of Belgians at local bars that couldn’t give a shit about quality beer. So I guess what I’m saying is: This is why I’ve avoided beer from Ommegang like the plague. But things are changing. I may be getting spoiled, but I’m tiring of the standard stouts and IPAs in great quantity here, so I’m trying  to branch out. Surely there are Belgians worthy of my verbosity, and maybe Ommegang could take me to the dark side. My current forays into sour ales from Jolly Pumpkin and others brought me to a perfect outlier on my beer screen: the Ommegang Bière de Mars, a Belgian amber with the famous Brettanomyces bruxellensis, a wild yeast known for adding a sour touch to brews.

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What’s the World’s Best Beer City?

August 31st, 2010

The Huffington Post has a pretty stock list up today about the world’s best beer cities. Gotta love these features from HuffPo that clearly try to just get reads for having “beer” or “bikini” in the title. What’s that? It caught my eye? And yours, too? Goddamnit.

Either way, it’s hard to disagree with most of the picks (Portland, Berlin, Bruges), but there are some oddities on the list, like Mexico City (really?) and Burlington, VT. Burlington, VT, home of the famous and much-loved on this blog, Magic Hat Brewing Company! What wild and funky beers they have!

Set between two beer-bustling cities – Montreal to the north, and Boston to the southeast – Burlington, Vermont is a university town with one of the best brew cultures in New England. Home to the quirky microbrewery Magic Hat, visitors can do as the local beer lovers do and sample homegrown brews such as #9, Fat Angel, and Blind Faith IPA, to name a few. Church Street, a four-block pedestrian-only zone buzzes with vibrant bars with top-notch beer on tap, including Vermont-brewed Otter Creek and the Long Trail beer collection, whose specialty beers change seasonally.

Yeah, whatever. When you need ten cities to fill out the rest of an article, you just start writing stuff in. “Oh, look HuffPo Intern 1, there’s a Magic Hat in the work fridge!” “Oh, awesome, HuffPo Intern 2. Let’s include that in our list!” “Neato!”

Regardless of the list, it did get me thinking of the better beer cities not just in the world, but in the U.S. Is D.C. getting closer to cracking a top ten, or has it already? Do number of breweries matter, or just the variety of beer bars and beer selection? I’ve got to think Denver would make my list, and certainly somewhere in Michigan. Anywhere in Montana making a push? What does everyone else think?

The Huffington Post — The 10 Best Cities For Beer Lovers to Visit

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Beer Review: Schlafly Pumpkin Ale

August 31st, 2010

Thanksgiving in August? All right. (Photo via MK Heisler)

Saint Louis Brewery in St. Louis, MO

Holy hell there are some terrible pumpkin beers on the market. I’ve always known pumpkin was a perfect compliment for a great beer, with the hints of nutmeg, cinnamon, and other fall spices. For me, those could translate over to so many different beer styles–IPA, pale ale, strong ale, whatever. But little did I know a whole genre of pumpkin ales was brewing on its own. I thought a few breweries probably dabbled in this realm, and when I first started my craft beer life, I remember finding something called Jack’s Pumpkin Spice Ale and knowing it would be fantastic. Wrong. Terrible. But not completely unsurprising considering it was one of the dreadful Anheuser-Busch macros in a micros clothing. I was betrayed! I tried a few other pumpkin beers and was always disappointed. Maybe a brewery couldn’t pull off a good pumpkin ale, or maybe what I was imagining just didn’t exist. With the recent influx of fall beers into the D.C. area (which, seriously, college football hasn’t even started yet and we’re already seeing Oktoberfests and pumpkins? I’m still not sure how I feel about that), pumpkins are everywhere. I took one final stab in the dark at the Schlafly Pumpkin Ale and hoped for the best.

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Moderate Drinking Actually Does Make You Live Longer than Not Drinking At All

August 30th, 2010

Probably, at least, because it’s a new week and a new one of these studies. But we’re beer drinkers around here, so when we hear about good health relating to our infatuation with craft beer, we’re joining the bandwagon. This study, though, actually is quite surprising. It states that people who drink in moderate amounts  actually live longer than people who don’t drink at all. And the real shocker: heavy drinkers (more than 3 drinks a day) live longer than non-drinkers as well. Whoa.

Moderate drinking, which is defined as one to three drinks per day, is associated with the lowest mortality rates in alcohol studies. Moderate alcohol use (especially when the beverage of choice is red wine) is thought to improve heart health, circulation and sociability, which can be important because people who are isolated don’t have as many family members and friends who can notice and help treat health problems.

But why would abstaining from alcohol lead to a shorter life? It’s true that those who abstain from alcohol tend to be from lower socioeconomic classes, since drinking can be expensive. And people of lower socioeconomic status have more life stressors — job and child-care worries that might not only keep them from the bottle but also cause stress-related illnesses over long periods. (They also don’t get the stress-reducing benefits of a drink or two after work.)

Not exactly the most rousing support of going out and becoming an alcoholic, but definitely a curious report to be sure. As always with these studies, be careful. I think we know that drinking in moderation certainly won’t kill you, but still can lead to certain types of cancers. But it does sound like you’re more apt to have a good time and be more carefree. So pick your poison, really.

TIME Magazine — Heavy Drinkers Outlive Nondrinkers, Study Finds

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Beer Review: Avery Out of Bounds Stout

August 30th, 2010

Maybe if I drink enough of these I can pretend I'm skiing.

Avery Brewing Company in Boulder, CO

The hardest thing I have to live without on the East Coast is skiing. Though it’s been at least four years since I last found myself on a mountain, I really miss those early Saturday mornings filled with McDonald’s breakfast and a cramped red truck chugging its way toward the top of the local ski area as the temps outside dipped as low as -20. Those were great days, especially when you found great powder or a day when you skied a trail perfectly or tried a new trick you’d never accomplished before. Those days were a little bit before my drinking days, and definitely before my days of stout love, but seeing a bottle like Avery’s Out of Bounds Stout, with the skier on the front and the ski dictionary name-dropping in the title just makes a man want to fly out to Boulder right now and wait for the first major snow dump of the year. And the skiing might not even be the best part. The best part would be knowing that you could find Out of Bounds Stout on tap all over Boulder no matter the time of year. That would be quite enjoyable. But with a place like the Brickskeller, there really isn’t any reason to leave the bottled beer mecca of the US.

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BVotW: Fried Beer? Fried Beer. OK.

August 27th, 2010

Who wants to burn the fuck out of their mouths with Miller High Life in Texas!?

The State Fair of Texas coming September 24th. No one can prepare themselves enough.

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Beer Review: 60 Minute IPA

August 26th, 2010

"Have we met?" "No." "I think you're right."

Dogfish Head Craft Brewery in Milton, DE

You know the guy that’s always sitting at the bar? You know, the bar you always go to after work or at least once a weekend? He never sits at a table. He always seems to find a seat at the bar no matter how many people are there. You’ve never seen him arrive, and you’ve never watched him leave. Somehow, though, he will always have a seat, and he will always draw a crowd around him. He’s always cool-headed and doesn’t do anything too exciting and doesn’t go out of his way to start a scene, nor does he go out of his way to do any grand gestures for the other bar-goers. But there he is. Every time you go to the bar, he is there. He’s a guy you’ve thought of talking to numerous times, but you always decide to go another route, just barely making eye contact, just enough to know you’re there. But he notices you, too. He knows you’re at the bar. And he wants to talk to you. What do you do? Well, you sit next to him in that one empty bar stool at the oak-lined bar that hits you in the face with a scent of bleach and thick malt. You sit down. He orders you a 60 Minute IPA from Dogfish Head, a beer you’ve had dozens of times, and you sit, and you listen.

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The Story of A Beer Father

August 25th, 2010

The Washington Post has a nice quick read about one of the true founding fathers of the craft beer movement, Jack McAuliffe. McAuliffe started his own brewery in 1976 in an effort to recreate the beers he tasted in Scotland while stationed there in the Navy. However, as often was the case with microbreweries pre-1980, McAuliffe’s brewery closed. But enter Ken Grossman, master brewer from Sierra Nevada.

To celebrate 30 years of brewing, Grossman coaxed McAuliffe (now in his 60s and living in San Antonio) out of retirement to collaborate on a limited-edition anniversary brew.

Brew day was May 25. “I hadn’t seen him in 25 years at least,” Grossman said about McAuliffe, who he said had been in an automobile accident the previous year and had lost the use of one arm. “Mainly he supervised and sampled.”

Jack and Ken’s Black Barleywine Ale recently debuted in 25.4-ounce corked bottles. A deep mahogany color with a ruby glint, the heady brew has a sweet, almost sugary taste up front, giving way to a bittersweet chocolate flavor mid-palate and a hoppy, slightly floral finish.

I’ve seen the Jack and Ken’s Black Barleywine out in stores recently and I’ve scoffed at the higher price and the lack of the memory I have from tasting the Fritz and Ken’s Stout. However, after reading this great profile, I think I’ll have to grab a bottle of the barleywine. Not often do you get such a great back story on the beer you’re drinking. Plus, this beer was a joint effort between two of the legends in craft beer, featuring one you’ve never even heard about.

The story really is worth the read, and Jack McAuliffe even gives advice to all aspiring homebrewers.

“Your skill set is extremely important,” he stresses. Ideally, it should encompass disciplines as varied as metallurgy and accounting. “You have to be interested in microbiology, to know your way around a laboratory. You have to know how a sewer system works.”

Well-read sewer technicians, take note.

The Washington Post — A founding father returns to the fore

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