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.
In yesterday’s Atlantic, 
Except for the fact that, you know, homebrewing almost always leads to the best microbreweries, much as reader Tom Hilton notes above. I was set to write a lengthy counterargument about why Hilton wasn’t much brighter than a stick, but sadly, Erik Kain responded before I got to, and essentially hammers my point home.
Poor Jimmy Carter gets a lot of flack for being 
OK, I know we’re getting a little post heavy on the Santa and the Christmas and the ho ho ho, but deal with it–it’s Christmas time for God’s sake. You know, the time to celebrate America’s love for overabundance and electricity and lights and trees in houses and presents and good freakin’ beer. Oh, and Jesus being born. That’s probably involved somehow, too.
In 1900, one magazine advertisement proclaimed, “Wherever children look for Santa Claus, Schlitz beer is known as the standard.” Around the same time, Consumers Brewing assured drinkers in newspaper ads that, while “Santa Claus himself is reluctant to give away our beer . . . we have plenty to go ’round.”
