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Brew Biz: Werts and All, Bagg’s Square Brewing

    Ken Carman is a BJCP judge; homebrewer since 1979, club member at Salt City Homebrewers in Syracuse, NY. Former member of Escambia Bay Brewers, Clarksville Carboys and Music City Homebrewers. Ken has been writing on beer-related topics, and interviewing professional brewers all over the east coast, for well over 20 years.

    A casual review of one of Utica’s newer breweries.

By Ken Carman
    Millie and I met in 1974 at MVCC: Mohawk Valley Community College. Back then we felt blessed we had ONE brewery: FX Matt Brewing, noted mostly for Utica Club, Matt’s and occasional one offs like Maximus Super. This was just a few years into the craft boom and almost all of them out west, like Anchor.
    Once we got married we lived, briefly, in Utica, then moved to Nashville area for 45 years. Meanwhile when we came back to visit relatives, and then when I was on tour, FX morphed into Saranac, basically the same brewery, same family owning it, but now increasingly more dedicated to craft beer. And eventually breweries like Woodland, Nail Creek and Bagg’s Square popped up.
    On St. Patty’s Day Millie had a doctor’s appointment, so we stopped. Continue reading “Brew Biz: Werts and All, Bagg’s Square Brewing”

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A RECIPE FOR STOUT IRISH STEW

Written by Franz Hoffer @A Tempest in a Tankard

It’s Friday afternoon, the day after our homebrew club’s St. Paddy’s Day Potluck.

It’s also been a long stretch without a break from translation projects and beer writing projects, a few of which you’ll soon see in print.

And it’s been quite some time now since I posted a recipe. The last time was just as the pandemic hit, when I wrote an article about fermenting cabbage into sauerkraut.

So it’s nice to take a break from writing by … writing. Writing about something completely different for change is actually quite relaxing.

And today’s actually St. Patrick’s Day, so there’s that, too. If you’re like me and have left your food plans till the last minute, you might just get this recipe in time for your St. Paddy’s Day festivities over the weekend. In this case, fortune favours the procrastinators. Even if you don’t cook this for dinner this weekend, it’s still stew season for at least another month.

*I’ve included a number of tips below. These are helpful for any stew you’ll make, from goulash to stoofvlees (Flemish stew).

Want to read more? Please click… HERE!!!

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History of the Bavarian Brewery Building

YOU’VE ENTERED THE BAVARIAN BREWERY OF OLD…

The Bavarian Brewing Co., Inc., was once the largest brewer in the state of Kentucky and the largest employer in Covington, KY. Out of dozens of breweries that operated during the 19th and 20th centuries in the Cincinnati area, it’s the only one with a remaining structure that was used for former Brew and Mill Houses. This edifice is visible and easily accessible off I-75 at the 12th Street Exit in Covington. (See a location map to visit.) It was formerly Brew Works and Jillian’s, and was re-purposed in 2019 for office use as the Kenton County Government Center. There is also a Bavarian Brewery Exhibit that explores the history of the brewery and it buildings, accompanied with artifacts and Breweriana items on display. A Riedlin – Schott Room (named after the families who owned and operated the brewery), is available for community activities, meetings and events. This room and the exhibit (including the display areas), will be used for brewery tours featuring the history of the brewery. In addition, this website will help augment the brewery’s history, while also documenting the progression of inventions and events that impacted the broader brewing industry.

Want to read more? Please click… HERE!!!

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Psychedelic Rabbit Transcendent IPA

Description

If you go, chasing rabbits, may you find yourself in a new realm wonderland juicy-hop filled bliss. Feed your head with this Transcendent IPA using Cascade, Cashmere, Mosaic,
Azacca and Citra hops along with the new Thiol-active Star Party yeast designed to provide an atomic burst of Passion fruit, Pineapple, and Tangerine juiciness that will blow your mind… go ask Alice, I think she’ll know.

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Side Bae Double IPA Idaho 7

Description

Super small batch IPA brewed with experimental malt formulas and hop combinations. These are the most heavily-hopped NEIPA’s we’ve ever made, brewed exclusively for the taproom.

Want to read more? Please click… HERE!!!

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Brew Biz: Werts and All, Lake Placid

    Ken Carman is a BJCP judge; homebrewer since 1979, club member at Salt City Homebrewers in Syracuse, NY. Former member of Escambia Bay Brewers, Clarksville Carboys and Music City Homebrewers. Ken has been writing on beer-related topics, and interviewing professional brewers all over the east coast, for well over 20 years.

The Topic-A casual review of two breweries with the same brewer, and what may cause at least one difference between the two.

Kevin
    It was almost my birthday so what did we do? GO TO BREWERIES! I had had previous contact with Big Slide Brewery. Their beers looked interesting, as did their menu. The brewer also provided a second brewery he brewed at in his message to me: Lake Placid Brewery. Home to UBU Ale.
    Right up front: this is no BJCP-driven review. More like a “drive by” commentary. By necessity we were more focused on “drive by” because of the distance from home.
    In Lake Placid we stopped by two breweries. Two breweries with the same brewer: Kevin Litchfield.
    How can THAT be interesting? Well, we found one distinct difference between the breweries. But, before that, other notes….
Big Slide
    The first visit was to Big Slide. Small, comfortable, establishment on the way to the site of the Olympics. Last time I was here I was a student at Town of Webb in Old Forge, NY, and performing at All State Choir along with my fellow classmates. They were still building the slide and everything else.
    At Big Slide we had the “Birra Torta.” The menu called it “Chile Beef Stew, grinder roll, pepper cheese, cilantro, cup of birra broth for dipping.” Especially this time of year (winter) I was expecting a beef stew with a chili spin. No, it was an EXCELLENT hoagie with marinated beef and a dip that was somewhat tasteless. Good for the waffle fries. Kind of threw us at first, but pleasurable. May I suggest up front the hoagie-like aspect to the description.
    Unfortunately I lost my beer notes from Slide. Here is what I remember… Continue reading “Brew Biz: Werts and All, Lake Placid”

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Deschutes “Tropical Fresh” IPA: Voluptuous Clarity

Written by Steve Body

Fruit…in beer?

Well…okay. I guess.

After literal generations of beer being grains, yeast, hops, and relentless marketing, beer suddenly evolved a BIG Difference – FLAVORS. LOTS of flavors, of all kinds: flowers, spices, bread, cookies, infusions galore, chocolate, licorice…BIG flavors. This difference – derived at first by clever use of grains and very different yeasts and the relative handful of hops variations that existed when craft beer started to Boom – became the hallmark of that alternative school of brewing.

BUT…as with the Big IBU Scare of the early 00s, things like this escalate. We are Americans, after all, and for us Bigger Is Better. Nothing Is Too Much. And very little is ever Enough. Soon, those original fruity beers without infusions didn’t satisfy the craving for fruity beers. As clever people will, clever people began to experiment with ways to shovel up more fruit(ish) flavors – mainly citrus but also various melons, berries, flowers, nuts, anything, really, all of it kinda centered upon the juice boxes on which the new waves of people reaching drinking age were raised. “Tropical” became a core idea. Pineapple, guava, mango, papaya, lychi, citrus, and on and on. Even the exotic mangosteen and dragon fruit have had cameos in the Beer Fruit Thang. Coconut, produced by some newish hops, sticks its knobby little head up, pretty frequently. And, of course, this doesn’t even include the breweries which reasoned, correctly, that you could just, like, dump actual stuff into the tanks and induce whatever the hell flavors you want, without having to wrestle with those complicated ol’ hops and yeasts.

Want to read more? Please click… HERE!!!

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Belgium loses Trappist beer

Beer brewed at Achel Abbey in Limburg will no longer be allowed to bear the name Trappist beer. The abbey is being sold to businessman Jan Tormans and the brewery at the abbey will cut all links with Westmalle Abbey that supervised operations at the Achel Abbey brewery until now. Earlier, when the Trappist monks moved out, the brewery lost the right to display the ATP label, proving Authentic Trappist Product, on its brews. The ATP label can only be used when beer is brewed in an abbey with live-in monks. The name could still be used thanks to the connection with Westmalle Abbey, but with the sale to private hands that now too is a thing of the past.

Want to read more? Please click… HERE!!!

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Of Martyrs and Moby Dick: Weihenstephan’s Vitus Weizenbock

~Or, what do Melville’s white whale, a cathedral in Prague, and Weihenstephan’s Vitus have in common?~

I’ve been drinking Weihenstephan’s lush and expansive Vitus for years now, especially when the weather turns cool. I can’t get enough of that subtly spiced honey and orange zest layered over rich banana custard. But I hadn’t ever troubled myself with looking deeper into the beer’s namesake, St. Vitus, despite my fondness for another material object connected with Vitus’s memory: the imposing Gothic cathedral that looms over Prague.

But then I came across what was, for me, a puzzling reference to St. Vitus in Moby Dick. I immediately had to know what connected the dots between Moby Dick, a cathedral in Prague with some of the most wondrous stained-glass windows I’ve seen, and that elegant Weizenbock from Weihenstephan.

Want to read more? Please click… HERE!!!

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PUBS AND PINTS IN EDINBURGH

I wrote this piece on Edinburgh’s pubs during the depths of the pandemic but didn’t post it because, well, no one was sitting in pubs back then. Now seems a better fit, not least because it’s the time of year when we’re heading indoors to ward off the chill of frigid evenings. And with the new year upon us, it’s an ideal time to start thinking about which places and pubs you’ll “resolve” to visit this year or next.

A brief note: I visited Scotland well before the pandemic. All the places I visited then are still going strong. What may have changed in the intervening years is the beer selection.

“Edinburgh, where have you been all of my life?” That was my very first thought when I stepped off the train at Haymarket Station on that sunny autumn day. The stone buildings, bustling thoroughfares, and convivial pub terraces overflowing with people reminded me of London. But the further I got from Haymarket Station, the more Edinburgh revealed its own unique charms, by turns cosmopolitan and whimsical.

Want to read more” Please click…HERE!!!