Month: March 2010

Written by Jay Brooks for the Brookston Beer Bulletin

Back in the last week of April, I visited the Ball Can Factory in Fairfield, California to watch the first beer cans for 21st Amendment Restaurant & Brewery being manufactured. Last week, I followed up on that story to watch the next part of the can’s journey to your hand. So I joined owner/brewer Shaun O’Sullivan and his assistant brewer, Mike D., early Thursday morning at the brewpub to watch as they went through the process of taking empty cans and turning them into a full six-pack of beer. I even had a chance to pitch in briefly, which was great fun. All of the equipment used for the canning came from Cask Brewing Systems of Calgary, Canada. So I’ll step you through the process in detail:

Continue reading “Putting Beer in Cans: 21st Amendment Cans Their Beer”

Without intent, I have collected well over 1,000 beer bottles since the early 70s. When something finally had to be done about the cheap paneling in this old modular, I had a choice. Tear down the walls while, oh, so carefully, replacing the often rotted 1X3s. Or: cover them with… The Bottle Collection.

Written by Ken Carman

A while ago I put a lot of these into draft status and then forgot about them. My apologies if you’ve seen this before. Please remember: any contradictions probably have to do with the fading memories of one old coot: moi’.

This was sold as if it was brewed in upstate, NY, if I remember right… Syracuse, though at the time it was really brewed in New Jersey. Quite a ways to vend out for contract beer. I remember it having a copious amount of caramelized malts and some hops, but not as many as the name would indicate. The body was the real focus. Just a little one dimensional. I had thought Landmark was out of business, but they still have a website up. It looks like they may have stopped brewing on their own and then, at some point, started again with Paper City brewing for them now. Apparently Flying Bison and Custom Crafters have helped too. It looks like they have added several styles to their portfolio including an Imperial Stout.

The Paper City facility is fascinated and well suited to contract brewing: several breweries use the same facility. I would assume that means they’re able to switch labeling operations and between styles. I hope to write about it this summer when I’m in New England.

There can be no doubt that that part of New York can use more breweries. One hopes they will eventually get their own brewery again, though it’s obviously an expensive endeavor so contract brewing has its attractions.

It also sounds like the recipe has been changed, as in “more hops.”

For more on Landmark click…

HERE

Kielbasa In Beer And Onions

Ingredients

* 4 Tablespoons butter
* 3-4 pounds kielbasa (cut in 2 – 3″ pieces)
* 2-12 once bottles regular or hearty beer
* 4 to 5 onions, thinly sliced
* 1/2 pound mushrooms, quartered
* Salt, pepper and marjoram to taste

For the rest, please click

HERE

(Press-Register/Victor Calhoun) Morgan Smith samples an import at HopsFest, an event in Mobile, Ala., that gave patrons a chance to sample craft beers from around the country and a few imports. It was held Saturday, March 20, 2010, in Cathedral Square in downtown Mobile.

Written by David Ferrara for al.com

MOBILE, Ala. — MOBILE, Ala. — Many of the 53 types of beers offered at Cathedral Square on Saturday would have been illegal in the state at the same time last year.

The inaugural Mobile Baykeeper HopsFest, celebrating state legislation that allows beers with higher alcohol content, drew hundreds of gourmet beer aficionados.
Continue reading “Mobile Baykeeper HopsFest Draws Hundreds; Celebrates Legislation Allowing Beers with Higher Alcohol Content”

Detroit police inspecting a clandestine underground brewery during Prohibition.

The little-told story of how the U.S. government poisoned alcohol during Prohibition with deadly consequences.

Written by Deborah Bloom for Slate.com

It was Christmas Eve 1926, the streets aglitter with snow and lights, when the man afraid of Santa Claus stumbled into the emergency room at New York City’s Bellevue Hospital. He was flushed, gasping with fear: Santa Claus, he kept telling the nurses, was just behind him, wielding a baseball bat.

Before hospital staff realized how sick he was—the alcohol-induced hallucination was just a symptom—the man died. So did another holiday partygoer. And another. As dusk fell on Christmas, the hospital staff tallied up more than 60 people made desperately ill by alcohol and eight dead from it. Within the next two days, yet another 23 people died in the city from celebrating the season.

Doctors were accustomed to alcohol poisoning by then, the routine of life in the Prohibition era. The bootlegged whiskies and so-called gins often made people sick. The liquor produced in hidden stills frequently came tainted with metals and other impurities. But this outbreak was bizarrely different. The deaths, as investigators would shortly realize, came courtesy of the U.S. government.

Want to read more? Click…

HERE

Hawkshead Beer Hall: United Kingdom. In Staveley. The river Kent meanders through the area. There’s plenty of food from a nearby cafe’. They have their own brewery. Here are four of their beers.

They also “proudly serve” pork pies at the bar made from “happy pigs fattened on grain from our brewery.”

Written by Jonathan Shikes

Beer hasn’t always been delivered by truck. In the early 1900s, it took a horse and carriage to get Denver’s suds from the brewery to the bar. Although the tradition died after prohibition, the Wynkoop Brewing Company plans to bring it back.

“I’ve got a horseman, two horses and an old-fashioned wagon – and clearance from the city,” says Wynkoop marketing man Marty Jones. “Twice a month, we’re going to pull the wagon up behind the Wynkoop and load it with kegs and cases and deliver it to our favorite downtown accounts. It’s a cool, missing slice of the beer culture.

“Part of our message to people is that they are getting beer that is is very locally made,” he adds. “So, we’ll have a smaller carbon footprint, but a larger hoofprint.”

Jones says the carriage is scheduled to make its first delivery around 5 or 6 p.m. on Friday, April 16. “Our first stop will be our sister restaurant the Wazee Supper Club and from there, we’ll head east and roll it down the Sixteenth Street Mall.”

Written by Charlie Papazian

Four brewing companies control and brew half of the world’s beer. They are Belgian-based Anheuser-Busch Inbev, London-listed SABMiller (South African Breweries Miller), Dutch Heineken and Danish Carlsberg. In a report by Bloomberg last week the last two years of consolidation were summed up with the hefty sum of $75 billion worth of acquisitions. To what end?

In a featured example and with seemingly great pride, Carlsberg teamed up with Heineken in 2008 to buy and break up Scottish & Newcastle for $11.9 billion. Scottish & Newcastle formerly a major U.K. brewing company is no more, as can also be said of the English, Scottish and even Irish brewing industry. Except that the void is being trickle-filled with hundreds of microbrewery startups who are somehow appealing to local markets.

In the world of mega companies brewing megabranded beers the consolidation and acquisition game continues to play out. Anheuser-Busch Inbev and Heineken are currently in the process of gobbling up Mexico’s largest brewing companies, Modelo and FEMSA respectively.

Want to read more? Click…

HERE

Reported by Ken Carman for Professorgoodales.net

I tried calling them, but for some reason there’s no answer. I would have sent an E-mail, but their site said they don’t have it… but they have a web site? This party sounds grand and they did do it last year. I hope they still are doing it…

@ The Lazy J Campground
1237 Parkway Rd
Rosman, NC 28772-9630
(828) 966-3834

One of my most treasured Southern memories is taking on the Blue Ridge Parkway with a rag top 911. I’ve also spent time hanging around Brevard and got lost in the Pisgah National Forest. So when I found out about the Brew Bus and the Lazy J I cheered, until I found out they have their fest in June. I’m always on my northern tour in June and work comes first.

I even have a Transylvania paper hanging up in my house, which is the county. The Count hasn’t found what I snatched off his blood drenched doorstep; yet.
Continue reading “VWs and Beer in the Pisgahs”