Month: March 2011

Written by Greg Kitsock for The Washington Post

The gloves are off for Beer Madness, our annual tasteoff to determine the nation’s top brew. Last year, we went global in honor of the Olympics. This year, with a postProhibition record of more than 1,700 breweries perating in the United States, we doubled the field from 32 to 64 and decided to celebrate the glories of American craft brews. All 64 breweries represented meet the Brewers Association’s exacting standard of craft.” They’re small (even Boston Beer Co., with its 2 million barrels a year output, is a guppy compared with such barracudas as AnheuserBusch and MillerCoors). They’re independent (not specialty divisions of large corporate brewers). They’re traditional (no corn or rice adjuncts were used to water down these beers for the timid). By carefully rationing samples and spreading our tastings over two days, we were able to admit stronger styles that we had barred in the past out of sympathy for our livers.

 

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Danny Fullpint blogs about his feelings on the underdog of the craft beer movement, the craft lager. Buried underneath the barrel aged beers, sours, and monster IPA’s are some carefully crafted, bottom fermenting beers. Cheers! Note: if you wish to read more of Dan’s beer rants, please visit thefullpint.com

Written by Dan Fullpint for thefullpint.com

If you started your beer drinking journey roughly the same period of your life as I did, you probably sucked back many cans or bottles of lager during your late high school years and into college.  In this instance, I’m referring to the cheap, fizzy, yellow piss you buy in a 30 pack, most likely made by Bud, Miller or Coors.  Hovering between 4-5 percent, you could play and drink all night with your friends, while making a pyramid of empty cans, and most likely leaving that smelly 1/2 inch of warm beer at the bottom.

When you finally realized that stuff was junk and moved onto Samuel Adams or Newcastle, because you are now smarter and more sophisticated, you realized the stuff in those cans was crap.  Fast forward to the beer drinking times of today, and you’ll notice the craft beer market is flooded with ales.  There is almost a stigma that ales are good and lagers are crap.  In a sea of IPAs, Black IPAs, strong ales, and wheat ales, there is a perceived contrast of good and bad between ales and lagers.  I would bet if you asked someone to name a lager, they probably wouldn’t even name Samuel Adams Boston Lager, but rather Budweiser or Heineken.  From where I’m sitting, Samuel Adams Boston Lager is a decent  lager (when fresh and maintained), green bottle import lager and American macro canned lager is a horrible representation of lager. The problem is, the marketing and market domination of the latter have bored a hole in everyone’s mind that lager = fizzy yellow cheap beer. I’m here to help shed some light on the lost art of the long, cold, bottom fermented beer known as lager. In this case, craft lager. As a disclaimer, I think the cheap fizzy stuff has it’s place, I’ve been known to suck down some PBR in the warm weather, I just want people to know lager is not a bad word.

Craft Lager
Continue reading “Where’s The Lager Love?”

Written by Dave Kim for brooklynrail.org

Served at President Obama’s Super Bowl party this year was the White House’s own honey ale, which an unnamed White House chef had homebrewed especially for the occasion. While Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers threw touchdown passes on the big screen, the Obamas and their guests knocked back beers made with fresh grains and a pound of honey from the first lady’s beehive. This was no spur-of-the-moment menu addition: the president had purchased the brewing equipment himself. Each bottle produced even sported a custom label.

The White House Honey Ale, served to a shortlist of government brass and

celebrity guests like J-Lo and Marc Anthony, shows just how high the profile of independent brewing has risen in recent years. Gone are the days when beer enthusiasts, tired of the same old factory lagers in their grocery stores, had to make their own suds out of sheer necessity. One would think the availability of great craft beers throughout the country would make brewers lazier, but it seems to have only ramped up the competition. Estimates for the number of brewing hobbyists in North America now vary between 750,000 and 1.2 million. Here in Brooklyn there has been something of a beermaking explosion since 2009, when brewing supplies suddenly started appearing in flea markets and kitchen-supply shops. There’s even a store in Gowanus devoted solely to beermaking, Brooklyn Homebrew, which opened its doors last year and by the owners’ accounts is doing brisk business.

“We’re playing catch-up to the rest of the country,” said co-owner Benjamin Stutz, regarding the city’s booming homebrewing scene. “New York has been way behind. This was meant to happen years ago.”

Continue reading “Home Is Where the Brew Is”

Written by Rick Leventhal for FOXnews.com

At New York City’s Brooklyn Brewery, where beer output and new hires are on the rise, there is no better example of how the appetite for craft beers pours strong, despite a flat economy.

Based in an old brick warehouse in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, just across the East River from Manhattan, the brewery cooks, ferments and sells more than 110,000 barrels of lager, ale and other craft beers every year. This includes beer the company brews at another facility upstate in Utica. (Most likely Matt Brewing- PGA)

The specialty suds are sold in kegs of all sizes along with bottles and cans — the equivalent of between 1.5 and 2 million cases was poured in 2010. The company says the production will grow far larger when an expansion project is complete.

“I think a lot of people aren’t guzzling beer the way they used to,” says owner Steve Hindy. “They’re looking for something they can savor and think about and talk about — and that’s Brooklyn Lager, or one of our other great beers.”
Continue reading “Thirst for Craft Beer Is Keeping Business Bubbling and Jobs Brewing”

Written by Charlie Papazian for Examiner.com

It’s a sad state of affairs when state legislators have to spend time and fight to get a bill passed that would permit restaurants and bars to sell beer that is less than 4% alcohol. Really? Really!

But that’s the way it is in Colorado, which isn’t the only state in the U.S. of A. that has some pretty convoluted beer laws. It seems like a no brainer, but debate, discussion and logic seems to be prevailing as Colorado Senate Bill 60, sponsored by Sens. Betty Boyd, D-Lakewood, and Jean White, R-Hayden slowly advances and gains support. According to a Denver Business Journal story Bill allowing low-alcohol beer sales in Colorado bars, restaurants advances, “The bill would reverse a law allowing only establishments with low-alcohol “fermented beverage” licenses, such as convenience and grocery stores, to sell beers less than 4 percent alcohol by volume.”
Continue reading “Beer Below 4% Alcohol Currently Outlawed in Restaurants, Bars in Colorado”