When Brewers Gather Together to Brew: A Brew Session Report

Kevin: a man in love with a great system. But as brewers we tend to be in love with great brew systems. We know the… drill.-Ken

Editor’s note: this was passed on to The Professor by our own Ken Carman. Welcome to Music City Brewers who click the link in The Brew-Score to see “the full report.” Ken has also added a note here and there. For homebrewers brewing has become an occasional communal experience where more heads can make a better brew, and a fun time! Brewing is, if nothing else, a creative endeavor.- The Professor

Written by Kevin Jones for The Brew-Score

Ed Wildermouth, Pat Bush, Ken Johnson, Julieann Kapelan, Patrick and I brewed a Belgian Wit (Wit Your Whistle) during the February MCB meeting. I included a text version of the recipe below.

I had some excellent help that day from our five MCB members. They were interested in learning more about transitioning to all grain brewing so I was happy they took me up on my offer to do a joint brew.

Brew day went great. We (I) had the usual amount of oops moments. Such as… while explaining how the malt husk-supplied enzymes would convert the flaked grains, I realized that we (I) had forgot to add the flaked grains to the mash! No problem, we were only a few minutes into the mash, so a quick add and another 45 minute wait for conversion. Our target was 20 gallons at an OG of 1.055. We got 20 gallons at 1.054. Gotta love the ProMash program.
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New Brew Pub Promotes Cincinnati’s Riverfront, Beer History

Written by Leigh Taylor for dispatch.com and The Cincinnati Enquirer

Richard Dube is brewmaster at the Moerlein Lager House, which opens on Monday beside Great American Ball Park, home of the Cincinnati Reds.

When it opens to the public on Monday, the Moerlein Lager House will be a fine place to enjoy good beer and good food on the Cincinnati riverfront. • But that’s only half the story. • The rest of it is the long-awaited redemption of sorts for downtown Cincinnati, where development of more than 50 valuable acres along the Ohio River had been frustrated for years. Now, the new brew pub and restaurant has potential to be the destination for the between-the-sports-stadiums development that includes The Banks. At the same time, it provides a vital link to Cincinnati’s rich, but once-endangered, brewing heritage.

With all that on the line, this brew pub has a lot to live up to.

Previous reports have the Lager House as a $4 million project.

The true cost is more than double that: $10 million-plus, said Greg Hardman, the managing partner and beer entrepreneur whose vision created the Lager House.

“There was no cheapin’ out here,” Hardman said.
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Chicago Brewing Company’s Beer Sampler Rules

The Chicago Brewing Company. C'mon inside -- beer heaven awaits.

Written by Ken Miller for lasvegasweekly.com

Let’s face it—there are a number of great brewpubs in the Las Vegas Valley. I had the opportunity to meet up with a buddy who lives in the north side of town last weekend, and we decided on Chicago Brewing Company (2201 S. Fort Apache, 254-3333), as it was an almost equal distance from both our homes. Being beer buffs, we wasted no time in ordering the beer sampler, a staple of any respectable brewpub.
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Cambridge Brewing Co. off to a great start with its first bottled beers

This is the Cambridge Brewing in Mass., not Granby, CT-PGA

Written by Steve Greenlee for Bostonglobe.com

Cambridge Brewing Co. has been pouring great beer in Kendall Square since 1989, but only recently did the brewpub begin bottling its beverages.

It started last fall, when CBC put its hot-selling fall ale, the Great Pumpkin, in 22-ounce bottles. Now the brewpub is selling two year-round beers – a Belgian tripel called Tripel Threat and a Belgian IPA called the Audacity of Hops – as well as a rotation of single-batch beers, the first of which is a Scotch ale.

Why start bottling now?

Sam Adams to Brew a Beer for the Granddaddy of All Marathons

Written by Tom Rotunno for cnbc.com

The Boston Marathon

One of the founding fathers of the U.S. craft beer movement is joining forces with the world’s oldest annual marathon. On Thursday, the Boston Beer Company will announce a first-ever partnership between the maker of Sam Adams and the Boston Athletic Association, the organizer of the Boston Marathon.

 

Boston Beer will be creating a special commemorative beer, the Samuel Adams Boston 26.2 Brew, to mark this year’s marathon.

Details about the beer will be released at Thursday’s event with Boston Beer Founder and CEO Jim Koch, Boston Marathon legend Bill Rodgers and BAA President Joann Flaminio in attendance. However, company officials said the beer will have “a lighter body and slightly lower alcohol level than many of the beers in the Samuel Adams roster.”

The beer is expected to be made available exclusively at Boston Marathon events and at “a few select pubs and restaurants along the marathon route and in Boston.”

By pairing craft beer and marathoning, the partnership brings together two of the hottest trends in the United States. According to the industry trade group the Brewers Association, craft beer saw a dollar sales increase of 15 percent the first half of 2011, after posting an increase of 12 percent in 2010.

Marathon running has seen a similar boom. According to Running USA, a Colorado organization that tracks road race participation, 507,000 runners finished a marathon in 2010, up from 303,000 ten years earlier. (Numbers for 2011 are not yet available.)

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Gulf Coast Celebrates Return of Biloxi Blonde Beer

Courtesy Mississippi.com

Written by Mary Perez for The Sun Herald and USA Today Travel

BILOXI, Miss. – So much lost during Hurricane Katrina can never be replaced, but in the case of Biloxi Blonde beer, it can be recreated.

The beer, born at the Beau Rivage Resort and Casino, was lost when the casino’s brewery was destroyed in 2005. Yet it was not forgotten by customers.

“It’s so much more than a beer. It’s really a comeback moment,” said Beau Rivage spokeswoman Mary Cracchiolo-Spain.

The Beau Rivage went to the Legislature to get permission for microbreweries and was the first to operate in Mississippi. Copper brew kettles from Germany were installed at the Coast Brewing Co. at the Beau and customers watched the brewers making Biloxi Blonde and six other beers.

“Biloxi Blonde was one of our top-selling beers,” said Cracchiolo-Spain.

Brewmaster Brian Bush won the silver medal in the German-Style Kolsch category at the 2004 Great American Beer Festival in Denver, beating Anheuser-Busch’s Michelob Amber Bock and other national contenders.

When customers kept asking for Biloxi Blonde, the Beau Rivage collaborated with Lazy Magnolia Brewing Company in Hancock County to bring it back.

“This is a new interpretation of that beer,” said Cracchiolo-Spain.

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Worcester’s Tiny Brewery is Ready for the Big Time

An update on Wormtown, Ken Carman’s column on Wormtown here @ PGA can be found HERE.

Written by Aaron Nicodemus for telegram.com

Until March 2009, there hadn’t been a brewery in Worcester for 60 years.

With its two-year anniversary approaching next month, Wormtown Brewing Co. is gearing up to expand. The brewery is squeezed into 1,200 square feet — in what was once an ice cream parlor — next to Peppercorn’s restaurant on Park Avenue.

The way owner Thomas M. Oliveri tells it, he created the ice cream parlor thinking about the lines snaking around the corner at ice cream shops on Cape Cod.

And line up for ice cream they did — in June, July and August. Not so much in the other months.

So he went in another direction, using the space to brew beer. He expected to supply Peppercorns and his other restaurant, Prezo Grille & Bar in Milford, with kegs of beer — maybe a couple of other restaurants — and see how it went.
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