Month: July 2012

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The eBay Debate: Brewer Reactions

Written by Brandon Jones for embracethefunk.com

Over the weekend eBay began removing auctions for certain craft beer brands. Most noticeably auctions for unopened bottles of Russian River, Cantillon, Lost Abbey and Hill Farmstead were ended. As of this posting a few new auctions have popped up, so it will be interesting to see if those are removed today. Bottle and growler auctions on eBay have been the subject of a growing debate in the past year. Many breweries have publicly issued statements denouncing what they believe is a “Black or Gray Market” for beer sales. On the flip side of that coin, buyers of these auctions have said eBay is the only way they can obtain some of these limited release beers.

Recently Hill Farmstead brewery in Vermont has seen its bottles become some of the most popular auctions on eBay. Shaun Hill who owns the brewery hasn’t let his opinion of Ebay beer/bottle auctions go unnoticed. Since it appears as though eBay has begun to honor the requests of the brewers who do not want their bottles on the auction site I wanted to get Shaun’s reactions to the news. I have contacted a few other breweries for reaction, but as of this posting I haven’t heard anything back. I will update this post as soon as I get a response.
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A Brief but Essential Guide to Beer-Festival Etiquette.

Written by Martin Cizmar for wweek.com

Beer festival—wooooo!

Woooo?

Come now, surely I can get a “woo” for this weekend’s Oregon Brewers Festival, known as the biggest and best of Beervana’s keg-based parties. There will be more than 80 distinctive craft brews served alongside the Willamette River. It’ll go down under sunny skies if the early forecast is correct.

Ah, yes, but beer festivals are too often annoying. It only takes one drunken gang of broey buffoons arguing about the Sounders-Timbers rivalry precipitously close to a stroller and a flight of stairs to make you reconsider the entire venture.
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New Belgium, Sierra Nevada Dish the Dirt on Asheville-area Site Selection

Written by Adam Nason for beerpulse.com

(Asheville, NC) – Much has been written about New Belgium and Sierra Nevada Brewing’s East Coast site searches and selection over the past several months. As everyone knows by now, the two companies landed in the Greater Asheville Area with Sierra Nevada electing the nearby rural town of Mills River.
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From the Bottle Collection: Rheingold

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

This was one of my first beers and, to be honest, I drank it for the booze. Someone bought it for me when I lived near NYC. I’m guessing you know the rest of the story.

I didn’t like it at the time, and I’m lucky to have developed a palate for beer after that because most beer was of this style back then. I had it after that first try, but even that was so long ago I can only give you a distant recollection: yes, it was a just a rather dry version of the usual lagers almost all the brewers in U.S. made: America Lager. Not grainy in any sense, rocky head, urine color (sorry), hops: some, but only a tad that added to the dry sense, very well attenuated. With Rheingold it was all about the mouthfeel as far as making it different compared to Bud, Miller, Schmidts, Stroh, Piels or Schaeffer; a few of the big beers back then available near “the city…” as some insisted on calling New York City, as if it were the only city in the world.
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Brew Biz: Werts and All

Ken Carman is a BJCP judge; homebrewer since 1979, club member at Escambia Bay and Music City Homebrewers, who has been interviewing professional brewers all over the east coast for over 10 years.

Sunday River Brewing
29 Sunday River Rd.
Bethel, Maine
(207)824-4ALE

I’m not going to call this a “review.” That wouldn’t be fair to the pub or the brewer, Stewart Mason. That sounds bad for him, but it’s not. Actually I’m very interested in interviewing him and trying his other brews. Besides, I wasn’t there long enough to make an honest assessment, except maybe about staffing and education of said staff.

I was going to see my cousin near Bangor, Maine, coming out of Tilton, New Hampshire. Especially cutting cross country for the first time that’s a long drive. I had wanted to stop by Brays in Maine, but I was running late. I went there years ago and was quite impressed.

But when I connected with route 2 there was this grand looking place called Sunday River in Bethel, Maine.
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Brewer and Distiller Profile: Andrea Clodfelter

Profiled by Ken Carman for professorgoodales.net

Despite the fact that neither of us are hard liquor fans, when Corsair Artisan opened in Nashville we decided to check it out. Two positive notes that attracted us like moths to the distill pot flame: this used to be the old location for Yazoo Brewing and the old car motif that seemingly engulfs the building.

We wanted to see what they’d done to the place. You know: the exquisite curtains, the fancy dancy carpet, the brew tanks and distilling equipment… All of that was untrue, except the brew and distilling equipment.

Courtesy posterityproject.blogspot.com
I also admit this just past the turn of the previous century building fascinates me: I love less mainstream old cars like Marathon which was the building’s namesake. The indies fascinate me. Of course, back then, they were all “indies.” It was the start of the automobile age.

Millie has never really cared for my automotive fetish, but the small, local, microbrewer-like distillery also fascinated both of us. Besides, hey, twas an excuse to do an article.

Which I did, and can be found HERE.

Scoot forward in time like a dog on its hindquarters… ewe. Scratch that. Slip forward in time like a well aged Scotch… that’s better… and we had become very comfortable with Andrea as our bartender at Corsair. Well educated: a biology major who went to college in Chattanooga, she obviously loves the business and the people she served. Plus her sticking roses, petunias, orchid, Brussels sprouts, hops in her hair and using weird hair dyes was just so entertaining.
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