Month: January 2013

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Beer? Wine? Hard Liquor?

Written by Tom Becham for professorgoodales.net

beerwineliquorGather any group of drinkers together, and you will no doubt generate some discussion – and disagreement – over the relative merits and drawbacks of any particular alcoholic beverage.

I will admit, that for me, with age comes an ability to find the good points in much anything. While I am first and foremost a Beer-Geek, I can also appreciate a nice merlot with a steak, or port with cheese, or an eiswein with a slice of gateau. There are also times when a sip of a nice single-malt Laphroaig or Talisker seems nigh unto heaven itself.

But bottom line, beer is by far my drink of choice in the majority of circumstances. The first reason is that, being in my mid-40’s, getting drunk is no longer my top priority. Rather, I’d like to simply relax a bit and enjoy the taste of what I’m drinking. So, that knocks out distilled drinks for most intents and purposes.

But why beer over wine?
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Barrel Aged Wake Up Dead is Back for the Winter

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Written by Emily Armstrong for craftbeer.com

(LONGMONT, CO) – It only happens once every two years… After hibernating in the Left Hand warehouse for 12 months, the brewery has emptied its cellar and released Barrel Aged Wake Up Dead for the winter season. This dark and complex beer begins with the brewery’s infamous Russian Imperial Stout and ages in whiskey barrels before blending it to woody perfection.
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Beer Profile: Adam Bomb by Blackstone

Courtesy nashvillescene.com
Courtesy nashvillescene.com

Profiled by Ken Carman for professorgoodales.net

Pours a hazy, not clear, SRM 3-4: slightly dark urine, or dirty gold if you prefer. Head faded so fast hardly any time to tell. Pinpoint bubble mixed with pillow and big bubbles. Aromatically somewhat grapefruit. Centennial perhaps? Mouthfeel: harsh hop, brash, even astringent. Pale malt base there but hidden.

This is supposed to be their first high grav, high abv, beer. 7.3 and 83 ibu. That’s quite the achievement in Tennessee where we have been fighting stupid, I repeat “stupid,” abv limitation laws for a long time. I am assuming they got a distilling license: another long lasting fight where a local, Nashville, distillery, had to fight for years to get approval for a tasting room.
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Beer Profile: G’Knight Imperial Red by Oskar Blues

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Profiled by Ken Carman for professorgoodales.net

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Brewed by Oskar Blues Brewing in Colorado. 8.7abv, 60 IBUS.

Red? More like a pale, color-wise, or IPA. Nice head, pillow mixed with slight rock. Head holds. A bit hazy, could be cold chill. Their site lists it as an Imperial Red and a Double IPA. A Double IPA would be hoppier and an Imperial Red should have more “Red,” and even more of a butterscotch, Irish/toffee sense.

Aroma: caramel malt-sense with grapefruit-y-like hops.

Nice full mouthfeel: probably Brit-like malts which can provide body and some unfermentable Slight carbonic tingle as carbonation flows over the tongue with a slight coat.

This really isn’t a red. And there’s a funny buzz going on in the background, taste-wise, that seems to be coming from the hops. A bit grassy is the sense I’m getting and drying on the hops. The “dry’s “OK,” but the grassy? Nah, if this were a fresh hop beer might be more appropriate. More of an IPA.A bit boozy, but the best part of this is the higher abv is well hidden behind the dry and, yes, the grass.

What I think happened here is that they didn’t know what the hell to call it. Really: a beer seeking a style but not quite making it, though IPA with a hidden ABV pop might be closest. Not bad, but there’s far better, and without it being a fresh hop, the grassy might be a bit annoying for those seeking any of the styles they claim that this beer should be.

Welcome to the new PGA rating system: one beer “Don’t bother.” Two: Eh, if someone gives it to you, drink. Three: very good, go ahead and seek it out, but be aware there is at least one problem. Four: seek it out. Five: pretty much “prefecto.” This beer was rated…

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Brooks: Beer Cocktails

Written by Jay R. Brooks for The Contra Costa Times and Mercury News

Beer cocktails: The Michelada from Austin's Hotel San Jose, the Gran Inka from Miami Beach's Bar Lab, and the Kelso Cola from Nashville's Holland House, from left. (Michael Tercha, Chicago Tribune)

Beer cocktails: The Michelada from Austin’s Hotel San Jose, the Gran Inka from Miami Beach’s Bar Lab, and the Kelso Cola from Nashville’s Holland House, from left. (Michael Tercha, Chicago Tribune)

Many people reach for Champagne or sparkling wine to celebrate New Year’s Eve, but there’s a growing trend in another bubbly direction: beer cocktails. Originally, a cocktail was just one type of mixed drink, a subset of the genre, such as a julep, flip, swizzle, fizz or toddy. Several cocktail recipes were included in the 1862 “Bar-Tender’s Guide,” and the term took on its more modern meaning over the next few decades.

But it was Prohibition that really led to a surge in popularity of the cocktail. With no legal alcohol to serve, speak-easies had to make do with illegal hooch. Mixing bathtub gin with sweeter, more flavorful additions made the booze more palatable — and probably more profitable.

Scarcities during World War II nearly killed off the grander cocktails, making way for simpler mixed drinks — gin and tonic, for example, and rum and cola. By the 1980s, classic cocktails were nearly as dead as good beer.
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Texas Ranch’s Secret Cattle Feed Ingredient: Beer

Courtesy mashable.com
Courtesy mashable.com

From CBS

A cattle ranch in Texas swears by a secret ingredient that makes its beef juicer: Beer.

Texas T Kobe ranch in Wallis pours beer into the hay its cows eat, CBS affiliate KHOU-TV reports. The ranch says the yeast in the double IPA helps promote digestion and improves the flavor and texture of the herd’s meat.

Want to read more? Please click…

HERE

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Home Brews and Latin Flavors

Mac Rusling turned his 40-year hobby of brewing beer from home into a career when he opened Brewhaha Homebrew Supply Company in December. Photo by Jacob Fuller.
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PGA Note: this is about a homebrew store in a state where homebrewing is illegal. In neighboring Alabama, where it is also illegal the police came in like a pot raid, confiscated everything: charges pending after the raid.

Written by Jack Fuller for jacksonfreepress.com

Mississippi home brewers may not have the law fully on their side, but they now have a place to buy all the hops, barley, yeast and equipment they need to create and bottle their own beer.

Mac Rusling, a former commercial airline pilot, opened Brewhaha Homebrew Supply Company, a one-stop shop for all things home brewing, Dec. 19 in the Lefleur’s Gallery Shopping Center (4800 I-55 N., Suite 17A, 601-362-0201, brewhahasupply.com).

Brewhaha is a no-frills kind of place. The beige walls to the left and right of the entrance are lined with 8-foot high shelves stocked with ingredients, recipe books and equipment. On the back wall sit two refrigerators filled with 
more ingredients.
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Booze Hound Craft Brewja Arwen Lehman’s 2013 Beer Predictions

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Arwen Lehman

Written by Hannah Sentenac for Miami New Times

As we transition into 2013, “experts” in every field are making their annual predictions about what’s bound to happen in the new year. But does anyone really care about who’s planning to get preggers (like the world needs another Kardashian) or which social network’s gonna go bust? Not so much.

Screw the unnecessary prognostications. There are only a few things worth guessing about ahead of time, and one of ’em is booze. So Short Order spoke to Arwen Lehman, AKA the Craft Brewja, on the popularity of barrel-aged brews, numeric triples and why cans are where it’s at in 2013.

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