Month: October 2013

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From the Bottle Collection: Suwanee River Ale

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.


  I know a tad about this one. Suwanee River Ale was probably brewed for Spirit of Suwanee Campground in Live Oak, Florida. There was a small contract brewer in the south who brewed the beer. To be honest I think they had two different venders over the years, so I’m not sure which one. The whole thing was put together by Micro Masters, a company out of Pensacola.
 The bottle itself was pulled from the collection to take a picture of it, but now it’s… well, somewhere in this vast collection. When I find it I’ll return and post the picture.
  I got the bottle at Micro Masters when my friend Steve Fried, who was the founding brewer at McGuires, and brewmaster there for many years, gave me the bottle.
  To be honest a very bland ale: not much to talk about. Kind of a little darker than Bud: but not by much. They basically brewed one beer and slapped different labels on the bottles.
  Micro Masters had many clients but, according to my information, went out of business due to mismanagement. And I seriously doubt many missed the beer.

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Craft Beer Hops Along Its Creative Course

beer-news10

FALLS CHURCH, Va. — The pungent grassy smell of bright green hop flowers fills the air at the Mad Fox Brewing Co.

Freshly harvested and overnighted from the Yakima Valley in Washington state to the brewpub, located just west of Washington, D.C., these Citra hops are being stuffed into porous bags that will be added to an already fermented ale, made with Australian Galaxy hops.

Like giant tea bags, the steeping second hop treatment will impart an added freshness and fruity punch of flavor to the brewery’s Two Hemispheres India Pale Ale. This “wet hopping” process creates a relatively new style of ale that arose from beer drinkers’ affinity for ever-increasing bitterness. “It’s just a different way for people to get their hop fix,” says Mad Fox head brewer Charlie Buettner.

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Central New York: that one time where I tried 50 different craft beers and 20 spirits in 5 days

CNY-19-topIt was a dirty job, but someone had to do it. In five days, I tasted 50 craft beers and 20 spirits from small distilleries.

At first, it might sounds like a weird idea to dedicate a trip to beer and liquor tasting. Micro breweries and micro distilleries understand the need to distance themselves from mass produced beers and spirits. They like to create unique products with distinctive flavors. So yes, it does make sense to plan a trip around craft beers and liquors, and Central New York is the perfect place to do it.

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HERE

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Beer Profile: Red Thunder by Victory

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Profiled for The Professor by Ken Carman

Victory Brewing
Downingtown, PA

88@BA, 91@BA, 8.5 abv.

“Red” Thunder? More like deep brown at best, even black. Head fades very fast. Pillow with a very few small rock bubbles. Clarity good with some garnet highlights, mostly hidden by the deep brown.

Their web site says Baltic Porter. Sort of. Does seem close, but Imperial Brown aged in wine barrel seems closer.

Deep caramel malt nose with hops background. Nose promises malt complexity. A lot of chocolate nose: probably chocolate malt.

Mouthfeel: medium body with just a slight sense of roasted barley. Munich malt too. Caramel malt provides depth. Nice full body. Excellent malt profile.

Taste: malt, heavy on the malt side, balance right for an Imperial Red.. Hops provide strong, very, very, background bitter. According to them back label this is a bounce off of a Porter, which explains the body and the color. There’s a wine sweetness that helps provide plenty of pleasure to the quaff. Malt complexity is there, but in the background. Wine sweetness is first, then malt, hops behind that: just a soft bitter. Just a hint of wood barrel.

I cannot rate this as Red, or Porter. More a Specialty with some of both with an Imperial sense on Red side and malt Imperial Brown then add a strong, woody, wine barrel sense to top it off.

I can’t bash it for style, it’s SO good. Excellent at a 4.

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Welcome to the PGA beer 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 “perfecto.”
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Beer Profile: Hoppin Frog’s Christmas Ale

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Profiled by Ken Carman

Beer-Profile1-258x300 I have reviewed the barrel series of this ale, let’s see how the Christmas ale did, OK?

Nose in bottle cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg: a hint of brown malt.

Mouthfeel: spices with a medium side of light body. No a big beer in that sense. The spices coat the top of the palate.

Appearance: 17 srm A definite brown with pillow head and a few small rocks and off white. Slight tan hints. Clarity good.

To be honest I think the barrel series provides a depth the regular Xmas ale doesn’t have. It’s not that there’s anything wrong, it just doesn’t have the complexity that makes it a 4. If I could I’d go with 3.9. It’s that close. But I really feel it needs more complexity to stand on its own. What a shame.

83 on BA, on ratebeer.com: 88. The barrel rated higher.

A very pleasant quaff with spices balance well with light malt and hint of brown malt. Carbonation pinpoint, but light: slight carbonic. To be honest, again, if they had gone with a more complex: Cigar City Maduro-like recipe, this might even be a 5, in the barrel aged series. But the Brown Ale recipe is really good.

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Welcome to the PGA beer 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 “perfecto.”
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Government Shutdown May Have Great Impact On Beer Industry

beer-news10With the government shutdown and no deal in sight, the beer industry will see the impact of spending cuts, which took effect on Tuesday.

The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) double-check that breweries act in accordance with all mandated steps by the federal government in the alcohol production and distribution course of action. The TTB will also furlough 35 out of 518 employees for each day of the shutdown. Those 35 people will stay to collect excise taxes on beer.

The government shutdown could delay permits and labels, and stop the TTB process of approval. Every beer must include mandatory label information, such as the alcoholic content, and the name and address of the bottler or packer.

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The Drink of Kings Makes a Comeback

Ben Alexander and mead

Long relegated to the dusty corners of history, mead – the drink of kings and Vikings – is making a comeback in the US.

But what’s brewing in this new crop of commercial meaderies – as they are known – is lot more refined from the drink that once decorated tables across medieval Europe.

“Do we have any mead makers or home brewers in the group?” asks Ben Alexander, eying a crowd of a dozen or so people who have come to his Maine Meade Works, in Portland, on a rainy Friday for a tour.

When no-one raises their hand, Mr Alexander launches into the full spiel.

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From Microsoft to Beer: Pair Create Homebrewing Machine

Bill Mitchell, left and Avi Geiger, formerly of Microsoft, with their PicoBrew home beer-brewing machine.

 

If you were one of the top guys who spent much of the 2000s trying to get Microsoft to develop tablet computers, you might be ready for a drink.

Or two.

Fortunately, that guy — Bill Mitchell — has figured out how to easily produce a never-ending supply of absolutely top-notch beer, in any style and flavor you can imagine.

After leaving Microsoft in 2010, Mitchell started a company called PicoBrew with his food-scientist brother and a gifted hardware hacker he used to work with in Redmond.

Together they created a dream machine for small-scale brewing that they’re unveiling Monday.

Called the PicoBrew Zymatic, it’s a device the size of a large microwave oven that almost completely automates the process of producing beer.

The idea was to take the drudgery out of brewing, without sacrificing the fun or the gratification that comes from creating your own batches, Mitchell said.

“The beauty for us, especially in beer-making, is it’s this great fusion of science and cooking, of chemistry and cooking,” he said. “We didn’t want to lose any of that — in fact we want to enhance that portion of it — and just take out the bad portions.”

They’ve also applied modern technologies to the ancient art.

Zymatic machines were designed to be Internet appliances. They are controlled by open-source software, connected to the Web and managed through a browser.

PicoBrew’s software dashboard is used to concoct recipes and adjust brewing cycles. Users can share recipes through the service and monitor the brewing process remotely on their smartphone.

Data collected by this online service — from users who opt to share their brewing activity — will be used to continue refining the machines, which are also designed to be hacked and modified as buyers see fit.

About 1 million people in the U.S. brew their own beer, from President Obama on down, according to the American Homebrewers Association. But it remains a niche hobby because home-brewing can be a hassle.

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HERE