Month: March 2015

Among the MANY they missed-PGA

The Northeast is known for lots of things: massive snowfall that cripples your ability to think and makes you cold and depressed for weeks on end to the point where you look at the sky and start screaming at God… and blueberries. Great blueberries. But it’s also a cauldron of creativity when it comes to brewing beer, thanks to a long history of craft innovation. To that point, I’ve selected the 16 breweries I think put out the best, most creative, highest quality beers in the region. After all, you’ve got to have something to drink with those blueberries.

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This was a big week! Daylight Savings Time started, temperatures climbed above freezing for many parts of the country, and it finally became acceptable to drink one of the Spring seasonals that breweries have been pushing on us since early February. Jerks. Let’s take a look at some the most interesting beer stories we’ve come across in the past week!

1. Looking at Tomorrow’s Extinct Beer Styles Today
Beer is old enough that most styles that have ever existed are now extinct. While it’s hard to imagine, some of the very styles that are right now at the peak of their popularity will likely inevitably become relics at some point. Jeff Alworth ponders which of our current beers will eventually become recipes that a future Sam Calagione-type will try to recreate some day far in the future.

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HERE WE GO AGAIN-PGA

Innovation Brewing of Sylva makes only about 500 barrels of beer a year, mostly sold in Jackson County. But size doesn’t matter in a tough trademark dispute with the much bigger Bell’s Brewery of Kalamazoo, Michigan, which made more than 310,000 barrels last year.

Bell’s has filed a federal action against Innovation over the use of its name. Bell’s says its unregistered advertising slogan “bottling innovation since 1985” could lead to confusion with customers. While the slogan is used on bumper stickers, it’s not present on any of the brewery’s beer packaging.

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Beer and women.  Women and beer.  Nowadays, when you think of the two, you probably fall in line with what’s shown in commercials: a manly drink with bold flavors brought to you by buxom, scantily-clad ladies.  While that all sounds like a good time, it really couldn’t be further from the truth of beer’s origins and how brewing was throughout most of history.  Most people wouldn’t think that brewing beer was originally a woman’s responsibility or something that fell within the homemaker’s domain.  So, in honor of International Women’s day this March 8th, let’s take a look back at the history of beer and see just what kind of role women played in it.

1.  Beer led to Civilization, and women were its brewers

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Written by Franz Hofer for A Tempest in a Tankard

Waterfalls, gorges, and verdant rolling hills. Eleven long, picturesque glacial lakes carved into the area just south of the Great Lakes during the last Ice Age. Combining stunning natural scenery with a tapestry of interlacing beer and wine trails, the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York is one of the most ideal regions for the adventurous drinker to explore. Long a travel destination for connoisseurs of fine wine seeking Riesling and cool-climate red varietals such as Cabernet Franc, the Finger Lakes is quickly gaining a sterling reputation locally and regionally for its craft beers. A scenic beer route has grown up along the country roads that meander along the lakeshores and connect Cayuga and Seneca Lakes with smaller lakes like Keuka and Canandaigua. Hop farms and fields of barley sway in the lakeshore breeze alongside row upon row of grapes.

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When you’re picking out a beer, what flavors do you look for? If hints of soured milk and burnt rubber, or a “goaty” taste sound delightful to you, then brews that were aged for 170 years at the bottom of the Baltic Sea might just be your thing.

Scientists recently opened two bottles of beer from a shipwreck off the coast of Finland to get a profile of the 19th century brews.

Some seawater had seeped into the bottles and decades of bacterial activity gave the beer some rather unpleasant notes. But enough compounds from the drinks survived that the researchers were able to tell that the beers’ original flavors probably would have been quite similar to those of modern beers, according to a new report. [In Photos: Baltic Sea Shipwreck Yields 200-Year-Old Seltzer Bottle]

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ERLANGER, Ky. (Brad Underwood) — Until now, Kentucky has allowed out-of-state breweries to distribute their own beer. But, a bill passed Thursday, March 5, would change that and put the future of Rheingeist’s sales in jeopardy. Back in December 2014 Rhinegeist leased a building that was essentially a giant refrigerator. The plan was to distribute Rhinegeist beer and other craft beers here in northern Kentucky. Now after sinking hundreds of thousands of dollars into the property, it appears the building will soon be empty. As Rhinegeist rolls out another new beer, lawmakers across the river have put a cork in the growth of one the fastest growing craft beer brands. Rhinegeist started canning beer in early 2014. Their beer is a hit, extremely popular and distributing in Kentucky was supposed to be the next step.

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