October 2023 – Professor Good Ales

October 3, 2023

Barleywine: The Great Misunderstood

You’ve heard/read about Barleywine. I mean, unless you’ve been living on the International Space Station for the past decade and maybe even if you have. I’ve been drinking them and selling them and preaching the Gospel of Barleywine for well over 20 years, now. It is the style of beer that I enjoy most, except when I don’t and those periods in which I prefer an IPA or winter seasonal ales tend to come at wider intervals and be of shorter duration as I (badly) age.

It is also easily the most misunderstood major style of beer, exceeded only by Steinbiers and Kvieks and Grisettes and oddities like those, of largely foreign origins.

In my now thirty years in the beverage trade, here are a few of the explanations I’ve heard, first-hand of what “barleywine” means:

“It’s beer that fermented with wine yeast.”

“It’s beer that’s partially blended with wine.”

“It’s a beer but not a beer because the alcohol level makes it a liquor.”

“It’s another term for a weaker brandy.”

“It’s a form of barrel-aged Stout, mixed with grain alcohol.”

“It’s a beer made from a base of alcohol, instead of water.”

“It’s made from grapes and then distilled, like Grappa, and then is aged with barley and hops.”

These are just a few.

Want to read more? Please click… HERE!!!

October 2, 2023October 3, 2023

A Beer Judge’s Diary: Cider and UNYHA

Written by Ken Carman

It was a busy weekend starting with a rather shoddy Motel 6 where the shoddy wasn’t much of a problem. First morning: on to Studebakers at Dunkirk. We own a 63 Stude truck and I had a book I wanted to hawk, Studebaker Hawk pun somewhat intended.
Back to the Motel 6 and next morning off to offices at Genesee Brewery to judge for UNYHA: Upstate New York Homebrewer’s Association. Beautiful offices! Even down to the bathrooms.
Neither of us had ever been to the Genny brewery, so we even stopped the night before. Good porter, the orange and cranberry “sour” was orange and orange peel dominant, light cran. Where’s the malt? If we had wanted something seltzer like we could have ordered that.
The morning was amber lagers, the afternoon cider. The lager judging was clockwork, as was amber lager mini-BOS.
I still feel we need more BJCP cider judges, being a freshly minted cider judge last year, having taken the test 12/21. Continue reading

October 2, 2023

The Pour Fool Landmark: Double Mountain and Solera and the Fresh Hops

Here’s what you Need To Know:

This is a near-perfect fresh-hopped IPA, best one, in fact, since Deschutes immortal “Hop Trip”.
It is balanced, complex, fruity, prettily bitter, and damnably easy to drink. Look for it. Get it. Drink it. Love it.

Here’s my bottom line on the new “Iowa Bar Fight” Fresh Hop IPA from Double Mountain Brewery and Solera Brewery of Hood River, Oregon…

An Iowa Bar Fight is not only the best wet-hopped ale I’ve found since the heyday of Deschutes “Hop Trip”, it is also, with zero exaggeration, one of the most delicious, crazy drinkable, replete, well-crafted, and flat-out compelling IPAs I’ve sampled in the past ten years.

Want to read more? Please click… HERE!!!