The Topic: Syracuse Gordon Biersch and Salt City
Living in Nashville since 1978 I had always wanted to visit a Gordon Biersch. I heard they were an upscale version, and the anchor pub, for the Rock Bottom, now deceased Big River, Biersch chain. The Rivers were changed, so now they have more Rock Bottoms.
You know that really doesn’t sound right when I read it back to myself, but I’ll leave it just for the fun of it.
I had heard Gordon Biersch was more German-lager focused, oh, and dedicated to the Gersundheitgesneezen. Oh, 
sorry, I always get that wrong! The Reinheitsgebot where they can only use water, barley and hops… then yeast when we all figured out that mini-me magic trolls weren’t passing gas to make alcohol. (Actually not too far from what yeast do, in a sense, only if they were human it would be grosser than that.)
As you can see the pub is pretty upscale.
For a number of years I had been trading Facebook posts with Salt City Brewers in Syracuse, NY and one of their former presidents even tried to get me to judge at NY State Fair. This year I was able, and also lucked out: 
I made a meeting at none other than Gordon Biersch. Jackpot!
Syracuse’s Biersch is in a mall, which I found odd: pictures of their stand alone pubs I’ve seen are very upscale: even futuristic, looking. But it doth fit well in a mall too! And, as I kept telling the Jonathan, their brewer: to your right, they made very efficient use of their space.
I got there early because I wanted to speak to a manager and see if I could bring in a drop box for my competition: The Old Forge 
Old Ale Competition, and Robin agreed to make an exception since no one would be drinking the entries at Gordon. I yacked it up with Chris Sack: former president I had traded Es with a few years ago and… surprise! I found out I knew their presidents. That’s right, I typed “presidents:” Sarah and Ben, co-presidents. We all judged at the state fair this year.
Jonathan got us together and arranged small tours: logical since space is limited. Syracuse’s Biersch has a 25.5 barrel Specific brewing system. Jonathan said a normal batch was 15 barrels. Biersch has in house recipes for 
all their beers and every year they send all the brewer’s samples out to see how close they got. Brewers are judged by those lab results. Consistency is crucial at Gordon. Expectations are exacting: like keeping mash ph at 4.5-4.7. Every aspect of each sample is judged by the lab to make sure the brewers hit their targets. Continue reading “Brew Biz: Werts and All”
A Beer-y Good Story: 2014 Beaver River Beer Tasting
Mark’s sister: so enthralled by her host’s braggot she was closing her eyes to savor. Nah, I was just a meanie: and snapped her pic real fast. The hats are actual an growth one gets from attending the tasting and leaving too damn soon!!!-kwc
Ken’s annual Beaver River Beer tasting always provides good stories. -the Professor
Once again we met @ 168 Railroad Street to savor weird commercial brews, homebrews, wine and beer from vino king and brewmeister Mark Franey (me thinks he must hide his brew kettles beneath his kilt he brings so much) and his lovely sister: KT.
A short history: a tale about The Beaver River Beer Tasting. While I’m from New York State originally I moved to Nashville, TN in the late 70s because as bad as the economy was: upstate NY was worse. We both needed jobs and I wanted to work somewhere in the music industry. (I did and sort of do… long non-related story.) I started homebrewing after moving there: not connected except I just happened to run into one of the first homebrewing stores since Carter made it legal.
I still missed my beloved Adirondacks which I have always considered home. So in 2005, I think 2005, we bought our retirement shack in my fav town: Beaver River, NY. No roads reach Beaver River, and they didn’t have any 
craft beer at the time. So in 2006 I held the first Beaver River Beer Tasting. Sometime around 2010/2011 Mark Franey started coming on board, a great homebrewer from Number Four, NY, and shared his beer and wine, even bringing his bagpipes and wearing his kilt.
Other years he just came naked.
I’m kidding.
And, as always, it helps he brings his beatific sister: KT.
On to the tale… Continue reading “A Beer-y Good Story: 2014 Beaver River Beer Tasting”
Beer Profile: Flying Dog’s Raging Bitch
Profiled by Ken Carman for PGA
Giant white pillow head that gently fades into a caramel, amber, crystal clear quaff. , Great amber highlights: like shining a light through a fine scotch or whiskey. Left behind: a light, paper thin cloud on the surface and poillow small bubble head on the edges of the glass.
Nose is grapefruit and tangerine-like with hint of rind. Some caramelized notes behind that. No Belgian yeast sense.
Mouthfeel: solid grapefruit. There are a lot of American hops in this and/or a long boil: but not too long. If a torpedo or spider were used I would not be surprised.
Taste is solid grapefruit-like hops and caramel malts plus pale. Wheat is so far in the background one wonders why they bothered. The bitter is solid, but backed up with enough fuity goodness to make it a heavenly marriage. While an easy quaff, it’s substantial. A party with this would go south quickly.
Overall a very enjoyable quaff. I would buy it in a snap. But what makes it “Belgian?†I expected funk, or something “Belgian†to stand out. I understand not all Belgian brews have “funk†but if you’re going to claim Belgian then hop it so high, have so much American-hop-like aroma, taste and mouthfeel and have such a nice caramel malt-like background, something needs to step out and say, “Hi, this is what makes me ‘Belgian!”
87 on BA, 98 Rate Beer.
So, style-wise, I can’t go above 4. I really want to. But punishment is due. Bend over Flying Dog: I’ll be kind.
So good I simply can’t go below a 4.
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.”
____________________________________Beer HERE
Ken Carman is a Certified beer judge, columnist, entertainer and all around weird guy who lives i Nashville, TN and Beaver River Station, NY
Beer Profile: Leffe Blonde
Profiled by Maria Devan for PGA
Pours true gold. Perfect amber. White head starts fat and falls of webby and sticky, then to a film on top before it goes away completely. not too much lacing. Lots of bubbles to look at.
Nose is lovely. Sweet hint of pear and some lovely soft biscuit malt sweetness. A bit more clove than I expected at first but nice and a very faint banana in back. Some sweet flower petals and as it warms some pungent bitter grass.
Lovely in the drink with a crisp and dry malt.A softness that is actually excited by all those bubbles. The clove and the fruit combine lovely and earthy at first then give way to a fruity middle made up of light peach and a little pear around the edges. The finish is dry and drying to the palate with a light remnant of the malt sweetness, a bit of ticklish spice and that lovely peach. It lingers but not long .
4.
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.”
_____________________________________Beer HERE
Maria Devan lives in Ithaca, NY and is frequent reviewer of beer and a beer lover deluxe.
A Beer-y for a Good Story: Federal Jack’s, Shipyard and Old Thumper
Written by Ken Carman for PGA
By the mid-90s my tours as a children’s entertainer an educational service provider had reached as far as Lafayette, LA and Portland, Maine area. Summer, I’m guessing 97 or 98, I was sitting in Shipyard’s brewpub: Federal Jack’s, in Kennebunkport, Maine, looking at very expensive sailboats sail in and out of the inner bay, probably sipping on an Old Thumper, among other quaffs.
I’ll be honest: I was not impressed, not even in 98. Continue reading “A Beer-y for a Good Story: Federal Jack’s, Shipyard and Old Thumper”
A Beer Judge’s Diary
The Old Forge Old Ale Competition is all high gravity, collapsed category, so obviously I am very much in favor of collapsing categories. There are just some that shouldn’t be combined, and some you should be careful with.
I understand: you have just so many entries, so sometimes it’s necessary. But Stout and Porter? Really? The problem here is they are so similar, yet obviously not, and the distinctiveness of each need not be lost. If nothing else we must be real careful with collapsed categories, especially when judging with newbies. At one competition, as head of the table, I had to remind them several times, “Uh, folks? We’ve switched categories.†Continue reading “A Beer Judge’s Diary”
Brew Biz: Werts and All
The Beer Diviner, Junction NY Routes 22 & 43 (15950 NYS Rt. 22), Stephentown, New York (Might also be listed as “Cherry Plain, NY.” (518) 658-0299
thebeerdiviner.com
Written by Ken Carman for professorgoodales.net
The Beer Diviner: A Short New Brew Biz Alert
My brother lives in Glens Falls, NY area, I was in Becket, Mass.: the Berkshires. Since I live in Tennessee, and we live so far apart, I took a Saturday and drove up Route 22: a route that snuggles up to Vermont and Massachusetts as if they were intimate lovers involved in an odd threesome.
Most New Yorkers would wonder why I didn’t take the Thruway. It’s personal: I try to avoid what I call the Stealway. I think the state has been milking it far too long after previous promises to make it toll free. It’s also one of the worst interstates, condition-wise, I traverse yearly from Florida to Maine. It also ruins business: Mass made their turnpike free through the Berkshires for many years and it helped business. Upstate NY: the Mohawk Valley, has had no such luck… and has desperately needed since at least I lived there in the mid 70s.
But the discoveries one finds getting off the sleep inducing four, sometimes plus, lane zoom, zoom makes it all worth it! This is where the real New York is… along with new businesses like The Beer Diviner.
It was late Saturday I had a brief moment to stop and, for various reasons, could only buy a few bottles and have two small samples. Of course the brewer wasn’t in and I found out they brew elsewhere on a 2 barrel system Would be hard to put it in that small house, eh? Continue reading “Brew Biz: Werts and All”
A Beer Judge’s Diary: New York State Fair Homebrew Competition
Written by Ken Carman
Here’s a quote from an E the judges received…
There were 279 entries judged and 174 registered participants, judges, and stewards. Winners can be found HERE.
Shhh! Don’t disturb their natural habitat! Early in the morning the wild, some native: some not so, beer judges flock to see how well the beers floc’d, or not. They start with coffee, donuts, bagels and conversation, then the clarion call comes as the rulers of the roost tell them time to sit and judge. Then they cautiously, carefully prod, poke the entries with eyes and noses, and take a careful sip…. all to assess how this year’s “crop†of entries did.
While I live in Tennessee, Millie and I have a retirement shack in the Adirondacks: Beaver River, NY… not far from where I partially grew up. Plus we’re both from New York State originally. For years I have wanted to judge beer at Salt City Homebrewers run NYS Fair Competition. Two problems: I’m a thousand miles away, and when I’m not my other home… Beaver River… has no roads going to it. This means getting in and out is sometimes not all that different from, well, coming up from Tennessee: difficult and awkward.
We’re hoping to fix that with a second place in the Old Forge area when we retire and return home.
Kind of like those birds I mentioned, eh?
Anywhosie…
This year this entertainer’s schedule allowed for judging at the Fair, plus I had to leave Beaver River about the same time for the New England part of my tour. Having been by many times when I was younger I was curious what the grounds were like.
Up at 4am because old man wakeup-itis had hit me: my cousin’s place near Ithaca, I slowly drove to Syracuse…
Closer…
Continue reading “A Beer Judge’s Diary: New York State Fair Homebrew Competition”
Brew Biz: Werts and All
The Topic: No Truth in Advertising
Ken Carman is a BJCP judge; homebrewer since 1979, club member at Escambia Bay, Clarksville Carboys and Music City Homebrewers, who has been interviewing professional brewers all over the east coast for over 15 years.
”True Pilsner?”
Really?
No, not “really.”
Aside from the fact Miller loves to use corn, which really isn’t part of tradition of a “true” Pilsner, let’s go with the fact what they’re calling “Pilsner” traditionally comes from Plzeň (Pilsen), in the Czech Republic. It once was a very specific style with water chemistry specific to the region and certainly didn’t have corn in it, or adjuncts: period. Continue reading “Brew Biz: Werts and All”
A Beer-y Good Story
“Very,” or “Beer-y,” good?
Well, in such things perspective matters, So we shall see, but as with all things in life it’s the adventure.
My readers may notice fewer Brew Biz columns, and fewer Beer Judge columns in the future. The reason is simple: I was diagnosed as diabetic recently, not so recently, and somewhere in the middle.
Huh?
Let’s just say that with today’s health care system communication royally sucks sometimes. And this started long before the much ranted about “Obamacare.” With business money crunchers hovering over doctors I’ve noticed way too many less than desirable changes over the years. Getting rid of result lines via the phone, severely limiting access to your doc, limiting how much time one can spend with your GP… all just a few symptoms. The real problem with the mislabeled Obamacare is it’s still the same old bad actors reluctantly giving, often denying. Should be called “corporate care 2.0.”
Yes, this started long before 2 years ago when I found open sores on my feet. But let’s start there. Continue reading “A Beer-y Good Story”
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