Author: Ken Carman

Written by Ken Carman for Professorgoodales.net

Ken Carman is a BJCP judge; homebrewer since 1979, club member at Escambia Bay and Music City Homebrewers, who has been interviewing professional brewers all over the east coast for over 10 years.

The Topic: A Marketing Wish for the New Brew Year

If I had a few wishes come true for the New Brew Year, when it comes to the commercial beer scene, one would be for better marketing. I was leafing through an April 2011 Beeradvocate I had never read… yeah, I know, I’m slow… and I saw a blurb about Mexico’s Cerveceria marketing beer specifically targeted towards the GLBT community: Gay, Lesbian, Bi and Trans. Please, if the terms have changed, excuse my ignorance: there is no intent here to offend. And I’d like to state up front that I have no problem with someone appealing to this community.

But when when it comes to beer there is no GLBT only beer, no hetero only beer, no only homophobic beer, no skinhead only beer, no beer only for people of color of all kinds… (What? Since I’m white does that make me translucent?) Just like there’s no White only, or Black only, food. There’s just beer.
Continue reading “Brew Biz: Werts and All”

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.

Written by Ken Carman

Look!

Over, or up, there!

Is it a bird?

Is it a million tornadoes, nuclear destruction, or fire, or a flood?

Is it a comet, or an asteroid?

Killer virus?

Or will the Mayans just give us the bird?

Being New Years and all, as you may of heard: and if you haven’t you really need to crawl out from under that Stone Mountain-size pebble you’ve been living under, this is the last year for humanity. The Mayans, who somehow missed Cortez and are now extinct, somehow managed to predict that this is the year we’ll all give up our holy, and less than holy, ghosts: or spirits if you will.

So, let’s par-tay!

But if I had to choose only ten beers before the calendar kacks us all… damn this is so hard… which ones would I choose? There’s so many that have been, oh, so delightful. No insult to those who didn’t make the list but still I love. Hey, I was headed to my apocalypse bunker so I grabbed quick.

So here are my top ten: not in order of best to better, or better to best; which is why I used letters instead of 1-10. They’re all just heavenly quaffs to have before I go to hell, or heaven, or the planet Beetlejuice where the death zombie bureaucrats will occupy my time as I avoid sandworms…

Continue reading “From the Bottle Collection: Ten Beers to Have Before the Mayans Kill Us All”

One Bottle Collection beer for every day before Christmas. Rating system: not actually meant as a “tense” comment. All these beers either don’t exist anymore, or I tasted in the past. Hopefully, if not so hot before, they’re better now. If they do still exist. Or hopefully, if not better they’re as dead as the… Dickens.

Note: the ghosts have varied a bit over the various versions, but even Mr. Magoo’s version the Future was bleak. In the pictures chosen for this series the most visually pleasing ghost was Present.

Ghost of Christmas Present… remember him? Jolly, fun: the kind of guy you’d invite to a party for the season, and the kind of beer you could bring to a festive affair and not be totally laughed out of the room by festive beer geeks. That’s the best a beer gets in this series. Now Ghost of Christmas Past isn’t a great award. You can see from the picture he can be a bit of a grump. Probably from mediocre’ beer. And best not bring a Ghost of Christmas Past Beer to a beer geek festive affair. You’ll be the limp wet noodle of the party. A Ghost of Christmas Future beer? You remember that guy, right? If you want to be laughed at, have to bring most of your offering home and feel like you’ve just attended your own funeral instead of a party, bring a Ghost of Christmas Future beer. Some Ghost of Future Beer might best serve as embalming fluid.

Written by Ken Carman

Stark Mill Holiday

Wow. I do remember this. Stark is no longer in business. The last thing I knew Milly’s Tavern replaced it. I would assume some of the owners, or the staff, are the same since they had a beer with Milly’s picture on it: a black Lab I believe. Just an assumption. Looks like they no longer brew this according to Milly’s site. The Facebook page still uses “Stark Brewing.” There’s a coffee concern in the same restaurant: Stark had the same and a coffee beer.

I remember the brewery as a bit cellar-ish. The beer as complex… a lot of malt: deeply dark with a big, multi, grain. The abv was a tad high but not a sink into the alcoholic warmth beer. More just right for the rather substantial body. Just like the hops. Centennial? That’s a little tougher to remember, to be honest. If it twere spiced: not much. I think I would remember that.

So our highest award goes to Stark’s Holiday.
Continue reading “From the Bottle Collection: 1 Day Before Christmas Beer”

One Bottle Collection beer for every day before Christmas. Rating system: not actually meant as a “tense” comment. All these beers either don’t exist anymore, or I tasted in the past. Hopefully, if not so hot before, they’re better now. If they do still exist. Or hopefully, if not better they’re as dead as the… Dickens.

Note: the ghosts have varied a bit over the various versions, but even Mr. Magoo’s version the Future was bleak. In the pictures chosen for this series the most visually pleasing ghost was Present.

Ghost of Christmas Present… remember him? Jolly, fun: the kind of guy you’d invite to a party for the season, and the kind of beer you could bring to a festive affair and not be totally laughed out of the room by festive beer geeks. That’s the best a beer gets in this series. Now Ghost of Christmas Past isn’t a great award. You can see from the picture he can be a bit of a grump. Probably from mediocre’ beer. And best not bring a Ghost of Christmas Past Beer to a beer geek festive affair. You’ll be the limp wet noodle of the party. A Ghost of Christmas Future beer? You remember that guy, right? If you want to be laughed at, have to bring most of your offering home and feel like you’ve just attended your own funeral instead of a party, bring a Ghost of Christmas Future beer. Some Ghost of Future Beer might best serve as embalming fluid.

Written by Ken Carman

FX Matt Traditional Season’s Best

I hate apply the “don’t remember much about this beer so it couldn’t have been terrible, or great,” rule, but for the most part I do. Here’s what I do remember, maybe remember: an amber or light brown. Not highly hopped, decent head. A bit light on the body. An ale with light fruity yeast notes, at best. Not a “seasonal” according to today’s standards. But I have to emphasize: “according to today’s standards.” I’m guessing this was marketed as a “between” product: as in between Saranac and Matt’s more “traditional” market base. This was in 1989. Hey, even if this was an attempt at “craft,” for 89 this was about as aggressive as it got except for a few, up and coming, brewers and Anchor. But I’m guessing they were fishing for a wider customer base: trying to lure the old customers into the craft beer market.

I don’t know how well it sold.

At the time Matt Brewing, at the time known as F.X. Matt I believe, had just started to get into competing with craft beer. I only say “with” because, at the time, they were pretty bloody big. Kind of a minor major brewer.

I give them a lot of credit for going with a great trend rather than bucking it with smarmy attitudes and nasty, anti-free enterprise, tactics. Utica Club, Matts: the brewery, with a few exceptions, was brewing mostly Bud/Miller/Coors clones with slight variations. That’s not an insult: pretty much all brewers in America were, especially brewers of their size and bigger. F.X. Matt had just come back from Germany, convinced by a German brewer that Americans should at least try to make beer as good as the Germans.

Thus, on that day, in swaddling bubbles and head, was born unto us Saranac. In my bottle collection alone I have at least 30 styles of beer they brew, or have brewed, and I know they’ve done at least twice that. Some deserve a halo, some a thumbs up, some OK and small, small, handful: at best, a “what the… were you thinking???”

So here’s my problem: except as a conversational item you wouldn’t want to bring a bottle of this to a party of beer geeks; though not “bad” by any means. Times have changed. No Ghost of Christmas Present present can be given. But I can’t give it a Ghost of Christmases Yet to Be, because we have to understand the history, and the risk, the Matt family took back in the 80s. Plus, it wasn’t bad at all: especially for the time.

I hate giving the same “award” fr almost all of this year’s candidates, but what am I to do? I can’t give “excellent” or “stinky” to what I can’t remember all that well. I will say that, unlike Dos Equis: a large mega-brewer about to add a 7th brewing facility. F.X, one brewery in Utica, NY, was taking quite a risk back when regular east coast brewers were mostly avoiding jumping intro the craft market.

So a Ghost of Christmas Past with an extra nod at how good that past was. They have a lot to be proud of and, if you have noticed I focus on them more than others just a tad, well I think their story is one untold… few in brew world know or understand.

And, yes, I do know the folks at Saranac, personally. But if my goal here had was to promote them I would have gone with a Present present. But that wouldn’t be fair. Not that memorable.

Continue reading “From the Bottle Collection: 2 Days Before Christmas Beer”

One Bottle Collection beer for every day before Christmas. Rating system: not actually meant as a “tense” comment. All these beers either don’t exist anymore, or I tasted in the past. Hopefully, if not so hot before, they’re better now. If they do still exist. Or hopefully, if not better they’re as dead as the… Dickens.

Note: the ghosts have varied a bit over the various versions, but even Mr. Magoo’s version the Future was bleak. In the pictures chosen for this series the most visually pleasing ghost was Present.

Ghost of Christmas Present… remember him? Jolly, fun: the kind of guy you’d invite to a party for the season, and the kind of beer you could bring to a festive affair and not be totally laughed out of the room by festive beer geeks. That’s the best a beer gets in this series. Now Ghost of Christmas Past isn’t a great award. You can see from the picture he can be a bit of a grump. Probably from mediocre’ beer. And best not bring a Ghost of Christmas Past Beer to a beer geek festive affair. You’ll be the limp wet noodle of the party. A Ghost of Christmas Future beer? You remember that guy, right? If you want to be laughed at, have to bring most of your offering home and feel like you’ve just attended your own funeral instead of a party, bring a Ghost of Christmas Future beer. Some Ghost of Future Beer might best serve as embalming fluid.

Written by Ken Carman

Abita Festive Ale

Festive, why?

I used to love Abita Springs. In the early 90s I used to hang out at what was the brewery, now the pub, and have beer handed out to me from the back fridge. As the years went on they moved the brewery, and the bottling operation, and turned the cute downtown Abita Springs facility into a small capacity brewpub. At first the food was good and they had, one year, a high octane “Santa’s Helper” that kept me there way the hell too long. Not quite a barley wine, perhaps a strong, strong ale? If only they had bottled that.

This, however, matches much of Abita’s unremarkable line up since then.

Festive: a totally unremarkable ale that was, perhaps, a weak brown at best. Enough fizz, enough everything for a bland brown ale. And I hated to type it, but it’s true: that goes for most of the product line too. This was the grandfather of all the Emerald/Mississsippi/Louisiana breweries and they gave birth to so many breweries. Did the birthing poop them out, or did moving the main brewery down the road do that? They can do better. Currently they bottle an Abbey Ale that’s not too bad, and a very good 25th Anniversary beer, but still seem way to reluctant to upgrade their regular recipes. I understand: what sells is what sells. But at least try to compete a little more than one or two weak attempts?

The brew world is moving on. At least try to keep up with your kids Grandma Abita!

I think this is all because they have been through a series of brewers during all this time. Their first “child,” McGuires in Pensacola, has pretty much kept up the quality with a few minor glitches now and then. That’s because they had the same brewer for almost 20 years who developed consistency, but not afraid to improve recipes, or create new ones. Abita mostly hasn’t, and when they have the attempts have been mostly weak.

An easy to forget seasonal, just like the Ghost of Christmas Past, but the pleasing memories do remain.

Continue reading “From the Bottle Collection: 3 Days Before Christmas Beer”

One Bottle Collection beer for every day before Christmas. Rating system: not actually meant as a “tense” comment. All these beers either don’t exist anymore, or I tasted in the past. Hopefully, if not so hot before, they’re better now. If they do still exist. Or hopefully, if not better they’re as dead as the… Dickens.

Note: the ghosts have varied a bit over the various versions, but even Mr. Magoo’s version the Future was bleak. In the pictures chosen for this series the most visually pleasing ghost was Present.

Ghost of Christmas Present… remember him? Jolly, fun: the kind of guy you’d invite to a party for the season, and the kind of beer you could bring to a festive affair and not be totally laughed out of the room by festive beer geeks. That’s the best a beer gets in this series. Now Ghost of Christmas Past isn’t a great award. You can see from the picture he can be a bit of a grump. Probably from mediocre’ beer. And best not bring a Ghost of Christmas Past Beer to a beer geek festive affair. You’ll be the limp wet noodle of the party. A Ghost of Christmas Future beer? You remember that guy, right? If you want to be laughed at, have to bring most of your offering home and feel like you’ve just attended your own funeral instead of a party, bring a Ghost of Christmas Future beer. Some Ghost of Future Beer might best serve as embalming fluid.

Written by Ken Carman

1995 -Nache-Beuno?

I honestly don’t remember much special about this beer. South of the border beers tend to be fair to poor, though there are exceptions. It’s from Dos Equis. I find Dos Equis, how should I put it? Oh, “vastly over rated.” Relatively a clean tasting, yet inferior, version of what used to be a classic German Style: Vienna. What made this “Christmas?”

I’ve had decent Vienna. Dos ain’t it. And I’m not even sure what to classify this one as.

Nothing I know of. Unlike other reviews I read: no nose except the slightest hint of corn. Ya gotta “love” what they did to a classic style south the border, and this slight bounce off that classic style: if you love going see a love story at the movies only to find out the mad butcher kills everyone in the middle at the wedding.

“Seasonal?” Not spiced in any sense. There was no sense of a fresh, crisp, almost fresh hop snow like hop taste like Saranac’s Big Moose Ale. A little more malt, perhaps, but nothing that makes it “ho, ho, ho.” Certainly not ABV so high Santa burns his toes while sipping it by the fire quaff… and doesn’t notice. More than anything it’s just a slightly darker amber version of Dos without even much of a darker malt sense, a slight roast. Mouthfeel not that malty. Pours sort of brown. Good carbonation especially in mouthfeel. Clarity good. Nice head that lasts. Moderate, unremarkable malt with no hop taste. Nothing that screams out the season. All in all except to cash in on the season, why the hell did they bother?

Oh, that’s right: to cash in on the season.

Though I have qualms about its supposed seasonal nature, since it’s an OK beer, just another slightly more irritated “so what” bland Ghost of Christmas Past award. Tis better than Dos… marginally.
Continue reading “From the Bottle Collection: 4 Days Before Christmas Beer”

One Bottle Collection beer for every day before Christmas. Rating system: not actually meant as a “tense” comment. All these beers either don’t exist anymore, or I tasted in the past. Hopefully, if not so hot before, they’re better now. If they do still exist. Or hopefully, if not better they’re as dead as the… Dickens.

Note: the ghosts have varied a bit over the various versions, but even Mr. Magoo’s version the Future was bleak. In the pictures chosen for this series the most visually pleasing ghost was Present.

Ghost of Christmas Present… remember him? Jolly, fun: the kind of guy you’d invite to a party for the season, and the kind of beer you could bring to a festive affair and not be totally laughed out of the room by festive beer geeks. That’s the best a beer gets in this series. Now Ghost of Christmas Past isn’t a great award. You can see from the picture he can be a bit of a grump. Probably from mediocre’ beer. And best not bring a Ghost of Christmas Past Beer to a beer geek festive affair. You’ll be the limp wet noodle of the party. A Ghost of Christmas Future beer? You remember that guy, right? If you want to be laughed at, have to bring most of your offering home and feel like you’ve just attended your own funeral instead of a party, bring a Ghost of Christmas Future beer. Some Ghost of Future Beer might best serve as embalming fluid.

Written by Ken Carman

Anderson Valley Seasonal Solstice

I hate to slightly disappoint those who might expect me to be more positive regarding a craft beer early in the rise of craft to counter the even bigger dominance of AB and Miller back then, especially one trying to do a Winter seasonals few did, but I don’t remember this one in the slightest. If I hated it; I’d remember. If I loved it; I’d remember. Solution: a rather bland, unremarkable, past attempt by one of the early craft brewers.

Yes, you have to give them just an ounce of credit for doing so, but that early in craft beer I would have gone nuts over this. I didn’t. I haven’t seen this bugger for a while. Of course I haven’t looked for it. Maybe they still make it. I have read that the brewery has installed all kinds of solar array stuff and they recycle labels. The owners have changed too. One hopes the beer has gotten more impressive than this was.

So one rather bland Ghost of Christmas Past award it tis..

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.

Written by Ken Carman for Professorgoodales.net

Ken Carman is a BJCP judge; homebrewer since 1979, club member at Escambia Bay and Music City Homebrewers, who has been interviewing professional brewers all over the east coast for over 10 years.

The Topic: What Does It Take to be a Good Beer Judge?

My apologies in advance to those familiar with beer judging because I’m going to give everyone else a very short, admittedly inadequate, synopsis of what it takes, and what it means, to be a beer judge…. because I want to get on to the topic. Then another apology to fellow judges and beer folk if one of my suggestions offends you. At least one will be considered heresy, I admit, but I firmly believe that sometimes what was once considered heresy often becomes what understood to be common sense. Always obeying orthodoxy is as senseless as always rejecting it.

We still don’t think of the world as flat, right? Not all beer has to have just hops, water and malt: nothing else, right? For example, it wouldn’t even be beer without yeast, right?

But I’m mostly relativist, so what so I know for sure?

Philosophy aside… for those less familiar with judging beer here’s the very, very short overview of beer judgery…

Understand from the start that sanctioned beer competitions aren’t anything like Beerfest the movie. Even beer fests are usually not like Beerfest the movie. Being a beer judge is a serious business to be approached with professionalism. I tell people I’m a beer judge and they think it an easy job, even a joke. They think any test for it would be a joke too.

No way in hell is any of that true.

The BJCP test helps us learn how to be professional judges and show we know enough about beer to judge it well. How much is “enough,” and what direction should the test take? Well, that’s part of my “heresy,” I suppose.

BJCP: Beer Judge Certification Program.

It’s a very tough test where you need to know your styles backwards and forwards: and there are almost 30 styles, not including the many, many sub-styles. These: styles and sub-styles, are all very detailed as to aroma, mouthfeel, taste, appearance, gravity (Kind of “how heavy” in too simple, yet layman, terms.) …and many other specifics. Each time you take this very detailed test it will change: these sands with time will shift beneath your feet. Sometimes just different questions asked from a very large pool of questions that can change over the years both as to what the questions are and the answers. New questions have obviously been added over the years, and will be in the future, I’m sure. Sometimes the categories themselves change, and/or their definitions change: sometimes a lot… sometimes a little. What are considered commercial classic examples of the style change, I’ve seen that too.

All of this, and far more, you need to know practically like you know how to breathe.

Take it from me; a two time test taker who has sat in on other tests as well: having a photographic memory would be a big, big plus. I have been told by engineers of various kinds the test is harder than anything they took in college, and I know it’s harder than any of the tests I took studying to be a studio engineer, and English/Education major or Communications Mass Media. Or the various college programs in Science and Math I had to take since I started in Liberal Arts.

You really need to be dedicated to knowing all about beer, defects, style specifics and how to judge it. You also must know very specific information on how to brew it, which I will get to in a few sentences, for that is the main thrust of my comments in this edition of Brew Biz.

Want to know more? Start by going to the BJCP web site: that’s probably the first step in what I hope becomes a passion for you too.

Here is my problem with at least one of the concepts enshrined in both the test, how we study for it, and how that sometimes differs from what it takes to be a good judge…
Continue reading “Brew Biz: Werts and All”