Author: Ken Carman

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.

Written by Ken Carman

The Topic: Homebrew Club Dynamcs

I can’t write about the dynamics in every homebrew club: I haven’t been a member or “every” homebrew club. I can only write about the clubs I am a member of, homebrew and not, and those I have visited or judged for. There’s a problem with this, as a writer: it involves people’s public behavior that they may not be all that fond of finding published for all to read, even just on the web.

So I am going to be very careful here: no names. My apologies to those whom I have praised. I promise: I will be doing a column on the value of certain members I am about to mention. I will use names.

No apologies to those who are about to receive less than praise. In fact you probably deserved to be pissed off more than this little column could ever achieve. If I had my way some of you should be up on billboards across the country, picture and all: “Never let this person into any club you are a member of, or even state you live in. They are not decent human beings.”

But let’s start this column off with somewhat of a positive spin…
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Profiled by Ken Carman

I believe I may have Foreign Extra in Montreal a long time ago. But so long ago: hard to be certain. Wiki does not have it currently being sold in Canada, but hey… twas way back in the American beer dark ages: the early 70s.

Both decent head, the Foreign seems to have a little more depending upon the pour. So… probably about the same. The Extra is obsidian with a few vague garnet highlights. Foreign is just obsidian.

Aroma on the Extra is a little soured, as expected due to Guinness addition of a bit of soured beer. Deep grain sense that could be mistaken at first for a lot of Black Patent roast, but more very roasted barley sense.

The Foreign has almost a slight phenolic sense, and little to no soured: just malt and roasted barley… more than the Extra.

Mouthfeel: the Extra… foamy carbonation tingle and deep roast. Foreign: alcohol higher, smoky… peated malt perhaps? Can you “peat” roasted barley? I would think so. Less foamy carb.

Taste: the Extra seems lighter and, again, a bit soured. The Foreign is impressively malty and roasted barley-ish. So much more complex. As it warms you do get more “soured” sense, but the malt.roasted barley mix dominates. Both have about the dame level hopping, which obviously means more hops in the Foreign, otherwise that would seem less hoppy due to body/abv jump.

Overall, as much as I like Extra, Foreign is just so much more to enjoy: Guinness on steroids. I recommend both, but prefer the Foreign: only cause as I have said so many times, “I have taste buds that need beating.”

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.

Written by Ken Carman

A Brief History of Home Brew Stores in Nashville, TN

This is going to be more than a bit sketchy. Most of these folks I never even knew their last names. But home brew stores have grow along with the hobby. They are more than a mirror or a reflecting pool. Sometimes they have led the charge. And sometimes, even these days, they have held back progress.

The first store, owned by Wine Art out of Ohio I believe, was Little Ole Winemaker in the Green Hills area. I was a new resident of the Nashville area and working as a security guard to make ends meet. This was 1978. That’s right: 78. I was making my rounds when, in the store front, I saw a sign, “Make Your Own Beer!”

I walked in and asked the shopkeep, “This is legal?”

“Oh, yeah, they just made it legal.”

Her name was Joan and I will never forget her. You will soon understand why. She was thin, about 5’5′, kind of sandy brown/gray, curly, short hair… but not “butch” short, as we would have referred to it back then. Hey, it was still the 70s.
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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.

Written by Ken Carman

Topic: Getting My Irish Up So I Can Drink My Irish Down

I was kind of upset. I wanted to like beer. Everyone wanted me to like it. I tried to like it. Then I found out there was beer that I liked, just most bars in my part of the country: maybe most of the country, wouldn’t carry it. I got my Irish up, I guess you might say, and I sought out only places that carried what I liked. I finally found what I wanted, and by “getting my Irish up,” I started by drinking my Irish down.

The year was 1974. I just found out I might like beer. All that time as a teen seeking what was forbidden was wasted on what, to my taste, was crap: Schlitz, Rheingold, Budweiser, Pabst, Miller, Ballantine… the last was a bit unique: an ale. But that was Cream Ale: an attempt to make ale more lager like. Anyone who has read enough to know my tastes must realize I was in beer Hell, and didn’t even know it. Slowly I was introduced to a few Bocks and Heinekin. I only liked the dark. Surprised?

A lot of hops in beer? Good luck back then. I swear most brewers threw in a leaf or two per batch only to say they added hops. Ironically the version of Billy Beer F.X. Matt brewed started my turn to the hop-side of brewing. I’ve heard the other versions of Billy Beer were pretty much hopless. This version was just hoppy enough to make me realize I might like extra hoppy beers too.

But since this is being published on St. P Day, let’s stick with the kind of beer that’s more Irish in nature and doesn’t look about the same coming out as it does going in. And let’s go back to the early 70s again. I know, not my fav decade either…

My wife, then my girlfriend, visited me where I was going to college. We drove north to Montreal with her sister and her sister’s fiance. I swear, I’m a magnet when it comes to exotic experiences, especially beer-related. There was this upstairs pub called Finegans. Or was it “Finnegans?” I went on the web and found what looks like the very same place. I have since been told it’s not the same pub and I can’t find my long ago haunt anywhere on the web.

Sniff. Sniff. This brief edit to Brew Biz was added on St. Pat’s. Guess I’ll have to go have a cry in my Murphy’s, my Guinness, my Beamish, my Old 38, my Black Fly, my… wait, I’m not sad anymore. Time to get up on the table and dance with the leprechauns!

Back to 1974…

I walked up to the bar and asked if they had any dark beer. The bartender looked at me as if I had just asked for a Scwimesquat. “I don’t know what that is but I have Stout,” with an Irish brogue.

I bought one: it was Guinness Extra. I think at first taste I cringed. I finished and ordered another. By the third I was, not quite literally, dancing on the tables with the Irishmen. The leprechauns came later, after I spent years putting gold in their pots at the end of an ever flowing beer-based rainbow.
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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

OK, I admit, the picture stinks, thanks to Ken’s erratic camera.

New Knoxville was a brewer in, well, where else but Knoxville, Tennessee? I have spoken with several homebrewers from the area who agree: not that impressive. This was supposed to be their Mild Ale. More like an indistinct, bland ale. Plus, to add to the distraction the bottles we bought were a bit skunky: light struck, cardboard-like.

Cardboard. Yum!

Wasn’t hoppy. That’s expected for the style. Wasn’t all that malty: that is necessary for the style. This was beyond “light,” as in almost an ale version of “lite.” What made this a “mild?” If I remember right the color was OK. Carbonation OK. Head light, not long lasting… but that’s OK for the style. I seem to remember clarity a bit on the foggy side: could have been cold chill. Mouth feel OK, if you can get beyond the skunk and the inappropriate “lite.”

I willingly admit: hard to remember otherwise. But I do remember a few of their other entries into the market were a bit better, but I tend to agree with my fellow brewers. Eh, not that impressive.

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.

Pensacola Bay Brewing
225 E. Zaragoza Street
Pensacola, FL 32502
(850) 434-3353

There’s only one thing I like as well as being proven wrong regarding my more cynical opinions; that’s being proven right when I know damn well what I’m being told is counter-intuitive. Such is the case with Pensacola Bay Brewing. I was told for years that a microbrewery in Pensacola was such a legal nightmare it simply wasn’t possible. I even offered to help, back in my days when my aging back hadn’t smirked and said, “No lifting, no standing, no sitting, no kneeling, no laying in one place for any significant period of time… now have fun, Ken!!!”

A micro in Pensacola?

“Just won’t happen.”

Two guys responded, “Oh, yeah?” …November 4th, 2010.

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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.

We had to go to South Bend, Indiana, on business. So what do we do? Stop by brewpubs. Of course, being Friday night and Saturday, I didn’t get to interview the brewers, or see much of the brew equipment.

So many brewpubs have come and gone in this area. Nine G., Mishawaka Brewing… we were lucky to find the few we did.

The first target was Shoreline Brewery and Restaurant in Michigan City: seemed to be the only real brewpub in the close to South Bend area as far as we could tell. More on the “real” comment later.

Brick exterior, apparently an old factory or something that, on the outside, needs some refurbishing. A few blocks from Lake Michigan itself. The inside yellow-ish/pine like wood. Promising. They even had a barley wine in bottle. But I left without one.

You know that’s absolutely not a good sign, right?

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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: Christmas Beer

Going through “The Bottle Collection,” getting ready to start a Christmas Beer series, I realized there’s a value to collecting, beer education-wise. And I had just kicked back into that comfy lounge chair called: “A Christmas Beer is usually an ale with Christmas/pumpkin spices.”
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