Author: Professor Good Ales

There’s no denying it, craft beer has been good to Birmingham in recent years.

But just how good has it been? A recent report from the Brewers Association shows that the industry had a $238 million impact on the state of Alabama in 2012.

As alcohol regulations were changed, the market for producing craft beer began booming in the Birmingham metro area, and doesn’t show signs of slowing down.

“With a strong presence across the 50 states and the District of Columbia, craft breweries are a vibrant and flourishing economic force at the local, state and national level,” said Bart Watson, a staff economist for Brewers Association, in a press release. “As consumers continue to demand a wide range of high quality, full-flavored beers, small and independent craft brewers are meeting this growing demand with innovative offerings, creating high levels of economic value in the process.”

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Profiled by Ken Carman for Professor Goodales

The flavor is tripel like, but if this isn’t White Labs Abbey yeast I’ll bite myself. The aroma is WL Abbey out the kazoo with pilsner malt in the background. I’m guessing this has Belgian white candy sugar in it. It has that distinct slight abrasive sense.

Mouthfeel: a firm, tripel like, carbonation dominates with its prickly sense. Again: a slight abrasive taste as if the liquid has a little sand paper to it. That’s a distinct Belgian white sugar sense.

This is listed as a Golden, but to me it’s more of a Tripel with lower abv and WL Abbey. This is as if they wanted to do a Tripel but due to abv laws they had to back off. Millie described as “watery.” To me it’s more a weak attempted due to keeping fermentables down.

Appearance is slightly hazy, srm probably about a 2: light yellow, urine color. Head id white pillow with a few medium sized bubble-rocks.

One dimensional.

I would try it: yes, but more a lawnmower Belgian. I simply can’t give it a 4. Advise, if must keep it this way, try Coriander, Orange Zest, anything to make it more interesting. More body would help: true, but then you’d probably raise the abv. Switch the yeast, please.

47 @ Rate Beer.
83: Beer Advocate.

RB has it right in this case, BA too generous.

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.”

1. Hello Kitty Beer Released in Japan. But due to strict regulations in America, it will never find its way to beer stores in the USA. In other news, U.S. brewers were silently thankful for the government labeling laws for the first time ever.
2. World Strongest Beer is Made. Session beer is for sissies; bring on the 135 proof brew. And a cab. And lots of Advil.

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We know the Brits make fine beer, and have been brewing it since the Middle Ages. Chaucer’s pilgrims tippled extravagantly at the Tabard Inn before setting out to Canterbury to petition their favorite saint. The Anglo-Saxons discovered beer even earlier and built great halls in which to guzzle mead―a sweet, heady brew fermented from honey that makes the head swim and provides the drinker with the biggest, baddest headache ever. The Germans, of course, with their bratwurst and steins transformed the ancient mead hall into the modern beer garden. But for my money, the Belgians have been making the best beer on earth for centuries, at one point offering over four hundred different brands from as many breweries in both northern and southern Belgium, a country divided by two languages and an uncommon past.

My first experience of this superior brew occurred one year when my wife and I (full disclosure: she’s Belgian) were invited to a wedding in Antwerp at which kegs of Maes Pils were served following the ceremony. Friends of ours were getting married and we wanted to be there for the celebration. The groom, poet, essayist and editor Herman deConinck, drank almost nothing but Maes Pils, sometimes at the mantel over his fireplace while scribbling lines of poetry with the stub of a pencil. When I drew a mug of Maes out of the keg and tasted it, I knew I had found a beer that I could love―a fresh, crisp pilsner bristling with character and a clean, snappy flavor. But there’s no need to be a snob. Maes Pils, along with Jupiler and Stella Artois, is as common in Belgium as Budweiser or Coors are in the United States. Unlike our mass-produced beer, however, Maes Pils is richer, deeper in taste, more full-bodied than our waterlogged national brews. In addition, the Belgians (and most other Europeans) swear that chilling beer kills its taste, and serve it only at room temperature. Try that at any American baseball stadium on a hot Sunday afternoon: “Warm beer, here! Getcha warm beer now!” But it’s also true that the tastier the beer, the less it needs to be refrigerated. We prefer cold, carbonated, thinner beer with our hot dogs and sauerkraut. Belgians prefer their beer at room-temperature with moules frites.

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In general, getting a cease-and-desist letter from a big corporation isn’t the mark of a good day. But after a brewery owner got a letter from a law firm representing Starbucks, he saw a chance to draw distinctions between the businesses — and to be funny.

The coffee company’s bone of contention, Missouri brewer Jeff Britton was told in a Dec. 9 letter, was the use of the name “Frappicino” to describe a stout served at Exit 6 Brewery, a brewpub in a tidy strip mall in Cottleville, northwest of St. Louis.

The name too closely resembled Starbucks’ Frappuccino, Anessa Owen Kramer, an attorney at a law firm that protects Starbucks’ trademarks, wrote. The similar names might cause customers to “mistakenly believe that Exit 6 or this beer product is affiliated with or licensed by Starbucks Coffee Co., when they are not,” the letter said.

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This is about Minnesota, but the nation too-PGA

In Minnesota, 14 brewers opened operations in 2013, making it a very good year in the brewing universe. By all accounts it’s been another banner year for Minnesota beer. The state’s collective brew IQ continued to rise, and seemingly every new bar or restaurant eagerly touted its local tap selection.

The big-league festivals put on by the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild and the Beer Dabbler each sold out, collectively drawing 16,840 beer fans. The phrase “craft beer boom” was used by the local media approximately 2,487 times (well, probably) in the never-ending stories about new breweries, surging demand or Minnesota’s brew-conomy (roughly 8,000 jobs strong and counting, says the Brewers Association).

So how about one more beer article to close out 2013?

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Courtesy homebrewtalk.com

Sorry, there’s just not enough mead to go around.”

The writer of these words could very well be describing the mead (also known as honey wine) brewed by Ben and Becky Starr, owners and brew masters at Starrlight Mead in Pittsboro.

Come to think of it, the heart of North Carolina is probably not the first place that comes to mind when you think of mead. Your memory probably hearkens back to the days of old, reminiscent of Renaissance Fairs, Vikings and old English castles.

The Starrs opened Starrlight Mead in 2010, taking a gamble that folks would embrace their homemade wines as much as they and their friends have.

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Courtesy kinkycurlycoilyme.com
America, and American workers, had an official alcoholic beverage, it would probably be beer. According to the Brewers Association, the overall U.S. beer market was worth $96 billion in 2011, when some 200 million barrels of beer were sold (1 barrel equals 31 gallons of beer). In the same year, 1,989 breweries in the United States were fermenting everything from light lagers to chocolaty stouts.

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