Author: Professor Good Ales

Image courtesy Reuters

For those readers who make mead and mead related quaffs-PGA

As scientists race to pinpoint the cause of the global collapse of honey bee populations that pollinate a third of the world’s crops, environmental groups have indentified one culprit: US authorities who continue to approve pesticides implicated in the apian apocalypse.

Case in point: The US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) conditional approval in May of sulfoxaflor, a type of agricultural pesticide known as a neonicotinoid. The European Union has banned neonicotinoids for two years in response to scientific studies linking their use to the sudden death of entire beehives, a phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Over the past six years, CCD has wiped out an estimated 10 million beehives worth $2 billion. Bee colonies in the US are so decimated that it takes 60% of the nation’s bee population to pollinate a single crop, California almonds. And that’s not just a local problem; California supplies 80% of the world’s almonds.

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Written by Brandon Jones for embracethefunk.com

As brewers and especially sour/wild brewers we love to age/ferment in different kinds of wood vessels. There is something beautiful and romantic about walking by large oak foudres or seeing rows of stacked barrels each living and breathing new life into a beer. Each different but striving for the same thing: to make incredible beer. All this is wonderful and utopian…until it isn’t.

(To the left: One of my barrels decided to leak after 4 months this past summer)

One of my favorite things about what I do at Yazoo is sourcing and picking out new (well new to us) barrels with some sort of neat character. Looking for the next interesting or hard to find barrel can feel like an ISO/FT post on one of the many beer trading forums. With many breweries having some sort of barrel aging program it can be a challenge to find exciting barrels in the quantity you need. Some of our barrels hail from places like Portugal and Jamacia…which have to be shipped into the USA then trucked to us. So imagine (and I know some of you know this first hand) that sinking feeling when you are walking by your beautiful row of neatly stacked barrels and step into a puddle of beer…or you leak test this incredible barrel and its not just weeping water; its flowing out!
Continue reading “For The Love of The Barrel”

Written by Dee Gross for Crazycow252.blogspot.com

And Merry to you and kin.

From

PGA

Kate Baker and Suzanne Schalow founded Craft Beer Cellar in Belmont in 2010, and today, at any given time, its 1,500 square feet of retail space are filled with more than 1,000 beers from 350 breweries. Beers are organized by region, from Worcester to the West Coast, with an emphasis on local brews. Employees have jobs like Head Beer Geek, Ambassador of Fine Ales and Lagers, and Hoptologist and wear hooded sweat shirts emblazoned with the words “Beer Geek.”

“People take two steps in the door and they don’t know how to proceed,” says Brian Shaw, who opened a Craft Beer Cellar in Newton Centre recently, joining franchises in Winchester, Westford, and Braintree. “People say, ‘Oh my God, I didn’t know there was this much beer.’ ”

Is there ever. And now Baker and Schalow are betting their model can work elsewhere as they expand to New Hampshire and Vermont, as well as Florida, St. Louis, and maybe Seattle. Their goal is to make people think about whether to buy a Pretty Things Jack D’Or or a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale as carefully as they would wrestle between a cabernet or a merlot.

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Diacetyl (dye-assa-TEEL, or dye-ASS-itle) is probably one of the most well-known flavors related to brewing. It’s buttery aroma is easily recognized at levels above threshold but, as much as is known and recognized about this compound, I’m constantly amazed and disappointed by how much “butter-beer” is still being produced. This post will briefly explore the various ways that diacetyl arises in beer.

Background

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One must ask: what exactly, in comparison, do mega brewers need this cut for?-PGA

 

image courtesy danieljmitchell.wordpress.com 

 

WASHINGTON — Beer politics are getting frothy on Capitol Hill.

American microbreweries are asking Uncle Sam to cut their federal excise tax so they can grab more market share from Coors, Budweiser, Corona, Miller and other brands that have become household names.

The big beer makers, meanwhile, support proposals that would cut excise taxes for all brewers, regardless of size.

Both sides, which were once united, are polite enough to praise the products made by the other camp but disagree on how to reduce one type of tax that affects the price of beer.

 

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Profiled by Ken Carman fro Professor Goodales

This is skewed too far towards ginger. And it’s not the best side of ginger. It’s not “bad.” It’s just unbalanced.

The body is medium the ginger is way the hell upfront, allspice and cinnamon are way in the background. Brown with hazy highlights. Mouthfeel is a firm medium body with ginger as the main focus. The malt is mostly pale with some darker malts, mostly slighter roast but they too are way behind the ginger which dangles from the roof of the mouth and refuses to let go. The warmer it gets, the more annoying the ginger becomes.

Mouthfeel, again ginger with about a moderate body and low, but OK, soft, carbonation. A tad slick.

Aroma is ginger, more ginger and, ah, ginger. Again there is a malt background but it’s elusive, hides behind the ginger.

Tad off white head, pillow. Slight chill haze. Brown at probably 24 srm with no highlights due to haze. A very dense looking quaff due to the haze. The head nags as if it’s wants to hang around, briefly, then fades to the edges of the glass.

There’s a great brown ale based begging to be let out behind a ginger gate here.

93 with a 97 for style on Rate Beer, 84 on Beer Advocate. I can’t go higher than 3.

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.”