Author: Professor Good Ales

Written by Jay Brooks for The Brookston Beer Bulletin

Ugh, why do people keep defending low-calorie light diet beer? It’s an abomination. It should go away. It’s a marketing trick. It’s the best selling kind of beer in America, and defending it is the equivalent of complaining about the “War on Christmas” or the “War on White People.” Yes, sales have been slipping lately, with more people choosing beer with flavor, but certainly not enough to put much of a dent in the sheer volume of this dreck. Yes, many, if not most, craft beer drinkers choose not to drink it and some even bash it as something not worthy of respect. Well, I am one of those people. Not everything deserves our respect. I respect how difficult it is to make, but in the end that’s not the standard I want to use for how I choose what to drink. Degree of difficulty may be fine for Olympic gymnastics or diving, but taste is far more important to me when it comes to my beer.
Continue reading “Disrespecting Low-Calorie Light Beer”

Written by Andrew Knowlton with Sam Dean, for bonappetit.com

Growlers are big right now with beer geeks. The refillable half-gallon bottles let you roll on up to your favorite brewery/fancy beer store/Whole Foods and get a tap-fresh jug o’ suds. They’ve got that back-to-the-basics “artisanal” vibe. Hell, they even have a handle.

Too bad brewers (a.k.a. the pros) can’t stand the things.

The last time I hung out with Garrett Oliver, brewmaster at the Brooklyn Brewery and editor-in-chief of the Oxford Companion to Beer, the touchy subject of growlers came up. In short, he thinks they suck.

“It’s more of a love-hate relationship,” Oliver told me on the phone last week, on tour to promote the Oxford tome. “Brewers love the opportunity to get some beers that are not in bottles in front of a general public, and certainly beer drinkers love them.”

But? “Brewers tend to hate them. Growlers are basically beer destroyers. They’re often unsanitary, and the refilling process mixes in a lot of oxygen–the tiniest amount of oxygen kills beer so quickly. Then, if you walk across the street with say, an IPA, in full sunlight, with a clear growler, the beer will skunk before you get to your car.”
Continue reading “Why Beer Growlers are Bad for Your Brew”

Portland, Oregon

Written by David Young for coloradoan.com

A beer that will get you drunk and high sounds like a lethal combination, but it could be bubbling up in your neighbor’s garage.

With the move by voters to legalize adult marijuana possession, cultivation and sales in Colorado as part of Amendment 64 Tuesday, the likelihood of pot beer is out of the question for commercial brewers, but already in the works by homebrewers.
Continue reading “Is Pot Beer on the Horizon in Light of Colorado Marijuana Legalization?”

Written by Evan Benn for stltoday.com

After Colorado voters on Tuesday passed that state’s marijuana-legalizing Amendment 64, Denver’s alt-weekly wasted no time rounding up five beers with not-so-subtle references to being, well, a mile high.

Denver Westword Beer Man Jonathan Shikes came up withthis list of 420-friendly beers:
Continue reading “Colorado Offers Beers to Pair with Marijuana Legalization”

Written by Brandon Jones for embracethefunk.com

Maybe the Mayans were right and 2012 is indeed it because I’m not sure I could have a better beer weekend than this past one. Everything from Chad Yakobson’s awesome talk – to me winning best of show – to a late night Waffle House group run that included “chocolate-peanut butter-bacon-maple syrup covered pecan waffles”… with a side of bacon. Yep it was that kind of weekend.

Chad Yakobson’s Brettanomyces Presentation

The annual competition weekend started off with a bang this year. An awesome catered dinner by one of the best BBQ guys around serving up Ribs and Brisket. The guest speaker this year wasChad Yakobson of Crooked Stave in Denver, Colorado. Fresh off a Great American Beer Festival win Chad dropped some serious knowledge during his talk. The talk mostly centered around Brettanomyces…facts vs fiction and how to get the most out of Brett in your brewing process. Topics such as their barrel aging/foudre process, brewing with bacterias, mixed fermentations with Sacchromyces strains, and classic Saisons were also covered during the 60 minute talk.

Continue reading “And The Funk Was Embraced”

Most continuous running beer ad of this type in history.

Written by Sidsel Overgaard for npr.org

In the U.S., Thanksgiving marks the unofficial start of the race to Christmas (unless you happen to decorate department stores, then it starts in October). But in Denmark, the Christmas race starts tonight.
Continue reading “Christmas Comes Early For Denmark’s Beer Drinkers”