Author: Professor Good Ales

You may remember Ken Carman’s two columns here @PGA: one on their brewer, and one on the brewpub, Bandwagon. Here’s more on their brewer and this Ithaca brewpub. In picture posted below Lars Mudrak is standing to the left.- PGA

Written by Matt Hayes for theithacajournal.com

Ithaca — The best craft beer in all of New York State is being brewed right here in Ithaca.
Bandwagon Brewpub earned that distinction from judges at the 2012 TAP New York Craft Beer & Fine Food Festival, who awarded the Cayuga Street restaurant and craft brewer with the gold medal for Best Individual Craft Beer in New York State. Judges chose Bandwagon’s High Step Weizenbock out of more than 200 individual brews from more than 50 New York State brewers at the April 29 festival. This year’s festival featured the most competitors in the event’s 15-year history.

For Bandwagon, submitting the winter seasonal beer had been planned as a last hurrah for the Weizenbock, a strong, dark wheat beer among the favorites of brewer Lars Mudrak. Now the beer, which was to be transitioned out to make way for summer beers, will have a permanent spot on tap at the brewery. A new batch is being brewed to be ready for consumption at Bandwagon by Monday.

“People have been asking about it a lot,” Mudrak said. “I feel it’s kind of Ithaca’s, too; it’s not just Bandwagon’s. It’s all our customers’. They drank my mistakes along the way so they should enjoy in my successes as well.”

The beer making talents displayed by Mudrak are distinctly Ithacan in origin. The 23-year-old began covertly experimenting with brewers in his parents’ Coddington Road home at the age of 15. “I think my record was 25 gallons of beer brewing in my closet at once without my parents knowing,” he said.
Continue reading “Bandwagon Brewpub: Ithaca”

Lindemans Brewery

Written by Tom Becham for professorgoodales.net

Are Sour Beers the New Black?

As a beer geek friend of mine said to me recently, “You know what sour beers and World Cup Soccer have in common? Americans discovered they kinda liked both of them in 2010.”

It’s true. Sour beers have become a big trend in craft beer circles. If you’ve never had a sour beer (well, a GOOD sour beer), you may wonder why that is so.

A typical sour beer (they are always ales; lagers do NOT make for good sour beers) can be anywhere from pilsner-yellow to stout-black in color. The taste of sour beers has been described as acidic, acetic, vinegar-like and vinous. All of those descriptors can be true, but if you’ve never actually had a decent sour, then the words won’t mean a thing to you. Sour beers are also some of the most useful beers to convert wine lovers into craft beer lovers. Anyone who loves a brightly tannic red wine will also likely appreciate a sour beer.

What makes an ale sour? Well, there are a couple of things that can. First is a “wild” yeast, usually of the Brettanomyces strain. Of course, now these yeasts can be cultivated and used deliberately instead of just resulting from a “spontaneous fermentation”. Second is any range of bacteria, from lactobacillus (the stuff that sours milk) to pediococcus. Again, these bacteria are now frequently introduced into beers, though the randomness of barrel aging still seems to produce better results.
Continue reading “Are Sours the New Black?”

Written by Kevin M. Cullen (Archaeologist: Discovery World: Milwaukee WI)

The recipe that we chose to brew for this special program was an Iron Age honey mead, found in a bronze cauldron at the foot of a Celtic chieftain who was buried in a central burial chamber, beneath an earthen mound near the village of Hochdorf in southwestern Germany. Excavations led by Dr. Jörg Biel in 1978-79 revealed that this elite male was buried around 550 BCE. To discover an intact burial chamber from this period was a rarity, as most were looted over the centuries. Included in the burial was a wagon with nine bronze plates and three bronze serving platters. Nine large gold decorated drinking horns, likely aurochs horns. Eight of them could hold 1 liter of liquid, yet the largest horn which hung above the chieftain’s head could hold a 10 pint (5 liter) capacity (that’s a “power drinker”). Additionally, a very large Greek-imported bronze cauldron with a capacity of 70 gallons (ca. 265 liters) was placed at the chieftain’s feet. Upon analysis of the desiccated remains, it was determined to have once been mead (honey wine). Such a volume of mead was quite an extravagance and very expensive to obtain, particularly considering the Celts did not have formalized apiculture.

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HERE

Written by Andy Brownfield for The Gadsden Times and AP

Alabama beer lovers are pleased that the state Legislature passed a measure to allow beer to be sold in larger containers, but they’re still awaiting the fate of a measure to legalize home brewing.

The Legislature sent the bill to allow larger bottles to Gov. Bentley’s desk on May 9. A Bentley spokeswoman said he’s still reviewing the proposal and hasn’t decided whether to sign it.

The bill that would make Alabama the 49th state to allow home brewing – Mississippi would be the final holdout – was passed by the House on May 8 and is awaiting Senate action. The chair of the Senate committee that decides which bills make it to the floor could not be reached for comment.

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HERE

Written by Brandon Jones for Embracethefunk.com

So I’m reading over the finished Q&A thinking about how to intro this interview and the song Doowutchyalike by Digital Underground keeps popping into my head. While it might be a stretch, Shaun Hill of Hill Farmstead is doing what he likes, having fun and batting pretty close to 1000 while he’s at it. Hill Farmstead is doing what I think is the perfect brewing dream: brewing phenomenal beer in a farmhouse setting… the way he wants to on family land that looks like something out of a painting. In between making the beer that sees a lot of “ISO” on many websites Shaun sat down for a Q&A with me….

ETF- What beer was your sour or brett beer epiphany?

Continue reading “Hill Farmstead (Brewery in VT) Q&A With Shaun Hill”

Written by Greg Kitsock for The Washington Post

(Who says it HAS TO BE a “bubble?”-PGA)

“The world almost seems flipped on its side — a revolution has happened,” reported Benj Steinman, president of the trade publication Beer Marketer’s Insight, in assessing the state of craft brewing.

Steinman was addressing a crowd at the 2012 Craft Brewers Conference that unfolded May 2-5 amidst the gentle sea breezes and swaying palms of San Diego. Most of the news from the conference was good, often spectacularly so. Craft beer finished 2011 up 13 percent in volume and 15 percent in dollars, according to Paul Gatza, president of the Brewers Association, which organized the event. There were 250 openings and only 37 closings last year, pushing the total number of breweries in the United States to 1,989. That figure has now exceeded 2,000, he added, joking that another two nanobreweries probably went online during his turn at the podium.

Under the circumstances, keynote speaker Steve Hindy, former AP Middle East correspondent and co-founder of the Brooklyn Brewery, could be forgiven a little boasting. “I’m sure you all had someone walk into your brewery and ask, ‘Did you ever imagine it getting this big?’ I answer, ‘Hell, yes!’”

The disturbing news was that, according to Gatza, there are currently 1,119 additional breweries in the planning stage.

Disturbing?

There is fear within the industry that there might be a bubble about to burst, that the burgeoning number of new brands could push distribution channels to the breaking point. It scares at least one Mid-Atlantic brewer, who nevertheless was planning an expansion to keep apace with the competition.

But those worries didn’t spoil the party.

The BrewExpo Trade Show was rife with innovations in packaging, including a disposable clear plastic keg; a growler that resembles a milk carton; and a spout-top can with a resealable screw-on cap. The latter is “great for kickball; you can knock it over and not spill any,” said Chad Melis, spokesman for the Colorado-based Oskar Blues brewery.

Oskar Blues was certainly the biggest newsmaker of the conference, announcing that it’s opening an East Coast branch in Brevard, N.C. It will thus become the third western brewer, after Sierra Nevada and New Belgium, to move into the Tarheel State. The new facility, said Melis, will become operational later this year and be capable of churning out 40,000 barrels right from the start. It will include a restaurant and feature live music.

Local beermaker DC Brau made a splash by winning a “Canny” award (second place, best overall design) for its Corruption IPA. This beauty contest for aluminum containers was sponsored by the Ball Corp., worldwide manufacturer of beverage cans, and several other industry suppliers of packaging and machinery.

(Incidentally, there are now 179 craft brewers canning beers, stated Gatza. “A decade ago, there were zero.”)

The conference drew a record 4,500 attendees. Apparently none of the San Diego breweries could accommodate a crowd that size, so the BA held the opening reception at the San Diego Zoo. On subsequent nights, guests could slake their thirst at a gazebo outside the convention site offering 140 draft beers.

Washington D.C., which will host the Craft Brewers Conference next year, has a tough act to follow.

Postscript: Every other year, the CBC hosts the World Beer Cup, an international judging that this year attracted a record 3,921 beers from 54 countries competing for medals in 95 categories. Among the winners, posted during the wee hours of Sunday (it takes a while to read out 284 award recipients), was Vienna Lager from Devils Backbone Brewing Co. in Roseland, Va. The malt-accented amber lager, recently introduced into Northern Virginia, was the gold medalist in the Vienna-style lager niche.

Arlington’s Rock Bottom Brewery snagged a bronze in the coffee beer category for its Coffee Stout. Two other Virginia breweries with a local presence took home a silver: Blue Mountain Brewery in Afton for its Blue Reserve (American-Belgo-style ale) and Sweetwater Tavern in Centreville for its GAR Pale Ale (extra special bitter). Flying Dog Brewery in Frederick also earned a silver in the aged beer slot for its Vintage Horn Dog barley wine.