Author: Professor Good Ales

Mythical poster at The LTS Good for What Ales You Beer Journal. Loves good beer. Hates same old, same old. Muses that Bud and Miller might as well be brewed in urinals. Drinks lagers too, if they are complex and interesting.
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Beer Profile: Lagunitas Dark Sour Swan

Profiled by Ken Carman

Low side medium carbonation that approaches just medium. Low side medium body. No warmth. No creaminess. No astringency.

Aroma: grape like, concord to be specific. No hops noticed, debittered slightly darker malts-like sense way in background. Very fruity sense, again concord grape.

Visually about 31 srm almost no head dark red: almost burgundy. Deep orange almost red highlights under light. For this dark good clarity. Pours as a big head slight off white with slight purplish highlights. A lot of small to tiny bubbles. Fades very, very fast.

Finishes slightly dry with a concord grape-like aftertaste. Medium body, slight tart finish too. No hops noted except maybe slightest bitter that is also grape skin tannin-like. Yet there is also the slightest fruit sweet behind the dry.

Immensely enjoyable I would sip this night after night: buy a six and maybe one after that. Not all that sour: just a hint with the tart. The tart is supportive, not dominate. Concord grape sense dominates. Could use hint more malt sense. Describe more as “tart” because that works better than sour.

3.9 BA
3.6 untappd
89 RB/56 style

4.4

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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.”

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_______________________________Beer HERE

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Tennessee Brew Works Partners With Ireland’s Killarney Brewing

The brewmasters at Tennessee Brew Works are doing their part to try to improve international relations with their latest collaboration, this time with Killarney Brewery Co., an independent Irish Craft brewery located in Killarney, County Kerry, Ireland. The two companies have struck up a relationship and an agreement to travel to each other’s locations to create unique beers, one here in Nashville and another on the Emerald Isle.

Want to read more? Please click… HERE!

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Munich’s Beer Gardens East and West of the Isar

Written by Franz Hofer for A Tempest in a Tankard

What’s in a Date? 23 April, Lagers, and Beer Gardens

In brewers’ lore of yore, April meant more than showers bringing May flowers. In fact, the Feast of St. George on 23 April has influenced both the emergence of lager beers and the shaded beer gardens in which they have long been consumed.

Despite the best efforts of those who promulgated the Reinheitsgebot (Purity Law) of 1516, the quality of Bavarian beer remained uneven. In 1553, Albrecht V took steps to remedy the situation, declaring that Bavarians could brew beer only between St. Michael’s Day (September 29) and St. George’s Day (April 23). One reason prompting the decree of 1553 was a fear of summer fires caused by hot brew kettles. More importantly, though, brewers and the authorities who knew a good beer had, by the mid-1550s, learned a thing or two about the beneficial effects of cold fermentation on beer quality.

Want to read more? Please click… HERE!

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Rogue’s Cold Pressed Coffee IPA

Profiled by Ken Carman

I was wondering about this one. So many ways it could go wrong and, once it warmed, that only confirmed my fears. To be honest cold pressed coffee too often tastes like chewing on coffee grounds which this had a hint of to begin with. I thought, “THAT will up my score.” WRONG. As it warmed the cold press turned into chewing on coffee grounds covering the hops, which were more Pale-ish when it comes to balance.

The hops and coffee were perfectly balanced but were too light to start. Once again as it warmed: better. The aroma was the best sense of the quaff. Pale malt way in the background, as one would expect from many IPAs.

Quite the haze to this one which may have been exacerbated by coffee. SRM about 16-17: reddish-dark copper that was becoming brown. Head faded supper fast.

Could have used more carbonation: just a tad. Again coffee may have affected that. Medium body that felt higher than it really was. Carbonation tad prickly.

Once it really warmed the Pale Ale sense that should have been more IPA faded and coffee dominated. They really need to back off on cold pressed coffee and increase hops just a tad: mostly flavor and maybe some high alpha hops for head retention and a tad more bitter. So I couldn’t go to 4.

3.5 at RB
3.9 at BA
3.7 at Untappd

3.8

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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.”

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________________________Beer HERE

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Beer Cafes and Bolleke: Beer for a Day in Antwerp

Written by Franz Hofer for A Tempest in a Tankard

Like so many cities and towns in Belgium, Antwerp is but an hour and change by train from Brussels. If you’re like me and your trips to Belgium never amount to more than about five days at a time, these medieval cities and towns end up as day trip destinations, even if they merit several days. But with a modicum of advanced planning, you can spend an enriching day in Antwerp. And you won’t be at a loss for beer and places to drink it.

A historic port that accrued its wealth through the diamond trade, Antwerp started life as a fort during Charlemagne’s time. During the 1500s, it emerged as the region’s premier port after Bruges’ once-bustling port silted up. By mid-century, Antwerp was one of Europe’s most important cities, boasting a population of around 100,000 inhabitants, one of whom was Pieter Paul Rubens. The city suffered several reversals of fate over the next three centuries till Napoleon Bonarparte rebuilt the ports in 1797. By the late nineteenth century, Antwerp was the world’s third-largest port after London and New York.

Want to read more? Please click… HERE!

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A Season for Strong Beer

Written by Franz Hofer for A Tempest in a Tankard

You have to admire a city where the rhythms of life revolve around excuses to tap a keg and raise a mug of good cheer.

Munich is one such city where the seasons are marked by festivities that involve a healthy amount of imbibing. Most of these beer festivals have their roots in Catholicism and are, more often than not, bound up with the arrival of spring, summer, autumn, and winter.

Want to read more? Please click… HERE!

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Barleywine Commentary: Victory Old Horizontal Barleywine

By Ken Carman

I started this as a profile for PGA, but decided a commentary might be more appropriate. The Professor not only agreed but is hoping to make this a semi-regular feature with rotating writers.

Barleywines tend to be high abv. Yes, but this is higher alcohol-ish. Not much, but annoyingly so. But more than that I am going to abandon my standard BJCP-type review because, IMO, the 2015 Guidelines contributed to this. I understand that commercial versions of American Barleywine have gotten more hoppy, but this is what you get. It was annoyingly bitter, so much so it was hard to drink. And what the hell is wrong with having a sweeter barleywine? The bitter masks the rich goodness a great barleywine has to offer. Continue reading “Barleywine Commentary: Victory Old Horizontal Barleywine”

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STONE BREWING BERLIN: A ROCKY LANDING RIGHTED?

Written by Franz Hofer for A Tempest in a Tankard

I headed out to Stone Brewing’s Berlin outpost in Mariendorf with less than great expectations. Stone’s arrival in Berlin had been anything but auspicious. During a press conference in 2014, co-owner Greg Koch presided over the destruction of a pallet of main-stream German beers crushed with a rock dropped from a forklift. The symbolism was lost on no one, and the exercise in cultural tone-deafness did little to endear Stone to the German drinking public beyond the craft beer converts in the crowd.

Koch came to have misgivings about this public display of arrogance, stating in an interview with Nina Anika Klotz of Hopfenhelden that it wasn’t a performance he was keen on repeating. He acknowledged that the stunt “was not meant as an insult toward beer.” His target all along, he claimed, was not the German brewing tradition per se, but rather the industrially produced beer lining the shelves of German discount supermarkets like Rewe and Lidl — beer, he emphasized, that was undermining the sterling reputation of German brewing.

Want to read more? Please click… HERE!