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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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!

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Weed killer in your wine and beer? That’s what a new U.S. PIRG study found

A new report by the public-interest advocacy group U.S. PIRG reveals that tests of five wines and 15 beers, including organic ones, found traces of the controversial weed killer glyphosate in 19 out of the 20.

They include brands like Coors Light, Miller Lite, Budweiser, Corona, Heineken, Guinness, Stella Artois and Samuel Adams.

“The levels of glyphosate we found are not necessarily dangerous, but are still concerning given the potential health risks,” U.S. PIRG said.

Glyphosate, best known as an ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup, is a probable human carcinogen, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a branch of the World Health Organization.

Want to read more? Please click… HERE!

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Global Craft Beer on a Sea of IPA: sameness masquerading as difference?

Written by Franz D. Hofer for A Tempest in a Tankard

Franz Hofer
American-style IPA, that beloved child of the craft beer renaissance, has left the building. In recent years, IPA has become detached from its local context on the West Coast of the United States to emerge as a globalized signifier of everything exciting and novel about beer and tastes in beer. IPA in all its subsequent iterations has become so dominant that it now does double duty as an agent for craft beer in general, itself a stylized approach to the production and consumption of beer. This free-floating global style has since reterritorialized itself in local contexts the world over, sometimes threatening to displace home-grown local styles that had become mundane and less desirable through their familiarity. Local breweries and taprooms have sprung up on every urban corner and every countryside crossroad serving this global style in a local setting, introducing its enthusiastic patrons to an exciting new taste and powerful elixir.

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Rodenbach and Dogfish Head to Produce First Collaboration in Famed Belgian Brewery’s History


Brouwerij Rodenbach, the highly regarded Belgian brewing company founded in West Flanders in 1821 and known for its tart, oak-aged ales, is doing something unprecedented. For the first time in its nearly 200-year history, Rodenbach will produce a beer in partnership with another brewery. The recipe hasn’t been chosen yet, the label design is no more than a twinkle in an artist’s eye, and the sour ale won’t appear on shelves until 2020, but one key detail has already been decided: Dogfish Head Craft Brewery is the other half of the collaboration.

“The goal is to bring as much taste and flavor as possible in a sessionable beer,” explains Rudi Ghequire, Rodenbach’s master brewer. “Beer is more than hops and only hops.”

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Brew Files – Episode 54 – Where’s There Smoke

In every beer lovers curve of beer love, there comes a moment when they discover the world of smoked beers. Drew sits down with Devon Randall of Imperial Western Beer Company to discuss her approach to making both subtle and in your face smoked beers!

Want to hear more? Please click… HERE!

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Government shutdown impacts Springfield brewery’s beer production


Mother’s Brewing Company is one of many affected by the government shutdown. The Springfield brewery is still making beer. However, it impacts their new beers that don’t yet have labels approved.

The Federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau is in charge of approving the licenses and labels for any new beers. Employees of the bureau are not working, so breweries like Mother’s have to wait.

The Tax and Trade Bureau’s website is still accepting electronic payments, but a message on the site reads they will not be reviewing or approving any applications until the shutdown ends.

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Beer Profile: Trimtab Brewing’s Cranberry Spice Berliner Weisse

Profiled by Ken Carman

Very spicy aroma: nutmeg and/or allspice up front in aroma, no malt, no hops, slightest soured sense.

Appearance: raspberry colored head, cranberry colored quaff. The head is pure fine foam. Very hazy: no light shines through. Foam clings to glass as tilt.

Flavor: slightest tart. Cranberry right up front. The lactic sourness tad low. No hops noted. Malt takes a background to the cranberry in the balance. Aftertaste is cranberry.

Mouthfeel: low side medium carbonation… could use more to propel flavor and style-wise. Light body feel.

This could be even more of an excellent quaff than it already is. It just needs a little more carbonation; hint more lactic sour and of course adjusting the rest of the recipe to keep balance. It’s a light quaff that I would have one, maybe two, but abandon for more complexity. But that’s just me. I could see someone finding this a fav beer.

4.2 BA
3.8 Untppd
Nothing found on RB

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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Beer Profile: Rogue’s Santa’s Reserve

Profiled by Ken Carman

Imagine what a difference many years can make to a brewery and its products. This is a great example. I stopped buying Rogue in the early years because it was extract-like. When I returned to the brand I was amazed how interesting some of their brews are. They miss the mark from time to time, but I can forgive that when so much creativity goes into expanding the concept of beer.

From the onset with the aroma of Santa’s Reserve 2018 is complex, obviously spiced, fermented brown sugar, sweet. Deep malt sense: brown, pale, hint of chocolate. Not necessarily malts used, just the aroma. No hops in aroma noted.

This is close to Belgian-like Quad. I’m getting faint yeast esters: plum plus a hint of pepper/Saison-like yeast character. The malt is rich and complex: pale, brown, hint of deep black roast, debittered-sense. Slight background bitter. No hop flavor unless that’s the pepper. Finishes a tad dry with a pepper/brown sugar slightly caramelized aftertaste. Slight hint tangerine, no boysenberry. Hint of Christmas spices: perhaps ginger and/or allspice.

High side medium body/low side high. High side low carbonation. Taste lingers long after swallow.

Could use hint more tangerine and more boysenberry, especially for what declared. But still a seasonal must. One hopes this recipe, if it changes, remains with the brewery and is brewed again. This should be for sale year around. We are buying another bottle.

3.5 Rate Beer
3.7 Beer Advocate
3.5 untppd

4.5

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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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Episode 82 – Thinking and Drinking with John Holl


Just in time for Christmas and the new year, Drew sits down with John Holl of Craft Beer & Brewing to talk about his new book – Drink Beer, Think Beer. We talk where the industry is and why John’s hope for the future isn’t a very popular one.

But first we’ve got to take your feedback, cover the beer news – including a controversial take on IPA’s drinkers, and then cover Denny’s gluten free brewing antics, Drew’s rat attack and a new way to egg.

Want to hear more? Please click… HERE!