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: Estate Homegrown Ale (Organic)


Sierra Nevada
Chico, CA

Profiled by Ken Carman

Burnished gold. Tons of pillow/rocky head mix. A little chill haze but clear otherwise nice and clear. Cascade bitter and Cascade nose with some malt. The hops are fresh, though not that grass green you get from wet hops, though they claim “wet.” These hops were grown on the estate where Sierra Nevada resides. So is the barley. Everything for this beer came from the estate where Sierra Nevada is.

Hop profile: probably Cascade, Chinook and Citra.

Wax coated packaging.

Obviously this was an attempt to do a beer from scratch. I think it’s an excellent beer and well worth the cost. I recommend it. But “better” than other fresh/wet hop beers? No… and actually not as fresh or wet hop. Perhaps been in the store too long? Not stale, just not the snap one would expect. Sierra has done better, especially with the New Zealand

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Roasting Your Own Coffee Begins with Green Beans and a Skillet

How to make your home brew even more “home brew”-ish? What about roasting your own beans? Coffee Stout or Witte anyone?- PGA

Picture of roasting beans, Doug Beghtel, The Oregonian

Written by Grant Butler for The Oregonian

Portland loves its DIY culture, with all its craft fairs, knitting classes and home-brewing get-togethers. Portland also loves coffee, with temples of java dotting the map like tattoos on the arms of baristas.

That these passions have come together seems inevitable. Instead of just heading to a nearby coffee shop for an artfully poured latte, more people are learning what it takes to make coffee at home that’s vastly superior to what people used to drink. And there’s a fast-growing trend of people roasting their own coffee beans.
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An Interview White Labs Yeast President Chris White

Written by Brad Smith for beersmith.com

This week it is a distinct pleasure to feature Chris White, the President of White Labs Inc – one of the world’s premiere providers of brewing yeast for both commercial and home brewers. White labs is a pioneer in providing commercial quality yeasts to home brewers.
1.  When and how did you get started in brewing beer?
I was in college at UC Davis in the late 80’s, and one of my roommates made a beer in our kitchen.  He left the beer sitting for months in the carboy, so finally another roommate mine, Pete (now a veterinarian), and I bottled and drank it.  We soon decided to try home brewing on our own.  Thanks Pete for helping me to start home brewing!
2.  You started White Labs in 1995 – what made you decide to start the business?
Want to read more? Please click…

HERE

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Beer Profile: Original Orange Blossom Ale

Picture courtesy grizzlygrowler.com

Buckbean Brewing Company
Reno, NV

Profiled by Ken Carman

Wow. Not my style. But balance, taste, mouthfeel, pour, everything is exactly “as advertised.” Orange-ish copper pour with a head that fades fast. Moderate to light body. Orange blossom honey up front to the taste.

This is a very, very simple beer. But it is what it claims to be. Nice bright orange pint can. Perfect packaging.

Try it.

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Beer Profile: Caldera’s IPA



Can and glass image courtesy thebrewsite.com

Profiled by Ken Carman

With a burnished copper color, great clarity, and long lasting satin pillow head, Caldera’s IPA starts out strong. A nice strong Cascade-like whiff (Centennial, perhaps? Simcoe? Perhaps Amarillo, but most likely the Centennial, or all three combines to do a super Cascade sense.) …meets the nose when you pop the… can. Yes, one of these new craft canners: a great trend. Hey, works in kegs and cornies as long as the lining keeps the beer away from the metallic taste.

Foam and bubble fill the mouth with just the right amount of hop astringency. This is a bit high, bitter-wise, for a tradition IPA; even American, but I like it. Not a Imperial or Double. Malt is a bit thin but adequate: background. Not getting anything but that super Cascade sense one might get when three citrusy hops only add similarities: not the differences. Might be nice to back off a bit and add a bit of complexity with another, perhaps more spicy hop. After taste a bit too astringent.

A strong entry; one of the better examples, except the astringency which might be solved in the hop mix, and perhaps some latter additions hop rather than earlier. That might help with the one note citrus/bitter this three hop beer toots.

The packaging helps too: nice colorful, interesting, cauldron midst somewhat hippie like colors. “IPA” forms from the steam out of the kettle and the hippie colors inside the oval are surrounded by hops. I usually don’t comment about such but, sometimes, creativity with creative packaging does count.

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Cascadian Dark Ale?

Written by Matt Van Wyk, Oakshire Brewing, for Craftbeer.com

Lately there has been much fuss over a new—or is it old—beer style and what it should be called.  The style I’m referring to is known by three different names; Black IPA, India Black Ale (IBA), or Cascadian Dark Ale (CDA). In short, it is a dark hoppy beer. But in truth, it is so much more. So the questions remain; what do we name it, who made it first, and what defines the style? And, do any of these details even matter?

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8th Circuit Stifles Beer Drinkers’ Last Gasp

ST. LOUIS (CN) – Calling a complaint by 10 Missouri beer drinkers “speculative and localized,” the 8th Circuit ended their quest to block InBev’s $52 billion takeover of Anheuser-Busch. The beer drinkers claimed the merger would diminish competition and raise prices. But the 8th Circuit found that allowing the case to proceed would have the same effect.

A three-judge panel on the 8th Circuit upheld a federal judge’s August 2009 decision to throw out the case.
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This Bud’s for Sale

How the Busch clan lost control of an iconic American beer company.

Written By Patrick Cooke for The Wall Street Journal

If ever an American company represented the land of milk and honey for corporate executives it was Anheuser-Busch, though perhaps the land of hops, rice and barley would be more apt. For decades a palace of well-paid vice presidents in cushy offices presided over the manufacture of Budweiser, America’s beer, in that most American of cities, St. Louis. They also oversaw the Busch Gardens theme parks in Virginia and in Florida, where Shamu the killer whale was on the payroll, along with a stable of 250 Clydesdale horses. It was a first-class operation all the way. There were $1,000 dinners, hunting lodges, sky suites at Busch Stadium and a fleet of Dassault Falcon corporate jets with a staff of 20 waiting pilots. Every kitchenette refrigerator at corporate headquarters was well stocked with Bud, Bud Lite and Michelob.
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Seasonal Beer Profiles

Profiled by Tom Becham

Pumpkin pie is appreciated for Thanksgiving and the Christmas Holiday as well, so these beers are passably seasonal for the rest of the year.
Pumpkin has a long history in ale making in the United States.  The colonists used pumpkin as an adjunct, using the sugars as an aid to fermentation.  And truly, since most Brits regard pumpkin as an item to be fed to cattle, it could really only have started in the New World.
The first of the three I tried was Dogfish Head’s Punkin Ale.  Dogfish Head describes this as a spiced pumpkin beer with a brown ale base.
My impressions?  It poured a nice rosy orange. On the nose, it smells like they dumped the whole friggin’ spice rack in this one.  The usual pumpkin pie spices – cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and allspice – are very strong on the nose.  Only when the beer warms does the brown ale’s toffee-like malt aroma come forward.  The head is small and short-lived, but a lovely tan color.  Taste-wise, the spice again overwhelms the pumpkin at first.  The pumpkin comes out to play only upon warming, and is never more than faint, and almost overwhelmed by the slight minty hop.  On the plus-side, the 7% ABV is never obvious.  I’d recommend this only if you like spice – and a lot of it – in your pumpkin ale.  I love Dogfish Head for their intrepid spirit of experimentation.  But sometimes – as with this beer – they swing and miss.
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