Author: Professor Good Ales

Posted by Leslie Brenner at eatsblog.dallasnews.com

A friend and I spotted this crazy bar-on-wheels on the street in downtown Austin recently. It’s powered by ten people pedaling, and while they pedal, they’re drinking beer. There are a few non-pedaling seats, including one for a bartender, who serves beer from their BYOB keg from a central tap.

Pubcrawler of Austin has only been plying the streets (on six approved routes) since early July. The way it works is you get a group of at least ten together and rent it — it’s $160 per hour during the week, and $190 per hour Friday and Saturday. Bring a keg — or boxed wine or canned beer (no bottles, no hard liquor). And everyone has to be 21. Or sign up for a seat on Hump Day — Wednesday — when it’s $35 for a seat, as long as ten people sign up. In that case, you bring your own ice chest.

Written by Martyn Cornell for Zythophile.wordpress.com

Here’s a top contender for “vanished beers I wish I’d tasted” – Meat Stout. A mixture of serendipity and synchronicity led me to discover Mercer’s Meat Stout this week, a brew I’d never previously heard of. Serendipity (the art of finding something valuable while looking for some other thing entirely) because I was actually searching for pictures of Ena Sharples in the Rovers Return to illustrate a comment I was making at Alan McLeod’s blog about Imperial Milk Stout. Synchronicity (the occurrence in a short space of time of two random but apparently connected events) because I had been reading just a day or so earlier about the attempt by Stuart Howe of Sharp’s Brewery in Cornwall to brew Offal Ale, containing liver, kidney and heart. (Incidentally, Stuart’s “Real Brewing at the Sharp End” is one of the best brewer’s blogs around: sharp, indeed.)

Continue reading “Mercer’s Meat Stout”

Student Prince, Heidelberg Brewing Co., Covington, Kentucky.

Image courtesy beerhistory.com

Note: The Professor believes this picture may actually have been taken in Cincinnati: over the bride from Covington, a few miles towards Dayton off of I-75, probably before I-75 was built. Now known as the Cincinnati Museum Center.

Written by Jenny Evertt for Self Magazine

Feeling the urge to stop by the local watering hole for happy hour tonight? While some opt for wine because it’s the healthier, less-likely-to-make-you-feel-bloated-tomorrow option, the summer heat may have you craving a tall cool beer.

While drinking until you’re smashed is linked to all sorts of badness (including breast cancer), beer in moderation (two drinks or less) actually has some real health benefits. So steer clear of the beer bong and have a couple of pints with a clear conscience—here are five legit ways to justify tonight’s Coronas.

It May Prevent Osteoporosis

Continue reading “5 Healthy Reasons To Have a Beer Today”

Written by Nannette Miranda for KGO TV

NAPA, CA (KGO) — A bill in Congress right now could threaten direct interstate wine sales and make it especially tough for smaller wineries. But wine and beer wholesalers insist that is not what the bill would do.

While California wineries enjoy the summer crowds, many owners are worried the Comprehensive Alcohol Regulatory Effectiveness Act, a bill in Congress which ensures that states retain control of alcohol laws.

California’s smaller wineries and microbreweries think the proposal opens the door to prohibiting shipments of wine or beer to out-of-state consumers and forces them to use wholesalers if they want their products sold beyond state borders. A wholesaler, though, might not want to represent a business that does not make him a lot of money.

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Submitted by Janet Stevens of The Space Foundation

The Colorado Springs-based Space Foundation has recognized the updated and revised 4th Edition Beer Drinker’s Guide to Colorado as a certified Space Imagination Product. The map integrates enhanced GPS-enabled measurements into the locations and chart data of fourteener* elevations and incorporates new Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) digital elevation model data into the relief map.

The Space Foundation’s Space Certification program promotes the practical, life-enhancing benefits of space technology here on Earth.

Released last month, the 4th Edition Beer Drinker’s Guide to Colorado is a large (27″ x 39″) beautifully printed full-color topo-physical map that “pint-points” the locations of 126 Colorado brewing operations, from bucket brewers to megabrewers spread all across the state. It includes information about beer, including beer styles and tastes, glassware, beer making, lists of historic and notable saloons, bars for beer geeks, homebrewing shops, and detailed facts on every Colorado brewing operation. Colorado travel information includes details on state and national parks, driving distances, local taxi and bus contacts, ski areas, fourteeners, and much more.
Continue reading “Space Helps Coloradans Find Free Beer”

Written by Zachary Fowle

More than 500 years ago, German Beer Purity Law decreed that the world’s favorite fermented beverage was to be made with only four ingredients: water, malt, hops and yeast. In recent years, however, the definition of a permissible beer ingredient has expanded somewhat, and brewers worldwide have branched out, throwing stuff in their beers ranging from the mildly unusual to the downright bizarre. From chilies to spices to sea life, these are the top ten beers that make you say, “Huh?”

Mikkeller Beer Geek Brunch Weasel
10.9% ABV
This imperial stout is brewed with Vietnamese caphe cut chon coffee beans, made from the droppings of weasel-like civet cats, which purportedly eat only the best and ripest coffee berries. After enzymes in the cats’ digestive systems break down the beans, workers scour the ground to collect the droppings for use in your morning Joe. Despite these inauspicious origins, the resulting beer is a creamy, pungent coffee stout that’s good to the last dropping.
Continue reading “Abnormal Ales: 10 Beers with Weird Ingredients”

Written by Jay Brooks for The Brookston Beer Bulletin

I almost forgot about this. The week before last I got a call from the local CBS television station, CBS 5, asking me to comment on a story they were working on regarding a recent Consumer Reports beer tasting that was published in their August issue. In Bargain beer from Costco, they had consumers taste blind the Kirkland brand beers, Costco’s private label beer, with prominent commercial brands of a similar style — Samuel Adams Boston Lager, Samuel Adams Boston Ale, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, and Paulaner Hefe-Weizen.

The conclusion was that their “untrained panelists liked the Costco beers about as much as the same-style name-brand beers. (For each type, some people liked the Kirkland Signature better, some liked the brand name better, and some liked both equally.) Our consultants said that although the brand-name beers were more flavorful, clean-tasting, and complex, the Costco beers were quite quaffable and, to use the consultants’ technical term, ‘party-worthy.’”

The CBS producer asked me if I was “surprised” by those results.
Continue reading “CBS Highlights Consumer Reports Beer Tasting”

A marriage best made in… the garden?

…so PLEASE something like use Bud or Miller, OK???- Prof. GA

Written by Carol Oneal for the Mail Tribune

Last week, I attended mini-college at Oregon State University in Corvallis, a statewide conference of Master Gardeners. It’s a great place to take garden-related classes and hear inspiring speakers.

One of the featured speakers was Jeff Gillman, author of several books and an associate professor in horticulture at the University of Minnesota. In this column, I’m referring to his book “The Truth About Garden Remedies.”

Gillman and his team subjected several traditional, organic, home garden remedies to scientific study to see whether they work. Some of the results surprised me.

For example, is using beer really a good way to deal with slugs? “Yes”, says Gillman. In fact, it was such an effective non-chemical remedy it is considered the “gold standard” of getting rid of those slimy pests. Dig a hole and insert a container, such as a small tin can. The top of the container should be even with the soil surface. Fill the container with beer so that it’s about an inch from the top. Be sure the container is deep enough to hold a few inches of beer.
Continue reading “Beer for Slimy Slugs, Vinegar for Weeds”

If you dare to wear, can be bought at drunkandwasted.com

A site NOT for those paranoid about being tracked on the web!