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: Jack Horzempas’s Classic American Pilsner 2016

Profiled by Maria Devan

Beer-Profile3Jacks beer has what you might say is a soapy but authentic head for a pilsner and for a CAP and for an AAL. Slight haze, golden color. Pours uniform bubbles , a thick head that retains fantastically well. Then as it falls it becomes creamy . It clings and streaks the glass. Beautiful! The hops are fresh and vibrant on the nose. He is using Cluster and Hallertau Mittlefruh. Cluster is for bittering, the Hallertau for aroma and flavor. One of those hops is fruity and why do I think it’s the bittering hop?

The nose on this beer is floral and spicy with hops. No diacetyl, no fruity esters form yeast. The corn smells like earth, husky and a little bit golden. But corn smells like corn and so it’s not dms but there is a hint of it on the palate. Dms opens the finish of the pils with a few bubbles. This one has bright carbonation so I would say just a small bite.The six row malt gives breadiness to the nose but these hops are so forward! Hallertau are spicy and bold. They twinkle like their cousin Galena.

The taste is bold. The malt has a sharp definition because of the bittering hop. That’s even the fruity one. There is just a hint of that fruit on the nose and on the palate. It is a temptation that is not ever fully realized but does seem to captivate your attention. No diacetyl. Clean, crisp, dry finish with a strong and lingering bitterness. The six row malt gives firmness to the palate and the malt finishes creamy. That is why it is world class. Hops resonate in just the right place on the palate to tell you this beer is exciting. They twinkle with spice and dry herbal and linger in the finish as the malt is soft and round.

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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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mdMaria Devan lives in Ithaca, NY and is a great beer writer. That’s Maria in the middle. The other two are not, but they are lucky to have her as a friend.

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Asheville Brewery Has A Profanity-Filled Message For The North Carolina Bathroom Law

iron rail ipaThe Wedge Brewing Company out of Asheville has a little message for North Carolina lawmakers in regard to its controversial anti-LGBT bathroom law that forbids public schools from allowing transgender students to use the correct bathroom, for which it is currently being sued by the U.S. Justice Department for violating the Civil Rights Act. And that message is currently printed on the bottom of its Iron Rail IPA cans.

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HERE

 

 

 

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Enzymes in Beer: What’s Happening In the Mash

Enzymes in Beer

As homebrewers, we’re usually never satisfied until we know how things work. We constantly ask why and how something is done until we understand the basic concept. When you start brewing all-grain, you hit a certain temperature to hit a specific characteristic because you were told to do so. You start picking up on words like alpha-amylase, beta-amylase, mash out and protein rest, and now you’re more curious than ever about what’s going on in the mash.

Here we’ll discuss the enzymes in beer, which convert the starch in malt into soluble sugars. By understanding and making enzymes work for you, an all-grain brewer can control a multitude of components in their beer. Here is a list of the attributes of a beer that can be controlled during the mashing process:

  • Aroma
  • Flavor
  • Body
  • Overall mouthfeel
  • Attenuation
  • Color
  • Alcohol content

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HERE

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Coronado Brewing “Berry The Hatchet”: A Cool Breeze Out Of SD

TPF

Let me say this to start this thing, which is equal parts glowing review and very sour rant: Coronado Brewing “Berry The Hatchet” is a DAZZLING bottle o’ beer. It’s light and fresh and low in alcohol and perfectly balanced and is going to be one of the best summer beers made by anybody in 2016. I tasted this and immediately thought of all those great Euro fruitbiers that I’ve drunk and loved since I was in college; summer beers that, for me, almost define what hot weather in Washington, DC, where I went to school, was all about. But…

…because I am a fella of a certain age, I get guys sidling up to me in brewery tasting rooms and at bars and saying things to the effect of, “Can you believe all these foofy beers? ‘Infused” this and ‘Barrel-aged’ that. Can they not just make a damned Pale ale and be satisfied with it?”.

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HERE

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Full Sail: Rejuvention!

One of the lesser known facts about yours truly is that, for several years, I worked as an ad agency creative director back in North and South Carolina (I have an online portfolio, if anyone’s curious…and, if you are, seek professional help) doing primarily copy but also a LOT of design. I don’t do it much anymore and I don’t broadcast the fact but I still do the occasional piece of design, mostly for Washington wineries. But that experience has forever made me a HUGE fan of great design work and I’ve been known to be nosy enough to drop am email to a winery or brewery that’s suffering from an especially bad label and say, “Uh, dude, your graphics need some help.”

Graphics say a lot about a business – any business. And one that’s primarily centered on aesthetics, like beverage makers, has a real NEED for some design that speaks about the products and the people. Last week, I got a beautiful box from my pals at Full Sail Brewing. It was simultaneously a glimpse at their all new, gorgeous packages and a retake on the line of their core beers.

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Want to reaqd more? Please click.,,

HERE

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Cooperstown’s Brewery Ommegang scores big win at 2016 World Beer Cup

Brewery Ommegang, the Belgian-style beer company in Cooperstown, had a huge night Friday as the 2016 World Beer Cup awards were announced in Philadelphia.

Ommegang took home the title of World Champion in the category of “mid-sized brewery,” along with three medals for individual beers. World Champions were also honored in the categories of very small, small and large breweries, and large and small brewpubs.

The World Beer Cup contest was presented in conjunction with the annual Craft Brewers Conference and BrewersExpo America, held this week in Philadelphia. The competition attracted 6,596 different beer entries from 1,907 breweries representing 55 countries. That was a 38.5 percent increase in the number of entries from the 2014 World Beer Cup.

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HERE

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Crux Fermentation Project “Freakcake”: Freakin’ Perfection

TPF

Almost two years ago to the day, I posted this rabble-rousing little beer bomb, here in the brand new ThePourFool website and instantly got a mini-flood of emails from disgruntled Euro-Snots who wrote things like – quoting now –

“Have you even actually tasted a Flanders ale? If you had, there’s no goddamned way you’d ever write something like this…”

“So, let’s get this straight: American ‘craft brewing’ is not real brewing. It’s more like a hobby that’s been taken up by way too many people who don’t actually understand beer. This ‘Crux’ bunch (stupid name) should stick to making the kind of moron-level beers that all their other slacker pals are cranking out, all the British crap that only mouth-breathers drink.”

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HERE

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A Brighter Shade of Pale: The Weary APA Roars Back

TPF

It wasn’t too long ago that the Pale Ale, in either authentic English or nouveau American Pale Ale (“APA”) version, was little more than an afterthought. I went a period of almost five years before I could amass more than five or six Pales that got me excited enough to write about them. It’s becoming, Thank God, hard to remember how thoroughly the disease of IPA Obsession was upon us but the headlong scramble to make the Next Big Deal in India Pale Ales trumped everything in brewing, including common sense and good judgment.

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HERE