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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Separating bad beer from faulty beer

Jeff S. Baker II, Free Press contributor 12:03 a.m. EST January 8, 2016

With the craft beer boom in full swing, we often hear about how much incredible beer is out there. The quality bar has been set pretty high as microbrewers continue to innovate and refine brewing practices. But what we don’t hear very much about is how common bad beer is out in the market.

Let’s be clear: Bad beer is not the same thing as “beer I don’t like.”  Not liking a beer is a matter of personal taste. When you judge a beer to be “bad,” you’re saying that it wasn’t brewed properly and it is exhibiting some fault. Faults can occur at any stage of the brewing process. They can be the result of poor quality ingredients, insufficiently sanitized brewing equipment, exposure to light, or any number of other factors.

The easiest fault for most people to pick up on is referred to as “skunking.” A skunked beer will have a pungent, skunk-like, or rubbery aroma. Skunking is the result of a chemical chain-reaction that occurs when light interacts with isohumulones, which are bittering compounds from hops. This chemical reaction can start in a matter of seconds and is most pronounced in hoppier beers. Once the reaction is in motion, there’s no stopping it. If you’re going to drink beer outside and don’t particularly enjoy the aroma of skunk, ditch the clear pint glass and stick to brown glass bottles or cans which can block light.

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Miami’s Lincoln’s Beard Brewing Company Offers to Buy AB-InBev for $26,000

Will the Anheuser-Busch InBev executives take a $26,000 buyout from a couple of Miami brewers?
What do Four Peaks, Camden Town, and Breckenridge brewing companies all have in common? Announcements of their buyouts from Anheuser-Busch InBev all came within a span of less than a week. They’re just the latest breweries to be added to AB-InBev’s ever-increasing craft beer portfolio.

With AB-InBev on a microbrewery shopping spree, some American craft beer evangelists believe the buyouts have gotten a little out of hand. One such person is John Falco, the owner of Miami’s soon-to-be-open Lincoln’s Beard Brewing Company, who finally had something to say about it and wrote an open letter to AB-InBev with an offer to buy the corporation — for $26,000.

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Beer Profile: Blackberry Farm’s Black Saison

Profiled by Ken Carman

pgaprofilewinter-saisonNose: Saison spiciness and hint of phenolics. Some orange, moderate pepper, Taste: roasted wheat. Some slight debittered dark malt sense.

This really is a “dark Saison,” and a damn good one.

Head was deep tan, even somewhat brown: reminded me of a malt shake. Foam, and lots of it with big bubbles too. Long lasting. Light side of medium body with light, but obvious carbonation. Slightest spicy bitter.

Silky on the palate, with a firm sense of bitter towards the back of the mouth. Very fresh tasting.

Pepper is really in taste rather than nose, as per 2015 guidelines. A very worthy quaff.

4.2

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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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kYes, to the left is a drawing of Ken Carman, done by bored demons. They did a HELL of a job, eh?

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Beer Profile: Smistletoe from Smuttynose

smistletoe

Profiled by Maria Devan

Beer-Profile3Hi everyone today I have Smistletoe from Smuttynose. I am not a big fan of the Christmas beer or what you would call the winter warmer so I was very happy to see that this beer is in a style I don’t see very often. Biere de Garde.

Happy Meet You Under the Smistletoe Sunday

Pours a peachy color pinkish. The color can range form golden blonde to reddish brown so I guess that’s ok. When I see a pink or off color beer I usually don’t find myself attracted to it. slight haze. Head dissipated quickly. The light does not show you the color that I wanted you to see but it’s a little pinkish looking and not as hazy as I had first thought.

Nose has a dry musty scent malty and herbal. Clean nose with no diacetyl. There is what I would call a brisk neutral scent at first and then the fruitiness starts to exhale gently with some spice as the beer warms.

Taste is very spicy. Soft sweet bread for malt. Fully fruity with a tartness in the middle. Crisp herbal and plenty of clean hop bitterness take over toward the finish with sweet herbs. Lingers like honey on a cracker or nectar from flowers. Syrupy sweet finish with lots of pepper that leaves a bit flat with all that spice sinking into the cloying sweetness. As I drank I found the sweetness tolerable but it is extremely sweet and definitely a slow sipper.

The bjcp says that this style of beer should have a cellar like or musty character form lagering which it does. It should lack the spicing and the tartness of the saison. I do not feel that it did. It should be rounder and fuller than the Saison but this is where it went sweeter rather than rounder.

Have a great day everyone and CHEERS!

3.5

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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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mdMaria Devan lives in Ithaca, NY. That’s Ithaca: home to Ithaca Brewing and Bandwagon. She writes about beer frequently, so that means she samples a lot of beer. The professor is jealous.

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’Tis the Season for a Mug of Mulled Beer

’Tis the season, once again. Chances are you’ve had a chance to warm yourself with a cup of mulled wine, especially if you’ve been to Europe around this time of year. But mulled beer?

Last year I related the story about my first sip of Glühwein (mulled wine) in the western German city of Saarbrücken. Aromas of baking spice, roasted nuts, and pine boughs drifted fragrantly in the bracing winter air, leading me to the Christkindl market in the main square and setting me down the path of annual Glühwein parties and get-togethers.IMG_5371 A few decades on, I did what might well come naturally to a catholic imbiber like myself: I heated up a bunch o’ beer and spiced it. Turns out the whole endeavour isn’t without historical precedent.

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Mulled beer, Glühbier, call it what you want: It’s definitely not a tradition of contemporary vintage in any of the beer-consuming countries I’ve visited. The rather incredulous glances I encountered from my Austrian colleagues last week merely confirmed the fact when I brewed up 25 liters of the stuff for the Wien Museum’s annual holiday season party. But warm beer has a history –– and not just as a pejorative reference to twentieth-century British beer.

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From Beetroot To Pineapple, Homemade Wines Sweeten Christmas In India

Across India, several Christian communities prepare sweet homemade wines for the festive season from a rich array of local fruit, roots and grain. Above, a glass of golden pineapple wine.In October, Hilda Mascarenhas, who writes a popular food blog in Pune, India, began her Christmas preparations with an unusual request to her fruit seller.

After buying a pineapple, she asked the vendor to separately pack the peel and eyes that he had skillfully removed with his long knife.

Hilda’s husband, Merwyn, though accustomed to his wife’s culinary experiments, was as mystified as the fruit seller. What did the thick, thorny peel and tongue-lacerating eyes, normally discarded as waste, have to do with Christmas?

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Queen City Q to boycott Anheuser-Busch InBev

BBQ joint Queen City Q says it will no longer sell any beers associated with Anheuser-Busch InBev. That boycott includes its four Charlotte locations — as well as any future restaurants it owns or operates.

“We’re all for a company to win market share due to their product and service, but we are not in favor of nor do we want to associate ourselves with a company that bullies its competition in the way that AB has chosen to,” says Bryan Meredith, Queen City Q’s managing partner.

Queen City Q's second location will be in the Plantation Market Shopping Center in Matthews.

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Anheuser-Busch InBev Acquiring Breckenridge Brewery

AB InBev Purchases Breckenridge

It’s been a busy 2015 for Belgian owned, Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev), the world’s largest brewery conglomerate, and it seems as if they’re not done quite yet. While most believed AB InBev’s flurry of recent acquisitions would conclude with their monster deal to buy SAB Miller, as well as, last Friday’s addition of Four Peaks Brewery in Tempe, AZ, and yesterday’s purchase of London’s Camden Town Brewery, it seems as if another blockbuster deal is near completion.

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