Author: Professor Good Ales

This might surprise you, but the monks who toil away making your favorite Belgian dark strongs and tripels aren’t typically quaffing their high-gravity creations. With strict schedules of religious observance, brewing and other daily tasks, the monks need to keep an even keel.

Instead, they brew a special light ale called patersbier (“Father’s Beer” in Dutch) to drink for sustenance, while leaving them fully capable to take on the day’s endeavors. If monk’s mowed their monastery yard (do they?), this would be the Belgian equivalent of a lawnmower beer.

Patersbier is also known as enkel, meaning “single” in Dutch. The style likely came about when monks did an additional sparge of a mash to extract leftover sugars. Once collected, it is brewed as its own beer and turned into a highly sessionable beer. This long-practiced brewing technique is known as parti-gyle.

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If there is one thing that we all go a bit crazy for, it’s oak matured booze. Even if you’re not a big spirit lover, odds are good you’ve indulged frequently on other such oaked products like balsamic vinegar and Worcestershire or Tabasco sauces. For those who have discovered the world of a well-aged whisky, tequila, brandy, rum or fortified wine, it’s an appreciation easily bought by a bottle carrying buzz terms like extra añejo, solera, single barrel, cask strength, sherry finish or paradise. But what do we really understand about the influence of the oak barrel?

Anyone who has ever attended a whisky masterclass might have had further terms like vanillin, tannin, lignin, lactone, alligator char, conditioning – and something about ‘greedy angels’ – all thrown at them by an overtly gregarious brand ambassador. It’s a language few understand and while the science may be more than a little confusing, the results are anything but. As age statements are being removed more and more from bottles of Scotch [see: The Oak Conundrum], understanding oak selection and cask finish is becoming more and more important.

Despite archeological evidence placing the art of the ‘cooper’ as far back as 100BC, the wooden cask has evolved little over the last two millennia. The ‘why’ lies not in the latency of technology but rather its modern rebirth as the best tea bag in the world.

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PGA Note- according to brewer Wayne Wambles they are “not selling.”

Dear Joey,

In helping run LetsPour.com for three years, I had a lot of opportunity to experience CCBC’s beers and to talk with you and your staff about how to get Cigar City out to all the millions of people who wanted some. I found my dealings with everyone there to be refreshingly direct and BS-free and, of course, the beers were just to die for. For my birthday in 2010, my boss flew to Tampa and brought me back a case of assorted CCBC stuff, which remains one of the top three gifts I’ve ever received. All of that is why I’m writing you today.

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MURFREESBORO – An 18-year-old will be able to taste but not swallow beer in a college beer manufacturing class if a bill sponsored by Sen. Bill Ketron becomes law.

“You cannot consume it,” Ketron said during a phone interview.

The Republican senator from Murfreesboro is also known for his legislation that will enable grocery stores to sell wine if municipal referendums pass, such as voters in Murfreesboro and Smyrna approving them in November.

In addition to Ketron’s support, state Rep. Steve McManus, a Republican from Cordova in the Memphis area, is also sponsoring the legislation pertaining to beer tasting.

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Nearly everyone has heard of the legendary upstate New York hops industry. While many people cite “the blight” as the cause for its demise, they are unaware of other more important factors which also contributed. Lately, there has been a great deal of discussion regarding the possibility of growing hops again in this area, with many people asking if it can be done, and if so, how? The answer to that important question is yes, but to be successful, an entirely new approach must be taken. Fortunately, there are people willing to pursue that different angle, and in doing so, they are helping to both preserve hops history and plant economic seeds for the future.

To plan for the future, we must first try to understand the past. The rise and fall of the hops industry reads like an Old Testament narrative. Hops first came to America from Europe around 1630. Small crops were produced for many years, probably to supply small breweries and taverns, and began to emerge as a major crop in New York around 1830. By mid-century, due to excellent yields and good market prices, hop production assumed feverish proportions. By 1849 New York had attained the national leadership in the production of hops, and by 1855 the region was raising well over three million pounds annually.

Hop growing predominated in the area contiguous to what is now Route 20, running from Sharon Springs to Cazenovia, with a north-south axis of this belt extending approximately 20 miles in either direction. The major producing counties were Otsego, Oneida, Madison, Schoharie, and Montgomery. In those days, good, properly brewed beer was a favorite beverage and fields all over the United States bloomed with hop-bearing vines. Even though hops from England and Germany were in great demand, the Otsego County hop was considered the best in America, and the equal of any in the world.

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Larry Bell, Bell’s Brewery founder

Larry Bell founded Kalamazoo-based Bell’s Brewery Inc. the same year Stroh’s was razed and today is one of the largest local beer producers — expected to produce 410,000 barrels of craft beer in 2015.

Michigan craft beer accounted for only 6 percent of beer sold in the state in 2013, but it is growing at a clip that’s forced the industry to mature, has attracted financiers and is ripe for expansion and consolidation.

Beer giants Anheuser-Busch InBev NV and MillerCoors LLC continue to dominate beer sales in the U.S., with a 75 percent market share, but craft brewers cut into that margin every year.

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TAMPA — If you can’t beat ’em, buy’ em.

Despite its snarky Budweiser ad during the Super Bowl poking fun at craft beer, Anheuser-Busch has been steadily buying craft breweries around the country.

Could Tampa’s own Cigar City Brewing be next?

Founder and owner Joey Redner on Friday confirmed that the beer company’s representatives have reached out to him about buying his Tampa-based business.

Anheuser-Busch has a long history in the Tampa Bay area, having once operated a brewery and the Busch Gardens theme park here. The brewery closed in 1995, and the beer maker sold the park to investors in 2009.

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