Category: Beer

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Bamberg’s Beer Underground

Written by Franz Hofer for A Tempest in a Tankard

~Cult Classics Beyond Bamberg’s Famous Breweries~

Coming into Focus
One of the things I love about cities is how they absorb you over time. At first it’s just a passing acquaintance with the place. The main sights, the famous museums, maybe a popular café or ice cream shop. Eventually you start burrowing deeper into the layers of the city, discovering the vitality of the neighbourhoods, the offbeat cafes and taverns, the nooks and crannies that make it all tick. Like a great Gothic cathedral, the details emerge slowly, and only after several visits.

I have a similar relationship with beer towns, some of which, like Munich or Prague or Brussels, are great cities in their own right. These relationships don’t blossom overnight.

Take Bamberg, for example. I first visited in 1992 when a longtime friend and I spent the summer driving my grandma’s 1977 Reneault 5 all over Central Europe. We saw the Altes Rathaus straddling the Regnitz. We saw other things. And we went in search of Rauchbier because some guy in a Prague pub told us that it was weird.

Want to read more? Please click…. HERE!!!

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Brew Biz: Werts and All: What to Consider if You Own a Brewery or Plan to Open One

    Ken Carman is a BJCP judge; homebrewer since 1979, club member at Salt City Homebrewers in Syracuse, NY. Former member of Escambia Bay Brewers, Clarksville Carboys and Music City Homebrewers. Ken has been writing on beer-related topics, and interviewing professional brewers all over the east coast, for well over 30 years.

By Ken Carman
    There’s an obvious trend that brewers, and those thinking of opening a brewery, should consider. Some may ignore it if they have a brewery in a very small, very rural town, like where I live. When starting a brewery get the basics first, of course. But all who ignore this trend ignore it at their own peril, business-wise.
    The craft scene has expanded, contracted, then expanded many times. But I think we have reached what, I hope, is a permanent plateau, and paying attention to how the industry exists as it is now is crucial.
    Back when it started brewing a good porter or stout, a tasty light ale that’s more flavorful than the biggies, an IPA, well, you were all set. You were a credit to the growing craft beer community. Hell, even if they weren’t that good in some places you were set… for a while.
    Oh my, how times have changed. You don’t stand out as much in craft beer world. Even most of the big brewers are brewing porters, stouts, IPAs.
    Sorry if that’s bad news, but for most that no longer works as well as it used to. You walk into some of the more thriving breweries and they have several sours, maybe a barleywine, several kinds of IPAS: a trend I expect to shrink at least a little eventually, various fruit beers, maybe even a braggot, a gruit and/or a graff: a fermented cider/beer mix.
    Just so you know, I have General McGraff’s Appley Braggot I just bottled in my kitchen as I type. A cider, mead, beer mix. Yes, I do tend to go crazy. And I admit I write this as a fan of unique brews.
    Back to the topic… Continue reading “Brew Biz: Werts and All: What to Consider if You Own a Brewery or Plan to Open One”

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The Origins of the Contemporary Wirtshaus

Written by Franz Hofer for Tempest in a Tankard

The Wirtshaus is a Central European institution deeply rooted in medieval times. During the early and high Middle Ages, inns with taverns sprung up along trade and pilgrimage routes, offering food and accommodation to weary travelers, along with stables to quarter their horses. The vast majority of these establishments were run by the nobility or the clergy, catering either to the aristocracy and officials of the nascent bureaucracy, or to merchants and pilgrims.[1]

By the sixteenth century a dense network of Wirtshäuser linked cities, towns, and villages with rural and Alpine regions, all recognizable by the signs that hung above the door. Wreaths, tree boughs, or shrubs marked the spot. These rudimentary symbols eventually gave way to more ornate signs that recalled the coats-of-arms of various noble houses, or, if the Wirtshaus was near a church, to religious imagery such as the crowns of the three kings. To this day, many breweries and Wirtshäuser bear names tied to these symbols—Löwenbräu, Drei Kronen, Bärenwirt, to name but a few.

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One tastes like drinking isopropyl alcohol straight from a bottle mixed with black muck. The other a fight in your mouth between fruit and hops where the excessively bitter hops are beating the fruit to death.

If your local pub has Stone Enjoy by 7.4.24 more than likely you won’t enjoy. The pineapple and the tangerine are like second graders being beat up by 6th grade bullies on a playground. It molests your mouth. You really have to concentrate hard to get the fruit because the pineapple and tangerine are almost down and out. Don’t bother counting.

If your local pub had Firestone’s Parabola just go to your medicine cabinet and drink any brand name Isopropyl. The only difference will be the lack of malt. The better side to isopropyl will be death arrives sooner with less torment.

Look brewers, beer should have BALANCE. There are better high abv hazy beers out there where the added fruit can be savored, maybe even some of your own beers. There are better, even higher alcohol, Imperial Stouts out there. Maybe that one needs more aging? While not a stout, Sam Adams Utopia is 28% and, with moderation, wouldn’t make alcoholic Brian from Family Guy want to vomit. Quite tasty.

Each one deserves 4 out of 5 puking Brians.

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Ye Olde Scribe’s: Another WORST BEER IN THE WORLD

Looks wonderful, doesn’t it? Looks can be so deceiving.

Scribe bought 2 four packs. One was fabulous, the other qualifies for yet another “worst beer in the world.”

The can says, “Northway Brewing Co.,” but actually brewed by Glens Falls Brewing Company. Scribe can’t say anything about their other brews, just this on called Oat-Bituary.” It’s like the brewer chose too much roasted barley and combined it with too much black patent. What hops there are bitter and annoying. The best aspect is chewy oat sense way in the background.

Scribe has had worse beer, but for this edition “worst” applies. If Scribe had the time and the ability he’d line them all up and see which is THE worst, however they tend to disappear fast. Gee, wonder why?????????

The mouthfeel is annoying due to the other. However, Scribe can recommend Slushy XXL by North Brewing Company, Columbus, Indiana, if you like over the top fruit and chocolate/fudge beer. The fruit practically dances in the mouth.

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A Beer Judge’s Diary: Cider and UNYHA

Written by Ken Carman

Written by Ken Carman
    It was a busy weekend starting with a rather shoddy Motel 6 where the shoddy wasn’t much of a problem. First morning: on to Studebakers at Dunkirk. We own a 63 Stude truck and I had a book I wanted to hawk, Studebaker Hawk pun somewhat intended.
    Back to the Motel 6 and next morning off to offices at Genesee Brewery to judge for UNYHA: Upstate New York Homebrewer’s Association. Beautiful offices! Even down to the bathrooms.
    Neither of us had ever been to the Genny brewery, so we even stopped the night before. Good porter, the orange and cranberry “sour” was orange and orange peel dominant, light cran. Where’s the malt? If we had wanted something seltzer like we could have ordered that.
    The morning was amber lagers, the afternoon cider. The lager judging was clockwork, as was amber lager mini-BOS.
    I still feel we need more BJCP cider judges, being a freshly minted cider judge last year, having taken the test 12/21. Continue reading “A Beer Judge’s Diary: Cider and UNYHA”

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A Beer Judge’s Diary: Oh, Where, Oh, Where Have All The Beer Events Gone?


    How most of our tasters made it to this quaint railroad town with no roads going to it!

By Ken Carman
By Ken Carman
    Festivals, competitions, tastings… seems beer events are waning.
    Oh, I get the superficial reason. COVID kind of put a kibosh on a lot of this. Clubs that ran competitions have backed off. HEY, IT’S A LOT OF WORK! And getting volunteers is often an issue. I ran a few myself and I would still be running the one I alone invented if not for…
    A. COVID, B. My fellow organizer hadn’t tossed me under the brew bus too late in the game. It didn’t help we kept getting the same winner, like we did at another competition in Nashville: Let’s Get WEIRD!
    But the festivals seem to have waned too. I understand: again COVID and some folks don’t know what the &%$! they’re doing. There were 2 competitions that died. Millie and I were to blame, partially, for killing one. When COVID slammed into the nation like a plane hitting our health instead of the towers we had to back out. People started abandoning the sinking brew ship, making rats seem braver than the band on the Titanic. But with all who died I can’t blame them. It didn’t help the organizer had no idea he had to tell us what style the beer was and other parameters. You can’t just say “IPA.” Brut, NEIPA, Black… we learned to judge the style without such help.
    Another one was right next to big lake with the wind blowing off it. He tried to get 3 of us to judge 40 beers in 2 hours (My comment was, “Unless you want 3 very drunk judges we need a 4th.) …and the festival goers were all around us. To be fair they left us alone, mostly. But not what I would call a great environment to judge beer. It also doesn’t help someone called the cops who hovered around the entrance to the park. I was WAY under everyone else because, well judging beer is not a “get drunk” experience But I had, at the time, maybe you guessed it, out of state plates. luckily (?) some jerk passed me on the wrong side speeding and he was off to at least another ticket. Continue reading “A Beer Judge’s Diary: Oh, Where, Oh, Where Have All The Beer Events Gone?”

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Brew Biz: Werts and All, Anchors Away to Bikini Bottom’s Graveyard

    You can almost see SpongeBob holding his nose as the now leaky ship Anchor sinks into Bikini Bottom’s graveyard.

    Ken Carman is a BJCP judge; homebrewer since 1979, club member at Salt City Homebrewers in Syracuse, NY. Former member of Escambia Bay Brewers, Clarksville Carboys and Music City Homebrewers. Ken has been writing on beer-related topics, and interviewing professional brewers all over the east coast, for well over 20 years. Opinions here are not necessarily representative of opinions or education presented by the BJCP or their representatives.

By Ken Carman
    Following the downward path powered by bad business decisions that crushed OceanGate’s Titanic tourism sub, Sapporo‘s bad decisions sank beloved Anchor. Sponge Bob probably held his nose and waved as Anchor sank into Bikini Bottom’s Craft beer graveyard.
    I have had a passion for their Foghorn barleywine for a long time, which has nothing to do with “Leghorn” if I am going to continue with these cartoon metaphors. Foghorn, to me (original recipe), was a TRUE Barleywine. Not the more recent poor attempts by other breweries to turn the barleywine style into just another version of a super hopped, ultra bitter, IPA.
    Sometime after Fritz sold the business, I bought a pack of Foghorn. Horrors! I LOATHE that green rubber hose/Band-Aid phenol and this pack had nothing else but that defect in every bottle. It’s almost like watching a Road Runner cartoon and from the start the coyote dies, end of story. Nothing funny about ruining a product because management doesn’t want to do what they should do keep the business afloat. Why it’s almost as if the Japanese concern could have cared less about Anchor and their customers. Continue reading “Brew Biz: Werts and All, Anchors Away to Bikini Bottom’s Graveyard”

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A Beer Judge’s Diary

Our Topic- When Craft Beer is Bad

By Ken Carman
By Ken Carman

    What exactly do you do? Tell the server every beer is crap? Be more sensitive about it? Do what we did, be polite, pay and leave?
    I am not going to tell you the name, or where we were city/village-wise. Please don’t tempt me by guessing: I have no desire to destroy anyone’s business. It’s just a damn shame such places give craft a bad name.
    I had been here once before, but it was closed and the hours didn’t work for me. This time we came into town to buy something else, so…
    We bought the sample tray, filled with an oatmeal stout, a brown, a red, and a fruit Kolsch. We sampled dark to light. We agreed about all 4. The best was the stout, but seemed rather thin, needing more oatmeal. We went down the line and down hill from there: literally and figuratively. Continue reading “A Beer Judge’s Diary”

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Of Beer Judges and Bench Judges

Originally published as an Inspection column. These opinions are not officially approved by the BJCP This editorial is the opinion of Mr. Carman, and not the opinion of all the staff or writers here at Professor Good Ales.

Written by Ken Carman

    What does the assignment of Aileen Cannon to the Trump case, after this Trump appointee’s previous Trump case remind me of?
    The kind of potential beer judges who, if honest, shouldn’t be judging an entry in a beer competition because they know the brewer. Also the kind of test taker who might not pass a beer judging test, if they were honest. Example paraphrased question, “Can you judge an entry if you know the brewer?” The answer is obvious, “NO.”
    Beer judging tests are actually quite hard. But the bar should obviously be higher for bench judges than beer judges.
    I have heard some lawyer wannabes compare the written BJCP beer judge test to being harder to pass than the Bar. Once you become a beer judge you are expected to judge according to, and within, the BJCP Guidelines. If you’re judging IPAs but somehow a stout got into the flight you’re not supposed to make it a winner because you prefer stouts. In fact before even judging that entry you need to ask if it was placed in the wrong category, essentially the wrong group of judges.
    Equally, as bench judge, guidelines for getting assigned to any court case should be at least equally tough. If there are no uncompromised judges (like no conflicts) in a circuit then a uncompromised judge should be brought forth from elsewhere. Just letting THEM decide if they’re compromised isn’t good enough. Indeed a beer competition organizer, and/or the judge organizer, has/have the job of making sure Judge Ken doesn’t judge his own beer, and like bench judging one of the highest, most important, ethical calls is to tell the organizer of such conflicts. Continue reading “Of Beer Judges and Bench Judges”