Man Jailed After Bringing Beer to DWI Hearing
Note: proof those who drink non-craft beer can be REAL idiots- PGA
No writer credited. Written for MSNBC.com
A New York man is being held in jail after showing up an hour and a half late for a court hearing on a felony DWI charge — he was also drunk and carrying an open can of Busch beer, authorities say.
Keith Gruber, 49, is in Sullivan County Jail without bail. He was allegedly carrying four more beer cans in a bag when he went through the courthouse security check on Monday.
The Middletown Times Herald-Record reported that Gruber, from Swan Lake, appeared before Sullivan County Judge Frank LaBuda, who asked him if he enjoyed his “liquid lunch.”
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Beer Profile: Lukcy Basartd
Profiled by Ken Carman
The first beer by Stone I had was obviously extract, and when something’s obviously extract that’s never good. But the Stone beer has improved over the years. I like Arrogant Bastard it’s a bit one dimensional for an over the top (at the time) IPA, but great… for that.
I have not been happy with many of the various alternate versions, Oak is OK, I like it. Double is a bastardization of the original. Just call it a barleywine, please. Once you pop the abv that high it tends to take away from the extreme hop focus.
Lukcy is redish, just a bit of haze to the clarity, but this bottle had been in the freezer. Probably a bit of chill haze. The 1/4 inch head faded fast, but second pour it held for a while. Plenty of carbonation in the mouthfeel. Carameliztion obvious with a bit of slick.
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Brew Biz: Werts and All
Ken Carman is a BJCP judge; homebrewer since 1979, club member at Escambia Bay and Music City Homebrewers, who has been interviewing professional brewers all over the east coast for over 10 years.
Written by Ken Carman
Topic: Getting My Irish Up So I Can Drink My Irish Down
I was kind of upset. I wanted to like beer. Everyone wanted me to like it. I tried to like it. Then I found out there was beer that I liked, just most bars in my part of the country: maybe most of the country, wouldn’t carry it. I got my Irish up, I guess you might say, and I sought out only places that carried what I liked. I finally found what I wanted, and by “getting my Irish up,” I started by drinking my Irish down.
The year was 1974. I just found out I might like beer. All that time as a teen seeking what was forbidden was wasted on what, to my taste, was crap: Schlitz, Rheingold, Budweiser, Pabst, Miller, Ballantine… the last was a bit unique: an ale. But that was Cream Ale: an attempt to make ale more lager like. Anyone who has read enough to know my tastes must realize I was in beer Hell, and didn’t even know it. Slowly I was introduced to a few Bocks and Heinekin. I only liked the dark. Surprised?
A lot of hops in beer? Good luck back then. I swear most brewers threw in a leaf or two per batch only to say they added hops. Ironically the version of Billy Beer F.X. Matt brewed started my turn to the hop-side of brewing. I’ve heard the other versions of Billy Beer were pretty much hopless. This version was just hoppy enough to make me realize I might like extra hoppy beers too.
But since this is being published on St. P Day, let’s stick with the kind of beer that’s more Irish in nature and doesn’t look about the same coming out as it does going in. And let’s go back to the early 70s again. I know, not my fav decade either…
My wife, then my girlfriend, visited me where I was going to college. We drove north to Montreal with her sister and her sister’s fiance. I swear, I’m a magnet when it comes to exotic experiences, especially beer-related. There was this upstairs pub called Finegans. Or was it “Finnegans?” I went on the web and found what looks like the very same place. I have since been told it’s not the same pub and I can’t find my long ago haunt anywhere on the web.
Sniff. Sniff. This brief edit to Brew Biz was added on St. Pat’s. Guess I’ll have to go have a cry in my Murphy’s, my Guinness, my Beamish, my Old 38, my Black Fly, my… wait, I’m not sad anymore. Time to get up on the table and dance with the leprechauns!
Back to 1974…
I walked up to the bar and asked if they had any dark beer. The bartender looked at me as if I had just asked for a Scwimesquat. “I don’t know what that is but I have Stout,” with an Irish brogue.
I bought one: it was Guinness Extra. I think at first taste I cringed. I finished and ordered another. By the third I was, not quite literally, dancing on the tables with the Irishmen. The leprechauns came later, after I spent years putting gold in their pots at the end of an ever flowing beer-based rainbow.
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Mr. and Mrs. Moron Attempt to Brew Green Beer
Scribe’s Stupid Beer Report’
“Cause some ‘brewers’ would rather be brew whores than actually go Irish.”
Green beer. Can you think of a more asinine idea? (Is “Ass in Nine” some foolish member of the Borg collective?)
Take a pissy lager or ale, add food coloring, and claim you’re being Irish for St. Patty’s Day. May the blessed ghost of the Saint eat your liver for lunch on the sacred day. May he henceforth place copious amounts of phenolics and DMS into every beer a brewer brews whose only “Irish” offering is Irish by food coloring only.
The Irish icon of beer, whether it be Guinness or Murphys or the other lesser known in the States, be BLACK. And TASTY. Some be red. But NOT fake green.
Why Scribe’s not even Irish, for the most part, and he’s offended. It’s like putting excrement in the candy you hand out Halloween, or wrapping up a can of dog food for Christmas per kid. Drinking green beer on St. Patty’s is like sneaking Tang into the holy water and then blessing yourself with it, or demanding the priest use “those little yellow fishys,” instead of communion wafers.
WORSE, actually, because, Scribe hates to tell you after all those years making up crap like “transubstantiation,” but it’s REALLY NOT the blood and the body of Christ. Hell, it’s not even wine, and hardly bread or even a wafer. About as tasteless as, well, GREEN BEER.
And green beer has nothing to do with celebrating St. Patty’s. Have a Guinness, Murphy’s, or Smithwicks if you must. But if you insist, when the Bobbie stops you and tests you at 3am, Scribe has an Irish “blessing” for ya…
May you blow or piss green.
Or is that an Irish curse?
Picture courtesy planetgreen.discovery.com
A Small Detour from the Beer Highway
An interesting, short, homebrewing adventure- The Prof
Written by Tom Becham for professorgoodales.net
My wife and I hosted a brewer’s group meeting at my home last night. Our home
brewing group is small, and is a subgroup of the local SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism – a group of historical re-enactors).
My friend Mike was making a batch of Irish Red Ale. However, he was running late and instead of pouring his wort into the fermenting bucket and cooling it via tubes so he could pitch the yeast there, he decided to pour it all into a glass carboy and take it home, let it cool overnight, and add the yeast this morning.
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Beer Profile: Harviestoun Black Ale
Profiled by Ken Carman
Nose: some caramel. Head fades fast. A black Scotch Heavy, or a black Old Ale. Engine Oil is listed as an Old Ale by BJCP, but does not say “black.” I think it may be one in the same, but not sure. If not it’s a black version of it.
Not a lot of hops, a lot of caramelization, but the body just a tad low for a Heavy, so I gravitate more towards the Old Ale category.
The black, or darker malt, dominates, with the caramelization bringing up the support from the background. Obsidian. The caramelization is stronger in the mouth feel, but less so in the taste.
One site lists it as a Porter. Another as a Stout. In my opinion: neither. Old Ale or Scottish Ale with darker malts. A Stout would have roasted barley, this seems to have little of what would qualify for a Stout profile. Porter would be more complex malt-wise, perhaps a bit more hoppy, and certainly less caramelization than this. So that doesn’t apply either, really.
I recommend it. But be looking for a Scottish Ale or Old Ale with a darker malt sense.
Beer Confucius
Club Update: Saratoga Thoroughbrews
Saratoga/Glens Falls/Albany area
News and Events
March Meeting:
Place: Olde Saratoga Brewery
Date: March 3, 2011
NOB Starts at 6:00 PM and ends at 6:45PM
Beer Judging Starts at 7:00PM
Judging styles:
Open Club Entries: (Any Style)
Club Only Competition: Category 5, Bock, (5A-5D)
Bring any home brew you would like judged.
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