Category: Beer

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.

The Topic: Christmas Beer

Going through “The Bottle Collection,” getting ready to start a Christmas Beer series, I realized there’s a value to collecting, beer education-wise. And I had just kicked back into that comfy lounge chair called: “A Christmas Beer is usually an ale with Christmas/pumpkin spices.”
Continue reading “Brew Biz: Werts and All”

This beer menorah, uploaded by Ben Shaevitz on Shmaltz Brewing Co.’s Facebook page, is part of a new He’Brew Vertical Jewbelation beer set.

On the sixth night of Hanukkah, I’m really regretting not asking my loved ones to gift me one of these: a He’Brew Vertical Jewbelation set that doubles as a menorah.

The set includes eight 12-ounce bottles of beer — one of each of the past six years’ Jewbelation releases (6), this year’s release (1) and a new blend of all of them that was aged in Sazerac rye whiskey barrels (1) — plus an empty bottle to hold the “shamash,” or middle candle.

Continue reading “He’Brew Helps Customers Build Beer Menorahs”

Courtesy Miller Harrell, as posted on He’Brew’s Facebook page.

Behind door number 1: Ale. Number 2: Lager. #3: Specialty, Cyser, Melomel, Perry and Meads. And may all your doors this year lead to good beer. Fa… la la la la… la la… la… LA!

And may ALL your Seasonal beers be good!

One Bottle Collection beer for every 5 days before Christmas. Rating system: not actually meant as a “tense” comment. All these beers either don’t exist anymore, or I tasted in the past. Hopefully, if not so hot before, they’re better now. If they do still exist. Or hopefully, if not better they’re as dead as the… Dickens.

Ghost of Christmas Present… remember him? Jolly, fun: the kind of guy you’d invite to a party for the season, and the kind of beer you could bring to a festive affair and not be totally laughed out of the room by festive beer geeks. That’s the best a beer gets in this series. Now Ghost of Christmas Past isn’t a great award. You can see from the picture he can be a bit of a grump. Probably from mediocre’ beer. And best not bring a Ghost of Christmas Past Beer to a beer geek festive affair. You’ll be the limp wet noodle of the party. A Ghost of Christmas Future beer? You remember that guy, right? If you want to be laughed at, have to bring most of your offering home and feel like you’ve just attended your own funeral instead of a party, bring a Ghost of Christmas Future beer. Some Ghost of Future Beer might best serve as embalming fluid.

Sam Adams Special Winter Lager

Hopefully this has changed, for my memory of this Lager is nil. Not a good sign. And Sammy has done better. Of course early Sam, if I remember right, suffered from contract brew blues. Some folks simply shouldn’t be in the contract brew biz: like Oldenberg which is where a lot of contract beer in the South used to come from. No “contract” at all, just “whatever we have that’s the closest.” (Actual quote from a tour guide there years ago.) This was most likely an Oldenberg brew. Sam has better control over its brews these days.

Not spicy in any sense. A lager, just a tad darker than most but no roast, not that much body.

I’m going to be honest here: I have yet to have a Winter, seasonal, lager that has impressed me. It could be done, of course, but IMO the season practically screams “ale,” so it had better be a damn good, and complex, one.

I remember it as unremarkable, though not offensive in any way. So another bland Christmas past award.

Continue reading “From the Bottle Collection 4 Days Before Christmas Beer”

One Bottle Collection beer for every 5 days before Christmas. Rating system: not actually meant as a “tense” comment. All these beers either don’t exist anymore, or I tasted in the past. Hopefully, if not so hot before, they’re better now. If they do still exist. Or hopefully, if not better they’re as dead as the… Dickens.

Ghost of Christmas Present… remember him? Jolly, fun: the kind of guy you’d invite to a party for the season, and the kind of beer you could bring to a festive affair and not be totally laughed out of the room by festive beer geeks. That’s the best a beer gets in this series. Now Ghost of Christmas Past isn’t a great award. You can see from the picture he can be a bit of a grump. Probably from mediocre’ beer. And best not bring a Ghost of Christmas Past Beer to a beer geek festive affair. You’ll be the limp wet noodle of the party. A Ghost of Christmas Future beer? You remember that guy, right? If you want to be laughed at, have to bring most of your offering home and feel like you’ve just attended your own funeral instead of a party, bring a Ghost of Christmas Future beer. Some Ghost of Future Beer might best serve as embalming fluid.

Written by Ken Carman

1995 Anheuser-Busch Christmas Brew

I hate to slightly disappoint my readers, expecting a total dis on all things AB, but I don’t remember this one in the slightest. If I hated it; I’d remember. If I loved it; I’d remember. Solution: a rather bland, unremarkable, past attempt at competing with craft beer by the leader of the, “Oh, shisen, do we have to compete? Can’t we just legally drive these guys outta the biz with nasty tactics?” movement. Well, leader sometimes. Miller: now Miller/Coors, has been numero uno in the nasty more than a few times. The only thing missing is an actual numero uno with a bullet or two.

That we know of.

And you have to give them just an ounce of credit for trying instead of the usual past tactic: telling distributors if they carried craft beer there would be no Bud products.

I haven’t seen this bugger for a while. Of course I haven’t looked for it. Maybe they still make it. My guess it was superior to some of their more aggressive attempts, like a Michelob version of Stout that tasted like they used way too much Black Patent and hardly any other malt. Kind of like chewing on a burnt up log from a yuletide fireplace.

So one rather bland Ghost of Christmas Past award.
Continue reading “From the Bottle Collection: 5 Days Before Christmas Beer”

Profile by Ken Carman

Fresh & So Green, Green
Terrapin Fresh Hop
Terrapin Beer Company: Athens, GA

This is your classic fresh hop beer. By Terrapin, who loves to dabble with some of the most exotic styles and brew with other brewers to come up with even more exotic beer. Kudos up front.

I was in Athens, GA about 15 years ago. Stopped by every brewpub but didn’t have time for Terrapin. Damn!
Continue reading “Beer Profile”

Using Brewing Herbs – An excerpt from The Homebrewer’s Garden by Joe Fisher and Dennis Fisher)

Brewing herbs have different characteristics, just as different hop varieties do. Most herbs traditionally associated with brewing are bitter. Others are more flavorful or aromatic. What you use an herb for and when you use it depends on the qualities of the herb and the kind of beer you wish to brew. Some herbs are multipurpose, though none approaches hops in overall utility. Beer without any hop character at all is an acquired taste. We usually add at least 1/2 ounce (14 g) of hops for a 5-gallon (19 L) batch of even our most herbal beers.
Continue reading “The Technical Edge”