Category: Front Page

The greatest week of the year — if you love local craft beers — starts Friday.

New York City Beer Week promises a very hoppy time in every borough. More than 100 beer events, featuring styles and flavors from 16 Big Apple-based breweries, are planned through next Friday.

Suds lovers will enjoy familiar brews from Brooklyn Brewery and Sixpoint, but also lesser-known but no less delicious, drafts from Gun Hill Brewing in the Bronx and Rockaway Brewing in Queens.

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Bud Light may still be America’s best-selling beer — it has been for more than a decade — but retail sales of this and other leading lower-calorie lagers such as Bud Light Lime, Miller Lite, and Natural (aka Natty) Light, declined in 2013, according to data from IRI, a Chicago market research firm.

Bud Light may still be America’s best-selling beer — it has been for more than a decade — but retail sales of this and other leading lower-calorie lagers such as Bud Light Lime, Miller Lite, and Natural (aka Natty) Light, declined in 2013, according to data from IRI, a Chicago market research firm.

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PORTLAND, Ore. (TheStreet) — There’s no “peak beer” or “beer bubble,” but it’s getting crowded in the craft beer world.

Word from the Beer Institute beer industry lobbying group in Washington, D.C., is that the U.S. now has a record-high 3,699 active “permitted breweries” overseen by the Alcohol Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. According to Beer Institute analysis, the majority of the 948 permits issued in 2013 went to brewpubs. That’s great if you’re up for a beer and a burger, but even a modest uptick in production breweries makes a big difference.

Just from a historic perspective, those 3,699 breweries are no small deal. That’s well ahead of the 2,722 total presented by the Brewers Association craft beer industry group at the end of last year. That group noted that 1,744 breweries were in the planning stages at the end of December, though. The TTB’s total would not only exceed 2,685 breweries that appeared on the Register of United States Breweries in 1876, but surpass the 3,286 that existed in 1870.

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  The beer flows freely in Nashville, and Gallup polling just placed Tennessee in the nation’s top 10 most religious states, but those two facts tend not to overlap. A growing exception: an interdenominational Beer and Hymn Sing group that first met in November to do exactly what its name says and nothing else. They don’t talk doctrine. There’s no prayer or Bible study. Once a quarter, they pack the dark upstairs bar at MadDonna’s in East Nashville to sing centuries-old favorites. The last one kicked off with “Amazing Grace,” ended with “Go Now in Peace” and featured classics such as “How Great Thou Art” in between. The organizer, Geoff Little, said he got the idea from seeing soccer fans in London and Dublin pubs switch seamlessly from singing fight songs to singing “Be Thou My Vision.” He believed it would be a way to draw Generation X and Y friends to a religious gathering outside the classic venues for those. Want to read more? Please click…

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For those who are unfamiliar, Ellicotville Brewing has two locations: Ellicotville, NY and Freedonia, NY.

Here is what Ellicotville says about this beer…

Stainless Steel Obsession
7.0 ABV | 77 IBU

Stuffed with hops, this flagship IPA pays homage to the material all beer is born in–Stainless Steel. Combining a traditional pale malt bill with a modern and aggressive hop profile, this new age American IPA is carrying EBC into the future.

Poland. Not a country as strongly associated with the brewing of beer as Germany, Belgium or the UK, although you know there must be Polish-brewed beer, right? And if there is, wouldn’t there be some Polish beer styles? I freely admit that I wasn’t aware of any until a short while ago when I started seeing the name ‘Grodziskie’ here and there on beer-related websites and in forums. After a little bit of research I realised there’s something really quite interesting here – a unique beer style that is undergoing a small but noticeable renaissance.

Disclaimer: I’ve had to use a lot of Polish documents and .pl websites in researching this piece. Google translate/Chrome will only get you so far, so apologies in advance for any inaccuracies or missing information.

Piwo Grodziskie has three things in common with the Czech beer Budweiser Budvar. Firstly they’re both named after a town – Grodzisk Wielkopolski and ÄŒeské BudÄ›jovice respectively. Secondly, both towns were, at one time or another, occupied by Germany and given German names (Grodzisk/Grätz and BudÄ›jovice/Budweis), which leads to the third commonality – both beers have also been known by two names (one native and one German): Grodziskie/Grätzer and BudÄ›jovický Budvar/Budweiser Budvar. The similarities, however, end there. Apart from anything else, Grodziskie is a style and Budvar a brand.

Grodziskie/Grätzer is a top-fermented, low alcohol, wheat-based, pale-coloured, hoppy, slightly tart, smoked beer, and when I say wheat-based I mean there’s no barley in it. Seriously. No barley.

Grodzisk Wielkopolski has a history of brewing going back at least 700 years, and as with so many other brewing centres around the world it’s largely because the water there is very good for making beer. In 1601 a statute formalising a brewers guild was enacted and by the late 1700s there were 53 breweries operating in the town.

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Courtesy seacoastbeveragelab.com

It’s true, there really are certified beer judges—more than 4,500 active judges worldwide. These dedicated beer lovers work hard to evaluate, compare, rank and provide entry feedback to both homebrewers and professional brewers.

There are certainly many paths to learning how to evaluate craft beer, and each judge’s journey is a compilation of experience, beer evaluation practice, brewing, book study and more. Being a beer judge is a position of responsibility—to the entries themselves and to the breweries who work tirelessly to create them. I kid you not, it takes work and commitment to become a judge.

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Ice fishermen on Lake Waconia in Minnesota were pleasantly surprised when a Wisconsin brewery, Lakemaid, flew a twelve-pack of their frothy suds over the icy wastes to their warm fishing cabins using a hefty, remote-controlled quadcopter. It was a match made in zero-degree weather: the brewery took orders and flew their drones out to the fishermen who, in turn, didn’t have to trudge to the shore for liquid refreshment. The FAA, however, didn’t find the arrangement so appealing.

According to FAA rules, you cannot fly a drone for commercial purposes or above 400 feet in the United States. Therefore a robot flying a sixer over to some thirsty pescatarians is right out. One phone call from the FAA shut down the entire operation and, in turn, set off an Internet firestorm. But the company, whose logo is a fulsome lake maiden with a slippery tail, will not be grounded for long.

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