Category: Front Page

 

Beer probably isn’t the first thing to come to mind when you think of the word “monastery” – but since receiving official recognition on Dec. 10, Saint Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Mass., will become the first American brewery to be manned exclusively by Trappist monks.

The beer, labeled “The Spencer Trappist Ale,” is to be brewed exclusively within the walls of the monastery. Founded in 1950 by members of the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance, commonly known as Trappists, Saint Joseph’s Abbey has roots that reach far back to monks who fled France during its revolution at the end of 18th century.

 
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Anyone else notice not ONE is a craft beer, and almost all are Miller/Coors or AB/InBev?-OEN

 

While craft beer may seem to be all the rage these days, the number of people cracking open a cold one has actually been on the decline.

According to Beer Marketer’s Insights, beer sales have slipped 2.3 percent between 2007 to 2012.

Michelob Light has been a big loser, plunging 70 percent, while the once top-selling Budweiser, declined by more than 25 percent over the past five years. Miller Genuine Draft, Old Milwaukee and Heineken Premium Light are also losing market share.

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Profiled by Ken Carman for The Professor

This is obviously a sweet, still and is considered a classic of the style by the BJCP when it comes to sweet. It deserves that status, in my opinion.

I am guessing the honey is mostly Orange Blossom, for the aroma is citrus mixed with floral. I would call it orange with a hint of rind, but very slight at best. The floral is like a flower one might find in a forest. The sweet grabs the nose and tickles it a tad.

Visual: yellow, light amber. Clarity is good, I can see the desk below the cup.

Taste: sweet with a little almost Buckwheat sense. Is this a slight add to the bev, or just aging? Orange and, again, a hint of rind. The sweet is neither cloying or marginal: just right. Body is on the slightly heavier than medium side.

Mouthfeel: slightly slick, with abv slightly clinging to the roof of the mouth. There’s a fruit/orange sense that lingers on the roof of the mouth and reminds me of a fine orange wine, and I have had one of those… they are few to be sure.

I would love to try a slightly carbonated version, and it would still be a still according to guidelines.

NOTE/CAVEATS: there are also alternate yeasts NOT just lager and ale, like Brett, or lactobacillus… more a bacteria. IPA created in ENGLAND, not “Europe.” Beer and pot are not “cousins.” Hop and pot are related. The brewery where lager yeast was not named “Pilsen.” “Carlsberg” was the name of the brewery and Emil Christian Hansen discovered it: for some reason this bit of history is frequently missed and, POOR Germans, it was a DANISH discovery.

Germany boasts the “prost” with the most!

German beer brewers launched a bid to have their 16th century beer purity  law officially recognized as a cultural treasure for humanity.

The German Brewers’ Federation announced Monday that it applied for UNESCO,  the cultural agency for the United Nations, to add the Bavarian beer law  “Reinheitsgebot” to its Intangible Cultural Heritage list.

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Massachusetts native Todd Ruggere finished a 266 day quest in September to drink a beer in each of the 351 towns in his home state. The beer tour raised money for cancer research.

In January, Ruggere will begin the same mission in Connecticut.

Ruggere, a 39-year-old from Grafton, Mass., said he came up with the idea when he was trying to list all the towns in Massachusetts.

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Looking for the perfect book for a craft beer lover — or yourself?

This has been another banner year for books about beer, with volumes written on everything from food pairings to hops, so there’s something on this list for everyone.

The Culinary Side

If you love food as much as beer — and who doesn’t? — you can’t go wrong with John Holl’s “American Craft Beer Cookbook” (Storey, $19.95, 352 pages), which has 155 mouthwatering recipes, including 14 contributed by Bay Area breweries such as Gordon Biersch and 21st Amendment.

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Category 24 Snobs

 

Samuel Adams releases its Utopias beer every two years at an insane price, and every batch is very different.

To start off: This year’s edition retails at $199 for a 750ml bottle. The reason is that while it is technically a beer, it smells, tastes and drinks like a liqueur and is 56 proof, or 28% alcohol content.

For those not familiar with Utopias, it is made with a combination of aged strong ale and storage in various combinations of whiskey, brandy, rum and/or wine casks. Every batch differs greatly.

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Image of sour beer brands courtesy nytimes.com

 

Yesterday I got into a discussion about what adjustments needed to be made to accurately determine the alcohol content of a sour beer. I’d always assumed that the souring process didn’t have much effect on the standard method, using a formula that takes into account the OG of the wort and the FG of the beer, but I’d never spent any time looking into it.

When we calculate the amount of alcohol in a beer we are judging the relative density of the wort before- and after fermentation. This reduction in density (specific gravity) comes from a couple sources (including yeast biomass growth), but most of it is from the conversion of sugars in the wort to ethanol and carbon dioxide by fermentation. I’d always read that the CO2 escaping into the atmosphere was the main cause of the reduction in density during fermentation.

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