Category: Front Page

FALLS CHURCH, Va. — The pungent grassy smell of bright green hop flowers fills the air at the Mad Fox Brewing Co.

Freshly harvested and overnighted from the Yakima Valley in Washington state to the brewpub, located just west of Washington, D.C., these Citra hops are being stuffed into porous bags that will be added to an already fermented ale, made with Australian Galaxy hops.

Like giant tea bags, the steeping second hop treatment will impart an added freshness and fruity punch of flavor to the brewery’s Two Hemispheres India Pale Ale. This “wet hopping” process creates a relatively new style of ale that arose from beer drinkers’ affinity for ever-increasing bitterness. “It’s just a different way for people to get their hop fix,” says Mad Fox head brewer Charlie Buettner.

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It was a dirty job, but someone had to do it. In five days, I tasted 50 craft beers and 20 spirits from small distilleries.

At first, it might sounds like a weird idea to dedicate a trip to beer and liquor tasting. Micro breweries and micro distilleries understand the need to distance themselves from mass produced beers and spirits. They like to create unique products with distinctive flavors. So yes, it does make sense to plan a trip around craft beers and liquors, and Central New York is the perfect place to do it.

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Big Buck Brewery and Steakhouse – Gaylord is a Brewpub located in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Brooklyn Brewery in Williamsburg

Spreadable BEER?

With the government shutdown and no deal in sight, the beer industry will see the impact of spending cuts, which took effect on Tuesday.

The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) double-check that breweries act in accordance with all mandated steps by the federal government in the alcohol production and distribution course of action. The TTB will also furlough 35 out of 518 employees for each day of the shutdown. Those 35 people will stay to collect excise taxes on beer.

The government shutdown could delay permits and labels, and stop the TTB process of approval. Every beer must include mandatory label information, such as the alcoholic content, and the name and address of the bottler or packer.

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Long relegated to the dusty corners of history, mead – the drink of kings and Vikings – is making a comeback in the US.

But what’s brewing in this new crop of commercial meaderies – as they are known – is lot more refined from the drink that once decorated tables across medieval Europe.

“Do we have any mead makers or home brewers in the group?” asks Ben Alexander, eying a crowd of a dozen or so people who have come to his Maine Meade Works, in Portland, on a rainy Friday for a tour.

When no-one raises their hand, Mr Alexander launches into the full spiel.

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If you were one of the top guys who spent much of the 2000s trying to get Microsoft to develop tablet computers, you might be ready for a drink.

Or two.

Fortunately, that guy — Bill Mitchell — has figured out how to easily produce a never-ending supply of absolutely top-notch beer, in any style and flavor you can imagine.

After leaving Microsoft in 2010, Mitchell started a company called PicoBrew with his food-scientist brother and a gifted hardware hacker he used to work with in Redmond.

Together they created a dream machine for small-scale brewing that they’re unveiling Monday.

Called the PicoBrew Zymatic, it’s a device the size of a large microwave oven that almost completely automates the process of producing beer.

The idea was to take the drudgery out of brewing, without sacrificing the fun or the gratification that comes from creating your own batches, Mitchell said.

“The beauty for us, especially in beer-making, is it’s this great fusion of science and cooking, of chemistry and cooking,” he said. “We didn’t want to lose any of that — in fact we want to enhance that portion of it — and just take out the bad portions.”

They’ve also applied modern technologies to the ancient art.

Zymatic machines were designed to be Internet appliances. They are controlled by open-source software, connected to the Web and managed through a browser.

PicoBrew’s software dashboard is used to concoct recipes and adjust brewing cycles. Users can share recipes through the service and monitor the brewing process remotely on their smartphone.

Data collected by this online service — from users who opt to share their brewing activity — will be used to continue refining the machines, which are also designed to be hacked and modified as buyers see fit.

About 1 million people in the U.S. brew their own beer, from President Obama on down, according to the American Homebrewers Association. But it remains a niche hobby because home-brewing can be a hassle.

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The device beams beer fermentation data to a computer via Wifi. Pre-order from ParasitX.

 

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“BARF”-PGA

Please. Sit back, have a beer and let’s pretend we all know that Sanrio’s flagship character is nearly 40 years old and has fans making retirement plans. “What about the children,” you say? What about the even more cynical marketing behind this latest move?

 

The cans of six fruit-flavored brews — including peach, lemon-lime, passion fruit, and banana — all have the purposefully cute cartoon cat on the can. Does that mean they’re angling for kids? Not any more than the presence of Samuel Adams on Boston Beer‘s (SAM -0.90%) products is a lure for middle school social studies students.

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For many Bay Area homebrewers, Richmond neighborhood shop San Francisco Brewcraft is the main brewing hub. It’s where newbies pick up their kits and learn to brew, and seasoned veterans return for more tips, recipes, and grains.

And the stern but friendly, no bullshit leader of that guild was Griz (aka Greg Miller), a homebrewing expert and beloved teacher. Griz, who long suffered from diabetes and last year was diagnosed with cancer, passed away in his sleep last Monday, Sept. 23.

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