Category: Front Page

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.

Want to read more? Click…

HERE

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.

Want to read more? Please click…

HERE

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.

Want to read more? Please click…

HERE

 

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.

Want to read more? Please click…

HERE

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

 

Want to see more? Please click…

HERE

“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.

Want to read more? Please click…

HERE

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.

Want to read more? Please click…

HERE

Sauerkraut in supposedly LOCAL honey? For those of us who make meads, or use honey in brewing, this should prove interesting…-PGA

Magnus von Buddenbrock and Stefanie Giesselbach arrived in Chicago in 2006 full of hope. He was 30, she was 28, and they had both won their first overseas assignments at ALW Food Group, a family-owned food-trading company based in Hamburg. Von Buddenbrock had joined ALW—the initials stand for its founder, Alfred L. Wolff—four years earlier after earning a degree in marketing and international business, and he was expert in the buying and selling of gum arabic, a key ingredient in candy and soft drinks. Giesselbach had started at ALW as a 19-year-old apprentice. She worked hard, learned quickly, spoke five languages, and within three years had become the company’s first female product manager. Her specialty was honey. When the two colleagues began their new jobs in a small fourth-floor office a few blocks from Millennium Park in downtown Chicago, ALW’s business was growing, and all they saw was opportunity.

Want to read more? Please click…

HERE