Category: Front Page

Written by Tom Rotunno for cnbc.com

In 1980, Ken Grossman founded the Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. and over the years turned it into one of the first and most successful craft breweries ever built.

This week at the Brewers Association’s “Craft Brewers Conference” in San Diego, we caught up with this brewing pioneer to talk about Sierra Nevada and the business of craft beer: past, present and future.

What was your first exposure to brewing?

When I was growing up in Southern California I had a neighbor that was actually a rocket scientist, he was an accomplished home brewer and home wine maker. His son and I were best buddies going through elementary school, junior high, and high school. His dad would be brewing something on his stove every weekend and had rows of carboys fermenting away. I was just intrigued by all of that and think it sort of stuck.

What was it like in the early days of building your brewery?

In those days, in the late 70’s when I was planning the brewery, there was only a couple of small brewers in the U.S. The whole U.S. brewing industry was down to about 40 independent companies and I had a very small goal of brewing about a thousand barrels a year. Maybe 1,500 barrels a year and our business plan reflected a limited ambition at that point. On paper it looked like we could survive and make a living. It was a struggle the first year or so, and then people started loving our beer and we kept growing and haven’t stopped since.

How hard was it to get the ingredients you needed in the beginning?

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HERE

Reviewed by Tom Becham for Professorgoodales.net

If you believe that Nicolae Ceaucescu and Dracula are the only great evils to emerge from Romania, you’ve obviously never tried Super Brew 15.

Is it really that bad, or am I exaggerating? Well, that’s the thing. It’s tough to separate the reality from hyperbole with this beer.

First, some background. One of my beer quirks is that I like to try beers from as many different countries as I can. Largely, this experience has been one of mediocre pale lagers. Occasionally, I’ll find a gem, like Sri Lanka’s Lion Stout, or Kenya’s Tusker Lager. And just as often, I’ll find some that are vaguely unpleasant. But never before have I encountered a beer as hideous as Super Brew 15.

A couple months ago, my wife and I were in Torrance, California at the Alpine Village market. I spotted this brew on the shelf in back with the beers. I had never had a Romanian beer, so I picked this up, along with some excellent German brews.
Continue reading “Beer Review: Super Brew 10”

Profiled by Ken Carman for professorgoodales.net

Tons of off white pillow-y foam. It was hard to fill a glass. There’s little doubt there’s brettanomyces. Despite all the dark malt that is dominant. Obsidian black and head goes on forever.
Nose is a little malt sweet and not much else. How can you have all they claim is in this beer and have damn near no nose?

A bit sour/sweet: less sour than sweet. Malt heavy but not all that distinguishable. As it warms bitter pops out, but it’s just bitter.

Mouthfeel heavy malt. This is denser than the heaviest Porter, but not quite a Scotch Heavy. No hops sensed except a slight bitter. If you want dark malt with close to no hops, no real dark malts, as in Black Patent… no hops… light carbonation in body but tons in head: this is for you.

Ommegang is a great brewery: yes, but for all the hype this is an unimpressive beer. Buy Ommegang’s namesake (Ommegang) instead if this is what you want in a beer: it’s better. More complex malt-wise. More interesting.

How can you make a beer so unimpressive, with so much malt and top it off with tons of hype?

Here: Ommegang succeeded.

Written by Jim Galligan for bites.today.msnbc.msn.com

There’s something personal about a home-brewed beer. In the flavor you’ll find a brewer’s likes and dislikes, their attention to detail, their best effort at making something special with their own hands and know-how. And just like a Pixies song or a Nirvana rip, there’s usually a rough edge or two that lets you know this is something crafted by people mustering as much creativity and human precision as possible.

But when a home brew recipe is recreated on a large scale by a professional brewery — is that personal essence still intact? Sam Adams’ LongShot home brew competition offers the chance to find out.

Sam Adams calls for submissions from home brewers, judges them, and then brews and ships the winning beers across the country. It’s a home brewer’s dream come true — everybody can get a taste.
Continue reading “Home-Brewers’ Beers Hit the Big Time”

Written by Ken Carman for Professorgoodales.net

Like any business, brewing beer has ups and downs. And sometimes changes in society can cause a lot of trouble; especially when a business is unwilling to adjust: go with the flow. This is the story of one brewery and how it survived times when brewing beer hit major crossroads: Prohibition… and a steadily changing market: skewing towards craft beer. Not just “survived,” but did so “with ‘style.'” And “styles.” (Pun intended.) This is also the story of a family business; a family business willing to change, experiment, alter and innovate their business plans. And the story of a brewery that went with the ever-increasing nationwide flow of craft beer; go with the flow instead of against it. And go with that “flow” in a bold, aggressive, way.

Thanks to Fred Matt and a very special thanks to Meghan Fraser of Saranac for help with this article. Images courtesy Meghan Fraser and Saranac, except High Peaks Imperial six pack image courtesy Wegmans.com

All across America breweries were going out of business. Surviving breweries were trying to find some way, any way, to stay in business.

Their product had been outlawed.

Recently there has been a spat of Prohibition stories in the brew-based press, and mainstream media, due to the anniversary of its repeal. But a question sometimes left unasked is, “How did some survive?” And these stories rarely, if ever, talk about how Prohibition wasn’t the only historical beer-mageddon traditional, older, long-lived breweries have had to face in America…
Continue reading “How to Succeed When Trouble’s Brewing: A Historical Perspective on Prohibition and Craft Beer”

Here at Professor Goodales we treasure the work our columnists do, so we are starting a new feature. Once in a while, we will walk through the vast digital warehouse, not unlike where they stored the Ark in Indiana Jones, and republish an occasional archived article. This is our first archived edition…

Restaurant pictures courtesy various posters at Yelp.com

Written by Tom Becham for Professor Goodales

When a friend calls you and says, “I’m booking a week in my time share on Maui. If you and your wife can meet me there, you’ll have a place to stay,” what do you say? You bloody well say “YES!”

That’s how Kim and I came to be on Maui very recently, and visit the Maui Brewing restaurant and pub.

I really wanted to love Maui Brewing. I wanted to title this piece something like “Heavenly Beers in Paradise”. I mean, how could you be on Maui and not be incredibly positive about everything?
Continue reading “Maui Brewing”