Category: Front Page

Written by David Young for coloradoan.com

Sitting in her office on National Repeal Day, the day marking the 78th anniversary of the end of prohibition, Kim Jordan admits she is not invincible.

That may come as a sur­prise to some.

With the success of New Belgium Brewing Co., one of the nation’s most successful craft breweries, Jordan has overseen an average year-over-year gain of 15 per­cent over the past decade.

At the same time she has fos­tered a culture of environmental, social and cultural change with innovative programs such as giv­ing employees’ bikes and donat­ing $4 million in grants.
Continue reading “New Belgium Brewing Co.: Building a Brewery”

 

Some of this is accurate, some not so consequential and some… well you can decide- The Professor

The Lab, Ladyface Alehouse & Brasserie and, in 2012, Golden Road Brewing

Ladyface Alehouse and Brasserie has been
serving up beers for two years in Agoura Hills. (Ladyface Ale Companie/Red Tail
Media / December 8, 2011)

Written by Todd Martens for the Los Angeles Times

Opening a restaurant/bar and calling oneself Dr. Hops takes guts on the West Coast, where breweries have long delighted in maximizing the ingredient for all its tart and bitter glory.

“That was a joke, initially,” Roger Bott said. “We put it on the website with a little character, and it stuck from there. Home brewing, though, I was always using more hops than anyone said would taste good.”

Out of the gate, however, Bott is going for wide appeal, putting the emphasis on balance at his recently opened the Lab in Agoura Hills (30105 Agoura Road). Initial brews include an XPA, which stops short of the sharpness of its IPA brother, as well as an amber ale, in which hops give way to a sweeter finish. The space has room for two patios with outdoor fireplaces, as well as a bar and an indoor dining room. The copper-clad beer tanks are on full display, giving the spot, said Bott, a “rustic, old-town character.”

Want to read more? Please use the following URL/Link…
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-night-beer-notes9-20111209,0,3493021.story

Written by Nick Carbone for newsfeed.time.com

Clifton Vial wound up stuck in a snowdrift off a rural highway in eastern Alaska, his truck lacking the usual survival necessities. All that lay in the back was a few cans of Coors Light, frozen solid. And as any college student knows: beer is food. Even the relatively bland Coors Light contains calories to keep a person functioning. Foodless for nearly 60 hours, Vial munched on the frozen beer. Bear Grylls would be so proud.

Vial says he ate the beer like beans from a can. “I cut the lids off and dug it out with a knife,” he told the Anchorage Daily News. The 52-year-old lived off the ration of a couple of cans for more than three days while rescuers searched for him.

Vial had taken a drive late Monday night, getting stuck in a snowdrift 40 miles north of Nome. Far out of cell phone range and ill-dressed for the situation in tennis shoes, jeans and a cheap jacket, Vial huddled for warmth in a sleeping bag and shrouded his shivering feet in a towel. He turned on the engine occasionally to listen to the radio and get the heat flowing, but it was no match for the -17 degree temperatures. And by the third day, Vial’s gas gauge was toeing the “empty” line.
Continue reading “Alaskan Survives on Frozen Beer for Three Days While Stuck in Snowdrift”

Written by Victoria Pelham for cronkitenewsonline.com

PHOENIX – George Hancock sees great promise in this downtown warehouse filled with barrels containing fermenting barley and wheat and producing craft beer 600 gallons at a time.

He views the opportunity for microbrewers as so ripe here that he decided to pack up and leave a similar operation he had in Washington for Arizona, co-founding Phoenix Ale Brewery in June. He said the Seattle market is over-saturated but that Arizona still needs more breweries.

“It’s just getting started here, but the market for craft beer is growing rapidly,” Hancock said.

There were 39 microbreweries in Arizona in the 2011 fiscal year, which ended in June, according to the Arizona Department of Liquor Licenses and Control. That was up from 36 in fiscal 2010 and 31 in fiscal 2009.

Those operations are licensed to produce up to 1,240,000 gallons in a calendar year and are able to sell their products directly to consumers.

The largest concentration of breweries was in Maricopa County, with 20, according to data from the state.
Continue reading “Makers of Craft Beer See Untapped Potential in Arizona”

Jesse Darrow, of Ithaca,loads full bottles of CascaZilla Ale into cases as they come off the bottling line at Ithaca Beer Tuesday, Nov. 29, afternoon. / SIMON WHEELER / Gannett Staff Photo

Written by My-Ly Nguyen for pressconnects.com

On a recent Saturday night, a group of friends was willing to wait about two hours for a table at an Ithaca brewpub.

It was family weekend at Ithaca College and there was a concert at a local theater, helping to add to the long list of names waiting to be called.
Continue reading “Popularity of Craft Beer Spreads in Binghamton (NY) Area”

Posted under “Our View” at charlotteobserver.com

North Carolina, once a craft beer wasteland, has become one of the country’s most exciting states for good brews. Dozens of innovative breweries have popped up from the coast to Asheville, complementing a solid roster of fine brewers.

The growth began in 2005, when N.C. legislators passed a law allowing for higher content alcohol in beer sold here. Now, lawmakers have passed a smaller but important bill that allows breweries, regardless of size, to offer tastings and sell beer on site – even beers produced outside the state.

The measure would help North Carolina’s craft brewing industry flourish even more, not only by promoting interest in craft beer, but also by giving brewers another revenue stream. The change also could prompt larger west coast brewers to open east coast operations and bring jobs here.
Continue reading “Craft Beer Lovers Say Cheers to New Bill”

Written by Mark Christopher for examiner.com

 

Dunedin—Justin Stange has a lot to be proud of.  Justin has been a successful brewer with Sweetwater Brewing Company of Atlanta and recently Cigar City Brewing in Tampa.  In the same vein as his former employer, Cigar City, Stange recently lighted out on his own path.  Stange went from Tampa like a miner for the Yukon on a mission to make great beer.  Luckily for Tampa Bay beer enthusiasts, Justin did not go very far.  Stange found a small storefront in Dunedin and made a small brewery out of it with his partner and girlfriend, Devon Kreps.  He may or may not have realized at the time that converting the space into a brewery involved pouring the bar out of cement himself.  Seventh Sun’s Facebook page displays numerous photos of what Devon and Justin had to do to open the facility.  The construction and personal labor show exactly what two people will do to make and serve their own beer.  Justin may actually redefine the moniker “small brewery” in Seventh Sun’s cozy home, but he wants to focus his creativity on the beer.
Continue reading “Seventh Sun Becomes Tampa Bay’s Newest Brewery”

Without intent, I have collected well over 1,000 beer bottles since the early 70s. When something finally had to be done about the cheap paneling in this old modular, I had a choice. Tear down the walls while, oh, so carefully, replacing the often rotted 1X3s. Or: cover them with…

…The Bottle Collection.

Written by Ken Carman

This is going to be an interesting edition: I thought I’d combine a profile with the Bottle Collection, since the first time I had Theakston Old Peculier was quite a while ago.

The last time I had this was at a wedding in Utica, NY in the 80s and I almost threw fruit at the bartender. He kept insisting Old Peculiar was only “properly served” with fruit extract in it and an orange slice on the rim. He told me because dark beers were too bitter and “everyone drank it that way.” Of course by then I had had Guinness Foreign Extra in Montreal and I told him it wasn’t all that “dark,” or “bitter,” and I wouldn’t let him ruin such a grand experience.

He relented.

Maybe it was my threat I didn’t make to give him a very “personal” fruit filled experience. But I felt like saying that. I think he was surprised when after savoring the experience I ordered another, sans fruit, fruit slice and, oh, did I mention? He wanted to salt the rim of the glass too.

Gack!!!

Typical beer ignorance that was so dominant in the 80s; a time when “exotic” sometimes meant a Miller Dark in many places. Of course Miller Dark was pretty much the same damn recipe as regular Miller except food coloring and maybe a pinch of some denser, roasty: more interesting, malts.

So I saw Old Peculier at Midtown in Nashville just before Turkey Day and said, “What the hell, let’s see if it’s as good as I remember.”

It was.

Peculier was named after the peculier of Masham. Yes, “Masham,” I’m sure, is an unintentional brewing pun. A “peculier” is a parish outside the jurisdiction of a diocese. Old P is an Old Ale: not classified as actual “Old P” which would be real disgusting, so let’s not dither on that thought, shall we? Yes, classified as “Old Ale” even though the original gravity is just a tad low for the style. You’d never know.

Caramel nose with malt accent: no hops sensed, Old Peculier is brown with great ruby-esk highlights. The mouthfeel is very low on the carbonation side and it tastes malty sweet with a few darker malts peeking out in the taste. No diacetyl. Not real dark, by any means. There’s a very slight peated sense to the malt. Though the carbonation is low in the mouthfeel it fills the mouth with slightly sweet malt. But there are bubbles in the body, in the glass.

White, rocky, head that fades fast.
Continue reading “From the Bottle Collection and Beer Profile”