Category: Front Page

Written by David Sharp

This version is a variation from news.yahoo.com, another variation was published by Fox News. Origin: AP. Picture: Andrea Henkel, of Germany, poses with a large glass of Erdinger from AP file, 2/12/11.

PORTLAND, Maine – Beer. It’s not just for couch potatoes anymore.

A Bavarian brewmeister is touting its no-alcohol beer as the latest sport drink for athletes, handing it out at the finish line of sporting events and touting its regenerative benefits.

Unlike Gatorade, Erdinger Alkoholfrei is served up with a frothy head. And it comes in one color — a golden hue — unlike conventional sport drinks.

Several top athletes from Europe quaffed the beverage from giant mugs on the podium of the World Cup biathlons held this month in northern Maine.

The company touts the beverage as an isotonic, vitamin-rich, no-additive beverage with natural regenerative powers that help athletes recover from a workout. In other words, it’s carbohydrate-loaded refreshment without the alcoholic buzz of beer or the jitters caused by some energy drinks.
Continue reading “Athletes Quaff No-Alcohol Beer as Sport Drink”

Seven beers to put on your must-try list

Written by T. Ballard Lesemann for charlestoncitypaper.com

The Brewvival (Feb. 26, 2011) ain’t a typical kegger or guzzle party. It’s a civilized celebration of beer appreciation, a craft beer festival for the super-fanatical (and geeky) beer aficionados in the Lowcountry. Presented by downtown retail shop Charleston Beer Exchange and local microbrewery COAST Brewing Co., the outdoor festival taps kegs of seasonal ales and lagers, high-gravity knock-outs, wood-aged sour beers, and bizarre rarities. Here’s a six-pack (plus one) of suggestions to help you navigate the offerings.

Westbrook Brewing Co.’s Uberbier #3 (17.5 percent a.b.v.)

Continue reading “Lucky Seven at Brewvival”

Eric Fitch holds a Magic Hat glass in front of the digester building at the brewery in South Burlington, Vt. The Vermont brewery is giving new meaning to the idea of green beer. (TOBY TALBOT/Associated Press)

Written by John Curran for montereyherald.com

SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt. — Before he started “saving the Earth, one beer at a time,” all inventor Eric Fitch knew about home brewing was that it could make quite a mess.

Once, he accidentally backed up the plumbing in his apartment building by dumping into his garbage disposal the spent grain left over from his India Pale Ale home brew. The oatmeal-looking gunk choked the pipes in his Cambridge, Mass., building, flooding the basement.

These days, he is doing something more constructive, fulfilling the dream of beer lovers everywhere by recycling the stuff: The MIT-trained mechanical engineer has invented a patented device that turns brewery waste into natural gas that is used to fuel the brewing process.
Continue reading “MIT Grad’s Invention Turns Brewery Waste Into Fuel”

Written by John Chilson for Askmen.com

There’s nothing better than a thirst-quenching swig of cold beer on a hot summer day after an exhausting hike or an afternoon spent in the sun. Wait a minute — that cold beer is in a can, and through years of exposure to social prejudice you believe it’s of a lesser quality than its bottled counterpart. Pondering the argument for canned beers, you come to realize that numerous craft micro brewers are now offering delicious, complex and interesting beers in cans. Your internal debate has also left you with numerous questions about canned beer: Does the aluminum can affect the taste? Does good-tasting beer store well in cans? Are there benefits to drinking a good beer from a can?

Sit back and finish your suds; we’re about to make that canned-beer experience taste just a bit better with our argument for canned beer.

The argument for canned beer

The biggest misconception about canned beer is that the aluminum can imparts a metallic taste. The insides of most cans and lids used for high-end craft beers have a sprayed coating, ensuring that there is absolutely no contact between the beer and the aluminum. Test the metal-taste theory: Pour a beer in a pint glass for a pal and have them taste it for any metal taste. Also consider that most people enjoy draft beer, which is housed in a metal keg. All you have to do is think of your canned beer as a mini keg.

As far as storage goes, canned beer might have a slight advantage over bottles in that cans actually protect beer from light and oxygen. Cans are airtight and oxygen-free. When light consistently hits a bottle of beer, it can turn skunky and ultimately undrinkable. Oxygen can also leach into a bottled beer under the bottle cap and affect the taste, which could potentially destroy the beer.

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Written by Kyle Darbyson for Askmen.com

Strange beer names that inspire empty mugs
When it was originally enacted in 1516, the Bavarian Purity Law stated that beer should only contain water, hops and barley. It’s a simple recipe that hasn’t changed much through the years. So, with these draconian limits governing their product, brewers have been forced to extremes when differentiating their products from competitors. Some spend millions on slick advertising, while others pay a king’s ransom to athletes to pimp their beer. But for smaller breweries, it’s not that easy. Even if they produce a nectar that’s worthy of the Gods, it will rarely raise a blip in the crowded beer market.

So, these microbreweries have found an ingenious method to stand out from the clutter. Freed from the constraints of corporate, focus group-obsessed marketing departments, they’ve been able to develop bizarre, sometimes offensive and always attention-grabbing brand names, which results in strange beer names. It was a grueling bit of research but we managed to find a plethora of strange beer names, and here are 10 of our favorites.
Number 10: Fiddler’s Elbow

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If you ever saw the water Genny was actually brewed with back then you’d laugh, Drink it and then told about that water? Maybe not so funny.

One Bottle Collection beer for every day before Christmas. Rating system: not actually meant as a “tense” comment. All these beers either don’t exist anymore, or I tasted in the past. Hopefully, if not so hot before, they’re better now. If they do still exist. Or hopefully, if not better they’re as dead as the… Dickens.

Ghost of Christmas Present… remember him? Jolly, fun: the kind of guy you’d invite to a party for the season, and the kind of beer you could bring to a festive affair and not be totally laughed out of the room by festive beer geeks. That’s the best a beer gets in this series. Now Ghost of Christmas Past isn’t a great award. You can see from the picture he can be a bit of a grump. Probably from mediocre’ beer. And best not bring a Ghost of Christmas Past Beer to a beer geek festive affair. You’ll be the limp wet noodle of the party. A Ghost of Christmas Future beer? You remember that guy, right? If you want to be laughed at, have to bring most of your offering home and feel like you’ve just attended your own funeral instead of a party, bring a Ghost of Christmas Future beer. Some Ghost of Future Beer might best serve as embalming fluid.

Written by Ken Carman

Snowballs Chance

I have dreamed about this beer. OK, from what I remember: no spice. But certainly Santa would rather have this by his fireplace than cookies. A strong ale with plenty of dextrinous goodness and maybe a little carmelization to add complexity. I don’t remember the hopping being all that significant. I have read some claim it ruby brown, but I seem to remember more edging towards brown and a bit like some barleywines, in color only. Not a ton of alcohol by any means. Some claim it’s an English Brown. To me it edges more towards a Scottish 80, at least. Made by Wild Goose Brewery.

Bring this to your Christmas party and Tiny Tim will be begging to share. Don’t do it. Soon he’ll be walking and begging for more. And Bob Cratchit will have you tossed in jail for serving a minor. Of course, he’ll take all the beer. Think you’ll see it when you get out? Not a Snowballs Chance in Hell.

A Ghost of Christmas Present for this one.

Continue reading “From the Bottle Collection: 1 Day Before Christmas Beer”

One Bottle Collection beer for every day before Christmas. Rating system: not actually meant as a “tense” comment. All these beers either don’t exist anymore, or I tasted in the past. Hopefully, if not so hot before, they’re better now. If they do still exist. Or hopefully, if not better they’re as dead as the… Dickens.

Ghost of Christmas Present… remember him? Jolly, fun: the kind of guy you’d invite to a party for the season, and the kind of beer you could bring to a festive affair and not be totally laughed out of the room by festive beer geeks. That’s the best a beer gets in this series. Now Ghost of Christmas Past isn’t a great award. You can see from the picture he can be a bit of a grump. Probably from mediocre’ beer. And best not bring a Ghost of Christmas Past Beer to a beer geek festive affair. You’ll be the limp wet noodle of the party. A Ghost of Christmas Future beer? You remember that guy, right? If you want to be laughed at, have to bring most of your offering home and feel like you’ve just attended your own funeral instead of a party, bring a Ghost of Christmas Future beer. Some Ghost of Future Beer might best serve as embalming fluid.

Written by Ken Carman

Young’s Winter Ale and Young’s Winter Warmer

I have a problem here. The Winter Ale is labeled 89-90. The Winter Warmer
is newer: probably early 2000. Are they the same product? I doubt it, but the Ale may have morphed into the Warmer. I’m sure the recipe has probably changed a tad.

The Warmer was a bit spicy: more than likely spicy English hops, a deep amber. A nit chocolate and sweet. Complex, but a bit light bodied for a warmer… but that’s more from an American perspective.

I can’t rate it well because, though I love Youngs, I have found distribution a bit problematic in the past. When it’s fresh, it’s grand. When it’s not… well that’s what happens to beer when it sits in some warehouse, or out in the sun. I seem to remember these two were more than a bit cardboard-like, though different. The Warmer a bit heavier and higher abv.

Normally I’d do a Ghost of Future beer here, but blaming this all on Youngs is a bit unfair. maybe this is just a way for distributors to get even for all that Redcoat stuff, oh, so long ago. But I couldn’t give them a… Present. So a Ghost of Christmas Past it is.

Continue reading “From the Bottle Collection: 2 Days Before Christmas Beer”

One Bottle Collection beer for every 5 days before Christmas. Rating system: not actually meant as a “tense” comment. All these beers either don’t exist anymore, or I tasted in the past. Hopefully, if not so hot before, they’re better now. If they do still exist. Or hopefully, if not better they’re as dead as the… Dickens.

Ghost of Christmas Present… remember him? Jolly, fun: the kind of guy you’d invite to a party for the season, and the kind of beer you could bring to a festive affair and not be totally laughed out of the room by festive beer geeks. That’s the best a beer gets in this series. Now Ghost of Christmas Past isn’t a great award. You can see from the picture he can be a bit of a grump. Probably from mediocre’ beer. And best not bring a Ghost of Christmas Past Beer to a beer geek festive affair. You’ll be the limp wet noodle of the party. A Ghost of Christmas Future beer? You remember that guy, right? If you want to be laughed at, have to bring most of your offering home and feel like you’ve just attended your own funeral instead of a party, bring a Ghost of Christmas Future beer. Some Ghost of Future Beer might best serve as embalming fluid.

Written by Ken Carman

Market Street Winter

What exactly made this a Christmas/Seasonal beer I don’t remember, but I do remember that this came into my collection towards the end of Bohanan Brewing being a Nashville phenomenon and into being a Nashville scourge. They were the first in craft beer world to take Nashvillian beer lovers by storm and they were pretty good. I rememeber a vanilla beer that was tasty.

For some reason they got burned out just as the competition started to heat up and stopped caring. Their local product was phenolic and loaded with DMS. Various versions of Gack! I don’t know how they achieved this, because as far as I know they had no bottling line: they vended out, but the bottled stuff was as bad or worse. Let the barf begin! Like chewing on the coal left in your stocking because someone was a bad brewer.

Bring this to the party and there would be no need to wait for over

You see the Ghost of Christmases Yet To Come? Yeah, he’s telling you all the other brewers are eagerly dividing your brew equipment up while laughing.

So sad. Didn’t have to be that way. And poor Tiny Tim? That’s may be why the beer was so bad at the end. Did he fall into the kettle and you used him as an adjunct?

Continue reading “From the Bottle Collection: 3 Days Before Christmas Beer”

Associated Press

KINGSPORT, Tenn. (AP) — Kingsport police say a 61-year-old man attacked his neighbor after being denied a beer.

The man, Alfred E. Bruner, was arrested and charged with aggravated assault on Wednesday night after his neighbor reported to police that Bruner came to his apartment asking for a beer.

According to a police report obtained by the Kingsport Times-News, the victim was attacked after telling Bruner he was out of beer. Bruner was also accused of coming at the neighbor with a 6- to 7-foot-long stick.

Police spoke with Bruner who appeared heavily intoxicated.

‘Police spoke with Bruner who appeared heavily intoxicated.” -PGA: “DUH!!!