A Place to Gather and Talk
2PM, Saturday, 1/8/11, Flying Saucer 111 10th Avenue S # 310 Nashville, TN 37203-3815 (615) 259-3039
Thanks to passionate entrepreneurs like George and Leah Shetka and Paul Pavkovich of Hippity Hops Farms, LLC, Minnesota might be making some noise in the hop farming industry.
(Paul’s son Landon poses at Hippity Hops Farms, LLC, located in Forest Lake, Minnesota.)
The three got started when Paul suggested the idea. “I had four plants and thought, ‘why not go bigger?’†Turns out, it wasn’t terribly difficult to convince the Shetka’s that their front lawn would make a perfect hop-yard.
“We just went in circles mowing the grass there anyways,†said Leah.
In the fall of 2008, George and some other family members got to work situating rows of 20-foot poles strung together with rope. The following spring, 75 Cascade rhizomes went into the ground and began their frenzied climb. That first year, they harvested about 12 pounds of hops, all of which were handpicked.
“We want to emphasize we handpick everything,†said Paul. “That’s one thing we’re not going to stop doing.â€
Continue reading “Hippity Hops Farms—What’s Up Hop?”
How to make your home brew even more “home brew”-ish? What about roasting your own beans? Coffee Stout or Witte anyone?- PGA
Picture of roasting beans, Doug Beghtel, The Oregonian
Portland loves its DIY culture, with all its craft fairs, knitting classes and home-brewing get-togethers. Portland also loves coffee, with temples of java dotting the map like tattoos on the arms of baristas.
That these passions have come together seems inevitable. Instead of just heading to a nearby coffee shop for an artfully poured latte, more people are learning what it takes to make coffee at home that’s vastly superior to what people used to drink. And there’s a fast-growing trend of people roasting their own coffee beans.
Continue reading “Roasting Your Own Coffee Begins with Green Beans and a Skillet”
“Kind of like, ya know, mold grows on an OLDE Scribe”
At first Scribe hated Oxymoron. A mild IPA, where the hops slowly assert themselves to full IPA. Three German malts, six German hop varieties, and a lager yeast strain.
Great name. Weird lager/pilsner malt mix. A project brew feature brewers from Left Hand and Terrapin. But this one grows on you. Nice head. Fades fast. Deep burnt gold. Vague hop aroma: no hop specific, Oxymoron has a full body and makes an Olde Scribe take notice. About as complex as a union between Einstein and Britney Spears.
A bit confusing.
Interesting.
Confuse yourself today. Give it a try. Make up your own %$#@! mind.
How the Busch clan lost control of an iconic American beer company.
If ever an American company represented the land of milk and honey for corporate executives it was Anheuser-Busch, though perhaps the land of hops, rice and barley would be more apt. For decades a palace of well-paid vice presidents in cushy offices presided over the manufacture of Budweiser, America’s beer, in that most American of cities, St. Louis. They also oversaw the Busch Gardens theme parks in Virginia and in Florida, where Shamu the killer whale was on the payroll, along with a stable of 250 Clydesdale horses. It was a first-class operation all the way. There were $1,000 dinners, hunting lodges, sky suites at Busch Stadium and a fleet of Dassault Falcon corporate jets with a staff of 20 waiting pilots. Every kitchenette refrigerator at corporate headquarters was well stocked with Bud, Bud Lite and Michelob.
Continue reading “This Bud’s for Sale”
A press release from the Discovery Channel
-Premiering Sunday, November 21 at 10 PM E/P on Discovery Channel-
(Silver Spring, MD) – It’s cold, it’s comforting, it’s beer….but for Sam Calagione, founder of one of America’s leading craft brewers Dogfish Head Brewery, beer is a passion, a business and a personal quest for best, most imaginative brews. Premiering Sunday, November 21 at 10 PM E/P on Discovery Channel, BREW MASTERS follows Sam and his partners in suds as they travel the country and the world sourcing exotic ingredients and discovering ancient techniques to produce beers of astounding originality.
Continue reading “Brew Masters on Discovery Channel (with Sam Calagione) Debuts in November”
For the green-conscious crowd, it can be argued that it’s far more important to drink beers from environment-friendly breweries than to seek out organic beers that may leave you unsatisfied. (Photo: Phil Velasquez/Chicago Tribune)
Over a plate of eggs from a free-range, hormone-free, vegetarian-fed, organic chicken, I pondered the carbon footprint of my beer consumption.
I recycle bottles and cans, sure; but is that enough to offset all the water, energy and other resources that go into making liquid gold?
So I started looking into organic beers — and I was underwhelmed. Unlike the wine industry, which in recent years has exploded with bio-dynamic and organic wines produced in sustainable ways, there are still only a relative few number of beers out there that have gone green.
Continue reading “Green beer: Not Just for St. Patty’s Day”
Homebrewers have an unsung hero. They may be familiar with the founder of Guinness, or that lager yeast was created at Carlsberg by one Christian Hansen. The heroes and innovators are many. But without a way to keep the creamy head from escaping, without a head or at least just a slight tingle that carbonation delivers to the palate, beer just simply wouldn’t be, well, beer. Simply fermented wort, or “wert” as it was once spelled.
Hiram Codd.
Continue reading “Hiram Codd”
Ballantine Brewing/Ballantine XXX
The real story of the greatest of the traditional American ales.
Mention the name Ballantine to beer lovers, especially beer lovers with more than a few flecks of gray in their beards, and more often than not they will begin to rhapsodize rapturously about this famous ale. You’ll hear stories of old bottles mysteriously and wondrously discovered and tasted; tales of long-discarded techniques employed by the original brewers; accounts of the slow, steady decline of the beer’s greatness as it passed from brewery to brewery, the result of corporate takeovers.
Continue reading “The Late, Great, Ballantine”
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