Category: Front Page

 Without intent, I have collected well over 2,000 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.

 I haven’t written an edition of this column for quite a while, but after a few Zoom meetings with various brew clubs, and members asking about the collection, I thought I’d feature some of the collection.
 First, top left, is a defunct brewery from the 90’s Saratoga Thoroughbrews may be familiar with: Lake Titus Brewery in Malone, NY: a town I used to travel through when Millie, now Carman, went to Potsdam, and I went to Plattsburgh. (I also got in a small accident there, but that’s another slippery tale heading down an ice ice coated hill with a streetlight at the bottom in the early 70’s. Pintos dented REAL easy!)
 I really don’t remember the beer: an Amber Ale. Must not have been remarkable. I usually remember. Continue reading “From the Bottle Collection”

Anheuser-Busch InBev has agreed to pay a record $5 million offer in compromise (OIC) for alleged trade practice violations related to sports and entertainment sponsorships, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) announced today.

Additionally, A-B’s importer and wholesaler permits were suspended for two days in Littleton, Colorado, and four days in Denver.

“This $5 million OIC resolves any such alleged violations that may have taken place throughout the United States through July 2, 2020,” the TTB said.”

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Video from Schlenkerla Rauchbier.

Written by Franz Hofer for A Tempest in a Tankard

KING MAX AND THE HUNGRY BEER GARDEN PATRON

A refreshing beer and a meal in the cooling shade of the beer garden: It’s a beloved rite of spring and summer that dates back to early nineteenth-century Bavaria. For several years, the citizens of Munich had taken to spending more of their time (and cash) during the warmer months at the beer cellars along the banks of the Isar, preferring these shaded chestnut groves to the stuffy inns where the beer was decidedly less fresh. Innkeepers were incensed and petitioned King Maximilian I. Joseph of Bavaria (1806–1825) to do something to stop these dastardly brewers from serving beer garden food.

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Sitting here in 2020, in the midst of a still-unfolding pandemic, multiple summers into the era of hard seltzer, it feels like it’s been considerably more than two years since we conducted a ridiculously large blind tasting of 324 IPAs at Paste.

If you had asked me to cite some of my favorite beer styles in advance of that particular blind tasting, I don’t think there’s a shred of doubt that one of my first responses would have been modern, hazy IPA, or “NE-IPA” as we were more commonly calling it at the time. I had fallen in love with the style as much as anyone in the mid-2010s, watching the influence of pioneers like The Alchemist’s Heady Topper radiate across the country, gaining footholds on the East Coast first, before gradually being adopted everywhere. It was hard not to be charmed by the style’s easygoing disposition, fruit-forward flavors, lack of bitterness and continued evolution of the “juicy” flavor profile that had already been sought after in clear India pale ales of the period. It seemed like a clear reflection of changing consumer tastes, and I was excited to try new hazy IPAs from nearly every brewery I visited.

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Written by Franz Hofer for A Tempest in a Tankard

Kloster Andechs occupies a central place in the pantheon of German brewing. Founded by Benedictine monks in 1455, Kloster Andechs has been offering hospitality to weary pilgrims ever since. Now run by the Benedictine Abbey of St. Boniface in Munich, Kloster Andechs is the largest of the handful of bona fide monastery breweries remaining in Germany. It’s also one of the few regional German breweries with beers reliably available this side of the pond. (Even if you haven’t already tried the beers of Kloster Andechs, you’d probably recognize the label depicting a Baroque monastery surrounded by greenery.) Though Kloster Andechs still welcomes upwards of one hundred organized pilgrimage groups per year, the monastery plays host to scores more people who make the trek for a different reason: the world-class beer.

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WEISSENOHE AT THE GATEWAY TO FRANCONIAN SWITZERLAND

Written by Franz Hofer for A Tempest in a Tankard

It’s a gloomy afternoon in late spring made slightly brighter by the cheerful yellow canola in full bloom and the several shades of green fields spread over the hills like a patchwork quilt. The bus from Forchheim has just deposited me at a nondescript crossroads on the highway. Tucked away in a hollow to my right, I spy the iconic steeple presiding over the monastery complex I’ve seen on so many bottles of beer from Klosterbrauerei Weissenohe. I’m in the right place.

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HERE!!!

Part of becoming a brewmaster is developing the ability to identify and address flavors and aromas that are not intended to be in your beer. We typically call these “off-flavors.”

From the infamous skunky smell to hints of canned vegetables, Drew Beechum (Simple Brewing, Experimental Brewing) walks us through 6 of the most common beer off-flavors.

And remember! You can always turn a less-than-drinkable beer into malt vinegar or use it as paint.

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HERE!!!

I’ve been a beer writer for a half-decade, and only once have I brewed my own beer, and that was at Vine Park. I know the ins and outs of what brewers do on a commercial scale, but the closest I get to that at home is mixing Bud Light and Budweiser to make an elixir I call “Bud Medium.”

Housebound and self-destructively bored, I decide to give it another shot. Besides, a lockdown seems like a good opportunity to hone practical survival skills in the event of a total societal collapse.

I don’t own kettles or a kegerator or even a large slotted spoon, so I’m not ready to go full-bore. Thankfully, Belgian kit maker Brewferm is there to help me bridge the gap. For just under $100, you can buy an all-in-one starter kit and have it delivered to your bunker (Amazon also sells them). I get mine in hasty time (nice work, Belgium!), but it sits unused for months before COVID-19 forces me into intellectual wandering. On the first day of my self-quarantine, I dig into it.

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HERE!!!

Written by Franz Hofer for A Tempest in a Tankard

Tucked away in northeastern Bavaria on the Czech border, the Oberpfalz is home to Zoigl, a beer style brewed the same way it was a century ago. But Zoigl is more than a beer style. It’s an ethos upholding a tradition that has long since died out across most of Bavaria. For starters, Zoigl is brewed in a communal brewhouse, a brewing arrangement held over from medieval times. From there, the brewers transport the brew to their own cellars for fermentation before serving them in their Zoiglstuben for only a few days every month. Just look for the six-pointed Zoiglstern, the telltale sign that reveals where the beer is flowing.

And those Zoiglstuben! The Zoiglstube is more of a living room than a restaurant, a convivial place where every seat is full by late afternoon. It’s virtually impossible not to engage with other people. A steady stream of locals crowd in to swap stories or catch up on the news of the day, gladly making room for all who pass through the door. After a few Zoiglbier, we’re all locals.

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HERE!!!