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COVID-19 dealt a major blow to Charlotte’s brewers, which couldn’t get beer out to their retail accounts and could only sell to-go out of their taprooms during the shelter-in-place order.

As difficult as it has been for brewers, there have been silver linings for consumers. Online ordering and curbside pickup have made it easier than ever to pick up beers; core beers that were never available in cans now are; and some breweries even sold kegs to consumers at steep discounts.

And now, COVID-19 seems to have ushered in the summer of lager.

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Written by Franz for A Tempest in a Tankard

You’ll come for the beer and stay for the Alps. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Either way, the panoramic view from Kloster Reutberg’s terrace is one of the best beer garden views in Bavaria. If you get here in the morning while the mist is still clinging to the Alps, it’s as if the curtain is lifting on a majestic performance as the sun dissipates the clouds.

Speaking of early, cyclists and hikers flock to the monastery grounds perched idyllically atop a hillock rising gently above the meadows of Sachsenkam, especially when the weather’s nice. Be sure to arrive early enough to claim your front-row seat on the terrace. The early bird gets the worm. And don’t forget to bring sunscreen.

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This is SO tiresome-PGA
On Friday it was reported that Stone Brewing (Escondido, CA) sent a Cease & Desist to Sawstone Brewing Co. in Morehead, Kentucky.

Patrick Fannin of Dreaming Creek Brewery in Richmond, KY sent out a thread of tweets explaining the situation:

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Profiled by Maria Devan for PGA

This is a collaboration between Ommegang and Big Ditch brewing.

They are using mandarina Bavaria and hallertau blanc hops. The mandarina has the sweet scent of orange and the hallertau give it a light powdery floral.

Golden yellow and clear with a big creamy head of white foam that fizzes as it pops. Falls hugging the glass and feels soft not soapy on the lips.

On the palate the hops are bitter and less fruity than on the nose which lets the malt come through crisp and dry in the finish. A little bit more than moderate carbonation. The dry hopping leaves a sweet softness to the middle of the beer and the lightest taste of mandarin oranges. Finishes malty with a slightly lasting bitterness and dry.

Would go anywhere white wine would go just like the brewer said. Cheers.

 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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