Category: Front Page

Before beginning this series, let me offer the only disclaimer that matters at all in reading ANY list:

This is ONE GUY’S OPINIONS.

After ten years of writing this and its precursor in the Seattle P-I, I finally hit the wall this year and decided to stop doing anything called “Best Of”. Two reasons: A) ANY list – EVERY list – is nothing but the individual opinions of one person or an aggregated bunch of opinions from some group. The groups MAY, in what I would have to call rare cases, include people with tremendous acumen and experience. In MOST cases, though, it’s just a bunch of folks with an interest and viewpoints. And B) There is no “best”. Period. And if something does happen to be the best at the given moment, that status is guaranteed to change before the list is even posted, especially in all our distinct and dynamic American beverage cultures. New breweries, wineries, and distilleries are opening almost daily. Established under-performers are beginning to Get It and taking leaps forward.

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Written by Franz Hofer for A Tempest in a Tankard

Prague. Beer. Two words that go well together.

Welcome to my series on Prague. In contrast to other series I’ve compiled or other city/regional spotlights I’ve written, I’m going to start at the end, as it were, with a rough-and-ready list of beers that you can find in Prague. The next post will feature a list of highlights, including what to see, where to find the beers mentioned below, and where to find the best tavern experiences. For those readers unaccustomed to seeing Tempest posts that amount to lists and bullet points, fear not. I’ve got a nice, long narrative “guide” to Prague ready to go.

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While last week we explored the new, this week we’re taking a look at one of Denny’s favorite “old” styles – Altbier. Come join as we try and explain exactly what makes an alt, an alt and how you can brew what we think is one of the best beers for the pending fall even if sometimes it’s a secret.

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Two weekends ago, I spent an enjoyable Saturday at the For What It’s Wort competition at Destihl’s brewery in Normal, Illinois.  It is sponsored by the Association of Bloomington-Normal Brewers (ABNormal Brewers) and they did an excellent job organizing it.  Bloomington-Normal is a two-hour drive or Amtrak ride from downtown Chicago, and while I don’t know everyone, I think I was the only judge from the city, with a couple of other judges from the suburbs.

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As the craft landscape has become increasingly competitive and as growth has slowed, some craft brewers are beginning to alter their approaches to expansion.

While some companies have restructured their sales and marketing teams and laid off employees, others are starting to reexamine their brick-and-mortar strategies. Take the divergent paths of Other Half Brewing Company in Brooklyn and Renegade Brewing Company in Denver, for example.

Other Half yesterday announced that it had purchased the former Nedloh Brewing Company facility in Upstate New York, which closed in October 2017, for $660,000. The 4-year-old, 8,000 sq. ft. facility, which includes a 10-barrel brewing system and taproom, will be transformed into a second location for Other Half as it looks to service demand in a more emerging market.

Want to read more? Please read… HERE!

Did you know all beer is red? We don’t perceive all beer as red, of course, but deep down in its molecules, it is. Since all beer is red, what determines the color of beer?

Grain is by far the strongest coloring agent in beer, and grains are colored by melanin, a rust-red pigment that drives the color of beer. But what about Pale Ales and Imperial Stouts, you say? Some beers don’t appear red at all. As with most questions about beer, the answer involves chemistry – in fact, a number of factors can affect color, and we’ll take a closer look at all of them. We’ll also examine what beer color can (and can’t) cue us to expect in terms of flavor, as well as how beer color is measured and described.

The Chemistry of Color

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Learning how to say the word Gueuze is maybe the hardest part of learning about this quirky, exotic style of ale. Broken down into its phonetics, the pronunciation begins with one of those odd, half-swallowed syllables that comes out to “guh-YOOZ-eh”, with just a bare hint of that “eh” on the end, which is the proper Belgian way of saying it. But for purposes of our dumbed-down, non-Euro language facilities, saying “GOOZ-uh” works just fine.

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It’s our annual post conference wrapup and we hit the latest in beer news, look at some new books and revisit some really old brews. And then in the lounge, Drew sits down with the iconic craft brew veteran, Alan Sprints of Hair of the Dog. We taste some beers and talk about his unqiue take on building beers. There’s even one beer that Drew thought should be a mess, but was amazingly sublime.
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I’m standing in line at the liquor store. In one hand, I have a six-pack of Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy. In the other, I have Short Pants Shandy from Bauhaus. The guy in front of me looks me up and down like a cartoon wolf.

He doesn’t seem to like what he sees.

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It’s HomeBrewCon Time (ok, it was HomeBrewCon time last week. We’re barely recovered!) In this special live episode we cover a lot of ground including AHA news with Gary Glass, New Zealand Brewing, sample beers from Chile, dig deep into hops with YCH, talk winning with Oregon Homebrewer of the Year, taco beer with Texas Brewing, drop lager results and revisit T-90/Cryo, Niko’s back, Brewcraft has a ton of great stuff on deck and we close talking to Charlie P on his retirement tour! Phew!

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