Category: Front Page

This isn’t for all of you. Some of you should be opening breweries. But it’s for most of you (and me, for that matter). For God’s sake, stop opening breweries. You might be OK to ignore this if you live somewhere where there isn’t a decent brewery within, say, 25 miles. And you’ve worked in an industrial setting (do you even weld, bro?). And you have extensive brewing experience. And you have a working knowledge of chemistry and biology. And you have some experience in marketing and sales. And/or you’re rich or have access to a lot of slack credit. If you don’t check these boxes and you’re contemplating a brewery business plan right now, I’m talking to you.

Because lately I keep reading about and/or visiting breweries that fail on these basic, obvious things, and it’s starting to piss me off because I’m now having to hear my macro-drinking neighbors tell me that they picked up some local brewery’s beers, but didn’t like them…and they’re 100% right. This isn’t, “oh, they usually drink Coors Lite and can’t handle real beer.” It’s “oh, that beer legitimately doesn’t taste good for a variety of reasons.” You’re always going to have differences in taste, but this is actually just poorly-made beer, and believe it or not (my palate-trained friends) while it might be hard to pick out the great from the good in terms of beer, picking out the terrible is pretty easy, and lots of people can do it.

Want to read more? Please click…

HERE

I’m a lover of all things lager- Márzen, Schwarzbier, Helles, and Pilsner are some of favorite styles. As a homebrewer, I initially avoided making lager beer due to my inability to precisely control fermentation temperature. Once I finally got my chamber setup and made a couple lagers using more traditional fermentation schedules, I found myself avoiding them due to how long they took to finish. I also began wondering how I might be able to hasten the process. I had learned that with precise control of my temperature, I could turn most ales around in 2 weeks and wondered why I couldn’t use this control to do the same with lager beers. I made a couple batches that came out surprisingly well, played with the method for a few months, and was gradually convincing myself the days of 2 month lagers were behind me. After numerous successful batches, I happen to catch an episode of The Session on The Brewing Network where Mike “Tasty” McDole mentioned how he takes lager grain-to-glass in 2 weeks using precise control of fermentation temperature. This was validating, particularly since I was aiming for a much less anxiety provoking 3-4 week turnaround.I’m a lover of all things lager- Márzen, Schwarzbier, Helles, and Pilsner are some of favorite styles. As a homebrewer, I initially avoided making lager beer due to my inability to precisely control fermentation temperature. Once I finally got my chamber setup and made a couple lagers using more traditional fermentation schedules, I found myself avoiding them due to how long they took to finish. I also began wondering how I might be able to hasten the process. I had learned that with precise control of my temperature, I could turn most ales around in 2 weeks and wondered why I couldn’t use this control to do the same with lager beers. I made a couple batches that came out surprisingly well, played with the method for a few months, and was gradually convincing myself the days of 2 month lagers were behind me. After numerous successful batches, I happen to catch an episode of The Session on The Brewing Network where Mike “Tasty” McDole mentioned how he takes lager grain-to-glass in 2 weeks using precise control of fermentation temperature. This was validating, particularly since I was aiming for a much less anxiety provoking 3-4 week turnaround.

Want to read more? Please click…

HERE

 

I drink Budweiser. I drink Miller High Life. I drink Goose Island IPA and a few other flavors. I’m not a particular fan of Bud Light or Miller Lite, but in a pinch they’ll do.

I drink what I want, when I want. If the situation calls for a 3-ounce pour of something expensive or rare, fine. If it calls for a can of something fizzy and light in a patriotic koozie, all the better.

We live in a post-craft world, one where consumers are often told that the only thing that matters is flavor, not ownership. If the beer’s good, then why worry about anything else? On the surface, that’s an appealing argument. But it only takes a little tire kicking to realize it’s a pretty flimsy advance.

I don’t know whether authenticity matters or what it even is. I’m told that’s what Millennials want, but frankly I’ve yet to meet any who spend much time talking about it. They’re usually into trying everything. So am I, a lot of the time.

 

Want drink more? Sip more word suds by clicking

HERE

 

In a move that Modern Times Beer founder Jacob McKean calls “the coolest thing I’ve ever announced,” Modern Times is now an employee-owned brewery.

The brewery explains in a news release it repurchased shares from outside investors. Now, 30 percent of the company is being held in an employee stock ownership program.

 

Want to read more? Please click…

HERE

There are breweries out there, in that ever-expanding ocean that is American Indie Brewing, that are quite content to make a core of maybe eight or ten – sometimes even fewer! – beers and call it good. And if those six, eight, fourteen beers are good enough and their clientele is rut-inclined and undemanding, those producers can survive and even prosper.

But some, Thank God(!), are never satisfied and it’s in that stratum that we find the great breweries and the truly great beers.

Fort George Brewing of Astoria, Oregon, is very much in that school of Never Satisfied and it’s what made me a fan in the first place and what allows me to stay interested in and a devoted purchaser of their beers to this day…

Want to read more? Please click…

HERE

An IBU by any other name would taste just as bitter… or would it?

That’s the question that we set out to discover recently with the help of our volunteer IGORs.

For this experiment, the goal was to determine how closely IBU estimates in a recipe match the actual finished beer. Whether homebrewers use a spreadsheet they put together themselves, a pencil and paper, or brewing software, everyone sets an IBU target and then tries to figure out how to hit it. But variations in hops and brewing processes can mess with the actual figures, making them diverge from the predictions. We set out to see how close the finished beer was to the prediction of bitterness.

What’s an IBU

What is an International Bittering Unit? Colloquially we think of it as a measure of how bitter a beer is.

That’s kinda wrong.

Want to read more? Please click…

HERE

Want to read more? Please click…

HERE

When makers of beer and wine manage to stick around for decades and remain curious and self-critical and keep trying…they get better – sometimes a LOT better.

More and more, lately, I seem to be faced with reminding people of producers whose names have become submerged a bit in that vast sea of the New and Buzz-worthy – those breweries and wineries that you probably liked at one time but trampled a bit in your understandable rush to try and explore new things. That’s not a criticism. I do it, too. Everybody does it. What’s new is always more interesting than what’s been done, seen, tasted, experienced before. That’s human nature but human nature also dictates, as time passes, that we read a name online or in a magazine or on TV that prompts a little spark to crackle inside our synapses, causing us to mutter, “Oh, yeah…”

Want to read more? Please click…

HERE

Considering the value the ancient Egyptians placed on enjoying life, it is no surprise that they are known as the first civilization to perfect the art of brewing beer. The Egyptians were so well known as brewers, in fact, that their fame eclipsed the actual inventors of the process, the Sumerians, even in ancient times. The Greeks, who were not great fans of the drink, wrote of the Egyptian’s skill while largely ignoring the Mesopotamians.

Want to read more? Please click…

HERE

Seven years ago, I would have taken a Full Sail beer if one was handed to me but the name was not at all in the front of my mind. I had tasted everything and it was all enjoyable but none of it – except for that majestic barrel-aged Imperial Stout – moved my meter much at all.

Funny how times change.

Let’s just get this out there: Full Sail Brewing, of Hood River, Oregon IS…KILLIN’…IT.

And they’re not just doing it once in a while. They send me a box of beers to review and I have to bust out my aluminum yardstick to measure just exactly how far my jaw drops with each beer. Lots of people here in the PNW felt like I did and many of them still do. They THINK they’ve seen and tasted it all from Full Sail and, in fact, I get emails from saying things like, “Full Sail? REALLY? You havin’ a slow month or what?” That used to irritate me…

Now, I just feel sorry for them.

Want to read more? Please click…

HERE