A Beer Garden in Vienna’s Wine Country

Written by Franz Hofer for A Tempest in a Tankard

Last time we met I was drinking a Czech Budweiser under the chestnut canopy in the Alsergrund section of the Schweizerhaus. Today we’re going to head to the village-like atmosphere in the north of the city where the Vienna Woods begin. In Part III we’ll swing west to one of the city’s garden districts before capping the evening in a beer garden hidden right in the middle of the historic old town.

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Exploring Vienna’s Beer Gardens

Written by Franz Hofer for A Tempest in a Tankard

Vienna, city of music. Home to Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Strauss, and Mahler. Vienna, a showcase of architectural styles from the soaring Gothic-era Stephansdom to the Baroque opulence of the Karlskirche, and from elegant Ringstrasse historicism to the fin-de-siècle modernism of Otto Wagner. Vienna’s pastries rival those of Paris, as does its coffeehouse culture. Chocolate? Plenty of that, too.

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The Dark Beer That Fueled the Founding Fathers

Robert Hare's Porter Was The Toast Of Revolutionary Philadelphia

In 1774 the first Continental Congress was convening, America was starting to take shape, and one beer was all the rage in Philadelphia: Mr. Hare’s Porter. To say this beer was popular is an understatement. Many of the attendees of the Continental Congress enjoyed a pint or two of the porter regularly, but George Washington and John Adams were the beer’s biggest fans. Washington was such a fan that during the Revolutionary War he would regularly send for the beer to be shipped to wherever he was at the front. Washington even tried to recreate the brew himself when he retired to Mount Vernon, though he was never able to exactly copy it.

The porter, and Mr. Hare, seemingly came out of nowhere and exploded in popularity at dramatic speed. Thanks to an impending war, and a desire to stop buying English goods, Robert Hare went from brewer to socialite in mere seconds. It’s a quintessential American tale: make a product people demand and follow your product’s rise to riches – that rise might even involve a stint in politics if you’re lucky.

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Improve Your Mead with Staggered Nutrient Additions

The concept is simple: if yeast doesn’t provide the necessary tools and environment to conduct a healthy fermentation, the final mead or beer can be riddled with flaws.

In order to combat this problem, mead nutrient additions can be added to yeast during fermentation that will make for a fast, robust fermentation and lessen the chances of developing off-flavors.

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9 of America’s best beer gardens

Bohemian Hall in the Queens borough of New York has been around since before Prohibition, keeping the Czech and Slovak beer garden tradition alive for nearly a century.

 

(CNN)Purists, rejoice: This year marks the 500th anniversary of the Reinheitsgebot, known in English as the German Beer Purity Law.

The set of regulations dates back to a 1516 decree outlining three permissible beer ingredients: hops, barley and water (yeast, while not specifically mentioned in the text of the law, is also acceptable).
This was a way to ensure the quality and integrity of German beer and to relegate grains like wheat and rye to baking bread instead of brewing beer.

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More than 3,000 cases of beer stolen from Atlanta brewery

June 21, 2016: This image shows beer stolen from Sweetwater Brewing Company in Atlanta, Ga. Approximately one-quarter of the nearly 3,300 cases were recovered at a warehouse in Clayton County, Ga.

A mystery is brewing in Georgia after thieves stole two trailers containing nearly 3,300 cases of beer early Tuesday.

SweetWater Brewing Co. said the trailers had been loaded for an early morning pickup when they were taken from the company’s plant north of downtown. The two trailers carried 3,272 cases altogether — or more than 78,500 bottles — of SweetWater’s Summer Variety Pack, company spokeswoman.

Both trailers were located with the help of GPS later Tuesday. However, the beer was gone.

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Invert Syrups: Making Your Own Simple Sugars for Complex Beers

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Invert sugar is ubiquitous in the culinary world. Added to confections like chocolate ganache, fudge, and taffy, it discourages other kinds of sugars from crystallizing. Incorporated into frozen desserts like gelato, sorbet, and ice cream, it delivers a smooth, creamy texture. And invert sugar bolsters the moist, tender crumb of madeleines and brioche. Naturally hygroscopic, it absorbs moisture and lengthens the shelf lives of foods that include it.

Invert sugar also happens to make a great beer. And boiling up your own is easier than you might think.

Invert Sugar in the Brewery

 

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The 50 Most Underrated Craft Breweries in the U.S.A.

Delaware
Mispillion River Brewing – Milford, DE

Everyone and their mother is aware of the massive impact that Dogfish Head has had on the national craft brewing scene, and when it comes to Delaware one should also really acknowledge how important Iron Hill Brewery and its string of brewpubs has been to the state’s development. Mispillion River, meanwhile, was founded in 2013, and is the sort of scion that has grown out of the small state’s rapidly expanding craft beer community while taking the legacy of Dogfish Head to heart. Their year-round IPA Reach Around is a perfect companion beer to the classic 60 Minute, while the amusingly named Holy Crap! Imperial Red Ale feels a lot like an East Coast version of Oskar Blues tasty G’Knight. And those are just the year-rounders—the bigger family of Mispillion beers includes everything from a “mojito-inspired ale” to a tart orange Berliner weisse, a Harry Potter-inspired tripel and sweet potato pie beer in the fall, made with local produce. It’s just a well-balanced, creative, thriving brewery making serious forays into regional distribution. –Jim Vorel

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Beer Styles – Gose vs. Gueuze

Gose and GueuzeIf you’ve ever been out roaming among the beer hipsters of the beer-iverse, you’ve probably heard plenty of chatter about sour beers. While it seems like a conversation in an encrypted WWII language made to fool the Nazi’s, not everything us beer hipsters say is nonsense. Sour beers are a stronghold of the beer hipster, so if you want to stand any chance of finding out about or discussing the newest sours to hit the local beer shoppes, you need to know your styles. This will only focus on a small part of the sour beer world, but step one is pronunciation.

Gose:
G-oh-suh (as in Van Gogh with a “suh” at the end)

Gueuze:
G-er-zah (if you’re Belgian);
Goo-zuh (if you’re nasty);
G-oo-z (as in “goo” with a marketing firm’s urban “z” at the end)

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