For a far too brief a time, back in 1989 – 1991, I lived in Knoxville, Tennessee. I absolutely loved it there. Some of the best memories I own are of sitting on my back stoop in the evening, after a long day of pulling kudzu and reframing windows and doors, and looking out that long vista across downtown and out to Fountain City and Powell while sipping iced Red Zinger tea. A family I love very much lived right across the street and I was involved in starting a new regional theater company, from absolute scratch. It was a magical time…spoiled slightly by one major deficiency…

No beer. At least, no beer that a hard-core, life-long beer snob such as me would even think about drinking.

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ANHEUSER BUSCH-INBEV, the world’s largest brewer, recently made headlines by announcing that it would temporarily rename Budweiser, one of its best-selling beers, as America. It’s a curious name choice, not only because AB-InBev is based in Belgium, but also because of what the new name stands for: independence.

As Anheuser-Busch InBev looks to finalize a $107 billion merger with SABMiller, the world’s second-largest brewer, federal antitrust authorities need to weigh what this means for the growing number of small brewers and independent distributors who are driving the industry. Recent reports say that antitrust authorities are likely to approve the deal by the end of the month. If they do so without adequate protections, the merger could stifle consumer choice and choke off America’s beer renaissance.

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Unfortunately a lot of uncovered women brewers here-PGA

The craft beer industry, a notoriously male-dominated sphere, is experiencing a major shift in demographics. Not only are more women enjoying beer, but increasingly they are becoming the brewers themselves.

After reading an article about Local Brewing Co., a brewery owned and operated by two women, San Francisco photographer Natalie Jenks was inspired to create a portraiture series celebrating women in beer. She began this journey in July 2015, becoming increasingly impressed with the various jobs that females were holding in the industry. From her subjects, she quickly discovered that women were occupying positions across the craft beer industry spectrum, fulfilling roles such as brewery owner, brewer, lab manager, beer delivery and marketing coordinator, among others.

In creating these portraits, Jenks desired to emphasize the role of each individual female within the context of her workplace. Interestingly, she learned from her subjects that, unlike many other largely male fields, the craft beer industry is truly one of collaboration, not competition. Women in beer are quickly becoming less of an anomaly, and as Jenks states on her website, “The hope is that we get to a place where it’s not about being a woman, it’s just about making great beer.”

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This post was motivated by a recent and frenzied convergence of dozens of people with whom I have an online relationship, writing things that are rooted deeply in some antiquated notion that there are Universal Absolutes that apply to all evaluation of their beers, wines, or booze faves. I participated in a discussion, last week, in which a notable and respected beer writer opined that he was put off by all these different kinds of beers; all the stylistic variations and what he considers wrong-headed misinterpretations of styles. He took specific aim at the Black IPA, otherwise known as the CDA – Cascadian Dark Ale. He never mentioned the CDA but claimed that calling something “Black” as attached to a style of ale properly called “India PALE Ale” makes no sense. And, in one sense, he’s right. Maybe some name like “India Dark Ale”  would fix his problem but somehow I suspect it wouldn’t. Most people who waste valuable air, blood, and minutes bitching about well established things they have zero hope of influencing wouldn’t consider the problem fixed unless they could summarily waive it totally out of existence. I can’t speak for him, of course, but as the conversation centered on the idea that we don’t need all these different styles of beer, I feel safe in saying that he wishes the whole notion would just…go away.

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Step aside with your claims to long legacies, craft breweries! This reconstructed beer recipe is over 5,000 years old. It’s the earliest beer recipe—and the earliest known use of barley—in China.

Archaeologists at Stanford University, wile digging along China’s Wei River, made an intriguing discovery: A marvelously complete set of brewing equipment. And at the bottom of that equipment was something even more wonderful: Residue from the drink it once brew

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The Wedge Brewing Company out of Asheville has a little message for North Carolina lawmakers in regard to its controversial anti-LGBT bathroom law that forbids public schools from allowing transgender students to use the correct bathroom, for which it is currently being sued by the U.S. Justice Department for violating the Civil Rights Act. And that message is currently printed on the bottom of its Iron Rail IPA cans.

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As homebrewers, we’re usually never satisfied until we know how things work. We constantly ask why and how something is done until we understand the basic concept. When you start brewing all-grain, you hit a certain temperature to hit a specific characteristic because you were told to do so. You start picking up on words like alpha-amylase, beta-amylase, mash out and protein rest, and now you’re more curious than ever about what’s going on in the mash.

Here we’ll discuss the enzymes in beer, which convert the starch in malt into soluble sugars. By understanding and making enzymes work for you, an all-grain brewer can control a multitude of components in their beer. Here is a list of the attributes of a beer that can be controlled during the mashing process:

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Written by Franz Hofer for A Tempest in a Tankard

Get out your Rauchbier, folks! It’s smoked beer sauerkraut time!

Not long ago I was in Oklahoma getting ready for a backyard grillfest with friends I hadn’t seen in a while. We decided to keep it relatively simple. Plenty of bratwurst from Siegi’s Sausage Factory in Tulsa would do the trick fine.

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Let me say this to start this thing, which is equal parts glowing review and very sour rant: Coronado Brewing “Berry The Hatchet” is a DAZZLING bottle o’ beer. It’s light and fresh and low in alcohol and perfectly balanced and is going to be one of the best summer beers made by anybody in 2016. I tasted this and immediately thought of all those great Euro fruitbiers that I’ve drunk and loved since I was in college; summer beers that, for me, almost define what hot weather in Washington, DC, where I went to school, was all about. But…

…because I am a fella of a certain age, I get guys sidling up to me in brewery tasting rooms and at bars and saying things to the effect of, “Can you believe all these foofy beers? ‘Infused” this and ‘Barrel-aged’ that. Can they not just make a damned Pale ale and be satisfied with it?”.

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