Category: Front Page

The world’s most popular beverage throughout most of recorded history nearly died out after the Middle Ages but now counts as the smallest but fastest growing segment of the American alcohol beverage industry.

What Defines Mead?

In order to understand the mead industry singularly we must first find perspective as it is placed into the larger context of the entire US alcohol beverage industry. Nearly all styles of mead are produced in a winery. This is because the federal government classifies honey as an agricultural product which when fermented in the absence of cereal grains, is classified into one of several categories such as an “Agricultural,” “High Fermentation” or “Other than Standard” wine. These categories are often confusing to both professional mead makers and the governing body, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, a division of the US Department of the Treasury. Due to this convoluted system, the American Mead Makers Association is working through our legislative committee to restructure the federal classification of mead styles to reflect commonly accepted terminology among the mead making and mead drinking communities. This results in a meadery first being a winery that has the legal ability to ferment the sugars found in fruits such as the grapes in wine and apple juice in hard cider, and certain agricultural products such as honey and other sugars. Special ingredients can also be added as long as they are approved by the formulation division of the Tax and Trade Bureau

 

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Bummed by anti-LGBT legislation in North Carolina? Here’s a novel way to fight it: Drink beer.

Thirty-six breweries in the Southern state have banded together to brew Don’t Be Mean to People: A Golden Rule Saison.

As of the time this article was posted, a Kickstarter campaign to create the brew has raised over $24,000, which well exceeds its goal of $1,500.

All of the profits of the beer, which will be released in May, benefit two LGBT groups. The first, Equality North Carolina, is fighting the newly passed House Bill 2, which struck down down LGBT-inclusive municipal antidiscrimination ordinances and prohibits cities from adopting any new ones. It also expressly requires transgender people to use public bathrooms and locker rooms that do not match their gender identity.

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Harlem has a special place in the American imagination when it comes to culture, art and music. But would you also imagine small-batch beer? Well.

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Let’s talk about stouts.

The wonderful world of craft beer provides a multitude of choices. For every palate, there is a beer to match. I find especially intriguing the freshness dichotomy – IPAs are meant to drink right from the vat, or at least as fresh as possible. On the other end of the spectrum, there are those high gravity, high ABV stouts who like to sit in dark, cellared environments for a few years before they are considered ready for consumption. Since I’m a stout guy, I’m hoping to help you separate the malt from the barrels with the ins and outs of aging and cellaring.

First things first.

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Having the ability to critique your beer and identify homebrew off-flavors is an invaluable skill when pursuing the highest quality beer.

Let’s take a look at the basics of off-flavors and some of the more common ones that plague homebrews.

A Few things about Off-Flavors

Off-flavors are perceived flaws in flavor, aroma and/or sensation (otherwise known as mouth feel) of beer that are typically caused by some aspect of the brewing, fermentation or packaging process. These are not to be confused with “faults” when analyzing a beer based on specific style parameters.

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White paint peels off the brick exterior. The roof looks like corrugated tin, the part of it that still remains. The other part looks up to the sky, wide open to the elements. Most of the windows no longer have glass. Only some are boarded up.

The ramshackle building on South Strong Avenue is part of the future in Copiague. Babylon Town planners envision a $12 million microbrewery incubator — as many as 10 beer brewers, learning from each other, perfecting their products, offering them in a tasting room, then moving out and into their own facilities nearby, forming a kind of brewery row.

 

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Homebrewers love hops—it’s no secret. You will always remember the first time you smelled those powerful pellets drop into the kettle. The little bitter cones give beer life, personality and uncanny edginess. Without them, beer would often times be unbalanced, overly sweet and uninteresting.

Hops are so important, some people devote their entire lives to the plant—hop fascination transformed into obsession.

The “hop heads” out there, like Tom Lewis from Cheshire, England, are always looking for ways to push the hoppy envelope in their homebrews. A hopback is the perfect way to infuse fresh-hop character in beer just before it hits your glass. Check out Tom’s easy-to-build hopback project below!

Inspiration

At one of our local homebrew meetings, a few homebrewers and I were discussing ways we cram as many hops as possible into our IPAs (the beer style that dominated that particular meeting). One of our local brewers from the Cheshire Brew House was explaining future upgrades to our systems and how he wanted to build a custom hopback because his Blichmann HopRocketâ„¢ was too small.

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After years of playing the cold-hearted, uncaring, starch-shirted executive, A-B InBev now is like The Grinch. You could say that going into the business of love, ABI somehow found its heart. Looking to hook up with someone young and sexy, ABI is spreading its love in acquiring craft breweries. There are some areas leading the thoughts about where it may go, but more on that later.

It all started with a shy dance in 2011, when after recognizing its sagging bottom line in beer sales, ABI purchased Goose Island. For years ABI’s business plan was so routine and mundane, the most fun it ever had was rolling out commercials with horses and dogs, as well as the occasional new, tasteless beer.

But then the beer market changed. Bud sales dropped faster than Ronda Rousey and craft beer started eating up that precious shelf space. Business meetings inside ABI bunkers suddenly got very serious and purchasing successful craft breweries became the newest strategy. The idea of course, was to move the Budweiser brands along with their new products and eventually get a stranglehold on distribution.

Ironic isn’t it, that ABI can no longer compete in the very same field in which it is a leader, and instead of being someone that would build it, brew it and sell it, ABI will buy it. While considering more acquisitions, ABI is basically pleading no contest in acknowledging this, only to say, “Move along, nothing to see here.”

As if it found the fountain of youth, ABI’s confidence has skyrocketed over the last two years. After Goose Island, here are its American craft beer conquests:

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