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On Oct. 29, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History hosted a talk and a dinner to honor the contributions of some of the earliest makers of fine wine in the United States. It was also part of the museum’s American Food and Wine History Project, which has been curating artifacts, oral histories and documents about the history of U.S. wine and winemaking.

Distinguished guests on Oct. 29 included Warren Winiarski, the winemaker who crafted the Cabernet Sauvignon that famously won the red wine half of a blind-tasting in Paris in 1976, and Fred Frank, the grandson of the late Konstantin Frank, a Ukrainian immigrant who proved that delicate, European varieties of grapes could thrive in harsher climates (in Frank’s case, New York’s Finger Lakes region).

All the honorees could trace the reason for their presence at the Smithsonian back to the early and mid-1960s, that period when American wine fine began to slowly—then quickly—emerge from France’s shadow and stake its critical, as well as commercial, claim upon the world stage. The September 1966 launch of the Robert Mondavi Winery, Napa Valley’s first ground-up winery since Prohibition, is generally credited with birthing modern fine wine in the United States.

Curiously, a full year before, Fritz Maytag’s re-launch of the Anchor Brewing Co. in nearby San Francisco birthed modern beer and brewing in the United States. Not that the Smithsonian appears to have noticed. Yes, in roughly 10 months, August 2015, it will have been a full half-century since Maytag famously saved Anchor from closing.

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It was like a punch in the face, today…

I was out all day and away from the computer. I sat down and clicked onto Facebook and scrolled down a half page or so and caught a whiff: “Stunned by the news about 10 Barrel sold to AB…“

WHAT?!?

More scrolling and confirmation: “Haters gonna hate, Tonya Cornett. Congrats on getting the chance to take that berliner global (not to mention the others).” It got worse just that fast. One of my all-time favorite brewers, Tonya Cornett, is now one of the pawns in this sordid tale. If AB had come to me and asked, they couldn’t have found a person about whom I would be more grief-stricken to see absorbed by the Beer-Borg Collective. Jimmy Seifrit, former brewmaster under Larry Sidor at my beloved Deschutes was also involved. It was exactly like a death; like someone I knew and loved was in excellent health one day and stone dead the next.

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No, really we won and then ate a chicken dinner! But before we discuss such excitable matters, let’s talk about some other eventful happenings.

Though the club had to struggle through many challenges this year, they managed to make the pre-competition super special. If you are a hardcore home-brewer, you are probably familiar with Denny Conn. He is a big deal in the home-brew scene, as husband explain to me. Apparently, he was a pretty big “get” and a mad scientist in his own right.

Denny Conn gave the guest lecture Friday night extolling his various brewing experiences in his quest to make the most delicious beer. In his most recent venture, he compared decoction against single infusion mash steps to see if it made a differences in flavor. According, to his findings, no, it did not matter. This is a revolutionary finding for the brewing world.

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There is no denying the popularity of the new wave of “wild” brews. These cutting-edge, contemporary versions are variously inspired by the aged sour, earthy and musty brews of Belgium and Germany and old stock ales of Britain. European brewers use both anachronistic and more modern techniques today to get that natural, primitive personality, but all are firmly grounded in historical, regional brews, those made well before the true understanding of microbiology.

North American brewers, ever intrigued by experimentation and new frontiers, are increasingly integrating the methods and catalysts of yore into avant-garde wild brews. Insatiable consumers, exploring their own boundaries and dimensions, drive this movement just as fervently. Extensive cellaring, elaborate barreling and maturation schedules and the introduction of “wild” organisms all figure into this unconventional and fashionable approach.

If wild brews are in your wheelhouse, then take a shot at brewing one. Start with a simple strategy and low-risk method that leaves nothing to chance. And, if you love the earthy, musty notes mentioned above, then a beer accented with a Bretta­nomyces yeast strain should more than scratch your itch. It will unveil a novel, intriguing realm of brewing and offer a solid foundation for more complicated adventures.

What is Brettanomyces?

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Written by Franz Hofer for Tempest in a Tankard

In anticipation of having to switch into BJCP mode tomorrow, I’ve been mowing down broad swaths of time brushing up on the causes of, and remedies for,IMG_1833 various technical and stylistic flaws. I’ve been getting together with friends to do blind tastings of beers dosed with extracts of this and that, and to figure out which beer is the different one in triangulated tastings––much harder than it sounds! I have also been tasting plenty of beer.

Which brings us to this weekend’s six-pack.

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Written by Franz Hofer for Tempest in a Tankard

. Schneider & Sohn is a southern German brewery that knows a thing or three about Bavarian-style wheat beers. Founded in 1872 just after Bavaria had joined a recently-unified Germany under Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm I, Schneider Weisse has since produced rivers and lakes of top-fermenting wheat beers. When Georg Schneider I purchased the right to brew Weissbier from the Wittelsbach monarch, King Ludwig II, he was the first since shortly after the enactment of the Reinheitsgebot in 1516 to found a private Weissbier brewery in Bavaria. A century-and-a-half later, a Schneider––Georg Schneider VI––is still at the helm.

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Back when Portland, Oregon’s BridgePort Brewing Company first got started, Apple had just introduced its first Macintosh personal computer, and everyone from A Flock of Seagulls to Van Halen was giving rise to big hair on MTV.

As far as beer was concerned, weekends were made for Michelob and Miller Lite not only tasted great, it was less filling too. It was only a few short years since President Jimmy Carter signed the landmark legislation that reopened markets for small, independent brewers, and trailblazers like BridgePort were literally at the forefront of a coming craft brew renaissance.

Here in present time, the brewery is celebrating its 30th anniversary. To honor the occasion, they’ve introduced BridgePort Trilogy, a series of three limited edition beers. Fans are encouraged to check out all of them, and vote for the one they like the best. The beer with the most votes will then go into regular production and join BridgePort’s core lineup of regular releases next year.

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CLEVELAND, Ohio – Hub 55/Sterle’s Country House owner Rick Semersky looked nationwide for a brewer for his developing Goldhorn Brewery – but he found who he was looking for right here in Cleveland.

On Monday, Semersky announced that Joel Warger has been named Head Brewer for the 10,000-square-foot brewery with a 100-seat tap room slated to open in 2015 at Hub 55 on East 55th Street. Warger is currently the Pub Brewer at Great Lakes Brewing Co., where he has worked for 14 years.

“I couldn’t have found a better Head Brewer for Goldhorn then Joel,” says Semersky. Warger will also be a minority owner in Goldhorn, with a hand in every aspect of the brewery and restaurant as well as the beermaking.

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he benefits of bathing in beer have been proven since the Middle Ages claim the Czech Republic spa at which amber nectar is the star of the show.

The Beer Spa in Prague allows guests to have a dip in a bath filled with the all-natural ingredients used for beer brewing, including barley, hops and yeast, kept at a steady 37 degrees celcius and continuously bubbling to ‘promote dissolution of ingredients’, releasing vitamins, carbohydrates and proteins, the company claims.

During a 30-minute bar and bath session spa-goers can pour as much of the company’s home-brewed Beer Bernard as they can consume from tub-side tap before continuing their relaxation session on a heated bed or with a 20-minute massage.

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