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Profiled by Maria Devan for PGA

Poured what I thought looked dark orange but then upon further inspection proved to be a nice reddish orange with a soft golden hue deep within it. Hazy. Head was off white, fell reasonably and did not leave much lace to speak of.

Nose is gentle but fruity. Orange citrus and a berry like tropical scent that is hard to pin down. Candy malt and a bit of graham cracker too.

Taste is lovely. Full taste on a soft creamy mouthfeel. Crispness in the drink and a sweet tropical fruitiness. Orange and orange pith. Finishes sticky and with a lazy bitter that lingers for a bit and then flourishes a little. Big malt flavor but not heavy. A bit of spice pops up on the nose as it warms and in the finish. Some apricot tartness takes you by surprise and the caramel comes forward more and more with a little honey to go with that orange.

I have never said this before but this beer would be perfect with a chile pepper. This drank big like a barleywine and if they put a little ancho chile in this it would be fantastic.

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Welcome to the PGA beer rating system: one beer “Don’t bother.” Two: Eh, if someone gives it to you, drink. Three: very good, go ahead and seek it out, but be aware there is at least one problem. Four: seek it out. Five: pretty much “perfecto.”

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Maria Devan lives in Ithaca, NY and is frequent reviewer of beer and a beer lover deluxe.

If Ithaca is Gorges, it is also rapidly becoming a craft beer destination. In the first article of this series, I recounted the story of Ithaca’s first craft brewery and tasted a few of their beers. Here I introduce readers to the new breweries that have attracted the attention of both Ithacans and people passing through the Finger Lakes.

Breweries and Brewpubs (Part Two)

The past decade-and-a-half has witnessed a parade of restaurants and even a barber shop make valiant but ill-fated attempts to gain a foothold in the subterranean space at 114 North Cayuga Street. Would a brew pub have enough staying power where so many other businesses had failed to capture the attention of passersby? Right out of the starting gate, the owners of Bandwagon seemed to have grasped that ambience would be as important as the food and beverages they’d be serving.IMG_0829 They converted their downtown location into a contemporary dining establishment a cut above the average brewpub, creating a bustling but still intimate seating arrangement with warm, subdued light falling on roughly-hewn stone walls and rustic wooden floors.

Now, as for Bandwagon’s liquid offerings, I’ll qualify what is about to come by stating that I have a soft spot for the place. As inconsistent as Bandwagon’s beers can be, they can also be of high quality when all goes well. Their brewing setup––almost a museum piece, really––is viewable through a window in the cozy lounge area set off to the side from the restaurant. Couple that with an insistence on brewing ten-gallon batches––ten gallons, not ten barrels––to supply a thirsty crowd of regulars and out-of-towners, and you get a not insignificant number of beers pushed through the system well before they’ve matured. But despite all that, I keep going back. Maybe it’s the nostalgia of sitting down there with Papazian’s classic to plot my first few homebrews. Or maybe it’s all those orders of Belgian-style frites and mayonnaise shared with friends.

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Call it a new twist on the old “teach a man to fish” adage. A group in Vancouver, British Columbia, is teaching inveterate alcoholics to brew their own beer and make their own wine, in an attempt to keep them from drinking unsafe liquids to get an alcoholic high.

The project is the work of the , which works to help people who suffer from mental illness and addictions in downtown Vancouver. News of the beer and wine project is spreading weeks after the publicly funded group’s Drug Users Resource Center unveiled a coin-operated machine that .

The Portland Hotel Society’s leaders say they want to provide safe alternatives to people who might otherwise be forced into risky and unsafe behavior — everything from shoplifting booze to drinking any substance they can find that contains alcohol.

“Obviously, we’d rather they didn’t drink,” the society’s executive director, Mark Townsend, tells the . “But if they do, we’d rather they didn’t drink hand sanitizer.”

The brewing program, which began about six months ago, requires participants to make several commitments in exchange for about five liters of home-brewed beer. Townsend says that in addition, they also get a sense of pride and achievement in making their own beer.

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Only four hours from New York City, but centrally isolated. Ten square miles surrounded by reality. Partly sunny. And gorges aplenty.

There’s no denying that Ithaca is Gorges.IMG_7308 Spend less than half an hour in this town cradled by rolling hills at the foot of Lake Cayuga’s waters, and chances are that you’ll have passed by a torrent of water issuing forth from one of Ithaca’s many creeks cutting through the stunning shale formations. If not, you’ll have caught a glimpse of the ubiquitous bumper stickers, T-shirts, baseball caps, mugs, and even stuffed animals proclaiming the fact.

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MillerCoors Golden Brewery Tour offers self-guided tours of the world’s largest single-site brewery located in Golden, Colorado about 15 miles west of downtown Denver.

The brewery has a capacity of 22 million barrels of beer and a barrel of beer is 31 gallons. That means a barrel of beer can fill about 330 bottles or cans of 12 oz. beers. The brewery production capacity is something like 7 billion beers a year. And I drank three of those 7 billion beers during the tour.

You must be 21 years of age to tour the brewery and have beer samples, although children are apparently welcome (see comments) as long as you don’t share your beer with the minors. And if you are in a hurry, you can rush through all the brewery educational displays and just focus on the free beer samples at the end of the tour.

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Nobody could hazard a guess at how many thousands of mugs of beer had been served over the old mahogany bar at Weis Brothers Saloon. Bartender John Mich, who had manned the beer taps at the Milwaukee watering hole since the 1890s, probably could have come closest in his estimate if he had tried. But it seemed only a matter of trivia now for the 20 or so patrons gathered in the back room of the establishment. After all, there was a funeral at hand. They had come together to pay their final respects to their beloved old friend, John Barleycorn.

None in attendance was consoled by the fact that the dearly departed was a mere character of fiction, immortalized in song as the mythical personification of beer. On the contrary, as the ceremony began, some stifled tears, including Mich, whose moans and gurgles were loudest. With hands folded and heads bowed, the somber group encircled the casket, which was artfully decorated with floral tributes placed inside beer mugs and lit candles stuck in liquor bottles.

Saloon employee William Graf delivered the eulogy. “John Barleycorn was foully murdered,” thundered Graf, “and his body found in the back yard of legislation!”

The black-dressed pallbearers then carried John Barleycorn’s earthly remains out of the saloon to the nearby banks of the Milwaukee River. Accompanied by a soft chorus of “Sweet Adeline,” they lowered the casket into the water. (That his final resting place be eternally wet seemed only fitting.) Empty beer bottles, for lack of roses, were tossed in after the sinking casket. The loud splash of the saloon’s cash register being hurled into the river punctuated the ceremony’s conclusion.

The passing of John Barleycorn, of course, meant the demise of Weis Brothers Saloon and thousands just like it all over America. For beer drinkers everywhere, the taps would soon run dry. The year was 1919 and the nation had just ratified what later historians would call “the noble experiment.” Within one year, National Prohibition would officially be under way.

Dry Roots Run Deep

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