Brew Biz: Werts and All, Toucan Mobile Canning and Jackalope
The Topic: it’s Toucan CAN-ned Man! (Or: A Morning Well Spent with Mo, Carl, Bailey, Steve and Jackalope
Written by Ken Carman
Ken Carman is a BJCP judge; homebrewer since 1979, club member at Escambia Bay, Clarksville Carboys and Music City Homebrewers, who has been writing on beer-related topics, and interviewing professional brewers all over the east coast, for over 15 years.
The machinery chattered, rumbled as it twisted, turned and inserted probes. No, we’re not on some odd alien space ship with a long line production line of cows, or abductees, about to be experimented on. Instead, as beer cans moved quickly down that line, one almost expected all that was left of the Terminator to reach the end and attempt to strangle Linda Hamilton.
No Terminator here to be feared!
Instead, there was plenty of beer, Toucan-ers: Mo and Carl Oelker, then Master Brewer Bailey and Head Brewer Steve at the end of the behemoth; putting together six packs.
Oh, and just to assure any concerned quaffers: no one was being strangled.
Instead a virgin was being sacrificed.
A beer virgin.
Yes, I was there for the first canning of Rompo, one of the standard brews at Jackalope, and only the second Jackalope brew to be canned. The first was Thunder Ann, their pale ale.
Continue reading “Brew Biz: Werts and All, Toucan Mobile Canning and Jackalope”
IPAs Are Giving You Man Boobs
Image courtesy drinks.seriouseats.com500
Not many people know this, but those hops in your favorite IPA are actually wonderful medicine for insomnia and menopause, thanks to their high phytoestrogen content. These same phytoestrogens, however, might be less desirable for men, as indicated by the common condition known among brewers as Brewer’s Droop.
Yes, you read that right: Hops are giving men man boobs.
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HERE
Craft beer is booming in Charleston — but how big can it get?
Charleston, she loves to drink. But with 10 craft breweries in the area and at least nine more waiting in the wings, even some beer snobs are starting to wonder: How many breweries can this town really support?
Timmons Pettigrew, a City Paper contributor and co-founder of CHSBeer.org, has given the question some thought, and he thinks the industry’s growth is healthy for the time being. But even Charleston has her limit.
“I think the simple math would tell you that yes, there is a point at which a town of X people can’t support Y breweries,” Pettigrew says. “The question is, what is Y?”
The consensus among the current brewers is that Y is still a long way off. Many of them point to the example of Asheville, N.C., a significantly smaller town that nonetheless supports 20 craft breweries in its area.
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Mark Phipps on Bacterial Spoilage
As it does with almost all brewers, the opportunity to get a taste of your creation is like seeing your newborn child for the first time. Well, maybe not that severe, but it’s well up on the podium of importance. Just imagine as you bring the beer up close to your nose to take in what you believe will be the fresh aroma of a job well done, the smell drives your head back. You ease back in just to try a sip … what you experience are the spoilages of your efforts. Your day is officially ruined by bacteria that decided to make home in your brew.
With such a relatively opportunistic struggle among brewers and bacteria, we reached out to Mark Phipps, the technical director, and a brewmaster himself, at Alltech Lexington Brewing and Distilling Company, to shed some light on bacterial spoilage and prevention measures.
BM: Why do breweries deal with bacterial spoilage issues in their beer?
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First Tastes of Craft Set To Music
The professor wants to know, why are they naked? …or so it seems-PGA
Beer Profile: Future Ancestor, Wiseacre
Profiled by Ken Carman
Pure white pillow head with fast rising legs. Yellow on paler side. Slight haze. Head fades fast to nothing. Light yellow/gold. Great legs.
Fruity aroma with slight corn (grits?) Just a hint of sweet: candy sugar-ish. Pilsner malt behind that.
Mouthfeel: slightly sweet. Almost an ale version of Bud/Miller, only with a sightly sweet-ish pilsner/pale malt sense. Malt on light side medium, at best. Pale malt and pilsner-like malt coat the roof of the mouth but fade fast. Slight sulfur lager yeast.
Taste: malt with slight sugary sweet, no hops. A bit corn-like, but not DMS. Grits, I suspect.
This is a fine,lighter side of medium, lager that has little to none of the defects common in lagers: too much yeast driven sulfur sense, often boring. This is a step above that. A sweet, slightly DMS/corn-ish (lager/grits), brew.
If this is what you prefer, or if you want something American lager-ish, but better, go for it!
No rating yet, BA, or Rate Beer.
4.
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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A Beer Judge’s Diary: Purpose
Written by Ken Carman
The Topic: Finding My Purpose in Beer @ King of the Mountain
A masochist? No, I actually enjoy Specialty, even SH&V. They’re both a challenge, and certainly better than bad taste bud burn out. More on that in a moment.
I judged at King of the Mountain last year when I was on tour, and this year I had to head up to empty out my former tour bus. Not sure about next year. The problem is by no means KOM: it’s a grand competition. It’s because King is over 500 miles away, and without the tour bus we no longer have an easy place to stay.
This year Millie judged too.
So, in the morning I was on, never guess what? Yup: collapsed categories, Herb, Vegetable and Specialty. Gee, howja guess? Continue reading “A Beer Judge’s Diary: Purpose”
Beer Review by Maria Devan
| This beer pours with a purple tinted creamy head on an opaque eggplant colored body.
The nose shows you a good malt . caramel ,bread-y, some dark fruits. It also shows you a hint of smoke which I was not expecting and a lovely sweetness from the elderberry juice. There is a brief and cursory scent of sour and a faint vinegar note. No alcohol on the nose or palate. The beer is a juicy beer with lots of middle. The bread is underneath and the hops come up surprisingly strong in this one to offer a crisp bitter that does not exceed the malty finish nor the touch of sour. The mouthfeel is fullish. The smoke is on the palate and that puzzles me a bit. It seems to lend texture to the beer. The sour aspect is just mouthwatering and as you drink it seems to mix with elderberry stems and a faint nuttiness that I would describe as nutshells or nut skins. It is not too strong though and does not compromise the other flavors. I don’t know what to think .. .yet. |
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(No score as of yet.-PGA)
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