Professor Good Ales

MIDDLEBURGH — According to the Middleburgh Library, The Albany Ale Project, and Green Wolf Brewing Company, a revolution in beer is coming to this Schoharie County community next month.

A series of family-oriented events, culminating in “The 1780 Beer Challenge,” is scheduled for 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday, May 16, in this Schoharie County community. The catalyst is a desire to celebrate beer, brewing and Middleburgh’s Revolutionary War history, as well as to raise funds for the library.

Activities will include a Revolutionary War encampment, colonial brewing and cooking demonstrations, 18th Century toys and games for kids, talks on the history of beer and hops in Upstate New York and the Schoharie Valley, a Schoharie Valley hops display at the library, beer samples from Green Wolf and MacKinnon Brothers of Ontario and Green Wolf brewery tours. Middleburgers BBQ and the bakery and gift shop Under the Nose will be offering barbeque and baked goods for sale, and Craig Gravina and Alan McLeod will be selling and signing copies of their book “Upper Hudson ValleyBeer.” The day will culminate in “The 1780 Beer Challenge” cask tapping and tasting.

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Written by Franz Hofer for A Tempest in a Tankard

Earth Day 2015 is now receding in the rear-view mirror, but it’s worth keeping the Earth Day ethos in mind whenever we fire up our brewing systems. With the annual Big Brew festivities rapidly approaching, we may even want to challenge ourselves to put some of the following ideas into practice.

The folks over at CustomMade have put together a helpful infographic in conjunction with a ten-step plan for sustainable homebrewing, and have been asking beer writers and bloggers to spread the news. Since it’s been a busy month in Tempest Land and I haven’t had as much time to dedicate to writing about beer (to say nothing of brewing!), I figured now would be the perfect time to post their ideas here. I encourage you to read all of Abby Quillen’s “10 Must-Do Steps for Sustainable Homebrewing.” In the meantime, here’s a quick outline of what you’ll find, followed by a brief commentary on a few points:

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Evan Parent would frequently stop into San Diego stores like Ralphs, Vons and 7-Eleven to pick up some Blue Moon. Now, he has filed a class action lawsuit against MillerCoors, brewers of that popular wheat beer.

How did Parent go from buying Blue Moon to suing its maker? The lawsuit (which you can read here) was filed on April 24, and maintains that Parent purchased Blue Moon because the beer’s ads, price and placement among craft beers led him to believe it was also a craft beer.

That myth was shattered when, in the summer of 2012, Parent’s friends informed him this wasn’t the case. Though he didn’t believe them at first, after some research he discovered they were right. He hasn’t purchased a Blue Moon since.

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Bud Light continues to creep people out with the implied lechery of its “up for whatever” marketing campaign. The latest apparent gaffe from the country’s most popular watery beer is a tagline reminding drinkers that Bud Light is a go-to beverage for turning a “no” into a “yes.”

As posted on reddit, the tagline on this Bud Light bottle reads:

“The perfect beer for removing ‘no’ from your vocabulary for the night,” followed by the requisite “#UpForWhatever” hashtag, because being “up for whatever” obviously means “spreading Bud Light’s marketing message in a way that can be tracked and quantified by our social media team.”

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Should you be gulping a cold one instead of a protein shake after a workout? According to recent research, the answer might be yes.

Charlie Bamforth, professor of brewing sciences at the University of California, Davis, says when consumed in moderation, beer contains nutrients, among them selenium (which contains antioxidants), B vitamins (which aid in energy), phosphorus (which is said to help with strong bones and teeth), and niacin (which is possibly beneficial to cholesterol). Moreover, beer packs in a good amount of protein, a bit of fiber, and silicon, which some sources say can prevent osteoporosis. These are all nutrients that are ideal for your body to consume after hitting the gym.

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NOTE: the professor changed the title of this, but once you click you’ll see what it was called. Very informative, but PGA thought the title provocative and insulting for no damn good reason.-PGA

 

Within the craft beer community, much has been debated this past year over several pieces addressing the current industry and market obsession with hops. True to the American consuming nature, we do enjoy big and brash over subtle and nuanced in almost everything from automobiles to food to politics to music and film. Driven by West Coast breweries, we lust after the bold, pungent citrus and resin flavors of high-alpha hops, ramping IBUs up past anything considered reasonable by the previous generation of brewers and consumers — who did exactly the same to their predecessors, dating all the way back to the birth of modern craft beer.

To answer this oft-asked question, no, hops and their fans are not ruining craft beer. As a fundamental ingredient in our favorite beverage, one cannot use “too much” hops any more than one can use too much malt or too much yeast. The worth of the resulting product is judged by the craft beer consumer, with a brewery’s IPA commonly their most profitable and largest volume product. No doubt, the amount and intensity of hops included in beers across the stylistic spectrum has increased with the American appetite for new craft beer, and indeed most all our beers produced today are skewing toward the bitter end of the palate. As one who enjoys a good IPA with regularity, such is simply a trend to be acknowledged and not one to fret about as there remains an abundance of less hoppy beers for the consumer to embrace. Hopefully, the highest quality and most balanced beers will win out against excess over time.

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