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Maria Devan @ Bandwagon: Ithaca, NY

I just put Roguer on the road to Syracuse and I am always sorry to see the weekend end. He and I got the chance to go to Bandwagon… 

Brewpub while he was here and hear from a reliable source that Lars is no longer the brewer there. They have someone else so I was very excited to try their beer. I thought there were some interesting brews there and at least one or two that were exceptional.

First up The Pilsen Schmilsson. Once you see it you will think exactly that. This is no pilsener. It’s cloudy and looks like grapefruit juice. Whitish yellow. On the menu it is called a pale steam lager. At first there was some banana up front on the nose. Soft sweet malt, no real banana in the drink and a fruity middle. Is it a hefe? Crackery malt dries this one out as it drinks and there is a touch of grass and bitterness int he finish. Leaves soapy and splotchy lace. A bit of spice in the aftertaste and I wondered what is up with this beer? By the time I finished it I liked it more than when I smelled the banana and was reading the word pilsen.
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Beer Profile: Straight to Ale’s Illudium

Profiled by Ken Carman for PGA

Beer-Profile1-258x300staiillPours like 30 weight motor oil. Slight off white head with hazy , amber to red highlights. Head fades very fast into nothingness, like a brief visit by a pleasant ghost with a pillow-like appearance.

The nose is cognac with some slightly darker malts in the background. Sweet overtones from the cognac and the deeply carmelized malt

Balance-wise a little more beer might help, but to be honest it is already liquid nirvana. Smooth, the cognac provides higher abv over tones and a sensationally sweet that’s not unlike carmelized white sugar. It’s sweet nature is perfect, background yet assertive behind the cognac. Fruit-wise it’s ike an incredible, carmelized, cross between a grapefruit, grapes and a plum.3

93: Beer Advocate. No rating at this time Rate Beer.

Mouthfeel is very sight carmelization followed a strong, assertive cognac sense, a hint of. Heavy side of medium body.

Here’s what Straight to Ale says about Illudium…

Illudium is a rich, complex English-style old ale that is aged for six months in a cognac barrel. Sweet, dark and potent with vinous notes and an alcohol warmth, Illudium is highly sought after as only a small quantity is released each January.

This is superb. Wine-like. The balance is close to perfect and everything presents well.

4.7

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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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________________________________________________Beer HERE

FredricmartianKen Carman was raised by wild yeast on the fermentation plains of Moosesylvania. There is no truth to him having grown up near NYC, but not so secretly longing to live in the Adirondacks. Or that he did. Or that he moved to Tennessee. Or that when he retires he’ll move back. Or that he started brewing in 79cause most of the selections sucked. Or that he’s a BJCP judge, a columnist. it’s all lies. Right now he’s still thinking it’s all true as he sucks down Miller in the Matrix, but dreams of more complicated quaffs.

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Homebrewing During Prohibition

pgahistoryMother’s in the kitchen Washing out the jugs; Sister’s in the pantry Bottling the suds; Father’s in the cellar Mixing up the hops; Johnny’s on the front porch Watching for the cops
–Poem by a New York state Rotary Club member during Prohibition

Prohibition accentuated the “home” in homebrewing.

Many American families recount and cherish tales of grandpa’s inept experimental attempts to brew beer in the kitchen and grandma’s gallant efforts to hide the results from Prohibition agents. Although most homebrewers practiced their hobbies with minimal adverse consequences, this homebrewing boom did have a casualty: the reputation of homebrewing.

In an era when intoxicating liquors were illegal, the ingredients to produce them were not. “For so long as the fruits of the orchard, the grain and roots of the field remain, the distiller and home-brewer have an inexhaustible supply of the raw material for producing alcohol. It is a matter of common notoriety that we are becoming a nation of adepts in the making of intoxicants,” wrote John Koren, author of Alcohol and Society, in his essay “Inherent Frailties of Prohibition.”

Want to read more? Please click…

HERE

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Light beer heading toward 10-year low in sales

pgahistoryAmerican consumers are starting to turn their back on light beers in favor of frou-frou drinks.

This change in taste buds will send domestic light beers sales toward a 10-year low in 2015, according to a recent report by Shanken News Daily. Since its peak in 2008, domestic light beer sales have fallen by 8.3 million barrels in the United States, a decline of 8 percent, according to the Impact Databank. In fact, Americans have been drinking less beer overall. Americans’ per capita beer consumption has decreased 20 percent since the early 1990s, according to the Gallup survey in 2012.

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HERE

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Ye Olde Scribe’s One of the WORST Beers in the World Award: Michelob Ultra

No pictures provided because the brewer doesn't deserve the promotion for barfing out this one!
No pictures provided because the brewer doesn’t deserve the promotion for barfing out this one!

Scribe understands why low carb is important. REALLY UNDERSTANDS. But couldn’t they find a flavor to pack into this? Looks: if Scribe went to the Doc and a urine sample looking like this was taken the doc would be concerned. Almost nothing to it. Ah, clarity isn’t everything.

Get it in your mouth and, “Eh? What’s wrong with your water here, bartender?” Yup less substantial than some H20 and annoying as hell.

Taste? ARE YOU KIDDING?????????????????????????????????????????????????

Not much about not much. except water is probably a better choice.

Once upon a road trip Scribe visited a friend in Tennessee. You know him: writes for this site. Living near the Cumberland River and having just been jogging Scribe took a drink and immediately spit it out.

Better than Ultra.
PGASCRsucks

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Power to the People

pgahistoryIn a funny sort of way, homebrewing has come full circle. Thirty-four years ago, our country’s 39th President, Jimmy Carter, signed H.R. 1337 which effectively legalized homebrewing nationwide. And now, shortly after another presidential election, our 44th President, Barack Obama, has released to the public his recipe for the first beer ever brewed on the White House grounds. The fact that this presidential beer—a honey ale—was made with honey gathered from the White House’s own hives is emblematic of what homebrewing has become today, a craft, like cooking (or beekeeping), that empowers people to do for themselves and rely less on packaged, processed, mass-produced food and beverages.

Were it not for Prohibition early in the 20th century, homebrewing may well have been the kind of basic home skill passed on from generation to generation like baking, pickling or hunting. But as we know, that dark period for imbibers had a lasting hangover that affected both the making and consumption of alcoholic beverages for decades. The craft beer revolution, which not coincidentally was kick-started by Carter’s pro-homebrewing legislation, put the artisanal craft of making beer back into the peoples’ hands (basically the definition of craft beer) and opened adventurous beer drinkers’ eyes to the flavor possibilities out there in the many different styles of beer that were increasingly becoming available.

Back in 1980 there were only eight craft breweries in the U.S., but after three decades of strong, steady growth, there are more than 2,000. While macrobrew sales are flat, craft beer continues to grow, even in a terrible economy. The rise in popularity of homebrewing has not only mirrored this growth, it has been further invigorated by the do-it-yourself, locavore foodie movement where people have discovered the satisfaction and challenge of making things from scratch. We don’t know if Martha Stewart has ever homebrewed, but it’s the kind of skill she’d surely approve of. If we can make bread from scratch, how much different or more difficult is it to brew our own beer?

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HERE

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Minneapolis’ Target Field Debuts Self-Serve Beer Station

beernewspgaMINNEAPOLIS – The Minnesota Twins say Target Field is the first major league ball park to serve beer from a vending machine.

The self-serve beer station debuted Sunday during the game against the New York Yankees. A second station is expected to be added in time for the All-Star Game next week.

To buy a brew from the vending machine, buyers prove their age at a concession stand and purchase a vending card. That card is used at the vending machine where buyers can tap up to 48 ounces every 15 minutes. The machine offers four beers: Bud, Bud Light, Shock Top Lemon Shandy and Goose Island 312 Urban Pale Ale.

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HERE

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Beer Profile: Collective Distortion IPA by Stone

Profiled by Ken Carman for PGA

pgaprofilecollab-distort-bttle22Foggy, redish, hazy. Some remaining big bubble head but this bottle was leftopen for a while, so I’d never count that against the presentation. Only slight light shines through like a murky ruby.
Carmel malt nose with grapefruit like hops. Great balance. No coriander or elderberry in the nose.

Taste is a great balance of slight coriander, slight elderberry all balanced out with a firm hop, again grapefruity and taste a bit rind of…. But mostly the flesh.

The mouthfeel is firm with slight pepper from coriander and slightly slick caramel. Carbonation very slight to none, but this sample is old. Did I mention I opened it and forgot about it for a while? I was amazed there was any carbonation.

The malt, which is caramel and pale but quite complex melts into the grapefruit hops and the spices perfectly. I would think maybe a hint of Maris Otter, hint of Munich: with this it’s tough because it blends so well together, a masterpiece.

They call this a “collective brew,” but Stone’s site, nor RB and BA mentionhow the two musicians helped. Or was it named after them? “Collective” indicates more than that. Here’s what Stone says about it…

In bringing together artisans from disparate aural planes, one might expect an offbeat, feedback-warped cacophony, shrill to the point of unlistenable. Yet, by inviting Kyle Hollingsworth, keyboardist for eclectic, jam-prone sextet, The String Cheese Incident, and Keri Kelli, wailing rock guitarist of Alice Cooper fame, we were able to make truly beautiful music. Turns out, these musicians have a great deal in common, both with each other and with Stone. We all enjoy turning things up to 11, and that is represented in this collaborative offering, an imperial India pale ale ably backed by Nugget, Comet and Calypso hops, and amplified care of a healthy dry-hopping with Vic’s Secret, a new Australian hop, adding citrus and tropical fruit oomph. To give this modern masterpiece some soulful, classic character, we traced the roots of brewing to the days when Old World herbs were used to spice beers, adding in coriander and, a first for us, elderberries. To stand up to that sumptuous spice and blaring bitterness, we added golden naked oats, which are lightly roasted and add body and enhanced mouthfeel to the brew like a steady, unbreakable backbeat to an incendiary jam solo. Sit back, crank the volume and get lost in this operatic incarnation of genres combined in the name of invention.

88 at Beer Advocate,with no rating by the site owners, 95 overall at Rate Beer, 75 for style. Not quite sure how one can rate “style” that strictly when it’s obvious a Specialty based off an Imperial IPA.

Looks like it may have been introduced at The Maui Brewers Festival.Once again: a bit vague in the promos I read.

4.5

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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.”

1-2-3-4-5-fingers-on-hand1

____________________________________________Beer HERE

FredricmartianKen Carman was raised by wild yeast on the fermentation plains of Moosesylvania. There is no truth to him having grown up near NYC, but not so secretly longing to live in the Adirondacks. Or that he did. Or that he moved to Tennessee. Or that when he retires he’ll move back. Or that he started brewing in 79cause most of the selections sucked. Or that he’s a BJCP judge, a columnist. it’s all lies. Right now he’s still thinking it’s all true as he sucks down Miller in the Matrix, but dreams of more complicated quaffs.