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3 Kinds of People You Should & Should Not Share Great Beer With

This weekend I opened a couple of really good bottles of beer at a party.

I offered to share with some of the other guests, despite not knowing them very well. One of the guys ended up talking to me about beer for over an hour and I was very happy to have shared a special saison with him.

At the same party, another guest poured a healthy serving of the AleSmith Anvil, tasted it, made a face, and grabbed a Limearita instead.

When it came to that particular individual, I really wished I could take my offer (and my beer) back.

With that, here are some guidelines for sharing the good stuff.

3 Kinds of People You Should Share Great Beer With

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HERE

 

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Beer Profile: Straight to Ale/Blue Pants/Yellowhammer Liberation Smoked Dopplebock

Profiled by Ken Carman for professorgoodales.net

Image courtesy ratebeer.com

Beer-Profile1-258x300beer_200701Right from the start, opening the bottle, I get a nice: not too strong, whiff of smoke… like of like a smoker in a bottle. Pilsner malt in the background with some roast. The maltiness could be stronger: smoke seems to overcome. No diacetyl or DMS. No defects noted in aroma, not even the normal phenol sense one often gets with smoke.

Good clarity with nice brown highlights. No head in small glass. In glass with wider top: still small, small head: about a 1/10th of an inch. Off white.

Mouthfeel close to full, light carbonation that lightly tingles the tongue… very light. Sweet, but not cloying, as if sugars from prune sense hung in there long after fermentation. It is well attenuated, however.

Taste: a bit prune-ish with esters… not unexpected. Smoke lighter in the taste than in the aroma. Nice hop bitter that does not overwhelm other, more prune-like, taste. Alcohol firm in taste, but not harsh, or solvent. This is very rich with the prune esters and smoke. It would make a great desert beer. Malt dominates. Some raisin sense too, good carmelization of malt that adds to prune and raisin-like sense. Some Munich malt sense, but not as some Doppels seem: as if they relied too much on Munich malt.

I have to give this a 4. Could be a 4.5. Another Straight to Ale winner.
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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 “prefecto.”
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7 India Session Ales for Summer

7 Session Ales for Summer

All the IBUs. Half the ABV. Welcome to the India session ale (ISA). Emerging styles always generate some controversy as to their proper nomenclature. (Maybe it’s an Amero-Anglo-style bitter?) Whatever these nimbler hop bombs are, the result is a flavorful beer that won’t knock you on your keister the way a pint too many of the big IPAs or bigger Double IPAs might.

Stone Brewing brewmaster Mitch Steele, who literally wrote the book on the IPA style, IPA:Brewing Techniques, Recipes and the Evolution of India Pale Ale, loves this new direction.

“[Session IPAs are] kettle hopped (for bitterness up front) and dry hopped (for flavor and aroma after the boil) using similar quantities and varieties as a standard American IPA,” said Steele. “The brewers challenge here is twofold: first is achieving a good flavor balance in a beer that is so low in alcohol that there isn’t much else to balance the hop character with, and second, ensuring that the dry hop character doesn’t become overly vegetal, due to the lower alcohol content of the beer.”

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HERE

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Crooked Stave Will Distribute in NYC, Bring Evil Twin, Other Rare Beers to Colorado

CrookedStaveStBretta.jpgCrooked Stave Artisan Beer Project has struck up a partnership with a specialty importer in New York City that will allow the Denver brewery to sell its beers there while Crooked Stave will distribute some rare and unique beers in the Denver area.

The distributor, Brooklyn’s 12 Percent Imports, is focused on bringing a handful of boutique Belgian beers into the United States, but it also handles distribution in New York City for a limited number of small or unusual U.S. breweries.

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HERE

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Bringing Local Flavors to Your Pint

Bringing Local Flavors to Your Pint

 

“This is an amazing wheat,” I remarked, sipping an unfiltered beer at Topeka’s local microbrewery.

“Well, we are in Kansas,” my drinking buddy replied.

How true.

In a state known for sunflowers and wheat crops, it became clear that the beer in my hand should be fresh, vibrant and special—it should be the color of thick sunlight playing across a wheat field.

At Blind Tiger Brewery & Restaurant in Topeka, Ks., three of the six flagship beers are wheat based. The Raw Wheat and the Country Seat Wheat use grain purchased from a local farmer in Berryton. When John Dean, co-owner of the brewery, buys wheat, he easily recognizes its quality.

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HERE

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Brew Biz: Werts and All

Written by Ken Carman for professorgoodales.net

The Topic: The Hop Experience: an Update, and Of Big Brews


  This is one of the ways we learn as homebrewers. We do, learn from the experience, then venture out to do, and brew, again.
  As you may have already read, a few weeks ago we did The Hop Experience in Clarksville, Tennessee. Hop pellets of different types were placed in bottles, “single hopped,” then resealed. Much later they were reopened and we assessed the differences in each hop.
 Miller was chosen for the last Experience and we all agreed that the corn sense, plus grassy-sense from bits and pieces of hop, made it less than satisfactory. Over carbonation got in the way too. That’s the short list.
 I knew, as a member of Music City Brewers, I would be getting some wort from Boscos on Big Brew Day, so I siphoned off two gallons and brought it to James Visger who boiled it for 30 minutes. Continue reading “Brew Biz: Werts and All”

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Scientists Suggest Beer After a Workout

beer-news10(The Washington Times)

 

Researchers at Granada University in Spain have found that beer can help the body rehydrate better after a workout than water or Gatorade.

Professor Manuel Garzon also claimed the carbonation in beer helps to quench the thirst and that its carbohydrate content can help replace lost calories, The Telegraph reports.

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HERE

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Rare Beers at the Flying Saucer’s 16th Anniversary Party

Memphis homebrewer and craft beer aficionado Charlie Patrick attended Saturday’s 16th anniversary party at the Flying Saucer. He tried 14 beers in all and filed this dispatch from the Downtown craft beer bar.

PGA NOTE: Yazoo’s collaboration Rufus is also a brew brought to you by Nashville’s King of the Sour: Brandon Jones, who posts at embracethefunk.com, and whose posts often appear here at Professor Goodales.

The Flying Saucer Memphis celebrated its 16th Anniversary in style this past Saturday. The concept was a tapping of sixteen special brews over sixteen hours. We went to check out the festivities. Here’s a rundown of the beers and our brief reviews. A special shout out, by the way, to our server, Sam, who helped us along the way.

Blackstone Tripel

Blackstone Tripel

Blackstone Tripel –

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Beer Profile: Striaght to Ale’s Liberation Barleywine

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Profiles by Ken Carman for professorgoodales.net

Beer-Profile1-258x300This is simply impressive: and very much what they claim. Maybe just a tad dark for the style, but otherwise… wow! Pinpoint bubble head that holds, with some pillow. A deep brown, I’d say “light raisin-like.” Clarity good.

22oz. A collaboration with Blue Pants Brewing, Madison, Alabama and Yellowhammer Brewing, Madison, Alabama.

Neither ratebeer or beeradvocate have enough reviews to solidify at this time, but looks like BA might come in high, RB low.

Southernliving.com says…

Straight to Ale founders and brewmasters Dan Perry and Rick Tarvin went from making beer at home to doing it for a living in 2009 after winning a few home-brewing competitions. “We’ve always loved figuring out a recipe, then changing and perfecting it,” Dan says. “So after we won some awards, we got a little obsessed.”

Click

HERE


…to see what al.com says about Yellowhammer.

HERE

…for Blue Pants.

Did your pants turn blue?

We now return you to your regular beer profile here at Professor Goodales…

Great full mouthfeel with nice sweet malt taste… yet actual body is medium. It’s the abv combined with carmelization. Carmelized malt up front in the nose with a hint of sweet. This barleywine has more of a malt focus, as an English Barleywine should be. Brown, with deep garnet highlights. Good clarity. Alcoholic punch lingers in mouthfeel.

Taste: toasty malt sweet with beautiful Brown malt that also has been carmelized. This is so good I could live off of it. There’s a great malt complexity here that offers so much for anyone who tries it: must have one hell of a grain bill. And for those who are hops adverse: not really all that hoppy: again, as expected since American barleywines are more hop focused.

I gave it 4. If I could: 4.7. Buy one. Or two. Or three.

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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 “prefecto.”
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A Beer Judge’s Diary: War of the Wort, Starkville, Mississippi

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Written by Ken Carman for professorgoodales.net


By Ken Carman
By Ken Carman
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 I woke up at 12 midnight, Nashville time. I knew we had a long drive ahead and I had old-man-itis: no sleep syndrome. So by the time I gently prodded the angry bear; um, “wife,” awake without getting bit… too much, we were off to Starkville, Mississippi. The shortest route looked like down I-65 to Huntsville and over. Continue reading “A Beer Judge’s Diary: War of the Wort, Starkville, Mississippi”