Beer Buzz: Craft beer predictions for 2012

Professional brewers and beer business people in Arizona predict the future of Craft beer: both in Arizona and for the nation. Picture courtesy Pat Shannahan/The Arizona Republic. Ron Kloth, owner of Papago Brewing Company, passed an extensive test on beer knowledge, from brewing to serving, including how to pair different beers with certain foods to become a cicerone. -The Professor

Written by Andy Ingram for azcentral.com

New Year’s resolutions never seem to stick. And looking back over the past year, picking winners and losers doesn’t appeal to me, either.

Predictions, however, seem right up my alley.

Better yet, I decided to ask a beer educator, a bar owner and a brewer what they see in their crystal balls as it pertains to craft brewing for 2012. Here’s what they said.

Steves Parkes, owner and lead instructor of the American Craft Brewers Guild

Parkes’ guild, located in Vermont, is a leading brewing school. If you’re serious about brewing, I’d get serious about schooling, and ACBG is one of the best. (Full disclosure: Parkes was my instructor, and he has very high standards.)

He predicts there will be a return to session beers “if brewers get it right.”

The return, Parkes suggests, will be in conjunction with “less wood, less sour and less fruit beers.” In other words, a return to the traditional.

Layrd Mahler, owner of Sonoran Brewing Co.
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Beer Profile: Stoudt’s Old Abominable Barley Wine

Profiled by Ken Carman for Professor Goodales

I love Barley Wine. I paid almost $20 for this champagne bottle of Abomniable… explaining why I’m kind of pissed. This had all the markings of a great Barley Wine packaging-wise, but it was Barley Wine light: mouthfeel, taste, aroma-wise. Looks good: solid gold, a bit foggy probably due to chill, plenty of head with a mostly pillow to it. So far so good, though the pour seemed a little light gravity-wise. But then I hit the aroma. Hops: some, not much else. Usually there’s some sweet complexity to the nose that damn near drags me into the bottle. The hops were citrus-y. I usually resist fruit comparisons because it does true fruit beers a disfavor, but this was that Centennial-like citrus some compare to grapefruit. I do a grapefruit ale. trust me: not the same. Where the hell is the alcohol? Where’s the body? This was more a nice, somewhat sweet, IPA over all. Do not spend 20 on this. It’s not worth it if you’re looking for Barley Wine.

I looked over several reviews and found the color seems to vary. Perhaps the malt profile varies from batch to batch, though I seemed consistent with other reviews otherwise. Note: I might have given a better review if the price wasn’t a bit out of line for the product. Regardless of the bottle size I expect one hell of a Barley Wine for 20. I’m one of the supplier’s for Big Bob’s Barley Wine bash in Pensacola and you can get better, more punchy, Barley Wines for less than 20, and in large bottles too. Might qualify as an American-hopped English of the style, though the body should be more substantial in that case.

Fruit and Spice Beers

Image courtesy alibaba.com

Written by Tom Becham for Professorgoodales.net

Courtesy beersmith.com
Let’s face it.  Amongst beer geeks, beers containing fruit and/or spices tend to have a poor reputation.  Fruit beers are routinely called “girlfriend beer” (that’s actually the most POLITE term I can find for them), while spiced beers are usually written off as gimmicks and/or seasonal aberrations.

But the truth is that both fruits and spices have a long history of being used as brewing ingredients.  The German Reinheitsgebot (the document from 1516 Germany which prohibited the use of any ingredients in beer other than malt, hops, water and yeast) aside, many very ancient brewing traditions have had no restrictions on ingredients.
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Samuel Adams Brewers Unveil A New Spring Seasonal Beer

Brewed with Noble Hops From the Alps, Samuel Adams® Alpine Spring Hits Shelves this Month

BOSTON, Jan. 13, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — The brewers at Samuel Adams have crafted a brand new seasonal beer, Samuel Adams Alpine Spring. This beer has the balanced maltiness and hoppiness of a helles, the strength and smoothness of a bock, and the unfiltered haze of a kellerbier. Although it’s categorized as an unfiltered wheat lager, this one-of-a-kind beer transcends any one style, and the crisp, citrus flavor notes make it a perfect offering for spring.

Want to read more? Please click…

HERE

Woman Named Beer Barred from New Zealand Brewing Competition Because She’s Female

Author NOT credited. From foxnews.com

QUEENSTOWN, New Zealand – Despite being named Beer, and making her own brew, a New Zealand woman has been prohibited from entering a home-brew beer contest because she’s not a man.

Rachel Beer, who makes a brew named “Beer’s Beer,” was shocked to be told a home-brew competition at an A&P show — an event which combines agricultural and entertainment events — on Saturday was a male-only competition, the New Zealand Herald reported.

Beer was told by the chief steward of the event, held at Lake Hayes in the central South Island near Queenstown, that she could enter her tipple, but it wouldn’t be judged.
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Boston’s Mayor Menino Disses Colorado Craft Beer Ahead Of Broncos Patriots Game

(Gee, who would ever think a politician might say something both ignorant and rather stupid?- The Professor)

Written by Ryan Grenoble for huffingtonpost.com

The one thing most Coloradans really behind more than the Denver Broncos? Craft beer. And unlike the hit-or-miss Broncos, Colorado’s craft beer industry is always a hit. One can only imagine the indignation, then, when Boston’s Mayor Tom “Mumbles” Menino yesterday uttered “The Beer Diss Heard ‘Round The World.” In an interview, Menino told the Boston Globe:

I mean, you know, Colorado beer? It hasn’t even made it east yet. Sam Adams has made it to the west and Harpoon has made it out there, but Colorado Rocky beer? Uck..

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Beer Profile: Red Brick Smoked Vanilla Gorilla

Profiled by Ken Carman for professorgoodales.net

Greeted by very fine bubble head upon first pour and a vanilla, smoked, whiskey aroma: this beer is as advertised. You can taste the whiskey barrel. The sweet vanilla clings to the roof of the mouth as the smoked, peated, whiskey sense passes over the tongue.

Ratebeer has this as an Imperial Strong Porter. No way. Tis not heavy. In fact, though black as any stout, it seems more a moderate bodied ale with all already mentioned. Hops: not really present. It’s almost sweet despite the whiskey sense, that due to the vanilla. A decent amount of carbonation pierces the tongue, lightly as bubbles flow over the palate. Red Brick says “Porter.” That seems more accurate. Perhaps a Brown Porter, not Robust.

Why would anyone drink Bud or Miller when you can have something as interesting as this?

Los Angeles Beer Drinkers Becoming Savvier

California might be the state with the most breweries totaling 245 in 2010, but Los Angeles County, with a population over nine million, is still behind with their number of craft breweries. With the recent movement of Alchemy & Science, the newly formed craft beer consortium of Ace Beverage and Mission Beverage, and four more L.A. breweries in development (according to the Brewers Association), L.A. is rapidly catching up to the rest of the craft drinking region of the United States.

Landscape changing

Los Angeles beer drinkers are more knowledgeable than ever and are demanding craft brews at establishments like Barney’s Beanery or Big Wangs Downtown, where macrobrew dominates the beer list. Beers like L.A. based Golden Road Brewing Hefeweizen and San Marcos based Port Brewing Mongo IPA are starting to pop up in between Budweisers and Coronas.

It wasn’t always like this. Just five years ago, craft beer was hard to come by. “There weren’t enough distributors down here,” said Ryan Sweeney, owner of three craft beer bars in town, including the newly opened Little Bear in downtown Los Angeles. Due to the limited access to craft, drinkers didn’t have the chance to refine their palates. He recalls the opening of Verdugo Bar, a craft beer bar in Glassell Park about five years ago, “we had to train everyone on everything. Everything was exotic and most of the beers we wanted to get we couldn’t.”

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Hophead: My Favorite Beers of 2011

Written by Jesse Hughey for dallasobserver.com

​Here’s what passes for my year-end list, 10 of the beers that really impressed me this year, listed in no particular order other than roughly reverse-chronological. It’s late because I tend to do my heaviest drinking during the holidays. I wanted to be sure to include anything I tried up till midnight on New Year’s Eve; the tardiness is not at all because of a weeklong hangover combined with post-holiday depression rendering me nearly catatonic and completely uninterested in writing about … urp … beer.

Deep Ellum Brewing Co. brewmaster Drew Huerta is putting out some really good beer already, even with the brewery just a few weeks old. Festivus, a sort-of black IPA created in the wake of a brewery equipment failure that nearly rendered a huge batch unusable, was a fine holiday beer, but my favorite beer they make is the biggest: the imperial rye stout Darkest Hour. It’s just as dark as the name implies, with a nice dark-fruit sweetness and bracing spiciness and bitterness keeping the sugars in check. If you like dark beers, order some before it’s gone.

Maybe it was just in contrast to the burnt-rubber nastiness of Tactical Nuclear Penguin, but Mikkeller Barrel Aged Black Hole Cognac Edition was a wonderful deep, dark stout. The price was crippling at $20 a 12.7-ounce bottle at Strangeways (haven’t seen it in stores), but it was so lusciously rich and dark and strong I’d probably splurge on it again.

Deschutes The Abyss 2010, tried that same evening at The Common Table, was awesome, molasses and toffee and dark fruit swirled into an 11-percent ABV chocolate milkshake of a stout.
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