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RateBeer Joins the Borg Collective: AB Harpoons Another One

AB has sunk its tentacles into yet another property designed to do absolutely NOTHING but gain them cred that they cannot earn for themselves and which they will now use to weaked and erode the solidarity and spirit of the American Indie Brewing community.

I posted this comment on Joe Tucker’s own post – the founder and owner of the seminal beer rating website, RateBeer.com – so I’m not going behind his back. This is what I wrote on the partnering of RateBeer with a division of Anheuser Busch…and this was me showing every bit of the restraint that I have in me…

“Joe, let me blunt, here: There is NO POSSIBLE WAY that you’re going to be able to rationalize this out and make it palatable for MOST of your users. You have just struck a deal with the Devil and NO amount of slick explanation is going to invalidate or blunt the simple FACT that you are now beholden to the very company that is making the most concerted effort – in fact, pretty much the ONLY concerted effort – to hamstring or destroy altogether this culture that has spawned your own personal success, that of the 5000 small, independent breweries that make up the Indie/Craft community, and the happiness and enjoyment we all have lived out for the past 25 years, in watching our beer horizons open wide and carry us up and out of the century+ morass of sameness and forced homogeneity of beer.”

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HERE

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Could an Upstate NY firm have built the China-made beer tanks floating past its factory

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LITTLE FALLS, NY — Today a set of huge beer fermentation tanks destined for the Genesee Brewery in Rochester will float down the Erie Canal past a factory in Little Falls.

They will pass just 100 feet or so in front of a plant owned by Feldmeier Equipment, a Syracuse-based company that makes stainless tanks similar to those heading to the brewery in Rochester.

But the 12 big beer tanks on the canal weren’t made by Feldmeier, or even by an American company. They were made by a company called the Lehui Group in China and shipped 6,000 miles, ending with a 225-mile journey along the canal (they’re too big to move by truck).

 

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HERE

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Beer Profile: Southern Tier Why the Helles Not

Profiled by Maria Devan

Pours clear and golden with a fast falling head of white creamy foam. Nose is light and golden with malt. By light I mean that the malt is not complex. It is golden and bready but does not offer any toasted flavor. Hops are just present on the nose but shy. Soft floral shows a bit of grass from hops. As the beer sits it will also show you some pepper and spice. No diacetyl, no fruity esters from yeast, faint dms perfect for the style. Drinks smoothly and imo better than last year. No rough edges on this one it goes down with plenty of satisfaction. Hops remain shy on the palate but they impart their cool breath to the beer. Finishes perfectly. Malty with a crisp bubble and just a little bitterness to linger. Exemplary! In fact I would say put this up against any German import.

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.”

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__________________________Beer HERE

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md

Profiled by Maria Devan who lives high on a hill over looking Ithaca, NY. Look! If you live in Ithaca there she is with her field glasses spying on you! Are you drinking a beer worthy of attention. Beware, she’s Ithaca’s beer police. Can’t you hear the siren on he bike as she rolls down the hill? We kid. She’s been writing for us for many years now. We’re lucky to have her.
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Pub Grub: How Alehouses, Taproom Pubs, and Beer Halls are Becoming McDonalds

I like beer too much and respect too much the amount of effort, creativity, and skill that goes into making American craft beers to continue to settle for the same tired old crap as an accompaniment.

(This post originally appeared in the seattlepi.com version of The Pour Fool, back in 2014. It was requested by about a dozen readers who had read my bio and saw that I used to be a chef for about three decades…which was far longer than that little tangent should have gone on. It was also prompted by two separate requests from young entrepreneurs in Denver, about eight weeks before this appeared, who were thinking of opening one sports bar and one alehouse. I was asked, in both cases, to give them a menu that would avoid – or at least tweak severely – the usual pub grub clichés.

Today, I’m delighted to say, this universal sameness HAS changed – a bit. But, still, in maybe 85% of all American pubs, the menus read just as I have described here. The restaurants which ARE working with Indie Beer offerings and THINKING about their food are doing tremendous things, these days…which results in me, turning over $$$ more and more often. Special Mention must go to 7 Seas Brewing, right here in my own ‘hood, Tacoma, Washington, in which JamieKey Jones and her food staff have installed 3UILT, a truly exceptional pub food eatery that does almost everything right and avoids clichés as though they had fangs and a rattle. Any pub menu on which you can find a jackfruit(!) sandwich that’s actually good AND popular…well, that’s slam-damn truly Outside The Box.)

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HERE

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A 160-year-old Minnesota beer is coming back to life on Friday

When Cold Spring Brewing retired Gluek Beer in 2010, after decades of the brew passing through different ownership hands and struggling to survive, the company had lost hope for the historic label.

“They told me ‘Nobody cares about Gluek Beer except you,’ ” Linda Rae Holcomb said. “That really fueled me.”

So Holcomb, whose family connection to the legendary lager dates back to prohibition, took matters into her own hands. In 2015, she obtained the trademark and copyrights for the 160-year-old beer. Then she found a German chemist to rewrite the recipe and enlisted a Denver brewing company to handle production.

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HERE

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AB/InBev Rams 10 Barrel Down San Diego’s Throat: The Natural Acts of a Bully

YES, by God, I’m talkin’ Peer Pressure. Make 10 Barrel San Diego – I’m sorry, make that “Anheuser Busch San Diego” – the sole province of the Clueless and the Sleazy.
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TPFAs a continuation of what I wrote in the aftermath of Anheuser Busch/InBev’s purchase of North Carolina brewery, Wicker Weed, about AB’s strategy of buying themselves a presence in America’s largest Indie Beer markets, it seemed like a good idea to also point out Phase Two of AB’s shoddy little master plan to either destroy Indie Beer or control it…and, make no mistake about it, that is exactly what’s going on.

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HERE

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Beer Profile: Long Trail Summer Ale

Image courtesy Bangor Daily News

Profiled by Maria Devan

Cheers you all.. My camera broke and my phone only has 2 mp. That is a real let down for me. Anyway, I am getting a new one but not today. New Beer Sunday is coming so I thought I would TELL you about Long Trail Summer Ale. In the old bjcp it says something about the kolsch style beer.

“To the untrained taster easily mistaken for a light lager, a somewhat subtle Pilsner, or perhaps a blonde ale.”

With the idea of the authenticity of the kolsch and the appellation designation in mind, calling your beer a blonde or simply an ale and presenting a kolsch might be entirely well done. I believe this is a great example of this bjcp statement. Pretty clear and softly golden with a white head that lasts well. The nose is fresh breaddy and has a graceful hop floral accented by a light fruity twang. It resembles the kolsch. Is that fruity ester a little too strong? It is slightly “wine like” anyway. Hops are a bit more than modest and the malt is creamy and round but not as breaddy as the pilsner. I would say the bubble gives that malt a bit of extra dryness. The hops are restrained in the finish and show no herbal. Just a clean medium bitterness. What is missing is the slight pucker in the kolsch. That would distinguish this beer and it is very subtle. Finishes bitter with hop pepper and crackery malt. A touch too much bite in the bubbles.

Fragrant and mild this is a lovely summer beer.

4

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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

___________________________________________________________________

md

Profiled by Maria Devan who lives high on a hill over looking Ithaca, NY. Look! If you live in Ithaca there she is with her field glasses spying on you! Are you drinking a beer worthy of attention. Beware, she’s Ithaca’s beer police. Can’t you hear the siren on he bike as she rolls down the hill? We kid. She’s been writing for us for many years now. We’re lucky to have her.
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Brew Biz: Werts and All

Considering the InBev buyout and all the noise created, doesn’t this label seem a tad mega brew ironic? Courtesy Carolina Brew Review.

The Topic: How Much Wicked in Wicked Weed?

 Ken Carman is a BJCP judge; homebrewer since 1979, club member at Escambia Bay, Salt City, 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.

Written by Ken Carman

 Millie and I stopped by Wicked

NOT an InBev, or Wicked Weed, product… yet?
Weed maybe 5 years ago. Enjoyable, a little nuts, crazy busy. I even brought some to Beaver River Station, NY for my annual beer tasting, and some for relatives at a reunion in Rehoboth, Delaware.
 A lot of the craft community is also going nuts, but not in a good way, about Weed being bought by InBev. You would think they had traded their soul to Satan, and I don’t disregard the possibility that in the future that may prove to be the case. But maybe not as of right now.
 I’m here to provide a little perspective, some of it more positive than naysayers would ever consider, some worse than those who shrug this off would admit too.
 There’s already been an internet war of sorts where brewers/employees published a rant about how things would just get better and InBev would not interfere and only help them. This was countered by a former employee saying he quit because things had already headed into cost cutting/care less about the staff-land. (Possibly in preparation for mega purchasing them?) To be clear he said he was still proud to have worked there, it wasn’t sour grapes, but just that he need things they were cutting; like health benefits. He also felt the employee friendly atmosphere was disappearing due, in part, to bean counter counting. Continue reading “Brew Biz: Werts and All”