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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.

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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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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”

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Lupulin Powder vs. Pellets Experiment

Intense juicy and resinous hop flavor and aroma, less astringent vegetal flavors while using half the amount of hop material–I’m interested! In this article, I look at some of the research surrounding hops, proteins, and clarity and how those might apply to using a new product called lupulin powder. I brew an experimental side-by-side Mosaic pellet to Mosaic lupulin powder beer and reach out to two breweries who have been included in the testing stages of LupuLN2 to get their opinions and results.

YCH Hops was nice enough to send me samples of their Mosaic lupulin powder product called LupuLN2, which they describe as being a purified lupulin powder containing most of the resin compounds and aromatic oils derived directly from whole hop flowers. They create LupuLN2 with a proprietary cryogenic separation process that preserves the aromatic hop components and removes most of the vegetal leafy material.

Want to read more? Please click…

HERE

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North Coast’s Tart Cherry Berliner Weisse

Profiled by Ken Carman

Of the many breweries who have entertained my palate over the years; one of the very, very few that have failed to bore me, or even make me go, “Eh,” is North Coast, whose Old Rasputin makes me drool.

Tart is no disappointment; far from it.

The nose is tart cherry with faint malt in the background, at best. Almost sea breeze, minus salt.

Small bubble slight off white head is greeted by a slight haze and a bright, beautiful orange-ish yellow. Magnificent in the glass. The head doesn’t last.

Flavor is cherry tart mixed with background malt. Sweet, yet tart, fruity, yet clean. This is very slightly sour, at best.

Leaves the palate quickly, just leaving the tart and cherry. Low, yet firm, carbonation. A deceptively easy quaff with light body and fruit cling to the roof of the mouth. Almost lawnmower-ish, yet not.

If you don’t try you’re missing a great rendition of a tart cherry Berliner.

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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kYes, to the left is Ken Carman. Obviously Ken is a mere cartoon character who reviews beer. A magical nymph turns the beer into something a cartoon character can drink.

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An Open Letter to Wicked Weed

We have all read the caveats offered by those who sold Wicked Weed to InBev. Here’s another perspective-PGA


Dear Rick, Ryan, Luke and Walt,

Let me start by saying I loved working for you. For four years I looked up to your business acumen and craft beer concepts. I was proud to wear, serve and represent Wicked Weed. I enjoyed going to work for a man who knew my name and a company that seemed to echo my personal values and those of Asheville.

How quickly it all changed. I left in December citing an increasingly corporate atmosphere and a declining quality of food. The company I signed on to work for would not have tried to marginalize my health coverage for its bottom line. Ultimately this is why I left.

Want to read more? Please click…

HERE

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Mexican Lagers: Indie Brewers Go Bi-Lingual

Let’s be real, for a moment…

Mexican lagers, in general, are crap beers. I hear people, fresh back from their trip to Cabo or Puerto Vallarta or Cozumel or one of the less-famous Mexican resort towns, seriously comparing the relative virtues of Modelo vs. Corona vs. Indio vs. Victoria vs. Pacifico and it just…makes me tired. I remember similar conversations I sat through, patiently, years ago in Greensboro, before there were Indie breweries, when friends of mine were debating Bud and Bud Light, Miller vs. Coors, Pabst and Keystone. I rarely said anything but I can vividly remember thinking, “This is like comparing Tap Waters of Many Places”, because whatever differences actually were present in those beers were usually the result of the person’s memories that attach to them, rather than anything significant in the bottle.

Want to read more? Please click..

HERE

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Crux “In The Pocket”: In-The-Mouth Perfection

I’m just gonna put this here and you can call it whatever species of hyperbole you want but I wouldn’t say it if I wasn’t ready to own it…

Larry Sidor may just be the best brewer in the United States.  And I suspect he could probably whup Europe’s ass, too, if he wanted.

I hear the muttering already: “Well, this Fool person is obviously an idiot! Better than Vinnie Cilurzo? Tomme Arthur? Sam Calagione? Wayne Wambles? Anthony Bourdain!?!”

(Oh, sorry…that last one isn’t a brewer, although, with all the declarative popping off about beer that he’s been doing for the past two years, you can understand how I’d get confused.)

Want to read more? Please click…

HERE

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A Beer Judge’s Diary: Jackalope’s Let’s Get WEIRD

Jackalope Brewing’s Let’s Get WEIRD, 2017

By Ken Carman

Our Judges
         Bailey Spaulding
         Steve Wright
          Katherine Schermerhorn
         Millie Carman
         Grant Ferris
         Stephanie Moore
         Phillip Biggerstaff
         Noah Denney
         Miranda Chandler
         Amanda Crisp
         Ken Carman (and Judge Coordinator)






Just a few of our judges Continue reading “A Beer Judge’s Diary: Jackalope’s Let’s Get WEIRD”

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What’s It Like to Work in a Brewery that has “Sold Out?”

The professor understands the need for anonymity, but it does make the content easy to question. How are we to know how legit any of this is?-PGA
BreweryBuyout

 

Yesterday, the beer world was ablaze with the news that beer giant Anheuser-Busch InBev had purchased Wicked Weed Brewing, North Carolina’s beloved producer of wild ales. The response was as harsh as it was predictable: The outcry of “sell out!” ran rampant across Twitter and Facebook.

This is a narrative we hear a lot—that brewing megalodons like AB InBev, MillerCoors or Constellation Brands are out to gobble up every small brewer they can, crush the ones they can’t, and turn the beer their new subsidiaries produce into bland, watered-down swill. What we don’t often hear, however: What it’s actually like to be an employee at a brewery that’s owned by one of these dreaded macro-brewers.

 

Want to read more? Please click…

HERE