Beer at Burger King?

Jan 22nd

Posted by Al in Beer

1 comment

NPR: Burger King Rolls Out The Beer Barrel

Burger King may be number three after McDonalds and Subway in terms of sales in the fast-food restaurant business. But it plans to be the first in at least one area — serving beer and I’m not talking about the root beer.

Reports are that Burger King will be serving beer at a location in Miami Beach which will be the first in the chain to serve alcohol.

According to the Associated Press they’ll be offering Anheuser-Busch InBev and MillerCoors products. That’s a good thing, because I don’t need a temptation to go into a fast food joint.


Beer news sampler

Jan 20th

Posted by Al in Beer

3 comments

A small sampling of beer-related news that recently caught our eye.

Anheuser-Busch InBev shipping water to Haiti
ABIB is shipping 600,000 cans of water to aid in Haiti. They’ll also be matching donations to the American Red Cross and have shipped over 5 millions cans of drinking water to victims of natural disasters in the last two years.

Workers’ strike against Anheuser-Busch InBev affecting supplies in Belgium
Inventories of Stella Artois and Leffe are just about depleted.

Another reason to drink beer
Xanthohumol, found in hops, shows promise in fighting cancer.

Beoir
A new beer consumer’s group for Ireland.

Trying to remove the ban on mixed beer drinks in Nebraska
Regulators say they just want to remove an archaic and unnecessary law. Opponents say they’re trying to open the door for alcopops.

Give a pint, get a pint
Cascade Regional Blood Services (based in Tacoma, Washington) says that their promotion of giving a pint of beer when you donate a pint of blood worked so well that they’re going to expand it.


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New advice site for homebrewers: BrewAdvice.com

Jan 17th

Posted by Al in Homebrewing

No comments

From the press release:

BrewAdvice.com, a community-driven site focused on answering all questions related to beer, officially launched today [January 16, 2010]. Unlike forums, message boards, Facebook, or Twitter, BrewAdvice.com is specifically set up as a simple question and answer knowledge base. Ask a question, get a number of answers, select the best one, and get on with brewing. The site was quietly opened to the public a little over a week ago, and the response was overwhelmingly successful.

Questions range from basic homebrewing process questions, like “How do you choose a yeast”, to more theoretical brewing questions, such as “What does ‘Imperial’ mean with regards to style?” to the more advanced side of the craft, for example the effects of aging on Alpha and Beta acids in hops. There are also questions that aren’t strictly for the homebrewer, such as a question about pairing beer with mussels, and general beer storage advice.

Users on the site gain reputation through activity. The more active a user, the more power he or she has on the site. One gains reputation by asking good questions and leaving good answers. As users participate more, they gain access to commenting, voting, and moderation tools. “It’s a site run by the community,” says co-founder PJ Hoberman.

The site is built on the StackExchange network, which is itself based on StackOverflow, a web site for programmers that I frequent daily. It’s an interesting and different way of collecting and sharing information. Many newcomers mistake it for yet another forum, but that’s not what it is and after a little while you just “get” it. Since it’s community-driven, the more you put in the more you get out. I know there’s a lot of homebrewing knowledge out there; this will be a good way to tap it.


Pyramid Breweries swag

Jan 14th

Posted by Al in Beer

No comments

One pleasant side effect of my Beer-a-Day project is hearing from the brewers whose beer I included. One such is Pyramid Breweries, who were so happy to see five of their beers in my list they sent me some tchotchkes:

I love the industrial-strength church key as well as the t-shirt for my wife. Very thoughtful. Thanks guys (especially Meech)!


Are big beer mergers good for craft brewers?

Jan 12th

Posted by Al in Beer

1 comment

Speaking of Heineken’s purchase of FEMSA, Public Radio’s Marketplace had a story on how consolidation of brewing giants can help craft brewers.

Marketplace: Are beer mergers a good brew for biz?

Uli Bennewitz owns the Weeping Radish Farm Brewery in Jarvisburg, N.C. He also runs a butchery and an organic farm.

Everybody is wary of “where does this stuff come from?” There is clearly a move towards local, local, local. And I think that is an advantage for small breweries.

They also follow up with a bit of analysis on the Marketplace blog:

Maketplace Scratch Pad: One world, one beer company?

Paddy [Hirsch] recently visited Stone Brewing Company near San Diego, and they told him they loved it when the big companies merged. The mergers turn off beer-drinkers, perhaps in principle but also because something bad seems to happen to the flavor of a decent beer when it gets swallowed up by a mega-corporation. People start looking for alternatives.



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Beer-a-Day: More attempts

Jan 11th

Posted by Al in Beer-a-Day 2009

5 comments

Could I perhaps have inspired others? I’d like to think so, but not likely.

Anyway, someone else is attempting the “beer-a-day” thing for 2010.

A Year of Beer

His dedicated blog is much prettier than my attempt, and he’s putting in more information for each beer. Please give your support and encouragement. We all know how hard it is to do.

Know anybody else doing this? Let us know in the comments.


Beer news sampler

Jan 11th

Posted by Al in Beer

4 comments

A sixer of news items on beer that we spotted recently.

BBC News: Anheuser-Busch InBev to cut 800 European jobs
That’s about 10% of their European workforce and is ” a response to falling beer sales”. Well, if they made any products I’d want to drink…

Idaho Statesman: It’s been a good decade for craft beer
Patrick Orr talks about some of the gains and newsworthy items in craft beer during the aughts.

Heineken to buy FEMSA beer operations for $5.5 billion
Fomento Económico Mexicano, S.A. de C.V. is the Mexican brewer of Sol, Tecate, and Dos Equis. This deal gives the Dutch giant a larger foothold in the Americas. I don’t expect much innovation here. In fact, I just expect the same old fairly bland mass-produced beer, just produced by fewer companies.

Counterfeit beer in China
Apparently, “fancy” beers like Corona and Budweiser are being substituted with cheaper lagers. Fleeced customers apparently don’t notice.

UK beer drinkers should expect beer prices to go up
Brewing giants InBev and Diageo both cite sluggish economy as the need for the increase.

Mid 18th-Century beer mug may auction for upwards of $100K
“A 268-year-old beer mug that was spirited to Canada during the American Revolution by an iconic Loyalist refugee — Rev. John Stuart, the future founder of the Anglican Church in Upper Canada — hits the auction block this month in the U.S. and is expected to sell for close to $100,000 because of its remarkable provenance.”


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Brooklyn Brewery Monster Ale Revisited

Jan 9th

Posted by Al in Beer

3 comments

I have taken a few timid steps toward cellaring some of my beer. Last January I had some Brooklyn Monster Ale and very specifically put aside a bottle to have…oh, about now. It’s been an awful temptation to see it back for just about all of 2009. This is a bottle from 2008.

Very pretty caramel color and clear. What little head it has falls fairly quickly. There’s some vanilla in the aroma, plus a bit of floral, but mostly it’s significantly malty/bready. It’s thick. Not syrupy, but obviously very high gravity. Big malty flavor with a little bit of heat from the alcohol.

Question is: Is it better than it was a year ago?

I say yes. Most of the “harshness” I found in it last January has certainly mellowed. It’s warm and complex. It’s good. Should I cellar it for longer? I don’t know, but it would be hard to leave it alone for that long.

Monster Barleywine


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You could win trip to the Budvar Brewery in Prague

Jan 7th

Posted by Al in Beer

No comments

UK writer Pete Brown has won yet another trip to České Budějovice, Bohemia, Czech Republic. (You know, where Budějovický Budvar is.) He loves the place, but has decided that a third trip for him won’t have the same universal karma as making it a first trip for someone else. So, he’s giving it away. You only need to write a little something.

Working in conjunction with Budvar UK and The Publican, we’re launching a mini-competition to encourage new beer writing talent.

This is open to anyone who is passionate about beer, wants to write about it, but has not yet had anything published in print media. We can’t and don’t want to exclude bloggers because most people who are keen to write about beer have started doing so electronically, but we want to offer someone the chance to break into being published offline for the first time.

It’s simple. You need to write a thousand-word piece on the subject of ‘Why Beer Matters’, interpreted in whatever way you see fit. You need to send this to me (Pete Brown) by 29th January, remembering to include your real name, postal address and contact telephone number.

Judges will include me (Pete Brown), and Publican editor Caroline Nodder. The winning entry will be published in The Publican, and the successful writer will be invited on a press trip to Ceske Budejovice, which also takes in a day trip to the stunning medieval town of Ceske Krumlov some time in early spring.

This is open to any writer, anywhere (though you’d have to get yourself to either London or Prague under your own steam if you live outside the UK.)

PETE BROWN: WIN MY TRIP TO THE BUDVAR BREWERY!

Better get to work!


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Beer-a-Day Project: I did it!

Jan 3rd

Posted by Al in Beer-a-Day 2009

11 comments

Now that I’ve done it I can hardly believe I made it through. It was harder and more different than I expected going in. When I first did some research to see if anyone had ever done anything like this I couldn’t believe how few had actually tried it, almost all failing to finish, with many quitting before getting even halfway.

By the time I got to the third month I understood why. This is hard! I mean, not only was I drinking more than I ever had in my life, but I had to make sure I did it each and every day. Things went best when I brought home my mixed case and photographed all the bottles before putting them in the fridge. Then I could fix up the photos and prepare the articles so that when I actually did drink the beer I needed to only add my impressions. Unfortunately I wasn’t always able to do that, so there were many days that were a bit of a scramble.

Never in my adult life did I ever think that I would say to myself  “Oh, damn. I have to drink a beer today. Nuts.”

In late November I was on the home stretch, confident that I would finish and feeling good about myself. Of course, that’s when I found out about Dale Van Wieren, who is now over 10,000 daily beers. I’d have to keep going for 24 or so years to catch up. It was rather disheartening to be sure. I consoled myself with a beer.

Many thanks to Ye Old Spirit Shop in Frederick, Maryland. If it wasn’t for their extensive selection and encouragement to buy single bottles I never could have done this. For the last third of the year, I had to go shopping with a list of beers that I’d already had as part of this project so I wouldn’t buy them again.

Thanks also to those Hop Talk readers who offered up enthusiasm and encouragement over the course of this past year.

And thanks most of all to my patient and understanding wife, who was not only the inspiration for this project but also my biggest fan. She helped me sample quite a few beers and reminded me more than once of my daily obligation.

Here’s the top 10 brands I sampled this year:

1. Samuel Adams – 20
2. Flying Dog  – 15 (19 if you include Wild Goose)
3. Saranac – 12
4. Brooklyn – 11
(tie) Dogfish Head – 11
(tie) Victory – 11
7. Great Divide – 10
8. Abita – 8
(tie) Samuel Smith – 8
(tie) Weyerbacher – 8

I didn’t try to rate the beer as I sampled them; I just tried to give my impressions. There were some surprises: Oskar Blues Ten Fidy Imperial Stout, Great Divide Yeti Imperial Stout, and Flying Dog Raging Bitch are three I rather liked, but there were plenty more that I was glad I had.

As for ones I wasn’t so glad about, an awful lot of the European lagers in green bottles were lightstruck, which I suppose shouldn’t be a surprise. What is surprising is how many people still drink them and think that’s the way quality beer is supposed to taste. Back in July I had several American macro lagers. Of them, I found Miller Lite the best of the bunch, but, honestly, that’s not saying much. I did try to keep an open mind, though.

You can see the list of beers in order in each of the monthly recaps, but here’s an alphabetical list:



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