Follow Sean Inman to the best in craft beer
Los Angeles has had some controversy with granny apartments and AirBnB. Structures in the backyards that pay the bills for the main house since LA property costs are sooo high.
Maybe there is another use for the backyard….
The website Wide Open Country posted about Bar Sheds recently and it almost made me wish, I had a backyard where I could serve up my beer. (and relieve my wife from my hoarding ‘fridge space).
I have been to a couple and like the atmosphere of garden and kegs.
Why must we drink in the bathroom?
Why?
Can we not put down our glass/bottle/can for a few minutes? Same with phones. We need to return to the days of single-tasking.
Or just hasten the demise of western culture and buy it HERE.
I had a phase where a lot of my beer reviews, either in writing or verbally had the word “medicinal” in them. It was stuck in my head. The beer equivalent of an earworm.
Hopefully, my language has grown to be more precise and descriptive since then but even the best could use a refresher and the handy “word” guide from Beer Tasting Mastery should be consulted the next time you are stuck for just the right word.
Say, you have a 16oz can of La Suerte from Eagle Rock Brewery. It is a big 14% beer. You should share it. And this little gadget, which I hope can be found online to buy, can help you pour evenly.
Quite the creative idea from Grain Belt Beer.
No scientist am I and when I see phrases like “restrictor disc” and “N2 pressure to a heat exhanger” or going even further to “inline liquid & gas infuser”. I do not think of craft beer. Seems more like mechanic lingo to me.
But it is part of the mechanical engineering for the draft system called AeriAle which is a byproduct of a team-up between Dogfish Head Brewery and AC Beverage.
The end goal is to drink barrel-aged beer directly from the barrel at the proper temperature and pressure levels.
I am not going to tell you that I understand the process. For that I would need an extra brain and a side by side comparison of the same beer from different taps but I do applaud the creativity and nitro dispense in the US could use a boost.
Maybe this is it. And if an East Coast Eataly restaurant has one, maybe the new Eataly in Century City might too.
TV Tap. ‘Cause we need more screens in our lives. Take a regular tap handle and add a screen to it for photos or brief videos.
I am both surprised that is has taken so long for this to happen considering frames have been rotating photo slideshows for years. But I also sense that Anonymous could hack the hell out of it and make a real hash of your carefully crafted message.
My other worry is that most tap handles aren’t all that close to the consumer and those that will get the brunt of the video will be the bartenders. You would probably see many beer drinkers leaning over the bar to see what the image is as well.
It might work better as decoration outside the tap area. As a changeable board of what’s on tap.
It seems that every year after Christmas, I hear about some cool idea that would have been good as a gift.
This year’s winner is Shirts on Tap.
It is one of the latest wave of monthly boxes. You get a custom brewery shirt, a coupon for beer from that brewery and a sticker. Right now they have the “Big 3” of cities Portland, Denver and San Diego but hopefully they will roll over to Los Angeles. We have enough breweries to do 4 years worth of shirts without any repeats.
For a company called Mad Hops, it is duly noted that of the three flavors that I was sent only one is associated with hops. And then only in pale version. No IPA to be found.
But I truly wanted to see if Mad Hops had cracked the code. I believe in science.
I used Foster’s Premium Ale for a base because I couldn’t bring myself to buy Bud or Coors. It is crisp and simple and light. A good base to squirt flavors into. I then proceeded to add each from my group of three to my taster flight.
I started with the Pale Ale which did not really taste of hops. The drop did add some fullness to the brew but it was cloying. Not sweet but kind of chemically with a weird not real citrus taste. If I had tasted this blind, I would have told you that the beer was off somehow. And if you squirt too much, that last sip, all you get is the added flavor. That leads me to…..
You really need to measure the dosage and you have to stir them in though which sort of goes against the grain of the “on the sly” super-easy doctoring of a plain beer.
The cherry wheat again has a chemical component to it but my overriding taste is 7-11 Slurpee. Neither of which is what I want from a beer. There is also a slight manure tinge to it. Yeah, I said it.
Moving on to the Irish Porter, the smell is a lot better and the coloring is right once stirred. But that flavor is no where near what I call Irish Porter. It is much more coffee milkshake. Mocha light. Still pretty sickly sweet though. I tried the Irish Porter in a fresh glass with a smaller squirt but that didn’t show a marked improvement.
Of the four beers, I would easily take the regular Foster’s. And if someone at a party was just serving Budweiser, well, I would honestly tell them that I drink craft beer and reach for a water. It almost feels more beer snobby to attempt to surreptitiously add Mad Hops to a beer than to be honest.
Most of us don’t have either the contacts or the space to have a barrel at home and the amount of beer to fill it. Unless you are a home brewer, of course.
Now, with the aptly and simply named Oak Bottle made from ‘Merican White Oak, you can perform ale experiments and without waiting for years. The smaller bomber-esque vessel with the slim shape “accelerates the traditional oak aging process … in a matter of hours not years.”
Right now there is only the one version. No bourbon-barrel or extra charred or anything. But for $79 bucks it is a good entry level for testing out what Oak does to different beers.
If I wasn’t a beer blogger, I just might write about soap. There are parallels to make it less weird than it sounds at first.
Both can be expensive and twee. Both can be artisanal or mass produced. Both can have wonderful aroma.
So when the fine folks at Swag Brewery (who also sell candles and other fun beer related gifts) offered to send me three beer soaps, I jumped at the chance to test out a real shower beer.
Shortly thereafter, I received a box with Breakfast Stout, Tropical Lager and Hard Cider soaps in the shape of a hockey puck. My brother-in-law has brewed both beer and cider so, immediately, I knew that I would be sending the Cider accented soap to him. My beer buddy Richard had just returned from Hawaii, so another obvious gifting opportunity was right there.
That left me with the preferred Breakfast Stout soap to scrub with. Truth be told, I did smell the soap and I was not transported to the floor of a brewery. The pitch black soap smelled very manly. Leather and a bit of chocolate and vanilla. I particularly liked the little abrasive touch that the texture gave.
These are fun and useful gifts that show that a person is thinking beyond your next beer.
Later, I will try these hot sauces. Will my tender palate survive Roasted Chipotle?
