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Great articles that you should read.
Since 2015, Whales for Wishes has raised over $215,000 dollars, enough to grant 34 wishes to children with life-threatening medical conditions.
Head right HERE between now and April 8th to buy your raffle tickets for the spring giveaway and to see the list of beers that will be given away to make some wishes come true. It is a fun, low cost way to help and to see how lucky you are.
The 2021 style guidelines dropped at the end of February and here is the news people are tuning in for, what new styles have been added?
Per the Brewers Association press release…
“Hundreds of revisions, edits, format changes, and additions were made to this year’s guidelines, including updates to existing beer styles and the creation of new categories. New additions to the beer styles include:”
I bet local Ten Mile Brewing will be sending their Common, Hidden Hollow on to GABF but this also helps the IPA focused breweries who now have less crowded main categories as the entrants shift to hazy. My interest lies in which of Kentucky Common and Belgian Session have more entries.
Looks like two Bend, Oregon breweries are partnering…
Most SoCal beer fans will have seen and most likely had a few Deschutes beers but Boneyard does not have a footprint down here so will be lesser known. Think of it as the heritage brewer / older sibling getting together with the rough edged / younger sibling. You can read more HERE. But I expect that more neighboring breweries may combine forces. Some will work and some will divorce later depending on how well they can balance the union.
Since I am not on the Twitter or the Reddit, I miss some of the posts from Worst Beer Blog.
Bearing in mind this packaging is a one-off for publicity, the math becomes very fun…
You would have to drink 8.9 cans a day for a year to exhaust the insanely large box. A box, mind you, that wouldn’t fit into many brewery cold boxes. Because geometry. After a week, I would guess you would not want to hear the name Keisari ever again. And after a month you probably would drink anything other than this beer. But the math that is the most important is how un-fresh that last beer would be.
It appears that Achel will have to switch their labeling from Trappist to Abbey in the near future as the monastic community has dwindled down to (from what I have read) just two monks.
It was probably understood when the Trappist rules were laid down that this rule could be the Achilles heel of the Trappist designation. Not only is religion taking a dip in attendance but the monks average age has been on an upward trajectory as well.
Westmalle has been brewing the beer for awhile but even they are at only 27 monks.
It will be interesting to see if any changes to the three rules are made or if they make tiers and promote the tiers equally. I would be for more truth in advertising such as monk brewed, monk supervised or profits go to monks but they are not involved, just the recipe is trademarked.
I think tradition is grand but having the beer still around is grander.
I need recent days, two fan favorite beers returned to distribution. First….
Stone Brewing stuck SS-R in its 12 Days of IPA’s box and then this year decidedly to re-release it all on its own. That was followed by…
…the label re-designed Wookey Jack from the SoCal Firestone.
How many more Black IPA’s do you think will cone back this year?
I’m jus going to revel in the fact that Newsom and his buddy are getting sued by what is a pretty benevolent association for the most part. So, you go ahead and read on…
“The California Craft Brewers Association (CCBA) and breweries from across the state of California announced today the filing of a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against Governor Gavin Newsom and California State Public Health (CDPH) Officer Sandra Shewry alleging constitutional violations, including denying beer manufacturers their equal protection rights by requiring them to serve a meal to operate a tasting room, but not applying those requirements equitably across the entire alcohol beverage manufacturing industry.
Current guidelines for reopening issued by the CDPH on July 1, 2020 permits a gradual reopening of businesses, including restaurants, wineries, retailers and other industries. The recent orders broaden the scope of winery privileges, allowing the state’s more than 4,000 wine makers and winery tasting rooms more generous reopening privileges than the state’s 1,050 craft breweries.
In current reopening guidelines, craft breweries are required to provide a sit-down meal in order to reopen their outdoor tasting areas, but the same onerous requirement is not imposed on wine manufacturers. This split guidance creates an arbitrary and unjust distinction between wine manufacturers and beer manufactures. The complaint alleges that this distinction made between manufacturers in the same industry is not based on any difference between the two businesses or their ability to operate safely and does not directly support COVID-19 mitigation efforts, which are widely supported and followed by craft brewers across the state of California.
“When it is time to begin the reopening of businesses in 2021, we need to ensure that a single industry is not arbitrarily divided based on unfounded assumptions,” said CCBA executive director, Tom McCormick. “We want to ensure that the craft brewing industry has the same privileges and the same pathway as other alcohol beverage manufacturers to reopen, re-employ and re-build next year.”
Wineries and breweries are identical manufacturing facilities that operate with the same “risk factors” as identified by the CDPH. The wine industry, which boasts more than 4,000 wineries located all across the state of California, have very similar if not identical tasting rooms to the 1,050 craft breweries. The sole difference between wineries and breweries is the product they produce: wine or beer. Both winery and brewery businesses are indistinguishable in their processes and privileges and should be assigned the same guidelines for reopening by the state.
“The orders from the CDPH unjustly target the small 1,050 craft breweries operating across the state of California. The CCBA urges the CDPH to reassess the current divisive and confusing reopening guidelines so that these small businesses can find a pathway to survive in 2021,” said McCormick.”
I think it was very smart to position this for 2021 and beyond and to do it as the vaccine is rolling out. Hopefully state government will start making less choices based on expediency and more on common sense.
Quick hop post for y’all.
Remember these two hop names because I bet you will be seeing them in beers next year and more I need 2022.
First up is Australia- Eclipse. Then to New Zealand for – Nectaron.
Charity beers have been a bright beer light this year and in 2020 fashion, we ain’t done yet. Great Notion Brewing in Portland has a new one, named Reparations Imperial Stout. All (100%) of the proceeds will be donated towards The National African American Reparations Commission (NAARC) in support of bill HR-40
The brewery was buoyed by the success of the Black is Beautiful Beer program from Weathered Souls in Texas so they are inviting other breweries to do their versions. You can read more at reparationsbeer.com.
There is a nice mix of lists from Crafts Beer & Brewing magazine. Bordering on too many almost. You have a main Best of featuring twenty beers of which I had three. Then there are readers choice categories in top 50, favorite brewery by category and a who brews it best by style. Then there are five more Best of’s from different contributors.
From an LA perspective Monkish gets their hazy (and stout) love but Highland Park is making some serious inroads and could almost be considered 1B from our area. Speaking of, the excellent Glendale Tap in my adopted town made the best beer list which s quite the commendation.
The sheer amount of beers can lead to overload but you can see patterns emerge as you see breweries show up on multiple lists. You may have to make notes in the margins but this is a lot of helpful leads.