Category: Beer in the news

Great articles that you should read.

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Beer TV

You may have seen Drinking Buddies, the movie that charted two couples relationships with the backdrop of a Revolution Brewing in Chicago. Now, the City of Angels has their updated version with “L.A. Beer” a sitcom Web series taped in front of a live studio audience.

It is a workplace comedy set in a brewery that stars Sam Daly (“Hot in Cleveland”), Arianna Ortiz, Kevin High, Alicia Ying, James Lontayao and Sarah Stoecker. The series is Executive Produced by Sam Miller a staff writer on the CBS show “Mom”.

The series will debut with five episodes on YouTube beginning May 11, in conjunction with American Craft Beer Week. Five more episodes will be posted in June to match-up with L.A. Beer Week.

Here is the trailer to whet your appetite:

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Stark(a) Differences

There is always something to learn about for the first time. Today it is Starka. If you knew about this version of vodka then kudos and gold stars to you.

For those like me who have never heard of it or tasted it, this spirit has Eastern European roots and it is basically vodka aged in oak casks.
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Three Oregon distillers have combined to make three unique Starkas and this is where a new craft beer idea could be found. The three participants Big Bottom Distilling, Bull Run Distilling and Indio Spirits and Distillery each “created an exclusive variation of Starka by choosing specific barrels that are distinct to each producer.”
What would happen if a group of brewers brewed up a whopping batch of a base beer and then each used their distinctive cooperage to age their ales to see what difference that not only the wood but the expertise of a brewery can be created.

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Hops in the Outfield

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If forced to attend a professional baseball game, I could have fun checking out the craft beer choices. Checking out the good food options and even the totally bad for you food. And at Coors Field, there is another attraction to keep my mind off the interminable length of an actual game.

The Colorado Rockies will be adding hop plants to the garden that is beyond the outfield. This gardne already includes the home run fountains as well as other plants and trees but now will have planter boxes of quite possibley Citra, Simcoe and Cascade. These hops will be used (if they successfully grow) in a fresh hop beer made by Blue Moon at the Sandlot.

Now watching beer being made is so much more interesting.

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The Hop Puns would be Endless

While perusing one of my favorite beer blogs, Beervana.  I ran across this POST about how Goschie Farms in Oregon.  (Which I have had the pleasure of visiting once) is working on mixing the related hops and cannabis.  Oakshire Brewing of Eugene has been the brewing portion of the R&D for what is being called Harlequin Cascade.

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Now, will this be a viable hop for market?  I think there are far too many hurdles for that to happen.  Even on a home brewing front.  A. The full U.S. hop market, would not be available.  Some states simply would not allow it. I don’t see home brew shops risking it, even in the more legally lenient states.

The troubles and risks for breweries would stop people as well.  Getting a keg collar would be difficult and getting a label approved would be near impossible.

I applaud the creativity and science of hop cultivating but I don’t see this “growing” bigger.

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Left in LA

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Looks like Los Angeles is on the Left Hand Brewing distribution list. Starting this spring the Craft Beer Guild of Los Angeles will be bringing in beers from the Colorado brewery into SoCal. From San Diego to Santa Barbara.

Whether or not they blitz the area like Bell’s did in February is an open question but it seems the amount of choices for the L.A. beer consumer is growing.

It will be interesting to see if their famed Nitro Milk Stout takes off here.

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Gypsy in L.A.?

Mikkeller SD

The news that Mikkel Borg Bjergsø and Peter Zien are expecting to be brewing Mikkeller Beers in the almost old AleSmith facility by June was presaged by their collaboration on Beer Geek Speedway earlier this year.

But buried in the press release was this small sentence, “Bjergsø also foresees opening other locations throughout California.” Seeing as how there is already a Mikkeller bar in San Francisco and that the new AleSmith/Mikkeller tasting room is underway, that leaves where? The biggest city left would be us! L.A.

No offense to cities from Sacramento to Santa Barbara but it seems like the next logical choice. Of course it may have to wait for his Denmark brewpub and other enterprises to come to fruition but if I could get a bar as unpretentious and still artsty with a killer beer list like Mikkeller SF, I would be all in.

The other cool news is “the plan on having many brewers from around the world come through and collaborate, …. to set up a ‘collaboration of the month.’” That alone would be a big draw for beer geeks to head to Miramar.

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Into the Archive

A bit of future history here.  Seems like the craft beer movement is one of the few movements that the do-nothing congress seems to have let happen.

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The Library of Congress which is probably the only part of Congress that I give a &*$(@ about has added the website of the Brewers Association to their historical record:

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Now it may seem that I am using this post as an excuse to pinata on an easy target but it this is the type of small seeming action that is really important.  Craft beer has become so known that we are now part of the public policy conversation and that means that maybe, small brew friendly laws and rulings may be coming.  Plus, like getting into the Smithsonian, means you have to be culturally relevant to not just a niche but to a big set of America.  So mark 2/11/15 on the calendar.  It might be a date to remember.

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Monrovia is Home Brewing

Monrovia now has a shoppe for the home brewing crowd and it is pretty close to a place in Monrovia that craft beer fans already know about, Pacific Plate.

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The Monrovia Homebrew shop will hopefully be an incubator for brewing talent that home brew stores are known for being.  Plus it will be cool to see if they can attract a home brew club to compete with the Yeastsiders, the Falcons and the Pacific Gravity.  They opened on the 3rd so by now the kinks should be worked out,

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Bud App

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As if Bud Light isn’t within an arm’s reach, now you can really make it ubiquitous with the Bud Light Button. A new delivery app that launched in the Washington DC area this month.

But you not only get industrial water lager with eau de corn pops, you might win a prize or what the Bud Light Marketing department calls “Up for Whatever”. Or as the VP of Consumer Connections (WTF), explains: “Some people will get just a little something extra, like Bud Light-branded gear, but once in a while, we’re going to deliver a really over-the-top, amazing experiences…” Which I assume means that lucky people will get a real light lager delivered from a brewer and not the Consumer Connections Crew.