Category: Beer in the news

Great articles that you should read.

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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.

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I’m Just a Bill

Here we go again for the 4th time.  That’s the charm, right?

The Small Brewer Reinvestment and Expanding Workforce Act – Small BREW Act for short – was re-introduced by Representatives Erik Paulsen (R-MN) and Richard E, Neal (D-MA), (That’s both sides of the aisle, how did that happen?)

The goal of the Small BREW Act will help the lower production tiers in the brewery world. The tax rate on a brewery’s first 60,000 barrels goes from $7 to $3.50. If you are between 60,001 and 2 million barrels, the excise tax rate from $18 per barrel to $16 . You do have to brew under 6 million barrels to qualify and anything between the 2 million and 6 uses the current tax rate.

Any tax relief will be of help for those in the affected production brackets.  Those are financially hard areas to break even.  But I wouldn’t hold my breath.  This legislation has gone further than others but still has fallen short.  Maybe it can get attached to a non-attention getting Omnibus bill and slide through that route.

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SF Beer Week..is coming

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Never to early to plan for the massive amount of beer events in San Francisco during their SF Beer Week. The initial calendar is out and ready to be perused by beer fans by the Bay, and us Angelenos too!

Events like:

Festival of Firkins
Magnolia Pub & Brewery, San Francisco
February 12th, 11:00am – 8:00pm