Follow Sean Inman to the best in craft beer
my occasional rants and raves about what is going on in the industry.
Have you ever been at a party and wished you were in the pub instead? In England, you can do both with Pubs on Wheels.
PoW “can deliver a seamless bar operation, whatever the weather, whatever the terrain and wherever the location. We are all about the Great British Outdoors.”
How great would this be in SoCal. It might even make me re-think camping if one of these big trucks pulled up. The only question is what beers are on tap?
Yesterday the interwebs exploded with righteous anger and fury with the knee-jerk reaction to 10 Barrel Brewing being bought by Lex Luthor.
Wait, they were bought by ABInBev. Craft beer fans might cheer LexCorp more at this point though. Because, we love to hate the big business beers.
We have been on this merry-go-round before. First with Goose Island, then with Blue Point of New York. The now predictable Tweets and Talking Points about being disappointed, selling-out, drinking local all reared their heads.
Here is where I stand (as of today, because I am willing to listen to rational and reasoned arguments):
You can be sad/angry/pick an emoticon about the sale. And you can have legitimate reasons why, but remember that if you were a passionate fan of their beer and loved the brew team then you have to at the least listen to why the owners sold. 10 Barrel made a video explaining why. Watch it.
Never, and I mean never, boycott a beer just because that brewery was sold. That is cutting off your nose to spite your face. And you will be doing a LOT of boycotting because ownership changes are going to happen. We went and are still going through a phase of small and local growth everywhere. Eventually, breweries will become bigger. Some may no longer be owned by the founders. Judge the beer and brewery on its merits. If neither measure up to what you want in a brewery, then move on.
Local does not equal great. And what is local? If the people who work at the 10 Barrel locations live in the community and the beer is brewed in the community and the ingredients are sourced as usual, you are going to tell me that it is not local? A brewery could be next door but bought their equipment in Germany, hired a brewer from outside the state and get all their ingredients from thousands of miles away and be considered local? Oh and they can brew crappy beer but that’s A-OK as long as they don’t mention Bud-Miller-Coors?
I have a sneaking suspicion that people are less angry at the breweries who sell then fearful of not knowing why ABInBev is buying. Are their reasons nefarious or is it strictly business. And that uncertainty fuels anger.
All I ask is for people to make a reasoned decision and not think that ABInBev is forcing us into an Age of Ultron.
After the multitude of helpful GABF statistics started being posted online, it got me to thinking about a personal pet peeve of mine. Why pilsners aren’t loved more.
Using BeerAdvocate as a test case (that I will explore further, at a later date), German Pilseners 1-50 range from 4.04 out of 5.0 to 3.7
Czech Pilsener from 4.18 to 3.55
That’s a range of of .34 and .63 respectively.
Now look at these two, more loved styles:
American IPA 4.53 to 4.22 for the top 50
Double / Imperial Stouts 4.67 to 4.28
That’s a range of .31 and .39
Obviously IPAs and big stouts seem to be starting with an advantage because their higher ranking beers score higher than their Pilsner counterparts. But what strikes me is that the 50th best IPA and 50th best Imperial Stout are considered that much better than the absolute best Pilsener, from whatever country.
Now, I don’t expect a Pilsener to score 5 out of 5. But I can’t believe that the Top 10 in any category don’t track at the same levels.
Charlie Papazian, the head man at the Brewers Association must have a sore hand from all the fist bumps and be partially blind from the camera flashes due to a staggering 90 categories in competition at this year’s Great American Beer Festival.
From 20 entrants in the Gluten Free and Dopplebock styles to a mind (and palate blowing) 279 in the American IPA category, there is plenty of data to mine. With special attention to my home state of Oregon and my current state of California.
Here are my take-aways from the medalists:
California racked up double-digit tallys in each medal class and swept the Session and barleywine categories. But in the hoppy arena, lost the premier category of American IPA.
Speaking of, it is so cool to have Breakside win. They are literally down the street from my Mom’s house. It was strange and great to hear your hometown (Milwaukie, OR.) get called out.
Staying hoppy, will Hop 15 from Port become more sought after now that it edged out Pliny the Elder in the re-configured Imperial IPA category. Or will Russian River be considered a pils house with their Silver in the German Pilsener style? Kudos to Firestone Walker for the win with Pivo.
Congratulations also to Gabe and Julian at Beachwood for the gold, silver and more importantly Large Brewpub and Brewer of the year. They are cementing an already sterling reputation while previous GABF darling, Jeff Bagby also snared a medal for his just opened eponymous brewery in Oceanside.
No big LA wins this year since Beachwood is Long Beach and Pabst, is well, Pabst. Though, if I see their gold medal cream ale, Primo, I might give it a whirl.
The other surprise was the strong showing of New Mexico. If my count is correct, the turquoise state nabbed 5 Gold Medals and Marble Brewing of Albuquerque won Small Brewer of the year. Another SW state, Texas also did quite well.
Other strong California statements came from High Water, Figueroa Mountain and Bootlegger’s who all bagged two medals each. With Port Brewing picking up what has almost become a routine amount of medals from their various locations.
Let me finish by saying, that like a list, a competition in craft beer is more important for non-judges as a way to choose where next to go. Taste is subjective and the best Ordinary Bitter may not be to your fancy but if you find yourself in Austin, a Salt Lake City or Green Bay, you now know of three breweries that have wowed judges in that category and that they probably make some other fine beers that you should try.
Cask beer is starting to seep into the craft culture here in LA. Story Tavern has special Eagle Rock casks. We have a cask festival in Orange County and a Cask blog. And thanks to “Hugh Sisson of Heavy Seas Beer has collaborated with Paul Pendyck of UK Brewing to develop a “caskerator” conversion kit available for purchase.”
![HS-Caskerator[1]](https://beersearchparty.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/HS-Caskerator1.jpg)
I like have both regualr draft and cask options available because both present the beer in a different light. Some beers really get a boost from having the slightly higher temp and the lack of gas. Plus it gives the beertender a workout.
Colorado’s New Belgium Brewing has a large distribution map and now they are entering into the political realm to help broadcast their beer message.
They will be forming their a New Belgium political action committee (PAC). A PAC is formed by a group looking to protect or advance a particular agenda by supporting candidates and issues via the almighty dollar.
New Belgium is looking to “keeping a finger on the pulse” of legislative efforts in Colorado, North Carolina, and within the federal government, as well.” as well as “supporting candidates and issues that are important to craft brewing.”
That means water and the environment which New Belgium has already been a big advocate for will be on their agenda along with the Small Brewer Reinvestment and Expanding Workforce Act (BREW Act), which seeks to reduce excise taxes for craft brewers.
I am of two minds on this development. The Stewart/Colbert part of me thinks that PAC’s are generally the domain of the skeezy. They all seem to have vague names and even more vague donors and they seem (again in general), to demote rather than promote. By that, I mean that they use the vagueness and anonymity to besmirch the names and actions of others or to hold moderate politicians hostage by threatening to get a more radical member of their party elected. Hence the left to right gridlock that we are stuck in now. There seems to be precious little promoting a slate of candidates and issues on their merits alone.
Maybe New Belgium can be an example of a new way that PAC’s can be used. At the very least, the fact that it’s funding is in the daylight is one step. And with a narrow focus on one industry instead of all domestic and foreign policy, the lure of DC siren call to step into the quagmire should be limited. Count me as cautiously optimistic.
Suds County. Not a uber classy name in my mind. But if you want to know the history behind what is an uber explosive craft beer scene then Suds County, USA is the movie for you.
And you can download for a mere $5.99! There are beers that are double that amount for 22ozs. Plus you can check out a few clips if you are still on the fence.
Infographics are all the rage. Almost as much as listicles. But both can harbor nuggets of wisdom and this particular graphic about craft beer sales and production in Oregon has one number that is mind blowing to me. And it is the very last number…
53% of draft beer drunk in Oregon was brewed in state. That, to me, is a staggering number because that shows two things.
1. That drinking local is both ingrained and that there is enough supply to achieve it.
2. Craft beer is a majority choice if not a strong minority considering your definition of craft.
And combined with the 11% packaged beer number shows how far there is still to go. Literally and figuratively.
Now if I could get similar graphics for the other big brewing states to make a good compare and contrast post.
Rogue Brewing has it’s own hop farm, fruit trees, malt and rye and now they are taking the vertical integration one step further with the Rolling Thunder Barrel Works that they call with typical Rogue-ishness “a tree to table cooperage at the Rogue Ales and Spirits World Headquarters in Newport, Oregon.”
They are going to age their “Oregon made beer and spirits, crafted with Oregon grown ingredients, in barrels we crafted ourselves from Oregon White Oak.”
They will harvest wood from the Oregon Coast Range and then the “white oak pieces will be seasoned in terroir of the Willamette Valley and in the ocean air of Newport.”
And they are going to do it old-world style which means hand-crafted. Which means it will take time but I love the idea and I hope that more breweries with the means and supply see this as an example of taking the art of brewing into the art of cooperage too.
No, no steroids here just more capacity for the beloved Belgian blender, Cantillon.
They have apparently been in the market for additional space since last year and have found a new space in an old blender building that held Brasseries Limbourg up until the sixties.
Due to the lengthy process of aging, you won’t see an immediate impact but once 2 to 3 years/vintages pass they will eventually be able to double their production. Which is great news for those who can’t get enough of their stellar line-up. Soon they will brew the wort at the main brewery before transferring (after cooling) to mature at the new location.