Category: Opinion

my humble and correct opinion

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a mysterious IPA

A brewery that I had not heard of before is making quite the interwebs buzz. Buzzards Bay from Massachussetts has created a serialized beer with a mystery on the label.

““The Case of the IPA” is a hard-boiled detective farce printed chapter by chapter on 12 bottles of a newly released India Pale Ale. Each 22 ounce bottle not only has 22 ounces of brilliantly deduced IPA, but also 1 of the 12 chapters of the story. Each case has 12 bottles, which makes for the entire tale told in a case. And so, the Case of the IPA is indeed a case of the IPA.

Brewer Harry Smith proposed the idea to author Paul Goodchild and they quickly agreed on a format: a noir-ish detective serial. Smith brewed up a batch of hoppy craft brew whilst Goodchild penned the story. It’s a mystery of zany brewers and their intrigues; sure to tickle the ribs and please the belly of any fan of craft beer.”

And here is the first installment (not the beer, the mystery):

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Food Carts + Craft Beer =

In my usual better late than never style, I ran across this interesting bit of news from the New School Beer Blog.

Portland already has Prost! which is a lovely German beer bar located right next to a food cart pod so this next evolution sounds promising. Maybe the LA area can try this too! Verdugo and Eagle Rock invite trucks in but if you don’t care for that particular truck that night then you are out of luck (plus the lines can get enormous). A group of carts would minimize both problems.

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Your Help is needed…

….to pound some sense into some Florida politicians and to keep Cigar City beer flowing to the people of Florida and beyond.

Read this short bit from noted beer writer Sean Nordquist:
“Cigar City Brewing, located in Tampa, Florida, opened a tasting room last year to much success. By being able to extend their hours of operation and sell and serve beer on-premise, this local business was able to increase their employee count from 2 to 22. Serving award-winning craft beer in a comfortable and friendly environment, they have operated without incident, which few other establishments can claim. In a short time, Cigar City has achieved national (and international) recognition for their creative and consistantly excellent craft beer. In a state that has been often referred to as a “beer wasteland”, the fact that their beers are highly sought after is a testament to what owner Joey Redner and head brewer Wayne Wambles have been doing.
Now they are facing a huge problem. For reasons known only to themselves, members of the Tampa City Council have voted to not make the wet-zoning (required to allow the serving of alcohol) permanent, which would essentially force the closing of the Tasting Room. As Joey has said, this means “no more special events, no more limited release parties, no beer for sale – at all – at the Tasting Room.”
So as the citizenry, we have a responsibility to make our voices heard. Tell the Tampa City Council not to vote for killing jobs. Tell them not to vote for limiting growth. Tell them to reward success and not punish it. Tell them that local businesses are watching. And so are those that might wish to do business in Tampa in the future.”

These are the three members of Council who voted against Cigar City:
Gwen Miller
Thomas Scott
Curtis Stokes – Curtis.Stokes@tampagov.net

These are those Council members who voted for Cigar City:

Mary Mulhern – Mary.Mulhern@tampagov.net
Yvonne Yoli Capin – yvonne.capin@tampagov.net
Joseph Caetano – Joseph.Caetano@tampagov.net

Finally, the member who was absent. Let Charlie Miranda know you support CCB and craft beer and are counting on his yes vote on December 2nd.

Go to Save the Cigar City Tasting Room!

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Beer on the radio

The fine folks behind the Dionicess events that have added immeasurably to the LA Beer scene got some well deserved press and recognition for their latest adventure during LA Beer Week.

Tom Leykis invited the DIO crew to the Tasting Room show to talk about craft beer in LA and what events are coming next.

Direct link to iTunes HERE:

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Session # 45


Our 45th Session will be hosted by Bruce Tichnor, who runs the Canadian BeerTaster.ca. He’s taking us back to our roots, to spend a cloudy afternoon with wheat beers, or has he describes it:

We wanted to get back closer to the roots of the Session and pick a topic which was simple and yet gives a wide range of interpretations so we chose, simply (or perhaps not so simply), Wheat Beers.

Feel free to take this topic in any direction you like, specific reviews, historical information, or any other twist you’d like to use. Wheat beers are a pretty wide topic and actually cover German style Weizen, Heffe Weizen, etc. along with Belgian style Witbier and even Flavoured Wheat beers.

There are very few guidelines here, just have some fun drinking Wheat Beers in the fall instead of the summer.

Whenever I see or hear the words “wheat beer”, my steel trap of a mind heads straight to the first beer that made me think that beer could be more than plain and watery. Thomas Kemper WeizenBerry which the RateBeer sites describes thusly, “This wheat-brewed beer is bursting with refreshing all-natural raspberry flavor.”

I drank a lot of that beer. Mainly because it was sparkly and fruity and low in alcohol. I did not care one bit of the Weizen part of the equation. It was all about the berry.

At the time it was probably one of the better NW beers out there. Nowadays, it would probably not rank high due to the prejudice against fruit beers and most wheat beers. And truth be told, if I was handed a bottle today, it probably would not taste or rank as well as I remember. Part of me is glad it is not made anymore. A treasured memory can’t be tarnished by your own self or made fun of by others.

Now, wheat beer conjures up a more complicated stream of thought. Which sub-style are we talking about? Is it German or American? Sessionable or not? All good questions and part of my evolution in craft beer but sometimes I wish I could go back to that first WeizenBerry and just really enjoy it, unencumbered by all the thought.

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The Firkin for October 2010

What’s in name?

Micro, nano, craft

This month’s issue of Beer Advocate magazine declaims the use of the word “craft” in favor of re-taking the word beer.

But why does it matter? Why not just call it beer? Let’s make Anheuser-Busch or MillerCoors (BMC) change the term for their industrial water lagers.

For one, they spill more beer (heck, their customers spill more beer) than the craft brewers make combined. And despite two distinct periods of phenomenal growth, most people in this country haven’t tasted Widmer, Stone or even Sam Adams products. We can’t fool ourselves that the fight is won. It’s akin to two Allstrom’s striding onto the field of battle (pardon the war analogies) and telling the huge army in front of him that they best walk away.

The BMC will continue to lose ground as customers taste beer with flavor. I have no doubt that people will keep switching. In ones and twos, maybe, but the tide has turned. But until the point when more people drink craft beer than industrial, the brand needs to stay differentiated. And don’t kid yourself that “craft” isn’t a brand. It is. It is a permeable border at times. But most of the time, industrial works in it’s yard and “craft” plays in it’s yard.

I can understand the argument if “craft” doesn’t convey the appropriate nuance for the growing yard it occupies. Then a new term should be brainstormed. I had no problem with abandoning the term “micro-brewery” when the movement had awesome beers made at all different levels of brewery size. In fact, size is probably not the best way to classify quality anyway. If it is needed, there can be size categories for breweries if it is helpful to measure the overall health or growth of our cottage industry.

I wish I could come up with a great name but Don Draper I am not. To me “craft” means made with pride. It is the opposite of economies of scale and tanker trucks. And until someone finds a better word in the dictionary, I will stick with “craft”.