Category: Opinion

my humble and correct opinion

Posted on

Local hops

sehops

More hops for the midwest! I love seeing small, local, boutique operations and that extends to beer ingredients. Simple Earth Hops “is a new 1/4 acre hopyard located at Greenspirit Farm CSA in Dodgeville, Wisconsin. The hopyard was founded with the idea of providing a much needed agricultural product for local craft brewers. Simple Earth Hops was established to demonstrate that local farmers can produce a consistent, sustainable supply of ultra high quality hops by working directly with local craft brewers while still maintaining a focus on ecology, the land and the people involved.”

Here is a partial list of the hop varities that they will grow:
cascade, eroica, liberty, Mt. Hood and perle.

Posted on

New Hops to look for in your IPA’s

The more hop crazed of beer searchers may have already heard or consumed beers made from these hops but I thought it would be good to give a quick primer on them so you can choose what will make your palate sing.

Palisades – a new hop variety from the Pacific Northwest. It has moderately strong bittering, with a grassy, apricot-like aroma that’s often described as “pretty.” Can be tasted in Alameda Brewing beer.

Citra – A brand new variety first released in 2008. Citra is generally used in IPAs and hoppy specialty beers, prized for flavor and aroma of tropical and citrus fruit; including lime, melon, pineapple, grapefruit, passion fruit, papaya, lychee and others. Can be tasted in Kern River beer.

Glacier – is another 21st century variety. It was specifically bred for a balanced bittering profile and excellent aromatic qualities. Glacier is generally 4-6 percent alpha acid, and works well in American or British-style ales of all types. Can be tasted in ???

Posted on

Session # 40 – Session beer

session_logo_all_text_300

Session Beer is the topic for June.

There are a thousand ways to approach this. What is your definition of a session beer? Is it, as Dr. Lewis suggested at the Craft Brewers Conference this year, “a pint of British wallop” or is your idea of a session beer a crisp Eastern European lager, a light smoky porter, a dry witbier, or even a dry Flemish sour?

Is it merely enough for a beer to be low alcohol to be considered a session beer, or is there some other ineffable quality that a beer must hold in order to merit the term? And if so, what is that quality? Is it “drinkability”? Or something else?

What about the place of session beer in the craft beer industry? Does session beer risk being washed away in the deluge of extreme beers, special releases, and country-wide collaborations? Or is it the future of the industry, the inevitable palate-saving backlash against a shelf full of Imperial Imperials?

What are some of your favorite session beers? When and where do you drink them? If you’d like, drink one and review it.

I am generally a positive craft beer guy. There is too much good stuff out in the craft beer universe to drink for me to rant and/or rave about a real or perceived slight.

But, (and you knew that was coming), I keep waiting for the Session beer train to pull into the station but it is the little engine that just can’t quite make it. The trend just can’t get enough momentum. And as much as I would like to blame the “Imperial Imperials”, I think it is another pair of reasons that stall this category.

First is the puritanical streak our country holds onto with a firm grip and that is inadvertently supported by mainstream water lager advertising. Our culture looks down on massive excess in drinking or eating as much as we can’t stop massively eating and drinking.

Sitting around and having not just a beer but multiple beers while watching the big game or for no reason other than friendship on a Saturday afternoon is considered the realm of the frat boy, the obnoxious lout or the falling down drunk.

There will always be a push for moderation and anything that talks about multiple beers will run afoul of the more extreme forces of “anti”. Major advertising reinforces that with sometimes funny but always wild and crazy party life that is enjoyed by people who buy cases and cases of their low ABV, low flavor near beer. Half the country wants to get their drink on while the other half wants them to shut up and behave like adults. Session beer gets tarred with the brush of excess.

This leads me to my second wild theory. The image of the beer guzzling becomes linked to a certain neanderthal beer drinker. Just as cans were considered gauche and too tied to the image of industrial beer, session beers are considered too macro and not craft or artisan.

Maybe this stems from not wanting to compete against such a massive marketing machine and entrenched consumer buying patterns but I think some brewers and beer geeks have tried to distance themselves from session to avoid seeming too mainstream. It’s easier to have one or two hoppy IPA’s and maintain street cred then it is to drink a few rounds of a session beer that has the appearance of big business due to it’s ABV.

To end on a more positive note, cans are well into becoming cool again. So maybe there is still hope for the humble session beer. Maybe the session itself needs to be separated from the session beer to fully blossom. But I am not going to hold my breath, I am heading to the store to get a case of Full Sail Session in the stubbie bottles.

Posted on

Beer Genie

The British Beer & Pub Association has created quite an interesting beer site. Beer Genie has a nice mix of fun and solid information. Such as…..

Beer & Wedddings, Beer and the World Cup, Beer and BBQ

Posted on

Beer Camp

sn
In the past, Beer Camp at Sierra Nevada has been by invitation only.

Now it is being opened up as a contest for anyone who would like to experience beer the Chico way.

As I write this, I am thinking of what kind of entry that I could send their way.

Posted on

The Firkin for May 2010

beer-wine1
RESPECT

Wine gets it and beer doesn’t. It seems to be a thorny issue. Especially now that craft beer has raised it’s profile. Beer has prestige where once it was only a plebian drink. But the pro-beer crowd seems to feel that despite innovation within the brewing industry and educated palates of consumers that proper respect isn’t being given and that wine is sitting on its grape laurels.

That is so beyond the point to me. Beer shouldn’t be compared to wine in that way. By reducing it to a class struggle or vying for preeminence at the dining table, it takes away what is great about both drinks. And it makes both seem like inaccessible drinks for the highly cultured few.

Beer does not have to justify itself as classy. Beer is classy. And wine people who put down beer as beneath them and the beer people who fight every perceived slight just reinforce the old and outdated image of beer as just a watery lager for the masses.

An argument is made that there should be a level playing field. Wine and spirits and beer starting at point A. They are all great and deserve a participation ribbon. That seems very short sighted. We should celebrate the heritage of beer and marvel at the journey it has taken. Then the beer world needs to focus on what is good for the advancement of beer. Not in comparison to others but simply beer.

Beer does not need to keep up with the Jones’s of the wine industry. Remember that this new renaissance started not to compete but to make a good beer because the beer available was watered down and not getting any better. It wasn’t done to win a competition of beer vs wine.

Oddly enough though, I love beer vs wine pairing dinners where people can vote on what works better with their palates. This is because it is an educational setting. It may be externally a competition but in the end people from both sides of the aisle are being exposed to different flavors and their combinations.

The people of the craft beer world need to use whatever GPS is needed to relocate where beer is in history and move forward from there. We are not on the same trajectory as wine or spirits or coffee or tea. They have their own arcs. If beer has a problem then let’s find a BEER ANSWER.

If an alcohol law need to be changed, then we should craft resolutions that fit this industry.

If restaurants don’t use beer to cook or as an accompanying beverage, then we should start restaurants that are beer centric.

If informed media exposure is needed then, then we need to provide either the content or the screens, be they computer or TV, for potential customers to see it.

Posted on

One week until Session # 40

session_logo_all_text_300

Here is the summary of what the session is about:
The Session, a.k.a. Beer Blogging Friday, is an opportunity once a month for beer bloggers from around the world to get together and write from their own unique perspective on a single topic. Each month, a different beer blogger hosts the Session, chooses a topic and creates a round-up listing all of the participants, along with a short pithy critique of each entry.

Find the full details HERE of this month’s topic: Session Beer

Posted on

Mobile bottling in the UK

tomwood

Mobile canning is starting to catch on but this is one tricked out rig. Here is what the press release has to offer.

“For small brewers around the world, bottling a beer is something that must typically be done manually on a very small scale or—with commercial help—on a very large one. Enter Tom Wood’s, a British brewer that recently launched a mobile bottling operation in the form of a well-equipped truck that can drive to virtually any UK location.

Tom Wood’s has been brewing beer since 1995 under the Highwood Brewery name. More recently, the company’s versatile operation-in-a-truck has begun offering full bottling service for other brewers as well, including everything from pre-production bottle washing through a range of bottle capping options, labelling and finally shrink-wrapping. With trained staff on-board, the bottling truck was recently showcased on British celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay’s “The F-Word,” where it was used in London to bottle Ramsay’s own home brew.

Whether for local craft brewers, individual enthusiasts or sellsumers with a side brewing business, a mobile bottling alternative that requires no capital investment or travel will be a compelling option indeed. Other large or medium-sized brewers around the world: time to equip a truck of your own for some new mobile services…?”