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Nebraska Brewery # 4 – Upstream Brewing Company


Our final Nebraskan beer stop is in Omaha which the Upstream Brewing Company website explains is “Derived from the Native American meaning of Omaha,“upstream” or “against the current”..”,

They have been around since 1996 and now have two locations in Omaha to serve their year-round beers and these two seasonals, both with rye that caught my eye. (I apologize for the awful rhyming.)

Rye Lemonade
“Available only at our Legacy location. Upstream Brewing Company’s Rye Lemonade Lager has a distinctive, refreshing flavor; rye’s main contribution as an ingredient is its enhancement of the overall complexity of the beer’s flavor. Although the crisp, slightly spicy rye flavor does emerge somewhat distinctly (usually at the finish), and makes this beer a well balanced rye lager with a nice refreshing flavor that holds a nice lemon zest flavor and aroma due to the addition of lemon and orange zest in at the end of the boil in the brew kettle. This is a great beer on the patio after a long hot day.”

Gianduja Imperial Rye Brown Ale
“Pronunciation: zhahn-DOO-yuh. Gianduja is the name given to a European style of chocolate made from milk chocolate and hazelnut paste. This unique rye beer was created with this fantastic European chocolate in mind that starts with a delicately dark malty background that includes four different types of malted rye for an in depth layered rye backbone to start things off. Look for flavors of milk chocolate from the additions of lactose (milk sugar), coco nibs and hazelnut paste added to the brew.”

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California Growler Update

To get back into grade school book report mode. “What I learned at the Beer Blogger Conference about changing beer laws”

So here goes. Craig Hendry (who I sat next to for a few sessions during the conference) from Raise Your Pints Mississippi painted a grim picture of craft beer in his state. First to sign up for prohibition and last to repeal on the state level. Hovering around 40% of the counties are dry and ridiculously low ABV and ABW limits on beer created and brought into the state.

But as he talked, the tone grew ever hopeful. Beer festivals are taking place. Some government officials are willing to buck the religious dogma and back craft beer. Even Tennessee is pushing hard to be the eastern home of Sierra Nevada.

Now Raise Your Pints even has a lobbyist! Fine tuning a law here hopefully won’t require that level of pushing and shoving but what I gleaned most was that if this challenge is to succeed I need the California Small Brewers behind the cause to get this done.

And more importantly, I learned that you REALLY have to listen to the people on the other side of the argument. Because we all want to be heard and maybe there is a compromise to be found that can move forward speedily whereas an “all or nothing” mentality will just stall. Sound like anyone in Washington DC we know?

This one session really created hope. There are people in this country fighting bigger fights against entrenched foes and all we in California need to do is nip and tuck a little here and there.

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Hop Sauce

I usually don’t pay much attention to Dean & Deluca catalogs. But this product from Primitivizia caught my eye….

I don’t think that I will spend the $16 plus shipping for this but I am certainly intrigued by what it might taste like.

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Crooked Stave

Thanks to the Beer Wench for sending the info on this pair of new beers…..

“Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project announced they will release their first two bottled beers, Pure Guava Petite Sour and Wild Wild Brett “Rouge” on Thursday August 11th.

Here’s the run down…

750 ml bottles of Pure Guava Petite Sour and Wild Wild Brett “Rouge” will make their debut at the bottle release party held at funkwerks brewery tap room in Ft. Collins CO. starting at 6PM on Thursday, August 11th. This is the first of many bottle releases from Crooked Stave as we look to roll out with plenty more barrel-aged sour, specialty release and funky Brettanomyces beers. Also available on draft for the releases will be a single keg of Crooked Stave’s Good Glory, a beer brewed exclusively for Euclid Hall Bar and Kitchen in Denver, CO. as well as Wild Wild Brett and Petite Sour.

The bottles of Pure Guava Petite Sour have been quietly conditioning since May 23rd awaiting their release. This refreshingly tart, spontaneously soured, rustic wheat beer, brewed with the addition of oats and spiced with coriander and sumac, was fermented entirely in our distinct oak foeder. Pure Guava is an unfiltered, golden wild ale with tropical fruit aromas and bright citrus flavors created by a proprietary Brettanomyces strain. This will be the only time Pure Guava is released, as each Petite Sour will change to reflect the seasons it is brewed and the mischievous minds of our brewers.

The anxiously awaited first release from the Wild Wild Brett R&D series is over! Historically considered ”wild yeast”, Brett is responsible for 100% of the fermentation in each installment of the series, which looks to play off the colors of the color wheel for ingredients to match with the different strains of Brett. This first installment of the series, dubbed “Rouge”, incorporates hawthorn berry, rose hips and whole hibiscus flowers in an unfiltered, slightly tart wild ale. Rouge pours a reddish hue delivering soft floral aromas and tropical fruit flavors with a tart earthy finish.

With only a little over 100 cases of each bottled, we expect bottles won’t last too long. Not able to make it to the release? Never fear we have made sure to save away some cases for a few of our favorite liquor stores throughout the Denver metro and Colorado front range areas.”

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Point the Way

The brewery that I can walk to in 20 minutes, Golden Road, has been making fast progress.

A name and a keg collar ready and soon the first beer will be too.

And speaking of ahead of schedule, what I consider the “backlash” articles are showing up. Just one now, and it is fairly tame but I do not like even an inkling of this sort of thing in an industry that I believe to be super collaborative.

Personally, I don’t care how or when you got involved in craft beer or how big or small your participation level is. All are welcome in my book.

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Kick

Elysian is really branching out pumpkin wise. First collaborating with Stone and The Bruery and now this…..

Here is what New Belgium has to say about it, “Harvesting the creativity of Kim Jordan of New Belgium and Dick Cantwell of Elysian produced this ruby-hued, slightly sour, pumpkin, cranberry ale. It’s a treat that does the trick.”

I have started to see Kick in bottles (Portland) and on tap (Los Angeles)

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Beer Bloggers Conference – The Photos

Get comfortable. I tried to edit but there are still loads of photos to see…So let’s get started….

First you have to check in!

Then settle in to listen to John Foyston from the Oregonian talk to Fred

Here come the hops to be stripped from the main plant.

Hops high over head in flight

The hops heading fast into the drying area.

Yours truly with a fistful of lupulin.

Jamie Floyd from Ninkasi on the hop farm bus!

The night of Many Bottles

1993? Are you kidding me?

A sneak peak at Christmas

Lunch and Apple Pie at Cascade Barrel house

A quick run to Hair of the Dog

What I brought home to LA - Part 1

What I brought home to LA - Part 2

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Beer Bloggers Conference – Wrap Up


It has now been a few days since I got back from Portland and the Beer Bloggers conference. I lingered for an extra day and a half to sample some more beer. As if I hadn’t in the previous three days!

I got to make my premiere visit to Burnside Brewing and try the Sweet Heat Apricot/Scotch Bonnet pepper beer. Snuck in a couple small sized beers at Bailey’s Taproom as well as Hooligan Brown from Laurelwood at the airport.

But now onto the better worded version of events last weekend. The initial day was probably the best. Fred Eckhardt is great. I can only hope A) to be his age and B) still be excited about craft beer and ready to re-tell stories that he has probably memorized by now. Then to follow that with a trip to an actual hop farm that was in the process of harvesting was great. Walking off the bus to that aroma was amazing. Brewery tours have their own special magic but this was double that. Watching the hops roast. Grabbing a few and smelling the aromas. I wanted to take a bucket full home or one of the big 200 pound bales.

The Night of Many Bottles was fun and not as frenzied as last year when I was trying to knock out some of the 50 States that I needed for last year’s challenge. I paced myself better and stopped earlier so the next day wasn’t a blur. Highlights included, the 1994 Rogue Old Crustacean barley wine, Double Mountain Dark Blood Kriek and Hedgreow Bitter from Pretty Things Ales.

Days 2 and 3 went by so fast. The content was fun with plenty of golden nuggets of information that I will hopefully put to use. The Speed Beer Dating featured my new favorite beer, Gin aged Double Wit from Breakside Brewery. Then close upon the heels of that revelation came the debut of the 2011 Jubel from Deschutes. The Bridgeport dinner was excellent even though the beers are not to my taste. I keep trying them but they just do not wow me.

The speakers this year were much more about engaging outside of your computer. Though I could appreciate some of the tech talk from last year, a representative from Raise Your Pints talking about beer laws and how he and his organization are changing them is so much more interesting to me.

The two down points for me were the movie, The Love of Beer which just didn’t flow for me and seemed to veer off course as to why women are important to craft beer. I loved see the women featured and there were some great scenes but I would have liked to seen a more grain to glass approach where women at all stages of the process would talk about what they personally bring to the job.

Secondly, I had hoped to see a bigger turnout considering what a great beer town Portland is. How does a blogger pass that up? This is a bargain conference. And I certainly got my money’s worth. But I wish more people will hop on the bandwagon next year. Seriously, if you are a blogger that didn’t go. Talk to me and tell me why.

The photos are coming soon!