text:
The post Episode 12: After Two Beers with Rob Tod of Allagash Brewing Co. appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>In the latest episode of After Two Beers, John Holl sits down with Rob Tod, founder of Allagash Brewing Co.
The two discuss how Tod moved from keg washer to brewery owner, and how he came to appreciate and brew beers in the Belgian tradition. Tod talks about some of the beers that influenced him along the way, including one in particular that inspired him to brew Allagash White, a beer that now accounts for around 75 percent of the brewery's production.
Tod explains why he continues to draw inspiration from Belgium, a country every Allagash employee who reaches the five-year mark gets to visit. These visits help to create a culture of innovation at Allagash, not just for brewers but for all of its 120 employees.
Tod discusses the necessity of such innovation, as well as one of the biggest issues facing today's small and independent breweries.
In addition to SoundCloud, you can find After Two Beers on iTunes and Stitcher — or you can subscribe below to ensure you never miss an episode. We'll send you links to the podcasts as soon as they're published.
You can also find the Beervana podcast on SoundCloud, iTunes and Stitcher as well.
[contact-form-7]The post Episode 12: After Two Beers with Rob Tod of Allagash Brewing Co. appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Sponsored: Oskar Blues Explores the Perks of Having an In-House Coffee Roaster appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>Presented by Oskar Blues Brewery.
While coffee beers are increasingly common, few breweries use an in-house coffee roaster to source beans from family farms in Ethiopia.
"There's only a finite amount of this coffee in the world," says Matt Herren of Hotbox Roasters. The company was founded in 2015 by Oskar Blues Brewery founder Dale Katechis, after he bought and learned how to roast on a small roaster as a hobby behind the brewery in Longmont, Colorado.
Herren isn't being hyperbolic. This particular bean is grown and harvested on a family farm near the community of Banko Gotiti, located in the southern district of Gedeb, Ethiopia. Bedhatu Jibicho, now in her 80s, has almost single handedly run the farm since the 1960s. Her three children (with degrees in forestry, social and environmental development and business management) have recently returned to grow the family business. So minimal is the quantity, Hotbox Roasters can't even package the beans in its Crowler cans, which it sells through a subscription coffee service and in its two-month-old brick and mortar location in Denver's RiNo (River North) arts district.
Limited though it is, Hotbox Roasters worked with a coffee sourcer to acquire enough beans for its latest release, Hotbox Coffee IPA. Herren collaborated with head brewer Tim Matthews on the beer.
"We were not just looking at roast characteristics, but what coffee people get excited about," says Herren. "We [are] typically looking for coffees that score high with little or no defects–coffees that stand out on a cupping table from other coffees from the same region."
When cold-brewed, the bean provides notes of lemon rind, açaí berries and unripe blueberries, according to Herren. With aromas of passion fruit, pine, berry and earthy characteristics, Simcoe hops complement the Ethiopian bean's attributes, giving Hotbox Coffee IPA its unique flavor.
"We've been looking to use Simcoe hops for a while," says Matthews. "Simcoe has the ability to always be potent, but play well with others."
Working with Hotbox Roasters allowed Matthews and his team the chance to seek out beans with aromas and flavors that would work specifically with the beer's recipe, as opposed to the coffee being an afterthought.
"The beans offered an array of sensory perception," adds Matthews. "It's about finding coffee-derived flavors that work with the hops. The citrus zest from the coffee is very unique. It will definitely surprise people."
Brewers of both bean and beer scrutinize water quality and chemistry, and the Hotbox Coffee IPA collaboration called for a change to the brewery's house water profile. Whereas Oskar Blues usually prefers a 1:1 ratio of chlorides to sulfates in its water, they tweaked it to favor chlorides "to prepare for the bitterness perception from the cold brew," according to Matthews.
Hotbox Coffee IPA was first brewed at its pilot and small batch facility in Lyons, Colorado, a town of 2,000 people. With larger, full-scale breweries in Longmont, Colorado, Brevard, North Carolina, and Austin, Texas, Oskar Blues released Hotbox Coffee IPA with parties in all three taprooms on Feb. 24. Coming in at a 7.2% and 70 IBUs, Hotbox Coffee IPA is nationally distributed from now through May on draft and in four-packs of 12-ounce cans.
"Oskar Blues is as committed on the coffee side as the beer side," says Chad Melis, marketing director at Oskar Blues Brewery. "It's a unique situation and a lot of breweries don't have this kind of opportunity."
The next immediately distributed opportunity is its Hotbox Coffee Porter, available in 12-ounce cans from September through November, while ongoing taproom-only specialties like Barrel-Aged Java Ten FIDY Imperial Stout keep its brewers and taproom visitors stoked on small-batch offerings. Expect to see more collaborations between the brewery and Hotbox Roasters in the future.
"The beauty of having the Hotbox Roasters brain trust in the building creates endless trials, collaboration and challenges of what is expected in the interaction between coffee and beer," says Melis.
Sara Pletcher is the conference operations manager at Zephyr Conferences, the brainchild behind beer, wine, and food conferences for bloggers and industry professionals. Sara drank her first craft beer in 2009 and, therefore, naturally wrote her master's thesis on the Delaware craft beer industry. She's excited to finally put her passion to good work.
The post Sponsored: Oskar Blues Explores the Perks of Having an In-House Coffee Roaster appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post When Yuengling Went the Traditional Route appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>Much like back then, the mid-1980s was a time of transition at the brewery—or, more accurately, a time of turnaround, though it would be years before anyone had the hindsight to know that.
Dick Yuengling Jr. had taken over the then-156-year-old, family-owned brewery from his ailing father in 1985. Things looked dire. The brewery was nearly bankrupt, producing a paltry 137,000 barrels annually.
What's more, the American brewing industry was rapidly consolidating as bigger players such as Anheuser-Busch either gobbled up smaller fry such as Yuengling or simply muscled it out of markets. It seemed Yuengling would become yet another regional brewery people spoke of in the past tense.
Then, Dick Yuengling started a modernization that meant not only updating equipment but also introducing new products. This included a so-called Black & Tan, born of combining existing lager and porter recipes, as well as a light beer, a way into the most popular style America had yet produced.
The new products also included what the company called Yuengling Traditional Lager.
Yuengling's experience with lager stretched back to at least the 1840s. That was when its founder, David Yuengling, a German immigrant, secured the proper yeast to become one of America's first commercial lager producers. He also took advantage of caverns dug into a mountain behind the brewery—perfect for brewing lager, which generally needs cooler fermentation and aging temperatures.
By 1934, the year after repeal, Yuengling was brewing a brand it called, simply, "Lager Beer." This was itself a throwback to Yuengling's output 90 years before under David Yuengling.
The public's taste for heavier lagers soon waned, however, with lighter-tasting iterations such as pilsners famously cornering much of the mid-20th-century market instead. Around 1940, according to the brewery, Yuengling pivoted away from Lager Beer to more popular pilsners and even ales.
It took those trying times in the mid-1980s, when it looked like Yuengling would go the way of so many other regional breweries, for the company to reconsider leading with a lager.
Longtime brewmaster Ray Norbert spent a portion of 1987 tweaking the recipe, drawing inspiration and ideas from the brewery's earlier lagers, and Yuengling Traditional Lager debuted on Nov. 1.
With its amber hue, crisp bitterness and slightly sweet finish, it was more akin to the crop of newer brands from what were then called micro-breweries. And those brands accounted for an infinitesimal slice of the American beer marketplace. Yuengling's new light beer seemed a much better commercial bet as a flagship than its new amber lager.
Yet it was the latter that proved a smash hit.
Traditional Lager would soon account for the vast majority of Yuengling's growing output, a fact that remains true today.
It didn't hurt that, shortly after the 1987 introduction, Yuengling launched a general sales-and-marketing effort. The brewery doubled down in particular on its home turf, pushing into more of eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware; and pulling back from New York City and New England.
By the end of the 1980s, Yuengling became the best-selling brewery on draft in the Philadelphia region, no small feat for a smallish brewery in those days. Yuengling soon expanded into other markets, including back into the New York area and much of New England.
Production increased to nearly a quarter-million barrels annually. To slake the demand, Yuengling opened two more breweries, including one in an old Stroh plant in Tampa, Florida.
Yuengling also kept introducing new beers—a bock, a pale ale, a wheat beer, an Oktoberfest, even a fashionable India pale lager.
None would have the staying power of that Traditional Lager the then-struggling brewery first dropped three decades back.
Read more Acitelli on History posts.
Tom Acitelli is the author of The Audacity of Hops: The History of America's Craft Beer Revolution and the forthcoming Whiskey Business: How Small-Batch Distillers Are Transforming American Spirits. He is at work on a biography of Michael Jackson.
The post When Yuengling Went the Traditional Route appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Pull Up A Stool with Pete McCabe appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>Oak & Dagger Public House and 75+ additional breweries will pour at World Beer Festival Raleigh, held Saturday, April 1 at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds. Click here for tickets.
Exhausted after a long drive from Wisconsin, Pete McCabe backed his U-Haul truck into the parking lot of Tyler's Taproom in Raleigh. It was 2013, and McCabe was joining friends for his first beer in North Carolina.
It was meant to be a pit stop on his way to the small town of Farmville. McCabe had accepted a position as a brewer at The Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery, but his friends—knowing he eventually wanted to open a brewery of his own—couldn't resist asking how he might transform Tyler's Taproom into a brewery. McCabe entertained the fantasy, joking with his friends about where he would put the brew house, the tanks, the barrels.
Last September, fantasy became reality when McCabe opened Oak and Dagger Public House in that space after Tyler's Taproom closed. Where once there were two long bars running parallel to each other, now there are fermentation and brite tanks behind glass. An upstairs office was transformed into a mezzanine and fortified with steel beams to accommodate barrels that previously held bourbon, pinot noir, chardonnay and even maple syrup.
The 10-barrel brew house itself is just inside the entrance, separated from the dining area by nothing more than a short half-wall. And out back is the Oak and Dagger Research Library, a small bottle shop where he and Tim Clapper, brewery production manager, can get feedback on small-batch beers before scaling them up in the brewpub.
Much has changed since Oak and Dagger opened last year, but the space in Raleigh's Seaboard Station remains a great spot for Raleigh residents to grab food and a beer.
All About Beer: How did you get your start in the brewing industry?
Pete McCabe: I started out as a bouncer at Great Dane Pub & Brewing Co. in Wisconsin, then became an apprentice in their brewery, and then worked my way up to being a head brewer at one of their locations. I worked there for seven years.
Why did you choose Raleigh when it came time to strike out on your own?
We had something like 140 cities on the list and just kept cutting them down until we got to about five. Then we picked Raleigh. I loved it here. I came to visit for a few weeks and it felt like home almost instantaneously. I got a job at Duck-Rabbit, which is where I met Tim, my brewing partner. I worked there for about a year and a half before I started putting this together, but it's been around an 11-year process.
What attracted you to this space?
It was a pretty expansive refit to the inside. One of the reasons we selected this location is that it's a box. Beyond taking the bar out and moving furniture out, we could build a brewery in spaces around it and keep the brewery open and connected throughout the restaurant. Part of the fun in building this brewpub is, yes, you're in a restaurant or a, bar but you're connected with a brewery in some way, shape or form. It always bugs me when you go into a brewery and see the backs of tanks. I feel like people want to see the fun stuff.
And you have plenty of barrels up on the mezzanine as well.
That was an office. We basically took two-thirds of that and set it aside for barrel storage and aging. We had to get the structure itself reinforced with a little more stainless steel. I could park a couple trucks up there and it'd be fine. That way we can fill a lot of barrels and not have to worry about it.
That seems like a pretty ambitious barrel project, to be so young.
Part of it is ambitious, but part of it is timing. We have a lot of beers on tap that we think go really well with the aging process, and we wanted to give each of those beers the time in the barrel they need. The foeder, which is up front and center, we filled that with an old ale recipe and we're leaving it there with Brettanomyces for a year and we'll break it out for our anniversary. Some of the barrels are aging up there anywhere for a month, to two, to six, to a year or longer. That's part of the fun of it. We're not planning on being a barrel program, but it is one of the sandboxes we like to play in. You've got to give it the space and size to do it.
You have a really diverse lineup of beers. Right now you've got American, Belgian, German, even Dutch. Have you found any you would call core beers?
Our Coole Beans coffee ale. Tim's been tinkering with that for eight years. That was just going to go on as a specialty. He did that and named it after his now wife, whose last name was Coole. We were going to put it on just for the wedding, but everyone loved it so now it's a standard. Our Micro Macro is a standard, the Crystal Dagger is a standard. The Raleigh Pride, which is our ESB. One of my top three beers of all time is Fuller's London Pride. We've got those standards and we adjust based on the seasons. We do want to keep rotating things through to bring in new people and to keep it interesting for those coming back—and for us as well.
How did you guys create your food menu?
My experience coming from the brewpub originally as a brewer, I think of everything in the context of a meal. I bring beers home based on what I'm eating that night. There's a lot of discussion about what we can use beer as an ingredient in, what pairs well with what we have going on out here, how do we provide a whole meal to someone. In the end, we put it together in the sense of, 'What makes a good meal that keeps people coming back?'" We do special beer dinners once a month or every other month. For those, our chef gets to play. It's five dishes, here's the theme, these are the beers we think they should go with. We set up at the community table with a bunch of people and just spend two hours just talking and eating. Talking about how beer pairs with the food. It makes it fun.
It's about getting together and having a beer. That's why we called it a public house instead of a brewery. Beer for us is much more of the social atmosphere—having fun with it, talking about it, having a meal, hanging out. That's why it's a public house.
Brewer & Managing Partner, Oak & Dagger Public House
Years in Brewing Industry: It's almost 12 now
Go-to beer from another brewery: Shiner Bock, just a consistently good bock beer
Beer that inspired him early in life: Mikkeller Draft Bear
Couldn't live without: I'd say my wife, my wife would say fantasy sports
Favorite place to have a beer: Anywhere with trivia
Wishes he could buy a round for: John Glenn
Biggest passion besides brewing: Politics, was a poli-sci student before all of this
Keeping him up at night: Did I forget something? (Answer: always yes)
Oak & Dagger Public House
Raleigh, North Carolina
Founded: September 2016
Annual Production: TBD
Availability: North Carolina
The post Pull Up A Stool with Pete McCabe appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Brewers Association releases top 50 breweries of 2016 appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>BOULDER, Colo.—The Brewers Association (BA)—the not-for-profit trade group representing small and independent craft brewers—today released its annual lists of the top 50 craft and overall brewing companies in the U.S., based on beer sales volume. Of the top 50 overall brewing companies, 40 were craft brewing companies.1
"With such a broad range of brewers in today's beer landscape, the leading small and independent producers have helped build the craft brewing industry to what it is today," said Bart Watson, chief economist, Brewers Association. "Embracing their experience and ability to thrive and overcome challenges, the top producing craft brewers will continue to inspire, innovate and influence the future of beer."
For a complete list of brands in the overall brewing category, please visit BrewersAssociation.org.
A comprehensive State of the Industry report will be delivered during the 2017 Craft Brewers Conference, held from April 10 -13, 2017 in Washington, D.C. The Association's full 2016 industry analysis, which shows regional trends and sales by individual breweries, will be published in the May/June issue of The New Brewer, available in May 2017.
1 Figure based on companies that met craft brewer definition for all or part of 2016. An American craft brewer is small, independent and traditional. Small: Annual production of 6 million barrels of beer or less (approximately 3 percent of U.S. annual sales). Beer production is attributed to the rules of alternating proprietorships. Independent: Less than 25 percent of the craft brewery is owned or controlled (or equivalent economic interest) by an alcoholic beverage industry member that is not itself a craft brewer. Traditional: A brewer that has a majority of its total beverage alcohol volume in beers whose flavor derives from traditional or innovative brewing ingredients and their fermentation. Flavored malt beverages (FMBs) are not considered beers.
About the Brewers Association
The Brewers Association is the not-for-profit trade association dedicated to small and independent American brewers, their beers and the community of brewing enthusiasts. The Brewers Association (BA) represents more than 70 percent of the brewing industry, and its members make more than 99 percent of the beer brewed in the U.S. The BA organizes events including the World Beer CupSM, Great American Beer Festival®, Craft Brewers Conference & BrewExpo America®, SAVOR℠: An American Craft Beer & Food Experience, Homebrew Con, National Homebrew Competition and American Craft Beer Week®. The BA publishes The New Brewermagazine and its Brewers Publications division is the largest publisher of contemporary and relevant brewing literature for today's craft brewers and homebrewers.
Beer lovers are invited to learn more about the dynamic world of craft beer at CraftBeer.com and about homebrewing via the BA's American Homebrewers Association and the free Brew Guru™ mobile app. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
The Brewers Association is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, or marital/familial status. The BA complies with provisions of Executive Order 11246 and the rules, regulations, and relevant orders of the Secretary of Labor.
The post Brewers Association releases top 50 breweries of 2016 appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Foreign Exchange: American Beer Styles, Brands Capture Attention of Drinkers Abroad appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>Ben Beinhardt has lived in Germany all his life, surrounded by hundreds of years of brewing tradition and some of the most iconic brands the world has known. He still fondly recalls his first Ayinger Celebrator Doppelbock, made at a brewery that's been around since 1877, and his excitement at drinking a beer steeped in Bavarian heritage. He also favors Augustiner-Bräu, which started brewing in 1328, and its Edelstoff and Lagerbier Hell brands.
But honestly, he wouldn't mind an American IPA, either.
"I think it'd be great if we had new beers coming into the country and you get younger people to drink them," says Beinhardt, 35, a resident of Stuttgart in the country's southwest Baden-Württemberg state. "Developing a new beer culture in Germany would be tremendous and help our beer scene, but it would also take a lot of time and money."
Maybe something like the $25 million Stone Brewing spent to open its production facility in Berlin? Beinhardt isn't sure yet, but after a trip to the United States in 2014 when he visited breweries like Colorado's Crooked Stave, Great Divide Brewing Co. and Ska Brewing Co., he hopes brands like Stone IPA or Stone Go To IPA catch on in his homeland, prompting an influx of more American beers to add options beyond the bocks or hefeweizens he can find anywhere in his home country.
"Any time I come to America, I see how many beers there are and how many flavors and realize Germans have no clue of the variety," Beinhardt says. "But teaching Germans a new way of drinking alcohol? That's pretty hard to do."
Increasingly, American brewers are up for the challenge. Even though U.S. drinkers continue to thirst for a diverse range of beer, the continued growth of options in a crowded home marketplace is persuading many breweries to look beyond America's borders for opportunities. In 2015, the U.S. beer market accounted for $105.9 billion, but that was less than a quarter of the money spent globally on beer. Sales are climbing at home, but according to market research company Allied Market Research, beer is projected to become a nearly $700 billion worldwide industry by 2020, opening the door in many markets for the eclectic brews produced across the 50 states.
Within the industry, the Brewers Association has been planning for this for more than a decade, creating its Export Development Program in 2004 to provide help to U.S. breweries who want to go abroad. In addition to sponsoring festivals and competitions around the world, the trade organization hired Sylvia Kopp in 2015 to act as its "American Craft Beer Ambassador in Europe" to build relationships between U.S. exporters and European importers and distributors, as well as educating others about the American brewing industry.
American breweries have stepped up to take advantage. In October 2016, Oskar Blues announced it would expand its international footprint to 14 countries, adding Brazil, Chile and more. Brooklyn Brewery, already in nearly 20 foreign countries that accounted for about 40 percent of sales, agreed to sell a minority stake to Japan's Kirin Brewery as part of an effort to grow sales in that country as well as Brazil.
According to numbers tracked by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, American breweries exported 6.2 million barrels of beer in 2015, the highest total in 20 years. While a drop in the bucket of 2015's overall total, Brewers Association-defined breweries accounted for 446,151 barrels sent abroad, a near four-fold increase from five years prior. It may only be a fraction of the full amount, but hop-forward pale ales and puckering sours—many made by small and regional American breweries—are leading the charge in a battle for taste buds across Europe and Asia.
"Anything IPA is selling a lot, but even Belgian-style beer from a brewery like Lost Abbey that makes traditional styles is more interesting than some of what's being brewed in Belgium," says Henrik Boes Brølling, who runs Danish importer Drikkeriget along with Evil Twin Brewing founder Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø. "Farmhouse-style sours from the U.S. are on the forefront of the styles serious beer drinkers want in Europe."
Since starting the business in 2007, Boes Brølling has seen the Drikkeriget portfolio swell to 35 breweries, most of which are the kinds of American businesses treasured by beer enthusiasts, including Wicked Weed Brewing, Other Half Brewing Co., Logsdon Farm Brewery and Jester King Brewery. In May, Boes Brølling organized an event featuring 15 beers from California's Pizza Port and 10 from Florida's J. Wakefield Brewing.
In this unique situation, beers with cult followings that typically require standing in line for hours on an early weekend morning to get at the brewery are getting sent around the world—in small quantities—thanks to cultivated relationships built by Boes Brølling and Jarnit-Bjergsø.
"As our very first export beer partner, Henrik remains as passionate about our brands today as he did when he walked through our doors that very first time," says Tomme Arthur, co-founder and chief operating officer for Port Brewing, The Lost Abbey and The Hop Concept, who's worked with Drikkeriget for more than eight years. "While sending beer to Europe is a very small part of our business model, craft beer is a global market, and connecting with these fans far from home is still quite rewarding."
For the most part, beer shipped to Drikkeriget takes five or six weeks in cold storage before it arrives in Denmark and heads to its final destination across Europe, which includes smaller nations like Liechtenstein up to Poland, Norway or Russia. Each total shipment to the importer may range from one to 15 pallets combined from several breweries, each pallet holding about 60 cases of beer. Hop-forward beers from AleSmith Brewing Co. and Port Brewing Co. are among Boes Brølling's best sellers. High-ABV stouts are also ripe for sale. Boes Brølling admits he yearns to get any amount of beer from Massachusetts' Trillium Brewing Co. and Tree House Brewing Co., but hasn't had any luck thus far.
"No matter what you bring in, if it's new, it will sell at first," he says. "But to get those beers, with their reputation, would be amazing."
But for as much success as Drikkeriget's business has had as something of a clearinghouse for a collection of rarified U.S. brands, other breweries have taken an approach to foreign markets into their own hands. Since its first export shipment in January 2013, Colorado's Crazy Mountain Brewing Co. has grown its foreign sales to account for 25 percent of the brewery's business with annual growth rates in foreign markets averaging between 60 and 70 percent.
Crazy Mountain was barely 3 years old and making about 3,000 barrels when brewmaster and CEO Kevin Selvy was approached by Winemarket Nordic, a Sweden-based importer, about selling his beer. After focusing on wine, Winemarket Nordic was ready to build a beer portfolio and flew to Colorado in the summer of 2012 after finding Crazy Mountain online and tracking the brewery, its beers and its fans through social media. Selvy agreed to partner on a trial basis, sending one pallet of beer every six months.
But then the first shipment sold out the day it arrived in Sweden. A second shipment was sent within days and did the same thing. By the end of 2013, Crazy Mountain was sending a container a month, accounting for an average of 92 barrels of beer per container. The impact was even felt in Colorado. During the 2014 ski season, Selvy says, Swedish tourists stopped into his taproom, having traveled to the Centennial State for vacation because they became familiar with Colorado by drinking Crazy Mountain beer.
"It was something about the mountain lifestyle of our brand that resonated with consumers in Scandinavia," Selvy says. "Never in a million years did we think people would become loyal customers of our brand halfway across the world."
With its Mountain Livin' Pale Ale selling well, Crazy Mountain's Snowcat Coffee Stout, a seasonal in the U.S., started being brewed year-round to sate appetites in Sweden and Norway. Other markets that have followed include South Korea, Guam, Ireland and the United Kingdom, where the brewery's Creedence Pilsner and Hookiebobb IPA are top sellers for Selvy.
The U.K. market opened up so quickly that Selvy established his own importing company in London. It's set to be Crazy Mountain's second-largest market behind America, a key part of the brewery's foreign expansion that started just three years ago. Another fast-growing market is South Korea, where Selvy sells about 360 barrels a month and is hoping to increase that to about 480 in early 2017. He's eyeing China and Russia, too.
But that's the kind of potential available for U.S. breweries of all sizes these days, when the idea of what American brewers create and how they do it seems to be just as enticing for Europeans as for U.S. drinkers who live down the street.
"If you're a European beer consumer, you have amazing brands with interesting stories, but they're drastically different than what comes out of American craft breweries," Selvy says. "Our stories capture the hearts and minds of consumers, but the liquid is then able to take center stage. I think they're intrigued with the cowboy nature of American craft brands."
And what kind of American beer is more ready to play John Wayne these days than the IPA?
"IPA and session IPA are everywhere," says Emma Victory, a London-based beer enthusiast and homebrewer who runs a club at the city's We Brought Beer bottle shop, noting that over the past two years IPAs have become ubiquitous in Great Britain's capital. First it was West Coast styles heavily hopped and bitter, and now "Yeast Coast" IPAs cloudy and full of juicelike flavors are all the rage.
The interest in IPAs has ultimately led to influence, presenting a new challenge for American-made beers trying to find a hold in England and elsewhere in the U.K., where the number of breweries has hit its highest point since World War II. Instead of picking up a hop-forward beer made by Stone or Crazy Mountain, Londoners can find IPAs from Magic Rock Brewing Co. and Cloudwater Brew Co. bursting with freshness. No need to wait for a hoppy pale ale that sat for weeks in transit from America. Ballast Point, Lagunitas, Green Flash and Alpine IPAs sit on the shelf much longer than ever before, Victory says.
"It's curious to think about what would have happened in the U.K. brewing scene had we been cut off and had to develop in a different way," she says. "Would we have gone for more European styles or different types of lager? But if you're somebody who's been to the States and enjoyed beer over there, you come home and think, 'How can we drink that here?'"
Luckily for American brewers, Victory doesn't believe an increase of English-made IPAs is a death knell for imported U.S. beer. Rather, it's an opportunity. In recent months, she's noticed an increased fervor for saisons and sours, with businesses like Crooked Stave, Jester King, The Bruery and Cascade all gaining attention, sometimes having tap takeovers at local pubs. But it may be only a matter of time before local brewers catch up on those styles, too. Victory says one of London's popular breweries, Brew by Numbers, is making some really great goses and Berliner-style weisses.
So maybe it's the case that American breweries must find some flexibility in their international planning. As localized brewing cultures become the norm around the world or the challenge of shipping beer to far-flung places grows, there's a balance to be struck between selling beer at home and away.
For a year, from 2013 to 2014, John Bryant sent beer from Spokane, Washington's No-Li Brewhouse to Sweden, shipping Born & Raised IPA and Crystal Bitter ESB (now called Spin Cycle Red) after earning praise for both from foreign drinkers through the Export Development Program. That time abroad turned out to be more of a trial, as Bryant, No-Li's co-founder, saw his business becoming one of the fastest-growing breweries in the Pacific Northwest, according to sales data by IRI. Instead of expanding No-Li's foreign presence, Bryant decided to pull out of Sweden to focus more on his home market, but the experience also turned out to be a learning opportunity.
Because his beer spent weeks in transit, Bryant used feedback from foreign customers to invest in better equipment and processes at his brewery. No-Li moved its grist mill outside to reduce grain particles from the air inside the brew house. Bryant bought new flow and oxygen meters for mash tuns and re-evaluated how brewers pitched yeast to keep No-Li's beer as fresh as possible.
"In the early days of a business, you're trying to survive on passion and strategy, but as you mature as a company, where you spend your money shows," Bryant says. "International business made us obsessed with quality and stability factors."
Instead of sending No-Li's beer far away, Bryant is now focusing on a closer foreign market: Canada. British Columbia, on the western part of the country and just north of No-Li's Washington home, represents about 5 percent of the brewery's sales, Bryant says. He's also shipping a couple of pallets of beer three times a year to Japan, where No-Li has previously medaled at the Japan International Beer Festival. But the end game is to bring attention back to Spokane.
"One of the original reasons we went overseas was to bring international attention to our city because craft brewing is being led by U.S. breweries," Bryant says. "It serves a greater purpose to build something special in our community and moves beyond beer, serving Spokane in a positive, economic way."
Looking abroad is still part of No-Li's business plan, even though it's a small part of it. After all, total U.S. beer exports grew by an average of about 15 percent year-to-year from 2011 to 2015. As the market continues to add new breweries and brands on a daily basis, the feverish call of foreign drinkers isn't likely to quiet down soon.
Back in Germany, even though his fellow countrymen may seem stuck in their ways, Beinhardt believes American beer is destined to be big in his country, given enough time. He says beer from small U.S. breweries offers an air of sophistication, which could attract German beer drinkers who admire foreign products and want to educate themselves on offerings from outside their day-to-day, traditional choices. Ultimately, he notes, the advantage that American breweries have in Germany and elsewhere is the ability to create curiosity around brewing that can be seen as cheerful, inventive and maybe even a little reckless. In a good way, of course.
"When I tell my friends about the kind of beers I've tasted in America, they can't believe it," Beinhardt says. "It's almost impossible to not want to try them."
The post Foreign Exchange: American Beer Styles, Brands Capture Attention of Drinkers Abroad appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Northern Monk Double Heathen appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Northern Monk Double Heathen appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Blacks of Kinsale World's End appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Blacks of Kinsale World's End appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Fierce Beer Night Shift appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Fierce Beer Night Shift appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Wicklow Wolf American Amber appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Wicklow Wolf American Amber appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Karbach F.U.N. Series 015 Good Golly Miss Molly appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Karbach F.U.N. Series 015 Good Golly Miss Molly appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Great Raft You, Me and Everyone We Know appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Great Raft You, Me and Everyone We Know appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Orpheus Serpent Bite appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Orpheus Serpent Bite appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Trumer Pils appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Trumer Pils appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Goodwood Brandy Barrel Honey Ale appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Goodwood Brandy Barrel Honey Ale appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Mason Ale Works Cash appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Mason Ale Works Cash appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Urban Artifact Finn appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Urban Artifact Finn appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Black Cloister Helles Angel appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Black Cloister Helles Angel appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Conshohocken Type A IPA appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Conshohocken Type A IPA appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Confluence Des Moines IPA appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Confluence Des Moines IPA appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Magnify Maine Event IPA appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Magnify Maine Event IPA appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post SLO Brew Cali-Weisse appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post SLO Brew Cali-Weisse appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Speakeasy Ales & Lagers to Cease Operations Indefinitely appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>(Press Release)
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.—Speakeasy Ales & Lagers has been forced to immediately cease brewing, packaging, and tap room operations at their San Francisco brewery for an indefinite period of time. Difficulty securing capital investment and outstanding debt obligations led to this difficult and painful decision. The company's primary creditor will determine the future of the brewery and brand, and no decision or further information is available at this time.
According to Speakeasy founder and CEO, Forest Gray, "The brewery has worked with multiple investment banking groups and have had numerous meetings. One fact has become central to the process, and that is the company is financially insolvent and requires new capital to move forward. Whether that will happen is unclear, but I do hope the brewery and brand will persist."
Speakeasy would like to thank all of the wonderful customers, distributors, vendors, and retail partners who have supported the brewery, as well as current and former staff for their hard work and dedication. The remaining inventory of Speakeasy Ales & Lagers beer has been shipped to distributors and will be available in local and international markets while supplies last. Grab a six-pack of Big Daddy IPA or any other Speakeasy beer to savor the history of this pioneering brewery.
The post Speakeasy Ales & Lagers to Cease Operations Indefinitely appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post The First Big Magazine piece on Microbrewing, 30 Years Later appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>At the start of 1987, William Least Heat-Moon was a writer best-known for a 1982 book called Blue Highways. Heat-Moon (he was part Osage) had lost his job and his wife on the same winter's day, and so had set off on a road trip, using as a guide those blue lines on maps that designate non-Interstate highways, byways and back roads.
The book became a bestseller, and critics compared it favorably to John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley and Jack Kerouac's On the Road.
A few years later, Heat-Moon set off on another journey, one also of discovery but less about the wanderlust of a man in middle-age flux and more about an industry just really toddling forth.
"A Glass of Handmade," Heat-Moon's 6,978-word piece starting on page 75 of the Atlantic Monthly's 130-page November 1987 edition, charted his and a friend's road trip visiting nearly all of the nation's smaller, more traditional breweries then, including brewpubs. The biggest exception was the Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., its Chico, California, location too far-flung.
The piece was the first long-form consumer magazine story about what was then called microbrewing. At the time, the 130-year-old Atlantic was heading toward an all-time circulation peak of 468,000 subscribers and newsstand purchasers in 1990. Heat-Moon's "A Glass of Handmade," then, found a wide audience among the Atlantic's generally affluent, educated readership.
As to the piece itself, it was understandably broad in scope given the dozens of microbreweries in operation.
But it was also intimate given Heat-Moon's conversational writing style, and the fact that he and his friend—whom he called the Venerable Tashmoo because of his own Native American background—sought out to find not only the who, what, where and how of microbrewing, but the why (which turned out to have a lot to do with simply wanting to make a good-tasting beer for a local audience).
The pair started in Albany, New York, at the old Wm. S. Newman Brewing Co., one of the first microbreweries east of the Rocky Mountains.
"One September afternoon, The Venerable and I watched Bill Newman work; we gnawed grains of his various malted barleys; we helped him stir the mash; we tasted the sweet wort, the hopped wort, the green beer, and the finished ale fresh from the maturing tank. Young Newman (to be a microbrewer is to be under forty) wanted to give his city a choice of flavors, to fill a cranny that the industrial breweries left as they bought up regional companies."
As intimate as Heat-Moon, his traveling companion, and their hosts might get with the grains, hops, et al, the writer made little attempt to romanticize the distance between microbrewing's reality 30 years ago and its sustainability as a possible trend, never mind business model.
Indeed, Bill Newman would file for bankruptcy protection a couple of months before "A Glass of Handmade" even came out (Heat-Moon himself is still writing, and the Venerable Tashmoo died in 2007). Here's the writer again, this time further along in the article and farther along into America:
"I told the bartender what I'd seen at lunch in a cafe downtown: a man—fifties, blue blazer, penny loafers, USA Today under his arm—ordered a Hale's Pale American Ale, took a single sip, and handed it back to the bartender, who dumped it and then passed across a bottle of Heineken. The bartender said, 'I don't see many conversions of middle-aged people. The beer a man's drinking when he's thirty is the one he tends to believe in the rest of his life.'"
Read more Acitelli on History posts.
Tom Acitelli is the author of The Audacity of Hops: The History of America's Craft Beer Revolution and the forthcoming Whiskey Business: How Small-Batch Distillers Are Transforming American Spirits. He is at work on a biography of Michael Jackson.
The post The First Big Magazine piece on Microbrewing, 30 Years Later appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post The Perfect Address: Breweries Passing Along Buildings Makes Opening, Scaling, and Creating Communities Easier appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>Imagine starting a brewery on a shoestring, cobbling together a small system, making just one barrel of beer at a time. Then, after working tirelessly to reach a point where demand exceeds capacity, miraculously being able to move into a new location already outfitted with the exact equipment needed to expand. Improbable? Not quite.
In some cases, breweries can start or scale easily, without any break in production of beer, when they move into a location previously occupied by another beer company. 1 Industrial Way in Portland, Maine, has been home to six breweries (soon to be seven), including Maine Beer Co. and Bissell Brothers Brewing Co. One site in Raleigh, North Carolina, is also on its sixth: Big Boss Brewing Co. And still another in Huntsville, Alabama, has housed two.
When the brewers behind Huntsville's Yellowhammer Brewing wanted to move their operation into a larger facility, they wanted their former space to be put to good use. "We thought it would be really neat if we had a brewery come into our old place," says Ethan Couch, general manager of Yellowhammer Brewing. "We enjoyed Salty Nut Brewery, and the guys, and the beer they're making. We have a good relationship with them."
So before putting word out that they were planning on moving, Yellowhammer's operators reached out to Salty Nut to offer them a good deal on the space and all the equipment inside. It just so happened that Salty Nut was looking to expand from its 1-barrel system in a small, 2,500-square-foot warehouse building. Salty Nut jumped at the opportunity.
"We bought the brew house, mash tun and boil kettle," says Daniel Yant, one of Salty Nut's co-founders. Salty Nut also bought three of the 15-barrel fermenters, taproom tables and chairs, and a lot of the furniture in the beer garden behind the brewery. Moving into the new location and purchasing the equipment brought the operation up to 15 barrels.
Not only did the move increase Salty Nut's brewing capacity, but since the brewery bought most of the equipment on site, Salty Nut also didn't have any downtime. "Salty Nut was basically able to walk into our facility and crank up production. That's kind of a unique situation," Couch says.
"We stopped brewing in January [of 2016] and reopened in February," explains Yant. We were able to commit almost 100 percent of that time to renovating the taproom."
For Salty Nut, this step was a no-brainer. "Honestly, I think it was really our only feasible step up. We were to a point where we had to grow. We couldn't continue at the size we were at. It would be a hobby, and we would be busting our butts to break even," Yant says. "Buying a brand-new facility and building it out just from scratch really wasn't feasible. And investors weren't a route we wanted to go."
Brad Wynn, a founder of Big Boss, had a similar experience. His brewery occupies a space that had previously housed Tomcat Brewing Co., Pale Ale Brewery, Rock Creek Brewing (which he helped open), Chesapeake Bay Brewing Co. and Edenton Brewing Co. (which he co-founded). All are now closed. After closing Edenton, Wynn connected with new business partner Geoff Lamb to start Big Boss.
When Wynn started brewing in the space, he purchased the existing equipment. "It was already installed in place and working," he says. While the brewing system wasn't cheap, he was able to start producing beer right away. "We were making beer and bringing money in, immediately. We didn't have to wait for a brewer's notice. We had it, because we were doing business as Edenton Brewing Co. Once we got the OK to switch over to Big Boss, we switched it over." That was 10 years ago.
"The advantage was the timing. The boom was just getting started. Now it seems like there's a brewery starting every day, but not then," Wynn says. "We were surrounded with a bunch of good breweries at the time. It was a great time to get going down here. People are still moving down here in droves. … I got lucky."
It's not just logistics that gives beer businesses an advantage when they take over spaces that previously housed breweries. It's also a good way to create thriving communities.
Yellowhammer Brewing didn't move far, just down the road from Salty Nut. And farther down that same road is Straight to Ale Brewing. "We're trying to create an entertainment district where people can have a beer and walk from place to place," says Couch. "It's fun to be a part of the community. It's a real communal atmosphere. Just because it's so new, and we kind of need each other. We need to help one another and promote this, more for Huntsville, than just as a business trying to succeed." And it's good for the landlords as well, since the breweries have been a draw for other retailers.
As for Salty Nut, "In a marketing standpoint, we still get spillover from people who were out of town and didn't realize Yellowhammer moved. We have an instant client base. … We've already got customers coming in."
A similar trend occurred in Portland, Maine, where a series of breweries have made 1 Industrial Way their home. The industrial complex has become known as an incubator of sorts. Maine Beer Co. was the first to operate there. When Maine Beer departed, Bissell Brothers was going to move in. "We left behind … part of our grain-handling operation, a boiler, some glycol lines, our glycol chiller, a bulk CO2 tank, air compressors, and I think that was it," says co-founder Dan Kleban. "And of course, a bunch of good mojo."
Kleban explains that the neighborhood around the building has become the center for a flourishing community. "When we moved there, there weren't any other breweries in our building. But we benefited because almost directly across the street was Allagash Brewing Co. … They're incredibly nice folks over there. Would help me at the drop of a dime," he says.
"When we were there, tasting rooms in the state of Maine weren't legal yet," says Kleban. "But after we moved out, and others moved in, tasting rooms did become legal. What that has created down there is a cool culture for the consumer."
So far, Maine Beer Co., Rising Tide Brewing Co., now-closed Bull Jagger Brewing Co., and Bissell Brothers have spent time at 1 Industrial Way. Foundation Brewing Co. and Austin Street Brewery currently operate in the space, which is divided into units. A new brewery, Battery Steele Brewing, is set to open up there as well.
"When we opened here, we opened within four months of Foundation," says Will Fisher, co-founder of Austin Street Brewery. "We're all kind of going through the same struggles at the same time. We have each other to bounce stuff off of. We're all in this together. … We all launched at the same time, and all brought in customers together."
With some exceptions, the businesses have taken their brewing systems with them when they move. Even so, a major draw of the location is the building features. It has city water ("It's great for ales," says Fisher) and sewer. There are high ceilings, natural gas, floor drains, sprinkler systems already built in. "The landlord and the owner of the building have always been very welcoming and accommodating," Fisher notes. "They continue to seek out tenants that are involved in either the food or beer/spirits industry." When Austin Street moved in, it was for the most part already up to code, and the brewery didn't have to file for a change of use.
"Having all these breweries right next to each other is fantastic. What happens is people come out and they can hit four breweries within a block," says John Bonney, co-founder of Foundation Brewing. "What these neighborhoods have turned into is great destinations and locations to come and try a lot of top beer."
The post The Perfect Address: Breweries Passing Along Buildings Makes Opening, Scaling, and Creating Communities Easier appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Coming Soon: March 2017 appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>March 11
Brew-Ski Festival
Harbor Springs, Michigan
A mixture of fun found on the slopes and in a glass of suds, this event combines 80 breweries pouring over 300 beers with live music, burgers and brats, and—of course—skiing at Boyne Highlands resort. Some of the brewers that will be present for this festival: Atwater Brewery, Dark Horse Brewing Co., New Holland Brewing Co. and Vander Mill Cider.
March 24-26
Barcelona Beer Festival
Barcelona, Spain
Guided beer tastings, dancing, seminars and events that highlight the local culture and cuisine are integral to this occasion, which drew 30,000 people last year. It is billed as the premier beer festival in southern Europe. A roughly 50-50 mix of Spanish beers and internationally recognized brews composes the 300-plus-beer lineup of this event.
March 31-April 2
Winter Wondergrass
Squaw Valley, California
Bluegrass and acoustic roots music meets beer, wine, spirits and food at this incarnation of Winter Wondergrass, which is set in the lush background of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Brewers from North Coast Brewing Co., Fifty Fifty Brewing Co., Knee Deep Brewing Co. and more will join musical groups such as Yonder Mountain String Band, Mandolin Orange and Dustbowl Revival for this celebration.
Bell's Brewery
Am I Right or Amarillo
6.0% | American IPA
Released to accompany Bell's expanded distribution to Texas (and named after a song that celebrates the Texas town of Amarillo), this IPA brewed with all Amarillo hops boasts big citrus and tropical fruit aromas and a strong malt backbone. Am I Right or Amarillo will be available in 6-packs of 12-ounce cans and on limited draft.
Saint Arnold Brewing Co.
Raspberry AF
3.5% | Berliner-Style Weisse w/ Raspberries
Three thousand pounds of fresh raspberries goes into each batch of this beer, whose name was crowdsourced via a Twitter poll. Raspberry AF will be available on draft and in 6-packs of 12-ounce cans.
Brewery Vivant
6.5% | Belgian-Style Golden Ale
Made with Michigan hops and Michigan honey, this golden ale has subtle notes of apricots and nectarines that mingle with floral hop aromas. It will be available on draft and in 4-packs of 16-ounce cans.
The post Coming Soon: March 2017 appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Don't Settle for Flawed Beer appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>One of the great privileges and perks on this job is visiting breweries around the world. It allows me to meet brewers, drink beer and see the innovations, ingredients and trends that help shape the coverage in this magazine and on our website. On a recent trip, I ordered a flight of beers from a brewery that opened its doors to the public 24 hours earlier. The room was buzzing with a happy energy despite gloomy weather outside. Staff was busily attending to visitors while still working out answers to everyday questions, and there was still a whiff of fresh paint in the air.
The beer itself was fine. The lineup was what you'd expect from a U.S. brewery these days: a few IPAs, a Scotch ale, an amber, a wheat. My notes from the day express appreciation for some, a few flaws in others, and some technical issues, like low carbonation, that will likely be addressed down the line. At one point the brewer walked up, looking exactly like a brewer who had just run a marathon to the finish line of opening a brewery. Without prompting, one of the first things he did was apologize for one of the beers on the table. It's not how he hoped the recipe would turn out; he knew there was an off flavor; he'd work to get it better the next time.
That admission represents the good and bad about professional brewing. Good because he has the desire to do better, to push his talents and to offer customers a stronger product. Bad, obviously, because you only have one chance to make a good first impression, and to knowingly put sub-par beer into the glass of paying customers is an affront to the whole industry.
It's no secret that brewing is a business and to survive you need to make money. One of the hardest things brewers have to do is make the decision to dump a bad batch of beer. It's heartbreaking because of the time that went into the liquid, the admission of failure and, of course, the lost revenue. But it's almost always the right thing to do.
The alternative is to serve the beer, be called out on social media for flaws and off flavors, and see a reputation take body blows. That is likely more harmful in the long term, because customers might be forgiving once or twice, but in an era of choice they will eventually find their way to a place with consistency and clean flavor.
This is where we, the drinkers, come in. It's up to us—super beer geek or not—to know the basics of off flavors. Even if you don't know the technical terms, knowing that (generally) beers that have heavy aromas of wet cardboard, skunk, green apple, mildew or gobs of fake butter—like you find on movie theater popcorn—are flavor flaws.
A little politeness goes a long way, and if you find a beer with one of these traits, find a way to personally bring it to the brewer's attention. If this happens enough, over time the beers will get better, and that's good for everyone.
The post Don't Settle for Flawed Beer appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post When One Beer Is Enough appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>When you're drinking at Im Füchschen in Düsseldorf, there's only one beer available: the altbier. In this town, or just up the river in Cologne (Köln), beer variety takes a vacation. There are several brewers in each city, but the only beer any of them brews is its version of the local specialty, altbier or Kölsch, respectively. The taphouses sell one beer (they're tied houses) and essentially identical menus: pork, sausages, cheese, rye bread, pickled vegetables. The differences in the beers from the various brewers are real, but subtle: one slightly more malty, one a bit drier, one a bit more aromatic in its hopping.
You might think this was a terrible business model: only one beer to order, the same menu as every other bar in town. Crazy, right? It's similar to how things used to be here in the U.S., with maybe three beer choices, the same burger-and-fries kind of menu and everyone nodding: Yup, I'll have another—another beer.
Then the multi-tap beer bar came along and blew it away. Have an IPA, then a soured wheat, then a different IPA and then an imperial stout, tap-dancing your way through the night with a different beer every time because you gotta taste 'em all! We revel in the variety, in all its glorious difference and daring.
I get it, and I do it, too, and I have no problem whatsoever with it. Variety and choice are what the revolutionary change in the American beer market has been all about, a change that's spreading around the world. We love the multitude of beers. I wish I could get that kind of choice at coffee shops, where they may have a dozen different bagged coffees, but they usually only brew two, and maybe a decaf offering (why?) and a flavored brew.
No arguments: The current breadth of choice is awesome. Sometimes it's so demanding that I'll point and shoot—a Bell's Two Hearted, a Deschutes Black Butte — so I can have a beer while I'm deciding what beer to have. It's so absorbing it stops conversation.
But when I'm in Germany's Twin Cities of Top Fermentation, all of that's forgotten. I lean back against the wall, beer in hand, and relax. I don't have the next beer to think about; I don't even have to get the waiter's attention. My glass is never empty longer than two minutes till a waiter swings by, plucks a full stange from his tray, places it on the table, marks a notch on my coaster, takes the empty, smiles and pivots … gone in 15 seconds.
Every beer is the same price, the same temperature, served in the same 200-mL glass, and every beer is fresh, cleanly served and delicious. It's so relaxing. It's almost like falling in love; you don't even think about all the other beers you're not drinking, you're so happy with the beer in front of you.
Now think about this: The whole city is like that. There are a few bars in Cologne that have a wider selection of beers; there's now a bar in Düsseldorf that advertises "100 varieties craft beer!" But mostly, it's one choice, everywhere, all the time.
For a beer enthusiast, it might be unsettling. What if I want something else? What am I missing out on? The FOMO alone can be paralyzing!
But it makes me think back about 10 years ago when I dropped into a bar in Philly and saw four beers on the tap list I wanted to try. I happened to have Yards Philly Pale Ale first … and that was all she wrote. It hit me so right, I stuck with it the rest of the night. Is that so bad?
Don't stop tap dancing. Don't get away from the variety. But if one beer is pouring just right, and it's hitting you square, let it happen. Have another: because sometimes, one beer is all you need.
The post When One Beer Is Enough appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Episode 11: After Two Beers with Florian Kuplent of Urban Chestnut Brewing Co. appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>In episode 11 of After Two Beers, John Holl sits down with Florian Kuplent, co-founder and brewmaster of Urban Chestnut Brewing Co. The two discuss how Kuplent came to open the brewery in St. Louis in 2011 and, more recently, the Urban Chestnut Hallertauer Brauerei in Bavaria.
Kuplent discusses the art of brewing lagers, how Urban Chestnut's beers have been received in Germany, and why he thinks Germans will never completely embrace the American approach to beer.
This episode of After Two Beers is brought to you in part by Guinness. For a limited time, you can now try their unexpected brews, Guinness Antwerpen Stout and Rye Pale Ale.
In addition to SoundCloud, you can find After Two Beers on iTunes and Stitcher — or you can subscribe below to ensure you never miss an episode. We'll send you links to the podcasts as soon as they're published.
You can also find the Beervana podcast on SoundCloud, iTunes and Stitcher as well.
[contact-form-7]The post Episode 11: After Two Beers with Florian Kuplent of Urban Chestnut Brewing Co. appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post 10 of the Country's Most Interesting Breweries appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>How does a brewery stand out in the market these days? First, the beer needs to be unimpeachable. Second, there needs to be an ethos followed, a commitment to practices combined with that je ne sais quoi. So we asked a simple question of brewers, magazine contributors and fellow drinkers: Name a brewery doing interesting things. With nearly 5,000 breweries operating in the United States right now, we were surprised that a number of names kept coming up again and again. This is not a "Best of …" list, or to be taken as the definitive word. Rather, the 10 breweries presented here rank as some of the most interesting, intriguing, forward-thinking spots that we believe are worth your time and attention. Take a look at each and we're sure you'll see why.
The Ale Apothecary – Bend, Oregon
Anchorage Brewing Co. – Anchorage, Alaska
Blackberry Farm Brewery – Walland, Tennessee
Black Project Beer – Denver
Cigar City Brewing at Tampa International Airport – Tampa, Florida
OEC Brewing – Oxford, Connecticut
Scratch Brewing Co. – Ava, Illinois
Side Project Brewing – St. Louis
Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. – Chico, California, and Mills River, North Carolina
Spencer Trappist Brewery – Spencer, Massachusetts
This feature appears in the January 2017 issue of All About Beer Magazine. Click here to subscribe to the magazine today.
The post 10 of the Country's Most Interesting Breweries appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Münchener Dunkel appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>Lager to most means the ubiquitous pale golden brew that arose from the original pilsners of the 1840s. But by that time, the Bavarians had likely been honing bottom-fermentation and cold-conditioning since at least the 14th century, and possibly as early as the 11th century. Those original lagerbiers were dark, as pale malted barley didn't come to the region until the early 19th century. The style today is known as Münchener dunkel (Munich dark).
Dunkel is essentially the ancestor of all bottom-fermented beers, derived from cool seasonal brewing, fermented with carefully culled, cold-tolerant yeast and aged in icy caves at the foot of the Alps. The Reinheitsgebot purity law of 1516 ensured that those beers would be all-barley. Dunkel is a seminal brew, an icon of Bavaria's heyday, which laid the foundation to perhaps the most significant movement in the history of brewing when brewers in Bohemia, who had already begun using the Bavarian bottom-fermentation methods, combined the technique with their newly minted pale malt in 1842. For homebrewers, dunkels offer a chance to dig into the roots of lagerbier brewing, while showcasing the malt that made Munich a brewing epicenter.
When brewers had limited resources and raw materials to work with, those available ingredients often came to define older, classic styles that we still see today. In Munich, toasty melanoidin-rich malt was preferred and became the key, definitive ingredient in dunkel. Typically, dunkels were made as a single-malt brew.
Munich malt is full amber to brown in color due to relatively high kilning temperature, yet is fully capable of self-conversion, making possible an authentic historical single-malt brew. Most brewers employ more diverse grists, but still feature the unique footprint of Munich malt. This according to Michael Jackson, who mentioned grist composition in his Beer Companion, and a perusal of recipes given online by various breweries. With that strategy in mind, we can exercise some flexibility to achieve desired color and flavor.
Excellent dunkels can be made with two or three malts. My preferred recipe is equal parts light (about 6 degrees L) and dark (about 9 degrees L) Munich malt for 95 percent of the bill, and 5 percent Cararoma (150 degrees L). This formulation will provide a healthy dose of maltiness, red-brown color (23 SRM), suitable fermentability and a sweetish, caramel background. Other common formulations use pilsner and Munich malt combinations for the base and Caramunich (30 degrees to 60 degrees L) and Carafa or Carafa Special (300 degrees to 560 degrees L) for color and depth. Dunkel color is typically 18 to 28 SRM.
To round out the rich, malty profile and enhance the mouthfeel, use a two-step infusion mash with a protein rest at 113 degrees to 122 degrees F for 20 minutes, followed by saccharification at 152 degrees to 153 degrees F for one hour. Single-step infusing will work, but two-step will more completely break down the protein-rich continental malt. Decoction mashing, while not necessary, may be attractive to the diehard traditionalists. Original gravity should be between 1.048 and 1.055.
For extract brewers, fine, authentic dunkel is easily within reach. Liquid malt extract labeled as Munich is a 50/50 blend of pale or pilsner and Munich malt, a perfect ratio for the style. The steeped specialty malts mentioned above combined with this extract are all that is needed. Partial mashers can stay on point with this extract as well.
While hops take a back seat to the malt in this style, dunkels nonetheless rely on a dose of bitterness (20 to 25 IBU) sufficient to balance their soft sweetness. For later kettle additions, it is critical to note that however mild the flavor and aromatic components, it is this subtle character that helps define the origin of the beer. In this case, that distinctive German accent should be noticeable.
Noble German hops—Tettnanger, Hallertauer Mittelfrüh and Spalter—are, naturally, the best option, with the spicy, floral notes and rounded bittering contribution associated with low-alpha acid cultivars.
There are no shortcuts or secrets to making great lagerbiers, and all of the work put forth in the mash tun and kettle would be wasted if proper bottom-fermentation and lagering techniques were not followed. The best yeasts come from breweries in Bavaria or, more specifically, Munich. These allow the malty flavors and aromatics to flourish, and they attenuate fully under proper conditions with a good mouthfeel and clean, crisp finish. Wyeast Munich 2308 and Bavarian 2206, and White Labs WLP838 Southern German and WLP920 Old Bavarian are the best in my opinion. Fermentis offers two dried lagerbier yeasts that are highly regarded, Saflager S-23 and Saflager W-34/70, and perform as well as liquid yeast.
The recommended yeasts will do yeoman's work between 48 degrees and 56 degrees F with proper aeration and sufficient cell counts at pitching. Pitch and ferment at the lower end of the range, to eliminate the risk of exceeding the upper limit of the suggested temperature range for fermentation during the initial burst of activity and the formation of off-flavors. Always perform a diacetyl rest, 60 degrees F for 48 hours, to scrub the wort clean before cold-conditioning. Lager at 30 degrees to 40 degrees F for 6 to 8 weeks before packaging and serving.
The Czech Republic is known for excellent pilsners, the revolutionary beer that combined German brewing methods with innovative pale malt in Pilsen in 1842. Some of its breweries also offer dark lagerbier, a creative interpretation of the style that I find as delicious and fun as the Munich version.
Design a grain bill that leans toward the dark end of the stylistic spectrum and dose with Saaz hops throughout, with an extra measure of late kettle hops. Try Moravian malt if you can get it. Ferment with Wyeast 2000, 2001 or 2278, or White Labs WLP800 or WLP802, all of which come from renowned Czech breweries, and stamp a malty, dryish, slightly fruity footprint that favors an aromatic, robust profile.
All-Grain, 5 gallons
Mash at 153 degrees F
Base malts: 5 pounds light Munich malt, 5 pounds dark Munich malt
Specialty malt: 8 ounces Caramunich III, 4 ounces Cararoma or 2 ounces Carafa I
Hop schedule:
20 IBU German noble hops
1/2 ounce German noble hops, 20 minutes
1/2 ounce German noble hops, 5 minutes
Ferment with your preferred Bavarian/Munich yeast at 50 degrees F, perform diacetyl rest and cold-condition using standard bottom-fermentation schedule
Notes: Pilsner or Vienna malt can be substituted for light Munich for a crisper finish, and a blend of hops for the flavor and aromatic additions.
Extract, 5 gallons
Steep 12 ounces Caramunich III, 6 ounces Cararoma or 3 ounces Carafa I
Add 7 pounds liquid Munich malt extract to wort after steeping grains
Hop schedule:
25 IBU Czech Saaz
1/2 ounce Saaz, 20 minutes
3/4 to 1 ounce Saaz, 0 minutes
Ferment with Czech yeast recommended above at 50 degrees F, perform diacetyl rest, and cold-condition using standard bottom-fermentation schedule.
Notes: For partial-mash brewing, mash 3 pounds each light and dark Munich malt, and add 3.3 pounds liquid Munich malt extract to the collected wort
The post Münchener Dunkel appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post The Belgian Beer Book appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The word "tome" is thrown around a lot when people are looking for a fancy word to describe a book. In the case of this 702-page, 7.7-pound, wonderfully photographed, comprehensive drink, food and travel guide, the word is apt. A country with such a rich brewing culture deserves a book of this stature. Here, the authors take us into the breweries where personal stories and rich histories are shared. Scenes from everyday life are well-documented and vibrant through intimate and artistic photography.
The post The Belgian Beer Book appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post The Apple Orchard: The Story of our Most English Fruit appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>If you're not already aware of the apple's cultural and agricultural significance to mankind, that's OK. If you thought you were knowledgeable on the subject, that's OK, too. In his latest book, the masterful Pete Brown tackles the apple and all it's done and all it means. A lively first-person romp through orchards and fairs over a year of planting, harvesting and processing. No matter your apple knowledge, you'll finish this book with a greater appreciation.
The post The Apple Orchard: The Story of our Most English Fruit appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post The Secrets of Master Brewers: Techniques, Traditions, and Homebrew Recipes for 26 of the World's Classic Beer Styles appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>Styles no longer exist, so says the editor of this magazine, but they should. Too often professional brewers are all too eager to color outside the lines without first seeking discipline. It's a trait that has gotten us to the point we are at today, where history sits on a dusty shelf while the new shiny things get all the attention. Homebrewers have fueled this revolution, and Alworth reminds them—and us—why we should look to our elders and embrace the classics. Thanks to his attention to detail, unearthing of forgotten facts and appreciation for the liquid, Alworth has created a must-read book for everyone who makes his or her own beer.
The post The Secrets of Master Brewers: Techniques, Traditions, and Homebrew Recipes for 26 of the World's Classic Beer Styles appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>The post Beer, In So Many Words: The Best Writing On The Greatest Drink appeared first on All About Beer.
]]>Even for those who don't write on the subject, beer is a muse. But in this collection of works from writers including Ernest Hemingway, Charles Dickens, Dylan Thomas and more contemporary folks like Roger Protz, Garrett Oliver, Jeff Alworth and even this reporter, beer can also be the subject. From topics like travel, history, personal observation and slices of everyday life, this collection shows the tactile connection the beverage has on us all.
The post Beer, In So Many Words: The Best Writing On The Greatest Drink appeared first on All About Beer.


text:
Medical News | |
Articles | |
Events | |
Guidelines | |
Videos Library | |
Diseases |
Follow us : |
Doctors (525026):
Luai Al Bakour -
Pharmacies (142854):
El Temamy Pharmacy -
Factories (9502):
Akoni Hijyen Teknolojileri Sanayi ve Dış Ticaret LTD. ŞTİ -
Laboratories (19243):
Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics -
Hospital (68158):
City Hospital -
Agencies (6416):
Arabian Trade Center - ATC -
Medical Facility (32206):
Legality International. (Pvt.) Ltd.
Nutrition and Diet
Cut Your Meal to Smaller Pieces to Feel More Satiated, Study
(ePharmaNews) – Eating several smaller pieces of food can give a feeling of fullness, unlike eating a single piece of food that has the same amount of calories, according to a new research presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB). Read more...
Dr. Talal Sabouni
Dr . Dirar Abboud
Dr. Faisal Dibsi
Yaser Habrawi , F.R.C.S.Ed
Dr. Hani Najjar
Dr. Samer Al-Jneidy
Dr. Tahsin Martini
Samir Moussa M.D.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Find. Book. Pitchup.
- We make it a doddle to book campsites, glamping sites and caravan parks throughout the UK, Europe and the Americas.
- Trusted by over 1m holidaymakers from 99 countries.
- Choose and book in minutes, with instant confirmation and no booking fees.
2 listings in Oxfordshire
Cotswold View Caravan and Camping Site Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, England Show on map |
Banbury, Oxfordshire, England Show on map |


text:
1000 Hempstead Ave
Rockville Centre, NY 11571
Rockville Centre, NY 11571
Website: www.molloy.edu
Location: Mid East DE DC MD NJ NY PA
Location: Mid East DE DC MD NJ NY PA
Learn more about Molloy College's majors and degrees in this in-depth curriculum profile.
Computer And Information Sciences And Support Services. (1)
School data was obtained from the US Dept. of Education's Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). Data may vary depending on school and academic year.