This time of year, it is easy to be pessimistic about… well… everything. Over the last two months, society has just forced us to empty our pockets buying useless trinkets that none of our friends and loved ones really need (unless you bought them beer). New Years Eve is another opportunity to look back on how little you have really accomplished in the past year.
But “always look on the bright side of life!” over the past year, craft beer has continued to grow, and more craft beers from more craft brewers are available than ever before.
I ask you Aleheads, what were the bright spots in 2011, for newly released regular production beers? I don’t want to look back and think about rare limited releases and one-offs that won’t be available again, because frankly it makes me sad. And this post has been negative enough already. Although if a beer was previously released as limited distribution or a brew-pub test, but is now full scale, it counts too.
So, who else feels fat and bloated after a debaucherous Christmas weekend? Of course, the only debauchery I participated in was glutnous food intake mixed with far too many ales and nogged beverages, but I feel disgusting nonetheless. Which brings us to today – 12/30/11. Another weekend, another holiday, another extra day off from work to recover. Sounds like drinking weather to me.
As you’ll see in the inlaid photo, I’ve been blessed with a fresh delivery of the Alchemist’s Heady-Topper. 64oz of oily, citrussy, hoppy goodness that will surely disappear before the morrow comes. Other than this 4-pack though, I haven’t a clue what beers I’ll be consuming this weekend. I’m probably in the minority as having several beers left over from the last holiday weekend as I tend to mix wine and spirits with my brewed beverages on Christmas. That doesn’t mean I won’t be stopping off to resupply the beer fridge for another few sessions though. I’m thinking something bubbly and airy for New Year’s Eve, like a bottle-conditioned Saison or just something cool from The Bruery. For the Winter Classic and full NFL slate I’ll try to find something local and fresh, whatever that may be. Decisions, decisions – Just so much beer to pick through and an overabundance of time to drink up. Not a bad problem to have.
I’m sure plenty of Aleheads will be drinking some exclusive specialties this weekend. How about you?
Today is Christmas. Or as it’s known in the McHops Monastery, “the day every goddamn liquor store in America is closed”. While the McHops clan has no tree, lights, stockings, or jollyness of our own (we’re nihilists…it’s exhausting), we fully recognize that today is somewhat of a popular holiday amongst other members of our species. A little on-line research reveals that today is considered by many people to be the birthday of a 2,000-year-old, trouble-making Jewish stonemason. Of course, a little MORE on-line research reveals that today’s date was probably pilfered by early Christians from the supposed birth date of Mithra, a Persian deity. And Mithra’s birthday was most likely lifted from an even earlier object of worship. Regardless, today’s the day that every goddamn liquor story in America is closed, so clearly this Jesus guy was a man of some import. As such, I’m tossing out a Conundrum to my fellow Aleheads:
If he were alive today, What Would Jesus Drink?*
*Please ignore all of the Second Coming/Rapture/Revelations implications of the question. Read the rest of this entry »
The depths to which big beer will sink to lure in new (read: young) consumers has reached a new low this week, with the announcement that the Draftmark™ tap system should be rolled out in the St Louis market at the end of 2011 and early 2012. The official press release is here but in Aleheads’ rich tradition, we’ll go ahead and translate the corporate speak for you, dear reader and craft beer lover, so grab a pint of the good stuff, sit back, and enjoy as we dive into the latest installment of
Well, I suppose we should get our drinking shoes on. Get ready for the start of a hellacious bender that goes from today, 12/23, straight through the New Year. While the title of this post is “What Are You Drinking Tonight?”, just like it is every Friday, think of it as “What Are You Drinking This Weekend?”. Don’t kid yourself - You’ll be drinking just as much tonight as you will tomorrow, the next day, and most likely the day after that. This is such a great time of year for the beer drinker. Not that you ever needed an excuse to drink, but the holidays seem to be the time when you break your own rules a little. Maybe you splurge a little at your local package store. Maybe you finally purchase that special bottling you’ve been eyeing for weeks. If you’ve got vintage ale collection in your basement, maybe you crack into it a little this week (I know I will).
This weekend we’ll all be drinking some special beers that maybe we wouldn’t break out on an average week. Yesterday I was feeling festive so I picked up this year’s Fantôme de Noel, a bottle of Gouden Carolus Noël, and several back vintages of Sierra Nevada Celebration that were just screaming to be purchased. I’ll be cracking into some of that purchase tonight. Tomorrow I’ll kick off the football day with a growler of Cambridge Brewing Company’s Big Man IPA, their semi-Winter seasonal (Thank you as always to my lovely wife for picking up some fresh brew on her way home from work). Good beer will be had throughout the weekend and I know I’m not alone in that. So tell us, festive souls…
“Plays Well With Others” -Beerford’s Pre-School Teacher
I was merrily shopping away at my local bottle shop when I ran across a new collaboration brew that excited me to an embarrassing level. Turns out that Stone Brewing, Elysian Brewing and The Bruery have collectively created a beer together called La Citrueille Céleste de Citracado. I actually haven’t consumed it yet (I’m saving it for something special), but this beer reminded me that collaboration really seems to be all the rage these days. Though I’m pretty psyched to see these breweries working together, I think we can do better. So, fellow Aleheads, let’s see if we can improve on this near-perfection: Tell us what two breweries would you like to see create a collaboration together? Further, please describe (and, of course, name) the beer you would like to see them create.
If this is on your brewery website in December of 2011, that's a bad sign.
This post is going to piss people off.
I’m aware of this even as I begin writing, because I know that at least some of the folks who read it are going to be unable to disassociate my condemnation of a brewery’s website from condemnation of the brewery itself. To those people, I can only shrug in a semi-defeated, exasperated sort of way, and suggest that maybe you’re missing the point.
As I covered in the preceding post on what makes a “good” brewery website, I personally believe an ale factory’s web presence is its single most important public face, particularly if it’s a brewery serving a larger area than just one city or community. Small brewpubs can more easily afford to have a bad web presence if they’re able to connect with their target customers on a face-to-face basis, but if you’re trying to reach people the next state over who aren’t likely to be visiting anytime soon, your website, as a business, is going to be the first place a curious person will search for information. In 2011, this is a fact.
It’s shocking, then, how many brewery websites straight-up fail to give any of the necessary information that a business site should offer—like a list of the beers you make, for instance. Others contain other sorts of failings, from being straight-up annoying or ugly as sin* to being frightfully out of date. Many breweries these days have turned to social media to make up for these failings, participating actively on their Facebook or Twitter accounts and posting news updates there. This is a step in the right direction and a good thing overall, but it still doesn’t make up for a website that fails otherwise. Ideally, a brewery is able to embrace all aspects of its web presence, but at the very least it needs to offer the kinds of basic information I defined in my last post. Customers should leave your site having found exactly what they were looking for—anything less can be improved upon.
2011 was a monumental year for craft brewing, which saw overall beer sales down but sales within the craft industry increasing like never before. Craft was like a metaphorical Robin Hood taking money from the deep, evil corporate pockets of the AB InBevs and MillerCoors of the world and putting it back into the brewing community. 2011 also saw more independent breweries opening or being scheduled to open than any other time in recent history. The homebrewing community also became more popular than ever, with people of all ages and walks of life taking a genuine interest in how their beer is made. 2011 was a great time to be an Alehead. All that being said, 2011 was not without its disappointments in the brewing world, from once local hero breweries sidling up to the corporate teat, to marketing campaigns that insulted consumers, to the never ending pissing contest of gadgetry in the light beer world, I give you dear reader, the year in disappointments. Read the rest of this entry »
Here we go. Please wait until you reach the end of the post to spew your vitriol in my general direction. Yes, I’m sure some of the hatred is warranted. After all, I’m going after something that so many Aleheads hold so dear. Everyone loves Bourbon Barrel Aged beers, right? Right? Well, not me dammit! I like my Bourbon warm and neat. I like my beer cold and, well, I guess neat as well. Is it so wrong of me to want my glass of Bourbon to sit next to my glass of beer? Doesn’t the song call for One Bourbon, One Scotch, One beer? Nowhere in that bluesy tune do I hear one Bourbon, served as a shot, right in the middle of my fucking beer! Get your damn Bourbon out of my beer! Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday, Tom Long, the CEO of MillerCoors, talked to the Wall Street Journal about some of the obstacles his company faces in the coming years. With liquor, wine, and craft beer exploding, Big Beer has seen its overall sales stagnate. Long, who spent nearly two decades at Coca-Cola before jumping to Miller, is trying to right a leaky ship that continues losing market share to both craft beer AND arch-rival, Anheuser-Busch InBev. As the WSJ notes, MillerCoors has stayed in the black in these tough times thanks to cost-cutting measures and price increases, but that’s not exactly a long-term strategy for success. Long lets readers in on some new MillerCoors strategies in the interview. Since the man is a consummate corporate shill, we’ve decided to translate his responses for you from bullshit into truth. Enjoy! Read the rest of this entry »
Slouch likes to talk about beer. Lew Bryson REALLY likes to talk about beer. They discuss his new “American Beer Blogger” Kickstarter project, the future of craft beer, the proposed changes to the Pennsylvania liquor laws and more.
Want more Lew? For our western Pennsylvania listeners, Bocktown Beer and Grill is hosting a meet and greet on January 3rd in their new location in Monaca to help Lew Bryson raise awareness and funding for ”American Beer Blogger”. Join him for an ‘edutasting’ where he shows us his new project, a television series that will highlight our favorite industry! Details will post soon on Bocktown’s website, Facebook page and Twitter.
Slouch sits down with Jamie Rice, Justin Waters, and Kyle Branigan, the guys behind Milkman Brewing. Milkman made a name for themselves at last month’s Pittsburgh Brewfest, taking home top honors with a Peppercorn Rye that had everyone in the local beer community talking. They discuss the trials and tribulations of starting a boutique brewery on a shoestring budget, their philosophy about creating recipes that push the boundaries of beer, the upcoming first Pittsburgh Craft Beer Week, and a lot more.
And here we are again. While every Friday night is a drinking night, tonight kicks off an interesting couple of weeks. First off, we’re officially into the most gluttonous football period of the year with live NFL games being broadcast up to 4 days per week and the college bowl period just ramping up. Next weekend you get a special treat with a full slate of NFL games coming at you on Saturday since Jesus prefers the old b’ball on His day (Jesus, huge hoops fan). If you like football, and why the hell wouldn’t you, you should be very happy little children. Aside from football you’ve also got Christmas, Hanukkah New Years, slow work weeks, in-laws, screaming kids, laughing kids, more screaming kids – Needless to say there will be plenty of reasons to crack open a few brews before the year is out.
Last Friday we had a slew of folks commenting on what they were drinking for the evening. Everything from Lagunitas to El Segundo to Russian River to Great Lakes to Founders to Bell’s to Sierra. Lots of good beer was had by all. Well, now we’re on to a new week. First up for me tonight will be an early Christmas present from Trader Joes – Their 2011 Vintage Ale that’s clearly contracted from Unibroue. Looks good, should be interesting at the very least. After that I’ll be on to one of the best IPA’s the land has ever known – The Sculpin IPA from Ballast Point. Tonight can’t come soon enough. But enough about me, what we really want to know is…
After I threatened to inject my Thanksgiving turkey with his witbier, Chris Post, brewmaster at Wandering Star Craft Brewery in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, invited me over for a tour. His experience is a lesson in the opportunities and challenges faced by startup breweries. Oh, yeah–and his beers are awesome.
In the past, I’ve written about the flavor and scent of beer: what the bitter principles are, what off flavors are, or even what will make your beer smell bad. Something that hasn’t yet come up is the color. Most beers are some shade of yellow/brown, with tints of other colors occasionally coming in – some reds, oranges, etc.
Where does it all come from? As you know, the fermentable sugars in beer are extracted from malted barley. The malting process involves soaking barley in water to allow it to germinate and produce enzymes (these enzymes are later used in the brewing process to break down starches into more simple sugars). Before the barley sprouts, the water is removed and the barley is roasted in an oven (or dried by hot air). The length and temperature of the roasting “toasts” the grain, and the degree to which you toast your barley contributes to the darkness of your beer. The scale used to typically rank beer colors is shown the picture.
‘Tis the season when we all follow the herd down to the mall and spend roughly 20% of our annual income on crap we didn’t have any need for during the first 11 months of the year. And that’s OK…without this orgy of consumerism, our great nation’s economy would regress to Grecian levels. Part of the joy of the spending-spree season is purchasing gifts for those you love (or at least tolerate for tax purposes). Of course, some folks are easier to shop for than others. The Uncle who collects Japanese tentacle porn? Buy him some Japanese tentacle porn. The wife who likes giant diamonds? Buy her a picture of a giant diamond.
But what about the Alehead in your life? How do you shop for someone who spends every waking minute thinking about and/or consuming craft beer? Whether you’re a family member/significant other of an Alehead or just an Alehead yourself looking to “drop hints” to your loved ones, you’ve come to the right place. This year, here’s what every Alehead will be happy to see underneath the wrapping paper: Read the rest of this entry »
You really haven’t made it as a craft brewer today unless you’ve given one of your beers a horrific hop-related pun as a beer name. Or if wordplay isn’t your thing, you can, alternatively, design a beer label featuring hops in some sort of ridiculous context. Some brewers manage to marry the two in a cavalcade of hop-related inanity. Scan the shelves of your local bottle shop, and you’re likely to see an assortment of cringe-worthy hop names and outright silly hop labels. Abiding these labels is a necessary evil for an Alehead. Yes, they’re kind of stupid. And yes, you feel like a dipshit when you have to order something called a “Total Eclipse of the Hop” in a bar. But such labels and names remind us that the heroes that brew our beer aren’t marketing or PR geniuses. They don’t worry about what beer names appeal to the widest demographic or what shade of red will catch your eye fastest on a tap handle. They’re brewers, first and foremost. And brewers are notorious for their goofy senses of humor and lack of pretension. You may find hop puns to be eye-rollingly corny, but to the Aleheads, they’re just another indication that craft brewers are focusing on the right thing…what’s inside the bottle.* Read the rest of this entry »
This time of year, it is easy to be pessimistic about… well… everything. Over the last two months, society has just forced us to empty our pockets buying useless trinkets that none of our friends and loved ones really need (unless you bought them beer). New Years Eve is another opportunity to look back on how little you have really accomplished in the past year.
Posted by Herr Hordeum 
Slouch likes to talk about beer. Lew Bryson REALLY likes to talk about beer. They discuss his new “American Beer Blogger” Kickstarter project, the future of craft beer, the proposed changes to the Pennsylvania liquor laws and more.
