It's rare that I jump into the fray on "hot news" where the blogosphere is concerned.  Put simply, everything that needs to be said has generally already been said on a given topic.  However, certain writing will occasionally raise my ire to such a degree that it simply merits a response.  So, I'll capitulate from being ensconced in my ivory tower by coming down and opening myself to critical comments by defending a craft brewer.  Who would of thought anyone would actually have to do that? As you have no doubt heard, BrewDog has now made the world's strongest beer at 32% ABV.  Of course, if naysayers would have it, it's not technically beer at all.  More on that in a moment.  My real problem is not with intelligent dialogue on the topic, it is with dismissive and percile logic used on posts like the one that has elicited my response. The amount of assumptions and lack of thorough intelligence is singularly lopsided as far as this gent is concerned.  Roger Protz is apparently the world's leading beer authority and a very intelligent fellow, but what he wrote will not do and is not enough to convince anybody who is not already of his disposition. ...

Even as I'm writing this, I fully realize that writing a series on yeast is of particular interest to homebrewers. Nevertheless, I'm still hoping that numerous people will find this to be an interesting posting series.  Let me mention briefly how I arrived at the idea for this series, and then, contrary to what might seem to be the more diachronic option, I'll explain what the series is going to be. I've recently grown weary of my attempts to find anything out about some particular yeast strains. For instance, I recently tried to investigate wlp655 (White Lab's Sour Mix).  White Lab basically repeats on their website the information that is on their tube, which is frustrating.  Almost every site that I searched pretty much quoted the White Lab site.  Don't get me wrong, White Labs makes good yeast, but the functionality and resourcefulness of their website stinks.  As for their chart, I know that people might think that looking at it would be helpful.  Yet, even the information on that is fairly limited. The other way to find out about the yeast performance is to search through a Cambridge University student's doctoral dissertation on a particular yeast strain.  Believe me when I ...

Let me be clear.  I refuse to denigrate (i.e., blacken...pun intended) the reputation of the Bruery.  Their beers are first rate and high class.  My aim is not at all to criticize them in this post.  I will certainly make some critical statements, but they do not reflect my thoughts about the Bruery itself. ***WARNING*** this is a rant. Do you ever attend beer events?  If you have been to one, you will probably know exactly what I'm talking about.  If you haven't, prepare yourself to eventually meet some of the people I'm about to describe. What the hell is wrong with people?  Seriously!  Like many others, I'd been planning to attend the Black Tuesday festivities for some time.  All is well and good.  Through personal correspondance, website information, and personal admonition, it was pretty easy to ascertain that Patrick and company did not want visitors to show up to the brewery until 4:30 or after.  It was courtesy to their neighbors that ilicitated the request from the Bruery.  But some people are simply habitual line steppers...literally (but more on that in a moment).  Sometimes the thing that makes beerfests, events, and occasions horrible is the people that show up to them. As an ...

Relax, beanie weenies...I'm not talking about anyone's junk in this article.  Once again, I'm actually ranting a bit, a not too surprising denouement to this literary plot called life.  No, I want to address something that I think all of us beer drinkers experiences from time to time: selection.  When I say selection, I mean going out to a place with a bunch of beers on tap.  I know that I used to get really excited when I would hear about/be heading to a place with a ton of beers on tap. Now I'm not as excited as I used to be.  Why?  Well, there is a place down the road from me (5 minute walking distance) that has well over 100 beers on tap (in fact, a major chunk of their motto is "World's Largest Selection of Draft Beer").  I've read some reviews of the place, and the beer selection is always referred to as "awesome," except for a "good," which stated that price was the issue. So, why am I up in arms about it?  Because I went there.  I walked into this bustling beertropolis of a place and started eying my way around the taps...and became a little distraught. ...

I was watching something a while back.  I think it was a movie but can't remember which one.  That's not important.  What is important is the heinous event that I saw on this movie.  So, I'm watching people hang out, drinking Budweiser.  This is already bad enough... but money talks and the the big breweries get their ad placements and endorsements everywhere because of the dolla (holla if you hear me!).  I can let that slide because they are being good capitalists, even if it is almost a monopoly in the market. Like I said, I'm watching these people hang out and get their Budweisers to drink.  What happened next is what I found irritating.  Budweiser is building the perception (through their product placement) that drinking and hanging out equals fun.  Fair enough, I think that myself.  But then I saw it.  I saw a bottle opener being used on the Budweiser twist off cap.  Coincidence?  Maybe.  A bad representation?  Definitely. Am I being petty?  Most assuredly.  Yet, some nagging feeling makes me feel justified in my pettiness.  Most people watching the movie see someone taking off a cap and drinking a beer.  I see the bottle opener opening a twist ...

Recently, I've bought a couple beers that explicitly told me not to cellar them.  Pliny the Elder from Russian River and 13th Anniversary Ale from Stone are the two that I'm thinking of specifically.  On the bottle, they make it seem shameful that one even has the idea to cellar their products. What do these beers have in common?  I believe that the hop factor is the real answer.  It is semi-understandable that they want their product to have the fresh hoppiness that they intended when making it.  Hop acids degrade over time, so their essential oils break down and recede.  On the other hand, the practice of increasing hops in a beer was originally intended to lengthen the life of the beer.  Hops are a preservative and antiseptic.  So I want to make myself clear when I say that whether or not you cellar a beer is a matter of preference, provided the beer fits the criteria of being cellarable.  It is extremely annoying to me when the manufacturer tells me to do this or that with their beer. I've been cellaring beer for about 5 or 6 years now and know how they can blossom over time.  All these IPAs ...

Disclaimer: This is not directed at anyone in particular. Don't be self-absorbed and think that I'm talking specifically about you. I'm always critical of the person who exclusively drinks macro beer. In fact, I can be critical of someone who drinks them with any regularity. Now that I work in a liquor store, I've observed a phenomenon. Mr. Regular comes in and buys the same old beer every time. He walks in and grabs Natural Light. He knows exactly where it's at, how much it costs and has the exact change. "Put it in a bag," he says. Who can blame him? I would hide it, too. What else can he be doing but hiding the fact that he bought worthless beer for the purpose of inebriation? It can't be that he really believes that walking out a liquor store won't be perceived as buying beer, so long as he has it in a bag. This article is not really about that; let people have bags if they want to feel fancy or do it out of habit. All I can say is that if variety is the spice ...

Does anyone listen to the radio? I try to avoid it like the plague. Why? I'm tired of hearing the same old songs. Now that everybody else is tired of hearing the same old songs, there's a new brilliant idea that has come up: remake the same old songs with different people. Let's hear their deconstructionist interpretation of an already overdone (and sometimes crappy) song. What's worse is that the new artist (in the majority of cases) makes an old, good song terrible. I heard a Moody Blues remake the other day that made me puke...metaphorically, of course. But it's become intolerable. Even worse, teens hear this "new" song and are completely ignorant of the original artist. I see some analogous things happening in the beer world. Luckily, this is not strictly true for everything. I'm not an iconoclast by any means when it comes to beer. However, I do like something new or a new spin on an old style. If I had a brewery, I think that I'd mix between making good versions of traditional styles, spins on old styles, and real boundary pushers. Some breweries, like ...

While the proposed Oregon beer tax is somewhat old news by now, it has been burning on the tips of my fingertips just waiting to find its way to the screen of this blog.  I can resist no longer.  With gaps in the state budget, Oregon came up with a plan to create instant revenue.  As with any "get rich quick" schemes, the levy was full of holes. Sen. Bill Morrisette (D) of Springfield concocted drafted a proposal for a bill that would increase the statewide tax on beer leaving the brewery by 1900%.  No, my fat fingers didn't mistakenly depress the "9" and "0" key at the same time, Senator Morrisette really did propose a 1900% tax increase.  As I read up on the proposed legislation, I became perturbed.  I stopped and asked myself, "Am I annoyed simply because this has to deal with beer?"  That is, had the Senator been taxing something irrelevant to me; say, cigarettes, would I still be up in arms as the tax would not affect me?  Yes, i believe so. Besides the fact that the Rothbardian in me feigns state controlled revenue in most situations, there are times that I feel taxation is justified.  But ...

Bear with me while I vent...this post follows in the tradition of Mike's "I've been randomly annoyed" posts. On the drive to work today I tuned into a radio station based out of Detroit.  I listened as the DJ's hailed St. Patrick's day as "the best holiday all year 'cause we can drink beer for breakfast!!!!"  They were on sight at some pub--I didn't catch the name--and were putting down green brewskis at 7:30 in the morning.  One of the DJ's walked around the "pub" (it was one of these pubs) asking guys and gals alike to share there greatest sexual fantasy publicly.  Keep in mind this is being broadcast to millions of listeners in Detroit, Northwestern Ohio, and Windsor Canada.  Are you serious!?!?  Were the historical St. Patrick to visit us from his eternal resting place today, he would weep at how his name and work is being honored! I was disheartened, and quickly tuned the dial to talk radio. Anyone who reads this blogs knows that I never discourage intelligent beer consumption, but today's holiday removes the "intelligent" from beer consumption.  What kills me is the historical disregard concerning St.Patrick's day...a day set aside to honor an upright and moral man ...