Friday November 20, 2009
With Thanksgiving here in the US just a week away and Christmas a little over a month away we are just about ready to enter the holiday season. This time of year brings lots of reasons to eat and drink well with friends and family and so it is time, once again, for me to admonish you to serve beer with your feasts. You know you want to and with a wider selection of beers available today than ever before, not to mention the great holiday seasonals that are hitting the beer store shelves, you simply don't have an excuse not to. Make it beer this year!
Friday November 20, 2009
There seems to be a growing trend of brewers looking locally or even in their own backyards for brewing ingredients. While most craft and regional brewers don't have the resources to produce a complete estate beer like Sierra Nevada, a lot are looking closer to home for their ingredients. Locally grown hops and barley offer a lot of advantages - lower shipping costs, supporting the local economy, sustainability issuses and consumers tend to like the idea. But does it really make a difference in the glass?
I'm not saying that the trend should be stopped or even slowed. I'm all for it for the reasons listed above but I don't see that it really makes a difference in the taste or quality of the beer itself. At least it hasn't been demonstrated to me. Does wheat grown in Wisconsin really taste different in beer than wheat grown in Belgium? Would hops grown in Germany create a remarkably different beer from it's clone grown in Yakima?
I don't know. It would add an interesting, new dimension to beer if that were the case.
Tuesday November 17, 2009
I'm a big fan of coffee stout. It was one the first styles I homebrewed and I always grab a six pack of it when I notice a new one at the beer store - an increasingly rare event. And here might be the reason why.
The FDA sent a letter to nearly thirty makers of caffeinated alcohol products. It basically said that this particular combination has never been deemed safe and is, therefore, unsafe. The companies have 30 days to prove that the FDA actually did call the combo safe sometime in the past or they will have to stop making and selling the stuff.
Presumably, this came about because of the drinks made by putting energy drinks together with every type of alcohol from light lager to vodka, which I've never tried. But my beloved coffee stout and any other beer brewed with caffeine are included. The press release points out that any amount of caffeine counts. And the list of beverage companies that received letters includes Ithaca Beer Company because of their coffee sweet stout, Eleven.
So, where will this end up? I have no idea. The press release from the FDA seems pretty firm but that could just be the way these things go. Even if there is a dangerous side effect to ingesting huge amounts of caffeine with alcohol it seems some percentage would be allowable.
The other alternative would be decaf coffee stout but that's starting to sound too much like an annoying order at Starbucks.
Friday November 13, 2009
Did you know that a six pack of beer survived the crash of the Hindenburg? For a long time hardly anyone did. When fire fighter Leroy Smith found the six bottles of Lowenbrau beer and a silver pitch among the wreckage he hid them. Later he gave five of the bottles to colleagues.
Most of the beer has been lost to history. But Leroy's bottle survives along with the pitcher. Both are being auctioned with the beer expected to fetch £5k and the pitcher £12k.
