Category Archives: Taps – Beer

July 17, 2014 · 10:52 am

Great American Beer Festival tickets go on sale; steps taken to curb scalpers

GABF_Logo_LRG_V_RGBBy Alan J. Wax

It’s just about that time of year, again. And you’ll have to act quickly.

Tickets for the annual Great American Beer Festival (GABF), to be held Oct. 2-4 in Denver, go on sale July 30 at Noon (EDT) via Ticketmaster.com. And event organizers are taking steps to curb scalpers who may have contributed in past years to the event’s sellout in a matter of minutes.

Members of the Brewers Association and the American Homebrewers Association may buy up to two advance tickets until July 20. Admission to the Saturday, Oct. 4 afternoon session will be AHA and BA member, but the number of tickets is limited.

Tickets are $80 per session. Designated driver tickets are $25.

The scene at 2103 GABF (Brewers Association photo)

The scene at 2103 GABF (Brewers Association photo)

Last year, general admission tickets to the nation’s biggest beer event sold out in just 20 minutes and a sellout this year is expected again. Last year’s sell out led to speculatation that scalpers were attempting to corner the market.

GABF organizers said on the event‘s web site that they are attempting to deal with scalpers.

This year, general admission ticket buyers will be limited to four tickets and organizers further stated: “Unfortunately, the secondary market for popular tickets persists, despite many efforts to thwart it …There are measures in place to decrease access for scalpers, including the ticket limits that we set for GABF ticket purchases and Ticketmaster’s anti-bot and other security measures in their selling system. (Ticketmaster reviews all purchases to enforce our GABF ticket limits.) Again, though, while this decreases access, it unfortunately does not prevent a secondary market. To ensure you have a valid ticket, purchase tickets from authorized outlets only.”

The festival at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver is expected to draw up to 49,000 attendees over four sessions who will have the opportunity to sample almost 3,000 beers from about 700 U.S. breweries.

 

 

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July 15, 2014 · 3:59 pm

They’re all beer aficionados on this bus

Brew Bus

Getting aboard The South Florida Brew Bus near the Funky Buddha.

A group of South Floridians discover their region’s breweries and beers with a chartered bus tour.

By Alan J. Wax

It began and ended in Boca Raton, Florida. For more than eight hours, starting on a recent sunny, Saturday afternoon and finishing mid-evening, 24 craft-beer loving South Floridians traipsed through five brewery tasting rooms, traveling from one to another aboard a luxury livery dubbed the South Florida Brew Bus, sampling dozens of beers at each—and more onboard.

Tour organizer Melissa Nowak at Wynwood Brewry

Tour organizer Melissa Nowak at Wynwood Brewery in Miami.

The beer lovers were among the 500-plus members of the Boca Brews Meet Up Group. The tour was organized by the group’s leader, Melissa Nowak, a former paralegal and Maryland expat now living in Boca Raton. A diverse collection of men and women — Baby Boomers, Gen Xers and Millennials, Boca Brews meets monthly at different venues to quaff their favorite beverage and socialize.

The Brew Bus is affiliated with the Funky Buddha Brewery, which is in Oakland Park, Florida’s budding Culinary Arts District and, which highly regarded for its full-flavored, eclectic beers. Funky Buddha, the region’s largest brewer, started in Boca Raton, where it still operates a lounge and small-scale brewing operation.

I happened to be in Florida when a Boca Brews bus tour was scheduled and decided to join  the fun. Many of the breweries are in out-of-the way locations and the idea of visiting them without having to drive was appealing.

We departed from Miller’s East Boca Ale House in Boca Raton, with Funky Buddha Brewery our first destination. On board, cans of Brew Bus beer, brewed by Cigar City Brewing in Tampa were passed around—along with pretzels and cookies. I found myself with a can of Rolling Dirty, an Irish-style red ale with a big malt backbone and a good dose of hops.

The breweries and their beers

Funky Buddha Brewery in Oakland Park

Funky Buddha Brewery in Oakland Park

The exterior of the Funky Buddha is deceptive, looking much like a store in a strip mall. Inside, however, there’s a cavernous tasting room and, of course, the brewing operation.  Since brewers can’t serve food under Florida law, a food truck sits outside. There are numerous beers on tap, but its possible to select a few for a custom flight. Servers write each beer’s name in white chalk on your paddle.  Opting for an eclectic selection of brews I was not disappointed.  Vanilla Cream Abdul Jabar Ale showed just enough vanilla to make it interesting—a cream soda kissed by hops. No Crusts, a brown ale with peanut butter and jelly, was interesting with its distinct, but balanced bready, peanut and fruit notes, but too sweet for more than a sampler-sized glass. Chocolate Covered Cherry Porter was tasty, but hardly summery with its strong bitter chocolate and roasted-grain character and undertones of cherries. Floridian Gone Wild is the brewery’s popular wheat beer turned into a tart, but soft refresher.

Mack House Interior

Inside The Mack House, Davie, FL

Back on the bus for a short hop to Mack House in Davie, Florida, home to the Holy Mackerel nano brewery. The tasting room-cum-college-dorm lounge, tucked away in a strip mall on the service road of I-595, offered a handful of interesting beers and some less so. The easy drinking Bowling Alley Blonde seemed to be an entry-level, session brew with its low hop bitterness and a sweet, soft malt character. The golden-hued Downpour IPA offered balanced bready malts and a resiny hop character. The best-selling Psycho Fish, a cloudy orange-colored, orange-infused, intensely flavored Belgian tripel was a delight with its estery Belgian yeast notes, bright orange flavor and notes of bubble gum. Mack in Black, a dark, strong Belgian-style ale was opaque and stoutish with roasty notes. Panic con Pablo is a copper-colored ale infused with a blend of coffee from a local coffee shop called Café Don Pablo Gourmet Coffee; too intensely coffee flavored for my palate.

Inside the Abbey Brewing, South Beach

Inside the Abbey Brewing, South Beach

Onward to South Beach’s only brew pub, Abbey Brewing, which contract brews its four house-designed offerings at Indian River Brewing Co./Florida Beer Co.  in Melbourne, Florida. Appearing bit rustic for this glitzy neighborhood, it offers more guest beers than those with its own tap handle. On a recommendation, I sampled Immaculate IPA, a copper-hued brew more in the style of an English ESB with notes of malt, fruity esters and more than a hint of hop bitterness.

Inside Titanic Brewing, Coral Gables

Titanic Brewing, Coral Gables

Stop No. 4: Coral Gables, home to Titanic Brewery and Restaurant, the Miami area’s first brew pub, located opposite the University of Miami Hurricanes’ baseball stadium. Titanic’s beers, not surprisingly are mostly British influenced and nautical themed, a sampler of six generally well-made brews cost just $6. Triple Screw Light Ale, a 4% abv German style ale, was more like a Pilsner than a Kolsch with its grainy, low-hopped character.

Captain Smith’s Rye Ale, an amber brew was deep brown, round, fruity and spicy from the malted rye in the grain bill. White Star India Pale Ale is a copper-hued Anglo-American ale made with Cascade hopes and British ale yeast. Loaded with juicy malt character along with citrus notes it was smooth, creamy brew.Britannic Best Bitter, a British styled ESB was amber hued with a fruity, malty and floral hop character.  Boiler Room Nut Brown Ale, also quite British in style, was a translucent reddish brown, creamy, grainy and a finish that was somewhat short.Shipbuilders Oatmeal Stout, deep brown with an oily character, it seemed thin bodied with an exceptionally dry finish.

Wynwood Brewing in Miami's Wynwood Arts District

Wynwood Brewing, Miami

Our final destination was the Wynwood Brewery, Miami’s first production brewery, located in the Wynwood Arts District, just east of Interstate 95 on a street lined with single-level warehouses tagged with graffiti. Having had a couple of Wynwood’s brews before and been disappointed, I was pleasantly surprised by Wynwood’s Fox, an imperial/double red with a deep russet hue, crisp and flavorful with big malt character and enough hops to suggest and IPA. I was, however, annoyed by the 12-oz. plastic cup and the $8 tariff.

Abbey Brewing Co., 1115 16th St., Miami Beach, FL 33139, (305) 538-8110.
 
Funky Buddha Brewery, 1201 NE 38th St, Oakland Park, FL 33334 (954) 440-0046.

The Mack House (Holy Mackerel Nano Brewery), 9118 W. State Road 84, Davie, FL 33324 (954) 474-5040.

Titanic Brewing Co., 5813 Ponce De Leon Blvd, Coral Gables, FL 33146 (305) 667-2537.

Wynwood Brewing Co., 565 NW 24th St, Miami, FL 33127 (305) 982-8732.

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July 5, 2014 · 10:00 am

Saranac’s new Single Malt brew will appeal to whiskey and beer aficionados

Label for Saranac Single Malt Scottish Ale

Label for Saranac Single Malt Scottish Ale

Scottish ale aged in single-malt Scotch whiskey barrels.

By Alan J. Wax

A recently released beer from the F.X. Matt Brewing Co. could be a beer for Scotch whiskey aficionados or, perhaps, a Scotch for beer drinkers.

The beer, called Saranac Single Malt is a strong Scotch ale – a one-off, limited edition brew that’s part of the Utica, New York-based brewer’s Saranac High Peaks series targeted to beer geeks.

Matt, established 126 years ago, besides being known for its Utica Club American lager and its line of Saranac beers, produced since 1985, is a big contract brewer whose customers over the years have included Brooklyn Brewery, Boston Beer Co., Harpoon Brewery, Kirkland (Costco) and numerous other labels that have since vanished into oblivion.

The Matt brewery, now ranked No. 11 in terms of sales volume among U.S. craft brewers, appears to have taken a step forward with this new release from its long-time aping of product lines of other brewers, among them Samuel Adams.

Like many beers on the market these days, Saranac Single Malt is aged in wood, but instead of Bourbon barrels, F.X. Matt aged its high gravity (9% abv) Scotch ale aged in hundred-year-old whiskey barrels from the Tomintoul-Glenlivet Distillery, a somewhat off-the-radar whiskey producer in Ballindalloch, in the Speyside region of Scotland. Its unpeated whiskey rarely is seen as a single malt; most of Tomintoul’s output goes into blended whiskies. Previously, the barrels were used to age Sherry wine. Matt started aging the beer almost a year ago on the oak.

“In our mind, the barrels are 125 years old!,” Fred Matt, president and 3rd generation owner, said in a press release.  “In all seriousness though, they are very close to that.  Imagine how much character is in this beer between our brewing history and the history of these barrels.  We’ll say 125 years worth of character.”

The beer offers an enticing nutty, caramel, scotch whiskey aroma and on the palate there are rich, sweet malt with undeniable Scotch Whiskey-like, oak, fruit and sherry notes.

To be sure, Matt is not the first brewer to go the Scotch whiskey barrel route. Two years ago, Schafly Brewing Co. in St. Louis released its own whisky–aged beer called Single Malt Scottish Ale (what else?) to mark its 21st anniversary. Schafly used emptied Highland Scotch whisky barrels from the Glen Garioch Distillery.

If nothing else, Saranac Single Malt demonstrates Matt is capable of producing a beer that can appeal to aficionados. Indeed, old dogs can learn new tricks.

 

 

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June 19, 2014 · 10:17 pm

Random ingredients, beer styles drawn from a hat, are the focus of a club’s unusual homebrewing competition

Jaclynn Brandi ready to pour beers at homebrewers group competition,

Jaclynn Brandi ready to pour beers at homebrewers group competition,

Inspired by Food Network’s “Chopped,” a homebrew club’s members concoct some beers with unusual flavors. Stout with vanilla and Mexican chilies tops them all.

By Alan J. Wax

Borrowing a page from the Food Network show “Chopped,” a Long Island homebrew club sponsored an unusual brewing competition that required entrants to brew a beer using key ingredients drawn from a hat.

The competition run by Long Island Beer and Malt Enthusiasts involved the brewing of various beer styles with random, often-unlikely ingredient combinations, testing the creativity of those involved.

LIBME logoThe contest got underway in early March, when ten teams were formed and a drawing held to determine who would brew a particular style and what flavors were to be added to each brew.

The combinations:

– Porter with wood chips and chocolate

– Amber ale with smoked malt and cherries

– Brown ale with tea and blueberries.

– Black rye ale with ginger and cinnamon

– Pale ale with coconut and blackberries

– IPA with hot peppers and peaches

– ESB with honey and coffee

– Rye IPA with orange peel and basil.

– Roggenbier with raspberries and licorice root

– Stout with vanilla and Mexican chilies.

Brewing ensued in April and club members judged the resulting beers at a June meeting using drinking pleasure as their guide instead of BJCP style guidelines. The winning beer is to be brewed at Great South Bay Brewery in Bay Shore, New York.

Some of the teams took liberties, One used Sambuca and Chambord liquors instead of licorice and raspberries, while others used such exotic additions as avocado honey, Ethiopian coffee, and ghost pepper chilies—among the hottest on the planet.

My team, led by Brian Giebel, a research chemist with a PhD and aspirations of becoming a professional brewer, concocted an Earl Gray-tea infused English brown ale with blueberries.  After an online team consultation about recipe formulation, the beer was made at Giebel’s garage-turned-home brewery in Smithtown, New York. Our recipe included 9 pounds of Maris Otter malt, 12 oz. of Special Roast malt and 8 oz. each of crystal 40L, Victory and chocolate malt and just 2 oz. of East Kent Golding hops. One-third oz. of Earl Gray team in a mesh bag was added at flame out for 5 minutes. Two pounds of frozen blueberries were added to the secondary after two weeks of fermenting with rehydrated SAF04 yeast.  The berries sat in the secondary for about 20 days and the beer was then kegged.

Despite my participation, the beer we produced was not my favorite – and not my least. I felt the Early Gray tea added astringency.  Giebel said he was pleased with our beer, noting that he would’ve left it home were he unhappy.

My favorite, however, was the porter with chocolate and wood chips, which finished third. Its brewers, led by Thomas Fox, who worked at Chelsea Brewing in New York City, substituted chocolate malt for the confection and used cherry wood chips soaked in Sailor Jerry spiced rum.  The flavors were reminiscent of a Black Forest cake.
Close behind, at least for me, was the pale ale with toasted coconut, blackberries and and raspberries. Though the berry flavor wasn’t pronounced, the beer’s biscuity malt and coconut notes reminded me of a coconut macaroon cookie.

Competition organizer Chris Kelly and his team brewed a rye IPA flavored with orange peel and basil along with Amarillo and Citra hops. It scored third.

The vanilla and pepper infused stout was the crowd favorite, finishing first.

Other brews were less successful. The Sambuca and Chambord infused beer came across as a high-alcohol beer cocktail that was undrinkable in my opinion.

“I was looking for an excuse to get people together to brew,” Kelly said explaining the rationale for the unusual competition. Working with Andrew Luberto, a national BJCP judge, he fine tuned the idea. He said the group would hold a similar competition again, adding that he hopes to improve on the concept.

 

 

 

 

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May 16, 2014 · 5:09 pm

Traditional Belgian Brewers in uproar over proliferation of ‘fake’ brewers

Leboucq

Leboucq

Van Roy

Van Roy

Herteleer

Herteleer

A group of traditional Belgian brewers are in an

uproar over the proliferation of contract beers now being produced in a nation where beer has long been revered as

Minne

Minne

part of its national heritage. They claim consumers are being defrauded and the image of artisanal Belgian beer is being tarnished.

In a letter published by the Le Soir newspaper, the brewers group blasts contract producers as “fake brewers” and warns that “one of the last of our national treasures, is in great danger” as a result of their proliferation.

The brewers also issued a call for laws requiring beer labels to state the name of the brewery where a beer was produced and to allow only producers with brewing equipment to use the term brewery.

The Belgian brewers’ protest is similar to the complaints often aired by American craft brewers and comsumers who have made contract brewing a hot button issue

The text of the 1,200-word letter, written in French, was translated by the Belgian Beer and Food magazine. The original can be found here.

The protesting brewers, some well known, described what they called “fake” brewers as “marketing enterprises, who sell beers they have not themselves produced, while passing themselves off more or less openly as real brewers.”

The letter writers, including the owners of Brasserie de la Senne, Brasserie Cantillon, Brasserie de Bastogne, and Brouwerij De Dolle Brouwers, claimed that a new brewery opens every 15 days in Belgium, but that three-quarters of these producers are breweries only in name. They claim these new beer producers lack experience, training, or both and are supported by “splendid” websites and social media that have garnered a wealth of TV coverage and press. Some of these new brewers buy equipment, ostensibly for show, they alleged.

The letter writers said they are shocked that the contract brewers deny the notion of craft. “The world they inhabit has no need of the brewer in the traditional meaning of the word.” They said these brewers simply are about marketing.

Contract brewing, the protesters noted, is hardly a new phenomenon. “Beers with names that are familiar to the general public have been sold by fake brewers for years,” they said. But, “the situation has become more serious in recent years, with the manipulation of the consumer through the media reaching unprecedented levels.”

Indeed, Corsendonk, a brand long imported into the U.S.— currently by St. Killian Importing— hasn’t had its own brewery since 1953. Brasserie Du Bocq produces Corsendonk.

Moreover, the brewers group said, because only a few contract brewers produce so much of the new beer, the taste of Belgian beer could be standardized. The breweries who produce these contract beers “inevitably put their own stamp on everything they produce,” the letter stated, adding, “In time, the words “Made in Belgium” on a label will be stripped of all meaning, since the beer in the bottle may well have been manufactured by experts who might as well be situated anywhere on the planet, and marketed by salesmen who have turned impersonation into an economic model.”

Belgian contract brewers include Heineken owned Affligem, Verhaeghe, Abbaye du Val Dieu, Brasserie Silly and Brasserie Dupont, according to Belgium-Mapped-Out.com.

The brewers said regulators in their so-called beer paradise have done nothing to protect traditional brewers and called on politicians to enact laws requiring transparency on beer labels listing the brewery in which a beer is produced and that only businesses owning brewing equipment be allowed to use the term brewery.

Sébastien Morvan and Olivier de Brauwere of Brussels Beer Project

Sébastien Morvan and Olivier de Brauwere of Brussels Beer Project support the brewers’ legislative aims.

At least one upstart contract brewer has responded. The Brussels Beer Project, a crowd-funded brewer that currently constructing a micro-brewery, but now produces its beers are Bier Anders in Liege, said it supports the traditional brewers’ legislative aims. But, writing on its their home page, the brewery’s owners, Olivier de Brauwere and Sébastien Morvan, also said, “We do not believe that the sector is currently in ‘serious danger’, particularly not from new brewing initiatives. To the contrary, we are gladdened by the renewed energy they bring.”

The start-up brewers said they make no apologies for doing contract brewing or using crowd funding for financing or for their reliance on social media, which they described as being “a fresh, contemporary and interactive medium, on top of being free! … we are proud to convey our message about beer in a different way.“ Moreover, they said, “We create recipes inspired by Belgian tradition just as much as New World influences.”

The letter was signed by Yvan De Baets and Bernard Leboucq, Brasserie de la Senne; Jean Van Roy, Brasserie Cantillon; Catherine and Philippe Minne, Brasserie de Bastogne; Kris Herteleer, Brouwerij De Dolle Brouwers; Pierre Tilquin, Gueuzerie Tilquin; Alexandre Dumont, Brasserie Jandrain-Jandrenouille; Pierre-Alex, Marie-Noëlle and Kevin Carlier, Brasserie de Blaugies; Jef Van den Steen, Brouwerij de Glazen Toren; Pierre Jacob, Brasserie Saint-Monon, Marc-Antoine De Mees, Brasserie Brunehaut; Luc Festjens, Brouwerij Den Toetëlèr; Pierre Gobron, Brasserie Les 3 Fourquets;  Gregory Verhelst, Brasserie de Rulles; Kristof Vandenbussche, Brouwerij Fort Lapin; Laurent Agache, Brasserie de Cazeau, and  others.

Where do you stand on this issue?

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May 3, 2014 · 10:28 pm

High on the hog at Craft Beer and Pork Festival at the Topping Rose House

Bacon and chicharrones

Bacon and chicharrones

Executive chef Ty Kotz slices porchetta.

Executive chef Ty Kotz slices porchetta.

The boys of Crooked Ladder Brewing.

The boys of Crooked Ladder Brewing.

Sausages

Sausages

So full.

That’s how I felt as I left the Topping Rose House in Bridgehampton, Long Island, having sampled just more than two dozen local brews and an eye-popping buffet of pork dishes.

It had been a very pleasurable, sunny May 3 afternoon at the Craft Beer and Pork Fest put on by the Topping Rose, a small luxury hotel and restaurant operated by celebrity chef Tom Colicchio.

There was not a bad beer among those poured by a coterie of area brewers—Crooked Ladder, Great South Bay, Greenport Harbor, Montauk, Moustache and Southampton Publick House. In fact, every beer worked incredibly well with the Topping Rose’s chow. And, it was also my first opportunity to sip the brews of Crooked Ladder, a nine-month-old microbrewery in Downtown Riverhead.

But, there was no doubt that the food was the star of the event.

Indeed, chef de cuisine Kyle Koenig, who instigated the event with his beverage director wife, Jessica, remarked that attendees, about a hundred by my guess, were focused more on the food rather than the beer.

It was hard not to.

On each table, a bowl of house-made chicharrones and a vase with crisp strips of bacon tempted sippers as sweet smoke drifted into the Topping Rose’s catering space from the pool deck, where executive chef Ty Kotz was overseeing the grilling of four kinds of house-made sausages, split pork shoulder and pork shawarma—all bursting with flavor.

I was completely enthralled by the spicy, roasted porchetta, which Koenig said was spiced after a walk through the kitchen’s spice closet, pork belly marinated in Indian spices and a zesty French garlic sausage.  A house-made pate, meanwhile, matched delightfully with Greenport Harbor’s Curvaison, a bottled brew made with 2011 Martha Clara Vineyards sauvignon blanc grapes.

And the only non-pork edibles — Montauk pearl oysters from the Montauk Shellfish Co.— were a big wet French kiss from the sea, deliciously cold, briny and fresh and a perfect foil for any of a number of IPAs available.

Besides Greenport’s Curvaison, I found several other brews particularity noteworthy, among them Moustache Brewing’s easy drinking Milk and Honey Brown Ale, Crooked Ladder’s well-balanced 70 West IPA, Southampton’s Maibock and Great South Bay’s reformulated summer sipper Blonde Ambition.

And I had another unexpected find, the locally produced, hand-crafted Miss Lady Root Beer, produced in Amagansett by Rowdy Hall manager Theo Foscolo using sarsaparilla, licorice root, anise, honey, brown sugar and raw sugar, and molasses. Very different and, after all that beer, refreshing.

All in all, not a bad way to spend a May Saturday afternoon. Let’s hope Topping Rose does it again next year.

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April 30, 2014 · 12:45 pm

Long Island craft beer and pork in all its glory at a Bridgehampton fest on May 3

 

Topping Rose House in Bridgehampton, NY

Topping Rose House in Bridgehampton, NY

Topping Rose House, the small, but tony Bridgehampton hotel and restaurant built in 1842 and now overseen by celebrity chef Tom Colicchio, is joining forces with a handful of Long Island breweries May 3 for a Pork & Craft Beer Festival.

Colicchio’s 75-seat farm-to-table restaurant features produce grown on the property’s one-acre Topping Rose Farm as well ingredients from other local farmers and fishermen.

We’re not just talking about pork BBQ and sausages, though there’ll be five kinds of house-made sausages available. Food offerings will include sliders; chicharrones and bacon; charcuterie, terrines and rillettes including prosciutto Americana from La Quercia, an Iowa producer that uses heritage breeds; hand-carved pork belly schwarma, Montauk pearl oysters, potato rolls and pretzels, along with local vegetables. DeBragga, the well-known New York City meat wholesaler, is supplying the event with Niman Ranch pork.

Beers will be poured by Southampton Publick House, Great South Bay Brewery, of Bay Shore; Moustache Brewing Co., Long Ireland Brewing and, Crooked Ladder, all of Riverhead; Port Jeff Brewing Co. and Montauk Brewing Co.

The event is the brainchild of Topping Rose House chef de cuisine Kyle Koenig and his wife, Jessica, the restaurant’s beverage director, who’ve spent time sampling the local brews.

The event opens to VIP ticketholders at Noon and at 1 p.m. for those with general admission tickets and goes until 4 p.m.

Topping Rose House, 1 Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike,  Bridgehampton. (631) 537-0870. For more information or to reserve a space, email: mpoore@craftrestaurant.com

 

 

 

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April 23, 2014 · 4:52 pm

Brewers Association lists 5 new beer styles in just released 2014 guidelines

BA_logo-185Five new beer styles are contained in the Brewers Association’s (BA) newly revised beer style guidelines.

The guidelines, dated March 10, were announced publicly on April 22 in an Examiner.com blog by BA president Charlie Papazian on April 22, almost two weeks since the conclusion of the annual Craft Brewers Conference in Denver, Colorado. Last year, the guidelines were announced in a BA press release a month prior to annual brewers gathering. The BA is a trade group for America’s small and independent craft brewers

The new styles announced are: Belgian-Style Fruit Beer, Australian-Style Pale Ale (spun off from Australasian-Style Pale Ale), Asian-Style Pale Ale (spun off from Australasian-Style Pale Ale), Dutch-Style Kuit (Kuyt, Koyt), Historical Beer (previous part of Indigenous beer) and Wild Beer

In addition, there were substantial revisions to the guidelines for American-Style Fruit Beer and Herb and Spice Beer.

All of the latest guidelines were rewritten to follow a standard format of appearance, aroma, flavor, body, etc., Papazian wrote in his posting. “This format follows the sensory experience,” he explained. “Many style groups were reorganized within historical groups in an order of roughly increasing original gravity and alcohol content. Also, style origins were clarified

BA  guidelines are often changed and new styles get added to the list with almost regularity. But when the BA published its 2013 guidelines  early that year – prior to the annual Craft Brewers Conference – for the Polish beer style Grodzisz, or Grodziske or Grätzer, they set off a loud public debate over ingredients and origin that ultimately resulted in the BA revisiting the guidelines for that style and rewriting them.

Charlie Papazian

Charlie Papazian

Last year, amid the controversy, Papazian told me that the guidelines, which are used to judge beers at the Great American Beer Festival and the World Beer Cup, are constantly evolving and that in any give year only a couple of style definitions might be tweaked or as many as a dozen. “The trick is to stay relevant,” he said, explaining that the guidelines try to reflect the innovation that is taking place in the brewing community while preserving traditional styles. “That can be a balancing act. People like to tinker around.”

Papazian with assistance from BA director Paul Gatza and BA technical director Chris Swersey using comments from GABF and World Beer Cup judges, essentially, wrote the guidelines as he has since 1979.

The new style definitions can be found in pdf format at the BA’s web site.

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April 12, 2014 · 2:02 pm

Coors, Oregon, California, Pennsylvania and Kansas brewers take top honors at largest-ever World Beer Cup awards

World Beer Cup awards awaiting presentation (Brewers Association photo)

World Beer Cup awards awaiting presentation (Brewers Association photo)

By Alan J. Wax

A small brewery in Oregon, a mid-sized California brewer and American beer giant Coors Brewing Co. each won top awards at the 2014 Brewers Association World Beer Cup awards, described by the group’s president as the “Olympics of beer competition.” Brewpubs in Pennsylvania and Kansas took home top honors in the brew pub category.

In all 284 awards were presented April 10 in Denver, where the bi-annual competition was conducted just prior to the annual Craft Brewers Conference. The awards were presented April 10 at the conclusion of Craft Brewers Conference.

The Boulder, Colo.-based Brewers Association (BA), the trade group representing America’s small and independent craft brewers, calls the World Beer Cup one of the world’s largest global commercial beer competitions. This year’ s competition drew 4,754 beers from over 1,403 breweries located in 58 countries – the largest number of entrants in the competition’s history.  “This was huge,” Chris Swerzey, competition director, said prior to announcing the awards.

Brewers from five continents earned awards from an international panel of judges at this 10th biennial competition, with brewers from 22 countries—ranging from Australia and Brazil to Taiwan and the United Kingdom—honored.

The judges awarded 281 out of 282 total possible awards, reflecting the chance for one gold, one silver and one bronze in each of 94 beer style categories.

This year’s event was particularly competitive, the BA said, noting that the proportion of winning breweries garnering one or more awards was 18 percent, compared to 27 percent in 2012. Only three breweries won more than one award; 26 took two awards and 226 won one award.

“Brewers from around the globe participate in the World Beer Cup to win recognition for their creativity and brewing skills,” said BA president Charlie Papazian. “For a brewer, a World Beer Cup gold award allows them to say that their winning beer represents the best of that beer style in the world.”

A panel of 219 judges from 31 countries working in teams conducted blind tasting evaluations of the beers to determine the awards. They included professional brewers and brewing industry experts; 76 percent were from outside the United States.

The category with the most entries was American-Style India Pale Ale, with 223 entries followed by American-Style Pale Ale, with 121 entries and Wood- and Barrel-Aged Strong Beer, with 111 entries.

The competition also presented Champion Brewery and Champion Brewmaster awards in each of five brewery categories based on the awards won by each brewery.

The 2014 five Champion Brewery/Brewmaster award winners were:

Small Brewing Company Category: Pelican Brewery of Pacific City, Ore; Darron Welch and Steve Panos

Mid-Size Brewing Company Category: Coronado Brewing Co. of Coranado Calif., near San Diego; Coronado Brewing Co. team.

Large Brewing Company Category: Coors Brewing, Golden, Colo.; Dr. David Ryder.

Small Brewpub Category: Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant, Media, Pa.; Iron Hill Brewery team.

Large Brewpub Category: Blind Tiger Brewery & Restaurant, Topeka, Kan.; John Dean.

The complete list of winners can be downloaded at the competition’s home page.

 

 

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April 10, 2014 · 3:35 pm

Brewers Association, wary of decline in quality, urges homebrewers-turned-pro to boost quality control

Audience at the 2014 Craft Brewers Conference in Denver

Audience at the 2014 Craft Brewers Conference in Denver
(Brewers Association photo)

By Alan J. Wax

The Brewers Association (BA) says its concerned about declining quality of craft beer.

Paul Gatza, director of the Brewers Association

Paul Gatza

Speaking on April 9 in Denver at the annual Craft Brewers Conference, BA director Paul Gatza said that while the number of breweries, beer production, revenues and exports have climbed, quality has fallen. The Boulder, Colo.-based BA sponsors the conference, which this year attracted about 9,000 attendees.

“It’s a big issue,” Gatza told a media teleconference from the gathering. “We hate to see this segment being brought down with people having bad experiences in their glass when they’re trying craft beer. They’re maybe less likely to try something new in the future if they are having a bad experience from the last brewery they tried.”

Earlier, speaking to the brewers, he told about  visiting a beer fest and sampling a number of poor quality offerings, Gatza told new craft brewers: “Don’t f*ck it up.”   

Gatza said some new professional brewers, among them former home brewers, are not putting out beer quality that reflects well on the whole industry.”

BA_logo-185“A lot of people start in this industry as homebrewers who are told by their friends that they’re making good beer and you should go pro,” Gatza said. “A lot of them do and they try to do it on a shoestring. Try to do it on a small level and get bigger. They get their licenses. They make their first commercial beer and their friends say this is so great. But in truth what people who really know about beer are finding [is] that a lot of these newer brewers are not putting out quality that reflects well on the whole craft community. There are some off flavors at times.

He urged the newcomers need to step back and spend more time on the science of beer making and urged them to use outside labs to measure bacteria counts and other benchmarks.

Not all the blame, he said, falls on the brewers and noted that some fault belongs to retailers who fail to clean their draft lines or don’t clean their glassware property.

Bart Watson

Bart Watson

Brewers Association economist Bart Watson, meanwhile told the conference that the industry’s growth streak continues. The stats are available in an online Power Point presentation.

Craft brewing volume grew 18 percent, to 15.6 million barrels in 2013, up by 2.3 million, even as the overall U.S. beer market declined 2 percent.

Craft beer’s market share, meanwhile, grew to 7.8 percent last year and is predicted to grow further. In dollars, craft beer garnered a 14.3 percent share, $14.3 billion out of a total $100 billion in sales.

The U.S. had 2,768 breweries at the end of 2013, with 1,744 in the planning stages. By the end of last month, the number of operating breweries had grown to 2,866. Of those, 99 percent are craft breweries.

Robert Pease

Robert Pease

BA Chief Operating Officer Robert Pease said U.S. craft brewers exported 282,526 barrels last year, up 49 percent from 2012. The top foreign markets were Canada, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Australia and Japan.

“The word is out that the best beer in the world is being made by American craft brewers,” Pease said.

Gatza said the BA has what he called an “aspirational” goal for the craft brewing industry to hit 20 percent market share by the end of the decade. But it’s not a slam-dunk, he admitted.

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