Beer in the news

[berley]

Alaskan Brewery is no longer brewing their Pale Ale all year due to hop shortages...

http://www.alaskanbeer.com/about-us/news.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I've got to admit, this is the first time I've read about a beer being discontinued due to a shortage of Tettnanger. WTF?

[mr x]

Shot in the dark: the spirit-beer mash-up

There have been a lot of bad things done to beer, but could the rise of spirit-beers be the worst yet? You may have noticed that tequila-flavoured lager, Desperados (including my own ear wax, one of the worst things I've ever put in my mouth), now has a couple of rivals, in the form of rum-flavoured Cuvana and bourbon-flavoured, Dead Crow. These join Amigos and Buddy's in a growing spirit-beers "category".

The company behind Cuvana and Dead Crow also owns WKD. Which is a good pointer to the beers' quality. Like Desperados, Cuvana is shockingly sweet and so loaded with lime that, even with a gun to your head, you would struggle to identify the spirit it is based on. There is no such thing as undrinkable alcohol. In desperate moments, the freezer can take the edge off almost anything. But, boy, these come close.

It will come as no surprise that some real ale snob at the Guardian doesn't like Desperados and its "75% tequila" flavouring compound. After all, such beers aren't aimed at me. Instead, this is the latest in a long line of wheezes aimed at offsetting falling lager sales among 18-25 year-olds, by growing the "premium packaged" market. But, interestingly, the concept of mixing beer and spirits is talking hold in creative craft beer circles, too.

This isn't new, exactly. A mate of mine swears by a tot of port in his Guinness, which he apparently picked-up off a Jamie Oliver Christmas special. Innis & Gunn have worked for years to impart spirit flavours into their beers, now also by adding rum not just barrel ageing. In Manchester, the mighty Boggart Brewery, has brewed a rum porter to some acclaim.

Personally, I remain unconvinced. In Chorlton, Electriks bar has been serving its own Black Out XO "rum stouter". The stout is brewed for the bar by Happy Valley (which has been experimenting with its own rum porter, Extra Old 25), and then Mount Gay rum is added to the barrel. The result? It's rummy, certainly, and warmly alcoholic, despite its 4.4% strength, but, when I sampled it, it had a thin, flat mouthfeel and little discernible stout input. It certainly didn't taste like an elegant reconciliation of the two flavours.

I found a similar problem at Brewdog, whose bars, along with venues such as Hawksmoor, are seeking to popularise what the Good Food Guide is calling, "the drinks trend of 2013", beer cocktails. I wanted to try the promising Yin/Yang (gin, lemon, hop syrup, IPA), but the Birmingham branch was out of hop syrup. Instead, I opted for a dark rum-based Hardcore Zombie, which, for my £6.95, didn't work. The rum has to fight, slightly inexplicably, against two mixers, ginger beer and Hardcore IPA, and is not as prominent as you'd like. Served over ice, after a couple of initially hoppy, gingery mouthfuls, it tasted dull and watery. I'm not saying that I can't imagine someone using beer creatively in a cocktail, particularly in shorter drinks. But this tasted like someone was trying to crowbar beer into a cocktail, rather than a drink that had been designed from the beer up.

One sort-of successful crossover is Wiltshire Rum Beer, brewed by Wadworth for Marks & Spencer, which harks back to the original "grog", a navy-imposed mix of rum and weak beer. It's a class apart from Cuvana and co. At least for the first few mouthfuls, the dark molasses flavours help give the beer a nicely rounded, full bottom end, while, up above, quietly spicy notes intermingle effectively with its reasonably sprightly hop bitterness. Like most boring English bitters, the flavour thrills peter out pretty quickly, but, still, it's not bad. It hints at what could be done.

But is such tinkering necessary? Is there any real need to mix beers and spirits? Or is it just marketing? An attempt to sell us the same product, in new, novel but not necessarily improved versions?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/ ... er-mash-up

[Blake]

In the news: 7 Health Benefits of Beer. (Just in case you need other reasons or, perhaps, a justification)

Blake

1. It helps deal with rheumatoid arthritis. Rheumatoid Arthritis can be a pain of a disease. It is essentially the inflammation of joints that can happen at a very early age. Early symptoms include redness, swelling and soreness of joints. But the good news is that you can it with the help of beer. Of course, beer alone is not going to solve the purpose. With the help of limited intake of beer in your diet plan and coupling it with proper exercises, you can treat this condition.

2. It reduces cancer risk. Marinating steak in beer is the best way to consume meat. It not only kills 70 percent of the carcinogens (cancer causing agents) but drastically reduce the HCAs (heterocyclic amines) in the meat that are the root cause of neurological disorders.

3. It calms an upset stomach. Sipping on a carbonated beer can actually help in soothing up a stomach ache, just like 7Up or sprite. However, if you suffer from an ulcer of gastritis, then avoid alcohol as it may inflame it. Otherwise, alcohol can be used in buffering the pain.

4. It helps you treat your kidneys better. A bottle of beer can actually lower the risk of developing kidney stones by 40 percent in men. The reason can be the high water content in beer that helps in the proper functioning of both the kidneys, since dehydration increases kidney stone risk. Beer also promotes the production of urine as its diuretic so you can flush out your bladder and kidney and keep them healthy.

5. It gives your brain a boost. Studies have shown that a beer everyday can keep Alzheimer or dementia at bay. This especially holds true if you are moderate drinker. The risk of having a mental illness is reduced by 20 percent. Alternatively, hops flowers, which are used in brewing beer, can actually help in curing insomnia. Keep it under your pillow to have a good nights’ sleep.

6. It increases longevity. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates that moderate drinkers are lesser prone to heart diseases, strokes and diabetes, which are clearly the devils of modern society these days. So sip on a beer and enjoy a healthy and a long life.

7. It tames frizzy hair. That beer is a natural hair conditioner is a well known fact. A few drops of beer are sticky enough to tame your wild hair. It can also help in giving your brows a good shape. Dip you finger and gingerly slick it down your eyebrows or your scalp. Not only you’ll get a slick look but you’ll be sorted for a couple of hours. You can also mix 3-4 drops of beer in your shampoo everyday in order to get shiny hair.

[LeafMan66_67]

In the news: 7 Health Benefits of Beer. (Just in case you need other reasons or, perhaps, a justification)

7. It tames frizzy hair. That beer is a natural hair conditioner is a well known fact. A few drops of beer are sticky enough to tame your wild hair. It can also help in giving your brows a good shape. Dip you finger and gingerly slick it down your eyebrows or your scalp. Not only you’ll get a slick look but you’ll be sorted for a couple of hours. You can also mix 3-4 drops of beer in your shampoo everyday in order to get shiny hair.

If only it would help grow it back!

[Jamie D]

I missed this when I was in Bayers Lake this afternoon.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/business/1 ... to-halifax" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[mr x]

“We have a lot of home brewers asking lots of questions,” Durand said. “I think they’ve been really surprised at how open we’ve been talking about the ingredients and the process."

Really? Well I have a question about ingredients for you brew master Durand, lol.

We should put in a proposal to use that rig....

Sent from Tapatalk 2, a prick of a company.

[Jimmy]

I missed this when I was in Bayers Lake this afternoon.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/business/1 ... to-halifax" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It's up and running in Bayers Lake @ the NSLC right now.

Sent from my Android using Tapatalk.

[mr x]

A toast to Dallas Green: Canadian musician gets his own beer, Flying Monkeys City and Colour Maple Wheat Imperial Ale

[/b]

http://life.nationalpost.com/2013/06/07 ... erial-ale/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ontario brewery Flying Monkeys has just unveiled a new beer crafted in collaboration with Canadian folk-rocker Dallas Green, a.k.a. City and Colour.

City and Colour Maple Wheat Imperial Ale will be available at the end of the month at the LCBO in Ontario, and through the 49th Parallel Group in Western Canada at the end of June.

The creation of the new beer coincides with the release of the former Alexisonfire musician’s latest album, The Hurry and the Harm, which was released this past Tuesday.

“We created the beer recipe in spring when the sap was running and local maple syrup farms were rocking. We’d wanted to use these great maple flavours for a while,” Peter Chiodo, Flying Monkeys’ founder and brewer, said in a statement. “Dallas Green is a native son of St. Catharines, so the maple added the perfect touch of Ontario to this beer.”

According to the company, the brew is a “sultry, thick, high-alcohol Imperial Maple Wheat Ale brewed with maple syrup and infused with fair-trade, organic Bourbon vanilla pods.”

City and Colour Maple Wheat Imperial Ale is part of Flying Monkeys’ music and beer collaboration project, The Treble Clef Series. The brewery previously teamed up with Green’s fellow Canadian musicians the Barenaked Ladies to release BNL Strong Beer, a chocolate stout, in late 2012.

[chalmers]

11.5%, looks interesting. Hopefully it's available at Premier.

[mr x]

The maple wheat sounds like it might work...kinda like a 'breakfast beer'.

[sleepyjamie]

Nice

[Jayme]

I hate City and Colour but would like to try that beer! haha

[jeffsmith]

I hate City and Colour but would like to try that beer! haha

[canuck]

I have no clue who that Musician is, but I'd love to try that beer!!

[Jayme]

I have no clue who that Musician is, but I'd love to try that beer!!

Dallas Green. Former singer/guitarist from Alexisonfire if that means anything to you... haha

[mr x]

This means more...or less....

[canuck]

^ WTF? I need eye bleach now!! lol

[mr x]

Happy Hour, Pt. 1: Saisons, perfect for tilling fields in France or, you know, pairing with barbecue

http://life.nationalpost.com/2013/06/08 ... -barbecue/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Is sourness the new bitterness for the hardcore beer community? Craft breweries have long since christened India pale ales (or IPAs) as the sudsy shibboleth of their clan; IPAs contain buckets of hops and as a result can be a challengingly bitter style of beer. The appreciation of IPA can be the mark of one’s beer nerdhood. But perhaps bored of IPAs, breweries are turning to the sour beer known as saison and its cousin the bière de garde for something new. These beers sport old-fashioned agrarian cred and are mostly still restricted to small craft breweries and brewpubs in North America.

Saisons and bières de garde are both modern-day renditions of the sort of beer that was brewed in French-speaking Europe before the dawn of refrigeration, when it made sense to brew during the cooler months and then let the liquid sit until it was needed as fuel for farmhands in the summer.

Both styles are relatively strong for summer quaffing at around 6% alcohol. They often come in 750mL bottles, a subtle nudge to tell you to serve them in quantities appropriate for wine. The difference between the two styles lies in their tone: Bières de garde tend to be sweet, dark, moderate in bitterness and sometimes notably sour. Saisons are dry, crisp, spicy and sometimes more sour than your average beer drinker can handle.

Not that Niagara Oast House Brewers wants to push the envelope too much. The small brewery in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., started up last year with the intention, according to co-owner Cian MacNeill, of brewing traditional ales that are “sessionable” — that is, drinkable. “We want to make approachable beers,” he says. “If you know the story of them … these are supposed to be refreshing beers.” And, he notes, saisons are probably the most food-friendly beer style.

And indeed the Oast House Saison is drinkable: foamy, sweet and only mildly sour. Even better is the Ontario brewery’s Bière de Garde, a dark, toasty affair with caramel and fruit sweetness to balance against a long, sour finish. It would be delicious with a lot of foods, starting with hamburgers.

Hailing from Chicago, Goose Island Pepe Nero is also dark, as the name suggests (“nero” means “black” in Italian). Billed as a “Belgian-style farmhouse ale” and brewed with rye grain and peppercorns, it’s spicy and toasty, sweet, a little oily and smoky, while neither sour nor particularly bitter. Save it for a relatively cool night around a campfire. Goose Island’s Sofie, meanwhile, gives off a strong yeast aroma to go with orange peel; in the mouth, it’s puckeringly sour, with hints of pepper. It’s delicious.

Quebec’s Microbrasserie Charlevoix makes a saison with a foamy texture with a little spice and quite a lot of bitterness to balance out the restrained sourness. Personally I think it’s too soft and not dry enough to really live up to my idea of a saison — but it is pretty tasty as a beer.

IPA is dead.

[GAM]

IPA is dead.

Say it ain't so!

Sandy

[canuck]

http://www.mooseheadbeeracademy.com/qa- ... greg-nash/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[derek]

http://www.mooseheadbeeracademy.com/qa- ... greg-nash/

Thank god I didn't actually have beer-in-mouth at the point where Bruce said Nash was "direct".

Fuckin' right!

[LiverDance]

http://beerstreetjournal.com/new-beerpo ... ers-passe/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Jayme]

Haha it's almost like a juice box for beer... I like it!

[canuck]

Fucking Anheuser-Busch assholes!!!!! That company can rot in fucking hell!!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... chool.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Tony L]

Fucking Anheuser-Busch assholes!!!!! That company can rot in fucking hell!!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... chool.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Did you expect anything less of them?