Last week, you may recall, I had the opportunity to spend some time with Jack McAuliffe, founder of the first modern microbrewery in America; New Albion Brewery. That was the week after the annual Craft Brewers Conference, which was held this year in San Francisco. At CBC, the elusive Jack was in town for his first appearance at a public beer event in a very, very long time. He was going to do a Q&A session along with a short talk by Maureen Ogle, author of Ambitious Brew, and Jack’s daughter, Renee DeLuca, who writes online at the Brewer’s Daughter. As an amateur beer historian, and lover of the subject, seeing the man who built the first microbrewery from scratch back in 1976 was simply something I was not going to miss. I arrived early and got a chance to meet Jack for the first time. Needless to say, it was a great treat.
Jack and me at CBC.
After a talk by Jack’s daughter Renee on social media, Maureen discussed “The Long View of the Big Picture,” lessons learned from failed breweries and what the ones who survived did to keep going. Then the session was turned over to jack, who answered questions from the audience for a good half hour. I recorded Jack’s Q&A and you can listen to it below. Enjoy.
On Food Navigator, there was an interesting short interview with Matthew Patrick, VP of R&D for TIC Gums where he suggests that “food and beverage product developers spend a shockingly low amount of time examining how texture may impact a finished product.” In beer, of course, texture is more often referred to as “mouthfeel.” And while when judging beer, mouthfeel is a consideration it’s usually not the primary one. Honestly, I’m really not sure how often brewers tinker with their recipes specifically to get a particular mouthfeel though it’s clear that many beers have great ones and many otherwise solid beers suffer for having a less than pleasant or ideally suited mouthfeel.
He’s talking primarily about texture in food and non-alcoholic beverages, though he singles out what he refers to as “low-viscosity beverages” like “tea” as products who didn’t give much thought to their texture. Beer’s viscosity has quite a range, from thin pilsners and golden ales to thick, rich oatmeal and imperial stouts so I can’t say where beer falls in TIC Gums’ viscosity scale. But there’s no doubt that mouthfeel is at least one of the many factors that add up to a beer’s overall taste profile. What a brewer can, or should, do about it seems like a worthy discussion to have.
Speaking to FoodNavigator-USA at the Research Chefs Association conference and expo in Atlanta, Patrick explained that texture can have wide-ranging influence on consumer perception of a food or beverage product.
For example, texture can influence the way saltiness or sugariness is perceived, meaning that different textures can make a product seem more or less sweet or salty even if the level of sugar or salt remains the same. That effect is something that product developers need to be particularly aware of, as many are cutting sugar or salt in products in response to demand for healthier foods and drinks.
Patrick added that low-viscosity beverages, such as teas, represent one area in which there is particular potential for enhancing consumer experience of a product through subtle textural differences.
Tom Dalldorf did a great interview with Ken Grossman of Sierra Nevada Brewing for the most recent issue of the Celebrator Beer News. The new issue features part of the interview and also Grossman on the cover for Sierra Nevada’s 30th anniversary this year. The entire interview is just under 30 minutes and was done [...]
This morning on KQED, San Francisco’s PBS station, aired a live interview with Fritz Maytag and Keith Greggor about the sale of Anchor Brewery. The podcast of the interview, Anchor Steam Sold, is now up and you can listen to it on the KQED Archive or download it for you iPod. Or you can just [...]
I got a call yesterday morning from John Dannerbeck, CEO of Anchor Brewery, who let me know the details about the sale of Anchor and also conferenced in Keith Greggor, the CEO of the Griffin Group, the entity that’s entered into an agreement to buy the brewery. Since he’s essentially a neighbor, we met up [...]
Recently it was announced that Ken Allen, who founded the brewery in 1987, is selling Anderson Valley Brewing to Trey White, a former USB executive. The response on the series of tubes we all know and love as the internet was swift and surprisingly negative. Also, there was quite a lot of speculation that was [...]
My “Uncorked” interview with Sam Calagione, from the Dogfish Head Brewery, is in today’s San Francisco Chronicle. I’m quite pleased with how it turned out. If you’re unfamiliar with the Uncorked series in the San Francisco Chronicle, they’ve been doing them for some time now, and it’s an interview that begins with some expository background [...]
The Santa Rosa Press Democrat had a nice interview with Lagunitas Brewing owner Tony Magee a couple of days ago. The piece was called “the art of the brew.” I’ve known Tony for a lot of years and he’s a terrific person who makes some fine beers. Tony Magee and me at last year’s Bistro [...]
BusinessPOV, a Chicago media enterprise doing online video micro-journalism, contacted me about their latest effort, a video profile of Goose Island Brewing. It includes a short interview with Brewmaster Greg Hall interspersed with footage of the brewery and Goose Island’s beers. It’s a little over five minutes and manages quite nicely to give a good [...]
Today’s Honolulu Star Bulletin has a nice profile and interview with Rich Tucciarone, Director of Brewery Operations for Kona Brewing. Rich is a great guy and it’s nice to see him — and the brewery — getting some much-deserved ink in the mainstream press. Rich Tucciarone (at right) with fellow Kona brewer Britt Antrim (at [...]
Last night Michael Jackson appeared on the Conan O’Brien Show. I’d like to say it was a rousing success. Unfortunately, I can’t. Michael was his usual self, soft spoken, a little hard to understand but with a wit still razor sharp. Though it was largely lost on his audience and the host and other guests [...]
Mark your calendars again and reset your Tivos. After last night’s debacle where the pinheads at KPIX decided to bump Eye on the Bay last night when the NCAA final went long so we could endure the full hour of mindless talking about a basketball game over and over again. Then instead of showing Eye [...]
I was one of 42 beer writers who contributed to this big 960-page book telling the stories of 1,001 world-famous beers. The book is now available at Amazon.com and other fine booksellers.
