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Where Is Beer Country & Wine Country?

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Someone posted a link in a comment last week, and I’d been meaning to take a closer look it. It’s from the Washington Post’s Wonkblog: Do you live in beer country or wine country? These maps will tell you.

I love the idea that there’s a Wonkblog, but it has taken liberties in analyzing its data in the past, and this one seems to continue that trend. Still, there is some interesting information here. But the map of where both wineries and breweries are located is somewhat misleading, because it covers over the one with fewer, even if there are a lot of both kinds there, which is the case.

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More revealing, I think, is comparing the two individual maps, grape color is wine, hop green is beer. What becomes clear from looking at the two separately that’s lost in the map with both is that fermentation takes place, whether beer or wine, in higher concentrations in roughly the SAME locations nationwide.
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With very few exceptions, areas that have heavy concentrations of wineries also have a lot of breweries, too. That can’t be a coincidence, can it? To me, that leads to the inescapable conclusion that there is no wine country or beer country, but instead pockets of fermentation, or fields of fermentation. I would not be surprised to learn that there is also a lot of cheese-making going on in the exact same areas, too. Fermentation, it seems, follows fermentation. But that makes sense, intuitively.

And here is beer wine individually, so you can see them in more detail closer up.
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Also, curiously the Pacific Northwest is ignored in their analysis. In the text, they state that “beermaking dominates in the Denver region, and along the Southern California coast. Tucson may be wine country, but brewers rule in Phoenix. Brewers are strongly represented along the coast of Lake Michigan, and in most of Florida. Brewing is big in East coast cities too.” But three of the biggest, and darkest, green areas are the San Francisco Bay Area, Portland, Oregon and Seattle, all three with bigger concentrations of breweries than any other areas mentioned, with the exception of Denver and San Diego, which look roughly equal. So why the did? Beats me.

Wonkblog concludes with a chart showing trends in the numbers of new wineries and breweries, at least from 1998 through 2012. Was there really no data yet for 2014, or even 2013? And why did they use U.S. Census data for this chart, rather than where they got the other datasets for the maps? Also, I remember sower growth in the early 2000s, but the chart shows negative growth in the number of breweries from 2001 to 2010. Can that be correct? Or does that have something to do with it being Census data? Curious.

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Urban Chestnut To Buy German Brewery

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Here’s some interesting news, and a nice twist or role reversal of recent events. Florian Kuplent, the talented former Anheuser-Busch brewer, in 2011 opened the Urban Chestnut Brewery in St. Louis, after A-B was acquired by InBev. I first met Florian in Denver shortly after he’d brewed an excellent German-style hefeweizen at the Fort Collins A-B brewery. Kuplent was born in Bavaria, Germany, and also was trained as a brewer at Weihenstephan.

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According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Urban Chestnut “has acquired the Bürgerbräu Wolnzach brewery in Wolnzach, which is about 35 miles north of Munich.” That’s right, a small craft brewery has bought a German brewery. Apparently, Bürgerbräu Wolnzach closed down around six months ago, and Klupent saw an opportunity. The Post-Dispatch explains that the “St. Louis-based company plans to brew small batches of beer at the Bavarian facility in the second quarter of 2015. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.”

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Patent No. D609053S1: Beer Glass

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Today in 2010, US Patent D609053 S1 was issued, an invention of Ramses Dingenouts, assigned to Heineken Supply Chain B.V., for his “Beer Glass.” There’s no Abstract, and the entire application is just one sentence. “The ornamental design for beer glass, as shown and described.”

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Obviously, this designed has been used by Heineken as a proprietary glass in recent years, over the five years since the patent was granted.

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The Brewhog Saw His Shadow Again, 6 More Weeks Of Winter Beers

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Over in Gobbler’s Knob, in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, Phil the Groundhog — a.k.a. Brewhog — raised up his head this morning and looked around, and this year saw his shadow everywhere he looked for the second year in a row. You know what that means. It’s six more weeks of drinking winter beers this year. Or something about a late spring, I can’t keep it straight. You can see a video of Punxsutawney Phil here. And there’s more information about Groundhog Day at the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club.

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Patent No. 468258A: Bottle-Sealing Device

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Today in 1892, US Patent 468258 A was issued, an invention of William Painter, for his “Bottle-Sealing Device.” There’s no Abstract, and it’s funny to see it called a “bottle-sealing device,” when essentially it’s simply a crown or bottle cap. Is it possible that the term had not yet been coined at this point? Painter in his application described his device:

For use with any suitable sealing medium, whether in the form vof a plug or a disk, or a combined disk and plug, applied at or in the mouth of a bottle, I have devised metallic sealing-caps embodying certain novel characteristics which render them highly effective and so inexpensive as to warrant throwing them away after a single use thereof, even when forcible displacement, as in opening bottles, has resulted in no material injury to the caps.

I have seen his name linked to the invention of crowns, so these may be the very first ones.
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Patent No. 3232491A: Container For A Keg Or The Like

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Today in 1966, US Patent 3232491 A was issued, an invention of William F. Hunt, assigned to Reynolds Metals Co., for his “Container for a Keg or the Like.” There’s no Abstract, and although the drawings suggest the invention is a jockey box-like container for kegs, at one point he mentions “beer is now being sold in barrel-shaped kegs formed of metallic material, such as aluminum containing metallic material or the like, having a capacity of around 2 to 2 1/2 gallons,” adding that this phenomena is growing in popularity and “that people are more frequently buying beer and other beverages in larger and more economical containers not only for home use but also for picnics and the like.” Now admittedly I was only seven in 1966, so wasn’t buying too many kegs at the time, but I certainly don’t remember these 2 to 2-1/2 gallon kegs of which he speaks. I do remember 5L mini kegs made primarily by German brewers in the mid-1990s, but that would have been just over 1.3 gallons. So despite its appearance, this keg box would have been much smaller than it looks, being designed for a much smaller keg, though it’s described as “an improved container is provided for receiving such a keg or the like wherein the container supports the keg in a novel manner to permit the same to be completely surrounded by ice or other cooling medium so that the keg will be refrigerated and the beverage remain cool until the same is dispensed from the keg.”
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Patent No. 5282413A: Installation For Steeping Grains

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Today in 1994, US Patent 5282413 A was issued, an invention of Rene Sauvage, James Roget, Jean Amstutz, and Guy Flament, for their “Installation for Steeping Grains.” Here’s the Abstract:

Installation for steeping grains of the type comprising a tank (1) provided with a cylindrical lateral wall (2), with a bottom (3) and with a perforated platform (11) disposed at a certain distance from the bottom (3) and on which the grain rests in a layer of suitable thickness, the upper surface of this layer of grains being able to be levelled by a rotary system with raking arms (6) carrying blades and associated with a first motor (9) capable of rotating them, a second motor (10) being coupled to the system in order to make it vertically movable. This installation comprises removable connection making it possible to connect, mechanically and temporarily, the perforated platform (11) to the system with raking arms (6) and blades or directly to the second motor (10).

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Wish You Were Beer: Strong Beer Month 2015

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It’s February, and that means it’s time for the 13th annual Strong Beer Month, once again with six new extreme beers each at 21st Amendment and Magnolia throughout the month. Try them all, and you get to keep the commemorative logo glass. Just collect all 12 punches in your Strong Beer Month ticket before the beer’s all gone. You can read all about it at the 21st Amendment website.

This year’s theme is the 1975 album “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd. On the album from left to right are: Shaun O’Sullivan (21A co-owner) and Dave McLean (Magnolia owner).”

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Here’s the lineup for the beer this year:

21st Amendment:

  1. Hendrick’s Imperial Stout: 9.1% abv
  2. Bike Lane Hopper Imperial Black IPA: 9.5% abv
  3. Beer Revolution Imperial Rye IPA: 9% abv
  4. Red Titan Uber Imperial Red Ale Aged on American Oak: 12%
  5. Dub Step Imperial I.P.A.: 10% abv
  6. POHW Imperial Blonde with Oats and Wildflower Honey: 9.5% abv

Magnolia:

  1. Madcap Imperial Botanical Beer: 10.6% abv
  2. Promised Land Imperial IPA: 10.2% abv
  3. Tweezer Tripel Belgian-Style Tripel: 10.8% abv
  4. Old Thunderpussy Barley Wine: 11.8% abv
  5. Pride of Branthill Imperial ESB: 9.1% abv
  6. Smokestack Lightning Imperial Stout: 9.8% abv

And here’s the back cover, too, with more details about each beer:

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Patent No. 3232211A: Continuous Brewing Apparatus

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Today in 1966, US Patent 3232211 A was issued, an invention of William P. O’Malley, assigned to Malley Brewery Ltd. of Montreal, Canada, for his “Continuous Brewing Apparatus.” There’s no Abstract, but there’s this in the description.

The present apparatus is designed so as to incorporate all of the operations and techniques used in the batch process. Thus, by imparting continuity to the individual batch process operations, the result obtained is a continuous brewing process, which can perhaps best be described by the somewhat contradictory statement, that it is the batch process made continuous.

The continuous brewing process of the invention is accordingly based on the principles of batch processing, and it follows that for each unit of the batch process, there must be a corresponding unit for the continuous process.

Since the sequence and nature of the batch operations in any of its units are already established and Well defined, the design of the continuous unit is consequently limited and governed to some extent by the physical aspect of the batch operations for that unit.

As a result, the design of the present continuous unit was made around the operations existing in the batch unit, imparting the added factor of continuity to the operations without altering their character or nature in any way.

In order to duplicate the batch process while maintaining the desired continuity certain new apparatus must be provided to take the place of the apparatus where separate fillings, mixings, restings and withdrawal were necessary with the batch process. With this in mind the present invention provides such apparatus as will be described in more detail later and wherein a main feature resides in the construction of a combination mash and lauter tun designed specifically for continuous operation.

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Patent No. 4071160A: Insulated Beer Keg Container

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Today in 1978, US Patent 4071160 A was issued, an invention of Carl J. Vick, assigned to Keg-Tainer, Inc., for his “Insulated Beer Keg Container.” Here’s the Abstract:

A container adapted to receive a beer keg includes a cup-like top section fitting telescopically into the upper portion of a cup-like bottom section having a ring-like rim rolled at opposite points to provide handles. The rim has pairs of slots therethrough for binding straps and also has holes for binding ropes. Each section has an outer skin of a tough plastic with inner and outer walls with the spaces between the walls filled with a plastic foam. The sections are adapted to nest in each other for shipping and handling, and the bottom section has lugs designed to engage the rim of the top section. The top section has an elliptical bung hole to provide access to bungs of different makes of kegs, and a tubular stack may be fitted therein to retain ice for cooling and sealing. The bottom section has a bung access hole in its side which can be sealed by a truncated hollow ball having an opening to receive a tap connected to a lower bung of a keg.

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