Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

Socialize

Auditing the Next Session

By

session-the
For our 73rd Session, our host is Adam W., who writes Pints and Pubs (from beer to eternity). His topic is all about something he does once a year, which he calls a “beer audit” and asking people to blog about their own efforts at managing their beer. Here’s what he means by a Beer Audit:

Once or twice a year I take a beer audit. I open cupboards and boxes and just have a good look at what’s there. Some beers get moved about, some make it from a box into the fridge, others get pushed further to the back of the cupboard for another day. Often I just stare at the bottles for a while and think about when I’ll drink them. Apart from the enjoyment of just looking at a hoard of beer, It tells me something about my drinking habits.

  • I store too many bottles – over 150 at the last count, which would keep me in beer for over a month, compared to less than a week’s worth of food – but evidently that’s still not enough bottles as I return with more every time I leave the house.
  • I have a tendency to hoard strong, dark beers – great for a winter evening, not so great when a lazy sunny afternoon starts with a 9% imperial stout and then gets stronger
  • My cellaring could be improved. I found three beers from breweries that closed last year. I found these, not hidden away in a box under the stairs, but in the fridge. The fridge!!!
  • My attempts to age beer usually just result in beer that’s past its best
  • The oldest beer in my cupboard is probably an infant compared to the aged beers people must have in their cellars

So, I’m interested to know if you take stock of the beers you have, what’s in your cellar, and what does it tell you about your drinking habits. This could include a mention of the oldest, strongest, wildest beers you have stored away, the ratio of dark to light, strong to sessionable, or musings on your beer buying habits and the results of your cellaring. I look forward to reading your posts on Friday March 1st, leave a comment here when you do.

So this Friday, March 1, take stock of your own inventory, and take stock of taking stock.

giant-beer-refrigerator

So open up your beer cellar, or refrigerator, or closet, or wherever you store your beer, and let us know how you manage it by this Friday.

George Washington’s Small Beer

By

George-Washington-L
Today is the day we celebrate the birthday of George Washington, though he probably celebrated it on the 11th, because that’s what day the calendar read when he was born. That’s because when Washington was born in 1731, the British government still used the Julian calendar, but the British Calendar (New Style) Act of 1750, implemented the Gregorian calendar in 1752, and that’s the calendar system we still use today in the U.S. When it was adjusted, eleven days were added, and George went from having a birthday of February 11, 1731 to February 22, 1732, which is the one we use today.

I did a column several years ago for the San Francisco Chronicle, before I started working for rival Bay Area Newsgroup, about Washington’s love of Porter and his efforts making small beer. Washington’s handwritten recipe has famously survived and can be seen at the New York Public Library. It was in his “Notebook as a Virginia Colonel,” from 1757. And below it what it looks like.

GW-small-beer-recipe

Luckily, his penmanship has been translated:

To make Small Beer

Take a large Sifter full of Bran Hops to your Taste. “” Boil these 3 hours. Then strain out 30 Gallons into a Cooler, put in 3 Gallons Molasses while the Beer is scalding hot or rather drain the molasses into the Cooler & strain the Beer on it while boiling Hot. Let this stand till it is little more than Blood warm. Then put in a quart of Yeast if the weather is very cold, cover it over with a Blanket & let it work in the Cooler 24 hours. Then put it into the Cask “” leave the Bung[hole] open till it is almost done working “” Bottle it that day Week it was Brewed.

Most people agree it probably wasn’t the best tasting beer, and I believe that there were efforts a few years ago to recreate it faithfully, but I don’t recall hearing those experiments turned out. Still, it’s nice to remember that our founding fathers were beer drinkers and, in some cases, brewers, as well.

McKowen-geo-wash-beer
I love this illustration of Washington throwing back a cold one, by Canadian artist Scott McKowen, which he did for a Wired article about Tom Kehoe, at Yards Brewing in Philadelphia, recreating some colonial beer recipes.

Two Beer Companies, 210 Beer Brands

By

ABI sabmiller
Today’s infographic is an interesting one, created by NPR. Entitled Two Beer Companies, 210 Brands, it shows all of the beer brands owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev and SABMiller across the globe. Below the map, there’s also a list of brands by country, color-coded by which beer giant owns or controls them. How accurate is it? Hard to say. It doesn’t appear to include line extensions, which would balloon the chart to many times its current size, but glancing at the list for the United states, it looks like it may be missing some, though to be fair I didn’t do a line by line comparison.

two-beer-companies
Click here to see the chart full size.

A Bud Is A Bud Is A Bud

By

budvar
Oh, I hate to pick on the mainstream media as they cover the world of beer, but this is too delicious not to point out. In a story about the proposed buyout of Grupo Modelo by Anheuser-Busch InBev, entitled The Great Beer Monopoly Deal May Be Back On, the Atlantic features the following photo, which I downloaded in case somebody gets wise and replaces it. And a hat tip to Tom Dalldorf for sending me the link. I guess one Bud’s as good as another. Can I assume I don’t have to draw a diagram?

budvar-ab

The Celebrator Silver Polka

By

celebrator-long
During last night’s Celebrator 25th Anniversary Party, Vic Kralj, from the Bistro, wrote a spoof of “Roll Out the Barrel” for our silver anniversary, entitled the Celebrator Silver Polka. Then he rehearsed it with regulars and friends from his beer bar, unveiling it as a special surprise for Tom Dalldorf during the party. Below is a video the evening’s performance.

And here’s the sheet music, if you want to sing along.
CBN-SIlver-Polka

P1010633
Afterwards, Tom was presented with a framed copy of the song.

P1010640
And later he and Arlene posed with some of the culprits who perpetrated his surprise.