British beer writer Tim Webb is working on what looks to be an interesting documentary series on beer in Belgium, to be called Beer Amongst The Belgians. The series is directed by Taylor Brush for Spotted Tail Productions. The video is listed as the “the final of the promotional episode.” The “promotional episode is a proof-of-concept to find funding to finance the six hour-long episodes.” It’s about 26 minutes, and is a great start, I’d say. Enjoy.
The Dog Of Beer Labels
Taybeh Beer Update
A couple of days ago, I posted a video from Palestine’s only brewery, Taybeh Beer, founded in 1993 by Nadim Khoury, who learned to homebrew while living in Boston. I admit that I wondered how the beer tastes, so I was delighted to hear from fellow beer blogger David Turley, who writes Musings Over A Pint. Turley had an opportunity to try the beer during a trip with his family to Jerusalem last August. He recently posted his impressions of the beer and stories from his pilgrimage in Taybeh, A Beer Without A Country. Give it a read, it definitely helps round out the story. Thanks for your insights David.
A postcard from Taybeh (courtesy of David Turley).
Indianapolis Man Wins “Brew Your Cask Off” Contest
A couple of weeks ago, All About Beer magazine conducted a contest, to win a trip to the “Brew Your Cask Off” beer festival hosted by Georgia’s SweetWater Brewing in Atlanta, Georgia on March 5, 2011.
The winner had to write an essay explaining what type of cask they’d brew, in 300 words or less. The winner, Matt Robinson, from Indianapolis, Indiana, wrote a poem which won him and a friend a trip to SweetWater Brewery’s cask festival.
From the press release:
Matt will also be a honorary judge for the cask ale competition and be a server for a cask made from his hilarious and precise poem.
Without a doubt one of the most unusual, and clever beer events, SweetWater Brewery’s Brew Your Cask Off features 80 different cask ales made by a full range of celebrities and not so celebrities, including dignitaries from the beer media, non-profits and retailers from the metro Atlanta beer community. All About Beer Magazine publisher Daniel Bradford participated in making a cask named Adam’s All About Beer Ale, after the SweetWater brewer who guided the actual cask ale production. The cask ale festival features a judging of all the casks with the winner getting serious bragging rights, including being brewed by SweetWater Brewery, and the loser getting the much coveted, and highly decorated golden toilet seat.
Matt Robinson will join a collection of very talented palates as a honorary judge helping chose the best cask of the festival. During the festival itself, Matt will have the pleasure of presenting a cask made from the numerous clues he provided in his winning poem.
Runners up included second place finisher Steve Forbes who wrote a passionate sensory entry. Third place went to Michael Iris who described how his hound found an unusual cache of berries that would have made a wonderful cask. Both of these entries and the other finishers can be found at All About Beer.
The winning entry is below. Enjoy.
What Cask Should An American Brew? by Matt Robinson
What cask should an American Brew?
But nothing less than around 55 I-Be-Yous!
I would add subtle flavor with East Kents
Perhaps more for hop compliment
Throw in some fuggles and American C’s
Many will say it’s the knees of bees!
Powerful flavor will be most divine
Even with a gravity around one-thousand nine
The grain bill is full of Golden Promise Malt
This great American session cask has no fault
The hydrometer reading will need to state
Around 3.55% alcohol by weight
This may sound like an English creation
With bold American style is my summation
Lovibond sounds nice somewhere near ten
Many hours with our cask we will all spend!
Wyeast numbered Nineteen Forty-Five
Will make our cask come alive!
Gravity-fed like our English brethren
Cask beer please take hold for American beer drinking heaven
Deep in the south in town called Atlanta
Our cask brings so much joy we call it Santa!
All the people will come and stand
To sing play us a song you’re the piano man!
As We Like It
Thanks to Stan Hieronymus and Andrew Mason for tipping me to this little gem. It’s a pro-beer promotional film from 1952, created by the United States Brewers Foundation, the same trade group that created the Beer Belongs series. Using the tagline “sparkling, golden, pure, refreshing, a beverage as old as history,” it’s a great little gem of trying to promote the positive aspects of beer in the wake of Prohibition’s end. Enjoy.
Taybeh: Palestine’s Only Brewery
Palestine has exactly one brewery, Taybeh Beer, founded in 1993 by Nadim Khoury, who learned to homebrew while living in Boston. He returned to his native Palestine after the “Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians in 1993, one of the approximately 12,000 Palestinian families who returned to the region to help kickstart the emerging Palestinian economy.” Since then business has grown, and is beer is imported to Germany and the UK, and they’re working on the U.S., but according to the video so far we won’t allow them to import because we don’t recognize Palestine as a separate nation. So much for supporting peace in the Middle East. At any rate, the video below gives a nice overview of the brewery.
Beerstrology Sign: Pisces
While I don’t put any stock in astrology, in 1980 Guinness put out a calendar with each month representing one of the zodiac signs, and I thought it would be fun to share these throughout the year.
Pisces, the fish, is from February 20-March 19. To learn more, see:
- Astrology Online
- Universal Psychic Guild
- Wikipedia
- Zodiac Signs
“For Good Living” Brown Derby Promotional Film
If you say my last post, Beer In Ads #314: Brown Derby’s For Good Living, now you know why I chose a Brown Derby ad. I also came across this promotional film from the same year as the ad, 1937, which was called “For Good Living,” and sponsored at the time by Safeway Stores. It’s a silent promotional film, but after some cheesy introductions shows the brewery where Brown Derby is made. Really, there’s a lot of early brewery porn. Obviously the basic process of making and packaging beer hasn’t changed all that much in the 70+ years since this video was made, but the machinery sure has. At just under twenty minutes, it’s a pretty thorough virtual tour, and includes both bottles and cans being produced. After the tour, the final minutes show the planned “For Good Living” advertising campaign. It’s quite a time capsule. I think every brewer should watch it. I’d love to hear some of their thoughts on then vs. now.
The United States Of Good Beer?
At the end of January, the Houston Press’ Brew Blog did a map showing a beer for every state that seemed to miss the mark for more than a few of their choices. I ranted about it in my post, The United States of Beer? Apparently I wasn’t the only one, because an alert reader (thanks, David) tipped me that they’ve redone the map, this time calling it The United States of Good Beer, though over at Good, the internet portal that originally created the map and posted it to the Houston Press.
Seeing as the map was done by the paper’s food section, I wasn’t too surprised how embarrassing the first attempt was, but in the new effort they at least reached out to their readers for suggestions. And it shows in the Good Beer Map, which is light years ahead of the first one.
Sadly, Idaho still got left out, despite their being at least 8 breweries and 15 brewpubs in the the state. Surely, someone could picked one of those instead of leaving an empty question mark?
Good’s Food editor Nicola Twilley remarks that after seeing Beer Wars, “It’s clearly time for a beer revolution.” And while I’m sincerely thrilled she’s getting up to speed, I’m constantly amazed that so many “foodies” don’t seem to get that beer is food and have paid it almost no attention whatsoever even as it has undergone such a revolutionary change in the U.S. over the past thirty years. How could so many “food professionals” committed to what they put in their body completely miss that? Most have noticed wine is different now than it was 30 or 40 years ago, but beer … not so much. That’s such a sticking point for me that while I’m glad things are changing, I can’t help but continue to be curmudgeonly about this dichotomy of how the two beverages are treated.
Still, I’m encouraged that they were swayed by people’s comments, admitted mistakes, and forged ahead to create a better map of America’s beer scene.
You can see the new map full size here, and as before it’s easier to read the key on the bigger map.
SF Beer Week On ABC 7 TV
On Monday, Rich Higgins (Director of SF Beer Week) and I went on the local ABC affiliate’s afternoon show, 7 Live, to promote SF Beer Week. Rich brought two of his beers from Social Kitchen & Brewery. First, his White Thai Affair (9.5% a.b.v., an imperial Rapscallion with galangal and lemongrass) was paired with a Kale salad with clementines and a ginger garlic vinaigrette. Then his Giant S’mores (10.5% a.b.v., a Belgian Imperial Stout) was paired with Point Reyes Original Blue cheese. Lastly, I picked up some beer ice cream from Humphry Slocombe made with He’Brew’s Bittersweet Lenny’s R.I.P.A. and brought bottles of the beer so they could taste the beer the ice cream had been made with.
It was a quick 3-4 minute segment, as is the nature of these things, but overall I think went well. Of the three 7 Live hosts, our segment was with Lizzie Bermudez, though both of the others did get into the act with Brian Copeland snagging one of the beers of the table and Jennifer Jolly trying the ice cream, too. We got the message out about SF Beer Week and, I think, opened their eyes a bit to beer with food. The cheese pairing went over particularly well and the ice cream was a big hit, too. And it was great fun for us.