Announcing “High Water Brewing”

January 7, 2011 By Jay Brooks

You may recall the formerly wonderful beers of Valley Brewing in Stockton, California. That was due to one singular reason, their longtime brewmaster, Steve Altimari. Steve’s beers have became some of the most creative, innovative and diverse of any brewer. He perfected one style after another and brewed some truly experimental gems. His Uber Hoppy Imperial IPA was one of the best and his London Tavern Ale, a delicate English-style mild was a great session beer. But back on June 12th of last year, Steve was summarily dismissed under circumstances that could charitably be termed “odd.” I got the full story a couple of days after that, when I spoke to Steve in New York, where he was vacationing with his family. The owners initially told him that they’d sold the brewery (something he himself had been trying to do at that same time) and that the new bosses no longer needed his services. That tuned out to be not true in the least, and they instead brought in a scab brewer who flew in from Bend, Oregon, apparently, to do the brewing. I’m told they also locked Steve out of the brewery and refused to return his personal property that was there, including beer, barrels, etc. The good news was that since he’d been trying to buy Valley brewery, he already had investors and a management team in place.

So it’s six or so months later, and I’m pleased to announce that Steve’s new brewery — High Water Brewing — has begun brewing. They’ve set up offices and cold storage in San Leandro, California, near Drake’s Brewing, whose brewing equipment they’ll be using to make High Water’s beer. They’re also installing their own fermenters on site but will store the finished beer in their separate offices nearby.

high-water-logo

Initially, they’ll be offering three regular beers:

Hop Riot IPA (7.3% a.b.v. / 73 IBUs)
Retribution Imperial IPA (9.5% a.b.v. / 95 IBUs)
Old and In the Way Barleywine (11% a.b.v. / 95 IBUs)

The beers will debut on draft — 5 & 15.5 gallon kegs — in February during SF Beer Week (yet another reason I can’t wait for SF Beer Week!). Packaged beer, in 22 oz. bottles, will follow in early Spring, most likely in April. You can see the new labels on the website. They’re also still seeking additional investors, and if you’re interested, you can read about High Water’s investment opportunities.

high-water

In the interest of full disclosure, the name High Water Brewing was suggested by me in a post back in June when this all went down, and after an exhaustive search, my suggestion turned out to be the one they liked best. The founders of the brewery were kind enough to thank me by awarding me some shares in the company, giving me a very teeny tiny interest in the company, essentially a symbolic, but very much appreciated gesture.

Filling Your Beer From The Bottom

January 4, 2011 By Jay Brooks

bottoms-up-draft
Here’s an odd new innovation (sent in by my friend Mike C.) from GrinOn Industries of Montesano, Washington. They’ve created the Bottoms Up Draft Beer Dispensing System. As they claim, “GrinOn’s proprietary Bottoms Up Dispensing System is the fastest dispensing system in the world and fills at a rate of up to nine times that of traditional beer taps.” Take a look at in action below.

GrinOn lists a litany of benefits to their system, though the most obvious is that it “improves speed-of-service increases customer satisfaction and sales.” I don’t know about the “customer satisfaction” but an increase in sales makes sense in the right setting, such as an environment where long lines make speed a real issue, and one where plastics cups are the only option. It seems ideal for a sports stadium or a fair. The homepage features a video showing two people filling 44 cups of beer in one minute, without even breaking a sweat. There are also a number of additional videos on a separate page.

Below is what the dispenser base looks like.
beer-dispenser-close

They also claim that their system “reduces the stress and cost of ‘foamy beer problems.'” Filling the beer from the bottom does seem like it would produce head in a very different way, though in the video it certainly seems adequate for the type of beer being poured. It also must use a proprietary cup, though the website talks about there being a FDA approved MAG™ — a round magnet — at the bottom of the cup which seals the cup. It apparently can also be used after you drink the beer as a refrigerator magnet, and they even can sell you a customized magnet that can be a souvenir after the fact or otherwise used promotionally.

I can’t see it being used by small breweries or brewpubs, or even most beer bars, but where volume of just a couple of different beers — the big macros and high volume micros seem likeliest — is the key to the business, then it seems like it could be viable. What do you think?

A Truly Cheesy Beer

January 1, 2011 By Jay Brooks

belvoir

Little Miss Muffet
Sat on a tuffet,
Eating her curds and whey;
Along came a brewer,
Who sat down beside her
And took all her whey away.

That’s how the Mother Goose nursery rhyme might have gone if the folks at Belvoir Brewery in England’s Old Dalby. Leicestershire area had been around when she wrote that one. What Belvoir has done is taken the blue Stilton cheese and made a beer with it. They infused Stilton whey by mixing 25% whey with 75% fresh wort and then fermented it normally, producing a 4.2% a.b.v. chestnut-colored beer. Happily, the beer itself is not blue, just the name.

belvoir-blue-brew

According to a BBC article:

Nigel White, secretary of the Stilton Cheesemakers Association, said: “People often think of Stilton as a cheese just for Christmas and forget how versatile it is.
“Traditionally the whey from cheese making would have been fed to pigs. We wondered if it could be used for other purposes and Belvoir Brewery has now made a new beer.”

Belvoir’s website says they’re currently out of the Stilton beer, but that new beer should be available shortly. I know cheese and beer together as a pairing is miraculously good, but premixed together? I’m game, certainly and most reports claim that it’s better than it sounds, with “delicate” flavors and “a smooth, creamy texture.”

webbluebrew

A short BBC video also reveals there are no plans to brew a cheddar beer or a Wensleydale beer, which is a shame to my Monty Python-loving ears and brought their hilarious cheese shop skit rushing back. I guess cheddar’s just not popular ’round those parts.

Customer (John Cleese): You…do *have* some cheese, don’t you?
Owner (Michael Palin): (brightly) Of course, sir. It’s a cheese shop, sir. We’ve got–
Customer: No no… don’t tell me. I’m keen to guess.
Owner: Fair enough.
Customer: Uuuuuh, Wensleydale.
Owner: Yes?
Customer: Ah, well, I’ll have some of that!
Owner: Oh! I thought you were talking to me, sir. Mister Wensleydale, that’s my name.

And a little later in the skit:

Customer: (pause) Aah, how about Cheddar?
Owner: Well, we don’t get much call for it around here, sir.
Customer: Not much ca– it’s the single most popular cheese in the world!
Owner: Not ’round here, sir.

But see it for yourself:

Sapporo’s Legendary Biru

December 25, 2010 By Jay Brooks

sapporo
My friend and colleague, Tom Dalldorf, sent me the link to this cool video by Sapporo beer for the Canadian market. Entitled Legendary Biru, it’s almost Rube Goldberg-esque. The original music is pretty addictive, too, but it’s the inventive way in which they re-imagine the brewing process that I find interesting. You can also see more about it at Sapporo’s Canadian website. I think there may be a contest of some kind, too, but I didn’t look closely at that aspect of it.

Ken Grossman Presents The Sierra Nevada Story

December 23, 2010 By Jay Brooks

sierra-nevada
Our last day at Sierra Nevada’s Beer Camp last Friday, we were invited to their last quarterly beer dinner at the Big Room at the Brewery. Executive Chef Micheal Iles created an impressive five-course dinner, which each course mimicking one meal of the day, so that in essence we ate a day’s worth in one meal. You can see a photo gallery of the beer dinner below.

And as cool as the dinner was, the real treat was a presentation given by Sierra Nevada co-founder Ken Grossman. Throughout the dinner, in between courses, he told the story of how Sierra Nevada Brewery began, complete with slides. By complete happenstance, I happened to be sitting on a riser directly in front of the presentation, so I set up my Flip camera and taped most of it. The talk is separated into 8 parts, since that’s how the presentation was given. It’s just over an hour, and part one is below.

To see the rest of Ken Grossman’s presentation, I set up a page with all 8 videos embedded, The Sierra Nevada Story. Enjoy.

Sierra Nevada Beer Dinner Photo Galley

The Anchor Christmas Party 2010

December 21, 2010 By Jay Brooks

anchor-xmas10
A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I attended the Anchor Christmas Party that’s held each year at the brewery. It’s one of the few events I can drag her out to, and it’s always a good time, seeing lots of local friends in the beer community. They put out an amazing spread and, of course, the beer is exquisite. Not much more to say about it, but I thought I’d share a few photos from the event.

Sarah and me in front of the Anchor Xmas box tree
Mrs. Brookston Beer Bulletin and me at the annual Anchor Christmas Party.

Zambo, Rich Rosen, Jen Garris, Sarah, Lloyd Knight, Dave Suurballe, James Renfrew and Shaun O'Sullivan
Zambo (21st Amendment), Rich Rosen (Pi Bar, Chenery Park), Jen Garris (Pi Bar), Sarah, Lloyd Knight (21A), Dave Suurballe (everywhere), James Renfrew (formerly with Potrero Hill Brewing) and Shaun O’Sullivan (21A).

Shaun O'Sullivan and my wife, Sarah
Shaun O’Sullivan and Sarah.

Shaun O'Sullivan, Dave McLean, James Renfrew, Rich Rosen and Dave Suurballe
Shaun O’Sullivan, Dave McLean (Magnolia), James Renfrew, Rich Rosen and Dave Suurballe

Me and Fritz Maytag.

Birds Fly, Men Drink

December 16, 2010 By Jay Brooks

wright-bros-plane
Tomorrow is the anniversary of the Wright Brothers plane flying at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in 1903. Today, 56 years later, the Man Will Never Fly Memorial Society was founded, also at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The society appears to be completely tongue-in-cheek, as evidenced by their “history” and “mission.” Still, you have to long any organization whose motto is “Birds Fly, Men Drink.”

Our History
Our Society was born at Kitty Hawk on one of those dark and windy nights when nothing flew; even the seagulls bounced from place to place like hoppy toads. Our founders, who had been invited to attend a ceremony on December 17, honoring a pair of bicycle mechanics from Dayton Ohio, began drinking and thinking on the evening of December 16. They drank and they thought until the myth of the Wright Brothers’ flight in 1903 became as hard to swallow as the bootleg rye they imbibed.
Thus was born the society’s motto: “Birds Fly, Men Drink”. And thus its purpose: Exposure of the widely held myth of machines moving through the air with men “flying” them. This myth, it was clear, had its origins in folklore, long before the Wright Brothers. First came the nonsense of Cupid flying through the air. Then there was the fairy tale of Pegasus, a winged horse. Next came the fabled Arabian carpet. And the bit of flummery about a flying stork that dropped babies down chimneys. Small wonder that humankind, nourished on such nonsense, would believe that bicycle mechanics could move through the air like winged fowl.
Accepting the challenge these myths have perpetuated, The Man Will Never Fly Memorial Society has fought the hallucination of airplane flight with every weapon at its command save sobriety. We remain dedicated to the principle that two Wrights made a wrong at Kitty Hawk.

birds-fly

Our Mission
Members of the Man Will Never Fly Society are not opposed to flight. Birds do it, Bees do it, even educated fleas do it, as Cole Porter once said. But when you stop to think about it, do you actually believe that a machine made of tons of metal will fly? Small wonder that the editor of a Dayton newspaper said, when informed of the mythical first flight in 1903. “Man will never fly. And if he does, he will never come from Dayton.”
The Society’s members believe that balloons fly, but we do not believe in flying machines. Indeed, members of the Society have proposed a variety of apparati for movement through the ozone. One of our members is even cultivating an enormous jumping bean which, when saddled and heated by a laser, will propel a human for great distances.
But let us hear no more of plane moving through the air, unless they are hurled by carpenters. Airports and airplanes are for the gullible. Little do “plane” passengers realize that they are merely boarding Greyhound buses with wings, and that while aboard these winged buses, given the illusion of flight when cloud like scenery is moved past their windows by stagehands in a very expensive theatrical performance.
We ask you to gather under our banner and combat the myth that man can, did, or will ever fly, except in his or her imagination.

Make A Pipe Dream Come True: Invest In Pipeworks Brewery

December 11, 2010 By Jay Brooks

Looking for a unique gift for yourself or a loved one? Why not invest in a brewery? Seem like a pipe dream? Well, then the Pipeworks Brewery may be for you. Two self-avowed beer geeks living in Chicago, Beejay Oslon and Gerrit Lewis, are trying to raise enough money to make their dream of starting a small brewery a reality. They’re using Kickstarter to raise the $30,000 they need to fund their little brewery. So far, they’ve raised just over $17,000 with 20 days to go. That means they need to find another $13,000 before the end of the month.

Kickstarter is great. I’ve contributed to help fund projects before using it and it’s a great tool for microbusinesses and microfinancing. It’s a fun way to help people out, even strangers, if you like their idea. I’d encourage you to check out all the cool projects trying to get off the ground there. There are projects in Art, Comedy, Comics, Dance, Design, Fashion, Film & Video, Food, Games, Journalism, Music, Photography, Technology, Theater, and Writing & Publishing. For each project, the people lay out their idea and provide different levels of investment for you to pledge, and usually each level of participation gets you something related to their idea as a thank you. There’s a set time within which they have to reach the amount of money they need. If they don’t reach their goal, you don’t pay a dime, but if they do then your pledge kicks in and then (and only then) your account is charged. It feels very satisfying to help someone realize their dream, or at least kick start it. Not only are you helping fund an idea you believe it using alternative financing but you’re also building community at the same time.

pipeworks-sam

For the Pipeworks Brewery project, you can pledge as little as $5 or as much as $10,000. There are a dozen different levels available you can choose from to help them get started. You can read their story at the Kickstarter website, where they also post regular updates. But here’s the short version:

Pipeworks began as…
the dream of a couple of beer geeks right here in Chicago. Beejay Oslon and Gerrit Lewis started their adventures in fermentation within the plastic buckets and stovetop kettles of the home brewer. The two met while working at West Lakeview Liquors, a mom and pop liquor boutique on the north side boasting one of the best beer selections in the world. It wasn’t long before they began dreaming up plans for their own craft brewery.
In January of 2009, after some persistence, the Pipeworks boys landed an apprenticeship in Belgium with Ratebeer.com’s 2008 Brewer of the Year, Urbain Coutteau of De Struise Brouwers. Living and working alongside Urbain, the Pipeworks crew honed their skills,learning the traditions of Belgian brewing while mastering some innovative new techniques. To document these brewing adventures the boys started the popular Buckets to Barrels Blog hosted on De Struise’s site.
Pipeworks is…
— Beejay Oslon, a native of Chicago who began home-brewing while attending art school. Beejay serves as the head brewer, with over five years of experience in both brewing and craft beer retail. Through his experiences as a fine artist and graphic designer, he also serves as the creative director for Pipeworks.
— Gerrit Lewis, a transplant from the brewery-rich Colorado, armed with a sharp palate and lust for everything beer.He spends his time (and lots of his money) visiting at least one area beer store a day, seeking out the newest craft beer releases. Gerrit attended Loyola University Chicago Business School and considers himself a savvy and aggressive fresh-faced marketer.

And below is funny video that should get you fired up about their project.

To learn more about Pipeworks Brewing Co., you can visit their website, their blog or their Facebook page.
pipe-brew-drink

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