Here is quiz number three. This one is like the first, using the first letter of a beer brand name or the brewery. Your job is simply to figure out which beer or brewery it’s from. Good luck. Let me know how you did.
If you missed any previous quizzes, they can all be found on the beer quiz page.
Need a giant promotional balloon for your business? How about a 15-foot mug of beer? If you’re in Florida, you can rent one from Giant Balloon Rental. They also have a giant Coors beer can, too. That one is 23-feet tall. I’m guessing if one balloon rental company has it, they all probably do. I want one for my next party, much better than a jumpie house.
The humor website Freaking News, whose tagline is “News Photoshop Contests,” apparently has held several contests involving beer, challenging people to create funny pictures using Photoshop. In some cases they offer an image to start with and manipulate and in others they just suggest a theme. Below are some of my favorites from the Cold Draft Beer contest.
Boom!
Beer Lake.
Drunk Bouguereau. The original is La Petite Mendiante (The Little Beggar) painted by William-Adolphe Bouguereau in 1880.
You can see many more beer-altered photos in these contest galleries. Warning: it’s a time suck.
It’s the first day of the new year, of course, and this year I’ll be highlighting beer ads every week day — Monday through Friday — instead of just once a week on Thursdays. I just have too many already collected that I think are wonderful and merit sharing, so I decided to make 2010 the year of the beer ad here at the Brookston Beer Bulletin. Some will be old, some from mid-century (the 50s, 60 and 70s) and other will be more contemporary. The only unifying theme is that I think they’re artistic, more clever than the usual beer ad or have something else going for them. Feel free to suggest an ad you like and, if I agree, I’ll put it in the queue.
The year’s first ad, from Schlitz, was published in 1952. I don’t know who the artist was, but it looks like many other Schlitz ads from the same period, so it may have been a house illustrator. But it seemed appropriate for today because it’s set in an art museum, where I believe all of these ads belong.
This man may not be an art expert, but he knows fine beer when he tastes it. There are millions of people like him … people who like the taste of Schlitz so much that no other beer is in the picture for them.
Here at the Brookston Beer Bulletin we’re pausing today to wish you and yours a very Happy New Year. 2009 was yet another interesting year and was rarely dull with plenty of drama. Nobody knows with any real certainty what 2010 will be like for the beer industry, but I’ll be here for my fifth straight year of ranting about it, er .. analyzing it, online. I hope you’ll join me on another year’s worth of adventure in the beer world.
Taken last night in front of the Christmas tree; Alice, Porter and a tasty beer. Westvleteren. What better way to start the new year. Sometime today raise a glass of a tasty libation as we toast you a Happy New Year with one of my favorites:
Observe, when Mother Earth is dry,
She drinks the droppings of the sky,
And then the dewey cordial gives
To every thirsty plant that lives.
The vapors which at evening sweep
Are beverage to the swelling deep,
And when the rosy sun appears,
He drinks the misty ocean’s tears.
The moon, too, quaffs her paly stream
Of lustre from the solar beam;
Then hence with all your sober thinking!
Since Nature’s holy law is drinking,
Mine’s the law of Nature here,
And pledge the Universe in beer.
— Tom Moore, The Universal Toast
This is one my favorite out-takes. I have plenty more of the kids mugging for the camera and making funny faces. And here’s one final toast.
Love to one, friendship to many, and good will to all.
— Anonymous
Welcome to 2010.
Here are more of my favorite toasts. Let me know if I’m missing one of your favorites.
Last year at this time, I made my usual five predictions for the 2009 beer year. Let’s see how I did.
2009 will be the year of the collaboration beer.
My Score: A+
Boy howdy, was it ever. Even Sierra Nevada waded into the collaborative pool with their first one. Collaborations between brewers were everywhere throughout the year and at this point I’d wager they’re here to stay.
Food & Beer Goes Mainstream.
My Score: B-
While beer dinners and food pairing events are still on the rise, things didn’t reaching the tipping point I thought they might or hoped they would.
Merger shakeouts will effect small brewers.
My Score: C
While mergers among distributors did continue in 2009, and the mess between ABIB and MillerCoors and their distributors still hasn’t reached a final solution, most regional brewers didn’t feel the pinch much. The fact that craft beer is growing faster than domestic and imports didn’t hurt, either. But some small brewers continued to look for alternative distribution solutions so it’s still not all rosy either.
Beer prices will continue to rise.
My Score: A
All the rising ingredient costs finally caught up with the big brewers, who previously had been trying to keep retail prices down. But InBev’s philosophy regarding pricing is fundamentally different than A-B’s had been, so when they announced price hikes, everyone else followed suit (as they usually do).
New Drys’ attacks will be more aggressive.
My Score: A+
This one was probably a little too predictable, but I was yet again surprised by just how aggressive these buzzkillers were in 2009. The vituperation of their rhetoric, the lengths they went to bend facts to their will and the outright fabrications are just astounding, especially given that the basis for their point of view is often on moral grounds. That their words and deeds can be so void of morality in the ends-justify-the-means approach taken seems a cruel irony that appears lost on them.
Overall Score: B+
I think I did better last year, though in three out of five this year I think I hit the nail on the head pretty well. But the other two, not so much. C’est la vie. Now, to put on the ol’ thinking cap for next year’s predictions. See you next year!
Tomorrow I’ll make my predictions for 2010.
Here is my second beer quiz. This one uses elements of brewery’s logos and labels. Your job is simply to figure out which brewery they come from. Good luck. Let me know how you did.
If you missed any previous quizzes, they can all be found on the beer quiz page.
I don’t know how I missed this, but Sweet Anthem, a Washington perfume company, and the Seattle-based recycling company, Blue Marble Energy — whose business model is to”utilize hybridized bacteria to generate biochemical and bioenergy products” — recently announced a perfume made partially with a by-product of brewing. One of the many ingredients in the perfume is “organic spent brewery grain” from nearby Fremont Brewing. Though news stories are calling it beer perfume, apparently it’s much more than that. They start with the spent grain as a base, and process it through their patented AGATE technology, which creates volatile fatty acids. Then, “[t]hrough catalysis, bioesters are then extracted from the volitile fatty acids stream and are ready to be blended with Sweet Anthem’s fragrance oils. The feminine version of EOS is a very modern, bright, floral, tea-based scent, while the masculine or unisex version is characterized by citrus and cognac with hints of powdery apricot.
According to the Blue Marble website, where you can purchase the perfume, it comes in two fragrances, one for women and the other which they call unisex. The one “for her,” they describe as “a green bright floral, tea-based scent. Very modern and feminine.” It includes “Butyl Proprionate (bioester), Neroli, Tea Rose, Sandalwood and Green Tea.” The unisex version, which most news outlets call the masculine or male version, is described as “citrus and cognac with hints of powdery apricot. Equally appropriate for men and women.” It includes “Propyl Butyrate (bioester), White Ginger, Apricot, Cognac and Honeysuckle.”
Here’s NBC’s story about it. And below is the television report on the perfume by Channel 5 Seattle.
On Christmas Day, The Beer Wench — Ashley Routson — posted a recipe for Bacon Peanut Butter Cup Beer Brownies using a brownie mix. I will eat any dessert that’s made with both peanut butter and chocolate. It’s a combination I simply cannot resist, yet another of my many obsessions. But I also love bacon. Since this dessert completes a kind of perverse trifecta, I simply had to give it a try. The fact that it used a mix also made me more likely to make it, since I am ridiculously lazy when it comes to cooking.
Ashley’s original recipe was as follows:
BEER WENCH BACON PEANUT BUTTER CUP BEER BROWNIES
INGREDIENTS:
- 1 box of brownie mix
- 3 eggs
- 1/3 cup chocolate, oatmeal or regular stout
- 1 package of bacon
- 6 whole peanut butter cups — chilled
- 2 tbsp butter
INSTRUCTIONS:
- Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease pan with butter. Yes, butter. Because butter makes everything better.
- Cook entire package of bacon to desired consistency. I like a combination of crispy bacon and chewy bacon. The both add an interesting texture to the end product. Allow the bacon to cool and then dice it.
- Chop the Peanut Butter Cups into small pieces.
- Melt the butter and mix with the bacon. The recipe on the box technically calls for oil. Unfortunately, the only oil I had on hand was Olive Oil. So I decided that the oils from the bacon combined with melted butter would suffice for the recipe.
- Combine the eggs, stout and bacon butter with the box brownie mix in a large bowl. Do not over mix. After all ingredients are combined, fold in the peanut butter cups.
- Pour the mix into the greased pan and spread it evenly. Bake. For 13X9″ pan, bake 24-26 minutes. For 9×9″ pan, bake for 38-40 minutes. For 8×8″ pan, bake 52-54 minutes.
- Serve with an Imperial Stout.
My daughter woke up feeling sick this morning so we’re not doing much of anything today. That freed me up to do some baking. So using what I had around the house, I decided to try my hand at making them. Being even lazier than most, I decided to use bacon bits instead of frying up my own. That also meant I wouldn’t have the bacon fat to substitute for vegetable oil. Fortunately, I have vegetable oil so I made a mixture of butter and oil to use instead. For the beer, I found a bottle of Moylan’s Ryan O’Sullivan Imperial Stout. My mix called for slightly different ingredients — like two instead of three eggs — but otherwise it was quite similar.
All the ingredients laid out, with the peanut butter cups already sliced and diced.
My daughter Alice helping me mix the brownies.
The brownies mixed with bacon and peanut butter cups.
Ready to go in the oven.
Just out of the oven. That scar in the pan happened when I accidentally grazed it with my silicone pot holder, pulling it out of the oven.
The finished Bacon Peanut Butter Brownies paired with some imperial stout.
I thought they turned out great. And they were very easy my way. But it appears I’ll have them all to myself. Neither my wife nor the kids thought much of them. But they worked for me. I personally think bacon and peanut butter work great together. Add chocolate and it’s divine. Thanks to Ashley for the original idea. Yum, now to eat some more brownies and drink some more beer. Happy Boxing day indeed.
Having been a hardcore Boy Scout when I was a kid, I always took to heart their motto: “Be Prepared.” As a result, I’m never without an opener. I keep it on my keychain. I used to go through two or tree of the cheap ones every year, because they kept wearing out. But around a decade ago someone from Anchor Brewery gave me a titanium opener they put their logo on and it’s still going strong today.
But what if you found yourself in a situation where you had a bottle of beer but were without an opener? Well, if you had a piece of paper, you could still open the bottle pretty easily. Just watch the instructional video below and you’ll never be unable to open a beer bottle, even if you’re lost in the woods without a bottle opener.
Here’s a second video which seem to show the process a little more simply.
In case you don’t have a piece of paper, here’s another video showing many other ways to open a beer bottle.
