The Brewers Association, who put on the Great American Beer Festival, just posted a cool little video of GABF, showing three days of set up, four festival days and the final clean-up day all in time-lapse film that takes only a minute. See if you can spot anybody you know.
The Great American Beer Festival from Brewers Association on Vimeo.
Jeff Bagby, the head brewer at Pizza Port in Carlsbad, won big this year at the Great American Beer Festival. He picked up a whopping seven medals; four gold, one silver and two bronze. In addition, Pizza Port Carlsbad was awarded the Large Brewpub and Large Brewpub Brewer of the Year.
Below is a photo of Jeff, with Yiga Miyashira, up on stage picking up just one of his eight awards last Saturday. Notice the eyesore inducing polyester plaid pants? If you’re a regular to the GABF Award Ceremony, you may already remember that Jeff always seems to have on a pair of plaid pants. At first, I thought it was the same pair every year. But looking back over the last few reveals that it’s actually been a different pair of polyester plaid pants each year.
Given that Jeff and Pizza Port Carlsbad have won 19 medals in the last four years, I’d say his plaid pants are pretty darn lucky. Of course, being a great brewer helps, and I don’t want to take anything away from his mad skills. But I’d put even money on the pants making even the most mediocre brewer better. Below is a retrospective of Jeff’s “Lucky Pants” for the past four years.
2009 Lucky Pants
2008 Lucky Pants
2007 Lucky Pants
2006 Lucky Pants
If you, too, want or need a little luck — and let’s face it, who doesn’t? — I took a close up of the pattern on Jeff’s lucky pants and created some downloadable wallpaper in three different sizes. So now in addition to the Bulletin logo wallpaper page, you can also get Mr. Bagby’s wallpaper, too.
There’s been a running gag at Shaun O’Sullivan’s expense that’s been going now for something like ten years. While Shaun has won medals at GABF with previous breweries he’s worked at and with the brewpub he co-owns, 21st Amendment, he’s never won a medal with 21A when he was attending GABF. Up until Saturday, every medal 21st Amendment has won happened when Shaun was not there to collect the award and bask in the glory of winning.
But this year, with Shaun in the audience, the jinx was finally broken when 21st Amendment won a bronze medal for their Diesel Imperial Smoked Porter in the Smoked Beer category.
Afterward, I caught up with Shaun and asked him about finally breaking the curse.
Later, with co-owner Nico Freccia, and 21A bartender Claudia Davis, I coaxed out a rendition of the Watermelon Wheat song, GABF edition.
If you noticed the girl with rabbit ears walk through the shot during the Watermelon Wheat song, I happened upon “bunny girl” later in the afternoon session and snapped a photo so we could all get a better look.
While many sports and games are invigorated by adding a few tasty beers, such as poker or ping pong, not all of them are so enhanced. Take chess, for example. It seems self-evident that clouding one’s mind with alcohol would take the the much-needed edge off your game. But I guess it’s not as obvious I might have supposed.
Reuters is reporting that French Grandmaster Vladislav Tkachiev, the 58th highest ranked player in the world, showed up drunk earlier today to play a match at an international chess tournament in Kolkata, India. According to Reuters, eleven moves into the game, “he could hardly sit in his chair and soon fell asleep, resting his head on the table.”
India’s Praveen Kumar was awarded the win on technical grounds, as Tkachiev was “unable to complete his moves within the stipulated time of an hour and 30 minutes.” I guess it’s hard to play chess when you’re passed out asleep. Although reprimanded for his, uh, performance, he will be allowed to complete the tournament.
When I was in high school, our chess team actually lobbied successfully to have their game declared a sport, with an eye toward having cheerleaders at the matches. The chess cheerleaders never materialized, but it occurs to me that they might have done wonders to keep Tkachiev awake through his match. Out of curiosity, do spectators at high level chess tournaments drink beer while watching the chess matches?
Oregon Bounty, which promotes travel to Oregon and specifically its local food and beverages, is sponsoring a very cool contest. They’re offering seven “cuisinternships” to local artisan businesses. You can be an intern chef, cheesemaker/choclatier, distiller, fisherman, rancher, winemaker, or — the coolest of the seven — craft brewer. Winners get an all-expenses paid trip to Oregon which includes round-trip airfare, six-nights lodging, and $1,000 cash spending money. You’ll then intern for five days.
You can enter online with a two-minute video and/or your 140-character essay on why you deserve to win an Oregon Bounty Cuisinternship. That’s basically a twitter post; a tweet. The deadline to enter is coming up; it’s Friday September 18. There’s also an FAQ if you have any questions about the contest.
The brewery Cuisinternship is with Jamie Emmerson at Full Sail Brewing in Hood River, Oregon. I’ve known Jamie for a long time now, and he and the staff of Full Sail couldn’t be nicer people. Plus, Hood River is an absolutely gorgeous part of the world.
Here’s a sample of what you’ll be doing if you win: Tour the Great Western Malting and Hop Farm, learn about mashing and the mash tun, learn about sparging and the lauter tun, understand the spice of the beer and the contributions of the hops and kettle, pitch the yeast (the magic ingredient), look under the microscope in the lab, partake in bottling at 500 beers per minute, fill kegs, and — most importantly — taste the rewards of your hard work. Whew, that doesn’t sound too bad, does it?
Here’s how the website describes it:
Along the shores of the mighty Columbia River Gorge, get a week-long lesson from some of the country’s craft brewing pioneers. From the hop farm to the mash tun to the microscope, you’ll feel, smell and taste beer from beginning to end. If you can tear yourself away from the tasting table, explore the charming town of Hood River, unofficial U.S. capitol of windsurfing, beer drinking and hanging out.
I’ve also been asked to judge the submissions and help pick the winner, so be sure to answer the question. “Why do you deserve to win?”
On Labor Day this year, Moonlight Brewing held their annual hop-picking event for friends and family to come and help harvest their hops. Since the kids were out of school and the lovely wife off work, we made a family outing of it, reminiscent of 19th century hop-picking when entire communities stopped what they were doing to help the farmers with the hop harvest. My daughter, Alice, was a hop-picking veteran, having come with me the previous year, but both Porter and my wife, Sarah, were newbies.
Moonlight Brewery’s owner/brewer Brian Hunt with his hops.
It was a beautiful sunny day in whatever town Moonlighting says it’s in, and nearly three-dozen folks showed up to help. I’d guess we knew a little better than half the people there, so it was great fun sitting around, chatting, enjoying Brian’s beer straight from the tanks and picking the hops. There was also abundant food, and even Sean Paxton, the Homebrew Chef, put together a plate of some delicious cheeses. After we were done, we pulled out the Washoe Boards and played a few games, too.
Alice wasn’t content just picking the hops, she wanted to help cut them down and carry them back, too. The kids had a blast and, as always, it felt great to pitch in and help. It was the perfect way to spend our Labor Day.
Below is a short slideshow of our day at Moonlight’s hopyard. If you click on the button on the bottom right with the four arrows pointing outward on it, you can see the photos in glorious full screen.
I stumbled on the photo of a peculiar beer below while looking for another image. It was on Holy Taco, a humor website as far as I can tell.
Best I could find out is that it’s a Japanese beer made by what appears to be a fairly large global food and drinks company called SC Foods Co., Ltd. The beer is called U.S. Select Beer Taste and is fairly resplendent with patriotic imagery from using a red, white and blue palette to the U.S. flag, an outline of the lower 48 and even part of the Statue of Liberty.
It’s certainly an odd duck. But what fascinates me most is wondering what it tastes like. I mean that in an abstract sense. I know in reality it’s likely a clone of a tasteless American-style macro lager or similar low-calorie light beer. Or is it? What is the perception of the “select beer taste of the U.S.?” Is is still the former big three, or has craft beer managed to upstage that as an antiquated image of American beer?
I also can’t help but wonder, if it is an American light lager, why? The three major brands in Japan — Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo — aren’t substantially different from Bud, Miller or Coors. So if you’re going to label it U.S. Select Beer Taste, then it has to mean something to the intended consumer, which appears to be the Japanese. They have to perceive it as being something different than their own beer, don’t they? And if so, then doesn’t it follow that U.S. Select Beer Taste might be more craft-oriented in taste? It wouldn’t taste like a German, Belgian, Czech or English import. Sadly, I couldn’t find any ratings for the beer on either Beer Advocate of Rate Beer, so I don’t really know if it’s more Dale’s Pale Ale than Bud Light.
So what exactly is American Beer’s Taste perception in Japan and around the world? Among brewers and the über beer geeks certainly our reputation for quality is unsurpassed and the craft industry has staged a remarkable comeback for American beer since the low point of the 1970s. But that’s among the small, niche customer for whom beer matters. To the general consumer, I’m not so sure. Budweiser and Coors both sell surprisingly well in Great Britain and Bud is even making modest progress in Germany. What do you think U.S. Select Beer Taste is?
The Publican National Committee, or PNC — if you’re not familiar with them — is a group of Publicans that own some of the best beer bars in America. Current members include the owners of Brouwer’s Cafe, the Falling Rock Taphouse, the Horse Brass, Monk’s Cafe and the Toronado. One of the things they’re doing is working with brewers willing to make them a custom, exclusive beer that only members serve. The first PNC beer was brewed at Russian River Brewing and all the members got together there to help make the beer, which was dubbed Publication.
They’ve just announced that in October, they’ll be creating their second beer, this time at Allagash. No word yet on what kind of beer it will be, but I’m guessing it will be worth seeking out.
At the PNC’s Second Convention in Denver 2008, all the members except Don Younger, who preferred to remain in the bar
I’m not sure who’s actually responsible for this, but it’s a great answer from the homebrewing community to Greg Koch’s video I Am A Craft Brewer.
Last week, I posted a useful tip from the UK on how to make sure someone who’s passed out doesn’t choke. I just stumbled upon yet another good drinking tip, this one from a Winter Park, Florida medical facility, Aloma Urgent Care. In an effort to advertise their services, they’ve created graphics showing the right and wrong way to assist a friend in need, who may need to quickly get rid of too much recently ingested food and/or drink. A true friend knows the right way.
