Brookston Beer Bulletin

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ManTables’ End Table Refrigerators

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refrigerator
Earlier this year, I watched a stand-up comedy special by Jake Johannsen on Showtime, entitled I Love You. In one of his bits during the show Johannsen describes a dream — a man dream — for putting a mini fridge in his bedroom. Here’s the essence of it, omitting the added automatic coffee maker he wants to put on top of it.

I was going to buy a mini fridge, and that was going to be my bedside table. I thought I had a great idea. So at night I could be lying in bed with my wife, maybe watching a movie or reading a book, and have a nice cold beer out of the mini fridge, maybe two. That was my dream.

Long story short, the punchline is his wife said no, which was his example of compromise between married people. Trust me, it’s funnier in context. Well apparently somebody was listening and felt his pain. A new company, ManTables, has created a line of small refrigerators that resemble end tables so they won’t look out of place in a living room, rec room or … bedroom.

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They ManTable refrigerators come in three colors: black, walnut and tobacco. Below in the walnut finish in a living room setting.

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And here’s an open view. The website claims they can fit 45 beer cans. No word on how many bottles.

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It seems to me they’d be perfect for a rec room or man cave that was some distance from the kitchen. The cost is $389.99, plus shipping, tax and handing charges.

Update On Beer Found In Baltic Shipwreck

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Back in September of this year, you may recall, that Beer From Early 1800s Found In Baltic Shipwreck. Near the Åland Islands, they found champagne and beer bottles in a sunken cargo ship thet is believed to have been sailing from Denmark, most likely Copenhagen, sometime between 1800 and 1830, and possibly bound for St. Petersburg, Russia.

Motor Boats Monthly recently published an update on the fate of the bottles. They also note that “experts” — no word on who — opened some of the bottles and declared them to taste “absolutely fabulous.” I wish there was something a bit more than AbFab to go on, but that’s all that’s said. In addition, there’s this exciting news:

Bottles of beer found in the wreck are thought to be the world’s oldest drinkable ale, and could provide the recipe to allow it to be replicated. Finnish authorities have approved the idea and several breweries, including one managed by Christian Ekstroem, have expressed interest in brewing the beer for today’s drinkers to taste.

I hope that happens, it would be like tasting history.

Beer Birthday: Sean Lilly Wilson

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Today is the 40th birthday of Sean Lilly Wilson, founder of Fullsteam Brewing in Durham, North Carolina. Even before the brewery opened this past April, Sean made a name for himself and the brewery through twitter and their blog. Join me in wishing Sean a very happy birthday.

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Marty Jones and Sean at the Craft Brewers Conference earlier this year in Chicago.

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Greg Koch with Sean at CBC.

Beer In Ads #246: Pabst, Back In The Days

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Thursday’s ad is from 1960 and is for Pabst. I chose it because the man is wearing a mustache and the men in beer ads rarely have facial hair, surprisingly enough. I love the slogan “Back in the Days — The Good Old Days … When Beer Was Really Beer.” I wonder what they’re trying to imply with that one?

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Update On Jamil’s Heretic Brewery

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I ran into Jamil Zainasheff at the annual CSBA meeting yesterday at Anchor Brewery and I found out a little bit more about his commercial venture, Heretic Brewing. All I knew before is that it would be somewhere in the East Bay. The brewery, I learned, will be in Pittsburg, and in fact he’ll be sharing E.J. Phair’s new 30-bbl brewhouse across the street from their alehouse at the Liberty Hotel in an arrangement known as “alternating proprietorship.” That’s the official term that the TTB uses to “describe an arrangement in which two or more people take turns using the physical premises of a brewery.” So he won’t be contract brewing, but instead the two breweries will remain separate and distinct, in effect taking turns using the equipment.

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Jamil and me yesterday at Anchor.

Coffee Stouts Saved

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Finally some good news out of the knee-jerk ruling by the FDA to ban drinks mixing alcohol and caffeine. To their credit, they’ve put up a Questions and Answers: Caffeinated Alcoholic Beverages page. Question No. 7 answers the concerns of brewers and fans of coffee stouts, along with other craft beers that have caffeine in them as a result of ingredients that add a variety of flavors, too. The question and answer is below in its entirety.

Does This Action Apply to Coffee-Based Liqueurs?

No. These Warning Letters are not directed at alcoholic beverages that only contain caffeine as a natural constituent of one or more of their ingredients, such as a coffee flavoring. The alcoholic beverages that are the subject of FDA’s Warning Letters are malt beverages to which the manufacturer has directly added caffeine as a separate ingredient.