If you’re planning on being at the Great American Beer Festival this year, particularly at the Thursday or Friday night sessions — and think you know beer trivia? — then have I got a game for you. The beery punster, Tom Dalldorf, he of the Celebrator Beer News, will be hosting a beer trivia game show — Win Beer Stein’s Money — at GABF this year. If you’ll be there, you can sign up now to be a contestant online.
Two weekends ago, the San Francisco Brewers Guild held their annual beer festival on board the Jeremiah O’Brien, a World War II era Liberty Ship anchored at Fisherman’s Wharf. I missed Saturday but stopped by on Sunday to enjoy some beer brewed in San Francisco.
The beer flag was flying, aboard …
The Liberty Ship Jeremiah O’Brien.
For more photos from this year’s Brews By the Bay Festival, visit the photo gallery.
I got this joke this morning from Lisa Morrison, the Beer Goddess, so if you think the joke is sexist, take it up with her. I’m not taking the heat for this one. But it is funny.
It was a hot day in Minnesota. Helga hung out the wash to dry, put a roast in the oven and then went downtown to pick up some dry cleaning. “Gootness, it’s hotter Dan hell today,” she mused to herself as she walked down Main Street. She passed a tavern and thought, ‘Vy nodt?’ So she walked in and took a seat at the bar.
The bartender walked up and asked her what she would like to drink.
“Ya know, its zo hot, I tink I’ll have myself a cold beer,” Helga said.
“Anheuser Busch?” the bartender asked.
Helga blushed and replied, “Vell fine, tanks, und how’s yur viener?”
Thanks Lisa, for the morning chuckle.
Yes, I mean that literally. While I would argue that Ray Daniels — author, publisher, real ale festival organizer and Cicerone founder — has plenty of heart, I only recently learned that he underwent open heart surgery. The surgery took place on August 11 and by all accounts was very successful. In typical writer’s fashion, Ray has started a blog about his recent experiences — A Healing Heart — where you can read all about it.
I admit to a few panicked moments earlier today when I realized it hadn’t been updated since August 12, but I made a call and have been assured he’s not only doing great, but is back at work already. I tried to reach Ray, but was only able to leave a message. If you know Ray Daniels, let him now you’re thinking of him and let’s all wish him a speedy recovery.
According to a story in the Santa Cruz Sentinel, a 28-year old graduate student (in chemistry, no less) was arrested last Friday for using dried poppy pods in his homebrew. Police believe that the student extracted opium from the poppy pods, converting it to morphine before using it the beer. That type of poppy — not the California poppy, California’s state flower — is a Schedule II drug, classified as a narcotic, by the federal government.
According to the student, Chad Renzelman, he bought the poppies on eBay (and wasn’t growing any) and used them last month to brew a beer with a group of friends that he homebrews in weekly in a co-op. Though all of the poppy beer is gone, it reportedly was slightly stronger but had nothing beyond a little “kick to it.” In addition to the Poppy Ale, the co-op has also recently made a chocolate mint stout and a mango blonde ale, so flavored beers are nothing new.
Renzelman also says in the article that “lab investigators from the state Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, chemists from the state Department of Justice and officials from county Environmental Health were called to survey [his] backyard because police suspected he was dumping hazardous poppy waste there.” Apparently some were even wearing those scary-looking hazmat suits to sift through his compost heap looking for his spent grain.
More from the article:
Police reported finding a pressurized canister of homemade beer laced with morphine in Renzelman’s garage, as well as lab equipment contaminated with opium alkaloids and other hazardous chemicals. Police suspected the poppies were used in the beer production, but that’s still illegal, Capt. Steve Clark said.
If convicted of the crime he was arrested for — suspicion of possessing and manufacturing a controlled substance — Renzelman could be sentenced to seven years in prison.
On one hand, it seems awfully silly that homebrewing with poppies caused such a scene, but I guess that’s the nature of our no tolerance drug policy. Where, by the way, do all the poppy seeds that end up on bread come from? But on the other hand, it seems pretty unlikely that a graduate student in chemistry wouldn’t know he shouldn’t be messing around with opiate poppies.
Trying to catch up from the NBWA Convention earlier this week in San Francisco and shooting a TV show yesterday (more about that later), I’m a little late with this news. Ray Merkler at Bathtub Brewery has announced that the next session’s theme will be “Beer & Memories.” I guess I forgot. He elaborates.
Is there a beer that reminds you of a specific memory?
If you’re thinking, “Huh?” then you might want to craft your response along the lines of “Whenever I drink [insert brew here] it reminds me of that day …” Or perhaps it’s the reverse. Oooooh.
Hmm, that could open a can of worms … or even a can of beer. Join us Friday, October 3, all over the beer blogosphere to see what everybody remembers.
Ah, memories. Persistent little buggers.
I saw today that MillerCoors has shut down the Brew Blog, which Miller launched roughly two years ago.
The Brew Blog was written by Jim Arndorfer, who had previously written for Ad Age. I just met him in person for the first time at the NBWA Convention earlier this week in San Francisco, but we’ve corresponded routinely. I wish him well in whatever he does next. Here’s what he has to say in the last post:
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And it’s fair to say Brew met these objectives. The blog broke industry news and highlighted industry trends, while the magazine covered the big changes that transformed the U.S. beer business. One of the most dramatic changes was, of course, the creation of MillerCoors.
As the strongest No. 2 the beer industry has seen in decades, the new MillerCoors needs to communicate differently than the old Miller did. And so it’s creating a variety of new communications tools to establish a new voice and perspective with its employees, distributors and retailers, and to help it become America’s best beer company. You’ll soon hear more about these initiatives.
Good luck with your next endeavor, Jim.
Tomorrow on NPR’s Science Friday the show they’ll be airing is called “The Evolution of Beer,” but really it’s yeast they’ll be talking about. Here’s the description of the show:
In the world of beer, ales are separated from lagers by their yeast. Lager yeast collects on the bottom of the fermenting vessel and ferments sugars into alcohol at lower temperatures that ale yeast, which operates at higher temperatures at the top of the fermentation vat. In new research published this week in the journal Genome Research, scientists examined the genetic sequences of 17 unique lager yeast strains from breweries in Europe and North America, tracing variations in the genetic code of those yeasts back through time. The researchers found that a key hybridization step, in which genetic information from two different yeasts combined and rearranged to yield a new ‘lager yeast’ organism, may have actually happened twice. The researchers found two different family groupings in the lager yeasts they studied, with one lineage associated primarily with Carlsberg breweries in Denmark and breweries in what is now Czechoslovakia, and the other family grouping connected mainly to breweries in the Netherlands, including Heineken. In this segment, we’ll talk with one of the authors of the study about genetics and beer, and about the genes behind lager beer styles such as Pilsners, Märzen, Dortmunders, and Bocks.
Also, according to a report on the study on New Scientist, “Lagers belong to two main families: the Saaz group such as Carlsberg, brewed in Denmark; and the Frohberg lagers that include Heineken and Oranjeboom from the Netherlands.” To discover this, the team examined seventeen yeast strains from around the word and used from 1883 to 1976.
Also from New Scientist:
It has long been thought that Saccharomyces pastorianus, the yeast used in lager production, formed only once from the hybridisation of S. cerevisiae and S. bayanus. Instead, the team discovered that it happened at least twice in two separate locations in Europe, giving rise to the two different lager families. The hybrid, which makes lager instead of ale, probably evolved in Bavarian beer-brewing cellars during the 16th century.
The team also found that Saaz yeasts have a single copy of each parent yeast’s genome, whereas the Frohberg yeasts have an extra copy from S. cerevisiae. They believe this difference affects the flavour of the lager, as well as how quickly the yeasts can ferment the hops.
Sounds like that should be a pretty interesting show. From looking at their schedule, it looks like the whole Friday will be devoted to genes, with the beer only part of the day’s topics. Check your local NPR radio station for when it will air in your part of the world. In the Bay Area, KQED (88.5) will air it at 11:00 a.m. tomorrow.
At a beer dinner the other night at Hopmonk Tavern I had a chance to try Russian River’s newest beer, Happy Hops, whose name has an interesting story.
In talking about it with Vinnie, he declared that it was his new favorite beer, which is essentially a well-hopped blonde ale. Russian River’s website refers to the new beer as a:
It’s light and nicely refreshing with a nose reminiscent of hops’ cousin, Mary Jane. Although it’s over 5% and thus not truly so, it does feel like a hoppy session beer. Maybe that’s a relative thing, but a hoppy beer that’s also clean, light and refreshing I think is a great addition to Russian River’s lineup. Its name comes from a historical Santa Rosa brewery, Grace Brothers, which operated on 2nd Street under that name from 1897-1969. The hops business runs in cycles and so, just like today, there was a hop shortage in the late 1940s and hops were rationed for a time. To get around the allotments imposed, Grace Brothers Brewing created another beer company, North Bay Brewing Co., which operated from 1946-52, so they could get two allotments of hops. That brewery’s lineup included a beer called Happy Hops, which, according to the information on the can, was a lager. I love that era’s graphic design. They’d put a face on anything and personify it. The hop man serving up himself for your enjoyment just cracks me up. In case you can’t read the red banner at the bottom of the can, it reads “We grow our own hops, we make our own malt.” |
Tuesday night I traveled up to Sebastopol to Dean Biersch’s new place, the Hopmonk Tavern, for a beer dinner featuring the beers of Russian River Brewing. Hopmonk looks like they’re going to be stepping it up and having regular beer dinners roughly every two weeks on Tuesday evenings.
The evening began with a new Russian River beer, which Vinnie declared was his new favorite: Happy Hops, which is a well-hopped blonde ale, but more about that beer later. The meal was four courses and the pairings quite good. We started out with a small salad, including tarragon flatbread and a local artisan goat cheese, which worked especially well with Temptation.
Hopmonk Executive Chef Lynn McCarthy and Russian River brewer Vinnie Cilurzo.
Our second course, scallops in a tomato cream sauce, was paired with two different Damnations, the current batch and one from a year ago.
The main course was Rabbit Pappardelle with a cream sauce, paired with Salvation.
After a dessert of Humble Pie (key lime pie in reality), Lynn McCarthy, Dean Biersch, Natalie and Vinnie Cilurzo.