Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Celebrate 25th Anniversary of California’s Brewpub Law

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This Thursday, September 13, marks the 25th of anniversary of the signing of the California bill — AB 3610 — which removed the “tied house” restriction then present in California which prohibited any person or company from brewing beer and selling it directly to the public. The bill allowed beer to be sold where it was brewed, as long as the brewer also operated a restaurant at the same location. It was only the second brewpub law passed in the country at that time. The bill was written by then-state legislator Tom Bates, who is now the mayor of Berkeley.

California was home to three of the first five brewpubs in America. The second brewpub to open America (and the first in California) was the Mendocino Brewery in Hopland, California, which opened in August 1983. Mendocino Brewing has moved to a new facility in Ukiah and the Hopland location is now a bar, but the company is still going strong. The third brewpub in the U.S. was Buffalo Bill’s in Hayward, California, which opened in September 1984 and still a brewpub. And the fifth was Triple Rock Brewery in Berkeley, California, which opened in March 1986. It’s also the only one still owned by the same people who started it.

Join the California Small Brewers Association Thursday as we drink a toast to the law that changed our beer landscape for the better.

From the press release:

On September 13th at 5:00 pm, Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates will join brew pub owners to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the signing of the California law that legalized brewpubs. The bill — AB 3610, authored by then-Assemblyman Tom Bates — was soon replicated around the country, creating the national brewpub industry and introducing millions of people to good beer.

The September 13th event will include a ceremonial “bill signing” by the owners of Bay Area Brew Pubs, an honor to Mayor Tom Bates for writing the legislation, and a special beer brewed just for the occasion by Triple Rock Brewery.

“In the early 1960s, I spent time in Germany as an officer in the U.S. Army. When I got home, I realized you couldn’t get a good beer in the United States,” said Mayor Tom Bates. “When a group of entrepreneurs and beer enthusiasts approached me about changing State Law to provide a market for smaller, craft breweries, I jumped at the opportunity. Every time I travel around the country, I am amazed to see the wonderful legacy of my legislation.”

9.13

Celebration of the 25th Anniversary of Brewpubs!

Triple Rock Brewery, 1920 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, California
510.THE.BREW [ website ]
 

Sierra Nevada to Bottle Fresh Hops

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Almost a dozen years ago, Sierra Nevada head brewer Steve Dresler was having lunch with renowned hop expert Gerard Lemmens. He had just returned from England, where he’d been helping a brewer there figure out how to use whole, unkilned hops. Gerard asked Dresler if he’d ever considered using fresh hops.

He hadn’t, of course, but the idea marinated and a few days later he mentioned it to Ken Grossman who told him to “go for it.” The first year, Dresler made only one 100-barrel batch. In the intervening years, as demand for the beer has risen quickly, many obstacles have been overcome, such as how to ship that many hops or how to convert a recipe from regular hops (which are 8-10% water) to fresh hops (which can be as much as 80% water). Also that first year, an entire UPS truck was filled with small boxes of fresh hops bundled together with holes poked into them. Today, they’re overnighted in mesh onion sacks laid out flat in a single layer of a 18-wheel refrigerator truck. Each year, both Cascade (@2/3) and Centennial (@1/3) hops are used, but because they’re different from year to year — and because the exact quantities of each differ — the beer has to be reformulated on the fly. When it’s brewed is always a moving target because it’s contingent on when the hops are ready to be picked. Often it’s around Labor Day weekend, but you never know. Over the last eleven years, the most Harvest Ale they’ve made in a single year has been around 800-900 barrels available on draft only.

This year, however, Sierra Nevada is taking a giant leap and is planning to brew 3,000 barrels, using 16,000 pounds of fresh hops in two batches. And more exciting still, two-thirds of it will be available nationwide in 24-oz. bottles. I suspect it will sell out fast, not least of which because even though they’re making triple the usual amount, it will be sent all over the country meaning only small amounts which reach most markets. I’ve learned that the final brew was done last Thursday, September 6, and they hope to have it in the bottles as early as September 24. Keep an eye out for it, and buy it right away. But more importantly, drink it right away, too. This is the very antithesis of a beer meant to be aged. Make up your own special event to drink it. Get some fresh, locally made food and cook up a great meal. Invite your favorite people over to share it with you. This is the best way to celebrate harvest time, with the fruits of the harvest, both food and drink.

Session #7: The Brew Zoo

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This month’s Session, hosted by Rick Lyke at Lyke2Drink, is another clever one. The theme is the Brew Zoo, meaning beers with animal names or labels, of which the beer world is replete with examples. Today was my son Porter’s birthday party (his actual day is Monday) and so I wasn’t able to blog yesterday because there was just too much to do to get ready for the party. So instead I decided to have something furry today.

In honor of Porter’s birthday, I decided on an English Porter I picked up somewhere during my recent travels. It’s from Nethergate Brewery, which is in Suffolk, England. It’s called Old Growler and is, of course, a porter. I tried it with my friend Sean Paxton, The Homebrew Chef, who was at the party to help celebrate Porter’s birthday with his wife and new baby girl, Olivia.

The beer had a beautiful color, black with reddish purple streaks, a very appropriate color which I’ll explain later. It also had a thick tan head with great lace and silky rich aromas of milk chocolate and dry powdered cocoa. Silky smooth and rich, thick with milk chocolate flavor and just a touch of vanilla and hazelnut. The hops are nicely restrained. They’re like finding a black hole, we can’t really perceive them but know they’re there by the obvious balance. The finish is very dry. There’s a lot going on in this complex porter and it would make a wonderful dessert beer.

Here’s how the brewery describes the beer:

Our famous porter has won at the CAMRA winter festival twice, the only brewery to do so, first in 1998 and again in 2003, also winning the highest accolade Supreme Champion in 2003. Also Supreme Champion at the Chicago International Beer Festival in 2004, in the porter category. A complex, satisfying porter, smooth and distinctive. Roast malt and fruit feature in the palate. The finish is powerfully hoppy with a hint of liquorice.

But back to the story of the reddish purple color.

Before my son Porter was born, my wife and I came up with a list of five boys’ names and girls’ names that we both liked. We had to do both since we didn’t know whether we were having a boy or girl. As perhaps the most anal-retentive couple on the planet we went through months of perusing baby name books and compiling lists, which we would then compare and knock each other’s out until at long last we came up with ones we could each live with to name our child. The idea was that armed with a few names we both liked, we’d see which one best fit after he or she was born. At one point, I even tried to get Bullwinkle on the list, but that didn’t last long. Brewer also made the short list, and I still like the sound of it for a name. Porter, of course, was on the final list, but I honestly didn’t expect it to be the winner. But then my son was born. At our Lamaze classes and in my reading, somehow I missed the information that there’s a point in the birth where the baby isn’t getting any oxygen before it takes its first breath.

So I was quite alarmed when my new son was a dull purple when he first made his entry into the world. As the doctor carted him off for his initial testing, I didn’t even know if he was breathing and was very nearly panicking. My first thought naturally was “is he okay?” After being assured that this was normal and that he was just fine, I began to calm down and drink in the sight of my first born child: the wiggling fingers and toes, the bleating cries and gasps of first breaths, and odd purple discoloration on reddish pink skin. My second thought then was “wow, he’s the color of a nice robust porter.” Later, after we were moved into a room, I was recounting these thoughts to my wife. She just looked at me, smiling, and said “well … I guess we know what his name is.” And that’s how my blond-haired, blue-eyed boy became a Porter.

Porter at his 6th birthday party, in the midst of his own zoo.

 

Raise A Glass To Michael Jackson September 30

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A national toast is being planned for Michael Jackson, and as a fund raiser for the National Parkinson Foundation. It is tentatively set to take place on September 30. Details will be listed at the new Beer Hunter website. The old Beer Hunter site has been archived at a new location. Apparently, “participants will be able to register their site and download a poster, and drinkers will find a list of toast sites.” Personally I’d like to see 100% participation from the online beer community. There isn’t one of us that doesn’t owe Michael, at some level, a debt of gratitude.

 

Collaboration Smackdown a Draw

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Friday night was a very special night for a beer dinner, with two of the finest craft brewers going head to head in a friendly competition where not one, but two, beers were paired with each of the four courses. A night of stories, food, skate and some truly wonderful beers, drawing beer and food lovers from all over the Bay Area. Who won? We did, that is, all of us who attended. It was terrific trying the two very different Salvation beers side-by-side and then the Collaboration Not Litigation Ale that is a blend of the two.
 

Adam Avery, the beer chef Bruce Paton and Vinnie Cilurzo raise a glass to great beer and food.

 

For more photos from the Collaboration Beer Dinner, visit the photo gallery.
 

Michael Jackson Passes Away

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NOTE: An updated version of this post, and one which I’ll continue to update with new information, photos and links, can be found at my new tribute page: Michael Jackson 1942-2007.

I just got word from a friend and colleague that Michael Jackson passed away early this morning in his London home. He got the news from Roger Protz, a beer writer in England, that he had been found in his tub. It now appears that the cause of death is a heart attack. This is very sad day for the beer world. Michael was larger than life and his influence cannot be overestimated. To say he will be missed seems a grand understatement.

After getting the news early this morning, I’ve just spent the last eight hours flying home from Yakima, Washington, where I’d been attending Hop School. In that time, a little more information has come to light and some memorials have already been created. Here are a few from around the beer world:

News Reports:

 

Memorials & Remembrances:

 

Photos:

  • Tom Dalldorf went through some of the Celebrator’s older photo archives and dug up some great pictures of Michael, which he’s posted at the Celebrator.
  • Mark Silva, from Real Beer, posted some great photos on his Flickr page from an event at the Beach Chalet in San Francisco from 2001.

 

Video:

    Interview in Michael’s London home with Dan Shelton of the Shelton Brothers beer importers (on YouTube).

 
Stan Hieronymus has now set up a special blog as a memorial entitled Michael Jackson The Beer Hunter In Memoriam

 
Here are some of my own memories:

I first became aware of Michael Jackson at about the same time I discovered different, more flavorful beers while stationed in New York City in the late 1970s. I was in a U.S. Army Band at the time, stationed under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge on Fort Hamilton, which is on Staten Island. My bandmates and I went into Manhattan whenever we could and spent a lot of our time in the many jazz clubs in the Village and other parts of the city. Beers like Bass Ale, Guinness and Pilsner Urquell were often served in these clubs and they were vastly different from the local pilsners I grew up drinking in southeastern Pennsylvania. I was smitten with them at once, and wanting to learn more about them, chanced upon Michael’s World Guide to Beer at a bookstore and devoured it whole.

Fast forward around 13 years later and I’d just published The Bars of Santa Clara: A Beer Drinker’s Guide to Silicon Valley and treated myself to my first trip to the Great American Beer Festival. This was 1991 or 92. Michael was signing books at a table and I was thrilled to finally meet someone who had been such an inspiration. I told him about my book and explained how grateful I was for his books and how helpful they were to me in writing a summary of beer history and styles for my guidebook’s appendices. He gave me his card and asked me to send him a copy, which I happily did.

My next encounter with Michael was at the Great Divide Brewery in Denver during a later GABF. At this point I was the beer buyer at Beverages & more and had been invited to one of the first of Great Divide’s annual Thursday morning open houses because I had recently started selling Great Divide in our California stores. I asked Michael if he had received my book, fully expecting him to have no recollection of it given that several years had passed. He told me he remembered it and particularly liked my appendix with historical events, birthdays etc. for every day of the year, a lifelong passion of mine that you can still see in the upper left-hand corner of the Bulletin every day.
 

 

A few years later I joined the Celebrator Beer News and saw Michael more and more at events around the country. I loved hearing him talk about beer, of course, but I figured out early on that it wasn’t the only thing he loved. As a result we started discussing literature, politics, music — especially jazz — and topics decidedly non-beery whenever we saw one another. He recommended many books and authors to me over the years, including ones I now cherish such A.J. Liebling. I think Michael liked being able to relax and not have to talk about beer constantly and I just enjoyed his company, he was insightful and a great storyteller.

But I think my favorite Michael memory took place at the Craft Brewers Conference when it was in San Diego in 2004. One night everyone was around the central pool area enjoying the many San Diego beers there. I was feeling hungry and thinking about getting dinner even though it was later in the evening. About that same time, Michael declared he was hungry and it turned out we were the only peckish ones in our group standing around chatting. I volunteered to take Michael to dinner so his people could stay at the party. We walked slowly over to the closest restaurant in Town & Country, the self-contained resort where CBC was being held, talking amiably about nothing and everything. But we arrived too late and a rude maitre’d would not seat us and suggested we try the last remaining open restaurant in the complex, though he wouldn’t guarantee it was open either. Outside the restaurant, I persuaded a Town & Country employee to take us to the other restaurant, Kelly’s Steakhouse, in his electric golf-cart because Michael was visibly tired. Kelly’s Steakhouse was open and we sat at a corner table, before spying Vinnie and Natalie Cilurzo out to dinner with some friends. They had just sat down, too, and invited us to join them and we all re-situated ourselves at a larger table. It was a great night of wine, beer and conversation. And there are a few funny stories I can’t tell here.

The outpouring of memories and reminiscences in the last 24-hours are a living testament to the influence Michael had throughout his thirty-plus-years writing about beer and spirits. It’s hard to imagine a single soul who did more for an industry. It’s a remarkable achievement that reminds me of one of my favorite stories, Jean Giono’s The Man Who Planted Trees. It’s a French tale about a solitary man living alone in the hills of a desolate part of rural France as a sheepherder. Every night he hand picks fifty acorns and the following day he plants them. He does this for years and then decades, totally changing the landscape. The trees flourish which brings back birds, animals, plants and water, which in turn brings life back to an entire region, including countless people who begin moving back into the area. It was made into a wonderful animated film several years ago which won an Academy Award for short animated feature (you can watch the video on Google Video). The story is about how the dedication and perseverance of one man — which could be you or me — can really make a difference. So often we feel like nothing we do can or will make much of a difference, but people like Elzéard Bouffier (the fictional tree man) and Michael Jackson prove that it is possible for an exceptional person to have a profound effect on peoples’ lives. It’s almost impossible to imagine what the American craft beer industry would be like today without Michael Jackson. He wrote with such passion and enthusiasm — and so beautifully — that he inspired countless brewers and beer enthusiasts. Without his voice, where would be today? He was a giant among men. Try as we might, none of us writing today are in his league. A few are very good — you know who you are — but there is no one as clearly gifted. Of course, through his work Michael will live on and continue to inspire us, as well as future generations of beer lovers.

 

Michael and Carolyn Smagalski at a recent Pilsner Urquell event. (Thanks for the photo Carolyn.)

 

Arcane Beer Laws

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The U.S. is filled with strange laws, and the world of beer is not immune. In fact, in the states I’m familiar with, they are some of the most incomprehensible, nonsensical laws one could imagine. Many were created just after Prohibition, when almost every state rewrote their alcohol laws. And some are more modern, showing quite clearly that we have learned little in the intervening 75 years.

Of course, there are many of these odd laws that I don’t know about and, happily, Carolyn Smagalski has filled in some of the blanks. Carol writes a terrific column on beer at BellaOnline, a website for women. Here is her list of some of the quirkier ones by state:

Silly Beer Laws by U.S. State: A-M
Silly Beer Laws by U.S. State: N-Z

If you know of any others in your state, please let me know. I think I’ll start keeping a list.
 

Today Alcopops, Tomorrow Beer

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Join Together, another one of those pesky neo-prohibitionist groups, is still crowing about the California Board of Equalization‘s wrong-headed decision last week to tax FMB’s (flavored malt beverages, a.k.a alcopops) using the same schedule as spirits. This will mean, beginning in mid-2008, makers of FMBS will be required to pay about 25% more in taxes. Neo-Prohibitionists groups who pushed this issue believe that making alcopops more expensive will somehow reduce underage consumption.

As I’ve said before, it’s quite easy to see why the BOE would vote in favor of higher taxes, especially during a statewide budget crunch, but even at that it was a narrow 3-2 decision. Insiders present at the meeting tell me that the BOE hinted at al present that in ruling they way they did, they were giving all concerned parties a chance to take the issue to the legislature where the BOE made clear they believe it should be decided. I’ve heard an unconfirmed story already that the anti-alcohol Marin Institute has talked to the state speaker, fully expecting his support, only to be shut down in no uncertain terms. It’s no surprise we’ve haven’t heard that side of the story from them.

Knowing that makes it much harder to swallow Join Together characterizing the ruling as “groundbreaking.” Their headline, Alcopops are Liquor, Not Beer, Calif. Tax Board Rules, is misleading at best and an out and out lie at worst. The BOE did no such thing. They only ruled that alcopops should be “taxed” as spirits, not that they “are” spirits. A small point, perhaps, but I think illustrative of how willing these groups are to torture the truth and bend it to their will.

Speaking of lying, here another pernicious one:

Michael Scippa, advocacy director for the Marin Institute, told Join Together that up to 90 percent of the alcohol contained in alcopops is derived from distilled spirits, and that California law states that a beverage with any amount of detectable alcohol from such sources is considered a distilled product, not a beer product.

“Up until now, alcopop manufacturers have gotten away with a cynical manipulation of California’s alcoholic beverage laws, mischaracterizing their products – which derive most of their alcoholic content from distilled spirits – as though they were beer to permit them to be sold cheaply and broadly throughout the state,” said Scott Dickey, an attorney with the San Francisco-based Public Law Group, which provided free legal services to the campaign to change the alcopops classification. “The BOE’s decision is a big step forward in holding alcopop manufacturers accountable for this deception.”

That’s not true, they are malt beverages with flavoring added. Distilled spirits are not added and it is not where their “alcoholic content” is derived from. They are most closely related to beer, which is precisely why they they are called flavored malt beverages and why they have been taxed like beer. Their alcohol content is likewise about the same as the average beer. They are fermented like beer and then chemical flavoring compounds are added, which give FMBs their distinctive sweet, fruity essence. Unlike attorney Scott Dickey’s assertions, which in fact are mischaracterizations, FMBs are exactly what their name suggests, no one has deceived anyone.

When Diageo first presented Smirnoff Ice to me in my capacity as the beer buyer for Beverages & more, they were quite candid about their reasons for launching the new product. Since they were prohibited from advertising their brand in certain media and likewise not permitted to sell their brand in certain stores, at least in California, such as convenience stores, gas stations, etc. By making an alcoholic product that was not spirit-based, they could now do so and it would further allow them to promote, market and advertise the core brand of Smirnoff to a wider audience. I think the fantastic success of Smirnoff Ice, and their countless imitators, surprised Diageo as much as it delighted them. But it was created precisely NOT to be a spirit, and if they had used distilled spirits in its manufacture, that would have defeated its original purpose.

Unlike the assertion of Marin Institute executive director Bruce Lee Livingston, whose grasp on reality seems to be slipping, that “[f]or generations, Big Alcohol has evaded proper taxation on these products,” they have been taxed at the exact rate they should have been for what the product actually is. And as I pointed out previously, Smirnoff Ice was introduced in 2001 and a generation is about thirty years. Clearly math is not his strong suit.

Now I’m no fan of FMBs. I don’t like them. I don’t like the way they often subvert young people’s conversion to craft beer. From a purely business point of view, I understand why the parent companies have used them to build their brand awareness while creating new profits at the same time. But I have been hearing a disturbing number of people inside the brewing industry willing to throw them under the bus, short-shortsightedly failing to recognize that the attack on FMBs is not an end unto itself, but merely the first battle in a much longer war. Don’t believe me? Just wait, do nothing, and see what happens.

I have it on good authority that the next salvo from the Marin Institute will be to ask the legislature/BOE to reclassify all malt beverages over 6% abv as distilled spirits! That means any strong beer like Belgian tripels, dubbels, bocks and doppelbocks, barleywines and even some IPAs will all be considered distilled spirits for taxation. I’m sure they’ll be spinning it as an attack on malt liquor, but some of our most cherished styles of beers will fall under such a definition, making them either more expensive or economically unfeasible for the breweries to continue making them.

Distillation, of course, is a specific process for separating, in the case of liquids, different components with different boiling points. There are a few kinds of distilling, such as freeze distilling, pot distilling and reflux distilling, and each of them does roughly the same thing or yields similar results. Liquids distilled are separate and distinct from either beer or wine, of course, as the process deviates wildly at one point and the resulting spirits are generally much, much stronger than either. Types of distilled products include absinthe, bourbon, brandy, calvados, cognac, gin, ouzo, rum, schnapps, scotch, tequila, vodka, whisky (and whiskey) to name just a few of the more common examples. Other non-alcoholic or lethal products which are distilled are gasoline, kerosene and paraffin.

So trying to call strong beers distilled spirits is not really in keeping with reality. Spirits — and wine for that matter — is generally much more alcoholic than beer, so trying to paint even a 10% strong beer with the same broad brush as whisky is akin to trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. It just doesn’t work. But it really has nothing to do with reality — or concepts of fairness — but instead is the drawing of the next battle line in a war whose goal is another national prohibition. We have to be vigilant of these groups and what they’re trying to accomplish. It’s our very complacency and disorganized apathy that they’re counting on to succeed. You can color me as reactionary as you like, but no harm can come from committing ourselves now to defeating the well-organized campaign for another prohibition. If we succeed, life continues as before. But if we lose, we’ll have no beer to cry into. Don’t let that happen.

 

Fungus Amungus: Microbes in the Tailoring of Barley Malt Properties

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This Friday, August 31, Research Scientist Arja Laitila will be defending her thesis, Microbes in the Tailoring of Barley Malt Properties, at the University of Helsinki, in the hopes of being awarded her PhD.

Arja Laitila

Her goal?

Microbes – bacteria, yeasts and filamentous fungi – have a decisive role in the barley-malt-beer chain. Microbes greatly influence the malting and brewing performance as well as the quality of malt and beer. A major goal of the dissertation was to study the relationships between microbial communities and germinating grains during malting.

The research for her dissertation investigated the impacts of bacterial and fungal communities on barley germination and on malt properties. Her work “revealed that by modifying the microbial populations during malting, the brewing efficiency of malt can be notably improved. Well-characterized lactic acid bacteria and yeasts provide a natural way for achieving safe and balanced microbial communities in the malting ecosystem. She showed that the malting ecosystem is a dynamic process, exhibiting continuous change. The microbial communities consisting of various types of bacteria, yeasts and filamentous fungi form complex biofilms in barley tissues and are well-protected. Inhibition of one microbial population within the complex ecosystem leads to an increase of non-suppressed populations, which must be taken into account because a shift in microbial community dynamics may be undesirable. Laitila found some new microbial species in the malting ecosystem.”

 
More from the press release:

Suppression of Gram-negative bacteria during steeping proved to be advantageous for grain germination and malt brewhouse performance. Fungal communities including both filamentous fungi and yeasts significantly contribute to the production of microbial b-glucanases and xylanases, and are also involved in proteolysis. Well-characterized lactic acid bacteria (Lactobacillus plantarum VTT E-78076 and Pediococcus pentosaceus VTT E-90390) proved to be effective way in balancing the microbial communities in malting. Furthermore, they have positive effects on malt characteristics and they improve wort separation.

Previously the significance of yeasts in the malting ecosystem has been largely underestimated. This study showed that yeast community is an important part of the industrial malting ecosystem. Yeasts produced extracellular hydrolytic enzymes with a potentially positive contribution to malt processability. Furthermore, several yeasts showed strong antagonistic activity against field and storage moulds. Addition of a selected yeast culture (Pichia anomala VTT C-04565) into steeping restricted Fusarium growth and hydrophobin production and thus prevented beer gushing. Addition of Pichia anomala into steeping water tended to retard wort filtration, but the filtration was improved when the yeast culture was combined with Lactobacillus plantarum E76. The combination of different microbial cultures offers a possibility to use different properties, thus making the system more robust.

For the more technically inclined among you, a pdf of her dissertation is available online.

 

Beer To Cure the Oil Crisis

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Alright, it’s possible I may have exaggerated just slightly with my headline claim that beer will cure the looming oil crisis. But it’s not impossible so therefore it’s technically achievable, however implausible. Anyway, here’s the idea in a nutshell. Scientists working at new project, a part of which is the Manchester Centre for Integrative Systems Biology at The University of Manchester, will be using the recently discovered knowledge that “networking in living cells may determine whether a cell causes diabetes or cancer or helps to maintain our health” to figure out how to modify the cell’s behavior so it tends toward being healthy instead of causing cancer. This emerging field is known as Systems Biology. Here’s the part in Medical Science News that caught my eye:

Using this approach Manchester researchers working on the Systems Biology of Microorganisms (SysMO) research programme will also drive a project that looks at how the yeast used in the production of beer and bread can be turned into an efficient producer of bioethanol.

That sounds like they’re trying to figure out how to have beer yeast create fuel, doesn’t it? How cool would it be if brewers could use the same yeast to create both the beer and the gas for the truck that delivers it? Fill ‘er up with Sierra Nevada, please.