I’m up waay too early to catch a flight to Portland for the 20th annual Oregon Brewers Festival. I get in at 8 a.m. and then it’s off to the Rogue Public House for brunch before the parade to open the festival at Noon. This is probably my second favorite festival of the year. Time permitting, I’ll try to post photos from the various events surrounding the festival and the festival itself, of course, each day.
Sierra Nevada Bottles Anniversary Ale
For a long time now, if you wanted to try Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.‘s anniversary ale, you had to drive to Chico and visit the brewery pub, because that was the only place it was available … until now. This year, Sierra Nevada will be offering the 27th Anniversary Ale in bottles. I’ve only been fortunate enough to be in Chico at the right time to try the beer one time, many years ago. It’s great that it will now be much more widely available.
From the press release:
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Brestfest ’07
Saturday was the 7th annual Micro Breweries Battling Breast Cancer Brewfest (a.k.a. “Breastfest“) in the courtyard behind Marin Brewing in Larkspur, California. It’s a festival near and dear to my heart because I lost my mother to breast cancer when I was only 21 (and she was 42). It’s a small, crowded place — especially since it’s become so popular — but it’s worthy cause, as far as I’m concerned. There was a lot of good beer and friends in attendance, plus food, music and some pretty wonderful weather. All in all, a great event.
“Gabby” looking fetching in her pink hat, pouring 21st Amendment’s Watermelon Wheat.
Ken and a colleague, both sporting pink hair, from North Coast Brewing.
For more photos from this year’s Micro Breweries Battling Breast Cancer Brewfest, visit the photo gallery.
Hard Drive Crash
My computer crashed two days ago while running a routine update. The culprit was the hard drive, which has now been replaced. I’ve got my computer back now but I’m still waiting to see if I can get all the data off the old drive. Until then, I’m missing some files that make it possible for new posts to be created. Hopefully, posting will continue again by this afternoon or tomorrow. Thanks for your patience.
Toronado 20th Anniversary Events
Mark your calendars, and start training your livers for a marathon, because next month, beginning August 9, a three-day celebration for the Toronado‘s 20th anniversary will take place.
First up, on Thursday August 9,a special night of music and beer will be held at Russian River Brewing in Santa Rosa, California. Two bands, American Dog (from Dave Keene’s home state of Ohio) and Broken Teeth (out of Austin, Texas) will perform. On tap, in addition to the usual beers, will be a special anniversary ale created by Vinnie Cilurzo for the Toronado milestone. No word yet on what time the festivities will begin, but I’ll update that information as soon as I get it.
| The following night, Friday, August 10, this time at Annie’s Social Club in San Francisco another special night of music is planned. Beginning at 9:00 p.m., Alcoholcaust and The Toronado will present the Toronado’s 20th Anniversary Party and Big Daddy Dave’s Birthday featuring Broken Teeth, American Dog and Infested. Annie’s Social Club is located at 917 Folsom Street at 5th in San Francisco. It’s a free show with no cover. |
The big finale will take place Saturday night, August 11, starting at 5:00 p.m., at the Toronado. In addition to the Russian River Anniversary Ale, Tomme Arthur from the Lost Abbey as created a special blended beer for the Toronado anniversary called “Cable Car.” Only six kegs of this beer were made, one of which will be at the Toronado Saturday evening. The remaining five will be bottled as a special release. Also on tap that night will be a special cask version of Anchor’s Porter. It should be an amazing night of beer.
The Homebrew Chef’s Latest Creation
I got the good news over the weekend, the Homebrew Chef, Sean Paxton, has a new apprentice. On Thursday, July 12, at 6:28 a.m., his wife gave birth to a baby girl, their first. She was 8 lbs., 1 oz., and 22 in. Her name is Olivia Rose Paxton. Join me in wishing her and her parents all the best.
Olivia Rose. She already has good taste in beer.
Bravo for the Winners
Okay, I promise that was the last bad Bravo pun, but yesterday at Drake’s Brewing in San Leandro the 2nd annual Single Hop Festival & Washoe Tournament took place. This year, 21 breweries made an IPA using only Bravo hops, following roughly the same recipe. The recipe called for mostly 2-row malt, along with Munich and Crystal 45, though the exact malts was left to each brewery. The 21 breweries used seven different ale yeast strains and nine of them filtered the beer. Hop additions were specified in the directions, though mash and fermentation temperatures were left to each brewery.
I was asked to coordinate and lead the judging, and I took a hedonistic approach, meaning we used a standard of which beer would you buy for yourself and a friend. Since they were all IPAs, we didn’t dwell on style considerations. I divided the judges into teams of three each, and gave each group seven random beers, from which they each chose two to push forward to the final round. We were then joined by Mike Sutton, who works for S.S. Steiner (the company that developed the Bravo hop variety) and chose our three favorites from the six. Sometimes when I judge deadlocks are broken by a simple vote with the beers getting the majority of votes being declared the winner. While I understand the rationale for this method, I do not personally like to use it because it’s my feeling that all of the judges should be satisfied with the results, not just a majority. For this reason, I prefer to use more of a jury-like approach where ten angry men talk it out until all can agree with the results. This approach does tend to take longer, but I think the result is a more well-thought out decision that each judge can feel good about. This year, the winners we chose were:
- Bison Brewing
- Russian River Brewing
- Sonoma Coop’s
The three other beers that made it to the finals were, in no particular order, from Firehouse Brewing, Seabright and 21st Amendment. The Bravo hop proved to be far milder than last year’s Summit hop and overall made for a better-tasting beer. There did seem to be less variation, too, but also Bravo did not have bold signature aromas the way Summit did. That’s not better or worse, just different. It seems like Bravo should blend well with many other hops and should end up being a successful hop over time. Now that’s my idea of a fun afternoon. The only thing that would have made it better is if I could have played washoes.
Washoes,
Beer and Barbecue.
Shaun O’Sullivan, from 21st Amendment Brewery, James Costa, from E.J. Phair Brewing, and Vinnie Cilurzo from Russian River Brewing.
For more photos from the Single Hop Festival, visit the photo gallery.
Bravo For the New Hop
Countless new hop varieties are created every year, so many in fact that they are given only a number. A hop has to really prove itself worthy before it actually gets a name. For example, Hop #01046 began its life in Prosser, Washington at the Golden Gate Roza Hop Ranches. During the summer of 2000, a female hop known as Zeus was cross-pollinated with a male known simply as #98004 (whose mother is in effect Nugget hops). Its lineage, therefore, is “50% Zeus, 18.75% Nugget, 25% USDA 19058m, and 6.25% unknown.”
The following year, seeds were collected and the plant was grown in a greenhouse for the next two years, and screened for powdery mildew resistance, along with gender, vigor, and cone type. By 2002, #01046 was exhibiting higher than usual alpha-acid percentages with good resistance and several other very positive attributes. The next year, 2003, #01046 was asexually propagated and rhizomes from the original plant “were dug, divided and planted into multiple greenhouse grown containers.” Eventually, 4,000 softwood-cutting plants were created and then grown at two different locations, the original Roza ranch and also at Golden Gate Emerald Hop Ranches in Sunnyside, Washington. These plants represented the second-generation of the hop plant.
Over the subsequent three years the hops were grown, sampled, tested and analyzed on a variety of factors. These tests confirmed that the new hop had good resistance to disease, along with exceptionally high yield and high alpha-acids percentages. The hops were harvested and processed into 200 lb. bales, which were tested using the ASBC (American Society of Brewing Chemists) spectrophotometric method and showed “average alpha-acids level of 17.5% and beta-acids level of 3.5%.” The alphas were almost exactly the same as Mom (Zeus) but with much less loss of alpha-acids in storage, a good sign.
In 2005, third-generation plants were created and a large-scale field test was conducted at the Emerald Ranch. Declared a success, #01046 was re-christened “Bravo” and S.S. Steiner, who operated the hop fields in Washington, filed a patent application. 2006 yielded the first commercially available Bravo hops.
For every one of these success stories, there are hundreds that never make it. But even getting this far doesn’t guarantee a hop’s success. How it works in the beer is the final and arguably the most important test. So what will it taste like in your beer? Nobody’s certain, though there is a great way to find out. Tomorrow you have an opportunity to sample at least 21 single hop IPAs, using only Bravo hops, made by breweries from around northern California. Drake’s Brewing in San Leandro is hosting their 2nd annual Drake’s Brewing Beer Festival and Washoes Tournament. Each brewery will also be serving some of their other available beers so you’ll have plenty of other beers to sample, as well. But it’s a great educational experience on several fronts. First, you get to try a new hop in its debut in a commercial beer. Second, you can see firsthand how different brewers using different equipment but the same hop and the same IPA recipe can craft 21 beers that all taste distinctively different (at least that was the experience from last year when Summit hop was used at the festival). It should be a fun time. Come join us at Drake’s for a memorable afternoon of beer, food, music and games. See you there.
Bravo Hop Characteristics:
Alplha Acids: 14.-17.%
Cohumulone: 29-34% of alpha acids
Beta-Acids: 3-5% w/w
Total Hop Oils: 1.6-2.4% v/w
7.14
Single Hop Festival & Washoe Tournament (2nd annual)
Drake’s Brewing, 1933 Davis Street #177, San Leandro, California
510.562.0866 [ website ] [ directions ]
NOTE: The patent filing lists Bravo as #01046 but the photo shows #1046. So far, I’ve been unable to confirm which is correct.
Marston’s Gobbles Up Old Thumper
Marston’s, who brews Banks, Mansfield and Jennings as well as the eponymous beers, is buying out the regional Hampshire brewery, Ringwood, whose most well-known beer is undoubtedly “Old Thumper.” The pricetag is £19.2 million pounds (or just shy of $39 million dollars) and also includes Ringwood’s pubs in and around Hampshire. Six months ago, Marston’s also bought Eldridge Pope for £155m ($314.5 million U.S.).
According to a BBC article, “[t]he acquisition will boost Marston’s presence in the South of England and enhance its range of regional breweries which include Midlands-based Banks’s.” Alistair Darby, Marston’s managing director is quoted as saying. “We plan to develop its excellent brands as part of our strategy to meet consumer demand for premium ales with local provenance and heritage.” And here I thought they just wanted to make more money.
| Ringwood Brewery has an interesting history. It’s situated in the relatively small town of Ringwood in Hampshire, which is in southern England, about 20 miles from the coast and 85 miles from London. The town is part of the rural district of Hampshire and is essentially a market town located along the River Avon and adjacent to “New Forest,” the largest remaining unenclosed pasture land, heathland and old-growth forest in England. By 1811, Ringwood was a bustling community and at one time boasted four breweries, but the last one — Carter’s — closed around 1923. Fifty-five years later, in 1978, Ringwood Brewery was opened by Peter Austin, who today is considered to be the “father of British micro-brewing.” Not only was he one of the first small breweries to open in modern times, but he also helped save cask beer from extinction. |
The yeast Austin brought with him from the now-defunct Hull Brewery in northern England is today known as “Ringwood yeast” and is a popular ale strain used by countless small American craft breweries. Alan Pugsley, who learned brewing from Peter Austin, is the co-owner and master brewer of Shipyard Brewing in Portland, Maine. That’s also the reason that Ringwood’s “Old Thumper” beer is made under license by Shipyard for sales in North America. To learn more about how Ringwood Brewery greatly influenced the craft beer movement here in the United States, through Alan Pusgley, there are two illuminating interviews with him online by Lew Bryson and Andy Crouch.
Despite Marston’s claims that they’re only in it to “meet consumer demand for premium ales with local provenance and heritage,” I can’t help but be suspicious of yet another big brewery chain swallowing up a smaller one. These things rarely go well for the one being bought. There’s a lot of heritage in the Ringwood Brewery and it would be a crying shame if it was lost to another economic decision by a large company that only cared about its bottom line. And apparently I’m not the only one. CAMRA has also made its concerns known about the acquisition in a Publican article by Adam Withrington. CAMRA believes this buyout by Marston’s may have a “domino effect” for increasing the consolidations of pubs and breweries, a trend I personally thought was fairly well-established in England as already taking place.
From the Publican:
CAMRA chief executive Mike Benner said: “The practice among larger breweries of acquiring smaller competitors is a race where the only loser is the consumer who is often denied a locally brewed beer.
“As one of the larger breweries buys a brewery and expands their estate their competitors start hunting for their next purchase to keep up. CAMRA’s fear is that an increasing number of smaller breweries will be lost if this race continues and consumer choice will suffer as a result.”
CAMRA’s fears arise from a significant number of small local breweries being bought and closed down by bigger regionals over the last three years. Greene King has purchased both Ridley’s in Essex, Scottish brewer Belhaven and Nottinghamshire brewer Hardys & Hansons and closed all three breweries. In 2005 Fuller’s bought Hampshire regional brewer Gales and closed its brewery in Horndean.
The Ringwood Brewery in Hampshire, England.
John White’s Final Trip
I was at the Celebrator offices Monday night, doing a tasting of wheat beers for the next issue, when the sad news came in that John White, the tireless supporter of great beer passed away at 62. I never met the man, but know plenty of people who have and sang his praises. He ran the White Beer Travels website, a terrific resource for beer travelers and also beer-themed travel adventures known as “White Beer Travels Beer Hunts.” According to the website, White passed away on July 2 and a service celebrating his life was held on the 9th in his hometown of Grimsby, England.
Carolyn Smagalski has a moving tribute on her website, Bella Online, entitled “Tribute to a White Knight.”
John White with Michael Jackson in 2004.