There was in interesting profile of Stone Brewing in last week’s San Diego Business Journal. The article begins by suggesting that “San Diego has earned the distinction of being one of the top craft beer capitals in the country” which is correct, but it’s still nice to see it acknowledged by the business press.
Photo Gallery: 9th annual Bistro IPA Festival
The 9th annual IPA Festival was August 12 at the Bistro in Hayward, California. It was another fun time with many excellent India Pale Ales to choose from. Judging was great fun though the final four led to much heated debate in trying to determine the final rankings.
Vic Kralj, co-owner of the Bistro, with Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River and Shaun O’Sullivan of 21st Amendment.
Out back at the IPA festival.
Matt Salie with Big Sky and Dave Hopgood with Stone.
Tony Magee, owner of Lagunitas, with me.
Darnell and Paul Marshall, who headed up the festival beer judging.
Shaun and Vinnie with Brian Hunt from Moonlight.
Melissa Myers and Rodger Davis from Drake’s join Shaun, Brian and Vinnie.
Angie Wagner, Celebrator writer, shows off her cycling leg with the help of Melissa Myers out in front of the Bistro.
Vic and Cynthia, Bistro owners (at left), pose with many of the brewers and beer people at their 9th annual IPA festival.
Sapporo to Buy Canadian Sleeman
Sleeman Breweries, of course, has had a for sale sign around it since May so this announcement came as no surprise. Only who had an element of surprise to it. Late Friday, the Japanese company Sapporo announced it has offered $17.50 a share in cash, which works out to $400 million (though some reports say $300 million), for the purchase of Sleeman Breweries.
If the sale is approved and completed, the three largest Canadian breweries will be owned by foreign companies. Molson Coors in number one and number two, Labatt’s, is owned by the Belgian company InBev. Sleeman is currently in the number three spot.
John Sleeman, CEO of Sleeman Breweries, holding a bottle of Trois Pistoles from Unibroue, the best brewery in Sleeman’s portfolio.
Bistro IPA Festival Winners
Blind Pig IPA was chosen best in show at the 9th annual IPA Festival today at the Bistro in Hayward, California. The full list of winners is below.
- 1st Place: Blind Pig IPA (Russian River Brewing)
- 2nd Place: Pizza Port Wipeout
- 3rd Place: Ballast Point Sculpin
- Honorable Mention: Russian River Brewing IPA
- People’s Choice Award: 21st Amendment IPA
- People’s Runner-Up: Drake’s IPA
Ecosteep Saves 30% Water During Malting
Holland’s Bavaria Brouwerij, the same brewery that was briefly in the international spotlight during the World Cup because of their orange leiderhosen, has installed a new malting system developed by the Swiss company Buhler. The new malting system, dubbed “Ecosteep,” will reportedly save as much as 30% of water consumption during the malting process. The process uses a flat-bottomed, steeping system developed by Buhler, along with several universities in an operation called “The Holland Malt Project.” Buhler also claims Ecosteep will produce improved uniformity of malt quality. Food Production Daily of Europe has a story about the new system and the Buhler Group’s website has additional information on the project.
Bavaria Brouwerij’s new malthouse towers, seen from above.
Icons of England: The Pub and a Pint
I’ve always been fascinated by symbols, so I was immediately drawn to the Icons of England Project, a project to identify and select the symbols that are instantly recognizable as being a part of England and England’s heritage. Throughout the course of 2006, people are invited to nominate icons for England and they will be chosen in four waves, three of which have already been selected. That quintessentially English establishment, the Pub was selected earlier this year, along with such other stalwarts as tea, Big Ben, the FA Cup, the miniskirt and Alice in Wonderland. The third wave was just announced and it included a Pint, along with the perfect pairing of pub food, Fish & Chips. The latest wave also included Monty Python, bowler hats, Robin Hood and the OED. A total of 53 icons have been chosen so far with one more round of icons to be selected. A staggering 667 nominations have been made online and my favorites so far are cheddar cheese, cider, James Bond, real ale, the red phone box, shepherd’s pie, the tube map, and Wallace and Gromit. What great fun.
Two of the Icons of England, the pub and a pint.
Blast From the Past: Genny Cream Ale
Cans of Genesee Cream Ale were de rigueur when I was growing up in Eastern Pennsylvania in the late 1970s. The simple green can design is emblazoned in my memory of that more simple time. It was certainly one of the favorite beers of my youth — at least in my memory — probably because cream ales are such a light, undemanding style. They fell out of fashion for a number of years, but lately several craft brewers are resurrecting the style as their lightest offering. It’s a much better alternative than making a low-calorie beer or American-style lager. High Falls Brewing, who has owned the brand for many years now, abandoned the all-green design sometime in the 1980s and when I carried it at BevMo in the mid-1990s all that was available were bottles with a paper label. Which is a shame. The beer itself I recall wasn’t great but was certainly serviceable and a decent session choice. It was that plain green can that had us all enraptured, though in retrospect I have no idea why.
High Falls is now trying to tap into that nostalgia I feel for the brand with a new retro-styled website at www.geneseecreamale.com. It’s a nice site but I don’t think they went back far enough because they’re still showing that damned paper label and a bottle on the main page. It does suffer the problem I have with virtually all big brewery sites — Flash. They’re so over the top with using flash technology instead of HTML that I hate navigating them. Maybe I’m in the minority here because I started hand-coding HTML back in the mid 90s, but I find it very annoying.
Sure, it’s a nice piece of breweriana, made to look older than it is, but where’s the can?
Frankly, this is how I will always remember Genesee Cream Ale. If they really want to tap into nostalgia, they need to bring back this can.
Elevating Beer and Food in Florida
Somewhat surprisingly, this is the second article from a Florida newspaper in recent weeks about pairing food with beer. Today’s South Florida Sun-Sentinel has a short article entitled The right foods can elevate beer by Food Editor Deborah S. Hartz. The focus of the story is a monthly beer dinner put on by Trina, a Fort Lauderdale restaurant in the Atlantic Hotel.
There Goes Traveling with Beer Samples
I know I should be thinking of the potential victims saved and the fact that terrorism is on most people’s minds every day, but I confess that when I heard the news this morning, my first thought was how it affected me. If you haven’t looked at the news yet this morning, British police foiled a terrorist plot to blow up more airplanes, apparently ones to New York, Washington and California targeting American carriers United Airlines, Continental Airlines and American Airlines. The method uncovered this time was to use “liquid explosives disguised as beverages.” So if this goes the way things did the last time with the shoe bomb, we can kiss taking beer samples home from trips goodbye.
I realize this doesn’t impact very many people, but I usually carry 6-9 bottles of beer home with me from almost any trip. Sometimes it’s samples I’ve been given to try and other times I just pick up beers I can’t get where I live. So far, I’ve been lucky. I’ve only been hassled in the City if Brotherly Love — Philadelphia. The security guard I got didn’t know you could travel with beer and started giving me a hard time until a supervisor stepped in and asked me one simple question. “Are they open?” “No,” I replied. “Then please go ahead.” As I walked along, relieved, I could hear the supervisor explaining something to the newbie, presumably that I was well within my rights and a bottle of beer posed no security threat. Well I can all but guarantee that will be changing soon. The airlines will rush to impose a new prohibition to include beverages of all kinds: beer, wine, soda and probably even bottled water. I’m sure they’ll cry security, but you know they make a lot of money selling drinks on the planes now. Imagine if they suddenly have a monopoly?
My friend Stephen Beaumont recently told me he never travels with samples anymore. He finds it’s just too much of a hassle in a post 911 world. I can only imagine what a hassle it’s going to become now. My big problem with all of this — apart of course from the personal inconvenience — is that the increased security they keep heaping on us isn’t really producing the right result. It’s not making us any safer, it’s just giving us the illusion that we’re safer. And for most people, I don’t think it’s even doing that. How is it escaping so many people’s attention that turning America into a police state one new security measure at a time is not making us safer but instead is making us less and less a free society?
I wonder if there’s a train I can take to GABF this year?
Bohemian Beer
A couple of days ago, Evan Rail had an interesting travel piece in the New York Times entitled The Ultimate Beer Run in the Czech Republic. The focus is naturally more travel-oriented but Rail speaks a lot about the beer there. Happily, Garrett Oliver is on hand (via phone) to lend a hand and give the beer info some context and history.
Bohemia is the western part of what today is known as the Czech Republic.