Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Suma Foods to Brew Organic Beer

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According to the splash page on their website, Suma is the UK’s largest independent wholesaler and distributor of quality vegetarian, fairly traded, organic and natural foods. There are around 7,000 products listed that they either make or distribute. You can now add one more to their list: organic beer.

Today’s Yorkshire Post gave a few scant details on the project. From the article:

The UK’s biggest independent distributor of organic food, Halifax-based Suma Foods, has launched a range of organic beers. The beers are all CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) approved, certified organic by the Soil Association and are vegan.

The beer is brewed locally by a Dutch master brewer who the company has been working with over the past 18 months to develop the range.

The names for the beers were chosen by Suma’s customers in a competition and reflect local places and folklore in the Calder Valley.

Though curiously the names of the beers were not revealed and Suma’s somewhat sparse website gives no details either. Now that’s good reporting.

He’Brew National Release Party at the Toronado

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Last night my friend Jeremy Cowan held a National Release Party for his two new beers, Genesis 10:10, Shmaltz Brewing’s 10th anniversary beer, and Lenny’s R.I.P.A, a Rye Double IPA in honor of Lenny Bruce, who died forty years ago this year. As usual, the Toronado was jumping and there were several friends in attendance. Mercifully, it was no longer opressively hot and a nice cool breeze was circulating around the Toronado, which is quite unusual in my experience.

And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.

— Genesis 10:10, KJV

In case you’re curious, this chapter of the Torah/Bible concerns the history of Noah and the other survivors’ offspring post-flood and this verse is talking specifically about Nimrod.

I’d tasted the Genesis 10:10 a couple of weeks ago and it’s a really terrific strong beer. The original Genesis Ale, from ten years ago, had pomegranates in it so Jeremy used pomegranate juice in the anniversary ale. As I understand it, it was added to fermentation about halfway through and as a result the yeast didn’t drop out for a week longer than expected. I don’t know if that’s the reason or not, but you’d never know from tasting this beer that it’s 10% abv.

The RIPA used 20% rye, which is a lot, but it’s not overpowering in the final beer. Personally I like rye, so perhaps I have a higher tolerance for it than most. To me rye does more for the mouthfeel and texture than for flavor though the distinctive rye character was certainly present there, too, especially when enjoying it with a sandwich on rye bread, which I made for myself while I was there. This is a great twist on an imperial IPA and the rye makes it stand out — in a good way — from the usual doubles.

At the Toronado last night for He’Brew’s release party. From left: Alec Moss, Half Moon Bay Brewing, Pete Slosberg, formerly of Pete’s Wicked Ales and now making Cocoa Pete’s Chocolates, Jeremy Cowan of Shmaltz Brewing and Rodger Davis of Drake’s Brewing.

Last one to stick his nose in his glass buys a round. Sorry Alec.

Single Hop Festival at Drake’s: “Summit Hop”

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July 8, from Noon to 6:00 p.m., at Drake’s Brewing in San Leandro, California you’ll have a unique opportunity to taste at least sixteen beers all made with the same hop, but with different malt, yeast and water. This should be a lot of fun. Perhaps I’ll see you there.

From the press release:

We will have around 17 local breweries in house with their beers, and all will have made a “single hop beer” or in this case “same hop beer.” The idea was to have each brewer make a beer with their own malt, water and yeast, but have everyone use the same hop. This year we are using the new Summit hop. Come on by and see for yourself how different malts, yeast, water and brewing techniques can change a beer. Brewers will also be bringing some of their other fine products. We will also be playing the game that will be sweeping the brewing nation — Washoe. The $35 admission price includes entry to the fest, all the beer you wish to responsibly consume, entry into the Washoe tournament, a festival t-shirt and a great time. Please join us!

Drake’s is about a 15-20 minute walk from the San Leandro BART station. Buses run up and down Davis Street. Cabs are available at the BART station. We are located at the loading dock area around the back of the Wal-Mart. This is to benefit San Leandro school teachers. Hope to see you here.

 
 

Come out to the festival and meet Drake’s brewers Rodger Davis and Melissa Myers.
 
 

Breweries Attending

  • Bear Republic
  • Bison
  • Drake’s
  • E.J. Phair
  • Eldo’s
  • Iron Springs
  • Magnolia
  • Marin
  • Moylan’s (still a maybe)
  • Piza Port (still a maybe)
  • Rubicon
  • Russian River
  • Sacramento
  • Seabright
  • Sudwerk
  • Thirsty Bear
  • Triple Rock
  • 21st Amendment

 
 

7.8

Single Hop Festival & Washoe Tournament (2nd annual)
Drake’s Brewing, 1933 Davis Street #177, San Leandro, California
510.562.0866 [ website ] [ directions ]

NBWA Continues Lobbying for the Rich

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I knew this issue wasn’t going away. Congress is again moving toward letting the rich get richer while the rest of us get poorer. A compromised version of the repeal of the estate tax passed the House today and while it’s not quite as onerous as outright repeal, it still leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. What’s that flavor? Greed. Bloomberg has a nice overview of today’s events regarding the estate tax vote. Why is this here? Because the National Beer Wholesaler Association continues to make this their top priority. It has very little to do with the beer business per se, apart from keeping a very wealthy few beer wholesalers as rich as Croesus.

From the NBWA press release:

NBWA Applauds House Vote Calling for Permanent Relief from the Death Estate Tax

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – The National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA) today applauded House passage of legislation that aims to provide the nation’s small business owners with permanent relief from the onerous death estate tax. H.R. 5638, the Permanent Estate Tax Relief Act of 2006, sponsored by Ways and Means Committee Chair Bill Thomas (CA-22), passed the House with bipartisan support.

“Today’s vote represents recognition by the House that it is high time to deliver a permanent solution to the death estate tax to America’s small business owners,” said NBWA President Craig Purser. “While full outright repeal is the ultimate goal, in this intense political climate we acknowledge that partial relief is better than nothing. Those groups that oppose Chairman Thomas’s bill in favor of holding out for a vote on full repeal must understand that small business owners need permanent relief now, and the window of opportunity is closing.

“The onus is now on the Senate to act swiftly. The Senate asked for legislation from the House and the House answered the call. Now is the time for Senators to stand up for small, family-owned businesses and support this effort to provide permanent relief from the death estate tax once and for all.”

Horse manure. You can read my earlier equally fair and balanced rant entitled “Enough Already: Time to Cry Bullshit” about this issue.

Beware of Flashing Lights

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If you see a flashing red light, run. Run fast. You never know what it might be. Don’t stop to check it out. Perhaps it’s a bomb? After all, that’s what happens to a society when daily terror alerts, local news and a war in Iraq all conspire to keep us fearful, docile and obedient. That’s certainly what happened Tuesday when a bartender at the Swan Lake Resort in Plymouth, Indiana (population: 10,728) saw a flashing red light. Without investigating — after all he thought it might be a bomb — he called police and 35 hotel guests were evacuated.

So why is this here on a beer blog? Because it turned out the blinking light was from a Pabst Blue Ribbon promotional sign suction-cupped to the window and not, happily, a terrorist cell run amuck. Now Plymouth may not be in the middle of nowhere, but you can probably see it from there. The nearest big town is Fort Wayne (not exactly a giant either, at 220,000) 84 miles from there and Chicago is 100 miles away. So yeah, when I see a blinking red light my first thought has got to be terrorist attack. What else could it be?

I don’t mean to necessarily make light of this, but who believes a small town in the midwest almost no one has ever heard of is going to be al Qaeda’s next target? The resort manager was quoted as saying that “the unintentional false alarm is part of living in the post 911 world.” [my emphasis] Now maybe this is because I use words all day, but unintentional? It wasn’t unintentional, which means “not deliberate or intentional; inadvertent.” The alarm was sounded deliberately. A light was seen, a judgment made, and the authorities alerted. Calling it unintentional is just to placate their guests who had to leave their rooms for half an hour.

“Our employee saw something unusual and reported it,” resort manager Doug Leedke said. Was this a new bartender? A new sign? Was the bartender not familiar with POP advertising materials generally? How did he get from blinking light to bomb? What was thought process that would have led him — or indeed anyone — down that path? I live only a few minutes from a site that has been mentioned as a potential target several times — the Golden Gate Bridge — and I almost never think anything about it in those terms. Should I? I don’t think so. I don’t want to go all que será, será, but beyond taking a few obvious precautions, there’s not really a lot I can do.

Another news source reported that the “bartender called authorities about the suspicious flashing light at 12:30 a.m. Monday, and guests were evacuated about six minutes later, said Doug Leedke, general manager of the resort in Plymouth. Six minutes later!?! There must not be an awful lot of crime in Plymouth because I don’t think there’s anywhere in the Bay Area that I could get authorities to do anything in six minutes, which is not to disparage our fine boys in blue here.

Sadly, none of the reports showed a picture of the Pabst ad, and I sure would like to see it so I can decide if this really is as ridiculous as it appears. I searched Pabst’s website hoping to stumble across it but no luck.

Something similar just happened a few days ago when a kindly old woman in Japan left a six-pack by way of thanks at her local police precinct. Again, their first thought was also bomb, and everybody was evacuated until the bomb squad could confirm it contained malt, hops, water and yeast and not nitroglycerine.

I think the beer industry should adopt the slogan “beer not bombs” in an effort to stave off this wave of bad publicity. We need to create a positive message. We can’t have people seeing beer and their first thought is it might explode. I’m not aware of an epidemic of infected malt that would cause gushing on the scale where people would start wearing crash helmets when they shop for beer. So we should be able to safely predict that your beer won’t explode. Fingers crossed.

City Brewery of Wisconsin to Buy Latrobe Brewery

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It was announced today that InBev has signed an exclusive letter of intent with City Brewery of La Crosse, Wisconsin. Three weeks ago it was reported that negotiations had broken down in City Brewing’s efforts to buy the Coors brewery in Memphis, Tennessee. So this makes a lot of sense, though I’m surprised they didn’t use this as a bargaining chip — bludgeon, really — to get the concessions they wanted from the brewery workers’ union in Memphis. Who knows, perhaps they still will. After all the letter of intent doesn’t guarantee that they two parties will be able to agree on a price and terms acceptable to both. But it’s certainly a good first step. I can only imagine the 200 plus workers at the Latrobe Brewery are breathing a collective sigh of relief. Let’s hope it all works out to everybody’s satisfaction.

From the Pittsburgh Times-Review story:

Latrobe Brewing Co. may soon have a new owner, as InBev USA said Wednesday it has signed an exclusive letter of intent with City Brewing Co. of La Crosse, Wisc., to purchase the brewery.

InBev and City Brewing Co. will now begin negotiations in an effort to reach agreement on a final deal, according to a statement issued by InBev Wednesday.

InBev said no timeframe has been set for completion of the talks, which will remain confidential between both parties. InBev said no information would be forthcoming until the talks are concluded.

City Brewing brews its La Crosse and La Crosse Light beers. The company also has a significant contract brewing business, which means it brews beer for other brewing companies.

Two weeks ago InBev said a letter of intent was being negotiated with an undisclosed potential buyer.

InBev said members of the International Union of Electronics Workers/Communications Workers of America, which represents about 154 workers at Latrobe Brewing, will be included in the talks. Union officials could not be reached for comment.

InBev also said local, state, and federal government leaders will also be consulted. State officials could not be reached for comment.

According to a statement released by Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, he would be willing to discuss offering incentives to City Brewery in an effort to save the jobs.

From his statement:

“I am very encouraged and hope that our work to save the more than 200 jobs at Latrobe Brewing Company will be successful. I intend to speak with officials from City Brewery tomorrow to discuss our aggressive and innovative Pennsylvania Economic Stimulus program, which, I hope, will help them decide, like many other companies, that Pennsylvania is the right place to locate and expand their business.

“The hardworking, highly skilled men and women at the Latrobe Brewing Company are the best reason for any brewing company to bring their product to Pennsylvania, and I am hopeful that this letter of intent will translate into a contract to purchase the company. I intend to work personally, along with my Governor’s Action Team to ensure that this happens. This is not the final step, but it is a very good step in the right direction.”

HopUnion Merges with Yakima Chief Craft Division

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hopunion-globe yakima-chief
HopUnion LLC announced today that they will be merging, effective August 1, with Yakima Chief’s craft division. Yakima Chief will continue to independently run their other divisions. But the craft beer side of their hop business will be folded into HopUnion’s and almost nothing will change there apart from having more hops to offer and the addition of longtime Yakima Chief east coast salesman Jim Boyd.

From the press release:

“We believe this merger will help provide more selection of hop varieties as well as better stability in the supply and demand chain,” said Ralph Olson, general manager and one of the owners of Hopunion Craft Brewing Sales, LLC. “Our ability to take care of the needs and desires of the customer will be greatly enhanced.”

Olson said that by combining the two companies there will be improved efficiencies in pellet plant production with the ability to produce larger volumes of consistent product.

Prior to the merger, Hopunion Craft Brewing Sales, LLC and Yakima Chief, Inc. were providing specialty hop varieties to the craft brewing industry.

Joining Olson in the new company will be Ralph Woodall, Jim Boyd and David Edgar, who together have over 60 years of experience in the hop industry. Support staffs from Hopunion Craft Brewing Sales, LLC and Yakima Chief, Inc. will be located at the Hopunion Craft Brewing Sales, LLC office in Yakima.

Ownership of the new company includes several Northwest growers who specialize in producing premier aroma hops. With these grower partners, the new company will be able to continue to provide the consistency in quality of hops that customers have come to expect from both companies.

“We will now be able to provide greater coverage in North America for the craft brewing industry,” Olson said of the merger. “And, it will allow us to help nurture craft and specialty brewing internationally, a growing segment of the industry.”

I spoke to Ralph Woodall this morning and it sounds like the merger is all positive. According to Ralph, the two can now stop competing in this area and start working together which should be a boon to craft brewers. Both have, as I understand it, great reputations in the industry though HopUnion certainly has the more public face (and puts on the best industry parties — especially when they work alongside Joanne Carilli from White Labs). Gerard Lemmens had been the public persona of Yakima Chief but he left the company last year for Brewers Supply Group and has all but retired to London now. So this merger makes a great deal of sense for both parties.

HopUnion, even before the merger, was the biggest supplier of hops to the craft beer industry with Yakima Chief solidly at number two. Post-merger they will own a sizable share of the market, though the craft beer market represents a fairly small percentage of total U.S. hop production. Best of luck to the Ralphs, David, Jim, Jennifer, Dave and Becky, the Johns and the rest of the wonderful folks at HopUnion.

ralph-olson-1
The infamous Ralph’s from HopUnion. From left: Ralph Olson and Ralph Woodall, with Rob Widmer, of Widmer Brothers Brewing. I took this at the 15th Anniversary Party for the Celebrator Beer News.

Washington State Formally Appeals Costco Decision

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The closely watched Costco decision, which would dismantle the three-tier system in Washington state and would also set the stage to do the same throughout the country, has now been formally appealed by Washington state’s attorney general, Rob McKenna. The Washington Liquor Control Board had earlier indicated that they would appeal, but this now makes it official. Judge Pechman, who made the ruling being appealed, has not yet decided whether to stay her ruling during the appeal process, which could easily take up to two years to wind its way through the legal system.

Nicole Kidman Gives the Gift of Beer

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Apparently actress Nicole Kidman is getting married this weekend to Keith Urban, who I gather is a country singer who was born in New Zealand. Now I don’t really follow celebrity news — that’s my wife’s area of expertise — but I thought this tidbit was pretty amusing. It seems the papparazzi has been staking out at Kidman’s harborside Sydney house in anticipation of the couple’s impending nuptials. Around twenty photographers were camped out and presumably will be there until the wedding this weekend. Like most modern big celebrities, her relationship with the media is occasionally tense and strained but apparently this time she decided to try a different tactic in dealing with them. She sent out a case of Victora Bitter and some bottled water along with a note that read simply “Enjoy!” That’s only one beer per person and a potentil fight over the remaining four, but it’s really the thought that counts. And the last thing she probably wanted was a drunk papparazzi singing bad drinking songs outside her house while she was trying to sleep.

Victoria Bitter is brewed by Foster’s and, as I understand it, is far more popular in Australia than Foster’s ever was.

Victoria Bitter

Australia’s favourite full strength beer, Victoria Bitter or VB as it’s fondly known, has a tradition of rewarding hard work and hard play, dating back to the 1890s. Over the last 10 years, it’s been a consistent winner in the esteemed Australian Liquor Industry Awards (ALIA), more recently picking up “Best Full Strength Beer” in 2001, “Tap Beer of the Year” in 2002, and “Best Full Strength Beer” again in 2003.

VB is a full flavoured brew, less malty in character and slightly darker than CUB’s traditional lagers. A gentle fruitiness in the aroma complements the sweet malt on the mid-palate balancing perfectly with a robust, hop bitterness.

Style: full strength bitter lager
Alcohol: 4.9%

(From the Foster’s Group website.)

Additional Info

VB, as it commonly called, has the largest market share of any beer sold in Australia. It’s brewed by Carlton & United Breweries, a subsidiary of the Foster’s Group. Most people who’ve tried it think it’s more of a mainstream lager than a true bitter. But when I was the beer buyer for BevMo we used to get lots and lots of requests for this beer. It is not, however, imported to the U.S. as far as I know.

Who’s thirsty now?

New Zealand Developing Hybrid Hops

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HortResearch of New Zealand is working to develop a hybrid hop that, according to hop breeder Ron Beatson, is not just another ‘High Alpha’ hop, which is where most global hop development has previously been focused. Instead Dr. Beatson is “taking the established New Zealand hybrids and crossing them with the traditional European aroma varieties, the latter of which have been used in brewing for well over 100 years. The result is a hybrid plant well adapted to New Zealand growing conditions that produces hops with unique flavour profiles perfectly suited to brewing ‘craft’ beers.” Many such aroma hybrids have now been produced.

“The idea was that fewer hops could be used to achieve the same bitter taste, making brewing more cost efficient. But consumers are now demanding more flavour in their beer and are prepared to pay a premium for that, so high aroma hops are back in vogue.”

Armed with funding from the grower-based industry body New Zealand Hops Ltd and the Foundation for Research Science and Technology, as well as support from New Zealand’s major brewing companies Lion Breweries Ltd and DB Breweries Ltd, HortResearch is now further developing its plant-breeding strategies.

An example of the novel flavours possible from such breeding is the HortResearch-bred Nelson Sauvin variety, which imparts distinct grape flavours to beer.

Most organic hops used today come from New Zealand because the country “is free from many of the pests and diseases which plague hop crops around the world, and this, combined with [their] clean, green image and innovative hop varieties make us an attractive option for brewing companies looking to source high-quality raw materials for brewing.”

Brewers are also seeking to explore further potential health benefits beer may offer consumers. Hops contain a number of unique polyphenols which have been associated with potential antioxidant benefits for humans. Clinical trials in the US and Europe are currently examining their effect on mitigating challenges to human health such as cancer, arteriosclerosis, bone deterioration, obesity, and diabetes to name a few.

At present many of these beneficial compounds are not harnessed in sufficient quantities by traditional brewing methods. Dr Beatson says the industry is now seeking ways to include greater levels of polyphenols in beer, and HortResearch is seeking to breed hops with increased polyphenol content.