Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Lagunitas To Expand Into Distilling

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After a lengthy struggle where apparently one neighbor refused to willingly let his new neighbor build on the adjacent property in a way that was approved by nearly every governmental and environmental agency, Lagunitas owner Tony Magee’s plans for the land he owns in Tomales Bay was finally approved by the California state Coastal Commission in a 7-2 vote yesterday. The property is in the unincorporated town of Marshall in western Marin County.

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According to the Marin IJ, “The project, overlooking the east shore of Tomales Bay at the northwest corner of 17990 Highway 1, includes a residence, garage, brandy distillery producing about 280 gallons a year, an equipment barn, shed, hops shelter, two sheep shelters, a greenhouse, a new well, special wastewater treatment and related improvements. Three public tours for up to eight people each will be offered for four hours on Saturdays. Brandy will be offered for sale to those on tours, but no tastings will be allowed.”

“Magee and one employee plan to cultivate hops on 6 acres and English dessert grapes on 6 acres, and graze about 35 pair of lambs and ewes on 50 acres. Other livestock would include 100 chickens.” Five years ago, almost to the day, I wrote about Lagunitas planting hops on this same bit of land, in Lagunitas Plants Hops in Tomales Bay, and this was the view at that time.

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So the brandy should be interesting; micro-distilling is certainly a hot trend lately. I’m sure the hops they’ll be growing will be for Lagunitas beer, but I wonder if the 6 acres of grapes will be used for the brandy? It’s seem likely, but we’ll have to wait and see. I assume it will be a while before there’s any brandy to taste.

But I think my favorite part of this story is that in the headline, the newspaper refers to Lagunitas owner Tony Magee as a “beer baron.” Lagunitas has certainly become one of the bigger small breweries, but I’m not sure they’ve ventured into “beer baron” territory. Either way, I don’t think I’ll be able to not think of Tony as a beer baron in the future. I recently did a feature profile of Magee in the latest issue of Beer Connoisseur if you want to learn about Tony and Lagunitas. If only I’d known then that he was a beer baron.

Beer Brewed With Elephant Dung

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I’ve had my share of beers made with odd ingredients, from pizza beer to Wynkoop’s bull testicle beer, with all manner of flowers, nuts, fruits, vegetables and tree parts in between. But this one has to take the cake. The Japanese brewery Sankt Gallen created a beer with elephant dung, which reportedly immediately sold out.

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According to Drinks Business:

The beer, which is called Un, Kono Kuro, is made using coffee beans that have passed through an elephant.

The Sankt Gallen brewery called the beer a “chocolate stout,” despite it not containing any chocolate. The coffee beans used in the beer come from elephants at Thailand’s Golden Triangle Elephant Foundation, which cost over $100 per 35 grams. The beans are so expensive as 33 kgs of beans in the mouth yields 1 kg of useable coffee beans.

According to another source, International Science Times, the beer “utilizes the flavor of Black Ivory Coffee, a variety of your morning brew that retails for about $500 per pound because the beans are harvested from elephant poop. And by “harvested” we mean picked out of a big pile of dung and rinsed off. The elephant poop beer uses the coffee beans to enhance the flavor in its coffee stout.” They continue.

Un, Kono Kuro is a pun on “unko” which is the Japanese word for “crap,” a fitting name indeed for elephant poop coffee. Although the elephant poop beer was a sales success, don’t expect it hit shelves anytime soon. The brewer, Sankt Gallen, isn’t adding it to their regular line-up. It’s not cheap beer, either; the retail value of a keg of Un, Kono Kuro is around $1100.

So apparently it’s pretty popular. At least one reviewer said it wasn’t bad, saying “there was an initial bitterness that got washed over by a wave of sweetness. Following that, a mellow body rolled in and spread out through my mouth.” Still, this may be going too far. What do you think?

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Sweden Forbids Lust

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I tend to think that the U.S. has a lock on the provincial, puritanical thinking that forbids so many odd features of everyday life, often anything to do with sex, while at the same time allowing violence with nary a sideways glance. I’ve never understood that, but maybe that’s just me. Anyway, apparently Sweden is similarly off the deep end on sex, something I would never have expected. A Danish brewer, Amager Bryghus, created a series of seven beers based on the seven deadly sins, with a different beer, and label, for each. They call them the Sinners Series.

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Take a look at the seven labels below and see if you can guess which one Sweden decided had to be censored?

If you answered Lust, you’re correct. Here’s what the label looks like outside of Sweden.

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And here’s what it looks like inside Sweden.

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According to The Local, an English-language news website covering Sweden, the problem was that “Danish beer bottles ‘too sexy’ for Sweden.” Like some U.S. states and Canadian provinces, Sweden has government-run liquor stores, and they make the decisions as to what’s acceptable.

Sweden’s state-run liquor retailer has decided that the picture on the Lust bottle, which contains a sweet Belgian ale with a 9.2 percent alcohol content, doesn’t abide by Sweden’s alcohol etiquette.

“We can’t accept the label, it’s against Sweden’s alcohol laws,” Systembolaget spokesman Lennart Agén told The Local.

“It’s quite a sexual label.”

As a result, Systembolaget has told the brewers to remove or edit the picture if the beer is to be sold in Sweden. The brewers responded by simply blacking out the entire label so neither the woman nor the bath is visible at all.

But it wasn’t an easy process, according to the brewers.

“We had to go through ten attempts before they’d accept it,” Henrik Papsø, head of communications at the brewery, told The Local.

Still, it seems awfully weird that a cartoon woman that’s only suggestive at best tripped up the censors. And I though we were prudes.

Amager-lust

Beer Style Chart: Beer Styles Compared

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Today’s infographic is an amazing chart of beer styles, but not a static one. The view below is simply the starting point of the Beer Style Chart, from there you can manipulate it and compare styles in a myriad of different ways. This great resource was created by the folks from Strange Brew, a Canadian software company that makes a homebrewing program. There’s also a generated chart that shows difference in the styles.

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Click here to go to the interactive page.

Beer In Ads #866: Satisfying Good Taste

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Tuesday’s ad is for Blatz beer, from 1944. Trying to stay classy, the show their rather plain-looking beer bottle on a silver tray with a bouquet of flowers behind it. I”m not sure it works. According to the ad copy, Blatz is “Never sharp … never bitter … always mellow.”

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Olympia Beer Offers Million Dollar Prize For Finding Bigfoot

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In what has to be one of the most unusual marketing efforts by a large brewer, Olympia Beer has offered to pay $1 million dollars — in increments of $25,000 a year for the next four decades — to anyone who can find conclusive evidence of a live Bigfoot. The contest is the brainchild of Evan and Daren Metropoulos, who recently bought Pabst Brewing Co., which also owns the Olympia brand.

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Full details and rules can be found at OlympiaBigfoot.com, but here’s their “Mission Statement” for finding Bigfoot:

Olympia Beer and Bigfoot have been leaving footprints together in the Pacific Northwest since 1896.

We have been sharing the same backyard for over a century and we believe it’s time to do what has never been done, and that is to offer a one million dollar reward to anyone who can ensure the safe capture of Bigfoot. When we say safe capture that means Bigfoot has to be alive and breathing folks, with no wounds. That’s right you can’t use any act of violence, no guns/knives/boxing gloves/nets/etc, only sugar or sweets to lure him in.

You must register to participate in the search. To report your discovery of irrefutable evidence of the existence of Bigfoot, click on the “Submit Capture Report” link on the left and follow the instructions to report your evidence. You participation in the search is subject to the complete Official Rules.

To aid us in this adventure, Olympia Beer is partnering with The Falcon Project

The Falcon Project has been identified as “the most penetrative search for Bigfoot ever conducted in the United States.” They will conduct an aerial search for Sasquatch employing an unmanned airship with high definition thermal imaging camera equipment.

Sure, it’s a publicity stunt, but it’s a funny one. And what if someone actually does it? Apparently 14% of all Americans believe Sasquatch to be real, while another 14% say they’re not sure.

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Winners must provide “irrefutable evidence” of Bigfoot’s existence and, according to the rules, may include “DNA Evidence.” From the rules:

“Bigfoot” refers to a previously undiscovered species of upright, bipedal hominid, native to North America existing contemporaneously with the Contest Period or the twenty-five (25) year period immediately prior to the Contest Period. There is no set type or amount of evidence required to establish proof for purposes of this Contest other than that all evidence presented must satisfy the Judging Panel. Evidence may include, but is not limited to DNA Evidence. DNA Evidence may include hair, blood, tissue or saliva that proves the DNA sequence of the donor shows that said donor resides in the primate evolutionary family tree, among other apes or hominids, but does not have the same genetic markers and DNA sequence as any known species. Evidence may also include “Visual Proof” of a live physical body. Physical remains may be considered as evidence provided that it can be conclusively demonstrated that the date of death pre-dated the Contest Period. Visual Proof shall not include footprints, bone fragments, inconclusive skeletal remains, or any other non-definitive evidence of the existence of Bigfoot. Any photo or video taken with photographic or video equipment is not sufficient to qualify as evidence in and of itself for consideration in the Contest, but may be considered as supporting evidence.
NO HARM SHOULD BE DONE TO BIGFOOT OR ANY LIVING CREATURE AS A RESULT OF PARTICIPATION IN THIS CONTEST. ANY EVIDENCE OF SUCH ACTIVITY SHALL LEAD TO DISQUALIFICATION FROM THE CONTEST AND NOTIFICATION TO THE PROPER LEGAL AUTHORITIES.

Why Success Is Killing the Craft Brew Industry

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This ran in The Street a couple of weeks ago, and I meant to post it before but it kept getting pushed down in the queue. Portland writer Jason Notte does an interesting job dissecting the industry and the recent kerfuffles over taxes in Why Success Is Killing the Craft Brew Industry. If you follow the business side of the beer industry, it’s worth a read.

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