Take a tour of the Suffolk brewery Greene King with head brewer John Bexon hosted by UK beer writer Roger Protz. The video, entitled The Magic of Brewing, the Joy of Beer, runs just under a half-hour and includes a tour of Greene King’s “traditional brew house and fermenting area, taking in the ancient wooden vats where Strong Suffolk is matured.” Enjoy.
Fairy Tale Labels From the Brothers Grimm
Like most kids, I read (or had read to me) a lot of fables and fairy tales growing up. But a class I took in college on them reinvigorated my love of the genre, and I’ve continued to be a fan of fables ever since. Today, I have about two long shelves dedicated to collections of fairy tales from around the world, including the complete Brothers Grimm and an annotated volume of their more well-known tales. So I was excited to see the labels for the Grimm Brothers Brewhouse of Loveland, Colorado. The brewery opened in mid-2010 but somehow escaped my notice until recently. I don’t know if any of the brewery owners are brothers, or even named Grimm, but I’m guessing not, because their names are not readily available at the website or their Facebook page. But they’re certainly using the mythology of the Grimm stories to great effect in their beer names and especially the artwork, created by Ten Fold Collective, a local graphic design firm.
I just love the graphics for their labels. All of their packaging just looks amazing. I know that good packaging won’t mask a subpar beer for long, but it will enhance a good beer’s reputation and will help any beer stand out on increasingly crowded retail shelves. If their beer is only half as good as the packaging, it should be terrific. But it’s best to find out. Loveland is only about an hour north of Denver, on the way to Fort Collins. I definitely have to make a point to get out there during GABF week next year.
Here’s what the bottles look like, followed by close-ups of the labels themselves:
Snow Drop Honey Wheat Ale
Fearless Youth Dunkel Lager
Little Red Cap Alt Style Ale
Master Thief German Porter
The Griffin Hefeweizen Ale
The Farmer’s Daughter Oktoberfest Lager
And these labels are part of their “Fabled Series.”
The Count Imperial Stout
Big Bad Wolf Sticke Alt Ale
Sooty Brother Gratzer Ale
Weihnachts Bier Weizenbock Ale
Mirror Mirror Imperial Kottbusser Ale
Hare’s Bride Hefeweizen Ale
And this is a special release they did for Valentine’s Day earlier this year.
Bleeding Heart Cherry Chocolate Porter
Belgian Beer Guide Flowchart
Here’s a fun little “decision chart” from Faultline helping you figure out which type of Belgian beer to choose, and what to eat with your beer. The info on the chart was put together by Ryan Sweeny from Little Bear, a Belgian beer cafe in Los Angeles. Apart from the chart butchering the spelling of Tripel, it’s a fun, simple, potentially useful chart for the uninitiated looking to enjoy some belgian beer.
To see the chart full size, click on this link.
What Are You Eating?
How Much Are You Drinking?
Mongolia Beer
Today in 1911, Mongolia declared their Independence from China.
Mongolia
Mongolia Breweries
- Altan Beer Co.
- APU
- Chinggis Beer Brewery
- Gem International
- Khan Bräu Holdings
- MB Beer Plus
- MCS Asia Pacific Brewery
- Mongol Beer Company
- Old Czech Brewery
Mongolia Brewery Guides
Other Guides
- CIA World Factbook
- Official Website
- U.S. Embassy
- Wikipedia
Guild: None Known
National Regulatory Agency: None
Beverage Alcohol Labeling Requirements: Not Known
Drunk Driving Laws: BAC 0.02%
- Full Name: Mongolia
- Location: Northern Asia, between China and Russia
- Government Type: Parliamentary
- Language: Khalkha Mongol 90% (official), Turkic, Russian (1999)
- Religion(s): Buddhist Lamaist 50%, Shamanist and Christian 6%, Muslim 4%, none 40%
- Capital: Ulan Bator (Ulaanbaatar)
- Population: 3,179,997; 135th
- Area: 1,564,116 sq km, 19th
- Comparative Area: Slightly smaller than Alaska
- National Food: Buuz
- National Symbol: Soyombo symbol
- Affiliations: UN
- Independence: From the Qing Dynasty, China, December 29, 1911 / Revolution Day, independence from China gained, July 11, 1921
- Alcohol Legal: Yes
- Minimum Drinking Age: 18
- BAC: 0.05%
- Number of Breweries: 8
- How to Say “Beer”: шар айраг
- How to Order a Beer: нэг шар айраг, баярлалаа
- How to Say “Cheers”: таны эрүүл мэндийн тѳлѳѳ
- Toasting Etiquette: N/A
Alcohol Consumption By Type:
- Beer: 29%
- Wine: 8%
- Spirits: 48%
- Other: 15%
Alcohol Consumption Per Capita (in litres):
- Recorded: 1.24
- Unrecorded: 2.00
- Total: 3.24
- Beer: 0.39
WHO Alcohol Data:
- Per Capita Consumption: 1.2 litres
- Alcohol Consumption Trend: Decrease
- Excise Taxes: Yes
- Minimum Age: 18 (off-premise) 21 (on-premise)
- Sales Restrictions: Time, location, specific events, intoxicated persons, petrol stations
- Advertising Restrictions: Yes
- Sponsorship/Promotional Restrictions: Yes
Patterns of Drinking Score: 3
Prohibition: None
Beer In Ads #770: The Story Of Bread
Friday’s ad is another for Budweiser, also from 1942. This one is more of a history lesson equating “the story of bread,” which “may well be called The Story of Civilization.” From there it’s on to yeast, specifically baker’s yeast, for which A-B apparently was one of America’s biggest sources.
Times Tackles Brett
In case you missed it, yesterday’s New York Times had an article on Brettanomyces entitled Brettanomyces, a Funky Yeast, Makes Flavorful Beers that’s worth a read.
Beer In Ads #769: To Guard Your Well-Being
Thursday’s ad is for Budweiser, from 1942. It’s a funny ad that would be totally illegal today thanks to the work of the prohibitionists and neo-prohibitionists, who have turned from trying to ban alcohol after the failure of Prohibition to instead making it as difficult as possible to sell, including increasingly stringent advertising restrictions, including that making health claims are banned, even true ones. But this ad is all about the healthy nature of beer, and the necessary vitamins and foodstuffs in beer, not to mention how R&D on beer has led to other discoveries.
Mockingbird Beer Bottles
Sam Wiley, a Brooklyn-based designer and advertising artist who’s done work for Anheuser-Busch, was asked to create packaging for a brand to be called “Mocking Bird Lager” and “Mockingbird Pilsner.” I don’t know if these were done for ABI – she doesn’t say — and as far as I know, no one has launched this line of beer, so it’s anybody’s guess, but it’s a great looking design. I don’t like clear glass because it’s not good for the beer, but from a purely design point-of-view she used the clear glass and the gold of the liquid to nice effect. I like that they don’t look like typical beer bottle designs and I think as the market gets more crowded, any brand’s ability to stand out on the shelf will become increasingly important.
Beer In Ads #768: I Was Curious … By The Lake
Wednesday’s ad is for Schlitz, from probably the late 1940s. It’s part of the long-running “I was curious” series from Schlitz that typically showed three panel showing the progression from curiosity to tasting to acceptance, a sort of mini Kubler-Ross of the three states of beer tasting. In this ad, it shows two couples by a lake. Why is it that most ads depicting couples during this time period show them separated and not interacting, boys with the boys and girls with the girls?
Vintage Beer Sweaters
Christmas, of course, is the time when ugly sweaters are not only finally acceptable, but at this time of year they’re downright mandatory. Happily artist AJ Fosik began collecting and rescuing some beer-themed ugly sweaters. According to Trend Hunter, “Fosik says that all of these knits were ‘rescued from moldy basements, plucked from dingy backwaters and ripped from the backs of greasy shitleopards.'” Below, for example, is one from his collection, from Olympia Beer.
And here’s another one, for Carling Black Label.
Unfortunately, Fosik no longer maintains his Flickr gallery, where the sweater collection originally lived, but luckily the collection went viral and it still lives in that series of tubes we call the interwebs. You can see his art at the Jonathan Levine Gallery and the David B. Smith Gallery. Below is a slideshow of my Flickr gallery where I think I found most, if not all, of Fosik’s collected beer sweaters, and I even added a few others that I found along the way. To see them in their full color, full size glory, view the galley full screen by clicking the button with four arrows on it. Enjoy.
UPDATE 12.30: I just heard from an online store, Brew Town Gear, that has several of the vintage beer sweaters for sale, along with some similar satin jackets. They also have a brick and mortar store in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Stock up now for next Christmas.
UPDATE 11:11:14: Brew Town Gear is apparently now Bar Closet, and has expanded its selection and now carries “even more interesting vintage items.”