Thursday’s ad is another 1947 ad for Rheingold Beer, featuring Miss Rheingold for that year, Michaele Fallon. In this ad, Miss Fallon sits seductively — notice a pattern here? — on a comfy-looking yellow lounge chair with a Rheingold Dry on the table next to her.
There’s been a flurry of activity in California’s political power center lately, with a couple of new bills signed by governor Jerry Brown in Sacramento this week.
The Tasting Room Bill makes it easier for breweries to serve samples of their beer without having to comply with all the same requirements as a full-scale restaurant.
From the press release from the CSBA:
Previously, craft brewers wishing to have a tasting room at the brewery would be required to install several industrial sinks, redo plumbing and electrical wiring among other requirements, simply to provide beer samples. These renovations can cost tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars creating a huge burden for small breweries.
“This bill will relieve craft brewers from the unnecessary burden of installing restaurant grade equipment that simply isn’t needed to pour a taste of beer,” said Tom McCormick, Executive Director of the California Small Brewers Association. “This is a common sense law that garnered bipartisan support at the Capitol. Yet another example that good beer brings people together.”
The bill, authored by Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher, R-San Diego and Assemblyman Wes Chesbro, D-Arcata, passed both the Senate and Assembly floor votes unanimously.
The second bill signed by Governor Brown, SB 39, was authored by Senator Alex Padilla, D-San Fernando Valley, and Assemblyman Jim Beall, R-Santa Clara County, who’s no friend to the beer industry.
Showing just what happens when you don’t pay journalists, the Huffington Post originally reported that passage of Senate Bill 39 meant that caffeine beer was banned, which is not correct. The bill was aimed at alcohol and caffeine energy drinks like Four Loko, Joose and their ilk. The bill only “bans any malt beverage to which caffeine has been directly added as a separate ingredient .” It does not include “beer brewed with coffee, tea or chocolate,” a carve out negotiated by the CSBA.
Monday’s ad is a 1947 ad for Rheingold Beer, featuring Miss Rheingold for that year, Michaele Fallon. In the ad, Miss Fallon stands seductively in front of a bunch of red roses, wearing a bright blue hat that matches her eyes. Curiously, there’s no beer anywhere to be seen in the ad.
ESPN had an interesting little item today by Jim Caple entitled Pitcher Finds Good Use For Mariners’ Bats. The story concerns Seattle Mariners relief pitcher Chris Ray. In addition to pitching for the Mariners, Ray is also an avid homebrewer and has plans to open his own brewery, along with his brother Phillip, in Virginia. They’ve even picked out the name, COTU Brewing, which stands for “Center of the Universe.”
In Caple’s story, Ray is making beer using a dozen baseball bats, made of maple, for a charity beer he brewed at the nearby Fremont Brewing in Seattle. In the article, Ray is quoted about his beer.
“I’m not sure if it adds a ton of flavor, but it ties it into baseball and gives it a unique twist,” Ray said. “It might add a little bit of flavor, but maple is a hard wood — that’s why they use it for bats — so there’s not a whole lot of absorbing going on. There are a lot of beers that age on oak chips and toasted oak chips, so we just thought if it added a little flavor, great. If not, it’s a nice story.”
The beer, dubbed Homefront IPA, is a charity beer to honor American soldiers and debuted at Safeco Field this past weekend and will also be available in 22 oz. bottles beginning this week. Proceeds from sales of Homefront IPA will go to Operation Homefront, an “organization that provides emergency financial assistance to the families of military personnel.”
NBC Sports also had the story back in June about when the beer was first brewed. But the best account comes from Kendall Jones who writes a firsthand account of the brew day for his Washington Beer Blog in a post entitled A Relief Pitcher of Beer.
Chris Ray pulling out spent grain (photo by Kendall Jones).
After the beer was brewed, the beer was then aged on Louisville Sluggers donated by the bat company. According to Jones:
The maple bats will be used to lend some extra character to the beer. They will be added to the conditioning tanks. Some of bats will be left whole and pristine, others cut into smaller pieces to help enhance the flavor imparted on the beer. Once the beer is ready, the whole bats will be removed, dried, and autographed by Chris’ teammates. The bats will then be auctioned off to raise money for Operation Homefront.
UPDATE: The CEO of the hops company Yakima Chief, Steve Carpenter, sent me a funny link about Ray that appeared in a Seattle fan blog, U.S.S. Mariner. In the post (which I should point out at the end is revealed to be satire), Chris Ray’s enthusiasm for good beer is gently skewered.
One reliever noted that Chris Ray had gotten “pretty annoying” by foisting dry-hopped XIPAs on his teammates, whose tastes tended towards lagers and mixed drinks. Eventually, the aspiring brewer went down with an injury and is now on the 15 day disabled list. Another pitcher confessed he was excited for the change. “Look, it’s finally warm out, I want to go out with my girlfriend and have something fun. I like Chris, but he was always rambling on about ‘simcoe’ and ‘amarillo’ and I was thinking he was talking about the Texas League or something, but no, he’s just explaining — again — why the beer I’m drinking is stupid.”
Monday’s ad is a 1949 ad for Rheingold Beer, featuring Miss Rheingold for that year, Pat McElroy. In the ad, Miss McElroy is holding the trophy she and her dog have just won. Based on her outfit, I think Miss Rheingold must have been a Green Bay Packers fan.
Monday’s ad is a 1948 ad for Rheingold Beer, featuring Miss Rheingold for that year, Pat Quinlan. In the ad, Miss Quinlan is on board a boat of some kind, hoisting maritime signal flags spelling out “D-R-Y,” as in Rheingold Extra Dry.
The August 2011 standings will soon be released for Wikio’s Beer Blogs. This month there’s a new sheriff in town, who leapfrogged over Jeff, from Beervana, and me as we were do si do-ing around the beer blogging dance floor earlier this year. Congratulations to the folks at The New School as they ascend to the top spot. Here’s what happened to the Top 30 over last month:
| 1 | The New School (+2) |
| 2 | Brewpublic (+2) |
| 3 | Beervana (-1) |
| 4 | Brookston Beer Bulletin (-3) |
| 5 | Appellation Beer: Beer From a Good Home (+2) |
| 6 | Drink With The Wench (+4) |
| 7 | A Good Beer Blog (-2) |
| 8 | The Daily Pull (+1) |
| 9 | Washington Beer Blog (-1) |
| 10 | The Not So Professional Beer Blog (+6) |
| 11 | The Stone Blog (-5) |
| 12 | BetterBeerBlog (+11) |
| 13 | Brewer’s Log (Blog) (+8) |
| 14 | KC Beer Blog (=) |
| 15 | The Brew Lounge (+2) |
| 16 | The Brew Site (+16) |
| 17 | Hoosier Beer Geek (+8) |
| 18 | Oakshire Brewing (-5) |
| 19 | Seattle Beer News (+9) |
| 20 | The Session Beer Project™ (-5) |
| 21 | It’s Pub Night (-10) |
| 22 | Seen Through a Glass (-10) |
| 23 | Craft Austin (-4) |
| 24 | Top Fermented (+5) |
| 25 | The Potable Curmudgeon (-3) |
| 26 | San Diego Beer Blog (-8) |
| 27 | Beer at 6512 (-3) |
| 28 | Musings Over a Pint (-2) |
| 29 | Beer-Stained Letter (+13) |
| 30 | I Love Beer (+11) |
Ranking made by Wikio
As usual, I included the relative movements of each blog from last month. Last month — and for the past few — movement among the top of the list was limited and things were fairly static. All that’s changed this month, as only one of the top 30 is in the same position as last month, and only three moved up or down only one spot. That means of the remaining 26, each one moved at least two spots along the continuum. Things are shaking up.
This month’s champion mover was The Brew Site, who jumped 16 places. As always, I continue to stress that this is just a bit of fun and that we shouldn’t take it too seriously. Until next month ….
Today in 1876, Colorado became the 38th state.
Colorado
Colorado Breweries
Colorado Brewery Guides
Guild: Colorado Brewers Guild
State Agency: Colorado Liquor Enforcement Division
Package Mix:
Beer Taxes:
Economic Impact (2010):
Legal Restrictions:
Data complied, in part, from the Beer Institute’s Brewer’s Almanac 2010, Beer Serves America, the Brewers Association, Wikipedia and my World Factbook. If you see I’m missing a brewery link, please be so kind as to drop me a note or simply comment on this post. Thanks.
For the remaining states, see Brewing Links: United States.
After we marched from McMenamin’s Crystal Ballroom to the Tom McCall Waterfront Park and the Oregon Brewers Festival, the ceremonial keg was brought into the park by the Hammerheads from this year’s parade host brewery, McMenamin’s.
Hammerheads and the ceremonial cask.
The Hammerheads and the Ruby Witches McMenamins’ folks positioned themselves in front of the stage.
Then Art Larrance got things started.
This year’s parade host represented by Brian McMenamin, took the ceremonial hammer.
And passed it off to next year’s host, the Cascade Barrel House.
Then Grand Marshall Fred Eckhardt had a few words for the crowd, before tapping the first keg.
Fred, tapping the keg.
Fred drinking the first toast to OBF 2011.
Fred and me catching up with a pint after the ceremonies.
Our 79th Guinness uses the tagline “Opening Time Is Guinness Time.” In this case, the opening refers to the oyster, with a smiling pint of Guinness resting inside. The slogan at the bottom is the common “Guinness is good for you.” My one question, is since when did oysters have eyes?
