My friend and colleague, Thomas Kerns (who’s the head brewer at Maui Brewing), sent me the link to a wonderful insert all about Hawaiian beer that the local paper, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, published in the Sunday newspaper. Entitled Hawaii On Tap, the article takes an in-depth look at beer on the islands and runs to fourteen pages. It’s great, positive publicity for the craft beer industry as a whole and Hawaii in specific.

It’s said that bigger isn’t always better, but then again sometimes it is. Case in point, more beer can be a good thing. With that in mind, Heartland Brewery is introducing The Beer Goddess®, The World’s Largest Glass of Beer (We Think).”

From the press release:

Heartland Brewery announces the introduction of The Beer Goddess®, a three-liter hand-blown Pilsner glass (that’s 6.3 pints, 101.4 ounces, or 8.5 cans) custom-made for Heartland by Rastal of Germany. Heartland Brewery believes that when filled with one of its locally brewed craft beers, the glass may be “The Largest Glass of Beer Commercially Available” (that is, served in a bar or restaurant), and has applied to the Guinness World Records to have it designated as such.

The Beer Goddess is available at all five Heartland locations and is served with a choice of six Heartland beers. The Beer Goddess costs $49, and does not include the glass itself, which is not for sale at this time. There are a limited edition of only 100 Beer Goddess glasses in circulation at Heartland Brewery restaurants.

Heartland Brewery founder Jon Bloostein, notes, “We appreciate that The Beer Goddess may not be for everyone, but we all know beer drinkers for whom it is perfect. That said, we are limiting orders to one per person and encouraging customers to share. While we think we serve the world’s largest beer (mind you, in a glass, not a pitcher), we invite the public to e-mail us with any examples from bars or restaurants around the world that they believe are larger.”

Heartland founder Jon Bloostein and Brewmaster Kelly Taylor show off the Beer Goddess glass.

 
In case you were curious, that ® refers to Beer Goddess being a registered trademark of Ale Street News.
 

I got a great e-mail from Ray Merkler, who has a new homebrewing blog — the Bathtub Brewery — along with his significant other, Melissa Ward. Ray took the original Session logo file I made way back when, re-rendered it in Adobe Illustrator, and cleaned it up quite a bit, adding a third type of logo with the text “The Session” inside the red circle. He did a great job and they look much better than mine, which admittedly I did on the fly and quickly, so I’ve replaced mine with his on the Session Logo page. I’d encourage you to use his, too. Way to go, Ray. Great job, and I appreciate the effort.

Today is the beginning of Oregon Craft Beer Month, a series of events celebrating beer in Oregon, with over one hundred events throughout the month. There’s also a new website that includes a blog, events and twitter updates. Unfortunately, the events calendar doesn’t seem to be working, so I put up my own calendar from the press release.
 

I got the following press release from Iron Springs Brewpub in Fairfax, with more good news. In addition to securing a new five-year lease, they’ve nabbed a great new head brewer: Christian Kazakoff. He’s been the head brewer at Triple Rock for the past ten years.

Iron Springs Pub & Brewery is proud to announce, taking over the helm as the new head brewer, Christian Kazakoff. Christian comes to Iron Springs with a lengthy background in brewing in the Bay Area. Christian spent the last 10 years running Triple Rock Brewery in Berkeley and has worked with some of the finest brewers around San Francisco. We are excited to have Christian as the newest member of the Iron Springs family and we feel he is going to take the brewery into this new era for Iron Springs. Iron Springs plans to offer brewer’s dinners four times a year to highlight Christian’s ales from the brewery and the pub’s famous food.

Rumors have already started about who will be replacing him at Triple Rock. I’ve already heard at least three names floated, but let’s see how things develop first before passing those along.

Christian after a sleepless night setting up before last year’s Bay Area Firkin Fest at Triple Rock. I’m not sure what this news means for the fate of the Firkin Fest.

Good news from Texas. Apparently beer contains no evil after all. I guess it must be lost in the boil. A former Baptist minister, Greg Methvin, said the following during the Dallas Uptown Church’s Theology Live lecture series held at — where else? — the Ginger Man. “There is no evil in your beer.” At first I thought he was talking about the ingredients, but no, what Methvin meant was different. He went on. “Even things that can be abused, such as alcohol and the Internet, are not of themselves evil.” I certainly hope that extends to multiples, insofar as I’m writing about alcohol on the internet. Might be a double whammy. With so many religious extremists involved with neo-prohibitionists and feverishly against any alcohol, it’s certainly nice to see a more reasonable take. The lecture series is apparently designed to win over young newcomers to the church. Next up in the series: “Tainted Love.” I guess they must be going for the Soft Cell.

If you live in Delaware and also love good beer, like Dogfish Head and Iron Hill, to name just a couple, please consider contacting your state senator as soon as possible, because the state is trying to raise the tax on beer 50% and the vote is on Monday, June 30, so there isn’t much time. Here’s the info from Support Your Local Brewery:

Dear Delaware Beer Activists and Homebrewers,

Delaware small brewers need your help! Please read the following information provided by the small, independent breweries of Delaware:

A proposal currently moving in the legislature would raise the state tax on beer almost 50%. The small brewers of Delaware are asking you TO CALL YOUR STATE SENATOR TODAY to ask him/her to oppose this unprecedented increase as an extremely harmful measure to the state’s small craft breweries.

At this point, this proposal has not been formally drafted as legislation, but will be amended into an existing bill and voted on Monday, June 30.

NOW IS THE TIME TO CALL YOUR SENATOR — CALLING IS THE QUICKEST, MOST EFFECTIVE METHOD AS TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!

For contact information for your Senator, click here. You will find links to the Senate roster of members. Simply find your Senator and click on their link for contact information.

Following are several suggested points to make to your elected representatives:

1. Delaware has one of the most vibrant and varied craft brewing communities on the east coast.
2. Delaware’s small breweries are good for the economy and very good for tourism. Thousands of visitors journey to the state every year to visit these breweries and experience their unique products where they are made.
3. Small brewers are facing astronomical costs increases across the board – from malt and hops to energy and packaging materials – nearly 40% over last year. If a further tax burden is placed upon Delaware’s small breweries in this challenging economy it will surely put many of those small businesses at risk.
4. A tax increase of this magnitude will deter start-up breweries from considering locating in Delaware, as it will affect existing breweries’ ability to expand, stalling job growth and possibly forcing Delaware breweries to relocate to states that have more competitive tax structures.
5. The small, independent breweries of this state need their legislator’s support now more than ever.

Thanks for supporting Delaware’s small breweries!

Finally a reason to work myself into a patriotic lather. You travel around to enough beer nations and you realize, they all have one, sometimes more than one. I’m talking about beer museums. We have an American Hop Museum in Toppenish, Washington (in the Yakima Valley), and there’s at least one Beer Can Museum, if not more. And the Milwaukee Beer Museum will most likely also open next month, not to mention that a good friend of mine is working hard to get a Portland Beer Museum off the ground. But there’s been no National Beer Museum … until now.

It’s a joint project of the American Breweriana Association and the Potosi Brewery Foundation in the small town of Potosi, Wisconsin. The National Brewery Museum, which will also include a library and a brewpub, is located in the building that formerly housed the Potosi Brewery, which was founded in 1852. The museum, restaurant and gift shop opened on June 19, but the official grand opening will be held July 5.

The Madison Capital Times has a story about the museum’s opening. Looks like a trip to Wisconsin in the near future is in order.

Outside the National Brewery Museum in Potosi, Wisconsin.

Inside the museum.

Thanks to Jason at the Brew Basement for pointing this one out, it’s too good not to share. The New York Times did a fun article on beer cellars and there’s even a photo of Danny Williams’ legendary beer cave. If you’ve been around GABF judging you’ve no doubt seen Danny Williams, who’s been involved for many years. I’d heard about his beer cave — actually an abandoned gold mine — from Marin Brewing’s head brewer, Arne Johnson, who visited it a couple of years ago. The article also highlights Dr. Bill and Matt VandenBerghe from Brouwers Cafe/Bottleworks in Seattle.

The ultimate beer cellar, a Colorado gold mine, liquid gold that is.

Not surprisingly, things are moving quickly in the brouhaha — er, make that brewhaha — surrounding InBev‘s attempt to buy Anheuser-Busch. Frankly, it’s hard to believe that it’s only been about two weeks since InBev tendered their $65 per share offer. Within hours of the bid, the whining began that we shouldn’t allow such an “American” company to be bought by foreigners, despite the fact that A-B’s own record of ruthless business behavior is legendary. As a result, I have a hard time mustering much sympathy. I just don’t find the jingoistic rhetoric very convincing. I can’t say the idea of a beer company that would be as large as a combined A-B/InBev (InBusch is still my favorite suggested name for the newly merged entity) sounds like a good idea. I certainly don’t think it would do the beer world any favors. It would likely screw up distribution for years, and make it even harder for small breweries to get access to market.

So what’s been happening lately? Last Friday, Anheuser Busch’s board met for the first time to discuss the offer on the table. Their initial response? No comment. Then, after rumors of a merger between A-B and Grupo Modelo (in which Bud owns a 50% non-controlling interest) designed to strengthen A-B’s position went south, Modelo president Carlos Fernandez resigned from the A-B board. Shortly thereafter, rumors surfaced that SABMiller was also in talks with Modelo about a possible merger. And if that wasn’t crazy enough, Modelo also reportedly has met with InBev, too!

Then yesterday, InBev sent a third letter to Anheuser-Busch restating their $65 cash offer and urging A-B to make a decision quickly. Later the same day, the Wall Street Journal reported that the board had quickly met and decided to reject InBev’s offer, surprising no one. The next step for InBev, they said, was to “increase its bid, or take it straight to shareholders.” But that’s not what InBev did. Instead, this morning they filed suit against A-B in Delaware (where they’re incorporated) seeking to remove all thirteen directors on A-B’s board. Essentially signaling that the gloves are off, the takeover bid is definitely turning hostile. Meanwhile, Reuters is reporting that A-B is working on their own plan to boost share value, though they speculate that it’s still won’t be as attractive as the InBev offer.

Curiously, that’s the “official” reason A-B gave in rejecting InBev’s offer; that it undervalued the company (despite the offer being higher than A-B stock has ever been). A-B is claiming that “the InBev proposal fails to be competitive with alternative plans the company has developed in recent months to generate significant top-line and bottom-line growth, which will increase value for the company’s shareholders.” Yeah, right. That and $5 will buy you a decent pint somewhere. They’re obviously trying to convince shareholders not to support InBev’s offer with pie-in-the-sky promises. But if A-B had a plan that could really get the share price up to where the offer is at, wouldn’t they already have done so?