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Brew Your Own Beer TV Debuts Tonight

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byob-tv
B.Y.O.B. TV — Brew Your Own Beer TV — the new television show that will air on local KOFY Channel 20 debuts this evening at 10:30 p.m. KOFY TV20 / Cable13 will be airing the half-hour B.Y.O.B. TV this Saturday, April 23 at 10:30 p.m. If you miss its debut, it will also air on Saturdays at 1:00 a.m. and Sundays, starting April 24th, at 9:30 p.m. On Sunday, the re-runs will air during their “local’s only” programming block. You can catch it three ways: on TV Channel 20, Comcast Cable 13 and Comcast Cable HD 713.

B.Y.O.B. TV will be hosted by Justin Crossley and Jason Petros of The Brewing Network, the #1 on-line radio network dedicated to the art of beer making. The show follows 8 teams, each consisting of 3 eager home brewers as they’re challenged in various stages of the beer brewing process in hopes to escape weekly elimination. The final brewer left standing will win the ultimate prize, a trip to the Pilsner Urquell Brewery in the Czech Republic and become the B.Y.O.B. TV Brewing Champion.

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“We want the average consumer to be able to watch this show, enjoy it from an entertaining perspective and gain an appreciation and knowledge for some of the best craft brews in the marketplace”, said Crossley, “at the same time we hope the show will encourage others to tackle the art of home brewing on their own.”

Various craft and import beers from around the region and the world are participating in the show to place emphasis on their commitment towards the innovation and brewing science behind beer making; partners include Pilsner Urquell, Lagunitas, Blue Moon, Grolsh and Blake Brewing. Additional breweries, brew masters and beer and food connoisseurs are participating as well.

While there’s no actual brewing in episode one, we do get to meet the teams and learn how the process will work. But don’t change the channel just yet, things will definitely start to pick up in episode two when the teams do their first batches of beer and things will just keep going from there. Should be fun.

Below is the trailer for the show:

A Hilarious Spoof Of The Uber Beer Geek

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nanotechnology
Ray Daniels of the Cicerone program tweeted this link yesterday, but I didn’t get a chance to watch it until this morning. The creator of the video, Liquid Horseplay, must be an insider because he’s knows a lot of the right people. The video was made using the Xtranormal movie making architecture and is a hilarious spoof of the uber beer geek. Make sure you watch it through to the end, because it just keeps getting funnier.

The Automatic Personal Brewery

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When did homebrewing become so hard that people still want to do it but are looking for ways around the actual work of the brewing? First there was Brewbot: An Automated Homebrewing Machine, by an Australian designer, and now comes WilliamsWarn: The Personal Brewery, this time from New Zealand. Is it perhaps the folks down under who are getting lazy? (And thanks to brewer Andrew Mason for the hat tip.)

So brewmaster Ian Williams and food technologist (not sure what that is) Anders Warn worked for two years to develop the WilliamsWarn Personal Brewery, which looks as much like a fancy coffee machine as anything else.
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Here’s their “story” from the website:

The WilliamsWarn Personal Brewery is the miracle that beer drinkers have been praying for. After 5000 years of brewing, the technology finally exists to allow you to brew the perfect beer. Your Personal Brewery is a breakthrough created by our brewmasters through a combination of their deep love of beer and their extensive knowledge of brewing.

In 2004, whilst Ian was working out of Denmark as an international brewing consultant and professional beer taster, he was challenged by his Uncle (a frustrated homebrewer) to invent the worlds first personal brewery. After 2 years part-time research he returned to New Zealand in 2006 and started fulltime research and development with help from his friend, Anders Warn. Finally in 2011, after several rounds of serious investment, after 100 brews and blind tastings and after many industrial prototypes, the first units and the ingredients to be used in them are ready for sale.

So after 5 years of intense development, the result is cold, perfectly carbonated, clear, commercial quality beer made in 7 days, like a modern brewery. All 78 official beer styles can be made as well as the option to develop your own.

I have to say I’m skeptical, especially watching them pour the malt syrup into the contraption. And it’s not exactly cheap, either, at $5,666 NZD (which is roughly $4,436 in American dollars). It seems like it would take quite a few 23 litre batches (about 6 gallons) before it would pay for itself. And the ingredients to make one batch is $49-52 NZD ($50 = $39 USD). So after purchasing the machine, it costs $39 per batch, getting you roughly 6 gallons of beer, or the equivalent of 2 2/3 cases of 12 oz. bottles or roughly 10 six-packs with a few bottles extra). Not including the price of the machine, the cost would be about $4 per six-pack, saving you maybe $2 for a macro brew and $4-5 per craft beer sixer. Let’s call it $4 savings per six-pack ($40 per batch) and it would take you 110 batches before you broke even.

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Ian Williams and Anders Warn with their Personal Brewery.

Watch the video to get a better idea of what it’s all about and how it works. What do you think? Am I crazy, or are these contraptions a bad idea that subvert the very idea of what it means to be a homebrewer? Throughout the press materials for the Personal Brewery, they talk about how it was just too hard to homebrew and the founder’s uncle wanted a simpler way to keep making beer at home. But I can’t help but wonder. Maybe his uncle should have given up and just bought beer from professionals. Does making beer using a machine that does all the work still constitute homebrewing? Certainly many of the bigger brewery’s systems are automated at various stages in the process. But I tend to think of homebrewing as a learning experience, where you learn to be a better brewer by doing, by putting in the time and the hard work. These homebrewing systems seem designed for a lazy person who wants to call themselves a “homebrewer” but without putting in any of the effort. An automatic personal brewery seems less like a hobby and more like having yet another kitchen gadget just to impress your friends. Though it’s hard not to be impressed with the engineering of it, and it is a beautiful looking machine. What do you think?

The New Albion Brewery Site 30 Years Later

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This has been one amazing week. During yesterday’s unexpected lunch with craft beer pioneer Jack McAuliffe at Russian River Brewery, Jack invited us to have him show us around the old site of the New Albion Brewery in Sonoma, California. Needless to say, we didn’t have to be asked twice and readily accepted Jack’s kind offer.

We met at high Noon at the Swiss Hotel on Sonoma Square. After a quick lunch and a few pints of beer, our convoy of two cars headed out into the industrial park wilds of Sonoma, with Jack and his friend Pat leading the way. After a few minutes driving, we pulled off the road into a warren of tin buildings with scrap metal in organized heaps, including the recognizable midsections of several jet airplanes. We turned around, parking out on the public road, and Jack went in to ask the landlord — still the same man Jack rented the property from in 1976 — for permission to show us around. He came back a few minutes later, waving us in.


Arriving at the old brewery site.

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This is the building where the New Albion Brewery stood over thirty years ago.

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Despite its proximity to the entrance, this was not the front of the brewery building, in part because Jack didn’t rent the entire building, just a portion of it.

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This was essentially the front of the brewery building.

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Jack indicating that this was the front door to the brewery.

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Vinnie Cilurzo, from Russian River Brewery, and Jack McAuliffe in front of the old site of his brewery.


Jack McAuliffe showing us around the old site of his New Albion Brewery.

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The view of where the brewery building stood from the road.

Jess Kidden has scans from Brewers Digest issues in November 1979 and October 1980 where you can contrast the building today and what it looked like 30+ years ago.

What a wonderful afternoon. Having the opportunity to spend time with the father of the modern microbrewery and have him show us where it all began was just amazing. Seeing the history and hearing Jack reminisce about that time in his life was a once-in-a-lifetime event. Thanks again Jack, and cheers to Vinnie and Natalie for letting me tag along.

Gordon Biersch Creates World’s Rarest Beer: Hoppotamus Maximus

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I ran into Dan Gordon, from Gordon Biersch, at CBC yesterday and he told me about a new beer they’ve created, Hoppotamus Maximus, a hoppy and oh-so-rare beer that few people — unfortunately — will ever get a chance to sample. He’s teamed with Justin Crossly of The Brewing Network to tell the story of how he created the beer. It’s a pretty funny spoof of the hype surrounding hard-to-find beers, and the humor is as dry as I expect the beer would be.

The Birthplace Of Craft Brewing: Colorado?

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colorado
I should say at the outset that I love Colorado. I go there at least once a year, have many beer friends and colleagues there. There are many, many great breweries there and their beer culture should be celebrated. Of that, I believe there can be no doubt. And in fact, a new documentary film is seeking to do just that, a laudable enterprise. The title is Beer Culture: the Movie, and the idea behind it is the following. “Beer Culture is a documentary film about the growing rich American Culture in Craft Beer by telling the inspirational stories of unwavering motivation by some of Colorado’s top Brewers.” It’s release date is Summer 2011. Frankly, I can’t wait, it looks great. Free Mind Productions should be proud of what they’ve done so far. They’ve also just released a new trailer with tons of great teasers, and lots of great people being interviewed, including Colorado governor John Hickenlooper, Eric Wallace, Marty Jones and Charlie Papazian.

But then at just past the one minute mark, one of the interviewees — I’m not sure who it is — says the following. “Pretty much everybody thinks of Colorado as the birthplace of craft brewing.” Really? Um, did I miss a meeting? That just sticks in my craw. Hyperbole is one thing, but that’s simply a false statement that is just not true. I know the producers didn’t say it, but they’re sure seizing it on it to promote their film. It’s not one of those subjective facts that people can interpret different ways, like who brewed the first Black IPA. We know Fritz Maytag bought the ailing Anchor Brewery in 1965 and turned into what it is today. We know Jack McAuliffe incorporated New Albion Brewery in Sonoma, California in October of 1976 and built the first modern microbrewery from scratch. Colorado’s first microbrewery was the Boulder Beer Company, which was founded in September of 1979. Those are the facts, plain and simple.

Maybe I’m being oversensitive, but I don’t think so. Last week, John Kerry was quoted in a press release about the new BEER Act that’s been introduced in the Senate that the “craft beer revolution started right here in Massachusetts.” Now this. I believe that Colorado has much to celebrate with its beer culture, but it doesn’t really need to take liberties with the truth to do that. It doesn’t need to throw California’s contributions under the bus to raise up its own. I don’t really feel like I should have to protect California’s place in the history of craft brewing. It seems like it should be fairly secure and unassailable, but here we are. I hope enough people will see fit to point this out to the producers of Beer Culture and they’ll remove it from the movie. They don’t need to keep something so blatantly untrue in there and for me, at least, it just mars the film’s credibility. The story of Colorado’s craft beer scene is a great and worthy subject for a movie, but it can only be improved by sticking to the facts … and the beer.

The Chemistry Of Beer

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ACS
I got an interesting press release this morning from the American Chemistry Society (ACS) touting the Chemistry of Beer, as they put it, “just in time for Saint Patrick’s Day. Today they “released a new video, The Chemistry of Beer, which focuses on the science involved in producing the world’s third most popular beverage (after water and tea).”

From the press release:

Shot in high-definition format, the video features Sam Adams Senior Brewing Manager Grant Wood, who holds a degree in Food Science & Technology from Texas A&M University. It explains the process of turning barley, hops, water and yeast into a lager or ale. Among the insights:

  1. Yeast is the most important ingredient because it determines if the brew is ale or lager.
  2. Water is crucial, too, and it must be free of organic substances and “off” flavors.
  3. Key flavor compounds are packed into those little flower clusters called hops, which add flavor and a pleasant bitterness to the beer.

Produced by the ACS Office of Public Affairs, the video includes plenty of “did-you-know” fodder for those St. Patrick’s Day conversations over a pint. Did you know, for instance, that the fermentation process in which yeast produce alcohol also produces almost 600 flavor compounds? The Chemistry of Beer ends with a message that all drinkers should take to heart, St. Patrick’s Day and every day: Drink responsibly!

The whole video was shot at Boston Beer’s pilot brewery in their Jamaica Plain location in Boston. Grant, who you probably know if you’ve visited the brewery or have been in the industry for any length of time, gives a polished tour and explanation of the brewing process. It’s probably nothing you haven’t seen before, but it’s relatively comprehensive and does a good job of explaining brewing in a nutshell, with an emphasis on the chemistry, of course.

Brewing TV Visits The Bay Area

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A few months ago the good folks from Brewing TV in the wilds of Minnesota came for a visit to the Bay Area. Brewing TV is part of Northern Brewer Homebrew Supply. In addition to mail-order business, they also operate two homebrew shops in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Jon Weber, from Beer Obsessed acted as their guide as they visited the Marin Brewing Company, Triple Rock Brewery, Linden Street Brewing Company, Dying Vines Brewing along with some homebrewing with Nathan Smith. I met up with them at Marin Brewing where we talked more generally about beer in the Bay Area. Enjoy.

Brew Minions, A Brew Masters Parody

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ska
The folks at Ska Brewing, from Durango, Colorado, have made a hilarious spoof of Sam Calagione’s Discovery Channel series Brew Masters. In fact, Sam even makes a cameo appearance in the 22-minute video. The plot of the video involves making a special commemorative beer for the 30th anniversary of one of their favorite ska bands, The Toasters, using — you guessed it — toast. Ska co-founder David Thibodeau is great in it, and I especially loved his “there’s Adam Avery.” Don’t worry, it will make sense when you see it. Enjoy.