Here are the results from the 2012 Hard Liver Barleywine Fest in held at Brouwer’s Cafe in Seattle, Washington:
Congratulations to all the winners. (And special thanks to Sean Paxton, the Homebrew Chef, for sending me the results since I couldn’t be there this year.)
Thursday’s ad is another ad for healthy beer, somewhat similar to yesterday’s Budweiser ad. This one is just a few years later, from 1907, and was sent to me by fellow blogger Lisa Grimm from WeirdBeerGirl (thanks Lisa). The ad is for Rainier Pale Beer, from Seattle Brewing & Malting Co., and shows a group of children using a giant beer bottle as a Maypole. Mother can be seen in the background, arriving on the scene with a tray full of beer bottles and glasses. Again, can you just imagine that ad today? The copy is equally interesting.
Pure Air, Pure Food, Pure Drink are essential to healthy growth … for Pure Drink get Rainier Pale Beer
Another beautiful sentiment.
Today in 1889, Washington became the 42nd state.
Washington
Washington Breweries
Washington Brewery Guides
Guild: Washington Brewers Guild
State Agency: Washington State Liquor Control Board
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.
Here’s some surprising news. Jennifer Talley, the award-winning brewer from Squatter’s Pub Brewery in Salt Lake City, Utah, is moving to Washington to take over brewing for RedHook at their Woodinville brewery. Specifically, her title will be “brewing operations manager.” Talley had been with Squatters for at least 20 years. According to Pro Brewer, who broke the news yesterday, “Squatter’s produces about 1,250 barrels of beer a year. Redhook? About 170,000 barrels of beer annually.”
More from Pro Brewer:
When Squatters opened a microbrewery in 1994, Talley became head brewer when the previous head brewer moved over to Salt Lake Brewing’s sister company, Utah Brewers Cooperative, which makes Wasatch Beers.
Talley got her first award — a gold medal at Denver’s Great American Beer Festival for a Vienna lager — in 1997. She proceeded to name her daughter Vienna when she was born two years ago. Since then, she has won numerous awards at the GABF, including another gold last weekend for Squatters’ Fifth Element ale. Squatters will search nationally and locally for a new head brewer.
Congratulations to Jennifer on the new gig.
Jennifer Talley (2nd from the left) after a panel discussion at GABF on women in brewing in 2007. From left: Carol Stoudt (from Stoudts Brewing), Talley, Natalie Cilurzo (from Russian River) and Teri Fahrendorf.
Here are the results from the 2011 Hard Liver Barleywine Fest in held at Brouwer’s Cafe in Seattle, Washington:
Congratulations to all the winners.
Here’s an odd new innovation (sent in by my friend Mike C.) from GrinOn Industries of Montesano, Washington. They’ve created the Bottoms Up Draft Beer Dispensing System. As they claim, “GrinOn’s proprietary Bottoms Up Dispensing System is the fastest dispensing system in the world and fills at a rate of up to nine times that of traditional beer taps.” Take a look at in action below.
GrinOn lists a litany of benefits to their system, though the most obvious is that it “improves speed-of-service increases customer satisfaction and sales.” I don’t know about the “customer satisfaction” but an increase in sales makes sense in the right setting, such as an environment where long lines make speed a real issue, and one where plastics cups are the only option. It seems ideal for a sports stadium or a fair. The homepage features a video showing two people filling 44 cups of beer in one minute, without even breaking a sweat. There are also a number of additional videos on a separate page.
Below is what the dispenser base looks like.
They also claim that their system “reduces the stress and cost of ‘foamy beer problems.'” Filling the beer from the bottom does seem like it would produce head in a very different way, though in the video it certainly seems adequate for the type of beer being poured. It also must use a proprietary cup, though the website talks about there being a FDA approved MAG™ — a round magnet — at the bottom of the cup which seals the cup. It apparently can also be used after you drink the beer as a refrigerator magnet, and they even can sell you a customized magnet that can be a souvenir after the fact or otherwise used promotionally.
I can’t see it being used by small breweries or brewpubs, or even most beer bars, but where volume of just a couple of different beers — the big macros and high volume micros seem likeliest — is the key to the business, then it seems like it could be viable. What do you think?
An alert reader just forwarded me this (thanks Shaun). Today, a Starbucks coffee shop in Seattle, Washington, is test-marketing a new menu item: beer. According to an AP story the Starbucks on East Olive Way “reopened Monday [and] is the first under the Starbucks brand to offer alcohol.” The AP story continues with the following. “Craft beer and local wines go on sale after 4 p.m. The idea is to offer drinks and a wider variety of savory food that will attract customers after the morning espresso rush.”
USA Today has a fuller story about how and why the chain is testing beer, wine, cheese and other foods. Their pronouncement is that the “Starbucks of the future arrived today.” They speculate that if successful, this new model could become “the prototype for the next generation of stores for one of the world’s most influential brands.” Here’s how they describe the new look of the renovated Starbucks.
A very different kind of Starbucks is on tap. It will serve regional wine and beer. It offers an expansive plate of locally made cheeses — served on china. The barista bar is rebuilt to seat customers up close to the coffee.
Most conspicuously, the place looks less like a Starbucks and more like a cafe that’s been part of the neighborhood for years — yet that’s “green” in design and decor. This is the calling card of independent java joints that have been eating and sipping away at Starbucks’ evening business for decades. U.S. Starbucks stores get 70% of business before 2 p.m.
The corporate eyes of Starbucks — and the nation’s ultracompetitive, $15 billion chain coffee business — are laser-focused on this Starbucks store on Olive Way in Seattle’s bustling Capitol Hill area. The 10-year-old location was closed for three months to be revamped into a Starbucks that may not look or sound like any Starbucks you know. But if this location is a hit, some version of it may eventually come to a Starbucks near you.
….
Inside, the floor is stripped to highly polished concrete. Some of the chairs were salvaged from the University of Washington campus. Empty burlap sacks — once used to transport Starbucks coffee beans — hang from the walls. And an oversized table — designed for customers to share — is made from flooring salvaged from a local high school.
There’s also a video of the new Starbucks’ project to sell both beer and wine.
Wednesday’s ad is for Redhook, when they were still brewing in Seattle, Washington. I’ve always loved the old-time postcard art showing the original brewery on Phinney Avenue. The building now houses a chocolate company and is across the street from Brouwer’s Belgian Cafe.
On Saturday, the 8th annual Hard Liver Barleywine Fest began at Brouwer’s Cafe in Seattle, Washington. People started queuing in line at 9:00 a.m. for the eleven o’clock opening and the line ran up Phinney almost to 36th Street. There were 50 different barley wines and 12 more different vintages for a total of 62 available beers to sample.
Brouwer’s Cafe on Hard Liver Day.
Like the Toronado Barleywine Festival, people camp out at tables to sample and discuss the barley wines, with many managing to work their way through all of the beers.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, this has become one of my favorite niche festivals. Brouwer’s is doing a great job with this barley wine festival and it continues to grow each year with more beers and greater attendance. What many people don’t realize is that it’s not just Saturday, but will continue through the entire next week, until all the barley wines run out. So don’t think you missed it, there’s still time to check out most of the barley wines, which are listed below.
Below is a slideshow of the 2010 Hard Liver Barleywine Fest. This Flickr gallery is best viewed in full screen. To view it that way, after clicking on the arrow in the center to start the slideshow, click on the button on the bottom right with the four arrows pointing outward on it, to see the photos in glorious full screen. Once in full screen slideshow mode, click on “Show Info” to identify each photo.
The Final Eight Barley Wines
2009 vintage unless otherwise noted
Bold = Winners / Italics = Reached Final Round
I woke up again in Seattle, my second day here. Yesterday I helped to choose the winners of the Hard Liver Barleywine Fest at Brouwer’s Cafe. It’s the eighth year of the festival and it’s really grown into an impressive event in the several years I’ve been coming up for it.
But the weekend has got me thinking, not about barley wines, but tasting in general. At these types of festivals, people often try to taste every offering — in small quantities of course — of some very big beers. You see it at the Toronado Barleywine Festival and you see if at Brouwer’s Hard Liver, where this year 50 barley wines will be judged and something like 62 or 66 will be served, owing to multiple vintages of the same beers.
And as impressive as that is, it’s today that has me worried. Each Sunday, the day after the Hard Liver Fest, Matt Bonney hosts, with his business partner Matt Vandenberghe (a.k.a. Vern) and a cast of characters, the private, invitation-only Keene Tasting, named for Dave Keene, who owns the Toronado in San Francisco. With Dr. Bill now working at Stone and no longer doing as many of his legendary tastings, the Keene Tasting is one of the few that follow the format Dr. Bill (at least as far as I know) pioneered.
It’s a simple, if punishing format, where a new beer is opened roughly every five minutes over a period of several hours. So while you never get a large portion of any single beer, you do ultimately taste a lot of different beers. Still, it adds up. There are snack breaks and a lunch break, and those that stick with it can expect to be there eleven or twelve hours. Like many other types of marathons, very few actually reach the finish line, tasting every single beer.
Last year something like 160 beers were tasted, beginning around 11:00 a.m. and going well into the evening. That year I made it to 110 beers before reaching my limit.
The year before, I only made it half-way, and dropped out at beer 75, owing to getting very, very sick — not from the beer, just a feverish flu — which I detailed then in Pride Goeth Before A Fall. And that brings me to my point. We all have our limits, and it’s not only good to know them, but also pay them heed.
Impressively, one of the improvements Bonney employs over the average Dr. Bill tasting is that a clean glass is used for every beer, a Herculean task if ever there was one.
There are, of course, myriad ways to taste from settling in to drink only one beer, exploring it thoroughly from start to finish, lingering over it as it changes when it warms, really letting it sink in to the very opposite, tasting as many beers as possible, very quickly, and everything in between. Generally, when judging beers in competition, you want no more than nine or ten in a flight and 30 or less for a single session. But that’s just one legitimate way in which beer can be sampled. That may be too many at a time for some people and too few for others.
I know there are people critical of the rapid fire Dr. Bill-style tasting, but I’m not. Is it my favorite way to sample beer? Not necessarily, but it is still quite enjoyable and while you can’t linger over every single beer, you can get a sense of it all the same. There’s a Danish proverb, “better thin beer than an empty jug.” And that’s the rub. I still prefer the opportunity to sample some truly rare beers, even if not under the most ideal circumstances, than not at all. So yes, I’m a relativist when it comes to the marathon tasting but I’m just fine with that. The important thing is to have a good time and know when to walk away. I already know there will be some spectacular beers poured later today and I’m looking forward to giving it another go. Will I make it to the end? Probably not. But that’s okay, there’s no shame in that as far as I’m concerned.
In the words of the immortal Kenny Rogers, equally applicable to drinking as gambling. “You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, know when to walk away and know when to run.” With any luck, I’ll know when to fold and can walk away. Stay tuned for details.
Below is a slideshow of the 2009 Keene Tasting. This Flickr gallery is best viewed in full screen. To view it that way, after clicking on the arrow in the center to start the slideshow, click on the button on the bottom right with the four arrows pointing outward on it, to see the photos in glorious full screen. Once in full screen slideshow mode, click on “Show Info” to identify each photo.