In two weeks there’s several beer pairing dinners happening in Las Vegas featuring local breweries Tenaya Creek and CraftHaus!
First up, CraftHaus is partnering up with Crossroads at House of Blues for a 3-course dinner featuring 5 beers on the Tuesday the 23rd. Tickets are $65 and can be found here.
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Then on Thursday the 25th, Tenaya Creek is hosting a 5-course dinner at Tapas by Stratta in Tivoli Village. Cost is $45 and reservations can be made by contacting Tapas by Stratta beverage manager Peter Vitolo at (702) 494-7202 or peter@alexstrattagroup.com
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Finally on Friday the 26th, CraftHaus is once again returning to Mandalay Bay, this time at Rx Boiler Room, for a 4-course dinner, featuring the restaurant and CraftHaus’ collaboration beer, Gone With the Wit, featuring a blend of locally sourced flowers, herbs and botanicals from Desert Bloom Eco Farm infused into the beer. Tickets are $60 and can be made by emailing info@rxboilerroom.com or calling 702-632-9900.
Need I say more?
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CraftHaus plans on having releasing their International Women’s Collaboration Brew Day beer, United Red Ale, in their taproom on Sunday, April 12th starting at noon. Unrelated to IWCBD but as an added bonus, they will also have a new beer being tapped as well: a Belgian golden strong ale named Jean Claude.
What is International Women’s Collaboration Brew Day you ask? IWCBD is an event organized by Pink Boots Society to coincide with International Women’s Day, which occurs every year on March 8th.
The idea behind IWCBD is that breweries across the world will all brew a collaboration beer with women brewers and beer professionals. This year, the collaboration beer was United Red Ale. All participating brewers are given some beer guidelines to follow in regards to style and hops used, however they are encouraged to create their own unique variation of the beer.
Locally here in Las Vegas, CraftHaus employs the state’s only female head brewer, Steph Cope. This year, Steph collaborated with various other women who also work locally within the beer industry. They tweaked the recipe to be inspired by our local desert by adding a combination of mesquite, cherrywood, and oak smoked malt. United Red Ale will be a smokey malt forward red ale with an earthy/piney hop character.
Pink Boots Society is a worldwide non-profit organization that seeks to inspire, encourage, and empower women beer professionals to advance their careers through education. In addition to raising awareness through events like IWCBD, Pink Boots Society provides education for women to further their careers by providing seminar programs and raising money for educational scholarships. All proceeds from all IWCBD beers worldwide will be donated to both Pink Boots Society scholarship funds, as well as a local women focused charity chosen by each breweries.
Here in Las Vegas, Dress For Success will also be receiving proceeds from the CraftHaus United Red Ale beer. Dress For Success of Southern Nevada’s mission is to promote the economic independence of disadvantaged women by providing professional attire, a network of support, and career development tools to help them thrive in work and in life.
In celebration of both International Women’s Day and International Women’s Collaboration Brew Day, you can donate to Pink Boots society
here and Dress For Success of Southern Nevada
here. Additionally, if you are a woman who works within any of the various tiers of the beer industry, please feel encouraged to sign up for Pink Boots Society here.
Hope to see you all at Crafthaus on the 12th!
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Springtime is coming, and with it come the beer festivals. First up is the annual Boulder City Beer Festival.
March 28th you can expect to find over 20 breweries pouring beer at Wilbur Square Park in Boulder City. Entry is free to enjoy the live music and to visit exhibit tents and food trucks; but to get unlimited pours of over beers you’ll need a ticket.
Two ticket options are available: $30 for general admission at 3 PM or for $45 early entry at 1 PM.
More information and tickets can be found here.
Every time we sit down to record, I hope that we hit the stop button in under 45 minutes. It seems that these keep getting longer and longer. The next one will be shorter. I promise!
This episode was recorded prior to the Superbowl, and thus prior to the Budweiser ad that got most craft beer nerds’ panties in a bunch (I thought the commercial was funny). We discuss the differences between what the Brewer’s Association defines as a craft brewer and a “crafty” brewer. We drink some “craft” beers and some “crafty” beers. I wish I didn’t need to put those words in quotes and just call them beer.
This is a topic with very little right answer. As you will hear, if you make it all the way through, many craft brewers employ business tactics similar to Anheuser Busch, and many crafty beers taste better than most craft beers. It’s easy to defend craft beer, until you are trying to explain yourself being in a line to Goose Island Bourbon County Stout.
Please send any and all feedback to us @hookedonhops on twitter, on Facebook.com/hookedonhops, or feel free to email me or Armando at luis@hookedonhops.com or armando@hookedonhops.com. We’d love to continue recording these and if we can make it more enjoyable or interesting, then we’d love to know how.
The goal is for Armando and I to start recording these a bit more often, and a bit shorter, and eventually make this consistent enough that we move to a different platform other than soundcloud. Without any feedback as to if you enjoy these, we may continue to take our time with that…
![IMG_5911.JPG](http://hookedonhops.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/IMG_5911.jpg)
The last time I had this beer, was I think possibly the first time that I had any of CraftHaus’ beers. This was prior to the brewery opening, when Dave was still a home brewer pouring beers at local festivals while he and Wyndee were putting together their business plan and securing funding for the brewery. The beer was delicious then, and I can only assume that it’ll be even more delicious this upcoming Saturday.
As an added bonus to what is on the flyer below, there will also be samples from the Las Vegas Distillery and O Face Doughnuts to pair with the beer.
Be sure to also visit the brewery so you can see the artwork Kellie Aguilar has been constructing on the tap room chalkboard. Above you can see a small section of it in progress.
See you there!
![Comrade Day (3)](http://hookedonhops.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Comrade-Day-3.png)
If there’s anything in this world that I enjoy more than a make believe rabbit with antlers, it’s barley wine.
Fun fact: The first time that I visited Tenaya Creek’s brewery, I drank Old Jackalope Barley Wine.
![IMG_5890.JPG](http://hookedonhops.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/IMG_5890.jpg)
If you have not, read part 1 first, as this will give you a primer on how I cultured wild lactobacillus. WARNING: another long-winded post on things that you probably don’t care about unless you are a nerd like me!
![IMG_5345.JPG](http://hookedonhops.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/IMG_5345.jpg)
After nearly a week of letting my lactobacillus starter sit outside, the pellicle inside was huge and it smelled like lemon yogurt. I finally brewed the beer. The plan was for this to be a sour saison. I added some rye malt as well, to ensure that there’s a more complex malt character and so that this doesn’t turn too thin and weird if the lactobacillus I cultured sucks.
At this point, you have a couple of options on how you can add the lactobacillus: (more…)
A friend of mine, Sarah from Sarah n’ Spice, shared an awesome recipe with me on twitter. Being fan of both beer and cheese, the idea of a beer cheese soup sounds awesome. As an added bonus, it uses Tenaya Creek’s Hop Ride in the recipe!
Check out the recipe here.
What is the point of beer styles? Historically, beer styles were just names of the city of origin for the style, like Pilsner, Vienna lager, Dortmunder Export, etc. Or they were the beers eventual destination, like India pale ale, Baltic Porter, or Russian imperial stout. More often than not, the meaning of the name changes over time. India pale ale is better known as IPA; regardless of where it is being shipped to. The stout porter, which was originally known as a stronger porter (in both alcohol and flavor), eventually just started to be called stout. Today, the primary differing factor between stout and porter is simply the addition of roasted barley, giving a stout a more pronounced roast character over the typically sweeter or more chocolatey flavors of porter.
Today in the American craft beer world beer styles have become even more confusing. I once heard someone argue that a particular double IPA tasted more like a double pale ale. The odd thing is, despite the fact that neither the Brewer’s Association or the Beer Judge Certification Program recognizes double pale ale as a style, I still knew what they meant. The often rumored origin of India pale ale was that it was an extra strength pale ale; with the added alcohol and hops used to withstand a voyage to India from England. While I think it’s perfectly fair to argue that an extra strength pale ale is the same as a double pale ale is the same as an IPA; IPA nowadays is predominately recognized by its intense hop aroma and flavor (I’d argue that bitterness doesn’t matter, with Deschutes Fresh Squeezed IPA being an example of a non-bitter IPA). (more…)