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.
I received an email about a Kickstarter campaign that just launched for a home draft system. I thought I’d share it here for anyone who may be interested in this sort of thing.
I personally really like the idea. For many people, this is an easier and cheaper option than purchasing a second refrigerator and setting up a standard draft system. The main drawback here though is that the system holds 1 gallon. If you are the type who likes growler fills, this is an awesome alternative: twice as much beer compared to a typical growler and a much better shelf life. However for homebrewers, only being able to package 1 gallon at a time may be too limiting, depending on your batch size.
Ultimately, I would love to see something like this succeed. The more effort that is put into beer packaging technology, the better it will be for consumers in the long run. I think it would be awesome to go grocery shopping and while I’m there, fill up a gallon of beer to have available on draft at home for the next week.
SYNEK has a very lofty goal of raising $250,000 in one month, so if you like the idea of this, be sure to spread the word. Keep in mind that there are still a few final design elements that are yet to be finalized (ie: refrigeration method). This is great, as it allows the backers to help with designing the type of product that they want to own, but it also could mean a delay in the the final product release.
For more information, and to support SYNEK, visit their Kickstarter page here.
To be clear, I wasn’t exactly expecting to be amazed by MillerCoors’ newest “premium beer,” however I was intrigued by it and the way it was being marketed. Bloomberg was first to put together a piece on the beer. Between the various interviews in the article, it is mentioned that the primary reason for this beer’s existence is to try and bring market share back to beer from spirits.
“We asked, ’How would Jack Daniels or Maker’s Mark do a beer and why?’” said David Kroll, who was brought to MillerCoors from Dyson in 2012 to shake things up as its head of innovation. “We tortured every aspect to say, ’Are we falling back on what beer would do?’ Because this brand is intended to play in a spirits occasion.” (more…)
A year later than what was originally announced, but I was right when I suggested that the year-round sour would likely be a blended sour beer. The press release suggests that they will rotate through various sour beers by stating that “The brewery will use this expansion to bring Lips of Faith offerings like Tart Lychee and Eric’s Ale into year round production by 2015.” Tart Lychee was an amazing beer, and I’ve heard similar comments made about Eric’s Ale as well.
The benefits of using beer blends is that less of of the aged sour beer needs to be used for each batch, allowing them to then release more beer than if the beer was made up of 100% sour beer. Additionally, these beers would be less sour, and thus more approachable to drinkers who are unfamiliar with sour beers. As the label on Eric’s Ale states: “This is a sour beer for those who don’t like sour beers.”
Full press release below (more…)
Confirmed by a recent Reddit AMA:
We will have some kind of sour out year round starting in 2014
I’m a huge fan of New Belgium’s sours, and I’m excited to see what, and how, they release a year round sour beer. More than likely, I think this may be referring to La Folie. Lauren Salazar has said before that she hopes to be able to release La Folie year round.
My other guess, is that it won’t be a 100% sour beer, and will instead be a blended beer; ie La Folie is 100% dark sour beer (Oscar) and Le Terrior is 100% light sour beer (Felix). A beer like Tart Lychee, on the other hand, is actually a blend of Felix with non-sour beer. This allows them to use less sour beer (an important consideration since it takes a year or two to sour a batch of beer), but it also makes the beer less sour. If it’s going to be available year-round, this will allow it to be more approachable for more people who don’t have the palate for a full blown sour beer.
Raise your hand if you were at the beer and chocolate pairing event with Happy Ending Chocolates at Tenaya Creek Brewery. If you didn’t raise your hand just now, go ahead and slap yourself for missing out on an incredibly fun evening enjoying delicious beers and chocolates specially prepared for the event.
Last year around September, I had my first pumpkin beer of the season. Don’t get me wrong, I love the style and season. However, by the time Halloween and Thanksgiving roll around, I’m either burnt out on them, or not able to find them due to Winter beers emerging on the shelf. Is this a case of supply and demand? A competition to see who can get the first seasonal on the shelves? Or is it excitement from brewers to get their newest spicy creations out to the masses? (more…)
Vegasinc.com wrote up a nice article of the growing trend of growler fills here in Las Vegas. I managed to get a quote in there as well.
Read it here.
There’s room though for every neighborhood to have a brewery, as long as the brewery can make world class beers and the brewery can differentiate themselves and understand how to run a proper business. To me that is no different than saying, ‘Should every neighborhood have a restaurant?’ and, ‘Should another restaurant open up down the street from that other restaurant?’
Julia Herz is the craft beer program director of Boulder, CO based Brewers Association and publisher of CraftBeer.Com. Full interview can be found here.
I wrote an article for Serious Eats on using a French press to infuse flavors into a beer, similar to a Dogfish Head Randall. I’ve never used the Randall Jr, but I’ll go ahead and assume that a French press works just as well, if not better.
Read it here.
