Are You a Beer Expert?

Over at Dropping Timber there is a scan of the NASL Kick magazine from May 1, 1976 when the Portland Timbers played the St. Louis Stars.  In it is this little gem:

"A smooth beer is the brewers supreme goal" are you listening oh Craft Brewers of Oregon?

Lest we forget what is a premium beer - I bring you this picture from Jeff Alworth:

Cargill corn syrup tanker outside the old Weinhard's brewery in the pearl.

Ummm...nothing says 'premium' like corn syrup! Smooth...

In Which I Find the Answer

Growing up in Wisconsin, one is always faced with one, seemingly unanswerable, question:what is the point of Iowa?

Fortunately, last night, I think I finally found the answer.  After a long day I arrived home to an almost empty beer fridge, but lo and behold, in the back, a forgotten wonderbeer just waiting for me:

Oh man, did it make my day.

So thanks Matt (the Iowan) for a great beer.

Winning the Future

When Barack Obama talks about the US 'winning the future' though leading the world in innovation and development, I am confident he is talking about this:

Josh Springer may have solved the sports fan’s dilemma: Should I get a beer or go to the bathroom if I want to be back in my seat before the action resumes?
His invention, the Bottoms Up Draft Beer Dispensing System, makes it easier to do both by drastically cutting the time it takes to pour and pay for a brew. After a YouTube video that’s been viewed more than 4 million times and an NFL debut that helped the Jacksonville Jaguars set beer-sales records in a year of poor attendance, Springer’s company has signed an exclusive advertising deal with Anheuser-Busch InBev and is preparing to grow exponentially in 2011.

“We get calls from all over the world daily,” the 28-year-old inventor said by telephone from his home base near Olympia, Wash. “Apparently, you have to wait for a beer all over the world.”

Bottoms Up will make its Houston debut at Discovery Green the first weekend in April, during festivities related to the NCAA Final Four.

Alison Birdwell, general manager for Aramark at Reliant Park, said one or two of the dispensers will be operating at Texans games next fall.

She said the concessionaire also plans to install one or two at Minute Maid Park, although not in time for the Astros’ opening day.

Inspiration struck three years ago at a birthday dinner for his dad, Springer said, when he quieted the table and announced to a skeptical family that he thought he could fill a beer glass from the bottom. Four days later, he’d developed a prototype of a machine that would pump beer through a metal-ringed hole in the bottom of a plastic cup. A magnet covering the hole would then snap back into place. He estimates the process is nine times as fast as a traditional draft system.

It also eliminates excessive foaming.

“It’s gentler on the beer,” he said.

Here is one of the YouTube videos mentioned in the Houston Chronicle article excerpted above, and I gotta say, it works pretty well, though I am not sure how much the cups cost or how recyclable they are.  Maybe if you poke around their site you can find out.

Eco-nomics: Turning Brewery Waste into Natural Gas

In this Jan. 26, 2011 photo, Eric Fitch holds a Magic Hat glass in front of the digester building at the brewery in South Burlington, Vt. The Vermont brewery is giving new meaning to the idea of green beer. Magic Hat Brewing Co., of South Burlington, is the first site to use a device that turns spent grain from the brewing process into natural gas that is then used to fuel brewing operations. The 42-foot tall anaerobic methane digester, installed last summer, extracts energy from the spent hops, barley and yeast left over from the brewing process. (AP Photo/Toby Talbot)

From Boston.com the story of Magic Hat Brewery's anaerobic methane digester which turns spent grain into natural gas that they then use to fuel the brewery:

Before he started "saving the earth, one beer at a time," all inventor Eric Fitch knew about home brewing was that it could make quite a mess.

Once, he accidentally backed up the plumbing in his apartment building by dumping into his garbage disposal the spent grain left over from his India Pale Ale home brew. The oatmeal-looking gunk choked the pipes in his Cambridge, Mass., building, flooding the basement.

These days, he's doing something more constructive, fulfilling the dream of beer lovers everywhere by recycling the stuff: The MIT-trained mechanical engineer has invented a patented device that turns brewery waste into natural gas that's used to fuel the brewing process.

The anaerobic methane digester, installed last year at Magic Hat Brewing Co. in Vermont, extracts energy from the spent hops, barley and yeast left over from the brewing process -- and it processes the plant's wastewater. That saves the brewer on waste disposal and natural gas purchasing

The 42-foot tall structure, which cost about $4 million to build, sits in the back parking lot of Magic Hat's brewery, where it came online last summer.

Fitch, 37, is CEO of PurposeEnergy, Inc., of Waltham, Mass., a renewable energy startup company whose lone product is the biphase orbicular bioreactor, which is 50 feet in diameter, holds 490,000 gallons of slurry and produces 200 cubic feet of biogas per minute.

Brewers big and small have wrestled with waste issues since the dawn of beer-making. In recent years, they've turned to recycling -- both as a cost-saver and for environmental reasons.

Anheuser-Busch, which makes Budweiser, uses a bio-energy recovery system in 10 of its 12 U.S. breweries to convert wastewater into natural gas that's then used to fuel the brewing process.

New Belgium Brewing Co., in Fort Collins, Colo., captures excess heat from cooling wort and funnels it beneath its loading dock so it doesn't ice up in wintertime. The wort, the liquid made with malt and hot water, is fermented to make beer or ale.

Coors' breweries sell ethanol from their brewing process to refineries in Colorado. Some European breweries dry their spent grain and then burn it, using the heat and energy in their manufacturing process.

Most operations dispose of their spent grain by selling it -- or giving it away -- to farmers, for use as cattle or animal feed.

But PurposeEnergy says its digester is the first in the world to extract energy from the spent grain and then re-use it in the brewery, and all in one place. At Magic Hat, the big brown silo is located about 100 feet from the main complex.

"Feeding it to cattle is pretty direct recycling, especially if you get steak back out of it," said Julie Johnson, editor of All About Beer magazine. "Carting it off as animal feed is pretty common. In this case, by closing the loop at the brewery, this is turning it into savings quite directly for Magic Hat."

[HT: KGW The Square]

BEERTICKERS

I see that Phil Parkin, pictured above, has been getting the word out to beer bloggers that his film, Beertickers, is available to view for a very small fee ($0.99) on iTunes and asking us to review it. Jeff at Beervana has already given it a big thumbs up.  I am also delighted to oblige.  Phil is a Sheffield based filmmaker and, if 'Beertickers' is to believed, Sheffield is a hub of craft real ale in England. [And yes, most Yanks probably know of Sheffield for one reason: The Full Monty - but don't worry Sheffield has had a strong economic revival] Phil also has a delightful Yorkshire accent which is worth the price of admission in itself.

The movie follows the exploits of a group of British "beertickers" - folks who go around finding new beers to try and keeping track of their conquests, ticks them off the list.  [In Britain one 'ticks' a box rather than 'checks' it as we do in the new world] But of course focusing on this curious hobby is just a jumping off point in a greater exploration of British beer culture centered around real ales, craft breweries and neighborhood pubs.

The beertickers in the movie are compared to trainspotters - and in fact many of them were previously trainspotters (those that sought to lay eyes on unique locomotives and coaches) - but the benefits of beer ticking over trainspotting are multitude: you get to sit inside in the warmth of pubs, chat with other punters and most importantly, you get to drink good beer.

It also serves as a good reminder to Northwesterners that though we like to pride ourselves on the number of breweries and the variety of beer found locally, the centuries old beer culture found in Britain is more local, more varied and more omni-present.  In the film we witness 'Brian the Champ' tick off his 40,000 beer - all accomplished on a small island about 10% smaller than the state of Oregon.  You could live a lifetime in Oregon and perhaps manage a tenth of that total.  It also points out the difference in the type of beers typically found in both places: as a part of the tick you write down the name and the ABV of the beer which in England is typically around 3.8 to 4.3%.  In Oregon, pales are often in the 5.5% range and IPAs are now commonly in the high sixes. 

Other characters make appearances like the delightful 'Mick the Tick,' who some credit for starting the whole thing, and 'Dave Unpronounceable' and 'Gazza,' who are interesting if not altogether likable - neither really make you want to run out and find them in a pub. 

Well-known British beer blogger Pete Brown makes an appearance and utters my favorite line from the whole film when talking about how shit were the home-lives of the industrial revolution British and how shit is the British weather, and thus was created the ubiquitous pub culture as an escape.  He says that when the weather was finally nice, Brits would go outside and play sport and that, as a result, the British "...have invented every decent sport the world has ever known."  And you know, he is probably right.

The film goes on and touches on the epidemic of pub closures (perhaps because British home life is no longer so shit?) and the CAMRA real ale campaign.  And indeed, the beer ticking is all about fresh, local and unique real ale.  It makes me think immediately of Ted Sobel and Brewer's Union, who brews small batches of real ale in the British pub tradition, many of which are unique recipes. Thanks in part to CAMRA, craft brewers of real ales are enjoying a bit of a renaissance in Britain as well and, in the film, Phil travels to the Thornbridge Brewery and helps brew a special batch of their 'Jaipur IPA.'

When watching Beertickers, I couldn't help but think of the Bill Bryson book "Notes from a Small Island" in which he finds the British marvelous in their ability to get real pleasure from small things.  I think this is true and I think that in a way this is a trait I inherited from my British mother.  I find sitting around and having a good chat over a beer in a pub one of life's real profound joys.  I much prefer that to more ambitious shows, amusements and vacations.   This movie highlights this trait and one can't help but be moved by the real joy 'Mick the Tick' takes in finding and sampling a new beer.

Overall, I found "Beertickers" to be a delight - part travelogue, part exploration into the inherent obsessiveness of hobbies, but mostly a beautiful meditation on beer and beer culture. For $0.99 it is well worth a watch.

Here is the trailer:



To get more information about the film you can go to the website, and to watch it yourself you can go to iTunes.

One last note of warning, it will make you thirsty and in the mood for some real English-style ale.  Harder to find but possible if you are on the lookout.

Cheers!

Tradgedy

A quick note of condolence to the family of the Maletis Beverage worker, Jeromy Judd, who was killed this morning when a rack of beer kegs collapsed on him, and to the company and its employees.  Jeromy was 25.  

Tragic.

Packers

It is hard to describe the anachronism that is the Green Bay Packers.  It is absurd that a small rust belt town would have and even own an NFL team and while I was living in Wisconsin as a kid it seemed that perhaps they wouldn't last.  They were playing half their games at County Stadium in Milwaukee (they only place I have seen them play live) and, the exploits of Lynn Dickey and James Lofton notwithstanding, they were not very good.

Anyway yesterday I watched and celebrated their victory as any good Wisconsin boy would: brats and beer done right - boiled in beer and onions and then grilled to juicy perfection.  Jeff stopped at Belmont Station to find that the entire stock of Leinenkugels had been sold, so we settled for Miller, that great Wisconsin South African English beer.

Unable to find Leinenkugels, Miller had to suffice.

What a year it is shaping up to be: my itinerant youth has made me a lifelong supporter of the SF Giants, the Green Bay Packers and the Trailblazers.  Two championships so far this season, maybe the Blazers can shock the world!

By the way, I was morose at halftime, certain in the knowledge that the Steelers would come back and win.  For my other team, Arsenal, managed to squander a 4-0 lead to Newcastle just the day before causing a fit of apoplexy.  And it almost happened, but once again the Pack came through.

By the way, what we drank was a selection of homebrew: chipotle stout, Sirachi Ace Ale, porter; and craft brew: racer 5, Pelican IPA, and Upright's wonderful Billy the Mountain.