BreweryMap

Going on road trip anytime soon? Use BreweryMap to show you every possible stop on your chosen route.

Beer, Antitrust, and the Justice Department

The Wonkblog at the Washington Post published an interesting snippet about how the Justice Department will file a suit to block the merger of AB InBev and Corona, the #1 and #3 brands in the industry. AB already owns half of Corona's parent Modelo and had announced a $20 billion purchase of the other half.

Gotta keep that competition in the marketplace.

BOOM. Light Beer'd!

Article from back in November at the Atlantic touches on light beer, history, and the brewing process.

"It's common to disparage light beers. As craft beers have elbowed their way into American refrigerators and taps, light beers have become punch lines. What few drinkers know, however, is that quality light beers are incredibly difficult to brew."

 I'll take a Busch Light...

The Great American Ale Trail

I stopped by the library the other day primarily to pick up Nate Silver's book The Signal and the Noise, but decided to check out some beer books as well. I ended up taking home The Great American Ale Trail: The Craft Beer Lover's Guide to the Best Watering Holes in the Nation. I skimmed through and read some sections of it last night and was impressed with the number of breweries and bars the author, Christian DeBenedetti, covers. There are also a lot of neat tidbits about beer styles, brewing techniques, and various festivals. A detailed story or description of the scene one encounters when visiting is accompanied by a philosophy and key beer to try for each place.

Sadly, I was disappointed to see some omissions. Having some similar thoughts, All About Beer says the book is "an eclectic if necessarily incomplete almanac of brewpubs, breweries and bars along with the occasional restaurant," which pretty much nails it. They go on to say it "includes more than it omits." On the whole this may be true, but...

What stood out to me is how few Michigan locations made the list. I'll admit my bias since I'm a Michigander, but really, only six? Alaska and Louisiana both had more than double that number with 16 and 14 each, respectively. The author is from Portland, Oregon and the book has a fairly distinctive West Coast orientation with large numbers of places in beer-rich states like Oregon, Washington, California, and Colorado. Population-rich New York also featured well plus North Carolina with Beer City, USA champion Asheville up there too (with a copyright of 2011, this was pre-title for now Beer City, USA Grand Rapids).

I'm nitpicking, but let's look more closely at Michigan. Featured in the book are Jolly Pumpkin, Founders, HopCat, and Bell's with a "Best of the Rest" including Ashley's and Arcadia. First thing I thought of after reading this list was, "Where is Short's?"

Obviously, ratings from BeerAdvocate should be taken with a grain of salt, but Short's has a "world-class" ranking on 66 reviews. Compare this with Twisted Pine, located in Boulder, Colorado which does get mention in the book as one of the "Best of the Rest" for Colorado, which has an "exceptional" rating (5 points lower than Short's) on only 14 reviews. This is nothing against Twisted Pine. I have visited and really enjoyed the experience, but why devote so many more pages to Colorado (37) as to Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, and Wisconsin combined (25).

The book includes a box highlighting that Michigan now has more than 65 breweries, and directs those interested to check out the Michigan Brewers Guild website. This kinda makes the book feel not quite as rigorous as it is. Short's does get a shout-out as what to grab at Ashley's in Ann Arbor, so there is obviously respect for them. Since the book has a travel orientation and much of the content comes from the author's own trips and experiences, Short's out-of-the-way location up north probably hurt when making the decisions of what to include. However, the Colorado section includes locations up and down the Front Range and all the way to Breckenridge and Durango, so it isn't prohibitive.

The suggested itinerary that includes Michigan is a Midwest-wide one though and tries to cram Chicago, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan locations all together. By grouping the Midwest in as one region like the book did really limits the focus individual Midwest states might have, while California is only paired with Hawaii and basically gets its own itinerary. The biggest issue I have overall is probably the way the book was divided and grouped.

Other Michigan locations worthy of inclusion along with Short's, in my opinion, are: Arbor Brewing (on the fence), Brewery Vivant (newly open when the book was published), Dark Horse, Dragonmead, Kuhnhenn, and New Holland.

Maybe we'll see another edition - with some modifications to the regions and more places - as this Serious Eats review bets on (not all 50 states make the list this time). Perhaps this has sounded overly critical, but I really respect Michigan beer and was disappointed to not see more of it here. Beyond that gripe, I have thus far enjoyed reading and learning about what the states I don't know as well as Michigan have to offer (and how I have managed to hit many of his Colorado recommendations). It really is a good book, and could very well be a great book with only minor improvements.

How Long Did This Take to Drink?

I'm amused that after the post showing videos somewhat critical of the internet beer geek posts stop showing up here for 7 months... but do not fear, I've got some ideas to get content flowing again for at least 4 more posts following this one.

I leave you with this. Beer rings:

Avery IPA @ Boulder Cafe, August 21, 2012

Beer Geek Videos

Love all of the videos this guy puts out. John Smith understands and pokes fun at craft beer geeks in an extreme sort of way. Here's one of them. The rest can be found on vimeo here: http://vimeo.com/user10854696
Want to read the controversy behind it? http://beerpulse.com/2012/04/man-behind-the-todays-beer-geek-video-series-speaks/

Beer Rankings

An article over at Slate about the democratic nature of beer, especially compared to that of wine.  While not everyone can so easily obtain Pliny the Younger like the author kind of implies, I think this highlights one important part of why beer is so great.

Craft Beer Keeps Rising

For those of you who don't follow my Twitter account, Andrew Sullivan posted links to a couple craft beer related articles and how it is increasing its market share and output while macro-brewers are seeing declining numbers.

LINK

Founders Brewing: The Story

Founders Brewing: The Story from Founders Brewing Co. on Vimeo.

Yuengling now the Largest US-owned Brewery

Yuengling has started distributing in Ohio, and surpassed Boston Beer Company as the largest American brewery.

Now, just to get it a little fartheYur north in Michigan...

Documentary: Beer People

Beer People from Alan Torres on Vimeo.

Hat Tip: Damn Arbor

Lake Michigan Beer Tour Map

Just thought I would share this map I created in a cartography class. I tried to stay fairly close to the coast for the most part. I know there are a few I left out as well; those I either couldn't find any information on or they were chain breweries that I figured most people would not be interested in seeing if they wanted to do a geographically unique brewery tour. I wanted to include a wider geographic area, but there were already 55 on my list, so I left it at that. All of the data in the table I either took from personal experience or from what I could gather via their website and beeradvocate.

http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/75258652?access_key=key-236tfphn3a5azno7eu8j

Favorite Breweries

Name your 3 most favorite breweries in order. I know it is tough, but if you could only drink beer from 3 breweries for the rest of your life what would they be?

Mine:

1) Founders (don't think I could live without their delicious stouts)

2) Two Brothers (love their wide array of styles they do)

3) Three Floyds (hate their distribution, but love their beer, anything they make is just delcious)

Lagunitas Lucky 13.alt Review

Hasn't been a beer review on here for awhile, so I thought I would post one that I put on beeradvocate earlier.

Lagunitas Lucky 13.alt

This is supposedly a blonde version of the normal Lucky 13 version (Large Mondo Red).

Poured from a 22 oz bottle into an English pint. Actually thought I was trying the other version at first (Large Mondo Red) and then realized that this is the .alt version.

Pours a sort of clear golden color with a slight amber hue. Not much of a head on there, carbonation seems prominent.

Aroma has sort of a sweet malt scent with a very distinctive kind of hops that I can't remember which one it is (Amarillo?). Some elements of citrus/grapefruit.

Hmm, taste is more complex than I was expecting. The hops hit you right away, citrus/grapefruit, with a little spiciness. This is followed by a sweet malty taste, which then has a little bit of a dry and bitter finish.

Mouthfeel is great, perfect carbonation, medium bodied. That sweet malty taste with a hint of the hops sticks to your mouth minutes after a sip.

Overall it is a pretty solid beer. This reminds me of all Lagunitas' beers. Above average, but nothing that blows you out of the water. Solid beer, would definitely drink again.

Homebrew Belgian Tripel IPA

I now feel comfortable enough with my latest beer to write something about it.  I took a recipe found elsewhere on the Internet and slightly modified it to match what was available to me.

One difference from that recipe was an extra 1/2 lb of candi sugar because it was sold in 1 pound bags and I didn't want any extra sitting around.  The other was because I could not find Amarillo hops.  I semi-arbitrarily replaced them with U.K. Challenger (somewhat similar AA%) hops, which worked out fairly well.

Since I was borrowing equipment and was limited in what was available to me, I simply fermented for 3 weeks in primary (bucket).  I was able to get a separate bottling bucket from Tim when the time came, but in a fit of laziness ended up not using it and instead auto-siphoned straight from the primary into our bottles.  The result is a significant amount of sediment, but that has settled out nicely and with a careful pour will mostly stay in the bottle.

Finally, a note on carbonation.  I added priming sugar to the batch during the bottling process, but it has not seemed to kick it up much.  It remains a little flat even after 3+ weeks in the bottle.  Sadly, I suspect it will stay like this.  Fortunately, I have noticed very, very slight carbonation build up on the walls of the glass for the last couple bottles I have had even though no head forms.

My main theory for this issue is a lack of healthy yeast survival to this point, and the beer could have used additional yeast at some point.  3 weeks in the primary and a high ABV (estimated 10-11%, but I didn't take readings) might have tired them out.

In the end, there are things I would change, but the flavor is there.  This is definitely a very hoppy, high alcohol beer.  Even with its problems, it tastes good!

"Raging Bitch" to finally come to Michigan

Flying Dog's top-selling IPA can now be enjoyed in the Mitten!

Epic Beer Commercial

I tweeted this the other day when I came across it in my Google Reader:

Grow a Beard, Save the Planet

Budweiser wants men to stop shaving in the time running up to World Environment Day to promote water conservation.

Hat Tip: The Dish (Andrew Sullivan) at The Daily Beast.

Oberon Day

It just passed us, but Oberon dropped at midnight Sunday, going on Monday, and I was down at the release party here in Ann Arbor.  A Bell's representative was there, and purchasing any Bell's beer resulted in tickets that were drawn to win t-shirts and the like.  Unfortunately, I didn't win anything - I am not the King of Oberon for the next year, but I did get some bumper stickers and pins.  Also, what kind of party would it be without temporary tattoos?

St. Patrick's Day Open Thread

What are you doing today? Drinking?

I have had a Smithwick's, Harp, and Boddingtons at the bar in between classes + 2 bottles of Two Hearted while enjoying spring on the porch.

There will be more after tonight I'm sure.