Grunauer, an Austrian restaurant in the Crossroads Arts District, has one of the best beer gardens in the country, according to Food Wine magazine. And Draft magazine named The Foundry, in Westport, to its list of America’s 100 Best Beer Bars.

Kansas City’s hometown brewer, Boulevard, recently doubled its weekly tours to keep up with demand. A new brewery is in the works for North Kansas City, and several local restaurants — including Julian in Brookside, Green Room Burgers Beer in Westport, Pachamama’s in Lawrence and Minsky’s Pizza in Kansas City — have been experimenting with their own brews.

In Kansas City, beer isn’t just a beverage — it’s a culture.

Tours

A year ago, if you wanted to tour Kansas City’s hometown brewery, you had to make a reservation up to three months in advance.

Not anymore: Recently Boulevard Brewing Co. doubled its number of weekly tours, from about 17 to 35 per week. The brewery, located at 2501 Southwest Blvd., also did away with reservations on most days.

“The only exception is on Saturdays, because they’re so popular,” says guest relations manager Amber Ayres.

The change makes it easier for local and visiting beer lovers to get in to the brewery’s free 45-minute tours, which provide an up-close look at the brew kettles and bottling lines that produce Unfiltered Wheat and other Boulevard beers. The tour concludes with 30 minutes in the tasting room, where visitors can sample popular Boulevard beers as well as experimental brews.

If you want an even closer look, book an Unfiltered Tour, a smaller and longer tour that includes stops in the intensely aromatic hops cooler and on the rooftop, which has a pretty incredible view of downtown Kansas City. Tickets to Boulevard’s Unfiltered Tours cost $20 each and become available at 10 a.m. the first Monday of every month. Because Boulevard only offers the Unfiltered Tours on Saturdays and Sundays, they “book up fast,” Ayres says. “We’re talking minutes.”

Bike rides

If you’re looking to cover more ground, consider airing up your bike tires and buying tickets for the third annual Tour de Brew, a rolling tour of Kansas City’s rich beer-brewing history organized by BikeWalkKC.

The May 19 event begins and ends at Knuckleheads Saloon, 2715 Rochester in the East Bottoms. There are three courses to choose from: The 15-mile Lager, the 33-mile IPA and the 63-mile Dunkel. The shorter race rolls by Boulevard Brewing Co. and dips into the West Bottoms. The longest race goes all the way to Martin City Brewing Co. in south Kansas City.

Sarah Shipley, who co-founded Tour de Brew with Laurie Chipman and Ron Puett, says the event is “like a scavenger hunt through history.” Each rider gets a course map marked with rest stops and historical points of interest, such as the original site of the George Muehlebach Brewing Co and the current site of Boulevard. Some of the rest stops offer cyclists brewer talks and free samples of beer.

“We like to save most of the beer sampling for the end” for safety reasons, Shipley says. Riders also are encouraged to wear helmets and use hand signals when turning. The heavily marked courses will have marshals on hand to guide traffic.

After the ride, there’s a bash at Knuckleheads, with beer, food trucks and vendors offering everything from massages to T-shirts and bike gear.

Tickets to Tour de Brew, which Shipley expects to attract around 1,200 cyclists this year, cost $50 in advance or $60 the day of the event and include a T-shirt, food and (of course) two free beers.

Beer and biking, Shipley says, “is like Mom and apple pie. It just goes hand and hand.”

For more information, go to tourdebrewkc.com.

Festivals

This month, Waldo celebrates American Craft Beer Week (May 13-19) with the annual HopFest Craft Beer Festival. The May 18 event at The Well and Lew’s Grill Bar features beer from more than 50 breweries, food trucks, live music and a competition for home brewers. Professional brewers from Boulevard, Free State, Samuel Adams and other breweries will be on hand to taste and talk beer.

Tickets cost $35, or $55 if you want VIP access, which gets you early admittance and tastes of special release beers. For more info, check out The Well’s website, waldowell.com.

Beer festivals are becoming increasingly popular across the region. In April, more than 3,000 people poured into downtown Parkville for the 10th annual Parkville Microbrew Fest. And In March, downtown Lawrence hosted its second annual Kansas Craft Beer Expo. Tickets to that event, which featured beer from 29 brewers, sold out in less than three hours. The organizers are already looking for ways to expand next year’s Expo.

Westport has a beer festival, too, on June 15: Check Beer KC’s blog for the latest info on the Westport Summer Beer Festival.

Tappings

The beer selection at Flying Saucer Draught Emporium, 101 E. 13th St. in the Power Light District, is borderline absurd.

The Texas-based chain’s Kansas City location has 76 brews on tap and hundreds more in bottles. Regular customers, known as Beerknurds, are inducted into the Ring of Honor after downing their 200th pint.

Every Thursday at 7 p.m., the Flying Saucer’s bartenders tap into a limited edition beer and pour it til it’s gone. Last week, the rare brew was Winter Warmer, an English strong ale brewed with Belgian candy sugar by Wild Onion Brewing Co. in Barrington, Ill.

If you live up north or out south, mark your calendar for every First Friday — that’s when Mother’s Brewing Co. from Springfield taps firkins of its beer at Rusty Horse Tavern, 6325 Lewis St. in Parkville, and Lew’s Grill Bar, 7539 Wornall Road in Waldo.

Mother’s marketing director Jeremy Wicks says the firkins — 10.8-gallon casks of beer — are often spiked with crazy ingredients, such as bacon, pomegranate or kumquat. So the flavor of the beer is vastly different than anything you’ll try in a bottle.

Tastings

Craft beer can be intimidating. Don’t know the difference between an English and India Pale Ale? Don’t sweat it — lots of local bars offer tastings and employ enthusiastic bartenders who are more than willing to help you find your new favorite brew.

At Bier Station, a new beer bar in Waldo, owner John Couture has hired a staff of beer enthusiasts — not to be confused with beer snobs — who allow customers to taste samples of beers before committing to a pint. Brad Isch, who curates Bier Station’s extensive selection, is full of helpful information. Did you know Goose Island’s Sofie beer is aged in white wine barrels, or what American lagers tasted like before Prohibition? You will after tasting a few brews with Isch.

The best part: Bier Station sells beer to go, in big bottles or six-packs, so if you find a beer you love, you won’t have to make an extra trip to the liquor store.

The tasting bar concept is coming soon to North Kansas City: Big Rip Brewing Co. is scheduled to open at 216 E. Ninth Ave. later this month. The microbrewery is a joint venture between friends Josh Collins and Kipp Feldt, a longtime homebrewer.

Collins says Big Rip will make beers for nerds and casual beer drinkers. He and Feldt are working on brewing batches of Banana Cream Ale, Cherry Hefeweizen, and a gluten-free beer. They’re also building a beer garden and a 50-seat taproom where customers can taste the freshest Big Rip brews.

Beer-loving cyclists take note: Big Rip is located off a bike trail that connects to the River Market.

Gardens

Last month, Food Wine magazine named Grunauer to its list of America’s best beer gardens.

The Zagat-rated Austrian restaurant, at 101 W. 22nd St. in the Freight House, has a south-facing patio with beautiful scenery. Imagine lush potted plants and chic wooden tables with a clear view of Union Station. A slatted pergola filters sunlight, and the menu overflows with Austrian and German beer, warm pretzels and an assortment of sausages.

About a mile away, leafy vines lend shade to the secluded beer garden at The Westside Local, 1663 Summit St. on Kansas City’s Westside, where locally brewed beer accompanies cheese and charcuterie plates.

Further south, a wall of bamboo secludes the drinking patio at Haus, 3044 Gillham Road, where you can wash down poutine and handmade sausages from Local Pig with a wide assortment of European beer. Big windows and rows of wooden picnic tables (inside and out) give the bar the communal feeling of a beer garden, even when it’s too rainy to sit on the patio.

Bier Station’s upstairs beer garden has sliding glass doors that roll up on warm days. Covering one wall is a black-and-white photo of Heim Brewing Co.’s bustling beer garden in the East Bottoms area. The photo dates back to around 1900, and depicts a crowd of nattily dressed men and women socializing over beer on a sunny patio.

Owner John Couture wants to replicate that simpler time. So there are no TVs in his beer garden. Just good beer and people who bond over it.

Members of the group dubbed K.R.A.Z.E., which stands for Kanawha Regional Association of Zymurgy Enthusiasts, have scheduled a free home brewing demonstration outside Moxxee Coffee on Charleston’s East End April 6. Zymurgy is the applied science related to fermentation.

The demonstration will begin about 11 a.m. in the patio section outside the East End coffee shop, said Rob Absten, 43, of Cross Lanes.

Absten is a home brewer and one of the founding members of the organization.

“A lot of people don’t know what home brewing really is,” he said. “They don’t know how difficult or easy it can be.”

The group’s members will show participants how to brew a stout beer and a hefeweizen.

The stout will be brewed using an all-grain technique, which is a bit more complicated, Absten said. The hefeweizen will be brewed using extracts, which is a simpler way to make beer, he said.

Absten has been brewing his own beer for about five years. He prefers to use the all-grain method for brewing beer.

All-grain brewing gives the brewer more control over the elements in the finished project, he said.

“You can make a good beer with an extract, but in my opinion, you can make an even better beer using all grain,” Absten said.

Using an extract means that the finished beer cannot be changed as much by the brewer, he said. 

It typically takes about six weeks before the finished product can be consumed. Because of that, members of the group will have some home brews made beforehand available for sampling at the demonstration, Absten said.

He said the group will check IDs to ensure that everyone sampling the beer is of legal drinking age.

Absten believes the demonstration will help get more people in the area into home brewing. Home brewing can help people come to appreciate many different styles of beer that aren’t available in the area.

Absten is a local attorney who used to live in Pittsburgh, which is known for having many quality beers available.

He found it difficult to find a palatable drink when he moved back to the Mountain State.

That was when he got into home brewing.

Absten believes that it will be easier to get locals into home brewing if they can see the process take place right before their eyes.

“We want to show people how easy it really is to home brew,” he said.

The demonstration will take about three hours, Absten said.

Absten added that many home brewing associations around the country will be holding events on National Home Brewing Day May 4.  

Contact writer Paul Fallon at paul.fal…@dailymail.com or 304-348-4817. Follow him at www.twitter.com/PaulBFallon.

Address: 950 SE Indian Street, Stuart

Phone: 772-210-2296

Grand Opening: Begins 11 a.m. Friday

Grand Opening Specials: Happy hour prices all weekend

Normal business hours: 2-10 p.m.

STUART — Two men’s passion for beer is the driving force behind the newest beer enthusiast’s paradise, scheduled to open this weekend. Longneck Brew House will be the first and only bar in South Florida where beer lovers can enjoy a wide variety of craft beers brew their own on premise.

Charts of grains and hops and a periodic table of beer styles adorn the walls and a line of coppery brewing kettles sit waiting to be filled with grains and hops by brewers eager to experiment with ingredients and create their own beer without having to invest the time and space for home brewing.

Groups or individuals can come in for two to three hours, select an ale recipe, gather their ingredients, steep them in a brewing kettle, add yeast, and leave the rest to Longneck. In two to three weeks, beer makers can come back to bottle their 12.5 gallons of beer and slap on a custom label.

The Brew House guarantees that every beer made from their recipes will turn out like it’s supposed to.

Owners Scott Sundermeier and Bob Hitt wanted to offer a place that was more than just a corner bar, but somewhere they could share their love for brewing.

Two hundred pint glasses on display at Longneck Brewhouse from bars, pubs and breweries Sundermeier has visited since discovering the art of home brewing 14 years ago are testament to his enthusiasm for craft beer.

“I like beer a lot,” Hitt said, “But he’s fanatical.”

Longneck Brew House will offer nearly 100 different beers from light to dark, sweet to bitter, 24 on tap and 70 in a bottle.

The Brew House will also be about more than drinking with friends. The owners’ aim is to create a place where people can come together to create something to be proud of.

“It’s a unique experience,” Hitt said.

“Hang out with your friends, do something fun, and have something to show for it,” Sundermeier said.

Hitt expects the brewery to be popular with parties, group outings, even corporate retreats as friends and colleagues brew, drink, and share in the creation process.

The only other pub in Florida that offers brewing on site is in Jacksonville and there are only 20 bars that do so in the country, so Hitt is expecting Longneck Brew House to draw novice brewers and beer aficionados from Martin County and beyond.

Sundermeier and Hitt are excited for the opening on the first weekend in March and are thrilled to be pursuing a dream of brewing beer for a living, according to Sundermeier.

Longneck Brew House will also offer appetizers at the bar, home brewing supplies and a mug club that offers discounted drinks with membership.

More
than 20 beer and food vendors will line the halls of the NACC and
serve a dozen different culinary selections and more than 50
varieties of beer. In addition, some great blues and classic rock
music will be flowing through the hallways, compliments of the
Bravuras and the Lakeside Blues Band.

Tickets
are $30 in advance or $35 the day of the event. Patrons must be 21 to
attend. The admission ticket includes both beer and food tasting
throughout the evening. Tickets can be purchased at the NACC, located
at 1201 Pine Ave., Niagara Falls; at Niagara Tradition Home Brewing
Supplies, located at 1296 Sheridan Drive, Tonawanda; or online atwww.thenacc.org
via PayPal.

Vendors
include Flying Bison Brewery, Pearl Street Grill Brewery, Pan
American Grill Brewery, Consumers Beverages, Community Beer
Works, The Brickyard Pub BBQ, Niagara Falls Conference
Center/Old Falls Street, Certo Brothers Distributing and Try It
Distributing. A home brew demonstration will also be on display.

There
is plenty of free parking just across the street from the NACC. For
more information, call the NACC at 716-282-7530 or Niagara Tradition
at 716-877-8767.

The
Niagara Arts and Cultural Center is a multi-arts center located in
the former Niagara Falls High School. The NACC, founded in 2001, was
once slated for demolition, but is now listed on the National
Register of Historic Places. It is home to more than 70 artists, a
ballet school, two theaters and recording studios. Through the hard
work of hundreds of volunteers, it has undergone a major renaissance
and is now serving as a catalyst for the revitalization of the
surrounding neighborhoods.

Brooklyn was the “one time and perhaps future beer-brewing capital of the world.” Find out why the creators of the film “Brewed in Brooklyn” feel that way in a film set to premiere
in Lambertville.

The 50-minute documentary was created by John Weber and Bennet Aube, both of Lambertville, and Kim Bjorheim of Hellertown, Pa.

The film features interviews with “historians, brewers and beer lovers alike and includes vintage footage and excerpts of classic Brooklyn beer commercials that would bring a smile to Don Draper’s face,” the trio pitches on the creative projects fundraising site Kickstarter.

“Brewed in Brooklyn,” the men say, is a “must see DVD for anyone who loves beer, Brooklyn or history.”

Weber said today that the premiere of “Brewed in Brooklyn” is planned for March 16. That’s the same month that New Jersey’s oldest craft brewery, River Horse, plans to move from the site where it was founded in Lambertville to a newer building in Ewing.

The film makers are completing the project, but still looking for backers. Anyone who gives $10 or more can see their name in the credits. Give at least $20 to also get a copy of the DVD, at least $50 adds a set of tasting glasses and $100 or more tacks on a movie poster. Give at least $500 and enjoy a New York brewery tour for two, too.

Funding for the project helps with the cost of original music, insurance and post production costs.

Stay with nj.com to learn more about the film and the upcoming premiere.
More Hunterdon County news: NJ.com/hunterdon • Facebook • Twitter

Oregon is a great home for beer lovers. In a state especially renowned for its microbreweries, the Brew of O joins ranks with more than 20 noncommercial brew clubs in Oregon. Commercially, the state has 133 brewing companies and 165 separate brewing facilities, according to the Oregon Brewers Guild.

Oregonians consumed 2.7 million barrels of beer in 2011, according to the brewers guild, and Oregon ranks No. 2 in the nation in breweries per capita, according to the Brewers Association, a national organization of beer makers.

Portland hosts 51 breweries, more than any other city in the world, according to the brewers guild. With this much competition for the market and the variety it brings, many beer lovers are simply happy to be consumers.

The Brew of O takes it a step further, however.

Old world brewing style

On Oct. 23, Brew of O members erected a tent at the University of Oregon’s Erb Memorial Union as a part of the university’s annual Sustainability Fair, giving the club a chance to reach out and demonstrate a part of the old world brewing style it practices.

Water boiled in a metal container called a lauter tun and drained into another container called a mash tun, which held grain. After filtering through the grain mash and into a boil kettle, the water retains sugar and is called wort. When the wort reaches the correct temperature, hops are added to the mix.

Alcohol isn’t produced immediately, as the university is a dry campus. Once the mixture went back to the brew house, yeast was added. Over the course of a week or so, the yeast consumes the sugar and creates alcohol.

Intrigued students stopped by on that fall Tuesday with questions while Brew of O members stirred the wort in turns, turning that particular recipe into an extra special bitter, or ESB, an English style of beer.

The Brew of O calls the batch WESB, as it is one of club member Weston Zaludek’s award-winning recipes. It took first place in the English pale ale category at the annual Sasquatch Brew Fest in Eugene last spring.

A founding member of the group, Zaludek said the club started by chance. His passion for brewing beer began after he was given his father’s old brewing set. After a stint on his own and spending time with Wakonda Brewing in Florence, he felt confident enough to try it on his own. When he met UO student Jon Danyeur through a mutual friend, all three of whom shared a mutual interest, they began brewing.

“Since June 27, 2011, we’ve never stopped,” said Zaludek, a former UO student who is now the head brewer at Oregon Trail Brewing in Corvallis.

Danyeur’s passion really began that day.

“We just started doing it one day a week, five gallons (at a time) and we just started to get people involved, get people to show up,” he said. “Then we started doing 10-gallon batches, and it got to the point where we had to do it two days a week, so now we’re doing 20 gallons a week. It’s just kind of grown from there. We’ve received so much support from people, which is definitely the biggest part, because we do fund this out of pocket.”

While donations are accepted, as a club it’s not about the money.

“A little nuts”

“People look at us like we’re a little nuts, but we really have a passion for what we do,” Danyeur said.

With the leading members of the club living in the same house, it’s easier for everyone to coordinate.

Joe Buppert, a UO student and another front man for the club, who had looked into brewing before meeting Zaludek and Danyeur, now brews constantly.

Many boutique shops sell premade sets for beginners at about $150, but for Buppert it was cheaper and easier to start by joining forces with people who already possessed the knowledge and equipment.

“It makes people a little more comfortable before they dive into it,” Buppert said.

For him, brewing beer is about being creative with recipes that aren’t common for consumers.

“It’s such a craft industry. It’s like making soup,” said Buppert, while keeping a close eye on the wort.

“Once you get the hang of it, you can do so many different types of things to beers,” he said. “And once people realize that (making beer goes) beyond the Coors Lights and Bud Lights and that you can do fruit beers and sour beers, you add a whole bunch of conditions and it really goes to the next level.

“That gets people inspired a bit more. So we show them, like if they come off the street, and we say, ‘Oh, you want to try our Lavender IPA or our Pineapple IPA?’ And you taste it and you’re like, ‘I’ve never had anything like this.’ From there on out they realize beer can be a lot more. That’s what we look forward to doing to people, branching them out into the beer world.”

“It’s like ‘Fight Club,’” said Mykel Leon, referring to the book by UO alum Chuck Palahniuk that was made into a 1999 film starring Brad Pitt.

“People knock on our door in the middle of the day with grain, unannounced, and they’re like, ‘Can we brew?’ And it’s like, well, yeah I guess we can! Someone’s here and we do have water and there are ways to make this happen, so let’s give it a go,” said Leon, who added that all you need is a basic interest to get started.

“You just got to show up,” he said. “It could be your first day, learning something new from the start. We can tell you everything you need to know.”

Longtime tradition

Leon is a Lane Community College student and a resident of the Brew of O house who has been around since the beginning, and who has become steadily more involved.

While the art of home brewing is hardly new, the roots are still being rebuilt in the United States.

“Home brewing wasn’t always legal in America,” Zaludek explained. Originally popular, the art was even practiced by some of our founding fathers, namely George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

Joe Kiefer-Lucas, a UO graduate and a another full-timer in the club, said the creative aspect of beer-making was lost for a time.

“In the late 1800s, there were thousands of microbreweries throughout the United States,” he said.

Outlawed by Prohibition in 1920 and long after the repeal, home brewing remained federally banned until 1978. Now legal in 47 states, the American Homebrewers Association estimates that about 750,000 people participate from their homes at least once a year.

Kiefer-Lucas got his start after meeting Danyeur.

“I found out the setup they had going on was infinitely beyond anything I could buy,” Kiefer-Lucas said.

Having spent more than $4,000 on equipment, the club has become fond of reusing old gear, from cast-iron carts from the 1920s to old whiskey kegs. They will do whatever it takes to brew beer, and their efforts show.

The Brew of O has produced more than 100 beer recipes that range from lagers and IPAs to more exotic inventions. They have experimented with peanut butter, even chili peppers. For this past holiday season, they created a chocolate cinnamon chipotle brown ale and a chocolate peppermint stout. However, it’s more than just throwing in whatever ingredients are found.

“If you want to make consistently good beer, you have to get scientific with it,” said Perry Ames, another member of the club who attends LCC. Like Zaludek, he gained his initial experience from his work at Wakonda Brewing.

Building a community

Experimentation with recipes goes beyond just flavor. Zaludek is big into healing beers.

“Milk thistle rejuvenates the liver,” he said. “Reishi mushrooms are called the mushroom of immortality. Sage, for example, is a sacred healing herb. I want to make a sage beer. I used to make a cherry stout. Cherries have a rare kind of antioxidant that can affect you and your skin,” he said. According to several studies, healthy doses of antioxidants helps counteract free radicals, unstable oxygen minerals linked to cancer, heart disease and aging effects.

“So I like healing beer because I think beer is healing,” Zaludek said. “We use organic ingredients, purified water and Himalayan herbal salts.” Zaludek gets most of his ingredients from the breweries of Falling Sky in Eugene and Oregon Trail.

For Danyeur, it’s also more than just alcohol.

“We’re building a community. We’re meeting people. Beer just connects people,” he said.

Leon shares his sentiment.

“If you want to just show up once a week and, I don’t know, have some fun and learn some things but not really get financially invested into it, that’s fine,” Leon said.

“We’ve got a lot of conversation and a lot of beer that’s there to be shared,” he said.

“And you’ll definitely get beer in return. We have a lot of people come and just bring money or ingredients and then show back up three weeks later. They only come twice, but they brew their beer, they get it and they leave and we all have fun drinking it and talking about it.”

When it comes right down to it, brewing beer is a way of life for these homegrown craftsmen who welcome all newcomers.

“We love that people enjoy it as much as we do,” Danyeur said. “It’s cool to have someone brew their first beer and have everyone love it. It’s just cool, man. It’s a community event. Everyone’s just helping each other out. That’s the best part.”

“It’s cool to have someone brew their first beer and have everyone love it.”

— jon danyeur, brew of o brewer

Alumnus Turns Passion for Home Brewing into Growing Business

Jan. 11, 2013

Michael Peticolas BA’95 owns the Peticolas Brewery Company, which received a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival for its “Royal Scandal” brew.

From government student, to law firm owner, to nationally recognized brewmaster, Michael Peticolas BA ’95 said he’s made his choices by following his passions.

Peticolas and his wife, Melissa, own Peticolas Brewing Company, a Dallas-based brewery that provides a homegrown option for local beer lovers and recently won a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival, where more than 675 breweries competed.

Peticolas graduated with a bachelor’s degree in government from UT Dallas before attending law school and opening his own law firm. After home brewing as a hobby for some time, he and his wife received an offer to invest in a brewery startup. While thinking about the option, Melissa suggested they try running a brewery themselves.

“The proverbial light bulb lit up in our heads, and from that point on, we started planning a brewery of our own,” Peticolas said.

He said they studied the idea, and he went through a 23-week brewing science and engineering program through the American Brewers Guild. After that, the brewery became a full-time job.

“I simply took it for granted throughout my life, but began to truly enjoy the educational process while enrolled at UT Dallas. Almost everything in life can be taken from you. You can lose your house, family members, business, but no one can ever take away your education.”

Michael Peticolas,
BA ’95

In some ways, getting into the brewery business represented getting back to Peticolas’ roots. His mother, Jacque Peticolas, used to brew Mexican-style beer at the family’s El Paso home in the ’90s.

“Poured from brown 22-ounce bomber bottles, our homebrewed copper-colored light ales with a hint of apricot hit the spot during the long, hot Texas summers. That’s when we first experienced the satisfaction of drinking and sharing beer made at home that tasted better than the beer for sale down the street,” he said.

Years later, the Peticolas Brewing Company has made a name for itself and is growing.

“We’ve just taken over the spot next door to our brewery, which will allow us to triple our production. We are currently in discussions with numerous distributors in an effort to increase our distribution radius as well. Nonetheless, our primary goal remains making great beer,” he said.

Peticolas said that throughout his working life the value of his education at UT Dallas has been obvious. He particularly enjoyed classes taught by Dr. Tony Champagne, a professor in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences.

“He is certainly one of the most influential educators I came across throughout my years of schooling,” he said. “I simply took it for granted throughout my life, but began to truly enjoy the educational process while enrolled at UT Dallas. Almost everything in life can be taken from you. You can lose your house, family members, business, but no one can ever take away your education.”

Oenophiles always have had a hearty selection of wine-themed cruises from which to choose. But for beer lovers, a well-stocked cruise ship pub is usually the best they can hope for at sea.

That looks to be changing.

In May, a nine-night “California Beer Festival at Sea” will take place on the 2,852-passenger Celebrity Solstice. Its organizers, Cruise Specialists, are calling the sailing the first of its kind.

PHOTO GALLERY: Tour the Celebrity Solstice
ALSO ONLINE: Will European cruises make a comeback in 2013?

“Craft brew connoisseurs have just as much passion and depth as their wine counterparts,” said Greg Nacco, vice president of Cruise Specialists. “Beer may be the new wine in terms of methodology in brewing and diversity of flavors.”

Nacco thought of the cruise after doing a few wine-themed voyages with Celebrity, and found that craft beer also was extremely popular.

The Pacific Coast sailing departs Ensenada, Mexico, on May 6, 2013, visiting San Diego, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Calif., San Francisco, Astoria, Vancouver and Seattle.

Hosted by a California “Brew Master,” passengers on the Beer Festival at Sea will be able take a home-brewing lesson, attend craft beer tasting parties and a four-course craft beer pairing luncheon, and go on optional brewery tours.

“Beer cruises have a lot of potential,” said Matt Hannafin, Frommers.com cruise blogger and beer aficionado, who added that a growing number of people in cruising’s primary age demographic are “learning about craft brews and even brewing their own beer at home.”

Hannafin said that to date, supply and demand have kept cruise lines from stocking many world-class beers.

“Most great brews aren’t distributed widely enough that cruise lines can stock them consistently,” he said, “but a few lines are taking baby steps: Celebrity at its Michael’s Club bars, Norwegian at its beer bars. There are craft brews out there that are just as great as great wines, but the cruise lines aren’t going to stock them until the average cruiser starts to demand them. Until then, beer theme cruises are probably the best way to get craft beer quality at sea.”

The “California Beer Festival at Sea” sailing is being offered in association with the California Beer Festival.

This item was written by Johanna Jainchill, who covers the travel industry for Travel Weekly. Jainchill is serving as Guest Editor of The Cruise Log while USA TODAY Cruise Editor Gene Sloan is away.

North Minneapolis really does have it all – wonderful people, beautiful parks, a thriving arts community, dozens of great restaurants and now, a brewery.

And not just any brewery. Boom Island Brewing, which set up shop on North 2nd Street at the end of 2011, has quickly become one of the most talked about breweries in the Twin Cities. Beer lovers, foodies and the community at large have been captivated by owners Qiuxia and Kevin Welch’s charming story and impressive command of the Belgian beer tradition.

Kevin Welch, originally from the American South, and Quixia Welch, hailing from Sichuan Province, China, are both professional French horn players. They are world travelers and have made their home together in Minneapolis for more than a decade in order to be close to the metro area’s classical music scene. Kevin Welch’s interest in beer, and especially Belgian beer, is hardly new.

“Belgian beer is something I fell in love with right when I started brewing beer about 13 years ago,” he explains. Kevin Welch said the couple had planned to make a business of brewing as a retirement project, but the economic downturn beginning in 2008, “made us decide to consider it sooner.”

Today, their 11-month-old business is hopping, and each member of the family plays a part. Kevin Welch shares brewing responsibilities with his father-in-law, Hu Yong Shou, a retired engineer. Quixia Welch manages Boom Island’s correspondence and bookkeeping.

“On bottling day, my wife and her mom do the majority of the bottling, while my father-in-law and I do the corking and put the wire cages on. Then as we have time, we’ll add labels one by one,” said Kevin Welch.

Welch chose his current location after almost two years spent looking at more than 150 spaces. The brewery is in the North Minneapolis Business Center, a small business incubator at 2201 N. 2nd St. owned by Dennis Werneke of American Chemical (Boom Island’s neighbor, Safari Pride Coffee, was the subject of the Nov. 12 business profile in this column). Though the location is convenient for its proximity to Interstate 94 and downtown, it caught Kevin Welch’s attention for being almost exactly the same size as the production area of a friend’s brewery in Belgium.

While the Twin Cities has several new craft breweries, Boom Island is exceptional in that it is the only one of its kind to brew exclusively Belgian-style beers, which it does extremely well. Interestingly, this specialization has less to do with a business design and everything to do with passion.

“It just so happened that the vast majority of beers I wanted to brew were Belgian,” said Kevin Welch. With an earnest smile, he added, “I have a hard time understanding why someone would not be passionate about Belgian beer. It’s pretty easy to be passionate about it, I think.”

Kevin Welch’s enthusiasm is backed up by serious knowledge and experience.

“I spent a couple of summers in Belgium traveling and studying with some of my personal heroes in the brewing world, trying to learn some tricks of the trade and what really makes a Belgian beer Belgian,” said Kevin Welch. According to him, Belgian beer brewing has a lot to do with process technique and an attention to every ingredient, including the yeast, which is often overlooked. Knowing the behavior of a certain yeast strain with a particular malt allows Boom Island to produce flavors as varied as plum, floral, light fruit, fig and raisin.

This leads to another aspect of Boom Island’s winning business recipe. All their beers are distinct. Kevin Welch explains, “In Belgium there’s no law that restricts you from using different ingredients. You can use spice, you can use fruit. Belgian beer is pretty much wide open.” He compares a Belgian brewer’s approach to beer to that of a French chef’s approach to food – both interested in a fine knowledge of how to work with ingredients to create a certain experience.

Being non-filtered is another important part of the Belgian tradition. It gives the beer a little more velvety taste, and also produces a drink rich in B vitamins, which are essential for health and included in many dietary supplements. As Kevin Welch said, “Why would you spend money on a bottle of vitamins when you can spend it on a good beer?” His advice is to always drink the healthy sediment at the bottom of Boom Island’s bottles.

The public has been very happy with the little brewery’s beer right from the start.

“We were at capacity by the third month,” said Kevin Welch. It has since increased its volume potential and now have a client base of 25 restaurants and bars and almost 50 liquor stores in the metro area.

It is part of Boom Island’s philosophy to keep things local.

“Even today, there’s not enough local beer being produced. You still see so many tap lines that host beer from California and Oregon and, in my mind that kind of goes contrary to the whole idea of what a craft microbrewery is supposed to be. You use your local ingredients, your local water, to supply the local need for beer. In my mind, it’s important to consume local products. Eighty percent of what I use to produce the beer – the base malt – is grown regionally.”

Even the byproduct of the brewing process, known as spent brewer’s grain, finds a local use. Northsider Ian Silver-Ramp, owner of Mississippi Mushrooms (featured in the Sept. 10 edition) collects the mushy grain and uses it as a substrate, or food, to produce mushrooms inside, which he sells at the West Broadway Farmers Market and Local D’Lish. What Silver-Ramp doesn’t use is picked up by a cattle farmer and fed as a nutrient-rich treat to his calves.

On the Northside, you can buy Boom Island at both Broadway Liquor Outlet and Merwin Liquors on West Broadway, or order it on tap at Donny Dirk’s at 2027 N. 2nd St. A “beer locator” can also be found on its website, www.boomislandbrewing.com. The brewery itself is open Fridays from 5 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. and Saturdays from 1 p.m. – 3 p.m. for free tastings and bottle sales. If you’re lucky, there will still be some bottles of Yule, its spiced, malty seasonal beer and the perfect holiday gift for any beer drinker.

Boom Island Brewing Company
2207 North 2nd St.
Minneapolis, MN 55411
www.boomislandbrewing.com

His love of craft beer ignited with his first sip of Shiner Bock. And after tasting the sudsy fruits of his own labor, there was no going back.

Brewing has consumed DiCicco’s life for more than a decade, and now he looks to go from hobbyist to professional with plans to open Busted Sandal Brewing Co., a small craft brewery.

It’s just one of several brewing operations planned to open in the coming months in San Antonio. Currently, the Alamo City has two brewpubs and one craft brewery.

Texans, like the majority of Americans, still prefer to throw back highly commercialized light, fizzy beers, but craft brewers are confident that tastes are changing.

“Nowadays, there’s nothing off limits when it comes to beer,” said DiCicco, the company’s founder and head brewer. “It’s wide open.”

Already this week, the brewpub Granary ‘Cue Brew opened, offering brown and blonde ales, an India pale ale and a rye farmhouse ale, which uses Belgian yeasts to produce tropical fruit and pepper flavors and aromas.

Toward the end of the year, the craft brewery Branchline Brewing Co. will be in operation. By next year, Busted Sandal and Alamo Beer Co. will join the ranks.

It’s a small step, but breweries such as Alamo Beer, which will build its $8 million brewery east of downtown near the Hays Street Bridge, are reawakening an industry that has a deep history in San Antonio.

“There’s more than 100 years of brewing history in San Antonio. It’s great to see the craft growing,” said Eugene Simor, president of Alamo Beer, who hopes to be brewing his Alamo golden ale at the East Side facility by next summer.

“Texas is very under brewed and San Antonio is as well,” he said.

In Texas last year, the economic impact of craft beer totaled an estimated $608 million — a fraction of the state’s total beer industry, which is estimated at nearly $20 billion, according to a study by the Texas Craft Brewers Guild.

Craft beer made up less than 1 percent of beer consumed in Texas, but craft breweries employ about 1,250 people on a full- or part-time basis. That makes up more than half of all brewery jobs in the state, the study mentions.

“When we were opening, people were skeptical that more than one brewpub in the city could work. We’ve proven it can,” said Scott Metzger, founder and CEO of San Antonio’s Freetail Brewing Co. “People’s palates are changing, and the numbers reflect that. San Antonio is a great market for craft beer. We’re small now, so to double in size doesn’t take much, but it’s a step in the right direction.”

And it’s a fun step, too.

“Brewing craft beer is an experience. You can have a good time without beer but it does help,” Robert Garza, 39, the beer architect and partner at Busted Sandal.

Beer’s past

Austin, which has more than a dozen breweries and brewpubs, remains the state’s craft brewing capital, but the industry is making a comeback in San Antonio, a city that has a brewing history that began in the mid-1800 with the influx of German immigrants into the area.

Beer brewing was among the first industries to blossom in San Antonio.

There are some accounts that beer brewing was the first industry established by William A. Menger and Charles Degen, who opened the Western Brewery next to the Alamo in 1855.

The brewery produced about 1,600 barrels annually and became the state’s largest brewery in 1878, the same year it closed. Compare that to the more than 1 million barrels Lone Star Brewing Co. was producing annually by the mid-1960s.

Other late-19th-century and early-20th-century San Antonio breweries include Peter Bros. Brewery along East Commerce Street, Schober Ice and Brewing Co. near Josephine St., and William Esser’s brewery, which was located on North Flores Street, according to texasbreweries.com.

“San Antonio has deep brewing roots, and I’m happy to be a part of that history,” said Jason Ard, owner of Branchline Brewing, a manufacture brewery expected to open by year’s end.

The Alamo City’s dominance as a brewing town withstood the hand of Prohibition but ended when the Lone Star brewery was closed in 1996 and Pearl Brewing Co. was shuttered in 2001.

Those brewery buildings still stand. The Pearl has become a mixed-use development effort that has encouraged investment along the Broadway corridor near downtown.

The Lone Star brewery remains vacant along the Mission Reach portion of the San Antonio River. The company’s original building before it moved farther south on the river, which was built in 1904, now is the San Antonio Museum of Art.

In the 1990s, there was a craft beer resurgence in San Antonio with the opening of establishments such as Blue Star Brewing Co., Frio Brewing Co., Laboratory Brewing Co. and Yellow Rose Brewing Co.

Of those, only Blue Star, which opened in 1996, still is in operation, serving standard beers such as pale and amber ales, roasty stouts and high-alcohol barley wines.

Joey Villarreal, owner of Blue Star Brewing, said that string of breweries mostly failed because the public’s tastes hadn’t matured.

“Today, the acceptance level is a lot higher. It took a while for people to accept what we were doing, that it’s not about pounding beers. It’s about drinking less and drinking better,” he said.

Plus as the trend continues for all things local, demand for more locally brewed beer will continue to grow.

“People want something local,” he said. “The connection with a locally grown product is very powerful. So there’s room for growth.”

Beer’s future

Although the predictable trio of Miller, Budweiser and Coors still rule the market, craft brewers are confident that drinkers’ tastes are changing, fueling the confidence to continue a tradition and enter a market where they are the underdog.

DiCicco, an IT professional by day, will team up with some friends and long-time brewing buddies to assemble a nearly 2,000-square-foot brewery with a tasting room in an industrial warehouse at Fredericksburg Road and Loop 410.

The near $100,000 project is expected to get off the ground early next year, said DiCicco, 40.

For now, DiCicco and his team are brewing test batches in his garage, mostly ales such as hop blasted India pale ales, a chocolate peppermint stout and an American wheat beer infused with basil.

“There are a lot of people in San Antonio who don’t know good beer,” Ard said. “But that just means there are more people to educate.”

After Ard, 31, gave up playing music in bands, he searched for another way to fill his free time. He enjoyed craft beer, so home brewing seemed like a good fit, he said. Ard has been home brewing for about three years and it didn’t take long before he got the idea to turn pro.

“My first beers weren’t great, but I drank it,” he said. “What people don’t understand about craft beer is that it isn’t just a social lubricant. There’s a romance to it. It’s an art.”

For the past year, Ard has been working to piece together his 10-barrel brewery, which will be located in an industrial park near International Airport.

The operation cost about $300,000 and the 3,600-square-foot facility will have a 600-square-foot tasting room with 10 beer taps. The breweries initial offerings will be a hoppy amber ale, a wildflower honey blonde and a rye India pale ale.

While Ard is putting the finishing touches on his operation, Mad Pecker Brewing Co. still is early in the process.

The Mad Pecker crew still is in the planning phase of their three-barrel brewery, which they’re looking to open by fall 2014, said Jason Gonzales, a home brewer and co-founder.

Currently, the Mad Pecker team is saving pennies and looking for investors for their $50,000 venture. Exactly what they’ll brew hasn’t been determined, but Gonzales said that will focus on hop-forward India pale ales and small specialty batches.

“We want to start small and keep our home-brewing mentality,” said Gonzales, 34. “… The craft beer scene in Austin has blossomed into something great there. We just need to get people involved, and San Antonio can take off, too.”

vlucio@express-news.net