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New SaveOnBrew Exclusive Interview Delves Into Beer Brewing Science

PRWEB.COM Newswire

Houston, TX (PRWEB) April 26, 2013

Homebrewers and aspiring brewmasters will find the inside scoop behind what it takes to mass produce beer for a Gordon Biersch restaurant in this week’s SaveOnBrew exclusive interview with head brewmaster Dave Collins.

Unlike other brewmasters who leave their kitchens and start their own companies, Collins comes from a more formal background – which is evident by the technical details he spews effortlessly. “I had two years of structured classroom learning,” he explains. He also attended a Teaching Brewery, which is the perfect place “to make mistakes,” he adds. “Believe me, people made mistakes there – such as dropping a man-way door into a finished fermenter full of about 9 barrels of beer.”

The most interesting aspect of brewing is the hops, he tells SaveOnBrew. “Each hop variety has different essential oil,” he explains. “Oil contents break down to 4 large groups…. Citrus/grapefruit/mango/pineapple flavors… or they could taste like pine needle/cedar wood/ spicy/peppery /evergreen, or just earthy/grassy. Some flavors are still being described.”

He goes on to say that new hops coming out of New Zealand “smell and taste like sauvignon blanc grapes, gooseberry, or herbal teas.” This makes choosing the hops a fun challenge, according to Collins.    

Yet, the maltier beers tend to be the biggest sellers at Gordon Biersch in Syracuse, New York. “Our most popular standard beers are the Marzen and the Golden Export,” Collins says. “The Marzen has great malt sweetness with notes of caramel and bready biscuit/graham cracker character and just enough bitterness to clear that residual sugar off of the palate.”

“The Golden Export is what I call a ‘bridge beer’. It is the lightest in flavor of all the beers we make but being a beer that is all malt (with no corn or rice adjunct) means it is a more full flavored beer than the macro-produced beers of this style…. It is a very easy-drinking, lighter lager.”

In this SaveOnBrew exclusive, Collins also discusses his best and worst beer batches, how beer compliments food in the restaurant, how to make a good session beer, how to brew in the German tradition, and a detailed description of what a typical workday is like for him.

The full interview can be read on SaveOnBrew.Com.

# # #

About SaveOnBrew.Com: Founded in 2010 to help thirsty beer drinkers across the United States find the lowest advertised prices for one of the world’s most popular beverages.

Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/4/prweb10654696.htm

Beer company owner: Home brewing is ‘a noble pursuit’

James McEver credits his uncle for introducing him to brewing beer, and at 25, he recently became the new owner of Flying Barrel — a Frederick beer-making company for more than three decades.

McEver has been brewing for only a couple of years. He loved to cook and wanted to be a chef when he was a child but didn’t go to culinary school. In college, he drank lots of coffee and tea and read about them constantly.

“I was enthralled by coffee and tea,” McEver said. “That changed after working on the farm. After 100-degree weather being in the hot sun all day, someone passed me a nice cold Yuengling, and I understood. I’ve been trying new beers since then.”

Brewing his own beer was a natural extension of enjoying professionally brewed beer, McEver said.

“It deepens the appreciation for the beverage,” McEver said. “I love having a commercially brewed beer and being able to taste flavors that I recognize from some of my brews.”

McEver became the owner of Flying Barrel in March. He worked with previous owner Bob Frank for nearly two years learning the business, which recently moved from smaller quarters on South Carroll Street to a larger space on North Market Street in Frederick.

McEver’s father was in the Army, so he moved around a lot. He attended high school and college in northern New Jersey, “so I consider that to be where I’m from.”

His grandparents and aunt and uncle live in Frederick, where he visited often growing up.

“I felt totally comfortable moving here and setting down some roots,” McEver said, believing that Frederick offers the ideal home-brewing atmosphere.

“Frederick and home-brew go hand in hand,” the entrepreneur said. “I’m not sure if it’s the German heritage, or the great craft beer scene, or the agricultural presence, but there are a lot of home brewers in our area.”

He remembers coming home after closing up the shop one day. “My neighbor was brewing out in his yard with some buddies,” he said. “It was a great moment where I realized how communal of an activity brewing can be.”

McEver equates brewing beer to a backyard barbecue where everyone sits around the brewpot taking in the aromas and flavors, wondering how the batch is going to turn out.

“I have some customers who come in every two weeks like clockwork,” McEver said. “They keep their cellars full and are constantly brewing to keep beer or wine in their pipeline.”

The variety of people who home-brew is surprising, McEver said. His customers include yuppies, scientists, teachers, government workers, firefighters, and blue- and white-collar types.

In addition to selling ingredients, equipment and supplies, Flying Barrel lets customers rent brew kettles and offers guidance. The many steps involved in brewing can be intimidating to new brewers, McEver said, so having an experienced guide really helps getting started.

“We let the customer choose what they want to brew, and the options are pretty much only limited to their creativity,” McEver said. “I love it when a customer’s eyes light up when they realize they’ve entered into a new world of making your own beer, wine, cider, mead and any other concoctions you can think of.

“It takes a lot to make a great beverage and be able to reproduce success, but it’s a noble pursuit.”

Most of his friends have gone on to work on Wall Street for financial firms or large corporations.

“Even though I’m not making anywhere close to what they are, they’re sometimes jealous of all the fun I get to have,” McEver said. “They’re excited for me that I was able to make it happen and become my own boss. Some of my friends are aspiring to do the same, so I try to encourage them.”

McEver said he likes thought-provoking things.

“I tend to think about philosophy and spirituality a lot. I guess that’s what happens when your father and both grandfathers are ministers,” McEver said.

Dave Belcher is proud of his nephew.

“I mentored him, and I think he’ll be very successful,” Belcher said. “He’s a very smart kid. He got double bachelor’s degrees from Stevens Institute of Technology, and he was third in his class.

“I have faith in him, although I’m a little biased, but I think he’s got the right attitude and attention to detail to make it work.”

Know of a person who would make a good Slice? If so, please send your suggestions to citydesk@newspost.com or call us at 301-662-1178 and ask for a city editor.

EarthTalk®: Beer Brewers & Clean Water

Dear EarthTalk: I heard that a number of beer brewing companies have banded together to support the Clean Water Act. Can you enlighten? — Mitch Jenkins, Cincinnati, OH

In April 2013 the non-profit Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) brought together two dozen nationally respected craft beer brewers to launch the Brewers for Clean Water Campaign, which aims to leverage the economic growth of the craft brewing sector into a powerful voice for bolstering clean water protection in the United States.

“Whether brewers are creating ales, pilsners, porters, wits or stouts, one ingredient must go into every batch: clean water,” says Karen Hobbs, a senior policy analyst at NRDC. “Craft brewers need clean water to make great beer.”

While hops, malt and the brewing process itself are also clearly important, water just may be the secret ingredient that gives a specific beer its distinctive flavor. “Beer is about 90 percent water, making local water supply quality and its characteristics, such as pH and mineral content, critical to beer brewing and the flavor of many classic brews,” reports NRDC. “For example, the unusually soft water of Pilsen, from the Czech Republic, helped create what is considered the original gold standard of pilsner beers. The clarity and hoppiness of England’s finest India Pale Ales, brewed since the 1700s in Burton-on-Trent, result from relatively high levels of calcium in local water.” Brewers can replicate the flavors of beers like these and others by sourcing freshwater with similar features or by starting with neutral water and adding minerals and salts accordingly to bring out certain desired characteristics.

Of course, clean water is essential to more than great-tasting beer. “It’s critical for public health and the health of a wide range of industries,” adds NRDC. “Now our streams, wetlands and water supply need our help. Without strong legal protections, they are under threat from pollution like sewage, agricultural waste, and oil spills.”

The popularity of craft brewers’ “microbrews” in recent years is another reason why NRDC has hitched its clean water wagon to the industry. “Craft brewers are closely tied to their communities with a very real understanding of the impacts bad policy can have on regional water sources,” reports the group. “While the participants in the campaign include brewing operations large and small, all have demonstrated a commitment to sustainability in their operations and beer development.”

By taking part in the campaign, New Belgium, Sierra Nevada, Allagash, Short’s, Temperance, Arbor, DryHop, Finch’s, Revolution, Flossmoor, Cranker’s, Wild Onion, Right Brain, Half Acre, Goose Island and other craft brewers are helping spread the word in a way that hits home with consumers. For its part, NRDC is urging beer lovers (and other concerned environmentalists) to use the form on its website to e-mail the White House encouraging President Obama to finalize guidelines recently created by the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that call for greater protections for streams and wetlands in important headwaters regions from coast to coast. And consumers should be glad to know that for once drinking beer can actually be good for the environment. So bottoms up!

CONTACT: NRDC Brewers for Clean Water, www.nrdc.org/water/brewers-for-clean-water.

EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E – The Environmental Magazine (www.emagazine.com). Send questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Subscribe: www.emagazine.com/subscribe. Free Trial Issue: www.emagazine.com/trial.

New SaveOnBrew Exclusive Interview Delves Into Beer Brewing Science – PRWeb

Each hop variety has different essential oil.

Houston, TX (PRWEB) April 26, 2013

Homebrewers and aspiring brewmasters will find the inside scoop behind what it takes to mass produce beer for a Gordon Biersch restaurant in this week’s SaveOnBrew exclusive interview with head brewmaster Dave Collins.

Unlike other brewmasters who leave their kitchens and start their own companies, Collins comes from a more formal background – which is evident by the technical details he spews effortlessly. “I had two years of structured classroom learning,” he explains. He also attended a Teaching Brewery, which is the perfect place “to make mistakes,” he adds. “Believe me, people made mistakes there – such as dropping a man-way door into a finished fermenter full of about 9 barrels of beer.”

The most interesting aspect of brewing is the hops, he tells SaveOnBrew. “Each hop variety has different essential oil,” he explains. “Oil contents break down to 4 large groups…. Citrus/grapefruit/mango/pineapple flavors… or they could taste like pine needle/cedar wood/ spicy/peppery /evergreen, or just earthy/grassy. Some flavors are still being described.”

He goes on to say that new hops coming out of New Zealand “smell and taste like sauvignon blanc grapes, gooseberry, or herbal teas.” This makes choosing the hops a fun challenge, according to Collins.    

Yet, the maltier beers tend to be the biggest sellers at Gordon Biersch in Syracuse, New York. “Our most popular standard beers are the Marzen and the Golden Export,” Collins says. “The Marzen has great malt sweetness with notes of caramel and bready biscuit/graham cracker character and just enough bitterness to clear that residual sugar off of the palate.”

“The Golden Export is what I call a ‘bridge beer’. It is the lightest in flavor of all the beers we make but being a beer that is all malt (with no corn or rice adjunct) means it is a more full flavored beer than the macro-produced beers of this style…. It is a very easy-drinking, lighter lager.”

In this SaveOnBrew exclusive, Collins also discusses his best and worst beer batches, how beer compliments food in the restaurant, how to make a good session beer, how to brew in the German tradition, and a detailed description of what a typical workday is like for him.

The full interview can be read on SaveOnBrew.Com.

# # #

About SaveOnBrew.Com: Founded in 2010 to help thirsty beer drinkers across the United States find the lowest advertised prices for one of the world’s most popular beverages.

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Foolproof Brewing Company Joins RI Beer Scene

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Saturday, April 06, 2013

Kalena Crafton, GoLocalProv Contributor

How’s that look? Foolproof Brewery is producing local beer that’s created with activities in mind.

Watch out other craft breweries–there’s a new beer brewing company tapping into Providence this year.

Since Nick Garrison got a brewing kit from his parents for Christmas and brewed the beer for his own wedding, he’s had a passion for brewing, a passion that has led to the birth of Providence’s hot new brewery: Foolproof Brewing Company.

GolocalProv took time to speak to Nick Garrison, the founder and owner of Foolproof Brewing Company, and and their professional brewmaster, Damase Olsson.

Could you explain your brewing process?

Nick Garrison: We approach brewing a bit differently at Foolproof. Before we even start talking about ingredients, flavors, and beer styles, we look at life experiences. We actually brew our beers with specific activities in mind. The names of each of our brews reflect these sacred beer drinking experiences.

We’re basically trying to get people to think about and treat beer as more than just an alcoholic beverage, but instead as an experience that should be savored and enjoyed.

I truly believe that we as beer drinkers consciously (or subconsciously) associate beers with various experiences, weather, places, moods, and activities. At Foolproof, we really wanted to take that concept to the next level, and that’s how we developed our philosophy of experience-based brewing.

We treat each of our beers as a tribute to a specific experience, and we encourage our friends and fans to go out and create their own experience. I love the idea of somebody picking up a six pack of our beer and taking it camping, heading to the beach, or maybe just staying at home on a rainy day and then sharing that experience with us.

Are there any traditions, or special styles you follow?

Damase Olsson: I do try to use only malt, water, hops and yeast in my recipes. I will also add various other things such as vanilla or honey if that is a flavor I am looking for in the beer. As for styles, I tend to brew mostly ales (as opposed to lagers), as ales will ferment more quickly (two weeks as opposed to five to six weeks), though I do enjoy brewing good lagers when I get the chance and time in the brewery permits. One style I have consistently brewed is a Russian Imperial Stout, so maybe that would be my special style.

A secret recipe?

Olsson: Now that would be a secret, wouldn’t it? But in reality, I have no secret recipes, as each brewer can take the same ingredients and have a slightly different flavor, depending on their brewhouse. After all, with only four ingredients, it is tough to have secrets.

How long have you been brewing beer? Have you hit any road bumps or accidents along the way?

Olsson: I have been brewing non-professionally since 1993 and professionally since 2006. I haven’t had any real bumps or accidents along the way, professionally at least. As a home brewer, I have made my fair share of mistakes, one of which was dropping a batch down a flight of stairs. Glass carboys will always lose a battle with a cement floor.

Garrison: I’ve been brewing for about five years and have been running a brewery for less than three months. It was certainly a challenge pulling this whole crazy idea together. It took me four years to take Foolproof from a dream to reality, and we definitely hit some bumps along the way. Financing, equipment, licensing, branding issues…you name it. Every new brewery faces an uphill battle, but I think we’ve done a great job working through all of the hurdles.

I’ve dumped my fair share of homebrew (things don’t always work out as planned!), but as Damase [Olsson] mentioned, we can proudly say that we haven’t had to dump any beer down the drain yet at Foolproof. I think it’s a testament to Damase’s talent as a brewmaster.

What made you decide to start brewing beer?

Olsson: I enjoyed the flavors of craft beer (though it was called microbrew back then), and I had the opportunity to take a weekend course taught by URI professors when I was living in Narragansett, so I decided to give it a go. Been giving it a go ever since.

Garrison: I received my first home brewing kit as a Christmas gift from my parents. I never thought that two plastic buckets could actually change my life. Within a year of picking up homebrewing as a hobby (ok, borderline obsession), I knew this was what I had to do with my life.

What does beer mean to you?

Olsson: They say beer is what started civilization, and I tend to believe that. Beer is the great equalizer. Every society has had a grain-based beverage, whether it be from corn, wheat, sorghum, or barley. Beer is consumed by folks in every level of society, so if civilization began with beer, every society has had some form of beer, and every strata of society drinks beer. I guess you could say that beer is what keeps the world humming. Or, to paraphrase Groucho Marx, “Sometimes a beer is just a drink.”

Garrison: Working at a brewery for a living, beer is obviously a very important part of my life. In fact, it changed my life. To me, when enjoyed responsibly, beer is something that brings together family and friends, and ultimately, we drink beer because it’s fun. I really wanted the Foolproof brand to reflect that idea – good beer is something that will always bring people together.

Pairing Your Brews

In the mood for getting together with friends for a BBQ? Backyard will match the friendly, smokey atmosphere. Olsson gives us the inside scoop on how to pair Foolproof with your experience, and what to pair it with to make your taste buds tingle:

Barstool – something light in flavor, so it will not overwhelm the beer. Some folks have had it with sushi and loved it. So I would definitely say fish, chicken (not BBQ’ed but baked or lightly grilled), or even a salad.

Backyard – Now there is a BBQ beer, so something more robust, and spicy. Mexican would also work well with this beer.

Raincloud – The roasty flavors remind me of a nice roast, beef, or pork, which would all work very well with this beer.

Revery – I am going out on a limb here, but a French vanilla ice cream beer float works very well. But if you do not want to put ice cream in your beer, you can have it on the side, on top of a warm brownie.

Bringing in a Local Taste

The local brewery hopes to get even more local in the next year, looking to use Rhode Island hops in some of their batches. Currently, the brewery uses hops from all over the world. “We have hops from the Czech Republic, England, Germany, and the Northwest of the United States,” Damase says. “We hope to be using Rhode Island hops next year in some of our batches.”

Try a Taste

Get down and check out the brewery for yourself, see the brewing process, and try the beer a tour Fridays and Saturdays for $10. You can grab a taste of the golden drink at any of these locations.

Foolproof Brewing Company, 241 Grotto Avenue, Pawtucket. Click here to visit the website and for more information.

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Home-Brewing Meets the Boutique Hotel

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SUDS CELEBRITY: It’s impossible to mention the rise of quality craft beer without mentioning San Diego. The city made a sudsy stand for itself throughout the aughts, both through very (very very very) popular festivals and a number of new taverns serving a rainbow of thick, hopsy, small-batch ales. And we don’t simply mean that people should mention San Diego in a California context; the city holds court with Portland and Denver for doing it right. But the innovation in a pint glass hasn’t slowed; it’s just trying out new spots. Say, like a hotel. Hotel Solamar, to be specific. The Kimpton property, which is snug in the Gaslamp-Ballpark nexus, is going the home-brewing route. It’s a charming turnaround from what usually happens; an ambitious foam fan will try and replicate a business’s brew at home. Now a hotel is supporting that homey, made-in-one’s-kitchen flavor, and chef Christian Graves is at the helm.

WEEKLY SOCIAL: If you’re at the Solamar from 5 to 6 p.m. on any Thursday, you’re likely to find Chef Graves hobnobbing over hops and flavors and body and such with guests. That’s “Craft Beer Hour” at the hotel. But Chef isn’t simply jumping into this as a new enthusiast; he’s a home brewer himself, meaning he’ll be able to discuss the brews guests are enjoying. (They’ll hail from San Diego’s best craft breweries, fyi, so this could be a good way to catch up with what the area offers.) He’ll also discuss home-brewing techniques, too. Call it the traditional hotel wine hour updated for those who love a really solid, made-by-hand lager or porter. Remember when chefs used to ask you if you were enjoying your meal? We rather like the idea that they’ll discuss with us our own kitchens and brewer aspirations.

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Beer becomes her: Home brewing gets a new face

Meagan O’Brien sipped her beer and bit her tongue as the man next to her tried to describe some of the 60 craft beers at Sugar Maple to his date. Turns out, he didn’t know his ales from his hefeweizens.

“You could tell it was, like, a first date,” O’Brien recalled. “She kept asking questions, and this guy just kept making up stuff to answer her questions.”

O’Brien, 31, could have easily set him straight. A sales representative for Tallgrass, a craft beer brewed in Kansas, she’s also a certified Cicerone – kind of a sudsy version of a sommelier.

Although O’Brien didn’t correct the man at the bar, she had the satisfaction of knowing that the men-know-beer/women-prefer-wine cliché could be on its way out, thanks to a growing wave of interest by women in craft beer.

Groups for beer-drinking women are springing up nationwide, including Barley’s Angels, an international club that started a Milwaukee chapter last fall.

Craft beer sales in general have doubled in the last six years and are set to triple by 2017, according to BeerPulse.com. Many of those customers are women between 25 and 34 who appreciate the nuanced flavors of small-batch beers.

They’re also the ones surprising bartenders with orders for IPA instead of Chardonnay, and they’re brewing their own at home, too.

According to a 2012 Gallup poll, beer has been the favorite beverage among drinkers since 1985. It typically held second place as the adult beverage of choice for females, but recently, beer has edged out wine among women ages 18 to 34.

O’Brien and three other women started the local chapter of Barley’s Angels dedicated to beer education and discussion. Monthly meetings, held at various locations, are open to the public and are announced on the group’s Facebook site. They draw as many as 40 women, most in their 20s and 30s, who talk about beer, share home-brewing tips and, of course, sample their subject matter.

“I like craft beer a lot, and this seemed like a good opportunity to meet with other people who like beer,” said Sarah Booth, 29, during a recent Barley’s Angels class about pairing beers with food at the Rumpus Room downtown. “It’s just what I like to drink. It feels more personal drinking something that’s brewed in a small batch.”

Julia Herz, the craft beer program director for the Colorado-based Brewers Association, has her own theories on why many women are moving toward craft beer, defined as the product of a brewery with annual production of 6 million barrels of beer or less.

Women in their 20s and 30s are in “the sweet spot” for craft beer consumption, Herz said. They’re the same quality-minded people who are buying artisanal cheeses and fair trade coffees and who don’t mind waiting for a bartender to shake a craft cocktail.

Craft beer is an affordable way to buy artisanal. The cost of a bottle of beer, usually less than a bottle of wine, affords aficionados a chance to sample several craft beer flavors for a “simple trade up in price compared to wine,” Herz said.

Wine aside

When Holly DeShaw, 31, opened Blackbird Bar in 2008, she decided to sell 80 varieties of craft beer because that’s what she likes to drink. She says her customers are knowledgeable about craft beer, and the state’s craft beer in particular.

“We do have wine, but it’s not our focus,” said DeShaw, whose tavern is part of a hub of craft beer bars in the Bay View neighborhood, including Sugar Maple, Romans’ Pub and Palm Tavern, which made Draft Magazine’s list of the top craft beer bars in the country.

Some women DeShaw’s age jokingly refer to wine as “mom juice,” because their mothers drank wine or girly cocktails, thanks in part to the Cosmo craze popularized by “Sex and the City.”

Image also factors into the reason that women are gravitating to craft beer.

“This is bold for me to say, but beer in the past has been marketed as a gender-specific beverage to men,” Herz said. While some macro beer producers use women in tank tops to sell beer, the 2,300 craft brewers in the U.S. generally market in a way that’s not gender-specific.

One exception is Monroe’s Minhas Brewery, which makes Chick Beer, a light beer created by Shazz Lewis and her husband, Dave, founding partners in an upscale beer, wine and spirits store in Maryland. When their research showed that women drink 700 million cases of beer a year, Shazz contracted with Minhas in 2011 to create a 97-calorie brew. Chick Beer is sold in Wisconsin and several other states and comes in a six-pack carrier made to look like a purse.

Tapping old beliefs

If craft beer producers have learned to make beer a genderless beverage, bartenders are still on a learning curve. Beer expert O’Brien recalls the time she ordered a $12 glass of Angry Monk. The bartender asked what she thought of it, and she mentioned that it seemed a little sour – a term meaning that the beer would benefit from more time in the bottle to mature the taste. He offered to add soda water.

Milwaukeean Lucy Saunders, author of “The Best of American Beer and Food: Pairing Cooking with Craft Beer” and beercook.com, says those bartenders are missing the boat by underestimating a woman’s palate and knowledge of beer.

When Saunders goes out to drink, she said, “they hand me a wine list.” At some bars, if she orders a beer she gets steered toward fruit beers.

Many women, such as Christine “Boo” Wisniewski of Milwaukee, found their way into craft beer by learning to brew it. The former Milwaukee Brewing Co. brewer is particularly fond of IPA – although, she said, some bartenders seem surprised when she orders it. It’s the beer she prefers to brew herself.

For Andrea Miller, 31, learning about craft beer at a holiday beer exchange at work turned her from wine drinker to beer connoisseur and home brewer. “I’m a bottling bad-ass,” said the group sales manager at the Milwaukee Public Museum. “I can bottle a beer in 19 seconds.”

Still, beer “is a little bit of a boys club,” said Rachel Reiman, during a home brewing session of Barley’s Angels in Milwaukee. She notices that whenever she and her husband tour a brewery and mention that they’re home brewers, “they immediately start talking to my husband.”

There were even fewer female brewers in 1989, the year Wisconsin native Teri Fahrendorf became only the second woman craft beer brewmaster in the country. Bucking the male-dominated beer culture wasn’t easy, but the former systems analyst has known that she was destined for her current career since she was 9. That’s when she spent a dime on a book about fermentation and brewing at a St. Pius X rummage sale in Wauwatosa.

“I was disappointed to learn that you had to have a factory,” Fahrendorf said, laughing.

In 2007, she hit the road to meet other brewers and blog about her travels. She called it the “pink boots tour,” named for her version of the rubber boots brewers wear. Her travels led to the formation of the Pink Boots Society, an organization for women who earn an income from beer. She’s the specialty malt account manager for Great Western Malting in Vancouver, Wash. Beer cook Saunders has found a few places, including Sugar Maple, where she’s comfortable sitting by herself and ordering an IPA without being steered in a different direction. It’s a sign of changing times for women who are serious about beer.

Said Saunders, “I think women ordering more diverse styles of beer as a matter of personal taste and not being guided into the light and pretty category is evolving.”

A brewing trend in San Francisco

The time it takes most people to do their grocery shopping, I could spend just standing in a well-stocked beer aisle. Or staring at tap handles in a bar. Every pint has its own story. Who’s responsible for the recipe? How is the beer crafted? Where did the beer come from? What are the brewer’s inspirations? These are all questions I ponder when I’m making my own beer, and I wanted to know what my fellow San Francisco homebrewers thought. 

“Beer at least for me, personally, is a perfect combination of my science background and then being able to be really creative with the flavors of the beer,” says Regan Long, co-founder of Local Brewing Company, a fledgling San Francisco brewery trying to expand. Long started home brewing seven years ago in his garage. About a year ago, the Local Brewing Company started bringing its beer to Dolores Park and the San Francisco Underground Market for feedback. 

Long’s partner, Sarah Fenson, says there’s a lot of help available for curious home brewers who want to take their craft to the next level, “There really is, I’ll say a personhood, a brotherhood, a sisterhood among people in the beer industry. You already have a commonality in terms of what kind of beer do you like … And it is a real knowledge sharing community,” says Fenson. 

I like to think of brewing in cooking terms: There’s no sense in making a delicious feast if you’re going to eat it alone. Sharing ideas, food, and drink is an act that makes us human. 

Dave McLean, owner of Magnolia Pub and Brewery on Haight Street, says that it’s a big part of what the craft beer community is trying to promote. “We’re not competitors with each other so much as we are fighting the good fight to try to open people’s minds and palates up to the breadth and diversity of the beer that’s out there.” 

According to the Beer Institute, the brewing industry’s lobbying arm, Californians bought nearly 713  million gallons of beer in 2009. That’s 27.5 gallons per of-age adult – a little less than a pint per day (of course, some beer lovers enjoy slightly more than that). 

Still, the craft brew market makes up just 5% of a $224 billion industry. Which is to say, not everyone who starts brewing on their kitchen stove wants a market share. 

Some people just want to share the best beer they’ve ever tasted with a friend.  

But home brewing wasn’t actually legal until 1978, so certain renegades had turned their kitchens into recreational brewing laboratories long before that. 

“I learned how to brew out of the back of a Field and Stream magazine,” says Gregory William Miller the Thirdstein, also known as Griz. Miller is a brewmaster at San Francisco Brewcraft in the Richmond District, with over 42 years of experience under his belt. After answering an ad for brewing classes, Miller made his first batch. “It tasted like someone had boiled all the jock straps from the San Francisco 49ers,” remembers Miller. “But that just made me want to do it more.” 

Miller says brewing at home has grown in popularity since he first started since it’s become easier to learn. Mission-based author William Bostwick’s instruction manual Beer Craft explains how to brew single gallon batches – small enough to allow for experimentation. And Bostwick’s partner Jessi Rymill says that it’s not hard to give beer that unique San Francisco twist by using fresh, local, and seasonal ingredients.

But for homebrewers like myself, beer-making is an experience to share, with friends, family, or a friendly passerby.  The special taste of an amazing homebrew is something that can be savored everywhere – from my house, to your house, to the White House. Yes, recently President Obama became the first sitting American President to brew at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The White House Honey Ale used honey from bee hives on the property. And it sent an important message to home brewers everywhere: Yes, we can, and keg, and bottle. 

This story originally aired on December 12, 2011. Since then, new beer statistics have been published!  In 2011, Californians of legal drinking age bought less beer —  676 million gallons of beer, or 25.4 gallons per person. 

Celebrity ship to host ‘Beer Festival at Sea’

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
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“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.

Craft Beer: More Than What’s in the Bottle – Jew and the Carrot – Forward.com

By Rabbi Baruch Rock

Craft beer brewing is an art. The craft brewer is self-mandated to blend the complex flavors from water, malts, hops and yeasts into a harmony of delight. There is also a creed of the craft brewer as described by the Brewer’s Association:

• The hallmark of craft beer and craft brewers is innovation. Craft brewers interpret historic styles with unique twists and develop new styles that have no precedent.
• Craft beer is generally made with traditional ingredients like malted barley; interesting and sometimes non-traditional ingredients are often added for distinctiveness.
• Craft brewers tend to be very involved in their communities through philanthropy, product donations, volunteerism, and sponsorship of events.
• Craft brewers have distinctive, individualistic approaches to connecting with their customers.
• Craft brewers maintain integrity by what they brew and their general independence, free from a substantial interest by a non-craft brewer.

Technically, a craft brewery produces no more than 475,000 gallons of beer per year (I am using craft brewery and microbrewery interchangeably, an obvious generality that glosses over the complexities of the industry, but sufficient for this posting). Culturally, these small scale breweries forsake size to allow for greater care and attention to be paid to the quality of ingredients and the nuances of the brewing process. What speaks to me most from the creed is the commitment to integrity and relationship: relationship with the ingredients, history, individualism, community and innovation.

Never thought of beer in this way before? You are not alone. When I made Aliyah in 2002, the craft beer industry in Israel was well … non-existent. Even homebrewing equipment was nearly impossible to find. It was several years later in 2006 that Dancing Camel appeared not on the scene, but to create the scene. By now, there are 20+ registered microbreweries in Israel. But do not mistake quantity for quality…or craftsmanship. This past summer on a return to trip to Israel, I made it a point to try as many Israeli craft beers as I could find, albeit from the bottle (draft beers are in a different league, unfortunately the dynamics of the visit didn’t allow for that kind of luxury). Besides, if a brewery has the courage to put their product in a bottle, then that should be proof enough that they have something worth tasting. While on the whole the experience was a delight and some tasty brews were discovered, there is certainly room for improvement. The sum of it, craft brewing is form of art, craft brewing in a bottle … a fine art that few, at least in Israel (or more aptly, from the beers tasted), have mastered.

Throughout the course of two beer tastings my friends and I sampled six different breweries and 18 different beers. The list of breweries and beers included the following:

NEGEV BREWERY – AMBER ALE
NEGEV BREWERY – PORTER
CANAAN BREWERY – PALE ALE
CANAAN BREWERY – CARAWAY
CANAAN BREWERY – WHEAT
EMEK HAELAH – BEVARIAN WHEAT
EMEK HAELAH – BLONDE
EMEK HAELAH – IRISH RED ALE
JEM’S WHEAT, JEM’S AMBER ALE
JEM’S DARK LAGER, JEM’S STOUT
JEM’S 8-8, ISRA-ALE BLONDE
BIRA BRABUA – PILSNER
BIRA BRABUA – RED ALE
BIRA BRABUA – BOCK
BIRA BIRABUA – AMBER

Other beers sampled but not included in the beer tastings were various styles from PAVO BREWERY in Zichron Yaakov, as well as various styles from the GOLAN HEIGHTS BREWERY.

Each beer evaluation considered the following six aspects (as expanded upon in the publication “How to Hold a Tasting at Home” by The Brewer’s Association): 1. Appearance — color, head and carbonation; 2. Aroma; 3. Taste; 4. Mouthfeel or Texture; 5. Overall impression; 6. Beer Whispering.

This last category is my favorite. The beer whisper is essentially what you, your totally subjective self, have to say about the beer. What is its story? What does the beer remind you of? You will see in the evaluations (what I like to call developmental criticism) that a beer may whisper some unusual things. In this case the beer tastings were much more a celebration than an attempt at critique. My love for Israel, craftbeer, comraderie and plain old fun is what I was going for in these tastings. I hope that you will have the opportunity to hold a beer tasting of your own, in a rebuilt Jerusalem, speedily in our days.

In this first post, I share the write ups for two of the six breweries and their respective beers. A disclaimer, this is a completely subjective evaluation. Coming up in the posts to follow, more evaluations and the stories behind the breweries/brewers themselves. L’Chaiim!

Rabbi Baruch Rock, born and raised in NY, first learned of craft brewing while serving in the Student Conservation Corps in the Bitteroot Wilderness of Idaho at the age of 16. Since then, Baruch has been an avid homebrewer both in the US and for the ten years he lived in Israel. Baruch Rock now resides in Fairfax, Virginia, where he gladly sips his favorite craft beers from across the country to those close to home.