Giving you the knowledge to buy better beer.
This isn’t really beer related, but it does play right into what the site is all about, identifying brands and trying to find those that are independent. I found this graphic online today, but unfortunately could not find a source; nonetheless, the graphic speaks volumes about how a small group of large corporations control so much of what we eat and drink. Do you see any of your favorite brands?
Source: reddit.com
The folks over at 1001beersteins.com did a great job putting together some statistics on Global beer consumption.
Our Global Beer Consumption Statistics and Trends infographic will answer some of the most common questions often asked by beer lovers and brewery owners.
- Which country has the highest per capita consumption of beer?
- Which Country consumes the highest amount of Beer?
- Which beer is most sold in world?
Infographic by 1001 Beer Steins
From an email I received from The Perfect Pour:
Heavy Seas is a local craft beer staple. Founded by Mr. Sisson in 1994 as Clipper City, the brewery has been putting out award-winning and downright tasty beers for almost twenty years. Their broad range of beers is brewed “to be the best combination of modern beer thinking blended with traditional brewing methods in the beer world today.” We think they succeed.
Hugh will be pouring two special beers and one customer favorite. Try the brand new Sea Nymph summer seasonal and the newly-released Plank II, a Doppelbock aged with eucalyptus and poplar, and remind yourself of the greatness that is Loose Cannon.
Come support your local brewer and enjoy some of the best craft beer on the market.
So I decided to head over to The Perfect Pour after work and check out the scene.
Hugh was on hand to do the pouring for the tasting. He was also happy to pose for pictures.
With pen in hand he was also signing six packs and bottles!!
Overall it was a good time. Hugh was happy to answer any questions people had about his beer or his brewery. I’m happy to see local business owners coming out to do meet and greets with fans of their products. Hugh really is a pleasure to be around.
Based my previous post about going green with the wort chilling process I have decided to go as green as I can by letting the wort chill overnight. Robert stated in the comments of the post:
I just put the boiling wort in the fermenter and let it sit till the next morning.
On Reddit, skandalouslsu echoed the thought when stating:
…let it chill over night on its own. That’s what I do. No water. No ice. No pumps. Great tasting beer.
With that in mind, here is how I did the process when I brewed the other night.
After the brewing was done, I added 2 gallons of filtered tap water at the coldest temperature it would come out of the tap. (about 58 degrees)
I put in the cold water first to prevent any issues with adding water that was too hot to the plastic bucket.
For those of you that are curious, this is how I got that last shot. I used a Canon 7D with a wireless flash setup.
I then added the wort, and some more water to get the desired original gravity, put a lid on it, and went to bed.
The next day, I took the yeast out of the refrigerator before I want to work, and then came home at lunch to check on things. The temperature was about right at 68 degrees.
I then pitched the yeast and resealed everything. There was no need to clean or sanitize because nothing new was being touched.
So there it is, the greenest method I came across, and it worked just fine. There was the issue of having to come back to the beer 18 hours later to pitch the yeast, but overall, not bad enough to keep from using this method moving forward. I can tell you that I didn’t miss holding the drill and cleaning the wort chiller!!!
A lot of home brewers will run their garden hose into the wort chiller and let the excess water runoff into their yard. This is a colossal waste of water. To help avoid wasting so much water, my brother (Mathew) and I use ice to speed the process of chilling the wort. This has the benefit of streamlining the process and not wasting so much water.
For me, I use a propane burner that has a tendency to make a mess of soot on the bottom of my pot. To keep this mess out of my house I circulate the water from my wort chiller through a cooler filled with water and ice.
Mathew, using the stove in his kitchen to brew beer, doesn’t have the soot problems. He just soaks his brew pot in an ice bath in his sink to chill his wort.
I have two refrigerators, one that makes ice, and one that doesn’t. This is the ice I use for my wort chiller.
This freezer isn’t hooked up to water, so I bring ice from the other freezer to this one for storage.
On brew day, I put all the ice from the second refrigerator into a cooler and then add water.
The pump for using with the wort chiller when brewing beer to recirculate the water.
It works really well and can be purchased from your local hardware store.
The time is 3:51:29 pm when I was ready to start.
Doing this by yourself is kind of a pain, but it only takes 10-15 minutes. I should get clamps to hold the hoses in place and zip-tie the drill into an on position.
Kelli came out and took a picture of me doing the process.
The time is now 4:06:08 pm, a delta of about 15 minutes.
This is how much ice was left after the process. I started with about 12-16lbs of ice.
I use a cooler method of recirculating the water because the soot makes an awful mess if I try and do an ice bath like Mathew.
Mathew has his spare refrigerator hooked up to water, and this is how he collects all the ice needed. The freezer holds about 25lbs of ice. (a full freezer has been shown to use less energy)
His sink is 7 inches deep.
And about 16 inches wide.
He puts his pot in the sink first.
Then he adds about 12-15lbs of ice and some water to make the ice float. To speed up the process he stirs both the wort and the ice every minute or so to keep the heat exchange happening at a fastest rate. The time is 5:47:05 pm.
In his process this is how much ice he was left with after doing the ice bath.
The time is now 6:00:47 pm, a delta of about 15 minutes. He goes to 85deg because when he adds the additional 2.5gal his tap is 60-65 deg; Therefore, he ends at between 70-75 deg to pitch the yeast. His method is much easier as you don’t have to hold a drill the whole time.
There are many industries that tend to be dominated by males, and brewing beer is no exception. That isn’t to say, however, that the industry is devoid of women. As craft beer rides its crescendo, there is no doubt that a larger exposure to a wider market will bring a greater interest in brewing from a wider range of people, including women.
Three Floyds Brewery, known for producing great craft beer, has just such a brewer on staff. Abby Titcomb didn’t start as a brewer, but it was something she felt she needed to do.
“It was an epiphany. I love beer,” she said. “Why am I not making beer? And that was it.”
She went back to school — a two-week brewing course at the Siebel Institute of Technology — dabbled with home-brewed concoctions and searched for brewery jobs.
Late one night at a hipster nightclub, Titcomb struck up a conversation with a “guy with gorgeous hair and face tattoos” who said he might have a line at a job bottling beer at Three Floyds.
“I was like yeah right,” Titcomb said. “It’s late at a bar and he wanted my number. … Whatever, I gave it to him. He actually followed through.”
Her first job was putting together boxes. She did a lot of that.
Good talent in small companies rarely goes unnoticed, and before long she was called up through the ranks to brew beer.
“It’s pretty cool to have a woman brewing. It’s like seeing a black unicorn … and we caught her right in our net,” Three Floyds head brewer Chris Boggess once joyfully declared
Boggess knew the brewery was on the verge of expanding to keep up with growing demand. He was looking for an eager young brewer to mentor. Brewery founder Nick Floyd, also a Siebel brewing school alumnus, and vice president Barnaby Struve promoted Titcomb to brewer last year. Since then Three Floyds has hired two more brewers — both men. This month construction crews are putting finishing touches on renovations to the brewery, which last year increased production by 40 percent.
“Why not have a diverse workforce. We didn’t want to be a vanilla boys club like it has always been,” Struve said. “She put herself through brewing school and that doesn’t guarantee you a job anywhere. We knew Abby had a passion for it.”
I’m in full support of women following there dreams, especially if that dream is to brew beer!!
Source: http://www.suntimes.com/
According to new research out of the University of Illinois in Chicago men who drink a few beers perform better at solving brain teasers.
To reach that surprising conclusion, the researchers devised a bar game in which 40 men were given three words and told to come up with a fourth that fits the pattern.
For example, the word “cheese” could fit with words like “blue” or “cottage” or “Swiss.”
Half the players were given two pints. The other half got nothing.
The result? Those who imbibed solved 40% more of the problems that their sober counterparts.
Also, the drinkers finished their problems in 12 seconds while it took the non-drinkers 15.5 seconds.
“We found at 0.07 blood alcohol, people were worse at working memory tasks, but they were better at creative problem-solving tasks,” psychologist Jennifer Wiley reported on the Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (FABBS) site.
So if you find yourself in need of that extra edge in problem solving, looks like beer is once again the answer to your problems.
Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/
During Easter I was in Ocean City, MD and made a Saturday day trip over to Berlin, MD to see Burley Oak Brewery. I hadn’t been there since the Oktoberfest the previous year, and I was excited to see how they had grown. Brewmaster Brian Carl was there to give a tour of the brewery. Overall, it was a great day with lots of good beer.
We arrived at Burley Oak just after 2pm.
There were plenty of great beers on tap.
We grabbed a corner table and had a round of beer.
Brewmaster Brian Carl was on hand to give a tour of the brewery.
It was fun enjoying the beer while getting the tour.
Inside the refirdgeration unit.
Brian was very informative and was a lot of fun to talk to.
Notice the surfboards on top?
My guess is they have a lot of fun making the beer.
It was good to see him again and I'm glad he remembered me.
After the tour it was time to try all the beers.
Brian was happy to explain the all the styles of beer we were drinking.
If you're in Ocean City, I strongly suggest making the trip over to Berlin, MD to see the brewery and taste the beers!!!
Pizza Tugos – Ocean City, MD
Great beer with lots of fantastic varieties from which to choose.
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