• GoDaddy Attack Takes IndyBeers.com and HashtagBeerpon.com Offline

    GoDaddy took a huge hit today thanks to the Denial of Service (DoS) Attack initiated by AnonymousOwn3r.  We use(d) GoDaddy for DNS only (our sites are hosted with linode.com).  For several hours this morning our sites, along with potentially millions of others, were inaccessible because the DNS name could not be resolved.  Millions of dollars to small business were lost.  This is inexcusable.

    I considered switching from GoDaddy last year after their initial (but later recanted) support for the police-sate-inducing SOPA, but ultimately stayed with them for no other reason than I was too lazy to make the switch.  That is no longer the case.  The domains are (as I write this) in the process of being moved to namecheap.com.  If you can’t get to the site during that time, we’re sorry, but it is for the better.

    Here’s to hoping this type of DoS attack happens less, not more, in the coming years.

    –Scott
    Beer drinker, beer lover.

  • Presidential Beer to Soon Be Available from Commercial Breweries and in Kits for Home Brewers

     

     It has been interesting watching this story develop of the past few weeks.  It has gone from a petition to get the recipe to the recipe being released to now, the beer is being made.  First up is a commercial brewery that is going to make the beer.

    At least one Utah brewery plans to pour the White House beer from its taps before Election Day in a nod to President Barack Obama’s signature home brew.

     

    “We’re going to call it El Presidente Honey Ale,” says Greg Schirf, Wasatch Brewing founder and head of the Utah Brewers Cooperative that makes Wasatch and Squatters beer.

    Schirf, whose company bottles Polygamy Porter, Brigham’s Brew (a nod to LDS Church prophet Brigham Young) and Provo Girl Pilsner, says the White House beer is just the right fit for his brewery and he wants to get it flowing at their pubs in Salt Lake City and Park City soon.

     

    “We’re definitely going to do it,” Schirf said. “We just think it’s really fun. We think it’s terrific that we have a president who is not just a beer drinker but a beer maker.”

     

    Wasatch and Squatters are likely to find instant consumers in Utah’s Democrats.

     

    Glenn Wright, chairman of the Summit County Democrats, enjoys craft beers. If you couple that with his support for Obama, he may find a locally produced version of the White House Honey Ale irresistible.

     

    “I’d buy it just because it came from the White House … this White House,” he said.

     

    And of course, if you want to brew the beer yourself, Northern Brewer has a kit for sale with all the ingredients you need.  The kit ranges from $31.75 – $36.99 depending on the options chosen. The kit can be found here:
    http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/brewing/recipe-kits/white-house-recipe-kits/northern-brewer-s-white-house-honey-porter-beer-kit.html

     

    Source: http://www.sltrib.com/

  • The Bureaucratic Brewing Bandwagon

    Photo Credit: Reuters

     With all the hubbub recently over the President brewing his own beer at the White House, it seems that home brewing is becoming the new method to connect with the common man during a campaign period.  In a recent interview by Amy Walter and Rick Klein (ABC News) with Brewer-Turned-Governor John Hickenlooper (Governor of the great state of Colorado) shared his thoughts on the President’s recipe and  his brewing experiences.

    “Of course, I’ve memorized that recipe,” Hickenlooper told Klein. “So much of it is science and recipe, but part of it is art.”

     

    Klein asked what about the recipe surprised the governor, and Hickenlooper honed in on the honey.

     

    “Well, they’re using their own honey, and certainly honey is a great way to kind of lighten a beer, especially in the summer, make it more refreshing,” he said. “They’re raising their own honey. They’re using it to make their own beer. It’s almost like a victory garden in a glass.”

     

    Hickenlooper said he used to own the country’s 110th highest-grossing brewery, although he does not brew anymore suds these days. Still, he touted the industry’s ability to create jobs.

     

    “Now there are over 2100 breweries, right? And they make about 5.7 percent of the total beer [in the world] but they create more than 50 percent of the jobs in the entire brewing industry,” he said. “So a small volume, but huge job creator, and I mean what’s not to love about that?”

     

    He also suggested breweries should develop higher-quality beer at a premium to encourage beer enthusiasts to drink less volume.

     

    “You look at beer – one beer, two beers a night – that’s kind of good for you. Most people think that’s kind of healthy,” he said. “Charge more for it. Make a really high-quality beer and it creates an economic incentive to just have one or two.”

     

    The custom ales are the first alcoholic beverages ever brewed on White House grounds, leading the governor to pitch a story to Klein and Walter.

     

    “They’ve got the White House chefs doing this, which is incredible,” Hickenlooper gushed. “I mean the question really you should be reporting on is how hard did the president have to lobby the chefs? Did they jump to the opportunity or was this kind of a twisting of the arm?”

    Source: http://abcnews.go.com/

  • Drinking Too Much? Blame Your Glass

    Do you find that some days you drink more beer than other days?  Maybe it’s not you, but rather, maybe its the glass you’re using.  A recent study by experimental psychologist Angela Attwood of the University of Bristol showed that an optical illusion caused by the shape of a curved glass can dramatically increase the speed at which beer is consumed.

    To test the hypothesis, she and her colleagues randomly divided 160 young, healthy people—students and faculty members of the University of Bristol, as well as some members of the general public—into eight groups. It wasn’t difficult to recruit participants, Attwood says. “People tend to be quite happy to get free lemonade or beer.” Using the standard WHO test for hazardous drinking, called AUDIT, the researchers screened the participants to include only “social beer drinkers,” not alcoholics. They assigned each group to drink either about 177 milliliters or about 354 milliliters of lager or soft drink from straight or curved glasses. While the participants drank, they watched a nature documentary deemed emotionally neutral, so that they wouldn’t be “sitting there with nothing to do but drink,” Attwood says. The team videotaped the drinkers over two sessions, disguising the real purpose of the test with a fake word search task at the end of each session.

     

    After watching video of both sessions and recording how much time it took for the drinkers to finish their beer or sodas, Attwood’s team found that one group consistently drank much faster than the others: the group drinking a full glass of lager out of curved flute glasses. In a paper published this month in PLoS ONE, the team reports that whereas the group with straight glasses nursed their 354 milliliters of lager for about 13 minutes, the group with the same amount of beer served in curved glasses finished in less than 8 minutes, drinking alcohol almost as quickly as the soda-drinkers guzzled their pop. However, the researchers observed no differences between people drinking 177 milliliters of beer out of straight versus fluted glasses.

    So what causes the beer to be consumed faster out of the curved glass?  The belief is that drinkers are using the glass as a determining factor in how fast they are drinking and adjust their drinking accordingly.  This works fine in a straight glass, when the top inch of beer is the same amount as the bottom inch, but doesn’t work well when the volume changes from top to bottom.

    If you’re a regular reader of this site you may remember a particular Friday Beer Fun in which we presented the beer gauge chart to know if your bartender is cheating you.

    The average pint glass has sloped sides which, like the curved glass, has different volumes at different heights of the glass.  To verify this problem of perception another test was done.

    Another experiment in which participants were asked to judge different levels of fluid in photographs of straight and curved glasses showed that people consistently misjudge the volume in fluted glasses, Attwood says.

    While this may not be good news for your drinking, it could be great news for your local barkeep.  Lets just say, be cautious of any bar that only uses curved, flute style glasses.

    Source: http://news.sciencemag.org/

  • White House Releases its Home Brew Recipe

    If you want to drink the same brew the President drinks, you now can.  The White House has finally released the recipe to the public.

     

    With public excitement about White House beer fermenting such a buzz, we decided we better hop right to it.

     

    Inspired by home brewers from across the country, last year President Obama bought a home brewing kit for the kitchen. After the few first drafts we landed on some great recipes that came from a local brew shop. We received some tips from a couple of home brewers who work in the White House who helped us amend it and make it our own. To be honest, we were surprised that the beer turned out so well since none of us had brewed beer before.

     

    As far as we know the White House Honey Brown Ale is the first alcohol brewed or distilled on the White House grounds. George Washington brewed beer and distilled whiskey at Mount Vernon and Thomas Jefferson made wine but there’s no evidence that any beer has been brewed in the White House. (Although we do know there was some drinking during prohibition…)

     

    Since our first batch of White House Honey Brown Ale, we’ve added the Honey Porter and have gone even further to add a Honey Blonde this past summer. Like many home brewers who add secret ingredients to make their beer unique, all of our brews have honey that we tapped from the first ever bee-hive on the South Lawn. The honey gives the beer a rich aroma and a nice finish but it doesn’t sweeten it.

     

    If you want a behind the scenes look at our home-brewing process, this video offers some proof.

     

    Download a printable PDF of both recipes.

    WHITE HOUSE HONEY PORTER

    Ingredients

    • 2 (3.3 lb) cans light unhopped malt extract
    • 3/4 lb Munich Malt (cracked)
    • 1 lb crystal 20 malt (cracked)
    • 6 oz black malt (cracked)
    • 3 oz chocolate malt (cracked)
    • 1 lb White House Honey
    • 10 HBUs bittering hops
    • 1/2 oz Hallertaur Aroma hops
    • 1 pkg Nottingham dry yeast
    • 3/4 cup corn sugar for bottling

    Directions

    1. In a 6 qt pot, add grains to 2.25 qts of 168˚ water. Mix well to bring temp down to 155˚. Steep on stovetop at 155˚ for 45 minutes. Meanwhile, bring 2 gallons of water to 165˚ in a 12 qt pot. Place strainer over, then pour and spoon all the grains and liquid in. Rinse with 2 gallons of 165˚ water. Let liquid drain through. Discard the grains and bring the liquid to a boil. Set aside.
    2. Add the 2 cans of malt extract and honey into the pot. Stir well.
    3. Boil for an hour. Add half of the bittering hops at the 15 minute mark, the other half at 30 minute mark, then the aroma hops at the 60 minute mark.
    4. Set aside and let stand for 15 minutes.
    5. Place 2 gallons of chilled water into the primary fermenter and add the hot wort into it. Top with more water to total 5 gallons if necessary. Place into an ice bath to cool down to 70-80˚.
    6. Activate dry yeast in 1 cup of sterilized water at 75-90˚ for fifteen minutes. Pitch yeast into the fermenter. Fill airlock halfway with water. Ferment at room temp (64-68˚) for 3-4 days.
    7. Siphon over to a secondary glass fermenter for another 4-7 days.
    8. To bottle, make a priming syrup on the stove with 1 cup sterile water and 3/4 cup priming sugar, bring to a boil for five minutes. Pour the mixture into an empty bottling bucket. Siphon the beer from the fermenter over it. Distribute priming sugar evenly. Siphon into bottles and cap. Let sit for 1-2 weeks at 75˚.

    WHITE HOUSE HONEY ALE

    Ingredients

    • 2 (3.3 lb) cans light malt extract
    • 1 lb light dried malt extract
    • 12 oz crushed amber crystal malt
    • 8 oz Biscuit Malt
    • 1 lb White House Honey
    • 1 1/2 oz Kent Goldings Hop Pellets
    • 1 1/2 oz Fuggles Hop pellets
    • 2 tsp gypsum
    • 1 pkg Windsor dry ale yeast
    • 3/4 cup corn sugar for priming

    Directions

    1. In an 12 qt pot, steep the grains in a hop bag in 1 1/2 gallons of sterile water at 155 degrees for half an hour. Remove the grains.
    2. Add the 2 cans of the malt extract and the dried extract and bring to a boil.
    3. For the first flavoring, add the 1 1/2 oz Kent Goldings and 2 tsp of gypsum. Boil for 45 minutes.
    4. For the second flavoring, add the 1/2 oz Fuggles hop pellets at the last minute of the boil.
    5. Add the honey and boil for 5 more minutes.
    6. Add 2 gallons chilled sterile water into the primary fermenter and add the hot wort into it. Top with more water to total 5 gallons. There is no need to strain.
    7. Pitch yeast when wort temperature is between 70-80˚. Fill airlock halfway with water.
    8. Ferment at 68-72˚ for about seven days.
    9. Rack to a secondary fermenter after five days and ferment for 14 more days.
    10. To bottle, dissolve the corn sugar into 2 pints of boiling water for 15 minutes. Pour the mixture into an empty bottling bucket. Siphon the beer from the fermenter over it. Distribute priming sugar evenly. Siphon into bottles and cap. Let sit for 2 to 3 weeks at 75˚.

    Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/

  • Beerporn: Editor’s Choice

    Tuesday is Editor’s Choice award day on http://hashtagbeerporn.com.  We are giving out an Editor’s Choice Award each week to the picture we think best represents beerporn during that week.  As an ongoing feature on Indy Beers each week I’ll be posting the Editor’s Choice winner from #Beerporn.  Remember, anyone can join and post pictures of beer to http://hashtagbeerporn.com.

    This week’s beerporn comes from aser.  I liked the black and white bottle/beer matching the counter top.

    http://hashtagbeerporn.com/2012/08/29/lancaster-milk-stout/

  • New Belgium: Burn Restoration Critical to Prevent Beer from Tasting Like Wildfire

    With the wildfires in Colorado there are a lot of things that need to be looked after when the fire is finally put out, and water source is one of those things.  We’ve talked a lot about water here before on Indy Beers, and this is another story in which water is the chief interest.

    Runoff from the burn area is likely to alter the flavor of tap water taken from the Poudre River, and the beer brewing process isn’t able to filter those flavors out of your Fat Tire.

     

    New Belgium Brewing is entirely at the mercy of Fort Collins’ water treatment plant when it comes to the viability of its business, and the speed with which the High Park Fire burn area is restored is vital to the brewery’s future, said Jenn Vervier, New Beligum’s director of sustainability and strategic development.

     

    “The health of the watershed equals the quality of our beer,” she said.

     

    Rain runoff from the burn area has caused a spike in iron and manganese in the river, and because of those and other pollutants and treatment for increased algae in the river water, there’s a risk the taste and smell of the city’s tap water could change once the city begins taking some Poudre River water sometime in the next month, she said.

     

    In terms of your Fat Tire or 1554, New Belgium’s chemists have identified six compounds in Poudre River water that could affect the flavor of your beer, Vervier said.

     

    Rainstorms cause turbidity in the Poudre to spike, leading to the change in the water’s flavor. So, to detect those changes, the brewery has set up a regular water tasting regime to determine if the brewery is receiving off-tasting water.

     

    “The most accurate test for compounds is just to taste the water,” Vervier said.

     

    Every time ill-tasting water is detected, the brewery will have to completely shut down for about 24 hours while the water treatment plant mixes more water from Horsetooth Reservoir into its system, providing clearer water to local taps.

     

    The brewery will have to wait at least nine hours for clear water to flow from the city’s treatment plant to New Belgium, and then the brewery will have to flush its entire system out with the clearer water before it can start brewing again.

     

    New Beligum has chosen not to purchase a $1 million filter that could strip out all the bad flavors, she said.

     

    Without the city’s conscientious water treatment efforts and access to Horsetooth Reservoir water, New Belgium could not survive in Fort Collins, Vervier said.

     

    The best way to ensure long term good-tasting water is to restore the watershed, she said.

    Source: http://www.coloradoan.com/

  • [Infographic] The Remedy: Hangover Cures from Around the World

    With Labor Day weekend coming this weekend in the US, I thought it might be a good idea to present the hangover cures from around the world.  If you’re having a rough morning this weekend, try one of these out and let us know how it goes.
  • Olympian Fails to Break World Record in Beer Mile

    Having run a beer race myself (Hazleton, PA Chhips Race), I know they can be a ton of fun; however, like anything in sports, if there is a record to break, someone is going to try and break it.  Nick Symmonds set out to break the world record for the “beer mile”.  What is the “beer mile”?  It’s a one mile run in which the running has to drink a beer every quarter mile.

    While Michael Phelps relaxes on an island vacation and Gabby Douglas makes the media rounds and Ryan Lochte awkwardly stumbles his way through another interview, Nick Symmonds is still working hard after the Olympics.

     

    Following his fifth-place finish in the London 800 meters, the American runner began heavy training to break a world record in the prestigious “beer mile,” a mile-long race in which a runner has to chug a beer at quarter-mile intervals. Symmonds tried to break the mark on Tuesday and TMZ cameras were there for some reason.

     

    He finished in 5:19, a few seconds short of the world-record mark of 5:09 set by Canadian marathoner and should-be living legend Jim Finlayson.

     

    That’s a regular Coors he was drinking. I doubt I’d be able to walk to the fridge after having two Coors heavies. Actually, strike that: I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Coors heavy.

     

    Given the circumstances, a 5:19 is a remarkable time. And we say that with the full knowledge that Symmonds definitely didn’t finish that first one.

     

    Symmonds gained non-Olympic headlines earlier this year when he went out on a date with Paris Hilton. He brought her a gift bag that included a pink watch, a pink towel, pink bubble bath and a package of SnoBalls.

  • Beerporn: Editor’s Choice

    Tuesday is Editor’s Choice award day on http://hashtagbeerporn.com.  We are giving out an Editor’s Choice Award each week to the picture we think best represents beerporn during that week.  As an ongoing feature on Indy Beers each week I’ll be posting the Editor’s Choice winner from #Beerporn.  Remember, anyone can join and post pictures of beer to http://hashtagbeerporn.com.

    This week’s beerporn comes from Vampkel.  She used the chill plate for some, but not all beers.
    http://hashtagbeerporn.com/2012/08/20/big-swell-ipa-maui-brewing/