BrewHound's Blog

FROM ST. ARNOLD ARMY:

We have put on eBay the opportunity for you and up to 3 of your friends to sample Divine Reserve Nos. 1 through 7 with brewer Brock Wagner (beers not included - see below for how that works). Brock will sit down with the group and all 5 people (Brock will be enjoying the beers with you) will taste each beer, discuss how the recipe came to be, the style and flavors in the beer, and how it is aging. These beers proved very popular and all sold out within a day at most retailers.

Saint Arnold held back a few cases of each release and locked them up in the cold box for aging. All have aged spectacularly. All proceeds from this auction will be donated to the Orange Show to support the Art Car Parade, the Orange Show monument, the Beer Can House and other activities of this great Houston organization. A mutually acceptable time and place for the tasting will be arranged after the completion of the auction. It can be anyplace (office, home, etc.) as long as it is in the Houston area. (If there is interest, we may do this again in other Texas cities, so email us separately about that.)

The beer: The winner of this auction will be earning the right to purchase two bottles each of Divine Reserves 1-7 (thus, 14 bottles total), from a local retailer for the tasting. Only the winner will have the secret password. There will be no other way to purchase these bottles. Estimated budget for this purchase: $40. This expense is separate from and not included in the auction.

Happy bidding!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2303
14813949&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:US:1123

Here is good news - both near and far - for Live Oak fans...... Brewhound

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November 21, 2008

AUSTIN, TX

Live Oak Brewing Company, an Austin microbrewery, brewed their one-thousandth batch of beer today. This landmark brew is a batch of their new winter seasonal, Primus Weizenbock. It is a dark, rich German-style Weizen beer (beer made with wheat malt) fermented with a very particular strain of brewers’ yeast that gives these beers their unique spicy and fruity character. Primus Weizenbock will extend Live Oak’s family of central European-style beers by building on the foundation of their highly acclaimed and best-selling HefeWeizen.

“Our HefeWeizen was voted on the beer aficionado website, BeerAdvocate.com, to be one of the top 25 best beers on planet earth. It seemed natural to extend that brand with a Weizenbock this winter”, said Chip McElroy, founder of Live Oak Brewing Company. As all of the Live Oak beers, Primus will be available only on draft in Texas bars and restaurants. It is named after the legendary, if unofficial, patron saint of beer brewing, Jan Primus (John the First), Duke of Brabant. It is also customary in Germany to end the name of a Weizenbock beer with the letters “us” thus, Primus (pronounced, “pre’ moose”).

The unfiltered beer will have the characteristic clove and banana flavors familiar to HefeWeizen drinkers but with a darker and richer roasty malt character that is typical of some German-style Bock beers. Contributing to that malt character is a laborious decoction mash employed at Live Oak. This old school brewing method is still used at some central European breweries and Live Oak but rarely anywhere else. The alcohol strength will be around 8% ABV and it will be available on tap in December.

Live Oak has experienced such growth over the last few years that they had to put on hold plans to get their products into bottles due to lack of space and production capacity in their current east Austin facility. In order to expand their capacity and package in bottles, the brewery has purchased 20 acres of land on the Colorado River north of the airport (ABIA) to build a new facility that will include a bottling line. The property is beautiful with very many Live Oak trees over 30” in diameter and a couple measuring over 45”. McElroy warns, “Don’t start holding your breath for bottles yet. Keep looking for our beers on tap. It will take us a couple of years to get the new brewery completed.”

Chip McElroy

Live Oak Brewing Co.

From Josh Wilson, brewer/manager of the world famous Draught House:

The Draught House Pub and Brewery is turning 40! While our selection has grown to 69 faucets and we added a brewing system in 1995, our goal has remained the same; to provide a wide array of fresh draught beers with an emphasis on supplying a variety of styles and flavors.
Come and celebrate with us on a cool (hopefully) October afternoon. Enjoy cask ales and BBQ under the tent. Our bartender Jubal will be spinning vintage soul which should compliment the smooth cask ales and Argentina influenced BBQ. Besides the numerous casks, we will have several special beers from local breweries and our own brewing system.
the details-
when: October 25th          1pm-10pm
where: Draught House Pub and Brewery           4112 Medical Pkwy           Austin, Texas             78756           (512)452-6258          www.draughthouse.com
We may be middle aged but we still know how to party!
Cheers.

2009 Beerdrinker of the Year Search is Underway

Wynkoop Brewing Company’s annual search seeks America’s
ultimate beer lover, adds Rookie of the Year honor

(Denver, Colorado) – Wynkoop Brewing Company is seeking beer resumes from the nation’s most beer-minded men and women for the 2009 Beerdrinker of the Year contest. The 13th annual contest seeks and honors the most passionate, knowledgeable beer lovers and beer ambassadors in the United States.


The 2009 Beerdrinker of the Year wins free beer for life at Wynkoop Brewing Company and $250 of beer at their local brewpub or beer bar. They also win apparel proclaiming them The 2009 Beerdrinker of the Year, and have their name engraved on the Beerdrinker of the Year trophy at Wynkoop. And they brew a special beer with Wynkoop head brewer Andy Brown that is served at the 2009 Beerdrinker of the Year National Finals on February 21, 2009.


“The whole ex-beer-ience has been a blast,” say reigning 2008 Beerdrinker of the Year Matt Venzke, of Hampton, Virginia. “Joining the prestigious ranks of Beerdrinker winners has led to private brewery tours, much free beer and a greatly expanded circle of beery friends. I’ve also had the pleasure of representing Beer Nation in various newspaper, TV and radio appearances. My parents are very proud.
”

Venzke, an aircraft maintenance manager and devout beer taster and traveler, weathered two hours of difficult and often funny questions from the Beerdrinker of the Year Finals judges in Denver last February. Venzke notes that while the grilling was tough, it was also a rare brand of fun that America’s beer nuts should strive to be a part of.


“Over the past few months I’ve met many beer lovers out there who’d make great contestants,” he says. “Homebrewers, bloggers, beer club organizers, amateur writers, and people with world-class beer cellars. These people should enter this contest.
”

To pay tribute to some of these entrants, Wynkoop is now bestowing a Rookie of the Year award to the best first-time Beerdrinker of the Year entrant. Based on his resume in last year’s contest, Virgil Grider of Urbana, Illinois is the first recipient of the award. A recent arrival in the craft beer culture, he tasted over 1100 different beers last year. He wins a special Rookie of the Year Beerdrinker shirt, and much glory.


Resumes for the 2009 Beerdrinker search must include each entrant’s beer drinking philosophy, and details on their passion for beer and their 2008 beer experiences. Resumes should detail the entrant’s understanding of beer and its history and importance to civilization, and the entrant’s efforts to educate others to the joys of great beer.


Resumes must be sent by email only to beerdrinker@wynkoop.com, and received by Wynkoop by no later than December 31, 2008. Each entrant will receive an email confirmation that their resume was received.


A few more rules:
• Resumes cannot exceed three 8 1/2" x 11" pages and must be written in 12-point or larger font, in Word format.

• Resumes must include the entrant’s home brewpub or beer bar, and T-shirt size.

• Do not enter if you are currently employed by a brewery.


For complete details entrants should visit www. wynkoop. com .


Resumes for the Beerdrinker of the Year are reviewed by the nation’s beer experts, beer journalists and previous Beerdrinker winners. The top three entrants are flown to Wynkoop Brewing Company (at Wynkoop’s expense) for the Beerdrinker of the Year National Finals on February 21, 2009.


At the finals, a panel of wigged & robed judges (comprised of the nation’s best beer minds and previous Beerdrinker winners) grills the finalists and picks the 2009 winner. The event is open to the public and starts at 2 PM.


Members of the media seeking more information, photos, and interviews with previous Beerdrinker of the Year winners can contact Marty Jones at 303-860-7448 or martysjones@att.net .

Southern Star Brewing Company

I came across the flagship brew from this Conroe, TX-based brewery this weekend.  Spec's has 4-packs (of 16 oz. cans) of their Pine Belt Pale Ale, which I really liked. Nice bite. Insane piney hops on this one. Cans are cool and so is Texas pride!

http://www.southernstarbrewery. com/

AMES, Iowa (AP) -- A sidewalk project means there may be a little bounce to the beer kegs instead of dings in the pavement when delivery trucks unload. The city is installing a rubber sidewalk at a spot near the Iowa State University campus where beer distributors unload hundreds of kegs from trucks for bars in the area.

All those heavy kegs hitting the ground have been cracking the concrete pavement. So now city officials have decided to install sidewalk pavers that a California company makes using shredded recycled tires instead of concrete. The city tested the product.

"The streets supervisor took a sledge hammer to it," said Corey Mellies, a civil engineer for the city. It didn't even dent. The project also has an environmental plus -- the sidewalk is using up about 675 tires that otherwise would end up in a landfill.

Information from: The Tribune, http://www.amestrib.com/
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) APTV-08-18-08 1054CDT

An interesting note from Live Oak Brewing Company.........


Greetings Live Oak Fans,
I know most of you are nearer to Austin than DC, but this might be of interest anyway.
OK, the subject line may have been a bit of an exaggeration.  But next Monday, Live Oak beers will be the honored guests of the Smithsonian Institute at the famous Brickskeller Pub in Washington, DC.  I'll be there too.
The Smithsonian Resident Associate Program puts on their Beer Gazetteer series each summer for six weeks.  They invite six breweries to give a tasting and lecture on their beers at the Brickskeller Pub.
We have sent up a keg each of the Pilz, HefeWeizen, Big Bark and IPA 
More information is at: http://residentassociates.org/ticket...?series=158
794
"Jul 14   Live Oak Brewing Co., Austin, TexasFounder Chip McElroy makes German- and Czech-style beers, including a HefeWeizen (unfiltered wheat beer) that the Web site BeerAdvocate.com named one of the top 25 brews on the planet."
Monday, July 14 from 7 to 10 p.m.Brickskeller Pub1523 22nd St., NWWashington, DC 20037
Cheers,

Chip McElroy

The BrewHound was blessed this past weekend to - through some divine intervention - end up with an unlabelled bottle of St. Arnold's Divine Reserve No. 6. The beer is about to be officially released and should be in stores here in Austin this week. But for now I have some pictures and words on it.

BEFORE THE POUR

AFTER THE POUR

To start, here is the brewery's official stats on No. 6: This is a big, malty, hoppy barleywine. Yet with all of the intense flavors, they meld together to create a well-balanced big beer. The nose has a strong resiny hop note. The taste starts with a combination of the malty sweetness and spicy hops with both flavors magnified by the high alcohol level. The spiciness carries through the middle and finishes with a satisfyingly dry bitter. It was brewed with 2 row pale, Caramunich and Special B malts with brown sugar added in the kettle and hopped with 225 lbs of Columbus hops including 44 lbs that were dry hopped. We used our Saint Arnold yeast strain which gives a rich, creamy mouthfeel to the brew. It is unfiltered and will clarify with aging. Enjoy at 45 °F or warmer. This beer will age well. Original Gravity: 1.094 Final Gravity: 1.019

 

Now, for my take:

No. 6 is ultra-hopped barleywine. Like a double IPA meets a barleywine! Opened with a nice psst and aroma of rusty cherries. Color: burned copper/brown/bronze/red (pick one already, huh!). Hazy and cloudy for this first bottle. Bitter aroma, earthy with strong grass resin nose.

Pours dense clouded dark copper/burnt orange. Drops like oil into the glass. No splash. Head is thin and sticky. Small head at first. As it warms, it swirls a soft tan thin ring, and eventually a puffy head towards end of session. So highly hopped that it overrides the expected taste and aroma of alcohol. Aroma of darkened grapefruit as the drinking begins.

Taste is intense! High hop body, flavor and finish. Aftertaste lasts amazingly long, sticking to the inner-cheek. A nice tart sweet to the base and bottom of the tongue. Like acidic maple candy or bitter cheery bomb. You exhale an invisible cloud of hop. Forms a sticky layer on your lips, it's so concentrated and dense.

 

Posted: 5/28/08 *** NOT A HOMEBREWED POST ***
Props to BARRY SHLACHTER / Fort Worth Star-Telegram


Jamie Fulton in the brewery of Covey
Restraurant & Brewery.
Photo: Paige Hendricks Public Relations

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) -- His reaction was so over the top -- kicking a trash can, barnyard expletives shouted full throttle and eyes welling with tears -- that Jamie Fulton's employees at The Covey Restaurant & Brewery thought their young boss had gotten some very bleak news indeed. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

A friend and fellow brewer text-messaged Fulton from San Diego in late April to say The Covey's Vienna lager had taken top honors for its style at the World Beer Cup, considered the "Olympics of brewing."

Fulton, who had just turned 27, was emotionally shaken to win just two years after opening The Covey. The gold medal is a goal that takes some brewers decades to attain, and some never do. "I always believed in my beer," said Fulton, whose lager beat out 24 other entries. "Now, to have it internationally recognized, well, it makes me feel good."

Aside from Fulton's gold, Fort Worth's Rahr & Sons microbrewery snared a bronze for its Bucking Bock, Spoetzl Brewery in Central Texas took a silver for its Shiner Dunkelweizen, and Houston's Saint Arnold's Brewery won a gold for its Wee Heavy Scotch ale called Divine Reserve No. 4 -- a special release now out of production -- and a silver for its Elissa IPA.

The blind-tasting competition is held every other year, pitting some of the globe's smallest brewers against one another and such giants as Anheuser-Busch, Coors and Miller, plus foreign producers like Carlsberg of Denmark and the Brazilian-Belgian behemoth InBev.
The late beer authority Michael Jackson of Britain considered the World Beer Cup the most professionally run international competition on Earth. And there's no national bias. Sixty-five percent of this year's blind-tasting judges were from abroad, and in several categories this year, no beer was deemed worthy of a gold.

"When your peers give you a gold award at the World Beer Cup, they place your beer at the pinnacle of achievement," said Garrett Oliver, brewmaster of prize-winning Brooklyn Brewery. "That's a mighty nice moment for any brewmaster." It's been a rapid ride, not without bumps and potholes, that put a fine arts major from San Antonio's Trinity University perched over gleaming brew kettles on South Hulen Street.

The son of a Wise County immunologist and a dermatologist, Fulton knew he wanted to make brewing his career after graduating in May 2003. His parents told him to go for it, later backing him financially when he decided to build his own brewhouse-equipped restaurant in a market late to acquiring a craft-beer culture.

He worked as a brewhouse assistant at Blue Star Brewing, a San Antonio brewpub, then took an intensive brewing course at the Siebel Institute's World Brewing Academy in Chicago. He followed that with further work at the Doemans Academy in Munich, Germany.
All the while, he worked at conceptualizing the sort of brewing operation he envisioned running one day. After Germany, he returned to San Antonio and crafted a business
plan, then began scouting for a possible location. Quickly ruled out was an ultracasual brewpub with typical fare of brats and fish and chips.

Fulton said he believed then, and still does, that food is more important than beer to draw enough customers to make the venture viable in Texas. He chose the Bitter End, a now-closed, upscale brewery-restaurant in Austin, as a model. "You just can't expect to serve beer and make a profit on it," he said.

He eventually chose the South Hulen location, which formerly housed a Fresh Choice salad buffet restaurant. Fort Worth didn't have a brewpub at the time -- one had failed
downtown, as had another in the Stockyards, and the closest still fermenting were Humperdink's in Arlington and Big Buck Brewery in Grapevine, two chain-owned operations.

"Food and beer are both important, and people will drive long distances for a good beer," Fulton asserts. And while some might dispute how deep Cowtown's craft-beer culture runs, he notes,"We've got Central Market up the street, and people there are
always talking beer."

Various complications, from wiring to plumbing to licensing, delayed the opening. It didn't help that the main contractor hadn't done restaurants -- or brewhouses -- before. Equipment ran $500,000, and remaking the restaurant cost $400,000 more. The bulk of the capital was provided by Fulton's father, and the rest, about 15 percent, was bank-financed, he said. "My father and I are best friends, and he has faith in me," he
said. "God bless him."

Aside from typical launch hiccups after The Covey opened in April 2006, there were intermittent staff problems. And there was an early crisis with food preparation. "If you don't manage the kitchen well, you upset a lot of customers," he said. "And it can be a one-shot deal. If they don't enjoy the meal, they don't come back."

Fourteen months ago, Sean Merchant took over as chef and improved food quality and consistency while introducing some new dishes. The Covey also called in VSAG, Dallas restaurant consultants, who came up with various cost-efficiencies and menu tweakings. Food costs now represent 26 to 31 cents of a menu dollar, down from 40 cents.

"What I've learned is to hire people with experience, lots of experience," he said. "You get what you pay for." Meanwhile, Fulton has worked with Merchant to create gourmet beer dinners, with each course paired to a different ale or lager. The meals, usually $59.95 and held monthly, have been well-attended, even selling out at times. (Nonbeer drinkers can get wine instead for an additional $9.).

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On the Web: www.thecovey.com

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
APTV-05-28-08 0835CDT

This past weekend, I got to play “brewer’s assistant” to Todd Henry at Lovejoy’s Taproom & Brewpub as he brewed up a batch of the Lovejoy’s favorite A.J. Porter. Another cat named Evan also clocked a good deal of volunteer hours. The day started at 5:30 a.m. and we weren’t out of there until almost 4 p.m. That’s a full day of beer fun, folks.

I’m not sure Todd would dig me giving away the specifics of the recipe, so I’ll just be generic and say there is about 3 large (40 gallon?) plastic cans worth of milled grain, 2.5 lbs. of hops, a 30-minute mash and a 90-minute boil involved. At the height of the boil, the room smelled like roasted coffee and Cocoa Pebbles stew. Yummy! A.J. Porter is currently on tap… and will hopefully be on for quite a while since we just brewed up another big batch. Stop by Lovejoy’s and have one (or two or three).

Also, try Todd’s awesome Copper Shed (Copper Pale Ale). Needless to say I had a few to fight off the heat in that small brewhouse.

Todd and Evan check the recipe:

Mashing:

Me, preparing to clean the fermenter tank:

Part of the joy of homebrewing or large-batch brewing is the endless array of contraptions you'll find. I love this sparge arm! It sits on top of the mash/lauter tub and drips fresh water slowly on top of the wort to get the best juice into the boiling kettle:








Little bit of wort:




Lotta bit of wort:










Brewer Todd Henry - You gotta watch this dude, he's quick!!!!!
















Things got kind of crazy in the Lovejoy's Brewhouse:




The end result is a beautiful thing:




A few classic tap pull art pieces: