Posts Tagged ‘Brooklyn Brewery’
Paste Names Best 25 American Breweries
Paste Magazine’s most recent “List of the Day” surveys the 25 best American breweries of the decade. Just hours after it was posted, a friend asked us what we thought. Overall, we think it’s pretty solid. We’ve had beer from all of the breweries, some more than others, especially Paste’s picks for the two top spots, Dogfish Head and Allagash. Still, we have a few beefs…
We wouldn’t have placed Victory or Founder’s in the top five. Those spots should have been reserved for cutting-edge breweries like Lost Abbey and Russian River. Similarly, we love Weyerbacher but probably would have placed Bell’s in its top 10 spot. And Jolly Pumpkin way down at 19? We don’t think so.
Perhaps going beyond the bounds of Paste’s rating method, we would have listed Brooklyn, Stone, and Samuel Adams much higher for their widespread efforts to inform American drinkers that there’s more to beer than Bud, Coors, and Michelob, as well as raise the status of beer in general. We also would have tried to squeeze Flying Dog, Left Hand, Troegs, and Duck Rabbit somewhere into the top 25.
Beyond that, if we could have done a Top 40, we would have tried to get O’Dell’s, The Bruery, Boulevard, Full Sail, Captain Lawrence, 21st Amendment, Sly Fox, Anderson Valley, New Holland, Clipper City, Bear Republic, and Elysian on the list, but it would have been very difficult to decide who goes where. Since many of the aforementioned breweries are up and coming, we have a good feeling several of them will be on next decade’s list.
Brooklyn Brewery to Expand Sixfold
While I was costume shopping and downing the first of the Christmas beers, Gothamist reported the news that Brooklyn Brewery received a New York state grant that will help it expand, upping its production from 8,000 to 50,000 barrels a year.
This is big news not just for the neighborhood, which will see new business and jobs as a result. It’s great for the beer world because Brooklyn is what I call a major “ambassador brewery” — that is, they introduce many people to good beer because they’re widespread and available in places that don’t serve much craft beer. As with Sierra Nevada and Samuel Adams, it’s good news for anyone that likes beer when these guys do well.
Two Beer Events on Oct. 27: Bacon Beer and Story Time
Two exciting beer events are coming to D.C. this month — both on the same day. Both parties involved assured me that neither knew the about other, which seems unlikely in a small town with so much tweeting, but I made them all cross their hearts.
Brasserie Beck will host Brooklyn Brewmaster Garrett Oliver, who will pour five of his beers alongside a four-course dinner. The lineup includes two new treats: Reinschweinsgebot, described as “a bacon-infused beer, aged in Rittenhouse rye barrels, fat-washed and then infused with botanicals used in vermouth and bitters.” (Fat-washing is when you pour a flavorful fat into a liquid, let infuse, and then strain out the fat by freezing the liquid and letting the fat coagulate.) Also featured is the beer Manhattan Project, which sounds like an porkless version of the former.
Meanwhile, The Brickskeller hosts a roster of five D.C. beer folk, each of which will present two of their favorite beers and spin stories about each. The speaker list includes Bob Tupper, schoolteacher, beer historian, and the man behind the defunct (but soon returning) Tuppers Hop Pocket Ale. Also on the mic will be Bill Catron, a Belgian brewery rep who was Brasserie Beck’s first beer manager.
So which event to choose? Tough choice, right? Full menus and prices after the jump.
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Another D.C. Beer Week? Yes, Please.
Update: Through some legal snafu, Brew at the Zoo will not be technically affiliated with D.C. Beer Week. All events are still on, though. For beer drinkers, this mostly means that you won’t see them listed on the same poster.
The Lagerheads piqued our interest earlier about a potential D.C. Beer Week in August that would culminate with Brew at the Zoo on August 20.
It’s official now: The festivities will run from Aug. 16 to 21, and so far 15 tastings, happy hours, meet-the-brewers, food pairings, and plain old drinking parties have been announced. There’s lots of H Street NE action, what with one of the organizers being Teddy Folkman of Granville Moore’s. Brew at the Zoo still seems like the main event, but The party ends on Friday with a Nats game featuring a discount for Beer Week attendees. (They’re playing the Milwaukee Brewers, natch.)
Here are the full listings. You will want to bookmark this sucker because there will be updates. The Web site’s not finished, but they’re also Facebookin’ (sorry, federal employees).
On July 4th Weekend, Buy American Beer
When I was little I once saw a Family Circus cartoon in which the father, on Independence Day, thanked China for their fireworks, Germany for their picnic of sausages and coleslaw, and so on. It was about as funny as, well, Family Circus — but the message stuck with me.
So on that note, I remind those of you stuck in the imports section of your beer store that America is home to the world’s most diverse beer selection, including many of the finest and certainly the freshest. This Independence Day weekend (I’m starting mine today), buy American beer. If you have a friend who thinks Stella Artois is the gods’ gift to Belgium, send ‘em this way for a list of proper American substitutes.
- Heineken (or Stella Artois) — Of the imports on this list, Heiney’s the one I’m least offended to get for free at a party. But it’s still just the Budweiser of Europe. If crisp, clean lagers are your thing (and in July, they’re certainly mine), try Stoudt’s Gold Lager or Sierra Nevada Summerfest.
The Year in Beer: A Bottle Cap Analysis
It’s only half-way through 2009 but since Tammy is an educator, the Lagerhead household tends to operate on a school calendar. Summer break begins this week and the weather is finally starting to feel like DC in June. It seems like a good time to stop and reflect, especially when you have just run out of pages in your beer journal and your bottle cap bowl has reached its capacity.
Our little analysis is not very scientific, since not every bottle cap made it to the bowl and the composite represents not only beer that we bought and drank ourselves, but also beer our guests brought over and consumed. Also throwing the study off is the fact that we buy a lot of 750mL bottles and those are more often corked than capped. Still, the collection represents a decent sample of the beer we have had on hand over the past nine months. Let’s see what the data tells us.
Garrett Oliver Rolls Out the Barrel (Beers)
At its worst, attending a food or drink “tasting” means borrowing a nice jacket, thinking about my pinky placement, and committing that heinous act of criminal waste: the swish-and-spit. It begs a level of restraint that I have a hard time keeping in front of exciting beer. I’m getting better -–- I now slow my drinking when my notes devolve into emoticons –– but it’s easier to stop and smell the roses with the help of an instructor.
There are few better instructors than Garrett Oliver (pictured), Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster and cultural ambassador to a nation of enthusiastic guzzlers. He led a tasting, “The Art of Barrel-Aging Beer,” at the National Geographic Society last week, with eight beers that have enjoyed woody hibernation. (See the Drool List below.)
Oak barrels were the original beer vessel, the wood being dense enough to hold liquid but pliable enough to be bent into slats. Today’s stainless steel kegs are nonreactive, but early brewers scorched their wood with boiling water and even hydrochloric acid to get their barrels flavor-neutral. (Though as Radioactive Man can tell you, such a strong acid will leave a mark on barrels as well as protective goggles.)
Now craft brewers are finding the good in wood. Because it’s porous, wood allows for very slow oxidation, which can make darker, malty beers more complex. Wood can also host microflora, bacteria that add the sourness to wild ales and lambics.
