All too often, lovers of craft beer are looked at in a negative way. The opinions vary; however, most commonly we are looked at as geeks, snobs, or neanderthals depending on who you ask. If we are going to go forward as a community, we need to do our best to dispel these myths and showcase our passion appropriately. I know many of you may take the approach that image doesn’t matter and that passion is all that counts; although there is some merit to that, one can never discount the effect of presentation.
Take for example, a recent business meeting I attended. One of the presenters is an utter genius and had a fantastic product, yet due to his unpolished presentation he came off as confused and rambling. Until he gets this end of his business dealt with, I feel he is going to have a lot more difficulty getting people to buy into him than he should get based on his merits.
Another week, another Cask Cast. Despite the fact I have been quiet this week, rest assured, I am out there hustling. This week saw many positives for the craft beer industry. Most notably, Rock Art Brewery was able to escape the clutches of corporate america. Many many people are to thank for this moral victory. However, without the steadfast convictions of Rock Art we may have never been able to test our mettle as a community. With the help of Rock Art’s fellow brewers, an army of hardcore beer bloggers, and the most important – craft beer lovers, they were able to fight off the ‘Monster.’ With that in mind, let us celebrate with yet another week of Cask Cast. Cheers to Two Guys On Beer, Two Beer Queers, Abs Of Beer TV, Beer Tap TV, and everyones favorite – Hop Cast, for letting the world know about the virtues of craft beer. Keep up the good work gentleman.
Nano-Brewing is not exactly a new concept. That said, I don’t think that enough of us hop-heads are aware of the latest revolution in brewing. When trying to start a business, there is nothing wrong with starting small and growing organically. I think a lot of people out there look at starting their own brewery or brew pub and go “wow, there is no way I can afford to get into this.” Although by no means cheap, starting a nano-brewery could be the way to go if you are looking to make and sell beer.
Better late than never, I suppose. No matter what happens you can’t keep a good Cask Cast down. Luckily for me, all my good friends at Two Guys On Beer, Two Beer Queers, Beer Tap TV, Hop Cast, and Abs Of Beer TV have been working harder than I have. In fact, if you check out Two Beer Queers and Abs Of Beer TV’s sites, you’ll notice both have recently done awesome redesigns. I hope you enjoy this weeks Cask Cast; as long as you keep checking them out, I’ll keep posting them.
Recently, the Russell Brewing Company signed a five year sponsorship deal with the Abbotsford Entertainment and Sports Centre, home of the Abbotsford Heat. You can read the full release here. This is not a particularly unusual occurrence but it got me thinking about how many breweries miss opportunities like this. If you’ve read the truecask.com About page, then you know my background is marketing, and although I have designs to do some consulting work for the industry, I also know that withholding information is not going to help me achieve the mission objective I state on that exact same About page. As a result I have decided to post my marketing musings for those in the industry to digest, refute, and possibly execute.
Earlier today I got this email from Erik Boles, one of the masterminds behind Beer Tap TV and good friend of truecask.com. The gist of his letter was this: Monster Energy Drink, a Coca-Cola distributed beverage brand is suing a small Vermont brewery over a trademark issue. Despite the fact that the lawsuit is complete baseless, there is little the brewer can do simply because of financial limitations. We, the craft beer community, must do whatever we can in order to stop this from going any further. I don’t even have access to the beer this brewery makes, as I’m sure many of you don’t. However, if we allow this to happen what is to say another major company won’t come after another tiny brewery and slowly but surely destroy everything we love so dearly. I implore you, take Erik’s lead, stand up, let your voice be heard, and fight this as best as you can.
Another week down, another Cask Cast ready to rock. I can’t stress enough how much I love being able to work with all these passionate video bloggers on a regular basis. As promised, this week Cask Cast has a new addition to its roster. The guys over at Abs Of Beer TV contacted me the other week and asked if they could get on Cask Cast. After reviewing their show, I thought I’d let them marinade for a bit and see how things progressed. Needless to say I wasn’t expecting them to deliver such an awesome product as early as their fourth episode. With that in mind, I’m happy to say they are now part of a roster that includes Two Guys On Beer, Two Beer Queers, Hop Cast, and Beer Tap TV. Good company to keep if you ask me…
Over the years, debate has raged on regarding what type of glass beer is best served in. Many beer lovers will tell you that every beer style has its own corresponding glass that it should only be drank out of. Although this is often the case, the logistics of being able to do this are not exactly practical. Obviously, during these rough economic times not everyone is interested in spending hundreds of dollars on their glassware. Dimple mugs, imperial pints, American pints, steins, weizens, yard glasses – on and on the investment in a proper beer bar never seems to end. With this in mind, I have set out to find the ideal ‘utility glass’ one can purchase in order to have the best experience from as many beers as possible. Here is what I have found to be the best all around beer glass and how I found it…
A few weeks ago, I posted about attending Beer School at the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts. Instead of weekly updates, I have opted to do a midterm update as well as a postmortem in order to give you my impressions of the course. Seeing as we are at the half way point of the course, I’d better get summarizing. (note – if you like the beer school homework book you can buy one here)
Class 1 – Basics, History, and Tasting
In the first class we got right down to it by covering the basics of beer, followed by the history, and then tasting techniques. Beer basics should be just that for anyone who actively reads truecask.com – basics. The differences between lagers and ales, what countries are known for what styles, and various other facts and figures mark the bulk of the information. History, of course, covers the first known beer recipes dating back to early Babylonian times, all the way up to the modern North American craft beer revolution. Finally, we got to tasting techniques. Of course when one learns how to taste beer they must, you know, taste beer. Clearly this was the reward at the end of our information rainbow, and becomes a recurring theme in the weeks to come.
This past weekend, a group of us local hop heads piled into a van and ventured across the border into Washington. With brews on the brain, tickets to the Tacoma Craft Beer Festival in hand, and a foot to the floor we headed out on our adventure. What follows is a vague account of the next sixteen or so hours.
Shortly after crossing the border we promptly found what many Canadians consider a hidden jewel for beer buying. Haggen, a local Washington / Oregon grocery store chain, must have some major craft beer fans working in their head office because upon walking into the store we quickly found an outstanding selection of limited release brews. Highlights include the Deschutes Hop Trip, the Stone Vertical Epic 09.09.09(we got the last three in stock), and the Sierra Nevada Southern Hemisphere Harvest.
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