All across the internet, articles like this one from The Business Edition have been popping up reporting how America’s biggest breweries, MillerCoors and Anheuser-Busch, will be raising prices. One can only imagine that the rest of the macro-breweries will follow suit, as this is clearly in response to the fact that sales of macro-beers keep dropping while micro-beer sales are on the rise.
CAMRA Vancouver is showcasing the ever-growing craft beer mecca that is Gastown this coming Saturday. For $30, or $25 if you’re a CAMRA member, people can enjoy a four part meal, each part with a complementing pint, and each part served at four different locations throughout this historic neighborhood.
Starting at noon a large group of beer lovers will be congregating at Carrall & Water street, between Koolhaus & Chill Winston. From there they will partake in the pub crawl showcasing The Irish Heather, the Alibi Room, Steamworks, and Six Acres. Of these, The Irish Heather has probably the best pub food in the city, the Alibi Room has the best craft beer selection, and Steamworks has an epic in house brewery. To get an idea of what is in store, earlier today I spoke with Sean Heather, owner of The Irish Heather, and trust me when I say crawlers are in for a treat when it comes to the food at that stop on the crawl. That said, Six Acres is what I’m looking forward to the most as I have yet to be there; hopefully I’ll have good things to report back to you.
Before you click the back button and never return to truecask.com for stating such blasphemy, please hear me out. Coors is known for making fizzy yellow beer and spending hundreds of millions of dollars on marketing. Perhaps we should reconsider this assessment, dropping the latter and leaving ‘Coors is known for making fizzy yellow beer’.
What starts off sounding like a rather personal question is actually becoming an issue for beer lovers in British Columbia. This past weekend the Vancouver Sun reported on how there is no such thing as a true pint in our province. Although this is a substantial issue, it’s just a small part of the beer drinker’s pain here in British Columbia.
When I first conceptualized truecask.com I thought I would do a beer review show a la Gary Vaynerchuk. After poking around the blog-o-sphere and seeing what was out there I came to the conclusion that there are already enough people out there doing that, and doing a damn fine job of it. I have no issues with competition, but the fact of the matter is I’m not really a beer reviewer. It’s not in my DNA to break down a beer in great detail. I can pour a glass, check out the color, sniff the nose, taste nectar, and throw down some terms, but it wouldn’t be authentic. What I do best is analyze the industry. I’ll bring you opinions on pricing value, interviews with brewing personalities, and bring to light issues I believe need addressing. That said I think its important to have beer reviews on my site. With this in mind I reached out to some of my favorite video bloggers, and with their blessing am going to start collecting and embedding their content for you to enjoy. Follow the break to watch the latest from Two Guys On Beer, the Two Beer Queers, and Hop Cast.
It seems like every week momentum behind the craft beer movement builds. That may seem a little out of the blue, but when you consider the underlying reasons, it starts to make sense. History has proven that in times of recession personal entertainment budgets turn from big purchases like vacations and boats, to smaller financial commitments like movies, CD’s, and beer. Add in the facts that big breweries are losing market share, imports aren’t moving units like they used to, and the craft scene is becoming more visible thanks to social media, and what we have here is a leveling of the playing field.
Stone Brewing Co. keeps powering its way through the recession with more growth.
The brewer said Wednesday it increased production of its craft beers by 24 percent in the first half of 2009. By year’s end, it expects to make more than 100,000 barrels, more than a 20 percent increase over 2008. (via North County Times)
The other day I was in my local bottle shop with a friend of mine. While looking through the coolers he spotted Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA sitting next to Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA. Both were extremely close in price, however 90 came in a four pack and 60 came in a six pack. My friend, being a lesser beer enthusiast than myself, asked me what the difference was. I had yet to taste DFH 60 so all I could tell him was that there is a difference in the way they hop the beer resulting in DFH 90 having a higher ABV. I also mentioned that they should taste different based on the alcohol level and hopping technique used, but without trying it for myself I would be speculating. The only logical course of action we could take following that conversation was to purchase both the DFH 60 & 90 to find out for ourselves. For the sake of having a balanced comparison we decided it wise to add a neutral IPA, one not made by the good people at Dogfish Head. Glancing around the coolers I quickly spotted the limited release Russell Brewing IP’eh that I enjoyed so much at Summer Caskival, and chose it due to the fact I felt it was a perfect example of a quality IPA. The results of this comparison is as follows:
I recently stated on Twitter that I thought Granville Island Brewery was becoming less craft friendly and that it was good to see them sponsoring CAMRA Vancouver. Some people came to their defense, including their own twitter account. Due to their willingness to interact with their community, and critics, I decided I should further research my opinion and see if it was valid. What I found was encouraging. It turns out they are members of the BC Craft Brewers Association, continue to produce limited release brews, and were the first micro brewery in Canada. Although I was aware of some of these facts I feel my opinion had become skewed due to what I believe is an uninspired catalog of everyday beers. Why I bring this up is because it posed an interesting question. When is a brewery no longer craft?
This past weekend I had the chance to speak with Garrett Oliver, brewmaster of the Brooklyn Brewery. I was not able to contact him prior to his arrival in Vancouver, so I do not have a formal interview containing Q&A. I thought it would be unfair to ambush him with a situation like that and was not looking to make our conversation awkward. However, during our hour long conversation I found a lot of interesting information poured from him and wished to give you my impressions of the high profile brewmaster.
Garrett is in the process of writing another book. Unlike his first book, The Brewmaster’s Table which focuses heavily on pairing beer with food, this book will resemble an encyclopedia of beer defining and explaining terminology and techniques.
Often us craft beer drinkers buy local brews. Many times this is because we want to support our own beer scene, as illustrated by this article by the Beer Advocate. Other times its because we want to drink the freshest draught available. Although I agree with these reasons without question, there is more benefit to buying local than just sustaining your local breweries.
Environmentally speaking, local craft beers are the best thing you can drink. The reasons for this are actually rather simple. Craft brewers tend to buy local ingredients to use in the making of their beers. They also sell more beer locally than they export to other areas. The combination of these two key points means that the carbon footprint of a locally bought craft beer is smaller than that of a craft beer shipped in from another area.
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