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Utopias auction benefits Leary Firefighters

Jim Koch and Dennis LearyJim Koch (right) of Boston Beer and actor Denis Leary have put together a charity auction at eBay with a 2007 bottle of Samuel Adams Utopias at the center.

Koch has autographed the bottle designed to look like a brewing kettle and Leary a “Rescue Me” coffee table book. The package also includes a custom made Samuel Adams snifter designed by Reidel. Bidding ends Dec. 20.

There are dozens of bottles of Utopias currently up for auction at eBay, but none quite like this. The proceeds will benefit The Leary Firefighters Foundation www.learyfirefighters.org, which is dedicated to providing fire departments with funding and resources for the best available equipment, training and technology.

“This auction is a great way to raise money and give beer enthusiasts extraordinary collectible items at the same time,” Koch said. “We have been working closely with The Leary Firefighters Foundation for over five years, and we know it to be a great cause. We are excited to be able to make some beer lover’s holiday a little brighter, while supporting Denis’s Foundation.”

The 2007 edition of Utopias is the strongest beer ever brewed. Just 12,000 ceramic bottles were produced, all of them numbered. Employees of Boston Beer get the first 500 bottles according to their seniority with the company. Koch is autographing and donating his No. 1 bottle.

Samuel Adams conducted a similar auction in 1999, selling bottle No. 1 of Millennium (a predecessor of Utopias) for $4,910 on eBay.

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UK ban on cheap beer?

The Publican reports Prime Minister Gordon Brown may intervene to stop cheap supermarket deals on alcohol.

The issue has apparently hit home with Mr Brown, after Labour MP John Grogan was called by a senior adviser at 10 Downing Street to discuss his recent criticism of the retail giants.

Grogan had branded Tesco chief executive Terry Leahy “the godfather of British binge-drinking” during a Commons debate, and was asked by the adviser what he would like to see done to stop the deals.

Tesco hit back at Grogan’s comments, branding them “as offensive as they are inaccurate.”

Health minister Ben Bradshaw recently told the Commons the government would be “prepared to change the law” on below-cost selling depending on the findings of an independent review, due to report in April.

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Brewery lineup for ‘SAVOR’ announced

The Brewers Association has announced the lineup for “SAVOR: An American Craft Beer & Food Experience” May 16-17 in Washington, D.C.

The BA notes: “Tickets for each of the three sessions are limited to the first 700 ticket purchasers. The $85 ticket includes a commemorative tasting glass, souvenir program and Craft Beer Taster’s Commemorative Journal, fabulous food and craft beer pairings, seminars, and 2- ounce samples of specially selected craft beer.”

The participating breweries were chosen in a random drawing designed to represent all the country’s regions. They are:

21st Amendment
Abita Brewing Co
Allagash Brewing
Avery Brewing Co
Blackfoot River Brewing Co.
Boscos Brewing Co
Boston Beer Co
Brooklyn Brewery
Clipper City Brewing Co
Deschutes Brewery
Dogfish Head Craft Brewery
Florida Beer Co
Flying Dog Ales
Foothills Brewing
Four Peaks Brewing Co
Free State Brewing Co
Full Sail Brewing Co
FX Matt Brewery*
Great Divide Brewing Co
Great Lakes Brewing Co
Harpoon Brewery
Heiner Brau Microbrewery
Hoppy Brewing Co
Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant
Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales
Legacy Brewing Co
Montana Brewing Co
Natty Greene’s Brewing Co
New Albanian Brewing Co
New Belgium Brewing Co
New Holland Brewing Co
Otter Creek Brewing
Pelican Pub & Brewery
Port Brewing and The Lost Abbey
Rock Art Brewery
Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery – Des Moines, IA
Rogue Ales
Russian River Brewing Co
San Diego Brewing Co
Sierra Nevada Brewing
Smuttynose Brewing Co
Southampton Bottling
Sprecher Brewing Co
Stoudts Brewing Co
The Saint Louis Brewery
Troegs Brewing Co
Two Brothers Brewing Co
Williamsburg Alewerks

Details.

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Portland Holiday Ale Fest

Report and photos by Banjo Bandolas

Slate gray sky capped the Willamette valley as I drove up I5 North to the last beer fest of the season, Portland’s 12th annual Holiday Ale Fest drew me out into Oregon’s cold wet winter with the promise of 41 special Holiday beers. The thought of spending the day tasting beers with names like Bad Santa (Pelican), Brewdolph (Lompoc), Tannen Bomb (Golden Valley), Kringle Krack (Calapooia), and Blitzen (Rock Bottom) had me salivating and driving just a little faster than the law allows.

Dave White and Tim PyattI’d gone about 30 miles when I noticed two men walking down the south-side shoulder of I5, flying a Rogue Ales flag high and proud. Luckily I was coming up on an exit so I was able to swap directions quickly and find out what was up.

Dave White and Tim Pyatt are part of the crew making the annual walk from Portland to Eugene to raise awareness for their cause, “The Wounded Warriors Fund.” The group takes the four days leading up to the Oregon football civil war weekend (the annual Oregon State vs. University of Oregon grudge match) to cover the 100 plus miles from Portland to Eugene. They carry two flags, one for their favorite team, the U of O, and the other for one of their biggest supporters, Rogue Ales of Oregon. Since the they began in 2000, the money raised for “The Wounded Warriors Fund” has helped wounded service men and women and their families with travel expenses in their time of need. This is a very worthy cause and I plan to contribute to it myself. If you’d like to support the Wounded Warriors Fund go to www.duckswalk.org for more information.

Portland Holiday Ale Fest

An hour after talking to Tim and Dave I was in the heart of Portland’s downtown. The tents for Holiday Beer Fest filled Pioneer Square as snuggly as a cork in a bottle. With expected crowds topping 15,000 for the three day event I was a little worried I might be experiencing that same feeling once inside. My worries were well founded, Friday night at the Holiday Ales fest was a lesson in patience. The beers were great, but the lines were long and the tents were very crowded. Most of the people were getting a full mug and going directly to the next beer line. The lines typically took over 20 minutes, so I was just finishing the previous beer as I approached the pouring table for my next. These were all big beers. Santa’s Private reserve by Rogue Ales was the lowest in alcohol I saw at 5.3%. Most of those I tried were above 8%, which can make for a bit of a woozy evening.

Holiday Ale FestThe good thing about the lines, if there is a good thing about a line, is it gave me a great opportunity to meet lots of fellow Oregon Beer Enthusiasts. We discussed the different beers and tossed recommendations back and forth as we inched forward. I can honestly say I didn’t find fault with a single beer I tried, but here are some of the beers I recommended to my new found friends:

Lagunitas Oaked Brown Shugga, A Strong Ale (9.9% abv) originally a 1997 failed attempt to replicate an Olde Gnarlywine recipe, this beer is deceptively smooth and drinkable. I know a lot of people don’t like the sweetness of this beer but I’m not one of them. The aroma is sweet and malty with some dark fruit and floral hop accents rising from the glass. It produces a nice, well-carbonated, head. The brown sugar is evident in the flavor which is bready malt, dark fruit, and some well balanced hoppiness followed with a dry, robust finish. A delicious beer, that’s done nothing but improve with barrel aging.

O’Holy Hops by Max’s Fanno Creek Brewpub, an Imperial IPA (8.5%). Beer writer Lisa Morrison told me she was going for Big Hoppy beers this year (because of the hops crunch) and recommended O’Holy Hops as the best she’d tried so far. That was enough for me to cue up for a plastic mug full. The nose of this beer telegraphs the hop character long before it gets to your face. If you like big hoppy northwest beers this is one you should seek out. The hops were so strong they almost crossed over from bitter to sweet, and it wasn’t very complex, I mean that in a good way. This is a good, honest, Imperial IPA.

After an evening of big beers it was nice to dial it back to 5.3% with a full mug of Rogues, Santa’s Private Reserve, a hopped up version of Saint Rogue red with double the hops and a mystery hop called Rudolph. The nose was a nice balance between hops and malt with citrus notes. The taste was strong on hops followed by a mixture of caramel, toast, and kind of a seesaw between chocolate and smoke but not quite either. (I had been thru quite a few beers by now so forgive my failure to pin it down) and a crisp bitter finish. It’s a very nice hoppy “Red Ale” and I’ll recommend it to my Hopheaded friends.

Okay, so what can I say about the coldest, latest, and most crowded beer fest of the year? In the immortal words of the Governor of California… “I’ll be back!”

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Church celebrates birthday with a beer

What better way to celebrate a 750th birthday than with a beer brewed for the occasion?

UK brewer Wadworth has produced a special beer to commemorate the event for nearby St. Mary The Virgin Church in Potterne.

“Divine Ale” is a 5.1% abv dark and bitter porter – “an older style beer in keeping with the great age of the church and ideal for cold winter days and nights at Christmas time.”

The brew was the brainchild of Julian Richards, landlord of The George and Dragon in Potterne and the vicar’s wife Ann Howard.

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Wall Street Journal profiles Westvleteren

In the Wall Street Journal today: Trappist Command: Thou Shalt Not Buy Too Much of Our Beer:

The Trappist monks at St. Sixtus monastery have taken vows against riches, sex and eating red meat. They speak only when necessary. But you can call them on their beer phone.

The popularity of Westvleteren beers is hardly news in the beer community, but still interesting to see how a mainstream business publication treats the subject. Be sure to watch the video &#151 just geeky enough to make you smile.

It brings us back to an interesting question. How rare can Westvleteren 12 be given that it has been rated 1090 times (at this moment) at Rate Beer? Meanwhile Firestone Pale Ale, called the best pale ale in the world by Men’s Journal and produced at a brewery more than 10 times the size, has been rated 175 times.

Look here for another perspective and trip inside the Saint Sixtus monastery.

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Beer tax battle heads to the Internet

Illinois beer distributors have taken their their fight against Mayor Daley’s proposed beer tax increase to the Internet.

Stop Chicago Liquor Tax Increase” gives interested parties a direct connection to the Chicago aldermen who will be voting on Daley’s proposal, according to a press release from the Associated Beer Distributors of Illinois.

Mayor Daley’s tax proposal calls for an 87.5% on all liquor sold in the city. The increase would raise the cost of beer 30 cents per gallon, or approximately eight cents per six-pack. The ABDI says this would make Chicago beer one of the most heavily taxed beverages in the nation.

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Firefighters get OK to drink in station

The New Ulm, Minn., city council has approved a measure giving volunteer firefighters the option of consuming alcohol at fire station buildings after fire calls or other related functions.

“I feel these (firefighters) who put themselves at risk in fighting fires are responsible enough to know when they’ve had too much,” said City Council president Dan Beranek, who was one of four members to vote in favor of the measure.

New Ulm is home to August Schell Brewing, the nation’s second oldest brewery.

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Norwegian chosen top Pilsner Urquell bartender

World Beer FestivalErik Jönsson of Norway has won the title of Pilsner Urquell International Master Bartender of the Year during competition completed in New York.

Jönsson, 22, triumphed over finalists from 14 other countries.

Finalists took a written exam, were interviewed bya panel of beer experts and demonstrated their skill at pouring Pilsner Urquell according to strict guidelines.

Hanna Michalczyk from Poland and Tatyana Neklyudova, two of the first female bartenders to reach the finals, finished second and third.

After the competition, Jönsson said: “I’ve been really inspired this weekend. Everyone needs inspiration and meeting with bartenders from around the world who all do the same job, but are from different cultures and different countries has been really incredible.”

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Bud.tv called flawed, but brilliant

Anheuser-Busch advertising chief Bob Lachky last week described the company’s online channel Bud.tv as a “flawed idea but brilliant concept.”

A-B has sunk millions of dollars into the project with disappointing results.

Speaking at the Association of National Advertisers Masters of Marketing conference in Phoenix, Lachky blamed much of the problem on the complicated registration process designed to keep underage readers out.

But he also criticized his own company’s approach: ““The other thing that is totally flawed — and I don’t understand this — as you can tell I was doing something else at the time … I don’t understand why you’d have Bud.tv and then not have anything branded on it at all and just have this bizarre content that wasn’t branded.”

Lachky also commented on the merger between SABMiller and Molson Coors announced last week.

“Everyone took that $500 million in efficiencies at face value,” he said. “It means they’re going to be closing breweries and cutting people’s jobs.”

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World Beer Fest, Durham

Text by Banjo Bandolas
Photos by Bonne Bandolas

Okay, I don’t know what happened, but I seem to have been deprived of the gene required to navigate large southern cities. First it was the chaos of Charlotte, now the sphincter tightening confusion of the Carolina Triangle. “The Triangle”, is the region in the Piedmont of North Carolina anchored by the cities of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. It’s home to over 1.6 million people and our destination for All About Beer Magazine’s World Beer Fest, Durham. After navigating the highways and byways of The Triangle for a few days I feel it should be ranked up there with the “Bermuda Triangle” on the list of places you could enter and never be heard from again.

After circling Durham for a while, a town that even confuses mapquest.com, we stopped at the visitor’s center and got directions to the Historic Durham Bull’s Field, not the shiny new Durham Bull’s Stadium in the center of town, but the original Durham Bull’s Stadium (where the movie Bull Durham was filmed) down in a natural bowl on Corporation street.

World Beer Festival

The event was sold out as usual. World Beer Fest has sold out in advance for both the Raleigh and Durham events in the past so if you plan to attend, buy your tickets in advance.

World Beer FestivalBonne and I arrived about an hour after the first session started and the fest was in full swing. An overcast sky kept the temperature down in the eighty’s but it was a very humid. An immediate cry for beer burst from our poor west coast acclimatized bodies. We hit the tasting tables for something cool to sip while we pondered the WBF program and flight lists provided by Flying Saucer.

The clowns were there again, I really do need to ask the guys from All About Beer Magazine what the deal is with the clowns. At least they weren’t a surprise this time so I wasn’t so creeped out by them. There was even an cute girl clown there this time. Does it make me weird if I find a clown attractive? Boy oh boy, I need that beer more than ever now.

The Whitbread Brewery table was the first we came to and I obtained a generous sample of Mackeson’s XXX Stout for each of us. Bonne was a bit apprehensive about starting with such a dark, formidable looking beer but I explained it was a milk stout and she’d be pleasantly surprised. Mickeson XXX Stout is brewed for Whitbread Brewing Co. UK by Boston Beer Co. at their Cincinnati location (the old Hudepohl brewery).

The pour is as black as burned coffee and light doesn’t penetrate it. Its burnt caramel foam head smells of caramel and roasted coffee. The taste is intense and bittersweet caramel, coffee and chocolate that fills the mouth followed by a great smooth finish, a really pleasing starter.

We found a couple seats over in center field and looked over the flights. Our choices were “Tar Heel Beers” (Nickname for North Carolinians), “Brews from Belgium”, “Culture Clash” (Bold American interpretations of European styles), “Hop Heads Delight”, “Going Green” (organics), “Classic British Ales”, “Not afraid of the dark” (a selection of dark beer styles), and my personal favorite, “You put what in my beer?” (There’s more to beer than barley, hops, yeast, and water.)

Neither of us really felt like sticking to a flight, or sitting under the tent where the tasting tour presentations that I enjoy so much were held. If you’ve ever experienced a truly muggy southern day you may have suffered what we were experiencing. Something I call high humidity madness. You can’t sit down, or even stand still, you’ve got to move, move, move, to create some airflow over your skin as the sweat pools and drips into every crease, fold, and crack on your body.

So, ducking in and out of the tents, (it was even worse in there) we worked our way down each row and selected beers strictly on a whim by whim basis. This lead to an afternoon of what we called “Russian Roulette” beer sampling. If it had a cool name, or there was no line, we tried it. We found some keepers, some blanks, and some duds.

World Beer Festival

Here are some of the keepers:

Polestar Pilsner, Left Hand Brewing, Colorado
Very nice pilsner. Nice clear golden color. Clean taste, the Saaz can definitely be detected. Very well balanced, not over hopped, characteristic bready taste and aftertaste but a little sweeter than your average pils.

Angry Angel, Big Boss brewery, North Carolina
This German-style pilsner is dry-hopped to increase the herbal flavor. Nice balance and a very unusual taste with a big hop finish. This is a very smooth, and refreshing beer.

Punkin Ale – Dogfish Head Brewery, Delaware
This beautiful orange/brown ale smells slightly of pumpkin with some nutmeg and cinnamon. The taste is nice and smooth with zero aftertaste, no hops I could detect. There was a slight pumpkin flavor along with toasted malt. Sam’s created a very drinkable seasonal here.

McEwan’s Scotch Ale
A dark brown ale with a smokey aroma mixed with malt and dark fruits that carries thru to the taste. An excellent scotch ale.

Sea Bee Honey Bock, Moonriver Brewery, Georgia
It was the giant mounds of peanuts they had at their booth that initially stopped us. Bonne’s fest favorite, the Honey Bock was a nice pause from heavily hopped beers. Mead-like in appearance and taste with enough carbonization to remind you it’s a beer. A very soft finish. I don’t know what the abv is but it’s probably high, watch out drinking this. It’ll sneak up on you.

The end of the first four-hour session came too soon and Bonne and I joined the throngs of happy fans streaming from the stadium like hundreds of thousands have in the past. Nostalgia and blessed air conditioning washed over me as we sat in our car afterwards and looked down on the old stadium below. Even with the heat, it had been a beery wonderful day in a unique and kinda quirky venue. There’s a quote from another Kevin Costner baseball movie that explains it, “if you build it, they will come.” All About Beer Magazine built a terrific fest and, boy oh boy, did they come. We’ll be back.

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Garrett Oliver editor for Oxford Companion to Beer

Garrett Oliver, brewmaster of The Brooklyn Brewery, has signed on as the Editor-In-Chief and leading author of The Oxford Companion to Beer, to be published by Oxford University Press in 2011.

The book will offer thousands of entries on beer-related topics, from history to styles, detailed methods of production, ingredients and their varieties, politics of beer, topics of debate, yeasts, climate change, wild fermentations, innovations and more.

A press release from Oxford press states, “It will be unlike any beer book ever published.” It points to Jancis Robinson’s seminal book The Oxford Companion to Wine to give readers and idea what to expect. That book weighs almost seven pounds.

“We couldn’t be more happy to be adding this title to our Oxford Food Reference list,” said Christian Purdy, director of publicity for Oxford University Press.

Oliver is author of The Brewmaster’s Table: Discovering the Pleasures of Real Beer with Real Food, which won the 2004 International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) Book Award and was also a finalist for the James Beard Foundation Book Award. Oliver has been brewing for 18 years and is a veteran of more than 500 beer dinners and tastings in eight countries.

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Oktoberfest records include lost dentures

Munich’s Oktoberfest closed Sunday, setting a daily record for beer consumption at 419,000 liters, up from 383,000 in 2006.

Organizers reported it attracted 6.2 million visitors who drank 6.7 million liters (the equivalent of 11 million pints) of beer, ate 104 oxen and lost three sets of false teeth. Some 50 lost children were also recovered.

“Without wanting to put a gloss on it, this really was a great Oktoberfest,” Munich Mayor Christian Ude told a news conference.