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A-B shopping spree continues with Breckenridge acquistion

Anheuser-Busch today announced it will acquire Colorado-based Breckenridge Brewery. Breckenridge Brewery is the seventh craft brewery to join The High End, Anheuser-Busch’s business unit of craft and import brands. Goose Island Beer Company, Blue Point Beer Company, 10 Barrel Brewing, Elysian Brewing Company, Golden Road Brewing and Four Peaks Brewing Company are the others.

A-B announced that it has acquired Four Peaks only Friday, and in the interim A-B InBev bought Camden Town Brewery in London.

“We’re excited about the partnership and have been encouraged to continue on our path and become more innovative moving forward,” Breckenridge president Todd Usry said in a press release. “I’m a believer in what The High End is focused on accomplishing and we are flattered that our team was chosen to help guide that journey. We’re looking forward to utilizing resources like decades of research and brewing expertise as we continue to create new beers.”

Available in 35 states, Breckenridge Brewery will sell approximately 70,000 barrels of beer in 2015. The partnership includes the company’s new production brewery and Farm House restaurant in Littleton, and original brewpub and current innovation center in the mountain town of Breckenridge.

The current management group, Breckenridge-Wynkoop, will continue to own and operate its remaining businesses including: Ale House at Amato’s in Denver; Breckenridge Ale House in Grand Junction; Breckenridge Colorado Craft in Denver; The Cherry Cricket in Denver; Mainline in Fort Collins; Phantom Canyon Brewing Co. in Colorado Springs; and Wynkoop Brewing Company in Denver.

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HefeWheaties – trend or gimmick?

A Minneapolis brewery has partnered with General Mills to create a limited edition beer called HefeWheaties. Not surprisingly it will be a German-style hefeweizen.

General Mills stated in a press release that the beer will not actually contain Wheaties cereal, but will be representative of the Wheaties brand.

Fulton Brewery plans to release the beer Aug. 26 and only in Minnesota.

“We’ll see how people react to it,” said Fulton co-founder Ryan Petz. “If it’s something everybody loves, we’ll obviously consider doing it again in a bigger and more widely distributed way in the future.”

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Craft beer production up 16%

The craft brewing industry has continued a strong pace of growth in the first half of 2015, according to new mid-year data released by the Brewers Association. American craft beer (as defined by the BA) production volume increased 16% during the first half of the year.

From January through the end of June 2015, approximately 12.2 million barrels of beer were sold by craft brewers, up from 10.6 million barrels during the first half of 2014.

“Industry growth is occurring in all regions and stemming from a mix of sources including various retail settings and a variety of unique brewery business models,” BA economist Bart Watson said in a press release. “The continued growth of small and independent brewers illustrates that additional market opportunities and demand are prevalent.”

As of June 30, 2015, 3,739 breweries were operating in the U.S, an increase of 699 breweries over the same time period of the previous year. Additionally, there were 1,755 breweries in planning. Craft brewers currently employ an estimated 115,469 full-time and part-time workers.

“More and more Americans are discovering the joys of enjoying fresh beer produced by their neighborhood brewery. By supporting local, small and independent craft breweries, beer lovers are gradually returning the United States to the system of localized beer production that existed for much of our nation’s history,” Watson said.

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Economic impact of brewing in New York

The numbers aren’t quite up to date — and given recent growth they would likely be even more impressive — but the growing economic impact of brewing in New York’s state economy is apparent.

Impact of craft beer in New York state

The New York State Brewers Association (NYSBA) &#151 whose motto is “Think New York, Drink New York” — found that in 2013 the impact of craft beer on New York State to total $3.5 billion (up from $2.2 billion in 2012). The figure takes into account the number of full-time jobs generated by the local beer industry (11,366 jobs); wages ($554 million paid); state and local taxes paid ($748 million in taxes); and craft beer tourism ($450 million in tourism dollars).

“When the NYSBA was founded in 2003 there were only 38 breweries in the state, today there are over 200,” David Katleski, NYSBA co-founder David Katleski said in a press released. “Through years of relationship building in Albany, we were able to help craft legislation that laid the foundation for the growth we are seeing today. New York State is certainly on the national radar as a brewing powerhouse, and these numbers show the results of a craft beer friendly New York State.”

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St. Louis newcomer already plans 2nd brewery

Only two years old, Urban Chestnut Brewing Company in St. Louis has announced plans to open a second and significantly larger production brewery in the city.

The new facility will immediately increase UCB’s annual brewing capacity to about 15,000 barrels. The project, expected to cost about $10 million, will add approximately 10 full-time and 30 part-time jobs within the next two years. Projected to open in early 2014, UCBC is partnering with Green Street St. Louis (Green Street), an real estate firm recognized for the sustainable redevelopment of underutilized St. Louis-area commercial properties into LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified buildings.

UCB co-founders Florian Kuplent and David Wolfe worked with Green Street for over a year to identify a suitable property. They chose the former Renard Paper Company at 4465 Manchester Ave., which will become a 70,000 square foot production brewery, packaging facility, warehouse and indoor/outdoor retail tasting room. Beyond embracing the principles of environmental stewardship and social responsibility by seeking LEED certification, UCBC & Green Street also plan to modify the façade of the current city-block long warehouse to visibly and physically integrate it into the already vibrant “The Grove” neighborhood.

“People might ask why open a second facility and also locate it in St. Louis? Well, first and foremost 95% of the beer we sold last year was in St. Louis, and like Schlafly and many of the other small, local brewers, we’re dedicated to the evolution of St. Louis as a craft beer destination,” Wolfe said for a press release.

Kuplent, who oversees the brewing said, explained that the original facility would soon be at capacity. “We never imagined we’d grow this fast,” he said for the press release. “Essentially it means we’re going to run out of the space to add further capacity at our current location sometime this year . . . and we mostly have St. Louis beer drinkers and our retail partners to thank for that!”

Operationally, Urban Chestnut plans to brew, package and sell beer at both locations:

– The current 20-barrel brew house, tasting room and biergarten, located at 3229 Washington Ave. in Midtown St. Louis, will remain open and will be utilized to primarily test, brew, and package smaller batch beers.

– Initially the new brewery will have an annual capacity of approximately 15,000 barrels using a 60-barrel brewhouse, with the space to expand to 100,000 barrels.

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Drinking more craft beer? You’re not alone

The Brewers Association announced that sales of what it defines as craft beer grew 14 percent in the first half of 2011, with dollar sales up 15 percent.

Craft brewers sold an estimated 5.1 million barrels in the first half of the year.

“Craft brewers continue to innovate and brew beers of excellent quality,” said Paul Gatza, director of the Brewers Association. “America’s beer drinkers are rapidly switching to craft because of the variety of flavors they are discovering. And they are connecting with small and independent craft brewers as companies they choose to support.”

The association reports that the number of breweries nationally has increased by 165 since June of 2010, to 1,790 breweries. Additionally, it lists 725 breweries in planning today compared to 389 a year ago.

“There is a growing interest in establishing new breweries,” Gatza added. “It seems like every day we are hearing about a brewery in planning. Will they all make it? No, but many will if they produce high-quality, interesting craft beers and can get them to market through self-distribution and beer wholesalers and beer retailers.”

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UK beer sales tumble; pubs hit hardest

Taxes are being blamed as beer sales in the United Kingdom, particularly in bars and pubs, continue to fall.

Total sales were off 3.9% in 2010, while pub sales tumbled 7.5%. Trade in supermarkets and stores rose .6%.

The totals indicate 333 million fewer pints were sold in pubs in 2010. On-trade beer sales have now fallen 20.2%.

Brigid Simmonds, chief executive of British Beer & Pub Association, said the figures revealed the government was “cooking the golden goose” because lower sales meant the government collected £257m less in tax revenue.

She called for plans to further boost taxes to be abandoned. “Huge tax rises are having a big impact on beer sales,” she said. “The government should abandon plans for above inflation hikes in beer tax in the budget, as further rises are simply unsustainable.”

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Spanish brewery takes stake in United States Beverage

S.A. Damm, one of Spain’s largest beverage companies, has taken a minority stake in United States Beverage. US Beverage currently imports and markets Estrella Damm, INEDIT and Daura in the United States for Damm.

“I’m excited by this partnership particularly because I believe our business across the entire portfolio will benefit,” Joseph Fisch, president and CEO of US Beverage, said for a press release. “The investment will provide USB with greater stability, market power and resources, enhancing our ability to optimize the position for all of our brands.”

“Group Damm’s goal is to be the leader in each sector in which we compete,” said Jorge Villavecchia, CEO, S. A. Damm. “In looking for access to the lucrative US market, we wanted to find the right partner, with a proven track record for building great brands. US Beverage has proven through their performance that they are the ideal partner for us in the US.”

The USB management team will continue to manage all aspects of the company. The company plans to increase its sales force in major markets throughout the US.

“Through a combination of smart marketing and focused sales, every brand in our portfolio has experienced double-digit growth year to date,” Fisch said. “With the additional resources that we’ll be adding in terms of increased personnel and brand spending, our outlook for 2011 is equally strong.”

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The Science of Smell

smell
NPR’s Science Friday had a show last week devoted to The Science of Smell. If you’ve ever taken tasting beer seriously, you know how important smell is to the flavor of beer (and everything else). Host Ira Flatow discussed Olfaction with research scientists Stuart Firestein and Donald Wilson. The show’s only a little under 18 minutes but is pretty interesting.

For example, twenty years ago [the field of olfaction] made the most important discovery in the modern era of olfaction, which “was the identification and cloning of a large family of receptors in our noses that mediate the sense of smell that act like a lock. If you think of it, odor is a key, and when they fit together, the brain is clued in to the fact that this odor is out there somehow. And this identification of this large, large family of genes, a thousand of them in many animals, as many as 450 in us, mediates this smell.

This turns out to be “the largest gene family in the mammalian genome. The mammalian genome, typically, we think consists of about 25,000 genes. So in a mouse, it’s about 5 percent of the genes and even in us, it’s almost 2 percent. About one out of every 50 genes in your genome was devoted to your nose.”

And here’s a later revealing exchange, from the transcript:

Dr. FIRESTEIN: I think we use our nose a lot more than most people believe. The biggest problem with our sense of smell or the feeling that we don’t have a good sense of smell is actually our bipedalism, the fact that we walk on two legs. And we have our noses stuck up here five or six feet in the air, when all the good odors are about eight or 10 inches off the ground. Or for example, as the case with other animals, they’re more willing to put their nose where the odors are, shall we say, delicately.

FLATOW: And well, we’ve always heard that animals like let’s pick out dogs, bloodhounds and things like that, that dogs are able to smell so much more sensitively than us in all different kinds of smells. Is that true?

Dr. FIRESTEIN: Well, it’s a good question. I mean, I often say to people who ask me that question, if they have such a good sense of smell, why do they think they do that greeting thing that they do?

Dr. FIRESTEIN: You think you could do that from 10 feet away, you know?

FLATOW: Well, that’s true. They get right up there and sniff you.

Dr. FIRESTEIN: Boy, they sure do.

FLATOW: So why do they need to be so close if they smell…

Dr. FIRESTEIN: Yes, well so some of this is behavioral, and a part of it, the another way to show that, I think, for humans, is that we actually have very sophisticated palate, for example, for food, much more than many other animals and we know that most of flavor is really olfaction.

And here’s another interesting exchange about the specifics of our sense of smell, insert “beer” in the place of “coffee” and the process of judging beer critically works the same way.

FLATOW: Don Wilson, tell us what happens what is connected to our noses in the sensory? What goes on in the brain when we smell something?

Dr. WILSON: Well, it’s actually really exciting because – so these you mentioned the ABCs of olfaction. I think that’s a good analogy because these hundreds of different receptors that Stuart just mentioned essentially are recognizing different features of a molecule. You don’t have — for most of odors, you don’t have a receptor for that particular odor. You don’t have a coffee receptor or a vanilla or a strawberry receptor. You have receptors that are recognizing small pieces of the molecules that you’re inhaling, and the aroma of coffee, for example, is made up of hundreds of different molecules.

So what the brain then has to do is make sense of this pattern of input that’s coming in: I’ve got receptors A, B and C activated when I smell this odor, and I’ve got receptors B, C, D and E activated when I smell this other odor. And what we’ve found is that what the brain is really doing with the olfactory cortex and the early parts of the olfactory system are doing is letting those features into what we and others would consider something like an odor object, so that you perceive now a coffee aroma from all of these individual features that you’ve inhaled. And, in fact, once you’ve perceived that coffee aroma, you really can’t pick out that, you know, there’s a really good ethyl ester in my Starbucks today or something – you really have an object that you can’t break down into different components. So that’s what the brain is doing.

And we know that part of that building of the object, that synthetic processing of all these features, is heavily dependent on memory. So you learn to put these features together and experience this odor the first time. So it’s really a – in some ways, olfaction seems really simple. They suck a molecule up my nose and it binds to a receptor and so I must know what I’ve just inhaled. But, in fact, it’s a fairly complex process where it’s akin to object perception and other sensory systems.

FLATOW: Does the fact that it elicits such strong memories — you know, so you can a smell from 40 years ago or something. Is it because — are they close together, the centers for smell and memory in the brain?

Dr. WILSON: Well, in humans, it’s — in some ways, the olfactory cortex is really enveloped by — embraced by parts of the brain that are important for emotion and memory. There are direct reciprocal connections between the olfactory system and the amygdala and hippocampus, these parts that are important for emotion and memory. So – and we think that as you’re putting these features together to make this perceptual object, the brain and the cortex is also sort of listening to the context of which I’m smelling it, maybe the emotions that I’m having as I’m smelling it. And those can, in fact, we think can become an integral part of the percept itself. So it not only becomes difficult to say what the molecules were within that coffee aroma, but it also becomes difficult to isolate the emotional responses you’re having with that same odor.

After that they go on about memory and aromas, and then take calls from listeners. You can also hear the entire discussion below or at Science Friday’s website (or download it below or at NPR) and also see the full transcript.

download mp3: mp3 download

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Beer news: ‘Bend Ale Trail’ and more

Visit Bend has introduced the “Bend Ale Trail,” an interactive tour of the city’s craft breweries. “Bend’s craft breweries now rank among the favorite attractions of visitors to Central Oregon,” said Doug La Placa, president of Visit Bend, the city’s tourism bureau. “Bend’s world-class beer culture is an excellent complement to the region’s renowned outdoor recreation and highlighting it is the logical next step in diversifying our tourism offerings.”

A 2009 Bend tourism research project conducted by RRC Associates indicated that 28% of summer visitors to Bend visited a brewery during their stay – placing brewery visits as the fifth most enjoyed tourist activity behind hiking, dining, shopping and biking.

The Bend Ale Trail is a collaborative multi-faceted program between Visit Bend and eight of the region’s top craft breweries: 10 Barrel Brewing Co., Bend Brewing Company, Cascade Lakes Brewing Co, Deschutes Brewery, McMenamins Old St. Francis School, Silver Moon Brewing, Boneyard Beer and Three Creeks Brewing Co. The Bend Ale Trail will feature a variety of elements. Details.

  • Heineken is allowing drinkers Ireland to label their own bottles of Heineken. Drinkers have 42 different bottle designs to choose from and may add their own text in the online offer.
  • The Siebel Institute Advanced Homebrewing Course, held in Colorado in recent years, returns to Siebel’s home base of Chicago this year. Ray Daniels, Chris Graham, Randy Mosher and Chris White will once again lead homebrewers through five days of classroom instruction and hands-on activities July 26-30. Details.
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    Oskar Blues ‘breakout brand of the year’

    Beverage World has announced that Oskar Blues won gold as “breakout brand of the year” in the publication’s analysis of all beverages in the market today. Oskar Blues topped other products such as TY KU Sake, New Leaf Tea, FRS Healthy Energy Drinks, MonaVie açai berry drinks and Guayakí Yerba Mate as the “breakout brand of the year.”

    The first craft brewery to can its own beer on premise back in 2002, Oskar Blues has been joined by about 75 other small breweries (so far) in canning their own beer.

    “We were the can guys,” Oskar Blues owner Dale Ketchis told Beverage World. “Early on we had an advantage because we weren’t trying to add a canning line to a current bottling line, this was our baby, so we wanted to drive it home. We wanted to educate everyone that it’s a better package, period. In order to do that we truly had to have 110 percent buy-in. The biggest advantage was that we bought in early to the idea and we’re still riding that wave.”

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    Deschutes, Hair of the Dog collaboration due in 2011

    Oregon breweries Deschutes Brewery and Hair of the Dog Brewing today announced that they are working together on a beer that will be released some time next year.

    From the press release:

    “When we started talking about collaborating on a project, Alan Sprints at Hair of the Dog was the first person I thought of working with,” said Gary Fish, president of Deschutes Brewery. “We’ve known each other for a long time and partnering on a project like this was the perfect way to be able to do something original and unique together. When you have two creative companies embarking on a creative project together, something fun is bound to result.”

    Sprints came over to Bend in early March to brew two of his beers at the Deschutes Brewery brewhouse. Then it was Deschutes Brewery brewmaster Larry Sidor’s turn to brew two of his own beers. These four beers (which will remain unnamed as yet) will be aged in various wood barrels and then blended together sometime in early 2011 in a ratio yet to be determined as part of the creative process. Over the next several months, Hair of the Dog and Deschutes Brewery will be meeting to sample the aging beer and contemplate the blending process.

    Sprints said, “This partnership was born in an effort to express the vitality of today’s American brewing community and push the boundaries of what is commonly known as beer. Both of our companies share a pride in Oregon products and I have long admired the level of professionalism that Gary brings to the brewing industry. My idea was to do a blend of beers that we already produced, merging our products and passion for beer, hoping to create a beverage that will be deep, complex, earthy and beguiling.”

    This is the first collaborative beer for each of the companies, and everyone is excited to see how the new beer will develop. Fish continued, “We have no idea how these four beers will taste blended together, but we do know that the total will be greater than the sum of its parts.”

    It would appear that the blend will not include equal portions of each of the brews. Think anybody would buy the leftovers?

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    Canadian wine sales cut into beer consumption

    Statistics Canada reports that growing interest in drinking wine has cut into Canadian beer sales.

    “We can’t say definitively, but if you look at the age of baby boomers in 1976 and you look at the age of a baby boomer in 2009, that might help explain the story,” analyst Jo Ann MacMillan said. In 1976 the average person consumed about 115 liters of beer, and today the average is down to 83.5 liters.

    “In 1976, baby boomers were quite young. They didn’t have a lot of money and their preference would have been to drink beer. Today, when the boomers are . . . 40 years older, we have beer consumption going down and wine going up.”

    Other noteworthy numbers from the report:

  • Beer’s market share had decline from 53 per cent in 1993 to 46 per cent in 2009.
  • Canadians bought 441.4 million liters of wine, 64 per cent of that red and rose. Dollar sales of red and rose have more than doubled between 2000 and 2009, while white wine sales have climbed by 50 per cent.
  • Domestic wines grabbed more market share of that increase than imported. Just over 24 per cent of all reds and rosés sold in Canada were domestic, compared with almost 39 per cent of whites.
  • Imported beer has more than doubled its market share in the last decade, to up to 13 per cent of the beer market in 2009.
  • A 5.6 per cent increase in vodka sales kept revenues up for hard liquor sales across the country, but a drop in domestic liquor sales kept volumes down. Whisky, scotch and bourbon stayed the most popular spirits, accounting for 27 per cent of all spirit sales in 2009.
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    Brewing, cooking stars plan Manhattan brewery-pub

    This press release sent a shock wave through online beer world Saturday:

    Four well-know brewers are joining forces with Mario Batali, Joe Bastianich, and Italian food emporium Eataly to open a brewery-pub on a New York City rooftop with breathtaking views of the Flatiron and Empire State Buildings.

    The four breweries collaborating on this project include two Italian craft brewers – Teo Musso, Brewmaster of Birrificio Le Baladan and Leonardo Di Vincenzo of Birra del Borgo, and two Italian-American craft brewers – Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery and Vinnie Cilurzo of the Russian River Brewery.

    The first floor of the building at 200 5th Avenue will house Eataly, an epic Italian specialty foods market and multiple restaurants which pair gourmet foods with artisanal beers and wines. Additionally, there will be an 8,000 square foot rooftop brewery and restaurant operated by B&B Hospitality’s Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich.

    The rooftop bar and restaurant will house a copper-clad brewing system. “The idea is to create an artisanal, old world Italian craft brewery that just happens to be located on a rooftop in Manhattan,” says Dogfish Head’s Sam Calagione. The four brewers are working together on recipes for Eataly’s house beers. Those beers will feature Italian and American ingredients. The beers will be unpasteurized, unfiltered, naturally carbonated, and hand-pulled through traditional beer engines for the most authentic and pure presentation. The four individual brewers will also occasionally brew beers under their own names on site. The rooftop restaurant project will pair artisanal rustic, homemade beers with the artisanal, rustic cooking of Chef Mario Batali. Additional Italian and American regional craft beers will be served both at the rooftop bar and within the downstairs restaurants.

    Craft beer sales continue to gain traction in America and around the world. With all the diversity, complexity and food-compatibility of world-class wine at a fraction of the price, the craft beer segment enjoys continued growth in a challenging economy.

    The four consulting brewers met in Boston this week to brew the first test batch of Eataly beer, an English Mild fermented with Italian chestnut powder (photos above). Plans call for Eataly New York to open late summer 2010.

    More from the brewers . . .

    “Eataly is the representation of the earth, its products and an example of real Italian taste. The brewery will surely be a fusion of Italian and Italian/American styles and I am very happy to make this journey with this fantastic group!”
    – Teo Musso, Brewmaster , Birrificio Le Baladin

    “In 2006 I went to the Slow Food Salone del Gusto in Italy. Upon meeting many Italian craft brewers, I was not only impressed by the quality of their beer, but, their passion for brewing as well. It was at that time I learned how great Italian craft beer was! To now collaborate with two of the most dynamic Italian craft brewers along with my friend Sam Calagione at Eataly New York will not only be a lot of fun, but, very educational as well.”
    – Vinnie Cilurzo, Brewer/Owner, Russian River Brewing Company

    “Eataly Brewery will be a great fusion of the well-known Italian gastronomic culture and our rising beer culture with the taste and the creativity of the American craft beer movement. This may well be the craziest and amazing brewery in the world.”
    – Leonardo Di Vincenzo, Brewmaster, Birra del Borgo

    “While the Italian craft brewing renaissance started later than ours here in the states , they have quickly made up for lost time with world class artisanal beers. Both Dogfish Head and Russian River have pushed the boundries of beer, particularly those that pair well with food, for many years. We are looking forward to working with our Italian Brewing Brethren, Mario Batali, Joe Bastianich, and the folks at Eataly to further strengthen the bond between world class beer and world class food in the most beautiful setting for a brewery I have ever seen.”
    – Sam Calagione, President/Founder, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery

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    New Goose Island Green Line is, well, ‘green’

    Goose Island in Chicago has rolled out a new beer called Green Line Pale Ale that is part of the brewery’s Green Line Project, an initiative to reduce the brewery’s environmental impact.

    Goose Island is making the beer available only on tap, which reduces packaging. The tap handles were made from reclaimed ash trees killed by the ash borer in Wilmette.

    “We had been thinking of ways to brew more sustainably for a while,” Goose Island brewmaster Greg Hall told the Chicago Tribune during and event to launch the beer. “So we did an organic beer for Whole Foods a few years back but we wanted to do something more local. We know that when you go into Chicago alleys you often see a lot of garbage, bottles and boxes for beer. We wanted to find a way to reduce that and so we figured one way would be to go with an all draft beer.”

    What does it taste like? From the Tribune story:

    “Monica Eng, who claims no beer expertise whatsoever, says: nice malty nose, a light refreshing flavor lovely corny finish.

    “Josh Noel, our beer correspondent’s take: Considering how good Goose Island’s higher end products are (Matilda, Sofie, Bourbon County Stout) and how middling the lower end stuff is (312, Honker’s Ale, IPA), I wasn’t optimistic about this pale ale. But it’s a winner. Green Line Pale Ale is so drinkable because it doesn’t try to do a lot. The hops are clear (more in the taste than nose), but don’t overwhelm. The malt is roasty, but appropriately restrained. It could stand to pop with a few more grapefruit notes like a good pale should, but a brewer said he expects future batches to be improved in this respect. Green Line will make a particularly fine warm weather beer for those who want a little more muscle than 312. It immediately vaults to the top of Goose Island’s more affordable beers.”

    And from blogger Andrew Gill:

    “I thought it was kind of like an India Pale Ale with training wheels. Brewmaster Greg Hall said his inspiration for Green Line was mixing 312 with Goose Island IPA at the Pitchfork Music Fest. I think that’s exactly what it tastes like – a session beer with just enough bitterness to be interesting.”