Ever hear of the Cicerone Certification Program? It’s similar to a wine Sommelier, but is for experts who love and are passionate about beer. Based on everything I’ve seen in the craft beer world, it is the most advanced and difficult beer education program in existence. Specifically, Cicerone is an incredibly difficult series of tests created by a mentor of mine, Ray Daniels.
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27
Jul
Beer on ice is delicious and refreshing.
Stay with me here.
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The End of History – featuring dead animals – comes at £500 a bottle
A beer served in bottles made from stuffed animals has been criticized as “perverse” and “pushing the boundaries of acceptability”. The End of History, made by BrewDog of Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, is 55% and £500 a bottle. The bottles have been made using seven dead stoats, four squirrels and a hare, said to be roadkill.
However, Advocates for Animals and Alcohol Focus Scotland both condemned the marketing.
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Yards Brewing Co.’s Ales of the Revolution are beers with a history chaser. The Philadelphia microbrewery, which opened in 1995 in a building the size of a toolshed and now occupies a former skateboard rink, has attempted to replicate the brews our Colonial forefathers would have downed while talking sedition in wayside taverns.
General Washington’s Tavern Porter takes its cue from a home-brew recipe, preserved in the New York Public Library, that Washington jotted down while he was serving in the Continental Army. It calls for fermenting a “small beer” from molasses, evidently a more common ingredient than barley in that era.
Yards President Tom Kehoe compromised, beginning with a base rich in dark, heavily roasted malts, then adding four pounds per barrel of baking molasses during the second fermentation. The sugar-rich molasses kicks up the alcohol to 7 percent by volume, but enough residual sweetness remains in the beer to balance the sharper, coffeelike flavors.
Thomas Jefferson’s Tavern Ale presented a bit of a dilemma, Kehoe says. Jefferson brewed extensively at Monticello, but in his voluminous records he never recorded a complete beer recipe. Rather, he left the fine details to a slave named Peter Hemings, brother of the more famous Sally Hemings.
Kehoe scoured our third president’s farm records and “used whatever was available at Monticello in formulating the beer.” In addition to barley, Tavern Ale is brewed from 30 percent wheat (a major crop at Monticello), plus small amounts of corn, oats, rye and honey. At 8 percent alcohol, it’s more potent than the porter. “They made them strong back then to hide their mistakes,” Kehoe says with a laugh.
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From Wiki…
It was founded in 2000 by Brewmaster,Alastair Hook,[1] who trained at the world famous brewing school at the Technical University of Munich of Weihenstephan. The Greenwich Brewery, home of the Meantime Brewing Company, is located 0° 2′ 12″ east of the Greenwich Meridian, though the brewery will be moving to new premises in 2010.
This mission driven company aims to help the consumer rediscover their cultural and culinary beer heritage, which it believes has, in the UK at least, largely been lost as beer manufacture has been concentrated in the hands of a smaller number of ever bigger brewers, who do not wish the consumer to have any great understanding or appreciation of beer.
Since its establishment Meantime has built a worldwide reputation for both quality and for the authentic recreation of several of the world’s iconic and pivotal beer styles. Its India Pale Ale and London Porter (beer) are generally regarded as being amongst the most historically accurate recreations of these beers available today.
Meantime has matched its reputation for autheticity with one for innovation. Its CoffeePorter – launched in 2005 – was Britain’s first Fairtrade beer (using coffee from the Maraba Coffee cooperative of Rwanda), and went on to win a gold medal at the 2006 World Beer Cup. Meantime was the first British brewery to win medals at the World Beer Cup in 2004 and is the only British brewery to have won medals at every WBC since. In 2007 Meantime had no fewer than four beers ranked in the ‘Worlds 50 Best Beers’ as compiled by the UK based International Beer Challenge; a feat it repeated in 2008.
As a consequence of Meantime’s stiving to raise the bar of British brewing Alastair Hook was named the 2008 Brewer of the Year by the British Guild of Beer Writers.
The tour video tour guide from The Guardian visits with a Meantime brewer. Our video tour guide makes the tour even better! Want to watch? Click…
23
Jul
Pat,
Would you kindly send out to the club the following of Rick’s remaining homebrew items for sale. Some things may be negotiable or may be packaged. They can call Rick at 850-292-9261.
Thanks!
Cheers!
Carol
(1) stand up bottle capper $10.00
(1) two arm bottle capper $5.00
(3) air locks @ bungs $1.00 each
(1) bottle cap C02 filler $15.00
(1) carboy carrier harness $10.00
(1) crimper for 1/2″ tubing .25
(1) crimper for 1/4″ tubing .25
(1) aeration stone & air pump $25.00
(2) 15.5 gallon kegs, intact $35.00 each
(1) homebrew recipe calculator $1.00
(1) keg blanket $5.00
Carol Z. Monroe
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22
Jul
After 1 potato beer, 2 potato, 4… we often get the munchies and eat a lot more!
Nashville, TN area
I just followed up with Stephanie at Blackstone, and we’re all squared away for another evening get-together this coming Monday (July 26) at 5:00, and our August monthly club meeting on Saturday, Aug. 14 beginning at NOON. We will plan to have both of these gatherings in the side dining room that looks out over the patio on the West End Ave. side.
The August meeting will last about an hour or so, in order for members to leave in time to get over to Boscos for the Cellarman party. Blackstone will be prepared with several servers so that folks can order lunch and eat there during the meeting. We will probably not do as much tasting as we usually do, and will spend the bulk of the time continuing to work on the Competition details.
This Monday, I plan to bring some samples of a few things that I’ve set aside. However, I will be leaving around 6:30 to head downtown for the Paul McCartney concert.
Hope to see you there!
Steve
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Hey All,
It’s getting near time for things to start coming together for the MCBO this year. Read the rest of this entry »
