pale ales and kegs ohhh joyous day

Howdy,

Wow, its been awhile since I actually wrote a substantive post. Things get busy sometimes and you just forget to keep your blog up to date. What's a guy to do? Brew!

So my birthday was earlier in the month and my beautiful wife gave me the best gift a guy could ask for ... permission to fill our already crowded condo with more beer equipment. Primarily she said she was down with me kegging beer. Well a couple of weeks of research resulted in my decision to get a chest freezer to convert to a kegerator. The benefits of a chest freezer are that they hold a substantial number of corny kegs (I hope to have four kegs on tap, eventually) and that with a simple override apparatus you can manipulate the temperature quite easily. Your standard refrigerator is somewhat more difficult to manipulate and it would look somewhat ridiculous if we had two refrigertors in our 10 x 10 kitchen.

So far I have accumulated all of the gear that one would need to keg beer: a pair of corny kegs, a dual co2 regulator, a co2 tank, hoses and fittings, the chest freezer, and the temperature override. One thing that I haven't done yet is to fill the co2 tank with co2. My understanding is that "Bars by Bud" down Lee Highway fills co2 tanks. Additionally, for the time being I will be dispensing beer out of the standard picnic nozzle rather than a nice perlick or ventamatic faucet. Oh well, it wouldn't be any fun if I had everything I wanted right away.

So you've heard about the hardware, but what about the software? The main reason I am not currently serving draft beer is that I don't have any finished beer. What's a guy to do? Brew!

Two weeks ago a brewed up a 5 gallon batch of belgian pale ale that is currently fermenting away. I decided to make an approachable (approx 6%) pale that used honey as 1/3 of the total fermentables. Because honey ferments more completely than most sugars this should result in a light bodied pale that is being fermented with a golden belgian ale yeast strain. Oh yeah as usual I was generous with the American hops.

Today I decided to brew another pale ale. This one though was inspired by a recent business trip to the State of Michigan. While traveling to northern Michigan I stopped at Right Brain Brewing Company in Traverse City. Wow, talk about an awesome place. The pub had about 8 - 9 beers on draft and two other beers on cask. Despite trying many different beers while I was there, one in particular was overwelmingly memorable. It was called little italy honey basil pale ale. Now basil is not something you usually thing of when talking beer, but I've got to say it was magnificent. So today I brewed up what I hope will emulate that spectacular pale ale.

Hopefully in a couple of weeks I will be reporting to you that both of these pale ales are on tap a la casa Holzman. Stop by if you get the chance and pour yourself up a pint (seriously!). Ultimately I think I will colar the freezer and add tap faucets, similar to the following link:

http://www.homebrew.com/articles/article08170301.shtml

See you aroud Charlie Brown,

Holzbrew

$46 Billion Large

$46 BILLION

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB12 ... whats_news

I really don't know what to think of this:

InBev Makes Offer for Anheuser
By DAVID KESMODEL
June 11, 2008 5:05 p.m.

Belgium beer giant InBev NV has made an unsolicited bid of $46 billion for Anheuser-Busch Cos., Anheuser said Wednesday.

Anheuser said in a statement that its board will carefully evaluate the non-binding, $65-a-share proposal. The board "will pursue the course of action that is in the best interests of Anheuser-Busch's stockholders."

The St. Louis company didn't say when the board planned to respond. It would make its determination "in due course," the release said.

Anheuser is the world's third-largest brewer by volume and the dominant U.S. beer maker. InBev, based in Leuven, Belgium, is the second-largest brewer by volume after London's SABMiller.

InBev had been weighing a takeover bid for Anheuser for weeks, according to people familiar with the matter.



The last large American brewery.

Anheuser Busch being bought out by the Belgians?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story ... d=91143039

Anheuser-Busch Takeover Talk Shakes St. Louis
by Matt Sepic
Morning Edition, June 4, 2008

People inside Anheuser-Busch say a takeover of the St. Louis brewer by Belgium's InBev is possible -- though the company has not commented on a possible deal. Talk of the company's takeover has people in St. Louis on edge. The brewer is part of the city's identity, and not just as a major employer.

When word got out that InBev was interested in Anheuser-Busch, the nail-biting commenced. Layoffs are certainly a big concern. But the company's 6,000 local employees aren't the only ones who are worried about what foreign ownership might bring.

Anheuser-Busch is not the largest employer in St. Louis, but most visitors would be forgiven for thinking so. The name is everywhere: the law school building at Washington University, the August A. Busch Conservation Area, and of course the famous ballpark, now in its third incarnation.


Even though I don't care for their products, it almost seems wrong for such an American institution to be owned by a foreign company. Thoughts?

-HolzBrew

ABs pride and Coors fried

Every year Fortune magazine comes out with a list of America's most admired companies. Interestingly enough 'ole Anheuser-Busch was ranked number one this year. This list purports to be based upon eight metrics: Innovation, People Management, Use of Corporate Assets, Social Responsibility, Quality of Management, Financial Soundness, Long Term Investment, and Quality of Products and Services.

If you haven't figured it out by now, I've never been a big fan of ABs beers. That is why I was somewhat surprised that they ranked at the tops of the "innovation" list. I suppose it depends on what you consider innovation. If Bud Light Lime is innovation then I guess you've got a winner. But I can tell you what you won't see coming out this year from AB is a Belgian inspired beer, or a beer aged on South American aromatic wood (i.e. Dogfish's Palo Santo Marron). That being said I am not surprised by many of the other metrics. Financially speaking AB I think has always been an attractive investment. I think Warren Buffet would consider them a Wide-Moat investment. As far as quality, I think it depends on how you define quality. But one thing is for sure AB does make a tremendous effort to make sure their beer is consistently the same. I mean if you were able to safely store a canned Budweiser from five years ago, you would probably find that it tastes almost exactly the same as a Budweiser you bought yesterday. That says something about their quality control.

Interesting to note is that Coors listed as the least admired company in the US. Considering that I classify most of their products in the same class as ABs products, I don't know if I could even begin to explain this disparity. I have heard that Pete Coors is an ardent right wing politically inclined individual and I'd have to wonder if that plays into their least admired status. I mean being an outspoken republican isn't exactly "popular" currently. Also the fact that Coors allowed themselves to be bought by a Canadian company (Molson), probably factored into this as well.


-HolzBrew

Savor the Flavor

Due to the availability of some last minute tickets from a friend at work (Thanks Kevin!), M and I attended the Savor craft beer event this past Saturday at the Mellon Auditorium in DC. First, the Mellon Auditorium is a beautiful venue for an event like this. It is also conveniently close to the Federal Triangle metro stop, which a great option for a beer fest (read: designated driver).

Each session was limited to 700 people and apparently every session sold out. It was nice to attend an event like this that was limited in size. Usually brew fests get rather crowded, but I think this one wasn’t too bad. A nice thing about an event of this size is that you actually had some access to the brewers and reps.

The idea behind this brew fest was that each brewer was to bring two beers and pair them with an appropriate food selection. The food was prepared in appetizer style. The selection of breweries who attended this event was great. I’d list them, but instead I’ll link them here. Some memorable pairings were Four Peaks 8^th Street Ale and rosemary chocolates, and Full Sail Session Lager and bite-sized stout burgers. In addition to the pairings some very memorable beers were: St. Louis Brewery’s barleywine, ’06 and ’07 Dogfish Head World Wide Stout, and Russian River’s Pliny the Elder. I really wish Four Peaks and St. Louis Brewery distributed in the DC area, hopefully, one day they will.

M and I were having so much fun walking and talking the booths that we did not even attend any of the speeches that were made. I think the crowd as this event was perfect, almost everyone was nicely dressed and polite. Generally, people went out of their way to move aside after they had been served their sample and continue their conversations without being to obstructive of the booth. Probably the only complaint that I had was the bathroom scene. There was only one men’s bathroom with two urinals and two stalls. This resulted in a rather lengthy bathroom break.

In conclusion, I think this was a great event for craft beer. It showed the pairing versatility of craft beer and food. It also was a classy event, yet the crowd wasn’t too snooty. At the end of the day we have to remember that we are talking about beer here and its something that is fun and yet it is to be respected.

Respect Beer,

HolzBrew

Stout-Tastic

I poured up a Guerrilla Stout after dinner and I couldn't resist snapping a photo for the site.

Through darkness you'll find enlightenment.

-HolzBrew

Polo Loco

So this past weekend M and I found ourselves at the Americas Cup of Polo in Leesburg. This particular match was between the Italians and Americans. Now hanging out at Polo matches is not our usual scene, but my buddy Chris (actually his new lady friend, Katie) came through with some free VIP tickets and it sounded kind of cool. Next week I think I'll check out a fox hunt or maybe a cricket match.


Before the match began we were all thirsty and looking for some beverages. There was no beer in sight, but a couple of different Virginia wineries had tents with multiple offerings. Our foursome pulled up to the Vino Curioso tent to check out their vinos. After a brief discussion with the guys working the tent Chris and I picked out a Cabernet. The Cab was OK, but lord knows I was jonesing for a brew. After seeing a few people walk by with Yuengling, I realized that the VIP tent was handing out FREE BEER! Glory Hallelujah!

Meg and Katie made a beer run for us and Meg picked us up a Bierra Morretti and a Morretti LaRossa. Now the Morretti was a fairly average Euro Pale Lager, but the LaRossa was a really nice malty Dobblebock. I was just pumped to be drinking a beer at a hoighty polo match. The best thing about it was that probably twenty people came up to our foursome to ask us where we found the beer. That crowd was thirsty and the only thirst quencher for them was beer.

All in all it was a great Saturday afternoon. I learned a little about the sport of Polo and I learned a lot about the power of beer.

Out,

HolzBrew