Breaking News: DOJ Approves Mega-Merger

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I just did the Six-Pack yesterday, but this is too big to ignore.

The U.S. Department of Justice has approved the merger of the world's two largest beer companies. Anhueser-Busch InBev (aka Budweiser, among others) and SABMiller (which includes the Coors and Miller families of beer among its brands) have cleared this final global regulatory hurdle this afternoon, as confirmed by A-B InBev. Now, like the approvals from the European Union, South Africa, and others, this DOJ approval will likely include stipulations. A-B InBev has already had to make plans to divest itself of most of SABMiller's European holdings, and this is expected to continue in the U.S., where SAB Miller will likely have to spin MillerCoors off to MolsonCoors (MillerCoors was an existing joint venture of the two beer companies).

The result will be A-B InBev controlling 29% of the world's beer supply, and the macrogiant gaining an increased foothold and level of access into Africa, SABMiller was originally a South African company, and Asia.

In additional news, MillerCoors bought a majority stake in Athens, GA craft brewery Terrapin Beer Company, up from their previous 21% stake, which was still low enough to call Terrapin a "craft brewery". Between the mega-merger and Goose Island's recent problems, it's hard for me to be super-optimistic about Terrapin's future.

Six-Pack of News, Volume 7

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We lead off with an always-engaging topic: Game of Thrones. Apparently, Brewery Ommegang joined the throngs of Thronies disappointed by the recent news of a late and shortened Season 7 of the hit HBO fantasy series, and decided to cope by moving up the next beer in their until-now-annual Game of Thrones series. Valar Dohaeris Belgian-Style Tripel will be available starting on October 10th, and will be joined by what could be considered its returning brother, Valar Morghulis Dubbel Ale. I reviewed this year's start-of-season offering, Seven Kingdoms Ale, and you expect to see Valar Dohaeris on this site later this year.

Staying in the realm of the nerdy, San Diego Comic-Con is mere days away, and Stone Brewing will be preceding the annual convention with HopCon 4.0, their 4th annual beer festival celebrating beers created by nerds, actors, comedians, and nerdy actors and comedians. The concept started with Stone's initial collaboration with former Star Trek: The Next Generation star Wil Wheaton and fark.com founder Drew Curtis 4 years ago, known as Stone Farking W00tstout, which has now become an annual release. This year's HopCon will feature W00tstout variants and other unique beers created by nerdy personalities, with Wheaton and Curtis joined by comedienne and tv host Aisha Tyler (Whose Line is It Anyway?), actresses/Team Unicorn members Alison Haislip and Rileah Vanderbilt, tv/internet personality Alex Albrecht, comedian Jonah Ray (upcoming Mystery Science Theater 3000 reboot), and NASA/JPL engineer Bobak "Mohawk Guy" Ferdowsi.

Goose Island Beer was one of A-B InBev's first acquisitions under the High End banner. I generally tried to remain positive about Goose Island, insisting that as long as they were left alone and had no problems, that I would remain positive about their beer line-up, despite the potential for interference from their macro overlords. Well, Goose Island just issued their second recall of their well-regarded Bourbon County Brand Stout from 2015 due to several batches being infected with lactobacillus bacteria. Goose Island is pursuing the root cause, making process changes to ensure future batches are not infected, and issuing refunds for bad bottles. One batch of Proprietor's Bourbon County Stout was also infected.

Vinepair released a list of the 10 most popular new craft beers released in 2015. The list is based on supermarket sales. The result is a list that is as much influenced by distribution as it is by beer quality, though I have no real qualms with anything on this list.

Netherlands-based KLM airlines has collaborated with Heineken to develop a special keg system that will work at typical airplane altitudes. Standard kegs are not practical at 30,000 feet, because the air pressure differential would result in pint glasses full of foam. Heineken has developed modified air pressure kegs that will work at up to 36,000 feet and have been adapted to fit in an airplane. As a result, KLM will begin serving in-flight draft beer starting next month.

Finally, the 35th annual Great American Beer Festival will be held October 6-8, 2016. GABF is the largest ticketed beer festival in the U.S., with over 750 attending breweries in 2015, and their prestigious GABF Competition will award medals in over 90 categories covering about 150 beer styles. In 2015, over 6600 beers entered the competition.

Beers in Review: Feeling better

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I've been a bit under the weather this week, hence no video review during this week. I'm on the upswing, so expect a video tomorrow. It'll be a special one from Stone.

But that's later. For now, I have a few more beers from last weekend's Craft and Draft 2nd birthday, starting with Birds Fly South Strawberry IPA. Pouring a straw-gold color, this beer brings a mild fruity note, along with some grainy notes. Overall, the beer is quite mild, with a little hop bitterness that opens up slightly as it warms up. Really, this beer played to me more like a fruit-infused blonde than an IPA.

Next up is Overly Friendly IPA from Holy City Brewing Company. And man, this one has no problem checking the "IPA" box. Overly Friendly is a massive hop bomb, with 7 different hops used in the making of this beer. The result is an incredibly complex flavor profile led by citrus and pine hop notes. Orange really comes through strongly, and the hop bitterness really carries through the entire sip, and even lingering after the fact. Massively hoppy, but so so good.

Finally, from Catawba Brewing Company, is their Tangerine Wheat, which reportedly was created for Catawba's female business partners and had just been kegged a couple of days before the Craft and Draft party. As expected, the Tangerine Wheat pours a cloudy dark orange. It's generally pretty mild, as I find most of Catawba's beers tend to be, but this beer is crisp and citrusy with a clean finish. Generally enjoyable.

My Ideal Draft Beer Tap Line-up

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In last week's Six-Pack of News, I noted a Vinepair article where columnist Will Gordon made up his ideal draft beer tap list for his hypothetical bar. It seemed like a fun little exercise, so I'm going to do the same: curate a diverse 16-tap beer line-up. A few points:

1) My goal is to find a nice blend of both local (to the Carolinas) beers AND beers with more widespread distribution.

2) Some of the taps are pre-selected, style-wise, while some are more open. I made some changes to a couple categories compared to Will's list. This was simply to suit my tastes a little better. 

3) This reflects a fairly realistic list for a list I could put together here in the Carolinas. While I'd love to have Firestone Walker or Russian River or some other craft legend on my wall, that wouldn't be realistic.

Let's get started.

Tap 1, House IPA: Ballast Point Sculpin IPA-one of the best in the market right now. If I stock this, I might, from time to time, want to use one of my wild cards or rotating IPA slots for one of the flavored Sculpin IPAs, but we'll refrain from that for the purposes of this exercise.

Tap 2, House Pale Ale: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale-this is in part a nostalgic choice, as Sierra Nevada is the first craft beer I ever had.

Tap 3, House Porter: Holy City Pluff Mud Porter-both of my dark beers are going to be local, simply because they are among the best I've had.

Tap 4, House Stout: Duck Rabbit Milk Stout-see above. Guinness would be the easy answer for this one, but there are so many better choices.

Tap 5, House Cheap Beer: Narragansett Lager-this seems to be the new cheap beer, gradually overtaking PBR.

Tap 6, House Pilsner/Lager: Yuengling Lager-a sentimental choice, admittedly.

Tap 7, House Blue Moon Alternative: Harpoon UFO White-in the summer, this would probably become an appropriate summer seasonal like Sam Adams Summer Ale. I had a crazy idea for this one, but I stayed true to something Blue Moon-ish.

Tap 8, House Session Beer: Harp Lager-really, this was my toughest category, as I wanted something of worth and to avoid the macro-brewed pale lagers. Checks in at 4.2% ABV, which works for something sessionable.

Tap 9, House Amber/Red/Brown Ale: Highland Gaelic Ale-admittedly, I swapped out another category for this one for the sole purpose of giving this beer a steady slot on this list

Tap 10, Rotating Pale Ale or IPA: Stone IPA-an incredibly highly-regarded IPA. As this is a rotating tap, some other possibilities would include Founders Centennial IPA, Bell's Two-Hearted Ale, and Westbrook One Claw Rye Pale Ale.

Tap 11, Rotating IPA or Double/Triple/Imperial IPA: Dogfish Head 90-Minute IPA-not really my thing, but I admit it's a great beer. See above for other possibilities.

Tap 12, Rotating Local: River Rat Hazelnut Brown-staying in Columbia for a personal favorite.

Tap 13, Rotating Local: Foothills Torch Pilsner-this is an in-state beer, and I needed a Pilsner. Other locals might include others from Holy City, River Rat, Swamp Cabbage, Coast, and more.

Tap 14, Rotating High-Distribution Craft Legend: Bell's Oberon Ale-though this is a seasonal beer, so others might include Sierra Nevada's Torpedo IPA, some selections from New Belgium, Founders KBS, and others.

Tap 15, Rotating Wild Card: Founders Rubaeus-so as to have a fruit beer on the menu, as well. As a rotation, other options include Sweetwater Blue and one or more ciders, like Bold Rock IPA (India Pressed Apples).

Tap 16, Wild Card: Westbrook White Thai-the one I almost put in for Blue Moon alternative because it is technically a wheat beer. But I got it in. This was supposed to be a "rotating wild card" slot, but I would keep this up permanently.

I'll admit, this was a little harder to curate than I expected. Things like the rotating locals were hard to pick just one. Thanks for checking this out!

Video Review: Westbrook One Claw

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I have a new video review from one of my favorite breweries: Westbrook Brewing Company, and their One Claw Rye Pale Ale.

 

I'll go ahead an say I tried my new camera set-up today for the first time. I'm not crazy about it. The audio is less than ideal, and I need to find a way to move it forward. Or just switch to the old camera, which was perfectly fine. Point is, I'm working on it. For now, enjoy the video.

Beers in Review: I don't have a witty title in me

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We start off today's reviews with Sea to Sea Lager from Green Flash Brewing Company. It pours a pale gold, and features bready and crackery notes with just a hint of malty sweetness. I also got a slight amount of bitterness, and something soap-like. It's a pretty crisp beer, and is generally more flavorful than your standard lager. It makes for a decent summer beer.

Next up is Off Color Brewing's Sparkles Find Some Trouble Gose (a name that made me quite glad that I could simply order it as "number 4"). This gose pours a ruby red grapefruit, and has a ton going on. I'm not big on smell, but I could immediately detect some majorly funky aromas. Upon sipping, my first impression was more Belgian ale than gose, but this changed as my palate adapted. There are tons of light fruity and floral notes, as well as a bit of citrus acidity. The funky note translates into the taste, especially as it warms. I found some of the key gose components, sourness and saltiness, both to be pretty mild overall. Some surprises in this gose, but pretty enjoyable, overall.

Finally for today, the first of several beers from Saturday afternoon/evening's Craft and Draft bottle shop 2nd birthday party. It was a great party, with multiple unique beer offerings, live music, food trucks. This was a Craft and Draft collaboration with Thomas Creek Brewery, resulting in the Slapricot Session Ale. Complexities in the mouthfeel were notable, blending fruity juicyness with an effervescent carbonation. There was plenty of apricot flavor, but the ale wasn't too sweet. Combined with the mouthfeel, I got more an impression of a mild fruity Italian soda instead of a beer. A mild funky note also slyly creeped into this session ale, as well.

Six-Pack of News, Volume 6

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Man, with the Independence Day holiday on Monday, it fees like this week is flying by! I managed to pull together a handful of news stories of interest from the last week or so, so let's get going!

Will McCameron, owner of Brewery 85 in Greenville, SC, wrote a column on Brew Studs criticizing A-B InBev's summer-long "America" theme, pointing out that while some production is still done in the United States, the company is headquartered in Belgium and run by Brazilians, both of whom are decidedly NOT American. The column also caught traction in the local South Carolina press.

Runner's World reports on a Japanese Olympic marathon runner who won a 4-kilometer Fourth of July race in Boulder, Colorado, where she has been training for the Rio Olympics. Her prize? Her weight in beer from Avery Brewing. While she's been passing some of it around, she cannot partake in her prize until AFTER the Olympics.

I do enjoy IPAs, now, but I'm SURE I'm not psychotic. At least, I'm pretty sure.

Goeuro.com listed the average price for a beer in 70 international locations, and put them into a handy chart to find where beer is the cheapest. Or most expensive, I guess. Further down the page are some breakdowns of beer financials in European cities.

Finally, a columnist from Vinepair (thanks, Mom!) listed his ideal bar draft list, coming up with the perfect 16-tap line-up for his imaginary bar. This sounds like something I might do this weekend. Stay tuned!

Finally, local Columbia, SC taproom Craft and Draft is celebrating their 2nd birthday with a big party this coming Saturday. Congratulations, guys, and see you there!

Beers in Review: 4 from the weekend

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It was a holiday weekend, which of course led to numerous drinking opportunities, and a fresh set of beers to review. Let's dive in!

We start with the Coulter IPA from Cismontane Brewing Company, which pours a deep gold color and has very little head when poured. Strong citrus and pine hops notes are the first things to hit my palate when I take a sip, along with a strong but overpowering bitterness. It's fruity with, to me, a juicy mouthfeel. There is a slight bit of booziness (the beer checks in at 7.2% ABV), and the beer finishes quite clean, given how powerful all the flavors are.

Next up is Unknown Brewing Company's Bound for Carolina Imperial Brown Ale. The ale had a light cola color, and amazing powerful flavors, including tons of cocoa and chocolate, dark fruits, and cola. I also got some brownie or chocolate cake notes and a toasted note that crossed with the brownie to taste like the burnt or better-done edges of the brownie pan. Despite a fairly high ABV of 8.7%, there was no booziness to detect--it likely blended well into the numerous sweeter flavor notes. I also want to say that despite these numerous sweet flavors, it wasn't too sweet. It was close, but Unknown did a really nice job hitting the apex of tolerance, at least for my palate.

Next is Red Banshee by Fort Collins Brewery. Pouring a reddish-copper color, Red Banshee has straight forward flavors, including chocolate malts and hints of cola and possibly sweet caramel or some other sugary substance. Very malty, which is right up my alley.

Finally, from Founders Brewing Company, I had the Mango Magnifico con Calor, a part of Founders' experimental Backstage Series. A fruit beer (mango, obviously) brewed with habanero peppers, the result is a beer that is quite sweet, and can push that edge into overpowering. Fortunately, the mangoes have a cozy relationship with the peppers, each tempering the other just enough that neither the sweetness nor the spiciness kills the beer. There is a spice note that starts out as slight and grows perfectly, never going overboard, as so many pepper-infused beers do. Clocking in at 10%, there is also a slight booziness, especially as it warms, but most of that booziness blends into the sweet mango notes. This is a fantastic offering from Founders.

Beers in Review: Out of the box hoppy beers

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All of the beers in today's write-up are hoppy, but have a little twist to them. Let me tell you, this is a trio of really good beers, so let's get to it!

Juicy Mandarina is an IPA from New Belgium Brewing Company's Hop Kitchen series, and features a whole lot of wheat beer characteristics, including 3 different types of wheat as well as a Hefeweizen yeast. It pours a hazy gold color with a thick white head. It leads with nice mild-to-moderate citrus notes that support a decent hop bite. I got some grassy notes and maybe a hint of dankness as well. There is also a slightly juicy quality in the mouthfeel-definitely present, but not quite biting-into-a-fruit level. I enjoyed this IPA--it hits a good avenue of what I like, combining the wheat qualities into an IPA.

Next up is a seasonal hoppy Red Ale from Coast Brewing Company called Carnie Fire. The first things I picked up were malt with spicy and earthy notes, along with piney hops and a good amount of bitterness. There was also a slight sweet note in there--maybe vanilla or something sugary. Overall, there is nothing mild about this beer. It is a big time flavor experience.

Finally, Founders Brewing Company's ReDANKulous Imperial Red IPA. It pours a deep brown color with some ruby highlights, and some of the initial flavor notes include fruits like cherries and perhaps plum and other dark fruits. There are also some spice notes and plenty of dank hoppiness. For clocking in at nearly 10% ABV, it's not really boozy, which has its advantages and disadvantages. Another beer where these great flavors really push through strongly. Great stuff.

Six-Pack of News, Volume 5

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After taking a week off, there is a wealth of beer news to get to--in fact, we can't even cover it all in six! Here is the latest Six-Pack of News.

Zymurgy magazine, the periodical for the American Homebrewers' Association, polled their readers to determine the 2016 Best Beers in America. As this was a nationwide poll, the list is essentially a ranking of beers that get good-to-great distribution cross-country. You're unlikely to find small breweries on the list simply because not enough people get to try them. In addition to the Top 50 Best Beers in America, Zymurgy readership also ranked Best Brewery, Best Portfolio (quantity of different beers), and Best Imports.

Earlier this month, Vinepair released their recommendation of 8 fruit-inspired beers to try this summer. It includes breweries with a variety of distribution levels, so everybody should be able to find at least 2 to 3 of the beers on this list. The list includes the excellent Founders Rubaeus, which was recently reviewed on this very site.

I post this story not to bash A-B InBev--almost everybody has lost a ton of money since the so-called Brexit vote in the United Kingdom on Friday, with the world losing something like $2.1 TRILLION dollars on that day alone. But this St. Louis Business Journal article notes that A-B InBev's share of losses totalled $11.9 billion.

In news of local interest, South Carolina lawyer Brook Bristow, who specializes in beverage law (which was a thing for awhile in this state) reports on how the state Law Enforcement Division (SLED) is cracking down on donations of beer from producers to non-profit organizations and events. Because this state always needs to be a bit bass ackwards.

Zach Fowle of DraftMag has some thoughts on aging "bad beer", though he's talking less Keystone Light and more beers that are thick and alcohol-dominant (even using descriptors like "cough syrup" and "rocket fuel" at points).

BrewStuds notes that included in a release about the California Craft Beer Summit and Beer Festival is the fact that the great state of California is now home to over 700 breweries. This works out to roughly one in every six breweries in the U.S. being located in California.

Beers in Review: Fruity

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Today's trio of beers have one thing in common: all have some sort of fruit used in their recipes. Let's dive in!

Leading off is the Lexington Spring IPA from Natty Greene's Brewing Company. This IPA uses smoked malts and fresh peaches for their unique flavor. Pouring a hazy deep gold color, the peaches merge will with hops for lots of citrus and tropical fruit flavor notes. There's plenty of peach specifically, of course, though the beer is not especially sweet. There are also some dank and piney hop notes, as well, and the beer has a pretty clean finish.

Next is Harpoon Brewery's Summer seasonal Camp Wannamango pale ale--feel free to guess the fruit addition. It pours a light gold color, and has some citrus hints, but the big hitters are mango and peach, with a bit of funk also present and a moderate hop bite at the very end. There is plenty of fruit pleasant in this pale ale, but like above, is isn't overpoweringly sweet, which I enjoy.

Finally, SPF 50/50, which is Red Hare Brewing Company's version of a Radler. Radlers are a German mixed-style of drink, where some type of beer is typically mixed with lemonade or something similar. Red Hare has taken their core Gangway IPA and mixed it with their own house-made grapefruit juice to create their unique India Pale Radler...can we call it an IPR? Anyway, it pours a pretty hazy straw-gold color, and is quite sweet, far sweeter than anything else reviewed here. The sweetness is cut slightly by a very light hop bite and some piney hop notes. Sweet grapefruit is the primary flavor note to this Radler--everything else is pretty well in the background. A well done beer, but a hair too sweet for me to enjoy more than one or two.

Beers in Review: Two more for summer

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It's been kind of a slow week, beer-wise. I bailed on a Six-Pack of News because there hasn't been too much going on, unless I want to write about ANOTHER beer coming to cans or the latest of A-B InBev trying to take over the world (which, admittedly, is a little bit soul-sucking). I may find one or two news items to write about this weekend, but no promises. The Six-Pack will return, as soon as there are interesting things about which to write.

I also only have a couple of beers to review. This issue, I guarantee, will be resolved this weekend. Both of these beers somewhat unintentionally fall into the week's Beers of Summer theme from Monday's video, so this all really lined up nicely. Enough chit-chat. Let's get to the beers!

Our first offering is a collaboration between Oskar Blues Brewery and the World of Beer bar chain, and is called American Summer Hoppy Wit. As expected, it pours a nice golden color and is pretty clear/see-through. Citrus notes dominate this beer, but in a way in which the bright witbier and yeast citrus notes blend well with citrus coming from the hops. There were also some mild spice notes, most notably some clove, as well as a very mild hop bitterness coming around at the end of the sip.

Second, and last, is the Nitro White Ale from Boston Beer Company, aka Sam Adams, and their fairly new nitro can project. The beer's color falls somewhere between lemon and orange, and is quite hazy. As mentioned, this can has a widget that releases nitrogen into the beer when opened, a la Guinness. This results in a frothy, creamy head of microbubbles, and a creamy mouthfeel. Mild citrus notes were the first thing that came to me as I took the first sip. I also get a bit of a unique flavor that comes from the nitrogen. It's hard to explain--it's not really a flavor, but every beer that's infused with nitrogen has a unique background taste that until recently I had just associated with mild English ales. Moving on, there are some mild spice notes, again with cloves but also maybe something like nutmeg or all spice/five spice. The mouthfeel IS creamy, as expected, and it has a pretty clean finish with little aftertaste, which is surprising for a beer under nitrogen.

Coming tomorrow: the Beers of Summer series, which totally always included this beer review, concludes with a video review of Holy City's Washout Wheat. See ya then!

Beers in Review: A good beer night

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Last night was a really good beer night for me. We'll get to them in the back half of this review. We'll be starting with a seasonal from SweetWater Brewing Company.

Goin' Coastal is their summer seasonal, an IPA with pineapple. Surprisingly, the citrusy hops used in the beer are what I picked up first, getting some grapefruit notes. A blend of tropical notes, including the aforementioned pineapple. The beer didn't have a ton of body, but I found it to be really juicy, especially in the finish, which I attribute to the fruit used in the process. Overall, though, I felt like I got more citrus (citrus and pineapple can be a bit similar, right?), along with some piney hop notes.

Next up was a "Star Trek"-themed beer, one of several being made this year in honor of the franchise's 50th anniversary in 2016. Brewing by Shmaltz Brewing under the fictional "Federation of Beer" banner, this particular was called Vulcan Ale (Genesis Effect), after "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock". After getting over the gimmick--seriously, check out this bottle:

--I dove into the beer. It's a bit hard to tell on the bottle, but it's a red session IPA, and it pulled off the balance very well. Pouring a reddish-copper color, I found the beer to be pretty malt forward with some dark fruit notes, and mild pine hop notes.

Getting into some beers from last night, I first had the Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale from Lexington Brewing and Distilling. This beer pours a reddish copper hue, and spends up to six weeks in bourbon barrels, yielding many delightful flavor notes. I initially got vanilla, followed by some burnt sugar, and malted milk balls towards the end. It also contains a very small amount of booziness, but it's not even close to overpowering.

Finally, Founders Brewing's Kentucky Breakfast Stout, another beer spending time in Kentucky Bourbon barrels, though this beer is aged for a full year before bottling and release. Between this and the style (Imperial Stout), the result is tons of flavor and lots of alcohol (12% ABV). Lots of coffee, and TONS of chocolate flavor notes. I got a mild amount of bourbon booziness, though less than I expected. It was pretty sweet overall, with some smoke hints throughout and a bit of a smoky aftertaste. This was my first time having this highly-regarded, and it was truly terrific.

Programming note: Tomorrow (June 20th) is the first day of Summer, and as a result, I will be doing a video about some of my favorite summer beers, including a new beer review or two! Stay tuned!