Video Review-Rusty Rail Rail Spike IPA-Dig the Difference!

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In today's video review, I check out the core IPA from Rusty Rail Brewing Company. Check it out!

 

As a side note, I spent some time yesterday making my first video review for February, in anticipation of my observance of Booze Free February. While there will be some scaleback in video reviews for the month (I plan on 2 a week instead of 3), I intend to maintain a fairly constant level of content, even if that includes more news and possibly something like the longer-form piece I did Saturday.

Commentary: How much love should B-Dubs get?

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Earlier this week, my fellow beer reviewer Rod Jones linked an article from the alcohol culture website Vinepair. Now, normally, Vinepair loves their lists, but last Friday, in what was just their second “Craft Beer” post in a month, columnist Kathleen Willcox proclaims that we need to celebrate that great bastion of craft beer culture: national buffalo wing chain Buffalo Wild Wings (which shall be abbreviated “BWW” in this column).
Willcox wants beer nerds across the country to think that “B-Dubs” is going to vast extremes to draw them into their restaurants, proclaiming that, “the bar boasts a sprawling menu of detailed beer choices, which includes the beer’s name, category, and percentage alcohol.” I must be honest: if this is the new wave of Buffalo Wild Wings, it hasn’t hit Columbia, South Carolina yet!
A survey of my local BWW shows your standard selection of macrolagers with a few offerings from the mass producers’ higher end lines or organizations—things like Goose Island IPA, Blue Moon and/or Leinenkugel plus a seasonal, and a Kona or Redhook product. There are also a few of the nationally-distributed ACTUAL craft beers: Samuel Adams, Lagunitas (more on them shortly), and maybe one more, and finally a couple of local notables. In this area, might include ONE ITEM each from Catawba Brewing Company, Highland Brewing Company and Columbia’s own Conquest or River Rat Breweries. I suppose BWW is making an effort, but forgive me if I give them little credit for stocking Kona, Goose Island and other “craft” beers they get off the Budweiser or Coors trucks. At this point, it is also worth remembering that Budweiser is more than willing to openly mock this group of “craft” beers that they want to sell to places like BWW. To Budweiser/A-B InBev, their “High End” group is nothing more than an attempt to recoup market share lost to actual good beer!
And that’s not stunning, given the vast availability of true craft beer, even in a relatively slow-growing craft beer town like Columbia, SC. In fact, within just a few miles of my closest BWW, I can identify multiple bottle shops, bottle bars, and restaurants that are serving high quality craft beer, including a lot of stuff NOT coming off that Budweiser truck! Buffalo Wild Wings claims to want to “[introduce] thousands of Americans who live in rural pockets of the country…to the merits of and differences between, say, fruited sours and bourbon-barrel-aged IPAs”, but they HAVE NOT started doing that yet. I will be happy to change my tune when I see a Westbrook Goze tap at my local restaurant! Until that happens, my local bottle shop will be my destination of choice for a good beer. And, if BWW wants to truly commit to craft beer, they will need to find better partners than Bud and Coors.
Even those attempts to appeal to craft beer drinkers with something special has met with mixed results, at least for THIS craft beer drinker. To their credit, BWW has made strides to pair with breweries to create unique beers for their restaurants. A limited-time collaboration with Redhook was called Game Changer. Now, I may have had it once, and it didn’t really leave an impression on me. But it was obviously successful enough to extend its availability and even create variants of the original. More recently, they teamed with Lagunitas for a hoppy wheat called Fandom Ale. Unfortunately, I found it to be one of the most disappointing craft beer experiences I’ve had in a LONG time. I will mention that I seem to be in the minority, as others, including the previously-mentioned Rod Jones, have had generally positive experiences with the beer. I trust Rod’s judgment, and am completely open to the likelihood that I got a bad keg of the Fandom. Even if that’s the case, delivering and serving great beer is just as important as making great beer in the brewery.
Buffalo Wild Wings IS making some strides to appeal to craft beer drinkers. Without a doubt, there is always something worth drinking. But there aren’t typically a lot of somethings worth drinking, and in that regard, BWW is lapped many times over by venues with far better selections. For us to truly start “[thanking] Buffalo Wild Wings for craft beer”, they must make a much greater commitment to craft beer. There are a number of restaurants which could serve as models—World of Beer or Flying Saucer, in terms of regional chains, though I could name locally-owned restaurants right here in Columbia that could serve as examples of paying due respect to the craft beer world. It’s Buffalo Wild Wings’ choice.

 

Six-Pack of News, Volume 17: I hope you're ready for that Bud Light Cran-ber-ita Keurig pod!

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It's been a month-plus since the last news round-up. But I'm back with a new group of news stories, including a preview of a standalone news and commentary post that will be coming later this week. Let's get to the news.

Multiple sites have reported on A-B Inbev entering into a joint research-and-development agreement with Keurig Green Mountain, makers of the proprietary single-cup hot beverage machines and the accompanying hot coffee, tea, and other beverage pods. Keurig developed a cold-drink system that did not do well in the market, and was discontinued last year. A-B Inbev and Keurig aim to revive the cold-drink technology for development of an in-home alcohol drink system. Brewbound has more details on the agreement.

It's no secret that craft beer sales have taken off like a juggernaut over the last decade or so, but marketing firm IRI Worldwide has noted that industry growth might finally be slowing down, at least in supermarkets. IRI reports that craft dollar sales at U.S. supermarkets grew just 6.9 percent in 2016, the first time in over a decade that this section of the industry failed to reach double digit growth. (Brewbound)

Adding to the concept of flattening craft beer growth is the latest financial news by Motley Fool about Boston Beer Company (aka Sam Adams), which has seen both shipments and sales to distributors decline in 2016, the first year-over-year decline since 2003. I would think that at least a chunk of this decline could be attributed to Boston's Coney Island hard soda brand, as the bubble on the whole hard soda concept seems to have burst after its high a couple of years ago.

One of the great American collegiate rites of passage, or so I've been told, is the concept of the shower beer. Great for pregaming before a night out, or to hair-of-the-dog it the morning after, shower beer is one of those concepts that can be considered both rather juvenile AND rather brilliant. Now, a Swedish brewery and marketing company have come up with perfect beer for just such an occasion. (Tasting Table)

Forgive me, but the back third of this round-up is going to be rather local. Craftbeer.com reports on a nanobrewery that has attached itself to a burger joint in the Old Town district of Bluffton, SC, northeast of Savannah, GA.

And finally, some time ago, I noted the upcoming expansion of Hunter-Gatherer brewpub, which has been a Columbia, SC beer-brewing institution for over 20 years, into a full-fledged production brewery, to be located in a historic airplane hanger at Columbia's Hamilton-Owens Airport. Eva Moore at the alt-weekly Free Times, a Columbia institution in its own right, has all the details on hanger renovations, which must be approved by a committee, due to the historic nature of the hanger.

Now, coming this weekend, I have some things to say about an article from Vinepair that is making out a major national chicken chain to be a craft beer mecca. Is this true or false? Find out this weekend!

Video: Sunday's Livestream, featuring Xocoveza review

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For today's video, I am posting Sunday's livestream, where I did some testing of upgraded A/V equipment, reviewed Stone Brewing's Xocoveza stout, and talked about the short-to-medium-term future of the site.

I also cut out about 6 1/2 minutes of the A/V testing for your convenience, but there are time stamp cues in the description for the various parts of the video. Check it all out here:

Beers in Review: Collusion Tap Works Trio

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As I've mentioned multiple times, I had the opportunity to check out a couple of breweries over the Christmas holiday, including Collusion Tap Works out of York, Pennsylvania. The brewery opened its doors earlier this year in a recently-renovated section of York, and has a nice though fairly typical tap/tasting room set-up: industrially-styled bar area with tables adjacent to the production area, with a small sales area for various apparel, sauces, and a few other items, and a small in-progress food set-up.

The most impressive aspect of Collusion's operation is the sheer quantity of beers they are making. The tap room has 24 taps, each holding a different offering, and we (my parents and I) overheard on the day we visited, a Monday, that they wanted to roll out 6 new beers by Friday. We had the opportunity to try roughly a dozen of their offerings, and with the exception of one non-traditional style, all were drinkable, at minimum, and most were good-to-great.

Enough prefacing. I want to get into some of their beers, starting with that non-traditional one I mentioned above. The beer's name is Kuytie Pie, and that name is a pun which includes the beer style: a kuyt (which you may also see spelled "kuit" or "koyt"). A kuyt is a Dutch-based grainy beer going back to the 15th century. It is somewhat similar to the gruit, in that it has little-to-no hop presence. (For reference, I found this kuyt to be less odd that the single gruit I had earlier this year.) Getting back to the beer itself, it poured a slightly hazy pale gold, and was quite light overall, including in ABV (4.8%). As mentioned before, it was grainy, with a corn note being most prominent to me. This graininess, with just a hint of hop, lead off the tasting experience, while the middle was so mild that I equated it to seltzer water or club soda. That corn note came to me in the back of the drinking experience. It's a mild beer, overall, and while I appreciate trying a new style, I didn't feel the need to try this again or go out pursuing kuyts on a regular basis. The most apt descriptor I found for this beer was "completely inoffensive".

Next up is a fruit-based IPA called Fuzzy Scrumpit. This is officially called a white peach pink guava IPA, and pours a very hazy yellow color. The ale is tangy, invoking plenty of the fruit in the flavor profile. I found a tartness throughout, along with a mild hop bite at the very end, and a little bit of a funky note back there, too. A mild tartness rounded out this solid IPA loaded with tropical fruits.

Finally, Dole, which is an Imperial cherry Berlinerweisse that pours a peachy-gold color. Coming in at 10% ABV, the flavor notes are fairly straight-forward, most notably tart cherry (of course) and lemonade. The beer is fairly dry overall, which, with some of the fruitier notes, helps evoke a feeling of sparkling wine or champange. I enjoyed this, but it was fairly late in the visit, so some palate fatigue was starting to set in. If it's a regular offering, this is one I'd want to check out again early on in a visit.

I still have a couple of Collusion beers to discuss in detail, including the best of my visit, and a few that I'll just talk about briefly. That will be coming later this week.

As a programming note, tomorrow I will be releasing the livestream from Sunday night as the Tuesday video. It does include a beer review of Stone Brewing's excellent Xocoveza stout, but I will discuss more detail about the video when it is released tomorrow. See you then!

Video Review: Westbrook 6th Anniversary (plus a programming note)

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I'm bringing the weekend video review early-I find it tends to be on Sundays. We'll get to the "why" on that in a moment.

First, check out the excellent anniversary offering from Westbrook Brewing Company:

In terms of tomorrow, 1/8/17, I will be doing a livestream to do some audio and video testing of my long-ignored HD camera and my new microphone that I've been using for about a week now. To keep everyone involved, I plan on reviewing Stone Brewing's Xocoveza Stout, discussing some of my lackluster video reviews from earlier in the week, and what will be coming up on the overall review front here at PRB. That will all be tomorrow night, around 8pm Eastern. Maybe a tad later. Check out Twitter and/or Facebook for up-to-date information on this livestream. Hope to see you then!

Beers in Review: First of the North

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We'll be getting to the first of the beers I had over the holiday, one from Philadelphia, shortly. But first, I have one more pre-holiday beer to review.

This one is the winter seasonal from Boulevard Brewing Company in Kansas City, Missouri, called Snow and Tell. A Scotch Ale at 6.3% ABV and 28 IBU, this ale utilizes smoked malt (more on that in a moment) and is predictably malt forward. The ale itself is a deep ruby red color and has a heavy body. It is malty (as expected) and quite sweet, with toffee and caramel notes being the most prominent, with maybe a bit of dark fruit. It's not boozy at all, which can be frequent in this style, but not surprising here, given the relatively low ABV. Rounding out the drinking experience is just a hint of smoke, which is generating a final burnt sugar note in the flavor profile.

Next up is unique style coming out of Philadelphia, PA. St. Benjamin Brewing Company--as in, Benjamin Franklin--crosses a traditionally basic cream ale with an IPA to create Inca India-style Cream Ale. Fairly sessionable and perhaps at the high end of the Cream Ale range at 5.4% ABV, this ale is pretty light and smooth overall. There are mild citrus and hops, and is really an overall mild-mannered ale; to this point, there's not much bitterness, despite a claim of 50 IBU. The finish is fairly clean and crisp, matching the citrusy hop notes from earlier. The notes are fairly basic and mild in this ale, but I found it fairly enjoyable, overall.

Video: Reflections of Southcentral Pennsylvania

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Happy New Year!

I'm slowly getting back on track, and that includes the video release schedule. I don't have a review today, exactly, but I do discuss some of the places I checked out while I was up in Pennsylvania for the holidays, including Collusion Tap Works in York, PA and Troegs Independent Brewing in Hershey, PA. Check out my thoughts!

I'll see you soon with a Beers in Review blog post, and I'll resume video beer reviews on Tuesday, as scheduled. See you then!

Beers in Review: 2016 Finale

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Hello, friends! As indicated yesterday, I'm back from Christmas family time, which included a whole lot of high quality beer! I will be talking about that in a video this weekend, and writing about for probably the next couple of weeks, but I still have a few pre-Christmas reviews on which to catch up. So let's look at a couple of them now!

First up is the 14th Anniversary Ale from Terrapin Beer Company in Athens, Georgia. In addition to the anniversary celebration, this Tart Belgian Red is also Terrapin's "100th brew crafted in house". This ale utilizes U.S. Goldings hops and a multitude of malts, especially Crystal malts that generate this ale's pretty reddish-copper color. Coming in a 7.5% ABV, flavors include a great deal of tart cherry, along with berries and dark fruit. I also detected wine and wine barrels, as well as fruit rinds--perhaps peach, among others?--that bring a unique bitter note into the fold. A bit of funkiness is also present later in the drinking experience. Despite some lackluster reviews, I found this to be a nice beer, though I tend to be bigger on Flemish Reds and the like.

Next up is Grains of Truth Harvest Ale, a Biere de Garde from Brewery Ommegang. With an ABV of 5.8%, this ale is intended to utilize grains (barley, oats, wheat, rye) to honor the practice of farming and the harvest. The outcome is supposed to be balanced, smooth, and creamy. Grains of Truth nails the mouthfeel traits, but otherwise mainly holds a lot of typical Belgian traits. It pours a nice gold-to-orange color, and flavor notes include green/white grapes, apricot, and bit of banana and peach. Bubblegum is also pretty prevalent (I feel like this is a flavor quality I've just started to pick up in the last few months), along with a bit of funk and some spices, including black pepper and cloves. This was a terrifically deep beer, though if I had read the description that talks about things like "balance" before drinking, I would have been greatly surprised and possibly disappointed. Excellent beer, though.

Beers in Review: Greetings from PRB Northern Command!

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Hello, everyone! I hope you had a terrific Christmas or wonderful ongoing Hanukkah, or just got to enjoy some chill time with your family! I am working through a number of local beers here in Pennsylvania, and will have lots of reviews and more when I get back to South Carolina.

However, I still have some beers from before Christmas to review, so let's dive right in!

Buried among the seemingly endless (and having just drove it, I can attest to this) series of national parks and forests that make up the Appalachian mountain chain through the southeastern United States is tiny Banner Elk, NC. Flat Top Brewing Company can be found in this small town near the NC-TN border, and they pride themselves on using "fresh Appalachian mountain spring water", one of the advantages to being among the seemingly endless parks and forests. But for some reason, I've turned into a travelogue writer. Let's get to the beer.

Ryed Along Black Rye IPA is a nearly pitch black beer, as expected, that is 6.7% ABV and 70 IBU. To me, this beer expresses the "black" portion of the style, as in stout or porter, rather than the IPA part. Coffee joins up with a whole lot of sweet chocolate notes, approaching the point of being cloyingly sweet. There are lots of fruity notes as well, cherries and berries, specifically. All of these sweet notes come together to make me feel like there is a boozy sweet note. But at just 6.7% ABV, I think my brain is just reinterpreting a lot of the flavor notes. Decent beer, though the sweetness would likely prevent me from enjoying more than one at a sitting.

As I said in the finale of my Christmas beer video series, I did have one last Christmasy beer, though this one officially runs into the New Year, because it is called a Winter Ale. Goose Island Beer Company's winter offering pours a deep brown to copper color. The beer utilizes a massive malt line-up, including 2-Row, Caramel-60, Dark Chocolate, and other malts to create a nice flavor profile, including a nice malty sweetness to go along with the standard fall/winter spices such as all spice and nutmeg and a little bit of dark fruit. There are sweet notes, but at 5.3% ABV, it isn't boozy at all. Virtually no bitterness (25 IBU), either. Though not ground-breaking, I found this Winter Ale to be a solid representation of style.

Merry Christmas, and a brief review

Good morning, everyone, and Merry Christmas! I'm spending some time in Pennsylvania with the family, and based on pure curiosity, we tried out Dogfish Head Craft Brewery's Beer for Breakfast Stout, which is brewed with spices, coffee, maple syrup, and SCRAPPLE. Scrapple is a Pennsylvania and New Jersey "delicacy" where, basically, the leftovers of the pig are rendered down and formed into a loaf, sliced like bread, cooked/fried, and served. It's one of those things that sounds awful but tastes awesome.

Anyway, despite some reservations, our opinion of the beer was generally positive. I didn't have enough to do a proper review, but I found that the beer had lots of coffee notes up front, and was generally a little sweeter than I like. Probably, based on that sweetness, one 12-oz. bottle would be more than enough. Still, it was better than most of us expected, and was fairly well enjoyed.

I'll be back tomorrow (Monday 12/26) with another Beers in Review, along with more to come mid-week. See you then, and enjoy the day!