A quick post to show you all my new favorite beer commercial ever. To make it even better, it’s one of my favorite beers from one of my favorite craft breweries. The Stevens Point Brewery just released this Point 2012 video on You Tube this morning. Enjoy.
Cheers!
Jesse
Here’s a sneak peek at the “new” retro cans for Point Special. They will be available for a limited time this summer in Wisconsin. A retro package with a QR code on the box. It’s like back to the future.
This past weekend the winners were announced in the World Beer Cup, and I was very happy with the results. Some of my favorite brewers and breweries were honored with awards.
If you’re unfamiliar with the WBC, it bills itself as “The most prestigious beer competition in the world.” This year was the biggest assembly ever with 3,921 beers entered from 799 breweries in 54 different countries. 95 different styles of beer were judged by 211 judges from 27 different countries. This competition does not include homebrewers. It is a competition limited to the pros.
Some of my favorite Wisconsin brewers were given awards for the great beer that they are making right now. My 2 favorite Wisconsin breweries were both honored twice. The Point Brewery in Stevens Point won Silver in the German Schwarzbier category with 2012 Black Ale. They also won Bronze in the German Kolsch category with Three Kings, their new spring seasonal. Capital Brewery in Middleton won Gold in the American Amber Lager category with Winter Skal. They also won Bronze in the German-Style Heller Bock/Maibock category for Blonde Dopplebock. Keep up the great work, JZ and Kirby! We appreciate all of the great beers coming out of your breweries!
As excited as I was for those awards for Wisconsin beers, I was blown away by an award given to a California brewery that doesn’t even distribute beer to Minnesota or Wisconsin. The award I’m talking about is “World Beer Cup Champion Brewery and Brewmaster – Mid-size Brewing Company”. It was given to Matt Brynildson and the Firestone Walker Brewery. The reason this one made me so happy is that Matt is from my hometown of Litchfield, Minnesota. He was a year ahead of me in school, a regular kid from a little town out in Central Minnesota, and a nice guy. I must say that this honor, which is basically “Best Craft Brewer in the World”, going to a guy that I grew up with makes me feel a lot of pride in my state and my hometown. This is Matt’s award. He works his ass off every day to make his beer the best it can be, but out here in “Flyover country” we’ll be telling everyone that the best craft brewer in the world belongs to us. Thanks, Matt, for making us proud. We’ll be happy to buy you a beer next time you’re in town, but unfortunately, it won’t be one of your own.
Cheers!
Jesse
You can check out a short CNN video that features Matt at Firestone Walker and other notable craft beer personalities from the 2012 Craft Brewers Conference HERE. This video is brought to you by Beerpulse.
I was featured in some local newspapers this week in an article about homebrewing. The article was written by Shakopee Valley News reporter, Todd Abeln, whom I met with a couple times to talk about homebrewing and to snap a few photos.
I must say, that appearing in the newspaper is something I enjoy very much. Thanks, Todd for writing such a nice piece about homebrewing and spending some time at the brewery with us.
Cheers!
Jesse
The article can be found here.
It was all smiles at the Shakopee Town Brewery last night. On the agenda was moving a batch of beer from secondary fermenter to keg and one batch from primary fermenter to secondary. I’m getting my last two batches of beer ready for my big 40th birthday party in early June.
I checked my Facebook after I got my equipment ready to sanitize for these jobs and noticed an exciting note from my buddy, and fellow homebrewer, Joe. He said, “Dude, you made the Chaska Herald…..congrats!” That got my heart rate going. About a week ago, reporter Todd Abeln from the Shakopee Valley News came and interviewed me about homebrewing and snapped a few pictures. He said the story would probably run in the Shakopee, Eden Prairie, Chaska, and Prior Lake local newspapers. It was a fun time, and I was really looking forward to seeing the story. After getting the message from Joe, I jumped in the Brewtourmobile and headed over to Chaska to buy a newspaper. I picked up a copy and saw my picture on the front page. I have to say, THAT is a great feeling. Inside on page A12 was a whole page of pictures of my garage and the great story that Todd wrote about me and my favorite hobby.
After enjoying my newspaper reading, I had some work to do. I cleaned and sanitized all of my equipment and decided to keg my Jose Canseco “Juiced” Lager. This is a beer that I call “Honey Steam On Steroids” It’s the same basic recipe as my Fozzie’s honey steam made with twice the malt sugar, three times the hops, and dry-hopped for extra measure. I poured myself a small glass of it as it was going into the keg and gave it a taste after the keg was sealed. Given, this beer was room temperature and flat, but it has the potential to be the best beer I’ve ever made. I offered up a taste to the lovely Debra, and she wrinkled her nose and said no thank you. She prefers cold, carbonated beer. I said, “You HAVE to try this.” She took a sip… smiled… and kept the rest for herself. That’s when I knew this one was special.
Next up was getting the “Red White and Brew” American Pale ale into the secondary with an ounce of Citra hops. The aroma of this one was very nice as well. I can’t wait to taste this one after it spends a week with the hops.
A fantastic evening indeed. I’ll keep you posted on Todd’s article as soon as it’s available online. I’ll also keep you posted on how my last two birthday brews are progressing.
Cheers!
Jesse
Tickets are now on sale for the 4th annual Potosi BrewFest in Potosi, WI.The event will be held on Saturday, August, 25th.
You can check out more details at the Potosi Brewing website. You can click on the photo on the right to get to the site.
This event is an almost certain sell out. If you’re interested in attending, act fast.
This is a YouTube video that my buddy, Carlos, sent me a few days ago. It’s a different method of all-grain brewing that I’ll be trying soon. I’ll keep you posted as the brew day approaches.
Last Saturday night I was able to get a difficult to obtain reservation for 4 for a brewery tour at Surly Brewing in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. Tours at Surly always feel special because of how hard they are to get into and how in-depth that can be. The brewery will open up slots for tour nights and they are full within a couple of minutes. I’ve been trying for almost 6 months to get in, and finally got lucky.
I attended the tour with my wife, her brother, and his wife. We got there about 20 minutes early for our 5PM tour and saw about 30 people already standing in line in the cold drizzle waiting to get into the brewery. At 5 o’clock sharp, the doors opened and we were all allowed into the tasting room. We were carded, given 5 drink chips, and shown where we could put our food shelf donations. The tour at Surly is free, but they require all attendees to bring donations for the local food shelf; pretty cool. In 2011, over 15,000 pounds of food was donated through Surly’s tours.
Surly’s tours are done on a schedule, but they are long and allow for plenty of time to see the place, ask questions, and take your time while you sample. We had about 30 minutes right away to have a couple samples and check out the gift shop. After that we were instructed to head into the brewery for the first part of the tour.
When we arrived there, We saw a slideshow on a big screen, and then got a lesson on Surly history from our guide. It was fun, lighthearted, and informative. It was done in a way that would appeal to big fans of Surly beer and those who don’t really care.
After part one, we had time to go back into the tasting room for a refill. We then regrouped in the brewery for our final part of the tour where we learned about the brewing process and equipment in the brewery. We saw the mash tun, brew kettle, fermenters, brite tanks, and canning line. This part of the tour was very entertaining as well. Our group also had a chance to ask lots of questions on a variety of topics.
After part two, we headed back to the tasting room to consume our remaining free samples. The Surly selections we had to choose from were: Furious, Bender, Mild, and CynicAle. Coffee Bender was on the menu, but, unfortunately, the keg was dry. That was a bummer, as it’s one of my favorites. As expected, all the selections were excellent.
In all, the experience at Surly was about 3 hours from start to finish. It’s a great event that all Minnesota Craft Beer lovers should check out.
Surly is very generous with their time and their beer on the tours. I would highly recommend that you try to get signed up for one. I wish you luck.
Cheers!
Jesse
With my 40th birthday coming up soon, and a big party to celebrate it in the works, I’ve been trying to come up with a couple unique and tasty homebrews to serve on the big day.
One of those brews went into the secondary fermenter for 2 weeks of dry-hopping today. The thought process behind this one was pretty simple, but it was definitely an idea I’ve never tried before. I make a homebrew that I call “Fozzie’s Honey Steam”. It is in my regular rotation of beers because it is my wife’s favorite of the one’s I make. It is basically an Anchor Steam clone brewed with a pound and a half of honey. The one that went into the secondary fermenter today I call José Canseco “Juiced” Lager. It is Honey Steam on steroids. It’s brewed with almost twice as much malt and three times the amount of hops. In addition to that, it is dry-hopped with an additional ounce of Citra hops. According to my calculations, it will be 7.5% ABV and 50 IBUs.
I took a taste of it before it went in with the Citra hops and I was very pleased with the results so far. It’s thick and hoppy, but it has a floral nose and a crisp citrusy taste.
As my birthday gets closer, I’ll keep you posted as to how this one is coming along and what other brews are in the works to help welcome me to my 40′s.
Here are a couple more shots of the dry-hopping:
On a completely unrelated note, today is the last day that the photo editing site “Picnik” will be available before the tools move over to Google+. I just want to say, “I’m going to miss you, Picnik. We had some great times together.”
Yesterday, good friend of The Great Brew Tour, Sara Bryce, wrote a piece for the Ladies of Craft Beer site that stirred some emotion in me. Her article can be found here.
Her main focus was that the words you use have power. When I started writing things for our site, especially beer reviews, I said I would not write a negative one. If you want to know what beers I don’t like, make a list of the ones I’ve never reviewed and take a guess. I absolutely love the craft beer culture in the upper Midwest and love meeting the people behind the beer. Promoting the breweries that we visit is one of the joys of my life.
One of the things I enjoy most when beer traveling and hanging out at breweries is the camaraderie in the community. We’ve met dozens of brewmasters in our travels, and when we talk about other brewers and their beers, it’s amazing to see the excitement and genuine friendships that exist between these guys. Not once in my eleven years of beer traveling have I encountered even a hint of competitiveness or negativity from the beer makers we’ve met with.To see masters of their craft, artists, working in concert to better the selection of craft beers that are available to us is inspiring to me.
When I share stories or opinions of my favorite beer on this site, or just sitting around the bar, I would be doing these guys a disservice if I took a route of negativity. Craft beer is about bringing people together, not bringing them down. A wise man once explained to me the difference between a “Beer Geek” and “Beer Snob”. Beer geeks just have a genuine love for good beer. They get excited about it, and they want to share what they know and like with others. Beer snobs on the other hand, love good beer too. However, they like to take what they know and use it to make others feel small and dumb. Strive to be a beer geek that that promotes fun and positivity. As Sara said in her post yesterday, “And for goodness sake, enjoy it (It’s beer, after all)!”
