Out of the loop (again)

I've been out of the loop for several months.  I need to say that the NASCAR event was terrific and to let you all know that Turn One Racing provided me with some wonderful access to the pit lane at Phoenix International Raceway.  Kudos also to Old World Brewing - without them I'd have been stuck in the stands.

Since my last post, I've entered a Master's degree program that is keeping me very busy.  So, what with playing with the grandkids every weekend and working a 40 hour week as well, it's been a grind.  Add to that the fact that Google blogger has dinked up the posting process so I'll have to relearn a bunch of that stuff as well.  Little wonder I've shied away from posting all these months, huh?

I have been keeping the beer log though and there are some terrific vintage beers stored in the fridge that I'm dying to try.  One from 2009, and a couple from 2010.  Perhaps I'll keep them a bit longer.  I may be seldom seen but I'm not gone completely.

By the by, this is my first post using a fancy new laptop computer we picked up a few months back.  (Did I mention the 2012 Mustang that's now parked at Beer Rang HQ?  Yeah, we've lost our minds here.  I find I'm drinking less and driving more these days, but it's grand.)

Old World Brewery: Off To The Races!

At the risk of appearing to fall into a predictable pattern, I’m going to follow up one Old World Brewing post with another, simply because last Friday my camera refused to cooperate during a visit to OWB’s new location on 25th Avenue. I dropped by again today after work, met my nephew for a pint and snapped a few admittedly mediocre photos of the new place. (I’m not a photographer. My nephew’s a photographer, check out his WEBSITE.)

Today we ambled into the taproom to find three fellow blue-collar working stiffs quaffing the foamy suds and that’s a good sign. Seems folks are finding OWB despite the move. I was happy to see brewer Matt working away at something in the back along with Patrick. In short order we had pints of Red in front of us and the conversation drifted easily between topics.

Despite what one would hope are the typical difficulties associated with such an endeavor, the crew at OWB continues to forge ahead, putting out dependable, tasty product (brewed in Flagstaff for the moment) while they fit and fashion and fine-tune all the aspects of the new brewery setup. Just writing about it is exhausting.

We got another quick tour, this time with my camera functioning properly, and I shot a nifty couple of images of the old walk-in safe that once served admirably back when this building was a United States Post Office. Now, Patrick operates an office in the safe and today he took a moment to check out the line up for the upcoming Strong Beer Festival. As always we were made to feel welcome and only the prospect of getting pulled over by an officer of the law prevented us from staying for more than one pint, but as we exchanged farewells in the parking lot my nephew and I discussed the plan to one day have a taxi cab on standby so that we could stay for some real fun!

Old World Breaking into the NASCAR Scene? Yup!

My two or three repeat customers here at Beer Rant will remember that I blogged about a craft beer sponsorship in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series a good while back. (See that post here.) At that time I was tickled witless at the prospect of the craft brewing community stepping into the NASCAR arena even if the brewer was an out of state concern. Well, I’m happy to report that Old World Brewery will be running its logo on a NASCAR truck in the upcoming race at Phoenix International Raceway this year! Here’s a link to the website for Turn One Racing. Details of the arrangement seem to be up in the air just yet, but if you’re the sort that likes to follow NASCAR, and especially the truck series, keep an eye out for truck #60 and it’s new driver Cole Whitt because reportedly, somewhere on that truck will be an Old World Brewery logo! (I plan to attend a couple of NASCAR events at Phoenix International Raceway that week, including the truck race, so perhaps I can carry some OWB product down to the track and enjoy it like I did when Lagunita’s sponsored a truck in 2009.)

Finally, if you’re in the vicinity of 25th Avenue, just north of Van Buren (behind the Pep Boys building there, just across the street from Werner’s Welding), you owe it to yourself to stop in to Old World Brewery. You won’t see a sign on the front of the building so you’ll just have to trust your instincts, friends.

See you at the race!

Be Safe!

Old World, New Digs

First post of 2011; it’s been too long, I know. Enough said.

The Cool Shit You See When Your Camera Battery is Dead!

Old World Brewery has resumed operations in a new facility near 25th Avenue and Van Buren here in Phoenix and I’ve been meaning to drop by for a visit for several weeks. I drove by a couple times to check for activity late last year but didn’t find anyone around, but yesterday was a different story. After work I met a co-worker there – we’ll call him Vernon Bannister - and we ambled in to find Patrick Fields jamming at the drum set with his son.

Patrick graciously showed us around Old World’s new place, which was once a United States Post office back in the day. I asked about any special characteristics of the building, like safes and so forth and Patrick said, “speaking of safes…” and showed us to the brewery’s new office, located in an honest to God walk in safe. Cool. The brewery equipment isn’t quite up and running yet – the current Old World product is reportedly coming from Mogollon Brewing in Flagstaff for the moment (you’ve got to love the cooperative spirit of local brewing, right?).

My camera’s battery was dead, so I’ve got a built in excuse for a follow up visit this coming week. The new brewery building also includes an exhibit space for local artists to show and sell their work. Auctions of artwork are planned, as is a beer festival of some sort in the near future, perhaps in conjunction with a larger statewide beer celebration.

Patrick Fields was as gracious as ever, as focused as ever and seems more determined than ever to push Old World Brewery to the forefront of local brewing prowess. God knows they’ve got a brewing space worthy of the challenge. It should be fun to see where things go from here.

Vernon Bannister and I each departed with a growler of Irish Red and a pint glass sporting the new Old World logo. Perhaps Vernon is a convert as well, now; I think he is. (The picture here was taken later, when I got my growler home and my camera battery charged.)

As for the Irish Red – you know their porter would have been my choice had it been an option – the Red may be better than I remembered from the Lone Cactus facility and even a day later was holding up nicely in the growler. Thanks Patrick! Thanks Old World. (Patrick tells me that the porter will be one of their first batches when the 25th Avenue facility starts production. Awesome.) I tipped a glass of the Red in honor of my nephew's birthday as well. All in all, a great evening.

Look for Old World on Facebook, too.

In Praise of...Brew Masters on Discovery Channel

Watch it!

This is just a quick post to get out ahead of Sunday night’s television lineup.

Mrs. BeerRant and I watched the first episode of Discovery Channel's Brew Masters this morning – TiVoed from a week ago or earlier.

I like it, A LOT. Mrs. BeerRant liked it too (and she’s way pickier than me when it comes to television watching. Picking husbands? Eh, not so much, I guess. Lucky for me.)

I’ve gone on at length here about my feelings regarding Dogfish Head’s brews. For my previous posts about DFH Brewing go HERE. I’ve tried one of their raisin concoctions, a peach disaster, an IPA, a chicory stout, an Indian brown ale and their pumpkin beer. I like the chicory, the brown ale and the pumpkin beer, which puts them at a 50% success rate in my book. (No reason to give up on someone at 50%, hell if that was the case Mrs. BeerRant would have left me years ago!) Bottom line: I like enough of their beers to continue trying them simply on their record alone, but factor in the personality behind the brewery and I’m always willing to give them a shot. So far, the series Brew Masters is at 100 percent.

I think you’ll find that the first episode of Brew Masters shows Sam Calagione to be a personable, fun-loving but hard-working guy; an image you probably picked up on in the documentary film Beer Wars, as well.

Now, the question that pops into my head is whether there’s just a bit of the Emperor’s New Clothes at work during the tasting session, in which all the folks gush over the release of Bitches Brew brewed in honor of the anniversary of the Mile’s Davis album of the same name from the 1970s. I’ve often tasted beer in front of the brewer and, though I didn’t think it was top notch, I’ve said it was good – that’s a weakness of mine and I rarely put myself in that position these days, preferring to spout off here where I can go all “beer jerk” if I don’t like a particular beer. Anyhow, I wonder if Sam got the same sort of feedback when he developed that travesty that is known as Festina Peche. Ugh.

Okay, back on track…

I really, really liked Brew Masters and we’ll set up the old TiVo to catch the next episode. Rather than read any more of my blather, here’s what the cool kids say about the show:

Brew Public
I especially like this write up because it mentions something I noticed when watching the first episode of Brew Masters: The Blue Moon commercials. As I’d suspected, the craft beer literati and the microbrew snobs have come out retching and kvetching about this. Never mind that in the first episode of Brew Masters, we were shown what a small percentage of the beer market is actually occupied by the likes of Dogfish Head Brewing. So you don’t like Coors. So you don’t like Blue Moon. Fine. Shut the fuck up, drink your $9/four pack beer and let the unwashed masses underwrite your beer-related television viewing entertainments through their purchases of the vastly cheaper beers made by the likes of Coors. (Cheaper and less inspiring, for sure.) Or, show some testicles and boycott the damned show, boycott Dogfish Head, boycott Coors and boycott the Discovery Channel. If not, at least shut the fuck up.

The Brew Lounge
One of the comments posted at this blog takes a swipe at the inaugural episodes rap-music fixation, perhaps having forgotten that the beer being brewed is to honor the re-release of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew by Sony Records. (Or something…)

Wall Street Journal
I don’t actually read the Wall Street Journal much.

Here’s what Beer Advocate posted about Brew Masters.

I’m bushed. Must be all the turkey I’ve eaten the last day or so….or the beer.

Beaver Creek and Colorado Native

Been in a bit of a funk of late – thankfully not for lack of good people around me. There’s just this sort of self-starting internal glumness that settles in now and then, accompanied by a bit of writer’s block (if I may be so bold as to call myself a “writer” for hell’s sake) and no matter whom you’re around or where you go, the pervasive gloominess hangs on for some reason.

Well, in spite of all that there are a couple of neat things to relate here at BeerRant, so I’ll be about it before this shadiness, this crankiness gets worse.

FLAGSTAFF IN THE FALL (It's nice.)

I rarely venture far outside the greater Phoenix area and when I do it’s almost always work related. A jaunt up I-17 to Flagstaff the last month of October was no exception. I spoke at a conference near the NAU campus on a Thursday afternoon and made a trip out of it, attending the conference all day Thursday and half of Friday. But what to do with my spare time on Thursday night? I did a bit of research on local brewpubs and by the time I’d arrived Thursday morning I’d pretty well determined that I would walk over to Beaver Street Brewery, just up the street from the conference center and the NAU campus.

It was dark by the time I set out from the conference center to make my way the two or three blocks to find Beaver Street Brewery’s operation. (I’d stopped to chat with other conference attendees and share an overpriced bottle of Fat Tire before heading off on my own.) I negotiated some road construction in the dark and managed to find Beaver Street with little difficulty. I was seated promptly and had menus in hand immediately. I kept one eye on the world series game while I scanned the menu to make my selections. Bowl of chili and a pint of their R&R Oatmeal Stout. I didn’t have my Beer Engineer’s Field Book during this trip, but a 3x5 index card made a nice substitute. Here’s what I jotted on that card:
R&R Stout. Dark/opaque with a sturdy head. Faint hint of chocolate in the smell and noticeable in the taste. Every bit as good as [Deschutes’] Obsidian Stout. Heavy lacing.

Every bit as good as Obsidian Stout. What higher endorsement do you need, people? The chili was darned good as well and the cornbread muffin – oh yes. I apologize there isn't a picture of this sturdy stout.

During my meal I spied a sign on the back bar advertising something called Lumberyard Red in cans. Thinking I’d likely need a beer or two back at the hotel, I asked the waitress if they had any package beers cold, when she replied in the affirmative, I had her add a 12-pack of the Lumberyard to my tab, then I settled up and made my way back to the hotel where I watched a couple more innings of the world series before changing over to a Charlie Brown classic. I sampled the Lumberyard there in the hotel and am happy to report that I can recommend it as well. I’ll give a better set of tasting notes soon.

I'll go back to Flagstaff as soon as I can, and when I do, I hope to be able to visit Beaver Street Brewery again.

HOPS TO THE PEOPLE, MAN!

When I first sampled Colorado Native Lager during my visit “back home” this summer, I wasn’t aware that it was a Coors product. I liked it then and I like it now, and perhaps I like it even more (you’ll see why in a second). You’ll see in the blog posts I made regarding the Colorado trip, I didn’t make reference to Colorado Native. Well I sampled it at a Baker Street Pub and snapped a photo with my phone camera, which I can’t download. I do have notes in this here Beer Engineer Field Book and the notes indicate I sampled CNL on two consecutive days. On July 21st I noted that it was “a bit dark for a lager” with a “faintly roasted taste…” and on July 22nd I played pool with my nephew and drank Colorado Native Lager along with some Black Butte Porter and some Mirror Pond Pale Ale. Good company.

More recently, I was chatting with my brother who was in Colorado the same time I was and he raved about a local beer he discovered in Vail or Winter Park or some such place. (I never venture any farther than Clear Creek County when I get to Colorado.) Turns out he was talking about Colorado Native Lager!

I like Colorado Native Lager just fine, I liked it before I knew it was basically a Coors product and I might actually like it more now that I do know it’s a Coors product. It kind of tickles me to get in another gulp of local product at the exclusion of those folks at Golden City Brewing.

Here’s the grading for Colorado Native at Beer Advocate. I wonder if all these folks know it’s a macro brew concoction.

Here's a cool blog post about Colorado Native’s label. Mentioned here is the fact that the ingredients for Colorado Native are 99.8% Colorado grown and that their back label includes something called a SnapTag. (Hmmm. I wonder what ingredients aren’t from Colorado and whether they might be able to do without them for the sake of a perfect 100% score.)

But that’s not the last word. Here's why I REALLY like Colorado Native Lager: I stumbled on a blog post at Mile High Beer. Seems the folks at CNL are going to distribute hop rhizomes to anyone who makes a request. I sent in my request and got a nice email reply. That’s cool. I hope to have that hop rhizome early next year. In the meantime, I’ll post a picture of a hop bud that I retrieved from a local hop plant up stream from the Coors plant, in Clear Creek County. (I’ll give you a hint; it’s not from a hop plant in Idaho Springs or Georgetown.)

Let’s hear if for all the Colorado Natives. (Now excuse me, I'm off to buy a Colorado Native Lager t-shirt.)

Stinker Alert! Buffalo Bill's Bad Batch! (Sorry)

The Jury’s In.

This year’s batch of Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale is a stinker. At least the Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale that was shipped to the Phoenix, Arizona market is a stinker.

I picked up a single of BBPA at the local Total Wine store on Saturday (not wanting to blow the dough for a full six pack in case my suspicions were confirmed) and on Sunday, I popped the top, and poured the contents to find a sour smelling, floater infested glass of tangy pumpkin ale, not at all in a league with their previous year’s efforts.

So for the 2010 historical record: A six pack of Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale purchased at Cost Plus was found to be sour smelling and tasting with intermittent flaky, paper-like floaters. A random single of Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale purchased at Total Wine was found to be sour smelling and tasting with small speck-like floaters.

Sorry Buffalo Bill. See you next year.

On a Positive Note.

In my quest for a single bottle of BBPA, I snagged a single of Lakefront Brewing’s Pumpkin Lager, remembering how enjoyed their pumpkin offering last year in Denver and a single of Abita Brewing’s Pecan Harvest (and some others) remembering with fondness a bunch of Shiner Holiday Cheer’s that I’ve enjoyed. (You remember that one from Texas that’s brewed with pecans and peaches…ah, delicious.)

I first enjoyed Lake Front’s Pumpkin Lager at a little Mexican restaurant on the west side of Denver almost a year ago exactly. The upside then was that they were having a special on this one and I originally recalled that it was on draft, but the more I think about it, the more I begin to recall that it was served in bottles. My brother-in-law was even coaxed into trying one and enjoyed it, I believe. I enjoyed it so much that when I returned from the Denver trip (last year’s Denver trip, not to be confused with this year’s Denver trip), I eagerly hunted the shelves of the local booze outlets hoping to find more, but to no avail.

Imagine my thrill at finding Lake Front Pumpkin Lager at Total Wine this past weekend. I don’t know if it was simply setting and circumstance, but my notes this time don’t measure up to that initial sampling. Here are the two separate entries.
October 7, 2009
More spice than pumpkin. Very good spiced pumpkin taste. Enjoyed as a prelude to getting my ass kicked at pool
(Did I mention that my brother-in-law is an accomplished pool player?)
October 17, 2010
Cloudy bronze. Weak head. Slightly sour smelling but with noticeable pumpkin smell. Vaguely sour, not especially spicy. Not as good as I recall it from Denver a year ago.

Indeed. I believe the October 2009 sample was all the more tasty because of the pleasant company of my brother-in-law. Setting and circumstance, people.

The notes for Pecan Harvest are certainly more hopeful than for BBPA this year and even as compared to the Lakefront Pumpkin Lager:
Copper colored with a thin head. Good – not like anything I can think of. Nutty roasted tasting – a bit rich and probably not something you’d want to drink a bunch of.

No, not a bunch, but just right if two or three is your goal for an afternoon under a tree in the back yard.

That’s it. I’ve got a busy rest of the week and a busy weekend coming up, then, this time next week I’ll be preparing for a two-day jaunt up to Flagstaff on work-related business and I’m hoping to visit Mogollon Brewing during my free time on Friday. (See them at http://www.mogbrew.com/)

The Bad, Better and Best of Fall Seasonals (So Far)

Did Buffalo Bill lay an egg this year?
I’m beginning to wonder. The six pack my daughter picked up for me at the local Cost Plus store tastes a bit sour and at least one of the bottles had some unusual floaters in it. In the interest of fairness, I’ll procure a single or two at the local Total Wine and do a comparison. Is it possible that Cost Plus got the remains of last year’s batch?

On a brighter note.
Sierra Nevada’s Tumbler seasonal is at least a bit better than sour pumpkin ale. My notebook for this offering reads thus:
Definitely brown. Weak head. Has kind of a corny lager smell. A bit sour and pretty weak.

I've come to expect more from the scientists at SN Brewing and this one just doesn't measure up, I'm afraid. I'll continue to look for their Torpedo (for example) instead.

Best of the batch.
I recall first sampling New Belgium’s Hoptober on tap at the Baker Street Pub near my sister’s place outside Denver last year. It was good, though I recall being surprised because I’d expected a somewhat darker, marzen or Oktoberfest style beer, when in fact this one was just a nice, straight up hoppy, light-colored ale.
Well, this years offering (in bottles this time) is no surprise and certainly no disappointment. The notes on this one:
Pours like a pilsener – straw yellow with a white head. Strong hop notes in the smell at first. Citrus/orange taste up front. Dry. Active beading. Medium-heavy lacing. Good – better than Tumbler.

"Better than Tumbler," indeed. (Sometimes this blog damned near writes itself.) Hoptober will be one I'll stock up on and enjoy for Thanksgiving - it's never too early to consider the holiday's, is it. (At right is a shot of the Hoptober from Denver 2009)

We’re heading into the best part of the year for beer lovers, people. Brace yourself. Pace yourself!