Craft Beer World By Mark Dredge

Posted by Beer Blogger | Beer Books | Posted on May 1st, 2013

Anyone that has been in the craft beer world for a while knows about beer reviews and the many beer review sites.  Most of us have likely written a review or 2000.  Writing notes about our beers helps us to break them down and really focus on what they’re all about and what we enjoy about them.  We find flavors we may not have noticed before and aromas we really like.  Reviews are a great way to educate those that are new to craft brew and good for expanding the knowledge of those more seasoned veterans of the drink.  Sometimes we find reading others reviews helpful in finding new and interesting brews that we would like to enjoy ourselves.  Beer judge Mark Drudge has written about over 350 of some of the best beers in the world in his book Craft Beer World.

Craft Beer World takes more than 350 beers and breaks them down into 50 categories then breaks down each of those brews.  These reviews aren’t just some amateur stuff on some internet site.  This author really knowns his stuff.  His writings have been good enough to earn him British Guild of Beer Writers awards in 2009, 2010, and 2011.  It’s a nice reference for those that are new to craft beer, looking to explore new beers and find out a bit more about them before they run out and start buying a bunch of beer that may not be exactly what they’d been looking for.  While it’s awesome to try new things and explore new flavors, sometimes people want to know what they’re getting ahead of time.  This book helps the reader do just that.

Exploring the world of craftbeer is an fun filled journey.  While many of us like to jump right in and form our own opinions by trying everything we can get our hands on, some like to know a bit more about what they’re getting into.  This book is a great read for those who look to know more about what they’re jumping into but also for those that are looking to learn a bit more about many of the great beers out there.  This read will leave neither party disappointed.  Buy Craft Beer World by Mark Dredge here on Amazon now.

Brew Clip Bottle Opener Money Clip

Posted by Beer Blogger | Beer Gadgets | Posted on April 26th, 2013

There are some things you just don’t leave the house without.  Your wallet is one of them.  For many craft beer drinkers, a bottle opener is another one.  Now what if you could combine those two essential items into a single item saving room on your person and making sure you have both with you at all times?  The Brew Clip bottle opener money clip holds your cash and insures you’re always ready to pop bottles of brew when it’s time for a drink.

It’s a money clip designed to hold your loot and when you need to pop a bottle of beer, simply slide out the stylish bottle opener and open away.  The Brew Clip is designed to be durable and stand up to years of use while also being light weight so it doesn’t add extra weight or bulk to your pocket.  Big beer baller?  This money clip has plenty of room for all your bills, credit cards, and receipts (gotta have those to write off your deductions from the beer bar right?).  Now with their Kickstarter projects funding climbing, the Brew Clip is being offered in natural wood grain just for Kickstarter backers in addition to the high-quality plastic nylon standard Brew Clip which is also offered in several colors.

The Brew Clip helps minimize the number of items you need to carry with you while also being sure you always have the right tool for opening your favorite craft beer when needed.  Hold that cash for buying your beer and then pop those bottles once the purchase is made, all with the same handy tool.  There isn’t much time left to help fund the Brew Clip project and get yours for the great intro pricing offered.  Checkout the Brew Clip Kickstarter project today and help fund a sweet gadget for any beer fan.

Critter Cutter Bottle Opener

Posted by Beer Blogger | Beer Gadgets | Posted on April 25th, 2013

Bottle openers are the best.  They get us into our favorite brews and that is a noble job they serve.  But when they serve other tasks too they become even better tools to carry with us.  The Critter Cutter Bottle Opener offers more than just a handy bottle opener.  In addition to prying bottle tops off and offering a twist-off bottle opener, it also has a box cutter that can also be used for prying.

Isn’t it cute?  This bottle opener looks great hanging from your keychain or backpack and will look even better opening your favorite beer.  The jimping across the back of the Critter Cutter looks great and also helps improve grip when prying and twisting at a bottle of brew.  We’ve all had those cheap liquor store checkout and promotional bottle openers in the past and anyone that has put them to good use (like most craft beer fans) knows they don’t hold up well with their cheap aluminum that seems to fail after just a few 12-packs of beer has been popped.  The Critter Cutter on the other hang has been designed and engineered to be heavy-duty so it will stand up to years and years of use and countless craft beer bottles.  Stainless steel construction offers great durability while still being light weight enough to have on your keychain or attach elsewhere and carried along on the go.  Stainless steel won’t wear over time like aluminum so the Critter Cutter is sure to last.

Cheap bottle openers are everywhere but often fail us when we need them most.  Spend the couple extra dollars and get a beer bottle opener that looks great and will last you a lifetime.  Checkout the Critter Cutter Bottle Opener’s Kickstarter page today and help fund this great gadget.

612Brew Main Stage Amber Ale

Posted by Beer Blogger | Beer Pictures | Posted on April 24th, 2013

While IPAs, imperial stouts, sours and other big flavored beers have been the hype for some years now, it seems session beers are a growing presence. Is is great news for those of us looking to enjoy several beers while we’re out and not have to worry about what kind of condition we’ll be in when we have to drive home. 612Brew has introduced a very nice brew with Main Stage Amber Ale that offers plenty of flavor along with a low enough alcohol content to enjoy a few without waking up with a hangover.

Main Stage Amber Ale blends caramel, Munich, and Victory malts for a nice medium body and a low hop profile along with an ABV of 4.5%. Plenty of flavor from the malt combo with a light biscuity flavor and plenty of smooth light caramel.

Stop in and enjoy this Amber while it rocks the stage at 612Brew. Be ready to throw some dollars at it and spend the night courting a few. Maybe you’ll get lucky.

Get your wallets out. You’re about to fall in love. This Amber ale has a great body and complex character from the Caramel, Munich, and Victory malts. Low-hops and low-alcohol, so you can enjoy several throughout the night, this Amber looks great seated next to you and you can tell, really likes you. The song is almost over.

Time to order another from the Main Stage.

4.5% ABV 31 IBU 14 SRM

Arcadia Ales Imperial Stout

Posted by Beer Blogger | Beer Pictures | Posted on April 10th, 2013

Winter time.  While most of us hate the colder weather, most seem to love the big beers that come out to keep us warm this season.  Big barleywines and imperial stouts with malty bodies and higher alcohol levels to warm the cheeks.  While many of us look forward to big names that may be hard to get, we should be paying more attention to the great beers that are much easier to come by.  Acadia Ales Imperial Stout is a perfect example of a great imperial stout that can hold it’s own aginst the big guys and is easy to get your hands on.  It even won a gold medal for bottle conditioned beer at the 2002 Real Ale Festival.

This bottle is from 2006 and aged wonderfully.  For 8.4%, it held up very well over the years and was still thick and viscous.  The nose had plenty of chocolate and a light alcohol note.  Lots of milk chocolate in the taste with a nice bit of roasted malt bitterness still around.  I’d definitely cellar this one again.

Acadia Ales sells this brew in 4-packs of 12oz bottles making it easy to grab several for the cellar.  Enjoy a couple now and put a couple away for 6 months to a year from now.  It’s great to experiment with aging reasonably priced brews and seeing how they change over time.  There is less risk financially than doing so with the expensive, limited released bottles.  The bargain prices also means you can afford to pickup a number of them to put away.  Check one out every 6 months and see how it progresses over time.  Save some for a vertical tasting from several vintages over the years.  12oz bottles also mean you don’t have to finish a whole lot of big beer if you do choose to go at a bottle on your own.

Winter is here and it’s time to stock the cellar and settle in for the cold months ahead (and the holidays where a big of alcohol helps to ease the stress of the season).  Checkout Acadia Ales Imperial Stout and keep warm this winter.

Barley John’s Brewpub 13th Anniversary Ale

Posted by Beer Blogger | Beer Pictures | Posted on April 5th, 2013

Barley John’s Brewpub in New Brighton, MN has been offering some of the best beer in the state along with awesome food for years now.  This March marks their 13th anniversary and as always, their anniversary beer is a big Irish Red Ale.  The 13th Anniversary Ale is a strong Irish red ale that’s big enough that it may be called a barleywine over in Ireland but here in the US the alcohol, at 7.3% ABV, makes is a bit low for that.  It’s still plenty big for a style that normally clocks in between 4.0% and 6.0% ABV.  Along with amped up alcohol comes big flavor.  Lots of light caramel in the aroma with a nice full malty kick.  The flavor is very full but light at the same time so it doesn’t overwhelm.  Plenty of malt body with notes of light caramel and a slight sweetness.  The light sweetness in the flavor turns to a nice dryness in the aftertaste making this beer easy drinking and really rounding things out nicely.

After 13 years in business, Barley John’s continues to brew up great beer and offer wonderful food to go along with it in a welcoming little brewpub just outside Minneapolis.  If you haven’t stopped in or it’s been a while, make your way there and checkout the much loved year-round offerings along with a ton of great seasonals they’ve been cranking out lately.  They had a total of 9 seasonal beers alone when I was in the other night enjoying this 13th Anniversary Ale.  Just because there have been an explosion of new brewers in the Twin Cities lately, we shouldn’t forget the older staples that make brews we’ve loved for years.  Drop into Barley John’s soon for the 13th Anniversary Ale and try some of the other fun stuff on the menu.

Barley John’s Brewpub Cocoa Old 8 Porter Cask

Posted by Beer Blogger | Beer Pictures | Posted on March 27th, 2013

Barley John’s Brewpub in New Brighton just minutes outside of Minneapolis offers awesome beers and food.  With the return of casks on Wednesdays, a number of great new brews have popped up.  This most recent cask beer took their awesome year-round Old 8 Porter and added cocoa to the cask.  Normally there is plenty of wonderful roastiness, chocolate, and coffee in both the aroma and flavor but the addition of cocoa added a nice extra hit of chocolate to this favorite.  Cocoa Old 8 Porter pours nicely from the cask via gravity pour and leaves a nice frothy bubbly light-brown head.  The foam didn’t stick around as long as it normally does on tap, likely due to the additional oils of the cocoa killing head-retention but that just meant it was even easier to get the brew straight to your mouth.  The cask pours extra smooth thanks to a lower carbonation level than the normal brew and allows many of the flavors to really come through a bit more than normal.  The aroma has nice notes of chocolate and light coffee with the cocoa adding a bit to the chocolate hints.  Smooth and light milk chocolate.  Light coffee and a light and balanced roastiness with just a hint of roasty bitterness.  A very nice addition to the Old 8 Porter.

Wednesday casks offer fun new version of Barley John’s normal brews along with their seasonals beers.  With spring coming and their great patio opening at that time, you need to plan a time to drop in for a Wednesday cask offering and checkout the great things they’re brewing at Barley Johns.  Drop in soon.

Fundamentals of Beer Brewing Illustrated

Posted by Beer Blogger | Beer Books | Posted on March 20th, 2013

For many craft beer fans, the natural next step once they’ve come to love craft beer, is to brew their own beer. Homebrewing is a hobby shared by many beer lover and one anyone can do (unless you live in one of the 2 states where homebrewing still hasn’t been legalized). The question for many is how they get started. Fundamentals Of Beer Brewing Illustrated offers a nice guide to getting into homebrewing.

Reading through Fundamentals Of Beer Brewing Illustrated, you first find a nice little history of beer and brewing. It’s quick and simple but offers some interesting facts about how our preferred beverage came to be and grew around the world. After that short history, we jump right into how to homebrew. The guide is pretty basic with some decent pictures showing the steps involved in making your own brew. Things don’t get overly detailed as they do in many homebrew books but they do a good job of covering most of the basics. Using the information provided, one will be able to brew up their first batch of brew with little problems.

While Fundamentals Of Beer Brewing Illustrated doesn’t offer the detail and all the best techniques that books like The Complete Joy Of Homebrewing and others may have, it covers everyone one needs to get started and figure out if they’re interested in continuing to homebrew. At it’s low price, it a nice guide to getting started. Grab your copy of Fundamentals Of Beer Brewing Illustrated for the Kindle here on Amazon.

BeerTubes Tabletop Beer Tower

Posted by Beer Blogger | Beer Gadgets | Posted on March 15th, 2013

We love beer.  With most beers, more is better.  Why order a 12oz glass when you can get a 16oz?  Why bother with 16oz when 20oz imperial pints are available?  And why bother with all of that little stuff when you can have 100oz of your favorite brew right on your table, ready to pour from a tap to your glass?  BeerTubes tabletop beer towers are the perfect solution to allow you to pour table-side and keep plenty of beer on hand.

BeerTubes are great for when you’re out at the bars and restaurants with friends or at home having a party.  They bring attention to the beer and offer you up to 100oz of brewtiful liquid ready to pour at your discretion.  Definitely a fun way to display your homebrew at parties.  For bars and restaurants, it’s something that other tables will see and want to order one themselves too.  With lots of different BeerTube bases to pick from, you can customize this tower of beer to your own personal tastes.

I spent a night pouring pints from my BeerTube and it really makes drinking even more fun.  Filled with 100oz of local craft beer I had cold beer on tap all night long.  At first one might want to watch how far they open the tap as things can come out a bit quick with all that pressure in the tube but after the first pint things are fine and you’ll be pouring perfectly headed pints.  When the beer does come to an end for the night, it’s plenty easy to clean up and get ready for the next use.

The Chill Stick (seen below) is a stainless steel tube filled with a non-toxic gel that you freeze and then place in the Beer Tube to keep it cold for extended periods of time.  While not necessary if you’ve got a few friends to help finish a tube off in a short period of time, the Chill Stick is a great investment for those looking to serve their beer outside in the summer or when going at one with just you and a friend (or by yourself like I did).  It keeps the beer at a nice temp for hour and is well worth the price to keep your brew cool.

BrewTubes offer a great way to display and drink our favorite beverage and make drinking even more fun.  They’re well made, easy to use, and easy to clean up when you’re done.  They offer a unique way to drink beer and people love to be able to pour their own pint right from the tap.  Checkout the BeerTubes website here and get your very own tower of beer.

OneKlip Bottle Opener

Posted by Beer Blogger | Beer Gadgets | Posted on March 13th, 2013

You know we love bottle openers here.  Unique bottle-cap prying devices that allow us to get at our favorite sudsy beverages.  While single function bottle openers get the job done, it’s nice too when a bottle opener makes it easy to take along with your or serve another function too.  The OneKlip bottle opener does double duty not just popping bottles but it also functions as a money flip or hooks easily on your pants for easy carrying.

The OneKlip bottle opener is made from a single piece of metal and has a magnet to catch the bottle caps (although they claim they haven’t had any issues with it de-magnatizing credit cards, they do offer a magnet-free version too).  The magnet also allows you to stick the OneKlip to a refrigerator or kegerator so it’s always accessible when you need it.  This bottle opener can be used as a money clip to hold credit cards and cash or a chip-clip.  Having a bottle opener when you need it is always something we should all be prepared for and the clip on this opener makes it easy to hook it on your pants too or anywhere you need to have a bottle opener waiting when brew may arise.

The multi-functional nature of the OneKlip makes it more than just a simple bottle opener to pop a beer top.  It serves other utility functions too making it an even more useful tool and one worth carrying with you.  It can hold your beer money and later help you get at all that tasty brew you spent all of your money on.  It’s an item that can be carried with you at all times (don’t leave your money filled clip and bottle opener at home) so you’re never without an opener.  Get your own OneKlip bottle opener by helping to fund their Kickstarter project here.