Wall Street Journal Acknowledges Beer, Says Craft Beer is Growing

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123733628873664181.html

From the WSJ:

"The economic crisis has stifled entrepreneurial activity in many industries. But it's done little to dent the ambitions of those who dream of brewing their own beer and offering it to the world.

Surprisingly large numbers of entrepreneurs -- some let go from corporate jobs in recent years -- have been starting microbreweries or brewpubs. Schools that teach brewing are being showered with applications from people interested in getting into the business. At the same time, enthusiasm for interesting new beers remains strong; BeerAdvocate.com, a Web site for beer enthusiasts, says its traffic has reached one million unique visitors a month, and is rising as much as 12% each month.

Last year, even as a recession gripped the country, 114 microbreweries and brewpubs -- restaurants that make their own beer -- opened in the U.S., according to the Brewers Association, a Boulder, Colo., trade group. That marked the highest number since 1999. Openings are expected to decline this year, but start-up activity remains robust, says Paul Gatza, director of the Brewers Association. The group estimates 200 microbreweries and brewpubs already are on the drawing board for the next few years.

For some of the new entrepreneurs, the desire to make beer predated the recession. "I got into it because my wife said I could, and it just seemed it would be a heck of a lot of fun," says Steve Klotz, a 46-year-old former Dow Chemical Co. engineer who took a voluntary buyout in 2006 and plans this summer to open a microbrewery in Midland, Mich."

Read the rest of it here.

We're Invited a Guest Lecturer

Ben and I happened to meet some beer lovers at the latest Rogue Apron dinner. Not surprising at all, given the fact that lots of good beer is featured at these events.

Anyway, one particularly memorable character because we got to talking about Beer Club. His name was Maddox and he works at the BSP, and he generously offered to come to talk to our group about Belgian beers. He said he would find out blog and then connect with us about coming to BC.

So I had to make sure I posted this so that if and when he finds us, he can post a comment here.

COME HITHER!!!

February Meeting Notes - "Pairings"

In honor of Valentines day, the Dirty South Beer Club theme for February was "your favorite pairing" - most members took the opportunity to pair a beer with a food item. We had a couple of more creative takes on that theme, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

We decided to rate the beers alone and then choose a favorite pairing at the end.
Here are the minutes:

Pairing #1: Aventinus (Germany) (oops - seems the secretary only noted the brewery) and Christa's Homemade Soft Pretzels (see below for the pretzel recipe)
This pairing went over VERY well. With respect to the beer - "Supposedly people get mad when Cook's Warehouse runs out," and we could see why. The pretzels were off the hook yummy.
Beer points: 13

Pairing #2: Mr. Beer West Coast Pale Ale and a "Grain of salt"
This was Matt's (aka Mad Hops') first attempt at a home brew - thus, we were to take it with a "grain of salt" haha! The pairing worked - the beer was "better than expected."
Beer points: 4

Pairing #3: St. Peter's Porter and Highland Oatmeal Porter and St. Auger blue cheese
Interesting experience - we tried this pairing first with the St. Peter's - and it was fabulous - but the Highland didn't complement the cheese as well. That said, judging the beers alone, there seemed to be an overall preference for the Highland.
Beer points - St. Peter's Porter: -2
Beer points - Highland Oatmeal Porter: 6

Pairing #4: Dogfish Head Palo Santo and Dagoba Xocolatl Chocolate
This pairing was "quite the exbeerience," as the Palo Santo is "not your mama's brown ale," and did a great job of balancing a little "mouth fire" from the chile chocolate.
Beer points: 17

Pairing #5: Victory Storm King Stout and Chocolate & Butterfinger Dipped Pretzel Sticks
Smiles abounded with this pair. The Victory was a "distinct Imperial Stout" - "hoppy," and "delicious," with a "pop roxx mouthfeel."
Beer points: 11

Pairing #6: Beer float - Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout and Hagen Daz Chocolate Ice Cream
This was probably the most "daring pairing" - and reviews were mixed. Those who poured less beer over their ice cream were happier than those who filled up the glass. Also, some felt that vanilla ice cream would have been better. Sleeping Brewty feels that this is the "best beer ever."
Beer points: 7

Pairing #7: Dirty South Shoulder Massage and Sweetwater Happy Ending
All agreed that this won MOST CREATIVE PAIRING. We were all told to give our neighbors a short shoulder rub - and then our friends Vargo and Matt supplied the Happy Ending to finish off the evening. And boy did it hit the spot! After laughing a lot, we got down to business with respect to the beer: pine needles, citrus, hoppy start and middle, and of course someone offered "orgasmic."
Beer points: 10

It seems that our secretary failed to note which pairing was the favorite - but I remember the top two were Aventinus and Homemade Soft Pretzels & Dogfish Head Palo Santo and Chile Chocolate.

JV provides some amusement

Please read from the bottom up. This is an email chain between JV and .... someone who runs a blog called "This Peanut looks like a Duck." I suggest you check it out!

Vargo--why are you on blogs like "This XXXXX looks like a Duck???"

That is hilarious!!

---------------

On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 11:44 PM, vargo wrote:
hmmmm.? I sent it to beerfoam@thispeanutlookslikeaduck.com

I got it at this post on the blog

http://www.thispeanutlookslikeaduck.com/quack/2008/01/08/this-beer-foam-looks-like-a-duck/


On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 11:11 PM, Marc H wrote:
This is interesting - how did I get this email? Where did you send it to?
Cheers,
Marc

On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 4:01 PM, vargo wrote:
Awesome blog! Wondered if you had seen this brewery from NC.

Cool logo and great beer

http://www.duckrabbitbrewery.com/index.html

Recipes

Christouts's Homemade Soft Pretzels

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups warm (110 to 115 degrees F) water
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 package active dry yeast
• 22 ounces all-purpose flour, approximately 4 1/2 cups
• 2 ounces unsalted butter, melted
• Vegetable oil, for pan
• 10 cups water
• 2/3 cup baking soda
• 1 large egg yolk beaten with 1 tablespoon water
• Pretzel salt

Directions

Combine the water, sugar and kosher salt in the bowl of a stand mixer and sprinkle the yeast on top. Allow to sit for 5 minutes or until the mixture begins to foam. Add the flour and butter and, using the dough hook attachment, mix on low speed until well combined. Change to medium speed and knead until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the side of the bowl, approximately 4 to 5 minutes. Remove the dough from the bowl, clean the bowl and then oil it well with vegetable oil. Return the dough to the bowl, cover with plastic wrap and sit in a warm place for approximately 50 to 55 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Line 2 half-sheet pans with parchment paper and lightly brush with the vegetable oil. Set aside.

Bring the 10 cups of water and the baking soda to a rolling boil in an 8-quart saucepan or roasting pan.

In the meantime, turn the dough out onto a slightly oiled work surface and divide into 8 equal pieces. Roll out each piece of dough into a 24-inch rope. Make a U-shape with the rope, holding the ends of the rope, cross them over each other and press onto the bottom of the U in order to form the shape of a pretzel. Place onto the parchment-lined half sheet pan.

Place the pretzels into the boiling water, 1 by 1, for 30 seconds. Remove them from the water using a large flat spatula. Return to the half sheet pan, brush the top of each pretzel with the beaten egg yolk and water mixture and sprinkle with the pretzel salt. Bake until dark golden brown in color, approximately 12 to 14 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack for at least 5 minutes before serving.

Dirty South What?

So, I think we need to back up a bit. What the heck is this blog about anyway?

Here, let Creative Loafing explain. Or, let me explain:

This, if you haven't figured out by now, this is a blog about the thoughts and actions of a group of (wannabe?) beer geeks. A "club" in fact. A club whose members reside in the "dirty south" - in the "the A" (AKA the Atlanta). Many of said geeks happen to live in the quaint town of Decatur - you've heard it mentioned in famous Outkast songs. Yes, you have. What you haven't hear about in Outkast songs are the beers that we love. You also haven't hear about the way that beer club works. Let me tell you a thing or two about the method to our madness.

We meet once a month. Each meeting has a theme. We learned the hard way that tasting the entire rainbow of beers at a single meeting left our palates exhausted and ours mind F'ed! So, some of the themes we've done include:
Fall Seasonal Beers - October(fest);
Regional Southeastern Beers - November;
Winter Seasonal Beers - December;
A Festival of Lights and Darks - January (see below for the wrap up on that one!); and
Your Favorite Pairing - February (you know, for Valentines) - which was mostly interpreted as food and beer, but a couple of our more creative members took some liberties. More on that in a future post.

Our tasting and rating methodology goes something like this:
Step 1: Everyone brings a beer or two.
Step 2: We take stock of the beers that were brought and decide on a rough tasting order.
Step 3: We choose a "Dirty South Secretary" for the night.
Step 4: We commence tasting.
Step 5: We discuss the taste of the beer and the Secretary takes notes.
Step 6: We rate the beer using our own very precise (and accurate!) thumb system. Thumb up = +1; Thumb sideways = 0; Thumb down = -1. The secretary tallies up the thumbs and records the rating. Now, just as fruit-heads don't like comparing apples to oranges, and we don't like comparing pilseners to porters. So, we rate beers against their self-described style (i.e. "This is thumbs up for an imperial stout).
Step 7: At the end of the night everyone is allowed to retroactively apply an additional thumb to their favorite beer, thereby giving that beer "Two Thumbs Up."
Step 8: Based on this scoring system we award a "best in club" prize to the beer that wowed us the most.
Step 9: We put our junk in the box (we recycle!)

Get it? Cool. Go drink some beer. Some good beer that is. Not this beer. It is the worst beer we have ever tried at a beer club meeting.

Brews News

Two cool beer things I've discovered:

First off--the drama about the beer "Hop Obama" from the NYTimes. Love it when they catch on to beer!

Second, a fabulous flickr group called "52 1/2 weeks in beer." This is an awesome weekly post on flickr by a guy who I don't know who loves photography and beer. He agrees to photograph and try one beer each week (the 52 1/2 group all photographs different things, but all around one theme). It is so creative!

For instance, see below. The theme was "self portrait" and he was drinking the Rogue Double Dead Guy (a goodie!). Do you see the "double dead guy?" (who is him)
By the way, I agree with him that Beer Advocate hasn't done justice to this beer by giving it a B+. It's an A- in my book, too.

For the theme on lyrically inspired, he did Thomas Hardy's ale, and photographed it with a whole bunch of books. For the theme on motion/movement, he is caught in motion drinking a "loose cannon" Clipper City beer. The V-Day theme on "love" is funny. My favorite is the theme of "everyday life," for which he inserts a remote control into the 6 pack, plops it on a totally dull background, and shoots. Note, too, the Smuttynote Finest Kind IPA, to which BeerAdvocate 'Bros gives an A+! Personally, I love the 6 pack art too: two dudes just chillin on the lawn!
In other news, we just had a beer club last night. So fun! Ben to report soon.

Home Brew

Last night Matt and I bottled his second batch of homebrew. He is using the Mr. Beer Starter kit (aka Fisher Price My First Brewery) that he got as a gift this Christmas. He started this batch a few weeks ago I think. It's called "Canadian" something and tastes kind of wheaty. Ok, I know nothing about it but it was fun to go through the process. We started by sanitizing the bottles using a rinseless sanitizer. You pour a bit in all the bottles and on the caps and it kills some bad bacteria but leaves some good bacteria. While we waited for the sanitizer to do its thing we sampled the uncarbonated beer. It smelled very sweet but tasted blah, it was the definition of flat.

Once we emptied the bottles of the sanitizer (we don't have to rinse) we put a measured amount of sugar into each bottle to give us the carbonation we desire. Then we began to fill them from 'the Keg.' Matt handled this and then passed them on to me and I popped a cap on dey ass. Then I placed an identifying sticker on the tops of the bottles. Now they sit in a box and ripen and then they get drunk.

Leon's Full Service

Howdy folks, from your friend...Sleeping Brewty! (Get it?! Get it?!!) We Decaturites had long been anticipating the opening of another Brick Store Pub...errrr, I mean, a place to dodge the crowds of the Brickstore. I was getting seriously tired of waiting for a seat at the bar on Monday or Tuesday nights! So....when Leon's Full Service opened on Monday, we were all super excited.

I was just one of many beer clubbers present for the occasion - in the words of my fellow beer clubber - it was damn cool. The space itself has been nicely remodeled from a gas station (to an antique store) to a lovely ambience filled restaurant. Or, I mean, gastro pub. The food is local-seasonal and I hear, pretty damn good. There are lots of nice booths and out of the way places. They have bocce ball outside, too...a real plus!

The beer selection is obviously excellent...and on tap is my new favorite beer, the Duck Rabbit Baltic Porter. BeerAdvocate gives it an A-, but Rate Beer gives it a score of 100! I tend to agree with the Rate Beer peeps. Also on tap is the classic Gordon's IPA from Oskar Blues, Great Divide Titan, Dupont Saison, Victory Stout (that one takes like a watery Guiness) and lots of others, of course. Unlike the Brick Store, though, that rotates every week, they will keep these beers on tap for a while, to train the new staff. I'm ok with that, because it's a pretty great selection! One interesting factoid we learned is that they are keeping the stouts and porters they have in wine coolers - 49 degrees while the other beers are kept in regular (colder) coolers. Cool huh? pun intended.

We Atlantans are super lucky to have such wonderful beer establishments (and we Decaturites are even more lucky!) I especially like the outside space. We have a special beer club booth that they promised to reserve for us whenever we need it (uh, not really...). We tried to convince Dave (one of the owners) to do a guest lecture for us - but he expertly steered clear of committing. We will have to try again. It has been my goal to get us a guest lecturer. I've also tried my luck with the beer guy at Sherlock's (no such luck). And would love to have the Creative Loafing dude who is the beer guy (Jeff someone)...anyone know him?

LYLAS (anyone know what that means??),
Sleeping Brewty with the power of the King of Beers (Club)

Beer me that bailout

Beer sales and new breweries are not feeling the effects of the recession like other sectors. Especially local craft breweries. BTW, apparently breweries also need occupational health and safety employees.

Check it!