VIDEO – This video is just a quick look at another fun filled Kate the Great day at Portsmouth Brewery in Portsmouth New Hampshire (check out last year’s adventure here). While the bottles were gone by 5:30am, the taps were flowing with what brewmaster Tod Mot called “his best work ever”.
We love “beer day’s” as they bring together a community of like minded (beer geeky) people and allow for a day of great beer conversation and sampling. Even though there was some talk of the desperation to get a bottle of Kate, the talk was more often about the individuals quest than it was of their disappointment. The moral of the story shared by most: be here really early next year if you want a bottle of this great beer.
In the end it was another great event hosted by Portsmouth Brewery and another tasty glass of Kate the Great for here for the beer. Who knows, one of these years we might just get out there early enough to meet this guy…
VIDEO – Our trip to Portland had to include a visit to the legendary Shipyard Brewing Company. What we didn’t expect was to be offered the opportunity to chat with founder and Master Brewer Alan Pugsley.
Beyond Shipyard, Alan has been instrumental in the building of many breweries around the globe and introducing the distinctive Ringwood yeast to New England. Alan is certainly an icon in the brewing world, especially in New England. Pugsley built the brew house and helped to design Geary’s Pale Ale for D.L. Geary’s Brewery, which is the oldest brewery in New England and one of the original “micro’s”. Alan continued to design brewereies for Gritty McDuffs and Federal Jacks among many others, before launching his own brewery and brand – Shipyard Brewing Company – in 1994.
In this video we talk to Alan about the brewery, Shipyard’s plans for 2010, Pugsley’s work designing brew houses and Shipyard’s current large contract brewing operation.
In a related note, we received an email today from Shipyard sharing that the Pugsley Signature Series beers which are mentioned in the video will be available soon in 12oz 4 packs as well.
Be sure to check out all of our Portland adventures, and stay tuned to here for the beer for even more from our trip to Maine. Cheers!
During our recent trip to Portland, we stopped in at D.L. Geary Brewery and got to talk to David Geary about his beers and Geary’s brewery. Geary’s brews traditional styles and focuses on session beers, including their Pale Ale and Hampshire Ale. However, recently they have dabbled a bit in more “experimental” styles, “knuckling under the tyranny of the hop” as David shares and brewing an Imperial IPA and a crazy dry hopped creation which will be coming out this summer.
David gave us some of the background of the growing brewery and their need to expand (anyone have a 100 barrel system for them?). According to David, they are currently running a “22,000 square foot brewery in an 18,000 square foot building”. But you wouldn’t get that feeling (ok, aside from the row of storage boxes out back) as the facility is really well laid out and organized.
We really appreciated Davids matter of fact personality and his focus on lower alcohol beers with flavor. There is something to be said for how solidly rated every beer from D.L. Geary’s is on the major beer rating sites. While we all appreciate the occasional extreme beer, it’s the staples like Geary’s Pale Ale that are my go to, more often than not.
For more from our trip to Portland, check out the Portland Maine section of here for the beer or follow along with us on Twitter. For more about Geary’s check out their website (and yes, you can order your Geary’s thong here!).
It’s winter in Vermont, which means some quiet weekdays at our Inn. Perfect time of year for another road trip – and this time we head to Portland Maine for a week of awesome beer adventures.
We start our trip at the Great Lost Bear after hearing about it from some of you on Twitter. It’s no surprise that you recommended it, what a cool spot. A great draft list of dozens of Maine beers, as well as some random New England favorites and of course a few Belgians – all served up in a comfortable casual atmosphere. Not to mention a solid menu of good reasonably priced food. A great combination in any beer lovers book.
In this episode we talk with Mike Dickson, the bar manager at the Great Lost Bear about the pubs choice to go “micro” (in 1990 no less) and their killer specials.
The Great Lost Bear had just what we love about a good beer bar – a comfortable and non-pretentious environment that supports their local scene (check out the Allagash Alley) and encourages folks to try new things.
If you are ever in Portland Maine, make this a must stop. And be sure to keep an eye on the rest of our Maine adventure on here for the beer!
The Great Lost Bear
540 Forest Avenue
Portland, ME 04101
(207) 772-0300 www.greatlostbear.com
In this weeks episode I head down to the ice behind our Vermont inn for some early morning ice fishing with my friend Doug (Amy was stuck inside making breakfast for the guests). Ice fishing starts early, and pretty much requires beer – so the question begged, what is the perfect ice fishing beer. This time we go with a coffee theme – sampling several coffee infused beers.
We start with Southern Tiers Jah Vah Imperial Stout, give Long Trails Imperial Coffee Stout a try, sample the BBC Coffehouse Porter and wrap with the Wolavers Alta Gracia Coffee Porter – all without catching a single fish…
Luckily, before the day was out we did catch a fish – and climb back up the hill to the inn.
The extreme cold meant these beers were a bit colder than I would have liked, which leads me to wonder what the best cold weather beer would be? Any suggestions?
VIDEO – During a recent trip up to American Flatbread in Burlington Vermont we got to meet Allagash Brewery owner and brewmaster Rob Tod. Rob hosts an annual beer night at American Flatbread and brought a host of great Allagash brews this year, including a cask of Four, a log of Bi-Curieux and some cellared kegs of Musette and Black (each delicious).
Rob was a great host and gave us a few minutes in the Flatbread brewery for an interview. In the video Rob shares a bit about the history of Allagash brewery, some insight into what’s new in 2010 with Allagash and answers some questions about both the packaging (cork and cage) and the bottle conditioning of their 12oz and kegs.
Our trip also gave us the opportunity to meet Paul Sailor, the owner of American Flatbread, and their brewer Destiny (watch for that interview coming up). We also got to connect with our friends at g.Housen and catch up with some of the Vermont BA folks. The food at American Flatbread is excellent and their beers and their guest beers are always top notch. Another great night, and another fun episode of here for the beer!
In this weeks video we answer the question – Is Blue Moon Beer? This popular beer from Coors Brewing Co. in Colorado is widely available and marketed heavily. The result – it is what most Americans think of when you talk about Hefeweizen or Wheat Beers. Is that a bad thing? We don’t think so.
First of all Blue Moon, despite the immediate beer snob reaction of “that’s a Coors beer”, is a decent beer. It’s even earned itself a solid B- with over 1,000 reviews on Beer Advocate. Is it the best interpretation of a Belgian White? No. But it IS a great gateway beer. I can’t tell you how many people in our pub, when confronted with not a single macro choice, try (and love) the Ayinger Hefeweizen because they recognize the style name from Blue Moon. From there they often ask what other beers they would like that are similar – and thus a craft beer lover is born.
Face it, craft beer is not likely to outpace the big boys anytime soon. But as long as the big boys are dabbling in the craft market, they are helping transition the macro beer drinker into a craft beer experimenter.
If AB or Coors was to try to market a new macro as an “American IPA” can you imagine the crossover that would happen as people start to gain recognition of the style? Once they were hooked on the big guys marketing message, there are so many great craft IPAs that they could transition to. It would probably be the best thing that could happen to the craft beer industry.
So while our video is short and fun and addresses a funny question of “Is Blue Moon Beer?” the reality is that we owe Coors a thank you for helping turn some of the fizzy yellow water drinkers into craft beer lovers like us.
In this episode we talk about Beer Advocate Meet Ups. They are a great way to meet other beer enthusiast in your area. BA Meet Ups occur all over the country, to find one near you go to the events page on Beer Advocates website. Most recently we attended the BA Meet Up in Vermont, this one was at Otter Creek Brewery in Middlebury. There was an amazing selection of beers including homebrews, rare beers, production breweries test batches, and beers from all over the US and the world. Some of the big labels at our event were Westvleteren 12, New Glarus Raspberry Tart, Russian River Damnation,New England Imperial Stout Trouper and the list goes on and on. What I like most is you can try these rare beers along side of more popular beers in the same style and determine for yourself what is hype and what is truly a world class beer. That and of course all of the great friends we make.
Thank you Mike Garhart for hosting this event and Ruth Miller for organizing and executing it. We had a blast and look forward to seeing everyone again soon, Cheers from here for the beer.
Episode 2 – Tonight we hosted a Victory beer sampling at our inn (Forty Putney Road) in Brattleboro Vermont. We sample the Wild Devil, Helios and Tim’s new favorite – V12.
Thanks for the questions and keep them coming. We intend to do this “show” on Tuesday and / or Thursdays – still working out the details. Any suggestions? When do you have time to watch?
Happy New Year everyone. For the New Year we are launching an additional series of videos. We envision this series to include a question and answer segment. We need your help to make this a success. Send us your questions either in this post on facebook, twitter, U-Tube, Blip…etc. We will do our best to find the answers for you. Remember nothing is too silly. We have some T-Shirts and Hats that Brooklyn Brewing Company gave us to launch this new series, so the first three questions we use we will send you some Brooklyn swag.
We look forward to an amazing 2010! See you all this year on here for the beer, Cheers.
VIDEO – On the night before the night before Christmas in 2009, we attended a beer dinner at the Sierra Grill in Northampton Massachusetts. The dinner was hosted by Sam Calagione, the founder and president of Dogfish Head Brewery in Rehoboth Delaware. Throughout the night, Sam shared some great stories about himself and the brewery. This is the first is a series of episodes sharing those anecdotes with you.
In this video Sam talks about how Dogfish Head got its name, how the brewery was started and a bit about the recent world of Dogfish Head. Be sure to check out the other segments from this event right here, on here for the beer!
VIDEO – Well, we thought we were done for the year, but ended up scoring a last minute seat at what turned out to be one of the best beer dinners we attended this year. The dinner was aptly called the night before the night before Christmas and was held at the Sierra Grill in Northampton Massachusetts. The theme was a vintage Christmas, and so some creative spins on a traditional Christmas dinner were paired with vintage Dogfish Head beers and creative “Christmaswear”. Dogfish Head founder and president, Sam Calagione was at the dinner, along with his family and friends from the area (as Sam is from the western Massachusetts region).
If you haven’t been to a beer dinner at the Sierra Grill, put it on your to do list in 2010. They put together some of the best pairings we have ever tried. The owner of the Sierra Grill, O’Brian Tomlin, is a true craft beer evangelist. The tap list on any given day is top notch. Their chef Ralph Webb is extremely creative and loves to prepare food with beer. The combination makes for a killer beer dinner and this one was no exception. Courses included a goose stew with duck sausage, paired with Dogfish Head 2007 Immort Ale and Lobster Eggroll with Dogfish Head 2008 Pangaea. There were two entrees presented, a Bison Prime Rib and a Roasted Smoked Pheasant, both served with Dogfish 2007 Burton Baton. Finally the dinner wrapped up with a Christmas cake (you need to watch the video to hear the chef describe what went into this!) paired with a 2008 Dogfish World Wide Stout.
We also had the opportunity to get some great interviews with Sam, his father and his wife. So we have split the videos up into a series that we will be posting throughout the week. Consider it our “After Christmas special”. We hope you all had a great Christmas and wish you a happy new year! Cheers from here for the beer!
Hello everyone, December marks the our first anniversary here at hereforthebeer.com. We want to thank all of the wonderful people that we had the opportunity to meet this year. We hope that you enjoy our montage (the first good use of the song as far as we are concerned)! We look forward to an even more interesting and exciting 2010 on here for the beer … Cheers!
It’s winter in Vermont. So even a honest to goodness Corona fan probably wouldn’t crack one open in our 4 degree weather. So what’s there to do with the stuff… Well, luckily I caught this video today on another beer blog and thought you may enjoy it (the video and the other beer blog!). The perfect use for a case of Corona…
As an aside, Amy and I are working on some fun new projects for some regular videos starting in the new year and have a couple of fun beer events we will be sharing with you soon. In the mean time, enjoy this Carol of the Beers and have a Merry Christmas from here for the beer!
