New Belgium Lips of Faith: Eric’s Ale

Yesterday while browsing through the beer aisle at my local grocers, I came across a new brew from New Belgium that I had to try. Eric’s Ale is a sour peach ale, and in their own words, “a sour ale for those who don’t like sour ales, and a fruit ale for those who don’t like fruit ales.”  While I can agree with the fruit statement, I don’t think I can really agree with the sour statement.  This is definitely a sour ale.  If you don’t like sour ales, you probably won’t like this one either.  Not that it’s bad in any way.  Compared to New Belgium’s La Folie sour brown ale, this beer is mild in the sour dept, but still packs a pretty good kick.

Eric’s Ale pours a clear amber with minimal head, taste is of sour apple and honey, Acidity is present but not overpowering in any way, which is a plus for this beer.  Finishes long and dry with a taste of unripe peaches.  The Ale weighs in at 7% ABV, but doesn’t quite seem that heavy, probably due to the fact that its a sipping beer, not a chugging beer.  Eric’s Ale would pair nicely with bbq dishes, teriyaki, or any other dish that was heavier on the sweet and needs some acidity to balance it out.

World’s Strongest Beer

A new beer on the market has unthroned Scottish Brewdog’s Tactical Nuclear Penguin (which weighed in at 32abv) as the strongest beer in the world. Now the title appears to have been taken by a Germany company who has come up with an even stronger brew.

Schorschbrau has created the Schorschbock 40, which as it’s name suggests is a whopping 40abv. The whisky-like brew has gone on sale in Scotland where it sells for £10 a glass.

The beer is sold in .33 liter ceramic bottles. Each one is signed and hand-numbered by the brewmaster. Bottles are sealed with wax by hand and come in a wooden case with a transparent window on one side. Only around 40 bottles have been made.

Now I am not really sure if this should be categorized as a beer, or as a new class of malt beverage, but I do know that no one will be pounding pints of this while remaining standing for very long.

Beer Wars: The Movie

Looks to be an interesting documentary on the craft breweries vs the big dog commercial brewers.

Check out all the info at Beer Wars

The Great American Beer Festival

The Great American Beer Festival from Brewers Association on Vimeo.

Chuckanut Brewery & Kitchen, which opened in 2008, claimed the title as the 2009 Small Brewpub and Small Brewpub Brewer of the Year, winning 4 medals out of the 13 awarded to Washington breweries: two gold (Chuckanut Dunkel and Vienna Lager) and two silver (German Pilsner and Chuckanut Schwartzbier), at the 28th Annual Great American Beer Festival in Denver, Colo. Chuckanut Brewery is the first brewery in the history of the Great American Beer Festival competition to win a Small Brewpub of the Year award with all Lager-style beers.

Breweries are awarded points based on medals won, and these points are tabulated for the results of the 2009 GABF Brewery of the Year Awards. The GABF judges awarded Chuckanut Brewery the 2009 Small Brewpub and Small Brewpub Brewer of the Year based upon the medals won.

Other Washington brewing medals went to: Pyramid Brewery (Haywire Hefeweizen and Mactarnahan’s Amber), Redhook Ales (ESB and Treblehook), Silver City Brewery (Old Scrooge ’98, Ridgetop Red, and Gold Mountain Pilsner), Snipes Mountain Brewing Inc. (Coyote Moon), and Ram Restaurant & Brewery (Clearwater Kolsch).

The Great American Beer Festival is the largest and most prestigious competition for American craft beers. This year’s competition featured 3,308 beers from 495 breweries, a panel of 132 judges from 10 countries, 78 beer categories, and 51 first time breweries at the competition.

Why didn’t I think of this…..

Beer burglar steals 450 kegs from Guinness brewery

In a daring and apparently unprecedented bit of crime, someone broke into the Guinness brewery in Dublin yesterday and stole 450 kegs of beer and stout. And the manhunt is on.

Ireland’s national police force, the Garda Siochana,
announced the nationwide manhunt earlier today. A lone man drove into
the brewery Wednesday and hitched a fully loaded beer trailer to his
truck, driving away with 180 kegs of Guinness stout, 180 kegs of
Budweiser and 90 kegs of Danish beer Carlsberg. Guinness brews the
latter two under license.

The kegs held the equivalent of 39,600 British pints and they had a
value of about $235,000, the police estimated. Diageo, the company that
owns Guinness, says it’s the biggest theft in the brewery’s 248-year history.

The historic brewery is a major tourist attraction. Here’s more information about the place.

taken from USA today
Beer burglar steals 450 kegs from Guinness brewery – On Deadline – USATODAY.com

Powered by ScribeFire.