It's a Small Beer World

The world economy is teetering on a scary precipice. The vast majority of the world's BEER is brewed by only a handful of companies now. This is an oligarchy. AB-InBev controls about 25% of the world beer market. SABMiller, Molson-Coors, and Heineken (just announced that they are purchasing Femsa for $5.5 Billion) more or less control the rest of the world's beer. This is a scary notion. If only a handful of companies control the entire market worldwide they can dictate the prices that they are willing to pay for the ingredients. This means that they will crush the grain and hop growers, while gouging consumers. They can manipulate the marketing by controlling ad budgets and shelf space in retail outlets. At first glance you might think, "Great, they lower the price of the ingredients and the small brewers making real beer can get the ingredients cheaper too!" except you would be wrong. Since the small brewers now make up only a infinitesimally small fraction of the overall market the hop growers and grain producers will actually raise the prices charged to small brewers because they have no leverage. How screwed up is that? And since the small brewers can't get their beer on the shelves to sell it, it is harder to make any money. So bad beer becomes more expensive and more pervasive. Good beer becomes more expensive harder to find. No one wins. Even the red-neck Americans drinking the now Belgian beer, Budweiser, will feel the effects of this oligarchy. The only solution is the use your wallet. Buy microbrews, or brew your own, but DON'T buy crappy beer from the Walmartification (I think that I just invented a word) of brewers.

Cider Press Day 2009!

Saturday 10/17 is the Yakima Homebrewers Cider Press day. We'll be pressing apples to be used in hard cider. I hope it will taste better than last year's batch. That just was too dry and packed a punch. This year I hope to shock the yeast - have it ferment enough to be alcoholic, but hopefully the fermentation will happen fast enough to shock the yeast and stop fermentation. I might have to chill it at some point too to stop the process. I want it to be a little bit sweet. I wonder if I can add some non-fermentable sugar to it so that it is still sweet, but the alcohol can still be present....hmmmmm. I need to think about this a bit.

Monster vs. Vermonster

There is a rumbling sound coming from the Northeastern US. Art Rock Brewing in Vermont is facing a legal challenge over the name of their 'Vermonster' beer. The Vermonster is an American Barley Wine that is 10% abv, and 100 ibu. That is a BIG beer. Sweet on the tip of the tongue, hoppy at the back. The challenge over the name comes from Monster energy drinks. The two products are beverages based on sugar, and the similarity pretty much ends there. To think that anyone might confuse the two products is pretty ridiculous. One is targeted at refined beer drinkers, the other at horny teenagers apparently.

Freshhop Ale Festival

I've been anxious to hit the Fresh Hop Ale Festival for a LOOOOONNNNGGGGG time. What brewer could resist tons of breweries pushing hoppy suds with other beer lovers skipping between tents to tell their friends about the great beer(s) that they had just tried. But $30/ticket seemed a bit steep. It does support charity, and a good one at that(Allied Arts), but still that's a lot of green for beer. My wife scoffed at the idea of attending until she read about it in the newspaper. The hoppy beers were just too much for her to resist. She decided that I was going and she was coming along. I love my wife!

The Yakima Homebrewers had a tent there and brewed a batch of beer throughout the day and into the night. Sometime around 20:00 the skies opened and it started to pour. It was an ironically unprepared collection of people. The folks from Seattle and Portland didn't bring any rain gear because, well, it's Yakima. The Yakima people didn't bring any rain gear either because, well the same reason. Heck, most of us don't even have rain gear. It doesn't rain in Yakima. Ever. Except for last night. It was about 40° and pouring. Fortunately it was dry enough long enough for everyone to get a good buzz going then when it started to pour people crowded under tents and scuttled to various pubs and restaurants nearby. People huddled around the brewing vessels in the Homebrewers' tent for warmth and the wonderful smell it provided. We dried out in the Sportscenter after a while of dodging the rain. Good beer was had by all. Particular favorites of mine were the beers from Beer Valley Brewing Company in Ontario, OR. They had an Imperial IPA(Leafer Madness) and an Imperial Stout(Black Flag). I need to explore their beers a bit more. A quick look at their web page indicates that their beers tend to be big ones. I don't see anything under 5%.

Thanks to my wife for buying the tickets. I hope that she's recovered sufficiently to deal with our son when I pick him up from the grandparents soon. Also thanks to Allied Arts for putting together a fantastic event despite the rain. Already looking forward to next year.

Finally Racked the Barley Wine

3 weeks have flown by me. I completely forgot about my Barley Wine bubbling away in the Garage. Oops. I racked it this morning. I saved the yeast because there was ALOT of it. I don't have very high expectations for this beer, but we'll see what happens. I realized that we forgot a few ingredients when we originally brewed the beer, so I added them today. That is probably a BIG no no, but I think that it will be OK.

Old Monster and Rootbeer

Ian and I finally managed to do some more brewing on Sunday. It took a while because we hadn't done anything in a LONG time. We made a 'big' beer that is an American Barley Wine called 'Old Monster' It is supposed to age for 3-6 months, but will be best after 1-3 years. I don't know if I have the patience, but there's only one way to find out.

We also made some rootbeer. This is the first time that I've tried an sodas. It was REALLY easy, especially since I carbonated using my kegs. It was also really cheap in comparison. I needed extract, and 4lbs of sugar. Probably could have gotten by with 3-3.5 lbs.

What's Brewing?

Not much at the moment. I'm planning to do some Rootbeer based on the experiences of a fellow brewer. I think that it will be a quick way to fill a keg and keep it going. Should be an interesting experience. I'm going to start a 'Big' beer soon as well. I'm not sure of the details on it yet. I'll also probably get another batch of the mocha/chocolate porter going. That seems to be popular. I've been mulling things over for too long though. I need to brew!