Stan Hieronymus

Which one of these breweries is not like the others?

Waiting for food at Side Project Brewing in St. Louis
This sign helps the food truck server find you at the bar at Side Project Brewing.
A press release that the London Craft Beer Festival would include “a spectacular line-up of UK-rare, high quality, sought-after American craft beers” dropped earlier this week.

Sadly, it does not name names, but promises “creative sour and fruited sours, wild and spontaneously fermented beers, classic wheat beers and a plethora of show-stopping IPAs. Audacious flavour combinations include blueberry crumble sour ale, peach lager made with real fruit and Bourbon Barrel-aged stout made with monster cookies, honey glazed coconut, a touch of peanut butter and candy-coated chocolates to tempt the tastebuds of even the most traditional beer drinker.”

After I paused to consider what it means to be a traditional beer drinker, I scanned at the list of 22 breweries and thought about how different some of them are from the others. On the whole, diversity is good. But Side Project Brewing squeezed in there between Samuel Adams and Sierra Nevada just looks strange to me.

AleSmith Brewing Co
Allagash Brewing Co
Cigar City Brewing Co
Coldfire Brewing Co
DESTIHL Brewery
Fremont Brewing Co
Hinterland Brewery
Jack’s Abby Craft Lagers
Maui Brewing Co
Mother Road Brewing Co
Montauk Brewing Co
Other Half Brewing Co
Oskar Blues Brewery
Rogue Ales & Spirits
Samuel Adams
Side Project Brewing Co
Sierra Nevada Brewing Co
Sweetwater Brewing Co
Toppling Goliath Brewing Co
The Bold Mariner Brewing Co
The Virginia Beer Co
Urban Roots Brewery & Smokehouse

Saturday afternoon in the biergarten (June 21)

I am not a filmmaker, and Crafts & Crates (almost) every third Saturday of the month in the Halfway Crooks Biergarten in Atlanta really needs moving pictures and music to be understood. I’ll be writing about it eventually, but I suggest you scroll through Crafts & Crates at Instagram and click on every @[fill in the blank] that you see to get an idea why organizer Mike Moore should be franchising hip hop in the biergarten.

(Honestly, that is a silly suggestion. Atlanta has terrific things going on that will take a lot of work to make happen in other cities.)

Drinking Halfway Crooks beer and listening to DJ Sammy B in the HC Biergarten

Happy customers

DJ Sammy B at Crafts and Crates at Halfway Crooks in Atlanta

DJ Sammy B is legit legendary, a member of the Jungle Brothers

The hands of a master -- Sammy B of Jungle Brothers

Magic touch

Read more

Link alert

Colorado Beer Glass -- filled with Cannonball Creek Project Alpha LXXV

Father’s Day beer: Cannonball Creek Project Alpha LXXV

There was plenty of interesting (new to me, even) reading last week, but I am sticking with my plan not to reenter the That Was The Beer Week That Was business.

However, this is a little different. On Thursday my beer RSS feed began filling with links to articles at Randy Mosher’s website, remodeled, in part, I think, to support his upcoming book, “Your Tasting Brain.” Mosher has added articles going back almost 20 years to his archives. Something for everyone.

My new favorite beer style? Vera

Jeff Alworth yesterday used to news that the Brewers Association added seven new beer styles to the Beer Style Guidelines in advance of the Great American Beer Festival to rage about how there are too many beer styles.

This is one another of those discussions I feel like I’ve been part of more than enough times already, so just two thoughts.

I am happy that there is a defined category for West Coast Pilsner. Highland Park Brewery has won three GABF medals for the beer they call Timbo Pils at their website and describe as a West Coast Pilsner. Timbo has won as an American-Style Pale Ale, an India Pale Lager and in the India Pale Lager or Malt Liquor category.

The first GABF competition in 1987 included a dozen categories: Ales, Alts, Cream Ales, American Lagers, American Light Lagers, Bock/Doppelbocks, Continental Amber Lagers, Continental Pilsners, Porters, Stouts, Vienna Style Lagers, Wheat Beers. Where would you have entered Timbo Pils?

Vera Charles, mycologist
Vera Charles*
Second, I’ll write more about the hop named Vera in Hop Queries this month. Meanwhile, the announcement that the 2025 competition will include a special category featuring beers brewed with Vera (formerly known as W1108-333 or HRC-003) caused me to imagine a festival that will never happen.

The fest would include beers named only after the hop “providing the leading role” in their aroma and flavor. In the GABF Vera competition, brewers will declare the underlying style. Not at this festival. Festival attendees could ask about other ingredients in the beer, about supporting hops, about the yeast, fermentation temperatures, lagering time, IBUs, whatever they wanted. Except style.

There could even be a competition. Similar to Juicy/Hazy IPA at GABF, the most entered hop category would be Citra.

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* Vera Katherine Charles (1877–1954) was an American mycologist. She was one of the first women to be appointed to professional positions within the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Charles coauthored several articles on mushrooms while working for the USDA.

It’s not beer’s fault, it’s me

Beyond the beer glass -- traffic on a New Orleans street

The headline — Costco Is Coming for Craft Beer — about store brand beers reads like click bait. The story itself, on the other hand, serves interested readers well. But . . . I can’t remember how many version of this I have read. It is a function of knowing that Mission Street Pale brewed by Firestone Walker and sold by Trader Joe’s won two gold medals and a silver at the Great American Beer Festival before purposefully hazy IPA existed.

Every few years there is a story about which Trader Joe’s beers are brewed at what breweries. (I’m pretty certain that shortly 2011, Firestone Walker quit brewing the Mission Street Pale and Trader Joe’s found another brewery to make the beer.)

And almost 10 years ago there was the “Is Walmart Looking to Dethrone Budweiser as King of Beers?” story.

That too many posts sound so familiar to me is one reason you won’t find a list of links here today, or on the Mondays that follow. Another is that a regular Monday posting does not sync the rhythm of life around here (or wherever we are). Random might work better.