What do these breweries have in common?

What do these breweries have in common?

* Chama River Brewing Co.
* Green Flash Brewing Co.
* Hollister Brewing Company
* Iron Hill Brewery and Restaurant – Media
* Left Hand Brewing Co.
* Pelican Pub and Brewery
* Southampton Publick House
* Utah Brewers Cooperative

These are the breweries on my team in the Great American Beer Festival Fantasy League. They do share a few other things in common, although you have to be somebody who plays in a beer fantasy league to get comfortable with the geeky details.

For instance, brewers Ted Rice (Chama) and Chuck Silva (Green Flash) were in the same American Brewers Guild graduating class. I was really ticked when Hopworks Urban Brewery (co-founder Christian Ettinger was in that ABG class too) got drafted by another team before I could add teh brewery to mine.

This is already more information than you need, right?

GABF: What would you write about?

Hard working beer writerTomorrow I’m off to Denver for the Great American Beer Festival. No complaints — or this wouldn’t be 15 years in a row (a streak that ends after this year — but I am aware that: a) it won’t be the biggest thing in Denver during the next week, and b) most beer drinkers around America, let alone the world, don’t give a hoot.

Although I travel with a specific to-do list I also know that good sense disappears one ounce at a time in the Colorado Convention Center. Every reporter has a certain number of story ideas shoved in his or her face, then you run across a surprising beer or two, get corraled into focusing on a particular style (like barley wine; bad idea) and come Monday you think, “Who cares about any of this?”

So I’m giving you a chance to make suggestions. This might be a really bad idea if what follows is deathly silence. Don’t be shy. I might even ask a superstar brewer your question.

What would you write about if you were going to be at the Great American Beer Festival? Would you . . .

– Lean on Vinnie Cilurzo to reveal what sort of beer he intends to put in all the used Cabernet Sauvignon barrels he has acquired?

– Take tasting notes on every beer from newish breweries like FiftyFifty, Hopworks Urban and Hollister?

– Ask Garrett Oliver what the next beer will be on the 750ml bottle series (while sampling an ounce of the wonderful Local One)? Note: A bad idea because he has promised to delay the next release by a month every time he is asked this question.

– Snarf down every bit of food in the 3,124 food and beer tastings planned for the rest of the week?

– Write haikus?

You tell me.

Session #8 Wrapup: Best of Beer & Food

The Best of American Beer & FoodCaptain Hops wraps up Session #8 with a haiku of course:

Another Session
Connects, satisfies, and builds
Beer community

He reports: “By my (non-scientific) count there were 28 participants, 16 recipes, descriptions of 4 formal beer dinners, and at least 60 beer and food pairing recommendations. In addition, I counted 7 first time Session participants.”

Session #9 will be hosted by Tomme Arthur of Lost Abbey Brewing. Expect an announcement soon, but pardon him if it takes a few days. Yesterday was his birthday and tomorrow he travels to Denver. There’s a little beer festival going on there later this week.

Back to Beer & Food: Lucy Saunders rolled out her new blog in time for the Session, supporting her book The best of American Beer & Food: Pairing & Cooking with Craft Beer.

She’s going to be very busy at the Great American Beer Festival, but I plan to grab a minute here and there and post an interview as well as a review of her book (sneak preview: thumbs up).

Serious beer talk – but today ‘just’ beer will do

The Best of American Beer & FoodDespite concerns it might by too windy several hundred balloons lifted off this morning as the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta kicked off.

A picture with hundreds of balloon mostly shows a bunch of little dots. So here are a few of them (view from our back patio – known as a portal in these parts of the country).

The wind has kicked up since, but I expect to be able to sit out back tonight – inspired by Lew Bryson’s barbecue adventures of yesterday – eating properly smoked (trust me, Lew, it will be smokey) Texas-style ‘cue and drinking Flying Dog Dogtoberfest.

Fact is, though, thoughts about the beer will be way in the background. We’ll talk about the Illinois and Northwestern football games and monitor the progress of the Chicago Cubs.

New Beer Rule #5 will be in full effect: It is only beer.

But if you need some serious beer talk there are worthy discussions going on.

First, Jay Brooks’ wrapup on the beer bloggin’ brewhaha (it’s about ethics, but that would have screwed up my alliteration).

Pair that with the Wall Street Journal’s story about food blogs and free meals. Connect the dots.

Second, Alan McLeod wraps up a ménage à trois involving Ron Pattinson, Garrett Oliver and the Beer Advocate community (so it is a lot more than trois, plus Stonch was in there). I was already planning on pointing you to Ron’s original post, but much more fun broke out in the meantime.

Great stuff. That is if you are inclined to be thinking about beer today.

You knew this: Beer prices going up

BarleyWhat happens when you use about twice the malt and as many as five times the hops of a mass-market brew, like Budweiser or Miller High Life and commodity prices go up?

The Wall Street Journal joins the conversation about looming higher prices for craft beer that’s been going on in multiple beer blogs the past month.

It appears the Journal has posted the story in its free area (I hope I have that figured out) so just a couple of highlights – since I’ve written about it here, while Lew, Rick, Jay and others have reported much that’s in the Journal.

– “The cost increases have been the largest we’ve ever faced, both in barley and in hops,” says Boston beer (Samuel Adams) founder Jim Koch.

– Larger brewers won’t be forced to increase prices as much – in part because of buying power and in part because they use less malt and hops.

– Malt prices are up 40% to 80%, hops prices 20% to 100%.

– “I think there’s going to be some brewers out there,” says Dogfish Craft Brewery brewmaster Andy Tveekrem, “if they haven’t looked that far ahead, that actually might run out of malt or hops, which would be a catastrophe.”