Can you identify the outlier?
a) Goose Island 312 Urban Wheat
b) Blue Moon Summer Honey Wheat Ale
c) Samuel Adams Honey Porter
d) Yuengling Black & Tan
e) Leinenkugel’s Honey Weiss Bier
Yes, there may be more than one correct answer (perhaps even one I haven’t thought of), so please include an explanation.
Could you say that yuengling is the only privately owned brewery?
By the Brewers Association new definition, only Boston Beer Company (Sam Adams) is a ‘craft brewery.’
The only beer out of the 5 above that I have tried is the Goose Island?
Black and Tan is two beers in one bottle.
Sam Adams isn’t privately owned?
And even though A-B owns a share of (what?) Pyramid, which owns a share of Goose Island, doesn’t mean the Hall’s don’t own the majority of Goose Island.
Only thing I could figure on the 3 beers is that the Yuengling is the only one that doesn’t use wheat or honey in its recipe? Too obvious?
Steve – Not only does Yuengling not include wheat or honey, but it is made with corn (grits).
Yuengling is available in a can…
Leinenkugel’s Honey Weiss Bier uses lager yeast is my guess.
Blue Moon is the only foreign-owned beer?
Porter is the “Man’s” beer; rich, robust and thoroughly outstanding!!!!Made by 1st mass American Microbrewery since before WW2.
Chris — Blue Moon is brewed by Coors (though you could follow the daisy chain back to Molson to SAB… but you’d have to do the same with Leinie’s.
Peter — Is the B&T brewed with corn too?
B&T is the only “traditional style”, brewed by the oldest american owned brewing company, since before craft was “big”…
It is also the only entry without the letter “S”
Rick – Honey Weiss comes in cans, though I think only in Wisconsin…or at least it did when I lived there
Steve – I can chime in on the B&T. I think it is still a blend of the Porter and Premium. If I recall the tour correctly even the Porter uses corn, and the Premium definitely does.
Steve:
Yeah I forgot that Leini was also owned by SAB, but that’s where I was going with it.
More than the ingredients used, the thing that sticks out to me is that Blue Moon is brewed at the largest single brewery in the world, while the other are much much smaller, and with the possible exception of Boston Beer, family run (If not owned) breweries.
Chris – Not sure if this changes your thinking, but Blue Moon is brewed at the Miller plant in Eden, North Carolina. Big, but not as big as the Coors facility in Golden.
Thanks, Stan, I did not know that.
Still, the main thing to me (even if I can’t get my facts straight!) is that Blue Moon is from brewing giant Coors.
Here’s a related “fact” to help illustrate what I mean. I would bet that sales of all the other beers combined doesn’t come close to the business Blue Moon does.
That’s a tricky one, Chris. Coors doesn’t reveal how much Blue Moon sells, but it is mostly Blue Moon White and probably around 2 million barrels. Together the other breweries sell a heck of a lot more than that, but those aren’t their biggest brands.
Yuengling Black & Tan is the only beer on that list which is made with lager yeast.
Blue Moon Summer Honey Wheat Ale is the only beer on that list not available year-round.
Well?
How long do we wait for the answer Stan — has no one been even close?
Steve –
As I noted, there was more than one correct answer. However, when I wrote the question I was thinking – as Thomas Cizauskas deduced only minutes after I put up the post – of the Brewers Association definition of “craft beer” and “craft brewer.”
This was so much fun that I think we might do it again tomorrow. With different beers and a different answer, of course.
The Blue Moon one is the only one I haven;’t tried at some point………
Yeungling is at 3.6 million barrels making them America’s newest craft brewer and also it’ oldest brewery. That is not an easy feat to pull off. Or did I not understand the BA redefinition?
First stater – the BA does not define Yuengling as a “craft brewer” because of the use of corn grits in the grist.
3.6m bbl for Yuengling? That sounds down right impossible- an 80% growth rate for a brewery that size? 2009’s barrelage is listed at 2,025,000. 3.6m would be well over the capacity of the 3 breweries, I think, as well. (They better buy that ex-Schlitz>Stroh>Coors Memphis brewery quick). Gotta cite for that stat?
Yet Yuengling just joined BA http://beernews.org/2011/01/yuengling-joins-the-brewers-association/
olllllo wrote:
> Leinenkugel’s Honey Weiss Bier uses lager yeast is my guess.
Yeast may be the differentiator, but it appears that Yuengling is the one that is different. The Black and Tan is made with bottom-fermenting yeast, while all the other appear likely to have been made with top-fermenting yeast.
My reasoning is that the Honey Weiss Bier is, according to beeradvocate, a kristalweizen, so that would suggest top-fermenting yeast was used. The Leinenkugel company website, however, appears silent on this matter, so I cannot be certain. I am also not certain about Blue Moon, but they do call all their beers “ales”, which would again suggest top-fermenting yeast.