{"id":375,"date":"2007-11-05T14:06:09","date_gmt":"2007-11-05T21:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/blending-beer-before-and-after-bottling\/"},"modified":"2007-12-01T13:57:39","modified_gmt":"2007-12-01T20:57:39","slug":"blending-beer-before-and-after-bottling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/blending-beer-before-and-after-bottling\/","title":{"rendered":"Blending beer: At the brewery; at the bar"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"LeinenkugelThe Chicago Tribune just ran a story on what the author calls blending beers<\/a>, but might more accurately be described as mixing beer cocktails.<\/p>\n

In my mind brewers blend<\/em> before beer is bottled. That’s a subject I wrote about for the current (November-December) Imbibe<\/em><\/a> magazine. Customers also blend, but I prefer using the word mix<\/em> in order to differentiate the two.<\/p>\n

And, per usual, I might not know I am talking about. Discussions about favorite blends have broken out on several e-mail lists since the Tribune story appeared, with the favored word being “blends.” Jacob Leinekugel Brewing is promoting the idea, though bless their hearts without calling it blending, with a new “What’s your mix?” campaign. The brewery invites drinkers to come up with their own mixes, and its website features videos<\/a> of the brothers Leinenkugel and their favorites.<\/p>\n

I considered including beer cocktails in my story for Imbibe<\/em>, but I used up my quota of words before getting to that. Since I discussed the idea with several brewers you get a few outtakes that didn’t make it into print.<\/p>\n

“They are unintentional blends,” Tomme Arthur of Lost Abbey<\/a> said without being literal. “We work on the components individually and think about how they might come together.”<\/p>\n

A drinker in a bar — and working on a mix where you can ask a bartender for 90% of this and 10% of that leaves a lot less extra beer sitting around than when you start with bottles &#151 begins with what is available.<\/p>\n

“They are trying to create something different, something new,” said Firestone Walker Fine Ales<\/a> brewmaster Matt Brynildson. “We have an opportunity to dial it in, but the concept is the same.”<\/p>\n

Firestone blends most of its beers, even Humboldt Nectar IPA. My story focuses on Firestone 10, the anniversary beer released a year ago. That beer tasted somewhat different sitting in pitchers during a large group session that helped set the final blend than after it went into bottles. “Most of it was integration,” Brynildson said.<\/p>\n

Firestone 10 is long gone, now fetching silly prices on eBay and at a few liquor stores in the Paso Robles area. Firestone 11 is in the works, an entirely new blend. Details soon (I hope).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Chicago Tribune just ran a story on what the author calls blending beers, but might more accurately be described as mixing beer cocktails. In my mind brewers blend before beer is bottled. That’s a subject I wrote about for the current (November-December) Imbibe magazine. Customers also blend, but I prefer using the word mix … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beers-of-conviction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4wTn-63","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/appellationbeer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}