Medium-size breweries?

You seem to be the only one here that is even reasonable to the argument. Everyone else here defends the Commercial Beer industy as though they either work or have stock in Bud/Miller etc...

Sell Out!!!

You know some of the locals disagree, possibly some people liked the uneveness as long as the quality of taste was good.

Mad River, I beleive is still Union.

From BeerBrewing.com

U.S. Beer Industry

The U.S. industry is divided into three basic levels of brewing according to annual production: high-volume, regional, and small breweries. Although numerous and showing strong signs of growth, small breweries accounted for less than three percent of total U.S. beer shipments in 1997.

Large Breweries

The large breweries are those with annual shipments of over 15 million barrels (31 gal/barrel). All U.S. breweries in the first tier are owned and operated by the three largest brewing companies in the United States: Anheuser-Busch Inc., Miller Brewing Co., and Adolph Coors Co. The top three brewers accounted for over 80% of the industry’s shipments in 1997. Most of these breweries – which are publicly held – are located in Texas, Colorado, Wisconsin, and New York State.

Regional Breweries

Regional breweries are those with annual shipments of less than 15 million barrels, but greater than 15,000 barrels, and with distribution usually regional in scope. Most regional breweries are privately held by single plant brewing companies. Some of the larger regional breweries are Stroh Brewery Co., Pabst Brewing Co., Genessee Brewing Co., Falstaff Brewing Corp., Latrobe Brewing Co., D.G. Yuengling & Son, Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing, Matt Brewing Co., and Spoetzl Brewery, Inc. Many former microbreweries that have doubled or tripled in size are now considered regional breweries (for example, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. and Redhook Ale Brewery). Regional breweries accounted for an estimated 15% of total U.S. beer shipments in 1997. Most of the regional breweries are located in Pennsylvania, Oregon, Wisconsin, and California.

Microbreweries and Brewpubs

Small breweries consist of both microbreweries and brewpubs. Some of these brewers object to this classification and prefer the appellation of "craft brewer," which refers to a brewer of primarily specialty, niche products. These small brewing enterprises started making their appearance in the United States in the late seventies. "Microbreweries" was a designation initially given to brewers because of their small volume of production (less than 15,000 barrels of beer annually). There is no apparent rationale for this delineation, and there are a number of microbreweries that produce more than 15,000 barrels annually. A brewpub is a restaurant-brewery that sells the majority of its beer on-premise, a common practice in Europe. Annual production for brewpubs rarely exceeds 5,000 barrels.

Steve Jackson wrote: Massive snip

A-B did do some craft style beers out of the local brewery (Fairfield CA), some of which were very interesting (It was too long ago to give exact details). On the web page I see reference to "Bare Knuckle Stout" which I've never seen but would try.

Nels Shipyard winter ale - my current favorite

Had it, bought it again, certainly in the style of dry stout.

-- Lew Bryson

Author of "New York Breweries" and "Pennsylvania Breweries," 2nd ed., both available at The Hotmail address on this post is for newsgroups only: I don't check it, or respond to it. Spam away.

[ major snippage...]

Indeed - in fact the only brewery that I've visited which didn't mill their own grain was a small English brewery - the York Brewery. They bought pre-crushed grain because they brew in some kind of designated heritage building, and the risk of a fire due to a grain dust explosion meant that milling on site is prohibited by law (or so I was told).

In any case, the beer was fabulous!

"Lew Bryson" wrote in news:_Iotd.30043$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr19.news.prodigy.com:

Had it, thought it sucked, found out the next day it was brewed by A-B. Felt good about myself that my intense dislike of it had nothing to do with the fact A-B brewed it.

Tried it a while back and survived the experience with a definite feeling of ambivalence. I wouldn't turn it down but I don't think I'd buy it either.

Pick it out as "the sucking one" in a blind tasting with Guinness, Murphy's, and Beamish, and I'll be impressed.

-- Lew Bryson

Author of "New York Breweries" and "Pennsylvania Breweries," 2nd ed., both available at The Hotmail address on this post is for newsgroups only: I don't check it, or respond to it. Spam away.

"Lew Bryson" wrote on 07 Dec 2004:

Bring it on, ya pussy. I've tried the Bare Knuckle twice - once ordering it, once being told to "taste this" without knowing - it's rather a bit thin, certainly thinner than Guinness et. al., and it's not nearly as rough as Guinness.

It's certainly not just a colored beer; they use actual dark malts with actual ale yeast, and that's lovely, but it ain't on a level with the Irish stouts.

(Disclaimer: I was selected for a survey 18 months in advance to decide on a bunch of the marketeering bullshit that went into this beer. I made fun of them.)

Witzel

Is that the stout they were pouring at the GABF? I tried it, and it was, while not at all unpleasant, kinda just there. I asked some technical questions about it to the shiny, well- dressed A-B guys, but they had no answers. I guess I should have asked them about talking frogs or something.

Just had a damn near perfect pour of Guinness yesterday, and I'm not sure I'd agree with you. I want to try this blind tasting myself, because I think it might be an eye-opener. Blind comparison tastings are very educational. Everyone should do them more often. Wish I could, but Cathy refuses to wear a blindfold and pour beers nekkid.

-- Lew Bryson

Their clothes are weird, their music sucks and they drink malternatives. And now you tell me they probably don't think Sierra Nevada is cool? This is what the passage of years does to you: It makes everyone around you more stupid. -- Michael Stewart 6/24/02

Joel ( snipped-for-privacy@see.headers) wrote: : Bill Benzel wrote: : >Lew Bryson ( snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.net) wrote: : >: "Nels E. Satterlund" wrote: : >: > On the web page I see reference to "Bare Knuckle Stout" which I've never : >: > seen but would try. : >: : >: Had it, bought it again, certainly in the style of dry stout. : >

: >Tried it a while back and survived the experience with a definite feeling : >of ambivalence. I wouldn't turn it down but I don't think I'd buy it : >either. : : Is that the stout they were pouring at the GABF? I tried : it, and it was, while not at all unpleasant, kinda just there. : I asked some technical questions about it to the shiny, well- : dressed A-B guys, but they had no answers. I guess I should : have asked them about talking frogs or something.

Definitely not as I was not at GABF. Also did not run into it in the staging area at WBC while stewarding and I'm not sure it was entered as that was back in March and I ran into it more like July this year.

I am stretching to recall -- think it was the Long Beach Yardhouse -- the wife and daughter were drinking Lindeman's Kriek -- maybe San Diego Brewing -- those are the only two places I've been with the wymmyn that have Lindeman's draft so it had to be one or the other.

I'm struggling to figure out how you not being at GABF and not seeing it at WBC means it was a different A-B stout that I tasted at the GABF. Has A-B brewed and marketed more than one stout in the past six months?

"Lew Bryson" wrote in news:Jdutd.3467$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr31.news.prodigy.com:

That would require me to be a bit more of a fan of any of those three in order to set it up. Do I think I could do it in a blind tasting? Being that I'll never get a chance to try, I'll say hell yeah. I should probably throw a pointless insult in there as well, but that seems like work.

Then again, dry Irish stout isn't exactly a fave, excepting Dominion's yummy version (and Sly Fox's as well, which I think was pretty damn good).

I'll just have a Black Wych, thanks. :-|

Joel ( snipped-for-privacy@see.headers) wrote: : Bill Benzel wrote: : >Joel ( snipped-for-privacy@see.headers) wrote: : >: >: "Nels E. Satterlund" wrote: : >: >: > ..."Bare Knuckle Stout" ... : >: : >: Is that the stout they were pouring at the GABF? : >

: >Definitely not as I was not at GABF. Also did not run into it in the : >staging area at WBC while stewarding and I'm not sure it was entered as : >that was back in March and I ran into it more like July this year. : : I'm struggling to figure out how you not being at : GABF and not seeing it at WBC means it was a different : A-B stout that I tasted at the GABF. Has A-B brewed : and marketed more than one stout in the past six months?

Sorry, I misunderstood the question -- so the answer to both the original and the new question is a resounding "I don't know."

I read your first one as asking whether I'd tried it at GABF.

Some days I really detest this medium. I am soooo misunderstood.

Skipping the image of yer wife (whom I've never met) nekkid.........

"Blind" tastings have turned out to be perhaps the strongest and most educational weapon in our beer-tasting travails. On a very frequent basis, fellow brewers/imbibers and I subject each other to "here, drink this" or "Surprise us, Casey--within reason" in a bar with 65 taps and 300+ bottles. In the case of the latter, out of the tap list I can almost always pick out what the beer is, or come down to only two possibilities.

It's not enough to pick out the beer. You have to be able to say why you like that beer, or dislike it--what's good and what's bad, and why you decided it's this particular beer (even if you've never had it before!). The power of suggestion is enormous. Labeling, as Jim Koch can tell you, is everything. When the biases that make you order, or not order, certain beers are eliminated, anything can happen.

You have never lived in this beer hobby until you've: 1) seen a homebrewer reject a beer he himself made but couldn't recognize; and 2) had a brewer literally beg you for the recipe for a high-alcohol beer he himself made six years before you poured it for him, but drank up within two months.

Even more evil is to pour four beers in a row, with disguised or removed labels, and tell them "one of these beers is a normal beer; one is a spiced ale; one is an ale with something weirdly different about it, and one is a honey ale--pick them out and elaborate." I had to do this recently with a set of wines where one of the wines had been widely rumored to be illegally doctored with ingredients not listed on the label; I contrasted them with openly-"doctored" and un-"doctored" wines with a panel of experts. We came to the conclusion that there were ways one could pull off the character in question without the adulteration of which the winery was accused.

Most evil of all is a stunt I've seen pulled in formal tastings at the Brickskeller in Washington, DC. Either deliberately or accidentally, after you've been subjected to several of the night's beers and have been taking notes as appropriate, they'll suddenly tell you, "Ooops, sorry, we made a mistake--we switched #3 and #4 on your list." Usually this can only be done with new beers or casks that no one in the bar is likely or able to recognize; you can't exactly pull that with a Guinness and a Murphy's, or a Bass and a Boddington's. Or can you?

Try it yourself. You'll learn more that way.

I was at a tasting once where three of us were in a room, and the beers were poured in another room -- we didn't know what style they were supposed to be, what brewery they were from, not even if they were bottled, canned, or draft. We had everything from pilsner to abbey to dunkelweizen to IPA...and I sat and listened to two certified beer judges wax eloquent about how wonderful the dubbel was, the dubbel that turned out to be a dunkelweizenbock. Educational.

Ayup. Even if you can't do it blind, comparison tastings are still useful. I like to do my whiskey tasting that way, tasting new whiskeys against "known quantities." Really brings out the differences.

-- Lew Bryson

Author of "New York Breweries" and "Pennsylvania Breweries," 2nd ed., both available at The Hotmail address on this post is for newsgroups only: I don't check it, or respond to it. Spam away.