I began researching other breweries to see how they stacked up.

• New Belgium Brewing Company also is regarded as one of the most sustainable craft breweries.  They ship both bottles and cans and the farthest distribution is less than 2,500 miles away.
• Sierra Nevada Brewing Company was named the 2010 Green Business of the Year by the EPA.  They currently brew in one location, Chico, California which is over 4,000 miles from Maine.  Due to booming demand, they are searching for site east of the Mississippi River to build a second production facility.
• Brooklyn Brewery purchases 100% of their electricity from wind power.  They do distributes their beer in Hong Kong, Toyko and several countries in Europe.  All beer is produced in New York.
• Yuengling’s main brewery is in Pottsville, Pennsylvania but distribution to the Southeast United States is handled out of their Tampa, Florida facility.  While demand for Yuengling is high, distribution is limited to east of the Mississippi River.

So it seems Maui isn’t the only brewery out there who distributes to states thousands of miles away.  So many breweries have large distribution ranges and place a great emphasis on sustainability.  Is this bad, or are they simply trying to do what is best for the earth and their own company?

Hollywood Studios contains an extensive wine list, and it would be nice to see beer make a larger presence on the menu, at least in bottles.

A dry beer undergoes a longer fermentation process.  More sugar is extracted and the beer is light and crisp with little aftertaste.  The amount of sugars converted into alcohol, expressed as a percentage, is known as attenuation. Dry beers have a high attenuation percentage and tend to have a higher alcohol content level for the style.  A dry beer has the similar characteristics to a dry wine.  Dry wines are not very sweet due to the low sugar level.

Dry beers have been marketed in U.S., including ABInBev’s Bud Dry.  The product was rolled out in 1989 and discontinued in 2010.  In 1993 Molson Coors released Molson Dry.

The Great American Beer Festival (GABF) and The World Beer Cup do not have a judging category for dry beer specifically.  If a dry beer is entered it is under a different category, such as one of the Lager category subsets.  Molson Dry won a gold metal at The World Beer Cup in 2002 in the North American Specialty Lager category.

Have you tried a Dry Beer?

Alcohol by weight is the weight of alcohol in a drink divided by the total weight of the drink.  It is expressed as a percentage.  ABW is not used as much as ABV.

Alcohol by volume is describes how much alcohol is in a drink expressed as a percentage.  For example, a Sam Adams Boston Lager is 4.9% ABV.  You will not find the ABV on all bottles or beer menus, but I think you should.  Drinking responsibly means knowing how much alcohol you a drinking.  Bell’s Hopslam Ale is 10% ABV which means you can drink twice as much Boston Lager than Hopslam and still consumed less alcohol.  ABV is also related to the proof in liquor.  An 80 liquor is 40% ABV.

How do ABW and ABV compare?

The ABW of a beer is roughly 4/5 of the ABV.   A beer that is 3.2% ABW is about 4.0 ABV.  This is a rough estimate because the weight of water and alcohol differ.

Bud Light has their Superbowl packaging and 16 oz. aluminum bottles ready, but Superbowl Sunday is the time for craft breweries to shine.  Under Senate Bill 75 (went into effect July 4, 2010) craft breweries can sell beer they brewed on premise.  This means you can buy  bottles or growlers of Three Floyds at the brew pub, but not at the grocery store.  Keep this in mind in case you need to send a sober friend to stock up on more liquid goodness for your party.

• BeerLao is a lager made with rice.  It is currently the best selling beer in Laos and brewed by Lao Brewing Company.  Ownership of the brewery is split 50/50 between the Lao government and Carlsberg Breweries.
• Singha is a Euro Pale Lager brewed by Boon Rawd Brewing Company in Thailand.  The bottle label includes a golden lion, a reference to the name.  A Singha is a lion described in Hindu and Thai stories.
• Chang is the best selling beer in Thailand.  The lager is 6.4% ABV and sold in a 630 milliliter bottle (22 oz. bomber size).  Chang means ‘elephant’ which are featured on the bottle label.
• Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA might seem like an odd choice, but it does make sense.  The beer is brewed in Milton, DE which is about 100 miles from Washington DC.  The IPA also pairs well with spicy food.

And the beer selection? It wasn’t bad, but simply put, it did not measure up to wine selection or even the rest of the store.  The craft beer selection included about 50 brews sold in 4, 6 or 12-packs at room temperature or in the cooler.  Larger 22-oz bomber bottles were also available.  The selection included many local brands including Half Acre, Metropolitan, 5 Rabbits, and Two Brothers.  Other brews including of Goose Island (which I no longer consider local), Great Lakes, Sierra Nevada, Bells, and New Belgium are also available.

I applaud Walgreens efforts to include a decent selection of local craft beer in their new flagship store. If I was in downtown Chicago and needed to pick up a six-pack, I defiantly would stop by especially considering the large amount of beer in the cooler.  My issue is the beer selection available in comparison to the wine and other liquor selection.  A 700-bottle wine selection and the availability to purchase a $2,000 bottle of cognac makes the beer selection look, well sad.  The craft beer scene is growing rapidly in Chicago.  Walgreens is looking to reshape their look and capture additional market share with their new products.  It would have been nicer to see a beer selection able to compete with the local chain liquor stores. However, even with their current selection having a drugstore carry craft beer shows how far the craft beer movement has come.

The Sküüzi not only wraps around the beer, but also has a bottom preventing a beer from slipping out.  Without knowing this thing existed, I actually suggested a friend should make this a few months ago.  We have all been at tailgates and cold weather drinking occasions.  There are two options when drinking in the cold:.   1) have a cold hand or 2) wear a glove and risk the beer slipping out and crying over spilled beer.

While Ms. Doland is correct that the beer will stay cold, the Sküüzi does appear to solve the grip problem.  Any of my readers ever have one of these?  How did it work with a glass?  Leave a note in the comments and don’t forget comments made in January enter you to win a hat!

• Schlafly and Full Sail send their spent grains to local farmers to use as livestock feed
• Lakefront Brewery donates their spent grains to a local non-profit, Growing Power to use as organic fertilizer
• Great Lakes Brewing Co. uses their spent grains as a growing medium for mushrooms
• Firestone Walker includes spent grains in their pizza dough

Alaskan Brewing Co. sends their spent grains to the closest market in Seattle, but that is about to change.  In order to keep the grain from decomposing, it needs to be dried.  Currently, the spent grain is dried using a machine powered by burning spent grain and oil.  A grant worth $458,000 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Energy for America program will cover part of the cost for a machine that will use spent grain to power a biomass steam boiler.  This will not only eliminate the need for oil to power the machine to dry the grain, but will also be able to power the brewery.

Magic Hat is also looking for alternative uses for spent grains.  They have partnered with PurposeEnergy a company who’s tagline is “Saving the Earth.  One Beer at a Time”  PurposeEnergy has developed a Biphase Orbicular Biodigester (better know as BOB).  The anaerobic digester turns spent grain into biofuel and eliminates the biochemical oxygen demand levels in the wastewater.  (The U.S. government limits the amount of biochemical oxygen demand a brewery can generate).  At Magic Hat, the BOB reduces energy costs and the biochemical oxygen demand levels allowing the brewery to increase beer production.

PurposeEnergy is currently only focusing on the brewing industry although it does have applications in a variety of other manufacturing environments.  The founder of PurposeEnergy is Eric Fitch, a MIT engineering graduate who has taken his love of beer to a new level.