Monday Night Brewery | Bringing great craft beer to Atlanta, Georgia

So many emotions

Jonathan — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:35:27 +0000

Such a simultaneously sad and happy day in my Bryan Adams world.

Happy: I just bought the new Bryan Adams album for $5 at WalMart. I’m listening to it right now. Pure gold. “I need to breathe you in, over and over again, like oxygen.” Yeah. That just happened.

Sad: $5? Really? Bryan, you’re worth more than that. For serious.

Poll question: Trying new beers

Jonathan — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:28:19 +0000

Help us figure this one out. We argue about it constantly. When you try a new beer, what is the impetus behind it? Where do you get your “OMG I HAVE TO TRY THIS BEER” info? Please vote and send your friends (and enemies) here to vote as well!

You can only select one answer, so choose the one you use most often.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Monday Night recap: The puppies take over

Jonathan — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:53:12 +0000

Puppy Night was a rousing success. Leashes were tangled. Puppies were wrestled. Hop gardens were peed in (don’t worry, we already harvested).

The air was heavy with puppy breath. Our bellies were full of beer. So how many dogs actually showed up with their owners? More than the dogs you can find in the photo below.

Despite the puppy storm, we were able to brew some beer. We brewed a slightly revised version of our stout, with a different base malt and no malt extract (which we usually had to add because of the amount of grain that would fit in our mash tun). Unfortunately one of our burners crapped out right before we achieved boil, so we had to improvise. Joel spent literally the whole evening being unproductive and trying to fix it. But he did fix it.

We also dry-hopped our fresh hop IPA with – you guessed it – our own fresh hops. I have photographic proof.

Wow. That is creepy. Rest assured, the final product will be less creepy than this picture. Thanks to everyone who came last night, including the puppies!

Puppy Night!

Jonathan — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:53:18 +0000

All this talk of stouts has got us hankering one, so we’re brewing up a stout tonight. But perhaps more importantly, tonight is Puppy Night at MNB.

There are several MNB regulars that have recently gotten puppies, and there’s no better way to socialize dogs than over a glass of beer. It’s true, I saw it on Wikipedia. If you’ve got a dog and a leash, bring both down to Jeff’s tonight. Dogs will not be allowed inside, so make sure to bring a doggy sweater if you’re into that. On second thought… if you’re into doggy sweaters, don’t come to brewing. Joel will probably try to steal your doggy sweaters for his own personal collection.

Unfortunately we still don’t have any beer, so it’s another BYOB night. Make sure to stop by Hop City and ask for the Monday Night discount.

A stout dilemma

Jonathan — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:02:13 +0000

Many people have preconceived, often false, notions of stouts. This glorious beer has a heavy color and a heavier name (in-laws are stout, not beers, right?). People tend to associate the following traits with this heavy outward appearance:

Bitter
Thick and rich
High alcohol

This is the subject of a recent New York Times article, which does a good job debunking these myths. Writer Eric Asimov says,

Stout in its classic form is one of the lighter ales, paradoxically full-bodied yet delicate. For years, my go-to midday brew was draft Guinness Stout, a once-rare beer that has become easier and easier to find in New York in the years since the city’s beer consciousness was raised. Aside from the enticing flavors of roasted barley and coffee, a properly pulled pint is low in alcohol, around 4 percent, fractionally less even than Bud Light. It’s probably wishful thinking, but I like to think a midday stout aids the digestion. I know it improves the imagination.

I have to say stouts are some of my favorite beers. There’s also a lot of versatility within the style. Cherry stouts, milk stouts, chocolate stouts, coffee stouts, Russian Imperial stouts. The maltiness of the stout can hold up to a lot of added flavors. I still want to brew our mint chocolate stout again. OMG DELICIOUS.

If you’ve stayed clear of stouts because you thought they were too heavy or too alcoholic, I beg you to try again. There’s a stout out there for [almost] everyone.

Image source: knightbefore_99

No brewing tonight

Jonathan — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:32:26 +0000

In lieu of brewing, I leave you with a joke.

A neutron walks into a bar. “I’d like a beer,” he says. The bartender promptly serves up a beer.
“How much will that be?” asks the neutron.
“For you?” replies the bartender, “no charge.”

And that, folks, is how it’s done.

Piggly Wiggly taking craft beer seriously

Jonathan — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:50:46 +0000

A Piggly Wiggly in Myrtle Beach, SC has become the first grocery store in the Southeast to sell 64 oz growlers of beer. A PIGGLY WIGGLY. When Piggly Wiggly jumps on board, you know craft beer is no joke. You also might start looking out for other signs of the apocalypse. And this particular Piggly Wiggly isn’t selling Keystone Light on tap. They are selling the good stuff:

Founders Breakfast Stout
Bells Best Brown Ale
Moylan’s Hopsickle Imperial IPA
Hercules Double IPA

Prices range from $11-20, much cheaper than the same beers if bought in bottles. Michael Byrd, assistant store director at aforementioned Piggly Wiggly (PIGGLY WIGGLY?!), is getting plenty of praise. Jeff LeVine of Carolina Craft Distributing in Rock Hill, says this:

“It’s the first grocery store in the Southeast – that’s seven states – to run with the beer growler station. He’s blowing our minds, and we’re proud to have him as a customer. We’ve begged customers to do it.”

Read the full story from the Charlotte Observer. I can’t believe it. A PIGGLY WIGGLY.

Image source: Joe Architect