As I have mentioned before, I am quite happy to see Shipyard working outside of their comfort zone a bit and pushing their own boundaries in the Pugsley Signature Series to produce something other than traditional English-style ales. And in my opinion the result has been four of the best beers the brewery has ever produced.

Along the same vein, the brewery has also announced the release of a small handful of bottles of the Pugsley Barleywine — the first beer in the Pugsley Series — which have been cellar aging for more than 10 months. The bottles, which will look like the original Barleywine 22 ounce bombers only with a gold “Cellar Aged” sticker on them, will be available at select locations across Maine and Florida through December (or while supplies last). Of the aged beer, Pugsley comments,

“As this beer has aged, the flavors have developed to become more complex.”

If you happen to spot any of the cellared Barleywine in the next few weeks, please leave a comment on this post as to where you saw it. It’ll be a fun little game of Where’s Waldo. And congrats to Shipyard for the on-going success of the Pugsley Series!

Apparently the longer version of the first video embedded below served as the introduction to the keynote speech by Greg Koch, CEO of the Stone Brewing Co, at the 2009 Craft Brewers Conference in Boston, MA earlier this year. Since then, the video has become the focal point of IamaCraftBrewer.com and has made its way around Twitter and the rest of the social Interwebs. According to the site,

“I Am A Craft Brewer” is a collaborative video representing the camaraderie, character and integrity of the American Craft Brewing movement. Created by Greg Koch, CEO of the Stone Brewing Co. and Chris & Jared of Redtail Media…and more than 35 amazing craft brewers from all over the country. The video was shown to a packed audience of 1700 craft brewers and industry members at the 2009 Craft Brewers Conference as an introduction to Greg’s Keynote Speech entitled “Be Remarkable: Collaboration Ethics Camaraderie Passion.”

There are now 3 videos featured on the site itself, with links at the end of each video to a few more responses. The videos are the edited-down 3 minute version of the introduction video (seen below), a 4+ minute original version and Koch’s 46+ minute keynote address itself. And then there’s the other video I embedded below which is a response to the original introduction, which was produced by the same folks later in the summer.

The bottom of the homepage at IamaCraftBrewer.com says “A program is in development to include even more of America’s amazing craft brewers. Please stay tuned!” – from these videos alone, I can’t wait to see what it is. Do yourself a favor and watch at least these two videos if not all of them. They truly embody why this is such a great and such a fun industry to be a part of or a fan of. Watch them – they’ll leave you feeling warm & fuzzy and in need of a good brew. Enjoy and here’s to (better) beer!

created to sell clothing just for craft beer enthusiasts. Craft beer is about flavor, color, complexity – it is an art to the thousands of brewers in the world. So, we decided to design a clothing line worthy of the craft beer industry’s passion for good beer. We will have new designs once these sell out, so tell your friends and help us spread the word!

As you can see, the shirt I received was the “Know Your Craft #1″ but there are currently three different designs (with more to come, I’m sure) available on the site and I would have been happy with any one of them – they’re all killer shirts. I know it’s a little too cold to think about t-shirts right now, but they’d make great stocking stuffers (I can’t believe it’s already time to mention that sort of thing!!) and at $15 bucks a pop, these great shirts don’t cost much more than a case of craft brew and last a whole lot longer! So get yourself over to CraftBeerClothing.com, check out their awesome shirts, spread the word and tell ‘em I sent you! Cheers.

Just a quick request for recommendations: I’m going to be traveling through both the Washington D.C. and Baltimore Metro areas (and everywhere in between) next week from Wednesday through Sunday visiting family. I already know of some of the on-premise places I plan to hit — The Brickskeller, Olney Ale House, and Franklin’s in Hyattsville — but it’s been awhile since I’ve done a beer trek through that neck of the woods so can any readers out there recommend some places (especially off-premise retail stores) to pick up some beers I can’t find ’round here? Any recommendations are greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[image via flyingdogales.com]

Historian Nicholas Rogers, exploring the origins of Halloween, notes that while “some folklorists have detected its origins in the Roman feast of Pomona, the goddess of fruits and seeds, or in the festival of the dead called Parentalia, [it is] more typically linked to the Celtic festival of Samhain or Samuin (pronounced sow-an or sow-in)”. The name is derived from Old Irish and means roughly “summer’s end”. A similar festival was held by the ancient Britons and is known as Calan Gaeaf (pronounced kalan-geyf).

The festival of Samhain celebrates the end of the “lighter half” of the year and beginning of the “darker half”, and is sometimes[5] regarded as the “Celtic New Year”.

Have fun, be safe, drink beer. Happy Halloween, all!

The one thing I’m not sure about, however, is whether or not this is a redesign of the existing Treblehook or not. Maybe it’s just because of my proximity to the Redhook brewery in Portsmouth but I coulda sworn last winter during a stop through Portsmouth, the Treblehook (at the time in 4-packs of 12 oz bottles) was all over the place. So I’m not sure if this is a different beer or not. From what I remember of that one and what I can remember after a full 22 ounces of this one, they don’t taste all that different…

Anyway, the beer has a nice bright orangey-brown hue and is pretty clear. The small off-white head disappeared quickly but left some nice lacing on the sides of the snifter glass. The aroma of the beer is great – there’s a lot of floral hoppiness on the nose, which you don’t always smell in a barleywine (and which I don’t remember from previous incarnations of the Treblehook, but again maybe that’s just me). It almost smells like a double IPA more than a barleywine.

The mouthfeel is really quite interesting in this brew. Although it’s not particularly carbonated, there’s a really interesting tingling sensation left all across the tongue. It might be from a combination of small intense carbonation and the bitter hop oils; I’m not sure. Either way, all of that hop character definitely comes through in the taste as well. Again, there is a much larger hop presence than you normally find in a Barleywine (not that that’s a bad thing at all). And don’t worry, there is still all of the sweet fruit and caramel flavors you’d expect from the style. However, I think I should have let this one sit in the cellar a little bit longer. It’s definitely one I feel would get better after a few more months to mellow.

At an ABV just above 10%, this is definitely a bomber to take your time with and share with a friend throughout the evening. Again again, with an ABV like that, this is definitely one you can let age for a bit. Also, for a beer this big, the price is certainly right (Portland folks, I’ve seen it on the shelves at Downeast Bev; I don’t remember for how much, but I remember thinking that it was impressively affordable for such a big beer) to give it a try.

In the end, not the best Barleywine I’ve ever had but definitely an interesting and unique take on the subject. I think I’d give it an A- myself, and assuming it is the same Treblehook its always been, the folks at BeerAdvocate agree. Good beer, interesting take, good price, give it a try.

Note: If you represent a brewery and would like your beer reviewed on BlogAboutBeer.com, please contact me for more details.

Best of all, this year’s festival will include, for the first time ever, a table near the registration booth featuring the Maine Brewers’ Guild and the Maine Beer Writers’ Guild. A table being manned by yours truly (and Josh from brewsandbooks.com) all afternoon! So if you’re a regular reader, please be sure and stop by the booth and introduce yourself and pick up some literature. If you’re new to Maine or new to craft brew, stop by and have any questions you can think of answered (technically that’s what we’ll be there for). And best of all, I’ll be blogging and Tweeting (and maybe streaming some video, if I can figure it out in time) live from the festival. Be sure and follow me on Twitter and watch for the Hash Tag #mebrewfest to stay up to date.

But if you plan to attend, you’d better hurry because as of this past Monday, the Sebago brewpubs had only about a dozen tickets left among them and RSVP beverage on Forest Ave had “less than 100 tickets left” and, well, that’s it! So it sounds like not only will there be no tickets left at the door this year, but there might not be any left by the time you read this!

If you did get your tickets in time, I’ll see you there!

1. Follow @kegerators on twitter.
2. Simply tweet “Just entered to win a Kegerator. Just follow @Kegerators and retweet. http://xr.com/kegerator”

Now here’s the fine print:

The Contest is open to U.S. residents twenty-one (21) years of age and older only.

So we will start around 400 followers. If we get to 5,000 followers we will give away a 2nd kegerator and if we get to 10,000 followers also a 3rd kegerator with a dual tap tower!!!

Such an easy contest to enter!

We will direct message the winners starting on Feb 1st (hence why you need to follow) and give you 24 hours to respond until we get a winner.

Good luck! And if you’re not yet following me on Twitter, please do so @livingstonmedia