DrankTank : The Beverage Blog

Craft Beer at a tipping point?

dranktank — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 11:52:46 +0000

An idea I had never considered: explosive growth in “craft” beer is unsustainable, and has probably already peaked (mostly because of value of shelf space conflicting with need for variety). Article by the “beersage” in 3 parts: 1 2 3

Hot Drinks

dranktank — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:48:39 +0000

Wendy's

Beers of North Carolina

dranktank — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 12:43:07 +0000

This weekend we went to Asheville, NC for some serious around-the-clock beer tourism. Several triad homebrewers got together and made a weekend out of touring breweries and drinking North Carolina beer.

In case you didn’t know, Asheville is one of the top beer capitals in the country. That’s right. It beats out Portland, Denver, an other more famous beer destinations in one very important statistic: There are more breweries per capita in Asheville, NC than in any other US city. That not only means there is a huge variety of beer, but it is incredibly accessible (private brewery tours, discussing brewing techniques with the head brewer, or shaking the hand of the owner… those things are the norm, not the exception).

I made a personal goal this weekend to see how many North Carolina beers I could sample in one weekend. We didn’t even get to all the breweries in Asheville, only touched on a tiny fraction of the beers brewed in this great state, and frankly didn’t add any to my list on Sunday because I was worried of my liver exploding after all the beer on Friday & Saturday.

So here they are… the 63 NC beers I drank this weekend.

Liberty Red
Liberty IPA
Liberty Nut Brown
Liberty Oatmeal Stout
Highland Black Mountain Bitter
Highland St Teresa Pale Ale
Highland IPA
Highland Gaelic Ale
Highland Oatmeal Stout
Highland Seven Sisters Abbey
Jack of the Woods Extra Pale Ale
Jack of the Woods IPA
Jack of the Woods Porter
Jack of the Woods ESB
Jack of the Woods Stout
French Broad Wee Heavy
Wedge Golem Belgium Strong
Wedge Iron Rail IPA
Wedge Payne’s Pale Ale
Wedge Pilsner
Wedge Witbier
Wedge Belgium Abbey
Wedge Russian Imperial Stout
Wedge ?
Craggie Batter Hill
Craggie Swannaanoa Sunset
Craggie Toubab Brewe
Craggie Meet You Maker Barleywine
Mother Earth Dunkle Dark Cloud
Duck Rabbit Barleywine
Pisgah Roast Chocolate Stout
Pisgah Barleywine
Pisgah Dopplebock
Pisgah Cosmos
Pisgah cosmos
Pisgah Schwartz Bier
Pisgah Baptista Noel
Pisgah Vortex
Pisgah Pale Ale
Pisgah IPA
Pisgah Solstace
Pisgah Equinox Marzen
Pisgah Pilsner
Pisgah Nitro Stout
Pisgah Porter
Lexington Ave White ale
Lexington Ave ESB
Lexington Ave American Pale Ale
Lexington Ave IPA
Lexington Ave Chocolate Stout
Lexington Ave Gold Strong Ale
Catawba Firewater IPA
Catawba Blackwater Uber Pale Ale
French Broad Kolsh
Catwaba Farmhouse
French Broad rye
Fox Hill Traditional Mead
French Broad Altbier
Big Boss Bad Penny
Foothills Seeing Double
Oysterhouse Dirty Blonde
Oysterhouse IPA
Asheville Brewing Co. Ninja Porter

Beer Bargain

dranktank — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:47:35 +0000

September 1 I had my first of many Oktoberfest Bier of the season. Bought some Sam Adams Oktoberfest, Bell’s Oktoberfest, and Blowing Rock Oktoberfest (gotta buy NC when you get the chance… even though it’s contract brewed by a place in PA, it’s exclusive to NC).

Tonight I happened by my neighborhood Harris Teeter and discovered a deal that I had to share. If you are in NC, like O’fest beer, and have a Harris Teeter nearby, go try your Harris Teeter ASAP.

A 12 pack of any Sam Adams Lager (including the Oktoberfest) for $12.99. That’s significantly cheaper per beer than buying by the 24bottle case at a big beer warehouse like TOTAL WINE. Usually, a case is going to cost you $30 or more. Go now and stock up for the season. And give me one as a reward for telling you about it.

Almost BEER SEASON

dranktank — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 19:12:07 +0000

The idea of a “beer season” may seem ridiculous to some beer enthusiasts. But to me, it just feels right to grace late summer through autumn with that title. In my mind, beer season starts tomorrow.

The much anticipated Greensboro Summertime Brews Festival is tomorrow, and my Jalapeno Tequila Gold will be making it’s 3rd annual appearance. The lineup of beers looks great this year, but as always, our homebrew club breaks out the crazy recipes for this event and is consistently the longest line; beating out commercial craft beers from all over the world in popularity.

That’s not a bad kickoff to beer season.

Shorty after, I’ll be heading to Yellowstone via Salt Lake City, where I hope to indulge in a multiple Polygamy Porters: Arguably one of the most awesome names ever for a beer that is both witty AND makes fun of a religion.

And by the time we return from that, we’ll be just a few pints away from OKTOBERFEST PARTY season, which is already shaping up to be chocked-full of lederhosen-wearing, lager-chugging fun.

Yes, there really IS such a thing as BEER SEASON, and I am thankful for it.

Fullsteam Brewery

dranktank — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 12:36:19 +0000

Some guys over in Durham, NC are building a brewery.

They are doing something pretty unique. They have coined the term “southern experimental brewing” and state their mission: “to develop a new genre of beer that reflects the unique Southern confluence of agriculture and industry”

They are still experimenting with recipes (trying out ingredients like scuppernong grapes, sweet potatoes, and rhubarb), so you can’t buy it yet.

Check out their blog. They are currently chronicling their experiments and legal battles with brewing with kudzu!

I imagine there’s not enough lawyers in the entire triangle area to start selling a beer that REALLY reflects North Carolina’s agricultural history… the Tobacco Beer.

Stop the NC Beer Tax

dranktank — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:55:48 +0000

The cost of your favorite beer will jump significantly if a proposed beer tax is instituted. Our passion and our brewery friends are being unfairly singled out by the governor and you can stop it with just a little bit of effort.

Governor Perdue is planning to impose a greater ’sin tax’ on beer and wine. (She initially pushed to almost double the level of excise tax.) Please go on line and e-mail the governor and your legislators to tell them that a beer and wine tax increase is a bad idea.

Beer and wine lovers are not “sinners,” nor we did not cause the recession, and we should not be singled out as a solution.
Many of the 100 North Carolina micro breweries and wineries could be put out of business with a tax increase.
North Carolina has 6th highest beer tax in the country and the 16th highest on wine.
North Carolina beer and wine taxes currently contributes close to $3 billion.
North Carolina already generates more beverage tax than more populous New York state!

I’m asking you to do two things.

First, please go to www.governor.state.nc.us and the ‘Contact Us’ link, where you will find a space to enter a comment, like “Don’t threaten our fledgling brewing industry with a tax increase. We’re already paying more than our fair share.” You can also go to www.ncleg.net Enter your zip code to find your legislators and send them an e-mail. This is a zip plus four. If you don’t know yours, use the county feature to get your representatives’ addresses.

Second, please go to www.stopthencbeertax.com. Fill this in and it will be printed and collated with other forms and hand delivered the the appropriate elected official.

Doing both of these things will make a huge difference. Please pass this along to your beer-loving network. This is urgent.

Cheers,

Daniel Bradford
Publisher - All About Beer Magazine

beer, north carolina tax

Is it iced coffee weather?

dranktank — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:00:38 +0000

Find out here.

Happy National Beverage Day

dranktank — Wed, 06 May 2009 13:26:34 +0000

Early May is such a bizarre holiday season. It’s like some group of friends really wanted to party a lot, so they made up a bunch of holidays that nobody REALLY celebrates.

May 1: May Day. I have no idea what this is. Some bastardized French holiday maybe? Aren’t you supposed to have sex outside or something? I’ve never really taken the time to look up the history of this one. Maybe next year.

May 4: I’ve never heard this before this year, but apparently it is now being recognized by geeks around the world as STAR WARS DAY. I think the only requirement to celebrate is say “MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU” a lot.

May 5: Cinco De Mayo. An American holiday invented by college fraternities because they wanted to drink more Corona. I think Mexico lost some war at some point too.

May 6: National Beverage Day. Seriously. Here is EHOW’s how to celebrate Beverage Day. Plus Arby’s is giving away fruit tea today if you have little enough pride to walk into your neighborhood Arby’s and say “I’m Parched, FruiTea Me” (I will try it out for lunch today, I’m not scared).

May 8: National Have a Coke Day. Apparently if you sell enough sugar water for many many decades, it’s okay to make up your own “drink my product” day. So go celebrate that this Friday too.

May 11-17: American Craft Brew Week. This one I can get on board with. Drink local/craft beer only for a week. That will not be a problem around my house. There is even a declaration of independence (pdf)

Personally, I have and will celebrate all of the above holidays with beer. Mostly homebrew.

Wine statistics

dranktank — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 13:11:11 +0000

The Wine Market Council has released its very thorough study on wine consuption.

The wine industry is going to have significantly less problems surviving this economic downturn than most other “luxury” industries, mainly because of the huge increase in “Table Wine” that is being consumed.

15.7% of the population drinks 91% of wine!