All About Beer July 2015 Issue

Columns

Industry Insights

Private Equity Pours in with More Than Capital

by Christopher Shepard

 This column first appeared in the July 2015 issue of All About Beer Magazine. Click here to subscribe. Between last September (2014) and this past April, half a dozen breweries, producing between 60,000 and 200,000 barrels in 2014, announced that they’d received investments from private equity firms. The pace of these deals hasn’t slowed. As […]

In The Brewhouse - People

Partners

by Tomme Arthur

Wednesdays have always been an important day for us at Port Brewing. When I launched this venture (with my three other partners) back in 2005, we met every Wednesday from 4 to 7 p.m. to recap the previous week’s operations and, more importantly, agree on the long-term goals necessary to grow a brewery business. In […]

Visiting the Pub

Beyond Numbers

by Chris Rice

Here at the magazine we’ve been thinking a lot about numbers and how they relate to what we drink. Walk the aisles of a liquor store and you’ll see tags hanging from shelves, advertising numerical scores for corresponding bottles. While more prominent in the wine section, it’s becoming increasingly more commonplace with beer. But what causes […]

Behind the Bar

Explore the Culture of Beer

by John Holl

As a species it’s in our nature to explore. From the early nomadic tribes traversing continents to the first astronomers who stared into the night sky, we have the yearning to know more imprinted in our DNA. There are the adventurers and scientists who climb peaks, travel to depths of the ocean and explore the […]

Departments

Home Brewing - Recipes

Stout Hearted Brewing

by K. Florian Klemp

I remember when stout was synonymous with Guinness. When we talk stout now, it’s described by brand, ingredients or sub-style. Few taprooms are without at least one on offer. Irish dry, foreign extra, English, American, sweet and imperial are the familiar basic styles, but the variety based on those is as wide as in any […]

Beer Travelers

Pairing Roller Coasters and Beer

by Brian Yaeger

Beer pairs with a great many things, primarily food and good company, but it’s fun to explore the less-cerebral marriages, too. Consider roller coasters. Both the beverage and the ride are capable of taking you on a wild adventure of the senses. Now, personally, the last thing I want to do after enjoying a few […]

Pull Up A Stool

Pull Up A Stool With Eugene Kashper

by John Holl

Headlines (including in this magazine) spoke of a Russian company purchasing the iconic American Pabst Brewing Co. when Eugene Kashper bought the brewery in 2014. While born in the Soviet Union, Kashper and his family immigrated to the U.S. as political refugees when he was 6 years old, and he later became an American citizen. […]

What's Brewing

Yuengling at Top of Craft

by Heather Vandenengel

The Brewers Association (BA) released the top 50 U.S. craft brewing companies, based on 2014 beer sales volume, and for the first time Pennsylvania’s D.G. Yuengling and Son Inc. topped Boston Beer Co., makers of Sam Adams, to become the largest craft brewery in the country. It was a change in how the BA defined […]

What's Brewing

Breweries Sign on to Climate Declaration

by Heather Vandenengel

Forty-two breweries and counting across the country and world have signed the Climate Declaration, a business call to action that urges policymakers to seize the economic opportunity of tackling climate change. The declaration was launched in 2013 by Ceres, a nonprofit sustainability advocacy organization and its business network, Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy […]

What's Brewing

Oskar Blues Sold, Acquires Perrin Brewing

by Heather Vandenengel

The Oskar Blues Brewery sold an undisclosed but majority stake of its business to a private equity firm in April, a deal that will help fund its acquisition of Perrin Brewing, a small Michigan brewery with a strong local presence. The acquisition is backed by beer wholesaler Keith Klopcic of West Side Distributing, who introduced […]

What's Brewing

Flying Dog Wins Freedom of Speech Case

by Heather Vandenengel

A six-year battle over Flying Dog Brewery’s Raging Bitch Belgian-Style IPA label ended when a United States Court of Appeals ruled that the Michigan Liquor Control Commission can be held accountable for violating Flying Dog’s First Amendment rights. In 2009, the commission banned the sale of the beer in state, citing it as “detrimental to […]

Stylistically Speaking

The Resurgence of Schwarzbier

by K. Florian Klemp

This story first appeared in the July 2015 issue of All About Beer Magazine. Click here to subscribe. Our obsession with black beers is undeniable. Porter and stout are stalwarts, and newly cobbled styles, such as black IPA and saison, more trendy. But the eldest and most anachronistic of them all is German schwarzbier (black […]

What's Brewing

One Drink May Make You More Attractive

by Heather Vandenengel

Exactly one drink is the magic number for appearing your most attractive, according to a study published in the journal Alcohol and Alcoholism. In the study, photos of individuals who had consumed a low dose of alcohol—equivalent to one drink,  250mL, of wine—were rated as more attractive compared with when they were sober or after […]

Beer Weekend - Travel

Drinking Beer in Big Sky Country

by Jesse Bussard

Montana is best known as Big Sky Country. Mention of this mountainous majesty of a state conjures up images of wide open spaces, free-flowing rivers and pristine views. Boasting more than 50 breweries, the state’s beer industry is strong and continues to grow, in the southwest region of the state in particular. A budding beer […]

What's Brewing

Beer as an Economic Stimulus

by Myles Dannhausen

This story first appeared in the July 2015 issue of All About Beer Magazine. Click here to subscribe. At the heart of most brewery stories is a love of beer and brewing. While Door County Brewing Co. founder John McMahon certainly has that, there’s a more-practical reason he launched his brewery in 2013. He wanted […]

Book Reviews

Brewing Porters & Stouts: Origins, History, and 60 Recipes for Brewing Them at Home Today

by Daniel Bradford

Brewing Porters and Stouts (Skyhorse Publishing, Paperback, $16.95, 224 pp) is a love story. But not for the romantic or faint of heart. It is a rigorous and passionate investigation into the life of porters and stouts. Foster is the perfect person for this subject. He combines a scientist’s rigor for data with a beer lover’s passion […]

Book Reviews

Experimental Homebrewing: Mad Science in the Pursuit of Great Beer

by Daniel Bradford

There comes a point in most homebrewers’ lives when they just want to step out from under the elementary brewing techniques. Perhaps this means moving from extract to all-grain. The change in processes seems relatively straightforward, but the results fail to meet expectations. Maybe they want to nail the perfect IPA or re-create something encountered […]

Book Reviews

Hoofing It in Hallertau

by Stan Hieronymus

More than a half-dozen years ago, Firestone Walker brewmaster Matt Brynildson paused in the middle of a conversation about the relationship between agriculture and beer and nodded toward Eric Toft, a Wyoming native who has brewed beer in Bavaria for more than 20 years. He said he wished he could be “as connected as [Toft] […]

Book Reviews

The Complete Guide to Making Mead: The Ingredients, Equipment, Processes, and Recipes for Crafting Honey Wine

by Daniel Bradford

Mead has a mixed reputation. On the one hand, the honey wine is often thought of as an excessively sweet drink, and on the other hand we have manly Vikings quaffing “horns” of the beverage in their mead halls. The beverage slipped away possibly because of the high cost of honey compared with grapes and […]

Book Reviews

Britain’s Beer Revolution

by Daniel Bradford

When the two deans of United Kingdom beer journalism pen a survey of the new world of British beer, get ready to be frustrated. If you don’t live in the British Isles, you are going to hate reading the wonderful descriptions of beers you won’t be able to buy. However, you will feel the excitement […]

Beer Talk