Don’t ask us what came over us… We just felt the need and we had enough material to do a second January 2012 Podcast. Don’t expect this every month…
I am particularly happy with the music I stole from the new album from the London based band “The Red Inspectors”.
Enjoy!
The latest issue of Beeradvocate magazine posted solid reviews for both Bridge Brew Works “Tripel” and “Dubbel” beers. The Triple was given an 88 along with a new nickname of “Chaos in a Bottle” while the Dubbel scored a very impressive 91 and begged the reviewers to question if they had awakened in Belgium again.
It’s great to see some West Virginia craft brews not only getting some “palate-time” at Beeradvocate but also scoring very respectably!
BBW packages the Tripel and Dubble exclusively in 750ml bottles. Both are available at The Liquor Company, The Wine Shop and for consumption at Pies and Pints and Bridge Road Bistro.
BBW has posted a link with a picture of the article for those who do not get the Beeradvocate magazine – Here – http://ow.ly/i/pykL
Congratulations to Ken and Nathan at Bridge Brew!
BTY’s 100-IBU team member Rob Absten and I stumbled upon an interesting and very visible memento of the dark years of Prohibition. We were on a walk around the city over the weekend and heading to Moxxee Coffee on Lee and Morris Streets (get there if you haven’t been). We took a shortcut through the parking lot of the Baptist Temple and there she was – in all her understated glory, a fountain humbly sitting ironically dry as a bone and emblazoned with the plaque you see below. This font was apparently crafted and dedicated while the failed social experiment of Prohibition was in full swing (though waning).
Just imagine if you will, while the letters of this plaque were being formed and cast, Charleston’s own syndicate of organized criminals were making the trek back from the moonshine stills with their loads of liquid gold to sell, probably to some of the hypocrites that would be attending the fountain’s dedication. Make no mistake, I don’t gives a Rat’s behind if you don’t want to imbibe, just leave me the hell alone and we will be fine…
Prohibition was a failed experiment and was not solely wrought upon us from the religious folk, it was an unholy alliance of the religious and the social progressives of the era. I am not religion bashing here, though the Baptist Temple should by-now realize that Prohibition failed miserably and to have such a shrine still standing is like (well, I won’t go there…). Now if I could only tunnel under that thing and make it spurt beer during the next Sunday morning service; that would be awesome! (I would have to make sure to buy the beer on Saturday though…)
Can you believe it? No, not that it’s 2012 but can you believe The BTY Team has produced yet another Podcast within a month of our last episode? Well don’t get used to it…
The BTY Team discussed our own choices for WV Beer of The Year and we also air some grievances…
The Beers to You Readers Choice is tallied and revealed as well. Click below to listen!
I thought this year I would try something a bit different. Usually, the BTY team gets together and we decide on a WV Beer of the Year. For 2011, I thought it would be fun and interesting to get reader’s comments/votes.
Criteria: Remember, this is “WV Beer of the Year”… That doesn’t mean it has to be brewed in WV but it must be available in WV. Seasonal Entries are fine (we will feature the best seasonal as well). The seasonal can also be “WV Beer of the Year”.
Readers should submit their three top beers. You can choose to put them in order of 1st to 3rd but we will pick from the plurality of all of the entries. Please submit your favorite seasonal as well (it can be one of your three entries).
Let’s have some fun and see if we can enough entries before New Years Day!
Ahhh…The sound of those Salvation Army bells ringing out and the hustle and bustle traffic around the mall make Charleston seem like a big city if only for a few selected hours of the day and only for a few weeks around the holidays. Despite its population decline, CRW is still growing in a cultural and yes even cosmopolitan sort of way. It’s a city preparing itself for a rebound. Just attend any 3rd Thursday Artwalk and yes you will see many of the same folks being seen, but you are also being presented with edgy new art from young up and coming artists. And hey there Cleetis, those rainbow colored flags on the 700 block of Lee Street ain’t there just for decoration; Charleston has its very own row of gay-owned and operated businesses including a damn good late night pizzeria! Next thing you know we will have one those high-brow, hoity-toity coffee shops that sell world-class coffee made right… Oh wait that would be Moxiee on the East End. The next time you are down at the Capitol Market shopping for WV farm grown vegetables, stick your head out of the West-side entry door and see if you can catch the wonderful aromas of Libby’s artisan breads baking at The Charleston Bread Company just across Smith Street a half a block away. Last but not least as a cyclist, I can’t forget the artsy bike racks that have commissioned and placed around town.
Charleston has also undergone a transformation, albeit incomplete in the Craft Beer arena. Most bars in CRW will offer some form of craft beer either via tap or bottle. I am particularly excited about the number of great seasonal beers we are being offered on tap. About a month ago we started seeing tap handles wearing a the candy-striped toboggan hats pouring a delicious Widmer Winter ale called Brrrrr. Pies and Pints has since had two festive tapping ceremonies. The first one featuring Sierra-Nevada’s Celebration ale; a beer we have tasted locally many times via bottle but rarely if ever on tap. This past Wednesday night PnP’s Beer-Czar Ryan Jumped up on the bar right on schedule at 6pm and announced the tapping of Great Lakes Christmas, a malty nectar of good cheer and subdued spiciness that put a smile on this beer geek’s face.
Many of us, especially those of us who travel extensively have a tendency to get a little down on our town. Every now and then it’s good to take a real inventory of the good things and how far this little town that couldn’t, did… It’s easier to appreciate it all whilst sipping a nice, malty Christmas Ale!
Merry Christmas and Happy Festivus to you all!
The BTY team took to the road yesterday to visit Jackie O’s Pub & Brewery in Athens, Ohio for their 6th Anniversary extravaganza and bottle sale. Team arrived while the bottle sale was in full swing. It seemed that several bottles were being opened and consumed on premise just after purchase. The team bellied up to the bar to purvey several small tasters of Brewer Brad Clark’s selection of fruited, soured and barrel aged selections. My favorite was a sour beer called Cuvee #6 which was a blonde sour ale that was aged in a barrel for 30 months on peaches. I found the beer’s intense almond aftertaste (a signature of a fine Brettanomyces fermentation) particularly delicious. Rob seemed to favor a beer called 6th Anniversary which was much along the lines of the same base beer as Cuvee #6 but was dry hopped and had a bit of a sulfury flavor.
Charles managed to score a ticket to purchase some bottled beers. Each ticket was basically a spent desk calendar page and the holder would be queued up date when the Month was called. Charles drew a June ticket while March was still being served. Brad told us that folks started queuing up at 2am to get first dibs on the rarest bottles.
The last time I attended one of these things was when during Jackie O’s 4th anniversary celebration but the place has gained some notoriety since then, landing a cover story on Beer Advocate Magazine last year. This year’s event was chock-full of beer geeks from all over the region and then some.
Another interesting observation made was the improvement in the beers. Not that they were ever bad, it’s more of a complexity thing, like the difference between a jazz drummer and a great jazz drummer… Take one of Jackie O’s legacy beers like Chunga’s Revenge, a Flemish style sour ale and compare that to some of the other dark sours that Brad has formulated and crafted recently; they are on a different plane of complexity. I still like Chunga’s, but…
The team finished up at Jackie O’s and went for some Mex-American food at Casa Nueva where I watched Rob do a bowl of habanero salsa in two shots… It was clearly nearing the time to leave the State of Ohio and we did so after me drinking several glasses of water and driving in a sober state. I can’t speak for the others…
Brewer Brad Clark oversees bottle sales
Sabco's Mailbox
I found myself in Toledo Monday for business. The meeting finished-up in time for me to scope out the location of the legendary Sabco incorporated who design and build the world famous “Brew Magic” 1/2bbl brewing system. The Brew Magic is primarily used by homebrewers who can throw down the $5000.00 plus for system; for me it remains a dream…
“Brew-Magic” also bills itself as a worthy repeatable system suitable for test-batch brewing, allowing large production breweries to work out their recipes on 15 gallons at a time instead of several hundreds or even thousands of gallons.
My meeting was impromptu with me just showing up at the front door unannounced. I think the receptionist first thought that I was just another equipment salesman on a cold-call. Technically she was right. I am an equipment salesman and it was a cold-call. I wasn’t there though to sell anything but rather to drool…
The woman in the front office hailed a guy named Dan. I explained the purpose of my mission and then Dan took me into their conference/showroom where a glistening Brew-Magic stood in all of its majesty. Dan stepped me through the process of brewing with the system and then we talked about the new “Clean-in-Place” system offered as add-on.
The Brew-Magic System
Everybody has a local pub… Like it or not, if you Drink or not, you have a “Local”. You may have never stepped foot in the place but just as everyone has a mother and a father you have a local pub. Ok, so let’s say you live in the middle of Saudi Arabia? What then? Well we just have to stretch the definition of what “local” means 
I have one bar that is pretty close to me; not so close that I would walk but I can easily ride my bike to it. It will never rate as a Craft Beer bar on any scale of measure but the place serves a purpose and fills a niche. You have to stick with me here because I am attempting to make a very subtle point about doing what you do, the right way.
The Elk River Bar and Grill is about a mile from my house on Route 119. It’s a fairly new metal building with a large gravel parking lot, usually peppered with pick-up trucks and Harleys on any given day after 4pm. The place serves as a friendly watering hole to the many folks that do the jobs that need to be done. The place is clean, friendly and nothing fancy. They have a very decent touch-tunes jukebox and a few gaming machines. A nice feature is the outdoor deck that overlooks the Elk River. It can be a nice place to sit but it primarily serves as a place to smoke, so keep that in mind. The thing I really respect about the place is how well they do American Macro beer… You think I am kidding here but am not. They make no claims to being anything other than a watering hole. I don’t even think they go as far as Sam Adam’s BL. They do have PBR on tap though and I find it refreshing after a long bike ride.
You will get a cold American macro beer if you go there. All of the canned and bottled beer is stored in a large walk-in and then placed in large ice-filled Plexiglass beer troughs behind the bar. Buckets of ice are poured over the beer and obviously the troughs drain water continuously as the ice melts. The tap system seems well maintained and you always get your beer frosty cold in a frosty cold mug, just the way the macro brewer intended it to be and the way the customer expects it!
I find it amazing that a simple watering hole makes this effort to deliver a peak product. I cannot understand why we cannot transform this same respect given to a lesser worthy macro product (In my opinion) while at the same time many so-called beer bars do a half-assed job of storing and serving a premium priced, hand crafted product to the market sector they claim is their target. You can’t just claim to be a craft-beer bar; it’s not just what beer you serve, it’s how you serve it!
24 hours later, Beer snob Edit – I don’t like the way that last paragraph reads… It’s reality it’s not the product that is receiving the respect at the ERB&G it’s the customer! It’s all about the customer… I mean you can serve a twinkie on a silver platter, it’s still a twinkie but the customer might want it served that way……..
In a weird way, I kind of envy the guy who rolls into the Elk River Bar and Grill and really, really wants to drink a cold Bud because that guy is going to be taken care-of and they will exceed his expectations every time. I can hardly say the same about my experiences at many Charleston bars that sell craft-beer.
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