the original and the best…
The Beer Channel will be at English Ales in Marina, CA. on Tuesday, November 24 to host Firkin night!Welcome to The Beer Channel.
Our mission is to provide you with quality information through news, interviews, and other media regarding the wonderful and exciting world of brewmasters and craft brewing.
We do on-location filming, advertising, networking, and merchandising for breweries, brewmasters, and homebrew hobbyists. Currently, we have three distinct shows in production – Have Beer, Will Travel, Bru Appetit, and The Beer Garden. As they are edited we will be placing them here on the site and on public broadcasting. Feel free to drop us a line and check back frequently for new video content.
Questions? Wanna get involved?
contact us at : thebeerchannel@gmail.com
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Our first “plug” comes from Jammin’ Jay of Phoenix, AZ. Thanks, Jay!
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Here we go…
So we have decided to release, exclusively on the site, some of the interviews prior to releasing the entire show. We really want to spotlight the brewers here, and, why wait? Check out the Brewmaster Spotlight link to watch what we got.
We are also going to begin brewpub and brewery reviews. Think you got what it takes to be the best? We’ll come peep it out and let it be known what’s really goin’ on at your spot!
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Coming soon to The Beer Channel …
MERCH!!!
Here on the site you’ll be able to own a piece of The Beer Channel!
We’ll have several items for purchase including mugs, glasses, t-shirts, cellphone skins, and much more! We’re trying to keep it to practical items to avoid overstock. Do your part and pick something up and show your support!
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Hop Headlines -
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More beer history: In which Portland gets its first widely produced IPA
By John Foyston, The Oregonian
November 17, 2009, 12:08PM
BRIDGEPORT BOLSTERS OLD BREW INTO A WINNER
Brew News
By John Foyston
of The Oregonian staff <
Source: THE OREGONIAN
Friday,June 7, 1996
Edition: SUNRISE, Section: ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT, Page 04
Friday, June 7, 1996 BRIDGEPORT BOLSTERS OLD BREW INTO A WINNER
Brew News
Summary: New owners, equipment and lots of hops puts bite in Firkin India Pale Ale
If BridgePort’s new India Pale Ale is any indication of things to come, Portland’s oldest craft brewer is no longer relying on seniority.
For years, BridgePort has been steady rather than spectacular, ranking fifth last year — in a tie with Rogue Brewery — in Oregon craft beer production. Truth be told, the beers have reflected BridgePort’s slow-but-steady pace. The Oregon ales — Coho, Pintail and Blue Heron — are all well made and enjoyable, but memorable is not the first adjective that leaps to mind.
Its new pale ale is memorable. Fruity and floral, rounded, refreshing and hopped to a fare-thee-well, the first of the much-ballyhooed-and-billboarded Firkin beers both delivers the goods and announces that BridgePort is very much back in the game.
Things started to change last October, when the founding Ponzi family sold the company to Texas-based beer distributor Gambrinus Co. for an undisclosed sum.
The new owners began a $3.5 million expansion that included new brewing and fermentation tanks, laboratory upgrades and other new equipment, such as a German-made bottling line to be installed this summer. They paid attention to what went into the tanks and bottles, too, formulating the India Pale Ale and an accompanying porter, BridgePort’s first new beers in years.
Both are cask-conditioned (which means the final fermentation happens in bottle or keg) and both take their name from the traditional English firkins in which they’re stored. These are small, stainless steel kegs of about 11 gallons with wooden bungs and an assortment of hard or soft spiles — small plugs — which seal or vent gas and control carbonation levels.
The firkins also are at the heart of a most unBridgePort-like marketing blitz that includes billboards, Great Firkin Beer clothing, a free trip to London and a limerick contest.
Between the pumped-up brewery, the fine new brews and the splashy promotion, Gambrinus Co. seems set to transform BridgePort almost in the way it revitalized the Spoetzle brewery in Shiner, Texas, which is now one of the most popular craft beers in the country.
” We’re lucky,” Karl Ockert, an early Bridgeport brewer who recently returned to manage the brewing operation, says.
” Usually when a company gets sold, the new owners bring in a financial guy to run things. But Phil Sexton is a brewmaster — one of the first things he told us was, `I want a really expensive hops bill.’
” He got the kind of hops bill that would set a bean-counter to doing backflips toward the nearest open window,” Ockert says.
The new pale ale is even more extravagantly hopped than is normal in Northwest microbrews. Every 31-gallon barrel contains two pounds of five different varieties of hops. is used in every barrel (31 gallons) of beer. That contrasts to the more usual figure of two ounces per barrel.
” It’s not meant to be a cheap beer to brew,” Ockert says, “because it’s bottle-conditioned, it’s fragile and requires a lot more attention to every step of the process. We find we’re much more dependent on the lab, too — each batch gets 13 separate lab checks.”
If the bottle he uncapped in BridgePort’s homey, brick-and-timber pub is any indication, that effort has not been misplaced. The new ale announces itself with an intense floral bouquet and follows with a rounded and multi-dimensional taste that’s nowhere near as bitter as that amount of hops would indicate.
BridgePort India Pale Ale measures 60 International Bitterness Units, or twice as bitter as BridgePort’s Blue Heron, which is twice as bitter as Budweiser. But cask-conditioning mellows the beer, Ockert says. And it does something else.
” It makes microbrewing fun again instead of just numbers and business, which is what it’s getting to. It harkens back to the old days, when our conditioning cask was an old dairy tank lined with screens from the Olympia brewery.”
You can get in on the fun on Tuesday nights at the BridgePort brewpub, 1313 N.W. Marshall St., when they put their firkins on the bar. Because of the natural carbonation, the beer is drawn with a simple spigot and needs no pump or tapping system.
You might want to give the pubsters a little room when they tap the firkins, though. Tapping involves deftly slamming the sharpened tang of a spigot through a thin wooden plug. Given all the natural carbonation lurking within, it can be an exciting — and damp — moment, Ockert says. “I always stand well back.”
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Utopias beer: a stiff drink at a stiff price
By RONNIE CROCKER Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
Nov. 9, 2009, 11:08AM
RONNIE CROCKER: Chronicle
At 27 percent alcohol by volume, the 2009 Utopias from Samuel Adams is the strongest beer around.
Jim Koch, the Samuel Adams founder who coined the term“extreme beer” in the 1990s, has taken the concept to a new level with the 2009 Utopias.
It’s the world’s strongest beer, with a wallop-packing 27 percent alcohol by volume that makes it illegal in a dozen states. At a suggested retail price of $150, it’s likely the most expensive brew to hit the shelves this holiday season.
Just 12,000 of the unique, ceramic-and-copper bottles, er,decanters shaped like tiny brew kettles were produced. This is the first year Utopias will be available in Texas, and a limited number are expected to go on sale in Houston this week.
“You treat it like a fine cognac,” said Erika Schermerhorn, spokeswoman for the parent Boston Beer Co.
That means serving the uncarbonated beverage at room temperature, with 2-ounce pours in a snifter. And, unlike other beer, you can save the rest for later.
“Once you open it,” said Schermerhorn, “you can put it away and then go back to it years later.”
The Utopias is brewed with a variety of yeast strains, including one commonly used in the production of champagne, and malts and Noble hops. It’s a blend of liquids as well, said Schermerhorn, including some remaining from a batch of Samuel Adams Triple Bock. Brewed 16 years ago, the Triple Bock was billed as the first “extreme beer” at 17 percent ABV.
The Utopias was aged and finished in wooden containers such as Scotch whisky barrels, single-use bourbon casks, sherry casks from Spain, and muscatel and port casks from Portugal. According to the company, this aging process “enhances the distinct cinnamon, vanilla, and maple notes” and gives the beer “a level of complexity not seen in earlier releases.”
Since the Triple Bock, Samuel Adams has released a series of high-alcohol beers: Millennium Ale in 2000 (21 percent ABV) and Utopias in 2002, ‘03, ‘05 and ‘07.
Utopias gets an A rating on the respected BeerAdvocate.com site. Reader comments to the Chronicle’s Beer, TX blog were mostly positive about the earlier incarnations as well.
“I’ve had previous releases of Utopia and although you would expect it to be whiskey-hot with alcohol, it is surprisingly smooth and drinkable, and very definitely tastes like a beer (maybe a beer liqueur),” Paul Hightower wrote. “It is malty, sweet and a bit complex, and one could enjoy a full snifter of it if the pocketbook would allow.”
Local homebrewer Mike Heniff agreed that it’s “certainly very interesting and a few sips now and then are very enjoyable.” But, he added, “in the end all three of the Samuel Adams high alcohol beers don’t seem much like beer.”
A couple of other readers recalled the Triple Bock badly, however, with one calling it a “fiasco.”
And the whole notion of “extreme beer” doesn’t have universal approval.
In a New Yorker magazine article last fall, the author and Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster Garrett Oliver was quoted as saying he found the term “irredeemably pejorative.”
“When a brewer says, ‘This has more hops in it than anything you’ve had in your life — are you man enough to drink it?,’ it’s sort of like a chef saying, ‘This stew has more salt in it than anything you’ve ever had — are you man enough to eat it?’ ”
The makers of Samuel Adams contend that “extreme beer” is more than just clever marketing.
“It’s about redefining the way people think about beer,” said Schermerhorn, “and pushing the boundaries of what beer can be.”
That seems to be a driving philosophy for Koch, who has grown the Boston Beer Co. into the largest U.S.-owned brewery (now that both Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors are under foreign ownership).
“As brewers, we continue to challenge ourselves to experiment and explore new flavors and brewing techniques in the Barrel Room year after year, and what continues to energize us is that our beer quest hasn’t changed,” Koch said in a statement. “It’s my life’s work to elevate people’s thinking about beer. … Today, Utopias is our best example of that quest.”
Utopias
The limited-release series is listed in theGuinness Book of World Records as the world’s strongest beer. Some facts about the 2009 version:
• Strength: 27 percent alcohol by volume; by comparison, Bud Light is 4.2 percent ABV.
• Aging prcoess: Aged in a variety of wooden whisky, bourbon, sherry, port and muscatel casks and barrels; some has aged as long as 16 years.
• Ingredients: Two-row Caramel and Munich malts; Noble hops Spice Spalter, Hallertau Mittelfrueh and Tettnang Tettnanger.
• Price: $150 suggested retail for a 24-ounce bottle.
• Availability: Just 53 barrels were produced, which means about 12,000 numbered bottles are on the market.
• Arrival date: A limited number are expected to go on sale this week at Spec’s, H-E-B stores and the Flying Saucer.
Source: Boston Beer Co.
Utopias beer: a stiff drink at a stiff price
By RONNIE CROCKER Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
Nov. 9, 2009, 11:08AM
RONNIE CROCKER: Chronicle
At 27 percent alcohol by volume, the 2009 Utopias from Samuel Adams is the strongest beer around.
Jim Koch, the Samuel Adams founder who coined the term“extreme beer” in the 1990s, has taken the concept to a new level with the 2009 Utopias.
It’s the world’s strongest beer, with a wallop-packing 27 percent alcohol by volume that makes it illegal in a dozen states. At a suggested retail price of $150, it’s likely the most expensive brew to hit the shelves this holiday season.
Just 12,000 of the unique, ceramic-and-copper bottles, er,decanters shaped like tiny brew kettles were produced. This is the first year Utopias will be available in Texas, and a limited number are expected to go on sale in Houston this week.
“You treat it like a fine cognac,” said Erika Schermerhorn, spokeswoman for the parent Boston Beer Co.
That means serving the uncarbonated beverage at room temperature, with 2-ounce pours in a snifter. And, unlike other beer, you can save the rest for later.
“Once you open it,” said Schermerhorn, “you can put it away and then go back to it years later.”
The Utopias is brewed with a variety of yeast strains, including one commonly used in the production of champagne, and malts and Noble hops. It’s a blend of liquids as well, said Schermerhorn, including some remaining from a batch of Samuel Adams Triple Bock. Brewed 16 years ago, the Triple Bock was billed as the first “extreme beer” at 17 percent ABV.
The Utopias was aged and finished in wooden containers such as Scotch whisky barrels, single-use bourbon casks, sherry casks from Spain, and muscatel and port casks from Portugal. According to the company, this aging process “enhances the distinct cinnamon, vanilla, and maple notes” and gives the beer “a level of complexity not seen in earlier releases.”
Since the Triple Bock, Samuel Adams has released a series of high-alcohol beers: Millennium Ale in 2000 (21 percent ABV) and Utopias in 2002, ‘03, ‘05 and ‘07.
Utopias gets an A rating on the respected BeerAdvocate.com site. Reader comments to the Chronicle’s Beer, TX blog were mostly positive about the earlier incarnations as well.
“I’ve had previous releases of Utopia and although you would expect it to be whiskey-hot with alcohol, it is surprisingly smooth and drinkable, and very definitely tastes like a beer (maybe a beer liqueur),” Paul Hightower wrote. “It is malty, sweet and a bit complex, and one could enjoy a full snifter of it if the pocketbook would allow.”
Local homebrewer Mike Heniff agreed that it’s “certainly very interesting and a few sips now and then are very enjoyable.” But, he added, “in the end all three of the Samuel Adams high alcohol beers don’t seem much like beer.”
A couple of other readers recalled the Triple Bock badly, however, with one calling it a “fiasco.”
And the whole notion of “extreme beer” doesn’t have universal approval.
In a New Yorker magazine article last fall, the author and Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster Garrett Oliver was quoted as saying he found the term “irredeemably pejorative.”
“When a brewer says, ‘This has more hops in it than anything you’ve had in your life — are you man enough to drink it?,’ it’s sort of like a chef saying, ‘This stew has more salt in it than anything you’ve ever had — are you man enough to eat it?’ ”
The makers of Samuel Adams contend that “extreme beer” is more than just clever marketing.
“It’s about redefining the way people think about beer,” said Schermerhorn, “and pushing the boundaries of what beer can be.”
That seems to be a driving philosophy for Koch, who has grown the Boston Beer Co. into the largest U.S.-owned brewery (now that both Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors are under foreign ownership).
“As brewers, we continue to challenge ourselves to experiment and explore new flavors and brewing techniques in the Barrel Room year after year, and what continues to energize us is that our beer quest hasn’t changed,” Koch said in a statement. “It’s my life’s work to elevate people’s thinking about beer. … Today, Utopias is our best example of that quest.”
Utopias
The limited-release series is listed in theGuinness Book of World Records as the world’s strongest beer. Some facts about the 2009 version:
• Strength: 27 percent alcohol by volume; by comparison, Bud Light is 4.2 percent ABV.
• Aging prcoess: Aged in a variety of wooden whisky, bourbon, sherry, port and muscatel casks and barrels; some has aged as long as 16 years.
• Ingredients: Two-row Caramel and Munich malts; Noble hops Spice Spalter, Hallertau Mittelfrueh and Tettnang Tettnanger.
• Price: $150 suggested retail for a 24-ounce bottle.
• Availability: Just 53 barrels were produced, which means about 12,000 numbered bottles are on the market.
• Arrival date: A limited number are expected to go on sale this week at Spec’s, H-E-B stores and the Flying Saucer.
Source: Boston Beer Co.
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