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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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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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Hop Headlines -

articles of relevence – some ours and some we felt that were worth mentioning from other sources.

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Beer myths brought to a head

What is ale, is stout a meal in itself, and does fancy continental-style glassware improve the flavour of beer? Felicity Cloake lifts the lid on some of the myths surrounding beer

Beer is not a drink that holds much mystique for anyone over the age of 14. Unless you’ve stumbled across a coven of real ale enthusiasts, you don’t generally find people hanging on to the barman’s every word as he discusses the terroir of his malts, or waxing lyrical about a lager’s bouquet before tucking in. But just because beer is an unpretentious kind of a vice, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a few secrets to spill.

For a start, many people (particularly those who believe quoting Withnail and I to be an acceptable substitute for conversation after a couple of pints) seem to think ‘ale’ is just an amusing synonym for beer. In fact, ale is a specific type of beer, fermented at a relatively high temperature (up to 22˚C), and then allowed to undergo a slow secondary fermentation in the cask. Lager, by contrast, is beer that has been fermented at a much lower temperature, giving a crisper-tasting result. So if you’ve had a few Stellas, you haven’t been ‘on the ale’ at all. (Don’t be fooled into believing that ale is always better either: whatever the folks at the Campaign for Real Ale say, handcrafted lagers are making some headway in this country.)

Meeting friends for a pre-dinner drink a few months ago, I found myself the victim of another stubborn beer-related myth. My oatmeal stout was, apparently,”a meal in itself” according to one disapproving sage at the table. I pointed out that not only was her innocent looking raspberry-flavoured confection stronger, and thus more calorific than the stout, but the idea that darker beers are fuller-bodied is absolute rubbish. There is no correlation between the colour of the beer and its strength (Duvel make an 8.5% that’s as golden as the locks of a fairy princess) or how ‘filling’ it is – that’s all down to the way it’s been brewed.

Perhaps the biggest myth about beer is that it makes you fat. It does of course – the British population is living, belching proof – but then so does all the booze, and the average bottle of beer contains fewer calories than a large G&T. In reality, those beer bellies parading up and down the high street are just as likely be tempranillo tummies, or gin guts – particularly if, like me, your high street happens to be in north London. Unless you’re possessed of steely self-control, however, beer isn’t necessarily a better choice if you’re trying to cut down your alcohol intake – although it tends to have less by volume than wine or spirits, drinkers usually make up for this by consuming more of it. Bear in mind that a pint of standard strength beer contains two units of alcohol, whereas a single measure of spirits has just one.

Stout could never be a slimmer’s drink of course, not with a name like that. But if you’re one of those drinkers who rhapsodises about how much better Guinness tastes ‘in the old country’ not only do you sound stupid – you’re drinking it all wrong. Up until 2005, the Guinness we got in this country was brewed just off the A40, in the green, green fields of Park Royal – and, I agree, it’s possible that the waters of the Thames have a little less of the leprechaun about them than the liquid crystal that springs from the Wicklow mountains. These days, however, our Guinness comes direct from St James’s Gate in Dublin – which, oddly enough, makes it exactly the same as the stuff served on the Emerald Isle. I suspect that British people believe Guinness tastes better in Ireland because we’re all high on craic – but an argument can also be made that it tends to be fresher because the turnover in pubs there is far more rapid. So if you don’t like the Guinness in your local, you’re probably just not drinking it fast enough.

Sometimes, however, you just can’t get through it all at once, and although we’ll invest in a rack for the most modest of home wine collections, most of us show a cavalier disregard for a similar stash of beer. Don’t keep it on the worktop – store it somewhere cool and dark if possible, particularly if it’s in clear or green bottles, which are less effective than brown ones at filtering out the green and blue light that can turn the contents ’skunky’ (that’s a technical term, obviously).

Unless you live the tropics, however, it’s probably best not to choose the fridge because, despite what the Kinks might believe, the only beer that’s best enjoyed ice cold is one that’s not worth drinking in the first place – over-chilling kills flavour.

Nor, however, should you take advice on the subject from John Major, with his fondness for “warm beer”. According to the late, great Michael Jackson (no, not that one, the beer expert) lager should ideally be drunk between 7 and 10˚C, ales between 10 and 13˚ (cellar temperature in your average pub), and stouts around 15˚C.

A belief that warm beer is a matter of national pride often goes hand in hand with the notion that fancy glassware is an effete continental marketing ploy. This is also rubbish. The great British pint glass may look suitably no-nonsense, but it often does little for the beer inside it. To appreciate the effect, pour some wine into one, and then the same amount into a standard wine glass, swirl both, and then sniff. The wine glass allows you to appreciate aroma far better than the pint glass – so it’s worth investing in the appropriate shape for your favourite beer, just as, if you drink a lot of sparkling wine, you’ll have a set of flutes.

But even if Pol Roger’s your tipple of choice, I bet you drink beer with a curry, don’t you? We all do, however many earnest articles we read assuring us that wine works with spicy food. Yet the bland lagers on offer in most places are easily overpowered by the likes of a fiery beef bhuna, or an earthy saag aloo. Next time you’re preparing a pasanda yourself, try a more robustly flavoured ale, such as a strongly hopped IPA – beer expert Ben McFarland recommends the one from the Meantime Brewery in Greenwich – or even a pint of bitter instead.

As to whether wine before beer really does leave one feeling queer – well, I’ll leave you to decide that for yourself. But tell us your beer secrets, from the best place to get a fresh pint of Irish stout to your favourite beer and food matches. Do you believe beer deserves to be treated better in this country – or does all this fancy glassware and fussing about the correct serving temperature miss the point of a pint?

- story by The Guardian

http://tinyurl.com/yd5qr2b

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The Ode: Steelback Brewery

Ugly plastic bottles. A marketing budget that sometimes exceeded revenues. An oddly indifferent slogan. Eight years actually wasn’t a bad run.

By Matthew McClearn

It was what it was…

Born to flamboyant entrepreneur Frank D’Angelo in 2002, Steelback Brewery was a mistake from start to finish. When D’Angelo Brands, Frank’s sizable juice and sport drink company, bought a juice plant in Tiverton, Ont., it contained a small brewery. D’Angelo planned to make apple juice, and tried to offload the brewing equipment. But he failed, and eventually decided that shipping apples to the community made little sense. “So we said — you know what? We’re going to try and make beer.”

Steelback unveiled its first three brews on Super Bowl weekend in February 2004, selling exclusively in Tiverton. “We want to be Bruce County’s favourite son,” D’Angelo told a local paper. “We are not interested in playing in the big leagues right now.” They shipped in screw-capped plastic bottles. D’Angelo reasoned the unorthodox packaging distinguished them from competitors and was safer for employees. In fact, it was more costly, and damaged the product both physically (it reduced shelf life) and in the eyes of consumers (who associated plastic bottles with poor quality).

D’Angelo’s local focus was quickly overtaken by his trademark exuberance. Within two years, he was selling 10 brands well outside Bruce County and planning to expand nationally. And while craft brewers typically maintain tight marketing budgets, he went wild — sometimes spending more on marketing alone than all revenues combined. He hired retired hockey players such as Phil Esposito and Dennis Hull to star in TV commercials. He sponsored a Formula 1 racing team. He even attempted to purchase his own football and hockey teams. “We’re yelling like crazy in advertising and billboards to let everybody know that we’re here,” he explained.

But for all the yelling, Steelback never earned a favourable image among beer drinkers. Even one of the company’s slogans, “It is what it is,” seemed to suggest a strange indifference to the product. Critics maligned Steelback beers for inconsistent quality, and retailers returned large quantities.

The mystery of how Steelback survived for so long baffled many. Late in 2007, it was resolved, when D’Angelo abruptly announced he’d sold his stake in D’Angelo Brands and Steelback to Barry Sherman, owner of generic drugmaker Apotex. Sherman installed his son Jonathon, a recent university graduate, in the executive suite; D’Angelo was to remain Steelback’s chairman and public face.

It later emerged that one of Sherman’s companies, Wasanda Enterprises, had bankrolled D’Angelo’s companies for years, and was now owed more than $100 million. Wasanda tipped D’Angelo’s companies into court-supervised bankruptcy protection, and the Shermans gained control of Steelback in 2008 after paying $8 million. At this point, D’Angelo departed entirely.

The Shermans quickly distanced themselves from their former partner, blaming him publicly for overspending on advertising and admitting to past inconsistencies in beer quality. Under new president Ian MacDonald, Steelback eliminated more than half its offerings, sold off the plastic bottling equipment and contracted a third party to package its remaining five beers in conventional brown bottles. It also divested a recently acquired brewery in Rougemount, Que., which had never produced a drop of Steelback brew.

Steelback fared little better under new ownership. MacDonald left the company last July. Shortly after, Sherman laid off most of its employees, paring back to a skeleton crew. Operations wound up completely in January. Thus ended one of the strangest episodes in the history of Canada’s alcohol business — not, it must be said, an industry lacking in colourful characters.

story by Canadianbusiness.com

http://tinyurl.com/ykryxb7

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There are hundreds of videos contained in the viewer to the left. If you wanna see more than click the blue arrow at the bottom. We’ve got commercials, how-to videos, weird stuff, whatever. Don’t be shy.

The Brew Review

Here it comes – The Beer Channel puttin’ things in perspective . TBC’s own Nathan Moya digs deep into the souls of our favorites and brings ‘em to ya on the real.

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Beer and Geography

Lagunitas Brewing Company – Petaluma, CA.

http://www.lagunitas.com/

Beer and Geography. I never think about them simultaneously, but maybe because it’s difficult for me to multitask. I don’t know. Do they have a relationship, though? The answer calling to me is no. Can’t think of one, and, even now, I still can’t think of one. But for the moment, let’s abandon rationality, relevance, coherency, and reasonable guesses. Just trust me, okay.

So, Nicolas Steno. Ever hear of him? Me neither. Not until I was made comatose by Lagunitas’ Hop Stoopid.  Don’t go looking for his name on the Lagunitas website, or on the bottle, or some secret document being passed around by a covert, underground group of beer enthusiasts (do those even exist?). Steno was a Danish anatomist and geographer, and he’s hailed as the “father of geography.” See the connection now? Come on, Stoopid.

Well, he developed a principle called The Principle of Original Horizontality. Here’s the basic idea: wait for it… wait for it…; “layers of sediment are originally deposited horizontally.” Bring out the kettle-drums and cymbals! Damn, that was exhilarating. Okay… I know. It’s not that exciting. However, did you notice? Look at the letters. “H” for Horizontality. “O” for original. “P” for principle. What do those letters spell? HOP! As in Hop(s), Stoopid. If you want to tell me you didn’t see that coming, well, then, you’re pretty stoopid.

Here’s another factoid, guys: In 1988, Pope John Paul II canonized Nicolas Steno. The father of geography got the gold medal for Catholicism: for digging in the dirt, Steno’s a saint. Who knows, maybe Hop Stoopid will be canonized? This beer makes playing in the dirt more fun; after you’ve finished it, that is. And you thought beer had nothing to do with geography. Think, Stoopid.

Pour and Color:

The beer hopped right out of its bottle (yea, puns!); almost bit my lip… I gave the contents a close-to-vertical poor to see what kind of head I could get from it. I wasn’t let down. A beautiful, big, fluffy, cumulus cloud two-finger head developed, and, over the course of five minutes, it relaxed into a subtle white film. The color was slightly darker than honey, but when I held it up to the light I could see through the beer just fine. It was a strange but pleasant balance of strong color and transparency.

Smell:

Think smelly, stanky dank. Yep, the greenest dank you’ve ever smelled. Now, multiply that by The Principle of Original Horizontality. Now we’re getting closer. I almost wanted to roll the beer, not drink it. The smell is green, fresh, flowery, and moist. It makes me feel like I’m in a wet forest of Redwood trees with grapefruits, grapes and apricots — green and citrusy. And the malts! They’re in there, and they’re sweet; modestly sitting underneath the hops. Sure, the beer isn’t balanced — far more hops hit the nose than malts, but, that’s the point, Stoopid!

Taste:

Take everything I’ve said about trees, dank, fruit and hops. Now, put the ingredients in a blender, add liquid, and hit blend. That’s how the beer tastes! It’s a mouthful, and very complex. The hops, though, stand out like your missing teeth in kindergarten pictures — they take over. The malts, however, like your adorable awkwardness in those pictures, draws attention away from the hops. Again, not a balanced beer, but that’s not what we want from Hop Stoopid.

Mouthfeel:

To be honest, this is what motivated the geography imagery. Why? Well, at first, the beer is sharp (carbonation), pointed, almost stings, and is overwhelming. Quickly, though, the sharpness is overcome by the medium-thickness of the malts. A honey-like texture moves from the front of the mouth, across the tongue, to the back of the throat. Then you notice a nice, light and hoppy texture has stayed on the palette. This complex feel made me think of stratification. Like when you see layers of sediment, that’s how the beer feels in the mouth: layered and full of goodness.

Drinkability:

Here’s a warning: EAT FOOD WITH THIS BEER. I drank this beer after long day. I was tired and didn’t have much in my stomach. Needless to say I was loopy after finishing the 22oz bottle. I’ve had this beer with food before, and it mellowed out the 8% abv. The 102 IBU rating feels less than 102. I think the taste buds go into shock after the first taste, because the strong, bitter flavor quickly mellows. If you love beer that makes your face turn inside out, this is the beer for you. Now let’s push for its canonization.

Final Notes:

I don’t have a food recommendation (see above!), but I imagine butternut squash would go well with this beer. It feels like a good pairing. And, for those of you who may not know, Lagunitas uses hop extracts rather than hop flowers to make this beer. Think orange juice concentrate, but with hops. A friend suggested BBQ, in that the energy that Stoopid offers caters to spicier sauces. The spice of the food is easily contraindicated by the high sugar content in the beer (an excellent reference to this is from Dan Gordon of Gordon Biersch Brewing Company, in an interview on The Brewing Network’s Sunday Session podcast dated 01/31/10) .

The end result may bring the realization of Steno’s Horizontality, but the complexity of Hop Stoopid yields a strange world of possibilities.

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Old Rasputin Russian Stout -

North Coast Brewing Company – Fort Bragg, CA.

http://www.northcoastbrewing.com/

It’s been said that Rasputin, the Russian mystic, was able to discredit the government of Tsar Nicholas II, thus bringing down the Romanov dynasty in 1917. And it’s been said that Rasputin was called a “holy man” and “religious prophet” by both the tsar and his lovely wife, Tsaritsa Alexandra.

Even more, it’s been said that Tsaritsa Alexandra believed that God almighty spoke through her beloved Rasputin, the devout Man of God. And it’s also been said that Tsarevich Alexei, the young son of Mr. Tsar and Mrs. Tsaritsa, suffered from hemophilia and that Rasputin the healer was able to attenuate the young boy’s pain through prayer.

And finally, it’s been said that Rasputin was practically immortal, suffering from poison, four shots to the body (including one to the forehead), abominable beatings and castration, before finally dying from drowning in the Neva River.

Well, there’s been many things said about many people, and all I know is that evidence leads me to believe that none of the above matters much to my implacable taste buds, because Old Rasputin, the one-of-a-kind Russian Imperial Stout from North Coast Brewery, is insanely delicious.

Pour and Color:

There aren’t many beers that get my rocks off just from pouring its contents into a glass, but this, my dear friends, gives me shivers. To use “pour” is almost derogatory, because it’s like the beer walks seductively on ebony legs instead. The color is dark brown to black, and light has no chance of squeezing its way through the beer’s opacity. A nice two-fingered tan head stayed for a few minutes, then relaxed into a subtle, cappuccino-like crema on top. Lacing stayed throughout the entire beer, and if given a light twirl, a thicker head would easily form again.

Smell:

The aroma is a very strong and complex yet balanced array of coffee, roasted malts, chocolate, fruityness/sweetness from the hops, and, of course, our friend, Al Co Hall. Even more impressive than the complexity is that the various scents seem to linger in the nose, which adds to the overall strength.

Taste:

If a beer is ever going to be called sexy, this is it. Yes, it is very strong (9% ABV), but, after a couple of sips, you’ve been placated enough, and each sip is increasingly smoother than the previous one. It’s rich, with the first tastes being heavy on dark chocolate malts. As this dissipates, you begin to taste the coffee and espresso flavors with a bit of sweetness. Then the fruity flavor from the hops (75 IBU) kicks in, stays on the palette for a long time, and balances out the sweetness and malts.

Mouthfeel:

The beer starts out subtle and soft, but then it becomes heavy, creamy and silky. It is probably average carbonation for Imperial Stouts, and has a density similar to milk (might be good in your breakfast cereal, eh!).

Drinkability:

I wouldn’t say this beer is as heavy as some Imperial Stouts, making it easier to have another after the first. The flavor itself makes me want drink about ten of these every time I have one, and sometimes I even think about bowing down to the beer.  At 9% ABV you might want be take it slow, caress your brain and walking abilities, and drink just a couple.

Final Notes:

I had this beer with baked chicken in white wine and balsamic vinegar, with green bell pepper, onion, and eggplant. I used garlic powder, pepper, and cumin for spices. On the side was a dish of red lentils and brown rice, cooked in water and a hint of tomato sauce. The beer worked very well with this dish, and neither the flavors from the beer or the food took over. It was a wonderful meal.

- this review dedicated to @Homebrewchef – Mr. Sean Paxton. Thanks for your time, Sean.

Nathan Moya is a writer devoted to drinking extraordinary beer. You can contact him at:
abecedarianly@gmail.com. Beer hopes to hear from him. And he from you. Cheers.