Keeping It Cool!

Brrrrr is the temperature you want your beer to be at when taking a drink. Otherwise it just doesn't taste as good. There's a trick where you put your beer bottle into a sock and then hang it on a branch. This slowly cools the beer to make it that much more enjoyable.

If you're at home, like the rest of us, you should consider getting yourself a beverage refrigerator so that you can keep the beer cold, but not use up the space in your main refrigerator. There's also the added convenience of having the beer right next to the TV, that way you don't have to go far to get a drink for the game. You can find a lot more information on choosing the type of refrigerators at the minirefrigeratorzone, it has a lot of resources for you to look things up, like how to choosing a proper beverage refrigerator.

What we also do sometimes is to keep the beer outside at night. Or if it's wintertime, just keep a case or two outside on your deck. This has the ability to keep the beer cold without costing valuable fridge space. We have a huge family (read 100+), so the reunions are actually quite crazy. This is exactly how we keep a lot of beer cold at no extra cost!

Happy drinking and keep it cool okay?

Where to Find Good Beer

In many places in the world, you can just head anywhere that sells beer and buy it. In Northern America, brew pubs and micro-breweries are the best hang outs to enjoy freshly brewed, greatly crafted beer. However, they are not found everywhere, yet.

A lot of restaurants and bars are starting to sell high quality beers in bottles and on tap. If you want to drink a great beer, never ask for an "import!" Today, the market can make you very disappointed while missing a really awesome domestic. Always ask for a beer list. It's not all the time that the servers are educated when it comes to beer lore and might misinterpret what you want in a good beer.

Plenty of liquor stores offer an amazing selection of bottled beers. Major groceries are also starting to carry popular selections.

Measuring Alcohol Strength

Usually, alcohol is measured by percent of volume (abv). In America, the alcohol content in beer is measured by weight (abw). Because alcohol weighs about 20% less compared to water, abw measures seem 20% less than the abv measures for the similar alcohol amount. In Europe, the strength of beer is measured by the fermentables in the wort.

But just recently, Britain made use of OG (original gravity) -- 1000 times the ratio of the wort gravity to that of water. So a beer that has an OG of 1040 is 4% denser compared to water, due to dissolved sugars. Generally, you can take 1/10 of the last 2 digits to approximate the alcohol percentage by volume when dissolved sugars become fermented. In this example, the abv will be around 4% (40/10 = 4%) Right now, British beer is taxed based on the actual % ABV instead of the older OG so you can find both of them displayed.

3 Other Useful Things You Can Do with Your Beer

Aside from giving fun and nourishment to many, beer can also become useful inside your home and even your garden. Here the 3 things you can do with your beer aside from being the main attraction in your Happy Hour:

Insect Trap - If you want to get rid of flying insects, then you can set up a trap using beer. The beer's smell can attract a lot of bugs and you can make a simple trap (one-way in, no-way out) for these flying creatures. 

Polish. You can also use beer as a polish for different surfaces especially metal. Dampen your rag with your beer and then rub it down to your stuff's surface. You may or may not rinse it with clean water after that. 

Rust Remover. Beer can soften or totally dissolve rust.  So if you want to save your screws, bolts, nuts, etc, just soak them in beer!

Fruit Brewing

Fruit brewing is a delicate process but is definitely worth exploring.

Aroma gives the most charm in fruit beers, and it's ideal to add it once primary fermentation is done or waning. The heavenly aromatics are just flighty so it will be diminished by CO2 in  vigorous fermentation. It's best to crush bigger fruits to let the sugars and flavor seep into the fermenting beer. It will begin another fermentation. During this time, rack to a carboy, and be patient since fruit sugars might ferment lazily. 

To avoid contamination, you can pasteurize the fruit through heating to 145 degrees F for half an hour or make use of campden tablets for fruit sanitizing.

The amount of fruit you need to enhance beer widely vary, so you should first have  a pilot test gallon. Consider the taste you want --forceful, average or subtle. This is just a trial-and-error process and depends on the fruit and beer style. You can also make a base 5-gallon batch and ferment one gallon of that on the side with a certain amount of fruit to measure the dosage.

New Brewery Launched in Redding, CA

Wildcard Brewing Company began when Jenny and Jeff Hansen brewed 2 beers as a wedding favor at a brewery located in San Luis Obispo, CA. A few years after, homebrew projects and burst beer bottle explosions followed.

This simple passion eventually became a career as the two went to England. Jenny did her “research” in different local pubs while Jeff enrolled in the University of Sunderland and studied brewing science.  When they went back in the U.S, Jeff chose the most competitive brewing place, the Pacific Northwest. Years later, the pair went to Redding, Calfornia, Jeff’s hometown  and launched their very own production brewery. They put across the bar four year round beers; Suicide Jack, California Cream Ale; Liar’s Dice, IPA; Double Down, Imperial Red Ale; Shot in the Dark, Oatmeal Porter.

Cheers to that!

World of Beer Launched in Columbus, OH

World of Beer or WOB has just been launched at the Easton Town Center on Monday, 12th of November. This is the 32nd branch for this thriving establishment offering more than 500 varieties of bottles and 35 rotating taps from different parts of the globe. 

World of Beer in Easton will be serving craft and imported beer, stocking more than 500 various bottles including brews from Four Strings Brewing Company, Columbus Brewing Company and Elevator Brewing Company.

WOB Easton is considered the 2nd of its kind in Columbus. This location is surely attracting a big crowd, since it is one of the country's biggest entertainment and outdoor shopping facilities. WOB offers live music every Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays plus Ladies Night during Thursdays as well as Service Industry Night during Mondays and Sundays. 

The culture of WOB is not like any other. Its staff members should attend a ‘beer school’ for 2 weeks wherein they are tested and needed to have a 90% score to start work.

In 2007, WOB was established in Tampa, FL.  After 5 years, they launched their 31st branch in San Antonio, Texas. Currently, the franchise is operating in ten states namely FL, TX, VA, WI, IL, OH, GA, NC, SC and AZ. 

Two Brothers Brewing Now in Florida!

After 6 years, Two Brothers Brewing expands their distribution to a new market for the first time. Cavalier Distributing, one of the most respected distributors of specialty beer in Indiana and Ohio has launched a brand new new distribution facility based in Lakeland, Florida and Two Brothers Brewing is more than excited to join this latest expansion.

Florida is the newest landing when it comes to craft beer and the latest shift in terms of sales to the craft market has made several breweries interested. At present, Two Brothers Brewing  distributes in 5 markets and is growing over 40% this year.

Two Brothers Brewing is now set to bring their product to the south. Every year, Two Brothers Brewing had been alloting money in producing an efficient brewery and following many years of plant expansions, an innovative bottling line is presently being created in order to keep up with the increasing demand. This bottling line will operate in mid-2013 and will keep expanding in other craft beer markets.

Cavalier Distributing is a long-time business partner and Two Brothers Brewing looks forward to enhancing their partnership as both firms continue to be the leaders in the craft beer movement.

Congratulations to the Winners of the 2012 Great American Beer Festival

The Great American Beer Festival (GABF) is one of the biggest in the United States and is a grand celebration of the American Craft Brewing industry held annually. Also, GABF hosts one of the biggest beer competitions in the world. Professional brewers and breweries from all over the nation send their own beers in the contest and are judged by industry professionals from different parts of the globe in a blind competition. Winning a medal/s at this prestigious competition is such an honor, and at times, can offer a big break for the craft brewery.

  

California, a powerhouse state for craft brewing wins 49 medals all in all. Colorado, its next closest contender gets the second place with 35 medals. Congratulations!

California Craft Breweries Generate $3 Billion

The industry of craft brewing in California generated about $3 billion in the economy of the state, revealed by the Craft Brewing Association press release. This helps create 22,000 jobs last year in spite of the recession that happened recently. The craft brewing industry in California is an essential part of its economy which makes up over 1.5% of the entire economic output.

Intoxicating Facts About Beer

If the United States had a national alcoholic beverage, then it would be beer. In 2011, the total beer market in America was $96 billion and about 200 million barrels of beer were sold (1 barrel of beer = 31 gallons). Also,1,989 US breweries fermented everything from mild beer to chocolaty liquor in the same year.

What's inside a glass of beer?

It's mostly water. But it also has flowers, grains and fungus. Beer acquires most of its taste from hops, the flowers that seem like mini-pinecones. The beer's alcohol content comes from grain, typically barley, that is malted (or germinated) and steeped in water to get its sugars. Such sugars attract yeast, that unicellular fungi thriving on sugars and excreting alcohol. 

Before beers get bottled, yeasts are filtered out, although they leave some traces (and tastes) behind. A study by the Journal of Proteome Research discovered that beer contains 62 different proteins and 40 of them come from yeast. 

Why do the bubbles float down?

You may notice that when you pour the beer into a glass, some bubbles float down and not up. Due to the drag from the glass walls, the bubbles float up much easier in the middle of the glass. When these bubbles go upward, they tend to pull the liquid to the surface. Once the bubbles come into contact with the beer's froth, the liquid starts to pour back down the glass' sides, pulling down smaller bubbles with it.