On My Beerbox #1: Moychendising!

    From time to time, something comes up that doesn't quite fit into my scheduled/planned blog rhythm.  Sometimes, something interesting happens in the beer world and I feel the need to open my stupid mouth about it, because the evil gremlins that live inside of me won't let me not talk about whatever fool thing I have to say.  For these times, I present you with the semi-official, supplementary, gotta-catch-em-all bonus blogs... On My Beerbox.

    I should probably stress now, and probably at numerous times during an entry like this, that these thoughts are purely my own, and do not reflect on the opinions of Bid Red Beard Brewing Company.  That said, let's get into it.

    A funny thing happened recently.  A beer was released with a three-ring circus of hype behind it.  Strangely, it was a beer no one had tasted before.  It was also a style that hasn't, to my knowledge, classically had a lot of weight behind it in terms of anticipated releases.  Most quixotically, it was a licensed property, tied in to a very popular cable TV show.  You bet your sweet bippy I'm talking about Brewery Ommegang's "Game of Thrones" Iron Throne Blonde Ale.  When I first heard about this, I had my reservations... and here, I will examine them and try to come to a conclusion as to the conflicting feelings I have about this.  Stay with me.  You may just be surprised.

     Now, call me a fuddy duddy, but it's hard for me to get excited about a beer that I haven't tasted before.  Sure, there are annual releases of certain things I get just as frothy at the mouth over as the next drinker... even if that speculative behavior is hardly my main mode.  It's rare behavior for me, you see.  I was just talking with two friends recently about Troegs Brewing Company's Nugget Nectar, which every year has people stepping on their own grandmothers to buy a six-pack of, but is (in my opinion, but an opinion that happened to be shared by the friends I was speaking with) merely a pretty good beer.  Even if I thought it was the greatest thing since fermented bread, I doubt I would share in the fervor over it. That is to say, most of the time, when people start going crazy over a beer release, even one I really like, I usually don't try too hard to get in on the action.  Last year, I ended up with a bottle of Founders Brewing Company's Kentucky Breakfast Stout only because I was in the right place at the right time.  I wasn't about to leave work early and stand in line for an hour just to buy a bottle, but from what I saw that kind of behavior was the norm and I was the weird one.  But I digress.

    I've always had a distaste for inflating something before it's proven.  I recall, not too long ago, the absolute venom spewed by some people in the Beer Advocate forums over the "Oncemade" Project.  Without going too much into it, some people had teamed with some local brewers to make some labor-intensive, single-batch beers.  They would be sold in commemorative boxes and all that good stuff, and they went for quite a premium price.  The rub, or rather what seemed to rub a lot of people the wrong way, is that the sale of these beers began before they were even made.  A lot of people could just not get behind paying a substantial price for a beer they not only hadn't tried, but one that didn't even exist yet.  Now, I'm not saying the level to which people attacked the concept was justified.  Clearly, there must have been a market for this kind of thing, and no one was holding a gun to anyone's head to try it.  Still, and I must stress again that this is just my opinion, this whole thing seemed to run contrary to how a market should work.  Something that's available at a high price, or is only made available by jumping through hoops, should be that way because it's proven, and people are willing to go through whatever or pay however much.  Look at Portsmouth Brewing Company's Kate the Great and the hoopla that surrounded it's release for an example of something that was actually built on known factors.  The "Oncemade" thing is the opposite in my eyes and (my opinion my opinion my opinion) something I always pointed to as emblematic of the craft beer bubble.

 

   So, I come built with trepidations about "hyped" releases, as well as speculation on untested products.  I also, as I said, find it hard to get excited about a Blonde Ale, which I've always seen as a rather simple, tasty, but not stand-out, style.  I have less to say about that, even if presenting a Game of Thrones beer as a blonde ale reminds me a little too much of those filthy Lannisters, than my third major point of potential contention (and maybe the most striking part of the story of Iron Throne)... the issue of licensing.

     Here, I must betray yet more bias.  Coming as a fan of both comic books and video games, I tend to consider licensing to usually be a bad thing.  Often, it's something that's sold on the strength of the property tie-in alone rather than, you know, quality.  That said, for every Superman 64, there's a Ducktales (if you don't speak video game nerd, Superman 64 is reviled as one of the worst games ever, while Ducktales on the NES has become a classic and a darling to say the least, and is even about to get an HD update).  Don't even get me started with comic books.  99% of the time, a licensed property is pure trash.  Some companies even stay afloat putting out almost entirely licensed products on the premise that they can get a fan of the movie, TV show or whatever to buy an issue or two... so why put any actual effort into the work?  And yet, again, there are some good ones out there amongst the throng.  Some characters have even crossed over into being better known for the comic iteration than that of their original medium... and actually maintained a level of quality and been able to retain decent creators.  I'm looking at you, Conan.

    Licensing in beer is whole 'nuther thing, though.  While in comic books and video games, licensing is quite common, it's much, much less so in beer.  The one other instance of this I can think of is Dogfish Head Craft Brewery's Pearl Jam Twenty Faithfull Ale that dropped around the same time as band's anniversary rockumentaty.  But even that seemed niche to the strike-while-the-iron-is-hot quality of Brewery Ommegang's Game of Thrones tie-in.

    Now, although my knee-jerk reaction at Iron Throne was, suffice to say, less than impressed, I had to ask myself the critical question:

Is this a good thing for the craft beer movement?

Importantly (maybe most importantly), Brewery Ommegang has a fine pedigree and has put out a slew of excellent beers.  Their Three Philosphers has long been a favorite of mine.  Anyway, there's a good amount of trust that a brewery like this cares about putting out a good product first and making a hot buck with it second.  Then, and this is probably most important to someone that doesn't already know about Brewery Ommegang and its beers, a beer that ties in with something as popular as Game of Thrones is likely to get people who have seldom or even never bought a craft beer before to pony up.  What's more, at a suggested retail of, I believe, $8.99, the entry fee to the world of craft beer isn't too too high.  Maybe it would be better at a buck or two less, but I think we can attribute some of the cost there to the Game of Thrones name itself, and a big enough fan probably wouldn't question the cost, especially if they like the idea of having this beer on hand when the new season of the show starts.  To be sure, the timing of this beer's release is obviously capitalizing on that idea.  Complete with themed glassware, I might add.  Might as well teach a new craft beer drinker that the shape of a glass may just make a difference.

    Here's the clincher, and I honestly didn't come to this realization until I sat down to write this.  The relatively simple style of this beer, being a blonde ale, is actually a good thing and a very shrewd but clever move.  Consider the premise that it's likely inevitable that this beer will attract Game of Thrones fans that aren't necessarily all that big in to craft beer (at least yet).  One should be careful with what you choose to feed such an animal.  If the closest thing someone's had to a craft beer is Bud Platinum, you don't what to blow their heads off with hops or give them something as big as a barrel-aged imperial stout.  You want to give them something drinkable, smooth, but showcasing a good deal more flavor than what they might have experience before.  Hence, blonde ale.  And this doesn't even have to be the Marilyn Monroe of blonde ales (wakka wakka)... it just needs to be a competent, balanced effort to make a newbie think about what other craft beers they might be missing out on.  Funny that... this story may yet be someone's (or many someone's) answer to how they first got in to craft beer.

    So, despite myself, and forgiving the fact that I haven't tried this beer (and considering I didn't seek it out in a timely manner, likely won't try this beer), I have to salute what Brewery Ommegang is trying to do here.  If my analysis is even worth half a damn, this is a good move for craft beer overall, even if I (or you reading this) may not be the target audience.

   But fellas?  Let's not get too crazy with the licensing from here out, ok?

Straight Beer Trippin'

    One of the most fun times I've ever had while on vacation visiting wineries in California.  And why not?  California is one of those great wine destinations so famed that they've made movies about it.  But you don't have to be Paul Giamatti or Lowell from Wings in Sideways or have a voice like Bottle Shock's Alan Rickman (if you do have a voice like Alan Rickman, please call so I can have you read to me) to visit Sonoma or Paso Robles.  You don't have to be a fat guy who swears a lot and really loves grapes to visit the Finger Lakes in New York, another fabled wine destination.  Thousands upon thousands of thirsty travelers wine it up in places like this each season.  But why go so far when you can find something tasty and liquid much, much closer to home?

    Sure, there are plenty of vineyards around.  In fact, there are vineyards in every state of New England.  Still, thanks to the craft beer explosion and the fact that you can have a proper facility in a relatively small industrial space, the number of breweries around are legion.  And when you throw brewpubs in, the numbers get truly crazy.

    I started out the last blog, appropriately about my palette's personal origins in the realm of craft beer, by mentioning that I had been on a trip to Vermont.  We had several stops that day, including Hill Farmstead Brewery and The Alchemist Cannery.  We also stopped at a few noted craft beer-selling pubs and bottle shops, and it was one very long day... but we just barely scratched the surface.  

   Even though they have a Governor that might turn a blind eye to it (if I'm being kind), Vermont has an incredible craft "beer corridor" that spans the major thoroughfares of the state, and they advertise it well.  It was in The Alchemist Cannery itself that I saw this poster for the first time (but certainly not for the last):

   On our drive, we began at Hill Farmstead Brewery for a bottle release.  Of course, if you're into craft beer, you know this brewery's name.  They make underpants-exploding amazing brews on a farm between two instances of nowhere, but that wouldn't be nearly enough to deter any beer traveler in the know.  Neither is the fact that this remote Valhalla is cash-only.  Also, don't expect your cell phone to work... but I suspect the brewery doesn't have much to do with that one.

    From there, we made our way towards Waterbury and passed Rock Art Brewery on the way.  Once in town, and after picking up plenty of Heady Topper at The Alchemist Cannery, we found much more great beer to be had at the area pubs.  We stopped at The Blackback Pub & Fly Shop (you read that right... it also has a sushi restaurant attached, for a winning trifecta), The Reservoir Restaurant and, later in Montpelier, Three Penny Taproom.  Those are three great places to slake your thirst on your beer trip, but I really only mention these because of the meal we encountered at The Reservoir Restaurant.  I give you... The Truck Driver.

"1 lb. of Blue Cheese Stuffed Vermont Family Farm Ground Beef | Fried Egg

Vermont Smoke & Cure Bacon | Leaf Lettuce | Onion | Pickle | American Flag | No Joke!!"

   It's hard to appreciate the sheer mass of this thing from a picture alone, especially given I had to take it at a weird angle just to fit it in the picture.  The way I always explain it to people is this: have you ever had soup in a bread bowl?  Well, instead of hollowing out a bread bowl, they just sliced it and used that as the bun.  The other way I explain it is that I ate this on Saturday and didn't have a full meal again until Tuesday.  I'm just saying... if you're going on a big trip, sometimes you need a big burger.

   A little closer to the NH Seacoast, Maine is also filled-to-the-brim with brewery goodness.  In the Portland area alone, you can easily visit Shipyard Brewing Company, Allegash Brewing, Maine Beer Company and Rising Tide Brewing Company, as well as brewpubs like D.L. Geary's Brewing Co, Gritty McDuff's and Sebago Brewing Co.  And I'm sure there's more that I forgot, but that just goes to show you the robustitude of the local scene.

   Then there's Massachusetts.  Try as they might with their often nonsensical laws and regulations, Mass drinkers have a great appreciation for craft beer.  I partially credit my move to the Boston area with my burgeoning love for the liquid arts, because so many breweries from across the nation ship their wares here in comparison to what's made available in my former but forever home, New Hampshire.  Of course, that's most due to NH's own weird-ass laws, but that's a story for another day.

   Focusing on the Boston area, the first "beer corridor" I discovered here began with probably the closest, proximity-wise, breweries I've ever know.  Idle Hands Craft Ales and Night Shift Brewing are located in adjacent factory spaces just off Route 99 in Everett.  They're a little hard to find unless you know where to look, but extremely worth the trip.  Just down the road in Chelsea, you can visit the newly-christened Mystic Brewery taproom.  Moving in to Boston proper, you can easily visit the city's three breweries by T and by foot.  Of course there's Jamaica Plain's Sam Adams R&D brewery, but don't forget to stop by South Boston and Fort Point and hit up Harpoon Brewery (which recently opened up it's own beer hall) and the newest Boston brewery, Trillium Brewing Company.  From there, you might as well hit Cambridge because you'd be silly not to check out Cambridge Brewing Company's brewpub.  To be sure, there are plenty of brewpubs in the area, but these guys are stand-out.  And with good reason.

   

     If you've stayed with me this long, I owe it to you to get to the New Hampshire Seacoast and the up-and-coming beer corridor forming therein in some detail.  Starting from the south, Hampton is home to Blue Lobster Brewing Company.  Still quite new on the scene, these guys make some very polished beers with simple ingredients.  Their philosophy seems to be that they want to show a myriad of flavors just with the right hops or malt profile.  Hell, any sucker can make a peach-flavored IPA if they add peach to it.

   Next you can visit North Hampton's Throwback Brewery, which I'm happy to add is female owned and operated.  Throwback focuses on local ingredients and, among their many other beers, does a porter and stout "series" of beers (called Unafraid of the Dark) each winter.  Each beer in the series highlights an ingredient from an area farm.  This could be anything from chai to pumpkin to chaga mushrooms.  They also make one of my favorite beers, their Maple-Kissed Wheat Porter.  Nearby, Smuttynose Brewing Company has already broke ground on their new facility, making this little pocket south of Portsmouth a veritable craft beer hotspot.  Oh, and in case you need to get thee to a rumery, there's a craft distillery that opened up recently in town.

   Portsmouth itself is home to The Portsmouth Brewery brewpub and restaurant, as well as Red Hook Brewery and their Cataqua Public House, but you might not know about Earth Eagle Brewings, located right downtown.  Occupying a small room in a homebrew supply store, this new brewery focuses on gruits, or ancient "herbed" ales.  This is a style of beer that predates the inclusion of hops.  Firsthand... this place is a revelation.  I had tried one or two gruits before my first visit to Earth Eagle, and I didn't like either.  One of them I outright hated.  Luckily, I've always made a habit of revisiting and retesting my tastes, because I would have never tried the beers here if I had gone based on my first impressions of the style.  Earth Eagle works in small batches, which means plenty of room for dabbling and experimentation.  Plus they have the cutest damn half-growlers ever.

   Finally, Dover.  Aside from the newly-expanded-into-a-brewpub Barley Pub, Dover is soon to be home to 7th Settlement Brewery, a community-supported brewery, as well as... you guessed it!  Big Red Beard Brewing Company!  Once these two bad boys get going, you'll be able to visit nearly 10 craft spots while barely crossing over four town lines.  And just five... no, even three years ago, you would have had to go to Portland, Boston or as far as Vermont to get a similar diversity of fine drinkables.  Only now, as tastes and laws each change, is this age of wonder possible.

    Very soon, we're going to have to talk about some of those "laws" I keep mentioning, but next time we're going to get down to it.  That's right.  This bearded blogger is finally going to devote a post to his benefactors with a salute to... yeast?

   Until then:  What's your favorite (or ideal, if you're still aspiring to a beercation) beer trip?

Like Suds through the Tulip Glass, these are The Beers of Our Lives

    The year was 2011.  November.  A month of changes.  The Prime Minister of Greece stepped down after calling off a referendum on a new debt deal with the Euro.  Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim launched to rave reviews.  Kaiser Wilhelm II was forced to abdicate his rule of Germany under the growing threat of revolution in Berlin.  And finally... me and some friends went on a day trip to one of the great beer corridors around here: Northern Vermont.  Home of, among others, The Alchemist and Hill Farmstead Brewery.

    We talked about many things on that long car ride to the Northeast Kingdom.  We talked about the recent Hurricane Irene and the destruction of The Alchemist's brewpub.  We talked about how Disney's Aladdin actually takes place in a post-apocalyptic future.  Most importantly (BOO!  GET TO THE POINT!), we talked about beer.  The specific question I was asked was a simple one: How did I get into craft beer?  It's a typical question, but being asked to recall how I got started while strapped in for a ride to one of New England's beer meccas made me realize how incredibly far I'd come from my earliest days of imbibing.

    I never had much luck with drinking in High School.  Seemed like every time someone "arranged" to get drinks for us, something fell through.  The best I ever did was the occasional sip offered from my father and, of course, my first beer... a can of Guinness, replete with the "golfball" nitrogenating widget, snuck from my Pepere's basement (Pepere is French for grandfather, for those of you not refined enough to already know that) when I was but a lad.  In my ignorance, I drank it straight from the can, but man did I ever feel cool and bad-assed doing so.

    In College, I actually came to believe I didn't like beer.  Of course, this is all thanks to the parade of watery and foul adjunct lagers that are so ubiquitous amongst the backwards-red-baseball-cap collegiate crowd.  My first night on campus, I tagged along with my randomly assigned roommate to the off-campus apts, where I was promptly handed a lukewarm can of Bud Ice and told to do a waterfall until our host (we'll call him Brozo the Clown) told me to stop.  I complied, but within a second, Brozo's phone rang, and my chugging was not allowed to end until I was at least 9 ounces deep.  I felt like death and ended up heading back to the residence hall before long.  Later that night, I ended up in the room next door playing a card game with new neighbors, loads of laughs, a cute redhead with a lip ring, and shots of straight Vodka.  I ask you... WHICH WOULD YOU SPEND THE NEXT FOUR YEARS DRINKING?

   Not to spoil the end, but I eventually learned there was good beer out there.  REALLY good beer!  It's crazy, I know.  Bars like The Coat of Arms in Portsmouth, NH and The Barking Dog in Amesbury, MA introduced me to such delicious libations as Berkshire Brewing Company's Coffeehouse Porter and Wells & Young's Brewing Co's McEwan's Scotch Ale.  It was probably the idea of having beer "with something in it" that appealed to me then.  I liked coffee... maybe coffee beer was a good thing to try!  That line of thinking.  Before long, I was asking bartenders what other things I could have that were in any way similar to these wonderful, wonderful drinks.

   Somewhere in there, I became aware of how much I'd missed thanks to being steered in the wrong direction in my college years.  And, still in the early 'oughts, craft beer and microbreweries were becoming a much more common and accessible thing, and made it all the easier to make up for lost time.  So I visited the breweries around me, including Berkshire Brewing Company, makers of one of the first beers I ever tried and truly loved.  A wonderful bearded man (Whew!  Finally found a way to tie beards into this!) we dubbed "Beer Wonka" showed us that they had many, many more delicious styles that, at the time, I had scarcely heard of.  After several samples at the brewery, a nearby package store provided all of us with plenty of bombers, Coffeehouse Porter and otherwise, to fill our fridges for weeks to come.  It was enough to make me (or a younger, fatter me) want to hug brewery equipment.

   So, after a tumultuous start, and after years of our friends guessing "will they or won't they", beer and I got together at last.  I canoodled with other early favorites like Theakston's Old Peculier and Abita Brewing Company's Turbodog.  I spread out from the darks and found there was more loveliness to be had in beers like Stone Brewing Co's Arrogant Bastard Ale and even something as simple as Long Trail Brewing Company's Hit the Trail.  But these were just the earliest of many to come.  Fortuitously, I moved in to an apartment quite near a bottle shop with a decent craft selection that held monthly tastings so I could fulfill this new impulse (one craft beer drinkers know all too well), this voice in my head that said:  "Hey, I haven't tried that yet!".

   It wasn't long after that when I hooked up with some people that did monthly beer tastings of our own to explore further flung creations of craft.  From here, I was off like a rocket and actively seeking out new brews rather than just merely being open to stumbling over them.  It was these same people that I was in a car with while all these thoughts came flooding back, bringing me in a sort of full circle from the early days of my beer explorations.

    Conclusion?  Beer trips are good for your brain.  In fact, next time, let's talk about some "beer corridors" where you can visit and sample great craft offerings from multiple breweries.  I mean, I haven't even gotten into what happened on the trip yet, not to mention one of the most epic burgers since meat first met mouth.

    Until then... how did you get into craft beer?

New Blogger and now a LLC!

Hello All,

It is Jay here and just checking in with a report.

1) Tim is our new blogger that will check in with beer facts, brewery information, beer culture, and just about anything about beer.  We are excited to have him aboard as he is a strong advocate on craft beer and is a good person all around.  Please read his posts and welcome him as our blogger.

2.) We are finally registered with the State of New Hampshire as a LLC!  We checked online and we are in good standing!

3) We have been looking at 3 BBL brewing equipment and it is overwhelming.  There are very many options and so many things to considered.  We will post more about this in a future date once we taken a look a a few brewhouses.

4) Shirts are still available, so let me know if you want one!

That is all for now, please keep an eye out from updates form me, thoughts from TIm, and keep the beard alive!

Cheers and stay beardy,
Jay

Introduction: My Name is Tim...

...and I'm a Beardoholic.  No, wait.  That would mean I'm addicted to Beardohol, which is not a real thing.  Yet, anyway.

Let me start over, because this is already going awful.

My name is Tim, and I'll be blogging from time to time for my hirsute masters at Big Red Beard Brewing Co.  I'm sure you'll find my qualifications are myriad.  Or, more accurately, two.  I like to write and I like to drink beer.  I'm going to just assume anyone reading this likes beer as well, or why else would they be here?  So if you like beer, and you like to read (about beer, of course), then we will have a happy symbiotic relationship.  You can be Peter Parker, and I'll be your sexy new black suit that's sure to sell all kinds of variant covers.  Or, erm, bottles.

Hey, that's an idea.  Variant labels for beer.  Chromium, die-cut, holographic-- uh, copyright.  Do not steal.

I believe I've lost the thread of this again.

What you need to know:  I'll be writing about beer culture and beer thoughts in general... and of course the occasional post directly related to Big Red Beard Brewing and their wonderful suds.  Why?  Because we, beer lovers all, have experiences to share and tales to tell.  And you just know beer people are the best people, regardless of how they came to the craft.

Hey, there's an idea.  Next time, let's talk about who brung us to the dance.

Look, we are in a book!

Good news Everyone!



We are in a book!  Checkout The Book of Craft Beerds by Fred Abercrombie and you will find us, along with with many other fine breweries that feature beards on their labels and logos.  We are extremely thrilled to be part of this project and to get our name there and get exposer as a new nano brewery.

Please check out Fred's book and help him spread the beardy goodness!  You will love this book and will be a great gift for any bearded gent or beer loving gal!

Cheers,
Jay

http://craftbeerds.com/

New Website

Good Day Bearded Brethren.

Trying to come up with a name for the followers of Big Red Beard Brewing Co.  People of the beard and Bearded Brethren.   Opinions?

Moving on, we have had a good year here at the brewery.  We have solidified business plans, geting them checked out, coming up with recipes and been brewing like crazy.  I will spare you the details, but I feel we may reach our goal if we keep up the energy and open our doors January 2014.  It has been a lot of work between doing my day job and planning this brewery and making sure it done well.

One way we hope to reach the masses is our brand new website.  We are currently writing content and making it user friendly.  You will be able to see when we brew, pictures from brewing sessions, the brewery being built and even an online shop to purchase fun schwag.  You will find it at bigredbeardbrewing.com in about a few weeks.  We do need your opinions on this website.  What information is important to you that you want to see?

Last but not least, we have T-Shirts for sale. contact us for more information.

Cheers and spread the bearded love,
Jay