LA Vegan Beer & Food Festival
Chris Elwell was kind enough to pass along a link to last Saturday’s fourth annual Los Angeles Vegan Beer & Food Festival, held in West Hollywood. There are eight videos and more than 250 photos for your enjoyment.
The Friday Mash (Gone With the Wind Edition)
On this day in 1936, Gone with the Wind was published. Author Margaret Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the book. Three years later, it was adapted into an Academy Award–winning film starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh. Ludwig recommends that you celebrate with an Atlanta-brewed micro–420 Extra Pale Ale, for instance.
And now…The Mash!
We begin in South Africa, where campers at the OppiKoppi music festival will be able to order drone-delivered beer. The drones are currently hand-guided, but will eventually fly on a GPS grid.
Here’s yet another reason to visit southwest Florida: craft brewing. Two breweries and a brewpub recently opened, and two more breweries are planning to open.
Why do so many bars serve peanuts? Contrary to popular belief, it isn’t because the nuts make you thirstier. Rather, the salt in peanuts helps counter the bitterness in beer, making it easier to swallow.
Ashley Rouston, The Beer Wench, is once again accepting nominations for the 2013 Most Eligible Bachelors of Beer. Nominees must work in the craft-brewing industry and must not be married or engaged.
Higher zymurgical education is coming to Colorado State University. The will build a microbrewery, and will also offer a major in fermentation science and technology.
The Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant chain is teaming up with Redhook Ale Brewery to brew its own beer. And yes, it will pair will with BW3’s wings.
Finally, beer yeast can be engineered to produce artemisinic acid, the most effective anti-malaria treatment in existence. Until now, that ingredient was both expensive and hard to find.
Chicago Festival Rivalry Turns Nasty
Chuck Sudo of Chicagoist reports on a recent event that reportedly left less than a happy afterglow. Last Saturday, the Chicago Beer Festival took place at Union Station. Festival-goers were sold “unlimited sampling” tickets for $40. Unfortunately, the Illinois Happy Hour Law prohibits fixed-price all-you-can-drink events, and the State Liquor Commission informed the producer, Drink Eat Play, of the law. Drink Eat Play tweaked its pricing policy, informed ticket-holders by email, and even offered refunds.
Here’s where things gut ugly. The Chicago Beer Festival’s Facebook page accused an unnamed “competing beer festival” of ratting it out to the Liquor Commission. Chicagoist staff concluded that the festival pointed the accusing finger at Red Dog Events, producers of the American Beer Classic, which will be held later this year at Soldier Field. However, Red Dog denied any involvement with the commission, and wished the Chicago Beer Festival the best.
Sudo had less than kind words for ticket-holders who complained loudly about the new pricing policy. He pointed out that a person could still drink 60 ounces of beer–much of it high-gravity–over a three-hour period. He also observed, “This could be the moment where beer festivals jump the shark.” That, however, is as much an overreaction as the angry messages festival-goers posted on Facebook.
The Friday Mash (D10K Edition)
Fourteen years ago today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 10,000 for the first time ever. The milestone prompted a celebration on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, complete with party hats. Probably followed by beers after the market closed.
And now….The Mash!
We begin in Chattanooga, whose Beer Board doubled a license suspension for selling to minors because the offending store displayed a sign calling Tennessee’s “card-everyone” law “silly.”
Stratford, Connecticut’s Two Roads Brewing Company has honored aviation pioneer Igor Sikorsky with a beer called “Igor’s Dream”. Fittingly, it’s a Rye Russian Imperial Stout.
The Prince Edward Island Liquor Control Commission is looking for a partner for a new beer festival this fall. The commission also intends to ban rival beer festivals on the island.
Baseball writer (and beer snob) Dayn Perry treated his readers to a Cubs logo made of beer containers that “once housed regrettable North American swill.”
State lawmakers can’t figure out how the University of Minnesota lost $16,000 on beer sales last football season, even though it sold $900,000 worth of beer at $7.50 a serving.
Rock star wannabe Adam Dickinson called himself “Hellvis.” His “Hellvis” signature led police to the $30,000 in rare beer he stole from the Avery Brewing Company.
Finally, Canada produces 80 percent of the world’s maple syrup. Some of it has found its way into Canadian beer. The recommended food pairing? Pancakes.
The Friday Mash (QWERTY Edition)
One hundred and forty years ago today, E. Remington and Sons in Ilion, New York, began production of the first practical typewriter. Even though few of us use typewriters anymore, the familiar “QWERTY” keyboard design, invented in 1874, is still with us.
ASDF…The Mash!
We begin in Massachusetts where Todd Ruggere, a Waltham resident, is drinking a Sam Adams in each of the Commonwealth’s 351 cities and towns. He’s raising money for cancer research.
We all know that higher-gravity beers are able to conceal hop bitterness. With that in mind, Jay Brooks recently posted an original gravity to hops ratio graph on his Brookston Beer Bulletin.
In 1953, an Aussie named Bob Hawke set a world record by downing a yard of ale–more than two pints–in 11 seconds. He was later elected that country’s Prime Minister. Coincidence?
Good news for beer lovers in Manhattan. The Hudson River Park Trust will open a 6,000-square-foot beer garden overlooking the river at Pier 62. It will serve craft beers and specialty food.
Kegasus, the beer-guzzling centaur that advertises the Preakness InfieldFest, will likely be scratched from this year’s race. But there will be live entertainment, and plenty of beer.
Pro tip: it’s not a good idea to drink to excess before designing beer labels, because you might come up with something like this disturbing Belgian ale label.
Finally, congratulations to Warren Monteiro, a writer, beer traveler, and homebrewer from New York City, who was named Beerdrinker of the Year at the Wynkoop Brewing Company.
The Friday Mash (Five and Dime Edition)
On this day in 1879, Frank Woolworth opens the first of many Woolworth stores in In Utica, New York. He unwittingly inspired the Marx Brothers’ routine in which Rufus T. Firefly suggested that Chicolini be given “ten years in Leavenworth, or 11 years in Twelveworth”; and Chicolini responded, “I’ll take five and ten in Woolworth.”
And now…The Mash!
We begin in Florida, where a 45-year-old law, passed as part of a turf war among big brewers, has the unintended effect of banning the sale of growlers. Lawmakers are trying to fix that.
FirstWeFeast.com has compiled a list of 12 celebrities who ought to be spokespersons for craft beer. They include Kat Dennings, the cast of How I Met Your Mother, and, of course, President Barack Obama.
You can buy a beer at many college basketball arenas, including seven of the 20 largest. Beer sales can bring in money through concession revenues, added ticket sales, or both.
Beer and video games have always gone together, but an arcade fighting game called Beercade goes one step farther. It rewards the winning combatant with a cup of beer.
To celebrate their city’s Beer Week, the San Francisco Brewers Guild has rolled out “Green Death”, a malt liquor inspired by the 50s-60s version of Rainier Ale. Paper bag not included.
Don’t expect Anheuser-Busch to advertise this anytime soon. According to a nationwide survey, beer is the favorite beverage of underage drinkers and Budweiser is their favorite brand.
Finally, if you have a ticket to tomorrow’s Winter Beer Festival in Grand Rapids, John Serba of MLive.com has some friendly advice: dress warmly for 33-degree temperatures and snow flurries.
It’s Zwickelmania Time Again!
President’s Day weekend is coming, which means it’s time for the the Oregon Craft Brewers Guild’s fifth annual Zwickelmania, which will be celebrated throughout the state from 10 am to 4 pm this Saturday. Dozens of breweries will open their doors to the public. They’ll be offering tours; a chance to meet brewery staff; and beer samples, including beers brewed specially for the occasion. In Portland and several other cities, buses will shuttle revelers between participating breweries.
Gerard Walen’s Road Trips for Beer has the official press release for this year’s edition of Zwickelmania.
Beer and Paczki
If you’re of Polish descent, or if you live in the Detroit area, you know what paczki (pronounced “poonch-key) are. If you don’t, paczki is the plural of paczek; and a paczek is a deep-fried pastry with a sweet filling. These are traditionally enjoyed on Fat Tuesday and the days leading up to it.
What beverage goes with paczki? Beer, of course. This combination is rich in calories, but fortunately, there’s a way to burn them off: today’s inaugural Paczki Run in the Polish-American enclave of Hamtramck, Michigan. Despite chilly temperatures, more than 1,000 people turned out for the 5-K race through town.
The End of the World As We Know It
For months, we’ve been warned that the Mayan Apocalypse will happen this Friday. Even though experts have dismissed these warnings, they do provide breweries with a handy excuse to roll out one-off, end-of-the-world beers.
Some breweries, including the Newport Storm Brewery and the Great Basin Brewing Company, are out with beers containing ingredients that the Mayas might have used when brewing their own beer. They join Dogfish Head Craft Brewery which, in 2008, brought out a prehistoric chocolate beer called Theobroma. It’s released only once a year.
Another beer that might pair well with an end-of-the-world party is Fin du Monde by Unibroue. One of our local beer bars, Ashley’s, has acquired a hard-to-find keg for Friday’s finale.
It’s National Growler Day
Two years ago, Jonathan Surratt used his Twitter and Facebook accounts to encourage people to buy growlers of locally-made, fresh beer on December 17. Surratt needed to buy a few growlers for a holiday trip, where he planned to trade his beer with locals. He also decided to encourage his friends to stock up on fresh-brewed beer–and voila!–National Growler Day was born.
This year, there appears to be no specific organization behind the occasion, so Eat Drink Explore Media decided to promote it. Ludwig Roars is happy to join in. In fact, Maryanne and Paul plan to pick up a growler of IPA on their way home from work.