Tag: sierra nevada

Learning About Beer: The 4-Vessel Brewhouse

If homebrewing is a bike, then a 2-vessel brewhouse is your average car, and a 4-vessel brewhouse is a Tesla Roadster. Everyone learns to ride a bike and does so for many years. Many people graduate to cars, usually some cheap or used ride to get them around. Then, finally, a very few get something as profoundly bad ass as a Tesla.

I’ve lost count of all the breweries I’ve visited in the past 11 years, from folks as small as DogBerry to as big as Sierra Nevada. What I can still count, on my hands, is the number of breweries I’ve been to with a 4-vessel brewhouse. To learn more about what a 4-vessel brewhouse is, and their difference from 2-vessel systems, I headed down to Rhinegeist to talk to Head Brewer Jim Matt.

Rhinegeist Brewery

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Learning About Beer: Oktoberfest

It’s the first week of September; there was a slight chill in the air last week though it’s in the 90s today, and there are too many damn pumpkin beers on the shelf. Pumpkin beers seem to be the new official beer of fall, but long before pumpkin beers became famous in America Germans were having a fall festival with its own style of beer, Oktoberfest.

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The Bane of Pumpkin Beers

Ed. Note: What follows is a rant by friend & sponsor of the blog Brent Osborn. As always if you’ve got something you want to say then shoot me an email at Tom@QueenCityDrinks.com and I’ll check it out. Personally, I abhor pumpkin beers, plus many other writers have already trodden this path. But, since Brent felt like ranting I was happy to post it!

Fall’s just around the corner.

Fall is a wonderful season: leaves changing color, 2015-09-02football games, Reese’s pumpkins, hoodies, fires, and all that good stuff. Yet it’s also a time I dread for one very specific reason: the pumpkin-spice apocalypse. The list of pumpkin-spiced things has grown from run-of-the-mill lattes to include Oreos, gum, and even english muffins. But the worst culprit—the bane of my existence this time of year—is the pumpkin beer. And in case you didn’t notice the endcaps are full of pumpkin beers.

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17 Year Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Vertical

After being into craft beer for a few years, or a few days, folks often eventually want to age beer. When I decided to start cellaring beer I wasn’t sure what beer to start with. I felt like everything worth cellaring was rare or only sold in Belgium or California. Later I realized, thanks to Josh’s post about Tips on Cellaring Beer, that there were lots of “shelf” beers available to cellar. That is why I’ve decided to share a recent experience with everyone. The experience of a food and beer pairing featuring a 17 year Sierra Nevada Bigfoot vertical.

Bigfoot vertical
There were many Bigfoots enjoyed. Bigfeet?

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Top 10 Holiday 2013 Beer Gifting Guide (+1 bonus)

I’m writing this on Thanksgiving Day which means the holiday season is in full swing and tomorrow is Black Friday, one of the busy shopping days of the year. The list below is more of a Cyber Monday list since I am an Amazon fanatic and hate going out on Black Friday. But if you’re reading this on Thanksgiving 2013 or Thanksgiving 2015 the beer gifting guide below still applies for some great gifts for the beer geek in your group!

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Book Review: Ken Grossman Beyond The Pale

Sierra Nevada is now the second biggest craft brewery in America – second to Boston Beer Company – and 7th overall brewery, craft or otherwise. How does one brewery grow to be the second largest in a sea of over 2,500 breweries? Ken Grossman, founder and president of Sierra Nevada tells the breweries story, and in turn his story, in his new book “Beyond the Pale: The story of Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.” (Amazon Book/eBook). The publishers were kind enough to send me a copy to review and I’m sharing my thoughts with you below.

Ken Grossman Autobiography Beyond The Pale The Story of Sierra Nevada Brewing Co Review

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Beer Review: Sierra Nevada Flipside

I like Sierra Nevada in general, I like their IPA, and I really like their pale ale, all that combined with my general love of Amber IPAs (or India Amber Ales) makes me very excited to try Sierra Nevada’s brand new Flipside Red IPA. flipside2013_sellsheet_front Read on after the jump for more info and my review! Continue reading “Beer Review: Sierra Nevada Flipside”

Josh’s Favorite Beers of 2012

Over the past couple weeks, I’ve been going through my Untappd profile, rounding up my most memorable beer than I was lucky enough to try in 2012. I ended up with a total of fifteen beers, consisting of a top ten and five honorable mentions which were just short of the cut. It’s not quite the end of 2012 yet, so I suppose it’s possible that late additions bump some of these out, but it’s a risk I’m going to make.

My takeaways?

  1. I definitely like barrel-aged beers.
  2. Cincinnati-area beers performed well, taking 4 of the 15 spots.
  3. This list was really, really hard to cull down. There is so much great beer out there and I’ve been able to try so much of it. I love the choice that better beer drinkers have now.

Now, for the list. There are more details for each beer in the captions of the slideshow below, but this here’s the summary. By the way, the top ten are in no particular order.

Top Ten

  • Rivertown Lambic (2010)
  • Founders Looking Glass
  • Sierra Nevada barrel-aged draft only beers
  • Quaff Bros. Joseph
  • The Bruery Black Tuesday (2009, 2011) & Chocolate Rain
  • Goose Island Juliet
  • Dark Horse Bourbon Barrel Plead the Fifth (2011, 2012)
  • Goose Island Bourbon County Stout (2012)
  • Westvleteren XII
  • Listermann Cincinnatus

Honorable Mentions

  • Rivertown Sour Cherry Porter
  • Stone Enjoy By 11.09.12
  • Quaff Bros Sour Grapes
  • New Belgium La Folie
  • Founders Better Half

The format is a little awkward below with the captions, so if you’d like a better view of them, you can do so here.

 

Beer Review: Sierra Nevada Stout vs. Narwhal Imperial Stout

Getting back on track with The Winter of my dark-content I built my own 6-pack of stouts & porters at Belmont Party Supply in Dayton. I had Left Hand’s Nitro Milk Stout last night and the mouth feel was insanely awesome, but otherwise not to amazing. It left me a little disappointed with stouts in general. Tonight however that all changes as I compare Sierra Nevada’s Stout to their Narwhal Imperial Stout.

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Top 3 Tips to Help You Cellar Beer

Recently I’ve embarked on a voluntary freeze on cellar beer purchases so that I could force myself to:

  1. Put more effort into brewing beers to drink
  2. Begin drinking down the beers in my cellar that I haven’t tried yet

This has had me thinking a bit about proper cellar technique. I thought I’d pass some tips on to those of you who are new to cellaring beer or are considering starting to do so.

cellaring beer

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