February 2010 Archives

From Delaware Online:

Dogfish Head Craft Brewery and three other brewers have joined forces with the powerhouse restaurant team of Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich to create Italian-style beers for a New York City rooftop brewpub.

Read the full story here.

Update from the Drinks Business Review:

Jason Drewniak, brand manager for The Original Honey Brown, said: "We're excited to re-launch a popular beer that people once loved. Back in the late 90s, the brewery failed to recognize they had a hit on their hands with The Original Honey Brown.

Check out the complete article here.

Things have been a little slow around here.  It's the nature of blogging being second to an increasingly long list of demanding time-suckers.  Yeah, yeah... I know... excuses.  But I promise to keep at it.

Fortuitously, the Foaming Head site has been running at full speed recently!  The number of updates have been quite commendable:

Beer reviews

Kevin of the Foaming Head has a great system for reviewing beers, and has a lot of New York beer reviews recently posted including Brown's Brewing, Shmaltz and Cooperstown Brewing Co.

Beer news

The New York blog at the Foaming Head has also had some very interesting posts including news of the Peekskill Brewing expanding and Saranac mulling over a purchase of the Flying Bison brewery in Buffalo, NY.

Newsletter

The Foaming Head has also put together a nice newsletter with lots of updates. You can sign up for it on the homepage.  A lot of local events are included.

 

Cheers to the Foaming Head for all the updates, and I promise to keep at the blogging over here as well!

From a recent article in the Utica Observer-Dispatch about the FX Matt Brewery and its road back from the devastating fire in 2008:

 The F.X. Matt Brewery is rising from the ashes of the May 2008 fire with additional storage space, increased efficiency and more versatility, company officials said...

Read full article here.

In this edition of the Beer Break podcast, we sample craft beers from Shmaltz Brewing Co., discuss the one-year anniversary of the blog, and other craft beer news.

Want to be heard on a future podcast? Call (315) 908-BREW (2739) and leave a brief voicemail.

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Passing along the following press release for your consumption:
 
The Great Lakes Water Conservation Workshop is proud to announce that Alfa Laval USA will be the Silver Sponsor for the one-day event, to be held at the Rochester Museum & Science Center in downtown Rochester, NY. 
 
The one-day workshop will be held on Friday, March 26, 2010, 8:30-4:30 at the Rochester Museum & Science Center, 657 East Avenue in Rochester, NY, and focuses on best practices in water conservation for small and medium-sized craft brewers and cheese companies. This is the first independent workshop designed to bring together craft brewers, cheesemakers, policy makers and nonprofit organizations for education and discussion about water conservation. Registration is $55 for the full day of sessions, including a buffet lunch, until March 1, and $75 per person thereafter; details available online at conserve-greatlakes.com.
 
"We are thrilled to have the support of Alfa Laval USA," says Lucy Saunders, workshop organizer. John Berardino, Brewery Manager, and Linda A. Rastani, Tank Equipment Manager, Alfa Laval USA, will share their expertise in cleaning-in-place (CIP) solutions for water savings and safety, with case histories drawn from both the brewing and cheesemaking industries.
 
Participating brewers include Patrick Conway, president of the Great Lakes Brewing Co. of Cleveland, OH, who will speak on the sustainable use of water in brewery and brewpub operations; and Jason Fox, brewmaster of Custom BrewCrafters, Honeoye Falls, NY, who will discuss wastewater treatment systems.
 
A panel discussion on the true cost of water, and pricing, includes G. William Page, PhD., AICP, is a Professor in the Department of Urban & Regional Planning, University of Buffalo, SUNY; Michael Wolkoff, deputy chair of Economics at the University of Rochester, and  Sammis White, Professor of Urban Planning at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) and an active participant in the Milwaukee Water Council, an industry/university partnership to solve water problems and create jobs.
 
Special to this workshop is a discussion of hydrofracturing and risks to water quality, featuring Walter Hang, president of Toxics Targeting, Inc., an environmental database firm in Ithaca, NY. He has worked for more than 30 years as an advocate for environmental health protection. Mr. Hang will be joined by Andrew Byers, a botanist and member of the Shaleshock Action Alliance, and Ron Bishop, a lecturer in chemistry and biochemistry at SUNY Oneonta, who will discuss hydrofracturing practices and how water contamination can occur during the gas drilling process.
 
Workshop details and registration are available online, at:
http://www.conserve-greatlakes.com 

I first saw this on BeerNews.org, and was so excited I just had to post about it here, too!

A press release from Ommegang announces a new "Innovation Program" for 2010.  If you listened to our Cooperstown-themed podcast, you might remember that Ommegang is expanding their operation.  Well, this development is a direct result of that expansion.

The Innovation Program will be bring us some new and tweaked craft beers this year.  Here's the schedule from Ommegang:

Jan-Feb 2010: Ommegang Chocolate Indulgence Stout. Very slightly revised for the 2010 edition. In release.

Mar-Apr: Ommegang BPA (Belgian Style Pale Ale). 5.8% abv. 5 malts, 2 hops, and dry-hopped. Citrus & tropical fruit aromatics.

May-Jun: Ommegang Tripel (name not yet confirmed). Around 9%, spiced, we're in the test brew stages now.

Jul-Aug: Ommegang Sour Ale. Around 6% ABV. Oud Bruin style beer made in collaboration with Liefmans of Belgium. Name TBD.

Sep-Oct: Ommegang Scotch Ale. A new Belgo-Scotch mash up. ABV, name and even recipe still to be confirmed.

Nov-Dec: Ommegang Adoration. Still 10% ABV, still malty, still big and spicy. But may be tweaked a bit.

Another result of the program will be special, on-location pilot batches. The first one will be a "Belgian-ish porter" called Porter, Sorter. 

Just another reason to take a trip to Cooperstown, NY, I guess!