[Ryan16]

Recent Headlines: February 28, 2011 (Compiled by the Brewers Association)

Food>>
Boston Beer Braised 'Fighter' Mussels - http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/food/2011/02/26/2011-02-26_oscar_night_eats__boston_beer_braised_fighter_mussels.html - nydailynews.com
Oscar night eats - Boston Beer Braised 'Fighter' Mussels - Recipe: Boston Beer Braised 'Fighter' Mussels (recipe)

Events>>
Ticket Pre-Sale Begins March 1 - http://www.savorcraftbeer.com/ - savorcraftbeer.com
SAVOR ticket pre-sale begins at 10:00 am MST on Tuesday, March 1, 2011. A limited quantity of pre-sale tickets will be available to a select list of loyal supporters, including previous SAVOR attendees and members of the American Homebrewers Association and the Brewers Association. Those eligible to participate in the pre-sale will receive additional information by email in late February and on March 1. Tickets will go on sale to the general public starting at 10:00 am MST on Thursday, March 3, 2011. 2011 ticket prices and more information are here.

Local Beer Festival, SAVOR, is Drawing Near - http://ballston.patch.com/articles/local-beer-festival-savor-is-drawing-near - ballston.patch.com
Last year, tickets to SAVOR-Washington, DC's premier beer and food festival-were snapped up within ten minutes of going on sale, all 1,700 of them. This year, the Brewers Association, which stages the annual event, is seeking to double your chances of getting a ticket by holding two sessions, to take place Friday, June 3 and Saturday, June 4 at the National Building Museum at 401 F Street NW. Just be ready on March 3 when the tickets are made available to the general public.

'Craft beer meets fine food' at 3rd Annual AleFeast on Saturday - http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/taste/entries/2011/02/28/craft_beer_meets_fine_food_at.html - daytondailynews.com
It's billed as an event where "Craft Beer Meets Fine Food," and this year's AleFeast has beefed up its culinary cred to back up the claim. The 3rd Annual AleFeast - to be held from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, March 5 at the Dayton Masonic Center, 525 W. Riverview Ave. in Dayton - will feature five new food providers this year, including Jay's Restaurant and the Sinclair College Culinary Club, and the returning restaurants and other vendors are all serving new dishes, according to Joe Waizmann, AleFeast's organizer. In total, there will be 16 food stations, each one adjacent to a craft beer station that will pour samples of 50 craft beers from 30 breweries from around the world. Some of the food items will include a dram or two of craft beer, including stout floats created by the Culinary Company, Waizmann said.

Lifestyle>>
Chatting with Charlie Papazian #1 - http://italianpint.com/2011/02/chatting-with-charlie-papazian-1.html - italianpint.com
I made an interview (or better said I had a long chat) about some hot topics with Charlie Papazian for the 4th number of MoBI magazine. The paper version has been released during Sapore in Rimini while the electronic one is forthcoming. This is the English version. Since the interview is quite long I will break it in some chapters. Here's the first one.

Chatting with Charlie Papazian #2 - http://italianpint.com/2011/02/chatting-with-charlie-papazian-2.html - italianpint.com
Another hot topic in Italy are prices. Italian beers are very expensive and the difference in respect to Belgium or Germany seems not fully justified by higher taxes and smaller dimension of the breweries in the eyes of the consumers. Moreover, there is an effort to carry beers to the haute cuisine and the quality restaurants where high prices can be justified more easily. The first time I went to the USA I was positively impressed seeing excellent and fairly priced regular beers (typically APA's or American IPA's) abreast of more pricy and elaborated productions. ...

HAVING A GOOD CHAT WITH CHARLIE PAPAZIAN - http://www.movimentobirra.it/public/file-caricati/MOBI_01-2011.pdf - movimentobirra.it
See page 9, for the English version.  Charlie Papazian does not need much introduction to beer lovers and insiders. Founder and president of the Brewers Association and American Homebrewers Association, creator of the Great American Beer Festival  and the World Beer Cup, writer of some classic homebrewing handbooks, Charlie is in a few words the founder and living spirit of the American beer renaissance as well as one of the most recognized personality in the craft beer world. The way of making, offering, explaining and judging beers is changing quickly in later years and, as for many other trends, very often news come across the Atlantic, new approaches that spark off red-hot debates on the web. I got in touch with Charlie stating him different points of view and asking him his authoritative opinion together with some considerations about present Italian beer scene. It came out a genuine and very interesting talk in my opinion.

A Case For Beer: A Major Minor Dilemma - http://brookstonbeerbulletin.com/a-case-for-beer-a-major-minor-dilemma/ - brookstonbeerbulletin.com
Here's another odd duck, a promotional film created in the early 1970s by the National Association of Convenience Stores. It was apparently made by students at Kansas State in association with several sponsors, who also provided grant money for it, including the NACS, the Southland Corporation (7-11) and Falstaff Brewing. It also had the cooperation of four state alcohol agencies, from Arizona, Missouri, Nebraska and Ohio, along with the United States Brewers Foundation.

Guides named for Cicero - http://voices.washingtonpost.com/all-we-can-eat/beer/beer-guides-named-for-cicero.html - voices.washingtonpost.com
Thor Cheston of Brasserie Beck is the first publican I've ever known to yank a beer off-line because it was pouring too clear. Brabo Pils, a house brand made for Robert Wiedmaier's restaurants by the Huyghe Brewery in Melle, Belgium, is supposed to be a Keller Pils, an unfiltered pilsner with a hazy gold hue and a bready, yeasty flavor to augment the hops. What I tasted on Feb. 2 was perfectly crisp and clean and drinkable, but more akin to a Stella Artois or Bavik than what Cheston had in mind. The pils has been placed on indefinite hiatus. "The quality and consistency of the beer was too much of a problem for us to continue with the project," said Cheston, who added that he is in negotiations with a different Belgian brewery to take over the brand. When I tried the Brabo Pils I was seated at a table with Ray Daniels, who for the past 18 years has been brewing beer, writing and editing publications about beer, and organizing beer festivals. Daniels was at Brasserie Beck to host a farmhouse ale beer dinner. He was also in town to administer a beer certification program that he founded four years ago.

Medicinal beer? New study shows maybe the ancient Nubians were onto something - http://www.mercurynews.com/health/ci_17494393?source=most_emailed&nclick_check=1 - mercurynews.com
I need a beer. It's a phrase uttered by many contemporary workers after a long day at the office, but new research shows that ancient cultures were probably using the alcoholic beverage to treat much more than the stress of everyday life. Anthropologists have found that thousands of years before the 1928 discovery of penicillin, people in ancient Nubia were using beer as an antibiotic to treat everything from gum disease to infected wounds. It has been known for some time that the kingdom of Nubia, located south of Egypt in present-day Sudan, valued its brewers. More recently, however, scientists began to suspect that Nubian beer may have been brewed to contain more than just alcohol. The suspicion arose after archeologists unearthed some unusual physical evidence. In 1980, George Armelagos, an anthropology professor at Emory University in Atlanta, led a team that discovered what seemed to be the antibiotic tetracycline in nearly 2,000-year-old Nubian bones.

Phil Farrel Wins 2011 Beerdrinker Of The Year - http://brookstonbeerbulletin.com/phil-farrel-wins-2011-beerdrinker-of-the-year/ - brookstonbeerbulletin.com
In his fourth trip to the Beerdrinker of the Year finals, Cumming, GA commercial pilot Phil Farrell landed the 2011 Beerdrinker of the Year title. More John Elway than Jim Kelly, Farrell finally won his dream title today in a 2-hour finals event held before a standing-room-only crowd at Denver, Colorado's Wynkoop Brewing Company.

Government Affairs>>
Simon Backs 'Surly Bill' - http://hopkins.patch.com/articles/simon-back-surly-bill - hopkins.patch.com
For the second time this session, Hopkins Rep. Steve Simon (DFL- District 44A), of St. Louis Park, finds himself grappling with a significant liquor bill. Two weeks after proposing a bill that would allow liquor stores to sell their own branded merchandise, Simon and his House colleagues are now considering a bill that would give breweries the ability to sell glasses of their own beer on-site. The House bill was introduced Thursday, three days after the legislation was proposed in the Senate.

Creator of Moonshot caffeinated beer unsuccessfully pleads with FDA to reverse its ban - http://blogs.wickedlocal.com/massmarkets/2011/02/26/creator-of-moonshot-caffeinated-beer-unsuccessfully-pleads-with-fda-to-reverse-its-ban/#axzz1FIG9Dlbu - blogs.wickedlocal.com
The Food and Drug Administration, as you may know, essentially banned New Century's Moonshot caffeinated beer in November as part of a crackdown on Four Loko (and Massachusetts regulators quickly followed with their own, more definitive ban). Apparently, too many crazy kids were losing control and doing stupid things while drunk on Four Loko because the caffeine in that drink made them lose track of just how drunk they were. So I was disappointed to get the latest email from Rhonda Kallman, the owner of Cohasset-based New Century, a few days ago. In that message, she describes how she traveled to College Park, Md., to plead with the FDA to reconsider its ruling that Moonshot beer is not safe to drink. Apparently, her pleas fell on deaf ears.

Support Your Co-op by Supporting Texas House Bill 660 - http://www.blackstar.coop/blogs/board-of-directors/support-your-co-op-by-supporting-texas-house-bill-660/ - blackstar.coop
At this moment Texas brewers are attempting to pass two important pieces of legislation, one of which could have a direct impact on our brewpub. The first, House Bill 602, would allow microbreweries like St. Arnolds, which is sponsoring the initiative, to "give" a case of its bottled beer to people that pay a higher price for a tour. The second, more pertinent initiative, House Bill 660, would allow Texas brewpubs such as Black Star Co-op to:

Brewing a legislative fix Bill would allow transport of homemade beer, wine - http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/opinion/25935704-47/brewers-state-beer-homemade-oregon.csp - registerguard.com
Home brewers and amateur winemakers throughout Oregon should lift a glass to the Oregon Senate this week, which unanimously endorsed a bill that would rewrite state law to allow homemade beer and wine to be transported and consumed outside the makers' homes. The right to transport homemade beer and wine was long taken for granted in Oregon - until last year, when the state Department of Justice determined that state law, dating to the Prohibition era, barred the consumption outside the home of homemade alcoholic beverages. Home brewers didn't sit around crying in their lager. They worked with one of their own, Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, to craft Senate Bill 444, which gives home brewers the right to transport their work.

Beer enthusiasts campaign for brew-pub rule change - http://www.kvue.com/news/Beer-enthusiasts-campaign-for-brew-pub-rule-change-116952803.html - kvue.com
Successfully brewing and selling Texas beers requires the right recipe and lately a little bit of lobbying. "The only place I can sell my product is right here, at this location; no place else," said Davis Tucker, who owns North by Northwest Restaurant and Brewery in Northwest Austin. Under Texas law, you only can buy his beer where it is brewed. That is true for every restaurant/brewery in Texas. Brew-pubs from outside Texas, though, are allowed to ship their beer to the Lone Star State. They can then sell it at grocery and convenience stores. "You can walk into your local HEB and get their beer, but you cannot get mine," Tucker said.

Illinois Craft Brewers Fight To Protect Right To Distribute - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/25/illinois-craft-brewing-beer_n_827247.html - huffingtonpost.com
In the past few years, the nation-wide trend of craft brewing has developed a following of aficionados as zealous, finicky and committed as its counterpart in the wine world -- if a little scruffier. The trend has led to an explosion in the number of breweries operating nationwide, up nearly 20 percent in the last five years alone, according to the Brewers Association. ... But a recent federal court decision has thrown craft brewers into a tussle with beer distributors and massive conglomerates, in a battle that will play out in the state legislature this month. The dispute began when Anheuser-Busch, now a subsidiary of the Belgian mega-corporation InBev, made a rather audacious business move.

Surly brewer takes on vintage alcohol law - http://finance-commerce.com/2011/02/surly-brewer-takes-on-vintage-alcohol-law/ - finance-commerce.com
The Surly Brewing Co.'s president and founder, Omar Ansari, wants to attach a bar and restaurant to a $20 million, 60,000-square-foot brewery he plans to build somewhere in the Twin Cities. But he is facing opposition from some of the same bars and liquor store owners who enjoy selling his beer. The opposition matters because Ansari needs the Minnesota Legislature to change a decades-old law that prevents production breweries from selling alcohol on site.

Craft beer pub shot down in St. Peters - http://www.stltoday.com/suburban-journals/stcharles/news/article_a19cbede-05ff-50ef-8130-95a80ff02b56.html - stltoday.com
It takes guts to open a small business these days. Prospective business owners face a variety of challenges to get off the ground, hope a solid customer base gains traction, and there's enough capital to stay afloat in lean times. Wentzville resident Jeff Britton thinks he has a unique idea for a business in the county. Britton wants to open a pub called Exit 6. This bar wouldn't serve the garden-variety beer. Only locally crafted beers, including some brewed by Britton, would be served. ... During the St. Peters Board of Aldermen meeting Thursday, Britton was denied the use of a special permit he'd obtained from the city to open Exit 6 in the Promenade Center just south of Mexico Road and east of Devondale Place. Despite gaining approval from the city's Planning and Zoning Commission, aldermen voted 7-0 - Dave Thomas, Ward 1 abstained - against the opening of the pub.

Business>>
U.S. Brewery Count Passes 1700 - http://www.brewersassociation.org/pages/community/ba-blog/show?title=u-s-brewery-count-passes-1700 - brewersassociation.org
The Brewers Association's Membership Coordinator and Brewery Detective Erin Glass keeps an eye on brewery openings, closings, transitions and breweries in planning. With so much interest in craft brewing today, there is a lot more detective work and a large number of calls and emails to breweries in planning, those on the cusp and those recently opened. Many startups join the Brewers Association during the planning phase to access our resources and the expertise of the network and remain members after becoming operational. U.S. operational brewery membership is now at 1,218. Total brewery membership, when international breweries, contract brewing companies and breweries in planning are added, is 1,619.

Briess welcomes The Country Malt Group to its network of authorized distributors - http://www.brewingwithbriess.com/Pressroom/Default.htm - brewingwithbriess.com
Briess Malt & Ingredients Co. has named The Country Malt Group as a new, authorized distributor of its entire line of brewing ingredients effective immediately. "We're excited about this partnership and what it means to the American craft brewing industry," stated Briess Vice President of Sales & Marketing Robert O'Connell.  "In a relatively short period of time, The Country Malt Group has grown into a respected and trusted full service distributor by staying focused on the customer's needs.

Global>>
Beer with a caffeine shot offering at Sydney Royal Fine Food Show - http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/beer-with-a-caffeine-shot-hits-the-spot/story-e6freuzr-1226013863203 - dailytelegraph.com.au
FORGET low carbs, "coffee-infused" beer which packs a caffeine punch is the latest fad to push the flavour boundaries of the common coldie. Australia's growing band of craft brewers have broadened the taste experience at this year's Sydney Royal Fine Food Show, offering up everything from the Longshot coffee-infused dark ale to a chocolate porter and a "Christmas beer" brewed with a mix of dried fruit and spices, reported The Daily Telegraph. Brewer and judge of 12 years Brad Rogers was very excited at the quality of the 98 entrants yesterday, saying that while the local craft beer industry was still young, there are some amazing brews on offer. "There's so many good beers being made," he said. "I think for us it's about experimenting, pushing the boundaries, it really is just exploring."

Brewer Foodswild hopes to sting EU control over alcohol laws - http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/news/Brewer-hopes-sting-EU-control-alcohol-laws/article-3269992-detail/article.html - thisiscornwall.co.uk
A fight between a brewer and the taxman over whether a brew made from stinging nettles is a beer or an alcopop could decide who has the right to set rules on alcoholic drinks – the British Government or the European Union.  Foodswild, which makes Cornish Stingers, had its entire stock seized by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) in January after it ruled than under EU law it was not a beer but a "made wine" and that he owned them £10,000 in unpaid taxes. But Miles Lavers, who runs the company that produces the 4.5 per cent alcohol drink near Helston, has submitted new evidence that under British rules it is a beer and production should be allowed to continue.