The Hunt

Deeper down the rabbit hole. Beer has or is becoming the baseball chase card. Limited run beers are hitting the shelves daily. With the number of breweries opening each day it is an unending chase to catch the newest beers available.
For me an average beer drinker I prefer to drink local. When I say local I prefer to drink beer brewed in Texas. Texas is quickly becoming the go to state for great beer. Brewers love beer and brewers love to experiment with beer thus the huge quantities of specials and one offs.
Now the chase begins. 156 breweries and counting with every one of them having a short run beer. My fridge is quickly filling up. 

Home Brew Everything

Texas Beer Culture

Texas Beer Culture

Beer is the third most popular drink consumed in the world. Damn you water and tea. Pub crawls, beer festivals, pub games bar billiards all make up what is now beer culture. Our lives are inundated and bombarded by social media and infomercials daily. No longer is the bar or tavern the local hangout for the old and crotchety where we get our information or news. No longer is the bar a dimly lit smoke filled room. Now, taverns and pubs are both male and female friendly and sometimes family friendly establishments ready to serve up artisan foods and artisan beers. Pop art neon signs brightly proclaim come in sit down, have a few. No longer is beer your dads swill from 70’s. O no it isn’t.

Look at Sam Adams who is looking to release Utopias a very humble 28% ABV beer that will set you back $200.. In return you get to drink a beer built from beers aged over 20 years and blended together. For example, Art of The Brew, an Austin tradition that combines beer and art to create art that reflects their beer. The beer culture is driven by youth, and conservation, living green, living within your means, and being healthy.  Beer drinkers today are sometimes looking for the next big thing; the weekly trip to the beer store to grab the newest beer off the shelf. If you tend to follow specific breweries you look for newest one-off beer or specialty brew that has been aging in a barrel.

 Our beer culture was once actually a living thing but war and prohibition drove smaller breweries out of business. Up until the 1920’s there were over 2000 thousand breweries in the United States. Prohibition closed all but the most successful. By the time Prohibition was repealed in 1933 only a fraction could reopen.  Brewing and brewers have always been held in high regard. brewers were the wizards that made us feel better. They took handed down recipes and tools and created for us the drink of life. Many times gatherings would be held at the local brewery, pub, or similar establishment. A social network for people that thrived throughout the industrial revolution. However, while at its peek, the decline of the local brewery happened. Whether it was loss of popularity or brand popularity local brewing lost its foothold.

Texas as of November 11, 2015 is experiencing a resurgence in local brew. With well over 150 breweries in Texas, patrons across the state are clamoring for the next big beer. Drink local, support your community, cries throughout the state as people strive to make their breweries succeed. Texas is a big state and with over 26 million people making this state their home local goods and services means big money. Today with social media, self-promotion and marketing is a full time job in itself and many local brewers are hitting the ground running; often promoting their beer before it is even for sale.

With the growing population and the need for Texas to be self sustaining growers are adapting. Much of the grain used for malt was grown in Idaho, North Dakota, Montana, Colorado and Wyoming. For the local breweries however, their success depends upon attaining local ingredients. Black Lands Malt, located just outside Austin, Tx, has found its niche and is that provider for locally malted grain. For all the beer brewed in Texas how much of the grain was actually grown here in Texas? Many brewers will brew a beer with a specific malt in mind for flavor profile. Now the need to maximize profits a create a sustainable product from farm to table is necessary. Black Land Malt is at the forefront of an industry needed in Texas. Not only are cereal grains used for beer but they are the base on of many products on the market today. Wheat is one of the top ten cash crops in Texas with a little over three million acres harvested every year. Locally malted grains for brewing should be on the minds of every Texas Brewery.

Black Land Malt is where a sustainable beer culture begins and where I begin. In the next articles I will introduce or attempt to introduce every brewery in Texas, a major undertaking I think. I don’t want to merely collect all the information from the interweb, my goal is to photograph and document each location as historical information.

KCCO Keep Calm Chive On

KCCO

KEEP CALM CHIVE ON! A movement albeit obscure to me , but none the less a movement. It means stay the course no matter what. Chive On refers to the mutual understanding between Chivers on how to go about life, regardless of any who toss a wrench into your plan. Enjoy good times, family, friends no matter what.

Resignation Brewery or also known as Resignation Media is a social media giant with over 30 million monthly users 180 million page views, 11 million app downloads and that is just with The Chive. There is also The Berry, Chivetv, The Chivery,  and Chive Charities.You would be hard pressed to find the brewery. Resignation partners with Craft brew Alliance to brew the beer. However the recipe are solely from  the owners. The success is in the marketing because their beer is available in thousands of locations in the United States and Canada.

Resignation Brewery so far has four beers in the KCCO line A Gold Lager, Black lager, White Wheat, and coming soon an Amber Ale. Today the White Wheat an Ale brewed with spices. It is brewed with lemon and orange zest giving it a nice citrus flavor. It is the typical wheat beer with a yellow haze stemming from the use of wheat.

It has a nice tartness from the wheat with breadiness in the nose. It is a 5.0% ABV with 14 IBU’s ,. Easy drinking to wile away the summer days. I love wheat beers, not so much beers brewed with spices but this is so subtle as not to notice. The citrus flavor could easily have come from a generous hop addition. This beer is a winner in my book.

Shandy

Shandy?

Shandy is beer mixed with a soft drink, such as carbonated lemonade, ginger beer, ginger ale, apple juice or orange juice. The proportions of the two ingredients are adjusted to taste, usually half-and-half.Wikipedia

Shandy is a beer I guess or at least part of a beer. Beer cocktails seem to be gaining some speed in the beer world these days. Anything you can add to a beer to either make it taste better for yourself or someone else, the addition costs extra though. That glass you hold however, is prime real estate. How many cubic inches in a pint glass?  Lets call it 35 cubic inches. If you want you can show the math in a different article.

I paid $2.00 dollars for this American pint. I say American Pint because a British Imperial Pint would be 20% larger.  So now I’m down 20% beer because of my glass. and it’s 50% less beer because my beer is juiced.

Not complaining because it was actually pretty good but, I’m not completely sold on it.

Traveler Beer contracts out companies to brew their beer. Once they get the beer the real fun begins in their house. The beer is flavored to taste making a refreshing easy drinking session beer. Around 4.5% ABV which means you can have a few and not worry about waking up in your neighbor’s yard again.

Many beers inherently have a familiar flavor. With some hops you can get grapefruit, lemon, orange, pine, and woody. Even yeast will impart subtle flavors and even enhance flavors from the grain. Flavoring beer is not a new thing not even the first guy to hang a lemon wedge on a beer glass was first.

However the result is a refreshing blend of beer and juice. I wonder if would be good over ice or blended into slush. Perhaps that is over the edge.

There are no rules here.

Beer cocktails.  It is just another way to experience a beer. With the myriad of flavors a beer has to offer, pairing it with food or other drink is human nature. How as humans could we not add spice to our lives? The creativity of the human palate knows no bounds. From jalapeno peppers to coriander from sugar to salt and everything in between. Just remember sometimes some combinations are just bad.

A Shandy is a gateway into a great way of exploring beer . So if you choose to have your beer with a wedge of lemon or slice of orange, enjoy. You can enjoy your beer as a Shandy or a cocktail. PROST! to you.

The Muse

For a millennia for time out time artists have sought their muse. I know little or nothing of art. I do know that when I look upon a work of art I see the muses hand at work. Colors and words from God to canvas and paper.  To put onto canvas the beauty that only God knows. A beauty described by a poet to hear the words that stir the soul. The artist is vessel to deliver the wine.
Where does it come from?
Who but God could inspire man to make beer? Who but God could make life work in such a way to sustain life? You have heard the stories of the monks brewing beer.
It’s true!
It was so the monks who did not eat during lent could sustain themselves. Did you ever see a skinny monk? There are a lot calories and proteins in beer. Plenty by far to carry a growing man through a day of labor.
Who but God could could inspire man to brew beer and have saints and idols to watch over him.
The ancient Sumerians only a mere 1800 years B.C. had a goddess for beer. Ninkasi a female goddess borne of sparkling clear water in order to satisfy desire and sate the heart. Provided bread and a fermented beverage known as Kash to sustain the household. This clearly suggested it was the females responsibility to provide sustenance and life for the household. The recipe of the fermented beverage was intended to be handed down from generation to generation.
Ancient clay tablets described taking bread and adding it soaking grains and storing the mixture in a fermentation vessel.
The recipe so important to life was set down on clay tablets. A Hymn to Ninkasi clearly describes the process of brewing what would later become beer.

Home Brew Everything