Cool Local Beer Article...

So I was reading the news the other day and I came across a really cool article. It is all about the craft beer movement in the Finger Lakes area. The article covers a lot of different aspects from growing hops to the new breweries that are popping up. I figured I would share the link. Just click here for the craft beer article.


Also, I am trying to figure out a way to do a homebrew giveaway. I have a few bottles that I would like to give away, I just have to work out the kinks, so stay posted.

Keep ‘em tippin’ !

Middle Ages Brewing Co.

So I have had this post in my back pocket for a couple of weeks, but things didn’t work out the way I planned. Big surprise, right? But anyway, two weekends ago we went up to Syracuse to visit L Bird’s sister and her family. It’s always a good time to catch up and hang out while the kids play, plus I get to hang out with my brother in-law Chuck. So there is always a lot of good conversation about beer and plenty of good beer being drank as well. The past few times we have been up to visit, Chuck and I have talked about going to Middle Ages Brewing Co., but it has never worked out, normally because we go up to visit on Sundays and Middle Ages is closed on Sunday. But I got lucky this past visit, we ended up going on a Saturday. Awesome!

After some lunch and hanging out, Chuck and I ditched the wives and kids for an hour to head over to the brewery. I’ve had Middle Ages beer before, but any chance I can get to go to the tasting room, I am jumping on. Chuck winds his way through the city and we pull up in front of this old brick, industrial looking building with a small sign on the garage doors that said Middle Ages Brewing Co. Now I have been to plenty of breweries where the initial looks of the building were completely different from the quality of the beer. I have been to places where I drove by them a hundred times saying “There is no way that is a brewery it’s too small and looks like an old garage!” (Ithaca Beer) and had fantastic beer. Then I have been to places where the tasting room is as swanky as could be and the beer was definitely subpar (I’ll leave them nameless, as no one should drink “their” beer). So walking up to Middle Ages I was still completely unbiased.

We walked in and the tasting room was packed. I had a camera in my pocket to take a few pictures, but I completely forgot about it once the beer started pouring. Sorry! We made our way to the bar and found that they had 7 beers on tap for tasting and 3 other beers in the back that were for growler pours only. So 10 beers is a pretty healthy stable of beers, and Chuck and I made our way through 9 out of 10. We tasted the 7 they were pouring and a couple of them twice, then we each got a growler from out back. I liked one of their beers. They were all superb, but I especially liked the Old Marcus, it was slightly sweet with maybe some honey notes but it still had a nice maltiness to carry it through and make it a well rounded very easy drinking beer.

Middle Ages bar staff is also very good. They were very knowledgeable of the beers and very helpful, but also laid back. They were friendly and not pretentious beer snobs. They had a good time mixing with the crowd and still talking up good beer. I was very impressed with them to say the least.

I ended up getting a growler of the Black Heart Stout from their back room. I was going to do a beer review on it, but once I poured a pint I lost track of everything else and just enjoyed the simple pleasure of drinking and really enjoying a beer. I wasn’t worried about tasting notes or pictures; I just let myself be wrapped in the sensations of drinking it just for that enjoyment. I will say that it is an excellent stout and you should buy it if you ever happen upon it.

All in all it was a great trip to a great brewery and the beers are all fantastic. If you are in Syracuse, please find time to stop into Middle Ages and try their selections. You will not be disappointed. Until then, keep em’ tippin’!

Random Beer Things…

I can’t remember if I mentioned it or not but I recently ordered ingredients to make an Irish Red Ale plus a little. I basically ordered everything I needed to make a nice Irish Red, but I up’d my grain bill trying to make it just a little bit bigger. Not an Imperial Red but maybe just a double red or a Irish Red 2.0. We’ll see how it turns out, I am hoping to be brewing it by tomorrow night as long as fedex shows up on time tomorrow.

But while I sit here and salivate over my next brew I wanted to just share a few thoughts about craft beer. The first thing I realized is, it’s everywhere man. A few years back it was hard to find any beer that wasn’t a budweiser or miller-coors  product. Now as I walk down the grocery store, the beer isn’t only contained to the cooler any more. There are actually aisles,  yep that’s right aisles as in plural, as in more than one. So now you have choices galore. It’s an awesome time in craft beer. Even main stream grocery stores such as Wegmans or Tops are catching onto to the movement. I mean Wegmans has a “Craft Your Own Pack” section where you can mix and match a six pack of beer and the last time I was at Tops they had a little pamphlet on craft beer that gave definition of styles and the appropriate glassware to drink it out of. A really big and really cool step for grocery stores.

The second thing I noticed is that everyone I know is talking about craft beer. At work when I talk to my colleagues it seems like one of the first questions I hear is “Have you been to that new brewery to try their beer?”. Just yesterday I was having a conversation with a fellow winemaker about beer judging. He has been judging wine competitions for years and was asked to sit in for a beer judge cancellation. He is certainly no stranger to beer but he was shocked and amazed at the grading criteria in a beer competition. We were discussing how strict the style guidelines were and how many brewers are stretching the guidelines almost into new styles. I was explaining to him how there is a whole Beer Judging Certification Program that you have to complete to correctly judge beer.

So as I sit here drinking a frosty cold beer in the shade, I am just amazed at how far beer has come and I am very interested in where it is going. Who knows? Maybe in a few years I’ll know first hand. Here’s to wishful thinking!

Keep ‘em tippin’!!!

Dreaming again...

Image from: http://www.holderbros.com/blog/tagged-with/timber-framed-barn

So lately I have been really daydreaming about a lot of different things, but the two biggest of them being opening up a small “boutique” nanobrewery. (sorry, I work in the wine industry and around me, all of the tiny wineries/farm wineries are called boutique wineries) and secondly becoming less dependent on the world and becoming more self sufficient. If I had the money to go “off the grid” I SO would, but that is not an option at this point. However, as my daydreams continue to meander through my head I thought that this would be a really cool idea and possibly feasible on the nanobrewery level.


I think that it would be awesome to start up a small brewery that is almost entirely self sufficient. I think that if I had five to ten acres of land I could do it. I would plop down a rustic timber framed barn with the tasting room up front and the brewery operations in the back. Then there would be an acre or two dedicated to growing a couple different varieties of hops, and the rest of the acres would be for barley and some wheat for the malt bill for the brewery. Then I would contract with the local farmers to harvest and possibly process the barley for me. Then I could control the growing conditions for everything that enters my beer. I would be able to control my process from raw materials to finished beer. I’m not sure if the beer laws are the same as the wine laws, but if they are then I would be able to call my beer an “Estate” beer, meaning that all of the ingredients that go into the beer came from my property. Plus on a personal note, how satisfying would it be to know that your beers were all produced using materials that you had grown? That would be awesome.

But anyway, that’s what I have been thinking about lately in the world of beer. I’m also out trying to find a real good Double Red Ale recipe. My fermenters have been dry for too long and I’m itching to get something going.



Keep ‘em tippin’!!!

Goose Island: Sofie: Belgian Style Ale Review

It’s been awhile since I had a decent beer to review, or went to the store for a beer for that matter. So I made a trip to Wegmans this past week and saw the Goose Island section of the beer display and the 750 ml bottle of Sofie just jumped out at me.

The bottle has a very nice, clean label that gives it a very sophisticated look. The label more closely resembled a wine label than other beer labels. So I picked up the bottle and saw that it was a Belgian Style Ale and I was sold.

So here we go:

Appearance: The beer poured nicely after some time was given to let the head settle. I’m not a professional beer  pourer but I can pour a decent beer, so pouring this beer was a definite challenge. Right out of the gate it was really foaming even with a gentle pour. The head was pillowy and very cleanly white.  The color of the beer was a light straw color that was filled with streams of tiny effervescent bubbles.

Aroma: The aroma was light. I only was able to smell the citrusy notes of the hops and what can only be described as wet hops.It was the smell of the hops after they have been removed from a carboy or barrel.

Taste: The taste is very true to style, but lighter on the palate than a traditional Belgian. It was slightly fruity, I got notes of orange and L Bird said it was peach, but hey everyone’s palate is different. It was just very clean and crisp, there were no real strong or standout flavors.

Overall: This was a great beer. It was easy to drink and you could easily enjoy more than one. I am a fan of Goose Island and this is just another great beer in their lineup.

So the next time you are looking for a nice summer beer, grab a bottle of Goose Island’s Sofie, you won’t regret it.

Keep ‘em tippin’!

Growler Box

I’ve had the idea to build a simple box to transport growlers of beer in for some time, but I have put it off and put it off. But last week was my birthday and my friend Dinker’s birthday, and I thought that a growler box would be a good gift for each of us. I was supposed to have them ready by this past Saturday, but well it just didn’t work out. So if you read this first Dinker, you have a Growler box waiting for you. Happy Birthday Dinker!!

I had the idea that I would like them to look like the old school wooden tool boxes. I didn’t want anything fancy, just something that looked rustic (old school, well  worn/used, beat up etc.) So I bought knotty pine and cut it roughly. Then I used square cut masonry nails to give it that “ol’timey” look. Then I used a simple 1 3/8” pine dowel for the handle. I drilled though it on each end and put a 3/8” lynch/cotter pin through each hole. So now to load the growlers, you pull one pin out and pull the entire handle out. Load the growlers, replace the handle and pin and there you go. You’re beer rides nice and secure.

I made it to hold two growlers, so if you only need one growler you have room for some tap room swag, but seriously who can buy only one growler at a time.

But anyway, I took a short video so you can see it. I apologize now for the video quality, I was pretty distracted because A Bird and Linus were screwing around behind me and bumping into my legs. Enjoy!!

North Coast Brewing: Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout

In business they always say “Know your customers”. Well, in the blogging world it can be tough to know your customers/readers because they can be miles upon miles away from you. Sure you can read through the comments and get a good feel, but this blog is still relatively small and I don’t get a ton of comments. So the best I get is tracking my hits and stats. These stats tell me where the person is viewing from, what posts they viewed, and what traffic source (i.e. google, blogspot, etc.) they found me by. That’s useful information.

Based on that information, something struck me as kind of cool. It would appear that I have an anonymous follower from somewhere in Russia. I’m not sure this is a single follower or a bunch of people, a man, a woman, I have no idea. I am leaning towards it being one person. This is my opinion because my stats tell me that I get traffic from yandex.ru. and the search words they are using are napsgetsbeer.blogspot. So I did a quick google search and found out that yandex is a Russian search engine. So someone over there is specifically searching for my blog. How awesome is that? I know, totally awesome.

Anyway, now that I have bored you with a long back story I decided it would be cool if I did a “shout out” beer review to this person. I wanted to go to Beers of the World to get an beer that was actually brewed in Russia, but well, that just didn’t pan out. So I did the next best thing I went to Wegmans and found North Coast Brewing and picked up their Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout. This one is for you, comrade!

Appearance: It pours very black with a generous light brown pillowy head. It is almost completely opaque, you can’t really see a light shone through it. As I drank it, it did produce some nice lacing down the sides of the glass.

Aroma: It has little to no hops present in the aroma. However, dark coffee notes come through instantly. I also smelled some roasted malt with some slight burnt notes. There was also some sort of funky, earthy note in the finish of the aroma. It wasn’t unpleasant, it was just different.

Taste: There are some strong coffee, espresso flavors. The mouthfeel is slightly creamy, but it is not too much. There are also some roasted malty notes. It is dry in the middle,its not too sweet. It is surprisingly smooth for being such an high alcohol beer.

Overall: I thought this was a good representative of a Russian Imperial Stout. This beer could also be pretty dangerous because it is so smooth, you don’t realize how much alcohol it has in it. If you like stouts or just dark beer this beer is well worth picking up.

Enjoy! Keep ‘em tippin’!