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’!!!