Why Is The Cat Even In The Bag In The First Place?

Big props to the folks up north in Forsyth County. They came out in force on a Tuesday night anddrained a SweetWater firkin in about 40 minutes. That is basically just over one pint every 30 seconds. Impressive indeed. Let's see what we can do tonight in East Roswell with this IPA. Here is the remaining calendar for these great SweetWater casks. Read through it, and then see some of my comments afterwards.

• Wed. 6/19 East Roswell-- IPA with orange, grains of paradise, Cascade, Chinook, Summit & Citra hops. TONIGHT!
• Fri. 6/21 Chattanooga-- Brown Ale with cardamom, cocoa & orange peel.
• Tues. 6/25 Huntersville-- IPA with orange, grains of paradise, Cascade, Chinook, Summit & Citra hops.
• Wed. 6/26 South Park-- Brown Ale with cardamom, cocoa & orange peel.
• Fri. 6/28 UNCC-- Imperial Stout with mint, lactose & cocoa.
• Sat. 6/29 Mall of GA 2:00 pm- IPA with orange, grains of paradise, Cascade, Chinook, Summit & Citra hops. LAST CHANCE to try this beer!
• Sat. 6/29 Duluth 5:00 pm-- Imperial Stout with mint, lactose & cocoa.
• Wed. 7/3 Cumming-- IPA with grapefruit, apricots, orange & rosemary.
• Fri. 7/5 Windward 5:30 pm-- Brown Ale with cardamom, cocoa & orange peel.  LAST CHANCE to try this beer!  
• Fri. 7/5 Old Milton 7:00 pm-- Porter with chicory, vanilla & cocoa.
• Sat. 7/6 Crabapple 4:00 pm-- Imperial Stout with mint, lactose & cocoa.  LAST CHANCE to try this beer!
• Sat. 7/6 Woodstock-- Porter with chicory, vanilla & cocoa.  LAST CHANCE to try this beer!
• Wed. 7/10 Suwanee-- IPA with grapefruit, apricots, orange & rosemary. LAST CHANCE to try this beer!

For maybe the last time this month, I want to remind everyone that the tap time is 6:00 pm, unless otherwise noted. I added a helpful reminder next to each of the last casks of each flavor/style. If you are seeking these rare and unique, never-to-be-seen-again credits, that should help you figure out when it is really crunch time. One of those chances is coming up in about 10 days, and it is in the middle of the afternoon, so it is kind of tricky. Stay on your toes people. You may also notice that we have more than one cask on three separate days. Take a look at 6/29, 7/5 and 7/6. I am trying to help people consolidate their movements, and have a nice variety in each geographic area. Why do I do it that way? Because I care. I care about the busy beer lover who wishes there were more hours in the day and days in the week to drink more and more beer. I am here to help by making some days so jam packed with excitement, that when it's over, it feels like two days, not just one.

But don't think for one second that we are done here. Oh no, there are four casks to be tapped at Metropolis in July. On four consecutive Tuesdays, here is what you are going to get:

• Abita English Mild on July 9th.
• Duck Rabbit Brown Ale on July 16th.
• Abita Naughty Crumpet on July 23rd.
• JailHouse somethin' or other on July 30th. The guys at JailHouse are whipping up something special for us, we just don't know what it is yet.

How, you may be asking, can you keep all of these events straight? I mean, it's not like you can just sync these things right to your calendar or something. Or can you? Soon...very, very soon...there will be...oooh...wait for it...wait for it...an app for your phone that does just that and more. That's right, for the low, low price of nothing you can have your very own Brewniversity app for your smart phone. It slices, it dices, it removes stains, it paints your house, it gets your teenagers out of jail! Well, OK, it does none of those things, but it does a lot of other cool stuff. It will send beer events to your calendar. It will help you find beers you never had before--by store location!--and more importantly, it will do it accurately. You don't need all of the techie details, but just understand that it works. Lost your card? Who cares? Your phone will know your Brewniversity number! Are you enjoying a particular beer so much that you just have to tell someone about it? No problem, the app lets you share your thoughts through different media. In short, it will take longer to tell you what it does than to tell you what it doesn't do. It is currently being tested by Apple, followed by Google, and when they are done with it and it is approved, it will be available to you. Think roughly four weeks, and that is about right.

Feel free to spread the word about any and all content you have just read. I am Fred The Beer Guy, and I approve of this message.

What's Brewing Out There?

We have been having a lot of fun with these SweetWater casks these days. The beers have been

Our brew system at the office.

exceptional, and everyone is enjoying them immensely. If you have been waiting to get out and try them, here is the line-up for this week and next. Remember, casks from SweetWater are rare, unless you go to the brewery for their tours. So don't act like this is not a big deal and that you can catch these again some other time. You can't. Check it out:

• Thurs. (tonight!) 6/13 Fred Bar-- IPA w/ grapefruit, apricots, orange & rosemary
• Fri. 6/14 Newnan-- Porter w/ chicory, vanilla & cocoa
• Sat. 6/15 Canton-- Imperial Stout w/ mint, lactose & cocoa (4:00 pm!)
• Tues. 6/18 Johns Creek-- Porter w/ chicory, vanilla & cocoa
• Wed. 6/19 East Roswell-- IPA w/ orange, grains of paradise, Cascade, Chinook, Summit & Citra
• Fri. 6/21 Chattanooga (6:00 pm)-- Brown Ale w/ cardamom, cocoa & orange peel

The week of the 24th we will be in Charlotte tapping three more of these casks. We resume in GA on Saturday the 29th in Buford and Duluth, but I will remind everyone about all of those later. Just remember that all tap times are 6:00 pm unless otherwise specified. I do want to warn you that by the time we get back into GA on the 29th, we will be getting very close to only having one cask of each beer left. If you were looking for these rare Brewniversity credits, it will start to get to a critical point really soon. 

How are the submissions for the 2013 Southern Home Brewer's Challenge coming along? Do all of the home brewers out there know about this pro-am competition? One winner will get their beer made by Red Hare in Marietta to be part of our Beer Of The Month program in January. Pretty cool. Last year's SHBC was a big success, and we have big plans for this year's to be better than ever. If you know a home brewer, make sure they know the deal. If that home brewer is you, and you like to talk to yourself, feel free to tell yourself whenever you have time. Remember that the submission form is linked above, just look to the lower right of the picture of our brew system that have at the office. All of the details are in that form.

In case anyone is getting bored reading this because I have not been talking about any wild and wacky adventures, I am sorry. Been too busy to travel much these days, but I will be hitting the road again soon enough. Don't worry, I can't stay in one place for too long. I did go see Tracy Morgan at The Tabernacle last week and went to a concert at Variety Playhouse on Friday. I really feel sorry for the 30 Rock fans that showed up to see Tracy Morgan, expecting that kind of comedy. No, they got some seriously raunchy humor, and by the looks on some of their faces, they were not pleased. Let's just say that I was kind of shocked by what I heard, and I am not exactly a housewife from the suburbs. Nothing against housewives from the 'burbs, but by and large they do not tend to like very graphic jokes of a sexual nature. And if they do enjoy a dirty joke from time to time (who doesn't, really?), they still probably don't like a solid hour of them. Non-stop, filthy, in your face for an hour. This Saturday I am going to see Daniel Tosh. Very excited about that. If you don't know who that is, well, he sold out two shows at the Cobb Energy Center. Get with the program out there. The guy's hilarious. Then on June 27th I have tickets to see Dave Chappelle. That's right, the man who changed comedy and sketch TV as we know it is back from seclusion, and packing the Tabernacle. It will be very interesting to hear what is on his mind now after his meteoric rise to fame, at the peak of which he just walked away. 

And on that note, I am outta here. Need to wrap up a few things before heading down to The Fred Bar tonight for that cask. Talk to you later.

On A Roll Now

SweetWater, on cask making day.

The beginning of this SweetWater cask series is off to a great start. We have already tapped two of the five
(that is 40% for those of you keeping score at home) of the brown ale with cardamom, oranges and cocoa, and they were seriously outstanding. But we are just getting started...

• Tonight at 6:00 pm in Decatur we tap one of the porter casks with chicory, vanilla & cocoa. I will be there, and I am anxious to see if this flavor is as good as that brown ale was on Wednesday.
• Next up is the In-town Cask Crawl on Saturday. It starts at Virginia-Highland at 4:00 pm on Saturday. We make the next stop at Metropolis at 4:30 pm, then Lindbergh at 6:00 pm. They are, in order of first to last stops: IPA w/ grapefruit, apricots, orange & rosemary; IPA with orange, grains of paradise, Cascade, Chinook, Summit & Citra; imperial stout with mint, lactose & cocoa.
• Heading into next week, we have Perimeter Taco Mac scheduled for Tuesday the 11th with their cask of IPA w/ orange, grains of paradise, Cascade, Chinook, Summit & Citra. We will get into it at 6:00 pm.
• Kennesaw is the next stop on Wednesday the 12th, and they have a cask of IPA with grapefruit, apricots, orange & rosemary. Tap time is 6:00 pm.
• Fans of The Fred Bar will be excited to see one of these casks show up there on Thursday the 13th, and it is one of the IPAs with grapefruit, apricots, orange & rosemary. Same time, different channel. (Translation: 6:00 pm tap time.)
• Friday the 14th we roll into Newnan, and their cask of porter with chicory, vanilla & cocoa gets tapped at...you guessed it, 6:00 pm. Can't get anything past you. Crafty devil.
• On Saturday the 15th we tap a cask of imperial stout w/ mint, lactose & cocoa in Canton at...curve ball!... 4:00 pm. This one will be poured through their beer engine, so it will be a little bit different of an experience.

That is the list for now folks. More to come, but I think that is about as much information as you can handle until next week. So mark your calendars and get psyched to drink some great beers. See you out and about.

Don't Be Like Randy

This little gem of graffiti was found in the Marta station near my house. I am so glad that Randy felt

compelled to let everyone know his whereabouts. Besides being conscientious, here is what we know about Randy:

1. He is an idiot.
2. He was in a place one time, and he wanted you to know about it.

He was able to spell "hear" using only one indecipherable character. Is that a "K" and an "R" at the same time Randy? I am so proud of you for writing 75% of that word using actual letters. You get a C in writing with the actual alphabet of the language in which you are trying to communicate. Not too shabby. Unfortunately the word you spelled has a different meaning that what we can only assume was your intent here Randy. So this is where your score goes down a little. You see, other than your name, which is probably one of the first things you ever learned to spell, and one of the most used words in your written vocabulary, you only spelled one other word correctly. Was. You spelled "was" correctly, then after that, right down the toilet. I am not sure how the judges are going to score that, but I think it is safe to say that it is going to bring that C average down into the D range, which I am sure you are quite familiar with at this stage of your life.

But I didn't come here today to make fun of yet another person let down by our society, our education system, or our parenting standards. No, the reason we came here today is to reminded you about beer events, because those are fun, and you probably forgot about everything I told you last week, because you knew I would send you a reminder this week when it was really important. So here you go:

1. Thornbridge event tomorrow at The Fred Bar. We will have the collaboration beer that Spike from Terrapin brewed while we were there when we went to England in February. It will be on tap and on the beer engine from a firkin. There will be three other Thornbridge beers on tap, plus some Terrapins as well. Spike will be on hand to tell you about brewing this Imperial ESB, and there will be a slide show for your viewing pleasure. Should be a good one.
2. SweetWater cask-o-rama begins at Dallas Hwy on Wednesday at 6:00 pm. Brown Ale w/ cardamom, cocoa & orange peel.
3. SweetWater cask tour rolls into Decatur on Friday at 6:00 pm. Porter w/ chicory, vanilla & cocoa.
4. In-town cask crawl starts at Virginia-Highland at 4:00 pm on Saturday. We make the next stop at Metropolis at 4:30 pm, then Lindbergh at 6:00 pm. They are, in order of first to last stops: IPA w/ grapefruit, apricots, orange & rosemary; IPA w/ orange, grains of paradise, Cascade, Chinook, Summit & Citra; Imp. Stout w/ mint, lactose & cocoa.

Astute readers might notice that we have no duplicates in week one. These are the five varieties, and there will be one of these at every store except Philips Arena (yes, you too Chattanooga and Charlotte!). This tour will last into early July, so if you are busy this week, there is still time to get on board. Hope to see you their, Randy!

Last but not least, it is time to announce the 2013 Southern Home Brewer's Challenge contest. Remember last year when we received submissions from home brewers around metro Atlanta, and one winner had their beer made by Red Brick for a January beer of the month? Well here it comes again. This year we are partnering with Red Hare Brewing Co. in Marietta. Submission dates will be each Monday in July. So tell all of the home brewers you know to get their best recipes together and start brewing. The first Monday in July is four weeks away, and there are five Mondays in July. A list of the location for submissions each week is below. But all I am really trying to do today is get everyone fired up and get those home brewers brewing. Last year's SHBC was a big success, and this year it should be bigger and better. Get the word out! If anyone is ready to go, the submission form is linked to the right of this post. Go for it.

Bye for now. See you around.

The submissions will be at the following locations on the specified dates:

• Monday, July 1st at Taco Mac in Decatur
• Monday, July 8th at Taco Mac in Peachtree City
• Monday, July 15th at Taco Mac in Kennesaw
• Monday, July 22nd at Taco Mac in Cumming
• Monday, July 29th at Taco Mac in Suwanee

Here A Cask, There A Cask, Everywhere.....

You know the rest of the song.

Drew Buehler's special cask. Tasted awesome tonight in Duluth!

Here is a quick update on these crazy SweetWater casks that will be available at Taco Mac and Taco Mac only over the next few weeks. We did a contest in the winter for all of our stores. They submitted ideas to the brewery for what cool ways they could trick out some standard SweetWater beers. The head brewer picked the best five recipes, and we made five of each a few weeks ago. We are getting into the first round of them next week, so here is the first leg of this delicious beer adventure. This is going to be fun. If you don't like what I have for you next Saturday, just give up. Stop drinking beer, pick up a different hobby, you're fired. Check it out:

• It all starts on Wednesday, June 5th at Taco Mac in Marietta, which is one of the winning stores. This cask is a Georgia Brown with cardamom, cocoa & orange peel. Sounds awesome. Tap time is 6:00 pm.
• Next we will be at the Decatur Taco Mac on Friday night, June 7th. This one is an Exodus Porter with chicory, vanilla & cocoa. Chicory should give a slight smoky quality. Can't wait to try that one too. That is at 6:00 pm as well.
• Saturday the 8th is the "In-Town Cask Crawl". Get a load of this: At 3:00 pm we will tap an IPA with grapefruit, apricots, orange & rosemary, plus a whole bunch of extra hops at the Virginia Highland store. Next we head up 10th street to Metropolis at 4:30 for another IPA, this one with orange, grains of paradise, Cascade, Chinook, Summit & Citra. Then we go to up Piedmont at 6:00 pm to Lindbergh for a cask of Happy Ending with mint, lactose sugar & cocoa. Three casks in one day, all within a 3.5 mile radius. I think we have a winner of an idea here. I hope to see a few folks make the trek with us. The great, big, grueling 3.5 mile journey for three unique and delicious, fresh, local beers. Who's with me?

That is all I have for now. I will follow-up with the rest of the calendar next week, but I wanted to give everyone the line-up for next week so that you can plan ahead. Have a great weekend.

A Thorny Situation

This sign means good beer is behind door # 1.

Remember when I went to England earlier this year? Remember that Spike from Terrapin brewed a collaboration beer while we were there? Remember that the brewery was called Thornbridge, and that their beers were killer?  I know...it seems like a long time ago, but it takes a while to make an Imperial ESB with rye malt, then ship it across the ocean all the way to Atlanta, GA. But it's here, and it is almost time to drink it. Mark your calendars for Tuesday, June 4th (that's next week people!), and head down to The Fred Bar to taste the Thornbridge/Terrapin Coalition. It will be pouring from a cask, as well as the regular taps. How rare is this beer? There are only four reviews of it from the entire U.S. on www.ratebeer.com, and none of those are from Georgia. So, yeah, it is pretty special. Here are the other Thornbridge beers that will be on tap that night:

• Thornbridge Beadeca's Well (a smoked porter, 5.3%) 
• Thornbridge Halcyon (an IPA, 7.4%)
• Thornbridge Kipling (a pale ale 5.2%)

These beers are not cheap, but neither are you, so I guess I will see you on Tuesday. Spike will be on hand around 6:00 pm to tell you about the beer and his story about brew day in Britain. Don't miss it.

Do I make you Thorny, baby?

I also want to take this opportunity to tell you about the cask this Friday, May 31st at Taco Mac in Duluth. This is the final cask from the series made by some of our loyal customers with O'Dempsey's. Drew Buehler's creation has figs, black cardamom, cocoa nibs, Jim Beam barrel staves, and vanilla beans in a cask of O'Dempsey's Your Black Heart Russian Imperial Stout. Tap time is 6:00 pm. If you are a credit seeker, then you will want to know that this will be a distinct and original credit from every other cask that has come before it, and that this credit will never be used again. 

Lastly, I am about to publish the calendar of when and where we will be tapping the different SweetWater casks that we made recently. Below are the details on the five different flavors. One is coming soon to a Taco Mac near you. I strongly recommend that you get out and drink a few of these. SweetWater casks do not come around very often, and I can absolutely guarantee that we will not have the opportunity to do this again for a long, long time.

• IPA w/ grapefruit, apricots, orange & rosemary
• Brown Ale w/ cardamom, cocoa & orange peel
• Imperial Stout w/ mint, lactose sugar & cocoa
• IPA w/ orange, grains of paradise, Cascade, Chinook, Summit & Citra hops
• Porter w/ chicory, vanilla & cocoa

OK people, that is all I have for you right now. In case you were missing my voice on the radio lately, you will be happy to know that I should resume telling you about the beers of the month again starting in June. This time around I will be on 680 AM instead of 790 AM. Same ads, just a different channel. And the next time I get taken off the radio, I expect to see a flood of nasty e-mails from you people, unlike last time. Not one single outcry of indignant rage. You guys can do better than that. C'mon now.

Frankly, I Can Do Without The Bread

Why am I sliding off the table? Whoooa!

They say that man can not live on bread alone, and I get the meaning of the saying. Diversity is the key to enjoying a full life. But if you look into it, the saying actually comes from the Bible, and means something completely different. Go ahead, look it up. People mistake the true meanings and origins of things all the time. In addition, meanings change over time to suit different situations. The same phrase that extolled you to respect the word of god, now means that you need art, music, literature, and the pursuit of things solely for the enjoyment of them, in order to lead a rich life. Go figure.

I am only taking you on this diversion to reinforce my position that you and I can not drink just beer and beer alone. I know that this is Fred's Beer Page, but occasionally we take a look at some different beverages that I enjoy. Hopefully you enjoy them too, or are at least open minded enough to try them. If not, well, you're probably not a very pleasant person to be around, and you are definitely not a fun person to drink with, that's for sure. Stay at home please. But for everyone else, let's talk tequila for a minute.

All alcoholic beverages have one thing in common: sugar. No sugar, no alcohol. It's just that simple. If you don't know why that is the case, that's OK. I will tell you now, and everyone else will laugh at you behind your back. Just kidding. We will laugh in your face. Here is goes: sugar = food for yeast; yeast + food = fermentation.

• fer·men·ta·tion 
  n.
  

  1.
  

  a. The anaerobic conversion of sugar to carbon dioxide and alcohol by yeast.

  b. Any of a group of chemical reactions induced by living or nonliving ferments that split complex organic compounds into relatively simple substances.

Alright, so that concludes science class. Back to the booze discussion. So what you have with many alcoholic beverages is a balance between the sweetness that the sugars leave behind, and whatever other flavors are in there--naturally or otherwise--that complete the picture. In the case of some spirits, the flavor is particularly clean, and following the condensing process of distillation, the pure flavors of the resulting liquor are fine on their own. Think rum and vodka. The raw ingredients used to make those (sugar cane for rum, and various grains, primarily wheat, for vodka) leave very little residual flavor behind. When you start talking about tequila, you are talking about a process and a raw ingredient that is vastly different. Take an intimidating looking desert plant with big, sword-shaped leaves, and dig it up. Don't just dig up any old one you find. You have to dig one up that is seven years old. Six years? Sugars aren't developed enough. Eight years? Sugars are so overdeveloped that the plant starts to rot from the inside out. Seven years, no more and no less. Once you dig it up there is a large, globe shaped thing that looks like a green and white striped pineapple anchoring it into the soil. Nothing about this looks delicious at this point, and remember that the temperature in the field where these things grow is roughly five degrees beneath the temperature on the surface of the sun. Then you need to start shaving the leaves and rough exterior from the "piña" (I told you it looks like a pineapple) with a razor-shape blade on a long stick. The men who do this for a living are called "insane". No, they are actually called "jimadors". Ever heard of el Jimador tequila? Now you know why they call it that. Look how smart you can seem to friends and strangers now! You're welcome.

As if the jimadors didn't work hard enough already, these piñas aren't even close to being ready to make tequila. Split them open, and then toss them in huge ovens. Let them roast to caramelize the sugars inside them, then let them cool. (They are delicious just like that. Tastes like a squash drenched in honey). Grind them up, add water and yeast, and let it ferment. After fermentation, you start the distillation, which is basically a process of separating the alcohol from the water through heating, and then condensing the vapors. I know you didn't come here for a science lesson, but real quick: As the liquid starts to get hot, alcohol is released in the form of a vapor. Alcohol boils at a lower temperature than water. Once the vapors hits a cool series of condensing coils, the alcohol returns to a liquid form, free of the water. Voila, you have hard liquor. 

Ovens steaming away.

In the case of tequila, the piña imparts the spicy, peppery notes that you should be familiar with if you have ever had straight, un-aged tequila. When you barrel age tequila, those spicy notes get complimented by the traditional effects of oak that you may recognize from whiskey: toast, vanilla, caramel, etc. These flavors work in concert with the honey and pepper flavors from the agave piña, and you have a delicious, golden liquid bursting with complexity. If you have not had a chance to taste the Herradura Double Reposado that we selected while on a trip to Mexico in February, I suggest that you do so soon. We actually selected two different barrels, both very different from each other, and the first one is here now. The second one will be here in a month or so. This one is bright, citrusy and spicy. Just one sip of it takes me back to the sun drenched hacienda in the agave growing region of Jalisco state around Guadalajara. Once this stuff is gone, it is gone forever. The next barrel is distinctly different (that's why we bought two instead of one), and you will get to appreciate the differences when that one gets bottled and arrives at our doorstep. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. If you are afraid of tequila because of what you did in college while drinking it, don't worry. It happens to everyone. You're an adult now. Don't be scared.

Beer stuff! That's right, we have beer stuff to talk about too. The new pale ale from O'Dempsey's, called Cold One, is available at the Dallas Hwy store right now. Stop by and grab a "cold one", or two. 

Stay tuned for a listing for the 25 casks of special SweetWater beers we have. These are going to get tapped in a flurry of activity over the next few weeks. Here is what we have:

• IPA w/ grapefruit, apricots, orange & rosemary
• Imperial Stout w/ mint, lactose & cocoa
• Porter w/ chicory, vanilla & cocoa
• IPA w/ orange, grains of paradise, Cascade, Chinook, Summit & Citra hops
• Brown Ale w/ cardamom, cocoa & orange peel

Looks like a pretty fun line-up. Like I said, stay tuned. I should have that calendar ready for you next week. The last thing I have for you is an event at The Fred on Tuesday, June 4th. We will have some beers from Thornbridge in England, which is a brewery I visited recently while I was over there. These beers are outstanding, and they are part of the new guard of English breweries that are making beers outside of the "traditional" English styles. Great stuff. Terrapin did a collaboration beer with these guys while I was there, and we will have that beer (an Imperial ESB) on draft and in a firkin, plus the following:

• Thornbridge Beadeca's Well (a smoked porter)
• Thornbridge Halcyon (an IPA)
• Thornbridge Kipling (a pale ale)

FYI, these beers aren't cheap, but you're worth it. Spike from Terrapin will be there to tell everyone about his experience brewing with these British dudes and to explain the beer he made with them. I hope you can join us. Have a great Memorial Day weekend everyone. Bye!