More or less "why do you want to work here," and "what's the last really great beer you had?" Nothing detailed or specific, but I did go into some research I've done on their distribution options. I apologized for maybe doing too much, and he chuckled and said it wasn't a bad thing.

He pops up on beer blogs and forums sometimes and makes rambling comments that sorta make me raise an eyebrow. I feel like he'd be above it, or that maybe he should, but then maybe I'm wrong. Also the entire branding ethos of arrogance is a huge turn off for me.

Hoegaarden is my favorite beer.

Looking at their website, I saw this....



$100 to anyone who can find a place in America who will ship this to me. Three local stores told me they cannot get it...

Had a Drafty Kilt the other night and thought it was pretty damn good (and I'm not the biggest scotch ale fan).

This might be an odd place to say this, but I am slowly preparing a brewery centric resume for jobs in the Denver area. My brother has had two transplant evaluations at the UC Hospital in Aurora and he will most likely have another one here in the next few months. I actually love living in Nebraska, but I certainly wouldn't pass up the opportunity to relocate to one of the greatest beer cities in America and to use the connections I have started to accumulate to get a brewery job or one with the Brewers Association/GABF.
It's still a ways off, but I am starting to do my research in case I need to do it. I'm not above starting from the bottom and working my way up and I'd accept a production line job over a brewery job if it got my foot in the door at a place like Great Divide.

Well shit, Prom, that's great news. I hope it pans out.

Eagle Rock Brewery close their tap room and hold a beer education class about 3-4 times a year. Previous classes have been on bock, adjuncts, recipe formulation, brettanomyces, aging beers, etc. It seemed like a pretty cool thing to do but I don't really have much interest in homebrewing anymore so I'd never bothered to go to any of them. Last night's class though was on wild ales/sours which are my favorite style so I went.

I'd say at least half of the people in the class were home brewers or brewers. There were a couple of brewers from other breweries there. It was a pretty casual thing. They had Jeff Sparrow who wrote "Wild Brews: Culture and Craftmanship in the Belgian Tradition" which I guess is one of the bibles on making wild ales led the class and Eagle Rock's Owner and Head Brewer also spoke alot about how they approach making wild ales and sours.

We tasted five examples of wild ales:

Craftsman Summer Sumac which is a wheat beer with Sumac and Brett added - pretty cool little summer sipper with lots of tart citrus flavors both from the sumac and the brett

Logsdon Seizon Bretta which I've probably talked enough about here

Eagle Rock's Tarte Noir which uses a heavier version of their mild ale as a base with Brett, Lactobacillus and Pediococcus added. Very delicious. They talked a little about their struggles making this. Milds are already a pretty thin beer style and adding wild yeast and microfloura that eat more sugars than typical yeast resulted in it just being way too thin so they had to make a heavier version of the mild just for this beer and blend the two.

Strand Brewing Company's Ito Weisse Berliner Weiss

This was very different and at least in my opinion, a really cool and interesting beer. Smelled and tasted so strongly like gouda cheese that I found myself surprised that it didn't have a crumbly, powdery mouthfeel to it. Most people didn't like, but I though it was great even if it wasn't a beer I'd want to drink everyday.

Eagle Rock's Yearling Flanders Ale

They use a Bock as a base beer and add Brett, Lactobacillus and Pediococcus along with more typical american ale yeast. The microfloura is added at the primary fermentation stage and their brewer said that on a whim when they emptied their tank from a blond sour, they didn't bother to clean it before filling it with the yearling so the microfloura cap from that beer was left to work on this one. If my memory is right, it spent about 3 months in that stainless steel fermentation tank and then another 8-9 months in oak. It was pretty terrific with strong cherry pit and almond flavors. I ended up buying a couple of bottles.

Over all, a pretty cool experience. They balanced it well between getting too nerdy and technical for the brewers in the crowd and being just about the beer flavors for the rest of us. That book would probably be a pretty good resource if anyone cares to try to dabble in homebrewing sours. It sounded like its a little tricky to do on a homebrew scale without oak barrels, but as they pointed out, even good craft brewers end up having to dump a lot of their sour because it's really difficult to know what the finished products are going to taste like and they pretty much have to do blending with these beers to get them right.

Fascinating.

And the Berliner Weisse beers from Night Shift have been pretty popular. I have yet to try one, though.

What was your answer?

I was thinking a little about how you and Bloor (and Stu?) were arguing that Sours were the next new big thing. Eagle Rock's Brewer was saying that what attracts him to making sours is that there is a lot of mystery involved with them. I'm reading a little bit into his remarks, but I think as a commercial brewer that has worked for 5 years as a craft brewer and presumably much longer as a homebrewer perfecting his recipes, he pretty much knows what his IPAs, Stouts, Pale Ales, etc are going to taste like everytime. But wild yeast and microfloura are just much more unpredictable so that mystery maybe takes him back to the excitement that he felt as a beginning homebrewer. I'd imagine that's true for a lot of a lot of brewers just dabbling in wild ales. Make sense?

Completely makes sense. Like any sort of craftsman or artist dabbling in a new medium. It's inspiring.

Then again, I'm sure there are plenty who are just lamely attempting to brew them to stand out in the crowd.

"Everybody's brewing IPA's..........LET'S DO A SOUR BRO!!" *failsmiserably*


Also, that beer class sounds awesome.

I think the same thing you say attracts brewers to making them, is what attracts me to drinking them, BG--I literally have no idea what the hell its going to taste like, whereas with most other styles you do (whether you like Company X or Company Y's version of that given style is a whole other thing)

My answer was "a friend just smuggled me some Two Hearted from PA, which is awesome because ever since I moved from Wisconsin I can't get it anymore, and it used to be my go-to. Best sixpack IPA in the world for me, bar none." His response: "Oh man, that's the first beer I tried to clone as a homebrewer." I said "it's alllll Centennial" and he chuckled "yep." Then we talked about how awesome honey malt is.

Sours: There's an explanative narrative I've used at work sometimes to describe therapeutic protein expression manufacturing, that applies equally well to brewing normal beers (and even more so to sours.) "Yes we have controls and checks and SOPs and lots of amazing equipment, but at the end of the day we're just asking microbes to do us a favor. We put them in a controlled space, surround them with their favorite food, and cross our fingers. We can't actually make them do anything. And if they don't feel like doing it... then we're not going to get our stuff that day." Making well-defined yeast-only beer styles is something that with money and patience you can control to a remarkable degree, but sours… it’s a wonderful crap shoot. It’s a house party with a gigantic wide open door, and whoever happens to stop by stops by. Hopefully they don’t shit on your couch or pee in your house plants.

A must-read article on Hill Farmstead. Here.

And a bit of info from a coworker with a house up there who is also a beer hound:

Nothing real special, but I am enjoying some Hofbrau Munchen Original tonight. It's been unbelievably hot here this week, so a nice Helles goes a long way on a night like this.

Anyone had these yet?:

http://drinkinsider.com/2013/08/craft-b ... mens-club/

I haven't seen them in any of my shops yet but I'm hoping to find them.

So who can tell me where the best chance to buy Heady Topper is in Burlington or Waterbury?

My folks are making a trek through the Northeast and will be cruising through both places.

If I can give them locations and availability, they have told me they'll pick me up some.

Cap? Wench?

finally found a place near me that had this! YAY ME!

Waterbury for sure, and it's a small place so the brewery is the best way to go. What matters is the day of the week. They release every monday, and by thursday or friday for sure they are sold OUT. So if they're coming through on a weekend, it doesn't matter where they go, there will be none to find other than a 2 oz pour sample at the brewery.

The brewery is where Google thinks it is (sometimes they're wrong): 35 Crossroad, Waterbury, VT. There are other stores around Waterbury that stock it too, but again it's the day of week that makes all the difference.

Oh and I got invited to Round 2 Interviews at Night Shift, going in Friday at 4. Holyfuckholyfuckholyfuck, it's like this 170 page thread has all been building up to something.

NICE!

Go go go!

What he said. It's possible to find it at whatever liquor stores carry it, as I've walked in to one and grabbed a four pack with no issue at all, but I'm in Southern Vermont, so maybe the demand is higher near the brewery itself. Or I've just been lucky.