Over the last few weeks, a bunch of stuff has happened in the craft beer world, as well as within the homebrewing world. Teach Someone to Brew day went off pretty well at Xtreme Brewing this week, a couple of couples were in learning the ins and outs of brewing. More people drifted in as the afternoon went on. We say it all the time because it’s true: Homebrewing is an important cultural phenomenon as it is a personal one. You challenge yourself to get better while sharing your beer with friends (and sometimes strangers). See what I did there? Also, we do a Facebook live beer tasting around noon on the ShoreCraftBeer Facebook page. Like it, and you’ll be notified when we go live.
In this week’s show, we’ve got plenty going on:
Brewing with Thanksgiving leftovers
This puts a whole new spin on “Turkey Drool.” We last week wrote about pumpkin pie beer, this feels as if it is a natural extension. Some of the suggestions make sense, but the notion of turning leftover turkey into beer is a tough one. My family makes it into stock and gets at least a few turkey soups out of it over the course of the year. The beer would have to be pretty tasty.
Not worth the effort
We’ve recently been covering some of the suggested DIY projects from BeerandBrewing.com, which is a cool source. Nothing really captured my imagination this week, though. Feel free to send in your suggestions, because we’d love to talk them over.
An honor to be asked
Iron Hill is turning 20 this year, and appears to have designs on growing even more over the next few years. It’s super cool (and always a little flattering) that people call and ask me about the craft beer industry. This story shouted out the podcast as well:
Yeast
Setting aside, for a second, the GMO question, this seems as if it would be a perfect addition to the homebrew market. This story is about a geneticist who started messing with yeast and came up with some efficiencies to make traditional yeasts more effective. GMOs aren’t as scary as they’ve been made out to be, and I think that’s doubly-true when it comes to yeast. After all, yeast is the medium they use to see if many genetic changes even are possible.
Near beer nearly gone
The history of near beer ties back to Prohibition and was recently rejected by Oklahoma and Colorado, two of the last few states that require only 3.2 percent beer be sold in groceries. There are a couple sides to this story, and it isn’t a slam dunk for craft beer.
Distributors
There is a new industry still trying to shake itself out of the Great Depression and there are going to be some upheavals. The distributor issue, as with so many others, is complex. We’ll start here, talking about the ways distributors both help and hurt craft beer, but there were a ton of industry stories this week that were particularly linked.
Asked and Answered
I’m occasionally asked about beer industry stuff, and although we have made an effort to get away from economics, it is important to remember that not everyone is as engrossed in this stuff as we are. Someone wondered about why Bud and other
Speaking of which
It’s a topic worth discussing. As big beer continues gobbling up craft breweries, people who lobby on their behalf have a decision to make. There are lots of good reasons for kicking breweries out when they’re controlled b AB InBev or the like, but there also are reasons for keeping them in. It’s complex, so we’ll have a go at it.
Have beer will travel
We’ve mentioned it before, but it’s cool to see the cans in real life. I think this is going to be a really big deal, or at least I hope it is. As the selection of cans increases, it gets a lot easier to choose craft beer to go.
Recipe
This week’s recipe is on my shortlist. It’s one of my go-tos when at a Mexican place, so trying it at home with a sour beer makes perfect sense.
Like and Subscribe
In case you didn’t know, these are the show notes for the Beer with Strangers podcast. If you’re interested in the show it’s at BeerWithStrangers.com, or you can follow along on our Facebook page. Of course, you always can subscribe on iTunes as well. If you’re looking for Doug and Homebrewing stuff, you can find their Facebook page here.
