The Craft Beer rating website Brewpot.com is up!

After what seems like FOREVER Brewpot.com is up and working rather smoothly.  Some of the searching is a bit cumbersome and I recommend typing in what you are looking for and waiting for the drop down box to suggest you what you want.  Also you will need to remove the location because the restaurants haven’t been added to the system yet and beers are only located by their brewery.  The Beer rating functionality is working and is explained in either education/how to rate or “first time here?” link.  Please set up an account and profile some beers.  Give me tons of feedback either on this blog or through the brewpot messaging system.  There is a cool feature of beer news down in the “Industry News” column of the page, which can be cool.  I also hired Jessica Moss, the beer maestro for Muss and Turners who also has been written about in the Atlantan as well as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  She is an amazing find and a great writer and having her on board will get brewpot some awesome content.  I also plan on bundling beer blogs into one easy to get place.  Unfortunately, this stuff just takes time!  I am working my web developers as fast as I can.

If you live in Illinois you might want to try some beer with your pizza-beer??

Tom Seefurth has created the worlds first culinary beer, “Mamma Mia Pizza Beer” and its now available in Peoria, IL and throughout the region. I haven’t had a chance to try it but a girl I am dating is flying up that way for a conference, so hopefully she can bring me back some!  My question is, when can you get it with pepperoni or anchovies?

Beer prices to increase $1.80 per sixpack in CA

Craft beer has already seen a surge in prices with the average six pack costing $1 more due to hops and barley shortages. Now California says it is broke and part of its plan is to increase taxes on beer by $1.80. This would be devastating to the craft beer community because many Californians would think twice about buying a delicious locally grown and supported craft beer for a cheaper macrobrew. Read about the article here in the politics section of the LATimes.

If you don’t live in California and California legislature passes this bill, your state could easily be next!

The bill does not have a number yet but Jim Beall is the most radical assemblyman trying to pass this. (AB number pending, sponsor Jim Beall, D-San Jose)

“Some people are e-mailing, threatening to come and slug me,” said Assemblyman Jim Beall (D-San Jose)

Miller Lite gets into Craft Beer?

Yes, its true.  Miller test markets went well this Spring in 4 US cities and is now going to start brewing craft style beers.  Their slogan “Craft beer done lite” describes the product exactly.  I was able to get my hands on the Miller Lite Craft-style Amber and I must say it was more than disappointing to a craft beer drinker.  I wasn’t able to officially rate it because of time constraints and the fact that 2400 of us Craft Brewer Conference attendees where just given samples of about 2000 beers left over from the judges in the World Beer Cup!  I do remember it being watered down and being able to taste the artificial flavors.  I must say, however that I am glad this product is coming out because beer drinkers who exclusively drink light lagers will notice a step up and this product may very well be the stepping stone to a serious local made craft brew!  It will be interesting to see how this new brand extension does.   Read the AP article here:

Miller lite is also coming out with Wheat and Blonde craft style beers.

Jim Koch, founder of Samuel Adams, possibly the nicest man on the planet?

How many companies do you know that when supplies are high in demand, they help their competitors by giving them excess supplies that they have?  This is exactly what founder of Sam Adams Jim Koch is doing and its called the Hops Sharing Program.  As you may already know, there is a huge hops shortage right now where supplies aren’t just much higher but often times unavailable.  This is when Jim looked at his own supplies and decided that he could afford to sell some of his hops at cost to help out the industry as a whole.   If this isn’t one of the nicest things a competitor has done for his competition, then I don’t know what is.  I challenge the other big guys out there to look at their own supplies and do the same thing, you know who you are.  That being said, I know what beer I will be ordering tonight!

Website set to launch next week!

Hey guys, I know it has been FOREVER and a day, but finally I have gotten word from my web developers that the website is scheduled to launch early next week.  Of course, there will be tons of issues as well as functionality not yet built, but at this time users should be able to rate, review, and get suggestions of beers as well as locations and can start adding in your own data.  I am doing all I can to promote the website so theres a lot of users but my hands are tied in the web development side!  Thanks everyone for being so patient.  Check it out!

New Brewpot website!

I know it has felt like forever but the days are getting shorter!  Everyone can now preview the new Brewpot.com website by going to www.brewpot.com.  You can sign up for an account and check out the formatting and layout.  If you signed up for an account on the previous layout, your information is not lost, but may not be loaded as we are all working day and night trying to repopulate the database with breweries, beers, bars, user information, etc etc!!  Its a large project, much larger than I realized when i first got in but its definitely been worth it!  Also, I have been battling the flu for the past 4 days, so that hasn’t been helping.  I think I’m through the worst of it, but my energy level is still way down, so I am not sure how much I can get done today, unfortunately.  That’s all for now.  RSS this so you can keep up with the very latest, or become a facebook fan!!

Version 2 of design spec..

 Please comment and tell me what is great and not so great about this as a design.  The more negative feedback is more helpful so feel free to rip it apart and punch holes in it.  Take no prisoners!! Also suggestions for how to make it better are appreciated as well!!

Thanks.

Jay

Big Breweries trying to get smaller, smaller Breweries trying to get bigger!

I wrote an article back about the macrobreweries, namely Anheuser-Busch (AB), Miller and Coors all trying to act smaller with lines of their beer trying to be marketed as craft beer. AB has taken it to a whole new level deciding last month after 111 years that Michelob is now a craft beer! If you watch football at all, perhaps you have seen these new commercials. I think its pretty funny that the big guys are trying to do this and just shows how desired Brewpot.com will be even by the big guys, who I originally thought would have no interest in me. The article I read interviews Gary Fish the owner of Deschutes Brewery out in Oregon, whom I have talked to on several occasions, and has advised me well, as well as Julia Herz the Director of Craft Beer marketing for the Brewers Association who is helping me market Brewpot.com. Gary states that he is not bothered by the big guys thinking small because if they can convert typical Bud drinkers to try other styles then it will be easy to bridge the gap from AB’s Longhammer IPA to a much more delicious Inversion IPA made by Deschutes. You can read the entire article here.

Highland Brewery at Muss & Turners
Last week, I wrote an article on the beer tasting events at Muss & Turners, and I must say that those people are on the front lines of the craft beer industry. They have beer tasting events every week and last Monday, I had the rare treat of a food & beer tasting event. The owner of Highland Brewery in Asheville, NC, Oscar Wong drove down and allowed the head chef of M&T Ryan Hidinger to sample each and every beer and use his expertise to pair it with the food. The results were absolutely fantastic!! Besides Oscar being a fun and interesting man, who interestingly enough was an engineer for 22 years, the pairings complemented themselves far better than I could have tried to do! I will try and remember this the best that I can:

Gaelic Ale paired with steamed mussels (of course, I cant remember what sauce was used but the flavors went very well)

Kashmir IPA which had a very noticible bitter sawgrass flavor (which I love by the way.. I am becoming a total hophead) paired with this most amazing green salad with a creamy aeola dressing

Tasgall ale (scotch-style) that had a very dark and rich flavor paired excellently with Scotch eggs (hardboiled eggs wrapped in a spicy sausage)

I may have these next two confused and I promise to take much better notes from now on. As you can see this is the first time I have really been doing these things, so I am learning what I need to remember and what I don’t, and frankly after I got to this part of the night, remembering specific details became a little more difficult!

Oatmeal porter and the Black Mocha Stout paired with smoked pork and a chocolate cake a la mode with spiced and candied peaches.

Click here for a listing and description of Highland Brewery’s beers.

Soon, when the website is up, I will be taking FAR better notes and I will use a flavor wheel on each beer that I try. I will also be having weekly tastings at my apt, so if you want to drink some free beer and don’t mind adding your thoughts to my website, contact me and I will try and get you in!

Here is a picture of Oscar Wong and me.

Site updates:

As you saw in my last post, I got a design spec from Solar Velocity, my web developers. I was a little worried about all the blank space of barley (which a lot of people thought were wheat, or corn btw) and talked to the head of design and he told me that that would be the area where I would have rotating blurbs of featured bars, restaurants, breweries, site news etc etc. I know I asked you guys to tell me your thoughts but there is a lot of things that the picture just did not do justice. For instance they are going to animate bubbles, ever so subtly of the beers on the front page. The background is also going to change with the seasons. I promise to show you everything new as it happens! As for today, I am driving out to Athens, GA to speak with the owner of Terrapin Brewery who I met last Thursday at Muss & Turners to see how we can help each other out. Cheers for now!

Muss & Turners, Design specs, Updates.

Hey guys,

I hope you all had a great weekend.  I know that I did.  Last Thursday, I went to Muss & Turners for a $20 beer tasting hosted by Bob Townsend of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  The event was fantastic with about 20 people all trying beers that were well over $20.  We had an imperial stout, and barley wines including one that was cellared for 8 years from the  Dogwood Brewing Company that no longer is in existance.  Many of the beers were priceless in that sense.  I took great notes on each of the beers, but like an idiot, I left them on the table so I cannot remember them by name, although with a little research, I could probably figure it out.  I do remember an American-style barley wine (think: hopped beyond belief)  which tasted absolutely brilliant and had a wonderful grapefruit aftertaste.  Anyways, M&T does these tasting every week and I plan on going to more and this time, remembering my score card and keeping track!!  Besides giving Bob a media kit, the owner of Terrapin Brewery in Athens, GA, Spike, was also there.  I set up a meeting to talk to him so that is very exciting as well!  Here is a candid picture in the middle of the explanation of the styles.

Design Specs-  I just got my first design mock ups from my web developer.  Please comment and tell me what you think.

There is a food & beer pairing going on at M&T tonight so if you want to come out, I will be there from 6:30 to approx. 8:30.

That is about it for now!  Won’t be long now!