The Bruery At Good Beer

[link to podcast page]

The Bruery At Good Beer podcast

Every Tuesday Good Beer on E. 9th Street in the East Village hosts a craft beer event, usually featuring a number of beers from one particular brewery. On April 16, 2013, The Bruery of Orange Country, CA was the guest of honor, with six of their unique barrel aged beers on tap. 

The Bruery (named for owners the Rue family) was founded in 2008, and is one of the largest producers of barrel aged craft beer in America. Having so many of their beers on tap in one place at one time is very special -- most associate them with their bottle conditioned offerings.

Good Beer was packed at 6:30pm on a Tuesday with people thirsty for a taste of the often hard to find and generally expensive American sours. Those lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time also got a taste of bottle conditioned Papier, the Bruery's 1-year anniversary brew. Four years down the road, it was dark, rich, deep, complex, nicely oxidized, and was a welcome additional surprise! Thanks to Mike of Union and David of Good Beer for sharing!

Full house on a Tuesday!

Port Jeff Brewing

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WFMU's Beer Hear! Port Jeff Brewing Podcast

Mike Philbrick, the owner of Port Jeff Brewing of Port Jefferson, NY was the guest of the Malted Barley Appreciation Society on April 10, 2013 at Mugs Alehouse in Williamsburg. He started brewing in college as a homebrewer which eventually lead him to found the 7-barrel Long Island brewery in Sept. of 2011.

Mike of Port Jeff (Photo by Warren Becker)

 Among the many topics covered by Mike was his extensive barrel aging program which he began on day-one of the brewery. He also spoke about his unfiltered bottle conditioned Porter and Pale Ale, the benefits of being self-distributed, and gave some insight into the frustrating red tape involved with starting a small brewery.

The tasting room at Port Jeff.

Hear an edited version of his presentation on this installment of the Beer Hear podcast!

(photo WB)

The entrance to the brew house.

Club prez Felice with Mike. (photo WB)

Clearly happy to have a Salty Dog t-shirt! (photo WB)

(photo WB)

Rockaway Brewing

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WFMU's Beer Hear! Rockaway Brewing Podcast

Recently, Ethan Long of Rockaway Brewing was the guest speaker at a meeting of the Malted Barley Appreciation Society homebrew club at Mugs Alehouse in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

 

Though the 2-barrel nano-brewery is located in Long Island City, Ethan and partner Marcus Burnett, had long been homebrewing buddies at their summer bungalows in the Rockaways. That's where they first dreamt up the idea to create a commercial, albeit tiny, brewery.

 

The operation was licensed in April of 2013 and began brewing two months later. Their ESB and Black Gold Stout have been flowing at a handful of NYC craft beer bars since. In addition to being served at Alewife, Proletariat, Sunswick, Jimmy's No. 43, Kickshaw and others, Rockaway Brewing scored big by getting their brew on the menus of reputed local Rockaway eateries Rockaway Taco and Caracas Arapa, as well as LIC-based John Brown Smokehouse. They also serve the public growlers to go direct from their brewery Thursdays through Saturdays at 5-01 46th Ave. in Long Island City, not far from Silver Cup Studios -- which is convenient for Ethan, since his "day job" as an independent set builder is also located there! Marcus also works in the film industry as a cinematographer, filming documentaries for National Geographic.

Ethan of Rockaway Brewing with MBAS president Felice

Rockaway Brewing fires up the kettle in the 1000 sq ft brewhouse on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, delivering their goods themselves on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Aside from always being able to find one of their beers at Alewife and Caracas Arapa, they brew a special nitro-system Oyster Stout for Vinegar Hill House at 72 Hudson Ave.

Rockaway Brewing on Jimmy's No. 43 tap tower

There's a very good piece on nano-brewing, which features Ethan, on American Public Radio, and Jimmy Carbone's Beer Sessions Radio featured them last summer. And, of course, you can hear Ethan's address to the MBAS right here!

In a bonus podcast, Ethan explains that Rockaway Brewing is not located in the Rockaways but in Long Island City near the East River, and that, ironically, his bungalow in the Rockaways sustained less flood damage than the brewery did during Sandy.

 

Sixpoint 3 Beans Part Deux

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WFMU's Beer Hear! 3 Beans Part Deux Podcast

Last week B.R. and I did a side by side comparison of the Sixpoint 3 Beans Baltic Porter, made with Romano beans, coffee and cocao, and Montréal's Dieu Du Ciel Péché Mortel, a Coffee Imperial Stout. We found that both beers, while quite different in many ways, share a lot of characteristics.

As I continued to ponder the two beers it occurred to be that many of the characteristics that separated the them could be bridged by another DDC beer, the Aphrodisiaque, or as it's known in the U.S., the Aphrodite. As it turns out, the often irrational Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) thinks that you're so dumb that you'll think that a beer named "Aphrodisiaque" is an actual aphrodisiac (which it probably is, anyway!), so a name change was required. People in Canada are apparently much more sophisticated, and can differentiate a clever name from a literal description. But that's the subject for another post.

We invited our pal Paul from our MBAS homebrew club over to help us with an experiment to blend Péché Mortel with Aphrodite, a 6.5% Cocoa Vanilla Stout, to try to create a beverage that, as closely as possible, approximated the 3 Beans, for no good reason other than it would be fun and a good excuse to share some excellent beers.

The three of us would each try our hand at making the blend. We set out four glasses each, three for the three different beers and one for the blend -- a highball glass for the Péché, a small goblet for the Aphrodite, a wine glass for the 3 Beans and a large goblet for the blend.

Without discussing our techniques prior, we each had a different approach. I started with mixing a 50/50 blend, and found that the aroma was quite muddled, and the flavor favored the coffee bitterness of the Péché. B.R. went heavy on the Péché, while Paul went for a higher ratio of Aphrodite.

You can hear how the experiment unfolded, and how the different blends turned out in this week's podcast. In the end, though, we were left with three incredible beers and one very interesting blend -- and you can't lose with that situation!

East Coast Vs West Coast Punk Rock Brew Tour

[link to podcast page]
WFMU's Beer Hear! East Coast Vs West Coast Podcast

Three years ago, Smuttynose's NY sales rep Pat Fondiller started the East Coast Vs West Coast Brew Tour with two East Coast craft brewers and two from the West Coast. The idea was to take over the taps of a bar while a particular music genre battled over the sound system (think East Coast Hip Hop artists vs. West Coast Hip Hop artists) and the beers battled on the tap towers.

(C) Jan from Sierra Nevada, (R) B.R.

Pat said that the inspiration of the annual event was the fact that all of his music-centric pals drank terrible beer, and this was an excuse to try to get them turned on to the good stuff.

Jeff from Sixpoint, unidentified person, Pat from Smutty and Yvon from Oscar Blues.

We went to Barcade Jersey City, one stop on the 8-city stops on the tour, to talk to Pat about the history of the EC/WC Brew Tour, the schedule for this year's installment, as well as some of his ideas for future tours. One thing he told us was that, continuing with the beer/music collaborative themes, Smuttynose Director of Brewing Operations Dave Yarrington wants to brew a beer called  "B.W.A. -- Straight Out Of Hampton" once that their new facility opens in Hampton, N.H.! Suckers to tha side I know you hate my I.P.A. -- you're gunna get hops!

Barcade JC

Here are all the remaining dates left on the tour:


April 9 Bronx Alehouse -- Bronx, NY
April 10 Birdsall House -- Peekskill, NY
April 11 The Black Sheep Ale House -- Mineola, NY
April 12 Beer Authority -- NYC, NY
April 16 Julians -- Providence, RI
April 17 The Independent -- Providence, RI
April 18 Bar Matchless -- Brooklyn, NY


See ALL the dates for this year on the tour's FaceBook page.

Don't believe in Beer Santa? Now you do.

Sierra's Jan with his pal Liz of WFMU