History Lesson: The Story of Beer

Manolith.com has posted a graphical timeline of the History of Beer. While there may be some historical errors or omissions, the chart is a novel, and humorous, look at some of the milestones in the history of beer. Some interesting points in time include the "Dark Age of Beer" (it's not what you may think), the first canned beer, beer pong, along with mention of some, umm, memorable beer advertising.

See the entire History of Beer.

Local Mead Brewing Team Shines Again

The 2009 Mazer Cup International Mead Contest was held in April 17-19 in Boulder, CO. The local brewing team of Aaron (Zacc) and Barbra Zaccagnino were awarded a silver medal in category 25C – Other Fruit Melomel for their Berry Berry Quite Contrary mead. The Mazer Cup is a mead-only competition. Readers will recall that Zacc and Barbra garnered a Gold medal last year at the American Homebrewers Association National Homebrew Competition for one of their meads.

Congratulations Zacc and Barbra!

The Many Faces of Craft Brewing

This video, "I Am A Craft Brewer" was presented as part of Greg Koch’s keynote speech at the Craft Brewers Conference this week. It has made its way onto numerous beer blogs, but it's worth repeating here. Many well-recognized faces from the craft beer industry make an appearance. Enjoy!


I Am A Craft Brewer from I Am A Craft Brewer on Vimeo.

So, how many of the 35 craft brewers did you recognize?

Great Divide Returns to Virginia

Regular readers know that the Great Divide Taproom is on my "must stop" list whenever I visit Denver. Last June I lamented on this blog that Great Divide beers were no longer being distributed in Virginia. Recently I saw a post on Beer Advocate stating that the beers were back in Virginia. Not wanting to get my hopes up over a rumor, I immediately emailed Great Divide for confirmation. I received positive news from Patrick at the brewery today:

Thanks for getting in touch and for the support. You are correct, we are once again distributing to VA. We have two distributors there, Hop & Wine Beverage in Sterling and Specialty Beverage in Richmond. Let me know if you need anything else.

Regards,
Patrick Langlois
Great Divide Brewing Co.

Well, there you have it. I'm excited and look forward to seeing these beers on the shelves. (And there's a hint for my local retailers.)

Chip Off the Ol' Brewer

They say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I don't know about apples, but it must hold true for brewing talent. Local home brewer and "Proud Poppa" Lyle Brown announced to the FABTS mailing list today that his son Kevin has accepted a position as a 3rd shift brewer at Starr Hill Brewery. Readers will recall that Lyle teamed up with Starr Hill to take a Silver medal at the 2008 GABF Pro-Am competition. Kevin was previously a part-time brewer at Blue & Gray Brewing. He starts at Starr Hill in two weeks.

Congratulations Kevin!

Two Upcoming Local Beer Events

Here are a couple of beer events happening soon in Fredericksburg that sound like they will be a lot of fun.

Sierra Nevada Beer Dinner at Kenmore Inn
The Fredericksburg Brewing Insiders web page carried the announcement of a beer dinner on Friday April 24 at Kenmore Inn to be presented by Scott Hite of Sierra Nevada brewing. The four-course dinner will include Sierra Nevada's Torpedo, Summerfest, Brown Saison, and Stout beers. The cost of the dinner is $40 per person. Get details at www.kenmoreinn.com. I'll be on a Boy Scout camporee that evening so I will unfortunately will miss this. If you go, let us know how it turned out.

Beer Class at Capital Ale House
Mid-Atlantic Brewing News writer Jeff Wells will present a beer class entitled "Emergence of East Coast Breweries" at Capital Ale House on Thursday April 30. Jeff says "I will be discussing the American Craft Beer revolution and how it swept East in the 80's and early 90's and beyond. My list is not completely finished but we will probably be tasting beers from Allagash, Brooklyn, Clipper City, Dogfish Head, Legend, Troeg's, Victory and perhaps a few more." This sounds very interesting. The class starts runs 6:00 - 7:30 PM and costs a mere $8.00. This happens to be the day before I head to Raleigh for World Beer Festival, so I will be attending. I hope to see you there!

Two great events right here in Fredericksburg. Very exciting!

Capital Ale House Project Virginia

Capital Ale House President Matthew Simmons recently announced a new commitment to support Virginia products. Simmons says Project Virginia is the Ale House's "plan of company goals and commitments to our guests, communities and State." The project's goals include an emphasis on Virginia beer and other alcoholic beverages.

Capital Ale House will make an increased commitment to the State of Virginia by setting a goal, July 2009 through June 2010, to purchase a minimum of $1,500,000 of services by Virginians and products grown, raised, caught, distilled, brewed and fermented in the State of Virginia.

Virginia Beer: We will stock and sell every available micro-brewed beer produced in the State of Virginia. We will strive to add more Virginia beer related events and greatly expand the upcoming 2nd Annual Virginia Beer Festival later this summer.

Virginia Wine: We will commit a minimum 30% of our wine list to Virginia wines and offer these wines by the glass as house pours.

Virginia Spirits: We have recently changed from the Russian made Stolichnaya Vodka as our house pour to the Gold Medal winning Cirrus Vodka. Not only is this vodka better, it’s made here in Richmond. We hope more premium spirits made in Virginia will be presented to us in the future.

Virginia Foods: Each of our restaurants will feature a daily 100 Mile Special. The main ingredient in these specials will have been produced, raised or caught by Virginians. We will, whenever possible, choose Virginia products first.

The focus on Virginia-produced beers is a great way to introduce more people to the many fine Virginia breweries. Capital Ale House will also be contributing to local charities with both monetary donations and by supporting Ale House employees who wish to devote time to community service projects. Kudos to Capital Ale House for their efforts to support the local economy.

You can read the complete announcement details on the Capital Ale House website.

Fredericksburg Group Participates in Guinness Record Attempt

Members of the Fredericksburg Area Brewing & Tasting Society took part in a Guinness Book of Records attempt for the largest simultaneous toast in the world. The event was organized as part of the UK's National Cask Ale Week. During their regular monthly meeting, the local group raised a toast Saturday at 2:00 PM. The Free Lance-Star was on hand to provide coverage:

Glancing down at his watch, Lyle Brown poured the members of the Fredericksburg Area Brewing & Tasting Society glasses of his own brew, Trafalgar Premium Bitter.

Around a table laden with cheese, olives and a unique assortment of pilsners, lagers and stouts, the founder of the group dedicated to making and tasting interesting beer readied his peers to take part in history.

Instructing the dozen or so assembled in the back room of Kybecca Wine & Gourmet in Spotsylvania County to raise their glasses, Brown counted off the seconds until his Naval Observatory-synched watch hit 2 p.m Saturday.

At that second, they joined folks at more than 6,000 locations around the world in an effort to break the record for the World's Largest Toast.

It will take some time for the world-wide participants to be tallied, but it was a great chance for the group to participate. Unfortunately the day also happened to be Holy Saturday, which for me was a "quiet" day, so I was unable to attend.

See the entire Free Lance-Star article here.