Beer News: Drinking for good and gooding for drink

Finally, someone put all this drinking energy we have towards a good cause. In other news, there’s a new beer pub(lication) in town, and other hoppy things going on in other parts of the world.

February 20, 2015; 9:52 AM • by Ross Catrow

A million years from now, on June 18th, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation will host the second annual Brewer’s Ball. Besides celebrating Richmond beer and raising money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, it also a pits a group of promising young professionals against each other in a fundraising duel of epic proportions. No, just kidding, it’s a genial collaborative effort to raise money for a good cause. And drink beer! Tickets are on sale now, and you should buy one…unless you are a bad person.

Style Weekly has a new beer-related print publication you can find stuffed inside of Style Weekly proper. It’s called “Growler“, helmed by the venerable Brandon Fox, and will be published thrice yearly. Featured in this inaugural issue: Garden Grove Brewery, an excerpt from Lee Graves’s beer book, a beer cocktail or two, and a look at our town’s sour beers.

A reminder: Brew recently opened over on the Southside, and every Saturday at 4:00 PM they host a “beer school.” Learn a bit about beer and nosh on some free samples.

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From elsewhere…

While Googling around to learn a bit more about Berliner Braunbiers (see below), I stumbled across this super interesting list of extinct German beer styles, lost to the 1870-1920 lager revolution.

The craft brewing world is still peeved about that Budweiser Super Bowl commercial. Men’s Journal has an interview with Dogfish Head’s Sam Calagione, wherein they ask him what he thinks about In-Bev buying up craft breweries. His response is so good:

I get it that a number of the patriarchs of craft brewing are getting to retirement and trying to figure out how to transition out of brewing. So I’d never shit on somebody’s decision to sell out.

The whole thing is worth a read.

Takeovers and releases

Ardent has brewed a Berliner Braunbier, which sounds delicious: “a rare, all but lost pre-WWII German brown ale…slightly tart, sessionable.” Stop by Postbellum tonight, February 20th, to get a sneak taste or hit up the brewery on Saturday the 21st.
Triple Crossing’s American Amber Ale returns and also sounds delicious: “while still dry and pintable, it offers notes of toasty caramel, pale ale malt biscuit, and tons of sweet bright centennial whirpool and dry hop character.”
Yesterday, The Answer welcomed Alpine Beer Company to the East Coast for the first time. They’ve got six different beers on tap, each one a special snowflake that I’ve never tasted. PS. The Hoppy Birthday scores a 100 on Beer Advocate.

Photo by: adrianpike