First, I have a bit of backstory for everyone. This episode was first recorded mid-February, following the Minnesota Craft Brewer’s Winterfest. We lost that original audio and our reviews for some New Glarus beers. So we recorded again, with most of the same conversation and two new Dogfish Head beers at a later date. We nearly lost that audio as well. It’s mid-April and nearly all of the news presented in this episode is nearly irrelevant now. Events have passed by. However, I maintain that Shawn and I probably had our best conversation yet, which is why I had to drag this episode kicking and screaming through the editing process and now lay it out for you listeners here today.

Winterfest in St. Paul was an incredible experience because it brought together the great brewing minds of Minnesota with the large community of craft beer drinkers. In this show we talk about our favorite selections of beer available as well as those that may have missed the mark. This week’s reviews are of Dogfish Head Brewery’s Indian Brown Ale and Raison D’etre. There’s plenty of conversation about homebrewing, Twitter, as well as the changing laws in Iowa’s beer culture. Without further delay, I present the longest recorded episode of The Beer Genome Project. Thanks for listening this week, cheers!

read more…

True story: The Wench is a gypsy. She calls no one place home. It is almost impossible to trace her. In fact, she probably does not have a legitimate postal address.

But, if she was to claim one place as home … it would be New York.

So here is the deal: I grew up in NY, just 60 miles north of NYC. My parents still live in the Hudson Valley. My father commutes to White Plains every day for work.

Naturally, I have a bit of New York pride in me. So when I discovered Captain Lawrence Brewing Co. during Great American Beer Festival 2009, I was excited. Okay, so maybe I fell in love with Captain Lawrence. But it was not for its NY location, but for its awesome beer.

It happens.
read more…

On my way to Washington over the weekend, I had a chance to meet up with @SudsyMaggie at the Denver International Airport. Maggie is a fellow beer reviewer and homebrewing friend whose website can be found at maggiesudduth.com. This meet-up at DEN was mostly by chance and through a few exchanges on Twitter – this social networking thing was been playing to my advantage during my stay in Washington. Between flights, Maggie and I decided that we’d try a sampler flight at the Denver ChopHouse. Check out the quick audio clip below.

If you live in Iowa and love beer, hopefully you have heard of John’s Grocery of Iowa City. Up to this point, it has been one of the greatest stores in Iowa to find the available crazy beers, and in particular, the Belgian beers. Since the Iowa Beer Equality act passed, we have been waiting to hear what breweries will be first to the new market with higher ABV beers available for sale in the state. Today we got an email from John’s Grocery stating that the store will be hosting an event on Thursday, March 25th at 11:59 PM to release a number of Bells’ beers. On that list of beer is Third Coast Ale, Expedition Stout, Two Hearted Ale, and a number of others including Hopslam. read more…

This episode was probably recorded somewhere near the beginning of winter 2009. So even though it’s a few months past recording date, there is quite a bit of relevant information to be taken from this episode. I was joined by Jason to review the 2009 Oak Aged Imperial Stout from Left Hand Brewing of Colorado. The history of the Russian Imperial Stout style is of interest as it played to both the drinking culture of the region as well as having to endure the process of being shipped across the Baltic. There have certainly been similar discussions about the strength of beers shipped from Britain to India. One note of interest is the oak casks used for the aging of this Imperial Stout were brandy barrels and not the more common bourbon barrels. According to Left Hand, it wasn’t the entire recipe that was cask aged, but merely 25% that was later blended with the rest of the beer. read more…