Houston homebrewer Chris Landis won first place in the 15th annual Big Batch Brew Bash, the world’s largest single-style homebrewing competition, with his English Barleywine. [beeradvocate.com]

And now, for the 5th time in history, the winning brewer will help Saint Arnold Brewing Co. create this year’s Divine Reserve (#10), based on his winning entry. Divine Reserve #9 was a delicious Imperial Pumpkin Stout that I excitedly got to try from USA Beer Trends, unlike any pumpkin brew I’d had before. Ever since my first taste of Divine Reserve, I know I’d want to try to get my hands on every other year that comes along … I also wish I’d have a chance to enjoy that Imperial Pumpkin Stout again.

Big Batch Brew Bash winners had inspired these other four Divine Reserves in the past:

• Saint Arnold Divine Reserve No. 8, Scotch Ale (2009)
• Saint Arnold Divine Reserve No. 7, Weizenbock (2008)
• Saint Arnold Divine Reserve No. 5, Russian Imperial Stout (2007)
• Saint Arnold Divine Reserve No. 3, Double IPA (2006)

Congratulations to Chris Landis and his winning brew - we hope brewing with the crew at Saint Arnold will be a dream come true.

TAGS [ HOMEBREW | BIG BATCH BRREW BASH | SAINT ARNOLD | DIVINE RESERVE ]

According to Gizmodo British researchers have figured out why drinking a lot of booze can make us think people are hot, even when they’re not (at all).

So here’s what they found; human beings have an innate preference for symmetrical faces. It’s in our nature to find symmetry beautiful. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, depending on how you look at it) alcohol affects the part of our brains that detects symmetry.

As your blood alcohol content increases, your brain gets all kinds of confused and causes you to see things as being balanced and aesthetically pleasing, even when they’re not. Once the alcohol goes away, so does the symmetry.

The study was conducted with a group of 64 students. The researchers showed them each twenty sets of faces – one in each set was symmetrical and the other was asymmetrical. They asked them to choose the prettiest face. Once that was complete, they showed them twenty individual faces (one at a time) and asked them to define each face as symmetrical or asymmetrical.

Then they got the students all boozed up and tried both tests again. Results show that intoxicated students had difficulty discerning which faces were symmetrical while the sober kids had a clear preference.

Even further, the study found that women are more affected by beer goggles than men. It doesn’t say exactly why but it may be because men are more "visually oriented" in the first place. As Lewis Halsey of the research team said, "Men tend to ogle more than women do." True that Lewis. True that.

Surprisingly enough, this was the first time that a study has been able to conclusively establish why alcohol consumption causes a distorted perception of other people. I can’t help but think how it effects people would be a more interesting experiment.

Image credit: Gizmodo

TAGS [ BEER GOGGLES | BEER STUDY | ALCOHOL STUDY ]

Not everyone may know this, but we’re (KegWorks I mean) located in Buffalo, NY – a border town with a few bridges to Canada. It’s a wonderful thing, considering we have easy access to the best products that Canada has to offer – particularly the beer.

Around here, the staple beers that you’ll find at every event and every bar are Labatt Blue and Molson Canadian. When people move out of the area and they ask for a Blue Light, bartenders usually look at them like they have three heads.

We all took notice when a company called North American Breweries purchased Labatt USA awhile back. When that happened, the Department of Justice stepped in with a mandate that said that in order for the deal to go through, North American Breweries must switch Labatt’s US sourcing away from AB InBev’s Labatt breweries in Canada and they must do it within three years.

Yesterday, North American Breweries lived up to their end of the deal. According to reports they had launched a "pretty intensive investigation of the options, including building a brewery in Canada, buying a brewery or contract brewing." Some sources even say they made a few attempts at buying an existing brewery but that didn’t pan out. So, they decided to contract their business out to Molson Coors.

Sure, it’ll be invisible to customers, it won’t say anything about Molson Coors on the packaging, North American Breweries and Labatt brewmasters will still be in charge and the recipe will remain the same. Yet, I still can’t help but wonder what John Labatt would have to say about this. As Beer Business Daily said, it’s kind of like brewing Budweiser in Milwaukee. I can’t help but think of it as sleeping with the enemy.

Apparently, they will start transferring production to Molson Coors in the fourth quarter with test batches and the entire transition is expected to be complete within the next 9 months.

I read that this solution "allows Labatt to maintain its Canadian heritage" – and that the company thought brewing the beer in the US (here or in Rochester for example) could possibly hurt the brand, seeing as it would no longer be considered an imported beer. Sounds kind of silly to me.

I suppose as long as Buffalo keeps getting Labatt Blue and Labatt Blue Light, the world will keep on spinning – it just might be a little off kilter.

TAGS [ MOLSON | COORS | LABATT | NAB | BEER NEWS ]

I recently had an email conversation with one of our customers that I thought was quite helpful, in regards to using jockey boxes for dispensing kegged beer. The conversation with Robert L. began like this:

Just wanted to share:

I found that using a jockey box allows me to keep my kegs at room temperature & still serve ice cold beer. This, in turn, allows me to use & keep partial kegs at room temperature, thus allowing a "library" of beers that I can pull out any time I like (as opposed to chilling down a whole keg & having to keep it refrigerated.

My question followed:

"Did he ever find his beer to be foamy, without having the keg iced down, or did the jockey box coil cool it enough to keep consistently good pours?" I’ve spoken to Pete about the jockey box quite a bit, and had always been under the impression that the keg had to be kept iced down and wicked cold.

Robert got back to me rather quickly, and I couldn’t wait to share with the rest of you, in case his jockey box experience might come in handy for the rest of you out there:

The first few glasses seem to require a little extra settling time, but once things equilibrate & the pressure gets set right, it seems to work pretty well.

We started with the aluminum plate (stainless steel tubing inside a cast aluminum plate), in a large ice chest with two taps. This works exceedingly well & the beer comes out ice cold. This is the one we use at parties, and the beer seems to remain consistently cold despite almost continuous pouring. Although it works better, its size (& weight) make it less convenient for small gatherings, or small tastings.

For smaller gatherings I got your steel coil inside a smaller 8 qt cylindrical cooler, and set it up with a tap on the front & a wingnut -> tubing -> cornelius keg fitting on the other. 7 lbs of ice fit nicely, and it worked very well for a BBQ with 4 people. Also, in small gatherings, the beer usually gets a chance to sit inside the coils, cooling between pours, and I imagine this helps. I have only used it once so far (new acquisition), so time will tell as I use other batches.

As a side note, I have a pressure gauge (& a relief valve) attached to a Cornelius Ball lock connecter, which makes it easy to test & adjust the pressure of my kegs. I have found that after carbonation, keeping them equilibrated to 15 PSI seems to keep the right amount of carbonation in them, and minimizes foam formation when dispensing. Also, turning down the pressure to 10-15 PSI when dispensing lowers foam formation, but naturally, slows down the pour rate.

I cannot thank Robert enough for sharing his own experience with jockey box equipment, and how he changes his methods depending on party size. If anyone else out there has more to add, please let me know.

Cheers!

TAGS [ JOCKEY BOXES | DRAFT BEER TIPS | JOCKEY BOX | COIL COOLER ]

Built by architectural students in Germany, Boxel is a pavilion created with over 2,000 empty beer boxes. [fastcodesign.com]

According to press materials and the article, "the design creates a ’spatial scenery’ using ‘parametric software to control the position of the boxes in relation to the overall geometry and to analyze the structural performance.’"

All of that architectural gibberish aside, it’s a pretty rad monument to beer. Thanks to @skunkworks716 for passing the article along to me!

TAGS [ BEER NEWS | MONUMENT | BOXEL ]

Derek Ryan, a trainer at Saratoga Race Course, has been mixing Guinness is his horses’ feed for a long time now, with great results. [wnyt.com] One of his horses, Musket Man, finished third in two legs of the Triple Crown and then in last week’s Whitney, finished third overall.

I’ve been a longtime believer in Guinness being good for you, and now I suppose I’ll have to add horses to the list. What’s next? Maybe show dogs?

Thanks to Mike in customer service for passing along the link.

TAGS [ GUINNESS | HORSES ]

Last Friday I volunteered at the Buffalo BrewFest and my good buddy Deron was able to hook me up with a job pouring beer for Stone. We were offering Arrogant Bastard Ale, Smoked Porter and a little bit of the Sublimely Self-Righteous, their awesome Black IPA.

Dennis from the brewery was great and we had a whole lot of fun at the event. If I’d been given a nickel for every bad Arrogant Bastard joke I’d heard during the four hours I was pouring, I could have quit my job by now ("I’d like my husband in a glass please" was popular with the ladies) but the best part was talking to the people who came over to gush about how much they love Stone’s beers. One guy told us he was really dedicated, so we asked him to prove and he did. He took his shirt right off and showed us this monster tattoo. He wasn’t lying.

Surprisingly enough, it wasn’t the only Arrogant Bastard gargoyle tattoo we saw that day. Talk about excellent branding.

TAGS [ STONE | ARROGANT BASTARD | TATTOO ]