It’s no big deal to me, but Anheuser Busch and InBev have sealed the deal on the $52 billion acquisition of America’s biggest and most prolific brewery by a Belgian beer company gobbler. I don’t know if InBev wants it all, but the acquisition makes them the world’s biggest beer maker with the closest second being London’s SABMiller PLC. The takeover was contentious at first. InBev sweetened the pot by bumping the offer $5 bucks a share to $70 a share. Anheuser Busch new it was time to concede.
What does this mean for the millions of Budweiser fans in the world? Really not much, at least from the outset. InBev’s not interested in tipping the apple cart at this point, understanding that the US market is decidedly different from the company’s foreign markets. Because the deal follows other mega-brewery merges including Miller and Coors less competition will result and mega-beer drinkers may not see the price wars that have made sticking with the swill so attractive in years past. It could also mean more headaches for smaller breweries as they struggle to gain and maintain distribution. That means that inadvertently, there could be some fall-out sting for us craft beer drinkers. It all remains to be seen. Again, about the only thing we can do as connoisseurs is vote with our dollars. Remember, think globally, but drink locally.
Speaking of SABMiller and the MillerCoors joint venture, management will be based in Chicago rather than Milwaukee where Miller is and certainly not Golden, where Coors is. I don’t know what was wrong with Milwaukee, but Golden is just too small. Sources cite that the joint venture’s president thinks Chicago has better access to the nation’s transportation infrastructure, more business resources and available talent to run the venture. Because I don’t drink either brand, it works fine for me!
I will admit to enjoying an ice cold Coors whenever I’m in Denver and whenever I can go to the source and drink it brewery fresh. It’s really pretty damned good sometimes that way. And, if you are out that way, even if you don’t much care for the brand, the brewery hosts an awesome tour. It’s been a couple of years, but the last time I visited, I was impressed at being able to see the malt germination process and some other processes such as the endless line of rail cars that transport unfermented wort closer to the beer’s destination for finishing. It’s worth a visit and a lot more exciting that going to Denver’s other attractions like the Butterfly Museum and crap like that.
But here’s the total SHIT! Seasoned followers to the blog know that I write not only for the Anchorage Press, but also the national Celebrator Beer News, an industry rag that if you don’t get it, you’re missing out. Not only is the news the newsiest in the Celebrator, but it should be your #1 traveling companion because within the foamy depths of the paper are listings of breweries, brewpubs, drinking establishments, liquor stores and homebrew supply shops around the nation that are worthy of your visit when you’re afar and looking for the next beer adventure. I digress.
Legendary publisher Tom Dalldorf is one of the most prolific, well-traveled and colorful beer journalists in the world. I’m not humping his leg; I say this out of pure respect. And my respect for him grew exponentially when he responded to an email from a marketing luminary associated with The Pabst Brewing Company. Jilliann Markey spammed out an email to beer writers in response to the AB/InBev association. She said:
“Hello-
In response to the many inquires we have received regarding the Anheuser Busch/InBev announcement, Pabst Brewing Company has issued the below statement. We wanted to send it along in case you are writing a story regarding the acquisition.
Please let us know if you have any additional questions.
My best,
Jilliann
In response to the many inquires we have received regarding the acquisition of Anheuser Busch by InBev:
No doubt, the AB-InBev combination will create a formidable competitor. And it is true, Pabst Brewing Company will be the last of the famous iconic U.S. brewers to be fully independent and American-owned. Most of our brands (Pabst, Schlitz, Stroh, Schaefer, Rainier, Olympia, and others) have been around since the 1800’s. However, this combination will have no impact on our mission to create and brew the best beers in the industry.
Our brands continue to be recognized for great quality and flavor at prestigious events such as the Great American Beer Festival and World Beer Cup. In both 2006 and 2007, Pabst Brewing Company was awarded “Large Brewer of the Year” and our brew master was awarded “Brewmaster of the Year”. In addition, our brands won numerous Gold, Silver and Bronze Medals at these competitions.”
What do you make of that? At first, I wrote it off as marketing hype and didn’t have any sort of visceral reaction to it. What would YOU say if you were defending Pabst? I’m not nearly as well read as Dalldorf! Daldorf responds:
“Jilliann: Are you people on crack? Last of the Famous Iconic US Brewers? You don’t even have a brewery. You are a label made by SABMillerMolsonCoors. Get over it.”
There are 29 words of pure, 100% attitude coming out that represent more courage and balls than most of us have when it comes to what we drink and how we feel about mass marketing hype. That’s awesome, Dalldorf! You GO!
The E.T. Barnette Homebrew Competetion in Fairbanks last week was a great success. Where event organizer Scott Stihler thought he was going to be overwhelmed with entries, submissions were scant (31 entries) in comparison to last year. Of those, 14 entries came from 
Alaska and the remaining 55 percent from outside. Advertising the event in Zymurgy evidently paid off. Judges were plentiful, so the event went smooth and the evaluation was done quickly. When the foam subsided, Andrew Starsiak of Philadelphia earned the Best of Show distinction for his American Brown Ale.
Alaskans that earned medals include:
Shannon Seifert and Terry Schwarz (Juneau) – 1st Place – IPA
Shannon Seifert and Terry Schwarz (Juneau) – 3rd Place – IPA
Rhonda Swor and Paul Landey – 1st Place – Bock
Rhonda Swor and Paul Landey – 3rd Place – American Ale
Steve Jayich (Anchorage) – 1st Place – English Pale Ale
Andrew Morris (Fairbanks) – 2nd Place – Bock
Bill “Rocky” Rockwell (Ester) – 3rd Place – Stout
For a full break down of the event and results visit Stihler’s website at http://mosquitobytes.com/Den/Beer/Events/ETB2008/ETB2008.html
It’s not too early to think about the 2009 E.T. Barnette Homebrew Competition. Although the dates have not been set yet, the styles have which include Pilsner, English Pale Ale, American Ale, Porter, Stout, IPA and Fruit/Spice/Herb/Vegetable Beer.
In the wake of the Sunday, July 13 Café Amsterdam Lighter Side of Belgium tasting, you’ll see some fermented left overs on the tap line. Enjoy them. I hate to burst a bubble, but if nothing else, if you want to enjoy something truly special, Moose’s Tooth Brewing Company’s 12th Anniversary Saison is on tap at Café, long before it’s to be released in celebration of the July 26th celebration at the midtown pub and pizzeria. It makes me feel weird to boast about the beer, but I’m only doing so because it continues to receive rave reviews. The fact that I assisted in making the beer has nothing to do with it. Just for the record, when I was invited to brew the beer, I had very little input. I stood around and assisted brewer Tyler Jones in little things. The recipe was developed with very little input from me; I only said I hoped to have something hugely flavorful, but hugely drinkable at the same time. Saison was a natural calling. We sampled a bunch of beers in anticipation 
of the brew, but Tyler and Clarke Pelz put the recipe together and I just had to show up on brew day and stand around, drink beer and look stupid. I performed admirably, but it’s the efforts that the Tooth put into the beer that made it entirely noteworthy. Still, everyone that’s tried the beer finds it somewhat of a departure from the Moose’s Tooth’s normal line up. I could spend a lot of time describing the beer, but I’ll bait you in and leave it up to you to form your own impressions.
Other leftovers from the tasting include Witterkerke Wit, Hoegaarden Wit, Dupont’s Foret Organic Saison, Bavik Pilsner, La Chouffe Golden Ale, and Joseph Spelt Wit. Ask for a ploughman’s platter of tasty treats to go with your beer. Also on tap, look for Delirium Tremens, Unibroue’s Maudite and Ephemere, Mendocino Brewing Company’s Red Seal Ale, Silver Gulch Brewing Company’s Old 55, Avery’s 15th Anniversary Ale and Ring of Fire Meadery’s Cider Mead and Magner’s Irish Cider. There’s no lacking of the good stuff on at Café, and the atmosphere is just right for an afternoon or early evening pint, stange, goblet, tulip, stem or glass of the good stuff.
Midnight Sun Brewing Company’s got the goods for you despite recent upturns in hop and malt prices that make most breweries shy away from the creative. As always, “creative” defines Midnight Sun. Your favorite Panty Peeler Tripel is out and about begging for your discerning palate. On the southside, surf for the brew at Mo’s O’Brady’s in the Carr’s Mall off Huffman and again right across the street at the venerable Tap Root Café. Uptown, find it at Humpy’s Great Alaskan Alehouse or Café Amsterdam. And, if you’re a duffer, you’ll find a special hole at this year’s Great Northern Brewers/Hump’s annual Golf Tournament held at the Moose Run Golf Course, on Saturday, July 26th. If you haven’t signed your team up for this benefit that helps Challenge Alaska and Operation Denali, it might not be too late for the 7:00 am shotgun start. Check out http://www.greatnorthernbrewers.org/events/2008/2008%20Tourney%20Reg.pdf for the details and registration information. Forget about scoring big in this tournament. With four roving beer carts (I’ll be driving one with the singular objective of messing up your game) and a big beer-laden BBQ at the end, focus on good beer and good friends instead of the game. Yeah, easy for me to say; I don’t golf. Once again, this is the only venue where I can drink and drive with abandon.
As always, I love it when my beer drinking friends travel and bring me back fermented treats from afar. Such was the case when Great Nothern Brewers homebrewer Kerri Canepa visited her old digs in Wisconsin and brought back beer from the Tyranena Brewing Company in Lake Mills. The brewery started making beer in 1999 in the 30 barrel brewhouse that cranks out upwards of 45,000 barrels of beer annually.
When Canepa lived in Wisconsin, she’d make the trek to the brewery and hung out there enough to eventually get conscripted into doing tours. Apparently, Brewer Rob Larson isn’t the most outgoing or social guy in the universe and conducting tours was not his forte, and his time was better spent making the beer in the expansive brewery. No one can fault him for that. Like virtually all commercial brewers, Larson made the leap from homebrewing after getting a homebrewing kit and falling in love with the hobby.
On her recent visit, Canepa brought back beers from the brewery’s Brewers Gone Wild! Series of special beers. She apparently scored the beers in an auction rather than at the brewery proper, and although a couple we showing some age, the bigness in the darker versions made them stellar. I enjoyed the names of the beers as much as what was in the bottle, and according to Canepa, Larson’s battles with the label approving agency were legendary.
The first brew we sampled was Hop Whore, an imperial IPA that boasts a big mixture of malt and hops. The evenly balanced beer was nicely dry hopped, but the sensation wasn’t huge. The aging was evident with some oxidation and hop degradation that left the beer more bitter than flavorful. It would have been a very interesting beer in its prime.
Stickin’ It To The Man is an “Extra India Pale Ale” with a lot of Euro hop influence that again, age had ravaged, leaving low hop definition in the nose and some quirky influence across the palate.
Things definitely improved with High Class Broad. This imperial brown ale is incredibly complex with tons of swirling flavors intertwined with a sweet brandy essence from the barrels it was conditioned in. Although the beer is potent, the alcohol is not obtrusive in the barley wine-like beer. A deep, nutty flavor and some dark sugar notes add to the complexity. I could easily drink a number of these (over time). This beer turned out to be the star of the show.
High Class Broad was followed by Who’s Your Daddy? This is an imperial porer aged I bourbon and almost as flavorful as the predecessor beer. The attractiveness in this beer comes from balanced bigness. What I enjoy the most is the fact that despite bourbon aging, each of the beers individual elements has its moment in the glass and it’s a porter first and not a bourbon bomb. The beer starts and ends with bourbon but the middle of the sensation is all malt, hop and dark flavor. This is an incredibly nicely done beer.
Dirty Old Man was next. This dry-ish imperial rye porter aged in rye whisky barrels has a nice bread-y center, rich rye notes with evident alcohol. The beer was good, but there was a little bit of competition going on between the flavors.
The final beer in the flight was Spank Me Baby!, a clear, ruby-studded reddish barley-wine style ale that had a pretty laid back aroma for a barley wine, but good complexity in the flavor. Aging lent a distinguished English-style character to the beer. Although the beer smelled somewhat sweet, it was dry overall with some interesting tart edges and weren’t inappropriate in the mix. This brewery isn’t going wrong by making these big beers. If you’re headed back east and Wisconsin is in the way, plan a stop; the beer is worthy.
If you’re a big Lagunitas freak like I am, you’ll be jazzed to learn that the brewery’s Sirius High Gravity Cream Ale is back in town. Although it comes in smaller, easier to conceal bottles, consider this your Olde English Malt Liquor, only it’s the craft beer version and comes with a ton more flavor. The slightly malt-forward but well balanced beer packs a 7.6 percent punch (Olde English HG is 8.1) so be 
careful if you buy a six pack of it.
For the stoners out there…that would be STONEers, the brewery’s 12th Anniversary Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout is on the market. This dark wrecking ball packs 9.2 percent alcohol in a swirling, dryish, inky mixture of chocolate, rolled oats, hops, and more bitter dark chocolate in the end. This is one that you’ll definitely want to grab some for sampling and some for laying down.
Another new(ish) product is Flying Dog Brewing Company’s Woody Creek White. This is the brewery’s tribute to “…the town we call Gonzo Ground Zero.” As the name indicates, this is a white, or wit beer, so expect traditional coriander and orange peel along with some wheat tartness, Hallertau hops and a foundation of Belgian pilsner malt, white wheat, oats and high quality water. At 4.8 percent this dog don’t bite TOO hard.
Here’s the Humpy’s Great Alaskan Alehouse lineup as of today, Friday, July 18th.
Wheats / Fruits
(Local) Alaskan Raspberry Wheat Ale
(Local) Moose’s Tooth Wild Country Raspberry Wheat
Pyramid Apricot
Pyramid Hefeweisen
Lindemans Framboise ####
Wittekerke Rose ##
(Local) Celestial Meadery Southern Heat
$13.50 for an 8 oz Glass
Golden Ales / Pilseners / California Common
(Local) Alaskan Summer Kolsch
(Local) Midnight Sun Goldstrike Kolsch
(Local) Silver Gulch Coldfoot Pilsner
Kona Longboard Island Lager
Pilsner Urquell *
Stella Artois **
Pale Ales / E.S.B.’s (medium hop bitterness)
(Local) Alaskan Pale Ale
(Local) Moose’s Tooth Polar Pale Ale Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale
Lagunitas ‘Censored’ Rich Copper Ale
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
Sierra Nevada E.S.B.
India Pale Ales (med - high hop bitterness)
(Local) Humpy’s Sockeye Red I.P.A by Midnight Sun
(Local) Moose’s Tooth Fairweather I.P.A.
Bridgeport I.P.A.
Elysian ‘Immortal’ I.P.A.
Fish Tale Organic I.P.A.
Sierra Nevada Southern Hemisphere
Stone Arrogant Bastard Ale
Belgian Ales
(Local) Alaskan Witbier Ale
Blue Moon Belgian White Wheat Ale
Deschutes 20th Anniversary Wit Ale
Unibroue Blance De Chambly #
Strong Belgian Ales (Alcohol by Volume over 7.5%
(Local) Midnight Sun Mars
Belgian Imperial Red IPA # (8.7%)
(Local) Midnight Sun ‘Panty Peeler”
Belgian Triple # (8.5%)
Avery Collaboration not Litigation Ale ## (8.72%)
Chimay Cing Cents Triple ##### (8%)
Delirium Tremens #### (8.5%)
Dupont Foret Organic Saison #### (7.5%)
Koningshoeven Quadruple #### (10%)
Pike St. Monk’s Uncle Belgian Triple # (9%)
Barley Wine
Flying Dog Horn Dog Barley Wine # (10.2%)
Sierra Bigfoot Barley Wine # (9.6%)
Amber Ales / Bocks / Dopplebocks / Scottish
(Local) Alaskan Amber Ale
(Local) Midnight Sun Ooisk Amber
(Local) Kenai River Skilak Scottish
Mac Tarnahan’s Scottish Ale
Brown Ales
(Local) Midnight Sun Kodiak Brown Ale
Full Sail Nut Brown Ale (Cask Conditioned) *
Newcastle Brown Ale *
Porters / Stouts
(Local) Kassik’s Brew Stop Moose Point Porter
(Local) Midnight Sun Arctic Rhino Coffee Porter
Deschutes Black Butte Porter
(Local) Alaskan Oatmeal Stout
Guinness Stout ****
Stone Russian Imperial Stout # (10.2%)
Pints / Pitchers
Micros $4.50/ 14.50
* Imports $4.75 / 15.50
** Special Micros $5.00 / 16.50
*** Spec. Imports $5.25/ 17.50
**** Super Spec. Imports/Micros
$5.50 / $18.50
The views expressed on the Dr. Fermento blog site are not necessarily those of the drunks he associates with, but rather the exclusive byproduct of his self-inflicted liver degradation and delusional inebriate lifestyle
Dr Fermento Beer Calendar
07/19/08 Silver Gulch Brewing Company 2008 Golden Days Beer Fest 3:00 pm $20.00
07/25/08 Midnight Sun Brewing Company Fairview Pirates Booty Beer (American Steam Lager) Rel 5:00 pm Free
07/26/08 GNBC/Humpy’s Golf Tournament Moose Run Golf Course 7:00 am $350/Team
08/01/08 Riverboat Discovery II (Fairbanks) Chena River Brews Cruise 6:30 pm $50.00 (online)
08/02/08 Ketchikan (420 Spruce Mill Way) 13th Annual Summer Beer Festival 6:30-8:30 pm $20.00
08/11/08 Mt. View Boys and Girls Club Entries Accepted for AK Sate Fair Homebrew Comp Noon – 8 pm ??
08/12/08 Mt. View Boys and Girls Club Entries Accepted for AK Sate Fair Homebrew Comp Noon – 8 pm ??
08/15/08 Alaska State Fair Grounds Entries Accepted for AK Sate Fair Homebrew Comp Noon – 8 pm ??
08/16/08 Alaska State Fair Grounds Entries Accepted for AK Sate Fair Homebrew Comp 10 – 6 ??
08/15/08 Arctic Brewing Supply Entries Accepted for Anchortown Invitational (below) 11:00 am $3.00/Entry
08/17/08 Café Amsterdam Anchortown Invitational Homebrew Competition Judging 10:00 am Free
08/17/08 Alaska State Fair Grounds Judging for Alaska State Fair Homebrew Competition 11 am – 6 pm Free
09/20/08 Zymurgist Borealis Septemberfest Chena Pump Campground (Fairbanks) Noon - ?? BYO/Potluck
09/26/08 Carlson Center (Fairbanks) 1st Annual Farthest North Import and Craft Beer Fest TBA $25.00
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