Siebel Institute Announces Brewery Start-up Course

Thinking of starting your own brewpub or brewery? You may want to check out this three-day course at Siebel Institute's Chicago campus. The course was designed by Ray Daniels, runs from May 2-4, 2007 and tuition is $1075.

Find out more at: http://www.siebelinstitute.com/course_desc/start_brewery.html

Ex-Heavyweight's Brewpub

Picked up this story from the Beer Yard:

Tom Baker, formerly of Heavyweight Brewing Company in NJ, has announced plans for a brewpub/beer bar in Nyack, NY. The former Heavyweight owner/brewer had promised fans that this would be the next step in his career. However it was widely speculated that the new venture would be located somewhere in eastern Pennsylvania.

The announcement of the brewpub's home in New York comes as a bit of a surprise and disappointment for me personally, as I was hoping it would pop up somewhere in my "day-trip" area. But I guess NY isn't that far away for those of us in the Susquehanna Valley, just not as close as we had hoped.

We wish Tom and his wife Peggy the best of luck and I will try to make my stash of Heavyweight beers last until the brewpub opens.

Cheers!

Olde Frothingslosh

While at the North Museum in Lancaster this weekend with my daughter, I came across a peculiar looking can in the black-light room. It was a can of Olde Frothingslosh beer from Pittsburgh Brewing Company. The brightly-glowing label looked like this:

Having never heard of “Olde Frothingslosh” before I decided to do a little investigating.

It turns out, Olde Frothingslosh Pale Stale Ale, started out as joke on a radio morning show called “Cordic & Co.” on KDKA in Pittsburgh. Rege Cordic ran series of phony commercials on his show for fake products invented by the show’s staff. This fictional beer which was "so light the foam is on the bottom” was one of the more popular sketches on Cordic’s show.

In 1954 the president of Pittsburgh Brewing Company, S. E. Cowelt, approached Cordic about using the Frothingslosh name for a joke of his own. Cowelt’s plan was to package his regular beer under the Frothingslosh label to be given away as Christmas holiday gifts. About 500 cases were made and handed out. The response was overwhelmingly positive and in 1955 Pitt brewing produced more “Olde Frothingslosh” made it available for sale to the public.

In Rege Cordic’s words:

It came about this way. A certain Mr. S. E. Cowelt was a regular listener to our show. This imaginative gentleman also happened to be president of one of Pittsburgh’s largest breweries. He suggested that we actually put the product on the market. Until he explained his scheme, I thought the poor man was suffering from an attack of “The Vapors.” The plan, however, was a clean strike of salesmanship: for the Christmas Holidays he would package his regular brand of beer under the Olde Frothing-slosh label as a special party item. The sales success of that product in the Pittsburgh area is a tribute to his wisdom.

This beer's lighthearted beginnings paved the way for numerous comedic gimmicks in its packaging and marketing. The can that I saw in the museum was adorned with day-glo ink and touted Olde Frothingslosh as "the only brew you can find in the dark."

A later packaging campaign featured a large woman in a bathing suit named “Fatima Yechbergh” who was the made-up winner of a phony beauty contest.

Victor J Tremblay in his book The U.S. Brewing Industry: Data and Economic Analysis, tells us that Olde Frothingslosh was packaged and sold by Pitt Brewing through the 1970s.

For further history and pictures check out:

http://www.rustycans.com/oldfroth.html

http://cordic-and-co.com/oldefrothingdex.htm

On an interesting side note, Pittsburgh Brewing Co. is making another go at glowing packaging with their aluminum-bottled Augustiner lager. The contoured aluminum bottles are printed with an ink that glows under UV lights like those often found in bars and clubs.

Read more about the new Pitt bottles here.

Old Salty Vertical Tasting

I participated in a vertical tasting of Heavyweight Brewing Company’s English Barley Wine style ale, Old Salty, over the weekend. A small group of us got together and opened cellared bottles of all six vintages of Old Salty (2000-2005).

We took notes on the flavors and characteristics of each vintage beer and rated them on quality and status based on the following specifications.

Quality:

0 = undrinkable
1 = seriously flawed but drinkable
2 = slightly flawed
3 = acceptable
4 = good
5 = very good
6 = excellent

Status as an estimate of future changes:

Decline = drink it now
Near peak = drink it within the next year
Improve = it might be worth saving this beer

Click here to see the chart showing the averaged scores and some tasting notes for each beer.

The 2002 version was by far the overall favorite with its viscous mouthfeel and woody dark fruits and brown sugar/maple overtones. The 2000 vintage was the only one the group scored as being past its prime and was also our lowest score (2.66) on quality.

This was an enjoyable tasting and a nice way to revisit some quality beers from the great Heavyweight Brewing Co. which closed for business mid-way through last year.

Sunshine FEVA

Tröegs Brewing Company's summer seasonal beer Sunshine Pils had just come up in conversation the previous weekend at a (mostly) session beer tasting at my house.

It seems we weren't the only ones who couldn't wait for this beer to be released. The kind people at Tröegs have seen fit to grace us with a special release of Sunshine Pils before it is officially ready for packaging.

From the Tröegs Tales newsletter:

"For a limited time, we are offering an unfiltered version of Sunshine Pils for sampling and growler sales in the brewery Tasting Room. Dubbed “Sunshine FEVA” (that’s “fever” for those in the know), unfiltered Sunshine Pils brings out a more intense yeast flavor along with subtle hop tastes that are lost during filtration—and it’s cloudy since the yeast is still in the beer."

I had a chance to pick up a growler of this limited edition beer over the weekend. I haven't posted a review of it online yet but I do have my notes and in fact I am quaffing a pint right now as I write this.

It tastes just like the SP you know and love but the mouthfeel is textured and cottony and there is a palate-teasing underlying citrus flavor that makes for just a really great experience.

If you are a fan of Sunshine Pils you will definitely want to check out this beer. It is only available on tap and in growlers (buy new or fill your own) at the brewery gift shop/tasting room. Hours are Mon.-Fri. 9AM-5PM and Sat. Noon til 3:30PM. Phone: 717-232-1297.

Cheers!

Welcome to the Blue Water Beer Blog

Hello to all you bluewaterbeer.com readers and to the new folks as well.

I have finally decided to denounce my former position on blogs as a medium for uninformed pointless ramblings and embrace the technology as a way to share content in a quicker, easy-to-use, interactive format with certain advantages over the BWB Web site.

Unfortunately as an effect of this new "push button publishing" capability, you will no doubt get some uninformed pointless ramblings from yours truly; including, I think, this particular post.

But we have to start somewhere, so this is my introduction: The purpose of this blog is to disseminate information about the topics of beer and beer culture with an emphasis on hobby-level brewing.

Welcome to the Blue Water Beer Blog, an extension of the bluewaterbeer.com Web site.

Thanks for joining me!