Privacy policy

For some years now, I've been helping the Brewers Association maintain their brewery database by sending them copies of the updates that I receive. Lately, I've been working with beermapping.com to do the same.

Since they receive copies of the same form that I receive when you send me an update, they're also getting your email address. Both Erin Glass at the BA and Jonathan Surratt at beermapping.com have assured me that they will not use your contact information for any nefarious purposes.

The only time I'll use your address is to ask you for clarification on information that you've sent me. I might also send you a message if I think you can provide information that's relevant to my site. (For example, if you live in Bhutan, I might ask you if you have a list of Bhutanese breweries.) But I will not add your name to any mailing list^*, and I won't send you anything unsolicited.

^*In the event that I create a mailing list in the future, it will be subscription-only, not "opt-out", and you'll hear about it first here on the Forum, and not via unsolicited email.

To make this a bit more formal and reassuring, I've typed up an easy-to-read Privacy Policy that you can examine at beerme.com/privacy.shtml.

We now return to our regularly-scheduled beer-drinking.

Tanks

The beers are starting to stack up in the fermenters, waiting to be filtered, so I need to free up some tank space in the cellar. Tank #3 is empty, but its carbonating stone needed repairs, so that was the first order of the day after the weekly draft-line-cleaning ritual.

T3's carbonating stone, before and after assembly

Once the stone was in place, I cleaned, sanitized, and pressurized the tank. I'll filter the Impromptu Pale Ale into this tank later this week.

On a sad note, the last two barrels of Princess of Darkness Porter went down the drain this afternoon. I had my camera handy, but pictures of beer going down the drain can be very disturbing. It had picked up a nasty lactic flavor in recent weeks, and Paris herself said it wasn't worthy of our customers. That tank will get cleaned, sanitized, and pressurized tomorrow while I'm filtering the Bugeater Brown, and it will likely receive the 1916 Irish Stout next week.

I checked all the temperatures and gravities of the fermenting beers, so I can figure out who gets filtered when, and which yeasts to harvest for the upcoming brews.

I tried printing our February tax returns, but my old Lexmark X125 printer isn't compatible with the Windows Vista that came installed on my new Gateway NX570X notebook. I emailed Lexmark support asking if they're planning to release an X125 Vista driver, but I haven't heard anything back yet. It looks like I'll be filling out the forms by hand this month. How 20^th century.

Tomorrow: Filtration, cleaning, and another beer gets dumped.

Reunion - A Beer For Hope

Reunion Beer is Alan Shapiro's project to raise money for the Institute for Myeloma & Bone Cancer Research. You can help by donating money or buying the beer, or both! Alan explains how and why in this email, recently distributed throughout the beer industry.

For those of you interested in learning more about the
Reunion - A Beer for Hope project, last week I did an
interview with Pacific Brew News which is available
online at:

Show Page
http://pacificbrewnews.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=188119

Direct Download
href="http://media.libsyn.com/media/pacificbrewnews/PBN_041_20070228.mp3">http://media.libsyn.com/media/pacificbrewnews/PBN_041_20070228.mp3

We'll have it up on the href="http://www.reunionbeer.com/">www.reunionbeer.com
site very soon.

As I note in the interview, the beer has been very
well-received - but beer sales alone won't get us to our
fundraising goal.  For those of you that can make any
small contribution, please do so as soon as possible.
They are getting very close to a cure, and the money
we raise can potentially make a huge difference in the
lives of thousands of Myeloma patients - including my
friend Virginia.

You can click on the donate now button on the
href="http://www.reunionbeer.com/">www.reunionbeer.com site, or go to
href="http://www.imbcr.org/donate_now.htm">www.imbcr.org/donate_now.htm.

Thanks for supporting REUNION!

Cheers,
Alan

------------------------------------------ 02/07/07

Dear friends and industry colleagues,

I'm writing to tell you about a special charity
beer that I have created to raise funds for the
Institute for Myeloma & Bone Cancer Research
(IMBCR) and to ask for your support. (To fast
forward on the explanation please go to
href="http://www.reunionbeer.com/">www.reunionbeer.com).

Nearly 4 years ago my very close friend and former
co-worker at Pete's Brewing, Virginia MacLean, was
diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma - a currently incurable
form of bone cancer.  For now, myeloma patients must hope
that their doctors are able to find the right combination
of chemo drugs to "manage" the disease.

Fortunately, Virginia is being treated by a doctor whose
particular brilliance is in his ability to mix common
compounds like vitamin C and varying doses of typical
myeloma treatment drugs to customize solutions for his
patients. In many cases he has been able to dramatically
improve the quality and length of his patients' lives.

Virginia's case has been difficult - but on the 6th
drug cocktail mix, there has finally been meaningful
improvement.  This is fantastic news, but it does come at
a significant physical and emotional cost - it is chemo.
To watch her go through this with incredible grace and
strength while holding a full time tech job and raising
a beautiful 2 year old girl is remarkable.

Unfortunately, I am not a great scientist who can help
find a cure for this disease, but I do know a little bit
about creating beers and bringing them to market.  So,
with the help of our friend Pete Slosberg (the creator
of Pete's Wicked Ale) we have created REUNION Organic
Imperial Brown Ale, brewed at Bison Brewery in Berkeley,
CA (see attached label).

Our goal is to create awareness and raise funds for IMBCR
- the foundation operated by Virginia's doctor, James
Berenson.  I will donate 100% of the profits generated
by the sale of this beer, and several partners such as
Beverages & More! & Kimpton Hotels are working
with us to promote the beer and this cause.  Over the
next 30 days the beer will be available at leading
specialty beer retailers in CA, OR, WA, AZ, CO, & IL.
If you don't live in one of those states, please email
me and I'd be happy to direct you to retail accounts
who may be able to ship the beer to you via mail order.
There is also information on these retailers on the
href="http://www.reunionbeer.com/">www.reunionbeer.com site, as well as much more 
on Virginia's story.

Here's how you can help:

1. DONATE MONEY!  I have visited the IMBCR facilities
and met the team.  They are doing fantastic work
and need our support.  Whether you can contribute
$10 or $10,000 it will make a difference.
href="http://www.reunionbeer.com/">www.reunionbeer.com will take you to the donation page.

2. Buy the beer!

3. Spread the word.  Feel free to pass this message
along to others who you think may be interested.
You can also send comments, suggestions, or words
of encouragement via the contact page on the
href="http://www.reunionbeer.com/">www.reunionbeer.com site.

Thanks for your help in making this project a great
success.

Cheers,
Alan

Good Beer Not Just a Matter of Taste

LiveScience.com reports something that we beer judges^* have known all along:

Good beer is not something you should think about. Knowing what's in a beer, or who made it, can taint your taste buds, a new study finds.

[...]

The tasters were divided into three groups. One tasted the samples “blind,” with no knowledge of the secret ingredient. A second group found out about the vinegar before tasting the MIT brew. The third group learned of the additive immediately after tasting the special brew, but before indicating a preference between the two beers.



The blind group preferred the MIT brew over the regular beer significantly more than either of the informed groups. Apparently, vinegar can improve a beer’s taste, the scientists said.

Read the entire article here.

^*BJCP National #C0481

Beer-Launching Fridge

This showed up on Days That End in Y last week:

If I weren't so lazy, I'd build this fridge perfect for my lazy butt. This bierkatapult (beer-launching mini fridge) is just awesome. It launches up to ten cans of beer. Launches and launch angle are controlled remotely.

The inventor describes his work at beerlauncher.com, and there's a terrific video of it in action at metacafe.com.

Bob Franklin, are you listening?

Unibroue Tasting at Hy-Vee

Jeff Mapes, the liquor manager at our local Hy-Vee grocery store, has been doing a great job of bringing excellent beers to our small city in northeastern Nebraska. This week, he hosted a tasting of beers from Canada's fantastic Unibroue brewery. With about 25 people in attendance, including Paris and me, Jeff brought out a four-pack each of:

• Blanche de Chambly


• Éphémère


• Chambly Noire


• Maudite


• Don de Dieu


• La Fin du Monde


• Trois Pistoles

Jeff also offers La Terrible and 15 in his store, and after a little cajoling, he brought a up a 750-ml bottle of each for our enjoyment.

The beers were all excellent and fresh (except the Éphémère, but that's just because I don't like fruit beers), and the beer and Cajun brats were tasty too. After the show, we went through the liquor section and bought some Unibroue four-packs for the cellar.

Hy-Vee's next event will be March 15, an Irish-themed party involving several Stouts and Irish Red Ales, whisky, and corned beef and cabbage. I'll even bring some of my 1916 Irish Stout!

It's Friday already?!?

Where'd this week go? I didn't even realize I hadn't been posting until I got home today. So, catching up...

Tuesday: I got the (hopefully) last part I'll need to get the filter working. I also got seven liters of Wyeast 3068 Weihenstephan Weizen Yeast that I'll use to brew some Tin Lizzie Hefeweizen later this week. While I was brewing today's batch of Harvey's Märzen - which I finished in a personal-record three hours and sixteen minuted - I cleaned and sanitized the fermenter that I'll use for that Hefeweizen. While the caustic was running through the heat exchanger after the brew, I called Linweld and ordered a new bottle of oxygen.

The missing link

Wednesday: Brewed seven barrels of Tin Lizzie Hefeweizen. It took almost exactly one hour longer than yesterday's brew, because wheat is a Really Sticky grain to work with, and you can't run the wort off as quickly as you can with an all-barley brew. If you try to speed up that part of the process, you're likely to end up with a mash tun full of concrete, which will lengthen your brew day significantly.

Thursday: Climbed into the kettle to scrub out the beerstone. Ran caustic, acid, and sanitizer through the heat exchanger. Cleaned, sanitized, and pressurized the bright beer tank that will receive the All-American Gold as it emerges from the filter tomorrow. Reassembled the filter and checked it for leaks, and found none. Cleaned and sanitized the filter. Gave a tour to a group of six beer lovers from Seward. Cleaned about three dozen kegs, and filled a few for the pub and for Monday's Grand Island pickup. Hy-Vee, ur local grocery store and the only decent beer store this side of Omaha, conducted a tasting of Unibroue beers, which I'll talk about in a separate article.

The keg pile, before and after cleaning

Friday: "Columbus, you are go for filtration." It's the day we've been waiting for. The filter is assembled and doesn't appear to be leaking, the tank is clean and ready to go, and the excess yeast has been dumped from the fermenter. The filter takes about 20 minutes to set up. When all goes well — and it did go well today — seven barrels of beer get through the filter in about 20 minutes. Cleanup afterward takes 1½ to 2 hours. I ended up with six barrels out of my 7½-barrel batch, because I siphoned off some yeast to use in last week's brews.

The filter in operation

No leaks!

Unfiltered beer on top, filtered beer on bottom

All-American Gold, before and after filtration

The beige schmutz is a mixture of diatomaceous earth and the stuff that got filtered out of the beer

A tour group was supposed to come up from Lincoln today, but they only got as far as Raymond before the snow turned them back. I tried to do our monthly excise taxes, but my new laptop (Gateway NX570X) doesn't seem to want to work with my old printer (Lexmark X125).

All in all, a satisfyingly productive week. Next week: more filtrations and more brewing.