Utah further tightens liquor laws

Zealotry is alive and well in 21st-Century Utah:

Among the proof of the growing restriction on liquor sale and consumption in the state, which is home to Mormons, are:

• A ban on mini beer kegs beginning Oct. 1,
• Requirement by 2012 that taps and bartenders must be out of customers’ sight
• A freeze for 12 months on the issuance of new types of alcohol licenses for dining establishments that serve liquor, wine and full-strength beer in full view of customer.

All new restaurants are also mandated to place a 4-foot high barrier nicknamed the "Zion Curtain" so Mormons will not see liquor being served to and consumed by non-Mormons.

Utah Senate President Michael Waddoups, a Mormon, said the return to strictness was to discourage young residents from drinking because they could be encouraged by the sound of the mixing of alcoholic beverages and the sight of attractive drinks.

Read the whole story at All Headline News.

SABMiller to buy Foster’s for $10.2 billion

The consoiidations continue:

Foster’s announced today that it would accept SABMiller’s bid of $10.2 billion. SABMiller had been courting the company for quite some time.

Foster's had rejected a £7.3 billion offer from SABMiller in June. That offer amounted to A$4.90 per share; the new offer is 13% higher, at A$5.5325 per share.

Read the whole story, with a link to Foster's press release, at Beernews.org.

Beer hopping rates: 1911-2011

Stan Hieronymus at Appellation Beer: Beer From a Good Home shares some interesting data from the Barth Haas Group on the use of hops in beer brewed around the world during the past 100 years. His article is short and to the point, so go read it.

The very very short version: the bitterness* of the average beer has declined from 38 IBU in 1911 to 12 IBU in 2011. This is no surprise, but it does call into question claims by some breweries that their beer is still brewed to the same recipe as in days gone by.

*Assuming a 30% extraction efficiency.

The Local's guide to Oktoberfest

This year's guide from The Local - Germany's news in English:

Welcome to Oktoberfest!

But be warned this isn’t just a bunch of party tents with lots of decent beer. No, by deciding to travel to this famous Volksfest, you’ve agreed to have the entire concept called Germany crunched into your skull by a sadomasochistic Bavarian mistress. She’s a pagan goddess with a lion at her heel, and in your hazy drunkenness she’ll indoctrinate you with all the wrong stereotypes about this country.

She’ll strap you down, peel back your eyelids and show you a heady mix of beer, breasts, leather, meat, and Bavarian bourgeois superiority. If you’re lucky, maybe she’ll even slap a dark green felt hat on you and take you on a whirlwind tour of the region’s prized “laptops and Lederhosen” economy as you belt down another Maß. And then she will release you to stagger home, hung-over, sweaty, full of misinformation, but most likely happy and content.

Read the rest at The Local.

Prost!

8 beers Americans no longer drink

OK, "no longer drink" is an exaggeration. But it's surprising how much these eight brands have declined in five short years:

• Budweiser, down 30% to 18,000,000 barrels


• Milwaukee's Best Light, down 34% to 1,300,000 barrels


• Miller Genuine Draft, down 51% to 1,800,000 barrels


• Old Milwaukee, down 52% to 525,000 barrels


• Milwakee's Best, down 53% to 925,000 barrels


• Bud Select, down 60% to 925,000 barrels


• Michelob Light, down 64% to 525,000 barrels


• Michelob, down 72% to 175,000 barrels

Budweiser was the best-selling brand in America for some 30 years, until Bud Light supplanted it in 2001. Milwaukee's Best Light, believe it or not, sold 2,100,000 barrels about 12 years ago. Twenty years ago, more than 7,000,000 barrels of MGD was sold, along with 6,000,000 barrels of Old Milwaukee, and 7,000,000 barrels of Milwaukee's Best.

Americans are slowly but increasingly turning to local brews and imports over the old brands. Unfortunately, they're upping their intake of light beers at the same time.

Read the whole article at MSN.

'Missing' Lager Brewing Yeast Discovered in Patagonia

Hail Saccharomyces eubayanus!

A fruit fly's journey from Patagonia to Bavaria could be the reason we enjoy nice, cold-brewed lager beers today. The missing parent of the hybrid yeast used for brewing lagers has just been discovered in Patagonia.

Until now, scientists had known lager beers were made from a hybrid yeast, with half of its genes coming from a common ale yeast and the other half coming from an unknown species.

They found the missing yeast growing on southern beech trees in Patagonia. They sequenced the genes and found that this species of yeast was very likely to be a parent of the lager yeast hybrid.

"It’s a 99.5 percent match to the missing half of the lager genome. It's clear that it is this species," Hittinger said.

Read the whole story at LiveScience.

Named for Chicago, but Goose Island's 312 to be brewed in New York

According to the Chicago Tribune:

Three months after being acquired by Anheuser-Busch, Goose Island Beer Co. said today that its massively popular 312 Urban Wheat Ale will soon be brewed in an AB facility in upstate New York.

Brewing a beer named for Chicago in Baldwinsville, N.Y. -- 700 miles from where it was created -- might raise eyebrows among those who criticized AB's $38.8 million takeover of Goose this spring, but Goose founder and Chief Executive Officer John Hall said the move will be a boon for fans of the brewery's higher end beers, like Matilda and Bourbon County Stout.

Accounting for almost half the brewery's sales, 312 has required significant resources at Goose's Fulton Street plant. With the beer's production heading east -- partially at first and likely entirely at some point -- that space can be used for other projects, Hall said.

And here's something I didn't know:

312 is the third Goose beer to leave its hometown; all of the brewery's India pale ale and most of its Honker's Ale are brewed at a Redhook brewing facility in Portsmouth, N.H.

Read the whole story at the Chicago Tribune.