First Coast News put up this story regarding the generosity of Molson Coors donating the ethanol to fuel the DNC’s flex fuel cars.

While most ethanol comes from corn, Molson Coors’ ethanol is produced from waste beer.

The beer is lost during packaging or is considered substandard for public consumption.

Company representative Al Timothy says Coors is the country’s first major brewer to convert waste beer to ethanol.

So while the Democratic National Convention will be driving around on spent Coors I wonder what beers will be served over lunch and dinner? I’m sure other Denver brewers agree with me in thinking Coors is a waste beer.

Oh, wait…

“Lost during packaging. Substandard.”

Well good for them anyway. That is pretty cool that even a macro brewery can step up and deliver one for … oh who am I kidding? The cynic in me is screaming “Look at the publicity!”

Cheers!
Tony

Fermentation Friday is tomorrow and the topic this month is:
“What is the craziest concoction you ever came up with, on the fly or prepped, to brew with”

Hosted at CNYBrew.com

My absolute craziest beer brewed was my root beer float stout. The idea behind it was to make a milk stout with tones of root beer in it, sarsaparilla, licorice root, a little bit of winter green leaves and some lactose.

So, that was the craziest beer I brewed, and it sticks out in my mind so incredibly well because it was a complete disaster. The root beer tones I was trying for ended up having tones of nastiness only enhanced by the vomitous contributions of the lactose.

This was the only beer that I dumped almost all of it. Yes, I had to give it a few tries, but after a first sip my wife wouldn’t touch it. That was such a bummer beer, and I had it on the stout faucet too. Come to think of it, besides my Tony Tripel, that was the last beer I free brewed with out a recipe or kit.

Time to break out of the rut again and shoot for something more. Since I’ve committed myself to going all grain after the last three kits are brewed I should also start coming up with new recipes too. Well, I should let my wife know that I want to go all grain as well. Heh.

Cheers!
Tony

A few months ago I posted about an Ass. Wrestling coach who brought a case of beer to the hotel room where the high school students were staying. The Star Tribune reports yesterday that he was charged with furnishing alcohol to a minor.

Albrecht was charged last week by the St. Paul city attorney’s office with furnishing alcohol to a minor.

…

The complaint said Albrecht, the only one of legal drinking age, drank several beers and repeatedly offered it to the students.

I hope the judge or jury nails this fellow to the wall for a LONG time. Once again I have to say how impressed I am with the wrestling team that none of them participated. I’m not a big team sports guy, but seeing this makes me proud of those students!

Beer is for those over 21, but age doesn’t make an adult, does it.

Cheers.
Tony

I am venturing out of my little beer mug here and starting a new blog, Dad on a Dime. If you know me you may recognize the title from my Dadcenter days. I’ll be shooting for a less formal approach to pass on some of the lessons I have learned about frugality and surviving with only one income. I may not be earning a paycheck, but I can sure save enough to stretch what we have.

I have absolutely no intention of abandoning or easing up on BrewDad. I consider the new venture to be in addition to this blog and not a replacement.

Pop over and visit my new digs, leave a comment if you’d like. I look forward to writing more about my family and parenting sides. Life isn’t all about beer, ya know. 

Cheers!
Tony

I cannot believe that I have been blogging for a year now. What is more, I cannot believe that in all my searches of news and other sources for beer I haven’t come across the Beer Examiner. It appears the Charlie Papazian updates this almost every day.

Huge thanks to Jason at the Adventurist for pointing this out to me in yesterday’s comments.

When I started brewing seven years ago Mr. Papazian’s book was the second homebrewing book in my collection, and the first I bought. Korzonas’ book was the first and given to me with my kit from my wife.

Why the amazement and attention from me? I can safely say there isn’t one homebrewer who hasn’t heard of Mr. Papazian, unless that person bought the gear from a rummage sale and learned it through trial and error instead of reading.  This fellow is a legend for homebrewers, and his book is a must read. Even if you have three or four other books about homebrewing you have to read this one just to know what the heck other homebrewers are talking about! In those pages we are introduced to the credo of online chatting about homebrewing. RDWHAHB

Relax, Don’t Worry, Have a Homebrew!

I feel woefully abashed that I haven’t found this before. Never fear though, I have subscribed to it.

Check out his blog.

Cheers!
Tony

From Forbes.com they are reporting Miller is going to go past the original September date to tweak the new Miller Lite Craft Collection release nation wide.

Miller is tweaking Miller Lite to produce it in wheat, amber and blonde ale brews, hoping to ride the success of craft beers. The specialty beers have faster-growing sales than the overall beer market and also command higher prices.

Since I am close enough to Milwaukee to have the chance to find these “Craft beers done Lite” we tried their wheat a couple of months ago. I have to say it wasn’t all that bad. Here’s the thing though, most people who enjoy craft beer don’t go for the big guy’s wares. I’ve reviewed several of AB’s attempts at craft beers creatively decorated and catching my eye. Only after close examination and already disliking the flavor do I find that it was brewed by AB.

I wish them luck in their venture, and if the collection ends up being a success I will rank it right up with Killian’s in the Dating Guide.

Incidentally, the news came out that Miller and Coors may merge as well as Europe’s InBev made a purchase bid for AB both to be more competitive. I can guarantee this quasi beer snob will not be making many purchases from the big guys other than Miller. I just hope if/when the merge goes through they don’t mess with Millers recipes, especially Leinie’s! I’m all for globalization, free market success but it was hard enough to swallow Miller joining with SAB, now Molson Coors too…

Here’s hoping this conglomerating of big beer companies means the micro breweries are whooping the pants them!

Cheers!
Tony

An Australian passenger learned a hard lesson about riding in cars. There are just so many different things to say about this short little piece.

A 34-year-old man has been taken to hospital after falling out of a car window while throwing beer bottles at the vehicle behind.

Don’t litter. Don’t throw beer bottles at vehicles behind you. Keep your seat belt buckled. They must have much different laws about consumption down under. The driver had to yell at her passenger to wake up and give her directions!

You think he might have been responsible for emptying those bottles?

But the man thought she was upset with the car driver behind them and began throwing beer bottles at the car.

While he was leaning out the window throwing the bottles, he fell onto the road and then rolled into a drainage ditch.

I just don’t know what else to say. Thank you Sunshine Coast Daily Online for this gem.

Cheers?
Tony

For those of us who do a lot of online shopping I give unsolicited and sage advice. When you are entering your shipping information make absolutely sure you get not only the right house and street, the right city, but make very sure you get the right ZIP CODE!

It appears that the shipper relies most heavily on the zip code when moving boxes to their destinations. Yes, that makes a lot of sense as one five digit number can place you sometimes within a few miles, and if you add the rest of the zip code it comes right to the house.

Unfortunately there is no quick check for the shipper to say “Hey, this zip doesn’t match the address/town!” That must be why in the ordering they ask twice to verify your information. I will have to chalk this up to an Eye Dee Ten Tee error on my part.

Not heard of an Eye Dee Ten Tee error?

ID10T

Cheers!
Tony

After reading Adam’s post about his hop growth I thought I would share my hop pictures as well. The first is Cascade that is in its second growing season. This one is really taking off and I NEED to figure out a better way to trellis these things.

The next is Willamette (I think) and this is also in its second year but this one had some early trauma last year with two of three bines broken. Because of that it’ll be pretty stunted this year as well.

And here they both are:

Its blueberries in between the two, strawberry on the left, then another blueberry and another strawberry. Now I also have to figure out how to net off the berries so birds don’t get at them.

We added the soaker hose last year as an afterthought. I’m going to have to remulch that area and get it covered better. Hey, its only the second growing season at this house!

Cheers!
Tony

To all the dads out there, I wish you all a wonderful relaxed and happy Father’s Day. I woke up early to two puppy messes to clean up, made the kids breakfast then made my own breakfast. Scrambled eggs and sausage with Stockholm Roast in the french press just to get my arteries humming.

My end goal this afternoon is brewing up a Pumpkin Ale kit that has been sitting around for a couple months now. I was going to do a double batch from my recent order from Midwest Supplies, but FedEx somehow took the package south instead of north. For those of you familiar with the area, I live in Coon Rapids but my package ended up in Shakopee. How does that work?!? I knew I should have just driven down to the store and picked it up!

Happy Father’s day!
Cheers,
Tony

More Father’s Day blogging at the mother ship… er… SkinnyMoose Media