Wild Brew ticket prices increase after today
If you are looking to attend Wild Brew on July 28 and you haven’t yet purchased your tickets, today is a good day to act. After today, ticket prices will increase by $5.
Here’s some ticket information lifted off the Wild Brew site, www.wildbrew.org:
-General admission is $60.
-General admission price is $65 after July 20 (That’s today!)
-Advance purchase required. No sales at door.
-Must be 21 or older with ID for admission.
-Tickets purchased by July 20 will be mailed to you.
-Tickets purchased after July 20 will be held at the Will Call table at the event entrance.
-Deadline for ticket sales is 4 p.m. on July 27.
Looking for some additional Wild Brew info? Here’s a link to the most recently updated beer list.
And here is a link to the restaurant list.
In addition to providing guests with a great beer and food selection, Wild Brew serves a nice charitable cause as well. Proceeds go to benefit the Sutton Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding cooperative conservation solutions for birds and the natural world through science and education.
Dates set for GABF ticket sales
If you’re planning to attend the 2012 Great American Beer Festival in Denver, here are some key dates for you to be aware of:
-Tickets for Brewers Association and American Homebrewers Association members go on sale July 31.
-Tickets for the general public go on sale Aug. 2.
The festival — the premier beer festival and competition in America — is set for Oct. 11-13.
More information can be had at www.greatamericanbeerfestival.com.
Choctaw Oktoberfest announces 2012 dates
The organizers of the annual Choctaw Oktoberfest today announced dates for the 2012 festival. The nine-day fest will cover the following dates:
-Friday, Aug. 31: 5 p.m. to midnight
-Saturday, Sept. 1: noon to midnight
-Sunday, Sept. 2: noon to midnight
-Monday, Sept. 3: noon to midnight
-Tuesday, Sept. 4: 5 p.m. to midnight
-Wednesday, Sept. 5: 5 p.m. to midnight
-Thursday, Sept. 6: 5 p.m. to midnight
-Friday, Sept. 7: 5 p.m. to midnight
-Saturday, Sept. 8: noon to midnight
More details will follow on the blog once the event gets closer.
COOP F5 tops unofficial best beer by state list
A beer writer used the Beer Advocate ratings system to compile a list of best beers by state, and as you can see at this blog post, people got pretty fired up about it. Despite his disclaimer that the list was far from perfect, people really got worked up. Like, in a pitchforks and burning torches sort of way. The backlash was so overwhelming, the writer created a new list, this time using feedback from disgruntled readers who had better suggestions for what a state’s beer should be. One place where there wasn’t a backlash, however, was right here in Oklahoma, where COOP Ale Works F5 IPA held down the top spot, with little to no complaint from the masses. The author wrote:
“Oklahoma’s Aleheads seemed thrilled with the selection of the F5. I didn’t get any alternative suggestions and most folks acted like it was the obvious choice. I love it when a plan comes together.“
Thirsty Beagle Podcast, Episode 2: Mustang Brewing Co.
Big thanks to Mustang Brewing President Tim Schoelen and Brewmaster Gary Shellman for stopping by Thirsty Beagle HQ to tape my latest podcast.
Giving new meaning to grabbing some ‘cold gold’
You might think using stuff like bacon and cigars — just a couple examples of new-fangled beer ingredients that are becoming more accepted — to make beer is wild and crazy, but a brewery in the Czech Republic has taken it to a new level.
Say hello to a real cold gold beverage:
Mustang to kick off 3rd anniversary celebration Friday in OKC
Mustang Brewing Co. is marking three years in the beer business and the party starts tomorrow, people. The Mustang crew will be at McNellie’s OKC tomorrow night (7/13) to pass out promotional items. Then things will get really crazy with a three-day, two-state beer and music tour set for for July 19-21.
You can find all the details by clicking right here.
The Brewers’ Blog: Marshal Brewing on beer clarity
Today’s installment of The Brewers’ Blog, where I run guest columns from local beer experts/enthusiasts, comes to us from Marshall Brewing Co.’s Garrick Ritzky. Our topic is beer clarity.
While enjoying one of your favorite Marshall Brewing Company offerings have you ever noticed the beer is not perfectly clear? The mega breweries are greatly concerned with clarity; therefore they perform multiple steps of filtration and even pasteurization. We at Marshall forgo these steps. We produce an unfiltered, unpasteurized, vegan-friendly product.
Most people are familiar with unfiltered wheat beers, but why are they cloudy? With unfiltered beer, living yeast and proteins remain in the finished product. For example, Hefeweizen is fermented with a unique German ale yeast that does not flocculate and fall out of the beer prior to packaging like most brewers yeast. This produces the wonderful flavor, aroma, mouth feel, and cloudiness associated with the style. Sundown Wheat is moderately cloudy, but for a different reason. The American ale yeast Marshall’s uses for Sundown Wheat mostly falls out before packaging. The extremely small protein particles of oats, malted wheat and barley still present in the finished beer create a haze.
There are other reasons for lack of clarity in our beer. A dry-hopped beer such as Arrowhead Pale Ale has a slight haze. This is due to the tannins derived from the hops attaching to the proteins, forming larger “complexes.” During the dry-hopping process, hops are added directly to the finished beer to enhance aroma. We don’t want our beers to be too cloudy or hazy either, so we do implement cold maturation to aid in removal of excess yeast and sediment.
So, why do we not filter or pasteurize our beer? We believe the benefits of not filtering outweigh the drawbacks. The only drawback seems to be the lack of extreme clarity, while the benefits are numerous.
The first, and most important benefit, is full flavor and aroma. Filtration not only removes larger particles, but also some of the smaller constituents which make up all the fantastic flavors and aromas of beer.
Oxygen pick up is also a major concern during the filtration process. The presence of oxygen is the most damaging factor in degrading beer quality. Actually, the basis of beer staling or aging in general is all oxidation reactions.
By far the most common filtration media is D.E. (diatomaceous earth), the fossilized remains of sea life. Using D.E. produces a non-vegan product. We want to keep our vegetarian and vegan customers happy.
There are different levels of filtration, and with even the roughest or least amount of filtration the yeast is almost entirely or completely removed due to its relatively large size. Yeast has a great many health benefits due to its essential amino acids, B-complex vitamins, chromium, and fiber.
In the end if you do prefer a clearer beer, there is a trick with bottled beer. The beer must be stored for a minimum of a few days cold and undisturbed and you must drink out of a glass. While pouring slowly into your glass, simply leave the last remaining half ounce or so in the bottle. This should provide you with a beer closely resembling a filtered beer, but with most of the benefits of not filtering.
Cheers,
Garrick “The Meat Cleaver” Ritzky
Choc’s two latest offerings set to hit shelves
Get ready for Choc’s latest year-round beer, Oklahoma Pale Ale, and its newest once-a-year release, Belgian-Style Trippel. The beers left Choc HQ today and should be on stores shelves soon.
Beer community rallies to support storm-impacted brewery
I came across some news today that isn’t from a local brewery, or even about beer we can get here in Oklahoma, but this is too good not to share. It reminds me of something I learned pretty quickly after I started covering the Oklahoma beer scene in 2008 — the beer community really is a brotherhood. Check it out:
July 9, 2012
An Open Letter to the D.C. Beer Community:
Last Friday’s freak storm caught the entire D.C. area by surprise. The destruction that the unexpected derecho caused is astounding. As I write this, there are still people without electricity, and our thoughts are with them as the region continues to recover.
Our power was out for five days at the brewery, and our production has been completely shut down during this time. We have been unable to brew, package, or ship any beer to market. We were fortunate to find a generator to supply enough power to run our critical systems to try to keep our 13,000 gallons of beer from spoiling.
All of us at Port City Brewing Company were absolutely amazed by the community’s response to our plight. The support from the D.C. Beer community has been unbelievable. We received messages of support and offers of help from all over. Our fellow brewers, our restaurant and retail customers, and many beer drinkers contacted us to ask how they could help us to save the beer.
The willingness to step up and help a neighbor is what defines a community. We found in a very real way that D.C. Beer community is strong and supportive of each other, and we will always be grateful for this. We are truly honored and humbled by the response, and we’ll always remember the support that everyone has shown us.
We have a long way to go to get our brewery back to normal operations. It will take weeks to get caught up with production, and unfortunately, there will be ongoing out of stocks in the market as we try to recover. We appreciate your patience as we work to catch up.
Many have asked us if we were able to “save the beer.” We continue to monitor the beer very closely, and we test and taste it daily. Five of our six tanks appear to be just fine. The 6th tank is a 60-barrel batch of lager beer that fermented at a higher temperature than we intended.
There is a beer style that developed in San Francisco called steam beer, or California Common beer. It is a beer made with lager yeast and fermented at higher temperatures like an ale. This is exactly what happened to this 60-barrel tank of our beer.
As a result, this storm has given us Derecho Common beer.
We will release the limited Derecho Common beer in early August. It will be draft only, and will be limited to about 120 kegs, which will be sold only to bars and restaurants in the D.C. Metro area.
Thank you for your continued support.
Sincerely,
Bill Butcher
Founder
Port City Brewing Company
