A Short Walk Off A Craft Beer

The Brewery (Brouwerji) Martens is a "proud and ambitious" family business, founded in 1758 in Bocholt Belgium [1] . Martens is the third largest beer producer in Belgium, producing an astonishing 3.6 million hl per year. They are the supplier of private brands for large supermarket chains such as Aldi, Makro, Carrefour and Cora. In 1758 the brewery was founded as an annex to a village inn, but in 1823 Theodorus Martens married into the family. Theoderus was the son of a brewer, and from him the company takes its name. The company began brewing lager style beers in 1923, but in 1962 shifted towards strictly brewing half of their beer according to the Reinheitsgebot [2] for export to Germany. In fact, 85% of the beer produced at Martens is destined for export [3] . Martens produce a staggering number of beers under their name, and varying other brands such as: Martens, Maternus, Schutters, Kristoffel, Karlskone, Holtland and many others. In 2008 Martens also began ...

The Brewery SingleCut Beersmiths is a brewery from Astoria NY, founded in 2012. The brewery was founded by Rich Buceta who financed the brewery by selling his collection of antique guitars [1] . The name of the brewery comes from a type of guitar that only has one (lower) cutaway [2] . SingleCut was the first brewery to making beer in Queens since prohibition, although in just seven years since their opening, there are now at least twelve operating breweries [3] . SingleCut name their beers after famous musicians, famous quotes from musicians, guitar and amp parts, or their address [4] . The beer that we're looking at here is, it would seem, named for a sketch from SNL, recreating a fictional VH1's Behind the Music episode. In this sketch the band Blue Öyster Cult, played by actors, are recording their biggest hit "(Don't Fear) The Reaper". Christopher Walkin (playing their producer) requests "more cowbell" in a second take. Eric is the name...

The Brewery The Köstritzer brewery was first mentioned in documents in 1543, making it one of the oldest breweries in Germany. Being one of the oldest breweries in Germany, it also allowed them to also be one of the oldest producers of Schwarzbier [1] in Germany (though they did not invent the style). Naturally, since the brewery is quite old [2] , it has a storied and interesting past. The brewery is located in Bad Köstritz, Thuringia, which is sort of in central Germany (but Thuringia was part of the former GDR, which is relevant later on). With the foundation of the University of Jena in 1558, the brewery experienced a boom in local popularity [3] . In 1696, the count of Reuss-Ebersdorf, Heinrich X, took over the brewery, and it took the title of "knightly estate brewery". However, with the promotion of the counts of Reuss-Ebersdorf to princes, the brewery became the "princely brewery in Köstritz" [4] . Köstritzer was really popular in the eighteenth c...

We can't ever know how the first beer was brewed. It is likely that grain was stored in some vessel (a jar or bowl say), and water got into the container. We know (from my previous episode of BSU ) that this would trigger the enzymatic process that would normally lead to fully malted grain. However, the grain-water mix likely was only a little  sweet, and natural yeast got in, making early beer. It's worth noting that the person that drank this [1] was probably one of the first ever drunk people ever [2] . Some years later, and many of the processes (for example, malting, boiling, etc) that lead to a modern beer have been improved, and made far more complex, in the never-ending quest for the perfect brew. It should come as no surprise then that the process of fermentation has also been refined, and can now be done in different ways to achieve very different finished products. The main three ways are: Warm. Cool [3] . Wild or Spontaneous. Figure 1: A graphical repr...

Hi everyone, I'm new to this whole blog thing, and I'm making this up as I go along. In the interest of clarity, I thought I'd put a short description of the different series I do here, and I'll add to it as I go along, and maybe think of new things! 1. Craft Beer Reviews I review craft beers. I realise that it's not the most inventive name for a series, but it does serve to describe what I'm trying to do. What is a craft beer [1] ? Great question, and way too confusing. For me though, a craft beer is a beer made with real attention to flavour profile, mouth feel and quality, not just for mass consumption. They're a little harder to find, and often a bit more expensive. I review these beers, but I'm not a sommelier, or even someone who's trained their palate to distinguish between every ester known to Earth creatures (I'm jealous of these people though). In fact, I try very hard not to take myself too seriously. I just review beer from the p...

The Brewery Dry & Bitter Brewing Company are a brewery from Gørløse [1] , Denmark. They opened their doors in early 2015, and their " ambition was always to brew super fresh IPAs ". Not to be earmarked as one-trick ponies, they've also embarked on sour barrel ageing " adventure"  of fifty barrels [2] of different beers, which will be blended, bottle conditioned and released.  Don't be fooled by their self-proclaimed description though. A quick look at their beer history has a lot of IPAs and sours, which was to be expected, but also some stouts, pilsners, kellerbiers and darks. To date, I've had ten of their beers [3] for an average score of 3.85, with my favourites being the Guavalanche and Interacting Galaxies, which I scored at 4.25. I like this brewery because they seem to be excited about what they're doing, and they do their core styles really well. However, I've never tried a session beer from them, but I hope that thi...

This week we tackle the topic of how to go from a grain growing on some grass, to a sweet fermentable liquid. It's harder than you'd think, and was probably discovered by accident. There are basically three steps that'll get you from grass to yeast food: Malting. Mashing. Boiling. Malting Figure 1: A traditional malting floor. In the previous episode of Brew State University ( on which ingredients go into beer ), we talked about malted barley. Since barley is the most popular grain for making beer by far, I'll stick to talking about barley, but note that wheat and rye can also be used (for example). Raw grains are awful, and are unfit for human consumption [1] . To be able to consume the grain in a pleasant way, we need to turn the complex starches into short chain, simple sugars. To do this, the raw (clean) grain is dunked in and out of fresh water, for up to two days. The grain is periodically soaked, and then drained for approximately eight hours ...

The Brewery Störtebeker Braumanufaktur is the sole brewery in the German city of Stralsund, on the coast of the Baltic Sea. The brewery was founded in 1827, although it was operating under the name "Stralsunder Brauerei" up until 2011. The company still makes beers using the Stralsunder name, such as " Stralsunder Pils ", though their most popular [1]   beers all seem to conform to the Störtebeker brand and marketing. It would appear that the name "Störtebeker" comes from the famous fourteenth century pirate, Klaus Störtebeker , of the privateer group The Victual Brothers . Unfortunately, this is never mentioned anywhere. I know that the bottle has an old-timey ship on it, but Stralsund was a Hanseatic town, which was thus part of the Hanseatic League [2] . The ship is also described as a " Replica of a Hanseatic caravel " on the Störtebeker website. Störtebeker can lay claim to being one of the first breweries to install refrigerati...

Hi, and welcome to the first entry in my "educational" series about beer. In this series I'll try to explain an aspect of beer production, but in a non-technical kind of way. I'm doing it this easy-to-follow way because: (a) I'm probably learning about it at the same time as I'm writing it, and (b) so you don't need to know too much beer terminology [1] . This week I'm going to start with what actually goes into a beer and how they largely fall under five headings: Malted Grains. Hops. Water. Yeast. Adjuncts. Wait, where is ingredient number 5??? 1. Malted Grains Grains are the hard, dry seeds of the grass family. We often eat them in breakfast cereals. Common grains used for beer are barley (by far the most common), wheat, oats, rice, corn and sorghum [2]  to name a few. So that covers the grain part in "malted grain", but not so much that "malted" bit. So, what is malting? Well, a hand-wavy description woul...

The Brewery Cloudwater Brew Co. is a craft brewery that was founded in 2014 in Manchester, England, but began brewing on Valentine's Day 2015 (I can only assume as a romantic gesture towards me). Manchester is quickly becoming something of a craft brewing Mecca (a quick look at a list of craft breweries in Manchester is making me feel a little pilgrimatic [1] towards the city). Cloudwater pride themselves on producing quality beer, offering " value through bold precise flavours " and " bottomless drinkability ". Now, that may sound like marketing spin, but it's probably often true as most of their beers have felt dangerously sessionable to me. With one notable exception [2] .  Cloudwater produces anything from kettle sours and brewed radlers [3] , to massive triple IPAs. However, they're famous for producing a huge number of seasonal one-off beers, and regularly collaborating with some of the best breweries in the world.  Appropriate...

The Brewery This beer comes from a company called Neumarkter Lammsbräu, hailing from the city of Neumarkt in der Oberfalz, in the brewery rich state of Bavaria. They were founded in 1628, so they must know a thing or two about brewing beer. What sets them apart from the average "older" German brewery is that they became organic-certified in 1995 across their entire range of products (including soft drinks and mineral water). They're so committed to the cause, that in 2010 their mineral water was quite sensibly certified as organic mineral water, which I think we can all agree is a thing that makes sense. I know I personally hate genetically modified water. Terrible stuff. It might even kill fish. First Impressions The bottle is a very odd shape, kind of like a glass whisky still that's been keeping in shape. A long, thin neck, and a wider round base. The odd part is that base of the beer is a bit too short to hold comfortably, and the neck is super thin, and ...