Speaking of Beer

Prebeer Preamble: Today I’m joined by a record number of co-drinkers: Michael R.Mennenga and Brian Brown from Michael and Evo’s Wingin’ It! podcast (and others), Kris Mayo and Tim Adamec from the Food Geeking podcast (and others), and certifed beer judge Thomas Vincent from the great city of Flagstaff, Arizona. What’s all the fuss about? Why German wheat beers, of course! The plan was to channel all of our experience with beer and podcasting to give you this, the definitive hefe-cast. Let’s see how it went…

Beer #1 The crowd first tries a classic from the “world’s oldest brewery”: Weihenstephaner Hefe Weissbier. Lots of opinions fly around the room, and Thomas gives us a lesson in German pronunciation. Also, I throw out the whole “lemon” question for general discussion.

Interbeer Interlude: Beer As Folk “Jay Phral of Sudwerk Privatbrauerei Hübsch” Tucked away in the small college town of Davis, California is an anomaly: a West Coast brewery that eschews massive hops and high alcohol content in favor of brewing authentic Bavarian-style beer. I spoke with the manager of brewery operations about Sudwerk’s history and what it’s like to be so different from the local brew zeitgeist.

Beer #2: Next up for the sampling crew: Ayinger Ur-Weisse. This is a dunkelweizen, a dark hefe, from another classic German brewery. Both of today’s beers had to endure the rigors of importation to reach our thirsty maws. Did both survive intact? Thomas definitely has an opinion on this one…

Beer Geek Moment: “Yeast” What’s invisibly tiny and excretes pure bliss? Today we cover the basics of micro-fungus and how it impacts beer well beyond adding bubbles.

Postbeer Postscript: Duck! Here come numbers! Everyone chimes in on what they think of these beers, quantitatively speaking. Does today’s epic show end up in harmony or conflict? Tune in and find out!

 

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I was hoping to have show 30 up today, but it looks like that ain’t gonna happen. Look for it around Monday or so. Meanwhile, enjoy these beer-related tidbits provided to me by Eric. Just click on the hypertext and be swept away to a beery story!

Miller tap on Coors keg equals state fine (could anyone tell the difference?)

Beer festival runs out of ale

Do you have Dale in a can?

Latrobe brewery produces first beer in a year

Summer beers

How strong is that beer?

Stone Ruination IPA to be available in “snack size bottles”

Let’s nip off to Germany for this one, shall we? The beers for the next show are:

Weihenstephaner Hefe Weissbier [alternatives: Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse, Ayinger Bräu Weisse, Hacker-Pschorr Hefe Weisse Natürtrub]

and

Ayinger Ur-Weisse [alternatives: Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse Dunkel, Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier Dunkel, Hacker-Pschorr Dunkle Weisse]

These should be widely available in any store that has a decent import selection, or, for you German listeners, a decent domestic selection. So grab them and drink along, but, uh, hold the lemon, will you?

For beer fun & news, just follow the links! Thanks to Eric for all of these.

Pizza beer: story here video here

Gluten-free yeast

American Craft Beer Week (going on NOW!)

Go green with New Belgium

Fruity Michelob Ultra (not that that’s a good thing…)

Grab your diminutive glassware and let’s belly up to the beer tent! Today Speaking of Beer takes you through a beer festival, where you’ll meet brewers, a beer judge, and a whole gaggle of giddily drunk fest-goers. The bouncing strains of indie rock band Beatnik Turtle will be our constant companion as we knock back plenty of tasty brews and find out what it takes to get through one of these things unscathed.

Find a festival near you from these guys!

[Thanks to Todd Usry, Robert Eilert, their "posse", Thomas from Flagstaff, Roman, Quentin (Clinton?) and friend, the drunk chick, Brandon the Awesome and krew, and all the other enthusiastic festers for their contributions! Next time, I should write names down...]

 

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The next show is one SoB’s patented “change of pace” episodes, so there are no specific beers to find. I still encourage drinking along, however, so if you truly want to immerse yourself, do the following: acquire 15 – 20 single bottles of different beers, and scare up a 3 or 4 oz. glass. Disable your toilet and put a port-a-potty in your back yard, or in an unused corner of your apartment. When you listen to the show, crank the stereo (preferably with bluesy rock n’ roll), cook up some carny food, and invite over about 10% more people than your living space can comfortably hold. Oh, they should bring their own beers and tiny glasses. Yeah, that should about do it…

There’s more to spring than bock beer, as made abundantly clear by the great Jonathan Coulton’s ode to getting back to nature, “First of May.” And now you can hear a hilarious version produced by a bunch of podcasters* á là Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” recorded as a tribute to the late great Joe Murphy, a huge Coulton fan. I imagine Joe’s celebrating spring the right way out on the Elysium fields about now…

Catch some podcasters In flagrante delicto here.

Thanks to Paul Fischer and Phil Rossi for putting this together!

*Heather Welliver, Phil Rossi, Martha Holloway, Debbie from Mesa, Barb Fischer, Bill Shunn, Rich Sigfrit, Jared Axelrod, Tim Callender, Jack Mangan, Mathew Wayne Selznick and Command Line