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Kegerators.com's Top 5 Names in Domestic Beer

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The U.S. beer industry is in a constant state of flux. New ideas and innovations are changing the face of beer every year, especially in the micro brew market. As the primary field of growth in the brewing industry, kegerators.com will name the top ten names in domestic craft beer production. These are names to look out for. These are brewers associated with quality, ingenuity, tradition, social responsibility, and most of all, good tasting beer. For these qualities, we name New Belgium Brewing Company (Fort Collins, Colorado), Dogfish Head Brewing Company (Rehoboth Beach, Delaware), Spoetzl Brewery (Shiner, Texas), Rogue Ales (Newport, Oregon) and St. Arnolds Brewery (Houston, Texas).

New Belgium Brewery New Belgium Brewery of Fort Collin, Colorado, is here honored for the company’s integrity, ingenuity, and the amazing quality of its high production level brewery. A forward thinking, 100% green company which shares its profits with its workers, New Belgium has consistently contributed innovative brewery techniques, while at the same time maintaining ancient and venerated beer traditions, such as its 1554 Enlightened Black Ale. Kudos to the first beer company to recycle its waste grain and harvest methane from it! This full circle renewable energy source now contributes 30% of the energy required to produce over 450,000 barrels of beer annually.

Dogfish Head Brewing Company Dogfish Head Brewing Company, a smaller brewer located in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, is here honored for ingenuity and fearless experimentation in the realm of brewing. These brewers have gone where few dare to go, preparing beers of up to 18% A.P.V.! Using admixtures such as raspberries, raisins, blueberries, chicory, and coffee, Dogfish Head has prepared some mighty interesting and mighty tasty concoctions. Brewers of the Midas Touch, Dogfish Head has even created a facsimile of a brew scientists discovered only traces of on urns in King Midas’ tomb. A true blend of tradition and experimentation. But you’ll have to go to Delaware to sample some of their latest innovations: small scale craft spirits!

Spoetzl Brewery, of Shiner Spoetzl Brewery, of Shiner, Texas, is a middle-sized brewery (much bigger than a microbrewery at 300,000+ barrels per year) that has, just in recent years, ventured into the craft beer market. Spoetzl is here honored for returning to the craft beer traditions from the precipice of the homogenized U.S. beer fad. For many years, the Spoetzl Brewery kept mainly their Shiner beer going, but now has distribution for many craft beers, in addition to their rather main-stream tasting Shiner and Shiner light. All of this is, in part, to Shiner’s centennial beer program, which started in 2005. The centennial program began producing one special edition beer in small batches at the end of each quarter. With this foray into the realm of experimentation, the brewers at the Spoetzl Brewery found flavors that were received quite favorably. Spoetzl’s Shiner 96 Märzen Ale, Shiner 97 Bohemian Black Lager, Shiner 98 Bavarian Style Amber, and Shiner 99 Munich Style Helles Lager, are all high quality craft beers worthy of recognition along-side the best microbrews of the day.

Rogue Ales Rogue Ales, of Newport, Oregon is a brewery which has maintained an exacting level of perfection with its recipes while keeping an open mind toward new innovations in brewing. With brews as diverse as Soba, Hazelnut Brown Nectar, and the Juniper Pale Ale, Rogue has demonstrated it’s willingness to live up to its namesake. Yet still, for all this invention, Rogue beers are remarkably reliable – one bottle will always taste like the next, even with such extreme different flavors. Here’s another great thing about Rogue Ales: they are all without preservatives or pasteurization.

Saint Arnold Brewing Company Saint Arnold Brewing Company, of Houston, Texas, is here honored for their dedication to serving their community with traditional, well made craft beers. You may not have heard of St. Arnolds unless you have visited central or east Texas. This is because St. Arnolds is more devoted to serving their immediate community than they are in expanding their distribution. St. Arnolds certainly stands a part from the other breweries in this list, being a straight-forward craft brewery with an honorable dedication to traditional beer styles. St. Arnolds has had quite a time dealing with the destruction of Hurricane Ike, but they are moving into a new location and will surely be up and running again soon.

These have been Kegerators.com‘s five most distinguished domestic brewers of 2008.

Keg Theft: Kegs Disappearing From Bars and Breweries

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Not an activity we at Kegerators.com encourage, stainless steel kegs are disappearing from behind bars and breweries to be sold for scrap metal or possibly for home brewing.

The trend comes as the stainless scrap price has more than doubled in the last five years, making an empty 18-pound keg worth more than $13, according to price data for steel scrap sold in Chicago.

Hawaii actually passed legislation making beer-keg theft a crime. They may not have needed the law since existing theft laws probably would have covered it. But just for good measure, they passed it anyway.

Pacific Business News reported back in May:

Hawaii beer wholesalers reported the theft of more than 350 beer kegs last year, up sharply from the 30 stolen in 2006. Nationwide, approximately 300,000 of the stainless steel containers are stolen annually.

"This is a huge problem," Tim Lyons, legislative liaison for Anheuser-Busch Cos., testified in favor of the law. "It has just escalated beyond any reasonable proportion."

"Metal keg theft is a growing problem because they can be redeemed for fast cash at scrap dealerships," added Lance Hastings, Western regional director for state government affairs for Miller Brewing Co.

The Brew Scholar

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Brew Scholar Diploma

Brewing today is more of a science than ever. With advances in the specialty fields of micro-biotics and plant biology, this science is now receiving praise – and the degree programs – from the highest level of academia. The golden age of microbrews we are living in is giving more and more respect around the board to brewmasters, and has created a whole new field of academia – the brew scholar.

With more and more inventive and daring microbrews being created every year, we are seeing the ancient art of brewing given more and more attention. With a better understanding of what happens on the cellular level during each process of brewing – malting, mashing, fermenting, and kegging – efficient short-cuts and better ways of cleaning and sanitizing are becoming apparent. The advent of science of genetic engineering may provide even more efficient ways of fermenting beer as well. Already on the market is the product known as turbo yeast, which ferments quickly and more efficiently than most regular yeast strains. Alcohol fermented by the use of turbo yeast is used primarily as a fuel source or for distillates.

The use of Ethanol as a fuel source is growing rapidly. In Brazil, ethanol production is high, and new “flex” cars are being manufactured, which can run on either Ethanol, Gasoline, or a mixture of the two. U.S. president George W. Bush even visited there in March 7th of 2007, where he signed agreements with Brazilian president about importing alternative alcohol based technology from Brazil to the United States. The rise in value of Ethanol as an easy fuel to turn to has only increased opportunities for the Brew Scholar. After all, alcohol is most easily manufactured through the art and science of fermentation.

Speaking of which, there is a book by brew scholar and professor of brewing technology at U.C. Davis Charles W. Bamforth called Beer: Tap Into the Art and Science of Brewing. This book goes into scientific detail about all aspects of the brewing process, with a mind to a layperson’s understanding of the topics. This is an excellent book for those interested in the details of the process of making beer. This is a good place for a starting home brewer or beer fan to learn more about what they are drinking. Professor Bamforth also gives lectures from time to time, so keep an eye out for his name in your neck of the woods.

One interesting development in the birth of the brew scholar is that many respectable Universities are now offering degrees in brew science. The U.K.’s University at Nottingham has offered since 2006 a master’s course which is open to graduates as well as current brewery employees. Class topics include yeast efficiency, brewery design, and more.

At U.C. Davis, in northern-central California, malting and brewing are taught as part of the bachelor of science degree in Food Science or the master’s degree of science within the Food Science Graduate Group. This is where Professor Bamforth teaches. There are three tiers to the Davis brewing program. First is Introduction to Beer and Brewing, which gets the student familiar with the importance of beer as an international industry, and a basic understanding of how industrial breweries operate. Next is the theoretical class Malting & Brewing Science, which familiarizes the student with all aspects of industrial beer production from growing grains to the point of sale. Thirdly is Practical Malting & Brewing, where the student learns “hands-on” in the brewery and at the lab about analyzing beer and the links of that analysis with production methods.

With the golden age of microbrews going strong, it will be a wonder to see what these new brew scholars can do with beer. We are sure to see more interesting varieties and more efficient beer production thanks to these new degrees. Blue-collar workers finally have something to thank academia for!

Blackthorn's Guide to Touring Breweries

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Touring Breweries

Imagine a vacation where all you did was tour breweries and sample beers from all over the nation. This kind of vacation is now possible in this country. The proliferation of microbreweries has reached such an epic proportion in the U.S. that every major city – and many smaller burgs – have breweries that offer guided tours. Naturally, not every beer fan is going to be able to convince their spouse of the fun and excitement of a brewery-tour-style vacation, but it is easily feasible to work a couple of brewery stops into the family road trip. After all, brewery tours are educational and interesting for the whole family!

Most brewery tours take place on the weekends, so make sure to take this into account with your holiday planning. Some brewery tours are free, others cost a small amount (usually $5 or so), and sometimes reservations are encouraged or required. A little research on the interweb will provide all the contact information you will need. It pays to call ahead at the brewery and ask about family, student, or elderly discounts – and to make sure that someone is there!

To determine which breweries to visit, I suggest first searching out the locations of where your favorite beers are made. Many beer companies, even microbrews, have multiple breweries. If you are planning a brewery vacation, it is easy to then connect the dots and start calling about tours in the spots you want to hit. If you have a vacation route already planned out, and have found a brewery that tours on it, you should ask the receptionist if they know of any other touring breweries in the area. In this manner, you can discover some of the local flavor, and perhaps run across your new favorite beer.

Many distilleries also offer tours of their production facilities. Perhaps the most famous of these is the Jack Daniels distillery in Lynchburg. The distillery is located about 75 miles southeast of Nashville, Tennessee, and offers 1 hour and 15 minute tours of the facility. The Jack Daniels tour incorporates informative information about the distilling process, historical anecdotes about the famous whisky, and a chance to buy commemorative bottles at their White Rabbit bottle shop. Although Moore county, where the distillery is located, is a dry county, and it forbidden to sell any form of alcohol, the distillery has a special legal dispensation to sell small commemorative bottles there.

Another fun and interesting brewery tour is that of TAKARA Sake works in Berkeley, CA. I heard from many friends about the quality of this tour for years before I was able to make it. This tour features a sake museum and an instructional video about sake making and its history. At the end of the tour, the generous hosts of TAKARA Sake treat the (21+) brewery tourists to a tasting of 11 different kinds of sake. This tour is quite a treat, and a must see for any brewery fan touring breweries in Northern California, especially the San Francisco Bay Area.

For Texans, the Shiner brewery tour is an easy jaunt. If you are interested in how a larger brewing operation works, you can visit this brewery where the daily production reaches approximately 8,000 cases of beer and 500 kegs. The Spoetzl Brewery is one of the fewer than 170 breweries in the U.S. that survived prohibition, and is still going strong to this day. As far as breweries go, this is a historical operation. Located conveniently close to San Antonio, Houston, and Austin, the Spoetzl Brewery offers tours Monday through Friday at 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.

The few brewery tours listed here give you some idea of the breadth and variety of brew tour adventures available to the general public. While researching your brewery tour vacation, keep an eye out for the unusual, perhaps a drink you are not used to. You will come away educated and with a greater sense of the variety and adventure available while touring breweries.