Welcome to Issue #62 of The Beer Connoisseur Magazine!

Our cover story focuses on the booming film industry in Georgia and elucidates how Georgia has coaxed film companies to produce their films here. In the story, Kurt Spurlock lists notable past and future productions in the state – as well as memorable beer appearances in Georgia films.

Just like last issue, we detail some high-scoring beers that are perfect for the fall season. Then, we feature a selection of “What We’re Drinking Now,” which highlights some wonderful brews that we’ve reviewed in years past.

We highlight Pontoon Brewing’s fun Halloween-themed Nightmare Fuel fruited sour via a conversation with head Brewer Chris Baratz. This blood-red brew is sure to be a treat for spooky holiday parties.

One of the most entertaining beer festivals in the U.S. takes place every weekend in September in the north Georgia mountains of Helen – Helen Oktoberfest! The 2022 rendition of the event marks the 52nd annual occurrence of the festive occasion. After that we focus on five high-scoring beers to try this fall.

Do you like pancakes? Of course you do! In that case, enjoy this recipe for terrific beer-y pancakes.

It’s no secret that Georgia’s film industry has been experiencing an exponential boom over the last decade, and if you live around Atlanta, chances are you’ve seen some of it firsthand. This may seem like an entirely new phenomenon, but believe it or not, Georgia has a rich history in film production that stretches back some 50 years.

Georgia’s film industry traces its roots back to 1973, when then Georgia governor (and soon-to-be president) Jimmy Carter established the Georgia State Film Commission. Carter’s goal at the time was to entice production companies into the state with an attractive list of resources and shooting locations, and his gamble paid off in short order.

For a time, Georgia became a major player in the industry, and although it was still utterly dwarfed by Hollywood’s global prestige, several popular movies and television shows began calling Georgia home. Episodes of the popular television series The Dukes of Hazzard were shot here, for example, and several big box office hits of the era like Driving Miss Daisy were filmed around Georgia landmarks.

In 1987, long before the term “craft beer” was ever coined, Stoudts Brewing Co. began pouring authentic German-style ales and lagers in Adamstown, Pennsylvania to wide acclaim. At its height, the brewery was distributing its well-crafted and tasty Reinheitsgebot-approved brews to 20 states.

Founded by Carol Stoudt when she added a 30-barrel brewhouse to her already-thriving restaurant and antique business, she instantaneously became the first female brewmaster since Prohibition and was on the forefront of the craft beer movement just as it was starting to take shape.

According to the brewery, “under Carol’s leadership Stoudts quickly rose to prominence as one of the top breweries not just in Pennsylvania but across the entire East Coast. The Stoudts brand became synonymous with quality, and in just a few short years, they were winning countless awards at the nation’s premier beer festivals.”

The company and Stoudt herself has long positioned the company under the guidance of the word Gemütlichkeit – a term with no direct translation but which she explains to mean: “like-minded people having a great time together, through their authentic German-style beers.”

There are only a select few in the world today that can be categorized as a “renaissance man.” George Stranahan – the maverick millionaire who founded both Flying Dog Brewery and Stranahan’s Whiskey – is one of them – though his preferred term for himself was one he came up with himself: “pilgrimosopher.”

Born in Toledo, Ohio in 1931 with a grandfather who co-founded Champion Spark Plug in 1903, Stranahan could’ve coasted on his family’s immense wealth and not worked a day in his life. Instead, Strahanan let wanderlust guide him on a meandering career path that saw him carve his own swath through life’s twists and turns.

Among Stranahan’s many accomplishments – which include founding the Woody Creek Tavern in Woody Creek, Colorado, proposing the Aspen Center for Physics, raising grand-champion beef cattle in the late 80s and early 90s and publishing the outdoor magazine Mountain Gazette – the pioneering figure also founded not one, but two notable Colorado beverage establishments: Flying Dog and Stranahan’s.

Georgia’s craft beer scene has grown considerably over the past few years. Long gone are the days of SweetWater, Terrapin and Atlanta Brewing (formerly Red Brick) being the only games in town.

With breweries popping up with regularity both inside and outside the perimeter, Georgia is sud­denly a hotbed of brewing talent in the Southeast – a region that doesn’t quite get enough credit for its high-quality beer.

In keeping with that theme, Mutation Brewing in Sandy Springs is a brand-new brewery that boasts a clean and elegant black-and-white exterior as well as brilliant use of striking neon lighting inside its stylish and minimalistic taproom. The neon provides a certain “zing” of color to the taproom – highlighting the brewery’s subtle but effective use of its company colors, green and purple.

The brewery plays hosts to a variety of events including live music performances, sports view­ing parties and even water pong tournaments (think beer pong but more sanitary). Mutation is even open for private events in various locales across the brewery’s 700-square-foot space, which can be set up via the brewery’s website or Facebook page.

Of course, the brewery’s outdoor area is also open to pets – so the pup will be welcomed with open arms.

Every month, our judges review a bevy of brews from breweries around the world. Though we post each review and highlight them in our Official Review article in each issue, and we detail the highest-scoring beers in our year-end Beer in Review winter edition at the start of each new year, we usually let the reviews do the talking.

Beginning with our Summer Issue #61, we will be highlighting some of the most interesting and high-scoring beers our judges reviewed recently, with the caveat that they must have attained a rating of either World Class (100-96) or Exceptional (95-91).

Read on to explore our selections for our Fall 2022, Issue 62!

Japanese Style Lager – Rated 94
Upslope Brewing Co.
Boulder, CO

A zesty and interesting lager style that would be a perfect pint in early fall’s warmer temperatures across some of the United States or the cooling temperatures elsewhere on the continent. Brewed with flaked rice, this delicately effervescent lager delivers an engaging, snappy bitterness as well as an extremely dry finish – inviting the drinker to keep on sipping!

It’s one of the best Oktoberfest celebrations this side of Munich or the German-American enclaves of Michigan and Wisconsin. The made-in-America Alpine town of Helen in north Georgia recreates the world’s most cel­ebrated beer festival with a polka band’s gusto.

As with the gathering of Munich’s major brew­ers each year, the seasonal celebration in Helen is all about beer, food, music, singing and dancing. While not nearly as big as the gigantic tents on the 100 acres of former wheat fields in Munich, there are plenty of tents set up around town dur­ing the festival, where Bavarian paint schemes are enhanced by authentic bands and a plethora of lederhosen, dirndls and high-tufted Tyrolean hats. If you're looking to avoid a hangover from all the merrymaking, this transdermal patch you put on before imbibing might be perfect for you.

Oktoberfest was launched two centuries ago to celebrate the marriage of a Bavarian prince. In Helen, the Chattahoochee River coursing through the town and the pine-studded foothills of the surrounding Appalachians became reason enough to party hearty and give a nod to the love of beer in support of the town’s chosen theme once it converted to a Bavarian motif.

Pontoon Brewing in Sandy Springs has been produced a bevy of high-scoring beers over the years in the pages of The Beer Connoisseur. In 2020, their limited-release barrel-aged imperial stout, Barrel Aged Brownie Batter Blend #1, was our highest-rated beer of the year with a World Class score of 98.

That same year, the brewery produced a fall seasonal called Nightmare Fuel that also scored highly in our Official Review and was named as the #71 beer of 2020.

We spoke with Pontoon’s head brewer, Chris Baratz, about this scintillating imperial sour beer.

BC: Who came up with this beer’s recipe?
I came up with this one with assistance from the brewing team on the fruit choices. 

BC: What’s your favorite aspect of this beer (flavor, aroma, etc.)?
The strong jammy flavors and the color, which looks like blood!

BC: Where does this beer’s name come from?
We planned a beer for Halloween Horror Nights in Florida so we wanted to do something spooky that looked like blood.