We saddled up with the masterminds behind the highest rated brews and asked them about the inspiration behind the recipes. Follow the links below to the individual Q & A's, or you may access Q & A's from all editions here.

There is always something newsworthy taking place in the beer industry. That's why we dedicate Monday of each week to publishing the top stories from the previous week in our Industry News e-newsletter. Here you'll find a compilation of all the news we've covered since the last issue, with links to the full stories.

Industry & People

Pete Coors Pens Open Letter to Brewers Association

Judging Process
Our reviews are conducted in a single-blind tasting format. This method provides the best opportunity to rely on facts and to avoid favoritism, ensuring a level playing field for all brewers. It serves both the industry and the consumer to have unbiased and objective scores from qualified experts. To best implement this approach, the Judges Review is open to those with established experience as a Master Cicerone® from the Cicerone® Certification Program or as a judge that has accomplished the rank of National or higher from the Beer Judge Certification Program. In the single-blind tasting format, judges are presented with a chilled, properly poured beer and given its style category. Scoring is then done on the following basis using a 100-point scale:

Score Breakdown:
100 to 96: World Class – You need this beer in your life.
95 to 91: Exceptional – Don’t hesitate.
90 to 86: Very Good – A brew to savor.
85 to 75: Average – Somewhat unimpressive.
74 and below: Not Recommended – Just walk away.
 

Sour and Wild Ales have become increasingly popular, both within The Beer Connoisseur community and without. While they have substantial differences, many beer drinkers use the terms “sour” and “wild” interchangeably, which does a disservice to each! We will delve into their areas of common ground, differences in flavor and other aspects that set them apart, and how production and fermentation processes yield distinct finished beers.

The light lager bears a powerful stigma as the stylistic face of all that is considered unholy by craft beer devotees. But many of the most common arguments against it – it’s easily made, flavorless, lacking complexity – don’t always hold water. By removing the stigma associated with this style, we can continue refining the American beer sensibility. Far from the frontier days of rugged syrups, knowledge about the wide range of styles available today empowers us to select the beers that best suit our drinking needs.

Is the idea to advocate a light lager-dominant paradigm? Absolutely not. However, craft beer is as much about having options and a tailored drinking experience as it is about being able to enjoy a beer thicker than blood. Sometimes light lagers are better suited for specific drinking occasions.

The Minimalist Approach

You don’t have to look far into the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) Style Guide to find it – it’s literally at the top of the list as “American Light Lager” in the “Standard American Beer” Category, which contains beers that “are not typically complex and have smooth, accessible flavors.”

This article is a guided tour of the delicious hamburgers and stellar craft beers of New England, featuring pairings that provide a glimpse into the region’s tremendous food and craft beer culture. The burgers and local beers selected to accompany them all highlight unique New England foodways.

Technically, New England includes Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. I grew up in Maine, and I can tell you that state borders don’t define us. A complete definition would include the smell of wood smoke in the morning, apple picking and revolutionary war history. Of course, we’d talk about it all over burgers and beer.

We’ve got hearty appetites here. Perhaps it’s the short winter days or the long, exuberant nights of our brief summer, but few things rally New Englanders to the table like a burger and beer. The uniquely “American” quality of a burger unifies the mixing pot of ethnicities that settled the region. In Rhode Island, Italians. In Maine, French. And in Massachusetts, Irish. The shared rejection of our Puritan heritage helps turbocharge our thirst for beer.

If you have been involved in the craft beer community for any length of time, I’m sure you have seen or heard of someone bragging about enjoying a 2008 vintage of an extremely limited-release Barleywine. Maybe you’ve seen a post on social media of someone showing off a 15-year-old Russian Imperial Stout. You may be wondering, “Can that beer really be as good or better than it was when you bought it?” With the help of a beer cellar, the answer is yes. With proper storage and maintenance in a beer cellar, that vintage bottle of Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine will mature and change within its bottle in fascinating ways. In this article, I’ll explain how to cellar beer, why any true beer connoisseur should have a cellar and the effects cellaring has on different beer styles.

A good beer cellar does not have to be fancy. Key factors include maintaining a steady temperature, restricting the amount of light that can reach the beer and having ample storage space for the beers you want to age. If your cellar doesn’t meet these requirements, you could end up with an oxidized, light-struck mess that will leave you severely disappointed after all that time you put into aging expensive limited releases or white whale one-offs.

Short's Brewing Co. in Bellaire, Michigan has announced the return of its extremely limited-release "without delay IPA," Psychedelic Cat Grass.

Originally brewed for the HopCat restaurant, Psychedelic Cat Grass is a triple dry-hopped American IPA that was packaged, delivered and served fresh in under 24 hours and is meant to be the freshest IPA experience available to craft beer drinkers.

Pouring a hazy light orange with a lush juiciness that only an immense fresh hop quotient could provide, Psychedelic Cat Grass will be available May 25 at these locations.

The full release from Short's is below.

Psychedelic Cat Grass - The #WithoutDelayIPA Returns!

On May 25th, at the stroke of midnight things get psychedelic! We will be releasing our Without Delay Triple Dry Hopped IPA, Psychedelic Cat Grass, across Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois and Wisconsin. To help you find this beer ASAP so it can be consumed as fresh as possible, we’ve created a handy map of bars, restaurants, and stores bringing it in near you.