Newest Foodie/Beer Hangout Opens

For those who were not able to attend the opening of Gather GVL today (open till 9pm), here's a representative look at what Bob Muller and I saw at lunch time. Before the rain!

See ya there! Cheers.

Whale Meets Wooden Robot - Greenville Cheers!

If you made it over to The Whale today for the Wooden Robot Brewery event, featuring four of their most popular brews, you could have joined me in welcoming Mikey Foster, Sales Rep, to the beer-appreciating GVL community and tasted some very special brewery-only beers that he conveniently brought along: Aww Fudge, a fudge stout was just velvet on the palate and no hint of the 12.8% Abv. A "Bring me my slippers, I'll be here awhile" type of sipper.

Also a Saison, Alternating Currents (guess the fruit) that was so fresh and fruity that I could have it morning, noon and night. And with an ABV of 4%, why not? Yummers.
 
Despite the occasional power outage, it was an evening of treats and we were told that starting next week, we will see a lot more Wooden Robot kegs available!
Love good news, don't you?
Cheers!

#Resilience Brewing in Greenville

#Resillience IPA brewing at Quest Brewing Company with many of Greenville’s best brewers. All to aid the #Campfire Relief Fund and the support organizations that are helping people in need.
Swamp Rabbit Brewery and Taproom Liability Brewing Co. Brewery 85, Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant The Eighth State Brewing Company Tetrad Brewing Co. Birds Fly South Ale Project Sierra Nevada Mills River Fireforge Crafted Beer Ponderosa Farm Brewing

Cheers to all and thanks for helping the #Campfire victims.
 

Greenville's Newest Brewery: Iron Hill Opens

Well, yes, I did attend the soft opening yesterday at Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant (official opening Tuesday). I enjoyed the good food, meeting Head Brewer Eric Boice and I certainly enjoyed the beers! I'll have more details later today, but for now a snap or two of the fun day:

Whither AB InBev??

Filling my busy schedule (it could happen!) with some research, largely from this very informative and interesting book (see pic below). So the question arose, where did this entity, AB InBev which claims one third of the world's beer, come from? I found the story very compelling.

It starts in Belgium where until 1987 the two largest and market dominating breweries, Stella Artois and Jupiler, had secret agreements to control prices. In '87, they made the arrangement official, merging to become Interbrew.

Interbrew then began a series of acquisitions which included British Bass and Lowenbrau.
In 2004 things got even more interesting when Interbrew merged with Brazil's AMBev, itself a merger of two former competitors which dominated the local beer markets. From that came InBev.

During this time things weren't going well with the Anheuser-Busch family, due to a "volatile relationship" between father and son, August III and August IV Busch. Thanks to that turmoil, InBev made their move to take over AB. Essentially a hostile takeover since the Busch family controlled less than 7% of the company, in 2008 when Warren Buffet agreed to sell his shares, other shareholders did likewise.
Thus, AB InBev.

Another side story that caught my attention, certainly due to my Northern CA roots and history of drinking Lagunitas beers at the Petaluma brewery, was the time line of Heineken. The Heineken family founded it in 1864 and it still is family owned. Responding to the AB InBev growth, Heineken made some acquisitions of its own, including Newcastle (brewer of that fine Brown ale). Their strategy consisted of investing in local brands in emerging markets. Which brings me back to Lagunitas. Not exactly in an emerging market, too well known for that, but a very desirable investment. So, in 2015, Lagunitas initially sold 50% interest to Heineken, probably with visions of Little Sumpin showing up on shelves throughout the Netherlands. Last year, Heineken assumed 100% ownership.

It's my personal belief that Tony Magee (Lagunitas founder and executive chairman) made that decision based on a desire to never be owned by AB InBev and joining the Heineken family would preclude that.
So, in 2014 AB InBev, SABMiller, Heineken and Carlsberg combined to claim over 45% of all the beer in the world. Whew!

And to sum up, I'm pleased to announce that 99% of the beer in my fridge is craft beer (we keep a Yuengling on hand for brother-in-law). Speaking of which, I'm gonna go have one and bring this history lesson to an end.
Cheers.

Barley's Biggest Little Beer Fest Delivered!

"How I Spent My Sunday Afternoon" by Li'l Marvy.

Here, with all these people and all those beers.
Barley's Seventh Annual Biggest Little Beer Fest delivered on all promises; some extraordinarily good beers were brought by breweries upping their game. My, my.

No way to choose a favorite from this unique bunch but couple stands outs for me that day:
Anderson Valley Rosé Gose, Lagunitas Rum BA Brown Shugga, Manlandia Meth Head Stole My V-Dub, a home brew saison, and Highland Brewing Company's Missing Pieces IPA made my day. And I haven't even mentioned the Belgians down at the Trappe! And a La Folie 2010 in the Library Room.

Look for them in the photos. What a day.

Darby Wilcox and Her Peep Show kept the energy levels up and Pizza slices fended off any hunger pangs that might have interfered with a tasting schedule. Behold the images:

Chili Cook-Off Helps Fend Off Cold Weather

So, if you judge an event's success b y the size of the attending crowd, then yesterday's Quest Chili Cook-Off was an over-the-top success; if you judge Chili Cook-Off's success by the quality of the entries, then judging for a winner gets more and more difficult; and if you show up an hour or more after the event opens, then you don't get any chili. Such was the case for Quest's 4th Annual Chili Cook-Off, yesterday.

(Note to myself: Next year, get there early!!) https://www.facebook.com/events/492337207788225/
Anyway, lots of people got their samples and voted and an overall winner was announced. I''ll just let the pix tell the story:

 Cheers! (please pass the Tums!)