Posted on 11/25/2007 2:50:34 PM PST by lizol
Cuttthroat Pale Ale from Uinta in Salt Lake is quite good. Tried it when I was out in Ogden last summer.
Kosher Czech beer. I’ll have to check it out! (ouch)
You paying for this round? ;)
Most craft-brewed beers have really elevated the quality of beers across the USA. That’s why ESPN Radio’s Colin Cowherd is totally wrong when he said that beers are just used to get people drunk—he obviously haven’t tried a craft-brewed beer from the likes of Anchor Steam, Sierra Nevada, Uinta, and many other craft brewers.
Interestingly enough, what made it possible for "craft made" ice cream, beers, breads and cheeses were modern food manufacturing technology that made it possible to do high-quality food on a larger scale and at lower cost. I've talked with people who work for "artisan" bakeries when I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area and they all told me that couldn't make a lot of "artisan" breads without modern food processing technologies that makes it possible to do stone-ground multi-grain flour on a really large scale.
I’m not talking about equipment as much as ingredients and processes. Ask your friend about the impact of stabilizers, yeast nutrients, relaxers, flavoring agents, preservatives and the million and one techniques that allow for cheaper, faster and more efficient production.
Sum them up and you’ll find a qualitative difference.
I’m actually drinking a Mich AmberBock as I type. It’s got a fancy bottle and the right words on an ‘old-timey’ label, but it ain’t the product it’s meant to steal market share from.
Too bad, A-B, you lost this consumer a long time ago.
P.S. I was forcibly given this...this...beer.
That was actually one of the first questions I asked. One baker told me that technology evolved because of the need to make bread on a massive scale on a consistent basis. However, he also told the food processing technology that made possible for large-scale bread production could be modified and scaled down to make true artisan breads on a larger scale than old-fashioned methods.
Here, try a bottle of Anchor Steam beer instead. Definitely a lot better! 
I’d agree that many processes can be improved and some technology can aid production of bread in quantities beyond that of the hand-crafted baker. However, a brief glance at the pages of many food technology journals will show a clear trend to cheapen and substitute rather than improve. If there is a firm that is able to compete with artisan products, great. But I think the lucrative market segment the mega-corp firms are after have left their folds for good.
Mmmmmmm...! PIVO!! Cesky pivo! Dobre Cesky pivo!
Oh yeah. No question. However, I’m mostly fooling with homebrew these days.
Re “Kosher Czeck beer. I’ll have to check it out! (ouch).”
How about: “Who’ll pick up the Czeck who drank too much kosher beer?” Double ouch.
And “What do you do with a Hungary Greek who won’t pay his Czeck for the kosher beer? Run him up a Pole?”
Speaking about poles. True story:
I once worked with an Italian guy named Glen, who was a movie extra in the Beach Blanket Bingo series of films (he was very handsome and nice).
He was at a party when some guy tried to hit on a beautiful woman, and when he asked if she would go out with him, she told a friend: “I wouldn’t go near him with a 10 foot pole,” to which my friend inquired, “How about with a 5’ 4” Italian?” He survived the party.
I think the requirements are a bit more strenuous. The grain and hps must be grown according to Jewish law. This includes first fruit belonging to G_d and a 7th year rest.
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