This isn't good: The Mt. Angel Brewing Company closed its doors abruptly. From the article:

Mt. Angel Brewing Co. has closed its doors abruptly, only days after those involved with the restaurant said it was about to change its menu.

Repeated phone calls to representatives of Traeger Industries, who owned and managed the downtown Mount Angel establishment, were unreturned.

Jerry Lauzon, Oktoberfest president and an investor in Mount Angel Brewing Co., said he hasn't been able to get in contact with anyone from the brewery.

Sounds very odd, closing with no notice and leaving everything in the lurch like that. Suspicious, even. I wonder what will happen to the Mt. Angel Oktoberfest now?

In case I hadn't pointed them out yet, here's some more beer blogs I've come across:

• Hail the Ale!
• On Tap
• Beer and Food (hasn't been updated in over a month, though)

If you've been homebrewing for any amount of time, odds are you've had at least one explosive occurence with your beer. I have had two, and fortunately I was present to see both of them.

The first was a fermenting batch of Toad Spit Stout (from The Complete Joy of Homebrewing). We were living in Spokane, Washington, at the time, and I had cooked up the batch of Toad Spit on a Saturday. It was destined to be a crazy batch: there was a bad boilover that coated a good portion of the stove surface and for some reason I stupidly didn't get around to cleaning it up until the next day. So the next morning, I'm in the kitchen, scrubbing away at the caked-on wort on the stovetop, and the Toad Spit is in the carboy bubbling away like crazy. I had fashioned a blowoff tube by attaching a regular 3/8-inch siphoning hose to the top of an airlock and thought all would be well (little did I know). While I was scrubbing, I heard a loud "POP!" and turned around in time to see the airlock-blowoff tube falling and dark brown liquid geysering out of the carboy! Literally a geyser; there was half-fermented beer on the walls, the shelves, the nine-foot ceiling. And the floor.

Let me tell you a little bit about this house we were renting: It was a crackerbox. Pretty much a dump, but it sufficed. However, the entire kitchen area was carpeted—yes, carpeted with this scraggly, low blue crap that of course was the perfect canvas for geysering stout. Awful. It took me hours just to do a decent preliminary cleanup, and days more getting the stickiness out of it. It was pretty bad.

All in all, I lost about half of the beer. Obviously, what happened was the blowoff tube I devised got clogged with foam and gunk, and the pressure built up til it blew. The guys at the homebrew shop said I was lucky, they'd known carboys themselves to shatter under similar conditions.

The remaining beer turned out pretty good, too.

The other incident was minor compared to this. It was a bottle of a brown ale that I had brewed that exploded. Sort of—it didn't shatter, but rather broke at the base and the top part flew upward like a rocket. I don't know how I was lucky enough to see this happen, but I did. Fortunately it wasn't nearly as bad to clean as the Toad Spit.

On a side note, I've noticed that most of the brown ales I've made tend to be over-carbonated, but I don't know why. I haven't made one in a long time, though, so I couldn't say if this would still be true.

Any other homebrewers have any volatile stories to share?

Congrats to A Good Beer Blog to coming in fourth in the 2004 Canadian Blog Awards!

Interesting article here of a book review that delves into some Colonial American brewing history.

The early colonists brewed their own beer in house. There wasn't a structured monetary system to go out and buy it and most homes were equipped with a small brew room. Taverns eventually cropped up as an edict by England in order to accommodate travelers, thus increasing trade and the economy. They'd later regret that - the tavern became the center of Revolutionary activity.

At first, most beer brewed in the 13 colonies was ale made with barley and the wild hops that grew in abundance and laden with clouds of yeast. It was fairly bitter. Colonists also made beer from corn, an idea they got from Native Americans. Eventually, ale was flavored and fermented with maple. At one time, Washington called for a boycott of English imports.

I always enjoy reading about American beer history (pre-Prohibition). I've read part of Brewed in America and wouldn't mind Beer in America: The Early Years, 1587-1840. Anyone have any books to spare? :)

We were in Portland over the weekend, and had dinner with family at Widmer Brewing Friday night. It was my first visit to Widmer (their Gasthaus on Russell Street, actually) and while it wasn't a comphrenesive visit, I thought I'd write up a short review anyway.

I liked it a lot. Almost immediately upon sitting down, our waiter appeared and offered to bring me a taster of their new Vienna lager (I never did quite catch what the name was). I of course accepted, and tried several other tasters that others didn't finish before getting a pint of that lager. Service on our end of the table (there was eight of us) was very good, though (I'm told) it wasn't nearly as good at the other end.

The lager was good, spicy and crisp, and there were several other beers on the menu that I would have liked to try: their seasonal Snowplow Milk Stout, for instance. But what I absolutely had to get was the Alt. I've had a variety of Widmer brews, but never the one beer that they are especially famous for; more than one authority has cited Widmer's Altbier as being the only true Alt outside of Dusseldorf, Germany.

It was very good. Malty, hoppy, a little spicy, clean. A nice amber color. Very drinkable, I'd definitely start with this beer if (when) I go back there. Worth the hype? I can't say for sure, since I've never had a true Altbier—but you can't go to Widmer and not try the Alt if you're into beer.

Also, I got a taster of their new Doppelbock before we left. That was good too, very rich and dark. It was a German beer night!

The food was good; I had the bouillabaisse which was loaded with seafood, and even came with whole crab claws and the equipment to crack them (the nutcracker thing, a sheller? Shucker? Nutcracker?) Interestingly, they don't have French fries anywhere on the kids menu, which is unusual; the kids got spaetzle instead (kind of a mac and cheese).

Definitely stop by there for beer and dinner if you get the chance.

The horror! The horror! Brewer runs out of beer!

In an even more drastic situation than the famous pub with no beer, Tasmanian brewer J. Boag & Son ran dry of two of its popular beer varieties during the peak Christmas period.

Several Launceston retailers were left without Boag's Draught Light cans and Boag's XXX Ale stubbies and cans for several days after the brewery's own supplies ran out.

Vores Ol is a beer brewed by a Danish company that is releasing the "recipe and the whole brand" of the beer under a Creative Commons license. Sounds interesting, but I didn't think that recipes themselves could be copyrighted in the first place; Alan on A Good Beer Blog has a good point about this.

The odd thing about this - and an example of the wacky thinking about copyright being spouted at Boing - is that a beer recipe is not really copyrighted or copyrightable. Recipes, as sets of instructions rather than the expression of the instruction or "a work", are not really property. Only as a fixed literary published work would the expression of the recipe be potentially protected.

The "Boing" he's referring to is this Boing Boing post which caught our attention to it. As far as the recipe is concerned, I agree with Alan, this is meaningless. But they do specify the "brand" as well, and if by this they mean the design of the label or something similar, then that makes more sense.

Apparently, beer has an image crisis.

Miller Brewing. President Norman Adami said, "The single biggest threat facing the American beer business today is the possibility that we will allow the American consumer to get bored with beer."

So what are brewers doing about it?

For one thing, they are spending more money on promotions, including what they call on-premise spending. That means mostly bars and restaurants, but also hotels, clubs, and concession stands.

Wow. Seems like much ado about nothing. I mean, there will always be beer drinkers, homebrewers, and craft beers. From the article it sounds like the only ones being "hurt" by this trend are the megabreweries. I don't know about you, but that doesn't bother me none.

I missed this when it first came out: The year in beer from the Oregonian. It's very Oregon-centric, of course. Events highlighted include the death of Robert MacTarnahan, Governator Ale, and the beer-swilling bear.

Best Beer Books: "Travels With Barley, A Journey Through Beer Culture in America," by Ken Wells, and "Radical Brewing," by Randy Mosher.

Best Beer Name: Muscat Love, Widmer's special beer that used muscatel grapes and lemon grass.

Best Trend: Fresh hops. We live in God's country when it comes to great hops, and more brewers than ever whomped up beers full of fresh-from-the-field hops, including Hop Harvest Ale from BridgePort, Full Sail's Brewers Gold, Rogue's Hop Heaven Ale and Fresh Hop 500 from Laurelwood.

Strange Brews: But good, no doubt — the folks at Portland Brewing added oyster nectar to Black Watch Porter to make Oyster Porter for Dan & Louis Oyster Bar, and Alan Sprints revamped Hair of the Dog's Rose to include sliced beets, pink peppercorns and hibiscus blossoms.

Some beer events coming up this month:

• Great Alaska Beer and Barley Wine Festival: Egan Center in Anchorage, Alaska, Friday and Saturday, January 14 and 15.
• 5th Annual Strong Beer Festival
• Spirit of Belgium 2005: Washington, DC, Friday through Sunday, January 14 through 16.
• 1st Long Island Real Ale Festival: Blue Point Brewing Company in Patchogue, New York, Saturday January 22.
• The Portland Barley Wine Long Haul Tour: Portland, Oregon, Wednesday through Saturday, January 26 through 29.
• National Winter Ales Festival 2005: Manchester, England, Wednesday through Saturday, January 26 through 29.
• Extreme Beer Fest: Boston, Massachusetts, Saturday January 29.

I thought this might be interesting to people. I found this online somewhere almost two years ago, and it seems like something that should be incredibly useful: the beer color chart.

On eBay, that is. No kidding, it's a smoke stack from the "Original Hudepohl brewery" in Cincinnati. Currently this auction has 3 days left and is up to 1.5 million dollars. I wouldn't hold my breath that the link I provided will be persistent, so here's some of the text from the auction:

The Hudepohl brewery will be under development and the original smoke stack is up for auction as a one of a kind collector piece. Please be aware that this stack is roughly 170 ft tall.

Hudepohl-Schoenling Brewing Co. was the last of the great Cincinnati breweries. Unlike the dozens of hometown breweries that faltered during Prohibition, Hudepohl, which was founded in 1885, persevered. Schoenling Brewing Co. was created in 1933. The two breweries merged in 1986, and in 1999 the company was sold to Snyder International Brewing Group. The old Schoenling bottling plant was sold to Sam Adams-Boston Beer Co., which now bottles Hudepohl-Schoenling brands.

Found on i-Newswire.com: a Swedish beer that is not only low in carbs, but it lowers cholesterol too!

The unique brewing process employs oats instead of barley and uses a special enzyme technology to create a beer containing beta-glucans. Research has found that these natural grain fibers can lower cholesterol. Clinical studies are underway in Sweden and the results will be evaluated in the beginning of 2005. Getting research subjects for the cholesterol-lowering study, was a snap, once they found out there would be free 'beer' involved.

"The normal beer-brewing procedure takes away the good stuff from cereals. Oats are widely used in brewing but the healthy fibers are normally destroyed," explained Arne Berge, project leader....

[T]he experimental brew may get a packaging facelift and be sold in the United States under license as the "Swedish Opera" brand of cholesterol-lowering low carb beer, with only 3.9 grams of carbohydrates. It's a great tasting light brew with only 63 calories per 12 ounce bottle, repositioning it as a premier light beer has potential says Davis. The Swedish Opera cholesterol-lowering beer is not only low calories, but is low in carbs, making it the perfect diet beer that stays true to its tag line: 'the opera is not over until the fat lady sings'.

Interesting. As a comparison, regular beer typically has about 148 calories per bottle.