There is a short article by KCTV5 News/Kansas City about Bard’s Tale Beer Co.’s hiring of Brian Kovalchuk as chief executive officer and Brian Bizer as chief financial officer. Both Brian’s arrive from the rebirth and rebranding of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Bard’s Tale is a gluten-free beer made from sorghum for those that can’t tolerate wheat or barley. Is the message here that if you can make PBR hip again, you can make gluten-free beer cool, too? We think gluten-free is pretty hip on its own. It’s all about bringing beer to the people.

The disheartening news comes at the end of the article:

“The gluten-free beer market, which had been limited to Bard’s Tale and two other companies, gained a big competitor in December when brewing giant Anheuser-Busch Cos. introduced its own sorghum-based beer, Redbridge.”

Who knew? And because we don’t carry any Anheuser-Busch, we will make up some sort of excuse for being unaware.

However, we do stock both Bard’s Tale Dragon Gold and Lakefront’s New Grist. Let’s support the smaller guys who had the ingenuity first.

Source: KCTV5 News/Kansas City

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok, we admit this guy was not in attendance at fig’s beer dinner last night with Pop The Cap, but he looks just about as happy as we feel after a night of great food and beer in the company of fellow beerlanthropists. Treavis and Chef Bill put together some spectacular pairings:

Canapé / Green Man Gold

Naked Roy’s oysters with melted leeks / Green Man ESB

Grouper cheeks with choucroute shallot jus / Natty Greene’s Old Town Brown

Oxtail Crépinette with horseradish potato purée / Foothills Peoples’ Porter

Chocolate Mousse Brulée / Duck-Rabbit’s Milk Stout.

The evening began and finished with French Broad Brewery’s Barley Wine. (And if you’ve never drizzled your popcorn with truffle oil, parmesan and chives—give that a try.)

Such fine company in attendance, too: Kipp from Pop The Cap, Sandi from Highland Brewery, Tony Kiss aka The Beer Guy, Bobby and Drew from French Broad, Carl from Green Man, and some MALT members. Bravo!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tony Kiss writes about Bruisin’ Ales in today’s Asheville Citizen-Times and are we thrilled or what? Here’s what he has to say about our humble storefront:

“While a lot of places in town have a nice lineup of beers, there’s nothing in Asheville like Bruisin’ Ales. Want a bottle of Scaldis Prestige? They’ve got it, but it will cost you $42. How about Thomas Hardy Ale? Yes. And there’s a mind-blowing selection of Belgian ales. They’re all listed on the shop’s Web site (www.bruisin-ales.com).” 

Also up today is our nifty little Podcast interview, also with Tony, that we recorded in-store a week or so ago.

You can read the story here. You can listen to the Podcast here.

We raise our glasses with thanks to The Beer Guy!

It’s quite a bit of Salvation when you get a combined beer by Russian River Brewing and Avery Brewing. Having discovered three years ago that both breweries had a Salvation beer in their line-up, friends and brewers Vinnie Cilurzo (Russian River) and Adam Avery (Avery), decided to blend their respective nectars into a single seasonal beer called Collaboration Not Litigation.

With the release and tasting just held on January 12, this is new as new can be. And thanks to Avery’s distribution, we finally get a little bit of Russian River in North Carolina.

Cheers to Collaboration, indeed.

Source: Avery Brewing / Russian River Brewing

There’s a nifty beer story at USAToday about Belgium’s nutty neighbors—specifically, a Dutch entrepreneur who makes a non-alcoholic beer for dogs out of beef extract and malt. It’s called Kwispelbier, where “kwispel” is the dutch word for wagging a tail. That appears to be one happy chihuahua. (see photo)

MSNBC has posted a LiveVote on the story, asking if readers would serve up a cold one to Fido. Not surprisingly, 66% of responders said “Sure, it sounds tasty (at least for dogs) and harmless enough.”

Stateside, there appears to be another contender, called Happy Tail Ale. And Heartland Brewery in Union Square, NYC, unveiled a similar offering earlier last year, called Slobber Lager, as a fundraiser for the ASPCA®.

(Please note that it’s never ok to serve your dog alcoholic beverages.)

Source: USA Today / News / Offbeat