Happy Thanksgiving, beer people! Bruisin’ Ales is closed today—even we need to catch-up with family and feast for a day—but we just couldn’t wait to tell you that one of our most highly anticipated orders arrived late yesterday. Things to look forward to:

BLAUGIES La Moneuse Special Winter Ale
CANTILLON Iris (2005)
CANTILLON Lou Pepe Framboise (2005)
CANTILLON Rosé de Gambrinus
DE RANKE Père Noël
LA CHOULETTE La Choullette de Noël
MIKKELLER To From
MIKKELLER Santa’s Little Helper
NOGNE-O Winter Ale
SLAAPMUTSKE Kerstmutske Christmas Nightcap
SLAAPMUTSKE Tripel Nightcap

Our favorite label has to be the Mikkeller To From, which is a holiday beer that just has a blank label on the bottle where you can write “to” and “from.”

Bruisin’ Ales will be closed on Thanksgiving, but there is a bunch of new beer arriving for the weekend. Most are part of the parade of winter/holiday seasonals, but amongst these hides a very special gem quietly making its NC debut, Southampton Saison Deluxe—a beer that, in our opinion, lives up to its reputation. Southampton Saison Deluxe is perfect for this time of year, too, with its delicate flavors standing-up to the many spiced flavors of the season. Sure. We’ll say it: We love this beer.

Also new this week:

ANCHOR Christmas Ale
BAVIK Petrus Winterbier 
CORSENDONK Christmas Ale Tins
CORSENDONK Christmas Ale Jeroboams
D. CARNEGIE & CO. Stark Porter
MAD RIVER John Barleycorn Barleywine (2006 & 2007)
ROGUE Santa’s Private Reserve (6-pk and 22oz)
ROGUE Hazelnut Brown Nectar
WEYERBACHER Winter Ale
WYCHWOOD Bah-Humbug
WYCHWOOD Scarecrow
WYCHWOOD Wychcraft

In an unrelated note, Larry Bell is not quite finished with Chicago just yet. Enter the Kalamazoo brand, “brewed especially for the people of the great state of Illinois.” You see, Bell is from Illinois and famously pulled his beer from that market over a dispute with a distributor, much to the chagrin of beer fans. The distributor has already said they will sue to stop the sale of the new label.

“I think it will be a very interesting court case,” Mr. Bell says. “They’ve promised to make it as messy and difficult as they can.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

CafePress.com is having a special for friends and family this week. Since the Bruisin’ Ales shop is part of CafePress, here’s a chance to get a jump start for the beer lovers on your list by showing your support for beer•lan•thro•pyâ„¢. Get 15% off $50 or more through November 28 by entering coupon code FRFAM2007.

After Thanksgiving, Bruisin’ Ales will begin taking orders for custom baskets for the holidays. What could be a greater gift than beer?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving is just two days away, and most of us are still putting the finishing touches on our menus, so here are a few suggestions for pairings, recipes, and other ways to bring beer to your holiday table.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer quotes Garrett Oliver as saying a Biere de Garde is the perfect beer for Thanksgiving. They also make the case for Trappist Orval, Saison Dupont, and North Coast Old Rasputin as great beers to pair with your feast. The Federal Way Mirror calls on Rogue Juniper Pale Ale and Samuel Smith’s Winter Welcome with dinner and suggests pumpkin ale, Belgian fruit lambic, or champagne beer with dessert.

The Bros at BeerAdvocate also have a great list of brews and recipes that use beer. Since we’ve been assigned to cranberry duty this year, we’ll be making their recipe for Cranberry Wit Sauce:

Cranberry Wit Sauce
A traditional side dish with a twist.

Ingredients
2 Blood oranges, zested and sliced into rings
2 cups Witbier*
1/2 cup Belgian clear rock candy sugar, or regular sugar
2 tsp. Ground coriander
1 pinch Sea salt
1/2 cup Orange blossom honey
12 oz. Cranberries, fresh (1 bag)

Directions
In a large saucepan, add oranges (giving a good twist to release the juice), Witbier, rock candy, coriander and salt. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring about 4 minutes until the sugar has dissolved. Remove the sliced citrus, and add the honey, orange zest and cranberries; reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer until the cranberries have popped and the sauce has thickened, about 15 minutes. Serve immediately or chill until ready to serve. The sauce can be made up to 2 days in advance.

* For beer, use a local Wit or Double Wit from Southampton Brewery, if you don’t have a homebrew Witbier available.

Steve Hindy’s son dies in bicycle accident
The son of Brooklyn Brewery’s founder, Steve Hindy, was killed in a freakish bicycling accident on the Manhattan Bridge this past weekend. Very sad.
Source: NY Daily News

More, more, more
SABMiller continues its purchasing rampage by bidding on Grolsch for $1.2 billion. We can’t the believe the beast is still hungry.
Source: MSNBC.com

Higher prices are on the way
Dan Weirback, president of Weyerbacher Brewing, sent out an open letter about malt and hops pricing via newsletter last week. A Treatise and an Appeal  or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Craft Brew, At Any Price was also posted to the brewery’s homepage. BeerAdvocates reprint his letter and weigh-in on his appeal to beer drinkers that they continue to support the industry. We think it’s great to hear from a brewer with specifics on just how the pricing will affect his brewery. When will more start talking about impact? 

So where does this bring us? These price increases for Malt and Hops alone amount to a minimum price increase from Weyerbacher to wholesaler of 12 to 14% and it gets worse on the beers that use a lot of hops. Many of our beers will increase about $2.50 per case. Our ingredient cost for Hops Infusion IPA has risen $3.94, so we will raise the price $4.00 per case. Its typical for a business to markup a certain fixed amount from cost, so typically this $4.00 would result in a higher markup to keep our margins this same, but you can see why we can’t do that. When you reach for that 4 pack of Double Simcoe IPA in the New Year, don’t be surprised if its $2.00 to $2.50 higher. Our ingredient cost on this hop bomb went up $8.14 per case. You can see where this is going. Many BIG beers not heavy on the hops will go up perhaps 3 or 4 dollars due to the malt increase.

Asheville Pizza & Brewing is reportedly feeling the hops crunch, too, with the Roland ESB going off-line and the cost of a pints going up a quarter.

The above is depressing, the below is at least worth a chuckle
The Onion clone, The Spoof, says light beer does not make you cool.