Category: Gypsy Brewers

Christmas Eve at a NYC Hotel Room - Evil Twin Brewery (imperial stout)

12/29/2014

Kudos to Evil Twin Brewing for coming up with what could be the longest beer name in the biz. Yes, “Christmas Eve at a New York City Hotel Room” is the full name of the beer. I tried researching the name origination but with no such luck. All I know is that this is a “holiday” ale that I actually like. No offense to the “Christmas” ales out there, but I’m not really one for throwing spices (or pumpkins for that matter) into my beer. Call me a beer purist, but I only like extra ingredients such as coffee beans, cacao nibs, and marshmallows, added to my favorite beer batches. You know, the simple stuff.

Based out of Brooklyn, NY and founded by Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø in 2010, Evil Twin is one of the more famous gypsy brewers on the market. Gypsy meaning that they don’t actually have their own brewery, rather they contract with other breweries to produce their beers. The most famous originator of gypsy brewing is probably Mikkeller, a brewery based out of Copenhagen, Denmark and also the brain child of Jeppe’s twin brother Mikkel Borg Bjergsø. Mikkeller started commercially brewing back in 2006, followed by Evil Twin a few years later. Jeppe and Mikkel are sort of known in the industry as having a feuding/competitive relationship, hence the name Evil Twin. Both brothers save on overhead by not having a brewery of their own. Plus, their beers are more accessible because they are brewed around the world. I find Evil Twin’s labels to be a bit cheesy, yet kind of amazing, especially because they back up the cheesiness with really great beer. It’s like if Urban Outfitters and CB2 birthed a beer, they’d have Evil Twin Brewing. Particularly with beers on their roster such as Hipster Ale, Wet Dream, and of course, Ryan and the Gosling. The overall branding of the brewery is distinct, which is all you can ask for in this saturated market.

Although not a traditional “holiday” ale, Christmas Eve at a NYC Hotel Room is a great beer for the holidays. A wonderfully thick imperial stout full of chocolate and coffee notes, this 10% ABV beer perfectly encompasses the holiday season. After a full day of shopping, sometimes you just need a beer that you can pour and let sit for a bit while you queue up Elf and slowly sip throughout the movie.

2 Comments

It’s a Bird. It’s a Plane. It’s a Sparking Ale? – Calicraft’s Buzzerkeley

11/17/2014

2 Comments

I’ve spent my last several weekends at breweries learning about the business of beer. As a craft beer drinker, I find this saturated beer market deliciously wonderful. But as a marketer, I can’t even imagine the challenges breweries face to not only survive but thrive. Like most industries, there is no magic potion to prescribe to differentiate one beer brand from the other. Or, is there?

Behold - today’s beer course focused on the marketing and branding of Calicraft Brewery, a “small” contract brewery based out of Walnut Creek. This brewery is small…for now. Draft Magazine named Calicraft a “Brewery to Watch” in 2013, just one whopping year after opening its doors in May 2012. They brewed approximately 5k barrels this last year, which is a crazy amount of beer for a two-year start up without a taproom (yet). But, Calicraft thinks outside-the-box. They are not in the business to replicate a style. Rather, they want to put their own spin on everything they produce, keeping in mind their core values. Calicraft’s founder Blaine Landberg’s first brew, Buzzerkeley, didn’t even fit a true beer style when he started brewing 15 years ago in his UC Berkeley dorm room. An ale fermented in Belgian and…wait for it….champagne yeast, Buzzerkeley was already not your normal beer.

As proclaimed by Calicraft themselves, “Buzzerkeley is beer meets wine.” At 7% ABV, this beer goes down smooth. It starts off with your typical fruity Belgian ale flavors but ends with a surprisingly sparkly finish. Well, maybe not so surprising since the beer is actually packaged to look like champagne (#genius). I’d call it a beer lover’s mimosa or at least a dope bottle to bring to a dinner party.

2 Comments

Give Me S’more – High Water’s Campfire Stout

10/12/2014

9 Comments

As a Bay Area native and a lover of rich, sweet stouts, I was surprised I’d never heard of this beer until a few weeks ago. I was out with a friend at my local bottle shop, and he and the bartender started choppin’ it up about High Water’s Campfire Stout. I remember standing there thinking “wait, how can this be? There’s a stout made in the Bay Area prepared with graham crackers and marshmallows, and I’ve never heard of it before?” All I kept thinking was: Must. Get. My. Hands. On. Campfire. Stout. ASAP.

Fast forward to the next week when I went grocery shopping at Whole Foods where I usually examine the beer fridge for far too long to see what’s new (or at least what’s new to me). Most of the time, nothing. But this time, I spotted High Water’s label. I recognized the label but never paid much attention to it. From what I’ve seen, all their beers have the same label of the flowing waterfall, but differentiate by the background color of the label. To be honest, I think I’m more attracted to something a bit more modern such as what Green Flash has done with their new labels or Evil Twin’s simple design. But, to each his own. High Water’s label never really stood out to me because the waterfall is the emphasis, not the type of beer. If I would’ve read “campfire stout” in big letters or seen a picture of a campfire, I probably would have been intrigued all on my own. But hey, I’m a lady, and we ladies like our labels!

In any event, I bought a bottle of the Campfire Stout to bring to my mom’s to share with my stepdad and her. They live in Petaluma aka the very edge of Wine Country, but they are not really beer drinkers, nor are they really wine drinkers. My stepdad likes an O’Doul’s every now and again, and my mom likes her whiskey, Fireball to be exact. They drink wine and beer but don’t fit the stereotype of someone who lives in Sonoma County. So bringing the Campfire Stout was a bit of a risk. Or, was it? Both of them were sold by the idea of the beer being made with real graham crackers and marshmallows. Actually, that’s really all I had to tell them. We cracked open the bottle that Saturday afternoon and absolutely loved it, all of us.

High Water’s Campfire Stout is a hardy, sweet stout full of s’mores' flavors. To get the full effect, you must drink and smell at the same time as the smell is probably more potent than the taste itself. I should also mention that this beer won gold at the Great American Beer Festival for the “special beer” category. I’m not sure what qualifies as a “special beer,” but I agree with the judges, Campfire Stout is one special beer!

9 Comments

The Good Clown - Clown Shoes, Galactica (IPA)

8/23/2014

0 Comments

A little over two years ago, I took a work trip to Philly where my company is based. I had just started with the firm, and they had flown me across country to meet my boss as well as some other ice breaker shenanigans. I landed on a Thursday, which was coincidentally the first official start day of the 2012 NFL season. I ventured out into the streets of Philadelphia to find a good beer bar, watch “the game,” and fill up on some grub. I know what you’re thinking but no, I did not see Bruce Springsteen or Tom Hanks for that matter. Instead, I came across Perch Pub where I was first introduced to Clown Shoes Beer, a brewery based out of Ipswich, Massachusetts.

At this time in my life, I was obsessed with brown ales. I mean, I’ve always had a thing for liquid sweetness (hello, Rogue’s Hazelnut Brown!), but that was kind of all I drank back then. I asked the bartender for a recommendation and he pointed me to the Clown Shoes’ Pimp. First, Clown Shoes? Second, Pimp? YES! One maybe two sips in, and I was hooked. The thought of pimps and brown ale just really made sense to me and all of my taste buds.

When I returned to the Bay, I was on the hunt for Clown Shoes only to learn that there was no distribution to the state. Boy, was I disappointed. All I could talk about was Clown Shoes this and Clown Shoes that. Did you I tell you about that Pimp ale? My friends understood that I was #obsessed. Well, lucky for me, Clown Shoes started distributing out in my hood about a year later. Unfortunately, Pimp had been put behind bars forever, or retired as the website states, and I was never able to try it again. But regardless, Clown Shoes had a friend in me. BevMo carried it for a hot second (and maybe they still do) but only in very limited styles. Some of the label designs and names of the beer are a little too risqué for corporate entities. Funny, I don't recall ever seeing Clown Shoes' labels like Tramp Stamp, Vampire Slayer (now Undead Party Crasher), and Pimp in a BevMo.

Fast forward to August 2014 when I walked into The Good Hop, Oakland’s newest bottle shop, for the first time and spotted not one but FIVE different types of Clown Shoes. Ding, ding, ding - We have a winner!!! I picked up the Galactica to drink onsite and the Undead Party Crasher to drink at home.

Galactica tastes like your standard east coast IPA – great day-time, warm weather kind of beer but don’t expect a lot of hops.

Side note: Be on the lookout for Clown Shoes’ Pecan Porter. If you want to celebrate the fall and you’re not into pumpkin ales, this is EXACTLY the beer for you. I discovered it last November on tap at Beer Rev. It tastes just as it sounds.

0 Comments

Christmas Eve at a NYC Hotel Room - Evil Twin Brewery (imperial stout)

It’s a Bird. It’s a Plane. It’s a Sparking Ale? – Calicraft’s Buzzerkeley

Give Me S’more – High Water’s Campfire Stout

The Good Clown - Clown Shoes, Galactica (IPA)

Author

Categories

Archives