Beer-articles 995

Cape May – That wrecked cabin cruiser boat is still ashore on our beautiful harbor. It has been a MONTH! What happened to our “Harbor master”? Fines? Removal and charge the owner?

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North Cape May – Re: The Wildwood Crest comment on our American flag and who flies our flag. In our community, I know just about everyone, as I have lived here most of my life and those of us that have our American…

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North Cape May – Re the commenter who is unclear how teachers need the equivalent of a double major. A teacher needs to major in Education and then pick a coordinate major- Math, English, History, Science etc….

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(Dylan Mulvaney/Instagram)

The beer biz never sleeps at American Craft Beer. And here’s just some of what’s been happening in the beer world while you were drinking your way through the weekend.

Bud Light Decline Continues

Turbulent times continue for Bud Light in the wake of its brief, but ultimately costly, partnership with Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender influencer whose image was put on a Bud Light beer can to celebrate the activist’s “365 Days of Girlhood.”

The initial Dylan Mulvaney announcement took place on April 1, 2023, and despite Anheuser-Busch’s numerous efforts to settle the issue, the brand has been facing significant sales declines ever since.

Now, in a surprising decline, Bud Light, once the top bestselling beer in the nation, has fallen to the number three spot, according to the WSJ.

Based on Nielsen IQ data analyzed by the Bump Williams consulting firm, Modelo Especial, brewed and imported by Constellation Brands, headquartered in White Plains, NY, is now number one, accounting for 9.7% of beer dollar sales in US stores for the four weeks that ended July 6.

The positive news for Anheuser-Busch, the makers of Bud Light, is that another one of its beer brands, Michelob Ultra, placed second with 7.3% of beer dollar sales nationwide. Now at number three, Bud Light held 6.5% of beer dollar sales during that same four-week period, according to the NY Post.

Words to Drink By

“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.” – Steve Jobs, American businessman and inventor, best known for co-founding Apple Inc.

Hidden Health Dangers Found In Non-Alcoholic Beer

Embracing a more healthful and clear-headed lifestyle, younger consumers are abandoning alcohol products in droves. And this migration away from alcohol hasn’t gone unnoticed by a beer industry that is now taking the non-alcohol segment seriously and that sector is growing.

But that doesn’t mean that brewing buzz-free beer can’t pose problems.

A study by researchers at Cornell University has found that non-alcoholic beers can be a breeding ground for bacteria such as E. coli and salmonella.

Head researcher Randy Worobo and his team of microbiologists studied the growth of three types of bacteria—E. coli, salmonella, and listeria—in traditional beer, low-alcohol beer, and non-alcoholic beer. The study which was published in The Journal of Food Protection, tested the beers in two situations. In the first case beers were a refrigerated 39.2°F but others were left at “room temperature” 57.2°F.

And while E. coli and salmonella were able to survive in both low and non-alcoholic beer for up to 63 days, the microbial pathogens grew more rapidly in the non-alcoholic beverage.

“Low and nonalcoholic beers should be processed through pasteurization to achieve commercial sterility,” they said in a statement, via The Daily Mail. “Sterile filtration and the addition of preservatives should be considered as additional steps to reduce this microbial risk.

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Posted by: AmericanCraftBeer.com

July 29, 2024

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Save The World Brewery in Texas took home gold and bronze medals for two of its hazy IPAs at the The… U.S. Open Beer Championship

The gold medal for best hazy IPA at The U.S. Open Beer Championship went to Chasing Broncos IPA from Save The World Brewery in Marble Falls, Texas. Save The World Brewery also tied for a bronze medal for the same category for Hunt For Hazy, another hazy IPA offering. The competition results were announced in early July by the Ohio-based competition that receives beer submissions from around the globe.

I’ve recently written about the best brewery award given by the competition, as well as the best pilsner, and the best IPA awards. However, I’m taking a closer look at the hazy IPA subcategory by itself because of their popularity. Hazy IPAs, aka New England IPAs, remain a dominant force in craft beer in the U.S. Critics may mock haze bros, but if the IPA remains king of craft beer then hazies are the king of kings. For evidence of this, just look at Sierra Nevada’s Hazy Little Thing, the first nationally available hazy IPA, it surpassed the brewery’s flagship pale ale in sales in 2022. Or just go to your local brewery and ask the brewer what their best seller is—in the vast majority of cases whatever it is will be a hazy juice bomb.

My personal feelings have gone back and forth on hazies. I loved the first hazy beers I tried coming out of Vermont and later Massachusetts, but then the style’s popularity led to copycat beers. Some of these were also great, but many were terrible. Over time I became burned out on the style—in some cases, quite literally, as when made poorly the unfiltered beers can give off a yeast burn flavor that’s as unpleasant as it sounds. Recently, however, I’ve fallen back in love with certain hazy IPAs. I recently wrote about one made in Connecticut that has become one of my favorite beers this summer.

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Of course, honoring quality beers is what a reputable beer festival is all about, and the U.S. Open Beer Championship is one of the best respected in the U.S. For the 2024 festival, judges blind taste-tested more than 9,000 beers across 170 styles submitted from a global slate of breweries. The Hazy IPA style saw more beers entered than any other category. In addition, to the gold medal winning Chasing Broncos IPA, three other beers medaled. Here’s a closer look at these award-winning hazy IPAs.

Save The World Brewing describes Chasing Broncos IPA as a “experimental juicy IPA exploring the world of tropical hops” designed to showcase “an array of southern hemisphere hops.” This refers to hops frequently found in places like Australia and New Zealand, which are often celebrated for their tropical aromatics.

The latest version of the brewery’s rotating hazy IPA Fogbringer 8 is made with Citra and Strata hops, among others, and then dry-hopped with large amounts of Citra hops. The process results in a beer that is described by the brewery as a “sweet and hoppy IPA that pushes citrus, stone fruit, and a bit of coconut.”

The two-way tie for the bronze medal in this category was split between Ohio and Texas. Seeing Colors Hazy IPA is made with El Dorado and Citra hops. Meanwhile, Hunt for Hazy is brewed to be smooth and juicy, per the brewery.

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YPSILANTI, MI – Thousands came from around the state Friday, July 26, to Riverside Park in Ypsilanti to try beers from dozens of local Michigan breweries at the 25th annual Michigan Summer Beer Festival.

Founders Brewing Marketing Manager Anthony Piccinini has been to the festival twice, but Founders Brewing is a long-time member and has been attending for 17 years.

“Happy to be supporting Michigan beer and Michigan Beer Fest,” Piccinini said. “Happy to give back to the people that are continuing to support us. I think people know our brands, we have some beers that you can’t go to the store and buy, we bring them out specifically for these festivals.”

RELATED: Visit Ypsilanti for ‘the largest Michigan-only beer festival in the state’

Several local bands played on the two stages on the festival grounds, Friday. There were also several food options.

“It’s more of the love we get back from the people than what we give to them,” Piccinini said.

“We are proud to be born and brewed in Michigan.”

See the Summer Beer Festival site for more information about the schedule of performers for Day 2 and the full list of breweries that attended the event weekend.

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The festival continues Saturday at 2 E. Cross St. in Ypsilanti from 1 to 6 p.m. Tickets are $65 at the gate, if still available, and include 15 sampling tokens.

The event includes 109 breweries with 685 unique beers in 83 different styles. Click here for the brewery list.

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JD Vance is making headlines for a variety of unanticipated reasons this week — accused of both making love to a literal couch and searching online for sex-specific dolphin content. And the hits keep coming.

Amidst rumblings that Donald Trump is perhaps regretting choosing Vance as his running mate — now that Biden has made way for a stronger match with whomever the presumptive Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, taps to join at her side in any upcoming debates — Vance’s background is being heavily researched, and much of it is being served up as easy “not this guy” fodder.

The latest in a string of derogatory Vance content is a resurfaced clip from a 2023 event, in which Trump’s #2 is shown referring to Jacob Chansley, AKA the Jan. 6  “QAnon Shaman,” as a “fun guy” who got a bad rap for his participation in the Capitol riot.

“This guy who was sentenced to four years in prison for literally walking around in the Capitol . . . We were taught it was a crazy guy with, like, the bullhorns, you know what I’m talking about? He looked like he’d be a fun guy to have a beer with, right? The Q shaman, that’s what they called this guy,” Vance says in the clip, which can be seen below.

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Chansley pleaded guilty to obstructing Congress during the insurrection and was ultimately sentenced to 41 months in prison. He was granted early release from federal prison in March 2023 and transferred to a halfway house in Arizona to serve until his release on May 25, 2023.

JD Vance weighs in on famous Jan 6 participant “The QAnon Shaman” in a 2023 speech:

“He looked like he’d be a fun guy to have a beer with,” should’ve gotten a lighter prison sentence. pic.twitter.com/fT8s183Vxx

— Will Sommer (@willsommer) July 26, 2024

July 25, 2024Chris Crowell

Beer is the vibe of summer 2024, confirmed. New Morning Consult research conducted on behalf of the Beer Institute shows that two-thirds of Americans (66%) opted for beer in the past three months, exceeding wine (54%), liquor (50%) and cocktails (43%).

“Summer in America wouldn’t be complete without a cold, crisp beer in hand, whether you’re enjoying the beach, firing up the grill, or cheering on your favorite team,” said Brian Crawford, president and CEO of the Beer Institute. “Beer is more than just a beverage—it’s woven into the fabric of our culture and brings Americans together. With 40% of beer sales happening between Memorial Day and Labor Day, we know beer is bringing family and friends together throughout the summer to enjoy beer responsibly.”

The poll was conducted online, June 11-12, 2024, among a sample of 2,087 adults aged 21 or older.

But what kind of beer? Here are some other insights from the Beer Institute polling on how Americans are enjoying beer this summer:

FYI: These beer drinkers also see the beer industry as a driving force in the American economy. Respondents report that the beer industry benefits the U.S. job market (79%), is supportive of American farmers and agriculture (65%) and is committed to responsible drinking initiatives (63%).

And, they are correct. The U.S. beer industry contributes more than $409 billion to our economy – equivalent to 1.6% of GDP. The beer industry pays more than $132 billion in wages and $63.8 billion in taxes. Nearly 2.4 million American jobs rely on a strong beer industry, including 92,159 brewer and beer importer jobs, 77,847 manufacturing jobs, 137,420 distribution jobs, 52,220 agricultural jobs and 979,805 retail jobs.

So, wherever and whenever you’re tipping back that crisp lager, you’re supporting America. Good job, everyone! USA! USA!

Benj Edwards

– Jul 24, 2024 10:12 pm UTC

In June, Runway debuted a new text-to-video synthesis model called Gen-3 Alpha. It converts written descriptions called “prompts” into HD video clips without sound. We’ve since had a chance to use it and wanted to share our results. Our tests show that careful prompting isn’t as important as matching concepts likely found in the training data, and that achieving amusing results likely requires many generations and selective cherry-picking.

An enduring theme of all generative AI models we’ve seen since 2022 is that they can be excellent at mixing concepts found in training data but are typically very poor at generalizing (applying learned “knowledge” to new situations the model has not explicitly been trained on). That means they can excel at stylistic and thematic novelty but struggle at fundamental structural novelty that goes beyond the training data.

What does all that mean? In the case of Runway Gen-3, lack of generalization means you might ask for a sailing ship in a swirling cup of coffee, and provided that Gen-3’s training data includes video examples of sailing ships and swirling coffee, that’s an “easy” novel combination for the model to make fairly convincingly. But if you ask for a cat drinking a can of beer (in a beer commercial), it will generally fail because there aren’t likely many videos of photorealistic cats drinking human beverages in the training data. Instead, the model will pull from what it has learned about videos of cats and videos of beer commercials and combine them. The result is a cat with human hands pounding back a brewsky.

During the Gen-3 Alpha testing phase, we signed up for Runway’s Standard plan, which provides 625 credits for $15 a month, plus some bonus free trial credits. Each generation costs 10 credits per one second of video, and we created 10-second videos for 100 credits a piece. So the quantity of generations we could make were limited.

We first tried a few standards from our image synthesis tests in the past, like cats drinking beer, barbarians with CRT TV sets, and queens of the universe. We also dipped into Ars Technica lore with the “moonshark,” our mascot. You’ll see all those results and more below.

We had so few credits that we couldn’t afford to rerun them and cherry-pick, so what you see for each prompt is exactly the single generation we received from Runway.

“A highly-intelligent person reading “Ars Technica” on their computer when the screen explodes”

“commercial for a new flaming cheeseburger from McDonald’s”

“The moonshark jumping out of a computer screen and attacking a person”

“A cat in a car drinking a can of beer, beer commercial”

Will Smith eating spaghetti triggered a filter, so we tried a black man eating spaghetti. (Watch until the end.)

“Robotic humanoid animals with vaudeville costumes roam the streets collecting protection money in tokens”

“A basketball player in a haunted passenger train car with a basketball court, and he is playing against a team of ghosts”

“A herd of one million cats running on a hillside, aerial view”

“Video game footage of a dynamic 1990s third-person 3D platform game starring an anthropomorphic shark boy”

A little less than a week after WWE legend Hulk Hogan tore his shirt off in honor of former President Donald Trump and earned a rousing chant of “U-S-A” at the Republican National Convention, he’s bringing his “Real American Beer” to Michigan.

Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea, launched the American-style light lager earlier this month and plans to appear in metro Detroit this week as part of the beer’s rollout.

“If the Great Lakes State is anything like what we experienced last week in Missouri, Michigan better get ready brother,” Hogan said in a news release announcing the plan.

Hogan is expected to make an appearance at all 11 events scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, said Kameron Baetge, a public relations representative for Real American Beer.

The Wednesday stops, as released by the beer team, are at:

The Thursday stops are at:

The beer is 4.2% ABV and is described as having a light body and crisp, clean finish while using 100% North American ingredients.

The best pilsners of 2024 came in a variety of sub-categories.

The best pilsners in various sub-categories were announced by The U.S. Open Beer Championship in early July. The Ohio-based beer festival is one of the most prestigious in the world and along with the World Beer Cup and The Great American Beer Festival, is one of the big three beer festivals in the U.S.

This year judges tasted more than 9,000 beers across 170 styles submitted from breweries across the U.S. and globe. Though the competition gets the majority of its submissions from the U.S., it has also seen beers submitted from countries in Asia, Europe, Africa and elsewhere.

The competition was founded by brewer Dow Scoggins in 2009 and Scoggins recently told me the festival has always prided itself in the diversity of the categories it judges. You can see that when it comes to pilsners. The festival has five pilsner categories and a sixth category that can go either to a lager or pilsner (pilsners are a type of lager so although all pilsners are lagers, not all lagers are pilsners).

This year many major beer festivals have seen an uptick in pilsner submissions reflecting growing interest in the category from consumers. Many brewers I speak to have long preferred the subtle yet complex pilsner category to the more in-your-face IPA category which had come to dominate beer sales. In part because of this, these days pilsners are starting to take some market share from IPAs, though they are not yet as popular.

The pilsners below were all gold medal winners at this year’s U.S. Open Beer Championship, meaning they were deemed the best of the best by the festival’s panel of judges.

This popular Denver brewery with several locations is no stranger to success with several previous medals from prestigious beer competitions to its name. These include a 2024 bronze medal from the World Beer Cup for a beer called Smooth Exportations, a German-Style Oktoberfest. Here it took home the top prize in this competitive light and crisp lager category.

This brewery Czechs all the marks (get it?) for lovers of Czech/Bohemian pilsners with Czech Republic ingredients including the quintessential pilsner Saaz hop. Per the brewery, this beer has “a slight honey-like sweetness and toasted cracker flavor from the lightly kilned malt and a wonderfully spicy, herbal, and floral hop aroma.”

Only a true pill wouldn’t like this pils from Riverlands Brewing Co. that is made with German pilsner yeast and a mix of American Sterling hops and German Saphir hops. The brewery’s tasting notes say this beer features “a beautiful blend of floral, spice, lemongrass, and citrus hop flavors,” and “a pleasant bitterness.”

This gets the gold medal from me for best name on this list, which is all the more impressive because the brewery that released it, Taproom Beer Co., doesn’t exactly earn creativity points for its name. Getting back to this beer, it’s made with a new experimental hop called HRC-003 from the Hop Research Council and per the brewery “boasts [a] bouquet of tropical, stonefruit, and berry qualities.”

The latest award-winning brew from this critically acclaimed brewhouse and movie theater is named for the nickname given to the main character in the iconic Rocky franchise. Not only is this beer and many others from the San Antonio beer award-winning, I’m betting it pairs well with popcorn.

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In order to do so, please follow the posting rules in our site’s Terms of Service. We’ve summarized some of those key rules below. Simply put, keep it civil.

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The best pilsners of 2024 came in a variety of sub-categories.

The world’s best pilsners in various sub-categories were announced by The U.S. Open Beer Championship in early July. The Ohio-based beer festival is one of the most prestigious in the world, and along with the World Beer Cup and The Great American Beer Festival, it is one of the big three beer festivals in the U.S.

The competition was founded by brewer Dow Scoggins in 2009. Scoggins recently mentioned that the festival has always prided itself on the diversity of the categories it judges. This is evident in the pilsner categories. The festival has five pilsner categories and a sixth category that can go either to a lager or pilsner (pilsners are a type of lager so although all pilsners are lagers, not all lagers are pilsners).

This year, many major beer festivals have seen an uptick in pilsner submissions, reflecting growing interest in the category from consumers. Many brewers I have spoken to have long preferred the subtle yet complex pilsner category over the more in-your-face IPA category, which had come to dominate beer sales. Due to this preference, pilsners are starting to take some market share from IPAs, though they are not yet as popular.

The pilsners below were all gold medal winners at this year’s U.S. Open Beer Championship, meaning they were deemed the best of the best by the festival’s panel of judges.

This popular Denver brewery with several locations is no stranger to success, with several previous medals from prestigious beer competitions to its name. These include a 2024 bronze medal from the World Beer Cup for a beer called Smooth Exportations, a German-Style Oktoberfest. Here, it took home the top prize in this competitive light and crisp lager category.

This brewery Czechs all the marks (get it?) for lovers of Czech/Bohemian pilsners, with Czech Republic ingredients including the quintessential pilsner Saaz hop. Per the brewery, this beer has “a slight honey-like sweetness and toasted cracker flavor from the lightly kilned malt and a wonderfully spicy, herbal, and floral hop aroma.”

Only a true pill wouldn’t like this pils from Riverlands Brewing Co. that is made with German pilsner yeast and a mix of American Sterling hops and German Saphir hops. The brewery’s tasting notes say this beer features “a beautiful blend of floral, spice, lemongrass, and citrus hop flavors,” and “a pleasant bitterness.”

This gets the gold medal from me for best name on this list, which is all the more impressive because the brewery that released it, Taproom Beer Co., doesn’t exactly earn creativity points for its name. Getting back to this beer, it’s made with a new experimental hop called HRC-003 from the Hop Research Council and per the brewery “boasts [a] bouquet of tropical, stonefruit, and berry qualities.”

The latest award-winning brew from this critically acclaimed brewhouse and movie theater is named for the nickname given to the main character in the iconic Rocky franchise. Not only is this beer and many others from the San Antonio beer award-winning, I’m betting it pairs well with popcorn.

One Community. Many Voices. Create a free account to share your thoughts.

Our community is about connecting people through open and thoughtful conversations. We want our readers to share their views and exchange ideas and facts in a safe space.

In order to do so, please follow the posting rules in our site’s Terms of Service. We’ve summarized some of those key rules below. Simply put, keep it civil.

Your post will be rejected if we notice that it seems to contain:

User accounts will be blocked if we notice or believe that users are engaged in:

So, how can you be a power user?

Thanks for reading our community guidelines. Please read the full list of posting rules found in our site’s Terms of Service.