Craft Beer Collective

#NCbeer in the Media

There has been a flood of North Carolina beer stories in mainstream media over the past week and a half. Since we’re here to preserve that information here are links to those articles.

After years of self distribution, Winston Salem’s Foothills Brewing has signed on with established wholesalers to take on distribution throughout the state.
http://www.bizjournals.com/triad/news/2013/01/11/foothills-brewing-expands-distribution.html

New and Observer announce new beer column by John Frank. Plus Carolina small batch series and Crank Arm News: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/01/15/2608919/pintful-a-new-voice-in-beer-news.html

Hickory Brewers profiled in Hickory Record including Olde Hickory, Howard and in construction Skullcoast: http://www.hickoryrecord.com/news/article_450024ea-5d10-11e2-a2ff-0019bb30f31a.html

Crank Arm Brewing announce location in Raleigh
http://www.wral.com/crank-arm-brewery-to-open-in-downtown-raleigh/11959798/

More Wake County Brewers to open in 2013. Welcome Hosanna Brewing to the scene:
http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/01/12/2602968/more-beer-brewing-in-southwest.html

Raleigh Telegram profiles the North Hill’s Yard House and their pricey menu: http://raleightelegram.com/201301174690

© 2013 Craft Beer Collective / Away Team Media

NC Beer & Band Festival

Second Annual NC Beer & Band Festival at the Lincoln Theatre
Saturday May 12th 3-8pm

Breweries on hand will be Roth, Natty Greens, Husk, Lonerider, Olde Hickory, Carolina, Carolina, Mother Earth, Weeping Radish, Duck Rabbit, Triangle, Highland and Foothills brands.

Seven NC Bands on Two Stages
Featuring: Hobex / Yo Mama’s Big Fat Booty Band / Simplified / Clay Pigeons / Mac & Juice

Food Truck Triangle with Valentinos, American Meltdown, Chirba Chirba Dumplings

$25 Advance / $30 Day of Show or $30 Advance for Day & Night Shows

http://lincolntheatre.com/schedule.htm

© 2013 Craft Beer Collective / Away Team Media

Winter & Holiday Beers

This is an update of my winter beer post from 2010. This time I’ve included label art and photos whenever they we’re available.

Here is a score card of Christmas and Winter brews in the North Carolina Beer scene with commercial descriptions from each respective brewery (except where noted).

How many have you tried?

HIGHLAND Cold Mountain Winter Ale
Our ever-changing spiced winter seasonal. A tasty brew that complements all your holiday festivities. It is typically malty in body, lightly hopped, and rounded out with spices that we vary from year to year.

OUTERBANKS BREWING COMPANY Santa’s Little Sledgehammer
A deep red Strong Ale boosted with Belgian Candi Sugar, fermented with Trappist Ale yeast and finished with ‘secret spices’! It’s smooth and creamy-rich, with a warm and
chewy texture and subtle spiciness. (10% abv.)

LONERIDER Belle Starr Dubbel
Be wary of Starr’s smile, there is something sinister behind her innocent look. Belle Starr is a Belgian-style Dubbel brewed with a rare Belgian yeast strain, caramelized beet sugar and festive holiday spices. Expect hints of dark fruit, sweet cinnamon-apple and a warming finish. ABV is 7.7%

MOTHER EARTH Silent Night Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Stout
Embellished with a hint of coffee and a touch of molasses, you’ll enjoy a bold, yet delightfully smooth brew. I pronounce this Barrel Aged Imperial Stout a sipper.

OLDE HICKORY Christmas Ale
Brewed with fond memories of fresh baked cakes and cookies, our Christmas Ale is made with local honey, freshly grated ginger and cinnamon and fresh orange zest. This special holiday beer is perfect for the merry season and best enjoyed in the company of friends and family.

ASHEVILLE BREWING Xmas Jam White Ale
Low-alcohol (4.5 percent ABV), Belgian-style wheat beer dosed with coriander and orange peel. This aromatic treat is as cloudy as a San Francisco morn, with vibrant carbonation and a twangy edge that hums on your tongue. (description from Slashfood)

OLDE MECKLENBURG Brewery Yule Bock
Get your goat on with this holiday special. Nothing warms you around the Christmas fire better than this super smooth, malty lager. But supplies are limited so make sure you get yours early. 7% ABV.

WEEPING RADISH Doppelbock
A very strong and rich lager; dark brown with ruby highlights. Brewed with over 50% Munich malt. A Bavarian specialty first brewed in Munich by the monks of St. Francis of Paula. (8.3% ABV)

NATTY GREENE’S Red Nose Winter Warmer
A winter warmer with a nice nutty malt / spice balance! Coming in slightly above 6% abv tastes like winter … smells like Christmas with nutmeg and ginger notes. (Craft Beer Collective – Dave)

LUMINA Holiday Ale
no description available

CAROLINA BREWERY Santa’s Secret
Our winter ale, brewed especially for the holidays, boasts a combination of six different malts all working together to produce a rich beer with a soft creamy mouthfeel. Without revealing all of Santa’s secrets, we can say that this tasty elixer contains a careful blend of coriander, cinnamon, orange and allspice. We think you’ll agree – it’s the closest thing to Christmas in a glass.

AVIATOR FrostNipper
Our interpretation of a fall seasonal beer. This beer will curl your toes and put goosebumps on your arms. A fine collection of traditional fall spices make this a great addition to the holiday season…it will make all humbugs cheery. The beer is dark in color…a bit darker than brown ale. There is a combination of Perle and Willamette hops to provide a contrasting intensity with the fall spices. The beer contains a generous amount of smoked malt. (7.3% ABV)

Just because they don’t have Santa Clause and snow flakes on their labels doesn’t mean that Foothills, Big Boss are not making winter brews:

FOOTHILLS Total Eclipse Stout
Robust full bodied stout made with roasted barley, black and crystal malts. Total Eclipse has a full mouth feel and a well balanced hop bitterness.

BIG BOSS Aces and Ates Coffee Stout
Our winter stout is brewed with ten different malts to create a complex and distinctive beer. We add organic fair-trade coffee, which is specially produced for Big Boss by coffee experts Larry’s Beans. We offer this synergistic seasonal brew for a limited time in the winter season. 8% abv

Do you have some other labels for me? CBC? Send them my way!!

WINTER & HOLIDAY RELEASE BREWS FROM 2010

© 2013 Craft Beer Collective / Away Team Media

#ncbeer video reviews

Here are some recent #ncbeer reviews found on the interwebs!

Hopcast on Olde Rabbits Foot

Highland Oatmeal Stout

© 2013 Craft Beer Collective / Away Team Media

Fall Beers in NC

While there is not a lot of variation in the typical Märzen, Märzenbier or Oktoberfest style it’s still a popular beer with brewers in the fall. Here are a few of those examples you can find in a beer store’s shelf near you. Also, check your local brewpub for even more options!

WEEPING RADISH

HIGHLAND

FRENCH BROAD

DUCK RABBIT

LUMINA

FOOTHILLS

OLDE HICKORY

There are only a a few Pumpkin Ales brewed here in North Carolina. Here are a couple bottled examples and please note that the Cottonwood beer is currently in production in PA.

BIG BOSS

COTTONWOOD

© 2013 Craft Beer Collective / Away Team Media

AUGUST NC BEER NEWS

Here are some of the better stories to make their way around the North Carolina beer world.

Asheville Scene in WSJ
Asheville, a Blue Ridge Mountain town of 75,000, has 10 breweries, with two on the way. That can’t compare with the 40 in Portland, Ore., but it stacks up to other beer havens like Milwaukee and Boulder, Colo., which both have fewer than a dozen. “Asheville is definitely on the map and well recognized in the craft-brewing industry,” says Paul Gatza, director of the Brewers Association in Boulder.

Full story on: online.wsj.com

Nantahala Brewing Company
Nantahala brewer Chris Collier explains his story and why North Carolina is a great place for beer in the south:

“Basically, the reason I went to North Carolina is threefold: You can self-distribute, we can have a taproom and sell off-premise, and as you grow your business, you can write your contract anyway you want,” Collier said.

Collier estimates North Carolina has more breweries and brewpubs than the rest of its Southern neighbors combined.

“That is not coincidence,” he said.

Brewers pay expensive excise taxes — about $25 per keg — on their beer, but it is a price that allows them to operate their businesses with relative freedom

READ THE WHOLE STORY HERE

CONGRATS TO Jason McCammon
The Hendersonville, N.C., resident, who will turn 30 in a couple of weeks, now has something else to celebrate besides the milestone birthday.

His award-winning home-brew — a German-style dark lager called Monkey’s Uncle Munich Dunkel — has been released commercially by Olde Hickory Brewery and is available at a few Asheville-area bars and restaurants.

In late April, McCammon’s beer won a Best of Show gold medal at the Olde Hickory Pro-Am home-brew competition, beating out 130 other entries from the Southeast.

COMPLETE STORY

FOOTHILLS EXPANSION
Video from WXII shows Foothills staffers at brewpub and new production facility in Winston Salem.

http://www.wxii12.com/r-video/28781866/detail.html

Brewmaster Jamie Bartholomaus said the brewery has purchased a building off Stratford Road to start bottling its beer. The expansion allows production to move from a 7,000-square-foot space to a 48,000 square-foot-space. The current facility can produce two 22 ounce bottles each minute. The new facility, which will be operational within the next six weeks, will boost production to about 100 bottles per minutes, owners said.

MOTHER EARTH TOUR
Micro Beer Reviews posted this video of the Mother Earth Brewery:

BELT LINE BREW TOURS
Crossdrinker.com posted this video of Beltline Brew tour outside the beltline tour of Durham, featuring Bull City Burger, Fullsteam & Triangle brewing.

TASTY BEVERAGE OPENS
Sean Pratt of Cary, graduated from Cary High School in 2002 and then went to NCSU, graduating in 2007. While studying in Sweden he fell in love with craft and specialty beers. He partnered up with Johnny Belflower (Rocky Mount Senior High School and Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida).

After years of planning they have opened a new shop called Tasty Beverage Company at 327 W. Davie St. Suite 106, in Raleigh in the historic Warehouse District of Downtown Raleigh.
carycitizen.com

© 2013 Craft Beer Collective / Away Team Media

TWIN CITY TAPS FEST

PRESS RELEASE FOR TWIN CITY TAPS FESTIVAL IN WINSTON SALEM ON AUGUST 13:

Nearly Two Dozen North Carolina Brewers Lined Up for Twin City Taps

Twin City Taps has enlisted 21 breweries that will be on hand to pour craft beers and talk about them during the Aug.13 beer festival at BB&T Ballpark. Participating breweries as of July 25 include: Aviator Brewing Company, Big Boss Brewing Company, Carolina Blonde, Carolina Brewery, Craggie Brewing Company, Foothills Brewing, Four Friends Brewing, French Broad Brewing Company, Fullsteam, Green Man Brewery, Highland Brewing Company, Liberty Steakhouse and Brewery, Loes Brewing Company, LoneRider Brewing Company, Mother Earth Brewing Company, Mystery Brewing Company, Natty Greene’s Pub & Brewing Company, Olde Hickory Brewery, Red Oak Brewery, Roth Brewing Company, The Duck- Rabbit Craft Brewery, The Olde Mecklenburg Brewery, Weeping Radish Farm Brewing “We’ve lined up some of the best regional beer producers to be at Twin City Taps,” Josh Neelon of Twin City Taps said. “Just this week, additional breweries have signed up to come to Twin City Taps, so the list of great craft brewers attending our event is likely to continue to grow.

“Twin City Taps is featuring only craft beer brewers from North Carolina to assure that the quality of the beer served will be outstanding,” Neelon added. “Similar to the exceptional quality of the beer, we want the overall experience at Twin City Taps to be a great one. To that end, we’re selling a maximum of 4,000 tickets to ensure that all guests have easy access to parking, restrooms, food and most importantly of all, cold beer.”

Musical performers slated for Twin City Taps include: Possum Jenkins, Old Southern Moonshine Revival, Da Stateside Lion Reggae Band and Brickfoot Down.

General admission tickets to Twin City Taps are $35, and VIP tickets are $55.

For more information or to purchase tickets please visit www.TwinCityTaps.com, call 336.714.6871 or go to the box office at BB&T Ballpark.

© 2013 Craft Beer Collective / Away Team Media

#ACBW American Craft Beer Week

American Craft Beer Week begins today and for those of us living in North Carolina it’s never been easier to celebrate. The number one thing you should do this week: visit your local brewery!

After that, check the ACBW schedule of events for beer dinners, cask tappings and pint nights near you. And YES! You can search by state with many NC breweries participating: LoneRider, Olde Hickory, Big Boss, Fullsteam, Rock Bottom, Carolina and Triangle.

Social Beer App Untappd has a badge awaiting you: Untappd

And, don’t forget to use #ACBW and #NCBEER in your twitter conversations.

© 2013 Craft Beer Collective / Away Team Media

Olde Rabbit’s Foot video

Stumbled upon this video for Olde Rabbit’s Foot, Olde Hickory, Duck Rabbit and Foothills collaboration.

© 2013 Craft Beer Collective / Away Team Media

A look Back at Hickory Hops

A group of us made the trip to Hickory, North Carolina last weekend for the 9th annual Hickory Hops Beer Festival. While the weather forecast was looking sketchy for the day, by the time we arrived to town, the skies had cleared and the rain had passed. Little did we know that significant storms with tornadoes would soon be moving into Raleigh where we had just come from.

We made it into the festival after pre-gaming at the Hickory Mellow Mushroom for a bit filling up on pizza and pints. As expected, the festival was jam packed with NC breweries and a few other southern breweries from SC, GA and even TN. We started with Pisgah Brewing and worked our way through the festival tents with the occasional break to enjoy the bands playing on stage throughout the 6 hour festival.

Highlights of beers and breweries that stood out to us included newcomers Nantahala Brewing‘s Noon Day IPA, Loe’s Brewing Chocolate Stout XS and Birdsong Brewing‘s Saison. Out of the established breweries, we couldn’t get enough of Liberty Steakhouse and Brewery. Apparently, the judges couldn’t either. The day also includes the Carolina Championship of Beer which happened in the morning. Medals and plaques were given to brewery winners in many categories of beer styles. Liberty seems to have easily won the most medals and they drew us back to their booth 3 times for their various timed releases throughout the day including several fantastic sours and their Black IPA.

One of our local favorites from the Triangle, Aviator Brewing made their first visit to Hickory Hops and won 5 medals for their various styles of brew. Surprisingly, HogWild IPA was not one of them! The Olde Hickory Brewery had a full line-up of their brews including a special Imperial Stout with honey that clocked in at 10.5 ABV. Natty Greene’s Brewery had several special brews for the day including a Barrel-aged version of their Black Powder Stout and Anniversary Sour which took home the Best in Show award. Sadly, while Pisgah Brewing also won a medal for their Bacon Stout, it was not available for tasting.

It was also great to visit with the brewers at several of my favorite NC breweries including Carl at Wedge Brewery, Josh at Mother Earth Brewery, Mark at Aviator Brewery and Paul at Duck-Rabbit Brewery.

By the end of the day, we managed to visit and sample nearly every brewery booth at the festival. Cheers to Hickory Hops and NC craft beer for a tremendous day.

Craft Beer Collective contributor @beerandracing – a NC craft beer fanatic, motorsports junkie and avid runner. Author of Beer and Racing. Operator of Bike 2 Beer.

See Jon’s complete Hickory Hops photo gallery

See Jon’s complete Hickory Hops photo gallery

© 2013 Craft Beer Collective / Away Team Media

Collaboration Beer on eBay

Olde Rabbit’s Foot is the Bourbon-Aged collaboration beer between Old Hickory Tap Room, Duck Rabbit Brewing and Foothill’s Brewing. The beer went on sale at Foothill’s in Winston Salem last week for $15.00 a bottle and sold out the same day. If you missed your chance you can try your hand at eBay where a couple bottles are being offered by sellers for inflated prices starting at $30.00.

28wilkinson82

crosamich

© 2013 Craft Beer Collective / Away Team Media

NC Breweries at #GABF

Each year breweries from around the nation descend upon Denver for the Great American Beer Festival. The GABF is the biggest of the big beer festivals with four sessions over three days starting this Thursday going through Saturday. Twelve North Carolina Breweries will be represented there. If you are going here is the festival map and a breakdown of North Carolina Brewery booths:

Festival Grounds Map

Aviator Brewing Company F5 (Fuquay Varina)
Big Boss Brewing Co. F6 (Raleigh)
Carolina Beer Company F12 (Mooresville)
Carolina Brewery F13 (Chapel Hill)
Foothills Brewing J7 (Winston-Salem)
Highland Brewing Company J8 (Asheville)
LoneRider Brewing Company J11 (Raleigh)
Mother Earth Brewing J15 (Kinston)
Olde Hickory Brewery J17 (Hickory)
Pisgah Brewing Company J18 (Asheville)
The Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery, Inc. J3 (Farmville)
The Mash House Brewery and Chophouse J12 (Fayetteville)

From the GABF website: 2,200 different beers, in 1-ounce tasting portions, from an estimated 462 U.S. breweries to the event’s 49,000-plus attendees.

http://www.greatamericanbeerfestival.com/

© 2013 Craft Beer Collective / Away Team Media