Left Hand Brewing Company’s 2008 bottle conditioned Chainsaw Ale, is a fine, highly drinkable brew.

Chainsaw pours a cloudy, deep golden brown with a huge thick tan head. Aromas are of sweet bread dough with distinct hop notes and an undertone of gravel.

Big flavors of sweet and slightly roasted malt are first on the palate followed by minor notes of slighty burnt chocolate, coffee and brown sugar. There are flavors reminiscent of dark cherry at the back of the throat.

Hop bitterness, listed as 55 IBUs, is well represented in the flavor profile, but balances like a champ with the malt profile.

Brewed with oats, the mouthfeel is smooth and slightly oily.

Hoppiness comes back in Chainsaw’s long finish along with notes of dark fruit and sweet malt. Alcohol warmth – this beer is 9% ABW – shows in the finish. Until the finish, alcohol flavors were barely noted.

Chainsaw Ale is a very nice, unique tasting beer. Its flavors are well balanced and compliment each other. It is mellow, yet full bodied and full flavored.

Part of the Longmont, Colo. brewery’s Big Mo Series, this beer is described on the bottle as a “connoisseur version of our award-winning Sawtooth Ale.” I’ve never tried Sawtooth, but after drinking Chainsaw, I will be seeking it out.

This beer was purchased at the South Sioux City, Nebr., Hy-Vee Wines and Spirits and is highly recommended.

-Tim Hynds

Date: 03/31/2008 10:18 AM

GOLDEN, Colo. (AP) – Molson Coors Brewing Co., the No. 3 beer producer in the United States, will continue to be a fixture at Coors Field in Denver for at least the next decade.

The brewery said Monday it has signed a 10-year sponsorship agreement with the Colorado Rockies. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.

The deal, which includes licensing, advertising and hospitality rights, extends an agreement first signed when Coors Field opened in 1995. It also gives Molson Coors exclusive naming rights for a seating section behind home plate.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

Date: 03/28/2008 03:57 PM

Despite their bad reputation, beer aficionados are making room for aluminum cans in their beer fridge. Many great beers from craft brewers like Oskar Blues Dale’s Pale Ale, left, Sly Fox’s Phoenix Pale Ale, second from left, and Butternuts Beer & Ale’s Pork Slap Ale are available only in cans as seen here in this Thursday, March 27, 2008 photo. (AP Photo/Larry Crowe)

By JOSH L. DICKEY
Associated Press Writer

Until some time-trekking engineer from the future gives us transparent aluminum, canned beer will stand beside lawn ornaments, dark wood paneling and the Pontiac Azteca as surefire signs of horrid taste.

After all, cans are meant for red-blooded American swill – and the grubby hands of those who would swill it.

Ever poured a can of Budweiser into a glass? Unless you’re curious as to the color of its final byproduct, don’t. Same goes for Pabst, Old Milwaukee, Keystone, Schlitz, Coors, Miller High Life and any beer with “Ice” in its title.

But some people want their beer – even beer in a can – to do more than just hit the 4 percent alcohol minimum. For them, there’s Dale’s Pale Ale, the as-of-yet little known canned brew out of Lyons, Colo., north of Boulder.

Glug it into a tall glass to tease up a rich head. Marvel at its glowing auburn color. Breathe up its toasty and inviting aroma. Feel the bitter hops grip the back of your tongue, and taste the wash of malt put it all in perfect balance.

Now just TRY not to pop another.

That second “psshhht” you hear? That’s the sound of an opening mind. Because when it comes to genuinely great beer, this one’s in the can – pun firmly intended.

“Truly, it started off as a joke,” says Dale Katechis, founder of Oskar Blues Brewing and the beer’s namesake, who started the delicately balanced hops-bomb as a homebrew recipe. “At the time, we couldn’t even conceive of putting high-gravity craft beer in a can. It wasn’t even on the radar.”

The Oskar Blues crew took the idea seriously enough to hear out an upstart Canadian company that had developed small canning machines for homebrewers. The pitch, from Cask Brewing Systems in Calgary, struck a chord – and Katechis’ brewers were soon hand-cranking beer into aluminum, one can at a time (they’ve since upgraded to a five-head filler from Cask that runs 30 cans a minute).

What started as a lark has turned into an accidental moment of marketing genius: When Katechis and his cronies had their “Why not cans?” moment in 2002, you could only get Dale’s Pale Ale from the taps at the Oskar Blues bar and restaurant in Lyons. Now you can get cans of Dale’s Pale Ale in 17 states (and counting).

But you still can’t get it in a bottle.

“This is the way micro-canning, as we know it, began,” Katechis says. “Up to that point, no one was canning beer, except for the big guys.”

And as the swell of imitators grows across the nation, Dale’s is still held up as the brew that started it all.

“One day,” Katechis says, “I stopped laughing.”

Why so serious? Because it turns out that in terms of containing and protecting beer, cans are superior to glass bottles. It’s a revelation not unlike the one that inspired so many high-end New Zealand winemakers to switch from iffy corks to trusty, if nontraditional, screw-caps.

Contrary to beer’s image as the sturdy, unfussy drink of workaday folks, it’s a highly sensitive and fragile concoction – more so in many ways than wine. Beer withers in the presence of UV light (cans darken completely). Beer oxidizes quickly in air (cans contain less than bottles, and hold a tighter seal).

There are practical reasons to go to cans, as well. Glass containers are banned from the racetrack, concert grounds, state parks and lakes; cans generally are welcome. And aluminum is lightweight and crushable, while glass is heavy, clunky and breakable.

“Cans to us are just cool,” Katechis says. “They’re extremely portable. They’re environmentally friendly. And because of them, we’re still different in the marketplace.”

Not as different as they used to be. In the six years since Oskar Blues took the micro-canning leap, at least a dozen craft breweries have started canning some or all of their offerings.

Among the more canny brewmeisters:

- The Sly Fox brewery in suburban Philadelphia makes a refreshingly dry ale and an old-world style pilsner. Next to Dale’s, their Phoenix Pale Ale could be the finest canned beer for the money.

- The guys at Butternuts Beer & Ale in Garrattsville, N.Y., put their quirky “farmhouse ales” exclusively in cans, wrapped in distinctive, cartoon-inspired designs (their signature Porkslap Ale is not for everyone: a little light on hops, a little heavy on the barn-funk).

- The New England Brewery in Woodbridge, Conn., makes two substantial ales and an above-average lager.

And in case you were wondering, don’t expect a metallic taste from any of these – this is not your father’s Old Style can. These days, the aluminum is lined with a water-based polymer that protects the liquid from the alloy, and vice-versa.

But there’s still this thing with it being – well, a can. Small opening, lips directly touching sharp metal, awkward head-tilting, looking like a rube at parties…

So pour it into something, dear Henry!

Look – it doesn’t matter if it’s Spiegelau by Riedel or the vintage Mayor McCheese glass at the back of your top shelf. Whether it came from a can or a bottle, any beer worth drinking is worth drinking out of a glass.

“When’s the last time you slugged Veuve Clicquot right out of the bottle? You don’t! So why do it with beer?” Katechis asks, going on to wax poetic about the wonders of exposing a fine beer to the senses of sight and smell.

“We all got brainwashed early that craft beer had to be in a brown bottle,” he says. “Now all we’re facing is consumer perception, and I’ve realized that I have this thing on our hands. I feel like we’re still reaping the rewards because we haven’t even gotten started yet.”

At this rate, maybe Katechis and his brewing brethren will somehow make pink flamingoes and white tank-tops look classy.

—

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

Fenney correctly answered New Orleans. A tip of the stein to them!

This is the 45th of a weekly trivia quiz on beer and all things beer related.

This week’s question is in honor of a new Sioux Brew reader……If you were drinking a Red Stallion at the Crescent City Brewhouse, in what city would you be drinking in?

Answer by posting a comment.

And as always, no Google cheating!

Past questions and answers can be viewed by clicking on Sioux Brew quiz in the category listing at right.

Do ya like hops?

If you don’t, stop reading and surf on over to the Editor’s Notes blog.

But if you do, continue on because Mojo IPA from the Boulder Beer Co., of Boulder, Colo., might be the beer for you.

A part of the brewery’s Looking Glass series, Mojo IPA touts it’s use of Amarillo and Centennial hops and exploits their flavors to its fullest.

The beer pours a light golden tan with a thick, lacy tan head. Mojo’s aroma shouts hops with strong citrus and pine notes.

Citrus from the hops is the dominate flavor, fronting a subdued background of sweet malt. The focus, however, is surely on the hops as the malt flavors quickly faded at the back of the tongue.

This is a very nice IPA. My only complaint – and a very minor one at that – is that I wish there had been a touch more malt flavor up front.

As expected, citrus hops rule in this beer’s very dry finish. Mojo contains 6.8% alcohol by volume and a bit of alcohol warmth was found in the finish.

Have I mentioned that everything about this beer screams hops? If you like big hop flovor in a very drinkable and not overly alcohol-laden beer, this is your IPA.

This beer was purchased at the Sioux Sioux City, Nebr., Hy-Vee Wines and Spirits.

-Tim Hynds

I’m a big fan of Jimmy Buffett.

Not enough to call myself a Parrothead, mind you. But, I think his songs are catchy.

But his beer? Not so much.

Land Shark Lager, a product of the Margaritaville Brewing Co. of Jacksonville, FL., tries hard to evoke feelings of sunny beaches, but you could do better with some of the old standbys such as Corona and Sol.

Land Shark, a joint effort between Buffett and Anheuser-Busch, pours a very, very pale yellow with a short white head that quickly collapsed. The dominant aroma is of corn with a very faint whiff of hops. Otherwise, there is almost no aroma at all.

The main flavor in this beer is cracked corn. There is a very, very faint touch of hop bitterness in the beer, which leads me to believe someone might have waved a hop pellet over the brew kettle. There is a slight amount of bitterness in the finish.

Land Shark has a very smooth mouthfeel.

This beer is very light bodied with a very light, watery flavor. Land Shark is 4.7% ABV.

It was purchased at Hy-Vee Wines and Spirits’ Sioux City Hamilton Blvd. location.

-Tim Hynds

kbliss007 is the winner (x3) of this week’s quiz by being able to figure out that Stinky Goat Bock was a figment of my imagination. But then, what kind of mind came up with Malt Marrow?

This is the 44th of a weekly trivia quiz on beer and all things beer related.

Which one of the following is/was not a real American beer brand? Paul Bunyan, Williams Purple Cow, Hop’N Gator, Stinky Goat Bock, Malt Marrow or Malt Duck?

Answer by posting a comment.

And as always, no Google cheating!

Past questions and answers can be viewed by clicking on Sioux Brew quiz in the category listing at right.

Date: 03/18/2008 11:47 PM

By WAYNE PARRY
Associated Press Writer

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) _ Paul Murphy came all the way from Glasgow, Scotland, to stand against the back wall of The Irish Pub with a pint in his hand and a paper bag on his head.

He did not stand out in the least at the bar, which was packed Tuesday afternoon with people wearing brightly decorated paper bags atop their heads, for this was Bag Day, the second-greatest day of the year at The Irish Pub.

Each March 18, the day after St. Patrick’s Day, people come from far and near to jam the joint, most wearing some sort of bag fashioned into a hat atop their head. The tradition dates back 24 years to a group of exhausted waitresses and casino workers who realized they had worked through the entire night and missed St. Paddy’s Day.

“We said, ‘We didn’t have too much fun on St. Patrick’s Day; let’s start our own holiday,’” said Cathy Burke, who owns the pub. “The bartender had just brought out a pile of bags that they use behind the bar, and we put some on our heads and said, ‘We declare today Bag Day, the official holiday of The Irish Pub and anyone who has to work on St. Patrick’s Day.’”

That day, the staff met people at the door and told them they couldn’t enter unless they wore a bag on their heads, handing them out to the slightly startled patrons. As the years went by, people started bringing their own bags, many richly painted and decorated.

Rich Crofton drove 40 miles from Williamstown to wear a white bag bedecked with shamrocks, drawings of two sudsy mugs, and the words “Beer Me, I’m Irish” on his hat.

“It’s a chance to let your hair down a little bit,’ he said.

His friend Karen Peacock, also of Williamstown, said people come year after year to see friends they made at Bag Day. She had the same take on the origin of the name as did most of those interviewed at the bar.

“Because you’re still in the bag after St. Patrick’s Day,” she laughed between sips of a Bloody Mary. “It’s an excuse to have some hair of the dog.”

Each year, Lois Werth of nearby Margate comes to Bag Day for the buzz, in more ways than one. She leads a group of revelers who call themselves “The Bees,” all wearing bag hats with a bee motif.

One was shaped like a giant marijuana cigarette (a “doo-bee”); Werth’s was adorned with a list of things you can’t do around her, including the admonition, “Do Not Pet Me; I’m Working.” She is a “don’t-bee.”

A friend of Werth’s had a high-heeled shoe atop his hat; he was a “shoe-bee,” in honor of the derogatory term that residents of the southern New Jersey shore used for day trippers to the area, who were said to carry their lunch to the beach in shoe boxes.

“You meet so many interesting people here on Bag Day,” she said. “It’s not like a typical drinking night. People come from all over for this.”

Revelers wore hats shaped like a Bishop’s miter, a boat, a pirate hat, a crown, a hippie headband, the Wicked Witch of the West, a Dalmatian puppy, and one adorned with cut-outs of centerfold models.

Derek Berkett, who traveled about 50 miles from Bellmawr to help hold up the back wall Tuesday afternoon, summed up the appeal of Bag Day.

“You can wear a paper bag on your head and fit in with everyone else in the room,” he said. “When else can you do that?”

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

By Whitney Woodward
Sioux City Journal Des Moines Bureau

DES MOINES – With a legislative proposal to expand the state’s bottle deposit program in limbo, Lt. Gov. Patty Judge summoned a landfill director and redemption center owner to the Capitol Tuesday to advocate the plan.

The Culver administration is pushing lawmakers to add juice, water, sports drink and tea bottles and cans to the state’s nickel-per-container redemption program.

Judge said doing so would prompt Iowans to recycle an additional 200 million containers each year, on top of the 1.6 billion which are redeemed annually.

The program, created 30 years ago, includes only alcoholic and carbonated drink containers.

“At that time, Iowa was seen as a champion of the environment,” Judge said about the program’s beginnings. “Very few states had taken such a bold step to keep containers out of their ditches and out of their parkways …. It’s time for Iowa to once more be a champion of the environment, by expanding the bottle bill.”

But Sara Bixby, director of the South Central Iowa Solid Waste Agency, estimated that more than 2,000 tons of plastic containers which could be recycled are thrown away in her landfill each year.

Expanding the bottle bill wouldn’t help her business, but it would protect the environment, she said.

“We’d prefer to take garbage that can’t be recycled,” Bixby said.

The plan also would double the rate bottle redemption centers are paid for handling the containers, from one penny to two.

“The redemption centers have done a great job for 30 years. Unfortunately, they have never had a raise,” Judge said.

Adjusting that rate will help redemption centers, whose owners have repeatedly called for an increase to stay afloat.

David Jones, who owns the MCF Can Redemption Center in Atlantic, said Iowa’s centers earn less than 80 percent of other bottle bill states.

The penny per container fee has never been increased to account for inflation, and some centers have blamed the static fee as the reason they’ve gone out of business.

“We need to get this thing on the floor and get it passed,” Jones said.

But House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said he is not sure if there’s enough support in the Legislature to pass the bill.

Opponents have questioned if the redemption law’s expansion would kill cities’ curbside recycling programs. They also have said requiring people to tote more recyclables around would be burdensome.

“There was some support for this bill in our caucus. There’s also some disagreement with this,” McCarthy said.

Earlier this year, Democrats declared Culver’s original bottle bill plan dead. That first draft would have expanded the types of containers covered, while doubling the deposit to a dime. Consumers who returned their containers would have only received 8 cents back.

Culver scaled back the plan in response.

Consumers still would see receive all of their 5 cents back under the current proposal.

Sioux Brew reader Paul sends a note that Left Hand Brewing Company’s Chainsaw Ale is now available at the Hy-Vee Wine and Spirits in South Sioux City, Nebr.

-Tim Hynds