Brain Enema of a Savage Mind

I’ve had to write this in a hundred different places for work, but I really felt it was worth mentioning here as well.  Over the weekend the 2008 TAP-NY took place.  It’s a festival that celebrates New York State craft beers.  In 2006 we took home the Silver medal for DoubleIPA, and last year we came home empty handed.  This year however we won big.

• The F.X. Matt Memorial Cup for New York State’s best Craft Brewery
• The Gold Medal for ‘TEN’, our tenth anniversary ale, a crazy strong super hopped up Red Ale that makes the Cascazilla nothing more than a whimper in comparison.  It’s part of our Excelsior! series (the 750ml bottles)
• The SIlver Medal for ‘Flower Power’, our signature IPA.  This has always been a rock solid beer for us, and its been an especially good year for this beer.  Reaching the final four in the National IPA challenge, and now this!

Right now I’m exceedingly proud to be working at the Ithaca Beer Company.  Everyone there has been working their asses off to make the beers the best they can be and it’s always good when you get a little recognition for that.

written by Alex \\ tags: Beer, ithaca, work

Today marks 75 years since beer was once again made legal in this country.  After a few dark years of underground boozing and the rise to power of the mafia, the government wised up, at least momentarally, to repeal Prohibition and once again allow booze to flow freely!

So lift up a pint and celebrate 75 years of legalized beer!  Here’s to you beer, and 75 more years of deliciousness!

written by Alex \\ tags: Beer, Politics & Law, stupid legal tricks

Awhile ago the brewery attempted to get a license so that we could sell beer by the pint.  The theory was that we would have a couple nights a week where we would do a happy hour.  The town dropped the hammer on that idea though.  Still, they ended up purchasing a couple of pub tables and some pub chairs.  All of them finally arrived the other day and I put them all together, so in the retail front they sit.  They look good there - they make the room look a lot less empty, but still, part of me thinks they seem silly for being there.  Though it occurred to me that while they might not be overly useful in terms of the customer, they would make a great Ithaca Beer after hours.

Hey, it’s the random things that I think when it gets slow.

written by Alex \\ tags: Beer, random thoughts

I always have the best of intentions to update this site with far more regularity, especially after all the issues (technical and political) with LiveJournal these days. Of course I haven’t exactly updated that with any regularity either other than to remind people of various Ithaca Beer going ons. I’m sure not really many people read this, which is entirely understandable with how infrequently it has been updated. Though with a good RSS aggregator it saves you from always checking a site for new posts(I love NewsFire, one of the numerous pieces of shareware I’ve registered these days).

Of course on the theme of updating people about events I’ll take this moment to plug our event at Felicia’s Atomic Lounge tonight. Tonight at 7pm Ithaca Beer Co. is having our release party for Kaffinator - a Double Espresso Bock. It’s a beer we collaborated with Gimme! coffee to make. It’s damn good, especially for anyone who loves coffee. There’s closing in on a shot of espresso per bottle. I have the feeling this will be the best release party we’ve thrown in Ithaca yet!

written by Alex \\ tags: Beer, life

Last night we finally bottled the barley wine.  At least with this style letting it condition in the secondary isn’t a bad thing.  Tasted some out of the jar I took the hydrometer reading from.  Pretty yummy.  You can feel the heat from the alcohol though - I’m hoping that’s going to mellow after a nice long time conditioning in the bottles.  I’m sure I’ll try some after a month or so, but with a beer like this you want it to age for several months in the bottle first.

Tomorrow I head to Ellictoville, NY for the Rites of Spring Beer and Wine fest.  I’m going to be representing Ithaca Beer.  I’m especially excited because they’re having a Real Ale competition.  I’ve never actually had any cask conditioned beer before so I’m really anxious to try these.  I’m bringing a cask conditioned version of our Flower Power.  It should be damn good.  But I certainly want to try a little bit of everything.  It’ll also be good to meet some people from other breweries around the state and maybe make a few contacts.  It’s nice to make the New York brewing community a more friendly place.  Working together I think we can make the New York beer scene one of the best out there - at the very least we can give it our best shot.  Also, hell, I just like talking about beer.

written by Alex \\ tags: Beer, homebrew