Archive for January, 2010

Another Push for Wine Sales in Groceries

Advocates of the legalization of wine sales in New York groceries try again.

State of the Blog 2010

It is hard to believe that at this point I have been blogging for nearly three years.  Every year I have been posting some information gleaned from Google Analytics that I find interesting along with the numbers from the previous years.  Here are the posts from my first and second years if you are interested in looking at them.

Posts: 103 (2nd year: 84, 1st year: 80)
Posts about beer 95 (2nd 53, 1st 53)
Clearly I have been a bit lazy on the non-beer fermentation front, but hopefully I will remedy this deficiency in 2010.

Total Visits: 80,516 – 224/day (2nd: 39,861 – 109/day, 1st 11,712 – 32/day)
It is always nice to see those numbers continuing to climb, thanks to all of you who have posted links and told your friends about the blog. This January I already have nearly 10,000 hits, so hopefully site traffic keeps trending up.  The spike in April was from my Beer Wars Rant which received lots of link and buzz on the internets.

Page Views: 141,229 (2nd: 71,63, 1st: 22,435)
Unique Visitors: 34,538 (2nd: 21,219, 1st: 6,110)

Direct Traffic:  18,233 (2nd: 9,042, 1st: 2,908)
Search Engines: 38,020 (2nd: 16,030, 1st: 3,373)
Referring Sites: 24,605 (2nd: 14,779, 1st: 5,431)

Top Referring Sites:
1st Beer Advocate (2nd) (2nd)
2nd Homebrew Talk (4th) (7th)
3rd Rate Beer (7th) (5th)

As you might be able to tell from the numbers I migrated over to posting on Homebrew Talk instead of Northern Brewer (which was the top referring site the first two years).  The switch was not an intentional decision on my part, just something that happened over time.

People from 129 (2nd: 109, 1st: 68) countries visited.
1st USA (1st, 1st)
2nd Canada (2nd, 2nd)
3rd UK (3rd, 4th)
4th Australia (4th, 3rd)
5th Sweden (6th, 6th)
6th Denmark (5th, 7th)
7th Norway (9th, 8th)
8th New Zealand (7th, 5th)
9th Italy (8th, 17th)
10th Germany (10th, 13th)

Looks pretty stable this year, although clearly my popularity continues to rise in Scandinavia, while New Zealand isn’t keeping up with the others.

About 83% (2nd, 82%, 1st: 85%) of the visitors to the blog were from America.
1st California (1st, 1st)
2nd Pennsylvania (2nd, 3rd)
3rd Illinois (4th, 7th)
4th New York (3rd, 6th)
5th Massachusetts (7th, 10th)
6th Washington (10th, 12th)
7th Virginia (6th, 4th)
8th Texas (6th, 13th)
9th Colorado (11th, 11th)
10th DC (9th, 2nd)

The list looks pretty stable, but Illinois and Washington are the two biggest climbers this year.

In case you were wondering the state I got the fewest hits from was North Dakota with 24, taking over the a spot held by Wyoming the last two years.

In the browser wars Internet Explorer lost even more ground this year to 28% (2nd: 36%,1st: 40%), and Firefox edged up slightly to 50% after 2 years at 49%.

Operating System:
72% Windows (2nd: 76%, 1st: 79%)
23% Mac (2nd: 19%, 1st: 17%)
4% Linux (2nd: 4%, 1st: 5%)
.2% iPhone (2nd: .5%, 1st: .05%)

Not sure what it says about my site, but that is certainly a lot more Apple users than a random sampling of the population would produce.

Besides the main page, the most viewed articles have gone to the my no-knead sourdough recipe, water treatment guide, and my Berliner weisse recipe.

The number of subscribers to my feed has really exploded over the last year, growing from 250 to over 1,600 today. A site called FriendFeed seems to be responsible for a good chunk of that growth (hello to anyone on there).  The total number of feed views was 148,508 which is just above the views for the actually website.  I didn’t start using FeedBurner to track feed usage until the middle of 2008, so I don’t have the hard numbers for the first two years (but I am sure I have gotten more growth on it than anywhere else).

Things on tap for year four of the Mad Fermentationist:
Sour beer solera barrel project.
Brewing my first batch of sake in the next couple months.
More homemade cheese and cured meat
More sourdough recipes (now that the weather is cooler I have been baking a lot, just not posting)
Bottling the group sour wee heavy (and racking a big porter into the barrel funkify)
Plenty of updates on all of the sours aging in my basement and all of the clean beers I have in the works.
The return of the Fermentationette’s Farmers Market Lunch posts

As always, if you have any questions, comments, suggestions, complaints etc… please email me at madfermentationist@gmail.com

Tuppers’ Hop Pocket Ale – It’s Here!

We’ve been following the story of the eminent return of Tuppers’ Hop Pocket Ale since late 2008. Well, that long-awaited day has finally arrived. The beer officially (re)debuted at the Hard Times Cafe in Bethesda last week. Greg Kitsock writes in The Washington Post about the event.

Last Tuesday night, Bob and his wife, Ellie, senior production editor for the American Society for Microbiology, were glad-handing customers at the Hard Times Cafe in Bethesda (their home town) and handing out logo glassware for the bar staff to fill with their eponymous Tuppers’ Hop Pocket Ale.

The rollout marked the beer’s first appearance in more than two years. The previous batch, notes Bob, rolled off the bottling line of the Old Dominion Brewing Co. on Nov. 30, 2007. Earlier that year, the Ashburn brewery had changed hands, and the new ownership balked at brewing the Tuppers’ beer because it was time-consuming and expensive.

The Tuppers developed a near cult following for their beers in this region. Fans have been waiting for 2 years to be able to drink Hop Pocket Ale once again. I had a sample at the Northern Virginia BrewFest and it was every bit as good as I remember.

The production at St. George Brewing won’t match the capacity previously brewed at Old Dominion Brewing Company, so it may be hard to find for awhile, especially as fans eagerly snatch up early stock. Keep an eye on the Tuppers’ news site for updates on retailers and pubs where Hop Pocket Ale is available. Hopefully, I’ll be able to do a full review on The Musings soon.

Read the complete Washington Post article here.

Privatization of Virginia ABC Stores – The Next Round

It was a year ago when I brought you news of Senator Mark Obenshain’s (R-Harrisonburg) proposal move Virginia’s ABC (Alcoholic Beverage Control) stores to the private sector. Senator Obenshain’s bill was subsequently killed in Committee.

Well, it’s a new year. Virginia has new leadership and Gov. Bob McDonnell supports the idea as part of his transportation plan. Recently Gov. McDonnell was interviewed by reason.tv. The Governor explained the reasons for his support, and also let on to his preferences in wine (Pinot Grigio and White Zinfandel) and beer (Miller Lite).

How to Make a Brandy Last

How small brandy distillers work to survive.

Virginia Wine Experience – The Secret’s Out

Another Fredericksburg beer gem has been exposed. Tammy Tuck and Bruce Falconer, who cover craft beer for the Washington City Paper under the alias The Lagerheads, paid a visit to Fredericksburg recently. While here they discovered The Virginia Wine Experience. Despite the name, this shop in downtown Fredericksburg carries an unexpected selection of craft beer. The Lagerheads noted that the shop doesn’t promote their beer selection very much. Virginia Wine Experience’s proprietor, Edwin Wyant, does post occasional alerts to the FABTS mailing list letting local folks know of special beers he’s acquired. He also hosts a beer tasting from time to time. Indeed, I have purchased beers in his store that don’t show up at other local shops.

Now the Lagerheads have let the secret out. Read their review at Fredericksburg Find: The Virginia Wine Experience. They’ve also posted a few photos on the Lagerhead Facebook page.

Double Sour Brewday

Luckily a couple weeks earlier I had received a vial of Al B’s Bugfarm #3 in the mail.  Al is a great homebrewer (if his beer from the Brett 100% Swap is any indication), he is also a microbiologist obsessed with gathering and preserving different yeast and bacteria strains from a variety of sour beers.  Every once in while he sends out the call for people willing to try out his latest microbe blend, for free! (with the understanding that you’ll send him a couple bottles in return once his investment matures).

Devin and I planned to make 10 gallons of wort using a big mash tun that I had built years ago, but only used once (it was constructed from a 17.5 gallon marine cooler and a CPVC manifold, but living in an apartment down in DC it didn’t seem worth the space it takes up).  Doing such a large batch on my system can only be accomplished by collecting a smaller volume of runnings pre-boil, assuming poor efficiency, and diluting to hit the target volume post boil, since I only have a 10 gallon boil kettle.

With such a complex bunch of bugs in our employ we decided that it wasn’t worth doing too much with the grain bill.  The recipe was pretty simple, basemalt (split between German Pils and Maris Otter for complexity), wheat malt, and some rolled oats (we were inspired to add the oats part way though the mash, with all those bugs I don’t really care whether they converted fully or not).  The hops were similarly restrained with just 13 IBUs of Willamette added near the start of the boil.

A Wine Report from Home

The wines I’ve drunk in the past week offered an embarrassment of riches to help take the sting out of the Jets loss.

Changes at Clipper City

There are changes afoot at Clipper City Brewing Company in Maryland. Considering that Clipper City’s Heavy Seas beers are among my favorites, I’ve been remiss in mentioning the changes here. There has been some misinformation floating around, but Managing Partner Hugh Sisson posted all the correct details on his blog today. The changes are focused mainly on branding, although a few beers will be going on hiatus. In part, Hugh writes:

With this in mind, we are making big changes here at Clipper City Brewing Co. Effective February 1, “Oxford Organic Ales” will go on hiatus, and “Clipper City” as a brand will cease to exist.

The current economic environment has not been kind to “organics”. We just weren’t getting the traction we need to sustain our organic portfolio. While we still believe in the category and sincerely hope to re-enter this area down the road, we need to focus our efforts in other areas.

The beers that have been heretofore marketed under the “Clipper City” name will continue to be made – after all, they are all GABF medal winners and damn good beers! But the packaging will now show a different name with “Heavy Seas” as the brand.

So what happens now? “Heavy Seas” beers will now come in three “fleets”. The former “Clipper City” products, as well as any new offerings in the 4 to 5% alcohol range, will now be sold as the “Clipper Fleet” of Heavy Seas. Our 7 to 8% products – Loose Cannon et al – will now be sold as the “Pyrate Fleet” of Heavy Seas. And our bigger, more experimental offerings (usually higher than 8%) will now be exclusively in 22 ounce bottles as the “Mutiny Fleet.”

So there you have it. This is bold move for the brewery, but one that I think makes a lot of sense. I wish them well and look forward to continuing to enjoy Clipper City, er, Heavy Seas beer, no matter what the labels look like.

See Hugh’s entire post here.

Beer Not Sold Here

Despite the fact that Southern Illinois – and Carbondale in particular – has made great strides in the availability of better beer at some bars, restaurants and retailers over the last 18 months or so, there’s still an obvious and glaring absence of beer altogether in many businesses you’d otherwise expect to find it in the city. Packaged liquors – including beer – can only be found at a select few locations in Carbondale. Anyone else ever thought this fact was a little odd?

There’s a reason for it, though I’d be hard pressed to say it’s a good reason.

Grocery stores and gas stations, for example, are banned from selling packaged liquors. This decades-old ban has caused an interesting environment to develop for packaged liquor sales in the city. Only a handful of current retailers – seven to be exact – have been granted packaged liquor sales licenses. An eighth license was recently granted by the Carbondale city council, but the retailer has yet to open its location. If you couple the scarcity of retail liquor store licensures (compared to other cities of equal or even smaller size) with the total ban on grocery and gas stations package sales and you’ve effectively created a pretty exclusive fraternity, whether consciously or otherwise.

This fact cannot be overlooked and carries with it some pretty hefty implications.

A reporter for the region’s largest newspaper – The Southern Illinoisan – just wrote a story documenting the fact that the Carbondale city council is now starting to take another look at their longstanding packaged liquor sales ban and reconsidering whether it might actually be more of a detriment to the city’s growth and prosperity than it is a safeguard against some perceived abuse – which I can only assume was the reason to impose the ban in the first place how ever many years ago that was.

Now that’s a start. Hope and change I can believe in.

In the article penned by Blackwell Thomas, and appearing in the online edition of The Southern today, city councilman Joel Fritzler is quoted as saying “It’s against free enterprise; it’s against capitalism and it promotes monopolies …” I unashamedly agree with councilman Fritzler’s assessment on the current environment in the city. There seems to an unspoken atmosphere of favoritism going on within the city that gives some establishment owners a measure of an advantaged position that is hard to deny when viewed objectively. The extant ban helps keep this advantage in place and, further, serves to discourage new business ventures within the city. My words, not Councilman Fritzler’s.

I don’t care to delve into the political motivations and machinations that have brought us to this point in Carbondale. All I’m really interested in is seeing the market open up to allow more businesses – like Schnuck’s, for example, who have stores as close as Cape Girardeau that boast an impressive selection of craft and specialty beer – have the chance to do the same here in Carbondale. Free enterprise works for beer too and it’s high time that this restrictive and regressive ban is lifted.We’re finally getting better beer here in the shadow of the A-B InBev

If you’re a local reader, and find yourself so inclined, I encourage you to make your voice heard when and where you can and encourage the Carbondale city council to continue to revisit this ban. Let me just say in closing that I do not advocate the abuse of alcohol in any way, shape or form. Those that know me know I am a strict moderationist. But I’m also a capitalist and this ban is not good for beer and it’s not good for business in Carbondale. It seems to me that if we focus our efforts on the responsible use of alcohol – even in a University town – we’ll achieve more than we would by continuing to suppress growth and restrict availability.This is not a willy-nilly plea to get more booze into more places in town, although I know it will be received that way by some.

For me, the real need for this kind of ban ended with the foregone era of “the Strip” in Carbondale. C’mon Council-people, Carbondale is not that town anymore. I think it’s safe to say, too, that we’re not going to regress into that town again anytime soon. Let’s free up these businesses who will responsibly sell packaged liquor within the city so we’re not driving them outside the city to spend their money. Call me crazy.

Please feel free to share your thoughts here, but I’d much rather you share them with any city council member directly. We may be closer now to lifting this ban than we’ve been in years.