Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Macon HOMEBREW at the Macon Octoberfest

This weekend marks the second annual Macon Octoberfest and this year's event is focusing on Georgia-brewed craft beer.  A variety of music acts will be performing, including an authentic polka band hailing from Atlanta.  Tickets are on sale now and range from an $8 single day admission to a $40 two-day VIP package.  The VIP packages are your best value ($25 single day, $40 both days) and include a custom 32oz stein, 32oz of beer (or 8 4oz samples), a Bavarian meal prepared by Grow and access to priority seating, bathrooms and draft options.

Your hometown favorites, Macon Beer Company, will also be debuting their new seasonal offering at the Macon Octoberfest.  Eager to know more about their next offering, I sent a few questions over to Jeremy Knowles to see what they have in store.  Here's what Jeremy had to say.

What is the name and style of the beer you're brewing for Macon Octoberfest?
The brand is HOMEBREW. Using this brand as a medium, we plan on identifying up and coming homebrewers by showcasing a developed recipe and making it commercially available. This batch is our first and the homebrewer is CJ Holmes. CJ won last year's Octoberfest homebrew competition and he won with a peach IPA.

What all can you tell us about the Octoberfest beer?
This round of HOMEBREW is a Peach IPA. It is a 7.3% ABV, has around 70 IBU's and is hopped with Millennium and Glacier hops. Macon Beer Company partnered with Lane Southern Orchards to get the peaches from the Ft Valley location.

When were the peaches added to the beer and why did you choose that stage in the brewing process?
Peach puree was provided by Lane Southern Orchards and we added it to secondary fermentation. At Macon Beer Company we propagate our yeast from batch to batch so adding the peaches before secondary would likely result in our next few batches having some peach aroma or flavor. We didn't want to continue the peach theme but we wanted to have active yeast on the peach to get the flavor profile most closely matching the homebrewer's recipe. It made the most sense to rack the beer with some active yeast onto the peaches.

Macon Music seemed to be a big success, is this beer similar to Macon Music?
Though both MUSIC and this year's version of HOMEBREW are both IPA's, the comparison really stops there. MUSIC was more of a traditional IPA where hop overtones are the focus. HOMEBREW has a deep fruit aroma and finishes slightly tart but peach is really the focus.

After the Macon Octoberfest, will this beer be available around town?
The beer will be debuted at Octoberfest and will be featured around town. Supplies are limited but the brand will be available after Octoberfest.

What's your favorite thing about the Macon Octoberfest event?
The support the Octoberfest leadership offers to the Macon community through donation and engagement is really my favorite thing about the festival. It's also great the festival showcases Georgia craft beers. Georgia's, and really the southeastern US craft beer scene is booming. Not many festivals have caught on that Georgia has great craft beer and even fewer are brave enough to limit the breweries to only Georgia craft.

When will the next Macon Beer Company seasonal beer come out? Can you give us any details about it?
Macon Beer Company is still a company in startup mode. We're going to take some time to better equip ourselves for the upcoming year. Our next seasonal will be Macon Love and will be released in March in conjunction with Macon's Cherry Blossom Festival.
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Congratulations to CJ and we all look forward to trying out your recipe as the very first Macon HOMEBREW!  The Macon Octoberfest is this Friday and Saturday and it looks to be a great weekend for it.  Tattnall Square Park is the location, and yes, the Atlanta German Polka Band will be playing both Friday and Saturday.  It's not Octoberfest without beer steins and polka!

Monday, October 6, 2014

Georgia Picks Up Some GABF Hardware

The Great American Beer Festival is an annual beer festival in Denver, Colorado that is in its 33rd year.  From the consumer end, this is the country's largest beer festival, featuring 700 breweries, 49,000 attendees and spread over 3 days.  From the brewer end, it's also an opportunity to compete with breweries across the country for awards in 90 different categories of beer styles.  This year Georgia brought home 3 medals.  Here are your winners.

Creature Comforts - Curiosity No. 2
Bronze - American-style Brett Beer
From the Creature Comforts website: Our first bottled beer in the curiosity series of beers. Curiosity is a blonde American Brett beer refermented with kiwi and pineapple juice. This beer is fermented with our house Brettanomyces blend.

Coastal Empire - Dawn Patrol Breakfast Stout
Bronze - Herb and Spice Beer
From the Coastal Empire website: No information currently available.

Monday Night Brewing - Bourbon Barrel Drafty Kilt
Gold - Wood and Barrel-aged Beer
From the Monday Night website: What do Scotland and the American South have in common? An appreciation for good booze. But that doesn’t mean they always get along. We put our award-winning Drafty Kilt Scotch Ale in Kentucky bourbon barrels and let them duke it out in the cellar. Who won? You did. The chocolate, caramel, and roasted malts in Drafty Kilt complement the charred oak and vanilla notes in the bourbon barrels quite well. Notice we didn’t say “compliment.” Scotch and Bourbon still don’t send each other Christmas cards.

Congratulations to all three breweries on an excellent showing!

Check out all the winners here.

Thursday, October 2, 2014

If Macon Drinks It, They Will Brew It

There are many beer destinations in our country.  One of these, Denver, is kicking off the Great American Beer Festival today, which is the largest beer festival in the country.  In fact, Colorado's governor is the co-founder of Wynkoop Brewing, located in Denver.  Oregon offers up the largest number of breweries per capita, while Asheville, NC carries that title for an individual city.  California has the largest number of breweries in the country and reinvented hoppy beers.  In Wisconsin, nearly 1 in every 3 beers sold is a craft beer.  The pacific northwest boasts the largest hop fields in the US and is responsible for most of the hops that define the flavors of American craft beer.

These cities and states had to get their start somewhere, as people weren't drinking craft beer in 1970.  In every case, a few daring individuals had the idea that they could open a brewery and offer up a local alternative to the huge brewing corporations.  Their friends and neighbors liked the new and exciting beverages, and a risky idea became a stable business plan.  Americans wanted more, and therefore more breweries opened.  State laws changed to support small businesses instead of mega-corporations and one brewery at a time, these states became world renowned for their brewing achievements.

Unfortunately, Georgia is behind the curve.  We all know that because the numbers don't lie.  We are 47th in the country in breweries per capita in 2013, and that's considering 2013 saw a 30% growth in craft breweries in our state.  That's also considering that Atlanta can claim two of the top beer bars in the country with the Porter Beer Bar and the Brick Store Pub.  State laws need to change to favor small brewing businesses, but we'll get there the same way everyone else did - one brewery at a time.

Something different in the beer industry just happened right here in Macon.  While it surely wasn't the first time to happen, it is a rare occurrence and I've never witnessed it before.  Macon was just handed a beer culture.  Over the past few years, local businesses have been interested in offering a more interesting selection of beer, especially downtown.  Growler stores, popular around the country, are opening in middle Georgia in response to recent law changes and have been doing well.  Macon is getting there one brewery at a time.  In fact, Macon currently has one brewery, which illustrates where our Progress lies, pun intended.

So what happened?  Macon-Bibb passed a law that allowed our growler stores to sell pints.  This sounds simple enough.  It's an additional line of revenue for stores only allowed to sell carry-out products.  But what it creates is something far different.  In most cities, a profitable beer culture needs to be established before anyone risks opening up a 50, 60, or even 100 tap bar.  That's a lot of beer to go through, and it's an expensive setup to build.  You need enough people to buy that much beer before you start selling that much beer.

This is essentially the Field of Dreams scenario.  If we build it, they will come.  What was anticipated to be an additional side business, has created a beer culture.  Lazy Dog Macon was the first to obtain the new license, and they're busy every night.  Macon is now the home of a 64 tap beer bar, and you can even take beer home with you.  That's something you can't do in Atlanta.  Growler Spot is set to obtain their permit at the start of 2015, which will add another beer destination to our map.

Five years ago, Macon was known for southern rock, a prestigious university and good southern cooking.  It's possible that in five years from now, you'll be able to add craft beer to that list.  If this experiment holds, it proves out the craft beer business model in Macon.  Macon Beer Company proved that we were willing to support a local brewery.  Now Lazy Dog has proved that we're willing to support a bar that only serves craft beer and wine.  No Bud Light, no liquor, no food (other than light snacks).  The opening month has been so successful that they've just extended their regular hours.

Congratulations, Macon.  We may not have built it the traditional way, but it's up to us to make it successful.  If we continue to support our existing and future craft beer businesses, who knows where we could be in five years?