News
Lone Rider and Fullsteam get mentioned in this recent TV article (yes it's the text of the piece only, no video)

Fullsteam has found a location.

Seasonal Taps
Aviator
Saison de Aviator
Thunder Berliner Weisse
One Hundred India Pale Ale

Big Boss
Monkey Business Belgian Farmhouse Ale
In the Mood Porter
A Little Behind Alt Beer
Super Chief India Brown Ale

Boylan Bridge
Summer ale, someone send me a review if you get a chance to sample it

Carolina Brewing
Spring Bock
Wiggo
Summer Wheat

Calendar
Beer & Cheese Tasting w/ Jason Gavin from Brooklyn Brewery
June 23rd
Flying Saucer
Raleigh

Foothills Cask Night
June 24th 5pm
Tyler's Taproom
Apex
Dry hopped IPA

Wilmington Brewgrass Festival
June 27th 2pm
Downtown Wilmington
Wilmington

Beer Dinner
June 30th 7pm
Busy Bee
Raleigh
Busy Bee is teaming up with Don Richardson and Allgood Brands for the 3rd of their monthly beer dinners. But act fast because only 7 seats were remaining for Tuesday's dinner.

Tasting at The Flying Saucer: Belgium vs. North America
June 30th 7pm
Flying Saucer
Raleigh

Triangle Pub Crawl
July 11th
Starts at Bull McCabes
Durham

Big Boss Tour
July 11th 2pm
Big Boss Brewery
Raleigh, NC

News
You may have noticed a lack in posts, between moving to another house locally and the upcoming Parsec Awards my time is committed at full until early July at least. If anyone is interested in guest blogging about beer feel free to contact me, otherwise expect the site to slow down for a few weeks, but I will be back.

Big Boss' unique packaging gets attention in this post.

When Sean told me about Fullsteam's smoked t shirts I thought it was simultaneously it was the most awesome and silly idea ever. Go buy some and support the brewery.

A reminder about the Brew it Forward contest Lone Rider is sponsoring. Homebrew, locally made craft beer and supporting local charities, everyone wins!

Calendar
Cask Night with Triangle Brewing
June 12th
Broad Street
Durham, NC

Triangle Beer Tour
June 13th 1:30pm
Triangle Brewery
Durham, NC

Carolina Brewery Tour
June 13th Noon and 1pm
Carolina Brewery
Pittsboro, NC

Big Boss Tour
June 13th 2pm
Big Boss Brewery
Raleigh, NC

Big Boss Beer Dinner
June 16th 6:30pm
Brixx Pizza
Raleigh, NC

American Brewmaster Palate Training
June 16th - 7pm
Tir Na Nog
Raleigh, NC
Learn to improve your understanding of beer with me teaching a class understand the flavor and characteristics your favorite fermented beverage.

Brooklyn Beer Dinner
June 17th - 7pm
Porter's Tavern
Raleigh, NC
$45 for this beer dinner

Hops for Pops High Cuisine Dinner
June 18th 6:30pm
Carolina Inn's Crossroads Restaurant
Chapel Hill, NC

Monkey Business Big Boss Cask at Flying Saucer
June 18th
Flying Saucer
Raleigh, NC

Lone Rider Tour
June 20th 1pm
Lone Rider Brewery
Raleigh, NC

From their roots the LoneRider guys were homebrewers, so it makes sense that one of their first special projects returns to their own start in brewing. They are hosting Brew It Forward, a homebrew competition to select and brew a North Carolinian's beer.

The contest runs June 1st through July 25th?. It will cost $6 for entry and will feature a festival for entrants on August 1st. You can find details here.

I have been asked to participate on the judging panel, so obviously I won't be submitting any of my beers to the contest. It looks like it will be a great opportunity to support homebrewing, North Carolina beer, and local charities.

It's been a busy week in the Triangle for beer events between the World Beer Festival, beer dinners, and the cask night at Raleigh Times. Let me rephrase that Thursday was the NC Super Duper Cask Night. Here is a cask primer for the unexperienced. Cask events have been becoming more common place in the last year or two in the States and it's great to see returning to such beer tradition.

The menu of the Times' cask party is here.

Besides the variety of North Carolina breweries at the event the best part is that the Times offers a 10 ounce pour so you don't feel compelled to drink a whole pint of each offering. You can get to taste more beers this way.

Of the beers I think the Foothills Hoppyum was probably my favorite the crisp hop aroma was refreshing. I had a taste of the French Broad and the warm day was perfect Kolsch weather. The Duck-Rabbit Milk Stout didn't disappoint either, but it's probably about the end of Stout season for me.

The bar and sidewalk were packed from the beginning of the night, so it was great to see the local community be supportive of such a cask night. It means that we are more likely to see other such events in the future. If you have had a cask ale ask for one the next time you are at the Times, take a short pour if you are unsure if you'll like it. It is an easy way to sample a great brewing tradition.

It was an early start for the festival Saturday, I was set to be a volunteer for the afternoon session. It was interesting for having attended so many festivals to work one for a change. There were the odd random problems that occur at large events, but the crew handled them with minimal amount of fuss and the attendees were patient thankfully.

During the course of the day I had the chance to meet Rick Lyke, brewers, some members of BN Army, and many craft beer enthusiast. The homebrewers were out in force and if anything surprised me it was how many of them I knew. I'd expect that in some other places, but to know that many people here in Raleigh showed how this really is becoming home.

In the second session I helped out at the American Brewmaster tent but also had the chance to check out some of the beers. North Carolina was well represented with most every brewery in the area there. Of course my friends at Lonerider, Big Boss, and Aviator were all in attendance. I didn't really talk to the Big Boss team, because I have notice they are a fest favorite and always gets mobbed. The Surrender Monkey was delicious. Scott from Stone seems to be kept quite busy circling the Southeast. Robert Gordash of Holy Mackerel showed up with an amazing Golden ale and Russian Imperial Stout.

I used to go into festivals and try everything, but I noticed I was now I am more reserved looking for particular styles. I don't think I had a pale ale, brown, or amber the whole festival. That said Oscar Blues pilsner was quite tasty hopefully we will see it here in the state in the coming months. I found myself enjoying particularly the saisons and farmhouse ales at this festival.

The festival was quite a success from audience and volunteer perspective, I look forward to attending future events and I think I may splurge on a VIP ticket some of the beers they got to sample were simply amazing and the bathrooms were nice as well.

I managed to take at the festival that can be found here.

POSTSCRIPT: This post just reminded me that Tupper's Hop Pocket was at the VIP tent. It was a little young, the owner had to practically beg the brewer to give him some but it's awesome to see it coming back into the market. It was every bit as good as memory serves me.

The Session is an idea of Stan Hieronymus. It is an opportunity monthly for beer bloggers to write their viewpoint on a specific topic. Each month a beer blogger hosts the Session and chooses the topic. The rest of us write about the topic, then they do a wrap up.

Beer at Joe's asks this month

What’s your favorite beer cocktail (and yes, despite the title of this post, it can be a black & tan or a shandy)? Find a recipe for that or a new one, try it, and tell us why you did or didn’t like it–even if you think beer cocktails are nothing but a good way to waste a beer.

When I first heard about this month's Session I immediately figured I'd go find a bar, have a boilermaker and write about the experience. It's a bar classic and I was more interested in exploring that.

Then last night I was in a local bar and I order a Snakebite. The waitress asked if I knew what that was, I replied I had plenty of them over the years and did know. She showed up with some cider-pale ale combo and I thought she was placing it in the wrong place on the table. I tried to correct her and she told me this was their Snakebite. I was used to a Guinness and Cider combo. Herein lies a problem.

Both the waitress was right and so was I, both of us were wrong, there was definitely a miscommunication. One of the best parts of the BJCP is that it provides a common language for beer lovers. Now I am not going to declare we ought to have a BJCP for beer cocktails, it is a bit too extreme a solution. That said bar owners can do a very simple thing to avoid the confusion I faced. They should list their regular beer cocktails on a menu. One of my favorite bars lists theirs on a full page of their beer menu.

I don't mind if a bar doesn't use the standard terms for a beer cocktail, just that they make it readily apparent to someone walking into their bar. Define our terms, that is what I ask from bars for beer cocktails. And the cider-pale ale Snake Bite was very refreshing.

The World Beer Festival here in Raleigh has been on my mind often the last few days. I am looking forward to the friends and brewers I will see. It also though is a good time to remind us we are in the beginning of festival season, it can be easy to be overwhelmed at festivals. I'll simply recommend people listen Beer School episode Surviving a Beer Festival, Motor and John Foster have some great tips everyone should keep in mind.

Many beer bloggers have been convinced since some pictures that Obama is "one of us" and he would by sympathetic to craft beers concerns. I remained sceptical figuring craft beer would not really be a factor to any of the candidates.

The recent selection of Chuck Hurley to lead the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) proved my point. Selected someone who has led a neo-prohibitionist organization demonstrates that no matter how many pictures someone has with a beer, it's their policy choices that will ultimately matter the most.

Check out Radley Balko's article in Reason to see what this appointment means for beer lovers and anyone who drives in the United States.

One of Raleigh's newest restaurants the Busy Bee jumps into the beer dinner scene in this report at New Raleigh. No mention on the Busy Bee's website yet, so while I don't know what beers will be featured at the dinner this list of Belukus products will give you a clue. $40 is a reasonable price so I suspect it will fill quickly.

The Raleigh area seems to be picking up on the beer dinner concept with events happening nearly every week. Just another sign of how craft beer demand is growing in North Carolina, it's a good time to be a beergeek.

For this month's Fermentation Friday Northern Table asks

Have you infused a beer with liquor before either to blend with the flavour (port infused stout as an example)? Have you had a good example of this? Do you think brewers should be doing this at all? If this is something you have done before how did you go about doing it? What varieties of spirits have you tried? Were they home made infused liquors or commerical products?

It's a pretty simple answer for me, I haven't done much. It's not that I am a purist it just hasn't interested me much thus far. I only have used a distilled spirits in a beer and it was some vodka I used to hydrate cocoa powder for a chocolate stout.

The joy of homebrewing is the experimentation side of things. You can try things that aren't necessarily commercially viable because your batch size is a lot smaller. While I don't have any interest in it plenty of people bring such beers into the homebrew shop. If I have noticed any problem with such beers it is they overpower the base beer. Just like a good holiday-seasonal beer I think balance so that you can enjoy the base beer is the key.

Recently a commercial brewery locally started to play with bourbon casks. One of the first I tried was a cask aged American Pale ale, sadly this beer was completely overpowered by the bourbon. It was like drinking a glass of bourbon straight without the burn. So finding the base beer that can stand up to the liquor is definitely a key element to success in the process.

So if you are interested in liquor in beer, give it a try, but take it easy and maintain the balance.

News
Fullsteam is at the Craft Brewers Conference, serious work is being done I tell you. Serious work.

Had the pleasure of tasting Paul's Day Off from Duck-Rabbit this week, go find some before it's gone, you'll thank me.

Reminder I interviewed Mark Doble of Aviator Brewing last week for Know Your Brewer.

Have a tip on a Triangle area beer event? Send me an email geistbear[at]gmail[dot]com.

Events
He'Brew Lenny's Bittersweet R.I.P.A. Tap Nite
April 23rd 7pm
Flying Saucer
Raleigh, NC
One keg only.

One Meatball Cask Night
April 23rd 6pm
Big Boss Taproom
Raleigh, NC
Who would put one Meatball in a cask our friends at Big Boss that's who, never fear though this hoppy Spring ale is quite refreshing and the meatball is undetectable.

Bourbon Barrel of Tripel
April 25th 1pm-8pm
Aviator Brewing
Fuquay Varina, NC
Food stuffs in the form of Brats and Belgian Tripel, who could ask for more?

Triangle Beer Tour
April 25th 1pm
Triangle Brewery
Durham, NC

Game Night and Ska Beer Dinner
April 29th 7pm
Raleigh Times
Raleigh, NC
$55 a person gets you a pairing of Ska beers and a dinner of wild boar, antelope, venison and duck. Sounds heavenly.

NC Brewers Super Duper Cask Party
April 30th 6pm
Raleigh Times
Raleigh, NC
Special pre-WBF party, details are coming in expect casks from Big Boss, Highland, Foothills, French Broad and Duck Rabbit. But I'd bet on a surprise special guest if I were you.

World Beer Festival
May 2nd
Raleigh, NC

Aviator Beer Dinner
May 7th 7pm
Tir Na Nog Irish Pub
Raleigh, NC
$25 for this dinner featuring courses paired with 4 of the Aviator beers.

Whole Planet Foundation Beer Tasting Dinner
May 8th - 7pm
Whole Foods
Durham, NC
This is the reschedule of the March 14th event which was postponed, latest details here. Price is still $30 and the menu has changed to reflect local beers and foods.

Today the Craft Brewing industry is meeting in Boston, you can follow the events if you search #cbc09. More than 200 breweries have jumped on to Twitter at last count. Neal Stewart of Flying Dog Brewery just posted "I feel safe in saying that there isn't another industry that has embraced twitter as much as CRAFT beer" and frankly he's right. But why?

I think part of it is because Twitter works best when it's from passionate people, something brewers have in spades. It shows in most of their tweets as well.

Second it's permission based, you only hear about those beers/breweries you have an interest in. It means if you are following @21Amendment you probably care about what is going on there. It allows them to connect with their customers on a very personal level.

Last it's a medium that doesn't take a large amount of effort for positive results back. A blog post takes some time and thought, maybe even some research. Having a conversation through twitter is far less demanding and means you can engage it while doing other work.

It does have it's challenges I recently spoke with a brewer who was unsure how much exactly he should post on Twitter. Should he post OGs, strike temperatures and other brewing data or was it overkill? I gave my opinion, but obviously there is no right or wrong answer. In the end if it's done with the same love he puts into his beer I think he'll have the right answer.