What's a Craft Beer?
Super Clydesdales
Fans of the Super Bowl can probably
expect to see Clydesdales in the
game for the next few years.
The owner of Budweiser says it has
locked up its position as the only
national beer advertiser in the Super
Bowl through 2014.

The brewer, which became
Anheuser-Busch InBev NV in 2008,
has had a presence in the NFL's
championship game as the exclusive
beer advertiser for 23 years. This
year, it will again feature its famous
horses and, according to Kantar
Media, it will keep its spot as the
game's largest ad buyer.

The week of the Super Bowl, which
will be played on Feb. 6, is a busy
one for brewers with beer sales rising
as much as 20 percent above a
typical week in January or February.

When is a beer a “craft” beer?  The Boulder, Colo.-based
Brewers Association (BA), which represents America’s
small independent brewers, until recently, to be
considered “craft,” a beer had to come from a brewer
with an annual output of no more than 2 million barrels.
That’s the cutoff point, in federal law, on whether a
brewery is eligible for a tax break ($7 per barrel on its
first 60,000 barrels as opposed to the normal fee of $18).
Now the BA altered its definition to raise the ceiling on
craft brewers to 6 million barrels.
Only one craft brewer was in danger of bumping its
head against the old limit. Boston Beer Co.,shipped about
2 million barrels last year.  The second largest craft
brewer, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. in Chico, Calif.,
rolled out between 780,000 and 790,000 barrels in 2010.

D.G. Yuengling & Son fit passed the 2 million-barrel
threshold was reporting double-digit growth in 2010.
The brewery uses some corn grits in its recipes (as
opposed to all barley malt) whichviolates another tenet of
the craft brewer definition: “A brewer who has either an
all malt flagship ... or has at least 50% of its volume in
either all malt beers or in beers which use adjuncts to
enhance rather than lighten flavor.”
Home Brew for Sale - North Dakotans who make wine and booze already
can get a state license to sell their beverages, and now there's a move to allow
those who make home-brewed beer to be able to do the same with " a domestic
brewery" license.  North Dakota is one of the leading barley producers in the
USA.

New Beer Styles- For 2011, several beer style descriptions have been  
updated by the Brewers Association: Belgo-American-Style Ales, Belgian-Style
Flanders Oud Bruin/Oud Red, German Bock, Rye Beer, American-Style Sour Ale.
Also,American-Style Brett Ale is now a recognized ale style. American-Style Black
Ale is the new name for American-Style India Black Ale.

Lemonade Miller -  MillerCoors LLC plans to launch a lemonade -flavored
version of low-calorie beer MGD 64, to rejuvenate slumping sales. MillerCoors,
the second-largest U.S. beer maker by revenue, will introduce MGD 64
Lemonade as a limited-edition summer brand in May.
It's Beer Time

The only way to be truly prepared for every alcoholic emergency is to
always carry a bottle opener with you, but this is, of course,
impractical and easy to forget. So what about building an opener into
something that you do always carry with you?
That’s exactly what the Happy Hour Watch is for.

The quartz timepiece has a bottle opener in the buckle, keeping
spraying beer away from the watch itself, which is fashioned from alloy
with a stainless-steel back. The watch has two faces, one LCD and the
other with traditional hands, and only marked with
one hour (beer O’clock).

This only takes care of beer bottles (and if you have two bottles of
beer, you have a beer opener anyway), so it’s more suited to
tailgating than to romantic picnics. On the other hand, you should be
buying screw-top wine anyway: no cork-taint and no corkscrew
required. The Happy Hour Watch is $50.








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