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Brewtopia,
www.ClassicCityBrew.com, the
Atlanta Cask Ale Tasting and Classic City Brew Fest are operated by
Owen Ogletree
of Athens, GA. Owen is a BJCP National Beer Judge,
beer traveler, award-winning homebrewer, and beer columnist for Southern Brew News.
Since 1994 our events have raised thousands of dollars for Georgia
charities and educated multitudes of people in regard to responsible
appreciation of flavorful craft beers. No
guarantees are made regarding the accuracy of information
on our webpages, and details are always subject to change without
notice. Unless noted, all text, photos and video on this web
collection are by Owen Ogletree. Owen
always welcomes youre-mail and
input.
Click here to view the current issue of our Brewtopia Brewsletter!
Each
month, Owen publishes a fun, informative Brewsletter featuring beer
news and events from all over the Southeast and beyond. It's also the
primary way he gets word out about his special events and ticket sales
for the Classic City Brew Fest and Atlanta Cask Ale Tasting. Use the
blue EMAIL BREWSLETTER box to the left to join our Brewsletter list. We
guarantee your privacy and will never share your email address with
anyone.
In this issue... Brewtopia's newest Brewsletter
has the scoop on all the events coming up for Athens' Craft Beer
Weekend and the weekend's Classic City Brew Fest. Also get a sneak peek
at a few of the exciting cask ales and breweries that will be poured at
the Classic City Brew Fest, and check out Owen's article "New Southeast
Breweries Spreading Like Kudzu."
2013 Atlanta Cask Ale Tasting Report
The
2012 Atlanta Cask Ale Tasting showcased 38 traditional and specialty
cask-conditioned ales from some of the best craft breweries around the
USA. After a morning judging panel, the free public
sampling
session was held 3-6 PM on the patios of 5 Seasons Brewing and Taco Mac
Prado. Everyone was impressed with the flavors
and excellent quality of these real ales. Thanks to Taco Mac, 5
Seasons, Peak Organic and all our wonderful volunteers for helping
making
this special event possible! Click here to see the full report with photos.
2012 Brewtopia Euro Beer Excursion
Our
4th annual Brewtopia group beer trip to Europe took us to Amsterdam, La
Trappe, Gent Belgium, Rodenbach, Gaverhopke, Alvinne, Gruut, Cantillon,
Heeren van Liedekercke, the best Kolsch taverns in Koln and the
greatest Altbier spots in Dusseldorf.
Click here
to see the photos and get the rundown on all the locations we visited.
The video to the right was recorded in the Uerige altbier brewery
tavern in Dusseldorf on the last day of our trip.
Great British Beer Festival, Harveys Brewery & Shepherd Neame
Owen
Ogletree and Sachin Patel traveled to England in August of 2012 to
visit the Great British Beer Festival at Olympia and enjoy tours of the
famed Shepherd Neame Brewery in Faversham and Harveys Brewery in Lewes.
Photos from the best cask, real ale pubs in Faversham and Lewes are
also included.
Click on the photo album slideshow to the right
to be taken to the online photo album where you can enlarge photos,
read captions, download photos and/or comment on a photo. Cheers!
New Colorado Craft Beer Photos, Videos & Interactive Map
Owen
Ogletree and The Beer Wench braved the fires and traveled to northern
Colorado in June of 2012 to check out the progress of the impressive
craft beer scene. We focused on areas near Longmont, Boulder and Fort
Collins with special visits to Avery, Left Hand, Oskar Blues, New
Belgium, Funkwerks, Odell and Fort Collins Brewing.
Click below to see the photos, captions, interactive map and a video from Avery, Left Hand, Oskar Blues and New Belgium.
Click here to
access informative and entertaining beer videos taken during Owen's
travels over the past few years. Videos include...
Belgian Beer Cuisine Restaurant
Savannah's Moon River Brewing Company
A Tour of an Authentic English Pub's Cask Ale Cellar
Thwaites Brewery Visit, UK
Traquair House Brewery, Scotland
Anchor Brewing and Distilling
Brick Store Pub's Beer Cellar
Stone Brewing's Beers in Georgia
Bavaria & Franconia Group Beer Trip 2011
After
hitting Belgium in 2009 and England in 2010, Owen Ogletree decided to
take his annual group beer trip to Deutschland in 2011. On the trip
were reps from Terrapin Beer Company, Taco Mac, Leon Farmer Beer
Distributors, Bell's Brewery, Clipper City and Great Western Maltings. Check the photo album for all the remarkable places we visited and beers we enjoyed.
Pictured to the right (L-R): Ayinger's in-house beer sommelier, Ayinger owner
Franz Inselkammer (the elder), Owen Ogletree, and Franz Inselkammer
(the younger) share a scrumptious beer in the Ayinger Guest House
kitchen.
2013 UK Real Ale Journey
In
February of 2013 Owen Ogletree took friends from Terrapin Beer
Company, Taco Mac, Five Points Bottle Shop, Wrecking Bar, Highland
Beverage and Artisanal Imports on an amazing, nine-day, UK
journey from Manchester up through the Yorkshire Dales to Scotland then
down to Lincolnshire, Sheffield, Burton and London. We sampled amazing
cask ales and whiskies. To see photos and details from the entire
journey, click here.
Click to the right to see our video from our collaborative brew day at
Thornbridge. Spike from Terrapin helped make the Terrapin / Thornbridge
Coalition Imperial ESB with rye and American hops.
8 Common Beer Misconceptions
Everyone understands that fermented grape juice produces wine, but many
seem in the dark regarding the complexities of beer - the world's most popular
alcoholic libation. A complex beverage with a myriad of ingredients, styles, and
methods of serving, beer involves intricacies that often confound the average
consumer. Read Owen's article to explore eight popular ale and lager misconceptions.
The Beer Wench's Kitchen
Click here to access all the past Southern Brew News articles from The Beer Wench on beer and food. Delicious pairings and
recipes are featured. The Beer Wench says "Remember to always eat
well and drink good beer responsibly!" Delicious articles include:
Hops grace almost every beer made today, and 98% of
all hops are grown
in five countries – England, Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic and the
United States. These nations produce hops with characteristic
sets of notable flavors and aromas. Hops from the U.K. impart a
woody, tea-like note to English ales. Belgian, German and Czech
varieties bless their brews with delicate flavors and aromas of
flowers. Most American hops are raised in the states of Oregon
and Washington and confer distinctive overtones of pine and citrus to
American ales. Click here to
read more of Owen's hop information that every beer drinker should know.
Pairing Craft Beers with Holiday Foods
Looking
for flavorful and interesting beverages to accompany festive holiday
meals? Wines can be expensive and quite high in alcohol, eggnog is
loaded with fat, and cocktails tend to send guests home way too early
with their designated drivers. Why not experiment with craft beer?
Today's
crop of exciting, personable gourmet beers from small breweries around
the world make for delightful pairings with a wide range of foods, and
the diversity of colors, aromas and flavors of these brews are sure to
ignite curiosity, conversation and interest among holiday merry-makers.
Many say that beer's sweet malt, creamy carbonation and moderate
alcohol content complement rich holiday fare better than any other
libation. Click here to see Owen's recommendations.
Cask Ale Clarifications
With
cask-conditioned ales making regular appearances at a growing number of
pubs, brewery tours and festivals from Alabama to North Carolina, this
interesting process and tradition now forms the hottest new beer trend
in the Southeast. Unfortunately, many people responsible for brewing,
distributing and serving cask ales sometimes lack the knowledge needed
to provide the very best pint to the customer.
Cask-conditioning
comes from the English tradition of placing young, unfiltered beer with
yeast, a touch of residual sugar and clarifying finings into sealed
metal or wooden casks. Typical casks hold 10.8 gallons of beer and are
known as “firkins.” Inside the bunged firkin, yeast consumes remaining
sugars, producing soft carbonation and subtle, appealing fermentation
notes before settling into the belly of the cask as sediment.. Click here to read Owen's
full article.
Owen Ogletree Judges at Great British Beer Festival
Owen
Ogletree was honored to be invited to help judge the 2010 Great British
Beer Festival in London. Real ales from all over England were nominated
by CAMRA members to be judged in the finals at the GBBF held at Earl's
Court in London.
This photo album also includes pictures and
captions from a special Thornbridge Brewery takeover at London's
delightful new Cask Pub & Kitchen.
Click here for Owen's GoogleMap of favorite pubs in the London area.
Rogue Ales - Newport, Oregon
Located in the scenic coastal town of Newport,
Oregon, Rogue Ales is a pioneering northwestern craft brewery loaded
with personality, vitality and great beer recipes. I've enjoyed the
wide variety of Rogue beers since the early 1990s and wanted to visit
the brewery since my first sip, but it took me until 2008 to finally
make the pilgrimage. I gathered together a group of six beer
aficionados from Athens, Georgia, made the flight to Portland, loaded
up a mini-van, and trekked down the lovely Oregon coastline toward
Newport. Rogue President (and son of the founder), Brett Joyce met us
at the brewery and gave us a quick walk through.
The allure of flavorful craft brewed beer is finally
casting its seductive influence on a large contingent of suitors in the
southeastern states. New breweries, brewpubs and beer-focused
bars and restaurants are dotting the landscape in cities that 10 to 15
years ago only offered standard American lagers. It's finally
cool in the South to come out of the closet and admit undying love and
devotion to craft beer. Click here to
read the article.
Dave Blanchard of Brick Store Pub, Decatur, GA
Craft Beer Evaluation Word Splashes
In May of 2013, Owen gathered together 25 craft beer fans to taste and evaluate 12 hot craft brands.
Each participant described each craft beer in two words, and these words are summarized on the website as colorful word splashes. Larger words in the splash were used by participants more often.
Brands tasted: Omission Pale Ale,
Back Forty Truck Stop Honey, Goose Island Pepe Nero, Westbrook White
Thai, O'Dempsey's Inukshuk IPA, Clown Shoes Eagle Claw Fist, Deviant
Dale's, Sixpoint Resin, Lazy Magnolia Jeff Stout, Left Hand Milk Stout,
Founders Dirty Bastard and Finch's Secret Stache Stout.
Blind
Beer Evaluations
Check
out the comments
from our recent blind tasting of some outstanding Barleywines, Meads, Strong Beers (including Old Ales,
Strong Scotch Ales, Imperial Stouts, and Barleywines), Herb, Spice,
Fruit, Experimentals, Hard Ciders and Strong
Belgian Ales. A popular feature of this website is
our series of blind tastings of some commercial beers. Read
useful comments and unbiased reviews of all types of beer/cider/mead
before you buy them!
See the full
list
of links to all our blind tastings of commercial beers!
Recent Ale & Lager
Tasting!
Above: Jared Bailey, John Gayer, Christian Hampton,
Brad Fowler and Owen Ogletree.
Los Angeles Area Craft Beer Photo Album
In
December of 2012, Owen Ogletree and The Beer Wench went exploring for
craft beer in the Los Angeles area. Once known as a craft beer desert,
L.A. now blossoms as an oasis for gourmet beer styles.
Click here to see
Owen's photos and read about his Los Angeles craft beer finds.
Owen's 2007
Great American Beer Festival Report
Kerri "The Beer
Wench" Allen and I were honored to be included in the panel of judges
at the 2007 Great American Beer Festival in Denver, Colorado.
Held October 11-13, the 2007 GABF was the first time that all four
public sessions sold out (in advance, no less). More than 46,000
people attended, and this magnificent event really demonstrates the
popularity of craft beers in today's market.
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