Mould's Beer Blog

2013 was an excellent and exciting year for beer in New Jersey.  We saw the opening of 4 new breweries as well as approvals in 4 other breweries who didn't quite have enough time to open in 2013.  Let's take a look at the new breweries and see what they will be offering to us thirsty beer fans! The array of Bolero Snort beers (photo courtesy of Bolero Snort) Bolero Snort Brewery :  Launched their beers in late February 2013.  They started out with two beers, Ragin' Bull  (an amber lager)   and Blackhorn (an American black lager).  Later in 2013, they added a 3rd flagship, There's No Rye-ing in Basebull (a rye ale) and also released a winter seasonal, Gingerbull Cookie (a brown ale brewed with spices).  In order to provide a wider spectrum of beers to their fans, they like to prepare what they call #BSTreatments.  If you follow their Facebook or Twitter, you might be lucky enough to find the treatments in the wild, and ge...

Easton, PA's Weyerbacher Brewing Company, brewers of awesome beers such as Merry Monks, Blithering Idiot and Old Heathen, like to experiment with different beers in their Brewer's Select series.  After having completed a beer for each letter of the NATO phonetic alphabet, they have now turned to constellations.  I thought it would be fun to use this space to learn about the experimental beers that Weyerbacher is brewing, and also to learn a little bit of astronomy along the way! The fifth beer in Weyerbacher's Northern Hemisphere Constellation Brewer's Select Series is Bootes.  Check out some quick facts about the beer followed by some facts about the constellation!  Bootes from Weyerbacher Brewing Company                 Bootes the beer facts : (from Weyerbacher ) ruby brown american strong ale, 9% abv brewed with pale, wheat, biscuit, crystal and roasted malts mash-hopped with Si...

Howdy friends, welcome to this week's blogshare.  There is lots of great content to look through! Chad, in his blog If My Coaster Could Talk , is offering up 12 beer reviews leading up to Christmas.  He is reviewing a wide array of winter beers, ranging from Schneider Weisse to Slumbrew.  In this link, he offers up a review of Gritty McDuff's Christmas Ale, an ale from a local (to Chad) Maine brewpub. One of the classic American winter beers is Anchor Brewing's Our Special Ale.  They brew their Christmas ale to a different recipe each year.  In Mark's blog, Kaedrin Beer Blog , he provides tasting notes on this year's Our Special Ale, along with 2011 and 2012 vintages from his cellar.  Be sure to check out his other write-ups, most recently Oude Quetsche Tilquin, Goose Island Bourbon County Barleywine and a bottle of 2011 Great Divide Barrel Aged Hibernation Ale. Brewpublic , a Pacific Northwest blog, recently paid a visit to the Goose I...

Weyerbacher has been a most charitable brewery as of late.  Two campaigns from them have really stood out to me. Most recently, Dan Weirback, president of Weyerbacher, made a $12,336 donation to the Breast Cancer Patient Assistance Fund of the Lehigh Valley Health Network.  They donated $1.00 from every bottle of Althea that was sold (they sold all of it!).  The fund helps patients cover the costs of non-medical expenses related to their disease and their treatment.  The campaign was so successful, Weyerbacher will be brewing Althea again for next fall.  Althea is a belgian-style dubbel ale brewed with plums.  (It tasted fantastic, too.) Weyerbacher Althea, copied from my Instagram  Weyerbacher also donates a portion of the sale of every bottle of Last Chance IPA to small, regional, animal rescue operations.  According to their website, they have donated a total of almost $35,000 to these ope...

Hey everyone, back at it this week with another beer blogshare.  Some interesting material came through my Feedly, that's for sure. Mitch Steele, brewmaster at Stone Brewing, gives us a bit of insight into the daily routine of a brewmaster at a fairly large brewery.  You can find the post at his new blog, The Hop Tripper .                     - I love this inside look at one of the most prominent roles, in one of this countries largest breweries (Stone came in #17 in this list published by the Brewer's Association for 2012).  It should be interesting to see what else he has to say about the role of a brewmaster in his next post. The guys over at Guys Drinking Beer break a lot of rules in this post, where they cellar Founders Brewing Devil Dancer, an Imperial IPA, for 4 years.  Normally, people want to drink IPAs and double IPAs as fresh as possible.  How do you think it held up?       ...

Hey everyone, thanks for coming by!  It has been quite some time since I have posted a Blogshare, a weekly look at some of my favorite beer(and cider)-related blog posts.  I've come across some great ones recently. Enjoy! Oliver from Literature and Libation certainly has a way with words.  And mixing up words.  In this case, spoonerisms.  He provides us with the most unique look at The Alchemist's Heady Topper that I've seen! Drunk and Unemployed 's Fervere tells his tale of locating Anchor Brewing's Old Foghorn Barleywine, an ale I have yet to, but really need to, try. Tired of reading "What I'm Thankful For" posts?  Check out Josh from Short on Beer and his "My Not Thankful List", and don't forget to add your own! Jake, writer of the Baltimore beer blog Hipster Brewfus , pays a visit to Millstone Cellars, makers of handcrafted ciders and meads.  He does a great job showcasing what they have to offer, and makes me thirsty doing i...

It's been awhile since I've talked about Dogfish Head here, but a few recent news clippings have caught my eye.  In late October, Dogfish Head announced the release of a new winter seasonal, Piercing Pils.  From its label, Piercing Pils is "a Czech-style Pilsner brewed with pear juice, pear tea and Saaz hops."  Definitely another off-centered beer for the Dogfish crew.  I haven't tried this one yet, but here's a Blogfish link from July that has a more in-depth description of Piercing Pils.  Also of note, the previous winter seasonal, Chicory Stout, will still be made, but in smaller, draft-only quantities. Here, Dogfish announces that Namaste, their Belgian-style white beer, will be moving to 12 oz. bottles to be sold in a 4-pack, and will be year-round.  More importantly to me, though, is that they will be brewing and releasing Raison D'Extra, which is similar to Raison D'Etre, just amped up a bit to a hefty 18% ABV.  However, to h...

In this 2nd installment of my In the Brewhouse series, Kerry and I pay a visit to ShawneeCraft Brewing in Shawnee on Delaware, Pennsylvania .  Brewery manager Jason Startari was kind enough to take time out of his Saturday afternoon to show us around the Shawnee grounds and the brewery. The taproom at the ShawneeCraft brewery True to Nature, True to the Craft .  These are words that ShawneeCraft Brewing brew and live by.  It is their philosophy, and you can see it in every part of their brewing process and taproom.  According to Jason, it is "their motto and driving force in what they do." "True to Nature" ShawneeCraft strives to use local and organic ingredients wherever possible.  They brew with organically grown barley and hops.  Some ingredients are grown and produced right on the Shawnee property, such as honey, which they collect from their own beehives.  "True to the Craft" ShawneeCraft's brews are steeped in tradition. ...