Past Newsletters
Vol. 4 No. 7
| Brewery | Beers Featured |
| Yosemite Brewing Company | Half Dome Amber |
| Yosemite Brewing Company | Yosemite Falls Gold |
| Blue Hen Brewing Company | Munich Helles Lager |
| Blue Hen Brewing Company | Blue Hen Black & Tan |
Yosemite Brewing Company
The Yosemite Brewing Co. was founded in 1995 shortly after founders Frank Munoz and Tolley Gorham began contemplation on how they might make a living that allowed them to live in the beautiful mountain community of Mariposa, just outside of Yosemite National Park. The dynamic duo dismissed several pipe dreams including gold panning because frankly, they seemed like a lot of work.
One monumental evening, while watching snow fall and drinking beer, the two decided to inventory their skill set and concluded that one obvious thing that they were both good at and enjoyed doing was drinking beer. So it was agreed that their new venture should be centered on this staple in their lives. The talk was first of how they could drink beer for a living, but that notion was quickly dismissed due to the fact that there are so many people that are willing to perform the task for free. Next came the idea of selling beer. But whose beer would they sell? It seemed that there were already salesmen for all of the brands of beer available at the time so they decided to make their own beer. Never mind the fact that neither knew anything about beer other than how to open a bottle and drink it. When the name for the beer came into question, the answer was obvious: "Frank and Tolley’s Good Beer". It only took another beer or two to realize that the marketing potential for a beer which such a name would probably preclude selling enough to make any money.
The founders settled on the notion of taking advantage of the majestic park they lived so close to (and the some 4 million that visit it each year) and hence the name of the brewery was established. The boys formed a joint venture with the Meadows Ranch Café and both now occupy a large warehouse that effectively serves as a brewery and brewpub. In addition to the two beers featured this month, Yosemite also produces El Capitan Dark, a brown porter.
For more information about the brewery and scheduled tours, call (209) 742-5713
Serving Temperature: 42-47° F
Original Gravity: 13.5° Plato
Final Gravity: N/A
Int'l Bittering Units: 24.0
Alcohol by Volume: 5.5%
Half Dome is an Amber Ale brewed with a combination of two-row Pale and Caramel malts. The beer is hopped twice during the 90-min. boil, once 30 minutes into the boil with Northern Brewer hops and then again at 60 minutes with Brewer’s Gold hops. The Northern Brewer hops are used primarily for their bittering contributions while the Brewer’s Gold are used for aroma. A proprietary ale yeast strain is used.
Notes From the Panel:
Immediately note a rich malty sweet nose with some floral hop tones evident. Look for average head retention in this amber, reddish-brown, clear, medium-bodied beer. Amber Ales are a style open to interpretation, and we like Yosemite’s interpretation a lot. Note a nice floral hop character without too much bitterness. The beer is carbonated at a low rate which allows for an easier identification of the flavors apparent. Overall, a very well-balanced, highly drinkable and flavorful interpretation of an American Amber Ale.
Serving Temperature: 40-45° F
Original Gravity: 13.2° Plato
Final Gravity: N/A
Int'l Bittering Units: 26.0
Alcohol by Volume: 5.5%
Yosemite Falls Gold is a Golden Ale and is brewed with a combination of two-row Pale, Carapils, Caramel and Wheat malts. Here, Tolley uses Northern Brewer hops at the boil and again 30 minutes into the 90-min. boil primarily for their bittering characteristics. Brewer’s Gold, Cascade, and Hallertau hops are later added for their aromatic contributions at 60, 60 and 75 minutes respectively. A proprietary ale yeast strain is used.
Notes From the Panel:
Look for both floral and spicy hop notes in this Golden Ale. Yosemite starts out with a nice, refreshing balance of lighter maltiness and hop bitterness. Note good head retention in this golden, clear, medium-bodied beer. We enjoyed its pleasant bitter, dry finish. Overall, a well-balanced excellent interpretation of an American Golden Ale.
Blue Hen Brewing Company
The Blue Hen Brewing Co. was founded in 1987 by Jeff Johnson with the mission to develop and introduce craft brewed beers into the Delaware Valley. Their flagship product, Blue Hen Beer, a Munich Helles lager, was introduced in May of 1990 and since then, Blue Hen has introduced their Black and Tan as well as a Chocolate Porter.
The Blue Hen name comes from local folklore recorded by Delaware historians which relates to a certain leisurely activity known to have occurred by one of the state’s Revolutionary War regiments. It’s told that during the early days of the war, the men of Captian Jonathan Caldwell’s company took with them gamecocks noted for their fighting ability. These particular fowl were of a brood possessing blue features. The regiment fought at Long Island, White Plains, Trenton, and Princeton and when not engaged with the enemy, amused themselves by fighting the Blue Hens. The fame of the fights spread throughout the army and soon the bravery in battle displayed by the regiment coupled with the colorful gamecocks they carried with them earned the militia the name, "The Fighting Blue Hens". So there you have it. You must admit, that’s a pretty proud-lookin’ hen perched on the label.
For more information about the brewery and scheduled tours, call (302) 737-8375.
Serving Temperature: 37-42° F
Original Gravity: 12.0° Plato
Final Gravity: N/A
Int'l Bittering Units: 19.0
Alcohol by Volume: 4.6%
Blue Hen’s Munich Helles is brewed with a combination of two-row Pale and Caramel malts. English Kent Goldings hops are used early into the 90-min. boil for their bittering effects while Czechoslovakian Saaz , Mt. Hood and Hallertau Herbrucker are added later in the boil for aroma. When you’re sampling this lager, know that you are drinking a true champion, the 1994 World Beer Champion of Munich Helles’ Lagers to be specific. It also won the silver in the 95 and 96 World Beer Championships.
Notes From the Panel:
Immediately note a pleasant pale malt aroma with a hint of floral hop notes. Look for good head retention in this pale, clear, medium-bodied beer. Note a definite pale maltiness up front followed by a dry hop bitterness that lingers into the finish. This is a very clean, well-balanced and smooth beer. Overall, a well-lagered, crisp, clean and nicely done Munich Helles.
Serving Temperature: 38-43° F
Original Gravity: 12.8° Plato
Final Gravity: N/A
Int'l Bittering Units: 24.0
Alcohol by Volume: 5.3%
Blue Hen’s Black & Tan is undoubtedly an unusual animal. A traditional black and tan, if you’ve never had one, is generally poured from a draft tap only using typically Harp Ale as a base and a gently poured Guiness Stout topper. When poured properly, the two very distinctly colored beers are clearly separated. Not the case in a bottle. We could have told you that they were in fact separated until tossed about in the feeble hands of your UPS driver, but the fact of the matter is that Blue Hen blends their Munich Helles (lager) with their Blue Hen Porter (ale) to create this very unique beer. Both beers are brewed separately and then mixed together prior to bottling. In total, two-row Pale, Caramel, and Chocolate malts are used while five different hop varieties are added during the individual boils including: English Kent Goldings, Mt. Hood, Hallertau Herbrucker, Czechoslovakian Saaz, Tettnang, and Cascade. Blue Hen’s Black and Tan took the silver in the European Dark Lager category in the 1996 World Beer Championships as well as the 1996 World Beer Cup.
Notes From the Panel:
Note a predominantly chocolate roasted malt nose with some hop fruitiness evident. Look for good head retention in this light brown, filtered, medium-bodied hybrid. Look for a moderately hopped body, nicely balanced with maltiness. Toasted grains come out and it seems to have a crisp, angular feel in the mouth with a decidedly hoppy edge. We picked up on a hint of bitterness to the refreshing finish. Overall, a truly unique, flavorful and well-balanced beer, deserving of its accolades.
Norm's Corner...
As spoken by Cheers' Norm
Woody: Would you like a beer, Mr. Peterson?
Norm: No Wood, I’d like a dead cat in a glass.
True Brew Facts
ON TAP (BREWER’S ASSOC. OF CANADA) - Almost 100 alcoholics were required to watch reruns of Dallas for a study conducted by the Addiction Research Foundation. Some patients watched the show with drinking scenes, others watched it with the drinking scenes cut out, and all patients viewed the program with either beer, non-alcoholic beverage or food commercials. Results indicated that the patients who watched both Dallas’s drinking scenes and beer commercials were "more confident in their ability to resist the urge to drink heavily" than those who watched the drinking scenes with food commercials. The reports were published by the Journal Studies on Alcohol and contradict the assumption that beer commercials influence alcoholics to drink. Researchers are reported as feeling perplexed and should perhaps study the effects of food commercials.
DAILY MIRROR - Cleanliness counts to barfly Brits. The British Brewer’s Society reports that when it comes to choosing a pub, women’s first priority is a clean toilet and men’s is a clean bar. The sexes switched positions on the second order of priority, and both chose friendly staff for their third choice. Stocks of beer, by the way, came far down on the list after general comfort, value and speed of service. The report also found that pub-goers drink a pint almost two minutes faster on Saturday nights and that 86 percent of American prefer British pubs to their own back home.
S.F. EXAMINER - Pyramids built by beer drinkers. Egyptian excavations revealed that the workmen who built the Great Pyramids were beer drinking, bread-and-garlic-eaters. Not unlike modern American, many died from cancer or industrial accidents. The mustachioed workers, whose tombs were discovered when a horse’s leg went through the roof of one of the tombs, had learned to brew five types of beer and bake 12 varieties of bread, as evidenced by a menu on one tomb wall.
U.S. Hop Production 101
Many U.S. grown hop varieties are available to brewers around the world. Many of the varieties shown in the chart below have recently originated from various breeding programs that can span over the course of over a decade of development. Commercial varieties are made available to brewers in the form of baled hops, pellets, or even in extract form. Maturity refers to the time when the hop plant has flowered and is ready to be harvested. The harvest period in the United States generally begins in mid August and continues through late September. The chart below gives you a quick look at several characteristics of 13 American grown hop varieties.
| Hop Name | Used For | Growing Areas | Maturity | Origin |
| Cascade | Aroma | WA/OR/ID | Medium | OR |
| Chelin | Bittering | WA | Medium | WA |
| Chinook | Bittering | WA/ID | Medium | WA |
| Cluster | Aroma | WA/ID | Early/Late | Unknown |
| Fuggle | Aroma | WA/OR | Early | England |
| Galena | Bittering | WA/ID | Medium | ID |
| Hallertauer | Aroma | WA/ID | Early | Germany |
| Liberty | Aroma | WA/OR | Medium | OR |
| Mt. Hood | Aroma | WA/OR | Medium | OR |
| Nugget | Bittering | WA/OR | Late | OR |
| Perle | Aroma | WA/OR | Early | Germany |
| Tettnanger | Aroma | WA/OR/ID | Early | Germany |
| Willamette | Aroma | WA/OR | Medium | OR |
Commander McBrew Belittles the Bagwan
After 4 days in Bombay, India, Wortly, my faithful companion in travel and consumption, and I decided that it was time to expand our horizons. At this point, we didn't know if we wanted to head north or south so we simply walked to the train station without a destination. At the train station, we located a line that was designated for senior citizens, handicapped persons or freedom fighters. We were handicapped in the sense that we could not read any of the signs in the station, but decided that arguing freedom fighter status might be an easier sell. In the line, we met an elderly Brit. We told him of our predicament. He had an answer. "Go...to Pune", he said, in a very serious demeanor. "Pune?" (Pronounced poona) I repeated. "Yes, Pune.", he repeated. "Why should we go to Pune?" "Just go...to Pune?" We were fascinated, make no mistake about it. The mysteriousness and confidence in his voice drew us in. "Okay, we'll go to Pune. What should we do when we get there?", I pried. "Just check out the Rajneesh Ashram. You’ll know what to do." SOLD! … to the two curious American freedom fighters! We bought two one-way tickets to Pune. I didn't really know what the hell an ashram was at that point. A local restaurant owner in Bombay not only confirmed the existence of the facility, but also claimed that it was a "free love ashram". Good God! On day 2 in Pune, we took a rickshaw to the OSHO International Commune and were allowed a brief tour of the facility. A large sign posted just outside the main entrance read: AIDS FREE ZONE, Welcome to the OSHO International Commune, Meditation and Celebration in Progress, NO PHOTOGRAPHY, NO SMOKING, NO DRUGS in the Commune. To participate in Commune Activities an AIDS Negative test is required. Celebration in progress? Aids test required? No photography? It looked like there was a bit of truth to the proclamations of free lovin'. We decided to take a closer look. The first most obvious observation that anyone could make in the ashram was that all members were wearing long, maroon robes. Peculiar, but not entirely a shock based on the sign we had just finished reading. We were given a 10-minute tour of the grounds and a brief explanation of what kinds of activities took place in the commune. There was no mention of anything that might require an aids test. We were going to have to go under cover to dig up more dirt on this place. We joined.
Negative aids test results in hand, we now needed to pick up a couple of maroon robes in order to attend the orientation meeting. It wasn't a difficult errand. Ten booths set up along the road leading to the ashram sold nothing but OSHO's spring line of maroon meditation wear. The orientation meeting pretty much set the tone for what was to follow the next several days at the OSHO International Commune. We sat down in a circle with perhaps ten other "Maroonies", I'll call them. A woman named Randa introduced herself and asked if everyone knew how to conduct a minute of "Gibberish". No one said anything. Finally, either Wortly or I were forced to raise our hand and admit that we had no idea what she was talking about. She reassured us that it was very simple. She wanted everyone to stand up, close their eyes, and babble non-meaningful utterances while shaking our bodies in an uncontrolled manner. And so we all stood and did just that. I closed my eyes just enough so that they looked shut, but I could still see and observed the group as they mumbled, sputtered and muttered themselves into frenzied convulsions. I noted that the exercise came easier to some than others. I may have been the first to lip sync gibberish. After about 30 seconds though, I decided to give it a real go and went into my Japanese mode. I have this voice that I do. It sounds like how John Belushi spoke in his Samurai skits on Saturday Night Live. I think it qualified as gibberish. When we were done, Randa told us that the exercise was meant to remove all tensions and anxieties that the group might have had, to relax us around each other. I can't say that I can pinpoint what effect it had on Wortly and I.
We then watched a 15-min. video that provided our first glimpse of the almighty OSHO. He was the ringleader of this merry bunch of meditators. OSHO had a long white beard and moustache and was usually wearing some kind of headgear. The video showed the big guy lecturing to thousands of people, leading meditation sessions and performing other prophet-like duties. After the flick, we were given a more comprehensive tour of the facility. We had to observe the strict rules of silence when passing by "Meditation Hall". OSHO had his own bookstore, a "Bacteria Free" kitchen, and a heck of a recreation area, named appropriately, "Club Meditation". A little later in the tour, we passed the site where OSHO was buried. Buried!? You've got to be kidding me! Everyone had been speaking of him in the present tense and he was DEAD?! Sure enough. His tombstone was especially profound. It read: OSHO - Never Born, Never Died. Only visited this Planet Earth between Dec. 11 1931 - Jan 19 1990. I'd wager my maroon robe that the big man requested that particular inscription. Talk about a self proclaimed prophet
At lunch, we shared a table with a woman named Sheena. Everyone had these great commune-given names. Feeling left out; we dubbed ourselves star-muffin and moon-biscuit. Sheena was really into the whole ashram experience and we were forced to feign fascination as she rambled on about OSHO this and OSHO that. She had been there for six years! She professed, "You know, OSHO says that we should all take our own course in the ashram. We must all be individuals. No one is forced to do anything here." "Is that why you all have to wear maroon robes, Sheena?", I thought to myself. The way it really came out, "What's the significance of the maroon robes?"
"OSHO says that the color maroon joins people’s energies. People feel it and see the difference within a few days. If 99% of the people are wearing the robes and one percent is not, then that minority sucks energy from the rest." "Ah, so it's an energy-sucking thing?", I asked. "Yeah, that's it. OSHO also sees a great flaw in Western thinking. He believes materialism is a bad thing." Again, in my own mind, "Is that why he owned twenty-some-odd Rolls Royces and lived like a king in this commune? You should hear yourself, Sheena. OSHO this, OSHO that, OSHO, OSHO, OSHO. You do know that he's dead, don't you?" My real words, "Didn't he own several Rolls Royces?" Her defense, "Those were all gifts from appreciative followers. Hey are you guys CIA or what?" She was growing suspicious of my challenges. We were obviously from the U.S. and I did have a short haircut. Many of the Maroonies believed that the CIA poisoned OSHO after he visited Oregon. We were off to a good start with Sheena. "CIA? Hell no. We're just traveling the world looking for new experiences. We heard about the ashram while in Bombay and came to check it out." She seemed satisfied and left. She reappeared with several cocktails for us explaining it as a peace offering and to ensure that no offense was taken. We downed the peculiar juice.
When we next awoke, we found ourselves surrounded by Sheena and two other Maroonies, bound to an upright table, our eyes forced open with some fiendish device and a wide-screen TV blaring various OSHO lectures. It was an ugly scene … right outta A Clockwork Orange. Thinking quickly, I began to mechanically repeat key OHSO phrases to myself, mumbling the ways of the commune. After several hours, Sheena seemed convinced that my antics indicated a new convert was now present and I was untied while Wortly remained secure. I quickly suggested we toast the wisdom of OHSO with a special batch of homebrew I had been saving for just such an occasion. It was special all right. Appropriately, an India Pale Ale with an outrageously high alcohol content. After several pitchers of the stuff, Sheena and her lightweight woosey pals lay unconscious in a pile of indistinguishable maroon cloth. In our usual form, Wortly and I took several gag photos, posing our hosts in varied compromising positions before leaving them untouched to be discovered in the morning. Sadly, in our haste to leave Pune, we never did get to the bottom of the proclamations of free lovin’.
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