Pioneer Brewing Company - Pioneer Lager

Pioneer Lager is a Bavarian Amber Lager brewed with a combination of two-row pale, munich, crystal, chocolate, carapils, and special roast malts. Pioneer hops this tasty brew with chinook for bitterness and a touch of cascade for a mild floral hop aroma. You'll note a Cascade hop dominating the nose. It's both citrusy and floral. You might pick up a bit of nuttiness as well if you're really good. Look for a very well balanced, clean amber lager offering a bit of nuttiness from the munich malts used. This beer has very good head retention. The flavor is somewhat malty and very smooth. Overall, we really liked this fully fermented, clean session beer. It would pair nicely with most foods and is perfect for a warm summer evening.

Pioneer Bratwurst

Fresh lean, juicy bratwurst with the proper balance of seasonings is not easy to come by. But fear not, with some basic equipment, you can make your own! Tis the season to bust out the BBQ and make your move so get yourself a grinder, some stuff to grind, a little spicy mustard, and do that Voo Doo that You Do!

1 1/2 pounds lean veal
4 pounds of lean pork
1/2 pound pork trimmings (fat)
1 1/2 tablespoons salt
1 1/2 tablespoons mace
1 1/2 tablespoons nutmeg
1 1/2 tablespoons white pepper
2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 cups whole milk, chilled
1/2 cup Pioneer Kolsch Lager
1 egg
15 feet of sausage casings

Grind veal and pork with trimmings very finely. Combine remaining ingredients in a separate bowl, blending thoroughly. In a bowl combine meat with other ingredients using a mixer or large spoon until thoroughly blended. To stuff sausages, prepare casings purchased from butcher. Rinse inside and out under cool water. Following directions on sausage stuffer, gently slide about four feet of casing onto end without tearing. Tie knot to close casing. If you do not own a stuffer, push casing onto a funnel with a 1-inch opening. Fill funnel with sausage mixture and use a piece of clean wooden dowel to push into sausage casing. Fill as evenly as possible. Tie off each sausage by twisting casing every 4 to 5 inches. Sausages taste best if aged 24 hours in refrigerator. To cook, simply grill, boil, or steam until cooked through. Using beer to boil or steam bratwurst gives an added fantastic taste sensation.

Source: The Great American Beer Cookbook; Candy Schermerhorn; Brewer's Publications, Boulder, CO, 1993.

MIDWEST BEER NOTES - Ukraine, another former Soviet state, has ended duties on imports of malt and hops, and has set up quotas for minimum imports. The quota for
malt is set at 50,000 tons per year; the quota for hops is 200 tons per year. Ukraine has seen a decline in beer production of 60% over the past decade, and only 55 of 180 breweries are still in operation at this time. (Italics: Aren't you REALLY glad you don't live there!)

BEER WIRE - Tibetan development includes German Alehouse. In Shigatse, Tibet, China, the inclusion of a casino and a German brewhouse in the Hamburg Beer City, is meeting with "bitter denouncement" from the exiled Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama calls the development the "economic colonization of Tibet by its Han rulers." But according to Nuo Jianrong, the Chinese manager of Shigatse's only microbrewery, German ale serves another purpose. "We're helping the Tibetan people to develop," she said. "The quality of the locals is very, very low. The government welcomes us -- but ordinary people have a very low level of culture. Of course, their thought processes are much less complicated than ours." (Italics: We love to promote beer, but gotta side with the Dalai Lama on this one!)

REAL BEER PAGE www.realbeer.com - Bud takes Budvar to court in Hong Kong! Film at Eleven. In the latest round of the ongoing battle between Budweiser and Budvar, American-based Anheuser Busch has taken Czech-owned Budejovicky Budvar to court in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Sunday Morning Post reported that A-B said in court papers that Budejovicky Budvar beer had infringed on the Budweiser trademark since Budejovicky is the Czech word for Budweiser. The U.S. brewer is seeking a court order to have the Czech company's products taken off the shelves in Hong Kong, the report said. Anheuser-Busch has launched similar lawsuits in Europe and the United
States. More on the story at: http://166.90.130.15/news/articles/news-000197.html (italics: And A-B rep Stan Ribinowitz was overhear to say that the brewing giant plans to file still yet another lawsuit on Budvar, claiming that there 18 yr. Old Siamese Cat and Company mascot, Claude, strongly resembles a Clydesdale and is also therefore another case of trademark infringement.)

Dear Murl,

Here's a brain-bender for ya! It would certainly seem that the little bubbles appear to float up in a glass of beer, but why do they seem to go down in a glass of Guinness?

Oscar Dotson, Lake Forest, CA

Yo Oscamundo!

That's actually a pretty cool question man! Being the lazy ass mutt that I am, I tend to go for the questions that I already know the answers to so that I can save the vast majority of my creative energies going off on completely unrelated tangents. Like the time me and this tuff little Schnauzer named Brock when down to Tijuana for a night of beer, tobacco and fancy women. Man, did we get trashed. I woke up the next morning in the back seat of his Baja Bug with some serious taco stains on my ruff, a lighter with flashing breasts tied around my neck and a fuzzy recollection of being propositioned by either a really scary looking prostitute or a transvestite! But hey, that's a whole other story. And you're more interested in what's up with those Tiny Bubbles!

I researched. I gathered. I learned. I wept. And now…I share with you some pretty cool Science-like schtuff. You're not gonna believe this but there's a bunch of dudes at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, that were wondering the same damn thing! Doesn't surprise me that my distant rellies are focused on such issues of primal importance to mankind! (I'm an Australian Sheppard if you didn't already know). Anyway they simulated the motion of the bubbles using computational fluid dynamics software from Fluent, Inc. and found out that, as expected, most bubbles do move upward! (Whoa! Nice job Einstein! No doubt at a cost in excess of $ 500,000 bucks and 92.3 man-hours) The bubbles in the center of the glass, free from the effects of the wall, move upward most quickly and drag liquid with them. But…the liquid moving up in the center of the glass, having nowhere else to go, must eventually turn toward the walls and start to move downward. The liquid moving downward near the walls tries to drag down bubbles with it. Larger bubbles have sufficient buoyancy to resist, but smaller bubbles (less than 0.05 mm if you got your bubble ruler handy) are continuously dragged to the bottom of the glass. I happen to know that Guinness is often tapped using a nitrogen system which does in fact create smaller carbonation bubbles and also that big creamy head you gotta love! Bottom line? Small woosey bubbles don't float so good baby! Pretty cool, eh Oscartini? I'm outta here pal. That was over an hour of work for me today!

Woof!

Murl.