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HOMEBREW Digest #0293
HOMEBREW Digest #293 Wed 01 November 1989
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
Brew Pubs in the immediate Quake zone (Don't matter HOW I'm drawn...I'm bad)
Gluing your labels (Scott Renner)
Re: Bud and Busch Differences (Bruce Buck - Sun ECD Hardware)
Re: Label Glues (garth!apd!phipps)
Re: Results of GABF (Chuck Cox)
Send submissions to homebrew%hpfcmr@hplabs.hp.com
Send requests to homebrew-request%hpfcmr@hplabs.hp.com
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Date: Tue, 31 Oct 89 07:19:52 CST
From: jmellby@ngstl1.csc.ti.com (Don't matter HOW I'm drawn...I'm bad)
Subject: Brew Pubs in the immediate Quake zone
From: FLOPN2::PANZER "The drive-in will never die" 27-OCT-1989 13:32:23.65
To: JOHN
Subj: FOR POSTING
California Brew pubs and the earthquake
I gave a report on four brewpubs I visited in the Monterey
area in a previous issue of this newsletter. Unfortunately, they
were all located within an hour's drive of the epicenter of what
is now being called the "The Quake of '89". Out of concern and
curiosity, I checked back with those brew pubs a few days after
the quake to see how they fared. The cities where the brew pubs
resided are now probably more familiar to you after all the
coverage.
First I checked on the Monterey Brewing at 638 Wave St in the
Cannery Row district of Monterey. It is a small stand-alone wood
frame building surrounded by two and three story brick buildings
and featured a pale ale, amber and porter, all very good. Nancy
Sawyers, the business manager told me that she was at her desk in
the office, surrounded by tall stacks of beer cases, when the
tremors started. She dove under her desk as the quake caused some
glass breakage and caused the cigarette machine to dance about
three feet away from where it started. In the brew house, the
kettles moved some but were not rocked off their mountings. The
pub was open for business on the Friday after the quake. The rest
of the cannery row district in Monterey apparently suffered
relatively minor damage.
Santa Cruz, an hour+ North of Monterey was hit much harder
than many surrounding cities. I had visited Santa Cruz Brewing's
Front Street pub at 516 Front Street. It featured Lighthouse
Lager, Lighthouse Amber, and Pacific Porter. I only got a second
hand report that the pub, a part of the badly damaged downtown
mall area, will be out of action for at least a period of months.
Nearby was the Sea Bright Brewing Company at 519 Sea Bright.
This was a more modern type of bar that featured Pelican Ale, Sea
Bright Amber, Batman's Best Bitter, and Kangaroo Pale Ale. They
currently (note the word currently) have a different selection of
specialty beers, namely Serious Stout, Painless Pale Ale and an
Oktoberfest beer. The pub is in a newer building and hardly
cracked any walls. The bulk of the damage came from 20 broken
pint glasses. In the brewery area, a couple of valves broke as
the brew kettles moved over a little. Due to their weight, the
kettles were reconnected right where they ended up. The bar keep
I spoke to was driving to work when the quake hit. He said his
first indication was a jolt he felt in the car and then the
traffic light in front of him crashed to the street.
Meanwhile, San Andreas Brewing at 737 San Benito St in
Hollister, was almost on top of the epicenter and the pub and
their brews were aptly named. They had Earthquake Pale Ale,
Seismic Ale, Earthquake Porter, Kit Fox Amber, and a Cherry Ale.
I talked with John Williams, a bar tender and told me that
when the quake started, there were only 3 employees and an older
woman in the place (it was just before the dinner hour). The
older woman was in the WC and, well, let's just say she was not a
happy camper. The staff looked for cover as a lot of glassware
and some plaster began falling and the tables and chairs started
dancing with each other. The big brew kettle shifted back and
forth on the mountings but did not fall.
By Friday, power, phones and water were back and the city
water was not yet potable. While they reopened at the same time
as the Monterey brew pub, the neighborhood around them was losing
a number of older buildings to the wrecking ball. Next time
you're there, it might be less uncouth to simply ask for a porter
rather than an EARTHQUAKE porter.
Even if you don't know anybody out there, it's odd the way
such events can affect you after all. At least 3 of 4 brew pubs
are still going and are subject to patronage.
Roy Mengot
Plano, 462-8768 PANZER@FLOPN2.CSC.TI.COM
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 89 08:34:43 -0600
From: Scott Renner <renner@cs.uiuc.edu>
Subject: Gluing your labels
I simply mix one part cheap white glue with two parts water. I just dunk
the entire label in this mix, then smooth it onto the bottle. It's fast,
cheap, easy, and the labels stay on (almost all the time) right up until
you put the bottles in water to clean them. Then the white glue dissolves
and the label just falls off -- no scraping or scrubbing required.
============
Scott Renner USENET: pur-ee!uiucdcs!renner
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ARPA: renner@cs.uiuc.edu
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 89 11:38:08 EST
From: bbuck@East.Sun.COM (Bruce Buck - Sun ECD Hardware)
Subject: Re: Bud and Busch Differences
"MR. DAVID HABERMAN" writes:
I also learned that the difference between the "Bud" class beers and
the "Busch" class beers is that one uses rice as an adjunct and the other
uses corn.
I thought the party line from Anheuser-Busch was that Busch, Bud and Michelob
all use rice as adjuncts. The difference is that Busch uses domestic hops,
Bud uses a mix of domestic and imported hops and Michelob uses only imported
hops. They never actually state the specific varieties of hops used. I sure
can't detect them anyway.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 89 14:01:20 pst
From: hplabs!garth!apd!phipps
Subject: Re: Label Glues
>meyer@tcville.hac.com (Mike Meyer) wrote:
>
>These days I only use labels for display purposes,
>preferring to spend my time brewing rather than scraping.
Indeed. Getting the original labels off is enough of a hassle;
I certainly don't want my own labels to recreate that hassle for me.
I would probably want to use whatever Felinfoel (a Welsh brewery)
or Anchor uses to glue their labels, which are composed of paper.
Simply soaking them in water for a few days allows them to *fall* off --
no scraping required, although I wipe once across the formerly labelled
part of the bottle with my hand, just to remove residue, then rinse and dry
(Unfortunately, San Jose water, which in my part of town is drawn from wells,
may have rather interesting label glue solvents in it that other people
on this mailing-list can't get for free -- Santa Clara County contains
more SuperFund toxic waste sites than any other county in the U.S..
The City of San Jose assures me that my water is safe, but I digress :-(.
A big unused ice-chest works nicely as a place to soak bottle labels.
Surprisingly, an in-use ice-chest seems to work even better.
I have noticed that the labels will fall off bottles after being kept
in an ice chest with lots of ice-melt) for a few days -- even obnoxious
foil labels (e.g.: EKU). Any explanations from chemists out there ?
>I use [mucilage], which applys pretty easy from the rubber tipped bottle,
>and is water soluable.
I may give that a try.
>My roommate used to use 3M industrial spray glue,
>which is not so easy to get off again.
And therefore disqualified.
>Jason Goldman <hp-lsd!jdg> wrote:
>
>An artist friend [...] has designed a series of labels for my beer [...,]
>which I was copying onto 8 1/2 " x 11 " label stock
>that I got at an office supply store.
>I've used two different brands of label stock (Dennon [too sticky] and
>another brand [paper too thick]) which I haven't been real happy with.
I suspect that office-supply labels are designed to be difficult to remove,
which is a design goal incompatible with homebrewing. Disqualified.
>I'm moving into color labels soon and was thinking of using rubber cement
>to fasten the label to the bottle.
I have used rubber cement to hold labels on copier paper to a clean bottle.
Although it was messy to apply, it worked fine for a while. After a couple
of years, though, the labels fell off, which I suspect resulted from
the glue drying out, then the label returning to its original flat shape,
which fits a cylindrical bottle poorly.
>I think that I will try the glue sticks instead.
Another thing on my list of things to try.
I will be touring the Anchor Brewery in about a week, so if they are
willing to tell me what glue they use, I'll let this mailing-list know.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 89 14:12:40 EST
From: chuck%bose@uunet.UU.NET (Chuck Cox)
Subject: Re: Results of GABF
In response to Bruce Buck's questions about the Great American Beer Festival:
Bud Dry is a new beer being test marketed in certain regions of the country.
Yes, it is different from Michelob Dry.
When pressed for technical details about the difference between the two
dry beers, the A-B representative said Bud Dry was for the 'upscale market'.
I assume that Michelob Dry must be for the 'downscale market'.
Anheuser Maerzen was at the GABF too.
It is just about what you would expect from Anheuser-Busch,
a watered-down bland imitation of a maerzen.
I wouldn't go out of my way to try it.
As for Bud, Miller, Coors, et. al. winning in the 'American Pilsner'
categories. I would call them good examples of a lousy style.
'American Pilsner' is a polite way of making sure that Millerweiser
gets a chance to win a medal and sparing them the embarassment of competing
against legitimate pilsener beers.
As far as I can recall (and my recall is terrible after attending
several beer festivals) Little Kings have taken gold in the 'cream ale'
category every year for at least the last five years.
I think the people who contract Pecan Street Lager said it best,
"Beer: if you can't taste it, why bother?"
- Chuck Cox - certified national beer judge & all-around great guy
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End of HOMEBREW Digest #293, 11/01/89
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