Beertography of the Week

Our first ever user-submitted Beertography of the Week comes from our good friend Mike Kivowitz of NewJerseyCraftBeer.com. This fine photo features a fresh-from-the-fermenter pint of New Jersey Beer Company's Garden State Stout at the brewery's tasting room in North Bergen, NJ. Thanks Mike!

If you submitted your photo, fear not! I'll hang onto all submissions and continue to post them weekly.

Submit Your Beertography!

Do you have a great photo of beer or something beer-related? Send it to beertography@gmail.com and I'll post the best ones in a weekly User Submitted Beertography feature!

Please be sure to include the following info so that it can be included in the post:

Your Name:
Website/Blog/Twitter:
Beer Info: 
Additional Info: (location, etc)

Let's see what you've got!

Blind Bat Brewery Hellsmoke Porter

Blind Bat is a nanobrewery located in Centerport, Long Island where the brewer/owner is only producing a handful of beers as a part-time job. This is one of if not THE smallest commercial brewery in the country. This was the first time I've ever seen anything of theirs in bottle form so I couldn't resist picking it up and giving it a try.

Blind Bat Brewery
Hellsmoke Porter
5.7% ABV
16oz.

It pours a dark but not opaque black and any head formed from the pour quickly disappears. It seems somewhat thin and there's certainly not much carbonation. The aroma is strong of malty sweetness and roasted chocolate malt. The first sip is when the smoked malt is revealed, followed by a glorious applewood attack that leaves me craving bacon or a campfire. The back end leaves you with a hint of coffee bitterness. Wow. Its still surprisingly thin, but that makes it very drinkable. My personal preference is for a bit more body in my porters, but this is really well balanced between the chocolate and the smoke flavors. I've never had a beer that's utilized applewood so well. I'll definitely be on the lookout for more bottles from this fine nano.

California Brewery Trip Part 2: Stone Brewing and Interview with CEO Greg Koch

Our next stop on our whirlwind brewery tour of Southern California was at Stone Brewing Company in Escondido, CA. Still shimmering-new, Stone's facility and adjacent gardens is quite a marvel. I think one of us likened it to the Disneyland of Breweries.

We had originally planned on taking the tour, but since we spent longer than we planned at Lost Abbey, we missed our shot at the one at Stone. That gave us the opportunity to sit down, relax and have a late lunch and a few beers. Even though CEO Greg Koch was out of town attending the Beer Blogger's conference in Denver, he graciously agreed to answer a few questions via email. You can read the full text of the interview below.


When the weather is nice, the doors are opened and seating is expanded to the outside next to the gardens.


Looking in from where we were seated outside, you can just barely see the large brewtanks behind the glass at the back.


The center of the gardens on the Stone grounds.


Looking back from the gardens at the building.

John Kleinchester, beertography.com: We also visited Lost Abbey/Port Brewing in San Marcos and they explained to us about how they occupy your former building. What was it like moving from the old location to the new? 

Greg Koch, CEO Stone Brewing Company: Exciting! For years we’d struggled to work within the confines of a series of suites in the old building (we grew to 24,500 sf in that building…the Lost Abbey brewery is in our original 7100 sf), so we were stoked to be able to design and build a space that was to our specific design.

JK: And how did it come about that they were the ones to take the spot?

GK: We’ve been friends with those guys for a long time. We let it be known that the brewery was available, and they responded. We worked together to come to a mutual deal…and the rest is history!

JK: The brewery/bistro site is more of an experience than most other breweries I've visited. Do you foresee the future European Stone location as being something similar?

GK: Well, “similar” in that it will be different and eclectic with its own unique personality, yes. It’s our goal to create something that will hopefully grow to be as special as what we have here in Escondido.

JK: Has the bistro always been about local/natural/organic ingredients (i.e. no high fructose corn syrup in the sodas) or is that something that changed at some point? Will the new European location would follow the same model?

GK: We set those standards from the very beginning of the restaurant. When we decided that we wanted to open a restaurant, I started researching food and the food system we use here in the US. It’s pretty messed up IMO, and I came to the conclusion that I could not in good conscience be a part of the commodity food system. Thus, the decisions that we’ve made. Yes, we will use similar ideals in Europe if we open a restaurant at the brewery location there.

Thanks to Greg for the interview and if you're headed to the San Diego area, I recommend you take the short drive out to Escondido so you can experience this little beer oasis for yourself. 

Stay tuned for Part III featuring Ballast Point and Green Flash Brewing companies!

America Voted World's WORST Beer Producer

This was posted on The Huffington Post today: http://huff.to/hGbh3D

America didn't just repeat as producers of the world's worst beer, we increased our margin of victory by 7 points (in a new survey of 3,400 respondents from 99 countries). Hard to say if American beer is getting worse, or the rest of the world's beer production is improving. Or, perhaps our reputation is simply spreading. As the long-standing joke goes: What does American beer and making love in a canoe have in common? Both are amazingly close to water.

This is just idiocy for many different reasons. Firstly, its a survey of 3400 people in 99 countries. So basically a TINY amount of people asked what they think of beers in different countries. No chance that a majority of them even know that the good beer in this country is on the upswing. In fact, I'd even guess that this was just an opportunity to knock America because of general declining opinions of us as a nation. Terrible. Then again, there's also the possibility that the rest of the world's palettes are finally refining and realizing that we mass-produce a ton of terrible Light Adjunct Lager... But those same people should realize that our craft market share is growing, and technically Budweiser, "The Great American Lager" isn't even American owned anymore.

On top of all of that, if you look at the photo for India (seen above) it has a freaking flight of Dogfish Head. What in the hell? Did they think Dogfish Head India Pale Ale is from India? Someone tell them its made in the beautiful state of Delaware. Any way you look at it, this is an entirely worthless article... You're welcome for sharing it!

/rant