This week was the second of our Schell's Brewing podcasts. We looked at another beer from the August Shell's Brewery in New Ulm, Minnesota.

Always on the quest for good beer we sampled some beer from a local brewer. Three beers all of good quality with a some lively discussion.

We also started the four week Hops Challenge™. Devised by a wise beer sage in Kearney, NE, it is an experiment to see whether a love of hops can be acquired.

Complete show notes

Do you have a suggestion for a beer we should try or any other comments? Send them to info@brewcast.net or call 402-817-0351 and leave us a voicemail.

Thanks for listening

This week featured the first of three episodes reviewing the beers of Schell's Brewing. We tried their dark, maifest, and stout with mixed results. For music this week, we featured Marc Gunn's tribute to a great BBC sci-fi comedy with his song The Mining Ship Red Dwarf. If you have never seen Red Dwarf, it is available on DVD and is one of the greatest TV shows ever made, in our humble opinion.

Complete show notes

Do you have a suggestion for a beer we should try or any other comments? Send them to info@brewcast.net or call 402-817-0351 and leave us a voicemail.

Thanks for listening

We finished up the beers Ryan acquired on his trip to Chicago this week. We enjoyed a bready farmhouse ale and a very stout brown ale. Always nice when both beers are tasty. We are sure the good people of take pride in their local breweries. No time for music to drink to this week, but we'll see if we can't fit it in next week.

Complete show notes

Do you have a suggestion for a beer we should try or any other comments? Send them to info@brewcast.net or call 402-817-0351 and leave us a voicemail.

Thanks for listening

Trying three beers at 11% and higher ABV is probably a questionable practice, but we did it anyway.  In order of ABV and tasting; Quadrium Ale from Urthel Samaranth (11%), Belzebuth from Brasserie Grain D'Orge (13%), and The Beast from Avery Brewing (16.31%). 

For music we pulled a band that we've enjoyed many times. The Dust Rhinos and their song Here's to You. Think Budweiser's real men of genius ads in catchy song form. Good stuff.

Complete show notes

Do you have a suggestion for a beer we should try or any other comments? Send them to info@brewcast.net or call 402-817-0351 and leave us a voicemail.

Thanks for listening

This week we sampled three dark beer from Norway. All three good solid dark beers. In the group was a double extreme imperial wheat stout.

As promised a far more inspiration song from Jonathan Coulton this week. We featured his song A Talk With George. Good stuff, puts things into perspective.

Complete show notes

Do you have a suggestion for a beer we should try or any other comments? Send them to info@brewcast.net or call 402-817-0351 and leave us a voicemail.

Thanks for listening

We thought it would be fun to go to extremes this week. Bringing in Lucky beer from Australia and Sierra Nevada's Torpedo Double IPA. The contrast of a light lager and a double IPA seemed like a good idea and fun to try.

for the music this week we enjoyed a little Jonathan Coulton. Always good stuff.

Complete show notes.

The Spoetzl Brewery in Shiner, Texas is celebrating its 100th year anniversary this year. To commemorate the event they released their aptly named 100 Commemorator brew and brought back the Kosmo's Reserve Lager. Having had the opportunity to enjoy some of their beer in the past we thought we should give this pair a go.

If there is one song that represents our panel it is The Jedi Drinking Test by the Dust Rhinos. Mix a little Celtic style with Star Wars references and beer drinking and we're good to go.

For the complete reviews from this week's episode click HERE.

To contact us with thoughts, suggestions or beer recommendations you can email us at info@brewcast.net or call 402-817-0351.

Thanks For Listening

We took a trip out to Thunderhead Brewing in Kearney, Nebraska. Always a fun to place to visit. We did some product testing on their award winning Golden Frau at different ages and stored in difficult conditions. A good time had by all.

For the full reviews of the beers click HERE.

Beers of the Week:

Beer: Dead Goat Porter
Brewery: Goose Island
Notes: Nice robust flavors of caramel, chocolate, and roasted malt. A sweet and enjoyable beer. It would go well with a steak seasoned with pepper and garlic or most deserts. If you happen to be in Chicago we definitely recommend it.

John:      A-	Brian:   A-	Ryan:    A-	Overall Grade:	A-
Marissa: A	Anne:   A-

Music to Drink to:
A favorite of the group and in honor of tax time we played Corporste Whore's Anthem. Great lyrics and a catchy tune. Thanks again to the Podsafe Music Network for the assist.

Do you have a suggestion for a beer we should try or any other comments? Send them to info@brewcast.net or call 402-817-0351 and leave us a voice mail.

Thanks for listening

By: Ryan Cairns

Goose Island first opened it's door in 1988 but the story
behind the brewery begins with John Hall and a Delta airlines
magazine.  John was traveling extensivelly with his career in
packaging industry and spent an extensive amount of time in
Europe.  During these travels he noticed that everywhere he
went their was always a local beer available except for in
the United States.

Now back to the magazine..... In 1986 John was on a plane in
the Dallas airport in which his flight was delayed because of
inclement weather.  While waiting he flipped through a in-flight
Delta Airlines magazine where he found an article on boutique
beers.  This article struck up an idea of creating a brewery all
of his own.  After two years of planning and research quit his
20 year career with Container Corporation and he opened the
original Goose Island Brewpub at 1800 Clybourn Avenue.

So on Friday, May 13, 1988 the Goose Island Brewpub was opened
for business.  Johns son Greg started out as an assistant brewer
at Goose Island in 1988 and went on to graduate from the Siebel
institute in 1989 and by 1995 he took over as the Brewmaster and
along with his father they made the decision to open a larger
brewery and bottling plant to keep up with demand.  

They went on to open a second brewpub in Wrigley square. (which
is an area close to Wrigley Field)  They are currently shipping
their beers to 15 states and the U.K. And they brew over 50 craft
beers in their brew pub. <brewery web site>

Beers of the Week:

Beer: Guinness 200 Year Anniversary Stout
Brewery: Guinness Brewery at St James Gate in Dublin, Ireland
Notes: A little thin and very smooth. More malt than we remember in the Draught Can and significantly more flavor than in the draught bottle we tested in the Guinness Challenge. Nice overall with tastes of chocolate and coffee.

John:      B	Brian:   B+	Ryan:    B+	Overall Grade:	B+
Marissa: B	Anne:   B

Music to Drink to:
Pulling an approriate song, we played Skankin Pickles Thick Ass Stout. Solid piece overall It was inspired by a friend of the shows and Brewmaster Richard Steuven. For great beer ratings check out his site beerme.com. Thanks to the Podsafe Music Network for providing the tunes.

Do you have a suggestion for a beer we should try or any other comments? Send them to info@brewcast.net or call 402-817-0351 and leave us a voicemail.

Thanks for listening

Beers of the Week

Beer: Hefeweizen
Brewery: Oak Creek Brewing Company
Notes: An overall nice American wheat. Slight hints of  banana and bubblegum in the flavor. Nice refreshing beer great for summertime.

John:      B	Brian:   B+	Ryan:    B	Overall Grade:	B
Marissa: B	Anne:   C

Beer: Kiltlifter Scotish Ale
Brewery: Four Peaks Brewery
Notes: The batch we tried on the show had DMS, vegetal, and a strong acetalaldehyde flavor. It is our hope that something went wrong with this batch. We will try it again in the future to determine if that is true.

John:      D+	Brian:   D+	Ryan:    D+	Overall Grade:	D
Marissa: F	Anne:   D

Do you have a suggestion for a beer we should try or any other comments? Send them to info@brewcast.net or call 402-817-0351 and leave us a voicemail.

Thanks for listening

This week we dived into the joy of New Belgium's Trippel and listened to some solid blues.

Beer of the Week:

Beer: Trippel
Brewery: New Belgium Brewing
Notes: Nice complex beer. It has a fruit and bubblegum aroma. The flavors of bubblegum, honey, and dried fruit play together so nicely throughout the taste. There is a little alcohol heat in the finish, but at 7.8% that is perfectly acceptable.

John:      A-	Brian:   A-	Ryan:    A-	Overall Grade:	A-
Marissa: A-	Anne:   A-

Music To Drink To:

Ruthless Blues
"Rollin' Drunk" (mp3)
from "Sure Enough!"
(President Records)

Buy at Amazon MP3
More On This Album

Do you have a suggestion for a beer we should try or any other comments? Send them to info@brewcast.net or call 402-817-0351 and leave us a voicemail.

Thanks for listening

Beers of the Week

Beer: Basement Batch Pale Ale
Brewery: Choc Beer
Notes: Pine flavor in the taste, with low malt flavors. Some slight citrus in the finish. Decent beer.

John:      C	Brian:   C-	Ryan:    C	Overall Grade:	C-
Marissa: D-	Anne:   C+

Beer: Atlas IPA
Brewery: Marshall Brewing Company
Notes: Aroma of floral hops with malt undertones. It has a pleasant malt opener. Nice hop flavors of citrus and floral hit in the middle of the taste. Metallic taste in the finish. Overall very good. 

John:      B-	Brian:   C-	Ryan:    B-	Overall Grade:	B-
Marissa: C-	Anne:   A-

Beers of the Week

In honor of St. Patrick's Day we started the Guinness challenge. We rounded up three versions of Guinness. Two of them were draught. One in bottle one in a can. They were supposed to be the same, but we found out they each were a bit different.

Beer: Guinness Draught (Bottle)
Brewery: Guinness Brewery at St James Gate in Dublin, Ireland
Notes: Thin and smooth. The malt hits in the end with tastes of chocolate and coffee. Ranked in #3 in the Guinness Challenge.

John:       B	Brian:     B-	Ryan:    B	B-
Marissa:  B-	Anne:     C

Beer: Guinness Draught (Can)
Brewery: Guinness Brewery at St James Gate in Dublin, Ireland
Notes: Creamer than the bottle. Formed a nice head. The malt in this version was more apparent in the front of the flavor. More flavors of coffee and chocolate. Ranked #2 in the Guinness Challenge.

John:       B+	Brian:     B	Ryan:    B+	B+
Marissa:  B-	Anne:     B

Beer: Guinness Import Extra Stout
Brewery: Guinness Brewery New Brunswick, Canada
Notes: The clear winner. It is thinker and robust coffee flavors with playful chocolate flavors throughout. Even though it tied in score, it was the clear winner of the Guinness Challenge. Funny Canadian Guinness beats Irish Guinness. Who would have thought.

John:       A-	Brian:     B+	Ryan:    A-	B+
Marissa:  B+	Anne:     B+

Beer: Smithwicks Irish Ale
Brewery: Guinness Brewery New Brunswick, Canada
Notes: Nice roasted malt flavors. We added it for fun, but not technically part of the Guinness Challenge.

John:       B	Brian:     B	Ryan:    B+	B+
Marissa:  A	Anne:     B-

By: Ryan Cairns

Guinness brewery has a very long and rich history. Because of this I will merely be scratching the surface of telling the breweries story and I encourage you to check out the companies web site.  They have some pretty amazing history information on their site available for all to see. <click here>


Arthur Guinness leased a brewery in Leixlip in 1755
brewing ale.  Later he put his younger brother in charge of this brewery and moved on to the St. James Gate Brewery, Dublin in 1759. Upon taking over the brewery he signed a 9,000 year lease. The first Guinness was exported May 19, 1769 when six and a half barrels of ale were shipped to England.

His sales of porter are listed on tax data from 1778 during a time shortly after many brewers in the Dublin area had experimented with brewing porters in the 1760's.

His major achievement to the overall legacy of the Guinness brewery was generating a major growth from 1797-1799. From 1778 on they only brewed porter and discontinued the production of ale.  When he passed away in 1803 the annual output of the brewery was over 20,000 barrels a year.

Contrary to popular belief that Guinness created the term Stout in reference to beer the first use of the word was in a letter in the Egerton Manuscript dated 1677.  The first Guinness beers to use the term were Single Stout and Double Stout in the 1840's.  They company brewed it's last porter in 1974.

It became the largest brewery in Ireland in 1838, and the largest in the world in 1914 covering over 64 acres.  It is no longer the largest brewery in the world but it is the largest brewer of Stout in the world. 

In 1983 a non-family executive by the name of Ernest Saunders was  appointed as Chief Executive and arranged for the hostile take over
of the leading Scotch Whiskey producer Distillers in 1986.  He was then
asked to resign due to allegations that Guinness stock prices had been
illegally manipulated.  Since Distillers was worth more than Guinness
the Guinness family shareholdings after the merger dropped below 10%
and today no family members sit on the board. 

The company later merged with Grand Metropolitan to form Diageo PLC in 2006.  Diageo is the holding company for some major alcoholic
beverage brands including: Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff, Captain Morgan,
Jose Quervo, and many other brands way to many to list here. 

The rumors in early 2007 of Diageo selling most of the St. James Brewery
in order to take advantage of high property prices in Ireland and then
using the funds generated to build a new brewery at Leixlip was found to
be true.  The deal was canceled at the end of 2008 after the land prices
in Ireland dropped closing the door on the possibility of selling a large
part of the original brewery and building a new one.   <more info>

I hope that you have enjoyed what I put together here for you to read but
I would encourage you to research on your own because of the vast amount of history and information surrounding the brewery.

Beers of the Week

Beer: Purple Haze RaspberryRasberry infused wheat.
Brewery: Abita
Notes: This beer was a mystery to us. It had a nice raspberry aroma and when you drank it it was like drinking carbonated mineral water. It had no real flavors and no real defects. Finished like it was not even there. We nicknamed it the "raspberry ghost".

John:       C	Brian:    C	C+
Marissa:  C	Anne:    B

Beer: Censored Rich Copper Ale
Brewery: Laguanitas
Notes: Malty, hoppy beer overall ok. May have been a bit out of date.

John:       C	Brian:    C	C+
Marissa:  B	Anne:    C+

Beer: Black and Tan   
Brewery: Yuenglings
Notes: Fair. This particular beer seemed a bit thin flavor and body. Not bad, but didn't seem to gain anything by the blended flavors.

John:       C+	Brian:    C+	C
Marissa:  C	Anne:    C-

Beer: Kalamazoo Stout
Brewery: Bells Brewery
Notes: Bit thin. Taste and flavor more simila to a portetr. Ours was oxidized, probably a bit old.

John:       C-	Brian:    D+	D+
Marissa:  D+	Anne:    D-

Beers of the Week:
This week we had the pleasure of having Zac and Jason from Lucky Bucket Brewing Co. It is Nebraska's newest brewery and if the first two beers are any indication, they are going to be big.   Beer: Pre-Prohibition Lager Brewery: Lucky Bucket Brewing Co. Notes: Nice malty opening transitioning to a great hop flavor and a clean finish. The hop character is complex and subtle with citrus and floral flavors. Great conversion beer.  It is available now. Start looking for it in you live in Nebraska. If your local bar doesn't have it ask for it.
John:	A	Brian:	A			Overall Grade	A
Marissa:	A	Anne:	A
Beer: Concentrated Evil Brewery: Lucky Bucket Brewing Co. Notes: Complex isn't even the word. This beer is aged in Chardonnay casks and made with local honey. It is dark as a moonless night. Coming in around 10% ABV the alcohol is not noticeable making this a very dangerous beer. It will be available later this year and we recommend finding it if you can.
John:	A	Brian:	A			Overall Grade:	A
Marissa:	A	Anne:	A
Do you have a suggestion for a beer we should try or any other comments? Send them to info@brewcast.net or call 402-817-0351 and leave us a voicemail. Thanks for listening

Beers of the Week:
Beer: La Fin Du Monde Brewery: Unibroue Notes: An amazingly complex malty beer. The flavor changes while drinking it. With a cascade of flavors it is a fine "A" beer.
John:	A	Brian:	A	Anne:	A	Overall Grade	A
Music To Drink To: This week we did a top 5 music countdown. We don;t want to ruin it for you, but these should not come as a surprise. Thanks to the Podsafe Music Network for helping with the tunes. Do you have a suggestion for a beer we should try or any other comments? Send them to info@brewcast.net or call 402-817-0351 and leave us a voicemail. Thanks for listening