There seems to be a brash outpouring of beer-themed inventions lately, but this latest one certainly doesn’t disappoint: It’s a beer koozie with a built-in beeper. Can’t remember where your beer is? Use the included remote to page it and the koozie responds with a burping noise (yeah, like that makes it stand out from the crowd). The beer koozie is a steal at a mere $20; think about it, if you can keep track of just five half-racks of PBRs, it’s paid for itself… buy it here, just in time for the holiday party season.

Mainers throughout the Portland Metro rejoice – after years of having to travel to Gray or the internet to locate homebrewing supplies, we finally have a shop right here in our own backyard. Rob Zimmerman, a homebrewer of 10 years, was tired of facing the same problem so, to remedy this situation, he decided, along with his wife, Gaylin, to open the store he’d always wished was in Portland. Thus Maine Brewing Supply was born. The shop offers the usual spectrum of both dry & liquid yeast, bulk grains, hops, recipe kits, equipment (beginning & all-grain). Maine Brewing Supply also offers up reading material, DVDs and even a small selection of specialty and begium beers by the bomber.

The Zimmerman’s shop is located at 542 Forest Ave. in Portland, next to the Great Lost Bear (talk about marketing genius!). It’s open from noon-6 pm Wednesday-Friday, 11:30 am-5 pm on Saturday and 11 am-3 pm on Sunday. FMI call 791-BREW.

I stopped in to Maine Brewing Supply last weekend to do a little shopping of my own but wasn’t overly impressed. The shop is certainly big enough, and is much more open, clean and un-cluttered (maybe it just needs a little time) than normal homebrew supply shops - but that’s what give such shops their charm, right? Maine Brewing Supply had a great selection of hops (and Rob told me that he’d stocked up enough to hopefully make it through any supposed shortage), which they keep in a freezer on the show room floor. They were, however, a little short on the yeast selection but kept assuring me that their next shipment was due in the following day. However I, being pretty new to homebrewing after all, still use dry yeast and their dry yeast selection definitely left something to be desired.

The Zimmermans do have an excellent selection of malt grains and specialty/adjunct grains on hand (which they’ll gladly crush for you), but they won’t sell any of them in quantities under a pound. They have a great selection of recipe kits as well, but, their selection of liquid extract cans & DME was very far from even being adequate. On the other hand, the shop seemed to have a nice selection of both starter & all-grain kits and they do carry both kegs & CO2 canisters.

In the back corner of the show room is a large seating area with couches, numerous brewing publications and a flat-screen TV. Rob hopes to host classes and demos there in the future and would like the seating area to become a place for local homebrewers to come and hang out together and swap recipes & tips with one another.

While it is certainly nice to have supplies for sale so close by, and I do understand that a lot of kinks get worked out in the first few months a store is opened (Maine Brewing Supply has been open only a little more than 3 weeks), the Zimmerman’s do have a lot of work still to do.

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After a few week hiatus, Blog About Beer’s weekly Hump Day Genius Fix is back, and back with a bang. Due to the timeliness of the post, I thought – what better way to celebrate than with “Mr. Frozen Turkey Helpline Guy” (click below to listen). And, did you know that a turkey can drown if they look up when its raining? True story.

However you choose to celebrate Thanksgiving (I’ll be doing mine with a Tofurkey), I hope you all have a happy & (good) beer-filled day!

Cheers.

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[audio:http://thefuntimesguide.com/audio/Bud_Light_Real_Men_of_Genius_Mr_Frozen_Turkey_Helpline_Guy.mp3] 
Click the arrow to hear Mr. Frozen Turkey Helpline Guy

I spent this Thanksgiving Eve Eve doing my own Beer & Holiday Food Pairing research, so I thought I’d do everyone else a favor and compile my findings in one place, so your search is more easily answered. I’ll start with an excerpt I found from Garrett Oliver’s–the Brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewing Co.–book, The Brewmaster’s Table, which I think perfectly sums up the argument for bringing beer, not wine, to any holiday feasts you have planned for the coming weeks:

I love wine and frequently enjoy it with my meals. But I’ve never enjoyed wine with all the types of food that I actually eat every day. A roast rack of lamb? Sure, I’d love to have a bottle of Burgundy (though I know beers that will match the lamb just as well). But how about Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Middle Eastern, Indian, and Cajun cuisine, and American barbecue? I love this stuff too, and I don’t want wine with it. Yes, I’ve had all the wines that will supposedly match these foods. Guess what? They are a poor substitute for traditional beer. Why? Because spices distort wine flavors, turning white wines hot and red wines bitter. Because wine doesn’t refresh the palate the way beer does. Because wine has no caramelized or roasted flavors to match those in our favorite dishes. And because, even according to wine experts, there are many foods that are simply no good with wine.

The art of pairing food & beer is one which is difficult to master, but even tougher to screw up. Because of the many diverse flavors found in plenty of craft beers, its highly likely that at least one of those flavors will accent whatever dish you’re creating quite nicely. Besides, everyone and their mother will bring a cheap bottle of red to a holiday party; why not dare to be a little different–and in turn impress the daylights out of everyone else at the party–and show up with an intriguing craft brew, and the knowledge to back its pairing up?

The Gentlemen at beeradvocate.com were kind enough to compile a list of beer suggestions which perfectly augment each course of a holiday meal; here are a few of their suggestions,

For the Apéritif (before dinner) course, they suggest not burning the palates out early, but sticking to a light-bodied Pilsner or Lager. Think: Brooklyn Lager or Pilsner, Otter Creek Vermont Lager, Sam Adams Boston Lager, Victory Prima Pils, etc.

For the Hors d’oeuvre Hour, the Alström Bros suggest you,

Kick things up a notch with a moderate level of hops. The hoppy characters in Pale Ales will pair nicely with salads, a slew of cheese varieties, fruits, and many hors d’oeuvres, without overwhelming any flavors. But don’t go too bitter. 

Try Anchor Liberty Ale, Smuttynose Shoal’s Pale Ale, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Three Floyds Alpha King Pale Ale.

For the main course, which will undoubtedly feature some kind of poultry (or tofurkey!), stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, etc., try a higher alcohol Belgian-style brew, such as Allagash Grand Cru, Avery Salvation, Russian River Damnation, Ommegang Rare Vos. The alcohol in these beers will cut through the fat & starch common in this course of the meal, and will add nice sweet notes, which might be otherwise missing in this round. Or,

Another recommendation is to reintroduce more Pilsners and Lagers, as they will not only act as a palate cleanser in-between bites, but their lightness and spicy tones complement poultry and the contrast with gravies and stuffing is often welcome.

Finally, dessert! Not only the best course of the evening, in my opinion, but also one of the most fun to pair up. Big, hearty stouts & porters are often the best to try during this round. Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout, Founders Breakfast Stout or Kentucky Breakfast Stout, Great Divide Yeti Imperial Stout or Oak Aged Yeti, and Stone Russian Imperial Stout all work well. But be warned,

…the last thing you want to do is kill a beer with a pairing that is too sweet, so ensure that your beers are sweeter than your desserts.

These of course are not the only options for beer & food pairings — and half the fun of the pairing is in the experimentation – they’re merely suggestions. But what do you do if you can only bring one beer with you to the party? Oliver suggests,

Biere de garde is brilliant with turkey. And not just with the turkey – it is also brilliant with the turnips, the stuffing, the cranberry sauce, the potatoes, the whole darned thing. Biere de garde is the Thanksgiving beer. My sommelier friends rack their brains every year, trying to answer the constant nagging question everyone asks them – what wine is good with turkey? The answer, or course, is not wine but beer.

While I admittedly know very little about Biere de Garde, I certainly hope these suggestions have got your mind spinning and will help improve your otherwise mundane, wine-filled holiday meals (I know I’m excited to try some things out this Thursday). As un-original as it may be, I have to end this post the way the the Alström Brothers of BA fame ended their article, with a 16th century English proverb:

Wine is but single broth, ale is meat, drink and cloth.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

My friends at the Alaskan Brewing Co. have alerted me to the fact that they will offer a limited release of their award-winning Alaskan Barley Wine in 22-ounce bottles for the first time ever in January 2008. According to a press release from the brewery,

Alaskan Barley Wine is produced in small batches each year. Typically this higher alcohol beverage is brewed in the spring, cellared in the tunnels of the Alaska-Juneau Gold Mine for the summer and retrieved in time for its release at the Great Alaska Beer and Barley Wine Festival in January. The cool tunnels of the mine shaft provide natural refrigeration and a prime environment for the aging process.

Like a fine wine, Alaskan Barley Wine can be aged for years. The bottling of the 2007 vintage of Alaskan Barley Wine will allow individuals to age it to their liking.

Alaskan Barley Wine will be available in select retail locations in Alaska, Washington and Oregon. For those who live elsewhere, it will be available online at www.liquidsolutions.biz. Click to read the rest of the press release.