Today’s New York Postfeatures a great profile of Garrett Oliver, brewmaster at New York’s Brooklyn Brewery. In the interview Oliver discusses a wide range of topics, including his chief responsibilities as brewmaster. He says his responsibilities are,

Basically I’m responsible for the liquid. It’s pretty much that simple. I’m responsible for all the beer from start to finish, from the time I come up with the concept ’til someone’s glass is empty. There are parts of that process that are very creative, there are parts that are scientific, parts that are engineering. So it means you don’t have any boring days, and most of them are really busy. My biggest fear when this changed from a hobby to a job was, am I going to ruin this for myself? But it’s been quite the opposite. It’s really interesting, and it has that extra edge to it because it really matters. You’re putting the beer in front of thousands and even millions of people.

Click here for the rest of the interview with Oliver, one of America’s premiere craft brewers.

Also, people of Grand Rapids - prepare to rejoice. Mark Sellers is opening his dream bar, Hopcat, on January 12th in the former Sierra Room. Click to read on.

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The newest installment of what seems like a weekly occurance now — rediculous fun new beer-related gadgets and inventions — is the Smart Beer Coaster from Redwood City, CA company Sentilla. The company, which develops “new and innovative ‘smart’ designs”, has created a beer coaster which, according to Sentilla’s website, can, 

The coasters know when a drink is placed on top of them and when it is removed.

The coasters notify each other when new things occur (a drink is placed on them, removed, etc)

The coasters provide “visual feedback” using lights embedded within them.

The coasters are wirelessly interconnected.

Sentilla reports that they are also working to further develop the coaster to be able to sense if the beverage placed on it is nearly empty and in need of a refill (you know, in case you can’t tell for yourself… umm…)

Click the YouTube video below for more on the Smart Beer Coaster. For more information, including insctructions on how to build your own smart coaster, visit the official Sentilla Blog. 

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPlyFSLCdrY[/youtube]-

According to a press release just published by Oregon’s Rogue Ales, the brewery is commemorating the decision of the Soviet Union’s President Mikhail Gorbachev that the Communist Party give up its 70-year long monopoly of political power — which happened on February 7th, 1990 – Rogue is releasing its very own Imperial Red on February 7th, 2008.

Rogue XS Imperial RedImperial Red is the newest addition to Rogue’s award winning Imperial Family of XS products that include Old Crustacean Barleywine, Imperial Stout, Imperial India Pale Ale, and Morimoto Imperial Pilsner. The Imperial Family of XS products has been awarded 59 medals for taste and packaging, and are available in 750 ml ceramic swingtop bottles and on draft.

This evening I was lucky enough to try my very first Cadillac Mountain Stout (I know, I know, I live in Maine and I’m just now getting around to it? Sorry…), the offering from the famed Bar Harbor Brewing Co. which has been consistently ranked as one of the top 50 beers in the U.S., is the top-rated American-style Stout on BeerAdvocate.com and, as described by ratebeer.com,

Earning 97 out of 100 points, this [Maine] brewed stout won the rare platinum medal at the World Beer Championships in Chicago in December 1995. Beating such world class favorites as Guinness, Sierra Nevada, Shipyard’s Bluefin and Murphy’s Irish Stout, Bar Harbor Brewing’s Cadillac Mtn. Stout was the surprise of the competition. Cadillac Mtn. Stout has come in first every year since 1995 and in 1999 was chosen one of the top 10 beers in America. Cadillac has earned the highest scores of any Maine microbrew so far, according to the Beverage Testing Institute.

Cadillac Mountain Stout is an adventure all by itself; available in bottle-conditioned 22 ounce “bombers” with a nearly 7% ABV, Cadillac Mountain Stout truly is a meal in a glass. Despite that, it goes down more smoothly than any other stout in recent memory. As a judge’s tasting notes from the 1995 World Beer Classic read, Cadillac Mountain Stout,

slides down like black velvet.

I could go on and on about the seemingly never-ending cornucopia of tastes, sights and smells of this brew but I’ll leave that to the well over 400 reviews at BA.com. Instead, for the locals: you can find Cadillac Mountain Stout, a beer Men’s Journal called the “Best hard-to-find beer in America”, in either Downeast Beverage Co. on Commercial St. in the Old Port, or Maine Beer & Beverage Co., which is located in the Public Market House in Monument Square. For only $4.50 a bomber, do yourself a favor and get one first thing tomorrow (that’s what Wednesdays are for, right?)!

Yesterday I — and 25 accomplices — hopped in the car (post-brunch at Portland’s The Good Egg) and made our way across the border to the town of Portsmouth, NH in search of some much-needed beer enlightenment. Our quest first brought us to the Smuttynose Brewery, which is located in a small warehouse hidden in an industrial park on the outskirts of town. The brewery is normally closed on Saturdays but Peter Egelston, the company’s president and founder (who also owns the famous Portsmouth Brewery and used to co-own the North Hampton Brewery with his sister, Janet), was kind enough to come in on his day off and show us around.

Peter poured samples for us all (including the company’s brand new stout, which is currently only available at the Barley Pub in nearby Dover, NH), then we all wound our way way through the very cramped brewhouse and bottling line. Smuttynose has long since outgrown the space it’s currently in, but Peter told us to expect an all-new Smuttynose Brewery — complete with restaurant, gift shop & expanded tour schedule — within the next 24 months. He wasn’t able to confirm that they would be staying in Portsmouth (due largely to zoning restrictions) but promised to stay somewhere nearby, and still on the Seacoast. The biggest piece of news, however, came when Peter promised that the new digs would be entirely “green” and would meet the highest standards of sustainability.

The Smuttynose tour was one of the best I’ve ever done; Peter took his time and really got into the details of brewing (as opposed to the more common scripted tours, done as a marketing ploy) with plenty of anecdotes and history lessons. The whole adventure wound down with plenty of pours of Shoals Pale Ale and Old Brown Dog Ale and a great time was certainly had by all.

After things wrapped up at Smuttynose, there was still one more stop to make – sorry to be leaving Peter, we all went out into the cold, piled in our cars and hit the road towards the Redhook Brewery in nearby Pease International Tradeport. The enormous Redhook brewery in Portsmouth –which was built to look just like the one located outside of Seattle — is a monument to modern brewing, no doubt about it. We were able to arrange a private tour of Redhook as well and were shown around by Redhook’s tour director Byron (a short, red-cheeked, jolly man who carried his beer in an old Dasani water bottle with him the entire time), who poured us all a big glass of Redhook’s ESB — their flagship brew — before the tour even began.This tour was much different than the Smuttynose tour, but still better than most. While there was a little less technical information, Byron had a great (if not a little drunken) sense of humor and kept everything light and quick. Before we knew it, we had breezed through the the tour (which was abbreviated since we weren’t able to see the brewery’s cellar, which was having the floors redone) and were on to the tasting room.There Byron kept everyone’s small, commemorative glass overflowing with ESB, Redhook’s Blonde Ale, Long Hammer IPA, Winterhook (their current seasonal) and Widmer Bros. Hefeweizen.

We finished off the day with a late lunch in the restaurant at Redhook, with plenty of clam chowder and pitchers of IPA (and a few glasses of Treblehook Barleywine to boot) to go around.

While I do love all the beer Portland has to offer, it was great to get out of the city and see (and TASTE) some of the fantastic beers elsewhere in New England. Many thanks to both Peter and Byron for helping us all on our paths to beer enlightenment; the day was one I’m sure none of us who were in attendance will soon forget.