Tickets went on sale yesterday for the 3rd annual American Craft Beer Festival. Sponsored by BeerAdvocate and Harpoon Brewery, the American Craft Beer Fest features over 325 craft beers from over 80 American brewers. The festival is held at the Seaport World Trader Center on the waterfront in Boston, Massachusetts. The ACBF is the largest annual craft beer festival on the east coast.

This year’s event will take place over two days, June 18th and 19th; tickets are $40 a piece (plus service charges) and unlike many beer festivals — including all those here in Maine — include unlimited 2 ounce pours (no drink tickets required). Be sure and get your tickets early, however, as all sessions of the ACBF will undoubtedly sell out. For more information, visit beeradvocate.com/acbf/

That’s the question. Apparently there’s a big hullabaloo about it in Twins Nation (thanks to Beernews.org for bringing it to my attention). Target Field, the will-be new home of the Minnesota Twins organization will be selling cans of Surly Brewing Co. beers at games for a whopping $10 a pop. I guess the high price point (which I assume is decided upon by the Twins organization and not necessarily Surly themselves) is causing some major drama among the Surly faithful. There’s even a poll (with lengthly follow-up comments) on the Surly Facebook Fan Page. But is it too much?

You sort of have to put it into context. While I’m not familiar with Twins games, I’ve spent a fair amount of time at Fenway Park in Boston where a cup of Coors Light is $8. If I was willing to spend that much to drink crappy beer at a ballgame — I’m not — I would happily fork over an additional $2 to drink something better. However, I have to wonder how many craft beer fans really go to major league games. And of them, are there enough willing to spend $10 to make selling Surly cans worth the Twins’ while?

I do know that the Portland Sea Dogs (the AA affiliate of the Red Sox who play their home games here in Portland) feature a “microbrew tent” at every game with many of the local craft brews, including Shipyard, Gritty’s, etc. The cups of those beers go for a reasonable $6 (I believe); only a dollar more than Bud. And the line for the “Microbrew Tent” is always 20 people deep at every game.  I would venture to bet that the Sea Dogs sell more $6 Shipyards at a home game (note that there are not more than 7,000ish people at every game, max. Most of whom are under 21) than the Twins will sell $10 Surly cans.

And Adam at Beernews.org raises a good point,

The problem with offering beer at a venue like a ballpark is that the venue can get away with price gouging which, in turn, can hurt the brand.

By the looks of the comments on the Facebook page, Surly fans are pretty, well, surly over the price point. What do you think? Would you pay $10 for a good (and believe me, if you haven’t had anything from Surly, it’s pretty damn good) beer at a ballgame? Worth it? And how much is too much?

It’s always fun to see examples of craft beer-related stories popping up in less-than-traditional mainstream media outlets. The most recent example of this was a story which appeared this month in The Atlantic Monthly of all places (or at least their website; I’m not sure if it made the print edition of the magazine or not) on Maine’s favorite boundaries-pushing brewery Allagash. The article, which describes Allagash as “The future of American craft brewing”, details their recent use of a “koelschip” and the incredible, intricate beers its producing. Says The Atlantic,

The future of American craft beer sits in a shed on the industrial outskirts of Portland, Maine. Built by the Allagash Brewing Company in 2007, the shed holds the country’s first commercial “koelschip,” a shallow, 15-barrel steel pan used to cool down beer wort–and expose the beer to naturally occurring yeasts that float in through the shed’s open stained-glass windows. The results, which are still aging in the brewery’s warehouse and could be ready for drinking early next year, will be the first American lambic produced according to the traditional methods used in Belgium, where wild-yeast fermentation is considered a national treasure.

Congratulations, of course, to Allagash for their continued varied and hugely successful media coverage and I for one cannot wait to taste what comes out of the koelschip first! Read the rest of the Atlantic piece here.

Flying Dog Ales has announced the beer they will introduce next month to celebrate their 20th anniversary. The beer, named Raging Bitch (yep, you read that right) is an Belgian-style IPA and, as usual for Flying Dog, features the fantastic artwork of Gonzo artist Ralph Steadman. According to the press release,

The beer itself, an American IPA fermented with Belgian yeast, is beautifully balanced between the Belgian fruity and citrus hop characteristics at the relatively high alcohol at 8.3% ABV.  Raging Bitch comes on the heels of Flying Dog being honored as Mid Sized Brewing Company of the Year at this year’s Great American Beer Festival Flying Dog and after winning a string of medals and honors across Europe and Asia.  “This has truly been a milestone year for Flying Dog. It is very exciting to be celebrating our 20^th Anniversary and Brewery of the Year going into 2010 with Raging Bitch,” said Kerchner.

The decision to celebrate its 20^th Anniversary with the Belgian IPA became apparent after multiple successful batches and great consumer, distributor and retailer feedback.  “Raging Bitch represents what is fun about the recipe creation process and what goes into creating high-quality craft beer.  The brewers of Flying Dog are very excited to have a beer like this to celebrate our 20^th anniversary,” says Matt Brophy, Sr. VP of Brewing Operations.

If you’re looking forward to Raging Bitch, the beer began shipping on December 8th and will be available in 6-packs and draft in beginning in January of 2010.  Plus, if you find yourself near Fredrick, MD next year, you’ll be able to pick up Raging Bitch in 750 ml limited edition hand-corked champagne bottles, which will include a numbered poster of the label design,  available for purchase at the brewery during Saturday tours.

Raging Bitch sounds like a helluva beer and I can’t wait to try it. Flying Dog has yet to disappoint for me personally and from the sound of things, they’ve outdone themselves again with this one. And happy 20th birthday, Flying Dog!

First off, I want to apologize for the lack of posts over the last 4 or 5 days. I promise I haven’t gone anywhere, I’m just working on a new WordPress theme for the blog — one which I am attempting to hand-design and hand-code all by myself, teaching myself as I go, so it’s been a bit of a… well… learning experience — but in the meantime, I want to share this cool short video profile of Seven Brides Brewing Co. which my dad sent me (thanks, Pop) this morning from the iReport page of CNN.

Seven Brides, located just outside of Portland, Oregon, is run by 3 dads and two uncles (and 7 little girls, the “brides”) who are producing 7 beers (one for each daughter) in hopes of some day making enough money to pay for each daughter’s wedding (hence the name). A pretty original marketing angle and there’s nothing like making sure the little ones understand the concept of Better Beer early! Here’s the video for your Tuesday morning viewing pleasure. And come back soon for a completely awesome new design to the blog (or to witness my complete mental breakdown, whichever comes first)!