TRY THE FREE 6 PACK NEWSLETTER HERE

What’s up, beer geek! This is The Beer Scholar 6-Pack weekly newsletter, a short clean email featuring 6 bulleted links with brief descriptions for each.

Howdy beer geek! I finally finished recording all 56 lessons for the Keeping & Serving part of the online CC course (covering the US, Canadian, UK, & International syllabi). The Intro, Beer Flavor & Evaluation, and Beer Ingredients & Brewing sections are done. In total it's over 200 lessons already. Phew! Now on to the Food Pairing and Tasting Exam lessons. The whole thing is getting much closer to completion and I’m stoked. It's a real beast of a project. 

As for fun stuff, last weekend I put on my cowboy boots and went to a rodeo in a small Oregon town called Philomath and this weekend I'm heading down to Ashland, OR to visit some old beer geek friends and see a queer musical play called Revenge Song that sounds real whacky. Summer has finally landed!

Beer of the Week: I keep coming back to Understudy ESB, a Strong Bitter collab by Ex Novo Brewing & Old Standby Brewing here in Oregon. Maybe it's because I just shot a ton of lessons on Real Ale. 🤷🏼‍♂️ It's a great summer crusher and worth snagging if you happen to see it.

As always, here are 6 dope links for your Friday 6 Pack. Enjoy.

TBS 6-Pack

ADVICE ON PAIRING BEER & SEAFOOD

Salinity & Suds: Pairing Beer with Seafood by Michael Harlan Turkey for Craft Beer dot com. Check out some great (and refreshingly specific) advice for pairing beer with all variety of fresh oysters, fried oysters, sashimi, sushi rolls, shrimp, and crab. While the seafood and beer featured in this article are from the US east coast, the pairing concepts would be fun to experiment with no matter where you live. Oysters and sour ales! 

IS THERE A SINGLE GREAT RTD COCKTAIL ON THE MARKET? SERIOUSLY, I'M ASKING.

Canned Cocktails Are Everywhere. Too Bad They’re Mostly Terrible by Amy McCarthy for Eater. I keep trying canned “ready-to-drink” cocktails and I keep being disappointed. Have you found a great one? Delish cocktails are SO EASY to make in large batches at home to be put in a thermos and taken to go. They’re universally better and cheaper than canned versions, plus you’re contributing something meaningful to the hangout session. Just sayin'.

EASIER MASHING FOR VERY HIGH GRAVITIES

New Briess malt product + mash technique allows for SUPER stiff mashing. When doing massive brews I’ve usually had to add extract to my boil to bump the gravity up because my mash tun isn't big enough. This pre-milled and dehusked malt product from Briess called “MaltGems” seems like an interesting alternative. It’s basically pure barley endosperm. Briess did a 6 lbs grain / 1 gallon water mash with it, which is a bonkers liquor to grist ratio. They claim you can easily bump your max grist input and gravity by 20% with it. Sounds cool and it’s way cheaper than a bunch of extract!

NA BEER MAKING METHODS

Non-alcoholic beer production methods for BrewsNews out of Australia. This led me to look up some NA brewing related things that I’d never heard of. NA brewing has advanced from the common vacuum distillation method. Now there are mashing techniques brewers can combine with ferments by new yeast strains that don’t make almost any alcohol (like this one from Escarpment Labs). There are minerals called zeolites that’ll suck the alcohol right out of the beer. Fascinating stuff even if you want booze in your booze. 

MONSTER TRUCK ZEN

Monster Jam World Finals XXI WINNING FREESTYLE 05/22/2022 on YouTube. I’m not a monster truck fan (who is?) but this is legitimately 4 minutes of zen/insanity/mad skillz at something ridiculous. I mean, the truck literally does a cartwheel. Also, the joy of the screaming fans. I love this video at the same time I’m trying to figure out why this entire activity exists at all.

THROW DOWN YOUR HEART 🪕

Let’s keep it country. I love the banjo. It originated as an African gourd instrument. It was brought to the US by African slaves long before the modern banjo became associated with blackface minstrel acts, then white "hillbilly" culture, then bluegrass, folk, and country music (a very typical appropriation story). Bela Fleck is one of the greatest banjo players of all time. In 2008 he released Throw Down Your Heart, a documentary for which he traveled to several African countries to jam with local master musicians and learn about the origin of the banjo. The soundtrack is wonderful and won a bunch of Grammys. I ran across Throw Down Your Heart on YouTube (but it’s only 360p), it’s worth a watch and a listen. Here’s a YouTube playlist of the music from Throw Down Your Heart, skip to track 11 for the in-the-field recordings from Africa. I’m way out of practice, but once upon a time the most complex banjo tune I ever learned to play was Reverie (YouTube), one of my fave little Bela Fleck solo pieces. 
 

Have a lovely weekend, y'all!

Chris