Daily Beer Digest - 04.07.2011

Today is National Beer Day, celebrating the 77th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition.

Tammy Tuck has a great piece on what's helping DC's beer scene thrive--the fact that any beer a retailer can obtain, there is a legal way for it to be sold in the District.

Surly's expansion plans moved a step forward yesterday as the relevant Minnesota Senate Committee voted to move the bill forward.

Daily Beer Digest - 03.30.2011

Click here to vote in Round 4 of the Washington Post's 2011 Beer Madness.

Great Divide is pulling out of a large number of states, including Michigan, DC, and much of Virginia. Luckily, it looks like Northern Virginia customers will still have access to Great Divide through Hop & Wine, so DC is mostly in the clear as well. Musings Over a Pint has a post on Great Divide's back-and-forth history in Virginia.

In other distribution news, Shelton Brothers is pulling out of Indiana, meaning the Hoosier state will no longer receive beer from Cantillon, Mikkeller, Struise, and others. See the report from Hoosier Beer Geek. This is yet another setback for Indiana, which also recently lost Dogfish Head.

De Struise released a small number of bottles of Double Black, a massive 26% iced version of Cuvee Delphine, early this morning, around 5:00 AM EDT. The bottles sold out in a little over an hour, even with a hefty price tag. Here's the Beer Advocate discussion on the topic. Thankfully, rumor has it that the next batch will be out soon and released in 33cl bottles as opposed to this release, which was in 750ml bottles.

The tax relief bill for small brewers has been introduced in the House and Senate.

Based on a tweet from FiftyFifty (Twitter), it looks like this year's Eclipse versions will be aged in the following barrels: Buffalo Trace (new), Elijah Craig (was previously done in 2009), Four Roses (previously done in 2010), and Rittenhouse Rye (new). The brewery also put up a separate webpage devoted to Eclipse, which announces that Futures for this year's batch will be available on April 15.

New information on the status of Discovery's Brewmasters TV show came to light today, as Anthony Bourdain tweeted that Big Beer had nixed the program by threatening to pull their advertising. The revelation sparked quite a bit of discussion on Beer Advocate.

Daily Beer Digest - 03.29.2011

It looks like the proposed Maryland legislation to allow some alcohol shipping is moving forward; however, the bad news is that the language still only includes wine. Thanks to Beer in Baltimore for the tip.

Daily Beer Digest - 03.17.2011

It's St. Patrick's day and there seems to be plenty of debate over green beer and whether it's necessary to have Irish styles today. I plan on taking a middle-of-the-road approach with some GREEN Flash West Coast IPA.

On the heels of several announcements about Dark Lord Day, Three Floyds issued a "State of the Brewery" letter last night.

There continue to be an absolutely ridiculous number of threads on Beer Advocate about Founders KBS. For example, see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. I think you get the point.

The BEER Act of 2011, which would reduce the taxes paid by small breweries and raise the production cap to be considered a small brewer, continues to pick up co-sponsors in the Senate.

cmstaten posted some very interesting links on cellaring conditions and evolving flavor profiles on Beer Advocate. The linked information comes from Stone's own Mitch Steele and Dr. Bill.

Dark Lord Day tickets will go on sale Saturday March 19 at 1 PM (see #4). I assume this is Central.

You can now vote in Round 2 of the Washington Post's Beer Madness 2011 bracket. Commentary on Round 1 can be found here.

DC Brau (@dcbrau) got its certificate of operation today, meaning that DC is even closer to finally having a production brewery.