I got this bit of important news in the email this morning from reader Todd R. in the Syracuse area:

A while back you e-mailed me asking for details on the CNY brewfest. This info was on the Syracuse.com web site this morning:

CNY Brewfest

The 11th annual Central New York Brewfest, held each year the day before the Super Bowl, rolls into the state fairgrounds on Feb. 3. Tasting is in two sessions, 1 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 9 p.m. The fest is again at the Horticulture Building.

Tickets are $20 in advance or $25 at the door. Call 471-6588 for more information.

If anyone has more information, let us know. I will see what I can find out.

I love a good sensible idea. When you think about it, a little more preventative reminding could actually save lives:

Eager to combat drunken driving during the holidays, police are distributing pint glasses embossed with the logo of the Bennington Police Department to bars and restaurants. About 160 of the glasses, manufactured by Catamount Glass and donated to the department, are being given away in hopes that those using them will think twice about getting behind the wheel if they've had too many. "It should give awareness to people and make them pay attention a little more," said T.J. Carmody, owner of Carmody's restaurant, which got three cases of the glasses last week. "We're not telling people they can't have a good time, just to be more responsible."

Here is the story on the Bennington Police Department's own website where I...errr...borrowed the image above showing (l. to r.) program participants Lt. Paul Doucette, T.J. Carmondy, Adam Volpi. We've been in Bennington Vt a few times this year driving from Albany to Maine. A great town.

With just a handful of days in 2006 left, it is time to consider the year and what it has brought to us all in the way of things beery.

I do have some idea as to my favorite new shop, the most interesting new beer and the favorite book - but what have your surprises been? What festival was the one you remember, what beer has been added to the fridge and what one has dropped off your weekly grocery list?

OK - so the issues are being worked out. And I had one Doggie Claws last night and it was infanticide, loverly but really under carbonated and cloudy. It struck me like a homebrew that I popped at two weeks rather than waiting for five to pass before I invaded its space. As a result, we are going to work on a little experiment. In the lower box are 18 Doggie Claws under the drywall board which are under 12 Freds which is under drywall boards which are under 8 litres of water. So all in all there is about 30 pounds of weight on the lower beer and 20 on the upper. That should assist in keeping the caps in place and the seals secure.

Aside from those hibernating 30 beer, there are still seven Doggie Claw left without the weights and, after a little sharing and a little more tasting, the Fred has six unweighted bottles left some of which have very low fill lines. The best of these remaining bottles may get a wax seal to see if that can increase the carbonation or at least stop air getting in and spoiling the brew.

Click for a bigger view.

This may turn out to be an epic. It may end in tears. Whatever it is you can click on each picture for a bigger image.

In the early fall - actually on September 28th 2006 just after noon - I jumped into my first LCBO private order, two cases from Hair of the Dog brewery in Portland Oregon being organized by the excellent gents, those Bar Towellers out of Toronto. I faxed through my deposit of $51.60 CND on a total order of $197.96 CND. I ordered one each of Doggie Claws and Fred, two 10% or so barley wines from one of North America's top boutique brewers. I had a Fred when I was at Volo earlier this year. And then I waited. And waited.

Around the first of December, the order came into Toronto, I paid the balance and waited for it to make its way 220 km or so east to Kingston. Then there were rumours of issues with the capping. Excellent, I thought - bottle variation. The curse of decent wine. Jon Walker, a Bar Toweller, noted:

This thread worries me. As a result I went in to check on my stash of HOTD and indeed many of the caps are not fully crimped onto the bottles. Most flair at their base and do not fully grip the lip of the bottle. I was actually able to press up on one with my thumb and get the gas to release in the "PPST" common to uncapping. What do I do know? I don't have a capper to close the caps properly (if they actually CAN be sealed, perhaps they are the wrong size???). I've got just shy of 70 bottles left and I'm loathe to believe I might lose some to oxidation due to loose caps.

The cases showed today, 21 December 2006, about 12 weeks after they were ordered which is really not that bad seeing as I think the beer was still in the tanks when the order was originally placed. But there was an obvious problem from one look at the case of Fred that seemed to echo Jon's words above.

When I got home I decided to have a look inside and what I found was not pretty. The inside of the box was soaked. Ten bottles were seriously uncapped with significant beer loss with mostly empty necks like above at the right. In addition, twelve were showing little beer loss and two showed some promise. All were irregularly capped in the same way. Some caps show some rubbing and wear like there was a mechanical issue when they were put on.

It looked as though it was shipped upside down as there is plenty of yeast in the necks and a fair amount of beery sneakery out from underneath the caps. No violence to the box, just seeping. This may actually be a short term saving grace. The smell is also rich and clean, not sour like a bar on Sunday morning. I will have to have one. I am a little depressed, a little pissed off and a little curious. I have not even looked at the box of Doggie Claws.

Much to my surprise, the beer, picked from the worst group of ten, opens with a loud Pfffft!! The yeast had created a seal inside as you can see below to the right and it pours with a huge head. It is huge and lovely and lively. Hallelujah! Christmas is saved. Christmas is saved. And the Doggie Claws show no sign of leakage at all with the same location of the irregular capping as the Fred but with a lot less severity.

So it will likely be a crap shoot one a bottle by bottle basis but if that yeast cakes up it may last throughout the holidays at least. "Pour slowly to allow sediment to remain in the bottle" it says on the back. What can you do? That yeast is my best friend right about now, the life in the ale securing what the dim-witted capped and shippers could not. I would hope the legal saying "buyer beware" is popping into readers' minds right about now.

J'accuse!

My kind sponsors at Worthington's White Shield have a fascinating contest going on right now:

Worthington White Shield has have launched a national search together with the Campaign for Real Ale to find Britain's oldest bottle of beer. The owner of Britain's oldest unopened bottle of beer will be invited to the White Shield Brewery in Burton upon Trent to brew their very own vintage.

The find includes many vintages, including Worthington's White Shield, one of Britain's oldest bottle conditioned ales and 2006 CAMRA Champion Bottle Conditioned Beer of Britain. Other commemorative ales brewed to celebrate royal marriages, visits or births were also found with the oldest being an 1869 Harry Ratcliff's Ale - to mark the birth of a son into the Ratcliff family, brewers who eventually became part of the Bass, Ratcliff & Gretton empire in the late 19th century.

Dr George Philliskirk, beer expert and Chief Executive of the Beer Academy comments: "This discovery is remarkable, especially as the oldest beer of all dates back to 1869 and tastes so fresh, and with such attractive ripe plum and honeyed flavours. This demonstrates the potential for vintage beers to be taken seriously - maybe even being worthy of a special section in wine lists at Britain's top restaurants."

It is also interesting to note that White Shield won CAMRA's gold in the 2006 awards for bottled conditioned beer, beating out Hen's Tooth, itself a very fine ale. With any luck my kind sponsors will forward me a sample as this continent's prime fault seems to be a lack of Worthington's White Shield, a beer that I have wanted to try for decades ever since I read - in David Line's classic 1970s home brewing text Brewing Beers Like Those You Buy - that it was then one of the few naturally conditioned bottled beers still being brewed in the UK with an unblemished tradition. Like those bottled found in that cellar, it seems to have snuck through the decades giving drinkers a peek at what was enjoyed by the Victorians and before.

Let us know if you have had a White Shield and also about the oldest beer in your cellar.

Sometimes when you review the news about beer and law you are struck with how simple some of the obstacles to success are. Usually we focus on the multiple layers of taxation or the rules on where you can have a beer - my favorite repeal being the one in Nova Scotia until the 1980s that forbid you from having a beer on your front porch or lawn. But this lobbying effort in Texas set of 2007 seems so obviously reasonable that you wonder why it even has to be made:

Texas' five microbreweries have teamed up to lobby the Legislature next year to make their beer more available to the consumer and ensure the survival of their businesses. They want the same privilege that lawmakers gave to Texas wineries in 2005: selling directly to consumers where the beverage is made. If they get their wish, the breweries would be able to sell up to 5,000 barrels of their lagers and ales a year, such as at the end of tours or keg sales from their docks. "It would be so great at the end of a brewery tour to sell them a six-pack," said St. Arnold Brewing Co. founder Brock Wagner. The Saturday tours of St. Arnold's Houston brewery routinely draw 100 to 200 people.