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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
		Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator


Contents:
  Brew Pubs in the immediate Quake zone (Don't matter HOW I'm drawn...I'm bad)
  Gluing your labels (Scott Renner)
  Re: Bud and Busch Differences (Bruce Buck - Sun ECD Hardware)
  Re: Label Glues (garth!apd!phipps)
  Re: Results of GABF (Chuck Cox)


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Date: Tue, 31 Oct 89 07:19:52 CST
From: jmellby at ngstl1.csc.ti.com (Don't matter HOW I'm drawn...I'm bad)
Subject: Brew Pubs in the immediate Quake zone

From:	FLOPN2::PANZER   "The drive-in will never die" 27-OCT-1989 13:32:23.65
To:	JOHN
Subj:	FOR POSTING
           
        California Brew pubs and the earthquake
           
           I gave a report on four brewpubs I visited in the Monterey 
        area in a previous issue of this newsletter. Unfortunately, they 
        were all located within an hour's drive of the epicenter of what 
        is now being called the "The Quake of '89". Out of concern and 
        curiosity, I checked back with those brew pubs a few days after 
        the quake to see how they fared. The cities where the brew pubs 
        resided are now probably more familiar to you after all the 
        coverage.
        
           First I checked on the Monterey Brewing at 638 Wave St in the 
        Cannery Row district of Monterey. It is a small stand-alone wood 
        frame building surrounded by two and three story brick buildings 
        and featured a pale ale, amber and porter, all very good. Nancy 
        Sawyers, the business manager told me that she was at her desk in 
        the office, surrounded by tall stacks of beer cases, when the 
        tremors started. She dove under her desk as the quake caused some 
        glass breakage and caused the cigarette machine to dance about 
        three feet away from where it started. In the brew house, the 
        kettles moved some but were not rocked off their mountings. The 
        pub was open for business on the Friday after the quake. The rest 
        of the cannery row district in Monterey apparently suffered 
        relatively minor damage.
        
           Santa Cruz, an hour+ North of Monterey was hit much harder 
        than many surrounding cities. I had visited Santa Cruz Brewing's 
        Front Street pub at 516 Front Street. It featured Lighthouse 
        Lager, Lighthouse Amber, and Pacific Porter. I only got a second 
        hand report that the pub, a part of the badly damaged downtown 
        mall area, will be out of action for at least a period of months.
        
           Nearby was the Sea Bright Brewing Company at 519 Sea Bright. 
        This was a more modern type of bar that featured Pelican Ale, Sea 
        Bright Amber, Batman's Best Bitter, and Kangaroo Pale Ale. They 
        currently (note the word currently) have a different selection of 
        specialty beers, namely Serious Stout, Painless Pale Ale and an 
        Oktoberfest beer. The pub is in a newer building and hardly 
        cracked any walls. The bulk of the damage came from 20 broken 
        pint glasses. In the brewery area, a couple of valves broke as 
        the brew kettles moved over a little. Due to their weight, the 
        kettles were reconnected right where they ended up. The bar keep 
        I spoke to was driving to work when the quake hit. He said his 
        first indication was a jolt he felt in the car and then the 
        traffic light in front of him crashed to the street.
        
           Meanwhile, San Andreas Brewing at 737 San Benito St in 
        Hollister, was almost on top of the epicenter and the pub and 
        their brews were aptly named. They had Earthquake Pale Ale, 
        Seismic Ale, Earthquake Porter, Kit Fox Amber, and a Cherry Ale. 
           I talked with John Williams, a bar tender and told me that 
        when the quake started, there were only 3 employees and an older 
        woman in the place (it was just before the dinner hour). The 
        older woman was in the WC and, well, let's just say she was not a 
        happy camper. The staff looked for cover as a lot of glassware 
        and some plaster began falling and the tables and chairs started 
        dancing with each other. The big brew kettle shifted back and 
        forth on the mountings but did not fall. 
           By Friday, power, phones and water were back and the city 
        water was not yet potable. While they reopened at the same time 
        as the Monterey brew pub, the neighborhood around them was losing 
        a number of older buildings to the wrecking ball. Next time 
        you're there, it might be less uncouth to simply ask for a porter 
        rather than an EARTHQUAKE porter.        
        
           Even if you don't know anybody out there, it's odd the way 
        such events can affect you after all. At least 3 of 4 brew pubs 
        are still going and are subject to patronage.
        
           Roy Mengot
           Plano, 462-8768 PANZER at FLOPN2.CSC.TI.COM

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Date: Tue, 31 Oct 89 08:34:43 -0600
From: Scott Renner <renner at cs.uiuc.edu>
Subject: Gluing your labels

I simply mix one part cheap white glue with two parts water.  I just dunk
the entire label in this mix, then smooth it onto the bottle.  It's fast,
cheap, easy, and the labels stay on (almost all the time) right up until
you put the bottles in water to clean them.  Then the white glue dissolves
and the label just falls off -- no scraping or scrubbing required.
============
Scott Renner 					USENET: pur-ee!uiucdcs!renner
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign      ARPA:   renner at cs.uiuc.edu

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Date: Tue, 31 Oct 89 11:38:08 EST
From: bbuck at East.Sun.COM (Bruce Buck - Sun ECD Hardware)
Subject: Re: Bud and Busch Differences

"MR. DAVID HABERMAN" writes:
   I also learned that the difference between the "Bud" class beers and 
   the "Busch" class beers is that one uses rice as an adjunct and the other
   uses corn.

I thought the party line from Anheuser-Busch was that Busch, Bud and Michelob
all use rice as adjuncts.  The difference is that Busch uses domestic hops,
Bud uses a mix of domestic and imported hops and Michelob uses only imported
hops.  They never actually state the specific varieties of hops used.  I sure
can't detect them anyway.

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Date: Tue, 31 Oct 89 14:01:20 pst
From: hplabs!garth!apd!phipps
Subject: Re: Label Glues

>meyer at tcville.hac.com (Mike Meyer) wrote:
>
>These days I only use labels for display purposes, 
>preferring to spend my time brewing rather than scraping.

Indeed.  Getting the original labels off is enough of a hassle;
I certainly don't want my own labels to recreate that hassle for me.

I would probably want to use whatever Felinfoel (a Welsh brewery)
or Anchor uses to glue their labels, which are composed of paper.
Simply soaking them in water for a few days allows them to *fall* off -- 
no scraping required, although I wipe once across the formerly labelled 
part of the bottle with my hand, just to remove residue, then rinse and dry
(Unfortunately, San Jose water, which in my part of town is drawn from wells,
may have rather interesting label glue solvents in it that other people
on this mailing-list can't get for free -- Santa Clara County contains
more SuperFund toxic waste sites than any other county in the U.S..
The City of San Jose assures me that my water is safe, but I digress :-(.

A big unused ice-chest works nicely as a place to soak bottle labels.
Surprisingly, an in-use ice-chest seems to work even better.
I have noticed that the labels will fall off bottles after being kept 
in an ice chest with lots of ice-melt) for a few days -- even obnoxious 
foil labels (e.g.: EKU).  Any explanations from chemists out there ?

>I use [mucilage], which applys pretty easy from the rubber tipped bottle, 
>and is water soluable.  

I may give that a try.

>My roommate used to use 3M industrial spray glue, 
>which is not so easy to get off again.  

And therefore disqualified.

>Jason Goldman <hp-lsd!jdg> wrote:
>
>An artist friend [...] has designed a series of labels for my beer [...,] 
>which I was copying onto 8 1/2 " x 11 " label stock 
>that I got at an office supply store.  
>I've used two different brands of label stock (Dennon [too sticky] and 
>another brand [paper too thick]) which I haven't been real happy with.  

I suspect that office-supply labels are designed to be difficult to remove,
which is a design goal incompatible with homebrewing.  Disqualified.

>I'm moving into color labels soon and was thinking of using rubber cement 
>to fasten the label to the bottle.

I have used rubber cement to hold labels on copier paper to a clean bottle.
Although it was messy to apply, it worked fine for a while.  After a couple
of years, though, the labels fell off, which I suspect resulted from
the glue drying out, then the label returning to its original flat shape,
which fits a cylindrical bottle poorly.

>I think that I will try the glue sticks instead.  

Another thing on my list of things to try.

I will be touring the Anchor Brewery in about a week, so if they are 
willing to tell me what glue they use, I'll let this mailing-list know.

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Date: Tue, 31 Oct 89 14:12:40 EST
From: chuck%bose at uunet.UU.NET (Chuck Cox)
Subject: Re: Results of GABF

In response to Bruce Buck's questions about the Great American Beer Festival:

Bud Dry is a new beer being test marketed in certain regions of the country.
Yes, it is different from Michelob Dry.
When pressed for technical details about the difference between the two
dry beers, the A-B representative said Bud Dry was for the 'upscale market'.
I assume that Michelob Dry must be for the 'downscale market'.

Anheuser Maerzen was at the GABF too.
It is just about what you would expect from Anheuser-Busch,
a watered-down bland imitation of a maerzen.
I wouldn't go out of my way to try it.

As for Bud, Miller, Coors, et. al. winning in the 'American Pilsner'
categories.  I would call them good examples of a lousy style.
'American Pilsner' is a polite way of making sure that Millerweiser
gets a chance to win a medal and sparing them the embarassment of competing
against legitimate pilsener beers.

As far as I can recall (and my recall is terrible after attending
several beer festivals) Little Kings have taken gold in the 'cream ale'
category every year for at least the last five years.

I think the people who contract Pecan Street Lager said it best,
"Beer: if you can't taste it, why bother?"

- Chuck Cox - certified national beer judge & all-around great guy

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End of HOMEBREW Digest #293, 11/01/89

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