I thought to myself I could do that! And started Beer Utopia on St. Patrick’s Day 2008 with some help from my friend Eric Britt.

From there we moved to the kitchen of our house and had my wife Heather Collins (www.girlphotog.com) help with shooting. See she has shot for History Channel, A&E and the like so this would be easy.

By episode #3 we had 2 sponsors and a co-host.

Episode #6 we moved out on the deck

That review of Flying Dog got the attention of Neal Stewart(@NealStewart on Twitter) then the marketing director for Flying Dog and we had a real beer sponsor.

Episode 16 and we had a fancy open and graphics thanks to Cliff Brannon (leapoffacliff.com) along with doing live streaming events.

Episode 21 and we were paid to stream live during the Great American Beer Fest (GABF) in Denver, CO. We were internet rock stars.

Just as we were gaining momentum the recession hit and no more sponsors, but we tried to keep going doing live streaming shows. They were fun, but we had a lot of technical difficulties.

Soon it was too time consuming and with no funds coming in I called an end to the show. In that time off Heather and I were blessed with the birth of our youngest son, James, (BTW we have 5 kids total) now 8 months old. We have tried to keep the Beer Utopia website up and current(thanks to my friend Joel Gardner that writes great posts and is our resident home brewer) while trying to figure out how to make money using web video and beer. I have not figured out a business model that works yet but we will be re launching the show soon for my love of doing it and the love of beer and hopefully the rest will fall in place.

I have recently found Top Gear and have fallen in love with this show. Now my goal is to see if I can make a Beer Show as good as Top Gear (With no budget).

Top Gear Season 12 Episode 3 – full episode

Cheers!

Brant Collins

Admiral of Ales

They call this a “convertible” jockey box because you can remove the tubing and drop a mini-keg in. That sounds cool but I’ve never seen craft beer in a mini-keg so I doubt I would ever do that. As someone noted in the comments, you could also use this as a wort chiller for homebrew, which is something I would do. You would need some kind of pump, though.

This is IPA amplified, the most evocative style of the craft beer resistance with the volume cranked off the scale. Kettle hopped, dry hopped then freeze hopped for a deep fruit, resinous and spicy aroma. A full out attack on your taste-buds ensues as the incredibly smooth liquid delivers  a crescendo of malt, sweet honey, hop oils and a torpedo of hop bitterness which lasts and lasts.

O.M.G! Excuse me while I wipe the drool from my beard. I have no idea how they got 41% ABV out of the yeast. That amount of alcohol would kill normal beer yeast; I don’t think even champagne yeast could handle it. Does freezing somehow raise the ABV? If you know, please illuminate me in the comments.

As you might imagine, a beer this big is not cheap. This freak of nature is available for sale online for £40 for a 330ml bottle. That’s about $61 for 11ozs but I imagine it is well worth it. I started to buy a bottle expecting it to block me me when I put in a US address but it did not. The total cost, however, jumped to £80. Unfortunately, $120 is too much for a bottle of beer that might get broken or lost in shipment.

This looks like a really fun brewery, kind of a cross between Flying Dog‘s irreverence and branding and Dogfish Head‘s innovative beers. They have some sort of story to go along with this IPA but it’s lost on this dumb American. There is an amusing video though.

Sink the Bismarck! from BrewDog on Vimeo.

Has anyone tried this?

From the Dogfish Head site:

Throughout the last 15 years we have brewed over 200 different off-centered ales here at Dogfish Head. A number of our beers have been based on archeological evidence or researching ancient brewing traditions. We have now made what we believe is one our most exotic and unique beer yet. Chicha is the quintessential native corn beer throughout Central and South American. Indigenous versions with local variations exist in Chile, Bolivia, Colombia and many other countries.

Beer Utopia July 4th 2009 from Station X on Vimeo.

“I Am A Craft Brewer” is a collaborative video representing the camaraderie, character and integrity of the American Craft Brewing movement. Created by Greg Koch, CEO of the Stone Brewing Co. and Chris & Jared of Redtail Media…and more than 35 amazing craft brewers from all over the country. The video was shown to a packed audience of 1700 craft brewers and industry members at the 2009 Craft Brewers Conference as an introduction to Greg’s Keynote Speech entitled “Be Remarkable: Collaboration Ethics Camaraderie Passion.” As is tradition for the CBC Keynote, a toast to the audience was offered. This time, the beers offered for the toast were all collaboratively brewed craft beers including Isabella Proximus, Collaboration Not Litigation, AleSmith/Mikkeller/Stone Belgian Style Triple, Jolly Pumpkin/Nøgne-Ø/Stone Special Holiday Ale, and 2009 Symposium Ale “Audacity of Hops.”

If this doesn’t give you goosebumps, if this doesn’t make you proud to be a craft beer lover, you don’t shout “HELL YEAH!!!” then you’re reading the wrong blog. This is exactly what we are talking about when we talk about the culture of beer.

I Am A Craft Brewer from I Am A Craft Brewer on Vimeo.

Can I get an amen, people? Cheers!

Hat tip to Brookston Beer Bulletin

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