DRAFT Magazine

If you haven’t already had the pleasure, they’ll be plenty of time to get yourself over to the Brazen Head. One of Brooklyn’s finest institutions and home to the renowned Cask Ale Festival has just renewed their lease for 10 long, ale-filled years in their NYC locale. They will be celebrating as only the Head can, with the happiest of happy hours this Friday, March 12th, 2010.

This bash will be underway from 4 p.m. to 4 in the wee hours of the a.m., so there’s really no excuse to miss this celebration. The Dysfunctional Family Jazz Band will perform on this hallowed day from 9 p.m. to midnight, and the bar is offering their loyal followers to attend with no cover charge and no drink minimum to attend.

DRAFTMag.com enthusiasts may already have had the pleasure of reading about our dealings with the Brazen Head, and now you’ll have roughly 30 more of the popular tri-annual Cask Ale Festivals to look forward to. These unique festivals feature cask ale, which is not artificially carbonated and has a tendency to maintain a much more unique flavor profile and personality. These ales aren’t housed in those familiar pressurized steel drums with their shiny tap lines and their newfangled carbonation, but rather in modern versions of their wooden barrel predecessors. It is unfiltered and unpasteurized. It is, in short, the real thing. All ale.

To another 10 years of good Head… we can all drink to that.

– Mariah Beckman

Philly Beer Week has been hijacked by a bunch of rouge leprechauns who are holding your weekend hostage unless you can deliver yourself, fully lit, home late Sunday night after the most raucous three-days of the new year. And if you don’t meet their demands? Well then you’ll just have to answer to them come June when they’ll be waiting with several thuggish-looking gents (likely gnomes, because of the company leprechauns are forced to keep) who will demand to know just where were you on the night of Friday, March 12th.

But seriously, folks, Philly Beer Week has changed dates: It will not be held in March, as was the wildly popular Beer Week of 2009, but rather June 4-13th, 2010. However, because the folks in Philly know you won’t stand for this, America’s Best Beer Drinking City will offer you three days of a scaled down version of the fest in June. A teaser, if you will.

“Many participants just couldn’t wait until June, so we’ve coordinated this special one-year anniversary event to commemorate all the fun we were having at this time last year and tide us over until this summer’s celebration,” says PBW founder and noted beer columnist and author Don “Joe Sixpack” Russell. “It’s our little tribute to PBW 2009 and a great excuse to enjoy some great beer here in America’s best beer-drinking city while we anxiously await the Opening Tap of PBW 2010.”

Some event highlights include a beer menu at the City Tavern celebrating Ales of the Revolution from Yard Brewing all weekend, and Yard brews will also be participating in Firkin Friday at the Good Dog Bar. There will be a Pour-Your-Own Guinness tutorial and contest at O’Neal’s, several other beer dinners throughout the weekend (including the Sixth Annual Brewer’s Plate, which, in addition to being delicious, is also to the charitable benefit of Fair Food Farmstand farmer’s market). The First Annual Craft Brew Express, which will run from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. will chauffeur riders to and fro, while beer ambassadors from the eight breweries featured on the tour and will feature themed tastings and events all day as part of Philly Beer Weekend. Oh, and leprechauns. Don’t forget about the leprechauns.

– Mariah Beckman

Bet you didn’t know today was Iceland Beer Day, now did you? Well we did, because it’s our job to keep you informed of these things.

Twenty-one years ago, the country abolished a 74-year prohibition. People, as they are wont to do, celebrated. Apparently, it was epic.

“I remember a lot of drinking and a lot of pissing all night long and the next days, and it [was] not stopping,” Ölstofan bar owner Kormákur Geirharðsson told The Reykjavik Grapevine. “This was the day Icelanders took the step to try to become civilized. Ölstofan was not open then, but the idea of owning a bar started there.”

And look, there are pictures on the Internet. Of course there are pictures on the Internet.

On February 27th, Avery Brewing Co. is holding its inaugural Sour Fest. You may want to mark your calendars for tomorrow at 8 a.m. MST, however, since that’s precisely when tickets go on sale. For $35, you’ll get 20 two-ounce tasters.

Participating breweries include the following knock-down, drag-out list: Allagash, Avery, Ballast Point, Boulevard, Cambridge, Cascade, Deschutes, Dogfish Head, Dry Dock, Elysian, Golden City Brewery, Great Divide, Green Flash, Jackie O’s Brewpub, Jolly Pumpkin, Left Hand, Mountain Sun, New Belgium, New Holland, Nodding Head, Odell, Ommegang, Oskar Blues, Russian River, Sam Adams, Ska Brewing, The Bruery, The Lost Abbey, The Pumphouse Brewery, Trinity Brewing, Two Brothers Brewing, Valley Brewing, Victory, Weyerbacher, and Yak & Yeti.

Nothing sour about that selection.

When Sweetwater Brewing Co. isn’t taking over our Question of the Week, it’s putting on some sweet (pun intended) events. Details, please:

We invited 75 special guests to roll up their sleeves, channel their inner brewer, and create a one of a kind cask! Enjoy a plethora of Real Ale created by our Retailers, a few Celebrities, some Media Folks, Home Brewers & our favorite Charities under the watchful eye of SweetWater brewers

DRAFT will be participating — brewing up Date Balls Ale, a dark American Ale with brown sugar, dates, pecans, and cardamom flavors — so come on down and support us. We’ll need all the help we can get.

Those impish scamps at Rogue are doing it again — making it hard for anyone else to compete. They took home four gold medals at this year’s 2009-2010 World Beverage Competition. Of the six entries the veteran brewery brought to the table, four sprits from their distillery won a medal: Dead Guy Whiskey, Dark Gin, Hazelnut Rum, and Spruce Rum.

Rogue Spirits was the most decorated distillery at the Word’s Largest Beverage Competition. Judges from six continents tasted brews, beverages, spirits, wines, and even energy drinks in a double-blind test to determine the best refreshments the world over. Rogue beat out competitors including Tangueray and Bacardi using their tried-and-true artisan distilling methods and copper pot stills.

Let’s just hope that Rogue continues to use it’s powers of spirits dominance for good… and that is doesn’t neglect all those awesome, award-winning brews on the shelf, either. Keep ‘em coming, Rogue.

– Mariah Beckman

Finally, a Facebook cause we can get excited about. (Doppelgangers? We’d rather not.) We received an email yesterday about a movement to start National Beer Day on April 7th.

In 1933 during the prohibition era, the Cullen-Harrison Act was signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt on March 23rd. That law was enacted on April 7th allowing the brewing and sale of beer in the United States again as long as it was <3.2 percent (4 percent ABV). It’s said that people waited in line overnight on April 6th outside Milwaukee breweries in order to legally buy beer for the first time in over 13 years. Henceforth April 7th will be known as National Beer Day and April 6th will be called New Beers Eve. So this April, tell all your friends about this glorious new holiday, and raise a glass, bottle, can, or mug to the deliciousness that is beer.

Take that, Iceland. We’ll see your March 1 National Beer Day and raise you a 36 days. And let’s not even talk about Britain, which can’t get its act together to create one. America rocks.

One of our favorite beer festivals that’s named for a part of the brewing process (how’s that for an endorsement?) is back. On February 13, Zwickelmania returns for a second year with more Oregon breweries, tastings, and food pairings.

“Last year we had more than 10,000 visitors from across the state participate in Zwickelmania,” Oregon Brewers Guild executive director Brian Butenschoen said in a release. “This year we have extended the hours to make the experience more enjoyable and allow participants to experience more breweries.”

Get you zwickel on?