On Saturday, November 14th from 6pm – 10pm at Sloss Furnaces, Free The Hops will host a unique event to benefit the Autism Society of Alabama.

Six local restaurants will be featuring a variety of fine foods and we will be expertly pairing those dishes with great craft beer. Much to the surprise of many people, beer can be the perfect compliment to a wide range of food. Saison and salad, brown ale and steak, stout and chocolate… the flavors combine to enhance your meal in ways you never knew were possible.

We in Free The Hops are proud to do an event like this which helps a very worthy charity with the added benefit of enhancing beer culture in Birmingham. So please get your tickets and come out to enjoy great food, great beer, and great music from our friends in Honeybaked. 100% of the proceeds will benefit the Austism Society of Alabama.

Check out BrewsForClues.org for details and to buy tickets.

We told you we weren’t going to stop with ABV.  While that was the original cause that inspired the formation of our organization, there are too many ridiculous beer laws on the books in this state that must be changed to bring us up to date with many other states where beer culture flourishes.

After collecting a tremendous amount of input on both the priorities of our supporters and on the political realities of 2010, and after extensive consideration and discussion, the FTH Board of Directors has decided our organization should pursue a combined agenda of Brewery and Brewpub reform next year.

This was a very difficult decision because a plurality (though not quite a majority) of you voted for “container limit” as your top priority among the remaining laws FTH intends to address.  And we all desperately want to get that limit raised as soon as possible because of the huge number of great beers that are only available in bottles larger than 16 oz.  Some breweries will continue to refuse to distribute in this state as long as that restriction remains on the books.

But the extensive research we did prior to making this decision led us to the conclusion that a bill addressing the container limit would have essentially no chance to pass in 2010.  The number one reason for that is it will be an election year.  Every single state legislator (except a couple who intend to retire) will be running for reelection next year.  And though we all know how baseless drunk-driving-related fears are when applied to the types of products FTH focuses on, no campaigning legislator is going to want to open himself up to possible criticisms of that nature.

In contrast, a bill addressing restrictions on breweries and brewpubs would not expand the availability, portability, or strength of beer in any way.  Its only effect would be to help Alabama small businesses — something that will be far easier for legislators to support in an election year.

A bill designed to make it easier to open and more profitable to operate a brewery or brewpub in Alabama is a noble endeavor that will make more locally brewed beers available to the residents of Alabama.  We have a chance to provide a huge boost to the Alabama brewing industry, which is entirely owned and operated by our friends and neighbors.  And once we succeed in these reforms, many more of your friends and neighbors will find the numbers add up for them to start a local brewery.  This bill could be a tremendous step towards advancing beer culture in our state.

This is a pretty complicated issue, so we don’t yet have all the specifics for you.  It will take some time to draft a bill and once complete, that bill will be far more complex than our ABV bill.

We can say that some of our objectives include legalizing tastings and some manner of sales by breweries directly to consumers, and we would like to see the hurdles to opening a brewpub significantly reduced as well as allowing brewpubs to participate in special events off-premises.  There are many ways these objectives could be met, and the exact approach that will prove most feasible will be determined through further discussions with businesses who will be affected by the changes: breweries, brewpubs, and beer wholesalers.

But don’t let the complexity of this issue fool you; the end result will be more and better beer available in Alabama.  And more importantly, it will be local beer.  The end result be a thriving, growing local brewing industry that Alabamians can be proud of.  We hope your support of our bill next year will be just as dedicated as it was when you helped us pass our ABV bill earlier this year.  We’ll need your emails, letters, and phone calls just as much in our next effort as we have in the past.

Thank you for your support.

Things settled down for a while after an initial explosion of new beers that arrived within a month or so of the ABV bill getting signed into law.  I think we saw close to 100 new products over about a six week period.  That was almost exclusively the result of wholesalers bringing in previously forbidden products from their existing suppliers — products they already had access to but couldn’t stock in their warehouses because they were illegal in this state before the law change.  Once that supply chain was exhausted, the influx of new beers leveled off.

But now we’ve had another tidal wave of new beers in the last few weeks and I’m like a kid in a candy store.  For a good look at much of what’s coming in, check out the websites of two of FTH’s favorite beer bars, The J. Clyde and The Nook.

Here’s a link to what’s new at the Clyde: http://jclyde.com/?p=435

And here’s a link to what’s new at the Nook: http://www.thenooktavern.com/TheNook/Beers.html

Bell’s and Boulder Beer have been on the Gulf Coast for quite a while, but they are brand new to all of us here in the northern part of the state.  Then there’s the De Dolle, Hitachino, Einbecker, and Aventinus brews, and more are still hitting warehouses.  Add in the St. Bernardus Belgians that hit several weeks ago, and the Urthel Belgians just arriving at some stores, and you can see that Alabamians are gaining access to a very impressive list of beers.

This is what Free The Hops hath wrought.  Stay tuned, as we are juuust about to announce next year’s legislative agenda.

I perhaps get a little too excited about beer dinners.  I think they are the single most important type of event needed to improve beer’s status in the world of food and beverage.  Any fine restaurant that wants respect from culinary elites has to take its wine list seriously, but almost none of them care one whit about beer.  The remedy for this tragedy is for people to be exposed to how amazingly well beer pairs with food.  Enter beer dinners.

So it goes without saying that I’m downright giddy about the beer dinner coming up on November 1st at 6:30pm at the Riverchase Country Club.  This is an event Free The Hops is assisting with and it is organized by our friends at Pleasure Is All Wine in Pelham.  Don’t be fooled by the unfortunate name; they have the best beer selection in Pelham as far as I know, and possibly the best from Pelham all the way south until you hit Montgomery.

I chose the beers for this and will be leading the dinner.  Here is the menu for the event:

First Course: Gulf Shrimp on Baked Grits with Sun Dried Tomato Gravy
Paired with: Delerium Tremens and Ommegang Abbey Ale

Second Course: Baby Field Greens Salad with Wine Poached Pear and Blue Cheese
Paired with: Orval and Saison Dupont

Third Course: Braised Short Ribs with Pan jus and Roasted Root Vegetables
Paired with: Anchor Old Foghorn and Celebrator Doppelbock

Dessert Course: Individual Chocolate Essence Cake
Paired with: Great Divide Yeti and Lindemans Framboise

Note the two beers with each course, which of course means the servings of each beer will be half of a normal portion.  This way you are able to taste an impressively large number of pairings.

The price (includes food and beverage) is criminally low at $45 plus tax and tip.  Call Pleasure Is All Wine at 205-985-4760 to make your reservations.

A few weeks ago I started writing a weekly beer column for Birmingham Weekly.  I’ve been wanting to link to it, but they just got them all online yesterday.  Now you’ll see a new one every Friday, both online and in print.

Here’s the link: http://www.bhamweekly.com/category/food-drink/hopped-up/

Note that you can subscribe to it via RSS.  I hope you enjoy it, and if you have any opinions be sure to leave a comment over at the Weekly’s site.

All of us in Free The Hops love to support breweries in the Southeast, and Terrapin is one of my favorites.  Their “Monster Beer Tour” features four seasonal high gravity beers that are all world class.

Which means I’m really excited about Terrapin Monster Madness.  All the Monster beers in place, at one time — a highly unusual occurrence.  7pm on August 13th at The J. Clyde:

• Big Hoppy Monster Imperial Red Ale on Draught
• Rye-Squared Imperial Pale Ale on Draught
• All American Imperial Pilsner on Draught
• Wake ‘n Bake Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout in Bottles

There will also be one of their Side Project beers, Maggie’s Farmhouse Ale (a saison) on cask, in case things weren’t interesting enough already.  Also note that the Imperial Pilsner is being retired from the Monster Beer Tour, to be replaced by Gamma Ray wheat wine.  So this will definitely be your only chance to enjoy the Imperial Pilsner for a long time to come.

This is a pretty big deal.  An Alabama restaurant other than The J. Clyde is hosting a beer dinner.  And the menu looks good:

Appetizer

• Three oysters on the half shell with pineapple salsa and habanero brown sugar vinegar sauce paired with Blanche de Chambly.

Salad

• Pan seared chicken with apricot cous cous mixed greens dressed with a lemon bur blanc paired with Orange Blossom Pilsner.

Entree

• Ancho rubbed pork loin with rice, saffrito sauce, and black bean puree paired with Maudite.

Dessert

• Peanut butter pie with chocolate rum sauce paired with Trios Pistoles.

All this at Sweet Bones Alabama tomorrow, Tuesday, Aug. 4, at 6:30 p.m.  Four courses for a scant $36.  Give ‘em a call and make a reservation: 205- 970-3058.

Tell your friends and your enemies.  It’s really important for the beer-loving community to support businesses that are advancing beer culture in Alabama.  And if you do make a reservation, tell ‘em you heard about it here on the Free The Hops site.  This plug was unsolicited by Sweet Bones but when I saw the post on Wine Sublime I knew the FTH community would be interested.  Let’s make sure businesses realize they can benefit from engaging us.

Cheers.

To that end we have created a survey to find out what you want us to deal with. It’s very short and should only take you a minute or so to complete:

Surveymonkey

The survey is open through to the end of September and we will be announcing our 2010 legislative agenda in October.

Together we can Free the Hops!

Anyone who tried to take the survey and got an error message about it being closed, my humble apologies: there was a configuration error which caused this error message to appear. This error has been corrected and the survey is open for responses!

Saturday 25 July 2009 at 6pm At The J. Clyde

Grilled Gulf Shrimp served on a Fried Green Tomato and Remoulade paired with Terrapin Rye Squared

Jolly Pumpkin La Roja served with a traditional Chef’s Salad and La Roja Vinaigrette Dressing

Three Cheese Tortellini covered in an Alabama Chevre Pasta Sauce accompanied by Rochefort 8 Trappiste Ale

Cask Conditioned Ola Dubh Special 40 Reserve along with Sliced Smoked BBQ Mutton

Good People Fatso Imperial Stout Ice Cream Float

Price $49 plus tax and gratuity.
Call 205-939-1312 or email info@jclyde.com for more details, and you do need to reserve in advance.

I am especially pleased to see Ola Dubh at this dinner, as it is from my home country of Scotland.

There’s a couple of wrinkles to be sorted out yet, but I wanted to get the information out there so that people who are interested could email info “at” jclyde.com to register your interest.

It’s going to be fantastic…