Need a beer? Check the Brewfinder

In a foreign locale, or perhaps just an unfamiliar part of town, and you need a beer? Well, the Beer Mapping Project might be your ticket.

The folks behind the project take advantage of Google's mapping ability to plot the exact location of pubs around the country.

Check out our hometown, St. Louis, right here.

Remembering Michael Jackson

The Brewer's Association is hosting an online collection of remembrance for Michael Jackson. The compiling of messages is long so far. To add to our own thoughts send a message to mark@brewersassociation.org.

The Beerhunter Passes

Pints will be lifted the world over today in memory of one of the great, if not the greatest, beer writer of the century: Michael Jackson. Ever prolific and ever loquacious about his favorite liquids, Jackson's wriging cronicled the resurgence of interest in beer beginning in the 1970's.

Though writers are nothing if not argumentative, Jackson's work was often considered to be among the best by his fellow sribes.

More than merely creating a travelogue of pubs and breweries, or a laundry list of beers from around the globe, Jackson's writing doumented the life and craft of the still growing beer culture.

Jackson brought expertise without snobbery and love without question; he quaffed pints regarless of pedigree. From the finest craft brews wrought on moonless nights with closely guarded secrets or pulled from thousand-gallon tanks at the commercial level. No beer to was too pedestrian, nor too haughty. Each was appraised for what it was, not what others thought it should be.

Schlafly Features Local Wheat for Witbier

Schlafly Beer is continuing its commitment to local purveyors with the inclusion of Alhambra Wheat in this year's Witbier.

The Alhambra Wheat Company is located just across the river in Alhambra, Illinois. The unmalted soft red winter wheat grown by John Gorenz and his partners is ideal for witbiers and other wheat ales.

So far they have provided several sacks of herbicide-free and pesticide-free wheat for the brewery at the Schlafly Taproom. Some the wheat was used for the witbier, but there is talk of possibly experimenting with the Hefeweizen to see if it could be more regularly integrated into the beer.

Early in June, owner Dan Kopman, chief brewer Steven Hale and quality control manager Christian Artzner took a trip across the river to visit the farm at harvest time.

While there, they shared a pint or two with the crew as they watched over some of the harvesting operation.

They were even given a chance to take the massive combine for a spin around the field.

"It's like riding on an oceanliner," said Hale.

The Alhambra-accentuated Witbier will be available beginning this afternoon with the kickoff of Schlafly's Mussel Mania at the Schlafly Taproom, at 21st and Locust streets downtown. The festival features mussels and belgian-style beers such as Witbier and Belgian Dubbel.

Raspberry Puree

As the weather warms, requests for Raspberry Hefewiezen begin to pepper the bartenders.

Now, to their relief, and our customers, they can respond with a cool pint of Raz Hefe.

The Raz stands out in the Schlafly lineup, not only for its light tart note and its raspberry hue, but as the only fruit beer brewed by Schlafly.

As beers go, it's a straightforward affair. Not overly complex, but the addition of fruit contributes new layers to the beer.

The Raspberry Hefeweizen begins its life similar to the Schlafly Hefeweizen. Schlafly's Hefeveizen is a light, unfiltered wheat ale based on traditional german-style wheat ales, but fermented with our house ale yeast that minimizes the banana and clove character that are a signature of the traditional style. The result is a light-bodied beer drier than its forbearers with a wheat malt finish.

Apart from the tart and sweetness of the raspberry, malt is a dominant flavor character of the Raspberry Hefeweizen. The malt base comes from a mix of 2-row pale malt and wheat malt.

Hops are not a major player in wheat ales, but are added to balance the malt. A dose of Polish marynka hops are added for flavor and a few tettnanger just before the end of boil for aroma.

The signature of the Raz Hefe is the red raspberry puree which is added directly into the fermenter before the wort is pumped in from the kettle. The puree, supplied by family-owned Oregon Fruit Products and made from berries grown in Northwestern Oregon, adds flavor, color and even a bit of additional sugar to the beer.

Though the puree gives up a bit of its own sugar it does little to budge the beer's 9.7° Plato (approximately 1.039 for you specific gravity folks) starting gravity, which is a measure of relative level of sugar in the wort.

Fermentation takes a two to three days depending on the yeast's performance. The yeast converts the sugars in the wort into carbon dioxide (CO2, which is vented from the tank) and alcohol. Upon reaching he target gravity of 2.7° Plato, the tank's vent is closed, trapping some of the the CO2 which provides a base level of carbonation and an approximate ABV of 3.9%.

Before bottling or kegging, we rough-filter the Raspberry to reduce, but not eliminate, its yeast content. While it is an unfiltered beer we don't want the yeast to play as great a role as it does in the Hefeweizen.

The Raspberry Hefewiezen (or Raz) is available at the Schlafly Bottleworks, the Schlafly Taproom and stores throughout our distribution area. Raspberry Hef has been available on draft since 1994 and in bottles since 2004.