The Beer Guy visits Asheville, NC

We are in Asheville, NC for a long weekend. Last night we enjoyed the hospitality of Highland Brewing Co. for their Cold Mountain Release Party. Today we visited Oskar Blues' East Coast brewery in Brevard. In between we have visited several other breweries in the area like, Lexington Avenue Brewing Co., Hi-Wire Brewing Co., Asheville Brewing Co. and Wicked Weed Brewing.

Watch for a full article on the trip and the breweries of this former Beer City USA winner soon.

Now the fledgling brewery has created a brew for local Jacksonville musician JJ Grey of Mofro. The beer will only be available at Maverick’s Dance Hall at the Landing in the Jacksonville area.

For more information, read the following press release from the brewery.

Press Release:

Tampa- Rock Brothers Brewing Company has announced that it has created a custom craft beer for the Jacksonville, Florida native, musician JJ Grey.

Grey is the second musical act to partner with the Tampa-based Rock Brothers Brewing, a company that is creating microbrews for musicians across the country.

“We’re really excited to partner with JJ because his band has great name recognition and a very supportive fan base,” said Tony Casoria, a co-founder of Rock Brothers Brewing. “We expect this beer to be really well-received when it hits the market in November.”

True to its model, Rock Brothers will distribute the custom craft beer only in an act’s home state.

“We’re focused on quality, not quantity,” Casoria said. “That’s the craft beer way.”

Grey’s custom beer will be an ale, and it will be called JJ Grey’s Nare Sugar Brown, according to Kevin Lilly, also a co-founder of Rock Brothers Brewing, Grey’s grandfather inspired the name.

“JJ’s grandfather drank coffee without sugar, or ‘nare sugar’ as he called it,” Lilly explained, “and that stuck with JJ throughout his life.” Lilly said Nare Sugar has a sweetness to it, but it is made without [added] sugar.

The process of creating and naming the beer was a bit of a surprise to Grey.

“I thought Cigar City would let me taste a couple of beers, pick one, then put it out,” Grey said. “Instead, we sat down and talked about it for a while, and during that conversation I was educated on how artful brew mastering really is. We all put our heads together and then these guys went out and created the beer from scratch. The whole process was amazing and I feel really lucky to have been a part of it. In the end, I think I think they made a beer that somehow matches my music sip for sip (or chug) and note for note.”

Nare Sugar Brown’s official release date is the weekend of November 1st and 2nd, when JJ Grey and Mofro perform at Jannus Live in Tampa Bay, Florida and at Revolution in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

As an additional charitable component to this venture, JJ Grey and Rock Brothers Brewing will donate five percent of the net proceeds of Nare Sugar Brown sales to the Snook and Gamefish Foundation, a not-for-profit 501.3c corporation that serves as a platform for anglers and conservationists to preserve, protect, and enhance game fish populations.

Old Style caught in squeeze play at Wrigley

Since 1950 the Chicago Cubs have had a relationship with the G. Heileman Brewing Company and Old

Style Beer. Next year, if the owners of the team have their way, 63 years of history with the quintessential Chicago baseball club will end when the beer concessions are switched exclusively to Anheuser-Busch brands. The decision has caused a storm of controversy and activity among fans of the beer known as “Chicago’s Beer. “

The history of how Old Style became the preferred beer of Chicagoans began over 100 years before the brew became the sponsor of the Cubs.

In 1848 Wisconsin became a state, just a few years later the future owner and brewer of Old Style, Gottlieb Heileman arrived from Germany and settles in La Crosse, Wis. In 1872, Heileman broke from the La Crosse brewery he had been working at and founded the G. Heileman Brewing Company. The beer that would later be known as Old Style began its life in the 1890sS as Gold Leaf Lager. In 1902 the beer was renamed Old Style began showing up on local grocery shelves. In that same year, the brewery achieved a volume of 160,000. But, it took a bottler’s strike in 1935 for Old Style to cross the state line from Wisconsin to Illinois and become known as “Chicago’s Beer.” Fifteen years later, after firmly establishing itself as the beer of choice in the Windy City, Old Style became a sponsor of the Chicago Cubs and firmly entrenched itself at Wrigley Stadium.

The decision to switch the beer vendors at Wrigley has fans up in arms. Social media outlets have been flooded with negative remarks and tersely worded tirades against the change. The brewery itself has mounted a campaign on their website to let fans sign a petition to “save your tradition.”

According to an article attributed to the AP, the management of the Cubs says the deal means the removal of Old Style signs but not necessarily the beer from the stadium. Only time will tell if the brewery can rally enough support and apply enough pressure to remain in Wrigley.