while ambling around the recesses of the net I found this load of
micro news at <www.timesstar.com/Stories/0,1413,125~1549~1745991,00.html>

& if anyone from rfdb or alt.beer makes it out to DiamondBack - say hi
to brewer Grant Johnson for me (I got to know him when we worked
together in London a while back)
cheers
MikeMcGuigan
__________________________________________________ ______________________________
by Willam Brand -
Look what Santa's brewing for us this Christmas
The holidays are coming and brewers everywhere have special beers
already in the fermenter in preparation for the season.

Making strong, interesting beers for Christmas is an ancient
tradition, revived in America in the last decade by craft brewers.

To find out what local brewers are doing, I dropped in at Pacific
Coast Brewing in downtown Oakland late Friday, and then checked out
Black Diamond in Walnut Creek.

At Pacific Coast, brewer/co-owner Don Gortemiller said he's making a
Holiday Imperial Extra Special Bitter. A couple of centuries ago,
British brewers would attach the word "imperial" to a beer to signify
that it was strong and meant for royalty.

But Gortemiller admits that he may be making the first Imperial ESB.
It's made with dark malts and tests out at a head-popping 9 percent
alcohol by volume. An ordinary beer is about 5 percent.

Imperial ESB will be ready for Pacific Coast's 15th annual Tasting of
Holiday Beers set for Dec. 13. For more information about this event,
call (510) 836-2739.

Out at Black Diamond on North Main Street in Walnut Creek, I sampled
brewer Grant Johnston's excellent rye on tap, and learned that he's
created a holiday barleywine. A barleywine is an English term for
beers that are almost as strong as wine. His version is made with pale
malts, so it will have a deceptively light golden color. Don't be
fooled -- it's expected to be about 9.5 percent alcohol by volume.

As we're gearing up for the holiday season, I've sampled a trio of
pre-holiday classics: Lagunitas' 10th Anniversary Decimator, New
Belgium Brewing's Transatlantique Kriek and Terrible from Unibrou in
Quebec, Canada.

Decimator, available now at good beer stores in the Bay Area, is a
birthday gift from Lagunitas to all of us. Let me quote the mighty
Petaluma microbrewery on this 7.8 percent tribute: "Strong, tasty,
hoppy, weird, malty, sinewy." To which I would add: velvet malty
taste, a bit sweet but well-balanced by a fine, hoppy follow.

As the brewers say, "Beer speaks, people mumble." Honest. Lagunitas
Decimator () is sold in 22-ounce bottles for about $2.99 each.

Transatlantique Kriek from New Belgium Brewing in Fort Collins, Colo.,
is the most unusual beer I've tried in a while. The beer was crafted
by a famous Belgian lambic brewer named Frank Boon.

Lambic is a tart style of beer fermented with wild yeast -- yeast that
is naturally in the air, not a special brewer's yeast. It's a bit like
San Francisco sourdough bread, which must be made here to be
authentic. True lambic must be made within the Senne Valley on the
edge of Brussels. Special yeast live there.

Transatlantique Kriek is a fruit lambic made with real cherries and
fermented in oak barrels for two years. After fermentation it was
shipped (across the Atlantic Ocean) to Fort Collins where Belgian-born
and trained brewer Peter Bouckaert blended it with a special, golden,
malty beer made with wheat and barley malts.

It's an enticing combination of malty, wheat flavors, a hint of
cherries and a distinct sourness from the original lambic beer. It is
truly one of a kind. Love it or hate it, you may never taste another
beer like this one. Transatlantique Kriek () is sold in four 12-ounce
bottles for $9.99. New Belgium says it will be arriving in Bay Area
stores in the next month.

Then there's "Terrible." I understand that the word "terrible" in
French has the same meaning as in English. However, it also has a
slang meaning of "outstanding," or something like that. At any rate,
Terrible is simply wonderful. It's a powerful 10.5 percent alcohol
beer made with dark malts. It's meant to be savored slowly, not
gulped.

It has a huge, fruit-filled nose of raisins, plums and sherry. A beer
this strong tends to be sweet and malty, but Terrible is
well-balanced. It has plenty of hops and a spike of alcohol to balance
the malt. Simply put: It's an exquisite beer. Terrible indeed.
Terrible () comes in a silk-screened, 750-milliliter (25.3 ounce)
bottle, and will sell for $9.99. Look for it soon.

William Brand publishes What's On Tap, a consumer craft beer and hard
cider newsletter. His column runs bi-weekly.
__________________________________________________ ______________________________