Omnivore Atlanta

Sweetwater Brewing Company will be releasing its fall seasonal, Sweetwater Motorboat ESB on Aug. 7. The beer will be available in 6-packs and on draft. Introduced last fall, Motorboat was an unqualified success, winning a silver medal at the Great American Beer Festival in the ESB category and selling out in about 6 weeks. Steve Farace of Sweetwater promises that there will be more to go around this year.

Never one to be constrained by style guidelines, Sweetwater brews Motorboat with a generous dose of hops, including a dry-hopping with Cascade, and loads it with toasted malt, making it more like an amber ale than a typical British bitter. This year’s version will follow the same path. “We’ve upped the ante a bit on the hop bill this year, but we’re not monkeying around with it, just improving it,” says Farace. ”With a beer like Motorboat it’s all about balance in a fall seasonal.”

One could say things are going swimmingly right now at Sweetwater. The Dank Tank series of specialty brews is getting settled in, with the next offering being a blueberry Belgian ale brewed with 750 pounds of organic, Georgia-raised blueberries and wheat and rye malts due out Aug. 20. The 8.5% beer will be called Big Ol’ Blue Balls, in true Sweetwater double-entendre fashion. The popular brewery “tours” on Wednesday through Friday have been expanded to include Saturday afternoon from 2:30-4:30 p.m. and special casks are now offered on Wednesday to take some pressure off the Friday evening gatherings. “The casks have really been going great,” says Farace. “It gives us a chance to experiment with our core beers, adding fruit, dry-hopping, or whatever we want to try.” (more…)

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That shit is wack: The Dank Tank at Sweetwater

The mercury has cracked the 90 degree barrier now, and summer has surely settled in. Thus, it is only natural that Georgia’s non-conformist breweries are going the opposite direction of the bigger breweries, swimming upstream if you will, and rolling out two of their biggest beers from the past. Sweetwater Brewing Company is re-introducing its popular Donkey Punch Barleywine, a sweet, hop-heavy alcohol bomb that packs 10.2 percent ABV and over 140 IBUs (International Bittering Units), as the latest in its Dank Tank series. Meanwhile, up GA 316 in Athens, Terrapin Beer Company’s third Side Project, Gamma Ray wheatwine, an 11% ABV monster brewed with 1,500 lbs of Tupelo and Sourwood honey from Savannah Bee Company, is replacing the All-American Imperial Pilsner as the new summer seasonal in its Monster Beer Series. Looks like summer is getting a little hotter.

Sweetwater’s 50-bbl Dank Tank is dedicated to experimental “dark side” brews, with the first release being a Belgian-style IPA that came out in December of last year. A Scotch ale and a double IPA followed. Thus far, these limited batches have only been available in kegs at select bars around Georgia and at the brewery and special events. However, this latest release will be the first Sweetwater beer to be bottled on its new 22-oz “bomber” bottling line, making it available at better package stores, which is good news, indeed. (more…)

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Decisions, decisions: Taco Mac is tapping special beers all month.

New beers are popping up all over this month, from new-to-Georgia breweries, to special casks and limited edition releases, to spring and summer seasonals from local and national breweries. It can be a bit overwhelming. I suggest you you just take it One Beer at a Time.

Bell’s Weather. Monday marks the Georgia debut of beers from Bell’s Brewery, and a number of local bars have events to mark the occasion. The Brick Store Pub will have a rare cask of HopSlam, the brewery’s much-drooled over double IPA, which will not be part of the regular Georgia portfolio until next year’s release in January. There will also be a keg of Special Double Cream Stout. Starting Tuesday, Taco Mac will be tapping Bell’s Amber Ale, Pale Ale, Porter, and Oberon, with a sixtel of HopSlam and Expedition Stout at the Kennesaw location. Check with your neighborhood store to see what is pouring. The Porter Beer Bar in L5P will host a Bell’s Beer Dinner on Tues., May 26. Check their website for details. Look for a full story on Bell’s next week.

More, more, more. Speaking of Taco Mac, there’s enough new stuff rolling out at their stores to keep you half-lit well into June. This weekend was the debut of Terrapin’s 30 Strong Ale, brewed especially for Taco Mac’s 30th anniversary. Thirty years is a long time in the restaurant business, and Taco Mac certainly deserves a special toast for turning its little Va-High pub into a beer bar empire. I remember experiencing some of my first world-class beers at that original store back in the early 80s when I didn’t know a hefeweizen from a doppelbock. Terrapin’s 30 Strong has a ridiculous 30 ingredients that includes 19 kinds of malt, 8 varieties of hops, water, and yeast, and is aged on oak spirals. It clocks in at 8.8% ABV. Now that’s extreme! (more…)

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