Author: ryan

Ryan Anderson (that's me!) is the editor & founder of MNBeer. Much has changed since the fall of 2005 and I'm proud to have been a part of it all. Sometime I'll tell you about my grand theory that links craft brewing to punk rock. Just ask.

Summit Unchained No. 12, 100% Organic Ale

Summit 100% Organic AleYesterday Summit Brewing Company formally announced the launch of the twelfth beer in their Unchained series, 100% Organic Ale. We first brought you news of this beer at the end of December when  the label was approved. What we missed, of course is that not only is this beer to be an organic beer, it’ll be Minnesota’s first 100% certified organic beer. This beer is brewer Gabe Smoley’s first Unchained creation and it will be available in draught and bottles the week of March 5.
Though organic beers hardly saturate the market, finding one or two isn’t difficult. In fact as far as we know, Flat Earth’s Angry Planet was (to our memory) Minnesota’s first packaged organic beer. As Gabe points out, though, “Most USDA certified organic beers on the market are about 95-99.9% organic because it is extremely difficult to find ingredients like organic yeast. This beer is made with 100% organic ingredients including malts, hops and yeast. I created my own certified organic yeast strain to do this, as there are virtually no organic strains available from laboratories.”

“This has been a challenge, but we enjoy those at Summit. Our company is full of innovators and I am excited to continue that tradition,” added Smoley. “The organic segment of the brewing industry is slowly growing and building steam. My hope is that by working with organic ingredients, we’ll learn some new, sustainable approaches to brewing and promote organic ingredients as a whole to the industry.”

Schell’s Noble Star Collection

Here’s the news that Jace at Schell’s has been threatening to share for the past couple of days. TL:DR – Schell’s is launching a line of specialty beers called the Noble Star Collection based on the Berliner Weiss style. What’s more, they’ll be using their remaining 30s era cypress wood aging tanks. I visited the brewery in 2006 or 2007 with the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild and remember checking out these huge wood tanks and always thought they’d be a nice home for beer again someday.  Read on for the complete press release from Schell’s.

Here’s our 2008 article on the tank restoration.

More photos and complete details after the jump.