It’s back! If you have a videocamera, some talent and some ideas, perhaps you should consider the “Make You Own Grain Belt Premium Commercial Contest!” Should you win first place, you get $1000 and a year’s supply of Grain Belt Premium. Second place winner gets $500 (which I’m sure you can spend on beer!), and third place gets $250. Not bad.

Once again, winners will be announced during the showing of entries at the Ritz Theater in Nordeast Mpls. on Wednesday, January 7th at 7:00 pm.

A Dampfbier. On August 1st, August Schell Brewing Co. will release a beer honoring Otto Schell, the second president of Schell’s (1902-1911). The beer is a Bavarian Forest Dampfbier. As the folks at Schell’s put it,

Dampfbiers came from southern Bavaria during the late eighteenth century, when the Bavarian Forest was was one of the poorest regions in Bavaria.  Wheat was too valuable to be wasted on beer brewing, and the hops of the nearby Hallertau region were too expensive to purchase. So brewers developed an all barley beer, but didn’t have the temperature control to produce lagers.  With ales being a rarity in Germany, it required the brewer to travel to the nearest Weissbier brewery and scrounge some yeast to brew their Dampfbier.

Jace tells me it’s an all-barley beer fermented with their weizen yeast. Sounds good to me!