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May 07, 2008
18:54
Time to open the 1968 Hardy’s Ale
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Doesn’t look the message to wait until July of 1969 is going to be a problem . . .

The time has come to open the 1968 bottle of Thomas Hardy’s Ale.

Daria gave me this bottle for Christmas more than six years ago, and the immediate question was what to do with it. It’s not like there was any reason to expect to be anything other than an experience. Check out Tomme Arthur’s notes from a 2004 tasting:

1968- Was the first year that they bottled Hardy’s. There were three separate bottlings and the series begins with the A Bottle.

1968 A (The Pint Bottle)- A cork finished bottle with noticeable signs of evaporation. Perhaps they trapped a few thirsty angel’s in the bottle when it was packaged? The beer reveals a large Soy Sauce nose with Cidery, Vinegar and Lactic qualities all duking it out in a battle Royale. It finishes smokier than a bar in Chicago with flacid carbonation at best. Color wise, this one leans towards the dark to medium dark spectrum.

1968 “B” Bottling- Upon inspection, this one holds little promise. An incredible (ridiculous) amount of beer is missing. The cork crumbles upon insertion of the cork screw. Not a good sign! The beer embraces this cork situation to the max and I’m soon wondering if can send back a beer I haven’t even paid for? For some reason, this vintage has a Tobasco(tm) like flavors. It’s beyond bizarre. How do you do that in beer? Without a doubt not as good as the “A” bottle.

1968 “C” Bottling Capped Bottle- Now this is classic Hardy’s! We’re greeted by Vinegar, Oxidation and winey notes that wreak of musty cellars in wine country. It’s quite dry and light bodied. Tawny and Orangey in a way that the other two 68’s aren’t. The beer finishes with a clarity of purpose that exudes world class and demands that we hand the tag of red headed step child to its lesser brother- bottling “B.” The 1968 Hardy’s Capped bottle was an all timer for me this afternoon.

And when Daria bought it in an eBay auction the chap in the UK stated up front that he hadn’t treated the beer with the care stated on the back label (which sits on the bottle just as crooked as it looks in the photo above). But it didn’t seem right to set it out on shelf — because I want to look at it, that’s why — with the beer still inside. You’ll notice up top that the beer no longer reaches into the neck.

So I stored it on its side at about 55 F and we talked about what to do next. Daria hit on the idea it would be good to open in 2008, since the beer turns 40 and I turn 60. That was before we planned to be in Belgium on my birthday. And hauling a 40-year-old bottle of beer that’s likely going to suck didn’t seem so appealing.

Thus we’re planning on opening it tomorrow along with six other vintages (we’re expecting help drinking these). Just a few questions to answer first. What order should we drink the beers in? One possibility is to start with the 1968 (figuring it’s beyond hope), then drink the youngest and work our way toward the oldest (1992, and the previous one was excellent).

And how the heck do we safely get the cork out of the bottle?
May 05, 2008
23:50
Book review: Good Beer Guide West Coast USA
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Travel guides are worthless without trust.

So, you might be thinking, why should we trust a couple of British blokes who showed up for a holiday or two on America’s West Coast and then presumed to write about our beer?

Oh, sure they seem clever, for instance describing American IPAs as “hoppier than a one-legged man in an arse-kicking competition.” And the publisher Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) has outdone itself with a colorful, easy-to-find-what-you-want presentation plus an embarrassment of color photos.

But ultimately here is why you can trust Ben McFarland and Tom Sandham, authors of “Good Beer Guide West Coast USA.”

When I managed a newspaper copy desk the rule repeated every day was, “Readers trust everything they see in the paper until you write something they know about.” So pick up a copy of the book. Turn to a section you know about. Do they write about the best places? Do they leave any out? Are they right about the beers? Do they give you a reason to visit? Yes, no, yes and yes.

Feel free to be skeptical, but the proof is there in black and white. They dropped by the Craft Brewers Festival in San Diego last month to sign books and I sat down to talk with them about how they accomplished this. To be honest, my notes ended up full of “inside baseball” (or cricket) talk — and we weren’t even drinking. You’ll likely find their Q&A at the CAMRA site more amusing.

But some basics. They researched the books in two four-week stretches. The first included Las Vegas and Southern California (then back to Vegas). “We laid down for a week (afterwards),” McFarland said. “I got shingles . . . We were in pieces.”

They came back anyway, flying into Seattle and this time destroying their livers with the beers of the Northwest. They leaned on Tom Dalldorf (of Celebrator Beer News) for Hawaii and Dr. Fermento (James Roberts of the Anchorage Press) for Alaska. Obviously they also received a lot of help on “leads” about where to visit. Quite often they’d be in one pub or brewery and the principals there would ask, “Have you been to …?” and they were off again.

The resulting book doesn’t exhibit the sense of familiarity of one like Jay Shevek’s The Beer Guppy’s Guide to Southern California, but the authors are no less enthusiastic about what comes first — beer. In fact, surprisingly so, writing a love letter to American small-batch brewing that nicely carries on a tradition started by the late Michael Jackson.

And at times you get a glimpse of what the book might have read like had they been able to spend two years instead of two months wandering in and out of breweries and pubs. Writing about Diamond Knot Brewery in Muketilo, Wash., they begin:

“We must have been in here for about 20 minutes before ‘Johnny Vegas’, a Port Townsend ferryman, offered us a place to stay the night. Being British we naturally regarded the gesture with a level of cynicism and, fearing we’d be somehow chopped up and a feature in his wife’s stew, said yes and promptly disappeared. The fact is, he was simply a generous and friendly local and a perfect example of what this bar offers.”

Despite their youth — they are in their early 30s, giving them a fighting chance of surviving their research — both are accomplished journalists. Sandham had edited CLASS, a leading drinks magazine, for five years. McFarland became the youngest ever recipient of the British guild of Beer Writers’ beer Writer of the Year Award in 2004. He won it again in 2006.

And because of their youth they offer a look at American beer through fresh eyes and taste American beer with fresh tongues.
8:48
Monday morning musing: First, stupid beer stuff
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Did you hear the one about an Illinois man who plans to be buried in a coffin designed to look like a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon?

Bill Bramanti, 67, isn’t in a hurry to use it — for now it makes an excellent cooler. Saturday he threw a party for friends and packed the future coffin with ice and cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Am I the only one who finds it creepy he got in to see if he fit?

- JPD (Just Plain Dumb). The world’s 10 most disgusting beers, Florida style, does not need further comment.

- Enough silliness. So here’s a quick quiz: What do Rob Gerrity, Scott Kerkmans, Ron Kloth, Andrew Waer and Neil Witte have in common? Beyond the fact none of them is likely to be buried in a PBR coffin.

They are the first five to pass Certified Cicerone exam. Since January, 115 individuals have passed the online Certified Beer Server but these are the first to move on to the next level (Certified Cicerone, obviously).

The exam (conducted in San Diego during the Craft Brewers Conference) took three and a half hours and included 200 fill-in the blank and short-answer questions followed by three essay questions, a demonstration and 12 beer samples presented in the tasting portion of the exam.

Kerkams, as you may know, is the Chief Beer officer for Four Points by Sheraton. As you may not know, he grew up in Albuquerque .

Kloth, as you may know, is the driving force beyond Papago Brewing, the Scottsdale, Ariz. beer establishment that’s as good as its considerable reputation. The beer there only gets better over a game of chess on the set Ron first used as a kid (really). As you may not know, Ron is the only one of the first five Certified Cicerones to have spent a night or three in our guest bedroom (the one with dozens of vintage hop boxes).

Just something to think about if you are considering taking the exam.

- I like this idea. Five-word beer reviews. Not that it was to be via Twitter.
May 04, 2008
18:27
Session #15 roundup posted: Many roads to good beer
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Boak and Bailey have posted the roundup for The Session #15, writing “there are many roads to good beer.” Their recap includes 43 participants.

Perhaps some host will ask us to explore the detours as well. Just kidding, Alan.

Thomas at Geistbear Brewing Blog will host the June session. Look for his announcement soon. I’m not sure I’ll be able to make it June 6 (yes, D-Day). We’ll be en route to Prince Rupert, B.C., that day and a date with a ferry to take us up the Inside Passage.
May 02, 2008
15:48
Appellation hops: Czechs use Zatecky label
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A press release from the Hop Growers Union of the Czech Republic indicates the European protected designation of origin “Zatecky Chmel” (Saaz hops) was used for the first time in the processing the 2007-2008 hop products of from Zatec.

Hops from 138 villages in the Czech Republic were labeled with the Zatecky mark. The majority of those were shipped to Japan. The label was first shown to the public last Sept. 1 during the Zatec hop festival.

The Hop Growers Unions submitted the application for the designation in 2004.

“The protected designation of origin ‘Zatecky Chmel’ is the first and still the only designation for hops within the EU and also one of the first such designations given to Czech agricultural or food product,” Hop Growers Union representative Mr. Zdenek Rosa said for a press release. “This also confirms the uniqueness and tradition of these hops.”

Added May 5: Evan Rail adds historical background. There was already a push for the use of “Žatecký chmel” as the correct term for Saaz hops way back in 1922, a move which caused quite a bit of controversy at the time.
9:17
The Session #15: Beer and epiphanies
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Writing about beer certainly changed my relationship with beer, and made what might look like a simple question next to impossible to answer.

I got to thinking about this because for The Session #15 Boak and Bailey asked those of us in the beer blogosphere to answer this question: How did it all start for you? And going further, “We’d like you to write about the moment when you saw the light.”

Looking over the early posts I’ve been startled that people can single out a beer or a where, because there is no single moment or beer I can point to. From the time going on 40 (gulp) years ago I thought “Hey, there’s something different about this Stroh’s from the the basic what’s-in-the-pitcher beer we’ve been drinking in campus bars” my relationship beer has been evolving. Still is. So across a few decades . . .

1980s, Central Illinois. Schlösser Alt. German bars in the Midwest moved enough beer that we told ourselves it was probably fresh. Dortmunder Union sure had more flavor than American lagers, but then we discovered this alt and bitterness.

1993, a lookout tower north of Mancos, Colorado. New Belgium Abbey Grand Cru. We were still Illinois flatlanders, enjoying a view of four states at 10,000 feet. The beer was brewed with yeast acquired from a Chimay bottle, but it was made nearby.

1994, Lyme Regis (south of England). Five days before a pint of Royal Oak (Eldridge Pope) in Sherbourne had been simply spectacular. This totally living Bass buried it. Bass. A lifeless beer not worth drinking in the States.

All of those experiences occurred separately from writing about beer. But we’ve also trooped into hundreds of brewpubs in the last 20 years, I’ve visited monastery breweries, only scratched the surface with American small-batch brewers and then there are hops . . .

Anyway, I also wouldn’t have been at the last 15 Great American Beer Festivals if I didn’t write about beer. So in October I wouldn’t have had either Cable Car or Toronado 20th Anniversary, brewed and blended by Lost Abbey and Russian River respectively to celebrate Toronado’s anniversary. (Yes, an option would have been to go to Toronado’s party.) One-offs that proved for the hundreth (or is that thousandth?) time that a beer can reveal something no other beer has before.

And no, it doesn’t have to be a new-fangled creation — later this year we’ll be sampling beers in the south of Germany and not much later in the north of Italy, which should be a pretty fun compare and contrast. And no, a beer doesn’t have do that to be great. And yes, perhaps I’m a little dense, but that beer can still surprise me is a joy.

For more Session posts, and perhaps even epiphanies, be sure to see Boak and Bailey’s roundup.
May 01, 2008
12:57
Beer still costs more than gas
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Funny T-shirt today at Shirts on Sale (no affiliation deal; just a link), but the fact is that beer costs a lot more than gas. A gallon of gas around here — $3.35 to $3.45 in these parts this morning — will set you back less than half what a half-gallon growler of beer costs at a local brewery.

So don’t wimp out. Oppose suggestions we need a gas tax holiday.

Fact is our family would almost surely benefit more than yours (since our summer is full of diesel-powered travel), and we’re not biting on this short-term fix.
April 30, 2008
10:16
‘Extreme beers’ still sell newspapers
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And now we step outside the beer blogosphere — where it might seem there is nothing new to say about “extreme beers” — to recognize that to normal people they are still a topic of discussion.

Peter Rowe, whose work in the San Diego Union-Tribune I’ve pointed to many times, used the occasion of the Craft Brewers Conference to revisit the subject: The art of crafts: Extreme or balanced? The great beer debate continues.

Much from the the usual suspects, such as Garrett Oliver of Brooklyn Brewery saying, “If a chef tells you this is the saltiest stew you’ve ever tasted, that’s not what I want to hear. Anybody can put more hops in a brew kettle. That’s not a skill.”

And Greg Koch of Stone Brewing countering: “There may be a brewer somewhere that is just shoving more hops in. But the ones that really shine are the big beers that are artfully made.”

Certainly worth your time.

Rowe also has a six-pack of beer trends.
April 29, 2008
13:53
Could Magic Hat be a local beer on the West Coast?
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You don’t have to come here to read that Magic Hat is acquiring Pyramid.

It’s here, there and everywhere. Including the possibility that Pyramid will brew Magic Hat beers for the West Coast and perhaps vice versa.

So some stuff you may not have seen, mostly about the business of beer but bound to affect what ends up happening with the beers themselves.

Magic Hat CEO Martin Kelly previously worked for Pyramid (one of many stops on his resume). He left Pyramid in 2004 and shortly thereafter began at Magic Hat. Vermont Business Magazine provided details in a 2006 profile of Magic Hat founder Alan Newman.

Kelly, a self-described “a corporate gypsy,” served time at Coca Cola, Miller Brewing Co, Borden Foods, and was CEO of Pyramid Brewery, a craft beer company on the West Coast, before he came to Magic Hat to develop a five-year plan.

“I had the explicit intention of not being here more than three months,” Kelly said. “But in working through, I became excited about the potential for Magic Hat: the brand, the company Alan had created, and the opportunity for organic growth and expanding. Alan said, ‘Now, don’t you want to stay on and execute the plan?’ And I said yes.”

According to Kelly, who runs Magic Hat under the whimsical title of Potentate, Pilot & Primary Prestidigitator (P4), he has three major areas of focus: “Build the relevance of our existing brands in existing markets and grow market share; continuously evolve our portfolio of beers to keep it fresh, interesting and relevant to our community of consumers; and maintain our methodical expansion into new markets.”

Shortly before he left Pyramid, Kelly closed a deal to take over Portland Brewing, providing perspective by comparing it to agreements such as Anheuser-Busch taking a stake in Widmer and Redhook.

“The craft brewing business is very competitive and changes daily. To stay ahead, breweries must keep moving forward,” he said. “Some breweries have chosen to go the route of aligning themselves with large, multinational, industrial brewers. We believe that approach can stifle creativity and lead to less choice for consumers. Our approach aligns two independent Northwest breweries and retains the creativity and integrity craft brewers are known for.”

But Portland wasn’t particularly independent after Kelly left Pyramid. The Portland brand essentially disappeared, although MacTarnahan’s seems to be thriving.

That’s good enough reason for me to pass on making predictions. Instead I’ve posted a rather long interview with Kelly from 2002. Lots about distribution, but that’s part of the business of beer.

And he also talked the importance of “where.”

“We are local, we are in Seattle. An import can’t be from Seattle, they can’t,” he said.

So if Magic Hat is brewed in Berkeley and sold in Berkeley is it a local beer or a Vermont beer? And which will Californians want?

I don’t know.
April 28, 2008
7:49
Monday morning musing: Grading on a curve?
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To jump start your brain this morning: Two beer posts and a wine link that provoked one of the posts.

Stephen Beaumont on Great Beer vs. Popular Beer.

The number one beer in the United States, for example, is Bud Light, a pale lager with, frankly, some complexity of character, but a flavour profile so that thin it’s almost unnoticeable. This is the choice of the general public, and the general public is well served by it. I am not. I prefer more flavour, more aroma, greater depths and complexities of character and a more notable and lingering aftertaste, and I prefer those general traits in any beer I drink, under any set of circumstances.

Jeff Holt at Wort’s Going on Here? wonders why not a single American macro can get a decent score at the beer rating sites.

So, Corona versus Landshark? On both sites, both beers are rated as “To be Avoided.” Say you are stuck in a resort in Mexico that doesn’t have a beer above 8% ABV, as the top 12 beers on the Beer Advocate list of the top beers. So you can only choose between ten or twelve “D-” beers?

There’s something fundamentally flawed about these beer ratings. Are you telling me that sitting under a Live Oak Tree on a hot, Texas July day a Trappist Westvleteren 12 is better than a cold Budweiser?

And from Eric Asimov of the New York Times, whose notes about the upcoming book “The Wine Trials” provide Beaumont with a starting point. (You’ll want to click over for the entertaining comments &#151 wine people get snippy in such an amusing way.)

In the end, the book seems to divide wine consumers into the casual buyers who are pushed this way and that by forces they don’t understand, and the wealthy conspicuous status seekers who also are not quite aware of capitalism and marketing. Unacknowledged are the serious wine lovers who are knowledgeable, experimental and passionate, and who, yes, are in control of their own destinies.

Perhaps we should be happy beer doesn’t “merit” such serious academic study.
April 27, 2008
14:14
Bud Light Lime: Can you dance to it?
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If you remember American Bandstand, or perhaps have seen clips, you recall the popular segment where host Dick Clark would take two teens from the audience. He’d have them listen to a couple of brand new songs, then rate them.

When asked for an explanation about the number they assigned it many would say, “You can dance to it.” Or that you couldn’t.

With that context, consider the news about Anheuser-Busch beginning its national push for Bud Light Lime (click if you want; right now the ask you to confirm your age, then show you the single, static page behind it — go figure) tomorrow.

While Bud Light Lime takes its cue from Mexican culture, much of its $35 million launch will be directed at fans of indie rock, electronica and dance music.

The national campaign will feature the music of Santogold. A remix of her song “Lights Out,” as well as the ringtone, will be released online next week at budlightlime.com.In addition, a CD sampler, with up to 18 tracks, will be released in June to tastemakers and music blogs.

Meanwhile, Miller Chill has already started a campaign using the music of Brazilian singer Curumin.

So maybe Rate Beer and Beer Advocate need to add another category to the way they calculate ratings: aroma/smell 8, appearance/look 4, can/can’t dance to it 8.
9:40
Dark Lord Day: Passion on display
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The Hoosier Beer Geek has pictures. Check out the line. Let’s just say showing up as late at 1:30 was not such a good idea.

Passion on display. Mostly. Unfortunately a little cold-hearted greediness. From a thread at Beer Advocate:

I drove from Minneapolis with a trunk full of Surly to enjoy and trade. Instead, I stood next to frat boys from Chicago who couldn’t stop talking about selling their Dark Lord on Ebay. I waited 5 hours in a line. The Dark Lord sold out 50 people in front of me. My girlfriend was upset because of the cold and I am leaving empty handed

Later in the thread: “It was frat boy hell. There goes the neighborhood…”

Also read the discussion at The Beer Mapping Project.

And at Rate Beer.
April 25, 2008
15:03
Win a copy of ‘Grape vs. Grain’
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Got a caption for this photo of brewing professor/author Charlie Bamforth taken during a food-fashion-themed cookout?

If you can do better than this . . .

“A kiss of tannin; a kiss of hops… brightens, rather than bitters.”

“Both of Charles’ students get an A, for Alcohol.”

. . . then scoot on over to the Cambridge University Press blog for a chance to win a copy of Bamforth’s newest book, Grape vs. Grain and five Grape vs. Grain coasters.

Next week I hope to have time to “review” (or maybe compare and contrast) Grape vs. Grain and He Said Beer, She Said Wine by Sam Calagione and Marnie Old.

Meanwhile, if you are going to be in San Francisco on May 8 you could stop by Anchor Brewing at 5:30 p.m., meet Bamforth and get a book signed.
April 24, 2008
14:29
Charlie Papazian is blogging
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It seems so 2007 &#151 a vintage year for new beer blogs — to note the arrival of a new blogger.

But I will anyway: Charlie Papazian is blogging.
11:27
Keep the beer; I’ll take the Cartier
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At the risk of poking the hornet’s nest — I don’t have a category here for “ethics” and not really criticism per se — I must pass along this story. Seems like a better deal than a trip to St. Louis.

From the UK wine magazine Decanter:

Wine magnate Bernard Magrez has outraged a group of journalists by offering each of them a Cartier wristwatch worth €1,650 (£1,322/$2,641).

The watches were distributed after a press lunch hosted by Magrez and French actor Gerard Depardieu on 26 March. The lunch was held at the Alain Ducasse restaurant at the Hotel Plaza Athénée in Paris. Around 50 journalists attended – including wine critic and ex-Revue du Vin de France editor Thierry Desseauve, Philippe Bidalon from L’Express magazine and Gérard Muteaud of Le Nouvel Observateur.

One journalist told Decanter.com that he and his colleagues discussed the situation and agreed among themselves that keeping the watches could be misconstrued.

Or maybe correctly construed.
April 23, 2008
11:27
Malt and hops supply updates
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Sorry, I’m pleading impending deadlines and we’ve got this trip to start packing for so just the facts from presentations at the Craft Brewers Conference on the status of barley malt and hops supplies. (I know how you’ll miss my prose).

- The barley malt supply will remain tight until at least 2009. Price volatility is here to stay and higher prices (than historical benchmarks) can be expected.

- Prices for barley for malting are competitive with other crops farmers may choose to grow, but the risk is that if the barley is not selected for malting then it becomes feed barley and those prices suck.

- Malting plant capacity is finite. They are built for efficiency, so expansion is not an option. New plants are being built around the world, which requires a chunk of capital.

- Small, but no longer tiny. The smallest plant in the United States (which is smaller than anybody would build these days) has the capacity to handle 90,000 tons a year. Craft brewers’ barley consumption is growing by 20,000 tons a year. More tail than dog.

However, and a theme that ran through both barley and hops presentations, small-batch brewers have grown to a large enough collective size to get the attention of suppliers. We’re well past the time that Boulder Brewery had to lean on Coors in order to get Cascade and Halltertau hops or its malts. Taking us to . . .

- Base hops prices, particularly aroma hops, must go up. Not the crazy “spot” prices that some brewers have paid this year ($40-$45 a pound in Europe), but ongoing prices.

“The cost of aroma hops have not been reflective if the cost of growing,” said Mike Roy of Roy Farms in Yakima Valley. He suggests that $4 per pound for Cascade hops would sustain long term growth. Hallertau would be more like $10-$11 “if the varieties are going to stay in the ground.”

A new balance will be struck. For instance, German growers might replace some aroma fields with high alpha fields. But then industrial brewers, who this year were desperately buying up any alpha they could find, would focus on the new hop (one called Hercules) and leave aroma hops alone. That would leave make more aroma hops available for brewers who use those hops for aroma. Make sense?

- German hop supplies are almost fully sold for 2008-2010, that is “under contract.” Growers generally contract only 80%-90% of what they expect to yield. Some brewers already have contracts through 2018.

- Contracts allow farmers to commit to expansion. They figure a new yard costs $14,000-plus an acre. But that’s not all that’s involved. A drying facility that can handle 1,000 acres costs $3 million. A picker for with a capacity to serve 3,000 acres costs $1.6 million. Selling hops below production costs, as farmers did for years, won’t fund such expenditures.

- Best estimates are that 6,000 to 8,000 new acres will go into the ground this year in the Northwest, a significant increase from the current 33,000. If 7,000 are planted then about 1,000 of those will be aroma hops.

- More transparency, or communication, may help avert future crises. World hop acreage has been shrinking for years, so perhaps brewers shouldn’t have been caught so off guard. Ralph Olson of Hopunion, who moderated the hops panel, said he remembered when old-line breweries such as Pabst, Ranier and Olympia kept a 6-to-12 month inventory of hops.

And German hop farmers were surprised by demand, particularly from craft brewers, for aroma hops. The Brewers Association has commission a Pipeline Committee to facilitate better communication between suppliers and brewers.

- Bottom Line. Several readers here ask if beer prices will do down once hop and barley prices ease. I can’t see that. Any break brewers get from ingredients will simply help offset rising costs elsewhere — energy prices, stainless steel, glass, etc.

I heard plenty of reports that sales in the first quarter 2008 sales were just as robust as 2007, even after price increases kicked in. But, as one brewer said, “It’s next year I’m worried about.”

Thomas Raiser of Barth & Sohn in Germany made an important point: “You’ve been fortunate to be buying hops (for years) at below the cost of production.”

He was talking to the brewers assembled, but the message for beer drinkers is the same.
April 22, 2008
18:35
A hop question: Do you taste beer like a man?
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Today a tree: the Simcoe hop. Tomorrow the forest: the rest of the hops in the world.

And not just because it seems that how you describe the aroma of Simcoe determines if you drink/smell beer like a man or like a woman.

Simcoe was only released to the brewing world in 2000 and really is a tree in the forest. Only three Northwest hop yards grew the variety in 2007.

But it’s become a signature hop for many IPAs and Double IPAs, including Double Simcoe IPA from Weyerbacher in Pennsylvania. As noted yesterday, some West Coast brewers refer to its distinctive presence as “dank.”

In a presentation Friday about “dissecting hop aroma in beer” Tom Nielsen of Sierra Nevada talked about gender and age differences in what people perceive when they smell particular varieties of hops. He mentioned a new hop called Citra (nope, I hadn’t heard of it either) and that men describe it as “tropical fruit” while women find it “catty.”

In the course of the following few hours this came up in conversation with several brewers. But we talked in terms of Simcoe, a hop we all know. Venture too far above threshold (we’re learning this varies widely) and you’ve got a beer that will be described as “catty” in polite company, as “cat pee” after a few pints or, credit Natalie Cilurzo for this, “savignon blanc.”

A little goes a long way, but when used well it brightens a beer that is already supposed to be hoppy.

Whether it is because beer touches my feminine side, because I hate cats or because I’ve tasted so many beers hopped with Simcoe I long ago began greeting new ones with skepticism. And the thought of a “Double Simcoe IPA” (two litter boxes in one beer?) tested my typically optimistic nature.

But, bottom line, a good beer. It sounds like the most back-handed of comments to begin, “It doesn’t smell like cat piss,” but that was a my first thought. I like my Double IPAs a little leaner and with a harder (OK, harsher) hop edge, however I thought whatever I spent for the pint (this was in Manhattan, where I always try to forget what I just paid) was well worth it.

There would be no point in discussing this were the rumors — repeated often during the last few months — true that farmers were about to abandon Simcoe. It turns out to be more susceptible to disease than first thought, and the yield per acre doesn’t justify the risk.

However, while one of three fields where Simcoe was grown in 2007 was ripped out this year (taken over by a cattle farm), three more went in. By 2009 they should be yield a decent crop and the next year will be even better.

Weyerbacher founder Dan Weirback meanwhile has been scrambling. He recently came up with — physically in the brewery, not just promised — 3,000 pounds of Simcoe on top of what he already had. That means he has enough to brew Double Simcoe for nine more months and can expect more will be available by then. “We would have run out (of Simcoe) in late summer,” he said.

Double Simcoe IPA accounts for a modest 10% of Weyerbacher sales. Given the hassles, the fact Weirback passed on only the increased cost of ingredients (in the process lowering his margins) this year, and that overall sales were up 34% last year so he’s got plenty to keep him busy . . . it might not seem like such a big deal were he to let this beer slip into history.

But his customers love it. It speaks to the spirit of his brewery. I’m glad it’s not going away.

That from a man who doesn’t much care for cats.
15:30
Earth Day: Eric Warner nails it
» ‎ Appellation Beer: Beer From a Good Home

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We’re big on Earth Day in our house, doing the tree decorating thing, a traditional meal, etc. What better way to recycle everything from December?

Seriously, we figure what ever we are trying to celebrate should be practiced every day. So I wasn’t going to comment, and I’m really not other than to say I agree with Eric Warner, lead dog at Flying Dog.

Read what he has to say.
April 21, 2008
22:06
Let’s hear it for the Hoegaarden appellation
» ‎ Appellation Beer: Beer From a Good Home

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InBev has given up moving Hoegaarden out of the city of the same name, the place that it originated.

As of June 1 all the Hoegaarden beer will be brewed there. Much different than in 2006, when InBev announced it would move production to Jupille.

Seems that didn’t work out so well. By 2007 production was a problem. Part of that was because of increased demand, but a union official claimed, “The beer they produce there often has to be thrown out because it is not at all fit for consumption. So a lot of the white beer coming from Jupille is being shipped to the Netherlands to be made into pig feed. It really is a crisis.”

In any event, InBev has revamped the Hoegaarden facility, boosting capacity to 1 million hectoliters. Hoegaarden won gold last week in the World Beer Cup.
13:11
The beer wit and wisdom of the Gourdians
» ‎ Appellation Beer: Beer From a Good Home

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Morning came way too early Friday at the Craft Brewers Conference, but I was committed to put on a Gourdians T-shirt and make it to the 8:30 presentation titled, “Marketing Outside the Pumpkin.”

Marty Jones (Oskar Blues), David Buhler (Elysian Brewing) and Greg Koch (Stone Brewing) simply did a masterful job of gonzo marketing their guerilla marketing presentation. They played to a standing-room-only crowd. Not only was Marty putting T-shirts in people’s hands on Thursday but they also created posters and backstage VIP passes (Dave Thibodeau of Ska Brewing was sitting next to me and had one of the VIP tags on).

I won’t bore you with a bunch of marketing chatter, but this was 60 minutes of proof that beer is about fun, beginning with a foot stomping song. Marty brought his guitar and Dave wasn’t shy (Greg was pretty quiet).

It’s better with the music, but still might make you smile.

TASTY BEER
© 2008 The Gourdians, All Rights Reserved

OH GOURD WONT YOU FILL ME WITH YOUR TASTY BEER
BEEN A LITTLE QUIET NEED SOME PEOPLE HERE
I’M DIGGING MY BRAIN FOR ONE OR TWO IDEAR
OH GOURD WONT YOU FILL ME WITH YOUR TASTY BEER

OH GOURD DO I HAVE TO BE TOMMY, VINNIE OR SAM
THAT PRESS RELEASE I SENT YOU I’M SURE WAS MARKED AS SPAM
I DON’T HAVE BRETTANOMYCES A BOOK DEAL OR BAND
OH GOURD DO I HAVE TO BE TOMMY, VINNIE OR SAM

OH GOURD WON’T YOU WEAR MY GOURDIAN SHIRT
MR. OLIVER WOULDN’T AND NOW MY FEELINGS HURT
I’VE BEEN TRYING TO BOOST SALES GOTTA SPREAD MY WORT
OH GOURD WON’T YOU WEAR MY GOURDIAN SHIRT

OH GOURD WON’T YOU SEND ME A LARGE OAKEN CASK
I NEED AN AGED BEER AND I NEED IT FAST
IT’S GOOTA BE EXTREME FOR THOSE BEER ADVOCATS
OH GOURD WON’T YOU SEND ME A LARGE OAKEN CASK

OH GOURD WONT YOU FILL ME WITH YOUR TASTY BEER
BEEN A LITTLE QUIET NEED SOME PEOPLE HERE
I’M DIGGING IN MY BRAIN FOR ONE OR TWO IDEAR
OH GOURD WONT YOU FILL ME WITH YOUR TASTY BEER
9:39
Monday morning musing: McMurtry nails it
» ‎ Appellation Beer: Beer From a Good Home

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“I don’t want another drink, I only want that last one again.”
- James McMurtry (from “Hurricane Party”)

Before getting to reports (over the next few days) about hops, malt supply, beer prices and other matters discussed at the just completed Craft Brewers Conference in San Diego this quick thought.

Yes, CBC included several days of trying different beers, often a few ounces at a time. Not at the rate Luke Nicholas managed, but enough — given the hops one-upmanship going on — to disorient my taste buds.

And despite Luke’s manic pace you’ll notice he was always happy to return to the Symposium IPA brewed by Green Flash. Friday evening it was on cask at a mini-festival at the Karl Strauss brewery. Some of the new stuff was pretty good but not really as good as that “last one.” So he returned to the cask. I did as well, but not until Back Street Brewing ran out of a keller beer, served via gravity from a modified keg. Very old world.

Pretty astonishing how the beer stood its own given I’d had several tastes by the time I reached Back Street, most of them full-blown hop attacks. It had the effect of being at a concert, when you lean forward to hear during a particularly quiet part of a piece.

Even though the keller might not have been even 5% abv the flavors of fresh grain and noble hops were deliciously unfiltered. I chatted with the brewer (about managing fermentation of Belgian strong ales, in case you were curious), got some more of his beer and wandered off to talk to others.

After I’d sent several people over to Back Street and it came time for another beer I decided to follow my own advice and went back. Went back a little later too, but by then the cask was empty.

I want that beer again.

Moving on to a few other short items from San Diego and a couple of links found when I returned to wireless civil