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We’re headed into Yellowstone National Park, then on to Grand Teton, so I’m not expecting to post here the rest of this month.
Don’t worry about us. We’ve got beer from Grand Teton Brewing and Snake River Brewing to get us through the thirsty moments.
See you in July.
It’s hard to spend much time drinking local beer in Oregon and not get excited about what’s in the glass.
Not only in Portland — which was at the center of the recent “best beer city” silliness — but in Pacific City, Enterprise, Eugene, Hood River, Newport, Bend, Parkdale and, gee, the list never seems to end. Although a few breweries ship their beer far from home, and that’s a fair amount of the state’s production, the majority simply sell local beer to local drinkers.
This is not to say every beer was great, but Oregon’s been leading the nation since the mid-90s and somehow there’s still more local beer than there was not long ago, better and a wider variety, with more people drinking this beer in more places. Having visited forty-six states since we left home thirteen months ago I feel pretty confident typing there is no other like Oregon. And although I’m not sure why this makes sense to me, and appreciate it might not to you, leaving Oregon the other day made me stop to appreciate what I’ve seen elsewhere. I wouldn’t say other states are catching up so much as they are in hot pursuit.
In Florida, which has never been known for breweries making particularly frisky beer, suddenly you have Saint Somewhere Brewing and Cigar City Brewing making cutting-edge beers. In Kansas City, Boulevard Brewing recently released Two Fools Double Wit, its latest seasonal in the Smokestack Series, a beer that starts from a “sour mash.” In Pittsburgh, Scott Smith at East End Brewing used 60 loaves of rye bread to brew an old-style Russian beer called Kavass.
I grew up working for newspapers, so skepticism is second nature to me. I find it hard to believe that sales of beer that costs far more than people were paying a few short years ago can continue to be so robust given the current economy, but so far I’m wrong. We’ll discuss why another time. Instead consider something from Mike Kallenberger, Insights Manger at MillerCoors. “One thing I’ve learned is once a trend starts it can keep going longer than you’d expect,” he said. Discussing what’s referred to as the “adoptive curve,” he added, “I don’t think craft beer has begun to reach the tipping point.”
Maybe not even in Portland.
What’s astonishing is that you can have so many pretty big brewing companies and so many small ones in the same city. It’s only about a 15-minute walk from Widmer Brothers, which is celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary, to Upright Brewing, which began selling beer in April. Widmer is thoroughly modern, fermenting more of its flagship Hefeweizen in a single unitank than Upright will sell this year. (Widmer’s tanks have a capacity of 1,500 barrels, but are only filled with 1,100 barrels of Hefeweizen.)
Upright is located in the basement of a renovation-in-progress called the Leftbank Project. Founder/brewer Alex Ganum hadn’t even started school when Kurt and Rob Widmer founded their brewery in 1984. He calls Upright a farmhouse brewery and is employing open fermentation; wide open, as in no tops at all on two fermenters in a special-built room. He recently added a Post-it note to the entry that reads, “Don’t sneeze.” (That’s the photo at the top.)
He resists the efforts of others to classify his beers as “Belgian.” “I feel like we are more Northwest than anything,” he said. “We’re big (Frank) Zappa fans here. I think Zappa’s music is a lot like our styles.”
Listening to him I thought of a conversation last summer with Dan Carey, co-founder and working brewmaster at New Glarus Brewing in Wisconsin. He was happily showing off his brand-spanking-new brewery, a $21 million beauty built strictly based on demand within Wisconsin; New Glarus doesn’t ship its beer beyond its home state. “We like to talk about local,” he said. Now the discussion turned to influences and Carey considered the question about if he could describe himself more as a German, Belgian, English, Czech or American brewer.
He couldn’t. “I’m like the Japanese, or like the Australian winemaker,” he said. “I try to learn from everybody and take what I can use.”
The result is better local beer.
Oops, I missed the anniversary on this by a bit. It was thirty years ago on June 12 that New York Times wine writer Frank Prial penned a full-length and very complimentary feature on Jack McAuliffe and his New Albion brewery. You have to pay to download a pdf version of the article, but it’s a great read through the lens of history.
This was so long ago that there was no reason for Prial to call New Albion a microbrewery, a craft brewery or a boutique brewery. Simply a brewery that made “what may be one of the country’s best beers.”
And . . . “At 95 cents to $1.05 per bottle, including deposit, it may well be the most expensive domestic beer sold.”
So let’s call it a buck for a 10-ounce bottle. Taking inflation into account that works out to 31 cents per ounce in 2009 dollars and cents. Or $3.72 for a 12-ounce bottle, $22.32 for a six-pack of those, and $7.84 for a 750ml bottle. Just so you know.
Matt Van Wyk at Oakshire Brewing in Eugene, Oregon, has a new standard answer when he’s asked how many IBU (International Bitterness Units) are in one of his beers. “About one hundred.”
How many in the Perfect Storm Imperial IPA? “About one hundred.”
How many in the Oakshire Wheat? “About one hundred.”
He’s not trying to be rude, just having a little fun at festivals with a question brewers hear all the time. I think the answer is brilliant because it naturally moves the conversation from a number with questionable meaning to one about aroma and flavor.
Make no mistake. Hops are about more than bitterness, about more than being macho. They are about aroma and flavor.
That said, next week Stone Brewing releases its 13th Anniversary Ale and it’s been measured at 100 IBU. I emphasize the word measured because breweries and their fans sometimes toss around crazy claims about beers with 120 IBU and more. Next time somebody tells you a beer clocks 100-plus ask whoever tells that if he or she had seen a proper lab analysis. I know of a couple of beers that have topped 100, but only a couple.
Brewers should know better and what they say should reflect that. First because education has been an important part of craft brewing since the get-go. Second because when it comes to perceived bitterness the big numbers may not be that important. There’s some question if us mere mortals can actually detect any additional bitterness above 60 or 70 IBU.
Why do brewers fall into this trap? Everybody, and that includes me, asks about IBU. The number is a shorthand for telling us the volume of hops added to a recipe, which may well impact aroma and flavor. It’s unfortunate that a number sounds so precise, but is usually based on a formula a heck of a lot more accurate for beers of something sane like 40 IBU. Adjectives would be so much better, although it can be a challenge to describe the difference between piney and in-your-face-big-ass piney.
Turn up the volume another notch or two from big-ass and you have Stone 13. That was the impression out of the tank when I tasted it, before it was dry-hopped for the second time. For the record Stone calls this a 90-plus IBU beer, but the first batch in the bottle measured dead-on one hundred. The lads in the brewery added four and a half pounds of hops per barrel, more than any Stone beer ever.
They did a quick check on the wort prior to fermentation and it measured about 130 IBU. A pretty impressive number, don’t you think? But . . . “IBUs drop during fermentation because the pH of the liquid drops from about 5.3 to about 4.5,” Stone brewmaster Mitch Steele explained via email. “This reduces the solubility of the iso-alpha-acids, the bittering component of hops, so some bitterness solidifies and drops out, and/or gets absorbed by yeast.”
So now you know what it’s best to say “about” when talking about the IBU in beers brewed with bunches of hops.
Working on a post about Stone 13th Anniversary Ale, that it measures 100 IBU and why that’s a story. Meanwhile I noticed this reading the text written for the back label on the bottle:
“No matter where you are, we are thankful and hugely flattered when you choose Stone. However, if you’re outside our region and you often choose a quality craft beer that is more local, we understand.”
Cheers to Stone. The 13th is supposed to start hitting stores June 29. Don’t know whether that includes Jackson, Wyoming, but even if it does we’ll be toasting Stone with a little Snake River Zonker Stout.
It was a winter afternoon in Juneau, Alaska, more temperate than most in the Lower 48 U.S. states would imagine but cold enough for frozen lakes and plenty of snow. A day of work done, Alaskan Brewing Company co-founder Marcy Larson headed out on cross-country skis with her dog, Jasmine, at her side.
They were headed to the Mendenhall Glacier when they came across Romeo, a black wolf well known to local residents. “People let their dogs play with him,” Larson said. “In my mind that’s a mistake. Then he’s not a wolf anymore.”
Romeo trotted toward Jasmine, signaling he wanted to play, but Larson and her dog moved on. When they reached the cliffs near the base of the glacier Jasmine was the first to spot a mountain goat about 30 feet above them. They paused again.
“We left him behind and went skiing,” Larson said. “But later I thought where else can you ski to the base of a glacier, run into a black wolf and then a mountain goat?”
*******
Life is different in Alaska — you feel the tension between man and wilderness everywhere — and sometimes that means brewing beer a little differently.
“Our goal is to keep growing without having any negative impact by being here,” said Ashley Johnston, who doubles as Alaskan communications manager and sustainability spokeswoman.
That’s put Alaskan on the cutting edge — in 1998 it was the first craft brewery in the country to install a carbon dioxide recovery system, with Sierra Nevada only recently becoming the second — and even in what could be uncomfortable territory.
No, not uncomfortable for Alaskan Brewing. Co-founder Geoff Larson spoke in no uncertain terms last June when the brewery was still in the process of putting a mash filter press online, only the second installed in North America (Molson Coors owns the other). “We’ll extract more from the grains that we want, not what we don’t,” he said.
Plant engineer Brandon Smith is pictured with the mash filter press.
But uncomfortable for some other brewers. “In North America, like this is forbidden land,” Alaskan plant manager Curtis Holmes said.
That’s because malted barley grains are milled more finely than in conventional mashing and that more is squeezed out of them. Which is why a mash filter press is more efficient (using about 6 percent less barley malt to make the same amount of beer). The concern I’ve heard when visiting other breweries and talking about the process is that the resulting beers wouldn’t have the same mouthfeel they would otherwise and might even taste astringent.
It’s easy to understand the skepticism, because this is a serious break with tradition. I happen to be a sucker for grants myself, like from Orval (right). I appreciate the magical role they play in gentle but efficient lautering (or sparging) — although, just to be clear, few breweries still employ grants as part of the lautering process. I value tradition; it’s in the mission statement and why all the words here about the mash press.
So back to that. What press coverage there’s been about Alaskan installing a mash press focused on news about savings — less water consumed, less grain used, less spent grain to deal with, and less energy used — that are good for the bottom line. Where’s the discussion about what the beer tastes like?
In the lab at Alaskan, as a matter of fact, where a tasting panel of company employees convenes every weekday morning at half past ten. They come from all parts of the brewery, because more than half the people who work at Alaskan are BJCP certified judges.
Panelists first tasted test batches from the mash press back in 2000, which is also when other blind taste testing began. “I think it was 1998 or so when I first heard about mash presses and was curious,” Holmes said. By then there weren’t enough cattle in all of Alaska to dispose of the spent grain Alaskan Brewing was producing. In 1995 the brewery bought a grain dryer – another rarity among craft breweries – so it could dry grain (making it lighter) before it was shipped to Seattle.
In 2000 Meura, which is based in Belgium, sent Alaskan a three-barrel pilot mash filter press to test. “Our biggest issue was flavor. Would it be the same?” Holmes said. “We tested it with our old 10-barrel system, comparing what we got with beers off our 100-barrel system. There were no flavor concerns.”
Alaskan wasn’t ready to make the investment until last year, then spent eight months dialing in the recipes before fully implementing the mash press in February. “We took our time and waited to get it right,” said Dave Wilson, operations manager. The recipe for each brand was tested, then brewed using the lauter tun one week, the mash press filter the next.
The biggest challenge was matching alcohol levels, because the new system is more efficient. “There were no issues with flavor and mouthfeel,” Wilson said. “It was pretty easy to match fully attenuated beers within a month. The maltier beers were a little harder.”
The savings are real: 360,000 pounds of malt a year, one million gallons of water, and 65,000 gallons of diesel fuel. Spent grain now contains less water than in the past, making it easier to dry now and laying the foundation for using a biomass boiler in the future.
That’s good business, but not why the crew at Alaskan initiated this and many other energy saving programs. “In a town where we get 90 inches of rain per year you’re not necessarily thinking about saving water,” Geoff Larson said. “But this is about discharging less waste water down the drain and energy usage.
“In the U.S. we have a wasteful mindset. We’ve had the luxury of living where we do, but that’s changing.”
*******
The Larsons aren’t native Alaskans but clearly they are Alaskans. “There are different elements that affect us, obstacles and challenges we’ll encounter that others don’t,” Marcy Larson said.
She, Geoff and Jasmine are all certified for search and rescue operations. In some of the lower 48 states they’d likely be specialists, called upon for specific emergencies. That’s not the way it works in Alaska. “Our search dogs are trained to do a multiple number of things,” Marcy Larson said. “That’s the way it is in Alaska. There are fewer of us to do more things.”
The day I visited last year I met Jasmine because she had ridden to work with Geoff in his truck. This was not long after an avalanche knocked out hydro power in Juneau, briefly sending electricity prices skyrocketing five-fold. To help companies through the crisis the city sent out energy auditors who then suggested ways to conserve energy. The one who visited Alaskan Brewing told Geoff the brewery was already doing everything he might recommend.
And this was before the mash filter press was operating.
“The uniqueness of our location means we don’t always do things like others,” Geoff Larson said.
Think you know where in the beer world this photo was taken?
Please leave your answer as a comment. This week a “what” answer is as valid as a “where.”
A hint: Yes, being able to read helps. Being a bit of a historian helps more.
What style beer do you think the one pictured at the right might be?
Double Mountain Brewery in Hood River (right around the corner from Full Sail Brewing) calls the beer Vaporizer and describes it as a Golden IPA.
I really liked the beer, which is generously dry-hopped with Challenger hops. Otherwise I wouldn’t have ordered a full glass after sampling it along with others. All the beers I tried were tasty as a matter of fact, all with plenty of hops (they say the Kolsch packs in 40 bittering units, and it tasted of every one). But I was a bit surprised by how hazy the beers were overall, even taking into consideration the dry hopping.
In fact, we’ve seen plenty of hazy beers in Oregon (not just the ones made with wheat). I guess there is a pun in there about “partly cloudy,” but I’ll pass. I’ve heard brewers in other states say if their beers aren’t a little cloudy their customers don’t understand they are “natural” but on a per capita basis — and granted I’ve only managed a small sample in a state with just a ridiculous number of brewers — a lot more haze in Oregon.
For the record, this isn’t something you taste or that changes my opinion of a beer.
Think you know where in the beer world this photo was taken?
Please leave your answer as a comment.
A hint: That’s a wine bottle on the lower right.
Gail and Steve from Beer by BART have announced the theme for The Session #29: Will Travel for Beer. They present plenty of options about how to approach this topic.
We’ll be in Colorado then, I think, and will have in the past year visited 17 countries, 9 Canadian provinces and territories, and 46 states — so far, three to go after that and then heading home (without driving to Hawaii).
As I am fond of writing, this is not a beer trip — even though I know full well you can sleep in an RV park in Newport, Oregon, that has space almost adjacent to Rogue’s House of Spirits and within crawling distance of the Rogue Ales brewry — but I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to find something to write about.
People who are predisposed to spend $95 to attend a beer and food festival say “high quality” is their main priority when purchasing beer, as opposed to low price or brand recognition.
Is this news?
Here are excerpts from the Brewers Association press release:
On Saturday, May 30, over 1,900 attendees enjoyed craft beer and food pairings from 68 craft breweries at the sold-out SAVOR: An American Craft Beer & Food Experience at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. A post-event survey conducted by the Brewers Association finds that demand for quality beer remains high despite the economy. An overwhelming 91.4 percent of surveyed attendees said the economy has not affected the quality of beer they purchase. In addition, 98.8 percent of respondents cite “high quality” as their main priority when purchasing beer, as opposed to “low price” or “brand recognition.”
When it comes to spending habits, over half (54.9 percent) of surveyed SAVOR attendees said they spend more than $50 per month on beer, while 36.6 percent spend between $25 and $50 and only 8.6 percent spend less than $25 per month. And contrary to popular belief, many beer lovers enjoy other fermented beverages as well. Nearly half of respondents (46.9 percent) claimed to look outside the beer glass and consider themselves to be cross drinkers (enjoying a combination of beer, wine and/or liquor), while 51.6 percent identify themselves as beer lovers exclusively.
Survey Methodology: The Brewers Association survey of SAVOR: An American Craft Beer & Food Experience attendees took place online from June 1-2, 2009, with data derived from 257 respondents.
I find the idea that this survey of people who paid $95 to attend SAVOR (ticket details) was conducted and that the results might have meaning so strange I can’t think of anything flip to write.
Brian Yaeger has posted the roundup for The Session #28. Since Brian asked for it he got a nice collection of beers from far away, far away being subjective, of course.
Several first time Session participant — go make them feel welcome by leaving a comment — while some “regulars” turned up missing. I think, and I’m not making this up, it may have been because they were traveling.
This is my contribution to The Session #28, hosted by Brian Yaeger. I’m posting early because we’ll be amongst tall trees on Friday, a canopy the Internet cannot penetrate. Visit Brian’s blog on Friday for links to more posts.
For The Session this month Brian asks us to write about the brewery whose beer we’ve enjoyed the longest distance from our home. I figured from the outset that hops would be involved, because I thought this would be an opportunity to tell another story about drinking hoppy pilsners in small towns in the Czech Republic or hoppy ales in Vienna (I would have written about the HopDevil Ale at the 1516 brewpub while consuming Victory’s HopDevil here.) But when I did the math using two different online mapping services, two because the results surprised me, I discovered the south of Italy is farther from our Corrales home.
Not that I had to quit thinking about hops.
Although we didn’t visit Birra del Borgo west of Rome, we had several of the brewery’s beers at Bir & Fud in Rome, the restaurant del Borgo founder/brewer Leonardo di Vincenzo co-owns. I interviewed him for a story in the current DRAFT magazine at Ma Che Siete Venuti A Fa’, a wonderful pub across the street that features Italian craft beers on tap along with rarities from Franconia and Belgium.
The options that evening included del Borgo’s Re Ale from a handpump, a rather easy choice for both Daria and I. It’s an American Pale Ale even if it is brewed in Italy, rich in Northwest American hop flavor and aroma. I took one deep whiff and told di Vincenzo, “Smells like home.”
By “home” I meant the United States in general, but sure as hell could have said “California,” where we’ve been for going on a month. Since we’re off to Oregon next there’s little doubt that when we return to New Mexico some of our clothes may still smell of grapefruit and pine.
Although B. United imports some of del Borgo’s beers Re Ale is not to be found anywhere we’ve been recently. So, back to Brian’s instructions and alternative #3: “find a local beer of the same style and do a little compare and contrast.”
That beer is North Coast Red Seal Ale. The bonus being I also had it from a handpump, in this case at North Coast’s pub across the street from the brewery in Fort Bragg. Sorry, no real compare and contrast here. I will simply suggest you too should find a place serving Red Seal cask-conditioned. The hops are delightfully floral and packed with grapefruity aromas, but softer on the palate than when you pour a glass from the bottle. The texture in the mouth is a pure delight, and the finish just as dry and bitter as from the bottle.
How was it like Re Ale, how was it different? I was too busy enjoying Red Seal to consider that, just like I ultimately enjoyed Re Ale last October more because of the flavor than because of any memories of home.
Is there a takeaway message? You decide.
Think you know where in the beer world this photo was taken?
Please leave your answer as a comment.
You don’t need a hint if you can read.
The May/June issue of DRAFT magazine has hit newsstands, though none I’ve seen. So now you can read the rest of the story from when I reported on beer in Italy back in October and December. Since I haven’t seen the print edition I don’t know what photos appeared with my words.
Perhaps the one at the top, taken at the bar at Birrificio Troll in Vernante.
You can read the story online, but DRAFT would rather you grab a copy from a newsstand or subscribe. Seems fair to me.
Today’s Wall Street Journal reports on a topic that’s been simmering in the wine blog and wine discussion board world for a while: the ethics of wine writing, centering on Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate.
Read it, and check out blog entries from Dr. Vino and Wine Enthusiast columnist Steve Heimoff.
Now to beer (and a couple more wine links). More than a year ago in looking for an excuse to use a lovely quote from Kenneth Tynan (”A critic’s job, nine-tenths of it, is to make way for the good by demolishing the bad”) I tossed up a post that generated a silly number of comments, leading to a discussion about the ethics of beer writing.
That probably doesn’t need to be revisited. But there is something else to think about. During the course of the Parker flap, the author at winesooth.com asked several prominent wine writers a variety of leading questions. Good reading. But if you check out just one response make it Jancis Robinson’s.
She answers questions not asked, including the issue of writing about people who turn into friends. She writes, “I cannot think of a single wine writer who has managed the sort of hermit-like existence that would be required of them if they were to ensure that they had no real human contact with anyone in the wine trade.”
The discussion about wine junkets and samples of ridiculously priced wines makes it pretty apparent how wine and beer continue to differ (thank goodness). But friendship, that’s universal. It’s one of the joys of writing about beer. Something for me to remember when I write and you to remember when you read.
By the way, if you read this far I applaud you. Despite the lengthy discussion’s at Parker’s website and all the words typed on wine blogs this is a subject I’m not sure how many wine or beer drinkers give a good burp about. Witness the rather meager 11 comments at winesooth.com.
Think you know where in the beer world this photo was taken?
Please leave you answer as a comment.
This is what happens when you have two guys with cameras in a place that serves beer. Yes, the photographer is using the glass as a tripod.
I figure there’s a good chance somebody can name the city; the spot may be a little tougher. The second photo, of my beer, provides a tiny hint.
Joe Stange at the Thirsty Pilgrim posts troubling news from Armand Debelder at Drie Fonteinen.
Because of a busted thermostat, excessive heat ruined about 100,000 bottles of lambic and gueuze in storage last weekend. He said that represented about a third of his annual revenue, so it is a serious blow to his business. It is not a fatal blow—he is determined to survive and keep going—but it is serious nonetheless. For example, there will be virtually no 37.5 cL bottles of gueuze on the market this summer.
Curioiusly, Debelder could end up distilling the ruined lambic into a liquor.
One year to the day after we left home on this rather pleasant family journey I found myself wandering about Firestone Walker Brewing in Paso Robles, Calif. And checking out the brewery’s patented union system up close and personal.
That probably makes it hard for you to believe it when I keep saying “This really isn’t a beer trip.”
Given that more than 300 people have signed up as members of the Facebook group Pete Brown created to support his book, “Hops and Glory,” I might be a little late telling you it exists.
But if you didn’t know you should. Or at least that the book is (sort of) available. I briefly forgot about it when in reviewing “Tasting Beer” I wrote “I don’t know of another beer book to be published in 2009 that should be of as much interest to you.” These are two very different books, and the fact is I haven’t read “Hops and Glory” but it sure looks to me like they’ll be equally memorable. I’ll write more about that once I read Pete Brown’s book.
Meanwhile there’s the matter of getting your hands on “Hops and Glory” if you live in the United States. It’s available from Amazon in Canada. Here’s the link.
Think you know where in the beer world this photo was taken?
Please leave you answer as a comment.
I know I mentioned last week that I should quit posting photos with barrels. But in this case I wasn’t taking the picture of the barrels, but of the brewery at night.
This photo is from the top of Vernal Falls in Yosemite National Park.
Or I could show you hundreds of shots of waterfalls — May is definitely the time to visit if you want to see roaring waterfalls — giant trees, the valley from above, Dogwoods up close . . . you get the idea. About anything but bears. It seems almost everybody we talked to “just saw a bear.” Not us.
But we did see beer. Including Firestone Walker Double Barrel in the village store. Should have taken a picture for “Where in the Beer World.”
American Craft Beer Week begins today.
There have been times duirng the last 12 months we’ve not been able to find craft beer nearby, but those have been rare. Local craft beer can be more of a challenge. So I pass along this photo stolen from the Cigar City blog.
I you read some of the Whole Foods signage closely you’ll notice all is not what they’d like you to think, but it’s hard to argue with something this simple.
As I’ve already written Craft Beer Week is not top of mind for us this week. Following New Beer Rule #5 — It’s only beer — we’re headed for Yosemite National Park.
Think you know where in the beer world this photo was taken?
Please leave your answer as a comment.
The hint: This photo will be five years old in July.
A really interesting discussion between Mario at Brewed For Thought and Pete from BetterBeerBlog about paying $43 for the Mayfield Iconoclast beers at Whole Foods. (I think, I hope, this is the price of a 750ml bottle.) Go read it all.
I’m too distracted to jump into this other than to suggest . . .
Chatter about why it costs $43 (or $30 or whatever) is noise. The why is relevant only in context.
Instead, here’s the bottom line. If a beer is worth $43 then consumers will buy it. Those at other breweries will notice and if they can conjure up a beer somewhat similar and as good for $42 or $38 or $2.50 then they will do that.
During the discussion portion of Beer Wars Live Greg Koch pointed out that Stone Brewing’s Arrogant Bastard Ale is the nation’s top-selling craft 22-ounce package. How’s that for a target? If Anheuser-Busch could brew that beer for less wouldn’t they? So to the line I’ve heard so often: “The big brewers could brew whatever they want if they chose to” I say “Poppycock.” I’m of the opinion they can’t brew the beer at any price. It’s not in their DNA.
I’ve begun to digress. Back to the point. I’m willing to pay “more” for the beers we want to drink. I don’t expect brewers to sell beers for less they they cost (and I understand all the costs) to brew. But I don’t buy beers based on what they cost to make. I buy them based on the experience they deliver.
The blogs involved:
- Brewed for Thought.
- BetterBeerBlog.
As I type this nearly 5,000 Facebook members have signed up as fans of American Craft Beer Week.
I’m not sure that’s a lot but the number surely will go higher. And the “Declaration of Beer Independence” is bound to get more attention. (I’ve already written I’m delighted to focus on where a beer is brewed and who brews it, but I also think part of independence means people get to drink whatever they want, even Bud Light Lime . . . or is it Bud Lime Light?)
A quick historical note: Had American Beer Month remained American Beer Month this July (because that’s when it was held before it became Craft Beer Week) we’d be celebrating its 10th anniversary.
The Facebook page looks like the best way anybody has come up with so far to let more people know about this not-so-new idea, so maybe more people will join in the celebration. We’ll see. Actually, you’ll see. We’re going to be busy celebrating America itself. Heading to Yosemite and not thinking about beer.
Drink a local beer for me.
Brian Yaeger of Red, White and Brew has set the top for the 28th round of the Session: Think/Drink Globally. Should I, in the midst of an adventure where our goal is to eat and drink local products, think this is a good idea?
No need to panic, because here’s part of Brian’s directive:
[I]n honor of Global Craft Beer Forever, I pose everyone writes about the farthest brewery (including brewpubs) you have visited and specifically the best beer you had there. Again, not your favorite or any old brewery you’ve been to, but the one that is the longest haul away.
So this does not have to be about buying some beer from far, far away and drinking it at home. At least that’s the way I am approaching it. Brian, in fact, writes you may want to go out and buy a bottle that’s been shipped from wherever. Or you could “find a local beer of the same style and do a little compare and contrast.” I like that beter.
I’m sure I’ll figure something out once I determine a) where we’ll be June 5 (maybe Oregon) and b) the most far flung brewery we’ve visited.
I’m only about seven months behind on this, but here’s a great quote from Doug Odell of Odell Brewing in Fort Collins, Colo., that appeared last October in Modern Brewery Age:
“I like the idea of regionalism in consumer products. I like the idea of independent coffee shops, hamburger stands and ice cream that’s made in your own town. That way you can go different places, have different products, and get different versions of things. Being a regional brewery fulfills my idea of doing that. You come to Ft. Collins, and you can get beers you don’t get in Indiana. I think regionalism is important for the health of independent brewers. Not everyone can be everywhere.”
I think that stands on itself, but blogs are supposed to include commentary, yes? So I point you to Maureen Ogle’s ongoing followup to Beer Wars. (Sorry, it never goes away.)
Her points about entrepreneurship are fair enough, and worth considering through the lens of history. Which she does. But when I read what Doug Odell has to say, when I think about talking to Bob Sylvester in his tiny brewery then I’m pretty sure some brewers will be content to serve a limited audience really good beer.
Do you think you know where in the beer world this photo was taken?
Please leave your answer as a comment.
Trust me, this one is a gimme.
Great turnout for The Session #27, the theme being Beer Cocktails. Jasmine at Beer at Joe’s already has the roundup posted.
Lots to read. I particularly like these Friday gatherings because — despite the rather lengthy list on the right — we’re seeing posts from beer blogs I didn’t know existed.
Get your own. Be there when Brian Yaeger hosts in June.
This is my contribution to The Session, hosted this month by Joe & Jasmine at Beer at Joe’s. The topic is beer cocktails. Visit Joe and Jasmine to see what everybody else is writing about.
A couple of years ago during a tour of New Belgium Brewing arranged for the press brewmaster Peter Bouckaert poured samples of the brewery’s Frambozen, a beer released for winter drinking. I told the person next to me that we liked to mix one part Frambozen with two parts Pyramid Snow Cap. Apparently Bouckaert was eavesdropping because he looked at me, narrowed his eyes and said, “Ooohh, a blender.”
Guilty as charged . . . sometimes. We go through stretches in our house when we blend beers and even make cocktails that include beer and non-beer ingredients. Right now we’re not doing much mixing, in part because of travels, but also because we’re happy to let brewers do it for us. In all my life I’m probably never going to take “a little bit of this” and “a little bit of that” and come up with anything like we bought at Cantillon.
But today is The Session. So I thought about suggesting an old favorite. Like a cocktail Stephen Beaumont dubbed “Any Port in a Storm.” His cocktail calls for two ounces of port and a 12-ounce bottle of Storm King from Victory Brewing in Pennsylvania. Works with other imperial stouts as well. Really good for watching stars on a cool New Mexico night.
And I considered something, well, weird. We’ve got this book titled “Beer and Good Food,” written in 1958 by Myra Waldo, that has some strange recipes.
For instance, “Lamb’s Wool.” You “combine 1 cup applesauce and 2 cups of ale in a saucepan and heat; remove from heat just before the boiling point. Add 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract and 1/4 teaspoon powdered ginger and stir well. Taste — you might want to add a little sugar if the applesauce is unsweetened. Drink while hot.”
We can do better than that, can’t we? I figured that out at lunch. During our unexpected pit stop at home we’ve managed to visit a few local breweries (including brewpubs). Today we had lunch at Chama River, where brewer Jeff Erway explained to me why my favorite Class VI Golden would be more like the beer I remember by the time we’re back in August (a yeast issue). Daria had Doble Gringo, a big (6.8% abv) and bold beer brewed in the manner of a Belgian wit.
An excellent beer all on it’s own. But what if we took a growler home, and dosed it with a measure of New Glarus Raspberry Tart? Not sure how much; probably best to start small and add more if necessary. No doubt that Raspberry Tart’s flavors would both compliment and complement the wheaty qualities of the Gringo.
One problem. We don’t have any Raspberry Tart. So, like you, I’m left to imagine.
Apologies, but I have to point something else out that bugged me watching Beer Wars. When you left the theater did you think that Moonshot was the only beer laced with caffeine? (Excepting the 849 coffee beers out there; mmmm, Meantime Coffee.)
Not true. There’s also MateVeza Yerba Mate gold, and now Yerba Mate IPA. The Gold was introduced in 2007 and brewed under contract by Butte Creek in Chico, Calif. Now Mendocino Brewing makes the beers, which are certified organic. Like coffee, yerba mate contains the alkaloid caffeine. Unlike coffee, yerba mate also contains theobromine, the active alkaloid in chocolate that is a mild, long-lasting stimulant.
Each 12-ounce serving of Yerba Mate IPA — let’s get right to the strong stuff — contains roughly equal to one-half cup of coffee. Seven percent strong with 60 IBU.
I’d like to say I’d take it black, but it’s more like a orange, bright and clear. Somewhat grassy, blame the hops and/or the Yerba Mate. Think of smelling orange blossoms when your hands are just a bit muddy. It certainly qualifies as a “hop tea.”
OK, it’s not the French Laundry restaurant in Napa Valley ($240 tasting menu, hard-to-get reservations, $50 corkage fee if you bring your own wine), but French Laundry Café & Market in Fenton, Michigan, has announced it will pour only Michigan beers.
In a press release, bartender Jon Foley says the restaurants’s nine handles will offer “the spectrum of styles, coming from a variety of Michigan breweries including Arbor Brewing, Arcadia Ales, Atwater, Bell’s, Darkhorse, Dragonmead, Founders, Frog Island (Michigan Brewing Company), King’s, New Holland, Sherwood, Short’s and The Livery.” Featured selections will be posted each week at the restaurant as well as online.
“This marks a major triumph for us as a business, especially in our solidarity with the Michigan brewing industry,” says owner Mark Hamel. “We believe Michigan makes the best beer in the country and now there’s finally going to be a place to get consistent Michigan draft in Genesse County.”
Looks like a place to head for American Craft Beer Week.
There’s the sky, here’s the earth
This is the road for all it’s worth
It’s a ribbon, it’s a river, it’s a wave
It’s an arrow and it’s a snake
It’s asleep and it’s awake
And it stretches from the cradle to the grave
Thank God for the road
And the stars that shine above it
No matter what you once thought of it
You always knew you’d come to love it
We are in the midst of an unplanned stop at home, hoping RV repairs go fast so we can be winging toward California. One thing we learned quickly is that when this adventure ends in August we’ll need to do some serious adjusting. Gonna miss the road.
Lyrics: By Butch Hancock, from “Thank God for the Road” on the Flatlanders’ “Hills and Valleys.”
Photo: Looking south across remains of a building at Terlingua Ghost Town just outside of Big Bend National Park.
Am I so out if it a missed the previous announcement and perhaps considerable discussion?
Last week Guinness launched its 250th Anniversary Stout in the United States. It’s a “new” stout and certainly is being poured in a new manner. The press release states, “This marks the first new stout offering in the U.S. from Guinness since 1966 – more than 40 years ago – when Guinness draught was first introduced to Americans.”
In fact, the press release talks about dispense before what might have changed in the beer itself.
The commemorative stout is carbonated, not nitrogenated like the traditional Guinness Draught. As a result, it has a near-white frothy stout beer head of larger bubble size than that of Guinness Draught, and is poured on draught in a one-part pour or gently from a bottle (as opposed to the two-part pour unique to Guinness draught).
Just so you know, in the press release GUINNESS always appears in capital letters. Yell it from the rooftops.
The press release also states the new stout “uses a unique brewhouse process. This process blends two malt types in a double ‘brew stream’ along with water from the Wicklow Hills, and of course as in all Guinness Stouts, roasted barley to create the deep rich color and enigmatic flavor.”
I will also give you this verbatim because it would seem to indicate the beer undergoes longer fermentation than the non-anniversary stout: “The fermentation process for the Guinness 250 Anniversary Stout uses Guinness’ own yeast which has been extended to allow for more conversion of the natural sugars. The result is a more malty flavor profile.”
“The Guinness 250 Anniversary Stout has a different look and taste than anything our fans have ever experienced,” Guinness brewer Fergal Murray says, “but still retains the familiar character for which Guinness is so well known.”
I’m looking forward to seeing the results of some side-by-side blind tastings.
After touring the Pilsner Urquell brewery last November I promised that when I got a chance I’d take a look at Michael Jackson’s video report from 1989 (the Beer Hunter series) to compare what he saw then with what Pilsner Urquell says is how long they’ve “always” lagered beer.
I tell you, that’s one great half hour of video. Discovery really needs to reissue the three hours of video in DVD form (before our VCR dies). Incredible details about the wooden vessels the brewery was using, the coopering, the whole process. I love watching Jackson wander through the caves, and the Hitchcockian moment where a giant barrel appears to be stalking him. You get thirsty seeing him march around open wooden fermenters, then he climbs a ladder to loom over one and explain that this is one of the things that make Pilsner Urquell different, presumably better. He says that others in the industry have told the brewery it is crazy not to modernize but that its leaders swear they won’t abandon open fermentation. Sigh.
But back to the question at hand. These days Pilsner Urquell lagers its beers five weeks, claiming this is the same amount of time as when Josef Groll first brewed the beer in 1842. On the other hand, the Beer Hunter report in 1989? “Three months,” which on my calendar is one quarter of a year (13 weeks).
Let’s say that you drink local beer because you think it is important to support locally produced products and further the environmentally correct thing to do.
So there’s every chance you expect the local brewery to use local products itself. But what if it is much cheaper for the contract mobile bottling company — which happens to be called “Green Bottling” — that packages the beer for the brewery to buy from China or Oklahoma than from a plant three miles away.
Kind of complicated, I know. You’ll find the discussion at the Oregon Economics Blog.
It comes to my attention that The Session #27 is Friday and I never pointed to the announcement.
Oops.
Beer at Joes, operated by Joe and Jasime, will play host and the topic is “Beyond the Black & Tan.” Jasime writes:
What’s your favorite beer cocktail (and yes, despite the title of this post, it can be a black & tan or a shandy)? Find a recipe for that or a new one, try it, and tell us why you did or didn’t like it–even if you think beer cocktails are nothing but a good way to waste a beer. Have fun and try something new!
Everybody is welcome to participate. Head to Beer at Joes for details.
OK, time to be cantankerous.
One heck of a lot of people in the beer blogging and twittering world have linked to the “I Am a Craft Brewer” video, including (in the interest of full disclosure) me.
Looks like love.
So who in the beer blogging world is going to slice and dice this puppy like they did Beer Wars?
Greg Koch has posted the video he used yesterday to introduce his keynote speech at the Craft Brewers Conference in Boston entitled “Be Remarkable: Collaboration Ethics Camaraderie Passion.”
Click on the play button to watch or head on over to the “I Am A Craft Brewer” area at Vimeo, where he promises “a program is in development to include even more of America’s amazing craft brewers.”
I’m doing my best not to get sucked back into the Beer Wars discussion. But I do want to point you to Harry Schuhmacher’s excellent “alternative view.” In it he mentions the late Henry King.
I first met King at Oldenburg Beer Camp in 1996 and was fascinated when he talked about “institutional memory.” Eight years later Jim Parker, then editor of New Brewer magazine, asked me to write a profile of King because — being perfectly honest — he was dying. A great assignment and a terrible one. King died in April of 2005.
Anyway, today I added “Henry King: Another king of beers” to the library. And I’m thinking again about the importance of institutional memory.
But not writing about Beer Wars, though I will suggest you read what Stephen Beaumont has to write about the idea “we’re all in this together.”
But on the other side …. it didn’t say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!
***********
No Where in the Beer World? this week. I figured still another Texas brewery would be overkill.
But I did want to share this photo taken in Big Bend National Park. The sign caused us to pause for a moment. Then we remembered the road — which was just plain too nasty to continue on in the RV — led to hot springs. I’m sure lots of park visitors disregard the sign and “take a soak” with an alcoholic beverage in hand.
Short enough to Twitter, but in Big Bend National Park off the grid means not only no electricity or Internet via wi-fi but also no cell phone service. So a day late . . .
Great triple pairing - a hike in Big Bend National Park, Saint Arnold Summer Pils and Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s voice cutting through the desert air.
Feeling restored and invigorated.
Oskar Blues Brewery, those can beer guys, have struck a deal with PASTE magazine to offer free music downloads.
And what in this blog’s Mission Statement would cause me to mention that here?
Not just that I like some of the musicians whose work is available this month (the list includes Harlem Shakes and The Deep Vibration, as well as Todd Snider, Marissa Nadler, Slaid Cleaves and John Doe) and look forward to sampling some others.
It’s that music is part of Oskar Blues’ DNA. Even before Marty Jones came on board as “lead singer/idea man” the brewpub in Lyons, Colorado, was an outstanding music venue. The small town north of Boulder hosts the Rocky Mountain Folks Fest and, no surprise, musicians are always looking for an excuse to head there.
The pub itself (above the basement music room) is decorated in basic Louisiana, beer and music (lots of Elvis). So when you talk about the “where” in Oskar Blues beers I think about this music. Would the beer be the same without the music connection? Perhaps. But why take a chance? (And, yes, I know that the bulk of brewing has moved to a larger facility in nearby Longmont.)
So the rest of the news: Advertisements in PASTE magazine will point readers to this Downlow’d Club site and promote Oskar Blues’ Dale’s Pale Ale. Starting in May, Oskar Blues will roll out special cans (more than five million of them) that promote the partnership.
Saw “Beer Wars Live” in San Antonio last with plans to provide at least a few comments when I got home.
But it was an evening that resulted in a variety of discussions about beer, and not a whole lot about the movie, and went rather late. I counted about 80 people in the theater, and this clearly was the location members of the local beer community chose to meet. Many were at Flying Saucer before the movie and/or Freetail Brewing (nice beers) after the movie. The movie clearly spoke to them. My sense is that if it is going to start new conversations that will happen when those not so connected with beer see the DVD.
Otherwise, before we aim our RV for and slip happily off the grid at Big Bend National Park a few quick thoughts.
My one-world review: Underachieving.
What you should read: Alan has done a brilliant job of capturing (ongoing) online coverage, including from Twitter. Surely the images will be clearer when this comes out on DVD.
Why, why, why? I liked having Ben Stein there. In part because he was generous enough to let Greg Koch, Charlie Papazian and Maureen Ogle be the smart ones. Maybe more so because he doesn’t get it.
If you embrace the notion that it’s the “American Way” to create a product that sells to the most people and makes you the most money then somebody like Bob Sylvester makes no sense to you. So Stein didn’t seem to understand Koch or Sam Calagione when they said that what makes their beer different is “intent” (Koch’s word). Or perhaps to believe their No. 1 goal is not to have their individual breweries grow as big as possible. (Is that a double negative?)
Maureen certainly seemed to echo Stein’s skepticism when she told them, “Get back to me in 10 years” (best I can read my notes scribbled in the dark).
But I’d suggest you go back and read her thoughts on the “Age of E-Quarious,” particularly parts three and four.
The reason the movie resonated with the crowd I watched it with is that they understand what Koch, Calagione, the guys at Freetail, etc. are about. I wish “Beer Wars” did a better job explaining that to the non-beer-obsessed who end up seeing it.
- Will I be able to see the movie? It’s sold out in Boston. (Showing in one theater in Boston, but three in San Antonio. Who’s in charge of booking?)
- Alan doesn’t “give a rats ass.”
- Will it crack Jay’s Top 10 Beer Movies?
- Can Charlie Papazian make it to Los Angeles on time?
- Will the movie cause us to rethink the three tier system?
- And won’t we all be glad to move on to other subject of discussion (after, of course, 387 more blogs posts and who knows how many posts at Real Beer, Beer Advocate, Rate Beer, etc.)?
Back to Ron Pattinson’s suggestion that we shouldn’t expect pale lagers to dominate the world for another 100 years.
That Anheuser-Busch InBev may be shopping the Rolling Rock brand brings to light this fascinating fact: Between 2003 and last year, Rolling Rock production fell by 45.7 percent to 475,000 barrels.
Dang, that’s taking a lesson from the buffalo.
(Thanks to Jack Curtin for pointing to this story.)
Do you think you know where in the beer world this photo was taken?
Please leave your answer as a comment.
I’ll be up front and tell you I posted this picture just because I think it is pretty. I can see why many of the brewers I know get excited about copper vessels.
The St. Louis Business Journal has the scoop on what a bunch of men until recently employed by Anheuser-Busch are up to.
Five months after Belgium-based InBev completed its acquisition of Anheuser-Busch Cos., former senior and mid-evel brewery executives are launching new companies, teaching at universities around the world and taking their skills to other organizations eager to tap their expertise.
For instance, Doug Muhleman, the brewery’s former group vice president of brewing operations and technology, and his wife are growing grapes in Sonoma County.
The Business Journal reports other former brewery employees are taking more time before making their next move. Nearly all of A-B’s 17 former strategy committee members have left the company. Roughly 2,400 salaried employees, or about 40 percent of its St. Louis workforce, took early retirement buyouts or pink slips in December and January.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Anheuser-Busch InBev NV is exploring the sale of the Rolling Rock brand.
You may recall that InBev sold the Rolling Rock brand to A-B in 2006, only to end up owning it again after buying A-B last year.
One possible suitor could be North American Breweries Inc., owned by New York private-equity firm KPS Capital Partners LP. KPS formed its beer company in February after reaching deals to acquire two upstate New York beer companies: High Falls Brewing Co. and Labatt USA. It bought Labatt USA, which imports and markets Canada’s Labatt Blue, from Anheuser-Busch InBev for an undisclosed price. A KPS spokesman declined to comment.
You may also remember that Labatt used to own Rolling Rock. Or not, because this has little to do with the beers you and I drink.
So I was looking for this quote from Fred Eckhardt:
“Winemakers are so serious. Beermakers are frivolous.”
Which sent me into my archives — deep, this one was stored on a portable drive and in a version of Microsoft Word old enough I had to “import” the story. Once I’d gone to that trouble I decided to post this article I wrote for All About Beer magazine in 2001.
Another line I’d forgotten: Michael Jackson described homebrewers as the “the shock troops of the beer revolution.”
Also note: Maureen Ogle and Charlie Papazian continue to add to their posts about the early days of the American Homebrewers Association.
Every once in a while I’ll post a collection of links here. After all, that’s the blog way of doing things. And every once in a while I wonder if that’s such a great idea. You may have already seen these things. Between email, RSS feeds and Twitter I feel like I’ve seen 784 references to “Beer Wars.”
My friend Alan McLeod wrote about Twitter in his “other blog” a while back. I’m neither suggesting you join Twitter or break up with Twitter, but would simply note it can be very informative if your ready to deal with a room where too many people are talking at the same time.
So at the risk of adding to your clutter:
- Corona Extra’s sales are losing fizz. The pain of having Bud Light Lime kick your butt.
- Drink Beer With Flying Dog Brewery. And Also Not Have Any Pants On. Twitter tasting. Live. April 18.
- Who the Hell Is Enrolling in Journalism School Right Now? Just because newspapers are dying doesn’t mean journalism must. (Or why I’m not counting on Twitter for stories about piracy on the high seas.)
- Dregs Report. Posted April 1, and apparently vanishing April 14. Stuff like “New pairing craze: sustainable wines with endangered species.”
- Keep Your Soul: A Tribute to Doug Sahm. What we’ll be listening to as we resume out Central Texas barbecue hunting.
That’s five. Enough clutter.
Maybe the rest of the world will forsake pale lagers, but that’s hard to imagine in Texas. We’re only a few days into April and it’s already getting plenty hot. When we headed to Threadgill’s yesterday for a bunch of vegetables I could only imagine ordering one beer — Live Oak Pilz on tap.
But today, assuming the clouds I’m looking at right now go away, when we spend a few hours boating it won’t be with Pilz in hand. Live Oak doesn’t package its beer.
(Yes, responsible boaters don’t drink and drive, but we’ll only be passengers.)
So should I go with beer from a bottle, Saint Arnold’s Fancy Lawnmower, or from a can, the new Mama’s Little Yella Pils from Oskar Blues in Colorado? Sorry, Mama, when there’s a good local alternative the rules of our trip make it easy to pick the beer brewed nearby.
I tell you what, though, I’m wondering why Oskar Blues didn’t hit on this idea before. Hot weather, and cold pilsner in a can makes for one fine match. (In fact, the answer it pretty simply. Since first packaging Dale’s Pale Ale at the end of 2002 the brewery has struggled to keep up with production.) Although, like the brewery’s other beers, Mama’s Little Yella Pils packs a lot more aroma and flavor when you drink it from a glass rather than straight from the can.
Both Live Oak Pilz and Mama have the pleasant grainy/grassy qualities I associate with a pale lager from the Czech Republic. And the all-malt flavors that, let’s be honest, many drinkers think interfere with drinkability. Not you, right?
Not the same as sitting in Domažlice and drinking Pivovar Kout na Šumav? 10°. But in a boat. From a can. This is progress.
Ron Pattinson writes today about perspective and change. He makes two really important points back-to-back.
The horizon of personal experience influences our view of both the past and the future. We extrapolate the present back into the past. I used to think Bitter and Mild, as I experienced them in the 1970’s, had been around for centuries. It’s a fault repeated in many books about beer. Even brewers have little concept of what went on before they started brewing themselves.
And before you even pause to consider that he gives us more to think about.
The future we expect to be a continuation of the present, with just the odd tweak. Who could have imagined in 1900 that Porter would have disappeared within 50 years? Or in the 1940’s that Mild would have disappeared from swathes of Britain by 1980? Will pale lager continue its domination for another 100 years? History tells us no. Its decline will be unexpected and surprisingly swift.
It is hard to imagine isn’t it? Harder still to think about what might take its place.
Maureen Ogle has been adding to “outtakes” about the history of the American Homebrewers Association that didn’t quite fit into her book, Ambitious Brew, and now Charlie Papazian has chimed in as well.
So, what the heck, I dug out a story I wrote for Zymurgy magazine in 2003 about the birth of Zymurgy. It appeared in the 25th anniversary edition.
By the time Charlie is done it may all be redundant. After all, he was there.
Maureen has been posting her outtakes in digestible chunks, but I’m on the lazy side so you’ll find my story in one piece in the library.
Do you think you know where in the beer world this photo was taken?
Please leave your answer as a comment.
The label on the beer is pretty easy to read, so that is probably enough of a hint. Just to be clear, this was taken in a public place — not in somebody’s kitchen or dining room.
A ‘Beer Wars’ sneak preview: A reporter in Boston got a look at a 10-minute chunk of “Beer Wars.” He writes, “What I saw was Michael Moore 101: Little craft breweries like Dogfish Head and MoonShot = Good. Anheuser-Busch, a.k.a. ‘the soulless machine,’ the ‘monopoly,’ the ‘corporate behemoth with their insatiable appetite for growth’ = Bad. Baron takes a page right from the ‘Roger and Me’ playbook, making much of Anheuser CEO August Busch’s refusal to grant her an interview. (Thanks to Andy Crouch for pointing to this from the Boston Globe.)
Oregon craft beer sales fall: December and January shipments for all Oregon craft brewers fell by 5 percent and 7 percent, respectively. But in January and February, shipments for all beer in Oregon actually rose by 10 and 20 percent, respectively. “It would appear trading down from higher-priced, locally-made beer has already begun in earnest,” said Brian Butenschoen, executive director of the Oregon Brewers Guild.
Befuggled: Don’t you love that word? Say it two or three times. You’re smiling, right? Reminds me of the word “bumfuzzled,” which I first heard a small-town high school football coach use long before Bill Clinton got it more attention.
Back to beer. Martyn Cornell reports on an article by Kim Cook titled “Who produced Fuggle’s Hops.” Another bit of oft-repeated beer history is called to question. A good excuse to read about a classic English hop, and see how Martyn uses the word “rotundity.” Befuggled. Rotundity. Befuggled. Rotundity. When you can’t repeat those words quickly you know you’ve had one bitter too many.
I’ll be buying this book: St. Louis Brews: 200 Years of Brewing in St. Louis 1809-2009 is due out in the fall. This hardbound, full color book will feature over 330 pages detailing the history of beer and its importance to the St. Louis region.
Speaking of books I’ve reviewed several of the books in the BeerBooks.com Classic Reprint Series and own still more of them. I think you should be reading them too, something I remembered when I noticed they are all 30 percent to 36 percent off. A quick disclaimer: I’m affiliate, meaning if you click on the ad on the right or some other links here and buy a book then I get store credit (because I don’t own enough beer books). Just so you know I set up the “speaking of books” link without affiliate coding. I’m telling you about this because it’s a good deal for you, not because I want you to earn me a little store credit.
Lew Bryson has posted the roundup for Session #26, which turned into a rauchbier education for several bloggers.
I was very pleased that a fair number of people either tried a smoked beer for the first time or enjoyed one for the first time — one of the things I was hoping for when I suggested this topic.
Some drinkers loved ‘em, some didn’t and it appears some are stilling deciding.
Here’s an interesting statistic from the Wine Market Council: 15 percent of Americans drink 91 percent of table wine.
What do you think the numbers are for “craft beer” (however you define it, but let’s not start)?
This is my contribution to The Session: Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em, hosted by Lew Bryson. Check out his blog for links to other posts and the recap.
Last night we sampled a variety of smoked meat at Cooper’s Old Time Pit Barbecue in Llano, Texas. What makes barbecue different in Llano is that pitmasters burn their mesquite down to coals before stoking the pits — then cook it directly over the coals, “cowboy style.” Well, maybe. It seems there’s some question about how Cooper’s really cooks food for us, but I’ll leave the barbecue exposes to others. Point it is that we had a dang fine meal, and if you say Texas barbecue to me, I think “smoke.”
And if you say Bamberg and beer and I think “smoke.” So for today’s Session I’ve picked Schlenkerla Rauchbier Weizen, not as smoky as Schlenkerla Rauchbier Märzen or Urbock, but a reminder that Schlenkerla beers are first of all about smoke.
When I was in Bamberg in December it had not been long since Matthias Trum, who in charge of operations at Schlenkerla and is pictured on the left, attended a beer festival in Copenhagen with friends. He said he knew he was near the smoked beer section before he even saw a sign. “I could smell them (smoked beers) from 15 meters way,” Trum said. “It was a homey smell.”
Of course his home isn’t quite like ours. As five generations of Trums before him, he lives above the famous tavern. And he oversees daily operations at the Heller Bräu brewery up the hill, which smokes its own malt for the Schlenkerla beers. The recipe for Rauchbier Märzen calls for 100 percent smoked malt. That’s 50 percent to 90 percent more than most breweries use.
Schlenkerla brews the Weizen with 50 percent of the malt it smokes over beechwood and 50 percent (unsmoked) wheat malt. In contrast, Spezial Weizen — Spezial is the other Bamberg brewery that still smokes its own malt — contains 12 percent smoked malt.
In their book “Smoked Beers” authors Ray Daniels and Geoff Larson write that Schlenkerla Weizen doesn’t leave a particularly strong impression of smoke. Trum agrees. “It starts to fade after a few sips,” he said. I took another and told him I wasn’t quite as sure. “Two or three glasses,” he answered. “That’s what Franconians call a couple of sips.”
The first aroma is clearly smoke, not quite like from a campfire but also different than the barbecue pits we’ve been hanging around recently, fired by mesquite, oak, hickory or pecan. Soon traditional a fruity-banana notes of hefeweizen also appear, followed by spicy clove character. Smoke and banana flavors blend on the tongue, balanced by more cloves. After a few sips, I must admit, the scales tip toward the weizen flavors.
Sure wish they sold this beer at Cooper’s.
Been driving through unpleasant prairie winds too much of the day, but now that we’ve docked I feel I should pass along this bit of news before it is no longer — SPOILER ALERT! — April The First.
Flying Dog today unveiled a new “Canis Minor Series” that will feature four low-alcohol craft beers:
• Hot Dog Habanero Ginger Ale - 0.9% ABV, 2 IBU
• Unicorn Dog Sparkling Barley Wine-style Ale - 1.9% ABV, 4 IBU
• Raging Bitch Birch Beer - 1.3% ABV, 6 IBU
• Herberos Belgian-style Root Beer Lager- 1.59% ABV, 7 IBU
They wouldn’t kid about something like this, would they?
Widmer Brothers Rob and Kurt celebrate their 25th anniversary in business on Thursday. If you are going to be in Portland (Oregon, but you knew that, right?) that means you can stop by their Gasthaus and drink $1.50 pints. If you’re not there are still plenty of reasons to raise your glass in their direction.
Don’t obsess on the fact their “hefeweizen” doesn’t taste like like one from the south of Germany. Don’t worry about if Americans would be creating unique wheat beers that don’t approximate “style” (I’m pretty sure they would). Instead put yourself in Portland in the mid 1990s. A tourist perhaps. A would-be brewer perhaps. Look around. More people are drinking Widmer Hefeweizen on tap than Budweiser.
Amazing. Inspiring.
So grab a nice beer and read an excellent interview with Rob Widmer.
It’s still kind of hard to think of us more than just a couple of homebrewers who turned their hobby into a pretty nice gig.
Pretty astonishing.
Got to keep this short. I can tell you the Harry S Truman presidential library is outstanding, that I’m looking forward to learning all about Boulevard Brewing’s many wheat beers tomorrow morning, and that after that we’ll head off for Norman, Oklahoma, in a dead sprint. Because Wednesday we’re touring the National Weather Center. Cool, huh?
So before I forget to mention the pear beer (simply known as Pear Beer) I had last week . . . it was also brewed with elderberry flowers and quince. Pretty good, delicate but possessing enough character that it would likely be excellent with cheese.
Care to guess the brewery that made this beer?
I hope this isn’t a mistake. The debate about whether “extreme beers” are good, bad or something between has been rehashed enough here and elsewhere. And when Pete Brown asked for reader input and suggested he might use those comments in a story he caught a certain amount of grief in the beer blogosphere.
But I can use your help. I’m working on a business story about “extreme beers” and their value (or lack thereof) to breweries. I’ll talk to brewers and brewery representatives about that. What I’d like to know is if the term “extreme beer” means something specific to real live beer drinkers. I’ve never heard a customer at a bar say, “I’d like an extreme beer, please.”
Certainly the term has become part of our beer vocabulary — check out Daniel Bradford’s post about the Extreme Beer Festival.
I decided to ask you because the discussion last week about beer prices turned out to be so interesting. I’d particularly like to hear from casual readers who haven’t necessarily joined the “extreme” discussion here or elsewhere. Leave a comment, or if you are feeling shy please use email.
The question, just to be clear, is what does the term “extreme beer” tell you about what’s in your glass?
Think you know where in the beer world this photo was taken?
Please leave your answer as a comment.
Given recent comments, not just here but from Alan and others, I thought a picture of beer “on sale” might be interesting. You’ll have to decide if you consider $1.50 a deal for a half-liter of “mixed beer.”
That’s the hint - half liter bottles.
I think this and this are related. Bravado is seldom becoming.
If you prefer to know more before you click the second is a brilliant post from Ron Pattinson about brewing innovation. (For the record, I don’t think innovation necessarily trumps tradition.)
Meanwhile . . . please, please don’t feel the need to go vote for the Best Beer City.
It seems that beer is no casual acquaintance of people who read this blog. So were I to conduct a poll — say how much money you send on beer — the results likely wouldn’t necessarily reflect the buying habits of the “average” beer drinker or even the casual “craft beer” drinker.
So it’s interesting to “eavesdrop” on comments posted about beer at a non-beer site.
Yesterday the Chicago Tribune published a story about two new microbreweries in the city. What seemed to get the most attention is that 6 packs of Half Acre beers cost $9. We’re not talking a knee jerk reaction about how that’s ridiculous, but a discussion. Check out the comments.
A bit of culture shock for Daria on Saturday.
We stopped at Parti-Pak Discount Liquors in Indianapolis, mostly to see what sort of beers make their way into Indiana and what they cost. Heard a guy behind the counter say they stocked 2,100 beers and that is easy to believe. Rather complete lines of plenty of Michigan breweries (Dark Horse, Founders, New Holland, Bell’s), for instance. Indiana beers, of course. Largest collection of Italian beers we’ve seen since we were in Oak Tree Liquors in South Plainfield, N.J.
More than once my uncle, Omar Robinson, pointed to rows of bottles from Germany or Belgium and said, “I can’t believe they ship all these beers that far.” But this post isn’t about his cultural shock #&151; maybe more down the road, since he’s involved with his son, Clay, in startingSun King Brewing. Key words in their business plan: local and draft beer.
Back to what Daria saw. When you walk in there is a section of shelves with individual beers that have Rate Beer ratings below them. “Did you see that?” she asked when we left. “The top rows are all 100 beers and Rochefort (10) gets a 93.”
While others were watching their brackets get busted in overtime Friday evening I was reading “Six Thousand Year of Bread: Its Holy and Unholy History.” Why? Because a book about brewing with wheat should include the role wheat has played in various cultures where people drink beer.
It’s not exactly light reading, so maybe I was looking for a reason to laugh when I came across the explanation of how wheat became the grain of choice in Europe in the nineteenth century. That’s a longer story involving French tastes, but here’s the excerpt that might make you smile:
“In the Middle Ages Europeans were very fond of the taste of rye. Some of the East Germans had called themselves Rugii (rye-eaters) — undoubtedly to distinguish themselves from the ignoble eaters of oats. In Anglo-Saxon England August was called Rugern, the month of the rye harvest. As late as 1700 rye formed 40 percent of all English breads; around 1800 the percentage had dropped to 5.
“Where rye bread was firmly established — in large parts of Germany and Russia — it remained. Physicians and farmers insisted that people who for centuries had eaten the dark bread of their fathers, which gave forth a spicy fragrance like the soil itself, could not find the soft white wheat bread filling. They pointed to the physique of the Germans and rye-eating Russians. The wheat-eaters countered with the claim that rye made those who ate it stupid and dull. Wheat-eaters and rye-eaters eaters spoke of one another as do wine drinkers and beer drinkers.”
Beyond the old beer vs. wine thing I thought first about lager drinkers vs. ale drinkers. Then I recalled a conversation during Zoigl Day in Neuhaus. The local I was talking to asked me about what sort of beers I like to drink. When I mentioned I’d been seeking out weiss beers he quickly explained he didn’t drink those. He had to make too many trips to the bathroom if he did.
Thought never occurred to me to ask if he preferred rye bread to wheat bread.
At the end of the Preface to “Tasting Beer,” right before you head to Page One, there’s a picture of a glass of beer with a command: “Don’t even consider starting this book without a beer in hand.”
Since you have the book in the other hand you probably aren’t going to ask yourself if, since you are already drinking a beer you like, you really need this book. So I will. Do you think more knowledge about beer will make that beer taste better? If you answered yes then you should own this book.
(Before going on, a bit of a disclaimer. Author Randy Mosher and I are friends, and he asked me to to the “technical edit” of the book. Yes, that sounds as laughable to me as it must to you; like Malcom Gladwell calling me up to ask for story ideas. I don’t get any royalties from the book, so there is no incentive for me to give it a review that boost sales. Because I don’t know of another beer book to be published in 2009 that should be of as much interest to you I’m going to write about it.)
I thought about “Tasting Beer,” but wasn’t ready to write this review, when I posted “The tyranny of the tasting note” last month. Quite honestly, there’s more here than many of you are going to want. Perhaps you don’t feel the need to be able to turn to your dining companion and whisper, “I believe I’m getting a touch of autolysed yeast.” More than you might want now, that is, since once you head down the road of beer knowledge stopping ain’t easy. Because everything in this book is presented in easy to bite off chunks you can grab what you want now and come back later for more.
Mosher makes it deceptively easy. Consider this: “Every sensation found in a glass of beer has its origins in the decisions of the brewer and malstster made druing its manufacture. For instance, the tangy, green perfume of hops? That’s the result of the careful choice and deployment of prized aroma hops in the brewhouse or perhaps the fermenter. The light nuttiness and hints of raisiny fruit? That lightly kilned pale ale malt and a dab of crystal. And all of this is shaped by the mysterious workings of a particular strain of yeast under certain conditions.”
Whether that looks terribly simple to you or densely confusing it will all be clearer 27 pages later in a chapter called “Brewing and the Vocabulary of Beer Flavor.” You’ll be ready for “The Qualities of Beer” and looking forward to it.
I hate quoting book covers, but I’m going to point out that the subtitle for the book is, “An Insider’s Guide to the World’s Greatest Drink.” That’s certainly true, but you exit knowing you don’t have to be an insider to enjoy the beers Mosher writes about. Further, the back cover claims “Tasting Beer” is “The Portable Beer Expert.” Indeed.
Still with me? Then you’ve reached the part of the review where the reviewer offers a profound thought. I’ll pass and give the author the final word:
“Beer is only as good as the people who seek it out, support it, keep it honest, and, most important of all, enjoy the genuine pleasures of it.”
—————————————–
- Order from BeerBooks.com (and support a business that cares as much about beer as you do).
Or drive to the bookstore and buy it right now.
As promised yesterday, some things to think about when we are talking local.
You won’t see the word beer, but that doesn’t mean the lessons aren’t relevant.
First, this comes from a conversation back in Sitka, Alaska, last summer. A local (of course) and I began talking in a locally owned coffee shop and finished in the connected locally owned bookstore. He explained to me that the coffee shop used to be on the main street, but had to move when a T-shirt vendor offered to pay a higher rent. Thing is the T-shirt shop catering to tourists wasn’t locally owned and wouldn’t be open all year round.
This is when I learned that for every dollar spent at a locally owned business 45 cents stays in the community. For every dollar spent at a business owned by outsiders only 14 cents stays.
Second, a lesson from newspapers. You might recall I’m a newspaper junkie (or was, when you could buy more newspapers), and I found “The imperative of localism and local news” long . . . so I can appreciate your apprehension.
Here’s a takeaway. Newspaper readership began to decline long, long before the advent of the Internet. They quit serving the local community as they once had, not all at once but bit by bit. They quit being as local.
Not a good idea. Not for newspaper owners. Not for brewers.
A quick tip of the cap to Andy Crouch for a bit of looking behind the curtain, otherwise known as first-rate beer journalism. (And, as Alan will tell you, I’m a curmudgeon who doesn’t rush to such judgment.)
OK, Crouch doesn’t get an “A” for headline writing — “The Brewers Association’s Quiet War On Blue Moon, Leinenkugels, Goose Island, and Maybe Even Elysian, New Belgium, and Your Brewery …” is a mouthful — but please go read the post.
You and I might feel like we’ve beaten the “what is craft beer?” horse to death, but I’m big on knowing about the place where a beer is brewed. Of course, then I get to decide whether to call it a craft beer.
When I read stories about beer and when I talk to brewers and brewery types I have I have this little list of personal hot button topics. (It’s me; you may not care.)
One is what’s local about beer and does it matter? Another is the danger that beer could become an elitist drink ala some wine. I won’t bore you with all of them.
Tomorrow a link about local. Today I suggest you read Pubs and Class from Boak and Bailey. Interesting on many levels, including why people would go to pubs, the importance of community, etc., and comments that certainly add to the conversation.
But don’t overlook item No. 1: “It costs too much.” Goodness knows I’ve typed enough words here explaining why I think you should be willing to pay “more” for beer. Defining “more” being the challenge, of course.
The fact is that the price of beer, again depending on how you define “more,” makes a difference to many drinkers. And you are being a snob if you discount that.
. . . and do you remember when GABF had only twelve (12!) style categories?
I’m doing a lot more reading of blogs than writing of blogs these days (when not being amazed by what a terrific climate Asheville has for all things local). Two topics I suggest you chime in on:
- Should we be as excited about the screening of Beer Wars on April 16 as the next episode of 24? Start with what Andy Crouch has to write.
- The proliferation of designated beer styles. Start with Jack Curtin, but also check in with Jeff Alworth, Tom Cizauskas and Ron Pattinson.
I have one thought to add to Topic #2. In 1987 they began judging beers “by style” at the Great American Beer Festival. Got by with twelve of them, they did. Interesting to see what the 12 were:
Ales
Alts
American Cream Ales
American Lagers
American Light Lagers
Bocks/Dopplebocks
Continental Amber Lagers
Continental Pilsners
Porters
Stouts
Vienna Style Lagers
Wheat Beers
So you are knee deep in numbers preparing your entry in the bracket competition of your choice.
And there are these words you keep noticing over and over. Are they about basketball or beer? A few lines from Jay Bilas, Seth Whatshisname and the others, then the beers or breweries that popped into my mind:
Body of Work: Alaskan Brewing.
University of Arizona: Blue Moon White.
Cinderella: Foothills Brewing.
Long (not sure what Mr. Bilas means, but I’ll guess): Lost Abbey The Angel’s Share.
Mid Major: Michelob.
Pure (another word I scribbled down and wondered what Hubie meant): New Glarus Brewing.
Bubble Teams: Organic beers.
The Little Guy (channeling Dick Vitale): Session beers.
Utah State (disrespected): Utah beers.
Tough matchup: Cigar City Brewing.
Team that will make you forget Princeton: Pabst.
The Top Line (but will they make the Final Four?): Firestone Walker Brewing, New Belgium Brewing, Sierra Nevada Brewing, Pelican Pub & Brewery.
Snubbed: Samuel Adams Boston Lager.
Think you know where in the beer world this photo was taken?
Please leave your answer as a comment, and also feel free to comment even if you don’t have an answer.
There are words all over the sign so I’m not sure you need a hint, but I will tell you it was taken what seems like a long time ago to me. At least long enough that I thought I’d already posted the photo here.
A bunch of beer and alcohol legislation by states in the headlines these days, well reported elsewhere and with plenty of commentary, so I’m mostly leaving that to others.
But . . .
In Utah, the Senate killed a measure that would have allowed bars (including brewpubs) and restaurants to sell draft beer stronger than 4% alcohol by volume (3.2% by weight). A bill to lift the cap was approved 58-2 in the House. But on Thursday, the last day of the session, the Senate decided not to debate the measure and to go home early instead.
Bars and restaurants are already allowed to serve full-strength beer if they buy it in bottles from the state liquor store at the same 86 percent markup paid by the general public. That means brewpubs can brew stronger beer, bottle it, sell it to the state and then buy it back to serve it. Makes a lot of sense, don’t you think?
I comment here often that despite this law Utah’s breweries make outstanding beers full of flavor. However, our travels in states (Georgia and the Carolinas) where the alcohol cap on beer recently was boosted makes it apparent how that changes the beer culture for the better. Yes, much of the excitement is about “bigger” beers but when people are talking about flavor all beers with flavor benefit.
John has posted the roundup for The Session #25: Lager Love, for the first time grading the various efforts. Sometimes it’s hard to tell how much real love bloggers have for lager . . .
Meanwhile, Lew Bryson has picked the topic for Session #26: Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em. Rauch it up. Be there.
More lagers? Not necessary at all, as Lew points out.
A few hours ago John tweeted his roundup for The Session #25: Lager Love is about half finished. Meanwhile he directs us to the reluctant scooper’s tome on the topic.
Why? Here’s one paragraph: “Let’s be honest: lager is shit. It’s a pitiful excuse for alcohol. Drunk from tins, drank by neds, sold in slabs, made in labs. It may have a rich history but it’s been forcibly abducted by the English and had up the chuffer. There are amoeboids avoiding osmosis with passing cells just in case it involves this fizzy pizz of stuff.”
This guy just got added to my feed reader.
Think you know where in the beer world this was taken?
Please leave your answer as a comment.
This is an easy one, and just naing the city will do, so don’t feel the need to turn to Google.
The new A-B: The story begins begins “Critics in the United States and overseas have eviscerated parent Anheuser-Busch InBev for slowing down its payments to suppliers in an effort to conserve cash. Employees say morale has shriveled.”
Sean Paxton is in the kitchen: Two stories really, from the current Imbibe magazine. Beer claims a place at the table is what’s known as the maingamer, while the sidebar Paxton offers tips for putting together a beer-pairing dinner.
Put away the ‘No Fat Tire’ signs: At least in the six (!) new markets New Belgium Brewing of Colorado will enter before summer: North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Indiana, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Three NBB beers (Fat Tire, 1554 and Mothership Wit) went on sale in North Carolina on Monday.
Tuesday morning I had a quick conversation with the man behind the counter at Sam’s Quik Shop, a fine beer store in Durham. He said was was happy that now he could just point customers to the stack of Fat Tire when he heard one of his most asked questions. Then he looked at the display and noticed it appeared a lot of Fat Tire sold Monday evening, but almost none of the other two beers. As well as new markets in 2009 NBB has a bunch of new beers coming. Details in the press release.
Memo to Greg Koch: Here’s a fizzy yellow lager you can cuddle up to. Not all that yellow, I guess, and not necessarily that fizzy. But definitely a lager, a puny 3.7% abv beer in the Munich Helles tradition.
A beer I last enjoyed about six months ago, but I remember well enough to feature as my contribution to The Session #25: Lager Love. And since I won’t be around today to keep up with how this plays out on Twitter, I’ll give you a series of thoughts, all less than 140 characters.
- Surtaler Leichter Typ is light colored, although I don’t know I’d use the word yellow. But when your host asks you have to do your best to oblige.
- Private Landbrauerei Schönram in the German village of Schönram-Petting near Salzburg, Austria, brews the beer.
- It earned a silver medal as a European Light Lager in the European Beer Star competition.
- Yes, it’s a light version of the brewery’s best selling helles (65 percent of sales - a dang nice beer at 5.4% abv).
- You can drink this all night, well maybe 5 liters, and maybe blow .04 on a breathalyzer (the brewer and owner did this to make sure).
- A great beer to shift to after several “big” ones. Because you can still taste it. This isn’t water.
- Smooth (lagered for a silly amount of time), bready, grassy, lots of noble hops.
- Goes well with conversation.
- It says 3.4% on the label, it’s really 3.7% and it tastes twice as big as a 4.2% American light.
- I want this beer brewed close to my home. Not a beer meant to travel, so don’t try it more than 20 kilometers from the brewery.
- Twitter pretty much sucks when it comes to describing the pleasure of drinking this beer.
Weather on the East Coast has played havoc with our travel plans and — let’s be honest, this is less important — my Plan A for Friday’s round of The Session, Session #25: Lager Love.
We expected to be touristing around Baltimore on Friday, so I was thinking about stopping by Nacho Mamas in Canton, drinking a Natty Bo and writing about the experience. I’ll grant you that many find this place a bit much. The Mexican food isn’t particularly Mexican, for instance. I’ve heard the there can be lines out the door, which is plain silly.
But . . . you have to love a place where if you don’t see a picture of Elvis Presley or a photo from old Baltimore (mostly sports) there’s a National Bohemian item. National Brewing opened in 1885 and resumed production after Prohibition until it was sold to Carling in 1975, then to Heileman.
Natty Bo was still made in Baltimore as recently as 1997. It’s been brewed under contract since, in several different breweries (wish I could tell you where now). But for many it’s still the Baltimore beer.
It’s a light lager. I’m not sure you could pick it out in a blind tasting with Pabst, Lone Star and whatever similar beer you want to include. And when you order it at Nacho Mamas there is no point in asking for a glass. Drink from the bottle or don’t order it.
That said, it would have been great to drink in Nacho Mamas for The Session.
But we won’t be rambling around Baltimore on Friday. On to Plan B.
If you were writing a book about wheat beers you’d probably think it was good that Anheuser-Busch has rolled out a variety pack of beers brewed with wheat. I do, although I’m not sure this presages a sudden upswing in interest in wheat beers.
I would post this at“Brewing With Wheat” site, but right now that is in information collection mode as opposed to information dissemination.
So, from the press release:
The Michelob Brewing Co. Spring/Summer Sampler Pack, available beginning March 2, includes Michelob Honey Wheat, year-round favorites Shock Top Belgian White and Michelob Dunkel Weisse, and the spring seasonal Hop Hound Amber Wheat. The beers are:
* Michelob Honey Wheat: a silky, smooth filtered wheat ale brewed with orange blossom honey. Brewmaster Kristi Zantop and her team wanted to push the envelope with their newest creation, playing around with different varieties of honey until they found just the right kind to give Honey Wheat a pronounced floral aroma and hints of orange citrus flavor.
* Hop Hound Amber Wheat: an unfiltered American amber wheat ale brewed with Cascade, Willamette and Hallertau hops and a blend of the finest caramel, wheat and pale barley malts.
* Shock Top Belgian White: an unfiltered Belgian-style wheat ale with a naturally cloudy and light golden color, brewed with orange, lemon and lime peels and coriander.
* Michelob Dunkel Weisse: a surprisingly light unfiltered dark wheat ale with unmistakable clove and banana tones, a result imparted from the unique Bavarian yeast strain used.
A-B has sent samples to some bloggers — for all I know one went to our home in New Mexico, but right now we]re trying to figure out where all this East Coast snow came from — so look for reviews online. Here’s one for the Honey Wheat from Jon at the Beer Site.
Do you think you know where in the beer world these photos were taken?
Please leave your answer at a comment.
Hint: The photo on the right. Yes, you can figure they don’t sell New Belgium’s Fat Tire Amber Ale because it’s not available to them. Not because they don’t want to.
Bonus hint (since last week there wasn’t a single guess, wild and crazy or otherwise): Don’t go here looking for any Anheuser-Busch, Miller or Coors beers here. Or even some of the other beers generally available in local grocery stores.
Last week’s answer: The photo was taken at the National Brewery Museum in Potosi, Wis., that opened last summer. Worth your time.
Answer added March 8: Owners Scott Shor and Rich Carley opened The Charleston Beer Exchange only a few months ago. The rather small store is packed with only specialty beers. They also have six draft lines to fill growlers, often rare beers that may not otherwise be available in Charleston. There’s a list on their blog.
First the answers, then the questions.
Poppycock.
Was IPA brewed strong so it could survive the journey to India?
No.
Michelob: The New Hipster Beer?
Not in my liftetime.
Do we need two new beer styles and a total of 141 (one hundred and forty-one)?
Let’s have one more beer.
What’s that Czech beer sign mean?
Carlsberg.
What should you give up for Lent?
Yesterday morning Glenn Payne, a man who wears several beer coats, sent a quick question from his UK home to many beer types. He asked, “Who’s the soul, who’s the cutting edge of beer; who’s taking it to the street?”
He explained it will be the topic for his presentation at Mondial de la Bière in Montreal this summer.
Of course I’m interested any time somebody asks about the soul of beer, but I was as struck by the question about who’s taking it to the street. It reminded me of something Manuele Colonna said when we were in Rome. By the time I got around to digging out the notebook with that quote Payne had plenty of answers. Among those was one from Ray Daniels, another guy with many beer coats, and these days known as the Circerne dude. He started:
Everyone in the craft industry takes it to the street by living the life of craft beer. Sure there are stars that the punters all clamor to see. But their popularity isn’t based on a pretty face, a million dollar ad campaign or a name made in some other industry and transplanted to beer. The craft beer industry has been built by authentic entrepreneurs who daily breathe life and spirit into their companies and their brands. The accumulation of that personal passion in all its diversity makes this industry interesting and engaging. And it makes the beer distinctive.
You can read the rest here.
Sure enough, what Colonna said fits right in and is a reminder the US doesn’t have a monopoly when it comes to beer passion. When Colonna and two partners started Ma Che Siette Venuti a Fa, a bar which serves beer from small breweries from Italy to Denmark, in 2001 nobody in Rome sold craft beer.
Bar owners went with “name” beers pushed by distributors. “They weren’t interested in what the people in the streets wanted,” Colonna said. “Not the normal people.”
Payne’s request does suggest another question: Do cutting edge beers represent the real soul of beer? Not going near that one today.
Jay Brooks lists his “Top 10 Least Favorite Defects” (part of an ongoing series he posts each Tuesday) and diacetyl isn’t in there. A bit of a surprise, until Jay explains he has a high tolerance for that buttery, butterscotch flavor.
In this case he means diacetyl must be there at a pretty high level before he notices it. For some, many in fact, drinkers tolerance means they consider diacetyl desirable.
I am reminded of the presentation that Lauren Salazar, who oversees the quality control program at New Belgium Brewing, made at the National Homebrewers Conference in Denver almost two years ago. The “doctored” beers included Fat Tire dosed so heavily with diacetyl that it smelled like standing in front of the popcorn machine in a movie theater.
“Diacetyl is one of the first words you learn (in judging beer),” she said. “We are American brewers. We are paid to hate diacetyl. You know how much British brewers hate us for that?”
Anyway, this is a shout out to you, Daniel Bradford. For those of you haven’t noticed, the All About Beer magazine publisher has set out on a quest to become a beer expert. I have no idea how to define a “beer expert” but I think understanding diacetyl would be a step in the right direction.
Of course that means spending time in the countryside around Bamberg, Germany, drinking fresh lagers. Then heading across the border to the Czech Republic for more golden lagers. You’ll also have to down plenty of pints of cask ale in the UK, then compare those experiences with drinking cask ales in the US Northeast. You’ll encounter diacetyl, for sure. How tolerant should you be?
This is not simply a matter of understanding precusors, VDK and all that good stuff. Or arguing whether Northwest hops and diacetyl don’t like each other. There’s something cultural involved.
Looking forward to your report, Daniel.
Last week during The Symposium for Professional Wine Writers New York Times chief wine critic Eric Asimov called for an end to tasting notes.
At least if I read blogger Alder Yarrow (Vinography) correctly. Yarrow, who is one of my favorite wine writers, nicely recaps Asimov’s presentation called “The Tyranny of the Tasting Note,” mostly agrees and then disagrees a bit. He also has a link to another of his own posts you must read: Messages In a Bottle: Appreciating Wine in Context.
But back to what Asimov had to say, channeled through Yarrow:
The biggest barrier to increased wine appreciation amongst the general public, Eric began, lies in a chronic anxiety that marks most novice’s relationship to wine. This anxiety arises from most people’s assumption that to enjoy wine they need to know something about it, and manifests most obviously in the conversations that they have with wine critics and writers whenever they meet them, e.g.:
“I know I should know something more about wine, and I really would like to learn. I’ve been meaning to take a class…or is there one book that you really recommend?”
In short, most people assume that the key to enjoying wine lies in the path towards connoisseurship, rather than simply drinking wine with a meal as if it is just another food group. Most people, it seems, wrongly put wine on a pedestal, according it some status that is not reserved for anything else.
Not a place we should want to see beer headed. To understand what I mean make sure to read the comments, like this one:
When two or more people get together in the same room with a glass of wine, the same peculiar dance begins. One or more folks will swirl it and make a comment on the legs as they perform the Viewing of the Wine; one or more will wave the glass under their nose and raise their eyebrows as they enact the Smelling of the Wine; one or more will take a drink and immediately swallow in the Tasting of the Wine. Then, almost synchronously, a quiet reflection will come upon the room as the entire gaggle, even those who have not performed The Tasting, engage in the Judging of the Wine. Some will over-emphasize the importance of the Tasting of the Wine and not enough of the Judging; those folks will often follow up with the Spilling of the Wine, and sometimes (sadly enough) the eventual Purging of the Wine.
My point is that this is not natural human behavior.
Beer — or at least those who brew it, who sell it, love it and speak on its behalf — would like to be afforded the same respect as wine. But it is one thing to be taken as seriously as wine and another to be taken as seriously as wine.
As long as you are picking up the current issue of All About Beer magazine to read Lew Bryson’s article on session beers you might flip to the back page where they let me chat a bit about “The Importance of Drinking Local.”
Considering it was filed from Bamberg the little essay should have been more focused. But more than nine months into our adventure I’m still figuring this out. Asking questions like . . . Does any old beer brewed “in town” qualify as local? Do we think more highly of local beers because they are “green,” because they are fresher, because breweries are locally owned and the profits stay in town, because they use local ingredients? Can you still be a local brewery if ship your beer across the country?
No need to make it that complicated. You don’t have to think about any of those questions if you want to walk into a local bar, talk to local people and enjoy the local beer. Works fine.
Meanwhile, I direct your attention to a series of posts by Rob Denunzio called “Localize it” (I’m linking to the fourth and last, but read them all). One nit to pick, Rob. More pictures of people to go with the beer. That’s a lot of what local is about.
Do you know where in the beer world this photo was taken?
If you think you do please leave your answer as a comment. Don’t have a clue? Come up with a great caption and leave that as a comment.
A hint? I shot the picture during our current trip. It reminds me of what happens when you are at 35,000 miles and counting. Sometimes photos don’t get filed. This was one of them.
Hint No. 2: It is not a self portrait.
The answer (added February 28): The photo was taken at the National Brewery Museum in Potosi, Wis., that opened last summer. Worth your time.
I have nothing wise to write about the random accident that stole Bill Brand from us. Instead I’m leaning on Robert Earl Keen.
I go out on a party
To look for a little fun
But I find a darkened corner
‘Cause I still miss someone
And with apologies for Steve Earle, I’ll add . . . Save some up there for me, maestro.
History should not be a moving target, but sometimes it seems awfully hard to pin down.
I was already thinking about this before we visited the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi, yesterday. I’ve been sifting through a bunch of stories about Belgian White beers pre-Pierre Celis and many contain altogether different facts.
So two things from the Blues Museum. First, they’ve framed pages from a 1990 Living Blues article about Robert Johnson that includes maps to possible sites of the famed crossroads (where Johnson sold his soul to the devil in order to become a great musician) and to the various locations where he might be buried. The crossroads stuff is myth, of course, but the fact is nobody seems to be able to say for sure where his body ended up.
This doesn’t keep folks at each graveyard — in the early 1990s we used both sets of maps when we spent several weeks blues hunting in Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee — from claiming Robert Johnson is buried right there.
Second, the biggest display in the museum is set inside the sharecroppers cabin Muddy Waters lived in before leaving Clarksdale for Chicago. (Sierra isn’t into the blues, but she was pretty excited when she heard one of the songs. “Hey, Dad, that’s your ringtone.”)
The documentary showing on a screen behind a life-size wax statue of Waters (extra credit if you know his given name . . . without using Google or Wikipedia) includes an entertaining interview with Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. He tells a particularly colorful story about when he first met Muddy, and the bluesman had white paint dripping off his head because he was up on a ladder painting when Richards walked in.
Problem is, Marshall Chess of Chess Records points out Richards’ story is ridiculous. You never would have found Waters in overalls, paint brush in hand. That’s in the documentary, but how many times has Richards told the story when Chess wasn’t there to offer a correction? Chess doesn’t doubt Richards’ sincerity. He says that could be the way Richards remembers what happened, just that he’s wrong.
I’ve experienced the same thing recently, talking to two different brewers about a conversation they once had. Each remembers the details differently. Is one right? Must the other be wrong?
Do we need an absolute answer? Do we discard both versions? Or make them both part of history and figure the “truth” will sort itself out? The thing is that Richards’ story tells you something about him, but in this case leaves a false impression of Waters.
The photo at the top is from Dockery Farms, one of the stops on the Mississippi Blues Trail. Notice that despite the title on of the sign the following words acknowledge the blues didn’t have a single birthplace. That’s the way history works sometimes.
I’ve mentioned more than once that I’m working on another book for Brewers Publications. We’re calling it “Brewing with Wheat.” The sub title hasn’t been finalized, the challenge being to convey that I’ll be writing about Belgian White/Wit beers, German Weiss/Weizen biers, American Wheat beers and a host of other beers that simply won’t die (Berliner Weisse, Gose, etc.).
While I look for campgrounds where I can hole up to write but Daria and Sierra can still find interesting stuff to do you can contribute to making the book better.
As when I was writing “Brew Like a Monk” I’ve set up a website where readers/brewers can suggest what they/you want to read about beers brewed with wheat.
Stop by and offer a comment.
I’ve been amazed reading reports from SF Beer Week, and am even more astonished when I look over the ridiculously long list of events planned for Philly Beer Week. These are the big dogs, but Jay Brooks has pointed out “beer weeks” are popping up all over.
Has to be good for local beers, I think. But let’s hope we don’t get another round of arguing about which is the best beer city in the United States or where the best beers are brewed. Why? Read Ron Pattinson’s post on “Beer nationalism” and you should understand.
The world of beer is one exciting whole. Not a series of competing fragments. “Which country brews the best beer?” What sort of stupid question is that? “Where’s the pub?”, “Can I have a pint of that, please?”, “What are you having?” They’re good questions.
Brilliant.
- Here’s another reason SF Beer Week was a good idea: A beer tasting hosted at Alpha Sigma Phi in Berkeley. Yes, I too, had to get past the fraternity part. But Mario at Brewed for Thought put the event together and writes about it.
- Repeat after me. When I read that a beer has 108 or 128 or 104 IBU (when I read that a beer has 108 or 128 or 104 IBU) I will ask if that was measured in a lab or if that is calculated (I will ask if that was measured in a lab or if that is calculated).
Because I know of only two beers (the Samuel Adams Imperial Pilsner and Bell’s Big Head San Diego Style Ale brewed for the 2008 Craft Brewers Conference) that clocked over 100 IBU when verified by a laboratory. Everybody else is guessing.
So you should read the Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics entry in the Deschutes Brewery blog. Hop Henge Experimental IPA is brimming with hop flavor and bitterness. But in case you’ve been wondering about the 95 IBU listed on the label, well you won’t be seeing that number anymore.
The first time Deschutes had the beer tested the lab found 80 IBU. The brewers since beefe up the hop additions (resulting in a picture you should look at) and had Hop Henge tested again. This time 87 IBU.
The moral of the story for us is we will not again put 95 IBUs on the label. The moral of the story for you might be a wink next time someone tells you their beer has 120 IBUs in it (or even 95 for that matter).
Wink, indeed. And ask the brewer to talk about hop flavor instead.
Do you think you know where in the beer world this photo was taken?
If you’ve been paying attention it should be a gimme, but I think the picture is semi-pretty and there’s a lesson about drinking culture to be learned.
So if you think you know the city or state please leave your answer as a comment. Extra credit if you can be more specific.
Greetings from New Orleans (River Ridge, really, but close enough). Haven’t picked up a local beer yet, but will track down some Abita before we settle in to enjoy our first parade this evening. I’d grab some Dixie but I think that’s still being made in Wisconsin.
(In case it isn’t obvious we’re talking about Mardi Gras parades. Fat Tuesday is still more than a week off, but parades are in full swing in NOLA. The photo on the right is from the Barkus parade three years ago, where pets are the stars. Accommodation is cheaper this weekend, there are fewer tourists and we hope it is more civilized. Although Daria just stepped outside the RV park and a guy pulled up and asked her if she wanted to party.)
Driving across the Canjun prairie and swampland on the way in I was thinking it’s too bad this isn’t Session Friday. Mamou, Eunice, Lafayette and other spots in the region where you can easily find live music — at least if you like Zydeco, Cajun or Swamp Pop — are great places to sit down and “have what the next guy’s having.”
In fact, I wrote about this for The Session #9: Laissez les bons temps rouler! Something I thought about this morning as we cruised past Marc Savoy’s shop. Didn’t spot the store where I bought beer, though. Would have liked to have seen if they still have Milwaukee’s Best or if they’ve added an Abita beer to their stock.
And yes, before somebody points this out, I know there will be lagers on tap at the Crescent City Brewhouse. We’ll likely stop by the French Quarter tomorrow or Sunday. Takes a little extra planning when you are traveling in an RV.
Yes, this is mostly marketing, but with a twist that somehow seems worth passing along.
Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant, the mid-Atlantic brewpub chain with locations locations, has come up with an “Economic Stimulus Package” for customers. Five times a week, at least one table of guests will be randomly selected to receive a “bailout,” meaning that Iron Hill will buy them their meal.
“People are watching their wallets now more than ever, so the least we can do is reward a lucky few with a great meal on us,” Kevin Dvies, director of culinary operations, said for a press release. “This is a lighthearted gesture that we hope will make people smile in these trying times.”
At least five times per week, one table will receive, instead of a check, a card announcing that they have been bailed out and that their meal is on the house. All seven Iron Hill locations are participating in the bailout. Some are offering bailouts more frequently than five per week.
Remember that many brewery-restaurants are restaurants first and are feeling the same economic pinch as bars and restaurants across the country. Will this get more customers in the door for Iron Hill? Hard to say, but I expect it will make regulars feel a little better about their “local.”
And it’s much cooler than a free breakfast at Denny’s.
How fast are things changing at Anheuser-Busch now that InBev is in charge?
Bob Lachky, chief creative officer, will retire from the company at the end of this month. Six weeks ago Tony Ponturo quit his job as A-B’s top sports marketing guru. Notice a trend?
Not yet? Try this, although from a business standpoint it’s not as big a deal. While in Germany I heard that Dr. Val Peacock, who knows about as much about hops as anybody in the world, was taking early retirement from A-B.
We all love to complain about the lack of hop character in most A-B beers, but the fact is the company has long been a stickler for hop quality. Way beyond what you can taste in the beer. This has helped subsidize the production of low alpha (high flavor and aroma) hops in areas such as Germany’s Halltertau region. If A-B isn’t paying top dollar for these — and InBev has specialized in avoiding paying top dollar for anything — what will hop growers do? Go out of business or turn to high alpha hops such as Magnum (a great hop, but entirely different than Hallertau Tradition or Mittlefrüh).
Back to the bigger story, which is Lachky. As well as getting credit for the “Whassup?,” “I love you, man” and Budweiser frogs campaigns more recently he was the guy behind “Here’s to Beer.” Talking to him well into one evening a while back — he had a Budweiser in hand — it was dang obvious how important he thinks the last one is.
Is there a common thread that ties together Val Peacock, hops, “Here’s to Beer,” and Bob Lachky? I’d say culture.
Agreed that when ownership changes at any company lots of people retire. Cultures change, sometimes combining the best of the old and the new.
Is that what is going to happen in St. Louis?
(Thanks to Maureen Ogle for spotting this story.)
We’re finishing up a few quick days back at home in New Mexico, dealing with the sort of chores that come up after eight months away, heading out this morning with an eye toward catching Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans before the real craziness begins.
We breathed a sigh of relief when we took some items out of the back of the RV, such as a paper mache plague mask Daria has been taking care of since Venice (yes, it would be perfectly appropriate in NOLA, but it’s not going) and this flip-top bottle. The story:
We’re headed from Nuremberg to Frankfurt on the day before we are to fly home. We’ve decided to revisit Rothenberg, where we spent the first night 15 weeks before. Along the way we pass by Bad Windsheim and decide to drive by the brewery (it’s still pretty early on a Sunday morning).
We see a sign for a “floh markt” and start following the arrows. We’re just window shopping because our bags are full and carrying anything else on would be impossible. Of course we could see something small . . . but it appears there’s nothing at a price we’d want to pay. Not until about the last table we could stop at.
Here’s a lovely flip-top bottle with a hop mural decorating it. I’m confident it will be too expensive to tempt me. I ask. Seven euros. Daria thinks she heard seventy, which seems a little high but almost makes more sense than seven. “Sieben?” I ask. The woman nods. A dilemma. How could I possibly get this home?
The woman apparently thinks I’ve paused as a negotiating tactic. “Sechs,” she says. I guess that closed the deal.
I ended up making room for it in my backpack. What the customs official in Frankfurt had to say when it went through the scanner is another story.
