Last year fellow beer writer Greg Kitsock conducted a March Madness bracket for beer in the Washington Post, calling it Beer Madness. It was a brilliant idea and I vowed to do my own this year (and I still may). The Post will be doing another one again this year, and over 400 hopeful judges submitted applications including “inspired limericks, hopeful haikus, reasoned arguments and, yes, desperate pleas.” Judges are expected to be announced shortly and the beers for this years contest should likewise one upcoming Sunday soon. I’ll follow along like I did last year.
In the meantime, Great Lakes Brewing News, has announced their own contest involving India Pale Ales, the National IPA Contest, or NIPAC. It may not roll off the tongue like N-C-Double-A but I’ll wager it’s a damn side tastier on your tongue. They’ve chosen 32 IPAs from around the country and over four separate rounds will have three brewers judge each head-to-head competition to determine who moves on toward the championship.
To participate you need to register online (it’s free) and then after receiving your password via e-mail vote for who you think will win each of the sixteen contests in round one. You simply choose who you think will win each head-to-head contest of IPAs. You can even win some prizes, which, according to the website rules will “include a full case of beer from the 2008 National IPA Champion, tee-shirts, posters and brewery merchandise.” The schedule of rounds is below. Get picking.
What fun! Now I need to get off my arse and figure out something different from the other two contests. Anybody have any thoughts or ideas?
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It’s time once again for our eleventh Session, and this time around we’re highlighting Doppelbocks courtesy of this month’s host, Wilson at Brewvana. I recently spent two weeks in the home of Doppelbocks — Germany — when many breweries I visited were just debuting their winter seasonal, which more often than not was a doppelbock.
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Their history is, of course, reasonably well settled, with the Pauline Monks of Munich making the first example of the style around 1780. By the Napoleonic Era, the brewery had become secular and brewmaster Franz-Xaver Zacherl began selling his strongest beer around Easter-time each year, calling it “savior,” which in German is “Salvator.” Other breweries began adopting the name and it was in danger of becoming generic when, in 1894, trademark law made Paulaner the only brewer legally allowed use the name. As a result, countless other doppelbocks renamed their beers but continued using the suffix “-ator,” possibly to denote strength, but more likely to continue associating themselves with Salvator. The traditional reason for brewing this beer at this time of the year was for the forty days — not counting Sundays — of fasting just prior to Easter, known as Lent. The monks wanted something heartier to drink while they weren’t able to eat. This period also became known as “strong beer season.” This year, strong beer season will begin February 6. |
As fate would have it, last night was the bimonthly blind panel tasting at the Celebrator Beer News and one of the two styles we tasted was doppelbocks. Of the seven we sampled, I decided to write about three common German examples, the original Paulaner Salvator, Spaten’s Optimator and Aying’s Celebrator.
So let’s drink some doppelbock, shall we?
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Paulaner’s Salvator bright amber in color with a tan head. It has sweet, toffee aromas with alcohol quite evident in the nose. The alcohol — at 7.9% abv — carries over into the taste profile and bites tartly against the malt backbone, which has a hint of candied sweetness. The finish lingers and continues to bite back long after it’s left. |
| Ayinger’s Celebrator Doppelbock was a very dark brown, almost black, with a rich tan head. The nose was predominantly sweet malt with touches of earthy, herbal aromas. Creamy and chewy, with a gritty effervescence that dances on the tongue, the flavor is a big wallop of malt with a restrained smokiness hiding underneath. The finish is clean with a touch of tartness. |
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Spaten’s Optimator was dark brown with a thick ivory head. The nose was dry with aromas of lightly sweet malt with just a touch of smoke or roasted toffee. The flavors were likewise sweetly malty. At only 7.2% abv, the alcohol was somewhat less evident in the taste and there was a little astringency, possibly from the hops. Overall it was full-bodied and rich and the finish clean. |
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Saturday afternoon there was a fun little event at the fabulous new City Beer Store, dubbed Chanukah vs. Christmas — because marketeer extraordinaire Jeremy Cowan, founder of He’Brew, was behind it. Essentially it was just an opportunity to taste around thirty different winter beers, including He’Brew’s Jewbelation 10th Anniversary Ale (last year’s beer) and He’Brew’s Jewbelation 11th Anniversary Ale on Rye. Craig and Beth, who own City Beer Store, put on a great event and the place was packed.
As for the beer, it was nice to see that about a third of the beers were from Belgium and included a few I hadn’t tried before. Standouts among the imports included St. Feuillien’s Cuvee Noel, the Delirium Noel and, of course, Samichlaus.
City Beer Store owner Craig Wathen, holding a magnum of 1994 Anchor Christmas Ale, and Jeremy Cowan, holding a bottle of He’Brew’s 11th Anniversary Ale.
For more photos from the Chanukah vs. Christmas Beer Tasting, visit the photo gallery.
If you’re a regular Bulletin reader you might think I drink nothing except beer, but that’s not at all true. I enjoy many different alcoholic beverages such as wine, especially heavy reds and fortified wines like Late Bottled Vintage Port, along with sake, hard cider, gin and other spirits. But I’m especially fond of whisky and, naturally, single malt scotch though I don’t generally write about it because my knowledge of it is restricted to that of happy amateur. I’ve skimmed Michael Jackson’s book Whisky, Jim Murray’s and a few others but generally I leave it to the experts. Happily, I know a few of them. One is John Hansell who’s been in the business for going on twenty-five years now and for many of them has been publishing Malt Advocate magazine, undoubtedly the best American whisky periodical. He also recently started a blog on the world of whisky called What Does John Know? My good friends Stephen Beaumont and Lew Bryson also write regularly for Malt Advocate.
Malt Advocate has been putting on tasting and educational events called WhiskyFests in New York and Chicago for a number of years, and this year they’re finally coming to San Francisco. WhiskyFest is exactly like it sounds, a festival where you can sample whisky and other libations, but it also includes an educational component with a number of speakers. And not only that, it will be the biggest whisky event in the country. If you love whisky, join me at WhiskyFest. It should be a blast.
It will take place in three weeks, on October 23 from 6:30-10:00 pm at the Hyatt Regency at 5 Embarcadero Plaza in San Francisco. Tickets are $105 for regular admission or $145 for VIP admission, which gets you in an hour earlier. Tickets include all sampling, speakers and a gourmet buffet. You can get advance tickets online at Malt Advocate or by phone at 800.610.MALT.
From the website:
What will be poured?
More than 250 of the world’s finest and rarest whiskies will be available for sampling, featuring premium single malt and blended Scotch whiskies, the best bourbons and Tennessee whiskeys, top of the line Irish whiskeys, Japanese whisky and the best from Canada. Visit Malt Advocate for an up-to-the-minute list of what will be available for sampling.
Who will be speaking?
The focus is on education, and many well-known distillery managers and distillery representatives will be on hand at the pouring booths to explain how the whiskies are made. Thirteen of the world’s leading distillery managers and master blenders will be conducting seminars throughout the evening including:
- Stephen Beal, Master of Whisky, Classic Malts
- Parker Beam, Master Distiller, Heaven Hill
- Simon Brooking, Global Brand Ambassador, The Dalmore & Laphroaig
- John Campbell, Distillery Manager, Laphroaig
- Ronnie Cox, Director, The Glenrothes
- John Hall, Whisky Maker, Kittling Ridge
- Lincoln Henderson, Whisky Expert, Suntory
- Ian Millar, Master Distiller, Glenfiddich
- Chris Morris, Master Distiller, Woodford Reserve
- Fred Noe, Jim Beam’s Great Grandson
- Richard Paterson, Master Distiller, The Dalmore
- John Scharffenberger, President, ScharffenBerger Chocolate
- Joy Spence, Master Blender, Appleton Rum
10.23
Hyatt Regency Hotel, 5 Embarcadero, San Francisco, California
800.610.MALT [ website ] [ tickets online ]
A day after praising Eric Asimov for leading the way toward detente between beer and wine, his “Ales of the Times” column today is entitled More or Less Pale but All Belgian features a tasting of several lighter Belgian beers suitable for summer. As usual, it’s a reasoned look at several lighter style Belgian ales such as Affligem Blond, Corsendonk, De Koninck and Orval and how they might be every bit as thirst-quenching as an ice-cold industrial light lager but with oodles more flavor and variety. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this is what we need more of in order to win the hearts and minds of all Americans toward enjoying better beer.
This has been a brutal month for me, in the last few weeks I’ve been to Denver, Portland and am writing this from Mammoth Lakes, California, where I’m attending a CSBA meeting and beer festival. So the Bulletin has suffered, but I didn’t want to miss this month’s Session because it’s an idea that I strongly believe in. I’ll try to be brief for this one (at least brief for me) since I have a speaking engagement in a few hours. Our host for the month, Greg Clow, chose fruit beers for this month’s topic and it’s another worthy one.
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The use of fruit in beer, of course, is not a new phenomenon by any stretch of the imagination. The Belgians, for example, have been using fruit in lambics for centuries. I always chuckle to myself when people make allusions to fruit beer not being for men, without having the foggiest notion what their talking about. I’d love to see their face when they try their first sour cherry lambic and can no longer sustain that argument. Fruit beers are, according to taste, for everybody. It’s probably a good idea to like the fruit used in a particular beer, and to have it be not too sweet or not too sour, depending on your own tolerance and preferences. But there’s such a wide range and variety of fruit beers that there’s undoubtedly one to suit any person’s tastes. |
Off the top of my head, here’s just a few different fruits that are or have been used in beer:
This list is merely to show the amazing diversity of different fruits used in beers. No two are alike, and so saying you don’t like fruit beer is like saying you don’t like people. There’s just too many variables to make such a blanket statement. I think it comes down to perception again of some weird prejudice in the U.S. where fruit in beer is seen as unmanly, as ridiculous a notion as I can imagine. There’s just too many good flavors here to ignore them over masculinity. But I guess that’s more for the rest of us.
When fruit beers became trendy fifteen years ago, there were certainly some that were better than others and a few used too much extract, in my opinion. But at some point there seemed to be something of a backlash for reasons unknown, and a lot of breweries quietly dropped their beers made with fruit. Today, breweries that still make fruit beers are generally the ones where their popularity never waned and they just continued making them without worrying too much about how they were perceived. Customers were buying them, and that was really all that mattered. Happily, new breweries are also venturing into fruit beer and seems pretty clear to me that they’ll always be around, at least as long as people care about flavor and how things taste.
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The Plumcots Are Coming, The Plumcots Are Coming!
Plumcots are also called Pluots, but the two are not interchangeable. Pluots are a variation on Burbank’s Plumcot created by Floyd Zaiger. Pluots are three-quarters plum and one-quarter apricot whereas plumcots are closer to 50-50. Pluots are also a registered trademark owned by Zaiger, a practice that I understand but loathe on many levels. |
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The beer is Compunction, a blonde ale brewed with plumcots. It had an original gravity of 1048 and is 5.8% abv. It’s slightly cloudy with golden color and a thin white head. Brett is the first aroma that hits you with fruity esters coming closely behind. The sweetness is puckering and works nicely as a contrast for the Brettanomyces. It’s surprisingly refreshing and light, given its strength. The beer is also aged in wooden barrels, but the beer’s strong flavors don’t allow much barrel characteristics to come through, really only a touch. Another interesting beer from Russian River Brewing.
After the parade on Thursday was the annual media tasting led by Noel Blake. In years past it was conducted before the festival began, but because of the parade this was no longer possible. But that also meant we were crowded around all of the other early festival-goers, which happily turned out not to be as bad as I thought it might be. Noel Blake has been our host of this event as long as I can remember, and he does a great job picking out several representative beers for everyone to sample and also explains what led to his choosing those particular beers.
Noel Blake using a bullhorn so he could be heard telling us about the beer in our glass.
Some of the beers we sampled were the following:
Bourbon Barrel Abbey Dubbel. The original goal of OBF was to showcase beers from around the country to educate and expose local consumers to craft beer. So while most of the beer at the festival is either from Oregon or nearby states like Washington and California, there are a few from farther afield. Probably the farthest perennial exhibitor is New Jersey’s Flying Fish Brewery, which has been sending beer to the festival for countless years. This year it was their abbey dubbel aged in a bourbon barrel. Malty and nutty, with some fruity esters and only a hint of the bourbon’s alchemy it was decent lighter dubbel.
Not quite open yet, Hopworks Urban Brewery is the brainchild of former Laurelwood brewer Christian Ettinger. They were pouring their Organic IPA, which was made with Amarillo, Centennial and Ahtanum hops. It’s a big hop monster, thick with flowery and citrusy hop aromas and flavors that stick to the roof of your mouth. I also had a chance to visit the brewery, which is still under construction. Look for a later post with photos from the new place.
Laurelwood Public House was pouring their PNW Pils, a pilsner with not only traditional Saaz hops but also Brewer’s Gold. It’s so well-hopped that it may as well be a big northwest hop because it’s only reminiscent of a pilsner. Really, it was more of a pilsner on steroids.
The TG Triple from Terminal Gravity Brewing in Enterprise, Oregon was one of my highlights for the festival. I’m not exactly sure how to describe it, because there’s no jumping off place to begin since it’s so far from what I think of when handed something called a “triple.” Strong, but not too strong (at 8.5% abv), rich, but not too rich, light, but not too light. It certainly tastes mild for a triple, but that’s not to say it isn’t full of flavor all its own. But really, who cares what it is, what’s important is that it’s a great beer.
At the media tasting: Rick Sellers, from Pacific Brew News, Merideth and Chris Nelson, The Beer Geek, and Meagan Flynn (at right) with her assistant, publisher of a new magazine — Beer NW — that will debut in October covering the beer scene in the Pacific Northwest.
Tom Dalldorf, publisher of the Celebrator, Fred Eckhardt, legendary Portland beer scribe, Meagan Flynn and our host, Noel Blake.
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Monday night I attended a presentation at the Toronado for the San Francisco launch of Krusovice, a beer from the Czech Republic. An old friend of mine, Dave Deuser, is the local rep. for the beer, which is (or was, but more on that in a minute) part of the Binding Group, a German company that owns several breweries, including DAB, Radeberger, Clausthaler, and Tucher. He had Krusovice’s head brewer and a translator who works for the brewery in tow.
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Binding USA is bringing two of Krušovice’s beers into the U.S. market, the Imperial and the Cerne. The Imperial, which they call a Czech Premium Lager, is very clean with soft, round flavors. I was quite impressed with it. It used all Saaz hops and was right up there with the best tasting lagers I’ve had. The Cerné is a dark lager made with pale and specialty malts. At only 3.8% abv, it was very easy drinking. It had delicious sweet malt flavors.
The presentation was very thorough and included a thick, spiral bound book that the brewer went over page by page, calling out “turn page now” in his best Germanic command voice. The Royal Brewery of Krušovice has a rich history, having been founded around 1517. In 1581, the brewery was purchased by Emperor Rudolf II, whose visage still appears on the labels. When he moved his capital from Vienna to Prague, he moved it to the nearby town of Krušovice and it became a “Royal Brewery,” a distinction it continues to claim to this very day. In 1945, after World War II it became the property of the state, in this case Czechoslovakia, until it was privatized in 1991 and then was purchased by the Binding Group in 1994. Binding completely modernized the brewery facilities and began exporting the beer in 1997. As of 2005, Krušovice was the 5th largest brewery in the Czech Republic. All their beers use a double decoction method, which is fairly common in Germany and for lagers. Many craft brewers use infusion mashing since it requires less equipment and is generally quicker, and while there is a debate about which method is better, it seems moot as long as the end result is both what you were trying to achieve and tastes good. Krušovice is currently sold throughout most of Europe, Australia and now North America (or at least in the U.S. and Canada). 63% of Krušovice is sold in kegs, 32% in bottles and 5% in cans. It’s apparently wildly popular in Russia, which accounts for more than half of all exports. |
And that brings us to the weird part of the evening. Halfway through their tour of the States, they got the word that Krušovice had been sold to Heineken, who was looking to make greater inroads into the Russian beer market. So it was a testament to everybody’s professionalism that presentation went as well as it did. My friend Dave didn’t now what his role would be now regarding Krušovice, but it’s likely Heineken will bring in their own people and the Binding folks won’t be involved any longer. As for the brewer, I’m sure he must have felt at least a twinge of uncertainty for his own fate, but everybody continued to champion the brand as if nothing had changed. I’m not sure I could have done as well under those circumstances.
It was a fun and informative evening, with two very tasty beers to make it all the more enjoyable.
Krusovice’s head brewer (at left) and his translator.
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I almost missed posting this before it’s too late. According to the new grassroots organization, Support Your Local Brewery, there’s legislation in Georgia that will be bad for small brewers and their ability to offer samples of their beer at their brewery during tours. The vote is on Tuesday, June 19 so if you’re in Georgia contact your Congressperson as soon as possible, and no later than the end of the business day on Monday.
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Here’s the press release from SYLB:
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John has also included a suggested message to send, and Support Your Local Brewery suggests you visit the Beer Serves America web site for detailed information on the economic contribution of Georgia’s beer community to state coffers. Please consider including some of this information in your message to underscore the valuable economic contribution being made, which in no way should be jeopardized.
Thanks for your support in protecting Georgia’s brewers and beer consumers.
If you want to read the a synopsis of the bill itself, you can view it at the SYLB website.
From John Cochran of Terrapin Beer Co.:
All Georgia breweries need your help. We recently received notice that the Georgia Department of Revenue has decided to change the rules that apply to tours at breweries in Georgia. The new proposal calls for a limit of a 2oz pour of each beer style on the tour with a maximum limit of only 16oz. The 16oz pour is only possible if we have eight different styles of beer to offer on the tour. If a brewery only has four beers available to taste, then only 8oz can be poured at the tour.
It is the belief of the Georgia breweries, and our wholesalers, that the proposed rule change would effectively kill the tours. Since the breweries have spent significant sums of money on tasting rooms for the purposes of conducting tours this investment would be lost. In addition it would cause the layoff of employees who now operate as tour guides and could cause serious harm to the bottom line of all breweries. The tours are our main marketing tool and by losing the ability to continue tours as they are currently structured, we would lose customers, lose sales, and find it much more difficult to continue in business.
If you have enjoyed tours at Sweetwater and Atlanta Brewing in the past and you would like to continue to enjoy tours at those locations and at Terrapin Beer Company (tours starting this fall if these proposed changes do not take effect) then please take the time to help fight for our rights.
Atlanta Brewing, Sweetwater and Terrapin have worked together to craft a response to the proposed rule changes. If you agree with us that the proposed rule change is egregious and will harm the brewery tours and thereby harm our businesses, please take the time to send the attached response to the Department of Revenue, as indicated below.
E-mail your comments to regcomments@dor.ga.gov and be sure to include a reference to “NOTICE NUMBER AT-2007-1″ on any correspondence you send.
The SYLB also helpfully has a template of a short letter you can use to send, which I reprinted below:
To: Commissioner Graham
Re: Notice Number AT-2007-1
560-2-2-.61The Georgia Department of Revenue has proposed a significant change in the states’ long standing policy on service limitations for brewery tours. The proposed new rule will adversely affect my decision as a customer of the breweries, to attend the tours. By doing so it will also put at risk the brewer’s investment in facilities designed to attract and accommodate tour attendees such as myself and will severely limit the marketing and sales of the brewery’s products. I oppose adoption of the proposed rule change and respectfully urge the department to withdraw proposed rule 3a.
Sincerely,
YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS HERE
If you can help out, please send in your comments as soon as possible. The craft beer community thanks you for your help.
A Bulletin reader (thanks Garrett) sent me this article by Ben McFarland from the British trade magazine, the Publican. McFarland is a two-time recipient of the title, “Beer Writer of the Year,” an honor bestowed on him by the British Guild of Beer Writers. If you’re in America you probably haven’t heard of him, because he writes primarily in England and in trade magazines, rather than consumer publications.
I recently invited him and some colleagues to join me in judging Imperial IPAs at the Bistro’s annual Double IPA Festival. He seemed an affable enough chap, though I didn’t get a chance to talk with him at length. He was in America working on a CAMRA book for British tourists wanting to visit our west coast beer scene. So I confess I was more than a little surprised by the tone of this recent article, “Look out for the beer snobs.” I think my first reaction was something along the lines of worry. As in, oh dear, did he recently suffer a blow to the head?
This is a subject somewhat near and dear to me, as I only recently wrote an article on beer geeks for the new Beer Advocate magazine. Since I use words on a daily basis, like any writer, I probably pay more attention to them, their meanings and how they’re used than the more normal person does. As a result, I became fascinated by the uses of the terms “beer geek” and “beer snob.”
The origin of snob, for example:
Originally, a snob was someone who made shoes, a cobbler, before migrating to a person of the lower classes who wants to move up and then on to its present meaning of a person who places too much emphasis on status or “a person who believes that their tastes in a particular area are superior to others.”
Occasionally, you hear beer fanatic, beer enthusiast, beer aficionado or hophead, but for me they never seem to quite strike the right chord. Despite my personal feeling that a new term needs coining, geek still appears to be the preferred term. Quoting myself, again:
Most of us prefer to be known simply as beer geeks though, oddly enough, the word geek meant originally a fool and later referred to the lowest rung of circus performer, one who may even have bitten the heads off of live chickens, as popularized in a 1946 novel, “Nightmare Alley,” by William Gresham, about the seedy world of traveling carnivals. In that book, to be a “geek” was to be so down and out that you’d do virtually anything to get by, no matter how distasteful or vile.
Like many old words that were primarily derogatory, its meaning has now been turned on its head. Beginning probably with the original new nerd, the computer geek, it was taken back as a source of pride. So today there are band geeks, computer geeks, science geeks, film geeks, comics geeks, history geeks and Star Wars geeks, to name only a few, all of them proud to call themselves geek, because of the shared passion that is so central to its modern meaning. Today a geek is an obsessive enthusiast, often single-mindedly accomplished, yet with a lingering social awkwardness, at least outside the cocoon of their chosen form of geekdom.
But while there may be some general disagreement about the preferred term to call ourselves, most would agree, I think, that geek is the more gentle term and snob more derisive. At least all my anecdotal research seems to suggest that. I find that I’m most often a beer geek but consider that when I veer into obnoxiousness — oh, yes, it happens more often than I’d like — that I’m acting like a snob. For me, that seems the general distinction though there are certainly times I feel just as proudly snobbish as geeky.
Given that McFarland is by all accounts a good writer, he begins his little screed by admitting that although “beer is undoubtedly a truly wonderful drink there’s really no need to wax quite so lyrical.” “Quite so lyrical?” Quite so lyrical as whom? Who gets to decide how far is too far? Ben McFarland? Are we all to use his gauge of what is gong too far, because he offers no other or more general rules of thumb by which to police ourselves. Is Stephen Beaumont, Fred Eckhardt or Michael Jackson’s writing too flowery, too imbued with nuance or introspection? Do we who take money for our words get a pass for being lyrical or is everyone so cautioned? Or is he simply taking a cue from the Mike Seate playbook of inflammatory journalism where it’s enough to simply be outrageous without really being able to back it up? Where it’s enough to simply wind people up and watch the hit counts soar.
McFarland continues:
Beer, thankfully, has always lacked wine’s academic airs. Beer is the solace of the everyday chap and, quite frankly, can’t be doing with such excessive introspection. OK, so beer education is important, but there’s never been and still isn’t such a thing as a ‘Master of Beer’. Quite right too — anything that requires holding a pen or scratching a chin is using a hand that could be clutching a pint.
There’s a difference between academic airs and being able to describe how something tastes — no easy feat — by just grunting. He seems to be suggesting that beer writers must stick to unlyrical terms or else he’s saying we should say nothing at all. And that helps who exactly? And as for this “solace of the everyday chap” bullshit, I am sick to death of this insulting argument. Mass-produced beer-like industrial products may indeed be the drink of a large portion of the masses, but that’s not the only thing beer is. Beer is not just one thing. It’s not the same to every person, nor should it be.
He goes on:
That’s not to say that beer is entirely without its pomp and pretentiousness. As beer has climbed the social drinking ladder, so too has the number of self-important beer snobs whose lexicon is becoming increasingly ludicrous.
You know the type: grandiose swirling of the glass; ostentatious inhalations; unnecessarily opaque and absurd verbal acrobatics; haughty guffawing at the word ‘lager’; and patronising dismissal of any beer that isn’t brewed by a 16th century monk with a limp.
We all apparently know the type he’s referring to:
And on:
The fact of the matter is, these condescending clowns are, so far as I can tell, incapable of describing what’s in their mouth or on their nose with any degree of accuracy.
Hmm, now that sounds like “a person who believes that their tastes in a particular area are superior to others.” Because in order to so definitively know that such people are “incapable of describing what’s in their mouth or on their nose with any degree of accuracy” one would have to be a snob, wouldn’t one?
And that’s why this whole things seems laced with hypocrisy on several fronts. First, most beer writers, McFarland included, simply by virtue of doing so much tasting over time probably do have better palates than the “everyday chap” who sticks to one brand his whole life. So that alone makes him something of a snob already, even without the disdain.
Then there’s the desire to keep beer descriptions simple and without lyrical prose. Clearly, any description of anything can go so far in trying to be clever that its meaning is obfuscated … sorry, becomes unclear. Does that mean we should only use short, simple one-syllable words in our descriptions, only describe a beer by comparing it to another beer, or dumb it down for the “everyday chap” he assumes the reader to be? To me, that seems a huge mistake that takes us back several steps. There should be beginner’s books that use simple terms for the inexperienced but a developed palate demands better, more thorough descriptions that also include the beer’s more subtle complexities. Not all sports writing assumes the reader knows nothing, but is written for different levels of understanding in different contexts. The same is true for business writing in the evening paper versus a business magazine, or even in USA Today versus the Financial Times. The writing is tuned to the presumed sophistication of the average reader. Since McFarland admits that “beer has climbed the social drinking ladder” (a condescending remark if ever there was one) why would anyone think the way beer is talked about or written about would not change, too? That he finds the beer snob’s “lexicon is becoming increasingly ludicrous” is entirely his own problem.
Then let’s not forget the irony of the initial complaint that “[w]hile beer is undoubtedly a truly wonderful drink there’s really no need to wax quite so lyrical” as he proceeds to wax this way and that way throughout the article. Using phrases like “ostentatious inhalations” for sniffing or “unnecessarily opaque” for dull or unintelligent is not waxing lyrical? McFarland may indeed be a terrific writer who uses, ironically, very lyrical prose. I just wish he’d come up with something more constructive to write. I feel like I’m attacking a colleague and it causes me no small amount of pain to do so. So Ben, if you ever do read this, I’m truly sorry but I felt it necessary to write this strong rebuttal. Perhaps I went to far, but as reasonable men may differ, I sincerely believe your words are damaging to the idea that beer is worthy of respect in how it’s enjoyed, perceived and talked about. That it’s discussed at all in print and in the pub is why you and I have a job. I don’t always agree with the way people talk or write about beer, either, but I’m content that they are.
McFarland ends his piece with this final thought.
Sure, beer is just as complex as wine in its aromas and flavours but let’s just shut up and drink it, shall we?
Good idea. You first.
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Friday evening there was a fun little event at the new City Beer store, San Francisco’s first and only store selling nothing but great beer. Owner Craig Wathen (with a little help from Jen Garris) assembled several bay area holiday beers from Drake’s, Marin Brewing and Schmaltz Brewing. Also several local brewers brought growlers of their beers, such as Triple Rock’s Reindeer and Thirsty Bear’s barleywine from 2004. The store is a small space, but there was a great turnout and the place was packed almost the whole time I was there. And did I mention they have a fantastic selection of some of the yummiest beers around. Please support the store as often as you can. As a beer community, we need to help one another. And we need a store like this.
The City Beer Christmas tree.
Drake’s brewer Melissa Myers, with her father in town for a visit.
City Beer Store owner Craig Wathen at the taps.
Craig with some of the Bay Area beer cognoscenti around the tree.
City Beer Store
1168 Folsom Street — at 7th
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No one in his right mind would argue that it’s better to drink beer directly from the bottle or can, yet thousands — perhaps millions — of people do that every single day. So getting people to first pour their beer into some type of vessel, preferrably a glass one, is job one. The advantages should be obvious. The head produced when you pour beer into a glass releases carbon dixoide (CO2) and makes the beer much less gassy. That’s why bottle drinkers burp and … well, you know. Also, the CO2 gets in the way of whatever flavor is in the beer because it overpowers it, so it’s absoluetly essential that you let the beer breathe. Usually that one big exhale when you pour it is enough, but what’s the best way to pour your beer into the glass?
On this point, many people differ, often bitterly. Today’s Sun-Sentinnel (which covers south Florida) has an article entitled “Beer foam foments flavor,” which explores this idea of a right way to pour a beer in surprising detail.
Boston Beer’s Jim Koch weighs in first, saying “A nice collar of foam around a glass of beer not only is aesthetically pleasing but serves a real function.”
He continues in the article:
“As the CO2 [carbon dioxide] rises in the glass, the beer will capture some of the hop aroma, and the foam releases this aroma,” Koch says. The more protein in the beer, the more sizable and durable the head.
The practice was so widespread, Koch says, that the ritual of pouring a glass with a good collar of foam practically disappeared, unless one happened on a knowledgeable bartender.
Pour the beer down the middle of a slightly tilted glass, straightening the glass gradually. If it is a bottle-conditioned beer, you can leave a half-inch of liquid in the bottle to keep the yeast sediment from clouding your beer.
Next up, Grady Hull, assistant brewmaster at New Belgium Brewing, who “agrees that the foam affects the flavor.” His take:
“Some aromas are released by the foam, and others are held in to be released as the beer is consumed,” Hull says. “It’s also an indication of the content of the beer. Beers made with cheap adjuncts like rice and corn are typically low in foam because they are low in protein.”
Lastly, Sam Calagione, of Dogfish Head Brewing, adds that “a good inch (two fingers) of froth on a glass of craft beer” is ideal.
CAMRA, unfortunately, while having done much else that is good, has been whining for years that a large head is cheating consumers out of their full pint of beer. They’ve been stubbornly demanding taller and taller glasses so that the liquid comes up to a pint line and the foam extends beyond it but still is in the glass. But the foam, of course, consists of a percentage of liquid which slides back into the glass as the bubbles dissipate. This argument for larger glasses always struck me as pedantic. A pint is 16 oz., not 20 oz., as is the British Imperial Pint. If pub owners want to end this argument, all they need do is stop selling pints and instead offer a glass of beer (which then could be of any size) for a set price. That the word “pint” is the trouble strikes me as fairly ridiculous. But I think this had led many to believe that a good-sized head is not desireable, and that is not the case at all.
Here in the states, the American-style lagers manufactured by the big breweries are all very highly carbonated, most likely to mask the lack of flavor underneath. One thing you can say about the big guys is they’re not stupid. These beers from the bottle have to be poured down the side of the glass, otherwise you’ll have foam everywhere. Notice you rarely, if ever, see their products in a glass in print or television ads. Letting an American-style lager breathe will reveal more of it’s actual flavor and that’s not necessarily something they want to do. So I was particularly puzzled to discover that the Beertender Guide to Serving Packaged Beer actually suggests the following:
Don’t pour the beer by the “down-the-side” method. This minimizes the foam, and the beer looks flat and will taste gassy. CO2 is retained in the beer and swallowed, so your customers fill up faster — and they may not have room for snacks or a meal.
The Beertender Guide is maintained by Anheuser-Busch for their wholesalers. It’s shared content that any of them can use on their individual websites and/or to train their employees. Their advice on pouring is also quite interesting.
For the smoothest taste, pour beer to produce a nice head or collar of foam.
- Place the neck of the bottle or lip of the can over the edge of a clean glass or cup.
- Quickly raise the bottom of the bottle or can to a high angle, causing the beer to agitate into the glass.
- Lower the bottom of the bottle or can to reduce the flow until the foam rises to the rim.
This flies in the face of some conventional wisdom, especially the 45° angle theory, which is quite prevalant among most craft brewers. Beer Advocate, for example, in their advice on How To Pour Beer, advocates this method and even has a little online video of founder Todd Alström pouring a glass of Mendocino’s Eye of the Hawk to show this technique. Go watch it. Go on, I’ll wait. Like most of the advice in Beer Advocate’s Beer 101 pages, there’s a lot of good information there but this I think illustrates why the 45° angle is partially flawed. He’s using an imperial pint glass, of course, which is for 20 oz. of liquid and the bottle is 12 oz. which is fine. I, too, like and often use imperial pint glasses depending on the beer style. But notice at the end of the video, where his fingers come to rest at the edge of the foam, that the head produced looks to be maybe one finger thick. But the ideal head is at least around 1-1½ in., which is about two fingers on most of us. Now personally, I like a good thick head, more on the order of 1½ to 2 inches. That’s how important I think it is to blow off the gasses in the beer and get to the remaining flavor. And the 45° angle method just doesn’t get it done. It’s not bad per se, but in many cases it’s simply ineffective for getting a thick, pillowy head going. I prefer the following:
This is a dynamic process that much be watched constantly and continually adjusted for to get the head just right. Maybe it requires more concentration but it’s well worth it in my opinion, because of how important the results are.
Now I realize I’ve ignored certain exceptions, like bottle-conditioned beers, and certain styles with their own peculiarities, such as stouts or hefeweizens, but for the majority of beers, I think my method works quite well. This is especially true if your goal is to produce a generous head, and I think that’s crucially important to getting the full enjoyment out of your bottle of beer.
UPDATE: SeattleBeerGuy sent me the following tidy little article entitled Pouring the Perfect Pint from Pacific Brew News, which is a similar method to mine, but also includes a bit more detail.
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