Notes and Updates on the Holiday Ale Festival

Day one of the frosty Holiday Ale Festival is in the books.  Day two, less than an hour from opening, looks frostier still.  (It's 29 degrees as I write this.)  That makes for a lovely time under the tents, but don't depend on those heaters getting the temperature up to 68.  They strain to keep it pleasant, but there are pockets where it never really warms up.  (When the outside temperature is the normal 45, the inside can sometimes get steamy.)

A few other notes

The $5 designated-driver wristband.

The food situation is not great--and if you're a vegetarian, it's pretty terrible.  I'd advise you to eat beforehand and just snack while you're there.  There is water, but you have to go to the Northeast corner of the main tent, near the exit, to find it.  These are huge beers, and you really, really need to stay fed and hydrated.  A four-ounce pour of a 10% beer (common here) is the same a shot of whiskey. If you drink your first batch of 10 tickets, you may well find yourself in trouble, so beware.  To add insult to injury, the Fest is for some reason charging designated drivers five bucks just to get in.  For those good eggs willing to tag along to give your drunk self a ride home, this is a harsh penalty indeed.  Non-drivers should maybe pool their dollars and pick up the tab.  (Note to Fest: knock that off in the future.  You want designated drivers, especially when your beers are so boozy.)

The beer
The main event, of course, is the beer, and as usual they're pretty amazing.  Bière de noëls devide people, so it's harder than usual to make recommendations.  How do you feel about spice?  What about smoke?  Where's your sweetness threshold?  Depending on how you answer these questions, your mileage will vary.  I have always had a rocky relationship with spice, and so tried nearly no beers that used them.  On the other hand, I love smoked malt, so I was out sniffing for the smell of char.  Over the course of six hours, I had a full pour or neighborly snort of just 15 of the beers, so my sample size is also limited.  However, all those caveats noted, here were the ones I liked:

• Alameda Long Beard's Baltic Porter.  One of those smoky beers, and one of two or three that vied for my fave.  Baltic Porters are simultaneously smooth and intense (they're usually lagered), and a vivid, almost sour roast note is typical.  Alameda puts a spin on that with the smoke, and it really works.  Deep, resonant beer.  So many winter beers are meant to be drunk by the snifter, but I could have easily tucked into a pint of this.
• Cascade Cherry Diesel.  A very well-made cherry stout, meaning tons of roast battling tons of cherry.  The two tango in the way cherries and chocolate are famous for doing, and the effect is similarly decadent.
• Elysian Doom.  I confess I was attracted partly by the name, forgetting that I was getting an IPA (maybe the only one at the fest?).  It's exceptional.  A head like mousse and incredibly rich, super tasty hopping that blasted through my tired palate.  It was my nightcap and I'd like to try it again fresh.
• Ninkasi Single.  By contrast, I kicked the fest off with this beer.  A little titan--a mighty mite?--with a substrate of esters that harmonized nicely with spicy/herbal hops (Saaz?).  Also one of the best beers I tried.
• Old Town Pa Rum Pum Pum Pum.  Also late in the day, so my faculties were diminished.  It seemed to have a wonderful harmony between the rum barrels and burnished maltiness of the old ale.  
• Pints Hibernator.  A lovely weizenbock that functions as a perfect palate-refresher.  Lots of phenolics and spice that help enliven a tongue battered by alcohol and sweetness.

I also enjoyed BridgePort Honey Porter, Deschutes Yule Goat (though it was pretty brett-y), Fort George Hogfather, Golden Valley Santa's Smokin' Bock, and Hopworks Kronan the Barbarian.  Just four misses: Base Camp White Squall (balance was a touch off), Laht Neppur St. Dorothy's Peach Cordial Ale (too sweet), Mazama Mazamanator (too strong and too fruity for a doppelbock), and Viking Winter Squash Porter (a braggot that was actually really good except the spicing threw me off--I'd love a version without spice).

I saw a bunch of people there I wish I'd spoken to more (like Suds Sister, Matt Van Wyk, Ritch Marvin, Pete Dunlop, Sanjay Reddy and several others).  What is it with fests that make it hard to talk to everyone you'd like?  Here's hoping I get another bite at the apple; I'm planning for a Saturday foray too.  See you there?

Studies: Any Alcohol Is Bad for Kids

It is a painful thing when long-held beliefs run into cold, hard data, but that's what happened this morning when I listened to NPR's report on kids and alcohol. I have long subscribed to the "European school" of child rearing: the theory that acquainting children to alcohol in the home environment demystifies it, leading to healthier behavior later. My own experience seemed to suggest that the kids who really got into trouble were those who, suddenly unchained from restrictive rules, went crazy with booze in early adulthood. All of this, apparently, is anecdotal noise or wishful thinking. According to research, the best system is complete abstinence:

[Penn State alcohol researcher Caitlin Abar] studied how parents deal with their high school teenagers regarding alcohol use while still at home, and she then checked after the teens' first semester of college. Her study of 300 teenagers and their parents was published recently in the journal Addictive Behaviors.

"Parents who disapproved completely of underage alcohol use tended to have students who engaged in less drinking, less binge drinking, once in college," Abar says.

And conversely, a parent's permissiveness about teenage drinking is a significant risk factor for later binge drinking...

But, it was parents' rules that had the strongest effect, says Abar. Complete disapproval of teen drinking by parents was the most protective, even more than when parents allowed a limited amount of alcohol consumption.

And for those who admire the European model, like me, bad news:

Research studies by Wood, Abar and others challenge the common parenting practice in much of Europe where kids are socialized to drink at the family table, with the expectation that they'll learn to drink responsibly. Dutch researcher Haske van der Vorst has studied this "European drinking model."

Unfortunately, she says, based on her research, the European drinking model isn't working. "Not at all actually," she says. "The more teenagers drink at home, the more they will drink at other places, and the higher the risk for problematic alcohol use three years later."

All of this is very important, because brain researchers have found that alcohol has a profound effect on the young, developing brain--and "young" means people up to 25 years old. Even fairly modest drinking can affect thinking and memory.

I don't have kids, but most of my friends do, and we have all been pretty convinced by the European way. We regularly enjoy beer in the kids' presence, sometimes at pubs. This research makes me question whether this is a good idea.

There are societal implications as well. I've long felt that well-lit family brewpubs were healthy not only for communities (I see no reason to doubt that), but for children who see responsible behavior modeled there. If you buy into the European school, family brewpubs are not only fun places to visit, but they're also useful in reducing addictive and dangerous behaviors. But if the European model is hogwash, as these studies suggest, the very idea of the family pub is thrown into question.

This is going to provoke some deep thinking on the subject. Probably not good to make rash decisions, but it would be worse to ignore these findings--especially those of you with kids. Your thoughts?


Upon further reflection. It's worth adding one comment here. There's no reason to doubt the results of these findings in the aggregate. But parents need to use their judgment when working with real live individual kids. As Sally and I were talking, it occurred to me that the reason I've always found the European model so persuasive is that the "zero tolerance" policy would have definitely driven me straight to the bottle. I have a goat-like character flaw that resists "zero tolerance" anything. But apparently, I'm not typical. Your kid may not be, either.