Summer Wheat

Post Updated: The meet-the-brewer event at the Guild is next Wednesday, the 25th, not yesterday.

I didn't know if we'd ever see the sun return to Oregon, but the summer beers were a sure bet. (It looks like they may have encouraged old man sunshine to peek in on the Beaver State, too.) In what I regard as a very positive development, it seems that wheat is becoming a more prominent player in breweries' summer repertoire. Two breweries have wits out, Upright and Redhook, and Coalition just released a fantastic American wheat.

Let's start with the wits. The style is surely one of the most surprising success stories in American brewing. A fully extinct style until it was resurrected by Pierre Celis in the 1960s, it seemed doomed to never be embraced in the US--too odd, too upsetting to our expectations of what "beer" should taste like. Anyway, that was my theory until Blue Moon, acquired by Coors, went on to become one of the country's best-selling craft (or if you prefer, craft-esque) beers.

As its brewed in the US, wit is a fairly variable style. In the hands of Allagash, it is an aristocratic, austere beer--quite dry and tilted toward sharper rind-like notes. With Blue Moon, you get an essentially pleasant beer, but watery, tepid, and sweet. In the hands of both Upright and Redhook, the wheat is prominent--a good decision, in my view. But Redhook has created a breadier version with more body; Upright's is lighter and crisper. Redhook uses ginger--a good call--but I find the coriander a bit heavy, which tilts it slightly to the sweet side. This is becoming a national trend in American wits--coriander-heavy and sweet--probably thanks to Blue Moon. Upright's, by contrast, has a much dialed-down spicing regime. The wheat adds a softness that flows into a tangy, mildly tart finish.

My favorite new wheat of the season comes from Coalition, Wheat the People. It's one of those rare beers that achieves the perfect harmony of its understated parts. The wheat is soft and gentle but round enough to give the beer substance. The Northern Brewer hops, which barely register on the IBU scale, are quite a nice contrast here--they bear the spicy, herbal evidence of their English parentage. It's a great session beer, and as we found out, a great food partner, too. Paired with the triple-sweet pastrami sandwich (with caramelized onions, bacon, and sweet sauce), an amazing alchemy happened. The wheat stiffened a bit and became a crisp complement to the sweeter elements in the sandwich. Coalition is in the process of putting in their side patio, and I can't think of a better way to spend a couple sunny hours than sitting in the summer warmth with a pint or three of Wheat the People.

Finally, I meant to mention that Matt Van Wyk was going to be debuting this year's vintage of Oakshire Line Dry Rye--another summer refresher--at the Guild. It was last night. Whoops. In any case, you should go to the Guild, which may be Portland's most sun-washed pub, and have a pint of the Rye there. No Matt, but he'd approve anyway. It's next Wednesday, from 6-8pm. I do stick to my contention that the Guild is one of the most sun-washed in the city, though. (This is why I leave event announcements to Angelo, who can actually track them. Oy.

Summer Seasonals

I suppose it's time for summer beers to hit the shelves--though we seem to be damned far from any actual summer round these parts. The weather in Puddletown these days calls still calls for porter. But, since breweries have been sending me bottles of their various seasonals, I might as well do a post for those of you living elsewhere.

Summer Tipples, Generally
When the old devil sun starts a beating down on your head, the last thing you want is anything heavy. This much is true. Traveling through some very hot places, I have found refuge in very light beers. Some, like Panama's Soberana, are a real joy when you're at the edge of a jungle. (Beer Advocate raters, mostly not on the edge of a jungle, are unpersuaded.) In the summer, flavors, like sound, tend to get louder. What tastes like water in January may taste heavy and dangerous in July. So mostly breweries play it cool--light bodied beers, low alcohol, low hops, just enough of everything to keep the tongue occupied.

(And fair enough, too. But I wonder, do all summer beers have to be so tame? Mainly we get variations on light lagers. It is possible to make them dark but light-bodied, or give them hop zing, or even add alcohol without body. A word of encouragement: experiment. See how far you can get from Pabst while still making a summer beer. I'd love a little variety.)

Anyway, to the beers.

Pyramid Haywire Hefeweizen (tallboy can)
Been a while since I've had a Pyramid Hef, but I was convinced to give it a revisit when the cans came out. In my memory, this has always been a bit closer to the German original than to Widmer's "hefeweizen," and so it remains. There are not a lot of phenols, but I get a distinctive bubble gum note, suggestive of isoamyl. Not a lot else is going on, though. The beer's cloudy but not super wheaty. It's light, but not terribly crisp and ends with a bit of a thin, wet note. Imagine the result of combining a kolsch with a German hefeweizen.

I love German hefes, and the funkier they are, the more I love them. Somehow, the initial aroma of the source style with the ultimate failure to deliver disappoints me. Either give me the full monty or give me a straightforward American wheat. Call it a gentleman's C.


Redhook Rope Swing Summer Pilsner
There are FAR too few pilsners in Beervana. I don't mean one-off pilsnery light lagers, I mean lush, crisp, Saaz-drenched pilsners, one of the world's finest pours. In Rope Swing we have what pencils out to be a perfect remedy: a 5.3% Saaz-hopped pils of a respectable 25 IBUs. How can this go wrong?

I don't know, but it has. I just don't like this beer. There's something very unpleasant about the hops, which give a weedy, grassy bitterness wholly unlike all the other tangy Saaz-hopped pilsners I've tasted. It's a over-thin and lacks malt character. I tried one bottle with friends and to a person they all thought it was nice--including an avowed pils-hater. Later, Sally gave it an "eh," but was surprised at the vehemence of my antipathy. Not for me.

(In the "throw me a bone" category, I will highly recommend the brewery's 8-4-1, which is a pretty complex beer that had the flair of a Belgian. It charmed, confused, and pleased me, and I enjoyed it very much.)


Widmer Sunburn
What is it with weird names? Sunburn's not as bad as "Grifter," but it still seems an odd choice: why do breweries select nouns with negative connotations for the names of their beers? A mystery. Like the other beers, this is definitely a traditional summer seasonal--light, pale, and mild. But give the Widmers credit; for such an underpowered ale, it performed well in our taste tests. It's a mere 4.3% (10 P!) and either 15 or 20 IBUs (sources vary), but those few hops are well-used. The Brothers (or Joe Casey or Ben Dobler or ...) dry-hop it with Citras, and this is indeed a good move. Dry-hopping adds flavor and aroma but no bitterness, and so Sunburn gets extra juice without actually employing extra juice. That's how you do a summer beer. And in fact, 20 IBUs in a 4.3% beer ain't too shabby. This is a winner, and you don't even have to be near a jungle.

Beers of Summer - Saison Dupont

It's not really appropriate to call saison an "endangered species," among Belgian styles as Michael Jackson did in Great Beers of Belgium ten years ago. (Actually, his description is probably largely responsible for engendering the international interest that revived it.) There was a rennaissance in Belgium of traditional styles, and a minor one here with mostly less than traditional styles. The exception is Hennepin from New York's Ommegang, the only American I've tasted that comes close to the Belgian originals.

But among all saisons, the classic example is Dupont. Others exist--from Silly, Pipaix, Lefebvre, and Fantome, but these are harder to get. Saison Dupont is available at many supermarkets (though, as always, you're better off to get it at a retailer that takes care of its beer).

As a style, saisons are a collection of typically artisinal ales, typical of an earlier era when it was difficult to brew in the summer (the yeast gets funky at high temperatures). Thus it was brewed in the spring ("la saison de mars"--the season of march) to be laid down for a few months until summer. They ranged from very low alcohol beers (according to Jackson, "children's strength") to robust versions of 8% or more. Their palate is crisp, mildly tart, and hoppy. For people who enjoy IPAs (ie, almost all denizens of Beervana), I think saisons would be a wonderful beer to try.

Tasting Notes
It pours out a hazy, sunny gold--a chill haze that dissipates as the beer warms--with a very vigorous bead. It is so bright in the glass that it makes me want to go into a purple metaphor about capturing sunlight--but I'll desist. It features one of the richest, fluffiest, almost architectural heads of any beer--a head that stays through the final sip.

When I poke my nose into a beer, I conduct a forensic sweep, beginning with the yeast. I was initially struck by a cellary quality of Saison Dupont; in this case, it's not musty, but more of a mineral quality. As a minor note, there are a bit of hops, but Dupont has an alchemical depth in its aroma that comes from the yeast.

Crispness and a dryness are the hallmarks of the saison style, making it closer to a chardonnay than bock. It has a tartness characteristic of Belgian beers, but in a minor key; it's balanced by a mineral dry (partly, perhaps, from hard water) accentuated by Kent Goldings hops--lots of 'em. (The Belgians make classic regional beers, but they are far from parochial: borrowing a classic English hop to produce this classic Belgian ale is in keeping with Belgian virtuosity, and, I like to think, a tip of the hat to the kinds of beers like IPAs that may have helped inspire Dupont.) This is one of the hoppiest Beligian styles, and to my mind why it is tailor made for the Northwest palate. Finally, sometime after the initial, alcoholic first note and subsequent notes of tart and dry, but before the long, hoppy finish, the malts have their moment, offering a surprising amount of sweet fruit.

I will confess that if I were confined to a desert island with only five beers to drink the rest of my life, Saison Dupont would be one. So for that reason, you'll have to forgive me for the effusive review.

Stats
Malts: Pale malts.
Hops: Kent Goldings (maybe also Styrian and Hallertau)
Alcohol by volume: 6.5%
Original Gravity: 1.054.
Bitterness Units: Unavailable.
Available: Grocery stores with decent beer selections, Belmont Station.

Rating
A classic.

Beers of Summer - Sam Adams Boston Lager

For Independence Day, I can think of no better beer to review than Sam Adams Boston Lager*. What says independence more than a beer with a brewer, patriot on the label?

To begin, let's clarify something: there is no such style as a "Boston lager," This is part of Sam Adams' genius. By minting their own style, Boston Lager has now become its own thing. Perhaps this is how Newcastle Brown started. In any case, I guess you could call it accurate: the beer in question is brewed in Boston (or was, originally) and it's a lager. Perhaps due to its enigmatic designation, it has grown to be one of the best-selling craft beers on the market, and deservedly so.

Tasting Notes
In the glass, Boston Lager looks quite a lot like a scotch. Not so much when you pour it out--then it's a rich amber with a vigorous bead. But if you, as I did, accidentally leave an inch in your glass until the head and fizz have passed and the beer has become still, you could easily mistake it for Cragganmore. (Or is it Oban I'm thinking of? Nevermind.)

The beer is crisp and dry to my palate. The hops--classic German noble varieties--are present but not forward, as in a pilsner. But, neither do they hang back as in a helles. The malting is clean and smooth, with just a hint of biscuit. Throughout a single sip, I find the beer dry--from the first notes, through the clean malt middle, and to the aromatic hoppy finish. It is the rare beer that pleases on a hot summer day as well as a cool autumn day (in fact, I think the style in which it has the most in common is Octoberfest), but Boston Lager does.

I rarely choose to buy a lager when any kind of ale is available, but Sam is an exception.

Statistics
Hops: Mittelfruh and Tettnang.
Malts: Two-row pale and caramel
Alcohol by Volume: 4.9%
Original Gravity: 13 degrees Plato
Bitterness Units: unkown.
Available: Everywhere.

Rating
A classic.
_____________
*Yes, it is true that I write this on the 6th of July, but I intended to write it on the fourth.

Beers of Summer - Eugene City Honey Orange

Before beginning this review, several disclaimers:

1. The actual, full name of this review is Eugene City Brewery Honey Orange Wheat Ale, which for the purposes of titling has been cut down to size.

2. Eugene City is actually Rogue, which bought the brewery in 2004, and was formerly West Brothers, but was not actually formerly the brewery established in 1866, as the label claims.

3. This is not the same beer brewed under previous ownership, which was a wild, thick, cakey ride that actually had orange in it. It was totally unique and unprecedented in the annals of brewing (or anyway, those with which I was acquainted).

4. Honey Orange Wheat Ale is actually a modified Wit.

Tasting Notes
What is the quintessential summer beer? Belgian White Beers have a reasonable claim. Their name derives from the very pale, cloudy color (white is stretching it), but they might more properly be called orange, after the predominant flavor element. Traditionally, whites are made with coriander and orange peels from curacao oranges, as well as unmalted wheat (which contributes the cloudiness). Ironically, the orange flavor comes from the coriander and tart punch of the yeast; in the absence of hop flavor, the orange peels provide some balance.

Rogue's variant is sweet--overly so. Whites balance the innate sweetness of wheat malt and coriander with a tartness derived from the yeast and a bitterness from the orange rind. The balance is key, and Rogue's version doesn't get the bitter or tart right. It's almost like an alcopop, and I imagine few 17-year-old girls would turn one down. The coriander provides most of the character, but unbalanced coriander tends to turn syrupy--anyway it does here.

The style is hard to mess up, and I enjoyed this beer as far as it went, but compared to some of the world standards--Hoegaarden, Celis--Eugene City falls short. I'd love to see Rogue go back to the original.

Stats
Hops: Unknown
Malts: Unknown
Alcohol By Volume: Unknown
Original Gravity: Unknown
BUs: Unknown
Available: The pub is located at 844 Olive Street, in Eugene. Bottles (22 oz.) are available at the Rogue Brewery in Newport. Via Rick: it's also available at the Rogue Public House (formerly Portland Brewing Flanders Brewery) on NW 14th and Flanders in Portland.

Rating
Average.

Post updated July 2, 2006.

Beers of Summer - Full Sail Session

Full Sail's Session Lager is a lesson in a (stubby) bottle. No brewery suffered the downturn in the mid-90s more than Full Sail, which had just expanded to a 250,000-barrel brewery. They expected to grow from the 80,000 barrels they were brewing, but instead shrank 25%. There followed a series of label redesigns (they've had four in all) as the brewery cast about, trying to find its identity.

They ultimately landed on a heavily-researched style that combined various visual cues to clue in their target audience that they were not only good beer, but hipster beer to boot. (John Foyston wrote an unforgettable article about the process, which sadly isn't even cached online anymore.) The last brick in that wall was the Session, a beer designed to reach out and grab young Pabst drinkers by the collar. Foyston wrote an article on the introduction of Session, and that is archived. Here's how he described it:

[Full Sail founders Irene] Firmat and [Jamie] Emmerson figured out what to put in the stubbies when they finally solved the Mystery of the Reluctant Neighbor. He'd drop by their house to pick up his daughter from a play date, they'd offer him a Full Sail beer and he always turned it down. "He's this big guy, an ex-U of O linebacker," Firmat said. "And I always thought, 'Now there's somebody who looks like a beer drinker.'

"He was a little embarrassed, but he finally told us that he didn't like craft beers, that they were too big, too bitter, too heavy," she said. "We realized that there are people who want to drink a Heineken, or a Corona or a Beck's. You're not going to get them to drink an ale, so we decided to make a beer that would appeal to them."

It's a good strategy: instead of bemoaning the fact that imports cut into the market for craft beers, Full Sail created a beer -- and a brand -- for the import lager drinkers. The label bears only the small initials FS with a tiny 47 underneath -- the number of employees in this employee-owned brewery.

Given that Pabst is a purely market-driven phenomenon (don't believe me?--do a blind tasting and see if you can distinguish it from other national macropilsners), packaging a beer to appeal to the highbrow-averse was a stroke of brilliance. Stubbies died out when the last of the regionals were snapped up, and now the only odd-sized bottles are in collections. Session has the distinction of being totally retro and ultramodern simultaneously.

I don't actually know how Session is selling, but whenever I go to the store and watch someone pick up a half rack, it's someone who looks like he was trying to decide between Pabst and Session. And I've seen a lot of those guys.

Tasting Notes
But marketing aside, what's it taste like? Sessions, as you know, are designed to be drunk in a "session" of drinking. It's a category of beer, rather than a style. Sessions should be low in alcohol and not overly aggressive of palate.

FS Session is actually revolutionary in more ways than just the palate. True, it looks like a standard macropilsner when you pour it out (should you ever pour it out, which is unlikely)--pale (not as pale as Bud, but pale) and effervescent. The brewery plays along with the ruse, citing pre-prohibition pilsners as inspiration (in order to recall in the drinkers mind, perhaps, Henry Weinhard's?). But the palate is clearly borrowing a lot more from pale ales than pilsners. The hops ("American") have a note of sweet citrus and imply Cascades. You'll find esters in the palate as well--or psuedo esters, anyway.

In short, it's a tin-can beer for people who like pale ales. I don't know why no one else thought of it first.

Stats
Hops: "American" and "European"
Malts: Unknown (but there is a "touch of wheat")
Alcohol By Volume:5.1%
Original Gravity: Unknown
BUs: Unknown

Rating
As a stand-alone beer, good. Compared to any beer that has ever appeared in a stubby bottle, a classic.

Beers of Summer - Deschutes Twilight

Look down the list of beers Deschutes offers, and you will find the standards of the British ouvre: pale ale, porter, stout, brown. Another traditional style, and one of the three Deschutes first brewed, is bitter. That's a noun, not an adjective:

bitter (n) - An English term for a well-hopped ale, most often on draught. Although examples vary widely, the name implies a depth of hop bitterness. There is usually some acidity in the finish and colour vanes from bronze to deep copper.

By "depth of hop bitterness" one should not read "bitter," which is rather confusing, given that hops are bitter and the name of the beer is bitter. Bitters (noun) are, nevertheless, not particularly bitter (adjective).

They are, in fact, the first in a triumverate stretching through best bitter and terminating and extra special bitter (ESB). Bitters are the sessions of the bunch, weighing in at 3.5 - 4% abv. Best bitters are stronger 4-5% abv, and ESBs positively robust at up to 6% abv. So a traditional bitter will have a layered hop profile, with lots of aroma and flavor to go along with noticeable (if not agressive) bittering.

A good bitter is hard to make, and one of the best was Bachelor Bitter, Deschutes' first (and still available at the brewery). It morphed into the less interesting and bottled Bachelor ESB (which is probably confusing at the brewery), and for years Deschutes has offered no bottled bitters for those of us on the west side of the Cascades. Until Twilight.

Tasting notes
Pours out a slightly hazy honey with a fluffy head. The aroma is a delicious bouquet of scents--floral hoppiness, caramel sweetness, and a touch of peppery spiciness. I wasn't at all surprised to learn it was dry-hopped with Amarillos. (Amarillos are the hop of the moment--all brewers seem to have fallen in love with them. They have a grinding, raspy quality typical of high-alpha hops I don't find pleasant in high concentrations, but as a dry hop, Amarillo is dandy.)

As for the palate--well, Twilight is an impressive follow-up to Bachelor Bitter. They have hedged their bets, giving it a bit more oomph than is strictly legal for the style. Yet even at 5% it has impressive creaminess. The brewery employs four hops (only the Amarillos are identified), and the flavor is layered right through the aftertaste, as the volatile dry-hopped aromas waft around your mouth.

Although clearly a session, it has the gravitas of a larger beer. The image of a well-engineered 4-cylinder car came to mind--small engine, big performance. Deschutes has the knack of creating exceptional beers that wow drinkers without overwhelming them. The kind of beer you hold up, halfway through your third, and remark, "Damn, that's really a good beer." I imagine that if you took a half rack to a party, everyone would congratulate you on your good taste. Consider it a recommendation.

Stats
Hops:Three unknown varieties and Amarillo dry hopping.
Malts: Unknown
Alcohol By Volume:5.0%
Original Gravity: Unknown
BUs: 35
Other: 2003 GABF Gold Medal in the bitter category

Rating
Excellent.

The Beers of Summer - Pilsner Urquell

Among beer afficianados, no story is more familiar than pilsner's (except in Oregon, possibly, where IPAs are king): in 1842, a newly-founded brewery in Plzen, Bohemia shattered convention by introducing a clarion gold beer. Until its release, all beers had been dark and murky, suitable for serving in ceramic steins. The new, straw-colored beer captured the imagination of beer drinkers with its bright clarit, spread across the globe like a virus, and now is produced in nearly every country on the planet. It is one of the most popular products in world history, and certainly the most popular beer. That newly-founded brewery was Pilsner Urquell--literally "the original beer from Pilsen."

Due to their ubiquity, pilsners have some backsliding in quality. Beers like Singha, Kingfisher, Panama, and Pabst may be interesting national variants, but they don't really match the original, which is one of the few pilsners still widely available across the world--and rightly so. It's also a very nice beer to crack on a sunny afternoon.

Tasting notes
Pilsners are remarkably fragile. They are sensitive to light, heat, and age, and by the time any of their golden essence arrives in America--worse, Oregon, way over on the west coast--they have inevitably degraded somewhat. I have heard tales--uttered in uniformly hushed tones--of freshly-racked kegs taken from the brewery to waiting planes and airlifted (chilled, of course) directly to waiting Americans. The beer described in these stories apparently cures disease, reverses aging, bestows enlightenment. (Variants of the story, in which pilgrims tell of fresh beer pulled from taps in the Czech Republic, are equally as glowing.)

I can't speak to that beverage--I have only tasted the beers available to American mortals, which is absurdly shipped in a green bottle, an aid the forces of degradation. Still, when handled gently, it is nevertheless an extraordinary beer. As beautiful today as in 1842, it bursts with the pepper of Saaz hops and Bohemian yeast--an aroma unique in the beer world, and one of the most familiar.

The palate is simultaneously soft and dry, effervescent and--in a surprise to people who think Budweiser is a pilsner--intensely hoppy. The beer is triple-decocted, which may be one reason it's so gentle (though the decoction debate is an ancient and hotly-contested one).

In much the way that alder-smoked beer remind people of salmon, Saaz hops give pilsners their "pilsner" flavor--that earthy, spicy, peppery quality that typifies the style. Pilsner Urquell is the most aggressively hoppy of any exported Czech pilsner, and if you're looking for a study in the hop style, go no further. Plzen water is reported to be very soft, but I detect a slight quality of mineral in the beer--perhaps from the effervescent carbonation. A wonderful beer.

(Finally, a note on the "skunky" flavor. When light hits the iso-alpha acids from hops, the acids undergo a chemical change that give beer a skunky flavor. Darker bottles protect beer somewhat, but green or clear bottles offer almost no protection--and Pilsner Urquell comes in a green bottle. The lighter and hoppier the beer, the more susceptible it is to becoming light struck, and at least half the bottles of Pilsner Urquell I've purchased from grocery stores have been so fouled. And even the flourescence of the beer case is enough to turn the beer. So, if you do buy it from a beer case, dig around in the back of the case where its shadowy and hope for the best--that's improved my odds. And let it be known that that skunky flavor is not "European" or characteristic of pilsners. It's bad.)

Stats
Hops:Saaz
Malts: Two-row Bohemian and Moravian (proprietary strains)
Alcohol By Volume:4.4%
Original Gravity: 1.048, 12 degrees Plato
BUs: 40

Rating
Oh, come on.