The (Too) Invisible Men: Importers

I knew when I wrote the Beer Bible that it would have errors, and I hoped none of them would be too serious. My blog posts regularly have errors; there was no way a 644-page book was going to be born unscathed. One thing I didn't anticipate was making an error in the acknowledgements--and it's a big one.

Craig Hartinger offering a toast to Samuel Smith's last spring
at the Craft Brewers Conference.

Among the most important--and least heralded--heroes in the craft beer renaissance were importers. Americans were wholly ignorant of world brewing traditions back in the 1970s and '80s, and as breweries started making new, full-flavored beers, they had to educate consumers about the beers they were trying to sell them. American craft breweries have in the past decade developed their own vernacular, but at the outset, they were reproducing European styles. The best way to teach people about those styles was pointing them to the breweries who had already mastered them. Enter the importers.

They formed that knowledge bridge that was a critical precursor for the development of craft brewing. We started hearing words like "stout" and "doppelbock" and "abbey ale" and we wondered what these beers tasted like. It wasn't that we didn't trust our local breweries, it was that we wanted to go to the source first. Like tuning forks, those first imported beers we drank allowed us to set the pitch of our palates. Even today, we refer to classic styles by referencing the European breweries that make classic examples.

When I started writing The Beer Bible, I went to importers to act as liaisons to those breweries--and also to guide and educate me about the national traditions they represented. In my acknowledgements, I mentioned some of those folks, but not one of the most important: Craig Hartinger at Merchant du Vin. Craig stopped in at the Seattle book event, and the recognition of this failure crashed in on me. I can't believe I failed to mention him.

Merchant du Vin was one of the first importers to expose Americans to the very best of European brewing. Among the breweries they import are Ayinger, Orval, Rochefort, Samuel Smith, Traquair House, and Westmalle. Craig helped me arrange tours at Ayinger, Orval, and Rochefort--and most amazingly, the extremely reclusive Samuel Smith's. Over the past five years, I've regularly turned to him for information, advice, or a connection to one of his breweries, and he has always replied (usually within the hour) with good cheer and great information. Writing the Beer Bible was an exercise in asking for help, and there were a handful of people who made the book what it is. Without their help, it would have been a substantially diminished product. Craig Hartinger is one of those folks.

Importers don't get the appreciation they deserve, and I hate that I have compounded this oversight by neglecting to mention Craig and Merchant du Vin. So until the second edition comes out, let me say it here: thanks, Craig.

Postscript. The success of local brewing has not been great for importers. Why bother with an English IPA when you can get 213 of them right here at home? Or even a doppelbock or abbey tripel? The reason, of course, is because they taste different. The United States has developed its own palate, and now when we make versions of these beers, they're further and further distant from their inspirations. It's a wonderful surprise to revisit some of these grand old beers. So do yourself a favor and go pick up an Ayinger Celebrator, Orval, Rochefort 10, Samuel Smith's India Ale, and Traquair House Ale. You will thank yourself.

Of Fresh Hops and Buyouts

I'm trying out the phrase "guerrilla podcasters" to describe Patrick's and my crude production values on the latest pod. We recorded live at Breakside's Milwaukie brewery--a production facility that was in full roar. We were there because Ben and Co. had on a couple fresh hop IPAs for us to sample as we discussed fresh hop beers for the podcast. This is one of those things that may seem old hat to Pacific Northwesterners, but is in fact almost entirely unknown outside our little hoppy bubble. I think the content is very good, even if the audio is a bit rough. Ben Edmunds stopped by to discuss his very unusual fresh-hop technique using nitrogen. Good stuff.




Next I alert you to my latest in All About Beer.

But beer companies? They are organs of commerce, however wonderful the brewers and publicans they employ may be. We feel good about beer, so we place that good feeling on the institution of private businesses. And in many cases, that feeling is well-placed. Breweries are collections of humans, after all. When they make good beer and create a wonderful space to enjoy it, they rightly earn our loyalty. But they’re also businesses, and sometimes their owners decide to sell to different owners—and then we have to make new judgments all over again.

And finally, if you're in Seattle tonight, come by the Book Larder and listen to me discuss The Beer Bible, take questions, and sign books. 

3,000 Blog Posts

Let us take a moment to acknowledge a milestone: this is my 3,000th post on Beervana. It precedes another milestone--my 10th anniversary on the blog--by about four months. I was a sprightly 38-year-old when the blog started, and now I am a beleaguered 47-year-old (I'll turn 48 two days before this blog turns 10). Over the course of those 3,000 posts, the blog has received 13,852 comments (4.6 a post--not bad) and some millions of page views. (I used to use SiteMeter, but it crapped out on me for some reason; Google's analytics only go back to May of 2010, and since that time, I've gotten 2.2 million.)

In the intervening time, social media has appeared and displaced blogging as favored platform for discussion. Print media, which originally eschewed online content, has now co-opted the space blogging once occupied in both high form (with well-reported long-reads) and low form (the word "clickbait" didn't exist when I started this blog). One therefore imagines that there are a good deal fewer blog posts in my future than there are on the archives. But, until I figure out what, if any, future this site might have, I'll keep plugging along.

Feel free to blow your noisemakers and raise your pints.

An Anchor Brewing Anniversary

Exactly a month ago, Anchor Brewing celebrated 50 years since 27-year-old Fritz Maytag purchased the almost-defunct Anchor Brewery in San Francisco, saving it and an American beer style from oblivion. I have been remiss in acknowledging the milestone, because while I don't think Anchor qualifies as the spark that ignited what we now call the craft beer revolution (it took twelve years until the next American brewery was founded), it is nevertheless an important institution on its own, unique merits.

Credit: Anchor Brewing.

Until sometimes in the 1990s, the United States was not much of a brewing country. Like so many other nations, we built it on the chassis of Bavarian lager brewing, slowly debasing it over the decades. We managed to embellish this tradition into a few minor styles, and among these San Francisco's steam beer is easily the most interesting. It is also a form of debasement, but in this case one that led to interesting, full-flavored beer. The shortcut that produced steam beer wasn't intended to weaken it in flavor or strength, but was a necessity of frontier brewing. It's a perfect example of the way styles emerge or evolve, and steam beer is an authentic American expression--if not one that fell very far from the Bavarian tree.

Anchor's greater contribution to American brewing was demonstrating that it could be done on a small scale profitably. I don't actually think Fritz Maytag's beer was what inspired other breweries, no matter how many people want to credit Liberty Ale with establishing the modern pale/IPA. Rather, like so many other San Franciscan immigrants before him, he demonstrated that making good, honest beer on a small scale was possible. It was a proof of concept.

Even though Maytag sold the brewery five years ago, his name will always be written first in the list of brewers who helped reshape American brewing. And it all started 50 years and one month ago.

To add to the celebration, I'm going to excerpt a section from the Beer Bible about steam beer. There are a ton of fascinating stories about beer, and this is just one among many--but the anniversary gives me a good excuse to trundle it out. (And of course, it means I have to plug the book here, too: go buy a copy today!) (Sorry.)

I also had a chance to tour the brewery a couple weeks ago, and those photos are sprinkled throughout. Okay, to the excerpt...

__________________

Excerpt from The Beer Bible on Steam Beer
In the second half of the 19th century, beer was really on the move. German immigrants were pouring into North America, dotting the towns of the Midwest and West with new lager, breweries. Pale lagers were streaming out of Bohemia and Austria across Europe. And in America, migrants were sweeping across the continent in search of better lives.

One of the migrants’ prime destinations was San Francisco, where they heard the waters ran with gold. In 1848, it was the small hamlet by the bay, a community of fewer than a thousand souls. But by July 1850, census workers counted almost 95,000—a seething, sweating mass of dreamers and drifters. Franconian entrepreneur Levi Strauss saw them as customers in need of a sturdy pair of pants, and many of his countrymen figured they could use a beer, too. By 1900, the breweries were in place—two dozen at their peak—making a brew the locals called “steam beer.” Taverns bulging with hard-working, thirsty men meant breweries didn’t have the time to make proper lager. They brewed a beer with lager malts, generally (though not always) in the German decoction method, but instead of fermenting cool and conditioning the beer for weeks, they pitched lager yeast at ale temperatures, let the wort finish fermenting in wide, shallow “clarifying tanks,” and packaged it immediately, without any conditioning. The entire process took less than a week.

The origin of the name “steam beer” is obscure, but there are a couple decent possibilities. Anchor Brewing, which has kept the style alive through the decades, believes the name comes rooftop cool ships that steamed as the wort cooled. Robert Wahl and Max Henius, writing in 1902 in their American Handy-book of Brewing, Malting, and Auxilary Trades, put forward this theory: “This beer is largely consumed throughout the state of California. It is called steam beer on account of its highly effervescing properties and the amount of pressure (“steam”) it has in the packages.” Whatever the name’s origin, Wahl and Henius offer a description of what it might have tasted like: “light in color, hop aroma and bitter taste not very pronounced; very lively and not necessarily brilliant.”

Steam beer’s popularity suffered mightily with the arrival of refrigeration in the 1890s, which allowed breweries to make lagers even in warm places like San Francisco. It took a further hit with the 1906 earthquake and ensuing fires destroyed much of San Francisco. A bit more than a decade later, Prohibition came, finishing much of the work the fires didn’t. Following Prohibition, Anchor Brewing was the sole surviving purveyor of steam beer, and it limped along through more setbacks over the course of the next three decades until in 1965, facing bankruptcy, it planned to shut its doors.

That was when Fritz Maytag, who had a bit of his family’s washing-machine money, stepped in and bought a controlling share of Anchor Brewing. He didn’t buy it outright until 1968, and he spent the intervening years learning the brewing art from colleagues like Bill Leinenkugel and studying Jean de Clerck’s Textbook of Brewing. In 1969, he bought new equipment and, armed with his new understanding of beer, retooled the recipe for steam beer. Over the years, Anchor had succumbed to the same cost-saving shortcuts larger breweries had adopted, and Maytag scrapped them all. He went looking for inspiration in the old tradition of brewing steam beer.

Today Anchor makes steam beer in much the way breweries did decades ago. They use wide, open fermenters and a lager yeast strain. Wahl and Henius describe the process of kräusening—adding fermenting wort to finished beer to carbonate—to achieve high levels of carbonation, and Anchor does that now, too. The recipe is simple, just pale and caramel malts and Northern Brewer hops—and that’s likely how the old San Francisco brewers 
would have done it, too. Nothing fancy, just simple, easy beer.

That foaming thing in the wall is a grant. Old-timey stuff.

The "modern" brewery.

Tracking the Fresh Hop Ales in Real Time

In years past, I have tried (and failed, in lesser or greater degrees) to keep track of the fresh hop beers that blossomed across the Pacific Northwest. Despite my failures, I always wished that someone would do this properly. It seems like a great opportunity for one of the tourist boards or the Brewers Guild to get a month of post-summer travelers to the state and really boost what has become the region's signature style.

Someone has finally done it! Meet Ryan Sharp of Bend, who has this detailed Google Doc that he is busy updating with all the beers as they come online. If you go over to column J ("release date"), you can do a sort so that it filters by date--allowing you to peruse exactly what's out there at the moment you are jonesin' for a green pint of fresh hops.

Thanks, Ryan!

A Visit to San Francisco; Last Portland Book-Signing

A few odds and ends. Let's start with this. I will be at the Powell's in Beaverton on Monday. It is the last scheduled book-signing in Portland (and Oregon), so if you have any interest in chatting with me about the book in person, this will the final chance around these parts. (My book tour continues in other parts of the country: full schedule here.)

Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing
Monday, August 31st,  7 - 9 pm
3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd.
Beaverton, OR 97005

For those of you who can't attend any events on my book tour but would like a signed copy, you can still order them through Powell's--but only until Monday. It looks like you can order signed copies of the softcover, hardcover, or "library bound" edition (no clue) there. 

Meanwhile, as the tour unfolds, I hope to be sitting down with brewers and beer people at select locations as I move about the country. My first installment is up at All About Beer. I had the chance to sit down with Dave McLean of Magnolia Brewing, and saw the world through his pub's window, sitting as it does one block east of the intersection of Haight and Ashbury.

McLean was at the tail end of the flower child migration (it seemed to die with Jerry Garcia), and he still embodies a part of that ideal. The pub was just coming alive as we sat down to talk, and the stereo’s first track, the Dead’s Franklin’s Tower, poured out as he described the changes he’d witnessed as two subsequent migrations had changed the city outside his doors.

“I came two years after the ’89 quake, so there was still a post-quake recession going on. It felt pretty sleepy when I got here. It was nice; the East Coast was very frenetic and people were hanging out in the parks. It was a nice time to come. Then the first dot-com boom took off just after I opened Magnolia—’98, ’99. It felt big at the time: the streets got more crowded, traffic got bad, restaurants were hard to get into. And then it crashed. 2001 was the bust, and that was the one year we didn’t have growth at this location. And then the slow climb back up to this crazy, current time which feels like an order of magnitude bigger than the first round. Everybody wants to live in the city; that’s different from the first round. There’s a lot of simmering resentment and anger because people are losing their apartments—there’s an interesting class economics dynamic that’s dominating all the news and papers and blogs.”

Read the whole thing here.

A Sour, a Porter, and an IPA Walk Into a Book Signing...

On Friday, I had the great pleasure to visit Book Passage, a fantastic independent bookstore in Corte Madera (Marin County), just north of San Francisco for a Beer Bible-related event. And thanks to their wonderful pre-planning, I learned something incredibly valuable.

Pouring Beatification.

To make it a fun and memorable event, they had arranged to have some beer on hand for tasting: Russian River Beatification and Pliny the Elder, Lagunitas Little Sumpin' Sumpin', and Anchor Porter. I decided to incorporate the beers into a little presentation about the book. As I've been going along, I've been focusing on the nature of "style," and how it comes together as a result of a tangle of interesting factors (history, national tradition, ingredients, technology, war, and law). Having four beers there meant we could go through them and I could tell the story of the style as we went. Plus, it game me an opportunity to describe beer tasting and what to look for.

We started out with the Beatification, which is Russian River's spontaneous beer roughly in the gueuze style. The crowd was composed mainly of novices and intermediate drinkers, so I saw a lot of surprised looks with the first sips. I was describing how lambics have been made, and the effect of wild yeast, and at some point I mentioned that basically everything we were tasting came from the fermentation. Again, surprised looks.

The next beer was Lagunitas, and I mainly described the American practice of brewing, focusing on the way we have developed for exhibiting hop flavors and aromas. (If you're interested in a deep dive about that, listen to our podcast on Session IPAs.) I pointed out the flavor elements, but because there's a fair amount of caramel in it, I talked mainly about older-school IPAs and the development of the American oeuvre than I did on the flavor components.

Photo by Patty Stanton.

It was when we got to Anchor Porter, and I was mentioning that basically all the flavor there came from the malt, that I realized what a great line-up Book Passage had solicited. One beer's flavor came exclusively from fermentation, and one almost exclusively from malt. The last one, Pliny, gets almost all of its flavor from hops. For people who have been drinking craft beer sporadically or who don't brew or spend times on the blogs, this was absolutely revelatory information. Flavors in beer can be so strong, and in many beers, they are a melange of several sources. Having three beers where the sources were singular really demonstrated how variable beer is--and helped the people there begin to decode its flavors.

If you have people in your life who are a little interested in beer but not especially knowledgeable, I recommend buying three bottles of yeasty, malty, and hoppy beer and walking them through these flavors. (Something like a low-hop bock might be better than a porter.) It's quick, easy, and very useful.

Odds and Ends, Plus a Great Press Release

Three things for today's shorty post before I head to San Francisco for Beer Bible events. Should you have miraculously not gotten your fill of Beer Bible stuff, let me direct you to my post at All About Beer on why I wrote the book.

I can’t answer the most important question people have about this book (“okay, it’s long, but is it any good?”)—though I hope you’ll find a copy and see for yourself. What I can do is tell you why I wrote it, and why I think we need yet another book about beer.

Patrick Emerson and I have finished the most recent Beervana Podcast, and the subject, likewise, is a ranging discussion about writing the book. Patrick joined me on the first leg of my travels (in Great Britain), so he joins the conversation as well.


Finally, I want to leave you with one of the more interesting and amusing emails I've gotten lately. It comes 10 Barrel Brewing, which as everyone knows was recently acquired by AB InBev. This is the email introducing the press release:

Since people seem pretty stoked on 10 Barrel’s new Portland pub, we’ve decided to get a little more aggressive and announce seven brand new pub openings in Oregon. Some may say that we’re growing too fast, or that 10 Barrel is losing sight of who we are, but we took the restrictor plate off to give the people what they want! Check the video (https://youtu.be/_V0xnzeNHJY) and feel free to share it before we announce on our social channels on 8/24.

If that doesn't seem skittish enough, how about the final paragraph from the press release itself:

“Honestly, these pubs have been in the works for a long time,” added 10 Barrel co-founder Jeremy Cox. “We started talking about these way back in May or June, and we’re glad they finally came together.”

You think anybody's feeling a bit scorched by the blowback from said buyout?

When the New Car Gets Its First Scratch

Owning a new car is pleasurable and exciting--but it comes with an undercurrent of anxiety. You see it sitting out there on the street, and it looks like a magnet for mayhem. Anything could happen to it. You find yourself watching over it like a hen minds her eggs. Eventually, though, something does happen--a rock chips the paint, someone rams it with a shopping cart, you spill coffee over the front seat--and the bubble of anxiety bursts. The scratch allows you to move along.

After a week of extremely nice reviews (please look at Brian Yaeger's post in the Portland Mercury; this piece at the UW student newspaper is also great), I've gotten my first pan. A "sad rehashing of previous efforts." Ouch! More:

While Alworth lists Portland, Oregon as his residence his selection of beers in the "Beers to Know" listings is a bizarre collection seemingly devoid of any concern to the availability of the beer and its contribution to the brewing art. Alworth's book, in my view, is a classic example of "all form and little substance". Garrett Oliver's "Oxford Companion to Beer" is a much better reference both with respect to the history of brewing and the actual brewing process. While the book carries a 2015 copyright date, the Acknowledgements were written in May of 2013. His information on Trappist Beers is missing the last three brweries added to the group which occured in 2013, 2014 and 2015.

It's a nice, bracing critique, and not without merit. He's exactly right about the timeliness business, an issue that pains me greatly but which I had no control to change. I think he's less accurate on the "beers to know," which were selected primarily for their availability. (It's not just a collection of "ghost" beers only hardcore fans ever see. I chose among those readily available so that, no matter where you lived in the country, you'd have at least one typical example of the beer in question to try.) Whether Oxford Companion is a better source I shall defer to readers.

It gives me an opportunity to encourage/ask folks to review the book on Amazon once you've had a chance to look through it. I trust the wisdom of the masses, and hive mind always renders a judicious verdict. When there are only a couple reviews up, negative ones exercise quite a bit of sway. I hope his will not be the definitive position (though that's always possible!). So, if you're inclined give it a review.

I do welcome your feedback. Believe it or not, negative comments aren't the worst thing to a writer--silence is. So comment away!

Fred Eckhardt, 1926-2015

The news came out last night that Fred Eckhardt had passed away after 89 amazing, vivid years of life. He was a Marine and World War II veteran, swimming teacher, Buddhist, sake promoter, and of course, "the dean of American beer writers." He was, until perhaps his 84th year of life or so, a constant presence at beer events around the city--many of which may not have existed had he not been an early advocate of a beverage too humble and ordinary for others to notice.

Sometime today, John Foyston is going to post a full, worthy treatment of Fred's life. In the meantime, I just wanted to offer my voice to the chorus. Fred was so important to this city and the beer culture that has emerged here--we can't thank him enough. He lived what looked to be a wonderfully rich, fascinating life, and so we should celebrate even as we mourn. Here's a final cheers to you, Fred--

Update: Here's that John Foyston remembrance we were hoping to see.

Beer Bible Launch: You Are Cordially Invited

Beer Bible Book Launch
Tuesday, August 11, 5-7 pm (some comments at 6 pm)
Belmont Station, 4500 SE Stark

On Tuesday, August 11, the Beer Bible will officially go on sale. We will celebrate this milestone with a celebration at Belmont Station, where you can buy the book and where I will gladly sign it. I'll plan to say a few words around 6 pm, but I'll be signing books from five onward--so come early if you can and pick up a copy of the book. Belmont Station is hosting this event for free (thanks, guys!), so consider enjoying a delicious beer when you come. I suspect there will be some toasting going on sometime a bit after six.

For those of you who have been following this odyssey, you know how much the book has dominated the last four years of my life. It's been odd to have such a huge presence that is essentially known only to me. Finally, finally, I get to share this thing, and I really hope you consider buying a copy, even if you can't make it to the launch. Whether you like it or not, at least you will finally see it. I look forward to hearing your thoughts, good, bad, snarky, corrective, thoughtful--all of it will be great.

If you can't make the launch, it won't be your last opportunity. I'll be doing an event on August 31 at the Cedar Hills Powell's. In addition, next week I'll be elsewhere in the state. On Thursday, August 13, I'll be in Corvallis from 6:30-8:30 with Nick Arzner at the new Block 15 Taproom (3415 SW Deschutes Ave). Nick was a great advisor before I went to Belgium, and I will be pleased to see the new place and have a conversation about beer with Nick before another signing there. That should be a cool event.

On Saturday, August 15, I'll be visiting Ninkasi Brewing in Eugene (272 Van Buren St) from noon-1:30pm. Jamie Floyd has been a regular source of insight and information since he was at Steelhead back in the 1990s, and this feels a bit like a homecoming. Please join us for that if you're in Eugene.

In case you haven't seen my 219 posts about this book, here's a quickie backgrounder. Hope to see you next week--

The Extraordinary Tart Ales of Flanders

The latest podcast is up. Inspired by the recent release of pFriem's Flanders-Style Red ale, Patrick and I decided to look at the style more closely. We start out with a bit of history and then look at the way these beers are made, turning to Rudi Ghequire, brew master at Rodenbach, for descriptions of the slow process he uses to mature the beer. We also listen to Josh Pfriem describe the process he uses to make a new-world version. As usual, we taste the beers ourselves and then discuss some of the economic issues. In this case, the difficulty of competing in a marketplace with a beer that takes 18 months to make when other beer can be made in a month.

You can listen to in inline below or sidle on over to iTunes.

Mark Your Calendars - Upcoming Beer Bible Events

We have launch in T minus 8 days. That's when (next Tuesday), The Beer Bible goes on sale and I begin a months-long tour of some of America's finer cities. For those of you who live in Oregon, mark your calendars.

• Tuesday, August 11, Belmont Station (5-7pm)
• Thursday, August 13, Block 15 Taphouse in Corvallis (6:30-8:30pm)
• Saturday, August 15, Ninkasi Brewing in Eugene (noon-1:30pm)
• Thursday, August 19, Magnolia Brewing in San Francisco (6-9pm)
• Friday, August 20, Book Passage in Corte Madera, CA (5:30-7pm)
• Sunday, August 23, Double Mountain in Hood River (11a - 1pm)
• Monday, August 31, Powell's Cedar Hills (7pm)

If you want updates or reminders about these events--or future ones outside Oregon--I will be posting those at the book's Facebook page.

I'll have a bit more Beer Bible-related stuff in the coming days. 

Hot Days and Cold Beer

I understand a great deal about beer. I understand how its made, a lot of the history behind various national traditions, even baroque stuff like the way pH affects fermentation. Before I started writing about beer, I had favorite styles and styles I didn't much enjoy; through the process of writing about beer, I even started understanding those unenjoyed styles so now there's basically no beer I don't actively like. What I cannot understand is a thing almost everyone else on the planet knows by intuition: that a cold beer tastes good on a hot day.

As I write this, I am huddled next to a mediocre air conditioner in the bedroom as the afternoon sun bakes the city of Portland in this alarmingly changed climate. We are people of the clouds, Oregonians, and like amphibians, hot, dry weather causes us existential panic.

I could imagine having a beer now, here by the air-con, but the second I step into the un-air-conditioned house (or unthinkably, the deadly outdoors), it's the last thing I want. There's nothing about beer that slakes thirst, nevermind all the half-baked poetry (and ad gloss) devoted to convincing me it's so. Beer, even crisp, light lagers like my summer go-to Pacifico, are relatively thick and heavy when compared to life-giving water. On top of that, the alcohol dehydrates, which is the last thing an amphibian needs on a hot, dry day.

I know I'm an outlier on this point. I was recently talking to a woman who doesn't even drink beer, and she was mentioning how this weather causes her to crave a cold one. I nodded and agreed, knowing she was just using the opportunity to find common ground. But, as I yawned and thought about the bad night's sleep I had gotten and the bad night's sleep I was about to get, I was actually thinking about a cup of coffee to cut through the haze.

It's summer, and brewers are swamped during the busiest time of the year. The whole world wants to find a shady patch and crack a frosty one. You're crazy, the lot of you. This is the one day I don't want a beer. Give me a tall glass of water with a java chaser. And please, rain gods, a nice low-pressure system and an inch of rain.

Who Drinks What

There's an old quote misattributed to Mark Twain that says it's not what you don't know that gets you into trouble, it's what you know that just ain't so. So when Gallup posted some findings on drinking patterns in the US, I clicked on through to see if it might disabuse me of any persistent old myths. One finding lined up pretty closely to what we expect: the rich drink wine, the middle-class drink beer, and poor drink (cheap) liquor*.

So far, so good. But there was one surprising finding. There is a stereotype of the poor we sometimes visualize as a man sitting on a sway-backed porch, bottle in one hand, cigarette or rifle in the other. Well, turns out the poor are the least likely to be drinking. The wealthy, but a substantial margin, are the boozers. (And that correlates with education as well.)

There appear to be other factors here as well--education, race, and religiosity. Education is correlated with wealth, so it's not surprising that the educated drink more (that's the bit I clipped out of the first table). Religiosity leads one away from the devil's water.

While not as powerful a predictor as income and education, religiosity is also strongly related to alcohol consumption. Specifically, 47% of those in the current poll who attend church weekly say they drink alcohol, compared with 69% who attend church less often than that, if at all.

And the less-wealthy are more religious. Drinking is also more common among whites (69%) than non-whites (52%), and among men (69%) than women (59%), but those factors are also both connected to wealth and religiosity--so all these variables are nested.

Anyway, all you rich, white men out there--now we know what you're doing in your free time.

____________________
*I condensed this table so as not to step on the big reveal later in the post.

Lessons From the Fest

The latest podcast is up. It's part two of our Oregon Brewers Fest extravaganza, wherein we use the beers we encountered as a way of discussing the trajectory of craft beer. If you didn't get within a thousand miles of Oregon over the weekend, it should still be entertaining. (I hope!) We may finally have figured out the audio levels thing, too. This one you may actually be able to hear. (Also available on iTunes.)

Beer Sherpa Ponders: Old Town Brewing's 1-Up Mushroom Ale

For the past 18 months or so, I've been doing this "beer sherpa" thing and pointing you to beers I especially enjoyed. Today we do something slightly different. Right now, on the strip of dust formerly known as Waterfront Park (this hot summer has not been kind to the grass), Old Town Brewing is pouring a beer called 1-Up Mushroom Ale at the Oregon Brewers Festival. I am sherpa-ing you toward it, and I definitely recommend trying it--but whether you like it or not is a separate matter entirely.

Old Town used Candy Cap mushrooms, a variety with which I was formerly unfamiliar. They don't have the usual forest-floor, umami quality I expected. Indeed, they are known for their odd taste. Let's turn to Wiki for more:

The chemical responsible for the distinct odor of the candy cap was isolated in 2012 by chemical ecologist and natural product chemist William Wood of Humboldt State University, from collections of Lactarius rubidus. The odoriferous compound found in the fresh tissue and latex of the mushroom was found to be quabalactone III, an aromatic lactone. When the tissue and latex is dried, quabalactone III is hydrolyzed into sotolon, an even more powerfully aromatic compound, and one of the main compounds responsible for the aroma of maple syrup, as well as that of curry.

Whoo-boy, does that maple syrup ever come through in the beer. The brewery says they "give this unique beer a sweet, wood-aged character." I don't know about that. What they give it is a unique maple-syrup-with-soupçon-of-mildew character. It's a powerful flavor, too, and not exactly like maple syrup; there's a hint of caramel and something undefinable in it as well. The beer is an amber-to-brown ale that has a nice maltiness to harmonize with the flavors. But whether you like this beer will depend entirely on how you react to those mushrooms--and people had reactions all over the board.

I was personally repulsed by it. Sometimes strikingly strong flavors like that attract me in ways I can't understand. (Hanssen's Oudbeitje, which smells of decomposing vegetables, is irresistible.) And indeed, others seemed drawn to this beer in ways they couldn't justify. You really have to try it to know.

One of the reasons I wanted to highlight this beer is because it suggests a brave new, post-style world just out there in the near future. For decades, we have gotten used to the notion that we could hoist a beer to our lips and render judgment based on known parameters of style and method. Subjective judgments were tethered to national tradition, allowing us some measure of objectivity. As styles collapse and what we formerly called adjuncts begin to flavor our beers like cocktails, we will become untethered, forced to float in a world where subjectivity is the whole game. If you like mint, try a mojito. If you like sotolon, give 1-Up a shot. And if, you poor, deprived soul, you've never encountered sotolon, you're just going to have to step up to pitcher and have the man pour you three ounces to find out.

Good luck!

_______________________
"Beer Sherpa Recommends" is an irregular feature.  In this fallen world, when the number of beers outnumber your woeful stomach capacity by several orders of magnitude, you risk exposing yourself to substandard beer.  Worse, you risk selecting substandard beer when there are tasty alternatives at hand.  In this terrible jungle of overabundance, wouldn't it be nice to have a neon sign pointing to the few beers among the crowd that really stand out?  A beer sherpa, if you will, to guide you to the beery mountaintop.  I don't profess to drink all the beers out there, but from time to time I stumble across a winner and when I do, I'll pass it along to you.

Bud Finds Its Voice (follow-up)

Back in February, AB InBev created an ad for the Super Bowl that mocked craft beer. It created an instant and sustained backlash among the craft types. I blogged about it at the time, taking the view that it was a good move for Bud. This remains a minority view, but Fortune magazine recently followed up on the story and more or less takes my view on things. They point out that, far from backing down, Bud has continued the mockery.

[I]t’d be a mistake to think the company is making these ads recklessly. Every time the craft beer world gets worked into a lather over one of these spots, it helps spread the Budweiser name. The fact that you can get a reaction today at the mere mention of that Super Bowl ad, which (with its lack of humor or cute animals) would likely have been long forgotten by this point, is actually pretty astonishing.

Will the ads convert craft drinkers over to Bud? Of course not. But they could nudge Bud drinkers who were starting to edge toward craft back to macro beers – especially if the reaction of craft drinkers creates an aura of beer snobbery. More importantly, it could keep them away from switching their allegiance to MillerCoors, which, as Fortune recently reported, sold 43 million more cans of Miller Lite in the second half of 2014 than it did in the same period of 2013.)

Fortune concludes by noting that the long-term trends are terrible for Bud, and I agree. They can try to lower casualties, but winning the war is going to be a much tougher challenge. Still, there's no reason to think (yet) that the campaign has been ill-conceived.

Oregon Brewers Fest By the Numbers (2015)

Every year since 2007, I've been running an annual feature called OBF by the numbers. Welcome to edition number nine. For extra special fun, I'm going to highlight some of the changes in the decade since I started brewing. But first, let's have a look at this year's rundown. As always, the bolded text refers to 2015, while the text in the (parentheses) are last year's.

• Years since inception: 28
• Total beers: 105 (88)
• Total breweries: 89 (87)
• States represented: 16 (14)
• Countries represented: 4 - US, Canada, New Zealand, Netherlands (2 - US, Netherlands)
• Percent Oregon: 50% (58%)
• Percent California: 10% (14%)
• Percent Washington: 7% (11%)
• Percent New Zealand and Netherlands: 14%
• All Others: 19% (17%)

Total styles (by broad category): 33 (25)
Lagers: 10 (6)
IPAs: 21% (24%)
__- Standard IPA: 6 (10)
__- Session IPA: 6 (N/A - 1?)  
__- Double IPA: 4 (4)
__- CDA: 0 (1)
__- Fruit IPA: 1 (4)
__- White IPA: 2 (3)
__- IPL: 2 (N/A)

By style:

• IPAs: 22 examples (21) 
• Fruit/ Fruit Wheats: 17 (11)
• Pale ale: 15 (10)
• Saison: 7 (3)
• Pilsner: 4 (3)
• Abbey: 4 (3)
• Stouts and porters: 4 (3)
• Berliner Weisse: 3 (3)
• Kolsch: 3 (1)
• Radler: 3 (1?)*

By Type:

• Beers using spices/flavors: 21, 18% (23, 16%)
• Fruit beers: 17, 16% (18, 20%)
• Belgian styles: 15% (13%)
• German/Czech styles: 11% (15%)
• Beers not brewed to traditional style: many**

Population Distribution

• ABV of smallest beer (Claim 52 Runnermass): 3.0% (3.5%)
• ABV of largest beer (Rogue Imperial Smoked Lager): 9.5% (11%)
• Average ABV: 5.8% (6.1%)
• Beers below 5.5% ABV: 47% (37%)
• Beers above 7% ABV: 18% (25%)
• Fewest IBUs in Fest (Oedipus [NL] Vogelen Berliner weisse): 0 (0)
• Most IBUs at the Fest (Caldera Dry Hop Mosaic): 100 (120)
• Average IBUs: 37 (40)
• Beers between 0 and 40 IBUs: 65% (60%) 
• Beers over 60 IBUs: 9% (N/A)

The Ten-Year Trend
For the past few years, there has been a trend toward lower-ABV, lower-bitterness beers at the fest. I think this mirrors trends in the craft beer segment, particularly as "hoppy" no longer means "bitter." There are now quite a few 40 IBU beers out there that are absolutely dripping with hops. But the really big trend is in the experimental beers made with fruit, vegetables (potatoes and mushrooms highlight this year's list), spices, and other ingredients (coffee, old tires, dog slobber***). Anyway, behold:

	2006	2015
Amber/red	8%	3%
Belgian	12%	15%
Lagers	8%	10%
Creams/Steams	5%	1%
IPAs (all)	27%	21%
Pales	8%	14%
Wheat Beers	7%	17%
Fruit beers	3%	16%
Spiced beers	5%	21%
Other ingredients	0%	18%
All fruit/spiced/other	8%	46%
Beers over 60 IBUs	26%	9%
Beers under 5.5% ABV	42%	47%
Beers over 7.0% ABV	27%	9%

Now all that remains is tasting these beers--see you down at the Fest.
 ___________________
*     10 Barrel may have brought Swill last year.
**  This is hard to parse, but the number goes up each year.  In 2006, there were almost no experimental beers.
*** Some of these may not be actual ingredients in beers this year.

Book, Book, Podcast, Blog

The Friday roundup begins with a pretty cool offer. My hometown bookstore, Powell's, is offering signed editions of the Beer Bible for pre-order. I found this slightly amusing, since they haven't consulted me about that. But anyone who knows Powell's knows how important it is to the city and I will be happy to sign as many books as they want to sell. So if you're looking to pre-order and you don't live in town, sign up now.

While we're talking Beer Bible, let me point you to the new Facebook page for the book. I'm not sure why we do this, but we do, and I have done it. I will use it as a clearinghouse for dates on the for upcoming book tour. So go like that and follow along if you feel inspired.

Next, we have the latest Beervana Podcast available. This is the first of a two-parter that will revolve around the Oregon Brewers Festival. Even if you don't live nearby and have no plans to go, you may still find it interesting. We're using the current event as a way to chart the change in beer over time, looking at this year's list and comparing it to the one from a decade ago. Big changes, and I think they represent trends in brewing writ large.



Finally--and directly related to that concept of changes in beer--is my latest All About Beer post.

For the average consumer, “IPA” is completely disconnected from the historical style—it just means juicily hoppy. So when you attach it to any other adjective (session, white, Belgian, etc.), all it does is designate the presence of the juicily hoppy character. So yes, if Ben made a 4.8% lager made with pilsner and Vienna malt, infused it with that juicy hoppiness, he could probably call it a helles IPA. (The helles part would be a lot more confusing than the IPA.) But the implicit point in his question is evident—by the time you’re making a helles IPA, you’ve stretched that poor adjective so far it hardly has any meaning left.

Have a good weekend--