All the New Beers

The release of new beers has an unpredictable quality.  Some years it seems like breweries collectively stand pat, while in others they issue a torrent of fresh suds.  This year is shaping up to be a torrent.  No single beer tells much the tale of the market, but if you look at them collectively, you can start to get a sense of where things are headed.  Saisons had their day, tarts, black IPAs, gluten-free, and organics.  So what's new in 2013.  Cue the ray of sunshine and the angelic choir, because it appears to be session ales. I have been flogging the joys of small beers for half a decade, and even, in one bright, shiny moment, helped to get a festival of sessions off the ground.  So obviously I'm psyched about this boomlet. So let's have a look at what's out there. 

Redhook Audible Ale and Deschutes River Ale
I received bottles of these beers on successive days in the chill of February.  I don't totally understand the superstructure around Audible's release--it has something to do with sports broadcaster Dan Patrick--but the beer is straightforward enough.  A lithe 4.7% beer, it is "brewed for crushability with lots of flavor," in the inexplicable language of the brewery.  ("Crush" apparently means "drink.")  Deschutes River Ale is just 4%, and the brewery even goes so far as to admit it's a session ale--no shilly-shallying around.

The contrast between them is the difference between old-school American craft and old-school English bitter.  While many breweries have shifted with the times, Redhook is a bit of a throw-back brewery, making very clean, bright ales that ignore the IBU arms race.  Audible is much in this vein.  Deschutes, by contrast, is a dead ringer for a nice bitter, with a rounded body, biscuity malt flavor, and bright citrusy-crisp hops (Cascades and Crystal).  I even thought I detected a touch of diacetyl, which brewer Brian Faivre confirmed: "We are targeting a low level of diacetyl, 30-40 ppb, as we feel that it lends a positive flavor attribute to this beer, similar to that nice character found in traditional English style ales."

It will come as no surprise to readers that my palate inclines toward the Deschutes.  Audible is a bit less complex than I would like, and there's a hint of roast in there that puts me off.  Deschutes River Ale, though, is a beer I would love to find on cask in a pub where I could spend a couple hours getting to know it.

Widmer Brothers Columbia Common
The name of this beer is instructive.  "Common" is, of course, the non-trademarked reference to San Francisco steam beer.  They get the hybrid character by using their regular yeast and a lager strain.  (Steam beer was made by fermenting lager yeasts warm in the age before refrigeration reached the wilds of California.)  The Columbia refers to a type of hop bred simultaneously with Willamette.  Budweiser was looking for a domestic replacement for imported hops and a couple of varieties were bred largely from Fuggle stock to grow well in the US.  You know how this ends: Bud chose Willamette, consigning Columbia to the scrap heap of forgotten strains. 

In fact, Columbia Common uses a variety of hops--the Widmers' standard Alchemy blend for bittering, and the sisters, Willamette and Columbia, together in later additions.  For the hop nerd, this is slightly frustrating--I'd love it to be a single-hop beer so I could get a sense of the flavor.  But there's no arguing with the results; it's really a wonderful beer.  I had it at the Rose Garden first, and it tasted really fruity, making me think the hops were quite a bit different from their Fugglish sister.  But in subsequent samplings from the bottle, I've found the "grassy, spicy" flavors the brewery promised.  In fact, the hops are a lot more German in character than English, and I was reminded of some of the helles lagers I had in Bavaria.  It's got a wonderful copper color (Widmer used chocolate malt for color but didn't get any roast, just color), and is a perfectly crushable 4.7%.  I really enjoy this beer and wish it would stick around through the summer.

Other Releases
Not all beers are sessions.  BridgePort has a new chocolate cherry stout called Bear Hug that is every bit as decadent and dessert-like as it sounds.  It comes in a 22 ounce bottle, so I'd be sure to invite a friend along before you pop the cork.  Full Sail has their latest vintage of Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout out.  Every year, the brewery alternates between a big porter and a big stout they age in bourbon casks, and every year the vintage is on one side or the other of excellent.  This year's is spectacular--akin to one they had out back in 2010 (maybe?).  An amazing balance of chocolaty roast blending into vanilla-y bourbon.  Double Mountain has its usual rotation of new one-offs, and I'd like to draw your attention to Project 48, a double IPA that really sings.  For me, double IPAs work best when the sweetness of the malt harmonizes with the flavors of the hops to accentuate bitterness and frame the lush aromas.  It's hard to pull off, which is why so few double IPAs stick around.  Project 48 does that in spades.  I think you probably will only find it in Hood River, but if you're up for the drive, you could do worse.

Beers: Change of Seasons

When I lived in India, there were two seasons--hot and oven.  The shift from one to the other was subtle.  You knew it was winter when your skin stopped visibly crisping when it was inadvertently exposed.  People always talked about "change of seasons," as though something profound washappening.  In any case, I was reminded of this when all of a sudden I started getting flooded with beer.  In the US, fall is a big moment to shift from summer sippers to the more complex, fuller beers that get geeky (and brewer) blood flowing.  So here's a few reviews, with more to come.

Ninkasi Lady of Avalon

Located somewhere within the busy walls of Ninkasi Brewing is a Don Quixote.  The Ninkasi brand is built entirely on muscular, lupulin-injected ales, so popular they've fueled growth that has made it one of the nation's biggest craft breweries.  What is the most off-brand thing they could do?  How about a series of lagers and, even more strange, subtle Bavarian lagers like helles and dunkel?  And so we have the Prismatic series, confusing customers (behold the BeerAdvocates as they sputter) but delighting me. 

In about two weeks, I will have a far, far better handle on the style of beer they've brewed with Lady of Avalon (I will be in Franconia beginning the 19th and then on to Munich).  As it is, dunkel being rare in these parts (both locally-brewed and imported), I'll skip thoughts about fidelity to style.  Indeed, with a perfume of earthy hops and a noticeable spicy bitterness, it probably qualifies as "Oregon Dunkel."  Pure comfort beer for chill nights--creamy, walnut malting with a roasted twist.  If you're in a mood for Black Butte Porter, let your hand wander to a sixer of this instead.  It will satisfy.

Final question: how did Ninkasi get the nipple past the TTB?

Gordon Biersch Weizen Eisbock
Gordon Biersch has entered the big-beer, barrel-aged, specialty-bottled beer market (someone should come up with a category name for these).   I failed to review the imperial pilsner they sent over the summer.  It's a style I don't love, but GB managed to find hop delicacy in its heft, and I quite enjoyed it. An impressive debut.

Next comes a Weizen Eisbock, which is pretty self-explanatory. The brewery started with a weizen (probably a strong one, based on the beer's final ABV--10%) and coaxed plenty of banana from the yeast.  Then they froze it, took out some ice, and concentrated the beer.  This method of distillation is a tricky one and it works--when it does--because the concentrated flavors continue to harmonize.  Bocks make a great starting point; they're clean and balanced.  Weizens emphatically do not.  What Gordon Biersch has done is concentrate the banana flavors but also roasted flavors.  This is an unhappy coincidence--like anchovies in your chocolate mousse.  One of those ideas that draws up interestingly on paper, but doesn't pan out in the real world. 



Redhook Winterhook
I was recently writing about how Northwesterners like their winter ales (Full Sail Wassail, Deschutes Jubelale), and a classic brand is Winterhook.  It is very much in the vein of those eighties winter beers that seem to have sort of died out--but which are really quite special.  Brewed with a touch of warming alcohol (usually closer to 7%, but Winterhook is six), a deep blush of color and a touch of Maillard roastiness all spiced with the finest, usually insistent local hops.  It's a wonder no one has said, "screw it, let's just make one of these and sell them year-round."  They are always welcome and always loved.

Winterhook has had its good years and it's meh years, and this is a good one.  The beer is deep amber, but has a noticeable roast in both the nose and palate.  It has been laced with wonderfully lush, floral hops--they deepen into spice at the swallow.  Very nice beer.  One word of caution: most winter ales can use a bit of ripening, and some are nice after a year.  Don't cellar Winterhook.  The hops are a big reason this beer succeeds, and they're delicate and crisp, two qualities that won't age well.

Southampton Burton IPA

This is a bonus beer I picked up at Belmont Station.  Burtons are something of a white whale for me; it's one of the most important (changing) styles in beer history, but effectively an extinct one.  Revivals pop up from time to time, and I'm always quick to try one to see if it can transport me back to the 19th century.  Of course, since I didn't actually live in the 19th century, this is all impressionistic.

I think Southampton gets it pretty close to the mark--close to the mark in my head, anyway.  In my head, a Burton should be pale-ish (but not pale), strong, thick, minerally, and relatively hoppy.  Burtons are sticky with high terminal gravities, but they achieve balance through pretty stiff hopping.  All true with Southampton's.  As a bonus, the Burtonized water adds quite a bit to the experience and is a key element to the balance.  Heavy maltiness is sweet and gloppy on the tongue; the minerals cut against this perception and help lighten the experience.  You wouldn't want this beer on a hot summer day.  Fortunately, you don't have to worry about that anymore.  As time travel goes, this is a pretty cheap way to do it.

Redhook's Latest Sorties: Blueline Series ESB and Winterhook

I remain fascinated by Redhook's ever-evolving beer and branding strategies. In the last couple weeks, I've gotten two beers from the venerable Seattle brewery: a recreation of the original ESB for the Blueline series, and the old standby, Winterhook. We'll address these beers in due course, but we must also contend with an item tucked into the Winterhook package, sans explanation:


Yep, santa tie. Okay, moving right along...

Blueline Series ESB
This beer takes a little explaining. Way back in 1981, when Paul Shipman and Gordon Bowker were trying to cobble together a brewery, they secured an "ale" yeast strain from (if memory serves) the University of Washington.* It was, however, not a pure strain. I never had the pleasure, but early craft drinkers described it as "banana beer," suggesting that isoamyl acetate was at least one of the by-products of fermentation. That the first brewery was located in a former transmission shop and had less-than-state-of-the-art equipment probably didn't help. They had a hard time finding a market for the beer, especially since Bert Grant was putting superb ales into the Seattle market at the same time. They tried to muscle through with the beer, even styling it as "Belgian" after Michael Jackson said it reminded him more of low country beer than an English bitter. Ultimately, they fazed out the banana beer and started making normal ales.

Says the brewery of the re-creation: "Redhook’s second release in the Blueline series is a highly modified version of ESB that replicates the flavor profile of Redhook Ale in the early 80’s, lovingly referred to by Seattle locals as 'banana beer.' To bring out this unique flavor we fermented using a yeast strain that highlights these spicy banana notes."

All of which got me very excited. This is a great homage to the company's history, and now, thirty years later, a measure of the change in American craft brewing. Thirty years ago, consumers didn't even know Belgium brewed beer; now they know what it's supposed to taste like. We have come full circle. (The cap, for the sharp-eyed, is also a nice throwback touch.) Sadly, unlike the crew at the New School, I found the new old ESB damn near undrinkable.

The problem is clashing elements. The Belgian lineage and dark malt character suggests a dubbel and the nose was promising--reminiscent of Chimay Première (red label), it has an earthy breadiness with interesting yeasty phenols. The palate, though, is gratingly harsh. One problem are the 65 BUs; they clash mightily with the yeast-forward quality of the beer. (In Karl Ockert's new classification system, it's a beer at odds with itself--both hop- and yeast-dominated.) The yeast is banana-free, but expresses a lot of phenols. They come off as metallic/medicinal to me, and the aftertaste is a combination of sharp hopping and chemical bitterness.

Winterhook
By contrast, I am pleased to say that the Winterhook is not only one of the best beers I've had from Redhook in recent years, but is easily in the running to be the year's best seasonal. For me, winter ales are best when they exhibit some malt warmth, and Winterhook has loads of it. Redhook used pale, Munich, crystal, and chocolate malts with a touch of oats and rye. It produces a richly aromatic nose, at turns bready and nutty, and a similar palate--almost like a loaf of dark, whole-grain bread. The hops add a light spiciness that pull the beer into balance (Northwest balance, anyway). It's six percent, which is on the light end for winter warmers, but it's wise; this is a perfectly moreish beer and it will be hard for most folks to stop at one (or two). Best that it's not 8%.

As for the tie ...
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*This history is recounted in Peter Krebs' book Redhook: A Microbrew Success Story, Four Walls Eight Windows, 1998.

Any Theories?

Give it to Redhook--they're definitely willing to try unorthodox marketing techniques. Take for example the package I got yesterday. The brewery is entering expanding their line in the lucrative 22-ounce bottle market, and so they sent me a Pilsner, ESB, and IPA. That makes sense, but then what to make of this waist-high distressed-steel sign they also tucked in with no explanation. (Click to enlarge; those are the 22s in the picture, to give you a sense of the scale.)


Let's make a game of it. Aside from the obvious--but not quite persuasive--explanation that they sent it to me to get a blog post out of it (there's gotta be far cheaper ways to get press), why did they send it?

I will say this; it's pretty cool. I wouldn't have minded distressing it myself over the course of the next thirty years, but that's a small quibble. As brewery swag goes, it is the largest and most interesting piece I've ever received.

Brand Dissection: Redhook's New Look

The two bigs in the Craft Brewers Alliance have both come out with new labels and packaging. For Widmer, it's more an update than an overhaul--the bottles remain the same, but the labels have been tuned up a bit. In the case of Redhook, though, it's a wholesale re-introduction of the brand. Which makes it ideal for my ongoing series of brand dissections (see here for past treatments). Let's get to it.

Company and Brand History
Redhook is gearing up to celebrate its 30th Anniversary (this year, I think, though the company wasn't incorporated until '82 nor did they sell any beer until then). Founded by a wine guy (Paul Shipman) and an ad man (Gordon Bowker), the early days of Redhook are notorious. They got a hold of an infected yeast (or, possibly, a Belgian strain) and their early beer had a lot of strange character--banana, most famously. Redhook had the advantage of being there at the start, though; Portland's Cartwright beat them by a couple of years, but folded, and Bert Grant beat them by a few months.

Novelty carried them forward through the banana-beer stage, and like many of the early breweries they went through massive growth. Within years they were expanding to meet capacity and decided speculatively to build two huge breweries--one in Washington, one in New Hampshire--to produce the prodigious quantities their growth rate suggested they'd need. By the end of the 90s, they were a national brand. Eventually, they hit a brick wall and their numbers, while impressive by craft brand standards have never approached the levels of Sierra Nevada or Boston Beer. They settled into being a big but not huge craft brewery.

The brand followed a similar course, from funky local start-up to glossy, generic national brand. In the early phase, the logo was a major part of the brand. Evocative of the trees and mountains that characterize Seattle, it was framed nicely by rounded labels. As the brewery nationalized, it adopted sleeker bottles that downplayed the logo. They were intellectually interesting: two label strips separated by a raised barley sprig on the bottle. But they were also very neutral and indistinct--a function of being removed from place.


New Look, Old Evocations
The new bottle, as you can see, is a big departure. I spoke with Robert Rentsch, the brand manager for Redhook about what they were shooting for.

"[We wanted to] celebrate our heritage. Reconnect with our roots and be true to what the brand is all about--going back to those early days. We used that as a starting point for all the decisions that came out of that. Our prior bottle was a longneck, and it was a little precious, we thought. We wanted something a little more real."

For anyone who recalls beer brewed in the 70s and earlier, this new bottle is definitely familiar. I thought of the old stubbies I remember from my youth--Heidelberg and Oly. This was intentional:

"When we first started bottling, we were using the old style 'heritage' bottle... We considered that for awhile, but then we looked at some older, stubby-style bottles and that gave us some inspiration. It felt right for Redhook."

For those of you who aren't aware of the Northwest's brewing history, it's relevant. Up until the 1970s, regional brewing was alive and well in the region: Rainier (Seattle), Olympia (Olympia), Heidelberg (Tacoma), Lucky Lager (Vancouver, WA), and Weinhard (Portland). Although most macro now is canned, bottles were one of the central ways breweries distinguished themselves then--since, obviously, the beer was all pretty much the same. Even the sizes weren't standard--Rainier offered pint bottles ("pounders"), while Heidelberg's were just 11 oz. I imagine that an old-timer, seeing Redhook's new bottles--a standard 12 ounces--would smile in recognition. Of course, younger drinkers will recognize the retro feel, too, even if they don't remember the inspirations. It's also a generally pleasing shape--and reminds Sally of a milk bottle.

It is a fascinating irony that the industrial design of midcentury has now become a stand-in for authenticity. That old regional beer was anything but authentic. Yet our nostalgia for a time when Americans made things, when we were naively optimistic about rocketing into the future, is one of the most potent elements in beer design. So by referencing the industrial age--the moment America was furthest from artisanal craftsmanship--now suggests to the modern brain the idea of authenticity. The contrast between this new bottle and the old bottle is a lesson in psychology. One resonates on a subconscious level, one resonates not at all.


Names and Colors
Redhook has long used idiosyncratic labels and names to identify their beer. Some, like Blackhook Porter, had names while others like IPA did not. Some had labels that reflected the family of brands, some did not. When the company went through its last re-brand, it tried creating consistency by adding names, a fact Rentsch acknowledged wasn't a great idea:

"Over the years we had moved in a direction where we were naming all of our beers. So: Longhammer IPA, Rope Swing Pilsner. We were assigning made up names to our beers. We want to go back to basics by just calling it Redhook and letting the brand be front and center."

The new brand pivots off that retro feel and goes for simplicity (itself a retro impulse). Now the four beers in the standard line just have a single name. Redhook's new design uses color to further articulate both the sense of family and individuality. The labels feature spare, monochromatic designs--one color for each variety of beer. The colors of the label continue with that midcentury feel; they're slightly washed out like the color of cheaper wrappers in the fifties. The ESB's red suggests rubber stamp. The fire-engine-red cap, a dollop of brightness, echoes the memory. I can imagine a bottle of soda from 1955 having a cap just like this. Each color plays on the beer inside--red, which has always been the color for ESB, yellow for pilsner, green for the hops of IPA, and copper for Copperhook.

The names--Longhammer, Rope Swing--still appear on the packages, but it wee print. I took from Robert the sense that Redhook may be planning to get rid of them entirely but is just easing them out for now.

Can a Beer Company Become a Brewery?
Perhaps the most important element of a craft beer brand is the beer itself. If the beer is indistinct, the brand will necessarily reflect that. For all its commercial success, Redhook has never had a very distinctive line of beers. This may go back to the beginning, when the vision of the two men who founded the brewery was based on a very crude sense of good beer. Across the decades, Redhook has seemed more like a company that was interested in selling beer than a brewery where good beer is made. This was particularly true when Redhook decided to go national and abandon the hyper-local Ballard Bitter, with the irresistible catchphrase "Ya sure, ya betcha!"--a reference to the Seattle neighborhood's Scandinavian influence.

Over the course of years, the beer varieties changed and morphed, the names changed, and all the while, the beer seemed to be aimed at a generic drinker who didn't want a lot of sharp edges or character. The best brands succeed because they're playing off distinctive beer, though. The brand should embody the character of the beer.

Redhook's current look is a return to place. It is distinctive and interesting (no doubt a few people will be turned off)--you'll notice it instantly on the shelf, and you'll get a fair amount of information about the brewery through the package cues. Redhook has exchanged the generic for something we could one day recognize as "Redhooky." The question is, will the beer live up to the image of an authentic Northwest beer? That's a tall order, and it will require the company to commit not only to brewing interesting, distinctive beer, but to engaging the community. Redhook's CBA partner, Widmer, has gone through a very similar process and it's taken over a decade for the people to begin to see them first as local and second as huge and national. It's a slow process.

Brand Success
I love the new packaging. It's pretty, unique, and very distinctive. (Bonus: the bottles will be great for my homebrew.) But packaging can only provide provisional branding. The brewery has to be active in delivering on the promise of the package. Redhook's new design signals an intent to be proud of its heritage as a Seattle brewery, a grandfather of craft brewing. Whether that sticks as a brand will depend on Redhook.


Update. Well, I see I'm late to the party: Brady posted his thoughts on the new brand yesterday over at the Daily Pull. One thing I would highlight in his post is the copy, which I avoided. Of particular note, the brewery seems to be trying to personify "Redhook" in what can only be called badly misguided. Let's hope that follows the beer names into the dustbin.

Redhook Eisbock 28

The Redhook Brewery has been on one of the longest, windiest roads since it was founded nearly 30 years ago. Looked at through a certain lens--the one I'm offering in this blog post, say--Redhook could be described as a brewery forever in search of itself. When it was originally founded back in 1982, the men behind it knew almost nothing about beer. The first beer they released was brewed unintentionally with a mixed Belgian strain that produced a huge amount of banana ester. It was mostly unpopular, except among the serious fans, among whom it was a cult fave. Eventually, of course, they ditched that strain and started over with a regular ale yeast. Then they had to rebuild.

Success in the late 80s led the brewery to expand and, on optimistic hopes of becoming a national brewery, build a second plant in New Hampshire--completed just before the mid-90s reset when craft brewing suffered a hiccup. Along the way, Redhook has had a rotating selection of flagship brands (from the original Redhook Ale to a nice ESB called Ballard Bitter to ESB). Redhook was one of the first big craft breweries, but has never had the kind of clear identities that Widmer (with Hefeweizen), Sierra Nevada (Pale), New Beligium (Fat Tire), or Full Sail (Amber) have had.

Aside from the flagship question, Redhook as made various forays with their lineup, like bringing back their delightful Rye and Double Black for short reappearances, and offering a short-lived diet beer (Slim Chance). This year's beers include a new pilsner and a line of limited releases--shades of the Widmers' Brothers' Reserve series. I received a bottle of the latest Limited Release a couple weeks ago, and it is a great example of how Redhook seems to still be wandering.

Eisbock 28
An eisbock (pn: ice bock) is a beer--traditionally a bock--that has gone through a process of freezing. This separates out the water--in the form of ice--from the alcohol. Remove the ice, and voila!, you have a more concentrated alcoholic beverage behind. Still obscure, the style has been given oblique fame by the Scottish-German arms race to produce the strongest beer. (Although the method isn't as widely discussed, both breweries are eisbocking.)

The goal isn't only to make a strong beer. Eisbocks can range up into liquor-like strengths, but historically they've been brewed at strengths managed through simple brewing--up to 13-14%. Rather, the technique creates different flavors than can be achieved through brewing. Flavor and aroma compounds become concentrated, and what results is a much fruitier beer than other lagers, one denser and richer and sharper with alcohol. It's a lovely style, and one that should be brewed more often.

So in comes Eisbock 28, like a thief under the cover of darkness. The name is damn near as obscure as the style. I over-thought its meaning and assumed it referred to the original gravity. Nope. It refers to the brewery's age (the gravity is actually 25.5P). The bottle isn't particularly useful at revealing these truths, though eventually I pieced it all together.

But the beer is fantastic! The brewery describes the beer as deep gold, but in my mug it looked more cranberry--a beautiful beer, in any case. The nose had little hints of stone fruit and caramel, but they were spirited up on hefty wafts of alcohol. The palate is much the same--creamy and sweet, with layered flavors of what turn out to be darker fruit, lots of caramel, all shot-through with the steel of alcohol. I might have used some roastier malt and/or a hair more hops to spice it up. (Sterlings were used for flavor and aroma--a good choice--but perhaps even more, or another infusion of nobles.) A bit more balance and I'd rate it an A, but this batch gets a solid B+.

I would love to have seen the brewery give this beer a bit more notice, to try to weave it into the narrative of the 28 years of brewing. Instead, it will be on shelves briefly, then follow its many predecessors into the annals of forgotten Redhook beers. In two years, the brewery will celebrate their 30th. It's probably too much to expect, but I'd love to see that celebration mark the start of Redhook' clear identity--a new direction for the brewery's next thirty years.
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Incidentally, I do know that's not a picture of Eisbock. It's a testament to the lack of support this beer has received that I couldn't find one online. It's similar, though, and illustrates how the visual style of Limited Release beers is so opaque.

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.

Redhook Slim Chance

The history of light beer is brief relative to other styles, and certainly less august. After a few fits and starts in the 1960s, Lite Beer from Miller struck the right chord in the 1970s and we have been burdened with this phenomenon since. Light beers are effectively a PR trick, not a beer; Miller, the first to actually sell the beer, did it through clever advertising ("Tastes great!" "Less filling!") Our sports events have been clogged with blights like Spuds MacKenzie and silver bullets ever since.

Of course, we've always had light-bodied, low-alcohol, low-calorie beer. In fact, the regular macros are pretty damned low-cal. A standard Bud or Coors clocks in at 150 calories, while their light version runs about 100. But draft Guinness has just 125 calories. Deschutes Cascade is 140. Widmer Hef is 159. (Buy low alcohol, light-colored beer, and you can be assured it's relatively low-cal.) The average man eats 2,500 calories a day--if he's putting away so many beers that he has to watch the difference between 125 and 150 calories, he's got a bigger problem than a beer gut.

And now we have Slim Chance, Redhook's entry into the low-cal sweepstakes. It's not the first craft-brewed light beer, nor even the first light ale. Hell, it's not even the first low-cal Redhook ale (Sunrye tips the scale at just six more calories than Slim Chance). It is, transparently, a market-driven lunge toward sales.

(We've recently been discussing what a "craft" beer is. I would argue this is a perfect example of what it's not. This beer's raison d'etre is commercial; nothing about it was "crafted," unless you mean by the marketers. That it comes from a craft brewery gives it no sufficient fig leafage, so far as I'm concerned.)

So how's the beer? Fine. It's professionally-made, reasonably drinkable, and actually pleasant. It's got just 3.9% alcohol but a noticeable 18 IBUs. There's a smattering of wheat, providing interest. It's lively on the tongue and easy to swallow. I'd certainly choose it over anything the macros are peddling. But it's not a high point of the brewers art, nor was it intended to be. It's a commercial product, period.

[Post slightly edited for clarity.]

Redhook Double Black

One can chart the change in craft brewing by harkening back to 1995, the year that Redhook introduced Double Black Stout, a joint venture with Starbucks resulting in an oily, aggressive, muscular beer. We were only a decade into craft brewing then, and big beers were rare, particularly so in the bottle. By the time Redhook discontinued Double Black in 2000, the big beer movement was well underway, making the decision all the more inexplicable.

Redhook has always mystified me a little bit. Unlike the breweries to the South, which seem to thrive on creativity and the churn of new products, Redhook has steadfastly stuck with a line of beers that has never been bold or distinctive. Their beers are of traditional styles, always brewed about 10% less aggressively (or 10% more blandly, take your pick) than the average for style. In short, they're not beers for the beer geek. Perhaps this is what happens when you go public (Nasdaq: HOOK) . The return of Double Black appears to signal a shift in that strategy; it's the first of the newly-minted "Limited Release" series (one can guess that the line will include big and/or experimental brews, akin to the similar 22-ounce series at Full Sail, Deschutes, and BridgePort). That's the good news. The bad news? Double Black is about 10% more bland than I had hoped for for a burly coffee-infused imperial stout.

Tasting Notes
To be sure, Double Black is a nice beer. I was surprised to see how bright it was pouring out--translucent at about a quarter of an inch, tinged with red. It was less viscous than I expected from an imperial, but sometimes coffee thins out body, so I held off judgment. The head frothed up like a nice skiff of latte foam, and I was somewhat reassured.

What I recall from the previous incarnation was intense, dry bitterness. The coffee was so strong it muscled the beer aside. I loved it, but I've been a coffee addict since I was 16. In terms of pure craft, it was out of balance. Not so with the current Starbucks-less incarnation. The coffee is a more minor note, pulling out the roasty notes of the malt. Unfortunately, the beer itself isn't bold. It's just 7%, and the body is thin. If you're going to undersize a beer, you better make sure it has some depth on the tongue. Some coffees have a delightful residual sweetness, mimicking fruit flavors. This beer has an almost strawberry note, and it's a perfect midpoint between malt and coffee (I'm not sure which element created it--maybe both?).

My final assessment is colored by expectations. The beer's a tasty little number, a sporty V-6 that is sprightly to the touch. Trouble is, I expected a muscle-bound V-8, with a deep roar and rumbling torque. I really wanted to be wowed by a tour-de-force. To switch metaphors, I came looking for the Dark Knight and I got Diving Bell and the Butterfly. It's a good beer, and a hopeful sign of things to come from Redhook. But is it too much to ask for the brewery to really get crazy?

Rating: B

They're Already Calling it WidHook

It's not every day that the two biggest breweries in the Northwest join, and the news has kicked off quite a bit of chatter and speculation. Given that these two breweries long ago threw their lot in with the Evil Empire (Anheuser-Busch) for distribution rights, a lot of that chatter is derisive. The nom de moment: WidHook.

So far, there's not a whole lot more news to impart, though John Foyston has a nice recap in the Oregonian today. That leaves us with speculation and rumor, the blogosphere's stock in trade. So with that, I make haste!

Background
RedHook, founded in 1982, and Widmer, founded in 1984, are two of the founding breweries in the craft beer movement. Both were among the first wave of breweries in Seattle and Portland in the early 80s, and their histories are somewhat similar. Both had big designs, and both expanded rapidly in the first decade of craft brewing. Both also over-extended themselves in the mid-90s, looking to become mid-sized regional breweries just at the moment that the market shook out; in addition to a brand-new plant in Woodinville, WA, Redhook opened up a New England plant for East Coast distribution. When the market dried up, breweries had to scramble to avoid bankruptcy (many didn't). To stay competitive, both threw their lots in with Anheuser-Busch, offering a minority partnership for rights to A-B's vast distribution network. (Redhook, a public company, announced their deal--it was a 25% share to A-B. Widmer, which is private, has never disclosed the deal, but it was assumed to be similar.)

It worked; they survived the shake-out and grew into healthy regional breweries. However, neither has become a national brewery like Sierra Nevada or Boston Beer. And so you see how we have arrived at the merger: national distribution, joint marketing muscle, a second wave of double-digit growth in the craft brewing segment.

Local Versus National
It seems like the Northwest would be the ideal place from which to build a craft-brewing empire. The local market is the best in the country: 11% of the beer consumed in Oregon is craft-brewed, compared to 3.5% nationally; Portland is the single biggest consumer of beer in the country while Seattle is third. Widmer and Redhook have strong local constitencies, which gives them firm footing to grow. But here's the interesting thing about that base: to the extent a beer is perceived as non-local, it falls out of favor with Oregonians. Washington drinkers are far less parochial, but in Oregon, the Widmers have been suspect since signing up with A-B. The brewery will have to navigate the next few months and years carefully to avoid being seen as a sell-out to national interests.

The Widmer Brothers know this, and they have spent the last decade as one of the most community-engaged breweries in the city. With Kurt Widmer taking the reigns of the new joint and the brewery and label staying in Portland, local loyalty probably won't falter. An interesting moment, though.

Corporate Beer
With some notable exceptions, it seems that as Northwest craft breweries get larger, the beer gets more corporate. That is, more mainstream and less daring. Consistency is prized over innovation. This strategy must have some numbers behind it, because so many breweries do it. The logic is a little funny though: the beer is tailored for people who aren't avid beer drinkers. Both Redhook, with its so-so ESB and Widmer, with its bland Hefeweizen, have long trawled these waters. However, as a model for growth, the theory seems flawed. Sierra Nevada and Boston Beer both brew outstanding, non-corporate beer. Surely Boston Beer's main success comes from Boston Lager--outstanding if appealing to a mainstream audience--but the brand is enhanced by the huge variety of off-beat, aggressive, and esoteric seasonals. It will be interesting to see what Widhook's first new beers look like--we'll be able to tell, in the short term anyway, which model they've adopted.

Small Breweries
I don't think this will hurt small breweries in the Northwest. For the most part, growth for Widhook will come in new markets nationally. That's not a bad thing--any drinker who's switched to ESB or even Hefeweizen from Bud is a victory. There are larger areas of the country where good beer isn't available. Now Bud trucks will arrive at grocery stores with Widmer. No one who loves Roots Epic or Deschutes Obsidian Stout or even Terminal Gravity IPA need worry that this will affect their faves. There are too many people with developed palates who like these strong, characterful beers. If Widmer and Redhook start brewing beers like that--well, that would be all right, too. But I'm not going to worry about that just yet.

So: yet another merger, but not a symbolic one, I don't think. Widmer and Redhook have been kindred spirits for years. This doesn't immediately look like a Pyramid-MacTarnahan's merger, where two waning breweries clutch at each other to survive the cold market. In other words: meet the new brewery, same as the old breweries.

Breaking: Widmer and Redhook to Merge

Wow, blockbuster news today: Widmer and Redhook are merging, though it doesn't look like it will change much on the ground:

Redhook Ale Brewery of Woodinville has agreed to pay about $50 million in stock for Widmer Brothers Brewing in Portland. The new company, called Craft Brewers Alliance, will have management offices in both cities, the companies said in a joint press release this afternoon.

Both companies will keep their existing breweries, including Widmer's breweries in Portland and Redhook's in Woodinville and Portsmouth, N.H. They also plan to continue making their existing beers, including Redhook's ESB and Widmer's Hefeweizen....

Kurt Widmer, who co-founded the Portland brewery with his brother Rob in 1984, will become the new company's chairman. Daily operations will be run by two chief executives: Dave Mickelson, who is currently Redhook's president and chief operating officer; and Terry Michaelson, president of Portland-based Craft Brands Alliance, a sales and marketing partnership between Redhook and Widmer Brothers that will dissolve when they become a single company.

More later, including analysis and implications for Northwest brewing and the effect this may have on other breweries.

Redhook and Widmer "Consolidating"?

Breaking news, and it's interesting:

Northwest brewers Redhook, Widmer to discuss consolidation
Merger talks to begin in next few days

BLOOMBERG NEWS

Redhook Ale Brewery Inc. and Widmer Brothers Brewing Co., both partly owned by Anheuser-Busch Cos., are considering a possible merger that would give the companies better access to new drinkers.

The two brewers will begin merger talks within the next few days, Redhook Chief Executive Paul Shipman said. St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch disclosed the plans between the two companies Wednesday in a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Redhook and Widmer have had a relationship for 20 years and already share some marketing and distribution. A combination would allow the brewers to cut costs and fully consolidate their operations, and give Portland-based Widmer more access to Redhook's brewery in Portsmouth, N.H.

"There's going to be discussions between Redhook and Widmer on a number of things, including a possible merger," Shipman said. "We haven't actually started the conversation yet."

Redhook, based in Woodinville, operates two breweries, and Widmer has one. Redhook had sales of $31 million in 2005, down 7 percent from the prior year.

Redhook produced about 225,000 barrels of beer last year, and Widmer made about 250,000 barrels, said Widmer spokesman Tim McFall. A barrel equals 31 gallons of beer.

Anheuser-Busch, the world's largest brewer, owns 33.6 percent of Redhook and a 39.5 percent stake in Widmer. The company said it expects Redhook would be the surviving company should a merger take place.

Sounds like it might not have much effect on either brewery. I hadn't realized that Widmer had eclipsed Redhook in barrelage. Stay tuned...