Yet One More Post in Promotion of Small Beer

A fascinating conversation has broken out on the Brew Crew Listserve.* It started with a question of what to call low-alcohol beers given that Full Sail has a trademark on the word "session." I can't imagine Full Sail trying to protect their mark when used adjectively, so I think we should just continue calling this category "session beers." But from there it evolved into a general discussion of the nature of small beers, their value, and commercial viability.

Just for the sake of discussion, I'll throw in my two cents. (By coincidence, I happen to have a blog to facilitate such things.) In my reckoning, there are several issues that thwart the wider adoption of small beers--all to the detriment of good beer culture.

• Small beer costs the same as large beer. So, if you order a pint of 3.9% mild ale, you pay the same amount as if you buy a 6.7% IPA. Guess which beer most people buy? This is true when you buy beer by the bottle, too. I will confess to having, on at least one occasion, been seduced by a $7 sixer of 8% Hop Czar. Who doesn't love a bargain?

• Conventional wisdom maintains the accuracy of these proofs: strong beers = flavorful beers and low-alcohol beers = insipid, lame beers. This is an unfortunate legacy of insipid, lame industrial lagers. It's true that if you brew a beer with corn, rice, and three hops ("triple hop brewed!"), you wind up with uninspiring beer. The lesson seems to have been that the opposite must therefore be true: deploy massive amounts of hop and barley, and you will produce good beer. A logical mistake. Lots of ingredients don't necessarily make for good beer, and few don't necessarily make for bad beer. Many small beers shine exactly because the ingredients are displayed nakedly and allowed to express their intrinsic character without a lot of interference. Small beers can, in many cases, be more flavorful than larger beers, muddied by a surfeit of ingredients.

• Not all small beers are mild ales. (And, as Ron Pattinson would say, not all mild ales are small beers--but that's a different post.) In the world of under-5%-ers, you have a great variety of styles: lambic, saison, Irish stout, Berliner Weisse, bitter, steam beer, and yes, mild ales.

• Cask ales, which Oregon is slowly, slowly beginning to embrace, are a perfect platform for displaying the amazing subtlety of beer flavor. Flavor that is sometimes frankly unavailable when you have higher-gravity beers with more intense hopping. (Not that cask ale is only delightful when the beers are small.)
  

In the US, we've really never tried to seriously brew low-alcohol beers for beer geeks. We instantly default to big beers--preferably barrel aged, with lots of nice liquor to boost the alcohol percentage. There's nothing wrong with big beers, but there is something wrong with the idea that only big beers are tasty.

I recall two experiences with especial vividness. Both happened at the Portland International Beer Fest, where small beers are served in the guileless belief that drinkers will enjoy them. In the first case--the second PIB, I think--I discovered a keg of Cantillon Rosé de Gambrinus. This was sort of early on, and the organizers hadn't hammered out the pricing yet--I remember being shocked at how cheap it was. Anyway, while my friends were off seeking the strongest beers they could find, I was going for pour after pour of the lambic. Ironically, I couldn't get anyone to join me: the Cantillon was too intense for them.

In the second case, I found a cask of Coniston Bluebird Bitter. The brewery ships a 4.2% bottled version to the states, but his was their 3.6% version, a different recipe made with 100% Challenger hops. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. That beer would easily make my top ten in the world. (And this time, I found some support for the beer when I handed out tasters.)

In any case, I feel duty bound to turn to that great American philosopher Kevin Costner when offering advice to American brewers: if you brew it, they will come. Seriously. Small beers rock. Brew them. (But maybe sell them at a slight discount to offset bargain-hunting.) And don't fear the cask!


Update. In comments, two brewers offer good news. Alan Sprints reports about the future of small beer (that is to say beer made from second running, a special variety of small beer) at his future brewery and Ted Sobel describes how he prices beer at Brewers Union.

____________
*One of the reasons Portland is known as "Beervana" is because we have the Oregon Brew Crew, a homebrew club who leave their fingerprints on nearly every beery event that happens here. If you see a brewer under 40 years old in Portland, ask if they've been a member of the club--chances are, they were. Their Listserve is one of the finest public services to good beer we have in the city.

PHOTO: BENDIT
Share

Foyston on Ninkasi

On days like today, when I open the paper and see a 1200-word article on Ninkasi, I am pleased that we still have one old-school beer reporter working for a mainstream outlet. John's written a nice piece that really captures the Ninkasi way. Even if you're familiar with a lot of the information, you'll like the presentation and find the quotes enlightening. Really great stuff. And, John, I think you've given me an idea for my next brand-identity piece:

Ninkasi also has a clean, coherent graphical identity that helps it stand out. The logo is a distinctive N in a turquoise sunburst on black, and it's part of every label and poster, every T-shirt and hat and hoodie. "There's nothing like our logo or colors," Floyd said, "and nothing like the way we market ourselves."

Go read the whole thing. It even has cool pics.
__________________
Share

Legislature Proposes 200% Beer Tax Hike in Washington

Democrats in Washington State have an idea for patching the budget hole: a tax on candy, gum, and beer.

The tax on beer would hit the so-called “Joe Six-Pack” consumer, but shelter products from small, in-state breweries that sell a higher-priced brew to a more well-heeled clientele. The beer tax would go up by 50 cents per gallon, up from about 26 cents today, according to the Department of Revenue. UPDATE: On a six-pack basis, the tax goes up from 14.661 cents to 42.786 cents.

Them there sentences is filled with a richness of false assumptions, deceptions, and missing information, so let's start at the top:

• The writer provides the classic 1988 "boutique beer" framing here, arguing that local breweries are chichi artisans who sell only to the wealthy. This is pure hogwash, though someone needs to do a survey to find out what the real numbers are. Poor people buy expensive beer, full stop.
• It is pure spin to characterize a wholesaler-assessed excise tax as a cost-per six-pack. The only thing we know about excise taxes is how much they cost breweries--how they'll be reflected in the marketplace is totally unpredictable.
• Nowhere could I find definitions for "small, in-state" breweries. No doubt there's a definition, but we'll have to wait and see.

Based on my quickie math, the current excise tax on a barrel of beer is about $8. With this tax, it would rise to $23.5o for some breweries. Would small Oregon breweries be subject to it? Would large Washington breweries? We'll have to wait an see.
_______________
Share

Baltic Porters

Last November, I had the good fortune to stumble across a bottle of Żywiec, a Polish Baltic porter. A few weeks ago, I bought a few more bottles and, with the help of some friends, did a sampling. Here are my findings.

History and Style
Although British export to India produced a far more famous style, the actual market to the Baltics was about the same size in 1800. (The market to North America, about which we hear almost nil and which produced zero new styles, was six times as large as either the Baltic or Indian markets.) One of the prominent beers that traveled the Northern route was a hearty stout that was later called Russian Imperial, owing to its favor in the court of Catherine the Great. Heavy black beers in general were favored, though, and eventually local breweries started making them themselves.

The style that emerged is now known as Baltic porter, and we have local examples from the Baltic states, Scandinavia, Poland, and Russia. They bear some similarity to imperial stouts: made with black malts and often roasted barley, these porters are strong and hearty. Yet most are brewed with lager yeasts and have a lighter, cleaner palate, with flavors that tend more toward schwarzbiers than porters.

Baltic porters have a bitter, roasty quality that can produce flavors of licorice and molasses, even tending toward the sour. Because they're lagered, they have little in the way of esters, and the malt provides little sweetness--yet they're also very smooth and silky. In some you might find a sherry-like dry note; in others you find a plummier, port note. Although the BJCP says they can be as small as 5%, the ones I've tried are hefty and alcoholic, a feature that seems to help define the style. I imagine that to address the long, dark, cold winters one would turn to a hearty bear for warmth; a small beer just wouldn't cut it.

Beers
Given their obscurity, Baltic porters are pretty easy to find in the US. Belmont Station carries six or eight, and I would suspect this is typical of good bottle shops. (Bonus! They're cheap, with 16.9 ounce bottles at around $3.) I picked up four new bottles and another of Żywiec--to see if I loved it as much when sampled in the company of other Baltics.

• Alderis Porteris, 6.8% (Latvia). The recipe goes back to the early 20th century and features 10-15% dark malts and 5% roasted malt. Although it had the characteristic roastiness, it was the smoothest and sweetest of the bunch. It had an interesting note--at times I thought it was like beets, at other times like cola. Rating: B+
  
• Baltika Porter, 7% (Russia). This was the least impressive version we tried. It was thin and sweetish and lacked the complexity of the others. Baltika doesn't use roasted barley, and I think this is the problem. However, special kudos for this online description: "Brewed with added high-quality ingredients and having a racy flavor ... [and] brewed according to old English recipes from elite hops and special yeast." Rating: C
• Sinebrychoff Porter, 7.2% (Finland). The brewery produced porter as early as the 1860s, and this recipe has been in production since 1957. The sole ale among the bunch (with a yeast purportedly hustled out of England in a test tube), it tasted much more like an imperial stout. Extremely thick and so roasty it poured out like a cup of Stumptown. The roastiness is intense and gives that slightly sour quality--reminding me of Guinness's Extra Stout. It comes in a little bottle and is a bit spendy, but you won't regret it. Lovely. Rating: A-
• Utenos Porter, 6.8% (Lithuania). This beer is now owned by Carlsberg, and I wonder if that accounts for its slightly dumbed-down profile. It is the lightest-colored of the Baltics, more a brown than a porter. The roastiness here is rooty, rye-like. Unfortunately, it's a bit thin and mild. On its own, I think it would satisfy; but next to some of the more complex versions, it's a bit of a wallflower. Rating: B-
• Żywiec Porter, 9.5% (Poland). I was pleased to see that Żywiec matched my memory and stood out as the finest of the group. A bracingly bitter beer, it is defined by roasted malts that suggest dark chocolate and molasses. Yet despite it's strength, it is surprisingly smooth (fuller review here). The standard-bearer for the style--and a world class beer. Rating: A

We didn't try Black Boss, another readily available version from Poland. It's another huge beer (9.4%), bold and aggressive. It's less roasty than some, but smooth and drinkable. I should try another sample before rating it, but I'd put it a notch below Żywiec and Synebrychoff.

The Northwest is porter and stout country, and so it's not surprising that local breweries have started to try their hands at Baltic porters. The versions I've tried, while tasty, differed in character from the European originals. My guess is that they more resemble the original British ales. The ones you get from central Europe have a unique quality we're unlikely to see replicated here. Given how cheap and accessible they are, I strongly recommend them to dark beer fans.
___________________
Share

Opening Day

Certain phenomena defy explanation: Old Faithful, dark matter, German appreciation of David Hasselhoff. Another is the strange connection between Portland beer bloggers and the Boston Red Sox. Back in the old days (2007), we used to identify each other at beer events by chapeau. The Boston "B" might have stood for "blogger." I suspect the new infusion of beer writers has weakened this correlation, but for a few of us, the admiration we feel for Hair of the Dog's Blue Dot is rivaled only by our appreciation of a Big Papi walk-off homer.

Tonight the forces of goodness and light battle the dark lords of New York on the holy ground in Fenway. Easter Sunday, opening day, when the Sox hopes are risen. Stand now ye faithful, and pray for October.

Anyhoo, having blasphemed what is truly a sacred day (I'll call and apologize later, Mom), I leave you now with a final, transgressive image. Happy Easter and go Sox!


(If only I had a Harpoon, life would be full.)
________________
Share

House-Cleaning

I have gotten a few requests for links recently, and I will address these in due course. My blogroll needs some serious tuning-up. In the meantime, if you happen to see an egregious omission, will you forward it along? I'll try to get it all cleaned up next week.

Spring Beer & Wine Fest - First Reax

(Note: A previous version of this post featured fest-inhibited grammar and language. It took a substantial overhaul, but I have done my best to restore it to the President's English.)

Although it may be too late for many of you to use, here's a brief wrap-up of the beers we tried at the press tasting. Thanks again to Laura and Lisa for setting it up. First, a general comment or two. 1) The feng shui of the SBF remains the same. It's a large industrial space filled with random vendors, some of which are brewers, vintners, and distillers, but some of which are vinyl-window sellers. Word to the wise. 2) This year's fest received a dose of excitement from newer breweries, and that excitement seemed to translate to a more exciting fest.

The past couple of years have seen the arrival of a whole raft of new breweries, and the SBF is a great showcase for them. I spoke at great length with Jeff DeSantis from Silverton-based Seven Brides (to whom I somehow managed to end up owing two pints of beer) and Nick Radtke of Gilgamesh Brewing. This is one of the only events you can go to and chat up the brewers--a longtime goal of the fest. Years and years ago, I had a similar experience with a young guy named Darron Welch. I ID-ed him as a brewer to watch and within a few years felt like a genius. So, if you go, look for the guys dressed in brewery-specific gear; these are likely folks associated with the brewery, and they'll love to talk beer with you. (The volunteers wear Spring Beer Fest shirts.)

Okay, to the beer, in the rough order I tried it):

• Lompoc Saison the Beach. This was made with the saison yeast that will be featured in a month at Cheers to Belgian Beers. It was a mild ale, 5.5%, brewed with peppercorns and candied ginger. I found it a little simple. It was fresh and quite drinkable, but had little in the way of complexity (the peppercorns and ginger were, if anything, only suggested). My guess is that people will relate to it like a pale ale. It was still a bit wet; maybe a month's age will allow it to dry out and expose some more complex flavors.
  
• Collaborator X and Bitter. Neither of these beers floated my boat. The X was minty and alcoholic, but otherwise not so notable. The bitter (and keep this in mind--I love bitters) was a bit wet and undistinguished. I would have liked to see both more hop and malt quality.
• Howe Sound Stout and Beaver IPA. My fave beer was this stout. I don't know what it is about BC--the dark and rain, perhaps--but they brew great stouts there. This one is a session oatmeal (5%). It has an amazingly lush, bready and slightly roasty nose, and was dense and creamy as a mocha. I could drink it all day. The IPA was more like a Portland pale--sweetish, not super hoppy. Darker than usual for and IPA. I liked it, but others found it wanting.
  
• Gilgamesh Black Mamba and IPA. Okay, now we get to the fun stuff. The Black Mamba is balanced with Earl Grey tea and employs no hops. It looks like pond water, but don't be dissuaded. It's malty sweet, and the tea provides a musky note. I couldn't locate the bergamot, but the black tea could be described as earthy. I appreciated it in the sense that it was a pretty sharp departure from most West Coast beers, but like it? No. Interestingly, though, after the tasting a bunch of us were standing around and we decided to name our fave. Overwhelmingly, everyone chose this beer. So: it's a love it or hate it beer. Worth a buck to find out if it's your new fave. The IPA was, to my mind, far more accomplished. The brewers (brothers Mike, Nick, and [whoops--memory failure]) take a page from Dogfish Head and add a new hop infusion every minute of the boil. Hops are Amarillo, Columbus and (I think) Simcoe. They tweak the proportions as they go along, so by the end the Amarillos are featured for their lovely orangy quality. The brewery says the beer is 150 BUs (a number arrived at by calculating it based on alpha percentage, not through lab analysis), but it's not. Not remotely. Rather, it's got that wonderfully saturated hop flavor of a Hop Henge, not a vicious bite.
  
• Astoria West Coast Lager. Effectively a lagered IPA. It has massive amounts of Centennials and Simcoes. The effect is interesting and I'd like to hear what the crowds think. Without the sweetness of the ale yeast to buoy it, the hops were more naked and a bit more vegetably (thanks to Abe Goldman-Armstrong for identifying this quality). Tasty but slightly different from the usual Oregon beer.
  
• Block 15 Pappy's Dark. A substitution for King Caspian, this is a massive barrel-aged dark ale. It is thick with sweet caramel and vanilla notes notes, as decadent as a liquid candy bar. Pretty much everyone in the press group was left drooling. I tried to get a pour of the Nebula later on, but just got another Pappys. A volunteer misfire, but not a terrible set of events.
  
• Redhook 8-4-1. The press tasting was at this point running long, and we were sprinting. I will confess to a failing palate. This beer may have had subtleties lost to me, but I found it sweet, wet, and not particularly interesting. Redhook sent me a bottle, so we'll see.
• Ninkasi Malt Liquor. Malt liquors are slightly sharp and alcoholic, yet indistinct--the beer equivalent of Everclear. Ninkasi's was hoppy and tasty and reminded me nothing of the misspent days of my youth.
  
• Seven Brides Pilsner and Oatmeal Stout. Lisa was supposed to give us pizza, but it wasn't ready and so we wandered back to the beer. I found Jeff DeSantis and had a lovely discussion about the nature of hops and where alphas reside. He has a Sorachi Ace-hopped pilsner, which contained none of the lemon I expected, and a stout, which suited my shattered palate just fine. I recommend trying these earlier in the day than I did to give them a fair shake.

In summary: I had a great time and was pleased to see the new breweries come down and pitch their beers. Perhaps next year we'll see Migration, Coalition, et al. in attendence. That's what this event does best, and it's good to see some new folks avail themselves of it.

Some pics:

Howe Sound and their cool liter swing-top bottles.

Rob Widmer showing off the latest Collaborators.

Our hostess, the Beer Goddess Lisa Morrison.

A shoddy photo of the not-shoddy Gilamesh Brewery.

______________
Share

Spring Beer & Wine Fest

Off the top of my head, I can think of eight major beer fests that happen in Oregon every year--and there are twice again that number if you include specialized mini-fests. As a consequence, I've become more choosy and axed the Spring Beer and Wine Fest a couple years ago. Despite its status as one of the original three major seasonal fests, it had really fallen into a slump. It developed two major problems. To help pay for the event, organizers threw open the doors to vendors from random businesses, giving the fest a flea market feel--exacerbated by the venue, which is already inclined in that direction. But worse, the beer wasn't interesting. Breweries just sent their regular flagships, defeating the purpose of the fest.

Things may be changing. I still expect the same atmosphere, and there are still a lot of familiar beers. But there are also some intriguing new offerings (new to me, anyway):

• Block 15 Nebula (an oatmeal stout) and King Caspian (an imperial red). This is the brewery Derek boldly called Oregon's best, and I'm psyched to finally get a taste.
• Calapooia Simcoe Springs IPA. (I'm assuming it's made with Simcoe hops.)
• Deschutes Miss Spelt Hefeweizen. (A traditional hefe brewed with 40% spelt).
  
• Gilgamesh IPA and Black Mamba (a hopless beer brewed with black tea).
• Ninkasi Kraken for PK Nice (Absolutely no idea.)
  
• Redhook 8-4-1 Expedition Ale (the brewery's newest specialty release; an imperial brown made with brown sugar.)

There are others I haven't had a chance to try which fit into the relatively new category, too: Lompoc Saison the Beach, McMenamin's Soft Rock Belgium, Oakshire O'Dark 30. Then there are the old faves, which I would be persuaded to tipple just cause they're fine: Fort George Vortex IPA, Firestone Walker Union Jack, North Coast Brother Thelonius. And I guess you could go just to explore these head-scratchers: Panty Dropper Ale, Howe Sound Brewing (beers unnamed).

Upshot? It may be time to throw the Spring Beer Fest back into rotation. The charming and knowledgeable Lisa Morrison will be leading a press tasting at 11, and so I'll know more in a few hours. I'll provide an update to this post with my findings sometime this afternoon.

Spring Beer and Wine Festival
Oregon Convention Center (777 NE MLK)
Friday and Saturday, noon to 11pm.
$5 entry, $5 plastic or $8 glass mug, $1 samples.

_____________________
Share

April Fool's Posts

Last year, I did an April Fools post about beer in the Skidmore Fountain and caught some folks with it. This year we all had the same idea. Here's a roundup of some of the more amusing posts.

• Philedelphia's to Purchase Green Dragon (Brewpublic)

• Chernobylskoe Radioaktivnoe Pivo (RateBeer)

• The Newest School (a send-up of Ezra's New School; hat tip to Bill)

• Seattle Beer Week Cancelled; Wine Cooler Week is a Go! (Seattle Beer News)

• Brewed for Tots (a send-up of Brewed for Thought)

• 8th Trappist Brewery ... But in the US (Yours for Good Fermentables)

• The Daily Feast (send-up of the Daily Beast; special kudos to the story "Beer Wench and Wine Whore Elope")

Now, why hasn't anyone parodied me? I gotta get an enemies list.


Update. And this just in:

• Radiohead Record Release & Hair of the Dog "Thom" Debut Double Show in Portland (Portland Beer and Music)
  

(Sorry, Jason.)
___________
Share

Bad Beer Fest Set for May

This is sort of interesting. Apparently Van Havig and John Harris were shooting the breeze and complaining about how they recently had to dump batches of beer. (Even the pros have a misfire now and again.) They joked about how it would be funny to have a beer fest where breweries brought their failed experiments. Well, one thing led to another, and now we have the first annual "Bad Beer Fest," slated for Tuesday, May 11. ("Tuesdays are the worst days.")

A partial list of the beers:

• Upright Squirrel Stout
• Full Sail Imperial Mild
• Widmer German Chocolate Pale Ale
• Hopworks Cascadian Light Porter
• Roots Special Garlic Gruit
• Rock Bottom Sour Milk Stout
• Henry's Belgian Wheat

Havig and Harris will add to the list as other failures emerge. Brewers are working overtime on special experiments. I got an email from Chad Kennedy, who's been dying to try Charlie Papazian's famous Old Cock Ale. "It'll either be brilliant, in which case I'm a genius, or it will suck, and I'll just give it to John."
_____________________
Share

Yet Another Thing for You to Join on Facebook

I finally got around to creating a Facebook page for this blog this morning. I know you're already all members of 6,329 Facebook pages (each) and probably have 6,329 requests to join others. All I can say in my own defense is that, should you join this page, you will be flushed with a sense of wonder and possibility, if not amazement. This sensation, like all things on Facebook, will be fleeting, lasting no more than 1.2 seconds. Still, wonder and possibility are fine things no matter how long they last.

So go join the page already.

Oh, and there's a nice photo of some of the Portland bloggers taken at last year's FredFest. That's the real draw.
_______________
Share <-- Meta, no?

How Many Breweries Can a City Support?

A couple days ago, Ben Edmunds wrote an intriguing piece over at The New School. His thesis: Portland has reached the saturation point for new breweries and we may be due for a shakeout.

A look at the 2008 Brewers’ Association statistics is telling (the 2009 ones should be released in the next New Brewer). Compared to the previous year, the number of barrels produced by Portland-based brewpubs grew by over 16%, a strong number that far outpaced the national average for craft beer growth. But, during the same year, at least eight of the city’s brewpubs (Old Market, Roots, both Lucky Labs, Kennedy School, The Mash Tun, Tugboat, and Rock Bottom) saw dwindling production and contracted. What exactly happened? A fair share of the responsibility for the growth of the market and the shrinking of some businesses belongs to Hopworks and Deschutes, both of which opened in the middle of 2008. While none of the new slew of breweries portends to make as big a splash on the market as either HUB or Deschutes, the numbers don’t lie: one brewery’s gain means another one’s loss. And while the spirit of collaboration runs high amongst craft brewers, competition will be the new reality in a market where supply already outpaces demand.

I'll go this far: there is a point of saturation. It's possible we've already reached it, too. But there's a big difference between a point of saturation--equilibrium--and the apocalypse Ben fears.

Let's run a few numbers. According to the Brewers Guild, Oregonians consumed 2.72 million barrels of beer in 2008. Oregon breweries produced 912,000 barrels, 327,000 of which was sold here. These numbers don't tell the whole picture--we consumed craft beer from other states and countries, too. In fact, Portland consumes more beer than any other city. As far as craft beer is concerned, it's a very big market.

For a shakeout to suddenly strike the city, those numbers would have to drop, not plateau. Ben mentions that something on the order of ten new breweries are open or will be opening soon. If every one brewed 500 barrels (a robust start), that would add 5,000 barrels into the city's supply. But that's less than 5% of all the good beer sold in Portland. If the market didn't grow at all, it's hard to imagine anything too dire resulting from this modest infusion.

But forget raw numbers. The issue has less to do with economics than culture. Portland is such a good brewpub town because residents prize neighborhoods. They want coffee shops, restaurants, grocery stores, and pubs they can walk to. This ethos creates the environment for dozens of brewpubs to flourish. Would St. Louis support 40 brewpubs? Would New York City? Probably not, but it's not because there aren't enough people or even enough people drinking good beer. The patterns of consumption and local culture in other cities differ. Portlanders will support their local, and as a consequence, they can support a lot of breweries.

Brewpubs are among the safest businesses in Portland, but they're not foolproof. We've seen brewery failures since Cartwright's time, and we'll continue to see them. Poor beer and bad business decisions will kill a brewpub, even in Beervana. (Anyone remember all the way back to the pre-Rogue incarnation of the Green Dragon?) Yet the neighborhood brewpub is still a solid bet for breweries devoted to making good beer.

For a shake-out to hit Portland, something more disturbing would have to happen--we'd have to experience a change in culture. Of course, that could happen eventually. Cities change, people move to the suburbs, they change the way they socialize. But that's a very slow process, and not one in evidence. (In fact, the evidence suggests the opposite as this desire for a local neighborhood reaches further and further into the suburbs.)

One more Portland-specific observation and then I'll quit rattling on. Back in the 80s and 90s, brewpubs tended to open on shoestrings. Owners cobbled together used equipment and found less-than-central locations. If they thought about branding and image at all, it was only cursorily, and usually after the fact. Now when a brewpub prepares to open, it has a name and logo and lives virtually for weeks or months online. These new places are well-financed, sport brand-new brewhouses, and are located in the center of neighborhoods. All of this allows them to shoot out of the gate in a way that wasn't possible 20 years ago. The risk of starting a brewery now is actually lower than it was back in the day.

Breweries will fail. Some will be over-leveraged and have overly optimistic business plans and will fail. But in ten years, Portland will have more breweries than it has today and Portlanders will consume more good beer than they do now. No apocalypse is imminent.
________________
Share

Brewers for Boobs

I have pretty much forsaken trying to keep up on beer events around town--there's just too many. (Both Brewpublic, which has a left-column "events calendar," and the Brewers Guild do a great job, anyway.) However! One of the things I most appreciate is brewer generosity, so I wanted to highlight a very worthy event coming up just two days.

Brewers for Boobs!
Thursday, April 1st
7:00 pm - 10 pm
EastBurn Annex, 1800 E. Burnside

It's a Brew-off with Laurelwood, Lompoc, Hopworks, Full Sail, and Everybody's Brewing. Join us for a tasting of each beer and vote on your favorite. Five tastes for $5.00 and all proceeds go to the American Cancer Society and the fight against breast cancer. The winning brew will be announced at the Strides against Breast Cancer walk with over 5000 participants. Stick around after the competition for local band Sugarcane at 10pm!

In case you didn't read closely, 100% of the proceeds go to the American Cancer Society. Kudos to EastBurn and the participating breweries. Very cool.
______________
Share

Epistemology, Indian Pale Beer, and the Mutability of Style

Unless you have an open mind and are willing to abandon cherished notions, don't talk IPA with Martyn Cornell. If you trot out that old chestnuts that India pales were brewed strong and hoppy to survive the long trip to the subcontinent, that Hodgson's invented the style and started the practice, and that it was the only style of beer shipped there, Cornell will offer a tart 3,700-word rebuttal (and, incidentally, just one in a series):

This is a truly historic document: the first known use of the expression India Pale Ale. It comes from an advertisement in the Liverpool Mercury newspaper published January 30 1835, a remarkably long time after pale ale started being sold in India... The Liverpool Mercury ad has several points to note, apart from the first use of the phrase India Pale Ale, quite possibly a century or more after pale ale was first exported to India.

(Life is funny. Someone, somewhere started shipping tiny amounts of beer from Britain to what is now India as much as 40 years before a bunch of irritable separatists caused trouble in another colony across the North Atlantic. Little could anyone have imagined that nearly 300 years later a rather different style of beer would be brewed in that colony and take the country by storm. Of all the beer styles that have come and gone in the intervening centuries, would anyone have given odds that "IPAs" would be the favorite style of the brewing renaissance in 2010?)

Martyn's complaint has always seemed to have less to do with beer than epistemology. He seems irritated not that a pale, hoppy, strong ale might have been shipped to India by Hodgson's in the early 1700s (to be drunk by, say, one of my favorite Indologists, the romantic William Jones), but that such an idea should be accepted as fact, when even a blind man can see that the evidence just doesn't support it. Fair enough.

What I took away from Martyn's dissertation was something related, and it seems to be the thing that almost inevitably emerges when you look into the history of a beer style: they change. Especially here in the new world, where we're new to beer, we like to fix things in place: a Belgian wit is a summery wheat ale spiced with coriander, orange peel, and (at the brewer's discretion) other spices. It should be brewed near about 5% alcohol. This is its nature.

Fixing a style's nature is very satisfying: it allows us to understand the vocabulary of flavors. But it's worth noting that style is a moving target. I am nearly through Stan Hieronymus' Brewing With Wheat, and discovered this little nugget about those wits:

Because the white beer style disappeared before Pierre Celis revived it in the town of Hoegaarden, most drinkers--in Belgium, in America, and around the world--tend to think what he brewed defines the style. History shows otherwise...

The beers were refreshing, both brewed and consumed at a time when summer brewing was the exception. They were made with winter barley (high in protein) and raw wheat, which, considering the season, meant they would have been infected. According to the author Adolphe Frentz, that proved to be an asset because it allowed the white beers to compete against the bieres de garde and Bavarian lagers not yet mature enough to drink.

In 1948 brewing scientist Jen De Clerck found all three [extant examples from the time] always heavily infected with Lactobacillus and sometimes with Pediococcus.

Beer styles writhe and mutate, and in order to make sense of them, we allow our memory to become fixed. Isn't this the way of things? It's good that folks like Martyn and Stan remind us that what we think we know isn't the same thing as what is. A bit liberating, really.

And I wonder, in three hundred years, what will humans be brewing, and what kind of wild misconceptions will they hold about what we brewed now, at the dawn of the 21st Century?
____________
PHOTO: MEANTIME BREWING__ |__Share

Upright's Amazing Apparent Attenuation

Last night, Upright held a press event at the brewery to celebrate their first anniversary and launch of two celebratory beers. (Reviews to come.) Press events, for those of you who haven't had the pleasure, generally follow a pretty standard script: a pour of beer upon arrival, a tour of the brewery and subsequent pours, and all the while Q&A as things progress. I find that the questions generally elicit the most fascinating information, and so it was last night, when Upright's Alex Ganum talked about how finicky his yeast is.

Alex uses a French farmhouse yeast strain, and these are notoriously difficult to work with. The most famous, and famously difficult, is Dupont's, which requires high fermentation temperatures (over 85 degrees; regular yeasts do better below 70) and then craps out before it's fully done, requiring a brewery to nurture and coax it along for days or weeks. Alex's isn't as bad, but it bears some of these hallmarks. He ferments it in the mid-70s, and then has to wait while it meanders along--sometimes for three weeks in the open primary fermenters. Other yeasts would take less than a week. But even then, the fun's not over. Once it goes into the tank, the beer keeps evolving.

Alex knew the yeast was efficient even a year ago when I first visited the brewery; it's attenuation was on of the attractions. After a year of working with the beer, though, he's started to realize that it may be too much of a good thing. Because those yeasts keep munching, he can't bottle or keg for a long while without worry of foamy pints or explosive bottles. He prevailed on the Widmers to do a lab analysis for him (which they happily did, and gratis, contrary to the suspicion some hold that they wish to crush the competition) and the results were shocking. Upright's beer was reaching levels of attenuation in the mid-90s, sometimes as high as 97%.

What is attenuation, and why is this remarkable? Let's start with the science. Here's White Labs, a commercial brewers yeast company:

Yeast consume the sugar in wort, and turn that sugar into CO2, alcohol, and flavor compounds. When yeast finish the fermentation process, they shut down, clump together, and fall to the bottom of the fermentor, or "flocculate." When yeast flocculate, it is easy to see that fermentation is done. But how can the brewer be sure? What if the flocculation is minimal, and yeast and CO2 stay in solution. How does the brewer really know when fermentation is done? The answer: by testing the degree of attenuation. Apparent attenuation percentage is the percentage of sugars that yeast consume. Attenuation varies between different strains. The fermentation conditions and gravity of a particular beer will cause the attenuation to vary, hence each strain of brewers yeast has a characteristic attenuation range. The range for brewers yeast is typically between 65-85%.

Typical ale yeasts are comparatively inefficient. The kinds of beers most appreciated in Beervana will have an attenuation of around 70%, give or take. Lager strains are roughly the same. Most Belgian strains--wild yeast excepted--are more attenuative, but still, few get out of the high 70s. So, a beer with an apparent attenuation of 97% would have almost no residual sugars.

Alex's yeast is the Energizer bunny--it just keeps going. As a homebrewer and craft beer fan, I find this charming. So farmhousey! But I imagine it's driving Upright crazy. For one thing, it costs a lot of money to let beer just sit in a tank. If it takes a beer twice as long to finish fermenting, a brewery can only produce half as much beer per tank. Beyond that, Upright can't risk letting any beer but the most bone-dry out of the brewery for fear that it will continue to ferment in kegs and bottles. From a business perspective, you want predictable and fast, not idiosyncratic and farmhousey. Charming is not a prized characteristic in the behavior of yeasts.

On the other hand, the yeast produces some amazing beer. The Four Play, in particular, really benefits from this strain, for reasons I'll mention in my future review. Most beers with this kind of attenuation would taste thin and bone dry, but somehow the production of esters counteracts the dryness. And how the beer remains creamy and silky--never thin--is a mystery to me. Chemists out there, please weigh in.

When Alex founded Upright, he wanted the beer to be marked by the character of the yeast and the qualities of farmhouse brewing--local ingredients, handmade beer, idiosyncratic styles, and a flavorful rusticity. A year in and he and co-brewer Gerritt Ill have managed to pull this off. I wonder if sometimes they feel this yeast is punishing them for their success. Ah brewing!
_______________________
Share

Spring Saison (A Few Words on Farmhouse Ales)

Goose Island's Matilda has got me thinking. American breweries are constantly experimenting with styles, trying to figure out when one's moment is right. It isn't always obvious. Tastes don't evolve linearly, light to dark, sweet to bitter, or small to big. Styles just pop up and find a constituency. Belgian wits, coffee stouts, red ales--all have had their moment. Yet in the US, Belgian styles (wits excepted) have never seemed to make it over the hump--no matter how much beer geeks and breweries love them.

I wonder--could farmhouse ales be the ones to break through?* I had a pint of Laurelwood's saison last night and considered the idea. The problem is, many Belgian beers are challenging. Even leaving aside the sour ales, the others have a reputation for being--well, often when I offer someone a Belgian of which I'm fond, they take an exploratory sip, give a hesitant nod, and agree, "Yes, it's a Belgian." I know then that I'll be (happily) drinking the rest of the bottle by myself.

(I've seen the same look on the faces of visitors who've just taken a pull on one of our radioactively hoppy local beers.)

Farmhouse ales, though, are really approachable. Take Laurelwood's saison. Brewed with wheat and oats, it is a gentle 5.2% alcohol and sports a mere 12 IBUs. Yet what depth! I don't know which yeast Chad used or how he made the beer (typically saisons need warmth and age), but he produced a beer with a lush yeast character--spicy, dry, and warm. You'd think that 12 IBUs would leave a beer treacly, and although the beer is on the sweet side, it seems to emerge from the esters--as you swallow the beer, it dries up on your tongue, leaving a quenching, clean finish. Saison yeasts tend to be very efficient. They gobble most available sugars, but produce sweet-tasting compounds in the process--the best of both worlds. It could be that I'm too far out in the weeds of weird styles to know what Joe Craftbeer likes, but I can't imagine anyone finding Laurelwood's saison challenging.

Beyond that, the class of beers is almost infinitely variable. Bières de garde can be sweet, saisons can be very hoppy, either style can be of mild strength or quite robust. The available yeast strains are quite versatile (Dupont's finicky version does pose challenges, however)--as Upright's range demonstrates.

Part of the issue is cultural: Belgian beers seem alien to Americans. Yet don't farmhouse ales fit neatly into the Northwest's farmer's-market fed food culture? As is our preference, farmhouse ales focus on the natural, local, and traditional. I don't expect to see actual fams start brewing, but getting local ingredients, organic ones, and adding local spices and flavors--that's already happening in most breweries. Why not the style that really celebrates local and handmade? Finally, farmhouse ales are among the best styles for pairing with food--and don't beg for traditional pub fare like stouts and pale ales.

In a few weeks, the Oregon Brewers Guild will sponsor the annual Cheers to Belgian Beers festival, wherein Oregon breweries make their own styles of beer from a single yeast strain. The past couple years have been rough--the yeasts were neither approachable nor versatile. But this year, the yeast is a saison strain. Perhaps at least one or two knock-your-socks-off stellar beers makes an appearance. If so, it will be a great chance to test my theory about their potentially broad appeal.

One can hope!
_______________
*I like the phrase "farmhouse" better than the more specific "saison" or "bière de garde." Since the styles have few parameters, using these names doesn't much help in describing a beer. And French words are just generally a bad way to try to sell things in America. "Farmhouse," though--there's a word we can all rally around.
Share

Honest Pints in Burbank

A guy named Tony Yanow is opening a new pub in Burbank that sounds like it was transported directly from Southeast Portland. Great beer, great food, sustainable, and vegan-friendly. (The vegan sausages are even imported from the NW!) The planned opening is April 4.

Tony did the measuring backward, and he will send me one from an obvious place in the pub once the pub is open, so for now the two photos I have are provisional. But he wanted to promote honest pints for his opening, and so we're bending the rules a bit to get him certified before the place opens. If you're down in Southern California, stop in and have a pint. Looks like a cool place.

Tony's Darts Away
Certified Purveyor of and Honest Pint
1710 W. Magnolia Blvd
Burbank, CA 91506
818-253-1710
website

Goose Island Matilda

Goose Island is, in craft brewing terms, an old-timer. Good beer arrived later to the Midwest, so when Goose Island set up shop in Chicago in 1988, it was a pioneer. Despite its early founding, it was hampered by Midwest palates that still considered Grain Belt a decent beer. I was dimly aware of it when I arrived in Wisconsin a few years later, but the Badger state breweries were already leading the way (New Glarus and Sprecher were standouts). A friend of mine referred to Goose Island's beer as "swamp water."

Things have changed. Chicago's beer palate has grown up, and Goose Island has become a brewery associated--at least nationally--with its Belgian and barrel-aged offerings. Bourbon County Stout has been available on the West Coast for awhile, and now Goose Island is rolling out their Belgian line. This is an interesting moment in the development of craft beer. For years breweries just toyed with Belgian styles, but now a few are actively seeking a market for them--in front of demand, as far as I can tell. Consumers still seem enamored of big, burly American ales (hoppy or black and barrel aged); Belgian styles still command only a niche audience. Yet with this expansion of their Belgians, Goose Island is gambling that the niche will grow and that they'll be first in line. A trend to watch.

First up is Matilda, which the brewery was kind enough to send my way.

Inspired by Orval
Although the brewery calls it a "Belgian style pale ale," Orval is the inspiration for Matilda. If you recall, a legend animates the Abbaye Notre-Dame d'Orval. The story holds that a young countess was sitting beside a spring near where the monastery is located. Her wedding ring fell off; distraught, she prayed until a trout appeared, ring in mouth. The countess' name? Matilda.

If the monastery's name is an homage to this legend, then Goose Island's Matilda is an homage to Orval. Their version, like Orval's, is made with pale and caramel malts, is both fairly hoppy (32 IBU) and similarly-hopped (both use Styrian Goldings, Goose Island substituting Saaz for Hersbrucker), and both use sugar to enhance the alcohol without adding body. Orval, famously, employs multiple yeast strains--a regular ale yeast in primary fermentation, and then a blend of yeasts for secondary that includes brettanomyces. And apparently, so does Matilda. Or did, anyway--more on that presently. Owing to the brett, Orval has variable strength depending on age--6-7%. Matilda is 7%.

Tasting Notes
As you can see from the photo, Matilda approximates Orval in color as well--though it's less orange and more copper. The head on my pour wasn't tall and fluffy like this, though--I got just a skiff. The nose is alcoholic and a touch phenolic, with a slight clove note and just a (pleasant) hint of sulfur. It is much as one would expect from a fortified Belgian.

I was surprised at how thin the body was. The sweetish sugar-alcohol note is contrasted nicely by a very dry finish. There's a bit of spice on the palate, but not a lot. With beers like this, I hope for some layered complexity, but Matilda is straightforward: gentle, alcoholic, dry.

All of this comes with a caveat. If the brewery still uses brettanomcyes, it hasn't had a chance to express itself in this young 2010 vintage. I found absolutely no evidence in my bottle. This may well be intentional: young Orval is principally hoppy and wet; but once the brett starts to munch sugars in the bottle, it matures until it is bone dry, lemony, austere. Perhaps Matilda is designed to change with age, too.

Because Matilda is inspired by and apparently modeled on Orval, it's impossible not to compare the two, and this is not to Goose Island's advantage. Orval is easily one of the best beers in the world (I'd put it in the top five). Matilda, while pleasant and enjoyable, is not particularly distinctive. It seems a bit like what it is--an early example of a transplanted style being brewed in a new country. A respectable outing, but not a home run.

Stats
Malts: Pale, caramel
Hops: Styrian Goldings, Saaz
ABV: 7%
Availability: Newly available on the West Coast. 12-ounce 4-pack $11-14.
Rating: B-


Postscript
I don't actually get (or solicit) much in the way of promotional samples. I know from reading Jon's blog that breweries regularly include wowza packaging when they send these to reviewers. Cardboad boxes, okay. Even wooden boxes, not surprisng. But check out Goose Island's packaging. It's a wooden box, but the wood is cut thin and rolled like parchment, sealed with a leather strap. Two photos below try to capture it. Packaging is usually meant to send certain messages about brand or product, but damned if I know what to make of this.




_______________________
Share

A Visit to the Lucky Lab

I met Sally for an honest pint at the Lucky Lab last night--it being about equidistant from our house and her office and also sunbathed and festooned with dogs. In short, about the finest place to drink a beer on a sunny afternoon. The one drawback to the Lab, historically, has been the beer. There was a definite house effect: unbalanced bitterness and a kind of muddy flavor profile. With some beers, you knew they were hoppy, but weren't sure what else was supposed to be going on.

This seems to be changing. Sally had a malty brown last night, clean and bright, and I had a pale, also crisp and clean. (They have two pales on tap now. One is a bit more malt-accented and darker, the other a crisper, lighter, more summery beer. Owing to the sunshine and warmth, I went with the summer version.

This is good news. In the psychic terrain brewpubs occupy in my brain, the Lab only comes to mind when I'm in a sunny-hang-with-the-dogs mood. I am going to start including it in my looking-for-a-reliably-tasty-pour mood. If your mind is similarly calcified, you might drop by and test your assumptions.
_____________________
Share

The Ratings Conundrum

Some time back, the Oregonian's main movie reviewer was a guy named Ted Mahar. His reviews were generally positive--and this was a problem. It got to be that we nick-named him "three-star Mahar" because he never really panned or gushed about a movie. Everything was, in the manner of the children of Lake Wobegon, above average. And therefore his reviews were of little use.

Not too long ago, a friend of mine castigated me for turning into a three-star Mahar. It's true--most of my ratings fall in the range of A- to C+ (here's what they mean). I plead helplessness, though: most beers here fall in that range, too. Obviously, few beers qualify for the "world class" standard ("a superlative example of the style or an exceptionally original beer"). But few fall below the standard attained by a C+ beer, either ("a well-made beer that is a fairly common example of its style or a near miss on originality").

I am, obviously, a homer, and so you have to suspect me of putting my thumb on the scale. But scan through the aggregate scores on BeerAdvocate and RateBeer--they're no better. This may be due to different factors, but the upshot's the same. With only very rare exceptions do breweries put out either badly ill-conceived recipes or beer with off-flavors. We have a problem of compression.

I'm almost to the point of abandoning ratings altogether and just letting the descriptions stand on their own. (I've actually done that more and more with recent reviews.) It's easy enough to change the scale so there are more calibrations between "common" and "world class," but that doesn't exactly resolve the problem. Worse, it exaggerates the effect of personal preference. I'd be willing to entertain some wholly novel style of ratings, though, if only I could think of one. Any suggestions? How do you make sense of subtle differences between beers?
_____________
Share

Cheap Beer Doesn't Have to be Bad Beer

Yesterday afternoon, I was the guest on what ultimately proved to be a doomed broadcast of Savor PDX. Devlyn, the host, informed me this morning that our half-hour discussion was scuttled by digital gremlins. Ah well. However, during our discussion, we talked briefly about how being poor is no excuse for drinking bad beer. (Most of us are poor at the start of our beer-drinking careers, just at the moment when good beer may be most critical.) I mentioned that it only required you to be clever. Of course, one option is the two-dollar pint at EastBurn every Tuesday. Great beer, amazing price.

By chance, after that interview, I joined a friend at Fire on the Mountain, a wings place just a few doors down from EastBurn. As a (poor) vegetarian and someone who finds chicken wings gristly and meager, I had never had occasion to stop in. And thus did I miss an amazing deal. Six dollar pitchers! The tap list is nothing to sniff at, either: Double Mountain, Hopworks, Ninkasi, Terminal Gravity, and more.

So that takes care of Monday and Tuesday. Where would an enterprising beer drinker, long on smarts but short on cash, go on other nights? Suggestions?
_________________
Share

Beer Media--A Lot of Talk

Stan Hieronymus, the font of a thousand bloggy stories, launches another. The post's title ("Does Anybody Read Beer Blogs?") is rather plaintive--and possibly misleading--because he seems principally interested in a more elemental question.

I haven’t seen similar metrics for beer sites (although Martyn Cornell did something along those lines last month, limiting it to UK blogs, and 47 comments followed).... Does that mean beer blogs are particularly influential? Not compared to Rate Beer and Beer Advocate, I’d say... But what I’m really interested in is the future of a) journalism and b) beer journalism.

Look. No one reads beer blogs. Alan does the numbers, and rather generously comes to the conclusion that the pool of potential blog readers is 100,000 people. But then again, no one drinks good beer, either. With just 4.3% of the American market, beer blogs start out swimming in pretty small puddle. Start slicing and dicing that pool by people who get their beer media fix via blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and the MSM, and you're vying for a small slice of a small pie.

The problem with using eyeballs as a metric is that it totally misses the point. If beer bloggers wanted to reach the masses, they'd write about Miley Cyrus. But they'd rather be talking about good beer. So why do we care how many people are listening in?

An analogy. Lambics cast a long and thick shadow of the world of beer. They are so difficult to brew, tap into such a deep root of brewing history, and produce beers of such surpassing complexity that many people regard them as the summit of brewing accomplishment. (I am susceptible to the argument.) Yet almost no one drinks them. Cantillon, one of the world's leading producers, brews something on the order of 900 barrels a year. Are the accomplishments of these tiny breweries diminished because they produce so little? Do we admire Budweiser because of its vast volume?

To Stan's questions, the future is micro. Media has fractured and will stay fractured. The cool thing about this fracturing is that while audiences have dwindled, news has mushroomed. The average reader, spending 15 minutes a day cruising the beer-o-sphere, can be assured of being pretty well apprised of 95% of the news in craft brewing. Ten years ago, we waited for weekly columns or monthly magazines to alert us to beer news--and those outlets covered only a fraction of the news. And the current model is far more democratic. Brewers and their fans regularly rub elbows online to share news, stories, and opinions--no newspaper filter necessary.

In sum: we need to quit obsessing. Thanks to blogs and social media, we now have a great way to indulge our passions (be they focused on good beer, dachshunds, or Joss Whedon). Isn't that enough?
___________________
Share

Alan's Big Move

In a stealth campaign, Alan Sprints has noted that Hair of the Dog is on the move.

Hair of the Dog Brewing company is moving. I will be open this May and will have a tasting room with a small food menu and regular hours. The new space is very close to downtown Portland and will provide Beer lovers with a chance to taste Beers still in the experimental stage. For regular updates, check out the Hair of the Dog Brewing facebook page.

Based on activity on the Facebook page, everyone but me knew about this. There's even a video!



Other interesting facts. FredFest, a May event, is slated for the new place. Also, no Earth Day sale this year. Hat tip to the indispensable Beer News.


Update: Wily Elijah has identified the location of location of the new place: 61 SE Yamhill. Below is a screencap from Google Maps.


_________________
Share

English Tied-House Rules Loosened

Fascinating:

Nik Antona, the Burton-based national director of the Campaign For Real Ale, said the Government’s ‘12-point plan’ to help the pub industry would help stem the flow of an alarming trend which sees 40 pubs close across the UK each week.

The measures, announced by pubs minister John Healey, include plans to pump cash into allowing communities to buy out struggling pubs.

Meanwhile, councils will be given new powers enabling them to intervene before pubs are demolished while pub companies will be stopped from imposing ‘restrictive covenants’ when they sell off premises, preventing competitors from continuing to run them as pubs.

Alcohol laws are very often byzantine, and I'll confess that from this great distance, I don't always grasp the subtleties. But this pub crisis has been ongoing for years, and I've been following it with interest/alarm. (For a visceral sense of loss, have a look at these photos.) Hope this is a viable solution.
_________________
Share

Too Nice to Blog

So instead, I use that time-honored cheat, pointing you to good content elsewhere.

• Bill offers the third installment of the Beer Price Index. Upshot? Not a lot of movement in the aggregate, but this masks interesting changes.

• John Foyston in a long article about Cascade and their new barrel house.

• Brady Walen on why $15 ain't too much to spend on a beer ... if the conditions are right. (Starting with Pliny the Younger seems to help.)

• Derek reviews two Mikkeller single-hop beers, reminding me that I was going to brew a single hopped pale for Spring with those cheap Nuggets I picked up.

• Roots is five years old, celebration tonight. Ezra, who has done artwork for the brewery, offers comments.

• Angelo discusses how in just four short years Ninkasi has become the seventh largest brewery in the state.

• All-grain brewing versus extract: Jon has a comparison.

• Oakshire brewer Matt Van Wyk weighs in on the Black IPA versus Cascadian Dark Ale debate.
  

But I know none of you are reading these fine posts. I've seen my traffic. You are fickle, fickle people. Like me, you're out in the sun breathing deeply of that insane spring air. (And sneezing.) Good for you--

The Death of BridgePort Stout

I learned last night that BridgePort plans to discontinue its venerable Black Strap Stout. In one way, I'm surprised it survived this long. When the brewery first released the beer something like a decade an a half ago, it tasted more like stout-tinged molasses. Trying to drink a whole bottle was a rugged test of will. Even when brewers dialed back the recipe, the molasses still contributed a distinctive note--and not one of my favorites. With so many stouts available, BridgePort's always got lost in the crowd--this odd duck at the end of BridgePort's line. Black Strap Stout was never a big seller, but it must have had a loyal audience to survive this long.

These things happen. Beers come and go. (And who knows--maybe the stout will enjoy a revival.) In any case, go grab a pint if you want to have a final taste before it passes this world.

Elsewhere in the World

Two things happened today that require us to set aside our focus on beer. The first is that Alex Chilton has died. He will be less familiar to most folks than names of the stars he inspired--REM, the Replacements, Wilco and more. He was famous by the time he was sixteen and singing for the Box Tops, but his real contribution was with the 70s band Big Star. RIP, Alex.

Second, one of the two best sporting events in the world kicked off today--the NCAA basketball tournament (the other is the World Cup, for similar reasons). It is especially noteworthy this year, for tomorrow my alma mater Wisconsin begins their inevitable march to the title. The other games may be interesting, too.

So, for Memphis native Alex Chilton, have a shot of Jack Daniels. And in tribute to the Badgers, select your favorite beer from that famous brewing state--I recommend New Glarus' Wisconsin Belgian Red if you happen to have one handy.
____________
PHOTO: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES | Share

See, Now This Beer Tastes Bitter

In a wonderful moment of serendipity, last night's beer was Full Sail's latest Brewmaster's Reserve, Hop Pursuit. The night before, I had a Hop Henge (everyone who thinks there should be a moratorium on beers with the word "hop" in the title, raise your hand), which led me on a slightly protracted ramble about how hops may actually reduce the perception of bitterness. As the day wore on, my thesis seemed progressively more thin to me, but I was saved by the Hop Pursuit.

In the world of doubles and imperials, this is a bit of a throwback beer. (A throwback from, you know, 1998.) It is a modest 6%, sunflower pale, and in-your-face bitter. Some many moons back, Full Sail did a seasonal called Equinox ESB, a beer that actually set my expectations for a spring seasonal. It was vividly and greenly hoppy, resinous, almost too much. I loved it. Hop Pursuit has that same bracing quality, like a sneaker gust of wind that contains a bit of winter's bite. Yet it is only 55 IBUs. They all come through on the first swallow, and rake the tongue as they exit the mouth, leaving you smacking and smiling. It's not a particularly complex beer--biscuity sweetness in the body, just enough to support the piney, sharp hops. But it's a beer that makes you smile with recognition--this, you think, is a classic Northwest beer.

Once again, I am confronted with the prospect of rating this beer highly. I don't know any brewery that turns out so many consistently above average beers as Full Sail. Call this a B+.
____________________
Share

When They Get Old

This has been a bit of a hobby horse of mine lately: what happens when the founding generation ages out and want to retire from brewing? They sell their baby. Case in point:

The North Bay Business Journal broke the news today that the Anderson Valley Brewing Company, now in its 23rd year, was sold to HMB Holdings, LLC. A year ago I interviewed AVBC founder Ken Allen regarding family-owned breweries and he revealed he was already in discussions to unload his brewery. “The problem is that I’m getting to be an old man,” said Allen. “I don’t have the ambition I used to have. In fact, I’ve kind of announced the brewery’s for sale. In another few months I’m going to be 70 years old and it’s getting to where I don’t like the stress anymore.”

This is huge news: Anderson Valley can lay claim to being one of the most consistently high-quality breweries in America over the past 20 years. Will HMB Holdings regard it with the same loving tenderness as Ken Allen? Let's hope so.
____________
PHOTO: THE LIQUID DIET | Share