XXX-mas Week at The House

After an evening of posting events & updating calendars, I’m going to kind of phone this one in again.  But it’s a fun, easy one to write, about stuff going on leading up to Christmas.  And beer & Christmas go remarkably well together.  We’ve already been getting Christmas-ed up here for a while: the first bottles of Mad Elf, Victory Winter Cheer, & others started finding their way onto the shelves in October, starting with just one shelf & gradually expanding to an entire shelving unit & cooler.  We started tapping Christmas kegs over a week ago, & now have seven taps pouring winter seasonals (like the curiously named Krampus from Southern Tier – Google it). 

There’s really nothing like a big, warming, high gravity brew to warm you up on a winter evening (or afternoon…or morning, true believers).  We love big beers, & like the hoarders we are, have amassed a small stockpile of some pretty serious ass-kickers.  We thought, what better time to tap all these bad boys than the week leading up to our Christmas Party on the 21^st?  In the spirit of strong booze, we’re calling it XXXmas Week (like moonshine, not porn).  Check out the line-up:

XXXmas Week kicks off with our Sunday Tap-In on December 15^th: Allagash Curieux.  This has been something of a cult favorite at The House, a Belgian-style tripel from one of the great Belgo-American brewers.  Allagash ages its tripel for eight weeks in bourbon barrels, then blends it back with fresh tripel, adding vanilla, oak, & coconut notes to the fruity, estery base ale.  At 11% ABV, this is our “light-weight”.

The barrel-aged brew continues with Weyerbacher Insanity, their Blithering Idiot barleywine aged in bourbon barrels.  A more traditional English-style barleywine, Insanity is on the malty side & weighs in at 11.1% ABV.

Another barleywine/stock/old ale in the English vein comes from North Coast, with their aptly named Old Stock Ale.  This has become another favorite at The House over the years, with a formidable gravity of 1.100 & an ABV at 11.9%.

Church Brew Works took the gold at the 2012 Great American Beer Festival in the Old Ale category with Heini’s Hooch.  Since then, brewer & creator took the recipe with him to Roundabout Brewing, but conceded to let Church brew Hogshead Hooch a blend of old ale & golden strong ale aged in bourbon barrels.  Church kicked the alcohol up a few notches, too, to 13.3%.

Avery found the perfect name for a monstrous ale, & The Beast tips the scales at over 16% ABV.  This Belgian-style Grand Cru is a dark, rich beer made with dates, molasses, dark Belgian candi sugar, Colorado honey, raisins, & turbinado. 

Shmaltz Brewing keeps upping the ante.  Last year was their Sweet 16, & this year they have a newly built home to christen (if you’ll pardon the expression).  For their 17^th anniversary, they’ve released Jewbelation Reborn, made with – you guessed it – 17 malts, 17 hops, & with an ABV of 17%.  Oy vey!

Things come to a head at our XXXmas Part on Saturday, December 21^st  - a Dogfish Head!  We’ve been waiting for a special occasion to tap this, & this is it: we’ve got four kegs of Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA from four different batches since early last year, two from 2012 & two from 2013!  We’ll be pouring these bad boys in verticals only, 4 oz. of each batch.  To sweeten the deal, we’ll be giving away Dogfish Head glasses to those who venture to undertake this expedition (while supplies last, no whining please).  See how this beer ages & unfolds, starting from February of 2012 up to the most recent release this fall.  If that isn’t kick-ass, I don’t know what is!  There will be other fun stuff going on, like our Ugly Holiday Sweater contest.  Sure, we know it’s been done, but it’s fun anyway!  Dig out that hair-raisingly tacky sweater, wear it to The House XXXmas Party with pride, & win big – first place gets $100 gift certificate to The House!  Fill your belly with food from our kitchen, down it with some big, delicious brews – sure beats milks & cookies.

Don't Support Small Business

Yep, you read that title right.  Don’t support House of 1000 Beers.  Don’t support the small, local, independent retailers & services that build our communities.  Don’t support the mom-&-pop hardware store.  Don’t support the little family-run bakery.  Don’t support the single-screen movie theater that shows indie films & old school horror flicks every October.

If you think I have a problem with small businesses, you’re wrong.  I love small businesses.  I have a problem with the word “support”, at least in this context.  To me, the word has the connotation of charity, that it’s somehow an act of kindness & altruism to patronize a small business.  We support charities.  We support our loved ones, our friends & families.  We support the less fortunate.  In a free economy, you shouldn’t be “supporting” a business whose raison d’etre is providing something in exchange for you forking over your cash.  We don’t ask for donations, & expect that, if we are not able to live by trading what we have to offer you, our dear customer, we would not be around.

I get why the sentiment “support small business” exists.  In our current economy, the big players are getting bigger & each year it seems harder for small businesses to compete.  It seems, though, that too much of marketing for small business appeals to emotion - specifically a neighborly kind of love, or, more cynically, fear & guilt.  On the positive, consumers are promised a warm, fuzzy feeling by buying from the little guy with a friendly face who knows you by name.  We think that’s an awesome part of being a small business; we love chatting up regulars, or showing the new guy around.  The sneaky inverse of that, though, is the guilt, that you’re somehow hurting the small business’s feelings by not going there – after all, they’re only human, & how else will they survive?  They’re also a business, with an obligation to give the customer what they want if they expect to get their money.  

And fear is used to caution folks from buying from “the big chain stores”, foreshadowing threats of monopoly & a dystopian society controlled by corporations, devoid of choice, character, or variety. 

Like I said, I get those points, & while they’re not totally without validity, marketing to emotions like those seems intellectually dishonest & manipulative.  We at The House shop at big stores, too, like every other average American.  We also love doing business with the little guys.  The point I want to get across is not why you shouldn’t patronize big stores, or why we feel you should “support” us, but what being a small business allows us to offer you.  We want to appeal to the emotion of awesomeness!

Here’s how:

We call the shots.  We are not beholden to anyone except what our tastes & the tastes of our customers dictate.  We have no shareholders holding our feet to the bottom line.  Sure, we need to make money, but we can decide exactly how we do that, & what we think our customers will think is cool & get into.  Founders Brewing’s motto used to be something like “We brew what we like to drink”.  That’s an awesome business plan, & each day we run the kind of store we want to run, with the faith & confidence that other people will dig it, too.  That control gives us the freedom to do what we want.  If we decide we’re going to have seven tripels on tap at the same time, we can.  If we want to throw western Pennsylvania’s first sour beer festival, we do it.  If we decide to offer a three year, four release vertical of Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA for our Christmas party, it’s a go.  If we decide to build a kitchen after a decade on location, who’s going to stop us?  As long as the PLCB doesn’t prohibit it, we can do it.

Our selection kicks ass.  We’re not tethered to only the moneymakers, & our biggest point of pride is having a huge variety, including a lot of beers that you won’t find at other places nearby.  Being small allows us the attention to detail & creativity in our inventory that the hardcore beer geek appreciates.  We have something for everyone, from someone just starting to venture outside the mainstream to connoisseurs looking for those hard-to-find gems.  Those rare birds are not really moneymakers for us, we just get a kick out of being able to carry specialty beers from small, artisanal brewers.  Again, it’s the kind of stuff we get excited about, & are sure someone else is going to geek out over, too.

Good customer service.  Being small, we make sure that the people who work here are cool, friendly &, just as importantly, know their shit.  Every person on our small staff knows & is passionate about beer.  We can help you find what you need, recommend a good draft or bottle, or just bullshit about whether we think Westy 12 is overrated.  We remember faces & tastes, & get a smile when someone plops a bottle of something awesome on the counter.

Good customers & a relaxed atmosphere.  One of the things I’ve always been impressed by is the conversation at the bar.  People come here who know & love beer, & are just as passionate about it as we are.  I’ve seen strangers get to know each other & carry on long conversations over what’s in the glass.  I think our atmosphere is laid back enough that people don’t feel uptight, or that they have to impress someone.  Some might find it a little too relaxed, but again, we’re all about doing things our way.  People just let their hair down & have a good time, & the beer does its job as social lubricant. 

Man, I really didn’t expect this to run so long.  But there you have it: I hope I laid out a case as to why we, & by association why so many small businesses, have a lot to offer by virtue of being small & independent.  So I’ll reiterate: don’t support small business.  Patronize?  Yeah.  Frequent?  Sure.  But do business with small business because of what they have to offer you.  That’s what small business is all about, & we’re proud & excited to be part of that.

Almost forgot!  Small Business Saturday is this Saturday, November 30^th.  

Top Shelf Thursday, November 2013: Embrace the Darkness

Winter’s on its way.  It’s getting colder, the daylight is shriveling, forcing people to seek warmth & comfort.  I can’t think of any beers that embody those qualities more than the porter/stout family: dark, rich, sweet, roasty, warming.  The Snuggie of beers.  This month’s Top Shelf Thursday (subtitled “Embrace the Darkness”) focused on these dark comfort brews, highlighting variation while staying grounded by a common feel.

What’s the difference between porter & stout?  Good question, with a simple answer: not much.  These days, the talking points are that porters are sweeter & lighter-bodied, while stouts are dryer & more robust.  Or that porters rely on chocolate malt whereas stouts use roasted barley & black patent.  These distinctions appear to be relatively recent evolutions.  Historically, “stout” meant just that: bigger, heartier.  Stout was just a variation of porter, & was originally called “stout porter”, without clear formal differences.  Nowadays you’ve got close to a dozen variations of the two: brown porter, robust porter, imperial porter (?), even Baltic porter, which often uses lager yeast.  And don’t get me started on stouts: Irish dry stout, milk stout, foreign export stout, Russian imperial stout, American double stout, oatmeal, et al.  The family tree of the porter/stout clan branches off, veers back & seemingly gets tangled in its own limbs.  One thing’s clear, though: these beers are some of the most beloved out there.

Stouts & porters are a great vehicle for barrel-aging, so it’s no coincidence that barrel-aged beers were prevalent at this tasting.  From Foothills Brewing came our kick-off: People’s Barrel-Aged Porter, their English-style porter aged in wet Kentucky bourbon barrels.  At a “mere” 6% ABV, this porter faced a challenge standing up to the intense flavors of the barrels, but rose to the task with chocolate & caramel notes. 

Things got smoky with the next offering: The Big Smoke, a smoked porter from Danish-cum-Kiwi brewer 8 Wired.  Whereas smoked malt (in this case Bamberg rauchmalt) can sometimes be overwhelming, most agreed that here it was more subdued but still delivered that savory quality folks look for in a smoked brew. 

Victory threw folks a curveball with Red Thunder, their Baltic porter aged in red wine barrels from California vineyard Wente.  The Baltic porter was already anomalous in this line-up with its use of lager yeast instead of ale yeast, & the wine barrels gave it a darkly fruity, woody, & tannic twist.

Next, we dropped our first stout of the evening with Cryptical, an imperial from Starr Hill Brewing’s All Access series (its name a Grateful Dead reference).  The tasting’s most hop-forward beer, Cryptical packed some bite from dry-hopping with Apollo, Simcoe, & Centennial.

Two of the evening’s most eccentric brews followed.  Stone Brewing collaborated with Oregon’s 10 Barrel & DC brewpub Bluejacket to concoct Suede imperial porter.  A recipe including avocado honey, jasmine, & calendula flowers gave it a uniquely floral & sweet profile, wrapped up in a smooth porter jacket.  One of the original imperial stouts – Le Coq’s Imperial Double Extra Stout – disappeared for years until its resurrection by British brewer Harvey & Sons.  Many in attendance were surprised by its tart nose, followed by a body with strong notes of licorice, dark fruit, & tobacco, really throwing for a loop those who expected a more conventional stout flavor.

Evil Twin’s Soft DK had a background that raised some eyebrows: the brewer was inspired by the sweet smell he got while changing his newborn son’s diapers & set out to brew a stout evocative of that aroma.  Soft Dookie, as it was christened before its name change in the US market, gives off notes of vanilla that complement its light body.

We book-ended the night with barrel-aged offerings, wrapping up with a trio of big, dark beers from the wood.  Laughing Dog Brewing didn’t mess around, taking their 11% imperial stout, The Dogfather, & aging it in bourbon barrels for a rich, warming brew with oaky notes backing it up firmly.  DuClaw Brewing draws each bottle of Retribution from a single barrel after aging for six months, allowing for some variation bottle to bottle.  Retribution delivered strong smells & flavors of coconut & banana, marrying deliciously with the base stout’s coffee & dark chocolate character.  And at a formidable 12% ABV, Arcadia’s Shipwreck Porter crowned the night beautifully.  Not being satisfied with aging this imperial porter in ten-year-old bourbon barrels for a year, Arcadia goes so far as to put the beer-filled barrels in Michigan mines to maintain a consistent temperature.  How cool is that?

Things like big, indulgent beers remind us that there are some things about a long, dark winter to look forward to.  This was a fun tasting to organize & host, & hopefully all in attendance left a little more prepared to embrace the darkness.  And I’m sure everyone left feeling a little warmer, too.

Want Some Cheese with That Barleywine?

In my last blog I cast my own doubts on the success of pairing beer with food.  I don’t mean drinking beer with food – beer & food go side by side great.  I’m talking about pairing in the transcendental foodie kind of way that, supposedly, would achieve some sort of celestial state & send one’s taste buds into thralls of ecstasy.  I just don’t think it’s happening, & my general rule is that beer is best left unto itself.

Now there exists one BIG exception to this soft “rule”, & that’s wine’s alleged “best buddy”: cheese.  Maybe it’s because I’m also a big fan of cheese, but for me, these two foodstuffs just click.  I think it’s Garrett Oliver who qualifies cheese & beer’s affinity thusly: at their most fundamental, they’re both just grass converted by enzymes & organisms.  In the case of beer, it’s enzymes & yeast.  In the case of cheese, it’s a cow & then enzymes.  He also goes into depth about the shortcomings of wine with cheese, as well as beer’s secret weapon: the “scrubbing bubbles” of carbonation.  I think the two work together so well because they are both simple yet so complex, in ways that complement fantastically.  Cheese is always salty & creamy to varying levels, flavors & textures that can catalyze & be catalyzed by the taste & mouthfeel of beer.  There aren’t layers upon layers of ingredients to overwhelm or negate one another, but the flavors can unfold & unlock one another in the right pairing. 

Next to beer, blue cheeses are probably my favorite basic foodstuffs, so there’s plenty of pairing potential with this rank, sharp, salty family.  I can remember trying Anchor’s Old Foghorn Barleywine with a sweaty, room temperature Stilton & having each of them transformed, going through movements as the sweet, caramelized barleywine opened up the funky Stilton.  I love blues with a good, dank IPA – some of my favorite double IPAs, like Green Flash’s or Dogfish Head’s Burton Baton, express blue cheese notes in & of themselves (to me, anyway), making for a natural match.  I was becoming disillusioned with farmhouse ales for a while, until one night when I tried one with brie & saw it in a whole new light – the rustic, earthy qualities of each really shone through & renewed my liking for saisions.  Flanders red (my favorite beer style) goes great with the buttery, slightly sweet notes of a triple crème like Saint Andre.  A nutty, aged cheddar works well with the nutty, chocolate, roasty notes of a porter or stout, or the citric & piney bite of an IPA.  Some of the Trappists make their own cheese, naturally pairing well with their world class Belgian dubbels, tripels, & quads.  And back to blues – great with traditional lambics.  If you’re feeling really adventurous, try a runny, washed rind cheese (French Muenster?) with a lambic or other wild ale & prepare to open a Pandora’s box of gustatory experience.

Just a few suggestions, but if you ask me, cheese is the only surefire food for beer pairing - but therein lies a slew of possibilities.  Find a good cheese seller (hey, you already know of a great beer store) & go to town.  This may be one area where I agree the beer literati: when it comes pairing with cheese, it’s all about the beer.  Wine just doesn’t cut it.

The Beer Stands Alone

I think the beer world has a bit of an inferiority complex, at least when it compares itself to wine.  When beer’s evangelists talk about placing beer on a pedestal, they always measure it by wine’s standards: wine’s got a sophisticated, refined image; wine’s price points can run a lot higher than beer’s; fine dining menus have long included wine lists, but beer lists are still pretty scarce at the fancy joints.  Beer’s made some real strides in each of these areas, but even as more people come to recognize that, hey, there’s some quality beer out there, beer’s still got a long road ahead of it to catch up.  Oenophiles will drop $40 or more on a good bottle of wine without flinching, but show people a $40 bottle of beer & watch their heads fall off. 

Beer’s got some real plusses that wine doesn’t, but I think its cheerleaders have to reflect on whether they want to measure beer by the same standards.  One of the biggest talking points when trying to polish beer’s comparison to wine is in pairing with food.  Wine has long been viewed as the companion to serious food (read: “not pub grub”), & a tactic in the campaign to elevate beer’s image has been to knock wine off this pedestal.  Sam Calagione wrote a book with sommelier Marnie Olds debating different wine & beer pairings with food.  Garrett Oliver has hosted tons of tastings to the same effect, basically: pairing food courses with both beer & wine & having people vote on their favorite accompaniment.  The party line tends to be that, because beer has at least four, & often more, ingredients to play with, its variation & complexity are head-&-shoulders above wine, which typically uses one ingredient (maybe two, in the case of fortified wines).  They point to holes in wine’s compatibility resume (cited from Garrett Oliver’s The Brewmaster’s Table): “eggs, cheeses, chilies, smoked meats, smoked fish, tomatoes, ginger, curry, chocolate, avocados, garlic, vinaigrette dressings, spinach, artichokes, asparagus, cumin, and dozens of other tasty things”.  That’s right, folks – according to the party line, wine is not the best companion to cheese (more on that later).

I’ve read The Brewmaster’s Table, He Said Beer, She Said Wine, Lucy Saunders’ The Best of American Beer & Food, Randy Mosher’s Tasting Beer, complete with taste & aroma charts.  Thanks to local podcasters Craft Beer Radio, I’ve listened to every salon from SAVOR, a high-end beer festival aimed at promoting beer with haute cuisine.  The idea of pairing beer with food excites me, & I can’t think of a better companion to good food than good beer. 

Let me reiterate: the idea of pairing beer with food excites me.  Sadly, I’ve often found the practice underwhelming.  Call me a plebe, or tell me I have a stunted palate, but I haven’t found the magic, the fireworks that are supposed to happen when good beer & good beer rendezvous on your taste buds.  To me, beer is complex - & delicious – enough to stand on its own, occupy its own course in the meal.  Typically when I go out to dinner, I’ll have one, maybe two beers before eating.  It allows me to appreciate the beer unaccompanied, untainted, & literally can serve as an appetizer, whetting my appetite enough before the food arrives.  I like tasting each without interference from the other, & I seldom feel that drinking beer with food elevates either one.  If I do end up eating & drinking at the same time, the best that can happen is that they don’t mess with each other, but remain no more than the sum of parts; the worst is that they muddle each other & get in the way.  So I’m sorry to say that I’m not a fan of beer/food pairing, just not on board.  Maybe I haven’t found the right combination yet, but there have been many swings & misses so far.

That said, we at The House realize that not everybody feels this way.  Up to now, The House has pretty much focused solely on the essentials – the beer - & left the cuisine to other restaurants.  BUT, we realize that people like good food to eat with good beer, & for a few weeks now our kitchen has been in full swing.  A real kitchen, serving real food – it boggles the mind, right?  And we’re encouraged that the feedback so far has been positive.  With that & Thanksgiving right around the corner, folks’ minds will be turning to what brews to pair with their harvest smorgasbord.  I’ll, of course, have some good stuff on hand during my family’s celebration, but whatever my guests decide to do, I’ll most likely prefer to sip my beer & just listen to it speak alone, without forcing it into conversation.

Top Shelf Thursday, October 2013

Fall is a great season for beer, & next to Christmas, Halloween is probably the holiday that lends itself best to brew.  Fall seasonals are Halloween-appropriate, but what’s even more fun is that there are so many beers with sinister or downright evil names & motifs,  enough to constitute an entirely separate blog entry.  Our October Top Shelf Thursday centered around a general Halloween theme, featuring pumpkin beers (a no-brainer), chocolate beers (trick or treat!), & the afore-mentioned wicked brews.

 

We started off with a one-two pumpkin punch, though the beers were light enough they might be better likened to a playful slap.  The Pumpkin Lambicus, from the Belgian Brouwerij Timmermans-John Martin, was unique in that it was the only pumpkin lambic anyone had ever heard of.  Semi-sweet & generously spicy, the 4% ABV lambic was reminiscent of a fall cider.  The slightly heftier (at 4.4% - holy!) Great Pumpkin Ale from Cambridge Brewing started with a sweet aroma of baking spices that belied the light, crisp, & bitter taste within.  Some compared the beer to a light lager, but found an interesting exercise in tasting some pumpkin ales that strayed from the norm.

Our first ominous beer of the evening, The Bruery’s Tart of Darkness, really hit the right notes for fans of sour ales.  Tart of Darkness begins life as an American stout, but radically transforms through aging in oak barrels with wild yeast & other tart-ifying bugs, & comes out resembling an intensely puckering Flanders ale with little stout character to speak of.

Things really took a turn for the unusual with Telegraph Brewing’s Obscura Cacao, from Telegraph’s Obscura series of small-batch, experimental beers that frequently use wild yeast strains.  Obscura Cacao is made from a sour mash with Dominican cacao beans from a local chocolatier, as well as cacao in the boil, to give it a taste that’s both tart & chocolatey.  Some liked the brew, others not so much, but everyone agreed it was one the most anomalous beers they’d ever tried.

A perfect fit for a Halloween-centric tasting is Russian River’s Damnation.  Inspired by the quintessential Belgian golden ale, Duvel (itself the Flemish word for ‘devil’),  the light body & creeping alcohol are indeed seductive.  Russian River’s Vinnie Cilurzo cites Duvel as one of his favorite beers, & Damnation is a solid homage. 

Rogue’s Dead Guy Ale is well-known for its idiosyncratic name & label – the Double Dead Guy is, apparently, twice as dead as THAT Dead Guy (does that make him undead?).  Rogue ramped up their maibock/ale hybrid into a sweetly boozy strong ale.  They give the same treatment to their Chocolate Stout to create – you guessed it – Double Chocolate Stout!  In this writer’s opinion, the Chocolate & Double Chocolate Stouts are some of the best Rogue has to offer, with rich, round chocolate notes.

Another smaller batch, experimental brew was offered from DuClaw Brewing in their X-1, the first in their eXile Series.  X-1 combines chocolate & rye in an imperial porter, pairing the sweet chocolate with the subtly spicy rye for a tasty balance.

The wicked juices kept flowing with Dark Hollow from Blue Mountain Brewing.  Not messing around, Blue Mountain took a 10% ABV imperial stout &aged it in whiskey barrels for a big, complex brew that did not disappoint.  And the devil was certainly in the details with Founders’ Devil Dancer Triple IPA.  12% ABV, 112 IBUs, & dry-hopped with ten different hop breeds over a period of 26 days, this massive, bitter brew brought some to their knees in adulation, others in despair.  And the label is pretty devilish,  too.

All in all it was another fun Top Shelf Thursday, & the second to be based around a holiday (the first being Valentine’s Day which, coincidentally, also incorporated chocolate beers).  Half the fun of curating &, hopefully, participating is the interpretation of the theme, & this was no exception, with plenty of room for creativity.  One might think there’s more beer that exploits its reputation as a vice, but there’s also the holy & reverent – think of all the abbey ales, doppelbocks, etc.  Just once in a while we like to embrace the dark side of life.  It’s what Halloween’s about, & who doesn’t love a dark beer?  As always, thanks to those who joined, & to those who missed this month, hope to catch you next time.

Craft with a Capital "C", Part 2

A few weeks ago I offered some much-belated opinion on the Brewers’ Association’s attempt to draw a line around craft beer, basically naming who’s in & who’s out.  I tried to make it clear that I understand the BA’s need to make this distinction & see the value in doing so.  On the other hand, I think how they chose to draw the line is what so many reacted negatively toward in the first place, & I take some issues with the criteria myself.  I get that the line needs to be drawn somewhere, but parts of this manifesto left me scratching my head.

“An American craft brewer is small…”  That makes sense.  Years ago, “microbrewery” & “microbrew” were the prevailing nomenclatures for small brewers making something off the beaten path.  However, the term “microbrewer” had a specific volume attached, to the tune of 15,000 barrels per year or less.  Safe to say most of the well-known & “definitive” craft brewers do not fit this scale.  Dogfish Head is not a microbrewery, nor are Stone, Troegs, Allagash, Southern Tier, or many, many other purveyors of some damn fine beer.  The BA’s ceiling for craft brewers used to be 2 million barrels annually, until about 3 years when it raised that ceiling to 6 million.  It was no secret that this change was to accommodate Boston Beer Company’s expanding production, & many cried ‘foul’ at what they saw as a cynical move to keep this power player in the BA’s camp.  Sam Adams still has a ways to go to reach the 6 million barrel mark, & even this titan accounts for a mere 1% of American beer sales.  Still, if this specific figure were eliminated as a defining feature, I doubt you’d find any craft beer drinker in America who’d call Sam Adams ‘small’.  Same goes for many of the well-established craft brewers out there, despite being dwarfed by the big internationals.  That being said, there are still plenty of smaller (at least relative to the big boys), old school regional brewers a la Yuengling & Straub that fall well below this line, too, but don’t qualify as craft brewers.  Just like the square/rectangle relationship, all craft brewers are small, but not all small brewers are craft.

“…independent…”  This makes sense to me.  The BA seeks to represent breweries that don’t have the financial & political clout of the big boys.  But, the definition states that “Less than 25% of the craft brewery is owned or controlled (or equivalent economic interest) by an alcoholic beverage industry member who is not themselves a craft brewer.”  Why not 0%?  Why not go for complete independence?  I’m not sure who’s aided by this loophole, but it seems to me the most glaring ideological inconsistency in the definition.

“…and traditional.”  This part strikes me as just downright arrogant.  By the BA’s definition, “traditional” means that a craft brewer produces an all-malt flagship (read: no rice or corn adjuncts used in their biggest seller) or uses adjuncts to “enhance rather than lighten flavor”.  This prevents the afore-mentioned Yuengling & Straub from inclusion, as both use adjuncts in their lagers, as well as plenty of brewers that have been making lager this way since way before the recent craft era.  Corn & rice have misunderstood &, consequently, vilified places in the history of American beer – I’m tempted to go off on a tangent on this topic, but will save it for another post.  But regardless of their demonization, adjuncts are more “traditional” & have a longer history in American beer than, say, Cascade hops.  Sure, adjunct-based beers are far from perfect, but if craft brewers are all about innovation (as is stated further in the BA’s manifesto), then don’t also hang your hat on the hook of tradition.  And claiming all-malt as traditional ignores the much longer history & evolution of beer worldwide; is a slippery slope toward a modern Reinheitsgebot, the high water mark of brewing restriction.

So yeah, it’s seldom as simple as this-side-or-that.  I still say the BA’s absolutely in the right for trying to defend the borders & reputation of craft, & since the days of “microbrewers” is all but over, there needs to be some clear definition somewhere.  Just seems that the current definition has a way to go before it’s watertight.  It’s certainly served to piss off plenty of folks who were left out in the cold, or who thought the line was too hard.  Just some thoughts, the pros & cons.  Here at The House, we’re happy to let the drinker make up their own mind.  As always, drink what you love, but think when you drink.

Send in the Gnomes

To a Belgian beer nut like me, the Ardennes region seems like a dream.  The Ardennes lies largely in Belgium, covering much of the French-speaking Wallonia territory, but stretching into Germany & France as well, comprised of lush forests & rolling hills with villages tucked all along the way.  The geography is inspiring, & not coincidentally, the area holds some great Belgian breweries.  Three of Belgium’s Trappist breweries are here: the Abbey of Notre Dame, Scourmont, makers of the worldwide ambassador brand, Chimay; the well-cloistered Abbey of Notre Dame de St-Remy, makers of the Rochefort beers (which, in my opinion, rival those of Westvleteren); & an abbey with its own share of historical mysticism, the Abbey of Notre Dame d’Orval, makers of the idiosyncratic Orval.  The town of Hoegaarden lies here, with its own mark on the evolution of Belgian beer.  Cult favorite Brasserie Fantome  haunts the Ardennes, with its family of funky farmhouse ales.  Brasserie Caracole, with its cutely quirky snail-adored labels, brewers of Saxo, also reside in the region.  And there are at least a half-dozen others I don’t even recognize & would love to explore & discover for myself.

An Ardennes-based brewery that holds a special place at The House is Brasserie d’Achouffe.  Named for the nearby town, you may recognize d’Achouffe by its mascot Chouffe, the gnomes that legends tells of populating the surrounding woods.  D’Achouffe has seen international success following its humble beginnings in 1982, when it was founded as a hobby by brothers-in-law Chris Bouweraerts & Pierre Gobron, who built out the brewery gradually from an 1805 farmhouse.  Within a few years, both men quit their day jobs to focus full-time on brewing their flagship golden ale, La Chouffe.  Since then, they’ve produced a cozy but solid stable of excellent ales, like the Scottish-inspired McChouffe; the Christmas staple N’Ice Chouffe; & my personal favorite, their American-inspired Houblon Chouffe, an American-hopped Belgian IPA.  Pictures of the brewery now are idyllic: farmhouses, white fences, nestled in the rolling green mountains of the Ardennes.  I love the section on Brasseries d’Achouffe in Michael Jackson’s Great Beers of Belgium.  Jackson tells of the brothers-in-law meeting him on a hillside at 7:00 AM, where they demonstrated their electric hobby plan, sporting a Chouffe on a bike!  It’s this playful spirit that continues to define the brand, even since their sale to Duvel Moortgat Brewery in 2006.

Gnomes invade The House this Saturday, when we tap their collaboration with Moortgat brethren Brewery Ommegang, aptly named Gnomegang.  Then we reprise last year’s World’s Smallest Toast by toasting with those sweet red elf hats, tiny glasses, & mentally whisk ourselves away to the beer-making, gnome-inhabited wonderland of the Ardennes.

Craft with a Capital "C", Part 1

If you’re into beer writing/news/periphery enough to be reading this blog, chances are you’re savvy enough to have caught some of the hubbub surrounding the Brewers’ Association’s “Craft Vs. Crafty” proposition late last year.  It was a bold statement that drew a distinct perimeter around the craft beer camp, clearly delineating who’s in & out of that camp based on specific criteria.  There was a lot of backlash to that statement, & many basically likened the Brewers’ Association to a Caesar, giving a thumbs up or thumbs down that may seal the fate & determine the identity of pretty much every brewery in America (at least partially American, anyway). 

The fervor has largely died down, but with time I’ve found myself thinking more & more about the BA’s move.  In my mind, I’ve mulled over whether I should share my opinions on it, but hesitated because the story has been relatively cold; most of the commentary has come & gone,  I didn’t want to come across as a day late & a dollar short to the public forum.  But it gnawed at me.  Each day, I see “craft beer” touted more & more as a selling point by those getting in on the game.  I drive by a retail distributor each day with a sandwich board on its sidewalk that reads “Craft beer here” (I’m probably paraphrasing).  What breweries are listed on the sign?  Goose Island, Kona, Landshark, & Magic Hat.  84 Lumber is throwing a “Craft Brew Fest” – yes, that’s what they’re calling it – in a few weeks.  Who’s atop the list of breweries in attendance?  Magic Hat.  In case you were guessing at my point in mentioning these, all the breweries listed so far do not meet the BA’s standards for a craft brewer. 

Why do I care?  It’s all about the quality of the beer, right?  As usual: yes & no.  I don’t condemn or condone a beer based on who owns or makes it.  Goose Island Bourbon County Stout is still one of my top TWO favorite beers, despite the fact that they’re now owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev.  Far from screwing them up (as many predicted), A-BInBev seems to have done pretty well by Goose Island, allowing them continued creative control & release of some really well-done niche styles.  Conversely, as many great craft breweries as there are - & there are many, many great craft breweries – there are too many mediocre to straight-up bad breweries in that circle, too.  The craft label does not equate to a level of quality, necessarily, & there are exceptions on both sides of the line.  BUT, I generally feel that it correlates, & I can count on one hand the number of true craft beers I’ve truly regretted drinking. 

What I really care about is that craft beer is hot right now, & thus more are trying to jump on the bandwagon.  I don’t blame those who want to get in on the game, & the public’s exposure to more quality, small, independent brewers is good for the industry as a whole.  Too many who’ve jumped in, however, appear to have a weak grasp of who it is they’re representing with the “craft” moniker.  What doesn’t help, also, is that too few consumers are aware of what the label means, either.  “You know it when you see it”, right?  Maybe.  One of the BA’s biggest beefs with big breweries who present craft-adjacent brands is the lack of transparency in branding: few bottles of these “crafty” brands indicate that they’re made by one of the big boys.  It may be cynical, but it’s not hard to figure out why – people want to buy craft because they think it’s an alternative to the multi-national corporations, & the big guys want to conceal where they’re made because it’s less favorable to the market they’re trying to capture.  Sure, some consumers are in the know, but many aren’t who might actually care. 

I can understand the points of the critics who poo-pooed the BA’s line-drawing, but I also understand why the BA feel they have an imperative to draw that line.  Craft beer means something, something specific & distinct.  Many are uncomfortable with the term because it’s either too vague OR too specific – Sam Adams: IN; August Schell: OUT, for instance.  Many simply say they favor “good beer”, regardless of politics or status.  And make no mistake: the craft designation has become a political signifier.  It bears less reflection on the quality of the product than the process by which it’s made & who controls it financially.  Again, craft beer doesn’t automatically mean *good* beer, though I’d personally assert that the overwhelming majority of good beer fits under the craft criteria.  It doesn’t define form, just like “indie rock” doesn’t dictate a specific sound.  Sure, you know indie rock when you see it.  But is it truly independent, or does it just sound/look/taste like the little guy?

As can happen sometime, I’m getting a little long-winded & may have bitten off more than I can chew with this topic.  Plenty more related thoughts to follow, to be continued.  Politics or no, you can’t go wrong with drinking what you like.  But there’s nothing wrong with thinking about what you’re drinking.  

Bad Moon Rising?

Man.  People get passionate about beer. 

A few recent House blog posts have talked about the definition of craft beer, who’s in & who’s out according to the Brewer’s Association & their guidelines.   We discussed the need for a definition & a clear demarcation, as well as what might be perceived by some as imperfections in the definition as it stands.  Who are the Brewer’s Association trying to guard the craft emblem against?  The big boys, obviously.  It used to be that you knew the big boys when you saw them, because they all made the same kind of beer, a product viewed by many the craft rebels as inferior, corrupted by greed & laziness. 

But then things started changing.  The big boys realized that these little upstarts doing weird stuff weren’t going away – in fact, they were showing beer drinkers something better.  They were even getting the attention of wine & spirits drinkers who thought they didn’t like beer.  First the big boys tried dismissing the craft brewers.  I can’t remember for the life of me which beer it was for, but I remember years ago a big-time American lager advertising itself as “classic, not trendy; friendly, not pretentious”, which I read as a swipe at the character of the craft “trend”.  When they realized they couldn’t trivialize craft, they decide to get in on the action & up their own game a little bit, brewing up some more flavorful alternatives to the mainstays, while not going too crazy: wheat beers, fruited beers, even the occasional stout or pumpkin – what most would consider “gateways”.  To further hone in on craft’s action, the big boys started buying out reputable craft brewers like Redhook, Pyramid, Magic Hat, the biggest boat-rocker being Goose Island.  If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em – or get them to join you.

What’s happening more lately is that craft beer’s lines are being blurred, which is what caused the BA to so violently wrench the wheel to try to get things back on course.  When people speak of “craft vs. crafty”, the biggest culprit, seemingly the biggest threat to craft beer’s integrity & distinction, is Blue Moon.  People are passionate about beer, & Blue Moon seems to really piss the passionate off.  When the Discovery Channel aired Brewmasters, beer geeks decried that Blue Moon was a sponsor.  When some new Blue Moon products were promoted on our Facebook page earlier this month, it drew some unfavorable responses.  One commenter drew a thumbs down.  Another derisively pointed out that Blue Moon is made by Coors (which it is).  BrewDog summated the sentiment in their blog: “Why do we need a definition [for craft beer]?  Three words: Blue Fucking Moon.”

Blue Moon is the big boys.  But guess what?  Blue Moon’s been around longer than BrewDog.  It’s been around longer than Stone, Russian River, Founders, Troegs, & Firestone Walker.  Coors launched it in 1995, a time when “craft beer” was still known as “microbrew”, way before the recent crisis over craft co-opting, before the era of imitation & acquisition.  Sure, plenty of transparent craft imitators have come along (SHOCKing, huh?) & plenty have gone the way of the dodo (anyone remember Bare Knuckle Stout?).  I may get tarred & feathered by the hardliners, but I’d go so far as to say that Blue Moon helped pave the way for the rise of craft.  If you’re over 30 & live in the US, I’m willing to wager that your first non-lager beer was either Blue Moon or Guinness.  Craft is all about choice & flavor, having an alternative, & Blue Moon showed a lot of people that not all beer is the same.  Many of those brew neophytes went on to become the seasoned beer geeks that…well, read this blog.  Maybe we’d all do well to don some humility, look ourselves in the mirror, & admit that a corporate product may be partly responsible for growing us up.

And here’s another lidblower: it’s not a bad beer.  One of the BA’s biggest beefs with the “crafty” brands is the lack of transparency about who’s actually making what you’re drinking, & again, Blue Moon is the go-to culprit: the bottles only mention “Blue Moon Brewing Co.”, not Coors.  I agree that people should be informed as to who their beer money goes to support.  But part of me wonders, though, if the BA is threatened by Blue Moon because it’s actually a decent product.  Obscuring the brewery’s identity, while maybe dishonest, helps level the playing field & allows the drinks to stand on its own merits rather than be judged by who makes it (though, sure, very few are in the dark about this relationship).  I’m not going to lie & say it’s the best, but it’s survived where a lot of others have floundered because it’s legitimately…not bad.

All that being said - Blue Moon is still not craft beer in the strict sense of the term, & we can all make up our own minds about how much we care about supporting the small dogs or the big boys.  I’m just saying give a little credit where it’s due: like it or not, it’s got more credibility than the in-crowders care to admit.  

Concept Beer

A little over a month ago, I posted a blog entry on beer ‘E.S.P.’.  Using Westvleteren XII as an example, I proposed the argument that ‘tasting the rare’ is a valid experience, & that one’s perception of a beer can be enhanced by knowing that it made a long & circuitous journey to reach its drinker’s lips.  This idea of beer E.S.P. has been a fascination of mine for a while, & it extends beyond the rareness factor.  The question pops up among beer geeks from time to time: Is beer art?  This begs the question of what makes art art.  Call me a heathen, but I tend to veer toward ‘no’ – my definition of art is that it is functionless & serves no purpose, has no objective other than its own being.  I consider beer more craft or design in that it’s a fusion of form & function – it has an objective (taste good, slake thirst), & while it can be elevated beyond simply that function into higher aesthetic realms, it’s always grounded by its raison d’etre.  Man, do I sound like a blowhard.  Also, art exists according to its own criteria & can’t be judged or scored (judging & critiquing are two different things).  There’s no equivalent to the BJCP that I know of in the world of art.

The common sense, mundane argument to beer E.S.P. is that it’s what’s in the glass that matters.  As always, my left brain agrees with that.  My right brain, however, sees an element in the beer world that speaks to beer’s artistic leanings: process.  I’m not talking about ‘mash-lauter-sparge-boil-pitch’, etc. etc.  That’s the craft of beer, no doubt, & that process is very much perceptible in the quality of the final product.  You can taste it.  I’m talking about the intangible part of the process.  It’s the concept of the beer that’s baked into the final product, that you wouldn’t even know about without some accompanying context.  It’s a window into the history of the beer’s life & the intention of the brewer. 

This first struck me a few years ago, when East End released S.W.I.L.L., an acronym for Stimagtized Wholly Indigenous Local Lager.  It was their first lager, modeled after pre-Prohibition lagers & made with local corn.  Yep, corn.  It was an adjunct lager, the kind inherently stigmatized by beer geeks.  I bet most who tasted it didn’t think much of the flavor, but the concept was part of the final package; to appreciate that package, one had to take into account that extra-sensory aspect.  Dogfish Head is another who plays on the concept fantastically.  Take Pangaea, on the surface a well-made Belgian-style golden ale.  But the concept & process are half the fun!  They take an ingredient from every continent to create it: ginger from Australia, water from Antarctica, rice from Asia, sugar from Africa, quinoa from South America, European yeast, & North American maize.  You get the beer & what it presents sensorily, but put yourself in the headspace of drinking a beer representing all seven continents & it elevates the experience.  Their Ancient Ales series effectively does the same thing – there’s the beer, & then there’s the concept & intention.  On some level, the two are separable, but why deprive yourself of what the brewer considers a vital ingredient?  Austin’s Jester King makes an imperial stout called Black Metal.  While fermenting, they blast death metal for the yeast.  Does this affect the finished beer?  Who the hell cares – it’s an awesome idea!  Cambridge Brewing Company made a beer called Om, a Belgian-style pale that they, well, get this:

While resting in French oak chardonnay barrels for one year, the barrels and their contents were vibrated using therapeutic tuning forks and Tibetan chanting bowls at a frequency of 136.10 Hz. Studies have shown that vibration affects the crystalline structure of liquids and that water has the ability to ‘memorize’ frequency information and hold sound at nearly five times the magnitude of air. From Plato to Pythagoras to Kepler scholars have experimented with ways in which we define the sound of the universe and how it is relative to our own existence.

Again, does that affect the final product.  Who the hell cares?  I want some! 

I’ll repeat the caveat that, yes, it’s the beer that matters.  Sensory perception is king, taste holds the final trump card.  But this is where I see the intersection between art & craft lying in beer, what can transcend the function & give it a life beyond what’s just in the glass.  This recreates the brewer as artist, & intention as an aesthetic on its own merit.  Maybe there’s more in the glass than meets the tongue.

Credit to artist Tom Marioni, whose set for The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends Is the Highest Form of Art appears above.  An excellent concept, to be sure.

Love Live the King!

It’s that time of year again: pumpkin beer!  Okay, fine, it’s been “that time of year” for about a month-&-a-half already.  Yeah yeah yeah, seasonal creep & all that - “You can’t drink pumpkin beers before fall”.  Next you’re going to tell me you can’t wear white after Labor Day.  Whether the ever-earlier release of fall seasonals has you cheering, booing, or just shrugging, it’s happening.  Pumpkin beers are, without a doubt, the most popular seasonal style out there, so no wonder there’s a race to get the suckers on the shelves.  Don’t shoot the merchant - we’re not on a mission to please the crotchety tweeters, bloggers, & facebookers (like yours truly) who cry “Too soon!” the minute the first snaggle-toothed jack-o-lantern is spotted on a label.  The brewers brew it, ship it to the distributors, & we order it because it’s there!  People love it, & we love giving people what they love.  If you’re that bent out of shape about not enjoying pumpkin beer before cool weather, buy it, shelve it, forget about it for a few months.  It’ll keep. 

Anyway, enough kvetching & onto the good stuff.  As exponentially as pumpkins’ popularity rises, there’s one standout whose demand is on an even steeper curve.  Each year, Pumking Imperial Pumpkin Ale, from Southern Tier Brewing, is on more & more people’s lips – in more ways than one.  When’s it coming out?  Who’s got it?  How much did they get in?  What’s a bottle going for?  It’s gotten that it’s broken through the craft ceiling & has become a phenomenon amongst the beer “commoners”.  I feel like such slime saying it like that, but it’s true – people who could give two shits about craft beer otherwise are onto it, & love it as much as anyone.  In the picture above, you’re looking at approximately 500 bottles of the stuff, & that’s not all of the supply we had.  And guess what?  It’s sold.  We’ve already sold all of that, in less than two weeks.  Why?  Because it’s delicious.  I’ve long been a fan of pumpkin beers, & while most are good, some okay, some lousy, this was & is the first one I’ve ever called great. 

Pumking has long intrigued me, & maybe has won its popularity, because I find it qualitatively different from other pumpkin beers.  Most vary in quantity…err, quantity of quality, if that makes any sense.  I mean that most pumpkin beers have some variation on a fairly predictable formula: some combination of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ginger, in a brown or mildly malty base.  Some are good (e.g. Dogfish Head Punkin’, Brooklyn Post Road), others in the middle or bottom of that pack.  But most stick generally within that range, with the variable being how well they are made.  There’s something about Pumking that seems to really set it apart, very reminiscent of buttery graham cracker pie crust.  One tweeter disparagingly said it “tastes like buttered popcorn & sugar”, & while I disagree that this is a bad thing, the description is somewhat on.  Brown sugar maybe, but yeah.  There’s something there that really hits home & is more evocative than most other pumpkin beers, which is what I think sets Pumking ahead of the pack, for me at least.

The funny thing is that, my suspicion tells me, this is technically a flaw.  DO NOT QUOTE ME ON THIS, but my hunch is that Southern Tier intentionally allows the development of diacetyl in the beer to give it a buttery flavor.  Diacetyl is an organic compound that’s produced naturally by yeast – it’s what’s used to flavor margarine & oleo.  Normally the yeast “cleans it up” by basically sucking it back up at a certain point during fermentation, but it’s possible that the brewers permit it into the beer to give it a buttery or butterscotch flavor.  Diacetyl’s acceptable in a few styles, but  overall frowned upon in the beer world, & Pumking may have capitalized on it in a huge way.  Again, I’m just speculating & mean in no way to libel Southern Tier, but it’s been a theory of mine for a while.

On the note of “qualitatively different” pumpkin beers, sure there are some outliers.  There’s the pumpkin pilsners put out by Elysian & Rock Bottom.  There’s La Parcela from Jolly Pumpkin, essentially a funky wild ale made with pumpkin spices.  I’m sure there exist pumpkin made with just pumpkins & sans spices…mmm.  Those may be some interesting experiments, but are far enough afield that it’s doubtful they’ll catch the eye of the mainstream of craft.  Pumking remains the pick of the patch for me, & it’s clear that a lot of folks out there agree.  If you missed it in bottles, we’ve got it on draft, & will likely see more bottles.  Love live the king!

Top Shelf Thursday, September 2013: People's Choice

Top Shelf Thursday turned one year old!  As I’ve probably mentioned about 50 times, we started Top Shelf Thursday last year during Steel City Big Pour Week – this past Thursday marked the 12^th tasting, & we decided to show our appreciation to our loyal Top Shelf tasters by giving curatorial rights to those in attendance.  The first ten folks to sign up each got to pick out a “course” in the flight.  I was pretty proud of the diversity & caliber of the brews picked by our faithful drinkers, who naturally showed themselves to have some damn good taste!

In addition to picking the line-up, I’m going to cede some of the blogging about the individual beers to the attendees as well.  It’s fun tracking folks’ comments & opinions during these tastings on Untappd, so I figured I’d let the drinkers speak for themselves.  After introducing the beers, I’ll let impressions garnered from Untappd give you some feedback & opinion. 

We kicked things off with the Framboise, a traditional raspberry lambic from Brouwerij Boon: “Not as sweet as expected.  Almost a sour.”…”Smells like Lindemans, but super-dry.”…”I liked the dryness.”

Second round was Mean Old Tom, a stout with organic vanilla beans from Maine Beer Company: “Smooth stout.  Cannot taste much vanilla, oatmeal.  Decent stout.”…”Smooth with nice notes of vanilla & a kiss of smoke.”…”Decent stout!!!”…”Nice coffee notes, more bitter than expected.”…”Unripened vanilla flavor maybe?  Not bad.”

With their Trade Winds Tripel, The Bruery substitutes candi sugar – traditional in tripels – with rice to lighten the body & boost the alcohol, as well as Thai basil just for kicks: “Nice.  Smooooth.”…”Smells of pepper & apricot, smooth taste of ripe peach.  Exceptional.”…”Smells of butter.  And tastes of butter!  Sweet.”…”Undertone of rice flavors & a nice sweetness of Thai basil.  Whoa baby.  Great!”…”Soft, sweet, apple-y.”

Spooky, from Blue Mountain Brewing, is a pumpkin ale with cocoa nibs & aged in bourbon barrels: “Yum.  Buttery smell.  Super good.”…”Interesting.  Can’t taste or smell chocolate.  Smooth, almost an ale.  Little smoke.”…”Not sure what I’m tasting but I like it!”…”Get a lot of banana & coconut.”

Trappist Achel Extra, from Brouwerij Sint-Benedictusabdij de Achelse Kluis (whew!) fit squarely within strong, dark Trappist ales: “Dark, nutty, & smooth.  Good stuff.”…”On the hot side, but hits all the right notes.”…”Yum.”

New to everyone was RJ Rockers Brewing, & their Black Perle Dark IPA, made with German Perle hops: “I like.  Bitter.  Hoppy.  Dark.”…”Loving the coffee aftertaste.”…”Almost a stout.  Very heavy.  Great & smooth.  Very much coffee aftertaste.”…”Nice mix of malt, hop, with a decent bite.  Lingers on the palate.”…”More on the stout side of the fence, but very good.  This one’s the dark horse.”…”Starts pretty good but ends too bitter.”

Evil Twin Brewing brought us Yang, a double IPA & the “light” side of their Taiji Black & Tan (with the Yin Imperial Stout providing the “dark” – we just had the light): “IPAAA.  Nice.”…”Initial smell is very fruity & floral.  Almost a honey flavor.  The finish aftertaste is almost a birch or root beer.”…”Can’t take the aftertaste.”

A perennial favorite at The House is Curieux, the tripel from Allagash Brewing aged in Jim Beam barrels: “Kim loves this.  I can definitely drink it.”…”More banana from the oak.”…”Sweet, almost like.  Wheat Belgian.  Buttery, sweet.”…”Good.  Can taste the bourbon after.”

We were already well into the high ABVs by the time we cracked in Old Crustacean, a classic American barleywine from Rogue Ales: “Barleywine.  WooHoo!!!”…”Initial nose is a good barleywine.”…”I get the paint thinner reference.  Assuming this is too young, but then why release it yet?”

Wrapping up was The Bruery’s White Oak, a blend of bourbon barrel-aged wheat wine & Belgian-style golden ale: “I get a little wheat & some white grape.  Smooth for 11.5%”…”A blend between a sour & a wheat.  Not favorable.  Nose of a sour.  Dill taste.”…”Nice balance of the two components.”…”Great beer.  Love the wheat wine flavor.  Mmm.”

There you have it, folks: a year of tastings in the books, with friends made, good times had, & many good (& quite a few great) beers drank.  Thanks to all who’ve made this first year a blast, let’s keep things rolling into a second!

More Rambling Thoughts on IPA

It might seem like I’ve had IPAs on my mind a good bit lately.  There was that provocative Slate article a few months ago & the obligatory backlash.  What did people expect from a mainstream news source that prides itself on being deliberately contrarian?  Then there was IPA Day earlier this month, & the series of parodic “facts” on our Facebook & twitter feeds.  Thanks to those who got it & played along, as well as those who didn’t get it at first but then played along anyway. 

The point of that endeavor – aside from having a bit of fun – was that there are a lot of soundbytes & factoids about beer floating around out there like yeast sediment.  Many of them are spotty or half-truths, but get repeated by the guy on the radio, the gal writing the blog, or someone sitting at the end of the bar.  Many of them have assumed the place of legend among those in the know, & somehow get cemented into the ether of beer knowledge.  Beer geeks trip over each other to whip out the most esoteric piece of apocrypha out there, like some race to be the biggest know-it-all.  That’s all well & good, & like I’ve said in previous blog posts, a bit of context can do wonders to enhance the experience & appreciation of beer.  If you haven’t caught on by now, most of these “opinion” blogs veer toward chilling out & just enjoying the beer.  We don’t all need to get into a contest of one-upsmanship on who’s the most fanatical beer geek here, who landed the biggest whale, who can most accurately cite BJCP style guidelines, etc.  And maybe I’m mostly talking to myself here.

Back to IPAs, the upsurge in IPAs has really made me think about how far the collective palates of beer fans have come.  IPAs are pretty much the most popular & ubiquitous style of craft beer on the market today.  I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that 99% of craft brewers make IPAs today.  At the time of this writing, we have 12 IPAs on tap, & another four hoppy “IPA-adjacents”.  Some bemoan the glut of hopped-up beers in American bars & bottleshops, but I think it’s a check in the “win” column for craft beer & adventurous tastebuds.  Bitter is a taste that more & more people are getting into, & many will readily admit that it’s an acquired taste.  It’s a sign that craft beer is winning hearts & minds, & that more & more people are willing to try something different, even if it takes some getting used to.  Though I don’t think it’s the only one, I consider acclimation to IPAs one sign of a maturing palate.  Trends point to there being more & more beer drinkers bold enough to get to know what can be a pretty challenging style.  IPAs are basically the antithesis of light, adjunct-based lagers, & beer fans hard- & softcore have embraced them.  They’re still not for everyone, of course, but they’re definitely breaking through, & I think it’s a great thing.

Now for the Slate-esque contrarian point: how about we change the name?  I know it sounds a little crazy now, at the height of its recognition, but I don’t think the name India Pale Ale fits any more.  Or maybe it never should have been used in the first place.  Hear me out.  India Pale Ale is originally a British style with a specific historical context, & stylistic guidelines that fit within that context for that time.  What people know & love today as IPA is essentially an American invention.  The American IPA is devoid of the historical context that earned India Pale Ale its name many, many years.  And the American IPA is popular because of US brewers’ innovations in use of hops, both quality & quantity.  Sure, ye olde English IPAs are more highly hopped than their pale ale “juniors”, but have you had an English or English-style IPA lately?  I’m guessing probably not.  How many examples can you name?  Two?  Three?  What people have come to know & love in American IPA is the bright flavors & aromas that are distinct in Pacific Northwest hops.  By all accounts, English IPA was nearly extinct when, almost 30 years ago, Portland’s BridgePort Brewing made the first American beer to be dubbed “India Pale Ale”.  In a way, I liken that to Sir Walter Raleigh bringing tobacco (& not cannabis) back to the old world with him – it set the foundation upon which a paradigm was built.  Maybe this sounds chauvinistic or jingoistic, but I say that American brewers have claimed their rightful place on beer’s global stage with the bold use of bold hops, so why pay homage to an old style from the old world?  Why not brand an American art-form as distinctly American, right up there with jazz & abstract expressionism?  American ale, West Coast ale, Cascadian ale, what have you.  Yes, I might be tilting at windmills, but I’m proud of America’s brewers.  Damn proud!  The rest of the world is viewing America as the shining brewery on the hill right now, & I say we stand up, shed off the moniker of an arcane style, & give modern IPA its daddy’s name!  Now who’s with me?!

Okay, okay, I’ve calmed down.  Whew.  Enjoy your pint, everyone.

Top Shelf Thursday, August 2013: Fruit Beers

When trying to make a point, analogies are a frequent go-to for me.  I was trying to think of a good one for fruit beers, their niche & perception in the bigger world of beer.  This may not be the perfect parallel, but the thing that came to me first is The Monkees.  For many fans of serious music, The Monkees are a punchline.  They’re seen as gimmicky, commercial, insipid, superficial by many.  On the surface, this is what most people know The Monkees for – but not all.  Sure, there’s the TV show, the fabricated origins, the bubblegum hits.  But there’s also the part of their career that achieved some depth & quality, some really solid songwriting & even pushing the envelope a bit (check out Head & Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn, & Jones Ltd.).  I’ll still argue that, at their hardest, The Monkees rocked harder than The Beatles (not better, but harder).  They never stopped being a pop band, but grew into something so much more interesting than the expendable hit machine they were engineered to be.  And even “serious” rock fans can erroneously overlook the value & pleasure of a well-crafted pop song.

Fruit beers might be The Monkees of the beer world, especially by craft’s standards.  Most craft drinkers approach fruit beers with some skepticism.  The big brewers’ attempts to break into craft markets have typically been with fruit beers.  People get turned off by gimmicky, commercial, insipid, superficial examples & may write fruit beers off entirely.  But there’s so much possibility beyond the “pop” beers, & even a well-done, easy-drinking fruit beer can be just right.  At this month’s Top Shelf Thursday tasting, we asked people to put aside their prejudices & look at some of fruit beer’s deeper cuts. 

Speaking of pushing the envelope, things kicked off with Dogfish Head’s Ta Henket, which some may remember from an episode of Discovery Channel’s Brewmasters in which Sam & crew traveled to Egypt.  The beer is based on a recipe from hieroglyphs, uses a wild saccharomyces yeast strain native to the region, as well as chamomile, za’atar (a blend of herbs, sesame, & salt), & the date-like fruit from the doum palm, or gingerbread tree.  The beer was wheat-based & had a nice round sweetness & bready complexity, even with its light ABV (4.5%).

Fruit beers are seldom hoppy, but we saw how orange zest can complement a hop-forward beer with Contact High, from 4 Hands Brewing.  The hoppy character of this pale wheat was accentuated by the citrus, & hopheads in attendance were not disappointed.

ShawneeCraft’s Raspberry Blanche, a Belgian-style witbier with raspberries, hit lighter notes.  The dry, spicy character of the witbier worked well in conjunction with the use of the slightly tart fruit.  Raspberries worked very differently in Oud Beersel’s Framboise, a traditional Belgian lambic.  It was interesting to see the versatility of the fruit, as here it emphasized the sour, funky, earthy notes of the wild ale.  On another sour note, Cuvee-Brut, from traditional Belgian brewery Liefmans, is a blend of two Flanders sour brown ales: Liefmans Oud Bruin & Goudenband.  Whereas the fruit in the Framboise seemed to add tart to sour, the addition of black cherries in the Cuvee-Brut rounded & sweetened the otherwise sharp, acidic/acetic base beers.

Locally-sourced fruit is the concept behind Hangar 24’s Local Fields series, from which we sampled their Palmero.  The use of Coachella Valley dates fit squarely within the darkly sweet & fruity profile of the Belgian-style dubbel.

Fans of sour ales were excited to try Savant Beersel from Perennial Artisan Ales, but maybe not more excited than the beer itself – both bottles gushed enthusiastically when the caps were popped!  The use of 100% brettanomyces to ferment this beer was responsible for the volatile foam-up, & the funky, dry, & sour notes of the wild ale worked great with the use of Missouri grapes & the seven months spent aging in wine barrels.  Perennial also stimulated some very different tastebuds with Fantastic Voyage.  This imperial milk stout was given a slick, almost oily feel & toasty flavor from the addition of coconut.

We ended on a high note with a pair of golden Belgian-style ales – high alcohol, if nothing else.  5 Golden Rings is the fifth in The Bruery’s 12 Beers of Christmas, a diagonal series of holiday beers.  The use of ginger, allspice, & cinnamon came through in the nose, while the taste was heavy with the addition of pineapple, which concealed the 11.5% ABV surprisingly well.  And we stretched the definition of “fruit” with Kasteel Trignac XII.  The classic Kasteel Tripel from Belgium’s Van Honsebrouck was kicked up both in flavor & alcohol content – a whole percent ABV - from time spent in cognac barrels (hey, cognac’s made from grapes, so this is a fruit beer, right?). 

So there you have it: ten pieces of evidence that fruit beers stretch beyond weak & soda-like, & can embrace adventurous & odd profiles.  What’s next – craft light beer?  I doubt we’d see a tasting based around it, but who knows?  Maybe a shandy tasting?  Hmmm…

E.S.P.

For years, Westvleteren 12 sat at the top of the beer heap.  The Trappist breweries have long held their place as the elite among beermakers, & the strong, dark ale brewed at the Abbey of St. Sixtus is celebrated as the crème de la crème.  The Top [x] Beers on the internet’s two most popular beer reviewing sites, BeerAdvocate & RateBeer, were crowned for the longest time by this holiest of holy brews.  It still is at RateBeer, but recently Westy 12 has dropped all the way down to seventh place on BeerAdvocate’s list, trumped by some highly regarded IPAs & stouts (& some damn good ones, too). 

So what changed?  The tastebuds of beer geeks?  Maybe.  It’s no secret that IPAs are gaining in popularity as more & more people get acclimated to that challenging bitterness & are breaking through to the rewards beneath.  And the beer savvy always love a good stout.  But I think there’s a general change in the perception of Westy 12 since the brewers’ foray into stateside distribution last winter.  Until last December, Westvleteren’s brews were available exclusively at the abbey & the café across the street from the abbey.  They were sold by the crate during limited hours, & cars driven by thirsty beer hunters would line up at the side door, waiting to fill up with a load of this treasured quad.  They’ve since returned to this means of distribution, but for a short time were sold in retail stores across the nation in an effort to raise funds to repair a portion of the abbey.  The pedestal was shortened.  Beer lovers, who may have before only heard & dreamed of partaking, now had this forbidden fruit at their fingertips. 

And was it all they’d hoped for?  Judging by the dip in ranking, I’m assuming some were left wondering what all the fuss was about.  Which begs the question: How much is a drinker’s perception of a beer swayed by factors beyond actual sensory input?  The appearance, aroma, flavor, & texture of a brew may only tell part of the story.  It’s hard to deny that part of the allure of Westy 12 was the journey taken in uniting beer & beer lover (& it feels so good).  The cynical refer to it as “hype” & “tasting the rare”, & jibe the gullible beer geeks whose opinions are elevated by the thrill of the hunt, by grabbing that gold ring & gulping it down.  It’s hard to blame them – beer should be evaluated by its own merits, context be damned.  Right?

Again, maybe.  Actually yeah, really.  But to be the contrarian, there’s something to be said for savoring & appreciating the context & process that went into the beer, both before AND after it’s made.  Knowing the trip that you or the bottle had to take to make this experience possible probably augments it in the eyes of the drinker.  I think that’s perfectly valid.  Okay, you can’t polish a turd; if a beer is noticeably lacking or flawed it will probably fall flat, despite what sort of adventure it took or idyllic setting in which you may be drinking it.  But let’s not discount that story, that context, that perception of the beer that is “extra-sensory”.  If perception is reality & we’re in a heightened state of awareness, finely attuned to the qualities of a beer based on its background, shouldn’t our experience rightfully be elevated?  Sure, maybe it’s hype, maybe it’s self-fulfilling expectations, depending on your perspective.  But beauty’s in the eye of the beholder, & there’s some validity to that story being able to elevate a beer.  If something’s special, if there’s some magic to holding that holy grail in your hand, why fight it?  Westvleteren 12 is, in my opinion, a wonderful beer.  It’s not my favorite beer of all time, but I can see what earned it its esteem, & part of my admiration & excitement in drinking it is that it’s not at hand whenever I want some.  That it’s got that some air of mystery & esoteric elusiveness.  Part of me hopes there are always those gold rings to reach for.

                                                                                                                                                                                          

99 Bottles of Beer on the Shelf

It was late last summer & we were trying to put together an event or two for Big Pour Week, the week leading up to the Steel City Big Pour.  2012 was our first year of sponsoring the Big Pour, & we wanted to offer something unique to our customers & the greater Pittsburgh beer community, especially something that really showed off our selection.  We thought of all the great, hard-to-find beers on our shelves that we’d like to turn people onto.  We also realized that a lot of curious beer drinkers might be really intrigued by a bottle of something, but hesitant to pull the trigger because of the price tag that often comes with the rare stuff. 

Eureka!  Why not have a tasting of some select beers that we want to expose people to, at a low-risk price?  If folks like what’s offered, they’ll feel more comfortable shelling out a little more for what they know is a great beer.  If something’s not to their liking, they won’t feel burned or ripped off.  Top Shelf Thursday was born.  The first one got enough demand that we decided to make it a monthly event.  They’re a lot of fun, with faces old & new at each tasting & diverse styles of beer – some like all, all like some (& folks have found stuff they’ve absolutely loved, too!).  Folks meet, drink, & make friends - naturally a lot of the conversation tends to veer toward beer.  July saw the tenth tasting in eleven months (we skipped December), so we thought it a good time to do a recap of all the beers we’ve poured so far.

AleSmith Decadence 2012

AleSmith Grand Cru

AleSmith IPA

Anchorage Whiteout

Ballast Point Dorado

Beer Here Morke Pumpernickel Porter

Blue Point Old Howling Bastard

Bockor Bellegems Bruin

Bockor Cuvee des Jacobins Rouge

Boom Island Thoprock IPA

Brash The Bollocks

Brooklyn Black Ops

Bruery Mischief

Bruery Rueuze

Bruery Smoking Wood – Rye Barrel-Aged

Bruery Sour in the Rye

Bruery White Orchard

Caldera Vas Deferens

Caracole Saxo

Central Waters/Local Option Le Petite Mort

Charlevoix Dominus Vobiscum Double

Chimay Tripel

Cisco Pedaller Bike Path Blueberry Bleer

Clown Shoes Clementine 1.5

Clown Shoes/Brash Pimp

Clown Shoes/Three Heads Third Party Candidate

Dansk Mjod Old Danish Braggot

De la Senne/Allagash Very Special Belge

De La Senne/Weyerbacher/Tom Peters Manneken-Penn

De Struise/Stillwater Outblack

Deschutes/Hair of the Dog Conflux No. 1 (Collage)

Dieu du Ciel Routes des Epices

Dogfish Head Chateau Jiahu

Dogfish Head Noble Rot

Dogfish Head/Dan the Automator Positive Contact

Draai Laag Goedenacht

DuClaw Double Naked Fish

Evil Twin Disco Beer

Evil Twin Even More Jesus

Evil Twin Symphony No. 9

Evil Twin/Omnipollo Russian Roulette

FiftyFifty Eclipse – Mellow Corn

FiftyFifty Eclipse – Old Fitzgerald

FiftyFifty Eclipse – Rittenhouse Rye

Firestone Walker Walker’s Reserve Porter

Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout

Hambleton Nightmare

Hangar 24 Chocolate Porter

Hangar 24 Double IPA

Hanssens Oudbeitje Lambic

Hanssens Oude Kriek

Hanssens Scarenbecca Kriek

Harviestoun Ola Dubh Special Reserve 16

Harviestoun Ola Dubh Special Reserve 30

Heller-Trum Aecht Schlenkerla Eiche

Helltown Spiteful Saison

Heretic Evil Twin

Hoppin’ Frog Barrel-Aged B.O.R.I.S.

Hoppin’ Frog Barrel-Aged Naked Evil

Hoppin’ Frog B.O.R.I.S. the Crusher

Hoppin’ Frog D.O.R.I.S. the Destroyer

Hoppin’ Frog Hop Dam Triple IPA

Invercargill Smokin’ Bishop

Jandrain-Jandrenouille V Cense

Jolly Pumpkin Maracaibo Especiale

Liefmans Goudenband

Lost Abbey Angel’s Share

Lost Abbey Red Poppy

Mikkeller Beer Geek Breakfast

Mikkeller Chipotle Porter

Nebraska Apricot au Poivre Saison

Nebraska Fathead

North Coast/Deschutes/Rogue Class of /88 Barleywine

Omnipollo Leon

Oud Beersel Bersalis

Perfect Crime Smoking Gun

Port Anniversary Ale

Port Older Viscosity

Pretty Things Lovely Saint Winefride

Russian River Redemption

Saint-Germain Page 24 Reserve Hildegarde

Samuel Smith Yorkshire Stingo

Sierra Nevada/Abbey of New Clairvaux Ovila Belgian-style Golden Ale

Sierra Nevada/Dogfish Head Rhizing Bines

Sierra Nevada/Russian River Brux Domesticated Wild Ale

Silenrieux Joseph Spelt Ale

Southern Tier Pumking

Stillwater Folklore

Stillwater/Hof ten Dormaal Bronze Age

Telegraph Reserve Wheat

Tilquin Oude Gueuze Tilquin a L’Ancienne

Uinta Oak Jacked

Van Honsebrouck St. Louis Gueuze Fond Tradition

Van Steenberge Piraat

Van Steenberge St. Stefanus Grand Cru

Verhaege Duchesse de Bourgogne

Victory Golden Monkey

Victory Oak Horizontal

Victory White Monkey

The next Top Shelf Thursday is August 15^th from 7-9pm, featuring fruit beers that are a bit outside the box.  Call or stop The House to reserve your spot, & we hope to see you there!