#PCBW2014

We’re in the throes of the third Pittsburgh Craft Beer Week.  I’m at a loss for what to say about it that I didn’t say last year, across a few posts (you can dig through the archives, I’d say they still apply).  That’s not to say that I’m not excited about it – there’s a kind of magic in the air & on-line.  The buzz & anticipation is palpable, seeing the events roll out & the collaborations planned.  But I feel obligated to make some sort of commentary, & just don’t have anything new to bring to the table.  I don’t think anyone in the publicity around it has much new to say either, really, but who’s going to complain about more of the same awesomeness.  We didn’t bend over backwards trying to whip up novel events, instead sticking with/improving upon ones that we’re proud of.  The Sour & the Funky was this past Saturday – we love doing this & think we upped the ante for ourselves again this year.  It was cool joining forces with some fellow beer entities on this event, with James of Stellmacher Brewing pouring & talking up his craft.  Matt from Hop Farm Brewing & Brian from Box Office Brew Review were on hand to speak to Margot, the collaboration that had its official sneak preview at The House on Saturday (though I understand a certain Mexican pizzeria jumped the line, against the creators’ wishes – such is competition, I guess).  We’ve got Voodoo in The House this coming Saturday, with some amazing Barrel Room offerings.  When we hosted Voodoo last year they seemed to be beginning their ascent with the barrel-aged brews, & a year later they’re definitely killing it, so we see nothing wrong with reprising a kick-ass tap takeover.  Between then & now, we’re featuring the beers of twin gypsies Mikkeller & Evil Twin at our “April” Top Shelf Thursday.  You can check out our calendar for details.  Maybe next year we’ll roll out some new stuff, but right now we’re pretty happy dialing in some classics.  Three words for what I’d like to have in the hopper: beer scavenger hunt…

Plenty of other venues, many of whom we’re friends with (Beer Express, Allegheny 6-Pack, Mad Mex, Sidelines, to name a few), are throwing some really great happenings – I’m bummed that I missed out on the Lagunitas/Lebowski party at Arsenal Lanes last night, but such is PCBW.  The official release of Margot, in waxed bottles, is this Thursday.  PCBW’s signature events are always super-attractive, if you can get in.  One thing I definitely don’t want to sleep on is extending our gratitude & appreciation to the organizing bodies, the tireless & passionate Pittsburgh Craft Beer Alliance.  Big up to Lee, Brian, Chris, Colleen, Andy, & the many, many others who work behind the scenes to establish a repeatedly successful week, three years & going strong.  We’re happy to know you lot, & that there are good people behind the effort, whose hearts & minds are in the right place.  Thanks to the brewers for putting together well-crafted & inventive collaboration brews – we’ve still got three on tap as I write this.  And most of all, thanks to the fans – we, & they, couldn’t do this without you.  I’m aware of how clichéd & disingenuous that sounds, & it’s easy to say without feeling, but there are times when it hits home how much people’s enthusiasm & enjoyment really mean to me.  Saturday, as the sour-fest was winding down, seeing how genuinely happy people were was touching.  As much as the headaches of dealing with crazy releases & unrelenting demand can be, as much as I feel carried by my own obsessions & compulsives in this business, moments like that bring it back home, keep me grounded & just seem to imbue all with good vibes.  That’s really what it’s all about.  I guess I had more to say than I thought.  Thanks, all, & enjoy Pittsburgh Craft Beer Week.

Sour Beer, Wild Beer, & the Dilemma of Classification

Of all the things I love to do with beer, of course drinking it is number one.  Selling it isn’t bad, either.  But hoarding it is in close competition with both of those.  The collector in me loves keeping a good stash, & sometimes I have to check my tendency to squirrel away things, lest the goal turn into keeping the shiny, pretty bottles to look at & never actually imbibe.  Organizing events gives me an outlet to sublimate this urge (vice?), & temper it by “curating” a good tasting.  The monthly Top Shelf Thursdays are one such example, but so far none trumps The Sour & the Funky festival.  Now in its third year, this mini-festival of sour & bretty beers gives me an excuse to hoard away, picking beers from our shelves & stock room to add to the ever-growing collection.  Ooh, we just got in a bretted IPA from Evil Twin – into the box, up on a shelf.  My pretties…

Okay, I promised myself it wouldn’t get weird.  Anyway, doing this for the third time has made me notice some subtle changes in the collection.  We’ve been lucky enough to get in a lot of new faces each year, & this year’s no exception.  In organizing the list, though, there have been some snafus around categorization – it turns out that sour & funky beers do not always fit neatly into stylistic boxes.  In 2012, the question was largely around distinguishing the Flanders reds from the oud bruins, which tend to have a lot of overlap.  This one calls itself a red but is listed as a brown by other sources.  This one is described as a brown but is barrel-aged.  It’s an on-going dilemma for me.  Many were fairly easy: Berliner Weiss, fruit lambic, gueuze.  But then there was the “catch-all” category, which we just ended up calling “Bretted & Wild Beers” – couldn’t even say “ales”, because one (Stillwater Premium) was technically a lager.  About a quarter of the brews fell into this overflow section.

Last year ran into even more hazy area, with many entrants straddling multiple styles or just eschewing classification altogether.  Take Draai Laag’s Goedenacht: part Belgian golden ale, part mead, part cider, with brett.  Or Jolly Pumpkin’s Madrugada Obscura, a stout aged in oak barrels with house “bugs”.  Rather than jam things into categories where they didn’t really fit, & that might not capture the nuance of ingredients & process anyway, each brew was listed with its own individual description.  There’s an on-going debate in the beer world about how valid style categories really are.  A BJCP judge might say very important.  A rural Ardennes brewer, not so much.  The debate rages on.

This family of beers has proven especially challenging to pin down.  Fans often call them “sours”, encompassing lambic, Berliner Weiss, Flemish reds & browns, gose, & the newer catch-all “wild ale”.  That’s problematic, though, because sour is a flavor, not a style; it’s analogous to calling a family of beers “bitters” & including in that IPAs, ambers, American barleywine, pilsners, etc.  “Wild ale” as a term has emerged to snatch up the outliers, but that net has its share of snags, too, compromised of beers that employ any combination of brettanomyces AND/OR souring bacteria.  A lot of bretted beers aren’t actually sour, as they don’t have any acid-producing bugs in them.  In many cases, it’s also a stretch to call brettanomyces a “wild” yeast when it’s intentionally introduced & carefully monitored & controlled.  Many conceptualize yeast & bacteria as “wild” only if they inhabit the natural environment & are incorporated through “spontaneous” fermentation.  And as if I don’t sound anal retentive enough already, I ran into the dilemma of whether to include in this year’s fest a beer that actually is sour, but achieved it through the addition of acidified malt & lactic acid, rather than through fermentation within the beer (ended up siding against its inclusion).

Quite the existential crisis, right?  As much fun as it is to bat around these sort of theoretical questions, the beer doesn’t care.  It is what it is.  The brewers probably only care a pinch more, if at all.  If it’s good, it’s good.  We tend to cling to these intellectual distinctions when overwhelmed, I guess, but damn if this class isn’t a murky one, with plenty of blurred lines.  Gotta say, this year’s line-up is looking even murkier: a lot of bretted brews, a lot of “wild” ales, less & less clear definition.  I DO know this: if you like sour & funk, you will not be disappointed.

"Bjergso-ing" All the RAge

In reading the NY Times article on Mikkeller & Evil Twin last week, I was swept away by the bright-eyed, fun-lovin' photos of these bosom bros, & their stories burst with such a happy-go-lucky joie de vivre that I was moved to pay my own tribute to the Salinger-esque duo. Here I am just havin' a grand ol' gypsy-brewin' time:

So...which Bjergso brother am I? Mikkel "Weasel S***" Borg Bjergso? Or Jeppe "Baby S***" Jarnit-Bjergso? Ha, trick question! Post your "Bjergso-ing" pics here, & make the world a sunnier, less grim place!