Top Shelf Thursday, August 2014: IPAs

This Top Shelf Thursday was a long time coming.  Since the second or third of these tastings, I’d gotten requests to center one around IPAs.  It made sense to throw a tasting with a focus on a single style of beer, & we’ve done those before (barleywines last February, for instance).  I’d always balked, though – there aren’t a lot of expensive IPAs, & few are too dear to hesitate at just buying yourself.  So I’d put it off.

Over the past couple years, my taste for really hop-forward beers has grown, to that point that little else really satisfies me.  Never thought I’d call myself a hophead, but a peek in my fridge speaks for itself.  My interest in the style, its history & context, has grown, too – I can think of at least three blog entries I’ve devoted just to the India Pale Ale & its legacy, maybe more.  Plus, we’d gotten in some really enticing IPAs & double IPAs in the past month or so.  So I thought, what the hell?  It’s summer, these babies are still fresh, & we even had IPA Day earlier this month.  Let’s get bitter!

Not surprisingly, California was well-represented this evening, starting with a one-two punch from some breweries who know their way around an IPA.  Mother Earth Brewing’s BooKoo relied wholly on Mosaic hops to deliver a crisp, clean ale with a very defined bitterness & brisk tropical fruit character.  In contrast, Aroma Coma from Drake’s Brewing was maltier, cakier, with a more complex hop bill that complemented the rye malt base & ended with a nice flavor of grilled pineapple. 

Things got more novel with Tangerine Dreamsicle, a collaboration between standbys from the east & west coast, respectively: Terrapin & Green Flash.  The use of honey malt, lactose, & tangerine peel, meant to emulate an orange creamsicle, gave the beer a sweet citrus liqueur spike & a smooth, creamy finish.  Well played!

The fourth course was shrouded in mystery.  I found very little info on Chicago’s Begyle Brewing (their minimalist website states that they’re a “Community Supported Brewery”, which I took as likening them to a CSA(?)), & even less on their Hophazardly IPA.  It was an assertive, dry example, full of citrus pith with just enough sweetness to keep it from getting unwieldy.

Against the Grain, out of Lexington, found a winner of a name with Citra Ass Down! (as have about six other breweries, we discovered).  Anchored by some bigger C hops, this double IPA was built to show off the Citra, coming through with a strong lemon-lime character balanced by malt that was just a little rough around the edges.

Another wild card of the night was Firestone Walker’s black rye IPA, Wookey Jack.  Many had tasted this GABF gold medal winner before, but none were disappointed at having another cracker at it (some even saying it was an improvement on their memory).

There’s a myth that imported hoppy beers are all stale, which was completely blown out of the water by Epic Brewing, from the other side of the globe in sunny New Zealand!  Their Hop Zombie was bright & bold, with a dank, resinous character balanced perfectly by a notable alcohol presence.

We moved into possibly the night’s most malt-heavy brew with Alpha Dog’s Laughing Dog Imperial IPA out of Idaho.  The sweeter, nutty, minty brew provided a nice pitstop from hella-hops-land.  And things got a little weird with another wild card – emphasis on the “wild”.  Ov-ral, from Danish gypsy brewers Mikkeller & To Øl, is a mutation of their Overall imperial IPA, with the twist of brettanomyces (the name is also a perversion of a certain cult Trappist with brett).

And we wrapped up on a very satisfying note with The Big DIPA from Baltimore’s Heavy Seas.  At a fairly reasonable 75 IBUs, this was not a punishing beer to begin with, & was made more pleasant by aging on white oak, giving it a substantial coconut character.

So we finally did it!  Gotta say, I think one of the possible pitfalls of doing an all-IPA line-up could be the “all taste the same” effect.  Whether guests love IPAs or are still learning to love them, I definitely didn’t hear any “samey” comments, & one of the most interesting aspects of the line-up was tasting the diversity & distinctions in a family with so much to offer.  Also gotta say, this may have been the most personally enjoyable flight for me yet – all the beers were really good (some excellent), & even some of those I expected to be weak were surprisingly tasty.  As always, the crowd was great, friendly, & game for trying something new & different.  Thanks to all who came out, & if you didn’t make it to this month’s, hope to see you next time!

Craft Beer CONTROVERSIES, Part 2

A continuation of last week’s blog, just spotlighting a few more dubious “issues” floating in the beer world ether.

Drinking “local”.  The beer’s brewed a half-mile away.  But the malt’s from Austria, the hops from New Zealand, the yeast from a lab in San Diego.  Brewers (& writers, & drinkers) are upping the ante when it comes to what’s considered “local beer”, highlighting ingredients sourced from their own geographical backyard.  Another example of a buzz word outgrowing itself, & no doubt leaving some in the cold.  Not that buying from local business is a bad thing by any means, but just how “local” is the beer?  One thing that’s hard to dispute: the closer to the source, the fresher the beer (just depends on your definition of “source”).

Making sours.  Okay, I’m not sure that many outside of myself & roughly two people I talked with consider this a “controversy”, but there’s more than one way to sour a beer, that I’ll refer to as “hot-side” & “cold-side”.  “Hot-side” involves introducing the souring elements in the mash or the kettle.  “Cold-side” involves fermenting with bugs & wild yeast once the wort has cooled.  “Hot-side” is contained, as the invasive bugs are boiled off before they get a chance to infect the rest of the brewhouse.  “Cold-side” is risky, as there is potential for a comprehensive contamination of the entire works.  “Hot-side”, in my opinion, yields a less interesting, less complex beer.  “Cold-side” allows for greater depth of flavor, as the microflora have more time to develop & intensify.  To me, “hot-side” souring seems a safe but superficial way for brewers to get in on the sour game without making much of a commitment.  As always, I sincerely welcome those with more know-how to tell me where I’m wrong.  I also believe that adding straight lactic acid is straight-up cheating, but again, I’m no pro at this stuff.

The bubble.  Having not been there myself, I get the vibe that the most recent Craft Brewers’ Conference was less about “Look at us go!” & more about “Holy crap, where’s this all gonna go?”.  As mentioned before, there are over 3,000 craft brewers in the country right now, with many, many more slated to come along in the near future.  The question that’s been on many lips lately is about when the trend (& make no mistake, it’s a trend in the word’s true sense) is going to peak & start turning downward, & who’ll be left when the dust settles.  The old-timers are telling the newbies to get their acts together.  I’m sure there were some tense moments at the last CBC, with plenty of shifting eyes & an atmosphere of some anxiety.  “Yeah, he’s not gonna make it.  Better him than me…”

What to do about trademarks.  With more brewers come more beer, & with more beer comes more branding.  The more crowded the pool, the more elbows thrown & toes stepped on.  Disputes have arisen around graphics, beer names, brewery names – really, the marketing stuff that has nothing to do with the actual product.  You can’t trademark a recipe, but that gauche hop pun is someone’s intellectual property.  Everyone looks to the gold standard, of Russian River’s & Avery’s Collaboration Not Litigation as the brotherly way of settling a potential conflict, but with the frequency that brewers are infringing on each other’s turf, collaboration after collaboration isn’t really practical.  Most seem to agree that a friendly phone call is the most diplomatic way to settle things, then there’s the letter, then the serious letter, then the REALLY serious letter.  I think it’s also coming to be understood & accepted that protecting one’s own is a necessity, & doing so doesn’t automatically make you the bad guy.  Try telling that to the fans, though.

Whether craft beer is one big happy family.  Like I mentioned in the introduction to this two-parter, a lot of us would prefer to carry the notion that brewers are chums who help one another out, appreciate their fellow artisan’s product, & are basically above the cutthroat competition that defines most of our free-ish market economy.  Sam Calagione’s famous for saying that the craft beer industry is “99% asshole-free”.  The observation’s been made many times that in no other industry will you see businesses that are essentially competitors collaborating on an end-product at all, let alone with the frequency that you see craft brewers teaming up.  That’s a pretty amazing thing.  But it’s naïve to forget that these entities are always competitors, & happen to have the luxury (as well as the good-naturedness, frankly) to transcend that in the service of fun & art.  On the more cynical end, some suspect the fraternal air of collaboration (looking at Tony Magee again) & wonder how much of it is opportunity to capitalize on another’s share.  Like I said before: the bigger the bubble, the more crowded the pool, the greater the chance for in-fighting & back-biting.  It’s still a business, after all, & brewers gotta get paid.  Luckily, for the time being, the majority of craft culture seems to be about teaming up, helping out, & general friendship.

The great thing about all this is that it only has to matter as much as you, the beer drinker, wants it to matter.  As with any sort of extra-sensory context or political info, it doesn’t have to seep into the beer – we can go on drinking our suds & enjoying what’s in the glass, regardless of what “turmoil” might be swirling around it.  All these are things to think about, but to the extent that they color & enrich our perception of the product.  If it helps your enjoyment of the brew to know a little about the scene that birthed it – including a little drama – by all means, pay attention.  If not, don’t worry about it.  

Craft Beer CONTROVERSIES!

Beer is all about making friends & feeling good, right?  In a perfect world, my lamb, yes, that would be the case.  But we live in a world of competing interests & opinions, & the beer world frequently finds itself at loggerheads with…itself.  As much as we’d like to imagine that the craft beer world is one big happy Valhalla, there are a lot of people under that tent right now, & occasionally someone from one table gets POed at someone from another table & lobs a hop bomb.  Fortunately, the average consumer can go about their beer-drinking unscathed & most likely even unaware of some of these little squabbles, but it never hurts to lift the teapot’s lid & take a peek at the tempest brewing inside.  A few of the controversies bubbling among the beer world:

Seasonal creep.  The stakes are raised higher each year, especially with the fall seasonals rolling out.  Five years ago, nobody expected that we’d see pumpkin beers in mid-July, yet here we are.  The fans are sharply divided between “Too soon!” & “Gimme!”.  We happily cater to both crowds.  Don’t like it?  You’re welcome to drink something else.  Weyerbacher & Southern Tier are notorious for early unveilings, & no doubt some of the breweries who show more restraint probably feel a little peeved.  Sixpoint pointed out that fresh pumpkins aren’t even harvested until later in the season, but the public doesn’t seem to mind.  This one’s hit close to home for us lately, in case you hadn’t noticed.

Contract brewing.  What’s a brewer without a brewery to do?  Outsource.  Contract brewing allows brewing companies to use an existing brewery with excess capacity to make their product.  Some established breweries see this is cutting corners or not a true investment.  Heavy Seas founder Hugh Sisson told BeerAdvocate magazine that “you’re not legit until you’ve got skin in the game”; NYC’s Singlecut posted a flyer that went viral, reading “Contract brewing will be the death of craft beer”.  Dissenters note that contract brewing was the birth of craft beer, in a lot of ways - trailblazers Boston Beer Co., Brooklyn Brewing Co., & Pete’s Brewing Co. were a few (among many) to cut their teeth on someone else’s system.  There’s still plenty being done today, with the “gypsy brewer” faction finding a comfortable niche here.  However, there’s some risk in allowing another to brew your liquid gold, & a beer can’t turn out better than the system & care it’s made with.

The definition of “session beer”.  “Session” is a buzz word these days.  Everyone knows what it’s supposed to mean, but there hasn’t been a way to define it that people can agree to use consistently.  Is the cap 4%, as the English have traditionally set?  4.5%, as has been somewhat arbitrarily set by Lew Bryson & the recent session “movement” in the states?  5% & 5.5% are values not unheard of.  Should there be a limit, & if so, how can it really be enforced other than popular awareness?  Personally, I find myself sympathizing more with the English standard – the term exists because of the English tradition, so why shouldn’t we also abide by that tradition?  But regardless, people seem to agree that more low impact, high flavor beers are a good thing (just don’t call it “light”…).

The definition of “craft beer”.  I’ve already written about this, let’s see, here, here, here, & here (sorry, too lazy to link - scour the archives).  Part of the controversy revolves around who the definition includes (whom some feel it shouldn’t), excludes (whom some feel it shouldn’t), & maybe most problematically, the fact that most couldn’t care less about “The” definition in the first place.  Ask 20 beer drinkers to define craft beer & you’ll get 20 different answers.  The fact that the target keeps moving doesn’t help – since writing the entries I listed above, the umbrella has widened to welcome Yuengling & Straub.  And, like “session beer”, the definition is pretty impotent as long as it’s unenforceable – bars, distributors, & brewing companies can market as “craft” whatever they want. 

Cans.  Canning beer is the best thing since fermenting beer, right?  So many benefits – light weight, easily recyclable, infinitely recyclable, protects from oxidation, protects from UV rays.  No-brainer, right?  Not for everybody.  Of the 3,000 plus breweries in the US right now, just over 400 can their beers.  Sure, that 3,000 includes brewpubs & small operations that don’t package anyway (outside of kegging).  But there exists some opposition to the can as the future to beer.  Tony Magee of Lagunitas has voiced his resistance, citing that bauxite mining for aluminum is a pretty unsavory processor (though a year later he seemed more flexible).  Some other big craft brewers have been conspicuously reticent about cans, & I can’t help but feel like there’s some underlying dissent afoot.

Welp, as is my wont, I’m finding myself getting a little longer in the wind than intended.  Let’s let this stew until next week.

The Pale Paradigm

A recurrent theme through a lot of these blog posts goes something like this: I hate seeing good beer taken for granted. 

It’s not hard to connect the dots between the birth of American craft beer & the countercultural revolution of the sixties.  The original craft brewery – Anchor Brewing Company – was bought & transformed by Fritz Maytag in San Francisco, 1965.  By all accounts, Fritz did not fit the stereotype of asixties revolutionary; he was a pretty clean-cut, college-educated young man from a capitalist lineage.  But no doubt some of the stirrings of northern California in the sixties crept into his consciousness, & may have caught Maytag during a drifting stage of his young adulthood.  Other notable upstarts of craft beer’s second wave, over a decade later, were Jack McAuliffe (a long-haired engineer) & Ken Grossman (a bearded engineer) - again, not exactly hippies, but maybe modern pioneers.  Sixties California was also the birthplace of the organic movement, with the idea that going off the grid & homesteading was utopian in its own way.  The revolution starts with what you grow & eat, & better living unfolds from there, was the mentality.  This DIY push helped birth a greater interest in homebrewing, which really paved the way for the craft beer industry.  [Disclaimer: I didn’t experience the sixties firsthand & have never been to California, but this is what I gather with the benefit of historical perspective.]

And so a handful of homegrown geniuses applied this ethos to brewing, bucking the mainstream & doing something different on their terms.  Part of my understanding of the cultural revolution was that a big catalyst for the shift in consciousness & lifestyle came from the deliberate swapping of alcohol for cannabis as an agent for euphoria (Paul Bowles writes about this excellently).  No doubt, there were plenty of other factors & motivations, but the use of pot (& then LSD) signaled a shift in thought, a new paradigm upon which this culture could build itself.  I see a parallel in the big/little beer dichotomy.  The establishment was awash in lager (& pretty homogenous, at that).  Those who had been abroad had tasted the diversity of beer in the old country & wanted to expand the culture back home in the states.  The revolution in beer built itself on a new paradigm: pale ale.  Pale ale, in itself, was not new, but the west coast upstarts presented it through the new lens of American hops, in particular the Cascade hop, bred at Oregon State University in 1971.  Cascade itself was revolutionary, bolder in flavor & aroma than anything around at the time.  Sierra Nevada’s Pale Ale, mind-blowing for the time in its foregrounding of Cascade, set the stage for pretty much every hoppy beer that’s come down the pike since.  Not coincidentally, the Grateful Dead really found it to their liking.  As pot was to the hippies, pale ale was to the new generation of brewers, built on an affinity for pot’s cousin, hops.  People still play off the “dankness” of uber-hoppy beers, & there are plenty of IPAs with head-inspired names & artwork. 

Anyway, where was I going with this?  Oh yeah – pale ale is the keystone of craft beer.  It’s entrenched in the American scene & has fathered a huge family through its child prodigy, IPA.  On a personal level, I’ve really reconnected with American pale ale lately.  As much as I love the stuff all the other beer geeks are into, I also gravitate toward the overlooked, the “mundane”.  APA is often taken for granted – it’s not crazy or over-the-top.  It’s seldom infused with wacky ingredients.  It tends to be presented simply & honestly, wherein lies its charm.  It’s kind of a calling card for a brewer, a level playing field – okay, you can do a soufflé, now give me the best grilled cheese you can make.  Not overly complicated, but done well, solid, balanced.  I’ve found myself cooking more than I used to; I like to drink a beer when I cook, & nothing goes better with cooking than a flavorful, bright pale.  As relatively restrained as they are (at least compared to today’s extremes), I don’t think I’ve found two alike – each have their subtle variations (this one’s a little more nutty, this one’s more bready, another more citric…).  It’s like a brewer’s handshake. 

So yeah, my show of respect for the often over-shadowed, underappreciated American pale ale, both on a macro & a micro level.  It’s a drink with a significant history, & something worth revisiting when you get the chance.  Craft beer as we know it wouldn’t be what it is without it.  And if anyone who was an actual participant in the sixties & seventies wants to offer some more insight or enlightenment, please do so.

Hats off, once again, to Tom Acitelli’s The Audacity of Hops, as well as The Oxford Companion to Beer (edited by Garrett Oliver) for providing some of the factual info above.

Top Shelf Thursday, July 2014: World Cup

When it comes to beer in its modern conception, I basically think of four cultural traditions: the pristine lagers of Germany; the earthy, nutty ales of England; the idiosyncratic, yeast-driven ales of Belgium; & the hop-forward extremities of the US.  Sure, there are lots more complexities & creative nuances, but if you really simplify things, those are pretty much the “big four” beer players in the world right now & their overarching contributions.  Many other countries have their own brewing traditions, maybe that have been lost to time, maybe that have never really expanded much out of tight niches, tucked away in some small province or village somewhere.  Craft brewing has permeated just about every corner of the globe at this point, giving some of these “secondary markets” the chance to flex their brewing muscles & join the party.

 I always perk up when a beer from outside the canon of brewing countries lands on the shelves.  More often than not, these are from small, artisanal breweries, taking cues from the more “mainstream” countries but definitely translating them through their own cultural filter.  The results are often intriguing – an IPA made in Norway, for example, may both resemble & completely invert the archetypes that inspired it.  I’d long had in mind a Top Shelf Thursday showcasing beers from the “non-big-four” countries, & with the fervor of the World Cup over the past few months, July seemed like a good time.  Okay, so it wasn’t that timely, with the Cup ending almost two weeks before the tasting, but no-one ever accused me of being real topical.

Foregoing the usual Danish brewers (a pair of twins known as Mikkel & Jeppe), we instead began with Amager Bryghus, off the small Danish island of Amager.  Their Fru Frederiksen, a slightly smaller, hoppier version of Herr Frederiksen imperial stout, was an approachable, roasty kickoff to the tasting. 

The Netherlands may be known for a notoriously skunky lager, but Brouwerij de Molen offers a viable alternative to that jolly green giant.  Their Molenbier was brewed to emulate an English strong ale, offering some flavors of molasses & an interesting gourd-like character (a perfect example of a region’s brewing “dialect”, familiar but spoken with a different tongue).

Scotland’s Black Isle Brewery, using all organic ingredients, came through with a native classic.  Their Export Scotch Ale resonated with the maltheads, delivering a solid bread & caramel base with the alcohol surprisingly subdued for 7.9%.

Italy’s a country known for its vineyards, so the most intuitive beer style from a winemaking culture would be a Flanders-style red.  Panil’s Barriquee offered tart, vinous notes, accentuated by aging in Italian wine barrels.

We didn’t have enough “tertiary” beers to fill a tasting entirely, & it would be disingenuous to throw a World Cup tasting without Deutschland.  Representing Germany was G. Schneider & Sohn’s Aventinus, a quintessential weizenbock, with strong notes of overripe banana, clove, & at a warming 8.2% ABV.

France is often overshadowed by the brewing rock star to the north, but its biere de garde style, a slightly sweet, maltier farmhouse ale, has a cult following.  Brasserie Saint-Sylvestre’s Gavroche exemplified it quite well: earthy, rustic, but full-bodied & with a subtle hint of nougat.

Norway’s Haandbryggeriet, made up of four guys that brew in their spare time, really hit it home with their wheat imperial stout, Dark Force.  It was cool seeing a small, artisanal brewery nail such a big, flavorful style, with great notes of coffee, chocolate, & an assertive alcohol character that didn’t kill the enjoyment.  Highly recommended.

Same goes for Rigor Mortis Abt from Quebec’s Brasserie Dieu du Ciel!  This abbey-style quad had a great nose, giving off plum, caramel, & baking spice, but with a dry finish in the taste.  Dieu du Ciel’s label art never fails to impress, either.

We couldn’t help but put a power player in for the US, in Deschutes’ Mirror Mirror, an English-style barleywine aged for ten months in pinot noir, tempranillo, & malbec barrels.  This rich, sweet, complex ale hit strains of dried fruit, brown sugar, oak, with an aftertaste that lingered & evolved, expressing about all that a barleywine can.  This is a truly wonderful beer.

The Belgian ambassador did not disappoint either: Bink Grand Cru from Brouwerij Kerkom.  A Belgian strong dark ale aged on American oak, the Grand Cru brought great flavors typically found in a BSDA – grape jelly, stone fruit, molasses – with round compliments of maple & vanilla, presumably from the oak.

It was fun to veer off the beaten path & taste beers that speak their own language.  It was also very rewarding to return home.  As always, thanks to those who ventured out, sharing their opinions, opening their minds & their palates.  As the climate continues to heat up next month, we’ll explore a family of beers born in the west coast sun.