Hopped to Perfection

Is it me, or is the east coast IPA slowly disappearing?   The maltier, orangier east coast style is creeping up the “Endangered Styles” list bit by bit.  In the IPA race, it seems that west coast (big hop aroma & bitterness, low malt profile), session (a low gravity west coast mutation), & the newer “Vermont-style” (back-loaded with hops for juicy aroma  & flavor, with low bitterness) are competing for the hearts & minds of the hop-craving populace.  The old guard east coast IPA, a stepping stone from the English ancestors with more crystal malt, a thicker base, & a darker body, is falling out of favor.

This is a little sensationalized – there are still plenty of east coast IPAs being sold (Victory’s flagship, Hop Devil, sure isn’t hurting).  But as far as what the kids are going for in an IPA these days, the bright, lighter, juicier hop bombs are in their hey day.  Ask for feedback on how to improve an IPA, & the answer will most likely be moving toward the modern model, throw in some Mosaic, Citra, lighten the color, trim the toffee/bready notes, & you’re getting there.  While there’s more breadth in this style than ever before, there also seems to be a gradual streamlining in the direction of some Socratic ideal, the collective unconscious’s perfect schema of an IPA.

Is it Heady Topper?  Maybe.  The rating sites would lead you to this conclusion, & plenty of brewers are now fashioning their hoppy offerings in this mold.  Or is it Pliny?  Or something from Hill Farmstead, or some other fill-in-the-blank brewery that’s catching the eyes of the beer geek populi.  I don’t know if we’ve cracked the code yet, but we’re certainly on our way.

The idea that there can be a “perfect” beer of any stripe is, to me, both distasteful & really intriguing, from a theoretical standpoint.  Rating sites & critical systems like the Beer Judge Certification Program imply that such an absolute exists.  What does a 50 point American IPA look, smell, & taste like?  It’s also a pretty fallible idea, really – beer, like anything else, will continue to evolve until a meteor wipes it off the face of the Earth.  People are already “over” the milestone examples I’ve mentioned & onto the next thing, which will soon also be passe. 

I say “distasteful” because I value diversity.  It’s a little sad to think that brewers might throw out old recipes in misguided attempts to keep up with the times, though I get that sharks need to keep moving.  The collective palate shifts, & businesses need to stay on top of what the public demands.  I pity the classic beers that end up in the vault, though, & there’s no reason that the same beer couldn’t do for someone today what it did for someone else ten years ago.  There are more drinkers of good beer now than ever, & I believe that we can bear the breadth of styles & tastes the supply side can yield. 

Speaking of Pliny - I give Vinnie Cilurzo a lot of credit for not changing the recipe.  After 15 years, Pliny still remains industry standard for double IPAs, is well-respected, & still commands a cult following.  I can imagine the temptation is there to throw in whatever hops are making tod’say geeks drool, but Vinnie has affirmed that Pliny is what it is, & hasn’t been updated to fit market trends. 

So maybe I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, & there’s not as much obsolescence afoot as I imagine.  Part of me thrills at seeing the popular taste evolve & embrace different flavors that weren’t out a few years ago.  I just hate to see traditions & styles fall by the wayside, victim to the tides of public demand (as I’m sure the hop-averse can attest to) & those who can’t stand drinking the same beer twice.  So let’s not jettison something just because it’s been around for more than five minutes.  There is strength in diversity, & cultures thrive when there’s as much variety as possible.  Even if you might have already been there & done that, someone else down the line is getting their first taste of something great.  

Top Shelf Thursday: The Tart & the Horsey III

Longevity can be fun.  It’s enjoyable to see how something changes the longer you do it, how it evolves & takes on new shapes over time.  Each year, putting together The Sour & the Funky during Pittsburgh Craft Beer Week, new trends emerge, things morph a little year-to-year; this year saw the first Gosen added to the line-up, as well as more local beers & more beers on draft.  So it is with our third “encore” Top Shelf Thursday (unofficially called ‘The Tart & Horsey’), held shortly after PCBW to throw out a little more funk for everyone. 

The German sours tend to get short shrift compared to the Belgians & American wilds, but that’s changing with the waxing popularity of Berliner Weiss, Gose, & other Deutsch obscurities.  We kicked off the night with a beer considered the standard-bearer of the Gose style, Bayerischer Bahnhof’s  Leipziger Gose.  This 4.5% beauty was light, effervescent, with a refreshing tartness & zest from the use of coriander, & could easily accompany one on a summer evening.  Hoppin’ Frog took this esoteric style & imperialized it, ramping the alcohol all the way up to a whopping 6% with its King Gose Home.  Named in honor of Lebron James’ return to the Cavaliers, this mutant Gose hit home with a more assertive tartness than its German uncle.

There’s some controversy about the use of the word ‘lambic’ outside of the Senne Valley, but luckily that heat doesn’t find its way into Free Will’s Grape Lambic.  Fermented with Free Will’s house wild culture, the vinous quality was apparent, & the beer was well-balanced without pulling too hard toward the sour or brett ends of the spectrum.

We were treated to a cool surprise & a first for these Top Shelf Thursday tastings, as not one, but TWO brewers were present to share & discuss the beers they had a hand – or a couple of burly arms – in creating.  Rivertowne’s brew master, Andrew Maxwell, brought his Yinzer Weiss, a blackberry Berliner Weiss fresh outta the tanks.  The beer was sweet & refreshing, with a clear blackberry character & just a kiss of acidity in the finish, ending cool & clean.

Though Belgian in name, Destihl’s Flanders Red also had a Germanic twist on it.  The traditional sweet-tart interplay was given a novel counterpoint by a strong lactic character, ending in a flavor not too far off from sauer kraut (though more appetizing than that sounds, too).  It’s cool seeing the rare sour beer in the can, too.

And our second show-&-tell came from Brendan Benson of East End, who poured Brett Hop, a version of their flagship IPA fermented with brettanomyces & lactobacillus.  The hops married wonderfully with the “wild” fermentation, emphasizing the beer’s floral & lemony aspects.

We stayed in the local vein with Brew Gentlemen’s brett-fermented saison, Loose Seal.  The dance of tropical fruit notes from the yeast & the New Zealand hops was great – we wanted to cry, but didn’t think we could spare the moisture.

Our course got slightly diverted when Perennial’s Aria didn’t want to pour evenly, so we took it to the west coast with Anderson Valley’s Horse Tongue Wheat.  I can see where they got the name – this wheat beer was puckeringly sour from a mix of bugs & time spent in wine barrels.

The brett continued to flow with Allagash’s Midnight Brett Ale.  The recognizably stony, mineral character of the wild yeast was given a unique support in the use of Midnight Wheat malt, offering a comfy, roasty base that bore the brett nicely.

All in attendance braced themselves for the notoriously sour stripe of The Bruery.  Oude Tart takes the acidity of a Flanders Red to a whole new level through extensive aging in oak barrels.

And rounding off the evening was Figaro, a two-plus year old sour blonde from Cascade.  12 months in chardonnay barrels, plus another 12 aging on dried white figs & lemon zest equals one complex beer that balanced an assertively vinous, acidic flavor with a twist of fig sweetness that helps ground it.

So we welcomed some firsts to this Tart, Horsey TST: Gose, more area-sourced beers, as well as the company & knowledge of some of our fine local artisans.  It’s a pleasure to see more new faces, folks finding that the wild world of beer has unexplored nooks & crannies.  And, of course, where would we be without our regulars?  Thanks to all for joining us on another journey, & hope to see you next time.

Fickle Mistresses

I used to have this fantasy.  It was born of seeing the beer guy at D’s, Hootie, always sporting this Ommegang sweatshirt.  I imagined beer drinkers forming gangs – like, actually street gangs – based on their affinity for breweries, or some other facet of beer culture.  Like, the Dogfish Head crew running into the Stone posse & waging an old-school streetfight, like the mods & the rockers.  I’m not talking about the actual brewers (though I know who I’d put my money on in a Sam vs. Greg match), but the fans, akin to the kind of hooliganism that follows soccer or heavy metal.  Maybe the hopheads, the Belgophiles, & the lager lovers would form separate gangs across the city, & beer fests would turn into riots with heavy security.  What if…

Not that I want to see thug violence besiege the community, but I’m always curious about beer drinkers as a subculture, & kind of thrill at imagining that parallel played out to a surreal extent.  Of course it would never happen, & not just because we’re generally pretty chill, self-regulating, self-policing people (in my experience).  You just don’t see that kind of diehard loyalty to a brand in craft beer.  Craft beer as a hobby is practically defined by playing the field – the more deeply into it you are, the more variety you’ve tried & WANT to try.  Craft beer is the vast continent beyond the mainstream, & once the door’s open, it takes a lot for it swing shut again.  Sure, you might hear that some prefer hoppy beers (or stouts, Belgians, sours, etc.), but that preference is almost never in exclusion to other styles, & doesn’t focus exclusively on one brewer.  You never hear “I’m a Great Lakes man.  Drank it all my life, just like my dad.  Don’t care to try anything else.”  Beer fans are like sharks – they gotta keep moving or they die. 

I imagine there’s a part, however small, of every brewery owner that finds that frustrating.  I remember Mark Thompson of Starr Hill speaking at SAVOR (via Craft Beer Radio) a few years ago.  Amid the beer-bro camaraderie vibe that always flows at these things, there was a little bit of angst in his tone.  At one point he remarked on what a “fickle” lot we craft drinkers are, how challenging it is to keep the public engaged, etc.  And he’s right.  That same angst was behind the hissy-fit Jim Koch threw in that now-famous Boston magazine piece.  As much as craft beer is all about the community as a whole, the little business devils sitting on everyone’s shoulders want to see brand loyalty, to keep them coming back.  There will always be a finite number of go-to beers in everyone’s pocket that we keep returning to, but I don’t ever see a craft brewery commanding “100% share of mind” from its consumers. 

That’s the double-edged sword behind “crafty” beers, the “boutique” brands rolled out by the big companies.  The corporations want to swipe a portion of the craft-curious market, & they’ve been successful.  But diversity breeds diversity, & once  those drinkers have tried Blue Moon or Shock Top, they’re open to many, many other brands that, before, were invisible to them.  Those companies have manufactured their own gate for people to walk right through.  But in the meantime, they’ve still shored up a sizable share in the action. 

That’s why the “Brewed the Hard Way” commercial was just what the big boys needed, right now.  It was to shut that gate & keep the flock right where they are: safe, sound, happy.  It wasn’t an “us too” message, but a “not us, thank you”.  Budweiser is what it is, & if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it – that’s the idea, anyway.  Keep it simple, know what you like.  Ford, NFL, Doritos, Bud.  There IS such a thing as a “Bud man” or a “Coors man”, & they are loyal breeds.  They are the univores who go straight for their brand, & if their brand’s out, leave, no matter that there’s an extremely similar product sitting right next to that empty space on the shelf.*

One of the more memorable scenes from Anat Baron’s movie Beer Wars places her in a bar with brand-loyal Bud/Miller/Coors fans.  On a table are three cups of beer, one each of the afore-mentioned.  She asks participants in an experiment to state which of the big three they drink, has them taste all three beers, & try to identify which one is “their” brand.  Unsurprisingly, everyone fails, demonstrating the fallacy of brand loyalty with such a homogenous product.  But it doesn’t really matter if they can pick it out – the tie has already been established.  There’s something about that beer that makes it theirs, & no doubt those blind taste testers have already downed hundreds of that brand, & will likely continue.

I, personally, don’t see myself becoming brand-loyal any time soon.  Sure, there are breweries I get excited about (I get psyched any time Lagunitas unveils something new).  But I always go back to the comfort of playing the field.  There’s too much out there, & I’m not ready to settle down yet.  And I bet a lot of you are out there with me.  Here’s to choice, & hoping the supply side keeps it coming. 

*Part of me hates using this “us/them” tone.  It’s presumptuous of me to speak like I know who you, the reader, are, but I’ve done it before & will probably keep doing it.