Rambling Thoughts on Session Beer

I’m in the midst of a “session”, I guess.  By that, I mean I’m drinking several beers in a row.  That’s a “session”, see?  And when I’m in the midst of serial drinking, the opinions start to flow.  For instance: have you noticed that more & more “session” beers are appearing on the shelves?  A few months ago, I playfully hypothesized that the “session” IPAs would replace the adjunct lager as the monolithic American beer style, given a hundred years or so.  We’re far from there yet, but the “session” IPA seems to be one of the fastest expanding sub-categories right now.  In some ways, it seems very transparent & cynical that more breweries are churning out this concoction – literally every week there’s another one or two floating around.  The skeptical, eye-rolling oldhead in me wants to criticize brewers for jumping onto a growing bandwagon.  But I was listening to a podcast episode on the way home from work today (Craft Beer Academy interviewing ShuBrew’s Zach Shumaker) & was reminded of the craft beer truism: “We brew what we want to drink”.  Sure, brewers are running a business & need to sell beer, but if this is the wave that they’re catching, why wouldn’t they just want to take their own stab at it?  If Ken Grossman drinks a DayTime Fractional IPA & says “Damn!”, why wouldn’t he want to make one, too?  It’s nice having an epiphany that helps overcome cynicism.

I use quotation marks around “session” up to this point (I’ll stop…now!) because there seems to be some controversy about what the term means.  Within the context of the recent craft surge, the focus is on the effect: Can you drink multiple session beers & still be fairly functional?  How functional do you have to be, exactly?  The idea is there, but it’s pretty subjective – I’ve seen beers as strong as 6% ABV called session beers, & if you ask me, that’s really pushing it.  Others (Lew Bryson, Martyn Cornell, & the infamously tenacious Adrien “Ding” Dingle) put a specific figure on the upper limit, anywhere from 4% (the latter) to 4.5% (the former).  It’s a debate of the letter of the law vs. the spirit, though personally, I’d rather see a definite number attached.  Maybe that’s just my need for categorization, the same that makes me wring my hands over stylistic parameters.  Ding makes the good point, though, that session beer has a tradition in England that has existed aside from just the ABV cap, whereas it’s a relatively new phenomenon in the US, & thus the US craft beer is struggling to establish (some artificially) its own parameter, one that diverges from the English boundaries.

It’s not all about ABV, though.  As much as the word “session” causes some controversy, the word “drinkable” has made a few beer geeks bristle as well.  Does it mean “easy to drink” or “enjoyable”?  Though accepted in craft circles traditionally (BeerAdvocate used to use it as a criteria in rating a beer, along with smell, taste, mouthfeel, & appearance), one of the big boys hijacked it in an ad campaign a few years ago.  I read this as a passive-aggressive insinuation that craft, with its generally ratcheted up flavor & alcohol level, was the opposite of drinkable.  If macro lager is drinkable, craft must be UN-drinkable, right?  Not a favorable adjective.  “Un-sessionable” is more diplomatic than “undrinkable”, implying that an imperial stout is something you can have more than, say, two of.  Fair enough.  And low ABV doesn’t equate to being sessionable, either.  Take a lambic from Lindemans: most are in the 3.5% to 5% range, but they’re sipping beers - rich, sweet, & full-bodied.  I’d have trouble sitting over a session putting back a few Lindemans.  It’s about lightness, ease of consumption.  God forbid, though, you use the phrase “light IPA”.  Again, gonna put out there that, like light lager has ruled for decades, session IPAs could come to be the reigning paradigm.  I can see it now - “Founders All Day IPA, the official beer sponsor of the Super Bowl”.  

Oh yeah – if something’s gonna be “sessionable”, it should cost less, too.  Fewer ingredients, right?  Pass the savings along.  This would be help encourage session drinking, too; if something’s meant to be drunk serially, why should it cost the same as something that’s meant for single consumption?  Lower the ABV, lower the volume of materials, lower the price.  Wishful thinking?  Enjoy your beer, everybody.

Top Shelf Thursday, May 2014: The Tart & the Horsey II

We just can’t get enough of a good thing here at The House.  Not content with throwing the first & only sour & wild beer festival in western PA (which wrapped its third year just over a month ago), we gotta have more of the beautiful funk!  That’s what this past Top Shelf Thursday was all about – bringing more of it to those who also can’t get enough!

Okay, done grandstanding.  After last year’s presentation of The Sour & the Funky, we had enough folks who either couldn’t attend because of scheduling conflicts, or who couldn’t spring for the entry fee, or who were just down for another round, so we decided to do an “encore” of The Sour & the Funky & fit it into one of our Top Shelf Thursday tastings, calling it ‘The Tart & the Horsey’ (“tart” is obvious; “horsey” is a common descriptor for musky, pungent brett beers).  Ten samples for $17 is easier to handle.  We think of it as the ‘EP’ to TS&tF’s double album.  As there were a few more repeat attendees to both the bigger event & the smaller tasting this year, we also mixed up the line-up a little more, including a few highlights from the original list with even more novel additions.  Batter up!

If I say that we started folks off easy, it’s by no means a discredit to the beer – it’s just that Lindemans Faro is easy to love.  A blend of old & young lambic, sweetened with candy sugar, this lesser known Belgian style hits a beautiful balance of sweet & tart.

Few had heard of California’s Cismontane Brewing, & their Flanders-style red, named Marea Roja, was the first of several for the night.  Though a little thin at first, the beer opened as it warmed, bringing smooth cherry & subtly tart vinegar notes to the fore.

We moved from the sour to squarely funky territory with the next two courses, both farmhouse-style ales.  Jolly Pumpkin is known for barrel-aging with wild & ambient microflora, which explained the aggressive foam that spewed from both bottles of their hoppy farmhouse, ES Bam.  It packed a big brettanomyces wallop, characteristic of this cult brewer’s work.  Liopard Oir, from Erie’s Lavery Brewing, was a little more smooth & subtle in the brett delivery, making for a nice contrast with the ES Bam.  Gaelic for “golden leopard”, the symbol that adorns the Lavery family crest, Liopard Oir took the gold medal in the Saison category at the most recent Great American Beer Festival – serendipitous naming!

If sour beer is to your thing at all, Timmermans Oude Gueuze will hit you right in the solar plexus.  This traditional gueuze delivered a pungent, complex aroma wafting over a seriously sour body.  If tonight’s tasting had a thesis, this would be it – all that wild beer can be.  All the more impressive that it comes from a brewery typically known for its lighter, sweeter takes on lambic.

While Timmermans Oude Gueuze is pure tradition, Evil Twin’s Femme Fatale Blanc took a turn in the more experimental direction.  A 100% brett-fermented IPA with the Kiwi Nelson Sauvin hops, Femme Fatale Blanc (like last month’s American Style IPA) demonstrated how well brett can complement the hop character of a bold IPA.

Speaking of non-traditional, we found ourselves at a cross roads of tradition & innovation with Drie Fonteinen’s Zwet.Be.  A porter fermented with the lees of used lambic barrels, it was interesting to see one of the world’s most renowned lambic breweries breaking the mold, creating a hybrid of two long-standing traditions.

California’s Almanac Brewing also flirted with experimentation & tradition with Dogpatch Sour.  Inspired by Flanders reds, Almanac took the step of adding cherries & fermenting with a San Francisco sourdough yeast culture, creating a deeply flavorful & aggressive acidic beer.  Locals Draai Laag also tend to bend the style rules in almost everything they do, & La Pienture (“The Painted One”) was no exception.  Falling somewhere between a Flanders red, oud bruin, & kriekbier, this anomaly was full of flavor, & we were happy to have tried it in its newly christened bottle form.

Last but far from least was Goose Island’s Lolita, the most nubile & seductive of Goose Island’s four sisters (I can’t believe I just wrote that – oy).  Brewed with brett & bugs, aged in wine barrels with raspberries, this little beauty was deceptively strong at 9% ABV, capping the evening with a delightfully deep, complex tartness & fruit character. 

So there it was, the “midnight snack” after a feast of sour, wild, funky beers.  I think what I appreciate about a flight like this is how much variation can be displayed even within a niche as tight as the “sans-saccharo” family.  As always, people were into the beers to varying degrees, but what’s important is that everyone was game & willing to try something that may have been a bit outside their comfort zone.  Then again, there were those found themselves right at home.  Different strokes.  As always, thanks to all who came out, drank, discussed, drank, & made friends over the course of a fun evening.  Hope you’ll join us next month – John suggested we do “staff picks”.  Could be interesting…

My Cantillon Story

Have you heard?  Sour beers are getting popular.  Mainstream news sources (most recently USA Today) have noticed the upswing in the number of sour & wild beers rolling off lines - google “sour beer trend”.  They’ve noticed the accolades that they get, & cultish appreciation around these mysterious bugged brews.  While sour beers are definitely trending up, it’s hard to say that there’s tremendous exposure or popularity outside of that niche.  It’s probably safe to say that the amount of sour beer being consumed in the US is still only a fraction of a percentage of craft beer, which itself still only comprises seven percent of overall domestic beer consumption.  But the attentive media, supported by anecdotal evidence within our hallowed walls, says that sours are hot.  Don’t know if the demand - OR the supply - will hold fast, but it’s an exciting time if you’re into these esoteric ales. 

And people are paying for them.  Sours are expensive to make, taking a long time to ferment &, if blended, more hands-on time than many other styles.  They’re temperamental – not all wild/sour fermentation turns out pleasant, & the microflora used to ferment can be fussy.  They’re limited, most only released annually, if that.  But when done right, the results are exquisite, & the demand is high for the good stuff.

It didn’t used to be.  When I hear about sour beers on the rise, my mind goes back nine years ago to Kelly’s Bar & Lounge.  It was the middle of summer, my sister was visiting from out of town, & we hit Kelly’s for dinner & drinks after a hot day stomping around the east end.  I saw Cantillon Kriek on their menu, & had recently had a kriek from Red Star in Greensburg, a very fruity, sweet, refreshing beer.  Thought the Cantillon would be right up my alley.  The server brought a 750 mL bottle to the table, way more than I was expecting.  O-o-o-okay.  I dove in & poured a glass.  It smelled & tasted like vinegar with the sourest cherry flavor imaginable.  I tried another sip – just couldn’t do it.  To my palate, this stuff was putrid & undrinkable.  My sister tried some & confirmed it.  Gah.  I ordered another beer – I forget what, but I’m pretty sure I played it safe. 

We finished the meal & the check came.  I scoped out what this turd was going to cost me - $16.95!  WTF?!  It was doubtless the most I’d ever spent on a beer up to that point.  Nonetheless, I held my nose & settled up, lesson learned.

$16.95 for a 750mL bottle of Cantillon.  At a restaurant.  And I hated it.  Maybe you thought going in that this was going to be a story about how I was into sours before they were cool, but it wasn’t & I wasn’t.  A year later I had a Rodenbach at a beer festival & thought it sucked, too.  Now Flanders reds are my favorite style.  It took another few years & reading The Brewmaster’s Table until I was ready to give sour beer another stab – the description, the history, the process intrigued me.  I tried a Lindemans Cuvee Rene & loved the complexity & challenging aspect of it.  I got it then; it stuck. 

We used to stock Cantillon regularly at The House – at the time, a bottle of Lou Pepe was $18, & I’m pretty sure it was the priciest bottle in the store.  Things have really changed – Vecenie’s doesn’t distribute it any more.  When a bottle does float in, it sure as hell doesn’t go for $18.  These days, Cantillon is one of the most prestigious brewers in the world, & the subject of much braggadocio among beer geeks.  A decade ago?  No big deal, just that weird brewer with the unpronounceable name, that makes lambics that don’t taste like Lindemans.  I chuckle & think about how good I had it, & how gross it was.  

Top Shelf Thursday, April 2014: Brother vs. Brother

It’s hard not to take interest in the lives of Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø & Mikkel Borg Bjergsø, the identical Danish gypsy-brewing twins.  That description alone should whet your appetite.  The story of the minds behind Evil Twin & Mikkeller, respectively, has been the stuff of legend.  How much of the rivalry talesares true?  Are they really never in the same room?  Maybe it’s a Tyler Durden scenario – who knows?  What we do know is this – their labels are hard to miss, & they design some damn good brew to back them.

I use the word “design” deliberately – it’s a stretch to say they “brew” the beer, though “make” is closer.  They create the recipe, choose the ingredients, & leave the actually brewing to the brewers at De Proefbrouwerij, Westbrook, Anchorage, or whoever is hosting their latest project.  Such is the nature of the gypsy brewer: ever nomadic, without a brick & mortar to call home.  Mikkeller (originally the project of brother Mikkel & friend Kristian Klarup Keller, thus the name) pretty much made gypsy brewing a thing, with others also adopting the ethos – among them brother Jeppe, in part, possibly, to serve as a thorn in his brother’s side. 

The fixation on these two has been long-withstanding, & an article in the New York Times magazine not too long ago spurred my interest further.  Why not use the Top Shelf Thursday platform to indulge this fixation?  All systems go!

If Evil Twin has a “flagship”, it’s probably their Hipster Ale, an American-style pale ale.  It hit familiar notes, with a citrusy overtone & a dry finish – maybe the only truly distinguishing thing about it was its place as the first canned beer poured at a Top Shelf Thursday.  Familiarity soon vanished with the second beer from Evil Twin, a smoked pilsner known as The Cowboy.  The idea of a smoked pilsner was new to pretty much all in attendance, & the flavors of the smoked malt overlapped well with the earthy & sulfur-like notes of the pilsner’s noble hops. 

We ventured into entirely different territory with Mikkeller’s Beer Geek BreAKfast (note the ‘AK’), Mikkeller’s famous coffee imperial stout tweaked by the brett-&-barrel-heavy Anchorage Brewing.  The coffee notes were prominent, complemented by the dry finish of the brettanomyces.  Brett figured into the next two beers from Mikkeller, as well.  American Style IPA, created in collaboration with fellow gypsy Prairie Artisan Ales, was fermented 100% with brett.  The strain they used was a relatively clean one, foregoing the expected barnyard funk & instead imparting a fantastic pineapple flavor to the hopped up ale.  It’s Alive, Mikkeller’s tribute to the renowned Orval, displayed its brett in a different way.  This one definitely had a funky, herbal nose, delivering more classic brett character. 

Perhaps the award for best label of the night went to Keith Shore’s fluorescent design for Mikkeller’s 1000 IBU.  While perhaps hyperbolic, many understood how Mikkel arrived at the name of this abrasive double IPA. 

Evil Twin’s Yin, described as a “Taiji Imperial Stout”, hit familiar strains of dark fruit, roast coffee, & a bracing malt & alcohol backbone.  Yin was conceived as a complement to Yang, a “Taiji Imperial IPA”, meant to be drank as a black & tan, though it worked perfectly well solo.  Booze played a role in Evil Twin’s Freudian Slip, as well.  This American-style barleywine bore a strong but balanced hoppiness that interplayed smoothly with the characteristic barleywine heat.

There were many looks of recognition when we broke out Mikkeller’s Beer Geek Brunch Weasel, a beer whose reputation precedes it for its use of kopi luwak coffee beans, processed through the digestive system of an Asian palm civet.  Though many had heard of this brew, few had tried it, & were impressed by the rich chocolate flavors & velvety mouthfeel.  And many questions arose around the final beer of the night, Evil Twin’s Lil’s B: what’s the ‘B’ stand for?  Who’s on the label?  Is it a young man?  An old woman?  Lil’ B left no doubt in the minds of attendees as to its deliciousness, an imperial porter that definitely satisfied.

Thanks again to all who came out to this Top Shelf Thursday during Pittsburgh Craft Beer Week.  If you haven’t read the New York Times article (& have a half-hour to spare), I strongly recommend it.  It paints the picture of the twins’ complicated relationship, & their place in an increasingly complicated craft beer world, poignantly.  As always, though, the beer speaks for itself.

#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!