That Super Bowl Ad

There are two kinds of customers that come into our place, & I can often tell what category someone falls into as soon as they walk in the door.  It usually has to do with how they move.  There are those who take their time, look around, want to scope everything out, ask questions.  They tend to move slowly, contemplate decisions.  Maybe they’re new to this & want some suggestions, or tried something they really liked & are looking for something similar, or want to know what’s new.  They’re frequently open to trying something different & know we have plenty of “different”. 

Then there are those who walk in the door, walk straight to the cooler, grab their brand, usually a 12-pack or tallboys, & head straight to the register.  They move quickly, deliberately, & only hesitate if they’re having a hard time visually locating their staple.  The latter group I’ll refer to as “monovores”; the former, “polyvores”.   Monovores know what they like & stick to it.  Why complicate things?  Polyvores want to expand & see what’s out there.  Maybe they’re just breaking into the wide world of beer, or maybe they’re already craft drinkers & are just mulling over the myriad options presented to them.  If you’re reading this, you probably know who you are.

I choose the (made-up) term “polyvore” as opposed to “omnivore” because a polyvore doesn’t necessarily drink everything.  They do, however, deviate from course at least once in a while.  Maybe someone drinks Classic Ice 90% of the time, but will pick up a Pumking in fall, or a Framboise once in a while.  They’re a polyvore.  And there are no craft drinkers who aren’t polyvores, who stick to just Abita Turbo Dog & nothing else, for instance.  Monovores can become polyvores, but the transition almost never works the other way.

We all know that ad - the one Budweiser aired during the Super Bowl.  That ad pissed a lot of people off.  Hell, it still kind of pisses me off.  But I don’t think it was designed to piss people off, at least not in the way it seemed.  It was aimed at the monovores, and was a call to arms, an appeal to the core.  It aimed to divide, celebrating “us” by contrasting and alienating “them”.    It’s a tactic used in politics constantly, by the Tea Party AND the Occupy movement.  This ad was a rally, a DNC or RNC.  The Two Americas.  This is why you like us, this is what we stand for.  This is why you are us.  And not them. 

Polyvores (like me) bristled at being classified as an “other”, dismissed wholesale as being ponderous & navel-gazing.  But it really wasn’t saying anything negative about craft beer, just reaffirming what everyone knows already & throwing it into sharp relief, proudly.  “This is what we’re about, take it or leave it.  THEY can do what they want.  That’s not US, man.”  And it’s nothing that the craft beer movement hasn’t done a MILLION times already.  How many times have you heard that craft beer is “not just for getting drunk” or “not just to slam”, which implies that pale American lager IS those things.  American lager still has a flavor, & people drink it for plenty of reasons more dignified than the craft world gives them credit.  Since its birth, craft brewing has had to paint big beer as an “other” to sell itself & gain exposure.  To some extent, this implicated big beer’s fans by association, & there’s at least as much of a vibe of exclusion in the perception of craft beer – what it isn’t – than trying to appeal to the monovores.  “We don’t drink like THOSE idiots.  WE CARE about how our beer tastes.”

This ad gives the polyvores a taste of their own medicine.  But it’s also a validation that the “other” is significant enough to be worth reinforcing the division.  Craft is a threat, & big beer needs to rally the base.  By implicitly acknowledging the threat (& by being dicks about it), Budweiser may have actually opened a few people up to craft.  Believe it or not, since that ad aired we’ve gotten requests for Budweiser Pumpkin Peach Beer from people who like the sound of it!  I’m sorry, Budweiser doesn’t make a pumpkin peach beer, BUT can I suggest… 

I find that comedians can often make my point in a way more poignant & succinct way.  Patton Oswalt’s one of my favorites, & one of his most known bits is skewering KFC’s Famous Bowls.  This bit got so much traction that a magazine interviewing the CEO of Yum Brands (which owns KFC) asked how he felt about Patton calling the menu item a “failure pile in a sadness bowl”; the CEO gave a blithe response about how he wishes Mr. Oswalt could “see the smile on people’s faces when they dig into one of our Famous Bowls”.  In a follow-up bit, Patton recounted this interview, with the quip that “I’m actually on the CEO’s side.  All he had to do was say, ‘Who the f*** is Patton Oswalt?  I’m a BILLIONAIRE!’”  See the parallel?  He says it so much better than I do.  I wonder if Budweiser did themselves a disservice by not just continuing to ignore the threat & pretend it didn’t exist, at least on a marketing level.  It’s still the status quo & may have just rocked its own boat.  “Don’t think about a pink elephant, Bud fans.”

Two other points before I wrap this up:  The ad wasn’t hypocritical.  It was an ad for Budweiser, not Anheuser-Busch InBev (& its acquired ex-craft brands).  It was just promoting the “us, not them” angle while a whole bunch of “them” happened to be watching.  And yes, the “brewed the hard way” slogan is bullshit, as illustrated by this counter-ad.

Thanks for tuning in for another timely blog post.  We’re happy to accommodate both the polys & the monos, & trust that you know where you stand.

Top Shelf Thursday, February 2015: Revenge of Valentine's Day

Shaping a tasting theme around a holiday is always a fun challenge.  Each holiday has different associations with it, some of which are more or less conducive to curating a line-up.  Halloween’s easy: chocolate, evil.  We covered that last October – AND the previous October.  This past November was our first “Thanksgiving”-themed tasting, centered around different food stuffs in beer.  There hadn’t been a Valentine-themed Top Shelf Thursday in a couple years, & then we covered chocolate & wine, in the various ways it presents in beer (wine hybrids, wine barrel-aged, barleywine).  Figured it was about time to recycle the Valentine’s theme, but since Halloween was not long ago, decided to push other aspects unique to Valentine’s Day – wine again, but also flowers, & love.  With a small group of beer lovers in attendance, we were all set for a magical evening.

The first in our bouquet of beers for the evening was also one of the few gruits we’ve featured at Top Shelf Thursday: Fraoch Heather Ale from Scotland’s Williams Brothers Brewing.  Based on a recipe millennia old, this ale was low on the hopping, seasoned instead with heather & bogmyrtle, another flowering shrub, & ginger, coming across dry & herbal with a definite ginger twist.

Lost Abbey’s Devotion Ale fit in name, though the devotion referenced is more of the monastic spirit.  A tribute to beers made by Belgium’s hop field-adjacent abbeys, this pale ale struck a nice balance between Belgian esters & a bright, floral character. 

We just got in AleSmith’s My Bloody Valentine less than a week ago, so I couldn’t NOT throw it into the flight, right?  A cousin of Evil Dead Red, this west coast amber ale had prominent piney hop notes, supported nicely by a malt profile that brought subtle dark chocolate & caramel flavors.

Hops are the female flowers of the eponymous plant, so I’d feel remiss if there weren’t a couple IPAs in the mix (plus I just wanted to try these).  Hardywood Park’s RVA IPA had a restrained bitterness & hop character for an IPA that said “east coast” from top to bottom.  Only fitting – the hops for this beer were sourced from the community, grown by Virginia home hop-growers in their own gardens!  

And Stone & Smuttynose joined forces to resurrect the recipe for the original Ballantine IPA, from shortly after Prohibition (WAY before IPAs were all the rage).  Using maize & some old school hop varieties like Cluster & Bullion, Cluster’s Last Stand was a cool look at what the granddaddy of modern IPAs might’ve tasted like.

The remainder of the night was spent in wine territory of one stripe or another, starting with Allagash’s Interlude.  A Belgian strong with a secondary fermentation by brettanomyces & aged in red wine barrels, this definitely satisfied our sour-&-funky pangs for the evening.  And we dug into another collaboration with Terra Incognita (get it – dug?), from Sierra Nevada & Boulevard.  The third iteration of a beer originally brewed for the SAVOR festival, this was quite a mélange, with a portion of dry-hopped young, blended with ales aged in wine & bourbon barrels.  I believe there was some estate-grown pale malt & a wild yeast in there as well, but the result was a well-rounded, malty beer, somewhere between a weizenbock & a barleywine, with a nicely tempered bourbon edge.

We hit the slopes with a pair of barleywines next, first with the Quebecois Brasserie Dieu du Ciel!  Their American-style barleywine, Solstice d’Hiver, had developed some wintergreen notes from the roughly half-year the brewery ages it prior to release.  Uinta’s Cock-Eyed Cooper, aged in bourbon barrels, was sturdy & robust enough to stand up to the wood.  The group concensus was that both of these could have used a bit more age to mellow out the alcohol heat – good candidates for cellaring!

And we landed on some very solid ground with Not the Stoic, a Belgian-style quad from Deschutes with a fraction aged in pinot noir & rye whiskey barrels.  Fans of Belgian quads found this one just right, not too sweet, & sporting both pinot & rye notes very well.

Thanks to all who enjoyed a most romantic Top Shelf Thursday.  Here’s hoping that you spent Valentine’s Day with that special someone, even if that someone is a glass of great beer.  See you in March!

Vanishing Eisbock

The romantic in me bemoans that there are few styles of beer that are truly seasonal.  With modern temperature control & preservation methods, brewers can pretty much make any type of beer any time they want, independent of climate or agricultural cycle.  Some styles can be traced back to their more “Earth rhythm” roots – saisons fermenting at warmer temperatures, for instance – & some just make sense based on what people want at a particular time of year.  A dark, boozy, spicy beer just feels right with Christmas.  4^th of July barbecue?  Not so much. 

A few styles come to mind as actually being seasonally, meteorologically dependent.  We covered harvest ales, made with freshly picked, undried hop cones, here.  The yeast & bugs that get lambic knocked up have less competition during the cold months, so they’re typically brewed from October to May (thanks, MoreBeer.com!).  And though, in this day & age, freezers forego the need for naturally freezing ambient temperatures, Eisbock may be the style most connected to its seasonal context. 

Legend (per The Oxford Companion to Beer) has it that Eisbock was born of a happy accident.  A Germany brewery worker was instructed to move a barrel of bock out of a cold part of the building to a warmer one.  He forgot – with delicious results.  The next morning, the beer was found encapsulated in a block of ice, having expanded & busted out of the barrel.  Fearing it was ruined, the brewer tapped into it & tasted the beer inside.  Eureka!  The freezing process had isolated a portion of the water, concentrating the sugars & alcohol & leaving a strong, sweet beer for the taking.  Its nickname is “Bavarian ice cream”, & before modern freezing & refrigeration, could only be made in the frigid winter months.  A very special beer. 

There’s some debate about whether beers that undergo this process can truly be called “beers”, as it’s seen as a form of distillation.  There are those who argue that, for a drink to qualify as beer, alcohol content should be achieved solely through fermentation.  Remember the arms race a few years ago, between BrewDog & a number of German breweries, to brew the strongest beer?  Those were all made with freeze distilling, squeezing out that meddling water & squeezing the ABV higher & higher (60% sounds about right).  Sam Adams boasts that Utopias is still the strongest beer made by fermentation alone.

But Eisbock still fits in the beer family according to most of the so-sayers who write style guidelines: the BJCP, the Brewer’s Association, etc.  It’s a beer most beer folks know about, but I bet you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who’s had one lately.  Eisbocks rarely show up on our shelves – Schneider’s Aventinus Weizen-Eisbock makes an occasional appearance, & once in a loooong while we’ll get some from Kulmbacher.  Voodoo’s Trapped Under Eisbock came & went a few years ago.  That’s all I can think of.  In my life, I believe I’ve had three, myself (Kuhnhehn’s Raspberry Eisbock was a treat after buying my first house). 

So yeah, it’s strange to see a style so well-known with so little real world representation.  It brings to mind the topic of disappearing styles, & what beers might be on the endangered list or next to go extinct.  Before being resurrected by craft brewers, many styles had vanished from the landscape, presumably by natural selection.  Berliner Weiss, Gose, Grisette, Grodziskie – styles that are making a little bit of a comeback were comprised of just a handful of obscure commercial examples til a few years ago.  Makes me wonder if others will be phased out with time, & fifty years from now some craft brewer or home brewer will read about dry stout or ESB & want to take a crack at reviving this arcane animal.  Part of the beauty of having such a decentralized movement is that people are free to make whatever they want, but there’s definitely some stream-lining, a slow flow toward slightly more conformity (how many kinds of IPAs exist now?).  Some styles may get left behind, or get an identity makeover.  But that’s evolution, right?  I look forward to the day when we’re able to order an Eisbock we haven’t stocked before, but before then it’s up to some brewer to make one. 

Which brings me to a point I meant to make at the get-go – & it’s frickin’ freezing out!  Until someone takes another stab, I guess I could try making my own.     

The Court of Public Opinion

The pool continues to get tighter.  Monday of last week, Lagunitas submitted an affidavit to sue Sierra Nevada over a perceived trademark infringement.  Lagunitas’ complaint was that SN’s new Hop Hunter IPA sported a label that bore too close a resemblance to the logo for Lagunitas’ flagship IPA.  The next day, news of the suit went public, along with Lagunitas head honcho Tony Magee’s accompanying tweets regarding the matter.  The backlash from the beer scene (as illustrated in micro on our Facebook page) was tremendous.  People were pissed at Lagunitas, said really negative things & made appeals to boycott them.  Even those who weren’t overtly angry at the plaintiff seemed to be in consensus that the case didn’t have much merit.  Most saw the case as just laughable at best, if not an act of aggression that violated craft beer’s “bro-code”.  There are always the apologists who validate a business trying to “defend its brand”, but even their voices were meeker than usual.  The public had spoken: “Not cool.”

And you know what?  Lagunitas backed down.  They listened to everyone who thought they were being dicks & took a look in the mirror.  That Tuesday night, Tony serial-tweeted about the attempts to contact SN without success, about trying to resolve a conflict person-to-person & failing, about opting for the hard way, & about how that looks to people who care about the ethics of an industry.  “Today I was seriously schooled & heard you well…Tomorrow mornin we’ll Drop the Infringement Suit & get back to answering other Questions.”  An admission of guilt & a concession to heed the consumer’s opinion. 

Not for nothing, of course – a business of Lagunitas’ size can’t afford to arrogantly ignore the collective ‘boo’-ing of their market share.  There have been scores of inter-brewery conflicts, almost always concerning trademarks.  This was different, though, as it would have been the first formal engagement of two major players with one another (based on 2013 volume, Lagunitas is the fifth largest craft brewer in the country, SN the second).  And it’s significant in that the outcome was altered by the court of public opinion.  Feedback is wicked fast these days, if you haven’t noticed.  News gets around faster than ever, as does the reaction to news.  It didn’t take long for the community to get whipped into a fervor, & Tony didn’t like being the target of an angry mob.

Gotta admit, I was surprised that Lagunitas withdrew the suit.  Pleasantly surprised.  The more the craft beer segment grows, the more the “It’s business” mantra rises in pitch, competing for volume with the “Brotherhood” cheers.  This was the pendulum swinging in the other direction a little bit, a wake-up call that craft consumers care about fair & unfair in the industry that they love & are supporting with their dollars.  It was a sign that, in the marketplace, ethics do matter.  There’s no telling what would have transpired had Lagunitas followed through with the action.  Maybe they would’ve taken a hit to the bottom line, maybe not.  But it would’ve been a blemish on the face of the craft community, & it’s encouraging to see that people do hold brewers up to a code of conduct.  Drinkers didn’t want to see more bad blood, & the supply side listened.

Just as I sat down to write this today, a piece of news fell across my desk.  Saranac brewed a winter seasonal, Prism White Ale, & got it bottled, labeled, & delivered to their accounts.  It wasn’t until they actually saw cases of beer from Philadelphia’s Prism Brewing Co. in a Philly distributor that they realized they’d made a mistake, & didn’t want a dispute to erupt over the name.  Saranac contacted Prism, copping to their oversight, & the two worked it out, agreeing that Saranac will continue to call their white ale ‘Prism’ while allowing Prism Brewing access to their laboratory facilities.  However few exist altogether, this can be another check in the ‘Collaboration Not Litigation’ column.  In a field that’s growing increasingly competitive, there are bound to be some locked horns & dust-ups.  It’s good to know that both the brewers AND the drinkers care about more than the bottom line, though, & that part of the enjoyment of the beer comes from a faith in its producers.  We can work it out.

Top Shelf Thursday, January 2015

It felt good to land back on Thursday nights again.  As much changed rolled out during 2014, culminating at the year’s end, the ritual of setting up, arranging chairs, laying out flight lists, lining up glasses, was terra firma to me.  It was comforting to see familiar faces, shake hands, catch up, find out what’s changed in their lives lately.  It’s exciting, too, to invite & get to know some new folks, learn about their tastes & opinions.  This Top Shelf Thursday felt homey to me, which is important when venturing into this long, dark, cold part of the year.

Speaking of cold & (occasionally) dark – the focus in choosing the line-up was loose, but leaned toward the ephemeral.  The beers selected would only be around for a short time – one-offs, anniversary beers – or had just recently found their way back to The House like some kind of prodigal kid.  Maybe ‘transience’ was the theme, kind of apropos for a new year.  And also a little ironic juxtaposed with the emotional tone I alluded to in the first paragraph.  Anyway…

It just so happened that there were a good many Belgian or Belgian-influenced brews in tonight’s flight.  We started with Zenne Valley edition of Lambickx, from importers & blenders Vanberg & DeWulf, associated with Brewery Ommegang.  This lambic was selected from oak & chestnut barrels from a proprietor in Belgium’s Zenne Valley, then blended to achieve the desired level of flavor & acidity, assertive but not as puckering as some.

We moved from tart & oaky to a tart & sweet mix with Lemon Chiffon Cruller Ale, the fourth in Rogue Ales’ series of collaborations with Voodoo Doughnuts of Portland, OR.  Sweet lemon notes jumped from the glass, buttressed by the use of vanilla beans & marshmallows.  Like or it not, everyone agreed it was like nothing they’d tasted before.

Great Divide Brewing celebrated their 20^th anniversary with a beer of the same name.  This Belgian-style golden ale hit the right notes for the style, & was given a boost of sweetness & fruity depth by the addition of Viognier grapes, putting it a little closer to wine territory.  And Browerij Van Steenberge marked their 230^th anniversary with a Brewmaster’s Edition of their Gulden Draak 9000 (a blonde quadruple), aged in American whiskey barrels.  The wood lent layers of toffee, banana, & coconut to the already flavorful brew, & a cool back-to-back comparison with Great Divide’s variation on a Belgian golden ale.

Counter to their character, The Bruery decided to color in the lines with 7 Swans-a-Swimming, the seventh in their annual series of Christmas releases.  Rather than using non-traditional ingredients or crazy processes, they stuck to style with a conventional (but exceptional) abbey quad with candi sugar.

Once again, Great Divide took a Belgian style & gave it a fruity twist - this time with Colorado peaches – for their Peach Grand Cru.  The sweet peach flavor took a front seat before allowing the drier body of the golden ale to carry through to the finish. 

Shmaltz Brewing decided to break with tradition as well with Jewbelation 18, commemorating their 18^th anniversary.  A dark barleywine with 18 malts, 18 hops, but “only” 12.4% ABV, the flavor hit just where a malty barleywine should (in my opinion), with notes of maple & caramel.

As is their wont, the auteurs at Draai Laag took some liberties with the barleywine parameters in crafting Yodeler, a “Belgian-style” barleywine fermented with four yeast strains, including brettanomyces clausenii.  The result was a full-bodied quad-ish ale with a smoothness that belied its 13.2% ABV & a finish that yielded a little fruity & floral note from the wild yeast.

We trod familiar ground with Huge Arker, an imperial stout from Anderson Valley aged in Wild Turkey barrels.  Make that “familiar, but welcome”, as the bourbon barrel-aged stout was like a hearty, comforting blanket, if just a tad rough around the edges.

And we cracked a new record for strength, topping off an already heady flight, with Dogfish Head’s Raison D’Extra.  This capped the “Belgian gone askew” motif throughout the flight, an 18% ABV strong dark ale with raisins & loads of fermentables, that married dark sugars & alcohol flavors beautifully in a package not too far from rum. 

So we hit some familiar strains, augmented by notes unexpected that somehow still worked.  Again, I think there’s a metaphor here somewhere, as we step intrepidly into a new year.  We let the known ground us, while also moving forward.  The only constant is change, the next step right in front of us.  A big thank you to all who braved the cold to tip a few glasses & embrace the new with us, & have a happy, healthy, & prosperous 2015.    

Dave's Not Here

“I think I’m done.”  John told me that Dave had said this before.  This time was different – the words, the voice, just sounded different.  Retirement had been on the horizon for years (he’d actually tried it once before & it didn’t stick).  John & I started working at The House on the same day; the plan was that Dave, the founder & owner, would phase out over the next year.  One year turned into three, & the guy was still putting in 60-ish hours a week, getting up well before dawn to come in & take care of business.* 

This past September, Dave passed a milestone: 40 years in the beer biz.  That career included owning & running a distributor (Allegheny Beverage), a sandwich & 6-pack shop (Jez’s Mart), a compulsory acquisition by the state to build a highway, then 6 & Save, which called several locations “home”.  About eight years ago, Dave used the property he’d bought along Freeport Street & built a commercial site, 6 & Save’s final spot.  He put in 12 draft lines & began growing his retail inventory. 

Dave found his passion for imports & microbrews at Allegheny Beverage, & wanted to be able to offer single bottles & six-packs at an affordable price (a case of Belgian beer seemed cost-prohibitive).  That inventory grew to 500 different brands within a few years, & a hundred more, & a hundred more, always with a special spot for the Belgians.  The draft list was growing & getting better, too, & the prices were the best in the greater Pittsburgh area.  This unassuming building with the drab exterior had developed a reputation as the best-kept secret around for beer geeks.

In December of 2009, Dave & the staff decided that “6 & Save” wouldn’t cut it - a destination like this needed a more fitting name.  The selection had become (as it still is) the widest in the area, & the owner renamed it House of 1000 Beers to reflect that.  A bold move, yeah, but it was time people got the idea that he wasn’t messing around.  Since that time, up to his last days as owner, Dave strived to offer people more choices than anyone else, & worked his ass off to make that happen.  He made the business a success based on his own interest & motivation, taking chances & assuming expense to bring in brands he knew to be excellent.  We at the shop always wondered if he was a hoarder, or a fanatic – the idea was always more, & different.  He has a collector’s mentality, & so appealed to the niche excited by the new, the rare, the unique.  Atmosphere, cuisine, had always been an afterthought.  It was all about the beer.

It’s hard to separate the business from its founder.  In a way, the new name was both grandiose & humble.  1000 beers – damn!  Yes, but it’s also a house.  A home.  Visiting, it was hard not to feel like you’d stepped into someone’s furnished basement or garage.  The House didn’t feel like a finished commercial space, or a slick restaurant.  It felt like someone had put it together with their own two hands, & wanted to share it with you.  It felt like that because that’s pretty much what it was – a business grown from the ground up, figured out one step at a time.  “House” was also apropos because the man practically lived there.  Though he’s had some terrific help over the years, Dave never stopped being hands on & putting in the work himself.  He was the face & backbone of the business, having walked the floors & stocked the shelves & coolers hundreds of thousands of times.  You’d often find his used coffee cups just lying around.  As it’s become for many of us, this was Dave’s home away from home – a 3,000 square foot man cave, that he busted his ass to make the best he could.

And Dave is done.  40 years, thousands & thousands of beers, countless loyal customers & friends.  He grew an organic business around a genuine love of beer.  And at the risk of sounding like a hack, he did it his way.  It’s a cliché, but it’s also one of the highest compliments I can think of to pay someone.  His business was his own.

A little over a month ago, Dave passed the torch to Art, a smart businessman & proven leader who shares a passion for beer.  The wheels are in motion, John is still in place as general manager, & while Art has plans for The House, they are not to undo what is set in place, but to expand on it.  Like myself, he came here out of respect for what Dave established, what it means to him & so many others.  Doubtless, we’ll still see the man around, but now he gets to cool his heels on the other side of the bar.  Raise a glass.

*Moment of truth: lest you think that Dave is some kind of egomaniac who refers to himself in the third person, it’s time to reveal that “Dave the Owner’s Blog” has been ghost-written for the past several years.  

I Don't Always Drink Beer...

Alright, alright - I almost always drink beer.  But man cannot live on liquid bread alone, & this time of year especially finds me venturing to other pastures.  Mine is not primarily a beer family, & in visiting the houses of kin over the holidays, if I don’t bring the good beer, it usually isn’t there.  Which is perfectly alright – I’m not too insistent, & it gives me a chance to veer off my well-beaten path.  My mother’s side of the family is full of wine drinkers, my dad’s is more spirit- & cocktail-centered, & my in-laws are pretty much a grab bag of whatever.  And holidays or no, sometimes I just get burnt out on beer (I know, perish the thought), or don’t want the bloat, or whatever. 

Even when venturing out of my comfort zone, I have found that my appreciation for other kinds of drinks is enhanced if I can connect the dots back to my beloved home base. Beer offers such a broad plurality of tastes, it’s easy to find bridges to other flavor profiles that might not seem glaringly obvious.  Or, if there’s not a bridge, I can at least see across the chasm & wave to the other side.  I don’t claim to have much knowledge about these beverage families, but here are a few of my favorite beer alternatives (“Malternatives”?  Uh, maybe not.) & their beer-adjacent qualities:

Bourbon.  Duh.  Whiskey is distilled beer, & of the whiskey varieties, I find bourbon has the strongest family resemblance.  The heady, dense sweetness, with notes of vanilla, coconut, cinnamon, oak, honey – it’s no wonder that the wood-aging trend started with bourbon barrels.  Sure, oak barrels had been used to house beer for years, but as far as the recent practice of filling second-use spirit barrels intentionally to impart flavors, bourbon fits like a glove.  Drinking bourbon barrel stouts, barleywines, & Scotch ales (arguably the best partner, in my opinion), paved the way for my appreciation of this fine American liquor, a taste my dad was very happy to see me acquire. 

Islay Scotch.  Scotch puts hair on your chest.  That smoky, grainy taste combined with a stiff alcohol will show you what you’re made of.  Among the Scotch varieties, known for their signature smoky character, the Islay single malts hold a special place, the most peaty, briny, complex, & challenging among them.  I remember my first Laphroaig, thinking it resembled a glass of housefire, AFTER the hose trucks had put it out – smoky, musty, organic, salty, astringent, funky stuff that burned & made me come back for more.  It evoked like no other drink I’d had, like an abstract painting in a tumbler.  Scotch holds an obvious kinship to rauchbier, but I liken the Islays to traditional lambic or other funky, wild ales, not so much in the flavor itself (there’s no sour to be had), but for its unpredictability & straight up weirdness.

Big, dry red wines.  I’m going to sound like a total plebe because I know next-to-nothing about wine – I can’t even keep the names straight.  But if someone offers me a pour, I go for the tannic, oaky reds, the more of both the better.  The acidity, the dryness, the sharp fruit flavor – you can easily connect the dots to Flanders reds & dry kriek lambics.  As more sour beers are finding incubators in used wine barrels, more vinous genes are intersecting with the world of beer.  The first time I had Russian River’s Consecration, you could’ve convinced me it was a wine.  I also think there’s some parallel between the intense reds of California & the power of west coast hop bombs.

Port.  Okay, so there’s one style of wine I know by name.  Believe it or not, we do get a good many oenophiles at the bar, & while talking once with a wine-loving young lady, I mentioned that my wine knowledge is practically nil, with the exception of port.  “That makes sense”, she replied, “It’s the wine that’s most like beer.”  And she was right.  Sweet but deep without being cloying, with notes of leather, a little meaty, even, a tawny port can overlap plenty with a Belgian quadruple, or an English barleywine.  When beers age, natural, subtle oxidation can turn them port-like & smooth.  A great sipper for dessert.

Ginger ale.  Somewhat on the back of the craft brewing surge, there are some cool artisanal sodas being made nowadays.  When my wife got pregnant with our first, I vowed in solidarity to abstain from drinking…in her presence.  While this gave me a hell of a jones, it also presented the opportunity to check out some craft soft drinks.  I’ve always liked ginger ale (ginger’s kind of a weakness of mine), & going through the selections at some of the better grocers around opened me up even more to the variety & nuance in this classic pop.  I saw a parallel to pale ales & IPAs in their use of hops, squeezing so many different flavors out of a versatile seasoning – some were drier, or spicier, or sweeter, or sharper, or bitterer than others.  Speaking to the craft beer connection, my favorite – Thomas Kemper, honey-like with a touch of smoke – used to be owned by Pyramid Brewing.

Coffee.  People are serious about coffee.  I’m not one of them.  I’m just as happy with the cheap stuff, I use cream & sugar, & the nuances of Sumatran vs. Ethiopian vs. Kona or whatever are lost on me.  I came to appreciate the flavor through dark beer.  Cutting my teeth on Guinness (including for breakfast, on occasion), it was not a far leap to come around to dark roast & the earthy, friendly bitterness it imparts.  Coffee finds a natural home in porters & stouts, but can play a really interesting role in an amber (like Peak Organic’s), or other anomalous style (like the black coffee saison we had at last month’s Top Shelf Thursday).  I’d like to work up to just tasting it black, to really get all the subtleties, but have a ways to go.  It’s comforting. 

Surprise – this is getting long!  There are plenty of other neighboring territories of libation whose surface I’ve just barely scratched.  Mead & cider seem to play sister to beer a lot, though their forms seem much closer to wine.  Sake is fascinating, though I’ve yet to try one that didn’t taste like bile to my neophyte palate.  The idea of blending herbs & teas seems to hold vast potential (even hop tea).  And there are many more craft distillers creating all breeds of inventive liqueurs & spirits these days, & mixologists using all sorts of cool ingredients to build some far-out cocktails.  So much creativity going down, it’s hard not to peek over the fence once in a while.