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Zen and the Art of Craft Beer

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Here’s an interesting item sent to me by fellow beer writer Lisa Morrison. It appeared on one of the television websites she writes for, in this case WISN Channel 2 out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

BluCreek Brewing from Madison, Wisconsin, is releasing a new IPA in August made with green tea called Zen IPA. The idea is to combine the positive health benefits of green tea with the positive health benefits of beer. It is believed to be the first of its kind, a beer with the taste of green tea flavor.

From BluCreek’s website:

An intense infusion of fresh Chinook, Cascade, and Centennial hops combined with natural green tea imparts this traditional English-style Pale Ale (English IPA) with something a little beyond the ordinary… A little extraordinary!

A beer that transcends beyond anything you have ever experienced before, the smooth and subtle green tea aroma and taste perfectly compliment the refreshing crispness of an English IPA. The result will satisfy those who are looking for something more mystical… magical… wonderful. Created for the IPA lover interested in more than just substantial hops character.

Beerfest is Coming: Run, Hide & Disavow

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Listed at the bottom of the poster for the upcoming film, Beerfest, is the tagline From the Comic Geniuses Who Brought You the Phenomenon “Super Troopers.” Super Troopers was a phenomenon? That’s a scary thought. If they treat beer the same way Super Troopers did the police, it’s hard to be enthusiastic for this movie’s release on August 25.

Based on the poster alone, the film seems to be aimed at the same people who enjoy beer commercials about frogs, twins, frat boys, catfights and girls in bikinis. I imagine I’m going to feel about this film the way Canadians must have felt about Bob and Doug McKenzie‘s Strange Brew.

A promotional tour for the Warner Brothers’ movie was in Portland on Sunday, the last day of the Oregon Brewers Festival. Throughout the festival, many people were talking about the film, but nobody had anything good to say about it, and I can’t say I blame them. All of the promotional material, the trailer and the bad puns seem to suggest an embarrasing — at least to those of us who think beer is worthy of respect — cinematic disaster.

This is the plot:

When American brothers Todd and Jan Wolfhouse travel to Germany to spread their grandfather’s ashes at Oktoberfest, they stumble upon a super-secret, centuries old, underground beer games competition – “Beerfest,” the secret Olympics of beer drinking. The brothers receive a less than warm welcome from their German cousins, the Von Wolfhausens, who humiliate Todd and Jan, slander their relatives, and finally cast them out of the event. Vowing to return in a year to defend their country and their family’s honor, The Wolfhouse boys assemble a ragtag dream team of beer drinkers and gamers: Barry Badrinath, the consummate skills player with a dark past; Phil Krundle (AKA Landfill), a one-man chugging machine; and Steve “Fink” Finklestein, the lab tech with a PhD in All Things Beer. This Magnificent Five train relentlessly, using their hearts, minds and livers to drink faster, smarter and harder than they ever have before. But first they must battle their own demons… as well as a bunch of big, blond, German jerks who want to destroy the team before they can even make it back to Munich. Revenge, like beer, is best served cold.

I generally disdain criticism of movies by people who haven’t seen a movie, but here I am doing it myself. That’s because everything I’ve seen so far about this comedy makes it appear that it can only further damage the image of beer in America. There’s some support for that in the write-up at the website Worst Previews. At the end of the trailer itself there is a mock disclaimer saying “no Germans were harmed” and that you should “treat all women with respect.” If you have to tell people to treat women respectfully, that probably signals that the film will do just the opposite, and the trailer does seem to bear that out. Unlike Oregon’s Brewers Summer Games where industry professionals compete in events that have some relation to their jobs, the Beerfest ones appear to be nothing more than juvenile drinking games. These are the sort of games played on college campuses and high school parties with the only goal being to get drunk, and often as fast as possible. I’m sure plenty of people will find that hilarious, because many people seem to enjoy comedies that drag them down to the below slapstick level that appeals to five-year olds and the blissfully uneducated teens and early twenty-somethings. I realize I’m sounding like that old curmudgeon whining about “these kids today,” but I do enjoy the ocassional low-brow teen comedy, especially ones that are smart and witty.

I think what bothers me about everything I know about this film so far is that it appears to be a two-hour beer commercial with all the worst elements that have skewed people’s perceptions of what beer is over the last several decades. Glorifying over consumption, pandering to male sexual urges, misinformation such as the “ice cold” idea or that low-calorie beer has any additional health benefits. The official website even has flying frogs holding a banner.

I realize people can be entertained by all manner of things, and certainly have the right to laugh at whatever they want. I’m sure Warner Brothers knows its audience. They’ve been doing this successfully for a long time now. But I just can’t abide the idea that beer will once again be dragged through the mud in the name of entertainment. I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to lift up beer and get it the respect I believe it so richly deserves. A film like this has the potential to undo so much of what so many of us have been trying to do for good beer that I just want to sit down and cry.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I take these things too seriously. Maybe I’m a lone nut shouting at the wind. Maybe this is what America wants, is yearning for. After all, my finger is so rarely on the pulse of America’s tastes. But to me this just has disaster for the beer industry written all over it.

 

 

If you want to see the trailer for yourself, here it is in a variety of formats and sizes:

Quicktime:

  • Super Hi-Res
  • Hi-Res
  • Med-Res
  • Lo-Res

Windows Media Player:

  • Super Hi-Res
  • Hi-Res
  • Med-Res
  • Lo-Res

Melting Ice Cap Beer

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I’m not sure if I should celebrate this or run screaming through the night as yet another unmistakable sign of global warming, but Greenland Brewhouse is making two beers using ice water from melting ice caps in Greenland. The water is at least 2,000 years old. I think when they claim it’s in the water, we can probably believe them. There is more interesting information in an AP article on the story.

Currently the brewery makes only a pale ale and brown ale, with plans for a Christmas beer later this year. The beer is sold now only in Denmark but the brewery says importers in Germany and America have shown interest in carrying the beer.

OBF is Coming, Get Your Watermelon Wheat Early

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Tomorrow the Oregon Brewers Festival begins and will continue through Sunday, July 30. I’ll be driving up early tomorrow morning with Celebrator publisher Tom Dalldorf. Perhaps I’ll see you there?

If you weren’t planning on going, clear your calendar and get yourself to Portland. It’s one of the best festivals in the country, beautifully situated in downtown Portland along the Willamette River at the Tom McCall Waterfront Park between the Morrison and Burnside Bridges. Each brewery is only allowed to bring one beer and many create a special brew just for the festival.

An inside source at the festival, Chris Crabb, revealed that the most popular beer at the festival is none other than San Francisco favorite, Watermelon Wheat brewed by 21st Amendment Restaurant & Brewery. A thrilled Shaun O’Sullivan, brewer and co-owner of 21st Amendment, was proud as a peacock to learn the news.

You may also want to consider playing a little golf in the 2nd annual Sasquatch Brew Am at McMenamins Edgefield Pub Course Friday morning beginning at 9:00 a.m. (8 o’clock registration). It’s for a very worthy cause and sponsored by the Glen Hay Falconer Foundation. The Bulletin is sponsoring a hole, too, so come out and join us. Check out the website for more details if you’re interested.

Landmark Returns

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Landmark Beer Co., of Syracuse, New York, after a bit of a false start, has switxhed their contract brewery to Wagner Valley Brewing and the first two beers from their new relationship should be out shortly. Brewer/owner Kiernan May reworked the recipe for his India Red Ale (which was previously available beginning in 2004) and re-named it Colonel Hops Red Ale.

From the press release:

The former India Red Ale will be renamed Colonel Hops Red Ale. May’s new recipe has three times as much hops as the old beer, and since those hops are Centennial and Cascade, it will have the citrusy overtones and bitterness of a classic West Coast pale ale. It’ll be about 6 percent alcohol, or about a percentage point higher than a Budweiser.

The second beer, brand new, is Vanilla Bean Brown Ale. It’s an English-style brown ale, with the addition of Madagascar vanilla beans. It’s 4.8 percent alcohol.

Beer Remains on Top — This Year Gallup Agrees

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According to a press release from Anheuser-Busch, a recent Gallup Poll indicates that people were more truthful this year about their favorite alcoholic beverage. Last year’s poll appeared to indicate that wine was overtaking beer, despite the fact that beer outsells wine by an almost 4-to-1 ratio, and has for many years. I never believed last year’s poll and this year’s, having put beer once more on top, seems to confirm my earlier suspicions.

Speculation last year ranged from people giving the answer wine as their favorite because of its perception of greater sophistication to problems with the sample taken, such as the one earlier this year by Merrill Research. In other words, asking people what their favorite is may not always produce highly accurate results since the subject itself is so subjective. Sales figures, on the other hand, are more reliable and they have shown beer far in the lead for years and years.

From the press release:

Findings from Gallup’s annual poll on Americans’ alcohol and drinking habits demonstrate adult consumer consumption of wine has decreased, while consumption of beer has increased five percentage points since July 2005.

Of those Americans who drink alcohol, 41 percent most often drink beer. Beer is the largest segment in the alcohol beverage category in both volume and dollar sales, and accounts for nearly 60 percent of all alcohol beverage servings.

A-B also used the press release to tacitly suggest that their Here’s to Beer campaign was responsible for the turnaround by including information about it directly following the Gallup Poll story.

Latrobe Brewery Workers Approve New Contract

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Union employees of the Latrobe Brewery voted 113-9 yesterday to approve a new -two-year contract with City Brewery of La Crosse, Wisconsin. It was undoubtedly not exactly a level playing field, but the Latrobe brewery workers agreed to pay cuts and reduced vacation time in an effort to save their jobs.

A few months ago when City Brewery was negotiating to purchase the Coors brewing facility in Memphis, Tennessee, Teamsters rejected City’s contract offer expecting them to make a counter-offer. Instead City Brewery walked away from the deal. That fact had to be on the mind of brewery workers when it came time to vote yesterday.

Union officials were quoted as saying that the concessions were relatively minor and not beyond expectations. Of course, City Brewery still has to close the deal with InBev.

Union official George Sharkey indicated that City Brewery is planning a 24-ounce canning line for the Latrobe brewery. Rumors also are floating around about the possibility of Latrobe starting up a new proprietary brand. The plant will close shortly, on July 31, with only a “skeleton crew” remaining to keep the refrigeration units in working order. No word yet on when the brewery might re-open full-time again.

Beer Can Regatta

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Today is the 32nd annual Beer Can Regatta, a boat race in which all the ships are made entirely of beer cans. It takes place in Darwin, Australia, in the Northwest Territories, which looks to be about in the center of Australia on the northern edge.

A couple of beer can regatta boats, made entirely of beer cans.
 

The history of the event is a great example of creative problem solving:

The Darwin beer can regatta started as an unusual by-product of the devastation caused to Darwin by “Cyclone Tracy” in 1974.

Owing to the considerable damage caused by the cyclone, large quantities of materials and manpower from interstate were brought to Darwin to assist in the rebuilding of the city.

As many of the rebuilding work force personnel were from the southern states, and were not used to the humidity, the consumption of canned beer increased dramatically.

This resulted in an abundance of empty beer cans littering the many work sites around Darwin, and as there were no recycling programmes in effect at the time, the beer cans became a litter problem.

A Darwin citizen, Lutz Frankensfeld, came up with the suggestion that they should hold a boat race, with all the boats fabricated out of beer cans. The theory was that this would give the local population and workers alike, an incentive to clear up some of the empty beer cans, and at the same time have a day of fun.

The inaugural beer can race in 1975 was an instant success, and it was decided that it would be an annual event.

Over the years it has developed into a major event on the Darwin social calendar, it is now run by the local Lion’s Club. Organised by various groups over the years it went from success to success, with boat entries ranging in numbers from 15 to 30, and in size from 1 metre to 12 metres.

A beer can boat on the high seas.
 

The race is for four adults in one boat, though there is a junior division for kids using only soda cans. There are six pages of rules but it all boils down to having the right spirit, especially in the funny “Ten Canmandments.” It looks like they’ve added all sorts of fun events over the years and this looks like it would be one great event to attend. Plus I’d much rather be on a beach in Australia than stuck in the heatwave that is California right now.

Hopping in Maine

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When Rick Courcy retired, he wanted to get out of the city and so moved his family from Masschusetts to Oxford County, Maine, known as the “Gemstone Capital of Maine.” He settled on a 90-acre farm in Paris, with a view of Mount Washington.

Mount Washington (along with Mount Madison) seen from the Appalachian Trail.

Courcy was whiling away his time watching television while still trying to figure out what unique crop to grow when he saw a beer ad and was hit by inspiration. So he hopped up and planted organic hops, built the requisite trellises and has spoken to area brewers who are interested in using locally grown hops. He’s called his hop farm Paris View Farm. According to John Harker from Maine’s Department of Agriculture, Courcy is now the only commercial hop grower in the state.

Now that’s great news. I don’t think I realized hops would grow in Maine’s climate but according to Harker, “hops used to be grown in nearly every farmer’s backyard.” I always thought the reason spruce and other plants were common as a hop substitute throughout New England was because hops wouldn’t easily grow there. Oh well, maybe it’s global warming.

UPDATE 7/25: Brendan from Beerdata.org did a really nice more in-depth piece on this story last week.

Connecticut Gives 21st Amendment Thumbs Up

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The Day, an independent newspaper headquarted in, of all places, New London, Connecticut, has a review in today’s paper of 21st Amendment’s Watermelon Wheat beer in a can. Author Tim Cotter has a nice little story about fruit and spices used in beer and apparently Pete Slosberg gave him a can of Shaun’s Watermelon Wheat during a recent visit to Connecticut. The paper also ran a one of my photos of Shaun and Nico that I took during our Ball Plant tour, which was nice.

Tim’s Tasting Notes:

After popping open the can I passed it around the house to see if anyone could detect a whiff of watermelon. Everyone recognized something fruity but no one was able to nail it as watermelon. I took one sip from the can and then poured it into a glass. The wheat left the beer cloudy in the glass. The taste grew on me, and about halfway through the watermelon flavor was unmistakable. I like my watermelon straight from the fridge — as cold as possible — and I wish I had chilled this can more. All in all, a refreshing summer brew.