World’s First All-Rye Beer

January 23, 2008 By Jay Brooks

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Most rye beers that I’m aware of use only around 10-20% rye with the rest being the more traditional barley. I’ve always liked that little something that rye adds to the beer and was in heaven over ten years ago during that year or so when it seemed like almost everybody was making a rye beer. These days, rye beers are a bit more on the rare side, though there’s still a few hundred being made in North America.

There is also a German style of beer, Roggenbier, which uses at anywhere from 25-65% rye malt, depending on whose account you accept. The German Institute says “half barley malt and equal portions of wheat and rye malts” are used while the BJCP guidelines say “Malted rye typically constitutes 50% or greater of the grist (some versions have 60-65% rye). Remainder of grist can include pale malt, Munich malt, wheat malt, crystal malt and/or small amounts of debittered dark malts for color adjustment.” Nothing against the BJCP, but I’m more inclined to to accept the version of the German Beer Institute since it’s an association of German breweries and related institutions.

So those are the common rye beers, what about using 100% rye? Well, probably the first and foremost reason you never hear about all-rye beers is that it is so difficult to brew with. Rye has no husks, like barley does, and that means it’s extremely difficult to sparge (which is spraying hot water on the spent grain) as without the husks it turns to a thick porridge or concrete.

There was a Irish brewer, Dwan Tipperary Brewing, who closed a few years back, who made a beer called All Rye Beer or All Rye Paddy at least once. But there’s no information as to whether it really used 100% rye malt, apart from that suggestive name. I’ve also come across an account of a homebrewer making an all-rye beer. MoreBeer’s forum also has a topic dedicated to why this is a difficult task.

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So perhaps I should change the title to the world’s only currently made commercial example of a 100% rye beer, but it doesn’t sound very sexy that way, now does it? At any rate, Bear Republic Brewing in Healdsburg, California on Friday, debuted what they believe to be the world’s first 100% rye beer. I was on hand to try some of the first keg of their new Easy Ryeder and talk with the brewers about it.

But let’s talk about the beer itself first. It had a dull copper color, slightly hazy, with a decent tan head. The nose was a little restrained, with some bready aromas, a touch of hops and, naturally, some rye character. But it was surprisingly smooth, mild and very drinkable, an easy ryeder indeed. I was surprised to learn it was 5% abv because it seemed more like a session beer to me, and I would have guessed a little lower than that. I thought the rye flavors might overpower the beer, but that’s not the case at all. It is light and refreshing throughout with just enough hop character (at 30 IBUs) for balance. It finishes with just a bit of rye flavor lingering, before dissipating quickly and cleanly. Again, I think my expectations were that if beer with just a fraction of rye tends to give it strong rye flavors and character, that with all rye it would be even more so, but that wasn’t really was not what happened. Instead, they managed to create a unique, ultimately very drinkable beer that in temperament seems closer to a wheat beer, but with the more barley-like flavors of rye.

The beer went through several trials before getting things right. To combat the wort turning to concrete, they had to watch the temperature fluctuations much more closely than usual (no more than 3-5 degrees or it turned to stone), and with bags of rice hulls added to make up for the lack of husks in rye malt. It was, of course, difficult to get the malt to break down and early test batches, if they didn’t become concrete-like, were still very thick and viscous and even hard to remove from the lauter tun at all. Even so, the first test batch that yielded drinkable results was the color of bad gravy, having a dull gray tint to it from all pale rye malt. Apparently it tasted fine, but who among us wants a beer the color of dishwater? Twenty-five pounds of chocolate rye malt was then added to give it the much more appealing color it exhibits today. The hops they used are Chinook and Saaz. It took four tries to get it right, as there really aren’t any manuals for tis kind of beer. Was it worth all that effort? I think so, as the results are quite tasty and in some ways different from anything else I’ve tried. It certainly must have been a learning experience and it’s interesting to see that it is possible on a commercial level to use only rye. It’s quite an achievement, and if you love rye — or just brewing innovation and creativity — you owe it to yourself to get up to Healdsburg to try this new beer.

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Bear Republic brewers Rich Norgrove, Jode Yaksic, Peter Kruger and Ray Lindecker. Jode, according to Rich, had the most to do with creating the Easy Ryder, from doing the research, test batches and coming up with the name.

Session #7: The Brew Zoo

September 8, 2007 By Jay Brooks

This month’s Session, hosted by Rick Lyke at Lyke2Drink, is another clever one. The theme is the Brew Zoo, meaning beers with animal names or labels, of which the beer world is replete with examples. Today was my son Porter’s birthday party (his actual day is Monday) and so I wasn’t able to blog yesterday because there was just too much to do to get ready for the party. So instead I decided to have something furry today.

In honor of Porter’s birthday, I decided on an English Porter I picked up somewhere during my recent travels. It’s from Nethergate Brewery, which is in Suffolk, England. It’s called Old Growler and is, of course, a porter. I tried it with my friend Sean Paxton, The Homebrew Chef, who was at the party to help celebrate Porter’s birthday with his wife and new baby girl, Olivia.

The beer had a beautiful color, black with reddish purple streaks, a very appropriate color which I’ll explain later. It also had a thick tan head with great lace and silky rich aromas of milk chocolate and dry powdered cocoa. Silky smooth and rich, thick with milk chocolate flavor and just a touch of vanilla and hazelnut. The hops are nicely restrained. They’re like finding a black hole, we can’t really perceive them but know they’re there by the obvious balance. The finish is very dry. There’s a lot going on in this complex porter and it would make a wonderful dessert beer.

Here’s how the brewery describes the beer:

Our famous porter has won at the CAMRA winter festival twice, the only brewery to do so, first in 1998 and again in 2003, also winning the highest accolade Supreme Champion in 2003. Also Supreme Champion at the Chicago International Beer Festival in 2004, in the porter category. A complex, satisfying porter, smooth and distinctive. Roast malt and fruit feature in the palate. The finish is powerfully hoppy with a hint of liquorice.

But back to the story of the reddish purple color.

Before my son Porter was born, my wife and I came up with a list of five boys’ names and girls’ names that we both liked. We had to do both since we didn’t know whether we were having a boy or girl. As perhaps the most anal-retentive couple on the planet we went through months of perusing baby name books and compiling lists, which we would then compare and knock each other’s out until at long last we came up with ones we could each live with to name our child. The idea was that armed with a few names we both liked, we’d see which one best fit after he or she was born. At one point, I even tried to get Bullwinkle on the list, but that didn’t last long. Brewer also made the short list, and I still like the sound of it for a name. Porter, of course, was on the final list, but I honestly didn’t expect it to be the winner. But then my son was born. At our Lamaze classes and in my reading, somehow I missed the information that there’s a point in the birth where the baby isn’t getting any oxygen before it takes its first breath.

So I was quite alarmed when my new son was a dull purple when he first made his entry into the world. As the doctor carted him off for his initial testing, I didn’t even know if he was breathing and was very nearly panicking. My first thought naturally was “is he okay?” After being assured that this was normal and that he was just fine, I began to calm down and drink in the sight of my first born child: the wiggling fingers and toes, the bleating cries and gasps of first breaths, and odd purple discoloration on reddish pink skin. My second thought then was “wow, he’s the color of a nice robust porter.” Later, after we were moved into a room, I was recounting these thoughts to my wife. She just looked at me, smiling, and said “well … I guess we know what his name is.” And that’s how my blond-haired, blue-eyed boy became a Porter.

Porter at his 6th birthday party, in the midst of his own zoo.

Session #3: The Mysterious Misunderstood Mild

May 4, 2007 By Jay Brooks

I was thrilled to discover that Dave McLean from San Francisco’s Magnolia Pub & Brewery not only had a mild, but had one on cask available at the pub. He put it on Monday so I was hoping it would still be there when I arrived Thursday afternoon.

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Happily, when I arrived I found both McLean and his mild, Sara’s Ruby Mild, at the hand pumps. The inspiration for Magnolia’s mild came from a trip Dave took to England several years ago. He found himself at the Beacon Hotel in the West Midlands town of Dudley. The hotel also included a brewery, at least since 1880, but it was closed in 1950 by the then-owner, Sarah Hughes. Her grandson re-started the brewery in 1988, naming it in his grandmother’s honor. Today the Sarah Hughes brewery has three regular ales, Pale Amber, Dark Ruby Mild and Sedgley’s Surprise Bitter, along with some rotating seasonals.

I ordered my first pint of mild and found a seat in a booth and settled in for some lunch. I was hungry and so it all looked good, but I tried to choose a dish that would pair nicely with my mild. I hadn’t actually been to Magnolia to eat since chef Eddie Blyden returned from Philadelphia and revamped the menu last year and the choices looked just terrific.

Sara’s Ruby Mild on cask was a delight from the first. It was a deep mahogany color with streaks of ruby red that shone in the afternoon light. The nose was light and subtle, with sweet, bready malt aromas. On cask, it was smooth and easy-drinking. Thick Brussels lace stuck to the sides. There was just a touch of butterscotch up front but it was mostly malt character throughout, dry and biscuity, and never overly sweet. You knew the hops were there because it seemed so balanced, but they never asserted themselves or got in the way, simply staying in their place, out of the way. Overall a very well-conditioned beer with a nice, clean dry finish.

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Magnolia used primarily Maris Otter malt — around 65% — and three more crystal malts and some black malt, along with Fuggles and Golding hops. The yeast used was their regular ale yeast, a flocculent London variety. Original gravity was around 1038 or so, and yielded around 3.7% ABV, a true session beer.

I started with an appetizer of bacon wrapped roasted chestnuts that were superb and were washed down nicely by the mild.

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Then a slightly spicy Cuban sandwich of garlic pork and ham with swiss cheese on grilled panini bread. Here the mild paired really well, neutralizing the spiciness with each sip, cleansing my palate and readying me for the next bite. Before I knew it, I’d finished off my second pint.

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For curiosity’s sake, I walked the few blocks down Haight Street to Dave McLean’s new bar, the Alembic, where he’d mentioned that he had the mild there in its non-cask form. It’s a shame I didn’t try it before the cask, but the Alembic didn’t open until four so there was no way around it. Good as the mild was at the Alembic, it suffered by comparison to the cask-conditioned version. Even in appearance it was slightly more orange and not as ruby, but with a thick, pillowy ivory head. It was gassier, naturally, and not as smooth, which made the hops more pronounced, especially in the finish.

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But now I see why CAMRA and English beer lovers are crying over the loss of this fine beer, especially in its real ale form. Because that’s where milds really do shine. On cask, their more subtle flavors really burst forth and you can see yourself enjoying quite a few of these beers in one — ahem — session. If not for the tug of my children (I did have to pick them up at their preschool) I could have easily spent the entire afternoon curled up with a good book or talking with friends, enjoying pint after pint of Sara’s Ruby Mild. This style definitely deserves to be less mysterious, better understood and more available. If there aren’t any milds made where you live, ask your local brewery to make one. There’s no reason that we have to be mild about promoting milds. To borrow CAMRA’s phrase, we can be “wild about milds.”

If you want some history and background on the style Mild, please take a look at my overview of milds, which I posted a few days ago.

Our first “Session” post was by Al at Hop Talk, who blogged about his fruitless search to find a mild in his area. Next, Kevin at KevBrews in Ohio managed to find just one example in his local store stocked with 800 beers, highlighting just how underrepresented this style is in America. The beer they did have was Three Floyds Pride & Joy Mild, a beer the brewery describes as a “hoppy interpretation of the style,” which as Kevin notes makes it “too bright, too hoppy, too citrus to be a true mild.” He concludes that he’ll stick with Bell’s Best Brown for a session beer.

Over in Sweden, Knut at the eponymous Knut Albert’s Beer Blog, writes about Pumpviken påskøl, which is the Easter seasonal from the Nynäshamn Steam Brewery located in a small town south of Stockholm. At 5.8% he finds that it is still close to the English style, describing it as “less bitter than a bitter, and more flavourful than a (standard) brown ale.” Of course, a century or more ago, the original milds were much stronger than today so perhaps Knut has stumbled upon one made in the original way?

Stonch, who’s a Londoner, naturally had an easier time finding a mild, though even in its native England it still requires some effort. He thoughtfully highlights some pubs around London that support and stock milds year round. Look for him to continue writing about milds throught the month. Stonch in an earlier post also reviewed Elgood’s Black Dog, which he describes as “a fantastic 3.6% abv dark mild with a distinctive and moreish smoky flavour.”

At A Good Beer Blog, Alan puts on his armor and goes on an “Unlikely Quest For A Mild,” settling finally on “Vanilla Bean Brown Beer” by Landmark Beer Co., a contract brewer in New York. Ultimately a little disappointed, Alan finds it “a bit overwhelmed by a syrupy and bitter dark chocolate vanilla statement that leaves little left to the malt.” He has one more prospect to open tomorrow, but for now he eloquently concludes.

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The lesson is this – you are never going to see a flavoured mild or an extreme mild. Mild is only itself. No muss, no fuss. No fanfare, no breakthrough in technology. Just a newly matured light, clean, flavourful and, yes, watery beer. It’s a confident statement of the light hand that it takes to make it.

Next up, Craig, one of the bloggers at Beers, beers, beers reviewed a bottle of Black Cat, a dark mild from Moorhouses in England. It was gratifying to read that he’d never had a mild before but was giving it a try to participate in the Session. And while he generally prefers “something with a little more punch,” his review is generally positive, concluding that “it’s a little surprising that this isn’t a more popular style here. It’s really drinkable, due to it’s low alcohol content and mild flavor.”

Donovan at Catch & Release went all out, setting sail for the other side of the pond and a visit to the Market Porter (a great London Pub I went to in January) for a podcast show tasting a Gunpowder Strong Mild from Coach House Brewing. You can download the podcast at the Internet Archive.

Captain Hops at the Beer Haiku Daily was also unable to find a mild for today’s Session, though he did write a haiku about his search, and posted the two haikus I wrote about milds. In his e-mail to me, he writes that nothing “could call attention to the plight of the mild like the fact that half the beer bloggers out there had trouble finding one. Now I feel like I am on a mission! It seems that several of the local breweries have made them at one time, but no longer have them on their rosters. Perhaps a little encouragement ….” Still searching for “that elusive mild,” Captain Hops nonetheless has been enjoying Wild Goose Nut Brown Ale lately, which though not strictly a mild is similar in style and certainly a milder, less extreme beer.

Jon from The Brew Site in the Pacific Northwest likewise had some difficulty finding a true mild but in the spirit of the day tasted Old Speckled Hen. While an English Pale Ale, it was considerably milder than most of what he found available in his area. Although earlier this week he did review BridgePort’s new Beertown Brown, another local contender for kinda, sorta mildish.

Thomas, from the other side of the country, in Massachusetts, on his Thom’s Beer Blog, reviewed “Midlands Mild: A Spoonful Weighs A Ton” from John Harvard’s Brew House, a dark mild style which the brewpub described thusly:

Not all ‘light’ beers are light in color, or flavorless; not all ‘dark’ beers are overpowering in flavor or alcohol. Mild ales from England’s Midlands region are a little known example. A so-called ‘cloth cap beer,’ these drinkable session ales sustained farmers through the harvest season. Dark, mellow, flavorful and surprisingly complex at 3.2% alcohol by volume, this is the perfect ale to debunk popular beer myths.

Thom gave the beer high marks and thought it pretty much nailed the style guidelines, writing the following about its flavor. “Very nice maltiness that’s sweet, but never cloying. There are notes of caramel, dark fruit, a little bit of burnt sugar as well as a mild graininess. Mellow, but flavorful.”

Then we skip back to the west coast again to Dave’s blog about the L.A. beer scene, “Hair of the Dog Dave.” Dave also had some difficulty finding a mild, likening his search to trying to find an “honest mechanic.” He eventually stumbled onto Riggwelter from Black Sheep Brewery, located in Masham, England, which is aparently the gateway to Wensleydale (sorry I’m laughing right now, as should everyone who really knows Monthy Python’s Cheese Sketch). Dave followed up to remind me that in fact it’s Black Sheep Brewery that also makes the hilarious Monty Python’s Holy Grail Ale, a novelty beer created for the comedy troupe’s 30th anniversary.

Dave also has some cool information about the beer’s name. Riggwelter, interestingly enough, “comes from Old Norse. Rygg means back and velte means to overturn, so when sheep get stuck on their backs and can’t get up, they are riggwelted. I didn’t even know this happened to sheep.” As for the taste, he was initially put off by over time came to enjoy his foray into milds, describing it as having flavors of “roasted malt, with a subtle bitterness throughout, with the tiniest hint of sourness in the finish.”

Next we head north to Canada and Greg Clow’s Beer, Beats & Bites. He found a “Mild Brown Ale” at C’est What, a Toronto brewpub. At only 3.4% ABV and served on “nitro-tap” it was a real session beer. Greg wrote up the beer back in February for his Beer of the Week column that he does for Taste T.O., concluding that it was “nice to have a flavourful beer that one can quaff several pints of in a session without falling off one’s barstool in the process.”

Then over to Andrew Ager at another eponomously named blog, Andrew Ager dot com, in New England where he posits that Three Floyd’s Pride & Joy Mild, which KevBrews also wrote about, is in fact an extreme mild, thus in effect refuting Alan from A Good Beer Blog’s assertion that we are “never going to see a flavoured mild or an extreme mild.” Andrew goes on to talk about the “rare and lusty Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby Mild,” which is the beer that inspired Dave McLean at Magnolia to create his own “Sara’s Ruby Mild” which in turn was the beer I wrote about. Ah, what comes around goes around, especially if you swirl it.

John at Sine Qua Non made his own homebrew for the ocassion and muses wistfully that, although milds may be one of his favorite styles, he’s “never had a ‘real’ mild, i.e. one brewed in Britain to a traditional recipe” and further questions “if many Brits have either” given that the beer now called in mild is quite different, at least in terms of strength, then it was a century ago. John describes his own effort as “malty-sweet with a bit of a chocolate-nutty character and a touch of roastiness in the dry finish. Medium-full bodied and creamy, with a good head if there’s enough CO2 to support it.”

Our journey next takes us again north of the border to Canada for Stephen Beaumont’s A Mild Session at his blog on That’s the Spirit, where I initially am docked a few points for my choice of mild both on the basis of scarcity and season. Of course, Stephen managed to find two and can I really be faulted for the weather in Toronto? It’s not like I had anything to do with global warming. Did I leave the oven on? When I had my beer yesterday in San Francisco is was cool, slightly gray and a little windy — ideal weather for my mild.

Like fellow Torontoan Greg Clow, Stephen also chose the C’est What Mild Brown Ale. And despite a couple of delivery issues, he liked it, he really liked it, concluding that “the MBA passes the true test of a mild, which is to say it needs make no apologies for its lack of strength. This is not only a very fine beer, but also proof that you don’t necessarily require big hops or big alcohol to make a beer interesting.”

Next we head back south, not quite all the way to the border, to New Mexico for some more history at Stan Hieronymus’ Appellation Beer. Stan decided to break his own promise and made his own mild, though he strayed quite a bit from the style parameters, including using no hops in favor of a mild gruit. I’m not sure he’s entirely happy with the results, but I’ll let his own words describe his beer.

I used a little more lightly smoked malt than [Randy Mosher] suggested — and, by golly, Wheeler and Protz talk about smoked malt in early Milds — and the mix of spices was different since I walked around my yard and collected stuff I knew wouldn’t kill you. Even though I cut back on the cardamom it still dominates right now, and might forever. It adds an unfortunate astringent note, not totally unlike a badly hopped beer.

Alan had one more go at A Good Beer Blog, sampling a Nut Brown Ale from Black Oak Brewing from Canada, but it, too, came up short. Close, but no cigar.

Rick over at Lyke 2 Drink also came up snake eyes in his search for a mild, but Rick regales us with a little more mild history before detailing his Herculean effort to track down a beer to write about.

Late in the evening, just after midnight, Lew Bryson explained his conspicuous absence somewhat cryptically, but then rallied the next day while attending the Southern California Homebrewing Festival, where he found four on cask, three of which he sampled. Lew also philosophized how and where milds fit into his session beer project and theorized as to why they’re not more popular here on this side of the pond.

That looks like it’s all for this “Session.” Thanks to everyone who particiated, even those who were frustrated in their attempts to actually find a mild. Although I felt like a few people gave me a hard time over my choice, the point really was to raise awareness about this somewhat rare and unknown style and I think we succeeded not only with the milds that were found and written about, but also with the fact that they are so hard to find, a fact very well illustrated by many of our intrepid bloggers. But if we play it safe and pick, say “pilsners” (sorry Al, didn’t mean to throw you under the bus) then we have some fun and enjoy ourselves but we don’t really accomplish much of anything. And if nothing else, we should at least use this forum to educate and illuminate what makes beer so special that we take the time to study it, drink it and write about it.

American Brew on A&E Tonight

April 7, 2007 By Jay Brooks

Tonight on the A&E cable network, they’re airing Roger Sherman’s documentary, The American Brew. The first showing is at 10:00 p.m. (Eastern and Pacific)/9 Central and Mt. and then again on Sunday, April 8 at 2:00 a.m./1 Central/Mt.

I was fortunate enough to get an advance rough cut of the film a little while ago, and have watched it a couple of times, including the excellent bonus features on the DVD. Assuming my rough cut is substantially similar the final edit, which I presume it is, I can heartily recommend watching it. The film was sponsored and paid for by Anhesuer-Busch through their P.R. project Here’s to Beer. I saw about a quarter of it in teaser form last fall at GABF, too. Back then, Bob Lachky jokingly mused that he’d have to answer to Augie for how little A-B was represented in story. In the final show, that has been rectified, and my biggest criticism is that it feels now like they’re a little over-represented. When I spoke to an A-B rep. about that, he replied that it was appropriate given their market share and relative importance in the history of American brewing. Maybe, I won’t quibble about either points, but if the goal of Here’s to Beer is to raise the status and awareness of all beer, than I’m not so sure that’s a valid argument. But that aside, it’s well worth watching, and aside from a couple of the segments that I thought ran a little too long, was nicely done. The production values, special effects and storytelling are all a cut above the usual television documentary and, nothing against A&E but, it certainly would have felt just as right at home on PBS.

The history is well-done, though I thought the older history was dwelled upon a little long while the more recent history given shorter shrift. I would liked to have seen even greater emphasis placed on changes to the industry over the last 25 years, because most beer histories simply ignore this period of recent growth. So while it was great seeing even a little more about the birth of craft beer, the film left me hungry for much more. It was great fun seeing a film in which I knew practically everybody being interviewed. Outside of my own home movies, that almost never happens.

I think this overview of America’s brewing history is ideal for the beginner who wants to learn more. But it’s also great fun for those of us who are already intimately familiar with beer’s story, not least of which because the passions of the people on-screen come through with wild abandon. So despite a few quibbles here and there, it’s a thoroughly enjoyable film and a great calling card for the industry. But everyone should really go ahead and buy themselves a copy of it on DVD. Not only is it a mere $5.49 from the Here’s to Beer Website, but for that paltry sum you also get double the fun, with almost a full hour of extra and extended interviews with several beer luminaries.

The poster for American Brew.

Session #2: Dubbel Your Pleasure

April 6, 2007 By Jay Brooks

For our second session of Beer Blogging Friday I went a little farther from home and chose an old favorite, Westmalle Dubbel. Dubbel, of course, doesn’t mean the beer is double anything, but merely that it’s stronger than the single and not as strong as the tripel. It’s all relative, meaning the strength of dubbels can vary widely. Nor should the dubbel be based on the single but is more often its own and very separate style, as opposed to an Imperial or Double IPA (which is at least based on an IPA).

Westmalle undoubtedly made the first modern dubbel shortly after World War Two, and based it on a heavier beer they began making in 1926, which itself was based on a darker beer pioneered around 1856. So there’s quite a bit of history in every sip, though I don’t know if the brewer originally had a limp or not. I make that comment in reference to a Publican article by British beer writer Ben McFarland where he essentially excoriates amateur beer snobs, going so far as to call them “condescending clowns” and other rather insulting word portraits of his vision of the classic beer snob. One of these was the beer snobs “patronising dismissal of any beer that isn’t brewed by a 16th century monk with a limp.” In a later rebuttal of sorts on Rate Beer, McFarland indicated he intended the piece to be a “light-hearted article” but also that he was trying to make the point that “beer snobs are damaging beer’s appeal by taking it too seriously.” I frankly thought his article was in fact damaging to beer enthusiasts and enthusiasm, and said so. Though I more often very much enjoy McFarland’s writing style — his piece in the new issue of the Celebrator, for example, is priceless — this one seemed more vindictive and spiteful than it did tongue-in-cheek or funny.

But Westmalle Dubbel is without question, if not a beer snob’s beer, certainly a beer for the enthusiast or aficionado rather than McFarland’s “everyday chap.” That’s too bad, really, as it should be more of an everyday beer. The monks assuredly don’t view it as anything too special, just another beer in the mix, though perhaps reserved for a particular day, Good Friday for example. But compared with so much of what passes for beer, it really is quite extraordinary.

Some form of this beer was indeed more than likely brewed in the 16th century by a Trappist monk — though the limp remains purely speculative. It was revived again during the 19th century’s industrial revolution when many Abbey breweries began to modernize and then revived yet again in its present form some sixty years ago.

Happily, I’ve got the right glass for this beer and it’s finally warmed up enough to open it. It’s quiet in my office, and I can hear the bubbles crackle as I pour it down the center to release the CO². The tan head recedes after a couple of minutes, revealing a deep mahogany color. I grandiosely swirl the glass to enhance the aroma and inhale ostentatiously (note: in case you missed it, this last bit is sarcasm, it was a regular swirl and I used my everyday nose). The nose is sweet and malty with some underlying fruitiness — raisins? — with a hint of characteristic nuttiness. The first sip is a jolt of sweetness with a raisiny, prune-like character. In subsequent tastes, the beer dances on my tongue with a pleasant effervescence. The malt character continues to change with time and chocolate notes become more common, as do tiny hints of banana and some kind of berry or fig that I can’t quite put my finger on. The finish is clean and dry.

Westmalle’s Tripel deservedly gets a lot of attention, in the manner of a favorite son or daughter. But the dubbel is no Jan Brady, and has plenty of secret and not-so-secret admirers, of which I am unabashedly one. I’m sure I’m not the only person who will write about this beer today, as it is one of the truly great dubbels around.

But back to this question of beer snobs and how taking themselves too seriously might be “damaging beer’s appeal.” Westmalle’s Dubbel is, I think, a perfect example of a beer worthy to be taken seriously. Should that fact be off-putting to the novice or uninitiated? Must I tone down my enthusiasm for this beer so as not to scare off “potential drinkers?” Frankly, if anyone won’t try a Westmalle Dubbel because I waxed too lyrically about it or used “absurd verbal acrobatics” to describe it, then that person wasn’t ready yet anyway. I want to bring people over to the cause of better beer at least as much as McFarland does, possibly even more so, but I don’t think discouraging or disparaging a beer geek who’s stepped over the line into snobbery is a very helpful or effective tactic.

Like it or not, the people McFarland so disdains are the very people who can and will carry the message of good beer in their own personal missions. Will they always carry out their missionary work in a way we’d like, in the way we might do it, or even in a way that brings honor to the cause? Probably not, and at least not all the time.

But maybe, just maybe, those of us in the public eye as brewers or beer writers didn’t always know as much as we do today. Perhaps we once were empty vessels waiting to be filled, too. As I learned about better beer and began homebrewing, I tried to talk to anyone and everyone I knew about how good this stuff was, especially compared to the popular bile of the day. Did I make mistakes, overstep myself beyond what I really knew or make a fool of myself. Why yes, yes, I did. Was I a beer snob? Yes, from time to time I was insufferably so. Thank goodness nobody gave me the advice to just “shut up and drink it.” Because over time I learned more and more and made a fool of myself less and less. And I have personally introduced better beer to scores of people, who are today telling two friends, who in turn will tell two more, and so on and so on, dubbeling our pleasure at every turn.

The Blogging Debate

March 26, 2007 By Jay Brooks

Tomme Arthur from Port Brewing sent me, and a few other brewers, a link to a San Francisco Chronicle article entitled “Food bloggers dish up plates of spicy criticism, Formerly formal discipline of reviewing becomes a free-for-all for online amateurs” by staff writers Stacy Finz and Justin Berton. Now given the internet’s erosion of traditional media like newspapers, it’s not terribly surprising that the Chronicle article, while somewhat balanced, does lean a little on the side of traditional critics like those employed by the San Francisco newspaper. Obviously, this particular story is about food but it’s just as applicable to beer blogs and ratings websites, too. A lively e-mail debate ensued, with many expressing their positive and negative feelings about beer writing on the internet. And that got me thinking once more about this question, which comes up from time to time, about whether blogging is a good or bad thing for the beer industry.

Brewers, quite understandably, view beer bloggers and ratings websites like Beer Advocate and Rate Beer as a double-edged sword. On the positive side, there are thousands (millions?) of passionate fans in the cybersphere talking about, discussing and tasting their products, helping to spread the word about good beer generally and certain breweries specifically. You literally can’t buy that kind of publicity. Of course, you can’t control it either. It’s very organic nature also has hidden dangers, some of which are not always fair. Not every passionate fan is an expert or has a consistent, developed palate for tasting. As a result, no single review can carry much weight without knowing more about the reviewer. Add them all together, and there’s no guarantee that the results are accurate, fair or consistent. The bigger sites with more reviews and more experienced reviewers do often at least seem present a consistent pattern of what’s good and not so good, but there are and always will be problems with how the overall score is effected by the inevitable bad reviewer who may still be learning or has a personal axe to grind. With individual bloggers, unless you know the reviewer’s experience level, knowledge, etc. it’s hard to know how seriously to take what they say about the beer they’re reviewing. It takes a long time to get to know another person’s tastes to the point where you can predict how they’ll rate a beer accurately. That’s true of any critic, be it a movie reviewer, music critic or what have you. And while a good review can be good for a business, a bad one can be devastating and I imagine quite frustrating if it appears mean-spirited, uninformed or inconsistent with other more positive reviews.

I have run across quite a few intelligent, seemingly normal, people who dismiss all blogging and in some cases everything on the internet as completely worthless. I’m not sure why they take this position, but no amount of persuasion or debate will move them from this position. There are few things I can name which have no redeeming value whatsoever, but they seem to take a position that if it isn’t perfect or there is a lot that’s bad they’ve seen personally then everything else is bad, too. Many of these people are media traditionalists who believe newspapers and the print media are the standard to which every other form of media must be held to, which to me seems quite laughable given the state of much newspaper writing I’ve read about beer over the last few years alone. The fact is there is good and bad in every sector of the media, and indeed the world, too. Nothing is all good or all bad. To me such extreme positions are ludicrous and indefensible. I have argued with such people, but have found them intractable and immune to reason, logic or common sense. Which is a shame, because the internet continues to hold much potential and promise. Despite very rapid growth, it’s a very new medium and, as such, is still growing through all the same pains that every media has gone through. There has been much crap on every new media. Not all early television shows were worth saving, nor was everything on early radio a jewel. Were there people who loved newspapers that refused to give radio a chance because some of the shows they listened to were terrible? I suspect there probably were, as many people do not like change no matter what it’s benefit.

If you haven’t read Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, I highly recommend you rush right out and buy a copy. Seriously. Although it predates the internet, Postman discusses at length how each new media has changed our society, both for good and bad. How every innovation changes us, as well. It’s quite interesting to learn that before the telegraph, for example, almost all ordinary people read entire newspapers and were generally very up to date on all issues of the day. It was not uncommon for politicians and other famous people of the day to come to town and speak literally for hours on end about complex issues facing people. Ordinary townspeople would know exactly what was being discussed and were not spoken down to or had the subject matter dumbed down for them. Postman relates one typical example where Lincoln was speaking somewhere for something like six hours, excused everyone to go home and eat supper, and then resumed speaking again an hour later. Then the telegraph made the spread of information much, much quicker. But because of all the dots and dashes, information became sound bites overnight. As a result, people’s tolerance for lengthier, meatier writing began to wane. And newspapers at the time who began getting their news from far away over the telegraph began writing shorter and shorter stories.

His point — and mine — is that no one can say that the internet or blogging is all bad. We can say it will change how we view the world, even if we can’t say how. But to ignore it and pretend it is completely unworthy of our time is sticking one’s head in the sand, or nose in the air. Are there problems with how beer is reviewed by bloggers and other internet sites? Of course, nothing is perfect. Should we therefore dismiss everything in the blogosphere? Only at our peril, because like it or not the ease of creating a blog pretty much insures anyone with access to the ether can voice his or her opinion. That may not always be a good thing all the time, but like every media before it, those with something to say will find readers and the shrill cacophony of others will eventually fall by the wayside.

There are some who feel traditional journalists are better suited to report the news because they supposedly have standards and ethics whereas “a blog can lie outright, and there are no consequences” making it little better than “mob rule.” But many of my colleagues, all of whom make at least a partial living writing about beer, have blogs in addition to participating in traditional journalism, as well. If any of us out and out lied about something or someone, I can guarantee there’d be consequences. We may not be as famous as an H.L. Mencken or even Michael Jackson, but in such an insular and incestuous little industry like craft beer people know who we are and would hold us accountable if we libeled one of our own. We’re obviously not all “just some guy” and if that’s true then this argument that all blogging is bad simply doesn’t work. I know that doesn’t change the fact that some of the blogs that write about beer do not do the industry any favors. But I am growing weary of having to defend myself every time someone makes a blanket statement that all blogging or internet writing is inherently bad.

Perhaps I shouldn’t take it so personally or feel that it’s me who’s being attacked. Certainly many people have said good things about what I’ve written and there is much that my colleagues write that I find admirable. It’s not my job to defend this medium, but I do find it hard to keep my mouth shut when someone says something that even inadvertently insults me and my confederates in this rarified trade we call beer writing. Last year, I was discussing the state of beer blogging with a friend who suggested that wine and food blogs were generally better than beer blogs in many respects, due in part to their having been around considerably longer (in internet time, at least). And I think he was onto something, because I’ve watched the quality of beer blogging rise over the last year and there are many more worthy beer blogs today than even one year ago. So it seems to me at least that already the state of beer writing on the internet is improving. Not to mention I’ve seen many more colleagues add their voices to the chorus, making the song all the sweeter.

I think absent some new paradigm shift on the internet, beer bloggers, ratings websites and other beer sites online are here to stay. Like the macrocosm outside, there is both good and bad to be found in a wide range of efforts. Find what and who you like, and support those writers, blogs and websites. Ignore or avoid the ones you don’t, and they will undoubtedly not be here in the near future. Nobody likes talking only to themselves for very long. But please don’t read one bad review, post or article and assume that everything else out there is not worthy of your time. Many of us work very hard at what we do and though you may not always agree with what we have to say, that doesn’t make what we’re saying meaningless or unimportant. Welcome to microjournalism and the 21st century. Word. Or make that words.

Session #1: Not Your Father’s Stout

March 2, 2007 By Jay Brooks

For our first session of Beer Blogging Friday I chose an old local favorite, San Quentin’s Breakout Stout from Marin Brewing. I must confess that it’s been at least several years since I’d tasted it and, as such, was looking very forward to finding out how much it had changed or I had changed in the intervening time. Since there are no real rules, I’ve decided to approach the Session as I would any session of drinking beer, with good conversation and camaraderie. So while the talk may be imaginary, the beer is not.

As far as the theme goes, my father never drank stouts and given that I’m now approaching fifty I’d say very few of our fathers did in fact drink stout at all. I may taking things too literally, but perhaps apart from Guinness, I feel comfortable saying our father’s generation was not one who embraced dark beer. In Dutch Wonderland — the part of eastern Pennsylvania where I grew up — folks were fiercely loyal to local brands. A wholesale distributor in the Keystone State recently quipped that Anheuser-Busch’s market share there is roughly half of what it is in other states. And as he further points out, there are more “old school” breweries and beer brands than any other place. So my father and men of his age drank Yuengling, Reading, Schmidt’s and Schaefer, light (colored) beers one and all. Yuengling did have a Porter but I don’t recall anyone ever drinking it until I was an adult.

As far as I know, the only dark beer my father — stepfather, really — ever drank was in fact a Guinness. And that’s because I brought him a bottle of it from New York City, where I discovered it, along with Bass and Pilsner Urquell, at the jazz clubs I frequented when I lived there in the late 1970s. Compared to what I’d drank in my earlier teens, these were like nothing I’d ever tasted — and I liked it.

I’d had a few ales growing up, Genesee Cream Ale, especially in that minimalist green can, was a teen favorite among my peers, and Yuengling had their Lord Chesterfield Ale. Then there was Ballantine which relatives in New Jersey seemed to prefer. But Bass and Guinness were worlds different from those and seemed positively exotic by comparison. That seems odd now, with the two imports more pedestrian among the exponentially wider field of available beers today, but it really was a different time. But enough about my father.

San Quentin’s Breakout Stout is made by friend Arne Johnson, head brewer at Marin Brewing, who’s been brewing there for a dozen years. I mention this because I’ve been thinking lately about some thoughts Alan McLeod had on “Do We Love The Beer Or Brewer?” He mentioned it in conjunction with a discussion Lew Bryson heated up over what, as writers, we owe the beer industry. And I know this may sound a bit wishy-washy, but I can see merits in both sides of this debate. Certainly we must be honest and forthright in our opinions and free to dislike a beer if we truly believe it to be inferior in some way. But — and Lew pointed this out, too — that doesn’t mean people who hate gueuze should write critically about it or that bad samples should create a bad review, especially if the sample went bad while cellared by the critic. If a brewery sends a bad sample, that’s another matter.

But back to Alan’s query, who do we love? I assume I’m not too atypical among my colleagues in having many close friends who are brewers. In such an insular and incestuous industry it’s all but inevitable that you see the same people at events, tastings, festivals, etc. over and over again. To my mind, it would be stranger still to not have brewer friends under such conditions. There are a lot of great people in this industry. Frankly, it’s one of the reasons I love my job. Among other industries I have known or worked in, brewing has perhaps the lowest ratio of assholes (let’s call in the A-Ratio) I’ve yet encountered. There are a few to be sure — you know who you are — but by and large the brewing community is one I want to be a part of and support precisely because of the people in it. I used to work in the music business once upon a time and by contrast the A-Ratio was quite high. And once you met a “rock star” who was so full of himself and a mess of a human being, it was truly hard to listen to his music in quite the same way afterward. You could still appreciate his talents and artistry, but only up to a point. Because once you knew what a wanker he was and how he treated the people around him, etc. you no longer wanted his music to be in the background of your life anymore. At least that was my reaction.

So what does that mean for brewers versus their brew? Knowing who made a beer I think does indeed influence at least our approach to a beer, even as we try to be as objective as possible. It would be naïve to believe otherwise. Think about it this way. Someone hands you a beer and says try this, it’s a new one from Russian River Brewing. Now if you like other beers you’ve had from them, you’ll likely be more inclined or predisposed to evaluate it, if not more favorably, at least with greater care and latitude than if the beer was presented as being from a brewer whose efforts you generally didn’t care for. That’s just human nature. In effect it’s Aristotle’s syllogisms occurring naturally in the real world.

It’s also the reason that we always evaluate beer in competition blindly, often double blind (meaning we don’t even know whose beers are entered). I do agree with Alan when he writes that we “have to remember that the subject matter itself is the important thing.” But unless you’re tasting it blind, I also think it’s practically impossible to separate it from outside influence, and to me that means other factors are also important to varying degrees. In quantum physics in the first half of the last century, physicists had a problem with light. Sometimes it behaved like a particle and sometimes like a wave. Eventually they figured out that light behaved as one or the other based on the kind of experiment you used to examine it. And this led to the idea that it was impossible to adopt the role of independent observer in any experiment because scientists couldn’t separate themselves from the world they were observing. They couldn’t step out of a door and be outside the universe, and that also meant that there would always be some part of any experiment that was influenced by the observer. This is known as the “observer effect,” which is defined as follows. “The observer effect refers to changes that the act of observing has on the phenomenon being observed.”

And as arcane a reference as that is, I think it also applies to tasting and evaluating beer. We could call it the “taster effect,” and define it as the influences on the act of tasting a beer changes the experience and has an effect on the beer being tasted. Does it mean objectivity is impossible? Maybe, but hopefully as professionals we can get to a very high degree of objectiveness and play down the outside influences, large and small, as best we can. I think that’s the best we can hope for, that with experience and diligent study we reach a point where our evaluations are internally consistent, that is we tend to view the same defects and positive qualities the same way regardless of the beer. You may at this point be thinking I’ve veered off track here, so let’s get back to the brewer. Do we love the brewer or the beer? I think it’s a little of both. The beer may be the primary reason we’re all here but as the creator of the stuff we all love, he or she can’t be ignored entirely either. Different brewers make their beer in different ways, of course, meaning their influence directly effects the final product. Knowing who made a beer also reveals something subtle about it. It tells us about intention, about what they were trying to make. It tells us what ingredients are more likely to have been used. It may tell us something about the water used, or any number of factors that effect the taste of the beer. If you enjoy the beers of a particular brewer then you know at least there’s a high degree of probability that you’ll also enjoy a new effort by that brewer. It’s no guarantee, obviously, but it offers you a reasonable assumption and ultimately I think changes how you approach tasting that beer. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, just something I think we should acknowledge and be aware of. Because we don’t live a vacuum, separated from the rest of the world with just our beer. The whole world conspired together to put that glass of beer in our hands at that particular moment in time. Every single preceding moment influenced what we will do next, whether it gets a good or a bad review. And for that, I love the brewer, too, because he made the beer in my hand. Of course, after I taste it, I may decide I hate him just as passionately, fickle critic that I may be.

Speaking of which, I’ve got a stout sitting here in front of me which I’m letting come up to room temperature. Arne’s stout is a beautiful murky black with a mocha-colored head. Thick Brussels lace stick and then cascade down the sides of the glass. It has the aroma of silky smooth chocolate, the kind you’d smell after the milk chocolate is melted in huge vats at the candy factory. There are whiffs of bitter coffee lying underneath, poking through to mix with the cocoa. Swirling it in my mouth, the bitter coffee dominates while his little sister chocolate cries for attention and tugs at my sides. It’s very smooth and creamy, and you only detect its strength — 7% abv — toward the end, as it’s rushing down your throat. The finish is clean, with hints of bitterness lingering pleasantly below the surface, urging you on for another sip. And I give into temptation and indulge myself.

It’s a really fine stout and I think I’m enjoying it now more than even when I’d tried it before. It’s easy to see why it’s won so many medals, at least eighteen at last count. Does it matter that the brewer is a friend. I don’t know, but I’d happily have another pint with him tomorrow.

Playboy Uncovers Beer

January 30, 2007 By Jay Brooks

The February edition of Playboy magazine includes an article called Brew Romance, in which a distinguished panel of fourteen chose their favorite bottled beers in several categories. The article then recounts the results. Here are their top ten choices:

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
Victory Prima Pils
Ommegang Abbey Ale
Anderson Valley Boont Amber
Sierra Nevada Porter
Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout
Tröegs Tröegenator Double Bock
Samuel Adams Utopias
Alaskan Smoked Porter
Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale

And there were also a few honorable mentions:

Samuel Adams Double Bock
Rogue Shakespeare Stout
Anchor Porter
Anchor Steam
Victory HopDevil
Blue Point Toasted Lager

It’s a pretty good list, too. I can’t really quibble with any of the choices, they’re all great beers. Sure, I might have put some above others and there’s a few missing from the list I might have compiled — Russian River’s Pliny the Elder comes to mind. And it’s certainly great to see good beer in such a mainstream magazine as Playboy.

Strong Beer Month Coming

January 17, 2007 By Jay Brooks

Beginning on February 1, 21st Amendment Brewery and Magnolia Pub & Brewery, both in San Francisco, will team up again to host their fifth annual Strong Beer Month. Each brewpub will create five new and different seasonal beers — and if you haven’t figured it out yet, they’ll all be strong — that will be available at the two locations throughout February. Sample them all, and you’ll receive some sort of prize. I stopped by 21A this morning after waiting in line nearby to get an expedited passport (long story) and sampled a couple of the new brews, one of which was still aging in the brewery.

First, there was St. Martin’s Abbey Ale, a decidedly Chimay-like beer with nice chocolate notes. Second, and perhaps more interesting, was a Belgian strong ale that had been blended with a small amount (around 10 gallons per 300) of Lindemans Framboise which itself had been aged in an oak barrel. At 10% abv, the new beer’s strength is neatly masked by the lambic’s sweetness, which is evident in abundance. The thick malt presence comes through but only a hint of sourness peeks out of the sides. But the lambic sweetness and the Belgian strong combine to create something fairly unique. I’m not quite sure what yet, but more tasting is definitely in order.

Unfortunately, it will be hard to order because, so far, the beer has no name. Given the brewpub’s close proximity to [insert current corporate name here] Stadium, where the San Francisco Giants play, and the fact that the beer reminded me of a framboise on steroids, I suggested “Berry Bonds.” Despite the look brewer Shaun O’Sullivan shot me, I’m going to continue to call it that, though I’m pretty confident that will not end up being its official name. Too bad, I liked it.

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