Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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First Beer & Bacon Festival Scheduled

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Ah, to be in Baltimore in the fall. The sound of pirates, the taste of beer and the sizzling goodness of bacon. That has all the makings of a wonderfully wacky and enjoyable event. Clipper City Brewing has just announced the 1st annual Heavy Seas Beer & Bacon Festival — Pyrates, Pigs and Pints. It will take place on Saturday, September 19, 2009 at the brewery in Baltimore. If you don’t recognize the significance of September 19, it’s Talk Like A Pirate Day.

From the press release:

Clipper City Brewing Company, brewers of the Heavy Seas brand, is a proud supporter of National Talk Like A Pirate Day and a true fan of bacon the world over. In the hopes that all those aspiring pirates will join them in the celebration of this heritage, the brewers have banded together to create the 1st Annual Beer & Bacon Festival on September 19th from Noon – 4pm. Tickets are limited to the first 350 who sign on board and the day will be filled with over 15 types of bacon from all over the world to sample, ten beers to sample, the bacon explosion, live music from Dirty Secret and even HUMAN BACON — walking around. Many of Baltimore finest restaurants, bars and foodie haunts will be on hand including: Alonso’s, Bad Decisions, Ciao Bella, Crazy Lil’s, Abercrombie, Captain Thom, Marsh’s Chili, Whisky Island Spices, Pussy Kat Punters, Sweet Kascade’s, Kooper’s, Slainte, and many more.

It includes a bacon tasting! Now that’s a great idea. I need to attend more bacon tastings.

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Win An Internship At An Oregon Brewery

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Oregon Bounty, which promotes travel to Oregon and specifically its local food and beverages, is sponsoring a very cool contest. They’re offering seven “cuisinternships” to local artisan businesses. You can be an intern chef, cheesemaker/choclatier, distiller, fisherman, rancher, winemaker, or — the coolest of the seven — craft brewer. Winners get an all-expenses paid trip to Oregon which includes round-trip airfare, six-nights lodging, and $1,000 cash spending money. You’ll then intern for five days.

You can enter online with a two-minute video and/or your 140-character essay on why you deserve to win an Oregon Bounty Cuisinternship. That’s basically a twitter post; a tweet. The deadline to enter is coming up; it’s Friday September 18. There’s also an FAQ if you have any questions about the contest.

The brewery Cuisinternship is with Jamie Emmerson at Full Sail Brewing in Hood River, Oregon. I’ve known Jamie for a long time now, and he and the staff of Full Sail couldn’t be nicer people. Plus, Hood River is an absolutely gorgeous part of the world.

Here’s a sample of what you’ll be doing if you win: Tour the Great Western Malting and Hop Farm, learn about mashing and the mash tun, learn about sparging and the lauter tun, understand the spice of the beer and the contributions of the hops and kettle, pitch the yeast (the magic ingredient), look under the microscope in the lab, partake in bottling at 500 beers per minute, fill kegs, and — most importantly — taste the rewards of your hard work. Whew, that doesn’t sound too bad, does it?

Here’s how the website describes it:

Along the shores of the mighty Columbia River Gorge, get a week-long lesson from some of the country’s craft brewing pioneers. From the hop farm to the mash tun to the microscope, you’ll feel, smell and taste beer from beginning to end. If you can tear yourself away from the tasting table, explore the charming town of Hood River, unofficial U.S. capitol of windsurfing, beer drinking and hanging out.

I’ve also been asked to judge the submissions and help pick the winner, so be sure to answer the question. “Why do you deserve to win?”

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The Next “Session” Heads East

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Girl Likes Beer, who is hosting our next Session, has a personal goal to sample a beer from every country with their own brewery. She’s had quite a few west of her native Poland, but the east is still largely unexplored. So she’s invited us to go east with her. She explains:

I would like you to pick your favorite beer made east from your hometown but east enough that it is already in a different country. It can be from the closest country or from the furthest. Explain why do you like this beer. What is the coolest stereotype associated with the country the beer comes from (of course, according to you)? And one more thing. If you do a video or picture of the beer (not obligatory of course) try to include the flag of the country.

Well, this could be fun. Get out your maps, compasses and orienteering gear. And head east in search of beer.

The Countdown Begins: 3 To Go

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There are only three more beer dinners left that will be held at the Cathedral Hill Hotel in San Francisco. For the past eight years, the Beer Chef, Bruce Paton, has done over 60 beer dinners featuring beers from around the corner and across the world. But what you probably didn’t know is that many of the recent dinners have been done on borrowed time. A medical corporation owns the land that the hotel is situated on, and for many years has been planning on building a new hospital there. It’s been postponed several times already and the hotel’s been able to keep renting rooms and doing beer dinners. But that’s finally coming to a close as a date is now set and the Cathedral Hill Hotel will be closing.

Only three more beer dinners will be held, and the first of those will take place on Friday, September 18. The dinner will feature the beers of Russian River Brewing. It will be a four-course dinner, and well worth the $100 price of admission. It will begin with a reception at 6:30 p.m. Call 415.674.3406 for reservations before it’s sold out. I’ll see you there.

The Menu:

Reception: 6:30 PM

Beer Chef’s Hors D’Oeuvre
Beer: Huge Large Sound Czech Pils

Dinner: 7:30 PM

First Course

A Mélange of Delicacies from the Sea
Beer: Temptation

Second Course:

Salad of Pepper Cress, Crispy Sweetbread, Cage Free Egg, Cambazola Cheese, Duck Prosciutto, Oven Dried Toy Box Cherry Tomatoes, Avocado, Roasted Corn Vinaigrette
Beer: Empirical 7

Third Course:

Beer Chef’s Surf and Turf
Beer: Hopfather

Fourth Course:

Chocolation
Beer: Consecration and Salvation

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Bruce Paton, the Beer Chef, with Vinnie Cilurzo, from Russian River Brewing, at an earlier beer dinner.

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Dinner with the Brewmaster: Russian River Brewing
Cathedral Hill Hotel, 1101 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, California
415.674.3406 [ website ]

Labor Day Hop Picking

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On Labor Day this year, Moonlight Brewing held their annual hop-picking event for friends and family to come and help harvest their hops. Since the kids were out of school and the lovely wife off work, we made a family outing of it, reminiscent of 19th century hop-picking when entire communities stopped what they were doing to help the farmers with the hop harvest. My daughter, Alice, was a hop-picking veteran, having come with me the previous year, but both Porter and my wife, Sarah, were newbies.

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Moonlight Brewery’s owner/brewer Brian Hunt with his hops.

It was a beautiful sunny day in whatever town Moonlighting says it’s in, and nearly three-dozen folks showed up to help. I’d guess we knew a little better than half the people there, so it was great fun sitting around, chatting, enjoying Brian’s beer straight from the tanks and picking the hops. There was also abundant food, and even Sean Paxton, the Homebrew Chef, put together a plate of some delicious cheeses. After we were done, we pulled out the Washoe Boards and played a few games, too.

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Alice wasn’t content just picking the hops, she wanted to help cut them down and carry them back, too. The kids had a blast and, as always, it felt great to pitch in and help. It was the perfect way to spend our Labor Day.

Below is a short slideshow of our day at Moonlight’s hopyard. If you click on the button on the bottom right with the four arrows pointing outward on it, you can see the photos in glorious full screen.

Beer In Art #42: Cat Scott’s Paintings Of Beer On The Wall

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Today I want to showcase an artist who’s painting a series of beer bottles that will eventually be nearly 100. The artist, Cat Scott, is calling the series 99 Paintings of Beer on the Wall. She’s finished a dozen so far, and here’s a familiar one, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

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Scott is primarily an illustrator and graphic designer, but loves to paint and draw in her spare time. Of the project itself, she says. “I like beer, and I like painting. So why not combine the two? I intend on doing 99 paintings of many different types of beer.”

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Here’s some biographical information about Scott, from her website:

I was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky and, like many artists, spent my childhood drawing and painting. With generous gifts of art supplies from my parents, I developed quite a knack for rendering. After taking as many art classes as possible during my high school years, I ventured off to the University of Dayton to study graphic design. My love for the fine arts led me to concentrate on Illustration.

After receiving several awards for my art and being honored as the Most Outsanding Graduating Senior in Visual Communication Design, I graduated with honors in 2003. In 2006 I attended the Illustration Academy and worked with illustrators and artists such as John and Mark English, Sterling Hundley, George Pratt, Gary Kelley, Brent Watkinson, Anita Kunz, and CF Payne.

My full time gig as a Graphic Designer in Santa Monica, California gets the rent paid and inspires creativity, but there’s nothing like taking a pen/brush/marker to paper.

One of my favorites is her Unibroue La Fin Du Monde, which is actually different then the rest of the works. It’s not painted, but instead is a pen and ink drawing over top of a postcard of Francis Picabia’s La Source (“The Spring”).

Cat_Scott-LaFin_DuMonde

Here’s two more. With twelve done, she has 87 left to paint. It may take a few years, but it will be fun to watch. If you own a brewery, maybe you want to consider commissioning her to paint one of your bottles. That way you get a cool painting, you support the arts and further the project.

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You can more of her work at her own website, Cat Scott and her blog. She’s also a member of Girls Who Draw, a website featuring a baker’s dozen of female artists showcasing their art.

U.S. Select Beer Taste

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I stumbled on the photo of a peculiar beer below while looking for another image. It was on Holy Taco, a humor website as far as I can tell.

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Best I could find out is that it’s a Japanese beer made by what appears to be a fairly large global food and drinks company called SC Foods Co., Ltd. The beer is called U.S. Select Beer Taste and is fairly resplendent with patriotic imagery from using a red, white and blue palette to the U.S. flag, an outline of the lower 48 and even part of the Statue of Liberty.

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It’s certainly an odd duck. But what fascinates me most is wondering what it tastes like. I mean that in an abstract sense. I know in reality it’s likely a clone of a tasteless American-style macro lager or similar low-calorie light beer. Or is it? What is the perception of the “select beer taste of the U.S.?” Is is still the former big three, or has craft beer managed to upstage that as an antiquated image of American beer?

I also can’t help but wonder, if it is an American light lager, why? The three major brands in Japan — Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo — aren’t substantially different from Bud, Miller or Coors. So if you’re going to label it U.S. Select Beer Taste, then it has to mean something to the intended consumer, which appears to be the Japanese. They have to perceive it as being something different than their own beer, don’t they? And if so, then doesn’t it follow that U.S. Select Beer Taste might be more craft-oriented in taste? It wouldn’t taste like a German, Belgian, Czech or English import. Sadly, I couldn’t find any ratings for the beer on either Beer Advocate of Rate Beer, so I don’t really know if it’s more Dale’s Pale Ale than Bud Light.

So what exactly is American Beer’s Taste perception in Japan and around the world? Among brewers and the über beer geeks certainly our reputation for quality is unsurpassed and the craft industry has staged a remarkable comeback for American beer since the low point of the 1970s. But that’s among the small, niche customer for whom beer matters. To the general consumer, I’m not so sure. Budweiser and Coors both sell surprisingly well in Great Britain and Bud is even making modest progress in Germany. What do you think U.S. Select Beer Taste is?

Happy International Bacon Day

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bacon
Happy International Bacon Day everybody. It’s a relatively new holiday, to be held each year on the Saturday before Labor Day Monday. If you’re a regular Bulletin reader, you already know of my unbridled love of bacon. I already had some for breakfast and am now plotting how to work it into the rest of today’s meals.

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It’s no secret, of course, that beer and bacon work very well together. Rauchbiers and other smoked beers often have bacon aromas. But as far as I’m concerned, bacon pairs nicely with many styles of beer. But what about a bacon beer?
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Well, it turns out that at least two breweries are making one. First, Garrett Oliver is making one for the bowling alley, Brooklyn Bowl, that’s across the street from the Brooklyn Brewery.

Using a special malt smoked in the same room as the bacon made by Benton’s Smoky Mountain Country Hams of Tennessee, he’s making a bacon barley wine ale. Picking up the story from the New York Times:

[Brooklyn Brewery] plans to brew about 15 gallons of barleywine with that malt. In the meantime, he’s been infusing a brown ale with the flavor of Benton’s bacon fat through a technique known as “fat washing.” (Nick Fauchald described the process in this profile of the bartender Eben Freeman.) Oh, and the bacon-fat-infused ale was also aged in bourbon barrels, because bourbon and bacon go together like, um, beer and bacon.

Eventually, the barleywine with the bacon-smoked malt and the bourbon-aged, bacon-fat-infused ale would be blended to create one monstrously bizarre beer.

“One of two things will happen,” Mr. Oliver predicted. “Either this will be the most amazingly disgusting thing you’ve ever tasted in your life. Or I shall rule the earth.”

A little closer to home, the Uncommon Brewers down in Santa Cruz are also working on a Bacon Brown Ale. Given their track record of successfully using uncommon ingredients in their beer, I’m actually optimistic that they could pull this off. Bacon is being used these days in all manner of different ways, so it’s only a matter of time before somebody perfects a bacon beer.

PNC To Create Exclusive Beer At Allagash

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The Publican National Committee, or PNC — if you’re not familiar with them — is a group of Publicans that own some of the best beer bars in America. Current members include the owners of Brouwer’s Cafe, the Falling Rock Taphouse, the Horse Brass, Monk’s Cafe and the Toronado. One of the things they’re doing is working with brewers willing to make them a custom, exclusive beer that only members serve. The first PNC beer was brewed at Russian River Brewing and all the members got together there to help make the beer, which was dubbed Publication.

They’ve just announced that in October, they’ll be creating their second beer, this time at Allagash. No word yet on what kind of beer it will be, but I’m guessing it will be worth seeking out.

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At the PNC’s Second Convention in Denver 2008, all the members except Don Younger, who preferred to remain in the bar

Session #31: Summer Beers

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As this month marks the end of summer, our last summer Session takes on summer beers, courtesy of Peter Estaniel of the BeerBeerBlog. His take:

With the summer coming to a close, what was your favorite beer of the summer? It doesn’t even have to be from this summer. Is it a lager or maybe a light bodied wheat ale? Maybe you’re drinking anti-seasonally and are having a barleywine or Russian Imperial Stout. Why is this beer your favorite? Is there a particular memory associated with this beer? How about a city? Maybe there was a particular dish that made this beer memorable? Spare no detail.

For me, the most memorable summer drinking I did was in London, where I spent a week with fellow beer writer Stephen Beaumont visiting pubs, attending the Great British Beer Festival and endless (and vainly) searching for late night food. While by no means sweltering heat, London was, as always, more moist than the average California summer. They’d just come off a heatwave during the weeks before we arrived, and welcomed some rain. But it was certainly warm enough, staying in the narrow range of mid-70s to high 80s, even late into the evening.

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We walked around a fair bit of London, taking the tube whenever possible, but also sometimes we just wanted to be above ground, taking in the sights and sounds of the city. To be fair, there was another reason waking was more attractive at times. Besides even the mild summer weather, below ground it could be stiflingly hot, especially when we were sandwiched into the trains during busier times of the day, sweat pouring off of us.

To compensate ourselves, we’d often duck into a pub just for a quick pint, even though we were on our way to another pub, and one which quite possibly was only be fifteen minutes or so away. But thirst must be obeyed, and by god we were often thirsty. And there’s really nothing quite like a English ale on cask, the way nature intended, to quench one’s thirst. Not too cold, which would undoubtedly be a shock to the system, fairly low in alcohol (especially as compared with American beers), which meant we could enjoy more of them, and tasty as all get out. My favorite aspect of cask beer is just how much more flavor can be perceived; more complexity and, perhaps most importantly, more delicate characters. What more could you ask for in a summer beer?

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Stephen Beaumont at The Dove, a Fuller’s pub along the Thames near Hammersmith where we rested and recharged with a pint.

Even when most of the beers we enjoyed weren’t summer seasonals, but everyday offerings, they were ideally suited to the climate and the warm August weather. And they slaked our thirst almost perfectly.