Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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SF Beer Week Starts Tomorrow

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I can scarcely believe it, but tomorrow SF Beer Week begins, unofficially at Noon (more about that later) and officially Friday night about 7:00 p.m. I haven’t even had time to post this week, I’ve been so busy trying to get last minute details taken care of, along with some Herculean efforts by Dave McLean and Dean James from Magnolia. The total tonight stands at 146 events, which exceeded my expectations. And more than that, I’m pleased with the types of events and some of the great places that you don’t normally think of as beer friendly stepping up and embracing beer week, high end restaurants like Oliveto and Chez Panisse. I’ve kissed and wife and kids and told them not to wait up for the next ten days, and am planning on trying to attend as many events as humanly possible. I’m prepared to be amazed. Are you?

 

 

Top Ten Tuesday: Top 10 Anchor Beers

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For my fifth Top 10 list I’m up to my eyeballs getting ready for SF Beer Week. Since Anchor Brewery is the oldest brewery in San Francisco still around, having been founded originally around 1864 (though it wasn’t called Anchor beer until 1896), I though I’d list my favorite Anchor beers. On Friday they’re debuting a new beer and I’ve very excited about it. I know what it is, but am sworn to secrecy. I could tell, but then I’d have to kill you. By Friday night the cat will be out of the bag, so to speak, and I’ll be able to reveal what it is. Suffice it to say, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. Anyway, here’s List #5:
 

Top 10 Favorite Anchor Beers
 

Bock Another of their newest beers, but I’ve never quite warmed up to it.
Summer Beer/Wheat Beer The wheat build on the two is slightly different, but they don’t taste substantially different. Anyway, the Summer beer replaced the Wheat Beer in their portfolio.
Small Beer Perhaps the finest example of recycling, and a great way to make a tasty session beer.
Steam I know the Steam beer is one of the few original American beer styles, and I certainly appreciate it on that level, but it’s never been my favorite of their beers. It is a great thirst quencher, and works with a variety of foods — but you knew that, right?
Spruce Beer Most people I’ve talked to about this beer have a love/hate relationship with this beer; they hated it and I loved it. I wish I still had some of this, though by now it would be toast. It had a very strong air freshener nose, which was oddly absent on the palette. But that spruce character was overpowering, and I think that’s what turned people off.
Our Special Ale (2000-present) Since the Millennium, the spices in Anchor’s Christmas beer have been too restrained, but then I think if you’re going to do a spice beer you should go whole hog. It’s still better than almost every other spice beer out there, but I have a very warm (spicy) spot in my heart for their earlier efforts.
Porter By the time this was first bottled in 1974, the style had almost died in England, sad to say. Maytag apparently spent a lot of time studying English styles in England and it’s quite evident in the beers that Anchor released in the early 1970s.
Old Foghorn Barleywine Style Ale Another old English style that Anchor helped introduce to American drinkers is their barley wine, which debuted in 1976. I confess I’ve developed a taste for more generously hopped barley wine, but can still appreciate a maltier one like Anchor brews. And when you’re in the mood for one like that, you’d be hard pressed to find a better example on our side of the pond.
Our Special Ale (@1994-99) These were the years (roughly) when the spices in Anchor’s Christmas beer really shined. I still have a couple of magnums from these years and a few 12 oz. bottles. Having done a few verticals stretching back pretty far, I’ve found about ten years in the max for aging Anchor’s Christmas beers, though the spicier ones, of course, have a slight advantage. Most people I know think their beers were too spicy at this time, but not me. These were my favorites.
Liberty Ale You’d be hard-pressed to find a better all-purpose beer than Liberty. Its aromatic Cascade hops are almost pedestrian today but in 1975 it must have seemed revolutionary, which is fitting, I suppose, since it was released on April 18, the 200th anniversary of Paul Revere’s Ride at the beginning of the American Revolutionary War. Remember the time you drank your first decidedly hoppy beer? It was so different from anything else that it was almost confusing. In 1975, as a high school sophomore, I was drinking local lagers and cream ales in Eastern Pennsylvania. I can’t imagine what I would have thought of Liberty at that time. But now it feels positively sessionable, even at 6%. I know I treat it that way. It’s a beer I often start and finish a night out with. Their best, hands down.

 

I wish I had an opportunity to try the Ninkasi Ale they did in 1989 and also the Potrero Commons in 1990. Oh, well.

 

Also, if you have any ideas for future Top 10 lists you’d like to see, drop me a line.
 

Balloon Beer

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A friend sent me these photos (thanks Jeff) and wondered whether they constituted “beer art” or “balloon craft?” I don’t know the answer either, if indeed there is an answer, but it’s a pretty awesome feat of balloon-making.

Unfortunately, you can’t drink it and I seriously doubt the balloons are filled with anything but air.

 

Beer in Art #13: Edouard Manet’s Waitresses

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Today’s featured paintings are by an artist whose work we first looked at in week one, three months ago. Édouard Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, is probably one of the most famous works of art to prominently display beer bottles, but because he so often set his paintings in Parisian nightlife, a number of his paintings have beer in them. There are two paintings today, because they are so similar that there names are even often confused. Both appear to be painted at the same concert, with the same characters, but at different moments in time. The two paintings are known as The Waitress and Corner of a Café-Concert. Both are believed to be painted between 1878-1880, with most sources giving 1879 for The Waitress. The painting below is, I believe, Corner of a Café-Concert, because it’s at London’s National Gallery and that’s the name they’ve given it, so I’m going with them since they own the painting. Various sources throughout the internet have the names of the two paintings interchanged.

In the first painting the dancer on stage looks more like she’d been painted by Edgar Degas than Manet. The National Gallery also has the following to say about the Corner of a Café-Concert:

This work was originally the right half of a painting of the Brasserie de Reichshoffen, begun in about 1878 and cut in two by Manet before he completed it. This half was then enlarged on the right and a new background was added. The left half of the composition is in the Oskar Reinhart Collection, Winterthur.

The Brasserie de Reichshoffen was in the Boulevard Rochechouart, Paris. At the time, brasseries with waitresses were fairly new in the city.

The second painting, The Waitress, is closer in, tighter, with the same waitress stopping from her work and looking at the viewer. The same man is smoking his clay pipe at the bar in the foreground. The man next to the pipe smoker is either a different man or has changed hats and we can catch a glimpse of a dancer, possibly the same one, on stage behind them both.

Though most sources give the common name, at least one says the title is actually La Serveuse de Bocks. And while my French is awful, that sure sounds like “Serving Bocks,” “The Serving of Bocks,” or something like that.

If you want to learn more about the artist, the Art Archive or the ArtCyclopedia are both good places to start and Wikipedia also has a nice summary. Also the Edouard Manet Gallery purports to have a complete gallery of his works.

 

Go To Beer Heaven: Strong Beer Month Taps Tomorrow

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Tomorrow the 7th annual Strong Beer Month begins, a joint promotion between 21st Amendment Brewery & Restaurant and Magnolia Gastropub & Brewery. If you’re looking for something to do before the Super Bowl or if you want to miss it entirely, you couldn’t find a better reason than twelve new strong beers debuting between the two brewpubs.

 

 

Many of these dozen beers have been created especially for this month, and will be available only until they run out. Each year many do in fact run out, a few as early as mid-month, so get there early. Sample them all, and you’ll receive a commemorative glass.
 


 
Another great parody again this year. Last year, you may recall, they spoofed AC/DC’s Highway To Hell album cover. This year The Grateful Dead’s Go To Heaven is given a pitch perfect parody. And while McLean’s hair extensions are awesome, I think my favorite detail is Nico Freccia’s pornstar mustache.
 

 

Top Ten Tuesday: Top 10 Beer Songs

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top-10

For my fourth Top 10 list I’m tackling — as promised — my first non-beer topic, though it’s beer-related. As far as I’m concerned, music and beer are as interconnected as two things can be. They certainly enhance one another. I’m a failed musician —saxophone and clarinet — and in fact was originally a music theory/composition when I started college. I wanted to write classical music, but quickly discovered it was highly unlikely one could make much of a living at it, and I was not interested in teaching. So I switched majors to communications, although my love for music, of course, never left me. I listen to a fairly wide range of music, from classical to jazz to that newfangled rock and roll, but songs about beer tend more often to be country, traditional rock or, oddly, punk. Without really intending to, I’ve managed to collect over 500 songs that have to do specifically with beer and maybe 100 more that are about alcohol or drinking more generally. Anyway, here’s List #4:
 

Top 10 Favorite Beer Songs

10-50

Give Me a Red Hot Mama and An Ice Cold Beer by Smiley Maxedon [YouTube]

09-50

John Barleycorn Must Die by Traffic (there are many, many versions of this old English folk song, but I like Traffic’s best, though Jethro Tull has a great live version.) [Traffic] [Jetro Tull Live]

08-50

Beer by the Asylum Street Spankers [YouTube]

07-50

Beer Is Good by PsychoStick [YouTube]

06-50

Lager Delirium by Bad Manners (they also have another kick-ass beer song, Special Brew.) [Lager Delirium] [Special Brew]

05-50

One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer by John Lee Hooker (though George Thorogood’s version ain’t half bad either.) [John Lee Hooker] [George Thorogood]

04-50

Beer by Reel Big Fish [YouTube]

03-50

Beer by The Reverend Horton Heat (his “Beer 30” is great, too.) [Beer] [Beer 30]

02-50

Beer Bottle Boogie by Koko Taylor [YouTube]

01-50

Drinking Beer by Jimmy Witherspoon [YouTube]

Some of the other songs that almost made the list were the Ballad of Pilsner Beer by Agriculture Club, Beer by Cory Morrow, another song titled simply Beer by Secret Agent 8, Beer Drinkers by Drive By Truckers, Beer Drinkin’ Woman by Memphis Slim, Brew’s Blues by Cal Tjader, Hair of the Dog by the Morrells (might have been higher, but it’s unclear that it’s beer), the Philosopher’s Song by Monty Python (a true gem, but it’s not strictly beer, but includes all alcohol), There Stands the Glass by Webb Pierce (and Van Morrison just recorded a cool version of this song), Titties & Beer by Frank Zappa, and Warm Beer and Cold Women by Tom Waits.

And while I can’t say I often give it a listen, The Beer Barrel Polka (a.k.a. Roll Out the Barrel) can’t be completely ignored. But I do love a good polka, I must confess, especially something like the Drink Beer Polka, by the Leningrad Cowboys.

Also, if you have any ideas for future Top 10 lists you’d like to see, drop me a line.
 

Beer in Art #12: Mieko Anekawa’s Beer! Beer! Beer!

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Today’s painting is by a Japanese artist, Mieko Anekawa, who grew up in Kyoto but now lives in New York City. This painting is called Beer! Beer! Beer!. It’s an acrylic on canvas and measures 11″x14.” Apart from the fact that she won’t sell the painting, that’s about all I know about it.
 

The choices she made for the panels are interesting to me. The first is, naturally, a can of Kirin from her native Japan. The only other Japanese beer is Hitachino Nest Beer. Two others are imported, but the majority are American craft beers. Only the can of Genesee isn’t. Of the dozen panels, seven are beer bottles, two are cans, one is a full pint glass, one is a growler and the only non-beer panel is of a bag of Utz potato chips. Sadly, the chips appear to be the “Red Hot” flavor, whereas I’m a purist when it comes to potato chips — only potatoes fried in lard (or oil) with salt added for me. As a hardcore chips geek, I can’t abide flavored chips at all.

 

A Self-Portrait

 From the biography at her website:

She began her studies in Graphic and Product communication design in Kyoto, Japan, at Seika University, and later photography in Osaka. She moved to New York in the winter of 2004 to seek more creative opportunities and to experience a different, unique approach to art. She started working for the Japanese artist HIROKI OTSUKA, as well as the artist MALCOS, in various painting and sculpting projects. She was hired in 2005 by the New York-based graphic design company Berrymatch, LLC and Nooka, Inc., a high fashion designer watch company owned by Berrymatch, doing graphic and product design, corporate identity design, and advertisement. She began to work for Adoah, LLC in 2008 designing modern fashion rugs and carpets. In her latest work she is doing illustration of movie frames and image boards, website design, graphic and logo design for the upcoming independent movie “Uwaki” by Devin Haqq. However, her passion remains for painting.

Also at the website is her statement as an artist:

Being an artist doesn’t always mean making a pretty piece. Art should be able to give people a powerful impression, a full frontal impact. And in my opinion, what gives people that great impression is color contrast and dynamic composition.

My hometown is Osaka, Japan. Osaka has lots of excitement and people there love bright, powerful colors. There is a strong feeling of energy when you go through the streets. Our city is insanely using crazy colors for anything. People wear bright colors, stores are decorated in high tones, and there is color everywhere in advertisements and magazines. It is a beautiful place. While I grew up there, I observed and absorbed that energy, and I think it comes through in my art. It was my inspiration for the animal series with the bright checkered background and color contrast. It’s a representation of me and my life. I think I can give people some of that excitement, that energy, with my art.

After I moved to NY, I was doing a lot of graphic design and layouts of typography for part of corporate identity designs. I found beauty in the straightforward, uncomplicated images of logos and typography. I wanted to include that beauty of simple objects in my paintings. My goal was to combine 2-dimensional, flat objects without depth or shadow gradation with more realistic 3-dimensional images to create contrast.

There isn’t much more information about Mieko Anekawa, except for an exhibition at New York’s ICO Art & Music Gallery, a nice article in a student newspaper — The Pendulum — from Elon University, and her Facebook page. You can see a lot of her work, though, at her own website.

 

Bradford Blogs

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Daniel Bradford, publisher of All About Beer magazine, launched his own blog yesterday. In Bradford On Beer, Daniel is planning on turning his attention from the business side of the beer world to the sensory pleasures of the beer itself, hoping “to make [him]self worthy of something like judging at the Great American Beer Festival.” Over the next year he’s going to “study, travel, taste, research, talk – whatever it takes to get me to the next level!” And his new blog he hopes “will be the public record of the trip, with all its embarrassing gaffs, exciting discoveries, foolish malapropisms, fascinating people, and beer, pints and pints of great beer.” It should be a fun and entertaining read. I certainly love a good malapropism. You just don’t see enough of those anymore, probably because most people only use simple words thus avoiding any accidental misuse by overreaching their vocabulary. But I’m sure Daniel’s word choices will be the very pineapple of perfection. Welcome to the Blogosphere, Daniel.

 

 

Top Ten Tuesday: Top 10 Brewing Nations

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For my third Top 10 list I thought I’d tackle something global. For many years, decades and longer, which countries were known for their beer was fairly staid, and didn’t change much at all. And for most of that time, the U.S. wouldn’t likely make the list at all. But over the last thirty years, that’s all changed, I’d argue. Many of the same players are around, including many nations with rich and long brewing traditions, but there are also many new players, who were not really known for their beer until very recently. So here are my choices for the Top 10 Brewing Nations, which I’ve based on the overall quality of their beer, along with the diversity and innovation they bring to it. Anyway, here’s List #3:
 

Top 10 Beer Countries
 

Czech Republic

It’s hard to ignore the Czech Republic. Not only do they have the highest per-capita consumption of beer, but the Eastern European nation also contains the birthplace of pilsner. But most of what we get from there has a certain sameness to it, not that most of it isn’t of a high quality. I’ve tried some of their more obscure beers that have been hand-carried to the states and while there have been a few interesting examples that are different, not enough to make me rank them above number ten.

Italy

When you think of Italy, it’s usually their wine or food that comes to mind. Up in the northern part of Italy, near the German border, there have been some fine, largely obscure, breweries making decent lagers for many years. But in the last two decades, their craft scene throughout the country has really taken off and is, if hasn’t already, about to reach a tipping point. Using many unusual and local ingredients, Italian craft brewers are truly making some outstanding and unique beers.

Sweden

Sweden is another European country that saw something spectacular going on in America and decided there was no reason they couldn’t make beer just as great. They were right. The rest of Scandinavia is doing well these days, too, but Sweden, I think leads the pack there.

Australia

While most people think of Foster’s when they contemplate beer down under, it’s not even a popular brand there. And while there are plenty of bland Foster’s-like beers to disdain, there is also much to love that’s flying under the radar. They have a long craft tradition that’s nearly as old as our own, though very little of it reaches us, sad to say.

Scotland

Scotland, much like their neighbor to the south, has a long tradition of fine ales. Like England, their story lately has been one of mergers and closures, but with a growing craft scene that includes such rising stars as Brew Dog and Harviestoun Brewery, though the latter has been purchased by Caledonian. Plus, Traquair House is still there. As long as that’s true, Scotland will remain in my heart, or at least my liver.

Canada

Like America, Canada suffers from having a few bland macro beers that everyone identifies with the country’s beer. But there is a wonderful array of small craft brewers toiling away in more obscurity than they should be in a more just world. Unibroue alone makes me love Canadian beer, though there are plenty of examples of it being beyond Molson, Labatt’s and Moosehead.

Germany

When you read the next selection, this may seem contradictory, but being immersed in Germany’s beer culture is a wonderful experience. Their styles are perfectly suited to the national cuisine so that when you’re there it’s hard to imagine the beer being any better. That seems especially true in the small town breweries, many of which, while struggling, are still around. Many of those beers are hard or impossible to find outside Germany, which is a tragedy. And it’s wonderful to see how seriously the Germans take their brewing heritage. You don’t see that as strongly in many places.

England

This was a tough one, but I have a soft spot for ales. I certainly love a fine pilsner and can appreciate many types of lagers, I love the flowery flavors of a warm, especially cask-conditioned, ale. Ales were, o course, some of the first beers I enjoyed that were beyond the bland lagers that I grew up with and were some of the first craft beers I enjoyed, too. And while England’s beer scene is on the ropes these days, many new small craft brewers are emerging there, as well, riding to the rescue, as it were. Many of my favorite styles are all ales that began in England’s rich traditions.

Belgium

A decade ago, this would have been my number one. Belgium certainly used to hold the title for most styles brewed in a single country. I suspect there’s still pretty close, given that so may of their beers are completely unique and different from one another. It’s often hard to even pin down the style of a Belgian beer, not that there’s really any point to trying. But the sheer number of truly world-class wonderful beers makes Belgium my favorite brewing nation outside my home.

United States

There was a time, not so long ago, when this idea would have been laughable. But not anymore. I may be a little biased, but there is now more diversity in American beer than any other country in the world. It may be a small part of the total sold, but craft beer in terms of its quality is now second to none. Where once U.S. brewers followed other nations’ brewing traditions, we are now setting the pace, with several burgeoning brewing renaissances taking place around the world who are looking to us for inspiration. Craft beer is one of the things Americans can genuinely still be proud of.

 
Note: This was a tough one to rank for the bottom five. Some countries I considered, but ultimately left off the top ten include The Netherlands, Ireland, Austria and Japan. All of those are making progress but still do suffer from a lack of innovation and diversity, at least for now. Each have examples that that is starting to change. It’s possible that any of those could have been substituted for my choice for number ten but I had to make a decision in the end. As for Scandinavia, Denmark and Norway are also doing quite well, I just felt that Sweden had the edge on them, at least for now.

 

Also, if you have any ideas for future Top 10 lists you’d like to see, drop me a line.