Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Maureen Ogle in the Washington Post

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My friend Maureen Ogle, who wrote Ambitious Brew — The Story of American Beer, weighed in with an op-ed piece on the proposed InBev takeover of Anheuser-Busch in the Washington Post over the weekend. The original version had a typically snarky quote from yours truly, but the Post editors saw fit to excise me from the final version. It’s probably just as well. Maureen’s singular voice comes through much better without side opinions mucking things up.

Like me, Ogle believes the deal is a bad one overall, but views it with a certain inevitability. I’m firmly against the takeover, but only because I believe it will be bad for the beer industry as a whole, and has the potential to really harm craft brewers’ access to market. But the whole affair seems a perfect illustration of that old saw, “those who live by the sword, die by the sword,” playing out in real time. For that reason, it’s hard to muster much sympathy for the Busch family who, like InBev right now, have invoked the “it’s just business” mantra to excuse their behavior countless times over their nearly 140-year history.

 

Beer In Politics: Fruit and Nuts

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I got an e-mail last week from John Schlimm, the author of the recently published Ultimate Beer Lover’s Cookbook. He did a sidebar, Beer and the Campaign Trail, with beer recipes for each of the Presidential candidates and their spouses, based on their personalities. For example, Bill Clinton’s dish is “Squirrel Dinner for Two with a Root Beer Float” and John McCain’s is a “Cheese Steak Sandwich with a Red, White, & Blue.” Schlimm is also a member of the Straub family, whose family have operated the Straub Brewery in St. Marys, Pennsylvania, since his great-great-grandfather Peter Straub opened it in 1872.

The sidebar was for an article in The Hill, a Washington D.C. newspaper, entitled Drink Up, by Betsy Rothstein. Drink Up examines beer in campaigns, especially when candidates use beer as a photo op to appear connected to the masses of voters. For many people, the question “which candidate would you like to have a beer with” says more about the social function of beer than the individual candidates.

“Beer is, by its very definition, a product that brings people together, a product of celebration,” said Craig Purser, president and CEO of the National Beer Wholesalers Association. “It’s something Americans connect with.”

Beer and politics is nothing new, of course. As the most popular alcoholic drink for decades, if not longer, beer has been part of the campaign trail in some fashion for nearly every election since our country’s founding. It would actually be more surprising if it didn’t figure in elections, since it’s such an integral part of our society.

Of course, not everyone likes the idea of alcohol and society co-existing. Strange as it seems, Steve Kagen, a Democrat representing the 8th District of Wisconsin in the House of Representatives, “sees no place for it in his professional life. ‘I have listening sessions, not drinking sessions,’ he says” rather condescendingly. Presumably, for him the two are mutually exclusive. I assume he’s no friend to his home state’s Miller Brewing Co., who so obviously contribute positively to the economy and create jobs nor to the millions of his constituents who enjoy drinking beer. But his final words say it best.

Kagen says if he were sitting down with the politician who would represent his best interests and those of his family, “it would be my hope that they would offer me fresh fruits and vegetables.”

Now I love both fruit and vegetables, but nothing says “man of the people” quite like a teetotaler who’d prefer apples to ales, or lettuce to lagers. That’s just nuts.

 

Overstuffed Refrigerator Emptying Beer Tasting Party

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Last Saturday, I held what I billed as an “Overstuffed Refrigerator Emptying Beer Tasting Party” in order to clean out mt refrigerators of beer that’s been in there for a while now, and also to make room for many more beers languishing in the Marin heat of my garage. I have three refrigerators, and two of them are dedicated to only beer. I managed to fill five coolers of beer for the tasting, and invited people I thought would most appreciate the beers. The beers had been brought back from recent trips to England, Germany, Belgium and even New Zealand. There were also many others, both foreign and domestic, from still more trips around the country. Some were recent acquisitions while others had been aging for quite some time, longer than ten years in a few cases. I limited the number of guests to a dozen, because many of the beers I had were only a single 12 oz. bottle, or less. Even on short notice, I managed to pull together enough people to come and help me empty the fridge. Happily, I don’t have to do a detailed listing of what we opened, because JJ, The Thirsty Hopster, did a wonderful job herself of writing up the tasting. So all I can add is few photos and little extra commentary.

The assembled group in my front room.

Arne Johnson, from Marin Brewing, opening the cork on an AleSmith Golden Strong Ale, from before Skip sold the brewery.

Sean Paxton — The Homebrew Chef — with his first choice of the day, the Old Habit Strong Rye Ale from Ithaca Brewing.

Brewer Jeff O’Neil gave me this bottle a little over a year ago, and it was an early favorite, but then I love rye beers.

The faux beer caviar Sean made with IPA tapioca balls. Yum.

Sadly, we only managed to open fifty beers. I had been hoping for more, but alas it was not to be. As JJ correctly predicts, I’m already contemplating an OREBTP 2 sometime later this year. For the final beer of the evening, I took a chance on an old bottle I’ve been dragging around with me for almost a decade; the Samuel Adams Millennium Ale, ale brewed with maple syrup.

My memory is that Boston Beer had 2,000 bottles which were available for sale at retail, but also made another 1,000 for promotional use. One of these made its way into my hands — bottle number 2052 of 3000 (signed by Jim Koch) — and I opened it during a Christmas party, most likely in 1999. After that party, there was an inch or two left in the bottom of the bottle, and so I put the cork back in the bottle, slid it into its blue cloth sleeping bag and placed it back inside the wooden box it came in. It remained there through two moves and I took no great pains to keep it under ideal conditions. Of course, I didn’t do anything horrible to it, either. At 20.9% abv, I was certainly curious what it tasted like now. I remember at the time of its release, Jim Koch said that he thought it would age for another 1,000 years, but that they really had no idea. I still have another full unopened bottle — number 1639 of 3000 — so perhaps I should hand it down to my son, who in turn can do the same down through successive generations.

Anyway, what really surprised me about what remained of the beer was how good it still was, despite my having taken no great pains to protect it. It tasted remarkably similar to my nine-year-old memory of it, though who knows how accurate that might be. Whether it has gained any complexity remains an open question, but it was still certainly very tasty.

 

Session #17: Drinking Anti-Seasonally

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This is now our 17th Session, and the topic is another thoughtful one, albeit a little rebellious. Our host, Rob DeNunzio, from Pfifft, titled the Session theme Going Against the Grain Bill. In his announcement, Rob described what he means thusly.

Drinking anti-seasonally. Think of this as the unorthodox cousin of such topics as “beer and food” and “beer and music”. Beer and weather, perhaps? More like beer despite the weather, I guess. Cracking open a Guinness on the beach, finishing a day of yardwork with a Speedway Stout, or whatever else you do that raises an eyebrow, do us all a favor an take a few moments to share your non-conformist tale.

Hmm, seasons out of time. Beers out of season. How often do I drink a beer better, or at least traditionally thought to be better, suited to a particular season? All the time. When I reflect on my own drinking patterns, I discover that I give almost no thought to seasonality.

Beer followed the seasons out of necessity for centuries, perhaps millennia, prior to the age of refrigeration and air conditioning. Because it was difficult — or in some cases impossible — to get cool enough temperatures during certain warmer times of the year to brew. So brewing cycles evolved to follow rising and falling temperatures throughout the year and became traditions. As a result, various beers became available only at specific times of the year. These were in effect the first seasonal beers, driven not by marketing, but by the limitations of technology. But this was obviously not a bad thing. Anticipation created excitement and celebrations were held to mark the return of these beers throughout the year. The beers themselves were also well-suited for their time of the season, with heavier stronger beers to warm those hearty cockles and lighter ones to beat the heat of a sweltering summer.

Over a century ago, in 1859 to be exact, refrigeration was invented, and by 1876 the relatively portable refrigerator was created by a German inventor, Carl Paul Gottfried von Linde. He received a U.S. patent for his process on May 12, 1903. But earlier than that, brewers were trying to figure out how to apply the scientific learning commercially to keep their breweries cooler. In 1856, for example, “James Harrison was commissioned by a brewery to build a machine that cooled beer.” That brewers were so far ahead of the technology and in fact were instrumental in providing motivation to solve the cooling problem illustrates just how important they thought it was to the modernization of brewing techniques.

But even after the problem was largely solved, the traditions held sway for decades. Even today, there are many beers which are released only seasonally. Usually this is for marketing reasons rather than technological ones. With only one exception I can think of — fresh hop beers — every known beer style can be brewed year-round. For example, some breweries release a marzen (a.k.a. Oktoberfest) beer in the fall while many others make the style throughout the year.

Christmas or holiday beer, to take another example, are often styles suited to winter but there is no reason they could not be made at any other time of the year. Holiday beers are an interesting example of marketing in modern times. There have been, of course, beers released to celebrate the holidays nearly as long as there have been breweries. But the modern era of Christmas beers undoubtedly begins — as so many new beers inevitably do — with Anchor Brewing. Their Christmas Ale, Our Special Ale, was first released in 1975. As recently as 10-15 years ago, what breweries there were who then made a holiday beer called it a Christmas beer, but a curious thing began happening.

With the exception of Anchor’s Christmas Ale, along with Sierra Nevada’s Celebration and Noche Buena (which Modelo has since stopped importing), holiday beers with the word “Christmas” on the label would literally stop selling on December 26. Like fireworks on July 5 or Halloween candy on the first of November, fickle consumers would shun these beers like they’d suddenly become poisonous. So many breweries removed the word “Christmas” and started referring to them as “holiday” beers or even “winter seasonals” in order to extend their shelf life. And remarkably, it worked. After that, many savvy breweries began having a year-round seasonal program with four or six seasonals — one after the other — such that there was always at least one seasonal beer at any given time. The seasonal segment, as tracked by IRI and Nielsen is now the number one category, even in grocery stores.

But that’s seasonal beers, what about anti-seasonal. At the same time seasonal beers are on the rise, for every seasonal release you could probably find dozens of examples of that same style available from other breweries all year long. So the reality of seasonality is that it’s largely market-driven, any bows to tradition are now mostly coincidental or at best a convenient story to sell the beer. With the original reason that created the traditions of certain beers at specific times of the year gone for a century or more, only the romance of those bygone days remain.

We live in a time when seasonality has lost its meaning, and not just with respect to beer. Any fruit, regardless of its growing season is available at the average supermarket, flown from around the world so that our every whim not go unfulfilled. Let no sales opportunity go to waste. Convenience is king. As consumers we believe that whatever we want should be available whenever we want it, because that’s the bill of goods we’ve been sold. Remember those bothersome watermelon seeds. Gone. Strawberries in the winter? Thank you Guatemala. We don’t like to wait for anything anymore. And usually we don’t have to, because there’s someone willing to sell us whatever we fancy, regardless of the season.

Philosophically, I may not like this fact, but I’m as guilty as anyone. Pandora’s box is wide open and hope is cowering in the corner hoping greed doesn’t beat her to a bloody pulp again. I drink whatever I want, whenever I want. And thanks to air-conditioning, fans and refrigeration, that means any beer, any time. I rarely even think about seasonality when I choose a beer. I rarely even consider the weather, because unless I’m in the woods camping, I can control my environment, at least to some degree.

seasons-tree

The only factors I use are mood, food and ‘tude. Food is obvious, I’ll select a beer I think will go with what I’m eating, regardless of the season. If an imperial stout works, so be it. That leaves mood and attitude. They’re similar states, but different in a crucial way. My mood is how I’m feeling at a particular moment in time, whereas my attitude is how I feel toward the people around me, where I’m at, what I’m doing, etc. Mood is inward, attitude is outward.

But put a gun to my head, and the beers I’ll choose time and time again, regardless of the weather, are the complex ones: barley wines, sour beers, saisons and biere de gardes. I’m usually keen to try anything preceded by the designation “Imperial.” But I also love a delicate Mild or a refreshing Dunkelweiss. I like a good unfiltered Zwickel anything, but especially pilsners. The point is, I think, that without realizing it, I haven’t been drinking seasonally for a long time, if indeed I ever did. Do any of us, I wonder? Certainly I’m pleased when new seasonal releases arrive on my doorstep, but mostly because I’m always keen to try something new or different.

Clearly — as usual — my finger is nowhere near the pulse of America. Because lighter beers definitely do experience spikes in sales during the summer and darker, stronger beers sell better in cooler weather. But most sell well enough at all the other times of the year to justify them being on stores shelves year-round. So perhaps it’s simply driven by the bigger beer companies and retailers who create endless promotions based on holidays, backyard barbecues and what they believe people want. Consumers, of course, do react to products on sale, on endcaps or as a part of specific promotions and thus buy those beers at the times of year that they’re offered to them, perhaps putting no more thought into it than I do. Could seasonality be simply a self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuated by marketing? It seems likely, at a minimum. Because for everyone I know who chooses their beer carefully, weather is only occasionally a factor. Only when we can’t control it — at the beach, on the golf course, camping, places like that — are beers chosen because of the prevailing weather. And notice those are specific places, suggesting that may be the more important factor than weather or seasonality. Even as I sit here typing this, I’ve got a nice glass of Anchor Porter next to me, even though the thermometer is tipping 90°. I peered inside the refrigerator, and pulled it out without a moment’s hesitation. It just looked tasty. And so it is.

The Can Can-Can

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You’ve no doubt heard the news that 21st Amendment has redesigned their cans and is having them brewed at the Cold Springs Brewery in Cold Springs, Minnesota. The two styles that are being canned — Live Free or Die IPA and Hell or High Watermelon Wheat — should be available throughout San Francisco and Bay Area BevMo stores the third week of July. Here is some video of the new cans being manufactured and then being filled for the first time.

The Ball Manufacturing plant in Milwaukee making the 21st Amendment cans, where they produced over a quarter million of our new Brew Free or Die IPA and Hell or High Watermelon cans.

First production day running the cans at Cold Springs Brewing in Minnesota:

 

Shaun O’Sullivan showing off the new Brew Free or Die IPA can.
 

Hawaii On Tap

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My friend and colleague, Thomas Kerns (who’s the head brewer at Maui Brewing), sent me the link to a wonderful insert all about Hawaiian beer that the local paper, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, published in the Sunday newspaper. Entitled Hawaii On Tap, the article takes an in-depth look at beer on the islands and runs to fourteen pages. It’s great, positive publicity for the craft beer industry as a whole and Hawaii in specific.

 

Giant Goddess Glass

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It’s said that bigger isn’t always better, but then again sometimes it is. Case in point, more beer can be a good thing. With that in mind, Heartland Brewery is introducing The Beer Goddess®, The World’s Largest Glass of Beer (We Think).”

From the press release:

Heartland Brewery announces the introduction of The Beer Goddess®, a three-liter hand-blown Pilsner glass (that’s 6.3 pints, 101.4 ounces, or 8.5 cans) custom-made for Heartland by Rastal of Germany. Heartland Brewery believes that when filled with one of its locally brewed craft beers, the glass may be “The Largest Glass of Beer Commercially Available” (that is, served in a bar or restaurant), and has applied to the Guinness World Records to have it designated as such.

The Beer Goddess is available at all five Heartland locations and is served with a choice of six Heartland beers. The Beer Goddess costs $49, and does not include the glass itself, which is not for sale at this time. There are a limited edition of only 100 Beer Goddess glasses in circulation at Heartland Brewery restaurants.

Heartland Brewery founder Jon Bloostein, notes, “We appreciate that The Beer Goddess may not be for everyone, but we all know beer drinkers for whom it is perfect. That said, we are limiting orders to one per person and encouraging customers to share. While we think we serve the world’s largest beer (mind you, in a glass, not a pitcher), we invite the public to e-mail us with any examples from bars or restaurants around the world that they believe are larger.”

Heartland founder Jon Bloostein and Brewmaster Kelly Taylor show off the Beer Goddess glass.

 
In case you were curious, that ® refers to Beer Goddess being a registered trademark of Ale Street News.
 

New Session Logos

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I got a great e-mail from Ray Merkler, who has a new homebrewing blog — the Bathtub Brewery — along with his significant other, Melissa Ward. Ray took the original Session logo file I made way back when, re-rendered it in Adobe Illustrator, and cleaned it up quite a bit, adding a third type of logo with the text “The Session” inside the red circle. He did a great job and they look much better than mine, which admittedly I did on the fly and quickly, so I’ve replaced mine with his on the Session Logo page. I’d encourage you to use his, too. Way to go, Ray. Great job, and I appreciate the effort.

 

 

 

Iron Springs Announces New Head Brewer

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I got the following press release from Iron Springs Brewpub in Fairfax, with more good news. In addition to securing a new five-year lease, they’ve nabbed a great new head brewer: Christian Kazakoff. He’s been the head brewer at Triple Rock for the past ten years.

Iron Springs Pub & Brewery is proud to announce, taking over the helm as the new head brewer, Christian Kazakoff. Christian comes to Iron Springs with a lengthy background in brewing in the Bay Area. Christian spent the last 10 years running Triple Rock Brewery in Berkeley and has worked with some of the finest brewers around San Francisco. We are excited to have Christian as the newest member of the Iron Springs family and we feel he is going to take the brewery into this new era for Iron Springs. Iron Springs plans to offer brewer’s dinners four times a year to highlight Christian’s ales from the brewery and the pub’s famous food.

Rumors have already started about who will be replacing him at Triple Rock. I’ve already heard at least three names floated, but let’s see how things develop first before passing those along.

Christian after a sleepless night setting up before last year’s Bay Area Firkin Fest at Triple Rock. I’m not sure what this news means for the fate of the Firkin Fest.