I forgot to mention this earlier, but when I met with Dan Gordon a couple of weeks back he told me that the four beers he’ll be making for Costco will be sold in a loose variety pack, meaning there will be six bottles of each of the four styles in every 24-bottle case, with no carriers. That means their new private label beers will only create one additional sku, not four, as I had originally feared. Since this changes considerably the heated debate that ensued, I thought I’d pass it along.
The full quote from Proverbs 16:18, at least in the King James’ version, is “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall” but the more common shortened version says it all. Essentially, the modern meaning of this proverb is not to be overly confident, especially in yourself, or you’re likely to have something bad happen to put you back in your place. If you allow yourself to become full of pride, you will find yourself humiliated. Be modest, that’s good advice to remember. It’s what happened to me on Sunday, and I offer up my cautionary tale by way of illustration.
I’ve done my fair share of prolonged drinking over the years, and rarely have I not been able to muddle through to the end. We (and by we I mean those of us who have been regularly attending GABF for many years) generally say about the Great American Beer Festival—by way of advice—that it’s a marathon, not a sprint to suggest that pacing is very important to a full enjoyment of the week’s events. So when I was invited to the 4th annual Keene Tasting on Sunday, the day after the Hard Liver Barleywine Fest at Brouwer’s Cafe, it simply never occurred to me that I wouldn’t be still standing after twelve hours and 150 beers. Alas, my body had other plans for me.
At 11:00 a.m., with our first beer of the day. Things went fine through the first 50 beers or so, when suddenly and quite unexpectedly I felt cold shivers shoot through my body. Initially undaunted, I assumed that the open windows letting in the fresh Seattle air had simply chilled the room so I put on my jacket and resumed tasting. But after another half-hour of involuntarily shivering it became obvious that all was not well and my body had decided to pitch a fit. I felt fine, apart from the chills, and struggled through until we almost reached the half-way point, 75 beers, and it was time for another break. I hunkered down in a comfy chair during the break and tried to will myself to warm up, but it did no good. When tasting resumed, I stayed put figuring I should not ignore my body’s tantrum, and still hoped it was just a temporary thing and my recovery was minutes away. A few kind souls asked if I was okay (perhaps I looked as bad as I felt) and I nodded and muttered that I was fine. But as more time passed and I was feeling worse, I decided to spare myself further humiliation and called in the evacuation troops — my wife — to come and collect me. About an hour later I was standing out front shivering in the cold and waiting for her arrival to whisk me to safety and nurse me back to health. This proved trickier than I might have imagined. Whether my weekend drinking had finally lowered my immune system to the point where I got the flu that’s been circulating in my friends and family for weeks or I simply drank too much, too fast, I can’t really say. All I know is that my chills turned to heat as I burned off a fever so bright that my wife said my skin was hot to the touch like an old-fashioned radiator and that she couldn’t even lie near me because I was radiating so much heat. By morning I only felt lousy, a distinct improvement. But that was nothing compared to the disappointment at not finishing the tasting. Perhaps I was at least a source of amusement for those I left behind, as I heard Bonney calling my name from the window above me as I waited for my ride. I called up, but I don’t think he heard me. C’est la vie. There’s always next year.
Our hosts, Vern and Bonney, the two Matts, during a toast to Michael Jackson’s memory with the beer made by Pike Brewing for the Michael Jackson Tribute dinner held the night before in Philadelphia. The first half of the tasting I enjoyed immensely, right up to the point where I had to leave or die.
For many more photos from at least the first half of the Keene Tasting, including some bottle shots of the beers sampled, visit the photo gallery.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone. Enjoy your pint of Guinness, or Murphy’s, or Beamish, or whatever. In Ireland, they’ll be sitting down to a traditional family dinner, which while it may include a dry Irish stout, is not all about the drinking. But here in the United States, the supposed melting pot, we take everybody’s holidays and run them through the cultural meat grinder. When they come out on the other end they’re invariably bigger, glossier, brighter and most people probably think more fun, if your idea of fun is to drink yourself silly every time you have an extra day off. But whatever solemn purpose or commemoration or event is being celebrated it is all but completely erased and what remains is fun, fun, fun. Now I like fun as much as the next guy. I’m a curmudgeon, certainly, but I still like to have fun. But we’re talking about days set aside so that we don’t forget our heritage, the often selfless sacrifices people have made on our behalf or the celebration of religious traditions. And how do we treat those days, almost without exception? We drink. And not just a toast. We drink to excess. We drink until the streets run pink or brown or yellow or whatever with vomit. Of course, we do this to our own holidays, too. Unfortunately, I see this as fairly recent trend. I remember when Memorial Day wasn’t just an excuse to have a picnic or barbecue and drink. I remember when Halloween was just for children and not the biggest keg sales weekend of the year (which it actually is now).
Now I enjoy a party, a picnic, a barbecue as much as the next guy. Any excuse to get together with friends and family is a welcome event. That’s not what I object to. My objection is twofold. First there’s the general over-commercialization of holidays. Second, there’s the way in which the big breweries, mass market imports along with the wine and spirits industries have seized upon each and every holiday as a way to sell more booze. And, of course, I’m not anti-alcohol. I hope that goes without saying but just in case, feel free to read more of what I’ve written before and you should quickly realize that I don’t like the neo-prohibitionists as much as they no doubt dislike me.
As to the first point, the over-commercialization of holidays, I’m going to take it for granted that most people will agree that this has happened. It’s hard to miss that whatever commercial aspects are inherent in a given holiday, they have been wildly exploited and expanded upon. A stroll through the average card shop should be more than enough to drive this home. If not, then how about that stores start decorating for Christmas in October now, sometimes even earlier. Anyway, I don’t want to belabor this point too much because I think most people will accept it and my second point is, I think, more novel.
Before I dive into this further, a little more background is probably in order. I’m also something of a calendar geek and have an almanac blog, too. I started collecting dates about thirty years ago when I picked up a book on mixed drink recipes that had an appendix with a reason to celebrate and have a drink each and every day of the year. That got me thinking and I started keeping a notebook where I’d write down new holidays, famous birthdays and historical events I happened upon. As a result, I may be more sensitive to holidays than the typical person, if such a thing is possible.
Anyway, it seems to me what was once a solemn religious holiday celebrating the patron saint of Ireland on the date he was believed to have died, March 17, 461 C.E., has been perverted into a way to sell more Guinness and all manner of other Irish doo-dads. Several years ago, Guinness gave away an actual pub in Ireland to a winner in America. They did this for a few years running. What happened to the pub and the pub owners once they were out of the spotlight wasn’t always pretty and I suspect that’s why they stopped. Then there was the yearly attempts to break the world’s record — from the Guinness Book of World Records, naturally — for the largest number of people simultaneously toasting, which was accomplished with some elaborate coordination. I’m not even sure what they’re doing these days, since the parent company Diageo has had them off in bizarre directions which have not done the beer itself any favors, and I’ve pretty much given up on them as a brewery. They still seem to enjoy a good reputation, even among beer geeks. Of course, the stuff available here is brewed in Canada. That’s done so they can still put “imported” on the label. It’s a common trick. Foster’s does the same thing, as do a few other larger import beers. There are around 19 or 20 different Guinness beers worldwide, of course, and at least four different ones are sold here. The beer in the widget can, widget bottle (an abomination in my opinion), regular bottle and in kegs are not the same beer; I mean they’re not even the same recipe. I’m not saying there’s anything necessarily wrong with that. They’re fairly up front about it though still, I doubt most people are actually aware of it. So when somebody says they like Guinness, I have to wonder which one? I think it says a lot about peoples’ palates that so few realize they’re drinking completely different beers when they order a can or bottle of Guinness.
To be fair, St. Patrick’s Day isn’t the most egregious of these holidays by a long shot. At least dry Irish stout, which is what Guinness and most other Irish-made stouts are, is actually originally from Ireland. Many other non-Irish beer also advertise themselves for St. Patrick’s Day in about as shameless a fashion as one could imagine. Last weekend, while in Philadelphia, I witnessed part of their annual parade for St. Patrick’s Day. There were the requisite social organizations marching in their green colors, bands, floats for Irish bars and bagpipers. Oddly, one float was blasting the song 500 Miles by the Proclaimers. It’s a catchy little tune, but the band is Scottish, not Irish. To me, that’s a perfect illustration of how little we all know about our shared heritages. Nobody else seemed to notice they were celebrating Irish culture with a song from Scotland, least of all the people on the float who chose the music.
For most of its history, the holiday was a relatively quiet affair in Ireland, a time for family, church and reflection. There were shamrocks and other greenery, but it was mostly for the tourists who flocked to Dublin and other parts of the Emerald Isle.
Sadly, this may no longer be true in Ireland. In 1996, the government of Ireland began what has become a five-day celebration in Dublin known as the Official St. Patrick’s Festival, which this year began on the 13th and concludes today. The stated goal of the festival is the following.
That’s certainly a modern approach to raising revenues for the country through tourism but it feels a bit like a sell-out. Given that the Irish have been shedding their own blood over religion for centuries, it seems odd to me that they’d so cavalierly commercialize their national holiday. But perhaps the momentum was too great and they decided to go with it rather than fight a losing battle. America has a way of ruining almost everything it touches, remaking it our own image of bigger, glitzier and with an eye toward profit, always profit. But when profit is the prime motivator, the meaning of the traditions that binds a people become lost. No matter how rich we might become, nothing can rival the social connections that make us a society rather then a group of self-serving individuals who care nothing for their fellow man.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Enjoy it with friends and family.
The 6th annual Hard Liver Barleywine Fest took place — as it has for the past four years — at Brouwer’s Cafe at the corner of 35th and Phinney in Seattle, Washington. There were 45 barley wines on tap and the place was packed from the time it opened at eleven until I left around five o’clock. With so many tasty treats, the Hard Liver was certainly hard on your own liver.
The packed crowd at Brouwer’s enjoying barley wines from the second-floor balcony.
Festivals hosts Matt Bonney and Matt Vandenberghe, co-owners of Brouwer’s Cafe.
For many more photos from this year’s Hard Liver Barleywine Fest, visit the photo gallery.
Here are the results from the 2008 Hard Liver Barleywine Fest in held at Brouwer’s Cafe in Seattle, Washington:
Congratulations to all the winners.
Dan Gordon, of Gordon Biersch Brewing in San Jose, California, has just released their newest seasonal beer, an authentic unfiltered Dunkleweizen.
He stopped by the Celebrator offices the afternoon before we scheduled our most recent blind panel tasting for the April/May issue with beer in hand so we could taste the new beer.
It’s an unfiltered authentic Bavarian-style dunkleweizen, delightfully dark and murky. When first poured, it had that wonderful pillowy head that juts out above the top of the glass with a small dimple in the center. It tasted great and makes the case against too much filtering, because so much more of the flavors come through. It would be terrific with hearty dishes, say German cooking. This will be Gordon Biersch’s spring seasonal and will be the first of a program of four seasonal beers per year. It’s one of the best new beers they’ve made in a long time, though Gordon explains it’s been one of his favorites for a number of years. He used to make a draft-only version from time to time before deciding to package as Gordon Biersch transitions to four seasonals per year. It’s easy to see why he loves it. Having spent a little over a week in Bavaria last fall, I enjoyed this style in a variety of circumstances, and oftentimes dunkleweizens are filtered for bottling. That this delicious beer isn’t makes it one of the more exciting new releases in a while.
After our historical walk through Philadelphia, we went to a decidedly more modern destination: Triumph Brewing’s Philadelphia brewpub location. Originally started in Princeton, New Jersey and named for the owner’s triumph over the state’s arcane laws prohibiting brewpubs that allowed them to begin brewing in the first place, their third location is the one we visited.
For more photos from my visit to the Triumph Brewpub in Philadelphia, visit the photo gallery.
Day two of my Philly Beer Week trip began with a walking tour of the Old City part of town with beer historian Richard Wagner, who runs the fabulous Pennsylvania Brewery Historians website. He took us around to places with historical significance, both beerwise and otherwise.
The Liberty Bell, with Independence Hall across the street through the window.
The Man Full of Troubles Tavern, built in 1759 and the earliest colonial pub still standing.
For more photos from my historical walking tour of Philadelphia, visit the photo gallery.
Lucky number thirteen, the beginning of year two of the Sessions. This time around our host, Chris O’Brien, the Beer Activist, chose a topic near and dear to his heart, organic beer. It’s one I’m fairly familiar with as well. I wrote a feature story on green breweries for All About Beer magazine in January of this year that covered both organic beer and the green ways in which breweries operate. As I’ve been traveling a lot the last few weeks, my session post is a bit of a rehash, let’s call it recycled. That’s more green.
| To me, one of the main issues about organic beer is its perception and what exactly makes a beer organic. Unsurprisingly, it’s the ingredients used to make whatever product is going to be called or labeled “organic.” Several years ago, the standards for organic products varied from state to state, but in 2002 the federal government instituted the National Organic Program (NOP) that standardized the requirements for organic labeling nationwide. This made it easier for companies to sell across state lines without having to worry about individual and possibly conflicting standards between states. Some states did complain, of course, because it undermined their own efforts at defining what it means to be an organic product. The standards in Oregon prior to the NOP, for example, were more rigid than the national standard adopted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But this intervention did make it easier for regional and national breweries to more easily meet the requirements for a larger market. |
The USDA does not do the certification process directly, but rather they have “deputized” independent certifying agents, which in some cases do include the former state certifying agencies. Currently, there are about sixty such agencies. Among these are the California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) and the Oregon Tilth. In addition to the actual certifying, they also investigate noncompliance complaints and check records, monitor label usage, etc. There are now essentially four levels of organic labeling: “100% organic,” “organic,“ “made with organic materials,” and “some organic ingredients.” The differences in these four are listed in the table below:
Organic Labeling Differences
| 100% Organic | Must contain 100 percent organically produced ingredients, not counting added water and salt. |
| Organic |
Must contain at least 95% organic ingredients, not counting added water and salt. Must not contain added sulfites. May contain up to 5% of:
|
| Made with Organic Ingredients |
Must contain at least 70% organic ingredients, not counting added water and salt. Must not contain added sulfites; except that, wine may contain added sulfur dioxide in accordance with 7 CFR 205.605. May contain up to 30% of:
|
| Some Organic Ingredients |
May contain less than 70% organic ingredients, not counting added water and salt. May contain over 30% of:
|
While this is undoubtedly a good step, the fact that there are four of these and they sound so similar it seems to me this is still confusing for consumers, especially the casual consumer who is not likely to be familiar with the precise differences. The “made with organic ingredients” designation, for example — which only requires 70% of its ingredients to actually be organic — seems to convey a false impression of how organic the product really is, at least in my opinion. A company could use 30% of complete crap and still make a consumer believe their purchase is organically sound. This undermines the very idea of organic products. It seems to me products should either be organic or not. This slippery slope of degrees is bound to cause nothing but confusion and perhaps even ill will. The FDA has approved some sixty plus chemicals for use in the manufacture of beer. Are they all bad? Certainly not, and even craft brewers use some of them on occasion. But health and beer is all about perception. A brewery could theoreticaly use many of them and so long as it’s less than 30% of the total ingredients say their concoction is “made with organic ingredients.”
All beer is in effect natural, especially those that use only the four basic ingredients. This begs the question of how much better is organic beer vs. a typical craft beer? I’d say in the end it has to do with how it makes the customer feel on an emotional level. I think that’s true of almost all organic products. People buy them because it makes them feel good, like they’re doing something good, both for themselves, the environment and perhaps even society as a whole. They feel like they’re helping out small farmers. This is why the labeling is so important. And not just the organic designation but also the truthiness of the entire package. A customer should be able to feel good about what they’re buying, but if details are left out — no matter how legal it is to do so — then this damages the emotional response that is so central to buying organic.
This is the very reason big companies hide behind dba’s and buy up health food companies. Colgate recently bought Tom’s of Maine. Will that make Tom’s a bad product now? Probably not, unless Colgate takes over production and relaxes standards. But some people will likely still think twice about buying Tom’s knowing it’s just another product line in Colgate’s massive portfolio. It’s all a matter of what perception will be created in the mind of the consumer based on that new information and what the change of ownership means to them. Some may not care at all, of course. But what happens if this information is not disclosed on Tom’s packaging? At that point it goes beyond simple ignorance and becomes a calculated lie-by-omission.
There will almost certainly continue to be a market for organic and healthier products that maintain a small niche within the wider market. What will allow it to grow is directly proportional to the confidence that the market has for the products within the niche market. That’s the exact reason the labeling standards are so important. But doing the minimum required for purely business reasons in order to sell a product is just not enough. Common sense standards will also have to be adhered to as well in order to gain customer confidence. This will vary from company to company but makes sense in relation to the product. For example, an organic farmer who refrains from using pesticides but hires slave labor would not be adhering to a common sense standard, in my opinion.
By and large, I think the majority of organic beers available today do adhere to a good set of standards, both the mandated ones and the common sense ones. But as larger companies begin to compete for these niche markets, the line becomes blurred. Some will leave the smaller companies they’ve purchased alone and some will swallow them whole. New ones created within larger companies will suffer the same problems. And then who knows what will happen to common sense standards.
There’s a great series of charts on Michigan State’s website showing how many organic products of all stripes are currently owned by large corporations hedging their bets and trying to appear socially conscious.
Excerpted from my All About Beer article:
|
Until very recently, there were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of ingredients that organic companies were claiming weren’t available organically and, therefore, a non-organic substitute could be used. But there’s a difference between allowable and acceptable, and consumers supporting organic products precisely because they were better for the environment began complaining that the distinction was being blurred. By allowing goods to be called “organic” that contained non-organic ingredients it was creating confusion as to exactly what was being offered for sale. This consumer backlash forced the USDA to change their policy and limit the number of items that could be substituted and still be called organic. After a public debate, the number of ingredients that could be substituted was fixed at 38, with hops still on the list.
So when it comes to organic beer, hops have become the crux of the debate. There was a time when the only available organic malts were pale and crystal malts, but today almost any common malt is available organically. Organic hops, on the other hand, remain more elusive. Hops are a fragile crop, susceptible to many pests, fungi and mildew problems. Today virtually all hops are grown in just three states: Washington, Oregon and Idaho. Pesticides and fertilizers have greatly enhanced yields, and hop growers have developed varieties with better yields and that are disease resistant. Many of these varieties have become an integral part of beer’s wide array of styles. Certain hop varieties have become associated with specific styles, making it all but impossible to use a substitute and get the desired results. You may be able to make a pilsner without Saaz hops or an American pale ale without Cascades, but they won’t taste quite right.
Of the roughly fifty common hop varieties, only about one-fifth have shown the potential to be viable organic crops. Stephen Carpenter, great-great-grandson of the Yakima Valley’s first hop grower, tried unsuccessfully to grow the very popular Cascade hops organically. For many years, organic hops were available primarily from New Zealand, with as much as 80% of all organic hops grown by a single farmer, the Oldham family, on 25 acres.
Last year, Anheuser-Busch entered the organic market with two brands, Wild Hop Lager and Stone Mill Pale Ale. During the public debate on labeling, they were strongly criticized for not using 100% organic hops by misguided consumer groups who believed that if you are big enough and have enough money then it should be easy enough for you to get whatever you want, including organic hops. But the hops business doesn’t work like that. Hop growers are just beginning to come out of a decade-long down cycle that has seen many leave the business just as demand for hops is on the rise. By every account, there is a worldwide hop shortage that has no easy solutions. Unfortunately, A-B bowed to public pressure and announced their organic beers would be made with 100% organic hops. Even they’re unsure where a steady supply of hops is likely to come from. Thanks to A-B’s having been forced into this decision by consumer groups, small craft brewers who make organic beer may very well have a much tougher time finding organic hops and even staying in business because what hops may be available will be at least twice as expensive as conventionally grown varieties. According to Morgan Wolaver, founder of Wolaver’s Organic Ales, this is perhaps organic beer’s biggest challenge. “We need to find an answer to these crop issues, because the controversy will not simply go away. If a beer is made with 100% of the more expensive organic hops, will consumers be willing to spend another dollar per six-pack?”
So that’s my recycled three cents on organic beer, most of it written before today but in one place for the first time, so that should count for something.
Below is a list of many of the organic beers and beer producers available today.
Some Organic Beer Producers
Philly Beer Week begins today, and I got in last night along with several other beer writers. We began the evening at a beer dinner, courtesy of the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation, put on for us at Monk’s Cafe, before setting out for several other Philadelphia beer destinations.
Monk’s co-owner Tom Peters showing off his limited edition bottles of Cantillon Gueuze, with Stasha Ackerman, at a beer dinner last night.
For many more photos from the night before Philly Beer Week, visit the photo gallery.