Jay R. Brooks on Beer
Monday’s ad is for Brasserie De Baccarat, from the early 1900s, I think. From the late 1800s until the 1940s, poster art really came into its own, and in Europe a lot of really cool posters, many of them for breweries, were produced. This poster is for the Brasserie Rauch, located in the northeast region of France known as Baccarat, a French commune in the Meurthe-et-Moselle. The brewery was founded by the Rauch Brothers in 1867, but it closed in 1949.
Sunday’s ad is for La Meuse, from 1900, or before. From the late 1800s until the 1940s, poster art really came into its own, and in Europe a lot of really cool posters, many of them for breweries, were produced. This poster is for the La Meuse, a river that runs through much of France. It was the industrial center of France at one time, and in the mid-1800s boasted over 40 breweries.
My good friend Luc De Raedemaeker, who among quite a bit more, publishes the Belgian beer magaine Biere Grand Cru that started in 2014. Knowing my love (some might say obsession) with frites, my universal name for fried potatoes or fries, he included me in a tweet about an article covering a new Dutch beer that uses potato peels from a frites business.
Beer in which old bread is processed during brewing, we already had, but also when making fries a lot of ‘waste’ is produced. To put it in the words of FrietHoes say “potatoes are round, french fries square”. Throwing away the leftovers would be a shame, especially because they are still trying to make their production process as sustainable as possible. In search of a solution they came into contact with Jopen as beer lovers and the solution was not far away.
Potatoes are full of starch and you can use some of them during the brewing process. Jopen therefore developed a beer in which the leftover potato (the ‘shells’) is added to the batter. Still nice fruity hopping and ‘Klaar is Kees’. The result is a dark blond beer with a hoppy aroma of citrus fruit and a nice bitterness so that it dries super smoothly. Ideal for a pack of salty fries …
I’m in.
I’ve had a few potato beers before. Widmer Brothers made one for OBF a number of years ago, I believe. And I certainly remember a couple more. But this is even more interesting because it’s recycling at its finest. Taking the leftover potato peels from making frites is just genius. The people behind it, Friethoes, grow their own organic potatoes, operate frites shops, food trucks, and have other potato-related businesses. But the peels were going to waste. So why not? Of course, now I’m dead keen to try a bottle. So they partnered with Brouwerij Troost to brew the beer.
Until I can get my own bottle, here’s a review of it from a Dutch blog called Lauriekoek:
Beer is usually made of malt, yeast and hops. Malt does not necessarily have to be malt, other sources of sugar and starch are also suitable for fermentation. You can also use potato starch, because that too can be converted into alcohol and bubbles by yeast. And that’s what FrietHoes did, together with brewery Troost. By working in a smart way on the potato residues as part of the ingredients in the beer, FrietHoes comes a step closer to the zero waste goal.
Peeling beer is described as a Weizen. Of course this is not a Weizen in the most German sense of the word, because it differs from the traditional ingredients. It is a bit between a Weizen and a Belgian wheat beer, partly because of the addition of coriander seeds and orange peel, to give it a fresher character. Peeling beer is sweet and a little weeïg, but a bit more acidic than other white beers and with the typical notes of banana and clove that you can also find in weizen beers. The acidity in this beer is easy to combine with fatty dishes such as everything that comes out of a frying pan.
All in all, FrietHoes has succeeded in developing a beer with potato that fits well with the deep-fried delicacies that they mainly sell. Whether it is a really accessible beer, I wonder. For a number of people, perhaps it is just a bit too sour.
And here’s another review from BierNet.nl:
Friethoes Schillenbier
New: Schillenbier from Friethoes . An unofficial Weizen beer made from hops, barley and pieces of potato from Friethoes fries factory. The fries bakers worked together with Brouwerij Troost to process the remains from the fries cutting plant and use them in a new and cool product. From now on: fries and beer from Friethoes.
Brewery Troost has often brewed with other ingredients with the aim to prevent waste. In the past they also brewed Pieper Bier and Bammetjes beer.
That’s how you make beer
Friethoes Schillenbier bottleYou already knew: beer is made from malt, hops and yeast. You mainly use malt to give color and flavor to your beer. The starch in malt also provides alcohol and bubbles with the help of a little yeast. You do not need malt starch per se, you can also use potato starch.
And that is exactly what Friethoes and Troost have done: the waste is converted into a main component. In the end, fewer raw materials are needed to make the same fries and the same beer. Hoera!
Es ist (k) ein Weizen
The new Schillenbier naturally had to taste good with fries, which is why the brewers chose Weizen beer . Weizen is sweet, mild and accessible and that fits well with a first-class salty burger.The new Schillenbier consists of 50% wheat malt, a little barley and little hops. Officially you can not call that Weizen. If you are a bit of a German, you know that according to the Reinheitsgebot you do not use beeper starch in Weizen, even if it tastes exactly the same. No Weizen.
A responsible company
Friethoes wants to make fries in a responsible and honest way. That’s why it uses as many local potatoes and local ingredients as possible, uses green electricity for their fries and 100% E-numberless sunflower oil to bake the fries.
The packaging is made of biodegradable plastic, recycled paper and cardboard and the forks in the recycled wood store. Schillenbier is an initiative and an experiment to determine the value of the waste stream. The goal is to be the first zero waste fries company in the Netherlands by 2019.
Today is the birthday of Henry Shlaudeman (January 13, 1834-February 24, 1923), who founded what would become the Decatur Brewing Co., in Decatur, Illinois. Shlaudeman was born in Wildeshausen, Grossherzogtum Oldenburg, in what today is part of Germany. He emigrated to America in 1846. After a short stint in the cigar trade, he joined the Edward Harpstrite Brewery (which was originally the John Koehler & Adam Keck Brewery when it opened in 1855). Within a few years, he’d made enough of an impact that it became the Harpstrite & Shlaudeman Brewery, and two years after that, in 1884, he bought out his partner and it became the Henry Shlaudeman Brewery. In 1888, it was again renamed, this time the Decatur Brewing Co. It reopened after prohibition in 1934 under the name Macon County Beverage Co., but closed for good the same year.
Surprising, I was unable to turn up even one photograph of him, and very little even of the brewery he owned. The City of Decatur and Macon County, subtitled “A Record of Settlement, Organization, Progress and Achievement,” includes a biography of Henry Shlaudeman:
And while there’s not much about him, his house has an entire webpage, all about the Henry Shlaudeman House
He also held at least two patents related to brewing. One was for an Improvement in safety-valves for fermented-liquor casks from 1878 and the other for a Refrigerator-building for fermenting and storing beer.
Saturday’s ad is for the Birra Milano, from the 1920s, or before. From the late 1800s until the 1940s, poster art really came into its own, and in Europe a lot of really cool posters, many of them for breweries, were produced. This poster is for the Birra Milano, located in Milan, Italy. The poster was created by Italian artist and illustrator Mario Borgoni.
Today is also the birthday of Adolph Coors III (January 12, 1916-February 9, 1960). He was Chairman of the Board of Coors Brewing Co. and the grandson of founder Adolph Coors.
Adolph Coors III also has a short Wikipedia page:
Coors was born on January 12, 1916, the son of Alice May (née Kistler; 1885-1970) and Adolph Coors II. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. Like most of his family, including brother Joseph Coors, Adolph graduated from Cornell University, where he was president of the Quill and Dagger society and a member of The Kappa Alpha Society. Coors was also a semi-professional baseball player.
On February 9, 1960, while on his way to work, he was murdered at the age of 44 in a foiled kidnapping attempt by escaped murderer Joseph Corbett, Jr. in Colorado. In September, the remains of Coors were found by hunters in a remote area around Pikes Peak. The subject of an international manhunt, Corbett was captured in Vancouver, British Columbia in October of that year.
“Ad,” as he apparently was known, was “an avid skier” and “was inducted into the Colorado Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame in 1998.”
Skiing was a passion to “Ad”, as he is affectionately known, grandson of the founder of Coors Brewing Company. “Ad was an avid, enthusiastic and inexhaustible skier”, his brother Bill Coors remembers. “He was involved not only in the sport of skiing itself but active in its development as a major Colorado industry and in the promotion of Colorado as Ski Country, USA.” He imparted his love of the sport to his friends and family. A highly polished skier, he took every opportunity away from the brewery to hit the slopes on family vacations. “He wanted to help those he really cared about to gain a taste of the sport he loved,” recalls Cecily Garnsey, Coors’ daughter. Ad was instrumental in developing modern skiing in Colorado. He channeled his love and his resources toward establishing quality ski resorts in Colorado. He helped to found the Aspen Ski Corporation in 1946, and served on the board of directors until his tragic death on February 9, 1960. He was present at the opening of Sun Valley, became one of the earliest members of the Arlberg Ski Club at Winter Park in 1938, and was becoming involved with the development of Vail at the time of his death. Ad also helped to establish ski racing in the state, by bringing the World Alpine Ski Championships to Aspen in 1950 (serving as Finance Chairman), the first time the event was held in the US. His daughter remembers, “He loved to ski. He loved Colorado. And he wanted to see a marriage of the two.” Ad was a skier for life, and he tirelessly contributed time, money and energy to help others understand and appreciate his love for the sport.
Today is the birthday of Adolph Coors II, who was born Adolph Herman Joseph Coors, Jr. (January 12, 1884-June 28, 1970). He was the second president of Coors Brewing Co. and the son of founder Adolph Coors.
Adolph Coors II has a short Wikipedia page:
Coors was a graduate of Cornell University, where he was a member of the Sphinx Head Society and the Beta Delta chapter of Beta Theta Pi. He became an accomplished chemist who worked in prominent positions in the family’s brewing and porcelain operations. He married Alice May Kistler (1885–1970) of Denver[3] on May 4, 1912, at the Kistler home by Rev. Van Arsdall. The couple had four children: Adolph Coors III (1915–1960) who was kidnapped and killed in 1960; William K. Coors (1916), Joseph Coors (1917–2003), and May Louise Coors (1923–2008).
Coors had his own brush with kidnapping in 1934. Paul Robert Lane, the former state Prohibition agent for Colorado, along with Clyde Culbertson, former investigator for the federal dry forces, along with two other men conspired to kidnap Adolph Jr. for a ransom of $50,000. The person delivering the money was to proceed to three different checkpoints to ensure no officers were tailing him and then split the money; Coors would be released somewhere around Colorado Springs. Denver police learned of the plot while working on an auto theft ring and Adolph Jr. volunteered to be kidnapped so the police could arrest the suspects. However, Lane was arrested on an auto theft charge and the conspiracy was foiled in advance.
Adolph Coors Jr. died in 1970 at the age of 86 years.
A few years after his death in 1970, the Coors Foundation was established using “funds from the Adolph Coors, Jr. Trust. The foundation has awarded $135.3 million USD since 1975. It focuses its efforts generally within the state of Colorado. In 1993 it provided the endowment funds for the creation of the Castle Rock Foundation, which awards grants to causes throughout the United States.
Friday’s ad is for the Bière Chopard, from the late 1890s, or before. From the late 1800s until the 1940s, poster art really came into its own, and in Europe a lot of really cool posters, many of them for breweries, were produced. This poster is for the Brasserie de l’aigle (which is Brewery of the Eagle), located in Morteau, in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in eastern France.
Today is the 39th birthday of John Holl, who’s a journalist that came over to the dark side full time; dark beer, that is. Originally on the staff of the Gray Lady — the New York Times — he’s now writing exclusively about beer from his home in northern New Jersey, and more recently he’s become a senior editor at Craft Beer and Brewing Magazine. Online, he’s at Beer Briefing and his latest book is the American Craft Beer Cookbook. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know John during some travel over the last few years, from Denver to Boston, and even in Chile. He’s a great addition to the fraternity of beer writers. Join me in wishing John a very happy birthday.
After the first Beer Bloggers Conference, having lunch at Euclid Hall in Denver, before flying home.
A few years ago in Chile, judging at the Copa Cervezas de America 2011 (John’s on the right in the back row).
Visiting Maltexco, also in Chile (this time, John’s on the left).
At a lunch at Euclid Hall in Denver; John, me, Greg Koch and Jacob McKean, Stone Brewing’s former blogger.
With Stephen Beaumont and Stan Hieronymous, taking a pizza from Sandlot Brewing to Great Divide during GABF last year.
In Boston last year at Harpoon Brewery after John missed his flight, after forgetting his keys, which ultimately made for a great afternoon.
A portrait of the beer writer as a young man.
Thursday’s ad is for the Grande Brasserie de la Croix de Lorraine, from the late 1800s, or before. From the late 1800s until the 1940s, poster art really came into its own, and in Europe a lot of really cool posters, many of them for breweries, were produced. This poster is for Grande Brasserie De La Croix De Lorraine, also located in the Lorraine, advertising that they produce “Bieres blondes & brunes.”
