Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

Socialize

Traquair House Switches To 500ml Bottles

By

Traquair
One of my favorite breweries, Traquair House in Scotland, announced today through their importer — Merchant Du Vin — that they’re switching to 500 ml bottles for all of their beers.

That might not seem like big news, and perhaps it’s not, but Traquair House is one of favorite places so I never miss a chance to talk about it. If you’ve never been to the brewery, it should definitely be on your beer bucket list. It’s not easy to get to, but it is worth it. Oh, and the beer is terrific, too. If you haven’t had their beer, you should correct that … immediately.

Traquair-500ml

Traquair House Ale shows a deep reddish-amber color and full, velvet-like body. The aroma offers a hint of rich oak; the flavor is opulently malty, complex, and deep but subtle. OG 1.070; IBU 26; ABV 7.2%.

Traquair Jacobite Ale, first brewed in 1995, is spiced with hops as well as another traditional seasoning: coriander. Deep brown; spice and leather aroma; full body; exotic, engaging character and finish. OG 1.075; IBU 23; ABV: 8.0%.

From the press release:

In 1566, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, visited Traquair House on the banks of Scotland’s Tweed River with her infant son James, who would later become King James I of England. During that visit, she drank good ale brewed at Traquair.

Descendants of the same family have lived at Traquair since 1491. Beer was brewed there from the earliest times until some time after 1800; in 1965 the 20th Laird of Traquair, Peter Maxwell Stuart — following his heart and his family heritage — brought the tiny brewery back to life, brewing traditional ales in a 1738 copper brewkettle and fermenting them in wooden vessels.

Traquair House Brewery is known today for excellent ales — traditional, historical, masterpieces of rich, full, engaging flavor: a taste of Scotland.

It’s a cool place, with a cool history, making cool beers. What more do you need to know?

traquair-vats
I took this photo of the brewery when I visited Traquair House around 1994.

Anchor Releases California Lager

By

anchor-new
Although SF Beer Week doesn’t officially launch until later tonight, there’s already been one event that took place at Anchor Brewing on Wednesday. Three weeks ago, they announced their new Zymaster Series and later revealed that the first beer in the series would be a pre-prohibition California Lager. Wednesday night, Anchor held an event to launch the new beer.

zymaster-cup
The new Anchor Zymaster Series No. 1: California Lager

DSC_0977
Anchor co-owner Keith Gregor, Barb Condie, Steve Shapiro and me at Anchor Wednesday. (Photo courtesy of Mike Condie.)

zy-sign-4
As I wrote before, Anchor based the beer on a lager from Boca Brewing, who is believed to have made the first one in the state, around 1875. The town of Boca was located in northeast California, roughy 6.5 miles from Truckee. In 1880 it had a population of around 200 people, though today it’s literally a ghost town. The brewery was founded in 1875 and closed in 1892, four years before the Anchor Brewery opened.

DSC_0993
Me, Brenden Dobbel (from Thirsty Bear) and Shaun O’Sullivan (from 21st Amendment). (Photo courtesy of Mike Condie.)

zy-sign-3
An old ad featuring the Boca Lager, the inspiration for Anchor’s California Lager.

P1020497
In addition to the California Lager, Anchor was also serving the latest batch of O.B.A. (Our Barrel Ale) which this time used a different blend and also the recent Brekle’s Brown.

P1020516
There were plenty of other local brewers in attendance to try out the new beer. Here, from the left, is John Tucci (from the San Francisco Gordon Biersch), Aron Deorsey (from Beach Chalet) and Zambo (from 21st Amendment).

So how’d the beer taste? Consensus was that it was pretty good, an interesting beer. Having had several other pre-prohibition lagers, it tasted better than most of the others. In fact, I can’t think of one I enjoyed more. A lot of the others used corn, which was common then, but I believe Anchor’s is all-malt, and the taste seems to reflect that. It’s only slightly sweet, but smooth, and the Cluster hops are fairly muted and restrained. They never overpower the flavor of the beer, they’re just there for balance. The overall flavors are similarly mild, making the beer very sessionable.

Beer In Ads #539: Heineken Jammin’

By


Thursday’s ad is a recent one for Heineken, in support of a music festival they sponsored, the Heineken Jammin’ Festival in Venice, Italy. I may not like their beer, but they do put out some great advertising. The photo of a band on state from overhead, with the floodlights lighting the crowd makes it look like a pint of dark beer with a nice head and bubbles. Awesome shot.

heineken-jammin

The American Beer Revival

By

usa
Regular Bulletin readers know how much I love infographics, a marriage of data and graphic illustration that shows information in a beautiful and understandable way. So I was thrilled when I got an e-mail this morning from a new Silicon Valley start-up, Visual.ly, whose mission is just that, to create and help others create cool visual charts, infographics and videos.

One of their latest works is The American Beer Revival, created by Nate Whitson. Here’s how they describe it:

Over the last hundred or so years, the brewing industry in the United States has changed dramatically. From the saloon era through consolidation to today’s flourishing craft beer culture, it’s been quite a ride. Take a look at how the small brewer is making quite a comeback after nearly a half century of decline.

But better yet, just watch.

Beer In Ads #538: Three’s Company At A Weenie Roast

By


Wednesday’s ad is another one for Budweiser, though this one’s a little older than yesterday’s, most likely from the late 1950s or early 1960s. It’s from Budweiser’s long-running “Where There’s Life” series of ads. The ad features a couple on the beach, and even though its night their faces still look shiny with sweat, or maybe that’s just the glow of the fire that makes them look like that. Either way, hopefully those weenies will be done soon.

bud-beach-picnic

Celebrity Beer Gossip

By

dogfish-head-green
I know it’s a good thing when celebrities drink craft beer, because people tend to copy their behavior. So the more celeb’s drinking good beer, the more some people might pick it up, too. But I can’t help but find it a little sad, too. I just don’t find all the minutiae about famous people very interesting. It’s just not my thing, though I have friends and loved ones who feel otherwise, so I do tend to find out about these gossipy items anyway, sometimes whether I want to or not. Case in point, I just learned that actress Charlize Theron served Dogfish Head’s 60 Minute IPA at her house in Los Angeles during the Super Bowl. And that’s great, don’t get me wrong. Charlize Theron was, at one time, on my list of five (married men will know what I’m talking about here) so I’m certainly glad to know she has good taste in beer.

charlize-theron-dogfish-head

The whole thing was captured in nauseating detail in the U.S. Showbiz section of the UK’s Daily Mail in an article titled — believe it or not — We’re in for a Super night: Charlize Theron hardly breaks a sweat as she carries a case of beer to a Super Bowl party. They have five, count ’em five, photos of Theron carrying the beer from her car to the house. The running commentary is hilariously absurd, though I couldn’t help but hear it in my head as if being read by Robin Leach from Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous.

To be fair, I’ve posted a photo of television celebrity Nathan Fillion drinking a Drake’s IPA through a curly straw, that my wife took during an L.A. Browncoats convention a few years ago, but somehow that seems different. Or maybe I’m just fooling myself. What I really wanted to know from the article is why she chose that beer, and how she and her guests enjoyed it. Now that I’d find far more interesting than how she managed to carry it a few feet without breaking a sweat.

BA Releases 2012 Beer Style Guidelines

By

ba
Just in time for the World Beer Cup this May, the Brewers Association today released their annual style guidelines for judging. According to the press release, this year’s guidelines include 140 separate categories, including one new one: “Indigenous Beer Category.” Curiously, the World Beer Cup website lists 95 on their 2012 Beer Styles Menu and the descriptions, too. You can download a pdf of the guidelines here.

New Sour Beer Brewery In Bay Area Announced

By

rare-barrel
Yesterday I received the word that there’s a new brewery opening soon in the Bay Area. It’s called The Rare Barrel and they’ll be a gypsy brewery specializing in sour beers. By gypsy, they mean to brew at area breweries and then ferment, age, package and serve their beers at their own facility, with that location still to be determined. One of the founders, Jay Goodwin, used to be the Head of Barrel Aging at The Bruery, so he knows his way around a barrel room.

Rare-Barrel

From the press release:

Northern California is rich in brewing tradition and is home to some of the best breweries in the world. Hoping to add to this proud history, we are pleased to announce that we will be launching an all-sour, all-barrel aged “gypsy” brewery in the San Francisco Bay Area named The Rare Barrel.

What do we mean by “gypsy” brewery? We plan to partner with the great breweries of the Bay Area for our brewing needs, and we will be building our own barrel warehouse for fermentation, packaging and serving our beers to the public.

Our team is made up of people committed to producing the highest quality sour beer. Co-founders Jay Goodwin, former Brewer and Head of Barrel Aging at The Bruery in Orange County, Alex Wallash, homebrewer and Sales Representative in biotechnology, and Brad Goodwin, entrepreneur in the pharmaceutical industry, make up our crew of passionate craft beer lovers.

We hope to release more details of our plan over the next few months. We look forward to producing beer with experimental methods, a singular focus on quality sours, and a commitment to the craft beer community.

No word yet on when we’ll see, or more importantly taste, the first beers, but you can follow their progress on The Rare Barrel Blog or on the website.

In the meantime, here’s how the describe the idea for The Rare Barrel:

As Head of Barrel Aging at The Bruery, Jay started focusing on inoculation and management of the sour barrels. The brewers would send him wort and he had a whole warehouse full of barrels to play with. The idea was born there. Why not team up with breweries here at home in the Bay Area and start entire sour-only barrel warehouse to Northern California?

Since sour beers will take over 1 year to mature (a long time!), they are brewed less frequently due to limited fermentation space. Jay quickly realized that if they built their own brew house, it would collect probably a good amount of dust. Therefore, they decided to partner with host breweries in the Bay Area to produce our wort. While a host brewery will produce their wort, The Rare Barrel will manage fermentation, blending, packaging, and distribution. This model ultimately allows The Rare Barrel to maximize barrel aging capacity while supporting local craft breweries. It’s a win-win situation!

Beer In Ads #537: Bud’s Label Conscious

By


Tuesday’s ad is for Budweiser, from not too long ago: 1987. And while I don’t normally feature the overtly sexist ads, this one is too classic to ignore. This, and variations on it, were nearly ubiquitous in the late 1980s. I recall seeing them everywhere. I still think it’s a fairly clever ad, even with the titillation. One thing that sticks out now, just 25 years later, is what they’re listenging to and reading. If the ad was done today, they’d be using an iPod and reading on a Kindle or iPad.

bud-label-conscious-1987