Brookston Beer Bulletin

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Union Tribune Profiles Jeff Bagby

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San Diego’s Union Tribune yesterday featured an engaging profile of award-winning Pizza Port brewer Jeff Bagby. Since I’m usually railing against coverage in the mainstream media, I want to point out that the Tribune’s columnist Peter Rowe (who frequently writes about beer) did an excellent job on the article. In addition to the profile, he also had tasting notes for some of Bagby’s beers, and — unlike the San Francisco Chronicle — listed all the GABF medals won by local breweries then finished up with a list of upcoming beer events in San Diego. Well done, and congratulations Jeff.
 

Dave Keene, from the Toronado, with Jeff Bagby, at the recent Port Brewing Beer Dinner that was held at the Cathedral Hill Hotel by beer chef Bruce Paton.

Reeling in the Dogfish Head Beer Dinner

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Beer Chef Bruce Paton’s next beer dinner will feature Sam Calagione and the beers of Dogfish Head Brewing from Delaware. Brewmaster Sam Calagione will be there in person to discuss his beers, along with his new book, Extreme Beers. It’s another four-course dinner and well worth the $80 price of admission, and maybe we can persuade Sam to do some rapping. It will be held at the Cathedral Hill Hotel on Friday, November 10, beginning with a reception at 6:30 p.m. Call 415.674.3406 for reservations. Make your reservations soon, because the dinner is filling up fast and you don’t want to miss this one.
 

The Menu:

 

Reception: 6:30 PM

Beer Chef’s Hors D’Oeuvre
60 Minute IPA

Dinner: 7:30 PM

First Course

Poached Foie Gras with Toasted Five Spice Syrup and California Osetra Caviar

Beer: Midas Touch Golden Elixir

Second Course:

Duck Pho with Charred Ginger Broth and Parsnip Noodles

Beer: 90 Minute IPA

Third Course:

Red Cooked Angus Short Ribs with Lobster Medallions

Beer: World Wide Stout

Fourth Course:

Ginger Scented Banana Custard with Citrus Caramel Sauce

Beer: Chateau Jiahu

One of the beers that will be served at the Dogfish Head Brewing Beer Dinner.

 

11.10

Dinner with the Brewmaster: Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head Brewing Beer Dinner

Cathedral Hill Hotel, 1101 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, California
415.674.3406 [ website ]

Anchor Profiled As Successful Small Company

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Last week, USA Today profiled Anchor Brewery in their Inside Money section as a stellar example of a successful small company with no desire to grow larger and larger like the trap so many other successful companies fall into. The story is in conjunction with the publication of a business book on small companies, Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big by Bo Burlingham, an editor at Inc. magazine. On the same day as the Anchor profile, USA Today also has an article about Burlingham’s new book entitled To grow or not to grow? Some companies decide to stay put. Both are written, naturally, from a business perspective but are a good, positive pieces for craft beer. It’s certainly nice to see that for a change.

Write Your Own Arrogant Bastard Label

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Do It For Humanity’s Sake. Or Your Own… You Arrogant Bastard! (Humanity Will Still Benefit)

Stone Brewing, of course, has a history of doing charity work. And unbeknownst to me, they’ve been auctioning off stuff on eBay all year long to raise money for charity. This auction will benefit one of Stone’s charities, the San Pasqual Academy. There are many others. The take so far just this month totals just north of $130,000!

But this one is a doozy, and I’ll let the press release speak for itself:

This month we have an unprecedented opportunity that we’re auctioning off: You getting to write your own Arrogant Bastard Ale bottle!

This is a “once-in-a-lifetime-don’t-expect-you’ll-get-it-again” chance for you to express your arrogance on a bottle of Arrogant Bastard Ale. Try not to screw it up by not bidding enough.

We’ll be taking your writings (either handwritten or submitted as text – your call) and producing at least 60 cases (720 bottles) of your text. Of those 720 bottles, you will personally get 4 cases (48 bottles) and the remainder will be distributed out into the marketplace in your region of the country.

We will not ship beer to your door, but we will work with your closest wholesaler to get the beer to you. (If you wish to pickup the cases here at the brewery, that works too.) Clearly, there’s going to be some guidelines to this. The bottle will need to meet California ABC guidelines, and if we need to ship it out of state it will also need to meet Federal (TTB) guidelines and any other guidelines required by your state. We will make sure it meets with the required governmental approvals. This means that you can’t write any boneheaded thing you want, but a fully Arrogant approach will work! It does for us.

The auction is already up on eBay and will close this Sunday, October 29 at 8:00 p.m. PST sharp. So far there are 10 bidders, and highest at this moment is $760.

Write your own rant for Arrogant Bastard.

Oaked Arrogant Bastard Now in Six-Packs

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Beginning next Monday, October 30, an Arrogant Bastard Ale that uses American Oak Chips will hit the stores. This is the third year now that Stone Brewing has made available this oaked version of their popular Arrogant Bastard. And this year, Oaked Arrogant Bastard will be available for the first time in 12-oz, bottles sold in six-packs.

From the press release:

This year the OAKED is determined to make its presence known even more. How? By fitting in your hand. This year we’ve crammed, forced, shoved and cajoled the OAKED Arrogant Bastard Ale into itty bitty tiny little 12oz bottles. It did not go willingly. Some Stone peeps got hurt. More emotionally, than physically, but it was definitely both. This means that six packs of OAKED Arrogant Bastard Ale are ready and they’ll begin hitting store shelves along side the Double Bastard Ale on Monday, October 30th.

Be cautious. As always. Neither the OAKED Arrogant Bastard Ale, nor the Double Bastard Ale like being bottled up. The OAKED is feeling especially put out about the whole experience, so it is suggested that you either be extraordinarily polite to it (which we’ve been told doesn’t work all that well…dunno…we’ve never tried that route ourselves), or move in with equal or greater arrogance to keep the beer in check. Good luck whichever approach you choose. You will need it.

Oaked Arrogant Bastard, now available in six-packs.

Beer Chips

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Also at the Anchor event for Maureen’s book, Ambitious Brew, I had my second encounter with Beer Chips, a new snack food on the market.

I first noticed them at their own booth next to the Sierra Nevada Brewing tent at GABF last month where, at $1 a bag, they were selling like hot cakes. Now I should make yet another confession here from the start. There are few foods I like more than potato chips. I am quite passionate about my potato chips. I can still get worked up about chips that have been off the market for decades; brands like Tommy Dale’s or Uncle Don’s. Where I grew up in southeastern Pennsylvania, the average grocery store carried at least a dozen local brands of potato chips, and some had many more. My favorite chips growing up were a brand called “Good’s Original Chips,” or “Good’s in the Blue” to distinguish them from a rival brand, “Good’s in the Red.” My “Good’s Potato Chips” could be bought only one day a week and, except for visiting the farm, at only one place on Earth, the Shillington Farmer’s Market, which was open every Friday less than a mile from my childhood home. They were made by Mennonite farmers who appeared to make just enough to sell each week (they never made more for the rush during various holidays) and when they sold out, packed up and went home. You could buy them in bags, but the best way was in a returnable can. Every Friday, I’d pick up a 5-lb. can, pay for the chips and a deposit on the can. The following week, I’d return the empty can and get a new one, this time paying just for the chips inside. It was a beautifully simple system, ecologically as well economically sound.

Sadly, they don’t do the cans anymore, not since the company was taken over by a nephew and moved from the farm to an actual plant. Happily, they still taste as good but I must say some of the magic in them is gone. But I bring this up only to illustrate that potato chips are one of the other things I know something about. So when someone makes chips with beer — combining two of my great loves — then attention must be paid.

The creator of Beer Chips, Brett Stern, who’s a native New Yorker, flew down from Portland, Oregon (where he makes his chips) with boxes of his chips in tow. That gave me a better chance to try the chips, and I must say my first reaction is that they’re very tasty and highly addictive. Of course, that may be the added sugar, itself an unusual ingredient in potato chips. Generally, there are only three ingredients in what I’ll refer to as “craft chips” — let’s call it the spudheitsgebot — which are potatoes cooked in oil (either a vegetable oil or lard, most commonly) with salt added. I’m told the beer used is a bock style that is reduced to a powder and sprinkled on the chips during the cooking phase. And for the most part it works. They do seem to have just a hint of beer flavor and happily it’s not overpowering the way it is in barbecue or some other strongly flavored chip. I brought some home for my wife to try and she loves them, as well, and has become quite addicted. Now if I can only get BevMo to get off their bureaucratic arses and carry them in my neighborhod …

Here’s another review of Beer Chips from Chipworld.

These potato chips had a kettle-cooked texture and were crisp with varying levels of crunch. They earned praise around the chip bowl for being quite tasty. Most of our tasters thought that the chips did taste like beer, though some thought the beer taste was most noticeable on first bite and faded away after that. The chips were generally smallish with wiggly, irregular shapes, some folded over.

The Beer Chips table at GABF.

Watermelon Funk is Funkadelic

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During last weekend’s bus trip to Russian River Brewing in Santa Rosa, Vinnie brought out a couple of pitchers from the barrel of his collaboration with 21st Amendment that’s been sitting in wood for a year now. Essentially as an experiment, Shaun O’Sullivan gave some of his Watermelon Wheat to Vinnie Cilurzo who put it in old pinot noir barrels and spiked it with Brettanomyces. According to Vinnie, who’s been tasting it every couple of months, it’s been a roller coaster of ups and downs, flavor-wise. But both he and Shaun believe, after a good year, that it will very shortly be ready to unleash on the world. There are only about 50 or so gallons and it will be available only at 21st Amendment and Russian River, and possibly at the Toronado. (As of Saturday Dave Keene had not yet tasted it to give his approval for carrying the beer.) Also, five gallons were sent to Boston, I think for Beer Advocate’s Belgian Beer Festival that starts on Friday. So there are only three, maybe four, places where you can try this beer, and not much at any single place. So needless to say, as a great fan of sour beers, I was thrilled to get a chance to sample it.

It was a little cloudy with a dull golden color and a thick white head. It had sharp, fruity estery aromas though not too pronounced with some of the signature “horse blanket” aromas coming through. Delightfully sour flavors and chewy, with a strong candied sweet-tart puckered essence. At the end, the mouthfeel became very juice-like — or à la Jolly Rancher — and this was the only place that the fruit was identifiable as watermelon as it washed down the back of the throat. Overall, a very complex, sour beer. There’s an awful lot going on in this beer. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I quite enjoyed it and hope they’ll do it again soon.

 

The Watermelon Funk, a collaborative concoction.

Lost Abbey Dinner Found

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Last night at the Cathedral Hill Hotel, beer chef Bruce Paton put on yet another delicious “Dinner with the Brewmaster,” this one with Tomme Arthur and the beers of Port Brewing and The Lost Abbey.

Tomme addresses the packed house, a record-breaking sell-out crowd.

Our first course, a Duck Pozole Terrine with Citrus Herb Salad paired with Lost Abbey Red Barn Ale, which is something of a cross between a Saison and a Bière de Garde. I’ve heard Tomme describe it as either and both, and, of course, the styles are quite close. Both are farmhouse styles, brewed slightly stronger, traditionally in March to last through the warm summer. But while Saisons tend to emphasize the hops and spices, Bière de Gardes are more focused on malt character. The Red Barn, on the hand, is a very malty beer that’s spiced with ginger, orange peel, black pepper and grains of paradise. And as Tomme will be the first to tell you, he’s not trying to imitate either style but rather was inspired by both to create this beer, which is an amazing marriage of both.

Dave Keene, from the Toronado, and Jeff Bagby, from Pizza Port’s Carlsbad brewery.

Our dessert was an unbelievably rich Flourless Chocolate Cake with Chile Ancho served with Angel’s Share Barrel Aged Barleywine, an indescribably good pairing. Bruce’s desserts are usually quite tasty, but this one may have been his best ever.

All the brewers in attendance at the dinner, with many of the usual suspects. One surprise, Alan Sprints (on the left), owner of Hair of the Dog in Portland, Oregon was in town for a wedding and joined us at the dinner.

Tomme and me after dinner, relaxing in the bar with Blind Pig IPA.

The other beers of the evening included Cuvee de Tomme served with the soup course, which was a roasted corn soup with gulf prawns and heirloom tomato salsa and a shaved cornucopia of avocado. And the main course was a Duet of Lamb paired with Lost Abbey’s Lost and Found Ale, a Trappist-style abbey ale brewed with a raisin puree.

The next beer dinner with the brewmaster will be November 10 and will feature Sam Calagione and the beers of Dogfish Head. Check out the Beer Chef for more details.

First Stop at The Alembic

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Last night after the Anchor event, a dozen or so of us went over to Dave McLean’s new bar, The Alembic, on upper Haight. The address is 1725 Haight Street and their phone number is 415.666.0822. Dave also owns the Magnolia brewpub a few blocks away. It’s a very small place but also cozy and even a little homey. The have a full bar, all of the Magnolia beers and several guest taps from local breweries. The Alembic’s chef, Eddie Blyden, started bringing us out dishes to sample. What terrific food! Good beer, good food, good spirits, good friends and great atmosphere! I look forward to spending more time at the Alembic.

Cathedral Hill Hotel beer chef Bruce Paton and Alembic chef Eddie Blyden, arguably two the best beer chef’s anywhere.

Me with the delicious lemongrass fries, which are done in a Belgian frittes style. My other favorite of the evening were the lamb sliders. Yum!

From the Chronicle:

Small plates from chef Eddie Blyden (of 21st Amendment and now-closed Sneaky Tiki) include charred Monterey Bay squid, and mushroom and autumn squash cassoulet, which vie for a customer’s attention with bar snacks like sage roasted nuts, jerk chicken wings with yogurt sauce, and lemongrass french fries.

The cocktail menu features stripped-down classics like a bourbon old-fashioned and an “old style” Manhattan, and the bar spotlights many Northern California small-craft artisan liquors, a handful of sakes and a rotating selection of local microbrews.

Even the sturdy bar is locally inspired — it’s made from old Kezar stadium bleachers.