Category: News from Other Beer Writers

Suggested websites to visit to further your beer education.

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Session # 110 – Reminder

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Here is my pitch for the April Fool’s Edition of The Session:

With the possible lifting of word sanctions on Twitter, the Dickensian multi-part tweets from the likes of Patton Oswalt may become a quaint relic of the past.

But in February, Ray Daniels, the man behind the Cicerone program used the platform for a thirteen Tweet theory about how many breweries, are too many and if craft beer could become like wine with consumers buying based on varietal and not producer. You can read his tweets HERE or if you have great eyesight check out the image below.
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So, before the 140 letter limit is lost, how about us in the beer blogging realm take one last crack at “original” Twitter.

Some possible routes to take:
-write your own beer theory in multi-parts. Be it 1/15 or 1/20
-use Twitter for your own craft beer April Fool’s Day prank
-channel your inner web troll and go all negative on a topic
-debate or applaud the points made by Daniels in under 140 characters
-talk about brevity and how it affects writing about beer

You can do it on Twitter or on your own blog or both. Just no Instagram.

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Session # 110 – Announcement

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Here is my pitch for the April Fool’s Edition of The Session:

With the possible lifting of word sanctions on Twitter, the Dickensian multi-part tweets from the likes of Patton Oswalt may become a quaint relic of the past.

But in February, Ray Daniels, the man behind the Cicerone program used the platform for a thirteen Tweet theory about how many breweries, are too many and if craft beer could become like wine with consumers buying based on varietal and not producer. You can read his tweets HERE or if you have great eyesight check out the image below.
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So, before the 140 letter limit is lost, how about us in the beer blogging realm take one last crack at “original” Twitter.

Some possible routes to take:
-write your own beer theory in multi-parts. Be it 1/15 or 1/20
-use Twitter for your own craft beer April Fool’s Day prank
-channel your inner web troll and go all negative on a topic
-debate or applaud the points made by Daniels in under 140 characters
-talk about brevity and how it affects writing about beer

You can do it on Twitter or on your own blog or both. Just no Instagram.

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The Session # 109 – “Porter”

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Mark Lindner has announced the topic for The Session #109 will be Porter. Before you say “That’s so 2007” hear him out.
Possibilities include:
•Contrast and/or compare two or more of the styles
•Contrast and/or compare two or more beers within/across porter styles
•The history and development of the style
•Your love/hate relationship with any porter style
•Baltic porter – ale or Lager or a mixed fermentation?
•Is hopping the only difference between English and American styles?
•Food pairings with your favorite porter or style of porter
•Review the porter(s) you are using as a creative springboard
•Construct a resource along the lines of Jay Brooks’ Typology style pages, see for example American Barley Wine or Bock.
•Recipe and procedures for brewing your version of a great porter

There is probably no way for me to write an interesting look at Porter. Sounds defeatist, I know, but that is the strength and weakness of the style. Much like its brethren in the style that I call “Sturdy” (amber ale, brown ale, ESB for example). This is a style that can be dressed up and fussed with but you still don’t forget who they are. And what they are is, well, boring and solid.

If I were to really bore you, I could review different porters. Boy would you love to read the same descriptors repeated like Marco Rubio in a debate. Or I could pair porters with hearty fare fit for a “sturdy” beer. That would stun a reader. Maybe delve into the weirdest ingredients put into a Porter. Followed by how it mostly still tasted like a Porter basically.

If I could work up enough rancor, I could write a scathing piece about my hatred of the style but even the most troll-y of trolls would be hard pressed to come up with insults against Porter. It is more Teflon than Donald Trump’s hair and poll numbers. You can hate some experimental chili pepper Shandy but a Porter? Nope.

On the flip side, I couldn’t work up much enthusiasm either. Like the inevitable coronation of Clinton come November, it doesn’t have the piss and vinegar of Bernie Sanders who would most certainly be a Single Hop Simcoe Sour IPA.

Others can talk at length about the history and others can compare recipe notes with education and practice backing up their thesis statements. As a craft beer fan, all I can do is say that if I had the top five porters on tap in front of me and an experimental beer from some unknown brewer, I would pick the experiment. The only reason that I bought the one porter in my ‘fridge is because it has former Trailblazer and eponymous namesake Terry Porter on it.

You can argue that American Craft brewers have changed the face of Porter and I would be hard pressed to filibuster that contention. But even the most obscure and near extinction beers have been put into the American brewing blender and come out the other side ready for their close-up. Porter isn’t special in this regard.

America likes its craft beer flashy and its politicians even flashier so let’s wrap up the political tie-in. John Kasich might be the Porter doppleganger. Low poll numbers, probably a good vice-presidential pick but seriously edged off of any stage by the flashier beers.

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Hop Plotter

If you mashed up Google Maps, Yelp and craft beer? You would be lost, given 1 star but you would drink well. Alternatively, you can try HopPlotter, which is both a website and an app (and it is free!) Is it the map equivalent of Untappd?
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I tested the web version at https://www.hopplotter.com/. HopPlotter has been around since December of last year so I didn’t expect that a full picture of breweries would emerge. But I did want to see if the press release info was correct and that the site was easy to use and if the information was helpful and accessible

Markers indicate where breweries are located and have colors signaling if they are currently open or shut.

The rest of the instructions from the press release: “Clicking on a brewery will lead the user to even more information such as the brewery’s top-rated beers, Yelp rating, Facebook posts, Tweets, whether they serve food, whether they offer brewery tours, whether you can bring your kids along, etc. The site also gives you the ability to plan trips and visits to breweries by letting users create and save itineraries to their own account. Itineraries can be anything from just a day to a long detailed trip. Not seeing your favorite pub on HopPlotter? Add it by clicking “Add a Brewery” on the webapp!”

My quick test run of three cities and obscure breweries did not faze HopPlotter (though the Brouwerij West a soon to open wasn’t marked, yet) and I loved the drag and drop VISIT icon that you can plan your day with. You really need to use it in full screen to keep all of the logistics in front of you but it works well. You can share it and then re-arrange as needed. It really gives you a visual look combined with hours of operation that I haven’t seen before.

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The Session # 10 – Snowed In

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The Session is back hosted by the Brewsite and the theme for February: “is “Snowed In,” and I want it to be open-ended. It’s the first week of February—we are solidly in the grip of the winter, which means hunkering down from the cold and, depending on where you live, waiting for warmer days to thaw out the ice and snow. But perhaps it’s one of those winters, where the snow starts falling… and falling… and falling some more, and the next thing you know, schools are closed, there’s four or more feet of snow on the ground—and you are effectively snowed in and not going anywhere.”

For those of you living in the southern climes who don’t have snow to worry about, perhaps it’s some other stormy situation keeping you indoors—hurricanes or tropical storms, for instance. You tell me—I live northerly!”

Jon helpfully gave many suggestions for where to start but what struck me was the following idea: “So what does winter mean for your beer consumption. Does it go up or down. Does being stuck indoors effect it? And how does the weather change what you choose to drink?”

I would hazard a guess that most people prefer Goldilocks weather. A nice even temperature that is just right. I would guess again that most people fall into either the “hate the cold” camp or the “despise the heat” crew. Personally, heat is the death of me. It saps my energy and I can’t taste the beer in the same way. Each sip is a blur of liquid until I give up and start drinking ice tea or water to slake my thirst and cool me down.

Luckily for this Session, I do not have the same problem with cold. Unluckily, I am in Southern California where cold and snow haven’t visited in many a moon. Even the so-called Godzilla El Nino has barely touched us in Los Angeles.

But I do visit my hometown of Portland each year and I get my chance to sip a barley wine in November or a strong dark ale in February to balance out the oncoming rush of session IPA’s that are on tap in SoCal. And it is from those trips and other colder climes that have coincided with beer drinking that informs my take on beer and cold weather.

But let’s tackle how the rain, sleet and snow affect my beer drinking rounds from the simple on the ground issues to more complex issues involved in how I enjoy beer.

It is obvious that if the city is shut down with snow flurries that I won’t be out driving to the new brewery in town. Since I am more of a homebody and not a partier, any excuse to stay in will be taken with alacrity. Even if the ‘fridge is nudging towards empty of bottles and cans, I would choose to “make-do” and not sled my way to a bottle shop. So if, the scenario plays out that I am in a cabin in the woods with snow up to the windows, then my beer drinking will be finite depending on how much beer is in the building and how much of it is good.

But that doesn’t mean that my consumption will inevitably go down. As opposed to the heat that drains me, cold winds get my blood circulating and to me there is no happier moment than sitting in a comfy chair with a blanket and a beer. It is probably my form of hibernating. The transition from the cold of the outside to the warmth of home or a bar is a feeling that evokes fond memories and a sense of not relief but letting go of troubles and cares and the weather with a glass of something warming or at least radiant with hops and malts.

Another oddity about me (amongst many), is that despite the multiple opportunities to sit and drink outside that L.A. affords me, I much prefer to sit inside with the noise of the bar or the view of the brewing equipment. Maybe it is something that I should change and I should commune with nature more but my comfort level rises as I am indoors.

So that makes it 2-1 in favor of my drinking not going down due to inclimate weather. But there is another factor at play. The more the temperature dips the more that I start to crave hot beverages. I may like my morning cup of coffee but if I am looking out the window and see the snow, then I gravitate more towards tea or spirits like a whiskey or rum when it comes time to enjoy a beverage.

In the end, it is a wash. The cold giveth and it taketh away.

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Typology Tuesday – Barleywine

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As fate would have it, I have run across a few American versions of the venerable barley wine style. Two from breweries new to the Los Angeles area and a third a newly distributed canned offering in a super cute little yellow can.

Does that constitute a trend? Doubtful, because to me, American-style barley wine is now separated into sub-styles that push it further from the English source and blur category lines.

Once the “experimenters” as I call our brewers got hold of the traditional barley wine, the style was bound to be split into two camps. And now, I would say that the American-style is split into the hoppy, very nearly an Imperial IPA camp and the barrel-aged versions that dominate the top ten lists.

Personally, I would like to see more of what I have tasted recently. Iron Triangle tucked south of Downtown L.A. has a barley wine on their list that hews more toward the English with toffee notes and a sweetness unencumbered by hop bitterness. Hours north of Los Angeles, Transplants Brewing in Palmdale had a barley wine in their opening day line-up that again amped up the sweet over the bitterness of hops.

The third wheel was Lower De Boom from 21st Amendment which pours a dark reddish brown (though the can is bright yellow). Again the first notes that I pick up are sweetness with a bit of candied orange peel taste. The beer had a little carbonated kick but mellowed into mostly silky mouthfeel. Even 8.4 ounces was too much as the beer got heavier with each sip. The can proclaims “packed with citrusy hops” but they were not the focal point of the flavor for me.

My issue with the American portion of the barley wine divide is that the name itself is less than useful at this point. Many do not have the vinous characteristic to cover the wine half of the name and, well, the barley is there in copious amounts and still overridden by hops or spirits or both. None of the dominant flavors correspond to the name. I understand that the above is more pet peeve but the utility of a style is as a shorthand to use with fellow craft beer fans or to explain a beer to a newbie. When I have backtrack and explain the explanation or make caveats, then I feel that the descriptor is suddenly less so.

I have been racking my brain for a better term and have yet to find the right mix to connect it to the English barley wine in its past and with which it shares many components while also creating a better term going forward but I have yet to do so.

Maybe I need to test out more and see if inspiration strikes!

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Calendar Stop

I am a big fan of one-stop shopping. Going to one website to get my information instead of pinging around the interwebs is much better. And now if you want to keep up with the trend of beer release calendars, then I have the internet place for you….

The Beer Talk blog has compiled many of the calendars and alphabetized them too!

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The Session # 107 – Let’s Be Friends

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Community Beer Works, a brewery not a blogger is hosting the first session of 2016 and has a question for us….

“The topic I want you all to write about: “Are breweries your friends?”

To be in business nowadays you pretty much have to have a social media presence. This is especially true in the beer world, where some breweries have basically built themselves on their personality. And yet, at the end of the day, we’re also selling you something.

I believe this is the first Session to be hosted by a brewery rather than beer blogger. How do you feel about that? Do you want your feeds clear of businesses, or do you like when a brewery engages with people? Can you think of anyone who does it particularly well, or poorly? As the person who does our social media, which I think is very good (although not quite good enough), I struggle with this problem. I’m on both sides, and rather than come to any sort of conclusion of my own I thought I would make all of you write about it.”

The short answer is no. Much like Corporations are NOT people (looking at you Supreme Court). A brewery is just a brewery. You may be friends with everyone who works there and be greeted when you walk in the door but that is it.

To me, if I recount my Schoolhouse Rock correctly, you can be a person, place or thing. A brewery is a place. It can be a great place. A place where you had your most favorite beer. A place where you met your now best friend. A place to go after work. It can be amazing but it is still just a building with people and equipment in it.

Whatever construct that Facebook or Instagram or Twitter uses to denote friends, likes, hearts just allows you to follow a brewery at a distance. Sometimes to close and troll-y for a sane person’s liking. But it is simply a way to advertise that puts you on screens in front of people who have, at least once, pressed a button that said “Friend”.

So, no, even my mostest, favorite brewery is not my friend. But I do not think that what they post to social media is unnecessary. Quite the opposite. It is vital, in my opinion, that breweries engage on all fronts of social media.

Most do not have the time and would obviously rather pick work to do from the brewery to-do list before sitting in front of a computer to update a website or post a tap list. But a brewery needs to put itself in front of eyeballs that will eventually get up out of their seats and put down their phone and buy a beer (or two). Unfortunately, those eyeballs are not hanging out in one spot. Facebook is big but has a uncool sheen to it and “the kids” have migrated to Instagram but Twitter is still big, as is Untappd. So a brewery needs to be in each spot when it comes to the advertising aspect.

And it is a matter of playing to the strengths of each social media platform. Facebook is great for events and getting across bigger chunks of information. Twitter is great for updates on new beers being tapped and Instagram can be utilized to show off gleaming new equipment or photos of brewers brewing a new beer. Then keep your Untappd beer list current and streamlined so that fans can do your advertising work for you. If you want to Reddit, Snapchat or Vine then do that too.

What a larger customer base needs from its brewery “friend” and what I need as a beer blogger and a beer geek are different. For me, the foundation is a website that has three specific items. The hours, the current tap list and some detailed information on (at least the core) beers. The best example (that goes above and beyond) I can give is the website for Beachwood BBQ & Brewing. They have a full list of beers brewed with descriptions for each. They have a “Hopcam” that is pointed at the on tap list so you can see, in real time, what is on tap. You can see what beers are in the pipeline too! They have their upcoming events updated with plenty of information about each. I do not have to go to any other spot on the interwebs when it comes to Beachwood. That saves me bandwidth, which I appreciate.

There will always be exceptions to my “golden” rules. Breweries that don’t need a website or eschew interaction on the internet and there is the biggest exception…

… because in the final analysis, if the beer stinks, it doesn’t matter how well you communicate and how friendly you are.

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The Session # 106 – It’s Christmastime

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We head to the land of misfit beers for this installment of The Session hosted by Jay Brooks and the Brookston Beer Bulletin.

“For seasonal beers, the Solstice/Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanza/Mithra time of the year is my mostest favorite. This past weekend, we had our fifteenth annual holiday beer tasting for the Celebrator Beer News, and sampled 42 of this year’s Christmas beers. Here’s how I’ve described them in the introduction of the tasting notes for the holiday edition each year:

Holiday beers are by design no one style, but are a chance for individual breweries to let their talent and imagination run wild. At the holidays, when people stop their busy lives and share some precious time with family and friends, the beer they choose should be equally as special as the time they’re sharing. So a holiday beer should be made to impress, to wow its audience, to stand out. That’s the only criteria that should be met by one of these beers. Will it impress? Different breweries, thankfully, do this in many, many different ways. Some use unusual spices or fruits, some use special malts or hops, some use other uncommon ingredients like spruce or rye, and some make a style that itself is unusual. So there’s nothing to tie these beers together apart from their celebration of the season. That makes it both a delight and a challenge to judge. Ultimately, perhaps more than any other tasting, these beers are simply a matter of what you like and our judging is a matter of what we like. So try them and discover for yourself the many flavors of this holiday season.”

The day after Thanksgiving, I head out to beer shops and stock up on Holiday beers even though the weather is far from frightful in Los Angeles. Invariably, my wife will ask why there is significantly less room where the leftover turkey and fixin’s should be as I crack open my first Christmas beer of the season. I love the variety of holiday ales first and foremost and it is seems to be the only time of the year where an IPA seems out of place, despite the dilligent work of Sierra Nevada’s Celebration and others.

For this Holiday fueled Session, I want to list (despite my deep-seated aversion to listicles) what I deem to be the ESSENTIAL holiday ales. The beers that you drink when you decorate the tree or wrap the presents or while other people open presents and you get a break from your own gifts.

1. Anchor Merry Christmas – Happy New Year
The streak is at 41 this year and it is literally the first holiday beer that I pour each year. I even keep a few past years on hand to compare and contrast with.

2. Deschutes Jubelale
The artwork can be hit or miss and I do long for a photography version on of these years, but this is, along with beer # 3 my home state of Oregon go-to holiday tipple.

3. Double Mountain Fa La La La
With all due respect to Celebration. This is the hoppy Christmas beer that I look forward to. Maybe it is the stars on red design but it is a repeat buy for sure.

4. St. Bernardus Holiday Ale
This beer just tastes and smell’s like a kitchen at Christmas.

5. Trader Joe’s Vintage Ale
$5.99 for a 750ml beer is a steal and a half. And this beer is just so good. Very close to St. Bernardus and another beer that gets cellared and brought out as a “fancy” beer for guests.

6. Eagle Rock Jubilee
My local. There winter warmer for Los Angeles has had in past been very evocative of fruitcake in some years and I can’t wait to try it in regular and barrel-aged versions as well as part of a mixer with their IPA, Populist. Where it becomes Populee!

Once I get through that list, I start looking for new holiday ales to see if any will make the cut for seasonal standards. Right now I am looking at a Boulevard Snow & Tell and a Bell’s Christmas Ale. The former has expanded their offerings here in L.A. and the latter just entered our stores with a splash this year. And maybe I will sneak other Winter IPA’s into the mix, I hear there is a new Green Flash IPA out there. Better get out and check the stores.

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Year of Podcasts – San Diego Beer Talk Radio

Since November is the traditional time for San Diego Beer Week. It seemed only appropriate to highlight a podcast from the greater SD region.
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Hosted by Greg Homyak, Brian Beagle and Melinda Hooker who have covered Green Cellar and their barrel program in an interview with the people in Cellar 3. Or the folks behind the Bine and Vine bottle shop. They also stray from San Diego from time to time as well.

Check our their thoroughly annotated listing for each podcast and find the brewers or breweries that you want to learn more about.