Category: Opinion

my humble and correct opinion

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LA Beer Week – Report # 3


Two events to talk about today:

Stone Archival at Tony’s Darts Away.
I have to admit that I had planned on visiting the Oinkster for Craftsman beer and BBQ. For whatever reason, I thought I could just mosey in an order some cue and a beer. It was not that kind of event. And I missed the ticket window. Bummer for me. But the great thing about LA Beer Week is that there are other things to do!

So I headed to Burbank for more Stone. I had a nice glass of the 09/09/09. It was rich and mellow. Belgian notes had really receded to the background and added a slight tint at the end. The orange and vanilla talked about when it was brewed had also faded a bit. All in all, a lovely dessert beer if you have any and are willing to open it now.

I was going to have another Double Dry-hopped Sublimely Self-Righteous but the taps were pitching a fit. The crew at Tony’s soon got the snafu fixed and had to play catch up with the large and growing crowd. So to finish, I had another San Diego beer. San Salvador Saison from Ballast Point.

This is what the brewery says about it, “The idea started as a San Diego Farmhouse Ale using local ingredients. We wondered what the Kumeyaay Indian’s were eating when Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo climbed out of his flagship boat, the San Salvador, and onto the shore of Ballast Point in 1542. Also, what might have Cabrillo stocked on his boat before he left Acapulco (then called Navidad) 3 1/2 months earlier? So with some research we tracked down a fun mix of ingredients for a Belgian inspired San Diego indigenous Ale.

With some help from our friends at The Linkery, North Park Native Plants and Wingshadow’s Farm we were able to track down ingredients like corn, pine nuts, agave, elder flower, white sage, manzanita berries, curacao and local sage honey. The malt bill consisted of Belgian pale malt, caramunich, biscuit, wheat and corn. The result is a 7.5% ABV, brown beer that really has to be tasted to be understood. It tastes like the San Diego countryside.”

As you can see, it is a beer without a category. Is it brown, saison, regular Belgian? More the first with a bit of the latter and not the middle. A very good beer with lots of individual flavors. Just don’t order one hoping for a saison.

Last night, again I was not vigilant enough to the Beer Week Calendar. I thought I could saunter into the Surly Goat and maybe have cheese and beer presented by the Hot Knives. Well, A it was another sold out ticketed event and B, it wasn’t even at the Surly Goat!

But again the depth of events saved me. Surly Goat was pouring some special Maui Brewing beers. I tried Ode to Carol which either didn’t survive the journey to the mainland or was one of the lightest Belgian ales on record. I also had their Hula Honey Lager which was only OK in my book. Others at the bar though really enjoyed it.

3 DAYS LEFT. Be sure to check out all the happenings at the LA Beer Week event page.

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High Tech Delivery Systems

Recently, two beer items popped up at the same time so I took it as a sign that I should talk about it.

First, All About Beer magazine had a blurb about table taps. OK, it’s got the marketing name of DraftMaster. Two tap handles rise out of the center of the table so you can pour your own beer.

I can so see why this would go over well with publicans. Saves time. People will order more because it’s right there. Technology probably hits the credit card whenever a pint is poured. But to me it just promotes the drink all you want culture and speed. I try my best not to race through beers. (Some are so good that I do it anyway). It also eliminates the creation of a rapport with the barkeep. But what scares me most is that it, in the end, promotes a homogenization of beer. You could have different beer at each table (that would be kinda cool). But then some tables would always be vacant while others would have lines going out the door. I would not give up an Upright or Drakes table easily.
To avoid that scenario, either each table would have the same beers or at least one common denominator, usually the lowest. And how do you know your table has a full keg?

The second dispensing system has the inventiveness of the first, plus some. But whereas the DraftMaster is a sure fire economic barnburner. The Biero idea may end up being too costly. I saw this earlier in the month on the fabulous Brookston Beer Bulletin.

Basically it takes bottled beer and puts it into a chilled and light protected tube so that patrons can see the beer. From what I have read on their site, they love beer and have thought of most of the technical issues, which shows how far beer culture has grown. But I don’t know how feasible it is. To compete with great tap beer, you would need a hook. The one I see is rare beers or perhaps blended beers. And that could work if they get the price point right. And I would certainly enjoy trying a rare beer that I normally couldn’t get because of price. But is the public ready for what is basically a cellared beer bar? I know Cascade opened a sour beer bar. But I worry that this a good idea ahead of its time.

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Ambitious Brew

ambtious_brew

I devoured this book over the course of three days. That is usually a good sign. In this case, only partially so. If you want a book that timelines the big industrial brewers and promotes big capitalism then this will suit you just fine. For me, this was a slice of history. No where in the same league as Last Call by Daniel Okrent.

Here are my quibbles:
1. It starts with the Anheuser and Schlitz gang. Why not start at the beginning with Washington and the founding of beer in America. How can that not be interesting.
2. Regional breweries between 1776 and 1860 get no mention. Why?
3. Trying to praise the Budweiser, Miller and Pabst beers even in their classy heydays is really pushing it at best. I never drank it and it was better in the past but that is surely damning by faint praise.
4. Short shrift to great beer meccas. Portland barely gets talked about. Neither does Seattle or Brooklyn or name a pioneering city.
5. Marketing and business savvy are not the prime directive here. It’s the beer.

On the plus side, there is good history facts in here and she is spot on with how trends in eating and culture affected the buying patterns of beer consumers. I give this a barely recommend. Choose a Pete Brown book first.

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Session # 44


“The 44th Session will be hosted by Ashley Routson a.k.a. The Beer Wench. In honor of Halloween month, she’s chosen “Frankenstein Beers” as her topic, which Ashley likens to Frankenstein’s monster, a creation that was “constructed of human parts and various other inanimate objects,” defying nature’s laws and ultimately “unlike anything the world had ever seen before.” She continues.

Many craft brewers are like Frankenstein. They have become mad scientists obsessed with defying the laws of brewing and creating beers that transcend style guidelines. These “Frankenstein Beers” challenge the way people perceive beer. They are freaks of nature — big, bold and intense. The ingredients resemble those of a beer and the brewing process might appear to be normal, but some aspects of the entire experience are experimental, unorthodox and insane.

An altercation with these beers produces confusion in the eye of the taster … is it a beer, or a monster?

“I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.” — The Monster.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to write a blog post on “Frankenstein Beers.” There are no rules about how to write about this topic — feel free to highlight a Frankenstein brewer, brewery, beer tasting notes … or just your opinions on the concept.

So don’t be afraid, pull out the surgical tools and make a trip to the cemetery (or bar) for parts — just don’t grab the jar marked — “abnormal” — for your own post for the next Session, on Friday, October 1.”

It was a dark and stormy night…

Let’s rewind a little first. In the past year alone, I have imbibed beers with ingredients (prickly pear, ginger, pecans, figs, apricots, apple cider, lemongrass, mushrooms, chammomile, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme) more suited, one would think, to ghouls and goblins than beer.

Before the first sip of these experimental beers, I would ask myself “Why?” and more importantly “I hope this works”. Then I slowly tip back the glass and voila, it does, (Eight times out of ten) because beer is a forgiving canvas upon which to paint. Dark and stormy becomes blue sky clear.

These fright inducing, sometimes cringe worthy ingredients are tossed into the kettle for many reasons. There are breweries raising nearly extinct beer styles from the dead. There are breweries pushing the ABV boundry. There are breweries that use brettamyoces just to add another note to an already great beer.

But this is no lab work in a castle on a hill during thundershowers creating monsters. It is a genuine craving (not for brains) but for big and brash flavors. I may not end up raving about each new mash-up of styles and brewing techniques, but none are unlovable monsters to be cast out to fend for itself. They are all logical extensions of one train of thought. Beer with flavor!

That’s right. In fact, the mad scientist who unleashed this bounty of crazy craft beers are the makers of the industrial water lager. Because of a lack of desire or understanding, they left a whole market open to our loved and admired demented fermenters of today. They created their own horror movie. And it is defintely in 3-D.

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The Firkin for September 2010

Here is a rant that you may have seen on my other writing outlet, the wonderful FoodGPS. I brought it over here because it got the most comments of all of my posts.

I am growlin’ mad about growlers.

Let me backtrack a little and set the scene. I live in Southern California. I have ONE brewery near me and two or three that are drives to get too under the best freeway conditions. Secondly, I am what economists term as “underemployed”. Not complaining but not swimming in steady cash. Lastly, I do not have unlimited shelf space. I have a small and growing “beer cellar” but I am reaching overload in pint glasses and bottles.

Now I can return to my rant. I would like to have one growler. A growler that I can fill at my local (Eagle Rock Brewing) but that I can also fill at Ladyface in Agoura Hills or Hangar 24 in Redlands or at Nibble Bit Tabby downtown. I don’t A) have the space for separate growlers and B) can’t afford them anyway.

I know that current law is against this. They want growlers labeled in a similar fashion as to labels on beer sold conventionally in stores. It is a pure CYA choice. But why do we want something similar to the sometimes comical and irritating label laws in place? Can the state cover it’s … with a different approach?

Here is my idea to solve the problem and boost the economy:

Step 1 – a “Made in California” growler. It could be sold by Chambers of Commerce or by the California Brewers Association or other outlets. I would refrain from having the breweries themselves sell them so as not to impinge on their own growler sales.

Step 2 – Create a label / sticker that can be filled out on the premises at the time the growler is filled with a link to the beers information on the brewers website. (Maybe via a barcode?)

A California growler would be accepted by whichever brewery wanted to make a $10 sale vs. a sale of $0.00. At least from my standpoint. I couldn’t buy (though I was tempted) a growler from Hangar 24 to bring home some of their Polycot beer (which was great) but if I had a California growler at home, I could have and Hangar 24 would have received $15.00 from me. The same at Stone in Escondido or 50-50 in Truckee. And for those establishments that cannot afford to get approved growlers, this would be entree to a new customer set.

It would also be a great way to promote the great beer you can find in this state. You could do a a great promotion about a growler tour of California breweries. The beer community makes pilgrimages to Russian River and The Bruery. Why not incentivize them to stay a little. You can even promote a design contest for the growler (see my design below). So many possibilities.

That’s my two cents. Poke holes in it. Add to it. Let’s get a discussion going.

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Cheers: A History of Beer in Canada

Here is what the press release has to say…“The author of Notes on a Beermat: Drinking and Why It’s Necessary is back. Nick Pashley brings his wit to bear on beer’s illustrious history in Canada, from Prohibition (and who thought that was a good idea?) to the beer that turned Quebec City drinkers blue and actually killed sixteen of them in 1966. Where else this season will you find a book that includes Prince Charles, Paris Hilton, Ron Keefe, and Rocco Perri, the great Hamilton bootlegger of the 1920s (you may be able to find him today encased in cement at the bottom of Burlington Bay)?”

From that description, it looks to be a fun book. I have recently read two history books. Both great topics. One was as dry as day old toast. The other is bright and lively. I certainly hope this book is more of the latter. You can find this at Amazon. (And to digress, shouldn’t Amazon ship beer?)

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Museum quality beer

Thanks to the Celebrator magazine, I saw a great to expand anyone’s beer horizons.

A museum exhibit on BEER!

Here is what the City of Fullerton (in the OC) has to say about it:
“Kegged, Casked, Bottled or Canned: 10,000 Years of Beer
Open to the public through October 10, 2010

This exhibition tells the story of beer with with advertising material, tap handles, metal signs, prints, beer steins, and fixtures from the home brewing industry.

Bottle Cap Treasures: Art Workshop for Adults!
Tuesday, September 14
7:00-9:00pm

Turn old beer bottle caps into fun magnets and jewelry! Bring your own bottle caps or use some of ours for no additional charge.”

$12 general/ $8 museum members