U.S. beer – Page 3 – Beer Tinted Spectacles

Blessed are the cheesemakers

Just like the Black Country has pork scratching and Lancashire has Black Pudding some places are defined by certain foods – in a curious circularity, as originally the place had defined the food. Pasties – Cornwall; Barm Cakes – Manchester; Stotties – the great North; Eel Pie – Larndon. And there was my idle mind granting these British foods a divine uniqueness – quaint old Blighty, only here do we have these regional peculiarities. Nonsense of course; a point driven home to me when an entrepreneurial ex colleague sent me some beers that his company is bringing in from the U.S… Wisconsin in fact.

Ah, Wisconsin. As a beer lover a source of perpetual confusion. Isn’t it the beer capital of the US (by volume brewed)? In the great city of Milwaukee? No, hang on, that’s Minneapolis, and that’s Minnesota. Nonetheless, Wisconsin is a food state. In fact, for many US citizens it’s the food state, certainly in terms of capacity produced. So I engaged in some primary research, and asked my friend Dan now resident back in the US to give me his top of mind associations when I say ‘Wisconsin’. Of 26 associations he came up with 3 of the first 5 were food related: ‘Curds’, ‘Black and White cows’ and ‘Bratwurst’. And there, down at number 7 was ‘beer’. Which about sums it up: the holy trinity of food stuffs; a perfect blend which would sustain you, and entertain you, through a nuclear war, assuming the electricity doesn’t fail and the fridge doesn’t pack in.

It turns out that first and foremost, Wisconsin is a dairy state – so much for the degree in geography. Milwaukee vs Minneapolis – an easy mistake I reckon. But beer more than features –and not that long ago it featured big time in the economic make up of this state. Because for a while, a beer that came out of Wisconsin was one of the US’s biggest beer brands* – Schlitz. But that’s not what Mark’s importing, oh no. No, travel north from Milwaukee to Green Bay, and then head due west to the small city of Stevens Point – and there you’ll find the Point Brewery (http://www.pointbeer.co.uk/). A city, which, if the labels are in any way accurate, is where the Coneheads settled after the fame and success of the 1993 movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106598/ …in case you think I’m making this up too).

Mark isn’t doing things by halves. Why import one beer, when you can import five? And that was the rather pleasing late Christmas present that arrived on my doorstep just after the New Year. It’s an interesting range: ‘standards’, if you will – an IPA, a Pale Ale and a Belgian White, and two more unusual ones – an Amber Lager, and a Black Ale. The quality of the beers is high – of course it is, the quality of US craft beers is so high that the poor performers get rooted out, but some stand out more than others. Possibly the most disappointing – versus expectation – were the Amber Lager and the Belgian White. The former because it is the most lacking – pleasant enough, more challenging undoubtedly than the lagers we typically drink here, but just not in the same ball park as the others in the range. The Belgian White, a good, well balanced white beer, but lacking in uumph – perhaps, too delicate, a little too refined compared with its peers.

The Black Ale though is worth seeking out. A great structure and a clean, sail-white head. Whilst you can tell there’s roasted malts in there, the drinkability is retained. All too often in Black beers of all denominations, just a touch too most roast can tip the balanced into ‘charred’. Not here. All I would want is a more complex, sustained after taste – but I’m being picky.

The IPA, a deep burnished bronze has an alluring, almost Seville Orange haze to it near the edge of the glass, and a clean, strong head. Clearly a relative of the Pale Ale, and to be sure, just like Jamie is eclipsed by Andy Murray, so too here. This Pale Ale is a cracker. To my eye, the right colour, a back lit copper, like a buffed up penny and a come-hither hop aroma, that calls you as soon as the cap is twisted off and continues through the pour. You can tell it’s Cascade hops a mile off, but unlike some US Pale Ales, not overplayed here – aroma, structure and a lingering aftertaste which beckons you for a second. Which, alas, I didn’t have.

Mark and his team at American Craft Beer Co have just started out so the beers are only in limited stockists at the moment. If you’re in Birmingham, check out the Post Office Vaults, they’re on sale there and will hopefully be more widely available soon – watch this space.

Which of course leads me to the food recommendation – what do I pair that Pale Ale with? A spicy meal perhaps – a jalfrezi or Thai Green Curry? Maybe some great English sausages – a richly herbed Cumberland? Do you know what, I think I’ll just go for some cheese – semi hard, West Country Cheddar. Not sure why.

*I sold Schlitz in the UK in the early ‘90s. I’m sure I recollect part of the selling story was that it was once the largest brewer in the World, but I can’t say for certain.

©Beer Tinted Spectacles, 2013

Staffordshire Mountain Time

Jens and I had just arrived in from a long haul schlep from Heathrow to Denver – seven hours time difference between Greenwich and my favourite time zone of all – ‘Mountain Time’. Wouldn’t that be great? If all mountains shared the same time zone? From the Himalaya to the Andes, from the Urals to the Lakeland Fells, whenever you climb above 1500m you equalise with Denver, Colorado. That way, we could drive up to the Lakes or the Highlands and drink beer simultaneously with the Great American Beer Festival, although perhaps in the dark… On this occasion, sticking with current conventions, we had flown a quarter of the way around the world for this particular bout of jet lag, and we weren’t going to waste it on sleep. The tactic of course: immediately assimilate yourself by going to a bar.

We headed for Blake Street. Just one block from Coors Field (with the most excellent, but sadly closed, Sandlot Bar / Brewery) we knew there were a couple of excellent bars. Falling Rock Tap House earned the honours of slaking mutual first pint syndrome – I had a Fat Tire from New Belgium – an oldie but goodie which I perversely enjoy for its barnyard (read: cow muck) aroma, Jens something much darker (What? Than cow muck?) and inevitably featuring ancient grains or triple truck loads of hops, or something. I think Nelson Sauvin featured but my beer notebook wasn’t working at the time. More beers and a light pre-order of kickers featuring, from memory, a magical set of buffalo wings and enough ‘nar-chos’ to fatten up this week’s Christmas Turkey (Note: not ‘Natch-os’ as I requested, creating much confusion. Fortunately I didn’t request the ‘Toe-mar-to Solsa’ so we managed to navigate that tricky spot. And heaven forbid if they are ever served with ‘Tune-a’ in the footure). Anyhoo, the conversation became more animated and a heated debate opened up regarding the Cascade hop and its train – the other ‘C’ hops). In the Blue Corner – the hop heads, who appreciated when the hops were treated delicately but generally, were seeking vast quantity. In the Biney Green corner, were the Purists, appreciative of the energy and momentum created by U.S. craft brewers but a little scathing of the indelicacy of hop quantity that many craft beers boasted. ’They all taste the same – it’s just too much hop, hop, hop’ was the refrain. I was a broadly neutral voice in the debate between brewers, but at the time holding a candle to the Purists’ view. Too many glasses of beer had been unfinishable; too many face-puckeringly astringent as opposed to lime-suckingly sharp and refreshing.

Yet those who have visited these pages before will know that I appreciate American inventiveness, particularly in the sphere of Pale Ales and IPAs fed to me on the lean diet that we enjoy on these shores. Of Goose Island and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, enough has been said (quite justifiably) so I shall say no more today. But what a find the other day – one of those pleasant, out-of-the-blue surprises, that lifts your heart. And with it a touch of annoyance too – in the form of more beers in Sainsbury’s ‘Taste the Difference’ range. A Pale Ale (imaginatively entitled ‘American Pale Ale’) and also ‘Tap Room Brewing Company IPA’. It seems from the blogosphere that I was not alone in being surprised by these beers’ appearance and it was only serendipity that allowed me to spot them in store. In the midst of the big Christmas shop, with the trolley losing its agility under the weight of festive groceries, I had carefully slotted some Goose Island and Brooklyn Lager into crafty niches between the bottles of Belvoir Presses (get me!) and the once-a-year parsnips when I decided to pause awhile over the UK range (actually to see if a friend’s beer had been listed yet). My eye was drawn to two slim 330ml bottles amongst the sea of 500ml pseudo-pints. Naturally, despite the mechanically challenged trolley, I managed to engineer space for two bottles of each – the Pale Ale described as having ‘citrus aromas and malty flavours’ (no shit!) and an ABV of 5.3%; the IPA a more bullish yet still drinkable 6.3% and billed as ‘bold with spicy hop notes’. Come on down!

Well, my! What a find. The Pale Ale in particular is a little haughty starlet. Enticing you from the moment you lever (TWIST!!) off the crown. Citrus notes – sure, but also a spiciness, which I assume comes from the hops, and a body, befitting a mid 5s beer that is both delectably drinkable yet supported with chiselled broad-shoulders. The mash contains wheat as well as barley and the roundedness comes through in the mouthfeel. And my sort of beer – a come-hither-young-man aroma, multi-dimensionsal on the first sip and a lingering after taste that rolls around the taste buds gently tinkling a fading percussive melody on your tonsils with its Xylophone beaters, until the next sip is called for and your hand unfailingly answers. The IPA in comparison was a bit of a let down – a good beer, but not a great one. For a bold strength it flattered to deceive a little, drinking under its weight and creating a stewards’ enquiry from Barry McGuigan’s corner. But not a bad beer, with a bright orange colour and a dense, compact head that laced beautifully. Alas, no timpani on the tonsils this time round.

And it revived memories of the old debate in that Denver bar. U.S. craft beers – all the same? All hops and no knickers? Well not on the evidence here – the tantalising tastes enjoyed in Staffordshire of all places have me pining to go back Stateside to update the argument.

The Session #66: One Beer to Rule Them All

One Beer to Rule them all. Of course, for any lover of beer this is an impossible task, yet a beautiful, playful one at that. So I saw the subject of this month’s Big Session blog and decided, no matter how difficult it proves to answer it. To find the one beer to rule them all.

But why impossible? For many drinkers, perhaps it is easy just to pick one beer and say, ‘that’s it, that’s the one. My beer’. Not for me. It’s the seemingly infinite number of great beers available today, increasing seemingly exponentially that talks about the healthy future for beer. There’s even new styles emerging, either inspired by the past or just the crazy playthings of brewers willing to mash concoctions into something drinkable.

What should go into consideration – what makes a Beer a pretender to the One Beer Crown? How about balance? That subtle interplay, that dance that a great beer has from the initial aroma, the dimensions of its taste, its appearance and its presentation. I choose beers on each of these alone. Then there’s moreishness. I remember a great quote from a beer executive that I used to work for – “The great thing about our beer is, it’s drinkable”. I kid you not. Actually, I know what he was driving at: there is something great when you have a beer, and from the first sip it’s enticing you back to a second. Often because that thing that attracted – the aroma, or the taste say – you want more of, or often because you can’t quite put your finger on what makes it great. For me, this is a sign of a great beer, and narrows down my list.

And versatility. I’ve lost count of the number of brewers who bang on about beer and food, and not really know why this is important other than a band seem to be on a wagon. I like my beers to be versatile – fundamentally they must stand up on their own right. They must be intriguing, moreish, and damnably tasty. But I want it to go with my pizza on a Friday night and be able to stand up to Fajitas too. That’s a lot to ask – so it narrows the list further.

There are other variables. Patriotism is one. I’m proud of great British beers. I am happy to admit there are beers in my repertoire that aren’t in my Top 10 best ever beers but that I want to drink because I want them to continue brewing what they do. And memories. Budvar is a beer that I’ve drunk on some happy times in great places. So it’s up there for me….but that alone is not enough.

Ah, the tyranny of choice, and a spectrum of considerations from tangible on the one hand to seemingly irrational on the other. But I will get to it. I’m not going to list my Top 10. I’m going for the jugular.

My One Beer combines complexity of taste with moreishness; multidimensional taste reward with just the right amount of alcoholic hit; a bottle shape I love and a label design I wished I had designed myself. Its presentation invariably fires up my pleasure neurons with a thick, tight white head, and copper colour. The story of the brewery – from start up to boundary pushing present day; where it’s from and the appeal of the lifestyle. In short, it’s got everything. It is Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

This being the case, it is only fitting to finish in lamentable tribute to the inspiration for this month’s theme…

Three Beers for the Czech-kings under the sky.
Seven for the Belgian-Monks in their Abbeys of stone.
Nine for Bavarian Counts who would their beers lie.
One for Uncle Sam on his Hoppy throne
in the Land of Cali where the craft brewers vie.
One Beer to rule them all.
One Beer to find them,
One Beer to bring them all and in the hoppyness bine them
in the Land of Cali where the craft brewers vie*.

…and, of course, to reserve the right to change my mind next time round.

*JRRT: sorry.

1776 and all that

Very soon, it will be a year since I finished working for a large, multi-national American brewer. As with any job change, it’s been a year of excitement and nervousness, peaks and troughs, many surprises and most of all of new friendships and old friendships reborn. Of course, I still have many friends in the old country and I meet and talk with them at regular intervals – what’s good, what’s bad, what can be learned. And the curious thing of course is how re-energised I feel about beer again. It’s my passion once more, not just my job.

The most striking thing I have noticed as a ‘drinker’ is the ‘before’ and ‘after’ world. At University, I was developing my interest in beer (both consuming it, and being interested in it). And the focus was ale – critical of what I saw as mundane lager, this was a world of real ale. Of cask beers; of bottled conditioned ales where I could find them; of experimentation. I was extremely lucky to be living in the West Country which had, and mostly still has, a vibrant and energised population of free trade pubs. And of course, the off trade was not what it was today – there was still a reasonable range of beers without the stack-it-high mentality (24 pack slabs didn’t exist for example). These were days spent at The Beer Engine at Newton St Cyres; over pints of Directors at The Jolly Porter, or Bass at The Great Western. The Turf Locks, jutting out into the Exe estuary, was a promised land that, back then, could only be reached on foot or by private boat, yet put on a wonderful selection of local beers (as it does today – if anything, nowadays it’s better). The Double Locks, higher up the river towards Exeter was and remains a superb cask beer shrine, where tasty pints from an ever changing range are served direct from the cask in an elbows tucked-in-tight bar amongst ruddy-cheeked locals and braying Sloans.

Yet the world I emerge into today is different. Ironically, the world of cask and bottled beer is more vibrant than I can ever recall. The positive unintended consequence of the Beer Orders now sees a cask and micro brewery movement that is building a new beer culture and growing respect for beer again. New breweries, new beers, limited editions are coming to market at a rate where it’s virtually impossible to keep up. Age old ‘problems’, like the young men drinking cask, and women drinking beer (at all) are being slowly eroded by a groundswell of new news that seeps into our consciousness on a weekly basis. One factor is where I now live. Despite its Grail-like reputation in the brewing world, Burton and the Midlands don’t have a pub scene like the West Country. Don’t get me wrong – there are some terrific individual pubs. The Yew Tree at Cauldon Low, The Burton Bridge, The Brunswick in Derby is an insultingly short list to all the great pubs I’ve missed. No, the issue is a structural one. Whereas in my Exeter days you just didn’t know what choice of beers you would get if you chose a free house, in the Midlands, you have to go looking hard to break free of the yoke of a Marston’s, or a Punch, or an Enterprise. Great beer is frequently served, but the range means I’m often peering into the fridge to eke out something new.

But actually, despite this, the irony is that the context has changed. When I was last a free man in beer, I hadn’t seen the world. Aye lad, I ‘adn’t travelled much beyond me own shores. Serendipitously, while I have broadened my horizons, so the brewing world has broadened its horizons. My love affair – for ‘tis that – with craft US beers really picked up Steam in 1998. My wife (who in a commitment to the cause, I met in a pub whilst drinking, if I recall correctly, a pint of Marston’s Oatmeal Stout) and I travelled to California the year after we were married. We had picked up the bug a bit for the ‘States with a first trip to New England, and now wanted to see the land of the American dream. It was a pilgrimage too – I had places I wanted to tick off the list. Anchor was one of course – the mythical place it all began. An inspiring place – one day, I will have an office that overlooks a copper. Yet it was the vibrancy of the beer scene that struck me all over – and this when it was still juvenile. In San Francisco on our first night, we wandered down to Pier 39. Mostly this is tourist tat shops, but in a great setting overlooking Alcatraz Island and the spectacle of the seals underneath the pier barking like infants with Croup. We went for a drink in a bar called the Cannery – an oak clad wall with beer taps peeking through confronted us; locals and tourists alike animatedly chatting and discussing hot topics. I drank an Anchor Porter which was biscuity and baked yet refreshingly moreish too. Later, we drove to Napa and Sonoma – beautiful valleys, filled with lime green vines stretching up into the hills, weaving roads enticing the eye up to a distant col. The wineries (we went to Mondavi and Mumm) had fantastically run tours, free samples a go-go and were just great places to kick back enjoying the sun and the scenery. Yet my fondest memory was a little brewpub in Napa itself. I can’t remember its name, but I can remember the experience. The building was an old fire station with tall, arched windows stretching floor to eaves in beautiful Amsterdam-style brick. We ate straightforward food: wood fired pizza before it was the rage; a rocket salad; home made sausages with garlic mash and gravy. Pub grub, done well. And of course a fantastic range of beers – I had a Hefeweizen, a Pale Ale and an IPA, my wife had a citrusy Summer wheat and a glass of Zin.

The drive down the Big Sur coast was as legendary as the reputation would suggest, sweeping through the precipice-hugging bends – dream like open-top cruising in our 1 litre Yugo. We stopped overnight in Santa Barbara and ate a fantastic meal in The Brewhouse, a recently opened brewpub. It was my first experience of properly hoppy ales – a taste of things to come if you follow the scene today. We bypassed LA and headed to San Diego – where the brewing scene was only just kicking off. We drank beers from Stone Brewing and popped into a couple of Brewpubs which sowed the seed of yet another dream back home. We went to the Zoo and Seaworld, in case you’re asking. Mrs P didn’t suffer too much.

And the love affair spread – Denver, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Tampa, Seattle…great brews are popping up all over. Yet it was only the other day, when I finally got round to drinking a beer from the Big Apple. For whatever reason, Brooklyn Brewery had passed me by. The label didn’t catch my eye; the story on their Lager (a Pre Prohibition beer) seemed to be an afterthought. ‘They don’t care that much’, I thought, ‘I won’t bother’. So I didn’t.

Until last week. I bought three bottles of Brooklyn Lager in Mr Tesco’s corner shop. 3 for £2, if you’re asking, which I reckoned was a good deal, and good enough to try something new.

Silly, silly, me. A blast of leafy, green, hop aroma swelled out from the bottle top as soon as I levered off the crown. The colour, a deep copper brown, with red hues just glinting in the corner of your eye. The head, a deep lemon meringue of headiness, topping off a bigger, fatter, mouthful of lager loveliness with a balanced sweet malt, and hop linger. Silly, silly, me.

And so the love affair grows. Pick the stereotype you wish – America: the young upstart. Brash, big American beers. No class, just in your face. Yep – all of those. And the dynamism they bring to beer – the respect for the past with the excitement of the legacy being left for the future is palpable. I love British beers; I’m basking in the warm glow of what some of our brewers are doing at the moment, but love them or hate them, there’s another American Revolution going on at the moment. It’s entirely peaceful and changing the world all over again.

At Sam and Benny’s

The Frankie and Benny’s experience was not one to write home about. It was wrong on three subtle, but I feel important points: service, quality and price. Dirty glassware and incorrect brand first off, then the wrong brand for the glass second time around. The meal – well, it was average (I wasn’t expecting much so don’t give me that ‘Well I never‘ look) and in fact at £9.85 was a lump of purest rip off. This for a plate a penne al’ arabiatta which can best be described as ‘part-scratch’ (pasta out of a packet, sauce out of a tub, fresh herbs thrown on top and no hint of the brilliant Eddie Izzard ‘Death Star Canteen’ on YouTube sketch). Served by staff who clearly would rather be sitting in front of the Lottery Results waiting for life to deal them a better hand.

Forget that though. The beer. I ordered a Sam Adams Boston Lager. Have in mind that this had travelled a couple of thousand miles to my table. It was enough to almost forgive Frankie and Benny’s for the rest of their culinary sins.

Let’s start with the aroma…noble hops? I know they use Hallertau Mittelfrüh, but is that the only contributor to the magnificence of the aroma – surely not? This is a restrained hop aroma for many American new wave beers which marks this out as even more special. Judicious is the word – leading to an aroma that is an experience in itself. Sipping it…mouthfeel. I’m guessing that there must be some weeks of lagering as the beer has a rounded quality in mouthfeel and a delicacy of linger of the aftertaste with again, the herbal and leafy hop throughout. Colour: coppery bronze like the sun kissed thigh of an olive-skinned beach lovely. But most remarkable to me was the head. I pour a small quantity with two fingers (a legacy of working for Grolsch and experiencing that beer ‘the Dutch way’) and like a thick head*. It’s a good test both of the beer’s inherent structure and clean glassware. Fortunately this time round I had both. And what an experience…a dense just-off-white head, thick but not imperviously compact like a nitrobeer. And northern ale like lacing and rings were left down the glass as I drank, which as a former student of dendrochronology makes me happy inside.

I was particularly pleased about this as I hold a torch for Sam. Not only were they in the early wave of US craft brewers, not only were they entrepreneurial in brewing a great beer when they didn’t have a brewery, but they are brewers of principle. All malt beers, adjuncts only for flavour, whole hops, many noble varieties but above all a real commitment to taste. And for Boston Beer there’s a clear link. Take shortcuts with the process, take shortcuts with the ingredients and taste suffers. If taste suffers eventually you can’t charge what you want and the spiral down commences.

I had the privilege of meeting Jim Koch, Boston Beer’s founder in 2006. It was an incredible trip, an in-and-out, but Jim and Martin Roper his English born CEO, gave of their time and of their lunch and we talked beer and business. They gently chastised my company for the use of adjuncts yet praised it for their support to Boston Beer in tougher times. They showed off Utopias to me and gave me a real hand baggage challenge (the bottle is a mini Copper and not so much lighter than the real thing). Thoroughly nice chaps brewing thoroughly good beer… making good money now, but not being ruled by it. There’s probably a lesson there for us all, and certainly for Frankie and Benny’s.

*That’s on my beer not my head per se.