Month: December 2007

New Beer Rule #7: Beer is not the new wine

Beer For LunchLast night we ate leftover smoked meat and drank Southern Tier Choklat. One, then the other. No pairing involved. Sometimes you just want a beer, maybe even a strong one.

Choklat, an 11% abv imperial stout infused with dark Belgian chocolate, qualifies on both counts. It’s one of the beers I’ll be writing around 85 words about in the next All About Beer magazine Beer Talk.

You’ll notice these days that more often than not Beer Talk panelists suggest a food pairing for the beer they are describing. I tend to be the slacker. I know that Charles Finkel, who tastes the same beers as I, will have terrific suggestions and I try to use the small space alloted to squeeze in something different.

I’m keener than most about the notion beer belongs at the table, but these days the movement hardly seems to need my help. For instance, the Brewers Association yesterday revealed new details about “SAVOR: An American Craft Beer & Food Experience,” including something called educational salons. These are presentations by “savvy cross drinkers.”

I guarantee you that the words “Beer is the new wine” will be bandied about.

What does that mean? I really don’t know. The phrase doesn’t seem to serve beer or wine well. Wine is the new wine. Beer is the new beer. (And the old beer, which is equally important.)

Beer “styles” have always evolved, with various riffs sometimes turning evolution into revolution. This is nothing new. In the 1930s it was the monks at Westmalle refining the “tripel” style. These days it might be two brothers in a former hardware store in Warren, Mich., inventing something new or an ex-English major in San Diego blending mead, strong ale and sour beer to create Veritas (Latin for truth).

Truth is it’s still beer.

NEW BEER RULE #7: Beer is still beer.

Leading beer trends for 2008: No. 4a*

Beer CollegeWere I inclined to make predictions (not likely) about the Top 10 Beer Trends of 2008 then one would somehow have to include the words “education” and “certification.”

For education, I’d start with Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 in Chicago for the Siebel Institute of Technology’s course on Professional Beer Tasting & Styles. More about that in a moment, because the syllabus gets a little long.

Certification I: Ray Daniels posts that the online exam for the first level of Cicerone certification should available soon.

Certification II: The Master Brewers Association of America quarterly newsletter reports the board of governors “approved a new MBAA-sponsored education program targeted at individuals
in the wholesale and retail beer trades.”

The program’s goal is to improve the image of beer and broaden its appeal by better maintaining its freshness throughout the distribution chain and by increasing the knowledge of beer styles and proper serving techniques for those who distribute and serve beer. The Publication Committee is charged with producing a new reference book that will provide the relevant and necessary information to educate applicants to be certified under the program. Individuals applying for certification must demonstrate a comprehensive knowledge of beer by passing a rigorous exam based on the contents of the reference book.

Back to the course at Siebel, Randy Mosher (author of “Radical Brewing” and the upcoming “BeerSense: Understanding the Pleasures of the World’s Best Drink”) put it together. The presentations include:

Section 1 – Introduction
* What is Beer?
* Beer in Context: Lifestyle & Diet, Culture, Seasons
* A Little Beer History: Beginnings, Medieval to Modern, The American Beer Story, Craft Beer Revolution

Section 2 – Sensory
* Techniques for Sensory Evaluation:Practical Tips for Evaluating Beer, Sources of Flavor & Aroma
* The Taste of Beer: Beer Aroma & the Flavor Wheel
* The Formal Tasting: Types of Tastings, Competitive Judging, Evaluation Forms
* Informal Tastings: Settings & Methods, Tasting Glasses

Section 3 – Beer by the Numbers
* Gravity / Strength of “wort”, Alcohol, Color, Bitterness,
* A Question of Balance

Section 4 – Common Defects of Beer
* Including tasting of beers spiked with off-flavors: Raw materials, Brewhouse, Fermentation/maturation: Yeast, Packaging,
* Mishandling, Beer Infection: Age, draft system problems, Light

Section 5 – The Process of Brewing (and why you should care)
* Beer Ingredient Analysis: Malt, Other Grains & Fermentables, Hops, Water, Yeast, Other ingredients
* The Brewing Process: Malting, Mashing, Boiling, Chilling, Fermenting, Maturation, Filtration, Storage/Shipping

Section 6 – What Is a style?
* An introduction to the definitions of beer styles, followed by more detailed presentations of the major beer styles. The styles presentations feature a combination of lectures, PowerPoint slides and numerous tastings, giving a thorough overview of the character of the majority of beer styles including:

Section 7 – Ales of the United Kingdom
Section 8 – Lager
Section 9 – European Ales
Section 10 – Belgium & France
Section 11 – New American Classics

Section 12 – Serving & Storing Beer

Section 13 – Beer & Food
* Pairing Approaches: Classic Combinations, Some Surprising Pairs, Beer & Cheese, Beer with Desserts
* Beer Cuisine, Beer & Food Tastings & Dinners

Would Bud plus Bud be win-win?

BudvarWould the beer world be a better place if Budweiser bought Budweiser?

Or put another way, would both American-owned Anheuser-Busch and Czech-owned Budejovicky Budvar be better off if A-B bought Budvar?

In the event you didn’t already answer “no” and move on . . .

Evan Rail explains the ins and out of of privatizing (selling) Budvar in his new Beer Culture blog in the Prague Daily Monitor. Then he asks this question:

Yes, I know that sounds like sacrilege to many beer fans. But if Budvar is privatized, can you imagine that anyone other than Anheuser-Busch would end up owning it? And does anyone out there consider for a second that maybe, just maybe, this might be a good thing — and not only in terms of the reduced legal fees for both companies?

We also have we have this view form the A-B side of the ocean. Brew Blog reported Monday that analyst Stifel Nicolaus published a report titled “On BUD’s Takeout Value.”

It asked whether a buyer would pay “more than a typical takeout multiple for BUD.” Absent a bidding war, Stifel’s verdict was no.

Why? Largely because A-B remains underindexed in imports and crafts.

Although A-B distributes Budvar in the United States, where the beer is called Czechvar, that is different than owning the esteemed brewery.

As Brew Blog points out, we heard plenty of rumors about A-B and InBev during 2007. And if (obviously more like when) the dollar continues to struggle in 2008 and InBev’s stock price grows stronger against A-B’s then the possibility of a less-than-friendly takeover increases.

Monday morning musing: Genetics and auction madness

Not sure what your head is ready for this Monday morning, but we’ll start with the heavy lifting and then move on to good fodder for the around the water cooler. (Does anybody still hang out around water coolers or do they just use IM?)

– Don Russell writes about the developing battle over Frankenbeer in Germany; that is GMO beer. This battle packs a double whammy — GMOs (a bigger issue, so far, in Europe than America) and if this violates Germany’s beer purity law, the Reinheitsgebot.

Today there’s a report in the New Scientist about using “supersonic steam” to speed the brewing process. “The steam rips the liquid apart completely to form tiny, atomized droplets,” says Jens Thorup, Pursuit Dynamics technical director. “The droplets create a massive surface area that speeds up brewing reactions.”

Change can be good. This new process would reduce the carbon footprint of brewing. That’s excellent, but better if it doesn’t muck with traditional flavor.

Increasing prices for beer remind us that we’re talking about something that is grown before it is brewed. There’s a lot to pay attention to along the way.

– This fact hidden in Pete Brown’s post about tapping his well-traveled IPA: “Sadly the brewer of our beer, Steve Wellington, couldn’t make it because sales of Worthington White Shield are up by an incredible 67% this year and he’s brewing round the clock.”

Do you think Coors (which runs the White Shield Brewery within its complex at Burton-on-Trent) has any other beers with sales up 67% for the year? Not even Blue Moon is doing that well. Doesn’t this say something about tradition and beer with flavor?

– Plenty of beer on eBay these days, so remember you are bidding on collectible bottles rather than the contents :>)

* As I type, Bottle No. 1 of the 2007 release of Samuel Adams Utopias is at $810. This one is for charity. There are dozens of other Utopias packages available as well.

* Surly Brewing in Minnesota is auctioning a few bottles of Surly Darkness to raise money for EnergyCents, a non-profit Minnesota organization that helps folks with their heating bills. Here’s one, with a current bid of $152.50. Just click on “View seller’s other items” for more.

Surly put 480 of the 22-ounce bottles on sale Saturday at the brewery, with a limit of two per customer ($33 for two bottles, including tax). WCCO reported that buyers traveled from from Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Michigan to buy the beer, and interviewed some who were in line all night. Darkness went on sale at 9 a.m. and sold out at 12:49 p.m.

* A threesome of Lost Abbey beers — Cuvee de Tomme (375ml), Angel’s Share (750ml), and 10 Commandments (750ml) — sold for $199.99 in an eBay auction that closed Sunday. There was no mention of charity by the seller in Chicago.

A similar auction — Cuvee de Tomme, Angel’s Share, and Lost And Found (750ml) — just closed at $141.01. But did not meet the reserve. Same seller, by the way.