Month: September 2008

Session #19: What would Einstein drink?

This post is my contribution to Session #19, Deutsches Bier, so head there for the roundup, and check out Bathtub Brewery for details about the 20th gathering of beer bloggers. My entry was written Sept. 4 with no clear idea when I might be able to post it.

What would Eintstein drink?

Three days and four Bavarian weiss beers into the European leg of our grand adventure and I can see a problem. Each of the four was noticeably different than the others.

Different is good. You don’t end up with a situation like Lew Bryson describes, where drinkers can’t tell the difference various stouts. Different is a pain in the butt if you are writing a book about wheat beers and are expected to single out beers that “define the style.”

The picture above was taken at Barfüsser die Hausbrauerie in Ulm, Germany, Albert Einsten’s home town. The brewpub makes a weiss that would likely do well in a scored competition because it is bold on the banana and clove fronts. (The pub also brews weiss light, a growing trend; geez, I’m really going to enjoy writing about that.)

So if you’ve got a checklist (in your head or otherwise) of weiss beer essentials you can mark off banana and clove for this beer. But what about other fruit character, notably apples? Or mouthfeel? Or appearance? (Oops, forgot to ask, do you like your weiss beers turbid or party cloudy?)

These are peripheral questions when drinking beer in Germany, particularly in smaller towns than Ulm (we traveled the Romantische Strasse much of the way from Frankfurt south). Lots of beer, lots of choices (though not usually in one spot), lots of people having a good time and not giving a damn about if their beer “defines the style” or hits 99.8 on the WOW scale.

There may be multiple variations on weiss but usually from the same brewery. In some cases a bigger producer — plenty of Erdinger and Tucher in Rothenberg — but often a smaller one.

After we walked the town of Dinkelbühl earlier today we stopped in a cafe that seemed to specialize in wine but that also gives beer a page on its drinks menu. The lineup includes four weiss beers (one the ubiquitous leicht) from nearby Konig Ludwig, well known in the States. However, we chose the cafe because they serve beer from Houf’s, a Dinkelbühl brewery that’s been around more than 100 years. I had Houf’s Hefe-Weiss, took a couple of quick notes, then resumed enjoying Germany.

 

Where good beer is cheaper than gas

I stand corrected. You can buy a liter of all-grain, full-flavored beer for less than you’d pay for a liter of gas.

Here’s proof, a photo taken at a small grocery store in Wertheim, Germany (at the junction of the Main and Tauber rivers, and with terrific castle ruins).

Beer in Wertheim, Germany

Beer is .66 euro (or less) for .5L. That’s 1.32 euro if you bought two (in other words a liter). The cheapest we’ve seen gas for is 1.39 for a liter of diesel (the cheapest gas in Germany, as opposed to the silly flip-flop in the U.S. where diesel costs more).

 

Monday musing: The carbon footprint of Fat Tire

The carbon footprint of New Belgium Fat Tire AleNew Belgium Brewing and The Climate Conservancy have released a 36-page paper that assesses the carbon footprint of a 6-pack of Fat Tire.

If you are one of those people who flips to the last page of the mystery book, the answer is “3,189 grams of CO2.” The New Belgium blog points out that “in and of itself is kind of a meaningless number. However, it provides a baseline to measure the results of future improvements and, most revealing, is what makes up that number. There definitely were some surprises.”

Not exactly light reading, because green is a complicated color.

You’ll notice, for instance, that glass and retail (red and blue) make up almost half of Fat Tire’s carbon footprint. So if New Belgium sold less beer in bottles and didn’t insist it be refrigerated along its route to us then its footprint would be smaller. And the brewery would sell less beer, and we’d be less happy with the condition of what is in the bottle. See, not so simple.

You may not want to wade through the entire report, but at least take the time to read the conclusions (page 34) and give them a little thought.

– James McMurtry is a favorite musician and I’m working on a book about brewing with wheat. So I gotta love this intro to a review of Childish Things:

McMurtry is like wheat beer – cloudy, agricultural, substantial and something of an acquired taste, you might be put off after a few sips but if you get the taste, it’ll stay with you.

I like Childish Things better than the reviewer, but that’s another discussion.

Beer in the big cities: NY Craft Beer Week Sept. 12-21 puts a nice focus on neighborhoods and crawls.

Nothing timid about Beer Exposed in London, Sept. 25-27. Look at the lineup of speakers. Boak (of Boak and Bailey, where I learned of the event) expresses concerns others of us might share browsing through the hip web site.

But… the whole thing smacks a bit of “beer is the new wine” to me. There’s quite a hefty entrance fee — £14 in advance, £17 on the door, which doesn’t include any of the beer walks or talks. Lots of the talks are focused on beer and food. There’s no-one over the age of 30 on the promotional material. There’s even a bloody dress code. Although if this is mostly to stop the sexist t-shirts, I don’t mind so much…

I’ll look forward to reading reports from the UK blogging contingency.