Month: September 2009

Come on in, the fringe is fine

Beer revolution going onI’m all for perspective, although I expect it to go out the window this weekend in Denver.

The Simpsons and Norm Peterson? How much more pop culture can the Great American Beer Festival handle? To keep us on an even keel All About Beer magazine had historian Maureen Ogle pen a piece titled “What Revolution?” for its 30th anniversary issue, “Beer: 30.”

Early on she writes:

“Here’s where I’m supposed to wax rhapsodic about the craft beer revolutionaries who taught Americans to drink real beer, and who changed the brewing industry forever.

“I’ll pass. I’m a historian, and it’s my job to take the Long View of the Big Picture. And from my vantage point, what was fringe in 1979 is fringe in 2009, and the ‘revolution’ was not.”

Certainly not as she, and many other people, would define it. Perspective indeed, although I’m sure if she were going to be in Denver we could line up plenty of people to debate that thought. I’d like to take the other side on two different statements.

Second, she writes, “Morever, entrepreneurs are ambitious. They will always strive for more. And so small brewers expand their brewhouses in order to satisfy their ambitions and to ensure the financial future of the children and grandchildren who are born in between mashing and lagering.”

What’s changed since 1979 is that a person who wants to run a small brewing business, and keep it small, can. Yep, it’s that simple.

Now onto the first. “For every five beer geeks who applaud the arrival of say, Groovy California Brewing Co.’s ‘local’ beer on the east coast, at least one will criticize Groovy’s ambitions and find something else to drink. Something more pure, more real, more local. Something less, well, ‘successful.'”

How about choosing local because tastes better? Again it can be that simple.

Just wanted to be on the record with those two thoughts. Of course I’m the guy who when AABM asked for predictions for the next 30 years (those appear at the back of the magazine) responded with more of a wish than a prediction:

“We will continue to most enjoy beers made by breweries where, if the guy in charge really needed to put on his boots, walk into the brewhouse and make a batch of beer, he could.”

 

Union Jack IPA back to back?

One more quick look into the Great American Beer Festival judging records. I could waste a lot of time in the archives. For instance, I’ve pointed out before that Blind Pig Double IPA and Goose Island Bourbon Barrel Stout both made their first GABF appearance in 1995, laying the groundwork for what are now stand-alone categories.

But at the time it seemed at least as bold that Kinney Baughman from Cottonwood Grill & Brewery in North Carolina brought his “Belgian Amber Framboise.” The beer took a bronze in Belgian-style Specialty behind Celis White and Thomas Kemper White. Oh, the memories.

Back to what I was looking for. When I posted the 1987 results Rick Sellers commented on Twitter that Rubicon in Sacramento won the first gold in India Pale Ale, which did not become a category until 1989. When I looked I noticed Rubicon won the first two. So I wanted to see if that ever happened again.

IPA has become the most hotly contested category, with more than 100 entries every year — even with the addition of Double (or Imperial) IPA and American Strong Pale Ale (Avery IPA won that one year, just so you know what ends up competing) categories.

These days it’s rare for breweries from the same state to win back-to-back, but in the 1990s Hubcap Brewery & Kitchen in Dallas, Texas, won three years out of four. Hubcap was a spinoff of a brewpub in Vail, Colorado (as you might tell from the beers names). Both are long gone. My notes indicate we had the IPA in 1993 and liked it, although I honestly don’t remember it at all. Anyway, I’m a bit confused because in 1992 brewpubs weren’t yet legal in Texas. This is a bit of beer history that needs to be tracked down before it’s completely lost.

Meanwhile, here’s the list of IPA gold medalists:

1989 – Rubicon IPA, Rubicon Brewing, California
1990 – Rubicon IPA, Rubicon Brewing, California
1991 – Banty Rooster, Seabright Brewing, California
1992 – Solstice Ale, Hubcap Brewery & Kitchen, Texas
1993 – Renegade Red, Estes Park Brewing, Colorado
1994 – Vail Pale Ale, Hubcap, Texas
1995 – Dig D’s Vail Pale Ale, Hubcap, Texas
1996 – Ponderosa IPA, Prescott Brewing, Arizona
1997 – India Pale Ale, Marin Brewing, California
1998 – Pike IPA, 5280 Roadhouse & Brewery, Colorado
1999 – Racer 5 IPA, Bear Republic, California
2000 – Telemark IPA, Backcountry Brewery & Restaurant, Colorado
2001 – Tumblewood IPA, Sleeping Giant, Montana
2002 – Drake’s IPA, Drake’s Brewing, California
2003 – Hoptown IPA, Hoptown Brewing, California
2004 – India Pelican Ale, Pelican Pub & Brewery, Oregon
2005 – Castle Rock IPA, Santa Barbara Brewing, California
2006 – Hophead Imperial IPA, Bend Brewing, Oregon
2007 – IPA, Odell Brewing, Colorado
2008 – Union Jack IPA, Firestone Walker, California

 

When the GABF had 12 categories

Not surprisingly, chatter about the Great American Beer Festival runs rampant in the world I occupy, and now particularly on Twitter. Just to be clear, I know full well Denver will not be the center of the beer universe this weekend.

There isn’t one.

But GABF has my full my attention, and in doing a little research for stories I’ll be working on this weekend in Denver I was looking at the 1987 judging results. Although the festival began in 1982 the blind judging competititon did not commence until 1987, in all of 12 categories (compared to 78 today).

Here’s who won gold:

Ales – Big Foot Barley Wine Style Ale, Sierra Nevada Brewing
Alts – Chinook Alaskan Amber, Alaskan Brewing
American Cream Ales – Little Kings Cream Ale, Hudepohl-Schoenling Brewing
American Lagers – Koch’s Golden Anniversary Ale, Genesee Brewing
American Light Lagers – Leinenkugel, Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing
Bock/Doppelbocks – Chesbay Doppel Bock, Chesapeake Bay Brewing
Continental Amber Lagers – Golden Bear Dark Malt, Thousand Oaks Brewing
Continental Pilsner – Samuel Adams Boston Lager, Boston Beer Co.
Porters – Great Northern Porter, Summit Brewing
Stouts – Boulder Stout, Rockies Brewing
Vienna Style Lagers – Vienna Style Lager, Vienna Brewing Co.
Wheat beers – Edelweiss, Val Blatz Brewery

A few of those beers will be contenders to win this week.

 

Is your beer bucket list up to date?

Rick Lyke pointed out earlier this week that Amazon is already taking orders for 1,001 Beers You Must Taste Before You Die — a book he, I and many others contributed to — although it won’t be available until March.

Turns out there are 1,000 beers to try before then. Ben McFarland’s World’s Best Beers: 1000 Unmissable Brews from Portland to Prague goes on sale this week in the UK, although it’s not clear when the book will be available in the United States.

If you care about what beers might be listed — SPOILER ALERT! — you can sneak a peak by looking inside the book, going to the index and clicking through to the list of featured beers. In fact, I did, read the whole thing. Was happy to find beers like Kout na Šumave 12° Svetlý Ležák (Czech Republic) and Zoigl from the community brewhouse in Neuhaus (in Germany, pictured here).

Zoigl Kommunaibrauhaus Neuhaus

Quite honestly, I don’t much care what is and isn’t “unmissable.” I’ll order the book (£16.25 from UK Amazon, so I’ll wait for US shipping) because McFarland is an entertaining writer.

Perhaps you are thinking what’s with all these books, recently Beer: Eyewitness Companions and The Beer Book listing (together) thousands of beers, out of the UK? Don’t US publishers know we live in the country that’s supposed to be at the heart of this world wide beer revolution?

One is. Andy Crouch just completed the manuscript for Great American Craft Beer on Friday. Not clear when that might be published, but I’m more curious how many beers are included. An update from Andy: the bock includes about 400 individual reviews at the moment, a number that may go up though he hopes not.

 

I’ll stick with malted barley, thank you

A company called Novozymes has introduced a new brewing enzyme “capable of working without malt and with barley as the only raw material.”

Does that sound like something you want in your beer?

Launched at Drinktec (in Germany) this week, Ondeo Pro is marketed as a tool to offer brewers freedom and flexibility than existing options. Allowing brewers to switch completely from malt to barley also helps cut costs by reducing the amount of raw material needed.

What about flavor?

There’s more to the malting process than just modifying barley so it can be used to produce alcohol. Maltsters add flavor. That’s pretty obvious when we’re talking about stuff like chocolate malt, but also true of plain ol’ pale malts.

I’ve written about this before (part I and part II) so won’t belabor the point.

Several American brewers attend Drinktech, so maybe one or more of them will have insights to share next week at the Great American Beer Festival.