Greg Koch has posted the video he used yesterday to introduce his keynote speech at the Craft Brewers Conference in Boston entitled “Be Remarkable: Collaboration Ethics Camaraderie Passion.”
Click on the play button to watch or head on over to the “I Am A Craft Brewer” area at Vimeo, where he promises “a program is in development to include even more of America’s amazing craft brewers.”
Short enough to Twitter, but in Big Bend National Park off the grid means not only no electricity or Internet via wi-fi but also no cell phone service. So a day late . . .
Great triple pairing – a hike in Big Bend National Park, Saint Arnold Summer Pils and Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s voice cutting through the desert air.
Feeling restored and invigorated.
Maybe the rest of the world will forsake pale lagers, but that’s hard to imagine in Texas. We’re only a few days into April and it’s already getting plenty hot. When we headed to Threadgill’s yesterday for a bunch of vegetables I could only imagine ordering one beer — Live Oak Pilz on tap.
But today, assuming the clouds I’m looking at right now go away, when we spend a few hours boating it won’t be with Pilz in hand. Live Oak doesn’t package its beer.
(Yes, responsible boaters don’t drink and drive, but we’ll only be passengers.)
So should I go with beer from a bottle, Saint Arnold’s Fancy Lawnmower, or from a can, the new Mama’s Little Yella Pils from Oskar Blues in Colorado? Sorry, Mama, when there’s a good local alternative the rules of our trip make it easy to pick the beer brewed nearby.
I tell you what, though, I’m wondering why Oskar Blues didn’t hit on this idea before. Hot weather, and cold pilsner in a can makes for one fine match. (In fact, the answer it pretty simply. Since first packaging Dale’s Pale Ale at the end of 2002 the brewery has struggled to keep up with production.) Although, like the brewery’s other beers, Mama’s Little Yella Pils packs a lot more aroma and flavor when you drink it from a glass rather than straight from the can.
Both Live Oak Pilz and Mama have the pleasant grainy/grassy qualities I associate with a pale lager from the Czech Republic. And the all-malt flavors that, let’s be honest, many drinkers think interfere with drinkability. Not you, right?
Not the same as sitting in Domažlice and drinking Pivovar Kout na Šumav? 10°. But in a boat. From a can. This is progress.
Ron Pattinson writes today about perspective and change. He makes two really important points back-to-back.
The horizon of personal experience influences our view of both the past and the future. We extrapolate the present back into the past. I used to think Bitter and Mild, as I experienced them in the 1970’s, had been around for centuries. It’s a fault repeated in many books about beer. Even brewers have little concept of what went on before they started brewing themselves.
And before you even pause to consider that he gives us more to think about.
The future we expect to be a continuation of the present, with just the odd tweak. Who could have imagined in 1900 that Porter would have disappeared within 50 years? Or in the 1940’s that Mild would have disappeared from swathes of Britain by 1980? Will pale lager continue its domination for another 100 years? History tells us no. Its decline will be unexpected and surprisingly swift.
It is hard to imagine isn’t it? Harder still to think about what might take its place.
This is my contribution to The Session: Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em, hosted by Lew Bryson. Check out his blog for links to other posts and the recap.
Last night we sampled a variety of smoked meat at Cooper’s Old Time Pit Barbecue in Llano, Texas. What makes barbecue different in Llano is that pitmasters burn their mesquite down to coals before stoking the pits — then cook it directly over the coals, “cowboy style.” Well, maybe. It seems there’s some question about how Cooper’s really cooks food for us, but I’ll leave the barbecue exposes to others. Point it is that we had a dang fine meal, and if you say Texas barbecue to me, I think “smoke.”
And if you say Bamberg and beer and I think “smoke.” So for today’s Session I’ve picked Schlenkerla Rauchbier Weizen, not as smoky as Schlenkerla Rauchbier Märzen or Urbock, but a reminder that Schlenkerla beers are first of all about smoke.
When I was in Bamberg in December it had not been long since Matthias Trum, who in charge of operations at Schlenkerla and is pictured on the left, attended a beer festival in Copenhagen with friends. He said he knew he was near the smoked beer section before he even saw a sign. “I could smell them (smoked beers) from 15 meters way,” Trum said. “It was a homey smell.”
Of course his home isn’t quite like ours. As five generations of Trums before him, he lives above the famous tavern. And he oversees daily operations at the Heller Bräu brewery up the hill, which smokes its own malt for the Schlenkerla beers. The recipe for Rauchbier Märzen calls for 100 percent smoked malt. That’s 50 percent to 90 percent more than most breweries use.
Schlenkerla brews the Weizen with 50 percent of the malt it smokes over beechwood and 50 percent (unsmoked) wheat malt. In contrast, Spezial Weizen — Spezial is the other Bamberg brewery that still smokes its own malt — contains 12 percent smoked malt.
In their book “Smoked Beers” authors Ray Daniels and Geoff Larson write that Schlenkerla Weizen doesn’t leave a particularly strong impression of smoke. Trum agrees. “It starts to fade after a few sips,” he said. I took another and told him I wasn’t quite as sure. “Two or three glasses,” he answered. “That’s what Franconians call a couple of sips.”
The first aroma is clearly smoke, not quite like from a campfire but also different than the barbecue pits we’ve been hanging around recently, fired by mesquite, oak, hickory or pecan. Soon traditional a fruity-banana notes of hefeweizen also appear, followed by spicy clove character. Smoke and banana flavors blend on the tongue, balanced by more cloves. After a few sips, I must admit, the scales tip toward the weizen flavors.
Sure wish they sold this beer at Cooper’s.