musing

Cinco de Mayo and beer as art

Miller ChillI’m beginning to realize there is a chance I will break down and try Miller Chill. Got to be curious, right? Check out the number of posts at Beer Therapy. Somebody is feeling the passion.

Saturday is Cinco de Mayo and since I can’t be in San Diego for the Port/Lost Abbey Anniversary Party (you can read brewer Tomme Arthur’s thoughts on the first year here) perhaps I can take the lead from an excellent column by Peter Rowe in The San Diego Union-Tribune about Chil, Mexican micheladas and Mexican beer in general.

Just so you know, you make a michelada by pouring two or three fingers of lime juice into a salt-rimmed glass before blending in a some beer – to your personal taste. Most often it is garnished with lime, but you could use lemon and you might add some hot sauce. Miller Chill is already flavored with lime and salt.

Rowe reveals that Mexican brewers are not fans of michelada.

“They don’t like them,” said Juan Ramon Vera Martinez, public relations coordinator for Cervecer­a Tecate.

There are two schools of thought here, each worth pondering as we approach Cinco de Mayo. One school views brewers as artists. The notion that bartenders can “improve” artworks with a splash or a sprinkle is heresy. It’s like distributing Magic Markers at the Louvre’s entrance. Hey, kids, let’s improve the “Mona Lisa”!

The other school, though, is not alarmed. Why fuss about beer, one of life’s simple pleasures?

Yes, great brewers are master craftsmen. Their work is sublime – but also plentiful. If you “spoil” the occasional liquid masterwork with a shot of citrus juice, don’t worry. Pristine beer is available by the truckload.

Beer as art? Brewers as artists?

That’s a topic for another day (tomorrow) and good enough excuse to hold off buying Miller Chill.

You don’t have to drink that beer ice cold

Coldest beer in town

This month at World of Beer, Stephen Beaumont takes on ice cold beer. I’m not going to repeat what he has written, so please read it first. I just have one more suggestion (OK, I have more but will keep it to one), and although Mr. B. maintains two blogs WoB isn’t one of them. Otherwise I could just leave the idea as a comment.

He writes that “it’s almost impossible in the United States these days to be served a beer in a non-frosted glass” and suggests sending the glass back.

I propose preemptive action. Watch the bartender pour a beer and see if he or she is hauling out iced mugs. If so, there’s a good chance that every clean mug is on ice (yes – I’ve seen bartenders follow a request for a warm mug by pouring beer into a dirty one).

So ask for your beer in a large wine glass (something for Cabarnets or Pinot Noirs). They probably don’t keep those cold. If you are drinking from a bottle you can just pour in part of the beer, allowing it to warm if the bottle’s been on ice.

This isn’t perfect. The glass will treat some beers better than others – but since the ice cold mug was probably a beer unfriendly shaker glass there’s a good chance you’ll be ahead.

And if the wine glasses are frosted? Go to another place to drink.

A good home? Where John Maier brews

Jeff Risley provided the link to this first video during a presentation titled “Electronic Marketing to Your Fan Base” at the Craft Brewers Conference. Then I came across the second – a closeup look at brewmaster John Maier – while viewing it again.

Thinking back to Alan’s Do We Love the Beer or Brewer? discussion, I don’t really care if these clips simply explain why I so like Rogue beers and admire the brewery or if I’m confessing to having fallen prey to marketing wizardy. I just like them, and may watch them again this evening with a Rogue beer in hand.

Rogue founder Jack Joyce was among those at the seminar. After the video finished and several people commented on how amusing the tour guide had been, Joyce simply said, “He’s no longer with us.” I think he was kidding.

Innovation, Czech style

Rambousek beerWe already know this, but brewing innovation doesn’t stop at the U.S. borders. It isn’t limited to Belgium, or even to such new-ish hotbeds as Denmark and Italy.

Evan Rail of the Prague Daily Monitor writes that 10 new Czech microbreweries are due to open this year. He describes some beers I think we want to try:

Partly inspired by the nascent homebrewing movement, many of these smaller makers have introduced highly innovative half-liters: Rambousek’s outstanding chestnut-honey lager, Primátor’s excellent English Pale Ale and Zamberk’s to-die-for Imperial Stout.

Bigger breweries, Budvar and Pilsner Urquell, are also experimenting with new beers. Rail doesn’t have much nice to say about Budvar’s effort, but Pilsner Urquell seems to be showing an unusual willingness to think small although its plant for producing Pilsner Urquell itself expanded.

As if to counterbalance, Pilsner Urquell’s two new beers imitate the limited production, historic origins and unusual styles of a great Czech micro. Called Master, the new line claims inspiration from a sixteenth-century text on brewing by the court physician to Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II. (It’s worth noting that the new brews are only said to be “inspired” by the past: both are modern, bottom-fermenting lagers, produced in Pilsner Urquell’s state-of-the-art brewery in Plzen.)

For now the beers are available only on draft and only at home. Bottles will come next but not distribution aboard.

Bootie Beer: RIP?

The Milwaukee Journal reports:

Bootie Beer Corp., a Florida company that turned to a Wisconsin brewer to produce its suggestively named beverage, has been getting its posterior kicked.

City Brewing produced Bootie Beer under contract for a Florida company, but hasn’t for more than a year (and apparently nobody else has either). This isn’t about City Brewing, but about the non-brewing marketing company called Bootie. Although Bootie’s flashy website wouldn’t make you think so, the company lost $6.6 million in 2006.

In February, Bootie Beer Co. announced that it had entered into an investment banking agreement with Orlando-based KMA Capital Partners Inc. to raise up to $25 million for Bootie. But KMA spokesman Jack Craig told the Journal that KMA’s involvement with Bootie ended.

There’s a chance the Bootie may survive this. Investment firms holding notes that can be converted into Bootie stock have claimed that Bootie defaulted and hope to take over the company.

So I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about what the future might bring. I’m taking the optimistic view and thinking, “Bootie Beer: RIP.”