Stan Hieronymus

Alaskan Smoked Porter – Nothing fishy here

Alaskan Smoked PorterAlaskan Brewing co-founder Geoff Larson tells a good story. One you want to listen sitting next to a roaring fire on a Juneau beach.

Like the one about what he learned not long after Alaskan brewed its Smoked Porter for the first time in 1988; a beer that recently won its twentieth medal at the Great American Beer Festival.

Larson smoked the malt he used in Smoked Porter at Taku Smokeries, at the time located across the road from the brewery (Taku since moved to a bigger plant and Alaskan bought the old facility, using it smoke malt for the once-a-year release). He had a few reservations going in, most notably about fish oils somehow ending up in the beer, changing the aroma and killing the head. Those concerns disappeared when he tasted the beers and it sold out in a matter of weeks, then . . .

A customer told Larson the beer tasted of salmon. “I took it inappropriately and defensively,” he said, measuring his words and making it clear how bothered he was. It was months later before he had a conversation with the late Greg Noonan of Vermont Pub & Brewery about Noonan’s version of smoked porter that he learned something important about aroma and memory.

“Greg talked about first using hickory and customers would ask if he put hickory smoked ham in the beer,” Larson said. “Then he used maple and they asked, ‘Hey, did you start throwing sausage in your beer?'”

Larson began to understand the powerful memories smoke evokes. He realized it wasn’t salmon that drinker noticed but the alder wood both the malt and fish were smoked over. In Southeast Alaska smoke from alder wood conjures up memories of campfires and smoked salmon, while elsewhere maple smoke reminds consumers of Jimmy Dean Sausage.

(And in the upper Franconian region of Germany where beechwood is used to smoke pork as well as malt to brew the local rauchbier some drinkers describe the more intense of these beers as “liquid bacon.”)

“One smoked malt is not the same as another smoked malt. You can taste the difference between woods,” Larson said.

Last week Alaskan released the 23rd vintage of Smoked Porter. Alaskan doesn’t sell beer in Missouri, so we opened a 2009 bottle we bought a couple of years ago in Arizona.

Still smoky, from the start to the finish. But for us, the real pleasure? It smelled just like Alaska.

If you could climb into a beer time machine . . .

Magic Beer Time MachineIf you could climb into a machine that would take you to any time and place, what beer related destination would you pick?

Here’s a sample answer: Sonoma, California, 1977.

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

The Session #57: Beery Confessions

The SessionThis month’s Session is hosted by Steve Lamond at Beer’s I’ve Known. The topic is “beery guilty secrets.”

I am a man without a beer epiphany. At least one of the aha sort.

I don’t remember the what, when or where of my first beer. Or my first “better” beer. Or my first “craft” beer.

That’s my beer confession. I don’t feel guilty about this. Just a little embarrassed. It seems that since I’ve been around to report on much of what has happened within niche beer the last 20 years that I should recall that first xxxxxx beer in xxxxxx bar in xxxxxx city.

Instead I realize I come from a different time (before New Albion Brewing; or before CAMRA) and a different place (central Illinois). The beer options changed gradually. The quality of imported (mostly German) beer in the bottle was all over the map, but on draft it was definitely a step up from Stroh’s at $11.15 a case (inflation adjusted) and Michelob (on draft, which I only drank if somebody else was buying). And some year along the away I remembered that Sierra Nevada Celebration tasted pretty good last year and was back again.

That’s why, for me, the guilty pleasure will still be the next beer I drink.

Which beer is not like the others? 11.03.11

The goal is to identify the outlier and explain why it doesn’t belong on the list. There may be more than one answer, although I happen to have a specific one in mind. (In this case, reviewing the list because I did a lousy job of vetting the previous round I spotted a second likely answer, so Answer 1a wins the same prize as Answer 1.)

a) Blue Moon Belgian White
b) Brooklyn Winter Ale
d) Southampton Double White Ale
d) Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale
e) Saranac Pumpkin Ale

In case you’ve forgotten: Round one ~ Round two ~ Round three ~ Round four ~ Round five.

Flagship beers sail gently into the night

Quick. Name three brands that have driven national awareness of craft1 beer.

Given that Boston Beer Co., Sierra Nevada Brewing and New Belgium Brewing emerged as the Craft Big Three credit must go to Samuel Adams Boston Lager, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and New Belgium Fat Tire.

But these aren’t the brands leading growth for those companies now. So it hardly seems a surprise that today Shanken News Daily reported sales of Samuel Adams seasonal beers2 have surpassed the venerable Boston Lager. The seasonals are Octoberfest, Winter Lager, Noble Pils and Summer Ale (fall through summer).

So far this year, seasonal beers accounted for 25% of case sales, Boston Lager 24% and Twisted Tea Original 20%. Twisted Tea sales are up 36% for the year, with Twisted Tea Half & Half growing 52% (off a smaller base).

Previously, you’ll recall, Shanken’s Impact Databank reported that Fat Tire accounted for 70% of New Belgium sales in 2008, 67% in 2009 and 60% in 2010. And that Sierra Nevada Pale Ale sales slipped from 76% of the company’s total in 2009 to 71% in 2010.

Diversity indeed.

1For the sake of simplicity, the Brewers Association definition.

2Through Oct. 2 in food, drug and convenience stores, so this doesn’t take draft sales into account.