Stan Hieronymus

Step aside, sommelier; there’s a new Cicerone in town

CiceroneYesterday’s beer word of the day was lactobacillus (as in those gross beer lines in Milwaukee).

Today’s is Cicerone.

And the two are related. I was going to wait a few weeks before writing about the Cicerone Certification Program Ray Daniels is launching. But in the wake of the Milwaukee story, and comments that followed about properly cleaned glassware as well as lines now seems like a good time.

First the disclaimer. Ray is a friend of mine. That doesn’t make the program any less or any more worth writing about. I think it will be interesting to discuss it with him after he’s had a chance to introduce the idea at the National Beer Wholesalers Convention in a few weeks and later at the Great American Beer Festival. I will and I will report back.

Returning to the beer word of the day. Until it gets more traction in the beer community most people are going to find it easiest to consider Cicerone a synonym for “beer sommelier.”

That would miss the point, which is addressed right at the freshly minted website.

How is a Cicerone different from a Beer Sommelier?
A Cicerone is a tested and proven expert in beer while beer sommelier is a self-designation that can be adopted by anyone. Because there are no criteria for the title of beer sommelier and because those who use the title have not subjected their knowledge and skills to an independent examination, consumers and employers can’t be sure just what a non-certified beer server knows or how they treat and serve the beer.

And even though certified sommeliers do undergo rigorous testing – astonishingly demanding at the highest levels – and are supposed to be expert in “wine, spirits and other alcoholic beverages” there’s just a bunch of stuff in the Cicerone syllabus they’ve never seen.

Back, one more time, to the word itself. Ray has bent the meaning of a word not often associated with beer so that it has – or will have – a beer meaning. That’s a good thing. We’ve struggled here before with the term beer sommelier so let’s go with something entirely different.

This isn’t a matter of beer following wine, but of the beer taking a step forward.

Dirty beer lines – who you gonna blame?

Brewers across the nation will be cringing when they read the investigative report in today’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about dirty beer lines.

Of course this a local story, even quoting a vendor that “Milwaukee is a real horrible town for draft beer.”

LactobacillusBut this will have repercussions in craft beer land because the “dirtiest” beer the reporters found came from a brewpub and the second dirtiest was another “microbrewed” beer. Both contained large amounts of lactobacillus (left), bacteria that produces lactic acid, souring a beer’s flavors and smells. It is the same microorganism responsible for spoiling milk.

So does that mean you should be concerned about the beer on tap at your local brewpub? Or that small breweries aren’t able to control quality – clear through to what is poured into your glass at a bar – as well as large?

First, this isn’t a safety issue but a quality one. Trust your senses, and if you notice foul aromas or sour beer point it out to your server. Second, a Budweiser checked at a place called Chasers Pub contained 1,950 cells of lactobacillus per gram and a yeast count of 16,400 cells per gram (sounds like a lot, doesn’t it?).

That’s not to say that breweries don’t recognize they’ve got a problem. In delivering the keynote speech at this year’s Craft Brewers Conference, Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River Brewing said: “The integrity and quality of our beer is more important than hitting a certain growth number each year. Making sure the consumer is purchasing fresh craft beer is just one example. Taking care of draft lines and cleaning them properly is yet another example of the integrity I speak of.”

Boulevard Brewing founder John McDonald has been and an industry leader in addressing the problem and outspoken on the topic. “It depresses me how deplorable the state of draft lines has become,” he said a few years ago.

You might say the Brewers Association is taking the Journal Sentinel story head on – posting two stories about draft quality on the front page of its website and issuing a press release for an upcoming manual to improve draft quality (obviously in the works well before the Milwaukee investigation).

A Draft Quality Standards Committee comprised of small, large, and foreign brewers is in place and slated to release a standards manual in the first quarter of 2008. This document will be available to distributors, retailers, and the public. The goal will be to produce a comprehensive manual addressing draft beer dispensing and serving.

Let’s be straight. Addressing the problem is not the same as solving the problem. Dirty lines are always going to be a danger, and while we appreciate it when brewers choose not to filter out flavor those unfiltered beers also leave more sediment in lines. A dozen years ago a vendor told me the dirtiest lines he came across were always in brewpubs because it was distributors who trained bars and restaurants to clean lines (and most brewpubs didn’t buy draft beer from distributors).

But there’s reason to be optimistic. Everybody agrees that clean lines are good business. “I have never heard a bar customer say, ‘Gee, this bar does a lousy job of maintaining and cleaning their lines,’” New Belgium Brewing co-founder Kim Jordan once said. “They say that the beer they ordered is lousy.”

And then there is the matter of pride. The Journal Sentinel reported that New Glarus Brewing brewmaster Dan Carey takes it personally when one of his beers is served through a dirty line at a bar.

“It ruins my evening,” Cary told a reporter. “It’s my baby, and damn it, you’ve ruined it.”

Brew Zoo recap: 33 join The Session

The SessionRick Lyke has the recap on the 7th round of The Session.

He begins by reminding us it was dedicated to “Michael Jackson, who passed away in London on Aug. 30th. Michael was an inspiration to drinks journalists and helped remind the world of the significant part that beer plays in our daily lives, culture and history. Michael became known as The Beer Hunter, after the name of his television series. With this in mind, I think The Beer Hunter would have been proud of the animal beers bagged by the blogging community on Friday.”

The most popular animal in a name and/or on the label was a dog (11), and all told we ended up with 42 critters.

Updating NM hop (and bird) crops

Hops eggs become birds

As you can see the nest with eggs built in organic hop plants in Northern New Mexico has turned into a nest with birds. In sending the photo, Todd Bates writes they are “thriving at the expense of a not so good plant – not a bad deal.”

The harvest is headed toward completion and they’ll be sending several varieties off to be tested. Last year the variety they are calling Rio came with a modest 3.2% alpha acids (meaning they don’t pack the punch of a brute such as Columbus at 14%-17%).

The photos below are from a few weeks ago to give you an idea of the setting – and the fact that the hops are one element in a big organic garden.

The trellis system is built on 12-foot junipers salvaged from a fire. Most of these are dwarf hop plants, which have some advantage for commercial producers. Summit is a newish, but becoming well known, sample of a dwarf hop.

Hops eggs become birds

Hops eggs become birds

Can there be too much beer diversity?

The cheery headline at the News & Observer in North Carolina’s Triangle reads: Beer brewing bursts with new diversity. However, by the end we get cautionary words from Charlie Bamforth, chair of the department of food science and technology at the University of California, Davis, as well as the university’s Anheuser-Busch Endowed Professor of Brewing Science.

How many different beers are being made is anyone’s guess, but Bamforth isn’t happy with the growing number. He’d rather the trade stick to a few traditional styles of beer and explore variety within each, taking advantage of different regimes of hops and malts but avoiding the array of other ingredients and techniques being used today.

“I wish brewers would stay with a limited number of beer styles, and make the most of those, like the wine guys have done with their red, white and pink wines,” Bamforth says. “Let’s make ales, and then celebrate diversity within the ales, like with different hops. Let’s stop looking for the exotic.”

Loosen up, Charlie.

Yes, small-batch, and not-so-small, brewers need to keep their eye on the quality control ball – a common concern European brewers seem to express when they see a brewery or brewpub cooking up 30 or more different recipes over the course of a year. And we sure as heck shouldn’t rush to define any new styles (as in Imperial Hefeweizen).

But last year Will Meyers and assistant Megan Parisi cranked out 21 batches of a pumpkin ale at Cambridge Brewing in Massachusetts, each time spending about three hours prepping organic pumpkins for the mash. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to what Anheuser-Busch and Coors will sell in the way of pumpkin beer this year, but it represents what makes Cambridge – and small-batch brewers – different.

That’s one example. You readers – and perhaps Prof. Bamforth if he’d admit it – probably have a few of your own.