Stan Hieronymus

The higher meaning of cheap beer

In this corner we have Stephen Beaumont, pointing out to us the affordable pleasures of beer. (Noted earlier in the day.)

brewhouseIn this corner we have Mike Seate of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review telling us that Beer snobs forget the true meaning of beer. He writes about how expensive beer he finds beer in some Pittsburgh bars and about how pretentious he views the drinkers who pay that price.

I was writing about Stephen’s post when Loren’s note about Seate’s column arrived. A few hours later when I returned to write about that topic it I saw that everybody has something to say.

– The comments at Beer Advocate had more than doubled.

– Jay Brooks weighed in, admitting “I should be ignoring what he’s saying but I can’t. The bait is there and I took it.”

– Alan McLeod focused on another different bit of the colmun, writing:

So, given the concerns, is there something to the column Mike Seate wrote? Is it perhaps the case that we do not like as beer nerds to look at ourselves as beer nerds but some sort of evangelists surrounded by fools or at least the unheeding doomed? If so, what does that mean for our understanding of the meaning of what we beer nerds are doing?

Whew! Alan, that’s a bit of self analysis I need an expensive beer or to in my belly to undertake.

So with all these conversations going on I’m picking just one to comment on – or not.

Back to the headline: “Beer snobs forget the true meaning of beer.” Then Mr. Seate’s conclusion that “beer is supposed to be a workingman’s drink” and that he’ll be drinking on the cheap.

So the true meaning of beer is that it is something “working class people” drink and thus it must be cheap?

That’s too silly to comment on.

Quick additions on 1/19: Quite well said by Stephen Beaumont, and a solid discussion at the Burgundian Babble Belt.

28 days of beer with change left over

Gee, I wish I’d thought of this idea.

The February issue of Food & Wine magazine has an article telling you how to “Become a Wine Expert in 28 Days.”

Stephen Beaumont saw this and did the math:

Just for fun, I added up the month’s wine costs and found that, not including the Sonoma wine-country weekend the author advises the reader to plan on Day 17, the total price of becoming a 28 Day Wine Expert is $1,792, or an average of $64 a day.

Then he imagines “if the story had instead been ‘Become a Beer Expert in 28 Days.'”

Day 2 in (Michael) Steinberger’s story highlights a $40 syrah, for which I might substitute a solid American IPA costing about $3. Day 3’s Tuscan red from Gaja ($38) could be replaced by a robust brown ale or two for $5 or so . . .

His point? “When it comes to purchasing power, the beer aficionado has it all over the oenophile.”

Hey, Stephen, you need to finish the month for us.

10 years of San Diego beer

When the first round of national enthusiasm for craft beer was reaching its zenith in 1996 things were just starting to get going in Southern California. In other words, San Diego was a little behind the curve. But the hits just kept on coming and you certainly wouldn’t say that today.

The San Diego Union-Tribune recounts the last 10 years, explaining the premise – then heading right into 10 events that rocked our beer mugs, 1996-2006.

The joy in this article is in the extra detail Peter Rowe provides – there’s surely a parallel here with the extra steps that Jeff Bagby and Noah Regnery go through at Pizza Port Carlsbad to squeeze that additional hop flavor into Hop Suey.

Looking forward to “Ten changes on San Diego’s brewing horizon” next month.

Vintage beers: Restaurants and auctions

Big feetHere’s another prediction for 2007 I should have made: Vintage beers will command more attention.

Item 1: Liquid Solutions, which sells beer through the mail and from its Oregon City store, plans to begin auctioning vintage beers next week (Jan. 19).

First up are a bottle of Chimay Grand Reserver from 1994, a six-year vertical of Sierra Nevada Big Foot from 1997-2002, and a 1996 bottle of Thomas Hardy’s Ale.

Item 2: Manhattan’s chic Gramercy Tavern now has a vintage menu that includes about 25 beers, created with the help of Brooklyn Brewery’s Garrett Oliver.

“Generally they’re stronger beers, darker beers. They’re not kind of easy-drinking things; they’re more for an after-dinner drink, good with cheese and chocolate dessert, that kind of thing,” Kevin Garry, Gramercy’s assistant beverage director, tells the New York Post.

The star of the list is the 1992 Thomas Hardy, which sells for $23 (that’s a 6.33-ounce bottle). Oliver provided those bottles and says in the story, “It’s almost a little underground secret among beer aficionados, you know, where you might be able to find the good stuff.”

Or you can just be lucky. We always had a fond spot for Hardy’s when it was brewed at the Eldridge Pope brewery, which we toured in 1994 (there are multiple stories there – including days of walking in the English countryside), but weren’t really looking for it in Amarillo, Texas, in May of 1999.

While filling the gas tank before heading south to Palo Duro Canyon I noticed a liquor store next door, and since I was done pumping and Daria and Sierra were still inside the gas station I ducked into the store.

I spotted two four-packs of Thomas Hardy in one cooler, pulled them out and saw there were from 1992. There were $10.95 a four-pack. The clerk seemed a little surprised that somebody would be smiling so broadly while spending that much for eight small bottles.

Later a friend asked my why I hadn’t suggested a discount because the beer was old. (Really.)

A heck of a hell

In a weak moment while responding to Lew Bryson’s comment in the X Beer discussion I seem to have promised to write something nice about helles.

Not tough duty. I warmed to the task by drinking a glass of Class VI Golden Lager from Chama River Brewing in Albuquerque. It’s almost always the first beer I order when we’re at Chama. I usually forget and just ask for a “helles,” then explain I want the Class VI when I get a blank look from the server.

The aroma is fresh and bready, just what you expect from German pilsner malt. The flavor is rich but not distracting and the finish spicy and dry. It’s a beer that doesn’t get in the way of conversation; with an added benefit of being less than 5% abv.

Augustiner

I don’t usually spend much time thinking about beer when drinking this beer, since there are matters of conversation and ordering food. But if I do it’s not hard to imagine myself standing in the malting halls at the Augustiner brewery in Munich, two flights below the brewery yard. The air is damp and smells thick, like a field of grain after a solid rain.

At the other end of the hall a machine churns to life – chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug, beating out a rhythm, squeaking from time to time as it advances toward me. It is gently turning the malt, which is spread a shallow 12-15 centimeters high.

Augustiner brewery(Given that eyes adjust better to dark conditions that my camera, the photos here don’t quite portray what I saw. The top one shows the hall, the one to the right the machine from a long ways away with the light “turned up,” the next a chalkboard that tracks the status of a batch of malt. The image at the bottom shows that Augustiner has left some tradition behind – picturing when malt was turned by hand.)

Malting boardAugustiner is the last brewery in Germany with its own malting facility, and its floor-malting is one of only two left in the country. Augustiner bills itself as the “keeper of the tradition” but this is about more than tradition. Most agree that floor malting produces superior malt. By maintaining its own maltings Augustiner also has the option to pick from different barleys, sometimes using older varieties of that malt suppliers no longer offer.

Augustiner also controls the degree to which the malt is modified. Its brewers prefer it less modified because they conduct a decoction mash for each of their beers, a practice pretty much abandoned by the other Munich breweries.

Which brings us to Lagerbier Hell, a delightful expression of pilsner malt and Hallertau hops wrapped in a 5.2% abv package. Another fresh and bready beer, with a satisfying hop quality. Does decoction make a difference? That’s another discussion – many brewing scientists will argue not in a way that can be measured; others maybe agree, then say they can still taste difference.

For whatever the reason, Lagerbier Hell has an extra layer of flavor. You notice it when you first taste it and you might again if you revisit the beer in a thoughtful way. Otherwise it becomes willing background to conversation – perhaps at one of the long communal wooden tables in the restaurant on the brewery grounds.

Augustiner