beers of conviction

From NYC’s craft beer scene faces sobering challenges as closures and mergers reshape the industry:

In the early years, many breweries were so beer-centric, they ignored decor, food concepts and beverages beyond their own beer and refused to even hang televisions — an approach that is no longer effective, said Aaron Gore, who has consulted with over 70 breweries on three continents.

He said while the spate of New York City brewery changes now feels jarring, it’s actually a “typical adoption curve.” Approaching a decade since its peak, craft beer is now a “normal good” that can be found even at many dive bars, said Gore.

The Hopper Pub and Pizzeria is not a dive bar, but it is also not what Suds Korge and Dregs Donnigan would have called a fern bar. It’s located in a strip mall behind a gas station in Rio Rancho, N.M. (shout out to Glengarry Glen Ross), and the walls are decorated with silly signs as well as beer signs and neon. A particle board floor is utilitarian.

However, the crust on their wood-fired pizza is perfect and the beer list has something for pretty much everyone. That they post the names of the beers are listed sans breweries indicates a certainly level of customer knowledge. Bone Shaker? From Second Street Brewing in Santa Fe. You know if you know.

There was live music last Monday, Veteran’s Day. That, it seems, is celebrated year round at the Hopper Pub.

Beer judging: You meet the most interesting beers

If you read Monday’s post before American Homebrewers Association executive director Julia Herz added more about Homebrew HQ at GABF, and the connection between commercial brewers and homebrewers now would be a good time to visit the comments.

I am a big fan of Homebrew Con, even though it is the only place where I’ve seen somebody fall asleep during a presentation I was giving (Baltimore 2016). However, I am down with the idea that “anyone who attends GABF in October as an AHA member will be exposed to an incredible beer and homebrew related experience unique to any other event in the U.S.”

Also, that the National Homebrew Competition awards will be handed out at GABF also has a nice ring to it. Bringing us to the point of this post. The entry window for NHC is open. You may pick which site you want to send your beer to for first round judging. If it is really good, I propose you send it to Denver. That’s where I have signed up to judge.

The description of A Better Burden on the menu at Narrow Path Brewing outside of Cincinnati lists the ingredients, then two words: Forest & Farm.

“Those words are my attempt to help the ones tasting the beer to envision and place themselves within a setting,” Narrow Path owner/brewer Chad Powers explained. “That description is a hopeful reminder to folks that this beer has true origins in our natural world and that the resulting liquid is as much an offering from the land as it is from the brewer.”

A Better Burden is on my “Best in 2023” list in the current issue of Craft Beer & Brewing magazine. I expect you understand that means it was one of the beers I enjoyed most from a universe of choices I had not tasted previously. Otherwise, the “best” list would be scattered with well known, and deserving, beers such at Rochefort 8. Nine of the 10 beers described were new to me; the exception being Urban Chestnut Stammtisch. (The collection of contributors’ lists is also available in podcast form.)

I’m writing about A Better Burden because 70 words in the magazine did not seem like enough about this combination of smoke and cedar that I find sublime, and many other people may not. A Better Burden is a collaboration between Narrow Path and Nine Giant Brewing, and Powers and Mike Albarella have brewed it together at Narrow Path the past three years.

They had both read ”Historical Brewing Techniques” by Lars Marius Garshol right when the book became available. They wrote the initial recipe together and have subtly changed it each year. The base malt and the alder wood smoked malt come from Sugar Creek Malt Co. in Indiana. “We knew that Caleb (Michalke) had built a Såinnhus, and we wanted to use ingredients that were as local as possible and that were produced as traditionally as possible,” Powers said.

They chose his Stjørdal malt knowing it would be the most polarizing ingredient in the grain bill. Smoke is particularly assertive in this batch.

Powers harvests the cedar every year from the same hillside across the river in Kentucky. “A good friend of mine is an ecologist at Eastern Kentucky University, and he oversees several conservancies across the state,” Powers said. The friend plants seeds while Powers cuts off the ends of branches. “I like to do it when the weather is cool and brisk but also when there’s enough sun to feel some warmth on my face.”

The first year they fermented the beer with a commercially available Voss kveik strain. The last two years we’ve used strains that were not, until recently, commercially available. Caleb Ochs-Naderer, now the program chair of the brewing science program at Cincinnati State, was brewing at Nine Giant when they brewed the beer the second and third time.

He has been a long-time kveik fan/evangelist, and traveled to a homebrew gathering in Norway several years ago. He brought back a catalog of dried kveik that he stored in his freezer. “We selected a strain called Stalljen because it was described as saison-like without any phenolic notes. We rehydrated the yeast from their dried flaked state and fermented in the upper 80s to low 90s,” Powers said.

“I think the thing I love most about the beer is that it certainly makes me feel something, often several things. The time and effort spent harvesting the cedar with my friend realigns my heart to a deeper connection and purpose in brewing.

“I can feel the sun on my face as I’m reaching to trim a branch in the cool autumn air. I can feel the wind on my face as I give thanks to the grove of trees that play such an important part in the entire experience. Something in me awakens each time I sip.”

(Nine Giant often takes names of beers from song lyrics. Powers was looking through Nordic and Viking poems/chants and found a translation of Hávamál that had the phrase “a better burden” in it. “That idea and the specific turn of phrase resonated with me.”)