beers of conviction

This from the Monthly Mash, a regular dispatch from Avery Brewing in Boulder, Colo:

As most of you have probably heard by now, the craft beer industry has been hard hit by a global hop shortage this year. The chronic oversupply that characterized the hop market for the 90’s and much of this decade is officially gone, taking with it the low hop prices that microbreweries like Avery have enjoyed for so many years. For most breweries 2008 will be a year of compromise. Brewers will have to tackle the undesirable task of tinkering with their most prized recipes to try and figure out how to get the same flavors using fewer hops.

While some observers may posit that the hop shortage is a good thing, forcing brewers to become more efficient and prudent with their use of hops, we at Avery tend to disagree. Hops are the heart and soul of our beers and we refuse to compromise our recipes or our flavors. Even more, as if to scoff in the face of common sense and basic brewery economics, we decided to increase the hops that were added to this years New World Porter. The 2008 batch is truly a black IPA.

The beer debuts in just two hours at the Avery Tasting Room. Alas, it’s more than a seven-hour drive from here.

Eric Asimov prepares us: “My column in Wednesday’s paper is on American extreme beers, a topic that I think is fascinating whether you’re a beer drinker or not.”

We’ll find out more tomorrow, including what beers the New York Times panelists liked. (Here’s the link, and you must check out the photo.)

The place for comment then will be Asimov’s blog. As I type there is but one comment, from the constantly entertaining Fredric Koeppel, but this is a topic that should generate scores more.

How many do you think? 50? 100?

I’ll be content to sit back and read. We’ve already talked this to death in the beer blogosphere.

But words from Koeppel, Asimov and Michael Jackson nicely frame what will surely follow tomorrow.

From Koeppel: “In beer, wine and food, the elements of balance, harmony and integrity mean everything.”

From Jackson (in the introduction to Beer-Eyewitness Companions): “Tomorrow’s classics will evolve from a new breed of American brews that are categorized by their admirers as ‘Extreme Beers.’ These are the most intense-tasting beers ever produced anywhere in the world.”

And from Asimov (after all, it is his blog): “Beauty often springs from the creative dynamic between the Old and New Worlds, in which the tension between tradition and liberation holds it all together.”

(The photo at the top is believed to document the first pouring of a pre-Prohibition Double IPA, brewed with twice the flaked maize of a traditional pre-pro beer and four times the amount of Cluster hops.)

A while back I asked why breweries put some of their strongest beers in bigger bottles. Yes, they are nice to share with a friends, but sometimes you don’t want 750ml of a 12% beer.

Additionally, smaller bottles can sell for less (even if the per ounce price goes up because we still have to pay for glass).

Enter Flying Dog’s Canis Major series for 2008, which will be available in two versions. One mixed four-pack features a 12-ounce bottle of each the Canis Major style. The second option is a mixed eight-pack of 7-ounce bottles, two of each style.

Flying Dog is in a unique position to do this because when it acquired the former Frederick Brewing facility in Maryland last year it also picked up a bottling line that can handle 7-ounce bottles. That’s because Frederick was brewing Little Kings — the cream ale in small green bottles familiar to those of us who grew up east of the Mississippi — under contract.

The Canis Major high gravity series includes Gonzo Imperial Porter, Horn Dog Barley Wine, Double Dog Double Pale Ale and a new beer, Cerberus Tripel.

These beers are not outlandishly strong, but each qualifies as a nightcap, when you might prefer to sip from a snifter.

As well as adding the tripel to its lineup in 2008, Flying Dog is making “Garde Dog” Biere de Garde its spring release. When these two are available I’ll try to post drinking notes, perhaps at Brew Like a Monk.

It wasn’t two years ago that Allagash Brewing founder Rob Tod returned from a trip to Belgium with other American brewers and talked about the fermenting beers under the influence of wild yeast:

“I am inspired to maybe try it some time, but these beers really seem like an art that takes years to master. I don’t know if Allagash can afford to focus on them enough to do them justice. We have enough on our plate as it is.”

Sometimes you can’t help yourself. Check out this video at YouTube:

Allagash built a separate coolship (“koolschip”) facility at its Portland, Maine, brewery. Head brewer Jason Perkins supervised the first brew to go into the flat, open fermenter late in November and begin spontaneous fermentation. A film crew was on hand to capture history in progress.

Perkins called it “an epic event.” No kidding.

“A lot of the stuff we are doing today really goes against most modern brewing techniques,” he said.