musing

About those guys with cans, & a few Monday links

Bill Graham, Ska Brewing, Brian Lutz, Oskar BluesLast week’s “Where in the Beer World?” seems to have been a real stumper. My apologies. The facts behind the picture would make a rather long comment, so instead I’ll post the details here.

As a reader pointed out, that’s Bill Graham (Ska Brewing co-founder) on the left. Brian Lutz, the brewer at Oskar Blues when the then-brewpub began packaging Dale’s Pale Ale in cans, is on the right. The picture was taken in July of 2003 at the annual Colorado Brewers Rendezvous in Salida, Colorado.

Oskar Blues started canning on premise late in 2002 and Ska early in 2003. The brewers will release a collaboration beer in November. “It’s been a long time coming, doing something with those guys,” Ska co-founder Dave Thibodeau told Denver Westword. “We do a lot of outdoor activities with them, and we have been thinking we would brew something with them forever.”

Lutz left Oskar Blues a few years later, but recently returned to brewing in Boulder. He’s in charge of the kettles at West Flanders Brewing.

MORE READING

The Plot to Destroy America’s Beer. That headline for the cover story in the Bloomberg Businessweek gives you a good sense of where it is coming from. Not exactly pro AB InBev.

Time To Start Thinking About The Xmas Photo Contest. Alan McLeod writes, “I have to get my brain around the categories this year so that is an announcement for later.” While you wait, browsing at the Faces of Brewing should put you in the mood for more photos.

Craft beer is overtaking wine: SF mag. First notice I spotted about SanFrancisco magazine’s large spread on beer was in Dr. Vino’s wine blog, with the headline that sure gets some attention. Set aside a little time for all the stories (and, yes, the url is moderluxury.com), but start with with Dr. Vino to check out the comments about quality and price (both wine and beer).

Would you pay $65 to stand in line for a cucumber beer?

I commented, on Twitter, about the length of lines to get into the Great American Beer Festival last week, in front of a few brewery booths at the festival, and outside of Falling Rock Taphouse.1 Most responses, both in public and via privates messages, suggested they were “suckers” (that one is a direct quote).

And I didn’t even mention the lines for cheese (that’s the zigzagging one below, just minutes after the Friday session began, and before it got much longer), that people stood in to get their pictures taken, or for the restrooms.

So I typed the headline for this post Saturday afternoon and started thinking about answering the question. As a matter of fact, I did stand in line for a Cigar City beer, a line that was more than 50 deep when we stepped to the rear (I never saw it shorter during three sessions). And I had the Cucumber Saison, which happens to be extraordinary. I was in goof off mode toward the end of the Thursday session, shooting the breeze with a friend who has a crush on the Cigar City beers.

We still had maybe 20 people in front of us — the line moved quickly — when brewmaster Wayne Wambles strolled by, pouring everybody in line a proper ounce of Oktoberfest. That made things go even quicker. We talked. Wayne said to get the saison. I did.

Sometimes standing in line works out rather well.

Great American Beer Festival

It certainly seemed to suit plenty of people in Denver. That’s a complete thought, but should you want to venture on please take a few minutes to read A 10 Point Plan To Improve The GABF or A Few Thoughts On GABF 2012 from Andy Crouch. He raises reasonable concerns and makes solid suggestions, although if you read through the comments, including mine, you’ll see not everybody had the same experiences.

His headline might lead readers to believe that the GABF is somehow “broken.” In fact, commenter Bill writes, “I believe the GABF has outlived its usefulness.” That simply is not true. An important word to notice in the name of the event is festival. The first time we attended the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 1990 we fell into conversations with regulars in which they lamented how much more crowded it had become in the last five years. He nodded knowingly, at the same time thinking, “This is great. What is there to complain about?” And five years later we were the ones telling newcomers how much it had changed since 1990.

Prost Brewing Denver ColoradoWere I to visit a beer psychologist she’d likely diagnose me as a beer schizophrenic. I’m perfectly happy to sit on a bench at a long table at Prost, Denver’s rather new brewery/beer hall, paying just a bit of attention to what’s in my maß and catching up with a friend I haven’t seen in 10 years (that was Thursday afternoon, and the photo is one of several I shot geeking about in the beautiful brewhouse). But I also take joy in learning rather specifically about some beers, their ingredients, the way they are made.

I was quite pleased that the program for the Hood River Hops Festival reported what hops were in the beers, and further delighted when laminated sheets on the tables provided still more information. But I would like know even more, like when the hops were picked in relationship to the ideal2 harvest date — a day or two before, right on the date, a week later? There’s every chance I’m not normal.

So, yes, I like it when there is somebody around who can answer a question or two about the beer I’m drinking. I’ll settle for laminated sheets on the table, particularly when a brewer is painfully busy. I’ll declare the GABF phone app finally useful when that’s included.

That would improve my personal GABF experience. I type this while admitting that I don’t stand in that many lines. A media pass allows me to step behind the tables and talk with brewers (if they are there, of course).

Meanwhile, I don’t give a hoot about karaoke or the silent disco or learning to be a beer judge or a variety of other things that interrupt tasting and talking about beer. But, know what? I ran into lots of people who do. It’s a festival, a mini-vacation for those who set aside the date on a regular basis and travel from some distance. They stand in long lines and track down the most esoteric beers. They visit breweries in the surrounding region and stay out late at night drinking with friends they don’t see all that often. They go Estes Park to see the elk. And they love the silent disco.

What I saw at GABF were a lot of happy customers. Most were with friends. Most were feeling festive. A few perhaps a bit too festive.

So to return to the question at the top. It’s a silly question, whimsical if you will.

But there are worse things than standing in line and having Wayne Wambles show up with a pitcher of beer. Even if he does pour you only an ounce.

*****

1 Falling Rock seemed to have a line no matter what time of day. On Thursday evening, the crew from Sun King Brewing showed up about 10:30 to pour beer at a special event. The guy at the door stopped them, and not until Falling Rock owner Chris Black came out to assist them were they allowed in.

2 Farmers measure dry matter to determine the optimal date for harvest, but recently both growers and brewers have begun to question just what is “optimal.”

Best GABF moment (that I saw)

Jack McAuliffe and Don Barkley

Jack McAuliffe and Don Barkley share stories in the bookstore area at the Great American Beer Festival.

They are legends, so I won’t repeat what you already know. McAuliffe appeared at several events during the festival, (re)introducing the New Albion Ale that Boston Beer will distribute early next year.

And he signed Ambitious Brew along with author Maureen Ogle (that’s her in the background).

Hood River Hops Festival: The spreadsheet method

Hood River Fresh Hops Festival

Doesn’t this look like some sort of lupulin aftermath? Instead, the photo was taken before the Hood River Hops Fest began last Saturday in Oregon. Not long after a beer drinking crowd arrived and you didn’t see hops any more. But you sure tasted them.

Hood River Fresh Hops FestivalThe Hood River festival is the king of the “fresh hop” gatherings. Rather than incur the wrath of Bill Night for using the term w**t hops (I threw another * to disguise the word) let’s agree that these are hops that have not been dried after they were picked. They are unkilned.

Of the 60-plus beers on offer, 51 of them were to feature unkilned hops. A few didn’t arrive. This didn’t bother even the guy who in preparing for the festival entered the beers in a spreadsheet so he could organize them by hop (that would be me). They were not missed.

Hood River Fresh Hops Festival

Did I benefit from drinking through the lineup one variety at a time? Not at all. I did start the festival part of the day’s drinking — which actually began earlier at Logsdon Farmhouse Ales a few miles south of Hood River — by sampling two beers made with Tardif D’Bourgogne, a retro hop. Then I worked my way through those hopped with Amarillo, but that was just me. A guy who recently finished writing a book about hops.

By the time I started on Cascade I’d also “sampled” beers made with Centennial, Citra, Meridian, Nugget and American Tettnanger (which is different than Tettnang Tettnanger, but that’s another story). Because in the course of conversation with people I might have known before I arrived or that I met hours or minutes before I’d be introduced to new people, and I’d boldly ask what was in their glass, then perhaps if I could smell it. I quit consulting the spreadsheet.

Hood River Fresh Hops Festival

It was, after all, a festival. People came with their friends, some with their children (there was a children’s play area). It was a beautiful day in the Columbia River Gorge, where I’m told the sun shines much more often than in Portland. There was never a time I thought, “Oh, I’m drinking in a parking lot” although that’s pretty much what we were doing.

There was also plenty of good eavesdropping, about heavy duty matters like some upcoming election or the cost of pellets for winter heating or if somebody should teach Ryan Bingham why more is less (I love “less is more” or “more is less” conversations).

Six and a half hours and 32 beers (some not swallowed, and some of those pretty obviously flawed) flew by. I could have squeezed in a few more minutes and a few more beers and still caught my plane home but I’d reached sensory overload. A few observations:

* This festival belongs on any beer geeks travel list. Beyond the overwhelming number of beers spiced with unkilned hops, it was (almost) perfectly curated by Ezra Johnson-Greenough. He tracked down beers he thought belonged in the lineup and the program listed the hop varieties in each of the fresh hop beers. Apparently that doesn’t happen at other fresh hop festivals.

My quibble would be the serving vessels. A couple of people I drank with referred to the plastic mugs as the basic Oregon festival glass. It works well. The only charge for admission to the festival (like the Oregon Brewers Festival) is $6 for the plastic mug. Samples (about 3 ounces) cost one token, a full pour (14 ounces) four tokens. Tokens are $1 each.

But a straight-sided plastic mug is not exactly perfect for showcasing hop aroma. The Sisters Fresh Hop Festival, also Saturday, used glass shakers (scroll down for photo), only a bit better.

* I started with the beers hopped with Tardif D’Bourgogne because I don’t know that I’ve ever had a beer hopped with TDB before. It’s one that Darren Gamache of Gamache Farms grabbed out of the USDA Hop Cultivar Collection in Corvallis, much as he did Sorachi Ace, which turned out to be an enormous success. The USDA acquired the rhizomes in 1977 from Poland, although the hop was grown in the Alsace region of France.

Amnesia Brewing used it in The French Connection, which was fermented with spicy saison yeast. The result was a beer with a spicy/citrusy nose and flavor and soft bitterness. There was also a tobacco note that can be even more prominent in some fresh hop beers. New Belgium Brewing poured Trip 14 Imperial Fresh Hop, made in collaboration with (and at) Elysian Brewing in Seattle, using unkilned Bullion from Gamache Farms as well as Tardif D’Bourgogne. It was 8.5% ABV and also made with blood orange peel, so it didn’t exactly showcase anything subtle TDB might have to offer.

The point would be that they were both flavorful beers. Neither naming the hop varieties in beers nor identifying specific odor compounds they help create should be a recognized sport. What matters is all that is inside the glass. Should you buy a copy, or borrow one from you local library and you should, of For the Love of Hops when it becomes available you will notice the importance placed on the role of synergy when it comes to hop aroma and flavor. (That’s all for now; don’t want to spoil the dramatic final pages of the book.)

* Ninkasi Brewing served a beer (hopped with Meridian) called Smells like Purple, but Kiln ‘Em All (American Tettnanger) from Upright Brewing tasted more purple.

* According to the program, Fresh Hop Seizoen from Logsdon’s Ales was made with 12 different fresh hops. Chuck Porter, Dave Logsdon’s partner in the brewery, picked the hops and said it was as likely it actually included 11 or 13 varieties. Comparing notes, it was a beer some people didn’t particularly care for and others loved. I found it excellent, with bright American hop qualities (floral, lemon-orange), but also underlying Old World traits (a woody spiciness).

Turns out there are 14 hops in the beer. Eric and Jennifer Miller grow the organic hops at Larch Creek Farms. We didn’t manage to talk in Hood River — it might have become a little more crowded than my description — but Eric emailed the details. In fact, there were 14 hops. Too bad, because I think The 12 Hops of Harvest Season is a great name for a beer.

They were: Cascade, Centennial, Fuggle, Newport, (American) Tettnanger, Willamette, Liberty, Chinook, Galena, Brewer’s Gold, Zeus, Mt. Hood, Perle, and Magnum.

Every one fresh.