musing

In 1987, 1988 and 1990 Alaskan Brewing won gold medals at the Great American Beer Festival for Alaskan Amber (known as Chinook Alaskan Amber the first two times). Michael Jackson featured Alaskan Amber in his 1993 Beer Companion in the Altbier chapter.

On Saturday it captured a silver medal at the 2012 World Beer Cup in the Irish-Style Red Ale category.

In the event this result poked your curiosity button, here are the guidelines for the styles in question used by the 2012 judges:

Irish-Style Red Ale
Irish-style red ale ranges from light red-amber-copper to light brown in color. These ales have a medium hop bitterness and flavor. They often don’t have hop aroma. Irish-style red ales have low to medium candy-like caramel sweetness and a medium body. The style may have low levels of fruity-ester flavor and aroma.

German-Style Brown Ale/Düsseldorf Style Altbier
Copper to brown in color, this German ale may be highly hopped and intensely bitter (although the 25 to 35 IBU range is more normal for the majority of Altbiers from Düsseldorf) and has a medium body and malty flavor. A variety of malts, including wheat, may be used. Hop character may be low to medium in the flavor and aroma. The overall impression is clean, crisp, and flavorful often with a dry finish. Fruity esters can be low.

Pete Brown charged us to write about The Beer Moment for Session #63. The announcement provoked a few questions about what the heck he expected, and this week he added a little more direction.

But I’d already decided that since I’d be surrounded by brewers and others involved in the beer industry during the Craft Brewers Conference I’d let attendees contribute.

I asked them to play a word association game. To warm up, we started with “soul of beer,” then moved on to “extreme beer,” and finished with “The beer moment.”

Chances are the results would be different if I simply walked up to people at the mall or a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game and said, “Beer moment,” or perhaps put it in question form, “Beer moment?”

What I learned and who I learned it from.

Tony Simmons, Pagosa Brewing
Soul of beer: craft beer
Extreme beer: trendy
Beer moment: epiphany

Patrick Rue, The Bruery
Yeast (which he made a three syllable word)
Different (Steven Pauwels of Boulevard Brewing provided some coaching while Rue considered this one and suggested passé.
Trying something new

Jean-Francois Gravel, Dieu du Ciel!
Yeast (no, really, he didn’t hear Rue’s answer)
Challenging
All the time

Carl Kins, World Beer Cup Judge from Belgium
Life’s blood
United States
24/7

Matt Van Wyk, Oakshire Brewing
Passion
Triple IPA
Experience

Melissa Cole, Let Me Tell You About Beer
Conviviality
Good when skilled
Seeing the people you love over beer

Brother Christian, Monastery of Christ in the Desert
Joy of life
Going to far
Any time

Brother Christian was at the conference because Christ in the Desert is shopping for a slightly larger pilot brewery. The monks have a small brewery on the monastery grounds. Monks’ Ales are brewed under contract nearby, and several monks travel there on brew day to lend a hand.

Brad Smith has posted an interview I did with him a little while back for the BeerSmith Podcast.

I’ve only listened to a bit of it — I was there, I’ve heard enough of my stories — but I was struck immediately by how many times I uttered the “um” sound. Perhaps I was trying to sound thoughtful. Mostly I come across as a person who should stick to the written word.

But if you want to hear how variations of “um” I can come up with or see what one of the walls in my office looks like, here’s the link.

That’s Urban Chestnut Zwickel in the plastic cup, raised to toast Jackie Robinson on Jackie Robinson Day. The thought occurred to me Sunday at Busch Statium that it is the ballpark that makes ballpark beer worth ballpark prices. Yes, I should have figured that out years ago.

The second photo, below, shows what’s on tap at Captain’s Corner, which is located behind Section 265 (loge level).

Two suggestions on Session Beer Day:

– If you are in the vicinity of St. Louis, a cask-conditioned beer listed as Session IPA on the menu at the Schlafly Tap Room (pictured at the right). This year’s batch is 4.1% ABV, perhaps 35 IBU, generously dry hopped with Galaxy and Simcoe hops. Very new world and juicy, smelling and tasting of tropical fruit.

The full name is House in Session Ale and it was brewed for the first time last year to send to Washington, D.C., to help draw attention to The Small Brewer Reinvestment and Expanding Workforce Act, legislation that would reduce taxes for small breweries. Most of this year’s 15-barrel batch also went to Washington, with a few kegs and one cask remaining in St. Louis.

– It’s about the conversation. And if that’s going well, remembering when it’s your turn to buy the next round.

If you aren’t going to be in St. Louis, there’s a list of participating Session Beer Day establishments here. Lew Bryson’s Friday post at The Session Beer Project nicely recaps a discussion that’s been going on for-what-seems-like-ever about stuff like defining Session Beer and finding American beer culture. Might be more detail there than you want want or even need. Just skip to the end if you lose interest: “And while you’re drinking, let’s do what folks do while they’re drinking session beer: let’s discuss.”