the session

The Session #84: Drink with your eyes

The plan for the 84th gathering of The Session goes like this: you cannot review the beer.

Huh? Thank goodness, host Oliver Gray provides further guidance, “Write a short story that incorporates the name, an essay based on an experience you had drinking it, or a silly set of pastoral sonnets expressing your undying love for a certain beer. If you don’t feel like writing, that’s fine; plug into your inner Springsteen and play us a song, or throw your budding Van Gogh against the canvas and paint us a bubbly masterpiece.”

Those things will not be happening here. Creating a bit of music might or might not be in my comfort zone, but remember Chekov in Wrath of Kahn? Listening to that, not in your comfort zone.

Let’s try this instead. A beer, a photo that “reviews” it, a word or three to provide a bit of context. It would be better, let’s be honest, if I drank the beer and it inspired me to go shoot a particular photo. Sorry, pulling photos from the archives will have to do. And, again to be honest, at some level we expect beer reviews to give a reader a clue about what flavors, and perhaps other experiences, to expect. Not necessarily happening here. I won’t pretend that what follows means anything to anybody but me.

ALLAGASH CONFLUENCE
Allagash ConfluenceConnections
 
 
CROOKED STEVE HOP SAVANT
Crooked Stave Hop SavantMerry Christmas y’all
 
 
URBAN CHESTNUT STAMMTISCH
Urban Chestnut StammtischDefined
 
 
BOULEVARD TANK 7
Boulevard Tank 7Snap beans
 
 
PERENNIAL ARTISAN ALES ABRAXAS
Perennial Ales AbraxasLiterally

Session #83: Against the grain

The SessionToday we gather for The Session #83 and the topic is “Against the Grain.” Rebecca at “The Bake and Brew” has a few questions: “How much is our taste or opinion of a craft beer affected by what friends and the craft beer community at large thinks? What beer do you love that no one else seems to get? Or what beer do you say ‘no thanks’ to that everyone can’t get enough of?”

Well, four years ago when Adrian Tierney-Jones was working on the first edition of 1001 Beers You Must Taste Before You Die one of my contributions was Boulevard Brewing’s Smokestack Two Jokers. It hadn’t even been released when I wrote the book entry. I’d tasted it from a tank and was smitten. What a fool.

Here is what I wrote at the time:

It makes sense that Boulevard Brewing, located in America’s bread basket, would include wheat as a major ingredient in seventy percent of the beers it brews. Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat, a 4.4 percent beer perfect for humid nights in Boulevard’s home of Kansas City, accounts for most of that, but the brewery makes a full spectrum of wheat-based beers, including Two Jokers Double Wit. “The beer and the name is based on duality,” said Boulevard brewmaster Steven Pauwels. “On one side you have the old-school way of making a tart white beer while on the other side you have the U.S. craft beer movement to make everything bigger, more complex. This beer is an approach to overcome these differences.”

He uses what brewers call a “sour mash” to create much of the tartness in this beer, a method employed in Belgium at the beginning of the twentieth century instead of using “wild” yeast. “I like the idea of tartness in white beers,” said Pauwels, who is Belgian-born and trained. “Nowadays we tend to over spice these beer to reach that goal, while they were pretty simple beers at that time (in the nineteenth century).” The recipe for Two Jokers includes both malted and unmalted wheat and a bit of oats. It is spiced with coriander, orange peel, cardamom and grains of paradise, but none in quantities that make them easy to pick out.

Two Jokers is part of Boulevard’s Smokestack Series, a collection boldy flavored beers sold in 750ml bottles. “I think that Midwestern beer aficionados are on par with Belgian beer drinkers. There is a lot of tradition in Belgium while there is a lot more experimentation going on here (the United States),” he said.

I wasn’t the only one who liked the beer. After Boulevard quit making the beer (it was only a seasonal) #TeamTwoJokers popped up on Twitter. But that Boulevard quit making the beer indicates something. Like that I might have been a bit premature in suggesting commercial greatness for it.

However, there is a postscript. Boulevard is bringing it back this summer. There’s a chance for you to drink it along with 1,000 other beers in the book and die in peace. Or at least to go against the grain. It is, after all, a wheat beer.

Monday beer links, musing 12.09.13

Tuesday is National Lager Day. I didn’t know that either, not until I received a press release on behalf of Anheuser-Busch. It included results of a new survey conducted by the brewer and KRC Research that found drinkers prefer lagers to ales by a large margin.

Key findings include: beer drinkers prefer lagers 2-to-1 over pale ales and 3-to-1 over IPAs and stouts; two-thirds of beer drinkers like the crisp flavor [I added the italics] flavor of lager more than beers with bitter, sweet or fruity flavors; and when it comes to serving style, respondents say enjoying beer in a glass bottle is best (38%), followed closely by beer on draught (32%).

For the press release, A-B head brewmaster Pete Kraemer said: “It’s great to see excitement for lagers reaffirmed through the survey results. They are the most challenging beers to brew, but also the most rewarding. There is nothing I enjoy more than the light, refined flavor complexity of an American lager.”

The press release also points out that lagers account for 75 percent of the beer consumed in the U.S. Those are the facts and that’s a lot of beer.

On to other matters:

– “The Unbearable Nonsense of Craft Beer – A Rant in 9 Acts.” Max Bahnson and Alan McLeod simulreleased an excerpt from their upcoming book. You can read it at either spot, with McLeod’s commentary here, and Bahnson’s here.

– The Session #82 roundup posted. Steve Lamond took no time collecting the “beery yarns” published just Friday.

– Why Do I bother? The lunatic idea that Grodziskie/Grätzer was a sour beer has Ron Pattinson appropriately pissed off.

– What if A-B had “spun off” specialty division in the 1990s? An interesting bit of history from Brew Hub founder Tim Schoen, who previously worked at Anheuser-Busch for 28 years:

“In the 1990s, I was in charge of innovations at A-B, or what we called the specialty brewing group. From that point, I knew there was a groundswell of consumer demand. During that period, I proposed that my group secede from (A-B), and I had a whole plan, moving over to a whole separate building. It was going to be the Specialty Brewing Group Beer Co. It was going to be all crafts and micros. Everyone loved it, but we didn’t do it. I still to this day say that if we would have done it, there would be a different landscape out there, at least for my former employer.”

– “Rare beer? You can keep it.” He’s mad as hell and he’s not going to take it any more.

– Is a Peanut Butter Pop-Tart an Innovation? “Back in 2007, 99 companies in the S&P 500 mentioned innovation…. This year the number was 197.” Perhaps this is relevant to discussions about “innovation” and beer.

Session #82: The sound of silence

The topic for the 82nd gathering of The Session today is “Beery yarns.” Host Steve Lamond suggests that both beery tall tales and gentle recollections are appropriate. I’ve chosen the latter, and what follows is taken almost directly from “Brew Like a Monk” — and written, yikes, going on nine years ago.

Saint Benedictus Abbey of Achel

Inside the brewery café at the monastery of the Saint Benedictus Abbey of Achel, only a single food server and one monk putting items on his cafeteria tray remained when Marc Beirens opened the door and stepped into a chilly December evening.

Beirens, a businessman who has been visiting monasteries since he was a child, took a few strides into a terrace area that was once the abbey’s courtyard. As the sky above turned from dark blue to black, he nodded back toward the brewery, located in a space that once housed the monastery dairy, then to a new gallery and gift shop to his right. Those buildings held pigs and more cattle, before it became obvious agriculture would not sustain the community.

“You should have seen this all a few years ago,” he said, his voice bouncing lightly about an otherwise silent courtyard.

The SessionBeirens appreciates the importance of commerce to the monasteries, and that the six Trappist breweries are part of a larger family. He distributes a range of monastic products — beer is the best selling, but they include cookies, soap, vegetables, wine, and other goods — throughout Belgium and France. His father did the same. “I’ve been visiting monasteries since I was this high,” he said earlier, holding his hand below his waist. That’s why he understands something else about monasteries.

It was dark now, and the courtyard empty.

“I love the silence,” Beirens said. “I used to have a friend who was a monk. He’s gone now.”

We walked along in silence.

“When he was 80 or so, I’d still call him. If I had a problem I could go see him. He didn’t have to say anything and I’d feel better.

“All it took was silence.”

*****

Achel’s is the smallest of the six Trappist breweries in Belgium, yet I can buy its beers a 20-minute walk from my home in Clayton, Missouri. Unfortunately those don’t include the two lower alcohol beers, one pale and one dark, sold only on draft at the pub. The 5° Blond is a particular delight, showcasing subtle fruity aromas and flavors, spicy and properly bitter. It is a reminder how satisfying a relatively “simple” beer can be.

Monday beer links, musing 11.25.13

– Ten reasons you should be drinking Goose Island right now. No punches pulled: “I’ll tell you that there are plenty of bad and not-great bottles and kegs out there from new brewers, but, regardless, the hype for small new breweries doesn’t seem to ebb.” I will use it as an example of advocacy at the Draft Writing symposium next February in Kentucky. [Via @jalaffler]

– Session #82 topic revealed: “Beery yarns.”

– Specialty hops are taking over the world. Lots of replanting in Australia to meet demand for what Peter Darby in England has dubbed as “impact hops.”

– Harpoon Lays Claim to ‘New England-Style’ IPA. Of course the founders note they also make a “West Coast-style.”

– Malting barley varieties compared in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

– Craft beer in Minnesota. Graphic illustration of beer production from 2006 to 2012.

– Old Olympia beer brewhouse remains object of fascination. The rice cooker is the only piece of equipment remaining from 1906.