Fantasy Beer Dinner #4: Andrew Mason

For more about what this series is part of look here.

Andrew Mason assists Matt Van Wyk with brewing at Flossmoor Station Restaurant & Brewery in Illinois, the 2006 GABF Small Brewpub of the Year. He also makes the Flossmoor blog one of the most interesting maintained by a brewery.

In case you forgot, the questions are: If you could invite four people dead or alive to a beer dinner who would they be? What four beers would you serve?

1) Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716)
-paraphrased from Wikipedia-
A truly fascinating character from the Enlightenment. It would be nearly impossible to explain everything that he accomplished in his lifetime in this exercise, but here are a few. Discovered Calculus independently of Newton, was a Natural Philosopher, Discovered the Binary System, which is the basis for almost all of modern day computing, and was a contributor to Philosophy and the Technology of his day.
I got interested in him from Neil Stephenson’s Baroque Trilogy where Leibniz plays a major role interacting with his fictionalized characters from that time. If his fictionalized personality was anything at all like his real one he would be a blast to share a few beers with.

2) Martin Luther (1483-1546)
Another dead German but another one that I hold in high regard. I’m Lutheran, born and raised, and although we don’t worship Martin Luther, we do learn a lot about his life along the way. I’ve always thought the very human part of his life was very interesting apart from Reforming the Christian church, founding Protestantism, translating the Bible into the common language of the people, and writing extensively. He had a fiery personality and appreciated worldly things in addition to heavenly.

3) Mike Royko (1932-1997)
One of the quintessential Chicago figures of the last century. Royko was and history may show, the best columnist Chicago has ever seen or will see. Here are a few excerpts from Mike Royko, One More Time: The Best of Mike Royko published by University of Chicago Press. Royko wrote about the everyman and always played it straight. From Slate magazine, Jacob Weisberg says,

“Reading [his works] in the new posthumous selection, One More Time: The Best of Mike Royko, I found myself wondering: Why doesn’t anyone write a newspaper column this good anymore? Royko wasn’t quite a Twain, or a Mencken, but his writing was distinctive and memorable and in its time the closest thing to lasting literature in a daily paper. Royko could make you laugh and make you think, stir outrage at a heartless bureaucrat, or bring a tear to the eye when he flashed a glimpse of the heart hidden beneath his hard shell.

Royko would be great to have a beer with. In fact, if this was the ultimate fantasy beer dinner it would be at one of Royko’s old haunts, the original Billy Goat Tavern under Michigan Avenue. You know it even if you haven’t been there. Cheezborger Cheezborger Cheezborger.

4) David Bowie
The only living member of the dinner apart from myself. Does Bowie really need an explanation?

The beers

One would definitely be a Bamberger style rauch beer. I’m deliberately not picking a specific one because nearly any beer from Bamberg is perfect. I love rauch beers. Some of my favorite beer memories are walking around in Bamberg after a morning tour of the Weyermann Malt House, eating lunch, drinking beers, and discovering the city with my family.

The next would be a Kreuzberg Kloster beer from the area of Germany known as the Rhön. One of my first real German beers was their Dunkel, drunk out of a cold ceramic stein. But we weren’t able to drink the beer until we first climbed up the huge hill that the monastery sits upon, walked along the whole tour of the stations of the cross, looked at the enormous crosses on top of the hill (kreuz = cross burg = hill or small mountain) and walked back down the hill to the monastery where the beer is. And it was great beer.

A sour belgian-style ale
Something drinkable, but still assertively sour, acidic, and tart. Could be authentically Belgian or it could be an American interpretation.

Ol’ Woody
And I realize I don’t necessarily make the best beers in the world, but I sure as hell love drinking what I make. Ol’ Woody is a 100% Amarillo IPA that we make that is barrel aged in a used bourbon barrel and then dry hopped once it is pulled out. You have to serve at least one of your own beers at a fantasy beer dinner.

And although you didn’t specifically ask, and I already mentioned the Billy Goat, we would definitely be eating bbq. I have a passion for bbq that has drawn me all over the US seeking it out. There would be a mix of Texas brisket, North Carolina pulled pork, Memphis ribs, and some Kansas City sauce to go with it.