Monday morning musing: McMurtry nails it

“I don’t want another drink, I only want that last one again.”
           – James McMurtry (from “Hurricane Party”)

Before getting to reports (over the next few days) about hops, malt supply, beer prices and other matters discussed at the just completed Craft Brewers Conference in San Diego this quick thought.

Yes, CBC included several days of trying different beers, often a few ounces at a time. Not at the rate Luke Nicholas managed, but enough — given the hops one-upmanship going on — to disorient my taste buds.

And despite Luke’s manic pace you’ll notice he was always happy to return to the Symposium IPA brewed by Green Flash. Friday evening it was on cask at a mini-festival at the Karl Strauss brewery. Some of the new stuff was pretty good but not really as good as that “last one.” So he returned to the cask. I did as well, but not until Back Street Brewing ran out of a keller beer, served via gravity from a modified keg. Very old world.

Pretty astonishing how the beer stood its own given I’d had several tastes by the time I reached Back Street, most of them full-blown hop attacks. It had the effect of being at a concert, when you lean forward to hear during a particularly quiet part of a piece.

Even though the keller might not have been even 5% abv the flavors of fresh grain and noble hops were deliciously unfiltered. I chatted with the brewer (about managing fermentation of Belgian strong ales, in case you were curious), got some more of his beer and wandered off to talk to others.

After I’d sent several people over to Back Street and it came time for another beer I decided to follow my own advice and went back. Went back a little later too, but by then the cask was empty.

I want that beer again.

Moving on to a few other short items from San Diego and a couple of links found when I returned to wireless civilization in the San Diego airport.

– With 91 categories in the World Beer Cup and three medals awarded there were plenty of reasons to keep applauding Saturday evening. Yet at the risk of offending everybody else who won, three results seemed particularly special. First, one of my locals, Chama River, won two medals, making it four WBCs in a row. Second, Odell Cuthroat Porter, just because. And third, Westmalle Tripel, because it seems like the brewery directly linked to the birth of the style should be able to win a medal with its version. All the results.

– The Brewers Association is rolling out a new website, Craft Beer Throughout the Year, which will index Seasonal Beers and Special Release Beers. The site is constructed so that any brewery may add its special releases to the list.

– Evan Rail writes about how Italian beers are treated — and priced — like a gourmet product.

– Thanks for commenting in the Portland vs. Denver debate (I didn’t start it; I just pointed it out), but Jeff Alworth is pretty much spot on here. Except as much as a like the idea of beers unique to a region (look at this blog’s name) I like the idea that Minneapolis-St. Paul can have great traditional beers (Summit) and intense New American beers (Surly). That seems better than “importing” super hoppy beers from the West Coast.

– Speaking of the West Coast approach, Bell’s brought/sent a beer called Big Head to the conference, calling it a “San Diego Pale Ale” (a term Garrett Oliver has suggested should be used instead of Double IPA) and filling the label with Stone type verbage. Founder Larry Bell said that an in-house analysis rates the beer at 103 IBU. I don’t know of another beer that has clocked 100-plus on a spectrophotometer.

As important, Big Head reeks of the Simcoe hop variety that’s often present in hoppier than hoppy Southern California IPAs. (More about Simcoe soon, but a sneak peak: rumors of its demise appear to be premature). Some of us describe “too much” as catty (or less politely, cat pee).

Brewers in Southern California call beers thick with Simcoe “dank.”

Big Head. Dank. Indeed.