This isn’t exactly new. Live Science explained that the key had been found to the “smell of the sea” more than four years ago, but it appears I was absent that day. Instead, the basics just popped up in an audio book Daria is listening to.
And it turns out dimethyl sulfide, otherwise known as DMS, gives the ocean air “sort of a fishy, tangy smell.” Good when you are strolling along the beach. Not so good in beer, other than at very low levels in a few and full on in Rolling Rock. If you are judging beer you might comment DMS causes a sample to smell and taste of canned or cooked vegetables.
Not surprisingly, some people find it reminds them of shellfish. Recently I judged beers with somebody who said one tasted just like SpaghettiOs.
So let’s say you and a friend order the same beer. You notice DMS and hold your nose. He remembers the night he proposed to his future wife on a beach in Jamaica.
In the final minutes of “BEERTICKERS: Beyond the ale” documentary filmmaker Phil Parkin announces he still has some unfinished business.
When he began making this movie had no aspiration to be Morgan Spurlock (the protagonist in “Super Size Me”). “I never actually intended to be in the film,” he wrote in an email, “but became so ingrained in the content that I felt the viewer needed someone different, a non-ticker, to lead them through.” He set a goal to reach 500 ticks, and at the outset of the Sheffield Beer Festival he has 472.
Drinking No. 473 he talks about the lessons he has learned, but by No. 479 he is looking a little dazed as he wonders if friends who are to meet him will show up. And I’m thinking, “Dude, don’t do it.” Twenty-eight half pints (the “official” size for ticking as champion ticker Brian Moore explains at the beginning) amounts to about two gallons of beer even if you get a few short pours in there. This does not seem like a good idea.
In fact, his friends do arrive, it gets dark and the organizers call time after Parkin orders No. 492.
“Yes, I drank far too much that day, we arrived at 2 p.m. and I didn’t leave until around 12 or 1 a.m. if I remember correctly,” he wrote. “Much of that footage didn’t make the final cut. I drank far too much. Eek.”
The documentary started out to be an examination of beerticking, also known as scooping, a hobby he viewed as akin to trainspotting. It turned out to be about UK drinking culture, real ale and pubs. About a culture and people easy to care about. Maybe this makes me a hardass, but when Spurlock kept ordering to excess in “Super Size Me” I felt no empathy toward him.
When Parkin looked at his clock at 1:50 on morning and realized feeling like shit was part of the process my head also hurt. And who wouldn’t want to have a pint in a pub with Mick the Tick, listening to him play in a skiffle band in the pub where ticking may well have started?
British beer culture comes off all the better because this was not shot through a gaussian lens. Mick the Tick staggers a bit from time to time, and Dave Unpronounceable and Gazza (two of the other ticking principals) have a few rough edges.
Parkin gets a little rah-rah goofy when he visits the Thornbridge Brewery and helps brew a beer, but it works because by then he has begun to consider the difference between appreciation and accumulation. “I could have only one (beer). I wondered if it bothered the other beer tickers,” he comments before going on to the next tick.
In an email he reiterated that ticking doesn’t necessarily include keeping tasting notes, and for some “it’s all about the numbers. Quite sad in some cases as the appreciation of beer goes out of the window.”
Perhaps. But listening to Mick the Tick talk about beer I don’t really care if he can tell me if tick No. 24,612 tasted like fresh oranges on a June evening or brussel sprouts. As Parkin’s images illustrate so well, in the pub friendship, sharing and community are as important as the beer itself.
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You can find copies of “BEERTICKERS: Beyond the Ale” here and here.
John Holl has announced the topic for The Session #53: Beer Redemption.
No, he not suggesting everybody track down a bottle of Russian River Brewing’s Redemption.
Holl explains by offering a story about why refused to drink beer from Smuttynose Brewing for nine years, and ultimately how silly that decision was. It his story of redemption and he’d like participants to tell their own July 1.
Evan Benn writes today about the rush to buy bottles of Goose Island Sofie the brewery recalled because “… Goose Island Sofie uses natural products and the hallmark of Belgian-style beers — wild fermentation. This particular natural variation was new and resulted in flavors that weren’t what we expected so we implemented a method for controlling for that variation.”
When he visited the Wine and Cheese Place in Clayton (a store I can now walk to) he was a little surprised that he wasn’t the only one looking for bottles from the tainted batch.
He turned out not to be impressed, writing: “Real Sofie tastes slightly fruity, slightly spicy, with a zesty carbonation that results in a champagnelike finish. The Feb. 11 sample had muddled aromas and flavors, including some rancid butter and vaguely sour elements, and dull carbonation. I couldn’t choke down all of the contents of the 22-ounce bottle, leaving about half of it for a beer-loving friend to try.”
But I’m sure there are drinkers who just love the alternative version.
And a few weeks ago Daria (my wife, for those of you new here) poured beer for Boulevard Brewing when she volunteered at the St. Louis MicroFest. They weren’t serving the recently released the Smokestack Imperial Stout, but festivalgoers wanted to know where you could buy Batch #2. Boulevard is offering a refund for those who purchased that batch, because . . .
Prior to the March release our tasting panel sampled several bottles of the new barrel aged beer. Some turned out as expected, while others displayed the unique characteristics of wild Brettanomyces yeast. We immediately posted tasting notes to our blog, announcing the deviation and noting the differences in flavor profiles. Because our tasting panel very much enjoyed both versions, we decided to proceed with the release as usual.
It is Batch #2 of the 2011 Imperial Stout that exhibits the Brettanomyces trait. In retrospect, we should have called attention to this Brett character on the label. Because we didn’t, and because some consumers got a beer that was different from the one they had a legitimate right to expect, we’re offering a refund to anybody who feels shortchanged, and who can reasonably demonstrate that they did in fact buy a bottle of Batch #2 of our 2011 Imperial Stout.
I had Batch #1 and it was delightful, rich and decadent. But what set it apart was its texture; a combination of mouthfeel and layers of flavor not unlike the Firestone Walker anniversary beers. Brettanomyces will literally chew away at that texture.
I like many of my favorite styles, including saisons and IPAs, drier than most (perhaps why once when I was judging saisons in a competition a friend said, “You’re Mr. Attenuation”). And I’m curious about a lot of things. But were I to find Smokestack Imperial Stout in a store I’d buy Batch #1 rather than #2. Sometimes you just want a sure thing.
This video in which Summit Brewing founder Mark Stutrud talks about the Moravian 37 barley his cousins Jim and Todd grow for the brewery isn’t overproduced and gets right to the point.
“This family homestead, in its fourth generation, produces some of the best barley in the country,” Studrud said. “We’re proud that they are committed to providing Moravian 37 barley specifically for our Pilsener.”
At 4.8 per abv and moderately hopped (Vanguard and Saaz, 25 IBU) Summit Pilsener nicely showcases the malted barley.
John Holl has announced the topic for The Session #53: