Sunday viewing (and reading)

I appreciate moving pictures as much as the next person, so for both those who like to watch and those who like to read . . .

* Jack Curtin just posted something you should know about Sam Calagione.

* Laura Deibler sent along the YouTube video of her husband, Dan, singing a variation on Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” It speaks to the power of music, homebrewing and Trappist beer. Plus I really like the wink Dan gives Laura just over two minutes in.

* You think it was just chance that on the morning that Discovery channel debuted “Brew Masters” CBS Sunday Morning had a beer segment? The beer part, including Charlie Bamforth and Wynkoop Brewing, starts about four minutes in.

* Sorry, couldn’t figure out how to embed the next video. It’s from the Bloomberg The Mentor series. Jim Koch of Boston Beer provides advice to the guys from Oceanside Ale Works in Southern California. You gotta laugh when they say that Samuel Adams spills more beer than they brew in a year. At least if you are old enough to remember Jim Koch saying the same thing about Anheuser-Busch and his brewing company.

* I’m a sucker for any beer description that includes “It’s a cracker.” But throw in a Ry Cooder reference and you’re getting a link from me. Even if you are describing a Black IPA called Conqueror.

Firestone Walker 11 and friends

Firestone Walker Anniversary BeersFriday I snapped a photo of the three bottles of Firestone Walker anniversary beers, posted them to posterous and promised drinking notes, an oath automatically repeated at Twitter and Facebook. A bad idea, and I can’t even blame the alcohol since we hadn’t poured any beer yet. Fact is I didn’t take any notes and I’m not sure I’d have much new to tell you if I had.

You can find glowing adjectives all over the Internet, and I’ve already written about the process in detail, both here and in print. So a few brief observations:

– One of my friends at the table said he’d read some comments on the line that Eleven (released in 2007) had started to go downhill. Not the bottle we opened, at least to my taste. I have one left and will wait at least two years before opening it.

– Last year, when we pulled together bottles of Eleven, 12 and 13 we decided just two at a time was probably enough. We really should stick to that plan. The newest release and one older. Certainly they are different, more like cousins than siblings, but they also are 10% abv (if you are lucky enough to have squirreled away a 10) and stronger. Besides, it’s a anniversary beer, one that a lot of work went into, and opening a single bottle seems to be a celebration unto itself.

– I sometimes struggle to explain what I mean when using the word texture to describe a beer. It’s not just mouthfeel, but also the layers of flavors and aromas. The best way to understand what I mean it so drink one of these anniversary beers.

– The 14 (the newest, in case all these numbers we leaving you feeling a little lost) has a hop brightness not present since the 10. Will that change how the beer ages? Be patient.

Of course we talked about the beers as we drank them — even looked at the blending notes — as well as other things beer and things not beer. That’s the way it should work.

When I got home I thought of the conversation I had with winemaker Matt Trevisan that became New Beer Rule 6 (The best beer was in the empty glass.)

Once again, I ran out of Eleven first. Dang, I’m going to miss that beer. It will be a tough last bottle to open.

Keep beer fresh, or keep it the same?

“If a beer is stale make sure it is always stale.”

That’s what Charlie Bamforth — a “beer professor” with too many credentials to list and author of the new Beer Is Proof God Loves Us: Reaching for the Soul of Beer and Brewing — told brewers yesterday during a conference call/online presentation for members of the Brewers Association.

Obviously, Bamforth was not advocating brewers sell stale beer — the seminar was titled, “Keep it Fresh: Understanding How Time, Temperature and Oxygen Impact Your Beer and What to Do About Them” — but he did give us something to think about.

His point was much like the lesson a German brewmaster taught Greg Zaccardi, founder of New Jersey’s High Point Brewing, in the mid-1990s.

“He said your beer can always be excellent or always be bad. It can’t go from excellent to bad to excellent,” Zaccardi remembers. “People will buy bad beer. They’ll get used to it.”

Making it fresh, 21 years in

“. . . on hot days there is no pleasanter place than the shady lanes of hops, with their bitter scent — an unutterably refreshing scent, like a wind blowing from oceans of cool beer.”
                                                    — George Orwell, 1931

Orwell did not exactly give hop picking a rave review. But he allowed it was not a disagreeable job in itself, and obviously took some visceral pleasure from the adventure. Crush a few fresh hop cones, give them a rub, take a deep breath and the experience lodges itself forever in our brains. We’re hardwired that way. Fresh hop ales stir those memories, not just the aroma but also the sticky, resiny texture.

That Boulevard Brewing in Kansas City would choose to brew Fresh Hop Pale Ale to celebrate its 21st anniversary — that’s today, as a matter of fact — might seem curious. After all, Kansas City it not located in the midst of hop yards. And Boulevard’s flagship Unfiltered Wheat Beer accounts for 65 percent of its sales.

Boulevard 21st Anniversary Fresh Hop Pale Ale

However, the Pale Ale was the first beer that founder John McDonald sold and initially the flagship. There remain few experiences better than a draft Pale Ale and a burnt ends sandwich at Gates Bar-B-Q in Kansas City.

McDonald wrote the recipe, and when brewmaster Steven Pauwels joined Boulevard in 1999 he saw no reason to tinker. “I have always liked Pale Ale the way it was when I started at Boulevard and have done the best I can to keep it the same way despite brew house upgrades, increased fermenter sizes, filtration changes, bottle line changes, etcetera,” he said. “Some of the original ingredients have changed but Cascade flower hops have been a constant.”

Cascade hops provide the fresh component — 500 pounds as a dry hop* in the 125-barrel batch — because Pauwels wanted to pay tribute to the hop that “helped create the craft beer movement” as well as the original Pale.

Fresh Hop Pale is not simply Pale “grown up,” although heftier (7.2% abv and 44 bittering units compared to 5.4%/30 IBU). Different hops — for the record Cascade, Mangum, Palisade, Simcoe and Styrian Golding in the Pale; Cascade, Hallertau, Magnum, Styrian Golding and Centennial in the anniversary beer — but more importantly the 21st is built on a base of Maris Otter, the rich English pale malt.

Not as brazen as in an Americanized India Pale Ale, the hops are not shy — resiny, piney, some orange and grapefruit rind, certainly to be enjoyed fresh — but for me (your mileage may vary) the Maris Otter steals the show. Abetted and perhaps refined by bottle conditioning, it provides texture that plays perfectly with spicy hop flavors. A beer in harmony.

McDonald offers a bit of a toast at the Boulevard website, so I’ll leave the last words to him.

*****

* Yes, the “wet hops” used as “dry hops.” That’s brewing for you. Enough to make a soul think twice about writing a book about hops.

Let it snow, let it snow – Two cool contests

The Yuletide Photo Contest must be one of the very best inventions beer blogging has given us. And it’s back. There are rules, so please read and follow them. Otherwise one of these years Alan will come to his senses and then where will we go for a snow and beer porn?

Contest No. 2 has nothing to do with yule or other tides, but you can win a beer brewed in 1936. All Zak Avery asks that you do is “write something about beer and time, up to a maximum of 500 words.” (He’ll also accept videos, so you best read the rules). Figure there might be a little competition, since the prize is a bottle of beer brewed for the 1937 Coronation of Edward VIII.

Franconian hops field

More about contest No. 1: The headline and this photo (taken in Franconia in 2008) refer to Alan’s affection for photos that include beer and snow (yes, these hop bines, not beer, but you get the point). However, having observed this contest from the get-go I can tell you is a sucker for photos featuring people, beer and conviviality.

More about contest No. 2: For the announcement Zak took a picture of the 1937 bottle sitting next to a notebook computer. Shouldn’t that be an old typewriter instead?