The Avery attitude

Adam AveryWhen Avery Brewing founder Adam Avery passes through Albuquerque he usually stops at Chama River Brewing, not only because it’s handy to Interstate 25 but because he likes the beers, particularly the hop-accented ones. Try to look surprised.

Last April I met him there for dinner about a week before the Craft Brewers Conference in Austin. He was headed down early to do a little rock climbing in Texas, then to visit outlets that sell Avery beer. His car was totally packed with beer. The trunk was jammed, mixed cases were piled to the ceiling in the back and he front seat was full. (Yes, I wish I’d had a camera.)

You’d have thought there was a desert between here and there.

The conference concluded with a banquet during which each table was supplied with a variety of beers for the meal (each paired with a different course). When there was a break in the action Avery sprang to his feet and dashed past the table we were at (next to his). He returned a few minutes later with arms full of Avery beer, leaving a few bottles at our table “just in case.”

Think about that when you read this from the Avery Monthly Mash (an email newsletter):

Twice a month the entire Avery team gathers on a Friday afternoon to taste beers that were brewed in prior weeks. All employees taste each beer and offer suggestions on improvements and taste (we are on a quest to make perfect beer). Once we have tasted all of our beers, a full-on world of beer tasting ensues, with each person clamoring to put in their two-cents on the perceived qualities of each beer. Anyone who has ventured into the Avery Tasting Room on an early Friday afternoon has undoubtedly seen these tasting sessions in their final throws.

This small oddity of initiation into the Avery crew is actually a sign of our unspoken mantra: the beer comes first. Each extra dollar we earn is first allotted to capital improvements that will assist us in making better beer. If a technique promises to improve the quality of our beer it will be implemented even if it means more work for the brewer and more money to make the beer. In short, the Friday initiation is the first step in the Avery way of ensuring that everyone in the company, especially our newest hires, understands our overriding philosophy about crafting and selling beer.

We would like to extend an invitation to you, our loyal fans, to take part in an initiation session of your own. Come and join us on Wednesday, March 5th for the opportunity to take part in a Hop Education tasting alongside a few of the brewers and staff members of Avery Brewing Company.

Details are on the Avery website events page.

The photo of Adam was taken during the now infamous “Extreme Beer” trip to Belgium that Sam Calagione led two years ago. Thanks to Tomme Arthur for sharing.

Go figure: Budometer is a wine taste test

Call it a beer mindset, but when I saw “Budometer” I thought beer.

Turns out the test you can take at the Wall Street Journal or here (“get your buds done”) is designed to help you discover what kind of wine taster you.

But before moving along, consider that the guy behind this, Tim Hanni, “is on a mission to combat snobbery in the wine industry.”

He argues that no one has a palate superior to anyone else’s, and that there’s nothing wrong with liking wines many experts consider tacky, like White Zinfandel. He also thinks traditional tasting notes comparing wine to berries or chocolate are useless in helping most consumers find wines they enjoy.

The takeaway: Not everybody tastes everything the same way. That clearly is relevant to drinking beer.

Hanni has classified tasters into three categories: tolerant, sensitive and hyper-sensitive. And the The Lodi International Wine Awards will use these classifications at its upcoming competition.

Hanni’s also interested in the role aspiration plays in preferences, because “the amount of time and effort you put into learning about wine strongly influences preferences and buying behavior.” Now we’re moving into the territory of $750 bottles of wine (the new price for Screaming Eagle).

Go ahead take the test even if you’ve vowed wine will never pass your lips. You might learn something about your beer drinking self. I scored between 6 and 7 on the scale of 9, putting me with the “intensity and balance are key” crowd.

Monday musing: 10 tons of hops – How much beer?

Hops ready to go to workHow much beer will those 10 tons of hops Boston Beer is selling to small breweries make?

Left to their own devices, these hops might provide proper bitterness, flavor and aroma for 40,000 barrels (31 gallons to a barrel) of craft beer. However most of the East Kent Goldings or Tettnang Tettnanger the brewer of Samuel Adams beer is offering for sale will end up part of recipes that include other hops, so their influence will reach, what to you think? Two, three times more?

Forty thousand barrels is a pretty impressive number, although the estimate could be high. If you want simple math, Boston Beer uses one pound of hops per barrel for its Boston Lager, so that’s 20,000 barrels for 20,000 pounds. But Boston Lager is hoppier than a Weiss beer you might brew with the Tettanger and these EK Goldings have a higher percentage of alpha acids (more bittering punch) than the hops in Boston Lager.

So let’s fantasize about 40,00 barrels. That’s pretty much what Dogfish Head Craft Brewery made that in 2006. Oops, that might not be the best example. Pretty sure Dogfish Head needs more than 10 tons of hops to make 40,000 barrels.

More impressive is that it would equal the production of all these breweries combined in 2006: Brewery Ommegang, Allagash, Three Floyds, Weyerbacher, Founders, Green Flash, Live Oak, Midnight Sun, AleSmith, Jolly Pumpkin, Atlanta, Alpine and Surly. Most of these breweries grew in 2007, but that would have been a lot harder given the current hop situation.

Still if you really need a number to look at you could easily calculate how “kilograms of alpha” (that’s the phrase some mega-brewers use) these hops will provide. The Tettnangers have already been measured at 4.2% alpha acids, the Goldings will likely be 6%.

One opinion, though. These hops deserve to be talked about using adjectives, not numbers.

Sam Adams sharing hops with smaller brewers

Jim Koch, Samuel AdamsJim Koch sent a big old hops valentine to smaller breweries on Thursday. Ten tons worth.

He told them that Boston Beer, brewer of the Samuel Adams beers, will sell 20,000 pounds of hops that otherwise would not be available to smaller breweries. The company will sell the hops at its cost, which is considerably less than they would bring on the open (or “spot”) market.

Koch revealed the offer to Brewers Association members Thursday in a forum for association members, telling them:

“For a couple of months now, we’ve all been facing the unprecedented hops shortage and it’s affected all craft brewers in various ways. The impact is even worse on the small craft brewers — openings delayed, recipes changed, astronomical hops prices being paid and brewers who couldn’t make beer.

“So we looked at our own hops supplies at Boston Beer and decided we could share some of our hops with other craft brewers who are struggling to get hops this year.”

The brewery will sell 10,000 pounds of East Kent Goldings from Great Britain and 10,000 pounds of Tettnang Tettnangers from small farms in the Tettnang region in Germany. Both are “aroma hops,” horribly under appreciated and the kind being dissed by brewers chasing alpha, but at the same time becoming crazily expensive.

Samuel Adams will limit the amount sold to any one brewery in order to assure as many as possible get hops.

“The purpose of doing this is to get some hops to the brewers who really need them. So if you don’t really need them, please don’t order them,” Koch wrote. “And don’t order them just because we’re making them available at a price way below market. Order them because you need these hops to make your beer. We’re not asking questions, so let your conscience be your guide.”

This is explained in the “Hop-Sharing Program” area at the Samuel Adams website (you will have to verify your age). The FAQ answers most of the questions I’ve been receiving during the day. (These are not “left over” hops for instance; in fact they haven’t even arrived in the country. Boston Beer will be glad to use them if any aren’t claimed.)

I know whose beer I’m drinking tonight.

Why drinking beer is better than delivering beer

We’ve taken all you’ve given
But it’s gettin’ hard to make a livin’
Mr. President have pity on the working man
                   – Randy Newman

Talk about a job that sucks.

Conversation overhead this morning at the gas station/convenience store between a delivery man for the local Anheuser-Busch distributor and woman behind the register.

Driver: So does that mean you want them stacked five boxes high? Six? Seven?

Woman: It needs something on the top that looks special.

Driver: The price is the price. That’s where it has to go.

Woman: He said he wants it to look like a display. If it doesn’t then we’re going to take it out and put something else in. You’ll have to ask him.

Granted you may not care if this gas station has a pile of Bud Light and Budweiser cases (which it always seems to) or Miller Lite or boxes of Coors with a train running across the top. And we’re pretty sure it won’t be cases of Sam Adams or Fat Tire no matter how great the display might look.

But I see a guy checking his watch. He’s supposed to be headed on to his next stop.

He already knows he’s going to be late getting home, and it’s Valentine’s Day.

Hardly seems fair.