What’s the 16th best brewery in America?

GABF logoThe drafting order is set for The Beer Mapping Project GABF Fantasy League, and I drew the 16th choice. beerinator cut off signups at 30 and the team (is that the right word?) with the last pick of the first round gets the first pick of the second. So in the second I’ll be drafting 15th. And so on until we’ve chosen hundreds of breweries.

Given that the last two years there has been a definite drop off in value after about a half dozen breweries (using the proposed scoring system, which could change) what should my strategy be?

(An aside: Predictions are always easier to make when you have the results in hand – that’s called data mining. You might have taken Anheuser-Busch high after the brewery scored 17 points in 2005 and got only three points in 2006 for your trouble. Flossmoor Station Brewing won three medals in 2005 for just three points, but in 2006 scored 13 points with four.)

I figure that A-B, Miller, Pabst (seriously, worth 14 points each of the last two years – Blatz and Stag win medals), Pelican, Flossmoor, New Glarus and nine more breweries will be long gone before Appellation Beer makes a pick.

What should my strategy be (for the 16th pick, but also the 45th and beyond)? Go with a brewery that has been dependable, always or almost always winning at least one medal (like Goose Island and Brooklyn)? Pick a newcomer with some street cred (Terrapin, Surly)? Somebody close to home (Chama River, Il Vicino, even Pagosa Springs)? Or those devoted to beers of conviction?

I need your help.

(I’m still working on the prize for the reader who provides the best advice. I’m sure it will be terrific.)

drinkwell – but not if it’s beer

Diageo and Zagat have joined forces to launched an online guide — called drinkwell — labeled “the world’s first online resource guide to restaurants that are dedicated to serving the highest quality drinks and drink service.”

The guide currently list 15 cities, and will be nationwide by the end of the year.

The good news is it free. The bad news is there’s dang little beer.

What you do get: “Access to the ratings that Zagat surveyors have given to the hundreds of drinkwell establishments across the country, based on the quality of drinks, service, atmosphere and cost. Partnering with several world-renowned beverage experts including Dale DeGroff, Steve Olson, Paul Pacult, Dave Wondrich and Doug Frost, to develop the drinkwell Academy Staff Training Program for participating establishments, drinkwell-accredited establishments will be identified by a special black and brushed metal plaque.”

I only gave the listings a quick look — but aren’t blogs a shoot-first-and-ask-question later endeavor? — and it looks as if you go to Chicago you won’t find a lovely special black and brushed medal plaque at the Map Room, the Hopleaf or the Village Tap.

But you will find quality beer (pretty good service and atmosphere too).

I want chickpeas in my hummus, not in my beer

Remains of the day, or thoughts that probably aren’t worth a post of their own:

– What’s going on with the agricultural ingredients for our beers, barley and hops. This is worth its own lengthy post, but until there’s time for that consider these links. We are talking concerns about quality and certainly higher prices — craft brewers are hesitant to discuss how much because they don’t want to be accused of price fixing, but at least $2 a case to distributors (meaning more to you and I) seems necessary. The links:

HopsRalph Olson of Hop Union discusses the 2007 hop crop. How grim is it? “The hop world is upside down. In the future we see the possibility of brewers shutting down for lack of hops.”

Sept. 19: An update from Pacific Brew News. Not all the hops news is bad.

The Czech view of the future of barley. Gate2Biotech reports that ongoing problems with growing barley has the brewing and malting research institute in Brno exploring the possibilities of utilizing crops such as chickpea, cowpea or sweatpea.

The Roast Garlic and Sun Dried Tomato Hummus at Chama River Brewing in Albuquerque, one of my locals, is a top-flight appetizer which goes with almost any of their beers you can see through. Chickpeas in hummus = good. Chick peas in beer = I feel no need to find out.

– Great quote from the world of alcoholic beverages. Fred Franzia, the man behind Two Buck Chuck, and how important soil is to the quality of wine: “We can grow on asphalt. Terroir don’t mean sh*t.”

– Maybe it was the campfire, but this food and beer pairing seemed perfect. Not sure when Amazon will start shipping The Best of American Beer and Food: Pairing & Cooking with Craft Beer but the book should be on the shelves soon and I’ll have a review sooner. Before you dig into that for a couple of hundred good ideas here’s one not in the book. From Saturday while camping in the Manzano Mountains:

Achel Extra and s’mores.

Yes, that simple.

Samuel Adams creates an ode to noble hops

Samuel Adams Hallertau PilsnerBack for a second time, Samuel Adams Hallertau Imperial Pilsner remains a beautiful — if big at 8.8% abv and 110 IBU — tribute to the Hallertau Mittelfrueh hop. Or Mittlefrüher as it is spelled in the Halltetauer region of Bavaria.

Lew Bryson already provoked a long enough discussion about calling it imperial pilsner, inspiring a nice treatise on balance by Stephen Beaumont. Consider those topics dealt with.

Instead, some answers to the question “Why?” The short answer is: “Mittelfrüh (Mittelfrueh)”

“We think they are the best hop in the world,” Boston Beer founder Jim Koch said when the 2005 vintage was released. “We wanted to showcase them. It is neat you can get all those flavors from one hop variety.”

Mittelfrueh aroma

Mittelfrueh Aroma

There’s a technical aspect to this you may already know. Or not. Basically, IBU stands for International Bitterness Units and an IBU is one part per million of isohumulone. Brewers calculate how much bitterness to expect based on the alpha acid percentage of particular hops, the amount of hops used and the utilization (length of boil is most important; there are other factors and let’s stop there).

The most efficient way to add bitterness is by using high alpha hops (with AA percentages ranging from the mid to high teens) This is true even for international lagers hopped below the threshold at which you can can taste hops. What isn’t efficient is using a low alpha hop like Mittelfrueh (3-5% AA).

In fact most international lagers include about two ounces of hops per barrel (31 gallons). Boston Beer uses one pound per barrel to make Boston Lager. The brewers tossed in 12 pounds per barrel (100 times the amount in an international lager) in the Halltertau Pilsner.

“Twelve pounds,” Koch said, sounding downright giddy. “While we were doing it Dave Grinnell (one of the brewers) referred to it as a reckless amount of hops.”

The brewers created several test batches, managing to come up with beers in which the IBU topped 140. That’s measured. Most of the time when you see a small brewery cite IBU it’s calculated. As the amount of hops increase efficiency drops dramatically and those calculations aren’t particularly accurate. Few Double (Imperial) IPAs actually reach the 90s when checked with proper measuring equipment.

The calculated IBU on the batches at Boston Beer were well above 300. “We were in the range where all bets were off,” Koch said. “You have to place it under an analyzer to get an accurate measure.”

He found the version in the 140s was too bitter, so the brewers blended in a 100 IBU batch and eventually found a sweet spot in the 110-115 range.

Mittelfrueh flavor

Mittelfrueh Flavor

The beer is cloudy — the brewers didn’t want to filter out the hop flavor, bless them — and doesn’t look particularly pilsner-like. The Mittelfrueh doesn’t come off as particularly delicate in this quantity — and matched against a solid one-two punch of malt and alcohol — but proves you can turn the flowery-citrussy-spicy hop flavor volume way up without the discordant impression you get from a cheap pair of speakers.

The illustrations here come from a book put together by the hop growers in Hallertau, and for it they commissioned panels to evaluate the intensity of both the aromas and flavors of their hops. Notice (above) how the hoppy/bitterness impression of Mittelfrueh changes from aroma to flavor.

“We don’t like it when the discussion about hops is focused only on alpha acids,” said Dr. Johann Pichlmaier of the Association of German Hop Growers. Once again skipping most of the geeky details, Mittelfrueh has a surplus of hop oils that help qualify it as a “noble” hop.

Koch agrees. “Hops are not primarily about IBUs. Hops are about a bounty of flavors,” he said. “With this beer your tongue is indelibly imprinted with the cornucopia of flavors you can get only from noble hops. There’s a reason brewers treasure these hops; a reason they cost more.”

First time around the brewery publicized the (crazy) bitterness units in the beer. This time there’s no mention of IBU.

That’s the right way to talk about hop flavor in general and Mittelfrueh in particular.

He was the hardest working man in beer

No excuses. Be somewhere Sept. 30 to toast the life and work of Michael Jackson. Make a donation to the National Parkinson Foundation.

The Beer Hunter website has all the information. If your local pub doesn’t have plans, doesn’t know about it then get involved and get a pub involved. The site has posters, information about donating to NPF and more. Got a website? A blog? Grab one of the banners (like this one) and help promote this toast.

Michael Jackson Toast

I don’t have to tell you why, do I? If so I refer you to the links at The Beer Hunter or Jay Brooks’ well-kept list.

And then two posts you might have missed I think you shouldn’t. Maggie Dutton – whose blog, The Wine Offensive, is one of my regular reads – wrote a wonderful piece for Seattle Weekly.

She offers a different perspective and rightfully includes Charles Finkel, one of Michael’s co-conspirators. She chats with Charles, who tells her, “There’s beer before Michael Jackson and beer after Michael Jackson.”

Also give Martyn Cornell’s (The Zythophile) remembrance some time. The year was 1988 and “Jackson, even then probably the most famous beer writer on the planet, would be joining us later: he was flying in from judging at a beer festival in Finland …

“I believed we all cheered ironically, while secretly thinking: ‘What a fantastic job!’ However, when Jacko did arrive, he immediately showed how hard-working he was: taking extensive notes on every beer, photographing those bottles he hadn’t already got pictures of, while the rest of us were happy just to slurp and trough.”

Did he ever quit working?

When I realize I have a shelf with nothing but books by Michael Jackson it’s pretty obvious he didn’t. We once kidded about adding a “Where’s Michael?” map at The Beer Hunter site, figuring it would look a little like NORAD tracking Santa Claus. It made me sad, sometimes mad, when the beer drinking public just didn’t get it.

Michael Jackson, Beer HunterOne example, from 2000 at the Great American Beer Festival. Michael had judged beers all day Wednesday, and in the evening spoke at a promotional event where he patiently posed with dozens of people for photos. He didn’t get back to his hotel until very late.

He checked his e-mail. There was important news. Samichlaus had been brewed again after a three-year hiatus. He tried to sleep, but couldn’t and was up in the middle of the night, putting together a “Notes from the road” column, firing it off to “rewrite@beerhunter.com” [please don’t try; the address is no longer active] so the scoop could be posted.

Then he put in another day of judging, arriving at the festival at 5:30 as it was opening. “Did you get my e-mail?” he asked (me).

I gulped. I hadn’t been near a computer all day.

We’d only managed to get the Internet connection in the hall working a few minutes before, but quickly collected his story, added a photo, and ran it through our database and publishing program. By the time he sat down to sign autographs the story nobody else had was on a computer screen in the booth.

More than 40 years after he first went to work for his hometown newspaper giving his readers the news first was still was mattered most.

He signed autographs more than three hours that evening, his only break coming when he did an interview for a TV film crew (above). He had no time to do what he loved, to wander around the hall and chat with brewers, always taking notes. He drank perhaps six ounces of beer the whole time, samples from when somebody would run off and retrieve beer for him.

If you ever had Michael sign an item for you, or watched him at work, you know that he’d speak several minutes with a perfect stranger. He never just dashed off a standard note and signed it “Michael Jackson.” He asked questions, just as much a reporter as when he had a notebook or tape recorder in hand. He wrote a personal message.

Not surprisingly, he was dead tired by the end of the evening and looked it. Yet he’d be up and judging the next morning and into the afternoon before rushing to another speaking event, a beer dinner and to the hall to sign books.

The next week a photo of Michael from that Thursday evening in the hall showed up via one of the beer e-mail lists I subscribe to. It was blurry (something most of us would blame on the camera or photographer). The person who sent the e-mail cleverly wrote that this is what Michael looked like “after a day of quote – work – end quote. Nice work if you can get it.”

This from from somebody who didn’t get it. You do. So be somewhere at 9 o’clock (Eastern) Sept 30. Raise your glass. Make a donation to NPF.