Blue Moon labeling revisited

The things you come across when looking for something else . . .

In this case a “diary entry” from 1996, when we were doing a little field research for Beer Travelers projects:

Ephrata, Pa., April 19
The walls of Wahtney’s Inn are fieldstones, and some of the floor and ceiling are from when an inn was first built here in 1767. Meanwhile, there’s a computer terminal in the middle of the bar so patrons can cruise the Internet. It’s new and not working today. The bar has Blue Moon beer on tap, and after the bartender draws a pint for a customer, we ask her if she knows which brewery produces the beer. She’s stunned to find out this is a Coors product; because of political reasons, she doesn’t drink Coors. “Thank goodness I’ve only had a small taste,” she says, thanking us for the information. Next time somebody tells you that truth in labeling doesn’t make a difference, remember her.

Blue Moon has done pretty well the last 10 years based on what’s inside the bottle. Although Coors doesn’t heap advertising dollars on Blue Moon, it sold 200,000 barrels of the brand in 2005. Among craft brands, only Sam Adams Boston Lager, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and New Belgium Fat Tire were more popular.

It’s what’s outside the bottle that is troubling. As carefully as you look at a Blue Moon bottle, 6-pack holder or 12-pack box you won’t find information that Coors brews the beer.

Back in 2000, Coors agreed to change the labels on cans and bottles of Blue Moon to settle a lawsuit filed by Belgian brewers. The lawsuit, filed by the Confederation of Belgian Breweries November 1999, alleged the packaging on Coors’ Belgian-style beer led drinkers to believe it was brewed in Belgium.

So now they made it clear that Blue Moon is brewed in the the United States (the label would lead you to believe Denver), but not who the brewer is.

Shouldn’t they do that?

Tailgating with beer and cheese

Raise a glass to the Washington Post – or at least sports guy Dan Steinberg.

Each Friday during football season he’s going to recommend an American artisanal cheese for tailgating and have a former co-worker, Jeff Wells, pick American craft beer.

This week Steinberg chooses Red Hawk, an organic washed rind triple creme from California’s Cowgirl Creamery. Cowgirl co-founder Sue Conley suggests a dark or spicy beer with the cheese, noting it is harder to pair with wine (no surprise). The fallback position is Riesling.

Wells picks Allagash White for the first weekend, thinking not so much about the cheese as the fact that “Tailgating on a hot summer day calls for the world’s most thirst-quenching fermented beverage.”

Steinberg promises they’ll compare tailgates on Monday.

25 beers you wouldn’t kick out of the fridge

Another list. This one from Men’s Journal.

It’s received plenty of attention on beer discussion boards – see Rate Beer discussion; Beer Advocate – because notice in such a high profile publication always seems like validation.

It helps that it is a list of very good beers:

1 Firestone Walker Pale Ale
2 Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA
3 Stoudt’s Pils
4 Russian River Temptation
5 Avery Mephistopheles
6 Anderson Valley Boont Amber
7 Great Lakes Holy Moses White Ale
8 Full Sail Session Lager
9 Rogue Brutal Bitter
10 Bell’s Expedition Stout
11 Southampton Double White
12 Smuttynose Big A IPA
13 Penn Weizen
14 Great Lakes Burning River Pale Ale
15 Ommegang Hennepin
16 Samuel Adams Black Lager
17 Sprecher Hefe-Weiss
18 Alaskan Amber
19 Deschutes Broken Top Bock
20 Lost Abbey Avant Garde
21 Jolly Pumpkin Bam Bier
22 Victory St. Victorious Doppelbock
23 Allagash Interlude
24 Alesmith Speedway Stout
25 New Glarus Yokel

I like that it gives extra credit for striking a balance between innovation and tradition.

I like that they made Firestone Walker Pale Ale their No. 1, even if I might prefer the Double Barrel Ale, because the brewery wins medals right and left in blind tastings but can’t seem to get any love from online beer activists.

I like that it is cutting edge – with the funky little (4.6% abv) Bam Biere from the funky little Jolly Pumpkin brewery sneaking in at No. 21. And you can’t be much more up-to-date than Lost Abbey Avant Garde from Port Brewing (a beer that deserves a post of its own – in the next few days).

What I don’t like is the promo on the cover – “25 Greatest American Beers” – or the headline on the story – “25 Best Beers in America.”

What a silly notion. You need only compare the list Men’s Journal published in 2004 to the 2006 list (in 2005 the magazine picked the “Best 50” beers in the world, equally silly).

Only one beer – Alaskan Amber – made the 2004 and 2006 lists. Did everybody else forget how to brew?

No, 12 of the 23 breweries that were on the 2004 list (two breweries had two beers) also made the 2006 list. But instead of calling Deschutes Mirror Pond Ale No. 1, as in 2004, the authors listed Deschutes Broken Top Bock at No. 19.

Instead of honoring Victory Brewing’s Prima Pils – No. 2 in the U.S. in 2004, No. 1 pilsner in the world in 2006 – they singled out Victory St. Victorious Doppelbock (No. 22).

You can’t sell magazines publishing the same list every year. Of course, that’s not altogether bad for the breweries on the list, because it gives them more accolades to promote (one more thing I like about the list).

Still … 25 Greatest?

No. What they really published is a list of “24 really good beers we didn’t write about two years ago and Alaskan Amber.” A job well done, but a lousy headline.

A beer menu that gets it

Anything less than a Singha now would be making Martha Graham do the Hokey Pokey. – From the beer menu at Baan Sawan Thai Bistro in Columbia, S.C.

The State in South Carolina found this beer menu quirky enough to write a story about, and discovered an interesting 27-year-old behind it.

When Sam Suaudom Jr. wrote descriptions the first time around he stuck to more technical descriptions and efforts to describe flavor in conventional ways. Version 5.0 is quite different. Suaudom told State:

“It just seemed like they were asking specifically what was written in there. Well, I should just write what I want.”

So Suaudom, who graduated from the University of South Carolina’s School of Journalism and Mass Communications, went off the deep end with descriptors, employing a pattern of florid, first-person accounts of romantic settings punctuated by a witty twist.

Granted, some of the descriptions have nothing to do with flavor, but Suaudom said beer and wine sales increased from 12 percent to 25 percent of Baan Sawanâ’s total sales since he began making the special menus.

A couple of examples:

Budweiser and Bud Light
Mr. Randall Oxley popped open his Bud and waxed rhapsodic on his current romantic imbroglio. His descriptions were urbane yet ribald and as his companion chortled good naturedly he opened his own beverage. The sound of his Bud Light answered that of the Bud. ‘What should I do?’ Oxley asked. ‘Oh, my good man,’ responded Lord Ottombottom, ‘What shouldn’t you do?’

Baltika #6 Porter
Her eyes cut into me as she poured her #6. It was as dark as her hair and her heart and she eased a finger up the side of the glass to catch an errant drip of froth that had spilled over. I looked away as she licked her finger clean. I drank my own #6 and tried to lose myself in its coffee and chocolate bitterness but my own bitterness was distracting. I hate her so much. But don’t tell her I said that.

Suaudom said a man told him he blushed when reading the description of Baltika. Suaudom didn’t say if he ordered the beer.

Speaking of hops

HopsThe Wall Street Journal has a feature today on fresh hop beers. (it’s a subscription site, but the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a version of the story that works in a pinch).

The story alone is good enough reason to pick up WSJ if you don’t subscribe. One highlight:

The hop infatuation has resulted in a game of chicken among brewers, who have continued their effort to out-bitter the next guy – as evidenced by beer labels that boast mixed hops, extra hops or triple hops. Stone Brewing Co. in Escondido, Calif., calls its Stone Ruination India Pale Ale “a liquid poem to the glory of the hop!” Delaware’s Dogfish Head has pioneered a pair of hop-enhancing technologies, including a “continuous hopping machine” that adds hops gradually over up to two hours of brewing instead of throwing some in at the beginning, middle and end, as is customary. The brewery also invented a method for delivering a final hoppy hit to kegged beer by running it through a hop-stuffed chamber before it hits the pint glass. Dogfish Head calls the device Randall the Enamel Animal, and some bars and beer stores have also started serving “Randalled” beers.

As much as I enjoy geeky hop talk – let’s argue for a moment about if the importance of co-humulone level is overrated – this is a terrific story because it gives the average person an idea of why the flavors are different in such beers.

Randy Mosher, a beer author and instructor at Siebel Institute of Technology, a Chicago brewing school, says there’s little historical precedent for using hops within a few hours of picking. “What people are trying to do with craft beer is put people in touch with their food again, and remind them that they’re drinking an agricultural product,” he says.

Since it is popular sport in the beer press to pick on factual problems with stories from the non-beer press, kudos to this story for reaching out to both the hop experienced and beer novice.

A fresh-hop beer can often, in fact, be less bitter than a corresponding version with dried hops, and instead is powered by floral, citrus tastes. The retained oils line the inside of the mouth and have a tinge of greenish, vegetal flavors. (Many brewers recommend drinking their wet hops with a glass of water.) It’s easy to taste the difference between a normal brew and a fresh-hop version — though that isn’t always a good thing. “If you’re not careful you can end up with a beer that tastes like lawn clippings,” says Garrett Oliver, brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery.

At the end it notes Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher’s Tastings column will return to this space on Sept. 8, indicating this story ran in place of one of the best – and best-read – wine columns in the country. It was written with similar sophistication, the sort of approach that wine afficiandos who talk about “hang time” expect.