Bradford on Beer
A beer landed on my desk
Posted February 25, 2009 3 Comments | Post a Comment
This will be different. Instead of acting like a writer and laboring over a piece with various staff members looking over my shoulder to make sure I’m not a complete idiot, I want to tell you about this cool beer I just had, that would be 3:00 p.m. EST. Like I said recently, nice life I’ve got.
Mad River Brewing Co. has just put out Serious Madness Seasonal Black Ale. Julie and Greg raised the obvious question; “When is a black ale not a stout or porter?” What a cool question.
First, it pours like a porter with amber highlights, a tan head and brown/black body. I didn’t pick up much in the aroma, but then again that seems to be an on-going problem for me. The hops are all German or Czech. The bittering hops, Magnum, are descendants from Hallertau.
The Black Ale tastes like a very dry porter, without the body in the middle. It’s sort of a fruity, Kulmbacker style Schwartz bier. Randy wrote about something like this is our magazine quite a while ago. There’s a slight taste of fruit in the beginning and that espresso dryness in the ending. I’m sucking for words again, readers.
I am registering for the Siebel course coming up in March and hope to have a better vocabulary after that. I also need to get over to Top of the Hill for some taste tutoring with John Withey. He’s always had some great observations on taste. Then there’s Randy’s book that I’ve just started.
Stay tuned for my attempts to train my palate. By the way, I’m still working on the Extreme Beer Festival post, slacker that I am!!
Triangle Cask Ale at Tyler’s
Posted February 23, 2009 2 Comments | Post a Comment
We run our business a little differently, something you can do if you publish a magazine about beer and put on events about beer. We have two staff meetings a week — Monday morning sets the week up and Friday afternoon closes it, which we do every week at Tyler’s Taproom, Durham’s largest multitap bar. Nearly every Friday after 3:30, the staff of All About Beer Magazine and the World Beer Festival are found there checking out what’s new and catching up with each other about the week. Not too shabby.
Recently there was a treat. Triangle Brewing Co had two beers on cask: 100th batch IPA and Best of Both Worlds Stout that included chocolate, coffee and raspberries.
Earlier in the day, Ola and I had swung by my house to pick up some soft spiles for the casks. While there we paused for a half pint of cask Singleton from Top of the Hill Brewery & Restaurant. As we stood in the sun room, each with a glass of an exceedingly beautiful beer, we both commented on how beer makes great moments perfect.
I’ve been a passionate fan of cask ale before I really knew it. One a trip to Great Britain in the early 1980s I had spent a couple evenings in small out of the way pubs. The Lamb & Flag might have been one if memory serves well, where the local tipplers had goaded the Yank in to drinking “warm” and “flat” ale. I’d fallen in love with the flavor, although it was years before I came to know what it was that I’d been drinking.
I’m sorry I can’t remember the time and place when I “got” cask ale. No doubt it was with either Michael Jackson or Roger Protz on some English junket. It remains one of my favorite ways to enjoy beer. Cask ale has much in common with fresh bread out of the oven. Served at cellar temperature (low 50 degrees) and pulled with a pump rather than pushed with CO2, it tastes soft, rich, and complex. More often dry-hopped, the aroma and finish of cask ales can be a sensory feast. However, the name of the game is always subtlety.
The Singleton, made from just one malt and one hops (brewer John Withey told me it’s pale malt and Liberty, including Liberty in the dry hop), was rich without being daunting. It poured very golden. I do have a sparkler on the hand pump so the glass had a large but soft, head. Very full without being heavy. It has a slightly candy sweetness on the beginning with a long floral finish, not astringent in the slightest.
When the staff closed up shop for the week and arrived at Tyler’s, a small band had already gathered, led by Rick and Andy of Triangle Brewing Co. Our style writer Keith Klemp showed up, as did a few members of our Triangle WBF Brew Crew. Sean Wilson, of the soon-to-open Fullsteam Brewery, arrived. All in all, it was a gathering of some of the town’s passionate beer community.
As for Rick and Andy’s cask ales, they were a nice surprise for just another Friday at Tyler’s. They couldn’t be on stilage for longer than about 6 hours and they just had gravity pouring taps. Having had the cask Singleton earlier, Ola and I found the differences intriguing.
First and foremost, Rick and Andy’s beers didn’t throw such a large head and they had much more carbonation held in the beer. Since they’d only recently been set up, they couldn’t pour as bright, either. Having said that, they both were enjoyable beers.
I preferred the IPA over the stout, which seemed to have a little something for everyone (see above) . The IPA had a rich balance with a strong fruit at the beginning and an offsetting dryness on the finish. It barely lingered, too, making the next taste, the next pint, equally exciting and enjoyable. The stout showed off the special ingredients well, you could taste each without them competing for center stage.
And I guess we liked it. My credit card bill at the end of the evening had 10 stouts and 12 IPAs on it, plus a handful of other beers tossed in. Like I said, Friday afternoons are pretty cool around here.
A Big Beer Ladder
Posted February 12, 2009 2 Comments | Post a Comment
Quite often being the publisher of a beer magazine is just too cool. Like yesterday. The public relations people from one of my all time favorite brewers, Boston Beer, sent me a box half the size of my desk. In it were three four-packs of their “Imperial Series,” each bottle individually wrapped.
And I’m thinking; “What an opportunity to sit around the table with the AABM and WBF staff and drink beer!” Like, duh!
Imperial Wit, Double Bock, and Imperial Stout. The beer wags among you might arch an eyebrow at this listing. Let’s see. Taking a delicate beer like a wit and “imperialzing” it? Why a double bock and not doppelbock? Where’s the Russian in that Imperial Stout?
From my understanding of the beer people at Boston Beer, they really like exploring the boundaries. They don’t have a problem jumping in with their specialty beers. Style progenitors are one goal; making a difference in the beer community is another.
I gathered Ola from the World Beer Festival, Greg from All About Beer Magazine, and Steve the company Vice President around the conference table and started pouring. My thinking was to go from small to medium to big, which I guessed based on the style names.
Mistake number one, readers.
First came the Imperial White, which was huge even at a distance. You can see the viscosity and within a few inches of your face, bam, floral/grassy nose with hints of alcohol. Mouthfeel is largely alcohol. Curacao is very noticeable. Nothing delicate with this huge beer and not very wheaty.
Says Steve: “First wheat beer I’ve ever liked.” Can taste the 10.3% right away. Greg pushed a metaphor: ”First there was the Great White, then came the Imperial White. A big body beer that chases the little ones away.”
The beer has a very viscous texture, unlike most wheat beers, which are very light and flavorful. This one is about alcohol, lots of alcohol. Sweet and alcoholic while retaining the signature wheat tartness.
The Double Bock was a bigger challenge. While burgundy and copper in appearance, it had the same alcoholic nose, a big alcoholic nose like the White. There’s some caramel, but not very much, simply not cloying at all. There is a hint of raisin, but pretty much the alcohol has taken over. Is there a sequence issue, going from a standstill to Imperial White, then from Imperial White to Double Bock?
On to the Imperial Stout.
A beautiful beer, our first observation had to do with it being less rough than standard Russian Imperial Stouts. A lot more balanced with a toffee, espresso nose. The alcohol is covered up with the malt bill. The taste was redolent with burnt toast and none of the molasses and licorice that seems the signature of the style. (Remember, the label didn’t say Russian Imperial Stout, just Imperial Stout, although it does reference the historical background of the style.) It was the lightest of the bunch. Very dry finish, very long and comfortable finish like a good espresso.
Now, for mistake number two.
Back to the Double Bock after a few minutes and it tastes much richer and fuller, with more candy, less alcohol burn, more texture, more toasted nuts, a greater sense of fireplace and armchair. Did it open up over time or is just another example of beer sequencing problems? Julie, Editor of All About Beer Magazine, and I had tested some sequencing problems one evening at Tyler’s discovering some amazing influences. She had assigned an article on sequencing to Lew Bryson, contributing a sidebar from that evening tasting herself. Again, room temperature or time for our mouths to settle down from the exotic ride of the Stout?
Another beer flavor muddle.
The Four Events of Sexual Chocolate!
Posted February 11, 2009 2 Comments | Post a Comment
I went to a limited release party, my first, at Foothills Brewery, down the street in Winston Salem for the release of Sexual Chocolate in bottles. What an event! Actually four events linked together. Prior to the release of Sexual Chocolate, Foothills Brewery hosted what could only be called a beer swap, which became a spontaneous festival, followed a few hours later by the lining up party out front and the Selling of the Beer, and then filling up the put for an afternoon of socializing and beer camaraderie.
The limited release was the bottled version, which Foothills, a draft only brewery, had done just for that day. Drew Barton, Brewermaster at French Broad, drove to Foothills with his bottler and labored the full day helping to bottle all 600. Also, there was a growler of 2007 on hand, and a few pitchers of 2008. Great vertical opportunity.
Jaime Bartholemew makes Sexual Chocolate using cocoa nibs not chocolate as other notable chocolate beers brewers do, which gives it a dryer flavor. The growler of the 2007 poured a beautiful beer that had sharp accents of flavors which could only have been from the nibs. The nibs come directly from the bean, which is rather fragile once the skin is removed. Pleasantly dry, but not hop or chocolate malt astringent. Readers, here’s an example of a complete failure of language. Randy, Garrett and Steve, where are you when I need you!
The 2008 on the other hand was very well rounded. One wag suggested the 2007 had been taken care of very well and hadn’t “aged” like the 2008 did. As for the 2009, describe rich without heavy, brown without black, toast without burnt.
The evening before the beer went on sale Foothills opened up the mezzanine above the restaurant section. Beer geeks gathered after lugging in some of their rare gems. With pitchers of Sexual Chocolate prominently placed on each table, the beer cognoscenti settled in and began pulling out some fantastic delights from their cases and coolers.
One of the many tables covered with beers for tasting and swapping
The noise was more akin to a cocktail party then a beer fest, except instead of kids’ school issues or stock market performance there was only one subject: Beer!
Bottles are opened with church key or corkscrew and the beer flows. It’s a beer swap, but more so the tastes then the bottles. People wandered from table to table handing out samples of their favorite.
A few just ensconced themselves at table tasting what table mates had brought or what landed in front of them. Interestingly, one table had everyone taking notes in notepads, while the adjacent table was exclusively PDAs of all stripes.
This was a different world for me. I’d come of beer-age through the homebrew community via Charlie Papazian, and I thought I knew beer geeks or beer nurds. You know the sort of beer lover that brewpubs would ban from their place because of the arguments. Well here was a floor full of extreme beer lovers as if in response to the extreme beer movement. Jaime introduced me to a guy who has over 6,000 reviews on Ratebeer! There was even a card carrying rocket engineer, Joan Trolinger.
The whole mezzanine scene changed about 8:00 p.m. All of a sudden what had been a mild manner, but enthusiastic beer swap, became a spontaneous beer festival. The mezz filled up with bubbling, brimming, beer people with bottles to share. Everyone had a thrill they wanted to share. I ran into the brewer from Liberty who had a Kellerbier to share that was mouth watering and something sort of like a lambic. Jeff Levine, Carolina Craft Distributing, had some fun things from Moylan’s.
No I still haven’t figured out how to keep track of the flavor I experience. I even tried writing in my PDA. Check this out. “Prior ti the rekease of Sexual Chicilate” Now that’s brilliant writing, Readers.
Jaime visited the line of people that snaked around the brewery
The next morning, saw a line up of over 100 people, stretching around the building out through the parking lot, well over 7 hours in advance of the doors opening. Ray and Cornelia, our stalwart North Carolinian consecutive Beer Drinker of the Year, were visiting up and down the line. Cornelia touted a bottle of Brasserie d’Achouffe Coffee Liquor from which she distributed samples. There was a contingent from the World Beer Festival — Columbia Brew Crew, yukking it up at 8:00 a.m., with bottles of beers from across the country. Amazing. The party from the night before was now in it’s third version.
When the doors opened the No. 1 bottle went to Shane Murray who’d left work in Cincinnati, hopped in his car, arriving at the brewery at 4:00 am and not budging till he’d got his hands on that number one bottle.
After seven hours of waiting Shane gets an autograph from the brewer for the #1 bottle of Sexual Chocolate
Needless to say the 600 bottles didn’t make it through the whole line. However, that seemed a moot point as the crowd of beer enthusiasts filled up the brew pub and the fourth party took off. Every table was filled with beer lovers, recently purchased bottles of Sexual Chocolate, and mugs of Foothills beers.
These are the moments that make my job really spectacular.
