Bradford on Beer
On Counting Beer
Posted May 15, 2012 1 Comment | Post a Comment
I found myself scrolling through a blog based on the goal of drinking 100 different beers in a month, an odd variation of the theme behind Julie and Julia. Put me in mind of the old drinking song: Read More…
Beer City USA
Posted May 8, 2012 0 Comments | Post a Comment
For many decades I’ve loved the vibrancy of beer community. Kibitzing on a conversation about beer flavors at a World Beer Festival, buying a round of the newest at Tyler’s Taproom, leaning across a rough wooden table at Bull McCabe’s armed with a Fuller’s London Porter and a lot of opinions, standing up against the wood at the Fed with a pint and friends: I just relish the social fabric created around good beer.
But these are isolated moments in space and time. What about a whole damn town? Now that’s a beer community and one just happens to reside a few hours west of my hometown. Welcome to Asheville, NC, Beer City, U.S.A.
One of my favorite get away locations, Asheville has a vibe that won’t be found many other places. It reminds me somewhat of my former home, Boulder, CO, and another favorite getaway, Portland—Maine or Oregon, take your pick.
The vibe plays right into the heart and soul of good beer culture. Bring together a bunch of artists, toss in some bohemian culture, add in a healthy dose of outdoor recreation, a dash of university life, mix in some good bars and restaurants, and you’ve got the basic dish to pair with craft beer.
At every good beer joint, brewery, brewpub, beer bar, or beer store, the noise is loud. Lexington Avenue Brewery: nice beers, nice food and loud. Craggie Brewing Co.: kinky location, captivating beers, and loud. Bruisin’ Ales: walls of major beers and loud. Every single place I went, the noise was awesome.
And it’s loud on the streets, too. People were walking everywhere. If I asked for directions to a brewery I’d also get a recommendation for a beer to try and a reminder of another brewery not to overlook. And don’t forget the brewery bus tours. I stepped into one offloading at the Asheville Brewing Co. and, man, were those “beer tourers” talking up a beer storm.
That admixture of creativity, bohemia, academics and outdoors speaks directly to craft beer, which is nothing if not artistic and iconoclast. Scratch a backpacker or a painter and you’re likely to find passion for Old World-style ales or New World extreme beers. Characteristics, personality, tradition, heritage, and serious, in your face, originality in every single glass of beer.
What is that all about, and what’s with Asheville? Marketing phrases come to mind: old school “Go for the gusto,” and new buzz phrases like “creative class” and “tipping point.” However, when I’m asked about the vitality of the craft beer industry, I have to think of Asheville and Boulder and Portland (both) and Durham and dozens of others. All the outposts that launched a revolution now taken up by Middle America.
These beers and their town embody the romantic, creative individuality of that edge that everyone is looking for today.
This editorial originally appeared in the November 2010 issue, Vol. 31, No. 5.
The People Business
Posted May 1, 2012 0 Comments | Post a Comment
When we were making plans for this themed issue focused on the people of the craft beer business, we came to an interesting conclusion.
It would be too easy turn this into a celebrity-watcher issue, especially given all the “rock stars” now in our craft brewing industry. Some are so popular they get mobbed at festivals. But, unlike their Hollywood counterparts, there’s not much scandal surrounding our luminaries: they’re just pretty good at getting us great beer.
Furthermore, it would also be too easy for us to claim, like many industries, that “we are a people business” and gloss over the whole idea. After all, most industries require suppliers, wholesalers, retailers and customers—i.e., people. Public relations wizzes love to say their company is in the people business. All true, very true.
Yet the beer industry can, without arrogance, claim to truly be the People Industry for three very simple reasons: camaraderie, community and creativity. I have written often about the first two. There is something about pints of beer that bring people together and, when together, they tend to stay together and act together. Offering to buy someone a beer begins, enhances and extends a relationship.
However, the third leg of the stool, creativity, gets short shrift compared to the relationship elements. In this issue we celebrate the creativity of the people business.
Not too long ago, the American beer business was monolithic. The beers had similar profiles. The companies produced and went to market in a similar format. The focus was on efficiencies, economies of scale, moving boxes and keeping prices down. Creativity rarely strayed beyond the marketing department.
With the 1970s, all of that started falling apart. Enter the creativity of the people business. Just look at the shelves of a well-stocked beer store, crowded with the depth and variety of the brewers’ art.
What the craft brewing community has spawned is a craft culture around craft beer. Amazing numbers of people have stepped up, expanding the dimensions of the craft brewing industry into an elaborate, complex and largely decentralized craft culture, all founded on creativity around craft beer.
They simply take their passion for craft beer and marry it with an activity equally as interesting, transforming it into something creative and special. From beer books to beer dinners, from beer websites to beer travel, from beer reviews to beer gadgets, not a day goes by when we don’t see something innovative, exciting and creative coming from a beer lover.
Where once beer creativity was left to advertising slogans and point of sale, we have now entered the age when creativity joins camaraderie and community as the foundations of our own craft beer culture.
This editorial originally ran in the January 2011 Vol. 31., No. 6 issue.
The Crusade Continues
Posted April 23, 2012 0 Comments | Post a Comment
A few years into my job working for Charlie Papazian, I had become a convert to the complexity, beauty, variety and excitement of beer. My predisposition towards crusading defined my career choices going forward. For nearly three decades I’ve been an advocate of better beer, craft beer, specialty beer—whatever you want to call our oldest beverage. Read More…
On Wine and Great Beer
Posted April 16, 2012 0 Comments | Post a Comment
Craft beer lovers are constantly faced with the world of wine. From aesthetics to bragging rights, we, in some fashion or another, have to come to grips with the other beverage’s role in the universe. It even goes gender with a pretty fun book pitting a celebrated brewer against a wine activist: He Said Beer, She Said Wine. However, I had never really considered the simple possibility of convergence.
This thought was triggered as I sat at one of my favorite bars nursing a Foothills Sexual Chocolate and stared at the chalk board on the back bar. I was trying to figure out what was odd about the board. It listed beers and wines, all in the same color chalk, same handwriting. I kept going back and forth from wine to beer, beer to wine. Shooting Star Chardonnay—Dogfish Head 60 minute IPA. Silver Palm Cab Sauvignon—Highland Gaelic Ale. McWilliams Shiraz—Lost Coast 8 Ball Stout. The lists sounded so alike!
Two days later, as I hosted a Superbowl party, I sat next to a couple of female friends who spent a large part of the third quarter in a hefty debate over the relative merits of the Founder’s Double Trouble that I was serving and their favorite Two Hearted Ale. They even digressed into some comments on Centennial hops vs. Cascade hops. What was startling was that I’ve been to dinner with each of them and their husbands, and both women were pretty passionate about wine. Here they were dissecting the Double Trouble like they would an enjoyable glass of wine.
At my office the next week, as I was considering the possibility of convergence, I got a very interesting package from Matthias Neidhart at B. United containing a bottle of Bracia by Thornbridge Hall. Although I haven’t tasted the beer yet, I look at it several times a day. In an industry known for its traditional, hip, kitschy, and/or outlandish labels, this one is simply riveting for its understated elegance. It looks like a bottle of wine. The paper has amber to purple hues with rich burgundy lettering and a nice stepped back graphic. The back label reads like a well-written beer review, combining aesthetic and technical information.
While I was formulating my thoughts about the possible convergence of aesthetics around quality beverages that promise a rewarding experience I caught a glimpse of a George Clooney movie—ironically, while cutting through an airport lobby. With a slight come-on tilt of the head, Clooney’s character, himself just back from a trip, casually invites the woman next door to stay for a glass of wine. The promise of intimacy is transparent. I wonder what the promise would have been if he’d said beer instead of wine? Backslapping camaraderie?
Can there be a limit for convergence? I don’t think I’ll ever be free of the corner tavern romance of beer. Sitting at a white tablecloth dinner, while eyeing each other through candlelight over a nice double IPA? Done it and loved it, which is the ineffable beauty of beer, its breadth of occasions. I just don’t get that breadth from my wine-loving friends. But, hey, what do I know? I’m in
This editorial originally appeared in May 2011 Issue No. 32, Vol. 2
Trends? I Think Not.
Posted April 5, 2012 0 Comments | Post a Comment
A series of recent beer bar experiences challenged, in my mind, any idea of “trends” for the craft beer industry. I dropped by a pretty cool beer bar, the Busy Bee, for its 2nd anniversary celebration. The rare beer on that night was something made by Spike at Terrapin, which included maple syrup—Spike only agreed to work with Busy Bee if they aged it for a year.
Earlier in the day I’d fielded a question from our local weatherman about how to get beer educated. I’d suggested visiting a favorite multi-tap, Flying Saucer, and having the staff walk him through some style flights, as anyone who works there could guide him through a crash course.
Musing over these diverse experiences, I headed to a once-favorite watering hole that I’d abandoned due to lack of good choice and a poor line-cleaning regimen. Two towers of a half dozen taps each greeted me, both sporting a range of local craft favorites and some international gems.
These incidents percolated through my brain as I followed one of our Facebook threads on today’s beer trends. The contributors predicted the fading of the light lager, the overwhelming domination of extreme beers, the ruination of major breweries’ attempts at making craft-style beers and the limited viability of session beers, among a few dozen other trend predictions.
What is a trend? Dictionary definition: A general direction in which something is developing and changing. The opposite, a fad, is something ephemeral, or dictated from the top down. Think about fashion for that one.
The fruit beer trend? Still here. The can fad? Way past a trend now. Barrel aging trend? Going strong. The future of the four pack couldn’t be brighter. Trend for session beer? Taking off. 22oz bomber trend? The shelves are overflowing. And on and on.
As craft beer sales grow into the double digits and relentlessly pursue the magic threshold of 10 percent of the market, the notion of a trend seems rather facile. This has been an industry transformation, with whole segments of the market, and the industry, affected.
The essence of this trend, of this sea change, lies in the consumers’ aesthetic. The industry continues to add new layers to the experience of beer, of craft beer; layers that continue to provide an ever-expanding range of opportunity for our customers to experience beer pleasure.
Sure multi-taps were the rage in the past decade and now extreme beer bars seem de rigueur, but the multi-taps are still kicking it, just like the corner bars now stock craft beer. There are more after-work experiences for an increasing range of experiences. The beer world just keeps expanding—more breweries, more beers, more beer styles, more bars, more taps, more shelf space.
On another note, I wish to observe a milestone. After being in the middle of all the challenges and tumult of the rapid growth of the magazine, editor Julie Johnson is stepping out of the fray, while dedicating herself to maintaining our standards of excellence and continuing to writing for us.
As contributing editor, Julie will continue to provide guidance on the editorial direction of our work, and oversee its quality. In her already well-established role, Julie will collaborate with team members ensuring that the tradition of quality and excellence endure into the future.
In addition to maintaining this oversight, Julie will continue to contribute award-earning writing. Presently the beer writer for the local weekly newspaper, Julie also contributes to several industry publication providing overviews on the beer industry in general, and the craft brewing industry in particular. Several of her articles in this publication have garnered the highest industry awards.
This editorial originally appeared in July 2011, Vol. 32. No. 3
The Unifying Power Of Beer
Posted March 23, 2012 0 Comments | Post a Comment
For the longest of time, the exclusive provenance craft beer movement lay with the adventuresome Americans. Read More…
Accelerating Change
Posted March 1, 2012 1 Comment | Post a Comment
I’m old enough to have a firm grasp on the former monoculture of beer. Read More…
Some Great Festival News
Posted September 23, 2011 1 Comment | Post a Comment
This year’s World Beer Festival – Durham has a few surprises for Triangle beer lovers.
To begin with, we’re making some changes for the North Carolina breweries. We’ve set up a special tent just for our state’s own breweries with the help of Anna Lockhart, the President of the North Carolina Brewers Guild. Also, we will be making a donation to the Guild for every beer brought to the Festival from North Carolina breweries. If you really want to get a slice of drinking local, be sure to check out that tent.
Secondly, we have a couple special guests visiting our part of the world. Roger Protz, editor of the Good Beer Guide and author of more than twenty books on beer, will be joining us from England. On a research trip for his next book on barrel-aged beers, Roger will be giving a couple presentations on the history and the aesthetics of IPAs in the Beer Education tent
Along with Roger we have another very special guest, a long time friend of mine, Doug Odell of Odell Brewing, Ft. Collins, CO. Brewer of some of the country’s finest and most intriguing beers, Doug will be behind his booth providing samples of his beers and insights into his magic. These are really extraordinary beers and not easily found east of the Mississippi River.
A third guest will also be flying in from Boulder, CO—Julia Herz from the Brewers Association and CraftBeer.com. Julia will be putting together a beer/food “smackdown”: four brewers will try to pair their beers with a special food item prepared by local beer/food restaurateur Charlie Deal of Dos Perros and Jujube fame.
We also have a few surprise guest breweries joining our list of presenters. Once again, Deschutes will have several of its much sought after beers for sampling. For years I’ve tried to describe the special characteristics of Deschutes beers, without luck. They simply have a profile that is highly complex, very well integrated and exceedingly bright. Hailing from Bend, OR, Deschutes has balanced a deep portfolio of classic styles with a wide range of exotic and innovative. Known for their skills with hops, Deschutes beers are coveted by beer lovers across the country.
Sure to catch dedicated any beer lover’s eye is the inclusion of Kuhnhenn Brothers Brewing Company. A former hardware company-turned-brewery, these brothers have been putting out some seriously interesting beers, building an almost cult-like following in the Michigan beer world.
Another brewery joining the festival line-up is the well-known Wynkoop Brewery, from Denver, CO, who have been thrilling beer drinkers for 20 years with their unusual Rail Yard Ale. A favorite brewpub for everyone making the trek to the Great American Beer Festival, Wynkoop also was the springboard for Colorado’s present governor, John Hickenlooper and the home of the annual Beer Drinker of the Year competition.
A perennial favorite of mine, Boulevard Brewery, Kansas City, MO, will make its inaugural trip to the Triangle. An early pioneer in the craft beer renaissance, Boulevard Brewery built a business around some very assertive classic styles before venturing out into the beer magic with their renowned Smoke Stack Series, a collection of very intriguing beers. I tend to gravitate to their maltier beers like Bully! Porter and Dry Stout.
Making a return trip from Wisconsin, we have the celebrated New Glarus Brewery. Run by an amazing husband and wife team, Deb and Dan Carey, New Glarus rules the roost in Wisconsin with beers ranging from the highly accessible Spotted Cow to the much-decorated Wisconsin Belgian Red. Lip smacking.
Just in, Summit Brewery from Minnesota is joining the festival line-up. Celebrating 25 years in the craft beer industry, Summit has built its business on well-executed classic beer styles like their Summit Extra Pale Ale and Great Northern Porter. To this they have recently added the Unchained series of small batch exotic beer styles.
What makes these guest beers so exciting is the opportunity for us to show them the passion of our beer market. Many years ago, Stoudt’s Brewery came down from Pennsylvania to one of our WBFs and ended up setting up distribution here. Many breweries, like Yuengling, New Belgium, Great Lakes and Full Sail tested the market by sampling their beers at the World Beer Festival.
Let’s show our guest breweries why this market remains one of the hottest good beer markets in the country and how we can help them break into it with success.
Breaking news: There is a good chance that Wolfram Koehler of Crescent City Brewhouse, New Orleans, LA, might be visiting as part of an RV tour of the Southeast and bring his fantastic Pils.
A Day of Casks
Posted September 19, 2011 0 Comments | Post a Comment
What makes a perfect Saturday afternoon? For me it was being holed up in a fabulous joint with a bunch of beer lovers and brewers sampling from 10 local casks. Oh, and I can’t leave out the great food and the great weather.
This is the second year for General Manager Derrick Smith and the Wooden Nickel’s cask event. The bar was totally covered with casks sitting there like an invading army taking hostages. All About Beer Magazine graciously contributed cradles, jackets and taps for all ten of the casks.
The Wooden Nickel is a pretty small bar—it can’t seat over 50 inside and has some ample sidewalk seating. Given it’s on the main drag of this quaint Hillsborough, NC, town, this makes for a fantastic setting, especially on a beautiful Saturday afternoon.
The casks easily fell into three groupings.
Some brewers elected to do be dramatic—some subtle—depending on your point of view. LoneRider Brewing Company added chipotle to their brown ale and Foothills Brewing added chocolate and mint to their porter. Beer wags quickly saw the value of pairing these beers – hot and cool. Fullsteam looked to Thailand for their inspiration taking their summer basil and adding ginger and lemon grass.
What really got everyone talking was the extent of the impact these ingredients had on the cask beer. To a brewer, these casks recipes went for subtle and were not pronounced. Granted, if you were a newbie to the creativity of brewers you might be put out but the nature of these beers. I found them all delightfully enjoyable and intriguing. There was a group of us who tried each and then had a lively conversation about the cask beer we sampled.
Another category could be those that added an ingredient that enhanced the innate characteristics of the style. A special treat was the Aviator Brewing Company’s Hot Rod Red, which was infused with pomegranates It was a slightly brash, fruity ale thanks to the pomegranates. Mother Earth Brewing’s Sisters of the Moon, which featured an addition of juniper berries, also caught me off guard. Again, the nose, strong on juniper, seemed tasty yet inexplicably jaw-dropping and caused me to stop mid-tasting until I read the word “juniper” on the chalk board and “got” the flavor. Simply delightful. Eric Myers, owner/brewer of the future Mystery Brewing brought a cask of his 90 shilling, Scottish Ale which included a “boatload” of heather tips to bring out the herbal flavors. It did clock in at a very surprising 3.2% alcohol, a perfect session beer.
The next big collection of casks was the exact opposite—brewers who made classic cask ale. Take the Harvest Time from Big Boss Brewing, a gorgeous beer in its own right, but put it on cask with the softer mouthfeel and floral aroma, and you’ve stepped it up quite a bit. Yet, another twist came from Olde Hickory Brewery who stayed within the classic parameters but took some bold steps with the dry hopping of their Table Rock Pale Ale with El Dorado (hints of watermelon?) and Falconers Flight, and a twist of toasted oak to hint at the pale ale roots. Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery had brought its Amber, dry hopped with Chinook. However there was a technical problem with the cask so samples were sparse.
Thousand regrets, but I overlooked Natty Greene’s Barley Wine. I thought I’d run all the casks but realized, by the time I’d gotten home, that I’d missed this big beer. However, since they have two brewpubs and a distributing brewery, it shouldn’t be too hard to find the basic style, and I’m sure it will show up on cask at one of the breweries.
I imagine Derrick Smith is planning on a No. 3. Put a tickler on your calendar for this next year. If you’re a fan of cask ale, don’t miss the World Cask Ale Festival at the Trotter Building, Durham, NC—a benefit for Durham Central Park. Tickets now on sale by going to durhamcentralpark.org and clicking through the “Meals from the Market.
See you there.
