Beer Cruise News

While space continues to fill fast on my autumn beer cruise on the Rhine, I’ve decided to “un-sticky” may last story on it, primarily because I’m tired of seeing it every time I log on to the site. So if the notion of a luxury beer cruise in October − at decidedly non-luxury prices! − strikes your fancy, please follow this link (or this one) for more info. Otherwise, please enjoy the blog.

A Worthy Stairway

A call to come to Tampa Bay to judge rums is not a call to be ignored, and so yesterday morning I boarded a southbound flight that brought me, after a lengthy wait at Budget Rent-a-Car and a 90 or so minute drive, to Sarasota. The rum could wait until the morrow; last night was for beer!

More specifically, it was for beer at the six week old Stairway to Belgium bar and restaurant in downtown Sarasota. Opened by Philadelphia lawyer turned Sarasota restaurateur Jim Keaveney, Stairway is an obvious labor of love with a mission of bringing quality beer to an area not necessarily known for it. (I was told that I missed the main thrust of Spring Break by a week, but its memory remains.) And here’s the good news: it’s a mission that largely works!

According to Jim, getting the region’s beer distributors on board has not been a uniformly easy task, but he’s been successful enough that the beer list will not disappoint any devotee. Neither will the menu, I might add, with its excellent waterzooi, delicious rabbit stew and flavourful but a bit too stew-like carbonade. (I had a sampler of the three, organized for me by Jim but I strongly suspect about to join the regular menu.) Washed down with a selection of beers ranging from St. Somewhere’s rather unconventional “saison,” Lectio Divina, to good old reliable St. Bernardus Abt 12, it was indeed aa very pleasant way to spend the night, an opinion obviously shared by the dozens of people who flooded the place round about 10:00.

Maybe not quite Belgium, but as close as you’re going to get to it on the Florida panhandle.

Is the Economy Really to Blame, MillerCoors?

One of the web info services I subscribe to is just-drinks.com, a British-based site that covers drinks industry news primarily from a trade perspective. It’s a terrific operation and one occasionally gifted with razor-sharp insight. Like when editor Olly Wehring made the following observation this morning:

The continuing slide in beer sales in the US will not stop until more people are back in work – that has been the message since the turn of the year from industry leaders Anheuser-Busch InBev and MillerCoors.

“Until the economy shows some money in the pocket of our key beer drinkers, we’ve got a challenge,” said MillerCoors CEO Leo Kiely in the group’s full-year results conference call (http://www.just-drinks.com/article.aspx?id=99789) last month.

And yet, small-time craft brewers continue to report figures that are apparently untouched by the general market malaise. According to figures announced last week, sales of craft beer in the country rose by 7% in volume and 10% in value in 2009 (http://www.just-drinks.com/article.aspx?id=100081). That compares pretty favourably to 2% volume sales falls for A-B InBev and MillerCoors over the same period.

Granted, craft beers are working off a much smaller base and only constitute 4% of US beer market volume. But, looking at the disparity between the sales figures for 2009, is it really only the economy that is holding back the heavyweights?

(Note: You need be a registered member to follow the first link and a full member for the second.)

Indeed, it is worth asking why sales in one segment are falling while in another, albeit small segment, things are positively booming. Could it be, oh, I don’t know, maybe…taste!?!?

Good News From De Dolle

Thanks to a translation of the news from the De Dolle website, courtesy of Glenn Castelein of Picobrouwerij Alvinne, I can now report that the fire at De Dolle wasn’t nearly as bad as it appeared in the news clip linked below. Here’s the gist of it all:

A hot water tank caught fire.

Part of the structure has burned out; there is also damage to the new roof. The bottling and brewing are intact as well as the tank room.

It will delay bottling of Oerbier and Arabier. De Dolle Bos Keun and Oerbier Reserva are, however, available for sale.

The “oerbar” has smoke damage so the bar has been moved to the former brewhouse. Tours will continue (miraculously?!).

Spread the word.

P.S.: The “seriously injured” is already at home and will come back Monday.

Consider the word spread, Kris.

De Dolle Shocker

There has been an explosion and fire at the much-respected De Dolle Brouwers in Belgium. Apparently a fuel tank blew up, injuring one employee but to what extent is unknown. From the look of this video, however, the damage appears extensive.

Our thoughts are with Dolle owner Kris Herteleer, his family, his employees and especially the injured worker and his or her family. More details will be posted here as they become available.

While I’ve Been Working…

Lots of stuff on the go these days: the normal workload of articles and columns, ‘natch, plus a pretty cool Toronto project that will be revealed here in due course. But while I sit at my desk typing furiously, much has been happening Stateside in the world of beer, such as…

• The Brewers Association reveals that craft beer sales in 2009 were up over 7% from the previous year! This is a phenomenal success story in light of what was happening to the economy at the time, and…
• The National Beer Wholesalers Association were quick to cheer the growth, issuing a statement that “applauds America’s craft brewers for their continued growth and entrepreneurial spirit, which adds energy to the American beer industry.” Now, who do you think those distributors want to support? Surely not…
• Anheuser-Busch InBev, who are seeking a license in Illinois as part of its move to purchase the state’s largest distributor of Budweiser and other A-B products, a move opponents say would “undermine the state’s three-tier system, which requires manufacturers to sell to wholesalers, which sell to stores and bars.” And speaking of distributors, they are rapidly finding themselves in the middle of a shitstorm in…
• Pennsylvania, where some overzealous enforcement of the state’s beer registration law and possibly a vendetta against one particular couple have brought about an atmosphere of dread that has seen beers seized, others not released and still others put on hold for the time being. But like I noted at the outset, I’ve been busy of late, so you’ll have to check out Jack’s and Lew’s and Lew’s other blogs to get the whole story.

With Apologies to Stan, Does Lambic Have an Appellation?

My friend Stan Hieronymus runs a blog called Appellation Beer, subtitled “in search of the soul of beer,” in which he pursues the theory that it does matter where a beer is brewed, much as it matters where a wine is “grown,” although perhaps not as acutely.

I’m unsure as to whether I agree completely with Stan’s theory that appellation matters in beer – I tend more towards the view that it matters, and emphatically so, where a beer is consumed, more than where it is brewed – but there is one style for which we are on the same side: lambic. Or at least I think we are.

Brewed from at least one-third unmalted wheat, spiced with aged hops and, perhaps most importantly, spontaneously fermented, lambic is an ancient style still produced to any significant degree in only one place, the Payottenland of Belgium, located principally in the Senne River valley around Brussels. Fermented by air-borne microflora, as well as resident bacteria from the barrels in which the beer is conditioned for up to three years, traditional lambics are indeed the champagnes of the beer world: dry, complex, often tart creations of great character and substance.

Thing is, they are no longer alone in the world of spontaneous fermentation. This Friday, at the Nacht van de Grote Dorst (“Night of Large Thirst) in the Belgian town of  Eizeringen, Allagash Brewing of Portland, Maine, will be pouring not one, but four spontaneously fermented beers of their own: Spontaneous (lambic style), Coolship Red (with raspberries), Coolship Cerise (with cherries) and Resurgam (gueuze style). Inoculated with microflora from the Maine air rather than from the atmosphere of the Payottenland, these beers are viewed as “lambic-style” rather than true lambics by event organizer Yves Panneels because they lack the influence of the “specific micro-organisms in the air in and around Brussels.”

I tend to agree, although a niggling part of my brain also sides with Cantillon patriarch Jean-Pierre Van Roy, who once told me that lambic could be brewed and fermented anywhere providing that the wheat content, aged hops and spontaneous fermentation requirements were met. So the question remains, does lambic have an appellation? And the corollary, which matters more, process or microflora?

(For the record, Allagash is emphatic about their beers “honouring the lambic tradition” rather than being true lambics.)

Just in Case You’re Wondering

If you have run across the new book, 1001 Beers You Must Taste Before You Die, and are wondering as to the identity of this curious and uncredited reviewer, “SB,” responsible for the prose on such beers as King Pilsner and La Choufe, well, wonder no longer. ‘Tis I.

The mix up came when General Editor Adrian Tierney-Jones asked me for my bio notes while I was en route to Denver for last year’s GABF and a rather unfortunate encounter with a bad oyster. In the ensuing gastrointestinal turmoil, I neglected to respond to him and he forgot to remind me further, so my entry on the Contributors page was left out.

Which reminds me, I promised Adrian a proper bio note for when the book goes to reprint. Best get on that…

You Think That’s a Winter Storm? Now THIS Is a Winter Storm…

As I type these words, the snow is flying outside my downtown Toronto office window, incredibly the first legitimate storm of the winter for us. But I’m reminded of another Winter Storm, capitalization intended, a warmer, rainier and altogether more delicious one.

(Storm not exactly as illustrated)

It took place in Escondido, about a half-hour drive north of San Diego, at the Stone Brewing Company’s World Bistro & Gardens, and much like what is occurring presently in Toronto, takes place but once a year. It is, or rather was, the Stone Winter Storm, during which all 37 taps and casks at the World Bistro are turned over to present and former Stone beers, like 2005 Double Bastard Ale and Oaked Arrogant Bastard and the 7^th, 8^th, 9^th, 12^th and 13^th Anniversary Ales. And if all that weren’t enough, they also roll out a bottle list of particular note, which this included beers as old as the 2004 editions of both Old Guardian Barley Wine and Double Bastard.

Did I have fun? Hell yes I did!

I could offer copious tasting notes on what I tried that day, like the herbaceously perfumey, cardamom-accented 07.07.07 Vertical Epic Ale or the 2008 Old Guardian, aged in red wine barrels for a fuller, rounder and fruitier character, but that would seem to be gloating, wouldn’t it? (Oh, I just did what I said I wouldn’t? Sorry about that.) Better to offer the following advice for next year:

Watch the website and plan for the 2011 Winter Storm. You won’t be sorry.

Listen to This Man: He Speaks the Truth, Pt. II

You know by now that I have a bug up my ass about beer style, believing that while the basics still apply, pretty much everything else is fabrication and wishful thinking. And a while back, in the unidentified Pt. I of what seems now bound to become a series, I commended Joe “Not Strange” Stange, the Thirsty Pilgrim, for his keen observations.

Today, let us shift our gaze to the Czech Republic, where Max, the Pivní Filosof, or Beer Philosopher, offers some truthful words about the so-called “Imperial” pilsner style:

WOW!!! A strong Pale Lager!!! How innovative! How come nobody had ever (thought of) it before?!?!

Wait a second! They have! And long ago. Here you have two examples from the Czech Republic: Primátor Rytířský (at) 21% (Plato) and 9% ABV and Jihlavksý Grand with 18º Plato and 8% ABV, both have been brewed for quite a long time, already.

Thank you, Max, for an observation that I’m kicking myself for not having made long ago.