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 tiome 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.

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.

More California (Finally!)

Okay, I was distracted for the last few days by work, you know, the stuff that actually pays the mortgage. And also by Vietnam. And the Bismark. But before my northern and southern California trip becomes too much a fading memory, a couple of more posts on the subject, beginning with this one.

I participated in two beer fests while I was in the San Francisco Bay area, although neither was in San Francisco proper. Likewise, neither was what I thought would be a huge draw.

I was very wrong.

The Double IPA Festival at The Bistro in Hayward was a shockingly well-attended event, with the street outside the bar closed to traffic and 58 beers being poured. (Yes, you read that right, 58 so-called “double” IPAs, even if one or two would be better characterized as ordinary IPAs.) Having never been to The Bistro before, much less for one of its fests, I had no idea what to expect, but was still stunned by the crowds. At times, it was difficult to move through the crowds, they were so dense.

Two days later, having survived watching the Super Bowl with a crowd of bartenders, I attended an even more unlikely event, Sour Monday at Triple Rock and Jupiter in Berkeley, where a mere 55 sour beers were poured, 19 of them on tap. And again, while the crowds weren’t quite what they were at The Bistro, there were still a lot of people in attendance, to sample beers that a decade ago you would have trouble even giving away!

Such is the evolution of beer in northern California, that may you now draw big crowds for high test, highly hopped ales and a variety of brews inoculated with Brettanomyces and other wee beasties. I tell you, it does my heart proud!

Another Pause in My California Reportage: Vietnam!

Courtesy of the National Restaurant Association’s “SmartBrief” newsletter, I direct you to an upcoming New York Times Travel section story on the surprisingly robust beer scene in Vietnam. The author, Russ Juskalian, tells a fascinating tale of a beer trip through the “long slender” land, centering on Hanoi and revelling all the way at the sheer “unexpectedness” of it all.

While Mr. Juskalian’s interpretation of the brewing process may be a little less than spot on – beer that is “made before the sun rises, and often imbibed before the sun sets”? – what I found most remarkable about this mainstream story was the way he writes about the beer he samples on his journey. Can anyone here imagine even five years ago a major media story describing a beer as having a “bitter hops flavor somewhere between a typical Czech pilsner and a Munich-style lager”? Or mentioning for context the “double I.P.A.’s, imperial stouts and other high-alcohol, high-impact beers popular with American craft brewers”?

As Uncle Jack – who found this story apparently moments before I did – notes, “how the world do change over time.”

We Interrupt This Trip for the Following Observations

• “Sink the Bismark.” Oy! Will these boys never stop? Next up, almost for certain: 42%+ from Schorschbräu.
• I like the new Ranger IPA from New Belgium. Not unconditionally, but in a surprised, “hey! this is from New Belgium?” kind of way. And I like this video, in an admittedly cheesy, lowbrow, white-guys-rapping kind of way. Jeff Alworth does not.
• And speaking of Mr. Alworth’s observations and opinions, “a little brand-forward for my tastes”? As if craft brewers should be above marketing their beers? C’mon, Jeff, it’s a mature market out there and surviving means selling.
• Those who are regularly asking me about craft distilling and how to learn it should check out the American Distilling Institute’s 7th Whiskey & Moonshine Distilling Conference at Huber’s Starlight Distillery in Borden, Indiana, from May 2 – 5, 2010.
• I’m not in the habit of giving gratuitous ink to upcoming events, but this cheese and beer dinner in West Chester, Pennsylvania, looks too good and too good a value to pass up. If you’re in or planning to be in the area, and you’re not lactose intolerant, you owe it to yourself to check it out.