Rock Art

Getting back into this has been harder than I expected and it doesn't help that work has seemingly blocked all blogspot pages. Strangely, they haven't blocked the homesite blogger.com, so I can still log in and post but I can't view my actual blog. Weird. If I don't have access to Lew or any of the other beer blogs, I lose momentum...coming up with your own ideas is too hard! When I get home, I get involved in other things and forget to check them out.

Oh well. The other night I bought a variety 12 pack of Rock Art, a brewery in VT. It included a Golden Ale, a Red Ale, a Smoked Porter, and a Barley Wine (at only 7.5% abv). I'll probably post about the Golden Ale because it was very interesting, at least as far as "golden ales" go. Other than their winter seasonal Bock, I'm a newcomer to Rock Art.

Back to the Grind

I'm back after a nice long break. I survived Christmas and there's really not much beer-related to talk about. I didn't drink a great deal and when I did drink it was rather run-of-the-mill stuff. I haven't been to a proper beer bar since the Allagash tasting at Eli's.

After Christmas we packed our bags and headed to Alabama (again). 4 adults and 2 dogs piled into a rental car at 4am and made the 18 hour trip in one shot (we also came home in one shot, which is a first for me...it's harder coming home because you lose an hour). In AL I continued the trend of drinking just north of moderately, but the most exciting beer was Terrapin Rye (not to slag off Terrapin Rye because I'm a huge fan). Mostly it was Yuengling Lagers.

There was one beer highlight though, another beer dinner. The menu, as best as I can remember:

• Kielbasa & Souerkraut paired with Terrapin Golden
• Salad (loosely based on The Corner Pug's Pug Salad) paired with Hoegaarden Original White Ale
• Kässpätzle paired with my homebrewed hefeweizen
• Shepherd's Pie paired with Abita Amber
• Bailey's Irish Cream Cheesecake paired with Rogue Mocha Porter

The best pairing, by far, was the Mocha Porter with the cheesecake (which was made by my BIL and was phenomenal). With the exception of my homebrew, I made sure all the beers were available in AL (I had to because I bought them all there).

After this longish break from geeking out about beer I look forward to getting back into the swing of things.

Surly Darkness

Surly is a small brewery near Minneapolis, MN. It was on my list of things to seek out during my trip to St. Paul, but didn't have time. I have gotten the chance to try some of their Coffee Bender at Beeradvocate's American Beer Fest a couple of summers ago and it was fantastic. This marked their "coming out party" so to speak as they were very new at that point and only distributed to MN. Since then their popularity has exploded (not necessarily because they participated in the American Beerfest, mind you, because they make fantastic beer).

On Saturday they released their annual Russian Imperial Stout, Darkness. They followed Three Floyds example and created a special day for its release with the intent of selling all the bottles at this one event. Apparently there was music and food along with all their regular beers on tap. Every Spring, Three Floyds has their Dark Lord Day . I guess the difference between the two is that Dark Lord Day has becom so big they're looking into off site locations to hold it because the lines have gotten so large. People travel from all across the country for this and turn the day into one big party and beer tasting event. Three Floyds wins by guaranteeing their Dark Lord will sell out at $15 a pop, not to mention all the other beer they sell that day. I guess the guys at Surly realized what a good thing this was and decided they wanted in the game.

The result of this was to create demand for the product that may not have existed otherwise. Now all of a sudden it has become the beer to obtain. If you glance at the beeradvocate and ratebeer trading forums, it seems every thread is devoted to looking for Darkness or figuring out what people are willing to give up for Darkness. The beer is seen as rare because only a select few were able to get it. The rarity seems to create a sense of demand for the product that wouldn't exist if it was more readily available and it keeps people interested in the breweries that hold these events (another example is The Angel's Share from Tomme Arthur at The Lost Abbey, which is also a hot commodity in the beer trading circles).

I'm not trying to make a value judgment about these breweries because, frankly, I think it makes great business sense. I guess what I don't understand are the people who feel such a need to try these beers. I've never had Dark Lord, or Darkness, or The Angel's Share, but I can't help thinking as I'm enjoying a more readily available imperial stout: "how much better could Darkness really be?" Is it really worth getting upset about not being able to try it? My answer is a resounding no. I'll continue to enjoy Southern Tier's Oat or Storm King or Smuttynose Imperial Stout and let other people arrive in Minneapolis at 2AM when it's below zero to wait for a beer that they must absolutely have. I guess I just don't understand this need people have to try everything. People even get mad at the monks of Westvleteren because they don't make more beer and distribute to the USA. Like the monks care about that. Sorry, but I'll wait until I make it to Belgium to drink Westvleteren...and if I never make it? I'll drink Rochefort...no biggie.

St. Paul, MN

I'm off to St. Paul, MN for the rest of the week. It's a business trip, so I won't have much free time for beer, but I do plan to hit at least one or two places. Definitely Great Waters Brewing and hopefully The Happy Gnome. Depends on how much time I've got, but I'll keep you updated.

Thanskgiving

Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone for another year. This year's holiday weekend was very low key. I spent Thanksgiving at my cousin's house in Windsor, CT and the rest of the weekend at home, although we did go to City Steam on Saturday and I'm planning to post a review shortly. My beer drinking on Thanksgiving was limited to the evening after we got home, which suited me as Thanksgiving evening always seems so lazy. I enjoyed the downtime with a Victory Old Horizontal from Dec. 2005. It hasn't been cellaring per se, just sitting in my beer fridge for two years at anywhere between 42-50 degrees (my beer fridge isn't very precise). It was absolutely amazing. No alcohol bite, everything had calmed down and turned into a smooth creamy elixir. I think I have one left from that batch. I told Mandy I should buy a case every year and not touch it for two years. The other highlight of the weekend was my first Old Fezziwig of the season. It's become a bit of a tradition to enjoy this for the first time on Thanksgiving day.

Sam Adams Longshot Update

Jim Koch, owner of Boston Beer Company - the makers of the Sam Adams brand, sent Todd Alstrom an email explaining the Longshot situation. You can read it here.

The explanation is almost exactly what I envisioned yesterday. Basically, the double IPA uses a variety of different hops, some of which aren't available at any cost without a preexisting contract. It isn't even just a monetary thing, the hops just can't be found. Koch gave the winning homebrewer a choice: they could brew the beer using hop substitutions with hops that are available or they could hold off until next year and brew it for next year's Longshot pack. Rather than compromise his beer, the homebrewer, Mike McDole, opted for the latter option. Koch claims they are already seeking out the appropriate hops for next year.

Kudos to Jim Koch for explaining the situation, which turns out to be a very reasonable explanation.

As a side note, in his usual way Todd has managed to insult many of the people that make it possible to have the job that he has. His attitude has really started to grate at me over the past year or two.

More Bad PR From Sam Adams

According to this discussion on Beeradvocate, the Boston Beer Company (Sam Adams) will not be producing one of the winners of the Longshot competition. The Longshot competition is an (annual?) homebrewing competition in which Sam Adams picks 4 winners, commercially produces the 4 winners, and packages them in a 4 pack. One of the winners in this year's competition is (was) a double IPA, supposedly a Russian River Pliny the Elder clone. They've decided not to produce this winner in the upcoming Longshot pack citing the hop shortage as the reason. This year's hop crop has been abysmally small, driving up prices and driving down availability. The problem is expected to last for 2-3 more years.

I'm having trouble forming a strong opinion one way or the other about this announcement. Part of me wants to work myself up into a lather about it because they're reneging on a deal that they made with the public. They're citing a reason that they must have had some idea about prior to announcing this beer as a winner, though I'm admittedly not familiar with the timing involved. The other part of me is willing to cut them some slack because if Lew is correct, the hop shortage is very, very bad. I'm sure Sam Adams had hop contracts for the hops they would need in 2008 for their normal beers, but probably left the purchasing of the hops needed for the Longshot beers until closer to time. From what I've read, if you had contracts in place your hops are still in the reasonable range of prices, though still much higher than last year. In the absence of a contract, you're looking at unreasonable and prohibitive costs. This is probably where Sam Adams finds themselves. It doesn't help that a double IPA will require massive amounts of hops. People say that they wouldn't care if Sam Adams needed to increase the price of the 4 pack to offset the hop prices, but how many people would really be willing to pay $12 for the 4 beers? Not enough to make business sense.

It's an unfortunate situation that comes at a bad time for Sam Adams with all their recent publicity about the mayor in Oregon.

Two (almost) Beer-Free Weeks

Two weeks of work, errands, chores, a cold that made the thought of drinking beer very unappealing, and a 12 mile hike over Mt Pico and Mt Killington in VT left me with very little time or inclination to drink beer. I had a few, but nothing to write about. I hope I've turned the corner though, things have slowed down a bit and I can breathe out my nose again. I have a fridge full of good beer that I can't wait to drink.

In the meantime, my Porter experiment seems to be a failure. Too hoppy, tannic, and astringent. I'll give it a few months to see how it ages, but I'm not hopeful. On the bright side, my Centennial IPA is probably the best beer I've ever made. Very tasty. Also, my first attempt at a partial mash, a Hefeweizen tasted very promising going into the bottles this weekend. A nice clovey taste with banana in the finish. Can't wait to try it carbonated

Cask

Eric Asimov has written a great article about the state of cask beer in the United States, with particular emphasis on the NY area. It really captures the essence of cask compared to regular keg beer.

I touched the faceted glass, cool, but not cold. A floral-citrus aroma rose up, and as I took my first sip I marveled at how soft and delicate the carbonation was, the bubbles giving the flavors lift and energy without aggression.

I think cask beer will always be a niche within a niche in the United States, but it would certainly be nice to see 1 or 2 casks regularly in better beer establishments. I always order the cask when it's offered.

Pumpkin Beer, Really

I found this flickr album on Stan Hieronymous' blog Appellation Beer, who found it on Trouble Brewing.
It's a fantastic photo essay of a brewday that included mashing in a pumpkin and culminated with fermenting in a pumpkin. It's a great series of photos, not just due to the novelty of brewing in a pumpkin, but also because it's a great guide to the basic steps of homebrewing.

I like one of the comments that suggested he call it a pumpkin lambic after the lid caved in.

Beer Dinner

We celebrated my sister Carrie's birthday on Saturday by throwing a beer dinner.

This was our second beer dinner and I think people really enjoy them. Mandy creates a food menu with 4-5 courses and I try to pair a beer with each course.


We have a set of 4 oz tasting glasses that look like brandy snifters. After serving each course along with its associated beer, I'll talk briefly about the style or the brewery and give some flavor characteristics to look for. When I'm confident about the pairing, I'll also say something about why I paired the two. The menu on Saturday was:

Adam's Reuben Bites with Weihenstephaner Hefeweissebier Dunkel

Mandy's Fried Butternut Squash Raviolis (also plain cheese) with Berkshire Brewing Company's Steel Rail Extra Pale Ale

Mandy's Pumpkin Soup with Paulaner Oktoberfest-Märzen

Mom's Caesar Salad with Allagash White

Mandy's Lasagna (Meat, Spinach & Broccoli, and Cheese) with Duvel

Kelly's Pumpkin Cheesecake with my homebrewed pumpkin beer I made for Carrie

The Reuben Bites were a big hit...pastrami and sauerkraut rolled in a croissant with thousand island dipping sauce. They were great reheated on the pizza stone during the Pats game on Sunday. To be honest, I thought the Weihenstephaner was just a Dunkel Lager and thought the malty sweetness would go great with the reubens. It's actually a Dunkel Weizen, but it still went fine.

I didn't know what to pair with the raviolis, so I went with Mandy's suggestion of Berkshire's Extra Pale Ale, which went well enough.

The Pumpkin Soup was a recipe we pulled out of a magazine that was submitted by someone at Willimantic Brewery. It's actually made with an Oktoberfest beer, so the pairing seemed natural. The soup was great, as was the beer.

Allagash White was the perfect pairing for a Caesar salad. Everybody loved it.

I'm not sure why, but I've always loved drinking Duvel with Italian food. Something about its spicy, yeasty profile cuts right through the tomato and garlic and meaty flavors. It leaves my mouth feeling refreshed and ready for more food. It seemed to go over well.

My homebrewed pumpkin beer is tasting very good (if I do say so myself!). Went well with the cheesecake. My sister said it tasted the same as last year, which I guess is a good thing.

Overall, these beer dinners are less about geekery and more about having a great time eating good food and drinking good beer. It gets some people who don't ordinarily drink good beer to taste something different and talk about what they're tasting.

The lineup:



My pumpkin beer:

NY Times Maine Beer Trip

The NY Times published a nice light article in their travel section detailing a quick 2-3 day beer trip up Maine's coast to Bar Harbor. It reads like it's written by someone who enjoys good beer but doesn't spend enormous amounts of time thinking about it. In other words, not a beer-geek. He starts in Portland touring D.L. Geary, Allagash, and Shipyard and drinking at Great Lost Bear, Gritty's, and Three Dollar Dewey's. After Portland, he drives up to Sheepscott Valley Brewing Co. and Andrew's Brewing Co. on his way to Bar Harbor. These two are new to me, but sound fairly interesting. In Bar Harbor, he hits Bar Harbor Brewing Company and Atlantic Brewing Company.

Based on our trip to Portland and Freeport in May, I'm sure this trip was both beautiful and very fun. I haven't been to Bar Harbor since I was a kid and Mandy's never been, so maybe it's about time to go. If we do, I imagine our trip will be very similar.

-Dave

Spring Cleaning Continues

I'm getting closer every night to having an empty beer fridge, not counting all my big beers of course. Last night it was Lagunitas Sirius Ale, a "double" cream ale of sorts, weighing in at 7.6% ABV. I really have no idea how old this was. The Lagunitas website says it is released in May of every year and I'm pretty sure I bought this back in the fall, so I'm thinking it's at least a year old. Wow.

I wasn't looking forward to this. In fact, I was almost dreading it to the point where I almost just poured it down the drain instead of transferring it from the warm case to the cold fridge. I had two left from the six pack and my first experience with them wasn't very good. I didn't take notes, but I remember it being harsh and hot from the increased alcohol. Cream ales are supposed to be smooth and easy to drink; this particular cream ale failed in that capacity. I remember having trouble finishing both bottles that I personally drank and even my BIL, who will drink anything, didn't seem to like it when I pawned them off on him.

I didn't want to abuse the beer more than I already had by leaving it in a warm case for a year though, so I tried to gain a little good karma and cracked one open. I was pleasantly surprised. The alcohol had cooled off admirably. It was much smoother with the slightest bit of hoppy bitterness. It was much more drinkable and I actually enjoyed it. So much so that I look forward to drinking the second one.

This was definitely one of the better surprises this undertaking has produced. An aged cream ale, who would've thunk it?

Binge Drinkers Prefer Beer

This story has been getting a lot of play recently on various beer sites. I originally wasn't going to comment on it, but I've been thinking a lot about it and I realize that I do have something to say.

First of all...duh. America prefers beer to other alcohol choices in general, so doesn't it make sense that we also prefer beer when we want to tie one on? I didn't need a study to tell me that. As for kids preferring the hard stuff, again...not rocket science. Steal some from your parents, water down the supply so no one knows...SOP.

Second, I was originally wondering why everyone was getting so upset about the CDC's definition of binge drinker as having had 5 or more drinks on one occasion in the past 30 days. Then I made the rather obvious realization that the term binge drinker has severely negative connotations and it seems like a cheap shot on their part to judge a large portion of society based on a completely arbitrary designation. Five or more drinks on one occasion in the past 30 days? I'm not sure I know anyone who isn't a binge drinker according to that narrow definition. The definition is arbitrary for at least two reasons. The first is obvious, how did they pick 5? Why not 6? How did they pick 30 days? Why not 14 or 45 or 60? The second reason the definition is completely arbitrary is that there is no context involved whatsoever. A 6'4" 240 pound man could drink 5 Bud Lights and barely feel it, whereas a 5'2" 110 pound woman could be wasted after 5 Bud Lights. Comparatively speaking, the woman did much more harm to her body than the man, but they both satisfy this rigid definition.

In this day and age, everyone is familiar with the concept of blood alcohol content (BAC) as this is the measure of whether you're legally competent to operate a motor vehicle. Everyone knows (or should know) what their limit is based on their weight. Doesn't it make sense then, to create a "binge-drinking BAC level?" For instance, according to this calculator, I could go to a barbecue at 4pm, drink 5 beers over the next 6 hours, leave at 10pm, and have a BAC of less than 4%. Not only would I be safely under the legal limit, according to this site, I would still be under the point where my driving would be impaired. Does going to a barbecue from 4-10 and having 5 beers really sound like deviant and irresponsible behavior? Of course not. Yet, according to the CDC, you're a dirty binge drinker, a common drunk.

Of course, the CDC would never be able to switch to a more reasonable assessment of binge drinking based on BAC levels, say .14 or .15, because then they'd never be able to get government funding to perform these ridiculous "studies." It's easy to call up a "random" person and ask them if they've had 5 drinks on one occasion in the past 30 days, not so easy to ask for the highest BAC they've reached in the past 30 days. The joke though, is with the results they get from asking people if they've had 5 drinks on one occasion in the past 30 days. How many people answered no thinking "well, I don't usually have 5 drinks on one occasion so I'll say no" plus all the people who forget about the occasions when they hit 5. As an experiment, I asked Mandy who said she probably hasn't had 5 on one occasion:

"What about Sunday...you had at least 2 before Adam came over, a couple with Adam, then at least one more after dinner."

"Oh yeah."

So, between Sunday and Wednesday, she had forgotten that she'd had 5 beers spread out over 6-7 hours. I'd be willing to bet that the 15% number is actually much larger.

This whole study is just so frustrating because it essentially means there are no moderate drinkers because if you are a "drinker," chances are you fit the binge drinker definition. I consider myself a moderate drinker in that I have 1-2 beers per night, sometimes I don't have any, and sometimes I have a little more. It averages to about 2 per day every month. However, according to the CDC, I'm a social deviant.

Spring Cleaning

Well, it's not actually spring, but I am in the midst of a massive effort to clean out my beer supply. I have a bad habit of buying new beer before I finish old beer (this is apart from any conscious "cellaring" efforts). When I go to my beer fridge to pick something out, the new stuff always looks tastier than the old stuff. After 6-8 months, all of a sudden I'm running out of room with old random beer completely taking over. I realized I had a full case of various and sundry beer products sitting just outside my beer fridge, quite a few offerings in the fridge, and about 1/2 a case of my last two homebrews (the last time I brewed was 6 months ago, which shows how old these are getting). It's now my goal to eliminate all the "regular" beer before buying more new stuff. I'll willingly break this goal when we have company. I'm defining "regular" beer as something I'd drink on a regular basis, so I can keep barleywines, belgians, imperial stouts, etc...as they won't deteriorate and, quite frankly, it's too monumental to drink all of those...especially in this heat. I expect to have a few drain pours in the mix as some of the beers that were sitting in the case out of the fridge have been sitting there for a long time and some of them are beers that I wouldn't really want to drink on a good day (Corona and Becks jump to mind). I'm slowly getting there, but I'm hoping to get some help on Thursday when we're having some people over for a cookout. Last night was some Magic Hat Hi.P.A, age unknown. It was very tasty but had clearly lost some of its hop bite and flavor. Previously, it was my last homebrew (an IPA), which was still pretty tasty, but again, some of its bite and flavor had noticeably diminished.

It's a dirty job, this, but somebody's gotta do it.

Intro

I guess all blogs require an introduction...

My wife Mandy and I have been exploring the world of craft beer for the past 4-5 years and have shared quite a few adventures in search of local goodies during our vacations. I used to try to review the beers I drank and the places we visited on Beeradvocate, but it never "took." Writing the beer reviews became a chore and I realized I wasn't having as much fun actually drinking the beer. Since then, my focus became the beer and the experience of drinking it and enjoying the company I was in. Still, I felt like I was missing a small piece of the puzzle by not writing about the glorious places we've discovered. I was more interested in writing about the experiences though, as opposed to the technical guidelines laid out by both Beeradvocate and Ratebeer.

As I was explaining to my wife that I've taken to reading many various beer blogs for my beer information, she suggested I start one myself. I was initially opposed as I'm not really sure I have much of worth to say and I'm wondering if another random blog is what the world needs. I obviously changed my mind and I'm hoping this can become that missing puzzle piece. At the very least, it will provide a place for me to catalog all our various brewery and brewpub visits.

We live in CT, so most of our travel will center around the New England area. However, we visit (via car) Mandy's parents in Huntsville, AL at least twice a year. These long car trips usually afford us a few beer related stops along the way.

If you're reading this, I hope you enjoy.

Oh, the name of the blog vom Fass literally means "from the barrel" in German and is used to distinguish draft beer from bottled beer in Germany. I just got back a few weeks ago from a trip to Europe (Paris, Switzerland, Munich) and fell in love with Munich. I can't wait to get back and explore more of this wonderful country.