Archive for May, 2009

Savor – An American Craft Beer & Food Experience

Last night was the second year for the Savor beer and food pairing event. I didn’t go the first year because of the high price, but everyone who went told me it was great so this year I decided that I should probably go. The event was located at the National Building Museum an easy 15 minute Metro ride from my apartment, so I really had no excuses for missing it.

I had a really good time, there were plenty of very tasty beers to try and lots of people to talk to (it is almost disturbing how many DC beer nerds and homebrewers I know). I thought it was really good idea to have brewers (or at least reps) on hand to answer questions about the beers they were pouring. That said it was busy enough that it was hard to have more than a brief exchange with anyone who was pouring. The hall was pretty crowded, but for the most part I never had to wait more than a minute or two for beer (Russian River was the main exception).

There were some excellent funky beers to be had, Boulevard Saison Brett, Russian River Consecration, The Bruery Saison Rue, New Belgium Biere de Mars, Lost Abbey Cuvee Tomme, and Avery Brabant. All of them were very tasty, but Consecration (a strong dark sour with currants) really outshined the rest in my opinion.

Other than the funky stuff I was really impressed by Smuttynose Star Island Single, Sprecher Black Bavarian, Firestone Walker 31 Pale (and Union Jack), Brown’s ESB, Odell Woodcut #2, Blue Point Rastafar Rye, and the Black Foot Single Malt (Maris Otter) IPA. The Smuttynose was especially good, clean malt, good yeast character, should be a great summer beer.

I was a bit disappointed that some of the breweries that are distributed in the area brought easy to find beers. Sam Adams went with Boston Lager and Summer Ale, Ommegang with Hennepin and Ommegang, Oscar Blues with Gordon and Old Chub, Southampton with Double White and Saison etc… Many of the small local breweries did the same thing. With so many interesting beers and small/obscure breweries I hope there weren’t many people drinking the likes of Boston Lager.

The food was just so-so for the most part. Last year they apparently did not have enough food, so this year they really stepped up the volume (it was rare to see an empty plate). That said, because of these huge piles of food I picked up numerous things that were colder than they should have been. In general the food was pretty bland, I understand that you don’t want to wreck anyone’s palette, but you need pretty flavorful food to stand up to the more aggressive beers.

It was also cool to meet the likes of Charlie Papazian (my friend Dan immediately asked him for advice on a Gose he is about to brew).

If they have it next year I’m not sure if I’ll go, but I would certainly consider it since it seems like every year they are working out more of the kinks.

IPAllapalooza — IX

Only one tonight (so far): Green Flash Hop Head Red, which isn’t really technically an IPA. Okay, whatever, but it’s brilliant. I wasn’t that impressed with the Green Flash West Coast IPA in bottles (loved it on draft), thought it kind of blaring and harsh, but this was great. Fresh piney fruit, deliciously lively and just this side of sweet in the mouth, bitter but not astringent finish. Yum. Don’t care if it’s ‘not an IPA,’ it’s one of the better entries in the IPAllapalooza.

21st Amendment Beers in Virginia

More new beers for Virginia. From a press release:

San Francisco’s 21st Amendment Brewery Tells Virginia, “Can It!”

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – East Coast native Nico Freccia is returning to his roots, and he’s bringing beer. Craft beer in a can, that is. The co-founder of San Francisco’s 21st Amendment Brewery tells Virginia’s craft beer fans today, “We drink what we can; we can what we drink.”

Freccia and Shaun O’Sullivan, the iconic personalities behind one of California’s few canning craft breweries, opened the bustling 21st Amendment Brewery in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood after meeting in a home-brew class. The release of the Brewery’s two canned brews, Hell or High Watermelon Wheat Beer (recently rated “#1 Beer to Drink from a Can” and “Top Fruit Beer” by Draft magazine) and Brew Free! or Die IPA (winner of multiple medals internationally) marks the brewery’s first foray into beer sales on the east coast. Both beers will be available in cans and on draft in select cities in Virginia (but not in DC, unfortunately).

Chief Watermelon Officer Freccia says, “Virginians understand the CAN-cept of great craft beer, and we feel honored to be a part of the local beer landscape.”

These two 21st Amendment beers are currently available in some Northern Virginia stores. Will they make it to Fredericksburg?

All this talk of taxes

There are a lot of proposals for beer tax increases in the air right now — federal, state, and local; here in the U.S. and in Europe. The worldwide recession has not just affected people and private industries, it’s — gasp! — cut government tax revenues. Luckily, governments are the one enterprise that can increase their revenues by simply taking more money from other people. Yay!

One of the ways they do that are by excise taxes, taxes imposed on particular products or services that the government picks, seemingly at random: tanning booth sessions, for instance, or tires. There is a sub-class of excise taxes, commonly referred to as “sin taxes,” that purport to try to help people not partake in behavior or consumption that is thought to be bad for them, or, worse, immoral. These include, of course — of course! — beer taxes.

The current argument for increasing beer taxes goes like this:

• We need increased tax revenues to pay for all the wonderful government programs.
• Beer taxes haven’t been raised in X years (admittedly, quite a while…and can you give me a good reason why they should have been?)
• We should raise beer taxes because that would serve the twin purposes of 1)raising revenue needed for wonderful government programs that benefit everyone; and 2)encourage people to drink less, because higher taxes mean people drink less.

Allow me to shoot some holes in this.

First, it’s damned near immoral to raise taxes in a deep recession. At some point, especially with excise taxes, you’re taking money away from people who don’t have enough to give it to people who don’t have enough (while stripping away enough to continue paying the wages of the government employees who administer the programs).

Second, if the government programs truly are wonderful and benefit everyone…grow (or borrow) a pair and tax everyone fairly (and progressively). Don’t put it on the back of moderate drinkers like me who’s only ’sin’ is to enjoy a beer.

Finally… I’m already buying beer that costs more than 90% of the beer sold in this country. The beer I buy costs almost twice as much a case as the popular beers do. What purpose will increasing the cost of every beer sold serve when the people who buy the more expensive beers are already paying that much and more? Simple: it’s about raising revenues, not moderating behavior. And at that point, sweetie, you should be talking income or sales tax, or I should be voting your thieving, lying ass out of office.

An increase in the beer tax will fall most heavily on more expensive beers. Craft beers. Imported beers. Specialty beers. The beers you probably drink, if you’re reading this blog.

So why aren’t you doing anything about it? E-mailing your representatives is easy as hell these days: go to Congress.org, put in your ZIP code, and you can hit your Senators, Congresscritter, and state reps with one easy shot. Do it. Tell them you do not want to see an increase in the beer tax. Tell them that you would rather see cuts in spending or fair, across-the-board tax increases before you’d want to see any kind of sin taxes or excise taxes. Tell them you don’t mind paying your FAIR share of taxes, but that voting for unfair taxes will cost them your support.

Hell, start a petition at your local bar or beer store. Get freakin’ militant. It’s your money they’re after. And don’t be one of those sniveling warts who join in their own punishment: “Oh, sure, I guess I can pay a nickel a six-pack more. I probably shouldn’t drink so much anyway.”

You pay enough already for the sin of working at your annoying job. You do NOT have to pay more to have a beer when that 8-hour shift in hell is over. Be a man, defend your beer from the pasty-faced safety Nazis and morality police who want to tax it right out of your hands. The price of beer freedom is eternal vigilance.

IPAllapolooza — VIII

Couple more — three, actually — IPAs…of sorts.

First up, Boulder Mojo Rising DIPA. A very hefty, solid DIPA, big-bodied, aromatic, robustly bitter. Maybe too hefty; there was almost too much body here, although it never went sweet-flabby on me. Cathy really liked this one.

Next: Thomas Hooker Hop Meadow IPA. Now, this one I really liked. Fresh, clean, hoppy yet not overbearing, and a great brisk finish that begged for another sip. I’d go for more of this, a lot more.

Finally, later, after an old friend stopped by and we wound up on the deck, drinking beers and listening to the neighbor kids underage-drinking back on the ballfield (okay, I didn’t know for sure they were drinking, but I have faith that they were), we opened a bottle of Green Flash Le Freak, one of those so-called Cali-Belgique beers (that are really an excuse to overhop just one more kind of beer, mom…please?), a tripel/IPA fusion. It’s arresting: big nose of hops and weird phenolic fruit, a lava-like heavy body spiked with a bitterness that doesn’t seem to meld with the malt, and a muddled finish. I did not like this one much. Kind of like putting Plochman’s Chicago Fire Tabasco Mustard on sushi. Two good things do not always make a third good thing when combined.

Odell Brewing Brews Twitter-Powered Blackbird Schwarzbier

People-powered, Twitter-inspired beers seem to be all the rage in the quickly growing craft beer two point oh scene. In fact, you may remember a couple of months ago when the Bay Area’s 21st Amendment Brewing brewed what they called a #twitterbrew, during which the brewery’s followers could track the brewing process and follow along through frequent posts to TwitPic.com.

Well, now it looks like Fort Collins’ Odell Brewing (@odellbrewing) has gone and taken things one step further. According to The Coloradoan,

The beer is Odell’s first Twitter community inspired beer, meaning followers of the company’s Twitter page were able to “tweet” their sugges-tions [sic] for what style the beer should be and vote on the beer’s color, strength, body and hops character.

Twitter followers of the brewery even were able to vote on the Twitter-inspired names such as: Darkside, Hashtag Schwarz, Fail Whale Black Ale and the winner by five votes, Blackbird.

Now that the beer is brewed and the name has been selected, Odell is keeping the beer’s buzz going by letting its followers submit designs for the beer’s tap handle design via direct message. Anyone can then vote on their favorite design over at Polldaddy (you don’t need to be on Twitter or following Odell to vote) by clicking here. There are definitely some great designs up so far, check ‘em out.

The final limited release Schwarz Beer will be released at the brewery’s tap room in Fort Collins during the tapping party this Saturday. Unfortunately for the rest of us, the first limited release will only be available in the brewery’s tap room, and will not be sold in stores.

Using Good Beer to Help Promote a Business

Earlier this week I attended an open house at a local coworking facility. Business Playce provides “a shared workspace environment for all sorts of business professionals.” I am blessed to be able to work from home most of the time, but sometimes it is necessary to find alternative arrangements, perhaps due to internet outages, or just the need to get out and change environment for a bit. Just last week Comcast was having service issues and I found myself sitting in a local Starbucks. This gave me a reason to visit Business Playce and see what they were all about.

Imagine my surprise, and delight, the see that the owners had chosen to serve craft beer at their open house. Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA and Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA were both available, in addition to a few other brands. (Here’s the evidence on the Business Playce TwitPic page.) Maybe the refreshments served at an open house are not the best judge of a business, but that little detail is worth a few points in my book. More so than the just the ubiquitous red wine and cheese combo anyway. While not an exceptionally rare occurrence these days, it’s still nice to see good beer showing up as part of everyday events.

The British Are Coming

Graham Barclay/Bloomberg News
A few years ago I got really interested in tasting English wines, especially English sparkling wines. I had heard stories that, in the wake of global warming, some Champagne firms were investing in vineyard land in England, in areas that shared the same chalky white soil as in Champagne.
I was never able [...]

Odell Brewing Brews Twitter-Powered Blackbird Schwarzbier

People-powered, Twitter-inspired beers seem to be all the rage in the quickly growing craft beer two point oh scene. In fact, you may remember a couple of months ago when the Bay Area’s 21st Amendment Brewing brewed what they called a #twitterbrew, during which the brewery’s followers could track the brewing process and follow along through frequent posts to TwitPic.com.

Well, now it looks like Fort Collins’ Odell Brewing (@odellbrewing) has gone and taken things one step further. According to The Coloradoan,

The beer is Odell’s first Twitter community inspired beer, meaning followers of the company’s Twitter page were able to “tweet” their sugges-tions [sic] for what style the beer should be and vote on the beer’s color, strength, body and hops character.

Twitter followers of the brewery even were able to vote on the Twitter-inspired names such as: Darkside, Hashtag Schwarz, Fail Whale Black Ale and the winner by five votes, Blackbird.

Now that the beer is brewed and the name has been selected, Odell is keeping the beer’s buzz going by letting its followers submit designs for the beer’s tap handle design via direct message. Anyone can then vote on their favorite design over at Polldaddy (you don’t need to be on Twitter or following Odell to vote) by clicking here. There are definitely some great designs up so far, check ‘em out.

The final limited release Schwarz Beer will be released at the brewery’s tap room in Fort Collins during the tapping party this Saturday. Unfortunately for the rest of us, the first limited release will only be available in the brewery’s tap room, and will not be sold in stores.

Have You "Stolen" Any Glassware Lately?

Last Tuesday I stopped by Capital Ale House for “Steal the Glass Night.” Every Tuesday they feature a brewery’s beers served in logo glassware, which you are free to take with you. Even though I probably have more glassware than I need, if that’s really possible, I do stop by for the Tuesday events on occasion and “steal” a few glasses. I’ve gotten some interesting glassware in this manner. One of my current favorite glasses is the Brooklyn Brewery snifter I picked up at a previous Steal the Glass night.

This week the featured brewery was Kona Brewing from Kona, Hawaii. Two Kona beers were being served in cobalt blue “shaker pints”. While the shaker glass style isn’t my favorite, they are very utilitarian, and quite handy for Summer festivities. This particular glass is attractive, though the color does make it hard to see the color of the beer inside. Wailua Wheat and Fire Rock Pale Ale were on tap for the event. I opted for the Fire Rock Pale Ale. This is a mild, but nicely balanced pale ale. Easy to drink and refreshing after a day at the office.

Next Tuesday, June 2, will be a very special Steal the Glass Night featuring Sierra Nevada Brewing. In addition to Pale Ale, Summerfest, Torpedo Extra IPA, and other Sierra Nevada beers, all Capital Ale House locations will feature I.D.E.A. – India Dark Elusive Ale. Capital Ale House’s own Chris and Rachel went out to the brewery in Chico, CA and brewed this beer at “beer camp”. Tuesday evening will likely be your only chance to try out this limited, one time, brew.