Beer & Me

Ask any craft brewer to name the brewery’s top three selling beers and odds are that list will include a wheat style beer. Ever since the craft beer renaissance caught traction wheat beer has been a favorite style of brewers and drinkers alike.

American wheat beer, now a unique style all its own, started as an interpretation of Hefeweizen. This Bavarian ale is pale, cloudy, effervescent, and full-bodied. The style was so popular among Munich drinkers back in the day that wheat was the first exception to the famous Rheinheitsgebot, the Bavarian beer purity law that previously only allowed beer to be made of water, barley, and hops. Hefeweizen is fermented with a yeast that contributes flavors to the beer unique to the style. The yeast is allowed to stay in the beer where it reinforces the flavors of spice and banana.

When American craft brewers decided to recreate the style, some went to the trouble and expensive of finding style-specific strains of yeast. Many simply used the house yeast, typically a much cleaner fermenting British ale yeast. Using such a yeast produces a beer with a much different flavor profile. While the unfiltered versions of this style are visually virtually identical to Hefeweizen, the taste is much cleaner. The suspended yeast does contribute very subtle hints of spice but gone is the banana taste. The result is a beer that is very refreshing but still full bodied.

Almost every wheat beer comes unfiltered and the yeast sediment at the bottom of the bottle is intended to be part of the beer. When pouring this beer pour most of it in the glass as you would any other beer but leave 1/3 or 1/4 of beer in the bottle. Then swirl this beer to lift it from the bottom and pour it in the glass. You’ll notice the beer get cloudier but, trust me, this yeasty goodness makes it a whole different and much more flavorful beer.

The St. Louis Brewery, also known as Schlafly to fans and beer drinkers, have been named the best in the Midwest. And who has the right to make that call, you ask. Beer drinkers, of course.

OK, not all beer drinkers were polled. Just those that logged onto TheFullPint.com and voted. But with Great Lakes Brewing and New Glarus in second and third places respectively the St. Louis Brewery is holding some pretty respectable company.

So let’s hear it for Schlafly. Raise a glass of your favorite brew from the Brewery and let’s all give a toast to the best in the Midwest.

Have you ever done this? You order a beer then find yourself wondering, “what’s a beer?” Not what is beer but what does this particular restaurant/bar/pub consider to be A beer?

Too many establishments will pop the top on a bottle and unceremoniously plop it in front of you without even bothering to offer a glass. (This happened to me the other day a Chilis - my first experience with the national chain and very likely my last.) Other restaurants will present their beer in stylized glasses that couldn’t hold more than 6 ounces while charging you the same that the brewpub down the street does for a full and proper pint. Finally there are the good guys who offer their beer in style specific glasses and present a full serving.

But this is all left entirely up to the establishment. There are no laws here in the US like those in England and Europe protecting the beer drinking consumer. In those countries beer servings are standardized and enforced. Here in the US a pint of beer is not necessarily the proper US pint of 16 ounces but any amount of beer served in a glass.

Change may be coming at least to Oregon. There lawmakers are considering legislation that would at least inspect servings that are being sold as pints to make sure that they actually are pints. Even though there will apparently be no real consequences for failing to serve a full pint it’s a start.

I feel like I’m fighting a losing battle here. A fallacy has been creeping into the national psyche. More frustratingly I’ve had to watch it happen.

A very few years ago everyone seemed to know that the prohibition of alcohol in the United States ended on December 5, 1933. The fact that it was in April earlier that year when only breweries in “wet” states were allowed to make and sell 3.2% beer was little more than a footnote.

Then Anheuser-Busch started latching on to the date as a marketing tool. “The Return of Beer,” they called it. It’s understandable. Summer’s just around the corner and a cold Budweiser is a lot more appealing then than in December.

Now that other St. Louis brewer, Schlafly, is holding a Repeal of Prohibition party in April. Ugh!

That’s it. I’m calling for Thanksgiving this Thursday. Turkey and cranberries at my house, everyone! Bring your fireworks for Fourth of July celebrations in the backyard after dinner.

Admittedly there’s quite a gap between them but there’s no denying that Schlafly is this Midwestern city’s second biggest brewer behind Anheuser Busch Inbev.

And the gap is growing smaller.

There are a couple of recent news stories that put an interesting light on the comparison of these two breweries. The first came out a few weeks ago when ABI announced a stunning 95% loss in profits for the fourth quarter of 2008. No, it’s not a typo. Almost universally the second line of the stories with this stunning news explains that the loss is the result of accounting for the purchase of Anheuser-Busch by Inbev. So, it’s jut an accounting thing, right?

Keep reading. Further down we learn that the mega beer company still lost 2% in sales last year. This continues a trend that we’ve been seeing for a while now - big beer continues to lose sales despite all of their efforts to turn things around.

Now, let’s look at Schlafly’s sales. They are going gangbusters. The regional brewer enjoyed significant growth in 2008, so much so that they are expanding their brewing capacity to 11,000 barrels more than the 24,000 they produced last year.

See, when Inbev bought A-B, Schlafly became the biggest locally owned brewery in St. Louis. It might still be the second biggest brewer but that distinction of locally owned is important to St. Louis drinkers. They might not have been given a vote when the Busch family was considering Inbev’s offer but they’re voting now with their dollars.

By now you have probably heard or read about the report from the Center for Disease Control warning that beer pong can contribute to spread of herpes. You have also probably heard that it was all a big hoax. I thought it sounded a little silly when I first saw it last week. We should all know better than to eat (or drink) off the floor and a CDC report telling us not to seems excessive. Here is where I might insert a joke or some snark but why should I bother when Stephen Colbert has already done such a good job?

It was last Friday. Jack and Joal, co-owners of Charleville Winery and Microbrewery, invited friends and regular customers to a private vertical tasting of the last three years of their wonderful English-style barleywine.

I’ve been a fan of this ale, as I am of many of the beers they brew there, since I first tried it. It’s got a huge flavor without going over the top. There are notes of warming alcohol in it but the focus of the beer is complexity and balance. When it’s on tap it’s what I drink when I’m there.

This tasting featured 2007, 2008, and 2009. I didn’t make notes but here are the impression I was left with:

2007 - It appears the recipe peeks at about three years. It’s hard to imagine it getting much better than this. It is rich and incredibly smooth. It was packed with dark flavors like toffee, caramel and chocolate but even saying that seems to oversimplify the experience of drinking it. I’m not sure how long will stay peeked but for now it is very solid and appears to have many good years ahead. Were they selling it I’d buy a case.

2008 - This vintage hadn’t quite come together. The hops edge was faded a bit but some of the more aggressive sweet notes (can one say that?) from the malt tipped the balance of the beer a bit too much for me. Don’t get me wrong, it was still very good and I’d be glad to have many more of these. But next to the 2007… Let’s just say it’s amazing what a difference a year makes!

2009 - Young, aggressive, wild. This one is barely out of the fermentor and still has some growing up to do. The hops are still huge and in your face, though more in the flavor than the nose. It’s very enjoyable but on a different level than its two older brothers.

2009 Cask - I spent about twenty minutes just smelling this one before taking my first sip. They add extra hops to the cask and it is apparent. Huge huge huge hops nose with those wild, uncontrolled malty and alcohol notes dancing underneath - it was a joy just to smell it. It tasted much the same. The cask took some edge off of the beer but it was still a very young barleywine. And now with all of those hops swimming around in my mouth… Lovely, lovely stuff!

12 West from Farmington catered the event and did a great job. I talked to the chef a little bit. He told me that a couple of weeks ago he came out to Charleyville and tasted the 2009 to see what he wanted to fix. He said that he kept thinking of earthy foods, especially mushrooms while he was drinking it. This is how he pairs, he told me. He focuses on the first flavors or ingredients that pop into his mind while he’s drinking the beer or wine. Then he constructs a menu around those tastes.

What he prepared were some very nice dishes including some little bite-sized beef wellington type morsels, an apple and mushroom concoction wrapped in something like a crepe, steamed asparagus with salmon. These all worked well with the beer and brought out various flavors. Even though the 2007 was my favorite I found that I preferred some of the other vintages with different foods. For instance, the sweeter 2008 went better with the apple mushroom thing and the wild 2009 was the best beer for the salmon.

He also prepared a stuffed pasta, the biggest item in the picture. It had tomatoes, spinach, ricotta, and a very spicy Italian sausage with shredded parmesan on top. I never would have guessed that it would work so well with barleywine but it did. Again, it was the sweeter 2008 that worked best with this dish.

I asked the chef about pairing with beer vs. wine. (I wish I could remember his name but I really suck with names especially when I’m distracted by so much good beer.) I told him that, as a beer writer, I’m always trumpeting beer’s superiority to wine when pairing with food and wondered what his opinion was. He thought and said that he agreed but the reason surprised me. It’s simply a matter of expectations - his and his customers’. Wine pairing has a mystique, a certain snooty cache and he feels pressure to get it just so. He said that he tends to try to overdo it with wine, trying to pack to many flavors into one recipe.

Beer is simple he said. He finds it easier to be inspired to one ingredient or flavor and run with that. He feels freer to interpret because the rules aren’t so set in stone.

It was my first vertical tasting and will not be my last. Had I an ounce of self control and more disposable income I might be able to start laying the ground work for my own.

Can I say this without sounding silly? Probably not but I’m saying it anyway.

BeerAdvocate asked me to write a profile of a nearby brewery, O’Fallon Brewery. I contacted them and explained the article and asked to interview one of the co-founders, Tony Caradonna. We just finished the interview. During our conversation he and I agreed on what a great industry beer is. There isn’t a nicer group of people than beer people from the first-time homebrewer to the best known names in the industry.

So, and I feel that I should point out that I haven’t had any yet today, I love beer. I count myself incredibly lucky that I can make a living, however peripherally, from beer.

OK, It’s not often that I get geeked up about a new movie. Really. I can’t say for sure when the last time was that I entered a theater but I know that it’s been more than five years. But I might just have to break that streak for a new film coming out this spring - The Best Bar in America.

I’ll embed the trailer below but after only having seen it once there are already some pictures in my head that make me want to see it. The main character - long scruffy bead poorly hiding a youthful face - sits in a seedy tavern tapping away his review of that tavern on a laptop propped up on the bar. Same breaks a bottle over the head of an apparent monk in a bar fight. Same explains to a barfly with absolute sincerity and conviction that he’s reviewing every bar in the west.

A boozer’s Motorcycle Diaries? Could be!

Story found via LiquorSnob.com

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I was making some Guinness stew. A reader commented that she’d like to have the recipe and I promised to posted. Then I completely forgot to do that!

So, while I expect that Jen has lost patience with me and gone elsewhere for the recipe, I’ll go ahead and give you this link to my beef and Guinness stew recipe.

This is great stuff, especially for cold days like we’re having right now in my hemisphere. It’s damn tasty with Guinness but I encourage you to try it with other stouts or porters. Why not stop in at your local brewpub and pick up a fresh growler of the good black stuff? You’ll have enough for the recipe and plenty left over to serve with the stew.

Cheers!