Beer & Me

Rumors of the Inbev takeover of Anheuser-Busch have left at least one fan of Budweiser worried that his favorite brew will go the way of the dodo. I think that that’s pretty unlikely.

As much as I would prefer that Anheuser-Busch not become a subsidiary of a European corporation I believe that Bud would remain safe even if it does. Inbev does not have a history of completely dismembering the companies that they buy. In fact the brands that come with their take-overs tend to become even better known.

Now, as to the quality of Bud, I’m the wrong guy to ask as Bud is already pretty low quality, in my opinion. But I believe that it will be maintained. A-B has long been a streamlined American corporation and its flagship brand is designed for the lowest production cost possible with the highest profit. Given those truths, Inbev would likely change very little about it.

One of my favorite subjects to rail against is ridiculous liquor laws that inhibit ordinary commerce and creativity. Case in point: A California brewer who happens to make his beer in Weed, CA decided to call his brew Weed and to add the titillating slogan “Try Legal Weed” to his bottle caps. Using the current prohibition against marijuana use in the US, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms has decided that this slogan is just too much. Let’s set aside for the moment that nothing this brewer has done is specifically illegal; he brewed a beer legally, he advertised it legally and, under the auspices of the First Amendment, he labeled it legally. But in spite of all of that the feds are still coming down on him.

OK, so “Try Legal Weed” might not be the cleverest of promotional campaigns but come on, G-Man! We all get it. No one really things that this beer contains drugs nor do they think that this is an endorsement of illegal activity. It’s a little joke!

It is a light summertime drink that’s regaining some popularity here in the US. It has long been popular in Europe and is enjoying a resurgence in the US as beer drinkers here are looking for more their beer than the same-ol-same-ol.

The shandy is very easy to make just mix beer and lemonade – about equal parts but adjust to your taste. That’s it; no special glasses are required or complicated mixing rules. Just fill a glass about half way with lemonade then top it off with beer. The best are lightly hopped lagers or ales, mainstream American style lagers like Bud or Miller work just fine.

Have you heard about this “space beer” that Sapporo has come up with? If not, don’t get too excited - it’s not nearly as fascinating as it seems like it could be. I mentioned it on my About page and, quite frankly, felt a little silly about it.

Here’s the situation. Researchers studying ways to grow food in space grew some barley on the international space station, Sapporo got a hold of the grain as is now brewing beer with it. They plan to have it out by August.

Not what you were picturing, was it? When I first saw the phrase “space beer” I envisioned beer that somehow remained carbonated in a gravity-free environment. I could just see these flatish plastic bags filled with beery goodness. But no, “space beer” is just a hook to get peoples’ attentions.

So I got up this morning determined to transfer the stout to secondary…more correctly, I got up this morning determined not to not to transfer.

More importantly I was able to taste the stout and everything seems to be just right with it. The recipe says that its a Dry Irish Stout (isn’t that redundant?) and all characteristics seems to be pointing in that direction.

Conclusion: Using fourteen month old hops and yeast both of which have been carelessly stored at room temperature will not necessarily ruin the beer. I would not recommend it but if it happens it doesn’t necessarily mean that the ingredients are worthless.

I almost wish that I had done this deliberately and could say that this is the successful end to an experiment.

Day One.

Nothing else kills a nice homebrew like procrastination. Once I brewed an incredibly promising IPA that went south when I let it set in the primary fermentor for around a month. In that time some of the trub that had fallen to the floor of the fermentor dissolved into the wort - I think - and gave the beer a really nasty smell and taste.

So today was when I was planning to transfer what I’ve come to jokingly call my Alt Stout. But it’s also a holiday and my wife will be home all day. We have what she calls a galley kitchen, that is it’s long and narrow, and that makes it really quite inconvenient for two people to be in doing anything for any amount of time. So when I want to do homebrew stuff it’s really best to wait for the house to be empty.

I’m telling myself that I’m only waiting one extra day and how much damage can happen in that time? I brewed seven days ago so eight days in the primary won’t hurt anything too much will it? Let’s hope not!

That is unless I find some excuse to procrastinate again tomorrow.

A couple of years ago a buddy – let’s call him Kyle since that’s his name - and I visited the Great Divide brewery in Denver. We were looking at the tee shirts that they had for sale. Kyle refused to buy any of them because every shirt had the brewery’s motto on it – “great minds drink alike.” He couldn’t bring himself to wear such a patently false statement because, he argued, he knew some really smart people that drank really bad beer.

This is how I feel about American style wheat beer. Bavarian wheat beer or hefeweizen is a lovely drink. Its distinct flavor and aroma of bananas and spice come from a particular strain of yeast. Wheat, which contributes much less flavor than barley, serves to reduce the malty flavor of the brew and give this yeast a place to shine. But American style wheat beer doesn’t use this yeast. Instead it uses a common, clean fermenting ale yeast. So the beer has very little malt flavor, low hops and much less flavor from the yeast than its German brother. In other words it is a flavorless beer.

But the kick in the head here is that so very many craft beer lovers also love American style wheat. Beer lovers whose taste in beer I respect always amaze me when they order and savor this particular style. So, in the end I suppose Kyle was right.

(By the way, this is not an indictment of all of the wheat beer brewed by American brewers. Many great wheat beers are brewed by them. American style wheat beer is a particular style. How can you tell the difference? Ask what kind of yeast that they use to make the beer.)

Do you follow the business of big beer? Yeah, I probably wouldn’t either except that it’s my job to know about these things. Most of the time the news is pretty drab and boring stuff – Molson Coors sales were up a quarter of a point last quarter, Carslberg bought a brewery in Poland…yawn!

But this bit of news made me sit up and pay attention. Seems that Inbev – the beer conglomerate based in Belgium and responsible for such brands as Beck’s, Stella Artois, and Hoegaarden – is making noises that they might buy Anheuser-Busch! As startling as this new is it shouldn’t come as a total surprise. The two have been dating for a while with A-B exclusively distributing most of Inbev’s big brands here in the US. If the deal goes through one company would control a quarter of all of the beer sold in the world!

Well, I did as promised and the fermentation is going like gangbusters. Somewhere between 8 to 10 hours after I pitched a bit less than a tablespoon of baker’s yeast the tube coming out of my carboy was bubbling and spitting up bits of krausen.

Unfortunately it smells very wrong. It’s obviously been a while since I brewed given that this was a forgotten 14 month-old kit that I pulled out of a heap in my basement so I may have forgotten what a good fermentation smells like. This one has a distinct cidery/sour aspect that makes me think some nasty bacteria sneaked in.

It would be no surprise if it did given how I abused this wort. First it sat for four days with no apparent fermentation going on. Next sometime at the end of day two I began frantically peeking in at it. Third I rather unceremoniously dumbed in some white stuff I pulled out of the same heap in a little zip lock baggy with the label “yeast nutrient” on it and eight hours later I dumped some bakers yeast in it that had sat in my refrigerator for a couple of months. The chances for infection during this series of events are too numerous to count.

Oh well, now that the homebrewer in me is reawakened I’ll brew some beautiful beers soon enough. I got two more kits in today from Northern Brewer - and Alt and a Mild. And I might even be able to get away with calling this current brew a Flanders stout.

Attending my first bbqs of the summer this weekend and as the resident beer expert in every social or familial circle to which I belong it falls to me to buy the beer…and somehow it also falls to me to pay for it!

Anyway, the two this weekend are relatively small and one is byob so I only had to buy a case’s worth of beer. Here’s what I picked up: Flying Dog Pale Ale, Anchor Liberty Ale, Woodchuck Pear Cider (for my wife), and good old Guinness. My brother-in-law adores Guinness – it’s one of only two beers he drank as a young man in his native Ghana – so I feel obliged to always pick some up for him.