I’m a beer lover. I’m not a cheese aficionado. I love cheese and I love exploring new styles. But, I don’t write about cheese, so this may seem inappropriate here. The other thing you probably need to know is that I don’t generally drink beer with food. The exception of course is beer and cheese. Another disclaimer: I don’t know a lot about cheese. I just eat a lot of it, especially when I drink beer.
I would like Costco a lot better if they provided beer samples while I wander around, pushing my cart with the pretense of buying family staples. I linger way too long in the “guy aisles” where compressors and power tools vie for my attention. If they served beer samples in the tool aisles at Costco, I’d hang out there just about as much as I do at Café Amsterdam. Okay, that’s a stretch, but I hope you get my point.
The other day, after my foray through my favorite corners of the store, I got back down to the business of providing for my family and somewhat reluctantly pulled out my shopping list. After a lingering, leisurely stroll through the meat department (reaffirming my strong conviction that I remain a true carnivore), I chanced across one of those sample tables, manned by someone that barely spoke English, but was offering up some specialty cheeses from Yancy’s Fancy New York Artisan Cheese Company in Corfu, New York.
As always, I couldn’t resist, not because this stuff was “fancy,” but because, again, I’m a sucker for cheese. I like strong cheeses. If it stinks, I’m in. So, when I saw the Yancy’s Fancy XX Sharp Ol’ Timer Cheese, I was really in. I wasn’t prepared for the intensity of this cheese, but delighted with it. Sometimes I feel like an arse when I go back for seconds, but I’d already tossed a wedge of this reasonably-priced stuff into my cart, which should have made the foreigner smile, but did not. I grabbed another dice-sized toothpick of the stuff and dove in again.
That’s when Yancy’s Fancy’s Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Mike Wimble, stepped around the display and took interest in my interest. We struck up a conversation and he invited me to try another offering from the New York artisan cheese producer, the Finger Lakes Champagne Cheddar. Is it okay, in Costco, to die and go to heaven twice in the same day? Apparently it is, because I’m here to write about it.
Okay, so what’s the hook? I got to talking to Mike and over the course of a half an hour, I’d determined that although the company had done a lot of wine tastings with this stuff, they were somewhat remiss in pairing the cheese with beer. It was MY turn to climb on the soapbox. I got thirstier and thirstier as I mentally paired up certain Belgian ales with the two cheeses that were now squatting the wheels in my grocery cart. It suddenly occurred to me that wherever the hell
It’s never too early to thinking about the Great Alaska Beer and Barleywine Festival. Even though it’s only October and the big gig isn’t until January of next year, an event of this magnitude takes some serious planning. I anticipate that in January, the same sort of schedule will be set forth in which the pre-festival events are as epic as the actual festival. Typically, on the Wednesday night before the fest, Billy-O over at Humpy’s puts together a mind (and liver) blowing Belgian ale dinner as sort of a grip-and-grin for the beer luminaries that show up for the event. Thursday night is typically the Great Northern Brewers meeting at which the keynote attendee does a presentation for a packed house. Friday night is the barley wine competition judging and the festival. Saturday is the second day of the festival, and on Sunday, Gambrinus rests. This is one week I’d really like to take off from work.
Speaking of planning, the folks at Aurora Productions are already starting to organize the 2008 Great Alaska Beer and Barley Wine Festival that will take place in January. It’s a huge undertaking and requires the tireless effort of a dedicated group of people that throw a lot of organizational prowess at what looks like chaos, and they always manage to pull the whole thing off. In particular, Annie Chavez does a lot of the grunt work of putting the festival together, and her task just got bigger.
For some odd reason, the distributors in town decided that starting in 2008, they would not provide volunteer support to man the booths that peddle their own beer. Annie has been left holding the bag. That’s where you’re going to help.
The Great Northern Brewer’s homebrew club provides great assist in this area because it’s membership knows beer better than the average slosher. Even if every active participant in the club volunteered for a couple of hours, there still wouldn’t be enough labor to support the event.
Here are some reasons you want to volunteer. First of all, it’s a blast. If you like beer (why the hell else are you reading this?), then you’ll be surrounded by about 4,000 of your closest beer drinking buddies. Even people you don’t like might show up, but either way, it’s fun to watch the reaction of festgoers when they discover a new beer or a new taste they’ve never experienced before.
Second, it gets you in the gig for free. That’s a $30.00 savings for investing a little bit of your time. It’s one of those “give a little, get a little” kind of good old boy deals, if you know what I mean.
Finally, this is your way of putting your money where your liver is. Remember, as serious, quality beer drinkers, we have a responsibility to promote good craft beer, and where is there a better pulpit to preach than at a beer festival? The event needs your help and I’m asking you to step forward and commit at least three hours of your time. I’ll be there; I always am. My job is to drink barley wine downstairs and help judge the barley wine competition that’s integral to the event. Even if you don’t know anything about beer, proctors, stewards and general helpers are needed in all areas, so do the right thing and volunteer…for Gambrinus and your country!
The results are in from the Sunday, October 30 National Toast to Michael Jackson at Café Amsterdam. This should be no surprise to you if you were there on Sunday night, but you folks have big livers and big wallets. Café Amsterdam is sending a check to the National Parkinson’s Foundation in Michael Jackson’s name for a whopping $3,653.00. Thanks again to Ken and Shauna Pajak for hosting this gig and to all of the local breweries (every one in the state was represented) that donated beer to be sold to support the cause.
La Bodega’s got some new treats on board for the discerning palate. You might find them on the aisles or in the new three-door cooler Pamela Hatzis procured to help protect some of the more fragile ales she brings in for us. She’s working to designate one door of the cooler to featured and new beers. Although not in the cooler, for new beers, how about Pyramid Snow Cap, Samuel Smith’s Winter Welcome, Viking Blod Danish Mead brewed with hops? There’s Demon Hunter Italian Ale, Hitacino Nest Ginger Beer from Japan and a French cider aged in Calvados (apple brandy) casks. While there I discovered that the Sierra Nevada Anniversary Ale finally showed up somewhere. But, the big beer that’s in is
Before I forget the mention it, the Sierra Nevada Anniversary Ale is a good pick. I thought it was going to be a big hop bomb in accordance with the brewery’s credo, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover that sweet, creamy malt notes hit first, which is surprising for a Sierra Nevada beer. At first, I thought it was a joke. Waiting a minute revealed an emergent rush of very fresh Pacific Northwest hop aroma. Take a fresh hop cone and squeeze it between your thumb and forefinger and you’ll get the idea. Where other
While at LaBodega I saw what looked like a new supply of the canned version of the Snow Goose Restaurant and Sleeping Lady Brewing Company’s Urban Wilderness Pale Ale. I knew this couldn’t be left over stock from the original run of cans a couple of years ago, so I called brewer Clay Brackley over at the Goose to get the skinny. I was correct in my assumption that the canning line had clanked to life once again. “We had that locked down two or three months ago,” said Brackley. Brackley and his brewing teammate Greg Mills dinked around with the system and discovered that somewhere along the line, a couple of critical rollers had been reversed which prevented the cans from being properly sealed. “Now we get zero percent oxygen content,” he explained. Brackley and Mills also bumped the carbonation up a bit which livens the beer quite a bit.
There’s a downside though. The canning line is the most labor-intensive aspect of the brewing operation. “It’s so manual, it’s like the dark ages,” lamented Brackley. “It’s one can at a time. We do about 11 cases of beer in eight hours.” That’s got to be tough. I can bottle homebrew way faster than that.
Still, I think it’s important for the Goose to continue the canning line. Urban Wilderness is the only Alaskan canned beer. The brewery dumped a lot of capital in the canning line and it just didn’t live up to expectations, but 20 pallets of can blanks sit idly waiting for a fill, and once they’ve been consumed, the brewery will evaluate future canning options.
I’m probably misinformed, but personally, I think the fulcrum is in marketing the cans to remote lodges and other fly-in destinations where hauling in weighty bottle stock is much more expensive than hauling in lighter canned beer. The empties are crushable and easier to haul out as well. A lot of remote lodges in Alaska cater to $2,000 - $3,000 a night guests who are unlikely to balk at a more expensive can of beer especially if it’s of stellar quality and local like the Urban Wilderness is. Canned craft beer and especially imports are on the rise both nationally and locally. The paradigm of that “canned beer taste” is slowly disintegrating as new can lining technology has erased most of the aberrations that discerning beer drinkers find disdain with. If the Goose doesn’t grab the market, another brewery will.
Brackley’s vision is to have more than one canned beer available because he believes people want choice. The problem is that the can blanks have to be produced in huge volumes and they aren’t cheap. The future of locally canned beer in Alaska remains to be seen.
Brackley’s Colonial Ale, a historical recipe using pumpkins, will be out in a couple of days. He also just brewed a winter warmer along the lines of his and Mill’s favorite, Samuel Smith’s Winter Welcome. “We used floor malted Maris Otter and English East Kent Goldings hops. We wanted to do our own version of it,” he said.
I visited the upstairs pub on Thursday (October 11) and sampled Brackley’s four specialty beers including the Honey Cream Ale, the Cask ESB, the Espresso Bock, and the Double IPA. Each was a very respectable beer in its own right. I found the Honey Cream Ale to be slightly hop forward for style, but sweet centered with honey apparent in both the nose and flavor. The yeast’s influence is apparent in the flavor. I was impressed by the beer’s cleanliness. The beer is very smooth, finishes with good lacing in the glass and is easy to drink.
I asked what was on cask and was told it was a brown, but when I got the sample, it was very light for style and incredibly hop forward. At about the time I was going to scoot my chair back and head to the bar to question the beer, the server showed up and told me it was an ESB. This made a lot more sense. The malt profile is right in line with a good Euro ESB, although I would appreciate a bit more in the biscuit-y flavor, but it is certainly no defect. The slightly hazy amber-ish beer is amply hopped with noble Euro hops and finishes clean and bitter in the end.
The specialty beer that steals the show is the Espresso Bock. Where the others are somewhat unassuming in the nose, the bock is chock full of sweet melanoidins and plenty of rich, sweet, dark malt flavors. The hop flavor and bitterness are appropriately in the background, allowing the more subtle malt nuances to stand in the spotlight. The coffee character is apparent right up front, but entirely balanced with the rest of the beer. It’s perfectly complimenting. There’s some alcohol heat in the finish of the beer and the bitterness drifts over into the swallow. This was my favorite of the evening.
The Double IPA is also a very nicely constructed beer, pouring perfectly amber and crystal clear. I expect a bit more hop aroma in a double IPA, but it was okay and Ms. Fermento easily pulled out at least the flowery compounds in this multiple hop beer. I truly appreciate the artful use of copious amounts of caramel and base malts to prop up the obvious hops. The nice, balancing sweetness is a nice contrast to the hop flavor and ample bitterness. The beer is also very nicely carbonated, which helps float the body some and keeps it from being cloying. I’m not a huge double IPA fan, but I could certainly down a number of pints of this beer.
Other beers on tap (that I didn’t sample) included the Gold Rush Golden, Fish On! IPA, Braveheart Scottish Ale, 49r Amber, John Henry Stout, Urban Wilderness English Pale Ale, and Portage Porter.
Not to cast a dark cloud on a wonderful drinking experience, but service remains a slight issue at the Goose. It was just Ms. Fermento and me at the table, and the primary server seemed unenthusiastic and somewhat unresponsive. Although a seasoned employee, he’d returned 
from a few days off (according to his own testimony) and admittedly didn’t know a whole lot of what was going on. Another server noticed his malaise, and kept coming over to the table to ensure my beer samples were coming at the proper rate. This server was top notch. Ms. Fermento ordered the prawns and I had a calzone, both of which took inordinately long to make it to the table. My calzone was a delight to the eyes, with a perfectly toasted, golden brown crust, but the ingredients in the center were refrigerator cold and even he cheese wasn’t melted. Something was amiss downstairs, but overall, it was a positive experience and I’m going to chalk it up to the place getting rather busy at the time we placed the order.
Midnight Sun Brewing Company’s got a lot going on in the coming days. I’m stealing shamelessly from their October 05, 2007 Ale Mail, but just in case you don’t get it, here’s the skinny. First of all, Gabe Fletcher, who sort of reminds me of the Mattress Ranch Guy of Hops (I think he needs to do a commercial), went crazy once again with a wet hop beer using Simcoe hops. Fletcher’s totally out of control, and I expect to see fresh cones sprouting from his ears any day now. A small three-barrel batch of the stuff was brewed up, but amazing to me is that close to 10 pounds of hops were used per barrel of beer to yield a well-balanced, well-rounded, very fresh, hop-explosive brew at 70 IBU’s and a scant (by MSBC standards) 5% alcohol beer. Wet hopping is a process where hops from the vine (rather than the oast house) are used in the beer for the freshest possible aroma and flavor. More hops are required to achieve the same IBU count (bitterness) and the hop clowns at MSBC spent over $500 bucks to have the heavier, “wet” hops roosted up here from the L48. Fletcher told me from vine to kettle was no more than 48 hours.
Wrath, MSBC’s next release in the Seven Deadly Sins series of full-throttle beers is being released this week. I attended the pre-release gig is at SubZero at 7 PM on Thursday, October 11th. Wrath is an intense beer. It’s so intensely bitter that the Belgian element is almost hidden underneath. The brewery release is Friday the 12th. This year’s “Boohouse Tour” at Midnight Sun will be on Friday, October 26th. Come as you are or come as you’ve always wanted to be for this lively pseudo-Halloween event. This would be a good time to slam some Humpback Jack Pumpkin Ale or perhaps the more foreboding Imperial Chocolate Pumpkin Porter. This will be followed by a pre-release of Sloth at SubZero on Thursday, November 01, again at 7:00 PM. The brewery release will be on Friday November 02. The winter beers are rolling in (Deschutes Jubelale and Full Sail Wassail are already in, along with some of last year’s Christmas wares on tap at Humpy’s) and Midnight Sun’s hanging it’s ornament on the tree early this year with the October 29th release of CoHoHo Imperial IPA. The heavily anticipated Arctic Devil Barley Wine will be released on Friday, November 23rd. Look for separate coverage of the MSBC Beer Dinner at Kinley’s on Thursday, November 15th, but slap it on your calendar now.
Kinley’s Restaurant and Bar in midtown offers fine dining and a superb wine menu in an upscale setting. They also have some good beer on tap and an extensive high-end bottle selection. To feature Kinley’s as a beer bar would be a misnomer because I don’t believe that’s the bar’s intent. Kinley’s wants the beer they offer to compliment the food, not the other way around, and it works. Still, they recognize beer’s contribution to a dining experience and don’t hesitate to feature a brewery when the chance comes along. On Thursday, November 15th, a Midnight Sun Brewing Company beer dinner will be held there featuring five beers and four courses for $50.00. Wrath, CoHoHo, Sloth, the Imperial Chocolate Pumpkin Porter and a new pilsner will be paired with Kinley’s artfully prepared foods. These are sell-out events, so RSVP at 644-8953. Just in case you can’t make it to the tasting but want to stop in and sample the wares, new beers at Kinley’s include Carnegie Stark Porter (2004), Etienne Dupont Brut Cider (Organic), Harvey’s Christmas Ale, Hatichino Nest New Year Celebration Ale, J.W. Lee’s Harvest Ale (Calvados casked) and Rodenbach Grand Cru. Just these new beers on the list would make outstanding pairings with any of the fabulous appetizers on the menu.
Tap Root Café is hosting a Scandinavian and Scotttish Beer Tasting (six beers and house appetizers) on Monday, October 15th at 7:00 PM. Looking at the beer list, $30.00 for this gig is a steal. The tasting includes Pripp’s Carnegie Porter, La Meule, Viking Blod, Belhaven’s St Andrews Scottish Ale, Broughton Black Douglas Scottish Ale and of course, a mystery beer. Hint: Study your Swiss beers for a shot at the prize for guessing the brown bag beer correctly.
Years ago I borrowed a phrase that artfully combined the big corporate brewing conglomerates of Anheuser Busch, Miller Brewing Company and Coors Brewing Company. Rather than list them all in a sentence, I would call them collectively “Budmillors.” That name just got a little more accurate when a joint venture between Miller and Coors was announced on Tuesday (October 9th). Now the entity is going to be called MillerCoors (how creative) and will market both company’s existing brands at least here in the United States. This is a direct shot at corporate giant Anheuser Busch (AB) who controls about half the beer market share in the United States.
Details are still being ironed out, but now existing breweries are slated to close as a result of the joint venture. Both of Coors breweries and all six of Miller’s will remain in operation. That’s good news for nervous and often skeptic employees, but they don’t have anything to worry about in the near term since the deal isn’t expect to be sealed until the end of this year and things actually getting under way in 2008.
Although the intent is probably to keep the two product lines separate and combine the marketing, organizational and strategic elements of the two giants to achieve economies of scale, it will be interesting to see if any creative brews come out of the mix. You know brewers; they’re an incestuous bunch and yeast will cross-breed with other strains freely, so it could get interesting, although in reality the entities will probably remain distinct.
Still, the venture is going to have to do something pretty quick because craft beer continues to gobble up double-digit market share, proving that marketing alone doesn’t sell beer. There has to be something interesting to drink, and Americans are finding a lot less interest in drinking in volume and a lot more interest in slowly enjoying a more expensive, flavorful craft beer. AB’s slowly figuring this out and rather than try to fake making something that resembles craft beer, it’s actually giving it a shot with some interesting results. I haven’t seen too much on the Miller or Coo….er…..Milloors side of the house other than Blue Moon out of Colorado, and that’s been around for a while.
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