Are You Experienced?or The Best Name For A Beer Ever

So I'm lucky enough to have several close relatives that live in Wisconsin. My father is from Wisconsin. This is especially lucky because New Glarus Brewing Company, one of the best breweries in the midwest in my humble opinion, is only available in - you guessed it - Wisconsin. Dammit!

I've had their Wisconsin Belgian Red, which is a hell of a beer. They describe the style as a "Wisconsin Cherry Ale," who knew? Its a wonderful fruit beer that truly tastes like fresh summer cherries. Tart and sweet, tannic and dry, this ale is not the cloyingly sweet Kool-Aid that we are sometimes used to getting with fruit beer here in the states. They call it "a marriage of wine and beer." This beer is brewed with whole Door County (where I used to swim in the summertime) Montmorency Cherries, Wisconsin Farmed Wheat and Belgian Roasted Barleys. This beer is then cold cellared in oak tanks for one full year. If you have a chance to try this beer, do so.

Now then, on to the topic of this blog which is the Best Name For A Beer Ever. A few times a year, NGBC will cut their brewmaster and co-owner Daniel Carey loose to brew whatever he chooses, crazy, unfettered and free. Always handcrafted, these beers are very limited editions with no promises of ever being brewed again. Right now, one of those beers is one named Smoke on the Porter. Yes! Isn't that awesome? Can't you just hear Deep Purple now?

Here's what the brewery says about this beer. "Smoke on the Porter began with our neighbors at Hoesly's Meats. Their smoke house aromas waft through our door creating a special kind of decadence that must be shared. Wisconsin barleys were generously cold smoked with apple wood by the Hoesly family. Brewmaster Dan then harnessed dark malts smoked in Bamberg to create a team that steps out as a creamy smooth black brew that will forever linger in your mind as Smoke on the Porter."

This beer is creamy and smooth. Beer Advocate magazine says, "...the malt really shines with a soft cake-like sweetness within. Suggestions of dark roasted coffee and bitter dark chocolate come to mind.... No doubt, the balance of this smoked porter is unsurpassed."

So toast life with beer from the land of Wisconsin.

Did I mention that The New Glarus Brewing Company is located in and named after the quaint town of New Glarus, Wisconsin? New Glarus is known as "America's Little Switzerland," a fact that is evident the minute you drive into town. You feel like you stepped back in time a hundred years to a small town in Switzerland. The Brewery is just one of many unique businesses in New Glarus. There are also antique stores, meat markets, two museums, an authentic Swiss bakery and a fine array of restaurants with authentic Swiss cuisine. In fact, my family and I used to make the treck from Madison, WI for schnitzel and noodles! For more information on New Glarus and its local business, visit the New Glarus Chamber of Commerce at www.swisstown.com.

Also, I thought that this would be a good time to announce that my fantasy football team, Testeverdes Settatesties, is in the Superbowl. (I'm playing the person who introduced me to New Glarus Brewing Co. - But I will still beat him down.)

And also, Go Packers!

The Session: Winter Beers

So I finally have it together enough to participate in this month's "The Session," which has been deemed as "a monthly virtual beer tasting. Hosted by a different blogger each month, and each month has a different theme chosen by the host." I've kept my eye on it over the last few months and have really enjoyed the exchange and some of the brilliant beers. This month is about Winter Beers, and since I had just written about them, I thought that I would include The Session in this post.

So my fellow chicks, I should tell you, if you haven't found out by now, that there are certain beers which are only brewed for the Winter season. These beers run the gamut in flavor, but a lot of them are spicy, malty, piney and a little higher in the alcohol content department: all things that you know this beer chick likes. So, without too much more ado, here are some of my favorite holiday seasonal beers or beers that are great as special holiday treats and gifts!

Samichlaus Bier - originally brewed by Hurlimann Brewery
Rheinfelden, Switzerland
Want a little warming up on a cold winter night? Only want to have one seasonal ale? This one is it. Samichlaus ("Santa Claus" in Swiss-German dialect) is brewed every year on December 6th, St. Nicholas' Day. The delicious lager is then matured an entire year before being released the following December. At 14% alcohol by volume, this beer was once the world's strongest lager and has been listed in The Guinness Book of Records. But don't shy away. Samichlaus has a smooth creaminess with brandy, cherry flavors and spice. Yum.
Pairs With: Rich and roasted foods, duck, pork and cured meats.
Try it with German chocolate cake or rum tart.
Glassware: Specialty Samichlaus Glass or Small Tulip or Snifter

Craftsman Holiday Spruce - Pasadena, CA
This Winter warmer has an unbeatable balance...but its a big balance, the aroma is a mix of fruit and sweet spice. One detects cinnamon, allspice, and really delicious orange and orange peel notes in the flavor. Then the maltiness hits you with distinct fruitiness. I get apples and old world fruit like raisins and figs. Then the beer rounds out with nice spiciness and dryness provided by the FRESH SPRUCE TIPS that Craftsman uses in the brewing of this beer. Does anything say Winter more?
Pairs With: I served this beer last night at a beer dinner and it paired amazingly well with a bite of marinated beets and goat cheese with a rosemary pesto. Forget about it.
Glassware: Teardrop

Anchor Christmas - San Francisco, California
Famous for its Steam Beer, Anchor Brewing's Christmas Ale or "Our Special Ale" has been a west coast tradition since it was first brewed in 1975. Available only from Thanksgiving to New Years, this ale's recipe is different every single year and it is kept top secret. Since ancient times trees have symbolized the winter solstice. So every year this beer bottle label features a different tree. Because of the special limited ale inside and the special label, Anchor Christmas is very collectable. There are people who claim to have a bottle from every year. This is a great beer to drink at a holiday party or to bring as a gift. Besides regular 12 oz. bottles, this beer is sold in magnums: a big unique one of a kind present.
Pair with: This beer is different every year. The style will determine what it pairs with.
Glassware: American Shaker Pint Glass

Deus Brut de Flandres - Brouwerij Bosteels - Buggenhout, Belgium
This beer isn't necessarily a winter ale, but if you want to bring a fabulous gift that nobody other than a beer aficionado would know, or you want something special to lift for that holiday toast, the Deus Brut des Flandres is the way to go. This divine drink combines the best of two production methods. Using techniques developed over centuries of brewing, first the beer is brewed in Belgium, then the ale is matured and refined in the champagne region of France, using ancestral Champagne making techniques. This beer makes me want to celebrate.
Pair with: Deus makes an excellent aperitif (before food) or digestive (after food). Its also great with desserts.
Glassware: Flute

Deschutes Jubelale & Cindercone Red Ale - Bend, Oregon
Hailing from the Northwest US brewing mecca, Jubelale calls itself an "apres ski brew." Perfect for a gathering of family and friends, Jubelale is a strong festive ale characterized by a large malty body balanced with hop bitterness. Jubelale is available around the first of October. Cindercone Red Ale is another great seasonal ale from Deschutes. This beer is great for the new year as it is available January through April.
Pair with: Jubelale - Big intense dishes, roasted beef, lamb or game.
Cindercone Red Ale - Chicken, seafood, burgers; great with spicy food.
Glassware: Pint Glass

Unibroue Quelque Chose - Chambly, Quebec
This is really cool. Quelque Chose is strong cherry ale that is to be consumed hot! It's amazing sitting by the fire, winding up the evening, a perfect after dinner drink. This beer tastes like a warm sweet and tart cherry cider. "Quelque Chose" is a popular French-Canadian expression that is used like "That's something!"
Pair with: Strong cheeses and chocolate desserts.
Glassware: Stemmed Large Tulip Glass

Hoppy Holidays - Celebrate With Beer

The holiday season is upon us, and inevitably that means it's time to either attend or host a litany of holiday parties. Parties that, for years, have featured the same turkey roll-ups and re-gifted bottles of "two buck Chuck." This year why not do something a little different? Have you ever considered beer? Yes, I said it: the beautiful malt beverage that is beer.

The new level of craft beer brewing around the world is revolutionizing the way we view and drink beer. These artisanal ales are starting to show up on beer lists of some of the most prestigious and cutting edge restaurants in the world. These restaurants are focusing on food and beer pairings the same way that a sommelier would pair wine with food.

Holiday beers have become the rage over that last couple of years and microbrews and imported specialty beers are becoming more readily available to the public. "Beer Dinners" are popping up around the United States the same way that wine-tasting parties did five years ago. People are educating themselves on how beer pairs with food and how to celebrate with what are truly some of the greatest beers in the world.

As the holidays approach, why not have a truly unique experience with a beverage that can enhance food in a way that wine simply can't? Beer is a beverage that allows for more casual and easy going fun and experimentation without the stilted snobbery that, unfortunately, sometimes comes along with wine.

How To Throw a Beer Dinner:

Do Your Research:
Nowadays, the best place to find artisanal and craft beers are at high-end specialty wine shops. Give your local wine shop a call and check it out. See what's available and build your holiday food menu around the beer. Find out where you can buy craft and artisanal beers in your area. For example, one of my favorite brewers is Craftsman Brewing Company out of Pasadena, CA. They only distribute to bars that are local to the Los Angeles area, but you can buy a keg from them directly. Another one of my favorite breweries is called Three Floyds Brewing out of Munster, Indiana. They have a very limited distribution area as well, and I can't get the beer in California. Your local wine shop will be able to point you in the right direction and give you alternatives for beers that you might not be able to get.

Think Of Pairings:
Once you've picked out the beers that you like, study them. What kind of style of beer are they and what kinds of foods pair well with them? Go to the Brewers Association online (www.beertown.com) and get recommendations for pairings. For instance, the BA says that: "a floral blonde ale is great with seared Ahi tuna. Hoppy (bitter) American pale ale can balance the richness of appetizers such as cheese tartlets. For lighter items such as grilled fish, a Pilsner is great. For roasted chicken, a malty lager or a pale ale can be delightful. Chocolate loves a dark beer. Super-sweet items such as cheesecake, creme brulee or carrot cake can create a memorable experience with highly hopped beers such as double IPAs. Beer's bright carbonation, especially medium-intensity beers suit many cheeses. Fruit beers are excellent with soft-ripened cheese such as Brie."

Set the Stage:
According to the Brewers Association, beer tastes best at a certain temperature, and it's probably warmer than you think. Serving a beer too cold inhibits flavor receptors and thus masks the true nuance of many styles of beer. Serve the beer too warm and beer, especially holiday ales which are generally sweeter, can be perceived as too syrupy. As a rule, take the beer out of the fridge about 5 minutes before you want to serve it. It will warm up to the correct temperature as you drink it.

Glassware is also very important. Not only does the proper glassware show off the beautiful color and frothy head of the beer; like the difference in a pinot noir glass vs. a cabernet sauvignon glass, each glass shape helps pinpoint where on the tongue the drinker will taste the beer and helps focus the aroma. The shape of glassware also regulates at what rate that particular beer will de-gas. Carbonation helps balance a beer so the rate at which it is released is a very important flavor factor. Most European beer styles have their own traditional glassware shape. They can range from tulip shaped, a handled stein, a flute, a chalice, a pint glass and many more. If you have questions about what glassware works with what beer style, go to http://beeradvocate.com/beer/101/glassware.php.

What Do You Mean My Beer Isn't Real?

Have you ever heard of "Real Ale" or "Cask Ale?" I was going to write an awesome, poignant and riveting piece. But upon doing my research I found someone who had already done that. Here is a great article by Eric Asimov of the New York Times. Its worth its length. Very informative, plus it lists some of my FAVORITE beer bars in New York City. Go Beer!

The Power in the Cask: Old Ways, New Beer
By ERIC ASIMOV

I was sitting at a noisy bar on a beautiful fall afternoon, watching the bartender work, and she was indeed working.

She pulled down on the tap, then pushed back, pulled down and pushed up, in rhythmic repetition like a farmhand at a well. The ale poured slowly into a mug, at first all foam, then turning translucent before suddenly clarifying into a brilliant suds-topped amber.

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.

This was beer the really old-fashioned way. Today most draft beers are injected with carbon dioxide, filtered and often pasteurized, stored in pressurized kegs and served through gas-powered taps.

But the beer I was served was unpasteurized and unfiltered. Like the earliest bubbly brews, it was naturally carbonated, or conditioned, in its cask by yeast transforming sugar into alcohol with a side of fizzy carbon dioxide trapped in the cask. And it was served by muscle power pumping the ale up from its cask into the mug.

Cask-conditioned ales were standard in British pubs 100 years ago. They nearly disappeared after World War II, replaced with bland, corporate beers. But they have made a huge comeback in Britain in the last 35 years, and are in more and more American bars and restaurants. In the New York area the number of places serving cask ales has shot up since 2005.

"It's been a dramatic increase," said Robert Hodson, the sales manager of the craft beer division for Union Beer Distributors, the metropolitan area's leading distributor of cask ales. "In 2005 we serviced 12 accounts, and in 2007 it's up to 39."

In the last few days, I've had several excellent cask ales, including that wonderful pint, served at the Spotted Pig in the West Village and brewed by Sixpoint Craft Ales in Brooklyn. The bartender described it as a cross between a lager and a Bavarian wheat beer, which made no sense to me, as it tasted mostly like an English bitter. But if it was a mess in terms of genre, it was delicious in the glass.

At the Ginger Man in Midtown, I had a cask-conditioned Best Bitter from Sierra Nevada, beautifully balanced and softly carbonated with great depth and purity. At the Blind Tiger Ale House in Greenwich Village, I had a lively, detailed India pale ale from Brooklyn Brewery. I didn't even get to Brooklyn, which, with bars like Spuyten Duyvil, Barcade, Mugs and the Brazen Head, is cask beer central. The Brazen Head is holding another in a series of cask beer festivals Nov. 2 to 4, with 25 casks.

The number of casks being pumped is minute, given an American beer market still dominated by big corporate brewers. But throughout the country, growth in the beer market has been almost entirely in the craft brewing segment, and that has been especially true in New York.

While the American market for craft brews and specialty imports has risen 13 percent this year, Mr. Hodson said, in New York the rise in 2007 has been much higher, partly because the beer culture in New York has lagged behind that in the rest of the country and is now catching up.

It's the rare bar in New York today that doesn't offer alternatives to the insipid mass-market brews. Craft breweries have brought to American consumers every conceivable European beer genre and more than a few that Europeans never imagined. Now, with cask-conditioned ale, Americans have the opportunity to taste beers of unmatched subtlety and authenticity.

Because cask ales are naturally carbonated and best served at cellar temperature - about 55 degrees - they have often been described as warm and flat. But as you get to know them, it can become hard to imagine drinking beer any other way. The softness of the bubbles and the gently cool temperature permit nuances that would otherwise be undetectable.

Cask ale is made the same way as other good beers, until it is left to mature in tanks. Mass-market beer is filtered and pasteurized for a stable shelf life.

Cask beer is treated differently. It goes, naturally, into casks, or firkins, if you want the British word for a container of 9 imperial gallons (around 11 U.S. gallons.) Firkins used to be wooden, but now are generally made of metal. A small dose of sugar is added to produce a secondary fermentation, just as Champagne or certain other beers are refermented in bottles. Brewers may also add more hops and a fining material, like isinglass, to help settle the yeast and clarify the beer.

Cask ales must be treated with considerable care. They have to be kept cool and handled gingerly, and when it’s time to tap the kegs, they require an experienced, or at least educated, hand. In fact, the biggest obstacle to a wider distribution of cask beers is a lack of training.

"I have to take people from start to finish about what to do and what not to do," said Alex Hall, a beer consultant who has been proselytizing for cask-conditioned ales since he came to New York from Brighton, England, eight years ago.

If mass-market kegs are the Wonder bread and Velveeta of the beer world, cask ales are like fresh-baked loaves or artisanal cheeses, with the potential to be glorious but risky all the same. They have a shelf life of two to four days once opened, and if not tapped correctly they can be a big disappointment.

"I've literally had to go into places and say, 'That's it, you can't have our beer,'" said Garrett Oliver, the brewmaster for Brooklyn Brewery, which produces 9 to 14 casks of ale a week. "It's a very touchy thing, because there are people who've read about cask beer and want to serve it, but they don't really understand what it takes and they're not willing to make the commitment. The galling thing is it doesn't take that much time."

So why take the risk and bother? "To some extent England inspired me to become a brewer," Mr. Oliver said. "When done properly, it's some of the nicest beer we can make."

To a certain extent all beer was cask beer in the pre-industrial age. But today cask ale, with its low carbonation and bright clarity, is largely a British tradition.

Belgian beers took quickly to bottling, which is why many great Belgian brews are bottle-conditioned rather than cask-conditioned. The German tradition focused largely on lagers, with their more powerful carbonation and yeasts that dropped naturally to the bottom of the brewing vessel, rather than the British top-fermenting ale yeasts.

And it has been a British grass-roots organization, Campaign for Real Ale, which has led the resurgence of cask-conditioned ales there since the 1970s.

In the United States, cask ales are unlikely ever to gain more than a sliver of the market. In Britain, cask-ale production is automated at certain breweries. But no American brewery is set up like that; it’s all done by hand.

"Ordinarily we can fill 85 kegs in two and a half hours," Mr. Oliver said. "For cask, we have a guy with a hammer, a cask and a couple of flasks. You can see why it's a labor of love."

New favorite word: Firkin.

Also, Garrett Oliver...if you ever read my blog, I want to meet you and have a few session ales so I can tap your brain!

Teeny Little Corrections

So, I'd like to thank Angeleno Magazine for writing about me. It was cool to be featured and a great picture. There are a couple things in the article that I'm starting to get some questions and mail about. I do have a tendency to talk very very quickly about a subject that is foreign to a lot of people. Anyway, here are some corrections to clear things up!

First of all, it quoted me as saying the Biere de Champagne is "sent to the town of Champagne"... What I said was that the beer is sometimes sent to the Champagne REGION for aging and going through the methode champagnoise. You can read my previous article called "The Champagne of Beers" for more info.

Secondly, I hope everyone here has enough faith in me to know that I know that Lindemans Peach Lambic is not a dark beer. Also, I wouldn't say that "most dark beers have less alcohol than lighter beers." I usually tell people that the color of a beer has nothing to do with its bitterness or alcohol content and that a dark beer COULD have less alcohol than a lighter colored beer.

Cheers to all of you my fellow beer nerds!

cp

Unibroue Beer Social @ 3 on Fourth

Hi Everyone.... Let's drink some beer shall we?
Hope you can make it.

I Want This Book!

So, October 18th, in the wonderful land of beer, a brand new book about Belgian Beer was introduced at the famous Bruges' Beer Pub't Brugs Beertje in Brugge, Belgium! This book is called "All Belgian Beers" and its about ALL THE BELGIAN BEERS IN THE WORLD! (which are only in Belgium) Yes. I want this book so badly.

Never before has such a comprehensive focused guide with 756 unique Belgian Beers been published. Actually I don't know if that's true, but it's a really comprehensive book! You know what the kicker is? It was written by a woman!

Hilde Deweer has painstakingly put together this 1568 page volume with great care and precision, highlighting each beer on 2 pages with a picture (pictures are good), flavor description, beer style, fermentation style, brewery, ingredients, alcohol volume percentage, color, appearance, serving tips, serving temperature, and other pertinent information. YEAH BEER CHICKS ROCK!

The other cool thing about this book is that while it is voluminous, its still small enough to fit inside your huge Chloe handbag. Keep it like a journal because the lower part of the left page has some space to write down personal experiences, so it's a book to carry with you - all the time. I want it.

I don't know if this book is available in the United States yet, but you can click HERE for more ordering details and information in English. The book is 35 Euro. I don't know how much that is in American dollars, but I want it.