Beercraft Newspaper Column #56: Low alcohol, big flavor

Low Alcohol, Big flavor
By Mark Tichenor and Bruce Lish

So how were you feeling under the harsh dawn of New Year’s Day?

A bad hangover, which some of you readers undoubtedly had, can put a person off of alcoholic beverages for quite a while, and rightly so. A hangover is a message from your brain that you were drinking in an irresponsible fashion.

One of the trends in craft beer over the past few years has been to make the occurrence of those hangovers much more likely. Strong beer has been king. The alcohol content of craft brew by volume usually tops 6%, and routinely spikes over 8%. Some of the strongest “extreme” beers pack an alcoholic punch eclipsing wine, up to 22% alcohol by volume in some cases.

These are fine, but it’s difficult to have more than two of these alcohol-bombs and still remain socially acceptable. Fortunately, and especially if you’re cool with drinking imports, there’s a whole range of commonly available beers that offer huge flavor while treading a bit more lightly on the old liver. If you’re planning a longer night out, you can’t go wrong with any of the following.

We’ll start with the obvious session beer: Guinness Irish Stout. Imposing, nearly opaque black, and bursting with dry, nutty, roasty flavor, Guinness does much to explode the myth that high alcoholic content is necessary for a satisfying beer.

Guinness is the beer we use to free beer newbies from their preconceptions. Many people believe that darker beer is stronger and heavier. But the only thing that makes Guinness dark is the roasting of the malt before brewing. A heavy roast results in grain that’s nearly black in color, and the use of this grain in brewing gives Guinness its inky, seductive hue.

Take a look at the numbers. The black beast of Dublin clocks in at 4.2% alcohol by volume, the same as a Bud Light. At 220 calories per pint, Guinness isn’t murder on the waistline either.

Of course, the flavor of Guinness isn’t for everybody. If you prefer a crisper, lighter, clean-tasting beer, a Pilsner might be just the thing. Pilsner Urquell, from the Czech Republic, is the original Pilsner beer (it’s brewed in the town of Pilsen). Over the years, the term “Pilsner” has become bastardized to refer to any light colored lager.

But the original Urquell is packed with flavor. You can taste the sweet malt in each sip, bready, yet light on the tongue. As you swallow, that clean sweetness rounds into a gentle bitterness imparted by Czech Saaz hops, lingering on the back of the tongue and inviting another sip.

Urquell is refreshing enough to drink outside on a hot day, complex enough to stand up to most food pairings, and, at 4.4% alcohol, light enough to make it your “go-to” beer when out with friends.

Our third suggestion comes from the Rhine river town of Cologne (spelled ‘Koeln’ in German). The city’s breweries are famous for their Koelsch- a slightly sweet, light colored low-alcohol ale that serves as an accompaniment to many meals and an excellent social lubricant in the evenings. It’s not the easiest style to find in Rochester, but Gaffel Kolsch has recently been on tap at the Tap and Mallet, and is available bottled at Beers of the World.

While Gaffel Koelsch is in fact an ale, its clean flavor and grassy body seem very lager-like. The key to this beer is balance, with neither the hops nor the malt dominating the flavor. Instead they combine to impart a gentle spiciness with noticeably grain and floral aroma.

Gaffel checks in at an underwhelming 4.8% alcohol, making it a good choice if you’re planning to have multiple brews over the course of an evening.

So who says you have to compromise? Pick one of these beers, or really pretty much any Irish stout, Koelsch, or Pilsner, and you can be assured you’re drinking a beverage that’s absolutely delicious, and is likely to split your bladder prior to splitting your skull. High alcohol content is great from time to time, but moderation hurts less in the morning.

In other beers

The annual Scottsville Ice Arena Winterfest is taking place on Saturday, January 19th, from 5pm to midnight. Included in the $10 admission is a beer and wine tasting from 7-9pm. Head on over to darkest Scottsville and sample the finest from Southern Tier, Rohrbach, Brooklyn Brewery and many more fantastic New York State craft brewers. There’s also music provided by The Meddling Kids and Random Act, and by you if you bring bongos and join the rhythm-optional drum circle.

Bruce is a certified beer judge and commercial brewer. Mark owns a laptop and likes beer. For more on beer, check out the beercraft blog, updated regularly, at http://beercraft.wordpress.com. Send your questions, suggestions, or comments to beercraft@rochester.rr.com.

 

Beercraft newspaper column #55: A quick look at IPA

India Pale Ale- a craft beer staple

By Mark Tichenor and Bruce Lish

Craft beer comes in seemingly limitless variety. Doppelbocks, imperial stouts, and Belgian-style tripels dot the shelves of any beer store worth its salt, and nearly every small brewery makes some form of extreme, unique, or rare beer style, if only for the bragging rights. IPA, however, spans the craft brewing scene from coast to coast. While the style may be universal, and an anchor point for most breweries’ product lines, the flavors of IPA can be intriguingly diverse.

IPA, it should be noted, stands for India Pale Ale. What you get when you order one is a modern interpretation of the Victorian-era pale ale that Breweries in England made stronger and hoppier in order to survive the sea voyage around Africa to its Indian colonial holdings. The hops acted as a preservative, preventing the unpasteurized ale from going bad during the long, sweltering journey. What the colonists tasted was substantially bitterer than the pale ales they would daintily quaff in the social parlours back in Britain.

When American homebrewing and craft brewing got going, IPA’s adventuresome history and crisp hop bite captured the imaginations of drinkers who were used to the far tamer flavor of American light lager. As the craft beer experiment exploded into a full-blown industry, American brewers approached IPA with an experimental spirit, as well as that uniquely American trait of pushing something to its limits of good taste.

Today, American IPA eclipses the British original in every possible aspect except subtlety. We’ve made IPA exponentially stronger, heavier, and hoppier than anything those colonials in India would have experienced.

That freedom from tradition is both a benefit and a curse. The English would argue that a good British IPA, such as Samuel Smith’s India Ale, embodies two hundred years of brewing expertise and an affinity for how to use the hard water of the Trent river combined with noble English hops to create a beer that’s a perfect mélange of body, flavor, and nippy hop finish. Whereas their American counterparts might point out that, compared to Colorado’s monstrous Great Divide Titan IPA, their English stuff hardly has flavor at all, paling compared to Titan’s astringent citrus bitterness, not to mention its near 7% alcohol content (by volume).

Of course, neither side is right in this hypothetical argument. Both Sam Smith India Ale and Great Divide Titan IPA are excellent. The soft, earthy flavor of the English IPA might go very well with an after-dinner fruit and cheese plate, whereas the tangy explosion of flavor provided by an extreme American IPA like Titan would pretty much kill the taste of anything you put in your mouth for the next hour. Ultimately, it all depends on the type of flavor the drinker is looking for.

We kind of lament the fact that American brewers take IPA to sometimes ridiculous extremes. It’s getting to the point where ordering that dry-hopped, double Imperial 12% IPA is the equivalent of ordering the super-hot chicken wings: a display of unadulterated machismo and little more.

But there are plenty of American IPAs (Great Divide Titan IPA being one of them) that wear their bold flavor very well. Brooklyn IPA, Ithaca Cascazilla, and Lagunitas IPA, all readily available in Western New York, combine their bitter flavors, alcoholic warming, and weighty mouthfeel into delicious, uncompromising palate-pleasers that frequently convert beer drinkers into raging hopheads.

And, although they won’t admit it, the English like ‘em too.

Bruce is a certified beer judge and commercial brewer. Mark owns a laptop and likes beer. For more on beer, check out the beercraft blog, updated regularly, at http://beercraft.wordpress.com. Send your questions, suggestions, or comments to beercraft@rochester.rr.com.

 

Beercraft Newspaper Column #54- I couldn’t think of a topic

The intricacies of flavor
By Mark Tichenor and Bruce Lish

It’s possible to be a geek about anything. Computer geeks go on about processor speeds, mySQL, and World of Warcraft. Sports geeks corner you and drone on endlessly about their fantasy football (or, in our case, fantasy soccer) teams. And it’s just as possible to be a beer geek.

You’ve heard them; they’re the reason you’re leery about wine or craft beer. When self-styled aficionados rattle off comments about “nose,” “finish,” or “mouthfeel,” it makes people who, well, just enjoy a brew leery of craft beer as a whole.

Thing is, beer is so varied in flavor, color, and character that you need that descriptive terminology in order to describe the thing you’re drinking. Let’s go over some of the common terms together, shall we? That way, should we slip into the realm of beer geekdom in a future column, you’ll at least know what we’re talking about. Not that you’ll care.

When you bring a beer into close proximity with your face, the first thing you’ll notice is the visual stuff. We don’t think any of our readers really need a definition of the word color. But we’d suggest you notice head retention. After the initial foam dies down, look for a slight foamy film remaining on top of the beer. This is a signal that the beer is till effervescing, and releasing aroma, which accounts for a big chunk of a beer’s perceived flavor.

Head retention can be retarded by contaminants in the glass, especially oily substances. We all know a dirty glass can compromise your health but, far more worryingly, it can compromise your beer.

Now that the beer is directly under your proboscis, give it a covert swirl; just a little shake of the wrist. This releases the a-ro-ma. Different styles have different aromae. Some, like IPA, smell predominantly of hops, whereas a Doppelbock will carry a bready, sweet malt aroma. The scent of certain Belgian styles will be caused primarily by the yeast.

As we mentioned a couple of paragraphs ago, aroma is an important component of how your beer tastes, so take a big whiff. And for God’s sake don’t drink straight from the bottle. That’s for ‘low carb’ beer drinkers who have a vested interest in avoiding their libation’s flavor at all costs.

And flavor is the ultimate reason you’re even drinking beer in the first place, right? As you know, beer can be sweet and bready, dry and bitter, or anywhere in between. What’s important is that you realize that taste is composed of multiple parts, (the smell being one of them). The initial flavor as the beer splashes across the frontal taste buds is often completely different from the flavor you get as you swallow and the liquid hits the taste buds in the back of your mouth.

We’re not going to dissect the flavors beer is supposed to have; that’s part of the joy of discovery. But you should be warned about off-flavors that can result from poor handling, or screwing up the brewing process.

If you’re pouring beer form a bottle, especially a clear or a green one, you’re going to taste skunk. Ultraviolet rays, such as those radiated at us by the sun, react with the acids in the hops to create 3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol (note- that presence of that chemical compound name is evidence of actual research. We promise it won’t happen again). This is actually the same chemical found in a skunk’s butt, or wherever the spray comes from.

This chemical reaction is most prevalent in beers that come in green or clear bottles. On a sunny day, it can take as little as 5 minutes for this flavor to materialize in those vessels, so handle with care.

Another extremely common flavor flaw in beer is Diacetyl, which is caused by yeast reacting to the alcohol synthesis process. It’s a buttery, slippery taste that, while working well in certain styles like Scotch ale and some English ales, sticks out in most beers like a monster truck in a kindergarten.

Brewers usually control diacetyl flavor by performing a diacetyl rest, leaving the fermented beer at fermentation temperature for 24-48 hours. Thus, if you taste this butterscotch flavor, you’ll know the brewer is rushing his beer out the door instead of waiting for the process to reach completion.

OK, that concludes this part of our beer tasting primer. Perhaps we’ll go into greater depth in the future, when we’re having an equal amount of difficulty coming up with a topic. Until then, we encourage you to taste unashamed, and don’t let the terms throw you.

 

We’ll make a beer geek of you yet.

 

Bruce is a certified beer judge and commercial brewer. Mark owns a laptop and likes beer. For more on beer, check out the beercraft blog, updated regularly, at http://beercraft.wordpress.com. Send your questions, suggestions, or comments to beercraft@rochester.rr.com.

 

Beercraft newspaper column #53: Rochester’s beer renaissance

Beer Renaissance in Rochester
By Mark Tichenor and Bruce Lish

We’re going to go out on a limb with this column’s opening statement. Ready? Ok, here goes:

There has never been a better time to be a beer lover living in Rochester, New York.

By now that sentence has the coveted 65+ age demographic in a tizzy (or it would if any of them read this magazine). And rightly so. After all, Rochester has an extremely rich brewing history. During the second half of the 19^th century, the only thing that kept our town from rivaling great American brewing centers like Milwaukee and St. Louis was their population explosion and high-level German immigration at precisely the right time. But Rochester had no trouble attracting brewers of its own, thanks to the area’s secret weapon: the pristine, Alpine quality water of Hemlock Lake.

So yeah, Brewers came, set up shop, competed, and after prohibition were systematically destroyed by the consolidation that wracked the American brewing industry. Topper. Fyfe & Drum. Ballantine. All lost to the history books. By the mid 1970s, only Genesee remained to carry on the brewing tradition. 

Fortunately, those days have passed. Three factors have made this time, and this place, an epicenter of beer culture.

The first is the mass distribution of imported brands. We’re not just talking about the mass-market stuff from Canada, nor status-driven Mexican lager. If they have the inclination, your local bar can get their hands on all KINDS of wacky beers from England, Germany, even Estonia or Poland.

Rochester bars and restaurants have responded enthusiastically. Of course the main beer places like MacGregor’s, Monty’s, the Old Toad and the Tap & Mallet are expected to carry import variety, but now suburban joints like Quimby’s in Henrietta, Paddy’s in Greece, The Boulevard on Empire, and Fairport’s Donnelly’s, have paid meticulous attention to their beer offerings. Great beer from around the world is becoming more of a rule than an exception.

This availability has given even casual beer drinkers insight into styles that, ten years ago, one would have to visit their countries of origin to experience. It was precisely that kind of exposure while traveling abroad that compelled the first wave of home brewers to try to replicate those wonderful flavors in their basements, kitchens or self-storage units.

Today, the ability to sample, say, a smoky German Rauchbier, Wee Heavy from Scotland, or Belgian Lambic gives people a firm baseline on how beer is expected to taste in the rest of the beerocentric world. Not only does this give them something against which they can compare the USA’s domestic brews, but it also engenders a desire to expand one’s taste envelope.

The craft beer movement is another factor. Is it even unusual anymore to walk into the supermarket or bar and face a choice between Saranac, Otter Creek and Magic Hat?  Think about that. Rochesterians not only have a choice between mainstream brands, but can also choose dozens of beers from local and national small brewers. Not only that, but the beers these small brewers make are so ubiquitous that they almost seem pedestrian, like Kraft brand food products or Gilette shaving cream. We are USED to these brands and they’ve become integral to what and how we drink. And when’s the last time you’ve seen an Otter Creek TV commercial?

Third, and most specific to Rochester, is the way the movers and shakers of the local beer industry are capitalizing on the other two factors. The Old Toad, MacGregor’s and the California Brew Haus have been the longtime stalwarts of our beer scene. Monty’s Korner and Monty’s Krown came later to the game, but have certainly done their part, focusing on US craft offerings and imports to create a strong following. And the brand new Tap & Mallet is currently the “pace bar,” changing their tap selections daily and running certainly the riskiest beer lineup in town.

 Faced with a more discerning clientele, other bars have either dived into good beer with enthusiasm, or been dragged kicking and screaming into the realm beyond stereotypical American macrobeer. Even Solera Wine Bar on South Avenue carries a small but excellent selection of craft beer (including one of our favorites, Victory Prima Pils).

Retailers have also embraced American craft and specialty import beer. Beers of the World is the obvious focal point for take-home sales, but Southtown Beverage and Hegedorn’s in Webster also stock impressive beer coolers. Wegmans is catching on, especially in the Pittsford and East Avenue stores. Smaller places within the city have also recognized the value of a wide range of upmarket beer. (Magnolia’s on Park Avenue comes to mind).

Even convenience stores are stocking great beer. The 7-11 on the corner of Clinton and Elmwood in Brighton carries growlers from Custom Brewcrafters and the Rohrbach Brewing Company. Hell, even the Wilson Farms across from the Airport sells Spaten by the six-pack these days.

But perhaps most central to our claim that Rochester is undergoing a beer renaissance, as opposed to a mere retail fad, is the commitment local brewers are making to the growth of their businesses. The Rohrbach Brewing Company is in the middle of their move to a much larger Railroad Street location and Custom Brewcrafters has broken ground on a brand-new, expanded production facility. Meanwhile, High Falls’ J.W. Dundee’s line improves year by year, and continues to bring interesting specialty beers (including their excellent porter) to their home market.

These entrenchments signify that, like in many large cities on the West Coast and in the Northeast, the perception of beer in Rochester has irrevocably changed. Perhaps the wounds caused by prohibition are finally healing. Perhaps a consumer base jaded by avalanche marketing is voting with their taste buds instead of their TV remote.

Or maybe, just maybe, we Rochesterians have found an area of life in which we get the respect we deserve.

Bruce is a certified beer judge and commercial brewer. Mark owns a laptop and likes beer. For more on beer, check out the beercraft blog, updated regularly, at http://beercraft.wordpress.com. Send your questions, suggestions, or comments to beercraft@rochester.rr.com.

 

Beercraft newspaper column #52: The creative use of holiday ales

Indulge in a pint of holiday cheer

By Mark Tichenor and Bruce Lish

The Holiday season has returned with a vengeance. It’s that time where we celebrate all those great yuletide traditions, like joining a thousand-person line in front of the Wal-Mart at 4 am, hearing the same few Christmas carols performed over and over, in every possible musical style, or performing the ritualistic lower back exercise of dragging 2,347 mail-order catalogs out to the recycling bin.

Even though the holidays can cause their share of stress, the season can also bring joy. And the best part of the Holidays is undoubtedly the release of winter ale. Right now, hundreds of breweries nationwide are making their own interpretations of this warming, spicy seasonal beer style.

Big regional breweries like the Boston Beer Company, the Anchor Brewery and Sierra Nevada distribute their holiday ales nationwide, and some of these have become quite famous, and their ubiquity has formed the archetypes of what this beer is “supposed” to taste like: sweet without a lot of hop finish and plenty of nutmeg and clove flavor. But holiday ale has no set style guidelines and many brewmasters use it as a chance to get creative, so we lucky drinkers get to try all kinds of wild variations.

You only need to look as far as Syracuse’s Middle Ages Brewing Company to see what we’re talking about. Middle Ages bucks the all-barley strong-ale convention with Winter Wheat. The result is a bit surprising if you’re expecting the light bite of other wheat beer styles (like Hefeweizen or Belgian witbeer).

The aroma and flavor notes imparted by the wheat make really set this brew apart.

It’s lighter, and perhaps a bit fruitier, than most of its peers, but Winter Wheat packs real body, and offers a combination of traditional holiday ale sweetness with the banana and clove characteristics of a wheat beer.

The Otter Creek Brewing Company of Vermont is offering the imaginatiely named Winter Ale:  a rich, mellow brown ale rounded out with raspberries to create a blend of flavors that compliment each other. The danger with fruit and beer is the fruit flavors can be overwhelming, but Winter Ale avoids that pitfall. The raspberry is more of an essence than a flavor, although it’s quite noticeable.

Otter Creek Winter ale isn’t as strong as most winter seasonals, nor does it posess the typical extreme malt sweetness that goes along with many stronger beers. Its lighter brown ale flavor and fruit-imparted crispness make it very accessible, and a sure hit at Holiday parties, probably even among people who don’t usually enjoy beer.

Of course, we’d be remiss if we didn’t also mention the holiday ales brewed here in Rochester. The 2007 Custom Brewcrafters Christmas Ale uses spices, but relies on the underlying characteristics of the beer instead of overwhelming the drinker with cloves and nutmeg. It’s sweet and warming, with an aftertaste reminiscent of gingerbread.

Across town, the Rohrbach Brewing Company offers Kacey’s Christmas Ale. It’s dark, rich and substantial, with a hint of cherry. And the High Falls Brewery is brewing Festive Ale, which combines rich caramel and toffee notes with a somewhat lighter body than most winter ales.

In other beers:

Monty’s Krown is going Belgian. Our favorite beer and music hangout is now stocking Duvel in bottles. As far as we know, the only other place where you can sip incredibly awesome Belgian beer while watching punk bands is…well it’s Belgium. Krown Manager Jen Clark says this is going to be an ongoing thing, so pop down and indulge your inner Waloon.

Bruce is a certified beer judge and commercial brewer. Mark owns a laptop and likes beer. For more on beer, check out the beercraft blog, updated regularly, at http://beercraft.wordpress.com. Send your questions, suggestions, or comments to beercraft@rochester.rr.com.

 

Beercraft newspaper column #51- the essence of a great beer bar

By Mark Tichenor and Bruce Lish

Some beer lovers are content to stock their fridge and enjoy within the privacy of their own homes. But one of the things we like most about beer is that it’s a sociable beverage, and as such should be enjoyed in an environment conducive to sociality.

You can get a beer anywhere. Nowadays, you can even get a craft pale ale or IPA in most places. But a bar does not become great merely by pushing a bottle into your hand. And frankly, what’s the point of spending time with good friends and great beer in a joint that isn’t great?

First and foremost, the pub’s management must be beer lovers. There has to be a dedication on the part of ownership and management to find, stock, and properly serve great beer, instead of just relying on the proven standbys.

 Jules Suplicki, Bar Manager for The Old Toad, uses specialty beer distributors, as well as direct contacts with craft breweries, to build the most eclectic beer selection in town. Her efforts yield a diverse and frequently changing beer lineup that at any time could include Polish porters, obscure English ESB, and specially-casked versions of local and regional ale. Her interest in beer has also led her to stock a vintage beer selection, giving patrons the chance to see how aging can mellow and improve the flavor of certain beer, much as they would a single-malt scotch or red wine.

The staff must also understand the beers they’re serving. It’s not always easy in the hospitality industry, as turnover is high and a server can’t be expected to be a beer lover simply because he or she works in a bar. But there should at least be a basic training on how to pronounce the names of the beers, and a working knowledge of the glassware into which each beer should be poured (mostly an aesthetic thing, we admit).

Obviously, selection is important too, but not as vital as it would seem. Places with a hundred-plus taps must deal with the problem of stock rotation. Unless managed carefully, some of the more obscure (and often more interesting) beers can go for weeks between pours, and that can result in a putrid pint. That’s not an indictment of this kind of beer bar, more a suggestion that, when ordering something off the beaten path, you ask for a sample glass first.

When we attempt to drink a hundred different beers in a sitting, it results in an ugly scene involving missing pants and pesky intervention by the authorities, so we fail to see the point of a tap range that large. Better to have a smaller, frequently rotating selection. That way, each visit to your favorite pub is new and interesting. Although the sheer variety offered by a place like MacGregor’s (which actually does a good job of maintaining its stock) makes us feel like kids in a candy store, and that’s very nice too.

But most important in a great pub is ambiance. This is where bars differ from other types of real estate. For one thing, size does not matter. A shoebox-shaped local joint, like The Boulevard Grill on Empire Boulevard, is often more fun than a cavernous main-drag chain franchise, simply because the people may be friendlier, the staff is going back and forth with the patrons, maybe some cool music is playing that isn’t off Adult Contemporary satellite channel mandated by corporate policy, and they have your favorite oatmeal stout on draft.

Of course this is a matter of personal preference. Some people love the big-screen TV ambiance of large national appetizer-mills. We, however, prefer our beer and company in pubs where we don’t have to struggle to talk over the howling of frat boys at the Golden Tee game.

These aren’t difficult criteria to meet, and any establishment that really dedicates itself to beer usually comes reasonably close to the mark. It’s all about a passion for beer shared between management, staff, and patrons.  And we raise our glasses to the places that get it right.

In other beers:

After agonizing delays, The Tap and Mallet has finally opened. Former Old Toad Manager Joe McBane’s new place on Gregory Street serves a rotating stock of 30 beers, including “Mc Bane’s,” the house beer, brewed exclusively at the Rohrbach Brewing Company by beercraft co-columnist Bruce Lish. This is the part where Mark always tries to hype the fact that Lish is a Great American Beer Festival medalist, but Bruce is way too modest to put up with that nonsense.

 Bruce is a certified beer judge and commercial brewer. Mark owns a laptop and likes beer. For more on beer, check out the beercraft blog, updated regularly, at http://beercraft.wordpress.com. Send your questions, suggestions, or comments to beercraft@rochester.rr.com.

Beercraft newspaper column #50: J.W. Dundee’s beer

 

This country used to have thousands of breweries. During the mid-19^th century, Germans emigrated to the United States en masse, many founding breweries that produced the lager beers of their homeland. For a while, the United States was a beer paradise.

Then prohibition and post-war consolidation shot everything to hell. The ‘20s decimated the ranks of American brewers, and the push to mass-market growth took care of those companies who couldn’t compete, either driving them out of business or pushing them to sell out to growing giant megabrewers. By the ‘60s, a few of these colossi would dominate the American beer scene with a thin, character-free lager that was nearly interchangeable from megabrewery to megabrewery. Beer became a commodity.

Still, a few regional producers, like Rochester’s Genesee Brewery (now High Falls Brewery), breweries managed to do a tidy business despite their comparatively small market share. In 1994, Genesee began to embrace the interest in beer cultivated by the craft beer movement with Honey Brown, a darker, sweeter lager that enjoyed substantial success in the Midwest and Southwest.

Building on this success, and following the trail blazed by the F.X. Matt brewery’s Saranac beers, High Falls now offers a full range of stylized beers that break the bland American lager mold, offering J.W. Dundee’s Amber Lager and well-hopped Pale Ale, as well as rotating seasonal beers: Pale Bock in the spring, Hefe-Weizen for summer, autumn’s IPA, and Porter for the winter months. 1n 2007, for the third consecutive year, the brewery will also offer their Festive Ale for the holiday season.

“I certainly believe the brewery had to find a niche in the marketplace in order to remain competitive,” states Head Brewer Dave Schlosser. “[the success of Saranac] allowed me to go to the next level.”  The specialty beer strategy is showing results. In its first three years as a full brand, sales of Dundee’s have increased by 30,000 barrels anually.

Schlosser explains that the move by regional breweries such as Matt and High Falls toward the craft side of the business has followed a greater readiness on the part of the public to try different beer styles. Having joined High falls after working at the Rohrbach Brewing Company and Custom Brewcrafters, he understands how to bridge the gap between craft beer and the mainstream audience.

Still, it’s a pointy fence to straddle. Not only does Schlosser have to persuade die-hard American lager drinkers to try something new, but he must also deal with the stigma among beer snobs that his national-scale production brew “isn’t really craft beer.”

Schlosser acknowledges that the latter opinion will never disappear, but points out that he comes from a craft beer background and still uses the same ingredients he always has, albeit on a larger scale. “I still brew the same way as those guys. I just have bigger toys.

Results from competitions add to the beer’s rep, as well. In 2006, a ten month old batch of the seasonal Pale Bock was sent to the Great American Beer Festival, where it took the bronze medal. Six months later, the same batch won the gold medal for its category in the World Beer Cup.

But competitive success only goes so far when it comes to selling beer. Grunt work does the rest. Schlosser can often be found at beer festivals, yanking tap handles and talking beer with as many people as possible.

The future looks bright for J.W. Dundee’s, and it looks like the line will grow. “What I’d like to see is a big-beer series,” Sclosser says, mentioning the high-hops, high-alcohol beers that have become de rigeur in the American craft beer scene.

While his IPA and Pale Ale are definitely geared to less cultivated palates than those big bruiser brews, Schlosser seems itchy to put on his craft brewer’s hat and demonstrate exactly what he, and his J.W. Dundee’s brand, can achieve.

Bruce is a certified beer judge and commercial brewer. Mark owns a laptop and likes beer. For more on beer, check out the beercraft blog, updated regularly, at http://beercraft.wordpress.com. Send your questions, suggestions, or comments to beercraft@rochester.rr.com.

 

Beercraft Newspaper Column #48- The Rohrbach Brewing Company

Rochester’s own Rohrbach Brewing Company

For beer lovers, Rochester’s microbrew scene has had its ups and downs. Over the past decade, a host of brewpubs have come and gone, leaving beer geeks like us unsure where to find our next growler. However, Rochester’s original microbrewery, the Rohrbach Brewing Company, has managed to flourish where others could not.

Owner John Urlaub attributes this success to unwavering vision, careful capitalization, and a do-it-yourself ethic. He founded the business after moving back from Rohrbach, Germany, where he fell in love with the beer. Taking an early retirement from Eastman Kodak, he poured his first hose-made pint in 1992.  After solidifying business at the original Gregory Street location, Urlaub opened the current restaurant and brewery out on Buffalo Road.

 

Not only is Rohrbach still around fifteen years after founding, but the business is in an unprecedented growth phase, providing beer for up to 100 external accounts (including Frontier Field) and, more excitingly, building a 20-barrel production facility near the Public Market.

The expansion room afforded by the new building will allow brewer Jim McDermott who handles Rohrbach standards like Scotch Ale, Highland Amber and BlueBeary Ale, to breathe a bit easier when meeting ever-increasing demand.

“We will have the capacity to be 30% bigger,” Urlaub says of his new brewery. “We look at the space that exists as being able to double.”

The two-story former warehouse looms over Railroad Street, and certainly dwarfs most other microbreweries in sheer physical space. Over time, Urlaub plans to make full use of the interior acreage at his disposal, including the addition of a tasting room, sales area for beer and merchandise, and brewery tours.

The new brewery’s location, almost adjacent to the Rochester Public Market, should prove conducive to walk-in traffic. “Whenever the Public Market’s gates are open, our doors will be open,” Urlaub says. “We want people to come in and tour, see the production, sample some of our products and do retail.”

This shift of mainline production will not leave the Buffalo Road brewpub high and dry. Rohrbach is reassembling the brewing system from the former Gregory Street location. The Ogden brewery will handle specialty ales under the skilled hand of Bruce Lish, a Great American Beer Fest medalist and co-author of this column.

The current restaurant will expand as well, providing a desperately-needed increase in seating. In addition, the bar will be going from 8 taps to 12.  “This is what I’m almost most excited about. The restaurant is what I envisioned it to be,” says Urlaub.

Hopefully, the increased seating capacity will provide more attendance space for Rohrbach’s beer and food events, which tend to sell out rather handily. Both of their planned Oktoberfest sessions are booked solid, although space is still available for November’s Harvest Celebration.

Not only is Rohrbach’s expansion good for Urlaub and his business, but it’s good for beer lovers regionwide. Rohrbach’s expanding production capacity and ability to brew a greater variety of beer styles benefits beer lovers in obvious ways, and is a key component in what can only be described as a Rochester beer renaissance.

In other beers:

Garrett Oliver, Author and Brewmaster of the Brooklyn Brewery (and essentially the Mick Jagger of the American craft beer scene) was at The Old Toad last Wednesday to conduct a tasting of Hopfen-weizen, actually two experimental hoppy wheat beers brewed in collaboration with Munich’s Schneider Weisse brewery.

The beers explored the possibly offered by using European and American hops for fragrance and flavor in a beer style that shies away from those hop essences.

Oh yeah, beer-steamed mussels and cheese were served. Thanks to Cellar Manager Jules Suplicki, who obviously knew we were coming.

Bruce is a certified beer judge and commercial brewer. Mark owns a laptop and likes beer. For more on beer, check out the beercraft blog, updated regularly, at http://beercraft.wordpress.com. Send your questions, suggestions, or comments to beercraft@rochester.rr.com.

 

Beercraft newspaper column #47- The best party in the world

The best party in the world

What is it about the Munich Oktoberfest that makes it the world’s best beerdrinkery? Is it the Giant tents and the adjoining fair? Is it the corny but lovable German folk bands? Is it the sheer scale of thousands of merry drinkers?

These are all very nice, but the Munich Oktoberfest and the thousands of copycat festivals that spring up around the globe would be pale shadows of themselves without Oktoberfest beer.

Predating refrigeration, the beer served at the Munich Oktoberfest was brewed in March, then stored (or ‘lagered’) in cool Alpine caves during the summer months in which brewing was impossible due to the heat. In October, as the weather cooled, the beer would be brought forth and ceremoniously tapped. This resulted in great merriment among the Bavarians, who like beer more than practically any other people in the world.

So naturally, this was the beer to have on hand if you were getting married in Munich and it was October. And you were marrying a princess. And you were Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria. Ludwig threw the first Oktoberfest in 1810 as a party and horse race to celebrate his marriage to Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen (let’s see them fit that name on a sports jersey).

Anyway, apart from the occasional interruption by Napoleon, or the Prussians, or Allied bombs, Oktoberfest has been an annual thing. And the mass consumption of awesome beer proved to be a pretty popular idea. Today, there are hundreds of Oktoberfests varying in size and quality, including Rochester’s own at Camp Eastman the weekend of September 14, 15, and 16, as well as the weekend of September 21, 22 and 23.

Anyway, we’re not really here to pimp the festival (although you can catch us there putting away beer until buying leather shorts with suspenders seems like a good idea), we’re supposed to be discussing Oktoberfest beer.

It’s lager, but maybe not like the pale golden stuff most people are used to; the beer is dusky reddish-amber in color. Oktoberfest is brewed with darker malt and a less bitter hop balance than many lagers, giving it a roasted, hearty character, the malt’s sweet flavor sweeping aside the hop notes.

Compared to the already sweet Munich Helles (Spaten Lager, for example), Oktoberfest beer is chewier, breadier, and has a slightly thicker texture. It’s also strong, clocking in around 6% alcohol by volume. There are stronger beers, but those beers aren’t traditionally served in half-liter mugs.

Regular readers of this column will know that we’re going to say the best Oktoberfest beers are the ‘Big Six’ from Munich: Spaten, Paulaner, Hofbrau, Hacker-Pschorr, Loewenbrau and Augustiner. There are, however, plenty of good American interpretations of the style, which might be easier to obtain.

Brooklyn Oktoberfest is one such beer. It has the characteristic rich, coppery color, with a substantial cream-hued head. Putting your nose over the glass provides a bloom of toasted malt.

The taste is very German, malty as you’d expect, with detectable vanilla and caramel flavors. The beer is balanced with just enough hops to provide a clean flavor and eliminate heavy aftertaste.

Closer to home, the Rohrbach Brewing Company is featuring an Oktoberfest that’s a bit bigger in flavor profile. Their version is darker than most, with a powerful malt taste reminiscent of a doppelbock. Like the Brooklyn, judicious use of hops keeps Rohrbach Oktoberfest from being syrupy, but expect a ton of malt character nonetheless.

Enjoy your Oktoberfest beer at your local, at home, or in big tents watching dancers slap their shoes and yodel. You’re drinking a fun beer- a party beer. As an illustrious German statesman once famously said: “zicki-zacki, zicki-zacki, Heu! Heu! Heu!”

Bruce is a certified beer judge and commercial brewer. Mark owns a laptop and likes beer. For more on beer, check out the beercraft blog, updated regularly, at http://beercraft.wordpress.com. Send your questions, suggestions, or comments to beercraft@rochester.rr.com.

 

Beercraft Newspaper Column #46- You, too, can homebrew

<I’m still in Seattle, flying back on the redeye tonight. Get ready for a big post on microbreweries of the Emerald City. For now, here’s this week’s newspaper column.

Homebrewing is the best thing you can do in your kitchen

Home brewers are the reason we have craft beer today.

As recently as 25 years ago, the beer aisle was a depressing place; a frigid wasteland stocked with half a dozen brands of watery lagers, and it didn’t matter which one you picked, because they were all clones of each other anyway. When you hear jokes about American beer, this is the beer they’re talking about. Needless to say, it was hard for people to be passionate about beer, and those who wanted styles outside the mainstream had little choice but to get a vat, some barley, yeast and hops, and try to make their own.

Out of this first wave of home brewers came the original microbrewers, opening tiny brewpubs all over the country and sewing the seeds for today’s regional craft breweries. Even though the beer selection for most Americans has vastly improved, home brewing as a hobby is stronger than ever, and it’s easier to get started than you might think.

Home brewer Thomas Barnes received a hands-on initiation to the hobby. “I was invited over to watch a friend do a batch,” he explained, “then I bought a home brewing kit and he talked me through it.”

Barnes, 42, has spent the last 8 years expanding his brewing skills, growing ever more confident and creative. He remains mostly an extract brewer, using malt syrup instead of actually milling and mashing the grain, although he does use a partial-grain mash when a recipe calls for it.

It’s innovations like malt extract syrup that make home brewing more accessible to the novice nowadays. Neophytes can progress in stages, beginning with a simple “dump and stir” all-inclusive home brewing kit and progressing to more advanced methods as they grow their knowledge and skills “A home brewing kit is 60 to 80 bucks, and it’s handy because you get a fun little book on how to brew.” Barnes says. He also points out that if attention is paid to the temperature of fermentation, those innocuous little kits can produce some decent beer.

According to Barnes, the minimum equipment you’ll need to get started as a home brewer is a 5 gallon stock pot, a stove, a food-grade 5 gallon plastic bucket, an airlock for the bucket, food-grade plastic tubing for siphoning, and a bottle of bleach for sanitation. Setups for advanced home brewers are usually a great deal more complex than this, but you can grow your brewery in parallel with your abilities as a brewer.

“Brewing with all-grain instead of malt extract is more difficult, but ultimately allows more control over the beer’s character,” says Patrick Hughes, a computer science student and 6-year home brewing veteran. Like Barnes, Hughes started out assisting a friend of his who was an experienced home brewer.

“I was looking for a hobby that didn’t involve drinking beer in front of the computer,” Hughes, uh, explains. “My buddy and I started brewing beer. We didn’t go all-grain until the 4th or 5th time.”

Hughes, 33, offers a practical example of how little space is required to actually operate a home brewery. The diminutive kitchen of his second-floor duplex apartment comfortably serves as a brewing space, Kegging station, and fermenting area, with plenty of room left over for less important things like cooking and cleaning up.

From time to time, cleanup can be a serious issue in home brewing. “I decided to brew a Russian imperial stout,” Barnes relates. “The fermentation was so lively that I blew the airlock off and got black-colored goop all over the inside of my friend’s teacher’s shirt closet. He thought it was really funny except for the cleaning bill and the mop-up.”

When asked about how a newbie could screw up their first batch of beer, both Barnes and Hughes agree that sanitation is key. Disinfecting everything that comes in contact with the nascent beer prevents unwanted microorganisms from infecting the brew and making it really freaking horrible. Other key points are watching the stove closely for boil-over and making sure that the fermenting temperature is constant, even, and not too high. Home brewing books will detail proper temperatures for different styles of beer.

A wealth of information has been published on home brewing. One of the earliest books on the subject, still considered the home brewer’s bible today, is The Complete Joy of Home brewing by Charlie Papazian. Barnes also recommends John J. Palmer’s How to Brew as a more technical resource.

New brewers who’d like to benefit from the knowledge and experience of a group can attend meetings of the Upstate New York Home brewers’ Association (UNYHA). Association members are happy to offer advice, discuss technique, and share both knowledge and beer. Meetings and events are detailed on their website (www.unyha.com). With a little study and experience, novice home brewers can quickly turn into capable crafters of beer, adept at brewing various styles to exacting specifications.

When you get there, give us a call. We’ll bring the growlers.

Bruce is a certified beer judge and commercial brewer. Mark owns a laptop and likes beer. For more on beer, check out the beercraft blog, updated regularly, at http://beercraft.wordpress.com. Send your questions, suggestions, or comments to beercraft@rochester.rr.com.