Come out and have some of the black stuff, it’s free (The beer, not the Concert).

To say the place was a magical wonderland would be a stretch, but it was cozy, age-worn and empty, save for the friendly proprietor. And this guy understood beer. His bookshelf contained works by Michael Jackson, Pete Brown, Garrett Oliver, Martyn Cornell, you name it. And he talked the talk as well. We had a lively, informed discussion about the American craft scene that really showed me how seriously Europeans are taking it.

Oh, and there were 100 beeren, colorfully labeled, from across The Netherlands and around the world.

The one that caught my eye, however, was the one with no fancy label, indeed no label at all. It was a plain brown bottle, with a simple cap, that came from the next country over. It actually took a minute to sink in. I was looking at the Holy Grail.

The placid fields around Poperinge, Belgium, belie the turmoil this land and its inhabitants endured 95 years ago. Back then, they were stump-riddled mud pits, blasted uneven by artillery and scarred by trenches slashed through to the Ypres battlefield. They certainly still dig up the odd explosive shell, but the earth here is level again. Farmers tend their crops. The villages are small and sleepy. The place is peaceful enough to have an abbey, where monks of the Trappist order pray and live a life of quiet faithful deprivation. They support themselves with what goods they can produce. The monks bake bread, which I hear is delicious, but they’re best known for the beer they brew. The abbey is called St. Sixtus, and it’s in the town of Vleteren.

The monks of St. Sixtus are a bit more hardcore than those of the other Trappist abbeys, who’d long been profiting from the enormous regard in which beer lovers held their ale. Distribution chains are in place for Joe Hophead to wander into beer stores all over the USA and walk out with a bottle of Orval or Rochefort. But the monks in Vleteren never got comfortable with mass worldwide distribution and an income stream that could potentially bring them into moral conflict with their code of a simple life and support of a modest abbey. They prefer to keep it close to home. If you want their beer, Westvleteren, you go to them.

They brew a light-alcohol Blonde, the Westvleteren 8, and, more rarely, the strong Westvleteren 12, considered one of the finest beers in the world by pretty much all beer lovers, many of whom had yet to try it. To buy it legitimately, you have to win something of a telephone lottery, then drive to the brewery and pick up your two cases maximum.

We found an easier method was to blindly stumble into a randomly selected beer bar in Amsterdam.

Does the Westvleteren 12 live up to its hype? In many ways, yes. It’s a deep, syrupy brew rife with plum and raisin character, carrying just enough of that Belgian funk to let you know what you’re drinking is special. However, it isn’t so many light years ahead of other excellent Trappist quads, such as Rochefort 10, that it justifies the trek to Flanders’ fields. It’s the scarcity that makes Westy 12 such a treasured brew, but it’s no fault of the abbey that the rest of the world is beer crazy.

The monk/brewers are not playing a marketing game of hard-to-get, they’re brewing from a simple ideal, with a simple purpose, and remain perfectly happy to follow a simple business model that seems tragically missing from today’s commerce ethos: They brew enough Westvleteren to support the abbey, and there are enough local people to make this possible. That is all they need.

I wonder if that would still work over here?

-Mark

EDIT: Some changes occurred since the piece was written. Even Westvleteren is feeling the pinch and needs to inrease their revenue stream in order to maintain and upgrade the brewery. They have reached a deal with Massachusetts-based importer/distributor Shelton Brothers to import 7760 special gift packs containing 6 bottles of Westvleteren 12 and two glasses. At this point it’s unclear whether this is recurring or a one-time thing.

Glor, worked with Naked Dove owner Dave Schlosser at the High Falls Brewing Company prior to their byout by venture capital firm KPS. He only recently joined the young Canandaigua brewery after a stint at New Belgium.

I wish Dave good luck in his future ventures. He certainly helped craft some great beers at Naked Dove.

-Mark

The cask handle for Amager Bryghus Rug Porter (Rye Porter), beckoned to me from the moment I sat down at the Tap and Mallet’s bar, directly in front of it. It’s an aunexpected find and demonstrates Bar Manager Chris Schultheis continued commitment to finding the unsusual and the excellent.

The cask method of serving is unusual for a beer of this type, but it works with the silky quality imparted by the rug (rye). The unexpectedly gentle carbonation gives the beer a slight metallic bite and allows the flavors to gently introduce themselves instead of crashing into your taste buds.

A thick mouthfeel blossoms into flavors of fig and date, coating the palate in a dark fruity smoothness before receding to a sharp hop slap at the back of the tongue.

All the while your nose is tickled by a highly intense, alluring sweet/sour aroma reminiscent of an imperial stout, and at 8.5% ABV, the Rugporter has the muscle to match some beers of that style. Those reasonable, rational Danes got it right again: Amager Rugporter is another excellent beer from the capital of the European Craft Beer Movement.

-Mark

For the past 8 years, I’ve been surfing a wave of beer. And it was a great one to catch. My timing was fortuitous; my beer writing came of age along with the craft beer movement, which in truth rapidly outgrew my attempts to cover it with any authority.  Through beer writing, I have made many friends (as well as a few enemies),  laughed and shot the shit with a lot of fascinating people, and learned about business, entrepreneurship and the power of the human will. Oh, and I drank three lifetimes’ worth of awesome beer.

But as waves inevitably do, this one lost its energy. The scene blew up, and it continues to do so (we gained over 260 breweries in the last year alone) A new crop of beer lovers, many with more enthusiasm, drive and capability than myself, drove the new scene. Twitter and Facebook allowed me to shorten my writing into easily emittable chunklets. As for my print column, after 120 installments, I was frankly out of shit to say about beer.

This is all a roundabout, metaphorically tortured way of apologizing.

The beer scene is better than ever. There are more topics, interesting people, and wonderful beers than ever before. I’m sorry about the decline of my writing in both quality and quantity but I am not getting out of the saddle.

I’m moving the blog back to wordpress’ server; I’m sick of trying to run my own box in my bedroom and I can do more with it here. This is not going to be the permanent look, but it will suffice until I can get Photoshop up and running on this damn expensive new laptop, the purchase of which I’m using this blog to partially justify.

So bear with me. I’ve still got some chops, and new ideas are flowing. And I’m a really shitty surfer.

-Mark

Still, some people feel compelled to substitute their beer knowledge for their personality. There’s simply no place for that in the modern, hip gastropub. Sure, it’s fun to talk about beer and there’s plenty of compelling stuff to discuss, but expect sneers from the staff and a slowly widening circle of empty space between you and other patrons if you overdo these behaviors.

Denigrate another patron’s selection

Maybe you’ve traversed the Trappist breweries of Belgium on a Vespa. You might be a master-level BJCP judge or cicerone. Perhaps you’ve shared the Great American Beer Festival’s VIP room with Charlie Papazian himself. That doesn’t mean you derive a more pleasurable or valid beer experience than the Heineken drinker next to you.

“Alfonso,” A bartender at a Rochester area beer pub, can relate. “I’ve got customer who, when someone comes up and orders something like a Blue Light, will turn to this stranger and say things like ‘With all these great beers in here, you’re gonna order that?’”

The first rule of gracious beer enjoyment is ‘drink what you like,’ and there’s a big difference between saying “I notice you’re drinking a Blue Light. I bet you’d enjoy the Victory Prima Pils” and actively sneering.

Try to outshine the bar staff

It’s the mark of a passionate beer bar to have a staff that’s trained and knowledgeable about the beer. The casual observer might be surprised at the lengths to which some of these places will go to impart that knowledge: staff trips to breweries, guest lecturers, even junkets to Belgium. These are considered investments in the customer experience.

That doesn’t mean the college student serving you goblets will know everything. A pub is a place for minds to meet, not a pissing contest. If you know more than the girl pouring, just smile, raise your glass, and maybe ask why he prefers the beer he just recommended.

Likewise, just as you wouldn’t question a pastry chef about the hazelnut ratio in her ganache, it’s poor form to tell a craft brewer what you would have done to improve his beer. The guy works hard with the materials he has on hand, within particular budgetary, time, and market constraints. If you want to homebrew the ideal ambrosia, by all means do so. Otherwise, use your face hole for something constructive, like draining a pint.

Play the one-up game

It’s the curse of the beer geek never to be satisfied. Regardless of what’s in the glass, somewhere out there awaits a beer that’s stronger, darker, more ludicrously bitter. It’s a vicious cycle of pursuit and anticlimax, the beer equivalent of internet dating.

Be kind. Help break the cycle. When someone mentions their affection for Southern Tier Phin and Matt’s Extraordinary Ale, don’t scoff about how New Belgium Fat Tire is better. Also, it’s polite to refrain from rattling off a list of unattainables you’ve “collected.” If you’ve tasted Westvleteren 12, Pliny the Younger, and Black Ops, that’s great. We hope you’ve gotten a lot of enrichment and enjoyment from the experience. But cramming your beer tourist stories down fellow drinkers’ throats makes you just like the guy who, having learned a friend went to Vegas, whips out the slide show about his trips to the REAL Venice, Paris, and Cairo.

Overanalyze your glass

As in wine, the pleasure of craft beer is in the senses. Go ahead, hold your glass up to the light, and give it a little swirl to release the aroma. Don’t however; make a theatrical production out of it. And give the staff a break on samples. “There are people who ask for a dozen sample glasses” ‘Alfonso’ comments. “Or people getting samples of the beer I poured them the night before.”

Be a “pro”

There’s nothing wrong with having a passion for brewing and beer history. Small breweries are a great place to pick up knowledge and meet fascinating people. It’s how you disseminate that knowledge to others that becomes the problem. For one thing, it’s usually unsolicited. Also, it’s frequently wrong. “I’ve heard the same story about Bock being produced from the dregs scraped out of the kettle after a year’s brewing, ” one bartender gripes. “It’s completely made up.”

-Mark

In praise of the pub

By Mark Tichenor & Bruce Lish

Beer at its best is not a solitary pursuit.

The most carefully made selections, the vastest collections, and the fanciest homebrew setups ring hollow without people with whom to share.

Beer has been a community beverage since its invention. Often communally made, most cultures established places within their towns and cities where the people could gather, discuss ideas, and often behave in atrocious ways.

In ancient Sumeria, drinking house providers who shortchanged their patrons on measure were drowned in their own beer, which showed how serious societies can get about these things.  It also lent the beer a distinctive piquant earthiness.

In Germany, the breweries themselves usually opened a Bierstube and or a beer garden out front, which quickly became the nexus of their communities.

But nowhere did the public drinking house become as much a part of the national character as in the British Isles. From Georgian times, the pub served as social spot, entertainment hub and home away from home for people from Land’s End to the Orkney Islands.

For Americans, the classic image of the British Pub gelled during World War II, US servicemen on leave brought back fond memories, which wound their way into popular American culture and media.

That image continues to this day. For many bar owners, American love for the pub aesthetic drives décor choices, floor plans and beer selection.

That’s a good thing, because for as long as the pub existed in Britain, certain sections of the government and the population have been at war with the very idea of its existence. Though never as successful as the temperance movement in the USA during the 1920s, influential social engineers in the UK were able to pass laws which, at various times, limited the alcohol content of beer, tightly constrained hours of legal operation, and seriously impeded potential pub owners during the licensing process.

In addition, the tied house system spurred the growth of, but then ultimately decimated the pubs of the UK. Under tied house, pubs were funded by large breweries, and therefore were required to exclusively sell their breweries’ beer. That might have been all well and good when there were hundreds of great British breweries, but as the brewing industry imploded it was a death knell for the social hubs of countless communities around the Isles.

The pub in is still limping along, increasingly in the form of large chains that buy beer in bulk, and operate under such tight margins that they cannot turn a profit unless they confine their offered beer to those brands for which their parent companies obtain those bulk pricing discounts.

Fortunately, the pub ideal lives on in the USA. Nearly every city sports a place or six where folks can still come together in a home away from home, amid comforting surroundings, familiar faces, and unfamiliar beers.

And that aesthetic need not manifest itself in the form of Victorian décor, a giant wooden bar, and a cheery pink-faced publican referring to you as “guv’nor.” The spirit of the pub is now integral to how we perceive friendliness, comfort, and varying degrees of inebriation in dives, sports bars, and even chain restaurants. It’s a friendliness that has permanently modified our culture.

So, even if you tend to be kind of a homebody, it’s a good idea to give your local pub a chance every now and then. If you don’t, you’re using the world’s greatest social lubricant to, well, to only lubricate yourself.

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://www.beercraftsite.com. Find us on Twitter @beercraft. Send your questions, suggestions, or comments to beercraft@rochester.rr.com.

Does brewing remain a labor of love for mavericks and iconoclasts who share a common vision and a comradeship? Or has the business matured into an overtly competitive numbers game that depends on the end user seeing a clothed emperor? Are the early adopters, the people who fell in love with craft beer, still important, or has distribution made craft beer so ubiquitous that many brewers find it more fiscally attractive to “brew down” to a greater, but less sophisticated, market?

I dunno. Come on, beer moguls, prove me wrong.

-Mark

By Mark Tichenor & Bruce Lish

Boy, those French sure have a racket going. Their Champagne is the undisputed king of alcoholic beverages, a longstanding symbol of affluence and hedonistic luxury. And often it’s quite delicious. Why wouldn’t you want to pop a bottle on New Year’s Eve?

Well, maybe because the hosts of the party you’re attending didn’t exactly spring for the stuff rap stars swill on TV. In fact it’s quite likely that what’s being poured into your plastic flute, to celebrate the turning of a decade, is not from France, costs less and tastes substantially nastier than a quality craft beer.

Now before you call us gauche, consider the wide visual and flavor variety currently inhabiting the shelves of your local beer store. It isn’t particularly difficult to find a beer that will amaze and delight your fellow partygoers, especially if you focus your shopping on the Belgian beer section.

Our personal favorite for the toast is Lindemans Framboise. The soft yet prickly raspberry lambic is much sweeter and less musty than most of its counterparts, so it’s a beer everyone can enjoy, regardless of palate development. It’s red hue and soft pink head make an aesthetic statement as well.

If you want something chunkier, a good Belgian or Belgian-style dubbel can give you plenty of taste, a sparkly mouthfeel, and a little more bite for your buck. These beers have a slightly tart, cidery quality, and taste as funky and individualistic as the abbeys in which they’re brewed.

Now that so many North American breweries have adapted to Belgian brewing styles and ethics, it‘s easy to find beers of that character, with unique qualities right in your own backyard.

“We will be toasting with La Fin Du Monde because we’re a beer bar and it’s a cool alternative,” says Joe McBane, owner of the Tap and Mallet and an easy guy to get quotes from, considering the frequency with which we sit across from him.

Fin Du Monde, from Montreal’s Unibroue, is a perpetual visitor to McBane’s inventory and looks great in a champagne glass. Both he and the Tap’s bar manager, Chris Schultheiss, liken the beer’s character to champagne, especially because of the pinprick bubbles formed by the fructiferous Belgian yeast.

Fructiferous. We’ve always wanted to say that.

Ahem. Anyway, Belgian is the way Old Toad Cellar Manager Jules Suplicki would go as well, but she hints at a slightly more daring approach.

“I might try an oude gueuze,” she says via the awesome communicative power of the text message. “It’s super tart and has an amazing essence which is champagne-like but still unquestionably beer.”

Gueuze, unfiltered blended lambic served without the sweetness of fruit beers like Lindemans Framboise, can be a challenge for those who haven’t opened their minds and palates to a broad range of beer, but serving one of these to a roomful of beer lovers will speak volumes for your taste, discriminating style, and ability to read 6-point type.

And the elegance goes beyond what’s in the glass. Many Belgian beers, as well as the American Belgian styles from brewers like Unibroue and Ommegang, come in heavy swanlike bottles, caged, corked and ready for presentation to the guests of honor.

Beer instead of champagne is an audacious option. While some people might turn up their noses at your flagrant disregard of tradition, others will be delighted, and more than a little surprised at the way a fine beer fits into such a celebratory moment. You’ll be viewed as keen and worldly, and avoid the certain sparkling wine hangover when the party’s over and the next ten year slog begins.

For the holdouts, you can always yank out a $7 bottle of bubbly.

In other beers:

It would be difficult to live in Rochester and not know that Tastings, Wegmans’ fine dining restaurant, has evolved. Relocated across Monroe Avenue from the Pittsford store, the new Next Door Bar & Grill, which trades some of Tastings’ tradition for a more comprehensive and breezy dining environment. Finally, Executive Chef Chris Brandt and his merry band of culinary troubadors have the space and tap lines to exhibit their appreciation of craft beer and its relation to cuisine.

Next Door is open for lunches, dinners and casual bargoery. Find them at nextdoorbarandgrill.com or just drive Monroe and look for the color green.

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://www.beercraftsite.com. Find us on Twitter @beercraft. Send your questions, suggestions, or comments to beercraft@rochester.rr.com.