In a couple of hours (11:30 am) I’ll be heading over to Swan Market to join my friends for our traditional Saturday, uh, sausagefest. Naturally, this event is lubricated with  fine German beer.

It’s funny. You tell an American that you’ll be drinking beer before the hour of noon and they start planning your intervention, whereas in Europe, responsible consumption of what is essentially a foodstuff is part of the routine and joy of daily life. The traditional Bavarian meal of Weisswurst and Hefeweizen is consumed before noon as a matter of course and pride, born of a time when the highly perishable sausage needed to be served quickly.

Some traditions are worth attending to. Zwei Weiss, bitte, und Ein Fransiskaner vom Fass! 

Second thought 

 I dunno, I kinda feel like I overly harshed the High Falls Brewery in my last post over what basically amounts to an ad. They do a lot for the community and I choose their beer over any other American light lager. Like many regional breweries, the company has had a rough go of it over the past 30 years or so, and it’s not fair to fault them for positioning themselves to remain viable.

I guess it just seems, sometimes, that our hometown brewery has kind of abandoned us as small fry, and the brewery-consumer relationship is so different than in other cities where regional breweries are headquartered. For example, go to southern PA and see how passionate people are about Yuengling. The beer is everywhere and residents are proud of it, even though in composition it’s not wildly different from Genny. In Rochester, we don’t have that same sort of pride in our big brewer. High Falls doesn’t culturally dominate that part of our dining table.

Maybe this ad is the first step in a broader campaign to reach out to the town that built the company through the purchase of its beers. If so, I’ll happily drink my words. Well see.

-Mark

The management of the High Falls Brewing Company does not think very highly of the citizens of its home city. They think we’re simple, maybe stupid even, with the reasoning skills of small children. They are also very disappointed in us as customers.

High Falls ran a full-page advertisement in this week’s issue of City Newspaper (and, I’m told, the Democrat and Chronicle as well) that purports to be a personal letter from President and CEO Norman Snyder to the citizens of Rochester. Now, most people wouldn’t read 7 long paragraphs of 6-point type. I did, and it pissed me off. Over the course of the letter ‘Snyder’ offers platitudes about how much he loves it here, patronizes us with his own simplification of economics, attempts to convince us that his is a craft brewery, and reprimands us for not buying locally enough.

“The Brewery’s Payroll, which is in excess of $18 million, makes a significant contribution to the local economy,” ‘Snyder’ writes. “Our employees pay taxes, purchase automobiles, clothing, groceries and other goods from local companies.” Well, duh. What’s the underlying message here? Is it that, if we don’t buy enough Genny Light, the brewery will be forced to reduce that potential pool of local economic contributors? It kinda reminds me of how PBS used to threaten to pull Sesame Street off the air if they didn’t receive enough viewer contributions.

That’s just hamfisted copy. The more inscencing thing for me is the complete hypocrisy of what the letter goes on to state:

“When you buy the beer in the blue can, you are supporting an economy whose currency is now on par with our own. When you buy the beer in the red can, you are helping the big get bigger. Every time you buy the beer in the silver or gold can, you are not buying the local beer or supporting local jobs.

The next time you order a beer, please consider that some of the best beer brewed in this country is brewed right here in Rochester, New York. Take Pride in Rochester! Take Pride in your local brewery! Take Pride in our products! But please remember to always be responsible.”

Well, Norm, I’ll take that final piece of advice. I don’t think High Falls Brands, excuse me, High Falls Brewing Company, is our brewery anymore. Not when I’m sitting at my hometown baseball stadium, within sight of your building, and the Rohrbach Brewing Company has ten times the retail presence as High Falls. Not when it’s ten times easier to get the beers of Honeoye Falls’ Custom Brewcrafters than a bottle of good ol’ Genesee Lager. Not when you try to pass of Honey Brown as a ‘craft beer.’ Not when you toss aside your locally born and bred Head Brewer, the guy who won a bunch of the awards you alluded to earlier in your ‘personal plea.’

As a local consumer who should ‘always be responsible,’ I will make sure to support local brewery employees and local jobs. I will not buy the beer in the red can. I will not buy the beer in the blue can, or the silver.

I’ll buy the beer that doesn’t come in a can at all.

-Mark

Voting with our taste buds
By Mark Tichenor and Bruce Lish

Craft beer is no longer just pale ale and porter. These days, it’s the creativity of the brewer, as well as the skill of the brewing, that’s gaining critical and customer acclaim for independent breweries. This experimental, alchemical urge is certainly one of the factors that makes the Ithaca Beer Company one of the most respected New York State craft breweries.

Long known for pale ale, and the light, sun-tinged Apricot Wheat beer, the company’s product portfolio is growing to include bolder, stronger, and more whimsical beers, and a general departure from the six-pack mentality. It’s paying off big time. Last weekend at the 2008 Tap NY Festival, New York State’s premier beer event, Ithaca Beer won the F.X. Matt memorial Cup for best craft brewery in the state.

“I can’t say we were expecting it,” says Lead Brewer Jeff O’Neil. “There are a lot of great breweries in New York, and to win this award is humbling.”

O’Neil, a former Binghamton native who moved to San Francisco, suggests that his West Coast experience helps him push the envelope with the beers he brews professionally today.  Together with former Dogfish Head Brewer Mike Smith, the Ithaca boys are introducing the kind of extra-hoppy, alcoholically powerful beers for which the brewers of Oregon, Washington State and Northern California have become renowned. “My sense is that the market has matured in the northeast, O’Neil explains. “People are more accepting of hoppy IPAs.”  He goes on to say that American brewers no longer need to copy the beers of Old Europe to excel.

Indeed, Excelling has been O’Neil’s intention for a while. His and Smith’s “Excelsior” series, a limited-release line of iconoclastic beers packaged in wine bottles, echoes the appreciation of connoisseurs as well as the motto of the state in which they’re brewed.  Ithaca Ten, one of the Excelsior series, is the beer that won the brewery first place at Tap NY.

Ten, named to commemorate the brewery’s tenth anniversary is a huge double IPA made with a complex blend of malts and enough American hops to kill a vampire.” He describes the flavor as thick and creamy, slightly oily from the hops, edgy from the smoke. You can almost hear him grin over the phone as he settles on the word.

“Hedonistic,” he drawls.

To some, Ten is the archetype of the double IPA style, but a greater number of people will find its aggressive bitterness a challenge. That, however, is ultimately what separates dedicated craft brewing from national-level corporate brewing. Where large conglomerates must find a common flavor profile to please millions of people, O’Neil and Smith are able to uncompromisingly brew the beer they want and rely on a smaller, dedicated base of hopheads to make it a success. The Excelsior series beers cost more, but deliver a level of pleasure for which aficionados are happy to pay.

In addition, Ithaca’s Flower Power IPA won the silver at the festival, and reached the Final Four in the Great Lakes Brewing News’ NCAA tournament-themed nationwide IPA challenge. Cascazilla, a hop-heavy dark red ale, explodes with flavor in every sip. And Ithaca Apricot Wheat, the brewery’s best seller, appeals to everyone through it’s light mouthfeel and touch of summery fruit.

O’Neil endeavors to use New York State ingredients whenever possible. The brewery has belonged to the New York Farm Bureau since its inception, and buys hops from Seneca Castle’s Pedersen Farms, the only commercial produce remaining in this former epicenter of hop growing. “We also have a tart beer coming out, finished with New York State Grapes, O’Neil reveals.

O’Neil and the Ithaca Beer Company will continue to aim for, and quite possibly redefine, excellence in the future. For a modern craft brewery in a market rapidly gaining sophistication, there’s really no other way. “My peers are making such good beer that no one can really mail it in.”

As a guy who brews professionally because his homebrewing hobby got out of control, it’s doubtful O’Neil will ever settle for second best.

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. Send your questions, suggestions, or comments to beercraft@rochester.rr.com.

Yep, it’s that time again: the time when another obscure holiday from some other country has been turned into a big, slobbery drunk-and-disorderly fest for American young adults, thanks to the marketing dollars of a large brewing conglomerate.

In honor of this grand occasion, Beer School will be featuring the Beers of Mexico, mostly because that’s what Monty’s Korner will have on tap. In addition to pisswater Corona, we’ll also be tasting other Mexican pisswater export lagers, as well as some of the beers for which the Mexican brewing industry should be known: Vienna-Style lagers and darker, complex brews that don’t require a friggin’ lime to be rendered barely palatable.

Did that whet your thirst buds? Good. We’ll see you tonight at 7:30, Monty’s Korner, Rochester, NY. Bring your own stupid hat.

-Mark