That’s because there isn’t a winter ale style, just a loose amalgam of strong ales with or without pumpkin-pie spices. Many brewers make them, and the characteristics of each one vary so widely that the drinker can’t usually get a sense of what the brewer was trying to do and if she achieved that goal.
Let’s call these beers what they really are: mass market-style line extensions designed to suck the $$$ out of consumers’ wallets during the Holiday season. It’s the kind of large company practice that disappoints me to see used by artisan brewers who are otherwise able to live or die by the high quality of their beers. Some consumers may be lured in, but it’s telling how much of this Holiday stuff remains on special long after the Christmas tree goes through the mulcher.
My practice has been to steer clear of the bottles with elves and sleighs on the label, and stick with traditional styles that warm and comfort, such as imperial stout, Doppelbock, and the occasional barley wine. I like cloves and cinnamon as much as the next guy, but not so much in my beer.
How much better do craft beer lovers expect craft beer to get?
I ask because yesterday evening found me making a special trip to the Tap & Mallet (I know, twist my arm) because they’d gotten a couple kegs of BrewDog, which are not expected to last long.
BrewDog is small, Scottish, and at the vanguard of the still infantile craft brewing movement in the UK. Through a series of smart plays, they’ve built up a lot of buzz in the USA, where their beer is generally unavailable. A collaborative brew with Stone Brewing thrust them into the American limelight, and to say their beer is coveted would be understatement.
At any rate, I got to try their Dogma Heather Ale and Punk IPA last night. Both were excellent, and I put a real-time review on Twitter as I slurped. But jeez, they weren’t so good as to require shipping kegs across the ocean.
It made me think, what are beer lovers groping for? To what increment can you break a beer down and rate its characteristics. If you’re drinking a world class IPA that scores 4.75 on Beer Avocate, are you really worse of than if you’re sipping one that scores a 5?
Punk IPA did rock, but I’m not gonna feel impoverished if, from now on, I have to have Victory’s IPA instead.
There’s extreme beer, and then there’s beer that’s so hardcore it makes Imperial Stout look like diet cola. It’s no surprise that this überbeer comes from one of the pioneers of American craft brewing.
Every two years, the folks at Samuel Adams set out with the express goal of brewing the strongest beer in the world. This year’s batch of Sam Adams Utopias clocks in at a mind-blowing 27% alcohol by volume.
Let me repeat that. 27%. A strong double IPA or Imperial stout might hover around 10%. Wine clocks around 12-14%. Most whiskies are 40%. That’s right, Sam Adams Utopias, a beer, is more than half as strong as Jack Daniel’s.
Making a beer that mighty is harder than you’d think. Yeast is almost as self-destructive as most people. The alcohol it creates during the fermentation process is toxic to the yeast cells. Most beer yeast dies when the alcohol level reaches 9-12%.
It took a lot of really smart microbiologists to develop a strain of yeast that could tolerate the extreme alcohol percentage of Utopias and other super strong beers. That’s right, these guys could have been curing disease and creating oil spill-munching bugs, but they’re engaged in the far more noble purpose of beefing up our beer to comical levels.
Unsurprisingly, this biannually released beer, complete with elaborate solid copper packaging designed to resemble a miniature brew kettle, costs a pretty penny. The roughly 9,000 bottles released nationwide each carry a suggested retail price of $150, but you can currently find this year’s vintage selling online for upwards of $250, with asking prices for the 2007 Utopias touching $400.
That translates into $14-$15 an ounce in Rochester beer bars, a price that the curious are more than willing to pay.
The Tap and Mallet on Gregory Street bought two 24 ounce bottles, releasing the first bottle last Wednesday and killing the first on that same night as seasoned beer lovers and neophytes rushed the bar, their fists dripping with disposable income.
“Everybody was really sort of surprised by it,” says Greg Horton, bartender at Rochester’s Tap and Mallet beer bar. “Those that weren’t familiar with it had no idea beer could be done like that.”
You can’t say Utopias tastes like beer, or in fact look and smell like beer. It bears more of a resemblance to a fine cognac (the finished beer spends part of its aging time in cognac barrels).Utopias smells like a spirit, alcohol ravishing the nose but softened by vanilla and oak. There isn’t even a passing resemblance of a head, or carbonation.
Utopias drinks more like a mellow aged cognac, with an oily mouthfeel, lots of vanilla and cherry at first sip and a mellow plum-like burn in the finish. It is completely unlike any other beer on this earth.
While the curiosity factor may drive initial interest, Horton points out that he did not pour two portions for the same customer that night. The expense of Utopias combined with its aggressive flavor makes it a beer for saving. Or hoarding. Or possibly the perfect special occasion.
At any rate, Samuel Adams Utopias is a real achievement, and a statement about how far American craft beer can go. Wonder what they’ll think of next.
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.
It’s that time again! A time for learning. A time for discussion. A time for babbling with your friends about your inconsequential little lives and ignoring Tom and myself as we TRY to educate you about beer.
Jeez, I think this is how RCSD middle school teachers feel.
ANYWAY, if you can pay attention for just one freakin’ second, you’ll notice that this week’s beer school features deliciousness from the Brooklyn Brewery. A pioneer in the East Coast beer scene, Brooklyn has become a staple brewer, as well as an innovator pushing the envelope of what beer can be.
So come to Monty’s Korner Thursday, November 12, at 7:30 pm. And, for chrissake, try to behave
It kinda goes to show what a crummy business analyst I am.
When KPS took High Falls Brewing Company, I predicted the end of Genesee and Genny light, and the cancellation of the entire Dundee line except Honey Brown, with KPS using Labatt to cover their mass-market light lager in the premium category and Genny Cream Ale positioned as a regional specialty/heritage beer a’ la Yuengling.
The new company, North American Breweries, has not taken that approach. They’ve thrown tons of marketing muscle behind Dundee, with a huge rollout of Dundee Oktoberfest (a pretty good American take on the style) and a rollout of the new Dundee IPA that begins tonight.
I still don’t see how Genesee Beer can compete withthe Budweisers and Millers of the world, but NAB has certainly gotten those white cans into bars all over Rochester. I’m also seeing Genny regular, my preferred mainstream-style American lager, on tap handles with increasing frequency, indicating a push to preserve an iconic brand. They’re doing this, however, by chopping the price. Basically, Genny and Genny Light are now the ramen noodles of the beer world. Like they say, lose a little on every sale, but make up for it in volume.
I haven’t heard a peep on what Genesee plans to do with Cream Ale, a beer I feel is poised to become the Yuengling or Shiner of our area. It’s a hip beer with a backstory, and could have massive youth appeal (over 21 youth, of course).
One thing that Genesee is doing right: they’re reversing the brand image of their beers in their hometown, getting out to the points of sale, talking to customers, and making smart use of nontraditional media to connect. I wonder how much of that is Genesee and how much is Eric Mower and Associates, their PR firm.
For the moment, the old brewery on the gorge seems to be firing on all cylinders. For Rochester, that’s a good thing.
Ah Christmas in Denmark. It’s the same ol’ schlocky, overcommercialized purchase-fest we get here in the USA, but with Julebryg, the classic Danish Christmas beer.
Dark, raisiny, with hints of toffee and… fruitcake, Tuborg Julebryg is one of my sentimental favorites, and a welcome antidote to those grey Copenhagen winters. Personally, I’d love to see an American indie brewer take a stab at this iconoclastic style, but they’re all too busy opening up the clove sacks and cinnamon bins to make whatever over-the-top concoctions we consider Holiday Ales. Maybe someday…
At any rate, to my Danske friends, enjoy your holiday season, raise a Julebryg for me, and should I get any international Fedex packages that make a sloshing sound when shaken, well I wouldn’t complain. Skål!
Maybe you’ve noticed the increase in gluten intolerance diagnoses sweeping the nation. What was once a rare condition has blossomed into a full-fledged epidemic. Today, according to a web source I found (I forget which but don’t worry college professors, it’s not Wikipedia), over 2 million people in the USA suffer from celiac disease and cannot consume wheat or barley. That’s a lot of missed opportunity for breweries, as well an enormous personal tragedy for these beer-challenged folks.
Fortunately the 1 in 133 Americans who suffer from celiac disease can find liquid salvation in an ancient an traditional brewing grain: sorghum.
What barley was to historical European brewing, sorghum was to African brewing. The grain, which flourishes in warmer climes, is the traditional cornerstone of village and tribal beer, and remains a key agent in sub-Saharan brews to this day.In fact, some brewing historians suggest that, instead of using the term “sorghum beer,” the proper term should be “African Opaque Ale”
Thing is, the stuff doesn’t do so well as a facsimile of barley-based beer unless a certain amount of barley malt is included, and that’s no help to celiacs. The gluten-free beers marketed for that purpose instead use sorghum and rice to create brews, which, with apologies to the late Douglas Adams, are almost, but not quite, entirely unlike beer.
First up: Redbridge Gluten-free beer from our buddies at Inbev-Anheuser Busch of St. Louis Missouri. To the eye, it looks like a pale ale, ruddy copper in color with a persistent head. Redbridge even has the aroma of a pale ale, gentle floral and beeswax notes wafting out of the glass.
However, where a pale ale would burst with flavor Redbridge (brace yourself) pales in comparison. There’s nothing on the front of the tongue, and only a little, slightly beery, finish at the very back, maybe with a touch of honey. Other than that, it’s like drinking softly carbonated water.
This might be perfect for folks whose comfort zone is light beer, and Redbridge really isn’t all that different in character than the 64 calorie ultralight brews currently all the rage among the young professional set. With a six-pack of this, a celiac could find the groove at any party.
Interestingly, Redbridge is made from only four ingredients, water, hops, yeast and sorghum, which makes it one of the Anheuser-Busch beers that most closely conforms to the traditional German Reinheitsgebot.
Milwaukee’s Lakefront Brewery brings us New Grist, made from sorghum and rice extract. The bottle proclaims it a ‘crisp, refreshing session beer, and it has the look of a German Helles with a weaker head.
The flavor is slightly tart, almost like a Belgian dubbel, or the square root of a dubbel, anyway.No big, booming flavor notes or alcoholic burn here. You have to squint with your tongue to perceive the flavor. Which is most evident upon exhalation immediately after taking a sip, at which point the earthy, sweet, slightly grapefruit notes fleet down the back of the tongue for just a second or two.
New Grist lives up to its crispness though, and delivers inoffensive, vaguely beerlike drinking pleasure.
Finally we have Green’s Discovery, a Sorghum/buckwheat/rice concoction from the honest-to-gosh Belgian brewery DeProef. This one makes a valiant attempt at aping the characteristics of legendary Belgian ales. It fails, of course, but not as badly as one would think.
For one thing, there’s an actual aroma. The sense of smell is so important to tasting a beer, often serving as the differentiator between the substantial and insubstantial. Green’s kicks you in the nose. In a good way.
Where the general thin palate of a sorghum beer remains, at least Greens gives your tongue something to do while you sip. Belgian yeasts lend a noticeable citric grapefruit quality that really makes you feel like you’re drinking something hearty, and the alcohol burn goes some of the way to compensate for a lack of mouthfeel. It finishes with wine like tannins clinging to the inside of the mouth and inviting another sip. The best of the bunch by far.
If you’re gluten-intolerant, it comes down to this: How much do you miss beer? If the answer is ‘not that much,’ you’re probably better off in the world of wine, which remains totally accessible to you and your crazy physiology. But if you long for the experience of throwing back a couple of pops with the boys, you can do so with the knowledge that sorghum beers, while nowhere close to barley brews, are not, in fact, downright disgusting.
In other beers:
Custom Brewcrafters’ brewer Jordan Sunseri is leaving the Rochester area for the big leagues, taking a brewing gig with Downingtown PA-based Victory Brewing, one of the premier marques in indie beer. We congratulate him and revel in the knowledge that, in a few weeks, our Hop Devil and Prima Pils will have a little more Rochster in them than before. That’s a good thing, right?
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.
It kinda goes to show what a crummy business analyst I am.
Ah Christmas in Denmark. It’s the same ol’ schlocky, overcommercialized purchase-fest we get here in the USA, but with Julebryg, the classic Danish Christmas beer.