A hop of any other color…

By Mark Tichenor & Bruce Lish

The hop flower is a key ingredient in beer. Its flavor and aroma balance the sweetness of the grain, and hop bitterness gives many beer styles their allure and distinction. Like any plant, hops have their differences, and when making beer, brewers select from that palette of hop varieties to achieve the appropriate characteristics of taste and smell. Let’s talk about these differences, because we have a column to turn in.

Hops don’t grow everywhere, and availability played a large part in the development of regional styles. For example, hops are among the awesome variety of plants that don’t grow well in Scotland, so Scotch ale evolved as dark, malty and very sweet, with no hop bitterness to balance things out.

Conversely, in Bohemia (the border country between the Czech Republic that somehow got associated with filthy hippies), hops thrive. It was in this region that cultivation of the little buggers began sometime in the 8^th century.

In fact, four of these hop species, Tettnang, Hallertau, Spalt and Saaz, are so prized by lager brewers that they’re now termed ‘noble hops.’ Limited regional cultivation areas make them a pricey ingredient, but they’re indispensable because of their low bitterness, dominant aromas and ability to mesh with the clean flavor of bottom-fermented lagers. Bavarian Helles and Hefeweizen wouldn’t turn out the same without Tettnang, Spalt and Hallertau., and Saaz gives Czech pilsners like Urquell and Czechvar their characteristic snappy finish.

In the UK, at least the parts that aren’t Scotland, local hop varieties took on a different set of characteristics. The classic hops for English ale, Goldings and Fuggles, putout hearty, sweetish flavors that may not be evident in a beer’s nose. English hops are subtle, much like English people, at least prior to the heavy consumption of fluids containing English hops. And what brewer from the UK could resist using a hop with a name like ‘Fuggles?’ It sounds like a children’s TV show.

Some English hop varieties, such as Bullion and Brewers Gold, have a higher concentration of alpha acids, the chemical responsible for making bitterness and preservative qualities. It turns out Americans like lots of bitter in their beer, and frankly the English hops don’t have enough of it. In the Pacific Northwest, they fixed that.

When you order an American double IPA and get a glass of liquid gold that smells like a DEA raid, and the bitterness of which puckers your face into a grotesque inverse rictus grin, you’re tasting Pacific Northwest hops. The rainy climate suits staple high-acid varieties like Cascade, Amarillo and Chinook.

Pacific northwest varieties are the hops of choice for big, aromatic, beers. Their domineering presence balances, and often completely overwhelms, the heavy malt and alcohol flavors of high-gravity styles like barley wine, American IPA, and the aforementioned double IPA.

American hops are changing beer worldwide. Breweries with deep local beer traditions now intrigue drinkers by marrying the more aromatic and bitter US varieties with traditional styles.

In Belgium, a country where hops grow poorly and traditional beers have very little hop presence, there’s a new beer style: Belgian IPA. The Urthel and Chouffe breweries now brew this intriguing hybrid that meshes the earthy spiciness of a Belgian dubbel with the floral aromas and tonsil-punching bitterness of an American IPA. The combination works so well that American breweries make their own variations (we recommend Flying Dog Raging Bitch Belgian IPA as the standout).

Over in stolid, conservative Bavaria, the centuries-old Brauerei Schneider collaborates with the Brooklyn Brewery to make Hopfen-Weisse, melding the classicest of classic German Hefeweizens with the complex aromas and flavors of American hops. It’s not always a happy blend, but it makes for a change of pace beer that refreshes and intrigues.

Brewers use dozens of hop varieties, and new types are created all the time. Developments in hop cultivation, combined with an increasing worldwide brewing evolution, are what keep the beer scene fresh, interesting, and ever changing. As well as giving lazy columnists something to write about.

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.

This is Beercraft print column #105

5 ways to look like a jerk in a beer bar

by Mark Tichenor & Bruuce Lish

With the market growing faster than kudzu, the craft beer scene isn’t an exclusive club anymore. These days, every accountant, construction worker and eye surgeon can confidently stride up to the bar with a general idea of how once obscure beer is supposed to look, smell and taste.

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 she prefers the beer she 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.”

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.

Hops, noble and otherwise

By Mark Tichenor & Bruce Lish

Behold the hop. Compact, bright green like an immature pine cone, maybe a bit sticky to the touch, The female flower of the Humulus plant is what makes the diversity of beer possible. And the humble hop, cherished by brewers and drinkers since the Middle Ages, is equally prized by people who love beer today.

The oils and resin in hops make beer bitter. They also emit powerful, awesome smells. The amount of bitterness and aroma varies between hop species. When making beer, a brewer picks the hop varieties that work for his intended final beverage and regulates factors such as the amount of hops added, length of hop boil, and addition point in the overall brewing process.

The selection and use of hops is one of the aspects of brewing that make it more than just boiling stuff and waiting. It’s a skill vital to anyone who makes beer, be it the head brewer at a major indie beer company or the homebrewer who wants to be able to share with her friends without making them barf.

Some hops definitely impart more of a presence on beer than others, and right now, in the USA bitter is king, so a lot of craft beer uses hop varieties grown in the pacific Northwest (such as Cascade) that have high alpha acid content. On the other hand, a centuries-old German brewery might make a beer using a Noble hop, one of the four central European Species prized for their low bitterness and high aromatic character.

Most beers contain a mix of hop varieties, with different types used in the bittering and aromatic stages of brewing, and many beers benefit from a combination of traditional species and types developed and cultivated only recently.

Because brewers like to measure stuff, there’s a measurement for bitterness: the international bitterness unit (IBU). Whereas the aforementioned German beer, let’s say it’s a Helles, might rate at 30 IBU, a big double IPA could hit 75.

Super bitter styles like American IPA take some getting used to but can be a pleasant kick to the palate. Since bitterness is one of the most distinctive traits of American craft beer, it’s not uncommon for beer newbies to gravitate toward the bitterest beer they can find, neglecting many delicious possibilities for something that makes them feel sophisticated, yet safe.

So we see brewers designing and marketing incredibly bitter (and often comically strong) beers. The taste buds can only discern up to around 90 IBUS, so the scale effectively stops there, but that doesn’t prevent our nation’s craft brewers from pushing the physical reactions of hops in boiling wort to the limit of their technical capability.

“The hoppiest beer? It’s a fairly idiotic pursuit, like a chef saying, ‘This is the saltiest dish.’ Anyone can toss hops in a pot, but can you make it beautiful?” This statement, by the iconic Garrett Oliver, brewmaster at the Brooklyn Brewery, reminds us that there is more to beer than bitterness, and more to hops than alpha acids.

When we speak of balance in a beer, we primarily mean an intangible ratio of bite to body, that the beer does not possess all bitterness and thin flavor.  Usually it’s assumed that bitter is balanced by malt, but since such a large percentage of flavor perception comes through the nose, a beer’s aroma has much to do with balance as well.

Hops supply much of what we smell in our brew. Floral notes, wafts of citrus, a hint of evergreen needles, these beloved traits do much to give iconic hoppy beers distinctive character. Double IPAs like Dogfish Head 120 minute and Bell’s Oracle envelop your head in aroma before the glass reaches your lips, and frankly we think it’s kinda pleasant to just hang out there, nose over liquid, breathing deeply before that anticipated first sip.

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.

Beer to chase away the grey

By Mark Tichenor & Bruce Lish

You get used to it, but that doesn’t mean it gets any easier. 

In the northeast, February is when the true gloom of winter sets in, when the morning cold feels like it generates in your bones and radiates out from there. The lines of city skyscrapers diffuse into the thick pallor of a sky the color of dryer lint.

Well, our dryers anyway. If you have a lot of pink clothes, that metaphor might not apply. But you get the point.  Midwinter is gloomy and people can get really bummed about it. The lack of sunlight affects moods.

It might even drive some people to drink.

And if that’s your plan, allow us to recommend a few beers that’ll put a little fermented sunshine into your day.

Tröegs Nugget Nectar, from the Tröegs Brewing Company of Harrisburg, PA can make any groundhog ignore its shadow. Legendary beer among brewing geeks, Nugget Nectar makes its presence known as soon as your nose approaches the glass. An aggressive aroma hints at an explosion of citrus to the palate, tempered with a soft but firm bitterness that gives those spring flavors something to wrap around.

Tröegs calls Nugget Nectar an Imperial Amber Ale, but realistically this beer is in a class of its own, and it’s highly sought after each year when it makes its midwinter seasonal appearance.

One of the largest independent brewers, the Boston Beer Company, promotes anticipation of spring with Samuel Adams Noble Pils. It noticeably bucks the bigger, heavier beer trend with a light snappiness and teasing hoppy finish.

Though its flavor does not overpower, Noble Pils possesses a spicy zest that cuts through most foods, with a solid grain backbone that helps the beer avoid wateriness. This is one of the finest Sam Adams seasonals to date; in terms of seasonal rejuvenation, a couple pints of Noble Pils beats an hour in a tanning bed hands down.

Our third beer is a West Coaster:  Sierra Nevada’s Glissade Golden Bock. A deep ruddy color and complex aroma gives way to a slightly spicy, medium-bodied glass of awesome.

Glissade retains the punchy finish for which West Coast beers are known, but in a subtle European way. Heavy use of German hops lends a character that manages to surprise even though it’s familiar. Glissade’s medium body and snappy flavor can make you swear that it’s the middle of April, even thought the calendar says ‘February.’ This effect is especially potent when consuming Glissade in a warm, windowless room.

As a cure-all for seasonal blahs, beer probably isn’t the best choice. But as one element of a larger palette of pleasures, the right brew can provide a pleasant solace amid the slush fields of Western New York. Until spring shows up for real, you might as well enjoy as much of the feeling as you can get.

In other beers:

Want to combine your love of craft beer with an extremely slippery and solid surface? Then head out to the Scottsville Ice Arena Winterfest on Saturday, February 13, and enjoy one of the best little festivals in our area.

In addition to beer and wine tasting, you can enjoy chili and chicken wing contests, a pig roast, live music, and open skating. Admission is $10, $5 for kids 12 and under. All proceeds go to the continued operation of the nonprofit Scottsville Ice Arena.

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.

The best of times

By Mark Tichenor & Bruce Lish

Wow. 100 columns about beer. Who even knew there would be that much to say?

Well, it turns out there wasn’t but that never stopped us from making stuff up. And today’s piece will be no exception.

It’s taken several years of biweekly typing to come to our centenary, and over that time the beer scene has changed dramatically. Pubs have overcome ambivalence toward indie brewers and embraced craft beer as an attraction and a profit maker. Distribution companies devote more space for small-batch American beer on their enormous trucks, and even the rudest noob knows to expect an IPA to taste bitter.

In many ways, craft beer has come full circle and then some. There used to be hundreds of small breweries, the products of neighborhoods. After prohibition and consolidation, only a few giant breweries remained, until a group of mavericks entered the beer market like green seedlings poking through the coal of a burned-out forest.

Their beer inspired others, causing the nascent industry to grow at an incredible rate. Craft beer became the product of neighborhoods again, and kept right on going. Now, small breweries buy smaller breweries, Craft brew is everywhere, and the New Belgium Brewing Company is the eighth largest brewery in the country, producing more beer in 2009 than Genesee.

How lucky we are as beer lovers, or even just occasional beer drinkers, to live at what is undoubtedly the high point of American brewing. Fifteen years ago it was nearly unthinkable to walk into a pub with a choice of thirty brews, representing perhaps fifteen unique styles.

How easy, though, to take it all for granted.

For one thing, the tendency toward beer snobbery has not been erased. Some people (our buddy Daron, who writes the Cream Ale Drinker blog, calls them ‘hopsters’) still believe that the contents and price of the pint they hoist gives them a social and intellectual edge over those who’d be just as happy cracking a can of St. Louis’ finest. It does not.

There’s also the curse of the beer lover, driven compulsively to seek greater novelty. Each beer must stronger or bitterer; each sip must be somehow more awesome than the last. With so much variety and experimentation within the industry, it’s easy to turn a trip to the pub into some sort of Sisyphean quest for the ever more precious, choosing desperate intellectual exercise over a few good pints with friends.

Finally, there’s the seduction of revenue for brewers. This is a business, and it always was, and brewery owners should earn as much as they can.  But a brewer who started skinny and struggled may well find herself operating a considerable profit engine these days. We hope folks in this position do not forget the loyalty of the local drinkers that gave them a boost, and do not resort to marketing and line extension gimmickry over the quality of their brew.

The problem with a high point is the decline that inevitably follows. While it’s doubtful that American Brewing has reached the end of its golden age, it’s important for drinker, brewer and publican alike to reflect on the power of the beverage that has become such a strong part of regional and national culture.

Just as it is important to create and evolve, it is vital to remember beer’s roots and traditions, and think about what’s been shown to happen when the industry gets deeper into the boardroom than the brewkettle. We’d like to see a high point of American brewing for a long time to come.

After all, we have another hundred columns to write.

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.

Utopias- the quest for the ultimate beer

By Mark Tichenor & Bruce Lish

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.

Drink like a celiac!

By Mark Tichenor & Bruce Lish

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.

From Russia with love?

By Mark Tichenor and Bruce Lish.

Some beers just go well with cold weather. As the temperature drops, we find ourselves craving the warming bite and substantial body of higher gravity beers. Call them “comfort beers.”

Few beer styles comfort a cold body as well as imperial stout. The sublime pleasure of losing oneself in one of these midnight black, sweet, velvety brews almost makes up for the months of scraping and going to work with wet, freezing feet coming our way.

Imperial stout has a cool backstory, and it starts, as most great tales do, with those wacky, nutty Russian Czars. Back around the turn of the 19^th century, the rulers of Russia took a liking to the dark porters, which, at the time, were all the rage in London.

As absolute monarchs tend to do, the Czar commissioned the export a regular supply of London’s porters to his court in Moscow. Or St. Petersburg, or wherever.

As it turned out, the Russian court was located a considerable distance from the brewing vats of London.  In order to survive the journey, brewers beefed up their porter, increasing the alcohol level to preserve the beer on its voyage. The result was a sweeter, more substantial beer with its own distinct characteristics.

Those characteristics–high gravity, sweet roastiness, and onyx hue–made Imperial stout popular among U.S indie brewers, who incorporated the style as an expression of American brewing excellence. You a brewer? Want a good reputation? Strut your stuff with Imperial Stout.

Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout is a knockout take on the style. The aroma of oak and whiskey lures you in, and the flavor delivers. Sweet malt, with a heavily roasted character and prominent alcoholic burn, gives way to a smooth finish that manages to taste like both chocolate and vanilla at the same time.  This beer begs to be consumed in front of a fireplace, preferably while wearing a smoking jacket.

As you’d expect, the beermeisters at Stone Brewing make an imperial stout that upholds the brewery’s reputation as one of the finest beer producers in the United States. More subtle in aroma than the Old Rasputin, the Stone Russian Imperial stout flows directly to the back of the tongue with flavors of bitter chocolate and caramel, ending in a sharp, roasty bite.

Downingtown, PA’s Victory Brewing brings us Storm King, which substitutes the characteristic heavy sweetness for a crisper, slightly hoppy character. Plum and raisin notes counterbalance the roasted malt and expected chocolate, creating a dangerously drinkable brew.

Imperial stout is not a beer to be taken lightly. Its 7-9% alcohol by volume, combined with its smooth and sweet nature, can seduce the drinker into that special area of overindulgence characterized by headache, dehydration, and waking up without your pants. So love the Imperial, but respect it as well. Or you just might end up like the Czar.

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.

Would Madame care to see the beer list?

By Mark Tichenor and Bruce Lish.

We at Beercraft don’t spend much dining time in high-end restaurants, because they’re expensive, and we frighten the other diners. But the forays we have made into fine dining revealed a basic truth over the years. Many of the best bistros lay out a wine list the size of the U.S. Tax Code, but offer the same beer selection you could get at the airport.

At least, that used to be the case. While wine is still king among the Osso Bucco set, a growing number of chefs are expressing their own passion for beer on the menu.

“I definitely think there’s a sift toward using beer as opposed to wine when pairing foods,” says Carlo Peretti, Executive Chef of the New York Wine and Culinary Center, in between hearty pulls on his Stone Levitation Ale.  “Beer’s a lot more versatile.”

Peretti’s inclination is understandable; beer is one of the reasons he now runs an exclusive kitchen located an ocean away from his hometown of Harrogate, England. Arriving 14 years ago as a student hospitality studies intern, he cut his teeth on the hand-pulls and taps of The Old Toad.

Today, Peretti and his staff fold a love of beer and a passion for wine into exciting pairing diners and food creations at the Culinary Center in Canandaigua, New York.

Pairing beer with food, as it is traditionally done with wine, is one of Peretti’s particular delights. “With wine it’s more of a compliment, “ he explains. “But with beer it’s both complement and contrast.”

Peretti is not alone in his appreciations. Restaurants across the country now serve up an appreciation of Belgian Saisons, West Coast IPAs, and regionally brewed indie beers that dovetail nicely with the “eat local” ethos. Even sommeliers now get into the act, selecting and describing fine beers in the same flowery language with which they would explain the sensory subtleties of fine Bordeaux.

There now exist actual certification programs to become a cicerone, or ‘beer sommelier.’ These surprisingly rigorous certifications are taken seriously within the hospitality industry, and graduates can add a new dimension to a restaurant’s character.

And it doesn’t just stop with pairing; beer is appreciated as an ingredient by master chefs. And they take it much further than dumping it into chili, or shoving a can into the body cavity of a chicken.

“We did a Genny Light Gastrique,” Peretti says with a smile, explaining how the beer added a light delicate quality to the thick sauce, and how the use of a beer with very little hop flavor prevented the concoction from growing bitter as it cooked down. He goes on to describe a Boddington’s Cream Ale ice cream he used to make back in England.

As with everything fine dining, knowledge and passion does not begin and end with the chef. Peretti’s tasting room staff is knowledgeable about both beer and wine, and can serve both with aplomb. The Wine and Culinary Center also offers specialized beer dinners, described on their website, nywcc.com.

Ultimately, beer has its place as a new complement to high cuisine, and a good beer list fits in nicely alongside the wine list without the presumption of superiority. And that’s all the best for the lucky diner, who now has a new and exciting experience in the marriage of great food and great drink.

Now pass us a scoop of that ice cream. In a pint glass please.

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.

Oktoberfest marks the high point of Fall  

By Mark Tichenor and Bruce Lish.

We are realists. We see the folly of squandering the few remaining warm weekends mowing lawns, scooping gutters and sealing driveways. It makes much more sense to spend them under a ginormous tent, listening to oompah bands and swilling beer.

That’s right, Oktoberfest is back, and the world’s biggest party will radiate outward from Munich, Germany, to thousands of cities and towns around the world.

Once again, the brewers’ pavilions of the Theriesenwiese will host throngs of people from Germany and around the world, arms of tourist and local alike linked in swaying celebration of, well, if not exactly culture, then at least the stolid German opinion of how a festival should go down.

The Munich Oktoberfest is the largest public festival in the world, and nowhere on earth is there a more unabashed celebration of beer. Each year over 6 million people converge on the Oktoberfest grounds over the course of the 16-day run (the actual population of Munich is around 1,300,000). They crowd into aircraft hangar-size tents, most of which are sponsored by one of the city’s ‘big 6’ breweries, sit at long, skinny tables, eat fatty lumps of meat, down sausages by the gullet load, and drink ludicrous quantities of special, Oktoberfest bier.

The maple syrup-colored Festbier, also called Märzen because of its traditional March brew date, satisfies the palate with its toasty, substantial body and sweet malt character. An elevated alcohol content, around 6% in most examples, also satisfies the soul, and makes necessary a special ‘dry-out’ tent at the Munich Oktoberfest into which the judgment-impaired can be dragged to sleep it off.

Those attending the Irondequoit Oktoberfest, held at Camp Eastman on the weekends of September 18-20 and again from September 25-27, may not get to try Festbier from all the Munich breweries, but Spaten’s fine example will be on draft, and those who try it will taste beer in its former role as ‘liquid bread.’

In a good Oktoberfest beer, malt does so much more than just provide the fermentable sugars for the yeast to convert into alcohol; it’s the essence of the beer’s flavor. With each sip, you can taste the grains robust, complex character. It’s almost like chomping down on a slice of hearty dark peasant bread.

The grain notes, however, get tempered by a light molasses-like sweetness, and the brewing process for Festbier ensures a thick, satisfying body that’s simultaneously quenching and nourishing. Keep in mind that Oktoberfest is the spiritual cousin of Bock and Doppelbock, which were originally brewed to provide monks with nutrition during the fasting period, and apparently to take their minds off of the fact that they weren’t getting anything to eat.

Hopes are used in the brewing, of course, but not in the same way as in, say, an American IPA. The German Hallertau, Tettnang and Spalter hops lack the bitterness of the Pacific Northwest varieties, and they’re utilized differently in the brewing process. So where the hops in an aggressive American style give a bitter bite, in Oktoberfest beer they take on more of a preservative role, with a far subtler flavor impact.

Preservation is important, since Oktoberfest is a lager, and its yeast requires a greater maturation time than that of ales. Historically, the Bavarians knew Oktoberfest would be coming up every September, so they’d brew in March, letting the beer mature over the summer in cool Alpine caves.

No doubt due to its exposure as a feel-good party drink, Festbier captures the imaginations of American craft brewers too. Brooklyn, Sam Adams, Harpoon, and Victory all recreate that original Munich body and flavor with relative fidelity.  Locally, Custom Brewcrafters is releasing a reformulated Oktoberfest that adheres closely to the old Bavarian traditions recipes and ingredients.

Oktoberfest beer reminds us that, like most of the finer things in life, context is vital. A beer that might be just OK out of a bottle on your porch can serve as the catalyst for a fantastic evening when shared, with friends, in a pavilion while a bunch of guys in leather shorts blast away on their brass instruments. 

On that note, we really should be getting back to our yardwork. Prosit!