Goose Island Ten Hills Pale Ale

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Ten Hills Pale Ale is the first of a three-beer series from Goose Island that will celebrate hops. The materials that I received from the brewery give no clue as to what the other two will be.

Ten Hills Pale Ale gets its name from the ten hills of hops originally planted for the brewery two years ago by Elk Mountain Farms in Bonners Ferry, Idaho. The relationship between the brewery and the hop farm has grown since that planting. 200,000 hills are now grown exclusively for Goose Island.

Say what you will about the sale to AB-InBev, the relationship has allowed Goose Island to do things like this; things it likely wouldn’t have been able to do before. As brewmaster Brett Porter put it in the press release for Ten Hills, “More than ever before in our brewing history, we’re innovating at Goose Island,” Porter said. “Whether we’re creating a new hop-focused series of beers or further developing our barrel aging program. It’s an incredibly exciting time at Goose Island.”

Here’s my notes:

Goose Island Ten Hils Pale AleTen Hills Pale Ale
Goose Island Beer Company, Baldwinsville, New York
Style: American Pale Ale
Serving Style: 12 oz. bottle

Aroma: Hops and malt are in nearly equal balance. Sweet-ish maltiness is almost like a double IPA. Hints of biscuit. Hops still narrowly take the day. Thick, stone fruit and tropical fruit aromas – pineapple, mangoes, apricots – like a roll of Lifesavers or canned-fruit syrup. Tropical enough that I swear I smell coconut, but I don’t think I really do. Underlying notes flowers and spice.

Appearance: Medium copper color and slightly hazy. Good stand of persistent, off-white foam.

Flavor: Stoney bitterness that bites the back of the throat on the way out. Buckets of fruit – blood oranges, pineapple, especially pineapple, mango, peach or apricot. So much fruit. The flowers and spice carry over from the aroma, offering a counterpoint to the fruit. Surprisingly high level of malt again gives it a moderately sweet profile. The sugar melds with caramel and biscuit flavors that start small and then pop mid-palate. Finish is dry with lingering bitterness and fruit.

Mouthfeel: Medium body, but with a sugary thickness. Medium-high carbonation. Sticky.

Overall Impression: At 6.2% ABV it’s definitely on the high-test and full-bodied end of the pale ale spectrum; really more IPA-like, but with a low IBU of 48. It’s almost got the syrupy fruitiness of a double IPA, but without the alcohol or abrasive bitterness. Is this the long-awaited session imperial IPA? The dry finish says that attenuation was high, but the impression is still of a beer with a good deal of residual sugar. This would be good with the pineapple-sambal pulled-pork sliders I paired to at a tasting event last week.

Iron Maiden’s Trooper

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Band beers are all the rage. Hanson has one. So does Kid Rock. AC/DC, Mötorhead, and Kiss are in the signature brew club as well. The question is, how much of this is about beer and how much of this is about marketing?

Case in point; Trooper the signature beer of Iron Maiden. Clearly the Iron Maiden brand is huge. It’s attached not only to the band, but also to a large collection of band-related merchandise. You can buy Iron Maiden T-shirts, hoodies, pint glasses, key chains, even an Iron Maiden skateboard deck. The Seventh Son of a Seventh Son basketball jersey will only set you back about 75 bucks. It’s big business. Clearly attaching the Iron Maiden name to a beer will bring a windfall to the brewery that makes it. Adding a “craft” beer to the merch line can’t hurt the band either. But is marketing and branding – raking in the dough to be blunt – really all there is to it?

At a recent Better Beer Society University session that I hosted on beer marketing I quizzed Trooper importer Lanny Hoff (Artisanal Imports) on this very topic. (I think I took him by surprise with my aggressive questioning, but he’s more than ready for some good-natured verbal sparring.) He said that the goal of marketing is to convince you to buy something that you really don’t need. Despite what many of us think, we don’t really need beer. In that sense, says Hoff, attaching the Iron Maiden name to beer is all about marketing. But he’s okay with that. The marketing is convincing people who ordinarily would drink light lagers to try something a bit more adventurous. It’s bringing new consumers into the fold.

But Hoff does feel that Trooper rises above pure money-grabbing gimmickry. Everyone involved, from the band to the brewer, actually cares about the beer. And the beer is good, he says. It’s real beer, not just something cranked out to make a quick buck.

So let’s explore this for just a moment. It’s not like Iron Maiden went to some nameless contract brewer and said, “Make us a beer.” Trooper is brewed by Robinsons Brewery, a 175-year-old, family-run, English brewery. They make respected brands like Old Tom Strong Ale. Iron Maiden’s front man Bruce Dickinson claims to be a lover of traditional English beers. He reportedly went to the brewery personally and assisted in its design and production. In a promotional video for the beer Dickenson describes being “put on trial” by the brewmaster at Robinsons as to whether the band was serious about producing a real, long-term ale.

Bruce introduces ‘Trooper’ from Trooper on Vimeo.

But I suppose the real test of whether or not Trooper is just a marketing gimmick is the beer itself. Is it good? Or is it just another Badass Beer?

Here’s my notes:

iron-maiden-beerTrooper
Robinsons Brewery, Cheshire, England
Style: English Best Bitter
Serving Style: Pint bottle

Aroma: Malt leads with toasted bread crust and biscuit. A touch of orangey fruit. Just the subtlest hint of earthy English hops.

Appearance: Medium copper color and clear. Full and persistent head of nearly white foam.

Flavor: Medium-high bitterness from start to finish. Malt offers a pleasing counterpoint with toffee and dry, biscuit and toast flavors. Hop flavors are low, but present – earthy and herbal, minty even. Background notes of orange marmalade. The finish is dry with lingering bitterness.

Mouthfeel: Medium-light body. Medium-low carbonation.

Overall Impression: A very nice best bitter. To quote Dickens, ‘Please, sir,’ replied Oliver, ‘I want some more.’

Alaskan Pumpkin Porter

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Sure, it’s Thanksgiving Day. But while people complain about retailers like Wall Mart and Best Buy making their employees come to work, in many places liquor stores are also open (except in Minnesota, of course). So for those of you who somehow forgot to supply yourselves for the holiday meal, here is a last-minute, turkey-worthy recommendation.

Here’s my notes:

pumpkin_porter_bottle_pic-webbyPumpkin Porter
Alaskan Brewing Company, Juneau, Alaska
Style: Imperial Porter with pumpkin and spices
Serving Style: 22 oz. bottle

Aroma: Vegetal squash and pumpkin pie spices are way up front – allspice, ginger, cinnamon are what I smell, although that’s not apparently what’s in it. Black strap molasses. Graham crackers. Low-level dark chocolate underneath. You get the pumpkin filling and the crust.

Appearance:  Very dark brown, nearly black. Ruby highlights. Clear. Full head of creamy, ivory foam with good retention.

Flavor: Vegetal squash notes like acorn squash. Pumpkin pie spices – ginger especially, along with cinnamon. Ginger lingers long after the dry finish. Molasses grabs in the middle and also hangs on into finish. Low malt sweetness. Low-level, dry, chocolate-cookie roastiness. Bitterness is medium-low, but accentuated by dry finish and low-level of dry roast. Toast. Mellow coffee/chickory gets stronger as the beer warms. The pumpkin pie and the coffee to go with it.

Mouthfeel: Medium body. Medium carbonation. Low creaminess.

Overall Impression: This is a lovely, unique, and complex beer. Crisp and refreshing, and yet dusky and mouth-filling. Spices are prominent enough to give the sense of eating a slice of pumpkin pie, but not so intense as to make the beer scream “SPICE.” The massive load of pumpkin used (11 pounds per barrel) really do allow for that vegetal squash flavor to come through. And at 7% ABV it’s just strong enough to call it “imperial” but not so strong that you can’t have another. It’s beautiful with a slice of pumpkin pie.

Lakewood Brewing Company at the 2013 GABF

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“Internationally inspired, locally crafted beer.” That’s the motto of Lakewood Brewing Company in Garland, Texas. Founder/brewer Wim Bens was introduced to good beer while growing up in Belgium. Here in the US it was his love of Belgian beers that led him to American craft beer. His split influences are reflected in the beers that he brews at Lakewood. They layer an American sensibility onto a base of classic European styles.

In the lineup you’ll find a classic Pilsner, a Munich dunkel with pumpkin and spice, and a Belgian-style IPA among other Euro-marican brews. The crowning glory is The Temptress, a rich and chocolaty imperial milk stout that Bens calls “dessert in a glass.” The description is apt. It is one very tasty beer.

Mob Craft Brewing at the 2013 GABF

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These are crazy times for beer. Breweries are popping up so fast that it has become impossible to track them. Believe me, I tried. From December 2010 until March of this year I was writing A Perfect Pint’s Beer Guide to the Heartland, due out next May from the University of Illinois Press (really!). For those two and a half years I put considerable effort into keeping track of all the new breweries in four states. That was a fool’s errand. It ultimately got the best of me. In the interest of eventually actually producing a book I gave up.

I have to admit that since turning in the manuscript, I haven’t been tracking new breweries all that hard. I got burned out on the task. And so it is that I am continually learning about startups in the region. Perusing the list of breweries in the program of this year’s GABF I came across two that I had never heard of. One of them is Mob Craft Brewing in Madison, Wisconsin.

Mob Craft opened in June. The nano-sized brewery is using a crowd-sourced model for determining the beers they produce. Fans can submit recipes or suggestions on the brewery’s website. Drinkers then vote with their dollars by ordering the beers that they most want the guys to make. It’s an interesting concept; a drinker-driven beer lineup.

Excel Bottling Company at the 2013 GABF

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As a writer I’m a storyteller. I like breweries that have interesting stories. They make my job easier. The story can come from anywhere. It might be the brewer’s career path or brewing philosophy. It could be the history of the brewery or the building in which it is housed. Or maybe it’s the beauty of the countryside that surrounds the brewery. A brewer can make the best beer in the world, but without a captivating backstory it’s terribly difficult to pen an interesting profile. I’m left trying to manufacture magic from the rather mundane reality of making beer.

Excel Bottling Company in tiny Breese, Illinois made my life very easy. The company was founded in 1936 when Edward “Lefty” Maier captured a bank robber and collected a $500 reward. He used the windfall to purchase a bottling machine and open the third soda making plant in Breese. The others have long since closed, but nearly 80 years later Excel is still making soda the old fashioned way. They use real sugar, natural flavorings, and returnable bottles. And those bottles are still filled on that original 1936 machine.

Excel started making beer in 2012. It was mostly a business decision says Paul Maier, “Lefty’s” son. Returnable bottles have to be ordered in massive quantities and they needed another product line to keep them all filled. The current boom in brewing  and a change in the law allowing small brewers to self-distribute made beer a likely choice. They hired long-time homebrewer and homebrew store owner Tony Toenjes to oversee brewery operations. Rod Burguiere, a former brewer at Stone Brewing Co. was taken on as assistant brewmaster. Burguiere was looking for a way to move back to his native Midwest and jumped at the opportunity to bring a West Coast sensibility to Southern Illinois.

Summit Union Series: Rebellion Stout

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Summit Brewing Company just keeps cranking out new brews. Between the Union Series and the Unchained Series they have had by my count five new releases this year. The latest from the Union Series, Rebellion Stout, came out just this past week. It seems that it is an extremely limited-batch brew. My sources tell me that retailers got very small allotments, meaning that in many places it has already sold out. Will there be more to follow? We can only hope.

Rebellion Stout is an example of foreign extra stout. This strong stout style was originally brewed for export to tropical regions of the British Empire. The BJCP describes two different varieties of foreign extra stout – tropical and export. The tropical version has lower roasted malt character and higher levels of malt and fermentation-derived dark fruit notes. The export variety is drier and roastier with less fruit. Examples of the tropical version available locally include Lion Stout and Xingu. There used to be more examples of the export style available in the Twin Cities. Guinness Foreign Extra, brewed since the 1800s was here for a bit, but now is apparently no longer available. You can still find the old Guinness Extra Stout bottles that used to be the only variety of Guinness available. This lack of local availability makes Rebellion Stout, an export version, a particularly welcome addition to the Summit lineup.

The focus of the Union Series is the use of new and new-ish brewing ingredients. This beer is hopped entirely with Boadicea Hops, an English variety described as having light spicy and floral aromatics. They also used Propino malt, an Irish base malt created for porters and stouts that was recently released in the US.

Here’s my notes:

Summit Rebellion StoutRebellion Stout
Summit Brewing Company, St. Paul, Minnesota
Style: Foreign Extra Stout
Serving Style: 12 oz. bottle

Aroma: Tangy, noble-like hops lead off – spice, black currant, lime peel. Reminds me of Tettnang. After the second and third sniff, malt takes over – chocolate, dry graininess and light toast. Subtle coffee notes. Low alcohol.

Appearance: Voluminous, creamy, dark-tan foam with excellent retention. Opaque black. Appears clear.

Flavor: As in the aroma, tangy, noble-like, spicy/black currant hops hit first on the tip of the tongue. Malt quickly takes over and leads the rest of the way. Chocolate is the main note – semi-sweet amd dry like an Oreo cookie. Low caramel, grainy, and toasty malt flavors add complexity. Malted milk balls. Although made with Black Patent malt, there is no harsh or burnt flavor. Hop bitterness is low, assisted by bitterness from roasted malt. Finish is off-dry with lingering molasses, licorice, and chocolate.

Mouthfeel: Creamy. Velvet silk. Medium-full body. Low carbonation. Slightly warming.

Overall Impression: Rich and roasty, but with no burnt malt flavors, this high-test stout goes down super easy. Maybe a little too easy, as it’s quite tempting to down a few. This beer was lovely with a mild blue cheese, but it would stand up quite well to a more pungent one. It’s a shame that it might be so hard to find.

Summit Brewing Company at the 2013 GABF

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Continuing with the GABF video interview series, I visit Summit Brewing Company. I chatted with brewers Nate Siats and Jeff Williamson as well as Steve Secor from packaging. They gave me the low-down on expansion, new beers, and Jeff talks about making the transition from Flat Earth to Summit.

I think this one must have happened late in the session. I seem to be a little less focused than in some of the other interviews. It is GABF!

Scratch Brewing Co. at the 2013 GABF

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Some breweries are just more interesting than others. This has nothing to do with the quality of the beer. It’s more about the brewery’s story and philosophy. One such brewery is Scratch Brewing Co. in the tiny, southern Illinois town of Ava.

Many breweries call themselves “farmhouse” breweries, but for Scratch Brewing Company the term is especially appropriate. The brewpub is located on a plot of forested land about five miles outside Ava. It is truly a farmstead that has been in co-owner Aaron Kleidon’s family for 25 years.

But “farmhouse” in this case also applies to the way they think about and brew beer. They follow an ethic that looks to back to a time when beer making was carried out on every farmstead using the ingredients at hand. They want Scratch beers to smell and taste like southern Illinois. The rustic flavors of their traditionally styled brews are enhanced by the addition of local ingredients, many of which are foraged from the property. These have included such things as nettle, elderberry, ginger, dandelion, maple sap, various roots, and cedar, among others. They grow some of their own hops and source others from Windy Hill Hops, a nearby grower.

The brewery itself is a mix of primitive and modern that reflects the different personalities of the owners. Aaron Kleidon is an expert forager who pushes a more primitive process that includes brewing in a copper kettle over an open fire. Ryan Tockstein represents the modern side of brewing seen in their 1.5-barrel Stout Tanks brewhouse. Foodie Marika Josephson fall somewhere in between and forms a bridge between the two.

While the character of Scratch beers leans heavily on unique ingredients, don’t look for them to be extreme. These brewers make beers to which modern palates will respond, but that are deeply rooted in older traditions. They look to their ingredients to complement other flavors already in the beer, not to overwhelm them.

I had interviewed Marika on the phone for my upcoming Midwest brewery guidebook, but hadn’t had the opportunity to visit the brewery or taste the beers. I was so excited to see them on the list at the Great American Beer Festival.

St. Paul Boy Makes Good: Bob Galligan of Hops & Grain Brewing in Austin, Texas

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Most people are unaware that aside from organizing private beer-tasting events, I also own a theatre company. Don’t bother asking which one. Although it’s quite successful, you’ve never heard of it. We don’t do any public performances. GTC Dramatic Dialogues tours to college campuses all across the country doing interactive, dialog-based shows on issues like diversity, sexual assault, and substance abuse. That’s right; I am both a beer evangelist and a substance abuse educator.

Naturally, we drink a lot of beer while on tour. The actors who work for me know that if there is a brewpub in the town where we are performing, we will be eating there. They have no choice. Beer and Yahtzee is a typical post-show activity. Ah, the showbiz life!

Over the years I have introduced a lot of actors to really good beer. For some it has sunk in more deeply than others. One of those is Bob Galligan. I hired Bob pretty fresh out of the theatre program at the University of Minnesota. He performed with the troupe for two seasons before moving to Austin, Texas. Bob was fun to have on the road. His oddball sense of humor can be seen in this video created with friends for distribution to colleges.

Once in Austin, Bob realized that there was no acting to be done. What was an out of work actor to do? Go into brewing, of course. Within a year he worked himself up from tour guide to canning line, brewer, and finally head brewer at Hops & Grain Brewing. I caught up with him in the brewery’s booth at the GABF.

Hopps & Grain AlterationAlteration
Hops & Grain Brewing Company, Austin, Texas
Style: Northern German Altbier
Serving Style: 12 oz. Can

Aroma: Clean. Malt forward with subtle bread crust and light spicy hops to balance. Dark fruits – raisins.

Appearance: Moderate head of off-white, creamy foam that is moderately persistent. Brown with reddish highlights. Clear.

Flavor: Malt definitely leads. Bread crust maltiness with caramel-like melanoidin. Bitterness is medium to medium low. Spicy and floral hop flavors are medium to medium low. Hints of chocolate and dark fruits like raisins. Clean, crisp lager-like finish.

Mouthfeel: Medium body with some creaminess. Medium carbonation.

Overall Impression: I’m going to call this one a Northern German Altbier. The bitterness and hop flavors strike me as low for a good example of the Düsseldorf variety. Caramel and toast malt with touches of dark fruit are similar to Belgian dubbel, but without the yeast esters and phenols.