2011 GABF Interview with Cory O’Neel of Granite City Food & Brewery

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Think what you will of the Granite City brewpub chain, my trip to their worthouse in Ellsworth, Iowa was one of the most fascinating brewery visits I have ever done. If you have driven along I-35 between Ames and the Minnesota state line, then you have passed by the brewery and probably didn’t know it. A small grain silo on the side of the building is the only thing that even remotely identifies it as a brewery. It’s a tiny, non-descript place in a tiny, non-descript town, but it supplies unfermented wort to 26+ stores in several states.

Granite City’s “fermentus interuptus” method of transporting unfermented wort to the locations for fermentation on site has advantages in terms of efficiencies of scale and consistency of product. But for anyone who knows about the brewing process, it’s a cringe-worthy proposition. Wort is an ideal growth medium for all sorts of beer-spoiling bugs. Brewmaster Cory O’Neel is the man to manage the situation. His background is in brewery quality control. Once he came on board at Granite City he instituted a set of strict protocols intended to head off problems. He built a lab at the worthouse (actually the lab was already there he told me, but it was mostly being used to heat up pizza). Wort is tested numerous times along its journey. Yeast is propagated in house in a sterile yeast lab. Fascinating stuff about an interesting way to brew.

2011 GABF Interview with Dave Anderson of Dave’s Brewfarm

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Dave’s Brewfarm is nestled in the rolling farmland of western Wisconsin. Only two things differentiate it from the farmsteads that surround it. One is a sign at the top of the driveway declaring that this little, red farmhouse is, in fact, brewery. The second is a tall wind turbine. Owner and brewer Dave Anderson is big into sustainable brewing. The turbine provides a good amount of the power needed to run the combination living space/brewery. A geo-thermal unit helps with heating and cooling. Solar panels to be installed at a later date will eventually aid with heating the hot water needed to brew.

Anderson holds frequent open houses at the brewery – or “labrewatory” as he calls it. At these events people camp at the farm, socialize, and drink the unusual array of beers that he produces there. In this interview we mention two brews that were commercially available in bottles and cans, Brewfarm Select and Matacabras. Sadly, problems with the breweries where these beers were contract brewed and packaged have caused Anderson to discontinue them. While no longer available in retail stores, they will still make appearances at the farm. You’ll just have to go there to sample them.

2011 GABF Interview with Scott Manning of Vintage Brewing Company

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Madison, Wisconsin is full of great breweries. One of the best and most interesting in my view is Vintage Brewing Company. Brewer Scott Manning has been in the business of brewing for 15 years. Much of that time has been spent at production breweries or corporate brewpub chains. He loves the freedom and creativity that he can exercise at Vintage. In his own words he feels like “a 4 year old running around naked.” He takes a “don’t get used to it” approach to the beers he crafts for the pub. He always wants people to try something new, so there are only a couple of beers in the line-up that are almost always on tap. He’s been winning awards for his creations, including a silver medal at the 2011 GABF and silver and bronze medals at the 2012 World Beer Cup.

I am more than a little obsessed with Sahti, a little-known, ancient beer style from Finland. Manning brews two of them at Vintage; Summer Sahti and Joulupukki Winter Sahti. These beers lean heavily on rye and juniper for their unique flavor. Manning even ferments his winter version in the traditional way, using baking yeast instead of a cultured brewer’s yeast strain.

If you are in Madison, Vintage Brewing Company is well worth a stop.

2011 GABF Interview with John McDonald of Boulevard Brewing Co.

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Founded in 1989, Boulevard Brewing Company is a Midwestern craft-beer pioneer. When he started making beer people thought John McDonald was crazy. The region quite literally dominated by Anheuser-Busch. Selling this new, more flavorful beer was a daunting task. In the interview McDonald shares an amusing story about an early delivery to a bar just down the street from the brewery. The reception of the patrons makes you wonder how the brewery ever got off the ground.

But succeed it did. Boulevard has grown into the largest specialty brewer in the Midwest, with beer available in 24 states. They continue to innovate with their Smokestack Series beers, bringing out a wide range of styles and flavors from Belgians, to barrel-aged and sour beers. The brewery itself has grown from the original, vintage Bavarian brewhouse to a state-of-the-art 150-barrel system with capacity to produce 600,000 barrels a year. The building is itself a model for others to follow with multiple event spaces that host everything from corporate meetings to weddings.

You can read an earlier interview that I did with McDonald on The Heavy Table food blog.

2011 GABF Interview with Brett Porter of Goose Island Beer Co.

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Brett Porter, the Brewmaster at Goose Island Beer Co. has had a busy tenure. He came to the company from Deschutes in late 2009 as Head Brewer. Within a couple of months co-founder and former Brewmaster Greg Hall had announced his resignation to go into the cider business and Porter found himself at the helm of one of the Midwest’s largest craft breweries. Shortly thereafter Goose Island was sold to ABInbev, a move that drew heavy criticism from many in the beer world. It was a lot for the new guy to take on.

So far, the ABInbev merger hasn’t changed the beer coming out of Goose Island. It has allowed them to expand production of their Vintage series and invest in equipment to insure better and more consistent results in their Brettanomyces-fermented beers. Porter has instituted an intensive program of research into the workings of this “wild” yeast strain, which to me is fascinating stuff. Porter talks at length about that research in this interview, as well as about his efforts to include the entire staff of the brewery in the creative process. A warning, this one gets pretty geeky.

2011 GABF Interview with Brandon Wright of Hamburger Mary’s in Chicago

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Hamburger Mary’s Brew & Grill is located in the heart of the Andersonville neighborhood (a.k.a. boystown) on Chicago’s North Side. It’s a very diverse neighborhood full of unique shops, exotic restaurants, and fun bars. It happens also to be the home of the famous Hop Leaf Belgian beer bar, which is just a few steps down the street from Mary’s.

Owner and brewer Brandon Wright is crafting some unique beers (peanut butter porter anyone?) on what is basically a large scale homebrew system. The mash and boil are handled on a ten-burner commercial stove in the prep kitchen. Wort is hauled to the fermenting cellar in buckets. He calls his brews “Mary’s homebrew.” Are the beers great? Well no, but they’re not terrible either. And the ambience of the place more than makes up for any shortcomings. The main dining room is colorful and kitchy. One might even say “Fabulous.” Two other spaces in the Mary’s complex include a sports bar and a nightclub where they do what they call “Maryoke.”

As they say at Mary’s, “Eat, Drink, and be Mary.”

GABF 2011 Interivew with Pete Crowley of Haymarket Pub & Brewery

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The 2012 Great American Beer Fest (GABF) is only a few weeks away. I though I might celebrate that fact by finally posting some of the video interviews we shot at last year’s festival. I’ll kick it off with an interview with Pete Crowley, Brewmaster at the Haymarket Pub & Brewery in Chicago.

I first met Pete in 2009. I had passed the Certified Cicerone exam just a few months before and saw Cicerone Certification Program founder Ray Daniels chatting with someone across the bar at the Goose Island Clybourn Brewpub. That someone was Pete Crowley, who at the time was head brewer at the Chicago Rock Bottom. During our conversation I made the mistake of referencing “house beers” at the Rock Bottom Chain. At that time – unbeknownst to me – the Rock Bottom chain had no system-wide house beers. The brewer at each location had nearly total control of what they brewed. Having revealed my ignorance, Pete proceeded to roundly dress me down for at least 10 minutes.

Fast forward to 2011. I’m in Chicago doing a two-month theatre residency with men in a halfway house on Chicago’s West Side. I happened also to be doing brewery visits for my upcoming (at some point, I promise) Upper-Midwest Brewery Guide. Haymarket had just opened, and happened to be within walking distance of the halfway house. Needless to say, I was a frequent visitor. I had the opportunity to engage in many, more-civil conversations with Pete and to share a few beers along the way. Haymarket quickly became – along with Goose Island Clybourn – my second “Chicago office.”

Boulevard Reverb Imperial Pilsner

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Anyone who knows me or has read much of my writing knows how I feel about pilsner; it’s the perfect beer. Pilsners are simple and easy-drinking enough to remain unobtrusive at times when drinking beer is more about the social event than the beer. But if you want to pay attention, there is a depth of complexity hiding beneath that simple surface. Take the time and make the effort. Pilsner will reward.

So why would anyone want to imperialize a pilsner? Why mess with the perfect beer? I have seldom met an imperial pilsner that I liked. Most are either too sweet or lean too much on hops. They upset the delicate balance that makes pilsner great. There was the one at the Rail House Restaurant and Brewpub in Marrinette, Wisconsin. It managed to be at once big and balanced. But the rest have all been drain pours.

So then there is was, Reverb Imperial Pilsner from Boulevard Brewing Company in Kansas City, Missouri. The bottle was staring at me from my fridge, daring me to drink; throwing down the gauntlet to challenge my bias. This beer first appeared in 2010 as the brewery’s first collaboration. I’m told that collaborator Jean-Marie Rock – a.k.a. the guy who makes Orval – had been sitting on this recipe for quite a while. It was a collaboration specifically between him and Boulevard, not Orval. I guess when one makes only one beer time and time again, the urge arises to do something else, and an imperial pilsner was that something else.

So what was I to do? Leave the bottle sit or accept the challenge, fully expecting to be disappointed by yet another large lager? I could not let this slap in the face go unanswered. I grabbed the bottle firmly by the throat, popped the cork, and poured its suspect contents into a glass. Challenge accepted.

Here’s my notes:

Reverb Imperial Pilsner
Boulevard Brewing Company, Kansas City, Missouri
Style: Imperial Pilsner
Serving Style: 750 ml Bottle

Aroma: Malt leads the way; a combination of pilsner-malt sweetness and notes of toast. Light hints of sulfur in the background. Hop character is lower than expected; floral and spicy.

Appearance: Light gold and quite hazy at first. The haze cleared as the beer warmed a bit. A large, mousse-like, cap of white foam that just wouldn’t die.

Flavor: A bit too cold on the first few sips, it came off a bit unbalance; light hops and overly bitter. A quarter of the way into the glass it suddenly became delightfully pilsner-like. The same sweet malt and toasty edges from the aroma. The bitterness is just about right to balance the amped-up imperial sweetness. Floral hop flavors ride smoothly over the top, slightly prominent, but never dominant. A hint of sulfur adds complexity. The finish is clean and crisp with lingering bitterness and floral flavor.

Mouthfeel: Medium-full body. A bit viscous. Medium, but prickly carbonation.

Overall Impression: I took the challenge and the beer won. This is the most pilsner-like imperial pilsner I have ever tasted. An ABV under 8% helped. Nothing is pushed over the top. If there is one flaw it is that the malt sweetness is a touch too much. A bit more bitterness would be welcome, but not a lot.

Schell’s Emerald Rye

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Emerald Rye, the new year round beer from the August Schell Brewing Company, has been out for a while now. I had the opportunity to taste it some time ago, but I’m just now getting around to giving it some proper attention. Things are busy, you know.

People were somewhat surprised when this beer was announced. A 60 IBU brew from Schell’s? How could this be possible from Brewmaster Dave Berg, a brewer somewhat famous for his aversion to tongue-scraping hop loads? But a suggestion from Jace Marti, soon to be CEO and 6th-genaration (or is it 7th?) descendant of the original August, proved too much to resist. Having just returned from brewing school in Germany, Jace was excited about a new hop called Smaragd – the German word for Emerald – that had the spiciness of a classic noble hop combined with copious fruit character. A touch of spicy rye would be the perfect complement to this hop, they decided. And true to Schell’s tradition, the new brew would be a lager.

Here’s my notes:

Emerald Rye
August Schell Brewing Company, New Ulm, Minnesota
Style: Rye Lager
Serving Style: 12 oz bottle

Aroma: Tangerines and toast. A bit of caramel-like sweetness lies underneath. Lime zest, oranges, pears and herbs sit on top. It’s a freakin’ fruit basket.

Appearance: Amber with reddish highlights. The long-lasting, creamy, off-white foam settles slowly to a film on the surface. Brilliantly clear.

Flavor: Sweet and bitter balanced. Bitterness hits at the top and returns at the finish. In between is toast and melanoidin malt with spicy rye flavors to give it some pep. The delicious fruit basket returns in the flavor; melons, citrus, floral and herbs. The finish is long lasting, leaving traces of sweet malt and fruit after that last bitter bite.

Mouthfeel: Medium-high body. Medium carbonation.

Overall Impression: Yes, it’s a bitter beer. 60 IBU is relatively high, especially coming from Schell’s, a brewery – and brewer – not known for the excessive use of hops. But this is not excessive. The sturdy malt backbone balances perfectly, leaving neither hops nor malt with the upper hand. The body reveals every bit of its 6% ABV, making for a satisfying quaff. This is a great food beer. It would be wonderful with cheddar or blue cheese, or maybe a hard cheese like aged Gouda. It was a great accompaniment to my Greek-seasoned, grilled pork chop. It would stand up well to a steak.

Old Chicago Gold Medal Mini Tour

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Truth be told, I don’t go to Old Chicago all that often. But they send me notices of each new mini-tour and every once in a while one will catch my attention – pique my curiosity. And so it was that the current one found me sitting at the Roseville location sampling beers.

Until August 19th, Old Chicago is featuring the Olympic-season-appropriate Gold Medal Mini Tour. The 8-beer tour is made up entirely of beers that have recently gone for the Gold in major national or international competition. This theme makes for an interesting and varied lineup. Remember that all of these competitions have Light American Lagers categories in addition to those for the more flavorful and funky brews. The Old Chicago selection of award-winners reflects that variety. At Roseville (three beers in the list vary from store to store) the list encompasses Michelob Ultra as well as Stone Cali-Belgique.

I didn’t sample the whole flight, as for some of them there was really no need. But here is the full list with notes for those that I did try.

Blue Moon Belgian White Ale

Michelob Ultra – Believe it or not, I had never tasted Michelob Ultra. I don’t tend to spend much energy on light beers. So it was with a certain amount of excitement that I raised the sampler to my lips. How do they make it so sweet when all the carbs are removed? It’s a mystery – a marvel of modern brewing science. And of course there was the green apple note that is the signature of AB products. I could see this being okay on a hot summer day if it is really ice cold. People are always complaining that beers like this win medals. Remember, the big-boys invented the category. Whether  or not you like the styles – or the breweries – they make them better than anyone else.

Widmer Brothers Hefeweizen – It had been over a decade since I had a Widmer Wheat. This is another hot-weather quencher. Crisp and dry with wheaty sharpness, it differs from other American wheat beers in its inclusion of subtle banana and clove yeast character. This could make a tasty everyday fridge beer. Nothing taxing, but tasty all the same.

Leinenkugel’s Berry Weiss

Schneider Weisse Tap 7 Original – This beer has won a ton of awards, and for good reason. It’s a great beer. It’s not called a dunkelweizen, but has many of the characteristics of one, including a dark-amber coloring. The sharp wheatiness is there. The full, yet light-bodied mouthfeel is there. Yeasty banana and clove are present, but not dominant. It’s rounded out by delicious caramel and dark fruit flavors with a touch of chocolate in the finish. Delightful! I just had to finish the bottle. Couldn’t let good beer go to waste.

Summit Extra Pale Ale

Stone Cali-Belgique IPA – Sometimes beers evoke images in my mind. While drinking this beer I could see the elegantly sleek outlines of modern industrial design; horizontal stonework, hanging light fixtures, exposed ventilation in the ceiling, and occasional flashes of corrugated steel. It’s bitter, but not the tongue scraper that I would expect from Stone. Peppery phenolics from Belgian yeast offer a nice complement to the spicy hops. A slight citrus edge adds bright highlights. The finish is clean and super-dry. This is an elegant beer.

Red Hook ESB – Another beer that I haven’t tasted in over a decade, this one took me back to the 90s when I lived in Chicago and waited tables at a restaurant in Evanston. It was a go-to craft beer at the time. Its reputation has faded since. It starts sharply bitter and then evolves to a caramel/toffee center. Bitterness lingers after swallowing. There was an intense fruitiness here; oranges and tangerines. It surprised us all. I don’t remember that strong fruitiness, but after more than 10 years, how much can I really remember of the taste of this beer?