Wild Beers

Posted on by

The March Meeting of the Twin Cities Perfect Pint Beer Club.

When: Friday, March 12, 2010
Cost: $35
You must be a member of the club to attend. Go to the Twin Cities Perfect Pint Beer Club to join and RSVP.

You only thought the beer club was wild. We’re about to get really wild. I’m talking wild fermentation, baby.

Sour beers were once enjoyed the world over. Even English porter was once a blend of fresh beer with “stale” or sour beer. Guinness still adds a small amount of soured stout to their beer to give it a slight acidic tang, a holdover from that earlier time. Over the years sour beers dropped from favor until only a few examples remained, centered mostly in Belgium where old brewing traditions die hard. The traditional lambic breweries of the Senne Valley have continued to hang on despite declining consumption at home. Enter the American craft beer scene. The discovery of sour beers in the United States has spurred a revival of these styles. American beer fans now provide the main source of support for those very same traditional Belgian breweries, and dozens of American craft brewers are turning up the funk in home-grown barrel-aging programs.

Sour beers are among the most mind-blowing, uniquely complex and delicious beers in the world. These are beers that will forever shatter your notions of what beer is. Acidity, not normally a component of beer evaluation, is what these beers are all about. They inspire flavor descriptors like “horse blanket”, “barnyard”, “old cheese”, and “dirty socks”. Tart, cidery, vinous, fruity, funky and delicious, these are some of the best beers in the world.

For this month’s meetup we’ll dig deep into the wild and wooly world of wild and spontaneous fermentation. Get gaga for gueuze. Luxuriate with a lambic. Delight in a lightweight Berliner Weiss (I may even be able to locate some raspberry and woodruff syrup to drink it the way the Germans do). We’ll do fruity Flanders reds and full-on funky 100% brett fermented beers. With fermentation agents like brettanomyces, lactobacillus, and pediococcus how can you go wrong? Bring a roll of Rolaids and let’s get funky.

And take my advice – learn to look beyond the sour.

Crispin Cider Dinner at A25 Sushi & Sake Bar

Posted on by

Snowstorm be damned! Monday night I slogged through the mush to attend a Crispin Cider dinner at A25 Sushi & Saki Bar on Nicolette. When I heard about this event my first thought was how well cider would pair with sushi, and the pairings on offer confirmed my hunch. The intimate group in attendance was treated to four courses from the recently reconfigured and re-visioned A25 (formerly Anemoni Sushi) each paired with Crispin Cider or a custom Crispin cocktail devised by A25’s resident mixologist. Crispin’s owner Joe Heron was on hand to greet guests and answer questions. So as outside snow fell and cars were towed, we sat comfortably inside enjoying a great meal and great conversation.

Upon arrival we were greeted with a sneak preview of Crispin’s newest Artisanal Reserve cider, The Saint. I was told that this was the first public pouring of this new cider. The Saint is made from a blend of fresh-pressed apples with maple syrup added. The real kicker is the Belgian Trappist ale yeast used to ferment it. The result is a cloudy cider with moderate apple flavor and acidity. The maple syrup adds some balancing sweetness and subtle flavors while the Trappist yeast give a nice herb and spice phenolic edge. The yeast character is more subtle than you would find in classic Trappist ales, but it’s still enough to call this a “Belgian” cider. It was refreshing and fruity on ice, but I preferred it straight up for a more intense flavor. Look for more complete tasting notes for The Saint coming later.

The first course was sea bass with black bean sauce on a bed of bak choi. This paired excellently with the first Crispin cocktail called Original Sin, consisting of Crispin Brut, Ketel One Citron, lemon juice, diced ginger and ginger simple syrup. This concoction was another highlight of the night for me. I ordered another at the end of the meal. The wonderful floral, citrus and ginger flavors of Original Sin brought out similar spicy ginger notes in the black bean sauce. The fish was nicely prepared and attractively presented.

Course two, a sashimi sampler with Crispin Honey Crisp, was the best food of the night and the best pairing. The plate was beautifully arranged with an assortment of very fresh sashimi. The light carbonation and acidity of the cider cut the fat of the fish, while the vinous sweetness and body was bold enough to stand up to wasabi.

The third course was crispy pork tenderloin paired with the second Crispin cocktail called Intelligent Design. This course was the least successful in both the food and the pairing. While the pork tenderloin wasn’t bad, it didn’t stand out like the previous dishes. The presentation was uninteresting, just the sliced tenderloin on a white plate with a small timbale of white rice. Had I not known it was “crispy” pork tenderloin I’m not sure that’s how I would have described it. Again, it wasn’t bad but it wasn’t at the same level as the other dishes. Similarly, the cocktail, consisting of Honey Crisp, lemon juice, Plymouth Gin, honey water, and Parfait Amour orange liqueur was tasty, but not as seductively delicious as the first and it didn’t do all that much to complement the dish.

Desert, a sweet rice and cheesecake roll with a cider, honey and ginger reduction ended the meal on a high note. The fried roll had just the right amount of sweetness and the reduction was like a caramel apple dipping sauce drizzled on the plate. It worked very well with the Honey Crisp cider that I had left from the earlier course.

I was lucky to sit at a table with Joe Heron so we spent the evening talking cider and beer as I tried to tease out what we can look forward to from Crispin. He hinted at more experiments with yeast and revealed that they are opening up several new markets in the coming weeks. The best bit of news for me stems from Crispin’s recent acquisition of the Fox Barrel Cidery in California. Fox barrel produces three wonderful ciders, a hard cider, a pear cider, and a black currant cider, that I tried on recent trips to the Bay Area. Joe says we can look for these great products becoming available in the Twin Cities in the coming weeks.

Winterfest 2010 Recap

Posted on by

Friday night saw seven hundred Minnesota beer fans assemble at the Minnesota History Center for Winterfest 2010. The annual winter beer festival presented by the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild is a showcase of all things beer in the land of lakes. Seventeen Minnesota breweries and brewpubs were on hand pouring over seventy-five beers. The arrangement of the History Center was much better this year than last, spreading out the brewery tables to prevent crowding of the narrow hallways and allow easier movement and more comfortable imbibing. The only downside to the arrangement was that it was sometimes a challenge to find the particular breweries that I was looking for. Another plus this year was the plentiful food. In past years the food was usually picked over and nearly gone by the time I felt the need to refuel. This year there was still food to be had at multiple feeding stations right up to the end of the event. One of the greatest things about Winterfest is the presence of the brewers behind the serving tables. The only missing faces this year were Jeff and Cathie Williamson from Flat Earth who just welcomed their new daughter Heather into the world a couple of days ago. I guess they can be excused for missing. Beer was flowing, kilts were on display (though fewer than in previous years), and it seemed all festival goers were having a great time.

So what about the beers? In general I found the beer selection to be wanting in comparison to past Winterfests that I have attended. The variety of styles was a bit limited, lots of heavy stouts and big IPAs. It seemed like the brewers brought fewer special beers this year and there were fewer that stood out in the crowd. That said, there were some real winners and a few that were not so great as well.

For my money, Town Hall Brewery had the most interesting and consistently tasty selection of beers at the event. If the lines at their table are any indication, I wasn’t the only one who thought so. Nearly everything that I tasted from Town Hall was wonderful. Especially noteworthy for me was LSD, an ale brewed with lavender, honey and dates. It has a wonderful floral aroma and a flavor that starts out dry and hoppy only to explode with honey and raisin sweetness mid-palate. I loved it at Autumn Brew Review and still love it now. Also impressive were Twisted Jim, an American barleywine aged in Jim Beam barrels, and Russian Roulette, a huge, rich, chocolaty imperial stout served on cask.

Recounting my top-five of the fest, starting at number five is Smoked Porter from Rock Bottom Brewery. This smoked porter is made with 25% cherry wood smoked malt for a char-pit kind of smoke flavor that is totally different than the familiar meaty smoke of the classic Rauchbiers of Germany. A year ago I had a cherry wood smoked bock at Goose Island in Chicago that blew my mind. Ever since, I have been searching for another cherry wood smoked beer that works as well as that one did. I have tried many, including a couple others at Winterfest. Most have failed. While it didn’t blow my mind, the Rock Bottom Porter really worked.

Number four goes to Flat Earth’s Winter Warlock Barleywine. I have always loved Winter Warlock. Lacking the intense caramel and dark specialty malts of most English barleywines, this golden barleywine finds layered depth in simplicity, just English base malt and sugar. The 2009 batch is good now, but will be even better next year. While I am talking about Flat Earth, let me move on to my number three pick, the Grand Design S’more infused porter. This was the Great Snowshoe best beer of the festival winner this year as chosen by the attendees. I hate s’mores, but I really do like this beer. Built on the base of one of my favorite local beers, Cygnus X-1 porter, it explodes with vanilla, cocoa, and graham cracker sweetness that really does remind one of flaming marshmallows on a stick by the fireside.

My number two beer is the above mentioned LSD from Town Hall. I described it briefly up top, so suffice it to say here that it is a floral and fruity delight. A truly unique beer.

For my personal best beer of the festival I chose Unoaked Rosie’s Reserve from Barley John’s. This is a huge and hugely complex beer. While others opined that they preferred the oaked version, I am somewhat tired of bourbon barrel aged beers. I’m not that fond of bourbon to begin with and I think they have been overdone. The lack of bourbon and vanilla flavors in this 15.5% beer allowed for the discovery of delicious caramel and dark fruit without a trace of hot alcohols. Another beer that coaxes complexity from simplicity.

A few other beers deserve mention. I enjoyed the Winterye Mix and Blackwatch Oat Stout from Great Waters Brewing Co. Surly Mild was delightful as always and Four was tasty, but I want to reserve judgment until I can actually taste more than a couple ounces. It took on a kind of chalky, charred flavor that annoyed me slightly the more of it I drank. Winter Wheat from Rock Bottom was a great palate cleanser to end the evening.

A couple of beers for me missed the mark. Fitger’s Undertow Pilsner seemed a bit thin and flavorless. It could be because I had been sampling the endless number of imperial stouts and barleywines before I arrived there, but normally I like to seek out a pilsner as refuge from the huge. This one did not provide it. Great Waters’ Vulcanus Rex cherrywood smoked beer took the char pit smoke to an unpleasant level. The Smoked Doppelbock from the Herkimer Pub & Brewery, another cherrywood smoked beer, promised greatness with the aroma and then failed to deliver. The worst disaster of the evening in my view was the Chipotle Wee Heavy from Town Hall. All I can say is what a waste of their great Wee Heavy.

Beer Classes at Cooks of Crocus Hill

Posted on by

A Perfect Pint is excited to announce these upcoming beer classes at Cooks of Crocus Hill, taught by Cicerone Michael Agnew.

ABCs Of Beer
Friday, March 26, 6 – 8 PM, $55
What’s the difference between and ale and a Lager? What’s the best glass for my favorite beer? Which beers can I cellar and which ones should I drink young? Join Certified Cicerone (the beer expert equivalent of a sommelier) Michael Agnew as he shows you all the basics and then some. You’ll learn how to taste, select and care for beers of all types and styles. Includes a selection of Craft Beers from around the world representing basic styles and light snacks.

Smoked, Grilled and Sauced: A Wine and Beer Pairing Experience
With Chef Mike Shannon and Sommelier Leslee Miller
Friday, April 30, 6 – 9 PM, $75
Summer’s coming, and that means it’s time to fire up the grill. Join Chef Mike, Sommelier Leslee and Certified Cicerone Michael for a celebration of suds, smoke and vine. The chef will work the grill while our wine and beer gurus pour perfectly matched libations. Explore your palate and learn how to create great pairings for your upcoming summer soirées. Includes Pulled Pork Cobb Salad, Smoked Salmon Pizza, Grilled Lamb Chops with Tomatoes and Chick Peas, Jamaican Chicken with Caribbean Slaw, Cheesecake with Chocolate Almond Crust and Tart Cherry Sauce, as well as an assortment of fine beers and wines.

Cheese and Ale: Pairing Beer and Cheese
With Fromager Ken Liss
Monday, May 17, 6 – 8 PM, $55
Join Fromager Ken Liss and Cicerone Michael Agnew for a satisfying session of sipping and nibbling. You’ll start with fromage fundamentals – types, textures, flavors, shopping, storing and serving – then discover how to choose beers that complement each cheese. Includes cheese and beer from around the world.

I’ve worked with Ken, Leslee, and Mike. They know their stuff and know how to present it with passion. All three of these classes should be filled with fun and excellent eats and drinks. You can sign up or learn more about the classes at Cooks of Crocus Hill here.

Rosée d’hibiscus

Posted on by

Belgian Witbeir is one of the few remaining examples of the wheat-based “white” ales that were once common all over Europe. Light, delicate, and typically flavored with coriander and bitter orange peel, these are great beers for summer. The unmalted wheat that makes up a large portion of the grain bill gives witbier a velvety fullness on the tongue that allows them to hold up in the winter as well. Quebec’s Microbrasserie Dieu du Ciel has created their own twist on the style with Rosée d’hibiscus, flavoring it with hibiscus flowers lending it a rosy pink color and a delicate acidity. The more Dieu du Ciel beers I drink, the more I am convinced that they can do no wrong. Here’s my notes:

Rosée d’hibiscus
Microbrasserie Dieu du Ciel, St-Jérôme, Quebec, Canada
Style: Witbier with Hibiscus
Serving Style: 11.5 oz bottle

Aroma: An inviting blend of bready wheat, fruit, and flowers. Lightly tart. Fresh strawberries. Reminiscent of Red Zinger tea.

Appearance: Brilliantly clear with a festive pink/orange color. The very small pink head dissipated quickly. Put this in a wine glass and people will believe you are drinking rosé. Nice to look at.

Flavor: Even nicer to drink. Wheaty, fruity, gentle acidity, and the same Red Zinger hibiscus flavor from the aroma. The bready wheat malt gives a soft bed on which all these other layers of rest. The delicate acidic tartness is backed up with light sweetness like fresh fruit.  The bitterness is very low and I detect no hop flavor. The beer changes as it warms first presenting fresh raspberry flavors and then becoming distinctly cider-like with some tart apple notes.  Light background of earthiness and coriander spice.

Mouthfeel: Light body but with the soft fullness of wheat malt. Low carbonation. Smooth and easy to drink.

Overall Impression: This beer demands that you pay attention. Multiple layers of flavors, each distinctly expressed, give it a complexity that draws you ever more deeply inside and makes this more than just a simple glass of beer. Delicate. Each well articulated flavor blends well with the others. Acidic but not sour. Witbier normally shouldn’t be aged. I admit that this bottle has been in my cellar for over a year. If it tastes this good after a year, I would love to taste it brewery fresh.

Leinenkugel’s 1888 Bock

Posted on by

There was a time in the United States when hundreds of local and regional breweries served the beer drinking public with beers brewed close to home. I’m not talking about today’s craft brewing world. I’m talking about the beer landscape that existed here before prohibition forced many of those breweries out of business and before the great brewery consolidations of the 1960s and 70s finished off most of the rest of them. Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Co. of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin is one of the few survivors.

The early brewing industry, especially in the upper Midwest, was dominated by German brewers who brought their lager yeast and brewing traditions over with them from the old country. They adapted the beers they enjoyed at home to the ingredients and brewing processes available to them here to create uniquely American versions of those traditional German beers. One of the styles crafted by these brewers, often on a seasonal basis, was Bock. A couple examples of the nineteenth century American style bock beer still exist. Shiner Bock is one and Leinenkugel’s 1888 Bock is another. It’s hard to say at this point how true these versions stay to those early beers, but Leinenkugel does say of their version, “we’ve tapped our families original bock recipe to create Leinenkugel’s 1888 Bock.” It is at least fun to imagine that one is drinking a remnant of America’s beer past. Here’s my notes:

Leinenkugel’s 1888 Bock
Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Co., Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin
Style: American Style Bock
Serving Style: 12 oz. Bottle

Aroma: Toasted bread dominates with faint herbal hops and roast. Just a hint of fruit.

Appearance: Dark mahogany with reddish highlights. Persistent, creamy, off-white head. Brilliantly clear.

Flavor: Malt balanced but with a fairly high perceived bitterness. Seems more bitter than the 18 IBU listed on the website. The malt shows that same toasted bread character from the aroma with an added grainy sweetness. It is perhaps a bit too sweet, slightly sugary. Doesn’t have the richness and depth that I would like from a bock. A bit thin. Ends with a quick dry finish.

Mouthfeel: Medium-light body, lacking the creaminess of a bock. Crisp and prickly, maybe a bit over carbonated (which could have enhanced the perceived bitterness).

Overall Impression: If you are looking for a lower cost beer with some nice bready malt flavor then this could be the beer for you. If you are looking for something like a full-flavored German bockbier then you should look elsewhere. This is a drinkable American style lager beer with enhanced malt character.

Dave’s Brewfarm

Posted on by

Last week I spent a great afternoon with “Farmer Dave” Anderson at Dave’s Brewfarm across the river in Wilson, Wisconsin. The brewfarm is a true farmhouse brewery, a live/work space with living quarters upstairs and the “labrewatory” downstairs. One of the great things about this new brewery is the way sustainability has been built into the business. Wind generation and geothermal heating and cooling is just a part of the overall picture.

I’ve written about this aspect of the Brewfarm business this week on the Hop Press at Ratebeer.com. Check it out.

Beer Dabbler at the St. Paul Winter Carnival

Posted on by

The Beer Dabbler Showcase
St. Paul Winter Carnival Event
Saturday, January 23rd, 3:30 – 7:30 PM
Mears Park in St. Paul
$20 ticket when you buy at any of the 8 locations prior to Jan 22nd
$20 plus a service charge of $3 per ticket when you order online anytime
Click here to purchase tickets online
$25 at the door

The Beer Dabbler Showcase is a traveling beer festival that strives to bring a large variety of micro and craft brews to audiences across the Midwest. The brainchild of Minneapolis resident Matt Kenevan, the idea of the Beer Dabbler was to bring beer festivals to the people instead of making people come to the festival. The showcase kicked off last summer with a tour of beer festival events all over Minnesota. Six Showcases have been staged so far.

These are not beer-geeks-only events. According to Kenevan, “The concept behind the Beer Dabbler is to introduce great beer to people who may or may not be familiar with craft and micro brews. It is also intended to be a fun event for people of all levels of beer enthusiasm.  Our guests range from the avid home brewer beer geek to the micro/craft beer newbie just getting started and the goal is to please them both.” The Showcase features a wide selection of local, regional, national, and international brands representing a wide range of styles and tastes. Kenevan adds, “If you can’t find something you like, then you probably just don’t like beer.”

So about this Winter Carnival event…an outdoor beer festival in St. Paul in January? Cold beer on a cold winter’s day? Is he crazy? I asked Matt this very question. “Different, true.  Risky, true.  But very Minnesotan.” was his reply. “The natives love beer and winter.  If they don’t love winter but are here anyway, then this is something much more lively and fun to do than sit inside and wait for summer to come around again.  As long as people dress to be outside, everyone will be comfortable in the space. The 10-day forecast looks quite comfortable for this time of year. Hopefully we’ll have fresh snow and upper 20s to kick off the first annual Saint Paul Winter Carnival Beer Dabbler.” The warming fire pits will help too.

So what should one expect at the Winter Carnival Beer Dabbler?

I’ll be there. Will you?

Blended Beer Cocktails

Posted on by

My latest post on the Ratebeer Hop Press.

A significant part of my holiday beer consumption this year consisted of what I will call blended beer cocktails. By this I mean two or more beers mixed together. Blending beers is nothing new. The blending of one, two, and three-year-old lambic into gueuze is an art in Belgium and porter is purported to have originated from a blend of mild and stale beers called three threads. Even now, craft brewers like Southern Tier in New York use blending to create new beers, as exemplified by Gemini, a 50/50 blend of their Un*earthly and Hoppe double IPAs and a beer that gives new meaning to the phrase “more than the sum of its parts.” Read More…