Tag Archives: beer

Leuven from Funkwerks Brewery

Posted on by

Fort Collins, Colorado is one heck of a beer town. The official population as of 2011 is just 146, 762. Yet there are currently something like 12 breweries in the city. There are breweries of all shapes and sizes; Anhueser-Busch and New Belgium on the big end, Odell and Fort Collins Brewery in the middle, and places like Funkwerks on the small side. And to top it all off, in addition to being beer heaven Fort Collins is just a great place to be.

If you ever find yourself in Fort Collins, Funkwerks Brewery is a must-visit. This tiny operation took over the space once occupied by Fort Collins Brewery when that beer-maker expanded. Funkwerks specializes in saison. That’s all you will find there. They make several varieties of saison, from straight-up, old-fashioned DuPont-like versions to ones made with green tea or Brettanomyces. Tasting your way through the rather generous sampler flight is an adventurous treat.

On my last visit there after the 2012 GABF in October, they had two “experimental” beers on tap that proved to be the best of the bunch. Nit Wit was a cross-style mashup of Belgian witbier and saison. Lueven fell somewhere between saison and Berliner Weiss. Both were good enough to convince me to shell out $25 a bottle and check my bag for another $20. Nit wit I just drank. I do that sometimes. I took notes on Leuven.

Here’s my notes:

Leuven
Funkwerks Brewery, Fort Collins, Colorado
Style: Saison/Berliner Weiss
Serving Style: 750 ml bottle

Aroma: Wheaty sharpness and lightly sweet. Hints of cotton-candy Belgian yeast phenolics and esters. Herbs. Apple cider.

Appearance: Light straw colored with a slight haze. Great big, fluffy, long-lasting, white head.

Flavor: Cracker wheat with a touch of sweetness. A bit of lactic tartness that brings a pucker in the finish. Green apples. Herbs – oregano and thyme. White pepper. Finishes dry and crisp.

Mouthfeel: Light body. Thin but with a wheaty fullness. Spritzy carbonation.

Overall Impression: So pleasant. So refreshing. Just the right balance of everything – sweetness, acidity, yeasty phenolics, herbal notes. Perfect for a summer afternoon. But then it was pretty perfect on a snowy winter night in Minnesota, as well.

2012 GABF Interview with the New Beer Geeks TV Host Michael Ferguson

Posted on by

Beer Geeks TV debuted last year. Using a Diners, Drive-ins and Dives format, the Beer Geeks team visited local breweries,beer bars, and other brew-related venues to give viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the local beer scene. The show won rave reviews and a couple of local Emmys. But big changes are in the works.

This year producers Matt Sandell and Ed Bremer announced that the show had been picked up by the producers of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives to go national. Resulting shake-ups of personnel raised controversy on the interwebs. Perhaps the biggest dust-up came from the replacement of Emmy-winning host Jeff Angell with master brewer Michael Ferguson. While the transition has no doubt caused some painful personal rifts, I believe it is a good move for the show.

Ferguson is the Director of Brewing Operations and Beer Training for the BJ’s chain of brewpubs. He might be known to fans of the Brewing Network where he raised some listener hackles by suggesting that extract homebrewers weren’t actually brewing. Ferguson has been in the business for decades and knows brewing and the brewing industry inside and out. This gives him an advantage as the host of a show that attempts to get inside the heads of brewers as they ply their craft. He knows what questions to ask. As an educator, he also knows how to bring the mysteries of beer making down to an easily understandable level. Ferguson is also a natural in front of a camera.

You can watch a trailer for the first episode here. In the meantime, enjoy this interview that I did with Ferguson at the 2012 Great American Beer Festival.

2012 GABF Interview with Tim Nelson of Fitger’s Brewhouse

Posted on by

Shortly after interviewing Dave Hoops in the Fitger’s booth at the GABF, I ran into the ebullient brewer again on the festival floor. This time he had Brewhouse co-owner Tim Nelson in tow. They confided that they had information to share about new doings at the Duluth brewpub. How could I pass up this opportunity?

The first bit of news was that Fitger’s had purchased an historic building in Canal Park. The plan is to renovate the old train depot and open a third “tied house” like Burrito Union and Tycoon’s Ale House, which the brewery already operates. This news has since been reported in other places.

The more exciting news is the possibility of a second Fitger’s brewery. The brewhouse has been in possession of a large warehouse building for a number of years. The plan is to eventually build a larger and more efficient brewery in the space to increase capacity. If you have ever been to the Fitger’s Brewhouse in Duluth, you know that the brewery is crammed into tiny spaces on multiple floors. Having followed Hoops through a brew day, I can tell you that it is not an efficient system.

A warning; toward the end of the interview there is some confusion about exactly which new operation is being discussed. I ask about a timeline for the new brewery. Nelson answers with a timeline for the Canal Park pub.

2012 GABF Interview with Matt Potts of DESTIHL

Posted on by

With locations in Normal and Champaign, Illinois, the Destihl restaurants take the brewpub idea and step it up a notch, adding a casual fine-dining flare to the familiar concept. From the food to the décor it feels familiar, but just a little bit higher class. The fish tacos aren’t just whitefish, they’re swordfish. The pizzas are wood-fired and feature unique combinations like asparagus, bacon, and herbed goat cheese with a balsamic vinegar glaze. House beers are served alongside high-end wines and spirits. The dining room has the brewpub-standard motifs, stone veneers and dark wood, but given a contemporary, industrial-arts twist.

Destihl beers have pulled in multiple awards in national and international competition. Brewmaster Matt Potts has received some high praise from beer-lovers and fellow brewers for his barrel-aged, sour beers. I had the opportunity to sample several at the Normal location and the congratulations are well deserved. Except for a fantastic Flanders Red Ale, most of these tart treats are soured versions of the brewery’s regular offerings, like Blond or Dead Head Red. They are all unblended, single-barrel vintages. The sour beer du jour is listed on the menu as St. Dekkara Reserve.

Business has been so brisk that the company is building a production brewery in Bloomington, Illinois in order to meet demand. The new brewery will handle most of the core beers for both brewpub locations as well as packaged beer for off-sale. The brewpubs will continue to produce the specialty beers, one-offs, and sours.

2012 GABF Interview with Solemn Oath Brewery in Naperville, Illinois

Posted on by

In the race to open the most breweries in the shortest time, Chicago is giving Minnesota a hard run for its money. I count something like 13 breweries that have opened in the Chicago Metro alone since the beginning of June. And there is a whole gaggle of them just weeks away from making beer. When I moved from there in 2002 there wasn’t much going on beer-wise in the city, but in the intervening years Chicago has become a sort of beer-brewing Mecca.

One of the more interesting Chicagoland newcomers is Solemn Oath Brewery. Solemn Oath is located about 45-minutes west of the Chicago “Loop” in the town of Naperville. Tucked into a non-descript, industrial strip on the west side of town, the brewery is unassuming on approach. When you enter the taproom you find yourself practically in the center of the brewery. As owner/brewer Joe Barley told me, “If someone holds your chair you can reach out and touch our hot liquor tank.”

Solemn Oath is making beers with some interesting flavor profiles. My favorite when I visited was Sweet Sweet Whisper Kisses, a 9% saison brewed with honey. One of their flagship beers is called Khlörost, a Belgian witbier infused with coffee of different origins. A witbier with coffee sounds like a bad idea, but it works. If you’re in the Chicago Metro, a visit to Solemn Oath is worth the trip out to Naperville.

2012 GABF Interview with Summit Brewing Company

Posted on by

A lot has happened at the Summit brewery since I interviewed their brewers at the 2011 GABF. A pilot brewing system was installed, allowing their brewers to test recipes and get a little experimental. The taproom has opened for business and is going gangbusters. Ground was broken on a massive cellar expansion that will allow them to nearly double production. In this interview with brewers Eric Blomquist and Gabe Smoley at the 2012 GABF we talk all about these changes and what it might mean for the future of Summit.

As I was editing the interview I realized that I kept referring to the pilot system as the “toy brewery.” It made me laugh, but it also made me wish that I had explained myself. It almost sounds as if I am mocking the new mini-brewhouse. I meant “toy” as in a really cool thing that allows the brewers to play, much as a 1965 Mustang might be a “toy” to a car enthusiast. The Summit pilot system is REALLY cool. I want one in my basement.

2012 GABF Interview with Surly’s Todd Haug

Posted on by

2012 has been big for Minnesota beer. It’s quite possible that as many as 17 new breweries will have opened their doors by the end of the year. That’s right, SEVENTEEN! Crazy!

It could be said that Surly Brewing Company was the start of the boom. When it rolled out the first kegs of Furious and Bender in 2006, Surly was the first new brewery in the state since 2002 when the Minnesota Brewing Company ceased operations in the old Schmidt building. Surly quickly gained an almost fanatical following as their outrageously-bitter Furious became an unlikely gateway beer that brought a whole new generation into the craft beer fold. Surly’s opening was followed quickly by Flat Earth, Lift Bridge, and an ever accelerating proliferation of budding beer-makers.

I pinned down Surly brewer Todd Haug for an interview during the opening minutes of the Great American Beer Festival in October. In the interview he talks a bit about site selection for the planned “destination brewery” and has some things to say about the current Minnesota brewery boom.

Schell’s Chimney Sweep and Snowstorm 2012: Bière de Noël

Posted on by

A while back I wrote a piece in the Growler magazine about beer tickers. In it I discuss how the relentless quest for what’s rare and new is shaping today’s beer market.

Gone are the days when it was enough just to make good beer. Now brewers have to constantly innovate to garner attention. Fail to do so and they become passé, regardless of how good their standard line-up may be. Old-school brewers whose reputations have been built on solid examples of classic styles find themselves pushed to produce boutique beers or risk irrelevance.

And so it is that a 150-year-old brewery – the second oldest family owned brewery in the country and a pioneer of American craft beer – releases no less than four new brands this year.

The brewers at Schell’s have been busy. Spring saw the release of a new full-time beer, the hopped-up Emerald Rye, and Czech Dark Lager, the fifth beer in the Stag Series lineup. Fall brings another Stag Series Beer – Fresh Hop Citra Pils – and another full-time release – Chimney Sweep. That’s in addition to the annually-altered seasonal Snowstorm.

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand Schell’s regular lineup is great. Theirs is one of the best Pilsners available. The seasonal Hefeweizen is phenomenal. Firebrick is a go-to beer for me. With such a solid stable, they shouldn’t really have to constantly introduce new brands to keep beer lovers’ attention. On the other hand, Schell’s makes great beer. More brands mean more great beers to enjoy. It’s a double-edged sword.

At any rate, the brewers at Schell’s have been busy. Chimney Sweep and the 2012 Snowstorm hit shelves just in the last couple of weeks. I finally had the chance to give them a try.

Here’s my notes:

Chimney Sweep
August Schell Brewing Company, New Ulm, Minnesota
Style: Smoked Schwarzbier
Serving Style: 12 oz bottle

Aroma: A little bit of chocolate. A little bit of spice. A little bit of smoke. It’s not the bacony smoke of a traditional rauchbier. It’s more of a campfire smoke; that smell of your jacket after a night by the fire pit.

Appearance: Full, long-lasting, rocky, beige head. Dark brown and clear.

Flavor: Malt dominates with bittersweet, dark chocolate and campfire smoke. The smoke is prominent, but not at all overwhelming. Moderate pilsner-malt sweetness is perfectly balanced by moderate bitterness from both hops and roasted grains. There is some floral and citrus character from Sterling and Liberty hops – my two favorite varieties – but it is subtle. Super balanced. Finishes with a flourish of hop and roast bitterness.

Mouthfeel: So creamy. Medium body and medium carbonation.

Overall Impression: I tasted this last night and as I type up my notes right now I find myself craving a glass of it. Alas and alack, it is only 8 am. Too soon to start drinking when there’s work to be done. Chimney Sweep is wonderfully balanced and easy to drink, and yet so full of flavor. If you’re a person who doesn’t think they like smoked beers, this might be the one for you. It’s smoky, yes, but subtle.

Snowstorm 2012: Bière de Noël
August Schell Brewing Company, New Ulm, Minnesota
Style: Bière de Garde
Serving Style: 12 oz bottle

Aroma: What an interesting aroma. So much going on. Bread, herbs, honey, and brown sugar. Multiple fruits – green banana, red grapes, apples, a touch of fig. Belgian yeasty cotton candy. Horehound. Brings to mind the candied fruit in a loaf of fruit cake (I like fruitcake). Complex, layered, and changing.

Appearance: Medium-dark amber/orange and crystal clear. Good stand of rocky, off-white foam that falls quickly leaving a lace around the edge of the glass.

Flavor: The flavor follows on the aroma. It’s malt-forward and sweet, but with a dry finish. Bread crust, dark honey, and a bit of biscuit. Belgian cotton-candy sugar and yeast character. Loads of herbal notes – almost like a gruit. Touch of tartness comes in in the middle, but it’s not acidic. Bitterness is low. So much fruit – red-skinned Apples and orangy citrus. Cinnamon. White pepper traces in the finish.

Mouthfeel: Medium-full body. Medium-high carbonation. Some alcohol warming.

Overall Impression: What a festive beer! This screams the holiday season – sugar, spice and everything nice. It’s more Belgian yeasty than most bières de garde I have had, but that’s a-okay. To me it falls somewhere between a dubbel and a quadruple; it’s too full and fruity for a dubbel, but not strong or sweet enough for a quad.

Schell’s Stag Series #6: Fresh Hop Citra Pils

Posted on by

Fall is fresh-hop season. Sometime in September the store shelves burst with super-citrusy IPAs that are loaded with unprocessed hops. They’re typically big, bright and a little bit grassy. I find the fresh hops impart subtle (or sometimes not-so-subtle) undertones of chive. By mid-October they’re mostly gone. There are still a couple lingerers as I type this, but the pickins are slim.

But just as the others disappear from stores, a new one from Schell’s suddenly appears. It’s a lager, so it had to cellar for a time before it could be released. That bottom-fermented identity is something that separates this one from the rest of the pack. Pilsners are the original hop-showcase beers. That perfumed Saaz-hop aroma is their claim to fame. Despite that, pilsners aren’t beers that most people think of as “hoppy.” Picking a pilsner to display the freshness of the new hop crop is an interesting move. It’s a choice that is perfectly in keeping with the Schell’s tradition of brewing great German-style lagers. It’s also in keeping with the somewhat hop-averse taste of Head Brewer Dave Berg.

Here’s my notes:

Stag Series #6: Fresh Hop Citra Pils
August Schell Brewing Company, New Ulm, Minnesota
Style: German Pilsner with fresh citra hops
Serving Style: 12 oz. Bottle

Aroma: Bright citrusy hops – lemons and limes – do a delicate dance atop a base of graham cracker sweetness. Very yeasty. Malt and yeast dominate. Hop character blows off quickly.

Appearance: Light golden and hazy – reminded me of a witbier going into the glass. Mousse-like white foam that lasts and lasts – also sort of witbeir like.

Flavor: Yeast and malt hit first, giving the impression of bread dough. Bitterness is moderate, but hangs on into the finish. It’s a very delicate balance between malt and hops. The hop flavor is also delicate, but definite – revealing at varying moments lemons, limes, and ripe musk melons. At times the limes are almost tart, like Starburst candy. Hints of fresh-hop grass and chive occasionally poke their heads out in the background. Those lemons and limes linger long after swallowing.

Mouthfeel: Medium-light body, but with yeasty fullness, like a witbier or a weizen. Medium carbonation.

Overall Impression: Everything about this beer says that I should love it. Pilsner is my perfect beer. I love a good Zwickelbier (unfiltered lager). Citra is one of my favorite new hop varieties. But there is something here that doesn’t quite fit for me. I think it’s that the doughiness of the still-suspended yeast fights for supremacy with the super-delicate flavors of the hops. It comes off a bit like a yeasty Radler. It’s not that I don’t like it, I do. I would drink a few pints. I just don’t love it. Now if it had been filtered…..

A More Personal Description of the GABF Experience

Posted on by

There is something to be said for nursing a pint in a quiet pub.

The Great American Beer Festival is a beast. This makes my fourth festival. Saturday afternoon marked my 13th session – a small number in comparison to some beer writers I know, but still enough to be able to form a few impressions.

GABF is an exercise in pleasurable self-abuse; too much beer, too many too late nights, and definitely too much heavy food. The weekend – or week if you go for all of the surrounding events – will beat you up. But you’ll have a great time taking the whupping.

It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the GABF. The hall is immense; rows of brewery booths and vendor stalls seem to stretch to the horizon. And then there are the 12,000 people that fill it and the noise that comes from the voices of that many drunken people. As attendees try to hear and be heard they talk louder. This raises the decibels, necessitating an even louder shout. The self-perpetuating crescendo gives one the sense of standing inside of a jet engine. The roar is punctuated by the scolding hoot that moves from one end of the hall to the other every time someone drops a glass. The noise alone is exhausting.  Add buckets of beer and unpleasant yellow light that is always just a bit too dim and you have a recipe for sensory overload, at least to a homebody such as myself.

People talk about having a plan of attack at GABF. Some focus on particular beer styles, others on hitting certain breweries. I made a plan the first year, but found that my plan disintegrated shortly after entering the hall, succumbing quickly to the “empty-glass” syndrome; “my glass is empty, I’ll just fill it at the nearest booth.” I guess I lack self-control. These days I take more of a free-for-all approach. I have some vague notions of places to go and beers to taste, but mostly I just wander the aisles until I see a beer or brewery that looks interesting. I tend to focus on breweries I’ve never heard of in search of undiscovered gems. I avoid the most popular booths – places like Dogfish Head and Russian River. They have perpetually long lines. I don’t believe in waiting in long lines for beer, especially when there are 2690 other beers available.

The most frequent question one gets asked at the fest is, “tasted any stand outs?” This is such a difficult question for me to answer. Pour after one-ounce pour makes it hard to keep track. Along with planning, taking notes was another first-fest casualty. But it’s not entirely a blur. There were a few beers that rose above attention deficit and overconsumption. All the German-style beers from Live Oak Brewing Company in Austin, Texas were great. They make a hell-of-a hefe. La Cumbre Brewing Company’s Elevated IPA paired with a mighty hunk of lamb at Friday’s media luncheon was fantastic. And Founders’ Blushing Monk paired to Buratta cheese with pear brulée and cranberry jam was a definite highlight of the weekend. There were others, but mostly they all sort of blend together – and that’s okay with me. The festival to me is really about enjoying beer, not about picking it apart and checking it off. I’ll do that in other settings that aren’t so mind addling. Or maybe I’m just a bad Cicerone…

I do better at the GABF when I have a task to do there. I’m like that with events in general; I’m more comfortable working an event than just attending one. Without a purpose I tend to feel a bit lost. On Thursday night our task was to shoot video interviews with brewers from the upper-Midwest. We shot a bunch; almost an hour of video. I caught up with Todd Haug of Surly, Dave Hoops from Fitger’s, Gabe Smoly and Eric Blomquist from Summit, Matt Potts the Brewmaster at DeStihl, Joe Barley from Solemn Oath in Naperville, Illinois, and a few others. Those will go on up on this blog at some point. Hopefully this year I’ll get that done sooner than the week before next year’s festival.

After a day of beer lunches and brewery tours, Friday night’s session was all about the Farm to Table Pavilion. This is a little piece of heaven. Off in a side hall, it is a welcome relief from the thunder of the main hall. And it’s all about great beer paired with great food. Brewers and chefs are teamed up to create miraculous combinations. Small plates and small pours – you just stay in there all night and revel in it. Where to even begin? How about Firestone Walker Pale 31 paired to lemon-roasted chanterelles with cannellini beans and chardonnay grapes? Or maybe Sun King Oktoberfest with butternut squash mousse, sesame beer brittle and toasted celery marshmallow is more your speed. And of course there were oysters – lots of oysters.  You couldn’t go wrong with any of the 24 pairings in the room. I didn’t want to leave.

Saturday morning we sat through the awards ceremony and then headed back into the hall. Here’s where that task-less confusion set in. After two solid days of drinking and eating I walked into the crowded hall and immediately thought, “Is this really where I want to be?” Of course after a few samples it was all good. But how to manage this my last session of the weekend? Sample all the medal winners? Without a written list, that was beyond my mental capacity at this point. And so I wandered, tasting as many of them as I could remember or as had signs indicating their medal status. And so it was that the official fest ended for me.

The drinking and eating of course did not. A fancy dinner Saturday night was followed by pints at Prost Brewing, a new Denver brewery specializing in German-style lagers. There I accidentally stumbled upon a meeting of beer writers from all over the US, as well as a couple of scribes from Canada and the UK. Interesting conversations did ensue. Look for a piece inspired by this meeting in the next issue of The Growler.

Ah, Sunday! Sunday is the best day at GABF, mostly because GABF is over. Everyone has left town. All is quiet. We always like to stay this extra day. It’s a day to unwind from the chaos with a long hike in the mountains. That’s always followed by beer. This year we took in Funkwerks in Fort Collins. A number of people who I respect had recommended this tiny brewery that specializes in saison. I had long wanted to visit. The beers didn’t disappoint. Every beer in the sampler was top-notch. An experimental witbier temporarily called Nit-Wit, a Berliner-weiss kind of think called Leuven, and a Green Tea Saison were particularly good. Finally a nightcap of beers and appetizers in the nearly-empty Falling Rock Taphouse.

There is something to be said for nursing a pint in a quiet pub.