New Old Chicago Debuts in Eden Prairie – And It Is Good

I recently got a press release from Old Chicago about doings at the Eden Prairie store. I frequently get press releases from Old Chicago. Some are more interesting to me than others. This one got my attention. While the release didn’t give the whole scope of what was happening, it suggested that the Eden Prairie location was the beta for a nationwide re-do of the chain; new food, new design, and most importantly to me a new beer list. There was also something about Cicerone Certified bartenders. My curiosity was piqued.

You’ve been to Old Chicago, right? It’s that pizza joint with the 1980s decor and the World Beer Tour. They have a big beer list – 30-some taps and a bunch of bottles – but fully a third of the list is standard American lagers. There’s little chance the staff will be able to tell you much about the beer they are pouring. Hopefully the draft lines are clean.  You go there because you know you’ll find a decent beer, but the experience is always somewhat underwhelming.

This press release suggested all of that was about to change. To get to the bottom of things I talked to Mark Newman, the person in charge of beer and spirits for the chain. “When Old Chicago opened in 1976,” he told me, “we had 110 beers. People thought we were crazy. It wasn’t easy to get 110 beers back then, so we brought in all of these imports. Old Chicago introduced the whole idea of the beer-centric restaurant.” Over the years helped launch some of today’s top craft brands. Old Chicago was one of the first to pour New Belgium. According to Newman Odell’s first account was at Old Chicago. But somewhere in the 1990s he says, the chain lost its way. Now they’re trying to get that old vibe back.

Photo from Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal

Newman gets audibly excited when talking about the changes. You can tell he’s genuinely passionate about what they’re doing, which is just short of a total re-do. The cluttered-casual 1980s design has been scrapped in favor of a sleek, modern look; minimalist almost. The menu was gone over from the bottom up. They worked with chefs from the Chicago-based Lettuce Entertain You group on the culinary redesign. Old items were dropped, new ones were added, and everything is made in-house, from scratch.

But it was the beer aspect that interested me. The changes on the beer side encompass both selection and service. In terms of selection, Newman says they considered a couple of options; the Flying Saucer model with hundreds of taps and bottles or a more-focused model with a smaller selection. They opted for the latter, choosing in his words “quality over quantity.” The new restaurant has 36 taps and maybe twice that number of bottles. Of those taps 24 are craft rotators and only three to four taps are given over to what they are calling “US Classics.” As Newman explained, “There is a market for those beers and we will always sell them, but we don’t need eight of them.” One of the most exciting changes to the beer selection is a focus on local. Newman says they want every Old Chicago store to reflect its location, and that means always having several beers available from local brewers.

Changes on the service side include both the way beer is served and the knowledge of the staff that serves it. As part of the Eden Prairie re-make they tore out the old draft equipment and replaced it with a brand new state-of-the-art system. With the exception of branded specialty glasses, they have replaced all the glassware so that beer is served in an appropriate style, non-frozen glass; no more icy shaker pints. Beer-clean glassware is especially important to Newman. Proper cleaning methods have been put in place and all glasses are rinsed before filling. As well, glassware is checked twice a day to make sure it is beer clean.

Server knowledge is important. It’s frustrating to go someplace and not be able to get information about the beers that are being poured. At the new Old Chicago everyone goes through some basic beer education. It is mandatory for bartenders to pass the Certified Beer Server level of the Cicerone Certification Program. It is encouraged for servers. Newman says the company will support any staff that wants to advance to higher levels of the program, paying for exams and education. Additionally, they have instituted a policy encouraging staff to offer samples to guests; kind of an “if you like that you might also like this” idea.

Photo from Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal

After talking to Newman I had to see for myself, so I trekked out to Eden Prairie for dinner. I was impressed. The food was good, the décor was a big improvement, but this being a beer blog I’m going to focus my review on the beer experience.

Selection: Of the 36 beers on tap I counted eleven from Minnesota. The local selection was even bigger in bottles. The rest of the beers were a high-quality mix of national crafts and imports. Of the three American lagers available on tap, one of them was Grain Belt Premium. In the printed menu each beer is accompanied by a set of icons that describe its basic flavor profile. The list seemed to me a little heavy on hops, but there was a range available from Victory Prima Pils to Brooklyn Brown and Stone Smoked Porter.

Service: My two beers came out in proper Nonic pint glasses with a perfect half-inch of foam on top. They left circles of lace all the way down the glass as I drank. Glancing around the bar it seemed like proper glassware was the norm, and I saw that beer-clean lacing everywhere I looked. I even witnessed the bartender explaining the concept of beer-clean glassware to some patrons sitting at the bar.

My server Jen was great. She is a Certified Beer Server and seemed to know her stuff. I asked about local beers and she pointed me directly to them, even telling me the thumbnail sketch of Fulton’s history. She was able to describe the flavors of beers reasonably well and guide me toward the profile I wanted. As I sat enjoying my Sweet Child of Vine, she brought me an unsolicited sample of Lucid Camo, another hoppy beer from a local brewery. I saw others being offered samples as well. When I asked Jen about a beer to accompany desert, she suggested Brau Brothers Moo Joos.

To head off any suspicion, I am not being paid to shill for Old Chicago. In the interest of full disclosure, they did buy my dinner.

What interested me about this story was the fact of a national chain committing itself to quality beer and beer service. When TGI Friday starts serving craft beer, it’s significant. When Old Chicago reasserts an emphasis on proper service, staff knowledge, and quality selection, including a number of locals, it says something about the state of craft beer. Are they just cashing in on the craft beer boom? Perhaps, but what’s wrong with that? The thing is, these places attract a broad clientele. It’s great to have dedicated beer bars like Happy Gnome or Muddy Pig, but they primarily preach to the converted. These national chain restaurants have the potential to introduce a huge swath of people to better beer. If they do it right, like I believe Old Chicago’s Eden Prairie rollout suggests they will, then that’s all the better.

Firkin Fest 2012: A Quick Recap

Firkin Fest at the Happy Gnome…for the last two years I have had little positive to say about it. My recaps of 2010 and 2011 were full of tales of woe; too many people, too few “facilities”, frightening firkin abuse, and many other forms of general unpleasantness. The quality of beers on offer and the mere fact that the Happy Gnome made a celebration of cask-conditioned beer happen seem to be the only positives I could muster. 2011 was better than 2010, but nonetheless I had sworn off the event.

This year though I was convinced to give it another go. The Gnome learned from the past and had instituted some changes that seemed like they would make the event go better. They did!

The improvements started right off the bat with the lines. The entry was moved behind the restaurant where they could have multiple lines heading through the gates at once. This definitely streamlined the process and facilitated getting people in the door more quickly.

An hour of early-entry sampling on an empty stomach was beginning to take its toll. I needed to eat. It took me a minute to find the food, which was tucked on the Happy Gnome patio outside the tent. What a great place for it. It was off away from the hub-bub of the fest and there were lots of tables to sit at, at least when I ate. The food was good too. Pulled pork and cheese curds on a beautiful sunny afternoon on the patio; How can you beat that?

You beat that with barrels of cask-conditioned beer, of course. As in past years the beer was great. All the usual suspects were bringing it strong. Lift Bridge took the people’s choice golden firkin for the too-many-to-count time. I couldn’t hear what the winning beer was, but I suspect it was the coconut infused version of their Irish Cream Stout. It was very nice. J. W. Lee’s Harvest Ale and Harviestoun Old Engine Oil are two of my favorite beers anyway, so I was very happy to be able to taste them on cask. Schell’s Imperial Deer Brand was actually surprisingly good; unfiltered and dry-hopped with Nelson Sauvin hops. The sneak-peek of the Stag Series Czech Dark Lager makes me even more excited about its expected April release. I was happy to see several new comers there like Lucid, Lucette, and Boom Island.

My favorite two beers of the day were a Bazooka Bubblegum infused Fatty Boombalatty from Furthermore Beer and Odell IPA infused with orange. These two beers fell at opposite ends of the spectrum. Bazooka’d Fatty was a gimmicky trifle. The powdered sugar flavor of bubblegum blended right in with the banana and bubblegum flavors of this imperial witbier-ish ale. Odell’s “Danny Mac” IPA was a more sophisticated sipper; kind of a bitter Grand Marnier. Both were delicious.

And what about the crowds? Considerably fewer tickets were sold this year than last, and it worked. Was it crowded in the tent? At the festival’s peak it was. Was it ever uncomfortably crowded? Never. Moving from one side of the tent to the other was never a seemingly impossible task. At no point did I feel like the 30th sardine in a tin made for 20. I miraculously managed not to use the facilities until well into the event. When I did, there was no line at all. I walked right in to one of many unoccupied units. Well done.

All in all I would say that this year’s Firkin Fest was a rousing success. For those who stayed away this year because of bad experiences in the past, you can come out now.

Steel Toe Brewing Co. – Dissent

I really do intend to get back to my GABF coverage. There is still so much to talk about. I’ve got video interviews to post, along with pictures and audio from the big 30th Anniversary dinner. But in the mean time here’s this.

Steel Toe Brewing Co. in St. Louis Park opened its doors just a couple of months ago. It’s the newest in a coterie of recently-opened Minnesota breweries, a group that will continue to grow by leaps and bounds in the coming months. I was particularly excited about Steel Toe because of the brewing background of co-owner and brewer Jason Schoneman. He brings with him a load of experience, including several years as Head Brewer at the award-winning Pelican Brewpub in Oregon. I visited this brewpub-on-the-beach a few years ago and found it to be well worth the acclaim.

Jason aims to make beers that are big on flavor, but that don’t necessarily fit any style. He launched with four beers. Provider is a light, easy-drinking golden ale that I love and that I lately have been pouring a lot of at events. Two that I have yet to try are Rainmaker, an Imperial Red Ale, and Size 7 IPA. I hear good things. Finally is Dissent Black Ale. I picked up a bottle of this recently and just got around to giving it a whirl. Here’s my notes:

Dissent
Steel Toe Brewing Co., St. Louis Park, Minnesota
Style: Black Ale (?)
Serving Style: 22 oz bottle

Aroma: Brown sugar and molasses. Some coffee roast and light caramel. Licorice and earthy hops.

Appearance: Black and thick. Good-sized, dark-tan head that was moderately persistent.

Flavor: Rich bittersweet chocolate at the top. Like cocoa nibs and coffee. Orange and grapefruit-rind citrus notes float over the top, making it almost like an orange-flavored porter. It’s rich, but well-attenuated, which keeps it very drinkable. Bitterness is moderate, but lingers after swallowing. As the beer warms, molasses flavors become ever more prominent.

Mouthfeel: Thick and rich with relatively low carbonation.

Overall Impression: This would be great with a big rack of saucy, barbeque ribs. In fact, my girlfriend said that the aroma initially reminded her of barbeque sauce – all sweetness and molasses. It’s a big, chewy, malty, black ale that remains remarkably drinkable. It starts and ends great, but I kept feeling like there was some kind of hole in the middle. While I know that this is not helpful, I couldn’t quite put a finger in what was missing. Guess I’ll have to pick up another bottle and work on that some more.

 

OMG Cheese & Beer Pairings at Cooks of Crocus Hill

Wednesday night was all about local beer and cheese at the St. Paul Cooks of Crocus Hill. I paired up with James Norton and Becca Dilley, the folks behind The Heavy Table and authors of The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin, to bring together what are arguably the two best products to come out of Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Guests were welcomed with a glass of Schell’s Pils to start the evening off. Once everyone was seated, we got down to business. As we got our introductions out of the way, Becca was wielding a skillet to heat up the first cheese, Brun Uusto from Brunkow Cheese of Darlington, Wisconsin. This munch-worthy American twist on the Finnish Juustoleipa-style cheese is buttery, salty, mild, and a bit oily. Light caramelized flavors made it a great match for Proper, a malt-forward English Bitter from Furthermore Beer in Spring Green, Wisconsin.

My second favorite pairing of the night was Surly Bender with Upland’s Pleasant Ridge Reserve cheese. This is a fantastic cheese to begin with. It’s won the equivalent of Best of Show at the American Cheese Society three times. Pleasant Ridge Reserve is dry and nutty with gentle grassy background flavors that make for a “heavenly chorus” pairing with Surly’s nutty oatmeal brown ale. Both have big flavors, but they are evenly matched with one another. The nuttiness of one speaks to the nuttiness of the other. The beer and cheese together amplify some floral notes that are absent when tasted separately. You really should rush out and try this combination.

The pairing that really made my mind explode was Matacabras from Dave’s BrewFarm with Meadowlark, a cloth-bound, cave-aged cheddar from Pastureland in Goodhue, Minnesota. This is one unusual cheddar. The cave-aging lends it loads of funky, mushroomy funk that you wouldn’t normally associate with cheddar cheese. These melded seamlessly with the funky Belgian yeast flavors in the beer. Matacabras leans to the sweet side and drips caramel and dark fruit. These flavors offered a wondrous counterbalance to the deep, umami flavors of the cheese.

Although not the official pairing, Matacabras also went beautifully with the next cheese, Amablu, a cave-aged blue cheese from Faribault Dairy. Think blue cheese with fig puree. Fantastic. The actual pairing to this cheese was Summit Horizon Red. This beer’s slight caramel residual sweetness counters the sharpness of the blue cheese while dirty, grassy Horizon hops pick up the tangy moldiness.

The “dessert” pairing was also very nice; Crave Brothers Mascarpone with Tyranena’s bourbon-barrel aged Rocky’s Revenge. The cheese has a creamy sweetness of its own that was amplified by the rich vanilla and whisky flavors of this sweet-leaning beer. While full flavored, Rocky’s Revenge is not so heavy as to overpower this fairly lightweight cheese. The orange biscuits served with the cheese sent the whole ensemble over the top.

Gold Sovereign Ale, the 6th beer in Summit’s Unchained Series, made a great match for Hook’s 7-Year Cheddar from Hook’s Cheese Company of Mineral Point, Wisconsin. The beer is hoppy and bitter bit has enough backing sweetness to pick up the creamy sweetness of the cheese. With wine they say, “if it grows together, it goes together.” The same can be said of beer. Cheddar cheese and English India Pale Ale are a can’t miss combination.

I can’t wait to do this class again; sometime, somewhere. In the mean time I may just have to pick up some of these cheeses and beers to re-experience the pairings on my own.

Spring Beer Classes at Cooks of Crocus Hill

I am pleased to announce new beer classes at Cooks of Crocus Hill for spring. I’ll be teaming up again with Master Sommelier Leslee Miller of Amusee Wine and Chef Mike Shannon for one of our now-legendary beer/wine pairing dinners. And I’ll be working with Heavy Table’s Becca Dilley and James Norton, authors of the Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin, for some awesome pairings of local beer and cheese. Check these out.

The Big Thaw: Wine and Beer Pairing Dinner
April 15th, 6:00 PM-9:00 PM, $75
With Leslee Miller and Mike Shannon
It’s OK to come out now … the cold war is over! Join Chef Mike, Sommelier Leslee and Cicerone Michael at Cooks for a night of fabulous drinks and eats sure to thaw out your tail feathers and get your palate prepped for all the great gourmet goodies that spring has in store. Menu: Bacon and Crab in Endive; Asparagus Tip Vinaigrette; Spring Vegetable Primavera; White Bean Cassoulet with Sausage; Apple-Cherry Turnovers. This one WILL sell out.

Local Cheese and Ale
May 4th, 6:00-9:00 PM, $70
With Becca Dilley and James Norton
Even though we may disagree about The Favre and whether or not you should buy alcohol on Sundays, Minnesota and Wisconsin can at least come together on a few things, like the importance of good beer and cheese! Cicerone Michael Agnew will enlighten you on the ales, while Becca Dilley and James Norton, authors of The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin, will take you on a tour of the best fromages these states have to offer. Menu: A Selection of Cheeses from Minnesota and Wisconsin Cheesemakers Paired with Craft Beers from Brewers in Both States.

Sign up online at the Cooks of Crocus Hill website.

MN Craft Brewers Guild Wants You to Have Winterfest Tickets

Winterfest tickets sold out in under a minute. Hard to believe, but true. It was a serious online crush to snap them up.

Didn’t get tickets? Well the MN Craft Brewers Guild, sponsors of the event that is probably the best beer fest in the Twin Cities, feels bad for you. They want to give you a chance to win tickets in the Minnesota Craft Beer Heritage Contest. Pen your most purple prose explaining why you are the ultimate Minnesota Craft Beer fan and you could win not only tickets to the event, but also early entry and a meet & greet with the brewers. A Mr and a Ms Minnesota Beer will be named, each taking home the coveted prize.

Interested? Here are the details from the website.

Prove Your Minnesota Beer Heritage
The Minnesota Craft Brewer’s Guild wants you to share why you are a true Minnesota craft beer lover. Have you toured every brewery in the state? Do you brew a unique beer for every season? Did you introduce your 80-year old grandmother to the state’s best IPAs? Or do you just have a love affair with the great beers of Minnesota, unmatched by any of your friends? In 200 words or less, tell us your qualifications and heritage when it comes to Minnesota craft beer. Please visit the www.mncraftbrew.org or email minnesotabrewers@gmail.com to submit your entry. The Brewer’s Guild will select two separate winners Mr. Minnesota Craft Beer and Ms. Minnesota Craft Beer. We want to celebrate thou who prove to be the most devoted Minnesota craft beer enthusiast. And please note the winners do not have to be affiliated.

The winners will be awarded four tickets to Winterfest, the Minnesota Craft Brewer’s Guild winter showcase on Friday, February 4. The winners will also get a private meet-and-greet with some Minnesota brewers and early access to Winterfest.

The deadline for submissions is 10pm CST on Monday, Jan 31.

Get Writing!

The Year in Beer – Highs and Lows from 2010

My most memorable beer in 2010

In the first days of 2010, my favorite beer of 2009, Ommegang Rouge/Cuvee de Jacobins Rouge, was tenaciously holding on to its position; then came the release of Rodenbach Vintage 2007. Rodenbach Classic and Rodenbach Grand Cru are blended beers; a mixture of soured beer that has been aged in huge oak vats for up to two years and young beer that has never seen wood.  Vintage is unblended. It is the product of a single vat. And it is heaven. Smoother than Grand Cru, Vintage is an explosion of balsamic vinegar and fruit. Juicy flavors of cherries, currents, fresh plums, and grapes literally burst in your mouth. Tart acidity is balanced by just a bit of residual sweetness, and toasty malt. Oaky tannins provide some pucker. I recently read that Rodenbach has released Vintage 2008. I haven’t seen it in area stores. I’ll have to hunt some down.

The beer I wish I could forget from 2010

In researching my January Star Tribune column on smoked beers I had a bottle of Mantorville Stagecoach Smoked Porter. I really wanted to like it. It scores well on both Beer Advocate and Ratebeer. I try to be a supporter of Minnesota brewed beer, big and small. Unfortunately, this was a difficult beer to get through, a jumble of pieces that crash into one another and then fall in fragments on the floor. Acrid roast buries the smoke. An odd kind of café mocha sweetness fights against the other flavors. It’s unclear which side is winning the battle. The next day I tried one on tap, hoping that I had just had a bad bottle. Alas, it was the same beer.

Best Twin Cities Beer Festival of 2010

I have to say that I am a big fan of Winterfest. I like that it is an intimate festival, not a gigantic drunk-fest like some of them can be. I like that it features only Minnesota Beer. I like the setting at the Minnesota History Center. The 2010 event was laid out better than 2009. The hallways were much less crowded. The food in 2010 was good and lasted until the end of the event. The beer line-up – especially from Town Hall – was excellent. It was a great fest. You can read my re-cap here.

Runner up for Best Fest goes to Where the Wild Beers Are. Again, this is an intimate event. Great rare beers were poured. Much fun was had by all. Organizers Jeff Halverson and Tim Stendahl did a great job. Can’t wait for this year’s event.

Worst Twin Cities Beer Festival of 2010

Without a doubt the title goes to Firkin Fest at the Happy Gnome. Too many people. Too little space. Too few porta-poties. The beer ran out well before the scheduled end of the event. Horrible things were done to firkins of perfectly good beer. Read my full write-up here.

Stupidest Beer Quote of 2010

Overheard at Stub & Herbs.  “I need to slow down on these (Surly) Abrasives. I’ve had like seven of them already.” 9% ABV ≠ session beer.

Craziest Internet Comment Thread of 2010

Following an announcement by former Stub & Herbs bar manager Jon Landers that Stubs would be serving 100% local and regional beer, the internet lit up. Lengthy threads on both Beer Advocate and MNbeer got quite heated and verged on inappropriate. The great guys at Fulton Beer took quite a shellacking.

Growth for Minnesota Beer

Two new Minnesota Breweries came on line in 2010. The first was Leech Lake Brewing in Walker, MN. The tiny brewery in this Northern Minnesota lake town started brewing in mid August. Owners Greg and Gina Smith debuted their beers in the Twin Cities at the Autumn Brew Review. I look forward to getting up there for a visit this year.

Jason Sowards of Harriet Brewing sneaked in his inaugural brew just before Christmas. It was a long road to get there that included getting Minneapolis ordinances changed to allow production breweries to sell growlers within the city limits. I’ve tasted Jason’s beers and very much look forward to seeing them in bars soon.

My Personal Beer Highs of 2010

#1: Craft Brewers Conference in Chicago. The awards dinner was perhaps the biggest beer dinner ever staged. Several courses, each paired with beer, were prepared by Chef Sean Paxton for 2000 diners. My table drank a lot of Allagash Curieux, as we kept stealing bottles from empty table. At the pre-dinner reception, large troughs of ice were set on two very long tables. In them were all the entries in the World Beer Cup. While looking through the beers to decide what I wanted to try, someone next to me pulled out a bottle labeled “Alaskan Smoked Porter 1998.” “This should work.” she said. It did.

#2: Taking the Gold Medal for my Bohemian Pilsner at the National Homebrew Competition. And I wasn’t even at that dinner.

Overall 2010 was a good year for beer. Craft beer sales continued to rise at a fast pace. The number of small breweries around the country reached its highest number since prohibition. For me personally 2010 was a huge year. I hope for more of the same for the industry and myself in 2011.

Toasting the New Year with Beer

For those of us who prefer beer to wine (I like wine, don’t get me wrong) toasting the New Year can be a frustrating affair. Champagne, champagne, champagne. I’ve never been a huge fan. But there are several champagne beers out there to do the deed in style.

I have started blogging for the City Pages Hot Dish blog. My first post about these celebratory suds went up today. Check out Toast the New Year with beer by clicking here.

Malty vs. Hoppy Flavors in Beer

When doing Perfect Pint beer tasting events I am frequently asked to clarify the difference between “malty” flavors and “hoppy” flavors in beer. Nearly every day someone stumbles upon this blog with the search query “malty beers vs. hoppy beers.” I find that people can often describe the flavors they taste, but aren’t necessarily able to attribute those tastes to one or the other source ingredient. As malt and hops form the base of the beer flavor triangle (yeast being the third point), it seems to me that some attempt at clarification would be useful. We should begin with a basic description of what each of these ingredients actually is.

Malt – Malted cereal grains are the meat and potatoes of beer. They provide the sugars that are fermented by the yeast to create alcohol and CO2. They are the primary source of beer color and contribute significantly to flavor and mouthfeel. The most common of the malted grains is barley malt. Others include wheat, rye, and oats. In addition to the malted grains, some unmalted cereal grains are used in brewing including corn, rice, wheat, rye, oats, and sorghum. Malting is a process of controlled sprouting and kilning of the grains. The sprouting activates enzymes within the grain that begin to break down the hard, starchy insides into simpler carbohydrates, making them accessible to the brewer. Kilning gives the grains differing degrees of color and flavor. There are four categories of brewing malt. Base malts receive the least kilning. They are the lightest malts and make up the bulk of any beer recipe. Crystal or caramel malts are made by allowing enzymes in the grain to convert complex carbohydrates into simple sugars before kilning. Kilning then caramelizes the sugars in the grain. Crystal malts range in color from light to dark with correspondingly intense flavors. Toasted or kilned malts are dry-kilned to a range of colors and flavors. Roasted Malts are kilned at the highest temperatures until they are very dark brown or even black.

Hops – Hops are the spice of beer. They provide bitterness to balance the sweetness of the malt, as well as flavors and aromas ranging from citrus and pine to earthy and spicy. Hops are the cone-like flower of a rapidly growing vine (a bine actually) in the cannabis family. Waxy yellow lupulin glands hidden within the leaves of the flower contain the acids and essential oils that give hops their character. Bitterness comes from alpha acids that must be chemically altered through boiling in order to be utilized. Hop flavors and aromas come from essential oils that are easily dissolved into hot wort, but are also highly volatile. Flavor and aroma hops must be added late in the boil or these properties will be lost with the steam. Hops more than any other brewing ingredient are subject to the phenomenon of terroir, as different growing regions produce hops with different flavor and aroma characteristics. The chief hop growing regions are the Northwestern US, Southern England, Germany, Czech Republic, and China.

So what is the flavor of malt? To begin with, it is helpful to repeat that malt is the source of fermentable sugars in beer. But not all malt sugars are fermentable, some are left behind. Thus any sweetness perceived in beer is the product of the malt. It is also helpful to remember that malt is grain. Think of other products that are made with grain, like bread, crackers, pasta, or polenta. The grainy flavors found in those foods are also found in beer and come from the malt.

Beyond these basic flavors, each type of malt brings its own particular set of flavors. Base malts are logically the most basic and give beer the most basic and grain-like flavors. Common descriptors would include grainy, corn, bready, saltine cracker, and husky. The crystal or caramel malts bring a range of caramelized sugar flavors. Common descriptors for these flavors include caramel, toffee, brown sugar, molasses, and burnt sugar. The darkest of these malts can impart rich dark fruit flavors like plum and prune. When maltsters toast malt the same chemical reactions occur as when you toast bread. The flavors of the toasted malts are correspondingly similar to those of toasted bread and include toast, biscuit, nutty, graham cracker and bread crust. The roasted malts are the darkest of the brewing grains and are responsible for the flavors associated with stouts and porters. They are kilned nearly to the point of becoming charred and have strong roasty and char flavors. Descriptors for these grains include roasted, burnt, smoky, chocolate, and coffee. The roasted grains also give beer bitterness like that found in a cup of espresso.

Aside from the espresso-like, roasted grain bitterness mentioned above, bitterness in beer comes from hops. For people who say they don’t like beer, hop bitterness is the most commonly identified reason. The level of bitterness depends on the alpha acid content of the hops, the amount of hops used, and the length of time the hops were boiled. Bitterness can range from very light, as in Scottish ales and German wheat beers, to aggressive as in American double IPAs.

The hop flowers added to beer contain a large amount of leafy vegetative matter. The flavors associated with hops tend to be correspondingly plant-like. The particular flavors of hops vary with variety and growing region. Hop flavors and aromas tend to fall into one of seven broad categories, Floral, fruity, citrus, herbal, earthy, piney and spicy. More specific descriptors include perfume, rose-like, geranium, current, berry, grapefruit, orange, minty, grassy, woody, resinous, spruce, licorice and pepper.

One great way to help yourself better identify the flavor contributions of malt and hops is to smell and taste the raw ingredients. If you live near a homebrew store or brewery, stop in and taste some grains. The flavors released as you chew are the same ones that will show up in beer. While I wouldn’t recommend chewing on raw hops, you can smell them. Rubbing a hop flower between your fingers releases the essential oils. What you smell is what you get. Some malt-forward beer styles to try are Scottish ale, doppelbock, Vienna lager, and English barleywine. Some hop-forward styles are pilsner, American pale ale, India pale ale, and Double IPA.