The NYT and €200 Bottles of Beer, For the Record.

The New York Times offered this beer geek's tour of Belgium the other day. You could do worse than follow in its footsteps, but there were a few errors that would have been cleared up by a bit of fact-checking.

First there is the misspelling of Mr. De Baets' name. No relation to Norman Bates. Then there is the claim that Yvan founded the Brasserie de la Senne. Nope. The founder was Bernard Leboucq, who first brewed Zinnebir and later invited Yvan to join him.

Regarding Westvleteren, the article says that one can only buy one case of beer per month from the monks. In fact the limit is often two or three cases per vehicle. It just depends on the beer and the time of year.

Interestingly: The author mentions that the old Senne-blended Crianza is going for €200 a bottle at Moeder Lambic. When I read that bit, I thought maybe Jean and the guys were taking a piss. I checked with Nassim, and in fact they do have it listed at that price... so effectively it's not for sale. There are only about 20 bottles left in existence. If some cash-flush geek does come along and insist on paying that much, well... He or she receives a warning that, in the opinion of the ownership, the beer is past its prime. Buyer beware.

All I can say is, €200 would buy a lot of fresh glasses of Taras Boulba.

Gone Surfing.

I was going to write something cranky about how the BJCP style guidelines long ago departed from any meaningful reality, since they've just added some new weirdness to the already weird. Instead I'll point you to Stephen Beaumont's post. Because I'm a huge Stones fan. "Totally pointless categorization of something that is the same shit – it just depends on how much you lay the backbeat down or how flash you play it." Yeah. What Keith says.

On the other hand: Whenever anyone whines about style guidelines, maybe it's best to put our fingers and our ears and sing, "They're just for homebrewing contests, lalalalala." It's probably a mistake to take them personally just because they fetishize and overcategorize one of the things we love most, a thing that has given us many wonderful memories in many interesting places, a thing that has whispered into our ears with some desperation that it cannot be divided into hermetic definitions, no, it won't be, because it's as liminal and dynamic as all the ideas we share and enjoy and send around the world every day. And it probably always has been that way.

Anyway. The style guidelines are too easy a target, aren't they? There's no sport in it.

Finally: I was also going to tell those of you in Paradise, or planning to visit someday, that you can now find Costa Rica's Craft Brewing drafts in a few places around the country. These include the Black Sheep Pub in Nosara, El Estribo in Santa Ana, and in Escazú at the Time Out Tavern. Which is the closest thing I have to a local, so that works well. So does the pitcher and a pizza deal for $20. The owners tell me the stuff is selling like hell. So that's good news.

The CRCB beers are likely in a few other places by now too. Brandon Nappy, please pick up the white courtesy phone. Feel free to share details in the comments section.

I'm disappearing to the beach for a few days. You're unlikely to hear from me. Enjoy your snow, if you have any.

A Bloodless Cup?

Studying coffee today. And drinking it too.

Did you know... Costa Rica is one of the few Latin American countries, or possibly the only one, whose coffee industry lacks a bloody history of some kind? The theory goes that there wasn't enough cheap labor--i.e., natives--around to oppress, so the farms were smaller, poorer, and more "egalitarian." Naturally the same conditions applied to all sorts of farms, not just coffee, but we are talking about a crop that has had a major impact on the country's history. Bear in mind that this is a nation that abolished its military altogether in 1949. Hard to imagine any other Latin country pulling that one off.

What I'm wondering is if that unique history might somehow affect the flavor of what's in the cup. I mean, beyond the effect that a good story has. Which is considerable.

Costa Rica is also home to La Minita, one of the best-regarded growers among international coffee geeks. It's an export coffee that's somewhat available in the U.S., but I have yet to see a bean of the stuff within its home country. Maybe I ought to get out there and have a look-see.

Fascinating, But Save Your Money.

It was an excellent gift. I drank a couple glasses of it on Christmas Day and shared the rest with the family.

Boston Beer and Weihenstephan claim that they used a new process to make extra sugars available for fermentation, aiming to dry out the beer. Non-Germans often do this by adding sugar, but that just wouldn't be Reinheitsgebot. Fascinating, I think. Whatever they did, maybe they should have done more of it. The beer still ended up way too sweet for my tastes. It did have a classy sparkle though.

Might be better for making friends than for drinking. Regardless, a righteous gift.

Session #47: Cooking and Blogging WITH Beer.

I usually cook with beer. That is not to say that I usually put beer in the food. What I mean is that when I am cooking, I am usually with beer.

I was cooking with beer tonight. I grilled cheeseburgers, and I was with homebrew.

This homebrew is a sneaky one. It's an extra pale ale hopped only with Sorachi Ace. Light on the bitterness but heavy on flavor and aroma hopping. Sorachi is supposed to be the lemony hop, but this is like a glass of oranges. Specifically, this is my seventh glass of oranges tonight. Sneaky, I tell you. The strength is around 4.5% abv while I've dialed the bitterness back to about 25 IBUs. At first I thought it wasn't quite bitter enough. But the sneaky stuff won't stop sneaking down my hatch.

Aren't we supposed to be talking about cooking with beer? OK. Once I made a carbonnade with Westvleteren. What a damnable waste.

The sneakiness of this beer has me thinking about balance. It is not always apparent with the first glass, when you are looking more for flavor than for drinkability. You don't taste drinkability so much as prove it.

How many times have you had a big IPA or imperial stout and thought, "Ooh, that's really drinkable," and then after that glass you're either done or on to something else? My point is that we are not really qualified to judge drinkability after just a few sips. Some of you would disagree, but I respectfully request that the argument be carried out in person, in a decent establishment, with plenty of time to spare. No note-taking or fancy picture phones. Just beer and bullshitting. And counting.

Cooking. Yeah. We were babysitting a 5-year-old tonight. After a few bites of the cheeseburger I made for him, he decided it was too peppery. Plenty of flavor but not eatable, you might say.

I don't know. I ate one and a half of the damn things. With beer.

Great Scott! Secrets of Beer Aging Revealed! Or Maybe Not.

I found this little item in the Sky Mall catalog on the plane back to Costa Rica: the Vintage Express Aging Accelerator. Marketed toward wine and liquor aficionados, it "accelerates the aging process by recreating the Earth's natural magnetic field."

The two obvious questions: (1) Does it really work? And if yes, then (2) would it work on beer?

"Enjoy the delicious flavor of 10 years of aging in just a few seconds." Imagine the possibilities. Compare a fresh Westvleteren with an "aged" one. Or a gueuze. Or an imperial stout. Or whip up some fresh IPA, leave some in the flux capacitor overnight, and see if it tastes like it just came off a boat to India.

You wouldn't even need 1.21 Gigawatts to power this bad boy. There are no batteries or moving parts, only "extremely powerful Neodymium magnets" which "realign particles in beverages. ... The longer a beverage remains in the Vintage Express, the greater the effect."

Maybe the reviews on Amazon will shed some light on this:

"Magnetic fields have absolutely nothing to do with aging. This is absolutely preposterous."

"This has scam written all over it. Stay far away."

"THEY STOLE MY PLANS FOR A HYPERBOLIC TIME CHAMBER AND ARE MAKING MILLIONS MODIFYING THEM FOR VARIOUS COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS! MY PLANS WERE TO BE USED FOR THE GREATER GOOD OF HUMANITY BUT NOW THEY PATENTED IT BEFORE I COULD AND ARE INSTEAD HURTING MANKIND!"

Oh well. Would have been fun to try, but maybe not for $59.99.

If you're traveling today and want to hunt for it, go to Page 66. It's just above the ad for the Hollywood Cookie Diet and 15-Day Detox, on the page directly after the Digital BBQ Tongs. I've never ordered a thing from Sky Mall, but it makes for fun reading. The toddler likes it too, since there are lots of pictures of cars, puppies and cookies.

Beer Statistics and Other Damn Lies.

Buried in the Brewers Association's news release is the main reason that it is re-interpreting the word "small" from 2 million to 6 million barrels per year:

"Loss of The Boston Beer Company's production in craft brewing industry statistics would inaccurately reflect on the craft brewing industry's market share."

In a few words, the BA has decided that it needs the rapid growth of Samuel Adams to keep craft beer numbers looking pretty each year. National media love to cite those numbers when talking about craft beer, and the BA loves getting credit for them. In one word, it's marketing.

Boston Beer is currently in the neighborhood of 2 million and poised to keep growing. Since craft brewers are making about 10 million barrels a year, cutting the old brewer and patriot loose would mean taking a 20 percent hit. That's a big chunk of craft beer's 7 percent share of the beer market.

However, I suspect market share is not the real concern. Instead, it's market growth. The annual double-digit growth numbers are the sexiest part of the craft beer stats (a 12 percent sales increase in the first half of 2010, for example). Especially while all other beer sales are dropping. And especially during an economic downturn.

That ridiculous growth number is the one your average Bud drinker sees on Fox News and thinks, "What's all the fuss about? Maybe I should give one of them fancy six-packs another go."

The odds are about one in five that he'll reach for a Sam Adams. And those odds are getting higher all the time.

Out With the New, In With the Old.

The Public House Brewing Company in Rolla, Missouri, chose to go with a "soft opening" on Thursday, December 16, give or take a pre-party or two. Josh and Josh went the soft route--in other words, with no promotion or advertising--as a way to ease their business into the community. The idea is to open the doors, see who shows up, and iron out problems as they arise without much embarrassment.

Here is what happened: They ran out of beer in less than a week.

Thanks to word of mouth, about 100 people showed up the first day. The next day, most of those same people showed with five friends. And so on.

I've been talking about this brewery because of its emphasis on session beers, which is sadly almost unique in the U.S. these days. Public House's early success suggests, at least for this corner of the Ozarks, that their approach has great merit. (It also suggests that the Two Joshes might want to consider expanding their tank capacity.)

So far Public House is making a Kölsch, a mild, a hoppy pale ale, and a stout. All were drinkable but the real winner for me was that toasted-bready, dryish, full-flavored mild weighing in at 2.5% strength. It might get darker than its current pale-amber look (second row from the back in the photo), but I dig the recognition that a mild should be much more than a stout's mini-me. And it comes in different colors. Just ask Ron.

Running out of product was no disaster for the Joshes, thanks to a clever guest tap policy with strength in Missouri-made craft beers. Thus they brought in some Tin Mill Doppelbock from Hermann to back up the Kölsch they released at midnight on New Year's Eve.

The Public House is at 600 North Rolla Street, just a few minutes off the Interstate. Consider a visit next time you're cruising Route 66 or flying down I-44. They promise they'll have enough beer for you.

Call It a Midwestern Moment.

More or less off the grid in the Ozarks until after New Year's... Let's face it, it's a Lost Week for many of us.

I'm posting only to brag about some of the best mac and cheese I've ever eaten. It was in a small strip mall restaurant in Ozark, Missouri, across from that roll-throwing tourist trap known as Lambert's. It's not the kind of place you'd normally stop unless you know better. The owner and chef at Grant's is a CIA grad who plied his trade in California wine country for a while before returning home to cook comfort food. This little notch in the Bible Belt is lucky to have Grant Dodge. He's made the sort of unassuming place you see on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and think, "Those lucky bastards." I hope the locals are spending lots of money there.

It's not a beer or wine destination, but there is a bar to the side of the main dining room. I felt lucky enough to choose from a handful of local or regional craft beers. The nitro-tapped Boulevard Dry Stout was a natural.

Not Another Year-End Best-Of List. Or Is It?

Time to gift myself a self-indulgent post about the beers I enjoyed most in 2010. Merry Christmas to me! Oh, I don't know. I guess there's a chance someone out there will find it useful.

Now listen: I'm not saying these are the best beers of the year or any of that nonsense. Clearly we're all experienced hedonists who understand that enjoyment of a beer is highly contextual. The quality of a glass of beer or wine or a meal brings a lot to the table, so to speak, but so does the quality of your company, your surroundings, your mood, the size of the paycheck you just received, and so on. This a collection of memories more than anything else.

In no particular order: These first three might be modern American classics... but I'd never had any of them until this past year. After four years abroad, there was some catching up to do.

I was hanging out with old friends, whom I hadn't seen in some time, when I thoroughly enjoyed a glass of Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald Porter at the Meridian Pint in D.C.* Great roast character combined with a light impression of cocoa sweetness and dryish finish. Hit all the right notes and highly drinkable.

Then there was the Bitch Creek ESB from Grand Teton. Enjoyed that for the first time at the brewery in Victor, Idaho, with my dad, brother and son. I expected a nice malty pale ale. I did not expect the big floral-woody hop aroma. We drank it while admiring the country's first modern growler (cue Indiana Jones: It belongs in a museum!).

Closing out the trifecta of American classics is Three Floyds Gumballhead, my favorite in a box of beers mailed to me by gentleman and scholar Stefan Berggren. It's a hop-forward wheat beer that ducks excessive bitterness and opts for big aroma with notes of flowers, blood oranges and mangos. Refreshing and addictive. I owe him big time.

Going back a bit further: Before leaving Belgium in the spring, if you recall, we opted to drink the cellar rather than try to pack it. We saved one of the best for last: a Fuller's Vintage from 2007. Its flavor blossomed from somewhere among applewood, Port, caramel-sugar and sparkling wine. Maybe it would have continued to improve but I can't say I'll ever regret opening it. These days I miss the occasional cannonball run to London every bit as much as I miss living in Belgium.

Then there was the parting gift from Mr. De Baets: a few bottles of Wadesda No. 1, a mixed-fermentation blend of Senne's Jambe de Bois triple and Cantillon lambic. Two of them I managed to keep. The one I drank had enough lemony, grapefuity, musty Cantillon character to convince me the beer was refreshing. Yet the body and the buzz gave away its 8% abv origins. Terrific and dangerous.

However: My absolute favorite beer from the past year was an unfiltered lager. It was an orange-copper color. It had a sweetish nose with notes of orange zest that carried into the firmly bitter flavor then all the way through the aftertaste. It struck me as the finest nexus of great character and sublime drinkability. It was the Ungespundet from Mahr's Bräu in Bamberg, enjoyed with my wife and dear friends. A liter of the stuff wasn't enough. Someday I hope to go back and drink my fill.

Finally, I've got to mention the glass of Libertas blonde ale I had from the finally-just-about-to-launch Costa Rica's Craft Brewing in Cartago. Crisp, subtle and visually perfect, it has the potential to be a gateway drug for Costa Rican beer lovers tired of the local swill. After months of thin lager, it tasted like liberation.

* Incidentally, check out what's going on at Meridian Pint tonight. Eleven different Bell's stouts for the year's longest, darkest night. Could you get through all of them?