The Captain's Chair

In some respects, one could consider Michelob Anheuser-Busch’s craft brand (if you’d like to take it that far).

Sure, they pump out millions upon millions of barrels of watery, adjunct-laden fizzy beer like Michelob Golden Draft Light, Michelob Ultra (yikes), and the ill-conceived Michelob Ultra Lime Cactus. But, like most of the larger brewers, they’ve flexed their national marketing clout and stolen a page out of the small craft brewers’ playbook to bring out a number of more flavorful beers, catering to what I’d call a transitional craft consumer…folks that reflexively walk into a liquor store to buy their standard case of [insert macro swill here], and instead walk out with a six pack of something like Shock Top. Are they realistically going to sway the 4% of the market that actively seeks out higher quality offerings from small, independent craft brewers? Unlikely, and it’s clearly not their goal. But the sheer volume of A-B’s captive audience makes the marketing proposition for the rest of the beer drinking public a good one for them.

At GABF, I had the chance to attend a private tasting with Michelob to sample a number of their new and experimental beers, including the recently introduced Michelob Rye Pale Ale, which just hit the Twin Cities market within the past couple weeks. Rye P.A. fits neatly into this oxymoronic category of macro craft, and to my own surprise, I found it to be actually pretty darn good.

According to Adam Goodson, their head brewmaster I spoke with, they brew with caramel and other specialty grains (he left out what I suspect is the main part of the grain bill…corn or rice), and you certainly pick up a very rich, toffee-like malt flavor that’s complemented by the spicyness of the rye. They also use five different hop varieties including Cascade and Columbus that put it on par with a number of more notable pale ales and IPAs on the market at 50 IBUs. However, I hesitate to call this a straight up IPA, as in addition to rye they also add grains of paradise for a nice pepper note in the aroma, and condition on a bed of juniper berries for a very faint acidic note in the finish. Overall, a pretty interesting beer.

In addition to the commercially available Rye P.A., I also sampled a handful of their experimental beers that aren’t on the market (and likely never will be), including a pear ale and a doppelbock. According to Goodson, at any given time Michelob has between ten to fifteen different beers working their way through the development cycle, with possibly one or two ever seeing the light of day. The pear ale was interesting, fairly light with just a hint of the pear in the aroma, but seemed more like some of their other standard offerings that had been gently infused with pear extract. The doppelbock was a winner, in my opinion, with a nice malty backbone and caramelized flavoring. Of any of the developmental beers, I’m hoping this one makes the cut.

While I perused the beers, I also chatted with Florian Kuplent, an incredibly nice and intelligent guy who leads Michelob’s yeast development group, and learned about the company’s ongoing research that includes a library of more than 300 unique strains, including a handful of Brettanomyces. Interestingly, they used one of these Brett strains for their single experimental barrel of Michelob Brett (seriously), one of the better beers I had at the Denver Rare Beer Tasting charity event during GABF (more to come on that).

Skipping your honeymoon to brew your first batch of commercial beer usually isn’t an auspicious way to start your marriage. But for Brian Dunn and his wife, co-founders of the very successful Great Divide Brewing Co., it seems things have worked out just fine. 

The welcoming aroma of toasty malt immediately struck me as I wandered up to the brewery, discretely tucked in an unassuming brick building that at one time housed a 1930s-era dairy. Just a cut-off throw from Coors Field in an industrialized area of downtown Denver, one might miss it if not for the small lighted sign perched on the corner of the facility, or the cluster of GABF attendees and regulars crowding the small sidewalk patio outside while I was there.

The brewery took shape in 1994 when Dunn, after traveling the world and earning a graduate degree in environmental studies, realized he wanted to take his passion for homebrewing to the next level. He set about writing a business plan and securing funding from investors. But after coming up about $50,000 short on financing for the business, he made a deal with the city that enabled him to make up the difference in return for ongoing job development and cleanup of the surrounding neighborhood, a relatively destitute segment of the downtown district.

“It was a creative way to get the initial funding we needed, something I didn’t realize was an option going into things.”

The brewery itself is a gritty, cavernous labrynth of rooms, leading from the main brewhouse up front complete with a tangle of pipes connecting mash tuns and fermentation vessels, through a dark, low-ceilinged passageway to the bottling and packaging area, and finally into the cool warehouse lined with pallets of kegs and bottles ready for shipment.  

The brewery’s tap room, a relatively recent addition, greets visitors with some incredible beers like their Hoss, a Marzen-style lager brewed with rye that delivers a spicy, dark-fruit malt character, or the brewery’s Fresh Hop Pale Ale, made with fresh whole hop cones shipped overnight from the Pacific northwest. And according to Dunn, freshness is something he and his staff take very seriously.

“We invested about $100,000 in printing technology for the bottling line to stamp born-on dates on all the beers leaving the brewery,” he said. “Not all of our beers are necessarily meant to be consumed right away, but our customers will be better informed and able to decide whether they want to age the beer, or enjoy then and there.”

The brewery’s sixteen GABF medals (including three this year) are a testament to the quality of their beer, and indicative of their enormous popularity in Denver and markets like the Twin Cities with readily available year-round and seasonal offerings like Titan IPA, Hercules Double IPA and The Yeti.

“Running the brewery hasn’t always been easy…there’s been some very lean years where we weren’t sure if we were going to make it,” explained Dunn. “Our revenue is up 60 percent so far this year, so we’re feeling very fortunate. We’re very excited for what the future holds.”

The names Ben Miller, Michael Robinson and Jeremy White probably don’t ring a bell. But coming to a variety six pack near you in April 2010, their beers will be available as this year’s winners of the annual Samuel Adams American Homebrew Contest, more commonly known as The LongShot. 

The competition, which started back in 1996 with just a couple hundred entries, pared down more than 1,300 beers from homebrewers nationwide to four finalists, with two of those beers going on to be commercially developed and sold nationwide. The competition also included a separate employee-only segment that selected one winner from nearly 300 entries submitted by the Boston Beer Company’s non-brewing staff, or just about 80 percent of the company.

I had a chance to talk with Jim Koch, founder of the company and a key figure behind the rise of craft beer in this country, who explained his own Sam Adams Boston Lager started off as a homebrew recipe in his kitchen more than 25 years ago. But according to Koch, “compared to this year’s winning entries, it frankly wasn’t as good.” 

With a majority of today’s 1,500 commercial craft brewers first learning the ropes on an amateur level, the connection between homebrewing and the craft beer industry is arguably one of the greatest contributors to the explosive growth seen in the segment over the past couple decades. And Koch sees the competition as a way to highlight the link.

“The diversity of beers at the Great American Beer Festival is mindblowing, and many of these styles are a direct result of homebrewers developing these beers in their garages and on their stove tops,” said Koch. “This competition is our way of celebrating these pioneers, and reminding everyone that the roots of the U.S. craft beer industry are in homebrewing.”

According to Koch, the GABF did not exist twenty-five years ago as the standalone, economically viable event that it has become today. Instead, it was attached (almost as an afterthought) to the last day of the much larger American Homebrewers Association conference. “They were gracious enough to tolerate this handful of nut jobs who tried to go pro,” Koch said.

The winning LongShot beers were, as expected, superbly well done. Interestingly, the two non-employee winners both brewed beers relatively similar from a stylistic standpoint, which had everything to do with the quality of the beers as opposed to marketing considerations, Koch explained.

Michael Robinson’s Old Ale
A malty, English-style ale with notes of dried fruit, nut and caramel. Michael, a homebrewer from New Hampshire, used five different malts in the grain bill, and a distinctively English-style yeast strain to give the beer its character. Coming in at 9% ABV, it’s definitely not your average session beer. Mike was also recognized as a finalist in last year’s LongShot competition, as well as the 2007 Samuel Adams Patriot Homebrew Contest.

Ben Miller’s Barleywine
A dark red beer boasting plum undertones to complement the distinct caramel malt flavor. Ben used five hop varieties to give the beer its citrus nose and bitter finish. This was Ben’s 100th batch of homebrew in just under two years (he’s been busy), and coincidentally just an hour after winning the LongShot competition, he also won a Gold Medal at the GABF for his IPA that he brewed with Jeff Erway, brewmaster at Chama River Brewing Co. in Albuquerque, for the Pro-Am portion of the competition. I’m almost scared to see what this extremely talented homebrewer will come up with next.

Jeremy White’s Lemon Pepper Saison
Judging by the quality of his beer, you’d never guess Jeremy spends most of his time working as a member of the Boston Beer Company’s IT staff. His saison is a beautifully balanced yeast-forward beer with hints of citrus and pepper in the nose, and a light malt character. A truly drinkable beer.   

Having never been to Denver, I was fairly certain of two things as my plane touched down at DIA last Thursday. First, I’d likely need some time to acclimate to the altitude. And second, I had no idea what in the hell I was getting into spending three straight days at the country’s largest beer gathering, the  28th annual Great American Beer Festival (GABF). 

Taking up the  bulk of the downtown convention center, the GABF is an experience like nothing else. Four hundred fifty breweries from across the nation in attendance, 2,100 beers being poured, and 49,000 fellow craft beer lovers gleefully jostling their way around what I can only describe as the world’s largest beer garden. The festival floor, which was apparently 46 percent larger than last year’s event, was organized by region, with eight different sections making up what was essentially a virtual tour of the country’s breweries. You could neatly park a dozen aircraft carriers in the space taken up by the entire convocation, likely with some room left over.

The event is not for the faint of heart, nor the weak of tolerance. But the time spent there gave me a wonderful perspective and appreciation for the more than 1,500 small, independent craft brewers putting their blood, sweat, and in Dogfish Head’s case saliva into what they’re doing every day. The passion in the hall was palpable, made even more exciting with the creative geniuses behind these beers actually pouring their wares to the throngs of craft beer lovers jamming the place, including Sam Calagione at Dogfish, Garrett Oliver at Brooklyn Brewery, Patrick Rue at The Bruery, and Tomme Arthur at Lost Abbey, to name a few. 

With more than 100 breweries and brewpubs in the state, Colorado can easily be called the Napa Valley of the beer industry. And the city of Denver’s support and enthusiasm for the festival (and the industry as a whole) was abundantly clear in the literally hundreds of ancillary brewery parties, charitable events and general beer gatherings at craft beer bars around town like Falling Rock Taphouse and The Cheeky Monk. The people were kind to a fault, extremely knowledgeable about their beer, and eager to show off what was really a very beautiful and welcoming place. It was truly a thing to behold. 

The craft beer industry’s growth has been impressive, with a nine percent increase in sales in the first half of this year. But despite the craft segment’s success it still only represents 4 percent of volume across the entire beer category, with the rest largely made up by offerings from macro brewers like Anheuser-Busch, Miller and Coors. That’s an incredibly amazing statistic in my mind, considering the thousands of phenomenal beers out there being made by breweries and brewpubs putting out as little as a few hundred barrels a year, or as much as a hundred thousand. I guess when Jim Koch at Boston Beer Co. jokingly says Anheuser-Busch spills more beer than he makes every year, he isn’t kidding.

But these smaller guys, in particular, are facing not only stiff competition, but rising costs in operating their businesses. In fact, from November 2007 to 2008, the cost of operating a small brewery increased by 39 percent according to the Brewers Association, thanks in part to escalating material prices and energy costs associated with brewing, shipping and other business operations. Despite these issues, and in the face of financial uncertainty we’ve all contended with the past 18 months, the segment has managed to maintain its market share, largely a result of consumer shifts from on-premises beer purchases to in-home enjoyment. In today’s economy, flat can be considered the new up. 

Similar to the craft beer industry’s continued success introducing more and more people to the segment, the GABF also continued its record setting ways, crushing last year’s entries into the beer judging competition by 16 percent. Some statistics of note:

• 457 breweries in the festival hall (of which 51 were there for the first time)
• 2,100 beers served at the festival (1,967 poured last year)
• 49,000 attendees (up by several thousand compared to last year)
• 495 breweries in the competition
• 3,308 beers judged in the competition (2,961 judged last year)
• 78 categories judged + Pro-Am category
• 132 judges from ten countries
• Average number of competition beers entered in each category: 42
• Category with highest number of entries: 134, American Style India Pale Ale

Minnesota (and Wisconsin) brewers were well represented, with the likes of August Schell, The Herkimer, Minneapolis Town Hall, Rock Bottom Minneapolis, Summit, and Surly pouring a number of their beers.

Surly was the lone medal winner from the state, taking home a bronze medal for its Coffee Bender in the Coffee Flavored Beer category, getting beaten out by offerings from Oakshire Brewing in Oregon (silver) and Rock Bottom Brewing in Arlington, Virginia (gold). New Glarus in Wisconsin also took home two bronze medals for its Raspberry Tart (Fruit Beer or Field Beer category) and Totally Naked (American-Style Lager category). One of the coolest stats from the competition, in my mind, is the fact that brewers from 38 different states walked away with medals this year…the most geographic diversity in the history of the event, and a great sign that craft is gaining a foothold in more and more places across the country. 

In addition to reveling in much of the fantastic stuff offered by our local brewers, over the course of the three day event I sampled some other unbelievable beers, most notably Black Tuesday from The Bruery, an incredibly good (and incredibly rare) imperial stout that easily took best of show in my book. I was also interested to see that, while most breweries have not subsided in their liberal use of hops, a clear trend seemed to be emerging with the rise and popularity in sour beers, with numerous offerings from a significant number of breweries including this year’s medal winners in the category Captain Lawrence in New York, Iron Hill Brewery in Delaware, and Brugge Brasserie in Indiana.

The rest of the weekend’s beers (at least on the festival floor, Falling Rock is another story), in order of enjoyment:

• The Bruery Orchard White
• Brooklyn Brewery Schneider Hopfen Weisse
• Captain Lawrence Smoke from the Oak Red Wine Barrel
• Captain Lawrence Cuvee de Castleton
• Dogfish Head Chicha
• August Schell Oktoberfest
• Summit Oktoberfest
• Surly Coffee Bender
• Herkimer Gose
• Stone Vertical Epic Ale 09.09.09
• Oskar Blues Ten Fidy
• Deschutes Inversion IPA
• Mount Emily Ale House The Big
• Bell’s Wild one
• Uinta Pale Ale
• Allagash Confluence
• Southampton Cuvee de Fleurs
• Great Divide Hercules Double IPA
• Dogfish Head Jiahu
• The Bruery Berliner-Weisse
• Bear Republic Double Rocket
• Ballast Point Imperial Porter
• Alesmith Speedway Stout
• Stone 13th Anniversary Ale
• Tommyknocker Imperial Brown Ale
• Tommyknocker Cocoa Porter
• The Bruery Black Tuesday
• Odell Woodcut No. 2
• Bear Republic Big Bear
• Deschutes Black IPA
• Lazy Magnolia Southern Pecan Brown Ale
• Russian River Pliny the Elder
• Minneapolis Town Hall Three Hour Tour
• Elysian Brewing Great Pumpkin
• Deschutes The Abyss
• Surly Furious
• New Glarus Raspberry Tart
• Cigar City Jai Alai IPA
• Sierra Nevada Estate Ale
• Short’s Strawberry Short’s Cake
• Flossmoor Station Collaborative Evil
• Kuhnhenn 4th Dementia Old Ale

I’m off to the Great American Beer Festival in Denver, the U.S. industry’s largest annual beer gathering with more than 49,000 attendees expected over the three day event at the downtown convention center.

I’ll be taking part in the media track, which includes briefings with Brewers Association executives, special sessions with brewers and craft beer experts on topics such as the future of the industry, and tours to notable Denver area breweries and craft beer bars like Great Divide and the Falling Rock Taphouse. I’ll also be attending the Sam Adams Longshot home brew competition awards ceremony, as well as a handful of meetings with breweries introducing some new offerings into the market.  

Oh yeah…and I’ll also be drinking some phenomenal craft beer. As in a potential 2,100 different beers that will be poured throughout the course of the event (if I get through a tenth of that, it was nice knowing you).

Follow me on Twitter as I’ll be providing live updates throughout the event, and check back here for a series of articles detailing what I’m sure will be a fantastic craft beer weekend.

Things were hopping at Tracy’s Saloon in Minneapolis for the SurlyFest bar release party. Great beer, good food, and very nice company. I covered the event on behalf of Heavy Table, so be sure to check out the story here.

While I’ve hung out in the Seward neighborhood on numerous occasions (usually stopping in to check out the selection at The Blue Nile), I’d never been to Tracy’s before. It was clear to me that this little neighborhood bar, which has been around since 1979, would be a great place to spend a few hours sampling their nice selection of craft beers on tap (a quarter of their offerings are Surly).

Most of the food we enjoyed at the SurlyFest event is not generally offered on the regular menu, but it was a good sign, in my opinion, that Sanjaya and company at the establishment were branching out and experimenting with some bolder dishes. Could mean some great things to come. 

Be sure to check them out if you’re in the area.

With more than 100 different Belgian beers on draught throughout the weekend, beer geeks in the Twin Cities didn’t need to look far to find some fantastic offerings at this year’s Belgian Beer Festival at The Muddy Pig in St. Paul.  

After helping a friend with some home improvement projects at his house just a stones throw from the bar, my wife and I walked over Sunday afternoon to catch the mid-day NFL games and try some great Belgian ales. Compared to last year, the selection seemed much larger and more interesting, a sign that hopefully we’ll be seeing more of these delicious beers on tap around town.

Verhaeghe Echte Kriekenbier
A beautiful Flanders red. Great amber red appearance, bretty and sour, with a nice biting cherry finish. My wife tried a sip, and thought it smelled like a foot. Mission accomplished.

Rating: A-

Saison Dupont
One of the benchmarks of the style. Spicy aroma, coriander and yeast. Nice bitterness in the flavor, earthy but not barnyard. Enjoyable.

Rating: A- 

Poperings Hommelbier
Tried this for the first time at last year’s event, and still pretty impressed. The Belgians have a different approach to IPAs, but it works. Very distinct aroma, smells like a rose bush. Mellow hop bite, with a subtle bitterness in the finish.

Rating: B+

La Rulles Estivale
A Belgian pale, characterized by a yeasty, toasty aroma and smooth flavor. Almost akin to a German pilsner in some ways. A nice beer.

Rating:  B+ 

La Divine
From Brasserie de Silly, you’d never guess this was a tripel from its dark appearance. But this one surprises you with a sweet maltiness, plenty of toffee notes and candi sugar in the flavor. Creamy mouthfeel. Really liked this beer.

Rating: A

To describe something as a fruit beer is actually to not really describe it at all, considering the extremely wide spectrum within the category. 

Fruit can be added to nearly any base style you’d like, whether it’s a wheat or a wit, a sour or a stout. The history of fruit beers is really pretty interesting, if you think about the 500 year-old Belgian brewing tradition of fruit lambics, spontaneously fermented ales that can come in a variety of forms such as cherry (kriek), raspberry (framboise), or peach (peche). But unlike some of the artificially sweetened, Kool-Aid-like versions you tend to see out there (I won’t name names), true fruit lambics tend to maintain the inherent sour characteristics of the base style with a nicely balanced, supporting role from the fruit.   

Which leads me to my point. Generally speaking, I think the fruit aspect in a beer, whatever that fruit might be, should serve to complement the underlying base style rather than overpower it. Sometimes it works very well. However, sometimes it can completely fail. 

One of those big misses in my beer sampling history was Leinie’s Berry Weiss, to this day my ultimate in fruit beer disasters. More of a non-descript berry assault on the senses parading around as a smooth beer. Then came a few others, including Sam Adams Cherry Wheat, which all things considered is actually pretty drinkable, but compared to something like Founders Cerise, one of the better fruit beers I’ve had in recent memory, is definitely in the minor leagues of the segment.

Founders continues to impress me, whether it’s their very well-done Centennial IPA, Red’s Rye Pale Ale or something more on the extreme end of the spectrum like their Kentucky (or Canadian) Breakfast Stout. Their Cerise, a 6.5% ABV, lightly hopped cherry ale is nothing short of spectacular.   

Beautiful black cherry aroma from the fresh Michigan cherries used at five different stages through the fermentation process (I suppose fruit beer’s answer to Dogfish Head’s continuous hopping process). Reddish amber appearance with a pinkish creamy head. The taste and aroma are fairly similar…a noticeable maltiness that couples well with the sweet cherry, leading to a perfectly balanced tart finish.

Really superb. And definitely a “gateway” kind of beer I would readily suggest to someone who may not be as interested in or familiar with craft beer in general.

Rating: A

Last time I won a ribbon for anything was during my fourth grade spelling bee, where I placed third after incorrectly spelling the word “restaurant” (I went with restaraunt). In retrospect, I should have at least gotten a blue ribbon for not wetting myself, considering how nervous I was standing in front of my entire school. But that’s a whole different story.

Well, I was very excited to learn recently that my raspberry wheat stout was the recipient of two home brewing awards:

• Gold medal winner in the Minnesota Renaissance Festival’s Byggvir’s Big Beer Cup, Eclectic – Fruit Beer category
• White ribbon winner (third place) in the Minnesota State Fair’s Home Brew Competition, Fruit Beer category

I’ve brewed this beer a handful of times in the past, each time making some slight iterations here and there. For this batch, I think the incorporation of wheat in the grain bill was a key factor, helping to smooth out and balance the darker malts for a better overall mouthfeel and texture. The combination of roasted malt and distinctive berry aroma is the clincher, in my opinion, enveloping you right away with its intoxicating perfume.

The objective commentary from the judges in both competitions was really valuable, the sole reason I enter these things in the first place. And interesting to get some insights into the beer that I frankly hadn’t even thought about going into things. For example, many thought the beer had some prominent coffee notes in the taste, which after sampling the stout again I definitely agree with. Also, a few felt the alcohol heat was just a tad on the high side…not distracting, but maybe too much for some tastes. I see what they’re saying, and I’m taking it into account for the next batch I brew.  

It’s just kind of nice when, despite your best efforts as a home brewer to inevitably screw something up, it all comes together.

Rating: A

Lots of homebrew fun this evening while I watched Monday Night Football.

I racked my spiced pumpkin oatmeal ale to secondary after a very vigorous and thorough primary. I used a healthy 1000 ml starter, and it fermented out pretty quickly, just about three days before it dropped to 1.012. Smelled awesome coming out of the fermenter, a subtle cinnamon, clove and nutmeg spicyness. And it tasted nice and caramel sweet. Really looking forward to it around Halloween.

I also racked my double IPA to secondary, and dry hopped with a half ounce of Simcoe and a few ounces of Willamette. Never tried this combo, and am curious to see how it comes through in the finished product. I’m hoping for a nice punch of pine from the Simcoe, hopefully balanced by the earthy woodiness of the Willamette.

The fermentation on this one, however, is what has me somewhat baffled. I brewed this about a month ago, and after fermentation began within 12 hours of pitching the yeast starter, it really never stopped…just a steady, even fermentation for a few weeks at about 68 degrees. While a relatively big beer at 1.080 OG, I’ve never personally seen an ale ferment this long (even my Let Me Out Imperial Stout finished earlier), and it had me a little concerned something was off in some way. I took a gravity reading the other day once it appeared the bubbles in the air lock were significantly slowing (once every five minutes or so), and it was close to the target FG of 1.015, so I let it sit for another couple days to clean up any remaining diacetyl that might be hanging around. Tasted about right coming out of primary, so I’m hopeful I’m just overly paranoid and things turn out well.

In total, I have five beers at various stages of fermentation, with my lambic experiment leading the way at a few months in the carboy. For that one, I’ll likely rack onto fruit early next year, letting the brettanomyces that’s already in there kickstart another fermentation. There’s a very thin white film of bubbles at the top of the beer, which I’m assuming is the krausen line, given how slow brett fermentation typically takes.

Next on the home brewing agenda is either a nice oatmeal stout, or possibly a coconut milk stout, inspired by Town Hall’s version I enjoyed just a few weeks ago on cask (and coincidentally Best Beer of the Fest at last weekend’s Autumn Brew Review).