The Session #61: What makes local beer better?

The Session, a.k.a. Beer Blogging Friday, is an opportunity once a month for beer bloggers from around the world to get together and write from their own unique perspective on a single topic. Each month, a different beer blogger hosts the Session, chooses a topic and creates a round-up listing all of the participants, along with a short pithy critique of each entry.


When I began to think about this month's topic I wasn't exactly sure where I was going with my thought pattern. The rise of the term "local" beer bothered me in the beginning.  I'm much more for education than I am for marketing buzz words.  I never really considered beer made down the street as "local" for a very long time. Malt comes from around the world, hops come mainly from the Pacific Northwest, Germany, and a big rise in hops from New Zealand.  Many yeast strains originate from the around the world as well.  The only really local thing was water, but then brewers would treat the water and add chemicals to it to make it taste like water from somewhere else.  I often wondered if I started a restaurant and brought in all my ingredients from all over the world and called myself "local" what kind of reaction that would make? It also bothered me that places that were telling me to support local and support their brand, but were selling their beer several states away.  What were you telling those people in those markets that were several states away?

That is what I use to think.  I now consider many beers and breweries local to me.  I'm not going to spell out what "local" means to me in terms of geography because I don't think it is a matter of geography, but a matter of community. Local to me means bringing about a sense of community and a sense of belonging.  An overall sense of something that I am part of, and something that makes the community I live in a better place. The craft beer non-sense around ultra limited one-offs, wait lists 300 deep for a new beer, tap takeovers, Ebay sales, and just other general ass-hattery is killing that sense of local-ism for me. That is part of the craft beer landscape now, but you can stay away from that and still enjoy what our great brewers have to offer.

When the importance of "who" you are drinking is more important than "what" you are drinking it is a dangerous tipping point for the craft beer community. That needs to change, and our beer community is how that will change.  How did I come to make this switch in my feelings about the term local though? Many important things I've been apart of in my life involved beer.  I've been at several brewpubs for rehearsal dinners, gatherings with my friends at bars and breweries, weekends away at beer festivals, good times and bad times happened to me with a beer in my hand. I've said goodbye to friends that were moving, met new friends that are now in my circle, and I said goodbye to someone for the last time before they left this earth over a pint of beer. I don't remember what I was drinking when those moments happened, but I damn sure remember the moment and the association with beer.  Places like the Broad Ripple Brew Pub, Brugge, Sun King tap room, Oaken Barrel, MacNiven's, Chatam Tap, and the Flat 12 tap room hold special meaning for me.  Not so much for the beer they have (even though I went there first because of it) but because they are part of my community.  I know the people that own them, and in some cases I've met their wives and children, and I'm happy to patron those places and support people I know.  Great beer is great beer, but I'm trying my best to never lose sight of what beer really is and that is a reason to be with friends and family and talk and experience life as it happens. You can find "local" beer anywhere in the country.  It can be found in places like the Schlafly Taproom, Founders Taproom, The Horsebrass Pub, Toronado, The Publican, The Old Fashioned in Madison Wisconsin, and any place where people come together for great beer and hang out with good people. That is what local beer is all about to me, and I hope I get to keep enjoying that sense of local and community for a very long time to come no matter where I happen to be in the world at the time.

Why does local beer matter?  It matters because of what it means and represents for an entire community of beer lovers, brewers, and the people that patron them.  Is local beer better?  I certainly think so.

Cheers!

Matt

The Session #58 - A Christmas Carol

Phil Hardy over at Beersay is the host of this month's session topic.


Here is was what was to be written about this month:

"The idea for me was based loosely around the visits of three ghosts to Ebenezer Scrooge, but relayed in a post about the beers of Christmas past, present and future.

What did you drink during Christmas holidays of old, have you plans for anything exciting this year and is there something you’d really like to do one day, perhaps when the kids have flown the nest?

Do you have your own interpretation, was Scrooge perhaps a beer geek?

Or maybe it’s all one day. What will you drink Christmas morning, Christmas afternoon and what will you top off the holiday with that evening?

Just a few examples there, but the idea was to keep the topic as open as possible to allow you free rein to write about a subject with

 a seasonal twist in whatever way the title grabs you." 

I was indeed visited by three ghosts and they showed me my craft beer adventure from the beginning to a very scary future if I don't change my ways. 

As I look back with the ghost of craft beer past I see an excited craft beer fan that has just been bitten by the craft beer bug, and I'm enjoying easily available beer like Sierra Nevada pale ale, Bell's Two-Hearted, Stone IPA, Goose Island IPA, Three Floyd's Alpha King, and a host of other beers that I would have just walked into the liquor store and purchased right off the shelf. I didn't really know about limited or rare beer releases, and in this case ignorance is total bliss. I look back fondly on this time because it was when I was the most excited about new craft beer and sharing it with anyone that would have a taste.  Every new beer I tried was like opening Pandora's box a little more because I had an untrained palate and every new flavor was welcomed and every new beer was a new experience.  This was my happiest time in my craft beer adventure, but then.....it happened. 

My ghost of Christmas present shows me hoarding a cellar full of rare beer that I went to great lengths to purchase online (no Ebay), trade for,  and travel great distances to obtain. The high of chasing rare beer is overshadowing why I started drinking craft beer in the first place.  I was looking for something with more flavor, and I was looking for the camaraderie that comes with one of the best social lubricants that Ninkasi ever gave to man. Looking at it from the outside I see a man that is ruining one of the great hobbies that he's ever had in his life.  He is taking beer far too seriously and getting caught up in the marketing machine and deliberate attempts to keep demand out in front of supply.  Focus on what you have available to you instead of what you cannot obtain.  It is a vicious cycle. I am beginning to understand that I don't want this for myself. 

The scariest moment is with the ghost of craft beer future. The scene is of me in a dark basement surrounded by hundreds of bottles of the rarest one offs ever produced.  Years of verticals in the making, ticket stubs, piles of receipts from traveling to other cities all lit up by the warm glow of the computer and me sitting behind it hitting the F5 key over and over trying to refresh the computer screen for the newest (and therefore the greatest) beer event that I need a ticket to enter or I'm trying to order a new beer online as soon as it goes up for sale.  I'm lonely.  I've got all of this beer around me, but I've got no one to drink it with, and when I do drink it with someone it turns into a pissing contest about who brought the rarest beer in existence.  This is chasing the craft beer dragon on a different level of sanity.  All I really see in the picture is a much fatter Gollum sitting around with his "precious".   

"He hates and loves the rare beer, as he hates and loves himself. He will never be rid of his need for it."  

I've learned from my ways, and I am going to go about my craft beer adventure is a much different fashion from here on out! I'm going to celebrate regular beer for the reasons it brought me to craft in the first place.  I'm going to make it more of a point to stop chasing rare beer, drink beer with my friends more often, and put my beer dollars toward beer I can obtain without a shit-show to obtain. 


Happy Holidays Everyone! 


Cheers!


Matt 

The Session #19 Deutsches Bier

This months session revolves around all things beer from Germany. It is hosted this month by Lootcorp, and is inspired since this month also starts the worlds largest gathering of beer drinkers at Oktoberfest in Munich.

I had a hard time trying to decide what exactly I wanted to write about. There are so many things things that Germany has given to the world of beer. Just off the top of my head I am thinking about the Reinheitsgebot, or the German purity law, which at one point was the oldest consumer protection law in existence. I am also thinking about how many varieties of beer the Germans make. Everything from Marzen, Eisbock, Pilsner, Roggenbier, Berliner weiss, Altbeir, Kolsch, weiss, and many more I can't think of right now. There are just so many to choose from, and without the Germans I honestly think that American craft beer or American beer culture wouldn't have really taken off. Many of our oldest beer institutions were started by German immigrants, and who knows what America's beer culture would look like without them. With so much to choose from I finally settled on writing about Rauchbier or smoke beer. It is also an inside joke with the HBG's because all of the new beer geeks really enjoy Rauchbiers, but the other members of the HBG's are not fans of the style. I am also a sucker for traditional brewing methods, and this style also fits right in line with that.

I have to imagine that before the age of massive kiln drying for malt a vast majority of beer probably had a slight smokey flavor (I am certainly no expert on this, and if anyone has any ideas of more reading material for this I would love to read it). The way I understand it is malt was either dried in the sun or over open fires that would impart a certain smokiness to the malt. It wasn't until the kiln was the major device for drying malt that this method all but died out. Rauchbier almost died out entirely. The German town of Bamberg though had several breweries that kept the tradition alive. The one that I am drinking as I finish writing this is Aecht Schlenkerla Urbock from Brauerei Heller-Trum. I am pretty sure that Schlenkerla is the most visible Rauchbier in the United States. They have been brewing this style of beer in Bamburg since the 1500's.

Rauchbier isn't for everyone, and I think is certainly an acquired taste. I wasn't a big fan of the style when I had my first offering, but I tried it again and the smokiness becomes more inviting just begging for you to take another drink. I think this beer really hit its stride for me when I paired it with BBQ ribs, and since then I enjoy Rauchbiers so much more when I pair them with food. The nose smells of smoked meat, and the flavor profile adds several kinds of smoke. I can distinctly taste several different kinds of smoke. I am reminded of campfire smoke when I was a kid, smoked sausage from my neighboors smoker, and the liquid smoke flavor from my homemade jerky. The beer underneath provides a malty chewy sweetness that compliments everything so nicely. It really does remind me of the taste and smell of smoked meat. That may not sound inviting, but with each drink I keep wanting more.

While certianly smoke beer isn't the crowning achievement of Germany's contribution to the beer world, but I am certainly very happy that the town of Bamberg is still producing beer that keeps this beer geek pretty happy.

Cheers!
Matt

The Session is a monthly event for the beer blogging community which was started by Stan Hieronymus at Appellation Beer. On the first Friday of each month, all participating bloggers write about a predetermined topic. Each month a different blog is chosen to host The Session, choose the topic, and post a roundup of all the responses received. For more info on The Session, check out the Brookston Beer Bulletin’s nice archive page.

Beer Blogging Friday: The Session #18 Happy Anniversary

I've been waiting for quite some time to write one of these editions of the "The Session." The session is when on the first Friday of every month beer bloggers, and beer fans alike, around the world write about the same topic. This is the the brain child of Stan Hieronymus, who is the author of Brew Like a Monk, and author of one of my favorite beer blogs: Appellation Beer.

This is the eighteenth installment of the session and the topic is "Happy Anniversary", and is hosted by The Barley Blog this month.

The special beer I've chosen to open up is a bottle of Older Viscosity from Port Brewing in San Marco, California. I chose this beer for several reasons. I traded for this beer with the intent I was going to drink it as close to my first daughter's birth as possible. As a first time father, and lover of all things beer I wanted something special, and this has been on my radar for quite some time, but that was five months ago.

Without going into much detail I never thought I would be a father. I thought it wasn't in the cards for me, but I was elated when I found out my wife and I would be having our first child. I had planned on some bottles of special beer for friends and family after she was born, but anyone that has had children knows how crazy things are right after the baby is born. This bottle though was just for me, and I am pretty happy actually that I didn't have this bottle of beer until now and not at her birth.

The Russian Imperial Stout is one of my favorite styles, and I tend to drink them when I am either in a thinking mood, it is the dead of winter, or just looking for a change of pace from everyday style beer, and I find them good those reasons. So many complex flavors, loads of malt character, and a beer that isn't for the faint of heart. I enjoyed this offering thinking about how much my life has changed for the better in the last five months.

The original point of why I chose this beer, and I will circle back to the theme of this month's session, is really just one of meditation. The past five months of my life have been the best, most challenging, and most rewarding of my life, and as I drink one of the best and most complex imperial stouts I've ever had, I am able to enjoy some moments of clarity and gratitude towards this wonderful gift I've been given. This beer was the just about the best thing I could have chosen for some personal reflection. I don't know how often I will be able to get this beer, but it is certainly worthy of a tradition of having this around my daughter's birthday every year, and that would certainly make a very happy day just a little better.

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us. -- Albert Schweitzer

Cheers!
Matt