Mission: Refrigerator Cleaning (…out of beer)

It takes a night like last night (Saturday night) to remind me that for all the pomp and circumstance of fancy beer dinners, for all the effort I put into the events I host, and for all of the frantic excitement of festivals, there’s still nothing like having a few friends over and cracking open a great bottle of beer, or two, or… fifty.

I got to join a lucky group of twelve beer enthusiasts at Jay Brooks’ house to ‘clean out his refrigerator(s)’.  Nope, we weren’t scouring the crisper with Formula 409 or scrubbing the ice cube trays – we were charged with depleting his overflowing stock of beer.  It’s a tough job, but hey, somebody’s got to do it. 

In all seriousness though, it was tough.  It was almost heartbreaking to devote just a few minutes to sipping a one-ounce pour of a ten-year old anniversary ale and then gamely keep moving on through dozens more beers.  And then there was the journalistic instinct that cropped up a couple times as I kept my list of the brews we tried.  I’d want to take notes, but found it near impossible to (A) keep differentiating between one I-could-die-happily-after-tasting-this beer and another, and (B) keep up with the pace of the bottles being passed round the table.  So many of the beers were once-in-a-lifetime beers, either because they were special one-time releases, the products of now-defunct brewers, carried into the US from halfway around the world, or the handiwork of the exceedingly stubborn Westvleteren monks (someone needs to feed them a little more of their own craftsmanship and then while they’re tipsy, trick them into agreeing to increase production volumes).

When I showed up, the group was milling around the kitchen eat some cheese & crackers (including the incredible Red Hawk from Cowgirl Creamery) and some chocolates that Pete had made by hand.  We waited a few minutes for the last few of the enlisted beer disposalists to show up, and then got down to work.

The Mission: Eliminate Jay’s excess stock of beers (and have a little fun and good beer talk along the way)

The Team:

• Captain – Jay Brooks, writer of The Brookston Beer Bulletin
• Brent Ainsworth, writer of the Brent on Beer column and weekend editor for the Marin Independent Journal
• Rob DeNunzio, writer of Pfiff!
• Peter Hoey, brewmaster at Sacramento Brewing Company
• Arrne Johnson, brewmaster at Marin Brewing Company
• Jessica Jones, that’s me!
• Sean Paxton, the Homebrew Chef
• Rick & Tracy Sellers, Rick writes and records podcasts for Pacific Brew News and is the beer director for Draft Magazine
• Pete & Amy Slosberg, Pete is one of the pioneers of the entire craft brewing renaissance – he’s the founder of Pete’s Wicked Ale (now owned by Gambrinus) and a chocolate company called Cocoa Pete’s

The Rules:

• When it’s your turn, roll the die. The color that comes up determines which kind of beer you can pick:
  • Red = lager or hybri
  • Blue = ale (except Belgians
  • White = anything Belgia
  • Yellow with a white star = Jay picks from the secret stash in a cooler bag at his side
• We’d pass the bottle, which could be any size from a 12oz to a 750mL around the table and everyone takes a small pour. At the rate we were tasting, 1oz of each seemed like plenty.
• Comment or take notes all you want, just don’t hold up the tasting by failing to notice when it’s your turn to roll or when the current bottle has stopped at you (I was a frequent violator of this last rule – there was just too much going on to keep track of it all!)

The beers we tasted are listed below, with minimal notes, due to my own desire to just kick back and enjoy:

1. Westvleteren 8 (Westvleteren, Belgium): Amy kicked us off to a fast start with a white star
2. Deschutes 19^th Anniversary Ale (2007, Bend, OR)
3. Eisenbahn Escura (Blumenau, Brazil)
4. Antares Porter (La Plata, Argentina)
5. Hair of the Dog Doggie Claws (2004, Portland, OR): my first favorite of the afternoon
6. Brasserie de la Senne Owa (Sint-Pieters-Leeuw, Belgium)
7. Fuller’s Anniversary Ale 2005 (London, UK)
8. New Glarus Organic Revolution (New Glarus, WI)
9. Ithaca Beer Co. Old Habit Strong Rye (Ithaca, NY): another early favorite
10. Rogue Batch #2 Skull Splitter Ale (Newport, OR)
11. Cantillon Organic Gueuze (Brussels, Belgium)
12. Waheke Brewery Wharf Road Wheat (Waiheke Island, New Zealand)
13. Stone 7^th Anniversary Strong Ale (2003, Escondido, CA)
14. Epic Lager (Manukau, New Zealand)
15. J.W. Lees Harvest Ale (2002, Manchester, UK): my absolute #1 favorite of the night, very maple-y
16. Croucher 2008 Commemorative Brewni (Rotorua, New Zealand)
17. Dogfish Head Red & White (Milton, DE)
18. Brasserie Des Franches-Montagnes Cuvee du 8ieme (Jura, Switzerland)
19. Castelain Blonde Biere de Garde (Benifontaine, France)
20. Sierra Nevada Bigfoot (1998, Chico, CA)
21. Harviestoun Ola Dubh 30 (Alva, Scotland)
22. Iron City Brewing Premium Lager (Pittsburgh, PA)
23. Fuller’s Vintage 1999 (London, UK)
24. Maui Coconut Porter (Lahaina, HI, in a can)
25. De Proef Zoetzuur (Lochristi-Hijfte, Belgium)
26. Brouweij Huyghe Floris Apple (Melle, Belgium): tasted like it should have been neon green
27. Green Flash Symposium (2008, Vista, CA)
28. Stone Symposium (2004, Escondido, CA
29. AleSmith Golden Strong (1999, San Diego, CA)
30. Mystery Beer no label

 At this point, it had been about two hours (3:00pm – 5:00pm) and we took a break for (what else?) sausages.  Then it was back to the grind…

1. Birra del Borgo Te (Borgorose, Italy)
2. Augustiner Weissbier (Munchen, Germany)
3. Ballast Point Double IPA (San Diego, CA)
4. Lost Abbey Veritas (San Marcos CA)
5. Cantillon Grand Cru Organic 2003 (Brussels, Belgium)
6. Drake’s Imperial Stout (San lLandro, CA)
7. Heavyweight Imperial Porter (Ocean Township, NJ)
8. Avery Fourteen (Boulder CO)
9. New Glarus Unplugged  Cherry Stout (New Glarus, WI): Loved it, up there in my tops of the night list
10. Sam Adams Ginger Honey Ale (Boston, MA)
11. De Graal  Tripel (Brakel Belgium)
12. Haines Captain Cook Spruce Beer (Haines, AK)
13. Siletz Spruce (Siletz, OR)
14. George Gale Prize Old Ale (1996, Hordean, UK)
15. Brasserie de Silenrieux Joseph Spelt Ale (Verfontaine-Silenrieux, Belgium)
16. Lagunitas Mehapouret Brau Bietzaro (Petaluma, CA)
17. Cloister Andechs Doppelbock (Andechs, Germany)
18. North Coast 10^th Anniversary (1998, Fort Bragg, CA)
19. Deschutes 20^th Anniversary Witbier (2008, Bend, OR)
20. Deschutes Black Butte XX (Bend, OR)
21. Sam Adams Millennium (1999 or earlier, Boston, MA) Jay had first opened this bottle of beer in 1999, drunk all but the last inch of it with friends, re-corked it and saved it over the last nine years, finally re-opening it for the first (and last) time with us.

Somewhere in the second half of this tasting, Sean brought out his culinary creation of the night: beer caviar.  He had made blinis topped with sour cream and little IPA tapioca balls.  They were light, subtle, and delicious.  The hop flavor didn’t hit you at first, but as the tapioca balls melted away in my mouth, all of a sudden the IPA bitterness swelled up in their place.  These were tasty and fun.

Mission completed? Well, fortunately/unfortunately (depending on how you look at it) we failed in our mission.  Of the four coolers full of beer when we began, each was probably still about half full when we left.  I smell a ‘Mission Refrigerator Cleaning II’ in the future… but, given the age of some of these beers we drank, the next one may not be for another eight years or so. 

Belgian-plus beer dinner at Millennium

I’ve been carrying the Millennium beer dinner around in my purse for almost a week now, so it’s high time I write it up.  I realized exactly how incredible a job Eric (the chef) had done in picking beers for the dinner when I tried to list my favorites for a friend, and ended up naming four of the six beers. 

For those who haven’t seen my last write-up on Millennium, it is an upscale vegan restaurant based in the Hotel California (since writing that last line, the Eagles have started playing on repeat in my head).  But, as tonight proved once again, they really ought to be known as an all-around amazing restaurant, for vegans or otherwise, that just so happens not to use animal products in their food. 

So, I was excited for the dinner given my prior dining experience at Millennium, the enthusiasm that Eric and Erica (the General Manager) show for beer, and because this was to be a debut of sorts for The Thirsty Hopster.  Generally, when I have attended beer dinners, it’s been as an eager diner.  This time, I was still an eager diner of course, but I was also invited to ‘provide local commentary’ along with a few other ‘panelists’ of sorts.  The other panelists switched up a bit the day of the event as they were supposed to include Tim Selvera from Bar Crudo and Vinnie Cilurzo (to introduce the Russian River beers on the menu).  Tim had gotten the flu and Vinnie ended up get stuck at the brewery, which I have enough conflicted feeling about to write a whole blog post in itself.  On one hand, I was devastated because getting to sit across the table from Vinnie at Millennium was going to be an experience for me equivalent to an avid politico getting to sit down for dinner with the president, or a U2 fan getting to eat with Bono, or a foodie sitting down for dinner with Thomas Keller.  So, yeah, I disappointed by this news. 

On the other hand, I have to admit that I was both a little relieved (I had a fair bit of anxiety about discussing Russian River beers with their creator) and completely excited when I saw who Tim & Vinnie were replaced by: Christmas from Russian River, and Nicole from The Trappist.  This was the first time I’ve been to a beer event where, not only were 50+% of the attendees female, but 100% of the ‘commentators’ female, and young women to boot.  Way to go, women of beer!  It got me thinking that it would be useful it will be to have some sort of career development society for women interested in the beer industry.  We’ve got the Pink Boots Society, but they’re brand new and I’m not sure how often they intend to meet, and whether it will be a strictly professional group, or also a social group.  I just hope they grow and develop quickly because it would be great to be able to have role models, or even just a single role model, of my own sex.  Nothing wrong with looking up to the big boys, but it gets significantly harder to imagine myself stepping into their shoes one day when I’ve never personally met a woman who’s been able to do that. 

In any case, Christmas and I sat at the far end of the table, and I slowly realized that I’ve just about followed her from job to job, as her prior position, pre-Russian River, was at Father’s Office in Santa Monica.  This is one of my favorite places to eat or drink in LA, despite the velvet roped wait for a hamburger (oh, so LA).  My favorite story of the night was when Christmas told us about the time during which she kept their water tap handle labeled “Koors” and would serve it up on requests for macrobrew, until of course, she was required to take it down for fear of lawsuits. 

As we talked, the courses started arriving, one tasty bite after another:

• Trumpet mushroom ceviche with coconut milk, chiles, aromatics, and little gem lettuce
• Russian River Little White Lie (witbier)

• Cornmeal crusted squash blossom with herbed tofu ‘cheese’, roasted corn salad, saffron scented squash coulis, and New Mexican chile emulsion
• Lost Abbey Red Barn Farmhouse Ale (saison)

• Apricot and caramelized onion flatbread with purslane salad, cashew ranch dressing, white beer battered blue lake green beans, and basil aioli
• Russian River Beatification (gueuze)

• Butter ball potato stoemp cake with seared porcini mushrooms, wilted bloomsdale spinach, smoked dried cherries, and a Supplication reduction
• Russian River Supplication (Belgian-style sour similar to a Flanders red or oud bruin)

• Beer braised morel and exotic mushrooms with Collaboration broth, grilled broccoli rabe, and gigante beans
• Avery & Russian River Collaboration Not Litigation Ale (A blend of a golden strong Belgian-style ale, and a dark strong Belgian-style ale)

• Summer cherry napoleon with bourbon glazed cherries, coconut vanilla bean ‘ice cream’, toasted coconut tuile, and black pepper-marionberry coulis
• Avery Samael’s (old ale/English strong ale)

I prepared some materials on the styles represented here to give the diners, especially the new beer drinkers, some context about what it was they were sipping. 

There’s a lot to love on this menu.  My favorites from the food were the cornmeal crusted squash blossom and the apricot and onion flatbread.  The squash blossom was crunchy on the outside and soft and rich on the inside, putting aside any doubt I had about whether ‘cheese’ could ever stand up to cheese.  The flatbread was sweet and tart, a perfect pairing for the super-tart gueuze that was served alongside it.

Of the beers, I loved the Red Barn (on of two favorites from the saison tasting), the Beatification (which I acquired a new respect for at this dinner), the Supplication (my all-time favorite from Russian River), and the Samael’s (definitely a night-ender, but oh so good). 

Samael’s was the only one that was new to me on the menu.  It’s an oak-aged English-style strong ale, meaning that it is dark, rich, and highly alcoholic (14.5% ABV).  It could easily replace brandy or cognac as an after dinner digestif.  The aroma was magnificent, carrying many of the same notes apparent in the taste, and I just sat there cupping it in my hands for several seconds breathing it all in.  My first thought on tasting it was oak (vanilla, woodiness, slight mustiness), but the more I sipped it, the less I tasted the oak and the more I tasted tropical fruits.  It was a very different fruit flavor from the fruits conjured by Belgian esters, which often taste like bananas, apples, pears, or citrus.  As I was trying to put my finger on what kind of ‘different’ fruit it was, strawberry came to mind first for its sweetness.  However, this was actually a quite a bit more lush and less tart a flavor than strawberries, and I eventually settled on tropical fruits more generally and papaya specifically.  Papayas have a muskiness and a lack of tartness, that I think fit this flavor well. 

Talking to other people around the room, it was clear that while there were definitely some other beer geeks there, there were also a fair number of vegetarians and other Millennium regulars who had come for the food, not necessarily the beer.  I loved this because it meant our numbers are expanding slowly but surely as we win over all the different foodie niches.  Long live beer!

World Beer Dinner at Bar Crudo

Bar Crudo is back with the next of their near-monthly beer dinners, and they have a fantastic theme this time: World Beers.

When thinking about great brewing nations, the places that usually come to mind (my mind at least) are Germany, Belgium, England and the US.  Outside of those big four, things start to go downhill fast in terms of quantity or quality or both.  There’s a limited selection of macro-brews from Italy (Moretti, anyone?), ‘tropical’ lagers from Mexico (you realize quickly why everyone adds a lime & salt to their Coronas), and the Japanese big four (Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo, Suntory).  Yes, yes, there’s a diamond in the rough here and there from these countries and others, but until recently beer, good beer, wasn’t really a global phenomenon.

Luckily, beerophilia is on the move, and it’s picked up Japan, Mediterranean Europe, Scandinavia, and parts of Latin America on its way.  The best part of this trend is not just the availability of great beer in new locales, but the way these countries have shaped brewing innovation to create new styles and new riffs on old styles (for more, see my recent post on Red Rice Ale from Kiuchi Brewery, based in Japan).

Tim Selvera from Bar Crudo is highlighting these new brews in a World Beer Dinner.  In his own words:

Our last two beer dinners were a success in discovering American Extreme Ales, and how they pair with food. We will be taking this beer dinner a step further, and focusing on how craft brew is emerging in other countries. With America, and Belgium firmly leading the way in discovering new styles they have also influenced countries like Japan, Brazil, France, Italy, and Sweden. These countries are creating some special ales and lagers that are surpassing the normal standards for brewing. Our June Dinner will present unique world ales matched with a seasonal and local ingredient seafood menu. Hope to see you there!

The dinner will be this Sunday, June 29, from 6:00pm – 9:00pm, and it will include 5 courses, each paired with a unique ‘world ale’.  Tickets are $75 and can be purchased by e-mailing Tim at tim@barcrudo.com, or calling the restaurant directly at 415-517-3768.  Tim’s last beer dinner was absolutely amazing, so I recommend this one to anyone who can make it. 

The eagle-eyes among you might notice that this overlaps my own ‘Un-ordinary IPA’ Tasting this Sunday from 4:00pm – 7:00pm.  Either one would be a great choice, and if you plan to attend both, just (A) let me know when you RSVP to my tasting, and (B) tell me when you plan to take off from my tasting to head to Bar Crudo and we can work something out. 

New Belgium Night at Toronado

Following last week’s Drake’s tasting, it seems like Toronado is on a roll.  They’ve been running special tastings almost weekly.  

This week, it’s New Belgium, and they are bringing their special release Belgian-style beers.  This is especially exciting given that these beers are especially hard to find anywhere in California.

The line-up

Descriptions from New Belgium materials

• Abbey Dubbel: “Complex, sweet with some chocolate and banana aromas and flavors. A full bodied, warming traditional Belgian Style Dubbel.”
• Tripel: “Phenolic clove and spice aromas are followed by a creamy mouthfeel and some noble hop character. Alcohol is evident in the palate, finishes bittersweet and spicy.”
• Eric’s Ale: “This Peche, or Peach beer, started as an ale aged in 130 hL wooden vessels called Foedres for 3 years. It was then transferred and real peaches were added. A second Strong Golden Ale was brewed and blended back into the sour ale. Subtle peach, tropical fruit and tart aromas in the nose, plus some vanilla and oak. The flavor is a balance of sweet and sour. A drinkable and refreshing sour beer hybrid.”
• Love #34: “A single batch from a 60 gallon wood barrel. Not usually kegged as it is used as the starter for all of New Belgium’s wood beers. Started as a brown ale brewed with cherries (no longer produced), barrel aged for 3 years, giving this specific barrel a unique blend of bacteria and yeast, which make the final product a manifestation of New Belgium’s unique specialty styles.”
• Foedre #3: “The base beer for the Le Terroir, hand selected by Dave Keene at the brewery and kegged for him alone. We can’t describe it yet because it has never been tasted outside of the NBB facility.”

This is just one more example of those conundrums I find myself running into with increasing frequency: Attend to my already scheduled business and personal commitments…or go drink beer?  I’m supposed to be showing my apartment to prospective sub-letters from 7:30pm to 9:00pm.  Since the beer event starts at 6:00pm, this should work out just fine, so long as I continue my current trend of leaving my day job pre-6:00pm.  Let’s just hope my casework decides to cooperate with these plans. 

4th Monthly Beer Tasting Event: Un-Ordinary IPAs

I know details on this month’s tasting event have been a long time coming, but here they are:

I hold themed beer tastings once a month at my apartment.  So far, we’ve done a “Beer: 101″ course, covering one or two beers in each of about 10 different styles, a Belgian sour ale tasting, and a saison + biere de garde tasting.   

The tastings generally cover about 8 – 10 beers.  No one is expected or encouraged to drink a full bottle of each beer, usually to we try to work it out so that everyone gets about a 4 oz pour of each beer, and so that there’s some left over for those who want seconds of a particular beer.      

This event will be a tasting of IPAs, which are a British style of beer that has been adopted and pushed to new limits by American brewers.  They are notable for their use of lots of hops, which can give them, depending on the amount and variety of hops, a powerful citrusy or piney or herbal aroma, and a crisp bitter taste.  This tasting will focus on unique variants on traditional IPAs.  That said, we’ll start with a traditional British IPA and a traditional American IPA just to ground everyone in what ‘normal’ is.  From there, we’ll move into Imperial IPAs, rye IPAs, fresh-hop IPAs, single-hop IPAs, black IPAs, and other innovations.  I will post a list of the potential beers to be served mid-week. 

The tasting will be 4:00pm – 7:00pm on Sunday, June 29th.  This is a new time for the tastings, which are usually run on Friday or Saturday later in the evening, but I wanted to give something new a try.  It is fine to come late or leave early, but you may miss some of the beers if you do. 

The tasting will be at my apartment in San Francisco.  I’ll send out the address to those who RSVP.  If it is sunny, we may move the tasting over to Duboce Park, and if so, I will give attendees plenty of notice. 

The tasting will cost $15, which I charge to cover the cost of the beer.  I make no profit on these events – I just like having an excuse to open ten different types of good beer in one night.

To secure a ticket, you must pay in advance by PayPal, cash, or check.  Once you have emailed me to let me know you’d like to attend, I will email you back ASAP to let you know whether there is still space for you.  If so, please pay for your ticket to confirm your spot.  If I do not receive payment, I can’t hold your spot.  I’m sorry I have to add this policy to these tastings, but after a few late cancellations last time from people who hadn’t paid, it has become necessary.  If you buy a ticket and then cancel later, I will refund you your money if I find a replacement attendee to take your spot.  

The tasting is limited to 15 people because that is all that my apartment can fit.  We’ve learned this the hard way in the past and 15 is the absolute maximum I can do without having people sitting on the floor.  I’m really going to stick to 15 this time around.  Please RSVP fast if you are interested, since I will only be running one session this time, so spots will run out quickly. 

You are welcome and encouraged to bring other people as long as you RSVP them.  One of the great things about these events is that often people bring friends, roommates, significant others, etc., so we all get to meet new people.   

Please RSVP by emailing thethirstyhopster@gmail.com.  Hope to see you there!

- JJ