Tasting Weekend

Bronx and Manhattan, NY

A couple weekends ago I tried a bunch of new beers for me. I started off with Monk's Blood from 21st Amendment and Old Foghorn from Anchor Brewing. Having heard so much about Monk's Blood and about the recent revival of interest in canned beers I made a trip to New Beer Distributor on Chystie St. I enjoyed the packaging which tells a fun tale of a couple of monks. The beer itself is pretty good although I wish that the $9.75 price tag was for six instead of four. It was a little boozy which I don't usually like but it was good this time. The dominant flavor was the malty sweetness and you can definitely taste the vanilla.

Old Foghorn begins my renewed interest in barleywines. I had not had one in over a year and picked this one up for a reasonable $2.90 at New Beer. It was not as big as I remember Barleywines being. The ABV was 8.2% and the hop character was not as pronounced. The only drawback was the particulate matter that came through surprisingly early in the pour. I definitely recommend it for those of you interested in trying out barleywines.

Saturday I followed up with Full Moon barleywine at Heartland Brewery's South Street Sea Port location. This had a more pronounced citrus hop flavor but again not as big as I remember barleywines. After the barleywine we couldn't help ourselves and went for Farmer Jon Oatmeal Stout (I think it is the best thing they have at heartland). Our waitress was kind enough to also give us a tasty sample of the honey porter. The stout was great and really got me excited for oatmeal stout night at Bar Great Harry's in Brooklyn on Tuesday. We finished off the night at Zum Schneider on Avenue C and Seventh Street with a Hacker Pschorr Dunkel.

-Giancarlo

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Rogue Night at The Long Room

Manhattan, NY-

Thursday March 26 was Rogue Night at The Long Room on 44th Street between Broadway and Sixth Avenue. I found out about the event on beeradvocate.com where the event was incorrectly advertised as featuring 15 different beers from Rogue. In fact, there were only five different beers available. After this initial disappointment the night was quite enjoyable. The Long Room is, as the name suggests, a long room and has comfortable seating with several booths in the back. The prices were not bad considering the location. The Rogue beers were going for $7 a pint or $8 for a flight of four 4-ounce beers. Most beers on the menu ranged from $6.50 to $10. I'm glad that we ate dinner before going since the food was expensive.

My friend Matt and I decided to start with a flight of Rogue. We both chose to have the Hazelnut Brown Nectar, Mogul Madness ale, Yellow Snow IPA, and Juniper Pale ale. Neither of us enjoyed the Juniper Pale ale; I was bothered by the spiciness of the juniper flavor which I thought was a bit overbearing. Although I am not a huge fan of IPAs, I thought the Yellow Snow was a pretty good example of the style. We both enjoyed the Mogul Madness and Hazelnut Brown Nectar. The Hazelnut Brown Nectar stood out for its smooth hazelnut flavor, which was well-balanced by the background malt flavors. We were surprised and skeptical by the claim that Mogul Madness had an aftertaste that lasted 15 seconds but the beer had robust malt character and full-mouth feel.

-Giancarlo

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Brew Day: Brooklyn Brew Shop Black and Tan

Bronx, NY-

Last month Sarah and I took a trip to the Brooklyn Flea to pick up a black and tan kit from the Brooklyn Brew Shop. The kit included equipment (two one-gallon jugs, two airlocks, two rubber stoppers, two blow-off attachments, one thermometer, plastic tubing, a racking cane, sanitizer and a pouring spoon) to have both brews fermenting at the same time and the ingredients for both and cost $70. I recommend bringing a couple of your homebrews if you have them, we got a $5 discount for bringing two of ours. On Sunday we finally got around to brewing the beer.

The kit is as advertised: only a small space commitment. For homebrewers who have limited storage space, the kit is perfect (currently our beer is fermenting under my desk). I personally like the kit for the added reason that I could fit it in my refrigerator. (Sarah and I have been wanting to brew a schwarzbier for some time but we have no way to refrigerate a five-gallon bucket). Brooklyn Brew Shop provides a limited number of recipe kits. They provide milled grain, hops and yeast for each brew. Most are priced between $11-15 (the recipe kits at the Whole Foods Beer Room on Bowery are $11). After the initial expense of approximately $40 for the first batch you are looking at about $1-1.50 per beer. For those of us who are not yet comfortable creating our own recipes it is a nice way to make sure that you can make some decent beer. Another great thing about the kits is that because of their size, if you are experimenting with recipes and you mess one up you only lose one gallon of beer, not five.

The directions provided are decent and give you the basics for setting up your lauter tun. Ours left something to be desired. My original plan was to go to the Arthur Avenue Market, where you can get all kinds of kitchen supplies, and get a brew pot that I could find a matching strainer for. Unfortunately the market was closed and I was forced to get the supplies from assorted stores in our neighborhood, which meant that none of the materials were exactly the correct size for each other. The largest strainer I could find was ten inches, smaller than our brew pot, and could barely hold the grain for the extra special bitter. A few grains slipped through into the wort and I had to fish them out but in the end the setup worked and we were able to get a full gallon from each. For more information on kits, recipes and directions, visit Brooklynbrewshop.com

-Giancarlo

I appreciate the size and appearance of the Brooklyn Brew Shop kits, especially when compared to the five-gallon buckets I'm used to seeing homebrews fermenting in. The jugs fit on our small kitchen counter and brewing wasn't a huge mess. Plus, when they're empty, they're not an eyesore or a pain to store. It's nice to brew in our apartment for a change.

-Sarah

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Review of Monk's Cafe Flemish Red Ale

I've chosen to review Monk's Cafe, a Flanders red ale. This beer is brewed by Brouwerij Van Steenberge NV in Ertvelde, Belgium. I purchased this bottle from Publick House Provisions on Beacon St. in Brookline, MA. Flanders red ale is usually characterized by having a moderate to intense sour flavor, imparted by inoculating the beer with bacteria after fermentation is complete. The souring process takes 6 months to 1 year or longer. The most prominent example of a Flanders red that is available in the United States in Rodenbach. However, Rodenbach recently has been increasingly harder to find in my area due to a distribution change. I've since been on a mission to find decent Flanders red ales to fill the hole Rodenbach has left.

I've found that Monk's Cafe in particular has stood out as a great example of the style, and it's a damn fine beer to drink. Like Rodenbach, Monk's Cafe is a blend of "young and old beers." The regular Rodenbach that most people know and love is actually a blend of very sour older beers with younger, less sour ales. My only guess is that the sourness is hard to precisely control and a consistent, mildly sour product can only be achieved by blending.

It's hard to tell from my photo, but I promise that Monk's Cafe is actually red. It pours a deep reddish brown with a slight haze. A frothy light tan head dissipates into the beer and a ring of bubbles remains, clinging and creeping up the sides of the glass.

It smells bright and sweet, like like freshly sliced Granny Smith apples. Notes of other fruit juices, including grapes and pears, are present. There is a faint sugary caramel smell, but it is generally an underlying aroma. There is no hop aroma.

The first sip is makes quite the impression and really sets the tone for what this beer is all about. When it first enters your mouth it is both tart and sweet and the body is very light. Imagine biting into that aforementioned freshly sliced apple, but with some caramel on it. It's tart - that is the foremost and obvious flavor. It's not sour enough to make you pucker, but it is still prominent. I think the underlying actual beer is very simple. If one were to taste this beer before the souring process, I would imagine a very dry, light-bodied ale, with toffee malt flavors and low hop bitterness - like an underhopped pale ale. It is hard to detect these flavors under the sourness, but I'm convinced that they are there. Swallowing unveils some totally different flavors. When it reaches the back of your tongue it begins to taste slightly acidic and metallic, like putting a penny in your mouth. It leaves your mouth a bit sticky - like you just polished off a bag of sour patch kids. This is curious because when then beer initially enters your mouth it tastes crisp, fresh and light bodied.

Overall Monk's Cafe is a quenching and refreshing Flanders Red. I love to toss it in and switch it up at the bar after a flight of hoppy IPAs or roasty stouts. Sometimes something totally different like this resets the palate. Perfect paired with a bowl of carbonade flamande, or by itself, Monk's Cafe is a beer that I will continue to choose when I'm feeling funky.

-Mike

Book Review: Beer School

Bronx, NY-

You might be disappointed reading Steve Hindy and Tom Potter's Beer School if you think you're getting a lesson in actual brewing. You will not be disappointed if you're interested in learning about the actual business behind the craft beer you drink. Hindy and Potter combine to give straightforward advice to those of you out there looking to create a business of similar size and scope. This advice ranges from partner relationships to employee morale and marketing techniques. Perhaps because I read the book so soon after viewing the movie Beer Wars, the distribution struggles and successes were particularly interesting.

The book also gives the reader a distinctly "New York" perspective on recent craft beer history. I doubt very much that many breweries had to specifically prepare for mafia-related issues when starting their businesses. Not only did the brewery need to plan for the mafia when seeking investors but it was actually paid a visit by mafia members during the building of its location in Williamsburg. In such a large market, Brooklyn Brewery had to contend with especially strong efforts from the large brewers to keep them out of New York (out-bidding them to supply beer to events, etc.). Beyond the lessons learned selling their own beer, Hindy and Potter relate what they learned from other brewers and attempts to expand into the New York market through their distribution business. I was amazed to hear of how many breweries and brew pubs were forced to close because of reasons related to attempts to expand.

Each chapter was written by either Steve Hindy or Tom Potter with a response from the other. The writing itself, especially that of Steve Hindy, is quick and fun to read. His backround as a journalist is apparent. The pair's willingness to share many of the issues that they had with each other gives you the sense that they are being honest with the reader.

Beer School is a fun read for those interested in the development of the craft beer industry in New York City and offers many lessons for entrepreneurs. It's worth the read.

-Giancarlo

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On to Bath

From time to time, BeerUnion will post submissions from traveling correspondent Katie Thombs. Here's one from Bath:

Bath, although rather small in comparison to many of our other destinations, had much to offer a beer lover. From Marston's Sweet Chariot (smooth with a slight sweetness that is kept in check), to the Bellringer (a Bath ale with a delicious bite), all tastes can be satisfied. A pub that is most definitely a must is the Olde Green Tree. The various cozy rooms with plenty of tables and benches makes it an ideal location to gather for a pint with friends or even just chat with the locals. Here you should try the Exmoor Gold, a nice golden ale that isn't too heavy but does lave a slight bitterness after a few sips. The Olde Green Tree Ale was a wonderfully refreshing light ale with tons of balanced hoppy flavor and easily drinkable in large quantities.

-Katie

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Pantyhose Stout

Brighton, MA-

I hadn't homebrewed a beer in a few weeks, and I was really thirsty, so I needed a quick-fix brew. I grabbed the ingredients for a Guinness-stlye dry stout at my LHBS store. This was a really simple extract recipe - some liquid malt extract, 2 lbs flaked barley, 1 lb roasted barley and 1 2oz addition of Goldings. I thought that I could bang it out in a few hours because it was a weeknight and I had to arise in the morning to work to fund future brews.

After I arrived home, I was eager to get brewing, but I realized I had made a fatal error that was sure to put a damper on my booze production. I hadn't made an extract beer in months and seemingly forgot how to do it. I had 3 lbs of steeping grains but nothing to steep it in! I had forgot my "muslin bag", "nylon sack", or "sock"- what have you. I was feeling extra resourceful and sprinted down to CVS to purchase pantyhose. I have never purchased pantyhose in my life (I was a hosenvirgin). With dry stout on the mind the last thing I wanted was to be confronted with 20 different styles, colors, and fish or un-fishnetted ladies legwear. I selected one from many egg shaped vessels (six bucks!?) and hurried giddily back to my apartment to fill my newly-purchased very long socks with not a leg, but roasted barley.

I cut one limb from the pair and filled it with the steeping grains. I chuckled as I tied off my luscious leg-o-grain. I heated my water to a perfect 155˚F and let her go! Usually you only need to steep for about 30 min. That should be enough time for most of the flavor and color to be extracted from the grain and find its way into your brew. Thirty minutes later, I returned to my brewpot expecting to find it black as night, but to my dismay the water was barely brown. I could see the bottom of the pot, a shameful beer no one would call a Guinness.

I ran back to my recipe book, flipping through to the page. Maybe I had made a copying error? Nope, 1 lb roasted barley. That amount of roasted malt plus 5 gallons of water should be squid ink. I was perplexed. I then happened to glance at the scissors and what was once a fine set of gams lying on the counter. Curses! The pantyhose! I determined that the pantyhose was so tight, that my black roasted barley was compacted in the leg and was not allowing my brew water to flow freely through it. A normal steeping bag is loose and free, allowing maximum grain contact with the water. Essentially only a fraction of my grain was being steeped. I dunked and squeezed the leg (which should be usually avoided, due to tannin extraction), trying not to burn myself, and watched precious black gold ooze from the sides into my would-be wort.

Thirty more minutes passed of me periodically squeezing and dunking and I had had enough. The water was still brown. I came to the realization that I would not make a stout that day. The water was a bit darker than before, but probably only as brown as an English brown ale. I thought that I could end up with a bitter or something, so I boiled the malt extract and hops, followed by pitching US-05 yeast.

I tasted it a few weeks later and boy was it was boring. None of the coffee-like bitterness from the roasted barley was there like it should have been. It had some of the proper body, probably due to the flaked barley and it fermented clean, but I was not excited about it. I have a newly instated rule; if I can't muster up the excitement and energy to bottle my beer in 4 weeks, it probably isn't very good. The fourth week of it sitting in the carboy, I was still disappointed. I was still thirsty and the only beer on the horizon was a bastard of a brew - it had no known beer style to identify with. Some people may say that I had discovered something new. St. James' Gate may want to hear about my new style! I disagree. If you set out to make something you know and love but terribly miss your mark, you haven't discovered something new. You haven't breached the edge of beer knowledge, but only maybe learned what not to do.

In the end, somewhere in that fourth week I was still craving dry stout and travelled back to my homebrew supply store to buy the same ingredients again, but this time - all grain! I knew that I could have tried an extract stout sans pantyhose, but I had the time to fit in an all grain brew, so I did. Not to mention I love working with the English Pale malt "Maris Otter", which is very hard to find in extract form. This past Sunday I worked for 5 hours to actually produce wort black enough to be called "stout". If anything is to be learned from this it is to prepared for your brew day, and pantyhose may make women's legs beautiful, sleek and sexy, but will not do the same for your beer. Lederhosen is the only brew-hosen I now approve of.

-Mike

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The Galway Hooker

From time to time, BeerUnion will post submissions from traveling correspondent Katie Thombs. Here's one from Galway:

At our next stop in Galway, the beautiful place and its pubs was truly a wonderful sight to behold. Although Jess and I did hit a number of pubs, the Tig Coili was most definitely the highlight. Here among tons of locals and fantastic live Irish tunes, I experienced Galway Hooker. This Irish pale ale was gloriously hoppy with a refreshing clean aftertaste. A perfectly wonderful alternative for those who don't have my same love of Guiness or Murpy's stout.

-Katie

Dublin Pub Crawl

From time to time, BeerUnion will post submissions from traveling correspondent Katie Thombs. Here's one from Dublin:

The first half of my three week holiday was spent in Dublin. This location begs to be pub crawled - something my fried Jess and I were more than happy to do. We began with MJ O'Neills, and all I have to say is that it is the best place for anyone to begin. The atmosphere is definitely old Irish: full of nooks and crannies to lose yourself in while enjoying several pints. They had a rather wonderful selection on tap for us to choose from. We contented ourselves with a Blarney's Blonde and a Rebel Red. The Blonde was a crisp, refreshingly hoppy beer with a pleasing finish, while the Red was a delightful burst of delicious flavors that lingers on the tongue while not leaving a very bitter taste.

Another memorable pub was the Porterhouse. This was one of few pubs that was an actual brewery. We got a sampling of six: three lagers and three stouts. Among the stouts there was the Plain Porter (my favorite and very nice in both coloring and flavor), the Oyster Stout (not too heavy with an almost sweetness to it), and the Wrassler's XXXX (had a slight smoky flavor with a bitter finish). As for the lagers, there was the Temple Brew (Jess's favorite with a nice clean taste that had a delicious hoppy finish), the Chiller (which was very light but also had a bitter finish that made me unsure about whether I actually enjoyed it or not), and the Hersbrucker Pilsner (this was a nicely balanced beer where the flavors left your mouth wanting more).

Naturally being in Dublin, we took ourselves over to St. James Gate for a tour of the Guiness Storehouse and a pint. The Tour itself is fascinating, as it allows even those not familiar with the brewing process to fully appreciate Guiness. At the end of our tour we were taught the proper way to pour a pint of Guiness and I can proudly way that I am now qualified to do just that. Guiness in Ireland is most assuredly the best! The richness of it as the flavors explode in your mouth make having your first pint here an unforgettable experience and consequently ruins you for Guiness anywhere else. Stay tuned for the Galway pub crawl...

-Katie.