Beer of the Month: Hops of Wrath from Dust Bowl Brewing

The Beer is of the Month is Hops of Wrath from Dust Bowl Brewing.   I've enjoyed a few over the past three years while visiting my kids since the time my ex-wife took the kids to Modesto.

When that happened, I wanted to hate Modesto. Before then, I lived on the San Francisco Peninsula and the kids were only a short five minute drive away. When I started seeking ways to spend additional time with my kids, my ex-wife resisted, so I started pursuing legal channels.   Shortly thereafter, my ex-wife announced her husband just got a job near Modesto and she was taking the kids with her.  That seemed too much of a coincidence to me.  It is not wise to discuss these things in great detail on blogs but let's just say things got pretty messy and some lawyers made good money over the deal.  In the end, an independent arbitrator allowed my ex-wife to take the kids to Modesto, but also allowed me to spend more time with them.

Part of that additional time was spending Wednesday evening in Modesto with my kids. Having never been there before, I figured Modesto was some dusty Central Valley town out in the middle of nowhere.  And indeed, I discovered Modesto to be this dusty Central Valley town out in the middle of nowhere.  But somehow, the place grew on me.  Modesto has this unassuming humbleness and unstated pride in its normalcy, an exotic ordinariness few places posses. Everyone seems to like being in Modesto a lot more than they have any reason to.

Or maybe Modesto simply represents an important time and place where festering family discord finally healed and the kids and I had some great times.   Helping my kids with their homework in Modesto's library, going on a stroll with them through Scenic Oaks Park, and taking the kids bowling at McHenry Bowl are some of the many great memories I'll take away from Modesto. Sometimes when we'd go out to dinner, I'd enjoy a Pint of Hops of Wrath.  A couple times we even made it to Dust Bowl Brewing's brew pub just down the road in Turlock.

When people talk about the great California IPA's, Hops of Wrath usually isn't in the discussion.  It ought to be, standing up to the best California IPA's from far sexier places like San Francisco, Santa Rosa or San Diego.  Its hop flavors are sharp, clear, and very directed with lots of pine and grapefruit peel character.   It's a pretty dry IPA with a little caramel malt to round out the flavors, resulting in a rather unbalanced IPA, which in this case is a very good thing.  More than a beer, Hops of Wrath represents the fact that good things happen in unlikely places.

My ex-wife and I get along a lot better these days and she just moved back into the Bay Area to San Rafael.  My kids are closer now so I'm pretty happy about this, but it means I won't be going to Modesto anymore.  I'm going to miss that place.


PS - I won't be going to Modesto but maybe I won't have to get Hops of Wrath.  Dust Bowl Brewing recently announced a major brewery expansion.  Here's hoping Hops of Wrath and some of the other excellent Dust Bowl brews start showing up in the Bay Area.

The Modesto Arch.

Beer of the Month: Hop Cuvee from Bison Brewing

For an article on organic beer in the upcoming issue of Adventure Sports Journal, I did a fair amount of "research" by sampling a bunch of organic brews. One that clearly stood out was bison Bison Brewing's Hop Cuvee.

It's a beer that couldn't possibility exist a couple years, at least in organic form.  It's brewed with organic Citra and Simcoe hops which have only been certified organic in the last couple years. Centennial hops and a couple other hop varieties are also added into the mix.  The light malt and dry character allow the hops to shine in all their grapefruity and piney character.  If you ask me, Hop Cuvee stands up with the best of the West Coast IPAs.

There was a time only a few years ago that organic beers were rather limited in scope, often found only in styles such as ambers or stouts.  This was largely due to the fact that organic hops were hard to come by, and often had to be imported from New Zealand or England.  The development of a nascent organic hop industry in the Pacific Northwest has changed that. Bison Brewing owner Daniel Del Grange has been a part of that change, organizing organic brewers all over the United States over the past decade to show hop growers the full demand for organic hops. Hop growers have responded, increasing their organic acreage and certifying new popular hop varieties such as Citra, Cascade and Simcoe.  The result is that organic brewers can can create a much broader spectrum of flavors than ever before.

That's a good thing because drinking organic takes a lot of chemicals out of our ecosystem that would be otherwise used to produce non-organic beer.  According to Bison's website, each individual who drinks a six-pack of organic beer a week forces the conversation of 1,700 square feet to organic barley agriculture.   From this figure, I calculate that if only 1% of California’s 38 million residents substituted an organic beer for a non-organic beer twice a month, it would force the conversion of 1,140 acres of land to organic agriculture.

Using data from the USDA on the fertilizers and pesticides used in non-organic barley farming, I estimate this small change in California beer consumption would remove 41 tons of Nitrate, 17 tons of Phosphate, 14 tons of Potash, and 12 tons of Sulfur fertilizer from our country’s eco-system, while eliminating over 1.6 tons of pesticides.  

So take this as a gentle nudge from your truly to encourage you drink a little more organically.  Not only will you be removing chemicals out of ecosystem, there's plenty of good organic brews out there.  You'll find few better brews, organic or non-organic, than Bison Brewing's Hop Cuvee.

Beer of the Month: Maduro Brown from Cigar City Brewing

How many Brown Ales have you tried that gave you the "Wow" factor?  I can't think of too many myself.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of the style that's way under appreciated. But even I must admit a good Brown Ale is more like "background music" than a beer that commands your immediate attention.

Maduro Brown from Cigar City Brewing is that rare exception.  I picked this one up a local supermarket last month during the family vacation.  I know Cigar City makes a bunch of special releases that beer geeks gush over but really wasn't expecting that much from this Brown Ale in their regular line-up.   I just figured it would go well with the burgers we were having for dinner.  It caught my notice at first sip and would go well with just about anything.

It's rich, silky smooth, full of complex flavors of toffee and chocolate.   Cigar City adds flaked oats into the grain bill to give it that wonderful texture and tie all the great roasted flavors together. One of the best Brown Ales I've ever had and another good reason to go back to Florida.  

Beer of the Month: Apex IPA from Bear Republic

After cooing over the subtleties and nuances of a couple of pale yellow brews for the last Beers of the Month, it's high time I choose one that will put some hair on your chest.  So this time around, I'm going with Bear Republic's Apex IPA.  Apex IPA is a testament to both Bear Republic's hop alchemy and truth in advertising, as Apex does indeed reach the ultimate height the West Coast IPA can possibly reach.

I knew this was going to be good the nanosecond all those wonderful grapefruit aromas hit my nose. Behind all those aromas were flavors of great depth and brightness of grapefruit and floral notes produced by a blend of Cascade, Columbus, Centennial, Cinook, Mosaic and (whew!) Citra hops. Underneath all those hops is a dry, hefty neutral malt backbone fully supporting all those hops while letting all their flavor notes shine through.  At 8.95% abv, it's either a strong IPA or a light Imperial IPA.  You decide.

Bear Republic has been brewing Apex for a few years and even won Silver at the 2006 Great American Beer Festival but this is the first year they started bottling it.  This is seriously the West Coast IPA all other West Coast IPA's should aspire to.  So, if you ever meet one of those jaded beer hipsters that tell you "Pliny the Younger isn't that good", you'll know they've had an Apex.  Or at least they should have.

Beer of the Month: Buzzerkeley from Calicraft Brewing

There are beers that simply taste amazing. There are beers that are novel and unique. And then there are beers that cause one to re-think what beer is. Buzzerkeley is one of those rare beers that is all three.

It's the flagship beer of Calicraft, a relative newcomer to the Bay Area brewing scene, that hails from Berkeley. Brewmaster Blain Landberg started brewing in his UC-Berkeley dorm room, which almost got him kicked out of college, if the Calicraft website can be believed.  But enough about the brewmaster's youthful indiscretions, let's talk about his beer.

Buzzerkeley, a light golden ale, brewed with copious amounts of California Starthistle honey and fermented with Champagne yeast, is a study in subtlety.  There's that yeasty toastiness and tingly carbonation one finds in a good Champagne.  A light spicy and fruity character with a bit of a sour tang and floral notes from the honey complete the experience.  It's extremely dry due to the Champagne yeast, giving it a crispness and allowing all the muted flavors to shine through.

It's subtle and restrained, yet somehow, there's plenty going on.   It's not wine, but arguably isn't beer either. It's light and refreshing, yet deep and complex.  It pushes the envelope, but retains a familiarity within its uniqueness.  For every yin, there's a harmonizing yang.

I suppose that's what you might expect from something out of Berkeley.

Beer of the Month: New Almaden Imperial Red Ale from Santa Clara Valley Brewing

Our Beer of the Month for March comes from a brewery that seems like it's been around for a couple years, but only started brewing late last spring. It's from Santa Clara Valley Brewing, formed by multi-GABF award winning brewer Steve Donohue and Apple Executive Tom Clark.  Their Electric Tower IPA drew plenty of raves, including one from yours truly, and Electric Tower tap handles have been popping up all over the South Bay.

Their recently released New Almaden Imperial Red proves Santa Clara Valley Brewing is no one hit wonder.    There's plenty of malt, giving it a creamy mouth feel and lots of roasty and earthy flavors but hefty additions hops create citrus flavors pushing through all that malt goodness, resulting in a beer with plenty of bold flavors.  For all its strength and assertiveness, it's also surprisingly smooth.  I hesitate to describe a beer at 10.0% abv as drinkable, but it's certainly an easy sipper.

The name comes from one of my favorite places to the run in the Bay Area.   Reddish, cinnabar mercury ore was mined at New Almaden just south of South Jose starting in the late 1800's  primarily for gold extraction to support the gold discoveries east of Sacramento.  You can find ruins of these mines at Almaden Quicksilver Park, which has numerous trails, rugged hills and spectacular view for excellent trail running.  Every Saturday and Sunday morning, plenty of running groups will gather at the MacAbee Road entrance to "do Quicksilver".  I've also taken the family for hikes there many times as it's a great place to learn our region's history, enjoy nature, take in excellent views of nearby Mount Unumhum and challenge yourself on the trails if you're so inclined.

Turns out, I'm not the only South Bay blogger that enjoys New Almaden Imperial Red and Almaden Quicksilver park.  Check out fellow South Bay Beer Blogger Brian Wimsett's post on True Brew Too-Beer and Friends.

Mount Unumhum as seen from Almaden Quicksilver Park.
(Photo credit)

Beer of the Month: Sneak Attack Saison from 21st Amendment

Our Beer of the Month to start off 2014 comes from up the road in San Francisco.  It's 21st Amendment's Sneak Attack Saison.  This unlikely winter seasonal was first released last year and was given heavy Beer of the Month consideration back then.  Having enjoyed many a glass of this brew once again this winter, it seemed I had no choice but to grant Beer of the Month status to Sneak Attack.  And so I did.

Saisons are traditionally a summer beer style, the name coming from the French word for "season" with this lighter, often yeastier style of beer brewed for the consumption of summer farm workers in the French countryside.  Sneak Attack is not all that yeasty, but brewed with cardamom, has great tangy, spicy flavors with slight lemon note and a lightly herbal finish.   This flavorful and refreshing winter seasonal is ironically perfect for this hot and nearly rainless Northern California winter.  It almost makes you forget California's severe drought conditions.

Of course, it wouldn't be a 21st Amendment Beer without the fun, historically inspired can art.  The bare-chested George Washington stoically crossing the Delaware River in his swim trucks to surprise the British is one of 21st Amendment's best labels from a brewery that comes up with plenty of clever ones.

Sneak Attack Saison:  In many ways, the perfect beer to celebrate our California "winter".

Beer of the Month: Buckwheat Ale from Dust Bowl Brewing

Buckwheat Ale on the bar at Dust Bowl Brewing

Our Beer of the Month is from a brewery I've been trying to get to for a long time.  It's Dust Bowl Brewing in Turlock, CA.  Turlock, located 10 miles south of Modesto in California's Central Valley, is not a place most people go.  In fact, it's doubtful I'd ever stop there except my ex-wife moved to Modesto a couple years ago and I've gone there many times to spend time with my kids ever since.  I've heard a lot of good things about Dust Bowl Brewing from people like Beer Samizdat and Brewtographer and have long wanted to go there.  I've also enjoyed a couple bottles of their flagship Hops of Wrath, a nice balanced IPA with plenty of complex hop character.  But when I'm spending time with my kids I don't see often enough, I don't go beer hunting, so never made it to the brewery. 

The good news is that I recent finally found some extra time to get to Dust Bowl on my own and I'm pleased to say, the beers live up to the hype. I quickly made up for lost time and ordered a sampler of five of their beers to go with a club sandwich.  All of their beers were good, and some quite good.  Brewmaster Dan Oliver is quoted on the website as saying, "We love those layers. You’ll never find our brews to have a singular flavor.”  Which pretty accurately sums up his beers in my opinion.  There was a lot going on in each glass and it was all well balanced.

One of their more interesting ones was called "German IPA".  I liked the flavorful combination of the crisp, light dry malt, with a restrained use floral and light citrus hops.  If the IPA style had originated in Germany, I think it would taste something like this. 

But my favorite Dust Bowl beer was their Buckwheat Ale, made with no less than five malts, including 15% buckwheat in the grain bill.  It's malty, smooth, dry, slightly tangy brew with an earthy buckwheat character.  It's got only 25 IPU's and an abv of 5.9% if you're in to those sort of numbers.  Rarely do brewers use buckwheat, but a lot more would if they tasted this.   With so many of California's breweries trying to one up each other with wild and crazy uses of hops, it's refreshing to see a brewery going a different directions, getting creative with malt and coming up with something unique, flavorful and drinkable.

So let's raise a Buckwheat Ale and celebrate the fact that often great beer come from unexpected places and ingredients.



You can't go wrong with any Dust Bowl beer.  Beer of the Month
Buckwheat Ale is in the middle.

Beer of the Month: Ghost Rider White IPA from Wasatch Brewing

A couple times a year I travel to Utah on business and you know one of the best things about Utah?  The beer.  Yes, the beer.  In a state known for nagging, annoying and bewildering beer regulations, somehow brewing has flourished in this state.  There's no better example than our Beer of the Month, Ghost Rider White IPA from Wasatch Brewing.

This brew combines tanginess from the wheat with floral notes from the hops and a little spiciness from coriander to create a distinctive, complex yet balanced brew.  White IPA's are sort of the rage these days, with lots of brewers taking a riff on the popular IPA style by taking a wit beer (also a popular style) and adding a bunch of hops to it.  Sometimes this works, and sometimes it doesn't.   Beers like Ghost Rider prove that when brewers continue to push the envelope, good things happen even in places like Utah where the deck is stacked against them.

Maybe it's the dramatic, wide open skies of Utah that inspire all those great Utah breweries.

The wide open morning skies of Logan, UT

Beer of the Month: 395 IPA from Mammoth Brewing

For October, the title of Beer of the Month is bestowed onto 395 IPA from Mammoth Brewing, which I picked up on a trip to Yosemite National Park the weekend of September 28-29th.   Mammoth intentionally keeps their operation small, and you can't get their beer outside of their small distribution region in and around the Yosemite Valley, so tasting some Mammoth brews unavailable back home was a nice little side benefit of the trip. This beer, named after a road running by the National Park, has long been a favorite beer of mine.  It's one of the more unique IPA's you'll find, brewed with mountain desert sage and mountain juniper berries.    There's a light toastiness from the malt, a noticeable gin note from the juniper berries, and dominant citrus flavor from the hops.  It's a dry IPA that lets of that complexity flow, and tastes smooth despite a strong hop whollop.

I make an annual trip to Yosemite with friends and family to experience the surreal scenery, full of shear cliffs, dramatic waterfalls, and towering peaks.  I'm especially proud of my ten year old daughter and twelve year old autistic son who tackled a six mile hike through steep, rocky to Vernal Falls high above the valley with my wife and I.  It was great family experience exploring one of America's revered places and learning a lot about ourselves.  We finished this trip in the nick of time because shortly after that, the Washington dysfunction all too common these days shut the Federal Government down and Yosemite National Forest with it.

You're probably as sick of this shut-down mess as I am, and it's doubtful anything I write here is going to change your mind or break the gridlock in Washington.  I avoid delving into politics on my blog as beer and running draw people in from all walks of life and all are welcome on the open roads or to share a pint.  I'm one of those damn liberals, so you can probably figure out where I stand.

So I'd like to make this gentle reminder that Yosemite was long ago preserved by far-sighted minds in our Federal Government who saw a problem and addressed it, and pretty much everyone thinks they did a good job about it.  While rewarding family vacations are important, what's more important are our livelihoods which require a functional Federal Government.   An unintended consequence of the shutdown is that we all gained a new appreciation of what the Federal Government does for us every day, even if we don't like paying our taxes or dealing with rules. 

So I'm optimistic that a year from now when our family comes back to Yosemite, saner heads will prevail and our country will be both better and wiser from our collective experience, as contentious and destructive as things are right now.  I'll drink a 395 IPA to that.

This land was made for you and me.

Beer of the Month: Sante Adairius's Nonna's #4 Sour Brown Ale

Yes, I'm still on this Santa Cruz brewery kick.  Maybe I just have a fascination with that quirky city over the hill.  Or maybe it's because they make a lot of damn good beer down there.  Whatever the reason, our Beer of the Month hails from Sante Adairius Rustic Ales in Capitola. 

There's been enough buzz about Sainte Adairius since it was founded last year that it was getting increasingly embarrassing to admit I hadn't been there yet.  Of course, given that few breweries could live up to considerable hype over Sante Adairius, there was the fear the beer would be a let down when I finally got to taste what everyone's been raving about. 

The good news is that wasn't the case a couple weeks ago on a warm late summer afternoon when my wife and I strolled over to Sante Adairius tap room to find the place overflowing into the parking lot outside.  Everything we tried was pretty good to excellent and it's hard to pick a favorite when more than a couple of their beers made our eyes open real wide and made us exclaim "Wow!" 

But forced to choose, I'll take Nonna's #4 Sour Brown Ale.  A sour brown sounds like a bad batch of homebrew I once made, but the idea makes a lot of sense when you think about a Flander's Red Ale.  I loved the crisp, clean sourness with an underlying nuttiness to it.  It's a struggle to define how it tastes, but often great beers are the ones that aren't neatly broken down into flavor components. 

You can't go wrong with any of Sante Adairius's beers, but their 831 IPA is worth seeking out as well.  It's a balanced, dry, musty and herbaceous brew that's undeniably a tribute to the hop but it an way you've never tasted before.  And if you want to learn more about the brewery, check out this great interview from Beer Samizdat.

Beer of the Month: Second Conversation Belgian Stout from Discretion Brewing

I swiped this photo of Second Conversation off the
Discretion website, since the picture I tool of my
glass of it was so bad

 

.

A light crisp stout?  Well, not exactly but our Beer of the Month nearly attains this oxymoronic achievement in a good way.  I found Second Conversation Belgian Stout from Soquel's Discretion Brewing is both excellent for was it is, and for what is isn't.  It's this great dry, crisp tasting stout with a light dose of bitter chocolate from Ecuadorian cocao nibs, Belgian Saison yeast aromatics and a little bit of dried fruit.  There's a well balanced and unique combination of flavors working together, unlike some stouts which can be heavy, syrupy sweet or full of harsh roastiness.  Second Conversation is very drinkable yet interestingly complex.  I'd almost say it's sessionable, except at 7.7% abv, it certainly isn't.

Discretion Brewing is a new comer to the vibrant Santa Cruz brewing scene, which is quietly producing some of the more innovative beers in Northern California.  And there seems to be plenty of good conversations down at Discretion.  Discretion's First Conversation Saison won Silver Medal at this year's California State Fair, and their Third Conversation is a nifty session amber Saison (4.3% abv) you should also check out if you make to their tap room in Soquel.

I've gotten rather tired of all the attention hogging beers, you know, the one's that scream "Look at me!  I have 179 ibu's and I'm aged in used oaken soy sauce barrels!"  Beer is a social lubricant and you got to like beers such as those from Discretion which seem designed to facilitate just that.

Discretion's Tap Room and Brewery (I took this picture
myself rather than steal it from someplace)
 

Beer of the Month: Strike Brewing Blonde

There are some breweries that need no introduction.  The South Bay's Strike Brewing isn't one of those breweries, but they need a lot less of an introduction than they did less than two years ago when they first started out.  I used to hunt down Strike in better bottle shops or high end boutique grocery stores.  Now, I can walk a block to my neighborhood Safeway in Campbell and pick up their beer.  And they've emerged from the Bay Area to start distribution in Southern California.  For those wanting the details on this brewery formed by three collegiate athletes, check out this interview back when they were first starting out.

With all the summer heat, my desire for massively hopped IPA's or heavy imperial stouts has plummeted.   I've been drinking more of the lighter beers of summer and recently rediscovered Strike Blonde, one I've enjoyed for what seems like a very long time.   The beer has a crisp malt with this great grassy, slightly earthy vibe.  That's it.  It's simplicity works to it's advantage.  Simple yet flavorful beers are underrated, and harder to brew than the big stouts or IPA's that get all the beer geek buzz, since the brewing flaws have nowhere to hide.

There's a reason it's easier to find Strike these days.

Beer of the Month: Electric Tower IPA from Santa Clara Valley Brewing

When I finally got a chance to try Electric Tower IPA from Santa Clara Valley Brewing, I was actually afraid to drink it.  Sure, Brew Master Steve Donohue won four Great American Beer Festival medals at Sunnyvale's Firehouse Grill before leaving to start Santa Clara Valley Brewing with Tom Clark so you figured it was going to be good.  Plenty of people got pretty excited when they announced in March their licensing was complete and they were going to commence brewing, including myself.  I even kept bugging Steve a few times on his Twitter account about when his first beer would come out.  With all that build up, my biggest fear was that no beer could really live up to all these expectations and by the time  I'd finally try it, it would be a let down.

Since you know Electric Tower IPA is Beer of the Month, you can figure out the rest.




Drawing of the Historical San Jose Electric Tower
(Wikipedia Common Image) 

Yes, Santa Clara Valley Brewing delivers the goods and then some, meeting all the high expectations with their initial release.  I could tell this was going to be a good just by opening the bottle.  Wonderful aromas of pine and mango greeted my noise.  Sipping the beer delivered more of the same, with its smooth and flavorful tropical mango, pineapple and resin-like pine flavors.  There's a solid, lightly toasty malt foundation to this fairly dry beer as well, but as with any good West Coast IPA, the hops are doing all the talking.  

So what's this Electric Tower all about anyway?  Back in 1881, a large electric tower was erected in San Jose, used for lighting up the city.  These were common in America cities in the late 1800's, often called Moonlight Towers, as electrification began to sweep the country. San Jose's tower was one of the largest ones of this era.  You might say it was the earliest example of Silicon's Valley technical prowess.

Electric Tower IPA:  Another reason it's good to live in the South Bay.

Beer of the Month: Campbell Brewing's Porter

A Pint of Campbell Brewing's Porter at the upstairs
patio of the Sonoma Chicken Coop, where more light for this
photo would have really been helpful

For the first time in my life since I moved last fall, there's a brewery within short walk from my home.  It's Campbell Brewing, which brews up beers for the Sonoma Chicken Coop restaurant, a major fixture in Campbell's lively downtown scene.  While I've enjoyed many solid Campbell Brewing beers such as their Bitter, Scottish Ale and IPA, none of them caused the "slap-me-upside-the-head-and-make-me-say-Wow!" reaction required for Beer of the Month status.

That all changed last week when I tried Campbell Brewing's Porter, a beer not usually found in their regular rotation.  The humble Porter is one of my favorite styles, and this one ranks up there with the best I've had.  It was smooth, flavorful, smokey with bitter chocolate flavors that all really popped.   It was a little on the thin side for the style, with no noticeable hop presence to speak of.  But if you ask me, these attributes actually worked to the advantage of this brew, which was all easy drinking roasty goodness. 

I've said it before and I'll say it again, South Bay breweries are underrated.  And thankfully, one of those South Bay breweries making some great beer is a short walk from my new home.

Beer of the Month: Board Meeting from Port Brewing

Brown ales are underrated.  There's something about how roasty malt flavors pop in a well executed brown ale.  While brewers continue to push the envelope to create the ultimate hop bomb, Port Brewing has quietly gone in the other direction to create the an awesome roast bomb with their Board Meeting Imperial Brown Ale.

True, this is no simple brown ale.  They've amped up the roastiness factor with coffee from San Diego's Ryan Brothers coffee roasters and cocoa nibs from San Francisco chocolate maker TCHO.
The result is a rich, roasty, very lightly sweet brew with a lot of depth and complexity.  The flavors slowly evolve over time with each sip, with the cocoa nibs seeming to dominate at first, giving way to the coffee at the finish. 

Kind of ironic a brewery known for hop bombs like Mongo Double IPA, Wipeout IPA, and Hop-15  succeeds big time going the malt direction, don't you think?   It's a new beer to Port Brewing's year round line-up they introduced just last February.   As Port Brewing director of brewery operations Tomme Arthur put it in a press release,  “Interestingly, we’ve never produced a brown ale, so Board Meeting seemed a natural fit in our portfolio. ”

Looks like I've found my "go to" beer whenever I need a brown ale fix in a big way.

Beer of the Month: Anchor Brewing California Lager

We celebrate all things California with our Beer of the Month, Anchor Brewing's California Lager, a beer that is quite literally California history in a glass.  The recipe dates back to 1876 from little known Boca Brewery located near Truckee, CA, which used a mountain ice pond to ensure the lager kept cold during the fermentation process.   It's brewed with 2-row barley and Cluster hops, a hops varietal you won't find in many beers these days, but it was highly prevalent in during the 19th century. 

Perhaps the reason you don't see Cluster hops much anymore is that this hop variety has a certain distinctive taste, which Randy Mosher describes in his book "Radical Brewing" as having "a certain sharpness often called cattiness".    I have to admit, "cattiness" doesn't sound so good, but I found the Cluster hops to provide a distinctive earthy, grassy, slight herbal finish unlike anything I've tasted in other beers.   The Cluster hops meld well with the lightly toasted, slightly sweet biscuit-like malt to create a clean, refreshing, and off-beat lager that grew on me after each bottle.

Anchor's California Lager was originally brewed as the first beer of their Zymaster Series in early 2012, and due to its popularity, has been added to Anchor's permanent line-up early this year.  Anchor Brewing is donating a portion of the profits of California Lager to create the Anchor California Lager Grant, to be awarded by the California State Parks Foundation as a part of their Discretionary Grants program to benefit state parks.

Sure, selling beer is a business.   Kudos to Anchor Brewing for preserving California's history and landscape as part of that business.

Beer of the Month: Budweiser Black Crown



Budweiser Black Crown with one of my favorite
books on world altering events.

The fall of the Roman Empire.  The sinking of the Titanic.  Tearing down the Berlin Wall.  To these historic events which shattered the earth to its core, we now add the release of a Budweiser Black Crown.

I'm not exaggerating.  (OK, maybe just a bit.) For nearly two centuries, Budweiser served as the icon of light lagers, held up as the highest example of the clear, refreshing, easy-drinking standard for beer. This shining beacon has lead the way for all those who shun the unpronounceable foreign imports, funny looking craft brews and simply want a cold one. Brewed by some of the worlds finest brewers, Budweiser has survived Prohibition, two world wars, and countless battles for decades with similarly deep pocketed brewing rivals both here and abroad who dared challenge its supremacy.

And now a lightly roasted malt tarnish has soiled this American classic as a result of a sales tactic that seems as cunningly conceived as it is desperate.

Is Black Crown Budweiser's "Nixon to China" Moment?

As many of you know, so called "craft" beer sales are growing, beer sales from big industrial giants are declining.  While the typical craft brewer produces less beer each years that one of Budweiser's twelve US breweries produces in a couple days, all these little Davids are nipping away at the Budweiser Goliath with consumers slowly turning away from light lagers to dark yellow, orange, brown, and black beers with complex malts and hops in them. It's apparently gotten to the point where even Budweiser could no longer pretend it wasn't happening and had to do something to recapture lost market share.


They held a competition called Project 12 with their twelve brewmasters who each concocted their own little twist on the tried and true Budweiser formula. The winner was Los Angeles brewmaster Bryan Sullivan with his lightly roasted take on Bud, which according to the marketing folks, was a hit in taste tests all over the country. So Budweiser launched Black Crown with great fanfare and of course, ran commercials heralding its arrival during the Super Bowl.



What would Karl Marx think about Budweiser's
capitalistic ambitions with toasted malt to
recapture the beer drinking proletariat?

Having picked up a six pack and tried it, I have to say the light caramel malts meld with the traditional green apple flavor to produce an interesting light caramel apple flavor.  It's interesting, but probably not something I'm going back to. If forced to choose between traditional Budweiser and Black Crown, I'd reach for a Black Crown.

There lies the dark ominous cloud Black Crown may hold in store for Budweiser.  Budweiser may be very well providing a gateway beer for their own customers to discover the greater possibilities other breweries already provide. For so long, Budweiser has staunchly held up their light lager as the highest standard of American beer that the release of Black Crown isn't just a brand line extension. It's like Rush Limbaugh conceding President Obama has a good idea or two.

So as Budweiser reaches out to bring wayward beer drinkers back into its grip with Black Crown, it may be unwittingly sowing the seeds of its own destruction, relegating itself to the dustbin of history. Only time will tell.

Beer of the Month: Tank 7 Farmhouse Ale from Boulevard Brewing

Finding Tank 7 in the Bay Area last month was
like an early Christmas present

I don't remember what possessed me to walk into that Whole Foods that overcast December day.  It was one of those aimless days, where I just had to get out of the house and go somewhere.  And sometimes that means ending up someplace where good beer is to be found, as the act of looking at a rows of beer bottles, carefully reading the labels that look interesting, and ultimately buying a few of the bottles has a certain therapeutic effect.  I walk over to the beer cooler, looked down, and nearly exclaimed to the entire busy  Saturday afternoon crowd "Why that's Tank (bleeping) 7!  It's made it to California!" 

That's right,one of my all time favorite beers from one my all time favorite breweries is Beer of the Month, the one and only Tank 7 Farmhouse Ale from Boulevard Brewing, in Kansas City, MO.  It's a beer I've long remembered but rarely get to taste until now, as Boulevard's distribution only recently reached the West Coast.  

I'm afraid I have to give credit to discovering Tank 7 to my stupid younger sister.   She turned me onto this beer on a trip to the Boulevard's Brewery a few years ago when I was visiting her in Kansas City.  I've never had a Boulevard beer that was worse than "pretty good" if you don't count their weird and wacky Lunar Ale.  They've won a bunch of Great American Beer Festival medals, and display a tremendous range as brewery, skillfully brewing lawn mower beers like their popular Unfiltered Wheat, while pushing plenty of brewing boundaries with their limited release Smokestack Series, which includes Tank 7.

 

As for why I love Tank 7, it is that rare beer than excels for as much as what you don't taste, as what you do.  I love the restraint, the softness, the subdued complexity, yet the yeasty, lemon and spicey flavors still seem to pop.  Lots of good Saisons seem heavy and harsh in comparison.  And maybe because I'm one of the many transplanted Midwesterners in Northern California, I like to see a Midwestern brewery do good.

 

I urge my local Northern California friends not to drink local and try this great Saisson from one of the great Midwestern breweries way too under appreciated here on the West Coast.

Beer of the Month: Ruhstaller 1881 California Red Ale

Our Beer of the Month comes from Ruhstaller, a relative newcomer to Northern California, a brewery founded 2 1/2 years ago by Jan-Erik Paino.  So who's this Ruhstaller guy?

That would be Captain Frank Ruhstaller, a Swiss immigrant who travelled across the United States and in 1885 at the age of thirty-five, opened his third brewery, the Ruhstaller Brewery in Sacramento, the largest brewery west of the Mississippi at that time.  (Which included the legendary August Busch Brewery, which was also a few miles west of the Mississippi River in St. Louis.)  Why then, did Ruhstaller travel all the way to Sacramento to build his brewery?


At the time, Sacramento was surrounded by the leading hop growing region in the United States, so the brewery was located in Sacramento to be close to the local sources of high quality hops.  "Hop growing migrated to the Yakima Valley and the rest of the Pacific Northwest for economic reasons, not quality reasons", explains Paino.  "The best hops still come from California."
Which is why Paino uses hops exclusively from the Kuchinski hop farm in California's Lake County in 1881 California Red Ale.  And while,  many brewers to urge you to "buy local", Ruhstaller takes that a step further, and sources no less than 94% of their ingredients from within California, with most of that 94% within a two hour drive from Sacramento. 

All those ingredients come together in this well balanced Red Ale.  It does have a bit of a rustic feel, as the brew is pretty dry, with really no sweetness at all, with toasty grain and caramel notes, and finishing with a nice warm resiny hop bitterness.
 
Red Ales can be pretty forgettable, and this one hits the familiar Red Ale notes, but its restraint, balance and complexity  makes it unique and memorable.  It's yet another example of the continual reinvention of beer by California brewers, whether by going all out with esoteric extreme beers, or by simply brewing a familiar style with precision while reviving traditional ingredients from a by-gone era.



Marty Kuchinski checking out some of his hops
before they're used in 1881 California Red Ale
(Photo provided by Ruhstaller Brewing)