Rambling Reviews 10.25.2016: Deschutes's Hopzeit, Mammoth Brewings Double Nut Brown Porter and Gordon-Biersch's Chum

Time again to ramble on about a three brews I've tried lately.

We'll start with Hopzeit from Deschutes, which they describe as an Autumn IPA as it's basically a cross between a Marzen and an IPA.  I first tried this at the original Deschutes brewpub in Bend, OR and was a bit underwhelmed. It came across more as an interesting and not entirely successful brewing experiment. The hops seemed a little harsh, overwhelming the restrained, underlying Marzen, with the flavors clashing more than harmonizing. But I decided to give this one a second chance when I saw a six-pack of it at my local grocery store and that turned out to be a wise decision. Maybe the extra time in the bottle allowed the hops to mellow down to the right level, as the light sweet caramel maltyness and the citrussy orange hops with a touch of resin were far better balanced and harmonizing than the brewpub version. Kudos to Deschutes for crafting an IPA which truly tastes like fall, at least when it's in the bottle.

Next up, Mammoth Brewing Company Double Nut Brown Porter. The annual family trip to Yosemite National Park is a time when we can all appreciate the surreal beauty John Muir popularized over a century ago and it's also the time to snag my annual fix of Mammoth brews. Porter is one of my favorite styles that's becoming an endangered species in the beer world. This one quickly jumped towards the top of my porter list with its complex coffee flavors which yield to more pecan nuttiness as the brew warms.  It's very roasty, almost but not quite to the point of near ashyness, with virtually no sweetness to let all its great complexity shine through.

Finally, we get a beer with one of the most unappetizing names ever.  I'm talking about CHUM Dry Hopped Red Ale from Gordon Biersch, a tribute of sorts to the San Jose Sharks with which Gordon-Biersch has maintained a long partnership. Thankfully, it tastes a lot better than its name. There's plenty of the toffee thing going on, with juicy, fruity esters suggesting apricot, and a soft earthy finish. It's really well done, one of those beers that's either very drinkable if that's all you want, or one to ponder deeply into all of it's flavor complexity if that's what you in the mood for. A lot more than you'd normally expect from a sports tie-in beer.

But be careful, chum has led people into perilous situations.

Road Trip to Bend: Visiting Deschutes Brewery

Bend was basically a sleepy logging town in the middle of central Oregon when the Deschutes Brewpub opened downtown in 1988. A few years later Deschutes built a larger production production brewery, a major driver in the craft brewing revolution in the Pacific Northwest and beyond, helping to transform Bend into the vibrant destination it is today.

I suppose after visiting other historic breweries like Anchor Brewing and Sierra Nevada, with their classically traditional copper brew kettles, which are effectively shrines to modern American brewing, I expected the same at Deschutes. Oddly enough, instead, it looks just like a modern production brewery. Thankfully, our tour guide knows an awful lot about malt. He also knows plenty about the hops, yeasts, and brewing methods Deschutes used in their beers. An enjoyable tour that threatened to turn into a class, but thankfully didn't.

We get back to the tap room for our complimentary four tastings and the place is crammed full of people and Deschutes merchandise. People crowd three-deep around the bar for their tastings as funky soul music plays above the din. A party threatens to break out any moment.

Talking with the Folks at Deschutes about their Winter Releases

Hop Henge is one of Deschutes many releases this winter.

Like that neighbor down the street that starts in early November covering their home with Christmas lights,  Deschutes Brewery goes all out for the holidays, with a whole slew winter releases.  What's the motivation and story behind these beers?  I had a chance to talk to a few of the folks at Deschutes about this.  Well OK, I e-mailed them questions which they were kind enough to answer, here's a wrap up of what they had to say about the key beers in their winter line-up.
light show together,

 Jubelale Winter Ale

As Jason Randles, Deschutes PR/Social Media Director describes it, “Jubelale is a beer we have brewed for over 25 years and the first beer we ever bottled. The brewery started off as a brew pub in downtown Bend in July of 1988. We brewed Jubelale for our first holiday season and hand bottled it for patrons in 750 mL wine bottles. Deschutes began by brewing traditional English style beers when first opening so Jubelale was the natural choice of winter beers to brew, being that it is winter warmer/strong ale, typically brewed for the holidays. If you look closely at this year’s packaging, that first bottle is hidden in the artwork.” 

 Co-brewmaster Cam O' Connor added, “We don’t change the Jubelale recipe despite the rumors that we do. The raw materials vary from year to year so there are some slight changes in flavor because of that. We do select a different artist each year to create a unique piece of art that we then use to create the packaging."

And indeed, Jubelale is the traditional, malt forward, dark roasted and spice winter ale which I've enjoyed a few times this winter.  Be sure to check out it's extensive history and artwork over the years on the Deschutes website here.  It's available in Northern California now through December.

Chasin' Freshies

Fresh hop flavors and aromas are a big part of Deschutes beers, so it's no surprise that one of their big winter releases is a big hop forward IPA.  As Cam O' Conner describes it, "Jubelale is our “winter/holiday” beer that fits the traditional style of a heartier, winter style beer. Chasin’ Freshies is a fresh hop beer that can only be brewed in September when the hops are harvested fresh from the field. The snow on the Chasin’ Freshies label is a reference to its namesake and practice of chasing the fresh powder that falls on our nearby ski hill, Mt. Bachelor.

Deschutes changes the fresh hop variety from year to year.  Last year, Cam O' Conner tells me they used Heirloom Cascade hops, while this year's version feature fresh Amarillos.


Red Chair North West Pale Ale

They call this a Pale Ale up in Oregon, but in most other places it would be considered an IPA.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, especially since this truly is one of the Pale Ales I seek out when it's released in December.  The good news is that it's available through May.  As Adam Birdwell, Sales Account Specialist at Deschutes describes it,  "This beer boasts a hop bill flirting in IPA territory but uses 7 select malts to smooth it down. A personal favorite of mine but also the judges at the World Beer Awards: Red Chair won best beer in the world in both 2010 and 2012."

Hop Henge Experimental IPA

 

Like any good brewery sales rep, Adam Birdwell urged me to "look for our Hop Henge Experimental Imperial IPA. This beer changes year-to-year as the brewers experiment with different hops and hop combinations. It is truly a massive hop bomb but stays true to our style with solid malt presence to balance the beer."

I picked up a bottle this year and this year's version is a grapefruit peel monster.  The slightly sweet malt backbone does it's best to balance with all those hops, but all in vain.  An excellent example of the classic West Coast IPA.

The Abyss

 

Of course, winter is the time where Deschutes releases The Abyss, a Oak Barrel Aged Imperial Stout that need no introduction to beer geeks.  Pick up a bottle if you can find and enjoy, or let it age if you can resist the temptation to open it up.

If you haven't noticed, I'm a pretty big Deschutes fan. 

The Session #37: Homicide Investigations and Wedding Engagements

For this month's Session on we're asked by The Ferm about when to open up the really good stuff from our beer cellars.

Writing on this subject was a bit of a struggle at first. My beer "cellar" is whatever room I can find in the refrigerator and right now, only two beers are being aged. Many nights, my girlfriend Linda and I will select something like Deschutes Brewing's Hop Henge IPA or Oskar Blues Ten Fidy Imperial Stout before curling up on the couch to watch TV for the remainder of the evening, usually watching one of those homicide investigation shows like Forensic Files or The First 48. We don't think too hard about what to have, just peering into the fridge and picking one that just seems right for the mood we're in. So it didn't seem I could really contribute much to a session topic about the decision making process of choosing beer for special occasions.

But a funny thing happened on the way to this month's Session. I decided to give married life one more shot. I mean after all, Linda's smart, attractive, good for my kids, and my life started turning around after I met her four years ago. She doesn't complain about all my sweaty running clothes, and she thought going to the Celebrator Beer Festival was a great way to spend Valentine's Day. (I did make her dinner the next evening, sort of as an insurance policy.) If I screw this one up, just put me in the "Shouldn't Get Married" category for good.

We recently invited some friends over for dinner who brought Champagne to celebrate the engagement, and so it seemed right to bring out the Malheur Dark Brut from the fridge. It's a dark Belgian Ale made with the same technique as Champagne, where the bottle is rotated over time so the active yeast is at top end of the bottle, and then the yeast plug is frozen and removed. Our guests really appreciated how the toasty yeastiness melded with the dark, complex roasted malts, the tingly carbonation keeping it all light and airy. Of course, a great way to show people how well important occasions can be celebrated with beer is to let them experience this for themselves.

If you came looking for a detailed calculus about how beers are paired to food and the moment, I'm afraid you came to the wrong place. But the best thing about being with good friends and family is that you don't have to think very hard about things, and it all just flows.

The Session #33: Framed by 33

This month's Session, by Andrew Couch, of I'll Have a Beer is on framing beers, with the topic loosely summed up as "write about how the context the beer is presented affects the drinking experience".

Psychologists have long known that our choices are biased by the way each choice is framed. To illustrate this, suppose you are the head of a disease control agency, and are presented with two options to combat a disease which is expected to kill six hundred people unless something is done to stop it. A team of doctors have determined the outcomes of two possible options.

Option A: 200 people will be saved.

Option B: There is a one-third probability that 600 people will be saved, and a two-thirds probability that no one will be saved.

What do you do?

In a psychological experiment where subjects were presented with these options, 72% choose Option A. In the same experiment, subjects were also presented with the same options, simply worded differently.

Option C: 400 people will die.

Option D: There is a one-third probability that nobody will die, and a two-thirds probability that 600 people will die.

When presented with the same options framed differently, the same participants who picked Option A 72% of the time, instead choose Option D 78% of the time. Of course, we would rather save people than let them die, and so the options framed positively are favored over those framed negatively, known as positive frame bias. (1)

Psychologists have found numerous other framing effects, which I won't go into here. But clearly, the beer we chose and our experience drinking it is framed by things like the beer label, word of mouth, the advertising, the reputation of the brewer, and numerous other sensory inputs that are quite difficult to separate from the actual liquid in the glass. Beer judges have known this for years as most beer competitions are judged blind, where beer is presented to judges in unmarked glasses, and judges are not allowed to influence each other.

I find myself struggling with framing effects explaining craft beer to family and friends who are not craft beer drinkers. Often, they actually would like to drink something from their local brewer, but their perception of craft beer is that it is "too strong", overly bitter, hops run amok, and simply not enjoyable to them to drink. Beer names like "Arrogant Bastard", "Damnation" or "Hop Stoopid" tend to reinforce this notion. I've responded telling them that many craft brewers release lighter styles they might find more enjoyable. More than once, I been told, "Well, I really enjoy Blue Moon, from some small brewery in Colorado". They are usually pretty disappointed to learn that Blue Moon is actually made by Coors, a massive industrial brewery. Coors sells Blue Moon by framing it as a product of some quaint Colorado brewery, and the fact that once people get past the deception, they often lose interest in the beer seems to validate this strategy.

One brewery it took a while to warm up to was Flying Dog Brewery. So many times in a bottle shop, gazing at a wide array of beers in from of me, I simply moved past the frenzied, graffiti-style art Flying Dog uses on their label, and picked up something from a different brewery. In this Session, we've been asked to try beers we wouldn't normally drink, so I decided to try a couple Flying Dog brews, just to see what the beer is like.

As is often the case, stretching my beer horizons was rewarded, as I found the beer to be excellent. The Flying Dog Kerberos Triple had a light toasty yeast flavors with a little apricot, and a clean, clear character to it. Flying Dog's Double Dog Imperial Pale hooked with a great creamy mouth feel, toffee-like malty flavors coupled with a little tangerine and an orange peel bitterness. I can't help wondering why was the beer label art, designed to attract me to the beer, was actually pushing me away.

I think the answer to this question originates in the way beer was initially framed to me. I spent my childhood during the 70's in the small Midwestern college town of Bowling Green, OH, located about 15 miles south of Toledo. My dad exclusively drank "33", Rolling Rock, and would carefully allow me a sip of his Saturday afternoon beer. My father later told me he did this to prevent me from abusing alcohol, to demystify beer at an early age. These were also early lessons to respect beer, that it wasn't a beverage to be carelessly guzzled, but to be savored and enjoyed at special times. I also remember Dad proudly informing me Rolling Rock was brewed "in the glass-lined tanks of Old Latrobe" in Western Pennsylvania. Latrobe is about 300 miles from Bowling Green, but in those days, drinking exclusively Rolling Rock was supporting your local brewer, and from this I learned the place the beer was brewed was just as important as the beer itself. These experiences, burned into the neurons of my young brain, still guide me today.

I find it sad and ironic that InBev bought Rolling Rock, shut down the Latrobe brewery, and moved production to Newark, NJ in a cost cutting move, priming the pump of their plans for world wide beer domination. Yet, InBev still has the audacity to market Rolling Rock with the grammatically deficient slogan "Born Small Town", trying to sell the beer by framing it as from a tradition bound, small town brewery. I guess the corporate folks at InBev figured out a more accurate grammatically deficient slogan like "Born small town, multi-national corporation bought brewery, laid off workers, bean-counters rule day" would not be a good way to frame Rolling Rock if they wanted to sell lots of it.

But going back to my earliest framing of beer, I believe my earliest experiences of beer explains my initial aversion to Flying Dog beers, framed in chaotic, modern artwork. I've come to realize my favorite breweries like Anderson Valley, El Toro, and Deschutes are favorites of mine in part because these breweries evoke their unique local geography into their marketing, and are relatively close to where I live. This new understanding about how my beer preferences are shaped will allow me to make more informed decisions on the beer I choose to drink. There's nothing wrong with psychological warm fuzziness guiding what we drink. But of course, craft beer drinking is a lot about exploration and expanding beyond your comfort zone. And if you're going to expand beyond your comfort zone, it's helpful to know where the discomfort is coming from.

(1) Positive framing example from The Mind of the Market, Micheal Shermer, Henry Holt and Company, copyright 2008, pages 84-85.

Carbo Loading with Mirror, Mirror from Deschutes Brewery

A lot of big, bold runners and beers have come from Oregon.

The state has a long, powerful distance running tradition. In the 50's, University of Oregon coach Bill Bowerman trained Bill Dillenger to set American records in the 50's, before Dillenger retired from racing and became Bowermen's assistant, finally taking over as head coach in 1973. Both revolutionized distance running training, and produced numerous All Americans. Such as the brash, iconic Steve Prefontaine who held the American records from the 2,000 meters through 10,000 meters the day he died in a car accident in 1975, at the prime of his running career. And the obsessive Alberto Salazar, a strong 5 and 10 kilometer runner on the track, who moved up to the marathon and in the first marathon he ever ran, the 1980 New York Marathon, defeated a strong field that included Boston Marathon champ Bill Rodgers in his first marathon he ever entered. Salazar went on to a number of New York and Boston marathon victories in the early 80's, before it is widely believed that his high, 180+ weekly training mileages finally took a toll on his body. Then there's Phil Knight, who co-founded Nike with Bowerman by selling shoes at Oregon track meets in the early 70's, and became one of the world's most powerful businessmen before retiring in 2004.

Oregon has a great brewing tradition, too. One of my favorite breweries is the Deschutes Brewery in Bend, Oregon, and I've long enjoyed their Mirror Pond Pale Ale. So when I discovered they've amped up the Mirror Pond Pale Ale into an oak-aged barleywine called Mirror Mirror, I knoew it was something I had to try. Deschutes Brewmaster Larry Sidor had this to say on the Deschutes Brewing website page descrbing this brew. “I’m really looking forward to this version of Mirror Mirror because it is not only an advancement for this beer, but it also shows the evolution of our knowledge related to barrel aging and how the whole Reserve Series has developed.”'

I've enjoyed Sidor's creation a couple times now. Pouring it into my tulip glass creates a foamy light tan head floating on the dark tan brew, with an citrus aroma. It has a rich, creamy malty flavor with an orange-dominated citrus character, and a little pine-like bitterness which becomes more pronounced as it warms. I can taste a little oak from the barrel aging, and at 11% abv, the alcohol is a detectable. It's complex, yet easy drinking barleywine.