Russ, a regular poster to this blog just sent me this note: “10PM, show about Beer coming up on the History Channel tonight. Looks interesting.”

http://www.history.com/minisites/the-works

I’m gong to check it out. Let me know what you think and I’ll weigh in with my dime.

Oddbits…in the noose, er news…Unclear on the concept, department: MillerCoors (That’s their U.S. name now) has abandoned test marketing its Miller Lite Brewers Collection. Guess the idea of “craft beer light” won’t fly…Miller notes consumers who’ve tasted the beers like them…Sure, that’s why they scrapped the national rollout.

The Miller execs should steer their market execs noses toward Portland, OR. where the 21st Annual Oregon Brewers Festival was held last weekend. Read the rest of this entry »

Ever try pairing cheese and beer. It’s a fun thing to do, but sometimes it can seem to be overwhelming, you know: so many beers, so much cheese…

Mario, who writes the Brewed for Thought beer blog forwards a link to a Brewer’s Association chart that goes through a lot of modern styles, suggesting good food pairings and good cheese and dessert pairings.

For example, a Double IPA.

• Food: Smoked beef brisket, grilled lamb or Southern chicken-fried steak.
• Cheese: Sharp and rich American artisanal blue.
• Dessert: Very sweet desserts like carrot cake, caramel cheesecake or creme brule.

Another example, Imperial Stout (I know, I’m choosing amped-up examples, but I have more trouble pairing these than any other styles and they;re are the kinds of beers I really like these days)

• Food: Easily overpowers most main dishes, but stands up to foie gras, smoked goose.
• Cheese: Long-aged Gouda, Parmesan or cheddar.
• Dessert: Dark chocolate truffles, chocolate raspberry mousse cake.

Wow. Gonna try one of these with a bottle of North Coast Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout

Anybody else have ideas? Comments very welcome. .

Photo: Rick Mitchell, of Luka’s, Oakland, pours North Coast Le Merle at the Commonwealth Club Belgian-style beer and cheese pairing in San Francisco.

In my weekly column today, I wrote about the Commonwealth Club Beer and Cheese Tasting in San Francisco last week. Great event. All the beer and all the cheeses are available in the San Francisco Bay Area at good cheese stores and beer stores with excellent beer stocks.

Here are the pairings:

Cheese pairings by Sheana Davis, The Epicurean Connection

Delice de la Vallee, a fresh blend of cow and goat milk cheese, to be released September 2008.
Carmody, a raw Jersey cow milk cheese made by Bellwether Farms
Italian Table Cheese, a raw holstein cow milk cheese, made by Charley Malkassian

****

Rodenback Flemish Sour Ale, donated by La Trappe
Paired with Delice de la Vallee

North Coast Le Merle Saison
Paired with Delice de la Vallee

Duvel Belgian Golden Ale
Paired with Delice de la Vallee

St. Bernardus Triple, donated by The Trappist
Paired with Vella Italian Table Cheese

Prior 8 Wit
Paired with Vella Italian Table Cheese

Ommegang Three Philosophers
Paired with Carmody

Affligem Blonde Abbey Ale
Paired with Carmody

Golden Currants, Sweet Baguette, Cracked Whole Wheat Baguette, Almonds, Pistachios & Apricots

Just got this from Jesse at He’brew about the Coney Island lagers. They’re planning a big product rollout later in the summer and widespread distribution…

They are currently in Whole Foods and BevMo! here in the Bay Area. The flagship Coney Island Lager is being brewed at Greenpoint Beer Works in Brooklyn, and the rest (Albino Python, Sword Swallower) are being brewed at Olde Saratoga Brewery/Mendocino Brewing Company in Saratoga Springs, NY.

Oddbits...Is this important? Dunno, but the Gallup Poll reports that nationwide more adults prefer beer over wine and hard liquor. Huh? Well, briefly, back in mid-2006, more Americans preferred wine to beer. Fortunately for all brewers, young adults 21-29 have always shown a strong preference for beer, Gallup says.

You know…swill lager, then better beer, then cocktails, then cheap, but good wine, then good wine, then back to beer to stay via homebrew…That’s my personal odyssey from raw youth to middle age. Here’s the Gallup trajectory:

Meanwhile, a very relieved (at the poll results) Anheuser-Busch points out that they’ve resuscitated the Here’s to Beer Web site. Checked it out, there are some excellent Flash graphics, like rotating glasses of beer, click on a glass, you get info on that style. For utter beginners, there’s some excellent basic info. Trouble with their beer styles explainers is they stop about 1992. No imperial stouts, no double IPAs, for that matter, no milds. That’s a shame.

Moving on…Jeremy Cowan the ebullient proprietor of Schmaltz Brewing (He’brew) is releasing a string of lagers here in California with a Coney Island Theme…

Coney Island Lager, 5.8 percent ABV, Albino Python White Lager, 6 percent, and Sword Swallower Steel Hop Lager, 6.8 percent, plus two seasonal curiosities Human Blockhead Tough-As-Nails Strong Lager, 8.8 percent, summer 2008, only on draft in New York City and Freaktoberfes Blood Red Lager, 6.66 percent, Halloween 2008. Proceeds help Coney Island USA, an Arts Non-Profit fulfill its mission to defend the honor of lost forms of American popular arts and culture in Brooklyn’s historic Coney Island neighborhood.

Having been scared out of my wits on the Coney Island roller coaster when I was a teenager, I’ll drink to Coney Island.

Most of these beers are going on sale in the Bay Area; they’re brewed in New York.

And finally…this is the stupidest beer-related thing I’ve seen since… The “Beer Belly Cooler.” Words fail me, here’s the info from the company:

Getting tired of paying $8.00+ dollars for a beverage at your favourite event?
Why not bring 80oz of your favourite sipper in with you as a spare tire?
That’s right, a beer belly cooler that you fill with beverage and sneak into movies, concerts, sporting events, church……just kidding, and anywhere with outrageous drink prices.
The Beerbelly Deluxe Kit, $49.95

Events: Monterey Beer Festival, Monterey Fairgrounds, Saturday, Aug. 2, 12:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. $30 advance, $35 at the gate. Here’s a video.

monterey-beer-festival-20081

Coming up: Saturday, Aug 9, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.,Bistro, 1001 B St., Hayward, Bistro 11th annual India Pale Ale Festival. over 50 IPAs on tap, live music, barbecue.

Ever wonder why, in an authentic Belgian beer cafe, the barkeep always washes the glasses first? Drew, a poster to the blog, asked:

Drew Says: William - Do you know why The Trappist (Oakland, CA.) rinses out each of their glasses prior to pouring the beer? I’ve always thought that pouring a beer into a glass that was just rinsed will have a negative effect on head retention and lacing.

The answer: It’s the Belgian method. Until recently, every good Belgian bar had a running water sink. Now each beer tower includes a sink that automatically sprays the glass and rinses it inside and outside with cold water. The idea is go get the tempoerature of the glass to about the same temperature as the beer.

That does not mean ice cold or frozen. Frozen glasses, while a great sales technique, much pushed by the manufacturers of tasteless light lager, impede the taste of the beer. The Belgian method is much better.

InBev, when it was InterBrew, long before all the current fuss, appropriated the age-old Belgian serving technique and created, the Stella Artois Draught Master Championship in 1996. It drew (and hopefully still does draw) bartenders from all over the world. They created a 9-step process for serving beer.

I got to watch the finals in Leuven, Belgium in 1998. It was wild, competitors had just seven minutes to pour and serve two glasses of Stella Artois on tap, one glass of Hoegaarden on tap, and one bottle of Leffe.

Here’s a link to the Belgian Beer Pouring Ritual and a video of the method. Frozen glasses? Humbug.

Oddbits…Good craft beer may be selling for as much as $10 a six-pack (who buys sixers, I dunno. Somebody must), but the Brewer’s Association reports that craft beer sales continue to boom in the first six months of 2008.

” Craft beer dollar sales during the first half of 2008 increased 11percent compared to this same period in 2007. The Brewers Association attributes this growth to a grassroots movement toward fuller flavored, small batch beers made by independent craft brewers.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ratebeer.com’s best-beer statistics are always interesting. Often, I agree. But when they name: Struise Brouwers, a brewery in Belgium I’ve never heard of as the “best brewer in the world,” I couldn’t help myself, I was skeptical. Basically, the little contract brewery got the most votes in a system Ratebeer uses that gives more weight to expert beer raters. Still? The best?

So I asked the ultimate English language expert: Tim Webb, author of the Good Beer Guide to Belgium series, published by the English Campaign for Real Ale. He’s English, has traveled widely in Belgium for years and really knows his Belgian beer. Here’s Tim’s reply:

I am deeply disappointed in the ratebeer guys.

I appreciate what they are trying to do and they are very good at helping to put beer on the map, which is an excellent thing. However, they nearly buried Westvleteren with the ludicrous claim that they produced ‘the best beer in the world’ (shouldn’t that have been ‘pretty good beers from the world’s cutest sounding brewery?)

Now they nominate a brewing firm that has not even invested in a brewery (and anyway is only be a couple of years old) to be the very finest producers of our favoured beverage anywhere on Earth. I mean is that likely? I think not.
Do you get to gain great expertise that quickly? I hope not.

All adolescents get crushes - it’s part of growing up.

‘A Brewery that a bunch of beer drinkers are most impressed by recently’ would be fine, no problem. Best brewers in the world? Give me a break. Covering it could make a good piece on the limits to the value of opinions but PLEASE don’t add to the embarasment by giving this naieve glee-chant unearned credibility.

On the factual side, Struise Brouwers is a switched-on bunch of business-like young beer makers and if they can carry on their early promise may yet become great brewery owners, as opposed to interesting beer makers. I do not know of the extent of their training - they could have masters degrees at one of the Ghent brewing schools or be home brewers with a passion, I have no idea which.

They began by brewing several rather dull beers at Caulier - a wheat beer, an amber and a blond as I recall. They moved the operation to Deca after De Ranke moved out to a brewery of their own. Then out of nowhere they pulled out some high strength beers with an aged element.

I doubt their beers have all been oak-aged. At least one that stayed on the market was badly faulty - flat as a pancake - and one given to me by them to take away from Zythos Beer Festival exploded a month or two later with all the usual suspects asssitings its lava flow into the sink. On the other hand, the rest I have tried have been a a spectrum from pretty good to seriously interesting. If you want to be an opinion maker you’re supposed to act responsibly.

They are good enough for one beer to feature in ‘100 Belgian Beers to Try Before You Die’, which I have written with Joris Pattyn and which will appear on www.booksaboutbeer.com from 1st September this year. Only two other non-brewery-owners get that privilege - with Senne brewery getting three listed BTW.

They are certainly on a roll in the U..S by the sound of it, but then yours is a nation that has at times raved about Fantome and Michelob. In my view their elevation to the heavenly choirs is premature, and more the expression of exuberant enthusiasm rather a studied observation of excellence.

I am slightly biased by my view that the whole concept of a ‘best beer / brewery’ is pure Disney and very very American. If someone could explain to me how you judge Keesmann Herren Pils in a heads up against,say, Drie Fonteinen Oude Kriek, Nogne O Imperial Stout and Saison Dupont I might take the concept more seriously but till then I am afraid I will put it in the ‘Yankee Tosh’ file along with the latest efforts to get all sentimental about Bud.

Tim W

By the way, Tim says his next edition of the Good Beer Guide to Belgium comes out in June, 2009. Order the current volume at www.booksaboutbeer.com.