Modelo

I tried Modelo especial. It had a light, pale, clear amber hue. The scent was light and unobtrusive. It had a solid malty flavor with a hint of bitter and a hint of sour. There was a little sweetness to it. I put it in the Bud Light / MGD category. I don't care for it, but I don't hate it. I won't buy it, but I'd drink it on a hot summer day if it was offered to me.

Lakefront Brewery in Beer Connoisseur Magazine

I was reading the Spring issue of Beer Connoisseur Magazine this afternoon, and another Milwaukee Brewery got a mention in one of its articles! Good job Milwaukee. Great job Lakefront. Thank you Lucy Saunders and thank you Beer Connoisseur!

I was reading the article "A Thirst for Tradition: Craft Brewing & Slow Food" by Lucy Saunders. It was an article about the slow food movement - "meals prepared with fresh ingredients and care, and enjoyed at length, replete with conversation and plenty of conviviality. Slow Food USA focuses on food that is 'Good, Clean and Fair,' i.e., a way of living, eating and drinking that links us to the community and the environment." It also talks about craft beer's relationship to the the slow food movement.

And the author wrote the following about Lakefront: "In Milwaukee, Wis., the Lakefront Brewery (www.lakefrontbrewery.com) has supported Slow Food through fundraisers and tastings, and it embodies the ethos in Local Acre, the first commercially sold beer to be made entirely from ingredients grown and processed in Wisconsin since Prohibition. Back in 2008, Lakefront was featured in the beer pavilion at the Slow Food Nation festival in San Francisco, which saw roughly 85,000 attendees in all."

Awesome!

Beers of the World

I cracked open the Beers of the World pack and looked at the contents.  There were a variety of bottles.  Newcastle and Modelo were clear glass.  Calsberg, moosehead and tsingtao were in tinted glass, but not dark.  Köstritzer, Sapporo, O.K. Beer Okocim, Bitburger and Kronenbourg 1664 were dark glass.

I've had Carlsber before.  It's okay.
I've had Newcastle before.  I like it.
I've had Tsingtao before.  I like it.

The rest are all new to me.  My only disappointment is that of 10 beers, they represent 9 countries.
Carlsberg - Denmark
Moosehead - Canada
Tsingtao - China
Modelo - Mexico
Newcastle - England
Sapporo - Japan
O.K. Beer Okocim - Poland
Kronenbourg 1664 - France
Köstritzer and Bitburger - Germany

Why does Germany get double representation.  There are so many other places out there that make beer.  Good beer.  Why isn't there Czech beer, Irish, the Netherlands.  Or maybe something a little further from the norm that we see in the US?  Brazil, or someplace in Africa?

Well, I guess I'm not really complaining.  If I really want to try out something else, there are so many places that do build-your-owns that if I decide to stop being lazy, I can go out and get exactly what I want.

More Fun From World Market

Yesterday we stopped at World Market to pick up a few things - We always impulse buy while there, so we don't go too often. Amanda picked up Framboise. She also decided to try Samuel Smith's Raspberry Organic Fruit Ale, which we've never had. I picked up their Beers of the World 10-pack sampler, of which 7 are new to me. Yay!

A Moment for Cider

When I was in college a friend of mine was asked what his favorite beer was. He responded Woodchuck. His argument was that cider is a malt beverage and was therefore beer. I've always thought that was stupid. I understand there is a relationship between the two, but they're not the same. Nonetheless, I'm going to take a moment to step away from beer for a moment to talk about cider.

Last night we went out to celebrate Amanda's birthday. I'd had a couple of very good beers with dinner, and Amanda had a couple bottles of Magners (her favorite cider). After dinner, she didn't want to go out to a club since we'd gotten caught in the rain and her hair had fallen pretty badly. But she still wanted to go out, and she wanted Strongbow on tap. Strongbow is my favorite cider, and I'll drink it just about any way. But not a lot of places around here have cider on tap. So we went to Paddy's Irish pub. Friends of ours had introduced it to us a few years back, and it's a fantastic place with two great owners - Patty and Woody. Since we'd gone there for Strongbow, I switched to cider. When I first started drinking, I'd had Woodchuck. Which was okay, but it is very sweet. Then I found Strongbow, which I've always described as a dry cider. Well while drinking it last night, I realized that it is really darn sweet. Now I want to know why I ever bothered with something sweeter.

But I suppose part of that has to do with the fact that Woodchuck is a "gateway" cider. In the world of alcohol, there seems to be a trend of beverages that are okay, but popular. They end up introducing people to a type of beverage and then allow them to discover truly good versions. Woodchuck is just that kind of drink. Even though I don't drink it anymore, I wouldn't mind going back to it to see what I liked about it. Maybe I'll need to do a comparison test of cider sometime.

Milwaukee Beer Week

www.milwaukeebeerweek.com

Thursday April 28 - Sunday May 8
Including the Second Annual Milwaukee's Taste of Great Brewers on Friday April 28 at the Harley Davidson Museum

I'm not sure what the problem is but I didn't know about this event until this last week when I saw a pair of posters in my local Pick'N'Save when I stopped in for some tartar sauce and a six pack of Capital Maibock. (This was not the same PNS I called out for not carrying it - the one I was at this time was near 70th and National near downtown 'Stallis.) as I was exiting through the liquor department doors, I see these two posters, and I snapped a poor phone photo so I don't forget.

Well for those of you in or around the Milwaukee area - get out there and have a beer! Support this week and the Breweries, Bars, Restaurants and Stores that make drinking a fine beer in this city available to you.

The drawback - the website's events list. It doesn't clearly indicate where a lot of these events are and the time's provided seem almost arbitrary, since you'll get a time for events that are "all week". And it's not clear how that participant figures the week. The dates for MBW are longer than seven day, but are businesses participating those dates or the Sun - Sat of the actual full week? How can the working man or woman plan to take part is this isn't clear?

In Defense of Big Beer

I Was reading an article in my latest issue of Beer Connoisseur magazine and I was starting an article about pilsners. Now, granted, this is a magazine that is about craft beer and an appreciation of things on the more sophisticated end of the beer spectrum - but in pointing out that the modern American pilsner is far different and less flavorful than a "true" pilsner, the other seemed to go on and on about the inferiority of the popular American macro-brewed beers.

I felt the need to say something in defense of the Miller Lites, Budweisers, Coors Lights and all the rest. Which some may find funny, because if we go out and that's what you order, I'm likely to make fun of you. But let's be honest - Big Beer deserves a little respect.

Do craft beers keep your local pub in business? Doubtful at best.
Do they provide any sponsorship for events you care about? Unless it is a beer-specific event, then rarely
If you are tight on cash, will you be happy to settle for a less expensive beer rather than go without. Most people do.
When you first met beer, were you and craft beer an exclusive item? Not for most people.
At sporting event do you drink a macro brew? Most of you probably do - even those of you that shell out the big bucks on craft beers for the first couple that you drink.
What about distribution - craft beers will sometimes partner with big breweries to increase their distribution abilities (Leinenkugels with Miller-Coors).
For all of beer's fine history, it has always been the beverage of the masses, and what beers make up the vast majority of beers consumed? Not craft beers.

I'm not saying that craft beer needs to try to be like its big brother - goodness no. And I'm not saying it's what I want to drink. But I think we all owe it a lot of respect. And I think it is well past time for craft beer lovers to stop insulting big beer just to help emphasize how wonderful it is. Talk about the differences, by all means. And I'm not saying the jokes and the insults about Macro brews should stop (I won't stop), but craft beers are a legitimate part of the industry in their own right, and do not need to put down their larger, more common counterparts to gain legitimacy.