O’so Tasty!

I decided to celebrate this hop day that I picked up while out visiting my Mother-in-Law and my wife’s home town.  Although I didn’t pick up anything local this time, I picked up something from a brewery I haven’t tried yet - O’so Brewing Co. (www.osobrewing.com) in Plover, WI - not far from the Point and Central Waters breweries.

I picked up their Hopdinger.  The bottle advertises it as “Pungent - Hoppy - Crisp - Floral - Bitter - Piney - Resinous - Engaging.”  It pours a thick tan head that looks like a butterscotch shake from the top.  It has a nice, translucent, light reddish-orange color and it smells like peeling an orange in a pine forest after a rain.  I have to admit - I love the way it smells!  The taste is a nice balance of hops and malt, producing a flavor that reminded me of eating a fresh buttermilk biscuit with orange marmalade that’s just a little bitter from having a touch too much rind.  The flavor shifts to something a bit piney in the aftertaste.  Start to finish, it’s really good.

Helpful Hops

Although I’m drinking a much lighter, much more lightly hopped beer than normal tonight, I thought I’d touch on a few characteristics of our favorite little flower.  Hops are flower clusters that are commonly referred to as the cone.  They are also available to brewers in a processed pellet form, and I think I read somewhere that Miller uses a patented processed hop that increases shelf life/reduces chance of skunky beer.  Don’t quote me on that, though.  The aspect that most people notice is the bitterness, but hops can add a variety of flavors and smells to beer that are quite delightful.  There are a number of hop varieties, and each brings its own unique characteristics to the beer they are added to.  Hops are also added to beer at a variety of stages in the brewing process depending on what specific characteristic the brewer wants to foster.  Many people I know love malty beer; but I’ll have mine with a side of hops, please.

Nevertheless, I’m taking it easy tonight with a nice light Helles.  Schlafly Summer Lager, to be specific.  It poured a pale, clear amber with a light fizzy head.  It is fresh, crisp and light with a light toasted malt flavor backed by a little crisp hoppiness.  Since it was a warm day, and I didn’t turn the air on, I think it’s perfect for an evening where I’m trying to cool the house down.  Cheers!

Sumerian Sample

This weekend I went to a party thrown by my good friends in GSM Bristol, a group of late 16th century reenactors who work at the Bristol Renaissance Faire.  This was a reunion, and I had a great time.  In addition to sharing stories and laughs with friends old and new, I had the opportunity to sample a number of good beers.  Some were commercial, some were home brews.  A number of my friends brew, so they brought some beer and we passed the bottle getting some sips.  I'm not going to take the time to rant and rave about how good some of them were.  Instead, I want to focus on one interesting beer. 

Ivan made a Sumerian beer.  He malted his own grain and smoked some of it.  The beer was to be made with wild yeast started with fermented dates.  Since the recipe he was using indicated that the alcohol content would be fairly low, he boosted it with some champagne yeast.

The end result had a rich, full, interesting flavor.  It was sour and acidic.  It tasted like tomatoes, and the flavor from the smoked grain came through.

It was not a beer I would just sit and drink.  But it is something that I think might pair well with a good meal.  My friend Scott suggested that it might improve with age.  Ivan said that the information he'd read about the beer didn't talk about it after much time, so he wasn't sure how it would turn out with time. 

Personally, I think that it's quite drinkable now, but it needs something to complement the flavor.  I'm thinking that  maybe a steak withh a rice pilaf and maye some kind of fresh vegetable relish/salad with a vinegar base would be really good. 

More so than any other beer that I've tried, it makes me want to learn more about beer and food paring so that you can maximize the enjoyment of both.

Maybe I need to find the time to start working on that...

Old Fashioned, Not Outdated

Tonight I’m drinking Samuel Smith’s India Ale, and when I decided to pick up this beer, I decided to check out their website - http://www.samuelsmithsbrewery.co.uk/

It’s not a fancy site, but the info about the brewery makes me wish I could visit North Yorkshire, England.  The Old Brewery is Yorkshire’s oldest brewery, and they still employ a cooper!  In case you don’t know, coopers make barrels and it’s a profession that’s fascinated me for years.  That right there makes me like Samuel Smith all that much more.  So far I’ve had their porter and their organic raspberry - both of which I love.  Now I find out that they are AWESOME as well as a brewer of good beer?

But it gets better - there are pubs in the area that stock only Samuel Smith’s beers.  The brewery has an area manager who looks after Samuel Smith’s pubs and recruits live-in management couples to run a pub and live above it.  They also provide a pub atmosphere focused on the beer and on conversation - no music or TVs.  Maybe that’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but it sounds fantastic to me.

Okay, enough about my new-found puppy love with this brewer.  I might as well devote a couple of sentences to what I’m drinking:

It poured a clear orangey-amber with no carbonation or head.  The scent wasn’t strong.  It was fruity like, apples and pears and sparkling white grape juice.  The hops played a large role in the flavor, but I would describe it as predominantly malty.  It is not what I would consider a bitter beer, although there was definitely a bitter finish.  Instead of being a force to be reckoned with (like I’m known to seek out in beers) the hops provided a bitterness that added character and balance to the malt as well as a hint of fruitiness which reminded me of cider.  This was very good.

MKE Brewfest 3

This last Saturday (July 28th) was the third annual Milwaukee Brewfest (milwaukeebrewfest.com.)  This is an event that I really like, and I’ve been fortunate enough to go all three years.  (Next year’s is July 27th, 2013 - If you haven’t made it to one, I suggest you save the date!)

Milwaukee Brewfest is held at McKinley Park on the lakeshore, and it is a great location for this event:  the beauty of the lake, the open space for the tents and grass instead of pavement.  It is perfect for sampling beer, enjoying the weather, and plopping down just about anywhere if you’ve had a bit too much.

This year brought a couple of small, but important changes.  They had a waiting area where you could get your wristband and glass before they opened instead of standing in line and then having to take care of business when they opened the gate.  Great idea!  There was still a line to get in, and the waiting area filled up before the line cleared, but it definitely got people in more smoothly.  Amanda and I arrived 30 minutes early, which meant we were able to find a place in the shade to wait.

The drawback of being there early was watching with longing as the people who had purchased VIP passes casually sampled without the crowds.  VIP passes get you in early, get you samples to several VIP beers that aren’t available to the thirsty masses, and also gives you a chance to talk with the people pouring beer.  Even after the gates open for general admission, the crowds in the beer tents rarely prevent you from getting a sample right away (unless you choose to stand in the one or two long lines that inevitably form somewhere,) but if you want to ask someone about their product you’ll either get the 30 second intro, or you’ll seriously tick off the people behind you.

The other difference this year was the ballots for Brewfest Queen voting.  The first two years they were un-crimped Lakefront Brewery caps to drop in the container for your chosen queen-hopeful.  Unfortunately, it seemed like a lot of them were thrown away.  This year the caps were replaced by a paper ballot with blanks for name and email address.  Although less cool, it advertised the possibility of winning free beer.  Who doesn’t love free beer?

I had a blast, and tried plenty of beer and cider.  I haven’t yet figured out how to take any real notes while taking full advantage of the event, so I’ll just give you two quick lists with my tops and my bottoms. 

Tops:

• Svea Liljas Sasquatch Stout
• Four Horsemen Hop Rush IPA
• Dale's Old Chub Scotch Ale
• Delafield Brewhaus Pomegranate Ale
• Ale Asylum Sticky McDoogle Scotch Ale

Bottoms:

• Big Bay Summer Tide
• Lagunitas Gnarly Wine

Everything else fell somewhere in between.  I had a great time, and I plan to make it next year - maybe I’ll get my rear in gear early enough to get VIP tickets, though.  Happy Hop Day!