Beers of the Axis

I suppose it had to happen, what with my tendency toward history and the historic, but before I go off on this somewhat tongue in cheek tangent, I probably need to point out (to the 1 person in 100 who will somehow take this wrong and brand me a hater) the fact that this is good natured beer discussion with an admittedly awkward historical slant. I don’t mean any disrespect to the citizens of Japan, Germany or Italy, nor do I mean any disrespect to nations who might have fought with or against these nations in any wars past, present or future. Finally, having said that, I don’t think this is the last installment of this topic you’ll see here at Beer Rant. Like it or not.

Also, I’m not pretending for a second that the beers sampled for this post were beers that were produced in or by the Axis powers during World War II – I’m too lazy to verify if these beers were produced during the war.

And so, with the disclaimers out of the way, I bring you….

Beers of the Axis

Germany, Italy and Japan; the powerhouse triumvirate of the 1930s and early 1940s. Beating up on weaker or dumber neighbors, mass killing on an unprecedented scale and war crimes – real war crimes, documented the world over by the way. Ahh, the good old days.

In September 1931 Japan invaded Chinese Manchuria and in October 1935 Italy invaded Ethiopia and in March 1938 Germany moved into Austria and into Poland by September 1939, thus finally setting off the spark that started what came to be known as World War II.

I’ve often wondered why historians don’t set the date further back, like with Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia or farther back still, to Japan’s invasion of Manchuria. For the purposes of this discussion, let’s give Japan its long-denied credit for having taken the first steps down the road to all out, worldwide war in 1931. In my book, when it comes to World War II, Japan was the trendsetter so let’s start with a (supposedly) Japanese beer, shall we?

Sapporo Premium Beer will represent the land of the rising sun in this review of Beers of the Axis. It smells of vinegar in the bottle and pours a golden yellow with a weak head. Very little taste; indeed of the three Axis beers in this post, this one rates the lowest for taste and get this: the label states that it’s brewed in Canada! (Well, Canada did help win the war, so it stands to reason.)

If Japan is to be credited for lighting the fuse that lead to the explosion of World War II, then next in line comes Italy, with its invasion of Ethiopia, where Italian tank crews fought valiantly against out-gunned locals. Ah, inspiring, isn’t it? Well, what of their beer?

I selected a bottle of Birra Moretti from a multi pack Beers of the Galaxy box that’s been sitting around Beer Rant HQ. Birra Moretti smells a bit sour in the bottle and pours a golden yellow color, producing little head but active beading. The taste is a bit sweet and gone quickly. Nothing much to this beer, really. It’s probably a good session beer and the figure on the label of a hat-wearing fellow seems pleasant enough; he doesn’t look like someone who would instigate a military conflict with a weaker regional neighbor; just some mustachioed fellow sipping a cold beer while he waits for his pizza.

Finally, an example of German brewing prowess that I’m sure most readers and visitors to Beer Rant have heard of, Spaten Oktoberfest Ur-Marzen. I’ll confess that this one was my favorite of the three – I’m partial to Marzen’s for some reason and have had this one on more than one occasion in the past. It’s confounding that the same nation that brought us the Reinheitsgebot purity law governing the production of beer, also managed to concoct a set of regulations that dehumanized vast segments of the population, leading to the extermination of millions…but I digress.

Spaten Oktoberfest Ur-Marzen has a grainy smell in the bottle and pours a light tea color with a weak head and medium beading in the glass. The taste is vaguely of roasted nuts with a quick caramel finish. While I’m happy and proud that the allies kicked the snot out of a nation of people who allowed the Holocaust to take place I’m also glad the Reinheitsgebot remains in effect; this beer’s a keeper.

There you have it, a thumbnail sketch of three beers representing the Axis powers of World War II. Next time, perhaps, a posting on Beers of the Allies, who knows.

(My posting for The (Late) Session will be in a few days by the way.)

Product Review: Vacu Vin Rapid Ice Cooler

This product claims to be able to cool a bottle of beer in 5 minutes.

Sort of, but not really.

I’ll confess to feeling a bit duped by this one. The instructions indicate that after storing the rapid ice cooler in the freezer for six hours you can then place it around a bottle of beer and cool it in five minutes.

The devil is in the details here folks. The instructions don’t specify exactly how much colder the bottle will become as a result of being wrapped in this little icy vest. I tried it with a room temperature bottle of Cinder Cone Red and after just over five minutes I poured the bottle to find it wasn’t quite as cold as I typically like my Cinder Cone.

My plan for this product in the future is to use it as a wrap for bottles placed temporarily in the freezer – you know, for those times when you bring home room-temperature beer and want to sample it right now. Wrapping this little gizmo around the bottle, then placing it in the freezer should speed that process a bit.

Another use: I bashed my knuckle over the weekend and this thing came in handy as an ice pack to keep the swelling down.

I won’t be buying more of these – one is enough.

Beer Cooling Alternatives

Here’s a quick-cooling method suggested by Dumb Little Man. Hmm. Doesn’t seem so dumb to me. He even thought of cooling beer and “soda.” Evidently MythBuster’s did a segment on this and proved it works. The ice apparently changes the freezing temperature of the water that surrounds the beer thus driving the….oh, I don’t know, they proved it works, okay?

There’s also a video tip floating around the Net showing how to cool down a can of beer in about 30 seconds using a can of compressed air. It might work, but it’ll end up costing you a fortune in compressed air.

Meet Mr. Beer

The 50th Beer Rant Post and a Confession

Ah, my fiftieth post at Beer Rant. This is nice. Didn’t think I’d get here this fast. Didn’t think I’d sample so many new (and old) beers in such a short time and still manage to muddle along largely hangover-free.

There is one trick to the “hangover free” part: Don’t buy whole six-packs of beer you know you only want to sample and if you do, don’t feel compelled to finish the whole six pack, trade it off or give it away. Just make sure you have notes so you’ll be able to remember if it was a beer you want to try again. (I didn’t figure these things out on my own, really. I’ve picked up a ton of great knowledge, largely by visiting the beer blogs that are listed here.)

I don’t suppose folks have logged on here to learn my beer sampling secrets so let’s get right down to confession time. I’m brewing a batch of beer using the Mr. Beer Home Brewing System! It’s a long story and I can already imagine true beer snobs and real “fermentarians” sniggering and looking down their noses…well, if that’s you, go ahead and log off now.

Brief synopsis of events leading up to brew day: The Mr. Beer kit belongs to Johnny Southside. Johnny Southside received it as a gift and hadn’t tried the system. We had discussed home brewing kits in the past and Johnny Southside mentioned he had an as yet unused Mr. Beer system. I proposed that we do a test run at Beer Rant Headquarters and he kindly agreed to loan me the system. I purchased a new set of basic brewing ingredients online at Mr. Beer, the ingredients that came with the kit having long since expired. I chose their Bewitched Red Ale and to round out the brewing experience, I bought a set of their plastic bottles and caps for bottling the end product.

I’m an all-or-nothing sort of guy a lot of the time. When I become interested in something, the interest borders on obsession. I noodled around the Internet and found a Mr. Beer users forum that proved to be a font of good information on the process. One of the first things I found out was that the brewing times listed in the Mr. Beer literature are minimum times and that most regular users of the Mr. Beer system double the time so that the wort is in the brew keg two weeks, in the bottle two weeks, then lagered in the refrigerator at least one week. Well this posed a difficulty once Johnny Southside and I consulted the calendar; we didn’t have enough weekends free to commit to a brewing schedule, so we kept putting off the brew day.

Finally, a window of opportunity presented itself and we boiled up some product, placed it in the brew keg and tossed the yeast yesterday. The wort is now in the keg, stored in a moderately cool room at Beer Rant Headquarters. The hard part begins: waiting.

Perhaps for my 60th or 70th post you’ll see a review of some Beer Rant Special Red Ale or some such! In the meantime, guess I’ll just have to keep sampling these other beers I’ve got stored in the refrigerator.

Thanks for visiting by the way!

Good Trade

Widmer Brother's Hefeweizen

It was late fall of 1988 and I was passing through the Navajo Reservation in northeastern Arizona, driving back to Arizona after a brief working sabbatical in a tiny mountain town west of Denver (just over the divide from where Hunter S. Thompson ranted and raved in his Woody Creek compound). I’d been out of the army a little more than four months, held a full time job on a highway project on Berthoud Pass, dated a nursing student who got busted for selling cocaine, climbed to the top of Torrey’s Peak, drank boxes and boxes of Rainier beer and spent far too little time actually appreciating my surroundings. The snow began to fall at our job site well before Halloween and then it reached the cabin I was renting in that little mountain town, and I realized things weren’t going to improve weather-wise, so on election day, and in the midst of a snowstorm, I loaded up the pickup truck and pointed it southwest.

I recall it was somewhere outside Kayenta that I spotted a stooped old man trudging along beside the road, a ragged looking dog following close behind. The wind was not so much cold as it was persistent and the mutt seemed to be seeking shelter in his master’s wake.

I pulled over and waited as the old fellow trudged up beside the truck. Leaning across the cab, I opened the passenger side door and offered him a ride. He nodded, not saying a word and stepped back as if to climb into the bed of my truck, already piled high with what few possessions I carried and stacks of Edward Abbey books in Rainier boxes.

I beckoned him join me in the cab and, shrugging slightly, he – and the dog – climbed into the cab with me and I pulled back onto the deserted highway, the persistent wind no longer a burden.

Eager to make conversation I asked, “Where you headed?”
“Flagstaff,” came the brief, blunt reply.
“You have family there?” I asked.
“No,” came the reply.
“What’s your dog’s name?” I asked.
“Doesn’t have a name,” came the reply.
“Pretty cold today, huh?” I asked.
“Yeah,” came the reply.
“Let me know if the heater’s set high enough for you,” I said. “I don’t have the setting’s just right ‘cause I’m not used to this truck. I got it for my girlfriend.” There was no reply and we drove on for a few miles, my companion gazing through the windshield at the onrushing empty highway, thinking.

Finally, he said simply, “Good trade.”

(I’ll leave it to you to decipher what part of the foregoing story is bullshit.)

I worked a deal with Johnny Southside this week wherein I traded him two of my precious Deschutes Cinder Cone Reds for two Widmer Hefeweizens. I have to confess that I regretted making the deal about five seconds after having made it, but having made it, I stood by it and things worked out nicely, I have to say.

Widmer Hefeweizen smells faintly of citrus in the bottle, which is strange because I did not detect a noticeable citrus character in the taste. It pours an attractive opaque golden orange and a quick swirl of the bottle will release the sediment and give you nice finish to the pour. I garnished the glass with a slice of orange, in keeping with the illustration on the label only to learn later that it’s lemon they suggest. (This is the danger of not researching beers before I sample them, but it’s a procedure I must adhere to religiously, no matter the risks.) There is a strong taste of wheat in this one and I imagine the citrus slice need not be a requirement to make this a nice refreshment. I enjoyed my first one after mowing the lawn at 4:30 on a hot afternoon, with the temperature above 100 degrees. I enjoyed the second one, at a more leisurely pace right after the first one.

Visit Widmer Brothers Brewing and check out their nifty Brother’s Day promotion. I’ve got a couple of brothers – maybe I should send them an email on Brother’s Day.

Here’s a feature article on Widmer Hefeweizen on Beer Advocate. Ouch, “training-wheels beer.” That’s harsh. I like it and I don’t much go in for hefeweizen’s so I guess that’s me riding the trike.

Here’s what the Beer Advocate Poll Numbers show for Widmer Hefe. Not high marks.

I hope Johnny Southside is as pleased with the trade as I.

Red Stripe...Hooray!

A Decent Daily Drinker

Gosh. It would be easy to rip into this beer, but I’m finding that’s not really possible, since it isn’t all that bad for an over the counter session beer. Sure, their commercials are vaguely racist and I’ve often thought that the only reason for this beer’s existence is to supply single bottles for those multi-pack “beers of the universe” boxes, but what the heck.

I’ve had Red Stripe before but sat down to contemplate the single from a multi-pack of 10 international beers. Another blogger compares Red Stripe to Pabst Blue Ribbon or Miller High Life (I refer to it as High Life by Miller…I’m old school that way.) and I think I agree with that appraisal. Beyond that, not much else to say. Good beer for a hot day. You can pound a bunch of them under the shade of a friendly tree, pull your Rastafarian beanie down tight and get your nasty groove on (I guess. That’s what the younger folks tell me.).
Smells of cereal with a weak head and medium beading in the glass and little or no lacing with this one. I suspect, as with all beers, this one tastes better when you’re closer to the source, but until such time as I wake up and find myself in Kingston Town, I might grab a six pack of this now and then just for fun!


By the by...Happy Birthday Dane!

Beer Moment

You might call this one Beer Moments

I’ve had two distinct pleasures over the past approximately 11 months. (Oh, I’m sure there were others, but two are distinct.) There was the pleasure of having my daughter and granddaughters stay with the missus and I while the son-in-law visited a lovely country called Iraq. More recently, I had the slightly more distinct pleasure of helping the kids move happily and safely into a new home just under 30 minutes away from where the missus and I live.

Lately, any effort around here winds up involving beer – usually as a nice after action refreshment so to speak, but occasionally as a middle-of-the-job pick me up as well. I hauled an early load of household goods over to the kid’s place a week or so before we rented a u-haul for the big move. I’d provisioned their fridge with a six-pack each of Rolling Rock, Mirror Pond Pale Ale, and Black Butte Porter. The Rolling Boulder is for my son-in-law who prefers lighter refreshment, the Black Butte is for me because I know my son-in-law will leave it alone and the Mirror Pond is a nifty compromise that we both can enjoy once our own favorites are gone. (Have I mentioned that I have liked every beer that Deschutes puts out? That’s an amazing fact, I think. It indicates a level of consistency that is probably important in the brewing business, right?)

With the move complete, I set about helping the kids make those little adjustments that are always needed in a new home; bracing shelves, hanging curtains, and so forth. In the process I sampled some of the beer from the fridge of course but I also picked up a six pack of Sierra Nevada Summerfest, which proved to be a good beer to sip while working, but not one of those beers you want to waste much time pondering over.

Now, with much of my work winding down at the kids place, I’m gearing up to perform some of those neglected tasks around my own place – there’s lots of yard work to be done and it doesn’t help that the temperature here is now hitting 110 degrees daily. My son-in-law is coming over this morning to help me knock out a bunch of tree trimming before the sun gets too high. Suppose we’ll have a cold beer or two as well.
I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel at their moving out, but I know I’ll miss having the girls staying with us. It’s certainly been quieter here and I don’t find myself stepping on toys the way I once did. The flip side of it is that I’ve got a bit more peace and quiet to enjoy my beers. Ah, who am I kidding? I’m going over to the kid’s place for a Mirror Pond.

The joy of having grandchildren around....

"Take a picture of my cup, too, Papaw!"

Session. Session? What Session?

Great Divide Hibernation Ale

Never one to keep up with what’s trendy, I’ve managed to miss posting a topic-related post for every installment of The Session since I began my beer blog earlier this year. I always have the best of intentions, but then things come up or I begin to feel that my contribution to the discussion will be trifling and not especially useful, and I fail to post a session-related entry month after month.

The most recent installment of “The Session” dealt with drinking beers out of season. More to the point, I suspect the beer masses mean drinking heavier beers during the summer. I missed posting on the appointed day. That’s no excuse to flop down and wail like a wee baby. I’m a dark beer kind of fellow and I like it even in hot weather and even a belated excuse to sample dark, strong beer is reason enough to do so.

With temperatures pushing over the 110-degree mark here, I moved a bottle of Great Divide Brewing’s Hibernation Ale from the bullpen to the refrigerator and come 3 or 4 in the afternoon, with the day’s temperature pushing its maximum, I popped the top and poured it out.

This beer’s very name conjures up images of dark winter. The label depicts a solitary figure in silhouette trudging through a snowy landscape. Brrrr. Certainly there are animals that hibernate in the Sonoran desert come wintertime – toads and snakes mostly, but hereabouts, the animal life really tends to lay low in the summer, trying in every way to avoid the heat of the day. It’s not so much hibernation but simple self-preservation. You cavort out in the sun and heat for too long, you’re a cooked goose. So, Hibernation Ale is appropriate to our lifestyle here in the desert if one considers staying indoors and in the air-conditioning a form of hibernation.

The Tasting
If I could use just one word, three times to describe Hibernation Ale, it would be “coffee, coffee, coffee.” It pours dark but clear with medium beading. If Starbucks made a beer, they would simply be ripping off the taste of this beer and putting it in coffee cups. And not just “coffee” but coffee with creamer and a touch of sweetener, too, along with a mild liquor bite. This one warms you slightly as you drink it and finishes quite dry.

I enjoyed this beer a lot. I suspect its warming properties will be especially nice come December when I can take a seat on the back patio as the sun sets and there contemplate what Santa might have in store for me - I shudder at the thought. In the meantime, Hibernation Ale sampled nicely in the comfy climate controlled environs of my home, with the blinding heat miasma circling about each window like a rabid wolf.

Here’s the Hibernation Ale page at the brewer’s website:
Great Divide Hibernation Ale
Gosh, a “collectible” beer. Makes me almost wish I hadn’t sampled this one quite yet. I never use or throw away anything that might be of value and to know that I popped the top on a beer that might have some value as a collector’s item, well, I’m a bit sad by that notion.

The folks at Beer Advocate chimed in with a grade of A- for Hibernation Ale. No summer school for this beer; and no hibernating either!

Okay, this installment of The (Late) Session is over.

Beer Mapping: You Can Get There From Here

In my work as a low-level government functionary, I have occasion to work with maps and plans, aerial photos and a little bit of GIS stuff. I’ve always thought those things are cool. I can read and write a legal description and scale things on a map or a set of plans. It’s kind of cool to get paid for that, I suppose, but it is work after all.

Imagine having the job of mapping beer related stuff. Wow! Now that would be cool. Someone, somewhere, has begun such a project and they've mapped the locations of brewpubs and breweries scattered throughout the Rocky Mountain West. It’s really neat, but browsing through it only serves to remind me that I need to get out more, which reminds me that gas is more than four bucks a gallon!

Well, beer’s cheaper. I’m staying home.

For you beer/map geeks who want more, here’s a map of the US indicating the excise tax for beer in each state. Ooooooh, riveting!

My thanks and kudos to Chipper Dave for hosting a link to the beer mapping project on his blog Fermentedly Challenged.

A Deschutes Trifecta

I’ve already stated somewhere that I like everything I’ve tried from Deschutes Brewing out of Bend, Oregon. That’s never happened and I suppose it’s time I actually elaborated on which of their products I have tried and to give some background, right?

Mirror Pond Pale Ale
My first experience with this beer and this brewer was during a history symposium at Grand Canyon National Park a couple months ago. Mirror Pond and Black Butte Porter are available in the cafeteria-style restaurant of the Yavapai Lodge on the South Rim. Nice.

I had a couple of these during our lunch breaks, and found them to be very refreshing and just dark enough to be attractive. (I’ve mentioned already that I have an affinity for darker beers – equating light color with weak taste, rightly or wrongly.) Mirror Pond makes a nice lunchtime accompaniment.

Since that first experience I’ve purchased a couple of six packs of this and it was especially nice to have around when I helped my daughter and her family move into their new home recently. (I stocked their new fridge with three six-packs of beer: Rolling Rock, Mirror Pond and Black Butte. My son-in-law is on a Rolling Rock kick, for which I can’t fault him since I was there once myself. I bought the Deschutes beers thinking that the Porter would be too dark for my son-in-law so he’d leave it alone, and the Pale Ale would be a happy medium that he might be willing to try. I think he tried it, but I’m not going to hold his hand for heaven’s sake, and I’m not going to wait forever before finishing the six-pack!)

Black Butte Porter
This one smells faintly of chocolate and grass in the bottle. It pours as dark as coffee and has an initial faint sweetness to it that builds ever so slightly to caramel. It is mildly warming as you work your way through a glassful and isn’t so heavy that you couldn’t enjoy a few in a sitting. I think if I’m going to convince my son-in-law to step over to the dark side of beers, this will be the beer upon which he takes that first tentative step. (C’mon lad, you can do it.)

Cinder Cone Red
Based on the positive experience with both the Mirror Pond and the Black Butte, I snagged a single bottle of Cinder Cone Red at the local cigar and wine emporium and on tasting it, immediately wished I’d hunted down a six-pack.

In the bottle, the vegetable smell is somewhat off-putting, but this one pours a rich red color (of course) with a handsome cream-colored head. The taste is somewhat sweet with hints of caramel or perhaps licorice.

The bottle sports an attractive, eye-catching label that makes the product stand out on the shelves amongst the other wannabes, which may be why I spotted this amid the myriad other single craft brews on the shelf.

Curious, I skipped on over to Deschutes’ website and found that Cinder Cone is only available April through June. Naturally, I picked up two six-packs of Cinder Cone and stashed them in the closet. (I paid just a tad under 6 bucks each for the six-packs, which makes beer one of the best beverage bargains out there these days, I think.) Then, oh joy, my daughter picked up two more and brought them to me on Independence Day! Now I’ve got those three six packs of Cinder Cone (Yes, “three.” We finished one off on July 4th.) hidden away and I’m hoping I’ll forget about them until say, mid-September, early October.

Add Cinder Cone to your beer wish list and try to find it this year before the stock is gone. Otherwise, pencil it in as something to look for next spring and then in the meantime, go out and get some Black Butte Porter and Mirror Pond Pale Ale!

Links and such…

Here’s the link to the Deschutes website:
Deschutes Brewery

Here’s Deschutes’ Cinder Cone page:
Cinder Cone Red

I’m not a registered member at Beer Advocate (never was much of a “joiner” I guess), but I like to use them as the demographic dipstick by which beers are measured. All three of these Deschutes Brewing beers scored well with the Beer Advocates. Here are the individual reviews:

Beer Advocate on Mirror Pond

Beer Advocate on Black Butte Porter

Beer Advocate on Cinder Cone Red

(And while we’re on the subject of beer review websites, I’d like to give a quick tip of the hat to the guys -and gals? - at Beer Review Online . I am a member of this site and will get around to posting an entry about them in the coming weeks, I hope.)

I don’t know that I’ve ever been able to proclaim a fondness for all the beers produced by a single brewer, and having tried three of their beers, my experience with Deschutes Brewing may not be exactly far-reaching or broad-based. But I know a positive trend when I see one. I try different beers from different brewers and some I like (a lot) and some I don’t care so much about but I always try to stay open minded and sample new beers from a brewer even if they’ve disappointed me in the past. Hey, nowadays when you can buy single bottles of beer to sample, there isn’t any excuse for not keeping an open mind and trying a variety of product. The difficulty comes when you’re pressed for a quick choice and your brain freezes and you can’t recall what beers you really liked. For me, for the moment, I’ll just remember one word: “Deschutes.”

July 4th Cinder Cone Red

I enjoyed a few delicious Cinder Cone Reds yesterday, while grilling, while enjoying the company of family and while watching the NASCAR race from Daytona. A glorious day!

Grilling: chicken breasts, beef kabobs and salmon. I drizzled a bit of the Cinder Cone Red on the salmon and it glazed slightly - very nice!

What a great country we live in!

I'll be posting a more detailed entry on Deschutes and their beers in the days to come, but I wanted to document what was on the table this Independence Day weekend.

Chamberlain Pale Ale Revisited (Warning: History Lesson)

When I first tried Chamberlain Pale Ale, I made a commitment to drink it again on the anniversary of the 20th Maine’s big fight at Gettysburg. Today, I’ve done just that and I'm glad I did, because it reminds me of two things: this is an outstanding beer, and history is an amazing thing.

July 2nd dawned hot and the ridge lines and hilltops near the little town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania must have been heavy with the smoke from scattered Union and Confederate encampments, and thick with the smell of gun powder and blood.

By day’s end, the 20th Maine under the able leadership of scholar-turned-soldier Joshua Chamberlain would distinguish itself through its efforts to preserve the Union line at an as yet unknown spot on Little Roundtop.

History records the mass act of daring and heroism that occurred on that second day of battle outside Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. History also notes that Joshua Chamberlain was awarded the Medal of Honor for the bravery and leadership he displayed on that day.

Fading into history are those who didn’t survive much beyond the battle. Sergeant William S. Jordan of Company G was shot through the lung at some point during the battle. History does not record at what point during the battle Sergeant Jordan received his mortal wound, but he lingered until July 24th, fading slowly over the course of over twenty days. Sergeant Jordan died and was buried near the Trostle Farm south of Gettysburg. He was later moved to the National Cemetery where he lays in the Maine section, resting in honored peace.



The sun set blood red here in the desert southwest today, drawing a smoky curtain on a nearly 114 degree day. I imagine the sun was blood red at Gettysburg as well.