In Praise of...Brew Masters on Discovery Channel

Watch it!

This is just a quick post to get out ahead of Sunday night’s television lineup.

Mrs. BeerRant and I watched the first episode of Discovery Channel's Brew Masters this morning – TiVoed from a week ago or earlier.

I like it, A LOT. Mrs. BeerRant liked it too (and she’s way pickier than me when it comes to television watching. Picking husbands? Eh, not so much, I guess. Lucky for me.)

I’ve gone on at length here about my feelings regarding Dogfish Head’s brews. For my previous posts about DFH Brewing go HERE. I’ve tried one of their raisin concoctions, a peach disaster, an IPA, a chicory stout, an Indian brown ale and their pumpkin beer. I like the chicory, the brown ale and the pumpkin beer, which puts them at a 50% success rate in my book. (No reason to give up on someone at 50%, hell if that was the case Mrs. BeerRant would have left me years ago!) Bottom line: I like enough of their beers to continue trying them simply on their record alone, but factor in the personality behind the brewery and I’m always willing to give them a shot. So far, the series Brew Masters is at 100 percent.

I think you’ll find that the first episode of Brew Masters shows Sam Calagione to be a personable, fun-loving but hard-working guy; an image you probably picked up on in the documentary film Beer Wars, as well.

Now, the question that pops into my head is whether there’s just a bit of the Emperor’s New Clothes at work during the tasting session, in which all the folks gush over the release of Bitches Brew brewed in honor of the anniversary of the Mile’s Davis album of the same name from the 1970s. I’ve often tasted beer in front of the brewer and, though I didn’t think it was top notch, I’ve said it was good – that’s a weakness of mine and I rarely put myself in that position these days, preferring to spout off here where I can go all “beer jerk” if I don’t like a particular beer. Anyhow, I wonder if Sam got the same sort of feedback when he developed that travesty that is known as Festina Peche. Ugh.

Okay, back on track…

I really, really liked Brew Masters and we’ll set up the old TiVo to catch the next episode. Rather than read any more of my blather, here’s what the cool kids say about the show:

Brew Public
I especially like this write up because it mentions something I noticed when watching the first episode of Brew Masters: The Blue Moon commercials. As I’d suspected, the craft beer literati and the microbrew snobs have come out retching and kvetching about this. Never mind that in the first episode of Brew Masters, we were shown what a small percentage of the beer market is actually occupied by the likes of Dogfish Head Brewing. So you don’t like Coors. So you don’t like Blue Moon. Fine. Shut the fuck up, drink your $9/four pack beer and let the unwashed masses underwrite your beer-related television viewing entertainments through their purchases of the vastly cheaper beers made by the likes of Coors. (Cheaper and less inspiring, for sure.) Or, show some testicles and boycott the damned show, boycott Dogfish Head, boycott Coors and boycott the Discovery Channel. If not, at least shut the fuck up.

The Brew Lounge
One of the comments posted at this blog takes a swipe at the inaugural episodes rap-music fixation, perhaps having forgotten that the beer being brewed is to honor the re-release of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew by Sony Records. (Or something…)

Wall Street Journal
I don’t actually read the Wall Street Journal much.

Here’s what Beer Advocate posted about Brew Masters.

I’m bushed. Must be all the turkey I’ve eaten the last day or so….or the beer.

Beaver Creek and Colorado Native

Been in a bit of a funk of late – thankfully not for lack of good people around me. There’s just this sort of self-starting internal glumness that settles in now and then, accompanied by a bit of writer’s block (if I may be so bold as to call myself a “writer” for hell’s sake) and no matter whom you’re around or where you go, the pervasive gloominess hangs on for some reason.

Well, in spite of all that there are a couple of neat things to relate here at BeerRant, so I’ll be about it before this shadiness, this crankiness gets worse.

FLAGSTAFF IN THE FALL (It's nice.)

I rarely venture far outside the greater Phoenix area and when I do it’s almost always work related. A jaunt up I-17 to Flagstaff the last month of October was no exception. I spoke at a conference near the NAU campus on a Thursday afternoon and made a trip out of it, attending the conference all day Thursday and half of Friday. But what to do with my spare time on Thursday night? I did a bit of research on local brewpubs and by the time I’d arrived Thursday morning I’d pretty well determined that I would walk over to Beaver Street Brewery, just up the street from the conference center and the NAU campus.

It was dark by the time I set out from the conference center to make my way the two or three blocks to find Beaver Street Brewery’s operation. (I’d stopped to chat with other conference attendees and share an overpriced bottle of Fat Tire before heading off on my own.) I negotiated some road construction in the dark and managed to find Beaver Street with little difficulty. I was seated promptly and had menus in hand immediately. I kept one eye on the world series game while I scanned the menu to make my selections. Bowl of chili and a pint of their R&R Oatmeal Stout. I didn’t have my Beer Engineer’s Field Book during this trip, but a 3x5 index card made a nice substitute. Here’s what I jotted on that card:
R&R Stout. Dark/opaque with a sturdy head. Faint hint of chocolate in the smell and noticeable in the taste. Every bit as good as [Deschutes’] Obsidian Stout. Heavy lacing.

Every bit as good as Obsidian Stout. What higher endorsement do you need, people? The chili was darned good as well and the cornbread muffin – oh yes. I apologize there isn't a picture of this sturdy stout.

During my meal I spied a sign on the back bar advertising something called Lumberyard Red in cans. Thinking I’d likely need a beer or two back at the hotel, I asked the waitress if they had any package beers cold, when she replied in the affirmative, I had her add a 12-pack of the Lumberyard to my tab, then I settled up and made my way back to the hotel where I watched a couple more innings of the world series before changing over to a Charlie Brown classic. I sampled the Lumberyard there in the hotel and am happy to report that I can recommend it as well. I’ll give a better set of tasting notes soon.

I'll go back to Flagstaff as soon as I can, and when I do, I hope to be able to visit Beaver Street Brewery again.

HOPS TO THE PEOPLE, MAN!

When I first sampled Colorado Native Lager during my visit “back home” this summer, I wasn’t aware that it was a Coors product. I liked it then and I like it now, and perhaps I like it even more (you’ll see why in a second). You’ll see in the blog posts I made regarding the Colorado trip, I didn’t make reference to Colorado Native. Well I sampled it at a Baker Street Pub and snapped a photo with my phone camera, which I can’t download. I do have notes in this here Beer Engineer Field Book and the notes indicate I sampled CNL on two consecutive days. On July 21st I noted that it was “a bit dark for a lager” with a “faintly roasted taste…” and on July 22nd I played pool with my nephew and drank Colorado Native Lager along with some Black Butte Porter and some Mirror Pond Pale Ale. Good company.

More recently, I was chatting with my brother who was in Colorado the same time I was and he raved about a local beer he discovered in Vail or Winter Park or some such place. (I never venture any farther than Clear Creek County when I get to Colorado.) Turns out he was talking about Colorado Native Lager!

I like Colorado Native Lager just fine, I liked it before I knew it was basically a Coors product and I might actually like it more now that I do know it’s a Coors product. It kind of tickles me to get in another gulp of local product at the exclusion of those folks at Golden City Brewing.

Here’s the grading for Colorado Native at Beer Advocate. I wonder if all these folks know it’s a macro brew concoction.

Here's a cool blog post about Colorado Native’s label. Mentioned here is the fact that the ingredients for Colorado Native are 99.8% Colorado grown and that their back label includes something called a SnapTag. (Hmmm. I wonder what ingredients aren’t from Colorado and whether they might be able to do without them for the sake of a perfect 100% score.)

But that’s not the last word. Here's why I REALLY like Colorado Native Lager: I stumbled on a blog post at Mile High Beer. Seems the folks at CNL are going to distribute hop rhizomes to anyone who makes a request. I sent in my request and got a nice email reply. That’s cool. I hope to have that hop rhizome early next year. In the meantime, I’ll post a picture of a hop bud that I retrieved from a local hop plant up stream from the Coors plant, in Clear Creek County. (I’ll give you a hint; it’s not from a hop plant in Idaho Springs or Georgetown.)

Let’s hear if for all the Colorado Natives. (Now excuse me, I'm off to buy a Colorado Native Lager t-shirt.)

Stinker Alert! Buffalo Bill's Bad Batch! (Sorry)

The Jury’s In.

This year’s batch of Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale is a stinker. At least the Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale that was shipped to the Phoenix, Arizona market is a stinker.

I picked up a single of BBPA at the local Total Wine store on Saturday (not wanting to blow the dough for a full six pack in case my suspicions were confirmed) and on Sunday, I popped the top, and poured the contents to find a sour smelling, floater infested glass of tangy pumpkin ale, not at all in a league with their previous year’s efforts.

So for the 2010 historical record: A six pack of Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale purchased at Cost Plus was found to be sour smelling and tasting with intermittent flaky, paper-like floaters. A random single of Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale purchased at Total Wine was found to be sour smelling and tasting with small speck-like floaters.

Sorry Buffalo Bill. See you next year.

On a Positive Note.

In my quest for a single bottle of BBPA, I snagged a single of Lakefront Brewing’s Pumpkin Lager, remembering how enjoyed their pumpkin offering last year in Denver and a single of Abita Brewing’s Pecan Harvest (and some others) remembering with fondness a bunch of Shiner Holiday Cheer’s that I’ve enjoyed. (You remember that one from Texas that’s brewed with pecans and peaches…ah, delicious.)

I first enjoyed Lake Front’s Pumpkin Lager at a little Mexican restaurant on the west side of Denver almost a year ago exactly. The upside then was that they were having a special on this one and I originally recalled that it was on draft, but the more I think about it, the more I begin to recall that it was served in bottles. My brother-in-law was even coaxed into trying one and enjoyed it, I believe. I enjoyed it so much that when I returned from the Denver trip (last year’s Denver trip, not to be confused with this year’s Denver trip), I eagerly hunted the shelves of the local booze outlets hoping to find more, but to no avail.

Imagine my thrill at finding Lake Front Pumpkin Lager at Total Wine this past weekend. I don’t know if it was simply setting and circumstance, but my notes this time don’t measure up to that initial sampling. Here are the two separate entries.
October 7, 2009
More spice than pumpkin. Very good spiced pumpkin taste. Enjoyed as a prelude to getting my ass kicked at pool
(Did I mention that my brother-in-law is an accomplished pool player?)
October 17, 2010
Cloudy bronze. Weak head. Slightly sour smelling but with noticeable pumpkin smell. Vaguely sour, not especially spicy. Not as good as I recall it from Denver a year ago.

Indeed. I believe the October 2009 sample was all the more tasty because of the pleasant company of my brother-in-law. Setting and circumstance, people.

The notes for Pecan Harvest are certainly more hopeful than for BBPA this year and even as compared to the Lakefront Pumpkin Lager:
Copper colored with a thin head. Good – not like anything I can think of. Nutty roasted tasting – a bit rich and probably not something you’d want to drink a bunch of.

No, not a bunch, but just right if two or three is your goal for an afternoon under a tree in the back yard.

That’s it. I’ve got a busy rest of the week and a busy weekend coming up, then, this time next week I’ll be preparing for a two-day jaunt up to Flagstaff on work-related business and I’m hoping to visit Mogollon Brewing during my free time on Friday. (See them at http://www.mogbrew.com/)

The Bad, Better and Best of Fall Seasonals (So Far)

Did Buffalo Bill lay an egg this year?
I’m beginning to wonder. The six pack my daughter picked up for me at the local Cost Plus store tastes a bit sour and at least one of the bottles had some unusual floaters in it. In the interest of fairness, I’ll procure a single or two at the local Total Wine and do a comparison. Is it possible that Cost Plus got the remains of last year’s batch?

On a brighter note.
Sierra Nevada’s Tumbler seasonal is at least a bit better than sour pumpkin ale. My notebook for this offering reads thus:
Definitely brown. Weak head. Has kind of a corny lager smell. A bit sour and pretty weak.

I've come to expect more from the scientists at SN Brewing and this one just doesn't measure up, I'm afraid. I'll continue to look for their Torpedo (for example) instead.

Best of the batch.
I recall first sampling New Belgium’s Hoptober on tap at the Baker Street Pub near my sister’s place outside Denver last year. It was good, though I recall being surprised because I’d expected a somewhat darker, marzen or Oktoberfest style beer, when in fact this one was just a nice, straight up hoppy, light-colored ale.
Well, this years offering (in bottles this time) is no surprise and certainly no disappointment. The notes on this one:
Pours like a pilsener – straw yellow with a white head. Strong hop notes in the smell at first. Citrus/orange taste up front. Dry. Active beading. Medium-heavy lacing. Good – better than Tumbler.

"Better than Tumbler," indeed. (Sometimes this blog damned near writes itself.) Hoptober will be one I'll stock up on and enjoy for Thanksgiving - it's never too early to consider the holiday's, is it. (At right is a shot of the Hoptober from Denver 2009)

We’re heading into the best part of the year for beer lovers, people. Brace yourself. Pace yourself!

Tilt Shifting with Deschutes Hop Henge Experimental IPA

I don’t profess to be a photographer of any merit, but once in awhile I snap a picture that’s actually almost as good as the beer that’s represented. My experience with Deschutes’ Hop Henge Experimental IPA is a case in point.

Here’s a picture I took of the pour, in an admittedly contrived set up. I accentuated the pose by running it through a process called tilt shift. (You can monkey around with your own photos by visiting a cool website HERE. Enjoy. And if you use the process to doctor photos for your beer blog, please drop me a note so I can see your work, too.)

As for the beer, here’s what my notes, word for word, from back on May 6th:

Lovely pale ale color with off white head. Perfumy fragrant candy sweet faintly citrus mostly sweet. Quickly dry piney tasting and sweet. Surprisingly thick mouth feel and amply bitter. A couple weeks past its expire date of 4/16/10 but not a problem.

I’ll confess that I don’t even know if this is still available (I hope it is.). Here are some Hop Henge related posts on the web:

Why do the fatheads over at Beer Advocate feel the need to post their pictures with a caption that reads, “Displayed for educational use only; do not reuse”?

High praise over at Rate Beer, where they’ve managed to post a shot of Hop Henge in modified livery…without the worrisome disclaimer about “educational use…” but still just a bottle/label shot without a pour to actually prove they’ve ever come in contact with the a real bottle of the stuff. (It must suck to be that busy.)

Deeper into the beer sampling trenches, you’ll find this nicely done bit at The Brew Site. I especially like the comparisons from year to year.

Here are a couple more beer pictures I doctored using the tilt shift trick:


(Sigh) The Great American Beer Festival is about to kick off in Denver…I’ll be on the porch here at Beer Rant HQ…just like every other year.

Grimm Realities and Some Photos

I see that I’ve only posted about two new posts a month for the past few months. Here’s to consistency, I guess. Guess I’ll ramble on and post some pictures that I’ve had in the hopper for some time.

I’ve sampled plenty of new beers and probably some duplicates (I need to set up a spreadsheet to track what I’m trying) but nothing really jumps out at the moment. Perhaps the big news isn’t what’s in the glass so much as where it’s coming from.

Recall that I got word, third or fourth-hand, that Old World Brewery was out of their location on Lone Cactus and moving into new quarters (much) further south. Well, perhaps it’s karma or just dumb luck, but as events would have it, the new location is within a mile or two of where I ply my trade as a low-level government functionary.

I’ve never sampled beer in Mogadishu or Kabul but I’ve had a few in a now-famous hell hole called Juarez and I was served beer by a one-eyed gal at the Pine Knot Saloon near Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico, so I’ll venture that by outward appearances, the “new” Old World venue is not far off the mark, friends. The concertina wire on top of the fences in the neighborhood ought to be enough of an indicator but add a sign on the fence across the street that informs potential trespassers (and lost drunks) that the guard dog is trained to attack and, well, I rest my case. (Thank God I’m too old to be out late partying these days.) Still not convinced? Okay, how’s this: The place has bars on the friggin’ windows, people!

Still, I wish them the best in their move and I’ll drop by again (in the daylight) to see if any of the old gang is around for a tour of the new digs.

While I was in Colorado recently, my nephew raved about a new brewery opening up in Loveland, Colorado. I’ve not sampled any of their offerings but I’ve visited their website
HERE and find it’s very nice! Besides, my nephew knows his beer, so if you’re within the distribution region of Grimm Brother’s Brewery, give them a try and post me a comment here so I’ll know I haven’t been led astray.

Enjoy some pictures…..

Bell's Two Hearted Ale has got to be one of the best beer's I've tried in the last year. I frequently balk at paying $10 or more for a sixpack of beer, but not when I'm buying Two Hearted. I know it's not a "western beer" but I don't mind jumping the fence now and then when the beer his so damned good!

I first tried Blue Moon in cans during a rare visit to a local golf course. Since then, I've purchased a few of them for home consumption and I figured the first one out of the chute ought to be special so I opened the can with an old school opener and set up an ensemble pour. I'm not one for gimmicky packaging tricks but I really do think they need to develop a can opening that better replicates a bottle pour if they plan to stick with this whole can fad.

This time of year I really begin to start thinking about fall and its promise of cooler weather and shorter days. This line of though invariably leads to thoughts of Oktoberfest and Winter seasonal's and then, especially to what I think might be one of the better beer labels out there: New Belgium's Two Below. That's cold! Now, don't get me started on New Belgium's newer line of labels as exemplified by their Ranger IPA - "cheap and uninspired" are words that come to mind and if people pass up the beer because the label is lame, it won't matter how great the beer is. For the record, I've tried the Ranger (may even have done a write up here, I forget) and it's darn fine stuff, the label's just lame.

My birthday was last week and a sweet, dear friend gave me three bottles of Baltika beers from her native Russia, along with a sweet Baltika glass. Naturally I had the Porter first, but now they're all history. Here's a head shop of one of the Baltika's she gave me in year's past. I'll post a picture of the cool glass some time soon.

Catching Up: Eddies: The Documentary and Other Business

Sorry I Took So Long Ed (and Michael)
I watched Eddies: The Documentary about a week ago with my son-in-law. We lounged around his place leisurely swigging some Session Black Lager. It’s really a terrific piece of work and I hope to do a more detailed write up at a later date but except for the fact that filmmaker Michael Peterson doesn’t delve much into the history of Big Rock Brewery, I can’t find anything not to like about the work. Beer drinkers and fans of the filmmaking craft – especially amateur filmmakers – will find a lot to like here!

One noteworthy aspect of the film is the fact that it covers contestants who manage to deliver entries of varying quality and even some who completely fail to come through, so at the end there is no suspicious feeling that Peterson has tweaked the content to provide a better filmic outcome. (Winning entries are evidently not actually aired on television and I thought the sequence near the end where Eddie himself considers running one of the entries in a television spot is especially humorous and a revealing look into the mindset of corporate folks at all levels.)

You need to go to the website Eddies Documentary and have a look at the synopsis and what other folks have had to say. One commentator states that by the end of the film you’ll want to make a film and you’ll want a beer. I’d echo that sentiment and will admit that I’ve already given thought to how I might acquire bottles of Big Rock product in order to conduct a film shoot here in Arizona, USA…but how, I don’t know. I’m pretty good at laying my hands on beer, but not a filmmaker.

Last of the Colorado Notes…For Now
I covered my nice visit to Breckenridge Brewery in Denver and in that post briefly mentioned a nice visit to Tommyknocker Brewery in Idaho Springs (where I grew up in the late 1960s and early 1970s). Well I stopped there on July 20th on the way back to Denver after a day in Clear Creek County. I ate a plate of their outstanding onion rings and had a pint of their Hop Strike Black Rye IPA (Cascadia Ale to some, perhaps. See my previous musings on this style here and here.) Tommyknocker’s version of this emerging style tips the scales at 7% abv, presents an opaque brown and smells vaguely (and rightly) of grapefruit. The taste is strangely nutty and hoppy at the same time and it’s one of the better examples of this new style that I’ve tried. The waitress told me it’s only been out a month or so.

To round out the meal I enjoyed a Pick Axe Pale Ale (which I’ve had in the past and which I would enjoy again later in the Colorado trip during a lunch with my nephew and his son in Georgetown - that's when the picture was taken). Finally, to put an exclamation point on the visit, I bought a six pack of their TundraBeary to carry back down the hill to Denver. (I enjoyed that immensely, bottle by bottle over the next few days.)

Old World. New Digs?
So I’m sitting here at BeerRant HQ, checking activity on my new Facebook page (which I’ve only had a week or so) and I see a note from one of my nephew’s who says something about Old World Brewery closing down and moving. WTF?

I go to the Old World Brewery website and it’s about as nondescript as ever, so (heh, heh, heh, I’m an insider now) I click on their Facebook link and find a string of comments intimating that they’ve closed down their operation on Lone Cactus and are relocating (much) further south to the area around 25th Avenue and Van Buren.

I’m bothered by this for reasons I can’t explain. Perhaps it’s simply that I no longer have a “local” brewpub in close proximity to my house. It’s sad.

Evidently the “New” Old World will open some time in October. Eh. End of an era.

Last of the 2009 Jubelale and Goodbye to a Great Man

Drank my last bottle of the 2009 Jubelale this evening and will have done so in honor of my Uncle Buff Rutherford who passed away yesterday - gone to be with my mom (his little sister) who went on ahead just this past May 29th. Buff was a man's man, a working man and by the work, you'd know the worker: rock solid and trustworthy. The world's a little less well off today for his loss.