Mojo, Boulder Beer Company

How bitter is bitter?  What attributes declare a beer deserving of the adjective?  Well, we have International Bitterness Units (IBU) to help us, but those can be a bit deceiving at times.  You see, IBUs are measured by a spectrophotometer, not a human tongue.  If a beer has a lot of malt, the resultant sweetness will drown out many of the IBUs, leaving you with a beer that doesn’t taste quite as bitter.  This is the case with many big stouts and barley wines that have IBUs in the 90s or higher.  Today’s beer is an India Pale Ale (IPA), which is traditionally the bitterest of the classic styles, but often comes with IBUs in the 70s, below the afore mentioned brews.

India pale ale is a derivation of, you guessed it, pale ale.  The style is the product of managing a global empire in a time before air planes and automobiles.  In order to survive the trip from England to (can you guess this one?) India, pale ales were made with a lot more fermentable sugars so the yeast could eat away for a longer period of time.  A massive amount of hops were also added as a preservative.  These two alterations created a beer with a higher alcohol content that tasted quite bitter.

It hurts so good!

The newly minted IPA became a big hit and eventually made its way back to the homeland, despite the fact that its whole story of origin could be, like the cake, a lie (Portal reference?  Anyone?  Anyone?).  There is record of captain Cook enjoying porter in excellent condition after a full year on ship, implying that other styles were aptly suited to make the voyage.  Regardless, the higher ABV and hoppiness surely helped combat the less than sanitary conditions that probably existed, and who wants to drink a dark porter in such a hot country anyway?  That brings me to today’s beer.  Boulder Beer Company’s Mojo IPA.

The color is intriguingly light for its style, piquing my interest. It invites me to take a swig and I think I'll oblige it.  You know what?  I like hops.  I’d say they’re my favorite fruit.  What’s that?  Hops are actually flowers?  But they taste like grapefruits and oranges!  Well then they’re my favorite flower.  To eat.  I mean drink?  This beer’s mojo is its citrus flavors.  I’ll probably glow in the dark for the rest of the day because of the way this brew kicks you up a couple energy levels.  Yeah, that’s right.  I pulled out the particle physics reference (I’m on a roll!).  Mojo would probably make a good breakfast beer, if there is such a  thing.  I feel like frying up some eggs right now just to try it.  Anyway, the grapefruit essence combines with the 70 IBUs to deliver a bitterness that has strength but isn’t a jerk about it.  Perhaps that makes this beer a good gateway IPA. So whether you're looking for some way to ease a friend into the style, or are fed up with all your other breakfast beers, the guys out in Boulder have concocted something worth investigating.

A wise man once told me if you get the butter right up to browning
temperature, the eggs won't stick.  Works every time!

Island Wheat, Capital Brewery

Wheat beers are often left unfiltered, which gives us the familiar term “hefeweizen.”  Hefe is the German word for yeast and refers to the yeast sediment at the bottom of the bottle.  The standard pouring techniques for wheat beers are designed to pick up this sediment (more on those in a later post).  However, today’s beer is a filtered American pale wheat ale and as such identifies more with the lesser know term, “kristallweizen.”  The “kristall” prefix refers to the relative clarity of the beer.  The key word there is “relative.”  It still has the cloudy goodness of a wheat.

If you’ve read reviews of Capital Brewery’s Island Wheat, you know that many of them can be summarized into one word.  “Meh.”  The average review doesn’t jump out and extol its wonders but also doesn’t outright bad mouth it.  I think it’s about time I investigate.

A 12oz. bottle into a .5l glass is a little silly, but it's a good glass.

The color looks good and the head came out as I was expecting from the pour I used.  When I lean in to sniff, I don’t detect much.  I’ve read people say they get a lot of bready aromas, but I think that’s probably from the lack of other smells to drown them out more than their own strength.  It is very smooth and easily goes down.  However it doesn’t quite have that oomph you’re probably looking for.  Deep down, I really like this beer but I find my self feeling like Bill Cosby commenting on his first child’s birth, “Can you put this back?  Because it isn’t done yet.”

He's so great with the kids!

What this beer needs is more.  I’m not sure if it needs something in particular, just more.

The wheat used in this brew comes from Washington Island, just off the Door County coast in Lake Michigan.  The island has an area of about 23 square miles, so it’s not huge.  Maybe its production just isn’t high enough to support the grain bill this beer needs and should be increased.  However, tourism is the main industry on the island so you don’t want to go cutting down all of its trees.  I propose they do like New York and use garbage to create new ground.  Of course you might say dumping massive amounts of trash into the lake is counterproductive and would be vehemently opposed, not to mention the public relations nightmare that would ensue, but this is Wisconsin we’re talking about here.  They know how to get it done!

Oh, you didn't like that bill?  I'm sorry.

While you may not find super reviews of Island Wheat, don't let that stop you from trying it.  It's a little small but solid.

Sunday School: Malt

I’d like to start today’s post with a story of a seed that wanted to grow.

There once was a little barley kernel that lived on a stalk.  He had almost thirty brothers and sisters with him and there were plenty of other stalks in the neighborhood.  Life was good, until one day the stalk was cut and he was separated from his family.  He was really sad, but understood it was all part of his life cycle.  It was time for him to move on to a new patch of soil and start growing his own stalk.  But he never found that soil.  He dried that day.  Parched, he gave up and fell into dormancy.  However, a few days later, he tasted water again.  When he woke up, he was surrounded by thousands of kernels he had never seen before.  Conditions were cramped and uncomfortable, but there was plenty of water for everyone!  He didn’t know how he would ever escape but decided to start preparing himself.  The chance of finally finding that plot of soil and making a family was enough motivation to entirely change who he was.  He grew his acrospire deep into his layer of aleurone to begin transforming his starchy endosperm into sugar.  If he wants a family, he has to be sweet, right?  He threw together some roots from what he remembered of home and started pushing.  They weren’t fancy, but they were strong.  Strong enough to burst through his hull and into the light of day.  He continued reaching, reaching for that soil he had dreamed of his entire life.  But then it got hot.  Really hot.  All of the water he had absorbed left him for the clouds of vapor over his head.  That poor, sweet little barley kernel breathed his last as he was cooked alive.  He fried that day.

As horrifying and gruesome as this story sounds, this is what every single kernel of barley goes through to make the beer we drink.  This humble plant has to go through a lot before it can give us the sweet flavors and full colors we enjoy.  It starts off looking like this.

                     
               I picked this up a while back when visiting a farm that grows for Coors.

It comes in varieties with names like Two Row and Six Row, but it should have names like Rafael and Donatello because, just like corn, it’s basically a mutant ninja grass.  Each kernel is plump with starch, but yeast can’t eat starch and brewing is all about feeding yeast, so we have to turn it into malt.  The malting process provides us with sugars that we will ultimately be able to use.  The do this, we start by soaking the grain.  This activates the germination process, which gives us what we want but also uses it up.  So when the shoots coming out of the barley are roughly as long as the kernels themselves, hot air is introduced to kill the growth.  It’s like the witch fattening up Hansel and Gretel, except growing a tail, and the sentient children are plants, and the witch is a highly respectable artisan in her craft...

   
Just a couple more days, guys!

The temperature of the air used to do this and the length of time left in the heat affect the eventual color of the malt.  Lighter malts have more fermentable sugar but less flavor.  Darker malts have more flavor but less fermentable sugar.  The former makes up the majority of any grain bill because the darker stuff doesn’t have enough enzymes to convert itself.  Just like artists, the more flavorful malts have to become freeloaders and mooch off of the plainer, harder working malts.  These “specialty malts” greatly improve the beer, but if all the malt was specialty, the beer would fail.  So the next time you sip a beer and taste coffee, dark chocolate, caramel or any host of flavors that are earthy and sweet, thank the malt.  Then go support your local artists.

Stiegl Radler

Yesterday we jumped ahead to spring, so today we’re going to keep rolling into summer.  You and your buddy have left his deck and find yourselves hiking a mountain in Bavaria.  It’s absolutely gorgeous.  The grass covered hill sides, the blue sky, a view of the Chiemsee in the distance, the Austrian Alps to the south...

After hours of walking uphill, you finally reach the summit.  In Colorado, this is where you sit down to eat the granola and drink the water you brought with you.  But these aren’t the Rockies.  There’s an entire restaurant at the top serving dishes many Americans have never heard of.  This sets the stage for today’s review.  We’ve been cooking up some kaiserschmarrn and its time to enjoy it with a bottle of Stiegl radler.

Radler is a mix of beer, usually a light pilsner, and lemon soda.  The product of this marriage is an incredibly refreshing beverage that is perfect for lunch.  The flavor is very inviting and sweet with a subtle beery taste that shows up after a few seconds.  The crispness leaves you wanting more after each sip.  It is said to have been invented when a bar built to cater to bicyclers (perhaps the first biker bar?) got too many customers one day.  In order to make his beer stock last through the end of the day, he mixed it with some lemon soda he was having trouble selling.  Being a smooth talker, he was able to play it off by saying he did it on purpose so that the bikers wouldn’t get drunk and fall off their bikes.

Now to that kaiserschmarrn stuff.  When I first heard of kaiserschmarrn, it was described as scrambled eggs with flour.  Huh?  In reality it’s probably closer to scrambled pancakes, but with a lot more eggs, so that initial image is actually pretty close.  To make it, you mix up a batter of flour, eggs, sugar, salt and milk.  You fry it in a skillet just like pancakes, but then tear it up and add more sugar.  It’s common to serve it with apple sauce or various fruit jellies.  There are a number of stories explaining the origin of this dish, so you can pick whichever one you like the best.  Whether it’s the rejected diet food, the pancakes that weren’t good enough for the Emperor or the farmer’s food that was, you can enjoy this food to passively aggressively spite anyone from smug health food nuts to the odious 1%.

Wherever these consumables originated, they are absolutely delicious and I highly recommend getting some.  You’ll feel like it’s June in January.

Dead Guy Ale, Rogue Ales

Beers from the bock family are pretty malty and sweet, which is probably why they’re associated with spring.  Let’s for a moment fast forward a few months to get into the mood.  The leaves are back, flowers are blooming, a warm breeze ever so gently dispels the gloom of winter.  You’re out on your buddy’s deck and feel like drinking a nice maibock to go with the weather.  He happens to have one and brings it out, but when you see the label, you’re shocked by an image of a skeleton and the words “Dead Guy Ale.”  Wow.  That’s, uh... kind of morbid.

Everything about this beer seems backwards at first.  It’s a springtime lager style brewed with ale yeast and labeled with Dia de los Muertos imagery.  Many people claim this to be a sessionable beer (able to drink for a few hours without losing your ability to work), but it has a noticeably higher alcohol content than your average session beer.  But all these contradictions have justifications.

The sweetness from the malt is there, but it is met by an assertive bitter hoppiness.  I’m going to guess that comes from the Alpha Acids (AA) of the Perle hops they use.  For those of you who don’t brew, step into my office for a moment...

Alpha Acids are microscopic gremlins that live

inside hop buds, like midi-chlorians but angry.

They try to protect themselves from being

consumed by being really bitter.  The more

gremlins the hop has, the more bitter the beer

will be.  Final twist, their number is expressed

as a percentage.  This doesn’t fit into the

story I just told you, so I’m going to ignore it.

And we’re back!  The AA of Perle hops is between 7 and 9.5%.  That contrasts with the 3 to 4.5% of Saaz, the other hop variety used.  This bitterness juxtaposed with a bock’s sweetness seems to illustrate the way death is never far from new life, whether that be from a couple down the street giving birth or through a new perspective on the world gained by the deceased’s loved ones.  If you wanted to turn up the volume on the malt, you would have to put up with more bitterness, a testament to the way life and death are inextricably linked and must be observed in tandem.  By switching the style to an ale yeast strain, Rogue has brought out fruit flavors, which could be seen as an homage to the incredibly diversified sources of happiness we encounter in our lives.  Pretty deep for such a light colored beer!

The last contradiction is that of it tasting like a session beer while having an ABV of 6.5%.  This comes from its surprisingly drinkable nature.  Perhaps an allusion to how life keeps on going no matter how bitter your experience is at any given point?  Okay, I have to stop.

                            If you’re drinking this as a session beer, be careful!

Köstritzer Schwarzbier

My story today starts with a book I’ve found to be a great resource in my beer education.  Michael Jackson’s Beer Companion.  Of course whenever I mention this book to anyone, the first thing they think of is this.

          

                      I posted this so you don't have to picture it yourself.

It in fact was written by a different Michael Jackson, one who is famous for his books about the adult beverage.  Anyway, I open it up to the section about black beer and the first thing I read is about Japan.  Somehow the two strongholds of this style are Southeastern Germany and the island nation that brings you Dagon Ball Z and Takeshi’s Castle (the footage for MXC).  Right.  After pondering how this came to be, the bulk of the section talks about Köstritzer Schwarzbier, from the town of Bad Köstritz.  First off, that’s a really difficult word for English speakers to pronounce.  Can we get that IPAed?

'kœ-∫trIts-ər

There, much better!  Moving on, this brewery has an extensive history dating back to 1543, and for a long time was consumed for its health benefits.  When Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was too ill to stomach food, he sustained himself on black beer from this very brewery.  Further, it was believed to be a good drink for nursing mothers.  And people would add raw eggs to it.  I’m not making this up!  If brownish eggy breast milk doesn’t sound appealing to you, then just wait until you try the beer.  It really is good.

                     

First off, it is clear why they named it schwarzbier.  I wonder if it even came from a brewery.  It kind of looks like someone took a tiny black hole and ran it through a juicer.  I’m afraid to get close, lest it swallow me whole and then collapse into a singularity that grows until it consumes the entire planet.  But I’ve read reviews of the beer before and the world is still here, so I should be safe.  When it comes to Köstritzer Schwarzbier, you hear a lot about coffee and dark chocolate.  If I had to pick one, I’d go with chocolate, but to me its a combination of the two.  Like this chocolate I picked up one time that was 99% cacao.  It came with instructions on how to eat it because just popping it in your mouth was not a pleasant experience (we didn’t read them right away).  You were supposed to place it on your tongue and let it melt rather than chew.  It also recommended eating it while drinking coffee.  That blending is what I’m sensing, not separate flavors.

The low alcohol content and mildly hopped character helps this beer go down with incredible ease. This accessibility makes it feel like conversing with an old friend. As the glass slowly empties, I’m starting to get why Goethe turned to it when he was sick.  Each sip leaves me with a holistic sense of refreshment.  Like how food in Italy pleases your entire body, not just your stomach.  Although I don’t think I would pair it with Italian food.  Maybe Japanese?

The smoothness of this brew makes it very accessible to non beer drinkers, like, babies.  So if you’re a baby, Köstritzer Schwarzbier ist das bier für Sie!

                   

                                      This guy looks like a doctor.

The Sixth Glass, Boulevard Brewing Company

Okay!  So here I am, ready to conduct my first beer review!  Now I usually tend to prefer Reinheitsgebot beers, but my first post will be a foray into the low countries.  Well, kind of.  The beer today is The Sixth Glass Quadrupel by Boulevard Brewing Co.  Its birthplace in Kansas City, Missouri puts it quite far from the Trappist Monasteries in Belgium and The Netherlands, but it strives to pay homage.

Many people’s initial reaction to seeing this beer or hearing its name is, “What’s a quadrupel?”  Well, you can faintly think of it as falling into the pattern of the Trappist dubbel and tripel, but they don’t completely form a smooth arc.  It’s almost like the monks beefed up their beer to form the dubbel, mutated it into the tripel and then decided to go back to the original style for the quad.  No matter what its origin though, it’s a Belgian style abbey ale of some sort.  Lots of malt and sugar mixed with interesting yeasts to produce weird science beer.

Looks something like this.

“The eighties called.  They want their beer back!”  But we’re not going to give it to them because it actually looks more like this.

Malt is the big winner in this beer, but sugar definitely gets an assist.  I am reminded of a friend who always adds brown sugar to the pasta sauce when making spaghetti.  It adds a certain sweetness that you find mildly irresistible (is that even possible?), even though it may detract from the “purity” of the dish.  You really do taste the alcohol, but it doesn’t bite you.  I imagine tiny pockets of alcohol lining up and waiting their turns ever so patiently to enter your body so as not to be too much of a shock to your system.  How very politely Canadian of them!  The other thing that sticks out with this beer is the fruitiness.  I’ve read a lot about plums and dark fruits, but I detect a mysterious citrus.  This is probably the high alcohol content sharpening the fruity flavors of the yeast.  Finally, many reviews of this beer talk about how long the flavor lasts in your mouth.  The Sixth Glass does indeed linger, but I felt it more at the back of the tongue and in the throat.  Like rum... but better... because it’s beer... yum.

The name of this brew can be a bit mystifying at first, especially given that the twelve ounce bottles come in four packs.  However, after looking into it further, I am quite thankful they stopped at four.  The moniker comes from a Hans Christian Andersen story, “Taarnvægteren Ole.”  In it, a tower watchman uses the image of a New Year’s Eve party to explain what lives in each glass.  The first glass, which houses health, gives way to consecutive increases in the drunkenness until finally landing on the sixth glass, which incubates a small demon.  This demon looks good and is a smooth talker who somehow agrees with everything you say, but he leads you to do terrible things.  Once you’ve reached this demon, the only thing that can be done is destroy you and start all over.  Why is a four pack such a good place to stop?  Because the fourth glass harbors a pause for reason.  The last stand of sobriety on the pathway into the abyss of alcohol.  At 10.5% ABV, Hans Christian Andersen could have been anchronistically writing about this beer.

                                 

Welcome, one and all to Beer&There!  A blog about beer... and other things.  I'll be using this medium mostly to post reviews of beers I've tasted and to discuss various other topics pertaining to that blessed proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.  But man does not live by bread alone, even liquid bread, so I'll also be sharing non-beer related posts from time to time.

For now, however, I have to go downstairs to brew my first pale ale.  I'm going with ten pounds of Rahr two row and two pounds of Crystal.  I tried cracking it with my pasta roller but that failed miserably so now I have to make friends with the rolling pin again.  Some day, rolling pin, I'll leave you in the past.

Why must you hurt me so?