Snow Cap, Pyramid Breweries

The power of marketing is quite impressive.  How many among us say “klenex” instead of “tissue.”  Or “pop tart” instead of... what would that thing even be called?  A “toaster pastry?”  Adept marketers can make you think you need something you really don’t, are under a time limit you’re really not, are fed up with something you’ve actually never experienced, etc.  Today’s beer is an example of a style that seems to be made up.  The winter warmer.

What is a winter warmer?  Well it’s dark, usually strong, malt side balance but not always, and spiced, sometimes.  I’ve seen people describe beers labeled as winter warmers in terms of brown ales, amber ales, even a pale ale!  For the most part, it seems like the style is open for interpretation and gets thoroughly interpreted.  On top of that, the name itself is misleading.  The “warmer” in winter warmer refers to the way the usually higher alcohol content produces a sense of warmth, but that warm feeling is actually quite the opposite.  Alcohol increases the size of your blood vessels, most notably in your capillaries.  This increases the amount of blood right underneath the skin, where the nerves that tell you if you’re hot or cold happen to live.  The 98.6 degree blood warms those nerves but the whole process actually cools your body.  It’s like putting a lamp right next to your thermostat.  The lamp warms the thermostat, turning off the heat to the rest of the house.  Luckily, there’s no lamp next to my thermostat, so I should be toasty warm while tasting Pyramid Breweries’ Snow Cap.

                         

As you can see, the “snow cap” of this beer is not the pure white of a fresh fall, but that’s alright.  If it had a pure white head on top of that deep brownish red color, it would have a lot of esplainin’ to do.

                                            

The color comes a little from chocolate malts, but more from caramel malts at 80 degrees lovibond.  I’ll have to explain the lovibond scale for you non-brewers at some point, but basically, 80L is a pretty dark caramel.  Their sweetness is matched by the bitters of the hops, but they still make a good showing in the mouthfeel.  Kind of how you would imagine sweet feels like.  The big winner in this beer however, is the previously mentioned hops.  If winter warmers are often spiced, then Pyramid Breweries defines Nugget hops as a spice.  The alpha acids on that variety are 12-14% and impart a certain dryness along with their bite.  Some reviewers take issue with the hoppiness, saying it doesn’t fit the style.  But like I said, the “winter warmer” style has a pretty weak brand anyway.  Snow Cap does impart the faux warming sensation, but doesn’t feel like a beer with 7% ABV.  Maybe this defeats the purpose.  Maybe you should drink two.

                              
                                                            Suck it up, bro!

Or maybe it’s fine just how it is.

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.