If it’s broke, fix it

It took them at least ten years, but Rogue Brewery finally swallowed its pride and switched back to the small bottle format that it once packaged its big beers (before “big beers” was even a term) in, the Russian Imperial Stout, Old Crustacean (a barleywine), and Imperial India Pale Ale.  Wait, pride, who am I kidding?  A sense of right and wrong?  In business?  No, surely it was a bottom-line issue that forced them to turn back the clocks; the large, ceramic bottles must not have been pulling in the dough, which would not be surprising given the exorbitant price point they were selling at.  So now, with the “new” small format, how are the contents inside these Liliputian packages?

Welcome back, old friend.

I just happened upon a rack of the new Russian Imperial Stouts at my local package store, and was honestly blown away by how small they were.  The image above tells the whole story, with the RIS on the far left, followed by 12 and 22 oz. bottles.  The difference is astounding.  Having grown up collecting the tabs from 12-oz aluminum cans, then drinking different (better) beer from the same containers a decade later, followed closely by 12 oz. glass bottles, and the occasional bomber thrown in for good measure, when they could be found, a 7 oz. bottle is truly a sight to behold today.

7 fl. oz.? 7 fl. oz.

Given the trends of barrel-aged beers, sour beers, collaborations, and the like, is packaging the next great frontier for creativity and improvisation within the craft beer community?  Brewers have been releasing special beers for a number of years in 22 oz. bottles, as well as corked and caged bottles, paper-wrapped, cave-aged, neck-labeled, numbered, signed, and perhaps even blessed.  I mean, what new frontiers could brewers possibly explore BUT packaging at this point?  In the past two years, more brewers have started to package their big beers in four packs, at a higher price point than a typical six pack.  Samuel Adams Double Bock is a perfect example of this.  A six pack once sold for $8.99, while the more recent four packs cost $7.99.  And now we have 7 oz. bottles.  What’s to stop somebody from releasing a special (a highly subjective term) beer in 50 ml. nip bottles?  The tickers (a ticker is one who must have every new beer, all the time, so they can ‘tick’ off the beer and move on to the next one, like an automaton with a beer belly) would absolutely love this, not only because they could power through a crap-ton of online beer reviews, but also because they would be easy to send to fellow tickers around the country, perhaps the world, at the going, hypetastic rates.  Hell, a nanobrewery could make its name alone on its nip bottles of highly ticktastic beer.

Nonetheless, how does this RIS taste from the small bottle?  Fine, but I doubt I’ll buy another.  I wasn’t blown away by it, and if something is being sold in such a small format, it had better knock my socks off, and this didn’t.  I wish I had an old bottle in the small format to compare this to.  Still, I applaud Rogue for biting the bullet and returning to a format that people had always preferred.

What do you think the verdict is here:

So, what's the verdict?

Only the blind shall see

An article printed today in one of my local papers, the Portsmouth Herald, went in to a bit of the back story concerning the founding of Smuttynose Brewing, and its sister operation, the Portsmouth Brewery.  As noted here, it took luck, timing, and a good dose of unwavering, perhaps somewhat blind vision (blind to the potential pitfalls and the naysayers) in order to get things to the point where they are today with these successful operations.

And in less than two years, we’ll be able to step into the new Smutty facility in Hampton and luxuriate in the vision, blind or not, of those who have worked diligently over the past two decades plus to put out a quality product that connects people who have a similar passion for great beer.

[What follows is a post, over a year old, concerning the Smuttynose move.]

With a final stamp of approval last week, Smuttynose Brewery was granted final approval to begin construction on their new brewery in Hampton, NH, a stone’s throw from their current location in Portsmouth.  Peter Eggleston, Smuttynose president, plans to have the building, which will almost double their current size, LEED certified, which will be no small undertaking.  A restaurant will be part of the new complex, which will be sure to draw visitors from across New England and even further afield.  As a resident of the seacoast region, this is all very exciting news.  However, it is tempered by the fact that this also represents a wasted opportunity by the folks who roam the halls of Portsmouth’s municipal offices.  Eggleston makes no bones about the fact that Hampton was not originally his first choice.  So what happened?

Red tape, that is what happened.  And a lack of imagination on the part of a small group of individuals more interested in protecting their fiefdoms than in holding on to a productive business that draws more than simply the tourist dollar to Smuttynose.  Well, and a petition against the plan by area residents.  Thus, instead of being able to trumpet what would have surely been a marvel of reclamation and revitalization, the site on Lafayette Rd. will remain a blight to the eye.  Rather than have a gold star in its listing of businesses, the Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce is now losing a productive member, one that gave back to the community in a number of ways.  Granted, that work will continue through the efforts of the company’s sister venture, the Portsmouth Brewery, but Hampton has gained a company that will surely draw even more visitors to its streets, and not all of them will be wearing flip flops and slathering on sunscreen.

In the end, traveling an extra ten minutes down Rt. 95 will make no difference to me.  Either of these locations would require travel by car.  I just see this as a loss for Portsmouth, a town I have spent a considerable amount of time roaming around in. For those people who will be traveling from points south when the Hampton location opens, I would recommend getting some directions before you leave:

View Larger Map

In other news, the Portsmouth Brewery has announced that Kate the Great will be released again on February 9, 2009 at  1:14 p.m.  No doubt the tickertrons have already booked their flights or set up schills to wade through the feet of snow to pick up bottles for them in six months’ time.  What follows is a video that a media company took during the release day last June, along with some interviews with head brewer Tod Mott.  You will note that once the video ends, some other beer-related videos pop up, including the one about that trader that I referenced in my earlier Kate post:

All are one and one are all

[Copied over from a previous incarnation...]

I recently finished reading Anthony Bourdain’s A Cook’s Tour, and if there is one thing I took away from it, it was a reaffirmation of the fact that food and alcohol have the ability to bring communities together, to forge bonds where none might otherwise exist, and to get people shit-housed together who might normally never be caught dead within one hundred yards of one another.  Alcohol is without a doubt one of the world’s great equalizers.  Of course, historically it has caused countless conflicts, large and small, but in the current age, more often than not, treaties are signed, agreements are made, and seals are bonded with a toast and a nice wallop of the local fire water.

The definition of community  has experienced a major shift and expansion in the past fifteen years or so as a direct result of the technological advances that our society has experienced, primarily the explosion of the internet.  Communities have formed around the most arcane subjects, with people plugged in every second of every day, somewhere in the world, with an opinion.  Message boards, podcasts, yahoo groups, social interaction sites, and so on can be simply overwhelming if one allows oneself to fall in to the trap of being consumed rather than being the consumer.  Some might argue that there is indeed too much useless and false information out there, that anybody with half a brain can post whatever they want, in effect, diluting the greater social consciousness, dumbing it down so that the lowest common denominator might finally stop tugging at their slack, drooling jaw and gaze about in a new found state of comprehension.  I say bring it, and not for the obvious reason that I sit here perched on my own electronic soapbox (yes, I do see the irony in this).  If you do possess half a brain, you have the tools to weed out the good from the bad.  You might also have the ability to see the humor in what you and other half-brains consider dreck.

With that in mind, I offer the following three youtube clips, with beer as their common theme.  These clips run the gamut from informative to downright insane.  All of these clips have virtue.  The first because it is actually informative.  The second because it attempts to impart knowledge, and is downright kooky.  And the last because the guy is just out of his mind, and actually having fun with beer.  That’s right, it’s just beer.

The sublime:

The ridiculous (be sure to check out some of his other videos):

And the patently absurd (ditto of the above, watch more of this kook’s stuff):

What’s in a word?

A growing trend in the beer industry has been the appearance of nanobrewers, small batch breweries that produce only a few barrels of beer annually, and far less than the 15,000 barrel limit past which a company is no longer considered a microbrewer.  The folks who own and operate these boutique breweries must often keep their day jobs in order to pay their bills as their sales volume is often not enough to or just barely meets their operating costs.  These nanobrewers typically distribute in a very small, local market, but given the ticker climate prevalent in today’s beer scene, their beers are often consumed, and reviewed, thousands of miles from their official area of distribution via the ticker, beer trading underground.  The beer produced by these nanobreweries run the gamut of being downright excellent to drain pour material, and debates about their quality often hinge on the locals acting as boosters, while those with palates they believe are more refined will often raise a questioning eyebrow, if for no other reason than the query, “How can this IT-guy-by-day possibly brew beer as good as the homers are making it out to be?”  Nevertheless, nanobrewers are here to stay and will grow for a number of reasons, including the “eat local, drink local” slow food movement, the never-ending thirst of far-flung tickers to acquire the latest and greatest beers (in other words, limited or hard to find, regardless of how the beer actually tastes), and support of small businesses verses the larger, corporate behemoths.  The following is a sampling of some of the nanobreweries in the New England area, although some might not categorize themselves as such:

• White Birch
• Lawson’s Finest Liquids
• Maine Beer Company
• Prodigal Brewing
• Hill Farmstead

The last one on the list, Hill Farmstead, is not yet in production (nor is Prodigal), but Shaun Hill, owner and brewer, hopes to have his wares hit the shelves by Memorial Day, as detailed here.  Shaun has brewed at a few breweries in Vermont, as well as serving a guest stint over in Denmark for almost two years.  He has recently returned home to his native Vermont to work the family plot in order to conduct his alchemical brewing experiments.  In the following video, Shaun elucidates some of the finer points of a Russian Imperial Stout at Norrebro:

No doubt this barrel aged Russian Imperial Sotut is a harbinger of things to come from Hill Farmstead.

Now, just what in the hell is a picobrewery?

Build it and they will come

An article, Nowhere like here for beer, in today’s Boston Globe concerns one of the best beer bars in America, Ebenezer’s in Lovell, Maine.  The article is fairly representative of the kind that has already been written about Chris and his mini-beer bar empire, but props go to the writer for speaking with some of the locals and quoting them saying they have been converted from Bud or Coors to micros and Belgians.  Here’s a video of nirvana, otherwise known as Chris’s beer cellar at Ebenezer’s, a site that I have had the privilege of visiting while downing a few select ales:

Big things come in small packages

And by big things, I am referring specifically to Smuttynose Brewing Co.’s Big A IPA, previously only available in 22 oz. bottles, but will now be available in 12-ox. bottles.  Bask in the glory that is the bottling line:

Lemon Ginger Double Wit

Lemon Ginger Double WIt

Ah, the joys of zymurgy.  Got a hankering for chile peppers in your porter, or some guava in your pale ale?  Perhaps some kimchi in a tripel?  All of these admittedly dunder-headed examples (with the exception of the chile, which can be quite good) simply scratch the surface of what is possible when you brew your own beer and do not need to rely on the whimseys of your local brewpub.  That’s exactly what fellow mad brewing scientist James does; he marches to the tune of a different drummer, a timpanic beat drawn from a full kettle or fermenter, often driven by large doses of honey.  My wife and I had the privilege (or was it a nightmare?) of guzzling his Lemon Ginger Double Wit on a recent, frigid New England evening, our wood stove roaring in the background, and a game of Mexican Train half complete.  As I went up by 72 points, which in this particular game is a bad thing, I suggested we take a break from the game and partake of James’s creation, a beer he brewed in June 2009.  I hadn’t looked up his recipe before we drank it, so neither one of us knew the style beforehand (other than the hand-written label that said “Lemon Ginger”), or what sick and twisted alchemy he might have performed with it, but we dove in head, and lips, first.

My notes:

After a careful pour, with little initial carbonation noted, I amped up the angle a little and lo and behold, a feint skein appeared, a caul that dissipated to a fetching Friar Tuck.  After letting things settle for ten seconds or so, and grabbing a new rack of dominoes, I noted that the hue was of a cloudy, hazy golden nature, verging on the darker end of amber.  At this point I was fairly intrigued, and was even more so after I took a big whiff of the nose.  At first hit, I noted a truculent white pepper blast, along with a Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit note that permeated, both of which were thrown out of this moving vehicle and on to the verge by an intense sour wash, be damned with the fine.  “Well, just what have we got ourselves in to here,” I wondered.  At the first sip there was an immediate zing on the lips, which became a more pronounced and lasting tingle as I made my way through this mystery of a beer.  Immediately, a sour patch kid (lemon flavor) crushed my taste buds, with the aforementioned pepperiness mingling lightly, particularly as the pour came up to room temperature.  The ginger must be imparting this spice hit, I figured.  And throughout the glass, it was tough to discern which flavor predominated more, the lemon or the ginger.  Overall, this had a light body, and was quite drinkable, but like many sourz, I’m afraid I could only have one glass of it before my acid reflux began to wake from its fitful dreaming.  James has concocted a very distinct ale here and, given the few ingredients he utilized (see recipe below), very complex.  I’m looking forward to trying some more of his wares.

My wife’s notes:

Smell – Clean sour, citrus, ginger, honey, very familiar spice (can’t seem to identify).

Taste – Instant sour, coats tongue with fizziness, though not strongly carbonated, makes you salivate (some under tongue before jawline, like sucking a lemon).

James’s recipe:

8 lbs. Pils
3 lbs. Wheat
3 lbs. Oats

7 oz. ginger root

Zest & juice from 6 large organic lemons

Secret amount of honey added to primary