The Church of Beer

If you asked my lovely wife Elaine what religious denomination I belonged to, I suspect her response would be "None, unless you count beer". Like Rick Blaine, Humphrey Bogart's immortal character in Casablanca -- who, when a Nazi asks him his nationality, replies with "I'm a drunkard."-- this makes me a citizen of the world.

This also means that I, like the devout follower of any faith, have a duty to proselytize and evangelize. I must work hard to spread the "good news" about Beer, even if I must do missionary work amongst the heathen. This blog is part of that, as is the class I teach at my local community college, but a true preacher never ceases to look for new opportunities to spread the gospel. Recently, I had another opportunity to do so come up.

We held a gala event at the college where I work last Friday night. Since I was on the planning committee and we had decided to serve beer and wine, I made the suggestion that we get our beer from local breweries. The committee concurred and assigned me the task of making it happen. When I approached the three local breweries, they each generously agreed to donate beer for the event. Kassik's Kenai Brew Stop provided their Spiced Cream Ale, Kenai River Brewing sent their Skilak Scottish Ale, and St. Elias Brewing supplied their Flower Child XPA. Recognizing that the attendees at this event would be a cross-section of the local community, the brewers deliberately selected beer which would make a good first impression on someone who was not already an established craft beer drinker.

The event was a rousing success. I tended the beer bar for about three hours and almost every drop of the donated beer was consumed, meaning many individuals from the local community were given an exposure to some of what their local craft breweries had to offer. If not everyone was instantly converted, well, that's OK, too. At least we were able to give folks a chance to taste what they are missing. And that's all we Beer Evangelists can do, right?

What about the beers themselves? I've written about Kenai River's flagship Skilak Scottish Ale before, so I won't cover it again. (Though if you haven't yet tried their amped up Wee Heavy version, you'd better hurry up, before I drink it all...) Kassik's Spiced Cream Ale was very subtly dosed with nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, and cardamom. I have to take Frank and Debara's word for the last spice, as my palate isn't good enough to pick it out. Smooth and delicious, it's also drinkable in quantity, which sometimes isn't the case for spiced ales. Zach Henry at St. Elias calls his Flower Child XPA a "mock pilsner". By that he means it's brewed using an ale yeast, but at much lower than normal fermentation temperature; this gives it a very clean taste, closer to a lager than to the typical fruity ale flavors. He also hopped it with noble Saaz hops, giving it that typical pilsner aroma. The result is indeed damned close to a Czech pilsner, light & refreshing on the palate, and with a lovely golden color.

Finally, while I'm on the subject of spreading the gospel of beer, I would be remiss if I failed to mention that we here on the Kenai were visited last week by the Archbishop for the Alaskan Beer Diocese, Jim Roberts AKA Dr. Fermento. Jim braved some truly atrocious weather to come down here last Wednesday to give a guest lecture to my beer class and lead them (and me!) through a tasting of the first beer in Midnight Sun's new Crew Brew series, Brewtality. Jim is truly a gentleman and a scholar, always willing to go the extra mile in the name of advancing the cause of better beer for us all. Thanks, Jim!

Well, that wraps up today's sermon. Now I charge each and every one of you: Go forth and spread the good news amongst the heathen! And don't forget to partake of the sacrament as often as you can.

Until next time, Cheers!

Aloha Already! Now Give Me A Beer...

Ask any sourdough about Cabin Fever and you're likely to get an earful of stories about the strange effects our long, dark winters can have on people. Most Alaskans are also very familiar with the best cure for Cabin Fever: two weeks in Hawaii. Since the missus and I were feeling pretty feverish, we took the cure, returning late last week. Like Nixon in '68, now we're "Rested, Tanned, & Ready!"

I lived in Hawaii from mid-1991 to mid-1994, so this was also a bit of "old home week" for me. The biggest and most amazing change I noted from 15 years ago was in the local beer scene. When I left in '94, Hawaii was a beer wasteland. The growing craft beer revolution had not yet made its way over from the Mainland. What a difference a decade and a half makes!

For starters, there's a Gordon Biersch Brewpub in the Aloha Tower Marketplace. Yes, it's a chain, but they brew quality beers. My wife and I had lunch there; she had a fine Czech Pilsner and I had an excellent Marzen. And the food was great as well. Too bad they don't have one of these closer than Seattle...

Then we paid a visit to Sam Choy's Big Aloha Brewery, another brewpub out towards the airport and Pearl Harbor. Elaine tried their Blonde Ale, while I checked out their James Cooke IPA. The IPA was in the British style, as befits one named after the great explorer, and my wife gave the blonde high marks as well. On tap they also had their Hefe-Weizan, Kiawe Honey Porter, Ehu Ale (a brown/amber ale), and a Steam beer (the daily special). Since I was driving, I limited myself to only one, but I suspect they were likely all quite good.

Probably the most ubiquitous local beers are the brews from Kona Brewing Company. During the course of our stay, my wife and I drank most of their beers at various locations around Waikiki and the rest of Oahu, and they were always good. Given her predilection towards lagers, she usually went for their Longboard Lager or Duke's Blonde Ale; our daughter who lives on Oahu favored Wailua Wheat. Since I'm more of an ale man, I usually went for their Fire Rock Pale Ale, Big Wave Golden Ale, or Pipeline Porter. I never got a chance to try out their Lavaman Red Ale, Hula Hefeweizen, or Castaway IPA.

However, my favorite would likely be their Black Sands Porter, only available at their Koko Marina Pub, near Hawaii Kai, east of Waikiki. It was wonderfully smooth and dark with strong roasted and chocolate malt flavor and aroma. The full malt flavor was well complemented by the blend of hops. Their beers were artfully used in cooking many of the dishes on the pub's menu; my favorite was the Beer-i-misu, tiramisu with the traditional expresso replaced by Black Sand Porter. Mmmmm, good...

I also got to try a couple of beers from the Maui Brewing Company at the Yard House restaurant in Waikiki. They are another of the groundbreaking craft brewers who are canning their product. I liked their Big Swell IPA, but I was particularly taken with their CoCoNut PorTeR (that's their spelling). It had an interesting sweetness from all natural roasted coconut, and I can understand why it has won numerous awards.

Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the fact that the bar in The Banyan Court at the Westin Moana Surfrider Hotel has Duvel. I can't think of a more pleasant way to watch the sun go down than sitting under the banyan tree and sipping a wonderful Belgian ale...

But now the vacation's over and it's back to work. Next week I should have some new and interesting Alaskan brews to tell you about.

Until then, Cheers!

Can You Say Wee Heavy?

As any of you who are regular readers of the drivel I spew regularly in this blog know, my favorite style of beer is a Strong Scotch Ale, known in its homeland as a Wee Heavy. Not to be confused with its weaker cousin, the Scottish Ale, a Strong Scotch weighs in somewhere to the north of 6.5% ABV and is definitely a sipping beer rather than a session one.

So imagine my excitement when I stopped by Kenai River Brewing last Thursday to have a word with Brewer Doug and saw that he had a brand new Wee Heavy on tap! Talk about serendipity! Of course I had to grab a liter of it to take home with me and drink over the weekend. I didn't get any of the specifics from Doug about the beer (ABV, IBUs, etc), but I found it to be perfectly in keeping with the style, having a strong malt backbone matched with very restrained levels of bitterness. Given my predeliction for the style, I found it dangerously drinkable!

So now we here on the Kenai are blessed with not one but two excellent Wee Heavies, as Frank Kassik continues to brew his award-winning Carribou Kilt Strong Scotch. Not to mention my own homebrew take on the style, which isn't half bad, if I do say so myself.

Besides their Wee Heavy, Kenai River is also pouring the next beer in their Single Hop IPA series, which uses Galcier hops. I haven't had a chance to try this one yet, but I plan to this week. I also got to meet Joe, Kenai River's new Assistant Brewer. Welcome, Joe!

Finally, a note about future postings. My lovely wife Elaine and I will be celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary next week by travelling to Hawaii, so I will not be blogging for a couple of weeks. Expect a new post in the first week of March.

Until then, Cheers!

Those Who Can't, Teach...

Well, I kicked off my Art & History of Brewing class last week; the second session is tonight. In the end, I had 16 folks sign up, which makes for a pretty good class. Small enough to keep things pretty intimate, yet big enough to support having the class. While teaching it can be a bit stressful, it's always great to be able to stand up in front of interested people and get paid to talk to them about beer.

Tonight we'll be covering the history of brewing in the US, from the mid-1800s until about 1970. To support that, I'll be showing about the first 45 minutes of The American Brew DVD. If you haven't seen it, it's definitely worth a look if you can find a copy. But as I was prepping for my class, it made me think about what are some of the best "beer documentaries" out there?

For my money, the first and best was the late great Michael Jackson's The Beer Hunter series on the Discovery Channel. Twenty years old, but still interesting, the series consists of six half hour shows, each focusing on a different brewing nation. As he did in so many other areas, Mr. Jackson blazed the trail in doing a serious television show on beer. Unfortunately, the series has never been transferred to DVD and even the VHS tapes can only be bought second-hand these days. (If you're listening Discovery, get on the stick!!!).

Just as an aside (and so I can name drop), I had the great pleasure and honor to meet Michael Jackson on two occasions. Both times we were actually at whiskey events (London in 2001 & Islay in 2003), but he will always be first and foremost The Beer Hunter to me. The world of beer has seemed a bit smaller and drabber since Mr. Jackson passed in August of 2007.

More recently, I caught an episode of How Stuff Works on The Discovery Channel entitled "Beer 101". I found it very interesting and pretty well done. I'm on the look out for a copy of it to use in my class. I've also seen episodes on Modern Marvels and even Dirty Jobs, dealing with brewing and hop picking. Seems like brewing and beer are all over the place, these days.

The one place I haven't seen that much beer talk is on the Food Network, which is a bit sad when you think about it. They did have beer as the secret ingredient on Iron Chef recently (with Garrett Oliver as one of the judges), but you'd think they would talk a lot more about beer on a channel dedicated to good food. Oh well...

On the beer front, I'm still working on recovering from killing a growler of Midnight Sun's Zeus single-handed on Super Bowl Sunday. See my earlier post for details on what a fantastic beer this is. I'll likely have something new next week to talk about.

Until then, Cheers!

Bummer, Dude...

If there's one thing living in Alaska will teach you, it's to respect the weather. Up here, the weather is something we may battle, but it's never something we can afford to ignore, unlike a lot of the lower 48. Alaskan weather is like Alaskan wildlife in that respect; there just aren't many places in the lower 48 where you have to have your wits about you when you walk out to get the morning paper, lest you get stomped by a moose...

Anyway, showing due respect to the weather up here occasionally gets in the way of us Alaskans doing what we really want to do. Case in point, my big trip to Anchorage was completely scuttled by a sudden warm spell, which turned all the roads between here and there into ice rinks with water running across them. My lovely wife and I discussed it, but we finally decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and that we'd feel pretty stupid if we totaled a car or even got ourselves killed trying to get to Anchorage for a beer fest.

So, that will just have to wait another year...

We did manage to make it to Anchorage for a day trip on Wednesday of last week, after the weather had finally stabilized back down at 20F or so (where it belongs this time of year!). That trip was critical, since we'd let our pantry get a bit low, in anticipation of shopping the previous weekend, plus I needed to buy the beers for my class, The Art and History of Brewing, which starts the day after tomorrow. It's not to late to sign up, by the way...

In addition to buying beer for my students to taste, I did manage to grab a couple of interesting ones for myself. First, I stopped at Midnight Sun to pick up a growler to take to a Super Bowl party. They had Zeus on tap, a draft version of the soon-to-be-released Jupiter from their Planets series. I had a sample and all I can say is WOW! This beer is phenomenal! It's in the style of a tripel, with about 10.5% ABV and a fresh, spicy taste which has to be experienced to be believed. I have that growler parked in my beer fridge and it calls to me each time I see it. So far, I've resisted its siren song, but I know that when Jupiter it release in corked 750 ml and 1.5 l bottles, I'll be snapping them up. Meantime, if you get the chance, be sure and try Zeus.

Another interesting beer I picked up from Midnight Sun is their Specialty XXX Anniversary Ale. This beer was commissioned by Specialty Imports to celebrate their thirtieth anniversary in business. It claims to be a Black Double IPA, which is somewhat similar to Stone Brewing's XI Anniversary Ale from last year. I thought it was OK, but it seemed to me that the hops chosen came across as a little too grassy, if that makes any sense. Frankly, I think I prefer their CoHoHo Imperial IPA or even their Sockeye Red IPA to this one. Still, it was interesting and certainly different from the norm.

Finally, at La Bodega I picked up a bottle of Port Brewing Company's Old Viscosity, simply because I liked the look of it. After taking it home and trying it, I wish I'd picked up a second for my good buddy Curt who's crazy about beers aged in bourbon barrels. According to the brewery's website, 80% of the beer is fermented in stainless steel via normal methods, while the other 20% comes from a previous batch and has been aged in used bourbon barrels. The brewers call it "The Big, Black Nasty" and state that it is brewed "in no particular style",as it sits on the intersection of porters, stouts, old ales, and barleywines. It weighs in at a hefty 10.5% ABV and has a wonderful heavy mouthfeel, with chocolate flavors melding and mingling with the vanilla flavors picked up from the casks. A wonderful sipping beer, I can't wait to find another bottle or two.

Until next time, Cheers!

A Few Days in Los Anchorage

Well, the Big Chill has finally moved out of South-Central Alaska, giving us temperatures in the 20's (above zero rather than below) and snow. I'm hoping the snow wraps up today or tomorrow, as on Thursday the missus and I are on the road, heading up to the big town of Los Anchorage.

It's our annual pilgrimage to the Great Alaska Beer and Barley Wine Festival and the Great Northern Homebrewers meeting that precedes the fest each year. My lovely wife Elaine is looking forward to some shopping and I'm looking forward to hitting some of my favorite watering holes, like Humpy's and Cafe Amsterdam. We're going to try to pack a lot of action into about two days of time; then we have to head home to feed the cats...

One thing I didn't have to wait for this trip to do was to try Midnight Sun's Uranus, from their Planets series, as I was lucky enough to find it for sale at County Liquors in Kenai. for those of you who haven't been keeping track at home, Uranus is a Belgian-style (what else?) Golden Ale with 100% Brettanomyces fermentation and conditioning, weighing in at 7.2% ABV. The taste was laced with the classic brett funkiness and with just enough sourness to be refreshing. The carbonation was excellent and the overall impression of the beer was wonderfully quenching. A little reminiscent of Pluto, but even better, in my opinion. Uranus is just the sort of style-melding beer that Midnight Sun has become justly famous for.

In my next post, I'll try to make a complete report on all my beery adventures in Anchorage.

Until then, Cheers!

Drinkin' With the Good Doctor...

Well, 2009, ready or not, here we come.

I hope you all had a pleasant holiday. Mine was fairly low key, given that we've been in the -25F deep freeze for the last ten days. We usually get a few days of these temperatures each winter, but this stretch seems earlier and longer than usual for here on the Kenai Peninsula.

On the plus side, weather like this gives one an excuse to sit inside and drink beer (if an excuse is actually needed). On Christmas Day, my friends and I shared a 750 ml bottle of Avec les bons Vœux de la brasserie Dupont, a wonderful Christmas ale from Brasserie Dupont. As I mentioned in an earlier post, this was among the "100 Belgian Beers to Try Before You Die" listed in a recent book from CAMRA. And it fully lived up to all the hype, let me tell you!

A beautiful blond beer, with a massive white head, the ale weighs in at 9.5% ABV. It has a wonderfully peppery, spicy flavor, none of which is produced by adding any spices. All the wonderful flavors are produced by the yeast used and dry hopping. It's a fantastic beer. If you can find it, buy it.

The other highlight was meeting up with the illustrious Dr. Fermento (aka Jim Roberts) at St. Elias Brewery on Saturday, 3 January. The good doctor was making one of his sporadic trips to the western Kenai Peninsula and was dropping into to our newest brewery for the first time. We were given a tour by co-owner & brewer Zach Henry, then got down to the serious business of tasting beer.

I was already familiar with most of the offerings, so while Dr. F. plowed through samples of the eight different beers on offer, I had a pint of Zach's new Winter Ale. I found it very enjoyable, with plenty of strong, roasted malt flavor. No spices and a moderate 5.5% ABV make it a very drinkable beer, and a great accompaniment to the Brewhouse pizza I had with it.

Drinking good beer, eating good pizza, and talking about beer and brewing with two good friends... You just can't have a Happier Holidays than that!

Until next time, Cheers!