Award Winning Beer

My Belgian-Style Strong Pale Ale was the overall winner at the annual Lebanon Health Food Store homebrew contest! Granted, there were only 9 other entries, but I still got a $75 gift certificate out of the deal. Anyone reading this who wants a bottle should let me know, I'll put one aside. Although at around 9% alcohol, I'm not drinking them that quickly.

Beer Business

Here is an interesting article (from the always entertaining Lew Bryson) comparing the beer business of today to the wine business of yesterday. It would be really amazing if, when Sadie is legal, the #1 selling type of beer in the US isn't light lager but pale ale, or even something else. Although, I would put money on Anheuser-Busch brewing it, whatever it is - they seem to be catching on to the craft thing in a big way (Michelob makes a great Hefeweizen), and the amount of money they can throw at it would be unbelievable. The only thing stopping them might be the inability to swallow their pride and have Bud no longer be their flagship beer.

It is my destiny...

I have wondered for a long time what the name "Mielcarz" means in Polish. A polish guy I worked with said he thought it meant "miller." But it turns out, according to this page, that Mielcarz is an archaic noun meaning "maltster or brewer." I don't care if the page is accurate or not - I love it!

Intensity

Men on a mission. Ann thinks we look kind of dumb. But I call it intensity.

Word of the year

So what is your pick for word of the year? You can vote at Merriam-Webster online. I highly recommend "macaca", since it pretty much singlehandedly swung the Senate to the Democrats. What other word can lay claim to such influence?

To keep up with the recent trend in my posts, my beer word of the year is "Simcoe." It seems like more and more beers are using this crazy hop. I'm still not completely sold on it, but it does have an amazingly unique taste.

Bigfoot.

Ann and I had a chance to go out to David Copperfield's last night, a bar near her parents' apartment in NYC that has a pretty extensive beer list. They had just tapped a keg of Bigfoot, and I am assuming it is one of this year's, although I can't be sure. It sure tasted fresh, and it reminded me just what an amazing beer it is on draught. Bear Republic Hop Rod Rye is really tasty too, but Arcadia Hopmouth Double IPA is kinda bad. I was glad our waitress let me have a sample of that one before I ordered an entire pint.

Anyway, I don't have a whole lot else to say, since I haven't had time to surf the net and collect my usual entertaining links. I should have some for you tomorrow, since I know you are all eagerly awaiting them.

The greatest beers in the world...

A few months ago, Ann picked up a book for me at the used book store: The 50 Greatest Beers in the World by Stuart Kallen. It was published in 1997. Here are his top 20 beers (BeerAdvocate score in parenthesis):

1. Delerium Tremens (88)
   
2. Kulmbacher Reichelbraü Eisbock (89)
   
3. Rogue Shakespeare Stout (91)
   
4. Duvel (91)
   
5. Caledonian Golden Pale (83)
   
6. Chapeau Gueuze Lambic (not enough reviews, but so far, not good)
   
7. Sam Smith Taddy Porter (88)
   
8. Aventinus (91)
   
9. Lindemans Kriek (87)
10. Murphy's Irish Stout (85)
11. Chimay Cinq Cents (88)
    
12. Grant's Scottish Ale (retired)
13. Corsendonk Monk's Pale Ale (86)
14. Erdinger Pinkantus Weizenbock (86)
15. Guinness Stout (83)
16. Orval (89)
17. Sam Smith Imperial Stout (91)
18. Saison Dupont (90)
19. Pinkus Ur-Pils Organic (85)
20. Grant's Imperial Stout (retired)

Overall it is a decent list - you can't go wrong with any of those beers, although that gueuze seems a little suspect. Having Murphy's and Guinness is probably unnecessary, as well as having Duvel and Delirium Tremens. There are better tripels than the Chimay, too, and Corsendonk is good but not great. I haven't had the Kulmbacher or the Erdinger, but I am sure that they are good, although the Aventinus Eisbock is pretty amazing, and it would be tough in my book for any Eisbock to beat it. Give me Cantillon Kriek over Lindemans Kriek any day; I guess there is a place for the Lindemans, but it wouldn't be in my top 20. Here is a quick list of my top 10 beers that I have rated on BeerAdvocate: Bigfoot, Celebration, Stone Imperial Stout, Leifman's Goudenband, Westvleteren 12, Rochefort 6, Trois Pistoles, Allagash Interlude, La Terrible, McNeills Imperial Stout. Of course, if I were writing a book, I would probably include a bigger variety of styles in my top ten, and I probably wouldn't include beers that one can only buy at the brewery (i.e. Westvleteren 12). All in all, the book is pretty interesting from a historical point of view.

Brew Day

Brewed up a batch of beer today. I am aiming for a hoppy foreign extra stout - the starting gravity was 1.068 (yes, I finally bought a thief to check my gravity), which should give me an ABV of about 6.7% and the IBUs calculated out to be about 67. Hops were Northern Brewer/Bullion for bittering (why these two? Because the recipe I used as a starting point called for them), and Cascades for aroma/flavor. I'm probably going to dry hop with Cascades as well - but not the crappy locally grown Cascades I tried a few months ago. I'll let you know how it turns out, although chances are if you are reading this, you'll get a chance to try it.

If the weather turns cold, I think my next beer will be my first lager. My basement is usually about 55 degrees in the winter, which is just about perfect for fermenting a lager. I still haven't decided what kind of lager though - maybe a bock or a Schwarzbier. But I'm open to suggestions.

Farnum Hill Cider

Tonight at Beer Club we went to Poverty Lane Orchards to have a private tour with the head cider maker from Farnum Hill Ciders. It was fascinating - I've been on so many beer tours that they really have become redundant, but this was a whole new ball game. They grow apples at this orchard that no one else in America grows, just for use in their hard cider. We got to taste unblended hard cider straight out of the barrel - so delicious. One of the most interesting tours I've been on - it isn't every day when the tour guide mouth-siphons product out of a fermenter and pours you a sample.

Tonight's Activity

Ann is having a girls night out tonight with Laurie, Rachel and Laurence at the Tip Top Cafe in White River Jct. So my activity for the evening is burning a bunch of live shows I have downloaded in the past year that I've never got around to. Phish, Ryan Adams, Wilco, MMW, Built To Spill, Pavement, Uncle Tupelo, GRAB - in all it is around 10GB of losslessly compressed music that has been taking up space on my hard drive for a long time. Luckily I have a surplus 48x Firewire CD-RW drive that I took home from the help to help out - if only I had a faster computer to decompress the .shn and .flac files I'd be done in no time.

I know, sounds like a really exciting night, huh? At least I have a Sierra Nevada Celebration to help me through it. Once I finish, I can go here and fill up the hard drive again.