updated 12/08

I just got this email from Jim, who owns Ulrich’s, among my favorite Buffalo establishments. I just thought it was too random but cool not to share. So, along with was only this text:

Govenor Spitzer celebrates the 74th anniversary of the repeal of prohibition at Ulrich’s
Dec. 6th 2007
Digger makes Gov Spitzer a Hassenpfeffer Member in return for the removal of the skyway and 22 million for renovation off the Trico Building:
Gov Spitzer Claims he got the best of the deal!

Alright!

The Hasenpfeffers’ next event is, I understand, already sold out: was, actually, on Dec 1st, a beer and food dinner at the tavern and a tour of St. Louis’ Cathedral.

Stay tuned to BOV for info about the January event. I believe we’ll back on the bus (with some Flying Bison and quite likely Dave, the driver) hitting some classic watering holes again, but I don’t know what neighborhood is on deck. Actually, from a prior email from Jim:

Jan trip: Private tour of City Hall
Colored Musians Club
One more Bar (yet to decide)
we will eat at 6pm and sample Digger’s Beer of the month, will leave Ulrich’s at 6:30 and be back by 10:30

I’ll gat a date on that asap.

Ok, my delinquency? Noted. Got a new template, too. Let’s move on.

Tonight was cookin’ with beer night chez Image-de-bière. We had a nice pork tenderloin in want of a good marinade before hitting the convection oven for to reach 160f. One of my favorite “in-a-pinch” cookbooks (Brilliant Food Tips And Cooking Tricks, by David Joachim) suggested a beer-and-sage marinade, mentioning only ‘dark beer,’ so it was an interesting exercise to pick one–from the available selection at Holly–and see how it fared. My choice? Samuel Adams‘ Honey Porter.

First, the recipe: marinate in 1c beer with: 1.5tsp dried rubbed sage; a small onion, chopped; a garlic clove, chopped & .5tsp black pepper. I chose to throw the loin, covered in tinfoil, on a wire rack (itself on a sheet, to catch drips) in the oven at 350 until hitting the desired temperature. Dead simple, really. Served with mashed red potatoes, steamed broccoli, and of course, accompanied by the beer.

I’ll be honest, the food could have come out a little better. I think I added a bit much pepper (more than the called-for amount, certainly) to the marinade, and on top of that, one hour in the fridge with this marinade wasn’t enough for really thorough penetration, though it wasn’t lifeless. Because of the pepper issue, I didn’t detect much contribution of the beer to the loin, though it was moist and pretty near perfectly cooked for medium-rare. In the future, I might go with a longer marinade. The technique of searing it on the stovetop before sending it to the oven, though, was a winner. And I have to think there ought to be some good way to take the marinade afterwards and whip it into a sauce, right?

The beer, though, was fantastic. Actually, this is probably my favorite beer from the folks down at Boston Beer Co. I lived in Boston for a while, and I remember this one debuting and being a regular for a long time, then disappearing. Now it is reborn as one of their seasonal Brewmaster’s Collection beers, and so, like their Winter Lager, I tend to grab it while it’s available.

It pours out a deep, deep amber, only visible in strong light, with a healthy, two-finger slightly-off-white head, which will proceed to lace the glass nicely all the way down. It gives off an enticing aroma filled with rich malt and an overtone of honey but no hop bitterness is detectable. Upon warming to a healthy porter temperature (ideally 46 to as high as 55), the sip reveals itself in increments: an initial light bodied, floral honey flavor yields to robust malt dextrins, providing nice body, mingles with sharp roasted malt bitterness and an iota of raisin, then dries and resolves to a just noticable hop bitterness and a re-accentuated astringency from highly-kilned malt. The real beauty of this beer is in not sacrificing complexity for drinkability—despite the whirl of flavors zipping across your tongue, this beer does not fatigue it—and at an a.b.v. of only %5.4, it’s utility as a holiday season session beer is certainly clear. Good stuff.

I’m going to have to try to pork again, and in the meanwhile, I got plenty other posts to get out here, so: More soon…

What does it take to brew over fifty gallons of Flemish Sour Red ale? Over 100 pounds of grain, mass hops, 20 gallons of soured starter (not to mention 5 gallons of actively fermenting yeast to get the main batch going), 4 people and about 12 hours. Worth it? Hell Yeah! Click through for the photos…

Who–or what–is Mob Barley, anyway? Little is known about them, besides their clear proclivity for effin’ up the shiznit. It is said that they are comprised of homebrewers from myriad clubs (in more than one city!); that their combined years of experience brewing is infinity–1; that their combined annual homebrewing output would fill a shallower Great Lake; that they have some deep, mystic and inscrutable knowledge of hops and even, perhaps, of related plants. Their agenda is unclear, and they don’t wear ski masks, but one thing is certain, or at minimum, certain-esque: none of them appear to own a refractometer. And at least one of them seems to have a blog.

So, back to the concept. The first thing you’ll want to be sure to have is something you can actually ferment that much beer in. Mob Host to the rescue on that- the day before we brewed, this fine blue barrel arrived at his doorstep (delivered by the postal service, not by a guy wearing it on his head, but you get the point: that’s not yr. average 5-gal garrafón carboy.)

We put it to use first to collect the entire grain bill after milling, the better to thoroughly mix it before portioning it out into our three mash/lauter tuns. In total, we had: 55 lbs of Vienna Malt, 49 of Pilsner Malt and an odd-6 lbs of Munich as base malts. Dimensionality was the result of 9.8 lbs of Cara-Vienna and 4.2 lbs of Belgian Special-B. Below is a shot of the grain before mixing. What’s that yellow stuff on the top? I should mention that a significant portion of the grist was actually not barley at all, but flaked maize–28 lbs–sometimes called corn, just as you might see in an American light pilsner. However, its use in this beer is perfectly appropriate. Of Rodenbach (the very definite hallmark example of the style, we drank several while brewing), the late and lamented Michael Jackson wrote:

“… These malts comprise eighty percent of the grist, and the rest is corn grits.”

So, it’s not like we were cheating.

After heating up water and getting the grains all sorted, we mashed-in. We had three lauter tuns and as well, a large-ass cooler we also used, just for mashing: we had to transfer that batch over for lautering. Here’s a shot sometime during the sparge. You’ll see we were definitely not setting up a nice continuous sparge for this; we simply did the ol’ drain, refill, and drain again, which worked out just fine.

We collected gallons and gallons of wort, and put it all to the boil for an hour, all portioned out across 5 kettles. Hops were added at the onset, we added 9 oz of Kent Goldings across the kettles at the beginning of the boil. Cooling all of this down to yeast-pitching temperature after the boil was water-intensive, to say the least. But we weren’t especially worried about infection, since by the very nature of the style, we intended to infect the beer purposefully. After transferring the cooled wort carboy-by-carboy to the fermenter, we pitched the yeast: a full 3-gallon container of fresh yeast from the Rohrbach brewery that only earlier that day had been working hard on some other, certainly inferior beer (but thanks for the yeast, guys, really!) Pictured below, you’ll see the soured starter culture–20 gallons worth–we intend to add on down the line…

Yeast pitched, we oxygenated the hell out of it, clamped down the lid and now we must, as all homebrewers do, wait. And wait. And… wait. Also, “wait.” For you see, once the primary fermentation is done, we’ve only just begun on this one. Our original gravity reading was on the high side for the style, about 1.058, but that’s good in the sense that it means we can add all of that soured starter without worrying about it when, in about a month or so, we transfer the beer over to a big ol’ oak barrel and add the soured beer culture. At this point, a long period of much slower fermentation will begin- we’re looking at this beer finishing this stage probably in April or May of ‘08. And even then, Mob Barley will not yet be satisfied. Oh, no. If you’re going to do something like this, why not go all out?

(MobAlex goes all out!)

We’ll finish the beer using Méthode Champenoise, meaning this: once the beer is ready to bottle, we’ll add a new shot of yeast and sugar and bottle & cap them in heavy, champagne bottles, all held at 75-degrees (angle, not temperature) to encourage the yeast to fill the neck of the bottle. During this period, the bottles will be rotated frequently. When it is time to finish them, we’ll dip each neck in below-freezing liquid to form a yeast plug, which will pop out when we pop the cap, itself to be replaced with a cork and a cage. This bottle beer will have to repose for another several months before being ready to drink, so we expect this beer to be done no sooner than early 2009.

Mob Barley. A threat to democracy? A threat to your sister? A threat to your beer cellar and fridge? Who can be sure?! BOV will keep you posted on this beer, and further adventures of the Mob.

And now, a shameless plug. Good seats are still available for tomorrow night’s Food and Beer class at Delish! on Elmwood. We’ll be celebrating the season by pairing up a bunch of sausages with a bunch o’ beers, Oktoberfest-like. Joe from Spars is in charge of the food side of the equation, he tells me the dishes will incorporate smoked German sauage, Bavarian sausage, and weisswurst. To go with, we’ll be trying Flying Bison’s collaborative beer (made with High Falls in Rochester; a dopplebok), a filtered heffeweizen, and a traditional german style called rauchbier.

It all goes down at 6:00 pm. Delish! is located at 802 Elmwood; tix are $45.00 per person. For more information, visit their website or call 881-2022

After a quiet Summer, Jim @ Ulrich’s Tavern is breaking out the 07-08 season of the Hasenpfeffer Club. For those that don’t know, the club is named for the original, Prohibition-breaking club that used the upstairs at Ulrich’s as a clandestine (well, not so very) bar. Jim even has in his possession the original gavel that called these sessions to order. The modern interpretation of the club meets to celebrate Buffalo’s social history of drinking, to promote craft beers, (regional and otherwise,) and generally: to meet people and have fun! Last season, we had activities that ranged from touring some of Buffalo’s remaining ‘locals’ and other celebrated watering holes to tasting and food pairings at Ulrichs, alongside short lectures on history or brewing (or the history of brewing.) As the Irish say, the craic is mighty- and the beer on the bus is provided by Flying Bison, often something otherwise unavailable.

Tomorrow, Tuesday 25th September, the club meets at 6pm for food and beer at Ulrich’s. At 7pm the bus leaves; the cost for the night is $25.00 (Hasen is a pay-as-you-go-sort of club). We’ll be hitting the East Side again, returning to the Ukranian Club and taking a tour of St Ann’s Church at Broadway and Emsile- perhaps also driving by the remains of the Iroquois and Simon Pure breweries. We’ll also descend on Weitcheks on Clinton St.

October’s event is also already planned, prepare for an Octoberfest of our own:

Tuesday October 30th at 6:30 PM
Club Octoberfest at Ulrich’s
$35 per person plus tip
German Beer Tasting-Full German dinner
with speaker on history of Germans in Buffalo
& history of Octoberfest
We will limit this to 50 people

For more information, go to Ulrich’s website or call the bar at 855-8409

Saturday saw the release of yet another small-batch beer from local brewery Flying Bison. Over the course of the last few years, they’ve really stepped up their production of single-batch experimental beers- from collaborations with High Falls, to cask-conditioned beers tapped at Mr. Goodbar’s Friday cask events, I’ve been pretty impressed with the ones I’ve had. Imperial-ized beers are certainly all the rage in the craft beer industry right now, so it was not surprising that FB tackled one as well, but which of their normal production beers would get the treatment? Their Aviator Red ale got the call, and it scales up very well indeed.

A short background: Originally, only one style of beer had an ‘imperial’ substyle, and that was stout. Historically, this came about when British stouts were being exported to the Russian court. They were brewed a little stronger, to better weather the journey, and as well because the Russians liked ‘em that way. Because Imperial Stouts are stronger than other stouts, when American brewers started tweaking traditional styles, they re-applied the adjective Imperial to any style brewed stronger than guideline. In recent years, many beer styles have had the imperial treatment, from wheat beers to pilsners.

Now, if your going to bump up the alcohol content of a beer, your going to have to add more malt, and so, you’re really not going to have the exact same beer only stronger. When you add more fermentable sugars, you’ll inevitably have more residual unfermented sugars too, leading to a fuller-bodied beer and oftentimes a somewhat sweeter beer. Certainly, this describes the Imperial Red, which I believe is going by the name ‘Royalty Red’. It pours out a lovely dark copper with reds deep in the liquid, perfectly clear underneath a tight, slightly-off-white foam head with but modest staying power & lacing qualities. Aromatically, you are greeted with very little, but flowery hop aroma; rather, sweet & crystal malt odors predominate, though I feel I detect a hint of buttery diacetyl. The first flavor to hit your tongue is malt with firm caramelized flavors which expand in the center, leading to a nice balance of malt and hop bitterness and slight alcohol warming at the finish, all of which linger lightly. It has a firm body with medium carbonation, the overall mouthful is ever so slightly thick. I think this compares very well to the standard Aviator Red: I can taste it in there, but the hops presence is much reduced and the sweetness amplified. If I didn’t know it was an Imperial Red, I might have classified it as a Marzen, though that hint of butter and the delayed finish gives it away as an ale. I don’t know the exact abv, but it’s probably in the 7-8% range by flavor.

If you were at the Third Anniversary Mr. Goodbar Goodbeer club, you got a coupon redeemable for one 12oz bottle of the beer. When you go down to the brewery to collect, be sure you get the special edition bottle, with label designed by Dan Wanglin of [re]noun creative. The labels are hand numbered and signed, making them a real collector’s item, and rebrand the beer as the Impossibly Rare Imperial Red Ale, referring to this special edition of a single batch. The label is pictured in the photo above; additional bottles (to be had for $4.00 apiece) will have the standard Aviator Red label (but should be separable by some kind of marking on the cap). You can also purchase it in a growler, but supplies are definitely limited, so act now!

Between server problems down at WNYM, ongoing “Dude, where’s my editor?” issues, and the uptick in demands with my ‘real’ job, BOV has been lagging of late, there’s no question. I apologize, and I assure you that there’s a bunch of stuff in the pipeline just waiting to be squeezed out. If that metaphor seems only slightly more related to plumbing than gastrointestinal functions, you’re reading it right.

In the very short term, however, one bit of local beery news for passing on: Flying Bison will have a release party tomorrow, from 12-4, for their new Imperial Red Ale. If you were lucky enough to score a coupon for the limited release 3rd Anniversary Goodbeer Club bottles, tomorrow’s your first chance to get yours. The Flying Bison brewery is at 491 Ontario Street; for more details call 716.873.1557.

BOV & Family hit the road for Labor day, finally visiting family in VT after promising to do so for far too long. The timing was pretty beer-tastic, because only days before, a new issue of Beer Advocate arrived at my door complete with a focus on Vermont craft breweries in their regular beer destination column. I’m not The Beer Geek or anything, but we share one thing, which is that we both have wives who indulge, even join in with, us when every journey is planned with reference to good beer possibilites along the way. We sampled well, hitting the Long Trail brewery and otherwise quaffing some mighty Rock Art barley wine, Harpoon IPA, Otter Creek 15th Anniversary IPA, Southampton Dubel and Switchback Pale Ale. Click through for the travelogue!

As was getting ready to leave, I caught the spreading news about beer expert Michael Jackson’s death- very definitey a shame, his writing has inspired and influenced any beer writer of use, or if it has not yet, I say hit the books. Start with Great Beers Of Belgium, as I did so very many years ago now, and you’ll be well on to what made him so great. Otherwise, I’m sure the eulogizing by those who actually knew him is abundant, check here and here to start. Sad news, but as he’d have liked, ocassion for a toast, which was accomplished within minutes of our arrival in VT by splitting the bottle of Southampton; my brother in law always keeps quality beers about the house, and this was a perfectly well-brewed Dubbel with loads of clove in the nose and firm malt center accompanied by some raw wheat/hay. Just what was needed after the long drive, and as a Belgian style beer, absolutely appropriate as our own liquid eulogy.

[this link for NPR’s Fresh Air interview of MJ; this for a video interview; HT/Lew Bryson; There is a toast to the man planned for 30th September!]

Our first beery destination was the Long Trail brewery in Bridgewater Corners. As you see here, they keep pretty conservative hours:

We cruised in at 10 minutes to closing, but still long enough for a few beers. For myself, their Harvest ale was a tasty pour with a slick hop dimension, but in the end their flagship beer is my favorite; here it stands next to a cool glass of their blackberry wheat:

The brewery is sited, like so many things in Vermont, alongside a small creek in the valley between mountains. From the back deck, you can walk down to said watercourse, the view looked like this:

As we were leaving—ok, being urged to leave, honestly—I noticed that their collection of old cans was pretty well organized, and Lo!, right there in the NYS section, one can grabbed my attention rather quickly:

We didn’t take their self-guided tour, due to the time constraints, and the constrainsts of a 9-month old, a 4-year old, and a 9-year old, however, it’s an amazingly compact installation, especially when you consider how wide their distribution has become. And in keeping with their Green Mountain State locale, it is a very eco-friendly operation to boot. Since we missed their grub hours, we pressed on to picturesque Woodstock, VT, where a local eatery also hooked us up with the Switchback, from a very small brewery in the Burlington area. Their pale ale was tasty, but not especially memorable- though it made a sound accompaniment to my burger and fries, as a pale ale should.

Our second night there, we ate lavishly on sausages we had purchased from the farmers market. Really, not an actual farmers market, but rather, something more definitely aimed at the hoards of NYC-area dwellers that summer in VT, complete with crafts, yummy organic veggies, free range meat, and artisinal cheeses. I must say, however, that the various and delectable sausages we bought paired very well indeed with Rock Art brewery’s Barley Wine, which is not a barley wine at all, but still contained lots of robust malt flavors that went well with the meats & seasonings and had enough alcohol (again, not enough to be a good barley wine) to thoroughly clean the palate, leaving you in full anticipation of the next bite. Delicious! Though the Rock Art might be functionally mislabeled, I still thought it was the best find of the trip. I’m having my last bottle as I finish writing this post, in fact.

Over the course of the weekend, I also helped consume a sixpack of Harpoon’s IPA. What? Harpoon’s not from Vermont, you say? Ah, but it is- they operate a brewery in Windsor, VT as well as in Boston. Their IPA is straightforward and unpretentious, serving up a pleasing hop bitterness all the way through the sip punctuated by a crisp hop snap at the finish, thus making an excellent accompaniment to the onset of changing leaves and fall. It worked especially well in the evening, watching the huge moon rise over the mountains. But it is far easier to photograph in the daylight:

The weekend was capped by a leisurely drive back, which itself was highlighted by a quick stop in this fine establishment located on Rt 7 in Troy, NY.

Despite the unassuming exterior, within you will find a broad selection of imports and craft beers, strongest especially with local beers- Vermont is well represented, but I saw this as my chance to pick up some NYC breweries I don’t normally see at the west end of the state. I walked out ith a sixer of Mendocino’s Summer Ale, (yes, they’re from CA, but they also have a site in Saratoga Springs) six more of Sackets Harbor’s 1812 Amber ale, and the pièce de résistance, a 750 ml bottle from Captain Lawrence, their 2006 Xtra Gold American Trippel- which I intend to cellar for some time still. What makes it an American Trippel? It’s a bit stronger, and it is dry-hopped with Amarillos. Should be pretty snazzy in another year or more, I bet. For kicks, I also grabbed a Russian beer, Baltica. They come in Numbers 1-9, I decided 5 looked awfuly appealing. More on those as I get to them!

All in all, a fun weekend- we didn’t get anywhere near Magic Hat, so another trip perhaps. In the meanwhile, I have to say that while NYS is certainly a behemoth when it comes to craft beer, the VT is holding it’s own very well.

The Session is a monthly happening in the Beer-Blogsphere, conceived of by author Stan Hieronymus over at his fantastic site. The concept is simple- on an appointed day, beer bloggers all review a beer with a common style or theme. Last month, for example, led to a flurry of reviews of Fruit Beers; previous editions have focused on other styles or themes. This month’s Session was hosted by Rick over at Lyke2Drink, who suggested the theme of “The Brew Zoo”, or beers featuring animals in the title, company or label. My contribution, then: Orkney’s Dragonhead Stout.

So, I’m a bit of a cheat, though nobody really said clearly that the animal need be real. In fact, mythical beasts show up all over beer-dom, and I have to think cryptozoology could use some better representation. Sure, we’ve all enjoyed Oak Aged Yeti from Great Divide, and Bigfoot barley wine from Sierra Nevada, but don’t you suppose some PA brewery ought to crank out Squonk’s Tears Pale Ale, or maybe Magic Hat would like to do a limited release of Champ Porter? Chupacabra Chili Beer seems like a natural for Nimbus… I could go on all day.

Orkney’s Dragonshead pours out inky black with a respectable tan head which remains on top of the beer all the way down, though reduced to a mere quarter-cm and dropping some lace as well. The aroma is of strong, bitter coffee with some trace of smoke and a high-note of vanilla. So goes the sip, more or less, with an initial hit of mineral water followed quickly by a full malt center with loads of burnt espresso, some astringency even, and a lingering roasted finish with a slight degree of hop character, hard to find. After hitting the Salopian Entire Butt porter last night, I’m aching for a hint of sour acid, but not to be found in this beer. The mouthfeel is surprisingly thin, which detracts from the style for me: I like my stouts fuller-bodied. Having said that, on a hot summer evening, this goes down really well, served just a little below it’s optimum temperature for extra refreshment. A dandy session beer, but not my New Favorite Stout.

resquiat in pace, Mr. Michael Jackson!

When I saw this one on the shelves at Consumer’s on Elmwood, my first thought was “Nice label, but do I really want to drink that?” Then I reflected on the awesome banana bread recipe that we tasted at one of my food/beer pairings at Delish!, the mushy, overripe bananas in my freezer, and the fact that banana aromas and flavors are really part-and-parcel of some beer styles, and grabbed the bottle. After all, I love monkeys drinking beer: my original name for the site & show was going to be “BeerMonkey”, but sadly, “Brewmonkey” was already out there. So… would a domesticated ape such as you—or I—like this beer?

Wells is a venerable English brewery, founded in 1876. In addition to brewing, they also run pubs in the British tradition of ‘tied-houses’ which was once also the way things worked in the US, pre-prohibition. They make Wells Bombadier and Eagle IPA, and also brew Red Stripe, Corona Extra and Kirin Ichiban for the English market. They recently also acquired the Youngs recipes and rights- Youngs Bitter is generally considered a classic real ale. Their Banana Bread Beer is brewed to 5.2% abv using organic, fair trade bananas in addition to hand-milled crystal malts, and English hops variatal Fuggles.

It poured out with a voluminous head that had middling staying power, reducing to a finger-width for most of the beer, but leaving only spotty lacing. The aroma was, well, frikkin’ bananas alright. And definitely not the yeasty type- I could tell these were good bananas. The beer had a pleasing deep amber color and was perfectly clear. The beer met the palate with a burst of sweetness, half banana and half malt which was not overpowering. By the middle of the sip, you’re back to a more-or-less regular pale ale flavor, mainly crystal malt with a sincere bready tone and hints of nutmeg & vanilla. The finish lingers with a wee burst of hop bitterness. The mouthfeel on this one was very smooth. Overall, though it might seem to be a novelty, this was a remarkably drinkable beer. Would I drink them all night? No. But I’m good for more than just one, sure.

How’d it pair with the banana bread? duh! Obviously, they synergy of banana flavors worked well, but there was a nice additional layer of symmetry between the vanilla in the bread and the hints of vanilla in the beer, and concordance as well with some of the toasted flavors of the malt with the nutty bread. When we tried this recipe at Delish!, we paired it with Flying Bison’s Imperial Porter limited release, and the bread itself was dusted with chocolate power. I have to say, this didn’t work as well–too redundant–but it might still have been the best context for the beer, if not the bread.

Wells Banana Bread Beer: not just for monkeys.