Game of Thrones Beer is Coming

You win, or you die.

I make a lot of references to pop culture on this blog, or perhaps more accurately, nerd culture. Then again, many alleged experts of such things claim that nerd culture is the new pop culture. Beer culture and nerd culture go hand in hand, mostly because of the passion that underlies both subsets of our society. As a result of that passion, people become obsessed, and obsession leads to social pursuits such as this blog (shameless promotion alert), or really cool collaboration projects such as the one I’m about to reference.

Wait for it…

Pride of Cooperstown

HBO and Brewery Ommegang (Cooperstown, NY) have teamed-up to create beers that are inspired by the COMPLETELY AWESOME television-based nerd drama Game of Thrones. For those of you who watch GOT, I’m sure that the sheer overwhelmingness of what I just wrote has knocked you to the floor, so I’ll give you a moment to compose yourself and try to explain the show to non-watchers.

For those of you who aren't watching this show, Game of Thrones is based on the series of books by George R. R. Martins called A Song of Ice and Fire. It’s basically a medieval-like fantasy genre show that interweaves several plot lines: the first follows the members of several noble houses in a civil war for the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms; the second covers the rising threat of the impending winter and the mythical creatures of the North; the third chronicles the attempts of the exiled last scion of the realm's deposed dynasty to reclaim the throne. In other words, it’s really cool.

And since season three debuts this Sunday night, what better time to tell all of you that aren't already aware that this new craft brew is coming… to a store near you. Here are a few words from the brewers:

Brewery Ommegang and HBO are partnering on a series of beers in support of the critically-acclaimed drama Game of Thrones. Launching in tandem with the season three debut, Iron Throne is the inaugural beer in the series.

Delicious looking; cool label art too

Iron Throne is a blonde ale at 6.5% ABV and brewed with a robust amount of pils, honey malt, aroma malts and red wheat. Gentle hopping includes Styrian Golding and Hallertau Spalter Select, appropriately noble hops. Spiced with grains of paradise and lemon peel. Hue is a slightly hazy golden amber. Head is full and fluffy. Finish is crisp, backed by a touch of spice and hops. Aroma is a bit grassy with a hint of lemon fruitiness from the lemon peel. Taste is lightly malty, rounded out by honey malt sweetness.

Available in limited quantities in 750ml bottles and 1/6 BBL kegs starting in late March 2013.

This is pretty cool stuff. Generally speaking, when like-passioned people get together to collaborate on a project that transcends the divide between their crafts, greatness happens. Ommegang has been brewing Belgian-inspired beer in the American craft beer scene for years, and their track record is flawless. From their Hennepin Saison to their Three Philosophers Belgian Quadruple, their attention to detail and passion for their craft is evident in every pint, and I expect that same attitude to be manifested in Iron Throne.

The Ommegang Brewery

As an aside, if you’re looking for a weekend getaway idea, Ommegang offers an excursion where you arrive on Friday night, stay at a bed and breakfast in Cooperstown, spend the day Saturday taking in the sites (Baseball Hall of Fame?), and then attend a beer dinner at the brewery Saturday night, complete with brewery tour. Of course, you’ll retire to the B&B afterwards and leave Sunday after breakfast. Sounds like a pretty cool deal to me.

And no, I do not receive any kind of compensation from Ommegang (or HBO for that matter) for shamelessly pushing their products… though I am willing to listen if they are reading this blog…

Now, if you wanted to achieve ultimate rock star status, you would've attended the Ommegang beer weekend this weekend, drank some Iron Throne at the brewery itself, brought a growler of it home with you and enjoyed said beer from said growler while tuning into the debut episode of season three, Sunday night at 9:00 eastern on HBO. Of course, by now, you've already missed the boat on this (as have I for that matter… blast!) but it would've been pretty cool.

Again, watch Game of Thrones, drink Ommegang Iron Throne Blonde Ale, and HBO/Ommegang/George R.R. Martins, if you’re reading this, I am willing to accept comps. Just saying.

Here’s to craft-brewed happiness… Cheers!

Craft Madness

In an effort to continue the ongoing parallel between beer and sports, as though that parallel needed my help to sustain, I am writing today about beer brackets. In other words, this newly over-hyped and sensationalized notion that you can take a bracket, similar to the one used in the NCAA basketball March Madness tournament, populate it with beer instead of college teams, and pit these beers against each other in a seeded, single-elimination, winner-take-all, popularity contest.

Rick Grimes asked you nicely to vote for The Walking Dead

These days, in a world where nobody has any good ideas anymore, but rather recycles good ideas that already exist, and where social media has made it impossible to a) keep a good idea novel and b) avoid the cancerous over-propagation of “played-out” former good ideas to death, March Madness-style brackets exist for literally everything. Yesterday, I was given a link to a “television shows” bracket that pitted The Walking Dead against Sons of Anarchy and Dr. Who against Once Upon A Time, I’m assuming with the intent to determine which show is best, as if determining that sort of thing was possible by collecting votes for one show over another. I've also seen brackets for books, star wars characters, and not surprisingly, beer.

Newspapers, or more accurately news websites, in an effort to remain relevant in this ever changing and hostile to traditional media outlets world of ours, are usually at the center of these bracket challenges. In the case of the beer brackets, there are more of these available every year, always coinciding with the NCAA basketball tournament, and this year, it seems as though every news outlet in existence, from local to national, has a beer tournament.

Truth be told, I don’t mind the local ones. Craft beer is still an emerging industry that posts gains every year in market share, and the beer itself is increasing in popularity as well. At the local level, there is a lot of pride to be found between brewers and the local population, and by extension, ratings to be had by the local media playing off of that pride. Local beer brackets also tend to encompass a good swath of the local product, scooping up multiple offerings of like style from each of the local breweries and giving a good indicator of which is best, or at least, which is the most liked or most popular.

They want you to believe this is the formula for populating
beer brackets, but it's a little less sophisticated than this

When you get to the national news outlets and the macro-crafty beer brackets, things tend to get a bit preposterous. First of all, there are 2,416 breweries in the United States as of March 2013 - 2,360 of which are craft breweries. Typically, a March Madness bracket consists of 32 or 64 spots, so advanced mathematics tells us that a newsroom flunky or blogger (I hate them) that is tasked with building a national beer bracket is going to have to do some trimming. Conventional wisdom says that, in order to appeal to national readers, you have to select beers that people all over the country have heard of or they won’t care. So now you have a bracket filled with Sierra Nevada, Dogfish Head, New Belgium, and most likely (because these aren't beer people creating these things and they don’t know any better) crafty big beers like Shock Top, Blue Moon, and Goose Island. Of course, if AB/InBev/SAB/Miller/Coors is a major sponsor of the newspaper/website, they may even insist on throwing in some Budweiser Black Cap or Redd’s Apple Ale, or some other disgusting shame of a beer.

My point is, it’s impossible for properly made, delicious brews without the mass distribution and add campaigns to get any consideration for these macro-tournaments. They might be good enough for the unenlightened plebes, but those who take pride in what they are drinking and want to be part of something more know better, and deserve better.

So what is the solution? How can a national, all-encompassing, beer bracket be made better?

Pay attention flunkies

This is for the newsroom flunkies and sponsored bloggers who I know are reading my tireless drivel. The only way I see that you can make this work is to fully embrace the NCAA model. The NCAA tournament isn't randomly populated right before the madness starts by teams everyone has heard of. It is cobbled together with teams who won their conference, or are nationally ranked, or have a good RPI (Ratings Percentage Index – quantity that ranks teams based on wins/losses and strength of schedule). The way you do this is to partner with the local papers and affiliate TV stations and let each region decide who it’s best beers are, and then divide the brackets into regions.  Don’t worry about like styles (which is a common concern in beer brackets) because since winners are determined by popular vote in these things, it is a popularity contest and comparing apples to bananas won’t matter.

My advice for those of us who are consumers (or not affiliated to beer brackets, but rather the target demographic of said brackets) is to ignore the national ones. They are quite literally watered down to the lowest common denominator, to the point of being a colossal waste of time. The local ones, on the other hand, can be fun, and particularly if they are done well, can be a good way to socially enjoy craft beer. If you’re a brewer, and for some reason you’re reading this blog, please take the March Madness beer brackets away from the media people. Bless their hearts, nobody tries harder, but they need our help. My vision, if anyone cares to know it, is that the local breweries get together and build a 64 beer bracket with their local brews. Use the local media to market the idea and spread the word, and then let the people judge in a flight-based, beer tasting event that is hosted at the breweries (or a neutral site), while watching March Madness basketball on TV. Depending on how many breweries are in the local market, you can rotate which brewery hosts the tasting per round of the tournament. Tally the votes. Winner takes all. Great for PR, and great for local pride (and thirsty beer drinkers too).

Shoo... I wouldn't miss the semis...

BTW – For those of you who are in the DC metro area and are following the Washington Post’s 2013 Beer Madness tournament, my Final Four consists of Wild Wolf Brewing Company’s Local Wolf India Pale Lager from Nellysford, VA, DC Brau’s The Citizen Belgian-style IPA from Washington DC, Starr Hill Brewing Company’s Northern Lights IPA from Crozette, VA, and Dominion Brewing Company’s Oak Barrel Stout from Dover, DE. In the semis, I have The Citizen beating Local Wolf and Northern Lights beating Oak Barrel Stout. In the finals, it is Starr Hill’s Northern Lights edging out DC Brau’s The Citizen. Then again, it’s just a popularity contest, so what do I know?

Here’s to craft-brewed happiness… Cheers!

Sláinte!

I once heard it said that God invented beer so that the Irish wouldn't take over the world. While this might not be entirely accurate, there is no denying that over the years, Ireland has become associated with beer. And since tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day (another proper noun that is virtually synonymous with beer), it seems only too obvious a blog topic for this rainy Saturday morning in March. I like to pick the low hanging fruit first folks.

Ireland is known for its beer for a reason. The nation has a long and proud brewing tradition and is home to literally thousands of pubs serving locally made Irish beer. In fact, over half of the total alcohol consumed in Ireland is beer. Today, the Irish produce over 8.5 million hectoliters of beer annually, which ranks them fourth in European beer production behind Czech Republic, Germany, and Austria. Surprisingly, stout ale only accounts for 34% of that total. The most popular and most often brewed beer in Ireland is lager, which accounts for 60% of the total annual production. Ales other than stout make up about 6%.

Beer and Ireland go way back. Back in the day, which coincidentally was a Wednesday, the Irish brewed ale without the use of hops as they were not native to the country. In the 1700s, the Irish began importing English hop varieties and brewing their own versions of English styles, but still most of the beer consumed in Ireland was imported from England and Scotland.

St. James Gate at the Guinness Brewery in Dublin

In the middle of the eighteenth century, the Irish parliament used taxation to encourage brewing beer at the expense of distilling, as they felt that beer was less harmful than whiskey. It was around that time when Arthur Guinness opened a brewery in Dublin adjacent to the Liffey River, and Irish brewing took off. After some years of experimentation with English porter recipes and local Irish ingredients, he created the Guinness stout that is so popular and well known around the world today.

The Irish brewing industry prospered and other brewers shortly joined in and began creating some of the other popular varieties of beer still produced in Ireland today, including Murphy’s and Beamish stout, brewed in County Cork. Murphy’s and Beamish also brewed lager-style beers and red ales that were equally popular in Ireland as their stout was. Smithwick’s brewery, located in Kilkenny, also produced an amber ale that is sometimes sold outside of Ireland under the name “Kilkenny.”

By the early nineteenth century, there were more than 200 breweries in Ireland, with more than 50 of them in Dublin alone. Ireland’s production increased so much that soon, they were exporting more beer to England than they were importing from them. Just like in America, as industrialization took over, many of the Irish breweries consolidated and closed, leaving only a few breweries operating by the middle of the twentieth century.

The Hilden Brewery in Lisburn

Also like in America, the craft beer movement of the 1990s took hold in Ireland and several small-batch breweries and brewpubs began opening across the country, saving the Irish beer industry. Ireland’s oldest independent brewery, the Hilden Brewery in Lisburn, was founded in 1981 and still operates today. Other pioneers of Irish craft brewing that still operate include the Franciscan Well Brewpub in Cork, Dublin’s Porterhouse, and the Carlow Brewing Company from Country Carlow, makers of the O’Hara’s range of craft beer that we can buy here in the States. There are also some newer craft breweries, such as the Beoir Chorca Dhuibhne Brewery in County Kerry, Hooker Brewery in Roscommon, Dungarvan Brewing Company, Clanconnel Brewery, Trouble Brewing, Metalman Brewing, The Dingle Brewing Company in County Kerry, Bo Bristle (formerly Breweyed) and Eight Degrees Brewing. These breweries make it possible for visitors to Ireland today to taste and enjoy many types of Irish beers unavailable anyplace else.

So how does any of this apply to you? Well, as I mentioned earlier, tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day, a holiday in which millions of Americans, some of Irish decent but most with no connection to Ireland at all, will take to the pubs to listen to Irish-inspired punk rock music and drink Guinness, Harp, or some American industrial fizzy yellow corn-based swill beer with green food coloring in it. If you’re like I am, that last sentence is a depressing, albeit fairly accurate, description of the holiday. Fortunately, there is opportunity here.

The Chicago River on St. Patrick's Day - the source of
the green beer served in bars across the country

First of all, beer that is consumed on St. Patrick’s Day should be Irish, or of an Irish style. Green food coloring does NOT make a beer Irish, and does not count as an Irish style. Therefore, leave the American Light Pilsner Lagers alone!!! Also, while I am on that subject, George Killian does not make Killian’s Irish Red anymore… Pete Coors does. So leave the Killian’s Irish Red alone too.

It is perfectly acceptable to drink beer made by Guinness, Harp, Smithwicks, Murphey’s, and Beamish, as they are all Irish, but as I always do, I recommend you venture out a little bit and try to find some Irish craft beer. I know for a fact that grocery stores all over the country carry O’Hara’s labels and the few that’s I've had are pretty good. If you go to a specialty beer store, you might be able to find some other Irish craft beers too.

The other option is to drink American craft beer versions of Irish styles, such as Irish dry stouts and red ales. For dry stouts, I recommend North Coast Brewing Company’s Old #38 Stout from Fort Bragg, CA, Victory Brewing Company’s Donnybrook Stout from Downingtown, PA, Starr Hill Brewery’s Dark Starr Stout from Crozet, VA, or Three Floyds Brewing Company’s Black Sun Stout from Munster, IN. For Irish red ales, I recommend Great Lakes Brewing Company’s Conway’s Irish Red from Cleveland, OH, Harpoon Brewery’s Celtic Ale from Boston, MA, Flying Dog Brewery’s Lucky S.O.B. from Frederick, MD, or Matt Brewing Company’s Saranac Irish Red Ale from Utica, NY.

The Dropkick Murphys - Pride of Boston, MA

So hopefully I've armed you with enough general knowledge about Irish beer to enjoy your St. Patrick’s Day reveling. Whether you’re actually Irish, of Irish ancestry, or merely pretending, don’t be that guy who shows up at the Irish pub with his green shirt, shamrock button and green food coloring in his Budweiser, quoting lines from The Boondock Saints and claiming that the Dropkick Murphys are the best band ever. Try a little harder. Take pride in your reveling. And please drink proper beer.

Here’s to craft-brewed happiness… Sláinte!

The Empire Strikes Back

One thing you will notice as you scan the countless makes and models of craft beer on the shelves at your local store where craft beer is sold is a little word that seems to become more and more pervasive with each passing year. It is a word that found use in the brewing world with logical beginnings, but has taken a turn towards overuse in recent years. Of course, the word I’m talking about is “imperial.”

I find your lack of beer disturbing.

If you've ever had a beer with the word “imperial” on its label, you probably get it. Basically, in today’s brewing parlance, imperial simply means stronger than usual. Take, for example, an Imperial India Pale Ale, which is one of the more oft-entered styles in the Great American Beer Festival national competition every year. Stylistically, all that means is that the brewer has used more malt and hops than normal. There isn't even a set number attached to quantify how much more one has to use in order to call their brew imperial. All the brewer has to do is use more than a normal amount, and it becomes imperial.

Rasputin liked his beer dark, strong, and creepy.

This is sort of how the word came to be used in brewing in the first place. Back in the 1700s, British brewers brewed batches of their English stout porter ales extra strong for their friends in the Russian Imperial Court. Because these batches were made stronger, thus justifying the distinction, and they were sending them to the Russian Emperor, they slapped the tag “imperial” in front of stout, and a new style of beer was born. Of course, the Russians also called it imperial stout as it was coming from the British Empire, so it worked out for everyone involved.

Little did they know that 200 some odd years later, the American craft-brewing revolutionaries would get a hold of this little piece of history and run away with it. What started as a simple word to distinguish between the extra strong version intended for the cold-weather Russian Imperial Court and the normal version erupted into an entire universe of new styles. In today’s craft beer market, the word “imperial” can literally be found attached to any style of beer around, from stouts and IPAs to pilsner lagers and pumpkin ales.

This is, of course, a marketing strategy that breweries use in order to draw in more drinkers. There is a very common belief among beer drinkers that stronger means better. How else do you explain Bud Light Platinum? Clearly, AB/In-Bev is trying to capitalize on the ill-conceived notion that more alcohol means better beer. While higher alcohol or stronger taste are often characteristics of beer that is made correctly with quality ingredients, it’s not necessarily an indicator. Plus, at 6% ABV, we’re hardly talking earth-shattering. I suppose the next step for Budweiser is to release their Bud Light Imperial Light Lager, which will be nothing more than Bud Light Platinum with a final gravity of .001 degrees plato higher than normal. Losers.

A fine example of what American ingenuity does to an English and Russian creation.

As for advice from me on this topic, I say go out and enjoy imperial beers. I know the tone of this blog post thus far has been negative, as though I’m against the overuse of the word imperial, but I assure I am not. As always, be mindful of the marketing, but certainly don’t reject strong beers because of a seeming overuse of a word in an attempt to sell more beer. If the brewery has a reputation of doing things the right way, you can be sure that their imperial brews will be the top-shelf product of their flight, much in the same way that Johnny Walker uses colors to indicate quality (and price tag). Just remember when taking on an imperial version of the style in question that it will most likely be a heavy hitter, both in ABV and gravity, so be prepared to sip, and please sip responsibly.

Here’s to craft-brewed happiness… Cheers!

Spring is Coming

As we progress through this silly little existence of ours, we have officially turned the page in our 2013 calendars to the month of March. March is generally the month when I start thinking about spring, and by extension, spring beer styles. Of course, now that I've said that, we’ll probably get three feet of snow tomorrow. Most brewers, with the exception of Sam Adams brewers who think spring seasonal styles should be released in January for some reason, start unveiling their spring brews around March.

Cherry blossoms will be here soon.

But what is a spring beer style? It is actually another one of those “brewing world mysteries,” as the answer to that question is hard to pin down. When crafting a seasonal beer, brewers usually try to “capture” something about that season in the beer. Summer beers are usually light and crisp like pilsners, kolsches, wheat beers, or saisons, as those beer’s characteristics invoke a summery feeling, and are thought to be refreshing after being outside in the hot sun. By contrast, winter seasonals are usually stouts, porters, coffee beers, and desert beers, which are dark with robust flavors, the idea being that dark and robust is good for sitting inside by a roaring fire. Autumn releases tend to be either traditional Oktoberfest styles or pumpkin-laden ales, in keeping with the themes and holidays of fall.

Look out for flying sheep!

But what about spring? The images that spring summons are of Easter, or rebirth, or green grass, trees, flowers, or rain. Easter would be interesting, though hard to pin down how it translates into a beer. Chocolate bunnies perhaps, but chocolate is already generally a winter seasonal thing. Most brewers take the approach that spring is the transition between winter and summer, so the spring release should be a transition between dark/robust and light/crispy. Obviously, that means that spring beers should be medium colored, flavorful, though not as much so as winter styles, and malty, but again, not as much so as their winter brothers and sisters.

Of course, that’s still pretty vague, and perhaps deliberately so. The fewer limitations you place on a complex system like defining a seasonal style, the more endless the possibilities, though not all of the possible outcomes will be considered good, and therein lies the gamble. Oh no, I've gone cross-eyed.

I think the best approach is to stop thinking about definitions and let the beers do the talking. Here are a few spring seasonals (all American, because that’s how I roll) that are on my mind at the moment, and that I recommend to all of you. These have been selected, solely out of my own personal biases and leanings towards local, and by no means constitute an exhaustive list of the spring beers out there.

Might be hard to find this year.

Big Thaw Bock | Dominion Brewing Company | Helles Maibock | 7.40% ABV

Old Dominion’s spring seasonal, Big Thaw Bock, is brewed as a maibock, or helles (meaning “light” or “pale”) bock, which is essentially a paler take on a traditional bock, with similar alcohol levels but a flavor profile that tends to add more emphasis to the hops. Maibock is a fairly recent development compared to other styles of bock beers, and is frequently associated with springtime and the month of May. Interestingly, Big Thaw is not currently listed on Dominion’s website, and appears to have been replaced by their new spring seasonal, Cherry Blossom Lager, which apparently is conditioned on 300 pounds of Michigan cherries for 48 hours. I wonder if this is a permanent change to their flight, or if this is just experimentation for experimentation’s sake.

Dig | New Belgium Brewing Company | Pale Ale | 5.60% ABV

New Belgium’s spring release, Dig, is aiming for a lighter transitional brew that falls closer to summer than winter. It is a pale ale that is highlighted with Sorachi Ace hops, which provide a fresh spring zing with incredible lemon aroma, and Nelson Sauvin hops, which burst with passion fruit, mango and peach flavor notes. They also add American favorites, Cascade and Centennial hops to round out the crisp, clean beer.

Conway’s Irish Ale | Great Lakes Brewing Company | Irish Ale | 6.50% ABV

What better way to say March than with an Irish beer? Not only that, but as a red ale, it also meets all of the criteria for the transition between winter dark and summer light. Red ales are the second most popular style to come from the emerald isle (dry stouts being the first) and they go perfectly in the spring when cold gives way to warm and the world seems greener.

Dandelions in beer... what will they think of next?

Pistil | Magic Hat Brewing Company | Herbed/Spiced Beer | 4.50% ABV

This one’s a little bit out there. Pistil is brewed with a combination of dandelion petals, Pale and Acidulated malts, flaked oats, and Apollo and Northern Brewer hops that results in a beer with a slightly sour acidity and a smooth malt body. It’s actually pretty tasty, and behaves like a summer beer more than a winter. The dandelion petals are noticeable, and give the beer a fresh taste, almost like the taste of fresh lettuce. As long as you can get past the whole “drinking a weed” thing (Note: you’re also drinking fungus, courtesy of the yeast).

Hopslam Ale | Bell’s Brewing Company | Double India Pale Ale | 10.00% ABV

Because it’s always a great day for hops, the final spring seasonal release brew that I will recommend to you today is the wonderfully delicious hop bomb called Hopslam. Hopslam is brewed with six different hop varieties and then dry-hopped with a massive addition of Simcoe hops. Selected specifically because of their aromatic qualities, these Pacific Northwest varieties contribute a pungent blend of grapefruit, stone fruit, and floral notes. A generous malt bill and a solid dollop of honey provide just enough body to keep the balance in check.

As I mentioned before, this list is but a fraction of a percent of the total spring release beers available out there. My ultimate recommendation, beyond the five I listed above, is, as always, be adventurous with your beer. Try them all, or at least, try as many as you can. Spring may not have a highly anticipated style like winter and fall, but there sure are quite a few great beers that are released every year in the name of spring. Search the end caps in your local grocery store (or wherever it is that they display the seasonals), or go to your local specialty beer store where the selection will be greater.

Can you dig it?

Here’s to craft-brewed happiness… Cheers!