Now Open for Business... Tin Cannon Brewing Company

In case you missed it, because you were too busy with your Black Friday shopping or were still in a food coma from Thursday, a new Virginia craft brewery opened yesterday in Gainesville, Virginia – Tin Cannon Brewing Company. And because I’m the intrepid hunter of craft-brewed deliciousness and shenanigans (and because I had nothing else to do), I braved the cold and made my way out to Gainesville for some new beer.

And just so I can be sure I don’t bury the lead, Tin Cannon makes some pretty delicious beer, and you should go check them out when you get a chance. They’re located off of Limestone Drive, not too far from Jiffy Lube Live.

Tin Cannon is a small brewery (only 2 bbl per patch) that is located in an industrial/office park location. They had seven beers on their flight for opening day which included two blonde ales, a chili beer, a black IPA, a dunkelweizen, a peanut butter porter and a winter warmer. Their staff was very friendly and welcoming, and the tap room was filled with thirsty patrons and an excited opening day buzz.

The tap room itself is warm, welcoming, intimate and fun. They have a stamped copper bar top which looks amazing and retro looking pendant lamps hanging from the ceiling that give off a golden glow. The artwork is pretty cool too – all made from used shipping pallets. There’s plenty of seating and you can even see into the brewing side of the operation from your seat. I didn't get a chance to pop back and take a look around in the brewing side, but I did notice the fermentation room door with the old “Intel Inside” logo that had been changed to read “Beer Inside.”

Co-owners and brew masters John Hilkert and Aaron Ludwig

The core four beers include a blonde ale called Virginia Blonde (it’s called Belgian Judy on the website and is identified as a Belgian blonde ale), their Busted Pipe Black IPA, their unkelWeizen (dunkelweizen) and their Vaughn’s Peanut Butter, which is a peanut butter porter. At first glance, this seems like a very unusual flight of core offerings. First of all, a black IPA is not generally found in a core flight, especially if a basic IPA is not there too. Peanut butter porters are also unusual for a core flight and would typically be reserved for a seasonal or other rotator series. All of that being said, I thought their core beers were all very solid. The dunkel was attentive to style, and being that it’s not a style of beer typically found around this neck of the woods, it was all the more appreciated. The black IPA was perfectly balanced between hops and malt. The peanut butter porter was also well balanced, which I was very pleased to learn because most peanut butter porters go too aggressive with the peanut butter.

Also on flight was a winter warmer/holiday spice beer called Honey We’re on a Date. They’re calling it a winter warmer, or at least that is the indication on their website and Untappd – this beer is really tasty, but a bit tricky to figure out. It’s cloudy, and has phenolic banana and clove notes, so it has the look and feel of a hefeweizen. I suppose there are other spices in there too, and technically a winter warmer can be whatever you want it to be as long as you use those “holiday” spices. Again, great beer, but a mystery wrapped inside of an enigma, and juxtaposed to a conundrum.

When you are this close to a line of cannons, make sure you bring hearing protection

Then there was the Breakfast of Champions, which is the first in their “experimental” series. This beer is labeled as a chili beer, and rightly so because the chipotle peppers dominate the beer through and through. According to their tasting notes on the website, this beer was brewed as an amber ale with bacon and chipotle peppers – I would have to drink it again to see if I can pick up the bacon, but it is definitely out-shined by the peppers. I thought the beer was tasty, but just like with most chili beers, I don’t think I could drink two of them in one sitting.

There was also a second blonde on the opening day roster, which one of the owners identified as a “California Blonde.” I suppose this means that it is an American blonde by style as opposed to a Belgian blonde. He explained that this second blonde was created while adjusting mash temperatures… which would explain the change in sweetness. Either way, it was good, and I actually liked it a little bit better than the Virginia blonde.

One glaring issue that immediately became a problem is Tin Cannon’s occupancy, which apparently is 50 people. The tap room isn't very big, but 50 people aren't very many, and I imagine they will routinely have a scenario where they are turning people away or asking them to be patient. Do the workers count against that number too, or is it just the patrons? What about any live music that Tin Cannon may potentially want to host? Yesterday, they had a lot of people standing around outside in the cold, waiting for their turn to come in and drink. Fortunately, Tin Cannon’s friendly staff was able to keep people informed and in good spirits, and even started a waiting list so people could wait in their cars and be called on their cell phones when it was their turn.

Really cool idea for tap room art

But other than that small hiccup, I’d say Tin Cannon has a great brewery going on this their second day in operation. It is evident that the brewers care and really want to build a lasting business in their community. It is also very obvious that they know how to make beer and are both committed to brewing classic styles and willing to live on the wild side. The staff is made up of good people and the atmosphere is inviting. You should definitely check them out when you get a chance, particularly if you live in Gainesville or the surrounding Northern Virginia area. Drink local and support your local small businesses!

Here’s to craft-brewed happiness… Cheers!

A Tasty Beverage to Wash This Down

From all of us in the Mash Tun... okay fine, it's just me.

I've put it off long enough. It’s time for my yearly recommendations on what beer to pair with your Thanksgiving dinner. I know you’re saying, “It’s about time! I need to start grocery shopping for Thursday and how can I do that without knowing which beers to get?” Never fear… I've got your back.

Hello Sweetie.

I've written extensively on the interconnection between beer and Thanksgiving over the years. After all, we Americans started out drinking beer on Thanksgiving (or did we?). Unfortunately, we lost our beer drinking ways as a nation, and during the bad beer era, Thanksgiving was an exclusively “wine” holiday. Now, we have good options in the beer world, and (not) surprisingly, beer can pair very well with food… even Thanksgiving food. For previous suggestions on the art of food and beer pairing on Turkey Day, click on this link. And when you are done reading that, click on this link. Then follow up the beer pairing posts with a list of reasons to be thankful for craft beer. It’s okay… I’ll still be here when you get done reading all of this stuff. It’s the beauty of the interwebz – As far as you’re concerned, I am a fixed point in time that you can access at your whim. But you can’t change a fixed point in time… everyone knows that. Unless your name is River Song.

Spoilers.

Anywho, as you no doubt gleaned from reading about beer pairings a few minutes ago, there are seemingly endless options, which make the task both daunting and hard to mess up so there’s no need to get overwhelmed (or underwhelmed for that matter). I've found the key to success is to provide individual bottles for individual self-paced pre-dinner consumption, a table bottle for dinner, a table bottle for desert and individual bottles for individual self-paced post-dinner consumption.

Like peas and carrots

For the individual pre-dinner bottles, I recommend you stay away from anything with an aggressive flavor profile because you want to preserve your palate for the food. Something in the amber/red/brown ale family or golden/amber lager family is best – not to mention that if you have any non-craft beer people in your audience, they will not be put off by these beers. They may even be converted once they taste how nonthreatening properly made beer can be. Bonus!

For your table bottle to pair with dinner, you first have to determine what’s for dinner. Assuming you are having turkey, mash potatoes, gravy and veggies, you can either choose a classic Oktoberfest/Märzen southern-German lager to highlight the salty starchiness (particularly in the gravy) or a highly-carbonated Belgian Bière de Garde (BDG) to cut through the rich flavors and literally cleanse your palate as you eat. BDGs may be hard to find at your typical beer store, but if you can find one, it really is the perfect pairing for the various food flavors on your Thanksgiving table.

The desert table beer is another important choice that has many right answers. Again, depending on what you are eating, and assuming the answer is pie (obviously), the best solution is a sweet English barleywine or sweet stout. Sweet on sweet may seem a touch too sweet, but since the beer has a subtle barley sweetness, it actually accentuates the sugar sweetness of the pie. Another direction to go, and one I may try this year, is to counter the sweetness with spice – like a chocolate chili beer. I know you’re asking yourself “Chili in beer? That sounds terrible!” Trust me, chili peppers pair really well with chocolate, and the two together will highlight your delicious sweet pies perfectly!

Or we can skip desert and go right to beer

And then there is after dinner. This is where the gloves come off. Obviously, depending on how experienced your guests are, you will have to gauge the likelihood that they will appreciate the beers you have. I recommend, assuming you are unencumbered by rookies, strong hop bombs and high ABV face-melters. By this point, the tryptophan has already kicked in and the desert is sitting heavy in your gut as you sit back to watch the football game… you’re going to fall asleep. I recommend you go out swinging with a beer that will properly finish you off. Double IPAs, imperial stouts, Belgian strong ales… this is where you want to be.

Just remember, it only looks overwhelming. Most of the tips and tricks of beer pairing are common sense if you think about it. The only difference with Thanksgiving is that you often have many different foods with vastly different profiles that you’re trying to pair with a single beer. In a perfect world, you would line up each food item with its perfectly matching beer, but you’re not hosting a beer and food pairing event, you’re hosting Thanksgiving. Find the commonality in your dinner items, like the fact that they are all coming out of an oven and have that “baked” taste… and pair off of that.

I sincerely hope that everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving, and that your beer and food are delicious!

Here’s to craft-brewed happiness… Cheers!

They Sold it to Who?!

You are freaking out... man...

In case you haven’t heard, the craft beer world is in a tizzy this week following the announcement that 10 Barrel Brewing in Bend, Oregon has sold itself to Anheuser-Busch In-Bev. I know what you’re thinking – Craft beer world in a tizzy? That never happens.

Usually it doesn't, unless a well-respected craft brewery sells out to big beer, and then there is flood of hyperbolic “the sky is falling” talk from anybody with a soapbox, be it actual media or pesky beer blogs, or my personal favorite – the old Twitface.

I’m tempted to join them, and if I’m being honest, at least half of me is truly bothered by this. After all, big beer is the enemy. Companies like Budweiser make their beer using substandard ingredients and processes so they can make more money. And then, they go around scooping up craft brewery properties so they can compete with the ever surging craft beer segment of the beer market, but usually end up sucking the “craft” right out of that brewery in the process.

But my inner critical thinking rational self tells me that the sky might not actually be falling and that we might all be okay.

First of all, I don’t own 10 Barrel Brewing. I don’t even own a brewery (yet). It is very easy for me to spend other people’s money, or to make outrageous hypothetical statements like “I would never sell my brewery to Budweiser! Those 10 Barrel guys are a bunch of sell-outs!” I’ll tell you right now, on the record on November 15th, 2014… if Budweiser ever shows up offering to buy my brewery for seven or eight figures, I may have an ethical conflict on my hands.

BTW – I have not yet seen how much AB paid for 10 Barrel – I have no idea how many figures it was.

A big part of the whole “big beer kills craft breweries” thing is that we craft beer superfans make any brewer who sells his or her brewery to big beer into a pariah, and nationally boycott their brewery. It would be interesting to see what would happen if breweries like 10 Barrel weren't branded with a scarlet letter… would they continue to be a fan favorite under an AB-InBev flag?

For the most part, the beer formulas stay the same when big beer buys a little guy. They may tighten up the brewing process on the experimentation side of the operation, but usually what happens is a few of the more popular labels from the craft brewery become major national flagship offerings and everything else is contained to the brewery itself, so that only the locals have ever heard of it. I’m thinking of Goose Island, who sold out to AB what seems like a lifetime ago – you can still find 312 Urban Wheat Ale, IPA and Honkers Ale all over the country and the taste is pretty good.

Adolphus Busch, co-founder of
Anheuser Busch

Then there is the actual benefit that the brewery gets from selling to big beer… as in access to more equipment, more ingredients, more resources… more everything! AB might want to be able to tell the brewer what to do and when to do it, but in exchange, they’re going to spend as much money as it takes to ensure that failure is not an option, otherwise why would they have bought it in the first place? Yes, Adolphus Busch and Eberhard Anheuser built the empire by buying all of the little guys just to shut them down in the post-prohibition era, but those days are long gone… at least, I hope they are.

But we have to remember the very foundation on which the craft beer revolution was built – what separated the pioneers from those they were attempting to reform… beer should be better. One thing I absolutely do not see from any big beer company is the desire to innovate, push the envelope, or make a better product. They’re always focusing on survival in the marketplace, or merging with other companies, or buying this company, or stock tickers and board meetings. They focus on sales, and while money drives this little world of ours, if the desire to make money outweighs the desire to make good beer, it will be evident in the final product and the consumer will know it. It’s one thing to say “our beer is better than Budweiser,” but it’s a completely different thing to say “we make great beer!”

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens to 10 Barrel. Will they become another cold national franchise like Goose Island, Blue Point, Terrapin, Leinenkugle, Widmer Brothers, Red Hook and Kona, or will they maintain their identity that they worked so hard to foster and continue to be celebrated as great brewers? I suppose only time will tell, but if I had to guess based only on recent history, I’d lean towards the former.

Here’s to craft-brewed happiness… Cheers!

A Beer Tribute in Prose (on a Cold Evening in November)

Great beer

Winter is coming. Know how I know? It wasn't the white walkers I saw the other night and it isn't because Ned Stark told me so. It’s because Jim Koch and the boys up at the Boston Beer Company have released their “holiday and winter-themed” Sam Adams variety pack. Which brings me to my annual rant about Old Fezziwig Ale and how it is the best Sam Adams beer there is and how they should offer it by itself in bombers and sixers. Needless to say, this rant is not that dissimilar to my rant about why the chex mix people don’t package a bag of JUST RYE CHIPS and spare us all the other garbage that goes into a bag of chex mix. (actually, you can get such a thing from Nuts.com)

But I digress.

My obsession with Fezziwig goes back many years, and yet I remember the first one like it was yesterday. The spice blend that goes into that brew is sublime. It’s not necessarily which spices and barley blends they use, but the proportions as well… it’s a thing of beauty. I don’t typically get excited to the point of mania over other seasonal brews, but the first Fezziwig siting of the year is an event to celebrate.

So last night, while at someone else’s house, I spotted the Sam Adams winter seasonal collection by the fireside and knew right away I had only one mission… drink the Fezziwig. Both of them. I didn't even feel bad about it. I am a generous soul until there is Fezziwig involved. I would've had three if there were three in the box. Why aren't their three in the box? Or four? Seriously, Jim… what gives? Why can’t we have more than two Fezziwigs in a single package? See my previous comments about sixers and bombers of Fezziwig.

An artist's rendering of Fezziwig's feast - also how I behave
when drinking this fine winter warmer

Full disclosure – I really enjoy this time of year because of beers like Fezziwig. The pumpkins are great in the fall, and then they make way for the winter seasonally spiced beers. If ever the phrase “craft-brewed happiness” was manifested into a real thing beyond just being a concept, this is it. These beers are unadulterated joy and elation in a bottle (or can, or from a tap… whichever you got). And having never been to the Boston Beer Company, I have no idea if they fill growlers of Fezziwig, but they should… for all you Bostonians.

As for the rest of us, I recommend drinking this beer if you happen upon it at a holiday party this season. Unless you’re at the same party I’m at… then we will fight. Winner gets the Fezziwig.

Here’s to craft-brewed happiness… Cheers!

I Fear You've Underestimated the Dark Side

Party time on the Death Star

I hope everyone’s All Hallows Eve festivities were safe and memorable. I hope you had your fill of pumpkin ales and other spooky creations. I hope you got a lot of candy, and nobody called the cops.

October is over – November is here. Generally, November beer consists of the pumpkin beers left over from Hallowe’en and the beers you will pair with your Thanksgiving feast. Those are both perfectly legitimate ways to categorize your November beer drinking plans, but there are others, and since we've covered pumpkin beers ad nauseam and will get to Thanksgiving when we’re a little closer to the holiday, I propose a third option.

Dark beers.

A few years back, I wrote on the topic of dark beers, specifically to separate myth from reality and expose the shenanigans that BIG BEER marketing had managed to pull off regarding light versus dark beer. Now it’s time to further develop the idea of dark beer, with a focus on the total landscape of what dark beer is and can be.

Obviously, everyone knows about stouts. Stouts originated when the Irish decided to one-up the English by adding darker-roasted barley to the English porter ales to create a darker, stronger beer. Believe it or not, dry Irish stout (like Guinness) is only one type of stout porter ale. Other variations include sweet/milk stout, oatmeal stout, coffee stout, foreign extra stout, American stout, oyster stout and imperial Russian stout. Some breweries like to experiment with putting different fruit combinations into stouts, which sounds weird, but since stouts tend to have chocolate characteristics, blending fruit with them usually results in a dessert-like beer.

Look at that cloud!

The other style which usually comes to mind when thinking of dark beers is the porter ale – which is technically the same style as stout, but with less or slightly lighter grain in it. Porters were created during the Industrial Revolution in England and were a local favorite among the industrial workers of the day. Porters are divided into three approved categories: brown porter, robust porter and Baltic porter, with each getting progressively stronger. I've also seen imperial porters before, which of course would indicate that the brewer used more malts and hops than a Baltic porter allows for.

You may also encounter an English Brown Ale, which range from mild (as in not a lot of hops) to Southern English or London-style Brown, which are darker, sweeter and lower gravity than their northern cousins, to the third and strongest Northern English Brown Ale which are higher gravity, more hop-oriented and drier than the Londoner varieties. Nut brown ales generally fall into the third category as well.

If you leave the UK and travel to Germany, the dark beers move into the lager category. One such style of dark German lager that is a personal favorite is the Schwartzbier, or black lager. Schwartzbiers are a variation of a Munich-style Dunkel but with darker roasted-barley and a touch more hops. The hops are completely overwhelmed by the malt so the beer is sweet as opposed to bitter. They have a light body and are typically lower ABV so they are quite easy to drink.

In Belgium, they have the Belgian Dark Strong Ale, which isn't typically black like some of the others I've listed here, but they are dark, very rich, complex and very strong, bordering on dangerous. They can range up to 12% ABV and are generally quite full-bodied, depending on the brewery. Malt sweetness and alcohol dominate the flavor and aroma.

No... what do they say?

Here in the States, we've concocted a beer that is either called black IPA or Cascadian ale, depending on where you are. Essentially, this is a beer that is heavy in both hops and dark-roasted barley… think of either a hoppy stout or a dark IPA. They are usually sweeter than they are bitter and can either be modestly alcoholic or full-on face-melters.

Of course, the secret to all of this is the malt. If the ratio of dark-roasted barley to lighter grains is high, the beer will be dark. It can be any style of beer, though the forefathers had names for most of the dark applications of malt… and that’s why we have the BJCP style guide… so we brewers have something resembling standards by which to design our beers.

Don’t be afraid of dark beers. They may look menacing, but are generally sweeter than their lighter counterparts, and are not necessarily “bigger and full-bodied” the way you might assume they are. Now that it’s November and getting cold again, they can be a perfect way to stay warm and full of cheer.

Here’s to craft-brewed happiness… Cheers!