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Fishbeer.com

fine strong ales

A group of friends are trying to have regular so called "tastings" of beer. I've missed the last couple due to sickness and grant writing, but I made a come back in strong fashion this past Wednesday by hosting barley wine night. Yaniv, Phil, Chris, Ryan, Jeane and Jeryl (sp?) were in attendance. Here are some remarks.

North Coast Old Stock Ale 2002: big fruity nose, apples, musty palate- quite sweet with a pleasing tart acidity in the finish.

North Coast Old Stock Ale 2007: more subdued nose, a bit hoppier, but also a bit sweeter with fuller mouthfeel.

Old Dobzhansky 2003 (my homebrew): bready nose, honey on the palate, quite sweet, floral, tight finish.

Gale's Prize Old Ale 1996: still, molasses in the nose, sweet palate but with a hint of mustiness, surprisingly dry

Gale's Prize Old Ale 1997: tart and sour, the way all other Gale's I've ever tasted have tasted, the 1996 is the sole exception. But the sourness is well balanced by sweet malts, quite nice really.

Mikkeller Big Worse 2007 (?): all the way from Denmark, brewed in Belgium, the Danes apparently have a hard on for big American hops. Very clean, almost chemical like hops and caramel malts dominate, very resinous.

Old Foghorn 2006: nice hoppy nose, fruity also, grapes?, tight palate, winey.

Nogne O #100 2007 (?): this name has a line diagonally through the O but I don't know how to render that with HTML. Another big American hop bomb, kind of astringent, very dark, kind of harsh.

Victory Old Horizontal 2005:

Left Hand Widdershins 2007 (?): oak aged, very smoky, big phenolics, going bad?

New Holland Pilgrim's Dole 2007 (?): tasted like bourbon but we don't think it was barrel aged.

Port Brewing Imperial Stout:

Gales Christmas Ale:

Dogfishhead Olde School"

random gose:

Troegs Rugged Trail:

fairly drunk:

Click the first to enlarge.

converting malt/beer ratios to original gravities: the beer historian's conundrum

One of my favorite blogs, Shut up About Barclay Perkins, is mostly about the history of beer and brewing. Ron Pattinson posts some really great stuff from primary sources (where he gets it all I have no idea) and I think this semester I might have my beer class (which I should have been preparing for instead of writing this post) read some of when we talk about the Porter Revolution. Maybe.

Today Dr. Pattinson posts some recipes from A Cyclopaedia of Six Thousand Practical Receipts, and Collateral Information by Arnold James Cooley (1854). It was common practice before the widespread acceptance of the hydrometer (or saccharometer) to express the strength of a beer in terms of how much malt was used to make it. This makes sense considering the fact that alcoholic strength depends mainly on how much sugar the yeast have to convert to alcohol and how much sugar depends on how much starch you have from the grain.

But there are other things that effect the alcoholic strength of a beer and this is what makes using malt/beer ratios problematic. The quality of the grain, how the mash is conducted (temperature for instance), the moisture content of the grain, how the fermentation is conducted (temperature for instance), what kind of yeast is used etc. all influence the strength of a beer. So the malt/beer ratios can be pretty variable indicators of beer strength.

But historians of beer and brewing have little choice but to make do with this system because it's all we have. And to get an idea of how strong these beers were it's helpful to try and convert the malt/beer ratios into original gravities, into figures that represent the density of the wort prior to fermentation. Because the density of wort is influenced primarily by the amount of sugar in the wort, it is a good indicator of how strong the beer can be. Of course you have to take into account how the fermentation it conducted etc. but original gravity is a much better indicator of the potential strength of a beer than is malt/beer ratios.

And it's the way we speak about the strength of beer today so it's something we can wrap our heads around pretty easily.

So let's get down to the brass tacks, as it were. Dr. Pattinson intimates that Cooley had no idea what he was talking about for several reasons, but the one I latched onto was the fact that he thinks Cooley got the malt/beer ratios wrong.

For the "Ale, Burton" Cooley says a barrel and a half of beer (48 gallons) was drawn from a quarter of malt (64 gallons of malt). Pattinson says this would result in an OG of over 1400. This is very, very strong. With today's technology you could probably make a 16% abv beer from that wort. In the 1850s, they probably would be able to coax that wort down to a final gravity of at most 1040, probably lower, making a beer of over 13% abv.

Similarly, in his description of "Ale, Dorchester" Cooley says they drew two barrels (64 gallons) from one quarter of malt. Pattinson claims this would give an OG of 1100. Again, this is very strong. This wort would likely make a +10% abv beer.

I think Pattinson might be overshooting a bit.

In her wonderful book Country House Brewing in England, 1500-1900 Pamela Sambrook says that October Beer (the strongest brewed in the English country house) would typically be a barrel drawn from ("well over" in some cases) one quarter of malt (more than eight and a half bushels). And I doubt this brew had an OG over 1140 and therefore a FG probably over 1050 FGs probably go higher the farther back in history you go). And by Pattinson's conversions a quarter of malt would make a barrel of beer with an OG probably over 1180, extremely strong.

Similarly, the "Ales" that were commonly brewed in these country houses were made by drawing one barrel from usually four bushels of malt, or half a quarter, or two barrels from one quarter (p.117). And this brew was meant for regular consumption (at least by the families, at least before ~1700) so I doubt it had an OG of 1100. Because regular consumption of a beer over 10% abv would make you drizunk like you wouldn't belizeve.

Moreover, entire guile small beer in both Sambrook and Ellis is about five barrels from a quarter (Sambrook p.121), which by Pattinson's calculations would probably be around 1040, too strong to adequately quench the field laborer's thirst without making him fall down wasted betwixt the rows. I'm thinking small and table beer had OGs around 1020.

Ellis gives similar numbers in The London and Country Brewer for strong ale as well.

In Bennett's Ale, Beer, and Brewsters she claims that on Lady Clare's estate in the 14th century they were brewing almost 500 gallons of ale per week, drawing two barrels from each quarter (p.18). On Pattinson's conversion, that's a shit ton of 1100 OG ale to be brewing every week. And a lot of very strong ale to drink considering Bennett says that in an average household a person would drink about 1/4 gallon of ale every day (p.19). A drunken household indeed.

I suppose I would just be interested in knowing how Pattinson does his conversion and the justification for it because it doesn't square with what I know from the primary and secondary literature on the subject. I've built this nice little house of historical beer strengths and with one wave of his hand Pattinson threaten's to blow it off like so much fart in the wind.

fishbeer beta

It's just a screen capture. Don't freak out. Click to enlarge.

indianabeer all up in here

Went to Chicago's Barrel Aged Beer Fest two weeks ago tomorrow with Yaniv and Phil. Stayed with the beautiful Tracy Snowberger and generally had a very fun time. I wrote about it for Indianabeer.com and experimented with a new layout which my brother of Nimblelight fame helped me put together. Doesn't go very well with the rest of Indianabeer.com, but I think it looks pretty damn good if I do say so myself. Click the picture to be whisked away to that magical place called beer.



Don't forget about the busting wipers below.

london calling?

(finally got around to putting this bit up from my trip to England this summer)

Is that a music reference? I have no idea. But I do know that Cesare "Galileo is my dad" Pastorino was born and raised in Italy. Genoa to be precise. So close to France that he has an inordinate fondness for cheese. I said: "Isn't Italy a third world country? Lots of dust, not so many trees, right? The womenfolk are constantly heckled by sweaty, annoying thirty five year old men clad in red neck bandannas that still live with their mothers? I've really got Italy's number, don't I Cesare?" You know, idle chit chat between friends. Any time someone opens their London home to me for three days when I'm abroad I introduce myself immediately by insulting their native lands.

Tamara, Cesare's live-in girlfriend (scandalous!), stood there not quite sure what to make of me. I was bearded. Large. Smelled faintly of the tumbling, tannic waters of Dartmoor and sweat. I smelled not so faintly of sweat. We had met once before, briefly, at a department party. And here I was insulting the man she loved not more than five minutes after I set foot in their nest, crashing the harmony party like so much lawn mower. "New Mexico [editor's note: Tamara's native lands] is nothing but a dressed up Mexico. More sand and dust than Italy. That's saying something. It's a filthy place."

Tamara didn't like that one bit and struck me fast across the face with the back of her right hand. With impeccably good timing Tamara took advantage of my leeward motion and drove her right knee quick to my crotch. I crumpled to the ground in a heap. A low moan escaped my lips, I curled into a ball and rocked slowly back and forth, holding the vomit in.

"Alright then, let's go the park. Throw the frisbee around."

"Ok. But let's get some beers first. We'll lay on the blanket and sip and sup the afternoon away."



Beautiful day. Blackheath Standard is quiet. We purchase several bottles of English strong ale and proceed to Greenwich Park, ten minutes walking away to the north. Blackheath is so quiet because everyone is at the park. The sun shines brightly through a clear blue sky and lukewarm breezes waft the smell of grass and trees on the air. I lick my wounds. We consume several bottles of Young's Special London Ale which is much finer fresh, untransported across the Atlantic. Truly a great ale. Perhaps the best beer I had the entire trip.

The bleak bulging grass land stretches out before us endlessly. We skirt the edge arriving at the brewpub perched on a high corner where the street swoops down and around the patio like swirling stone bathwater carrying pedestrians into the bowels of Blackheath.

Zerodegrees Micro-Brewery is a small chain of brewpubs with locations in Bristol, Reading and Blackheath. Pretty fancy pants modern decor. Lots of glass and gleaming stainless steel. Slick logos and well placed beams of light shine from mysterious origins. They make a Pilsner, a Dark Lager, an American Pale Ale, and a Wheat. Not exactly your traditional English establishment. The Pilsner and Dark Lager were quite good. As clean as freshly polished glass and gleaming steel. I was interested to see American styles exported to the UK. All Cascade hops in the Zerodegrees Pale Ale. It was above average, but nothing special. Didn't try the wheat.

Two pots of mussels: one Thai style, one cajun style. They were excellent. Two pizzas (that Cesare endorses). Two orders of fries. Several beers. Fat, fat, fat. We walk it off down into Blackheath, led by the smell of fried food like Atlantic Salmon back to their natal rivers. We arrive at an assortment of fried foods so glorious and artery clogging that I gasp and exclaim, "Good god man! Is this a common type of shop?" Apparently it is. But we were quite full already and passed up the fried foods in order to indulge in Magnum handheld ice cream bars. I got the brand new Ecuador Dark. Tasty.

We crossed the heath like Ethelred the Unready. Wasted by a day in the park, mussels, ice cream, fighting Viking invaders, ours is a hard life.

The next day we took the train to Southwark near the old Thrale's Anchor Brewery, one of the most famous breweries from London's porter heydays. We went to The Market Porter pub, one of the better real ale venues in the city. Eleven real ales on at any time and one real cider. They typically go through 50 different casks a week. The bartender was very cool and gave me samples of lots of different beers. The ceiling was covered in pump clips from the beers that have passed through the pub. They fill the ceiling in less than a year.





The Sussex Best Bitter (4% abv) was quite bitter actually, grapefruit rinds, well put together. Royal Oak showed big, rich malts. Bolton's Port O'Call Porter was mellow and chocolaty. Beowulf Beorma from Staffordshire (3.9% abv) was light and extremely drinkable.

From here we took the tube north to an obscure residential neighborhood whose name escapes me now and I didn't write it down. We had dinner outside at a pub with pints of Wychwood from the cask (of course). Then we walked a couple blocks into an even more obscure section of the neighborhood to the Wenlock Arms, perhaps London's most traditional of cask ale outlets. It was a dirty bar. Well lived in. Old red carpet. Everything dusty. We were by far the youngest folks there.







I had a half pint of Crouchvale Brewer's Gold (4.0% abv), Champion Beer of Britain in 2005 and 2006. Very light color. Hint of apricots. Good. Old Bear in the Red (4.5%) was crap. Artificial red coloring made it look like a red light but didn't taste bad. Earl Soham Gannet Mild (3.3%) was quite good with a touch of chocolate malt character and herbal tea like hops. A great, traditional mild. Glad I got to try it. Unfortunately they had just run out of a Dark Star ale, one of the more famous traditional British beers amongst beer geeks here in the states.

The pub was a hot box with no breeze. A very hot day in London.

England really isn't a great place to go beer sampling. I know that sounds crazy, but we're spoiled in America. In England, everything is a bitter. Milds and porters are extremely rare and really not all that different from bitter. Dann Paquette has a pretty good piece in this month's Beer Advocate magazine pretty much lamenting the homogeneity of British beer. Sure, it's great for traditional English real ale. But after not too long they all taste the same. In England, beer is for drinking, not for "tasting." And I actually think that's a good thing. But if you're a standard American beer geek looking for a wide experience in a foreign land, Belgium's probably a better place to be.

We walked fairly far south from there (maybe took the tube too?) to Chiswell Street and the old Whitbread brewery, another of London's famous porter breweries from the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It was cool to see it as we talk about it in my beer class. Unfortunately it's being converted into luxury apartments.





We took the tube back down to Southwark and the train to Greenwich (I think) and hung out there by the observatory. We sat around in the park and got some drinks at a Philadelphia Phillies themed hot dog restaurant. I shit you not. I told the guy I was from Philadelphia and he asked me if I knew a lawyer he knew in Jersey. I didn't.

beer and philosophy

Well, all good things must come to an end and this blog is one of them. It saddens me to think how this is one of the very last posts on this blog (not THE last, but we're getting close, so don't stop checking in quite yet).

Fuck it.

The king is dead. Long live the king.

Like a phoenix rising from the smoldering ashes, Fishbeer.com will soar triumphantly over the interwebs for many more years to come. I bought the domain. I even posted something over there. Check it out. Maybe a month from now? Six weeks at the most? Prepare yourself people. Prepare yourself.

In the meantime, life must go on. And it went on in a big way for me today. I rarely check my mailbox in the department here. Mostly academic press catalogs, bulletins from various offices on campus, ethical guidelines for instructors of scantly clad undergrads. You know, the typical stuff. But today, today there was something special waiting for me when I arrived. Beer and Philosophy went to press, into the mail, and arrived in my box sometime in the last week. I wouldn't have checked my mail today either if it hadn't been for post on A Good Beer Blog about Beer and Philosophy's release.

Remember when I said I wrote a chapter for this fine book? It's pretty cool to see my name in print with the likes of Garrett Oliver, Sam Calagione, Peter Machamer, and the late Michael Jackson. Yeah, I wish I had more time to write the chapter, it was a bit of a rush job, but I guess it turned out OK. If you're interested in beer or philosophy you should probably pick it up. It's cheap. Only $13 on Amazon. I haven't read anything except Michael Jackson's foreword, but some of the chapters look very promising. Neil Manson's chapter on The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Beer look great (it's a dialog) as does Dale Jacquette's on authenticity and the aesthetics of the brewer's art. These two just caught my eye. I'm sure the other's are great too.

Click both for bigger.

cleaning house, going corporate

Well, not quite corporate but I have big plans for a new blog. A brand new blog. Big plans. Have no fear. This one won't go anywhere. It will be mainly a repository for bad poetry. The new blog will be focused exclusively on Beer and Fish. Hopefully it will be exclusively Fancy Writing but I can't promise anything on that score. I'm definitely going to take it upscale though. Only post the best writing and photos. Quality over quantity. 18 year old biddies from Connecticut that drive daddy's Range Rover over slam pigs, as MB Pell might say. Get my own domain name. Make it respectable.

My brother, java juggernaut, Knight of the php, HTML pimp, said he can help me with all the hard stuff, like, you know, the code. I'm pretty excited about it actually. A radical new idea in the world of blogging sure to awe and impress, daze and bewilder, confuse and obfuscate. I'll be honest, it might be pure shit, but right now, in my head, it is the coolest thing I've ever thought of. Hopefully it will happen in the next month or so.

But in the meantime...we drank a bunch of hoppy beer Wednesday over at Y-to-the-niv's house.

Courtney was making venison and trout stew for her dogs. I am not kidding.



After six hours of drinking things deteriorated quickly. The once academic conversation collapsed in a fit of political rage and flying spittle. "The president of the IMF is, in fact, the devil. He skewers African children and roasts them over dung fires on the open savanna, slurping gristle from their bones, smearing his lava countenance with the fat of their millet fed bodies."

But we did manage to try some interesting beers from all over this fair nation of ours.

Mishiwaka Hop Head: this beer is from Indiana and I don't really like the labeling very much. The beer is pretty average. The palate is dominated by a harsh piney bitterness.

Hoppin' Frog IPA: I'm pretty sure this was the IPA and not the double IPA, but I could be wrong. This beer drives a rusty iron spike through my tongue with a large sledge hammer. Not a huge fan. Had it once before. Same opinion.

Founder's Pale Ale: skunky.

Ale Smith X: interesting hop character. Smooth, glassy, citrus.

Bear Republic Racer 5: a sunny, shiney Lake Tahoe fills my glass as I stand on the porch looking through fir trees. I had this beer for the first time in Lake Tahoe a couple years ago and was really quite fond of it. I still am.

New England Brewing Sea Hag IPA: this beer comes in a can. I love that. Good hop character. Big. I think pale ales from a can, e.g. Dale's Pale Ale, always taste bigger to me than they do from a bottle or a glass.

Highland Brewing's Imperial Gaelic: the truly incredible Dr. Sean O'Connell gave this very rare beer to me last Spring. This is Highland's anniversary beer. It was bottled in one liter swing top bottles. It's a big beer at 8.7% abv. Best nose ever? Warm, whole grain bread delivered in a basket made of fresh hop bines. Big barleywine-esque palate that is extremely malty and sweet up front but finishes abruptly with a strong hop bitterness. Excellent.

Moylan's Hopsicle Imperial Ale: what a stupid name. A skinny ice dancer falls. Her skate lacerates her tongue. She has a huge bruise on her ass.

Two Brother's Hop Juice: not a great name. Mellow compared with the others. Malty with a pleasant hop flavor. I like Two Brothers.

Founder's Devil Dancer: offensively hoppy. Talk about lacerating. But this beer comes prepackaged with a goopy salve that one can apply to the salty fire. However, take heed of the goop. It will suffocate you.

Dark Horse Double Crooked Tree IPA: I had this beer a couple years ago and loved it. I still love it. A malty mountain climbed with fresh hops in hand, spilling, crushed underfoot releasing pleasant resins.

Lagunitas Sneak Release Undercover Investigation Shut-Down Ale: what a stupid name. Good beer.

The beers. Click for bigger.



Other beers.



Yaniv with a glass from his new favorite brewery.



Chris with broom.



Rockit's Famous Pizza.



Phil discussing politics in his typically calm manner.

dearest Melissa

I went to Beer and Sweat two weekends ago with Ryan and Dar and some other local homebrewers. It was beery and sweaty and a pretty damn drunken time. Read all about it at Indianabeer.com by clicking on the picture below.

2007 brewers of indiana guild festival

I went to the Broad Ripple Brew fest last weekend. Now I'm in England for a conference. My talk went fairly well today. I also moved two weeks ago. There's lots of catching up to do. But for now, read my latest Indianabeer piece on the beer fest.

nymphing with dad

The extravaganza is rolling along smoothly despite some massive potholes on the home front. Been drinking at Victory two times now, went to Spence last night to see Colin's band Downhill Racer play, and The Bob and I are heading down to State Line Liquors near Newark Delaware in about an hour to buy $100 in fine fermented beverages. We might even swing through the Illadelph on the way back to hit up Monk's Cafe. Also made it to the Drafting Room last night and enjoyed a very fine Double IPA: Legacy's Hoptimus Prime. One of the best I've tried in a while. Intense, lingering bitterness with bountiful juicy hop character. Much better than Legacy's Hedonism I had at Boxer's Cafe last week, which was good, but much less flavorful with an intensely high perceived bitterness.

I head back out to Central PA tomorrow. Wish me luck.

So I went back to West Valley creek yesterday and caught this decent brownie on a Sulpher. Definitely looks like a stocked trout from the gills back. But look at the gills forward. From the gill forward it looks wild. I wonder why wild trout look like that and stockers look all silvery? Click for bigger.




Then, because I caught that Brook trout on a woolly bugger the other day, I threw a streamer in the hole a couple times. A Clouser Minnow. A bass fly. Know what happens when you fish a bass fly? You catch bass. Click for bigger.

indianabeer all up in here

A new and heretofore completely unexpected account of Gravity Head 2007.

Click the picture of Dr. Roger Baylor to read it.

the session #1: stouts

Stout: the beer that means something. That's my motto at any rate. And it's a damn fine motto if you ask me. We all search for meaning in this life and when it's found you should make it clear to the world, OLLY OLLY OXEN FREE. Shout it out from the top of your lungs: I LOVE BURNT BARLEY BABY.

Searching for good craft beer in the Midwest is kind of like playing a giant game of Capture the Flag. Sure, there's good craft beer to be found, but you're not exactly walking on roads paved with golden malt, verdant hops and crystal clear spring water. The roads are paved with corn. Literally. One hundred bushels crushed for every linear mile. It's a kind of earth-friendly filler. We power our cars with it. We make our roads with it. Hell, I wash my hair with it every other day, gives it that wholesome Midwestern shine.

But look long enough and hard enough and you can find the flag. Soar through the cornfield with eyes peeled wide. Hark! A settlement! Perhaps their victualers brew a strong and dark drink, roasted and toasted to keep our bodies strong. OLLY OLLY OXEN FREE I scream from the top of my lungs. I've found some stouts and I drank them down and here I will of them write about.

Dr. Stan Hieronymus thought it was a good idea to have a beer blogging carnival and I couldn't agree more. So this is my little piece of participation. Click the pictures for grand versions.



UPLAND BREWING COMPANY (Bloomington IN)
Chocolate Stout

The head fades quickly and a sharp, shiny, metallic scent wafts up to slice at my nose. Dry, grainy, chocolate malt asserts itself and I feel cheated. Plastic chocolate pinches my mouth and lingers unwelcome.

BARLEY ISLAND BREWING COMPANY (Noblesville, IN)
Black Majic Java Stout

"I won a silver medal at the GABF this year in the 'coffee flavored' category, naaa naa na."

"You're an idiot. You don't know how to spell magic."

"It's a clever play on words. And it's trademarked."

"You are made of too much coffee. At first you appear to be rather viscous. But you're not. It's all lies. You've always been a lier. It all started at the hotel in Key West. You weren't going to the store to buy limes. You were doing unspeakable things for a fix in the alley behind the Lazy Gecko. More or less in plain view. People staring in disbelief. WHY DIDN'T I END IT THEN? You're not a bad beer, you just need to beef up a little bit. Fill out in the hips. In the butt. A little bit of body and a dash of residual sugar would go a long way in combating your acrid java ways."

"I don't even know who you are."

BELL'S BREWERY (Comstock, MI)
Kalamazoo Stout

Dear Kalamazoo Stout,

You smell like the wedding cake of King Edward the VIII. Delicate yet sumptuous. Creamy yet nimble. I wade through your waters in ecstasy. I dream of taking you away on a romantic trip to Pennsylvania Dutch Country where we can lay nestled in each other's arms until daybreak.

With love,
Matthew Daniel Dunn, Esq.

FOUNDERS BREWING COMPANY (Grand Rapids, MI)
Black Rye

This is definitely not your father's stout. Mainly because I'm not sure it's a stout at all. But I bet you father would enjoy the way the spicy spicy spicy nose slaps you around like a stripper's tits. That sweet stripper smell. Mysterious yet comforting. Picante! Again, unfortunately, much like our friend Black Majic (sic), Black Rye needs to put on an extra pound or two. She kicks so much game that she needs a little bit of junk in the trunk to give her a solid foundation. To kick all that game.

NEW HOLLAND BREWING COMPANY (New Holland, MI)
The Poet Oatmeal Stout

Not very stout
Sweetish nose about
to shellac my tongue.

It smells like candy to me- too smooth
Ryan thinks Carafa malts are the culprit.

TWO BROTHERS BREWING COMPANY (Warrenville, IL)
Northwind Imperial Stout

Fruity. Diacetyl I dare to conjecture? Do you contain anise? Licorice? You are strange.

Ryan, Brian, Yaniv, the Stinks... without you, none of this would have been possible.

how do you over cook soup?

Ignore the title of this post. It has nothing to do with anything when you think about it. It's perfectly possible to over cook soup. Especially the noodle varieties. This is why I have switched to a completely macrobiotic, no-cook, vegan, whole foods, Jungle Jim diet: crap in, crap out's my motto. The human body is exactly like computer programming: you have to harness the whole power of the whole body-mind-spirit dasein-geist. DNA proves that god exists and that he's a big fan of macrobiotica. Deepak Chopra told me that.

There is lots to say here folks. A story about the Whiskey Rebellion and 30-06 rifle fire and my impending trip to NYC. Flash fiction and the impending birth of poetry-prose, not to be confused with prose-poetry. My impending trip to Tidioute, Dunn's Eddy and, wait for it, Wolf Creek. And, of course, Benwah's new case of syphilis. It's no laughing matter.

Here is my new Indianabeer.com piece. I like the first paragraph and the description of the lager, but other than that I think Matt Dunn fucked it up pretty good. Click the picture please.

two things

I was on the Good Beer Show last week and it is posted here.

There is a very cool article about recent human evolution in the NY Times here.

indianabeer all up in here

The webmaster continues to come up with clever new titles for my Indianabeer pieces. Excelsior: climbing a mountain in winter.

Click the pic to be magically transported through the interblag tubes.

the circumnavigator perseveres

Part III has been posted. Trout and beer together make me very happy. And it's my birthday. Happy birthday me. Clicka the pictura to go there.

two beery developments

There have been two very positive recent developments in my life that have to do with beer and they are as follows:

(1) A while back I mentioned that I missed the deadline to submit a chapter to a forthcoming book called Beer and Philosophy. Well, it turns out that the editor still needed a chapter so I wrote one about the semantics and metaphysics of beer styles wherein I rehearse Hilary Putnam's famous Twin Earth thought experiment but in terms of beer. I think it's pretty funny. And it kind of works as an argument too. Kind of. The book won't be out until fall 2007.

(2) I will be flying to NYC this coming Thursday with a beer wholesaler to check out some breweries. Then on Friday we'll drive to Albany and then to Cooperstown to check out more beery things. Then on Saturday we're supposed to head back to NYC and maybe kick around Mannahatta for a while. I am under the impression that everything is being paid for which is pretty fucking sweet. I just need to document the whole thing and write about it when we get back.

Every once in a while, life throws me a frickin' bone.

the funk explosion of 2006

Click on the picture for a very large version.

Our bodies were covered in lava colored battery acid. The explosions gained momentum as the night progressed. Despite common stereotypes, the Belgians are a corrosive people. Particularly the Flemish. First it was the hop. Gut wrenching acids introduced into early 15th century England cleverly attached to an otherwise perfectly pleasing and functional plant. Moving west, across the ocean, Flemish Manifest Destiny has arrived on out own shores. This time under the guise of otherwise innocuous microorganisms trained to produce low ph metabolites. Puckered were our cheeks. Denameled were our teeth. Exhausted were our salivary glands. A night to be remembered. A night to be feared.

When I left, Ryan and Dar were cowering in the corner crying in each others arms with a bottle of ammonia at the ready, “You’ll be neutralized you bastards! Don’t come near us!”

First, out of the gate, Melbourne Bros spontaneously fermented strawberry ale. The odd spontaneously fermented beer from...England. Smells like musty jam. Very jammy. Rich. Jam. But with a hint of musty, brett like character. Very sweet on the palate. Like diluted strawberry jam. Jam. Fairly tart finish, but is it from the strawberries? Pectin? Jam? One can’t know for sure. Would later be used as a salve for the inside of our cheeks.

Then Ryan’s homebrewed raspberry lambic. Maturing very well. Now four years old. Really nasty in the nose. Spot on. Like very yellow urine. The pisser hasn’t drank anything but raspberry syrup for days. And mushrooms and mildew. The pisser was pissing on a patch of rotten horse manure. Well, not that bad. On the palate this beer backs off a bit. Drier than our last tasting. With a solid acidity, but nothing like that to come. A pleasant, clean finish with a hint of raspberry. Bravo Ryan, Bravo.

The Vichtenaar sour ale was well past its best before date of June 2005, but it was actually better than the last bottle I had. Very sweet, but well balanced by a hefty sour side. Well assimilated. Get some oaky notes and kind of a chocolate covered cherry sort of thing even though there are no cherries here.

The Petrus sour ale was also well past it’s best before date, but it too had held up well. Not very tart or sour after the Vichtenaar it showed a nice malt character in the nose but more so on the palate. Special B? Chocolate malt? Very nice.

The two De Proef Primitive ales were interesting. Each about the same color, same strength, 9% abv, about the same carbonation, about the same final gravity. But the bottle with the “pig nun” and the “little armored thing” on the label was a much calmer ride. Fairly smooth all the through. A bit of funk in the nose but subdued. Big fermentation character, maybe a touch tart in the finish, hefty hopping, but all in all a very easy ride. The bottle with the “red caped bird” on it was an adventure. Massive dry hopping in the nose and maybe some spicing. The palate was herky-jerky all over the place. Much hoppier, big spicing?, much more tart in the finish. Reminded me of a slightly sweeter, spiced Orval.

The Rodenbach Grand Cru was much more intense than expected. The nose is absolutely funk-a-licious. Straight up cheese. Or smelly shoes. Really funky. Really puckering on the palate. Very sour. Definitely the most sour so far. Fairly sweet with a decent malt character underneath it all though. But still really tart.

The New Belgium La Folie was a whole new level of acidity. Supposedly brewed to be less sour than Rodenbach, our opinion was that this beer blows Rodenbach out of the water in terms of sourness and sheer acidic power. Much drier than Rodenbach, or at least so perceived, this beer strips teeth of enamel and sets your saliva glands to pumping out copious quantities. Much less complex than Rodenbach, but more aggressive. My bottle is marked 05-2030.

the circumnavigator perserveres

I have finished part two of my piece for Indianabeer.com. The Scottish accent of the Segway gang leader doesn't come through very well because of a formatting error, but such is life. Click on zee picture to read it.