Bah. Humbug. (Oh, wait, that’s for Christmas. I’m getting ahead of myself. Local Beet editor Rob asked me to write something about beers for Thanksgiving. Oh, well.)
I’m not doing much of a Thanksgiving this year. I’ll probably just go out to a restaurant (Lovell’s of Lake Forest) and drink wine, like everyone else.
But in an ideal world, I wouldn’t be like everyone else. I’d drink beer for Thanksgiving. (Well, I might have some food along with the beer, too).
And, in an ideal world, I’d have lots of friends and family over for Thanksgiving. Of course, I’d have a turkey, probably a heritage breed, like a Bourbon Red from Caveny Farm in Monticello, IL
And I’d probably get some cranberries from a grower near our summer place in Northern Wisconsin. (Did you know that Wisconsin is the world’s leading producer of cranberries?)
I’d skip the overcooked green beans with canned fried onions, and instead, maybe, serve some braised tat tsoi from Henry’s Farm in Congerville, IL (available Saturday morning 11/19 at the last-gasp of the Evanston Farmers’ Market at Immanuel Lutheran Church, 616 Sherman in Evanston). I’d make it with onion and Nueske’s Bacon.
So, I’m imagining an ideal world. Obviously, there would be beer.
Lots of beer. Many varieties of beer. Especially local beers.
Turkey can be somewhat on the bland side, but the Caveny birds have much more depth of flavor than your typical supermarket bird. A Great American Beer Festival Gold Medal winning 5 Lizard, from 5 Rabbit Cerveceria (currently brewed on the South Side of Chicago at Argus Brewery, at least until they build their own brewery) would provide the complexity of a Latin twist on a Belgian witbier, to go along with the complexity of the heritage bird.
Cranberries aren’t innately sweet, but their preparations usually involve enough sugar to keep many dentists happily employed, and to finance the yachts that they’ve recently had to put in storage for the season. There are two ways to go with this. You could contrast the sweetness with something truly bitter and hoppy, like Lincoln Avenue’s Half Acre Daisy Cutter or Munster, Indiana’s Three Floyd’s flagship, Alpha King. Or maybe you’d want to complement the sweetness with a Mild Winter From Goose Island. It has rich caramel malt and spicy rye flavors. Tasty.
The tat tsoi, without other additions, would have a subtle, slightly cabbage-y flavor. I’d match that subtlety with a köslch, like Krankshaft, from Metropolitan Brewing. But amped up with onion and bacon, you’d need something a bit more assertive and roasty, like Flossmoor Station’s Pullman Brown Ale.
For dessert? The obvious choice would be a fruit lambic, from Lindeman’s – cherry, raspberry, or peach. But a more local choice might be New Glarus’ Belgian Red or Raspberry Tart beers. (New Glarus beers aren’t officially distributed in Chicagoland – you’ll have to cross the cheesehead border to get them. Woodman’s in Kenosha [I-94, exit 344, east] is a good source.)
Or, now for something completely different (apologies to Monty Python), you might try a mead (honey wine) from Chicago’s South Side Wild Blossom Meadery.
It’s amazing how we can easily get so many beer styles brewed locally, and brewed well, in the Midwest.
Maybe it is an ideal world, after all.
October 6, 2011 – The Great American Beer Festival concluded last weekend. Results were another excuse for me to be a happy drinker in Chicago (or at least the Upper Midwest).
Six craft breweries in the region won the prestigious gold medal, signifying “A world-class beer that accurately exemplifies the specified style, displaying the proper balance of taste, aroma and appearance,” according to festival organizers.
Perhaps the most surprising, yet deserved, recognition went to 5 Rabbit, one of Chicago’s newest breweries (or, as it’s self-described, cerveceria). It won a gold for its “5 Lizard” beer in the Fruit Wheat beer category. 5 Lizard, designed by Friend-of-Local-Beet Randy Mosher, is a Latin spin on a Belgian witbier, using subtle levels of passionfruit instead of the more common sour orange. 5 Rabbit beers are still in limited distribution in the Chicago area, but they’re worth seeking out. (Check this link for stores and bars that carry them.) More on 5 Rabbit coming in this space soon.
Another gold for another newcomer went to “Angry Birds,” in the American Belgo-style Ale category. It’s produced by Pete Crowley at Haymarket Pub & Brewery. Like the Angry Birds game, Haymarket is a great way to waste a lot of time.
Other regional golds included the amazingly complex, slightly sour (in a good way) “Raspberry Tart” from New Glarus, (Wisconsin) in the Fruit Beer Category. New Glarus also won a gold in the American-style Black IPA category, with its “Blacktop IPA.” More gold went to Bell’s (Michigan) “Expedition Stout,” in the Aged Beer category, and “Autumnal Fire” from Wisconsin’s Capital Brewery as a German-style Dopplebock. Capital also won a bronze in the same category for its “Eisphyre,” an Eisbock.
As they say in late-night infomercials, “But wait, there’s more!” Like the silver medals won by Milwaukee’s Lakefront Brewery’s “New Grist” in the Gluten-free beer category, Emmett’s (West Dundee) “Where the Helles Gunner” Munich-style Helles, New Holland (Michigan)’s “Blue Sunday” Belgian-style Lambic/Sour beer, “Intercontinental Pale Ale,” in the category of the same name, from Flossmoor Station and “Munster Fest” German-style Märzen from Three Floyds. Frankly, I expected Three Floyds to do better.
Bronzes went to Two Brothers “Dog Days Lager” as a Dortmunder/Oktoberfest beer, “Dark ‘N Curvy” German-style Wheat Ale from Piece Brewery in Wicker Park, and two for Goose Island — “Harvest Ale” in the Extra Special Bitter category, and “Sofie” as a French or Belgian-style Saison. Frankly, I also expected Goose to do better.
In an ironic twist, GABF named Pabst, in suburban Woodridge, the Large Brewing Company of the Year. New owners are planning to move headquarters to Los Angeles and completely revamp the company’s beers and marketing strategies. The low-key, so un-cool that it’s cool, hipster strategy, which brought the Pabst brand back from the brink of oblivion, will likely be replaced by a “Babes in Bikinis” strategy. Draw your own conclusions. I doubt Pabst will be next year’s Large Brewing Company of the Year.
Overall, 3,930 beers from 526 breweries were entered into 83 categories. So, for expense or other reasons, some breweries chose to skip it, and other breweries may not have entered all their beers. Just another reason to keep seeking out the best on your own.
My background is as a marketing guy. And I work with smaller companies. In the olden days, I worked with large companies that had multimillion dollar budgets to advertise their brands in network prime-time. The guys I work with now have trouble affording the occasional print ad in a specialty magazine. It makes for interesting challenges.
But the one thing they always have going for them, at least in the CPG world, is a label. You can look down a 20 foot section of shelving, and probably see many hundreds of products, each with a label that attempts to scream out to you, to say, “I’m here especially for you, I’m really cool, come to me, look at me, touch me, buy me, take me home with you …”
Hopefully, they’ll also tell you something about the product inside, and why you might be interested in it. Label design is an interesting agglomeration of art, science, and business.
Let’s take a look at a couple of examples. These are the labels from two of the Chicago area’s indisputably top-tier craft breweries.
What do they have in common? Not much. One’s got a wild and crazy, Mardi-Gras feel to it, the other has all the mishigas of a sherry tasting in a dark, wood-paneled sitting room at an exclusive London Men’s Social Club in the 1920s. (Thanks, editor-at-large Rob Gardner, for teaching me the word “mishigas.”)
You might be surprised to know they were both designed in Chicago. Specifically, in Rogers Park. Even more specifically, at Randy Mosher’s house.
I wrote about Randy tasting a beer here (link to article) recently. And he was on Chicago Tonight not too long ago, tasting beer with Eddie Arruza. But he does much more than just taste beers. He has a tremendous talent for taking the personality of a beer – which, after all, is basically just a fizzy brownish liquid – and expressing its character in a visual way that lets you know what you’re in for, once you pop the cap.
And, since craft beers are artisanal products, the personalities of the beers reflect the personalities of the brewers.
Take Three Floyd’s Alpha King, for example. It’s their signature brew. It’s a hop-lover’s delight. A massive beer. One sip will tell you why the phrase “it’s not normal” is on so many of their packages.
Contrast that to Two Brothers’ Domaine DuPage . It’s a carefully-considered, French-style biere de garde. It’s not in your face. It’s refined. It’s contemplative. It has manners.
Mosher, on how he designed the labels:
“Nick [Floyd] is wild. He’s tattooed. For the Black Sun Stout we actually photographed his elbow’s sun tattoo. I kinda cleaned it up and turned it into a beer label.
“He’s just kind of a biker sort of guy. A big, big personality and really likes his beers huge, and crazy, and youth oriented.
“Whereas the Ebels – one of them was an architect, one was an attorney. They’re very thoughtful, extremely quiet and shy guys. I really had to push them to put their profiles on the label, and to put their signatures on it. They were like ‘No, we don’t want to be …’
“You call it Two Brothers. People are going to want to know who the two brothers are. You can’t hide behind it. You’ve got to be out front.” So they took that to heart. But everything is kinda understated and reserved with them.
“I think the packaging in both of those brands really reflects the character of the beers – if people are looking for a wild ride, they get Three Floyds; if people are thinking along the lines of wine, and looking for that sophistication and subtlety, they’re going to gravitate a bit more toward Two Brothers.”
(I suppose, in the Chicago area, if you start with Three Floyds and count down, you’ll go to Two Brothers, one Metropolitan, and a Half Acre.)
Locally, you can also see Randy’s work on the labels for Milwaukee’s Lakefront Brewing, Chicago’s Metropolitan Brewing, Flossmoor’s Flossmoor Station, and probably a bunch more I’m forgetting. There are many other examples, located, literally, all over the world.
Here’s a label I particularly like.
Maybe the Ebel Brothers are coming out of their shells, at least a little.
Randy Mosher, the guy behind “Tasting Beer, an Insider’s Guide to the World’s Greatest Drink” was on Chicago Tonight recently. The segment was too short. Here’s a link:
Or visit the Chicago Tonight website.
I first met Randy Mosher in the late 1980s. Yeah, we’re both old farts. I was working on marketing projects for Baskin-Robbins; he was the art director at the (now defunct) ad agency. We were on a flight to somewhere in the Southwest … maybe Albuquerque, maybe Lubbock … and he was telling me about a book he was going to write about brewing beer at home. I was cordial, but in the back of my mind, I was thinking “Sure, just another creative guy who says he’s going to write a book. Like that’ll ever happen.”
I’ve got to learn to stick with the front of my mind. He’s now released his third book.
It’s called “Tasting Beer, an Insider’s Guide to the World’s Greatest Drink.”, and it should be the instruction manual that comes packaged with every Miller Lite six-pack. Or maybe not. After even only a couple of pages into the book, Miller Lite drinkers would realize there’s a huge world of beers out there – flavors, smells, textures, appearances – that make Miller Lite seem like a slightly less sophisticated version of carbonated water. Although it’s targeted to the entire English-speaking world, the book has a clear Chicago orientation.
Frankly, it’s tough to write about Mosher. Where to start? He’s probably among the world’s foremost beer historians. His books aren’t just packed with information, they’re also fun and lively reads (and include his trademark myriad charts and graphs). It’s virtually impossible to walk down the craft beer aisle at your local Sam’s or Binny’s without seeing several labels he’s designed. And he doesn’t just do labels for those craft brewers – he uses his vast knowledge of the craft beer industry to counsel them on their business plans. He just got back from Brazil, advising brewers there about their burgeoning craft beer scene. He’s a major poo-bah with the influential Chicago Beer Society. He teaches brewers from around the world at Chicago’s Siebel Institute. His Buck-A-Pound brewery – in his basement – would put the pilot plants at many commercial breweries to shame.
So I used my minimal status with The Local Beet as an excuse to take a trip to his Rogers Park home – a beautiful, but not unusual, Victorian home on a quiet street. And I ambushed him.
“Tasting Beer” was released earlier this year. So I thought I’d challenge him to taste a beer he’d never had before and knew nothing about, and watch the process the master uses to evaluate a beer.
I didn’t want to make it easy. I picked a brew I’d made a couple of months ago, using some uncommon, but not completely weird ingredients. Certainly the brew wasn’t as bizarre as some of the beers Mosher writes about in his previous book, Radical Brewing. But it’s not a beer made in a traditional style, either.
I started by asking Randy if he had a beer glass. That was dumb. It’s tantamount to going to Hershey, Pennsylvania and asking “Hey, you guys got any chocolate here?” “Tasting Beers” has eight pages dedicated solely to the different glasses that are traditionally used to serve various varieties of beer.
He said he could probably find a beer glass. Then he pointed me to a large cabinet just behind me, which, through the glass window, displayed what might have been hundreds of different beer glasses, in every shape imaginable. He pulled out a glass that looked like a large red wine glass. “Yeah, it is like a large wine glass. For critical tastings I like it.” The tulip shape, which also resembles a brandy snifter, allows enough room for the foam, and the inward taper concentrates the aromas.
I popped the top on the bottle, and proceeded to pour about six or seven ounces of the beer into the glass. I knew enough to avoid the tilted-glass thing, so he’d get a decent head. I filled the glass about two-thirds full. But I still screwed up the pour. I asked if I had poured it poorly (no pun intended). “For critical evaluations, we would normally leave a little more headspace in there. Y’know, just seems to help to have that in there.” He wasn’t being critical, he wasn’t being snarky. It came across as a helpful comment.
Mosher looked at the glass intently. He held it up to the light. You could see his mind was going a million miles a second, but he was totally silent. He swirled it. Then he set the glass down, stuck his nose in as deeply as he could, and inhaled. It wasn’t just a sniff. It was an intense, profound lungful.
“Definitely want to smell first, before you do anything else. Kinda toasty, caramelly, fruity …”
“You know there’s malt in there, you know there’s hops in there, so you’re always trying to look for those; trying to get those vocabulary words, you know.”
“Got that kind of brown ale smell …”
Then he tasted (or, more accurately he vigorously slurped).
“Pretty toasty, pretty hoppy, like an American Brown sort of thing. There’s a little bit of a kind of a slightly, almost like a gamey kinda smell to it, animally …”
“It’s very sharply bitter.”
“Over-hopped, you think?” I asked, slightly nervously, but without appreciable sweat forming on my brow.
“Personally, I’m not a fan of brown hoppy beers, but people love ‘em, so that’s just like, you know …”
“It’s very austere. I don’t know if you’ve ever tasted a beer with wormwood or gentian or one of those kind of things, but that bitterness is really dry, very dry, woody dry kind of bitterness. Maybe it’s the yeast … Some of those English yeasts tend to accentuate hops, accentuate woody flavors, so to me it may be along those lines. Maybe one of the London ones. Maybe the Young’s strain – that one is particularly hop-accentuating and a little bit woody, so that would make sense. Their beers are always very hoppy there.”
“Doesn’t taste like it has a lot of crystal malt in it … doesn’t have a lot burnt sugar sort of quality about it. Very super crisp and dry on the palate – (slurps again) dry and fruity on the finish.”
“Almost tastes like it has some brown malt or one of those darker roast kinda malts.”
At this point, I went for the reveal. The uncommon ingredients in that beer included 12% crystal rye malt and 12% smoked malt. Sorry – neither of those were local. The crystal rye came from Simpson’s in Scotland. It’s a relatively dark version of a crystal malt (i.e. a malt that’s essentially stewed to develop caramel flavors, add body and add color to a beer). And it’s almost always made from malted barley, not rye.
The beechwood-smoked malt was from Weyermann, in Germany, and is used in greater quantities to make rauchbiers (aka “bacon-in-a-bottle). (Since I made that beer, one of the world’s finest maltsters, a relatively local company, Briess in Chilton, Wisconsin has released its own cherry-wood smoked malt.) I’m guessing the smoked malt contributed the gaminess that Mosher first identified.
“Yeah , maybe that’s some of the spiciness I’m kind of smelling – from the rye.”
So he had identified the hop levels, aspects of the malts used, and completely nailed the yeast.
At that point, Randy’s cat came over, threatening to see to it that the remainder of that well-poured glass of beer is converted into a puddle on the floor.
“Does the cat like beer?”
“Cats can’t taste sweetness, so they don’t like beer. Dogs like beer because they can taste the sweet aspect of it.”
And again I screwed up. I was so fascinated talking beer with him, I completely forgot to take pictures. But you can watch Randy in action – he’s scheduled to be a guest on Chicago Tonight, WTTW Ch. 11, Wednesday July 15 at 7 p.m.
“Hoping to be able to taste some beer on-air with them.”
Look for more beery insights from Randy Mosher in future editions of “Hoppin’ Around with Tom Keith”.
