Fall Beer Update

I've now sampled all three fall beer styles I wrote about here: pumpkin, Oktoberfest and fresh hop.  Dogfish Head's Punkin Ale is a brown ale spiced with allspice, cinnamon and nutmeg.  It has pumpkin, too, but the autumn vegetable is overpowered by the allspice, nutmeg and cinnamon.  I enjoyed Punkin Ale, and at over 7% ABV it had enough heft to match its many ingredients.  Pumpkin ales, to me, fall down when they are too thin, and end up tasting more like a flavor-infused macro beer than a craft ale.  Punkin Ale has character and depth of flavor, but sneaks into Holiday beer territory, which is not a bad thing.

I had a pint of Karl Strauss' Oktoberfest beer last weekend. It's an easy drinking beer.  It's malt-forward, but not in the throat-clogging way of many malty beers.  I was struck by Oktoberfest's yeasty aroma and its comforting taste of soft bread.  This smooth drink is my kind of German beer, neither overly complex nor strange - just good.

I didn't think I'd get to fresh hopped ale last, but I did and Pizza Port Ocean Beach's Coup D'Etat was worth the wait.  An initial, shockingly bitter jolt is countered by a malty sweetness, which gives the IPA an overall intense, citrus juiciness.  This is a delicious beer, and, incredibly, more balanced than I expected.  To me, Coup D'Etat is a textbook fresh hop ale - extreme, almost painful bitterness, rounded out with a sweet, citrus juiciness.  It's a glass of pure hop liquid joy.

Beerical Mile

There is a stretch of Interstate-5 in central San Diego - from the Sea World Drive exit to downtown - with an astonishing number of breweries and beer stores.   I'm calling it the Beerical Mile.  OK it's more than a mile (it's really closer to five miles) but along this short path of highway are nine breweries and three beers stores.

The breweries in geographic order from north to south are:

Coronado Brewing - Huge, well appointed, wood adorned tasting room and brewery located off the Sea World Drive exit, just east of I-5 in San Diego's Bay Park neighborhood.

Ballast Point - Linda Vista - Ballast Point's original brewery and tasting room that shares space with HomeBrew Mart.  Always a good crowd, so keep driving if a tour bus is in the small parking lot.

Modern Times -  Tucked behind a couple of nudie bars in the industrial part of the Sports Arena area sits Modern Times' brewery and tasting room.  Good beers, a hipster vibe and a friendly knowledgeable staff.

Stone Brewing World Bistro and Gardens - Liberty Station - The new epicenter for San Diego's beer tourism industry.  Amazing experience and destination drinking at its finest.

Acoustic Ales - Brewery and tasting room in the landmark Mission Brewery building just off I-5 and Washington Street.

Ballast Point - Little Italy - Ballast Point's newest location offers a restaurant and on-premise brewed specialty beers, located on India Street at the far north end of Little Italy.

Karl Strauss - The granddaddy of brewpubs, and for many years a lone bastion for good beer in San Diego.

Monkey Paw - This East Village brewery and restaurant/bar nearly abuts I-5 just south of the S-curve.  It is home to multiple Great American Beer Festival medal winning beers.

Mission Brewery - Cavernous facility a baseball's throw from Petco Park.  Cans.  Thirty-two ounce cans.  Mission Brewery is putting its beers in 32-oz cans called "cannons," and one of the beers is Shipwrecked Double IPA.  Lord have mercy on my soul.

(If you add the Beer Co downtown (about which I know nothing) it brings the total to ten breweries.)  I have been to six of the nine breweries, but plan to visit the new Ballast Point Little Italy, Acoustic Ales and Monkey Paw soon.  Each of the breweries offers a unique experience and ambiance.

There are three beer stores in the same vicinity.

Bottlecraft - Little Italy - The first craft beer-only bottle shop in San Diego located at the north end of Little Italy along India Street.  It's probably less than 100 yards from Ballast Point Little Italy. Tasters are offered nightly and there are two beers on draft.  Bottlecraft has opened a second store in North Park.
Best Damn Beer Shop - The boldly named bottle shop is a store within store, and located downtown in the Krisp market.
San Diego Brew Project - Also a store within a store, San Diego Brew Project is, as its name states, a beer bar and bottle shop featuring only San Diego County beers.  It is located inside the 57 Degrees Wine Shop and Bar just across Washington street from Acoustic Ales.

There are other famous beer corridors in San Diego:  along Highway 78 in North San Diego County, 30th Street / North Park, and around Miramar Road and Mira Mesa Blvd.  The Beerical Mile has bloomed over the past several years - with the exception of Ballast Point Linda Vista and Karl Strauss that have been around for years - and now ranks as one of the best beer zones in San Diego.

Ballast Point In Little Italy

Here is an Eater post on the opening of Ballast Point's new brewery / tasting room/ and restaurant. The new brewery/restaurant is located on India Street, at the Northern reaches of Little Italy.   Ballast Point's Tasting Room and Kitchen has 50 taps, and Ballast Point plans to brew specialty beers on-site, including sours.  An added bonus is that Bottlecraft's Little Italy location is nearly next door. 

Brain Lapse

I had an embarrassing brain lapse the other night.  I was at a business dinner at Stone World Bistro and Gardens in Liberty Station and was talking big trying to impress the dinner party with my beer knowledge.   I opened the bottled beer list with authority, spouting that I was looking for beers from an exclusive Belgian brewery.   But I couldn't think of the brewery's name.  I became more frantic as I thumbed through the booklet, repeating - with less and less assurance - that the brewery was famous and that its beers were highly sought after.  I knew the brewery's name would come to me if I just saw it in print as I scanned the list from A to Z, Z to A, A to Z, and then just helter-skelter across the list.  I drew a complete blank on the name, and quietly put the beer list down in embarrassment.

After dinner, I rushed to my car and typed "Rose De Gambrinus" in to my iPhone's search engine, and up popped "Cantillon".  Cantillon.  Cantillon.  Cantillon.  For an hour and a half I couldn't under any circumstances remember Cantillon.  It's like forgetting Joe Montana quarterbacked the Forty-Niners or that Al Pacino starred in the Godfathers.  I knew the one Cantillon beer I'd tried, but not the brewer's name.  What a black mark on my beer credibility. 

Incredible Beer Chart

Here is a link to an amazing beer chart via Slate.  According to Slate:

The chart organizes all drinks by brew category and connects each category to its proper drinking vessels (solo cup, snifter, beer boot) at the bottom of the chart.

The chart lists beers representative of each style, and totals 500 beers.  For someone as IPA-centric as myself, this chart shows my how much I'm missing:

A direct link is here where you can purchase the 60" by 40" chart.

The Best Fall Beer

Pumpkin beers have been on store shelves since the middle of summer, and I think I've seen more pumpkin beers this year than ever before.  I view pumpkin beers as a novelty, and am good for one about every three to five years.  My novelty theory is anecdotally reinforced by the lack of pumpkin beers on draft at better beer bars.  I searched TapHunter to find a pumpkin beer on draft and came up empty.  No self-respecting beer snob is going to order a pumpkin beer in front of other beer snobs, unless it's The Bruery's Autumn Maple, but then that's brewed with yams not pumpkins.

Oktoberfest beers - once the only, but now the other fall beer style - don't thrill me, and unfortunately seem to have lost their marketing edge to pumpkin beers.  It's akin to a classic rock band being eclipsed by a winner of American Idol or The Voice.  A proper Oktoberfest beer is too malt-forward for me, and half a glass is about my limit.  That being said, I do want to try Karl Strauss' Oktoberfest beer this year. 

The best fall beers are fresh hop ales, in particular pale ales, IPAs and double IPAs.  Fresh hop beers are also known as wet hop ales, and are brewed with fresh hops, not the standard dried hop pellets.  Fresh hop IPAs are the wet hop sweet spot.  Pale ales get the juicy taste but don't have the backbone to match the muscle of the hop bitterness, and the alcoholic strength of double IPAs detract from the hop freshness.  IPAs provide the perfect mix of complementary malt and alcohol that showcase the just-harvested hop freshness.   The best wet hop ales are highly juicy, like they were fresh-squeezed rather than brewed.  They are intensely hopped, emitting a concentrated, terroir bitterness.

These fragrant, juicy ales should arrive at breweries and better beer bars over the next few weeks.  Pizza Port Ocean Beach had its fresh hop Monkey Tail Pale Ale on tap last weekend, and its Get Wet IPA and a double IPA are expected sometime this week.  Get these beers while you can.  A fresh hop IPA is like cut flowers in a vase - beautiful for a short period, and once wilted there is no revival.

There are some bottled fresh-hopped beers.  Port Brewing bottles its High Tide Fresh Hop IPA and Sierra Nevada has its Northern and Southern Hemisphere beers.  These are fine beers, but the best way to enjoy a wet hop beer is to get it on draft at a brewery as close to its release as possible.

Summer Saison Part III (The Whiff Edition)

I enjoyed The Bruery's Preservation Series Saison Tonnellerie on the absurd IPA Day early in August.  Unfortunately, I am left with only a memory and a poor picture of the label to write this post.  I thought I took tasting notes, but my handy Evernote electronic beer diary has no reference to this beer.  What a whiff; a beer blogger bungle.  Despite the lack of notes and the time since consumption, I needed to get this post up because Tonnellerie is an excellent beer.   It is now my favorite The Bruery saison.  I remember it as a meaty beer, darker and maltier than most saisons, and not overly spiced.  It was rich without going into strange flavor tangents.  It was both complex and drinkable, yet best of all it was delicious. 

When it comes to The Bruery's beers I feel like a devoted dog with a mercurial owner, I come running with my tail wagging, never knowing when I open a The Bruery beer whether I'm going to get beat (insert name of any recent The Bruery Christmas beer) or a treat (Mischief, Humlus Lager).  Saison Tonnellerie is a marvelous treat that deserves wider release.

I have not seen this beer on shelves since early August, but it looks like The Burery is still selling it on-line.  

London (Harrods) Failing

Now and then I'll post random thoughts from my trip to Europe earlier this summer.  

There is no more iconic store in London than the high-end Harrods, one of the poshest department stores on the planet.  Of course, a store this fancy has to have its own beer (and a full line-up of private label wines, and I'll attest, the thirteen pound white Burgundy is excellent).  Here is a picture of the beer brewed specially for Harrods, which even has its own fancy flip-top:

I found it unfortunate and disappointing that a quintessential symbol of Britain would not select an English brewer to brew its house beer.  Instead, Harrods looked to Continental Europe, and its 1849 Premium Lager is brewed by Hofmark Brauerei, a German brewer.  Harrods, obviously, has to leave the United Kingdom for its house Burgundies and Rieslings, but for beer Harrods needs to stay home.  Britain has a strong brewing heritage and a growing craft beer presence, so Harrods would have no shortage willing potential local brewers, although the home grown beer would probably be an ale, not a lager.  Come to think of it, a cask ale engine would be perfect next to the meat pie display case in Harrods' magnificent Food Hall.

As a beer, 1849 was very good.  I found it a crisp, complex lager with a sharp bite to it, and one of the better lagers I can remember.

I Know The Feeling

I read this post on the Ramblings of a Beer Runner blog and could relate:

It's a struggle to define how it tastes, but often great beers are the ones that aren't neatly broken down into flavor components. 

The blogger, Derrick Peterman, was describing a sour brown ale from Sante Adairius Rustic Ales in Capitola, California.  I've come across this situation more often than I'd like to admit when I have a good beer.  It's easy to find flaws in bad beer - too thin, too bitter, too malty, nasty aftertaste - but in a good beer, where all ingredients meld together in unison, I find it hard to spotlight individual flavor components, or what one factor makes it standout.  I'm sometimes left with not much to say other than, "dang, this beer's real good," which isn't too insightful.  But maybe, with a great beer, I don't need to say too much more.

(Hat Tip to Beer Samizdat and his twitter feed.)

Modern Times Beer

Modern Times Beer is now open, joining the crowded San Diego craft brewing community.  It was founded by Jacob McKean, who formerly worked as Stone Brewing's communications specialist and blogger (hey, what the heck does a blogger know about beer?), and it had a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign last spring, raising over $65,000.  The pedigree and capital are all good and well, but don't mean anything if the beers stink. I've tried two Modern Times' beers, the Lomaland Saison and the Neverwhere 100% Brett IPA, and they definitely don't stink.

Lomaland, which I think is brewed with the same strain of yeast as Saison Dupont, is a solid, drinkable saison, and a great everyday beer.  Saison is a wide-open style, and Modern Times chose a conventional approach, which makes sense, in my opinion, for a core, year-round beer from a start-up brewery.  Outside of The Lost Abbey's Red Barn, I am not sure of local breweries distributing a saison on a regular basis, and Red Barn is not that widely available.  I don't know why more brewers haven't jumped on saisons, I'd much rather drink a saison than some wheat beer or pale ale.  Lomaland has enough flavor and complexity for the beer geek, yet is approachable enough for the casual beer drinker, which may allow Modern Times to build a niche for itself with this beer.

Modern Times steps into San Diego's competitive IPA jungle with the bold Neverwhere IPA, which is brewed with 100% Brettanomyces yeast.   It is a dank, earthy IPA, with a refreshing jolt of bitter citrus juice.  Modern Times lists Neverwhere IPA as a special release, so you can't get a growler fill.  Neverwhere needs to move into the year-round line-up, because I want it as a take-away option.

I plan to try more Modern Times' beers in the near future and hope they are as good as Lomaland and Neverwhere.   And yes, I will try to keep an open mind on its Blazing World amber ale.  (If it'd been classified as a red ale, I'd have already tried it.) 

The airy tasting room is unique and stylistically campy (compliment).  It is dominated by a huge mosaic mural of Michael Jackson and his pet chimp Bubbles, made with what looks like are two-inch square Post-Its.  One of the other walls is covered with pages from old books and pictures that look like they were acquired at thrift stores, and another with pages from old comic books.  The bar sits on stacks of books.  The tumble weed chandeliers that sway in the open space are as fascinating to me as the Michael Jackson mural, and the strings of lights gives the space an outdoor patio feel.

The tasting room is open every day from noon to 9:00.  Modern Times is located in an industrial area near San Diego's Sports Arena, which is now named for a casino, or maybe an Indian tribe.  I have been to Modern Times twice and it wasn't too crowded either time, the first late on a Friday night about a half-hour before closing time, and the second on a Monday evening, which may be the perfect time to visit a brewery tasting room.  The staff was friendly and knowledgeable, but we'll need to check on their attitude some Saturday afternoon when the beer tour buses show up.

Saison Summer (Part II)

This was the summer of the saison.  I was underwhelmed by two, impressed by two, and floored by one.  I've already reviewed one whiff, Prairie Artisan Ales's Prairie Ale (this was Part I).  The second saison that came up short was Fantôme's  alliterative Brise BonBons! - the most fun to say beer name ever.  Fantôme's beers, which are mostly some derivation of saison, are beers on the edge.  They challenge you, fight you, and force you to convert your initial taste shock to admiration by the end of the bottle.  I relished a battle with Brise Bon-Bons!, but peace reigned.

Sure, Brise BonBons! was yeast-forward with a sophisticated, spicy character (spices that I couldn't detect, so at least this part of Fantôme stayed true), and it had a satisfying, bitter finish; more bitter than I expected from a Belgian saison.  But ultimately it was a pleasant, borderline boring beer.  I know I would have thought more of Brise BonBons! if it was from another brewer, but Fantôme has a reputation to uphold, dang it.  From a beer named Ball Breaker, I wanted a precarious, dangerous beer, not a drinkable, approachable saison that flirts with mainstream for crying out loud.  

I'll write about the other three saisons in future posts.

Writing

I am enjoying A.J. Liebling's 1963 paean to French food and eating well, "Between Meals."  The book, which explores Liebling's "feeding" education in 1920's Paris, is full of masterful passages like this one describing a wine called Tavel, a type of rosé from Southern France's Rhone region:

The taste is warm but dry, like an enthusiasm held under restraint, and there is a tantalizing suspicion of bitterness when the wine hits the top of the palate.  With the second glass, the enthusiasm gains; with the third, it is over-powering.  The effect is generous and calorific, stimulative of celebration and the social instincts.  "An apparently light treacherous rosé," Root (a food writer) calls it, with a nuance of resentment that hints at misadventure.

Brilliant.  I've never heard of Tavel, but now want to try this bitter, treacherous wine that points to misadventure.