Wheat Wine vs. Barley Wine...FIGHT!

First of all, I better explain the image. If you never played Street Fighter (and I'm talking about a really old one, like for Super Nintendo) then you won't get it, and just skip to the next paragraph. At the start of a match, it would say the names of the guys and then fight. Like in this example "Ryu vs. Ken...FIGHT!" So that was the inspiration for the name of this post. Add on to that, we used to make up stupid names for the guys. Since you could have a guy fight himself, they were just in different colors, we decided it made no sense for them both to have the same name. Hey, we were in like eigth grade. Especially remembered for me is "Balrog vs. Sog...FIGHT!" (BTW Balrog was the real guy. Sog was the joke name.)

I have been sampling and reviewing a lot of Barley Wines lately. To me they are great winter ales, so I went ahead and skipped the rest of the winters in favor of seeking out barley wines. I even wrote a style profile article on the old BW. Along the way, I came across a Wheat Wine from Smuttynose. Good stuff.

It just made me think about the differences between the two. They aren't as pronounced as you might expect. The Barley Wine is generally darker and a bit more nutty and pruney, but the Wheat Wine is surprisingly dark and also quite robust in flavor. Both are somewhat dominated by alcohol flavor (who can help themselves at over 10%?), and both are awesome. If you can, get any barley wine or wheat wine you can find. If you find a Wheat Wine that's not the Smuttynose, then let me know - I want to try it!

Brewery Lineup

So naturally as a beer blogger, I am dreaming of the day (coming 2010) when I control my own brewery. I have figured out the beer styles I intend to keep on constant supply, and I thought I could take an opinion poll of sorts.

These are the beers I will have available all the time (in no particular order):

1. IPA
2. Belgian Dubbel
3. Belgian Tripel
4. Oatmeal Stout
5. American Wheat

I think that this really gives something for everyone. Wheat for Bud Miller Coors fans. Pus Oatmeal Stout is very accessible, thanks to Guinness. IPA is always the beer geek's favorite. That is, unless the beer geek likes the Belgians, then Dubbels and Tripels are sure to conquer.

Any feedback on the beer list is welcome! Including what other or additional beers should I plan on. And also including great marketable brand names for the above styles.

Battle of the Pales

Last week I had Battle of the Pils. But it included a Kolsch/Alt cross. Oops.

OK, So now I see that Beer of the Gods isn't a Pilsner at all, in fact it isn't even a Lager. Boy do I feel foolish. But the profile of it is so much like a Pilsner, that I naively grouped it into the category for my Battle of the Pils. Since I was originally looking for a pale beer with a solid malt backing and plenty of hops, I can see how I went wrong here. But the fact is I went wrong. Consider this a correction.

Sorry for any confusion!

What is a Pilsner?

After the Battle of the Pils last week, and in keeping with my series on style profiles, I am going to discuss what makes a Pilsner today.

Pilsner was originally made in the Bohemain Czech town of Plzen, and so it was called Pilsner. It is light colored, but has plenty of hops and a strong malt flavor in there. These may take some by surprise, since it can easily look like it would taste like Bud Miller Coors. In fact, Miller Lite claims to be a "True Pilsner Beer", and maybe the others do, too. But Bud Miller Coors are about as authentic Pilsner as Taco Bell is authentic Mexican food.

German Pilsners are found to be more hoppy and a bit more rough around the edges. American Pilsners may lean on American hops more than the noble hops favored by their European cousins. And there is, of course, Imperial Pilsner. Some good domestic Pilsners are Live Oak Brewery’s Live Oak Pilz, Buzzard’s Bay Brewing Co.’s Buzzards Bay Pilsner, and New Glarus Brewing Company’s Home Town Blonde. Go out and try a Pilsner today!

What is IPA?

This series of postings will mirror postings at www.brainardbrewing.com, my main business web site. I am doing a series on beer styles. I intend to give overviews of all the major styles as much as seems relevant or possible or I have the endurance for. I am starting with IPA.

IPA=India Pale Ale. It was strong beer made for the long trip from England to India. High alcohol preserves the beer. High hops preserve the beer too. Thus is the fingerprint of the IPA - high alcohol, low to moderate malt profile, and high to absurd hops. American versions tend to be a little more insane than British versions, but we're somewhat less refined than them anyway. There are even Belgian versions popping up, such as Piraat Ale (which is awesome). And I thought I invented it with my American Beauty Belgian Trippel IPA, but alas, someone else already thought of it at the same time as me, or in a separate thread as I did.

Commercial examples include Lagunitas IPA, Harpoon IPA, Dogfish Head 60-Minute IPA, and Victory HopDevil Ale. There are also about a thousand (actually 1,325 or so according to BeerAdvocate) others out there. If you never had an IPA, go buy one today! Or if your liquor stores are closed like mine will be in an hour or so, then go buy one tomorrow. Get one soon! They are not to be missed.

Life is too short to drink cheap beer!

A great blog posting over at a financial blog gives us ten ways to optimize our beer drinking value. I think it's great for a site like that to be talking about beer in a real and respectful way. Most of the advice they give is great. I might not pour strong all the time, but that's just me. Overall, I love it! It also seems to get a lot of readership, based on the volume of comments there. Even better, half the comments are about homebrewing. I just love it!

I commented over there, and I'll echo the same sentiment here. Beer in 750ml servings is a great value compared to wine. If you go for a 750ml corked beer, it will run you $10-$15 normally. When you buy wine in that price range, it can be hit or miss. While there are great wines in that price range, you have to know exactly what you're looking for or you might get plain old normal quality wine. However, when you buy beer at that price range, you are practically guaranteed an awesome experience with one of the country's best beers from one of our best brewers (or some other country's best beer and brewer). And half the time, they're really strong (in terms of alcohol %) too.

So pound for pound, or do they use the euro now? Or wait I mean ounce for ounce, or should I say millilter for milliliter? Anyway, when you put 750ml corked beers up against 750ml wines, beer knocks their socks off. No wonder wine doesn't come in 6-packs.

Beer Styles

There is a thing called Free-Form brewing, where expert brewers reject beer styles in favor of going for a certain flavor, aroma, appearance, etc. that they want, which may or may not be defined by a "narrow" style guideline.

I am as much for innovation as anyone out there, but I think that this rejection of beer styles is not appropriate. In order for a person to be able to reject beer styles, they must first get to know beer styles. EE Cummings didn't start writing without capital letters or punctuation until after he got to know the proper rules quite thoroughly. If you don't know the beer styles, you can't rebel against them. If you don't know them and you don't follow them, you are sort of operating in chaos. If you don't know beer styles, how do you know that a beer you are making isn't part of an existing beer style.

I will keep working with beer styles, and where I feel like it, I may improvise a bit. I combined Trippel and IPA. But it was all based on beer styles. There's nothing wrong with knowing about beer styles, there's nothing wrong with using and following them, and there's nothing wrong with rejecting them.

All this gray area around beer styles highlights the need for well informed beer serving staff and thorough beer menus. If everyone starts working outside style guidelines, and even with the wide variation within a style, consumers really need to have accurate and complete descriptions of beers available for purchase at any retail establishment (bar, restaurant, or liquor store).