Earth Goes Wild

Polite people rarely mention it, but brewpubs produce a lot of forgettable beer. For every masterpiece, there are a bunch of mediocrities and at least one stinker.  Batting averages vary,(scoring methods do too) and some little breweries do a lot better than others. 

I'm used to finding something good at Earth Bread + Brewery on Germantown Avenue in Mt. Airy. That was why I took my Beer Fundamentals class from Drexel to Earth for a brewery tour and tasting. What really surprised me was discovering that all four of the house beers were wonderfully complex, fully-realized, lick-the-glass luscious. Here's what those lucky students and I discovered: 

Jelly Donut(Berliner Weisse) 3% abv

I have to admit to being a cautious admirer, but never a big fan of Berliner Weisse. It's profound, un-citrusy sourness always seemed to my American palate to belong in the non-food category. This beer is Tom Baker's way of making the style accessible to folks like me and he has more than succeeded in harnessing the tricky fermentation of this classic. The light acidity puts you to mind of champagne, the fruitiness is just present enough to give the beer a center and the finishing notes are both wine-like and refreshing. It takes a bit of attention to figure out all that's going on here, but at a mere 3% ABV, you can take your time and have two.

An American in Brussels (Hoppy Black Ale) 5.9%

Close your eyes and it's a Belgian Golden Ale, maybe a bit more Americanized, but clearly recognizeable. There's just enough roastiness to add complexity and a dense, satisfying finish.

Luther's Rose (Festbier) 7.8% 

Be careful here. This Oktoberfest-style is friendly on the palate and a cuddly-pink to boot. It drinks easily, as they say, with a seductive sweetness on the palate and a refreshing spark at the finish. 

I want this with grilled salmon or a handful of salty snack. Decidedly a growler-worthy selection.

'VI' (Our anniversary Belgian-style Dubbel) 7.1%

Westmalle yeast and the usual malts (pilsner and vienna, perhaps) and just enough hops bitterness for balance. Superbly drinkable. The only bad thing about this beer is that it probably won't be on tap for Thanksgiving, so you'll have to celebrate the arrival of the Pilgrims in Brussels and their first beer dinner with the Flemings with something else.

If you are ever inclined to check out this lively, friendly brewpub, the time is now.

Perkuno's Hammer wins Gold at GABF. Earth Rejoices

Tom Baker's elegant master piece makes a return appearance.

It's easy to praise a beer that just won Gold at GABF: Chocolate and roasted grain notes underscored by hints of dried fruit. All in perfect, elegant balance with the light carbonation and velvet mouth feel. The finish screams 'gimme more'.
The baltic porter style has a lot to recommend it. There's the substantial, but not overwhelming body, the chocolaty nose, and appealing finish. Unfortunately, it's hard to find. Smuttynose makes a great one every so often and Baker's Perkuno's Hammer is essentially a re-issue of a beer he brewed when he was brewer/owner at Heavyweight.
So, like the Monarch Migration and the Fall in Philadelphia, this stuff is beautiful and rare. Head over to Earth Bread+Brewery and taste it now.

Beer is Dessert: Southern Tier Crême Brûlé

One of these days, I'm going to write a book about beer with dessert. I'm gonna talk about beer cookies, and fatty shortbread and biscotti and which hops go best with cranberry muffins. I picture this writing coming at a quieter time in life: there's a country cottage, sunshine, a cupla dogs, maybe grandchildren and I'll spend the day puttering in the kitchen and then around five, friends will drop in and we'll open some swingtops and baskets of bread and plates of cookies will appear.
Of course, once the word gets around, there'll be more and more people wanting to stop by. And someone will want baking lessons. Then Atlantic Culinary Academy will probably want me to teach a course and somebody with extra cash will want to open The Sweet Brewer or Hoppy Endings or some cutesy-poo joint and then I'll be back to working sixty hours a week in a kitchen somewhere and my legs will be hurting and I'll start waxing profane and flirting carelessly and then. . . .

But wait, butt weight. Before this gets out of control, suppose there was a beer that was dessert-a beer that didn't need any baking or topping or frosting. Suppose there was a beer that had the elegance of rum and the sweetness of caramel along side the body of a sumo wrestler and the sexy smell of vanilla.
Well, that could save a lot of work, couldn't it?

That's 22 oz. at nearly 10%-better share it with a friend.

George Will, and maybe you should too

What Does Beer Mean?

Columnist George Will writes in his Washington Post column today that the governor of Michigan has a multi-faceted plan for the recovery of that city. A small part will be played by clearing vacant lots and growing hops. Will goes on to explain: "This grain is used to make beer, and microbreweries make, or at least often accompany, urban gentrification."

A first reaction:

Dear Mr. Will,

As I'm sure you've heard by now, hops isn't a grain. So how about a teachable moment here-maybe it might be fun to head out to the Goose Island brewery in Lincoln Park and try a glass of their Matilda Ale. Notice that lovely little bitterness as you swallow? The one that lingers on your palate for a minute or two? That's a sensation imparted by hops, the lovely climbing vine.

Enjoy,  Lynn

A second reaction:

Here's a confirmed eccentric- Cubs fan, conservative- who doesn't know much about beer but has picked up an an important part of its cultural significance. Microbreweries gentrify. Yes they do. And they also humanize, delight and provide employment.
You can't say the same thing about soda bottlers, pizza parlors or take-out restaurants. What is it about beer that inspires positive change? Could it just be the simple fact of some beer tasting very good? Could it be that pleasure-as my man Epicurus would have it-is a good thing and good attracts good?
Further study is called for.

A third reaction:

Maybe we all should head out to Goose Island and try a Matilda. Styrian and Saaz and robust maltiness all punctuated by a lyrical spiciness to give a sensation of elegance more than power.  I envy Mr. Will his first sip.

More Near Beer-Menabrea 150 Anniversario Ambrata

I guess it's inevitable. An explosion in beer creativity is bound to lead to a lot of people stretching the boundaries. We can expect:

• good beer from places where beer was never good before
• beer that doesn't taste like the beer we're used to tasting
• a lot of questions about what beer is

Sudden shifts in definition have been around before. There was a moment in American history when beer containing less than .5% alcohol were the only legal game around. They were called 'near beer'(although whoever called it that was widely thought to be a poor judge of distance). For more on this aberration, may I refer you to  http://bit.ly/shortbeer.

I'm proposing reviving the term in a gentler, less judgmental way to refer to experiments that look like beer, and are marketed as beer but lack the sense of balance that we've come to associate with beer. Being both old and inclined to snobbery, I may never actually enjoy any of these drinks, but the world is moving so let's taste it as it goes.


Yesterday, at the pleasant In Riva in Philadelphia, we got to try Menabrea 150 Anniversario Ambrata from Biella in Piemonte. The bronzed, maple-syrupy color is completely congruent with this malt-heavy medium-bodied near beer. There's barely a trace of bitterness or acidity and the effect in the mouth is like a sophisticated soft drink: charming and sustaining. As far as we could tell, there was no food that would be a suitable companion.

So what's going on here? From the producers' point of view, there's a craft beer explosion in Italy right now and Italian creativity is getting an airing at breweries throughout the country. Tastes are changing, laws are being defied and rewritten. Brewers are using chamomile, spelt, peach jam, chestnuts, green pepper, pomegranates and hazelnuts.
For us consumers, it means that smart beerlist-makers are going to be using all this variation to bring interesting new beer to the table. There's a chance that our country, with its oversupply of Italian-themed restaurants will soon be seeing a flood of Italian-made beers, some carefully picked. It also means there will be a lot of amusing dead ends.

Small Triumphs/the post-hops age of beer?

Triumph Brewing in Princeton, NJ is a pleasant, ivyish sort of place, industrial brick with two-story stainless steel tanks for a back bar. There's a nice, predictable brewpub menu- bruschette, po' boys, grilled this'n'that- and friendly, post-graduate service.
We found seven beers on tap. Most of them were unsurprising, brewpubby and easy-drinking, but there were two that piqued our interest.
The first was the Honey Blonde (5%ABV). Normally, I'd read that name as a synonym for 'inoffensive light-weight' and pass it by, but it came with the sampler and so we got a pleasant surprise.  The Good Doctor grabbed it first: "nicely malty" she said, "with a little floral kick at the end." Even though I've never been kicked by a flower, I had to agree. Tasting more closely, the kick seemed to be from honey-from that meady thump in the mouth that honey leaves behind when its sugar is all fermented out. Let's think of it as an intriguing suggestion about what beer might taste like when this hops fad* fades.
The second was an intriguing Witbier.  Our waitress said it was modeled on Hoegaarden.
Now the Hoe (pronounced 'who') is a clean, silky beer with citrus and green apple notes. At just under 5% ABV it's that thirst-relieving, spirit-refreshing beer that people really want when they order one of the widely advertised taste-free fizzy drinks. I love the Hoe and we wouldn't get through summer without it. But this was a different Wit. Slightly stronger (5.9%), a little doughy with a just-detectable sourness at the finish. Another harbinger of a post-hop world? Stay tuned.

"I will definitely require more beer." she said.

*hops has only been around for four or five hundred years. In the history of beer it's a mere parvenu, a johnny-hopped-lately. Hopped beers, you could say, are a nouveau niche.

Beer is Serious Stuff

Beer is, at its best, a philosophers’ drink: it stimulates sensitive souls to ask questions without arousing the arrogance that might lead them to easy answers. 

Although we seem to have forgotten it, beer is worth your attention because it can be delightful, but it's also worth a moment's thought because it's been  important in the daily lives of many people and cultures for centuries.

For instance: outside of the wine growing countries of the Mediterranean, most adults in Europe drank beer all day and every day. Both water and milk were potentially dangerous. Beer and wine were both purified as they were made. So up until the seventeenth century, people-men, women and children drank some alcoholic beverage: wine, cider or beer. They woke up with it and they went to bed with it. These drinks didn’t contain as much alcohol as modern wines and beers, but everyone, mom, dad, the kids, the priest and the king were consuming alcohol all the time. Consider that life spans were short and that society was patriarchal. That meant that most of the world’s business was run by relatively young men who had a bit of a buzz on. In that light, does European history start to make a bit more sense? Does it help you understand bizarre events like the Crusades or the Hundred Years War? If the crew of folks who surrounded you at the pub last night had been in charge, would things have been any different?

Press the rewind button, more questions. When the first agriculturalists settled down to tend and harvest cereals, were they interested in baking bread or in brewing beer? Did the shift from home-brewing to industrial production of beer diminish the economic rôle of women in European society? 

It turns out that this beer is pretty serious stuff and for further confirmation, see the video below:






Still thirsty? Check out the Short Course in Beer at http://bit.ly/shortbeer