Today's column: Pitcher This: Pop the cork on something new this year

If alcohol has an official, traditional, front-and-center place in any holiday celebration, it's New Year's Eve.

Sadly, most people give beer the boot with the old year, and ring in the new with champagne. But any committed beer lover should resolve to celebrate with something brewed, not vinified.

Anyone thinking here that beer just doesn't seem special enough to take center stage at the stroke of midnight on Dec. 31 isn't thinking broadly enough about beer. There's a style for every occasion, and New Year's Eve is no exception.

A number of beer types work well for the traditional celebration, and are suitably rare to lend dignity to the moment. Perhaps most importantly, many are packaged in oversized, wine-style bottles. You can even enjoy the ceremonial, climactic pop of the cork at the stroke of midnight.

Belgium is the source of many of these styles, and the inspiration for many good interpretations by American brewers. Most are variations of strong dark and strong pale ales, often bottle-conditioned, that is with yeast still active after the beer is packaged, allowing it to continue fermenting, increasing its alcohol content and improving its flavor the longer it's stored. They're brewed in varying strengths, with the stronger versions labeled "dubbel" and "tripel."

Seven breweries in Belgium and the Netherlands have helped to make those styles famous. They're operated by Trappist monasteries that have brewed for centuries to help fund their religious work. Of these, beers from the Chimay Brewery are probably the most widely available here.

On this side of the Atlantic, the French Canadian company Unibroue makes an excellent line of Belgian-style ales, including a tripel they label La Fin Du Monde (French for "The end of the world") — a good choice for the end of the year. Pennsylvania's Victory Brewing makes an excellent tripel they call Golden Monkey, and New York's Brewery Ommegang has made a booming business recreating Belgian styles.

Most of the above beers and styles are light in character, with light, rich heads and a delicateness that make them a good substitute for champagne. There's even a style of beer brewed to mimic the methods that produce champagne, but good luck finding them.

Actually, all of these beers will be impossible to find on store shelves in Alabama, as most range from 7 to 12 percent in alcohol content — above Alabama's limit of 6 percent. Even the bottle size is restricted by law here, with nothing larger than 16 ounces allowed for sale. Meanwhile, Georgia's alcohol limit is higher —14 percent — and you'll have little trouble finding the 750 milliliter bottles there. I don't advocate breaking the law, but I will note that the Peach State's ban on fireworks doesn't seem to prevent citizens of that fine state driving here for their New Year's Eve supplies.

Of course, it may be too late to follow all the advice offered in this column for tonight, but look at it this way: You've now got a year to plan how to ring in 2010.

Today's column: Joy and good beer

So you're shopping for a beer lover, and it just doesn't seem right to put a six pack under the tree. As if there was something wrong with that, the following suggestions ought to help fill the holiday with cheer — or, rather, cheers.

Glassware

Beer tastes best when poured into the proper glass. No true beer fan can ever have too many glasses, or too many types — until room in the cupboard starts to run out (helpful tip — do not ask your spouse if it's OK to toss that gravy boat to make room).

The Web site BeerAdvocate.com sells what it calls "the Savvy Six-Pack" for $37.99. It includes six different glasses, each the best choice a different style of brew. There's a tulip for imperial India pale ales and Belgian strong ales, a 23-ounce imperial pint for proper service of British ales, a curvy hefeweizen with room for the generous head of wheat beers, a tall pilsner to show off the color and carbonation of lagers, a dimpled mug for many a German brew, and a stemmed cervoise that's good for many Belgian styles.

If that's too much, or if you've run out of time to wait

on shipping, many local retailers sell sets of simple, straight-sided 16-ounce pint glasses. These work fine for just about anything you're pouring, and have the benefit of keeping one from looking too fancified, if that's a concern. You'll often find them emblazoned with logos or ads for Guinness, makers of the famous Irish stout.

Reading material

Anyone who's been opened to the wider world of beer could probably use some guidance through its more obscure corners.

A few publishers are providing that guidance on a regular basis with magazines. The Web site mentioned above also publishes a monthly Beer Advocate magazine with lots of features and photography in a well-designed format. All About Beer, published every two months, is another good resource. It just produced a special issue, available in at least one local bookstore, that is a handy reference to most of the beer styles brewed today.

The little things

Bottle openers, coasters, bar towels, caps, T-shirts — you name it, there's probably one with a brewery logo on it being sold in a gift shop somewhere ready to be stuffed in a stocking.

Why not?

Of course, the perfect gift for any beer lover is more beer. And if a six pack still seems wrong to you, a short drive can provide something extra-special.

Alabama law prevents any beer in a bottle bigger than 16 ounces from being sold here. That cuts out many of the finer concoctions from Europe's hallowed brewers and America's innovative brewmasters. Some are sold only in half-liter- to liter-size bottles, and served more like wine.

Not that I'm advocating the importation of alcohol, but just across the state line, Georgia has no container-size or alcohol-content restrictions. Any number of retailers could provide a great gift — for that out-of-state recipient, of course — to celebrate with on New Year's Eve.

Those recipes I promised (Part II)

As promised, here's the second of three chili & stew recipes mentioned in last week's column. (The first is here.) Star Features Editor Tosha Jupiter has made this for just about all of our semi-regular chili days in the newsroom for a few years now. It's one of my favorites.

She typically uses an amber lager such as Michelob Amber Bock or Sam Adams Boston Lager, which sets this recipe apart from the porter- and stout-based stuff mentioned in the column. I think the bittersweet chocolate here must take the place of the darker malts in porter and stout.

I pulled the text of this recipe from The Star's Starbite food blog, maintained by Laura Tutor. It was in a post from our most recent chili day, where you can also find my chili con carne (which doesn't call for beer, but goes well with a few).

Chocolate Chili Con Carne
3 pounds beef chuck
Freshly ground black pepper
Gray salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, plus 1 teaspoon
1 teaspoon ground cumin, plus 2 teaspoons
2 tablespoons chili powder, plus 2 tablespoons
Masa harina (Mexican corn flour)
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup lard
4 red onions, peeled and minced
6 cloves garlic, minced
4 jalapeno peppers, sliced thin with seeds, stems removed
1/4 cup tomato paste
2 teaspoons dried oregano
2 to 3 bottles (12 ounce) beer
1 can (12 ounce) diced tomato in juices
1 quart chicken stock
3 cans (12 ounce) black beans
2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, cut into large chunks

Cut the chuck into 3/4-inch pieces, or, to save time, have your butcher do this for you. Place the chuck in a large bowl. Season liberally with pepper (about 20 turns of the pepper grinder) and grey salt to taste- remember half of this will come off in the pan. Season with 1/2 teaspoon of the cinnamon, 1 teaspoon of the cumin and 2 tablespoons of the chili powder. Mix this well and coat the meat with the masa harina (this is a ground hominy flour common to Mexican cuisine and easily found in the Mexican food sections of many grocery stores). The flour will thicken the sauce and give it a specific, Mexican taste.

Preheat a cast iron Dutch oven on the stove over medium high heat. Add the olive oil and then the coated meat, spreading it evenly so it covers the bottom of the Dutch oven in 1 layer. Leave it alone, without turning it, so the meat will brown and caramelize. Meanwhile, add the lard. The meat has a lot of moisture in it, so a good amount of steam will come from the pan before it is caramelized. As it browns, slowly turn each piece with tongs.

Once all sides are caramelized, remove the meat from the pan with a slotted spoon and place on a cookie sheet to cool, leaving juices in the Dutch oven to saute vegetables. Add the onions and garlic and saute for 5 minutes over medium heat until they start to caramelize and get soft. Add the jalapenos and allow to cook for 2 more minutes until soft. Add the tomato paste. Some of the same spices as were used on the meat will be used in the sauce. Add the remaining 2 teaspoons of the cumin, 1 teaspoon of the cinnamon, the oregano, and 2 heaping tablespoons of the chili powder. Add beer. Stir to incorporate everything. Add diced tomatoes, and stir. Then add the reserved meat. Add chicken stock.

Simmer for 1 1/2 hours until meat is wonderfully tender. Strain juice from the black beans, add the beans to the chili pot and bring up to simmer. Then add chunks of bittersweet chocolate. Stir until it melts. Serve immediately or store in the refrigerator for 2 to 3 days.

What's brewing this weekend

I've got a crowd of around 15 coming over this weekend to talk about forming a local alumni group of my college fraternity. I expect there'll be some beer sipped, but in a responsible, adult manner. Even in school we weren't exactly the Animal House crowd.

As for what'll be on offer: I've got some Sweetwater 420 in the fridge finally, picked up on a trip out of town for Thanksgiving, along with some Dogfish Head 90-Minute IPA. There's also still some of the Sam Adams Honey Porter, Abita Turbodog, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, and a Hoegaarden or two. Then there's whatever else the other guys decide to bring along.

What will you be sipping this weekend? Where, and with whom?

Those recipes I promised (Part I)

So, it took a day or two, but I've managed to round up the recipes I promised you in Wednesday's column. They get a little long, so I'll divide them up among three posts spread over a few days. The first one is Star multimedia director Justin Thurman's Porter Chili. I haven't tasted it yet, but he's threatening to make another batch soon to share with the newsroom. Above the recipe is a note from Justin.

I feel that the porter brings heartiness to the chili that I don't get from other liquids. I use the porter much like someone would use a beef or chicken stock in a recipe. I drain all ingredients so that the beer is the main liquid in the chili. I love porters, I have used many different ones but Abita Turbo Dog is my favorite. This really worked out well with a chili that I made with venison as the meat.

I remembered a few years ago a man in my home town winning a chili cook-off and he said his secret was beer. Being a beer lover, I thought I would try this but I wanted to use the kind of beers that I drank. Turbo Dog was the first beer that I tried this with and it is still my favorite today. 

• 1 large red onion diced
• 1 red pepper diced
• 1 yellow pepper diced
• 2 pablano peppers diced
• 2 jalapeno peppers diced
• 2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce diced
• 1 pound of ground venison (beef and bison work as well)
• 1 pound of bacon
• The remaining adobo sauce from the chipotle peppers
• 2 cans red kidney beans drained
• 2 can black beans drained
• 1 14.5 ounce can of diced tomatoes drained
• 2 garlic cloves minced
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 2 tablespoons chili powder
• 1 tablespoon of crushed red pepper
• 2 bottles of your favorite porter.
• Salt and pepper to taste

Sauté onions and peppers in olive oil until translucent and add to crock pot. Cook bacon in pan until done, leaving bacon grease in pan. Cook the venison in the bacon grease. Chop bacon and add it and venison to crock pot. Add remaining ingredients and cook on low overnight.

Today's column: Keeping warm with bubbling beer

(Recipes coming soon, btw. -Ben)

With the mercury plunging, a good beer or two may warm you up, once the capillaries in your face relax and turn your cheeks rosy. But that serving temperature — cool to ice cold — might just give you the shivers this time of year.

It's never too cold for a beer, really, but if you're looking for another way to warm up with a cold one, why not heat it in a pot? Of course, it's important to add more ingredients than just the beer.

Winter's chill winds make it the right time for savory, slow-cooked stew or a nice, hot chili. And a bowl of either can benefit from cooking with the right beer.

The dark, roasted flavors of porters and stouts are a big part of many stew and chili recipes.

Porters are ales made with barley that's dried at higher temperatures before the brewing begins, yielding a darker malt. Stouts follow the same model, with some of the barley actually roasted and unmalted for a dry, crisp effect.

Those methods tend to result in full-bodied beers with intense flavors. Adding a bit to a stew can lend a bitter complexity, and some recipes even replace the broth outright with a bottle or two.

Countless beef stew recipes classify themselves as Irish with addition of some the Emerald Isle's most famous export, Guinness Stout. A version from Margaret M. Johnson's Irish Pub Cookbook that credits the Guinness brewery's bar calls for a half pint of the thick, black beer. It swirls with the savory flavor of sirloin cubes browned in oil and butter, and the stout mixes well with the slight tang of carrots, parsnips and turnips.

In chili, stouts' and porters' roasted malts, plus the more intense bitterness from hops, can help to balance the spice from hot peppers. One colleague at The Star uses the Turbodog porter from Louisiana's Abita Brewing Co. in place of beef stock, then adds venison or bison meat for a truly unique flavor, though he says beef works just fine, too.

Another Star staffer (we eat a lot of chili here) uses dark lagers such as Samuel Adams Boston Lager or Michelob Amber Bock in place of inky porters or stouts in a lightly spiced chili recipe. Standing in for the dark complexity of roasted malt: bittersweet chocolate, which helps balance that spice even more.

Slow cooking is a favorite method for many of these dishes, in part because of the way it tenderizes chunked meat and allows seasonings to penetrate the other ingredients. Adding a bit of alcohol only intensifies the tenderizing effect, and the malt and hops can really work their magic given a few extra hours.

Using a slow cooker, though, takes time. Perhaps there's no better way to spend that time than sipping whatever beer didn't make it into the pot. At least the kitchen should be warm.

What's brewing this weekend: Leftovers

Appropriately for the holiday weekend, I'm just trying to take care of what I've got left in the fridge before beginning a search for something new. So far that's meant some Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (ol' standby) and Abita Turbodog. There's also a Sam Adams Honey Porter or two left in there that I might get around to pouring.

What are you drinking this weekend with your leftover turkey and dressing?

What's brewing this weekend

It's been a rough week here at The Star, and I've never really appreciated the meaning of "Miller Time" more than today.

To that end, my friend who made the big beer run last week is bringing down some of the unconsumed portion of that haul. I'm not sure what's left or what he'll bring, but I remember seeing a bottle of Young's Double Chocolate Stout and a Sweetwater Festive Ale. We're going to stay at my house while our spouses head out to a scrapbooking gathering.

What will you be consuming this weekend, and under what circumstances?

Today's column:Hey, porter: Rich, dark brew is a sweet winter classic

11-19-2008

Since porter derived its name from an early popularity with people who carried things for a living, it's sort of fitting that many people now think of it as a winter beer.

After all, it's this time of year that people are toting loaded shopping bags, hefting big dishes to the feast table and hauling the family off to visit relatives for the holidays.

Or maybe it's that the deep-dark colored ale, with its malty-rich flavor tastes so good alongside all those holiday dishes that tend to appear only near the end of the year — slow-roasted turkey, brown-sugar-encrusted sweet potatoes, any number of sinful deserts.

Porter is said to have taken its name from the hard-working laborers around London where the beer was born in the 18th century. The characteristic dark brown or even black color comes from the special varieties of malted barley, the grain that is the bedrock of most beer. As with all brews, first the barley is soaked to allow the seeds to germinate, then heated to dry it and promote the conversion of starch to alcohol.

For porters and other darker beers, some or all of the barley is dried at higher temperatures, changing the color and flavors of the resulting malt. Generally speaking, the higher the temperature, the darker the malt and the more complex the flavors. Brewers mix and match malts to achieve their desired tastes. "Chocolate" malt can add caramel or vanilla flavors; patent malt is dried hot enough it turns black and picks up an acrid smokiness. Crystal malt is roasted in a rotating drum before the drying process, and can give the resulting beer an extra sweetness.

Porters, like their cousins the stouts, pair well with a number of entrees, and their rich body makes them an excellent base for chili and stew recipes. And all those roasty flavors mean the dark beers are an excellent match for rich deserts, playing much the same role a cup of coffee does alongside a slice of pie or cake. It might sound counter-intuitive, but the next time you pour a glass of porter, hold back just a splash in the bottle and drizzle it over a bowl of vanilla ice cream — you'll never need chocolate syrup again.

Below are a few good porters from American brewers; all can be found either in area restaurant coolers or on local store shelves — at least you won't have to carry them far to get them home.

Sierra Nevada Porter — A good, straight-up basic porter, with a rich taste from chocolate and caramel hops. Naturally for a West-Coast brew (Sierra Nevada is based in Chico, Calif.), bitter hops balance out the sweetness.

Samuel Adams Honey Porter — True to porter's heritage, Boston Beer Co. uses English hops varieties alongside the roasted malts, then sets it all off with a bit of Scottish honey. The brewer suggests trying it alongside glazed ham and roasted vegetables.

Rogue Mocha Porter — This is your dessert beer. With generous doses of chocolate, black and crystal hops, it'll stand up to the richest, gooiest dessert you can serve. Try it with ice cream, as mentioned above; even better with a warm fudge brownie underneath that scoop of vanilla.

Lazy Mag bottles roll into town

Great news, Calhoun County beer fans: Lazy Magnolia's Southern Pecan Brown Ale is now available in bottles here.

After we finished cleaning up the reception hall following the wedding tonight, my fellow groomsman and I headed to the Grub Mart at Mountain & Pelham in Jacksonville (click for a map) to restock my nearly empty fridge. I was shocked to see a pile of the Lazy Mag sixers on display in the middle of the floor. The Southern Pecan previously had been available only on tap in a few select places around the county. Props to Supreme Beverage for bringing the good stuff our way,

Anyone seen the bottles available anywhere else around town?

What's brewing this weekend

A good buddy of mine is getting married this weekend, and both he and my fellow groomsman are beer fans. There's expected to be a little consumption tonight, as you might already have assumed. The other groomsman arrived from Georgia today with a load of assorted goodies, including a number of winter seasonals - Sweetwater's Festive Ale and Sierra Nevada's Celebration Ale among them.

I'm unsure if there' s to be any other brew on offer at the rehearsal dinner (it's got a tailgate party theme), or at the reception, but as we relax later tonight for our friend's last night of bachelorhood, we'll have something to warm us while the temperature drops outside.

What will you be sipping this weekend, and where? Click below to comment.

Cleburne County may not be ready for bars (and I'm back)

Cleburne County residents voted Nov. 4 to go "wet," ending that county's longtime unique "moist" status, under which beer could be sold only un-chilled (or "hot" as people keep saying - that just sounds wrong) and sales of hard liquor were prohibited. But the Heflin City Council last night discussed new laws to prevent bars from opening in the city. County Commission officials also are considering restrictive measures.

What do you think?

Meanwhile, how many times have you heard a blogger promise to post more regularly? Well, since technically you could say I'm getting paid to do this, I'll be keeping that promise. It's not like there's no local alcohol news out there to share.

Today's column: The ultimate beer run

Brian Yaeger, admittedly, was introduced to beer the way many young people (perhaps too many and definitely too young) are.

He was a college student, and drank "all the super-cheap stuff" in larger quantities than he should have. A chance to travel Europe for a semester broadened his beer horizons and opened his eyes to all the good stuff available at home.

"It was definitely after a semester abroad when I discovered," he says, "that you could drink it because it tastes good and not because if you drink eight or 10 of them it gets you drunk."

Fast forward a few years, and Yaeger, 34, says his days of mass consumption are long since over. But he is still using travel to experience new beer. The San Francisco-based writer has just published Red, White & Brew: An American Beer Odyssey. The book is an account of a series of road trips he took across the United States, sampling local beer everywhere he went.

He likes beer, of course, and enjoys traveling (he came to the attention of this column after meeting a Calhoun County resident when both were vacationing in Southeast Asia this summer). Put the two together, and both are the better for it.

"It's not so much in seeing the monuments or visiting the friends you're going to see," he says. "Of course, that's the main purpose, the main objective. But the experience of traveling is just made so much richer if you … partake of the local cuisine and drink the local beer. I meet people all the time who make that a big part of their road trip."

Of course, for Yaeger's trips, trying the beer was the main objective. He visited breweries and brewpubs in almost every corner of the country, from America's oldest brewery, D.G. Yuengling & Sons in Pottsville, Penn., (opened in 1829) to one of the newest, Lazy Magnolia Brewing of Kiln, Miss. (opened in 2005).

"It's something you could only do with beer, in a sense," he says. The climate for wine grapes is limited to a few select regions, and only a few areas of the country have a tradition of distilling spirits, he notes. "Beer is the one thing that is made everywhere."

Yaeger is now back on the road, this time touring the country to promote his book. Of course, some of his signings are taking place at breweries and pubs rather than bookshops. On Thursday he'll be in the Atlanta area, at Decatur's Brick Store Pub, 7 p.m. EDT.

That should give Yaeger a chance to finally try beers from Atlanta's Sweetwater Brewing Co. His earlier travels didn't take him through Georgia, and he's wanted to sample their wares for a while now.

If you decide to head over to Atlanta for the book signing, you could make it the first stop on your own brewery road trip. Sweetwater, in Atlanta's midtown, offers free tours and tastings Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays beginning at 5:30 p.m.

Just be sure someone else does the driving.

What's brewing this weekend

A colleague who lives nearer to Birmingham offered to pick me up something this week on his regular trip to Whole Foods. He brought my request with him to the office today - a six pack of Sweetwater IPA, newly legal again in Alabama. The brewers reportedly adjusted the recipe, bringing the ABV back under 6 percent. Now if only someone would start stocking it in Calhoun County (the trucks have to go right past us from Atlanta to Birmingham, after all).

The sixer will be nice to have around for the weekend, though most of my consumption likely will come at the Berman Museum's Suds Fest (see last week's column about it, here). I'll have to hold a couple back for next weekend, when a beer-loving friend from Denver pops in for a visit.

What will you be sipping this weekend, and where? Click below to comment.

Raise a glass to Mr. Leinenkugel

Sad news from Wisconsin today: Bill Leinenkugel, former president of the Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Co., has died of cancer. There's an obituary available online at annistonstar.com.

Leinenkugel helped his family's company, founded in 1867, survive industry consolidation that saw many other breweries close. A year after he retired in 1987, it merged with giant Miller Brewing, though the fmaily retained substantial control over the brand. It's now Miller's main entry in the craft beer segment that is leading growth in the brewing industry.

For your 'Fest

Recognizing that the Oktoberfest season is upon us, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Bob Townsend this week runs down a list of seasonal craft brews whose release is timed to coincide with the annual foamy fall frolicking.

For the most part, they look pretty enticing. Shmaltz Brewing's Coney Island Freaktoberfest is a different story. Shmaltz went with a Halloween theme for this one, and may be doing everything in their power to deter you from drinking it: the head is pink, the beer is a "crazy" reddish-tea, and the alcohol content is 6.66 percent. (Mark of the beer?)

German brewer sells authenticity

There's a story in today's New York Times on Rothaus, a state-owned brewer in Germany that has seen sales double over the last 15 years, while overall beer sales in the country have been declining. The success has come without a single TV or radio commercial. The story says many Germans seem to be drawn to the brand because of its non-corporate image. From the story:

“The ad agencies always wanted to seduce us into making not only a good beer but modern commercials,” said Thomas Schäuble, the head of the brewery and himself a native of the Black Forest region. “But people here in the Wild West of Germany are hard-headed,” he said with a chuckle.

There's also much mention made of the character in the brewery's logo. Birgit Kraft (apparently a German homonym for "beer gives strength"), as she's known, is something of an icon. That's her pictured above.

I don't believe Rothaus exports to the U.S. Has anyone out there reading had the pleasure of a bottle or mug?

Today's column: Brewing it our way

We Americans like to do things our way, even (sometimes especially) if old-world tradition frowns on it.

Exhibit A: the Berman Museum decides to throw an autumnal celebration of beer, holds it on one day in September, and does the whole thing indoors.

Oktoberfest it's not, but then, Anniston ain't exactly Munich.

The museum's fourth annual Autumn Suds Fest is set for Sept. 27 at 6 p.m. The proceeds this year will help support a touring exhibit arriving in October 2009, Mary Lee Bendolph: Gee's Bend Quilts and Beyond.

That national independent streak of ours goes for our beer, too.

For every established European style of beer, there's a few dozen American brewers concocting their own interpretations.

It's very proper that Suds Fest takes place at the museum, where relics from around the world are displayed alongside artifacts of American history. At this year's festival, attendees will get to sample established European beers, many of which epitomize their respective styles, then quaff a version from a domestic brewer.

Expecting that the more-local brew will always seem the worse for comparison with competition from across the pond? Think again. The old bias against American beer may have been closer to the truth in the past, but independent brewers a generation ago began a revolution that is still reverberating through the market. Now, even the big U.S. labels are getting experimental, moving into territory once dominated by imports and smaller insurgent American brewers.

Anheuser-Busch, for example, has been using its Michelob label to bring a range of different styles to market that may be unfamiliar to many American consumers. There's a porter, a hefeweizen and a pale ale. Michelob Marzen will be on hand at the festival, for comparison to the seasonal Oktoberfest offering from the venerable Spaten label from Germany.

Also, Coors has scored a major success with its Blue Moon, a version of a Belgian "white," or wheat-based beer, and a line of co-branded seasonals. Suds Fest participants will get to sample it alongside the "original" Belgian white, Hoegaarden.

Some of the craft brewers leading the major labels down that path will be represented, too. Brooklyn Brewery's Brown Ale will be served alongside the ubiquitous Newcastle Brown Ale from Britain, Sierra Nevada's seasonal Summerfest Lager will match up with the Czech Pilsner Urquell, and Sierra Nevada's porter will stand alongside the Taddy Porter from Britain's Samuel Smith.

Even one Southern brewer makes an appearance, with the 420 Pale Ale from Atlanta's Sweetwater Brewing served next to the U.K.'s Bass Ale.

The beer is being provided by three distributors, Alabama Crown, Bama Budweiser and Supreme Beverage. Served with the suds will be bratwurst and other beer-friendly food. Museum development director Lindie Brown says there will also be darts, giveaways, museum tours and a more social atmosphere than in years past.

To attend, make a reservation ($25 per person or $45 per couple) by calling 237-6261.

Today's column: Suds and sports: a winning combination

The new football season has at least this much in common with the just-concluded Olympic games: Both signaled their start with fire — at Beijing with the lighting of a giant cauldron, here, in a thousand parking lots with the flame of countless grills.

Food and sport are married in America like nowhere else, and nothing shows off that relationship so well as the tailgate parties that surround stadiums coast-to-coast this time of year.

Many of those fiery feasts are fueled, in more ways than one, by beer.

Perhaps in no other environment is beer so frequently used as a cooking ingredient as it is within hearing distance of stadium PA announcers. Of course, gameday chefs and diners may wind up drinking a few brews, too.

The National Beer Wholesalers Association offers at its Web site, http://www.nbwa.org, a number of recipes that involve beer as part of batters, marinades, glazes and sauces. They include, just to get you drooling, porter-glazed grilled sausages, pork skewers with pilsner and spices, stout-marinated sirloin steaks, even a sweet-and-sour potato salad made with bock.

Of course, some of these concoctions can get a little complicated to carry off miles from the comfort of one's kitchen, using the back end of a Chevy step-side as a countertop. Tailgate food is best when kept simple.

And it really doesn't get any easier than two old standbys, classic centerpieces of the moveable football feast: beer-can chicken and beer-bath bratwurst.

The brats can't be beat for flavor or simplicity. Grill the sausages over medium heat for five to 10 minutes, then add them to a stockpot or skillet (you'll need a side burner or extra grill space) filled with already-boiling beer and sliced onions and peppers. Cook another 20 minutes, then serve 'em on yeasty rolls with spicy mustard.

The first step in making beer-can chicken is my favorite: drink half a beer. Next, choose a dry seasoning for your bird and dump a tablespoon or so of it in the can. Then coat the outside of a whole fryer with your seasoning. Carefully insert the can, open-end-up, into the bird's nether regions, then carefully arrange your chicken on the grill, standing upright.

A little bit of extra technology can make the process easier: packing rubber gloves in your tailgate kit makes it much less disgusting to apply the dry rub on-site; a simple wire rack available for about $5 just about anywhere helps to hold the bird upright and the can in place on the grill; a nifty device called the Poultry Pal ($14.95 at beercanchicken.com) holds the bird up even better, helps keep it from burning, and allows you to use your favorite brew, even if it's bottled.

Cook your chicken over low to medium heat until done. That normally takes at least a couple hours, so unless you get the timing right you could miss the kickoff.

Then again, the chicken should be so juicy and tender, you might not really care.

Today's column: A new arrival and heralded return

Beer lovers will have to wait just a little longer to get Alabama brew in bottles, but in the meantime there is a suitable substitute newly available from just a little farther north.

Things are finally brewing again up in Huntsville, as Olde Towne Brewing Co. gets back in business after a fire in July 2007. Founder and brewmaster Don Alan Hankins reports the company is finally filling kegs at its new plant, and Olde Towne is now available from tap handles around the Rocket City.

Meanwhile, Nashville's Yazoo Brewing Co. made its entrance into the state this summer, with six-packs on sale in the Birmingham and Huntsville areas.

Hankins says Olde Towne is preparing for a grand re-opening party Saturday at Huntsville's Lowe Mill, complete with live music, lots of food, and of course the beer.

"This is kind of our payback to the city from us," Hankins said, in recognition of the support local beer fans lent the brewery after the fire. There were community-sponsored fundraisers including a concerts, and lots of e-mails and phone calls from folks eager to learn when Olde Towne would return.

Hankins says the company is filling keg orders through distributors in the Huntsville area first, and plans to follow that with the return of their draft product to Birmingham soon. A hefeweizen, amber ale and pale ale are already available, and a pilsner should make its return this weekend.

Olde Towne's new bottling equipment is expected to arrive by the end of the month. Hankins said the bottled brew will go to Huntsville first sometime in September, and then out to other markets where it was available before the fire, perhaps in November. That would include Calhoun County.

Meanwhile, you'll have to drive to Birmingham or Huntsville to get it, but Yazoo has a hefeweizen, a pale ale and what they bill as a Mexican-influenced version of a German altbier, basically an amber ale, labeled "Dos Perros Ale."

The pale is a bit sweeter than other versions of this style, and has a nicely bitter hops finish. Dos Perros is a hearty brown, with nice mellow malts sure to be enjoyed fans of beers like Newcastle Brown Ale and Lazy Magnolia's Southern Pecan.

As for the future, Olde Towne's Hankins says a series of seasonal brews — draft only — will follow the four standbys. That will likely start this fall with a pumpkin ale, and then something new for the winter, a coffee-and-tea-flavored stout.

For now, both these brands will require some driving for Anniston-area folks to acquire. But be sure to ask the staff at your favorite shops and haunts to stock the beers you'd like to try.