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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Today's column: The quest for beer with food from wine country

08-06-2008

They're lands of long, hot and dry summers tempered by breezes from the sea.

And they're lands of incredible food — dishes dominated by intensely-flavored herbs, meats and cheeses.

Ah, the sun-soaked shores of the Mediterranean, where the olive trees don't offer a lot of shade, but do provide plenty of oil to flavor the cooking.

The arid, sunny climate that is the source of so much good cooking might inspire one to reach for a cool brew, but finding the right beer to pair with these powerful foods can present a challenge.

Plus there's the fact that the Med is the cradle of Europe's wine culture. It was wine, not ale after all, that Odysseus used to outwit the giant Cyclops and while sailing that dangerous sea centuries ago.

But that doesn't mean the right brew isn't out there, waiting to be discovered and enjoyed alongside a heap of hummus or a load of grilled lamb skewers.

When selecting a beer to enjoy with a meal there are at least a couple different strategies: pick something brewed in the region that inspired the food, or go with something that plays off the food's unique flavors, regardless of where it's brewed.

That second approach is suggested by the beer-food pairing guide published by the Brewers Association, a trade group of American craft brewers. Lamb figures more prominently in Mediterranean meals than other meats. Its stronger flavor is a good match for the higher-alcohol content and robust bitterness of double or imperial India pale ales, according to the pairing guide. There's also British old or strong ales, with bold flavors that some describe as fruity or raisiny. Then there's Scotch ale, also called "wee heavy," with sweeter, maltier characteristics. (Creativity in procurement may be called for, as all of the above styles tend toward higher alcohol contents that are outlawed in Alabama). Lacking any of those, a sweet amber lager like Flying Dog's Old Scratch or a somewhat bitter pale ale like Sierra Nevada's ubiquitous offering might do the trick. Both are available locally.

The other tactic would be to pick a brand name brewed in the country that supplied your feta-festooned salad or chickpea puree. Italian dishes could call for a Peroni Nastro Azzuro, a standard pale lager on local shelves. Finding something brewed under any other Mediterranean flag is a tall task, though. The good news is that pale lagers are the dominant style in much of Europe, and one of the most popular here, as well. That leaves plenty of suitable substitutes, such as Stella Artois, Grolsch, Steinlager or Harp among the imports, or just about anything on the shelf from the well-known domestic brands (Sierra Nevada's seasonal Summerfest Lager is a fine alternative, and was still on some local shelves last week).

Of course, if you have the means and the vacation time, there's the option of going straight to the source, trying the local food and the local beer on an odyssey of your own. Like the ancient Greek hero, you never know where the journey might lead you.

Beer travels well

Pitcher This: Beer travels well

07-23-2008

Traveling is its own reward — the chance to see new things, to get out of one's comfort zone, and of course the pleasure of getting away from work, which I'm sure is a vacation motivator for others (though not for me, honest).

But I take special pleasure in getting out of town because it means trying beers I can't get at home.

Beyond the brews themselves, I like getting the opportunity to sample someone else's beer culture, to see how beer grew out of and into the fabric of local life.

A recent family reunion trip took me to New York State's sparsely populated southwest, a land of dairy farms, cool summers and rolling green hills where residents of northeast Alabama would feel at home.

There, as in the identical country on the other side of the Pennsylvania line, beer has been part of the landscape almost as long as the big red barns that dot the valleys. German immigrants settled in large numbers in New York and Pennsylvania from colonial days and into the 20th century, bringing their brewing tradition with them.

Both states have managed to hang on to much of that heritage, with a few independent breweries still in the hands of the families that founded them. Among them is Straub Brewery of St. Mary's. The family founded it in 1872, though their involvement in brewing can be traced to 1831. They've kept things small, distributing only in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

That's not the case for Matt Brewing of Utica, N.Y., founded in 1888, also by a German immigrant. The company survived the depression and the mid-century consolidation of the beer market, just long enough for a new generation of the Matt family to remake it for the craft brewing explosion. Matt's Saranac line of brews includes seven year-round regulars and a range of seasonal and specialty beers. Matt's not afraid to market beyond its Northeastern base. Saranac made its Alabama debut at Birmingham's Magic City Brewfest and is on store shelves in Birmingham now.

Not for export anytime soon are the offerings from Ellicottville Brewing Co., a brewpub in a small ski town an hour south of Buffalo. EBC's brews are the sort one's got to travel to enjoy, and I'm thankful to get the chance to do it once a year on my family reunion trip (in the interest of full disclosure, the company is operated by a second cousin).

If you're up that way (or you're in a Birmingham store that carries the Saranac stuff), give these a try.

Straub Beer — A really light lager, much like its former Pennsylvania cousin Rolling Rock. Not very complex, but not bad, and easy to drink ice-cold on those rare hot Northeastern summer days.

Saranac Pale Ale — This one stands out from most micro-brewed pales in that it's consciously aiming for the British version of the style. The hops are milder European varieties, without the citrusy bitterness so prominent in most craft pales.

EBC Two Brothers Pale Ale — A solid American pale ale, with lots of those hops that Saranac avoided.

The selling of 'the great American lager'

Pitcher This: The selling of 'the great American lager'

07-09-2008

There's been lots of talk recently about the biggest beer deal in years: The offer by Belgium-based international brewing giant InBev to pay $46 billion for America's iconic beer-maker, Anheuser-Busch. Depending on who's talking, the offer is either a common-sense investment by one giant corporation in another, a low-ball effort by one company to pick up another on the cheap, or an affront to national dignity — a foreign corporation buying up an American household name.

It's talk of the last kind that seems to be the loudest, and the most based on emotion in place of fact.

It seems a lot of people care deeply about the legacy of the venerable St. Louis-based brewer, founded in the mid-1800s by German immigrants.

Sure enough, AB, as the company is known, produced or perfected many of the innovations that have made the modern brewing industry possible. When Eberhard Anheuser bought what became Anheuser-Busch in 1860, beer was a very much a regional, even local beverage. Brewers couldn't ship their product far because beer wouldn't keep for long trips. Anheuser's son-in-law, Adolphus Busch, helped introduce pasteurization and refrigerated railcars, both of which made it possible to ship the brewery's beer to new markets, according to an official company history.

When the company introduced its Budweiser brand in 1876, it used these new tools to make Bud the first nationally distributed beer, shipped far beyond St. Louis.

To help introduce the brand to these new markets, the company also innovated in marketing and advertising, putting the Budweiser name on posters of attractive young women — "Budweiser Girls" — holding bottles of the brew.

All of this helped AB to become the country's largest brewer, with Budweiser the best-selling brand nationwide by 1957, according to the company. It also helped to nearly end regional and local brewing, as mass-marketed national brands out-competed smaller producers.

Of course, Anheuser-Busch wasn't the only big fish in this pond. Miller and Coors enjoyed successes of their own, competing hard to become household beer names in their own right. Of course, not nearly as much hullabaloo was raised when in 2002 Miller was sold to South African Breweries, forming SABMiller, or in 2005 when Coors merged with the Canadian brewer Molson. Those companies now are cooperating in the United States as MillerCoors, to act as a stronger competitor to the giant Anheuser-Busch.

And the headlines weren't nearly as big in 2006 when AB bought the Rolling Rock brand from none other than InBev, shuttering the storied Latrobe, Pa., brewery where it had been made for generations to move production to its own plant in New Jersey. In short, AB is not a new player to this mega-brewer game. The company helped make the rules, and it should come as no surprise that they might wind up inside a bigger fish someday.

The good news is that even if the sale goes through, regional and local brewing in America is in the midst of a big comeback. The big brewers have been losing market share in recent years to smaller, upstart companies who've built their business on brewing something wholly different from Bud.

So rest easy, American beer will be alive and well, even if the company with the big bald eagle in its logo gets sold off to Belgium.

Fresh tastes better, even with beer

Wow, didn't realize I'd skipped one. Here it is, just two weeks late.

Pitcher This: Fresh tastes better, even with beer

06-25-2008

It was an unexpected phone call, but definitely the welcome kind.

"Can I pick you up some beer?"

That's similar to asking someone if they'd like a free pile of cash, isn't it?

The caller was in a store I don't normally frequent, one that tends to stock brands not found in every local convenience store. Naturally, I accepted the offer and after work stopped by to pick up the gift of hooch.

I carted my haul home, and began stocking the bottles to chill. The next day I pulled one out, and prepared to pour it into a glass. I stopped, noticing the digits inked on the label. The beer was best consumed, it said, by a date that had passed 10 months prior.

My heart sank.

People are sometimes surprised when I mention the freshness of beer. Perhaps they think a tightly sealed, chilled bottle protects its contents indefinitely, especially when the contents contain alcohol.

But yes, beer can go bad.

There's not enough alcohol in most beer to provide a preservative effect for long. Plus, there's a lot more than that in the bottle — any number of chemical compounds resulting from the mixture of water, hops, yeast and malt that can break down over time, or from wild swings in temperature or from the deteriorating effect of sunlight. The beer's taste can turn sour, flat or downright skunky when it's old or not stored properly. Most beer should be consumed within three to six months of being brewed.

In the anecdote above, I don't fault my beer benefactor, whose gesture was as warm as good beer is cold. Instead, the distributor and retailer should have kept a closer eye on the stock, making sure they were offering a fresh product.

Not all brewers make this easy, and some make it downright hard for customers to gauge beer's age. A number of brands use coded dates than can be tough to decipher unless one knows the key. Fortunately, the Internet age is making it easier for those who've cracked the codes to share that knowledge.

But a noble and growing few are printing clearly written dates of each beer's brewing, or even best-consumed-by dates right on the label.

When that information's not available, look for dust on the bottles, a tell-tale sign that beer's been around a tad too long. It also doesn't hurt to get to know whoever's responsible for the beer stock at your regular shopping stops. Besides learning how quickly they move different brands out the door, you could gain an ally or two in your search for a favorite brand or the latest new brews on the market.

And of course, every rule has its exceptions. Some beer styles actually benefit from a few years in storage. Under the right conditions, higher-alcohol and more heavily hopped beers such as Belgian strong ales, imperial stouts, and barleywines add character to their flavor over time, improving with age much like some wines. Sadly, their higher alcohol content makes Alabama one of very few states where such beers are outlawed.

At last, good things are brewing in Bama again

Pitcher This: At last, good things are brewing in Bama again

06-11-2008

After a long, thirsty year, Alabamans can again wet their whistles with beer brewed in their home state.

Just in time for the Magic City Brewfest a week and a half ago, Birmingham's Good People Brewing Co. started filling kegs and brought some of its brand-new brown ale to the festival.

This came just shy of a year since Alabama's previous lone brewery, Huntsville's Olde Towne, burned last July. The company is rebuilding in an all-new facility in South Huntsville. Before the festival, Olde Towne founder Don Alan Hankins said if everything remains on track the new plant could be shipping out bottles by mid-July.

That would make this a good summer indeed for beer in Alabama, especially after last year's blaze and the flaming defeat for a bill in the Legislature that would have made legal beer with more alcohol, and thus more of the beer styles brewers across the country are crafting for a public that apparently is thirsty for diversity. This year's version of the bill didn't become law either, but it did pass the House before stalling, along with everything else in the Senate. Count that a moving in the right direction.

Now with Olde Towne's impending revival and the emergence of Good People, there are tangible successes to toast in Alabama.

The small sample of Good People's brown ale I tasted in Birmingham was a well-balanced treat.

I sipped it while talking with Jason Malone, who described himself as the company's brewer, as well as an electrician, drywall hanger and painter in the effort to complete its small Southside-Birmingham facility. Trying to keep costs down, the small company did much of the work itself, all while clearing the red tape required by various levels of government and keeping an eye on the quality of their product.

Like many small brewers (and a number of big ones, too), Malone and his partners got their start brewing at home, he said. Eventually, they had enough people asking for their creations they figured they could turn it into a business.

While he's proud of the beers Good People is bringing to market, Malone itches for the creativity making beer in one's kitchen allows, which can result in "funky, interesting things."

"But at the end of the day I have to remember I'm not a homebrewer anymore," he said.

Good People plans to roll out pale and amber ales along with its brown, plus an India pale ale or hefeweizen as it distributes kegs to Southside-area restaurants in these first few weeks. Bottling may come later, Malone said, by contract since there's little room for the equipment where they operate now.

As Malone, red-bearded and baseball-capped, spoke, a Good People T-shirt hung from the canopy behind him. Its logo, a beat-up old pickup, was a fitting choice for a hard-working company pulling itself up by its bootstraps.

It's also not a bad image for the state's tiny brewing industry as a whole. Despite long odds and tough breaks, and some even tougher laws, thing are finally beginning to pick up speed.

Today's column

Pitcher This: Birmingham's beer bonanza

05-28-2008

With apologies to the Iron Bowl and Talladega Superspeedway's twice-a-year festivities, there's no better time to enjoy beer in Alabama than this weekend.

Saturday and Sunday will see the return of the Magic City Brewfest, which debuted in 2007 to rave reviews despite a few first-year glitches.

The two-day festival will again take place at Birmingham's Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark and will feature beers from dozens of the nation's best brewers and a slew of quality imports. It's organized by Free the Hops, a group pushing for reform of laws restricting beer in Alabama.

Free the Hops' president, Stuart Carter, says there will be as many as 250 different brews on offer, up from around 180 last year.

"That represents the majority of beers available in the state," Carter says.

Though that may sound impressive, Carter says it's actually kind of disappointing. Alabama law limits the alcohol content of beer to 6 percent by volume. That leaves out many of the marquee offerings from brewers who will be at the festival, and keeps whole ranges of beer styles from being sold here. A Free the Hops-sponsored bill to raise the limit to 13.9 percent passed the Alabama House this year, and cleared a Senate committee before it died earlier this month along with tons of other legislation in the upper chamber's end-of-session gridlock. Carter says they'll try again next year.

Other beer that won't be available at the festival: Alabama's only bottling brewery, Huntsville's Olde Towne Brewing Co. won't have its new facility running in time. A fire destroyed the old brewery last July. Founder Don Alan Hankins says if everything goes well, the new place could be bottling by the first half of July, perhaps within a year of the blaze.

One silver lining from Olde Towne's misfortune: Hankins says a new bottling line capable of filling 120 bottles per minute will replace the old 20-bottle-per-minute line that gave the company headaches over quality.

The company will ensure distribution to its Madison County customers first, followed by Jefferson County, according to Hankins. Look for Olde Towne's amber ale, hefeweizen, pale ale and pilsner on shelves and on tap elsewhere after that.

Carter calls the lack of Alabama-brewed beer at the state's only festival "a crying shame." But his group is planning for thousands of attendees anyway, along with live music and the chance to earn converts to its political cause. And of course, there will be plenty of great beer available, along with food from Birmingham-area restaurants. A few tips gleaned from last year's festival:

• Take a designated driver (or two). Even with 2-4 oz. samples, you'll need help getting home safely. The good news: DDs get free admission, plus unlimited non-alcoholic drinks.

• Go with a group. Beer is best enjoyed with friends, and this much beer calls for a lot of company.

• Dress lightly. The festival's all outdoors, much of it while the sun's shining. Shorts, sunblock and shades are all good ideas, especially on Sunday.

• Get outside your comfort zone. There's so much exotic beer on hand, you won't want to waste your time with anything you drink regularly. You'll get a list at the gate of what's available. Mark off everything you've already tried, then circle anything new to you that sounds intriguing.

The festival runs in two sessions, each ticketed separately. Saturday is 7-11 p.m., Sunday is 3-7 p.m. Discounted tickets are available in advance online. They'll be $30 for beer only at the gate, $40 for beer and unlimited food. More info is available at http://www.magiccitybrewfest.com.

Today's column

Pitcher This: 121 bottles of beer on the wall

04-30-2008

There's an old saying attributed to an ancient philosopher comparing loudmouths and containers.

"As empty vessels make the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest blabbers," it goes.

One might add that when it comes to beer bottles, he who empties more vessels tends to display less wit and blab more.

Readers can judge for themselves the wit displayed in this space, but I'll admit to emptying more than my share of vessels. Enough, in fact, that I'm starting to wonder what to do with them.

As a beer fan and a beer writer, I've kept an empty bottle of each brew I've tried for at least the last year and a half —121 at last count. Thanks to my wife's tolerance, there's a room at my house — a simple covered patio, really — devoted to beer, as well as darts, televised sports, Martin Scorsese films and rock concert posters. The bottles serve as a professional record and as the bar's primary decoration.

Trouble is, I've filled every inch of the room's shelving. Bottle No. 122 is without a home on the wall, and it'll soon be joined by others. I could put up more shelves, but I see the problem brewing again before long. What happens when I've got four walls covered floor-to-ceiling in brown and green glass? I don't see my wife's indulgence extending to the guest bedroom.

This raises another question, for me and for other local beer lovers: what to do with the five other bottles in each six pack? Living in Jacksonville, I'm fortunate to have curbside recycling service, but they don't pick up glass. Nor is it accepted at the drop-off bins around the county. I could truck it to a recycling center, but I'm no more eager to temporarily store months' worth of bottles than I am to fill my walls with more 12-ounce trophies. And I feel a twinge of tree-hugger guilt every time I pitch one in the trash.

Some Colorado craft brewers may have a solution for me. Oskar Blues Brewery of Lyons, Colo., says in 2002 it became the first U.S. craft brewery to can its beer rather than bottle it. The aluminum is cheaper, lighter and easier to transport and recycle. New Belgium Brewing announced recently it will follow suit with cans of its Fat Tire Amber Ale. Neither brewer distributes here, but if their practice becomes a trend I could crush my empties and leave them on the curb once a week.

Then all I'll have to worry about it whether to put up more shelves for my can collection.

Today's column

Pitcher This: Lawnmower beer — Brews to cool you

04-16-2008

The dust is still settling. The sun will blaze for a few hours more.

You've just pushed your 80-pound Craftsman over every square inch of your half-acre lawn and your arms are pink from the exposure. Your head aches from the heat and two-cycle exhaust.

Your body somehow still is squeezing out sweat, which in turn runs right out of your already-soaked T-shirt.

The only part of your body not dripping is your cracked, dust-caked throat. You must have something to cool and moisten your pounding head. Just one elixir will do.

You need a beer.

(To be clear, what you really need is a big glass of ice water. But let's assume since you're reading this you're more interested in beer. Besides, a regular column about water would get old fast.)

For beer geeks, the term "lawnmower beer" usually is pejorative. It's applied to the light, mass-produced lagers that have long dominated the American market. Craft beer lovers tend to look down their noses at these brands because they lack the more potent malt and hops flavors smaller brewers are known for.

The mass-produced lagers picked up the landscaping-related nickname because they're supposedly best suited for the situation described above: a quick, cool thirst-quenching on a hot day. After all, if water's what you really need, why not have a beer that's more like water?

But with grass now growing fast again, it's worth asking: Is there such a thing as a good lawnmower beer?

Of course, the answer is yes. There's any number of finely crafted brews that can leave beer lovers feeling relaxed and refreshed, while not pummeling their yardwork-stressed senses with dark-roast malts or super-bitter hops.

Wheat-based ales are designed for the same thirst-quenching purpose as big-name lagers, and small and big brewers alike are cashing in on a surge of interest in wheat styles. Many take advantage of wheat's delicate body to add flavors like blueberry or raspberry.

American golden or blonde ales are also light on the palate, and share with their lager cousins a pale-straw color, crisp mouth-feel and frothy effervescence.

And of course, there are better examples of the style to which so many American lagers only aspire. Pilsner-style lagers are supposed to be lighter-bodied, but the best ones have a refreshing hop bite that stings the tongue.

Here's some to try the next time you're thirsty after a hard day's mow (assuming there's no water handy):

Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat: This light wheat ale smells like blueberries but citrus dominates the flavor.

Atlanta Brewing Co. Red Brick Blonde: A crisp quaff that won a gold medal in its category at the Great American Beer Festival last October.

Pilsner Urquell: Billed as "the original" Pilsner lager, it's brewed in the town the style's named for, Pilsen in the Czech Republic. More malt than American versions, with a spicy hop finish.

Today's column

Pitcher This: Imagine a world without beer

04-02-2008

Before you read the following lines, be sure that you've got the lights on. And perhaps make sure you're not alone. It could get frightening.

Ready? O.K.

Imagine a world without beer.

Scary, I know. Let alone knot being able to drink the stuff, how could one make beer-battered onion rings or beer-can chicken? How would the Super Bowl turn a profit?

Now that you've (hopefully) stopped shivering, brace yourself again: that world is real — or at least was.

Thankfully, Monday will mark the 75th anniversary of that world's end. On April 7, 1933, breweries produced the nation's first legal beer — indeed, the first legal alcohol it had tasted in more than 13 years. It was on that day that an amendment to the Volstead Act, which had enabled Prohibition under the Constitution's 18th Amendment, took effect. It made legal the production of beer up to 3.2 percent alcohol by weight.

When national Prohibition took effect in 1920, the production of beer, wine, liquor and all other alcohol was outlawed everywhere in the country. The idea was to promote a more orderly society, and alcohol's absence was expected to reduce crime and poverty.

Funny how things turn out sometimes, isn't it?

While the 1920s were by most accounts a boom-time, poverty was far from eliminated, and the economy went bust in 1929. It was a boom-time for organized crime, too, as Al Capone and the like got into the business of distributing bootleg liquor.

Fortunately, the country came to its senses, and enough states ratified an amendment to repeal the ban on alcohol in December 1933.

But long before that, on April 7, Americans toasted alcohol's return with beer. Many breweries stayed in business through prohibition by turning to the production of soft drinks, ice cream and other items. But many didn't survive the outright ban on their former business.

It's a shame that something known as the "temperance movement" wound up dragging the nation into a less-than temperate debate about and ban on alcoholic beverage. The term originally referred to moderating intake of intoxicating beverages.

There's no question that drinking too much leads to bad things. But pushing the country into total intolerance of alcohol didn't do much good either. It did deny people personal liberty, the freedom to exercise their taste and cultural connections to beverages going back thousands of years.

If any good did come of Prohibition, it at least served as a first-hand lesson in the law of unintended consequences. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing — even when the good thing is not drinking.

So as you raise a glass to 75 years of beer's rebirth in America, the best way to do it is in recognition of the dangers of excess — both in consumption and in political certitude. The best way to toast Prohibition's end is in moderation.

Cheers.

Today's column

Here's today's column. The Bud Light commercial referenced is embedded below for your viewing pleasure. Here's a link, in case you need it.

Pitcher This: Use your head — Mastering the perfect pour

03-19-2008

Say what you will about their beer, but the folks at Anheuser-Busch make what may be the best commercials in the business.

A couple years ago, they ran a classic Bud Light spot about properly pouring beer.

It began with three guys in a bar watching a friend pour his beer from a bottle into a tall pilsner glass in one smooth motion, leaving a perfect, frothy head atop the brew.

"How'd you learn to pour like that?" one buddy asks in awe.

As he gazes into his past, we see the pourer's memories of training, Kung-Fu-Grasshopper-style, with an older Asian man in the art of proper decanting. The master whacks his student mid-pour with a cane.

Pour down side, no good. Pour down center to release carbonation and aroma. Again!"

We see the student repeating his lesson suspended between two trees, then while being dragged by a running horse.

Now, AB should get credit for encouraging its customers to drink beer properly, from a glass. And they did a good thing trying to educate folks the best way to pour a brew. But their advice is just a little off.

To get the goods in the glass, one must both ignore the old master's teaching, and apply it.

Zen enough for you?

Yes, pouring your beer straight down the middle of a glass will help develop a head, important in getting the right amount of aroma from a brew. But pour it all down the middle and you risk foaming the head right over the rim.

Instead, start off pouring down the side of a clean, un-chilled glass, held at about a 45-degree angle. When you've got it about half full (or half-empty?), hold the glass straight up and pour right down the middle. For most 12-ounce bottled brews going into a standard 16-ounce pint glass, this will provide just enough head to fill the vessel.

Of course, every beer is different. The brewing process gives some styles and brands more fizzy carbonation, making for more foam when you pour. Hefeweizens and other wheat-based beers are particularly heady, and so there are special, taller glasses designed to hold them. With these, it also can help to swirl a bit of beer around the side of the glass before pouring in the rest.

Pouring faster and holding the bottle higher over the glass will develop more head. Pouring slowly and holding the bottle close makes for less.

Using a British-size 20-ounce pint glass leaves more room for error when you're pouring the typical American-sized bottle. But that's cheating, in my view. If you're going to use a British-sized glass, you might as well pour a full imperial pint, and you'll need just as much skill to do it right.

So for every beer you decant, it helps to know what to expect when you tip a bottle over the rim. And the only way to get a good feel for each brew's foamy tendencies, of course, is practice. Lots, and lots of practice (trees, horse and canings from aged Asian master are optional).

Again!

Today's column

On the heels of yesterday's legislatin' in Montgomery, here's a bit about the efforts of folks to change another restrictive beer-related law. Also available in today's Star and at the paper's Web site.

Pitcher This: Help for brew-it-yourselfers

03-05-2008

There are food fans who turn their noses up at anything that comes from a box, can or jar.

Pre-packaged spaghetti sauce? Give 'em a few ripe tomatoes and fresh basil — plus, for the hardcore, flour and eggs for the pasta — and they'll make you forget Paul Newman's known for anything but Cool Hand Luke.

And there are those who feel the same way when it comes to beer.

Buy it in bottles? Bah. Give 'em some malted grain, a handful of hops and a few weeks for yeast to work magic and you'll wonder why commercial brewers even bother.

Well, naturally, they bother because not everyone shares the passion homebrewers do for crafting it on their own.

Roughly half a million Americans make their own beer, according to the American Homebrewers Association, which itself has about 1,500 members.

While plenty of those folks are here in Alabama, by practicing their hobby they're unfortunately breaking state law. Making beer or any alcohol without a license from the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board is banned.

As usual when it comes to alcohol laws, Alabama is in a tiny minority of states that still restrict homebrewing. Congress made it legal in 1978 (it was allowed before Prohibition) and let states take it from there. To date, according to the AHA, you can brew without fear in 45 states.

Of course, plenty of people are brewing here. While most aren't doing it in total, fearful secrecy, many still worry, though the state hasn't enforced the law broadly in decades, according to John Little, founder of the Auburn Brew Club.

"They shouldn't have to worry, because really, we're not doing anything wrong," says Little, whose club claims 25 brewing members and another 40 who are interested in learning the art.

Little and others are advocating for a bill in the Legislature that would allow home beer, wine and cider production for personal use. So far, the Senate Tourism & Marketing Committee hasn't touched the proposal.

Little began brewing just over three years ago. He says he's never brewed the same style twice, and has made his way through nearly 70 of the 80-or-so beer styles recognized by the Beer Judge Certification Program. His goal is to brew them all. (He describes himself as "very compulsive.")

Little says he's drawn to the creative and scientific aspects of making his own. Those points draw lots of professional types to brewing, according to Little. He's an attorney. The Auburn club claims engineers, biologists, pharmacists and others.

Little is hopeful legislators will learn that such folks are the typical homebrewers. Irresponsible drunkards won't invest the money or time most homebrewers put into homemade beer, he says.

"It's not like you're producing cheap beer," he says. "It's a very expensive hobby."

Of course, if you're worried about the cost, there's always the stuff that comes in bottles.

Yesterday's column

Here's yesterday's column. Sorry it's getting up here a day late - I was out yesterday with the funk that's going around, and barely switched on my computer at home. (Note: Flying Dog's Road Dog Porter with a hot bowl of potato soup and a grilled Swiss cheese sandwich is a great pick-up when you're feeling low).

Pitcher This: Another round of battle over beer laws

02-06-2008

Advocates for getting better beer into Alabama aren't letting last year's defeat keep them from trying again.

Free the Hops, a grassroots group dedicated to reforming state laws restricting the sale of beer, has once again introduced a bill to raise the amount of alcohol allowed in beer sold here. The Legislature opened its 2008 session Tuesday.

A similar bill made it out of committee in the House last year, but died in the Senate because there wasn't enough support to bring it up for a vote. It never came up in the Senate — like just about every other measure that died, which was most of them — because legislators there were too busy fighting amongst themselves for control of the chamber. Remember the punch that ended last year's session? (And those guys were sober - reportedly).

While last year's bill never got a chance to measure its support in either chamber, Stuart Carter, Free the Hops' president, has hopes he'll be able to toast the Legislature's close with the kind of carefully crafted, critically acclaimed but currently illegal beers he loves. He said the group made progress convincing lawmakers last year.

"Some legislators knew all the beers" available at a special tasting session the group hosted in Montgomery, Carter said. "A lot had never heard of them; they didn't know such things were possible."

Much of the resistance to changing the law appears to come from misinformation, miscommunication or outright disregard for the truth.

Opponents seem to imagine juiced-up rednecks driving the roads, guzzling higher-alcohol versions of the watery brews they think of as beer — the kind that comes in 12- or 24-packs of aluminum cans and bears a striking resemblance to tap water dosed with a drop of yellow food coloring.

Worse yet, they imagine juiced-up teenagers doing the same thing, winding wheels-up in a ditch.

The truth is, the beers Carter and the Free the Hops folks are after aren't likely to wind up rattling around in the bed of anyone�s pickup en route to a night of drunken mischief. They're looking for fine, full-flavored and pretty darn expensive beverages from tiny craft brewers across the U.S. and around the globe.

You're not going to catch your local ne'er-do-well or mischievous high-schooler chugging this stuff just like you won�t find them guzzling bottles of imported French wine. It's expensive, it's an acquired taste, and even when it's legal it's likely not going to be on the shelf at your local quick-rip. (The law, by the way, would allow the same alcohol in beer as is in wine sold here.)

"We're talking about the Mercedes of beers, here," Carter said. "The situation we're in now, you can get just about any Ford or GM, some of the Hondas, some of the Toyotas. That's nice, but we're all adults here."

If Carter and company are successful this time around, there'll be a lot more interesting beer to test drive in Alabama.

Today's column

Also available at our Web site, annistonstar.com.

Pitcher This: Laissez les bonnes bières roulez

01-23-2008

If you're of the sort who's usually looking for any excuse to throw a party, it has probably not escaped you that Carnival is upon us, and Lent is looming.

And given that many celebrations in observance of the above involve alcohol, it's a safe bet that readers of this column planning to partake are looking for the proper brew.

Consider what follows a few beads from the beer-suggestion float.

• Is there a better way to celebrate Carnival and the approach of Mardi Gras than outside, on the street with other revelers? Who knows? Better yet, why bother trying anything else?

If you're headed for the coast, why not skip New Orleans and head for North America's original Carnival celebration, in Mobile. That city also was home to Alabama's original brewpub, The Port City Brewery opened not long after the state made brewing in restaurants legal in 1992. Sadly, Port City closed in 2001, but was followed in the same location in 2004 by the Cannon Brewpub, which lasted until 2006.

The good news is that Hurricane Brewing Co. has picked up the mantle, and is celebrating its first anniversary in the same location as its forbearers on Dauphin Street downtown. The brewery is in a massive, three-story historic structure, with a pub-style lounge on the first floor and sit-down dining upstairs.

Apart from the building, one other thing has remained the same through all three iterations: head brewer Todd Hicks.

Hicks says Hurricane's brews tend toward British-inspired ales. If you're there for Carnival it would only make sense to sample the seasonal Flying Debris Mardis Gras, described as an extra special bitter.

The menu is full of pub-style fare, from fish and chips (Southern-fried, of course,) to sausage plates to the regionally appropriate seafood and po' boys. For desert, perhaps step outside and catch a flying Moon Pie.

If you can't head south for a proper celebration, there is some Gulf Coast representation on local store shelves:

• The Abita Brewing Co. in Abita Springs, La., is just a stone's throw from the Mardi Gras ground zero that is New Orleans. They're one of the oldest craft breweries in the country, and claim to be the oldest in the Southeast, founded in 1986.

You'll find at least three Abita brews in local stores, including the company's original Amber, an Oktoberfest-style lager. It's fairly light-bodied, somewhat malty, and without much of the hops presence one might expect from a microbrewer. Abita's Purple Haze, a raspberry-flavored wheat beer, and Turbodog. Turbodog is a dark brown ale, nearly a porter, with lots of chocolaty, coffee-ish malt and just enough hops to offset that sweetness.

• Lazy Magnolia Brewing is in Kiln, off the Mississippi coast where there's just as much French Catholic history as in New Orleans and Mobile. The brewery's Southern Pecan Brown Ale is a sweet, malty treat. Available on tap locally, and now in bottles elsewhere in the state.