Dispatches From the Great Taste 2010

The Dulcinea and I took a shuttle bus to the Great Taste of the Midwest on Saturday. While we were awaiting its arrival, this car pulled up at the stop sign.





Now, why anyone would think that 70s shag carpeting on a car was a good idea is beyond me. But I guess it takes all kinds.

When we got to Olin Park, we found ourselves much closer to the front of the line than we were the last time we were there a couple years back.





At 13:00 the throngs of beer dorks were loosed.

My approach this year was to go for German bier styles. Right now I am in that frame of mind. I want my lagers, pilsners, kolsches, etc. because I've had my fill of pale ales and Belgians for a spell. While I was successful in drinking many biers of a German persuasion, I also sampled a myriad of other styles and did the usual I'm-drunk-and-the-fest-is-about-to-end-so-I'd-better-start-drinking-mead-now routine.

My day began by stopping in at Das Bierhaus from Menomonie and getting a schwarzbier before I headed over to grab some lunch at the vending area. "Schwarzbier" means "black beer" auf Deutsch. Being lagers, they're crisp and smooth but have a nice chocolatey malt body with just enough hop bitterness to add to the crispness instead of overpowering the barley. I always have a Köstritzer Schwarzbier when I go to The Malt House. Das Bierhaus' version was OK. The malt flavor and mild hops were there but it wasn't crisp. It was very syrupy when it hit the tongue – the same mouthfeel as an imperial stout – then got watery as the brew slid farther down my palate.

After lunch, I headed to over to the Gordon Biersch Brewery & Restaurant to sample some of this:





This is their Gose. Gose is a German ale that is brewed with wheat, salted water, and get fermented with both yeast and lactic bacteria. It is flavored with coriander and hops. I'd never had a Gose previous to the festival, although I do have a bottle the stuff in my refrigerator, so I have no basis for comparison. As you can see, it's straw-colored and it has a sour-citrus aroma. It had a very smooth taste that had a hint of saline and a prominent grapefruit flavor. Not a session beer, but I can see myself having one of these on a hot day.





Above is another German style that's not oft seen on these shores (at least around these parts) is the Zoigl and the folks from Amalgamated Brewery in St. Louis brought their version to the festival. The guy who was pouring explained to me that the brewmaster went to the Vaterland to taste the style before brewing it him-/herself. According to the German Beer Institute, the Zoigl is a kellerbier made with a darker malt and less hops. Amalgamated's version was definitely malty and with only a hint of hops. True to the style, it was unfiltered. Also, it had a dry finish. Pretty good stuff.

And the name?

The name Zoiglbier stems from "Zoigl," the Franconian vernacular for "sign." In Franconian home brewing, a Zoigl was a six-pointed blue-white star, shaped from two triangles similar to a Star of David. The star was made from wooden slats. In the center was a cutout of a beer mug or a pine branch. In the feudal system of the 13th and 14th centuries, every Bavarian home- and landowner in the region north of the River Danube also automatically owned the right to brew beer, and these medieval burghers and farmers used to hang the Zoigl in front of their doors whenever they had homebrew ready to drink. The Zoigl was in invitation to their neighbors to come over and have a few. These early burgher-brewers often also made their Zoiglbier in communal brew houses...

Amalgamated brews only German styles and I think their rauch is deserving of mention here. Rauchs are beers where the malts are dried in a way that they pick up the smoke flavor, usually from beechwood. The brew I tried on Saturday was outstanding. It was a deep brown and had a moderate smoke aroma. On the palate, it wasn't as thick as Schlenkerla, the standard-bearer for rauchbiers in Germany, and it had less smoky taste which allowed just a hint of hops to come through. I liked this stuff because, while it wasn't as in your face with the smoke as Schlenkerla, it had more than many American rauchbiers I've taste which don't want to drive people off with a flavor that can easily be viewed as overbearing.

Schell's Brewing is celebrating their 150th anniversary and they had their old-timey bus on display.





I caught the folks from our local cable access channel were drinking on the job.





I drank several dunkels at the fest and was a bit disappointed. Barley Island's was one of the best as it had the requisite malty aroma and flavor. Blind Tiger's tasted a bit thin to me but was alright otherwise. The same goes for the one from Old Man River. I liked the chocolatey malt flavor but it was a bit watery. I'm hoping that it wasn't my tongue at fault here. I mean, I tried to be diligent in rinsing my glass and ate the bits of bread to get my palate cleansed.

While my drinking as of late has focused on German styles, it has not been an exclusive relationship. I love beer that has rye in the grain bill because it adds a nice sprightly flavor to the brew. At the Real Ale Tent they were pouring Surly's Surlyfest, a rye lager.(?!) It had a nice citrus aroma with grapefruit hoppiness. And there was the requisite crisp rye finish. Samuel Adams was also serving a rye – an American Rye Ale. It had a deep reddish-brown color with faint hops in the aroma. It had a good malt backbone to go with the hoppy flavor. This was really good stuff and is apparently competing against a Belgian-style IPA for inclusion in the company's line-up. I enthusiastically told the guy who was pouring that the rye ale was the way to go.

The folks at Flat Earth named their porter after the Rush song "Cygnus X-1" so how could this proghead not enjoy it? Indeed, it was very tasty with a coffee aroma and some nice chocolate overtones on the tongue. I went to the O'Fallon's table hoping to try their Hemp-Hop-Rye but was too late so I came away with their Wheach, a wheat beer with peach. This stuff was extremely refreshing. Nice'n'effervescent with peach fruitiness up front but not cloying. I tried the Sahti Finnish farmhouse ale from Vintage here in Madison despite brewmaster Scott Manning trying to get his minions to not serve me. I should say tried it for the first time since it was actually finished instead of sitting in a tank being infused with juniper goodness. I like this stuff. Served cold, it certainly tends more towards sessionability but I still think this would be best served with game. Scotty's sahti and a venison steak sounds optimal.

I stopped in at the Metropolitan table and got a Dynamo Copper Lager. I've had it before and it was great. The guy who poured my beer said he liked my Miskatonic University t-shirt and that he'd named his homebrewing tanks after Elder Gods.(Can a Cthulhu brew be far off?) I also chatted with co-owner Tracy Durst. She was a total sweetheart. Hopefully a trek to their brewery in Chicago is in my near future.

And I just had to try Walter's from the Northwoods Brewpub. Walter's was brewed in Eau Claire until the mid-1980s. I have friends who went to college up there at the time and Walter's was an official sponsor of their fraternity. The stuff is legendary up north. And I have to say that my friends are right – the stuff is awful. Perfect for poor college students or after you've mowed the lawn at the height of summer.





Jackie from The Malt House. I didn't think that The D and I were regular enough visitors there but she recognized us and said hi.

And what would a beer festival be without hop vines?





On the non-beer side, I sampled a trio of meads. I got the blueberry variety from White Winter – which I've had before - and sampled a couple different varieties from the B. Nektar Meadery in Michigan. Their Orange Blossom had a nice floral aroma. At first you taste the honey big time and then a more floral aftertaste kicks in. The vanilla cinnamon was good but the honey was very understated.

All in all it was a good time and I got to try lots of beers that I would never otherwise be able to drink, including a couple oddball styles. Thankfully the rain had stopped by the time the fest started and we had cloud cover for most of the day. I also appreciate the inclusion of FIB's as a food vendor. I love me an Italian beef wet and hot. And I should note that the tasting glass were huge this year. I got some nice pours as the event drew to a close.

I heard that they offered more tickets this year but don't know if that's true. Regardless, the park was packed. Those hearty souls at the front of the line got to stake out their territory with camping chairs leaving the bulk of us without a place to sit since the grass was wet. Perhaps they should consider selling fewer tickets so people have a bit more room. I went over to New Glarus at one point to see if I could sample their gueuze but the line was hellaciously long. It would have stretched into the lake had it not been for a fence.

And what happened to the dunk tank?