The latest brew news from Capital notes that we can bid auf wiedersehen to Fest and welcome back Weizen which has been on hiatus for six years. I like Fest but, when I'm at a summer festival on a sunny day in 85 degree weather, it's too heavy. But since my attempt to get Kirby to brew a Kölsch failed, Wild Rice is still in hiding, and I bought some weiss bier glasses recently, Weizen will do just fine.
Capital also reports that they have a radler. I noticed this at their bier garten when I was out there to sample Common Thread. Kirby's version has lemon-lime soda. The stuff is on draught only at the brewery. I personally think this is a great development after my mostly fruitless attempts at getting a bartender to make me one last Sunday at the Wurst Times brat festival. The Brink had no light lagers of any quality on tap so I had to buy bottles and mix my own. Luckily I found that one of the bartenders at the High Noon has a friend from Germany and so he knew what a radler was. I ordered one with New Glarus Totally Naked and 7-Up (or was that Sprite?). Very refreshing.
A look at some (potentially) forthcoming beers in bottles.
<
I can't find a description of Outboard but I presume this will be a lighter summer brew that one would take out on the lake fishing. Weekend @ Louie's is their Louie's Demise amber ale with Rishi’s Organic Blueberry Rooibos and Hibiscus teas thrown in. I am keen on quaffing this stuff.
And Leine's is looking at releasing a weiss. From the looks of this label, the process isn't far along. It's more like a placeholder.
A little over a week ago Wisconsin craft brewing was featured at manufacturing.net in an article called "The Ruling Glass". There wasn't a boatload of information here that I didn't already know but there were a few things.
For instance, I didn't know that Tom Porter was no longer the brewmaster at Lake Louie. To wit: "Tim Wauters is now the brewmaster for Lake Louie but was once a historian for Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry." When did this happen? I found what followed interesting.
Wauters brings a historian’s eye to the craft of beermaking, and has created some unique brews. Lake Louie’s popular Kiss the Lips — an IPA — is more complex than it may first appear.
IPAs were originally developed in the late eighteenth century in order to provide what were deemed necessary beer rations to British troops stationed in India. A higher alcohol content and extra hops meant added stability for beers, which could then be shipped to India without risking spoilage.
“We don’t do really hoppy beers,” says Porter, “but we wanted to try an IPA, so I said, ‘if we’re going to do this, how would we do it?’” Wauters researched the conditions under which the first IPAs would have been developed — water quality in the region, varieties of hops available — and replicated these conditions as closely as possible to create what could quite possibly be the most authentic modern IPA on the market.
Two things. First, I think it's neat that Kiss the Lips was brewed to replicate some 18th century progenitor of the style instead of being another iteration of the West Coast IPA. Second, did Wauters supply the piece's author with that history of the IPA or was that researched separately? To my mind Martyn Cornell and Ron Pattinson have done away with those myths.
The article notes "a few macro trends are emerging" in the microbrew scene:
- Sour beers
- Barrel-aged beers
- Food-influenced beers made with spices
- Imperial brews with high alcohol content
- Packaging in cans
I really hope that the "food-influenced beers made with spices" refers to beers brewed with ginger root, for example, as opposed to shit like Mamma Mia! Pizza Beer. (Or did that have only herbs in it?) I've noticed all of these trends except this food-influenced one. Sure, I have seen the occasional brew with spices such as Knot Stock and Vintage's ginger concoction, but the trend has eluded me. Perhaps I just haven't been looking hard enough. I have, however, seen various beers with fruits and vegetables in them sitting in my refrigerator. The Whistle Stop Brewery has a carrot wheat IPA which I found tasty and I have a bottle of their jalapeno blonde ale waiting to be quaffed. They also make brews with strawberries, raspberries, and coconut.
I'll let Jeff Glazer do the bitching about how Wisconsin brewers are falling behind these trends.
No comments:
Post a Comment