What's a Midwest IPA?
While I think it had to do with the style's maltiness, I don't recall exactly.
Now, I realize that there are people on the coasts who think of everything between California and New York as this big, nebulous wasteland that is "Flyover Country". With such an attitude, I suspect that a fair number of journalists would be on the dole if unable to pen articles for all the sophistos that read the New York Times about their surprise at discovering we Midwesterners have coffee shops, fancy restaurants, hot yoga studios, and the other hallmarks of civilization.
But the Midwest is a sizable chunk of land. Chicago is a metropolis that dwarfs any other city in the region (and most others in the country) while elsewhere vast tracts of land are given over to corn. Surely being in close proximity to a Great Lake makes for a different ortgeist than what you find if you're smack dab in the middle of the Great Plains. Thinking (yet again) about regional beer specialties, I have to wonder if the Midwest is just too large for there to be a Midwestern style of beer.
Whether or not there is such a thing, I do feel that it's easier to make a case for Upper Midwestern beer specialties. And since I live in Wisconsin, I approach this issue with a distinct bias and people in Minnesota and Michigan and whatever else counts as the Upper Midwest will likely have some areas of disagreement with me. For my tongue, there are a few types of beers that just seem emblematic of the Upper Midwest generally and very Wisconsinesque specifically.
First there are cranberry beers. To the best of my knowledge, Wisconsin still leads the nation in cranberry production which gives New Glarus' Cran-bic and Cranberry Gose by Third Space a rather distinct Wisconsin identity and authenticity. Next are beers made with maple syrup. Yeah, those folks in the Northeast boil a lot more sap than we do but Wisconsin and Michigan still produce a fair amount of the arboreal treat. These brews seem to come and go and I am unaware of any Wisconsin breweries that produce a maple syrup beer with any regularity. The only brew of this kind that comes readily to mind is Lake Louie's Maple Surple, a brown ale with maple syrup. However, I recall O'so having brewed something with maple sap at some point in the not too distant past.
A hundred years ago Wisconsin led the nation in hemp production and so I think of hemp beers as being something of a regional specialty. Smokin' Hemp Porter by La Crosse's Pearl Street Brewery is the only one that I have encountered but it's tasty. I would suggest that there should be more hemp beer brewed in Wisconsin.
Lastly and most relevant to this post is wild rice beer. While some wild rice is produced here in Wisconsin, Minnesota rules the roost when it comes to cultivating this food. Wild rice it is not really rice, but rather a distant cousin of the stuff that we get in mass quantities when we order Chinese food. Botanists call it Zizania palustris and tell me that it is native to the Great Lakes area of the Upper Midwest. You just can't get any more regional specialty than that.
When I was developing a taste for microbrews back in the day, Capital brewmaster Kirby Nelson would make a wild rice lager every so often and I immediately adored this brew from the first sip. And then it seemed that ever more time would go by between appearances of this tasty elixir. He brewed it in 2009 and within a few short years he was at Wisconsin Brewing Company and I never heard of him brewing with wild rice at his new home until just recently. Doing a bit of internet sleuthing reveals that WBC has, in fact, brewed at least a couple wild rice beers - including a bock with Working Draft Brewing - but they appear to have been very limited releases and were never canned/bottled.
In November, WBC released their Bock Wild, a wild rice bock. This, as you can see, was canned but I have only seen it at one retail outlet – Brennan's Market. Perhaps it is slowly making its way through distribution channels as I haven't seen it Woodman's East and a friend saw neither hide nor hair of it at Woodman's West. Harumph.
The can's label notes that this fruity component comes from the additive here. I don't recall any of Capital's wild rice beers having a fruitiness like this nor any other such beers I've drunk having it either. Wild rice is known for its nutty aroma and flavor which are created during the parching (i.e. – roasting) process. The freshly harvested seeds are also left in piles to ripen and they are also cured so between these three processes, I suppose various aromas and flavors can be brought out of the rice including ones that are redolent of berries. Who knows. Perhaps the flavor here is just the result of some fine Minnesota terroir.
My tongue was greeted by a nice, medium fizziness upon first sip. There was a big berry-like flavor right up front with a herbal/peppery kind of hop taste there too. That nutty flavor that I crave so much came in mid-palate, I guess you'd say. (i.e. - I didn't notice it right away.) Some malt sweetness lurked underneath everything and gave it a medium body. And the fizz produced a moderate astringency.
The malt and wild rice flavors faded at the end leaving a not insignificant herbal hoppiness which lent the finish a firm bitterness and similar dose of dryness.
This is a really tasty beer. That berry fruitiness threw me off, at first, because I simply adore the nutty flavor of the wild rice so much and expect it to stand out. But as I continued to sip, the berry mixed with the malty tastes letting that toasted, nutty flavor stand out more. The rather dry finish made for a nice contrast with the grain and grass.
Junk food pairing: Bock Wild is a special treat for this season so pair it with something equally special. Grab some Nut-Thins and apply Cheddar Easy Cheese liberally.
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