Northern Lights – Southern Shore: Northern Lights Ale by South Shore Brewery

After Ryan Urban, the illustrious editor of the Barron News-Shield, left a comment on one of my posts, I thought that my next beer purchase should be something from up north. He had mentioned Earth Rider's North Tower stout in his comment so I figured I'd get some of their brew to sample, at least to start. I don't know if there was a supply chain shortage or what, but I found absolutely no beer there from the Superior brewery. However, there was plenty of beer from Ashland's South Shore Brewery, 65 miles to the east of Superior, to be had. Definitely up north.

South Shore has been around since 1995 making it part of the old guard of microbrewing here in Wisconsin. Over the years it seems like its availability here in Madison has come and gone. It'd be in coolers down here for a stretch and then disappear. A couple years later it would reappear as if by magic. I don't recall the last time this revenant brand returned to these parts but it has been here for a while now, it seems. Unfortunately, the Woodman's here on the east side only carries their nut brown ale and stout so I must go elsewhere for their other flavors.

Last year I thoroughly enjoyed their nut brown ale and I've sampled their stout so I sought out something new. There was a mix 12-pack with the nut brown, a Wisconsin pale ale, a cream ale, and pilsner. I think it was that configuration, anyway. I got scared at the prospect of a pale ale in my refrigerator giving rise to a tropical fruit miasma which would infect all of the other beers and make them taste like Hawaiian Punch so I opted for a six-pack of Northern Lights, that cream ale.

Billed as a cream ale with herbs, I was intrigued. I like a good gruit and so I was inclined to find out what the folks at South Shore had come up with to replace or complement hops.

Cream ales are all around light. They are pale in color, they are easy on the palate with a bit of grain taste, usually with corn, and just a smidge of hops for some balance. Maybe a little fruitiness from the yeast but generally very lager-like. This being the case, I expected the herbs to be more than subtle background accents. How herby would this stuff be?

I've read that the cream ale evolved as a response to the popularity to American pale lagers. "We've gotta get in on this fizzy yellow stuff action," sayeth the mid-19th century brewers in America. Northern Lights fits the bill. It was clear and a brilliant yellow topped with a head of white, loose foam. And it had staying power. It looked fizzy too with a fair number of bubbles to been seen inside the glass.

The beer had a very mild citrus scent along with something that I thought might be ginger. But ginger is a spice and not a herb, right? Or is South Shore using "herbs" as a catch-all for non-hoppy seasoning? While it may not have been ginger, it had a mild peppery pungency just like ginger. My nose also caught something minty. Juniper? Was there hyssop in this stuff?

As expected, Northern Lights had a light body and a good, solid fizziness to it. It tasted much like it smelled with a gingery flavor that reminded me of the ginger lager from Herbiery. And there was something minty along with what I thought was sage. As the beer warmed, a mild grainy sweetness emerged as swell as a floral aspect. The sweetness and the ginger/minty combo lasted into the finish and gently faded to allow just the barest hints of dryness and bitterness to emerge.

While I liked this beer, I find myself ambivalent about it, mainly because of the ginger taste. That flavor in beer just comes across to me rather dully like a Schweppes ginger ale and my brain keeps wondering why it doesn't have that sharp, zesty zing to it like a Goslings or Reed's ginger beer. It tastes OK but something seems missing. Beyond this, I really enjoyed the other flavors here, especially that floral taste that came out as the brew warmed up a little. Outside of the herbs, the beer was light and easy going with a bit of crisp bite to it.

A good side step from the norm.

Junk food pairing: Northern Lights will pair well with other herb-flavored foods such as dill pickle popcorn, which I highly recommend.

Ole and Sven went fishing one day...**: Outboard by Milwaukee Brewing Company

I've known of Evinrude outboard motors for a long time as my father had one when I was a boy that powered the boat on our ventures on Sissabagama Lake during our summers up north. But I had no idea that the brand was named after one Ole Evinrude until c. 2009 when I saw Bob Jacobson's book Ole Evinrude and His Outboard Motor for sale at the Wisconsin Historical Museum. I was also unaware until just a few minutes ago that this Bob Jacobson is the same Bob Jacobson who plays trumpet in Madison's finest Herb Alpert/Al Hirt tribute band, Hirt Alpert. Go see them at the Orton Park Festival this weekend for the rockingest version of "Java" around.

Evinrude was a Norwegian immigrant who spent some time here in Madison before making his way to Milwaukee where he would invent the outboard motor or, at least, the first one that worked well enough to go into production. It's no surprise that Milwaukee Brewing Company pays tribute to the man that fisherpeople and water skiers the world round venerate as they have a reputation for naming their beers after all things Milwaukee. See, for instance, Polish Moon or Increase Wheat.

Overboard is a cream ale and I took a tentative step into investigating the style back in June as the weather was getting hotter and I found myself thinking, "I wonder what other lighter beers would go well in this heat besides a Kid Kölsch or a Bubbler?" The cream ale was invented in the 19th century by American brewers who found themselves losing customers who were increasingly refreshing themselves with those new-fangled pilsners. Insofar as it mimics the pils by being light and crisp, the cream ale sounds like a good fit for summer drinking. The wild card for me is the corn.

We Americans put corn in some form or another into just about everything. And I don't mean just all types of foods either. It's even in our gasoline so we can support a monoculture at the same time we support global climate change. The cream ale generally has corn in it too. I am ambivalent about the use of corn in beer. It makes everything about a brew lighter – color, body, taste. But, to my tongue, it also gives a beer a slight sweetness that I don't care for the taste of. Maybe it's just some part of my brain overriding input from my tongue and brewers are able to put this flavor I don't particularly care for into beer by other means. I am not a supertaster who can detect a single corn kernel in a glass of beer and be sent into fits of apoplexy. Corn in moderation is fine but there is a limit the exact percentage of which is unknown to me that is just a step too far for my taste. 

It sounds like Outboard has been brewed for a while and has had its formula tweaked through the years. It became a year-round offering back in 2014. 

Outboard is a lovely hazy yellow although the head on my pour was lacking. Just a little loose white foam. Does corn do something to the proteins to subdue the foam? I spied lots of bubbles inside my glass. The aroma was dominated by a strawberry-like fruitiness with a mild grain scent behind it.

The first thing I noticed when I took a sip was that it was rather smooth tasting. I generally think of oats adding smoothness to a beer but perhaps corn does as well. As expected, it had a light body. There was a medium fizziness beside some light grain and that berry-like fruitiness that my nose caught earlier. I tasted just a faint bit of that sweetness that I, rightly or wrongly, attribute to corn. On the swallow there was a tad of lingering grain along with a mild hoppy bitterness that had a grassy kind of taste. A little dryness was to be had as well which seemed to largely be from the fizz.

As far as being a summer brew, Outboard really hit the spot with its overall light touch that balanced a smidge of grain here with a dollop of fruitiness there. While not as crisp as a pils, it still leaned in the direction of its arch enemy. I wasn't expecting that berry kind of taste but it was gentle and welcome. Plus I was pleased that I didn't get much of that corny flavor. Overall this is just a tasty, refreshing beer and a welcome addition to my Aestival Beer Arsenal™ .

Junk food pairing: I say go full Milwaukee with your Outboard and grab a bag of potato chips from the Milwaukee Chip Company, a new face on the local junk food scene.

**...in a rented boat and were catching fish like crazy. Ole said, "We better mark this spot so we can come back and catch more fish." Sven then proceeded to mark the bottom of the boat with a large 'X'. Ole asked him what he was doing, and Sven told him he was marking the spot so they could come back tomorrow to catch more fish. Ole said, "Ya big dummy, how do ya know ve are going to get da same boat tomorrow?"

Where Apiology Meets Zymurgy: Bee's Knees Honey Cream Ale by Vintage Brewing Company

There was a stretch earlier this year when I was investigating blonde ales as I was anticipating the weather getting warmer and I had to find some tasty springtide beers to see me through until New Glarus' Kid Kölsch became available closer to summer. OK, this isn't wholly true as I do drink more than Kid Kölsch during the summer months but it is a majestically tasty beer by all objective standards. It is also true that I was looking to find something that wasn't a blonde ale nor a Kölsch yet delicious, light-bodied, and, to my mind, appropriate for warmer weather. So I went for a style I drink infrequently yet seemed to fit the bill: cream ale.

The humble cream ale is really quite popular here in Wisconsin despite the style not having an "I" or the word "India" in it. The taxonomic experts of the internet tell me that New Glarus' Spotted Cow falls into the cream ale category and they sell a shit ton of that stuff. (I suppose this means that the cream ale is also popular in Illinois.) Having read a bit about the style, I now realize just how apropos it is to describe Spotted Cow, as many do, as a kind of introductory craft beer for folks accustomed to American macro lagers like Bud, Miller, and Coors. From what I've read, American brewers developed the cream ale in the mid-19^th century in reaction to the burgeoning popularity of pilsners brewed by an increasing number of German immigrants and their kin.

Honestly, I had no idea that the cream ale is indigenous to the United States although the thought would have occurred to me sooner or later had I bothered to cogitate upon the matter for a while. Had I done so, I don't think it would have taken too long for me to realize there isn't a Samuel Smith's Cream Ale nor a Bitburger Sahne Obergäriges Lagerbier. The cream ale is a light beer generally brewed with some corn or perhaps rice to help give the beer a light body just like American lagers. Being top fermented, it's an ale but cream ales are often lagered so it's an ale because that's American brewing for you. Aging makes the fruity flavors go away and you're left with a nice malt-hop balance.

On a recent trip to the liquor store, I opted for Bee's Knees, a honey cream ale from Vintage Brewing here in Madison (and Sauk too). It is available in cans as well as on tap at its various locations.

In addition to honey, there's also oats in Bee's Knees to further the beer's retreat from the style's conventions as brewmaster Scott Manning likes to mess with things because it is in his nature to do so.

Bee's Knees looks a lovely a gold and my pour had a frothy, slightly off-white head that lasted a long while. This auric elixir had just a touch of haze to it and there were bubbles to be seen inside. I smelled that sweet-savory, vanilla-like honey aroma right away. Malty sweetness was fairly prominent while bread and a bit of grass made up the rest of the aroma.

I wish I knew more about honey to be able to give you some more info like its variety, terroir, and whatnot but that is beyond me. This is a shame because honey is in my blood. Back in the Middle Ages, Germans and Slavs led the world in honey production and German and Slavic make up most of my ethnic heritage.

Some interesting honey trivia: I am used to talking about and eating foods that are native to the Americas and there are lots of tasty things out there that I am privileged to eat only because Columbus got lost. E.g. – maize, tomatoes, chilies, potatoes, etc. Rarely am I cognizant of the opposite situation but we have one right here. While there were honey bees in the Americas when our intrepid explorer made landfall in the Bahamas, they did not live in North America. The honey bees found to the south have, shall we say, more catholic tastes in nectar than their European cousins. These bees are happy to collect "nectar", so to speak, from sources most bees dare not tread such as corpses and poop. Their honey must be quite extraordinary and has surely been eagerly gobbled up at one of those legendary Explorers Club dinners, perhaps as part of a glaze to a wooly mammoth roast.

No doubt Vintage acquired their honey from a more mundane source.

Honey was also the first thing that my tongue noticed – that earthy vanilla kind of flavor. There was some malt along with a little corn but it wasn't particularly sweet. All of this was complemented by a really nice herbal hoppiness. There's a was a firm fizz to be had and I tasted a smoothness underneath it which was likely from the oats. The hops took a turn towards the peppery for the finish and left a little bitterness to go with some lingering corn taste.

Despite Bee's Knees, as Neil Peart would have said, deviating from the norm with oats and honey, it still had a medium-light body with the oats adding a little something more to it. The barley, oats, corn, and hops were all in their proper places to create a balanced flavor. 16 I.B.U.'s of hops and a nice fizz helped give Bee's Knees a pleasant crispness. But what really endeared me to this beer, besides its Flapper era name, was the honey and the herbal hop flavor. I really enjoy honey in beer because it provides a flavor that is mainly earthy and savory but has just a hint of the sweetness it used to have before the sugars were eaten by the yeast. And the herbal hop flavor is something of a rarity these days and I just find it to be ever so tasty.

Junk food pairing: pair Bee's Knees with a bag of Thai Sweet Chili potato chips. Both the sweetness and the spicy chili will provide a delicious contrast to the mellow, easy going cream ale.