What's In a Beer Name Anyway?

I recently came across the new label design for Great Lakes Brewing Company's Edmund Fitzgerald Porter. In contrast to the previous one, the picture looks more foreboding, more perilous, which it certainly was for the ship and its crew on that day in 1975 when it sank. Regardless of the label's exact appearance, I have always appreciated the Great Lakes/Upper Midwestern reference. Our world is becoming increasingly homogeneous and I appreciate things that are local and idiosyncratic - reflective of the place from which they originate, even if it's something simple like a beer name or label. Those of us in the middle of the country do not need to follow each and every trend from the coasts.

Great Lakes Brewing took a regional outlook when naming their porter. The Edmund Fitzgerald went down in Lake Superior in either Michigan or Canadian waters, I cannot recall which, not in Lake Erie on Cleveland's north side. Nonetheless, seeing the label got me thinking about beer labels that celebrate place, that do a little something to illustrate the ortgeist of the brewery's community. 

I suspect that I initially noticed this kind of thing several years ago with Goose Island before they were absorbed by the A-B InBev Borg. They offered 312 Urban Wheat and Green Line Pale Ale.

312 is the area code for downtown Chicago while Green Line is one of the L train lines which apparently ran near the original Goose Island location. 

As for Wisconsin labels, it seems that many a brewery draws on imagery from the state. Northwoods Brewpub has, for example, Wall-I-PA named after the fish popular in northern parts of the state, although it is found in the northern part of the U.S. generally. New Glarus has the ubiquitous Spotted Cow, Back 40, Uff Da, and probably others. However, I don't believe New Glarus has ever had a beer named after something or someone from New Glarus and I am unaware of any Northwoods brews that owe their names to Osseo or its previous home, Eau Claire. Of breweries that take that kind of hyperlocal naming to heart, Milwaukee Brewing Company is first to my mind. Well, perhaps not their labels exclusively, but also their packaging.

For instance there was Increase Wheat.

It was named after Increase Lapham who moved to Milwaukee in 1836 and cataloged the plants in the area and the shells he found on the shores of Lake Michigan. He founded the Wisconsin Natural History Association and was Chief Geologist of the State of Wisconsin for a time.

Another one of their beers that comes readily to mind is their milk stout, Polish Moon, which is the nickname of the Allen-Bradley clock tower on Milwaukee's south side which was heavily Polish.

More recently the design for MKE IPA feature the "People's Flag of Milwaukee", presumably a response to the city's official flag which is rather busy and gaudy.

Also from Milwaukee is Lakefront's Eastside Dark which features the gothic stylings of the North Point Water Tower.

A bit west of Milwaukee in Lake Mills is the Tyranena Brewing Company. They do a good job of reflecting Wisconsin in their beer names and labels. But they also aren't afraid to showcase the Lake Mills area. For instance, there was Stone Teepee Pale Ale whose label featured the supposed stone pyramids in Rock Lake which is on the west side of town.

The Madison area doesn't seem to exactly have a surfeit of beers with names that relate to it. We do, however, have Ale Asylum's Madtown Nut Brown.

Now why Burke and Hare seem to be on the label is beyond me. Or is there some Madison lore depicted on it of which I am unaware?

Wisconsin Brewing has Badger Club, which is named after the official state animal, and Boom Run, a nod to the lumber industry - up north. Capital Brewery has Supper Club in honor of the state's unique culinary establishment.

On the other hand, Great Dane's German Pils was, I believe, once known as Verrückte Stadt, i.e. - Mad Town. Peck's Pilsner is named after the proprietor of Madison's first public house, Rosaline Peck. Rockhound Brewing (R.I.P.) had Greenbush Pale Ale, named after the neighborhood they resided in.

The Madison area's four lakes, State Street, the "lost city" of Lake Forest, flamingos, Frank Lloyd Wright**, the Capitol, et al provide plenty of fodder for beer monikers. But Madison area breweries generally eschew the local when it comes to beer names and labeling. Or is there some kind of Babcock beer with lactose that I've simply never seen? A hibiscus brew with pink flamingos on the label that has escaped me? Am I completely missing beer upon beer named after local places and people?

**My understanding is that Madison's House of Brews (R.I.P.) tried to use something FLW-related in a beer name and discovered his family was not keen on this.

One From the Vine: Calm Radler by Goose Island Beer Company

Now that the temperatures outside have begun to resemble Hades, I tend to look for lighter brews and so often indulge in radlers (and shandies too). The radler is, to my mind, a 50/50isih mix of a light lager and citrus-flavored soda. The legend has it that one Franz Xaver Kugler, a Bavarian innkeeper was beset upon by a horde of bicyclists one June day in 1922 and he began to cut his bier with lemon soda to quench the thirsts of the sweaty, unwashed masses. The German Beer Institute says of the incident, "...some 13,000 cyclists descended upon the Kugleralm and demanded beer. They almost depleted Franz Xaver's stock of brew."

If 13,000 thirsty cyclists couldn't drink Herr Kugler out of bier – even cutting it with soda – just how much bier did this guy have on hand? We're talking the population of Stoughton. He must have had a billion hectoliters. This guy could literally have supplied an army with bier.

Ever since Leinenkugel hit the jackpot with Summer Shandy, many microbrewers have jumped on the bandwagon. I recall asking bartenders at the High Noon and Glass Nickel to mix me a radler on hot summer days 4-5 years ago and was met with a blank look each time. My guess is that things are different today and that the radler is not quite the unknown quantity that it was at that time.

The problem is that American brewers tend to add some flavoring to a light beer whether it be a helles lager or a wheat ale and call it a shandy or radler. (To me, a shandy is beer with ginger beer.) But you mix a shandy/radler, you don't brew it – like a beer cocktail. If your shandy/radler is 4%+ A.B.V. and you have "natural flavor", you're doing it wrong.

The gold standard for radlers to my taste is Stiegl's Grapefruit Radler. It is light, fizzy, and has a great balance of grainy lager goodness and tart-sweet grapefruit soda. And it's 2% A.B.V.

Which brings me to Goose Island's Calm Radler. Calm Radler is the second beer in Goose Island's Fulton & Wood series of limited edition brews this year. (To be bottled?) The first was the excellent Rasselbock. Now, it comes in at a very radler-like 3.0% A.B.V. but it is described as a wheat ale with "natural flavors" added. In this case there is cucumber, mint, and lime. Quite a variation on the traditional radler.

Calm poured a slightly hazy light yellow. I suppose the haze comes from the wheat. Sadly my glass was again afflicted with dishwasheritis or some such thing because bubbles again clung to the side of my glass. The pisser is that I washed it by hand in an apparently vain attempt to avoid this. Curses! Foiled!

I got a medium-sized head that was pure white and faded quickly. In addition to the accursed bubbles on the side of my glass, there were quite a few further in making their way up.

After having had a cucumber Kölsch from Flat12 Bierwerks in Indy a few years back at the Great Taste, I became of fan of cucumber in beer. Here the aroma was of cucumber, mint, and lime and in that order of strength. It certainly smelled refreshing.

As on the nose, so in the taste. Calm has a big cucumber taste while the mint was no slouch either. And the lime trailed in a rather distant third. It was nice'n'fizzy with a soda-like level of carbonation. But it was also endowed with a lot of sweetness – to the point of being cloying. There was so much sugar here that what must have been a very light beer ended up with a medium body.

Calm finished with the sweetness deciding not to go anywhere and instead keep a slowly fading mix of cucumber and mint company. There was no Schaumhaftvermoegen.

The bottle said that there were "hints" of cucumber, mint, and lime. While the lime have been available in hints, the cucumber and mint most certainly were not. They were not accents - they were up front and in your face. I am not a huge fan of mint, but it did complement the cucumber well. It also helps that all of these flavors tasted fairly fresh and real as opposed to some kind of extract. But there is just too much sweetness here. Drink this stuff very cold to cut down on the syrupy taste.

Junk food pairing: Pair Calm Radler with some junk food from the Orient like an Oriental/Asian snack mix. The puffed rice bits will keep your mouth from being mired down in heavy textures while the flecks of seaweed go well with the mint. Another option is wasabi/soy sauce almonds. The wasabi is sharp enough to cut through the sugar while the soy adds a hearty dose of umami.

A Presumptuous Pils: Four Star Pils by Goose Island Beer Company

I think this may be my first review of a non-Fulton & Wood beer from Goose Island, the venerable Chicago subsidiary of the Belgian brewing leviathan A-B InBev. Goose Island's annuals and seasonals don't get a whole lot of press – at least in the outlets that I read. Their Bourbon County beers and their sours seem to garner the vast majority of the hype with brews like 312 and Green Line getting the occasional mention which usually is about how they tasted better when they were brewed in Chicago.

Ten or so years ago I'd buy Goose Island down in Chicagoland when I was heading to a gaming get-together down there. By the time they'd rid themselves of their last year-round lager, there was Metropolitan which quickly became my Chicago beer of choice. While I had tasted their sours and probably had the odd 312, it wasn't until I heard that they had brewed a (great) dunkel roggenbock this past winter that I decided to actually seek out a Goose Island beer.

And then the brewery decided to introduce a pilsner into their year-round line-up with Four Star Pils hitting Madison shelves back in February, if memory serves. I heard that Four Star was less traditional pilsner and more India Pale Lager with fruity/floral American hops replacing German varieties/Saaz. But I decided to find out for myself…

Four Star poured a lovely pale golden hue and was clear. I really, really wished that I'd had my pilsner glasses around because I got a nice big head that was a brilliant white. It was a little stiffer and less creamy than the ones I've gotten from the other pilsners I've had lately. Similarly, it was also a bit more effervescent than the other pilsners that have graced my glass lately as there was a goodly number of bubbles inside the beer itself. Yeah, this would have looked fantastic in a pilsner glass.

So far, so pils-like. Would it smell like an IPA?

It did and it didn't. The very first aroma my nose caught was that of bread – lightly toasted and not doughy and sweet. Well, there was a little malty sweetness but not very much. And then there were the hops which were very floral but not overpowering. I suppose that this is as good a time as any to mention that the beer I drank was bottled on 26 February. While not the freshest beer, it was certainly not past its prime. Having said this, I would be surprised if fresher 4 Star didn't have a more prominent hop smell to it.

One thing which I really liked about Four Star is that I tasted more carbonation than the other pilsners of my current run of reviews. It just had a very lively fizziness and a little bite too. Four Star also had a medium-light body which was just a tad heavier than those other pilsners. This came through as a wonderful light breadiness in the taste that was clean and toasty instead of sweet. On the hop front there was a big old school grassy flavor that I presume came from the Mt. Hood. But there were also hops nouveau in the form of Equinox and Meridian which contributed a modicum of floral flavor as well as a lot of tropical fruitiness.

Four Star finished more traditionally with grassy hop flavor and bitterness taking over for a very dry ending. Again, unlike the pilsners I've reviewed over the past week or so, Four Star stood out by leaving streaks of foam all over my glass.

I am ambivalent about beers like this, specifically blending grassy/herbal hops with those that have floral and fruit flavors. False Dichotomy, the Two Brothers/Metropolitan collaboration went this route and was, to my taste, difficult to get my tongue around. While I don't think such pairings are unnatural, they simultaneously taste good and unappealingly incongruent. Perhaps I simply need to drink more of them to move beyond the gustatory dissonance.

Having said this, I think Four Star generally does a nice job of reconciling the various hop flavors. Perhaps this is because it is not as big of a beer as False Dichotomy. In addition to having less alcohol (it's 5.1% A.B.V.), it also has less hop intensity. Maybe my tongue can handle the contrasting flavors better when they are less stark.

In the end, I enjoyed Four Star quite a bit. It had a nice, clean toasty malt base which allowed the hop medley to strut its stuff. Arguably it is an IPL or American Nova-Pils with the floral and fruit flavors from the Meridian and Equinox hops. Anyone going into this thinking they're going to get a traditional Noble hop experience is going to be in for a surprise.

Junk food pairing: Pair Four Star Pils with Lay's Greektown Gyro potato chips. Dip them in tzatziki sauce should you have some.

The Cryptozoological Brew: Rasselbock by Goose Island Beer Company

Chicago's Goose Island is one of the elder statesmen of craft brewing having opened back in 1988 as a brewpub. So the uproar when the brewery became a subsidiary of A-B InBev back in 2011 was hardly surprising. Some people vowed never to buy their beer again as Goose Island had "sold out" to the enemy, it had abandoned its hometown. As far as I can tell today, very few people care about who owns Goose Island as long as there is Bourbon County Stout to be had. Never having been a big consumer of GI's beer, I can't say whether their brews have gotten worse since the sellout but I've heard commentary that beers no longer brewed in Chicago just don't taste as good, such as 312. On the other hand, the consensus is that the Bourbon County line remains top-notch.

And so, while I'm strictly unqualified to judge whether GI's beers have gotten better or worse since becoming a subsidiary of a Belgian mega-corporation, I am going to judge the latest release in their Fulton & Wood series.

Fulton & Wood beers are experiments. They are chances for GI folks to flex their creative muscles. From what I can tell the series began back in 2012 and has evolved into an exercise for everyone in the company. What may have begun as a chance for brewers to get away from the IPA routine has become something involving accountants, marketing people, and so on in addition to brewers. A bit like Lakefront's My Turn series, I suppose, but more collaborative, perhaps.

I recently purchased a six-pack of Rasselbock as the words "German style Dark, Rye, Wheat beer" caught my attention. Sehr interessant. A dunkel roggenbock, eh? I had to try it.

While rasselbock sounds like a long-lost style of bier, it is, in fact, the name of the rabbit-like creature out of German (Bavarian?) folklore on the label with horns, wings, and fangs. It's the bearded Spock of jackalopes.

I felt a bit like Benedict Arnold drinking this bier as I simply adore Vintage Brewing's Tippy Toboggan, the only other roggenbock of which I am aware. Tippy is one of my favorite biers of all-time so I am hoping that Vintage brewmaster Scott Manning never reads these words.

My bottle was filled last month on the 19th so it was reasonably fresh when the bier made its way into my glass. Rasselbock pours a deep, dark chestnut. Maneuvering my glass as best I could, it appeared to be clear. I also spied a goodly number of bubbles inside making their way up to a firm, tan head that stuck around for a good, long time.

The label didn't lie: the pungent aroma was full of banana as well as some clove. The yeast used here is from Weihenstephan, a Bavarian brewery known for its weissbiers. Rasselbock smells magnificent. Those phenolic/estery scents were prominent in the taste. Again, I found banana to be stronger with the clove in a more supporting role although clove moved towards the fore as the bier warmed. The carbonation added a touch of dryness as did the rye which added its usual tasty earthy/spiciness. I also tasted a little vanilla, just a smidgen of caramel sweetness, and a hint of roasted grain.

For the finish Rasselbock cleaned itself up and allowed some spicy/grassy hop bitterness and flavor through to end things on a rather dry note. My glass was left with some nice Schaumhaftvermoegen as broad streaks lined most of the interior.

As Darth Vader once said, impressive. The banana and clove flavors from the yeast are simply juicy and piquant yet allow plenty of room for the malty flavors, which range from earthy to sweet, to come through. Rasselbock uses Midnight Wheat which lends color to beer, but alas, it adds precious little roasted grain flavor, which I was hoping to taste. Can't have everything. The bier is 6.8% A.B.V. and has a medium body so it's got some heft yet it's not cloying or heavy.

Junk food pairing: I find that roggenbiers go very well with pretzels, especially pumpernickel pretzels. If you can't find any, go with warm soft pretzels dipped in a sharp processed cheese food sauce.