"They're just trying to kill you with hops"

Like my current pet peeve is—and here we're definitely talking about First-World problems—over-hopping of craft beer. Hops are a very aromatic, bitter compound and I suspect that they're being used by incompetent brewers to cover up defects in the taste of their produce. I've been trying this experiment lately: If you go into a microbrewery type of place and ask them for their "least-hopped" beer, they either can't even answer the question or they seem pretty seriously taken aback. They're just trying to kill you with hops.

Neal Stephenson

The guy writes great books AND is knowledgeable about beer.

While I continue to hope that the IPA craze will begin to blow over this year, it doesn't look like that's going to happen. I still maintain that the style has jumped the shark. I mean, when breweries change the names of their beers from being ales to IPAs, things have gone too far. Both Flying Dog and Odell waved their magic wands last autumn and suddenly their pale and red ales, respectively, became IPAs: "Flying Dog renamed its Double Dog Double Pale Ale to Double Dog Double IPA earlier this year. Earlier this week, Odell Brewing confirmed that it would rebrand its Red Ale to Runoff Red IPA."

At least that's not as bad as naming your IPA "Mouth Raper" which, although a pretty tasteless name, no doubt stands as truth in advertising.

Sam Adams has a new IPA coming out, if it's not already on shelves, called Rebel IPA. Here's the label:



Notice how the brand's namesake is nowhere to be found. Apparently someone in the marketing department thought the label needed to be buzzword compliant, hence it looks "edgy" and says "IPA" on it. (That and it resembles a certain label by another brewer.)

And check this out:



The "craft" division of MillerCoors is now brewing a session IPA. Who'da thunk it? Recall how Third Shift's first brew was an amber lager. An amber lager and then a session IPA? I think they're copying the Wisconsin Brewing Company's playbook. A regular American IPA and porter can't be far behind.

I see that Sierra Nevada has three new IPAs coming out soon (Harvest Single Hop Mandarina, Nooner Session, and Snow Wit White) and Wisconsin brewers are doing their darnedest to keep up with their West Coast counterparts.







New to the Madison area are Utah's Epic Brewing and Hawaii's Kona Brewing. Kona will be pushing their Backwash pineapple IPA and Gnarly, a macadamia nut Russian imperial stout, on us. Wait. OK, no. Instead they will foist upon us their Big Wave Golden Ale and (gasp!) Longboard Island Lager. How odd for a brewery to begin distribution in a new state with nary a pale ale. They are doomed. Pele will have her imperial IPAs!

Epic, on the other hand, doesn't look to be making that mistake. From what I've seen, they're basically going all-out with most of the craft beer trends in the book - a couple of imperial stouts, multiple IPAs, and saisons – now with more brettanomyces!

Also new to the Madison area is beer from a brew outfit in Waukesha - 4 Brothers. The schtick here is that they offer beer admixtures. Beer is contracted brewed by Sand Creek and then the "blendmaster" puts them together in his lab. Sibling Rivalry contains blonde, brown, and red ales; Relative Madness is a blonde ale mixed with a porter; Prodigal Son features an IPA and a cream ale (you knew there just had to be an IPA here somewhere); and Whipper Snapper is a blend of American wheat, helles, and amber brews. Not sure if that's an amber ale or amber lager, though.

The company's website says the beers are available in Madison at Madison's on King Street while Riley's Wines of the World recently posted a photo of six packs on its Twitter feed.

On the one hand, I am intrigued. There may very well be some good beer to be had here. On the other, this comes across as sheer novelty. Granted, not novelty like a doughnut maple bacon ale, but a novelty nonetheless. Can't barrel age, can't add brett, and perhaps don't want to get involved in the IPA horserace so what do you do? It is certainly a unique selling point.

We can now all sleep easier at night knowing that Corona is going draft. I know there was a big Corona tap handle hole in my liver. The funny part is what Robert Sands, CEO of Constellation Brands and owner of the Corona brand, said:

Think about the craft business, okay? You're talking about tiny little brands that nobody's ever heard of outside their city...

How very odd. No one's ever heard of Sam Adams outside of Boston? No one in Chicago has heard of New Glarus and crosses the Cheddar Curtain just to buy it? Sierra Nevada isn't known outside of Chico? Fat Tire is a secret known only to the friendly folks of Fort Collins? To take a local example, you've got House of Brews that is certainly a tiny little brand that's mostly unknown outside of Madison but it seems to generally be on tap at places that don't even have Bud Light on tap, places that don't have many customers clamoring for Corona in bottles, let alone on draft.

Perhaps because I am not a CEO, I just don't understand Constellation's strategy. The company is not going to get tap handles in craft beer bars. Are they looking to knock off a token craft selection at taverns that are otherwise populated by Miller and Bud taps? If so, then that token craft brew is probably going to be Sam Adams or another craft brew that is certainly well-known outside of their city. I just don't understand what kind of establishments carry tiny little craft brews that would give one up for the chance to put Corona on tap.

Some random observations to finish the post:

1) I had my first Pecatonica beer last month – a Nightfall Lager. It was absolutely terrible. The beer had little body and was cloyingly sweet. It tasted a bit like wort.

2) A fairly recent visit to Trixie's Liquor revealed that they carry House of Brews' Rickhouse Bourbon Barrel Stout, MobCraft's brews, and Hydro Street bombers as well.

3) Ale Asylum will be bottling more this year. In addition to a TBD seasonal, 1 April brings Unshadowed, a weissbier. What happened to Hathaweizen?

4) Karben4 will be bottling in the near future. This is good news as it'd be nice to grab some NightCall to bring home while I'm out shopping.

My Final Beer Post of 2013

I've been sick lately and haven't been drinking much beer. I have also been neglecting new releases and so here are some new and newish beer labels. Some of these are already on store shelves.











I have a bottle of this sitting in my cellar. Are chili-infused beers a new trend? Locally, Capital's Eternal Flame this year is also an imperial stout with chili and The Great Dane had a trio of chili pilsners in the autumn. Perhaps it's just local breweries getting around to adding the capsaicin to brews.







Madison's MobCraft, billed as the world's first crowdsourced brewery, is finally bottling their beers. I've not seen them myself. Do liquor stores carry them yet? Or are they only available at the brewery?



Lakefront is apparently resurrecting their Beer Line label as they brewed a Beer Line barleywine for their 10th anniversary.



Capital continues its decent to the dark side with their third IPA.





Lakefront's My Turn series has really impressed me. The Baltic porter and rauch helles were fantastic. I've got a couple others in my possession waiting to be tasted. Considering that the dunkles is one of my favorite beer styles, I am very excited to try this brew.



A braggot, eh? Interesting. A braggot is a mead-beer hybrid. I've really enjoyed the ones I've had - Viking used to brew a couple of them - so I am looking forward to this one.



A German wheat porter? This is the next entry in Schneider Weisse's Tap X series which features limited edition brews in 750ml bottles. It would appear that the German brewing scene is a-changin'. More below.





The transmogrification of Berghoff continues. I, for one, certainly didn't expect this.



Hey Sam Adams, how about using the Polish name for a Polish beer style? It's Grodziskie, not Grätzer.

Yet the primary name for this beer style must be Grodziskie. The common belief that the Polish language is “difficult” and “exotic” is a troublesome remnant of Prussian colonization policies that sought to eradicate our language and culture. These policies manifested in name changing (applied to place names -- hence, Grodzisk became Graetz -- and people’s names) and banning the use of Polish in education and in public spaces. If you choose to prioritize the German name of Grodziskie and classify it as a German beer style, you will be subscribing to the legacy of colonization and unwittingly re-enacting its symbolic violence in the twenty-first century.

Being of Polish decent, I emailed Sam Adams about this and never heard back. Not even a form email. I guess this isn't surprising since Sam Adams is now a very large company. On the other hand, Scott Manning of Vintage will be changing the name of his brew to Grodziskie next year.





I believe the Generator was bottled earlier this week or last. I shall have to get some when I go to Chicago next month. I brought some of their Magnetron schwarzbier back last month and it is tasty stuff indeed.



To celebrate the 30th anniversary of their pilsner, Schell is coming out with a limited edition variety pack consisting of four beers: the original recipe from 1984, the current iteration, a pils made with rye, and a pils made with a new variety of German hops called Mandarina Bavaria. The Mandarina hop is known for its tangerine flavor. These beers are due in February with a similar celebration of the 30th anniversary of Schell's hefeweizen coming out later in the year.

It would seem that German brewers are adopting new hop varieties like the Mandarina. I found an article called "German brewers hop on to new fruity flavours" which describes the trend:

German small-batch brewers like Schoppe have increasingly used so-called "flavour hops" to impart notes of orange, grapefruit or peach while still following the country's cherished 16th century purity law, which restricts other flavourings.

Until recently, Schoppe had to import special hops from the US, where craft brews have an established niche in the market.

This year, German growers, moving to capitalise on growing demand, harvested the country's first commercial-sized batch of newly developed flavour hop varieties.

I've not yet read anything to indicate that the German equivalents of AB-InBev and MillerCoors are jumping on this bandwagon which means it's still early days. But things are definitely afoot in the German brewing scene. I did find a German pale ale in Chicago but have never seen any of these newer German brews here in Madison.

Robin Shepard of Isthmus has a couple looks ahead to 2014 for the area's brewing scene: Part One and Part Two.

Among the highlights is The Great Dane's Bockfest which will feature 10+ bocks. "Early this past autumn, several of the Great Dane's brewers traveled to Germany for a week of research." Right. I can just imagine the "research" that was done in various biergartens.

Unsurprisingly, Kirby Nelson is committed to a maibock for the spring.

Valkyrie is now distributing in Madison. I noticed a bottle of Rubee in the singles section of Woodman's east a couple of weeks ago and then four-packs last weekend. Unfortunately there was no Hot Chocolate but they did carry War Hammer, a coffee, oatmeal, milk porter; Rubee, their flagship red lager; Big Swede, a Swedish-style imperial stout; and Abby Normal, an abbey tripel.

Last month Shepard reviewed Capital's Dark Voyage which is replacing Hop Cream. In that review it was revealed that Capital will be releasing a white IPA next year. It's unknown whether the new white IPA will come in bombers or be an annual. If the latter, presumably Munich Dark or Special Pilsner is next on the chopping block. That will make four IPAs (plus U.S. Pale Ale, an APA). According to Brian Destree, Capital's brewmaster, IPAs are where it's at. "It's where new sales are, it's the biggest craft beer by style by far, and the fastest area of growth." Presumably we can look forward to Capital brewing a session IPA, a Belgian IPA, an IPL, and whatever the latest iteration of the style is in the near future. I can see it now. Keel Hauled, an IPA brewed with buckwheat and a rare variety of Bulgarian hops that taste like quince and then aged on a bed of cubebs in slivovitz barrels.

I think you could feed a monkey grapefruit for a week and then use its shit in a beer that has "IPA" on the label and the BA crowd would go nuts. "I really love the fecal-citrus aroma!"

Chris Drosner, a.k.a. - The Beer Baron, of the Wisconsin State Journal thinks that the embrace of the IPA by Wisconsin brewers is one of, if not the, top brewing story of 2013. To me, 2013 is the year the IPA jumped the shark. To wit:



Hops added to cider so it has "crisp citrus" notes.



An IPA-style mead.



Whiskey "framed by citrus-laden hop character".



"...it occurred to Ted that he should set out to create the perfect smoker’s complement to his favorite IPA."

Locally, Madison Sourdough has a Hops and Malt "Beer Bread" that has no beer in it. But it does have whole leaf hops and goes well with "a tall glass of India Pale Ale." Ian's Pizza can't be far behind with a Mac & Cheese Hop pie.

Lake Champlain Chocolates made a chocolate bar with hops. Need hoppy condiments? Pompey Mountain has you covered with hop-flavored BBQ sauce, ketchup, and mustard.

When you're drowning in hop gluttony, you'll need to bathe. Luckily you're covered.





Before you head out into the cold, be sure to apply some double IPA lip balm.



All of these are things I'd expect to find in the Archie McPhee catalog next to the St. Gambrinus action figure. This is what the craft beer scene has mutated into? The fetishizing of a subset of a particular ingredient used to add flavor to beer? Craft beer used to be about a fermented grain beverage but now it sometimes feels like it is simply a generic liquid medium for the transmission of alpha acids and citrus notes. Hopefully this trend will not go beyond beer. I'd hate to walk into an Italian restaurant and have the chef proudly proclaim her minestrone the saltiest ever made or that the red sauce was dry-basiled and has one million units of linalool in it.

Hopefully 2014 will be the year that this IPA craze begins to blow over.

Some festivals of note:

The Great Dane's Bockfest is on 4 March.

Capital's Bockfest is on 22 February.

Capital is also throwing a Starkbierfest on 15 March. "Starkbier" is German for "strong beer" and, to my knowledge, refers to bocks of all sorts and their full, malty profile instead of alcohol content. Should be interesting to see what's on tap that day.

Slate Publishes Screed Against American Hop Fetish

Adrienne So critiques hopheads up at Slate with an article called "Against Hoppy Beer". The thrust of the article is thus:

That’s when I realized that I had a problem. In fact, everyone I know in the craft beer industry has a problem: We’re so addicted to hops that we don’t even notice them anymore.

...

Craft brewers’ obsession with hops has overshadowed so many other wonderful aspects of beer.

No doubt hopheads at Beer Advocate have their knickers in a twist now. While not the perfect plea for more/different diversity in the craft beer world, I am happy to see overly hoppy beers get knocked in the press.

Introducing a New Hop Variety. Sort of. Beck's Sapphire

I had a Beck's for the first time in ages a few months ago. It was my first since the conglomerate formerly known as Budweiser started brewing it in St. Louis. (Was the stuff for the U.S. market brewed in Germany prior to this?) I thought that it, like pretty much everything the conglomerate formerly known as Budweiser brews was watery. It certainly had more flavor than Bud but less than I remembered it having.

I thought about this when I heard that Beck's was introducing a beer brewed with a new(ish) variety of German hops called Saphir. I read that it was released in 2002 and is related to Hallertau but has more of a sweet, fruity, citrus-tangerine thing going for it. The hops sounded interesting so I thought I'd brave the waters of Beck's and give it a try.



Things started out promisingly enough as it poured a dark straw color which was a stark contrast to the sleek black bottle. It was clear and filled with bubbles running up. The aroma was good too. It had that nice biscuity smell that's common to pale lagers but there was also a very sweet scent which was partly bready and partly fruity. To my nose the latter was like strawberries. Lurking in the background was a spicy hops scent – what I'd expect from Noble hop, Saphir's ancestors.

The taste had some of the elements you'd expect from a lager like this; it was light on the tongue and had the aforementioned biscuit flavor. But it wasn't crisp and clean. There was this dull, mellow sweetness present that kind of tasted like the strawberries in the aroma. Very odd. Even odder was that, considering this beer was supposed to be featuring a new variety of hops, I really couldn't taste them. Unless, of course, that whole strawberry thing was Saphir fooling me. I certainly could not taste anything akin to tangerine or citrus generally.

Sapphire finished moderately dry and with some mild hop bitterness of the spicy kind.

This isn't an ungodly awful beer but it's certainly not good. I am left wondering where the crisp, clean lager qualities went and why I still have no idea what Saphir hops taste like. I thought the German Hüll melon hop variety was supposed to have strawberry nuances, not Saphir.

Junk food pairing: Japanese rice cracker snack mix but the stuff that has wasabi peas in it.