Beer is tasty, December 2025 edition

The Robin Room is a nice little place. Set in a small storefront on the 800 block of E. Johnson, I found it to be warm and comfortable when I met someone there for a couple drinks and a chinwag earlier this month. It felt as if I could turn around and see a roaring fireplace behind me yet there was only a bar there. Our little table proved to be quite cozy, the perfect setting for the intimate conversation we had. And I found it to not be overly trendy. The Surly Hell was tasty and my company was magnificent.

I heard recently that The Borough Beer Co. & Kitchen had closed. Now I see that it happened back in the summer. Black Rose Blending is also no more, it says here. This is further evidence that I am quite out of touch with the Madison craft brew scene. Neither of these businesses folding had quite the impact of, say, Ale Asylum closing its doors but, coupled with no new breweries opening (I think), demonstrates that the craft beer industry ain't what it used to be in these parts.

And now Yuengling shall be expanding their distribution to include Wisconsin next year. Hmm. I wonder how that will go. Isn't the beer market still contracting?

In addition to my inaugural visit to The Robin Room, I also stopped in at Karben4 recently where I met a friend who shared some of his homebrew with me, an old ale.

He brews it for Thanksgiving every year and has done since 2015, I believe. It's a mix of fresh beer and some from the previous year which gives it that old school English feel and taste. Ron Pattinson would no doubt approve.

And, since we were at Karben4, we sampled this year's batch of Night Call, their smoked porter.

I certainly wouldn't mind more smokiness but it is still a great brew. I also wouldn't mind if it was still brewed year-round but I'll take what I can get.

Kernza redux courtesy of Karben4

Later this month Karben4 will introduce a new beer - Wisconsin Kernza® Pub Ale. Kernza is a perennial wheatgrass that is more environmentally friendly than traditional grains used in beer such as barley and wheat. Madison Magazine has a piece on the brew.

The line that caught my eye was "To celebrate Wisconsin’s first barrel of sustainable beer..." I did a double take as I had some tasty beer brewed with Kernza over two years ago courtesy of Scott Manning at Vintage Brewing.

Robin Shepard published an informative piece at Isthmus in December 2022 on Kernza featuring Scottie as well as Bloom Bake Shop. It seems that Scottie and Vintage were responsible for "Wisconsin’s first barrel of sustainable beer".

Having said that, I am keen on trying Karben4's brew.

You're in a taproom and you're sitting there and all of a sudden you look up and you see a Champagne Tortoise

Karben4's English mild returns to the taproom today.

I am looking forward to sampling as I helped brew it! Here I am adding the grain. Barley! Oats! Rye! Oh my!

I sparged and did a lot of cleaning too. Look at the wort - it boils!

I heard that it got kegged a couple days ago and turned out well. This evening I shall judge for myself. The plan is to also sample their Kölsch which, I am told, received a nice, long lagering as is proper.

I've got good news

The Corona Diaries Vol 45: Nights Growing Colder, Shadows Growing Longer

(Check out this entry's prelude.)

(late November 2021)

There were signs of the impending holidays when I was up north. Trailers stacked with Christmas trees were making their way to retailers as festive lights, wreaths, and other seasonal decorations were being mounted on light poles, hung on storefronts, etc. And I saw more than one notice such as this:

Lefse is a Norwegian flat bread made from potatoes while Sandbakkles are Norwegian (Swedish too?) almond butter cookies poplar at Christmas. I didn't look at the grocery store in Chetek for lefse but there are 3 brands of it at the supermarket I shop at here in Madison that are available year-round.

The impending holidays also mean that lutefisk starts appearing at the supermarket.

Lutefisk is a Norwegian delicacy(?! - ed.) made from dried whitefish that is then pickled in lye. After a rehydrating soak, it is thoroughly rinsed and then gently heated and served drowning in butter, from my experience. It's a Christmas "treat", if fish pickled in lye can be so described, and seems to be more popular with the older set. I am unsure if this is because people become more enamored of tradition as they grow older or that they lose their sense of taste as they age. Lutheran churches and Sons of Norway lodges across Wisconsin have lutefisk dinners come the holiday season. Well, they did before Covid struck.

Personally, I am happy with a ham or turkey for Christmas dinner.

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With my vacation over, it was back to the proverbial salt mines. The air had turned decidedly chillier so I started to bundle up a bit more for my treks to the bus stop. I don't mind the nip in the November air and there were some very pretty sunrises to greet me as I stepped out the door for my walk. Late autumn has a distinct smell to it. With the greenery gone and the humidity low, the air takes on a thin, almost minty scent as crisp breezes nibble at your cheeks. This is occasionally interrupted by the smell of a neighbor's fireplace or stove hard at work which makes me quite envious of people who can indulge their atavistic desires and safely watch flames from the comfort of their couch.

And on those days when I worked from home, I got to see the dawn from my seat upstairs. The window by my desk faces south and, with the sun rising in the southeast this time of year, I was treated to some wonderful views at Prime when monks all around Madison were praying in an easterly direction.

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You may recall from an entry or 2 back that I bought a head of cabbage from a produce stand up north. With the weather turning colder, my stomach desires heartier fare. Isn't that the case for everyone? I suspect that the heavier foods of winter are more about feeling full and thusly having a good excuse to lie on the couch instead of going outside rather than actually being a bulwark against the cold. Regardless, I decided to make Polish cabbage rolls - Gołąbki - with the cabbage. If the Russian restaurants I've been to are any indication, then it would seem that all Slavic/Eastern European peoples stuff cabbage leaves in one fashion or another.

Shortly after making my intentions known to my Frau, she texted me a recipe for Gołąbki soup that promised all the flavor of Gołąbki with much less work. She continued her internet searches and found one for her beloved instant pot. It turned out very well. Very well, indeed.

Truth be known, it was more of a stew than a soup but was very tasty regardless of your gastronomic taxonomy. And it really did taste like well-sauced cabbage rolls.

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One November weekend, my Frau, a friend of hers, and I headed out to our favorite orchard, Lapacek's, which is 20ish miles north of us in rural Poynette, for their holiday craft fair. Poynette is famous** for having originally been called Pauquette. Apparently someone had dreadful handwriting back in 1850 because an application for the Pauquette post office was misread as "Poynette" and the name stuck. Or rather, residents were stuck with the name.

We first went to Lapacek's in 2007, if memory serves, when I heard tell of their Wolf River apples which were supposedly so large, that you needed only one of them per pie. This sounded like some kind of P.T. Barnum-esque chicanery so I simply had to investigate this extraordinary claim. Treks out there became a yearly ritual for us. Sadly, they pulled up stakes and moved to a new spot several years ago and I don't believe they have any Wolf River apple trees these days. Still, come August and September, we always have a surfeit of apples in the kitchen and plenty of pomaceous goodness on our plates.

Well, the one apple per pie claim turned out to be true. (That's a Cortland on the left, I think.) These apples were genuinely huge. They originated in the late 19th century up in northern Wisconsin and were bred by someone who lived in the town of Wolf River.

The Frau and her friend perused the crafts while I contemplated the foodstuffs. Doughnuts are more my thing, you see, although there were some candles that tempted me. At checkout, we said hi to Kim who is the leading craftsperson in the Lapacek enterprise. We chatted with her that first year we visited the orchard and I explained to her that we'd been lured by the promise of the Wolf River apples. Shortly after I blogged about them, Kim found the post and made the connection. And so we've been the Wolf River apple couple to her ever since.

I look forward to their apple cider doughnuts every autumn and they certainly didn't disappoint this time around.

That evening we were invited out to a local brewery, Karben4, with some of the Frau's friends to hang out in one of their Covid protection dome thingies. It's for those who don't want to risk going maskless in their taproom with the hoi polloi. (Full disclosure: one of the Frau's friends won a 2-hour stint in the dome.) At first, I had flashbacks to Bio-Dome and was unsure about this whole endeavor. But, with no Pauly Shore in sight, I soon came to believe that R. Buckminster Fuller would no doubt be proud to see folks hanging out in geodesic domes drinking finely crafted beer.

There were 8 chairs, a space heater, a few small tables, and a ceiling light projector to add some psychedelic mood lighting. I guess each dome has a theme and ours was space. Thusly there were little astronaut figures hanging here and there from the lattice work.

While it was certainly a chilly night, we stayed rather warm. I suppose the beer helped in that regard. My favorite was the Oaktober Ale. It's a bit like an Oktoberfest lager - but an ale. And it's aged on oak to boot. The woody flavor is subtle but extremely tasty.

Speaking of beer, I have heard that a Chicago brewery, Hop Butcher, is making a special holiday brew this year:

Yes, it's a stout brewed with Frango Mint oil. This will no doubt bring back lots of memories for many Chicagoans. Does Macy's sell Frango Mints or did the brand die along with Marshall Fields? When I heard of it, I thought of eating those mints and of all the good childhood memories of going downtown to look at the window displays at Christmastime.

Well, enough about food. I am making myself hungry and I have done more than eat and drink lately.

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Back in college, I took a world literature course. One of the books we read was Matigari by Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. If I recall correctly, the story took place in the immediate aftermath of the Mau Mau Uprising. I knew nothing about Kenyan history then (and barely more now) but thoroughly enjoyed that book. I am not sure what it was about it that attracted me so. It was an intriguing story of revolution and how sometimes things don't go as planned. Change is complicated. Plus I enjoyed Ngũgĩ's writing style. It had a directness to it that I liked. In addition, there was lots of singing.

Anyway, I decided back then to read more by Ngũgĩ. Now, some 30 years later, I finally did so. I recently completed his debut novel, Weep Not, Child.

It was really good. This story takes place during the Mau Mau Uprising and deals with colonialism. Not just the awfulness of the British lording over the Kenyans, but also how that colonial mindset creeps into the minds of the oppressed. Family and the importance of land are other themes here. I probably missed quite a lot not knowing much about Kenya but Ngũgĩ's direct style lent the themes an emotional starkness that was riveting. Highly recommended!

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Bonus photo! We're back to Piper. I caught her on the guest bed recently enjoying the sun.

 

**Not really.

Helsinki Is In Your Mind: Finland Finnish Sahti by Karben4 Brewing

Back in January I read that Madison's Karben4 Brewing was reorganizing their line-up going into 2022 by doing its best Ronald Reagan imitation with many beers going the way of the dodo, er, air traffic controller. Our very own beer baron, Chris Drosner, wrote that Karben4 "began its 10th year by bidding adieu to most of its regular beers that don’t carry a gun-toting, unicorn-riding ninja cat on its label… And its seasonal lineup will mostly be replaced by two new rotating-monthly series of beers…" Brewmaster (and owner) Ryan Koga is quoted as saying, "The whole point is going to be turn and burn. We want to keep it exclusive and fresh."

Yikes!

This seems a shame to me. I was at Karben4's opening back in 2012 and have been enjoying their smoked porter, Night Call, since then. And now they've gone and tossed it to the wayside like a used rubber? Well, that's men for you. Always wanting something younger with whorish displays of tropical fruit flavor, no doubt.

I figured this Karben4 V2.0 would be like going to see Lynyrd Skynyrd. They start playing "Gimme Three Steps" and you realize that there's only 1 guy left who was actually in the band when they recorded that song. But when I go to the brewery's webpage, I find more that is familiar to me than some unicorn-riding ninja cat. Indeed, there are a lot of brews that I recognize at the site that aren't collected under the "Retired Beers" section, including my beloved Night Call. What gives?

Perhaps they've had a change of heart. Or maybe their webmaster hasn't updated the page to reflect the changes.

Sadly, I guess it's goodbye Night Call, hello rotating monthly beer series. One series sounds like it's going to be all fruity tasting IPAs and fruity sours so I am taking a hard pass. Instead, I will take the magical zymurgy tour which features beer styles from around the world – the aptly named World Beer Tour series. The initial stop in January was the home of the eminent poet Robert Burns as well as haggis – Scotland. Did Adam Smith drink wee heavies as he rhapsodized about the Invisible Hand? I don't know but Karben4's take on the style is soooo two months ago. Who cares? Turn and burn, baby!

February saw stop numero kaksi – Finland! – and a sahti. The first thing I noticed when I saw a 4-pack of it at the liquor store was that it didn't have a funkadelic name and instead had the unexciting, although apposite, "Finland" on emblazoned on the label. I mean, Karben4's flagship is named after a Traffic song so why can't this one also get the treatment? How about "Jani Barleycornonen Must Die"?

It's probably been 15 years since I've had a sahti from Finland. It was Kataja Out from a brewery called Lammin Sahti Oy. The short bottle with the red label. I don't know if you can find the stuff here in Madison anymore. But I have had a few American interpretations of the style over the years which were all ales made with rye and flavored with juniper berry. (In its homeland, sahti was traditionally filtered with juniper branches for that piney taste.)

My glass had a big, light tan head in it. And this was firm foam. It barely moved when the mug did. And the stuff had staying power. The beer itself was a lovely amber with just a touch of haziness to it that in no way obstructed my view of some bubbles scattered about inside. I could smell banana when the glass wasn't near my nose. Putting it a bit closer, I smelled some toasty grain and a whole lot of fresh juniper. Juniper is often thought of simply smelling like pine. It is, after all, the ingredient that gives gin its evergreen aroma. But there's more to the spice than the pine provided by the compound called – wait for it - pinene. To my nose, juniper also has fruity and floral elements to it and they are present here as well.

The first sip revealed a nice, firm fizz inside a medium bodied brew. There was a definite malty sweetness that was redolent of honey along with a light rye spice. And a big juniper flavor. Again, not just pine, although that's a major component here, but also a citrus-floral kind of taste that melded really well with the sweetness. On the finish, malt sweetness slowly faded allowing what tasted like a faint herbal hoppiness/piney juniper mix to come through but also really boost the dryness.

Exactly how "authentic" this stuff is is surely a matter of debate. If you have any interest at all in this beer style, I highly recommend reading "The great Finnish sahti expedition" by Norwegian beer historian Lars Marius Garshol. Lots of great information about this style and an account of this "farmhouse ale" actually being brewed in a barn using wood burning boiler.

Whether or not any of the homebrewers that Garshol meets would recognize Karben4's take as being representative of their country's best known beer style, this sahti is excellent. I loved every piney-floral-fruity sip. There's just something particularly wonderful about the malt-juniper pas de deux here. This is a fairly big beer at 7.2% and rather sweet too – both things typical of the style – but the sweetness is smooth and the juniper never lets it become cloying. Marvelous!

Junk food pairing: if you can get a hold of some Finnish snacks, get some Taffel Horseradish potato chips. If not, go with Jays Hot Stuff chips.

Now With More Syringol: NightCall by Karben4 Brewing

I just looked and it has been over 8 years since Karben4 opened for business on Madison's northeast side. Tempus fugit! I am a bit surprised that they're still there in the same location. Karben4 took the space over from Ale Asylum after they rode the success of Hopalicious to shiny new and larger digs just a couple of miles away. With Fantasy Factory being the hip new IPA in town, I thought they'd soon be looking for more space while the nondescript building on Kinsman Boulevard would become an incubator for breweries.

Karben4 had a soft opening just after Christmas back in 2012. I suppose we were all breathing a collective sigh of relief after the cataclysms predicted by the Mayan calendar to have started the previous week did not, in fact, come to fruition. New Age grifters were looking for a new con while a bunch of us were packed into Karben4. NightCall, their smoked porter, was on tap that very first night and I thought it was quite tasty as smoked beers are like the opposite of Kryptonite for me. I wrote of tasting it that at the brewery's opening: "NightCall was tasty as well. The smoke flavor didn't dominate like a Schlenkerla but rather accented the roasted malt flavor."

At that time and for years afterwards, NightCall was made year-round. It was odd and also very wonderful to have a local smoked beer available all the year long. At some point, however, it became a fall seasonal. I guess there were too many Fantasy Factory variations and other IPAs that needed space. Also, at some point they started using quite a lot more smoked malt so that the smoke taste was front and center instead of simply being an accent.

I am beginning to wonder if 2020's batch has such a prominent smoky flavor simply by accident as the Karben4 webpage still says "This brew provides a subtle smoke profile…" I am not complaining, though, because at least it is still around instead of having been discarded in favor of another fruity-hoppy brew.

NightCall is a very deep reddish brown. Really, it looks like motor oil until your glass is nearly drained and its true color comes shining through. Plus, you can also see that it is clear. I managed only a small tan head but this may very well have been the result of poor pouring skills on my part. It went away fairly quickly.

The beer's smell was quite something. There was the expected smoky smell from those delightful syringols and guaiacols and phenols and whatever else makes smoked foods smell so effin' good. In addition, I caught some roastiness (this beer looked positively Stygian, after all), a touch of malty/honey sweetness, and an astringency/boozy scent. Lastly there was a fruity element too – like cherry/stonefruit. This made me wonder if cherry wood was used to smoke the malt.

A rich smoke flavor caressed my tongue upon tasting the brew. Beneath it were the hallmarks of the porter, those piquant dark/bitter chocolate and coffee tastes. A smidgen of plum sweetness and moderate carbonation were also to be had. Mild spicy hoppiness and bitterness finished things.

Hopefully this new smoke intensive edition of NightCall will remain as I really adore it. It's full and flavorful and is a wonderful accompaniment to falling leaves and falling temperatures. Plus, it still tastes great during the winter. Folks less enamored of smoky flavors may not be so thrilled, however. The old recipe was delicious as well and I think there's a place for a brew that goes easier on the smoked malt on Madison store shelves. Hopefully someone will step up to fill the void if this year's batch proves not to have been a fluke.