It was a lovely Monday morning in Bloomer and my vacation was coming to a close. Although it was to be a rather warm day, it was still cool when I awoke and clouds streaked the dawn sky as I stepped out of the hotel and moseyed over to Kwik Trip for coffee.
My plan was to take a leisurely drive home with a stop in Eau Claire at The Coffee Grounds for some local flavors to bring back with me.
There I got a cup of coffee, coffee beans, and some brews from Eau Claire's finest. Not being in a hurry I took Highway 93 south where I'd catch Highway 10 in Eleva. The drive showcased just how much the south of Eau Claire has been built up since I lived up there. What had been a sleepy area of town that led to the hustle & bustle of Oakwood and London Square Malls was now home to a senior living complex, stores, various businesses, dentists, and just all manner of things. It was no longer simply gas stations and fast food for those passing through on the interstate.
The drive between Eau Claire and Eleva brought back many memories as I had driven it countless times. Zipping past the road that led to my old man's former home I felt surprisingly unmoved. A little nostalgic but I mainly enjoyed the scenery. Once I got to the top of the ridge just north of Eleva, I looked around at just what a magnificent view it affords. Farms tucked into the rolling hills, fields bordered by woods, and the sun illuminating it all with its warming refulgence.
Heading east on 10 I looked to the north at one point and saw a lovely grassy hill beneath the blue sky and it looked just like that Windows XP wallpaper.
I refueled in Osseo and then hopped onto I94. The drive home went by quickly and traffic wasn't too bad outside of the usual convoys of trucks. After getting home I unpacked and got a load of laundry in the wash. I hadn't really bought much in the way of souvenirs this trip and everything I did buy was edible. Like this chocolate bar.
It's an Abu Dhabi Bar from Mayana Chocolate up in Spooner. I presume it is their take on the trendy Dubai bar, a chocolate confection with pistachio filling that is all the rage in confectionery circles these days, I take it.
Very tasty!
Plus I brought beer back to Madison that is otherwise unavailable here. First we have some Czech-style lagers from Eau Claire's Lazy Monk Brewing.
The Standard 10º brew has proven to be my favorite of the two. Light and crisp and full of Bohemian(-style) brewing goodness.
At Moonridge I picked up a can of their blonde ale as well as a pickle Gose from Half Fast Brewing Company.
I'd never heard of Half Fast. The can says the company is in Spring Valley, WI which is a bit west of Menomonie but that the beer had been brewed in Osseo, presumably by the now-shuttered Northwoods Brewing. I suspect the can was to be found at Moonridge as Half Fast appears to be veteran-owned just like Moonridge. Tasting soon, I hope.
I sat down to check my email and saw that the tree outside the window had come fully into bloom while I was away.
Beltane had truly come to fruition.
Settling down, I thought a bit about Piper as well as the end of my marriage which was likely to transpire the following week. My mind felt a bit weary after all of the contemplation it did over the weekend. It was very nice to not feel the anger that I had felt earlier in the week. At least nowhere near as intensely.
I realized that I had come to terms with most of the changes in my life regarding family the past several months. There don't seem to be any more depths of my marriage to plumb. I think I've examined it thoroughly and discovered the lessons it has to teach, found all the assignations of guilt to be had, and learned the myriad ways that it has affected me. My eldest stepson simply wants my money and so our relationship is on hold, if not over. My youngest stepson is beset by so many problems that I can do little to nothing about so I am resigned to take things as they come and do what I can, nudging him in what I think of as a more salutary direction occasionally.
While the fact that I married my wife remains a source of shame and embarrassment for me, I am content with that. I am content with knowing my mistakes and at peace with my regrets.
No doubt my thoughts on all this will change as time goes on. For now, though, I am trying to heed Henry David Thoreau's advice, "Never look back unless you are planning to go that way." I'm looking forward to my marriage ending soon, to getting a new cat, and treading new paths in life. I am anxious to see where they take me.
Czech beers are having their moment in the sun or had it recently, anyway. Breweries happy to churn out IPA after IPA suddenly had to figure out how to put diacritical marks on their labels. Tmavé pivo seemed to be everywhere. OK, not really but it did pop up in places both predictable and unexpected in a nano-trend. Here in Madison, I don't think a genuine Czech dark lager has ever been on a store shelf. It's Pilsner Urquell and maybe Staropramen but that's it and I think that's the case in most of this country. Heck, the style is fairly rare in its homeland. I guess all those craft brewers went to The Czech Republic and learned the mad tmavé pivo brewing skillz.
If, as Evan Rail claims (see link above), "[tmavé pivo] should be brewed with a traditional decoction mash", then most American takes on it lack a big chunk of authenticity. However, I think we've been lucky here in Madison as both Next Door and Working Draft have brewed the style and, to the best of my knowledge, both breweries also decocted, at least while Next Door wasn't just a brand. Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed their takes on the style. Same for Lazy Monk's. Brewmaster Leos Frank is Czech so he may have had some first-hand experience with tmavé pivo back in its homeland to bring to his brew kettle.
When I was down in Chicagoland last month, I made my annual autumnal stop at Binny's and found a Czech-style dark lager from Chicago's Dovetail Brewery. Those people - I don't think there's an Old World brewing technique they don't practice. From what I've heard, Dovetail's brewers have weird dreams involving old brewhouses. My undercover contact there surreptitiously recorded the following, a recounting of one of these dreams by brewer Jenny Pfäfflin:
I was in a brewery I did not know, which had two storeys. It was "my brewery". I found myself in the upper storey, where there were sacks of Citra and Simcoe. On the walls hung a number of charts about hopping rates. I wondered if this was really my brewery and thought, "Ewww!" But then it occurred to me that I did not know what the lower floor looked like. Descending the stairs, I reached the ground floor. There everything was much older. I realized that this part of the brewery must date from the 19th century. There were piles of malt scattered around, the floors were of red brick. Everywhere it was rather dark. I went from one room to another, thinking, "Now I really must explore the whole brewery." I came upon a heavy door and opened it. Beyond it, I discovered a stone stairway that led down into a cellar. Descending again, I found myself in a beautifully vaulted room. There were several copper kettles - more than enough for decoction - and horizontal lagering tanks. I looked behind a mash tun and discovered two steinkrugs, obviously very old, and half disintegrated. Then I awoke.
A beer hall
Some barley malt
It joins all
Dovetail Brewery
Dovetail lists their Czech-Style Dark Lager as a seasonal but they don't note which season. I hope it's a fall seasonal for goodness sake. The brewery's seasonals are not easy to find here in Madison. Or maybe they are and I just always miss them as if I were Gordon to their Mr. Snuffleupagus. Ms. Pfäfflin and the rest of the Dovetail Brewers probably decoct in their spare time for fun so I presumed Czech Dark Lager got the treatment. Every Dovetail brew I've had has been exceptional and I expected no less with this brew.
My pour produced a small head of loose, tan foam that didn't stick around. Putting my glass up to the light, I saw that the brew was amber hued and looked clear, from what I could tell, with a smattering of bubbles inside. Never having had a genuine tmavé pivo, I am unsure if this is what the style is supposed to look like or not. Regardless, it was pretty. Taking a whiff, I smelled some caramel, a general roastiness, a dash of dark chocolate, and a plum-like fruitiness.
That first sip revealed a medium-light body that perhaps was a bit more on the light side. A healthy level of fizz oversaw a medley a fine flavors - roastiness, coffee, bread, and a touch of caramel or more, if I was tasting from the back of my tongue. For all of the malt taste here, it wasn't very sweet. All of those roasty/coffee flavors faded on the swallow leaving some spicy hops to step to the fore. My tongue was not inundated with a flood of Saaz or anything but the hops dried things out and added a firm bitterness.
Is this beer anything like the tmavé pivo you get in the Czech Republic? I dunno. But this stuff is excellent. I love how the coffee and bread flavors lead the charge here and I also adore how that brisk wave of hops acts both in counterpoint to the bread/caramel flavors yet complements that vaguely bitter coffee taste. Plus, this pivo has a fairly light body yet is chock full of malty goodness.
As a big fan of the Dunkel and Schwarzbier, I suppose it's time to add the tmavé pivo to this Axis of Darkness.The only thing left is for Dovetail to make this stuff in a Rauchbier version or whatever you call a smoke beer in Czech.
Junk food pairing: With all the malty flavors here you'll need to pair it with something that is up to the task of being able to cut through them to stand on its own yet also harmonize with the pivo. That food, ladies and gentlemen, is Jays Hot Stuff potato chips. With roots in Chicago, their spicy paprika flavor lends an earthy, Central European goodness that complements both the roastiness of the malt but also the sprightly taste of the hops.
Beer and coffee go together just like rats and parchment, I always say. Or some such thing.
Ever since Dan Carey added some coffee to some stout (and drew the ire of the federal government) back in the mid-90s, brewers have been transmuting mundane beers into special elixirs by mixing the tasty flavors of roasted barley with the tasty roasted flavors of the coffee bean. Normally it is a stout or porter that gets the coffee treatment but occasionally someone gets the idea in their head to create the admixture with a dark lager instead of a black ale.
Beer and coffee can have complementary flavors just as can beer and bourbon. The key, it seems to me, lies in finding the right proportions. Alchemists knew that you didn't just dump a bunch of antimony into a big stash of bitumen and expect good results. They understood that there was virtue in restraint and in harmonizing things. American brewers, unsurprisingly and sadly, generally operate under a more Blakean principle: The road of excess leads to the palace of tasty.
Recall we had 100+ I.B.U. beers that exceeded the theoretical limit of the human tongue's ability to taste bitterness while today's IPAs concentrate fruit flavor more densely than a neutron star of Jolly Rancher flavoring essence. Along these same lines, brewers tend to make barrel aged beers that taste like the bourbon never got drained from the barrel and coffee beers that leave me questioning if there is, in fact, any beer in it because it tastes more like an Americano. Sour can be a nice taste in beer but the brew need not be so acidic as to be of Xenomorph blood strength. No doubt we'll have quad small beers and imperial N/As soon.
The result of all this is that I am weary of IPAs and beers with non-standard flavorings. All too often American brewers show about as much restraint as Donald Trump at McDonald's. But, like a fool, I buy some of them anyway, hoping that someone will also see the virtue of finding harmony amongst the various ingredients whether they're adding bourbon or fruit or hops or, in this case, coffee.
On a recent trip to Eau Claire to visit my stepson and his ladyfriend, I took them grocery shopping and couldn't resist a stroll through the beer department in search of local brews. I came away with some Cold Press Bohemian Dark by Lazy Monk Brewing. It is, I presume, their Bohemian Dark Lager with coffee added to it.
Lazy Monk brewmaster Leos Frank came up with a real beauty of a beer here, although that may not come across very well in that Dexter pint glass replete with blood splatters. It was a gorgeous ruby color topped by a big, tan head that had real staying power. It was clear and I was able to see some bubbles inside. The aroma was a nice mix of roasty grain and coffee with a gentle dose of sweetness.
On my first sips I found a fine, medium fizziness and a medium-light body. A bit of plum came first followed by roasted grain, bread, and coffee. It had a hint of sweetness and there was just a little milk chocolate in there as well. For the finish, the stone fruit and roasty flavors lingered a bit as some herbal-spicy hops slowly emerged to give a modicum of bitterness and dryness.
This is a very good beer. Let me get my gripe out of the way: I think it needed a touch more fizz. Depending on where it was on my tongue, it could take on a slightly syrupy quality that more fizz would have taken care of, methinks. Now, onto the good part. I like Lazy Monk's Bohemian Dark Lager and was quite happy to be able to taste it. The roasty/bready grain flavors were not totally obscured by all the furans and furanones courtesy of the coffee. Frank hit the sweet spot with his mad mixing skillz. The coffee and beer are in harmony here as I was able to taste each of them. They complement one another instead of one overpowering the other.
Junk food pairing: Pair your pour of Cold Press Bohemian Dark with a bag of All Dressed potato chips. Those Canucks are onto something there.
On my way home from up north, I made a quick stop at a liquor store to get some beer from the northwestern part of the state that is unavailable in Madison. Some of these brands were seen on store shelves down south in the past but no longer while others have always only been sold in their home region.
While it would be nice and convenient to have these brands at my local liquor store, I have really come to appreciate that some things are not at my fingertips and that they simply require travel to experience. I like regional variation. It’s fun and alluring to go somewhere and find different beers, different foods, etc. than I get in Madison.
I had hoped to stop in at Valkyrie Brewing but my schedule precluded a visit. Same goes for the Northwoods Brewpub. Still, the prospect of Northwoods’ rye ale and Valkyrie’s smoked Oktoberfest make fall treks up north all the more alluring.
Rather than jumping on the interstate as soon as I could, I took some back roads to Osseo where I would catch I-94. I drove through the small town of Cleghorn which is just a short jaunt east of the former site of Hadleyville, which I detailed in a previous entry. Cleghorn is surely home to a few hundred people at most and has one crossroads with no stoplights.
Up until recently, it didn’t even have a tavern, to the best of my knowledge. The main part of town is simply an abandoned building and a store which is now a bar. Here’s that abandoned building.
This was just one of those trips where I decided that I would pull over if I drove by anything that even remotely piqued my interest.
I have a weird affection for Cleghorn despite never having actually done much beyond driving through it. It’s like a ghost town for me because I don’t think I’ve ever seen a human being there. I’ve seen cars drive through it, seen them parked outside of places knowing there are living, breathing persons inside but I have never seen them.
It is like a little game I play. I take the back roads to drive through the town to see if there are actually any people around.
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My initial plan had been to spend another day up north but things were changed when I recalled that I had a ticket to see the 1977 Italian horror film, Suspiria, on the big screen. But it was not to simply be a film screening. Claudio Simonetti's Goblin would be performing the soundtrack live! Simonetti was in the original line-up of Goblin that composed the music for the film back in ’77.
That’s not Madison as my phone is not capable of taking decent photographs under concert conditions and, sadly, I haven’t found any online.
It had been a while since I’d seen the original Suspiria and it was just a lot of fun to watch it with all of the super blood red reds and other brilliant colors that it’s known for. What a treat to have a live score!
After the movie was done, the band continued performing for another hour and a half or so. They seemed very enthusiastic – happy to be playing in front of an audience. Bassist Cecilia Nappo was bopping all around her part of the stage and Claudio Simonetti almost seemed content to play into the wee hours. He was proud of his music and thrilled to play for people.
This was a couple days before Halloween but the students were out in full force that night, lining up at bars and fully costumed. I had no problems except for the fact that the last bus had left 15 minutes or so after I stepped out of the theatre. Hopefully the new network redesign and the introduction of BRT will keep this from happening in the future.
A bit of the show is on Youtube.
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The next day I indulged in more seasonal film goodness by going to see From Beyond.
Director Stuart Gordon was a Chicago native but he attended UW-Madison and became heavily involved in the theater scene. He founded Broom Street Theater in 1969 and it is still around today. I suspect most people know him as the guy that adapted a couple H.P. Lovecraft stories for the big screen including From Beyond.
It's a fairly typical mid-80s horror film with plenty of body horror. Like Suspiria, I hadn’t seen it in ages and I just had a blast watching it on the big screen.
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The Halloween theme carried on after the holiday itself had come and gone. For starters, my friends and I began a game of the Alien role-playing game.
It is based on the film franchise with plenty of references to the movies. I played Leah Davis, the pilot of a freighter ship named the USCSS Montero. My crew and I are on a delivery run and were put into cryogenic suspension as the voyage to our destination would take quite a while.
We awoke to discover that we were nowhere near the planet that was to take our delivery. Instead, the ship’s computer had re-routed us to intercept a scientific research vessel called the Cronus that had been missing for nearly 75 years. Our mission to deliver a shipment of Helium-3 had been changed by our corporate masters at Weyland-Yutani to recovering data from the Cronus' computers, rescuing any remaining crew, and towing the ship back to dock, if possible.
We found the Cronus in bad shape. No breathable air, no lights, and lots of destruction and dried blood. Although the ship’s synthetic (i.e. – robot) was mostly functional.
I got a bit anxious and nervous while playing it. One of the characters from my ship had a motion sensor and detected something for just a moment before we found the remaining crew of the Cronus in cryo suspension. So, there’s an unknown presence on the loose, we had to wait a while for the other crew to awaken from their slumbers, and the synthetic on the Cronus isn’t quite right and won’t answer all of our questions. It was only a matter of time before something bad happens.
Will we make it back to the Montero before all hell broke loose?
********
The final seasonal thing that I did was to make a visit to Exquisite Corpse, Madison’s home of surreal taxidermy, with a friend.
Exquisite Corpse was opened by Marcia Field last year after a diagnosis of terminal cancer. She died back in August. Originally from Chicago just like Stuart Gordon, Field moved to Madison in 2001 and it sounds like she always had something of a morbid curiosity which she parlayed into a love of taxidermy some 10-12 years ago, it seems. I can’t find an exact year.
This one is called “Sacred Heart” and she described it as a homage to her first pacemaker which she had implanted while she was in her 40s.
Most of her work was influenced by her illness, her awareness of how fleeting life is.
This one is “The Ascension or Tenth Life” and features a cat atop a Catholic Last Rites kit.
Here are some chipmunk bones in tiny vials set as earrings.
This one is still personal, I suppose, but also political – “Goebbels’ Wet Dream or The Exterminator”.
A commentary on anti-Semitism featuring a muskrat, a Zyklon B can, et al. It illustrates how the Nazis would portray Jews at rats in their propaganda. Note the 2 volumes of MAUS by Art Spiegelman on the right.
For a mere $40 you can have what looks to be preserved cow eyes as a paperweight, I suppose.
There was a trio of taxidermy dioramas by guest artist Angela Webster. Here’s “Lab Rat Revenge”. Poor cat trapped and at the mercy of a rat!
A very neat exhibit.
Since our visit was on a gallery night, other denizens of the artist spaces there also had their works on display. We stopped in at Mary Made It Studio down the hall.
We found the artist, Mary Gill, chatting away with another aesthete. Originally from Trinidad, her life there remains a huge influence on her art.
I really liked this once entitled “The Gate of No Return” which succinctly depicts the slave passage to Trinidad and the aftermath of slavery.
If I had a few thousand dollars to spend on art, I would have bought it.
She also had this wonderful triptych that was about 10’ long and depicted various Trinidadians talking to their loved ones who were incarcerated and awaiting trial. Ms. Gill described how these facilities have a scheme to charge the incarcerated and their families which makes it profitable to keep people locked up instead of giving them their day in court.
Ms. Gill was extremely friendly and very willing to discuss her art. I am looking into buying prints…
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Lastly, I want to note that I cooked some bigos recently. This is Polish hunter’s stew. I didn’t do it up all proper and instead made a down & dirty batch. I used kielbasa that I bought at Andy’s Deli in Chicago plus beef, half a head of cabbage that needed to be eaten, onion, and sauerkraut.
When I had everything browned and all of the ingredients ready to be combined for a long simmer, I realized that we didn’t have any kraut. I scoured the refrigerator 3 or 4 times as I would have sworn that I had bought some on my last trip to the supermarket. But no. So I made an emergency run to the store for kraut.
It turned out rather well, I thought. Hearty fare for chilly evenings.
********
Bonus photo. Here’s a non-taxidermy diorama I stumbled upon while on a bike ride. It was next to a building whose peeling paint had revealed a ghost sign underneath.
Not too long ago - well, it's been a little while now because I am behind on my writing - Chicago's Dovetail Brewery made some of their Rauch Doppelbock available here in Madison. I believe it was the first time any of their Rauchbier came to town and thusly cause for great celebration. We should have had a parade. Before long I found myself in Eau Claire and made a stop at the Woodman's in Altoona where I found Lazy Monk's Smoked Über Bock and immediately bought some because you take Rauchbier when and wherever you can get it.
Lazy Monk used to be found down here in Madison over at Trixie's Liquor but I stopped seeing their beer there years ago. While it would be nice to not have to go to the Eau Claire area to get Leos Frank's tasty takes on Czech and German styles, I have nothing against regional diversity. In fact, I am all in favor of it. Up north, I see offerings from other breweries that also have no distribution here in Madison such as Valkyrie, MoonRidge, and Bloomer Brewing. And, just as folks in Eau Claire are deprived of Dovetail, we miss out on a whole mess of Minnesota breweries that are happy to ship to the Chippewa Valley. It is a really nice treat to head up north and find all of these beers that I cannot get at home. Vive la différence!
Fans of The Brewing Projekt would be pleased to see that Woodman's devotes more craft beer shelf space to them than anyone save New Glarus. They never cease to amaze me with their ability to come up with different beers by simply adding the same hops as their other beers but in a different order. Or maybe with a dash of lactose or marshmallow flavoring.
In addition to being blessed with not one, but two ruachbiers, I had never had either previously so I was in for something new times two. It was like a dream come true.
I briefly flirted with the idea of asking Leos Frank to do a cage match
with Dovetail brewer Jenny Pfäfflin but decided that not everything in
life need be a competition and that I would just enjoy the guaiacol
goodness of each without any headbutts or clotheslines.
The first thing to notice is that these brews look quite different. Lazy Monk made a lovely amber beer that had some loose, light tan foam on top. Dovetail went the goth route with a Stygian brew that looked like it absorbed all light that dare go near the glass. It ended up being a deep, dark reddish brown and had a frothy tan head. Both of these big bocks were clear although the Über Bock allowed me to see some bubbles inside.
Not only did their appearances differ, so did their aromas. Über Bock smelled of honey, caramel, and some grass in addition to smoke. Rauch Doppelbock also had some caramel along with the smokiness, but it featured cherry as well. I couldn't discern anything hoppy.
Both beers had a nice fizziness to them which you need because doppelbocks are basically treacle otherwise. Each was also endowed with a big, rich, luscious, smoky flavor which I think was from beechwood but I am not yet a Cicerone of Smoke™ so that exquisite taste may have been courtesy of other woods. I tasted bread in both although it was stronger in Über Bock. Rauch Doppelbock had a little honey and stone fruit.
Each bock finished rather dry as the sweetness faded to be replaced by some hoppiness which was spicy - perhaps a bit more herbal with the Dovetail - that added welcome bitterness as well. Rauch Doppelbock comes in at 9.1% A.B.V. while the Über Bock was, in contrast, a paltry 7% (!) and the former had some boozy heat which made it a bit more astringent tasting.
I really enjoyed both of these beers greatly. They're rich and malty with a lovely smoothness that finds counterpoint in the fizz and hops. It's a pleasing interplay for my tongue. Plus they were chock full of smoky goodness.
Junk food pairing: I think these beers would pair perfectly with a mincemeat kettle chip but, since no one has bothered to make one, grab the biggest bag of Cheddar Cheese Bacon Combos you can find. Then slide them onto a skewer and garnish your glass in style.
As 2021 approaches, there are many Best of 2020 lists going
around. A fellow Cheesehead who started a beer blog just this week made sure his first post was a list of his favorites from this year. I too thought I'd take a look
back at some of the best suds I've had in 2020.
I drank many beers that I really enjoyed over the past 12
months. Certain brews, such as Tippy Toboggan, a Roggenbier by Vintage Brewing here in Madison,
would make my list every year. It's just that tasty. I have sung its praises
here previously so, while I drank my fill this year, I excluded it from the
list. Looking back at the beers I drank from 2020, I see many that I've had in
years past. They're good so I return to them. I even had a Sierra Nevada Pale
Ale for the first time in ages.
New Glarus' Coffee Stout, one of, if not the, first of its
kind remained highly tasty in 2020 as did Rocky's Revenge from Tyranena which
is one of the first barrel aged beers I ever had and it remains a favorite. As
a lover of smoked beers, I have to say Karben4's smoked porter, Night Call, is
really great even if it is merely lightly smoked. I could go on in this vein
for a while. But I won't.
Before I get to the list, let me add a few random
observations:
1) The only Madison-area brewery that went out of business
this year (due to Covid) was Rockhound. (To my knowledge, anyway.) I'd been there only a few times but I enjoyed their hefeweizen and thought they had good
food. R.I.P.
2) Sprecher's Maibock and Oktoberfest stand out from those
of other Wisconsin breweries because they have wonderful bready flavors instead
of letting malt sweetness run amok. The new owners don't appear to have changed
things too much out there in Glendale but they have brewed an NEIPA and it looks
like they're continuing Sprecher's move towards being a beverage company as opposed
to a brewery.
3) Breweries in the northern half of Wisconsin get too
little coverage down here in the southern part of the state. While it's to be
expected that they don't dominate beer chatter in the 608, it nevertheless
sometimes feels like there are no indigenous breweries outside of the Milwaukee
and Madison areas. To be fair, some joints up nort have limited or no distribution
here. And I'm ambivalent about this. On one hand, I'd love to have some more boreal
beers available here on Madison shelves. On the other, it's nice to be
presented with something new and different when I travel north.
Now, on with the show.
I have both kinds of beer on my list: pale and dark. We will start
with the former.
On a summer trek to Chicago I picked up Helles by Dovetail
and Metropolitan, Windy City breweries both.
Helles is a fairly rare style these days for Wisconsin
breweries, as far as I can tell. Capital stopped brewing their Bavarian Lager
in 2010, or thereabouts and its replacement, Lake House, just isn't the same to
my taste as it lacks the toasty malt flavor. Wisconsin Brewing Company had one
called Ol' Reliable that went the way of the dodo. I see one from various breweries every so often but they generally taste like the amateur zymurgological experiments of a novice cicerone.
Two of our neighbors to the south each have a Helles that just
oozes melanoidin-y goodness. These are the best Helleses I've had from American
breweries and, if I didn't have to travel to buy them, they'd (mostly) obviate
the need for those Paulaner Lager purchases I make. But, pursuant to #3 above,
they do make for a nice treat when I go to Chicagoland.
Now onto the dark side.
I cannot honestly claim to know much about Czech beer
styles. And beyond a Bohemian or Czech-style pilsner, the Czech Republic, sadly,
doesn't seem to inspire American brewers the way Carmen Miranda's hats do. Reading Evan Rail's descriptions of Czech brews makes me
thirsty but those beers have been very much a mystery to me. This year,
however, I got to sample three different breweries' takes on Tmavé Pivo, or
Czech dark lager.
Now, whether any of these tasted like something I'll find in
Bohemia when I visit, I cannot say. Leos Frank of Lazy Monk Brewing up in
Eau Claire is Czech by birth so I have some reason to believe his brew has a measure
of authenticity. And, truthfully, Next Door and Working Draft's piwos were very
similar to Frank's with highly roasted malt flavors that ranged from coffee and
chocolate to slightly burnt/fuliginous.
As a dark beer lover, this near cornucopia of piwos of a style
new to me was sheer delight.
These brews stood out, not only for their sheer deliciousness,
but also because they are rare or rarish styles. I certainly consumed other
beers that were very delicious, but I have chosen to observe some brevity for this post.
And so that's my list proper. However, I do want to mention
a couple runners up from smaller, lesser known breweries.
Valkyrie's Swan Maiden is a Kölsch-style beer and was really
good. Located up in Dallas, brewmaster Randy Lee still brews on converted dairy
equipment, to the best of my knowledge. When I visited the brewery there were no computers nor
automated grain hoppers. Just Lee dumping sacks of grain into vats before grabbing
a paddle to stir. Homebrewing writ large? Perhaps. But Swan Maiden was a
wonderful beer with a delicate malt flavor and a light fruitiness from the
yeast. Indeed, it was better than most examples of this style from American brewers who have
much larger and more heavily automated facilities. Valkyrie's beers are a great
bonus when I am in the northwest part of the state.
And then we have Saccharifice, a German Pilsner from Parched Eagle here in Madison. Brewmaster Jim Goronson has a small brewhouse in the
basement of the building he rents that must surely qualify as nano. Lacking the
space for extended lagering, Goronson still managed to produce a really good
pils with a light malt touch accented by the fruity flavors of Hüll Melon and
Mandarina Bavaria hops. The fruit taste is not overpowering and there's still
some bitterness to be had.
(My podcasting partner and I interviewed Jim and you can find that episode here.)
There are some of my highlights of 2020. 2021 begins soon and we shall see what it brings. I predict lots of alfresco quaffing welcome in the spring.
I spent some time over the weekend at Stalzy's Deli's Oktoberfest celebration which featured an abundance of both domestic and imported Oktoberfest beers as well as a curious excess of Anglo folk and country-flavored music. Having spent time quaffing Oktoberfests or autumnal beers from Karben4 (Oaktober Ale was a bit heavy-handed on the oak but still good), Summit (sprightly and bubbly – the champagne of festbiers), Schell's (a bit less malty than I'm used to yet very tasty), Next Door Brewing (NextDoorberfest ale was earthy/nutty with a vinuous element to boot), Paulaner, und Hofbräu (classic step-mashed {?}, melanoidin goodness), one would think that I'd have reached peak Märzen and needed a bumptious pale ale to recover from malt madness. Nein!
Lazy Monk Brewing opened up in Eau Claire about four years ago. The brewery was founded by Leos Frank, a native of The Czech Republic who began homebrewing when he discovered a dearth of Czech-style beers in his adopted homeland. The brewery flies under the Wisconsin craft beer radar as it has limited distribution and Frank focuses on malty lagers instead of hoppy pale ales, although they do have a couple of IPAs. To the best of my knowledge Lazy Monk began distributing outside of the Chippewa Valley only last year. Still, business is apparently good as the brewery will be moving to a new location in Eau Claire next year.
I was at the brewery a couple of months ago and rather impressed at how they took an industrial space and had transformed it into a fair simulacrum of what I think a Central European tavern would look like. Mr. Frank was even behind the bar. The Dulcinea and I enjoyed a flight before delving into a couple pints. Even I must declare the Rye IPA to be the finest in Eau Claire.
Mr. Frank's Oktoberfest was a beautiful gold and crystal clear. Unlike my last Oktoberfest, I managed to get a nice head with about an inch of creamy off-white foam in my glass that lingered for a while. There were a few stray bubbles going up my glass. The aroma was full of bready scents as I expected but there was also a modicum of sweetness to it that was like honey and apricots. I could smell no hops but admit that I had a slightly stuffy nose no doubt because of the transition to autumn.
While the hops may have been absent from the nose, they were certainly present on my tongue after taking a sip. They had a moderately strong herbal/peppery flavor which complemented the clean bread and bread crust flavors of the malt. I tasted little carbonation and also found little sweetness which was rather surprising given the sweetness in the aroma.
It finished fairly dry with that herbal hop bitterness lingering for a short time. I think the carbonation added a just little bite here as well.
The beer was a bit hoppier than I'm used to for the style but I suspect this is simply because the malt flavors here were rather subdued. I appreciated the bready flavors along with the absence of sweetness but the beer simply tasted a little watery. The rich malt flavors were rather more in the background than is to my taste. Because of this the beer had a medium-light body instead of one a little heavier which is what I'd expect. This medium-light body coupled with hops that are more herbal than spicy also makes the beer a bit more easy-drinking than a typical Oktoberfest. My can went down like a helles.
This is by no means a bad beer – the malt was very tasty and I really enjoyed the mellower/more herbal hops. It just lacks the fullness I expect from the style.
Junk food pairing: As I have determined previously (thanks Curd Girl!), deep-fried cheese curds are the junk food pairing par excellence for the Oktoberfest. The salt really throws the wonderful bready malt flavors into sharp relief.
Eau Claire's Lazy Monk Brewing is the brainchild of Leos Frank, who emigrated from Czechoslovakia in the early 1990s. His distaste for American beer led him into homebrewing and from there he took the leap into commercial brewing a few years ago. His brews are traditional styles from his homeland and nearby Bavaria which makes for a beer list which is, to my taste, pleasantly devoid of any iteration of pale ale. Indeed, there are no ales at all to be found.
A recent trek to Eau Claire led me to the wonderful Just Local Food Co-op which had Lazy Monk growlers as well as recently-introduced cans. I bought one of the former filled with Frank's Bohemian Dark Lager. My knowledge of Czech beer styles is very, very limited but I gather this brew would be considered a Černé Pivo. How does this style differ from the Munich dunkles or a schwarzbier? Not sure about that...
Bohemian Dark Lager pours a luscious deep amber and is very clear once you put your glass up to the light. I got a pretty decent head that stuck around for a while but there wasn't much Schaumhaftvermoegen to speak of as it immediately fell back into the beer. Much to my shame, I had a bit of a stuffy nose when I drank this and so all I could catch were the wonderful roasted grains and a bit of stone fruit.
The beer had a medium-light mouthfeel and I tasted primarily those darker malts which reminded me of well-done toast. There was also a bit of plum-like flavor as well just like in the nose. The real difference between this brew and the dunkels and schwarzbiers I've had is that this was much less sweet than a Bavarian dunkles and much more dry than either of the German styles. Indeed, this is one of the driest beers I've ever had. I think it was due to, not only having the yeast deal with most of the sugars but also because of the carbonation and hops. Of the latter, I didn't taste a whole lot as I was expecting. There was a bit of that spiciness but it didn't pop out at me like Saaz does in a Bohemian pilsner.
The finish continued the dry theme along with some mild grassiness.
Bohemian Dark Lager was a thoroughly enjoyable brew and unlike any dark lager that I've ever had. I can't say much in terms of how it adheres to the style as found in the Czech Republic today but it definitely fits in with the descriptions of the style that Evan Rail and Ron Pattinson give.
Junk food pairing: Bohemian Dark lager pairs well with meat flavored snacks like Ruffles Flame Grilled Steak potato chips or Snyder's Cheeseburger Pretzel Pieces.
