Now Legal in All 72 Counties!: Java Lava by Pearl Street Brewery

Sometime in the mid-1990s.
South central Wisconsin

A black sedan makes its way past the endless kalberwurst fields of Green County on Highway 69 and eventually pulls into the small southern Wisconsin town of New Glarus. The car's tinted windows draw some attention but the locals mainly shrug off the dark glass. Hans Luchsinger looks up from the alphorn he is tuning for just the briefest of moments as the town's newest visitors cruise by his shop before resuming his work.

"Must be some city slickers from Madison," theorizes Alfred Streissguth who is turning onto 69 on his way to the Glarner Stube as the mysterious car turns off of the state highway and onto County W. 

The black sedan pulls into the parking lot of the still fairly new brewery, New Glarus Brewing Company. Taking the stall closest to the entrance, the front doors open simultaneously and the sound of yodeling is heard for a split second before the engine is shut off. Two figures, a man and a woman, exit the car clad in long black overcoats, their faces obscured by mirrored sunglasses.

The pair approach the front door and knock 3 times. No more, no less. Just 3 times. They can hear a bottle drop onto the floor and some indistinct profanity on the other side. After about 30 seconds the door is opened by a mustachioed man of slightly taller than average height who appears to be in his mid-30s. He wears lederhosen and a Tyrolean hat. His mustache has a small patch of white foam on it and the man quietly blurts, "Ope!" before hastily licking it away.

"H-Hello?" he asks hesitantly.

Simultaneously - almost mechanically - the visitors reach inside their coats and pull out ID.

"We're from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Are you Dan Carey?" they inquire.

"Yes, I am."

"May we come in?"

"Sure." Dan leads them past empty barrels and stacks of bottles ready to be filled to the brewery's break area which is a small room with only a couple tables with chairs and a vending machine that dispenses Swiss cheese sticks and Landjäger. The woman glances into the vending machine and notices all of the holes in the cheese. She decides that the sticks are not a good value.

The government agents stare at Dan who could only see his reflection in their sunglasses when he looked back. Eventually he gets the hint and sits down. His interlocutors remain standing.

The woman methodically pulls her coat open and Dan's heart skips a beat as he sees a shoulder holster containing a pistol. However, the agent instead sticks her hand into an inside pocket and proceeds to pull out a bottle of beer. New Glarus beer.

"Is this your beer, Mr. Carey?"

Dan looks at the bottle which had a deep blue label that proudly proclaims "New Glarus Brewing Co." above "Coffee Stout".

"Yes, that's my beer," he replies with more than little pride. 

The agents turn to look at one another in unison, as if their movements were mechanically synchronized. Smiles of the "We got the bad guy!" kind appear on their faces.

This time the man spoke. "Mr. Carey, did you know this beer is illegal?"

"Oh jeez! It's just beer. With coffee."

"Just beer," the woman repeated mockingly. "Just beer, he says."

Her partner smirked and continued, "Mr. Carey, coffee is not an approved ingredient in beer. The government cannot allow unregulated admixtures of alcohol and caffeine to be thrust upon an unsuspecting public. You're going to have to come with us."

"What?!" Dan pleaded incredulously.

Dan Carey was never seen again. His disappearance is listed as "Unexplained" in the gevernment files.

Afterwords:

Not too long after Dan Carey's disappearance, coffee became an approved ingredient in beer.

*********************************

It's been a while since I've had a Pearl Street Brewery brew. I think of them as one of the breweries that time forgot. They've just melted into the background and become part of Wisconsin's craft brewing scenery. Like Tyranena, to my mind.

I don't mean to demean here because I like their beer. It's just that they're not trendy. People don't seem to be waiting with bated breath for their new IPA or any such thing. Pearl Street is a stalwart, not a trendsetter and that's fine by me.

And thanks to the sacrifices of Dan Carey and the folks in New Glarus, Pearl Street and anyone else who cares to can brew and sell a coffee beer. And they do. For the venerable La Crosse brewery it's Java Lava, a coffee stout. The earliest mention I could find of it dates to 2011 and it gave me the impression that it wasn't brand-spanking new but not a veteran brew either. Perhaps it was a brewery-only thing at that point, soon to be bottled. Today it is looks to be one of their flagship brews and available year-round.

Coffee beers are generally like cocktails in that you mix them. You brew some beer and then brew some coffee and mix them together. As a fan of coffee, I'd love it if brewers gave more info about the coffees they use in these kinds of beers. Light roasts taste different than darker ones. I personally prefer African coffees above others because I find that they have an especially tasty terroir. Maybe someday some brewery will do a series of coffee beers with various roasts of various coffees. How would a stout made with lightly-roasted Ethiopian coffee tasty compared to one brewed with a darker roast of the same beans?

Pearl Street notes that Java Lava is brewed with Guatemalan coffee but doesn't note the roast.

Regardless, this stuff looked like motor oil as it poured into my glass. It's about as Stygian a brown you can find. A small, frothy tan head looked very nice but lasted just long enough for me to get a photo of the last of it before it was all gone. Clarity was impossible to determine at first but it later proved to be clear. I smelled a slightly sweet plum scent, some dark chocolate, roasted grain, and, of course, coffee.

On my first sip, I caught a good, firm fizziness and a medium to medium-lightish body. There was delicious coffee flavor to be tasted as well as a bit of mild dark chocolate and roasted grain. Although a malty sweetness grew as the beer warmed, it remained restrained. There was also some bitterness to be had with some of it coming from the coffee and the rest from hops.

That tastilicious coffee lingered after I swallowed and a bracing herbal-spicy hoppiness washed over my tongue. And so the finishing touches were a bit dry and bitter but nothing outrageous. Just a nice green kind of flavor to stand in contrast to all of the dark, roasty flavors and that malt sweetness.

I really enjoyed Java Lava. It was a glassful of wonderful roasty flavors and positively gluttonous for someone like me who enjoys coffee and beer. I think the Guatemalan coffee added a fruity tasting brightness to the flavor that complemented the bitterness. It was sprightly and kind of sharp, overall. Good stuff.

Junk food pairing: Grab a can of Koh-Kae peanuts with the coffee flavor coating. They'll add a little sweetness and creaminess to round things off.

I Saw the Best Märzens of My Generation Destroyed by Maltiness

I am getting to the point where I cannot drink anymore Oktoberfests. It has nothing to do with them being seasonal biers because they are tasty in a variety of situations throughout the year. They're not particularly big biers nor are they optimized for warmer weather with light bodies. Nor are they brewed with nutmeg, allspice, clove, and cinnamon and thusly given a narrow window of quaffing potential. The style is not tied to a harvest or a holiday and there's nothing really seasonal about them any longer since virtually no one brews them in March and pulls them from the lagering caves in September.

No, I have made the mistake of investing in the Oktoberfests of my fair state and being disappointed most of the time. I have no explanation and the reason why they've been so untasty is probably reasons – they are plural. Poor shipping and storage practices may certainly be an issue. I won't deny that but nor can I prove it. But my cynic soon return and feels that most Wisconsin breweries have abandoned the state's German brewing heritage to varying degrees and so the Oktoberfest is simply a perfunctory exercise in obeisance. When you brew IPAs, sours, and potent barrel-aged potables all year, you're not getting practice at brewing lagers.

Contrariwise, some Wisconsin breweries with a fine lagery track record have produced some most unremarkable, if not awful, Oktoberfest biers this year. So there goes my lagerphobic hypothesis.

Whatever the case may be, I still have lots of Oktoberfest reviews piling up which calls for another omnibus.



From the wilds of La Crosse comes Pearl Street's Lederhosen Lager. Pearl Street brews various and sundry German styles and has an annual pils. This is definitely not a lagerphobic brewery that genuflects to tradition once a year.

So why is Lederhosen Lager so thoroughly mediocre? It was just a little over-carbonated – not a hanging offense - and under malted – a cardinal sin. It leaned to the caramel side but wasn't cloyingly sweet and let some more bready flavors come through. But all the malt tastes were subdued. I liked the spicy hops, though, and it left some of the best Schaumhaftvermoegen of the season.



Lakefront knows lagers. Hell, even their pumpkin beer is a lager and it is actually brewed with pumpkins. They have a great brewery tour to boot.

Sadly their Oktoberfest is par for the course as far as Wisconsin iterations go. Caramel sweetness was the dominant flavor – which I can handle - with very little bready taste – which doesn't cut the senf. I somehow managed to catch a dash of root beer in there too. And it was overly carbonated. I did like the herbal hops, though.

If I may quote T.S. Eliot's typist, well now that's done and I'm glad it's over.



Capital and I go way back. Their maibock was not only my first taste of a helles bock but I also lost my seasonal beer virginity with it. It was the spring of 1991 and I was blissfully unaware that beers were seasonal like Shamrock Shakes and McRibs. Later that year their Oktoberfest became the first Märzen to cross my lips. Capital is also likely responsible for introducing me to the concept of drinking local and was a cornerstone of my microbrew education.

Having said all of this, I was not impressed by their Oktoberfest this year. It has always been a caramel-forward bier and that hasn't changed this year. But, like most of the Wisconsin Oktos I've had this year, this one lacks a bready base upon which to build a house of sweetness. It wasn't over-carbonated and I really liked the hops which were grassy and herbal but those biscuit and bread tastes were just too faint, lost like distant stars in the city streetlights.



I will close with the completion of the trifecta of Oktoberfests from Green Bay featuring Stillmank. Neither Titletown nor Hinterland was able to pull through this year.

Stillmank, however, did.

And I believe it was the first time I'd had one of their beers so I was quite impressed. While there was some malty sweetness to be had, it was kept in check by a nice bready flavor. Stillmank got the proportion of malt tastes just right to my taste with bread/biscuit at the fore with sweeter malt given a supporting role. A good Oktoberfest is about getting the various malt flavors in the right spots for a grainy gestalt. Now I grant you that Stillmank didn't endow their Oktoberfest with much of that toasty/Maillard reacted goodness that I crave, but it was still a fine maltiness. And the hops. They were simply wonderful with a sprightly, fresh grassy flavor that is hard to beat.

Going into this little venture last month I wouldn't have dreamt that Stillmank would not only make a great Oktoberfest but that it would probably be the best domestic (i.e. - from Wisconsin) one of the season. Truth be told, I have a couple more from Wisconsin in my cellar and I'll likely have others on tap so the title is provisional, but this will certainly go down near, if not at, the top.

Septemdecies Pro Cheeseheadibus: 17UP by Pearl Street Brewery

I recall making a trek to La Crosse while in high school and seeing the World's Largest Six Pack wondering all the while just how much beer the massive tanks could hold. At that time they were still painted to look like Old Style cans, Old Style being my starter beer back when I was a pre-teen. You see, the father of a couple friends of mine kept a refrigerator full of it and some of those cans made their way into our grubby little hands. While the glory days of G. Heileman Brewing are long gone, the Pearl Street Brewery is celebrating 17 years of microbrewing this year on the banks of the Mighty Mississipp.

I tend to think of Pearl Street as being a small brewery that generally flies under the radar. I've reviewed a couple of their beers and enjoyed them but they don't have a signature beer whose name transcends mere trends and is known throughout Wisconsin. Pearl Street doesn't have a Spotted Cow or Hopalicious. Or perhaps it does and I just don't know it.

Regardless, Pearl Street is doing quite alright. Indeed, it is looking to expand their business. And to celebrate the big 1-7, they've brewed a selection of special brews: Wakin' Bacon Breakfast Beer, Stressed & Bitter Belgian-Style Pale Ale, Citrye IPE, Haggis Barrel Aged Scotch Ale, and 17UP Anniversary Gose. That's my understanding, anyway. I've seen only Citrye IPA and 17UP in bottles, however, and I gave the latter a try recently.

It was perfect weather for a light-bodied, tart, citrusy beer, i.e. – perfect gose weather. But 17UP is no ordinary gose. Instead of the usual salt & coriander, this bier was brewed with "natural lemon and lime essences". As far as what constitutes "essences" with regards to food labeling, I'm not sure, but it doesn't appear that the brewer, to paraphrase Taggart in Blazing Saddles, went and got a shitload of lemons and limes.

17UP pours a very turbid yellow. I got a nice, albeit small, frothy white head which, sadly, went away rather quickly. There was a middling number of bubbles in the bier heading upwards. Unfortunately, my fancy-schmancy glassware has been packed so I didn't have a stange to make the bier look all pretty for you. Still, it appeared quite temptingly qauffable, if you ask me.

When you're thinking to yourself, "17UP. I get it. It's a play on 7UP." and then go to smell a bier, it's difficult not to smell the soda. Such is the suggestible nature of the human mind. And so my first sniff of 17UP smelled exactly like 7UP. Or how I remember it smelling, anyway. It was a big, sweet burst of lemon-lime. I also caught some citrusy lactobacillus sour in the background.

Unsurprisingly, the taste of 17UP reminded me of 7UP's except it wasn't sweet – thankfully – and tasted more like fresh fruit than the soda. Lime was the predominant citrus flavor. This is not a maxi-sour bier as the lactic tartness really took a back seat to the fruit essences. But the bier was still quite pleasingly tangy with a subtle lemony bite. I was able to taste the salt but only just. Coriander was M.I.A. but I'm not sure if this is because of my tongue or it was left out of the mix to give the lime and lemon gustatory supremacy. If it was there, it was mild.

17UP's relatively tame tartness lingered into the finish as did the dynamic lime-lemon duo. But what stuck around longest was a really mild salinity. No Schaumhaftvermoegen was left on my glass.

17UP's label notes "Back in 1999, our fledgling Brewmaster tried to offer sour beers like this one to the people around here and they mostly just spit them on his boots." It goes on to proclaim that times have changed. I hope so.

While I do wish that 17UP was a bit more sour than it is, with its sprightly flavor and light body it really hit the spot on a near-80 degree day. There was nothing extreme here – each flavor was doing its Midwestern nice thing – and they all just melded together nicely. The people of La Crosse would have to be crazy to spit this on someone's boots.

Junk food pairing: Eat soft pretzels with 17UP. But instead of salt, use a shake of Pleasoning before dipping into mustard.

Straight People Don't Know What You're About: Smokin' Hemp Porter by Pearl Street Brewery

Not unlike hops, hemp originated in Asia with the Chinese growing the plant back when bands of proto-Brits were mapping ley lines and tweaking their fancy stone circle which would later be known as Stonehenge. A few thousand years later 18th century London brewers were getting irritated by unwelcome middlemen aging the breweries' fresh brown beer and selling it to alehouses for a tidy profit. And so the brewers added more hops and aged the beer themselves until it was "racy and mellow". River and street porters became enamored of the beer and the brew became known as "porter".

Hemp made its way west to Europe and eventually to the Americas. During World War II Wisconsin led the effort to produce hemp for rope and twine by outgrowing every other state. Indeed, our 146,000 acres yielded upwards of 75% of all commercial hemp in the country. (This presumably explains the countless gallon freezer bags of ditch weed that I encountered in college.)

And now here in the 21st century Pearl Street Brewery up in La Crosse has woven these strands of history together in Smokin' Hemp Porter. A dose of cherry wood smoked malt joins toasted hemp seeds in the ebony depths of a porter.

The beer pours a deep brown that appears black unless you hold your glass just right up to a light. It was mostly opaque but appeared to be clear. Atop was a small tan head that dissipated quickly. The opacity of the beer rendered me impotent in discerning the state of bubbles inside the brew. The aroma was rich with the scents of the Dark Side of the Grist – there was coffee, dark chocolate, and that bitter, almost ashy, black malt smell. As for the cherry wood smoked malt, there was a little of it to be found stewing in the salmagundi of roasted malt goodness. This beer would be more akin to Karben4's NightCall than a Schlenkerla rauchbier. There was also a hint of malty sweetness like plum to be had as well.

The malt profile changed just a bit from nose to tongue. Gone were the chocolate notes that my proboscis enjoyed but those of coffee and bitter, highly roasted malt remained. Much to my delight, that bacon-like smoked malt flavor was much more prominent in the taste than in the aroma. It wasn't an intense smokiness but certainly a stronger flavor than scent. Dryness from the carbonation helped keep the malt party from getting totally out of control. There was also a little nuttiness which I assume came from the hemp seeds. The only other beer I can think of with hemp seeds in it that I've had is O'Fallon's Hemp Hop Rye. This was at the Great Taste a few years ago and my palate was not able to dedicate itself to discerning hemp flavor at that time.

Smokin' Hemp Porter has a nice medium-heavy body. It is definitely not a viscous Lenten doppelbock but it is a bit more hearty than, say, a malty amber ale. It finished rather dry. The bitterness from the black malt lingered a short time as the carbonation added a bite and grassy/spicy hops came through sotto voce. Alas and alack, my glass was left with no lacing.

Being a big fan of smoked malt in beer, I'd have been thrilled as pie had there been more of it in Smokin' Hemp Porter. That said, it was still a very good beer. The smoke that was present was quite tasty and worked well with the rush of earthy flavors from the dark malt. It is simply a great porter accented with a wisp of smoke and touch of nuttiness from (presumably) the toasted hemp seeds.

Smokin' Hemp Porter is a limited release beer let loose on 4/20 each year. I still see it around Madison so it would seem that my sample was aged.

Junk food pairing: Pair Smokin' Hemp Porter with some Buffalo Blue Cheese Combos. The chili flavor will try to penetrate the Stygian malts but fail while the blue cheese will add a rich, earthy pungency that will complement the beer's grainy flavors.

Keep the Linalool. I'll Have the Malic Acid: Appleweizen by Pearl Street Brewery

While I may not be writing about Oktoberfests again this autumn, that doesn't mean that brews of the season have fallen off my radar. To wit: Pearl Street Brewery's Appleweizen.

Despite the fact that I like both apples and beer, I don't get overly excited about apple beers. The ones that I can recall having are Furthermore's Fallen Apple and New Glarus' Apple Ale although I'm sure I must have drunk others at some point. The former combines apple cider with a cream ale while the latter does so with a brown ale. Both beers are okay by me although the apple tends to overshadow the beer. Malt sweetness isn't given much of a chance to stand in contrast to the tartness of the apple. I can drink one and am happy to move onto something different.

Pearl Street takes yet another tack and combines the juice from Honeycrisp apples with a hefeweizen. The German wheat bier is known for its fruity esters and phenols so I was intrigued enough to buy a six pack. That and the Appleweizen just looked so lonely sitting next to empty shelf space where the shiny new Linalool IPA had been.

One thing that I like about summer is that there's more daylight and thusly it is easier for someone like me who is completely incompetent at still photography to take decent photos. Now with daylight on the wane, my pictures are, generally speaking, plummeting to new depths of lousiness. This one, however, isn't too bad. You can see that Appleweizen is a lovely beer that radiates a golden hue. You can also tell that it is quite clear. My pour produced a small frothy head but what little there was lingered for a spell. My photo also shows that the wealth of bubbles there were moving upward through the brew.

What my picture cannot show is the wonderful aroma. Unsurprisingly, apple was the first thing that caught my nose. It smelled like fresh cider with a moderate tartness. After that I caught some of the expected esters/phenol aromas that one normally gets from a hefeweizen, namely, clove and banana. It was quite a fruity extravaganza. There was also some grain/wheat scent to be had but, really, the smell here is all about fruit.

Appleweizen is a paragon in truthful advertising. As with the aroma, a fresh apple cider taste stood out in the taste with a nice moderate tartness. The hefeweizen yeast provided a wealth of esters/phenols for my tongue with banana and bubble gum flavors. Much to my delight, the apple flavors were prominent but not overwhelming. I could taste the beer underneath. In addition to all the fruit and a spot of wheat and malt, all those bubbles gave the taste a little dryness and an almost champagne-like sparkly sensation.

The beer finished slightly dry with the carbonation, apple tartness, and some herbal hop bitterness all pitching in. Sadly, my glass was left with very little Schaumhaftvermoegen. Just a spot here and there as most of the foam slid gently back into the beer.

Pearl Street has brewed a really nice apple beer. It has a medium-light body which was fairly smooth and when combined with all the carbonation makes for something that goes down easily. It's just very light and nimble on the tongue. Yet it also has lots of flavor. The apple was tart and tasty but it did not consign the hefeweizen flavors to an estery oblivion. Appleweizen is 5% A.B.V. and is a fine "salute to the fall harvest", as the brewery advertises, and a great late summer/early fall beer. Drink it now while our thermostats still reach near the 60 degree mark.

Junk food pairing: Pair Appleweizen with Buffalo Blue Cheese Combos. You'll love the pas de deux that the sweetness from the beer and the saltiness of the Combos engage in. in addition, the sharpness of the blue cheese flavoring and the gentle chili heat contrast nicely with the more restrained fruitiness of the brew.