2020: A Year in Beer

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.

Where's Evan Rail When You Need Him? Lazy Monk Brewing's Bohemian Dark Lager

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.