This is not a kellerbier. I repeat, this is not a kellerbier: Zwickel by Urban Chestnut

I used to think that zwickel was just another name for kellerbier and the zwickel/kellerbier was simply helles that was unfiltered and unpasteurized. Now I believe this view to be wrong and am not really sure what a zwickel is. It seems that it's a light kellerbier, with a bit less alcohol and less hoppiness. Oh, it also features more carbonation because, unlike the kellerbier, the bung is firmly in place on the tanks so the precious carbon dioxide does not escape. It also seems that kellerbiers and zeickels are lagered for differing lengths of time but I cannot confirm this. Oh, and a kellerbier seems to be, in extreme shorthand, a hoppy, still Märzen. Which I guess means that the zwickel is, in extreme shorthand, an unfiltered, unpasteurized helles. It would seem that a trip to Franconia is in order to clarify matters.

Unfortunately I won't be stepping foot in Germany any time soon but luckily Urban Chestnut's brewmaster, Florian Kuplent, hails from Munich and began to learn his craft there. And I am also fortunate that he brews Zwickel.

Kuplent's zwickel pours a lovely deep yellow and has the requisite turbidity with all that tasty yeast still in there. This was quite an effervescent brew as I got a nice fluffy white head which was in no hurry to go anywhere. In addition there were lots of bubbles forming at the bottom of my glass only to make their way upwards.

The aroma was a little bit of heaven. It smelled like bread - full of yeasty, grainy goodness. There was also a note of spicy hoppiness from the Hallertau Perle und Mittelfrueh varieties. Zwickel tastes like fresh bread. There was a bit of mild doughy sweetness (which veered towards apricot as the beer warmed) but Zwickel had a lot more of that superior bread crust-melanoidin flavor. The yeast also added to the impression that one was drinking liquid bread. More beers ought to remain unfiltered, in my humble opinion. Finally, the plentiful carbonation lent a little dryness to this decidedly malt-focused brew.

There wasn't much to taste of hops until the finish where the Noble Hallertaus exerted some peppery bitterness and helped Zwickel finish on a dry note. My glass ended up with a couple moderately sized patches of Schaumhaftvermoegen.

While I can imagine that Zwickel tastes exceptional coming right from the tap at Urban Chestnut, St. Louis is much closer than Franconia and it still tasted fantastic to me. Just as hopheads are going ga-ga over Citra hops these days, I get my thrills with that bread crust kind of flavor that European malts seem to provide. And there's no shortage in Zwickel. At 5.2% A.B.V. it is perhaps a bit stronger than is traditional and the bready flavors are at the fore here but this is not a very hearty brew. It has a nice medium-light body, is not very sweet, and is bubbly making it quite suitable for warmer weather.

I'd love to taste Zwickel fresh down in St. Louis. I have friends who swear that Pappy's Smokehouse is the best BBQ on the planet and there's an Urban Chestnut outpost less than half a mile from Pappy's. But, since there's no trek to St. Louis in the near future…

Junk food pairing: Pair Zwickel with Pepper Jack Cheese Nut Thins. Both are relatively light fare but the chili makes for a nice contrast to the mellow, bready flavors of the beer.

A Catalogue of Tastes & Smells, Brewed in the City of Milwaukee, on the West Side of Lake Michigan: Increase Wheat from Milwaukee Brewing Co.

Last year at either a Craft Beer Week or a pre-Great Taste event the Milwaukee Brewing Company was pouring a new gooseberry Berliner Weisse. I thought it was rather tasty but was disappointed because it was available only in Milwaukee and, if I recall correctly, solely on draft. This year, however, the brew, christened Increase Wheat, has been bottled and given wider distribution.

The beer is named after Increase Lapham, the renowned 19th century naturalist and scientist who lived in Milwaukee. While his mailing address may have been in our state's largest city, Lapham surveyed the entirety of Wisconsin, reported on Native American effigy mounds, and catalogued the state's flora and fauna, including the gooseberry. (Lapham Elementary School here in Madison is named after him.)

Increase Wheat follows in the footsteps of several of Milwaukee Brewing Company's brews whose names refer to city landmarks and famous Milwaukeeans. It's nice to see them show pride in their city and expose people beyond John Gurda's reach to tidbits of the city's history. And in a time when many beer labels feature cartoon hop cone superheroes as well as scantily clad women, seeing Lapham and his level on the six pack holder is a refreshing change of pace.

I did my tasting on a fairly warm, sunny day which was perfect for the style and provided plenty of light for my snap which turned out not too shabbily.

Increase Wheat is a lovely yellow in color and is hazy. It is a wheat beer after all. As befits a "Champagne of the North", it's also very bubbly. My pour had a nice fluffy white head which stuck around. There was also a surfeit of bubbles making their way up the glass.

The aroma was marvelous with that characteristic lemony tartness complemented by gooseberry and grain. Milwaukee Brewing stayed true to style here and didn't brew a quad imperial Berliner Weisse. Increase weighs in at a typical 3.1% A.B.V. and the addition of rice helps give it a very light body. That citrusy/lemony sourness is right there leading the charge on your tongue but so the gooseberry which adds its own, slightly mellower and sweeter, tartness is not far behind. There's a goodly amount of sour here but it's not amped up so as to be threatening. You'll pucker, don't get me wrong, but swiftly adjust. Underneath it all is the wheat which gives a nice bready flavor here. In addition you can taste the carbonation which, along with the rice, adds a layer of dryness to it all.

Increase Wheat finishes as it began – tart. I found that the citrus tartness yielded to that of the gooseberries. There's not much hops to be had here. I suspect that the Tettnanger hops that are present just helped add to the overall dryness of the beer.

I thoroughly enjoy Increase Wheat. Here in the summer heat it proves to be exquisitely refreshing. It gets points from me for its dual tartness attack with a sharp, citrusy sour rubbing up against the gooseberry's blunter, sweeter contribution. The sour flavors are like paint with the light graininess providing the canvas. There's always that wheat for the tartness to prop itself upon and to provide a little contrast and texture too.

Junk food pairing: Berliner Weisse is a light style so you want something fairly easy going to pair with it. Try some Funyuns with your Increase Wheat. It's got that root vegetable thing going on for starters. The overall flavor won't overpower the beer while the beer will cut the salt. Plus salt & sour is simply a fantastic combination.

Düsseldorf Calling: Uerige Alt

My little altbier trifecta ends with a taste of Düsseldorf - Uerige Alt. Credit must go to Riley's Wines of the World for carrying Uerige's bier as I haven't seen it anywhere else.

Uerige was established in 1862 which means it's been around for most of the time there's been this beer that we call the Düsseldorfer Alt. I did some reading on the origin of the altbier and ended up getting thoroughly lost in a labyrinth of 16th and 17th century Westphalian and Bavarian alimentary laws. The altbier's cousin, the Kölsch, springs from Cologne's brewing traditions shaped by a 1603 law banning bottom-fermented beers. As far as I can tell the point of this law was to preserve the city's brewing heritage against the encroachment of lagers but surely it also had something to do with protecting the city's indigenous breweries. Did Düsseldorf have any similar laws? I could find nothing at Ron Pattinson's blog indicating that it did but this could very well just be lazy researching on my part.

It seems that the brewers of Northern Germany spent a lot of Renaissance fending off the influence of Bavaria. In 1551 a Munich law mandated the use of bottom-fermenting yeast there and a couple years later Bavaria outlawed brewing in the summer because of ales going south. In what appears to be a series of laws aimed at protecting the consumer, Bavarians unwittingly elevated lagerbier above ales. The lager trend spread and brewers in places like Cologne and Düsseldorf struggled against it. It seems that the altbier and Kölsch are the products of brewers clinging onto tradition on the one hand (top-fermenting) and yielding to trends on the other (lagering). Hence the native style for these brews is Obergäriges Lagerbier - or top-fermented lager beer.

In doing my reading I also learned that the altbier and Kölsch, while top-fermenting, are fermented at cooler temperatures (55°F-60°F) than your average ale (65°F-75°F).

My photo didn't turn out too badly here and, as you can see, Uerige Alt is a beauty. It's clear with a nice copper color. My pour had a nice off-white head that was in no hurry to leave. The aroma was sweet with caramel and raisin notes in my nose. I was surprised not to catch any hops as I was under the impression that the alt was fairly hoppy – in the Czech pilsner range. But, as with any other beer style, your mileage may vary. Plus I wasn't sure how long the beer had been sitting on the shelf when I bought it.

Curiously enough, I didn't find much in the way of hops in the flavor either. The dominant flavor was roasted grain which veered into chocolate territory slightly. But there was also this slight plum-like flavor and I tasted something I can best describe as being like vermouth. The latter of these was quite unexpected. The beer wasn't very sweet but had a medium body. I think the carbonation helped add to my tongue's impression that this wasn't a particularly sweet beer.

The beer finished dry with (finally!) some spicy hop goodness coming through.

I am reluctant to make any definitive judgements about the beer as I can't vouch for its freshness. With that caveat, I will say that I rather liked this beer. The fruitier flavors weren't as prominent as roasted grain ones and I really liked the chocolate tones. These flavors melded well. Actually, Uerige Alt had a rather more complicated malt profile than I expected. There were just more fruity bits comingling with more roasty bits than I thought there would be. The absence of hops until the finish was disappointing, however.

Junk food pairing: Uerige Alt goes well with Cheez-It Duos Sharp Cheddar and Parmesan crackers. These brighter tasting snacks help provide some balance since there's not much hop bitterness to be had.

Some Pre-Great Tasting

The day before the Great Taste of the Midwest I stopped in at Buck and Badger as Schell Brewing was to be featured as was St. Francis Brewing. I was hoping to try some Schell's Starkeller Peach, a peach-laced Berliner Weisse, and their One Five Five, a red lager brewed in honor of the brewer's 155th anniversary. If Arminius, their hoppy lager, was available, then all the better.

From what I can tell, Starkeller Peach sold out within about two hours after arriving in Madison. I was quite surprised by this as the previous Noble Star brews were around for a while after hitting shelves here. Apparently people got all fired up over the presence of peach and – BAM! – they snagged up every bottle before I knew it. The succeeding release in the series, Cypress Blanc, was still on store shelves last time I checked. This bodes well for me as long as there's no peach in the next release.

The Great Taste's stellar reputation rests, in part, on the fact that they require brewers to attend and represent their beer. While this is good and pure, I've rarely had time to chat with brewers at the Great Taste for very long. There's usually a thirsty horde behind me seeking suds. That's what makes these events the day before so nice. You can corner a brewmaster and have an honest chat of, if you're lucky, a few minutes. Brewmaster Jace Marti was at Buck and Badger last Friday and I borrowed his ear for a while, I can tell you.

I began by asking him about Schell rebranding itself as "German craft". I have speculated here that it had to do with the Brewers Association declaring Schell to be "crafty" and not craft because of the use of adjuncts in Grain Belt. Marti confirmed this. But he also said that Schell takes their German heritage seriously. They seem intent on differentiating themselves in the microbrew world by exploiting and innovating German brewing traditions rather than going all IPA all the time.

While I'd hoped to taste Arminius, an extra hoppy lager, there was none to be had. In fact, I don't recall ever having seen it here in Madison. Marti or his cohort told me that it had been discontinued. It never caught on, they believe, for marketing reasons. On the bright side, they brought Starkeller Peach.



I guess you could describe it as an imperial Berliner Weisse aged with peaches. (Truth be told, I didn't know it was 7%+ A.B.V. until I looked it up just now.) It was full of sour peachy goodness and I poured myself multiple samples. There were also bottles of Cypress Blanc, a Berliner Weisse/American pale lager hybrid with brettanymyces and hopped with Hallertau Blanc hops. It was potent too at 7.4% A.B.V. (No wonder I was so hungover the next day.) This was light, tart, and oddly fruity for not having been aged with fruit. Good stuff.

Marti told me that the next Noble Star release is going to be called Apparent Horizon, a rye Berliner Weisse. Rye is for me what peach is for the Madison Beer Advocate crowd so I'm really looking forward to this. I politely asked Marti to bring back Emerald Rye and told him that I adored Chimney Sweep, a rauch dunkles. Marti revealed that he'd lived just outside of Bamberg, Germany, home of the rauchbier, for a couple years and he recalled wander into town when he had time for some fine smoke beer. This provoked an instant mancrush on my part. I turned green with envy. Marti expressed a preference for Spezial over Schlenkerla and also noted that rauchbiers tend to get smokier over time. I.e. - they are much less smoky when you're in Bamberg drinking them fresh from the barrel as opposed to opening the bottles you get at the store.

Jace Marti was a swell guy and I recommend chatting him up if you get the chance. You could hear the love he has for his job as he described the restoration of the cypress aging barrels Schell uses for the Noble Star beers. He was quite proud of the beers he made and of working within the German brewing traditions that have informed Schell since the brewery was established in 1860.

At some point I stopped pestering Jace Marti and joined my friends. Sadly there was no One Five Five on tap but I did try Schell's Cave Aged Barrel-Aged Lager which is a dunkles aged in whisky barrels. It was outstanding. A fairly big beer at 7.7% A.B.V. but not a leviathan with flammable fumes emanating from your glass. The roasted malts melded with the whiskey instead of being overpowered by them.

Also present was St. Francis Brewing. I have a bottle of Lust, their weissbier, at home waiting for me. Beyond this, I have to admit I've never tasted their beer. But they brought some of their brand new lemongrass Berliner Weisse with them. Here it is being tapped.


O'zapft is!

I chatted for a bit with a brewery rep who was also a certified cicerone. A charming fellow who gave me the skinny on St. Francis and their beers. The Berliner Weisse was the brewery's first attempt at the style. Unfortunately, champagne of the North it wasn't. It was woefully undercarbonated which made me wonder why they'd brought it. On the other hand, it was light and refreshing and I could certainly see this being a great summer brew with proper carbonation.

From Buck and Badger it was off to The Capital Tap Haus where the Capital crew would be offering various and sundry brews made especially for this pre-GTMW party. Sadly, none of my photos from the Tap Haus were in focus. There was a rye pilsner on offer which was tasty despite not having been lagered long enough. The chocolate peanut butter stout was also tasty. Just enough peanut flavor. I also got a glass of Vacation Request, a rye ale that is hopped with Lemondrop hops, a new variety. This beer is going to be bottled so look for bombers soon. It was tasty. The rye spiciness was moderate but noticeable. It was light and refreshing. Not too hoppy. Balanced.

My former co-worker Doug, he of OverServed fame, was there. I got to chat with him for a spell which was nice because I hadn't done so since I started my new job. He is good friends with Ashley Kinart, Capital's brewmaster, and so I got a chance to speak with her for a while as well. I opined that the rye pilsner should be an annual. Of course I pleaded with her for a rauchbier. While one is not forthcoming, she did suggest a tour of the Weyermann malt factory in Bamberg and she thought it was a cool experience. So that's on my bucket list now.

My friends and I stopped at the Caribou for a nightcap. It had been years since I'd been there. The jukebox was one of those fancy touchscreen deals and the taps had changed too. And there was no Ruthie. (Does anyone know if she's still around?) But really, The Bou was basically the same as it ever was. I do believe that we had Central Waters Summarillo which was quite tasty for a beer with "India" in its style's name.

At the Bottom of a Dark Wisconsin Lake: Headless Man Amber Alt by Tyranena Brewing Co.

After my disappointing experience with Port Huron's Amber Alt I decided to follow my whim and keep on the altbier path. Surely there must be a tasty one outside of Düsseldorf. Next up was Headless Man Amber Alt from Tyranena.

Tyranena was founded in 1998 which makes them pretty ancient in Madison area craft brew world. To put it in Lord of the Rings terms, Capital, founded in 1984 or '85, is like Ilúvatar. It was there at the beginning. (And doesn't Kirby Nelson look like ol' Eru?) Brewmaster Rob Larson and his minions over in Lake Mills, about 25 miles east of Madison, are like one of the Ainur who, along with others, sang the sweet microbrew song in the 90s (and 2000) to give us the craft beer world we have today. The brewery has a nice tasting room and also a fine outdoor area. It's a friendly atmosphere with hounds running around and people having a jolly time. It's been a while since I've been there but their chili cook-offs were a hoot.

Headless Man pours a beautiful amber as opposed to the more traditional copper. It is clear and effervescent. My photo shows the nice tan head my pour produced and there was a fair amount of bubbles in the glass going up, up, up! The aroma was very sweet-smelling with both caramel and fruity – like plum - scents present.

Considering the aroma I was surprised by the flavor. It had a slight fruity/apricot sweetness and a dryness from the carbonation, was readily apparent, and the mix of German hop varieties. I found it to be a bit watery and light on malt flavor. The beer didn't taste like it had been lagered or at least not lagered long enough. Like Port Huron's altbier, Headless Man had a medium body but was remarkably lacking in malt flavor. I found this to be blatantly odd because I've never known a Rob Larson brew to be lacking in flavor. It may be flavors I don't want to taste but a watery beer from him? Unheard of.

Headless Man finished dry with a lingering spicy hoppiness and left some really nice Schaumhaftvermoegen on my glass.

Sadly, this was another drain pour. I've had Headless Man before and I don't recall it tasting like this. I think I must have hit an unlucky altbier streak. Maybe Woodman's singles cooler malfunctioned. It was just too watery and those fruit flavors just didn't belong. Something must have gone awry down in Lake Mills. Hopefully my memory isn't playing tricks on me. because I thought that, when things are going right, this is a tasty, malty brew. At 5.25% A.B.V. it's a bit bigger than the classic altbier and approaches sticke alt potency.

Junk food pairing: As with Port Huron's curiously similar altbier, I'd pair Headless Man with steak-flavored potato chips like Ruffles MAX Flame Grilled Steak chips or Herr's Kansas City Prime Steak flavored chips. The latter are or were to be had at Woodman's East along the opposite side of the dairy aisle wall.

This Altbier Induces Fremdschämen: Amber Alt by Port Huron Brewing

Wisconsin Dells is the state's most infamous tourist trap, drawing hordes of families from Illinois to area theme parks, arcades, and restaurants. Nestled away in a nondescript business park on the fringes of town lies Port Huron Brewing Company. The brewery's name comes from a 1917 Port Huron (Michigan) steam tractor proudly owned by brewmaster Tanner Brethorst's family. Port Huron tends to creep under the craft beer radar because they do not brew an IPA, although that is supposed going to change this year.

Brethorst did his time in the southern Wisconsin brewing scene before striking out on his own. He worked at Tyranena, Lake Louie, and Capital Brewing in addition to taking classes at the Siebel Institute in Chicago. He also honed his skills across The Pond in Munich for a spell. In 2010 he decided to brew professionally and Port Huron started rolling barrels out its doors in 2012.

As I noted above, Port Huron has no IPA or even a plain Jane pale ale to its name. Sometimes I wonder how a craft brewery can remain in business without being able to satiate the hop addicted. Indeed, of Port Huron's four annual brews, two are German styles – a hefeweizen and an altbier. I was happy to see Brethorst brew an alt as it's a style that does not get a lot of love in these parts.

The alt is the specialty brew of Düsseldorf. Like it's cousin from downriver, the Kölsch, the alt is top-fermented and then lagered. I've never found any definitive explanation for this. It seems that the style derives from an older ("alt" means old in German) ale which mutated in the late 19th century amidst the onslaught of lagers. Alt is traditionally served in a stange like the Kölsch but the altbier variation is shorter and wider. Luckily I have a couple of these so, if you come over to drink altbier with me, it will be served to you in one of these instead of the ubiquitous shaker pint.

Port Huron's Amber Alt comes in a prepossessing copper color. I swear, it looks much better than my lousy backlit photo. The beer is clear and effervescent. My pour got a nice fluffy, off-white head that lasted a good while. Beneath it many bubbles made their way from the bottom of the glass to the top. My nose caught a sweet malty aroma that was stone fruity along with a cleaner biscuit scent as well as a yeasty one. I guess you could say it smelled very much like bread.

Oddly enough, the first thing I tasted was the spicy-peppery hop flavor of what I think are Hallertau Mittelfrüh hops with the malt being conspicuously absent. It was genuinely weird. The beer has a medium body but for just a very short time it tastes really watery. Then a bready malt flavor pops in from out of left field. None of the stone fruit flavor from the nose is present so Port Huron gets points for lagering the beer.

Amber Alt finishes dry with the malt giving way to more of the Noble hop spicy bitterness. I was left with some fine Schaumhaftvermoegen.

This ended up being a drain pour. I don't know if it was the vicissitudes of craft brewing or my ineptitude at keeping my bottle cool and out of the sun but Amber Alt was watery. There were good flavors in there but they didn't come together. It tasted like each of the flavors were in a line and hit my tongue one after another instead of in a glorious gestalt of Noble malty kinship. First the hops, then the water, then the malt, and then the hops again. Hopefully this was a bad bottle whoever may be at fault. I shall try Amber Alt again at some point to verify my findings here.

Junk food pairing: Pair Amber Alt with a hearty junk food such as a steak-flavored potato chip like Ruffles MAX Flame Grilled Steak chips or Herr's Kansas City Prime Steak flavored chips. The latter are or were to be had at Woodman's East along the opposite side of the dairy aisle wall.

The Champagne of the North from the South: Fierce by Off Color Brewing

Off Color Brewing is one of our brewing neighbors to the south. It began a couple years ago in Chicago and was founded by John Laffler, who had worked for Goose Island in the Bourbon County department, and Dave Bleitner, who left Two Brother Brewing to partner with Laffler. I have to admit that Off Color interested me from the get-go with their first two bottled beers being a gose and a kotbusser. Plus Laffler told an interviewer, "Everybody else makes IPA, so why would we?" and described IPAs as "a beer I don't care for". A man after my own heart.

I'd imagine that many BCS fans were expecting a prominent barrel aging program from Off Color considering Laffler's pedigree. Even though OC has done some barrel aging, they haven't staked their reputation on it. Instead Laffler and Bleitner have spent their time brewing a range of beers from lagers to ales, big beers to session brews, sours, obscure styles, and many points between. Fierce continues the brewery's tradition of making lesser-known German styles (and ales at that)and is a Berliner Weisse. Yeah, it's not obscure like the kotbusser but it's no pils either.

By looks alone Fierce seems true to style with its light straw color and hazy complexion from a hefty dose of wheat. Looking at the bottle one sees that the brew is 3.8% A.B.V. which is also traditional as the Berliner Weisse is not generally a very potent brew. One often hears that Napoleon and/or his troops dubbed the Berliner Weisse “The champagne of the North.” This sounds wholly apocryphal to me but it is certainly true that the style should be bubbly and indeed my pour of Fierce resulted in a nice big white head. The beer was quite effervescent with lots of bubbles forming at the bottom of my glass and heading upwards.

I could smell the beer while the glass was still several inches from my nose as I fumbled with my camera and it smelled mighty fine. It had the characteristic lemon/citrus tartness that I've come to expect from the style. Also present was a bit of graininess plus a some sweetness with citrus/orange tones. Luckily it was a fairly warm out when I drank this brew because it was perfect for the day for it. That lemon tartness shone through but was tempered a bit by all the bubbles which added welcome dryness. The label notes that the tartness was achieved via kettle souring. This, I believe, means that
Lactobacillus is added prior to boiling and the addition of hops as opposed to letting the beer sit around and gather bacteria from the air or from a barrel. Fierce is rather sour but I found that its lemon aspect to be fairly subdued.

The beer's light body also made it quite refreshing on a summer day. It finished on the dry side owing to the generous carbonation and lingering tartness. Unfortunately, there was not much Schaumhaftvermoegen to be had as it all slid down the wall of the glass.

Fierce is a very tasty brew. It's light body, wonderful lemony tartness, and all those bubbles just make for an exceptionally refreshing drink during these warmer months. The beer boasts 3 I.B.U.s so hopheads need not apply as you'll never find the hops. They probably add to the overall dryness but I couldn't taste them. I also appreciate that it is a true session beer coming in at 3.8% A.B.V. as I can have a few of these after work and still be able to watch Blake's 7 that same night and recall the plot in the morning.

Junk food pairing: Pair Fierce with lighter foods. You don't want something that's going to completely overshadow the beer. Try some thin pretzel sticks or those fancy new Lays West Coast Truffle Fries potato chips.

A Scandal in Arena: Blue Peter by Lake Louie Brewing

There have been quite a few changes at Lake Louie these past several months. Coon Rock Cream Ale became Golden Booty and a slew of new brews were introduced in a trio of equally new series – the Dark Shadows, the Hop-A-Louie, and the Session. From my perspective most of the publicity has gone to the three new IPAs with some attention given to The Twins, a new seasonal Maibock, as it was the center of a minor brouhaha during Madison Craft Beer Week where it was featured at an event hosted at the Silk Exotic strip club. Less attention has been given to Blue Peter, another new beer which happens to be an Export or Dortmunder or Dortmunder Export, whichever term you prefer.

The Dortmunder arose, quelle surprise, in Dortmund, a city in west central Germany that was in the middle of the German industrial heartland where coal mining and steel mills ruled the day. It seems that the miners and millworkers in the 1880s took to a heartier brew to satisfy their thirst. The Dortmunder is a pale lager that sits between the pils and the helles. It's less hoppy than a pilsner but more so than a helles. It also has more malt sweetness than either style making for a slightly bigger beer. The style was extremely popular in Germany until the 1970s when the pilsner won out. It was also fairly big here in the States as I recall DAB ads here and I do believe that I saw TV commercials as well.

Blue Peter pours a beauty of a light gold, eh. It is clear and very effervescent. As you can see, I got a big, fluffy white head that had some staying power. If you look at the photo I think you can tell that the bubbles are rather large. I noticed that, anyway. They just seemed to be larger in diameter than your average bubble. There were also lots of bubbles in the beer working their way up.

My proboscis initially caught some fine cracker-grain aroma but this was followed by a sweeter malt scent that was reminiscent of apricot. There was also a bit of mild grassy hop to be had. The taste mirrored the aroma for the most part with that graininess goodness sharing the stage with a sweeter malt flavor that was less fruity here than in the nose and more doughy. I found that the hops tasted a bit more herbal than they smelled. The rather faint hoppy aroma belied just how prominent they'd be on the tongue. There was a clear herbal bitterness to be tasted. Not as bumptious as an American pale ale but rather about the same as a Czech pilsner which is probably not to style. Lake Louie's website indicates Blue Peter has a scandalous 45 I.B.U.s which is surely more characteristic of a Bohemian-style brew. The goodly amount of carbonation here accentuates the hop bitterness.

Blue Peter has a nice lagery clean and dry finish wherein the bready malt sweetness gives way to spicy/herbal hop bitterness. I'll also note that I didn't get much Schaumhaftvermoegen as most of the foam simply slid down the side of the glass.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm no Dortmunder Export expert. American microbrewers don't exactly flock to the style although Great Lakes' Dortmunder Gold is a notable exception. (Does anyone remember The Malt House's deals on Fauerbach Export? Ooh, I drank a lot of that stuff.) From what I can glean from various websites, Blue Peter seems mostly true to style with additional hop bitterness being the main, if not only, deviation from the norm.

But this is not a hanging offense. The extra malt here keeps the hops from getting out of line. The beer's medium body and 5.8% A.B.V. prevents it from being, to my mind, a real summer tippler. But, then again, my vocation involves sitting behind a desk and no physical labor. Three cheers to Tom Porter for brewing a rather neglected style and for brewing it well.

Junk food pairing: The extra hops in Blue Peter means it pairs well with the grease and salt of deep fried cheese curds. Skip the ranch dipping sauce and go for bleu cheese dressing and drown yourself in Dortmunder dairy gluttony.

And On the Seventh Day God Created the Baklava Sampler Platter

I was in Chicago over the weekend and of course I stopped at a grocery store. My primary goal was to get some quinces at the Produce Center since my last attempt to make a marmalade of quince ended up as a brick. The quinces were cooked just too long, much to my shame. Unfortunately there were no golden apples to be had. And so I purchased...



Whole rye bread! I'm not sure that any breadery in the Madison area makes this. Perhaps a store imports it. The best local analog I can think of is the Bavarian rye from The Bread Barn. That is a fine brot but this loaf has more rye. Also no caraway here. Ingredients are rye flour, whole rye flour, whole wheat flour, yeast, water, salt, and honey. The crust is chewy while the non-crust interior is soft and fluffy. I had a sandwich made with this stuff for lunch today and it was tastilicious.



And I just had to buy some kolaczki - raspberry and apricot. Thankfully storm clouds moved in otherwise we might have ended up at Sweet World Pastry and become the proud owners of a lot of baumkuchen.



Makowiec (poppy seed roll) is obligatory. Luckily I am not required to take a drug test. That chocolate cheese rugela on the right came from New York Bagel and Bialy. Open 24/7 to serve all of your bagel and bialy needs. Also got raspberry cheese rugelach.



Yes, I also bought bagels - egg, onion, and mish mosh, a.k.a. - everything.

Just a store front or two down from the bagel joint was what I believe is a fairly new bakery - Libanais Sweets. They had multiple sizes of baklava sampler packs.



Tasty. Very tasty indeed. One species here is made with rose hips or rose water or rose something. Mmmm...I had no idea that there were so many iterations of baklava but the bakers of the Ottoman Empire had centuries to tinker and perfect recipes so it's not surprising.

They also had a large assortment of cookies.



Cookies dipped in chocolate then dipped in diced pistachio. Fantastic! And not overly sweet which means you can eat more in a session. They're session cookies.

It's ratatouille and session sweets all week for me.

Back to the Garden 2015 Edition

The garden is doing well this year.





We've got squash, zucchini, tomatoes, and chilies. The kale was massacred by rabbits. R.I.P. The chili plants remain small with only a modicum of fruit. I blame the relatively cool weather. On the other hand, we've been harvesting toms, zukes, and squash for a while now. The plants have been extremely fecund. So much that we now have enough ratatouille to feed an army yet the produce still comes.



There must be 4 or more varieties of tomatoes out there. I never knew there was a species of tomatoes named after Paul Robeson. Must be commie tomatoes. We also have Old German, Genuwine, and others.

And here's a cat in a window.

Heute bin ich ein Berliner (Redux): Berliner Geist by Vintage Brewing

Scott Manning at Vintage traded smoke for sour this summer and brewed a Berliner Weisse instead of a grodziskie. At least we're still in the light wheat beer ballpark.

The Berliner Weisse is an old beer style. As the name implies, it's a northern German style and is a cousin of the gose and other obscure/extinct German beer styles which as a group are likely cousins of the Belgian witbier. Berlin is reputed to have had several hundred breweries churning out Berliner Weisse in the first half of the 18th century. However, as the lager became ever more popular in the second half, the Berliner Weisse and its brethren faded into obscurity. I do believe that there are a couple of breweries in Germany that still brew the style with Berliner Kindl being the most popular as far as I can tell.

Assuredly acidulous, the Berliner Weisse is imbued with lactic acid bacteria to get your lips a-puckerin' and, back in the day, picked up brettanomyces naturally for a bit of funkiness. I don't think I've run into an American take on the style that had brett but surely some microbrewer out there has made it. I also see that a German is attempting to resurrect the original brett-laden style.

Berliner Geist ("spirit of Berlin") pours a brilliant straw color. It was rather clear which I found odd as all that wheat normally makes the beer hazy. Legend has it that Napoleon dubbed Berliner Weisse the "champagne of the north" and so it should come as no surprise that I got a big white head (which settled quickly) and that the beer was quite effervescent with a lot of bubbles in my glass.

Also unsurprising was the big lemony tartness that assailed my nose when I took a whiff. It smelled mighty fine. My nose also detected graininess and some malt sweetness. The taste was very similar to the nose. On first sip you recoil from the lemony tartness. After a few sips it mellows out, however. Berliner Geist is definitely tart but I have to admit that I've tasted ones that are even more sour. I think Scotty has found a happy medium here. I also caught some grainy flavors that were bready and you can really taste the bubbles.

Berliner Geist finished with its tartness fading into a lingering bread flavor. There are German hops here but very little and certainly not enough to take the focus away from the sourness. Indeed, I didn't notice them at all.

For this review I went ohne the Schuss or syrup that often accompanies a Berliner Weisse. Apparently this practice dates back to the 1920s. Personally I prefer the Waldmeister (woodruff) but Himbeer (raspberry) is also available at Vintage. Plus you can buy both flavors at Bavaria Sausage. At 4.7% A.B.V Berliner Geist is a bit stronger than normal but that's how Scotty rolls. He never misses a chance to make his potables just a bit more potent. Still, it's not overly boozy. With its light body, citrus sourness, and all those bubbles, Berliner Geist is quite refreshing in the summer heat.

Junk food pairing: You don't want anything too heavy to go with your Berliner Geist. You can't go wrong with plain potato chips in most cases but you can get away with some Chicken in a Biskit crackers. For pairing with cheese, try some American or Cheddar Easy Cheese.

Stange, Stange on the Wall, Who's Kölsch is Fairest of Them All?: Schlafly Kölsch (-style)?

Summer has become truly hot here in Madison which means I am quaffing ever lighter brews here in the sun as I await August's welcome corn. On a fairly recently trip to Chicago I purchased some aestival-ready brews from St. Louis. One of them was Schlafly Kölsch-style beer (I don't want the keepers of the Kölsch Convention coming down on me for implying that this brew was made in Köln.)

Ah, the Kölsch. The style does a delicate balancing act with the trio of grain, fruitiness, and hops. No mere golden ale, this beer must be lagered!

My Schlafly Kölsch poured a deep straw color and was slightly hazy. I presume the haze came from the wheat. My understanding is that the style is traditionally all barley so this is a deviation from the norm. My pour produced a fine pillowy white head which stuck around for a while. There was a fair amount of effervescence with bubbles aplenty moving on up.

The aroma was lovely with cracker and that unique Kölsch fruitiness vying for my nose's attention. That fruitiness comes from the yeast and Schlafly brags that theirs comes from the Gaffel Brewery. Being in Köln, Gaffel brews a true Kölsch. After smelling the beer I think that I started drooling in anticipation of what was to come. Disappointed I was not. It was crisp with that cracker aroma translating to the taste. Plus there was that trademark fruitiness which is mellow and berry-like to my tongue. Lagering takes the edge off those esters. That light graininess eventually gives way to a bit of malty sweetness which I tend to think of as tasting a bit like corn, though not creamed corn, mind you.

The brew finishes fairly dry with biscuit flavors fading and giving way to a moderate spiciness courtesy of Perle and Hallertau hops. Most of the Schaumhaftvermoegen slid down the side of the glass but I did have a couple sizeable patches of foam that clung.

I loved this brew. It may be the best take on the Kölsch style this side of Köln, where Reissdorf rules from what I can taste. My tongue was happy to let the grainy flavors battle it out with the fruity ones for supremacy. The light, unassuming cracker flavor is one of the main reasons I drink beer. This is not to damn the fruitiness because it too is great here and in perfect proportion to the malty flavors. Once a stalemate is reached, the hops come in and clean up. This balance of flavors, a light body, and a moderate alcohol content of 4.8% A.B.V. make Schlafly Kölsch a thoroughly satisfying summer brew.

Junk food pairing: I like to pair Kölsch with milder junk foods so enjoy Schlafly with some plain potato chips or regular Cheez Its.

MIA - NaCl and Coriandrum sativum: Egon's Revenge from Next Door Brewing

I emailed Next Door Brewing a few months ago asking if they were going to brew Egon's Revenge again this year. Head Brewer Bryan Kreiter replied that he was intent on doing so and that he may switch from the use of acidulated malt to create the tartness to actually culturing some bacteria from raw grain for the job. This was good news indeed as I thoroughly enjoyed last year's batch. It was a bit heavier than I'd expect from a gose – an imperial gose, perhaps? – but it was refreshing and had goodly amounts of salt and coriander. A very tasty brew.

The gose seems to be gaining in popularity these days. Leipziger Gose is available at Riley's these days in small bottles. (I'm not sure if they are .331 liter or 12 ounces.) And U.S. craft brewers are brewing it more often. Dexter's had some Widmer Brothers Marionberry Hibiscus Gose a few years back which was exceptionally tasty and I've seen cans of gose by Destihl and Anderson Valley on Madison shelves lately. Sure, the IPA is not fearful of the competition but the gose is much more prominent now than it was just a few years ago.

When I finally saw that Egon's Revenge was again on tap I made my way to Next Door with all due haste and purchased a growler. How did this year's batch compare to last year's?

This year's Egon's Revenge pours a dark blond. (It's a beauty, eh.) Because of the wheat the beer is hazy. I believe that gose is traditionally unfiltered as well. My pour produced a lovely big, pillowy white head which lasted quite a while. There was a fair amount of effervescence with a goodly number of bubbles heading upwards.

As expected, a lemony tartness was the first thing that caught my nose. This was joined by a bit of grain or biscuit aroma and just the faintest hint of some kind of spiciness which I took to be coriander since it didn't resemble a Noble hop. It didn't have that grassy-herbal component. Also unsurprising was that the tartness was the first thing that jumped out at my tongue. No lemon taste, though, like one would get with lactic bacteria in, say, a Berliner Weisse. I thought that this year's batch was more tart than last year's which I appreciated. ER has a nice smooth medium-light body which means that I was able to catch plenty of grainy notes plus some sweeter notes akin to corn (not creamed corn). There may have been a hint of salinity in there but I suspect it might have been wishful thinking. Last year's batch was so wonderful because, unlike the ER from 2013, I could taste the salt and coriander. I struggled but could taste no coriander and I'll say there was a 50/50 chance of a patina of salt. What a disappointment.

Egon's Revenge finished smoothly with a bit of dryness from a smidge of herbal hoppiness. I believe it has somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 I.B.U.s.

What a let down. I was looking forward to some saline-coriander goodness but struggled and failed to taste it***. (See comments below.) Even as the beer warmed I couldn’t taste it. Tis a shame. Still, ER clocks in at 4.6% A.B.V. is rather light, and has some fine tartness. Ergo it really is quite refreshing. Disappointing but refreshing. Like a Berliner Weisse, it's not uncommon to drink it mit Schuss (with syrup) in Germany. While there will be no tear in my beer, there will probably be some Waldmeister in there.

Junk food pairing: Quaff your stange of Egon's Revenge with a bowl of chiwda which is Indian snack mix. This will likely have the missing coriander and salt and be very tasty to boot.

Lazing On a Sunny Afternoon

Piper lazing on the A/C unit.



Marilyn was checking out the neighborhood through the screen.



Flowers! Not sure what kind these are but they are in a pot with double impatiens. The little sign hoolie said that didn't need much light but they almost died on the porch. Once they got some southern exposure they flowered once again.



Pineapple sage. Does anyone have a recipe?



I thought this flower wasn't going to make it either but these gorgeous yellow flowers just keep blooming. The ornamental grass in the same pot, however, has been given a different fate and has gone to meet its maker.

A Little Light Beer: Where the Helles Summer? by Southern Tier

For the most part, I am a seasonal beer drinker. I enjoy headier brews when the weather goes cold and lighter ones during the warmer months. When it's 85 degrees out as it now, I just don't want to drink an imperial quad bourbon barrel aged anything. That stuff can sit in my cellar until autumn. No, when it's scorching outside I go to hell. Er, I l mean I like to reach for a helles.

"Helles" simply means "light" in German. The style is rather new having been introduced in 1894 by Spaten in Munich. From what I've read it came about because German brewers were keen to take advantage of new malting technology which could produce pale malt as well as a desire to compete with the Czech pilsner which was the bee's knees at the time. To my taste, the helles should have both malt sweetness as well a more grainy malt flavor plus some Noble hop bitterness for balance and dryness.

Earlier this year Southern Tier introduced Where the Helles Summer?, their rendition of a Munich Helles Lager. If memory serves, it started appearing on shelves in February. While the name is wholly appropriate for that month, I was still keeping the cold at bay with heartier brews like bocks and one of my favorite winter seasonals, Schell's Chimney Sweep. When the weather warmed, I pulled Where the Helles Summer? out from the cellar as a palliative.

It poured a beautiful light gold color and was moderately hazy. While I got a nice foamy white head, it didn't last very long, unfortunately. With the caveats that I'm neither a brewer – I've brewed or helped brew beer three times in my life – nor any kind of beer expert, I recall that German iterations of this style tend to have longer lasting heads. I mean, if you look at German glassware, you often see a line marking volume somewhere with space above it for head. Look at photos of servers from Oktoberfest. If you can peel your eyes away from the cleavage you'll see that those steins have plenty of foam at the top. Why do German beers seem to produce more foam that lasts longer? Is it my warped perception or do German brewers use ingredients with different properties than American brewers? Is decoction to blame? Anyway, there was a modicum of bubbles in glass moving upwards.

The nose held notes of grain and bread – that typical helles malt combo – as well as a light fruitiness that I can best describe as berry-like. The latter surprised me as it was an aroma I'd associate more with a Kölsch. Southern Tier advertises What the Helles as having been brewed with three types of malt and three types of hops. They don't specify which varieties so I'm not sure where this scent came from.

That grainy, biscuit aroma came through in the flavor as did that berry scent. The berry-like fruitiness was not very prominent but certainly noticeable. And there was also a mild grassy hop flavor as well. The hops provided some balance to the grain and fruit flavors but it was the malt that got the spotlight here. On my tongue a bready sweetness came in towards the end and gave way to a more intense grassy hop bitterness at the dry finish.

Where the Helles Summer's light body and 4.6% A.B.V. makes for a refreshing summer drink. From my admittedly limited experience with the helles I have come to prefer ones that maintain more of that toasty biscuit flavor throughout. Where the Helles is by no means bad but the finish was a bit odd going from rather sweet to rather bitter in almost no time flat. It was a jarring gustatory experience. I'd rather that it had less malt sweetness and a more consistent grainy flavor that melded with hops.

Junk food pairing: Where the Helles Summer? pairs well with milder junk foods like Cheddar Jack Cheez Its.

Aldo Leopold Invented a Bench?!

Until this summer I didn't know that famed environmentalist, UW-Madison professor, and denizen of Sauk County Aldo Leopold invented a type of bench which now bears his name. About a month ago a friend and I built one and it turned out pretty well.



I remember that most angles were cut at 60 degrees and that I moved my hand in the nick of time at one point to avoid a drill bit. It now sits in my friend's backyard in front of his chimenea. Why he does not invite me over to drink his beer and sit in front of a fire is a mystery.

That same day we smoked some brats.



Well, the duty was handed over to me so I smoked some brats. It was my first time smoking anything and I had an offset smoker at my disposal along with some hickory and charcoal. It was a good learning experience. The wurst turned out well with the cherry brats a real stand out with pork, smoke, spices, and cherry all vying for attention on the tongue. Jim's Meat Market is a fine purveyor of brats as well as other meats. Chicken wings are probably next.

Gemütlichkeit on Monroe: The Freiburg Gastropub

Yesterday The Dulcinea and I took dinner at the neu Freiburg Gastropub over on Monroe Street. I'm not sure when it opened exactly but I believe that it was earlier this month. It had a nice interior with a tin ceiling and the place smelled of freshly cut lumber.



The staff seemed to be folks in their 20s and were notably not clad in lederhosen nor dirndls. We were allowed to choose a table and chose one with a view of the outside but not at a window. Water arrived shortly after we sat as did a basket with brot und a pretzel.



The pretzel was tasty as was the brot although it was fairly plain white bread. Gastropubs are too fancy for landbrot, I guess. The brot basket also had a small hoolie of a mild senf. Every table was adorned mit a crock of senf, spicy Düsseldorf senf.



I can testify that this stuff had some kick.

And then there was the beer. FG has a goodly German beer selection plus the requisite IPAs and assorted American microbeers. As I noted yesterday, the beer menu features an alt und a Kölsch, a feat beyond the ability of the Essen Haus for reasons unknown. The D and I went with the Aecht Schlenkerla Maerzen Rauchbier. They even had Schlenkerla glasses! Monroe Street isn't exactly the altstadt in Bamberg but the glass was a nice touch nonetheless.



Mmmm…full of smoky goodness with a bit of spicy hops on the finish. Ausgezeichnet!

After devouring the brot und pretzel, we were served our Vorspeise brat stickers.



Sheer novelty, of course, but they were pretty tasty. Wonton skins filled with some bratwurst and topped with mustard and pickled onion. The wurst was good although mild by which I mean I'd have like to have tasted a bit more nutmeg and coriander.

Soon enough the rest of our meal arrived. The D had Wiener Schnitzel while I went with the Rinderbraten.





The schnitzel was pretty good but I found the breading a bit bland. Don't get me wrong, breaded and fried pork is one of mankind's greatest inventions but I do like to season my breading for schnitzel with a pinch of salt, a dash of pepper, a couple smidgens of mustard powder – just a little something to accentuate the pork. My Rinderbraten was very tasty. The beef was tender and still quite pink in the middle with mustard seeds aplenty. The only shortcoming here was the paucity of gravy. Beef roast and mashed potatoes requires at least a gallon of the stuff. About those kartoffeln…they were exquisite topped as they were with diced bacon and fried onions.

I have no explanation for the sea-change in my palate last night but I actually ate my asparagus. My father used to pick it every spring from the railroad embankment by our house in Chicago and he tried to entice me into eating it but I always resisted. The German part of me has been ashamed of this gustatory shortcoming for years. Thinking that it had been a while since I last tried asparagus I decided to give it a shot once again and found that it wasn't so bad. The preparation was overly salty to my taste but the vegetable itself wasn't disgusting. And so I learned to appreciate asparagus. If they were still alive, my father would have been proud while my brother would have said that I'd gone over to the Dark Side.

For dessert we had a slice of Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, a.k.a. – Black Forest Cake:



This was fantastic. The cherries on the perimeter were perfectly tart while the cake itself had just the right amount of sweetness, i.e. – it wasn't very sweet. A Snickers bar probably has the same amount of sugar as the entire cake from which my piece came.

Overall Freiburg Gastropub was quite impressive. There was a slip here or a difference in taste there but, on the whole, the food was excellent. We generally went with more traditional German dishes but the menu features more contemporary fare. There were also options for vegetarians and others who are crazy enough to abstain from pork. The beer selection was impressive with a rauchbier, alt, and a Kölsch on tap. They even had stangen for the Kölsch which makes me shudder at the thought of paying $7 for .2 liters of the stuff, if the menu is to be believed. Sunner is just not that good, in my opinion. I'd consider paying that price if I were a bit tipsy and the Köbes was a frau wearing a low cut blue dress with her boobs hanging out playing the role of the damsel in distress with her fully loaded kranz weighing her down. Under such circumstances I might have to be a gentleman and step in to help.

Behind the bar is a board listing beers that were coming soon. Amongst them were Leipziger Gose and a brew by Prof. Fritz Briem. A manager-type was seated at the bar and struck up a conversation with us. I asked him which Fritz Briem brew he was going to have and he said that it'd be the 1809 Berliner Weisse. He also told me that he was trying to get his hands on a rare barrel of a pine flavored gose which I assume is Freigeist Geisterzug Gose, a spruced gose. Sehr interessant! Oh, and he was trying to make the switch from Sunner to Reissdorf as well.

It was really nice to see a restaurant concede that there is worthwhile German cuisine and beer outside of Bavaria.

A Little Bamberg In Madison

My Bierkampf rant about the lack of respect accorded to smoke beers in this town must have been the subject of a tweet judging by the hits it got and the fact that Chris Drosner, a.k.a. – The Beer Baron, himself left a comment.

Luckily not everyone avoids rauchbier like the plague. The shiny new Hop Cat downtown has Aecht Schelenkerla Fastenbier on tap (I guess when you have 130 taps you've got to attach those lines to something.) while the shiny neu No comments:

George Hodgson + Pierre Celis + James Harrison = Blister in the Sun by Wisconsin Brewing Company

Blister in the Sun is Wisconsin Brewing Company's latest summer seasonal. Billed as an "India White Lager" this creation of Kirby Nelson's minion Clint Lohman takes the Belgian wit, adds more hops, and then lagers it. When I first heard of the brew I recalled that Coney Island did something similar with their Albino Python. How would this creation compare?

I got a chance to chat with Herr Lohman a few years ago when he was Scott Manning's minion at Vintage. It was either a pre-Great Taste event or a Craft Beer Week one. I found him to be a very pleasant fellow and fun to chat with so I'm happy that one of his creations has been bottled and is being distributed throughout the land. It's also nice to see WBC innovate with lagers. In some of my more officious posts here I've opined that Nelson and WBC ought to stop trying to jump on the IPA bandwagon and instead take advantage of the presence of a brewmaster whose reputation is based on 30 or more years of lager brewing. They've split the difference here with a lager whose style is prefaced with the dreaded "India".

Blister in the Sun is a spin-off of the Belgian wit. The witbier (or white beer) is a wheat ale known for being light on the hops and instead having a flavor that highlights coriander and orange peel. Lohman's creation is light gold/deep yellow in color which seems to be a bit darker than your average witbier. Blister is rather clear also unlike a traditional witbier. I presume the beer's clarity is due to the lagering process as opposed to an absence of wheat. My pour got a foamy white head which lasted for quite a while. The brew is quite effervescent with lots of bubbles going up. A very pretty beer to be sure.

The India in this India white lager was quite apparent in the nose with grapefruit bitterness from the Amarillo hops being quite prominent. There was also some coriander and a bit of bready sweetness to be had as well. With Blister being 7% A.B.V. I was expecting a fair amount of malt flavor and a body with a bit of heft. My expectations were met, for the most part. It had a medium body and there was definitely some bready malt flavor to be had but it undergirded more grapefruit hop bitterness as well as the coriander and the mellower fruitiness of the Nelson Sauvin hops. The orange peel tasted much sweeter than I anticipated as it blended with the malt to provide some contrast to the hops.

The beer finished fairly dry with the citrus hop flavor becoming more herbal and the typical clean lager taste.

I chatted with Scott Manning over at Vintage not too long and he said that Lohman had a real affinity for the Amarillo/Nelson Sauvin combination during his tenure there so he wasn't surprised by Blister in the Sun's use of these hops. They contribute lots of citrus and fruit flavors which taste quite refreshing on a hot summer day but also belie the fact that this is a fairly big beer at 7% A.B.V. You'll want to sip this stuff in the shade instead of quaffing in quantity.

Having lectured you about how and where to drink Blister in the Sun I shall say that I found it much tastier than I thought I would. India anything beers are a turn off for me because of over-hopping. While the hops are certainly prominent here, they are not completely overwhelming and do allow the other flavors of the beer to come through instead of doing a blitzkrieg attack on my tongue. I also appreciated how the coriander and grainy flavors provided contrast to the hops. Blister in the Sun is the aestival version of a barleywine in winter – a heartier beer to sip while enjoying the weather of the season.

Junk food pairing: Pair Blister in the Sun with spicy foods like Jalapeño Cheddar Chex Mix or Lay's Sriracha Potato Chips.

So Much for the "Hidden Gem" on East Washington

Earlier this year the McGrath Property Group proposed redevelopment of part of the north side of the 1200 block of East Washington. A couple of used car lots would be removed (amen!) and the Patriot Glass building, a quonset hut, would have the facade removed and the building re-purposed. Quonset huts are semi-cylindrical buildings made of steel and date from World War II when the Navy needed a lot of easy to assemble buildings. Someone at McGrath called the quonset hut at 1212 E. Washington a "hidden gem" while project architect Joseph Lee said "it would offer 'a striking appearance' and serve as 'a great space for office, retail, restaurant or a bar.'"

I recently changed jobs which necessitated taking a bus down East Washington and recently noticed that the hidden gem is gone. A couple of months after The Cap Times reported on the project McGrath filed a Letter of Intent (PDF) with the city which noted that the quonset hut would be demolished. That's too bad. I'm no Lee Bey or Blair Kamin nor do I have a great affinity for quonset huts but keeping it would have given the project something unique. As it stands now, we're going to get three storeys of "Modern Warehouse", whatever that may be.

Kirby Nelson Gets His Rocks Off

Back on 12 July Kirby Nelson, Mike McGuire, and the rest of the Wisconsin Brewing Company crew got out from behind their fancy computerized brewing equipment and put some craft into their craft beer. The occasion was Depth Charge, a new annual event at the brewery where the order of the day was to make a stein beer or “stone beer”. Cast your mind back to the plight of the medieval brewer who didn't have stainless steel steam jackets. Instead she had wooden vessels that couldn't withstand direct heat. How to boil the wort? The solution was to heat rocks and put them into the brew kettle.

A stein beer isn't a style of beer but rather descriptive of a brewing method just like the more common lagerbier/lager beer. In this case Nelson was brewing a Scotch ale. I've never had a stein beer before although Mark Duchow of Sweet Mullets Brewing Co. in Oconomowoc brewed one about three years ago. Putting red hot chunks of granite into wort is reputed to produce a brew that is smoky and sweet which seems an apt description of the Scotch ale.



McGuire told me that the plan had originally been to use curling stones but that they were unable to withstand the heat and disintegrated in a test fire. Replacements were hastily found and you can see them being heated above. It was McGuire who drove the telescopic fork lift that carried the stones to the vat-in-waiting.



I'm not sure why curling stones were originally chosen. Perhaps someone at WBC was a curler or it simply seemed a good symbol of our boreal traditions. Whatever the case some curlers from the Madison Curling Club were present with brooms in hand to keep us riff-raff away from the hot stones. And, with the object being the brewing of a Scotch ale, a group of bagpipers were also on hand to regale the stones on their journey to the wort.



Nelson, like McGuire, was clad in lederhosen but he was perched on a rising platform along with a couple of other WBC folks. And a flintlock pistol or two.



After a couple pistol shots and some admonitions to the crowd to stand back, McGuire lowered the rocks into the kettle.



No rocks exploded and no bystanders were scalded by the wort. Once the luscious brown liquid was reduced to a simmer we were allowed near the kettle. It smelled fantastic- full of smoky caramel goodness.



Patrons were allowed to reserve bombers of the finished brew for $20 a pop. They're due in October.

Depth Charge is to be an annual event and Nelson said that next year he'd be making a doppelbock steinbier. It looks to be a fun event and potentially a replacement for the bockfest that he hosted at Capital for many years. Instead of throwing chub from the roof while perched on a dinosaur, Nelson can emcee as heated stones are dropped into a brew kettle. The day also featured music with John Dee Graham taking the stage at 2.

And of course there was plenty of beer to be drunk while lounging beside the retaining pond. Blister in the Sun, their new India White Lager, was to be had along with what was touted as a special fresh batch of Big Sweet Life, Nelson's traditional maibock. The Dulcinea took a shine to the former starting at around 11:00 that morning. Inaugural Red was also on tap. If the shelves at Woodman's were anything to go by, this beer, developed by UW students, is selling well. I sure hope so because I heard a rumor that WBC had gone through five years worth of money in only two. I also hope that this is pure rumor mongering.

WBC has a nice semi-rural location and there was a goodly sized crowd on hand to witness the dropping of the stones. Many people brought their children and a few brought picnic baskets with them. While the place lacks the Old World bier garten feel of Nelson's old stomping grounds in Middleton, it certainly had that wonderful neighborly social vibe that Nelson sees his brews as being the perfect complement to.

The Beer I Should Have Reviewed Last Autumn: Schell's Fresh Hop Equinox (2014)

Schell began billing itself as a "German craft" brewer last year. I've never encountered an explanation for the rebranding effort but I've always assumed it was partly a response to the Brewers Association declaring that Schell was crafty but not a craft brewery a bit more than a year before. I also assume that Schell was trying to stake out its own territory and differentiate itself from the hordes of craft brewers out there who pump out IPAs of various colors and strengths as if they were desperately attempting to resurrect a defunct style.

This is certainly not to say that Schell is incognizant of trends. With millions of ironically mustachioed men out there gleefully calculating on their iPhones just how many moles of humulone are in a bottle of 3 Floyds Alpha King, the fetish for hops just cannot be ignored. Bowing (perhaps) to the tyranny of the minority and, I would imagine, a desire to give new ingredients a try, Schell developed the Fresh Hop series. Fresh Hop beers are pilsners brewed to showcase a particular variety of hop with the cones entering the brew kettle no more than 48 hours after they've been harvested. To date newer varieties of hops have been utilized. The initial Fresh Hop came out in 2012 and featured Citra hops with Mosaic being featured the following year. Last year's batch put Equinox hops into the spotlight.

I was unable to find out exactly when Equinox was first grown but it was given its moniker only last year when it was decided by the hoppy powers on high that "HBC 366" was not a particularly sexy name. Having read about it a bit, it seems that Equinox is like the Swiss Army knife of hops – it adds aromas and flavors that are fruity, citrusy, floral, and herbal – basically every olfactory/gustatory quality a hop can have. Well, until an entrepreneurial farmer crosses the venerable hop with a corpse flower.

Fresh Hop Equinox, as you can see from my slightly out of focus photo, pours a brilliant straw color. It is as clear as a pilsner can be. My pour resulted in a fine pillowy white head that lasted almost the livelong session. (Not sure if this is because I drank quickly or if the head lasted a long time.) Fresh Hop was an effervescent brew with lots of bubbles making their way up the glass.

Perhaps it was because my Fresh Hop wasn't particularly fresh – not that it was very old either – but my nose didn't catch everything and the kitchen sink like I expected after reading about these Equinox hops. Descriptions made it sound like I'd take one whiff and be overwhelmed by a bouquet that included notes of every tropical fruit known to man. That did not happen. I did, however, catch a bright citrus scent as well as a mellower grassy one which I felt was a rather nice combination. All of these were present in the taste. But wait! There's more!

The citrus scent became more focused and made me think of orange, more specifically, mandarin orange according to my notes. I really enjoyed the floral notes that were present here too. Schell does a good job with pilsners, to my taste, as they capture very well the biscuit kind of flavors I prize so highly. No exception here. There was also a mild and slightly sweeter malt flavor here as well – think graham crackers. The carbonation added a bit of dryness. Fresh Hop finished as you'd expect a pilsner hopped with a Nobler variety like Saaz to finish – dry with a good dose of spicy/grassy hoppiness.

My glass had minimal Schaumhaftvermoegen as the foam quickly slid down the side of the glass and into the waiting arms of the beer.

Jace Marti and the folks at Schell have done a great job here with Fresh Hop. It's medium light body and rather modest (by U.S. standards, anyway) 5% A.B.V. make it suitable for having more than one in a session but so does the array of inviting flavors here. Being a lager, the malt component is clean leaving the Equinox hops to take center stage. They offer grass and citrus in the nose and then add those plus floral notes on the tongue. For the finish they mimic a Noble hop with a bit of spiciness. Fresh Hop marries Old World subtlety with New World brashness for a brew that is at once quite approachable yet also unpredictable.

Junk food pairing: if you still have any Fresh Hop drink it now before the 2015 hop crop is reaped. And do so with a handful of Blue Diamond Wasabi & Soy Sauce almonds. Fresh Hop's finish will complement the wasabi while the myriad of other flavors in the beer will both accentuate and contrast with these little umami bombs. It's like a party in your mouth.

Brenner Is Da Bomb: Bacon Bomb by Brenner Brewing (Alliteration Is In)

Milwaukee's Brenner Brewing is a relative newcomer. If memory serves, the brewery opened in Milwaukee's Walkers Point neighborhood last year and they began distributing here in Madison only last month. Or was it May? Regardless of when Mike Brenner's brews arrived on Madison store shelves, it was a rather quiet affair from what I could tell. It doesn't seem that Brenner has a flagship beer like Spotted Cow that is widely known nor a highly sought-after IPA that gets the hop heads hotter than a whore in a cucumber patch.

I was happy to hear that Brenner would begin distribution here in Madison because they brew Bacon Bomb, a rauchbier. The poor rauchbier. Back in May during Madison Craft Beer Week I was as The Malt House chatting with owner Bill Rogers and Metropolitan's Tracy Durst. I brought up rauchbiers and Bill said that he no longer carries them as apparently I was the only person who drank them. L-A-M-E. Rauchbier just gets no love. The Wisconsin State Journal's Beer Baron, Chris Drosner, "can't stand smoked beers" while Isthmus' beer writer Robin Shepard admits "Smoky beers are not for everyone, and I'm one of those who shy away from them." L-A-M-E. And seriously Mr. Shepard, some German rauchbiers that have an overwhelming smoke flavor "can leave the impression that the wort was filtered through an ashtray"? That sounds pretty asinine to me. Granted, I've never been to Germany but none of the half dozen Schlenkerla beers I've had tasted like they were ever near an ashtray. Does Mr. Shepard ever complain about the overwhelming hoppy bitterness of IPAs that taste like they were mopped up from the floor of a malort factory? Does he ever complain about brett beers that can leave the impression that the wort was filtered through a swamp?

Don't worry, though, dear reader. I'll be your pregustator since the professionals in this locale are lame and won't help you.

On to Bacon Bomb.

Ooh la la! Just look at that deep, sexy reddish brown color! It pours clear and I got a nice tan head which dispersed rather quickly. The effervescence was on the low side with only a smattering of bubbles on the bottom of my glass. And notice how my glass has a slight, in the words of Robin Shepard, "inward taper" to focus/concentrate the smoky goodness at my proboscis. As I looked at the beer it was impossible not to smell it. In fact, I could smell the smokiness upon opening the bottle. Brenner advertises that it uses both German beechwood and Wisconsin cherrywood smoked malts in Bacon Bomb and there was a certain sweetness to the smoke aroma which may have come from the cherry. In addition to the rauch goodness there was a hint of an earthy/camphor-like scent – black pepper is added to BB.

And what would a beer named "Bacon Bomb" taste like? Bacon! Smoke! My baseline rauchbier is something by Schlenkerla and BB certainly has plenty of that smoky bacon flavor, though not as much as Schlenkerla's Märzen oder Urbock. It was right around the level of their Weizen. The pepper was in the background here though certainly noticeable. And there was a bit of bready, malty sweetness to be had as well. Brenner notes that they use a yeast strain which makes for a light body and I have to say that I was rather surprised by this. In fact, I'd rather that the beer were a bit heavier on the tongue. There is also chocolate wheat in the grain bill and I have to say that I prefer beers with smoky/roasted grain flavors to, in general, have a mouthfeel that is more towards medium than light.

Bacon Bomb finishes with some lingering smoke flavor as well as herbal/grassy hoppiness. Again, going by the touchstone of rauchbier, Schlenkerla, BB has a more prominent hop flavor. It's not very strong, mind you, but it does provide some contrast as well as some dryness to the finish.

To the best of my knowledge Bacon Bomb is brewed year-round which is fantastic news. There is a distinct paucity of smoked beers around town. BB has a goodly amount of smoke flavor and I love the addition of pepper. It is 5.3% A.B.V. and goes down quite easily. My only complaint is that the body is on the thin side. This isn't a fatal flaw – more an observation on how Bacon Bomb compares to the Platonic Ideal of a rauchbier. Along these lines I have to admit that I don't know what style BB is. It tasted closest to a Märzen but I think the addition of chocolate wheat keeps it from strictly adhering to a recognized style.

Junk food pairing: I found that Bacon Bomb went quite well with Extra Toasty Cheez-Its as well as Jalapeño Smokehouse Almonds.

The Feng Shui of Beer: Lakefront's Cherry Lager

Spring is apparently the season for cherry beers. First I tried Victory’s wunderbar Kirsch Gose and now we have Lakefront’s Cherry. Cherry is one of Lakefront’s seasonals and I believe it is their late spring offering following Lent and the brewery’s Shrovetide maibock.

Lakefront is one of the grandfathers of Wisconsin microbreweries. The venerable brewery started in 1987 just after Capital and Sprecher but it’s only been in the past several years that growth has really taken off. They innovated by brewing a gluten-free beer, New Grist, and have more recently taken the plunge into the IPA waters. Plus Lakefront simply brews some really tasty annuals with their Riverwest Stein Beer, an amber lager, being a fairly common sight on taps in Madison.

Most of the brewery's year-round beers are now ales but most of their seasonals, including Cherry, are lagers. Cherry, then is at once a nod to the German brewing traditions of Milwaukee as well as a novel pairing of beer and fruit. I suspect that most beer drinkers tend to think of Belgian kriek lambics when it comes to cherry brews and not German-style lagers. (Although German brewing traditions once included the Kirschenbier, which was apparently similar to a kriek.)

Cherry, as you can see from the photo above, is a pretty reddish brown. I got a nice pink head on my pour but it didn't last long. It was also rather effervescent as there were lots of bubbles heading upwards and onwards.

The brew's bouquet was as nice as it looked with a bready, malty sweetness and the scent of tart cherries being most prominent. I also caught a more general fruity aroma that was redolent of stone fruit. The beer's flavor mirrored the nose with the succulent sour cherry flavor from the Wisconsin Montmorency cherries hitting your tongue first. Hot on these fruity heels was the fine grainy flavor that tasted less sweet than its aroma. It was a bit like toast and reminiscent of melanoidins or whatever you call those wonderful malt flavors you get from Malliard reactions.

Cherry finished with a nice lingering cherry tartness plus a bit of spicy hop (Mt. Hood?) flavor.

Truth be told, I thoroughly enjoyed this beer. It has a fantastic fresh tart cherry flavor which is complemented by a malt-grain flavor that isn't too sweet and just a touch of hop bitterness for good measure. All of the flavors are in harmony here as if it were brewed according to feng shui. (Perhaps Lakefront's tanks point north to Door County.) I'm not sure what kind of malt or malts were used in this beer but I loved their toasty flavor. I wish more American brewers would use melanoidin-rich malts or decoct or do whatever it takes to get these flavors.

Cherry's medium body and 6% A.B.V. make for a nice spring beer – some succor for those final cool days before the summer heat descends.

Junk food pairing: Raise a glass of Cherry along with some pork rinds and/or smoked string cheese.

Several Species of Small Flowery Botanicals Gathered Together in a Vat and Brewing with a Pict: Fraoch Heather Ale by Williams Bros. Brewing

After drinking my trifecta of gruits I figured that was it. Where else was I to get a gruit in these parts? Well, a trip to my local purveyor of adult beverages induced anamnesis. Fraoch Heather Ale from Scotland's Williams Bros. Brewing Company must surely qualify as a gruit. It's not uncommon in Madison stores and I'd had it before. How could I have forgotten?

Williams Bros. likes to portray themselves as the keeper of an ancient Gaelic beer recipe and, while it makes for good copy, I'm a bit skeptical that Fraoch tastes much like the heather ales that Picts drank while groovin' in a cave back in the day. Still, I give them credit for brewing this beer regardless of how close it hews to tradition and for getting good distribution so that Fraoch didn't languish in the High Street specialty stores of Edinburgh and Glasgow. If I can get it at my grocery store down the street, they've surely done something right.

Fraoch is brewed with wheat in addition to barley malt. Aside from the titular flower, there's bog myrtle and ginger here as well as some First Gold hops which must be more prevalent in the UK than here in the States. Yeah, there's hops but they're outnumbered here by other botanicals so I see no reason to disqualify Fraoch from my gruit pursuit.

As you can see from my not-too-shabby photo Fraoch pours a beautiful light gold. It was clear and I got a pillowy white head that dissipated rather quickly. The beer wasn't particularly effervescent as there were only a few bubbles to be seen making their way up the glass. Ooh, that aroma! It was positively luscious with a wonderful floral scent along with bread and a malt sweetness that was akin to stone fruit.

Unfortunately Fraoch didn't taste as good as it looked or smelled. It began rather tastily with a brisk, slightly minty attack followed by the wonderful taste of heather. As someone whose experience with heather is confined to this beer, I am rather flummoxed as the Internet purports that heather is rather low in floral qualities. But I tasted a taste that was floral in the way people tend to think "floral" tastes. Perhaps another ingredient highlighted the floral bit or it depends on what parts of the heather plant you use. Regardless, this flavor segued into a spicy bitterness which I took to be the bog myrtle and hops in combination. There were hints of bread and malt sweetness underneath but the beer has a rather light body to the point of tasting a bit watery. This is not a cardinal sin in and of itself but the heather flavor was rather weak. I had to let the beer sit on my tongue in order to get a good dose of it. Now this is a problem. While it's admittedly been a while since I've had Fraoch, I recall the heather taste being much more prominent then than now. Since I've been on this gruit pursuit, I've come to adore floral flavors in beer and this was rather disappointing.

The beer finished a bit on the dry side with moderate spicy bitterness. My glass was adorned with just a little bit of lacing that clung to its side.

Fraoch needs more heather. The bog myrtle/hop bitterness dominated here instead of providing balance to the malt and the heather. It was as if there was a pause on my tongue where the heather should have been before the bitterness kicked in. I will also note that I couldn't taste the ginger but it may have been responsible for that bite at the beginning of my sip.

Junk food pairing: Froach pairs well with sharp cheese-food products such as Easy Cheese as well as Haggis & Black Pepper Potato Chips.

What Frederick II Drank After a Hard Day of Crusading: Prof. Briem's Grut Bier

Next on the gruit docket is Professor Fritz Briem's 13th Century Grut Bier. Who is Prof. Fritz Briem? From what I can gather, he is a big wig at the Doemens Institute in Germany which appears to be a sister organization to the Siebel Institute in Chicago where he also held a position. (The Sielbel Institute in Chicago is where one can learn to brew professionally.) Matthias Neidhart of importer/distributor B. United International approached Herr Briem about historical beer styles and the result was the Historic Signature Series. Briem developed the recipes while the beers themselves are, according to Beer Advocate, brewed at the Weihenstephan brewery. In addition to the gruit at hand, two other beers have been brewed in the series under Briem's auspices: 1809 Berliner Weisse and Grodziskie.

Unlike the other two gruits I've had recently, Briem uses neither bog myrtle nor mugwort in his brew. Instead we have bay, ginger, caraway, anise, rosemary, and gentian. Oh, and there's also pollinated wild hops. Quite an interesting mix. (I'd never heard of gentian and had to look it up. It's a flower that is used in many beverages in Alpine areas.) Can there be hops in gruit? Sure, why not? One can imagine a brewer in the High Middle Ages having hops as but one among a vast array of botanicals to flavor his or her beer before the lupulin devil took pride of place.

Briem's brew poured a light gold color and was slightly hazy which is not surprising considering that there is wheat in the grain bill in addition to barley. I got a paltry head which dissipated rather quickly. The beer was not particularly effervescent either as there was only a periodic bubble to be seen. And what did this concoction smell like? I definitely caught the ginger. There was also a floral scent in there which I presume was the gentian. A hint of pine and some malt sweetness rounded out the aroma.

The ginger returned on the tongue while the rosemary and anise were also quite discernible in moderate amounts. The beer was light-bodied with just a bit of carbonation evident on the palate. I was a bit surprised to find that the brew was slightly tart like a Berliner Weisse with a bit of that lemony/citrusy tartness. It was really the botanicals that shone through here with the malt and wheat in the background. As the beer made its way back the bay and caraway came out and wasn't bitter at all.

As I drank my glass was left with little Schaumhaftvermoegen.

Of the three gruits I've tried so far, this one has the lightest body which has the effect of emphasizing the botanicals. There's no bog myrtle or wormwood here for bittering which makes for a very different taste – he's not trying to emulate the role of hops here. In addition, Vintage and New Belgium's brews had much more prominent floral tastes than Briem's gruit. Instead he utilizes spices and herbs with sharper flavors that contrast more with the grainy flavors and sweetness.

My gruit trifecta has been a flavorful journey but I must admit that Briem's take enthused me the least. This is partly because I really like floral flavors which are absent here and I am not a fan of anise while I can take or leave caraway most of the time. (Unseeded rye for me, thanks.) However, neither the caraway nor anise was very prominent here. I could taste them but there was a lot happening on my tongue at the time. Don't like the anise? Then don't worry because there's ginger and rosemary around the corner to help. This gruit is a bit of a roller coaster ride in that new flavors are always appearing. You get some this on the front and then some of that on the middle of your tongue and yet even more new flavors appear in the finish. It gets high marks from me for a having just the right amount of tartness and a high refreshment factor for warmer weather with a moderate alcohol content of 4.6% A.B.V.

Junk food pairing: Prof. Briem's Grut Bier pairs well with Snyder's Bacon Cheddar Pretzel Pieces. You've got the two main German culinary staples: beer und pork.