Bless me Father for I have sinned. I coveted my neighbor’s brewers pass. But aside from thinking evil thoughts about those able to secure those golden tickets or media badges in the weeks leading up to GABF, I eventually came to terms with my own mediocrity and came to the stark realization that Denver and its environs have so much to offer beyond what happens at GABF, that attending the festival is never the highlight of a trip to the area. In all honesty, as with any conference or festival set in the same place every year, going to GABF can sometimes become stale and repetitive. Of course for the purposes of self promotion I should clarify that I always welcome the opportunity to represent some of my favorite breweries, and perhaps someday if I start a food blog I might also procure a media ticket(more beer related recipes to come just for you Brewers Association!).

Regardless, this is a travelogue, not a self serving review. If you want a good account of what happens at GABF I am sure the multitude of other bloggers that covered it (with media passes) will do a much better job than I, suffice it to say there were some excellent breweries and beers represented. A few like the fruit beers made by Rocky Mountain Brewery probably won’t win any medals, but they were very interesting none the less and the experimental beers offered by Shorts also proved very thought provoking. One highlight was seeing Austinite Corey Martin win the Sam Adams longshot and serve his beer and another was seeing Greg from Stone dumbfounded at being presented an anotomically correct sheep (for at least the second time in his life). There were a few lessons learned this year as well. First, although the festival sold out within days, scalpers offered tickets before and during every session, which says something about the assertion that any remain “members only”. Also note that face value tickets can be had at steep discounts after the sessions begin and there are reports of a lucky few working scalpers down to $20. Also, for those that actually spend extra to attend the Farm to Market pavilion, note that almost all of the food and a significant amount of beer ran out an hour or two before the designated end time (after contacting the BA they acknowledge and reported working on the problems this year).

With a few comments about GABF duly noted, let’s turn our attention to Denver and the surrounding beer-centric hinterlands. The iconic Falling Rock on Blake Street was the center of many new beer unveilings as well as promotional tastings again this year. Thankfully a number of other new beer venues attracted people away on Wednesday and Thursday nights. One that billed itself as the Summit Beer Garden located just across the street claimed to have over 100 beers, but questioning the bartender in the dark drab interior revealed that the total appeared to reflect counting 25 mediocre brands four times over. Better bets included The Vault and Euclid Hall, although both got extremely crowded on the weekend much like the zoo Falling Rock turns into on Friday and Saturday. The Great Divide taproom was a better bet for a more relaxed atmosphere, and for those with wheels the Bull and Bush was a welcome respite and it just could be my new home away from home in Denver (if only it wasn’t so far away from everything).

One day was spent touring Fort Collins with like minded Zymurologists on Wednesday before the GABF. The rounds this time started at Equinox in the downtown area where Austin’s own Keith Bradley’s ESB delicious Pro-Am entry was served. A small place, Equinox served solid beers exhibiting few flaws and a good range of styles. Nearby we visited one of my personal microbrewery favorites in the form of Odells where a BA/AHA card gets you a good sample of several beers. Cask Bourbon Barrel Imperial Stout and a firkin of Freak Framboise lambic were standouts. Unfortunately the first two places did not serve food, so the next stop was Fort Collins Brewery, which recently expanded into new digs with a massive space including an attached restaurant. In the past FCB beers never impressed me and on occasion while at the last location they inhabited some were clearly infected, although this time all of their selections, while still somewhat mundane aside from a few notable exceptions including a Dopple Bock, appeared clean and free of flaws. Our final stop of the trip led us to FCB’s prior digs now inhabited by Funkwerks, a brewery focused on making saisons, or rather a range of beers using the same saison yeast strain. If I recall they had 9 of their own and another 3 made by another enterprise, Crooked Stave, which ferment with Brettanomycees. Crooked Stave apparently utilizes the Funkwerks brewery but maintains their own barrels and yeast bank etc. The Funkwerks beers ranged from classic saisons to malty beers that tasted more like Belgian Dubbles. The Crooked stave beers focused on the dry barnyard qualities of the Brett with fruit additions or wine barrel attributes. If you like the character of saison yeast please visit this small brewery, you will be glad you did.

After GABF we were fortunate to visit Boulder, another must visit town on the grand tour. Two new breweries were on our must visit list this time. Asher is located in Northwest Boulder and has been open roughly two years. They bill themselves as an all organic enterprise and name most of their beers something “green”, which was very appropriate for both their IPA and IIPA which contained considerable acetaldehyde. The Amber was more approachable and could pass for a strong English bitter, but other selections were either flawed or very mediocre at best. We can only hope their recent expansion leads to better quality control. Upslope has also been around only a few years and sells cans across Colorado. They had several beers on tap, but sadly not the Pumpking ale that won at GABF this year. Their Pale Ale was extremely light and watery, while the IPA was malt forward with a touch (not pronounced) of acetaldehyde. A Black “IPA” was also malt forward but clean and generally well made, but the surprising standout for me was a Kolsch which was textbook and seemingly flawless. Also a good choice was the clean and balanced brown ale, which is available in cans as well. The lager was also clean, but slight residual sweetness detracted somewhat… at least for me. Another new-ish place visited was Oskar Blues Liquid and Solids in Longmont, a large restaurant complex where the food was good and the beer was even better. Other quality and highly recommended places visited on this trip included Twisted Pine (now serving food) and Boulder Brewing, located very near one another and both with great selections, in addition to Avery (now open until 11pm and also serving food) and Mountain Sun.

Despite massive billboards and a flood of tourists, the existence of a new brewpub in Amarillo somehow escaped my attention. The only commercial brewery I am aware of in the Texas panhandle is currently located in the Big Texan Restaurant and Motor Inn on I-40, a place made famous for Las Vegas type kitsch and its 72 oz free steak challenge, which on the night of our visit was unsuccessfully attempted by four “Europeans”. That was the announcer’s description not ours by the way, although the realization that one of the young men chose a red wine to wash down his meal was a sure give away that they “weren’t from around here”.

I quickly found out that few people working at Big Texan knew much about their new brewery and the bartenders on hand that night were as helpful as a one arm man using a wheelbarrow (I am sure that is a west Texas euphemism). Finally someone that knew something informed me that the brewer’s name is Tom Money (perhaps 1980s super-rocker Eddie’s distant relative) and he makes batches of 2 to 2.5 bbls at a time. The brew system is currently hidden from view in their unused “beer garden”, although they claim to be working towards fixing the area up so it can be viewed. The beers they serve are available only in full size pours from 12 oz for $3.95 to 60 oz mugs (yes 60 oz mugs) for $23.95. They also have 120 oz beer towers for binge drinking cow pokes.

The beers were clearly marked and included some interesting selections. On tap the night we visited were a Blonde, Raspberry Wheat, Pale Ale, Red Ale, IPA, Pecan Porter and a Chocolate Bock. We started with the Chocolate Bock which at 7% ABV was much better than expected given the amusement park surroundings, although it did lack any melanoidin attributes and the flavoring tasted more like caramel instead of chocolate. One of us also suggested there were slight hints of diacetyl, although if present, the buttery aroma and flavor wasn’t pronounced and at the time it seemed almost complimentary. Next we tried the Pecan Porter, which was a cleaner and more balance robust porter with only the faintest hint of pecans or something similar. This was the best of the three beers tasted. Lastly we tried the IPA which was a light straw color and hopped with a fruity, almost lemon-like varietal, perhaps citra or something similar. It seemed a clean but somewhat one dimensional light bitter beer.

Be prepared, this is a long one…

The Prioress and myself were fortunate to make our way across the pond last week to attend the largest gathering of true British real ale in one place. Unlike the Great American Beer Festival the British equivalent only serves “real ale” which is defined roughly as being unfiltered “live” beer served without the use of CO2, which means it has to be pushed with beer engines or in some inventive cases driven by ambient air. In either case such beers have a limited shelf life. In general low gravity real ales are fermented in 3 or 4 days and immediately put into casks with a plug of hops and finings. They then undergo secondary fermentation in the cask for about a week or until tapped (at most 28 days). After delivery to the publican the cask is tapped and vented for up to 48 hours before being emptied within 1 or 2 days. The Great British Beer Festival occurs over the course of 5 days beginning on Tuesday when the best beer in each category is announced. Attendees can pay for 1/3, ½ or a full pint of any beer offered with prices that normally run around 1 pound for the 1/3 serving to a little over 2 pounds for a full pint. In most cases the 1/3 pours were well above the marker on the glasses which provided more than enough beer to form an opinion.

Before heading to London and the festival we enjoyed three days on York, a medieval walled city in the north of England with a strong brewing tradition that includes nearby Sam Smiths and Theakston, makers of Old Peculiar. The latter is located in Masham about an hour from York and well worth the day trip. Another well regarded brewery, Black Sheep is in the same small village and was started by a family member that left Theakston in the early 1990s. A tour of Theakston and its operating three level gravity brewhouse is recommended, as is the barrel aged Old Peculiar, served only within a 50 mile radius of the brewery. York is full of great pubs with great selections and better prices than you will find in London.

But I digress, back in London we were fortunate to stumble upon a cask festival at the Rake, a wonderful beer bar near Borough Market. The owners were very welcoming and provided great advice on where to go and what to see. Another friend had arranged a tour of some new breweries and special pubs the next day so we had a lot to look forward to. Our first stop the next morning was Redemption Brewing (redemptionbrewing.co.uk) in Tottenham. Luckily there were no riots while we were there, but we tried all that the brewer Andy had on as well as some of what he had in the finishing tanks. He has a fairly basic set up, but all the beers were clean and balanced. They ranged from Trinity, a bitter at 3% to Hopspur at 4.5%, named after the local “football” club. From there we traveled by cab to Brodies Brewery and the William IV Pub in East London. Brodies produces a huge selection of cask beer for their own pubs as well as other pubs in the area on a 5 barrel system that is used every day. From American hoppy IPAs with names like Amarilla to Imperial Stouts and fruit beers, they had over 20 hand pumps with the same number of different beers. If I remember right we tried a few ounces of each one. The only problem with this approach is that some of the beers were not as solid as others, while some were great a few had pronounced flaws ranging from diacetyl to acetaldehyde. From there we made our way by a bus and then train to the Southampton Arms, a CAMRA London pub of the year with a good selection of special casks. Next up was the Euston Tap, a new pub located in a gatehouse at Euston Station that was really unique with a great selection of not only real ale, but also many bottles including lots of American varieties. Our final hop was to the Harp in downtown London which was already filling up with the after work crowd. A well deserved CAMRA pub of the year, the Harp runs through casks quicker than any bar we visited and every selection seems unique. Thus ended a long day with great hosts.

On Tuesday we made our way to Earls Court and the GBBF. Next year the location will change to Olympia and some CAMRA members seem wary of what that will mean given the smaller venue and the prospect for even more attendees. Inside the GBBF is organized by geographical regions, but there are also a multitude of food stalls, trinket sellers and even carnival type games that allow you to win beer swag. Food stalls sold everything from Cornish pasties to jellied eels to gourmet cheese, but there were also Indian and Middle Eastern selections as well as traditional fish and chips and pork pie fare. One snack tried we just couldn’t bring ourselves to appreciate was a South African beef jerky called Biltong – it was similar to American jerky but not as dry with a lingering gamey almost putrid flavor that stayed with you way, way, way too long. We determined it must be an acquired taste.

As to the 700 or so beers, ciders and perries this year, since coming in 2009 you can certainly see some changes. Two years ago you could find the odd cask IPA that used American hops like Rooster’s Yankee, but the vast majority of beers served were bitters with an occasional mild thrown in at each bar. This year almost every region had examples the showcased Cascade, Amarillo, Simcoe or another distinctively Pacific Northwest hop. And after running its course to some degree in the US, a number of brewers had American Black Ales, the first I have seen in the UK. Notwithstanding the fact that all of them were labeled Black IPA, which remains a clear contradiction in terms, most were solid and at least one, made by Thornbridge, was comparable to any made in Oregon with pronounced Simcoe and a whopping 6.9% ABV.  A number also made IPAs that would stand up in the US including Arbor with a 7% Yakima Valley American IPA. As interesting as it was to try Americanized versions in the UK and to peruse the American cask offerings from Green Flash and the like, my goal was to try the best British beers and I wasn’t disappointed. Some of the larger breweries had quality examples we rarely see in the US including Green King’s 7.5% Very Special IPA infused with a substantial amount of English Hops and Welsh brewer Brain’s 6.5% Strong Ale brimming with chocolate and caramel notes. The historic and reintroduced Worthington’s White Shield at 5.9% was a particularly nice treat emblematic of what a great special bitter can be. Unfortunately each day we visited the Timothy Taylor booth however they had already run through the cask of Landlord, possibly my favorite British bitter of all time. Of the lower gravity milds, of which there were several thankfully, Harvey’s Sussex at 3% was dark, roasty and delicious, truly recommended as a fantastic example of the style if you can find it and one of the top ten beers tried at the event. The company’s Lewes Brown Ale at 4.8% was also a prime example of that style. Of particular note this year as well were the number of non-mainstream or in some cases historical cask beers. In the case of the latter the 6.5% 1872 Porter made by Elland stood out. Holden’s 7.2% Old Ale was also a stand out. A number of breweries also submitted flavored beers including several with chocolate. One that won was a chocolate orange stout that seemed overdone, but our favorite by far was Titanic Brewing’s 4.5% Chocolate and Vanilla Stout which we came back to not once but twice, before they ran out that is. In addition to cask beers they also had bars with only bottle selections and also bars with air pushed keg beers from the Czech Republic, Germany, Holland and elsewhere. De Dolle pepper infused 10% Russian Imperial Stout from a large wooden barrel? Yes please. Andechs Helles, Schlenkerla Dopple Bock, the list goes on. One of our greatest finds which is no secret in the UK is beer made by a guy named Alex Liberati with Revelation Cat based outside of Rome. Apparently the guy likes American hops, wood aged anything, sours and high gravity. Included among his offerings were a 9.9% West Coast Double IPA and Mad Walloper, a smoked lambic…yes, smoked lambic. Both beers were clean and balanced with huge flavor profiles. Look for them in the US soon as Shelton Brothers is bringing in their lambics aged in everything from Acacia to French Oak. Hopefully some of that smoked lambic will someday come this way as well.

~Brother Spargealot

Next week we head to the Great British Beer Festival in London and I was reminded of a little rant I produced months ago about what BJCP calls “bitters” and the divergence between their statements and what the true authentic version of the styles tend to be. http://www.zymurology.org/Blog/?p=283 In addition to questioning their overall methodology, I also reflected on the misinformation provided within their own guidelines that seem to suggest the best examples of the styles in their lofty opinions seem to be ones that actually fall well outside of confines they themselves set. With that in mind I perused another BJCP category today, that of “English Brown Ales”. The BJCP subdivides this into Mild, Southern English Brown and Northern English Brown. Once again, there are very few commercial examples of any of these styles in the US and in the case of Milds it seems there are zero continental versions in my particular part of the US.  As is the case with many British styles I think the BJCP and other craft beer “organizations” haven’t been able to decide on how they define these styles. Should they represent what the beer used to be or what it turned into within the last few decades? In the case of “Milds” historical records suggest beers so classified were simply young brown ales lacking the prized acidity associated with aged “stale” ales, which were more expensive by comparison. In the late 1800s historians tell us milds had starting gravities of roughly 1.070 which equates to well over 6% ABV.  Originally milds made from the predominant brown malt at the time would have also been smoky until the widespread adoption of Daniel Wheeler’s malt roasting invention in 1817 finally caught on. By the middle of the 1900s though austerity measures led to widespread recipe reformulations across the UK and the original gravity of milds gradually dipped into the 1.050s and then solidly into a range below 1.040. The resulting beers prevalent in England throughout the latter part of the 20th century through present day normally range from 3 to 4% ABV. In recent visits to the UK I was able to try one as low as 2.9% during GABF, but I can remember none above the 4% mark (most are 3.1 to 3.4%).  

So if American “authorities” expect to define the style as one representative of milds existing in the last half century it would seem there are some clear guidelines to look at.  So let’s see what the BJCP guidelines say once again. Milds they conclude have original gravities between 1.030 and 1.038 - I can live with that although it seems a bit narrow. Final gravities of 1.008 to 1.013 also seem just slightly confining, but not by much. A suggested IBU range (bitterness) between 10 and 25 also seems somewhat appropriate, although many milds like the excellent Dark Ruby Mild made by the Sarah Hughes Brewery comes in at 30 IBUs which makes me think the upper limit is too low. After judging milds at homebrew events I can testify many entries do not conform to BJCP guidelines in this respect and that includes a version that won first in the Bluebonnet Homebrew competition this year. Unfortunately the BJCP does a severe disservice to everyone by limiting SRM (color) to between 12 and 25, but once again fortunately for most homebrewers entering competitions at least some judges don’t pay attention to the top of that range. The bottom of the BJCP range at 12 SRM is justified as there are still some light colored milds being brewed, although to be honest I have never seen one in the US and only rarely encountered them in the UK (if ever in St. Albans, the home of CAMRA, you can find the excellent McMullen AK in many pubs). Most US judges would dock a perfectly legitimate pale mild due to its lighter color despite the style guidelines simply because it’s unlike anything they know. While I applaud including 12 SRM as a bottom, the BJCP should reconsider posting the top of the range at 25 SRM.  (Update – I was dead wrong in the last few sentences and stand corrected, according to www.barclayperkins.blogspot.com AK being classified as a mild is wrong, its it actually a bitter – which I think brings into question setting the bottom range for SRM as low as 12) One of the BJCP’s own commercial examples  listed is Gales Festival Mild at…71 SRM!(it is actually brewed as a historical beer and falls outside of other parameters so it shouldn’t be listed at all) Most of the others also fall outside of the 25 SRM cap as do many mainstream mild examples like Bateman’s Mild at 63 SRM. The last parameter set by the BJCP is also highly suspect despite being rather wide, as it requires ABV between 2.8% and 4.5%. As noted there are examples of beers at the lower end of the range, but few above 4%. Even so the commercial example given by the BJCP of Gale’s Festival Mild, which again should be classified as a historical beer (unless they want to retroactively make milds a historical antecedent style) clocks in at 5.6% ABV…almost a full 1% above their cap (or roughly 20% higher). Of the lone North American mild example they list “Motor City Brewing’s Ghettoblaster”, which I am sure all beer judges are familiar with since it is so widely distributed, it clocks in at 5.2% ABV, again well outside of their own guidelines. In conclusion it appears there is much work to be done by the BJCP in order to correct misinformation represented in their guidelines that appear increasingly pervasive at this point. Just do a web search for “mild beer” and any technical parameter like SRM and one of the first links will be to the BJCP guidelines.