Following rules-the new cool.

Connoisseurship and pretension, a marriage seemingly inseparable. The mere idea of being a connoisseur creates a hierarchy, a separation of the good and the not so good.

Can one enjoy top of the line goods without becoming a shmuck? Some are of the ilk that creating rules of etiquette will help people behave in a more civilized way and eliminate hierarchy. The LA Times did a piece on the rise of the speakeasy cocktail parlor, a place immersed in rules for its patron to follow, all to bring the focus away from shmuckiness and shifting it toward appreciating the drink.

I hate following rules or being told what to do, but I kind of like this concept. Take away all the usual night life games, meat markets, overcrowding, cellphones, loud music, drunkenness, namedropping, etc., and replace this with an environment focusing on the art of the drink.

I'm sure some of these places are high concept and only interested in creating an elite sort of joint with high-end cocktails and membership fees, but at the root, this is a great idea. What it does is put everyone who enters on the same level, vents the pressure of a scene, and lowers the overall volume, so everyone can enjoy their company and the drinks they have in front of them. Perfect. I'll take that any day.

[Reading back over this, I realize this may just be an issue in bigger cities such as LA or NY. It may be out of context in other places.]

The cost of a glass of beer.

How much are you paying for a glass of beer at your local pub or brewery?

Recently, I've come across a few articles that have talked about cheater pints (pint glasses that are only 14 oz. instead of 16 oz.) and the amount people are paying for draft beer. Man, I feel out of touch here in Los Angeles. Beer is expensive in this city.

I was recently thrilled to find a place three blocks away that has a happy hours with $3.50 pints. A bargain I thought.

Another place over in Hollywood sell pints for $4 all the time. The best deal in town I think.

I regularly pay $5-9 a beer. No, not for some rare Belgian or barrel-aged beer, just straight forward American ales like Sierra Nevada pale ale. It's crazy how easy one assimilates into a new economy. I've only lived here a year and a half and this all seems normal. Is it? Well, yes, considering the cost of running and operating a business in this here expensive metropolis. But, that doesn't make it fun to shell out those hard earned bucks for a beer.

If you live where you can get $3.50 pints, enjoy it, cause it doesn't happen everywhere...and it may be changing soon in the new climate of expensive hops and grains.

WidHook...what are the implications of this craft beer merger?

A few days behind the times, but I think this is significant enough to post a few days late. Widmer Brewing Co. and Redhook Brewing Co., both large craft breweries, are looking to merge in earlier 2008. Anheuser Busch holds minority stake in both companies, giving the craft breweries better access to A-B's distribution chain. Interesting to see these developments as craft breweries try to take advantage of economies of scale. In the beer world the cost of just about everything (barley, hops, power) is skyrocketing, forcing companies to adjust strategies to survive. We've seen this happening with industrial breweries, but this is perhaps the first of this size for craft beer.

I can't for tell the implications of this development, but it does appear as though it will be harder and harder for smaller breweries to compete in this sort of market. Many factors seem to be going against the littler guys. Access to distribution. Brewery efficiency. Purchasing power. Widmer and Redhook seem to be finding answers for these problems, but most small breweries do not have these same options, nor do they care for these sorts of corporate solutions. Patrick Emerson at the Oregon Economics blog has some interesting thoughts on these issues. If interested check them out as well as Jeff Alworth's response.

Will moves like this make it harder for small brewery to compete? Can the smaller brewery survive the looming price hikes in necessary ingredients? Or can passion push them through in their small profit margins, limited distribution networks, and seemingly endless hard work and low pay? What do you think?

Temptation from Russian River Brewing Co.

It's been awhile since I've written about the actual sensation of drinking a beer. Crazy. Isn't the simple pleasure of drinking a beer what this is all about? I think so. Today, I return to beer.

In celebration of my wife's success at school we popped the cork on a bottle of Russian River Brewing Co.'s Temptation. The bottle had spent the last 8 months cellared in our garage. The label says it is a Belgian blond ale age in French oak chardonnay barrels with Brettanomyces. Without even opening the bottle it already seems complex. I've had this beer several times, so I understand what I am getting into.

The cork popped with some force, hinting at ample carbonation. The beer pours a cool yellowish gold with a generous white head. The aroma wafts with stone fruit, bready hay, and a subtle lingering sourness. In the mouth is where this beer really gets it's legs. Peach. Apricot. Firm tannins. Lemons zest. A bracing, yet integrated acidity. Delicate hay. Vanilla pushing toward tropical fruit. Light body, but lively carbonation to balance it out. Finishes with a dry, tart peach sensation.

Truly, Russian River understands how to achieve complexity and balance. In this beer, I feel it is the acidity and tannic tension from the oak that help develop its layered and textural complexity. I've drank this beer before, but this was the best bottle I've had. I think the added age helped smooth out the intensity on the palate and integrated the richness of tastes together.

At $11 for 375 ml, this beer is quite expensive, but well worth the price tag. If you find yourself blessed enough to come across it in the store, buy it up!

You gotta try this beer that tastes like beer, it's awesome!

I'm a drink fanatic.

Yes, beer is usually my number one choice. However, every circumstance can't call for a beer. So, in some occasions, I turn on my eye-glass windshield wipers and try to clear off the beer goggles. I'm out scouring the shelves to find libations other than the malty liquid that keeps wanting to pound down in-front of me. Coffee. Tea. Wine. Boba. Juice. Smoothies. I love them all. When I branch out to another oasis of liquid, I look for something that differentiates itself by being unique and distinct from other options.

Recent curiosity found me researching coffee on the web. Cyberspace swims with radicals for this black liquid. In my reading it appears that most coffee enthusiasts keep calibrating their beverages with wine. They know their subject, coffee, very well. They approach their subject from a well informed perspective; covering climate, soil, and cultivation, the nuances of roasting your beans, and the most important part-sensory textures: taste, smell, and touch (in the mouth, of course). Disappointingly though, they keep coming back to this calibration with wine.

I see this same thing in the beer spectrum. Heck, I do it myself. I feel the need to justify beers status in the connoisseur's world, often bringing up the comparison that beer has a broader range of styles than wine and that beer is a better fit with most foods.

Recently, though, I've come to the conclusion that this approach is a mistake.

All of these beverages can stand on their own two legs (or glass stem or ceramic cup bottom for that matter). Even great beer writers such as Garret Oliver fall into this trap. In his book The Brewmaster's Table he writes "Wine is a simple beverage to produce. In order to make wine, one needs only grapes. Crush the grapes, and the natural yeast on the grape skins will start the fermentation; and pretty soon--voila!--you'll have wine. In fact, if you have enough grapes, they'll crush themselves by their own weight--the winemaker doesn't even need to do that! Beer is not nearly so simple, and brewing is a far more complicated art than winemaking." In my opinion, comparisons like this diminishes beer's status. It's the dirty politics of smear campaigns and idea theft.

Granted, the wine world has done a great job of establishing a more refined status. The image winemakers have shaped has made consumers look at their beverage with respect. Much of this has to do with how they talk about wine. A while back Field Maloney wrote an article highlighting linguistics role in wines rise to the top of the class. They created a vocabulary that aligned themselves with connoisseurs, not with consumers of another product.

Coffee is not wine. Beer is not wine, either. They all are unique, complex experiences by themselves.

I think beer drinkers, myself included, need to stop calibrating beer against other beverages. Beer stands out with it's own subtleties, nuances, and sensory textures. We should allow our vonacular to highlight the aspects that make it uniquely beer, without trying to justify it with talk about wine. As the cliche says, it's like comparing apples and oranges.

Is Classic Rock the Sound of Fermentation?

This is part of a collective beer blogger effort to write in a unified manner on a given topic. This is the 9th session of this sort, but the 1st for me. This "Session" is hosted by Tomme Arthur and involves beer and music. So, here it goes.

Are the reverberating sounds of Creedence Clearwater Revival, Led Zeppelin, and Jimi Hendrix all an inherent part of the magic of making beer? It seems every time my bright green, size 9 Asics enter into another brewhouse my ears are filled with the glorious guitar driven rock sounds of the past. Is there a collective knowledge that shows those little yeast cells preferring the soulful growl of John Fogerty?

Perhaps, classic rock is only what the little yeasties that make American style ales prefer when they're reproducing? Maybe, different types of yeast prefer different types of music?

I think the little yeasts I use in brewing, usually Belgian derived, are partial to the classical compositions of Mozart? They seem to perform better when exposed to the balance and clarity of his piano concertos.

Maybe, every step of the brewing process requires something different.

For example, in my brewhouse, indie rock for the the actual brew day.

Fermentation is more style specific:

Techno music for German lagers.
Classic rock for American ales.
Classical compositions for Belgian ales.
Mariachi for our friendly, festival lagers from south of the border.
Neil Young for the lagers north of the border.
Wild Fermentations with non-traditional yeasts and bacteria tend to take in a broader set of influences in their work. James Brown. Tom Waits. Beirut. Prince. ABBA. Johnny Cash. And many others. Each one exposed in small doses over long periods of time.

Ok, you get the idea, yeast are particular in their music choices.

As for the actual act of drinking beer and listening to music, wow, the experiences can be so expansive. I'll stay in the present, I guess. Right now, I'm writing, listening, and drinking. The speakers trumpet Devendra Banhart, a folk freak sprouting with joy and mischief, multiple languages, and things unexpected and misunderstood. This floats along in alliance with the saison fermented with Brettanomyces I am drinking; a bit offensive, tart, layered, and not understood by everyone. My writing swims with these elements, edgy ingredients forming a relationship.

Beer and music, in my malt stained world an elemental bond.

A Beer Drinkers Manifesto.

I've been disappointed many times when drinking beer out at pubs or restaurants. Not only with bad beer, but with absolutely no attention given to the subject of beer. If I'm going to spend my hard earned money at an establishment, I want to know that they care about my whole experience. Even at beer focused venues, I see retailers taking beer drinkers for granted, insulting their intelligence (or palate for that matter), and most importantly, not paying attention to the quality of the product they serve.

Well, I think this all needs to change.

A recent article in the LA Times posted a manifesto on diner's rights when eating out. Though I disagreed with some of the material in the article, it got me thinking about the beer consumers rights. In order for beer to present itself in a respectable manner, retailers need to start taking it a bit more serious. So, I've gone and written The Beer Drinkers Manifesto, a few rights I feel belong in the beer consumers world. I'm sure there is things I've left out, but I think it's a good start:

1. Information on what beers are being served. I'm not meaning complicated details such as malts, IBU's, and yeast strains. I'm talking much simpler things; an up to date beer list, staff that is informed of new beers, an indication of what the beer style is on a particular beer, and if a restaurant, maybe recommendations on pairings with food.

2. Proper glassware. Everything is not meant to be served in a pint glass. Smaller portions of stronger beers seems reasonable; I'm not drinking to get sloshed. Having 2 or 3 sizes of glassware really can heighten the experience.

3. Informed staff. Waitstaff and bartenders should know what beers their establishment serves, period. I don't know how many times I've dined out and the waiter can't even name the 5 beers they carry. If the establishment decides to carry, say 20 beers, they should take the step to inform their staff a little further. Simple beer basics, such as knowing the differences between common beer styles, should become the norm.

4. A proper pour. Just as much as I don't want a glass full of foam, I don't want a glass filled to the top with no head. Aromatics are a huge part of the beer experience, an inch or two of head can greatly enhance the character of a beer.

5. Proper beer storage. Beer is a perishable. If you don't store your eggs in 100 degree California weather, you shouldn't store your beer there either. Most beers are best consumed fresh (though there are many exceptions), and the best way to keep it fresh is to store it at cellar temperature or cooler. Oxidation, hot temperature, and temperature changes can greatly effect a beer. So please, take good care of that precious beer.

6. Beer line cleanliness, please. Coming from working in the beer industry, I've seen first hand that draft beer lines do not always get the attention they should. This is gross, beer can leave a pretty nasty residue. If you think it's important to clean glasses and plates, you should think it's just as important to clean beer lines. If the distributor doesn't care enough about their beer to do it themselves, then the establishment should hire an outside source. Most bad beers I've had when drinking out are a result of dirty beer lines.

7. Diversification. Having only one style of beer, light lager, just does not cut it in my book. It's not very hard to add 3 or 4 more easily accessible beer styles to a menu. Granted, I usually only go to establishments with a decent beer menu, but most folks out there are not in the mode of letting beer be their guide and just end up taking the easy choice (usually Bud Light). If your willing to put 20 food items on you menu, why not add a couple of more beers.

8. Give the patron the option of fruit or no fruit. Serving American wheat beer ("hefeweizen") with lemon should not be the default. Some people prefer their beer without fruit, give them the option.

9. Right to refusal of beer. If an establishent gives you a bad beer (line pour, lemoned beer, oxidized beer from poor storage, etc.), they should not make you feel guilty for asking for a better beer.