Alaskan Smoked Porter.

My first and only experience with Alaskan Smoked Porter came recently, a 10 year old bottle from 1998. Wow! 10 years in the bottle and only little signs of oxidation. Instead, aromas of rich, honey baked ham with a strong base of deep and dark roast. Small punches of sherry nuttiness and soft dark fruits. The mouth-feel really achieved inspiration with a roasted malt fullness and a dry, pleasantly smoky finish.

Coming from the brisk cold of Juneau, Alaska, the beer first came on the market in 1988. With an inspiration for roasted malts and smoked salmon, the owners of Alaskan Brewing Co., Geoff and Marcy Larson, began to smoke the malts locally over alderwood at Taku Smokeries. The beers incredible reputation helps build anticipation every year as the bottles are marked with a vintage date, encouraging you to cellar a few for the future.

If you try this beer sometime soon and you want a food recommendation, I suggest a simple sandwich. Using multi-grain bread, I would layer tomatoes, sprouts, mozzarella cheese, a couple drops of hot sauce, a small amount of a mild mustard, and then, instead of a smoked meat, just enjoy the smoked porter with the meal.

Is organic beer bad?

I've often heard many people share their dislike of organic beer. The common misconception is that the quality of the beer is poor because of the ingredients.

This is quite far from the truth.

I think the reason for organic beer getting a bad rap is the approach commercial organic producers take in their business choices. Instead of getting into the beer business with a first and foremost passion for quality beer, they step into this arena with their motivation being things like a great marketing concept or they are excited about organic agriculture and sustainability. These are not a bad thing, but they won't make good beer.

As a homebrewer, the majority of the beer I make comes from organic ingredients (here is a great source for buying organic). I'm proud of this fact and have never thought once that it hurts the quality of the beer I make. Making a great product is always my first priority, but sustainability constantly floats around in the back of my mind.

In the commercial spectrum, the shelves are filled with many great organic choices. In places like Portland, OR almost everyone's making organic beer; Roots Brewing Co., Laurelwood, Hair of the Dog, Hopworks Urban Brewery, Etc. For beers that are more widely distributed there are some truely great choices; New Belguims Mothership Wit, Deschutes has some organic products, Bison makes some fine organic beers (they made a farmhouse saison 2 years ago that was one of my favorite beers of the year), and the list continues to grow all the time.

So, don't count the beer out because it is organic, that is no reason to stereotype some really great breweries.

The Confrontation of Expoiter and Nurturer.

As a beer enthusiast, I am constantly pitting craft beer against industrial beer. In this battle I send craft beer, a scrappy multi faceted, viral movement of passionate brewers, into the ring against industrial beer, a three headed corporate, marketing, and profit driven business.

It's not just make believe, it's a real confrontation.

Over the past eight years the overall beer market in the US has been fairly stable, growing or losing a few percentage points every year. During this same period our population has stayed relatively stable as well. What this means is that in order to sell more beer you have to persuade customers away from one of your competitors. Craft beer has been fairly good at achieving this, their rate of growth the past few years has been somewhere between 10-13%. This nod to the little guy pumps new, fresh blood into a stagnant pulse.

It is this same local, intimate care taken by craft brewers that Wendel Berry writes about in his book The Unsettling of America. Though he talks about two approaches to farming, agribusiness industrial farming and the local family farm, his voice is quite relevant. He uses two terms to define the two, exploitation and nurture. The exploiter thinks in terms of numbers, quantities, and hard facts with the end goal being money and profit. Whereas the nurturer thinks in terms of character, condition, quality, and kind with an end goal of health for the craft and community.

The post-industrial 'nurturing' movement of craft beer is far out-weighted by the industrial brewery's dollar, organization, technology, and marketing, yet its growth cadences on. Passion, care, and community propel beer drinkers away from industrial products and toward local and regional beer. Encouraging? Yes. An unorganized and underfunded group of closet chemists and backyard brewers demanding an audience for their well cared for vocation. Wendel Berry would be proud.

The Perfect Cellaring Beer

If ever there was beer to cellar, it is Hair of the Dog beer.

Their Adam beer I have always adored, but Fred, a golden special ale, has never quite done it for me. Too much malty sweetness. Too Strong. Off putting hop bitterness. As a beer, it has never totally come together and been a memorable, complete, and integrated experience. But my opinion now changes.

A couple of months ago I had a Fred from 2003 or 2004. Still, much of the same cloying sweetness. My opinion stayed the same.

Then, last Sunday at a place called the Beechwood BBQ, the proprietor, Gabe, poured me a glass of Hair of the Dog Fred from 2000. Wow! What a succinct experience. Strawberry. Apricot. Dried plum. Spanish sherry nuttiness. A perfect tango of fruity, aged malt sweetness and firm bitterness. Warming, but not alcoholic. Truely, a genuine expression of what an aged beer can be.

I have now tasted many vintages of Hair of the Dog ales and am convinced that their beers grow in depth as time passes. Oxidation rounds out the sharpness, bottle conditioning dries out the intense residual sugar, and the experience just gets more enjoyable. The motley vividness that is expressed young, gives way to a unified maturity when old.

What a great way for me to get to welcome Hair of the Dog beers and their availability in Southern California. Cheers to all the great beers we get to enjoy these days.

Beer as a Cultural Institution.

I just got done drinking a glass of Rodenbach, a flemish sour ale. The beer has an incredible profile; dark cherry tart, hints of Dr. Pepper, fresh cut cedar, grape popsicle, and a crisp, dry, and subtle chocolate malt finish. Really, a unique experience.

I have had beers in America crafted along these same lines before, but what distinguishes this beer and many others from their American counterparts is the cultural history surrounding the breweries and their beers. The Rodenbach brewery has a history in the Roeselare region of Belgium pushing on 200 years. Blind and yet swooned by beer, Alexander Rodenbach instigated his families new heritage, purchasing the struggling St. George brewery in 1820. Drawing influence from brewing methods used in England, Eugene Rodenbach began using wood to develop acidity in their beer in the late 19th century. This process focused the breweries attention and propelled them to define the style of beer known as a Flanders Red Ale.

In an age where technology almost always trumps tradition, the Rodenbach brewery has bucked modernization, continuing the rigorous process of aging all their beer in oaken vats, 294 in all. This classic approach allows locals to identifying the brewery as part of Belgian history they can lay claim to.

In a rather young, and yet thriving artisan beer culture here in America, we lack the sort of ideologies they possess in places like Belgium that allow them to see beer and breweries as cultural institutions. We did have a beer culture in America that paralleled our history as a nation, but most of this knowledge has long been forgotten. Prohibition ravished our sense of identity, pushing our local beer from something to be proud of, to a taboo, or even worse, sin.

Sure, we can go to our local market and find beer from around the world or the newest twist on tradition our local breweries have come up with, but that doesn't make the ideology seep deep into our being. With just about 30 years of the new found "craft" beer under our belts, we are just beginning to see the opportunities we have with beer in America. With places like Seattle, Portland, Denver, and San Diego fighting to claim beer as a part of their local culture, I feel we have much more in store for us as it develops the respect and maturity it is capable of.

[this was for you Hunter, since it seems that you are either my only reader or the only one who cares what direction my writing goes. cheers, brother.]