Archive for July, 2008
July Tastings was held outside on Joe's Patio
We had a full house for our July beertasting in addition to some great summer beers, fine company including some new faces, a few raindrops and an excellent job from our host. My only criticism is that as our tastings get bigger, the quantity of beer being tasted in someways prohibit us from fully enjoying some of the great beers that we had on hand. But a good quantity and quality of beer selections is a great problem to have for our tastings.
Here’s the lineup of what I had we tasted according to my notes. I think 21 different beers sets a new record for us…
- Joe B. (host) – Honey Ale & Rock Candy Saison (Homebrews), Blue Moon Belgium Wheat, St. Feuillien
- Jay — Hoegarden White Ale
- Steve B — Victory Whilrwind Witbeir, Alesmith IPA
- Dave S — New Hollland Zoomer Wheat
- Zombie — Bell’s Oberon
- Mike — Goose Island Summertime Kolsch
- Todd — Avery White Rascal Wheat Ale
- Luke — New Glarus Spotted Cow & Fat Squirrel Ale, Kwok
- Pete — Paulaner Hefeweizen
- Mark — Horse Piss Beer, Souther Tier Hop Sun
- Chris — Great Lakes Eliot Ness Lager
- Phil — Hacker-Pschorr Weisse
- Steve V (not present, but still sent beer) — Flying Dog Garde Dog
- Chuck — Jackie O’s Bourbon Barrel Aged Black Betty (from Athen’s Ohio)
Some tastings notes…
The Victory Whirlwind had a distinct and unique peppery flavor to it — not sure if this is good, but it was very different.
Joe impressed me with his two home brew offerings. The honey ale was very smooth and drinkable. The Saison had some orange and coriander flavors going for it — very interesting.
The Hacker-Pschorr Weisse had a nice banana flavor that you would expect from a German Wheat beer. On the other hand, I thought the Paulaner Hefeweizen had a sweet honey finish to it.
I’ve never had the St. Feuillen before — I think Joe said his family got it from Belgium and that’s it’s aged a few years. Very Belgium like, I will definitely be on the look out for it in the future.
The Horse Piss beer was appropriately named. The Blue Moon Belgium tasted neither like a Belgium or wheat beer.
The Kwok had a very sweet malty flavor. Nice contrast to the summer beers we tasted.
I think Pete summarized the Bourbon Aged Black Betty — “Dessert in a glass!”.
Here was our lineup, along with their ratings from Beer Advocate and Rate Beer
Beer Advocate RateBeer
- Hoegaarden White Ale B+ 88
- Victory Whirlwind Witbier B 74
- Joe’s Honey Ale N/A
- New Holland Zoomer Wheat Ale B- 46
- Bell’s Oberon Ale B+ 82
- Paulaner Hefewiezen B+ 90
- Bluegrass Brewing Horse Piss Beer C- 4
- Goose Island Summertime Kolsch B 54
- Avery White Rascal B 64
- Coor’s Blue Moon Belgium B- 46
- Joe’s Rock Candy Saison N/A
- New Glarus Spotted Cow Ale B 43
- Southern Tier Hop Sun B+ 75
- Flying Dog Garde Dog B- 27
- Great Lakes Eliot Ness A- 90
- Hacker Pschorr Weiss A- 87
- New Glarus Fat Squirrel Nut Brown Ale B+ 84
- St. Feuillien Blonde B+ 79
- AleSmith IPA A 99
- Pauwel Kwak B+ 86
- Jackie O’s Bourbon Barrel Black Betty N/A N/A
MVP Points Totals
For the first month this year, we have no top 100 beers on our list. The AleSmith IPA is on the list, but technically we tasted that last month and Steve was kind enough to share another bottle as a few didn’t get a taste in June. However, I’m awarding bonus points to Chuck for bringing back beer from the Athens Beer Festival, Luke for bringing back New Glarus which is only available in Wisconsin, and Joe for sharing his homebrew’s and aged Belgium beers. Joe gets docked 1 point however for bringing a Coor’s product, which is almost as bad as bringing Anheiser Busch. Steve V. gets bonus points for bringing beer even though he couldn’t attend personally. Steve gets 5 points for his blog postings, which is enough to put him and Todd in a dead heat for first place.
Prev Total July Score New Total
- Todd 82 3 85
- Steve B 77 8 85
- Mike 45 3 48
- Steve V. 43 5 48
- Joe 18 28 46
- Andrew S. 45 0 45
- Chuck 35 6 41
- Andrew W 38 0 38
- Luke 22 12 34
- Jay 30 3 33
- Zombie 29 3 32
- Dave S 28 3 31
- Pete 18 3 21
- Dave H 3 0 3
Tags: July, Summer, Tasting
A great time for all ages was had on the Brew Choo Choo
A night like Thursday would be hard to top, and having been at the festival all week, I’m almost ready to go home. But there still are a couple of events I look forward to attending. What’s really strange is that although I’m ready to wrap things up, I meet a whole bunch of people who are just arriving and rearing to go.
Friday festivities starts out with a tasting at Jackie O’s Brewery at 2PM. I got a chance to taste several of the fine beers from this local brewery — including Wheat’s Up, Sparbock, Java the Stout, Wee Heavy, Dark Apparition, Black Betty and bourbon-aged Black Betty. A lot of his beers tend to be on the higher alcohol side, so I am feeling pretty good. My favorites are the Dark Apparition ( An Imperial Russian Stout) and the bourbon-aged Black Betty. Black Betty (named after the song originally recorded by Leadbelly, and popularized by the group Ram Jam.) is a 9.5% dark porter with vanilla, raspberry and chocolate flavors — aging it for three months in the bourbon barrels adds a another complexity to this interesting beer. The Dark Apparition has a delicious toasted coffee type taste you would expect from a rich stout. I decide to buy a growler of the both The Dark Apparition and the bourbon-aged Black Betty, one of which I’ll share to an upcoming beer tasting.
After the tasting at Jackie O’s, I head to the festival headquarters for one final beertasting event — the Home Brew Choo Choo. There is supposed to be a shuttle service that will take me to nearby Nelsonville. Homebrewers as well as microbrew lovers will be whisked away on old fashioned train ride running through the historic Hocking Valley Scenic Railway. There is some confusion at the shuttle and although there are several vehicles present, nobody seems to know what’s going on. Eventually, things are straightened out, and I board a stretch limousine to Nelsonville. Contrasted with events earlier in the week that seemed sparsely attended, I sense that a lot of people appear to be arriving for the weekend. By the time we get ready to board the train in Nelsonville at 6PM, there are hundreds of passengers waiting. The train consists of 7-8 different cars, and the train is completely filled.
It’s a very hot July day, and due to the large amount of people we have some delays in starting out. I get the impression that the festival organizers, who for the most part did a wonderful job, were often over worked, and in this case it took a while to get all the people on board and situated, as well as beer and refreshments. So we had to sweat a little bit in the hot sun, but once the train started out, the cool breeze was refreshing and all was well. There were some great beers, including Imperial Dortmunder and Thirsty Dog’s Siberian Night going around — as well as some home brews (people who brought their own home brew to share were given a free ticket from what I understand). In addition to the adult beverages, they had root beer and a little gift bag for all children.
A little over halfway through the trip, the train stops in a small town — apparently we’ve run out of beer. More beer is on the way, but somebody gets lost and we end up waiting another 20 minutes in the hot sun. But everything works out and we load up on more beer for the trip home. The thought of our train stopping for a beer run is kind of amusing.
After our train ride, I call Seven Sauces, a local restaurant back in Athens, for reservations thinking they would busy on a Friday night with a big festival going on. However, we get there, and there is only one other table, who soon leave before we are served. The food was delicious and I have a Holy Moses White Ale with my dinner, but I find it sad that we are the only customers and wonder if they will still be open our next trip to Athens.
Saturday, we check out of our hotel, but not before giving Kevin at the front desk a small souvenir glass from Ohio Brew Week. The staff at the Ohio University Inn was exceptional at meeting all of our needs, and we undoubtedly will be returning there on our next visit. We go back to Case Nueva’s one last time (probably our 4th or 5th visit for this trip) and find out they are out of PawPaw Beer. Things are definitely much more crowded than what we saw during the week.
The big event for Saturday is the Boogie on the Bricks. Part of Court Street is closed off to traffic, and in it’s place is a large stage, while vendors lined the street. The children have a good time playing in the kids area, and we listen to one or two bands, but it is again very hot, and I’m eager to go home. They were setting up a special micro-brew tasting area, but I didn’t get a chance to see what was available. But before I left, I wanted to pick out some reading material from the book selections that they had on sale at their souvenir stand. I briefly considered getting a book Bob Skilnik, who I sat with Thursday at the Brewer’s Ball, but the only book they had available was his book “A History of Brewing in Chicago”. Instead, I decide to get Ray Daniels’ book (who was at Ohio Brew Week earlier in the week) “Designing Great Beers”, but somehow get the eery feeling somebody is watching me. Sure enough, as soon as I put the Skilnik book back on the shelf and leaf through the Daniels book, a voice behind me says, “You should get that, it’s a great book”. I turn behind to find Bob Skilnik himself, and of course, I immediately feel embarrassed for putting his book down, enough to reach back for it as if I planned to purchase that one as well. So I end up buying both of the books, but not before I at least get him to autograph the “A History of Brewing in Chicago” (which turns out is an interesting read even if you aren’t from Chicago).
So everything considered, I had a great time in Athens, as did my entire family. Here’s my top 10 (or so) list of things that I liked best about this festival (in no particular order)…
- Generous tasting glasses
- Affordable pricing for tastings
- Formal tasting with the brewers present
- Brewer’s Ball
- Choo-Choo Train Ride
- The entire format of the festival, where all the beers where spread out throughout the various bars of Athens
- Dining at the Casa Nueva
Tags: Ohio Brew Week
Hanging out with Pat Conway, President of Great Lakes Brewing
Thursday’s beer events started off with a Meet the Brewer event, and this time John Najeway & Mitch Akerman from Thirsty Dog Brewing Company are scheduled to be on site at Skipper’s Bar & Grille at 4PM. I get a sampler of each of The Thirsty Dog selections, including Airship Light, Hoppus Maximus, Old Leghumper, and Siberian Night. By the time I finish my platter, the brewers are still not yet here, but apparently on their way. While waiting, I tried the wonderful Dark Horse Lager from Elevator Brewing Company, and hear an interesting rumor that is circulating. The word going around is that an employee at Willoughby’s Brewing Company was supposed to bring more Peanutbutter Coffee Porter to the festival — but apparently that person got fired the night before when they hit a female employee on the behind with a wooden spoon.
I have tickets for another formal tasting at the Ohio University Inn, this time with yet another brewer from the Cleveland area, Cornerstone Brewing, and master brewers Eric Rothschiller and Jay Cox. They came very well prepared with handouts and brewers notes and gave one of the better presentations that I attended this week. Eric defined a beer geek as someone 24 x 7 is thinking about what would be the best type and amount of hops to use for your next beer; while a beer aficionado is one who just enjoys good beer without thinking about where and how it came from. Despite his encouragement not to become a beer geek (beer aficionado’s lead much more balanced lives), this event has definitely sparked an interest for me to get my feet wet in home brewing. Eric also talks about how water, comprising of 98% of beer, is the most important ingredient and how Cornerstone currently does not filter their water. As he states, “To be honest, I’m surprised we make a decent beer”. They also have a strong opinion on serving fruit in your beer glass as seen sometimes with Wheat or Belgium Ales, “If the brewer intended the beer to have an orange flavor, he would’ve brewed that flavor into the beer itself”.
We taste Liquid Soul, a belgium pale ale with spice including orange and bit of licorice root. The brewers claim this is their ultimate session beer. Erie Blue is a Raspberry and Blackberry flavored beer which we reminded me of Dogfish Head Black & Blue, only a bit milder with the fruit flavor not overpowering the beer as one might think. Seven is an IPA that originally started with seven different hops, seven malts and an alcohol content of 7%. Today, I believe he said it was made exclusively with Centennial Hops, but they’ve still kept the name. Finally, Angry Gorilla is a German-style Hefeweizen with 103 strains of yeast, giving a distinct papaya and mango flavor.
After the tasting, Sally takes me downtown for the premier event of the week — The Brewer’s Ball at The Blue Gator. Tickets to this event were $49/person (and although it was supposed to be sold out, there were many empty seats available). In addition to having a gourmet 5 course meal with each course paired with a different Ohio microbrew, we would have several speakers including Pat Conway, President & Founder of Great Lakes Brewing Company. I am seated with a very nice couple who have came down from Cleveland, Bob and Deb. I ask the guy sitting next to me where he’s from and what brings him to town, and he replies “Well, they asked me to come down here from Chicago”. I take a look a peak at my program guide and realize that he’s Bob Skilnik, author of 9 food and beer related books and who has appeared on on several TV shows including “The View”, Fox News and ESPN2. I gathered that he had somewhat mixed feelings about the festival. Although he gave high praises for the format of the festival itself, I got the impression he was somewhat disappointed in the turnout for some of his scheduled events (like the brewers, he has been traveling bar to bar in part to promote his beer books).
I thought the meal was very well done, and for this special occasion I put my vegetarian taste buds the night off and decided to indulge in all courses. The first course was an Imperial Dortmunder poached scallop over a creamy parmesan risotto paired with Great Lakes Imperial Dortmunder. This was followed by a French Onion Soup topped with gruyere cheese paired with Buckeye Brewery Hippie IPA. Next was a Watermelon salad with feta, honeydew, microgreens and toasted pistachios with a raspberry ale and basil vinaigrette paired with Thirsty Dog’s Cerebus 10 Dog Ale (Belgium Triple). The main course consisted of braised boar with mixed mushroom and purple fingerling potatoes, topped with a roasted corn sour cream server with Jackie O’s Drawn & Portered Porter. And desert consisted of Black velvet cake layered with Imperial Stout creme brulee, topped with java stout ice cream and paired with Jackie O’s Black Betty. I totally enjoyed the meal and felt everything paired together rather nicely.
As the appetizer is served, Pat Conway, President and Founder of Great Lakes, is brought to the front to say a few words. He talks about the Imperial Dortmunder — and he tells us that it’s the exact same ingredients as the award winning Dortmunder Gold, only made with larger quantities for more flavor. He also talked about Eliot Ness, who in real life was a close friend of the family (and nothing like what you see from Hollywood). According to Conway’s mother, Ness never carried a gun and did frequent the bar that is now The Great Lakes Brew Pub. Conway says that it is true you can find a 38 caliber slug embedded in one of the beams that hold up the bar at Great Lakes. But when he walks by the bar and hears a bartender tell about how that slug was intended for Ness, he just shakes his head and smiles at this embellishment. He also talks about how the Dortmunder was almost named “Hiesman” in honor of John Heisman, namesake of the Heisman Trophy, who used to live on top of a hill overlooking Great Lakes. But when the Downtown Athletic Club heard of their plans, they immediately threatened a lawsuit and the name was changed to Dortmunder, being a city in the center of Germany. It wasn’t until much later that he found out their copyright only applied to excellence in sports and that Great Lakes would’ve had no problem with the original name.
Conway also talked about how Great Lakes nearly could not make their famous Christmas Ale this year. The reason had nothing to do with a shortage of hops or a shortage of barley, as many have suspected, but rather a shortage of honey — a problem that still is unsolved today. Last year, they were able to find enough resources to make their Christmas Ale, but as Conway puts it, “When bees stop pollinating flowers, the least of our problems is that there won’t be enough Christmas beer to go around”. This lead to a moving discussion on the upcoming Burning River Festival in Cleveland on Saturday, August 9th. This annual event sponsored by Great Lakes, celebrates environmental friendly organizations and companies and promotes awareness and education for ecological conservation and environmental protection. I was very impressed with the sincerity. If I remember the numbers correctly, I think he claimed that Great Lakes Brewing, a multi million dollar company, has only a $1500 monthly waste bill — and they are working to reduce that to zero.
After the ball, Bob and Deb and myself go out for more beer sampling. We head to the Casa Nueva, where I turn them onto my new favorite beer, the Paw Paw Wheat. At the Casa Nueva, we run into Pat Conway and I get a chance to meet him in person. I tell him what a great trip I had in my recent visit to Cleveleand, and how impressed and amazed I was that I could visit his establishment with my vegetarian wife and two very picky children and how nobody left disappointed (an amazing feat for my family). He pulled out a business card and gave it me, saying that it’s illegal to print and give away something with “free beer” on it, but if I present that to the bartender, that may be good for a complimentary beverage (wink, wink). At this point, I’m ready to change all my children’s name to ‘Pat’, and I ask him if it would be possible to get a picture, which you can see above (the lady on the right is Melody Sands, the marketing director for Ohio Brew Week).
We finish the night off at 19 S. Court Club & Bar, where the Maple Porter from Ohio Brewing Company is being featured. It’s a fine porter, but we can’t taste any maple in it all. We run into another brewer from the ball, and I gather that he wasn’t as impressed with menu as I was. I had to push him for specific criticism’s, but I am always interested in other’s people’s opinions — particularly if they have more experience than me. Some of his comments, which I don’t necessarily agree with, were that the scallops were originally supposed to be wrapped in bacon, but there was no bacon flavor to be found, and the risotto should be light and fluffy, not packed together in a cake-like patty. He didn’t think the French Onion Soup and Hippie IPA went well together, and he thought the Belgium Triple was past it’s prime and the Black Betty served too young. On the other hand, he did have praise for the watermelon salad, and thought the boar was good (although would’ve been better had we been served a steak knife). I always thought the high gravity Belgium beers improved with age and was surprised by some of his comments, but as I said, although I don’t necessarily agree, it’s interesting to hear someone else’s professional opinion. We end up all sharing a taxi back to the Ohio University Inn, and I’m quite surprised my wife is not angry for waking her at 1AM so that I can tell her about my wonderful evening.
Tags: Ohio Brew Week
Peanut Butter beer was the big hit of the Brew Week
Wednesday morning is spent checking out of our cottage in the woods and checking into our hotel in Athens, The Ohio University Inn. My wife, Sally, also spends part of her day doing some genealogy research. Part of her research takes her to a complex of old buildings now known as The Ridges, but a hundred years ago was known as the Athens Lunatic Asylum. Constructed originally to be a humane refuge for the mentally ill, many of which were shell-shocked Civil War Veterans, the hospital became known in the 1950’s for treating patients with shock therapy, torture and lobotomies (Dr. Walter J. Freeman perfected his technique for the Trans-Orbital Lobotomy while employed at the hospital ). The horrific history of the mental hospital along with the 2,000 gravestones scattered along the nearby hills make this one of the spookiest, and some even say haunted, places in the world.
I meet up with my friends Rick and Missy, who also came up this way from Dayton for this event, at Jackie O’s Brewery, the only local brewery in Athens. There’s a Meet the Brewer event, and Brad Clark is on hand in person to tell us about the wonderful creations he’s come up, including a Java the Stout (Coffee Stout), Black Betty (a raspberry and vanilla flavored porter aged in bourbon oak barrels), The Dark Apparition (A Russian Imperial Stout), The Barbarian (an 11 month old hopped barleywine aged in Oak Barrels), and The Thorogood (a version of his peat-smoked strong scotch ale again aged in bourbon oak barrels — 1 bourbon, 1 scotch, 1 beer). These are some of the richest and flavorful collection of dark beers I’ve ever had in one setting and Rick and I are so impressed, we decide to rename all of our children “Brad” in honor of the brewer. What I found most interesting in talking to Brad (the original), was that you couldn’t find a Pale Ale or IPA or variation on his beer menu. It’s not that he wouldn’t like to brew some high hopped beers, but with the current hop shortage, a small brewer like himself can’t get the right hops necessary to make these type of beers — at least not at a price that would make the beer affordable to his clientele. So the IPA’s loss is the stout and porters gain and Brad has done a fantastic job of using his creativity to make a truly memorable drinking experience without any of the high hopped beers that seem so mandatory these days.
Our conversation with Brad evolves into the most unusual beers featured at Brew Week, which quickly turns to the Peanutbutter Cup Coffee Porter brewed by Willoughby Brewing Company. According to Brad, the inside scoop is that the bar featuring this beer was on their last barrel of this beer already, so he recommended making The Pigskin our next stop. We weren’t about to come to Athens and miss out on Peanut butter beer, so we immediately find The Pigskin on our map and head in that direction. They had 4 different beers from Willoughby, and we sampled them all including the Strawberry Hefeweizen, One Hopper IPA, and the Belgian Moon Beam belgium style wheat beer. All of these were above average, but I was far and away blown away by the Penautbutter Cup Coffee Porter. Forget the name, I was surprised to find there was a rich, intense, coffee flavor to this beer, followed by just a faint hint of peanut butter finish. Expecting it to be primarily a novelty item, I found it very drinkable and welcome. My only disappointment was that I wanted to take some back to Dayton, but they refused to sell me a growler of this beer. Although given the limited supply, this was quite understandable.
We next head back to our hotel, where we have tickets to another formal tasting — this one with The Columbus Brewing Company lead by their master brewer, Eric Bean. Once again, I have no problem paying a small surcharge for a taste event like this when something is added to the event. I even include Sally and my kids (aged 3 & 5) at this event, and afterwards am complimented on how well the kids behaved (lucky for me the complimenters have not seen them at bed time). We taste the Ohio Honey Wheat, Apricot Ale, Pale Ale, Mecs County Gold and Columbus Barley Wine. I enjoyed the Apricot Ale and Barley Wine the most — the barley wine was described as 25% sugar, a ton of malts and just enough hops to balance. We had a long Q & A session, in a large part due to fact Rick and I had spent an afternoon of beer tasting and did not appear shy in asking any questions that popped into our heads regardless of the relevance to the existing conversation. Our thanks go out to Eric and the local distributor, Kenny Kerr, for doing a great job in answering our questions.
I invite Rick and Missy to have dinner with us at the hotel, and we have a wonderful dinner together in which I don’t think our little girls stopped giggling throughout the course of the evening. I plan on giving Rick a formal invitation to future local beer tasting events and vouch that he would make a wonderful addition to our organization. After dinner, Missy volunteers to be our designated driver and we make a couple more disappointing stops. We go back to the Pigskin but find out they indeed our out of the Peanutbutter Coffee. So instead we stop into the Cat’s Eye Saloon, which is featuring beers from The Brew Keeper, another brewery in Cleveland. We tasted their Hops Infusion IPA, White Storm Imperial Cream Ale, and West 12 Trappist Style Ale. I may have to give these another chance on another night, but on this particular night something wasn’t quite right with these beers. I asked the bartender if she had any peanut butter beer on tap, but regrettably they were all out of any peanut butter beer as well.
Tags: Ohio Brew Week
Chuck wins 1st Place in Cooking Contest
Tuesday morning and early afternoon was spent in our “cabin” in nearby Hocking Hills area. I use the term cabin loosely because we stayed at Ravenwood Castle and Medieval Village, which is described as a re-creation of a 12th century, Norman style English castle and village. We stayed in a two-story cottage with the beautiful wooded setting, There was plenty to see and explore around our cottage. It was an excellent way for my family to enjoy the surrounding beauty and scenery of Hocking Hills while attending Brew Week festivities.
I also spent part of the morning finishing up my creation and entry for the Ohio Brew Week Cooking Competition. Looking through the rules, the competition was sub-divided into several categories including professional, amateur, semi-professional and professional and prizes awarded for Best Appetizer, Best Entree, Best Dessert, etc. The premise of the competition was that all entries had to incorporate an Ohio microbrew as one of the ingredients. I had kicked around the idea of different possibilities but finally decided on adapting my vegetarian Red Beans and Dirty Rice recipe for the competition. I had prepared and chopped many of the ingredients in advance, lugging them with us in a large cooler. I knew I wouldn’t have much cooking space available in our cabin, so I counted on cooking the entire dish in a crock pot where I could easily just plug in and let it cook overnight. To qualify for the Ohio microbrew rule, I would cook the rice and beans with Great Lakes Holy Moses White Ale. I counted on the coriander and spices in the Holy Moses adding that special zing I needed to make my entry unique. And despite never cooking this dish quite this way before, I was quite happy with the result and was somewhat nervously anxious to have my creation judged by food critics.
My family and I dropped off the dish at Toscano’s Restaurant, and I added some home grown chopped parsley and cilantro along with some sweet peppadew peppers to give my dish some added color and presentation. Kim, one of the Ohio Brew Week staff, complimented me on the overall aroma of the dish and my confidence was boosted a bit. I was told the judging would take place between 4:30 and 5:30 and winners would be announced later that night. Although I was welcome to stay for the competition and dinner, I wasn’t sure that there would be anything on the menu that would satisfy my children’s simple palate (i.e., macaroni and cheese). And besides, there were other beer tasting events taking place that I didn’t want to miss.
The first event of the night was another formal tasting at The Oak Room — where we had tasted Barley’s Brewery the night before. Tonight, I was very pleasantly surprised to find beertasting friends, Rick and Missy, who also traveled from Dayton for this event. They would be in town for two days, and I very much look forward to sharing some tasting experiences with them. The format at The Oak Room tasting was the same as the night before, but this time the beers featured where from Maumee Bay Brewing Company and one from Elevator Brewery and Draught Haus. Also, this time the bar seemed to be short staffed and it seemed like our host Kevin was busy attending the main bar during most of the tasting.
I should describe here the entire approach of the Brew Week. There were about 25-30 different local bars and restaurants participating in Brew Week — most of them within easy walking distance of each other. There were also approximately 25 or so different Ohio Breweries (plus Sam Adams) that participated. Each bar or restaurant featured beers from one or two specific breweries. In addition, all draft beer was available in specially priced tasting glasses, normally $1 for a generous 3-4 oz tasting. This gave everyone an incredible opportunity to sample many different beers while visiting a variety of different local establishments. The beers featured for each bar were clearly labeled in the excellent program guide that was passed out, so that if I wanted to try beers from Thirsty Dog, for example, I know I can find those beers at Skippers Bar & Grille, while the Red Brick Sports Club just across the street featured beers from Great Lakes. Everyone I talked to thought this was a novel way to run a beer festival as well as promote responsible drinking — the same beers and tastings would be available all week long so there was no rush to move from bar to bar. The formal tastings, it seemed to me, were to add some additional value in addition to tasting the beer, therefore charging a premium price for tickets to these scheduled events. And this is where the tastings at The Oak Room fell a bit short — I could have just as easily tasted the same 5 beers for $5 at the bar and felt the $13 for the formal tastings here were a bit overpriced. There was a cheese and cracker tray that was passed around, but it just seemed like something was missing from these first two tasting events I attended.
Having said that, I enjoyed the beers I tasted at Maumee Bay (from Toledo). The “Pils” was a German style pilsner that was quite crisp and refreshing. We also tasted an Oatmeal Stout and and IPA that got high marks in my book. But I really enjoyed the Naked Saison — it was a smooth with a mild wheat flavor and aroma and slight hoppy finish — something I thought would make a great session beer. The Raspberry Wheat from Elevator was much more drinkable than the Raspberry Barleywine I had the night before.
After the tasting event, I check back into the cooking competition and they are glad to see me. Apparently, the judges wanted to talk to me in person, and I can only imagine that they want to know what kind of legal representation I have to represent me in the lawsuit that undoubtedly will arise for ruining their palates indefinitely. Actually, since I didn’t officially enter the contest in time, I didn’t fill out an official entry form with my recipe, and they wanted to know what exactly was in my rice and beans. I had spent much of the last three days shopping for the freshest vegetables, finely chopping ingredients, deliberating over just the right mix of spices. I then stand before several food critics, including one who has written several books on food & beer along with the food editor of a major newspaper, and like a deer staring into headlights of an oncoming car, I draw a complete blank. I stand there and stutter and stammer my way through 3 of the 7 grains that make my 7 grain dirty rice “dirty”. At least I was able to remember the name of the beer I used and I walked away thinking they surely exposed me for having no idea of what I was doing.
We decided to have dinner at the Casa Nueva, which would turn out to be one of the most pleasant finds in our entire trip. They had a wonderful selection of spicy Mexican type foods that appealed to everyone, including a variety of vegetarian burritos and entrees. But to go along with the excellent food, they had wonderful beer selections, including “The Paw Paw Wheat” from Marietta Brewing Company — a wonderful wheat beer with a complimenting, but not overwhelming, tropical fruit taste not unlike a papaya or mango. I have no idea what a Paw Paw is, but as luck would have it, the next tasting scheduled is with Marietta Brewing, and unlike the earlier tasting, it’s lead by the master brewer at Marietta, Kelly Sauber.
But first, I go back to the Cooking Competition to see what is going on. They tell me that all the judging has been completed and that I should stick around and watch the awards ceremony. There appear to be at least 25-30 entries lined up buffet style on two long tables (tickets to the event to the general public was $30 for a sampling of all the foods), and prizes are given out for Best Presentation (which was King Crab Legs), etc. All the awards given out are to professional chefs representing various restaurants. Finally, they announce “Best Amateur Entry” and I am somewhat stunned when I hear my name announced! Not only do I win, but I am presented with a very fancy knife set for my efforts (seen above). Now to be fair, it’s not exactly clear to me exactly how much competition I had in the amateur category — it’s quite possible that I had the worst amateur entry as well, but nevertheless they took my name and address down for a forthcoming press release announcing all the winners. Perhaps even more exciting than winning the event was seeing that my rice and beans was nearly all gone. So the general public paying $30/ticket (which was mainly the professional chefs and families who entered the event, thought enough about my dish to at least try it. I’m already looking forward to defending my title next year — perhaps I can even beat out some of the professional chefs to win Best Side Dish or even Best Vegetarian Entree?
After the cooking contest, my wife dropped me off at the Hampton Inn for another formal tasting featuring Marietta Brewing Company. Unlike the tastings at The Oak Room, this featured guest speakers, including the master brewer from MBC, Kelly Sauber. There were plenty of beers to be sampled and a large selection of appetizers and food (although I’m sure they didn’t read the press release yet that they were serving an Award Winning Amateur Chef :-)). Author Ray Daniels. “Designing Great Beers”, was also on hand and this formal tasting was much more like what I expected and well worth the admission price. Of the beers we tasted from Marietta - Raspberry Wheat, MBC Pale Ale, McLaren’s Scotch, and MBC Porter - I enjoyed the Porter the best.
But during the Q & A period, I got a chance to ask him about the Paw Paw beer I just tasted at dinner. He explained that he was commissioned by the nearby Paw Paw Festival to brew a beer for this annual event, and this beer he came up with became so popular he now brews it all year around. If I understood him correctly, the paw paw is the only fruit that is indigenous to Ohio. Although the tropical flavor of the fruit is delicious, the paw paw is somewhat difficult to cultivate as it bruises very easily and does not store or ship well. When noted beer expert Ray Daniels spoke about “Beers Around the World”, he also praised Kelly for making such a unique and interesting beer.
Ray makes an interesting analogy comparing styles of beers with breeds of dogs that I find helpful to think about when I see scores and medal ranking for various beers in beer competitions. Dogs with similar characteristics are grouped together and the breed of dog is defined by a standard list of those characteristics. When a dog is judged in a dog show, the dog is being judged on how closely it matches those standard characteristics for its breed. Likewise, when several beers, usually from a similar geographic region, share similar characteristics, a beer style is defined listing those characteristics. Beer competitions and medals are usually awarded on how closely a beer matches those standard characteristics for its style. Beers with unique characteristics may not necessarily match any standards for a specific style, but that doesn’t make the beer less worthy just as a family dog would not be less desirable just because it doesn’t match standard characteristics for a specific breed.
After the tasting, we went back to the Ravenwood, and I was glad my wife was the designated driver for the evening. It was a long day, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn earlier in the day that this remote English style castle where we stayed had an impressive variety of English and Scottish Ales. Safely back in my cabin, I finished the night off with an Orkney Brewer’s SkullSplitter to honor my visit to this quaint little village. We would check out of the Castle in the morning and head for Athens to be closer to more of the Brew Week Festivities.
Tags: Ohio Brew Week
Beer Menu from Jackie O's in Athens
This is the first in a series of articles on my recent trip to Athens and the Hocking Hills for the 3rd Annual Ohio Brew Week Festival. This event was held in Athens, Ohio the week of July 14, 2008 and because the event is intended to promote tourism in Athens as well as feature the wide variety of excellent Ohio-brewed beers, I will discuss all aspects of our trip to Athens, although emphasizing those aspects that are more beer and festival related. This is by no means intended to be a complete summary of the entire festival — there were far too many events and beers featured for one person to cover alone. Rather, this is intended as a summary of my personal trip report of my experiences and observations during my week long visit.
My wife, Sally, is primarily responsible for our visit to the Ohio Brew Week. While visiting nearby towns (Logan and Gallipolis) last year on a family reunion without me, she fell in love with the area and was looking for an angle to include me when, voila, she came across a small advertisement for the 2nd Annual Ohio Brew Week Festival. There are a lot of places I’d like to go on a family trip, so to get me to spend my vacation dollars in Athens would take some doing. But a week long beer festival sounded like my idea of a vacation, so it was off to Athens we went this year.
With the Route 35 now two lane highway the entire way starting at Xenia, I found the trip to Athens from Dayton surprisingly easy. Which was fortunate, because due to a late 1:30 PM start, I am thinking I am going to miss the first official event of the Festival, a 4PM tasting at the Oak Room. I would normally not be that concerned, except I already bought tickets in advance for all the formal tastings, including this one. So at 3:30PM, I literally dropped my family and luggage off hastily at our first accommodations of the trip — a cabin near the Hocking Hills area - and continued on the 31 mile trip to Athens. I pull into Athens right at exactly 4PM, only to find several of the key roads closed for construction. Athens appears to be an endless series of one way streets with no clear cut block pattern, and there appeared no easy way to travel from one end of town to the other with the key section of West Union Street shut down. It took some time, but thanks to my navigation system on my iPhone, I was able to find an alternate route along Smith Street ( perhaps one of the narrowest and steepest roads this side of San Francisco) and find The Oak Room.
So I get there a bit late, but find that the tasting is apparently running late as well. There’s a group of about 10 people seated around a rectangular shaped mini-bar that is open in the center just large enough for one person to stand comfortably. It looks like they are still on the first or second beer and there are also cheese and crackers being served alongside much larger tasting glasses (at least 4 ounces) than what I am normally accustomed to for these type of tasting events. The theme of this particular tasting is beers from Barley’s Brewing in Columbus, and we taste 5 beers led by a discussion from the bartender, who is aided by notes from the brewery. To be honest, my first impression is one of disappointment and that maybe coming here is a mistake. I suppose I expected a bit more for my $13 such as a representative from the brewery itself, and perhaps a bit more food and appetizers to go along with the beer.
But to Kevin’s credit, he’s a bit more knowledgeable about beers than most bartenders, the enclosed square bar area was an ideal venue for this type of event, and the sample sizes I thought were very generous, so I decide to make the best of it. The beers themselves are interesting. Blonde Bombshell is described as a Munich Helles Lager which I find very light color and rather bland, and the MacLenny’s Scotch Ale was a bit underwhelming with only a faint hint of the scotch malts. The Droughtfire IPA was very drinkable with a mild hoppy flavor. Their flagship beer is the Barley’s Pale Ale and is described as using two English malts and three variety of hops. A very English style beer and a good session beer. On the other hand, the last beer we taste is an Imperial Raspberry Wheat, a raspberry barleywine with 16 pounds of pure raspberries per barrel and an 11.5% ABV. Although this sounded impressive and interesting to taste, I find the beer to be virtually undrinkable for more than a few sips.
All in all, I am somewhat disappointed at the first event, and head down the road to Jackie O’s, where the official Ohio Brew Week kickoff ceremony takes place at 6PM. Jackie O’s is the only local brewery in the town, and although it looks like a typical dive bar from first glance, one wall is covered with two large white erase boards that detail the current draft selections. There are no less than 18 different draft beers on site, with an incredible 14 different beers being brewed onsite. I’m overwhelmed at the quantity and variety of different drafts on site and my attitude quickly changes from trepidation to eager anticipation. Before I get a chance to study the menu in detail, I decide to start with Thirsty Dog Orthus Belgium Double, a delicious slightly sweet distinctly Belgium style ale. I’m really tempted to try some of the higher gravity local beers — Dark Apparition is a Russian Imperial Stout, Black Betty is Imperial Raspberry Porter aged in bourbon barrels, and the Thorogood is a Scotch ale aged in bourbon barrels (it took me a while to get the 1 bourbon, 1 Scotch, 1 beer Thorogood reference). But I save those for another night and try the ChomoLung Ma instead, and organic honey nut brown ale, which turns out to be one of the lighter selections they have and is very drinkable.
In the meantime, there is a ceremony going on in a small stage. The mayor of Athens is present to say a few words as well as Dan Gates, the Director of Ohio Brew Week. They all talk a lot about Jon Sparhawk, who is given credit for creating the idea of Ohio Brew Week Festival, yet passed away much too soon in 2007 at age 57. Jon was described as loving family man, a passionate small business owner, a community leader and friends to countless of people throughout Athens and Ohio. In honor of Jon Sparhawk, Jackie O’s brewed a special beer to commemorate him, which they tapped a special beer, named the Sparbock, brewed in his honor. I couldn’t pass up tasting one more beer for the night, and the Sparbock seemed like a fitting tribute, a fine beer with a lot of character and slightly sweet aroma and taste. It was a fine way to wrap up Day 1 at the Festival.
Tags: Ohio Brew Week
Watch her for Ohio Brew Week Reviews
I’m heading to the Ohio Beer Festival this week (http://www.ohiobrewweek.com ). I will try and post some comments here.
In addition, check out the calendar for some upcoming tasting this week. Dorothy Lane Oakwood has a Stone tasting this week, and Jungle Jim’s has a special event Friday. Be sure and see the calendar for details.
Tags: Ohio Brew Week
Chocolate Guiness Cake went well with Oatmeal Stout
It’s been 3 weeks since our June tasting, and the one thing that sticks out most about the June Beertasting is the Chocolate Guiness Cake. Which says a lot, because in addition to some excellent beers, we had an incredible food line-up for Todd’s June Beer/Food Theme tasting. A special thanks to Todd and his wife for making this truly a memorable event and many bonus points are unquestionably coming — the only controversy is who should get the bonus points, Todd or Lora?
As a side note, it’s been a busy couple of weeks for our family, and we are heading to Athens, Ohio for the Ohio Brew Week Festival ( http://www.ohiobrewweek.com ) , so I may hit the main points and follow up later with any corrections or additions.
- Todd (host) - Sterken’s White Ale, Unibroue Don De Dieu, Trader Joe’s Anniversary (vintage)
- Chuck - Wiehenstephan, Bell’s Octoberfest
- Steve B. - AleSmith IPA, Brooklyn Lager
- Jay –
- Steve V. - Rogue Hazelnut Brown Nectar
- Pete - Sam Smith Pale Ale, New Holland Blue Goat Doppelbock (?)
- Zombie - Jimmy Buffet Land Shark Lager, Full Sail Session Lager
- Luke - Belgian Style Wietbeer(?)
- Mike/Joe - New Holland Zoomer Wheat Ale, Founders Dry Hopped Pale Ale, Bell’s Porter
- Andrew - Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout
- Paul - Southern Tier IPA
- Unclaimed — Morlein Emancipator
Here was the menu that was served…
- Pre-Tasting - Trader Joe’s Anniversary
- Chevre on crostini(paired with the Weihenstephan Hefeweizen)
- Grilled Portobello Mushrooms(paired with Rogue Hazelnut and Sam Smith Pale Ale)
- Garlic Shrimp Skewer(paired with a Belgian Style Wietbeer and an Brooklyn Lager, Full Sail Session & Land Shark)
- BBQ Beef Sliders(paired with AleSmith IPA and Founders Dry Hopped Ale)
- Beer Brined Pork Medallions(paired with Bell’s porter, Morlein Emancipator & New Holland Blue Goat Doppelbock)
- Lemon Squares(paired with Sterkens White Ale and Zoomer Ale)
- Chocolate Guinness Cake (new recipe)(paired with a Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout and Bell’s Oktoberfest)
- Bonus Beers - Southern Tier IPA & Unibroue Don De Dieu
Since the theme was food & beer pairings, my comments are strictly on the pairings themselves and how I felt each complimented the other. I felt all the food and beer were excellent selections!
The banana wheat flavor of the Weihenstephan complimented the crostini well. Most of the comments I heard suggested that the Rogue Hazelnut overwhelmed the grilled mushrooms; however, I felt the earthy flavors of the Hazelnut complimented these flavors better thean the Pale Ale. I didn’t think I would enjoy an American Lager, but I must say the crisp flavor of the lagers (especially Session) was an excellent choice to go with the shrimp skewers. Both Ale’s were great selections to go with the Beef, but the Founders Dry Hopped Ale stood out the best (maybe because wasn’t that much of the AleSmith to go around. Hmmm, I wonder if you get full credit for not bringing enough for everyone. :-)).
I thought the pork medallions went better the the Dobbelbock, the porter was a bit too heavy. The lemon bars were perhaps my favorite pairing, as I really thought the Belgium White Ale and Wheat beer went well with this desert. I didn’t think the Octoberfest was rich enough to go with the Guiness Cake; the Oatmeal Stout was a much better pairings.
As always, feel free to add your own comments or to correct any of the beers above. I’ve got a couple beer’s unaccounted for, I’m assuming they are from Luke and/or Jay…
MVP Points Totals
Todd (ie, Lora) gets 10 extra bonus points for the incredible meal selections had at this tastings as well as for posting all the recipes. He is docked 1 point however for his Russian Judge comments without checking to see if Jay earned his extra bonus point through some other means such as a blog entry). So in total, I’ve given him 15 hosting points + 10 hosting bonus points + 9 points for 3 beers + 5 for postings, including all the recipes, minus 1 Russian judge comment = 38 points, moving Todd into the lead. Steve and Chuck get bonus points for top 100 beers and Steve B and Steve V gets 5 and 1 extra points respectively for relevant postings (It really helps me if you post your beer selection and that’s an easy way to pick up an extra point). Let me know if I short-changed you on a bonus beer or if brought something special/difficult to find. Joe/Mike as well as Pete also had bonus beers.
Prev Total June Score New Total
- Todd 44 38 82
- Steve B 61 16 77
- Andrew S. 45 0 45
- Mike 40 5 45
- Steve V. 40 3 43
- Andrew W 35 3 38
- Chuck 27 8 35
- Jay 27 3 30
- Zombie 23 6 29
- Dave S 28 0 28
- Luke 19 3 22
- Joe 13 5 18
- Pete 12 6 18
- Dave H 3 0 3
Tags: Food Pairings, June, Tasting