Are You Drinking "Craft" Beer--Or Not?

Jim Koch and The PubScout

I was hoisting a few awhile back at Foley's Pub in NYC with Jim Koch, CEO of the Boston Beer Company--aka Sam Adams--and naturally, beer was the subject of the conversation.  I asked him, apart from his own products, which beers on tap he considered to be "good." He  told me, "All beer is good." Then he added, with a sly smile,  "But some beer is better."

Hard to argue with diplomatic logic like that, though I've definitely had beers that would not qualify as "good" unless they were being compared to Mountain Dew or Diet Coke.

All beer may be "good," but is all beer "craft" beer?  How is "craft beer" defined? To determine that answer, I checked out how the Brewer's Association defines a craft brewer. In three words, that means small, traditional and independent. And even those words are more thoroughly defined here.

Why does it matter? Simple. Because some of the beers you may currently drink are being kicked out of the craft beer category by the prestigious Brewers' Association. As Jason Notte's excellent piece indicates, "This year, a whopping seven breweries punched their tickets out of craft beer, thanks to acquisitions by larger breweries. Drinkers may still consider them craft and their new owners certainly think they're craft beer, but the Brewers Association thinks differently at this point..."

He also correctly points out that Jim Koch's Boston Beer Company is still a craft beer, because it falls short of that six million barrel per year mark. But Notte also suggests Jim's beer will exceed that eventually. And that means Sam Adams will no longer be considered a "craft" beer, at least by the Brewers' Association.

But again, why does it matter? Do you drink your beer because it's "craft" or because it's good? Does that "craft" tag matter to the average better beer lover? I doubt it. When you belly up to the bar, do you ask the barkeep," What kind of CRAFT beer do you have?" Or simply, "What kind of BEER do you have?"

I do the latter. Because, truth be told, the making of beer is a craft, and a time-honored one at that. Some, indeed, are better at that than others, and considering the decisions of the Brewers' Association, I am led to steal Koch's classic dictum: All beers are craft beer, but some beers are "craftier." 

Just tell me the names, barkeep, and I'll decide.

Because, as Jim correctly says,"... some beer is better."

Cheers!

The PubScout

The Tastes, They Are A-Changin'

Whenever I meet someone new at a beer event and hand them my card, their first question is usually, "What's your favorite beer?"

It's then that I trot out the somewhat tired, but ever-trusty old icebreaker line: "Like my underwear--Depends." The self-deprecating line works all of the time, but more importantly, it's absolutely true. Except for the underwear reference. So far, anyway.

And it always has been true. Changing seasons always cause my fridge to be stocked accordingly, with Fall and Winter seeing a plethora of Marzens and higher-alcohol beers (like imperial stouts, porters, tripels and quads) respectively. Spring and summer see maibocks and pale ales (India and otherwise) and pilsners. It's a formula I haven't varied--until this year.

And I blame Pilsner Urquell. Not the usual bottled product that's available in your local liquor locker, but a rare batch I sampled down at the Asbury Park Festhalle last May. I had been invited by Events Manager Jen Lambert to cover a story about a very special batch of unfiltered, unpasteurized Pilsner Urquell that was appearing stateside, along with its affable brewer, Vaclav Berka and its beer-savvy promoter Bryan Panzica. You can read that account here.

But that special batch of Pilsner Urquell (4.4% ABV) sparked a renewed interest for me in pilsners. Maybe because this was a warmer than average Fall and Winter, I found my beer tastes turning to good pilsners more often than to heavy imperial stouts and butt-kicking triples and quads.

Apparently, I was not alone, as this article from Jason Notte attests.  Victory's Prima Pils, Oskar Blues' Mama's Little Yella Pils, Firestone Walker's Pivo Pils, Six Point's The Crisp and too many others to mention satisfied my taste buds as well as my thirst through much of the winter of 2016. Even during that one big snowfall, I'd down a crisp, clean Pilsner to slake my shoveling thirst--before relaxing with something heavier and higher in alcohol. I came to understand why Josef Groll's "new" beer in 1842 turned so many heads when it made its debut.

Jen Lambert and Brewer Vaclav Berka

 I exhorted Jen to do another Pilsner Urquell Special, hopefully this May if she can. As I wrote here, the Czechs take their beer seriously. That story about The Golden Lion handing you your hat and taking your barstool if you're not drinking enough beer is proof enough. 

Of course, it all depends on the beer you're drinking.
Yup. Depends.



Cheers!
The PubScout

Is That a Baby Ruth in the Pool?

Ever the sophomore, I can delight in the harmless fun of a prankster throwing a Baby Ruth into a pool of swimmers. But I'm not one to toss one into the wort (unless it's part of the recipe) or to intentionally spray the sparge where it shouldn't go. However, there comes a time when speaking out is important. I wrote the first draft of this column the day the article in question appeared online, but I have revised and revisited it frequently since in an attempt to remove the blazing ghost pepper hotness of my initial reaction and replace it with a subdued jalapeño flavor. Hopefully, I have succeeded. But if not, grab a piece of bread or a beer to take away the burn.

Keep in mind as you read this that no disrespect is intended or aimed at the authors of the article in question, nor to those on the panel of experts who helped produce it, some of whom I count as friends; but I believe a slight, albeit unintentional, has been given.
Herewith my take:

The PubScout is not a big fan of “Best of’s” in anything, but especially in things associated with such a personal and subjective category as beer.

Recently, NJ Monthly did an article about the “Sweet Sixteen” NJ breweries as rated by a panel of experts. Not that there aren’t breweries on this list who make great beer...there are, and I’ve patronized and written about many of them.  

But a panel of experts is no more authoritative when it comes to beer preferences than the Academy Awards Committee is authoritative when it comes to pictures, or whichever panel picks the Grammys for music. 

Rap, for example, doesn’t count as music to my ear, though its popularity can’t be denied. Same thing with sour beers. Am I less of a beer-lover because I eschew sour beers like Timmerman’s Oude Kriek, Oude Gueze or Faro? And I know at least one fine, longtime Jersey brewer (who shall remain nameless) who says, “At my brewery, sour beers are poured down the drain.”

In the end, the “experts” know only what they like—just like you and me, and that’s the beauty of beer. Everybody’s an expert on what we like. 

But a few questions arise in my mind. First, why just sixteen? Sixteen seems to be rather an arbitrary number unless we're looking for a hip, current events connection to March Madness. Is that why there’s a bracket-style vote on another page?

According to the NJCB page, there are now forty-five craft breweries in NJ. I am not in a position to tell any publication what kind of stories it should be doing (as you can see, nobody tells me what to write about). Those decisions are based on what it thinks its readers will like (and, of course, ad sales). But this article thrusts all forty-five breweries in NJ--whether they signed on to play in this particular tournament or not-- into a competition for publicity that rewards just sixteen of them. What criteria eliminated the others from consideration? The article didn't say. But it should have.

As one brewer with whom I spoke said:

“…this type of unsolicited competition does not help to unify the breweries of NJ, when in fact that is exactly what we need to do as we attempt to grow the industry in NJ by changing some of the antiquated alcohol laws that are still on the books.  Why not represent all of the breweries and maybe highlight a few with interesting anecdotes... about unique beers, owners'/brewers' experiences, tasting rooms, or GABF medal winning, for example?

Another responded:"While it is always nice to be recognized, we are not big fans of comparison lists. We cater to experience junkies...those that still love to come out to breweries to visit, try something new and talk about beer." 

And still another added: "I think the 'Best of's' are way overused--repetitive, redundant and boring. Having said that, my real issue with these lists is labeling them as something they are not. Why ask what's the 'best' brewery when you clearly mean 'favorite?' Ask people to tell you why; don't just publish a meaningless list."

Some of those who were named to the Sweet Sixteen have already begun using the "honor" in promos, but what about those good brewers who just got passed over by an arbitrary rating system? Will their homepage have to carry a banner like: “We didn’t make NJ Monthly’s Sweet Sixteen, but we’re just as good!"

More importantly, the article requires a thinking beer drinker to ask two simple questions: 

1.   Has everyone on the panel actually sampled and studied beers from all the breweries? and, if not,

2.   Why should I listen to them?


Have they sampled and evaluated the great beers from Angry Erik, Beach Haus, Boaks, Cricket Hill, Cypress, Climax or Demented? How about those of Flounder and Little Dog—whose owner and founder won a Gold Medal at the GABF?

Don't misunderstand. It's great that the mag is talking up craft beer, because it's definitely an exciting time for beer nuts in Jersey. I haven’t sampled the beers of every brewery in the list of forty-five either, but I’m working on it, which is what makes it both challenging and fun.  And I’ve had many delightful beers from  those breweries that failed to make the “cut.”

To my (admittedly archaic) way of thinking, a beer writer’s purpose is to alert the beer drinking world to what beers are out there, and, with our writing skill, to entice beer drinkers to try them. If they don’t like them, nothing ventured, nothing gained. We tried.

An Offer You Can't Refuse...

If they do like them, however, we have added to the craft beer boom in immeasurable ways. Our purpose is not to present ourselves as "holier than thou," because we are not. Beer drinkers already know what they like. Yet, don't lists like this seem to imply, however subtly, that if these breweries aren’t your faves, too, you cannot possibly be as “beer cool” as the experts? I am sure that the intent was not to denigrate or disrespect any brewery or beer folk, but intentions and perceptions don't always jibe. 

Am I, then, just a hopeless beer outlier for enjoying the beers that Gretchen Schmidhausler, Dave Hoffman and Heide Hassing produce? Or those of Jeremy Lees, Tom Pryzborowski, Charlie Backmann or Tom Zuber?

Beers on the Boards Crowd

And besides bragging rights for the lucky winners, who benefits by this arbitrary competition when close to thirty potential breweries contributing positively to NJ's beer scene have been summarily dismissed? 

I am quite sure that most beer nuts in NJ are ecstatic that microbreweries are blossoming in the Garden State like dandelions in the Spring.

I am not so sure that picking sixteen of them for preferential publicity serves our—or any—purpose, however.

Gotta run. 
Pool season is coming, and I'm out of Baby Ruths.

Cheers!

The PubScout






The Uno’s Phoenix Rises

Establishing your restaurant as a beer dinner hotspot takes a lot of work—and a lot of time. And once that run is broken—for whatever reason—it could be “back to square one” in the attempt to build up your clientele again, especially with so many new beer events taking place in NJ.

In its heyday, Uno’s on Rt. 1 in Metuchen was seating and feeding 40-45 beer and food nuts in its back room—which is a perfect spot for a beer dinner. But it took years of successful management of the attendant logistics—beer, food and service—to reach those levels. Early beer dinners had fewer than ten attendees sometimes, but the guest list grew as word got around that there was indeed something very cool happening in Uno’s backroom.

Some of those Uno's Dinners were hard work...

 Once the very popular and successful dinners stopped, however, no one knew what would happen if the dinners were revived. Would we go back to square one and ten people, the principals wondered?

Short answer: Nope. Try thirty. Because that’s how many came out for a collaborative beer dinner between Uno’s Brewer Mike Sella and the “new guys on the block,” Cypress Brewing. Just seven months after getting out of the gate, the Cypress guys, Charlie Backmann, Jason Kijowski and Bill Lutz are off and running like Triple Crown winner American Pharoah, with new, completely unfiltered styles coming out regularly.

Last night’s event featured a collaboration brew between Kijowski and Sella called Riley’s Red Rye, and it was outstanding. A beautiful beer, it was as much a delight to the palate as it was to the eye. Interestingly, Backmann provided an extra sample made at Cypress to Official Taster Joe Skelly and me. Side by side, the Uno’s version and the Cypress version looked almost exactly alike, but the Cypress version had a somewhat stronger taste, while Sella’s version had notes of spice and sweetness to my palate. Both, however, were excellent, and Sella’s redheaded daughter Riley would have been proud of the reception her beer got all around. Both places have it on tap, too.

Riley's Red Rye

It accompanied the main course last night, and it worked wonderfully with the succulent pork—a massive Dijon Pork Loin the size of Rhode Island, served in rye ale with Dijon Sauce, caramelized onions, Fingerling Potatoes and Asparagus.

Photo credit: Natalie Lay

The night began, of course, following the time tested plan of cheeses, fruit and crackers accompanied by Mike’s 32-Inning Ale, and the soup course was a delicious Lentil with Cypress’s outstanding Nut Brown.

A beautiful Insalata Tre-Colore with radicchio, mesclun and arugula bathed in a Cypress 17-Mile IPA dressing came out next, joined by that same beer. If you’re an IPA guy, you definitely want to snag some of this stuff.

Photo credit: Natalie Lay

 And for those in the know, Mike Sella’s own Ike’s IPA has been a crowd pleaser for fifteen years. It complemented two large chicken empanadas served with fresh jalapeno, avocado and green olives for the appetizer course.

Dessert  was a large, three-flavored Tartufo in a chocolate shell swimming in raspberry coulis. It was topped off by Cypress’s outstanding Imperial Stout with Chocolate and Raspberry.

Photo credit: Natalie Lay

Just as in the old days, there were smiles and compliments all around at night’s end, indicating that the Phoenix has apparently risen. Joe Skelly noted that while he missed the usual Uno’s faces around the table he had come to know and love, it was exciting to see all the new faces that came out.

Photo credit: Natalie Lay

 Maybe the “old-timers” will return once word gets out, and we’ll be up to 45 before you know it. Last night’s event was surely a step in the right direction.

It would benefit both the "newbies" and the "oldbies," if this picture is any indication.

Joe Skelly and Natalie Lay

Here are more candids from last night's event:

Cheers!

The PubScout