Triumph piece in Bucks County Magazine

I've got a piece in Bucks County Magazine on the three Triumph brewpubs, just came out. Take a look; (click here, and then jump to page 110) the layout's pretty nice, and there's a good shot of the brewers. Might be a couple things you don't know about the brewing experience on that team, too.

One Guy update

Guy Hagner tells me that he's got federal approval to brew, just waiting on local and state approval to become Berwick's first brewery in modern times. In fact, he did say that he's realizing that there's just not that much more to do before he's ready to rock. Just needs those approvals and some electrical work (of course, that's where some brewers have been...for months).

People are getting excited about this, and I have to say, with one of the beers planned as a session-strength Czech-style lager called Lew's All-Saaz Saaz-All (a generous thank-you for one day of demolition), I'm pretty excited too.

By the way, you may be seeing more of Guy here. I got him going on the pros and cons of decoction mashing a while back, and suggested that he do a once-a-month short "fundamentals of brewing" post here. He's thinking about it. I'm leaning on him. We'll see what happens.

Steg 150

Sorry about the delay on this one. I've had the new Steg 150 from The Lion for a couple weeks now, and I've had two of them, but I was waiting for the right time to sit down and spend some time with it. After working my ass off over the weekend (stained the picnic table and then put two coats of spar varnish on it, put a new faucet on the kitchen sink, fixed the wiring on the attic fan -- damn, it was hot up there! -- built two kit bookshelf units for Nora's room, grilled dinner (Münchener bratwurst, fingerling spuds, zucchini and mushrooms) for six Saturday night, and wrote my next column), I figured I'd earned one.

And it's working. This all-malt Vienna lager-type has a beautiful color, a ruddy copper-brown, light creamy head. Big malty nose, clean and juicy-sweet. Great body, just on the low side of medium -- quaffing territory -- and the flavor is like malt-stream, a smooth, clear running brook of beer. This is a dangerously drinkable beer; wonder what the ABV is? It's evaporating from my glass, just the thing after a day like this.

Steg 150 is the celebration of 150 years of Stegmaier, the big Wilkes-Barre brewery that went under and had their brands bought by The Lion (the big old beautiful brewery building still stands, about a mile from The Lion -- saved from the wrecker's ball at the last hour). But it's no anniversary one-shot: it's going year-round.

Rumor is, not confirmed but pretty solid, that it's replacing the Stegmaier 1857 (anniversarily appropriate, really), which is great news. I thought the 1857 had gotten a bit harsh in recent years, which may have had something to do with the lack of Lion in Wilkes-Barre (see a lengthy discussion of this here). Maybe a smooth beauty like this will get some street cred for this game old brewery. (Shhhh...don't tell anyone, but I was told some big things were coming from The Lion. Don't know what they are, but I'll be sure to pass it on when I find out.)

The New Gig

After years of wanting to hit the big time, after many submissions sent with no answer whatsoever (even "Piss off!" would have been nice), today I made the mainstream.

Today is my debut as the beer columnist for Conde Nast Portfolio's content website. (Portfolio is Conde Nast's new business publication, a magazine intended to compete with Fortune and Forbes.) I took over the First Draft column from Ken Wells, who wrote Travels with Barley and wrote frequently about beer for the Wall Street Journal before joining Portfolio as a senior editor last year. Ken decided he had too much on his plate to do the bi-weekly column, and was gracious enough to recommend me as a replacement.

I have to thank Ken for the recommendation, but we all owe him some thanks for this accomplishment: Conde Nast Portfolio is one of the few major publications in America that has a regular beer column...and no wine column. I like that. Kind of starts to even things up a bit.

Anyway, today's column is about the influx of fast money that helped frag the craft beer segment in the late 1990s...and may soon endanger it again. A cautionary tale. I'm going to have some fun with this. Stay tuned. (Do I really look like that picture?)

What is craft beer?

The discussion on whether Anheuser-Busch Beach Bum Blonde Ale was 'craft beer' or not completely overwhelmed the tasting note. So I decided to shift it as neatly as I could here. Most of the comments are about that debate, I had to bring the tasting note comments along; best I could do.

So now the question of the hour: what is craft beer?
My issue: give me a good definition of craft beer, one that really addresses characteristics that you can see, taste, and smell in the glass. I haven't seen one that fits the bill yet.

Game on, geeks. I'm with you.

Heinnieweisse: alone

I promised way back at the end of April that at some time (I believe then I said "tomorrow." Heh.) I would give Butternuts Beer & Ale Heinnieweisse a second shot on its own, not side-by-side with a strongly traditional hefe like Sly Fox Royal Weiss.

Time came last night. Cathy came home from a business trip to Atlanta, I was a bit burned out from working hard for three days on a couple of stories, and I started throwing stuff on the grill: some fresh kielbasa, some pork kabobs, and some teriyaki-marinated chicken breasts. Cathy was making a big salad, the kids were setting the table. So I got out a glass and poured the Heinnie.

It's pale, but carries a good head. It's got the German nose, the banana and clove thing. It drinks light and refreshing. But it has that weird ending thing going that I called mineraly when I put it against the Sly Fox, and now I'm thinking that it's might actually be hops. This is reminding me of the Schneider Edelweiss, the hoppy weiss. I got over the oddness, and started enjoying it. It cleans up the ending rather nicely.

Final call? Probably not a first choice, but a pretty good weiss for a really hot day.

A-B Beach Bum Blonde Ale

(This is the original post that turned into a discussion over the definition of craft beer...so I gutted that one, brought the beer review over here, and shifted the discussion and comments to the new post.)

Another Anheuser-Busch seasonal specialty is out: Beach Bum Blonde Ale. It's a repeat from last year, but this is tasting better to me than the ones I tasted in Idaho last summer; more hop, more overall flavor, but still crisp, light, and drinkable: just what you'd want from a summer beer. The ones in Idaho may have suffered from the bigger beer company they were keeping, I dunno: I'm talking to an A-B brewer tomorrow, if I remember, I'll ask him. (I forgot; I'll try to follow up.)

Had some over the weekend (as noted in the Father's Day post), and it was fairly popular with folks. Noticeable hop character, a quick release on the finish, but a lingering bitterness. Good stuff. I think the name and the graphics are silly, but I'm 48 and ornery, so take that with a grain of salt.

Props to a beer pioneer

Someone posted on BeerAdvocate today that they'd found a copy of Beer Philadelphia, Jim Anderson's irregular bi-monthly beer publication, from 1995. It took me back, and I realized that although Jim and I had not parted on the best of terms -- I'm still not sure why -- I owed him a lot...and so does Philadelphia's beer culture. More than almost anyone, the exceptions being Tom Peters of Monk's Cafe, beer wholesalers Eddie Friedland and Nima Hadian, and perhaps Walter Staib at City Tavern (a criminally overlooked figure in Philly's beer story), Jim Anderson is responsible for Philadelphia's status as one of the pre-eminent beer towns on this continent. Jim laid the groundwork for a lot of what is happening today, and most younger beer enthusiasts have no idea who he is. I thought that should change. Here, revised and expanded, is what I said in response. Hail, Jim.

Let's talk about Jim Anderson.

You may have heard Philadelphia referred to as the "Fertile Crescent of beer." Jim Anderson coined the phrase.

You've heard of and been to Friday the Firkinteenth, you may have heard of or even been to the Real Ale Festival in Chicago. Jim Anderson's Real Ale Rendezvous pre-dated both of them, and saw some truly amazing cask beers.

Jim Anderson created and ran Split Thy Skull, which was, I believe, the East Coast's first all barleywine/big beer event. He also convinced Young's to condition a cask of Old Nick to send to the event (something we were told that Young's had never done before); I can still picture the mad venting, beer hitting the ceiling and splattering all over Eddie Friedland. And that beer remains one of the best I've ever tasted; I recall saying "I wish this was about 3.7% so I could drink it all day long."

You may have seen the "downdraft" system at Bridgid's, an innovative gravity-flow tapping system that brings cask ale down from the floor above, a U-boat periscope of beer. Jim Anderson invented it.

Most beer festivals in this area continue to be run at the brewers' expense: beer is "donated." Back in 1996, Jim Anderson made it a policy to always pay for the beer at the events he promoted and ran, and to note that on the festival program.

Don Russell's writing a bar guide to Philly and the surrounding area -- an excellent project, and I'm gonna get me one when it comes out. Jim Anderson (and his then-wife Lisa) wrote one in 1992; I bought a copy at one of the first Michael Jackson mass-tastings. It was quirkily beer-centric.

Beer Philadelphia was around for three years (and yes, I think I have a number of old copies), broke a number of stories and stirred up a number of controversies (including Jim's flat-out hatred of draft Guinness) in Philly's beer community, which Anderson had a large hand in bringing together. (Ol' Jack sez it was more like six years...glad someone reads this.)

Jim Anderson ran a weekly radio program -- an hour long -- on beer on an AM station, paying for the time himself. It was a fun show, if a bit unfocused at times. I was on one morning: we talked, we drank, we had some laughs, and people called in.

Jim Anderson hosted a number of beer events -- always hugely entertaining -- and tended bar one night a week at Tavern on Green; I regret that I never got there when he was behind the stick, because I'm sure it would have been a fun night.

For ten years, if beer got into the mainstream press in Philly, it was because Jim Anderson put it there. (Well, except for one time when this guy got a piece in, and even he wound up mentioning Jim within a few paragraphs of starting).

Then Jim, weeks before another Split Thy Skull, with hardly any warning, split for Scotland, where he took over a hotel and restaurant, and became a local champion of cask ale -- his true love, I think -- and evidently a fair success. Friends have been there, and say Jim's the same as always, and the beer's magnificent: no Guinness, of course.

I suspect that if he moved back tomorrow he would slot right into the Philly beer scene and be moving and shaking once again.

It's just my life...

Not really anything about beer, or whiskey, or even drinking here, though it's going to turn into that... Apparently a deer got into our backyard sometime last night and crapped all over the place. And didn't Penderyn find it, and delightedly roll himself all through it. He smelled so bad and was so proud...

Nora held him and I scrubbed, and the pup got his first bath (Corgis shed so much they don't need bathed very often), and went right out and tried to do it again! So I got a little hand harrow and a trowel, and went around the yard and picked up about a pound and a half of deer scat. Great way to interrupt an afternoon. So I am ready for a beer!

Walking and Drinking in Old City

A long time ago, in a life that seems far, far away, I worked in Ft. Washington, PA, as a corporate librarian and IS Director. Really. The company fell apart just about three weeks after I sold my first beer piece (for $25), and I left libraries behind and started writing as a career.

I still stay in touch with some of the folks from the old company; they're the core of The Hunt, I see them at the Grey Lodge, we get together for beers sometimes during the year. So when I got my new gig (I'll be talking more about that soon), one of them, Les Gibbs, suggested we go out and celebrate. Always a good idea!

Accordingly, I met Les at Triumph Old City last Tuesday. It was an ugly drive down: 110 minutes to make what should be a 35 minute drive, thanks to some wicked thunderstorms that had knocked down trees and totally snarled traffic on I-95. But on-street meter parking salved that irritation somewhat, and Triumph's solid pilsner did the rest of it.

I filled Les in on the details, we clinked glasses (Saison, now, that first Pilsner just kind of evaporated in a really welcome way, and the Saison was tasting great: just a bit over 5%, not overdone in the spice department, and more complex than a wit -- get down to Triumph and have some), and relaxed.

Nice bar at Triumph: the bar itself has two levels, the main bar and a little elevated section right in front of the whiskey. You can also look up to the 2nd floor bar -- some kind of event going on up there with a lot of very attractive women -- and the brewery, and across the open barrier into the downstairs dining room -- which is where I spotted brewer Patrick Jones.

Hey! I waved, and he came over. That's him on the right, Les on the left. Not much pilsner left, he said (it's probably gone now), but the Saison had just come on a week ago and he was justly proud of it. The barrel program is progressing; Triumph is going to have some seriously interesting specialty releases by this time next year, and it's only going to get better from then on.

Patrick got back to work, and we went back to...not work. I had a Maibock (which was not in the same league as the pils and the Saison, unfortunately; still good, but not stellar), and we ordered food. There was some great salmon on Brussel sprouts and mushrooms (I think they were mushrooms, the light was kind of bad); small triangles of thin-crust broccoli rabe pizza (real good, and understated in a beautifully Italian way), and fish and chips: all that small plate stuff Triumph Old City's doing.

We finished up and decided to head across the street to Eulogy for one more; Les had never been. We sat at the downstairs bar and split a bottle of Dupont Avec les Bons Voeux, the Christmas-season super-saison from Belgium's Dupont brewery. I love this beer, it's sparky and spicy, but smooth and sophisticated. Les really liked Eulogy, and was impressed with the beer list. Hell, it is impressive! So's the service: I've always had informed and personal service at the downstairs bar.

I offered to give Les a lift rather than train out to his place, so we walked up 2nd Street...and there was Cuba Libre, just looking fine and inviting in the light rain. "Nightcap?" I asked. Sure, and I was soon enthralled with the choices of rums at the bar. (That's the bartender at Cuba Libre in the top picture, by the way.) I finally settled on a 10 Cane, a new luxury light rum from LVMH that I'd been hearing about but hadn't had a chance to try. I like these white sugar cane rums, rhum agricole (although I understand 10 Cane is not technically rhum agricole because it is double distilled to a higher proof, according to Ed Hamilton, who surely should know), and 10 Cane didn't disappoint: silky smooth, sure-handed cane flavor, and vaporously aromatic. A delicious way to end a celebratory evening.