Pennsylvania Breweries: here we go again

It's all but official: I have a verbal agreement with Stackpole Books to do a 4th edition of Pennsylvania Breweries, tentatively due to hit the shelves in September of 2010.

That sounds like a long way off, but here's the thing. I've decided that I want this 4th edition to contain as much new material as possible. That means I'll be re-writing every section, re-writing every brewery entry -- which I'd have to do anyway, things have changed so much -- and once again, visiting every brewery. There are currently 75 breweries in the state that have either opened or will be opening within the next couple of months. There are so many breweries that I've had to add a new section (which is just as well: "Upstate" as everything that didn't fit somewhere else was unwieldy).

And I'll finally be able to do something I've wanted to do since the very first edition, back in 1998: this edition will contain the big, beautiful, capable brewery on I-78in Vogelsville, now the home of Boston Beer in Pennsylvania. Pabst never played ball, and I just couldn't bring myself to include a 'facility' that 'brewed' Smirnoff Ice. Now she'll be in there, and I'm quite excited.

I'd like some suggestions from you, my readers. What would you like to see added to this edition, what do you think is a waste of space? What Pennsylvania brewer or beer figure should I ask to write the foreword? What great bar that you think I may not know about should be in here? And what are your favorite "added attractions" that you like to visit when you're in the neighborhood of your favorite Pennsylvania breweries? Drop a comment here, or e-mail me, and thanks!

All you Pennsylvania brewers: heads up, folks! I'll be asking for your help very soon, sending out the questionnaires. I need that information to start working on your entry. I also need your artwork. If you want a chance at being on the cover of Pennsylvania Breweries 4th edition, get your artwork in early! I'll be sending out descriptions of what we need and release forms, please get them back to me. The art department at Stackpole makes the call on who goes on, but you can't win if you don't play.

A lot of work coming up, and a lot of travel. I hope to see some of you when I'm on the road; say hi, I'll be glad to see you. Here we go again!

PLCB contract "legal," but showed "poor judgment"

Remember that training contract that the PLCB issued, to the company owned by the husband of the agency's Western Regional Director? The contract people said was to teach LCB clerks "manners?" (I didn't say that, by the way; I used the word the PLCB did: it was to teach them "courtesy." You see the major difference?) The state Auditor General has completed his audit, and found that while the contract "was awarded according to the letter of the law, there are several incidents that occurred that raise serious concerns and put the PLCB's procurement procedures in question."

More here. When will it end?

Why the Sly Fox Goat Races Mean a Stronger America

Not that Sly Fox and Brian O'Reilly need any help from me in making their annual event a success, but I do this for my own reasons:

Sly Fox Goat Races, this Sunday.

Okay, the Kentucky Derby is this Saturday, and that is a Big Deal. But I would submit that the Sly Fox Goat Races are an Even Bigger Deal in terms of shaping the reputation of beer and beer drinking in America. (Yes, easily so, because the Derby has nothing to do with that, but I will go beyond that!)

Go to the Goat Races because this event is one of the very best for enjoying as a family. I've said for years, in response to the New Dry whiners who say "You can have fun without beer!", that yes, you can have fun without beer, but you can also have fun with the option of beer. The Sly Fox Goat Races show that in spades. You can watch goat races -- pure, country-boy 4H-type fun, and usually generous with gut-rippingly funny moments (this picture really does show a young goat racer slipping on goat crap (on the right there; he's not break-dancing) as his own goat turns tail and runs away from the finish line -- very funny, once we ascertained that the kid was all okay), you can listen and dance to the music, eat good German food, or just have a seat and enjoy the crowd -- great people-watching at this. And if you so choose...you can have a beer.

The Goat Races put beer in its proper place: with people, as part of the fun, not as the lets-get-drunk focus, and not as the lets-get-geeky focus either. Even when I'm totally geeking out, like when I'm judging beers, the best of times is when there's good interaction with the other people. Great American Beer Festival? The best time is going out afterwards with friends.

Get beer together with a bunch of good people -- and some goats -- and it's great to watch people behave well, have fun, and keep things from getting out of hand all by themselves. It's a great kind of thing, and I'm looking forward to more of it on Sunday. See you there, but do check out the Sly Fox calendar for details: they're expecting a LOT of people, and they've got satellite lots set up to handle it.

Hot Times at Manayunk

I helped judge the Best of Show beers at the Manayunk Brewfest on Saturday. Once again, it happens just as allergy season is hitting me, so I loaded up on Sudafed (the real, sign at the counter stuff) and Chlor-Trimeton, kept my nose clear for the fest, and paid for it with dopey drowsiness later.

I got to the fest about noon, grabbed one of the last free staff spots, and got down into the show. I met up with my fellow judges (four very experienced homebrew judges who I thoroughly enjoy tasting beers with; it's a very nice give-and-take, making this one of my favorite beer events of the year), grabbed a quick lunch, and settled in to start tasting.

Wide range of beers this year, and a much higher level of quality. The brewers represented at the fest each sent one beer, their choice, over to our table. There were a couple eye-rollers, but only a couple (we're tasting completely blind (or were after the first two pitchers, which a new steward labeled with the brewery name!) and only found out what the top three actually were, so don't bother asking: we don't know (and didn't wanna know!)), much fewer than in the past four years.

After two hours of serious, note-taking and discussion-style tasting, we narrowed it down to seven beers, and sent the stewards out for more samples to refresh our memories. Two of the beers had already run out (proving the crowd agreed with our palates!), and since none of us had those two beers as our number one picks, we decided to drop them. Once the five beers were in front of us, we came to a consensus rather rapidly: about 90 seconds! The winners, by unanimous consent:

3rd -- Erie Railbender, winning with a beautifully pure malt character, easily the very best batch of Railbender I've ever had (and I've had my share).

2nd -- Victory Baltic Thunder, nipping out General Lafayette's Chocolate Thunder Porter (a close #4) by virtue of smooth complexity and (scary) drinkability.

1st -- Triumph Simcoe IPA, rocked us all with its beautiful balance and integration. Billowing hop aroma, great hop flavor, trenchant but not overwhelming bitterness, and a smooth, solid malt basement made this the beer of the day, and we all went looking for more.

I wandered off with Chris Fiery at this point, and we did a little sampling of his Manayunk beers. He'd sent his Maibock to our table; I think he should've sent the California Dreamin', a powerfully-hopped beauty. And if you haven't had the Schuylkill Punch lately -- I hadn't -- it's all Oregon fruit puree (red and black raspberries), no extracts or essences, it's bumped up in ABV, and it's pretty good stuff.

A nice fest, not as crowded as previous years (last year I could hardly move), one of the best M/F ratio fests going -- always has been, don't know why -- and a GREAT band, Holt 45 (with an appropriate name for a beer festival, eh?). Usually I don't give -- pardon me -- a rat's ass about the band at beer festivals, because they're just getting in the way of my beer enjoyment and talking to people about beer. But these guys were NOT too loud, they were way into the music, and they were real musicians.

So then I left, and unlike other years, made no stops on the way home. We went out for a diner dinner (bluefish...I love broiled bluefish), came home, watched some tube...and I crashed out, done in by drugs and allergies. The first week is always like this: dopey, drowsy, and stupid. I'm fighting it off with coffee and air-conditioning this morning. I hate May.

Michelob Honey Wheat

Another tasting, from the Michelob line of more adventurous beers from ABIB.

I'll be honest, this one is not going to get more than a few swallows. "The signature ingredient" in the beer is orange blossom honey... and there's no getting around it. This is one sweet beer, too damned sweet for this mother's child. It's kind of weird in that it's not overly heavy, or even cloying, but it's just sweeeeeeeet. Yuck-kinda sweet. There's some body to it, and even a little of that orange blossom, but -- No. Too sweet. I like honey in beer, but for the effects, not the flavor. I like to taste honey on fresh bread, not in my beer. I like the roundness honey can provide, I like the extra ooomph it can give a beer without pumping up the body. But not this.

Three tastes

Got a strange line-up for you. A beer, a cider, and -- gasp! -- a flavored vodka.

I got a sample of a beer I hadn't had in quite a while, one I remember quite fondly: Bateman's XXXB. Poured it into my Bateman's pint (frosted glass, got it years ago and keep it deep in the cupboard: not an everyday glass!). Looked good, smelled malty good, with a grassy/earthy push of hops. And as I tasted that first sip, it shocked me with how much it tasted just like I remember it. Bateman's is distinctive. Don't know if it's the Maris Otter malt, or the hops, or (most likely) their yeast, but it's unique. It tastes...hmmm. A bit of that grassy/earthy hit, some meatiness, some grain, some caramel. Mostly, though, it tastes like Bateman's. Get some and find out what I mean.

The cider comes from Sam Smith, an organic cider ("Produced from organically grown apples." Duh...). Not a world-shaker, but again, not overly sweet either. Apple flavor, some light tartness, but it's hardly what you'd call complex. It does note that it contains cane sugar as well as apple juice...which may be why it's so simple. Better than the common run of cider, but not in Farnum Hill territory, not even J.K.'s Scrumpy.

And yes, a flavored vodka: Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka. Angela Traver at Buffalo Trace talked about it so excitedly that I let her send me a bottle (this is the woman that talked me into buying a bottle of Old Charter 101, so she's no flake!). I put it off. A couple months. But tonight it was warm, and green smells of wet earth and new grass floated in the door from out back, and I thought, what the hell, why not? Old-fashioned glass, handful of ice, two fingers of Firefly, topped it up with Brita-water. It tasted like sweet tea with vodka in it, of which I drank quite a bit when I was a much younger man. No nasty after-tastes, no strange chemical tastes. I'm thinking it's going to be an easy thing to drink on hot summer nights, especially with even more ice and cold water...but that's about it. Which is probably all it wants to be. God help me.

Angsting about Tasting

Saw these two posts about "tasting notes" and "beer reviews" at Beervana, and the one Jeff references in that post, at It's Pub Night. It seemed fitting to notice and comment on them before I post a small flurry of tasting notes.

Jeff's concerned about accuracy in beer reviews. He looks at some of the verbiage sprayed about on beer rating sites (and magazine reviews, and blog reviews, and judging slips...) and is -- rightly -- concerned that it's sometimes conflated for pizzazz. Me too. Then he references Bill's genius invention at IPN: a random beer review generator. Hilarious. Go ahead, go play with it. I did, it's funny. (Hint: if you don't think it's at least faintly amusing, if you think it's insulting...start drinking more water. And stop writing reviews for a while.)

But then Jeff drops one of the best things I've seen written about this whole business:

Even very good beers may not offer you a lot to hang your hat on; what distinguishes them is not their distinct elements, but a totally vague quality of harmony produced when all those elements come together. How do you describe that? I miss the mark more often than I hit it, but this post reminds me of a directive I try to use when writing about beer. Don't write to impress, write to communicate. How would I tell a friend about a beer so that she would get what I was trying to say? It's useful to include adjectives, but they should reveal the beer, not conceal the reviewer's inability to describe it.

Jeff, first off, what's wrong with saying "This beer has a totally vague quality of harmony produced when all those elements come together." I kinda like that, and I'd write it. I don't trust "hints of wet smoke, teaberry, DAP putty, and demerara sugar mingle with a strong intimation of the late addition of Chinook hops." Even if the reviewer does get that -- much like my deeply-questioned remarking of tasting carrots in PBC's Rowhouse Red -- that's their mouth. It's not mine, or yours, or Sweet Fanny Adam's mouth. So how much is that worth?

But "Don't write to impress, write to communicate" is good stuff. I can't believe that one of his commenters -- "Dr. Wort" -- actually advises him to use the Lovibond scale to make more accurate descriptions of color. Great, let's just all do it by the damned numbers. Useful.

Beer tasting is subjective. There's no way to get around that. Period. Never will. That's why medals are usually awarded by blind judging and concensus, by panels. Best you can do. I don't present my "reviews" as anything but my opinions. I don't say you're right or wrong if you agree or disagree; frankly, I don't care, in the end. If you find them useful, and I hope you do, that's great; if you don't, I can understand that, too. They're descriptive, not prescriptive.

I hope you find the following reviews useful. I'm not going to worry about it, though, and neither should you.

Stopping at Stephanie's

I had a Malt Advocate staff meeting today, up in Emmaus, hammering out the editorial schedule for much of the coming year (and there's some good stuff coming up, too). I begged off having lunch with the staff, I wanted to get home to the dogs.

But...I realized that Maud was good for a little longer, and the day was a little beautiful, and I was a little thirsty, and the Passat was a little close to Doylestown. And I'd been meaning to check out Stephanie's Lounge for quite a while now. So I went. (Nothing personal, MA staff! (Besides, I know John understands at least...))

Wow. Why didn't one of you tell me about this place? Not a lot to look at, and not very big inside, but good God, 36 taps and only three of them mainstream (soon to be replaced, too), with three Ommegangs, two Founders, Chimay White, three Fuller's... Damn. And if that's not enough, they have over 500 bottles. Really, supported by a bottleshop operation just around the corner (connected internally, so anything you see in the shop you can get in the bar).

I finally settled on a Founders Cerise, cuz it's just out and I wanted to try one. Good call: solid semi-sour cherry with good beer backing, refreshing, interesting, even intriguing. Reminded me a lot of a lighter-weight New Glarus Belgian Red. (And wouldn't you know it; there was a sample bottle of Cerise (and a Kentucky Breakfast Stout) waiting for me at home. Thanks, Founders!)

Food was okay. I had a cuban panini, and it was competent, but not inspiring like the Cuban at Sly Fox -- I think because the pork, the mustard, and the pickle weren't quite up to snuff. The pressed bread was great, though, and if they can get the other components at that level, they'll have it. (Ought to be doing more with roast beef and horseradish, with Kelchner's just up the road; the mind boggles.) The menu's changing soon, going with a lot more appetizers, which should be a fun thing with these beers.

But the beer! Damn. Sorry to keep saying that, but I just can't believe this place was tucked away not half an hour from me and I had no clue! I blame you people for this, I do!

Jay Brooks Takes Over

Very glad to see Jay Brooks taking over Bill Brand's On Beer column at the Bottoms Up Bay Area drinks blog. It was a complete shock when Bill passed away after a tragic accident (during San Francisco Beer Week), and it's a nice sense of completion as Jay picks up the pen.

Congratulations, Jay. You are the man for the position.

And...One Year of Memphis

Funny how that is: the same day I started my anti-PLCB blog, Brendan and Leigh opened the Memphis Taproom. You could argue that they were more constructive, I guess.

Cathy and I went down to Memphis for their anniversary celebration tonight. It was jamming, but we managed to wedge our way in and grab a Bear Republic Racer X (rocking hopper, and I expected nothing less) and a Schlenkerla Fastenbier (smoky, light, and...tart? Not sure about the condition of this one...). It was an awesome line-up of drafts. About then, Leigh came busting in, holding high a sampler of meatball sandwich chunks: delish.

We slowly slipped into the dining room (past Nodding Head's Curt Decker, who was "just going to stand here and drink cask Fuller's ESB till my eyes bleed," which didn't seem like a bad idea at all (Curt's wife Paula is Brendan's second partner in Memphis, and the third, Ken Correll, can be seen in the pic just over the tray Brendan's holding)), and found, to our surprise and delight, an empty table for two. We grabbed it, and tasted some other stuff: ham and onions on rye, a buffalo wing, some chicken liver mousse with dried fruit soaked in JW Lee's Harvest (awesome, BTW), and blueberry soup. Cathy got a Sly Fox Instigator (sweet and delicious, dark, rich), I got some of that ESB (smoother than silk, not as intrusive as the bottled ESB) and then I had another.

Then I had an Uerige Doppelstike, and it was one of the very best beers I've had in months. I may go back to Memphis tomorrow just to get more. Wow. Malty-dry (Germans are geniuses with that), hoppy, big, but not boozy, holy crap. Excellent beer. Then I tried Taras Boulba again... I don't get it. It's citrus peel-pith bitter, shallow, with just a bit of fruit character. Didn't do it for me when I had it the first time, after WhiskyFest NY at dba last year. Low alcohol, session beer, yeah, but it didn't make it for me this time either.

And then...we went home. Happy birthday, Memphis!