Miami: everything they promised

After an uneventful flight, I landed in Miami yesterday at 12:45 PM. There was an event at that point: we were held on the plane as a "security officer" came on the plane and escorted a young couple off -- no problem, no hassle -- after which we were told to stay on the plane. It was so the Miami-Dade cops could arrive: we were searched on the way off the plane, bags and bodies. Yow.

So then I hiked a ride down into Miami with my luggage -- a nice rollie duffle I got from the Red Cross for donating platelets -- looking at all the high-rises and cranes. Man, this town is growing! I got to the Hyatt Regency, checked in, and registered for the Cheers Conference. The conference is an educational thing, not a trade show, so there was no big vendor room: it's all seminars. I got my badge and went right into a session on up-selling; a statistical marketing info session, on why people did or did not order more expensive drinks. Some interesting insights, but I kept wondering who the people were who'd been surveyed; they came up with some dopey answers.

After that, I went up to my room and practiced my presentation: "Make Every Beer Count: Pleasing the new beer customer." It's about looking at beer as a set of categories, rather than as clumps of brands, how to get more choices into the same cold storage space. Hope they like it when I present it in a couple hours.

At 6:00, they made awards presentations to businesses, and opened the cocktail lounge. I grabbed a quick glass of Stella ("Oh, for a camera; Lew drinking Stella," says Stephen Beaumont when he saw me with it), followed that with a Michelob in a gorgeous thin-walled pilsner glass, and then had a Ward 8, an old classic cocktail, updated with a dollop of pomegranate molasses: quite good. Then it was a healthy-tasting beauty made with the new Rangpur gin, key lime juice, and champagne, topped with mint and cucumber -- at least, I think that's what it was. It's not that I was getting tipsy, it's that there were two very similar cocktails being made, and I'm not sure which one I got: it was very loud and crowded. That's why I stepped outside and sipped this last one while looking at the two big motor yachts tied up at the hotel's quay: hired by Red Bull and Leblon as floating parties. I didn't go on board, just watched the beautiful people and called home.

At 7:30, I joined the Cheers magazine staff and a couple other freelancers for dinner. They took us to VIX, the restaurant at the Victor Hotel in South Beach. Very nice, very interesting, but so dark we were reduced to passing around flashlights to read the menu. Wow, got some good stuff, though. We shared some apps: tuna tartare, lobster ceviche, and foie gras ice cream. Really. It came interleaved with mango syrup, and it was so good I laughed out loud: Wow! Dinner was delish: lobster and Hong Kong duck chow mein, with the freshest damned bean sprouts I ever had. I finished up with a glass of tawny port for dinner. What a great day and night. Cheers, Miami.

Flying to Miami

I'll be out of the icebox the next couple days. After two days of overnight temps in the teens, I'm flying to Miami tomorrow for the Cheers Conference. Wednesday morning I'm presenting a seminar on beer category management for the on-premise operator; in English, that means how to get the right beers into your coldbox. After work's over, I'll be hitting the mojito bars with Stephen Beaumont and his girl Maggie.

Don't wait up for us.

One Guy Opening

I don't post press releases here, but this is an exception:

NE Pennsylvania’s newest brewery to open Saturday

BERWICK, PA (January 21, 2008): One Guy Brewing Company, located at 328 W. Front St., Berwick PA 18603 will host its Grand Opening on Saturday January 26th. The “first keg”, a traditional German wood barrel, will be tapped at 1:00 pm.

One Guy Brewing was founded by beer industry veteran Guy Hagner. The name reflects the nature of the operation—from Brewmaster to Glass Washer, Hagner is the sole employee. “This business is a dream come true,” states Hagner. “My main focus is to brew a wide variety of fresh, delicious beers for local beer lovers.”

The brewery is very small—2 barrels (62 gallons) per batch, and initially all sales will be conducted through the brewery’s on-site taproom. Customers are able to enjoy a glass in the taproom and can purchase a growler (1/2 gallon refillable bottle) of brewery-fresh beer to take home.

Congratulations, Guy!

Uncle Jack's On Board

Kicking and screaming, much as I did, Uncle Jack has joined the Beer Bloggers. There's not much to see just yet, but I know Jack. Not a thought will go unuttered now that it's so easy to do so. I'm not sure we're ready for 24-Hour Curtin...but it will be fun to find out.

Welcome to blogging, Jack: see you at The Session.

Salt

There's just something about the savor of salt in the midst of sweet. I'm enjoying a dark chocolate-covered pretzel, one of the last of a small box my wife got me for Christmas, the product of a local chocolatier, Newtown Chocolates (if you're local, they're worth a trip: very nice). I don't know if chocolate-covered pretzels are a Pennsylvania thing, but if they are, the rest of you are missing something. The crunch of the pretzel is great, the dark chocolate is delish, but the thing that makes it is the unexpected hit of salt in the middle when I bite a crystal on the pretzel. It makes the whole sweetness even better, even tastier.

I get the same thing in my wife's state fair-winning molasses cookies (really, they were, she was in 4H). Your basic molasses cookie is good, but the small dose of salt in hers makes things all the more so.

If you're waiting for me to turn this into something on beer or whiskey, I don't have it. I was eating a chocolate pretzel, and thought about how the salt contrast works with Cathy's molasses cookies too, and here we are. Maybe there's something about how the bitter and sweet in beer work, or the sweet and tannic components of whiskey come together...but right now? I'm just finishing up my pretzel.

Green Flash IPA; Ridgeway IPA

Cathy and I took her brother Curt out to Teresa's Next Door on Saturday night. Curt was down visiting from where he lives, near Rochester, NY. He's a chef, and had a rare weekend off, so it was nice that he and my nephew Patrick spent it with us. We got Chinese for the kids and headed off for Wayne.

We found a spot on Wayne Ave. right in front of the Wooden Iron...had to be fate. I whined until Cathy and Curt agreed to go in for a pre-prandial drink. I got Redbreast, Cathy got a glass of a very nice Shiraz, and Curt got a Hoegaarden, and we talked with the bartender, Dave, an old friend from his days at Gullifty's. Dave's going bold next month: he's going to replace his whole tap selection with "all Victory, all the time." Five or six Victory beers will be the draft beers at the Iron. Ballsy. Dave said his wine and spirits sales have reached the point that even if the Victory experiment is a crashing disaster, he'll survive.

On to Teresa's, where we met Matt "Beer Yard" Guyer -- we'd called him from the road and invited him up to join us for a beer. I was determined to stick to that New Year's resolution, and ordered a Green Flash IPA (Stan? You see this? Green Flash IPA, Stan). It was everything I've come to expect from this beer: breathtaking, assertive, clean as fresh snow, and whip-sharp with classic American hops, piney, pungent, almost puckery, but with enough malt background to keep things lucidly drinkable. I'm not really a big fan of shipping beer all over God's green earth (I'd rather be shipping me all over to drink it fresh), but they can send this East any time they want, and thanks.

What to have next? There were several American IPAs and Double IPAs vying for my attention, but Matt suggested the Ridgeway IPA. Ridgeway is a Dan Shelton import, probably best known for their series of Christmas beers with the whimsical labels: Bad Elf, Very Bad Elf, Seriously Bad Elf, Insanely Bad Elf, and Santa's Butt. Dan's a wild man, and brings in a number of wild beers -- Cantillon, EKU 28, Fantom, Kulmbacher Eisbock -- but he is a fervent champion of smaller, balanced session-type beers -- he has a special love for the insanely drinkable lagers at Mahr's, for instance.

Ridgeway falls in that latter category. I got a taster of this 5.5% IPA (which was the original Bad Elf, re-tooled a bit) and said yeah, pour me a full one. Oh, mama. What a beautiful beer. The balance was perfect: nothing tongue-stripping here, this was just a great beer, very drinkable and flavorful, with none of the diamond-edged hop character of the Green Flash. Ridgeway's hop character is English: spicy, floral, restrained but firm. The malt's wonderful, jazzed up by yeast character, not too heavy, just tasty and fresh. I had two pints.

We got dinner (drunken mussels, quail, a revelation in the form of seared foie gras (Curt, a confirmed non-hophead, got another Shelton beer, Cantillon Kriek, and the sharp acidity of it was a perfect foil for the goose fat), a Cuban sandwich, a duck breast and Serrano ham sandwich, and a cheese plate), and with all the beers it set us back quite a bit, but...a good deal for the experience. Two outstanding beers, great company, delicious food. A night well spent.

After we left, we took Curt down to the Beer Yard to see Matt's wonderful selection of beer for sale, and Matt threatened us with his 3-liter bottle of Samichlaus. He ought to put a stock and a scope on that thing...

Jeez, aren't I the guy who said he was going to do fewer tasting notes this year?

Tröegs Nugget Nectar

WHOO! I'm keeping my New Year's resolutions; or one of them at least:

If there's a hop shortage -- and there is -- screw it: I am going to grab all
the super-hoppy beers I want and can get. Hopheads who got all defensive when I
talked about hoppy beers being simple? Pile on, I can take it. Just don't get
between me and the IPA taps.

So when I wanted a beer this afternoon (and I did, because when I interviewed Jim Koch about the new Samuel Adams Irish Red the booger taunted me that he was drinking a beer, and why wasn't I?) I reached in the fridge and pulled out a bottle of Tröegs Nugget Nectar, the beer that the Trogners insist isn't an IPA, but an imperial amber ale.

Okay, whatever. Mostly, it's hoppier than blazes. It's like grapefruit pith, it's piney, it's...okay, it's got a kind of cat's piss smell that's weirdly appealing. I can't believe I'm going to leave that in, but I am, because it's true. The amazing thing about this beer -- one amazing thing about this beer is how the bitterness doesn't hook into your tongue and linger forever: it's like wasabi, it hits WHAM and you stagger a bit, and it's gone. Which means it's time for another swallow, another mouth-squeezing taste, a blast of lupulin freshness -- hmmm, the cat's piss is gone -- and that's the other amazing thing about this beer: it's bitter, it's jam-packed with flavor, it's ... gone. Way too drinkable, which ain't a bad thing, just something you have to keep your eye on.

Scared of the hop shortage? Get as much of this as you can and stop worrying.

Samuel Adams Irish Red

The new Samuel Adams Irish Red, a beer chosen by vote (between this style and a dunkelweizen -- rigged, I say, rigged!) as the next addition to the long line of Boston Beer Co's offerings. Smells fresh, malty, and a bit fruity, and a hint of caramel...unless that's anticipation of what I'm sure is in there. Mmmm...good body on this one, and yeah, there's caramel flavors. This is not an overly hoppy beer, but the earthy, spicy notes of East Kent Goldings are welcome. It really woke up my mouth with the piece of room temp Primadonna cheese I grabbed on a whim, too.

This is not for everyone. Irish reds are generally approachable beers, but this is perhaps too much for some. I say that because Cathy didn't care for it. I thought at first that it was the caramel malt, but after hearing what she said -- it's got that English taste I don't like -- now I'm not sure if it's the malts -- I think English malts are distinctive -- or the EKGs, which I just love. Cathy likes PNW hopping, crisp, piney, citrus, and this isn't that, not at all. She also likes malty beers, but usually more on the lager side. This Irish Red has a fuller body than most others I've had, and I like that, kind of a bridge towards Fuller's ESB in a weird way. The caramel might be overdone, but that's a defining characteristic, so that's like saying hops are overdone in an IPA, and, well, you can't say that in this country, right?

But this isn't Cathy's blog! I like this one, and encourage you to try it. Should be a good food beer with pork, chicken, and lighter fish; cheddar/Lancashire cheese, and nuts; pears, too, probably.

Exchange rates: closing a door, or opening a window?

"When the Lord closes a door, somewhere he opens a window."

It's a quote from The Sound of Music, where the Mother Superior of Maria's convent is telling her that there are many ways to serve God, so when one path is closed, it doesn't mean you can't continue on your journey. I thought about that on Friday when I was talking to a booze analyst about the imported beer market. It's for a story I'm doing for Cheers, so I won't get into the numbers, but I don't think it's a surprise to anyone that exchange rates are hiking the U.S. price of most imported beers.

Along with the well-publicized rise in the price of hops and malt -- which is pretty much world-wide -- lower values of the dollar vs. the Euro and other currencies mean that beers from Europe, Asia, and yes, Canada, cost more than they did a year ago (wonder if that's affected the price of Blue Moon, which MolsonCoors is currently brewing in Canada?). If you want to buy a fine Belgian ale, a crisp Bavarian lager, or a big bottle of Unibroue, the price curve on your decision will be steeper. From Heineken to Salvator to Rochefort 8, import beers are bound to take a hit in sales, particularly with all the election year scare-talk about a U.S. recession (Congress and Bush are talking about a "stimulus package" before we've even seen any evidence of a recession -- not that either party is pandering or anything).

But if that door to brewed Heaven is closing, surely a window is opening for craft brewers and the Big Three (maybe even Pabst and the remaining regionals). Increased costs in hops and malt may mean price increases -- okay, it does mean price increases, and we're seeing them already -- but the foreign brewers have to add that increase on top of the exchange rate premium. American beer becomes more competitive, more attractive.

We're already seeing that in the majors: mainstream premium beers like Budweiser, Coors Banquet, and Miller High Life are all up, the first major uptick for them in years. People are starting to look at the price of a sixer of import lager, and of a sixer of Bud (and maybe thinking about the latest ads from Miller and A-B, which are hitting themes of solid value, 'regular guy' appeal, and even patriotism), and picking up the American beer.

Don't dismiss that factor in specialty beers. I expect to see more traffic in American-brewed versions of Euro-classics -- assuming American brewers continue to get better at brewing them -- and more experimentation with 'American' styles by both brewers and consumers, maybe backing off the extreme hops or at least moderating them. But I also think we're going to see even more solidification of flagship brands by craft brewers, as people 'hunker down' a bit to ride this out.

Make no mistake: the people who read this blog and the ones over there to the left, the people who read and post on BeerAdvocate, ratebeer, and Real Beer, you there, reading this right now, are probably going to be more likely to keep on spending to get what you want...but not all of you. And remember: craft beer is still under 4% of the total sales, and we the bloggers and readers, the folks who drink 400 different beers in a year, are just a tiny niche in that niche.

Look at the numbers. Most craft brew drinkers are drinking Sam Adams Boston Lager, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, New Belgium Fat Tire Amber, Harpoon IPA (and Blue Moon Belgian White, if we're going to be honest and look at this in terms of "craft" styles). That's where the sales are that are getting us even close to 4%. I think things are going to shift even more towards those brands, because they'll have the steadiest prices and the most consistent product. Experimentation tends to go down when prices go up. Flagships will do well.

Which is probably a good thing. Those flagship brands will keep breweries alive till the hops and malt thing either sorts out or we get used to it. In the end, I think this is going to be a time of opportunity for American brewers large and small. It's a matter of reading the winds and the currents and deciding how to set your sails to catch the best breeze...while staying off the rocks and shoals.

The Colum Egan Interview, Part II (Never too late, eh?)

One of the things you said back when I brought up the whole idea of New Year's resolutions, and what you wanted to see more or less of in the blog was, um, er...me actually following up on what I said I would do, and doing it. Okay, here you go: the next installment of my interview of Bushmills master distiller Colum Egan...from last March. Part II picks up right where we left off, with Colum explaining about the use of wood in maturing Bushmills Irish Whiskey.

Colum Egan: Maturation is very important at Bushmills. We'll use a cask about three times. As you can imagine, each time you use a cask, the contribution from the wood to the whiskey is declining. After three times, I feel that the contribution is not appropriate, not sufficient. Other distillers are different, they'll use it four, five, six times, but I just think, myself...well, I would say it, but we always say that our attention to detail is second to none at Bushmills.

It's not just me. I'd like to take all the credit, but I just can't. The people at Bushmills are just fantastic. I've worked a lot of places, New York, Dublin, London, and really, the best place I've ever worked is Bushmills. I think I'm enthusiastic and passionate about the whiskey, but these guys just blow me away. If my enthusiasm wanes a bit, I just have a chat with them.

There's six guys that make the whiskey, two per shift. One guy that mashes, actually takes the extract from the barley, and one guy that runs the stillhouse, separates alcohol from water. So over 24 hours, that's a six-man team. The least amount of experience you've got on them is 25 years, and the most is 40 years. So these guys know what they're doing. People ask me, what happens when you leave the distillery? I tell them, well, if they don't know how to make it after 25 years, we're in trouble.

There's some great stories. There's a guy there, Ronnie Brennan, one of the mashmen. He's very knowledgeable, knows every little intricacy that could possibly go wrong. Of course, your knowledge is only tested after perhaps a power cut, or something unusual. That's when you know. If the other two guys run into something on their shifts, they'll ring Ronnie at home. And Ronnie lives just across the road. He'll come in. Doesn't clock in, doesn't tell me he's come in, might spend an hour or two helping them fix the issue with the pump or whatever. He does that totally on his own time, just walks in.

That's the commitment that the guys have to Bushmills. As long as they can see some kind of development down the road, and that's what makes it so much fun to be part of Diageo. We finally have someone who believes in the whiskey, with that same passion that we have. We're very good at making whiskey, but Diageo's very good at actually telling the world about it.

I say, if I can just get people to taste Bushmills, I know they'll drink it. It's as simple as that, and I don't think you can say anything better about a whiskey. Over the years, I've got enough people tasting it, so now I've got people drinking it.

The grains that go in the whiskey: what are you using? Is it all malt?

There’s three types of whiskey made in Ireland. That's a very important point, I think, that a lot people miss, even whiskey writers who know a lot about whiskey. There's malt whiskey. Malt whiskey's what we make at Bushmills, it's made from 100% malted barley. There's a second type of whiskey called pure pot still whiskey. Pure pot still whiskey is made from mainly raw barley, with just a small amount of malted barley added to it.

That's added in the still or in the mash?

That's added in the mash, right in the mix. You need the malted barley for enzyme conversion of the raw barley. Then the third type of whiskey is grain whiskey. Grain whiskey is made through a continuous, column still, whereas malt whiskey and pure pot still whiskey are made in a copper pot still.

What's going into grain whiskey?

The grain [whiskey] in Ireland is actually made from corn -- we call it maize -- where in Scotland, they tend to use wheat. It depends what's available, it's really kind of traditional things. That's not to say that in Ireland we won't make grain whiskey from wheat, that's not to say that in Scotland they won't make grain whiskey from corn, that's just, at the moment, what they make it from.

What is grain whiskey? We're not talking about grain neutral spirits?

No, no. There's a very critical difference between grain whiskey and grain neutral spirits. In Irish whiskey, and Scotch whiskey, I think it's 94.7, I'd want to kinda look that up and confirm that to you, but I think it's 94.7% is the maximum strength that you're allowed to go to, of whiskey. Anything above that, it comes into grain neutral spirit, it comes into the whole vodka territory. Really 97% is about the highest you can go; the higher you go, the less color, the less flavor you get.

There's no room for it.

Yeah. Grain whiskey tends to be very bland, really. It's sweet, but it tends to be bland. It's not as complex, it doesn't have the different aromas you'd get from a whiskey made from barley, or whiskey made in a copper pot still. The copper really has a big influence on the whiskey, and the shape of the still has a big difference on the whiskey.

So you have the three whiskeys we make in Ireland. In a blended whiskey, like Bushmills Original, for instance, we take some of the malt whiskey -- because it's only made at Bushmills, it's a single malt whiskey -- and we'll blend it with some of the grain whiskey, the whiskey made in the column still from maize.

Is it blended in aged, or is it blended in straight off the still?

Again, for a whiskey to be called whiskey, it must be aged in the oak barrel. Always, always, always. At Bushmills, our malts are all a minimum of five years, and our grain is a minimum of four years, for the States. So we'll take some of the malt whiskey, and mix it with some of the grain whiskey -- we use the word 'blending' -- so we blend the two together, because we don't want any layering or anything in the vat. We blend the two together, and make a blended whiskey, and that's the Bushmills Original.

Now, you can get other whiskeys in Ireland, from the Midleton Distillery. Midleton just makes pure pot still whiskey. So you'll get brands like Jameson's, and Powers, they're two blended whiskeys, where they'll take the pure pot still and blend in some grain whiskey with it. It's a very big difference, obviously, because there's no malt whiskey in Jameson's, there's no malt whiskey in Powers, it's pure pot still, and it's a very different character.

Malt whiskey is seen the world over as the best whiskey (I suspect that this is not true in the states of Kentucky and Tennessee...), and I really think that holds true, and it's a big point of difference between Bushmills and other Irish whiskeys. Jameson's, you'll find, is a little bit oily in character, a little bit mouth-coating, and I find it a bit green, a little bit grassy. I'm not saying it's young, it's...

It's a flavor, a descriptor.

Yeah. I also think it's a bit unbalanced, but we leave that to everybody (? Did I mention that it was very noisy in the bar?). I always find that a good whiskey will always improve when you add some water to it. If you add water to Bushmills, what happens to it is, the aromas are released into the glass. Your nose is very sensitive: it can actually detect parts per billion, your nose, it's tremendously sensitive, whereas your palate goes nowhere near that level of sensitivity. That's why at the distillery I nose all the time, I rarely actually sip whiskey.

So if you add water to Bushmills, it releases the aromas into the glass and exacerbates, or extenuates the whole tasting experience. Whereas when you do it with Jameson's, it actually kills it flat, a very unusual phenomenon. It really knocks it back, it's a very clear difference.

With Bushmills, you get this nice, light, fruity, spiciness, you get that malty character coming through. With Black Bush, because it's matured in sherry casks --

It's not all sherry casks, right?

Right. It's a mix of first-fill and second-fill sherry casks, and some third-fill casks. Your attention has to very high when you use sherry casks, because there's a possibility that you could over-sherry the whiskey, and that's not what we're going for. We're trying to really hone in on the fruitiness, hone in on the light floral notes, the typical house style of Bushmills.

(Okay, it will not be 10 months before you get Part III!)