On the 3rd day of December, my true friend gave to me.....Beer!

Greetings from the great Pacific Northwest. I decided it was time to talk about beer again. I've decided to not limit my comments to Southeastern Wisconsin. I will discuss beer where ever I find it.

My freinds Tom and Becky and I have headed west for the 13th Annual Holiday Ale Festival in Portland, OR. This is my 4th trip to this festival and I can not say enough good things about it. I would recommend it to any beer lover.

On December 3rd, we flew into Seattle and planned a leisurely drive down to Portland. Along the way we did stop for a beverage or two. Our first stop was Fish Brewing Company in Olympia, WA. We had a nice lunch and sampled several of the products from Fish, including Wild Salmon Organic Pale Ale, Fish Tale Organic India Pale Ale, as well as several beers from the Leavenworth brand of beers, also made by Fish. If you get the chance to visit the Fish Brew Pub, enjoy their beers and the good food too.

A few miles down the road, in Centralia, Dick's Brewing Company, shares space with Northwest Sausage and Deli. While not the standard brewpub, Dick's does offer a tasty selection of smoked meats and sausages. And then there are the over 20 different brews made through out the year. While there we tried Dick Danger Ale, Dick's Cream Stout and several Belgium style brews.

We arrived in Portland later that evening, and after checking into our hotels, went straight to Pioneer Square for the Holiday Ale Fest. The festival features over 40 strong, winter brews. Several of the beers featured were vintage barrels, which often were limited to a keg or 2. That evening we had the oportunity to taste beers from Hair of the Dog, Brasserie Dubuisson Freres, BridgePort Brewing Company and Firestone Walker Brewing Company. Some of the specialties were tapped out before our arival, however there were still too many beers to sample that evening. The small crowd allowed easy access to the servers and gave us the opportunity to be selective. This was the first year for a Wednesday session, creating more midweek festival time with small crowds, something which would soon be lacking.

The Beer Geek Returns or Chain, Chain, Chain...Chain of Brewpubs

More beer geek thoughts from Terry...

Since my first Beer Geek v. Beer Snob article had good feedback, I’ll try again. This time the snobbery struck close to home. I was at Romans Pub having a beer with one of my oldest friends and the conversation was about beer, of course. I mentioned the Rock Bottom- and the BOOM there it was, Beer Snobbery - “ I don’t care for them since they’re a chain” replied my friend. I sipped my Dragon Milk Stout, bit my tongue, and measured my response. Having more than one location would appear to be the sign of success. Do we criticize Rogue or Great Dane because they have expanded? Why does the Rock continue to get the “chain” treatment? Last time I looked at medals given out at GABF, Rock Bottoms, from all over the country, were winning with different recipes.

I choose my brewpubs based on a lot of things; atmosphere, price, pub food, customer service and yes the beer. Rock Bottom has scored high on my list on all of these. The mug club is an outstanding bargain; where else are you going on a Wednesday night, for $2 beers and free appetizers? The food is terrific and it is extremely family friendly. Now the beer- go get a growler of Up Your Kilt Scottish Ale and compare it with the peaty example from Sprecher. I think you will find Rock Bottom an excellent example of the style.

When it comes to my brewpubs, I do not care if it is a chain, or the beer is brewed with extract, or shipped in from Iowa, I go there for fresh beer, good pub food and the atmosphere. Two years ago, before I visited my brother in San Diego, I did a little research on the beer scene. Yes, there are a lot of no-brainers, Stone was the first stop, half hour from my brothers place and Pizza Port was 2 blocks from the hotel. However when asking locals, I got a lot of Snobbery about Karl Strauss Brewpub. The beer “snob” community despised it. We all know the late Mr. Strauss is a beer legend in these parts, but is not so appreciated in San Diego.

Well as a geek, not a snob, I found the perfect opportunity to visit a Karl Strauss right next to Lego Land. It was crowded, and appeared to be like a TGIF without the crap on the wall. Bottom line is I’m glad I went, because I had the best microbrewed Hefe Weizen I have ever had. I wish Mr. Strauss had opened up one of his brewpubs here in Wisconsin. It would just be another “chain” brewpub I’d love to go to.

Cheers,
Terry
Beer Geek in Racine

Everyone must get Stone

Stone Brewing made its entry into southeast Wisconsin last week with a release party at several bars on the south side of Milwaukee. Several friends and I visited Cafe Lulu and Sugar Maple for the event.

It was my first visit to Cafe Lulu and overall I was impressed. The beer selection was good, however I will admit we focused on the Stone products. The Stone Pale Ale was very nice, with some hop bitterness but not overpowering. Overall a very drinkable beer and at $12 for a pitcher quite affordable. While waiting for the release party to begin we enjoyed having a couple of appetizers. The Hummus Deluxe was tasty and plentiful and a nice change of pace from the standard spinach artichoke dip available elsewhere. We also had the Bleu Lulu, a basket of thick fresh made potato chips with a side of tangy blue cheese dipping sauce. The chips were huge and cooked perfectly cooked, crunchy but not overcooked or greasy. The addition of the blue cheese dip made them even more enjoyable. I was really happy to find such an interesting place to have a bite to eat, especially one so close to Sugar Maple.

After finishing our appetizers, we walked across the street to the Sugar Maple, to see it the release party was in swing there. That was when we found out there had been some transportation problems and pub crawl release party was having a slow start. No matter, Sugar Maple had 3 of the Stone beers on tap and we could start tasting right away. Stone Ruination was our first choice. Ruination is an IPA, however it is probably more correctly an Imperial IPA. It was intensely bitter, the hop character dominated the flavors. That being said though, there was still enough malt to make it an enjoyable beer. We ended up talking with Bruno (the owner) and found out that he was looking forward to having Oaked Arrogant Bastard on tap in a week or 2. Fortunately, my friend Terry who was with us had thought to bring along some samples from his cellar. Terry's brother lives in the San Diego area and often surprises Terry with Stone products that up til now were not available in Wisconsin. Well, the Oaked Arrogant Bastard was just the beginning. Soon bottles of Stone XI, Double Arrogant Bastard, Old Guardian and Vertical 06.06.06 appeared. They were all great beers with varying levels of hops and malt; almost magical elixirs or gifts of the Gods. At some point the tasting notes were forgotten and the simple enjoyment of the brewer's craft took over. With beers like these, you must experience them first hand; everyone must get Stone.

Homebrewers of the World, Unite!!

I recently returned home from a long weekend at the National Homebrewers Convention in Cincinnati, OH. It was several days of beer, chili, beer, food, beer, seminars, some mead, beer, speeches, some cider, more food, and beer. But I am jumping ahead, lets back up and start from the beginning.

Tom, Scott and I (all members of the Kenosha Bidal Society) started out on our journey to Cincinnati on Thursday morning. Now Cincinnati is a 6 1/2 hour drive from Kenosha, so we knew we had a full day ahead of us. Fortunately, we also knew that somewhere in Indiana a brewpub awaited us for lunch. We weren't quite sure where, letting the traffic and associated delays determine that for us.

When we crossed into Indiana, we knew we weren't too far from Three Floyds Brew Pub, however it was still early enough that we felt we should continue on. Now, I had done some homework and I must recommend to anyone traveling and wanting to know where to find breweries or brewpub the following items.

First, Google Earth is a fantastic online mapping system to which you can add the Beer Me! Worldwide Brewery Map. With these two tools you can select a country or a state and see a map showing every brewery for your selection. From this we knew that our next option was the Lafayette Brewing Company in Lafayette, IN or waiting until Indianapolis.

The second recommendation is a GPS unit. I have a Garmin which I have found to be helpful when traveling to unfamiliar locations. The unit I have allows me to load custom Points of Interest. I found a website, POIFriend, where users have loaded Points of Interest files they have created. Specifically, I found a file with every brewery listed by the Brewer's Association. With this file loaded on my GPS unit, it was simply a matter of selecting the brewery of interest and let the GPS calculate the arrival time.

With all this high tech information, we ended up at the Lafayette Brewing Company for lunch. Located in downtown Lafayette, amidst turn of the last century buildings, the LBC was a friendly and attractive restaurant/pub. We started with a sampler round in order to familiarize ourselves with the beers. All the beers were well made and had no fatal flaws, however we seemed to find the hop character in the Eastside Bitter, Tippecanoe Common Ale and Eighty-Five to be too aggressive. The Prophet's Rock Pale Ale was described as "Eminently quaffable!" and it lived up to that description. The Black Angus Oatmeal Stout was also a very nice beer. One very nice option at LBC is that the beers are available by the pint and half-pint; a really great option when you want to try a couple but don't want to over indulge. For lunch, we started with Bavarian Beer Nuggets, described as "balls of spicy sausage, sauerkraut and cream cheese rolled in panko bread crumbs and deep fried." They were quite tasty and something different from the usual wings or onion rings. Tom had a Southwest Chicken Wrap, Scott had the Pulled Pork Beer-B-Q sandwich and I had the Jumbo Pork Tenderloin sandwich. All three were excellent and are recommended. All in all, our visit to LBC was enjoyable and a good way to breakup the drive.

To be continued......

A Tale of Two Mikes

It was the best of beers. It was the worst of beers.

I have frequented Captain Mike's, located in downtown Kenosha near the harbor, for some time now. The beer selection features almost 200 different beers, mostly in bottles and features various craft breweries, imports and several macro beers. The tap selection consists of the the usual suspects, nothing exciting. The quality of the bottled beer is usually good, though I have occasionally gotten an old or skunky bottle. The bartenders are friendly and somewhat knowledgable of the various beers served. While I would like to see more variety on tap, Captain Mike's does have the largest selection in town.

Meanwhile, while I was sitting on a barstool at Captain Mike's, the owner was busy working on a new bar, Uncle Mike's. Uncle Mike's is located south of Kenosha in Pleasant Prairie, on Sheridan Road. I had heard that the beer selection was larger and included several interesting taps, so I finally made the trip. I wasn't expecting alot, since the last time I had visited the bar now known as Uncle Mike's it was a dive country and western bar. I was pleasantly surprised however, as the entire bar had been redecorated. Uncle Mike's features a nice bar area; roomy and well lit; plus an outside beer garden. The menu listed 400 beers in bottles and 8 beers on tap. The tap selection included Chimay, Delirium Tremens and Rogue. I tried the Rogue Honey Orange Wheat, however I found it to be too sweet and cloying, especially for a Rogue product. I followed that up with a Three Floyd's Dark Lord 2008. What a fantastic beer! Rich and complex, with hints of chocolate and currents and as thick as motor oil, Dark Lord was an experience worth a few dollars more than the average beer. However I am not sure if it was worth the $40 price at Uncle Mike's. I know that the price of everything is going up, beer included, however several of the prices at Uncle Mike's seemed a little high. Unfortunately, since no one else is meeting this demand in the Kenosha area, I don't expect the prices to drop any time soon.

Snob Vs. Geek

I have a friend with whom I occasionally have the opportunity to have a beer and discuss the state of beer in southeast Wisconsin. Terry is a member of the Belle City Home Brewers and Vintners and and the Milwaukee Beer Barons. He recently wrote an article for the Beer Barons newsletter, which I think is worth sharing with you.


PILSNER URQUELL RATES ONLY C+ BY BEER ADVOCATE

C+! It got a C+! When I saw it I thought I was going to explode. Maybe it was still Packer loss hangover, or just the general malaise from “the winter that would not end”. But there it was in black and white a C+ for the beer that changed the world. Maybe a little background is needed. My name is Terry and I am a beer geek! I love beer, not just the taste but the aroma, the texture and the even the way it looks. I will stare at my nitro poured Boddingtons like a bug in a jar. My wardrobe is 90% beer logoed, family vacations have brewpub stops filtered in, I love beer! I love the signs, the steins, the tap handles, the STUFF! I love beer, the process, the breweries and especially the history. I am a beer geek, but I am not a beer snob!

This is why when I read BeerAdvocates rating of Pilsner Urquel of a C+ I got mad. But wait, maybe something went wrong, maybe they got a skunky bottle, or god forbid is there an Urquel Lite? Curse you Miller! I quickly read the review. Then I saw “Even without a recipe change”. What!? Lacing and head retention is described as “quite amazing”. “Clean”, “very smooth”, “crisp”, are other adjectives used to describe this beer. Then there it is at the end, “globalization, growth, and popularity” Three words that beer snobs hate but stockholders and people who actually pay the bills love. Bottom line, Pilsner Urquell, one of the world’s greatest beers is now a C+ not based on aroma, flavor and mouth feel but based on the fact now it is available to more people!

This is snobbery, and in my opinion what is gone wrong in today’s beer culture. Last month this same magazine listed there top 25 beers on the planet, 6 out of the top 10 were Russian Imperial Stouts. Not since Catherine the Great has this style received such props. Out of 25 beers there was only one lager! This of course was some obscure beer only a few people ever heard of. And goodness knows if the monks of Saint-Sixtusabdj van Westvleteren actually marketed their beer to make money to do the Lord’s work, their precious #8 and # 12’s ratings would drop like a rock “even without a recipe change”. No, it’s time for me to give up BeerAdvocate. Recently while at Barnes and Noble I saw a new beer Magazine. I think it was called Beer. It had a lot of shiny pictures with a lot of well-endowed beerchicks and not much substance. But it was not preachy, pretentious, or snobby, it was just about beer. Maybe I’ll give it a shot. Cheers

Days of Cheese and Beer Redux

Well the Dairyland Cheese and Beer festival was a qualified success. Qualified in that it did not meet all the expectations, however everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Turn out was not as high as the festival coordinator was hoping. This was not necessarily a bad thing. The crowd was energetic and large enough to provide a positive vibe. It was not so large that you felt crowded or packed. I believe that this can be a good thing for a first year event. It usually means that those in attendance will have a great experience, not having to stand in too many long lines.

The cheeses that were available were very nice, especially those from Carr Valley and Edelweiss Creamery. I really would have enjoyed a larger selection, however the cheesemakers didn't seem to jump on the band wagon. I believe they really missed out on promoting their products to a market segment that appreciates good flavorful products. I hope that the cheesemakers and the Wisconsin Dairy Producers will embrace this festival in the future and will introduce the attendees to the many world class cheeses being made in Wisconsin. I hear about a lot of wonderful cheese events through out other parts of the state, I can only hope that next year Kenosha will be included in that list.

The Days of Beer and Cheese

I am looking forward to the new beer and cheese festival scheduled for Kenosha this weekend. I think it is a natual combination. When the Kenosha Bidal Society has its beer dinners, we always try to include a cheese course, often trying to highlight local award winning Wisconsin cheeses. Beer and cheese; both have many varieties, ensurning numerous tasty combinations. I recently purchased Lucy Saunder's new book "The Best of American Beer and Food". After reading he first chapter of this book, which is devoted to the pairing of beer and cheese, I am excited by the possibilites.

Sugar Maple

Last night several friends and I drove up to Milwaukee's south side (Bay View actually) to visit the newest beer bar in the area. 'Sugar Maple' is the latest endeavor of Bruno Johnson, owner of the 'Palm Tavern'. We have visited the 'Palm' numerous times over the past several years, so we had some preconceived ideas on what to expect from 'Sugar Maple'.

The first thing I noticed upon entering was the smell of fresh paint. While that normally wouldn't be the best thing for a beer bar, it is to be expected when visiting a place that has been completely remodeled. More importantly, it made it more obvious that 'Sugar Maple' is a non-smoking establishment. Thank you Bruno! 'Sugar Maple' offers the opportunity to enjoy some fantastic craft brewed beers without the overwhelming odor of cigarette smoke.

Heading up to the bar, it is easy to be amazed by the 60 tap handles, each with it own unique character, representing many of the finest mid-west and American microbreweries. Similar to the 'Palm', the bartender quickly handed over a menu, listing the various breweries represented and the specific brews on tap. What a selection, from hoppy IPAs to rich dark Imperial Stouts, from Belgium inspired ales to those brewed with juniper berries, there is most certainly a beer here for everyone.

'Sugar Maple' has a clean, modern feeling. Low coffee tables, surrounded by chairs, lead to the feeling of being in a friends living room rather than a bar. The arrangement provides the opportunity to enjoy conversation enhanced by a great beer. There are no TVs, which are neither needed nor missed.

'Sugar Maple' is located at 441 E. Lincoln Avenue in Bay View. They open at 4pm on Monday - Friday, and at Noon on Saturday and Sunday.