Wolverine State Brewing Co. opens in Ann Arbor

Courtesy of Wolverine State Brewing Co.

As I wrote in my Examiner.com column, Wolverine State Brewing Co. is now open right on Ann Arbor's west side.  Folks, this is a nice walk or a quick bike ride from my house, and I gotta admit, I'm excited.

But I'm not just excited about the proximity of this spacious and inviting taproom and brewery.  I'm excited about the people, the community, and the beer.  Ann Arbor has serious craft beer riches, but there's room for more, and Wolverine brings a specialty in lager beer, dedication to the community and craft beer scene, adventurousness, and fresh energy and enthusiasm.

Gulo gulo itself, looking thirsty.
Courtesy of WSBCo.

The beers are gorgeous to look at and to drink.  From the expected straw-golden yellow of Wolverine Premium Lager, an American lager, to the deep red-amber-copper of The Pride of Biscuitville and the comforting, mellow brown of the sessionable and oh-so-tasty Big House Brown lager, these beers have an eye-pleasing clarity from the lagering process.

Brewer Oliver Roberts is embracing his opportunity to stretch out and be creative, whether it's on his fresh, citrusy, piney, floral IPA - one of two ales currently on the tap list - or his toasty Pride of Biscuitville biscuit malt showcase.  Want a hoppy lager for a change of pace?  The Gulo Gulo Northwest Lager is billed as an IPL and features the clean, crisp qualities of a lager married to a Centennial and Cascade hop extravaganza.  It's flat out delicious.  The Wench's Westside Wheat, which is the other ale on tap and comes in at 3.8% abv, has a nice wheaty bite and a pleasantly hoppy finish as an American wheat should.  With its orange-amber color, it's a sunny pour.  Or have an emOATable Lager, a creamy, roasty-toasty dark lager with chocolaty characteristics.

Three of the brews are invitingly sessionable.  Also inviting is the fact that there's no per-ounce premium on the price for a small (12 oz) or medium (15 oz), so patrons shouldn't feel pressed to buy larger beers based on the pricing.  22 oz pours are available as well, as are flights of 7 oz pours.

Snacks are available in-house, or feel free to order from local restaurants.  Their menus are in binders right in the taproom, and they'll deliver to your table or barstool.  Add the in-house wi-fi, and you can hang out for quite some time.  Pull up a barstool, grab a chair at one of the several tables, or have seat on a sofa or easy chair.  Want to play?  Foosball and darts are available as well.

Oliver himself may be staffing the bar, and he's happy to educate you about the beer and help you choose one to fit your palate.  Or maybe Ann Arbor's own Beer Wench, brewery co-owner and director of sales and marketing E.T. Crowe, will be in the house.  My experience thus far is that staff and patrons alike are enthusiastic and friendly, and it's clear that Wolverine is a truly inviting place.

Wolverine is located at 2019 W. Stadium, behind Great Likes Cycling and Fitness and next to Big George's.  Hours are M-Th, 3:00-11:00; F/Sat noon-midnight; and Sun noon-5:00.  One exception is tomorrow, Saturday 11/13, when the taproom won't open until 7:00 p.m., which is when the grand opening celebration starts.

First all-grain batch

So much potential, just waiting...

There is a certain magic in starting with a bunch of malted grain and ending up with beer. Magic, and a fair amount of chemistry, attention to detail, and several hours of rather joyful work.

There is also a lot of pleasure. My first all-grain batch was something that I have been contemplating for quite some time; I even wrote a post about picking up the equipment to start all-grain brewing back in May. Real life has its way of running interference, so I only recently got around to brewing up this batch, an English brown ale. Figuring that my first extract batch was also an English brown and that it would be somehow fitting if my first all-grain batch was as well, I pulled a brown ale recipe out of Charlie Papazian's Complete Joy of Homebrewing; after brewing his Palace Special Bitter and loving it, I wanted to try another of his recipes. So, I found his Monkey's Paw Brown Ale recipe, got the ingredients, and now finally had a chance to brew it up.

Ah, but first, some more preparation was in order. I closely read - and re-read - and re-re-read - the incredibly helpful "First All-Grain Batch" chapter in John Palmer's How to Brew. Palmer also has a great chapter on batch sparging, and a recent issue of Zymurgy also had an article on this easy sparging method, so I read those, too. As any reader of this blog knows, every batch I've brewed has yielded not only beer but lessons - some, I can do without at this point. So, applying the brewer's version of the old adage "measure twice, cut once," I focused on preparation. It paid off.

Brewing on a gorgeous day.

On a beautiful day, sunny and clear, not too hot, I set up right in the doorway of my garage. Once the boil began, I'd be back in familiar territory, but first I had to mash the grain. I heated up water to the right temperature so that when it hit the much cooler mass of 10 pounds of grain, the net result would be right on to convert the starches to fermentable sugars. And it worked! It all worked! I'm still shocked and delighted to report that this stuff works! The pre-heated mash tun held the temperature, I stirred when it was time to stir, I measured temperatures, I added some hotter water as needed to maintain the mash at the conversion temp, and sweet heaven, it all worked! What went in as a bunch of grain and water yielded a goodly amount of deep brown, sweet wort, and a quick iodine test indicated that starch conversion was complete. In the meantime, I had heated more water to sparge with, and it all went smoothly. I ended up with about 6.5 gallons of wort ready to boil.

Spent grains: they gave all they had.

About three weeks later, it was time to crack open the first bottle. I always feel a lot of excitement about that moment, and the excitement was even greater because of this batch being a "first." Fresh, grainy, toasty-roasty, malty aroma with a whiff of floral hops. Deep brown color. Nice, creamy head. Malt forward taste mingling with earthy, floral hops. Notes of chocolate and coffee. Medium mouthfeel, which gave the brew a rich, creamy quality but avoided seeming heavy. I was ecstatic. So was the queen.

I am hooked all over again.

Things that go pop in the night

The sound goes something like this: *pop!*... tinkle ... drip drip drip. It's a bad sound any time. It's worse at 4:18 a.m. I have joined the bottle-bomb club. Beer everywhere. Glass shrapnel. You get the picture, and it wasn't pretty.

The first bottle exploded in the beer cellar, as I discovered when I went down to grab a beer. My nose told me first. My basement and beer cellar tend to be musty, but I don't usually smell beer down there. This time, I did - good beer, even! Smelling it was like a distant warning signal. Something was amiss, and I initially wasn't sure what it was. It made me take an extra look around, and I saw a splattering of brew on the top of a fermentation bucket. Then I saw speckles of beer in more places, then drips, and then puddles. When I found the offending bottle, I discovered it was a 22-oz. bomber (aptly named) of my homebrewed Belgian-style golden strong ale, and it was on the top shelf of the cellar. It had blown its bottom off - a fact that my children later found quite amusing. The bottom was cracked in half, and both halves were right under the bottle. There was evidence of a bit of beer spray, and a few glass shards, but mostly it appeared that the bottom had blown off and the beer had just gushed out.

About half the bottles on that shelf, and half of the bottles on each of the three shelves below, were sitting in pools of beer. I spent a long, frustrating time pulling all of those out, rinsing them off, and mopping up the mess. I did open a 12-oz. bottle of the same beer, wondering if perhaps it had gotten infected in some way and that the infection had caused the explosion, but the beer was really good. Also really carbonated. Hmmm... Let's see. I had used the right amount of priming sugar, and the final gravity had been on target. So had the original gravity. I wasn't sure what had happened. Finally, I decided that the beer was just a very bubbly brew, and that particular bottle had had a weak spot. After all, it was the only one that had gone.

At least up to that point.

I put out the rinsed bottles to dry overnight on dishtowels in the kitchen, and at 4:18 a.m., I awoke to the sound of another one going. It's hard to wake up at that hour, yanked from a deep sleep, and I wasn't sure what I had heard. But I knew something was wrong, and then it dawned on me that what I had heard sounded like it may well have been...

Yes, a bottle - the same type of 22-oz. bomber, with the same beer in it - had blown up in the kitchen. Again, there were some signs of spray, but mostly evidence of a break and a gush of beer. I cleaned it up again, wondering what might be going on here, and this time I put all bottles of the Belgian-style homebrew in a big plastic bin with a lid. If any blew up, they'd be contained and dangerous only to their fellow beers in the bin.

Interestingly, it's now been a couple of weeks, and no others have exploded. Count me lucky. The beer is very tasty, a richly malty, fruity, somewhat peppery brew with a generous head and long finish. Of course, every bottle I've had has been really carbonated, and I now think I know what must have happened. Although I did check to make sure that the final gravity was within the desired range, I should have checked a few days later to make sure it wasn't fermenting further. I suspect that if I had, I would have seen that the beer had attenuated even more. Instead, I was impatient to bottle the beer, which was a high gravity brew and had been in the fermenter a pretty long time already. In short, I was done with fermentation, but the beer wasn't.

Patience isn't my strong suit, to be sure, but attention to detail generally is. The two traits - impatience and attention to detail - don't really get along. But I can hope that this little brewing lesson sticks: Keep on attending to the details, and be patient enough to allow that attention to be paid throughout the length of the brewing and bottling process. Or be prepared to lose some precious homebrew.

Craft beer as a family affair

As I've noted several times, my wife is more than supportive of my homebrewing - thank goodness, since it's pretty time-consuming. She's a craft beer lover more generally as well. The other day, when I called as I was leaving work and found that she was home already, she asked what beer I'd like her to grab from the cellar to chill down a bit before I got home. That is love! [As an aside, we enjoyed a couple of bottles of the special bitter I brewed, perfect on a warm, summery evening. Malt-forward with a light bread-crust aroma and flavor, yeast-driven fruitiness, and very crisp hop bitterness, with a soft hop aroma and flavor. Fine carbonation completes the picture. Extremely refreshing; my go-to summertime session beer, as hoped when I brewed it].

So, my wife and I share a passion for great beer. But as Father's Day approaches, I've been thinking: what about our kids? Where do they fit in? No, I'm not talking about kids drinking, as in the Brewed for Tots parody - which I thought was mostly hilarious and just a wee bit scary. But how aware should kids be that their folks are craft beer lovers?

Actually, I think quite aware. This nation sports an uncomfortable combination of a hyper-individualistic, stimulation-seeking, anything goes attitude and pretty significant remnants of puritanism. Together, those clashing values set the stage for some reckless behavior. On top of that, unlike many other countries that have a far lower frequency of alcohol abuse and a lower drinking age, we set our drinking age at 21, marking alcohol as a forbidden fruit and perhaps reducing the opportunities for parents to build alcohol awareness before kids leave home. As we all know, a lot of stupid - and sometimes tragic - behavior ensues. People love to jump into things, and when that involves a hefty dose of rebellion... well, it can all go rather far in a hurry. I wonder if some of that can be avoided - or the risk reduced - by instilling the values of alcohol appreciation and moderation, all the while having fun with cooking and science via homebrewing.

From the start of my homebrewing adventure several months ago, I involved my kids in the process. My son was part of the crazy emergency trip around town to find a big enough pot to brew my first batch in - after I had started and found that the pot I was using was too small. For his trouble, the first batch was named after him, and since it was an English-style brown ale, he associated it with the knights and castles of medieval England, which he's totally in to. He's also been to the homebrew shop with me, and he was fascinated by all of the equipment and ingredient kits. When we go to a good beer store, he points out Stone beers (gotta love the gargoyles!), Rogue Dead Guy Ale (both of my kids think that the name and the label are just hilarious), and Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald Porter (he has learned a lot about the Edmund Fitzgerald disaster and can readily recognize the ship). Together, we're keeping track of the amazing growth and "behavior" of our hop plants, one of which is nearly twice as tall as I am now. He's been amazed at how fast they grow, how they wind themselves around the lines I set up, how they seem to seek out something to climb on, and how their one-way barbs allow them to cling to whatever they can grab. And he knows what hops smell like from homebrewing - "wow, Dad, those smell weird! But kinda good!"

My daughter, who's a couple of years older than her brother, loves to garden and helped me with stringing lines for the hop plants. She's been fascinated by the idea that we put flowers in beer, and that those flowers help preserve it, and that they have these oils in them that impart flavor and aroma. Since she bakes with my wife, who loves to make sourdough bread and other goodies, she has developed a pretty good understanding of yeast. With a bit of explanation from me, she was able to connect the notions of how yeast makes bread rise and how it ferments beer. She also gets the whole sanitation thing - we don't want other critters in the beer! Like her brother, she's had a batch named for her. At her request, my IPA was even named for her favorite doll, becoming Rosie's Rocket No. 1 IPA. She's tasted malt extract (yum! sweet!) and smelled hops (less keen on them than her brother, at least for now), and like her brother, she asks how the sample is on bottling day and how the beer turned out when I crack that first one open.

Interestingly, my kids have no desire to try beer. They have never asked to try it, and they've specifically and spontaneously stated that it's a grown up drink. They understand more than most kids about how it's made and how much work goes into it, and they know that my wife and I appreciate and enjoy it and that I write about it from time to time. They also know that while we drink it frequently, we drink fairly little in a sitting. In fact, they frequently see us take one 12-oz. beer and split it over dinner, pouring it into two wine glasses. They - especially my daughter - understand that there are sugars trapped in those malted grains, and that malted grains are like any sprouting seed. They understand that when a brewer gets those sugars out, yeast cells just love to eat them up, and those critters make bubbles and alcohol. And they know that we add hops for several reasons during and sometimes after the boil. They've watched me stare at an airlock and sniff at it, and they've asked how things are coming along. I think they respect the process and the result, and I think that the respect they have now could pay huge dividends in the future. As with all things to do with beer - and with lots of other subjects - time will tell.

I wish all of my fellow dads a great Father's Day full of joy and fun. Cheers!

Growth by leaps and bounds

I've got brewing on my mind.

In fact, I find that's the case much of the time. I've caught the bug, bad, and it isn't letting go. I see that as a good thing. After all, the result is delicious homebrew.

Most recently, I brewed two batches about two weeks apart. The first was an organic Belgian-style golden strong ale based on the extract version of the recipe that won the organic brewing competition a year or two ago. After getting it into the fermenter, I had an urge to brew a good session beer for the summer and decided on a bitter, basically following the recipe for Palace Bitter in Charlie Papazian's Complete Joy of Homebrewing.

The Belgian has been bottled, and it hit the targets for original and final gravity. The sample was very promising, spicy and potent, and I'm eager to see how it matures. The bitter should be ready to bottle by about now. With every batch, I've gotten more and more relaxed about the process. In fact, I find it rather meditative, and I'm able to think more closely about each aspect of brewing. I've gotten into altering recipes to suit my tastes. I've also played around with beginning to create my own recipes. Beer is one of my favorite things; why not make it my favorite ways? I've been encouraged as well by the fact that some of the detail work has become more routine. I'm attentive to it, but I'm not sweating it as much and can really enjoy each aspect of the experience. My wife's been great about it, too. She experiences similar joys in creating fermented foods. Besides, she loves the beer, and that's best of all.

In addition to brewing more, I've started a hop garden, which now includes a few cascades and a couple of nuggets, courtesy of generous homebrewing friends. It's set against the south wall of the house, and I spent some time today running lines as high as I could get them given my ladder. Now all they've got to do is climb and produce. Thanks to our other cooking pursuits, we have a dehydrator, so any hops I don't use fresh can get dehydrated and stored. In addition to my little hop garden growing, and countless others like it, I'm excited that hop farming is catching on in Michigan! Hops grown right here in the great beer state.

Another kind of growth is on my mind as well. Until now, I've been doing malt extract brews with specialty grains. But homebrewing taps right into my creative side, and I have been dying to do all-grain. I want to experience brewing from the starting line.

After reading a wonderful post by Jon Abernathy on Hop Press about leaping into all-grain - actually, he referred to it as "stumbling," but I still see it as a leap, and a joyous one at that - I just had to do it. I couldn't not do it. So, I picked up some additional equipment from Adventures in Homebrewing over in Taylor. It's a hike from here, but man, those folks are fantastic. Going over there reminds me of going to an old-style, full-serve gas station. You know, the ones that were called "service stations" for a good reason? There was one pretty close to my house in L.A. when I was growing up, and the owner would even stop by our house to check out our car if we were having trouble with it. He and his crew seemed able to fix anything, and the folks at Adventures in Homebrewing are similar. They know homebrewing through and through. Patient and enthusiastic, they'll help with every bit of the shopping and set you up right. Well, now I'm all set up, and I bought the ingredients for a brown ale. My first extract/specialty grain batch was a brown ale, and it feels right that it should be my first all-grain batch as well.

As I've delved deeper into brewing, I've thought increasingly about what goes into the amazing commercial beers I enjoy and the folks that make them. When I'm able to do so time-wise, I'd like to write a series - probably cross-posted on my Examiner.com column - of in-depth features on each of our local breweries. We have some great ones, and I'd like to highlight the folks that make them great and the impact they have on our community.

Trappist and bock tasting at Arbor Brewing Co.

Perhaps you can have too much of a good thing.

I attended the bock and Belgian Trappist beer tasting at Arbor Brewing this past Thursday. I had a great time, but my goodness, it's tough to sample quite so many huge beers. It wasn't the alcohol. It was the richness! I was walking around feeling stuffed, grossly stuffed, too full to enjoy the nice buffet they always put out at these tastings, which happen on the second Thursday of each month.

I know, I know, poor me.

I am no bock and Trappist expert, though I do remember a lovely evening spent at Great Lakes Brewing Co. in Cleveland when I was 21 or so, enjoying a pitcher of their Rockefeller Bock with friends as I finished up college at Oberlin. That was one of the best beer drinking experiences I have ever had. Since then, I've had bock beers and Trappist ales from time to time, but I wouldn't claim much familiarity. Of course, a tasting is a perfect way to change that.

Trappist Ales

A mere seven monasteries, six in Belgium and one in the Netherlands, produce Trappist beers. Elegant and complex, many consider these beers to be some of the finest beverages ever made. I was particularly entranced by the tasting table featuring Rochefort 6, 8, and 10. The 6 was a light-bodied brew that featured a roasted nut aroma that carried into the flavor, where it combined with citrus peel. It was dry in the finish, and burnt sugar was prominent there. The 8 was sweeter, fruity, and medium-bodied. It had qualities of brown sugar and toast. The 10 was amazingly complex, managing to have caramel notes, fruitiness, and dryness in the aroma. You might be wondering how it could be dry in the aroma; I wish I could explain better, but that was the impression I had. It was bready, slightly sweet, and fruity on the palate, and coffee and cocoa featured in the finish. I could have lived at the Rochefort table, but that would have meant missing so much goodness elsewhere.

I had a bock beer produced by the Dutch Trappist brewery Koningshoeven. Malty and fruity, I noted a distinct sherry quality as well as chocolate and spice. This beer was rich and smooth, with a velvety, creamy mouthfeel. A real delight.

An example that featured hops more prominently was the Chimay Blue. It had a floral aroma that also had caramel notes, and that caramel quality was prominent in the flavor profile.

Achel Brune was one I had never tried and had heard little about, but I enjoyed it tremendously. There was orange peel and breadiness in the aroma, and a nice combination of spice and orange was present in the taste.

Two examples from Westmalle were available. The dubbel had molasses in the aroma and toast and some roast in the flavors. Then, in the finish, some citrus came through. The tripel was a hazy, golden brew that was earthy and citrusy. It was bready and somewhat tart and fruity in the finish.

Finally, I tried the Orval. It had some funk and citrus in the aroma. This orange-amber brew was dry on the palate, with a bit of spiciness, followed by citrus peel and earthy hops in the finish.

Bock Beers
The tasting featured a very wide variety of bocks, a veritable festival of these strong lagers. I very much enjoyed Arbor Brewing's own Usktratch Mai Bock, which was deliciously toasty-malty and had a balancing bitterness that created a very clean brew.

Anchor Bock was new to me; in fact, I can't recall seeing it in stores here. It was roasty and malty, but then it suddenly changed in character with a really crisp, dry quality. It seemed to start as a heavy beer and then become much lighter at the end.

There was a table with two Aventinus brews. I first tried their Dunkel Weizenbock. I noted some smoke in the aroma, but also a hint of banana. It was an intriguing combination, making me think of well-made fried plantains that get a nice, chewy caramelization. The banana carried through to the flavor, and then this huge, alcoholic warming finish hit. Wow. As if that wasn't enough, I then tried their Weizen Eisbock. This was an astoundingly delicious, smooth beer (at 12% abv, no less). Spice - particularly cinnamon - was notable in the flavor profile. There was a lot more there, but frankly, words don't suffice. Just have some if you get the chance.

I enjoyed two very different Michigan dopplebocks. Bell's Consecrator had a very fruity aroma and prominent caramel flavor. Dark Horse Perkulator was for the coffee lover: this beer was a coffee brew through and through, from aroma to finish, yet it was smooth and tasty. As the pourer said: drink this one only if you like coffee. Luckily, I do.

Spaten Optimator was a full-bodied malt bomb, rich, caramely, bready, but with a mildly bitter finish. It ended up a nicely balanced brew.

Weihenstephan Korbinian featured caramel and toffee in the aroma. Coffee and caramel, a pleasing combination, were present in the flavor. Another brew that had strong toffee notes - as well as roast nut - was Ayinger Celebrator. It finished with a pleasant hop bitterness.

Finally, I'll just mention Ettaler Curator. This was like beer concentrate, syrupy and thick, with chocolate and dark fruit aromas and roast nuts - perhaps chestnut? - and cocoa in the flavor profile.

To shift gears a moment, I just want to mention that I had a very tasty and provocative dopplebock on my recent trip to Utah. Now, as you can imagine, Utah has some interesting alcohol laws, and there's a fair amount of tension about all things related to alcohol. Wasatch Brewing makes a dopplebock called Devastator. The label features the requisite billy goat, but this is one pissed-off goat, rampaging through the streets of Salt Lake City and knocking aside landmarks like the LDS temple and state capitol. I'm sure that's popular amongst some in the state. The write-up on the side of the bottle is worth noting as well. I've include pictures here (with apologies for the quality).

Quick review: Short's Cup a Joe coffee creme stout

Though there is a tradition of drinking beer at breakfast, I've not been one to indulge. Til today. Out of coffee filters and desperate for a cup of joe, I had a Short's Cup a Joe coffee stout. Brewed with fair trade, organic coffee from Higher Grounds Trading Co., the beer pours an oily, thick, dark brown with a substantial, persistent, tan head that, as you can see in the picture, got away from me on the pour.

The aroma is dark roasted, coffee, with some berry-like, dark fruit. Mouthfeel is rich and creamy, the influence of milk sugar evident. The flavor screams coffee. Dark, delicious, kick-back-with-the-morning-paper coffee. There's a pleasant, fruity acidity balanced off by sweetness. The finish is long and smooth, cappuccino all the way.

Suspense. Surprise. Satisfaction.

I love the moment when I get to crack open the first bottle of a new batch of homebrew. From listening for the sharp "hsssst" that indicates good carbonation to seeing the head, color, clarity (or lack thereof), taking in the aroma, and having that first taste, it's a total sensory experience.

It's a moment full of suspense. Sure, I could see how things were going while I boiled the stuff, and I sampled some flat brew during bottling, but the moment of truth is that first bottle. The beer is young at that point and will certainly continue to change, sometimes in surprising or even drastic ways, but I find I get a strong indication of how it'll turn out down the road from that first bottle.

The other day, I got to have this experience again. My IPA had been in the bottle for around nine days, and it was finally time to have one. The hsssst sound wasn't quite as sharp as I had hoped, but there was some there. I felt tense and excited, really eager to see how this thing that I had put a fair amount of work into had turned out.

The brew poured a glorious amber-orange. I could see it wasn't super carbonated, but it did form a nice head. I do hope that it carbonates a bit more to carry the wonderful aroma, which was full of blackberry and floral qualities - with more subtle citrus notes - as I had intended with the particular combination of hops I had used.

I had the first taste and literally let out a whoop of joy. Firm and malty, slightly sweet, medium-full bodied, and with excellent grapefruit, blackberry, and floral flavors and a sharp, clean, but not overwhelming bitterness. It's rich, delicious, and bursting with flavor. I was surprised, then delighted, and a wave of satisfaction washed over me. A minute later my wife came home, and I handed her the glass and just said, "Try this."

Now, I should mention that we've been drinking a lot of IPA's and double IPA's lately. She had no idea this was the first bottle of homebrew. She smelled the beer, nodded approvingly, and then tasted it and said, "Wow! This is great! What beer is this?" When I said it was the new batch of homebrew, she let out her own little whoop and hugged me to celebrate.

Satisfaction indeed.

Beer, friendship, and the shared table

Beer-related tweets often include #beerpeopleRgoodpeople, a hash-tagged statement of truth. There are a lot of remarkably generous, kind, fun, smart, and creative people in the beer-loving and beer-brewing world. From craft beer devotees to homebrewers and commercial brewers, the beer world attracts terrific folks. And these folks gather in pubs, at tastings, in homebrew clubs, at festivals large and small, and over meals, not to mention over the net on Twitter and Facebook.

Beer and companionship go together. It's not uncommon to say or hear something like, "Hey, wanna grab a beer?" No one says, "Hey, let's go grab a wine," though they might more generically say, "Hey, let's grab a drink." Regardless, dropping by the pub with a friend and grabbing a beer is one of life's real pleasures. Not that people don't drink other beverages together, but there's an inviting, accessible quality to beer that's lacking in other drinks.

Beer serves as a social catalyst, a bridge between people, and it can also be thought of as part of a broader tradition of shared food and drink bringing people together. Even the president had a "beer summit" - though he appeared to need some advice from the craft brew community about what to serve. Ahem.

The tradition of a shared table (or side by side barstools, whatever suits) is woven into the fabric of human history. Major holidays have also been called "feast days" for good reason. Shared meals have always marked major occasions, whether the meal is a Thanksgiving, Easter, or Christmas feast, a Passover seder, a state dinner, a wedding feast, a celebration of victory, etc. The masterminds of the American Revolution and, later, U.S. Constitution hashed things out in taverns over ale and other beer drinks popular at the time. My fellow lawyers often talk about fighting in court but being able to grab a beer together afterward, the latter showing that the fight was professional, not personal, and that there is mutual respect.

Beer is part of this human tradition of the shared table, which seems to transcend cultures and therefore be in us. Beer brings us together, eases tensions (in several ways), and is a social spark. Sure, there are other social catalysts that we can gather around, including other alcoholic beverages. For a goodly number of folks, though, beer is the catalyst of choice, and this clearly isn't limited to craft beer.

At the IPA tasting at Arbor Brewing earlier this month, I met folks similarly dedicated to the enjoyment of craft beer and homebrewing. The beer was fantastic, and so were the people. It was a joy to talk with them about what we were sampling and share tales about the triumphs and tribulations - and utterly comical moments - of homebrewing. I ran into the father of one of my daughter's classmates there. Turns out he's a homebrewer, which I hadn't known. We got to talking, and he informed me that he was growing his own hops. After a little more talk, he offered me a couple of rhizomes. Now, less than two weeks later, I have two Cascade rhizomes ready to plant. Beer people are generous, and beer brings people together.

For me, beer has even helped to rekindle a friendship that has been dear to me for over 25 years. Beer writer Sean Nordquist and I became terrific friends at the age of 12. Seventh grade, new school, awkward adolescence: you get the picture and probably lived it, too. When we were teens, Sean had a space in his family's garage that he cleared out and made into a hangout, and we and a couple of other friends would hang there into the wee hours, drinking strong coffee - brewed beverages have apparently always mattered to us - and talking about life, the universe, and everything. Eventually, though, we went to college far apart and ended up in Florida (him) and Michigan (me).

We were in each other’s weddings, and our friendship at its core has never wavered. But we did go through long periods of not picking up the phone or writing. I think that if you had asked either of us about our closest friends, each would name the other right away. I have no doubt that he thought of me often, as I thought of him. With our history, our friendship was enduring, but actual contact had become too rare.

I know it sounds hokey, but our interest in beer brought us back together. I had become interested in homebrewing, and it turned out that he had been brewing for some time. We started talking a lot about it, and about beer in general. Then he had a business trip to Cleveland, not far from here, and I was able to get away for a night, which we spent at the Great Lakes Brewing Co. over beer flights and great food. Sometimes it takes something concrete, and it can be a little thing indeed, to rekindle a friendship.

Now, Sean and I talk often about beer, brewing, and beer writing, but we also talk about so much more: our kids and marriages, politics, our jobs (real and dream), mutual friends, old times, current times, and the times we hope lay ahead, adventures we’d like to share and how we might achieve them – and sometimes how we might not be able to. It's all part of life, and it's all fair game.

I have another friend who moved from Michigan to California, and he and I use Skype to have a beer "together" and chat. He's too far away to share the table or hang at the pub together, just like Sean is, but we do try to keep our tradition of grabbing a beer alive with the technology we have at our fingertips. I've also used technology, particularly Twitter, to connect with other craft beer devotees. I'd love to meet them in person someday, but for now we're having a pretty good time connecting over the internet. 

It all comes down to human connection, and for me, beer has facilitated that, and the connection is, in turn, more important than the beer. So, on that note, "Hey, wanna grab a beer?"

IPA tasting at Arbor Brewing Co.

Spice, lemon, pine, flowers, grapefruit, caramel, orange, herbs, apricot, hops forward, malty, balanced, bitter, huge, subtle, dry.

Just a few flavors and descriptions for the brews poured at Arbor Brewing Co.'s fabulous, sold-out IPA tasting last night. Call this blog entry a thank you note.

The folks at ABC know how to put on an event. There were enough tickets to provide for a great crowd, but it wasn't so crowded that we had to wait for a pour or couldn't move around or pause to chat. The beer selection was wonderful, and there was plenty of brew for all. Fortified by a nice buffet, everyone appeared to have a great time. I met fellow homebrewers, chatted with ABC brewing staff, and communed with my hophead brethren.

Some highlights for me included the frighteningly drinkable Bell's Hopslam and Lagunitas Hop Stoopid. The Bell's featured huge grapefruit aroma and flavor softened by apricots and buoyed by a honey-malt sweetness. The Lagunitas also had apricots in the aroma and was somewhat earthier and very well-balanced. Those were two of the high ABV, 100+ IBU giants tucked down in the cellar, where I could also take a gander at a small beer cellar where ABC barrel ages some brews. A couple of barrels were in active use, with tiny airlocks perched incongruously on top. I'd love to try what's inside.

Here are a few more of the brews that I especially enjoyed:

• Michigan Brewing Co. High Seas IPA: Well-balanced, with a mild sweetness, pine, and lemon. A nice dry finish.
• Bill's IPA Lot from ABC: Tiny batch. Quite golden in color, with an amazing hop flavor sequence of grapefruit, then lemon, then pine, then back to grapefruit. Delicious.
• ABC Arborealis: One of my absolute favorites of the night. Beautiful balance, piney with grapefruit and spice as well. Simply a gorgeous beer. Actually went back for a second sample of this lovely elixir. Apparently, this is on tap at ABC's Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti. ABC, please bring it to the mother ship.
• Founders Double Trouble DIPA: Somewhat vinous aroma joined by citrus and apricot. Citrus and apricot feature in the flavor, but also very floral and somewhat piney. Malty as well, yet didn't feel too heavy. Outstanding.
• Dark Horse Double Crooked Tree: Hefty, malty brew, a bit syrupy, orange and earthy flavors, caramel as well. An amazing beer. Can't wait to have more of this one.
• New Holland Mad Hatter Imperial IPA: Huge, hops forward brew, grapefruit aroma, flavors include pronounced orange and pine.
• Great Divide Titan IPA: Floral but also surprisingly biscuity aroma. Balanced, then bitterness predominates in the finish, offset by a touch of remaining sweetness. Lemony and resiny in the finish.
• Lagunitas Maximus IPA: Huge malt profile with some biscuit, all there to support the citrus and floral hop profile.
• Meantime IPA: The only English IPA in the tasting. Very different than any other beer I tried there. Caramel, toffee aroma. A touch fruity, but not citrusy. Sweetish, with a spicy hop profile. Bitter in the finish.

There were a lot of other terrific brews there, many of which I tried, some of which I sadly didn't get to. Only one brew that I sampled missed the boat, in my opinion, and since it may have been that it was just late in the tasting and my palate was probably toast, I won't say more about it now.

I'm a big fan of ABC. The place has supported the Ann Arbor community and been a huge part of the beer scene here for 15 years. They've hosted too many charity events to keep track of, been instrumental in efforts to keep downtown vibrant, and have supported local farms by sourcing more and more of their menu items from them. Oh, and did I mention that they make fantastic beer, too, in a remarkable range of styles?

ABC has a beer tasting on the second Thursday of every month, and I'm looking forward to several more this year, including bock and Trappist beers next month, fest beers in September, Michigan beers in October, and Belgian ales in November. I'm grateful for the opportunity. In the meantime, the IPA tasting has me looking forward with glorious, delicious anticipation to when my homebrewed IPA is ready. That batch is going into the secondary fermenter for some dry-hopping tomorrow. 

Maybe the third time really is the charm

It was brewing day here in the House of Fermentation this past Saturday. I put together an amply hopped IPA that, I hope, will have just as ample a malt foundation to balance and support the hops. Time will tell, as it always does in brewing.

Two days after brew day, my five year old woke up super early because he had to go to the bathroom, which just happens to be the room with the easiest to control temperature in the house at this time of year.  So, it's where the fermenter is perking along almost like a tiny steam engine. It smells like a brewery in there, or maybe like a hop farm, and he remarked in a sleepy voice, "What is that crazy smell?" Of course, he wasn't surprised at all when I told him it was the beer.

This was my third batch of homebrew, but my first one with organic ingredients, and I want to mention briefly how this came about. I think quite a bit about not just craft beer itself, but the beer business, the place of these breweries in local and regional economies, the environmental impact of brewing and stewardship of the environment by brewers, and community and political involvement by breweries. Along those lines, I recently read Fermenting Revolution: How to Drink Beer and Save the World by Christopher Mark O'Brien. In the course of touching on many aspects of the industry, the environment, and politics, he made a pretty compelling case for brewing with organic ingredients as much as possible.

Brewing with organic ingredients is totally consistent with how we cook at home, and O'Brien discussed his involvement with Seven Bridges, an organic brewing supply coop in Santa Cruz, California. So, I visited their website, and before long, I had ordered up an organic IPA recipe kit. I also ordered some additional hops to spice it up further. Now, I've finally gotten to brew it up.

I'm an extract brewer, and a novice at that. As I said, this batch is just my third. The first was a brown ale that went fairly smoothly except for a brief fiasco with a too-small brew kettle, and the second was a steam beer that turned out as a malty amber after I discovered too late that the original gravity was too low when I first brought the wort up to volume; I had to add more malt, and it made it taste like a rich and fruity amber ale. You learn from every batch. Maybe it was that this was my third brew and three's the charm, or maybe it was that the kit was really well put-together, but this batch went great. I was able to totally relax and enjoy as the elixir came together, filling the house with its pungent aroma. The windows were open, music was playing, and making this batch was the meditative experience that I was hoping for. The other two batches were fun to make, but this one was even more than that.

While I've found both of my previous kits (not from Seven Bridges) to be a bit under-malted, this one was perfect. I could have gotten a touch over 5 gallons out of it and still hit the mark on the original gravity, but I wanted the OG a tad high in an attempt to balance the additional hops. The kit was easy to use, and Seven Bridges was straightforward to deal with. The website is pretty well-organized, and my kit arrived promptly and in pristine condition.

I'm eager to get my next kit from Seven Bridges; I've got my eye on a Belgian-style golden ale, which just sounds awfully good right now. And I have to admit, it feels rather good to brew organic. I'm curious about whether the availability of organic barley and hops will increase and whether we'll be seeing more commercial breweries brew up organic offerings. Just like with every batch, time will tell, though if it's something people want to see, they needn't wait to make their voices heard at their favorite breweries.

Why we celebrate Oberon Day

Yesterday was Oberon Day, an official state holiday in Michigan. Lines were out the door at some pubs, and beer stores have artful displays of colorful six-packs with that inviting sun logo. Bell's Brewery has released our beloved spring/summer brew!

But why do we celebrate the release of Oberon? Is it the gorgeous golden-orange color that virtually luminesces? Is it the rocky pure-white head the color of puffy clouds floating in a blue sky? Is it the spicy-citrus aroma? Is it the dash of orange in the taste, or the touch of clove? Is it the assertive-but-not-too-much carbonation? Is it the finish with the fading citrus gradually replaced with a clean dryness and balancing bitterness?

Well, sure, in part. While some folks pooh-pooh this brew as an "entry" craft beer, I am quite fond of it. It does what it does very well, and much of what it does is refresh. Without meaning to imply in any way that it's simple to make such a beer, I think that Oberon does something that feels simple and straightforward, and it excels at it. Nothing wrong with that.

Even more important, though, is that it heralds the spring and summer, and that means a lot around here. Oberon, in short, is bottled optimism.

Its release signals that people will be getting outside again after a long winter to peer at the sun and feel it warm their bones. It means that the spring thaw is for real, and that the pleasant days will start to outnumber the crappy ones. It means daytime warming and still-crisp nights, and then the heat of the summer will be around the corner. It means flowers and gardens and farmers' markets, outdoor dining, walks and picnics, canoeing and kayaking, and time on the playground with the kids. Here in Ann Arbor, it means that townsfolk and the students lucky enough to stay for the summer will experience the particular joy of summertime in this lovely little city.

For some, it's a reminder of particularly sweet times. My wife and I, after knowing each other for a year in graduate school here, started dating in the warmth of late spring many years ago. She and I had more than a few Oberons together, whether on tap sitting outside at a pub or cracking open bottles in her backyard. Heck, back then, it might still have been called Solsun, but this post isn't meant as a history lesson any more than it's meant to be a beer review. The connections between senses and memory are strong. Really strong. The aroma, taste, feel, and sight of a beer can all be reminders of other times that we've had it, who we were with, what we were doing, or just how we felt.

Perhaps the giddy euphoria on Oberon Day is also about experiencing some optimism in tough times. Our state is wracked by a recession that started way before the nation's did, and it's not likely to recover with the rest of the county. People are out of work or under-employed in droves. There is no clear path forward in Michigan, and our state legislature has been reminding folks lately of clowns running around willy-nilly at a circus: funny, tragic, unpredictable, and somewhat scary in a way that's hard to place exactly. In this environment, the winter can feel particularly cold, dark, and endless.

Yet even here, the craft beer industry is growing. Beer is what many describe as an "affordable luxury," as I discussed a bit in an earlier post. Folks are very loyal to their local breweries and brewpubs, which can become hubs of community activity. Breweries reflect and enhance local flavor in ways literal and metaphorical. They employ local people - not in droves, to be sure, but we shouldn't sneeze at it, either.

We live in a state where the national-scale industries - mainly the car industry and its servant industries - have crumbled and contracted. They remain significant players, but as they've faded, no other industry has stepped in to fill the void. Our governor, echoing the President, points to green energy, and that's a possibility. But we shouldn't ignore the potential of industries that operate on a regional and local level, and brewing fits the bill nicely. Some go national, to be sure, but to me, that mainly means that they need to keep hiring in order to support their expansion, and that's a good thing right about now.

We need Oberon Day. We need that bottle of optimism to unleash our bottled-up optimism, and we should celebrate the release of a major product from one of our greatest breweries. Is this a lot to put on the slender shoulders of a bottle of beer? You bet. But when a beer taps into such a terrific feeling for folks, that's worth some celebration.

More magic from Short's

Some things are worth the wait.

Short's Brewing released the Magician a few days ago, which the brewery describes as a dark London-style red ale.  I picked up a single 12-oz. bottle, and now I want six more.

To me, it felt almost like a welcome new take on a brown ale, like a cousin to the oh-so-tasty Short's Bellaire Brown.  But the Magician is quite different, too, and there's more than ample room for both in the Short's stable.  As a quick aside, the Bellaire is Short's terrific take on American brown ale, bursting with a toasted flavor (that's the main similarity to the Magician) that's complemented by a roasted bitterness that lingers into the long, smooth finish.

The Magician pours a cloudy, light brown with amber highlights.  It had a tan head that dissipated quickly.  The aroma is toasty and buttery with a fruity touch, and the taste follows the aroma closely. There's buttered toast with a nutty dryness in the finish, reminiscent of lightly toasted pecans.  There's an earthiness, too.  The Magician is rich with a silky quality on the palate. The diacetyl buttery/butterscotch tones work terrifically well in this beer, richly supported by the silky mouthfeel.  

Good stuff, and it's exciting to see it on the shelves.

Michigan: the stout state

Michigan is the stout state.  No, I'm not referring to a public health issue.  Rather, we're blessed with a superb stout selection made by our very own Michigan brewers.  I haven't had a chance to explore them all, by any means, but so far I've reviewed several here and in Examiner.com, and I'm always amazed at how good Michigan stouts are.  I want to recap some of those reviews here.

Bell's Special Double Cream Stout was lovely: rich and creamy with coffee, chocolate, and fruity aromas.  The coffee dominates the flavor profile, intermingling wonderfully with dark chocolate and a cherry note, which seems only appropriate for a Michigan brew.

Battle Creek's Arcadia Brewing Co., which has impressed me time and again, offers Cocoa Loco.  This bitter brew features dark roasted coffee flavors as well as strong chocolate notes.  Less sweet than the Bell's Double Cream, the flavors just deepen more and more as you drink.

Back to Larry Bell's brewery extraordinaire: his Expedition Stout is rich and thick, much sweeter than the Double Cream or Cocoa Loco.  Higher in alcohol, it's a warming brew that features flavors of coffee, chocolate, and molasses.  It's a luxurious and velvety imperial beer, and the sweetness subsides just in time to avoid being cloying.

New Holland is another outstanding Western Michigan brewery.  Its Dragon's Milk is a barrel-aged stout - though I've seen it described as a strong ale without the stout moniker, too.  It's roasty and somewhat sweet, and the flavor profile includes brown sugar, caramel, coffee, and dark fruit, as well as chocolate-vanilla notes that emerge later.  It's an absolutely delicious beer.

The last beer I'll mention here is Founders Breakfast Stout.  Big and bitter, dark chocolate and espresso predominate in the flavor profile, with a hint of sweetness and cinnamon coming on as the beer warms.  There's a touch of alcohol bite in the throat, which is nice on a winter's day.  The finish is silky smooth and long, coffee all the way.

Obviously, it's a lot of fun to review these babies.  I'd suggest finding some of these delights.  Several are high gravity beers that should cellar nicely, and it's great to have one around for a chilly day.  In fact, I might go have one right now.

Affordable luxury

At least in Michigan, and probably nationwide, "affordable luxury" is a frequently-used phrase to describe what craft brewers offer and to explain why the craft beer industry is so successful, even during the "Great Recession."  (As a quick aside, we're hardly seeing the recovery here in Michigan, though we hear about it from the news media - we appear to be the "first in, last out" state when it comes to our entire economy falling apart.  That said, our wonderful craft brewers are doing well.)

"Affordable luxury" isn't a new phrase.  In fact, when I took Enterprise Organization in law school, we studied Starbucks Coffee Co., and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz had used the phrase some time ago to describe what the company was selling.  It's an apt, useful phrase.  Applied to the beer industry, one might then wonder what the macros are selling: ultra-cheap banality?  But I digress.

Terrific craft beer is generally cheaper - often far cheaper - on a per-ounce basis than comparably fine wines, and it often pairs better with a wider variety of cuisines.  The other night, I indulged in a dinner of bar-b-que ribs, coleslaw, and potato salad, and the bottle of Sierra Nevada Southern Hemisphere Harvest Ale went really well with it.  There may be wines that would go well with this meal, but the fresh-hopped, copper-colored ale with a firm malt foundation and frothy, iceberg-like head was simply delicious, interplaying beautifully with the sweet-tangy-meaty flavor of the ribs, creamy-tart slaw, and the mustardy bite of the potato salad.  

Buying single beers is a nice way to build up a collection gradually.  Although you'll pay a small per-ounce premium for buying singles, it's a great way to try a lot of different brews and have on-hand a beer appropriate to any occasion or meal.  We're fortunate to have a number of stores that have a terrific selection of single brews, including Arbor Farms, Plum Market, and the Beer Depot on William between Fourth Ave. and Main Street.  The first two have the added bonus of being full-service grocery stores, so you can get all your shopping done.  From 22-oz. bombers to single 12-oz. bottles, I've had a lot of luck finding terrific beers and buying a couple at a time to build a collection.  

If you do start collecting beers, keep them somewhere cool and dark until you're ready to drink them, and keep them upright.  Higher ABV and barrel-aged beers will age best.  If you're living in a house, the basement may well be perfect for beer storage.  I just spent several hours clearing out a basement closet under our front porch that stays nice and cool and happens to have shelf space.  If you have somewhere to cellar your beer, you generally can serve it without further refrigeration and end up with a brew that's at ideal serving temperature.  The flavors and aromas will be at their fullest.  Bad beer needs to be ice cold to tamp down the nasty taste and smell and to numb your taste buds.  Of course, ice cold or not, who wants to serve bad beer?

A luxury is still just that, and sometimes we're in no position to indulge, even in something that's modestly priced.  But while collecting might slow considerably during hard times, building a collection just a bit at a time may still be possible, and a lot of beers stand up well to careful storage. 

Adventures in homebrewing, indeed

My favorite homebrew supply shop is Adventures in Homebrewing in Taylor, just beyond the Detroit airport.  It's not that I can't get supplies in Ann Arbor, but there's no dedicated homebrew shop here, and the selection is limited.  Besides, Adventures is a terrific shop staffed by great people who really know their stuff.

But this isn't about the store.  It's about the fact that it's aptly named.

I wrote in my previous post that the low-down on my second batch of homebrew, my attempt to make a steam style beer, was a whole other story.  This is that story, though at the time I wrote the previous post, I didn't know whether it would end well.  Now I know.

We learn in woodshop class, or from a parent or mentor, or via hard lessons of one sort or another to "measure twice, cut once."  How about measuring at all?  That'd be a good start; after all, sometimes after you measure just once, you still end up cutting just once, and it turns out OK.

I had bought a recipe kit for steam beer in homage to one of my all-time favorites and intro's to craft beer, Anchor Steam.  The long and the short of it was that it was under-malted.  There wasn't enough malt extract in the kit to make the promised five gallon batch and have the original gravity fall within the desired range.  That's a bummer, but it's no big deal, because any beer-loving, would-be-homebrewer doofus with a batch under his or her expanding belt-line probably ought to know to take gravity readings while adding water to bring the wort up to volume.  This particular doofus did so while making the tasty brown ale - still so enjoyable as I get down to the last bottles - and just made about 4.5 gallons instead of 5, because that's when I hit the right gravity range.  Yet for whatever reason, or no reason, I just didn't do it this time until I had brought the volume up to 4.5 gallons.  Then, some little synapse went "bing," and I thought to measure the gravity.  Way low.  Already.  At 4.5 gallons.  I cursed a bit, staved off panic, and turned to The Complete Joy of Homebrewing by demigod Charlie Papazian, the man who wrote about how to brew beer at home long before it was re-legalized.  Sure enough, in the "troubleshooting" section, there was some advice about this very situation.  He suggested that one could just ferment what one's got and chalk it up to experience - the option he preferred - or one could add some malt extract.  Of course, he indicated how much malt extract - based on liquid malt extract.  And oh yeah, he also advised as always that I relax, not worry, and have a homebrew.  Generally, that's terrific advice, but I needed to grab some more malt extract first.

So, on an icy night, off I went to the local homebrew shop, and I bought some malt extract.  Dried malt extract.  See, they were out of the right liquid extract, and I hadn't quite gotten to the part in the book where Charlie indicates that there's a difference as far as what it'll do to your gravity.  Or I hadn't noticed.    Either way, I went home and poured in the extract.  In fact, rather a lot.  And again, I didn't measure as I went.

My gravity was sky-high.  Have I already mentioned that I am a doofus?

Now friends, there are worse things than having a high-gravity beer.  In fact, I drink a lot of those - though not a lot at once - and love them.  Besides, I still had some room to bring the beer up to volume, so I brought it up to the full 5 gallons, and the gravity was still high, but no longer ridiculous.  I capped the fermenter and, like Charlie suggests, relaxed, tried not to worry, and had a homebrew.  Of course, now I was worried not only about the gravity but about the possibility that I introduced an infection into the cooled wort when I added the malt.  But the tasty homebrew helped, just like Charlie says.

In case you haven't noticed from these posts, there's a seat-of-the-pants, experimental quality to homebrewing, even when using a well-regarded recipe kit.  It's not a hard thing to do, let me tell you.  It ain't rocket science.  But there are several variables, and attention to detail is very helpful.  Measure twice, cut once.

The beer was three weeks in the fermenter.  Even so, the final gravity was higher than the desired range, meaning that there were sugars in there that the yeast hadn't metabolized.  I had already stirred it up gingerly and reluctantly after the two week mark in an effort to restart fermentation, risking oxidation, but the yeast wasn't having any of it.  It was time to bottle it and move on.  When I sampled a touch of the flat beer during bottling, at first I thought that it was an overly malty, unbalanced mess.  But on my second sip, there was some nice bitterness and hop aroma there.  That's how hope smells and tastes, in this case.

Two weeks in the bottle, and the Queen and I cracked one open, and I feel very fortunate as I write that it was very good.  Amber with bright ruby highlights, a thick, creamy, off-white head that dissipated pretty slowly.  The carbonation wasn't too intense, but just right to carry some fresh, spicy, floral aroma.  It had a rich mouthfeel but avoided being too heavy, and while somewhat sweet, it was balanced by a pretty assertive (but not overwhelming) bitterness and notes of spice, pine, and flowers.  It's like a steam-amber ale hybrid, and it's pretty darn delicious and a definite session beer.  I look forward to more as it matures further in the bottle.  The Queen even opened a second bottle on its inaugural night, and if that isn't a favorable review, I don't know what is.

My buddy Sean had mentioned before and after my bottling-day sampling that I shouldn't be concerned yet, since the beer could still end up being terrific.  Another lesson learned.

Homebrewing yields lessons in every batch.  I can't wait to start the next one, and at this point, I know enough to avoid some mistakes, and also to expect to learn some more lessons.

You could ship me to India, and I wouldn't go bad

Let me start with this: I have a thing for beers from Dogfish Head.  It's a new thing, but it's strong, a head-over-heels kind of thing.  I admit that I was late to this bandwagon.  Sure, Sam Calagione is Mr. Extreme Beer, a darling and demigod of the craft brew movement, but somehow, I just didn't get around to drinking his beers much.  I was - and still am - focused on the amazing array of Michigan craft brew offerings, as well as other Great Lakes regional beers, and when I was out shopping for beer, I often passed on Dogfish Head beers in favor of those born closer to home.

But then something happened.  I got a hop jones that just wouldn't quit.  As readers know, as soon as fall was plunging into winter, I craved stouts, and I have reviewed them here and, to a much greater degree, in articles for Examiner.com.  And I still adore stouts; don't get me wrong.  In fact, I'll be writing a blog entry soon that summarizes my "findings" thus far in my Michigan stout foray.  A few weeks ago, though, I started to want big, hoppy beers.  I wanted IPA's that could curl my toes.  I wanted deliciously floral American pale ales that would waltz across my tongue.  Perhaps it was when I brewed my second batch of homebrew, which was supposed to be a steam style beer.  During the hops additions, the aroma was so heavenly, so fantastic, that I just started to want - to need - to have some uber-hopped beer.  Now, before I go on, I want to mention two things: first, I know that while steam style beer has a significant hop presence, it's not super hoppy, but if you had smelled those puppies going in during the boil, you'd understand; second, you might have noticed that I said "supposed" to be a steam style beer.  The rest of that is a whole other story, but not necessarily one with a sad ending - I'll know soon.

Back to my hops insanity.  Maybe it actually wasn't the steam beer, but the fact that at this point in the Michigan winter, I start thinking ahead to spring, to green, and a bit of desperation starts to creep in.  And that slightly desperate need for green turns my mind, where it comes to beer, to hops, in all of their herbal, floral, piney, citric glory.  In other words, in all of their fecund green-ness.

So, in the midst of this, I went to the store, and they had singles of Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA.  I saw it, and I simply needed it.  I had that baby in my cart before I even knew what I was doing, and just a little while later, I was a-drinkin' it.

What struck me first when tasting it was not the hops, but the malt.  Dogfish lays down such a tremendous foundation of malt; the beer looked, felt, and tasted rich.  It was actually sweet!  And then the hops came on, and O, I had reached glory.  The malt and hops didn't compete; they waltzed.  It was beautiful.

Since then I've continued to stock up on IPA's and consume them joyfully.  Arbor Brewing's Sacred Cow IPA was, and might still be, on sale at Arbor Farms, and is delightful, also with a firm malt base (though not crazy like Dogfish) and wondrous floral and citrus aroma and taste.  It's impressive as heck and was brewed just up the road.  Dogfish Head's Burton Baton barrel aged imperial IPA was simply astounding, like the 90 minute but with an almost wine-like quality that had to be a product of the aging; it's actually a blend of young and aged IPA's.  Victory Brewing's Hop Devil lives up to its name; I'd make a deal with that one any time.  And Stone IPA is a wonderfully balanced masterpiece.

Still to come (as in, I have them in my cellar): Founders Devil Dancer Triple IPA (112 IBU's!!!!) and Double Trouble IPA, Arcadia Hopmouth Double IPA, and an intriguing crop of Shorts beers: Liberator Double IPA, Kind Ale (a wet hopped ale), and Good Humans (a dry hopped double brown ale).  And I've got ingredients coming in the mail to brew up an organic, dry hopped IPA, my first foray into secondary fermentation and dry hopping.

I don't know when this phase will end, but I'm sure enjoying it while it lasts.

Wolverine Brewing Co. opening a brewery right in Ann Arbor

Thank you to my friend and fellow craft beer lover Shannan for sending me this link from Ann Arbor.com.  Wolverine Brewing Co., a microbrewer of lager beer that until now contracted out its brewing to Michigan Brewing Co. in Webberville, is opening up its own brewery on West Stadium Blvd., right in Ann Arbor.  They'll have a taproom but no restaurant, and they will encourage folks to bring in their own food or have it delivered.  For more details, see the Ann Arbor.com story.

Wolverine's flagship beer is an American pale lager (American Standard) - which is the primary style that the macros brew - that happens to be produced by a micro, and they aren't shy about it in the statements they made to Ann Arbor.com.  They'll now have a brewmaster on-site, Oliver Roberts, whose present gig is assistant brewer at Grizzly Peak in downtown Ann Arbor, which may mean that they'll be branching out into other brews.

They do promise new product lines, and they're sticking to lagers.  A good lager brewery in town could make things very interesting.  Micros generally focus on lagers, so if Wolverine can fill a lager niche with tasty offerings, more power to them as a nice addition to the Ann Arbor beer scene.