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.