Mar 24th, 2009 by David Flaherty
Seriously. I wanna be a riesling vine in Loosen’s vineyard…plant me on the hillside in the sun and leave me to fight for nutrients and life. Then send someone to gently pluck off my fat grapes at the end of summer. Oh, and prune me real nice in the winter…
Mar 22nd, 2009 by David Flaherty
There are innumerable similarities between what I drank yesterday and what the great man in tights drank. And so, in some bizarre, cosmic twist, time repeated itself in the beer world.
I found myself (for the third time) at the Manhattan Cask Ale Festival at Chelsea Brewing Co with the Hudson river lapping at the doorstep. The sun was shining and the metal casks gleamed in the light like liquid jewels, all lined up for the sipping.
Cask-conditioned ales are natural, unfiltered, unpasteurized beers made in the same vessel they are later served from, just like in the olden days. After going through the primary fermentation, the beer is transferred from the fermenting tank to the cask without removing the yeast or sediment. A primer is added as a super-starter for the yeast still in the beer, and ba-de-bing! Fermentation starts again, releasing CO2 and thus carbonating the beer naturally.
Its different from the beer out of the standard tap, as they are force-carbonated by an outside pressure source. And on top of that, for stability sake, they are filtered and the yeast cells and sediment are removed before landing at your local TGI Friday’s. But not cask ale–everything is in there. Nothing is removed. And you can taste the difference.
So there I am looking out over the water, sipping on a delicious Chelsea ’90 Shilling Scotch Ale’. The bubbles were natural and the beer had a freshness to it.
I thought of England and the rolling hills, and in my minds eye, I saw a band of vagabond actors come around the bend making a merry racket. Falstaff was there, and Hamlet too. I caught a glimpse of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern passed out drunk in a pile of hay on the back of an ox cart.
And then I saw him. Bringing up the rear of the train, and riding on top of a massive wooden beer cask, was Shakespeare himself. He looked regal and vibrant. His clothes were worn but distinct with character and the stink of life. He had a smirkish look on his face as he called for them to “halt”. They unloaded the barrel from the cart, hammered a tap into the side, and voila…beer began to flow. They gathered around the fire, and sang and told bawdy jokes. It was a fine sight. And the beer was delicious.
What I like about the Manhattan Cask Ale Festival is the sheer range of flavors and styles one can taste, and 45 different brews to choose from. And, inevitably, I always taste a beer that is straight up, downright gross. Like seriously, “this tastes awful. I can’t believe this was in my mouth”. But I like to see where beer making can go and what flavors are possible. In fact, I’d be pissed if I DIDN’T try one that was hideous.
So here’s what I tasted, and yes, one of them was nasty. I’m not going to tell you which one…but you can probably guess, you spicy devils…
What do you say, Juliet? You wanna grab a pint and a roasted capon?
Mar 14th, 2009 by David Flaherty
Too tempting for Utah?
If you want to get a drink at a bar in Utah, you are required by law to fill out a membership application, and pay a fee for the right to enter the “private club”. By making it more difficult to walk through the door, the state believes they are preventing under-age and casual drinking. But boy does this prevent the tourists from coming in (as well as their dollars). So what do we do, O wise legislators? How do we make our businesses more accessible but still maintain the moral high ground?
Well, three cheers for Senator John Valentine, who has proposed a bill (gaining some traction, mind you) to eliminate this requirement and, instead, erect a ten-foot wall in bars and restaurants from behind which the bartender must hide his or her bottles and make their drinks out of sight to protect children from the temptation of drinks being mixed before their eyes. Called the “Zion Curtain”, Senator Valentine has shot straight to the heart of our kids’ desire to drink, and by removing all shiny bottles and bartender showmanship from the eye of the beholder, young Utahans will therefore be encouraged to drink less.
What a plan! What a genius! Strip all drama and aesthetic style from your bars and turn them into mere feeding stations for destitute human wastoids to pull up and receive their medicine from a slot in the wall! A speakeasy without the bar…. you walk up to the door, the panel slides open, an unfriendly voices yells “what ya want, loser?” (because obviously any sense of hospitality in the service itself only encourages you to drink more), and a vile-looking, black, thick liquid is handed back in a paper cup (to obviously discourage kids from finding any sort of wonderment in the glassware itself). Food coloring, a gelatin thickening agent and a sulfur pill are further added to strip the drinks of any textural, visual or aromatic enjoyment. Why not make the atmosphere more like a dental office? You’ll receive your dose of alcohol, miscreant, but it will be through a dental dam. How about fast food required to be ingested rectally? Wow. The possibilities are endless.
Now I’ve been to Utah numerous times, and I must say the natural beauty of a place like Arches National Park is stunning; in fact, it was some of my favorite camping ever (and I’ve CAMPED, mothafuckas). But when I walked into a liquor store that’s when I saw what was morally going on behind-the-scenes of all this beauty. Every step of purchasing a six-pack of beer had been meticulously designed to not only discourage me from popping the top on that tall boy as soon as I climbed back into my big rig, but to discourage me from ever wanting to step foot in one again.
I present my case: no refrigerators were allowed by law in the store, so all beer was sold warm. Bottles were not grouped into six-packs, but instead, shelved as single bottles and priced as such. So, if you wanted a six-pack, you had to grab a cardboard sleeve, head to the limited wall of warm, devil juice and put the six bottles into the pack by yourself! That’s right, kids, it almost didn’t seem worth it! The inconvenience of actually having to slip the bottles into the sleeve was infuriating. My wrist was nearly giving out on me and I was breaking a sweat! Ugghh. I was so discouraged. And when I went to pay, they were not only rang up individually, but they were so frickin overpriced it was astounding. For a pack of Bud (and this was ten years ago mind you) we paid $11–factored through my internal inflation calculator, this would be $232 in today’s world.
And then, to add insult to injury, as we were driving away, my buddy noticed that the beer was 3.2% alcohol (in fact NO beer sold in Utah could be more than this). So, yeah, it was basically a 6-pack of domestic, de-alcoholed, warm beer for double what you’d pay anywhere else. Discouraging? Yeah, it sucked. But at least I didn’t have to drink it while staring at a ten-foot wall.
Mar 8th, 2009 by David Flaherty
“Terroir speaks in a very still, small voice. It is easy not to hear it above the stentorian tones of 100% new oak, 15% alcohol and the extreme tannic extraction that we find in modern wines. We winemakers need to look long and hard in the mirror”
It pays to be curious, to take risks, to boldly plant what no man has planted there before. And sometimes, when that mission has proven so successful that you’ve moved into a world controlled by accountants and corporate structures, you cut down that tree and plant anew…
Randall Grahm started his path sweeping up in a wine shop, and soon found himself enchanted by the French wines that surrounded him. His mission became clear: to go forth and lose himself in the vineyards of California. He enrolled at UC Davis, and relentlessly hounded his professors about Pinot Noir, the grape that had come to rule his attentions. He was intent on making the Great American Pinot Noir, and with the help of his family, bought his first vineyards in the Santa Cruz Mountains just south of San Francisco. Bonny Doon was born. After years of minimal success, he abandoned the Pinot Noir quest, and began planting Rhone varietals like Syrah, Roussanne, Marsanne and Viognier much to the chagrin of the supposed experts that told him “no, not possible in California”.
With the release of Le Cigar Volant in 1984, Randall sent a cannon shot across the bow of the skeptics and showed the world it was not only possible to make good Rhone wines, but entirely possible to make great Rhone wines in California. He was now taken seriously as an innovator and was named a “national treasure” by critic Robert Parker. The ensuing decades found him spinning off ever-bolder marketing initiatives that drew mass attention and cemented his image as the merry prankster from Santa Cruz. An early promoter of screw cap closures, he declared “cork is dead” in 2002, even going so far as to hold a mock funeral in NYC. Creating quirky labels like Cardinal Zin and Big House Red (with grapes sourced from a vineyard near a prison complex), Bonny Doon became huge, eventually producing nearly a half-million cases each year.
But with this success came questioning and an ever-growing sense of hypocrisy in what he was espousing as a philosopher, but not doing as a businessman. He was no longer able to align his interests in biodynamic farming with the production demands of sourcing grapes from growers whose practices did not match his. And so in 2006, he sold off the Cardinal Zin and Big House labels, moved his Pacific Rim Riesling project to Washington, and slashed his production down to some 30,000 cases. He now found himself free again to focus on the terroir of his wines and the vineyard practices that most purely elicited them. A devout practitioner of the biodynamic movement begun by Rudolf Steiner in the 1920’s, Randall treats each vineyard site as a living organism, each one requiring a delicate balance between its soils, nutrients, indigenous animals and even its moon cycles. (And yes, sometimes manure-filled cow horns which are buried in strategic places to then be dug up months later as cosmic-ready mixes that are added back to the soil). He has gotten back to what fuels him most, and his wines of late are stunning.
And for those of you who came to see him in NYC while he visited us at Terroir wine bar, yes, the rumors are true. There was a late night wine tasting/spa pedicure adventure, ending in many grown men leaving with painted toes and Cote Rotie-stained teeth. And for any one that wants to question my manhood, step on up. Cause when you got Randall Grahm on your side, shit is on. Just look at these beauties:
Feb 26th, 2009 by David Flaherty
So what’s the deal with absinthe, anyways? Am I gonna trip my balls off or what? Am I gonna find myself chasing dragons and horned demons through the nether world? Well, absinthe (and its supposed hallucinogenic qualities) is thick with folklore and now certainly back on the world stage in a flourish and this after a long respite…almost a century’s worth. But let’s start at the beginning. Just what is absinthe and how did it get this infamous reputation?
Absinthe is a high-alcohol, anise-flavored spirit made from herbs, flowers and leaves of a medicinal plant known as wormwood. It can often sport an alcohol level of 70%…that’s 140 proof! Often times it has a natural green color but can also be clear.
It was the bell of the ball in Paris during the 1800’s, and was a favorite among artists and high-class ladies of the night. Images of the troubled 18th century artist in some slummy Parisian apartment come to mind, riding some hallucinogenic wave of insanity. It was shunned by many as risky and unrefined, but the likes of Oscar Wilde and Vincent Van Gogh were huge fans.
It all came to a head in the early 1900’s, and was banned in America in 1915 because it contained the chemical, thujone. Absinthe was thought of as a hallucigenic, and thujone was thought to be the culprit. But how did we end up this association with the drink as a rocket shot to the moon? Well, that’s the rub. Absinthe use was misunderstood and due to a rather gruesome murder that I’d rather not go into involving a man who drank two glasses of absinthe (followed by an exorbitant amount of liquor and beer), a powerful campaign was set up to ban it and it quickly became a scapegoat for all sorts of evils (which mostly turned out to be the ravages of alcoholism).
It was painted as being a psychoactive drug. I mean, have you seen Johnny Depp in ‘From Hell’? He sips the stuff like a heroin addict and then disappears into gruesome vision quests in pursuit of Jack the Ripper. But modern day science shows that thujone appears in drastically less proportions than originally predicted, and therefore is not capable of inducing any sort of a hallucinogenic reaction. But have we focused on the wrong chemical? Some aren’t so sure, and the mask of uncertainty remains…
On a geeky level, the whole drinking of the stuff is a detailed ritual. A series of intricate steps expand the experience by employing a sugar cube, a slotted spoon, and a bit of spring water poured from an ornate tap. The slotted spoon is rested over the top of the glass with the sugar cube at the ready, and then slowly drizzled with water till dissolved. This is said to release the “green fairy” hiding in the liquor, which turns the liquid cloudy and releases a blast of herbal aromas. The whole thing is very elaborate, and has recently been decriminalized. Today’s newly-liberated-from-the-law brands are playing on the mystique of absinthe and its reputation as an elixir that takes you to wonderland. Who knows…maybe one day you’ll have your own green fairy visit you…
Feb 17th, 2009 by David Flaherty
Sipping on authentic, handcrafted libations is the same as sinking your teeth into a beautiful piece of sushi, or pulling the meat off the bone of a slow-cooked rib. But drinks alone do not make a bar. In today’s cocktail world, you’ll often find unassuming entrances, dark lighting, an elaborate bar composed of quality ingredients, bartenders with sharp, near balletic, movements, and a devoted following….
Behind the idea of a modern day “speakeasy” lies the desire to capture the essence of an era, an era that birthed illicit, underground clubs that operated by their own rules, and generated loyal fanatics in the process. And today, these establishments and their mixtures fascinate us. Like jazz, many consider the cocktail an American creation.
Names like Gary Regan, Dale DeGroff, Julie Reiner, Jim Meehan and Audrey Saunders flood the scene. These mixologist/chemist/showmen are well-trained in the old standards like Fizzes, Flips, Slings, Punches, Sours, Cobblers, Shrubs, Toddies, etc, and that grounds them in a rich past, but they have built on the basics and have built towers…and often in tiny, hard-to-find spaces behind concealed storefronts and sketchy doorways. And these destinations are well worth the journey. The following is a list of eight, great NYC cocktail shrines and modern speakeasies:
THE LIST
(click on each header for more info)
1. PDT (PLEASE DON’T TELL)
113 St. Marks Pl, New York, NY
212-614-0386
2. MILK & HONEY
134 Eldridge St., New York, NY
(secret phone number)
3. DEATH & CO
433 E. 6th St., New York, NY
212-388-0882
Cocktail list
4. CLOVER CLUB
210 Smith St, Brooklyn, NY
(718) 855-7939
Cocktail list
37 W. 19th St., New York, NY 10011
212-727-7741 Cocktail list
6. ANGEL’S SHARE
8 Stuyvesant St. at 9th St, 2nd fl, New York, NY
212-777-5415
7. PEGU CLUB
77 W Houston St, New York, NY
(212) 473-7348
8. LITTLE BRANCH
20 Seventh Ave. South, New York, NY
212-929-4360
***A cool site to read more: The Lush Life, Guide to Manhattan’s Best Cocktail Bars
Feb 10th, 2009 by David Flaherty
The kitchen has truly migrated to the bar. Cabinets have been ransacked, ingredients have been lifted and spun off in wild directions, and bartenders have become mixologists (the closest term to describe the tinkering, oft mad geeky pursuit of flavor and fascination with combinations…the building of formulas a la the chemistry beaker). In the midst of this madness, they have lifted vinegar, and its sour flavor profile, to the level of respected cocktail component, the trend even appearing in the hallowed pages of the Washington Times.
Bartender Kelley Slagle of Hearth Restaurant has been experimenting with vinegar and has come under its spell, utilizing it in four, soon to be five, cocktails giving them a signature zip of sourness. Made by oxidizing the ethanol in wine, beer, cider, or any fermented fruit juice, vinegar gives drinks an acidic backbone that plays opposite its fellow ingredients, heightening them.
Kelly’s recipe for the Marc Antony uses a gastrique of vinegar, a process utilizing sugar and heat to reduce the liquid down until the water is almost evaporated. This recipe is an orange cardamom gastrique made by adding orange juice and cardamom seeds.
2 oz Spanish Brandy
1oz Orange Cardamom Gastrique*
Shake and strain into rocks glass, on the rocks garnish with orange twist
* Orange Cardamom Gastrique
Splash of Lemon Juice
1 Cup granulated sugar
1/4 Cup water, enough to just cover sugar in pan
1/2 Cup White Wine Vinegar
1/4 Cup Cardamom Pods
1 Cup Fresh Orange Juice
Splash of Vodka
In a saucepan combine Lemon Juice, Sugar and water. Cook over medium
heat till liquid turns brown and no longer bubbles.
Slowly stir in Vinegar and Cardamom Pods
Gradually add orange juice to pan, continue to cook over medium heat,
stirring till smooth and syrupy.
Cool and Strain. Add a splash of vodka to preserve freshness. Keep refrigerated.
Vinegar cocktails are tangy, they’re crisp, and they’ll plant a smile on your face when they bite your tongue back with their sour acidity.
Feb 7th, 2009 by David Flaherty
Founded: 1991
Production: approx 437,000 barrels
(website)
The place that started it all. My own beer revolution. “Fat Tire” was her name. And she was delicious and demanding; pay attention to me!, she said. And I did. I took note. For the first time ever in my, albeit young and naive, life, I stopped and payed attention. Really asked myself, what am I tasting? And that’s when I GOT it. I felt connected to the Germans and their intricate beer steins my father collected in the basement; I thought of the Englishmen with waxed mustaches and elegant manners sipping the Bitter. I did not know that what I was tasting was an introduction to Belgium; a country and a style of beer that takes you by the horns and casts you into a world of depth of flavor beyond what you ever thought possible (Lambic? What the f?). But this beer I grew up with, this beer with the beautiful label of the bike leaned on a tree while you eat your picnic basket in a Belgium wheat field, this beer started my journey and cemented a foundation of beer experiences to come. “You never forget your first”, I believe the saying goes…
In 1989, at the age of 32, Jeff Lebesch was riding his fat-tired bike through Europe’s famous brewing towns and was astounded by the beer he was encountering. Riding on one’s bike always brings up the renegade feeling for me; I used to race road bikes and I recall often feeling like a cowboy alone on his horse on the prairie or zipping up and down the foothills for hours at a time. A one-man survival machine, with all necessary tools to allow yourself to trust being so far from civilization that your mind quiets and your thoughts tune into focus. But back to Jeff…He returned with new familiarity with different ingredients and went straight for Belgium. Brewing in his basement, he crafted two beers that would launch New Belgium: a brown Dubblel with rich, toffee flavors he named Abbey and Fat Tire, his American Amber beer with a biscuity, toasted maltiness backed with a balancing freshness of hops that exhibits a broad range of light, fruity notes. Today, they have an ever-expanding portfolio of brews that range the gamet in style.
But thats not even remotely the end of the story. Without the contributions of his wife, Kim Jordan (now a renowned CEO), all that existed was some great beer. Nothing else. Together, they built a brewery based on founding principles they wrote together while on a hike through Rocky Mountain National Park with a jug of a home brew and a pen and a pad of paper. Emphasizing eco-friendly practices and employee ownership, they’ve gained a devoted workforce that has very little turnover because they’re happy. They ride on frickin bikes, for gods sake! Its like something out of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, this bizarre crew of beer craftsmen zipping on bikes from building to building. Not only that, but they’ve built a massive, two-wheeled following with their annual event Tour de Fat. A professional bike racing tour/traveling circus that moves from town to town, with each stop culminating in a mass ride of costumed bike fiends from every ilk and sector blowing it all out in celebration of the wheel.
Before 2006, New Belgium was only in 16 states, but has since been growing its distribution tentacles like an aging octupus. Oh how I’ve waited each passing year for her delicious tentacle to reach us fair city dwellers in Gotham City. Oh how I miss thee, my fair sweet…somebody smuggle me a friggin case. Please.
Jan 31st, 2009 by David Flaherty
I began to see something called “Brooklyn Brewery” but wrongly assumed it to be a member of the Evil Empire and had its base on a far corner of the Death Star. (Oh, how wrong I would turn out to be…) A few years later, I found myself in the lucky position of having dinner with Tom Potter (founder of Brooklyn Brewery), and his wife in downtown DC. Hearing his story of the rise of his business, from nothing but a mere carboy and a dream, was inspiring and riveting; how could I have assumed he was one of them? This guy was one of only a select few who were brewing in NYC. Wow. I was dumbstruck.
I received his and Steve Hindy’s book, Beer School, for Christmas two years ago and was riveted. Seriously frickin not able to pull away, riveted. Their story of struggle in the challenging landscape of Brooklyn, a borough with a rich, rich history of brewing that near vanished by the end of Prohibition, will make any home brewer stop for a moment and think about his or her dream to open a brewery. It’s a whole new ballgame, kid. And these guys are super stars; they showed determination and courage in the face of multi-million dollar marketing strategies that were unleashed to beat them out at every step of the way, gangsters yielding guns and complicated distribution channels.
I dove back into their beers with a vengeance, and came to see them as a beacon, a shining light in a city owned by the big boys. Their beers are adventurous, risky, and always surprising. And with Garrett Oliver at the helm, they continue to put out an ever-growing selection of solid brews. He is known for his smooth demeanor and classy approach on the outside, and it is clear that underneath lies a thoughtful, driven craftsman with high standards and the enthusiasm to back them up. For turning my beliefs about New York beers into such an aggressive 180 and igniting my own brewing at home, Brooklyn Brewery is my number two pick.
Favorite brews: Local 1, (and soon to be Local 2!), East India Pale Ale, Lager, Pennant Ale
Jan 14th, 2009 by David Flaherty
Founded: 1989
Production: approx 60,000 barrels
It’s gotta go back to home for me. Doesn’t it always? Something about those early years of ANYTHING. Your first stumbling in the dark with a girl’s brassier. Your first, horrible taste of coffee leading to that next, almost palatable, strangely forbidden sip. The rowdy fans slamming their cold cans of Bud together at the tailgate party as you sheepishly waddle by slightly scared for your young life. What’s the fascination with these items, I thought? Why do I see them all around me? For me, New Belgium and Odell’s were like two pony-tailed, Swedish foreign exchange students skipping towards me in knee-high socks while holding hands and shouting my name in unison. Who were these devilish beauties? Why am I so viscerally charged by them? And how do their socks stay up like that?
Odell’s 90 Shilling remains to this day one of my favorite beers of all time. Have I had it in years? No. Would I recognize it in a blind taste test? Probably not. But just the sound of its strange name brings back memories of my days in high school…those formative years when we were stumbling awkwardly through our days, slowly developing our identities and learning to connect with (or rally against) the world. Like the smell of burning wood which always skyrockets me back to the campsites of my youth, Odell’s beers transport me. They were my litmus, my palate-trainers….I didn’t know it at the time, but 90 Shilling and Easy Street Wheat laid the foundation for all of my experiences to come.
So where did it all begin? After moving to Fort Collins in the 1980’s to search out his destiny, Doug Odell followed his bliss and bought an old grain elevator built in 1915 with the plan of moving his homebrewing hobby into a full-time business. Soon, he began to make his dreams a reality and Odell’s became the second microbrewery to open in the state of Colorado. Employing what must have been a jury-rigged system that looked a lot like the Millenium Falcon’s engine room, they built a four-level, gravity-fed brew system which employed open fermentation tanks. Whoa. Now that’s a vision backed up by sheer tenacity. And within five years, they couldn’t produce enough beer to meet the demand that the hippies, soccer moms and professionals alike began to be fascinated with.
And now, as I track their business practices and brewing experiments, they are still pushing the envelope. They began creating barrel-aged beers in the summer of ’08, and use an ingenious five-barrel pilot system which gives their brewers the freedom to experiment with new recipes every couple of weeks. Rock on, Odell’s. And rock on Fort Collins.
Favorite brews: 90 Shilling, Easy Street Wheat, Cutthroat Porter
Jan 8th, 2009 by David Flaherty
Founded: 1995
Production: approx 35,000 barrels
(website)
Extreme. Fire up the frickin taste buds, because these guys are doing some funky, bold beers. Using such ingredients as fresh oysters, arctic cloudberries, green raisins, st johns wort, and beet sugar, they’re off to the races..and running like mad greyhounds. Sound interesting? How bout their Malt de Liquor; a bottle-conditioned malt liquor served in its very own brown paper bag. Now that’s street-swilling in style.
They seem to be everywhere in the media at the moment, their classic fish-shaped icon appearing so much you’d think you’d popped your head in the aquarium, and they deserve to be. The American Homebrewer’s Association has picked their 90-Minute Pale Ale as their top-voted beer two years in a row (and who ain’t gonna listen to the legions of home chemist/hop geeks/brew monks/flavor-craving-crowd of die-hards when they sound their collective horn). Like all the other brewers in my top 5 list, founder Sam Calagione is passionate. But his passion lies in pushing the limits of imagination and what’s possible to capture in liquid form.
I got it in my craw to make a Pumpkin Ale a couple of months back (“Praise the Gourd”), and did a lot of reading and tasting to get familiar with what’s out there. I found a number of approaches to this style, some over-spiced messes that wiped the spit off your tongue, and many in which no pumpkin could even be detected. I wanted pumpkin… and was happy when I got a solid backbone of gourdy goodness in my final beer (I baked fresh pumpkin sprinkled with brown sugar until caramelized and placed in a hop sack during the boil as opposed to with the malt extracts–believe it or not, a much-debated question of timing in the homebrew community).
Of all those I tasted during my ride down gourd lane however, I most dug the Dogfish Punkin Ale. It was hearty, well-spiced and evocative of children wearing spit-filled rubber masks greedily running from door to door through the brisk Colorado air. It brought me back to my childhood and the details you remember: A chill in the air. Strange cutouts of witch silhouettes in the windows. Yards filled with thick spider webs capable of swallowing children whole. I think you get the picture… That power was what hooked me to Dogfish. That “style”, and how it took you on a ride. Their beers are rich and full of depth like dark Syrahs from the Northern Rhone–embodied with soul.
Favorite brews: 90 minute pale ale, Punkin Ale, Raison d’ Etre
Jan 3rd, 2009 by David Flaherty
Founded: 1979
Production: approx 680,000 barrels
(website)
No god-fearing microbrewer could ever not bow down in worship to Sierra Nevada. It would be an outrage. I would have to throw my shoes at you. (I still think it would have been off the chain if Mr Bush caught one of the shoes, centered in on the thrower with his beady eyes, and threw it back like a Chinese throwing star…but no…instead, he flinched. Anyway, back to Sierra). Sierra Nevada is a forerunner in the field of microbrewing. Practically THE forerunner in the field.
Along with Anchor Steam brewery in San Francisco, they broke new ground and shined a beacon of light into the dark night of “American Lagers” that had become ubiquitous since America’s post-Prohibition days. They shook people up. An underground following began, and people started to want more out of their grog. They wanted an experience. So, through a combination of renegade thinking and the tried-and-true techniques of the past, Sierra influenced a new wave of American brewing.
Starting from nothing, Ken Grossman and Paul Camusi cobbled a brewery together from dairy tanks, a soft-drink bottler, and equipment salvaged from defunct breweries before the term “microbrew” even existed. And now, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is a three-time gold medal winner at the Great American Beer Festival (an annual gathering composed of louts and connoisseurs alike who descend on Denver in staggering numbers every year to guzzle or swirl their way through a ridiculous number of beers). It represents for me the solid choice you’ll find on A LOT of beer lists around the country. When in doubt, you’ll oft hear a chirpy waitress list Sierra’s name in amongst the long list of mostly domestic swill you’ll find the country swimming in.
Their use of hops and ability to capture their essences in a myriad of styles give their beers a refreshing, vibrant undercurrent. Sierra Nevada’s journey was hard-fought, but its insistence on quality ingredients and experimental craftsmanship paid off; their beers now enjoy a large, devoted following. And rightfully so.
Favorite brews: Pale Ale, Bigfoot Barleywine Style Ale, Harvest Wet Hop Ale
Dec 3rd, 2008 by David Flaherty
On a brisk November day, after a two-hour selection gala, Marlies Dumbsky, the 22-year-old winemaker from Volkach, rose victorious and placed the tiara upon her head as she was deemed the 60th German Wine Queen. And now, her world tour begins…
For one night only, we at Terroir wine bar found ourselves in the blessed position to welcome this year’s German Wine Queen on her official visit to New York City. Looking to send her on her way with fond memories of our fair city and our wee wine chapel in the East Village, we attacked our mailing list with the facts about our beloved and pleas to greet her in style. And show up they did. By the time Marlies…pardon me, Queen Marlies, walked up to the front door, the place was packed with revelers–some wishing to see what the hype was about, others wishing to be swept up into her glass carriage and hauled off to the steep vineyards of the Mosel to live among the Riesling fairies (hell, I know which camp I was in. Do I look best in silk or velvet?).
She poured white wines from her home region of Franken (a Riesling and a killer Schaurabe that bit back with an acid zip) with grace and the studied ease of a geisha. She had obviously done this before…making appearances at wine shops large and small or tiny nooks and crannies stuffed with vinophiles across the globe.
“How many stops for you in the next year?”, I asked. “300”, she replied. Gulp. I was dumbfounded. That’s a shitload of Scheurebe to pour and a frighteningly unimaginable amount of smiles to paste on, I thought. Wow. How could you do that night after night? But she did it. And did it with class. Through and through. And did I mention she likes motorcycles? Old ones.
And then, just like that, after appearing like an ephemeral vapor of honeysuckle on a misty walk through the heather, she was off. Off to Japan in the morning. Good night, my fair Queen. And God speed.
Oct 29th, 2008 by David Flaherty
If you’re anything like me, the onset of fall means leaves crunching below your feet (or was that a dried profelactic washed into the gutter?), the smell of chimney smoke in the air, and the spicier beers in my Tiffany’s crystal mug. So fire up the Oompah band, Heinrich, it’s time to strap on the suspenders and raise a glass to our German comrades…but I guess the real question is: what the devil are we celebrating? October? Fall? The end of sweat marks in our armpits?
Well, nobility actually. And german nobility at that. First held in Munich on October 12, 1810 to commemorate the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig and his buxom bride Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen (try to remember THAT name while playing a game of Asshole at the Epsilon house), the festival honored the merry couple with the finest grub and grog, finally culminating in an elaborate horse race on October 17th. And thus, the party was born:
Oktoberfest is now a sixteen-day, suds-heavy affair held each year in Munich, Bavaria, Germany in late September and early October. “Oktoberfestbiers” are the beers that have been served at the event in Munich since 1818, and are supplied by 6 breweries known as the Big Six: Spaten, Lowenbrau, Augustiner, Hofbrau, Polaner and Hacker-Pschorr. Tourists the world over flock to this village for a Mardi-Gras like party atmosphere to nosh on rich and hearty traditional fare like white sausage (weisswurst), knuckle of pork (haxn), potato dumplings (knodeln), roast pork (schweinsbraten) and grilled fish on a stick (steckerlfisch). And to further rush the fat and oodles of butter through their systems, they drink the beer…and lots of it. In 2007, the 174th Oktoberfest hosted 6.2 million visitors who drank 6.7 million liters (equivalent of 11 million pints) and ate 104 oxen.
So just what are the beers being enjoyed by the swinging beauties above?
Traditionally, Oktoberfestbiers were lagers of around 5.5 to 6% abv called “Marzen”; lager beers brewed in March and allowed to ferment slowly during the summer months. (To “lager” a beer is to cellar it at cooler temperatures and use a bottom-fermenting yeast, leading to a lighter, milder beer. But this is a generalization as the flavors and colors of lagers can vary greatly). Originally done to circumvent strict German laws that did not allow brewing during the summer months, these beers are most often characterized by a medium to full body, a malty flavor balance, a wide range of colors, and a clean dry finish. Common names for Märzen include Märzenbier, Wiener Märzen, Festbier, and Oktoberfestbier.
So, the next time you sink your teeth into a steaming pretzel from a cart across from Central Park, or pop the top on the Lowenbrau in front of the boob tube, give a wink to Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen and her good man Ludwig…they’ll be watching down on you. While noshing on a knuckle…
