Hey Quaffers of Quality Craft Concoctions!I spent the day yesterday in Val-Disease up on the hill at Alyeska watching some of my employed servants muck crude out of one of the massive storage tanks. Because of the lovely mixture of “zenes” (benzene, toluene, and other noxious fumes) I could only peer through the man doors for brief moments to watch these guys wade around waist deep in crude pushing squeegees while bundled up in full chem suits despite the 140 degree ambient temperature at the top of the tank (according to the supervisor). These guys work 12 hour shifts doing some of the nastiest work on the face of the earth. It suddenly occurred to me as I distractedly dabbed a gob of black goo off my shoe that what they were doing was mighty thirsty work and the smell of malt and hops would be a handy replacement in their environment. I only got to shovel spent grain out a mash tun once and would take that any day before stepping into a crude tank the size of a city block. I wanted to buy all these guys a good craft beer, but booze is illegal on premise out there so I could only wish them happy thoughts of ice cold beer at the end of their shift. Heck, I just fly a desk for a living and an ice cold beer starts sounding good to me at about noon on most days!I’m increasingly excited about my upcoming visit to Alaskan Brewing Company but continue to pout because no one wants to go with me. I guess I’ll just bring my teddy-beer. Alaskan’s launching a new initiative to divert 1 percent of the proceeds from their Icy Bay IPA to CODE, or Clean Oceans Depend on Everyone. The objective of CODE is the reverse the alarming rate of beach closures around the world due to poor water quality. Few people know more about the importance of water quality than Alaskan, so this is a fitting and noble cause for the Southeastern brewery that probably knows a lot about things ocean, given the coastline that hems the small town in. Alaskan’s not just tossing spare change at the project either. The employees of Alaskan are an ocean-minded group and participate in beach cleanups and other activities that help preserve the delicate marine ecosystem around
I covered the brew a number of columns ago and took some heat from some of my devoted readership because I was accused of placating the brewery by heaping praise on an IPA that some felt was a bit soft for style. “Eat shit, you landlubbers,” I fired back. I praised Alaskan for producing an IPA that admittedly appealed to the masses, but wasn’t some over the top mouth-wrenching hop-bomb inspired by some psycho brewer with that all-too-familiar “more-is-better-and-my-gnarley-beer-has-more-IBUs-than-yours-does” attitude. Someone pointed out that the human palate can’t detect anything over 100 IBU’s so what’s the point, anyway? Remember when an American IPA was a closer cousin to its English kin and the difference wasn’t the amount of hops but rather the variety? American versions mirrored the hopping schedules of the Euros, but utilized indigenous varieties instead of the noble European vine hangers. These were great beers that featured the malt as well as the hops. Hey, does anyone remember malt in an IPA? It IS part of the style you know. I don’t mean to be facetious, but I don’t enjoy carbonated hop oil or having to down a pint of water to quench my thirst after drinking the latest Imperial-Squared Kilotono-Hops brew and am only tossing Alaskan a nod for remembering the style’s roots. Sure, experimentation is fun, and I have to admit that there’s a whole new breed of cult followers of such beers, but my palate’s a bit tamer than that, so I enjoy
A quick perusal of local grog shop shelves reveals some new and returning entrants in the line up of great beer around town. Avery’s The Beast is back along with other seasonal delights including Karma, Maharaja and Samael’s. I especially enjoy the Samael’s, an oak-aged English old ale. It cops just enough wood to make it swirlingly alluring, but not overdone. Great Divide sent forth Samurai and Hades. That brings the total of Great Divide beers we get up here to nine, and they’re all good. I love the Yeti Imperial Stout, but I love Imperial stouts in general, so it’s no stretch for me. Elysian’s Jasmine IPA poked it’s nose out between other classics including The Immortal, The Wise and Dragonstooth Stout. Brown Jug Warehouse, Gold Rush Liquors and LaBodega all had various assemblages of these beers, so they’re easy enough to find.One thing I saw at Brown Jug Warehouse struck me as odd. No, wait. I’m being soft. I found it downright wrong. Miller’s new Miller Chill Chelada Style Light Beer was faced in the craft beer cooler, which I found sinful to begin with, but it was tucked between Full Sail beers above it, and to the left of it, and Stone’s Ruination to the right of it. This turd-in-a-punchbowl blow to the liver caught me off guard at first, but I relented a bit when I saw that it was actually above the whole breed of Mexi-brews in clear bottles and what not below it. Okay, I could sort of see the relationship at that point, but that was until I turned around and saw that the same product was end-capped on the high-end craft beer row and I believe purposely blocked the view of the likes of Duvel, Young’s Oatmeal Stout and Stone Arrogant Bastard. Humph! I get grumpy over things like this, but I don’t own a liquor store or distributorship, so maybe I’m lacking in some credibility. Check it out and see if you don’t have the same visceral reaction. For those of you out there that pooh-pooh collecting vintage beers as an investment, here’s one for you. A museum quality bottle of Allsopp’s Arctic Ale (brewed in 1852) just sold on Ebay. Yup, you can find beer on Ebay. Just ask Pete
Here’s a chance to explore the
Back to brew cruisin’ on a bus. One of the most memorable (although I only remember snippets of it) experiences in my time with Great Northern Brewers was the annual pub crawl. The first two were so totally out of control, and the event sort of just faded into the background and hasn’t been resurrected yet. The group of about 30 pupils met at the Snow Goose Restaurant and Sleeping Lady Brewing Company just before noon one fine Saturday afternoon in the spring and awaited the Greyhound-class behemoth to arrive and whisk the thirsty revelers from location to location. Being intelligent students of the grain, the group quickly got down to business and started preloading. Unbeknownst to most, the big silver tube pulled up in front of the brewery and Gary Klopfer niftily loaded a full half-barrel of beer and a bunch of sleeves of cups on board. Obviously, preloading was not required, but it didn’t hurt anyone…yet. When the call to board came in, it was a mad scramble for seats on the full bus, but everyone settled in and started eyeballing the keg in anticipation of slamming a beer before the next stop. No one even got a wet whistle because the bus belched up the block, turned smartly and disgorged its passengers in front of the Glacier Brewouse. At one time I had a log I started of all of the beers I had on the trip, but only Gambrinus knows where that ended up. From Glacier everyone hunkered down for the trudge to the Valley and Great Bear Brewing Company. The keg took up an entire seat and I was lucky enough to be situated almost immediately behind it. When brewers know a bus load of discriminating craft brewers are showing up, they iron their aprons and bring out the goods that only special guests would appreciate. Back then, Lawrence Livingston stirred the mash and on tap just for us was Arskigger, which was then 13 percent strong Scotch ale. His 11 percent triple made for a good chaser. Things started to blur from there. Someone hurled before re-boarding the bus, and this was only the third of many stops. Most entertaining to me was the fact that the bus driver really only had one rule: “No alcohol past this line,” he said, pointing to the red painted line at the front of the bus starting at the back of his seat and extending across. This meant that standing up and blatantly showing passing cars and trucks both our fermented and anatomical wares was in order. The volume was at a deafening roar when we made the hillclimb to Schwabenhof’s on the Palmer/Wasilla highway. Shawbenhof is a must visit if you haven’t been there. This little German rathskeller (not really, it’s atop a hill, not in a basement) is a place where Goldilocks would get totally shitfaced and staple her panties to the roof. Everything’s made out of beautiful, locally cut wood. Oversized chairs and tables lend a big sense of community to the small place and the tap line is nothing short of stellar, featuring (duh) primarily German beer. Back then, Stewart Wells was brewing (probably homebrew) under the Raven’s Ridge name and a murky interpretation of a bock was on tap. Memor
Entries (RSS)