This Week in Beer History

Howard forwards January 24th's "This day in history" mailing from the History.com, celebrating the date the first commercially successful canned beer went on sale, in 1935:

In partnership with the American Can Company, the Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company delivered 2,000 cans of Krueger's Finest Beer and Krueger's Cream Ale to faithful Krueger drinkers in Richmond, Virginia. Ninety-one percent of the drinkers approved of the canned beer, driving Krueger to give the green light to further production.

By the late 19th century, cans were instrumental in the mass distribution of foodstuffs, but it wasn't until 1909 that the American Can Company made its first attempt to can beer. This was unsuccessful, and the American Can Company would have to wait for the end of Prohibition in the United States before it tried again. Finally in 1933, after two years of research, American Can developed a can that was pressurized and had a special coating to prevent the fizzy beer from chemically reacting with the tin.

The rest is history, although the newsletter also notes "renewed interest in canning from microbrewers and high-end beer-sellers." Thanks, Oskar Blues!

Brewpubs in Utah

The New York Times has an interesting story up on brewpubs in Utah. Despite strict alcohol laws, a beer scene is now flourishing, having first taken root in trendy ski areas. Judging from the names, the brewers seem to relish their iconoclasm:

The server at the table where a friend and I were sitting brought a flight of Wasatch creations, including Polygamy Porter, which has sultry, malted, espresso notes, and a smooth and slightly spicy Evolution Amber Ale.

Sounds like I'd have better luck finding good beer in Utah than I do here in Jakarta.

Review: Panther Fine Extra Stout

Panther Fine Extra Stout from PT Bali Hai Brewery Indonesia
Rating: B

Finally, a quality Indonesian beer!

Appearance: A very dark brown, opaque, with a two finger head. Mediocre retention, but leaves some lacing as compensation.

Smell: Roast coffee, nutty with a bit of caramel. A very very refreshing change, considering what I've been drinking here lately.

Taste: Roast, caramel. A bit too cola-like at the finish, but not bad. Moderately bitter.

Mouthfeel & Drinkability: Medium body, appropriately carbonated. By far the best Indonesian beer I have had so far. Salvation in Jakarta! I suspect my rating here is skewed by the dearth of good beer recently, but I'm okay with that.

Stuck in a Rut

Just how tired am I of Bintang? Well, I've started drinking Diet Coke for the first time in years.

Review: Anker Bir

Anker Bir from Delta Djakarta
Rating: D+

Knocked back a couple of these to unwind after a late night of work followed by a client presentation.

Appearance: Pale straw color, two finger white head that fades quickly. Minor lacing.

Smell: Light aroma, but distinguished only by corn and metal (despite coming out of a bottle - impressive!).

Taste: Mineral water that's had grain steeped in it and some bitter medicine added. Not very good by usual standards, but to be honest it's tasting pretty good right now.

Mouthfeel & Drinkability: Light mouthfeel, lingering aftertaste. Low drinkability, but not too many options to choose from in Jakarta.

Review: Brooklyn East India Pale Ale

Brooklyn East India Pale Ale from Brooklyn Brewery
Rating: B-

Consumed on my last night in Shanghai before heading to Jakarta. This is one of the beers imported into Shanghai by American Craft Beer Partners.

Honey color, fairly clear with a two finger head. Mild aroma, obviously more in the English style than the American. Smells of grain, biscuit, and earthy hops. Taste runs much along the same lines. Slightly unexpected acidity, hope the bottle had not been sitting too long. Mouthfeel is light to medium in body, with appropriate carbonation. I have yet to be blown away by anything from Brooklyn. I was mildly disappointed by this one.

Reporting from Jakarta...

Apologies for the lack of posting lately. Work has been extremely busy, and after just a week in Hong Kong and three weeks in Shanghai, at least I now know that I'll be in Jakarta for the next few months. Not much in the way of a beer scene here, unfortunately, but I will do what I can!

Review: Yebisu Black Beer

Yebisu Black Beer from Sapporo Breweries, Ltd.
Rating: B-

Purchased at a Shanghai supermarket. I was impressed with Yebisu's "The Hop" and thought I would give this "black beer" a shot.

Appearance: Pleasant dark leather in color, clear with red tints. One finger khaki head with modest retention.

Smell: Aroma is less roast, and more vegetable. Faint hints of coffee.

Taste: Flavor is better than the aroma, reminiscent of a schwarzbier. Caramel, roast, and coffee but lager-clean.

Mouthfeel & Drinkability: Medium body, mild carbonation. On the whole, not nearly as good a beer as The Hop. Moderately drinkable.

Seasons Greetings

Merry Christmas from Shanghai!

Review: McSorley's Ale

McSorley's Ale from Unknown Brewery in Hong Kong
Rating: C+

Obviously contract brewed, but by whom? Should add that this is definitely not the same as the McSorley's Ale listed on BeerAdvocate, even though it appears there may be some business relationship between the locations in New York and Hong Kong.

Appearance: Red-tinted gold color, very clear. Some lace.

Smell: Light aroma, but including more roast than you would think judging from the appearance.

Taste & Mouthfeel: Flavor more reminiscent of a mild than anything else. Slightly incongruous continental hops finish and aftertaste, but grain and light roast dominate the palate. Fairly light body and carbonation.

Drinkability: Roast character keeps this 3.9% abv brew from being too light. Moderately drinkable. Anyone know who makes this?

Celebrity Homebrewer Revealed!

How's that for a sensationalist headline? Apparently, Friends actress Aisha Tyler has a hobby - brewing beer with her husband, Jeff. The couple has been brewing for more than a decade:

"We actually brewed all the beer for our wedding, which was really cool. It was like a peach-honey beer. It was a very girlie beer - I had to fight for that one. He was like, 'Let's make something that's made with coffee and dirt!' We put a little label on it with our wedding day and everything. It was fun."

Thanks to Admiral for the link. Incidentally, the site's automatic image selection for the story produced some bizarre results for me. "Friends" as a keyword is a little vague, I suppose.

The Big Move

Apologies for the light posting lately, I've been packing in preparation for the big move.

Tomorrow morning, I'll be flying to Hong Kong, and then on to Shanghai on the 20th. Once I find a place to live and get settled in Shanghai, posting should be a little more regular again, although with more of a focus on reviews of Chinese beers, the brewing industry in China, and the beer scene in Shanghai. Cheers and 干杯!

Experimenting With Miracle Fruit

Yesterday, I experimented with miracle fruit, an African berry which masks your tastebuds' ability to perceive bitterness and sourness. I had read about the berry in a New York Times article earlier this year, and ordered my berries (in tablet form) from ThinkGeek.

I discovered that it is better to let it slowly dissolve on your tongue, rather than sucking or chewing on the tablet, and it is probably best to take two at a time. Once your tastebuds have been thoroughly befuddled, it's time to try tasting random things around the kitchen and see how different (if at all) they taste.

The best results (unsurprisingly) come from foods which are quite bitter or sour to begin with. Grapefruit tastes great, orange juice tastes like orange creamsicle and red wine tastes like super-sweet grape juice. Tomato sauce tasted very strange, and for some reason homemade vanilla and cinnamon mead tasted just horrible (it's usually very nice, really).

Of course, I also sampled a beer - Key West Sunset Ale. The hops nearly disappear, and the way the malt sweetness came out reminded me of a Double IPA, which may sound strange, considering it was impossible to taste bitterness. I would have liked to have tried more varieties of beer, but I have been slowly emptying my refrigerator in preparation for the big move tomorrow and had quite limited options.

It was an interesting and memorable experience, although next time I may spring for fresh berries rather than tablets.

UPDATE: For your viewing pleasure, a video from the "flavor tripping" party visited by The New York Times:

Beer Drought Ends in Sudan

Twenty-five years of drought in Southern Sudan is about to end. After a quarter of a century of brewing being banned by sharia-following Khartoum, the semi-autonomous Christian southern region is about to get its own lager:

...the international brewing group SABMiller says it will launch a new lager in Juba in the south of the country in February.

"We will not only be consuming but producing alcohol. It's a serious political message of one country, two systems," South Sudan's Agriculture Minister Samson Kwaje told Reuters news agency.

The new Sudanese beer should in large part replace expensive lagers imported from Uganda, and compete with traditional sorghum beer (which I tried once in South Africa and will not be seeking out any time soon, to put it gently). Thanks to "Leedy" for emailing me the story.

Review: Samuel Adams Cherry Wheat

Samuel Adams Cherry Wheat from Boston Beer Company
Rating: C+

Despite its ubiquity, this is the first time I've tried this beer. Mostly, this is because we always gave a friend of mine grief for ordering it while the rest of us were drinking Double IPAs. Luckily, I'm drinking this in the privacy of my own home, with no one (but you, the reader) the wiser.

Appearance: Golden amber in color, with a big white head. Lots of small particles floating around. Some lacing.

Smell: Aroma is overwhelmingly of maraschino cherry. Nothing else has a chance. Not encouraging.

Taste: Much better than the aroma, anyway. Cherry in a big way, but more black cherry on the palate than maraschino, thankfully. Crisp wheat finish. Avoids being overly sweet, despite the overwhelming fruitiness.

Mouthfeel: Light-medium body, appropriate carbonation.

Drinkability: As far as fruit beers go, this is pretty drinkable. Not my favorite style, nor my favorite fruit. Finishing the glass says something. This exceeded my expectations (granted, they were low).

Beer Photo of the Day

The double take-inducing Fidel Murphy's pub in Grand Cayman:

(photo from Instapundit)

What to Drink on Repeal Day

Rob Kasper asks what to drink today, in honor of the repeal of Prohibition. My suggestion? If it was available in my area, I would be drinking Great Lakes Eliot Ness, a superb Vienna lager.

Unfortunately, since it isn't available in South Florida, I'll have to scramble for a substitute.

Happy Repeal Day!

Today is Repeal Day, the 75th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition. As you lift your glass tonight, give thanks for your right to do so.

To mark the occasion, historian Maureen Ogle has written two columns. One, in The Philadelphia Inquirer, focuses on how repeal was achieved. The other, in U.S. News & World Report, points out that the battle for individual liberty remains far from won:

[W]hen repeal came in December 1933, lawmakers celebrated with an orgy of regulations designed less to generate revenue than to maximize the barriers between Americans and alcohol. States, counties, and municipalities burdened manufacturers and retailers with complicated licensing requirements. Lawmakers separated manufacturers from the public by inserting distributors between the two. A welter of laws restricted the hours and days that people could buy drink.

Those restrictions persist to this day perhaps most invidiously in the form of the three tier distribution system, which surely must be the best way to explain rent seeking behavior to college students in way that is personally relevant. Far from protecting the consumer, the system raises prices, erects entry barriers for new brewers seeking markets, and perpetuates itself through the sale of political influence (financed by those rents).

Prohibition profoundly changed the nation's attitude toward alcohol, and its effects and echoes have not yet dissipated:

Per capita alcohol consumption did not reach pre-Prohibition levels until the 1970s and then only because the sheer number of baby boomers temporarily elevated it. In the 1980s, the national appetite for drink drifted downward again, prodded in part by a new generation of dry agencies and activists, including Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the federally funded National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Why not further the fight for freedom on Repeal Day? Support the Pop the Cap or Free the Hops organization in the state nearest you, sign a petition to allow competition in alcohol sales, or contact your state representative. The battle against Prohibition was eventually won, but the war is far from over.

BA and DFH Collaborate to Name Beer

The Alstrom Brothers™ and Dogfish Head are undertaking a collaborative effort to name a new DFH beer, set to debut at the Extreme Beer Fest next February:

...the Alström Brothers are scheduled to brew a limited release beer on December 9 with Sam Calagione and Lead Brewer Bryan Selders at the original Dogfish Head brewpub on Rehoboth Beach in Delaware. The beer's creation and progress will be tracked and discussed online, named by BeerAdvocate.com members via a competition, served exclusively at the Extreme Beer Fest, and discussed during an education seminar.

This follows up on their earlier collaboration with Harpoon. The beer, typical to DFH's extreme style, will include maple syrup, chestnuts, green peppercorns and Korean corn tea. The first two seem like a natural pairing, though I'm less sure how the latter flavors will work out. I had given thought to using Korean barley tea, which is delicious, in brewing, but I have to admit I've never tried corn tea.

The brothers are now accepting name suggestions, which will later be voted on. The BA member who thought of the winning name will receive free fest tickets, two nights at the DFH "Brewmaster's Suite," and assorted other booty. I, for one, am putting on my thinking cap.

Review: Samuel Adams Boston Ale

Samuel Adams Boston Ale from Boston Beer Company (Samuel Adams)
Rating: B+

Appearance: A pleasing amber/honey color, with a two finger head. Decent retention, sheets of lacing.

Smell: Very clean aroma, with some grain and sweet malts coming through. Continental hops in the background.

Taste: Very balanced and smooth. Grainy malts and a solid bitter backbone. Reminds me a bit of cross between an altbier and an English pale ale.

Mouthfeel: Light-medium body, appropriately carbonated.

Drinkability: This is an underrated beer. Sessionable at 5% abv, tasty, and well-balanced.