Better Beer Blog

This was one of the better Fourth of July weekends that I’ve had in some time. I managed to spend some time at the beach, catch the fireworks show in downtown San Jose, party up with some friends while squeezing in some “I’m going to be really, unproductively lazy right now” time. To wrap up the weekend, Sammy and I decided to drive all the way up to Fairfax to attend the BABBBBQ (Bay Area Bloggers Barbeque), graciously hosted by Rob of Pfiff.

Truthfully, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this BABB meeting. I had no idea how many people were going to be at Rob’s place or who. In the end, it ended up being a more intimate affair with just a handful of people showing up. Surprising to only Sammy and myself, we were the first ones there. Unless we get the times incorrect, Sammy and I are rarely the first ones at anything. Here’s who attended in the order of appearance (I feel like I’m writing up meeting notes, ha!):

• Rob and family (wife Des and daughter Maya)
• Myself and Sammy
• JJ, her sister Allie and Melissa, Allie’s girlfriend
• Jay Brooks and family (wife Sarah, son Porter, and daughter Alice)

Of course what BABB event would be complete without beer? This is, after all, a gathering of beer bloggers. Silly me for not taking any notes but there are just some times when you want to turn the blogger part of you “off” and just enjoy a beer without having to think too hard about it. That being said, here is a list of the beers that were served along with my comments as I remember things:

• Rob’s witbier - I’m a bit jealous of Rob’s witbier as it turned out much, much better than my own. It was everything mine was not: appropriate color for the beer and head, appropriate aroma and flavors as well. The biggest critique I would have of his witbier was the lack of body. Already light in body, the carbonation made the wit even more light. That being said, it was a refreshing beer to start off with after the long drive.
• The Bird - A double IPA brewed by Rob, this one had an 8% ABV that wasn’t noticeable. The Bird had a wonderful amber color with solid malt aromas and a surprisingly subdued hop aroma. As with many beers, the aroma is pretty indicative of the flavor. Malty sweetness is the first thing that hits you when you drink it, followed discreetly by hop flavor and bitterness. This is a style that is supposed to have strong hop flavor supported by a solid malt profile. Rob got the malt part right but the hops were a little on the low side. Having talked to Rob about it briefly, he used a continuous hopping method when he brewed it. Knowing that, The Bird then reminded me of Dogfish Head’s 90 Minute IPA which uses a similar method. I remember that beer having a lower than expected hop bitterness despite it’s 94 IBU rating. I believe that the continuous hopping method will calculate out to high IBU numbers but have a much more mellow hop bitterness which leads to a perception of lower hop bitterness but not necessarily lower hop flavor.
• Russian River’s Damnation - Brought by the Thirsty Hopster herself, Jessica. I wish I could remember more about this beer but I made the mistake of having the JC Flyer IPA that blew my palette out. As a result, I don’t remember much about this beer other than I liked it.
• Iron Springs JC Flyer IPA - Supplied by our host, Rob. Wow, what a hoppy beer. Great American hop aroma, citrus, piney and even floral. Good malt characteristics with an aggressive hop bitterness that lasted well into the finish of the 2nd slice of “palette cleansing” bread I ate.
• My own Altbier - By most accounts, my altbier was well received with the only critique coming from Jay Brooks who said, “That’s one hoppy altbier”. I realized that the malt and hop flavors where a bit big for the style and pushed the envelop a bit bit I liked how it turned out after some weeks of aging.
• Rob’s Barleywine - If I remember this correctly, this was dark in color, maybe darker than appropriate. Having attended the Barleywine festival at Toronado, I can say that the range of colors from all the barleywines at the festival were all over the board. Some were amber in color while some were as dark as stouts. The American Barleywine category has such a wide range, Rob’s would’ve fit in just fine. The aroma was malty sweet with noticeable alcohol. The flavor matched the aroma as well. I only had a little bit of this as it was a warm afternoon and I might be driving later on. As with many of Rob’s beers I tried today, there was a noticeable lack of hop bitterness and this carried on that tradition. Keeping that in mind, I’ll just call it an English Barleywine instead.
• Rob’s Holiday Ale - This was the last beer I had for the day. I only remember a few things about it. The flavor leaned toward the malty side but this beer was more well balanced. Normally holiday ales are spiced in such a way as to evoke the holiday season in which they’re supposed to be consumed in. Other adjuncts such as bitter orange peel or dried fruit maybe be added as well as honey, molasses or brown sugar. I mention this because I never did ask Rob if he spiced his beer or added anything additional. I don’t recall smelling or tasting anything out of the ordinary but I must admit that after a certain time, I stop thinking about beer and focus more on drinking it. This beer certainly fell well within that time frame.

Even though there were only a few of us, some interesting discussions were taking place. Between myself, JJ and Rob, we talked about the February Beer Month idea that was being kicked around a while back on the BABB group page. We all felt that it would be a worthwhile event to participate in and just rehashed some of the ideas from the Philly Beer Week document. Hopefully it will be more of a “bay area” event as opposed to just a “San Francisco” event as the Peninsula, South and East Bay need love too.

We (all of us) then, then talked about what the BABB could be. Jay, the catalyst for starting everything, basically said he put the group together without much thought about it’s purpose or direction. In my opinion, he doesn’t have to know. He doesn’t even have to make a suggestion. As with any other organization, loose-knit or highly structured, it is only as strong as it’s members. Maybe all we will ever do is meet up every once in a while to drink, eat and be merry. And that’s fine, I am all about the “merry”. Or maybe we can all pull our resources together and plan our own week-long beer event. That would be cool too, pretty badass actually. Whatever we end up doing (or not doing), I can say that I am making friends with people I probably otherwise would not have had a chance to meet. That is cool in itself.

JJ and company had to leave early as she needed to drop her sister and Melissa at the airport to catch a flight back to Washington (State). I got to talk to Allie and Melissa a little bit and found them to be cool people. Because of JJ, Allie and Melissa are now just getting into beer. How fortunate then to live in Seattle where they have quite a number of breweries in the city and more opening up. Just in Allie’s neighborhood alone, there is a brewpub within walking distance and as well as a very diverse bottle shop. Sammy and I have always wanted to visit Seattle and now we have a reason other than beer to visit.

As the shadows grew longer and the glasses emptier, all the children started to get tired at once. A more obvious clue to end the get together could not have been made. Jay and his family were next to leave, followed minutes later by myself and Sammy. Before we left, Rob offered up either his barleywine or his holiday ale in exchange for the altbiers we brought. I left the decision to Sammy and she picked the barleywine. It currently sits in my kegerator where it will age for a few months to be enjoyed during the winter months.

It was a great way to end an otherwise great weekend for us. I look forward to the next BABB event and meeting more bloggers.

The Double IPA festival at The Bistro is the kickoff event of Beerapalooza 2008. The Mrs. and I sent out an invitation to our beer loving friends to join us but in the end, we ended going up by ourselves. To be truthful, I was hoping to have my other beer buddies along with me for the festival. As much as I love my wife, hoppy beers are just not her bag of tea and I was afraid that she’d have a lousy time there as I sampled beer after beer. Lucky for me, I couldn’t have been more wrong!

We got a late start to the say and arrived at the Bistro about 3pm. By then, the place was at capacity. There was a crowd of people outside of the place, a crowd of people inside, and a crowd of people at the side where the majority of the beers were being served. Normally at these beer festivals, you pay a fee to participate. For some reason, I was led to believe that the fee for the double IPA festival was $25 with 5 drink tickets along with a commemorative sample glass. The fee ended up being $25 but you got 10 tickets instead of the five I thought you were going to get and the commemorative glass we got was from a previous beer festival as they ran out of the mini-pilsner style glasses. Instead we got mini-snifters which I thought were really cool in their own right.

One of the cool things about this festival was that we were given score sheets to rank the beers ourselves. Not only was this a way to keep track of what beers we liked but they also had information on the beers we were drinking as well. They listed the brewery, the beer, where they’re located, the brewery name, the ABV, IBU and blank spots for us to fill in appearance, aroma, flavor, mouthfeel, overall impression and totals. Since I am taking the BJCP class, I decided to score the beer according to the BJCP model.

Here’s how I scored the beers in alphabetical order (out of a total possible 50 points):

• 21st Amendment - Double Trouble (9.3% ABV, 100+ IBUs): 40
• 21st Amendment - Hop Crisis? (11.8% ABV, 100+ IBUs): 41
• Anderson Valley - 20th Anniversary Imperial IPA (8.7% ABV, 100 IBUs): 42. Sammy found this to be a very drinkable beer.
• Drakes - Denoginizer (9.7% ABV, 100+ IBUs): 43. If I remember correctly, this was a beer with a very pronounced hop flavor. It had a very nice nose and smooth, long lasting bitterness.
• Firestone Walker - Union Jack (8% ABV, 70 IBUs): 42
• Full Sail - Slipknot Imperial IPA(7.8% ABV, 80+ IBUs): 39 This one was probably my least favorite beer of the day but even then, a 39 makes it right there with most of the other beers I drank that day.
• Lagunitas - Hop Stoopid (8.4% ABV, 94 IBUs): 44 Our second favorite beer of the day. This beer has wonderful, floral hop aroma and a very pleasant, smooth hop flavor that was prominent, lasting but not overwhelming.
• Moylans - Hopsickle (9.2% ABV, 120 IBUs): 43 When Sammy first tried this beer, she said it made her head hurt because it was soo bitter. Knowing what to expect this time around, she found the beer to be much more enjoyable. Maybe because we had been drinking bitter beers all day, she wasn’t floored by the 120 IBU rating of this beer.
• Pizza Port - Hop 15 (7.8% ABV, 28 IBUs): 40 I really can’t believe this is beer was listed as having a 28 IBU rating. Looking on their website, I can’t find an exact number. Maybe they’re keeping that exact number under wraps for some reason?
• Russian River - Pliny the Younger (10.61% ABV, 60 IBUs): 47 The wife and I found this beer to have been the best. From what I heard, it ended up being “Best of Show” as well. Double Dog by Flying Dog ended up winning “Best of…”. Awesome nose, just as awesome taste. Really worth picking up if you can find it.
• Schooners Grill - Alpha Avalanche (9.5% ABV, 130 IBUs): 41 Sammy felt that this beer had a creamy body to it. What makes this beer notable for me is that this is the first beer where we had our tasting glass filled to the brim. Whenver I would go and pick up a tasting, I’d come back with my mini-snifter only half filled. Whenever the wife would come back, they’d have her topped off. After this, I had her go and get all the beers. See, being married does have a few perks.
• KC Jones - This is a beer that was recommended to us by Brendon, a fellow hop head we met at the Bistro. He said this was one of the hoppiest beers he had tried that day. Truth be told, we really didn’t like this beer. The aroma wasn’t memorable and the hop flavor was really sharp and long lasting. This beer was also cloudy in appearance, if I remember correctly, because it was cask-conditioned.
  

I learned about this event through the BJCP class. I was expecting more people from the class to have shown up but I only saw three others not including myself. There was Dave (who I mistakenly called Steve), Steve and Gail who also happen to run the website Beer by Bart (where they find good beer within walking distance from BART). We also made friends with a cool dude from El Cerrito named Brandon, Tom, Cherry, Chris and friends from Johnson & Johnson. Hopefully we can run into them at next week’s Barley wine festival at Toronado.

To end the evening, Sammy and I headed over to Buffalo Bills Brewing Company. This place is just a block away from the Bistro and for whatever reason, I had no idea they made their own beer until we got there and I noticed all the brewing equipment. What I also didn’t know was that they are the company responsible for one of the more popular pumpkin beers available. I really wanted to try their Blueberry Winter Warmer but to my disappointment, it was out. So was their Orange Blossom Cream Ale. In the end, I got their Tasmanian Amber Ale. I didn’t particularly enjoy the Tasmanian Amber Ale but to be fair, it really didn’t have a chance. My palette was still reeling from all the double IPAs I just had and anything short of another double IPA would’ve just tasted bland.

Sammy and I found the restaurant to be very clean and family friendly. The service was quick and attentive without being too attentive. We ordered the BBQ Devil Wings and the Buffalo Combo pizza. Despite being baked in a “spicy Tasmanian Devil, garlic chipotle sauce”, the wings had only a slight spicy heat to them. Sammy didn’t particulary enjoy the texture of the wings but I found them “okay”. The Buffalo Combo pizza wasn’t just “okay” as well. The flavors weren’t robust enough but maybe that’s because we’ve been drinking double IPAs all day and our palettes may have been shot. I’d like to give this place another try.

In any case, this was a supremely enjoyable day and we are looking forward the next beer event we go to. Until then, enjoy some pics from the event below.

2008 Bistro Double IPA Festival (click for photo gallery)

February is typically a bad month for beer. It’s a month that is in a brewing limbo, so to speak. While winter is a season for stronger, maltier beers, most breweries have already brewed their winter seasons and have started their spring seasonals. So with the strong winter beers dying out and the spring beers not quite ready, what’s a beer enthusiast to do?

Well, if you’re lucky enough to live in the San Francisco Bay Area, February is Strong Beer Month. A celebration of strong beers between 21st Amendment Brewery and Magnolia Pub and Brewery in San Franciso that showcases 12 different beers, 6 from each venue. If you’re lucky enough to have drank all 12 (they give you the entire month of February to do so, so don’t worry), you’ll have earned yourself a commemorative glass.

Toronado is having their Barley Wine Festival this month as well. This is another hugely popular event and I have been advised to arrive early as the popular beer will sell out quickly. For those of you who don’t know what a Barley Wine is, it’s basically a beer (don’t let the name fool you!). A big beer. It’s high in alcohol (8% - 12%), intense malt flavor with matching hop flavor. Check out the BJCP style guideline for more information.

Also up in San Francisco, the Beer Chef Bruce Paton will be hosting Beer and Chocolate Beer Dinner Event on Friday, February 15, 2008. It is easily one of his most popular dinner events. Unfortunately for us, BetterBeerBlog is having a Beer and Food Pairing Event that night inspired by Chef Paton’s event and can’t make it. We definitely plan on attending one of Chef Paton’s dinners this year though.

This Saturday, February 9, 2008, the Bistro located in Hayward will be holding their 8th Annual Double IPA festival. I was able to make it to last year’s IPA festival and I had a blast. Because the IPA is hugely flavorful and hoppy beer, my palette was pretty much shot after the 4th tasting of the day. I think I had 7-8 tastings at that time. I look forward to having my palette blown away by the 3rd tasting this time around.

The Bay Area Mashers Homebrew Club is currently soliciting entries for their 2008 World Cup of Beer Homebrew Competition. Entries should be received by March 8th. Judging will be on March 22nd and 29th at Trumer Brauerei in Berkeley.

Finally, Celebrator beer magazine is celebrating their 20th year Anniversary with Beerapalooza 2008! Wow. 20 years is an awful long time to be around and it’s definitely worth celebrating. Visit their website to get more information.

As you can see, there’s a lot going on in February in the Bay Area to celebrate beer. I suggest you go out and try something different. You never know what you may end up liking. Just remember to drink responsibly, drink in moderation, and to drink better beer.