BetterBeerBlog

I have lamented in the past about the dearth of quality beers here in San Jose. For the most part, it’s true. Outside of Gordon Biersch in downtown and Rock Bottom in the Pruneyard, there’s not much going on. Most places have the same seven or so taps that everyone one else has. If only distributors would take notice; people enjoy trying something new and different. Especially if it’s quality stuff. Not surprisingly, I heard about the place I’m writing about from a distributor.

I realize this is a beer blog and what I’m about to write next some may consider blasphemy but until I can be proven wrong I’m going out on a limb and saying that Wine Affairs in San Jose has the best beer selection that I’ve come across in San Jose. Yes, Wine Affairs; it’s a wine bar. I can’t believe I’m writing it myself but it’s true. I could find someplace in the future that’s better but for now, it’s Wine Affairs

As you may recall, a week ago I went to a beer and food tasting event held at Spencers. It was there that I was able to talk to Brook, the sales representative from Wine Warehouse who supplied the beers for the evening. She mentioned a few places here in San Jose that she has accounts with so the wife and I decided to stop on by after work yesterday to check out.

Wine Affairs is located in the Alameda neighborhood of San Jose right next door to the Bollywood theater. It has a very unassuming facade but once you get in, the place opens up. There bar is to the right and there are racks and racks of wine for sale. With comfortable seating everywhere, a Jazz band was setting up to play for the evening. A relatively new, a Jazz band is scheduled to play every Thursday night. We took a seat at the bar and right off the bat we noticed what I will dub the Winerator. I have a kegerator at my place for distributing my homebrews. Wine bars tend to have a Winerator. It looks like a wine vending machine but instead of the bottles falling out at the bottom, they have spouts with push-in handles you press your wine glass against to get your wine. It’s pretty trick being all stainless steel, temperature and nitrogen powered. I should clarify: the fuel source isn’t nitrogen but they do use nitrogen to push the wine out of the wine bottles and into the dispensers. Nitrogen is used because it’s fairly inert, helps prevent the oxidation of wine and doesn’t affect the flavor of wine. Okay enough about wine, this is a beer blog after all.

Not sure if you’ll be able to read everything on the menu but I took a photo of it. There are some beers that I don’t find particularly appealing, Shiner Bock for instance (and the non-alcoholic beer). Wine Affairs carries couple of Belgian beers on bottle, some German beers, and some good American craft beers. Because Oktoberfest is right around the corner, Wine Affairs has three oktoberfest-style beers as their specials. Here’s a link to their beer menu but it looks like it’s their summer menu.

The first beer I tried was Blanche de Chambly (5% ABV) by Unibroue. As I’ve written before, Unibroue is a Canadian brewery that specializes in Belgian-style ales. Outside of Belgium, they’re probably one of the best breweries brewing Belgian ales. Unfortunately in my exuberance, I didn’t take a photo so my written description will have to suffice. Bottle-conditioned, Blanche de Chambly pours out a cloudy, pale straw color with a white head, appropriate for the style. The aroma is on the phenolic side, peppery, spicy, with slight citrus and herbal quality along with very slight apple and pear notes. As with most beers the flavor mirrors the aromas. The phenolic flavors hit me first as I taste a little bit of white pepper and cloves. The citrus is present but slight while the other fruits, which were subtle at best in the aroma, are all but non-existent in the flavor. The wheat characteristics are noticeable but not overly so and it’s not as sweet to my palette as other witbiers are. The beer is medium/medium-low in body but medium-hi/high in carbonation. It’s light, spritzy and effervescent. Overall, a decent example of a witbier with a lot of the Belgian yeast characteristics you’d expect from the style.

The second beer I had was the St. Bernadus Abt 12. Like the Blanche de Chambly, this too, is a bottle-conditioned beer. This beer is a dark brown, almost mahogany in color. It is cloudy with a lasting beige/tan head. Right off the bat, I get dark chocolate notes in the aroma. This is a yummy smelling beer. As I smell the beer more, the malt sweetness starts to come through as well as some of the characteristic dark fruit aromas (figs, plums, dates) that Belgian Dark Strong Ales are known for. There’s also a slight fusel aroma from the alcohol that progressively gets more noticeable as the beer warms up. My initial sip reinforces what my nose already knew. Dark chocolate flavors, dark fruit flavors, sweet malt and some melanoidic flavors (probably due to the candied beet sugar) are all apparent. There’s a slight bitterness that isn’t very hoppy but apparent as well that I might think comes from the alcohol. At 10% ABV, St. Bernardus Abt 12 is a big beer. The alcohol notes that were only slight in the aroma have warmed and opened up in the mouthfeel. While not solventy or harsh, I get a pleasant warming in my throat and a little bit of a bite on the palette.

The final beer we tried was the Erdinger Weissbier Dunkle (dark). Trying something different, I let my wife Sammy pic the beer and write the review. This is her review as transcribed from out little notepad:

Sweet, toasty, brown foam head, low hop, light hop aroma, 5.5% ABV. Tart, clean, medium-high carbonated finish. No bitterness. Citrus hefe characteristics with dark malt flavors. Hefeweizen blended with märzen. Toasted bread, med-low body.

For the most part, Sammy does a good job recognizing flavors and talking about them but not so much in the writing department. Just in case you haven’t noticed, she hasn’t done any posts in the entire time the site’s been up. She’ll be the first to say writing isn’t her strong suit. Sammy does hit all the high points. Obviously, it’s a dark beer with a tan head. The aromas are subtle; low to no hop aroma, slight sweet malt aromas and slight fruit esters as well. It’s very clean. Dunkleweizen beers are a favorite of mine since they’re similar to a traditional hefeweizen but with the Munich malt flavors you’d expect from a Märzen. Over all, a decent dunkleweizen. Our bartender Paula said she gets a tinny flavor from the beer and it could be a sign of age. Like the other beers, this is an import and who knows what kind of condition it was shipped and stored in before it finally arrived at Wine Affairs.

In addition to the beers, Sammy ordered a flight of residual sugar wines. I’m not going to review those here though but I will briefly touch upon the food we ordered (you can view the menu here). We had the cold cut plate which consisted of Pâté de Campagne with black pepper, prosciutto, Rosette de Lyon (salami-style sausage from France), Saucission a L’AIL (Garlic Sausage) and Secchi salami. Served with garlic and oil soaked olives and slices of toasted bread, it was a typical cold cut plate. One of the salamis smelled like feet though. I’m guessing it was the French one.

We also ordered the sautéed mushrooms pizza “Asian” style which had crimini and shiitake mushrooms over marscapone smeared flatbread. This was a tiny, tiny pizza. At first I thought it was a thin-crust but it ended up being this light and flaky (messy) flatbread. This was my least favorite dish but Sammy enjoyed how different the flatbread changed the characteristics of the dish. It was a decent dish and a different take on pizza but not my thing. So, we’re split.

While not on the menu you can download, we ordered some spicy chicken wings with tarragon. Normally I’d be weary of anything with tarragon as it has a black licorice flavor I’m not into but I gave it a go anyway. These ended up being pretty good. Most of the time whenever we order chicken wings, they arrive at the table just slathered in sauce. It’s a mess to eat. These wings looked like they were season with a dry rub instead of a sauce. They were full of flavor and had enough head to let you know they had some kick without making you beg for mercy later on. I’m not a spicy food kind of guy, like, I won’t add it to my food. But, if it’s already in there, I don’t mind it so much. The tarragon was noticeable but not overwhelming, well balanced.

In addition to having a pretty good beer list, the staff at Wine Affairs were, for the most part, very attentive. More importantly, they were knowledgeable. Paula had been working at Wine Affairs since they opened a little less than a year ago in November. She is self-admittedly a wine person but has tried many of the beers on the menu if not all of them. Juan is learning to be/is a sommelier. In addition to being a sommelier, Juan is also a homebrewer who specialized in organic beers. While there are organic beers on the market, I’m guessing Juan brews his own as the selection is still fairly limited. We didn’t get a chance to talk to Diane, the owner, but we saw her helping out once the crowed settled in. According to Brian, a sales rep who has Wine Affairs as an account, Diane is a sommelier with an excellent palette. Brian sat next to us and we had a pretty good conversation as the evening wore on comparing/contrasting beer and wine. I learned a little bit more about wine from him while I’d like to think I showed him a thing or two about beers. He’s actually a very cool guy and was great company.

So there you have it. A wine joint with the best selection of beers in San Jose. If I didn’t see it I wouldn’t have believed it. Here are a few more photos of the place. It was a last minute decision to visit Wine Affairs so we didn’t bring our digital camera. All the crappy photos shot with my cell phone camera. If anyone would like to recommend a place to go that they think has pretty good beers here in San Jose/south bay, let me know and I’ll add it to my list. I’ve received some suggestions in the past and we’re just getting to them now. Keep the suggestions coming!

It took some time but my kegerator has arrived and is now up and running! I purchase the Haier HBF05EBSS-2 Dual Faucet Kegerator with Stainless Steel Door from the Beverage Factory and so far, so good but as always, it didn’t start off well. Chalk it up as a learning experience.

I researched a few places online for the best deals, mainly through Google. I knew I was going to inherit a chest freezer from my mother-in-law and I originally planned to convert that but then I went out and bought a three Cornelius (corney) kegs and found I could only fit one keg in the freezer. I really wanted a two keg system so I started to look at my many options. In the end, my wife just said, “Just buy the stainless steel, two tap system from that website. It’s not like you’re actually going to build one anyway!” So with a credit card in one hand and my shattered ego in the other, I made the phone call.

Just days later, I notice that FedEx has left a little note saying they came by and attempted to deliver the parts. To keep a long story short, my wife ended up going to FedEx to claim the refrigerator portion while the tap lines, tower and CO2 equipment were delivered separately. The day I put most of the kegerator together, I realized Beverage Factory forgot to ship the CO2 regulator. I called them the next day and they shipped the part to me within a couple of days later.

After purchasing the CO2 from a local provider (Carbonic Service), I finally set up my system. No one told me I needed to agitate the keg once hooked up. This explained why I had low pressure and flat beer for a few days. Needless to say, the system works well now. In my earnestness, I brewed two new batches of beer in consecutive days. I’ll write about these and my other homebrews soon enough. There’s a lot to say.

My experience with Beverage Factory was satisfactory, if that means anything. I was neither impressed nor disappointed by their service. For every action that bummed me out, there was something to offset. For example, they forgot to ship me the CO2 regulator but shipped me a new one without question the next day when I got a hold of them. Below is a small pro/con list.

Pros:

• Timely service – They shipped out my kegerator within a couple of days. Had anyone been home, I would’ve been up and going much sooner.
• Competitive prices – They were cheaper than the More Beer! people and some retail options as well (BevMo and Fry’s Electronics)
• Customer Services- When I explained to Customer Service that they forgot to ship me the CO2 regulator, they shipped one to me without question.

Cons:

• Understaffed – When I called to place an order or to follow up on the missing CO2 regulator, I had to wait quite a while for a live body to answer the phone. When ordering, I think I was on hold for maybe 10 minutes. That’s a bit too long to wait, in my opinion.
• Delivery options – Because of the cost/size/content of the shipment, Beverage Factory requires a signature upon delivery. Great, I like that. I appreciate that. I just wish they could’ve had a “Pick-up from FedEx” option. I have a truck and it’s no big deal for me to pick things up.

At the end of the day, would I recommend Beverage Factory? Yes, I would. Take my “endorsement” with a grain of salt as my experiences will differ from yours. As soon as my next two beers are done, I’m having a “Grand Opening” party… assuming of course the beers I made taste any good, ha!