BetterBeerBlog

By the time Sammy and I pulled into our parking space, it is 15 minutes past the time Mayfield Brewing Company opened their doors. A select few of us had been invited to Mayfield to be one of the very first people to sample their 2008 vintage of beers from their Iconoclast series. It may seem odd that I’m using the word vintage to describe a line up of beers but that’s exactly what they are.

Unlike the vast majority of breweries, the Iconoclast series of beers from Mayfield Brewing Company (MBC) are all barrel aged beers. In a time when the sight of stainless steel fermentors and mashtuns are the industry standard, barrel aging a beer is a return to traditional brewing techniques. It’s easy to forget that brewing, the vast majority of alcohol production really, got its humble start within the confines of a barrel. Nowadays, it is not uncommon to find that a brewery is barrel aging a beer or two but the three Iconoclasts beers that make up the entire portfolio of MBC’s products are all barrel aged, in wine barrels no less. So yes, vintage is an appropriate term.

I have long lamented the wine industry’s lack of consistency in their product. I have always disliked the fact that certain vintages of wine were worth much more than others. Yes, yes, I am aware that certain years will yield a much better crop of grapes than another but it seems insulting that I should be charged a premium for good weather. Consistency is one of the reasons I am a beer guy. I feel confident enough to walk into any reputable bottle shop and pick up a sixer of Sierra Nevada tomorrow and know that it will pretty much taste just like the sixer I’ll pick up 5 months from now, which will taste just like the sixer I will taste 8 months from then. Consistency is comforting.

You can throw consistency out the window when it comes to barrel aging a beer. As if brewing a beer wasn’t complicated enough with having to juggle at least four key ingredients, a fifth is introduced when you add the flavor you get from wood; in this case, the barrel. I could even argue that it’s an ingredient and a half when the brewer chooses to use a second use barrel, or a barrel that once used to house something else such as a distilled spirit or wine. To barrel age a beer and come out with something palatable is a success unto itself. To barrel age a beer and have the resulting beers taste phenomenal, well that’s a testament to the brewer’s skill.

I first tried the 2007 vintage of MBC beers at the Boonville Beerfest earlier this year. Thanks to fellow beer blogger Mario from Brewed for Thought for the initial introduction. I can tell you this, the new line up of 2008 Iconoclast beers have addressed some of the issues the 2007 vintage had.

Iconoclast Aurora, Chardonnay barrels, American Oak

The Aurora is brewed as an altbier. The issue I had with the 2007 Aurora was that I felt it was a little lackluster. It wasn’t a bad beer, it just wasn’t memorable. The 2008 Aurora is a much better iteration of this beer with more noticeable wood and fruit character, Chardonnay flavors, floral notes, a hint of tartness and acidity, with a moderate sweet finish. What was once my least favorite of the trio is now a much more interesting beer.

Iconoclast Eclat, Zinfandel/Cabernet, American Oak

Brewed as an IPA, the 2007 Eclat was an interesting beer with it’s noticeable oaky flavor and malt sweetness but once I knew it was an IPA, my impression of the beer was lowered because a key flavor was missing: hops! The 2008 vintage has remedied this issue for me. The beer has a malty, caramel-ish nose with subtle fruit notes and noticeable hop aroma. The flavor has a similar profile with caramel flavors hitting my tastebuds up front, a slight tartness in the middle and a moderate hop bitterness in the finish. If you’re a hop head, you’re not going to be confusing this beer with any of the aggressive West Coast hop bombs we’re used to drinking. Hops change drastically when barrel aged and it’s good to see a noticeable hop character in this vintage.

Iconoclast Nocturna, Zinfandel/Port, French Oak

As the name would imply, this is a stout dark as night. I was a big fan of the 2007 Nocturna as the beer had an unexpected tartness in the finish that I found to be both interesting and tasty. The 2008 version we tried, uncarbonated, had all the flavors you would expect from a stout: deep roasted, nearly burnt malt character, enough hop flavor and bitterness to balance, with coffee and chocolate notes thrown in for good measure. Someone in the tasting room that day even noticed hints of tobacco flavors. This was a sweet beer. In talking with the brewer and others in the tasting room, all agreed that it was a good tasting beer but would end up being much better once it was carbonated with the carbonation balancing out the sweetness. Gone was the tartness I found so appealing with the last batch but MBC brewer John Alderete assured me that additional aging will bring those flavors back in.

Vintage. I will freely admit that I am still torn by the concept. Still, here I am eschewing its virtues in the craft beer world. If I step out of my own ego and ignorance for a moment, I’d be able to recognize the many things the wine industry is doing right that craft breweries can apply to their own businesses. While MBC is not the first company to be barrel aging their beers, they are the only brewery I know of that is doing so with all of their beers.

Be warned that MBC beers are not cheap. If you are nearby, I fully recommend visiting the brewery itself and picking up a bottle directly from them. It’ll set you back $30 per but it’s a savings from buying it retail where select Whole Foods sell it for $43 a bottle.

Short post this time. Wine Affairs in downtown San Jose is having a Back to School Beerfest. I’ve copied and pasted their email below, it’s complete with all the details:

Wine Affairs Back to School Beerfest
20+ Beers, up to 50% Off
Tue, 8/25/09, 6-9pm

Abita, TurboDog, LA
Buffalo Belgian Stout, Belgium (750ml)
Coney Island, Albino Python, NY (22 oz)
Cucapa Obscura, Mexico
Dogfish Head Aprihop IPA, Delaware
Dogfish Head Midas Touch, Delaware
Erdinger Hefe-Weizen, Germany
Green Flash Hop Red, San Diego CA
Hacker Pschorr Hefe-Weizen, Germany
He’Brew Origin Pomegranate Ale, NY (22 oz)
Hofbrau Munchen Original Lager, Germany
Hofbrau Dunkel-Weizen, Germany
Humboldt Hemp Ale, Arcata CA
Leinenkugl Sunset Wheat, WI
McAuslan Stout, Montreal, Canada
Paulaner Premium Pils, Germany
Rogue Shakespeare Stout, OR (22oz)
St Bernardus Witbier, Belgium
Stone Brewing IPA, San Diego, CA
Stone Brewing Ruination Imperial IPA, San Diego
Triple Karmeleit, Belgium (330ml)
Weihenstephaner Hefe-Weizen, Germany
Weihenstephaner Original Lager, Germany
and More

Stop by and say, “Hi” and I’ll have a surprise for you.

Interesting times at the Summer Tasting Fundraiser for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure event at Rock Bottom last night. Turnout for the event was much better than anticipated, especially with the apparent lack of promotion. As with the Microbreweries Battling Breast Cancer Festival a few weeks back, ladies dressed in pink were out to show their support for the cause. I’m sure it helped that this was not a beer only fundraiser. In fact, there were dozens of wineries represented by proxy through their wines on the tables. Slightly disappointing was the breweries in attendance were also represented by proxy through their tap handles and by the people serving them.

The event had a really informal atmosphere to it. Rock Bottom’s patio served as the space the fundraiser used and it was far from fenced off to the rest of the world. The street in front of the patio was closed off for the live band that played. The kitchen of Rock Bottom provided appetizers the entire evening and we got to munch on salmon bruschetta, mini-sandwiches, ahi tuna bruschetta, fresh oysters amongst other things. Desserts were being served as I tried the baklava and carrot cake. Bucca di Beppo, also located in the Pruneyard, contributed a meatball appetizer. Good stuff.

Even though I lamented the fact that many of the brewers weren’t there, a few were. I’ve been meaning to talk to the brewing staff of Rock Bottom for a while and it was good to have caught Rock Bottom assistant brewery Larry there. Sammy and I first saw Larry at the Beer & Cheese Event held at Firehouse Brewery during SF Beer Week and again at Boonville. Look for a “Spotlight On:” featuring Rock Bottom in the coming weeks.

The other brewer in attendance was Jim of Sonoma Chicken Coop. After introducing myself to Jim and handing him my business card, things got a little… tense. Jim recognized me as the “guy who talked some shit”. I wrote some disparaging things about Sonoma Chicken Coop sometime ago. Much of what was written was based upon second-hand stories that I never bothered to verify. Unsurprisingly, what was written upset a few key people. After talking to Jim and clarifying a lot of things, I have to say that I was in the wrong.

I will address and clarify that Jim stepped up and took the reigns of the Chicken Coop brewery after the former brewer was dismissed. The plan had always been for Jim to step up and take over once Mike decided to move on to different things. Unfortunately things went down the way they did and that’s that. There was nothing shady about the whole thing, there was no undercutting of anyone’s salary. If there was anything shady about the whole thing, it was that original post of mine. It was written quickly and in ignorance.

It was good to have spoken to Jim and get the other side of things. Between Jim and myself, I’d like to think that we are squared off, back to zero. Even though Jim said I didn’t have to write about this experience as he was satisfied with getting the record straight between the two of us, I felt I owed it to not only him but the people who read this blog. I had already planned on returning to the Coop and checking out if there would be a noticeable difference between brewers but it’s a moot point, as I’ve learned. If you’ve enjoyed any of the Chicken Coop’s beers since January, you are enjoying Jim’s handiwork. Ever since he started working in January, he’s been brewing the beers. I am as guilty of this as anyone but the assistant brewers often don’t get the love and respect from the general public as they deserve. Often times they’re brewing as much, if not more, as the head brewer.

In fact, if you’re a hophead, I would recommend heading over to the Coop and trying their IPA. It is a tongue numbingly bitter beer. Have a designated driver on hand as well as the IPA weighs in at over 9.0% ABV. Expect a new “Spotlight On” featuring the Chicken Coop in the near future as well.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been using Monday nights as an opportunity to do my weekly beer reviews. It has been pretty good so far. The only down side is that reviewing multiple beers can get expensive. I wish more breweries would bottle more of their beers in 22oz bombers as well as 6-packs but it is what it is. I plan on doing my weekly Beer in Review this week but at a later day this week.

Instead, I invited a few of my friends over and we had a very, very nice seafood dinner. The whole event was impromptu and as a result, I didn’t have the time to properly pair any beer with the food. Despite the lack of proper pairings, we did manage to throw back a couple of beers as well as a botle of pulque and mead. The dinner was a potluck and most of our guests prepared everything themselves.

I found a recipe for Ahi Poke that is pretty simple. I modified it somewhat based upon my own tastes but it worked out fine. Here’s the recipe:

• 2 cups of tuna (we went to the Asian market by our house and they sell them in packages in the seafood area. They’re not frozen but very, very cold), diced/dubed
• 1 red onion, diced
• 2 stalks (for lack of a better term) of green onion
• 3/4 cup soy sauce

• 3 tablespoons of sesame oil
• Sesame seeds for garnish
• 1 Thai pepper, chopped
• Salt
• Pepper

Cube the tuna and then place into a bowl. Dice the red onion, green onion, Thai pepper and mix with the tuna. Pour in the soy sauce, sesame oil and mix further. Salt and pepper to taste. I took some seaweed (conveniently placed right next to the tuna at the Asian market) and made a bed for the poke at the bottom of a bowl. I then plated the poke on top and added a few sesame seeds until I thought it looked right.

This dish was brought by our good friends Jason and Crystal. I requested this dish because, frankly, it’s damned good. Simply put, this is a steamed clam and mussel dish. He hasn’t divulged the broth he seamed the mussels in so the following ingredient list is purely speculation:

• Clams
• Mussels
• Kale
• Garlic
• White wine
• Bacon
• Blue cheese

As I said, this is purely speculation but it’s a mighty fine dish that keeps getting better as he refines his recipe.

This dish I kinda cheated on. The fish we picked up from the Asian market. What’s cool is that not only does the Asian market scale and clean your fish, they can fry it up for you as well. This practice just isn’t specific to this market, many Asian markets will do this. I did prepare the topping though and here’s the ingredients:

• 2 tomatoes, diced
• 1 yellow onion, diced
• 1 head of garlic, minced

Heat up your fry pan over medium-high heat. Add in about 2 tablespoons vegetable oil (we ran out of olive oil). Add onions and garlic and sauté until the onions are just starting to become transparent. Add the tomatoes and sweat until they are soft but not mushy. Add salt and pepper to taste. Place over the fish or you can serve this on the side.

My good friend Joey brought this dish. It’s a seafood linguini made with, just speculating, salmon, clams mussels and garnished with parsley and lemon. This was a rich and cheesy pasta dish with good flavor to it. Had this for lunch the next day, actually.

Pulque, Full Circle Brewing, 8.0% ABV

Pulque was the main reason I decided to have friends over. I picked up a bottle of it from Full Circle Brewing Company located in Fresno. I did a “Spotlight On” sometime ago that you can view here. The pulque pours out a gold in color, slightly hazy with noticeable yeast suspended in solution. They don’t filter over at Full Circle which adds to the “homebrewer” feel of the place. Because the pulque is more of an agave wine, it is still. The pulque has a very aromatic, agave aroma, think tequila but without the alcohol smell. The flavor is more of the same tequila flavor, just mellow and with a honey sweetness. There’s also none of the alcohol burning or flavor associated with the distilled spirit. Pulque is medium in body with slight alcohol warmth and still.

At 8% ABV, it’s a bit of a weak wine but even then, no one chugged the pulque and we all sipped it. In fact, I think people were very surprised by the pulque’s flavor so they babysat what they had to make it last longer. One couple even remarked on how refreshing the pulque was. I served it chilled.

17, Unibroue, 10% ABV

Unibroue is a brewery located in Quebec, Canada. I remember their bottles in BevMo as I think they have some of the most interesting labels. As with many breweries, Unibroue brews up a special beer on their anniversary. In the past, they’ve brewed up a Strong Pale Ale for their anniversary but this year, they’ve changed up and brewed a Belgian Dark Strong Ale. I only have a picture of the bottle and not the beer as we drank all of it because I remember to take a picture.

17 pours out a dark brown, hazy, with a lasting, off-white head. The aroma is a tantalizing mixture of sweet, yet complex malt aromas comprised of some Munich malt aroma, raisiny, dates and figs. No noticeable hop aroma. The flavor is very much like the aroma. The malt flavor is sweet, complex and ripe with dark fruit flavors such as raisins, dates and figs. I can also make out dark candi sugar flavors and slight alcohol notes. Hop flavor and bitterness was low. The body was medium-high with good carbonation with slight alcohol warming.

People enjoyed this beer as well and noted how smooth and sweet it was. When done correctly, the Belgian Dark Strong Ales are considered “dangerous” because they are able to hide their alcohol well.

To wrap up dinner, we munched on ice cream sandwiches. You had your choice of neopolitan or rocky road. By the time everyone had left it was well past midnight and nearing 1am. Everyone had a great time and we were entertained by some interesting conversation. As good as the food and drinks were, it’s really the people that make an event or get together memorable. We’re hoping to host/attend more of these types of dinner parties.

I really enjoy this time of year. I like this time of the year because of the impending holiday season. Some people find being around family to be really stressful but I, generally, like my families (immediate and in-laws). It’s a chance to gather everyone around and just be ourselves.

What I also like about this time of the year are the winter seasonal beers that breweries are releasing. Some beers are only available during the holidays, marking their rarity. Most of the time, winter beers tend to be maltier and higher in alcohol. Today I had the opportunity to visit Wine Affairs in San Jose where I was able to try two winter beers.

Deschutes, Jubelale 2008, 6.7% ABV

You’ll have to forgive my photos. Stopping by Wine Affairs happened to be a last minute, chance decision. As a result, the images I have were taken by camera phone. Anyone know of a compact, yet quality point and shoot digital camera for under $300?

Jubelale pours a dark brown with caramel highlights and a beige head. Sweet malt aromas, like toasty bread crusts, are supported by hints of chocolate, toffee, nuts, dark, dried fruit esters and a subtle spice character. The flavor of Jubelale is of sweet malt not unlike slightly toasted bread crusts with chocolate undertones and slightly nutty finish. Even though they told me on the label this beer was brewed with “bountiful hops”, I found the hop bitterness to be medium/medium-high in character that stays past the finish but is not harsh. The mouthfeel is creamy and smooth with a medium level of carbonation combined with medium/medium-high body. I get a very slight astringency in the finish but nothing harsh.

Overall, I found Deschutes’ Jubelale to be a decent winter warmer with good flavor and balance but somewhat lacking in depth. I let the beer warm up some and I was able to pick up some of the tertiary flavors but I had to work for them a little bit. Still, I would recommend this beer.

Scaldis, Noël, 12% ABV

This beer kept giving me the “sexy eye” from behind the glass refrigerator door like so many of the “working girls” in Amsterdam. Decked out in shiny, blue and red foil with a starry night and a picturesque, sleepy winter town, I heeded it’s call. I would’ve never known about this beer had I not seen it behind the glass; it wasn’t printed on the menu yet. I took a chance and ordered it.

Scaldis Noël is a seasonal winter beer from Brasserie Dubuisson Freres sprl… whatever that means. The descripion on the bottle calls this an amber ale but it’s more Belgian Dark Strong ale. This beer pours a mostly clear, caramel/amber color with a beige head. Sweet, toasted bread-like malt characteristics make up some of the aroma. I can smell what I think is Munich malt. These primary aromas are supported by slight floral and alcohol notes. The flavor of this beer is rich and complex. I am tasting bready malt flavors, dried dark fruit notes like dates, a hint of red apple, candi sugar and toffee. This beer has almost no hop flavor and very low hop bitterness. Noël is full-bodied with medium carbonation that lends to a smooth mouthfeel. Despite being a 12% ABV beer, the alcohol is subtle on the palette.

I am really loving this beer, which is good considering I paid a whopping $12 for an 8 ounce bottle. Yes, I am aware that I probably could’ve picked this up cheaper at a good bottle shop but this is a pretty difficult beer to come by. Imagine how disappointed I would’ve been if this beer sucked but I found this to be a spectacular winter beer. Diane, the owner of Wine Affairs, asked me what I thought about this beer as she bought it sight unseen and untasted. In fact, I think I may have been the very first person to have bought a bottle.

I still think that Wine Affairs is still the best spot in San Jose to grab a good, craft ale. I wish they’d put in some taps but I realize that the sign says, “Wine Affairs” and not “Beer Affairs”. Sammy and I managed to talk to Diane for quite a bit. In addition to being a sommelier, she has an excellent palette and picks some really great beers to carry on bottle. She has a great knowledge of wines, as one would suspect, but she’s also very knowledgeable about beers. I’m not going to say she’s all in-depth with brewing process and things of that nature but by her very trade, she has sharp palette and knows flavors.

Stop by Wine Affairs where the atmosphere is casual, the people friendly and the beers are good.

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!

Having the opportunity to go out and visit different places has been a welcome byproduct of authoring a beer blog. It’s almost a certainty that we end up meeting interesting and different people every place we go. This weekend, Sammy and I drove down to Fresno to visit some good friends of ours. While in town, we were able to swing by one of Fresno’s two breweries, Full Circle Brewing Company.

To label Full Circle as just a brewery would be misleading. In fact, beer was the last thing Full Circle made. Homebrewers Don Anderson and William (Bill) McCory started off brewing mead. In fact, it’s their mead that brought Sammy and I to their brewery to begin with.

Full Circle has a sweet mead, an Orange Blossom mead, and a pomegranate mead. We tried samples of the three and brought home a bottle of each. The sweet mead is traditional, it is sweet and easy drinking.

Their orange blossom mead is probably the ugliest looking beverage in the world. In all seriousness, it looks like drain water, gray-ish brown, opaque and thick. Thank goodness it doesn’t taste like drain water. The smell of orange and honey is definitely apparent but the other aroma that caught me off guard was the smell of walnuts, actually, the coating of a wall nut. When you crack open a the shell of the walnut, there is a thin membrane that separates the nut from the shell. That membrane has a particular taste and aroma that I find in their orange blossom mead. I don’t think it detracts from the mead at all but I think it’s an interesting and unexpected flavor characteristic.

Their pomegranate mead is their best selling mead, and for good reason. The aromas and flavors of pomegranate are readily apparent. I even pick up some chocolate notes and maybe a hint of wood. It is sweet and tart but not unbearably so. The pomegranate flavors seem to dominate a little more than the honey. Depending on what you value more, this could be good or bad thing. At the end of the day, this is a good tasting beverage.

Most meadmakers tend to mix honey with water and then add whatever fruit or spices to the must, or unfermented mead, to flavor. Full Circle takes a slightly different approach. Brewmaster Bill McCory told me that when making their pomegranate mead, they basically blend honey with pomegranate juice. The same process goes for their orange blossom mead. If I remember correctly, Full Circle tries to source their honey from local producers.

In addition to their line of meads, McCory and Anderson also have a red wine they produce that is equal parts Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Zinfandel. The believe this blending and ratio of blending brings out the best in each grape. I can’t speak first hand about that since we didn’t try their wine.

What we did try was a sample of their pulque. Pulque (pull-keh) is pulque, to describe it any differently would be incorrect. Put another way, maguey is to pulque, as wine is to grapes, as honey is to mead, and as malted barley is to beer. It is the main agent of saccharification. However, Full Circle uses Agave to make their pulque instead of traditional maguey. The result is an interesting beverage with the aroma and flavor of tequila without the harshness of the alcohol

Despite the eight paragraphs preceding this one, Full Circle does brew beer, seven different styles to be precise. They brew a brown ale (5.5% ABV), an 1850 London Porter (5.5% ABV), red ale (5.3% ABV), a Russian Imperial stout (11% ABV), Cluster Fuggle Cream Ale (5.6% ABV), an American Wheat Ale (5.2% ABV) and their Badass Barleywine (11% ABV). Of these seven, we sampled their porter, the cream ale and their barleywine. They were out of the brown ale.

I didn’t take any notes so much of what I am writing comes from memory. Described as an “extra stout porter”, the 1850 porter is moderately roasty but not overwhelmingly so. It is medium-full to full in body with a bit of creaminess to it. Unlike other porters, there is no husky graininess, astrigency or bitterness in the flavor making this a smooth drinking porter. I did notice a slight sourness in the finish. While it is not uncommon to have some optional sourness in a dry stout, it is not normal in a porter. Some historical porter recipes were made with brettanomyces which may explain the sourness but I doubt that would be the case in this example. From another historical context predating the definition of the stout style of beers, English brewers would brew a porter of “stout” body and strength. So the “Victorian Age” 1850 Porter would today be defined as a dry stout, which would explain the sourness. Even though this beer was approximately 5.5% ABV, it was still too heavy for the hot Fresno afternoon and something lighter was called for.

Doing a complete 180 degree turn, I ordered their Cluster Fuggle Cream Ale as well. The cream ale is their best selling product and it’s easy to determine why. Fresno gets hot, triple digit hot. Luckily for us, we didn’t suffer through triple digit temperatures but it was still very warm. In a climate like that, you’ll need a cold, easy drinking beer and the Cluster Fuggle fits the bill. By all standards, it is a good example of the style. Neither the malt nor hop aromas dominate but there is a detectable sweetness in the aroma. The beer is straw colored with a lasting, white head. I don’t remember the malt nor hop flavors dominating, more subtle with low hop bitterness. The slight sweetness is apparent but far from cloying. The beer is light on the palette. By this point in the evening, I have a pretty good buzz because of the porter I drank combined with all the pulque and mead samples prior. Feeling warm, I lament nor ordering this beer first and sticking to it.

Lola, our bartender, mentioned in passing that they have a sour mash available for tasting as well. With our interest piqued, we ask Lola for a taste. While this our first time meeting with Lola, it may also be our last as it was her last night at work. With two other jobs, she didn’t seem heart-broken that she was leaving Full Circle but at the same time, when one of the owners is your father-in-law, I’m sure there will always be a light on for her. Lola returns with the sour mash sample. Not a fan of the sour ales, Lola can’t imagine why we would be into the sour ale. It was initially supposed to be a Red Ale but as with many unintentional sour mashes, infection got the better of the beer. The beer is a reddish amber with no head. There is a detectable sourness in the aroma but not as intense as other beers. The malt and hop aromas are low but that is within the style. I sample the sour ale and am disappointed in the lack of intense sour flavors. I think my palette is busted because I only enjoy strong flavors and this is more of a slightly sour ale. The beer attenuated well and was dry. Not too much residual sweetness left and I don’t recall tasting any strong malt or hop flavors. For whatever reason, Bill felt it best to leave the beer as is to see what would happen. Two silver medals laters, the sour ale seems to be doing just fine. From what Lola says, the beer has mellowed out considerably over the years

Sometime during the evening, Bill shows me his brewery set up. I am amazed at how relatively low tech it all is. Their mash tun is basically a wooden box. Built with a removable wooden lid, the mash tun is built onto a pivoted support system that allows Bill to easily empty the grains by tilting the tun onto its side, locking it in place and then scooping out the spent grains. Their boiler is steam powered. Unlike conventional boilers that are heated from below with open flame, their system relies on a built-in coil where steam is pumped in to bring the wort to a boil. Bill explains that this system is more expensive upfront but the long term savings are great and outweigh the initial cost. Having steam heat the wort also assures that the wort will never scorch. In addition, the bottom of the boil kettle will last much longer. Even the heat exchanger to cool the beer is home grown and was made for less than $1000.

For a special treat, Bill walks me to the back of the brewery and pulls out an old beer sculpture made from old kegs. I am awed as I look upon Full Circle’s first brewing set-up. The entire sculpture is built with metal pipes around a central support system. The mash tun on this system is also surrounded in wood and looses only 1° F per hour. Even in the beginning, on what looks like a, home grown homebrew beer sculpture, Bill was getting favorably comparable commercial efficiencies.

Even though they’ve been a commercial brewery for several years, I can’t help but feel as if the homebrewer in Bill never quite left him. One look around the brewery premises only proves this observation. A lot of the equipment Bill uses to brew were either repurposed from other defunct breweries, donated or built by Bill and Don.

None of the Full Circle Brewery products are filtered either. Bill prefers to let the natural aging process clarify the beers. Proudly he tells me, “None of our beers are two weeks old. I don’t filter because if you leave the beers alone, they’ll clarify on their own. I won’t server a beer until it’s good and ready”.

Yet the most damning thing about Bill is that he still uses 5 gallon corney kegs to serve his beer. In an age where 15.5 gallon kegs are industry standard, I see Bill on his way to change out a few empty taps with corny kegs in hand. I am told by Lola that they’ll eventually be switching the bar opposite of where it currently is and will connect all the taps to the bigger tanks directly.

As the night winds down and people begin to file out of Full Circle, Sammy manages to take a picture with George the Giant. George is a towering man. Standing at 7′3″ in height, he is the world’s largest sword swallowing. All during the night as Bill and I spoke, George was performing various “freak show” stunts on stage. Some of his stunts ranged from the previously mentioned sword swallowing, to spitting fire, walking and then jumping on broken glass. The number of kids and adults sipping on the house root beer was a testament to how relaxed and comfortable the atmosphere at Full Circle is.

Full Circle Brewing Company is old skool. They are the homebrewer who turned pro that never forgot his homebrewing roots. Despite their small size, they are not afraid to dream big. With a pizza kitchen to be added soon, Bill has his eyes set to brew sake next. Not many places can lay claim to having such a diverse portfolio of products. If you are ever in Fresno, I recommend visiting Full Circle Brewing Company. It is an experience unto itself.

Got this in my email sometime last week. I’ve just copied and pasted it verbatim and add in my two cents afterwards.

Charles Bamforth is a brewing scientist. One of the best.

He’s been bothered for a while with a nagging question: why do many people consider wine to be more sophisticated than beer? Is it really better? Healthier? Why do most fancy restaurants have massive wine lists and a few token beer selections?

Bamforth picks apart the complex social, cultural, and scientific histories of both beverages. He has quite a few suprising insights about the (often highly scientific) production of both beer and wine. He’s not seeking to take wine down a notch, but to elevate beer to its proper place, right next to wine, demonstrating just how healthy and complex a beverage it really is.

Want to pick his brain a little? Please join him on Thursday, May 8 at Anchor Brewery Bamforth will discuss his new book: GRAPE VS. GRAIN

The event is free and open to the public.

Charles Bamforth, Chair of Brewing Sciences, UC Davis
Anchor Brewery, San Francisco
May 8, 5:30pm

Before I really got into blogging about beer, I was fortunate enough to have seen Charles Bamforth speak at Xerox PARC over in Palo Alto. I found Charles to be an engaging, charismatic man with a dry, English wit (which makes sense since he is from England). His presentation on Grape vs. Grain was extremely informative and makes a strong case, in my opinion, on how beer is responsible for civilization as we know it.

Now that I am able to reflect on things, I can safely say that Charles Bamforth is one of the inspirations for this blog. I can say his lecture lent a strong hand in forming my own philosophies on beer and it’s place in the culinary world.

Whether your a beer aficionado or wine connoisseur, I fully encourage you to attend this lecture. Bamforth is a wealth of information regarding the brewing sciences and I suspect you’ll have a good time as well. Hopefully I’ll be able to make it as I’ve never been to Anchor Steam brewery either.

Having gone to the Hop Rhizome Festival last weekend and a Double IPA Festival some months ago, I would never have guessed that the brewing industry is in the midst of coping through a hop shortage. At the Double IPA festival alone, we sampled 11 hop-tastic beers and at the Hop Rhizome Festival there were about a dozen more on tap. While I consider myself fortunate to have experienced a lot of good, hoppy beers lately, brewers in other parts of the country are not so fortunate.

An article forwarded to me some weeks back served both to illustrate to me the desperation of the situation and as the impetus for this post. In the most basic of terms, there is a hop shortage. Globally, drought and flooding have produced lower than anticipated yields. In addition, some hop producers have chosen to turn their lands over to grow more profitable crops such as corn to be used in the biofuel industry. All in all, the result is less hops to go around.

Hops are one of the four, primary ingredients in beer with malted barley, yeast and water being the others. Hops act as a bittering agent to balance out the sweetness of the barley. Hops also have wonderful aromatic properties, with some varietals being described as floral, piney, and citrus. In addition, hops have mild, antibacterial characteristics which serve as a natural preservative.

Jim Koch of the Boston Beer Company, known best for their Samuel Adams line of beer, has trademarked the phrase, “Hops are to beer what grapes are to wine”. While there is some truth to that, from a technical standpoint, it’s incorrect. Semantics aside, I understand what Jim is trying to say. The different grape varietals each have their own characteristics and qualities that give rise to the many different types of wines. Each grape holds within itself the soul of a wine, the intangibles that separate the mediocre from the magical. In this regard, yes, hops are to beer what grapes are to wine. Malt gives beer body and substance but hops impart soul, personality, and that certain je ne sais quoi that makes a beer memorable, remarkable and in some instances, life changing.

Major production breweries such as Anheuser-Busch (AB) and Molson Coors have huge contracts in place with existing producers to insure supply in a volatile market. If they are feeling the effects of the hop shortage, they’re not showing it in the form of increased prices of their products.

Mid-sized breweries like the Boston Brewing Company have opened up their personal stores to share with fellow brewers via lottery. I continue to be impressed with how the Boston Brewing Company has repeatedly supported the craft beer industry. Their Longshot Contest is a prime example of reaching out to and involving the homebrewing community.

Smaller production breweries, independent craft brewers and your local brew pubs have been hit the hardest. Without the benefit of a huge contract, they are left to scramble as best they can to source their raw materials.

“I have nine beers on tap right now, and maybe five beers aging. I think somewhere in the late spring the last pint would be served,” Sayler estimates. After that, his brewpub would become just another taproom serving beer produced beyond its own walls.

The hop shortage isn’t the only problem. An increase in prices for barley, glass production and transportation have all affected the bottom line. Brewers of all sizes can only do so much before the buck gets passed on to us, the consumer.

So what’s a craft beer lover to do? Really, the only thing we can do is continue to support the craft beer industry. This means continuing to purchase our favorite beers despite their rising costs. At the end of all things, a brewery is still business and if they’re not making money, they can’t continue to brew the beers we love.

“We can only absorb so many inflationary price increases. We’ve seen it in gasoline, milk, all these different foods that are out there. And after a while people are just going to get concerned about what they can pay,” observes Wolaver. “But I think there’s enough loyalty where they’re not going to go back to the bland beers. Once you’ve had a taste of heaven, why would you want to go back, right?”

Got an email this morning from Natalie over at RRBC saying they are sold out of their barrel-aged beers. So if you weren’t able to put in an order via their gift shop, then you’ll have to hunt them down at various bars in Sonoma, Napa, and the Bay Area. Of course you could just drive up to Santa Rosa and drink a pint right from their brew pub.

I managed to put in an order for one 12oz bottle each of their Beautification, Supplication, and Temptation beers. The total cost put me over the $50 mark… for 36oz of beer! Incredible! But if you were to think about it, I’d have to pay that much in gas to drive up there, then drive back and that’s not even counting the cost of the beer once you get there. Even then, that’s a high price to pay for beer.

I like to compare beer to wine often and I would say that beer can out-shine wine in two distinct categories: price and consistency. You can go to your local BevMo or Trader Joe’s and find a world-class, classic example of a beer style for under $10 most of the time, imports included. Likewise, the process of brewing beer yields such a consistent product that your pint of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale will taste the same, year-over-year, day-after-day, keg-after-keg.

Then you get a brewery like RRBC that produces barrel-aged beers priced above the $10 price point. If you’ve tried these beers, then you know why myself and many others have rushed to buy their share of bottles before they sold out. Plainly put, they’re good. Very. Good. These are “destination” beers. These are the type of beers you may want to plan a vacation over. Am I over-reacting a bit? Maybe. All that being said, at what point does a beer cross-over from being a “beverage of the people” to a “consumable of the elite”?

In my opinion, wine is a consumable of the elite. It is a beverage, through years of marketing, that has become to represent sophistication, elitism, and often times, snobbery. Wine has “vintage” to explain away an inconsistent product. I would argue that a highly priced bottle of wine is a result not of increased craftsmanship in production but of snobbery. Despite what winemakers may say, the actual process of producing a bottle of wine is far more simple than to produce beer, distilled spirits, or sake. So, if the process is simpler, why is that product more expensive?

Going back to RRBC’s barrel-aged beers, you have a product that is a hundred times more complicated to make than your average beer. In your average beer, a brewer has to adjust four different ingredients to make a basic beer (malted barley, hops, yeast and water). Each element imparts its own unique characteristic to the final product (which is why there are over 70+ styles of beer). If that wasn’t complicated enough, aging in used wine or bourbon barrels is another level of complexity to be dealt with. In RRBC’s case, the introduction of microbiota other than yeast (brettanomyces, lactobacillus, and pediococcus) adds an exponential level of complexity to the brewing process that the brewer must carefully monitor lest these “outsiders” take over the beer and impart unwanted off-flavors. All that being said, it’s easy to see why RRBC charges so much for these products. Simply put, these products cost more to produce because of their high level of craftmanship. I haven’t even begun to mention the increased prices of brewing materials such as barely and hops!

Yet these beers are still cheaper than a comparably praised wine.

So, if you find yourself at an exceptionally good beer bar that has any of these RRBC beers on tap, please, by all means, order a pint… or two… or three. When settling your tab at the end of the night, don’t be surprised by a higher and usual tab. Take comfort in knowing that I will be extremely jealous of you and that I will not be alone.