Leinie's Big Eddy Imperial IPA

Reading about Leinenkugel's newest beer, Big Eddy Imperial IPA, gives me mixed feelings. First, I'm excited, because Lenie has yet to tap into the "hoppy" beers, preferring to make drinkable, session-type beers. This seems to mark a new venture for them, and it's fantastic to see such a long-standing brewery take a chance with something so different. It's called a "high-octane ale" and this description doesn't disappoint:

"Big Eddy Imperial IPA is one hundred percent malt based with special hops added at every stage of brewing. Each batch is treated to a highly refined filtering process, resulting in a brilliant beer with a breathtaking tawny red, coppery glow. Its assured bitterness is punctuated by an 8.9 percent alcohol content, while the clean lingering finish manages to not overpower. It's expensive to brew, but it's worth it."

If that isn't good enough for you, here's the one provided by Roman's Pub's website (one of the locations carrying it): "Bright golden orange color, big citrus hop nose, immediate hop bitter upfront that leads to a nice malt balance and finishes long and dry, made with Warrior, Cascade, Simcoe and Amarillo hops backed by Munich Caramel and Pale Ale malts."

A Leinie brew at 8.9% abv and bitter? This sounds awesome. Almost all of Leinie's other beers top out at 4.9%, with the Oktoberfest at 5.1% and the Big Butt at 5.8%. Unfortunately, they don't list the IBUs to compare the bitterness to.

The only reason why I'm not thrilled about this right now is because it's "being test-marketed on tap only in some select bars in the Milwaukee area." Hopefully people embrace this new beer and it soon finds itself in my direction and my stomach.

For information on where to drink it, go here

Leinenkugel's 140th Celebration

On Saturday, June 16 from 9am to 4pm, Leinenkugel's will be celebrating their 140th year anniversary. There are plenty of events scheduled throughout the day: brewery tours, scavenger hunts, music, dance contests, cooking contests, brats, giveaways, etc.

Being from Wisconsin, I'm a fairly loyal Leine fan. I love the Red, Sunset Wheat, Oktoberfest, and I've got a few of their newest, the Summer Shandy, in my fridge. It has potential to be a great time, but I don't think I'm going to make it. Apparently, they've been doing an annual celebration since 2003; so, there's always next year.

Go here for more information

CynicAle Availability Update

Fresh from the forums at BeerAdvocate, SurlyMan (Omar) says:

"CynicAle Cans now available at: Zipps, Cellars Roseville & Eagan, Surdyks, Robbinsdale Muni, Dennis Brothers, Sharrets, Big Top - St. Paul, 1st Grand, Thomas Liquors, Lowry Hill, Hennepin Lake, Liquor Barrel - Golden Vallely, South Lyndale Liquors, Richfield Muni, France 44, Blue Max. More to come tomorrow."

So, by the time you read this, pretty much anywhere that sells Surly.

The team here at TMDB drove out to Papa's Pizza and Pasta last week and tried some of the newest ale. Fantastic stuff. More detailed impressions will be forthcoming once I manage to buy a 4-pack.

Rogue Virtual Tour

Seeing as Rogue Brewery is in Oregon and I'm in Minnesota, I highly doubt that I'll get out there to go on a tour any time soon. Fortunately, someone at Rogue had the good sense to shoot a couple of videos and post them on YouTube. Now, I'm not the biggest fan of Rogue, but it's always interesting to see how beer is made, and it's nice to see people who enjoy making beer as much as I enjoy drinking it.



Click here for more Rogue videos

Happy Memorial Day

Beer Business: Czech Republic

Czech Business Weekly has an interesting interview with Jan Šuráň, one of the owners of a microbrewery, Privo Praha, located in Prague. I don't know the brewery, obviously, but I find the subject of microbreweries in the Czech Republic very fascinating. For a long time, the Czech Republic has been seen as the "Beer Nation," boasting the largest beer consumption per capita in the world. Having this reputation, I was surprised to find out how narrow the Czech beer market really is:

The Czech Republic is very conservative in innovations and in the market. Of the beer produced here, 95 percent is light lager. We’re lucky that the Czech lager is appreciated in the world. As for Czech lager, we bring innovations to the world but we practically don’t accept anything [new]. Some Czechs know [Irish dark beer] Guinness, and Kelt and Velvet were popular in the beginning when Staropramen began producing them, but their popularity dropped and now they have a stable position. People try a new beer but then quickly go back to a favorite brand. Maybe it will be different with the new generation if we teach them how to experiment.

95% light lager? I had always thought the Czech beer selection at the liquor store was a little lacking in variety, but I had no idea it was 95% light lager. It's good to know that someone is taking a chance with this market, however. As Privo Praha has a set of eight constantly produced beers, "light, dark, wheat, banana, wild-cherry, coffee, nettle and Šamp." Šamp, apparently, is a "beer sparkling wine." Sounds fascinating, but will it catch on? Šuráň predicts that in the next 10 years, the microbreweries will outnumber the commercial breweries 60 to 48.

I imagine that people starting up microbreweries, especially in a place so inundated with large, apparently lager-centric, commercial breweries, imagine themselves to be artists, rebels in a stale market. Or something like that. For those entering the microbrewery market, he gives them this advice:

Early microbrewery entrepreneurs focused on how to produce beer, but they should have focused on how to generate a return on their investment. They must have a clear strategy of how to sell their beer. It’s important to make quality beer, but if there are 10 pubs selling [mass-produced] Pilsner-type beer near them, they have to come up with something original. A quality restaurant with quality food and a good marketing plan are crucial. They should also be in contact with travel agencies to secure customers.

Proving, once again, that it's not always about what's in the drink, but how you promote it. And, yes, hook up with travel agencies so that if I ever go over to the Czech Republic, I know where to get a great, unique beer.

Also worth reading is his take on American beer and American microbreweries:

The United States is becoming a beer nation, with 90 percent of the population drinking whatever beer, usually ice-cold, from a can. But with the huge consolidation of the market that began there 30 years ago, people started to brew their own beer at home. They knew from their European descendants that beer should taste different than [popular U.S. brands] Bud Light, Coors or Miller, which are all the same yellow water with only a bit of alcohol.

The market accepted microbreweries as something unique and with the escalating number of microbreweries they now account for some 8 percent of the market share. It even reached an extreme stage where some beers have such a distinctive taste they’re almost undrinkable, as is the case with some superstrong beers.

I think Avery's Samael applies to that last sentence.

Brewer Banks on Experimentation

Curly Tale Ale

I don't like baseball much, but when I heard of Flat Earth's newest offering, the 15th anniversary special ale for the Saint Paul Saints, I was willing to shell out the $4 for a game, grab a hot dog or two, a beer or five, and watch the game. For $4, they give you a nice-sized half-liter of this coppery, amber colored beer. It's hard to judge the appearance in a plastic cup, but I thought it looked quite delicious, and the server did a decent job of pouring, leaving a finger of white, foamy head.

Typical for the style of English Bitter, the Curly Tale settles on a mild 3.2% abv. And, also a staple of the style, what it lacks in alcohol, it makes up for in taste. Coppery and malty up front, with a smooth, clean mild to medium bitterness in the back. Tastes fantastic and quite drinkable.

Now, since the Saints games are the only place to get this, I can only really recommend this drink if you love beer as much as I do, or, I guess, enjoy baseball more than I do. It won't reinvent how you taste beer, or change your life, but you won't find a better beer at the stadium.

Someone needs to hook up Flat Earth Brewery with a bottling gig, fast. While I felt the Element 115 was drinkable, it lacked any lasting flavor worth coming back for. But between the Pale Ale and this newest offering, Jeff Williamson has managed to make beers that I want to drink over and over. Worthy of a six-pack, I think.

Surly CynicAle Available

Fresh from the Surly, cans of their new CynicAle are available exclusively at Papa's Pizza and Pasta. Eventually, the beer will make it out to liquor stores, and will officially launch in bars next Tuesday at Grumpy's. And, it says on the site, "Rumor is that some cask Bitter Brewer might be there too!" If you haven't had the chance to try the one-time release Bitter Brewer, and you like great beer, you best find it before it's all gone. A delicious, drinkable bitter.

The CynicAle will be available from Memorial Day to Labor Day and is described thusly: "Brewed with Belgian malted barley, this copper hued ale is brewed in the Belgian Saison style. A unique Belgian yeast strain creates the spicy flavor and imported hops lend the apricot/peach aroma." It also reports a modest IBU of 38 and an abv of 6.6%.

As saison is easily my favorite style, I can't wait to see how Surly interprets it.

The Science of Head

While not remarkable for the non-geek, two mathematicians (David J. Srolovitz and Robert D. MacPherson) have discovered the equation for how the bubbles in beer change over time. Of course, they weren't spending all their time and money on a solution to understanding beer foam, as this equation applies to metals as well.

Engineers and mathematicians will have a much easier time finding practical applications of this new knowledge when used in conjunction with metal rather than a delicious beverage. As Srolovitz says, "At the end of the day, I don't think it's going to revolutionize beer making. This is mathematics." And while I think that he underestimates the math that goes into beer making (brewers do make specific glassware that effect how the foam forms when their beers are poured), brewers know how their beer is going to react without the need for a formula to describe what is actually happening. They don't need the formula; but at least it's at their disposal. Apparently, "a boundary between two grains or bubbles moves at a velocity proportional to the boundary's curvature."

Unfortunately, math of this sort tends to exist in a vacuum, as this formula doesn't completely solve the beer foam conundrum "because it does not account for effects like gravity, which pulls liquid down the beer bubble walls until the walls are too thin and bubbles pop."

This problem has been solved in the second dimension for a while, but what makes this new discovery so fascinating is that it not only solves it for the third dimension, but for every other dimension after it. As quantum computers take off and our understanding of the multitudinous dimensions of our reality grows stronger, we can only pine for the first mathematically designed beer that relies on our experience of all 10 dimensions or however many there might be. I don't know how that couldn't be fantastic.

In Bubbles and Metal, the Art of Shape-Shifting

The Many Uses of Beer

In Tipp City, Ohio, a convenience store clerk was assaulted with a bottle of beer after the assailant had been told it was too late to purchase alcohol. Apparently, the man in question left the store for a while, came back with a bottle of beer and beat the clerk with it.

I don't understand. He doesn't have beer. He can't buy beer. And yet, when he gets a hold of a bottle of beer, he decides, not to drink it, but to travel back to the store and waste it by hitting someone in the head. But I think a most important question, one which the article doesn't address, is what beer was it? If I had to choose, I would guess a forty of Colt 45. It just seems so appropriate.

Police: Speedway Clerk Assaulted with Beer Bottle

Dennis Brothers Liquors

Having read so much about Dennis Brothers Liquors on the forums of Beer Advocate, I figured it was high time I checked it out for myself. Located in the farmland of Cottage Grove, it's an unlikely place for a liquor store with such a fantastic selection. As soon as I walked in, I was overwhelmed with the voluminous quantity of great, hard-to-find beers. They stock everything from Belgians, locals, and I'm pretty sure the entire line-up of Rogue. As I made my way down the shelves, I came upon a 6-pack of Jolly Pumpkin's Bam Biere and a 750ml of the Bier de Mars. Being a fan of the Oro de Calabaza and La Roja, I'd been trying to find the others for quite some time. This was the first place that I've come across that has them.

The beer is only half of what makes Dennis Brothers so great. My ulterior motive for visiting was to see if they had any glassware for sale. Upon inquiry, I was greeted by John Dennis, one of the owners. He was friendly, knowledgeable, and made intelligent, non-snobby suggestions. For glassware, whereas other places will sell you glasses for $5 or $6, he gives you the bewery's glass if you purchase one of their beers. That, in itself, is a wonderful thing for someone trying to start their collection of glassware. Having told him that I didn't want to spend too much money, he offered me a glass free of charge. And now I have a beautiful Rodenbach glass.

The service just kept on coming as he took my beer from me so I could browse hands free. After ringing me up, he gave me a card and let me know that if I ever wanted him to reserve something to just give him a call. Then, to top it off, he carried my purchases to my car. Even if it's a bit of a drive and I can find a lot of what they have at more local stores, the service is worth the trip alone.

Map it!

Summit Scandia and ESB

I'm not always a huge fan of Summit. I feel like they make decent casual beers, but nothing to write home about. But that wasn't true for 2006's limited release beers: Scandia Ale and Extra Special Bitter.

The Scandia Ale was a fantastic example of a unique but drinkable beer, with a winning combination of coriander and orange. It reminded me of a less-intense, more-findable, cheaper version of Traquair's Jacobite Ale.

The ESB was a great late night refresher during the hot summer. I like my beers hoppy, but when the heat settles in, I like them refreshing as well. Sitting at 50 IBUs, you'll get a nice kick of hops, but not an overwhelming one.

Apparently, others really liked these beers as well, because Summit has announced that both the Scandia and the ESB have been promoted to it's official line-up. They've begun selling them in bottles and should be available on tap at various locations.