A Ph.D. in Beer

Sam Adams Glass

2011-11-21T08:32:00.000-08:00

A few new beers from Boston Beer company sampled out of my Sam Adams perfect pint glass. I don't think this glass is limited to just Boston lager.

"What do you mean you are 'innovative'?"

2011-06-22T12:39:00.000-07:00

Mark Twain once said "replace the word `very' with the word `damn' and reread the sentence, then get rid of the `damn'." This is how I feel about a lot of new beer out there. There is a more beer coming on the market from micro / nano breweries and they all are (it seems) using the term "innovative" to describe themselves. In a moment of orneriness I heckled a brewer via Facebook that was talking up their launch party at a local DC beer bar.

I won't use the name of the brewery since technically they aren't even open yet. They contract brewed their saison at another brewery and "released" it at this bar. It was fine, good, an above average saison but they described it online as "innovative." I replied to their "What is innovative about it?" To which they replied, "It is delicious."

Now I fully and completely acknowledge that beer should be "delicious" and a lot of beer is, but making your beer "delicious" is not being innovative, at least not anymore. There seems to be some confusion about what "innovative" means.

in·no·va·tive/ˈinəˌvātiv/Adjective

1. (of a product, idea, etc.) Featuring new methods; advanced and original.

2. (of a person) Introducing new ideas; original and creative in thinking

So, we should look at definition #1 since we are talking about a product. Making something delicious is not being innovative. It is just doing your job. Stop calling yourselves innovative for using 2000 year old techniques or brewing a style of beer that tastes good but has been brewed for hundreds of years. No need to brag, you made a beer -- you didn't reinvent it.

Tasting - May 21st, 2011. Firestone Walker Vertical

2011-05-23T14:11:00.000-07:00

This weekend I went over to Thorpe429's house for a beer tasting with Amyliz4, mdfb79, bmanning, Lunch, Huhzubendah, ygtbsm94, and Jared. The centerpiece was a Firestone Walker anniversary vertical, 10th - 14th and a bunch of the beers used to make up the vertical (Abacus, Parabola, Black Xanthus, and Walker's Reserve).

After sampling every single variant individually, then in chronological order, then in reverse chronological order, I ranked the beers greatest to least: FW 13, FW 14, FW 12, FW 11, and finally FW 10. The 10th anniversary beer was by far the worst of the bunch. The newer versions were much better. The 12 was still boozy somehow and the 11 was pretty plain. Out of the component beers the Walker's Reserve (I brought this beer) was thin and plain to the point of being kind of gross. The Black Xanthus, again, was good but very heavy with the coffee; this beer does not deserve its reputation of being horrid. The Abacus and Parabola were as good as I remembered them.

Ultimately I thought the younger the blend, the better it was. This could be because they are getting better at picking a winning blend or that these beers just are not holding up very well with time. It was a great experience and I'm glad I got to do it, but now I think I shouldn't hold onto the anniversary beers for any extended period of time.

Other beers (some pictured above) that were at the tasting were some Live Oak growlers (hefeweizen and pilsner), Alpine growlers (Ugly and O'Briens), 512 Double Pecan Porter (bourbon barrel aged), Deschutes Mirror Mirror, Drie Fonteinen Straffe Winter, Bruery Sour in the Rye, Bruery Melange No. 1, Fraoch 20th Anniversary Ale, Cascade Sang Rogue, 1996 Cuvee de Champions, Event Horizon, Three Floyds Behemoth 2008, Flossmoor .357 Imperial Pilsner, Uplands Blackberry Lambic, Uplands Cherry Lambic, Cisco Pechish Woods, Thomas Hardy's Ale 1994, Telegraph Petit Obscura, Cigar City Bohr, Cigar City Dirac, and Lawson's Bourbon Aged Fayston's Imperial Maple Stout.

I have to say, unfortunately, that the disappointment of the night for me was the Mirror Mirror. It was really infected. I have close to zero sympathy for Deschutes with their infection problems. They let loose a year's worth of bad beer and they don't even intentionally make a sour ale (it has been pointed out to me rightly so that Deschutes does make Dissident - still no excuse). This is just poor sanitation and bad quality control. Plenty of other breweries make barrel aged stouts that don't get infected or barrel aged barleywines that don't get infected. TRY HARDER. The winner of the night for me would have to be O'Briens IPA or either of the Bruery sours - and I'm not just saying that because I brought them. I thought that those three beers were really amazing. Alpine's Ugly (the Black IPA or Black ale) was also surprisingly good. A very fun and good night overall. Thanks everyone for the great tasting.

BJCP Certification and Cicerone Exams

2011-05-23T09:36:00.000-07:00

What is the BJCP? The BJCP, beer judge certification program, is a non-profit organziation that's focus is to "promote beer literacy and the appreciation of real beer, and to recognize beer tasting and evaluation skills." At least that is their mission statement. In reality they are a certification organization that tests individuals and gives them a rank based on a combination of participation in beer-related judging events as well as a score you receive on a test. Your career as a beer judge begins with an exam that is half essay question and half beer tasting. You have to identify the style of beer you are tasting or a particular component of a beer you are tasting. The essay questions are designed to test your knowledge of beer making, beer tasting and the BJCP (they have to get themselves in there). There are some odd ethics portions but mostly the questions center around what is and isn't acceptable for a certain beer style to contain. Once you have completed the exam and have received your score, you can start earning points. You get points for judging and for participating in the organization and execution of beer competitions. There are several levels of BJCP judge, from Apprentice (basically failed the exam) to Grand Master (minimum score of 90% on the exam plus a lot of participation points). It would take years (if not a decade) to get to Grand Master; very few have made it.

The BJCP is primarily a homebrew judging organization, many with very little interest or focus on commerical beers. The cicerone program is a sommelier program (of sorts) for beer lovers. The cicerone program is still in its infancy but it offers a lot to servers or owners of establishments to get their employees certified as beer servers. There are only three levels in the cicerone program, Certified Beer Server, Certified Cicerone, and Master Cicerone. Each one has a different level of requirements. I would also like to take this course at some point but am personally more interested in the BJCP certification than the cicerone.

Beer Tasting - Thursday May 12, 2011. A Berleinerweiss or Two

2011-05-14T05:32:00.000-07:00

I try to avoid doing too much beer stuff during the week. I enjoy working late in the lab and have a serious commute home via the Metro system here in DC, so I don't go out to bars or over to people's houses during the week. The one exception to this general rule is the occasional Thursday night I will walk out to a liquor store to find something or pop into a bar to taste an interesting or rare draft or head over to someone's place for a small, short tasting. Tonight is the small / short tasting over at Thorpe429's house with Amyliz4, TurdFergison and dyan. I say short out of necessity. I have to get home tonight and help my wife pack for a trip to Colorado.

To ensure that I won't get drunk, I only brought two beers with me: Berliner Style Weisse, Brettanomyces Lambicus Special Edition from Gasthaus & Gosebrauerei Bayerischer Bahnhof and my homebrewed berleinerweiss with Brettanomyces. Turdfurgison, Thorpe429 and dyan provide several other beers (pictured above - picture credit to Thorpe429) including a side by side by side of the Brouwerij De Molen Hel & Verdoemenis Russian Imperial Stouts: the regular, the Wild Turkey barrel version, and the mistro version. Other beers present at the tasting were Portsmouth Whipper Snapper -- an English (American) Pale Mild Ale, Box of Chocolates, 50/50 Eclipse Elijah Craig Barrel, Cantillon Bruocsella (1900) Grand Cru, Russian River Damnation 23 (batch 46), Rodenbach Vin De Céréale, Jackie O's Rum Barrel Oil Of Aphrodite, Captain Lawrence Rosso batch 3, and Rivertown Brewing Company Lambic (yeah, me neither, never heard of it).

The De Molen side by side was a lot of fun to do. In my opinion the Wild Turkey version was the best out of the three offerings and the base beer was the least flavorful. The mistro had a nice mouthfeel. The surprise of the night (in a good way) was the "lambic"... pretty good for an American ale. The bad surprise was the berleinerweiss from Bahnhof. It was sulfury and hard to drink, very unlike the bottle I had sampled privately several weeks before. Lots of bottle to bottle variation apparently. On the plus side, my berleinerweiss was better so I got a mild ego boost there. The Rodenbach Vin De Céréale obviously was amazing. I had tried it before and it just blew me away -- again. I also thoroughly enjoyed the Whipper Snapper and will not involve myself again in an argument about that beer. A great night all around, thanks everyone. Hope to drink with you soon.

The Anatomy of a Beer Tasting - How to have fun and survive

2011-05-10T13:22:00.000-07:00

I attend and host several beer tastings a year. A few years ago, the concept of meeting up with a bunch of people to stay up all night drinking 2 to 4 ounces of beer at a time was quite foreign. Now it is one of the social interactions I look forward to the most. I have even developed a formula (although this is entirely my opinion) on how a beer tasting should go to prevent people (mostly me) from getting too drunk. This doesn't work all the time -- I've been known to go too far in a tasting -- but these strategies may help.

1. Growlers - While a growler is not a way to prevent yourself from getting drunk, growlers are a good addition to any decent tasting. They serve as a nice introduction. People will show up at slightly different times, people will be meeting each other - sometimes for the first time, there will be some socializing that occurs in the beginning. This is a good time to get a healthy pour of some out-of-market, draft-only beer and wander / chat with the host or the other guests while getting a little adult beverage under your wing. The higher volume (usually 64 ounces) of a growler allows people to pretty much get as much or as little as they want without worrying about offending anyone.

2. Break it up - So you want to do a 7-year Russian Imperial Stout vertical at this tasting? Awesome. Who's bringing the 4.5% pilsner? Drinking high gravity beers can be a lot of fun, but it will also get you drunker faster and cause the night to spin out of control. Other than these concerns, if you don't break up the styles, you can get palate fatigue very quickly. Break up the stouts with sours or really light beers that people can still enjoy. Don't wreck your palate or your liver too early in the night.

3. Glassware matters - I'm a little bit of a glassware guy. I own a sizable collection of it. I find it is a fun, decorative, and relatively cheap hobby to keep up with. But at a tasting, don't drink everything out of a huge tulip glass. Use a smaller volume glass; there are nice 2 - 4 ounce glasses out there -- little tulips, little snifters, little pilsner glasses. It makes sense. A smaller glass gives the illusion of a greater volume and if you want more, refill that 2 ounce snifter; it's just 2 more ounces.

4. Eat after a few hours - Seriously, every time I've been at a tasting and let the food get put off it has ended horribly. You HAVE TO EAT something every few hours. Not a piece of cheese, not a slice of bread, something like a sandwich. Some tastings have a lot of high gravity beer present. That can wear anyone down. Eating serves two purposes. First, it might stop the tasting for a few minutes, allow people to catch their breath, and allow their livers to do some detoxifying, and second, the food will help soak up some of that alcohol, slow its absorption, replenish some nutrients and provide more energy.

5. B-vitamins - This is totally debatable but it is my opinion that taking a vitamin before and / or during a tasting can help prevent or lessen the effects of a hangover in the morning. Sure, it will make your urine bright, fluorescent yellow, but if there is a possibility that it will make you feel better in the morning and it has no side effects, what do you have to lose? Take the vitamin. You might thank me in the morning.

6. Tap out - Don't overdo it. I've overdone it -- a couple of times. Don't forget that the point isn't to get drunk. It's to be social, fun, hang out and try some great beers. If you decide that you are done and lay down to get some sleep, no one should harass or bother you. We are all different with different tolerances. Maybe you can't go 15 hours drinking and drinking and drinking. No shame in that. You don't want to be the guy that threw up in the driveway because he didn't know when to say when.

A Ph.D. in Beer

2011-05-10T08:47:00.000-07:00

A little bit about me: First I really do have a Ph.D. My doctorate is in Microbiology and Cellular biology and I currently work in a government lab as a scientist, researching and doing fundamental biology.

Second, I am an avid beer drinker and homebrewer. I have been homebrewing for about 6 years and love it. Only recently has my hobby become an obsession. I am an active participant in both the beeradvocate and ratebeer communities. I trade beer, cellar beer, go to beer tastings, attend brewery-only beer releases, go to industry parties, email brewers and bar owners, and travel with the exclusive goal of getting to try more beer. I usually don't travel anywhere without first seeing what beer is locally available.

Third, I have somewhat of an environmentalist streak in me. I am interested in low impact (carbon impact) living and as a result I try not to drive, I grow my own vegetables, and I attempt to eat locally. Attempt being the key word. I am not militant about environmentalism. I just think some thoughtful planning and careful consideration can make a big difference in the long run. Waste not, want not. That is all.

Fourth, I am a do-it-yourself type of guy. This kind of feeds into the garden and the homebrewing but I take it a step further. I research coopering and wine making, vinegar fermentation and cheese making. I enjoy the fruits of my labor and hope to be more active and creative in my activities in the coming years.

I have had some trouble keeping my blog going in the past but I hope that I can talk about gardening, composting, brewing, beer events and beer tastings while keeping this blog somehow focused and interesting to everyone else. I'll probably sprinkle in some microbiology as well - not to be too boring, but some people like to hear about the science of fermentation.