ADVENTURES IN BEERLAND
| Vince Capano is an award winning member of the North American Guild of Beer Writers. His column Adventures in Beerland is now a regular feature of BeerNexus.com |
It's Too Old
| It’s the holiday season and that means gift giving to relatives, friends, and of course your favorite beer writer. Okay, I get it. Make it your second favorite beer writer. Now just what do all these people want? Let’s say it all together… BEER. It’s one thing to know what to get but it’s another to shop wisely for it. And so in an effort to move up on that gifting list here are a few tips from me to you on how to buy beer and what to do with it as you wait for the big day of Santa’s arrival. Each of these flawless insights will be revealing and unfortunately humorless. (Will the clown that said that’s just like all my columns please stop reading now). Where was I? Ah, yes, make no mistake – uncovering insights is serious business. Each of these gems have been born out of eureka moments, intellectual prowess, a touch of alchemy, and intensive periosd of investigative sleuthing. Well, I’d like to think that but the truth is I have been dopey long enough to have committed the same mistakes so many times that a bit of learning was inevitable no matter how hard I tried to the contrary. 1. When buying beer repeat constantly to yourself, no date, no buy, no date, no buy. It also works as no buy, no date and maybe even as no no buy date. The lure of a fancy can from a brewery that is new to the store’s shelf is a powerful thing. Don’t be taken in by it. Normally I would tell you how I fell for that exact ruse yet again just last week but to maintain a minimum level of credibility I won’t. Instead here is an insight from the last time I was shopping for beer. As I entered the huge liquor store I noticed an employee wheeling out a large cart filled with beer to be placed on the shelf. This beer had to be fresh I thought. Remembering my extensive top secret CIA surveillance training (not that CIA, the other one -Culinary Institute of America) I began following him around the store. I cleverly paused to look at bottles of $400 Macallan 18 YR Sherry Oak Scotch and $300 bottles of Elmer T. Lee Single Barrel Bourbon. He never noticed me despite my overdue for a washing BeerNexus t-shirt and well worn Yankee cap not quite fitting in with the other shoppers in those sections. He kept moving and finally stopped just past the display of items I was a bit more familiar with - $5.99 quart bottles of Mr. Boston’s Wild Cherry (pretend) Brandy, bottles of $3.99 Arbor Mist (almost) Wine, and a pyramid of special holiday packs consisting of 99 cans of PBR. It may have been PBR but 99 cans is nonetheless breathtaking. It didn’t take long for him to place several cases of cans on the shelves. He quickly moved on and I went to the beer. I didn’t care about brewery or style. I just wanted something fresh. Really fresh and this had to be it. It would mean I had finally beaten the system. I picked up a can (it was an IPA) and turned it upside down to revel in its freshness date. It was 9 months old beer making it the freshest stale beer I had ever seen. Moral of the story – check dates and never, never trust the retailer. 2. Get your ABV (alcohol by volume) money’s worth. That does not mean you should buy a beer for its ABV alone. I’m shocked, shocked that anyone do that. After all, just because I personally don’t know anyone dumb enough to pay a stiff fee for non-alcoholic beer, soft cider, or pure prehistoric glacier water from the Sea of No Return doesn’t mean they don’t exist. The reality is that it’s hard to make a full flavored beer that is memorable under 7 % ABV. All the devotees of session beer have succumbed to false advertising and fake news. I’m sorry to report that you can drink all the Michelob Ultra or Miller Amazing Super Lite Yellow Water and you still won’t be able to run a marathon, dance non-stop at posh clubs with near anorexic people, or swim the Black Lagoon without being caught by the creture. Since that’s the case why not enjoy yourself? ABV is important since it’s part of the reason for the existence of beer. Beer and its alcohol has a glorious history reaching back a thousands of years, give or take a few weeks. Of course we’re talking about responsible, moderate consumption (the editors would have put that in if I didn’t) of alcohol because in the right amounts it can have a salutary effect on your physical and mental well being. Frank Sinatra put it another way, “I feel sorry for people that don't drink because when they wake up in the morning, that is the best they're going to feel all day.” It’s easy to compute the ABV value per ounce. Take the cost of a bottle and divide it by its size. That’s cost per ounce. Then take the ABV and either multiple or divide it by that answer. Somehow either process will work. Actually I’m not sure about any of this but the higher the number the better. Maybe. 3. Buy from a good independent brewery unless they make bad beer or charge more than $20 a four pack. Of course if you’re trying to impress someone with a holiday gift it’s okay to buy that four (or even a 2 pack) for $30 or perhaps an ultra premium fool’s gold bottle for $100. Yes, there are more of those than you might think. That’s beer and fools. If you do anything like that it is important you “forget” to remove the receipt when you give the gift. Credit needs to be given when due. Look for the Independent seal on the label. As global beer makers purchase formerly independent craft brewers, knowing which breweries are independent is confusing. The certified independent craft seal let’s you know you’re purchasing craft beer from people who are the essence of a movement that gave us the real deal. Going with the seal gives you the opportunity to finally stick it to The Man — those soulless and tasteless swill-peddlers — just by drinking good beer. You’ll be putting a on double woo-hoo whammy on those riding the Death Star trying to destroy craft. That is not to be confused with Deth’s Tar beer from Revolution Brewing, one of the great ones. How did George Lucas miss that tie in? Who wouldn’t want to drink a Deth’s Tar on the Death Star? That’s aside all the good guys of course. If you’re not sure about style of beer to give someone make your purchase based on the brewery. Yes, some craft breweries are simply better than others. “Craft” doesn’t insure quality. There isn’t a home brewer who hasn’t thought he could open a craft brewery and many have done just that. Now just think of just how many great homemade beers you’ve had that were truly outstanding. Just a few. In fact the last time someone gave me a homebrew they said was outstanding, after one sip, I was out standing in the kitchen pouring it down the drain. So when in doubt stick with a brewery you’ve had good beer from in the past and stay away from those that are hit/miss or outright lousy. Of course that begs the question what breweries do I recommend? Usually those that send me free samples. 4. Don’t worry if you bought that gift beer when it was cold , wrapped it with cheesy, though appropriately cheery, holiday paper, and had to let it sit under your Christmas tree for a while. It will not explode. It will not turn to undrinkable sludge. It won’t go bad or as in the sophisticated parlance of the professional beer judge, it won’t go skunky. It is an old pervasive myth that cold beer, when warmed to room temperature will soon begin to smell like Pepe Le Pew with a touch of hops. Skunking is a reaction caused by light interacting with a chemical compound found in hops and has nothing to do with temperature. However do not store the beer next to your crackling holiday fireplace unless it’s the one shown on TV each Christmas. Heat acts to speed up the process of oxidation which causes some beers to develop a stale, cardboard-like flavor, accompanied by a note of sherry. If you like sherry and are on a tight budget you might try it but (this is just a wild guess) you’d probably be better off buying a chap bottle of the stuff. 5. It’s best to gift a beer the recipient has never tasted or heard of. The more obscure the brewery the better. Not only does it add adventure and mystery to your gift you won’t be blamed if the beer is alarmingly putrid. After all how could you know such a rare bottle touted by the store manager in hushed tones was a loser? On the other hand, if it’s good you will be acclaimed a beer hunting genius. Actually, most beer drinkers tend to like a new beer the first time they try it or at the very least withhold judgment. It might take quite a while to decide on things like Närke Cask-Conditioned Stormaktsporter from Icland, Lord Thorndike Browne from England, Ægir from Sweden, or Ye Olde Colt 45 English 800 from the USA. Obscure styles work too. Try a Dampfbier, an old German style brewed with expressive Weizen yeast but with all barley malt instead of wheat. It’s basically a Hefeweizen without the wheat or just a Nichtweizen. Weizen up and give it a try (sorry for that one, I won’t let that happen again). Another good choice is a Sahti. It’s a Finnish farmhouse ale brewed with juniper instead of hops. Hey, I never said this stuff was good, just obscure. Then there’s the never popular but rarely seen Gratzer, a Polish style ale brewed with oak-smoked wheat malt. Anyone lucky enough to get a case of these Grodziskies for Christmas was surely on Santa’s list though it’s debatable if it was the good or bad one. In the unlikely event you can’t find any of those on your supermarket shelves then it’s okay to go with Koyt-kuit-kuyt beer. It has three aliases probably because it is a three-grain beer that until the late 19th century was the most commonly consumed beer in the Netherlands. It was usually drunk out of wooden shoes. If you’re giving this to a special friend be sure to include them. Just get the right size. So there you have it 5 important considerations when giving beer as a gift. There is however one vital caveat – they only apply if your friend likes beer. What should you do if he doesn’t? Find a new friend. I’m available. ============================ click to contact vince |
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November 2020
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