Monthly Archives: April 2009

A very kind reminder that craft beer is not mainstream (yet).

So, I attended a charity trivia night for my son’s school last night.  I was excited to see “Beer” as one of the 11 categories, and very happy to see plenty of craft beer at many of the tables.  Given the difficulty of the first several categories, I had hopes that I’d be a real asset to my team in the beer category.  And then the questions started, and I got a major reminder that craft beer makes up 5% of the market.  Here they are:

1) This beer ingredient causes fermentation to occur.

2) August Busch gave the first case of Budweiser produced after repeal to this individual.

3) This beer uses the slogan “The King of Beers.”

4) This import uses a red star as part of its logo.

5) On the TV show Laverne & Shirley, the title characters worked at a brewery – name it.

6) This beer once used the slogan “It’s good for you.”

7) This beer is the national beer of Jamaica.

8 ) This beer uses the slogan “The Champagne of Beers.”

9) This beer was named after a President’s brother.

10) This city hosts the original Oktoberfest celebration.

We missed the Laverne & Shirley question, with someone at our table blurting it out 10 seconds after we’d handed in our answer sheet.  I took solace in my mug of Two-Hearted Ale, nodded knowingly to the table to the left of us that had a broad selection of Schlafly, and the one to the right drinking Single Wide IPA, sure that they had cleaned up in this category as well.  We ended the night in second place, 1.5 points (out of 120) behind the winners, and ahead of both the Schlafy and Boulevard-drinking tables.  It was nice to see beer rise to the level of its own category, but I look forward to the day when the difficulty of the beer questions equals the hatefully hard world geography and showtunes questions we got!

A bit more on Italian Whites

In this week’s post for The Noble Writ over on the Riverfront Times website, I dipped a toe into one of my favorite areas of the wine world right now – white wines from Italy.  I’m personally stunned and fascinated by the sheer diversity of wine in Italy.  According to the Oxford Companion to Wine (2d Ed.) there are some 2000 native grapes in Italy being made into wine.  A lot of folks don’t want to venture beyond what they “know” they like, but I want to taste each and every last one of those 2000!

I have a well-developed love for the underdog grape – Gamay, Romorantin, Grüner Veltliner, Côt – my cellar is full of them.  With the exception of Pinot Noir, even the “popular” varieties that dominate my cellar fall outside the norm – Loire Cabernet Franc, German and Austrian Riesling, Chenin Blanc.  Whether it’s my palate, or just a subconscious obtuseness, I’m not sure.

I’m definitely still in an exploratory phase with Italian whites though.  Italy is the big uncharted wine territory for me.  I’ve made some serious efforts with the Nebbiolo-based wines from Piedmont, and Sangiovese-dominant ones from Tuscany, but other than that it’s been a decidedly fun, but unscientific approach.  I’ll cover some areas I’ve hit harder in future Noble Writ pieces, but I just couldn’t resist sharing the unbridled joy of randomly pulling a $10 bottle made from some grape you’ve never heard of off the shelf, and having it really hit the spot.

Saison Dupont back in St. Louis

Great news that we finally have the Saison Dupont family of beers back in town, as Paul reported on the Wine & Cheese Place blog.  I was in his store at lunchtime today picking up some wine for church and the beers had just arrived.  A quality control test was being administered by the ever-conscientious W&CP and Missouri Beverage staff to a bottle of Saison Dupont (still sporting the old label – h/t to my friend MJR who alerted me to the pending label change) and I was able to get a taste.  It was gorgeously fresh, with its hops in full flight.  Saison DuPont is a fabulously complex beer that I didn’t realize I missed as much as I did. 

The MoBev representative shared the news that he had earlier dropped off a keg of Saison DuPont into the trusted hands of Dylan at 33, so draft Saison DuPont should be available soon.