There are a couple of craft examples available locally that are good (Schlafly Pilsner and Helles, and New Belgium Blue Paddle), but they’re not really in the same league as Budvar, Pilsner Urquell,  and the seasonal Ayinger Oktoberfest and Weihenstephaner Festbier I’ve been enjoying.  That’s not as bad a diss on the domestics as it may seem – we’re talking about being compared to absolute world class beers here.  And, when said top notch lagery goodness is sitting in the cooler beside them and in good shape for at most a buck or two more a six pack, I admit that I choose the imports at a very high rate.

However, two of my favorite domestic lager brewers may be making their offerings available in St. Louis.  Capital Brewery from Madison, Wisconsin is already in the state, having secured a distributor in Kansas City, but hasn’t made it to St. Louis yet.  I’ve been a big fan of theirs for years and, with relatives in Chicago and Wisconsin, I regularly load up and schlep supplies back.  But it is painful knowing that they’re actually in the state, but just not available here.

Now word has come out that Victory Brewing from Downington, Pennsylvania, may put some of their newly-increased capacity to use by bringing their fine line of lagers (and ales . . .) to Missouri as well.  Their outstanding Prima Pils is one of my favorite beers – full stop.  How much do I love Prima?  Well, if you check my list of kegs from the glory days when my kegerator was functional, you’ll notice that I went through a half barrel (that’s 15.5 gallons for those not in the know) of this fine beer.  What doesn’t show from that list is how quickly it disappeared  and how little was consumed by people other than yours truly.  I love this beer.

So, here’s the deal.  WHEN (not going with any “ifs” here) both Capital and Victory show up on the shelves  in St. Louis, I will commit to drinking nothing but domestic craft beer for at least an entire year from that date.  No imported lagers, no Cantillon, Fantôme, or Mikkeller (my other import weaknesses).  Zero.  For at least a year.  Plus, I’ll blog and tweet and write about my experiment throughout the year, giving full credit to the fine folks at Capital and Victory for finally pushing me to full domestic consumption.

So, what say you Capital Brewery and Victory Brewing?  Will you take me up on it?  Any other St. Louis beer lover’s willing to join me?  I’d love to see these two breweries in town, and can’t wait to be drinking their terrific beers.

The cause was my late, lamented kegerator.  While I initially planned to have 2 kegs of homebrew and one of commercial beer, it quickly became 2 of commercial and one of homebrew, and then not soon after, all commercial beer.  Keg beer was such a bargain that stopping brewing didn’t bother me that much.  As a result, I brewed all of about 6 batches during my kegerator’s existence, and two of those were teaching other people to brew, rather than for personal consumption.

But once the kegerator died last December I quickly tired of paying 6 pack prices for 100% of my beer consumption.  I love craft beer, and it’s worth the money without doubt, but, frankly, I don’t have enough money to pay retail for my desired level of beer consumption.  So, in May of this year I decided to resume brewing.

Atypical for myself, I was cautious, opting (for the first time ever) to brew two kits from Northern Brewer (albeit with minor upping of the hops and lowering of ETOH) to see if I could really stick with it – especially since I’d now be bottling (it had been at least a decade), rather than kegging or using Party Pigs.

When these went well and the results were good enough to order some bulk malt from Missouri Malt, I again managed to go conservative and work with only three grains (a sack of American 2 row, 5 lbs. of CaraPils and 15 lbs. of raw wheat) and four hops (Citra, Centennial, Columbus and Magnum), and focus on brewing what forms the bulk of my consumption – hoppy, session strength (4.5% ish) beers.  Historically, I’ve brewed these well, and if I could move the bulk of my beer drinking to homebrew, I’d have cash enough to buy the lagers and sours needed to satiate my other beer cravings.

This has worked better than expected.  Having a limited selection is generating some great creativity, and I’ve almost finished the first sack of base malt and the CaraPils, killed the Citra hops and am down to just a bit of the others.   It’s also very freeing not to have hundreds of pounds of grain lurking in the basement, hoping that I’ll get off my fat ass and put them to use before they go bad.

I now have a sack of floor-malted Maris Otter on the way  , as well as a hops reload (more Citra, and some East Kent Goldings and Styrian Goldings for turning that MO into some classic bitters), and couldn’t be more excited.  The best proof, however, is that the homebrew is disappearing as quickly as it’s ready:

Here is one of the last pints of my summer sipper just before going to fulfill its destiny as a tasty, refreshing, hoppy delight. And here’s to homebrewing at full speed once again. It’s nice to be back, and, more importantly, to be enjoying both the process and the produce.

Malty:  Capital Brewery Supper Club; Tallgrass Buffalo Sweat (hate the name, but it’s quite good); Goose Island Night Stalker

Hoppy: Budvar; Odell St. Lupulin; Southern Tier 2XIPA

Homebrew (wouldn’t normally subject people to these, but they asked): IPA; Kölsch; Batch 3 (a very hoppy, session strength thing with 1/3 unmalted wheat)

Sour: Jolly Pumpkin Bam Biere (about a year in the cellar); New Glarus Belgian Red (about 3 years in the cellar); 2006 New Belgium La Folie

The Aftermath

The idea of the first two flights was to explore differing intensities and expressions of the core flavor and aroma components of beer.  The hop flight, in particular, was designed to showcase the aroma and flavor of hops, rather than their bitterness.  The sour flight was designed simply to show the tasters that these beers existed, and to walk them through the intensity level (the ’06 La Folie is incredibly sour at this point – more than young Cantillon to my palate).  It was great to see people really get the idea of the tasting.  As a companion, I prepared a sheet of other beers similar to those tasted so if a taster liked, say Night Stalker, they’d have a handy of list of other options available in the local market to try.

Not surprisingly, Supper Club was a big hit with everyone.  It’s just such a terrific example of what classic “American beer” can be.  Many people couldn’t get past the name of Buffalo Sweat (heads-up Tallgrass!), despite it being a really lovely rich, malty session stout. The Night Stalker definitely impressed, but folks questioned the ability to finish a bottle, even when shared with someone else.

People had a bit more difficulty with the hoppy flight, where flavors stepped a bit more out of the norm.  Surprising to me, the most universally popular was the 2XIPA which, is a very nice Double IPA, but still packs a much more intense hop load than the others in the flight (it was bottled only a week prior to the tasting).  People appreciated its excellent malt/hop balance (relatively speaking), and guzzled it with gusto.  Lots dug the St. Lupulin too, a beer for which I have great admiration, having put my money where my mouth is and purchased over two cases of it this Summer.  I was not expecting the Budvar to be the most polarizing, but it was.  This was relatively fresh, and well cared for (The Wine & Cheese Place keeps it cold in a cooler with no lights on), and the combination of substantial spicy/grassy Saaz over a relatively light body was too much hop for some.  Others adored it, of course, but I was not expecting the negative reactions.

The biggest surprise was the sour flight.  I believe it was wise for me to preface this flight with the caveat that these should not be approached as “beer” but as their own thing.  Most got this, and the Bam Biere was a huge hit – perhaps the tasters’ favorite of the whole tasting.  This one had been cellared for about a year, though the batch is still available on local shelves too – so you can buy it “pre-cellared.”  Do open it over the sink as it’s a gusher at this point.  It is a spine-shiveringly complex beer at this stage.

The Belgian Red had its adherents too, but the most critical remarks were not over the sourness (which at three years, is gorgeously well-balanced), but rather the Ludens-like character of the cherry.  Knowing that New Glarus uses a ton of top-quality fresh cherries, I’m at a loss to explain the aroma though I must admit that it doesn’t bother me.  Though the fact that I frequently selected boxes of Luden’s Wild Cherry cough drops when given my choice of “candy” may explain that.

Finally, the La Folie was more a pleasure to smell than to taste.  Undoubtedly complex, the sour character is just too much for all but a couple of tasters, who are limited to just a single pour by the intensity.  I am in agreement with them that it is a world class combo of aroma and taste, but one that I can’t manage more than a glass of without reaching for the Tums.

Paul Tasting La Folie for the 1st time

Paul agrees that La Folie is sour!

Overall, it was a great day, and I expect that St. Louis has got a few more drinkers who are going to be reaching out into a wider circle of craft beer choices.  Mission accomplished.

Lots of people said my homebrews were excellent, but I personally think they were half-loaded on Night Stalker and 2XIPA.  Honestly, I love my #3 – got just what I wanted with that one – light, 4.5% and hoppy as hell, and the Kölsch that I brewed for a friend’s birthday was really tasty and to style (used some of the Kölsch malt from Northern Brewer and lagered it for six weeks).

It’s been quite a task.  From having to come up with three inexpensive Greek and Portuguese wines, to being utterly disappointed in the performance of some of the countries, despite enlisting both my own wine-selecting chops and the help of some trusted wine merchants.  I knew that there was industrial, frooty, enzymed, lab-yeasted, oak-chipped, processed dreck out there, but I was hoping to avoid more of it than I did.  There have definitely been some surprises, and we’ll have a post-tournament wrap-up post to discuss the highs and lows, and to name an all-tournament team.

Back to tasting.  I’m a few days ahead of the publication schedule, so will actually be doing the semis and final either later this week or over the weekend.  Regardless of how it turns out, I’m drinking nothing but beer for a few days when I’m done!

First up was their Three-Hearted kit, an all-Centennial hopped American IPA inspired by Bell’s Two-Hearted Ale (probably my favorite beer ever).   I could not resist making a couple of tweaks – dropping the initial gravity to a more manageable 1.060, and using all of the hops in the kit by upping the dry hop amount.  I also did the ferment with some way past expiration Safale US-05 (like two years past . . .), which worked just fine, thank you very much.  I’m quite pleased with the result, and only have about a third of the batch left to drink.  I started drinking it too soon – the classic first batch of homebrew problem, and initial bottles were quite green, but it’s now drinking quite well.

Next was Northern Brewer’s Extra Pale Ale kit, inspired (I assume) by Summit‘s outstanding Extra Pale Ale.  I also tweaked the dry-hopping on this one, adding an ounce of Amarillo.  This one is still a touch green, so I’ve not fully formed an opinion on it yet.  Also fermented with a way out of date packet of US-05.  It’s alright so far, but I’m hoping it will continue to improve.

The most recent batch was the first wholly personal recipe of the great brewing restart of 2010.  I’m most excited by the fact that I’ve decided to utterly eschew styles in my recipe construction for a while (i.e. until it becomes boring).  This one is a mix of two row, raw wheat (about 30%) and a bit of carapils to 1.050, bittered with Columbus, with flameout additions of Citra, Centennial and Columbus, and fermented with a fresh satchel of US-05.  Everything apart from the yeast came from Kent at Missouri Malt Supply – a great local source for top quality brewing ingredients at virtually wholesale prices that evolved from homebrewers getting together to order full pallets from various malt suppliers.  I dry-hopped this beer last night with 30 grams of Citra, and 15 each of Columbus and Centennial.  I plan to leave it on the dry hops for 10 days and then package.  I’m very excited about the interplay of the citrus (duh) notes of the Citra with the raw wheat.

I’m also pleasantly surprised to find that I don’t mind bottling at all.  The key has been a repurposed tupperware tub that I previously used to hold sacks of grain.  It conveniently holds about 30 12 ounce bottles, meaning that sanitizing the bottles is a matter of about a half hour of work, rather than the hours I recall.  Add a spring-loaded bottle filler, and bottling is done in about an hour total.  Not too much longer than kegging used to take.

Anyone know of stores on the East side selling Dressner, Lynch, or Rosenthal or dealing regularly with Maverick?

Anywhere on the St. Louis side?  I know Dressner doesn’t distribute in Missouri, but do folks have access to Lynch or Rosenthal wines?  Stores, restaurants, wine bars?

Particularly looking for low alcohol, low sulphur stuff.  Purity, brilliance, elegance and transparency appreciated as well.

Clarifying thanks to @sippinstl ‘s help – I’m primarily after Loire, Beaujolais and Burgundy stuff.  Artisinal Italian is cool too.

Thanks for any leads.

The prime driver for my rekindled flame was an interview I did with a Wash U. grad student about homebrewing last week.  I met Antonio via introduction by Schlafly‘s Stephen Hale at the pick-up location for Fair Shares, our local CCSA, of which Antonio and I are both members.  Talking about why I got into brewing in the first place, and my philosophy on designing beers got the creative juices flowing.

The clincher was a sudden realization of how much money I was spending on beer since the demise of my kegerator.  I was recently very excited that Founder’s Red’s Rye was on sale for $7.49 a six pack, which is a fine retail price. But, that’s still $30 a case. I’ve never brewed to save money, but I know I can brew beer for half that or less, and my beer is pretty damn good.

The only mitigating element on this enthusiasm is the realization that I’ll be back to bottling my homebrew. I haven’t bottled since 1996 or so.  First there were Party Pigs (which I always had excellent luck with) and then corny kegs. Unfortunately, with no kegerator and no dedicated beer fridge, there’s room for neither in our regular gotta-hold-stuff-for-a-family-of-four fridge.  So, bottles it is, despite memories of what a pain in the ass it is.

This coming Sunday, weather permitting, should be my first non-teaching homebrewing session in about a year.  I’m excited that I’ll be drinking homebrew again in about a month!

variety (noun) = a type of grape

varietal (adj.) = made from a single variety of grape; exhibiting the attributes of a variety

Cabernet Sauvignon is not your favorite varietal, it’s your favorite variety.  That Bordeaux is not a blend of all five traditional varietals, it’s a blend of varieties.  A wine does not have all of the typical characteristics of a varietal, but it can exhibit the varietal characteristics of a variety.

I will not speak of this again, but it would dramatically improve the quality of my life if people would use these correctly.  Especially people writing about wine including, but not limited to, people writing wine lists for restaurants.

Thanks.

The closing of Bon Vivant Wines is a great loss for the St. Louis area.  Andrew assembled the most interesting, eclectic selection in the area, taking full advantage of the unique and small production wines that come into Illinois (due to the Chicago market), but not Missouri, such as Lopez de Heredia, and the Louis/Dressner portfolio.  Whittling down potential purchases to my budgeted amount was always a painful process, mollified only by the knowledge that when I returned new treats would await.

Despite his great wine selection, I probably bought even more beer than wine from Andrew.  Andrew again exhibited a command for bringing in quality beers, and for taking advantage of the gems available in Illinois but not in Missouri.  As with wine, Andrew was meticulous about freshness and storage, something severely lacking among many other Southern Illinois beer retailers.

I profiled Andrew for the Riverfront Times here, and Bon Vivant won accolades as the “Best Wine Shop” 2009 from that same publication.  Andrew deserved all of the praise directed towards him as he truly did things the right way, and for all the right reasons.  I am saddened, deeply, to see that was not enough to allow Bon Vivant to be sustainable.

Today’s lesson takes the form of Founder’s Red’s Rye.  I first had Red’s Rye four or five years ago (going with 4 for the rest of this post to make it less cumbersome), picking it up on a visit to my Mom who lives near Grand Rapids.  After drinking that six pack, I thought the beer was simply too sweet for my tastes, though I could certainly understand the appeal it seemed to hold for many other beer geeks.  Having had a whole 6 pack, over the course of several days and in several circumstances (by itself, with food, etc.) I held my belief relatively firmly, despite the relatively small sample.

I never bothered to return to Red’s Rye, even when it showed up on local shelves last year, based on my recollection of my one and only six pack four years ago.  That changed on my first visit to The Good Pie about a month ago.  The Good Pie had Red’s Rye on draft and I thought that touch of sweetness I remembered might make itself useful when it came to matching with pizzas Liz and I were ordering.  What I tasted that night was not what I remembered.  Instead, there was a much higher hop presence in the nose, and more than enough bitterness to balance the malt.

This pint led to a craving that built until last Friday when I picked up a six pack (bottled in November, 2009 – even fresher examples have come into the market since) from The Wine & Cheese Place.  I found this even more compelling than the pint at The Good Pie, and 5 of the 6 bottles didn’t survive the weekend, though they certainly contributed to its quality.

Now, I’m not remotely egocentric enough (really!) to believe that I have an accurate recollection of those bottles of Red’s Rye I had four years ago.  I have no idea whether, in order of decreasing likelihood: (1) my memory of Red’s Rye was inaccurate and/or morphed over time; (2) my palate has changed; (3) the Red’s I had four years was old and/or somehow abused; and/or (4) the Red’s recipe has been consciously tweaked, or came out a bit differently due to changing hop/malt crops.  And, I honestly don’t care.

It’s fine to ruminate about the cause, but what matters is that I now really enjoy the beer.  If I hadn’t bothered to revisit a beer I had not really liked after the first six pack, I’d be missing out on something it turns out I like quite a bit, and only runs $8.50 a six pack.  Instead, I’ve found something that’s going to make it into my regular rotation.  Well done, Founder’s, and my apologies for not giving it another shot sooner.  I know better than that.