Tag Archives: Budvar

2011 – The year in Beer

Posted on January 2, 2012 | 2 Comments

So, another year is in the books, which means another hour spent on New Year’s Day employing my children to sort and count the bottle caps collected from the previous year. As always, these simply represent every bottle of beer opened in the Nelson household during the previous year, regardless of who consumed them (though the vast, vast majority was me).

Total caps: 490

Breweries Represented: 28

Breweries with more than 10 caps (and % of total):

Schlafly – 17.8%

Firestone Walker/Nectar Ales – 12.4%

Budvar – 9.4%

Stone – 8%

Homebrew – 7.3%

Founder’s – 5.9%

Bell’s (all Two-Hearted) – 4.9%

Weihenstephaner (all Festbier) – 4.9%

Goose Island – 4.9%

Moosehead – 4.5%

Odell – 4%

Capital – 3.2%

Sierra Nevada – 2.2%

As “interesting” as these raw numbers are, I must add a few points for context. First, thanks to the generosity of Portland-bound friends Zac and Kate Duncan, I returned to the privileged class of people with kegerators, when Zac and Kate donated theirs to my cause.  Since that point, I’ve enjoyed the following:

1/4 bbl of Odell St. Lupulin

2 – 1/4 bbls of Odell IPA (2d keg in progress)

1 – 1/6 bbl of Urban Chestnut Zwickel (which lasted all of 7 days during the worst of this hateful summer’s heat)

1 – 1/6 bbl of Founder’s Red’s Rye

1 – 1/6 bbl of homebrew (still in progress)

So, taking the kegs into account,  Odell was far and away the most consumed brewery this year, basically tripling Schlafly. I’m very much in love with Odell’s IPA, and their St. Lupulin and (incredibly boringly named) Red Ale, all of which meld a serious punch of hop aroma and flavor, with a velvety malt load that just works for my palate. Founder’s also would get a significant bump, and Urban Chestnut would jump into the ranking.

Also missing from the above numbers are canned craft beer. I know I went through a couple of 12 packs of Capital Supper Club (thanks, Annie!) , and several (4, 5, 6?) six packs of Ska Brewing‘s Modus Hoperandi. I just did a crap job (read – no attempt at all) to track those this year. Sorry to the fine folks at Capital (who’d be finer if they distributed to St. Louis!) and Ska. Love your beers, but caps are easier to keep than cans.

Finally, I feel a need to explain the Moosehead entry. I grew up in Michigan, and, during college, Canadian beer was cheap.  Really cheap. In fact, when I moved to St. Louis, a case of Moosehead bottles at the store where I worked would set you back all of $12, and it was the most expensive of the Big 3 Canadian brands. When we were too flush with cash for bottom tier stuff like Weidemann’s, Beast or Schaefer (all at about $5 a case), but not spendy enough for craft, we went Canadian.

So, the summer of 2012 went through a rather oppressive phase. This isn’t uncommon (especially for someone from Michigan), but I was desperate for a beer I could chill and swill. I had been reading some mysteries set in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula during this period, many of which featured Canadian beer prominently. This triggered a nostalgic craving for some basic Canadian suds. Moosehead being the freshest of those at the Schnuck’s, I went with it. And enjoyed it. I might even do it again.

Previous years are here:

2010

2009

2008

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The Year in Bottled Beer Drinking – 2010

Posted on January 3, 2011 | 1 Comment

As always, my children were put to work on New Year’s Day sorting and counting the bottlecaps I have collected over the previous year.  For those who are new to this game, I collect the caps from every bottle opened for drinking at my house and keep them in a big jar.  This includes bottles opened by guests, at parties, etc. and were not all consumed by me!

2010 was my first full year without a kegerator, which definitely boosted the number of caps (I also kept track of cans in a spreadsheet and these are included in the numbers below).  The total for the year was 756 beers consumed.  The brewery breakdown is as follows for all breweries that had ten or more beers consumed:

Homebrew – 16.1%

Schlafly – 15.3%

Bell’s – 8.2% (over 2/3 was Two-Hearted)

Ska – 7.1%

Budvar – 5.5%

Weihenstephaner – 4.6% (all Festbier)

Sierra Nevada – 4.1%

Founder’s – 3.7% (all Red’s Rye, except for a single Breakfast Stout)

Capital – 3.6%

Big Sky – 3.4%

Lagunitas – 2.5%

Southern Tier – 2.2%

Ayinger – 2.1% (all but two were Oktoberfest)

New Glarus – 2.1%

Odell – 2.1% (all St. Lupulin)

New Belgium – 1.4%

Tallgrass – 1.4%

Pedantic aside:  Jolly Pumpkin likely would have made the list, near the bottom, but their caps are plain.  This year, I’ll be sure to identify them myself.

2010 was definitely the Year of Beer for me.  For whatever reason, my wine consumption was much lower than normal, and whisky was negligible until the last couple of months of the year.  I was pleasantly surprised to see homebrew already taking the quantity crown since I only resumed brewing part way through the year.  I expect its lead to increase in 2011 as I’ve been brewing regularly, and, apparently, drinking my homebrew regularly as well (that hasn’t always been the case).  In 2011, I’ll be shooting for better balance between beer, wine and whisky, and overall lower consumption.

Oh, and hey Capital! You see that you clocked in at #9 overall when you’re not distributed within  250 miles of my house? Please get a distributor in St. Louis.  I’m far from the only one who would buy a lot, as we have a severe craft lager deficit!  My consumption of Budvar would disappear if I could get Capital Pilsner here.  Thanks.

Previous Years are here:

2009

2008

Pedantic aside: My kegerator was up and running during ’08 and ’09, so the bottled numbers are much lower than this year.

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Drinking Domestic for a year – a shameless, but sincere, stunt

Posted on September 2, 2010 | Leave a comment

I love lagers.  A good 30% of my beer consumption is probably in the form of lagers and, as they’re not something I’m capable of producing with my current homebrewing system, I continue to buy them.  Sadly, they’re not something many domestic craft brewers do well.

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.

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A surprisingly successful tasting

Posted on August 7, 2010 | Leave a comment

Last Saturday I hosted a brewday and beer tasting for my church.  The brewday was fine (a very hoppy APAish beer with my new love – a 2:1:1 hop combo of Citra/Centennial/Columbus as finishing and dry hops), but the tasting went really well.  Beer experience of the tasters varied so I eschewed discussion of style and instead created four flights as follows:

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.

We warned him!

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).

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Yes, I am that geeky.

Posted on January 2, 2009 | 7 Comments

Part and parcel of my decision to make a kegerator was to reduce my consumption of bottled beer.  As a cheery self-check, I keep all of the bottle caps from beer opened at my house (whether I drank them or not) in a big container and add them all up at the end of the year to see how I did.  So, the kids and I had fun on New Year’s morning counting, sorting and practicing “practical” math.

This year was much better than last, with a total of only 225 caps in the container.  Here are the brewery totals:

38 – Bell’s Brewery – 16.8%

22 – Left Hand Brewing – 9.7%

18 – Capital Brewery – 8%

14 – Avery Brewing – 6%

14 – New Belgium Brewing – 6%

14 – Sam Adams – 6%

None of the other breweries in the stash cracked 10 caps.

The single biggest drop over last year was for Czech Pilsners (Budvar and Pilsner Urquell).  Combined, these were my top source of caps in 2007, but Budvar’s move to distribution by A-B (and 33 not carrying it anymore as a result), and a half barrel of Victory Prima Pils in the kegerator for a good chunk of the year really put a hurting on my consumption of Czech Pils.  I’m very surprised that Schlafly didn’t crack 10 caps (there were only 8), but I think having a keg of their Oatmeal Stout on has disuaded me from picking up as many bottles as I normally do.

Goals for this year?  Less bottles, more kegs.  Reducing bottles to 150-ish seems very plausible.  I also really need to turn my kegs more quickly (a hearty thanks to Dylan and Andrew for their patience on this front).  Once I work through the slight bottle backlog I have, bottled beer is out of the main fridge, and back into the kegerator.

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If I could only choose one . . . .

Posted on March 27, 2007 | 1 Comment

beer to have, it might well be Budvar (labelled “Czechvar” in the U.S. due to ongoing disputes with Anheuser-Busch – though the latter recently entered into an agreement to distribute Budvar in the U.S.). Sure I love beers of all styles and strengths and origins, but nothing puts a smile on my face, and stirs my soul like an on-form Budvar.

And there’s the rub. It comes all the way to us from the fine folks in the Czech Republic, and is most commonly seen in six packs of the dreaded green bottles. Therefore, caution must be used in purchasing it to avoid the two dread of many imported beers – oxidation due to old age, and skunkiness due to exposure to light. Both can ruin a beer, particularly one that relies on subtlety and balance to work its magic, like Budvar.

Avoiding old age with Budvar is easy – each bottle in the six pack (don’t see the 500 ml bottles in these parts, so I don’t know how/if they’re dated) has a “best by” date on the back that’s dated a year out from packaging. The current lot I’m working on is best by 10/2007. The fresher the beer, the snappier the Saaz hop notes are in the aroma, and livelier the bitterness is on the palate. As it ages, the hops and malt engage in an amazing marriage where neither sticks out, but both are in an incredible state of balance – truly a seamless whole.

Avoiding skunkiness takes a bit more work – you can’t just pluck a six pack off the shelf. You need to either – take a six pack from an otherwise closed case (most good retailers I’ve met will be more than happy to accommodate), or, better yet, buy a whole, never-before-opened case. This is what I do. And I take the extra step of buying it from retailers who keep their full cases cold as well, to minimize the ill effects that heat can have on the beer (not much you can do about whatever abuse is dealt out in transit from the Czech Republic, nor any ill deeds the distributor may impose). Thankfully, taking these few precautionary steps results in Budvar that’s in excellent shape for me.

So what does it taste like when it’s good? Here is a datapoint from me, realizing that each batch, or bottle may be a little different, and that our own palates change from day to day due to myriad influences:

Deep gold, more than two or three fractions darker than most Czech pils. Bright white head, that never seems to stay around that long.

Nose is deep, soft, sweet crackery maltiness perfectly mixed with spicy slightly grassy Saaz. Tiniest touch of sulphur. So simple, yet so compelling. Utterly irresistable to this drinker.

Full side of medium in the mouth, with a slight sweetness leading the way. This quickly gives way to a rich, soft maltiness. The spicy hop flavor comes on in the mid-palate, seamlessly blending with the malt. Incredibly long finish that gently sees the hops move to the fore, and it is their bitterness that ultimately ends things. Sheer perfection.

Mouthfeel is so soft – the beer glides into every nook and cranny. I could easily accidentally drown myself in this one, and all I’d have is a big stupid grin on my face. God beer when it’s on. On a beautiful warm Spring night, four of these went down like liquid satin.

My undying thanks to the people of the Czech Republic who have resolutely maintained this brewery as a public entity owned by the Republic, refusing offer after offer from the Global brewing big boys, and stuck to methods of production that might be forced to change if profit were the sole motive. Na Zdraví!

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