Revisiting Beers and Changing Tastes

Beer blogging is a fun pastime and hobby. It's been just over 6 months since I started getting into the exploration of craft beers. Looking back, my tastes in craft beers were very narrowly focused back then. I used to limit myself to Fat Tire, a local Honey Brown, and the occasional dark beer. There were some styles that I just didn't appreciate and hadn't acquired a taste for. IPAs were one of them. I wanted to understand why so many beer lovers liked IPAs. Several friends on the Aleuminati social site told me that you just have to keep trying IPAs before you come to love them. That's exactly what I did. But it wasn't until I had tried several dozen other beer styles that I started to notice what wide range of tastes there were out there. Bitterness was something I use to avoid in a beer, but now I've come to enjoy the taste and aroma of a good hoppy beer.

Back in October, I picked up a sampler pack of Flying Dog ales. This was one of the first sampler packs I had picked up at the store and was wanting to try several different styles. Some of them I admittedly had never tasted before. I tried each of the beers and sadly, didn't enjoy some of these beers and gave them a rather poor rating. Little did I know that you can't really judge a style of beer until you've tried many of the same style as well as dozens of other styles. My taste buds were simply not trained yet. It took me 6 months to realize my mistake.

A couple of months ago I picked up yet another Flying Dog beer, their Gonzo Imperial Porter and reviewed it. I tried it but was put off by the intense hop sensation and aroma that came with it. The thought occurred to me to stick some of these beers in the cellar and let them age a bit more. Yesterday, two months later, I pulled out another Gonzo and chilled it down a bit and tried it again. Wow. Was this the same beer? This tasted a lot different than what I remembered. Gone was the overpowering aroma. It had mellowed a bit after just two months. This beer was actually a whole lot better.

So I wondered. What was the difference between the Gonzo I tried back in March versus the Gonzo I tried last night? Was it the temperature of the beer? Perhaps. Had the hops been neutralized a bit after two months? A possibility. Had my tastes changed? Maybe.

The bottle of Gonzo had been sitting unrefrigerated in a dark corner of my basement at a constant 64 degrees. I may have previously tried this beer at room temperature during my 1st sampling. Porters and Stouts tend to bring out more flavor and aroma as it warms. The sample from last night had been put into the freezer and chilled for about 10 minutes. It hadn't gotten that cold yet when I opened it up. This time, the aroma had been subdued quite a bit, which for me made all the difference in the world. Quick chilling may have something to do with this.

My tastes could have also been altered during the last two months. This has probably been the most busiest two month of beer drinking that I've had since I started. I've made a break-thru and started enjoying IPAs during the last month or so. I've tried many more bitter and stronger IBU beers also in that time. So perhaps my tongue had gotten used to the more intense hops and flavors.

Perhaps those are the reasons for liking the Flying Dog Gonzo so much more last night than I had previously. I went back and updated the review on that beer and gave it a more respectable rating. This makes me want to go back and re-review several more of my beers now. Again, I question my current beer ranking system. The numbers don't really relate the entire experience when drinking a beer. So perhaps I should simply throw out the numbers and make things easier.

I've been trying to drink so many different beers as of late but have failed to go back and retry any beers in 6 months. Perhaps some of my old favorites will now seem a bit more bland. Who knows. Anyone else have changes of heart of beers that you've previously dismissed? If so, what was the difference in your mind that changed your opinion? I'd love to hear other opinions on this.

Aspen Brewery Gets Compromise from City

It had been a long wait for the new Aspen Brewing Company to pour their first beers. The brewery opened for business back in March 2008, but something was not sitting right with them. The brewery wanted to have a tasting room and invite the public to come to the brewery and sample their beers in order to help build interest and sales for their beer. But the Aspen City Council had a zoning law in affect that limited the brewery to offering only 16 oz of beer per customer per day. Aspen Brewery owners Duncan Clauss, Rory Douthit and Brad Veltman felt this rule was a bit too restrictive and went to the city council to appeal. They felt the law was too restrictive. The Aspen City Council wanted to prevent the brewery from becoming a "bar" as the zoning for that area prohibited bars and restaurants from being there.

The first round of debates with the city ended in a defeat. For the time being, Aspen Brewing would have to stick to a 16-oz limit. The city agreed to give Aspen Brewing another hearing however on April 28th. It was a long month in passing, but on April 28th, they met again, and this time with a more favorable outcome.

The Aspen City Council agreed to allow up to 40-oz of beer to be served. This breaks down to either six 6oz tasters or four 6-oz tasters plus a pint of the customers favorite beer. Customers may also purchase beer to take home. The Aspen Brewery will sell 64-oz growlers.

While 40-oz of beer can be enough to put some people over the legal limit, the question remains on how much is really enough at a brewery before it essentially doubles as a bar. At a bar, there is no limit to how much alcohol can be served, although that point could be argued as well. A bar has some responsibility to cut off customers who appear intoxicated.

So at least for now, the brewers at Aspen Brewing Company have a bit more leeway in how much beer they can offer to their customers. Now that the ski season is over, the push is on to attract more local customers to their fine ales. Aspen Brewing is located at 557 North Mill Street in Aspen. Stop by and check out what's on tap.

More blog entries on Aspen Brewing Company.

A Celebration is in Order

It pays to subscribe to brewer's newsletters. Just two days ago, I received a "What's On Tap" email newsletter from the Samuel Adams brewers - aka the Boston Beer Company. They were sponsoring a contest for their newsletter subscribers in the Denver Colorado area. Apparently, Samuel Adams is sponsoring a series of beer dinners in 10 cities across the country in celebration of American Craft Beer Week next week (May 12-18). They invited all subscribers to fill out a form to enter their contest. I thought that would be a real fun event to attend. Well guess what? Out of all of the entries, I was one of two people selected to receive two free tickets to their beer dinner! Oh ya!

The 3-course meal will be held at the famous Rioja restaurant in downtown Denver and is to be paired with some of the finest selected Samuel Adams beers. The event will be hosted by brewer Bob Cannon from Samuel Adams (the guy with the beard from their TV ads).

If some of you other Colorado craft beer lovers want to attend this there may still be a chance. There are a few more tickets left that can be purchased by calling 303-820-2282. Tickets are roughly $55 each. Dinner starts at 8:00PM.

I'm going to take my notebook and my camera and snap as many pics of the fine food and beers as possible. I've heard the food at Rioja is top notch. I already know the Samuel Adams beer selection is awesome as well. Now I just hope they decide to make their Utopias part of the pairings with the meal. More on this coming up next week. I'm so up for this!

Avery Brewing Sponsored Events

One of the reasons I admire Avery Brewing Company is that they are highly active in the community and sponsor a multitude of events, not to mention that they make some darn fine beers. Here's a sampling of what this Boulder brewery is up to.


Maharaja 2nd Batch Release Party - Friday, May 9th from 4 to 7 PM

Avery is celebrating a second batch release of their Maharaja brew. In addition, they will be pouring some of their Fifteen Anniversary Ale, a special 40th Anniversary Ale created just for a local liquor store, and their Dry-Hopped IPA. Head to the tasting room this Friday for a taste. $10 per person at the door.



Special Release Event - Liquor Mart 40th Anniversary - May 9th

Avery Brewing is helping Boulder’s Liquor Mart celebrate its 40th anniversary with a brand new brew. 40th Anniversary Ale is a special Belgian-style Pale Ale. Avery says created it by combining two yeast strains for “estery complexity, orange peel for citrus zip, and plenty of Crystal hops for a perfumy, floral aroma.” There will be a special in-store tasting on this Friday (May 9th) from 4-6pm, and you can pre order your 40th Anniversary Ale during the tasting. 40th Anniversary Ale goes on sale this coming Monday, (5/12.)


Insider Tasting Series - Belgian Night - May 14th

Come and celebrate beers brewed in the Belgian tradition with Avery on Wednesday, May 14th! They will be sampling many different brews throughout the evening including their Fifteen Anniversary Ale, Salvation, Bad Sally and more! 7-9PM, $20 per person, Advance ticket sales only. Call C.V. at 303-440-4324 to reserve a spot.


Four on the Fourth 4k - July 4th

Come and join the Avery crew for the first annual Four on the Fourth 4k! Overall winners get their weight in beer! There will be 5 year age groups and the winner of each will get a case of beer. Race starts at 9AM with a reception at the Tasting Room to follow with food, beer and soft drinks available. (So beer fans, if you know of a really good runner in your neighborhood, why not sponsor him/her and agree to split their weight in beer. Too bad 300 pound guys rarely win foot races.)


New Tasting Room Hours

Avery's Tasting Room hours are: Wednesday, Thursday and Friday 3:30 to 8:00 PM with tours at 3:00 PM sharp & Saturdays 12:30 - 5:00 PM with a tour at noon. Your first 5 tasters are free, customers can purchase additional tasters or pints if they so choose. Avery only have a couple of rules: Drink responsibly, arrive with your best beer attitude and bring someone new each time you revisit! Their beer line up changes weekly.

Brew Review - Collaboration Not Litigation Ale

The heck with protocol. This review is going right to the point. I've just finished drinking a wonderful strong belgian ale. This beer is a blended beverage from the combined efforts of both Avery Brewing Company and Russian River Brewing Company. I call it Salvation Squared, but the label calls it Collaboration Not Litigation Ale. I bought this beer based on the reputation of both breweries and the fact that I enjoyed previously one of the ales that this beer is blended out of. Collaboration (for short) is a wonderful blend of Avery Salvation and Russian River Salvation. This happens to be from Batch #2 that was blended in February 2008. Both ales are quality brews. The fact that two breweries got together and decided to experiment rather than sue each other for having a beer of the same name says a lot.

This beer pours a dark amber color with a near white head. There was a multitude of bubbles coming up from the bottom of the glass so you know it was well carbonated. Upon opening the 22oz bottle, you could immediately tell that it was a Belgian style ale. There's just something about the smell of a Belgian yeast that is quite distinguishable. It's an aroma that I've come to love and appreciate.

The first pour out of the bottle looked fairly clear, but upon pouring the next glass the beer grew increasingly cloudy. Probably due to the fact that most of the remaining yeast had collected near the bottom of the bottle.

I didn't do my usual study of this beer in a quiet and focused environment. Rather, I drank this brew while watching some DVD episodes of my favorite TV shows. I knew from the first sip that I was going to enjoy this. I've become to much of a beer snob as of late and decided that I was just going to sit back in my recliner, drink some damn good beer and enjoy a good show. Isn't that what drinking beer really should be all about?

After finishing the entire 22oz bottle in nothing flat, all I can say is - Mmmmmm. This was one enjoyable beer. I'm going to leave it to you to sample it for yourself. If you are a fan of either of Avery's or Russian River's Salvation ales, then you're going to love this beer. It's so smooth. The blending of the two beers hit just the right mix. It does remind me a lot of Avery's Salvation only with a darker color. It's full of flavor and with a 8.72% ABV, it kicks some ass too. I felt a nice little buzz after finishing this bomber.

For once, I didn't bother to look at the beer rating sites until after I had finished the beer and had written most of this blog entry. I feel it's time to throw away the crutch and just rate beers for what they speak to me. This is one awesome ale. I paid $6.74 for this 22oz bottle and it was worth every penny. If they would make a six pack of this beer I'd buy it again in a second. I'm going to give this a high rank and give it a 4.0 out of 5 rating. I don't give out many 4's but I feel this one deserves it.

If you happen to want to see the other reviews, I'll link to both BeerAdvocate and Ratebeer's here.

Attitudes Towards Beer Start Early

I had the pleasure of going camping over the weekend with a large group of Boy Scouts. As you may know, participating in any official Boy Scout activity means that there is no alcohol allowed to be brought along. So it was a "dry" weekend for me. There was one interesting beer related conversation that came up over the weekend however. This conversation pointed out to me just how early in a young man's life the impression about what is considered good beer is given to him. This all came about one evening when my son's troop was preparing their evening meal in our campsite.

I work with a lot of boy scouts between the ages of 11 and 17. The older boys (14-17) are given a lot of freedom in our troop to cook anything they want. They plan their menus, they go out and buy their own food, and then they get to cook the meal. Many times, the boys choice of food is influenced by what gets cooked on their Dad's backyard grill. In this particular case, they chose to cook up some brats. Now normally, I don't think twice about the boys choosing to cook bratwurst, but what got my attention was the conversation I overheard between them while they were preparing to cook their brats.

One of the oldest boys who was 16 was in charge of boiling the brats over a gas stove. He was lamenting to the other boys in his patrol about how at home they boil all of their brats in a good beer and how that adds a lot of flavor to the brats, but how unfortunate it was that they didn't have any beer to cook their brats in. The boy was quoted as saying "Ah man, nothing tastes as good as a brat boiled in a good beer. I wish we had some Bud Light to cook these in." I nearly burst out laughing when I heard this. Now remember, this is coming from a 16 year old kid who shouldn't be drinking anything at his age (but knowingly that was roughly the same age I started drinking beer).

So already at his age, his impression of a good beer was a Bud Light. To me, Bud Light is about the same thing as water. I can't imagine getting much flavor at all out of a can of that stuff. Yet at their age, that's all they know about, mostly because that's what beer they see people drinking on TV during commercials. He was going on and on about his "knowledge" of Bud Light and how good it was for "cooking" brats. He even went as far as asking one of the adults if they could run into town and buy a couple of beers so they could boil their brats with it. Of course we had to say a big "NO".

The perception of what good beer is hits home to young men at a very early age. Their knowledge of beer is passed around by word of mouth based solely from what's on TV and their peers. It may also be influenced by what beer their Dad's keep in the fridge. Sadly, many households only bring home macro beer. If we beer enthusiasts want to change the impression of what good beer is, it may have to start at home.

Now of course, I was biting my tongue out on the campsite as I didn't want to encourage beer drinking to young teens. I kept my thoughts about what a good beer was to myself. I certainly wanted to suggest some other beers that would taste even better to boil brats in, but I had to refrain. After all, how would it look if a kid came home from a campout and they told their parents - "One of the scoutmasters told us all about some good beers to try". I don't think that would go over well.

I have a young teen-aged son at home and while I try not to drink in front of him too often, he at least won't see me drinking a macro beer. My beer fridge only holds craft beers. Sad thing is, my older son who is over 21 only drinks cheap macro beer. Keystone Light is his beer of choice. I offered him a craft beer recently and he put it down after a few sips and said he didn't like it. Perhaps I gave him one that had a bit too many hops in it. But still, what he was used to drinking was practically water.

So, it would appear that young men have to be "weaned" off the macro beer teet. Their taste buds (no pun intended) still have to develop as they mature. While teaching them about good beer probably isn't appropriate at their young age, they are still being influenced by what they see around them. If all they see is Bud, Miller and Coors commercials, that is what will continue to be their starting beer of choice.

How would you want to "teach" young men about craft beer? What do you think would be a decent craft beer to introduce them to?

The Session #15: How did you get into good beer?

I've been a reader of "The Session" across the blogosphere for several months now and felt compelled to participate in this month's effort. The Session is a collaborative effort by many beer bloggers and writers to share their ideas and experiences on a common topic. This month, the topic is "How did you get into good beer?" and is hosted for May 2008 by Boak and Bailey's blog. Each month a different web site acts as host. Here is how the original suggestion for this month's topic was described:

Continuing the “Beervangelism” theme, we’d like you to write about the moment when you saw the light. At what point did you realise you were a beer lover / geek / enthusiast? What beer(s) triggered the conversion? Did someone help you along your way, or did you come to it yourself?

Chipper Dave's Journey Into Better Beer

My roots go back to southwestern Michigan. I grew up along the shore of Lake Michigan in the small town of Saint Joseph. It's virtually directly across the lake from Chicago and on a clear night you can see the glow of the Windy City from our beach.

My first experience with a beer came when I was just a lad of 12 or so. My family was getting together with relatives in South Bend, Indiana for a holiday get together. My uncle and my dad were enjoying a beer when I asked them about what they were drinking. My dad offered a sip to me. Both he and my uncle watched me as I had my first sip of a pale golden pilsner. I'm thinking they were looking for a strong reaction to it on my face. But me, being a 12-year old who wanted to grow up faster than I was, wanted to show them that I could handle a beer. I tasted a bitterness that I had never experienced before. I fought against acting strongly to this and simply came back with a "Hmm, this is pretty good". My dad and uncle both got a kick out of that and laughed knowing that I probably wanted to race to the kitchen to wash my mouth out with a Coke or 7-Up. Truth is, it really wasn't half bad but just not what I was expecting.

It wasn't until several years later in high school that I started drinking beer with friends. The legal drinking age at the time (mid-70s) was 18 and if you had a friend who was of age, you could get yourself some beer easily. In those days, the beer of choice was whatever your friends offered you. And more often than not it was Miller, Strohs, Old Style or Lowenbrau. At the time, we weren't aware of much else. Beer was beer and as long as it gave you a little buzz we were OK with it.

Sadly, my taste in beer really didn't change much until many years later when I was vacationing up in the Canadian Rockies. My brother, dad and I were backpacking around Banff in Alberta. We had just gotten off the trail from camping for a week and we were looking for some real food. We found a dusty old pub in Banff that served burgers and beer. The sign at the door said "Check your Knives with the Bartender". I looked over the selection of beers that the pub offered and noticed that they were all Canadian beers. I had never tried any of those before. I did notice that they did serve one American beer and promptly ordered that. Boy, did I get some looks from the locals in the bar.

A gruff looking local walked over to our table and slammed a beer down and said, "Here, you need to try some of this". It was a Labatt's Blue. I wasn't quite sure what to say so I just thanked him and tried it out. It tasted pretty good actually. I offered to buy him a beer in return and he gladly accepted. Now while the Labatts isn't considered a craft beer in today's terms, it was the tipping point that got me to want to try other beers. I was a stick in the mud. I had been set in my ways and was simply complacent on my choice of beers. It took the offer from a stranger to try something new that got me to thinking.

Flash forward several years later to the mid-80s. I had moved out to Colorado with my new wife and had settled in with a job and a house. I was still primarily a Coors and Budweiser drinker. I joined a bowling league with some co-workers and often had a beer during competition. One of my friends was drinking a very dark beer. I asked him what he was drinking and he told me it was a Guinness Stout. I had never tried a Guinness before let alone a dark beer and wanted to try some. He offered me a sip. My first reaction was not very good. It reminded me of coffee and it coated my tongue with a chalkiness that stuck to my mouth. I wasn't a coffee drinker and the dark malts turned me off. My friend suggested that I try mixing this beer with a lighter beer. So he ordered me a Black and Tan. I reluctantly accepted and tried it. Wow - what a difference! I liked this new taste. The mix was just enough to calm down the dark roastiness but still rich enough to give me a whole new experience. I was sold.

Over the course of the next decade, I decided to try out more dark beers. I quickly became a fan of porters and stouts and quickly learned to love them without mixing them with lighter colored beers. By the 90s, microbreweries were opening up all over the state of Colorado and I was eager to try them out. The New Belgium brewery offered up a Fat Tire amber ale and I really enjoyed that beer.

I play a lot of poker and have a regular home game that I participate in with 5 other guys. We've been playing poker together for well over 20 years now. Each time we get together we all bring our favorite beers. I tended to bring the darker beers to the game. My buddies were usually drinking Bud or Coors. I remember how that grizzly local in Banff, Alberta offered me a new beer and I've did the same with my friends. Since then, they too have become better beer drinkers.

Today, I've really dove in deep to the beer pool and am trying every possible style I can get my hands on. It's only been over the last year that my love of beer has really taken off. I had been blogging about poker for several years and decided to add a beer blog back in October of 2007. I quickly found a wealth of other beer bloggers to share experiences with and it's been a nice ride ever since.

So help out a friend or even a stranger to get onto the road to better beer. Buy them one! If you never plant a seed, you'll never get anything to grow. If it wasn't for the boldness of a stranger, I'd probably still be drinking just Bud.

The origin of The Session came from Appellation Beer.