Brewing Update: The Lineup and True Blue

I asked The Talented Videographer to take a photo of the lineup as it currently stands (I'm setting these bottles aside for posterity's sake). Here they are in all of their homebrewed glory:



They're not in order of production. The second from the left is True Blue, a classic American pilsner (CAP) brewed with blue corn and the New Ulm yeast strain. I just bottled it a couple of weeks ago and it's already proving to be a rich, friendly example of an historic and unique American style that has few honest mainstream practitioners.

I also submitted Megaberry, Yellow Rose, and Slacker to a local GABF-sanctioned competition, the Lunar Rendezbrew. Can't wait to see what happens.

Here's a better shot of the True Blue label. I'm rather proud.

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Buvez Montreal: Le Cheval Blanc

Took a conference trip to Montreal last week and people keep asking, how'd it go? Well, I'm not sure about the paper I gave (at least two folks were dozing off), but I had one hell of a time after two visits to Le Cheval Blanc -- a Montreal pub on Rue Ontario that's been around for half a century and makes damn fine beer. In addition to a selection of eight housebrews (described in terms of degrees Plato of gravity, beer style, and finish), they also have an eclectic selection of bottled beer, much of which I didn't recognize. I was too busy sampling their house offerings, from a hazy, intentionally unfiltered pilsner (soft-bodied AND crisp), to the Piment -- a blond beer smacked up with jalapeno.

In addition, Wednesday nights are pickled vodka night, with 2 dollar (cdn) shots of their house cornichon-infused vodka. The first night I went in, a Sunday, they had a woman DJing and playing a mix ranging from sets of James Brown to The Shins. And the staff was very, very friendly, despite my only roughly serviceable French. The second night, I hung out with a competitive bagpiper who'd flown in from Beijing for a checkup(!).

All in all, it was the best brewpub I've visited, hitting the right mix of ambiance, fun, and quality beer. Can't wait to go back. Je serai retourné!

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Texas' First Brewery

Few people realize that back before the great consolidations of the sixties and seventies, (and the more recent emergence of gems like Real Ale, Southern Star, St. Arnold, and Rahr & Sons), Texas was a major beer-producing state, with dozens of breweries. Perhaps the oldest (and most historic) was the (1855) Kriesche Brewery of LaGrange, which was built into Monument hill in order to produce good cellaring conditions and get closer to the source of one of the area's many natural springs. Here is what C. E. Lieberman, swept up in the poetry of the moment, wrote of visiting the ruins (from the 1959 Brewer's Digest):

The roof of the main building above the cellar had collapsed decades ago. Only a few pieces of metal fragments were to be found in the rubble. Where the masonry had escaped the irresistible strength of jungle-growth and pressures from moving earth, it manifests the great pains and skill exercised by the artisans who pioneered this business. Though the vegetation had proved its might, and the twisted trees seem to scoff at mere man through their beards of Spanish moss, it wasn't difficult to picture in ones mind's eye the hustle and bustle that took place around the clearing back in those rustic days.

Lieberman was then head of Houston's own Gulf Brewing Company, the producer of Grand Prize beer (famous to collectors of beer memorabilia), which Howard Hughes set up in order to diversify his family's tooling company. Breweries were valuable commodities in pre- and post-prohibition Texas, because they also served as key local sources for ice (they had to build massive ice makers in order to keep their beer nice and cool in the Texas heat). A great interview with Lieberman appears on a site devoted to Pennsylvania brewing history. One of Lieberman's achievements was a revival of the Horlacher "Nine Months Old" beer which was lost during prohibition. If I had to guess, it was probably a Märzen, that is, a stronger alcohol beer originally brewed in the early Spring and then lagered in cellars through the summer for six to twelve months before release. This was the origin of the now-famous Oktoberfest style (though Ray Daniels suggests the original style was probably darker, with more body, hops, and alcohol than current examples).

You can also read about Kreische brewery at the Texas Parks and Wildlife site (it's now a state park). One striking tidbit: Kreische built a shooting gallery and dance hall on the brewery grounds. After all, there's nothing that pairs better in Texas than drinking, dancing, and shooting things.

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Rogue Ale Brewery Tour

I found a video of a Rogue brewery tour and thought I'd share it. It does a nice job covering all the basic elements of any tour, with two added bonuses. First, it's fun to watch as the guide becomes increasingly inebriated over the course of the interview (remember, he does this every day, so he has the jokes and script down pat). But an even more interesting part of the tour is his insistence that Rogue (1) puts more ingredients in each batch (and by increasing the grain bill, jacks up the production cost) while (2) spending as little money as possible on the equipment. This keeps start up and overhead low, but quality high. Smart folks.

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Save Texas Beer

Please take some time to call you state representative in support of HB 2094; a bill which would make selling small to-go packs of beer legal at local microbreweries. Direct sales are ESSENTIAL to setting craft brewing on a sound footing here in Texas; we've only got a handful microbrews in this state, versus hundreds of wineries, and a huge part of that is this law. (When the legislature voted several years ago to permit direct sales at wineries, the Texas industry took off.) If you care at ALL about beer, or if you have even a passing affection for locals like St. Arnolds and Shiner (or rising stars like Real Ale, Southern Star, or Rahr and Sons), you can take a few minutes to call or write and encourage the Licensing and Administration committee not to kill this bill (like they did two years ago).

Your support is essential, because the major beer distributors (who sell Bud, Miller, and Coors) dump tons of money on the legislature to make sure that Texas remains a hostile environment for in-state breweries. That's what happened the last time this bill went around (you can read what Robb Walsh says about it here and here).

On a personal note, many of these microbreweries are staffed with hard-working folks who are tremendously nice. Live Oak, for instance, once allowed me and my friends to put on a play at their brewery up in Austin (con cerveza backstage), and when I visited their new BBQ brewpub a week ago, invited be to come back and spend the day brewing some time. I'd take that over Busch Gardens any day.

So please, PLEASE take the time to call, and email/forward this to anyone you can think of in this state who might be interested in helping out (especially those of you who are part of a family clan here -- Jeffrey, that means YOU).

NOTE: The hearing is this Wednesday, March 16, in room E2.016 of the state capitol. Anyone want to carpool?

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