Brewed Musings

Brewed Beverage of Choice:  A pint of New Day English Bitter (one of the beers at the dinner…)

Last year the Roadhouse Brewery celebrated its 4000th brew by making a Weizenbock, a rare and finicky brew that when done right is O! so delicious.  But we did not just want to release it, that would have been sacrilegious.  We decide to release it at a Brewer’s Dinner in the upstairs of the original pub with the fireplaces a blazing.

A good Brewer’s Dinner is a fun event: good food paired with great tasting brews.  It is a shame so few brewers actually do them.  I had so much fun at last year’s dinner that we decided to do another one this year.  And while the menu last year was fantastic, I think we trumped it with this year’s.  Our chef and I sat in the brewery before I headed to Chicago and sampled all the beers available.  Needless to say, we had quite a little buzz going by the time we reached the dessert selections.

People rarely know that good brews are excellent when paired with food.  Beer can be a better selection with certain foods than our fermented grape friend.  I am not picking on wine.  I have been known to have a glass of it now and then.  No, what I am saying is that beer gets a bad rap for being great with pizza and American football.  Many of today’s beers are so packed with flavours it is hard not to consume them alongside a good meal.

This year marked the first year where I had more of a say in the food selection and beer selection.  Of course this is only the second year, so suffice it to say, last year I had less input.  The beer selection is what I am most proud of because we have a better crop to choose from this year.  If you can believe it, a year old Cherry Stout was left off the menu.  It is not often something that good could be upstaged by 6 different beers.  So without further ado, the menu for this year’s dinner.  (I apologize to those unable to attend because you live out of state.  Perhaps you should move closer or plan on attending next year’s.  It is always the Wednesday after Thanksgiving.)

Pre-Dinner in the Brewery (Dry Hopped New Day English Bitter):  I thought it was a good idea to start off in the brewery with a pint and some good banter.  It is so very rare that a person is able to drink with the brewers in their natural habitat.  I picked the New Day because it is an excellent session brew that can be used to pass the time while talking to your friends and fellow beer geeks.  This beer has a wonderful citrusy aroma which helps disguise the pleasant malty-bitter complemented backbone.  Most people shy away from beers with Bitter in the name.  Too bad for them as they are one of the most delicious session brews around.

First Course (Seasonal Fruit, Cheese and Sausage plate paired with 15 month old Oak Aged Weizenbock):  Last year’s guest of honour could not stay off this year’s menu.  The oak aging has mellowed out this beer to give it great tastes of vanilla, clove and banana.  We decided that it would go great with some flavourful cheeses and fruit.  But then how could we serve a German beer like this without some sausage as well?

Second Course (Carrot and apple slaw with currants and hazelnuts paired with Hidden Treasure Altbier):  We stay with the German beer theme with the Altbier, an amber ale lagered for 2 months.  It has a dry yet fruity finish and a very clean aroma (this one a bit more hoppy than most alts.)  Last year we had an alt with the salad and it was a hit so we decided to bring it back, but this year with a unique type of salad.  I think the alt will highlight the flavours of the currants and hazelnuts.

Third Course (Duck Consume with Organic Saison du Pass):  I must go on the record right now and say I love duck and saisons!  The Saison was brewed this summer for the Organic Brewers Festival in July.  It has a wonderfully spicy flavour from the elevated fermentation temperatures.  Be sure I let the yeast do its magic on this beer.  It is light golden in colour and has wonderful fruity and yeasty aromas.  The game flavour of the duck will be well served by the spicy characteristics of an underappreciated beer like the Saison.

Main Course (Pork Loin stuffed with sausage and dried fruit with peppercorn sauce and baby potatos paired with Pole Ax American Strong Ale):  It came as a complete shock to me that all of us tasting picked the Pole Ax as the main course brew.  Not because it does not deserve to be, but because of all the delicacies in flavour and aroma going on within it.  It has a subtle roast, almost smokey flavour with a hoppy aroma that grabs your nose and won’t let go!  Our chef, at first sample, had Pork Loin pop right into her head.  It was too obvious for us, so we went for it.

Dessert (”Scotch Ale” cake with ale creme anglaise paired with one year old Oak Aged Stonecutters Wee Heavy):  Sometimes by the dessert most people have had their tastebuds knocked out by its heavyweight opponent.  Hopefully this year will not follow that pattern.  Last November we brewed up a Wee Heavy for a company festival and called it the Stonecutters.  I secretly hid a pony keg of it away and aged it with oak.  The flavours of this brew are out of this world: smoke, vanilla, scotch, caramel, apple.  Our chef decided she was going to use it as the substitute for the Stout cake, thus making it a Scotch Ale cake.  It is after this course that Burgess Meredith will throw in the towel saving Rocky before he gets pummeled.

My stomach is rumbling just thinking about all this food.  I hope our patrons will enjoy it as much as we did putting it together.  If you are in the neighbourhood and want to join in the festivities on November 28th, you can head to this website for details.  O!  I need some of that Consume right now!

Prost!

a very hungry confucian brewer

Brewed Beverage of Choice: A Pint of Surly Bender Oatmeal Brown Ale

As I flew home the other day from Chicago, with a two hour layover in Cincinnati, I took out the Book The Art of Writing: Teachings of the Chinese Masters. A very dear friend of mine gave me this book for a gift, and I was getting tired of reading What is the What by David Eggers. As I skimmed through the first section, “The Art of Writing” by Lu Ji, it occurred to me that these 21 poems on the written arts could also be used as a guide for brewers.

When I first started this blog, I expressed my belief that to be good at brewing, we brewers should also study other parts of the brewing arts like coffee. Well, as a Confucian, I also believe that there is much to learn in other areas, like writing. The words of Lu Ji can be used by an Artisan Brewer as much as an Artisan Writer. To take it a bit further, I could not be a good brewer without being a good poet. In fact as I sat on that plane I came to the conclusion that a brewer is like a poet. Beer is liquid poetry. We make something that says a lot with only a few ingredients (Barley, Hops, Water, and Yeast.) Poets create something that says a lot merely by using rhythm, line breaks, and a minimal of words.

So naturally as a brewer of poetry, Lu Ji’s rhythmic treatise on the art of writing spoke to me.  It was his seminal work after a life of scholarly Confucianism and military service.  I highly recommend it to any craftsperson, or anyone for that matter.  He eloquently goes through the steps of writing and breaks them down:  such steps as Process, Revision, and what he calls the Riding Crop.  He may be speaking of writing but I believe he speaks to everyone.  So I will leave you with the one that I thought could be written about brewing if you just change a few words.  He has titled this poem “The Many Styles.”

But styles are diverse;
there is no absolute standard for anything,
and since things keep changing all the time
how to nail down the perfect description?
Control of language (ingredients) shows an author’s (brewer’s) skills;
craftsmanship comes when rhetoric pays concept’s bill.
Writing (Brewing) is a struggle between presence and absence.
Wade through the shallows, and if it is deep, swim.
It is alright to abandon compass and square
if you are a mirror held up to real shapes.
To seduce the eye (palette) use a florid style,
but to please the mind be precise.
Still, a full description cannot be confined.
Discourse blooms when it goes beyond words.

Prost!

the confucian brewer

Note to Brewers:  Remember that a good beer gets lost between presence and absence. 

Brewed Beverage of Choice: A Pint of Mill Creek Brewery Coffee Porter from our friends to the North, eh

One of the main tenets of Confucianism, at least my interpretation of it, is the study of all things: their interconnectedness and the balance this study can bring. This interconnectedness can pertain to something as big as life itself or as a small as something as two swing dancers locked in a dance. (Had to throw that last one in there because I rarely speak of it…) As a brewer and a Confucianist, I find myself constantly reading, researching, and evaluating every step, every process, every movement of the mash paddle. And over the past 14 days, because I had been graciously given the opportunity as the Falconer Scholarship recipient, I was able to attend the Siebel Institute/World Brewing Academy in Chicago.

Within the brewing community there is a slight divide between the scholarly brewers - ones who have gotten their degrees in Brewing Science - and the natural brewers - ones who have obtained their knowledge from on-the-job experience. Judging by the term “natural,” I am sure you can predict what side I am on. Because I tend to make more of this divide than it actually is, attending Siebel frightened me. I was afraid I was getting in over my head.

The hardest part of Confucianism is figuring out what knowledge is best for a specific application: what knowledge do you keep and what do you throw out as useless. Knowledge supplements, better yet it complements experience. Most of the time Scholarly Brewers forget this fact and put all their trust in the science. So when the plane touched down at O’Hare 2 weeks ago, the fear dissipated and the mind readied for the challenge: 10 days of systematically picking through barrels (pun intended) of information to find something useful.

Sometimes I wish people could actually see my mind in this transit. What they would see is an 8 armed roguish pickpocket studying, processing, picking wallets of information from unsuspecting rubes, and either throwing baseball size wads of useless information one way, or stuffing said information filled wallets in his pocket. Rogues work best because they are nimble and are good watchers of human interaction, which fortunately for me is how I learn best. At times, the class became counter productive leaving my 8 armed rogue became bored. There is nothing funnier than an 8 armed being twiddling 8 sets of thumbs. It was at this time I longed for the after class meetings in the Bier Stube (a small room in the back of Goose Island Brewpub.)

It was during one of these times, while drinking a beer, that I made an observation to the congregation of other rogues, about ten of us and an unsuspecting rube of an instructor. It went like this, “You can tell who are going to be the good brewers in class because they are all in the Stube.” I firmly believe this. No offense to the other students who may make good brewers, but there were 8 to 10 of us that stayed after class and discussed many things in the Stube. This is really where the Natural Brewers excel.

There are Stubes all over the world where brewers discuss the latest tricks they have tried in their brewhouse, where many brewers’ rogues pickpocket many unsuspecting brewer-rubes. The Bier Stube in back of Goose Island was essentially my second classroom where my rogue went to town on all these brewing students, these rubes. And to be brutally honest, I lost my wallet about 2 or 3 times too.

And now I sit on a train to Milwaukee for a vacation within a vacation. My brewing wallet found and packed to the gills with new information. My rogue has also given me 8 middle fingers, too tired to continue. My fears of drowning in information and of leaning too much to the Scholarly side of brewing have been squelched. I can now go home and practice a much more balanced and interconnected style of Brewing Confucianism. If you happen to be in Portland, stop on in and share a pint of this new balanced brew with me. I cannot promise, however, that my rogue will leave you alone.

Prost!

the confucian brewer and his sidekick: an 8 armed rogue