#fancy beer

I will drink this one now.

Because it's blocking the way of my mouse for months now and it's getting on my nerves.

Across the Pond

When I’m feeling run down by the constant churn of new beers from new breweries, I reach for the old classics. I like to revisit the European originals for a sense of perspective on American trends. 

Last week it was XX Bitter from De Ranke in Belgium. I wouldn’t call it a blonde ale, and it’s not exactly a tripel. I dare say, it may be the original Belgian IPA. It’s intensely hoppy, though the brewers use only European varieties -- Hallertau and Brewer’s Gold. 

It’s bitter, sure, but it’s balanced. Honey flavored malt is followed by a bracing bitterness. It’s perfectly dry with little of the lingering aftertaste typical of old American IPAs. There’s none of the typical Belgian yeast flavor, but it’s immediately apparent this was brewed in Europe.

Things I learned at the 2017 Oregon Brewers Festival

Don’t go on a saturday evening. My god! The crowds!

Don’t get the full pour.

Look at that plastic mug up there. It might hold fourteen ounces. A four ounce sample is one dollar. A full cup is five tokens. Five tokens, at four ounces a token, you should get twenty ounces of beer, right? The math doesn’t work.

There is such a thing as brewery groupthink. 

Three breweries made gin and tonic inspired beers. No fewer than three breweries made beers using coconut, and all of them made thai food allusions. 

Old Town was pouring Coconut Curryocity, which was so light I couldn’t taste any of the adjuncts, next door Lucky Lab had a Summer Thaime saison, which tasted only of super herby yeast, and down the other end was Edgefield’s Tropic Heat which was the boldest offering, coconut milk and habanero peppers. It was hot and creamy. And not at all beery.

Normal people do not know what Brettanomyces is. 

I had to explain it to my brother, and his friend, and a random couple standing nearby. Here’s my thirty second explanation: Brettanomyces in a wild strain of yeast which for about a century brewers were trying to keep out of their beer. In the last decade brewers have started adding it to their beers for a funky rustic flavor.

Some people still associate higher alcohol with better beer. 

It seemed that all the longest lines were for imperial strength beers, which are hard to find at summer festivals these days. There’s a certain logic at play. If you want to get your money’s worth on four ounces, go for the eleven percent Triple IPA.

Also, no one wants to spend multiple tickets on sample pours. 

The specialty tent was empty while we were there. Nate got a weird Cascade beer that tasted of cinnamon without waiting. I got a rye saison that tasted nothing of rye, no line. The regular Cascade line was one of the longest while we were there.

No one know what an IBU is.

When I finished my lecture on Brett, my brother Nate finds the chart listing the beers by IBU and gets excited. He claims no good beer has less than forty IBUs. I was nearly speechless, but IBUs are harder to explain than wild yeasts.

International Bitterness Units, while once ubiquitous on beer packaging, have zero effect on actual flavor. It has even less effect on actual bitterness. IBUs are calculated with a fancy formula that takes in the alpha acids – the main bitterness compound – in the hops being used, the amount of time the hops were boiled, and the gravity of the wort – potential strength of the beer. You do some arithmetic, carry the tens, and get an IBU number.

When you are brewing the old way, boiling all your hops, the formula makes a lot of sense. The longer you boil a hop, the more alpha acid it releases and the more bitterness you’ll get in your beer. But most hoppy beers these days utilize far more hops post-boil – in the whirlpool, in the fermenter, in the conditioning tank – and the formula completely ignores those hops. Also, alpha-acids – the only hop compound the formula takes into account – are far less important to hoppy flavor than once believed.

Long story short: IBUs are bullshit.

No one wants gluten free beer.

In a world wear cider and wine and cocktails exist, no one needs a disappointing gluten free brew. The lines were non-existent.

Everyone wants fruit in their beer.

I know plenty of beer bloggers who cluck disapprovingly at mango infused IPAs. But the people want what the people want. 

OMG THIS BEER TASTES JUST LIKE A PINEAPPLE! Yeah. They put a pineapple in there.

People prefer beer from breweries they’ve heard of.

Why is no one lining up for Upright Brewing? They’re the best.