BraufactuM Progusta IPA, Radeberger Group, Frankfurt, Germany

Date:  November 20,2018

The Story—  You don’t have to go to a beer store to find good European beer experiences in the US.  Washington DC’s The Sovereign bar has Belgian specialties you’d be hard pressed to find in Belgium.  Every once in a while a mid-level European brewery searching for the golden goose sends a batch of beer over at a pretty reasonable price.  It never works; when the price goes up, drinkers attracted to it because of the price find another pipe-dreaming brewery at another bargain.  We’ll feature some of the exceptionally good Hofbrauhaus Freising beers we encountered by chance at Tyber Bierhaus in Bethesda, Maryland later this winter

Today’s beer is marketed as a “craft” beer brand all over Germany.   Turns out they’re more crafty, though they do offer beer styles that would have gotten them arrested a couple of decades ago.   When we first encountered the BraufactuM beers, the barkeep was convinced the brewery was a dream come true for a couple of youngsters in Frankfurt trying to turn that beer desert into an oasis.

Turns out that’s not quite the case.  The beers are apparently produced in the large Binding Brewery in Frankfurt which is part of the Radeberger group which is the largest German-owned brewery group in the country.   We’ve read reports that they use other Radeberger breweries when they have excess capacity, but the brewery isn’t talking.

Some of this is like arguing that Goose Island IPA is Budweiser because it’s brewed in Budweiser plants.   It’s not the best IPA in the US, but it surely isn’t the worst either.   The Progusta is in that same vein, except there aren’t that many really good IPAs being brewed in Germany.   You’d do better for the style in Spain or Italy, but the Germans, after a slow start, are jumping on the IPA wagon in droves and it won’t be long before some of them start to produce gems.

We found this beer the the Asbury Festhalle Bierhalle, one of the most remarkable beer-centered food and entertainment venues we’ve encountered in the last several years.   An enormous beer hall downstairs and a huge rooftop biergarten — with all weather tents for outdoor drinking in snow and rain– feature dozens of local and imported beers.   Asbury, New Jersey, has two very good breweries downtown and a few more scattered nearby so you really don’t have to go to Frankfort to get a good ale.   Still, it was interesting and a pleasant enough way to enjoy a bit of Europe on home turf.

The Beer—  Lots of caramel malt finishes with herbal and some citrus hops almost certainly from the US West Coast    .  So…hops from here go there and beer from there goes here.   Better just to stay local and save the shipping the beer shows some molasses, and it’s OK, but really no better than more than a thousand that you can get in neighborhoods across the country.

Value — fair to good.  Not a bad beer — it’s just that better choices abound.

This week we feature a half dozen really good European beers that we found in the United States.   We make pilgrimages to some of the best beer stores in Eastern America once or twice a year and we also just bump into incredibly good beer in places we don’t expect.  Not all of these are on the shelves, but beers much like them are.

Next week we return to the US to highlight some great American craft beers, some of which we’ve found in researching out first US Beer publication: Brews and Snooze-– Breweries you can visit and walk back to a fine place to spend the night.  Look for it in 2019.

About these posts:  We taste and evaluate over a thousand beers every year.  The beers posted here rank in the top quarter of those tastings.   Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.

Duvel Tripel Hop HBC291, Breendon-Dorp, Belgium

Date:  November 19, 2018

The Story—  Julio’s all-things-boozy emporium is in Westborough, Massachusetts, a long half hour west of Boston (and longer in traffic or bad weather).  But it’s worth renting a car and driving out and lugging back a case or two of remarkable beers you just won’t see anywhere else.

Several years ago, we started to pick the two cases we could manage on our return rail journey to Baltimore when our self control failed us and we wound up filling the back trunk of our sedan.  We called up the rental company and they approved a drop off at BWI rather than Logan and we drove that treasure trove back home.

We’ve planned better, but have driven home five, ten and sometimes fifteen cases from Julios — we reached fifteen by augmenting the Julio Haul from an equally dazzling selection at Half Time in Poughkeepsie and topping off the load with another valuable stop at State Line liquors just off I95 and over the Delaware border into Maryland.   Those three stores remain the trifecta that most reliably fills our shelves for a snowbound winter, though we’ve found a wave of surprisingly good stores ranging from Berlin, Maryland to Phoenixville, Pa.

Duvel skated out of World War Two on thin ice, but hard work and good decisions – and a partly lucky, partly inspired decision to produce a pale golden very strong ale and name it after the devil– has turned it into an international craft powerhouse.   Duvel was one of the first beers we encounter that really had flavor.  Ellie detested it (“there’s something wrong here”) and though I withheld judgement, I didn’t order a second.

Not long thereafter we struck up first a conversation and then a friendship with Walter the bartender in one of Europe’s early pioneer beer bars in Amsterdam (sadly no longer with us.)   he introduced us to a friend who happened to be good friends with the Moortgat family that owned Duvel.  He drove us out, arranged for a tour by one of the daughters and then walked us across the street to the Matriarch of the family– and business.   it seemed like even the closest family members called her “Ms. Moortgat.”    We sat on the formal back porch, talking beer and watching her prize winning chickens strut around the yard.   She served us Duvel that had been carefully cellared in the mansion’s basement for exactly one year and this time neither of us had any problem recognizing it as one of the best beers we had ever tasted.

At the time, Duvel was a one-horse rodeo.  Though it did produce other beers, including some tasty secular “abby” beers, Duvel Ale paid the bills.   The brewery did its own malting and sourced hops that were not at all common in other better known breweries.

Fast forward to 2018 and the Duvel Moortgat company’s umbrella now includes at least 15 quality brewing ventures that include Ommegang, Boulevard and Firestone Walker in the US as well as Belgian brands including Liefmans and almost any beer with “chouffe” in the name.

Like almost every brewery in the world now, Duvel comes out with seasonals and one-offs to help remind people of the flagship.  For most breweries, and for most of the time, these one-offs pale in comparison to the originals.   But here, Duvel has produced a winner.  A taste that approaches unique almost in the way the original used to (before hundreds of copycat versions sprang up all over the world) won’t appeal to everyone, but it certainly appealed to me.

The Beer—  I’m a sucker for experimental hops that don’t steal the fruit vendor’s push cart.  Ellie keeps her head.   Spicy hops ride over a very slightly funky pale malt and the malt asserts itself just a bit more as it drinks.   A Mild fruit and a later bitter finishes.  Pepper and fruit from the very interesting hop– marries well with the Duvel base

Value —  Good.  No one gives away great beer, but Julio’s keeps its prices under control as well as any beer store of its quality.

This week we feature a half dozen really good European beers that we found in the United States.   We make pilgrimages to some of the best beer stores in Eastern America once or twice a year and we also just bump into incredibly good beer in places we don’t expect.  Not all of these are on the shelves, but beers much like them are.

Next week we return to the US to highlight some great American craft beers, some of which we’ve found in researching out first US Beer publication: Brews and Snooze-– Breweries you can visit and walk back to a fine place to spend the night.  Look for it in 2019.

About these posts:  We taste and evaluate over a thousand beers every year.  The beers posted here rank in the top quarter of those tastings.   Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.

Pizza Boy Bright Club, @ Al’s of Hampden, Enola, Pa.

Date:  November 18,2018

The Story—  The Bright Club is one of the best of the “Pennsylvania IPAs” that collectively form one of the true highlights of a visit to Al’s of Hampden – and a sufficient reason to drive from New York or Richmond.   The barkeep wasn’t sure whether the hops were actually local or started locally and farmed out farther away.   We’ll follow up on the story.   Pennsylvania is well within a superior growing latitude for hops—some very fine hops are coming from Maryland and Virginia these days—so we suspect any farming out is in search of acres rather than climate.  However they do it we love what they’re doing with East Coast hops.   We’ve had several locally-hopped beers in Maryland and Virginia and many have been very good, but we’ve sometimes felt they are “almost as good as the west”, but here we think they’re better.

Tangentially, the fairly large Saranac brewery in Utica, New York, (West End or Matt’s for those of us old enough to remember this survivor’s other profiles) grew their own hops and had volunteers pick them.   The beer that this way-too-big-for-excellence produced was …. excellent.

We tasted the Bright Club from a crowler just a day old and it was in fine shape.   Glass growlers are intuitively better for transporting beer, but crowlers are blasted with CO2 just before filling and if you don’t let them linger in your fridge too long, they give a near-draft experience.

The Beer— The beer was just yummy.   It’s chalky with a fascinating hop flavor that’s just past subtle.  There’s a wonderful almost old fashioned balance to it with pale malt and spicy and flavorful hops.  Ends dryly with an almost woody and chalky breadth.

Value —Very good edging toward excellent,   The crowler was ten bucks, and that’s on the low end of crowler prices.  A good beer at this price would be a good value, but this way-better-than-average IPA is, for us at least, a bargain.

This week we have been focusing on the US to highlight some great American craft beers, some of which we’ve found in researching out first US Beer publication: Brews and Snooze-– Breweries you can visit and walk back to a fine place to spend the night.  Look for it in 2019.

Tomorrow, a day late due to the range of great beers from Pizza Boy,  we return to  HIGHLIGHTS OF EUROPE–  Some of these may be surprisingly good beer in “bad beer cities.”  The best we’ve found in researching our next book – a guide to great beer in European tourist cities. (Planned publication 2019.)  But we’re going to include some of the best we’ve ever found in Europe in this group of six beers.  We’ll shift back to great American beer finds next week.

 About these posts:  We taste and evaluate over a thousand beers every year.  The beers posted here rank in the top quarter of those tastings.   Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.

Pizza Boy Da Fuq’n Pils, @ Al’s of Hampden, Enola, Pa.

Date:  November 17, 2018

The Story— Pilsners are really hard to brew well.   As we mentioned in a previous post, our Hop Pocket Ale, as complex and path breaking as it was at the time, came out almost perfectly on the first try.  Not so the “Hop Pocket Pils” (later renamed Keller Pils).   It was quite good, but only by the 7^th batch did we really fell the brewery had nailed what we were trying to do.   A Gold Medal at the Great American beer Festival confirmed the worth of our ideas and the brilliance of Jerry Bailey’s brewery.  We were at least as proud of the Bronze medal we won two years later in the “unfiltered beer” category – a category that included all sorts of Belgian and unconventional beers.

But we digress – a very good pils is a challenge even in Germany and Czech where they’ve been doing it for close to a couple of hundred years.   We’d guess that if Terry had the luxury of leaving the beer in the tank for two to three months he might turn out a world classic.

This pilsner is so good I’d think about getting a kegerator and having it as our go to beer – at least until we find a brewer to revive our Keller Pils.   It’s 5.15% abv  is a touch high, but who is going to quibble between the usual 4.8% and this.

The Beer—  The beer is chalky and hoppy for the style but it’s a nice tangy lager.  The clean late bitter is echt (authentic).  There may be a bit of modern hop taste to it but it drinks cleanly and well.   We brought it home in a can and it was good evidence that their can line is working quite well.

Value — good.   A single can at the brewery costs more than the going rate for a pint can, but the beer makes it worth the money.  You can get it cheaper by the six-pack.  (or the KEG, yup yup!)

This week we focus on the US to highlight some great American craft beers, some of which we’ve found in researching out first US Beer publication: Brews and Snooze-– Breweries you can visit and walk back to a fine place to spend the night.  Look for it in 2019.

Next week we return to  HIGHLIGHTS OF EUROPE–  Surprisingly good beer in “bad beer cities.”  The best we’ve found in researching our next book – a guide to great beer in European tourist cities. (Planned publication 2019.)   We’ll shift back to great American beer finds next week.

 About these posts:  We taste and evaluate over a thousand beers every year.  The beers posted here rank in the top quarter of those tastings.   Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.

Pizza Boy Pizza Chaser, Al’s of Hampden, Enola, Pa.

Date:  November 16, 2018

The Story—  Beers at Al’s of Hampden – Pizza Boy Brewing—are just too good to name a beer or two and then move on, so we’ll stay with Al – and his master brewer Terry—for the rest of these US entries.

Professional brewers should be able to brew IPAs and stouts and porters that taste very good.   Mistakes are corralled by hop in one case and big dark malt flavors in the other.   Our Hop Pocket Ale came out perfectly the first time Old Dominion brewed it.   The Keller Pils took seven batches to really get right.

So it’s not really earth shaking news that a good brewery like Terry Hawbaker can roll out a range of IPAs without a misstep, but his raw talent is more on display in some of his less aggressive beers.   His Blanc Slate Lager, for example, was a nice if unconventional gold beer, but at 7% it should have been.   We were more impressed by his ability to produce a straightforward “Pizza Chaser” 5% pale ale that was exactly what the name advertised.

The Beer—A well-balanced soft-spoken nicely balanced pale malt with soft but pleasing hops in the finish.  Caramel and biscuit maltiness with stone and ale fruit in the finish matched but never exceeded the flavors of the good pizza it washed down.   Ellie’s view was that it was well behaved with hops that “won” but politely.

Value —very good.   $5.50 for a 14 ounce or so– an American “pint” –would be a good deal at a bar’s happy hour, but you can be happy any time at Al’s of Hampden.

This week we focus on the US to highlight some great American craft beers, some of which we’ve found in researching out first US Beer publication: Brews and Snooze-– Breweries you can visit and walk back to a fine place to spend the night.  Look for it in 2019.

Next week we return to  HIGHLIGHTS OF EUROPE–  Surprisingly good beer in “bad beer cities.”  The best we’ve found in researching our next book – a guide to great beer in European tourist cities. (Planned publication 2019.)   We’ll shift back to great American beer finds next week.

 About these posts:  We taste and evaluate over a thousand beers every year.  The beers posted here rank in the top quarter of those tastings.   Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.