Brewing All Stars #8: Gordon Biersch Rockville House Red India Red Ale

Date:  July 23 , 2019  —  Note- this is a tasting note from April.  No guarantee you’ll find this now, but it gives an insight into what you can look for at this surprisingly independent chain brewery.

The Story—  Until fairly recently Gordon Biersch tried to maintain a great deal of similarity among their dozens of breweries. The idea was that whatever GB you wandered into would pour the GB beers you had enjoyed in your last city.   There’s something to be said for that except, wait– big national brands and imports have made that a sure thing for decades.   The whole point of a “beer brewed here” was to have a beer that “wasn’t brewed there.”

The truth was, though, for those of us with even mediocre palates, the beers did vary.  The equipment wasn’t the same in every place and the brewers seized some breathing space to put their own stamp on the GB products.   For a while they had to do that under the radar, but over time, and in part due to the efforts of local Biersch overseer (and now master brewer for Devils Backbone) Jason Oliver, the brewery loosened its grip on some of the country’s best brewers and now you’ll find a dramatically different arrays of beers across the country and even across town.

The chain does have a tendency to play musical chairs with their brewers.  Our “local” in Rockville, Md. was one of the chairs in a recent move that brought Scott Lasater from DC to the the suburbs.  He’s settled in long enough now so that we’ve had a chance to taste most of his beers.  His predecessor, Nassim Sultan, was a talented brewer and we’ll miss the beers he did particularly well, but Scott has already shown us he’ll be bringing us some treats as well.

The staff tells us Scott tries to avoid the “name game” and just calls beers for what they are.   Good for him.  This “House Red” Red IPA is flashier in the glass than on the menu.   It’s just at the IPA threshold of 6.0% abv and the 30 IBUs shove it just down from New England but barely take a baby step towards the west coast.  What those hard working 30 IBUs do is balance red ale malts that can get leathery and sugary without their help. There must have been a good dose of late hops and/or whirlpool, or dry hopping to make the hops sing so strongly with “only” 30 IBUs. So many IPAs these days taste so much like so many other IPAs these days.  This one stands on its own.  It’s the best we’ve had from Scott so far…  but we’re looking forward to continuing to try more.

The Beer–  Full malt foundation with just barely leashed dark crystal.  Husky and some dankness to the hops along with leaf and herbs and grass and lots more.

Value —Excellent if you get to the brewery between 4 and 7 PM for their $4/half liter (oh so very) happy hour.  It’s still a very good value @ $6 a half liter at other times.

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.

It’s All-Star season.  MLB has finished theirs, but it seems like a new sport is showcasing exceptional talent almost every day.  So we’ll be presenting our own all-star brewing line up.  We don’t claim to present– or even know– what the best beers in America are, but out of the hundred or so that we taste every month, some are indeed special.   For the second couple of weeks in July, we’ll share some recent standouts in  a very crowded craft beer field. .

We’re often asked to share our tasting notes on over 33,000 beers; this blog is in answer to those requests.   Not all our notes, though.  The great beer writer Michael Jackson admirably followed the Thumper Rule, and we’ll try to do the same.  (“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.”)   All the beers we post are from the top half of our ratings and most are from the top quarter.   Of greater value, we think, are the stories behind the beers, and we try to give you enough about the brewery, the style and the places to find great beer to help you on your own beer journeys.   At CulturAle Press we try to write books and publish posts that will help you “Drink Well and Travel Safely.”

Brewing All Stars #7: NOLA (New Orleans Lager and Ale Brewing) Hoppyright Infringement IIPA, New Orleans, La.

Date:  July 22 , 2019  —  This post is in progress.  Return soon for it.  In the meantime, click “more reviews” below to see our most recent “Beer of the Day” posts.

The Story—  Yesterday we featured one of master brewer John Maier’s last beers at Rogue, his triumphal Straight Outta Newport…Oregon IPA.  It’s worth keeping that beer in mind as we look at this almost (but not quite) as good beer from a very different part of the country.   There are some differences: this one is hazier.  John called his 8.7 an IPA while NOLA calls its 7.6 an Imperial IPA.  John packed a nicely balancing 73 IBUs in his slightly hazy beer; this one is lower.   What they both have in common, however, is a deep dankness.  NOLA get it’s dankness by a combination of Centennial, Citra, Ekuanot, and Mosaic.   None of these by themselves usually presents all that much dankness, but the combination– perhaps especially in the dry hopping– gives it a rich and lasting range of flavors that includes plenty of good old musty dank.

The Beer–  Wonderfully dank.  Rich ripe fruit and deep herbs on a slightly musty full malt.  Nice lasting bitter.    Slight hint of Dentyne gum cinnamon, but it’s more round and less hot.  Herbal, grassy and dank as it drinks.

Value —  Good to very good.  If the alcohol werejust a bit lower than its 7.6, I could drink it all night.  As it is, I could still drink it all evening.

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.

It’s All-Star season.  MLB has finished theirs, but it seems like a new sport is showcasing exceptional talent almost every day.  So we’ll be presenting our own all-star brewing line up.  We don’t claim to present– or even know– what the best beers in America are, but out of the hundred or so that we taste every month, some are indeed special.   For the second couple of weeks in July, we’ll share some recent standouts in  a very crowded craft beer field. .

We’re often asked to share our tasting notes on over 33,000 beers; this blog is in answer to those requests.   Not all our notes, though.  The great beer writer Michael Jackson admirably followed the Thumper Rule, and we’ll try to do the same.  (“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.”)   All the beers we post are from the top half of our ratings and most are from the top quarter.   Of greater value, we think, are the stories behind the beers, and we try to give you enough about the brewery, the style and the places to find great beer to help you on your own beer journeys.   At CulturAle Press we try to write books and publish posts that will help you “Drink Well and Travel Safely.”

Brewing All Stars #6: Rogue Straight Outta Newport…Oregon, Newport, Oregon. Plus: Brewer John Maier retires from Rogue Ales.

Date:  July 21 , 2019  —

The Stories—          News Flash-– John Maier, the brilliantly talented head brewer at Rogue for the last three decades has announced he is retiring this month.   You can read details at Brew Republic here and scroll down to the comments for my favorite John Maier story

I was talking to a home brewer and fellow Beer Geek the other day who said his favorite beer to brew was a New England IPA.   My face delivered a message that was more candid than my verbal reply.  We talked on about the “style” and without actually making the connection between his earlier and later statement as he said that he’d about had enough of the New Englanders and thought the fad would fade soon.  In fairness, he’s not the first homebrewer I’ve known whose favorite style to brew was not his favorite to consume.

In any event, a goodly number of those of us who’ve been around a bit are getting more than a little tired of the “Try to Top the Heddy Topper” craze.  Alchemist did a great job of giving us something new to drink and think about, and hats off to them.   However, copy-crafters followed, of course, and have used up so much lactose I worry that America’s children may not be getting enough milk for healthy bones and strong teeth.  Some of the copies, we’ve heard, have even used flour to cloud up batches than came out too clearly.   Beyond that, we’ve encountered “New England” IPAs with IBUs ranging from near zero to 70 or more.  That’s not a style, it’s a wet sponge of cloudy paint thrown at a wall.

So there’s no surprise that some of the West Coast guys who did so much to put the modern IPA style on the world map, are pushing back.   Some of the newer danker hops have extended the flavor range of IPAs without pushing the essence of the style over a cliff.  Comet is one of our favorite for its earthy and– so we’re told– marijuana-like dankness.  Ironically, Comet is not a new hop — it was developed decades ago as a bittering hop for big brewers, but the big guys shunned it — it had actual flavor after all– and it almost disappeared from the planet.  Some enthusiasts, most of them home brewers we understand, reclaimed it from obscurity and now a number of commercial brewers are playing with it for single hop beers and in combination with other fruitier hops.

This is a big West Coast IPA – it’s 8.7% alcohol could nudge it into the Imperial range if John had chosen to brand it as such.  Whatever the name, it’s a glorious beer.  It’s probably the last John Maier beer we’ll get to taste; what a wonderful swan song.

The Beer–  Rich and dank and chewy.  Very ripe fruit leading to a long bitter.  It has a slightly chalkly feel and a slight haze that’s a haze and not a Newport (either coast) fog.   The dank aroma informs every return sip and helps frame some very nice herbal hops in the taste.  the long bitter helps bring it all into focus as it drinks.

Value —  Very good to excellent.  It’s hard to imagine getting this much pleasure– and change from a five dollar bill— from anything else.

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.

It’s All-Star season.  MLB has finished theirs, but it seems like a new sport is showcasing exceptional talent almost every day.  So we’ll be presenting our own all-star brewing line up.  We don’t claim to present– or even know– what the best beers in America are, but out of the hundred or so that we taste every month, some are indeed special.   For the second couple of weeks in July, we’ll share some recent standouts in  a very crowded craft beer field. .

We’re often asked to share our tasting notes on over 33,000 beers; this blog is in answer to those requests.   Not all our notes, though.  The great beer writer Michael Jackson admirably followed the Thumper Rule, and we’ll try to do the same.  (“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.”)   All the beers we post are from the top half of our ratings and most are from the top quarter.   Of greater value, we think, are the stories behind the beers, and we try to give you enough about the brewery, the style and the places to find great beer to help you on your own beer journeys.   At CulturAle Press we try to write books and publish posts that will help you “Drink Well and Travel Safely.”

Brewing All Stars #5: Mason Jar Lager Co. Pull Tab Pilsner, Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina

Date:  July 20 , 2019  —

The Story—  The Mason Jar named two restaurants in the Triangle are of North Carolina.   After establishing themselves well, the owners tacked on a brewery next to their Fuquay-Varina location and seemed to have made the transition to beer and food remarkable successfully.

Fuquay-Varina lies in a brewing rich area of the Tar Heel state, with Aviator Brewing not far away and several others within an easy drive.  There’s a fairly sophisticated craft beer market and, like most areas of the US now, it’s hard to find an unoccupied niche.   Mason Jar’s was to focus on lagers.  Few small breweries choose — or even can– to produce lagers because of the extra time in the tank that they take.   But once in a while customers recognize they value of clean well conditioned beers and ensure the brewery’s success.   Old Dominion in the Mid-Atlantic was a pioneer in brewing a range of good craft lagers.  Jack’s Abby in Framingham, Mass. is another than didn’t produce any American ale styles until very recently and has done very well.

The malts in this beer are genuine German pilsner malts, but they use Simcoe hops — and maybe that explains the bit of hard-to-identify flavor that we found out of placeWe haven’t been to Mason Jar.  Yet.  But if they keep producing beers this good, they’ll still be there when we get there.

The Beer–  The pale malt and the light fruit that suggests Juicy Fruit and Honeysuckle are very authentic and it ends with an equally authentic long pilsner bitter.  The 4.7% abv is also spot-on. A very light suggestion of soap– from the Simcoe?– was a minor distraction that kept it from being one of our top ten beers of the year, but still, we see it as one of the better American pilsners we’ve had.

Value —  Very good.   I’m only sorry I didn’t have a chance to have several of these to see how it drinks over time.

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.

It’s All-Star season.  MLB has finished theirs, but it seems like a new sport is showcasing exceptional talent almost every day.  So we’ll be presenting our own all-star brewing line up.  We don’t claim to present– or even know– what the best beers in America are, but out of the hundred or so that we taste every month, some are indeed special.   For the second couple of weeks in July, we’ll share some recent standouts in  a very crowded craft beer field. .

We’re often asked to share our tasting notes on over 33,000 beers; this blog is in answer to those requests.   Not all our notes, though.  The great beer writer Michael Jackson admirably followed the Thumper Rule, and we’ll try to do the same.  (“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.”)   All the beers we post are from the top half of our ratings and most are from the top quarter.   Of greater value, we think, are the stories behind the beers, and we try to give you enough about the brewery, the style and the places to find great beer to help you on your own beer journeys.   At CulturAle Press we try to write books and publish posts that will help you “Drink Well and Travel Safely.”

Brewing All Stars #4: Rodenbach Fruitage, Roeslare, Belgium and Lieshout, Netherlands

Date:  July 19 , 2019  —

The Story—  Rodenbach has been one of our favorite breweries anywhere for decades.  with Michael Jackson’s poetic encouragement we made the pilgrimage to it well over 30 years ago.  Massive wooden foeders filled warehouse after warehouse– an apparent homage to the great porter breweries of 19th century London.  The beer from one of these foeders ws transporting — and commercially unavailable.

At that point it was a very independent relic of the 19th century with an unusual business plan.  Like Guinness, Rodenbach never tried to buy tied houses that would guarantee a market for their beers, but specializing in one distinctive beer, they sold to other breweries’ tied houses.  Without question the strategy kept them independent in the great consolidations of the 70s and 80s.  The big brewers wanted pub, not brewing capacity in and old brewery, and failed to see the potential power of the brand.

The 180 run as an independent brewery ended in 1998 when the Palm group took it over.   In truth at that point the brewery was edging toward decay and the quality of a product that lives its life on the edge was in serious question.   Palm dropped the equivalent of six million bucks restoring the brewery and increasing the viability of its brands.  In 2016, however, the Dutch brewer Bavaria (yep, that’s confusing all right) bought Palm’s entire portfolio which included Palm’s signature brands, the outstanding Lambic beers from Frank Boon, and Rodenbach.  These iconic outliers are now in the hands of a brewery that’s approaching six million barrels a year.

We admit to a bias.  As long time beer can collectors, we became quite familiar with Bavaria in the 1970s and 80s as the brewery that issued literally hundreds of can labels with the same golden swill inside that made Iron City taste like a craft beer by comparison.   They also put hundreds of bucks in our pockets as we sent cases of the empty cans back to the states and sold the cans for $5 each or more.  remember in the 1970s, $5 could still buy a hamburger, and a few cases paid for a round-trip cattle car seat to Europe the next year.

Bavaria claims to be on the craft beer wagon now and talks a lot about the family brewing history  We haven’t heard them mumble a word about their can exploitation days, but business do what they have to do to survive.

We’ve featured Rodenbach beers before in this blog, and we will again.  Single foeder beers are released from time to time and they are among the greatest beers on earth.   Today’s beer isn’t one of them, but it’s interesting.   It’s one of the first clear outcomes of the Bavaria buyout.  It’s brewed and adulterated in Roeslare, but then tanked to Bavaria’s Lieshout brewery for canning.

It’s also one of the few that have made it to this blog in which Ellie scored it high and I didn’t.   She usually doesn’t like fruit-added beers any more than I do, but this passed muster for her.  It’s 7% cherry juice and 2% elderberry juice.  I’d have been happier without the elderberries no matter what your father smelled like.

The Beer–  It’s only 4.2% alcohol, which is another big plus for Ellie, who is on something of a session campaign these days.   It is very rich for the low booze.   The deep cherry suggests a bit of Ludens cough drop and it sports a long tart, though not acidic, ending.  Ellie:  It’s a 4.2% beer with most of the Rodenbach flavors.

Value —  Good (me); Very good (Ellie).  25 centiliter cans come in a our pack for under ten bucks.

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.

It’s All-Star season.  MLB has finished theirs, but it seems like a new sport is showcasing exceptional talent almost every day.  So we’ll be presenting our own all-star brewing line up.  We don’t claim to present– or even know– what the best beers in America are, but out of the hundred or so that we taste every month, some are indeed special.   For the second couple of weeks in July, we’ll share some recent standouts in  a very crowded craft beer field. .

We’re often asked to share our tasting notes on over 33,000 beers; this blog is in answer to those requests.   Not all our notes, though.  The great beer writer Michael Jackson admirably followed the Thumper Rule, and we’ll try to do the same.  (“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.”)   All the beers we post are from the top half of our ratings and most are from the top quarter.   Of greater value, we think, are the stories behind the beers, and we try to give you enough about the brewery, the style and the places to find great beer to help you on your own beer journeys.   At CulturAle Press we try to write books and publish posts that will help you “Drink Well and Travel Safely.”