Beer 511

Exploring the Craft Beer and Homebrew Scenes in Peru (Country Code 51) and the USA (Country Code 1)

Category: Events

Latin American Craft Beer Cup

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On February 17, 2018

In Competitions, Events, Peru

This year’s Latin American Craft Beer Cup (Copa Latinoamericana de Cervezas Artesanales, or Copa Latam) competition has been set to take place in Lima, from the 14th to the 20th of May.

The Copa Latam is a BJCP-sanctioned competition launched in 2014 through a collaboration between Peruvian craft brewers.  The competition takes place concurrently with the Latin American Craft Brewers’ Conference.The first two events (2014 and 2016) were held in Lima, and last year’s was held in Cusco.

Last year’s competition included participating breweries from Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Uruguay, Mexico, and, of course, Peru.

 

Admiral Maltings’ “Open Malthouse Day”

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On February 11, 2018

In Bay Area Beer, California, Events, SF Beer Week, Suppliers

On February 10th, I attended Admiral Malting‘s “Open Malthouse Day”, hosted by Admiral’s founders, Ron Silberstein (of ThirstyBear Brewing) and Dave McLean (of Magnolia Brewing), as part of San Francisco Beer Week.

Guests were taken on thirty- to forty-minute behind-the-scenes of the malthouse, where we were able to learn about and observe the full production process. Both farmers and brewers were also on hand to experience the tour and to share their stories and speak about their experiences with Admiral’s malt.

Ron Silberstein, co-founder of Admiral Maltings, explains the malting process, accompanied by UC Davis biologist, Lynn Gallagher (at center), who developed the strain of barley used in Gallagher’s Best malt, and Bob Schaupp, a barley farmer, here enjoying his first glass of beer brewed from his crop.

 

Today, industrial malting is typically done in what is referred to as the “compartment process”, in which grain is passed through large, stainless-steel tanks able to accommodate tens, or even hundreds, of tons of grain. The grain is agitated with auger and aerated with large fans, as it passes through a series of alternating wet and dry stages, before being kilned.

Floor malting, on the other hand, is a more traditional, slower and more labor-intensive method, which is said to produce superior malt with deeper, richer flavor.  Upon opening in July of last year in an old dry-goods storage facility on the former Alameda Naval Air Station, Admiral Maltings became the first commercial floor malting facility in California since before Prohibition, and California’s first maltster with a California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) certification.

On my tour Silberstein explained that the barley spends 38-42 hrs steeping in the hydration tanks, then 4-5 days germinating on the malting floor, before being sent into the drying kiln for 24 hrs.

The malt is then passed through another machine which removes the rootlets before it is bagged.  A ton of rootlets are removed from each 10 ton batch of barley. With the addition to husks and other debris that is removed, there is a 20% loss, per weight, in the malting process, such that each 10-ton batch of barley results in 8 tons of finished malt. Currently, Admiral is approaching ten batches per month, but are looking into some material improvements which would enable them to attain fourteen batches per month.

With the Bay Area being a hub of the growing farm-to-table (or in this case, farm-to-glass) movement, the opportunity to avail themselves of locally-produced, small-batch, and certified organic, malt has generated a great deal of interest among local brewers.  Enough so that Admiral has been able to outfit it’s own taproom exclusively serving beers brewed using its malts.

The tour ended with tastings of Admiral malts and of beers made with those malts, guided by the brewers who made them.  On hand were brewers from Harmonic Brewing Co. (serving Prague Rock, made with Admiral Pils malt), Armistice Brewing Co. (serving Berthday Beer English Golden Ale, made with Feldblume malt), Social Kitchen & Brewery (serving California Grown Lager, made with Gallagher’s Best malt), and Independent Brewing Co. (serving Escaped the Island Blonde Ale, made with Maiden malt).

Eddie Gobbo, co-founder and head brewer of San Francisco’s Harmonic Brewing Company, talks bout his experience brewing with Admiral’s malts and leads a tasting of his Prague Rock Pilsner (brewed with Admiral Pils malt).

SF Beer Week

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On February 1, 2018

In Bay Area Beer, Events, Festivals, SF Beer Week

It’s February, and February in the Bay Area means SF Beer Week!

SF Beer Week is California’s premier beer festival.  Over the course of a week it features hundreds of official beer-centered events (623 at last count for this year!) and dozens of unofficial and “warm up” events, throughout the nine Bay Area counties, and beyond.

This year’s Opening Gala –which officially opens Beer Week on February 9th– alone has more than 12o breweries confirmed to pour their best, most special, and rarest beers.

With this being it’s 10th anniversary, the organizers predict that this will be the most epic Beer Week thus far.

For full schedule of events click HERE or visit  sfbeerweek.org

Anchor’s new Go West! IPA

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On January 23, 2016

In Bay Area Beer, Beer Reviews, Events

When I toured Anchor‘s brewery in mid-November, head brewer Mark Carpenter offered us guests samples of a still-experimental IPA that the brewery was considering as an addition to its line-up of beers.  Well, those experiments have borne fruit and this month Anchor released its newest beer: Go West! IPA.

 

 

Go West! Launch Party

To mark the release of Go West! Anchor is holding a series of public release events at different venues throughout SF Beer Week. However, I was able to attend a special invitation-only launch party at the brewery itself on Thursday evening.

 

 

There I joined other guests in tasting Go West! as well as many of Anchor’s other beers, all flowing freely from the tap room and from draught stations set up throughout the brewhouse, along with hors d’oeuvres including cured meat and cheese pairings, beer ice cream, beer floats, and more. (I highly recommend making your float with Anchor Barrel Ale, by the way.)

 

 

The Beer

Ok. So, on to the beer itself…

Anchor’s own literature describes Go West! IPA as

“Made with 2-row pale barley malt and dry-hopped with a unique blend of American hops. Its mouthwateringly complex aromas of citrus, pine, and the tropics; spiky bitterness; gleaming golden color; and clean finish unite to create this singular 24-karat IPA.”

I found it to be very enjoyable, and somewhat unique for an American IPA, and particularly for a West Coast IPA.
Of couse, being an IPA, it is hop-forward in flavour, but bucking the trend out here, it is not a palate-numbing hop bomb, and it doesn’t include Cascade hops. Instead, fruit and citrus flavours do stand out, but the beer is well balanced, and finishes really clean.
The fact that Go West! IPA is so balanced and not overly hoppy is a testament to the skill of Anchor’s brewers, particularly since –I was told– it includes the addition of 3 types of hops in the kettle and 4 more during fermentation.  I can’t remember them all, but I do distinctly recall that Citra hops were one of the ones that went into dry-hopping.
Like I said, I really enjoyed Go West! IPA. I think that Anchor hit it out of the ball park with this beer!
As for the stats: Go West! clocks in at 6.7% ABV and 75 IBUs. I didn’t inquire about its SRM.

Anchor Christmas Ale and Spirit Release

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On November 15, 2015

In Beer Reviews, Breweries, Events

On November 7th I had the opportunity to partake of a VIP brewery tour of Anchor Brewing and Anchor Distilling in San Francisco.  The event was Anchor’s 2015 Media Brewery Tour to mark this year’s release of their Winter Wheat Ale and the 2015 Merry Christmas and Happy New Year ale, from the brewery, and the 2015 Christmas Spirit from the distillery.

The current brewery is located on Potrero Hill in San Francisco, although there are plans to move to a new, larger location in the near future. I had never been to the Anchor brewery, even though I had long wanted to visit it. Tours book up well in advance, so it has seemed hard to find a time when I could go on one, even though I now live within moderately easy driving distance, so I was pretty happy to receive the invitation to this tour.

Upon arriving, and going up the stairs, one first enters the brewery’s well-appointed tap room. 

 Aside from the handsome bar, the room is lined with cabinets and wall displays filled with curiosities and antiques relating to Anchor Brewing, steam beer, and brewing in San Francisco generally.

Behind the bar, lining the edge of the cooler, is a display of Anchor bottles, old and recent.  Among the curiosities displayed there are two bottles of Anchor Steam with the labels upside down.

Mark Carpenter, who is the head brewer at Anchor, and who conducted the tour for us, shared that those were issued after the 1989 earthquake.

When the earthquake struck and the power went out, the beer was still in the kettles.  Mark and some colleagues, along with neighbors, stayed on at the brewery until the power came back on and they were able to transfer the wort to the fermenters.  Because the wort had sat in the kettles longer than the usual, the finished beer tasted different than the normal batches.  Rather than throw it out, then-owner Fritz Maytag decided to bottle and release it, but with a difference.

Passing through the tap room, we were invited into the brewery proper.

The guest list consisted of about two dozen bloggers and social-media types -hence my invite- who got to taste the new releases, enjoy hors d’oeuvres (including some yummy “lobster corn dogs”) and learn about the brewery.

To showcase the 2015 Christmas Spirit, they had a mixologist on hand preparing a couple of cocktails using the spirit, and other liquors and liqueurs imported by Anchor’s distilling arm. (Recipes at the end of this post.)
The Christmas Spirit, of which this year’s is the third batch released commercially, is made each year by distilling the previous year’s Christmas ale and, like on the Christmas beer, the tree on the label is different each year. It is a clear, unaged whisky, which comes in at 45% ABV. 
I asked the barman for a bit of it neat, and my curiosity was well-rewarded.  Oftentimes one is led to expect unaged spirits to be a bit harsh or to have an alcoholic “hotness”, but this spirit puts that notion flatly to rest.  It is really quite smooth.  (Unfortunately, Anchor is not able to sell it on premises until new laws come into effect on Jan. 1st, so I was unable to come away with a bottle.)

After a bit, Mark started the tour by inviting us back into the taproom to tell us a bit about Anchor’s history, and about the new beers.

He explained that while the Winter Wheat is produced employing a steady recipe, arrived at after some tweaking and experimentation, the Merry Christmas, Happy New Year (“Our Special Ale”) is different each year. As this is the 41st iteration of that beer, Anchor has produced forty-one different “Special Ales” in that time, and for 41 years fans have been kept guessing as to what has gone into each, as the brewery keeps the formulation a well-guarded secret.

Left: Christmas Ale; Right: Winter Wheat Ale
It is widely assumed that the recipe generally contains spices, and this year’s very tasty Special Ale has a hint of cloves, which could be the result of cloves being part of the mix, or from the yeast –although Mark said they use the same house yeast strain in the Special Ale as they do in Anchor Steam and their other ales.  In any case, Mark was coyly evasive as to whether cloves were present or not, however he did let out that the two spices that certainly do not go into the recipe are allspice and frankincense. 
Then, after sampling the brews, he led us on a tour of the facility, from the brewhouse on the third floor to the cold room and fermentation tanks in the basement, to the bottling and canning lines, shipping warehouse on the ground floor.

The lovely all-copper brewhouse

In the hop storage room
Anchor uses traditional open fermentaters for their primary fermentation.

Secondary fermentation tanks in the basement

The last stop on the tour was the distillery .

Anchor Distilling dates back to 1993, with Fritz Maytag’s foray into spirits production with Old Potrero, an old-style pot-distilled rye whiskey.  At the time, it was one of the few rye whiskeys being produced in the US and the only legally-produced commercial whiskey produced in a pot still (all others were produced in column or in continuous distillation stills).
Old Potrero was followed soon after by Junipero Gin, and Genevieve Genever-style Gin. Today the distillery’s offerings also includes two other variants of Old Potrero –an “18th Century” whiskey and an aged 16-year old one– as well as an Old Tom gin, and Hophead hop-infused vodka.

Afteward we repaired to the brewhouse and taproom for some more drinks, where I was pleased of the chance to taste a still-experimental IPA that Anchor was trying out for addition to it’s beer lineup.
All in all, I had a really good time and it was great to meet Mark and visit what is an icon in the craft beer scene.
Now, all I’ve got to do is find somewhere to get a bottle of the Christmas Spirit ….
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