Greg Noonan, 1951 - 2009

A wave of loss swept over the brewing community Monday, as news spread that Greg Noonan passed away Sunday night. He had been battling cancer.

Greg Noonan was a major figure in the birth of the craft beer movement, opening the Vermont Pub & Brewery over 20 years ago in 1988. Just two years prior, he had published Brewing Lager Beer (and a revision in 2003), a major source for craft and home brewers to this day. His explanations of decoction, single infusion, and step mashing have been helpful to scores of brewers trying to understand these brewing techniques.

From then on, Noonan dedicated his time and effort to opening other brewpubs along the east coast, writing other books, and judging at beer competitions. His book on Scotch Ale in the Classic Beer Styles series is considered the definitive resource on the range of Scotch ales, from 60 Schilling light Scottish ale to the classic strong Scotch ale also known as Wee Heavy.  Just last year, his sour mashing techniques were featured in a BYO magazine article. Noonan was clearly a frequently sought-out brewing resource who provided valuable insights to those interested in making better beer.

His contributions to the brewing community were well-recognized on the BJCP website:

The BJCP is deeply saddened to learn the news of the passing of Greg Noonan. Greg was the owner and brewmaster at Vermont Pub and Brewery for more than 20 years, author of "New Brewing Lager Beer", "Scotch Ale" and the "Seven Barrel Brewery Brewer's Handbook", and a BJCP National Judge since 1986. His books remain essential references for beer judges and brewers years after their publication. He taught many people the fundamentals of water chemistry, decoction mashing, and countless other topics.

Aside from his contributions to the body of knowledge of brewing, Greg was an excellent brewer who won many medals at the GABF, WBC, IBF and other prestigious competitions. His Scotch Ale and Smoked Porter remain classic examples. He was honored by both the craft brewing and home brewing communities with the 1997 AHA Governing Committee Recognition Award and the 2005 Russell Schehrer Award for Innovation in Brewing.

Clearly, the brewing community lost a valuable member on Sunday. You can view his obituary - and submit condolences - on the funeral home’s website. 

Beer of the Week: Gose

I've wanted to do a "beer of the week" feature for a while now and was planning on waiting until 2010. My impatience wins, however, so I'm starting now. I hope to post these every Sunday or Monday, though that may change. My intent is to write about styles, substyles, notable beers, and other style-related topics, though that may change too; we'll see how it goes.

First up? Gose.

A couple of months ago, I was flipping through Randy Mosher’s Radical Brewing and ran across a style of German beer I’d never heard of before:  Gose (GO-zuh). In it, Mosher explains that this style of beer is made with salt (yes, salt!) and coriander. It is also slightly sour, similar to a Berliner Weisse, and low to moderate in alcohol at around 4% ABV. The sourness initially came from wild, spontaneous fermentation (similar to the sour Belgian beers), but now is managed much more accurately and reliably with the addition of lactic acid bacteria.

My curiosity piqued. Another sour German beer? (see Berliner Weisse) Slightly salty? Citrusy? Count me in! I looked for it everywhere I went, but never found any until I went to Lukas Liquor in Martin City. I was looking for some German beer and there they were – two little bottles tucked away on the bottom shelf. I grabbed both of them, along with a few other beers, and headed home.

Gose is an old style of beer, originating from Gosen (hence the name) as early as the 900s, and popularized in Leipzig. Thanks to the predominant wheat crops in the area, about 50% of the grain bill is malted wheat. Gose production fell to zero during and after WWII due to bombing of some of the breweries and economic difficulty (see: East Germany). Thanks to brewers in Leipzig, German reunification, and the relaxation of brewing limitations in Germany, though, Gose is experiencing a revival. 

The beer itself is interesting and not as strange-tasting as you might think after reading the ingredients. It pours a hazy pinkish-orange color and maintains its turbid appearance long after pouring. The aroma is one of citrus, largely grapefruit, and the initial taste is citrusy as well. The salt only enhances the subtleties of the beer and isn't noticeable, and the finish of the beer is similar to a wit in acidity and light spicy coriander. The tartness of the beer complements the citrus overtones well and makes it quite a refreshing drink.

If you like Belgian Wit, Geuze, Berliner Weisse, tart lambics, or oranges in your American Wheat – I bet you’d like Gose. I bought the beer you see above, produced by Gasthaus & Gosebrauerei Bayerischer Bahnhof. You can find it at Lukas Liquor in Martin City for about $3 per 11.3oz bottle. 

Want to brew one? Mosher has a recipe in his book, or you can try your hand at the recipe on homebrewtalk. There's quite a bit of information in that thread to guide the adventurous homebrewer.

Local Breweries to Host Notable Beer Dinners

There is no shortage of beer and food pairings these days, but what caught my eye recently were two dinners at McCoy’s and 75th Street Brewing. Here we have two small, local brewpubs hosting their own beer dinners – and only one local brew between them. Interesting.

McCoy's is hosting a Trappist ale dinner on November 3rd at 6:30pm. They're serving six courses featuring beers from 6 of the 7 Trappist breweries for $50 per person. That’s quite a deal given the items they’re serving (as posted on BeerAdvocate):

• Chimay Tripel & Hazelnut encrusted Chevre goat cheese truffles with rosemary honey.
• Orval & Pumpkin Ale soup with sage croutons and nutmeg whipped cream.
• Rochefort 10 & roast duck salad with sun dried cherries, candied walnuts and Roquefort cheese.
• Achel Bruin 8 & seared diver scallops over butternut squash with brown butter sauce and prosciutto.
• Westmalle Dubbel & braised beef short ribs with shiitake mushrooms and parsnip-turnip puree.
• La Trappe Quadrupel (Koningshoeven) & double layer butternut squash pecan pie with apricot glaze and maple whipped cream.

Why beer from only 6 of 7 breweries? You can't legitimately get that 7th one here in the states - or anywhere outside of the brewery or its adjoining cafe. Westvleteren is the only trappist brewery remaining that still has monk brewers, and they only brew enough beer to sustain the operations and charitable causes of the monastery. They also specifically request that their beer not be re-sold by those who purchase it. Additionally, if you do make the trek out to the monastery, you can only get one case of their beer per month and it must be reserved in advance. 

Now on to 75th Street Brewing. On October 20th, they’re hosting a subdued version of Oktoberfest with a much different tap list than the Munich-based affair. Whoever did their beer selection did a mighty fine job! On the beer list will be Ayinger Jarhrhundert, Tucher Dunkeles Hefeweizen, Brugge Bad Kitty, 75th Street Alt, and Aventinus Eisbock. I wasn’t familiar with the Brugge beer so I looked it up – it’s a Gose! If I could high-five 75th Street, I would.

What’s a Gose? I’ll tell you tomorrow.

Better Beer Through Chemicals

Earlier this year, Mr Wort Hog brewed up a Maibock for the first time. Everything went well and, given that he is a brewing perfectionist, fermentation and lagering seemingly went without a hitch. We have a couple of freezers in the basement hooked up to temp controllers to keep fermentation & lagering temperatures stable, but something still went wrong:  it tasted fruity.

Fruitiness in beer is typically from undesired esters created during fermentation, a byproduct of ethanol meeting fatty acids. The potential for ester creation can be increased by underpitching yeast (causing fast yeast growth which generates esters), not giving your yeast enough oxygen, or starting off with a high-gravity wort. Whatever the reason, we definitely had some esters on our hands.

We slowly nursed this keg until deciding it was time to do something about it. I had "dump it" in the back of my mind, but Mr Wort Hog suggested adding apricot or peach fruit extract to mask the esters. I reminded myself how much I like to at least try fixing things before giving up on them, so I picked up a bottle of extract at Bacchus & Barleycorn to give it a shot.

Turns out it was a bigger success than I imagined - this was a good beer and we went through over 3 gallons of it at the last brew day. Moral of the story: unless your beer is completely ruined, consider changing it. Add some fruit or vanilla extract. Soak a few oak chips in it. Pour in a bottle of bourbon. Toss some mulling spices into some vodka, let them soak for a week or so, then add the vodka to the beer. If you're planning on tossing it anyway, there's no harm in trying to save it from the drain.

Make a Beer I've Never Had? Rye Not?!

Brew Day #4 ("Oktobrewfest") was another great success. The weather was quintessentially fall-like and perfect for brewing. Though a breeze can sometimes cause problems with homebrewing (I don't think there's such a thing as an oak leaf addition during the boil), it didn't bring us any trouble this time around.

KC Hop Head tried his hand at brewing a 10-gallon batch for the first time, choosing the ease and simplicity of extract over all-grain. With the bigger size of the batch and the chosen style of an Imperial IPA, though, I think any time saved by using extract was minimized by the time it took to open all the cans. Hop Frog also made a 10-gallon batch, choosing an American IPA he named "Tangerine IPA" for the Summit hops, which impart a tangerine-like flavor and aroma.

Since the theme of brew day was German food & beer, I wanted to make a German style and thought it might be fun to try making a beer I've never had. Roggenbier is an old German ale made with a large percentage of rye. The rye beers we know and love today are made with just a fraction of the rye used in Roggenbier. For example, rye is about 15% of the grain bill used to make Hop Rod Rye and 10% for Founders' Red's Rye. Traditional Roggenbier has rye composing about 50% of the grain used to make the beer - sometimes more.

Unfortunately, as a result of the Reinheitsgebot, which limited Bavarian brewers only to barley for beer production, Roggenbier became all but extinct. Wheat beers (weizens) only survived because rich Bavarian royalty intentionally wrote a loophole into the "beer purity law." They loved their weizenbier so much that they made it legal for one specific brewery to continue making the beer (for a price, of course).

This beer is typically a bit hazy ("turbid") with a prominent malt character and low hop bitterness (around 15 IBUs). Roggenbier is also brewed with a hefeweizen yeast, lending a little clove flavor to partner up with the spiciness from the rye. The beer should have a dry finish and moderate to high carbonation, making it great for the remaining warm days of autumn.

Roggenbier was pretty straightforward to brew. I pulled the recipe from Jamil's Brewing Classic Styles book and listened to his show on Brewing Network about the style. Like wheat, and unlike barley, malted rye is huskless meaning that, without that husk to maintain any rigid structure, it turns into a gummy mess during the mash. We added a pound of rice husks to the grain bill to prevent a stuck mash, and it apparently did the job. Draining the wort was slow-going, but it never got stuck. Mr Wort Hog suggested replacing some of the hops in the recipe; it suggested 1/3 ounce of Saaz hops but he made a good point that Bavarian brewers wouldn't have used Saaz (and besides, the rye should provide enough spiciness without needing to borrow it from the hops). We used an ounce of Hallertau Mittelfruh instead, with a few grams of Magnum to get the bittering units up to where they should be. I made a 1L yeast starter from Wyeast 3068 (Weihenstephan weizen yeast) to get fermentation going strong, and that seemed to work, as fermentation was visibly underway within a few hours.

I'm looking forward to how this turns out; it should be ready to keg in about 8-10 days so I'll get to check it out here in a few weeks. Because it is not hoppy or high in alcohol, this beer should be consumed fresh.

For more information on Roggenbier, check out the German Beer Institute's site or the BJCP style guidelines. And for those of you who couldn't join us on Saturday, I'll leave you with a poem that one of our friends wrote to describe her experience.

Looks like a felony
Smells like breakfast
Sounds like pitch and brix and mash paddles
Feels like sticky ribbons in the wind
Tastes like hard made easy

Now that is homebrewing.

Good Things Come in Threes

It's always a bit fun to check out beernews.org and see a local favorite on the front page. Boulevard's been creating quite the reputation for Kansas City and itself through the Smokestack line, and there's no sign of slowing. While Saison-Brett has a special place in my heart because I just can't get tired of it, I always look forward to what's next in their new releases. They're really cranking them out lately.

As you probably read on Drunk Monkey's blog recently, Harvest Dance is set to come out on Nov 1. The label's great, and I'm excited to see wheat wine gaining in popularity. It has a mouthfeel that can't be described other than soft and velvety. Wheat wine's not a session beer, though - at 9.1% ABV, it'll sneak up on you.

Also to be released on Nov 1: Tank 7 in bottles. If you haven't tried this one yet, you're missing out on a solid saison. The base for Saison-Brett, Tank 7 is a citrusy, spicy, slightly hoppy saison that is a bit less sweet than their current Saison (which is being replaced by Tank 7). I'll be interested to see how the bottled version compares to what we've had on tap.

Finally, the much-beloved BBQ (Bourbon Barrel Quadrupel) is ready to go. It'll join Harvest Dance and Tank 7 out of the gates on Nov 1. If this release is anything like last year's, the bottles will be pretty difficult to find. Once you see it, grab a bottle; it might be the only time you find it on the shelves.

When Tulips and Windmills Just Don't Cut It

Mr Wort Hog and I have taken a few "beercations" over the years, from weekend trips to St Louis to our week-long honeymoon in Northern California. We're part of a large group of beer-lovers who travel specifically for beloved beer destinations. While Belgium and Germany are traditional beercation destinations, the US provides plenty of opportunities for travel. Pennsylvania, Michigan, Oregon, Texas, California, Colorado, Washington - there is more to see and do than likely possible in one trip! It's hard to decide to spend thousands of dollars on a beer vacation abroad when it's so much cheaper to spend a week in San Diego drinking beer from Green Flash, Stone, Port Brewing, AleSmith... you get the idea.

At the same time, many Europeans are now taking note of America's beer culture and following suit. Not only are they coming to the US to visit breweries, European breweries and beer bars are adopting American craft beer culture. Mikkeler, a Danish brewery, has made a strong name for itself by creating American-style beers including several fabulous IPAs. Nøgne-Ø, a brewery in Norway, has partnered with American breweries such as Stone and Jolly Pumpkin.

And now, the first American-style beer bar in Europe! BeerTemple in Amsterdam brings the American beer bar experience to the Old World. They carry beer from Flying Dog, Great Divide, Southern Tier, and several other great American breweries. "Beer Culture Promoter" Peter van der Arend took his own beercation to the US a couple of years ago and documented his experiences in a fun read on the beer bar's website. It was entertaining to see how foreigners perceive the American craft beer and beer bar culture, even if it was just one viewpoint.

I'd love to check this place out. Though it seems a little silly to go to a bar on a different continent that copies the culture I live in, I enjoy seeing what gets lost in translation (and what does not) when traveling. And besides, I could get some beer from Three Floyds and Port Brewing.

photo from BeerTemple's photo album