Getting Down to Business

My best friend is self-employed and feeling the effects of the economy (to no surprise). She emailed me recently about the slowdown in her business, and I thought I might find some inspiration for her in dealing with a slow economy on various business-oriented websites. My first stop was entrepreneur.com.

Who's on the main page? Kim Jordan of New Belgium. In the article, she discusses the beginnings of the company, when the founders were struggling to make it work.

"For about eight months, we didn't pay ourselves," she says. "We borrowed money from my parents and made payroll, but looking at the bills, we had to decide which to pay, which would have to wait--and who wouldn't notice if we didn't."

When they tried to move to a bigger facility, they hit a wall with funding. "That's the tough spot most entrepreneurs find themselves in, when they're not old enough or experienced enough as a company to give banks confidence--but if they can't figure out how to get that larger infusion of cash, they can't carry on," Jordan says. Lebesch solved the problem, she says, by telling equipment vendors that whoever helped them secure financing would get their business.

"I would guess you hear this kind of thing fairly frequently," she says. "It's really about entrepreneurial tenacity. We just said, ‘We're going to figure this out, we're going to make it work.' And you get over that hump."

I read Beer School this summer, which tells the very bumpy story of Brooklyn Brewery and repeatedly underscores the challenges of starting a business. Start-up breweries face issues of financing, employee frustration, finding customers, obtaining decent distribution, and various other problems (Brooklyn Brewery's owners even faced issues with union bosses in a couple of pretty intimidating encounters). Sometimes, the process even ruins relationships - Jordan and Lebesch, the husband & wife co-founders of New Belgium, are in the midst of finalizing their divorce. The brewery, however, lives on and is destined to bring its followers more reasons to toast its success.

People put their financial security and personal relationships on the line to start up a dream with a high risk of failure. Sometimes, when life isn't going the way you want it to, it's encouraging to read about people who have experienced much worse for longer periods of time - and succeeded. Here's a toast to their dedication to the art of beer. And to my best friend, her perseverance, tenacity, and determination to succeed.

I Wonder if They Gruit on Premises

We met a couple of friends tonight down at Flying Saucer to pick up their first year's harvest of Nugget hops. Despite the belief that you only start to get hop flowers in your third year, they acquired a reasonably-sized hop harvest. Perhaps it's because this summer has been more akin to the climate of the Northwest or Germany. Or, perhaps modern strains of hops are taking less time to produce hop cones. Regardless, we scored ourselves some nice little Nuggets tonight.

I ordered New Belgium's latest in their Lips of Faith series, their Dandelion Ale. I suspected it might be a hop-free Gruit, but wasn't sure and the internet on my phone wasn't working very well so I went for it. Sure enough, gruit. And I have to say - it's the best one I've had yet.

First of all, it tasted more like beer than the others. It didn't have the mouth-numbing experience the others imparted (from wormwood, anise, or whatever the breweries were using) and it had significantly more bitterness than the others. It tasted a little like tropical or summer stone fruit: apricot, peach, or maybe mango. I'm sure a large part of that came from the Belgian yeast New Belgium uses. The mouthfeel was awesome for a beer this light in color and taste, and I've never experienced something like that before. At first "creamy" and "velvety" came to mind, but then the perfect word hit me: silky. This beer is silky! Overall, I'd rate it a top-notch gruit and a perfect accompaniment to the meat & cheese plate we ordered. I could also see drinking this with a slice of cheesecake or maybe a bowl of fruit salad. Fresh, summery, fruity, and easy to drink - I wouldn't have guessed this beer was anywhere near 7.8% ABV.

This is a very well-executed version of Gruit and I recommend trying it, even if you're a dyed-in-the-wool hop head and skeptical of anything under 70 IBUs. After all, part of the fun of drinking beer is trying something different.

And in Local News...

I recently received an email via Free State's mailing list (sign up!), as well as an update from the Foundry (I e-mailed them a while back with praise for Left Hand's Smokejumper and apparently Todd there kept my email). Here's the latest:

Happy Birthday Free State! To celebrate, they'll have 20 beers on tap (12-15 at any given time) between 2/18 and 2/23. Once a keg blows, they put another on, so your selection will be varied throughout this time frame. We'll be there Friday after work. Will you?

The Foundry in Westport recently got a few new kegs in. They have a keg of Hopslam, one of Val Dieu Grand Cru, and another of Duchesse de Bourgogne.


Oh, and regarding my post about New Belgium's Dark Kriek aka Dunkelweiss 30. I emailed Barley's and apparently it is the dunkelweiss. It's the strangest dunkelweiss I've ever had, with overwhelming flavors of dried cherries and chocolate. Most reviews I've read on beeradvocate and ratebeer state similarities to banana bread, which I completely did not get. I think I'll have to make the sacrifice and try this one again, as all I really tasted the first time around was dried cherry, a little raisin, caramel, and chocolate. Maybe my tastebuds were broken that night. It's possible.

Various Random Comments

It's Saturday in Missouri and it's 70 degrees outside in early February. I'm celebrating, which means I'm on my 2nd beer and it's only 3pm. But, despite that, I have a few comments:

1. I work out in Shawnee, near the nexus of Shawnee-Mission Parkway and K-7. As a result, I've been to K-7 Liquor more than a few times to check out the selection. Despite its location, it carries a veritable cornucopia (as John would say) of beer options. I was asked to pick up "something Irish" on Friday for Beer Friday and ventured over to K-7 Liquor. As I perused the options, one of the employees asked me if I needed any help. His name is James and I feel he deserves props. He's extremely knowledgeable about beer (even hop types) and made a recommendation to me that was on the mark (Great Divide's Fresh Hop, which is an APA hoppier than any IPA I've had out of the midwest and absolutely delicious). He's going to hold a couple of Boulder Brewing's Mojo Risin' and a 6-pack of SN's Torpedo for me (coming next week and next month, respectively). If you ever find yourself in this area, see if James is working and ask him for a recommendation. And thank him for working with his distributor to get some hoppy beer into NE Kansas. 
2. We went to Barley's in OP last night for dinner, after purchasing a kegerator for our homebrew off Craigslist. They have two new brews from New Belgium, Mighty Arrow and Dark Kriek (from their Lips of Faith series). Mighty Arrow is an APA and the Dark Kriek is a delicious blend of Belgian Dark Ale and Kriek. The Kriek is highly recommended - I had a snifter and thoroughly enjoyed it... it reminded me of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia - notes of dried cherry, vanilla, dark chocolate. It is dry but not sour, and way too easy to drink. They had several new items on tap and the bartender mentioned that they're working on improving their IPA selections. It shows.
3. A few weeks ago I bought a bottle of Schlafly's Tripel. We just opened it today and it is by FAR my favorite from this brewery. It is a fantastic representation of the Belgian style - dry, estery, banana-y, a tiny bit peppery, potent. This is delicious!! HIGHLY recommended.

John's making a tripel today and I need to go do some sanitizing stuff. We're going to check out Grinder's tonight so I plan on reporting back on its current offerings. Ciao!