Style Guide: Wheat Beers

I’m trying to will summer into existence by looking at some of the best summer sippin’ beers. Nothing beats sitting lakeside and enjoying a great wheat beer. There are two main styles here, the German weissbier and the Belgian witbier. I’ll guide you through both, and a few more variations. All wheat beers, as the name suggests, are made with malted wheat replacing some percentage of the malted barley. Whatever style you order, though, make sure to ask the barkeep to hold the orange or lemon slice.

Weissbier

German wheat beers, the most common of which is the hefeweizen, are ales brewed under Reinheitsgebot law. “Weizen” means wheat, and “hefe” means with yeast. In other words, these beers are unfiltered. Many styles filter out the yeast after fermentation to produce a clear beer. Hefeweizens, however, leave the yeast in. The result is a cloudy brew with a lot of yeast character. For this style, the yeast comes across as an unmistakable mixture of banana and cloves, with some other fruits and spices mixed in.

Hefeweizens also tend to create tremendous head when poured. I’ll have a post about why head is good (lol) another day, but for now know that it powers up aromatics and helps filter certain off-flavors. The weizen glass is tall, slender and tapered — designed to boost, maintain and show off the puffy head.

Germany has several other styles of wheat ale. There’s a good chance you’ve seen a dunkelweizen (“dunkel” to its friends). That’s basically a dark hefeweizen. Dunkels tend to be sweeter, richer and have more banana characteristic than their cousins. There’s also the weizenbock, which is essentially a double-strength dunkel. These beers are ferociously complex — Schneider Adventinus is easily one of the top ten beers on Earth for my money.

A unique and obscure style called Berliner Weiss is starting to appear in American fermenting tanks. It’s brewed like a hefeweizen, but with the addition of lactic bacteria. The result tastes almost like a hefeweizen mixed with lemonade. I’ve only found a couple of examples of the style (had one at Iron Hill brewpub in Pennsylvania once, and another by New Glarus in Wisconsin), but we might be looking at the ideal summer beer. I sincerely hope more American brewers give it a shot.

Witbier

Let’s hop over to Belgium for a spell. German wheat beers are brewed under Reinheistgebot rules, meaning only water, malted barley/wheat, yeast and hops can enter. Belgian witbiers, by contrast, almost always have additives that you might not associate with beer. While German beers have a spicy aroma from the yeast, Belgian witbiers actually contain spice (though the yeast certainly contributes as well). Coriander, cloves and orange peel are customary, but you can also find witbiers with chamomile, grains of paradise, allspice, and crazy stuff you’ve probably never heard of.

Belgian witbiers, like the German variety, are unfiltered. They too are cloudy and have gigantic heads. The difference is in the sweetness and the spices. In your pre-craft days you’ve probably had Blue Moon and/or Hoegarden, which are mediocre examples of the style (though, granted, better than most other offerings you might find at your local dive.)

New York Ale Project’s Favorite German Weissbier: Weihenstephaner Hesseweissbier by the world’s oldest brewery (they claim a founding date of 1040) is a world class beer that should be a part of any beer geek’s heavy rotation. But to me, it’s edged out ever so slightly by Aventinus by Schneider. We’ve got a bit of banana, though nowhere near as overpowering as you often have in the style. That yeast is really popping, with a bunch of funk and spice. The sweet malt certainly dominates, but there’s a bitterness in there too that reminds me of wine. This is one of those beers that I give to my wine drinking friends as counterpoint. (In fact, I did serve it up at a beer tasting for Tapped Craft Beer Events. I’ll do it again, too. Just try to stop me.)

New York Ale Project’s Favorite Belgian Witbier

I’m not as big a fan of the Belgian-style wheat beers as I am the German ones, but there are some standouts. The winner has to be Allagash White. It’s sweet, spicy, and a little more restrained than many other Belgian beers. Smooth as silk. It’s definitely a craft beer summer classic.

Style Guide: Fruit Beer

Welcome back to our series of style guides, back after something of a hiatus. I’m going to take a look at some beers that aren’t exactly a style unto themselves, but have a major characteristic in common. Today on the NY Ale Project: Fruit beers.

First, let’s look at what we’re not talking about here. “Fruit beers” don’t refer to beers that have fruit taste, no matter how overwhelming, but don’t have any actual fruit additives. Dunkelweizens have a powerful banana taste and aroma, but as discussed in an earlier piece, those characteristics come from the yeast rather than from any actual banana. Same deal with IPAs, (most) Belgian strong pale ales, and other styles that may include easily-recognized fruit flavors. (Nor are we talking about Belgian or German wheat beers served with a slice of lemon or orange. I say hold the fruit, though I respect your right to drink it that way, in the same sense that I respect your right to wear socks with sandals.) Instead, this is a guide to beers made with actual fruit, fruit syrup, or some other fruit flavor additive.

Fruit beers vary widely in ingredients, base style (e.g. what the fruit is added to), and almost every other metric, but they all have the one obvious thing in common, so it makes some sense to speak of them as a style. Most beer geeks typically pass on the fruit beer. It’s not that it’s “girly” (any beer geek that I know would scoff at the entire concept of “manly” or “girly” beverages), it’s that the fruit often hides the beer taste. However, there are a few beers that get it right.

Raspberries are a fairly popular flavoring among fruit beer fans. Different brewers use different techniques to get their beer fruity. To make its 18% ABV Fort, Dogfish Head adds over a ton of pureed raspberries to the super-strong Belgian pale ale base. Fort, by the way, is one of the most alcoholic beers you’re likely to encounter on shelves with any frequency, and its high ABV is the exception rather than the rule for fruit beers. Most clock in at below 6% ABV.

New Glarus, a Wisconsin brewery only available in that state, makes a wonderful beer called Raspberry Tart. Instead of adding a puree to a base beer, NG actually ferments the raspberries themselves. It’s one of four American-made fruit beers with a grade higher than “B” and more than 100 reviews on Beer Advocate. Interestingly, the other three beers are also made by New Glarus, so obviously they’re doing something right with their fruit in Wisconsin. Raspberry Tart and Wisconsin Belgian Red, which is a very similar beer made with cherries instead of raspberries, are the only fruit beers with “A” scores.

What sets these beers apart from their American compatriots? While fruit beer may seem like a new gimmick, the Belgians have been making it for centuries, and the product is nothing like Sam Adams Cherry Wheat. In my yeast article, I talked about spontaneous fermentation in lambics, in which wort is left in open air and yeast is left to its own devices. Belgians have been blending fruit with these lambics for ages, and that’s the technique New Glarus is emulating with their Raspberry Tart and Wisconsin Belgian Red.

When the lambic is blended with fruit, it takes the fruit’s name. Framboise is raspberry and Kriek is cherry, which are the two most popular. You might also see Peche, or peach; and Cassis, or black currant. A few brewers, mostly American but some in Belgium, experiment with non-traditional fruits in their lambic like apricot , apple or banana. These fruit lambics are typically low on alcohol, as well as malt and hop characteristics, so the fruit can dominate the palate. However, traditional fruit lambics are not overly sweet. Certain brewers (you know who you are) add concentrated, sugary fruit syrup to the beer at bottling instead of fermenting the fruit with the wort. These beers are fine, if you like really sweet camp-style fruit punch instead of beer.

New York Ale Project’s Favorite Fruit Beer(s): At this point, it seems only fair to name two beers, one lambic-style and one not. Also, I’m going to exclude New Glarus, even though it might win both categories, since you can only get it in Wisconsin. For the non-lambic fruit beer, my crown goes to Black & Blue by Dogfish Head, which is a strong ale made with pureed blackberries and blueberries. Naturally, given the brewery involved, it’s a powerful and strong beer, and those berries give a mighty kick. But when you’re in a big beer mood, and you want something a little different, you could do worse.

Lambic is a more difficult category, since there are some excellent beers to choose from and I haven’t even come close to sampling a majority, even of those available in NYC. But for me, it’s got to be Saint Lamvinus by Cantillon in Brussels. It’s a delicious, insanely complex brew made with merlot and cabernet grapes. You can find it occasionally in the city, though it’s pricey, but well worth it for a special occasion.

Style Guide: American Pale Ale

I have recently brewed a beer for a second blog anniversary party for good NY Ale Project Friend New York Rockmarket, which takes place this Saturday. The beer, called New York Hop Market (wakka wakka), is an American Pale Ale, or APA. I’m frequently asked what the difference is between an APA and its more famous cousin the IPA. It’s not always easy to differentiate the styles, but I’ll give it a try.

America! Fuck Yeah!

The main event.

The American Pale Ale exists on the same continuum as the IPA and the double IPA. This continuum consists of beers that employ hops as a primary source of taste and aroma. While IPAs whack you over the head with hops, APAs tend to have more balance between hops and malts. The result is a beer that has the citrusy, floral hop characteristics of an IPA while being less bitter. They’re also typically a little less alcoholic than IPAs, with ABV values around 5% or 6%, though I’ve seen them as low as 4% and as high as 7%. On amateur beer review sites like Beer Advocate, the mild and less-alcoholic nature of the APA usually has them taking a backseat to IPAs — there are only 10 APAs with more than 100 reviews with an average rating of “A-” or better, compared to dozens of IPAs and dozens more double IPAs. But if you keep in mind that the amount of hops isn’t everything, APAs can be at least as complex and rewarding as their more popular cousins.

The best way to figure out the difference between an IPA and an APA is to taste an example of each from the same brewery side-by-side. There are several chances to do this here in NYC. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is the style’s gold standard, and you can compare it to SN’s Torpedo year-round, or Celebration in the winter. Shoals Pale Ale and Finestkind IPA from Smuttynose is another good comparison. If you want to go more local, Captain Lawrence has their Freshchester APA, which is only on-tap for now, and Captain’s Reserve, though that’s technically a Double IPA. Speaking of which…

New York Ale Project’s Favorite American Pale Ale

Fresh.

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is the godfather of the style, and was the first love for me and thousands of other beer geeks. It’s still one of the best examples of the APA, but there are other great ones out there. Dale’s Pale Ale, cans of which you can find easily in NYC, is probably my favorite, but even though Oskar Blues calls it an APA, I can’t abide by that definition. It’s hoppier and maltier than many IPAs out there, so I’ve got to consider it an IPA. Stone’s Pale Ale is solid, though not as good as their IPA or Double IPA. But my favorite example of the style is made 45 minutes north of NYC. Freshchester by good old Captain Lawrence gets the nod. It accomplishes (what I consider) the goal of APAs by having a tremendous hop aroma and taste without being overly bitter. This is a hard balance to strike and Captain Lawrence nailed it. It only exists on tap for now, but it’s usually around in NYC beer bars, and these days, even many non-beer bars. I’ve seen it recently at a few sports bar-type establishments, which bodes well.

Some Local APAs

• Freshchester Pale Ale by Captain Lawrence Brewing Co. (A- average on BeerAdvocate.com)
• Hop Hazard by River Horse Brewing Co. (B average)
• Thomas Hooker American Pale Ale by Thomas Hooker Ales and Lagers (B- average)
• Blue Point Pale Ale by Blue Point Brewing Co. (B+ average)
• Harbor Ale by Greenport Harbor Brewing Co. (B average)
• Hudson Pale Ale by New Jersey Beer Co. (B average)

Style Guide: Tripel

The Tripel is kind of an odd style when you think about it. It’s light and fizzy, and can almost look like a Budweiser. It smells sweet and fruity, which is enough to make any frat boy say “LOL GIRL BEER!” But tripels often check in at the double digits in terms of ABV, and are among the most complex styles. What do we make of this apparent contradiction? Read on.

Tripel Threat

People often ask me, “What’s the deal with Belgian Dubbels/Tripels/Quads? Where do the number names come from?” (These people may or may not be Jerry Seinfeld.) There’s disagreement about the specifics of the origin, but the most satisfying theory is that the names had to do with the amount of malt used in the brewing process. Dubbels had twice the malt of the standard abbey ale, and Tripels had three times the amount (though I can’t imagine that Quadrupels actually had four times the amount, because that would be ridiculous.) The increased amount of malt, of course, results in increased alcohol content.

Original Gangsta

Westmalle, one of the Belgian Trappist breweries, claims to have invented the tripel as we know it today. While the name Tripel and strong golden ales with the same characteristics both predate Westmalle’s version, which came along in the 1930s, Tripel sticking around as the name for that particular style does seem to be Westmalle’s doing.

Once you’ve tried a Tripel, the flavor profile becomes unmistakable. Tripels are golden in color, and typically pour with big, puffy white heads. The big head is key, since so much of the enjoyment of a Tripel is based on the aroma. The aroma is funky and spicy and fruity — it’s distinctive to the style and kind of hard to describe, but once you’ve had one you’ll know what I’m talking about. The taste is similar, with the addition of more fruity characteristics and often a straw-like graininess. There’s typically a candy-like sugary sweetness as well. The style is one of the more alcoholic in beerville, with ABV ranging from about 8% into the mid-teens. Unlike imperial stouts, quads and other beers in that ABV range, Tripels rarely feature much booze taste. How do they do that? Let’s go with ancient Belgian magic.

So, where have we gone from the style’s conception at Westmalle? The Tripel has become a Belgian mainstay, and has been brewed by many American brewers as well. As you may expect, Americans are getting creative about it. We’re starting to see several barrel-aged Tripels. It may seem a delicate style, with the sugar and fruit flavors, but Tripels definitely have the strength to withstand the barrel aging process. Alagash Curieux, which is excellent, and White Birch BA Tripel, which I haven’t tried, are two whiskey barrel-aged versions you can find in NYC. There’s also Golden Delicious by the wonderful Captain Lawrence in Pleasantville in Westchester, which is rarer but is aged in Apple Brandy barrels.

If you want the more traditional take on the style, most abbey-style Belgian versions are available in NYC. Westmalle, which started it all, is on the shelves of most NYC specialty beer stores in 12oz and 750ml versions. Chimay White is your other choice if you’re looking for an authentic Trappist Tripel. Other Belgian-brewed Tripels available in NYC include Tripel Karmeliet, St. Bernardus Tripel, and Gouden Carolus, to name a few of the several available on beer store shelves. If you’re looking for an American take on the style that’s not barrel-aged, you can go with Golden Monkey by Victory Brewing in PA, Allagash Tripel (not to be confused with their Curieux), or one of the locals listed below.

There's no Canada like French Canada, it's the best Canada in the land...

New York Ale Project’s Favorite Tripel: We’ve touched upon the Belgian and American versions of the Tripel, but we’ve ignored a country (or rather a province that wants to be a country) that deserves more beer geek attention. Unibroue is one of several excellent craft breweries in Quebec, and their La Fin du Monde is my favorite Tripel on Earth. Its spice profile is different than what you usually taste, with a higher dose of clove and pepper flavor (which probably comes from the yeast rather than actual added spices). The taste and aroma both feature an incredible complex fruity mixture. There’s just a kiss of alcohol; not enough to distract but enough to let you know it’s there. Best of all, it’s everywhere in NYC. I’ve been in bodegas that have bottles. Go try it: you have no excuse.

Some Local Tripels:

• Xtra Gold Tripel by Captain Lawrence Brewing Co. (“A-” on BeerAdvocate.com)
• Golden Delicious by Captain Lawrence Brewing Co. (Xtra Gold aged in Apple Brandy barrels) (“B+” on BeerAdvocate.com)
• River Horse Tripel Horse by River Horse Brewing Co. (“B” on BeerAdvocate.com)
• Southampton Tripel Abbey Style Ale by Southampton Publick House (“B+” on BeerAdvocate.com)

Style Guide: Wet Hop Beer

Wet Hop (also called Fresh Hop) isn’t an official beer style, but around this time of the year you see the designation on several Pale Ales, so it’s worth talking about. Despite the antonymous names, wet hopping has nothing to do with dry hopping. When a brewer dry hops an ale, she adds hops while the beer’s fermenting. Hops are always added while the wort (i.e. pre-beer) is boiling, for bitterness as well as flavor and aroma. Hop flavors and aromas are very delicate, and the boil severely weakens them (that’s why aromatic and flavor hops are added at the very end of the boil, usually right after you turn off the flame). When a brewer dry hops (which she always does in addition to the boiling hops, not instead of), the flavors and aromas don’t have to survive a boil, so they come through loud and clear in the finished product.

Wet hopping has less to do with the brewing process — it’s all about the ingredients.

Wet Hop Ales: I Get Wet

“Wet Hop” might be a weird-sounding name if you’ve never brewed before. These beers are also called “fresh hop” ales, and that name gives you a better sense of what they’re about. Generally, brewers use hops that have been dried out or converted to pellets. Like any plant, hops have a particular season, so hops are dried for the sake of preservation. Wet hop ales, by contrast, use hops straight from the harvest, almost always cones that have been picked the very same day as brewing. Since the hop harvest occurs in late August and early September, wet hop ale season is October and November. There’s a great article (with some great pictures) from the New York Times last year that gives you an inside view of the hop harvest.

Wet hop ales have a different flavor and aroma profile than most hop-centric beers. Dried hop pellets are concentrated, so the bitterness and primary flavors of the hops take over. Beers made with fresh hop cones tend to be more subtle and nuanced in hop flavor. The big citrus and pine flavors you’re used to in IPAs are toned down, and the hop flavor tends to be more herbal and grassy.

We’re in wet hop season right now. What’s good? Thanks to this fella, I was lucky enough to try some Surly Wet this year. It’s truly amazing, but you’re not getting any unless you live in Minnesota or have a hook up. Heavy Handed IPA by Two Brothers Brewing Co. in the suburbs of Chicago is very nice, and you can find it on shelves and on tap in NYC. Sierra Nevada’s Harvest ale is probably the most well-known fresh hop ale. I haven’t given this year’s version a try yet, but it was delicious last year.

That's fresh.

New York Ale Project’s Favorite Wet Hop: The coveted prize goes to Founders Harvest Ale, yet another reason to be thrilled that Founders now distributes in NYC. The hop profile is very intense, but deeply nuanced. It’s citrus, grassy and dank. The malts take a very far backseat to the delicious hops. Despite the powerful hop presence, the beer isn’t overly bitter. It’s still common on tap here in NYC for now, so give it a try and see what fresh hops are all about.

Some Local Fresh Hop Ales:

• North Fork Fresh Hop ESB by Southampton Publick House (‘A-‘ on BeerAdvocate.com)
• West Coast Wet Hop IPA by Chelsea Brewing Company (‘C+’ on Beer Advocate)

Style Guide: Rye Beer

Today we’ll take a look at one of my favorite styles. Apart from Cascadian Dark Ales, Rye Beers might be the trendiest style in the craft beer world today, as more and more brewers try their hand at it. Unlike the other styles I’ve looked at, Rye Beers are defined by the inclusion of a particular ingredient instead of the makeup of a recipe; so it’s difficult to peg as a particular “type” of beer. But so many rye beers are so good that we’ll do our best.

Rye Playland

Delicious, delicious rye

As you probably know by now, one of the four ingredients in all beer is malted grain (to answer a friend’s question from the other day, ‘malt’ is a process, not an object — it’s when grain is sprouted by soaking it and then stopped from sprouting with heat.) In the vast majority of beers, the malted grain is barley. However, other grains are sometimes mixed with the barley to add different flavors or textures. That’s where you get wheat beers (hefeweizns and Belgian witbiers), oatmeal stouts, and rye beers.

A kind of Rye Beer called Roggenbier was popular in Medieval Germany. However, the 16th Century saw the inception of the Reinheitsgebot, the famous German purity law (and what bad has ever come from a German purity law?) mandating that beer can only include water, hops and malted barley (yeast was added to the list once science figured out what was going on there). So the Roggenbier died, and is only recently starting to make a minor comeback.

Modern rye beers made in American craft breweries don’t much resemble Roggenbier. Roggenbier is made with majority rye malt, whereas modern rye beers are majority barley cut with rye. (Without going too deep into Beer Chem 101, rye is very difficult to work with.) Thus, most “rye beers” these days can actually be considered as some existing style infused with rye.

Most commonly these beers are basically American Pale Ales or IPAs with rye characteristics. The rye comes across as an earthy, pungent spiciness. It may sound odd, but it mixes wonderfully with American hop varieties. (It should be noted that, with a few exceptions, these beers don’t taste like rye bread, since that distinctive flavor comes from caraway seeds, not the rye itself. I did have a “rye” beer made with caraway seeds at GABF, though. It was…an experience. Quite good, actually.) There are also a handful of rye stouts (Bells in Michigan makes one), rye bocks and some other style variations.

Rye beers are growing in popularity, and accordingly you can find some nice examples on New York City’s beer store shelves. I’ve already professed my undying love for Bear Republic’s Hop Rod Rye on this site — that one’s on the far ‘IPA’ end of the spectrum. Cane and Ebel from Two Brothers Brewing in Illinois is on the spicier end of the spectrum, as is Righteous Rye from Brooklyn’s Sixpoint, which doesn’t exist in bottles but isn’t uncommon on NYC tap lines. While we’re talking about locals, Blue Point’s Rastafa Rye is terrific as well, on tap or from a bottle.

New York Ale Project’s Favorite Rye Beer: This is the toughest one yet. All the beers I’ve named above are amazing. I almost can’t believe myself that I’m not naming Hop Rod Rye the best rye beer on earth.

However, after much deliberation, I’m going to have to give the prize to Red’s Rye PA from Founders Brewing in Grand Rapids, MI. As has been mentioned elsewhere on this blog, Founders came to NYC earlier this year. Their beers are fairly common on tap, though almost non-existent in bottle form so far in NYC. But Red’s Rye is quickly becoming a beer bar staple in the City, and with ridiculously good cause. In no other beer do the hop and rye characteristics blend in such perfect harmony. Perfectly balanced and delicious. If you can find it on cask, it’s a revelation.

Some Local Rye Beers

• Righteous Rye by Sixpoint Craft Ales (“A-” average on Beer Advocate)
• Rastafa Rye by Blue Point Brewing Co. (“B+” average)
• The Manhattan Project by Brooklyn Brewery (“B+” average”)(No longer exists, but worth mentioning. It was Garrett Oliver’s attempt to make a beer that tastes like a Manhattan, my favorite cocktail. The jury’s split on whether he succeeded, and among those who think he did, the jury’s split again about whether or not that’s a good thing.)

Style Primer: Brown Ale

Recently, I’ve found myself enjoying more and more a style of beer I’ve often neglected. My newly kindled fondness for brown ales began when I was looking for the perfect beer to pair with a ribeye. Garrett Oliver, my muse on these matters, writes in his excellent book that a brown ale is just the thing. I ran to the store and got some Dogfish Head Indian Brown Ale and, wouldn’t you know it, it was an absolutely perfect match.

Since then, I’ve been on a brown ale tear. And as the weather cools, they’re getting more and more appealing. It’s going to be a very brown winter for me.

Brown Ales: What Can Brown Do For You?

The intro to brown ales for many

The brown ale is a versatile style that’s difficult to pin down. Some are very malty, and some are practically hop bombs. Some are session ales, some approach double digits for ABV. As far as I know, they’re all brown.

This style, like the IPA and the Stout, is originally an English concoction. English brown ales are generally sweet and malty. As has happened with other styles, American craft brewers took brown ales and cranked up the hoppiness and flavor. Wherever the brown ale is from, you’re going to taste a lot a caramel, likely some chocolate, and some sort of hop presence (though it doesn’t dominate, even in the most highly-hopped American varieties).

Like most beer styles these days, brown ales can be used as a base for some innovative and wonderful inventions. Most prominently, Cigar City Bewing in Ybor City has made several delicious permutations of their Maduro Oatmeal Brown Ale, including Vanilla-aged, Cubano Espresso, and Oatmeal Raisin Cookie.

More standard brown ale permutations include coffee-infused and the always popular nut brown ale. There are also so-called “imperial” brown ales with extreme ABVs, including Paolo Santo Marron by Dogfish Head which clocks in at 12%.

New York Ale Project’s Favorite Brown Ale: There are several brown ales that you can find easily on NYC shelves and tap lists. Sierra Nevada’s latest fall seasonal, Tumbler, is in almost every grocery store in town. Cigar City seems to be expanding, since the aforementioned Maduro is becoming more and more common on tap in the City. Smuttynose Old Brown Dog is pretty good. Newcastle isn’t great, but it’s usually on tap next to Bud and Coors so it’s often the way to make the best out of a bad situation.

Even wine people like it!

Like I said, I’ve been on a brown ale bender recently (incidentally, Bender by Surly Brewing in Minnesota would probably be my favorite if I had regular access to it). But my favorite is still the one that started my new-found love, Indian Brown Ale by Dogfish Head Craft Brewery. It’s on the far hoppy end of the spectrum. It’s a a delicious combination of the caramel and brown sugar aspects of a good brown ale and the dry, floral hops of an English-style IPA. The ABV’s on the high side at 7.2% so you probably want to limit yourself to a couple at a time, but it’s excellent. One of the standouts of Dogfish Head’s remarkable lineup of beers.

Some Local Brown Ales:

• Brooklyn Brown Ale by Brooklyn Brewery (‘B’ average on Beer Advocate)
• Brownstone by Sixpoint Craft Ales (‘A-‘ average)
• Brown Bird Brown Ale by Captain Lawrence Brewing Co. (‘B+’ average)

Style Primer: Cascadian Dark Ale

This week, Beer Advocate added a new style of beer to their list. This is the Cascadian Dark Ale, also known as Black IPA or India Black Ale. The second two names are perhaps more evocative of what you’re getting, but I like the first name the best, so that’s what we’ll use.

I’ve taken two trips in the past few months, one to Seattle and one to Colorado. In each city this beer style, unheard of a couple of years ago, is spreading like dandelions throughout the local breweries (and there are TONS of local breweries in and around Seattle and Boulder/Denver — both are must-visit areas for beer geeks).  The CDA onslaught hasn’t reached the East Coast in full force yet, but give it time. Fortunately, there are are few examples by larger breweries to tide you over while you wait for some locals.

CDAs: Darkness is Spreading!

As you could likely guess by this style’s alternative names, Cascadian Dark Ales are essentially IPAs that are dark brown to black in color. As you could likely guess by the name we’re using here (Cascadian), the style originated up in the Pacific Northwest, a region that has long been a bastion of beermaking creativity and home of some of the most delicious hops in the world.

Enough about the name. What’s it taste like? Well, my impatient friend, CDAs are dominated by hop aroma and taste much like their pale half brothers. You probably know hops make beer bitter (in a good way, not in a Keystone ad “bitter beer face” way). In terms of flavor and aroma, hops are generally some combination of citrus, pine and floral. The exact mix depends on the variety of hop used and the combination of those varieties. Other occasional hop descriptors include spicy, earthy and herbal.

Cascadian Dark Ales add flavors that you won’t find in an IPA. Since they’re dark beers, they tend to include a certain amount of roasted flavor, and often some mild chocolate as well. However, they retain the light and crisp mouthfeel of IPAs (as opposed to the fuller, thicker, slicker mouthfeel of the other dark ales porters and stouts). Since two features of such disparate styles are combined, balance is absolutely crucial to the CDA. Too much hop presence will completely overwhelm the light roasted flavors, while too much “darkness” will kill the hop flavor and make the beer seem like a bland brown ale.

Fortunately, several brewers have gotten the hang of it. While New York’s brewers haven’t yet gotten in on the trend, some breweries that distribute to New York City make some solid examples of the style. Stone Brewing makes a Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale which, as is par for the course for Stone, packs the maximum amount of flavor into a 22 oz bottle. Southern Tier, which makes some of the best IPAs around, releases Iniquity, which is a few notches on the “stout” side of the occasion.

New York Ale Project’s Favorite CDA: I had some great CDAs in Seattle and Colorado, but my favorite so far is a bit closer to home. Hoppy Feet by Clown Shoes Beer in Lexington, Massachusetts takes the prize. It hits the perfect balance between the two CDA characteristics, starting out like a roasty porter and finishing like a great, piney IPA. They don’t distribute out of state yet, but it’s well worth seeking out if you find yourself in the Boston area.

Style Primer: Porter

As the weather gets chilly, it’s time to (mostly) put away the wheat beers and bust out the dark stuff! Porters are my favorite dark beer. The style’s robust flavors, great variety and drinkability make porters cool weather go-to beers. When it comes to dark beers in the popular consciousness, though, porters seem to often take a backseat to their close cousins stouts. Well, I’m going to try to give the porter a boost.

Hey, Porter!

The porter has been a popular style for ages. It was created in London in the 18th century as a blend between old, dark ale and young, pale ale. It was popular with the working class, as it had some of that old ale taste while remaining affordable. Porters are dark, malty and delicious. They typically have a caramel flavor, and chocolate, hops and a roasty flavor are common as well. The other popular dark beer style, the stout, began as a variation on the porter.

(What’s the difference between a stout and a porter? It’s a difficult question to get a straight answer on, and it seems like everybody has a different opinion. Technically, the difference is in the brewing ingredients, but what does that mean to the average beer drinker? To me, porters are generally lighter in body, have a stronger caramel flavor, and have an easily noticeable hop presence that stouts lack. In practice, though, it can definitely be difficult to tell the difference, even for a beer geek. So don’t worry about it, would be my advice.)

The porter is a style that brewers love to experiment with, and so it comes in lots of different flavors. Coffee porters are a personal favorite of mine. There are chocolate and vanilla porters, which unsurprisingly make outstanding dessert beers. Stronger porters take well to barrel-aging, and so bourbon or whiskey-flavored porters are around. A very interesting variation is the smoked porter, which is an adaptation of a German style made with smoked malt and popularized in America by Stone Brewing Co. (and the amazing Alaska Brewing Co. Smoked Porter, but you can only get that on the West Coast).

New York Ale Project’s Favorite Porter: There are several great choices out there. Sierra Nevada makes a good porter that you can find almost anywhere. Gorilla Warfare Coffee Porter by Sixpoint out in Red Hook is excellent when you can find it on tap. The Edmund Fitzgerald porter from Great Lakes Brewery in Cleveland is world class, though sadly, Great Lakes doesn’t distribute in New York yet (funny story — a friend and I were in a liquor store in DC early in the summer and we were talking to a Great Lakes rep. The rep and I were talking about the possibility of Great Lakes opening up shop in New York. The rep says they want to do it sometime, and if it were up to him, he’d start distributing in New York that summer. My friend, without missing a beat, says, “Oh nice, Great Lakes can be the SECOND major import from Cleveland to New York this summer!” Remember, this was before LeBron and THE DECISION.”

Great label, too.

But the winner is Smuttynose Robust Porter by Smuttynose Brewing Company in Portsmouth, NH. This beer is amazingly flavorful, with all of the typical porter flavors (roasty malt, chocolate, etc) done to perfection, and with a wonderful hop profile that adds a lot to the beer without being overdone.  Despite the intense flavor, this beer is incredibly drinkable and I could put away a six pack myself should the need ever arise.

Some Local Porters

• Thomas Hooker Imperial Porter by Thomas Hooker Ales and Lagers (“A-” average on BeerAdvocate)
• Gorilla Warfare Coffee Porter by Sixpoint Craft Ales (“A-” average)
• Smoke from the Oak series by Captain Lawrence Brewing Co. (porters aged in different liquor barrels, each released once a year — “A-” average for the wine aged, “A-” average for the apple brandy aged, “B+” for the bourbon aged, “B+” for rum aged.)
• Pleasantville Smoked Porter by Captain Lawrence Brewing Co. (“A-” average)
• Southampton Imperial Porter by Southampton Publick House (“B-” average)

Style Primer: Pumpkin Ale

Now that Labor Day has passed and summer’s gone (and let’s hope the weather agrees with that assessment — no more 95 degree September days, Sam Champion), pumpkin ales are starting to storm NYC’s tap lines. It seems that every brewery wants to get in on the fall fun. So: what the hell is a pumpkin ale? Why are they so popular? Is it served out of an actual pumpkin? Read on to find out these answers and more.

It’s the Great Pumpkin Beer, Charlie Brown!

Combining pumpkins and beer might not seem natural, but it’s a combination that seems to be getting more and more popular each year. Pumpkin ales tend to be fall seasonal releases for breweries that make them. Different breweries take different approaches to their pumpkin ales. A few use actual pumpkin in the mash (part of the beer-making process), but more frequently, brewers add a bouquet of pumpkin pie spices to the beer. The spices you’ll smell and taste in a pumpkin beer are primarily cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and cloves.

Spicing beers is a very tricky business. It’s entirely too easy to have the spices dominate and drown out the beer itself, and I personally feel that this is the case with most pumpkin ales. There are a few breweries that get it right, but too many seem to just throw handfuls of spices into a plain, uninteresting ale. Behind the spices, pumpkin ales tend to be thin and malty, with little hop presence. Actual pumpkin changes that formulation, but you can see how brewers have to strike a difficult balance between a boring beer and an overspiced mess.

Some pumpkin ales you can find easily enough on NYC shelves to try at home include Pumkinhead Ale by Maine’s Shipyard Brewing Company, which is a perfect example of the style’s spice problem; Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale, which actually hits a decent balance and is definitely drinkable; and Punkin Ale by Dogfish Head, which also has decent balance and is brewed with real pumpkins.

New York Ale Project’s Favorite Pumpkin Ale: As I mentioned, pumpkin ales are not my favorite style on earth, so perhaps it’s unsurprising that my favorite example isn’t a traditional pumpkin ale (to the extent that such a thing exists). The winner of this style is Fisherman’s Pumpkin Stout by Cape Ann Brewing Co. It’s a very interesting take on the style. The pumpkin pie spice taste and aroma are present, but not nearly as overwhelming as in most pumpkin beers. It’s a solid stout first and a pumpkin beer second, but the pairing of the two styles turns out to work extremely well.

Plus, the first time I had this beer, it was served out of an actual pumpkin.

Local Pumpkin Ales:

• Post Road Pumpkin Ale by Brooklyn Brewery (‘B’ average on BeerAdvocate)
• Southampton Pumpkin Ale by Southampton Publick House (‘B+’ average)
• Pumpkin Ale by Captain Lawrence Brewery (‘B+’ average)
• Hipp-o-lantern by River Horse Brewing Co. (‘B+’ average)
• Pumpkin Brewster by Sixpoint Craft Ales (Not yet reviewed — should debut very soon!)