Fermented News

There is a new coalition trying to get rid of the ridiculous law that only allows grocery/convenience stores to sell low gravity beer (3.2% ABW). Their big hook is increased jobs which I find that questionable, but whatever lies they have to spin to make buying beer/wine more convenient is okay with me. Lots of other states (missouri) allow it and they all still have plenty of independent liquor stores. [LJ World]

Saturday is Kansas's 150th Birthday as a State and everybody is invited to celebrate by raising a glass of Kansas beer, wine, or cider at 6:00pm when the KU - K-State game tips off. I'm sure I'll have a growler of something nice from Free State (Iron Man Imperial Stout?) [facebook]

Hops Shortage. Everybody Panic. [Rouge Wire Service]

In Boulevard Brewing news:

• Their collaboration with Christopher Elbow should be on shelves in time for Valentines Day. Mmmmm Chocolate. [KC Beer Blog]
• Imperial Stout is in bottles so keep an eye out for that, probably won't last long. [facebook]
• Rye-on-Rye is in barrels. [facebook]

Nevermind...

It appears that the report (via Fat City) that Rick Martin had left Free State is inaccurate. Rick posted this comment on my previous post:

I have not left Free State, nor will I ever. I have a new place that continues the level of food that illustrates what I want in a beer pairing. Please come and see for yourself. And continue to see me at Free State as well. Thanks for your support! Your blog is great!

Rick Martin

So there you go.

I think I'll head down to Free State to celebrate.

The End of an Era

It was with fear and trepidation that I followed the recent articles on the new restaurant, The West Side Local. Not because I don't like the idea of a beer-centric restaurant that makes it's own kraut and pickles, I love the idea. Rather, I was fearful because my favorite chef, Rick Martin, was the Executive Chef and that must mean he has left Free State, the greatest brewery ever, and that made me sad. But none of the articles I read definitively stated he had left, so I held out hope that maybe he would be working at both places, maybe. Then I saw this,

"I just want to make comfort food -- food that makes people feel welcome," said Executive Chef Rick Martin, who left Free State Brewery after 17 years for the chance to run his own kitchen.

Damn!

Double Damn!

If you don't know Rick Martin, he is one of the better food & beer chefs in the country. He's talked or presented at some of the biggest beer events, including Savor, the Great American Beer Festival, and the Craft Brewers Conference, his recipes are featured in Lucy Saunders' book about beer and food, and he was recently awarded Mentor of the Year by the Kansas Restaurant and Hospitality Association.

He will surely be missed by myself and many of us in Lawrence who look forward to his daily specials and especially the Annual Beer Banquet where he comes up with amazing dishes. My wife and I have been to about five banquets now and it was beer that originally attracted us, but it's the food that keeps us coming back year after year.

Free State's 20th Anniversary

To celebrate their anniversary my favorite brew pub has been serving up small batches of some of their more popular brews. The festivities started on the 18th and I believe they run through Monday the 23rd, check their website for more details. When Free State opened up in 1989 it was the first post-prohibition brewery in the good state of Kansas and I've been visiting it on an almost weekly basis ever since I moved here in 2000.

I was lucky enough to be able to stop in twice to enjoy the celebrating. On Thursday I stopped by in the afternoon and enjoyed three pints. The first was Ironman Imperial Stout which is my favorite stout, period. It is rich and creamy and has a beautiful balance of roast and chocolate flavors that makes it an absolute joy to sip. Next I had a light colored Bier de Garde that was finished with a champagne yeast, kinda fruity with a dry finish. My third and final was C³ IPA, a big double IPA that is hopped with a whole bunch of Columbus, Chinook, and Cascade hops, delicious.

Friday night I wandered back down because I knew they were going to have Eccentricity on tap, a blended, barrel aged beer. Unfortunatly, by the time I arrived the Eccentricity was gone so I had to “settle” for Owd Mac's Imperial Stout. I believe this was the 2005 vintage, same vintage I had last year. The big stout still has a lot of malty complexity, a mix of molasses, oak, vanilla, bourbon, and anise. I also had a nice dark rye called Black Eye Rye and another pint of C³. All in all, a great two days of craft beer. Congratulations Free State, on your twenty years of brewing. I hope the next twenty are just as awesome.

Hefe' for Breakfast

This weekend is considered the symbolic end of summer, although around here summer has a ways to go still, so I thought I should finally review a “summer-time” beer.* There is no summer-time beer I enjoy more than a nice fresh Hefeweizen.

*My first pozterisk (you'll have to scroll to the botom of that link). Most beer geeks like to drink a lighter beer, like Lagers, Pale ales, Wits, and Hefeweizen, in the summer and darker beers, like Porters, Barley wines and Stouts, in the winter. Personally, I drink whatever beer I'm in the mood for at the time, with the modern technology that is indoor climate control, season isn't as important as it once was.

Hefeweizen is a traditional south German beer made with at least 50% wheat and a special strain of yeast that gives the ale a banana and clove aroma. Since freshness is paramount to a good Hefe', and we know the freshness of imported beer from Germany is questionable at best, I like to stick to locally made examples like the one from Free State.

I picked up a growler at Free State last night so I would have a nice beer to drink while I embark on my Labor Day weekend list of chores. After finishing my morning mowing I poured a nice tall glass of the cloudy, golden straw colored ale with a thick white head to sip while I prepared my breakfast.

The aroma is thick with bananas, clove, and wheat malt – a delicious start. The first sip taste like fresh banana cream pie sprinkled with nutmeg and clove. The mouth feel is creamy and smooth with just enough heft. The wheat tartness kicks in in the finish and it has just enough hop bitterness to balance it all out.

This just might be the perfect accompaniment to eggs and bacon. There are a couple of other good Hefes out there and I hope to bring you some reviews of them before the summer really ends.

The breakfast of champions!

Irish Ales, Jayhawks, and Irish Stout

Since I won't be able to bar-hop with all the amateurs tomorrow I decided to go ahead and do a little celebrating today while I enjoy another epic battle between the Jayhawks and Texas Longhorns (and another victory). In homage to St. Patrick we'll take a look at three different Irish styled beers, Boulevard's Irish Ale, Free State's Grace O'Malley's Irish Ale, and finally, Murphy's Irish Stout.

The Boulevard Irish Ale is a clear, rich amber colored ale with an off-white head. The aroma is an enticing mix of caramel sweetness, fruity yeast esters, and a crisp, citric hops smell. Flavors are pretty much the same with a lightly bitter finish and a pine-like aftertaste. Mouth feel is medium-light with proper carbonation, Overall, a tasty example of the style with perhaps a little more of a hop profile than some, but I like it. Look for this beer on tap while you're out and about on Monday.

Meanwhile the Free State version is a richer maltier version of the style. Almost the same color with a rich malty aroma mixed with some fruity esters from the yeast. The flavors start off with a caramel and biscuit-like sweetness followed by a quick fruitiness and then a light, toasty finish. Not as bitter as the Boulevard but richer in the mouth with an excellent malt heavy flavor. Both would be an excellent choice, but I'm going to go with Boulevard as my favorite right now.

Finally, Murphy's Irish Stout is an InBev owned beer (the A-B of Europe) that is widely available in 16oz cans that have that nifty widget in them that allows us to get that creamy nitrogen infused pour. Color is black with a dark ruby highlight and a thick, creamy, dirty white head that lingers...and lingers. Aromas and flavors are mild at best. A slight milk chocolate aroma then some roasted flavors show up in the mouth to help give it a dry finish with a chalky aftertaste. Mouth feel is velvety smooth, a little watery at the end. Overall, a notch above Guinness in the flavor department but not as good as the other dry stouts I've reviewed (Avery, Boulevard, & North Coast).

Vintage Owd Mac Imperial Stout

This past weekend the great Free State Brewing Company officially turned nineteen years old. Earlier this month they held a beer banquet to commemorate their anniversary. This weekend was a little more low-key. Friday through Sunday they served up some of everybody's favorite specials from the last year, like their awesome tuna tartar. And of course, they busted out the beer, and plenty of it. They had several seasonal beers on tap including Bowersock Bock, Fireside Imperial Pilsner, Coeur de Saison (The Wife's favorite), and Old Backus Barleywine. But the real star of the weekend was the 2005 vintage Owd Mac's Imperial Stout.

Owd Mac is a big, burly stout that is aged in oak whiskey barrels from McCormick Distilling Co. in Weston, MO. It's also the inspiration for the first part of my name (owd is an old english way of saying old and Müller is the correct spelling of my family name, in case you were wondering). The very first time I tried this beast was back in '01 or '02, I ordered it to with a burger during a work lunch. Oops, little did I know that I was about to try my first oak aged beer, and probably the strongest beer I'd ever had...during lunch...with coworkers. Luckily I made it through the rest of the day, and headed back for more. Owd Mac was the most unusual and unique beer I had ever had, I was a big fan.

Now that I have a little more seasoning and a more experienced palette, I couldn't wait to taste a four year old sample. The appearance is a thick murky black liquid with no head, none. Big nose is full of dark treacle, vanilla, oak, hints of raisins and bourbon. The longer you sit and sniff it the more flavors you can pick out. The first taste is molasses and caramel accompanied by vanilla and traces of burnt oak. Mellow and complex at the same time. The finish is fairly dry with lingering raisin and licorice flavors, alcohol is barley noted. The mouth feel is like a watered down syrup. There is no carbonation which gives it a very unbeer like feel. Alcohol slowly warms the belly. An acquired taste, but very good. While I admire Free State for serving this on cask, I think it could benefit from a touch of forced carbonation to give it a livelier feel in the mouth and really bring out all the flavors. A few bubbles short of an A-plus.

Look at the geek taking notes at the table

S.P. Dinsmoor's Scotch Ale

Tonight we take a look at S.P. Dinsmoor's Scotch Ale from Free State Brewing Company located here in Lawrence, Kansas. The beer is named after Samuel Perry Dinsmore, who created the somewhat famous and completely weird Garden of Eden in Lucas, Kansas. I wish I had some kind of crazy story to add in here about a drug-fueled road trip to the Garden of Eden, but I've never been, so you'll have to settle for a boring beer review.


The beer pours with the color of brewed tea accompanied by a small newspaper colored head. The aroma is a mix caramel and a distinct smoke aroma from the peat smoked malts. The flavor profile starts with caramel and prune sweetness that quickly fades into a smoky, chalky swallow. The body is smooth and mild.

Overall, a pretty good beer. Not a beer I anticipate or seek out, but the peat smoked malt gives it enough uniqueness to earn a solid B. For extra credit it helped add an extra layer of flavor to my Chipotle Super Bowl Chili.

Free State Beer Banquet

On February 6th, 2008 my wife and I attended the Free State Brewing Company 19th Anniversary Beer Banquet. This is the fifth banquet that we have had the pleasure of attending. The dinner includes a five course meal (appetizer, salad, intermezzo, entree, and dessert) and eight different beers selected to match the food.

The evening started with an aperitif, Stille Nacht (silent night) from Brouwerij De Dolle Brouwers in Diksmuide, Belgium. This Beligian Strong Dark Ale clocks in at a hefty 12% ABV. Stille Nacht is a tawny colored beer with an off-white head. Initial aromas are of sweet raison bread and spice. Drinking adds additional flavors of caramel and that classic belgian yeast flavor. This rich, full bodied brew finishes with a spicy burn from all the alcohol.

Next on the menu is 1809, a berliner-style weissbier from Brauerei Weihenstephan in Freising, Germany. This pale, straw colored ale has a lemony tart flavor to it that makes it a perfect match for the appetizer. Egg on toast with hollandaise vinaigrette, sheep's cheese and micro-greens. The tartness in the vinaigrette was a perfect compliment to the 1809.


Our next beer is the classic Hoegaarden Original White Ale, the beer that revived the now popular witbier style. This beer and brewmaster Pierre Celis are the main reason you see posers everywhere sucking on bottles of Blue Moon. While I was enjoying the yeasty, citric, and spice notes of the well made Hoegaarden, our server brings out a butter lettuce wedge topped with gorgonzola, carrot-corriander salad and a raisin vinaigrette.

This is the point in the night where we start getting two beers for each course, also the point where my notes start to go downhill, not sure why.

To finish off the salad, we had a glass of Boulevard Brewing Company's Long Strange Tripple. This strawberry blonde brew had a melon-like sweetness that provided an interesting contrast to the gorgonzola and acidity of the vinaigrette, while the corriander provided a match to the subtle spiciness in the tripple.

Next stop on our tour of belgian beer styles is Leffe Blonde, a belgian pale ale that used to be brewed by monks in Belgium but is now, like Hoegaarden Brewery, just another piece of the InBev empire.

While the Leffe had a subtle mix of light honey sweetness and clove spiciness, the intermezzo, a huckleberry cumin sorbet, was much more bold in its mix of sweet and savory. The interplay between the fruit and the cumin was very unusual and quite interesting, like making taco meat with fruit instead of meat.

Leading into our main entree, we finally get one of Free State's own, S.P. Dinsmore's Scotch Ale. The peat smoked malt (the same malt used to make scotch whiskey) used in this ruby brown colored ale adds another level of complexity to the malty sweetness.

Finally, the main course. A big bowl full of seared beef sirloin with brussels sprout kraut, parsnip mash and a spiced malt reduction. This was one delicious dish, the meat was perfect, and the reduction had a slightly orange twang to it that made the whole dish really pop.

The second beer served with the entree was, La Seigneuriale, a strong belgian ale from the crazy Canadians at Unibroue. This copper hued brew greeted us with some citric aromas folowed by some rich raison and yeast flavors that played well with the food.

Finally, I've made it all the way to dessert! We start off with another Free State brew, and one of my wife's favorites, the Cœur de Saison is a saison or farmhouse style belgian ale. The hazy amber colored ale has a floral and lightly citric aroma with a yeasty, fruity flavor and a long, dry, slightly spicy finish.

Dessert is a delicious banana custard on white chocolate brownie with vanilla cream, local honey and strawberry syrup. The dryness of the saison provides a yin to the sweet yang of the dish, a perfect finish to the evening.

Chef Rick Martin and Head Brewer Steve Bradt have put on another awesome evening of beer and food glutony. I'm already anticipating next years event. If you ever get a chance to attend a beer dinner of any kind, I recommend seizing the chance. Cheers!

Special thanks to my wife for taking all the awesome photographs!