Homebrew, sweet homebrew

As I have mentioned multiple times in this blog, there has been a large increase in the number of brewers in the world over the last 20 years or so. The increase has been fuelled by the so-called Craft Beer Revolution, which started in the USA when a handful of people got sick of the poor and bland selection of beers offered by a small number of massive breweries that had aggressively bought up most of the competition. The new breweries were often quite small, and thus called themselves microbreweries (oddly, the obvious intermediate stage “millibrewery” was simply skipped). It didn’t take long, however, for these microbreweries to grow quite big – former micros such as Sierra Nevada now output more than 100 million litres per year. This created the need for a new description of breweries that are genuinely small – so please welcome me in raising a nano-Olympic-pool-sized glass to the arrival of the nanobrewery, though apparently these are also getting bigger now so I guess it won’t take long before the first picobrewery is opened.

An old friend of mine, resident in the fine city of Drammen situated in the shockingly expensive (at least when beer is concerned) country of Norway recently decided that his house contained way too few breweries, namely zero. To remedy this very unfortunate situation, he invested in appropriate equipment as well as various types of malt, hops and yeast – and started his own nanobrewery. This, incidentally, is one of the few legal ways to avoid paying some of the world’s highest alcohol taxes – the taxman in Norway has yet to start invading private homes in order to collect about €0.50 per litre and also per alcohol percentage by volume that you have to pay in the shops, bars and restaurants (for example, also including 25% VAT on top, you pay about €2 only in taxes for a half litre of 5% beer). Anyway, my friend also happens to be the type of person who takes his hobbies seriously, so when he invited a select group around for a tasting session of his first 15 or so brews, I knew that this was the opportunity of a lifetime to taste some of the best beers ever brewed in that particular house. I immediately booked a flight, made sure to get a connection through Brussels, and sat down to twiddle my thumbs.

A few days later the plane left on time with a thirsty beer blogger on board. I stocked up on a Big Bottle of Belgian Beer in Brussels, which I thought could serve as a baseline for what the pros typically achieve, and flew onwards towards Oslo in a cute little jet (which should be called a jetlet, I think). The next day, I rang my friend’s jolly-sounding doorbell at the exact time specified in the invitation. Seldom have I been more excited about a beer drinking session. Another great thing about my friend is that he doesn’t waste time on small talk, so no words needed to be exchanged on meaningless topics such as the weather, which incidentally was very rainy and not at all like the winter weather used to be when I was young, back when we had to shovel through about a metre of snow just to get to the front door before even leaving the house, if we were LUCKY!

There were two beers on tap. The first one I tried was called “Flying Penguin IPA”, which was, unsurprisingly, an India Pale Ale – usually a beer that most brewers manage to not screw up completely. Full of beery anticipation, I put the glass to my mouth, tilted, and poured an exploratory amount into my mouth. I immediately knew that this could indeed be one of the finest beer tasting nights of the decade. The beer was actually a bit darker than pale, and thus had a firm, malty body – but best of all was the balance between the hops and malt. It was, simply put, very good.

A very good IPA from a very small brewery

As the evening progressed, we tried out the entire available selection, all bottled, named and labelled with great care: the aforementioned IPA, an American Pale Ale (“Thirsty Crow APA”), a Pils (“Pilsen Pils”), a Bitter (“Humpty Dumpty”), a traditional Christmas Beer (“Evil Santa”), a Stout (“Toxic Waste”), a Kölsch (“Drammen Kölsch”), a Belgian-style Abbey Ale (“Sacred Prayer”) and two Oktoberfest-style Märzen (“For Fulle Mugger” and “Vinterøl”). Every single beer was true to its type, and with the exception of the APA (which I suspect just needed a few weeks of maturation), they were all beautifully balanced and either very good or excellent – these beers would have been top notch even for a commercial brewery. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, so I was probably quite sad to leave this splendid place, though my memory was getting a bit hazy by then since we also tried out both the Belgian beer and a bottle of Pilsner Urquell, purely for scientific comparison reasons you understand.

A truly outstanding example of a traditional Christmas beer

So, what have I learned? First and foremost: beer remains the finest drink on the planet, and the supply of this splendid drink keeps being expanded in ways that favour drinkers who value taste, quality and variety. Second, opportunities to taste a home-brewed range as splendid as this one are as rare as a hen with a single tooth, and it’s an honour and a privilege to have been allowed to participate in such an occasion. Third, home brewing isn’t for everyone – the amount of time and money you have to invest is rather large, and although the pleasure of drinking beer in Norway is undoubtedly enhanced by the knowledge that not a single krone goes to the taxman, it is not something you would do to actually save or make money. Fourth, if you do decide that home brewing is worth pursuing as a hobby, then it is possible to make excellent beer.

There is, interestingly, a trend for small groups of people (typically known as “friends”) to gather together their financial and temporal resources to invest. As quality keeps increasing, this could create an interesting situation where more and more people who would otherwise buy their beer in shops instead get all the beer they need for home consumption from their share in their own little brewery. Currently, this would only work if enough people were willing to take their turn at the wheel as it were, but it will be interesting to see how this evolves, especially in a country like Norway where the tax situation creates a real financial incentive. I shall stop speculating at this point, but should I ever move back to Norway, well, suffice to say that I may find a few kroner to invest. And on this note, I shall raise a glass of German Glühwein to all the home brewers of this world, since I’m heading out to the local Christmas Market. PROSCHT!

Hupp hupp hurrah! The beer blogger is bock!

Germany is a great place to drink beer. First, there’s an insane number of breweries to try, second, the beer is really cheap and third, the beer is really good. However, the level of insanity reaches really crazy proportions when you go to Bavaria. There, the number of breweries per square inch is higher than anywhere in the world, the beer is cheaper and it’s also even better than in the rest of Germany. Then, just when you thought things couldn’t possibly get any better, you may be lucky enough to stumble upon this slightly obscure part of Bavaria called Franconia. Yes, you guessed it – the density of breweries gets even higher, the beer gets even better and the prices, for some bizarre reason, are so low that you feel dizzy. Put simply, it’s the beer drinker’s heaven on Earth.

Centred on the beautiful city of Bamberg, itself sporting no less than 9 breweries that work tirelessly to quench the thirst of the 70,000 or so inhabitants, the region has more than 200 breweries that invariably brew really high quality beer. Add this to the fact that the region is very picturesque and easy to get around on the beer lover’s best mode of transport, namely the bike, and you have a great recipe for a very long holiday.

Sadly, I have not had the opportunity to go there for several years now, so I was extremely grateful when a friend and loyal follower of this blog did the second best thing to bringing me to Franconia  – he brought Franconia to me. In fact, he brought back 4 lovely bottles from the Huppendorfer brewery in Huppendorf, a village so small it could fit comfortably onto a beer mat.

A huppy pils

To stretch the enjoyment, I have been drinking the beers one at the time, and I shall follow this strategy of enjoyment prolongation by reporting on them one at the time. First out was the Pils. This is a beer the Germans seldom get spectacularly wrong (unlike most of the rest of the world), but conversely it’s also one that is seldom very memorable. I was therefore not surprised, but nevertheless strangely pleased, to find that this beer was good, but not fantastic. It had a decent amount of hop character, a good balance and contained plenty of refreshment. In summary, a promising start.

A fantastic vollbier

Next out was the Vollbier. Now those who have experienced Franconia will nod knowingly at this point, because the Vollbier is in many ways the region’s specialty. It’s a medium dark and quite malty, and beautifully balanced with the hops to create a beer that satisfies every conceivable organ in your body and probably a few you didn’t even know existed. It’s not a beer I want to drink all the time, but whenever I get one it leaves me with exactly the same feeling I imagine art lovers get when they visit Florence for the first time.

A zippy zwickl

Then it was time for the Zwickl. For those unfamiliar with this style, it’s normally an unfiltered beer that is otherwise not dissimilar to a pils or a helles. I like Zwickl quite a lot for the same reason I like to throw herbs and spices into all the food I cook – it’s tasty. The unfilteredness of the beer means that a lot of taste, which the world’s big brewers spend a lot of time and effort getting rid of, gets left in the beer and it ends up tasting the opposite of bland, which is dnalb. So, basically a bit like the Pils but with more hoppy spiciness on the palate.

The fourth beer is the Weizen, which I’m saving for a sunny day. So perhaps I’ll report on that another time. For now, I am just pleased to have managed to write another blog entry, Google knows that I haven’t been doing much of that lately. I’ve got loads of ideas for new posts though, so watch this space. Meanwhile, why don’t you plan your next 3-4 summer holidays by checking out the relevant web resources for Franconia. Bamberg is a great place to start, and should be on the itinerary of any person vaguely interested in enjoying the world’s favourite drink. Then you can rent a bike and go bumming around the countryside to marvel at all the lovely barley ripening in the balmy summer wind, and whenever you come across a village that you’ve never heard of, chances are that there will be a tiny little brewery with a nice beer garden outside where you can quench your thirst whilst you think how good life is and how unbelievably more complicated this sentence would be if you had to stick the verb at the end, like Germans do. Well, nobody’s perfect.

Pils pils me

Insomnia is less fun than drinking beer, and it’s also less fun than sleeping. In fact, insomnia is one of the least rewarding hobbies available to mankind. The only positive aspect is that you get a few extra hours in the middle of the night which you can use to update your blog, and write about fun things such as sleeping, beer, or sleeping after drinking beer, so I guess it could be worse.

Today I thought I’d write about the World’s favourite beer style: pils, pilsner or pilsener. This incredibly successful brew originates in the town of Plzen, known as Pilsen in German and once upon time part of the massive Habsburg Empire, but nowadays situated in the westernmost part of the Czech Republic. It was here, in the 1830s, that a handful of breweries united to form a citizens’ brewery (Bürgerbrauerei) in order to improve quality and compete efficiently with the Bavarians, whose beers had a far better reputation. They recruited a young brewer named Josef Groll from the town of Vilshofen in Bavaria, but it was quite clear that this lad wasn’t satisfied with merely trying to copy the dark, bottom-fermented lagers that were commonly brewed just across the border. Instead, he started experimenting with paler malts and proceeded to combine this with the lovely soft water from the wells in Plzen as well as a generous helping of Saaz hops to create something the world had never seen before. He presented his first batch of beer to the unsuspecting drinkers on the 5^th of October 1842.

The rest is, as they say, history.

The brewery where the Pilsner beer was invented

The drinkers in Plzen loved the new golden beer, and presented in the new see-through glassware that was becoming popular (replacing the old ceramic tankards), the visual appearance of the brew also played a major part in its success. Soon, others started copying the style, and before anyone realized what was going on (mainly because they were too busy drinking, I suppose), 150 years had flown by and breweries were churning out their various interpretations of pilsner all over the world.

Lovely looking kettles, now used to show tourists how lovely they look

A few years ago I visited the Plzeňský Prazdroj brewery which made, and still makes, the Pilsner Urquell (which means the “original source” in German). This was a very mixed experience. On the one hand, you’re standing in the exact spot where Josef didn’t brew the first batch, but at least you’re not far away, and you get a real sense of brewing history. On the other hand, you very quickly realize that ever since the brewery was bought out by the giant corporation SABMiller, the emphasis has shifted from tradition and quality to marketing and brands. They take you on a big tour around the brewery and serve up one claim after the other about how they’ve modernized and changed everything but ensured that the beer tastes exactly the same. Then you get to see the vast network of underground passageways containing wooden lagering casks kept at a constant 4-5 degrees Celsius, and they tell you that this is no longer in use because it has been replaced with modern tanks. Finally, they actually give you a glass of unfiltered beer from one of the few wooden casks they still use “for quality control purposes”, and you get to taste what may well be the best pilsner in the world. In fact, this is also a great place to bring the kids if you have some, or rent a couple if you don’t, because they also get a glass of beer which you can swiftly confiscate as long as they’re under 16 or 18 or 35 or whatever you find appropriate. I was ready to adopt a couple of the most gullible-looking kids on the tour, but their father politely refused before guzzling their beers with a very happy smile on his face.

Underground passageway with beer casks, some with very good beer in them

After the tour you’re ushered into the brewery tavern where you can drink more beer from taps conveniently located at your own table. They serve the filtered version from the modern tanks this time, and it still tastes pretty good, even if it lacks the magical wonderfulness of the unfiltered beer straight from the cask.

It’s only when you come home to wherever you live and you pick up a bottle of Pilsner Urquell in your local supermarket that you realize what’s really wrong with this whole enterprise. Not only is the beer brewed at several different breweries hundreds or thousands of kilometres away from its home (making a complete mockery of the “original source” claim), it is also likely that the beer will taste absolutely nothing like the wonderful stuff you quaffed back in Plzen. It’s not just that this beer doesn’t travel well, I think it goes a bit deeper than that. SABMiller have bought up the brand and shamelessly exploited its heritage whilst disregarding quality and tradition. Perhaps it’s just the way of the world nowadays, but I personally find it a bit sad. May it one day spectacularly backfire.

Pilsner remains one of my favourite types of beer, but I’m getting increasingly picky. Most of the pilsners in Germany and the Czech Republic are good, with a decent amount of bitterness as a result of generous usage of hops. This is how it should be. The Czech versions tend to have a bit more of a malty body, whereas the German ones are a bit drier, but the best ones from both countries are wonderful beers, especially on a hot summer’s day. The rest of the world, unfortunately, is not so lucky. Although there are some glorious exceptions, most “pilsners” that you buy are fizzy, cold, and taste either next to nothing, or have this unpleasant chemical taste that comes from the use of sugar, maize, rice, polluted water or, perhaps, chemicals. The emphasis is on producing vast quantities at low cost. To avoid scaring off customers, the marketing people that instruct the brewers what to do tell them to avoid using too much hops in case the trendy young people who bought the beer because of the great design on the new label should accidentally taste something.

As you can see, I have a love-hate relationship with the pilsner. I love the ones in my fridge, but I hate the big global beer makers that buy out the small players and promote their tasteless brands instead. Too often the choice is a big brand or no beer, but increasingly often I see smaller breweries sneaking into bars and restaurants, so perhaps there’s hope. I’m using my consumer power for all it’s worth, buying the good stuff and avoiding the crap, and I encourage you all to do the same. This way, we’ll support local brewers and hopefully retain the diversity we enjoy – at least in some countries – today. Man, that’s enough preaching for today, I think. I’m sleepy. Good night!

It's beer v beer time!

Any beer blogger with respect for himherself occasionally does a beer test. The advanced version of this is to test two beers at the same time, and compare them. The usual trick is to pick an awful and a really good beer and then slag off the awful one whilst praising the good one. That seemed a bit predictable (as well as a waste of liver damage where the awful beer is concerned), so I went for the adventurous approach: comparing two of my all-time favourite beers. Very exciting.

Having at the time of writing just drunk these two beers, I simultaneously have the advantage of being creatively drunk and the disadvantage of missing every second key on the keyboard, so I may well be sober before I finish this. Unless I have another beer, of course. Anyway, you're probably dying to know which two beers I have just compared. It's Meckatzer Weissgold and Wernesgrüner Pils Legende. Note the two dots over the u in Wernesgrüner. That's a German letter, folks. It's pronounced "ü".

I went about this momentous task in a very scientific way. First I went for a cycle ride in the sunshine to make sure I was really thirsty. Then I washed two beer glasses exactly the same way, even though both were already clean, just in case they had been washed differently, at different times or by different people. I used the same soap, the same tap water, the same brush, the same technique and I whistled the same tune whilst washing. Then I let both glasses air-dry until they were no longer wet.

The beers were stored in the fridge so I took them out 10 minutes prior to pouring time and opened the bottles to let the beer breathe. Well, if wine needs this why the heck shouldn't beer? I proceeded to pour 2/3rds of the bottles simultaneously into separate glasses, without tilting the glasses (which would in any case have been difficult since I only have two feet). Then I paused for exactly 97 seconds to let the head stabilize before I poured the rest.

I now had two beautiful looking beers in two extraordinarily attractive beer glasses from the wonderful Aass brewery. I waited two minutes to see how the head developed and multitasked by studying the colour at the same time. The Wernesgrüner was a smidgeon lighter, whilst the Meckatzer could be said to be a tad darker. The next step was to appreciateively sniff the beers in order to detect smells such as wet dogs, pine trees and Welsh footpaths. To me, both smelt a bit like, erm, beer, and I must admit that I couldn't at all tell the difference. Perhaps I need a nose transplant.

Undeterred, I proceeded to taste the beer. After all this time faffing about, you can imagine what a delight it was to finally let these great beers hit my frustrated taste buds. And the taste buds sure were happy. The Wernesgrüner is a very hoppy beer, and therefore extremely refreshing. A bit like a gin and tonic without the gin and the tonic, but with a lot of great beer. The Meckatzer, as I have previously described in an earlier post on this very blog, is both hoppy and malty. It has a more full-bodied mouthfeel, but lacks perhaps that extra sting in the bitterness department that the Wernesgrüner supplies so nicely.

After I had tasted my way down to the halfway point of each glass I moved on to the next stage in the comparison test, which was to see how the beers paired with food. More specifically, three day old Thai curry which had been combined with the leftover rice, reheated and now looked more like porridge. Potent porridge, bordering on deadly. As expected, the curry removed most of the taste of the beers, as well as any other taste sensation left in my mouth, quite efficiently - though I was still able to enjoy the way beer soothes the tonsils. Next time I'll try and pair the beer with food that doesn't require a two-week spa holiday for the tongue afterwards.

So, what's the conclusion? Which beer is best? There's no doubt that these two beers are both very good, perhaps even classic examples of their styles. The Wernesgrüner has been a favourite of mine for many years, and it is simply one of the most refreshing drinks you can imagine. It doesn't need to be accompanied by anything except myself. The Meckatzer, on the other hand, is a bit more of an all-rounder since it goes better with food and has a slightly richer, more satisfying taste.

Therefore it's a draw. 9 out of 10 points for each. Go and buy a crate of both, and if they're not available in your local supermarket then consider the fact that the German economy is booming, so there's no excuse for not moving here, unless you can't pronounce the letter "ü". Good lück.