BEST PILSNER ON THE PLANET?

Sure, we've written a few things about MOONLIGHT BREWING the past few weeks. We'll probably keep doing so until we've tried every beer in the great man's lineup and reported to you on our findings. Latest "casualty", if you will, was the REALITY CZECK PILSNER. Now, this picture to your left is not what we drank, because what we drank has never, will never be bottled - just like all of other Moonlight beers. No, this beer is one that was bottled by a rabid partisan of Moonlight's, who gave them to friends as gifts (as Moonlight's Brian Hunt recounted in our recent email interview with him). The one I delighted in the other night was served on tap at a well-known pub in my hometown. I just knew that this was going to be the pilsner that broke open the whole style for me, a style very often spat/shat upon by the discerning beer geek, who typically loves his ales, and disdains the lagers & especially the pilsners. Hey, I was that guy, more or less. I went to what was then known as Czechoslovakia in 1990, but what I remember most beer-wise was drinking my first DUVEL, and quite a few of them at that, as well as imbibing boatloads of hearty beer in a Prague beer hall for the equivalent of 10 cents a glass. Good times!

REALITY CZECK is by quite a wide margin the highest-rated Czech pilsner on Beer Advocate, including the ones from the mother country. Not sure how fair or representative that is, but it's quite honestly one of the finest beers I've ever had. Unlike other pilsners, this didn't have that crisp, biting, lager-ish taste I'm so familiar with - instead, it was creamy, "deep" and even a little hoppy, and it was just fantastic through and through. Like an ale, kinda. Hard to pin down what it tasted like, really, but it's probably a little dangerously good. I could seriously drink this all night. Hedonist Beer Jive says check your prejudices at the door - 9.5/10!!

THE TORONADO BARLEYWINE FEST, 3 OZ. AT A TIME

I didn't think I was going to make this getting-to-be-nationally-reknown event this year, as I'd heard all the rumors that if you don't go and start drinking from the selection of 80+ different specialty barleywines on the opening weekend, you're going to be high & dry if you show up later in the week. Well, President's Day weekend didn't pan out for me, but there I was last Wednesday night sitting at the TORONADO in San Francisco, my favorite bar in the world for over 15 years, enjoying 5 good-to-great barleywines that I'll likely never get to taste again. Oh, and the pundits were right: you gotta show up early, but even 5 days on, there were still some fantastic drinks left from world-class breweries, just not the "winners" from the opening weekend.

First, you probably should read a couple quick takes on the 2007 festival from others to get your bearings - so please click on the links here, here and here. There. Thanks for that. When I got there on Wednesday, all the winners were gone - the Russian River, the Stone, the Alaskan, the Hair of the Dog, even that Mexican one. Let me tell you what I was able to try, because I had some good 'uns:


MOYLAN'S OLD BLARNEY -- Leave it to MOYLAN'S, maybe the most underrated brewery in California if not the USA, to make a fantastic small-batch barleywine. Very straightforward, full-bodied, and delicious. No messing around - just great high-alcohol beer. (Hey! I just found out this is bottled - right on!) 8/10.

GREEN FLASH BARLEYWINE 2006 - I've heard some good things about this Vista, CA brewer - now I can confirm them. You can really taste the alcohol in this one, which normally I don't like, but my notes say this one was "smooth smooth smooth". I guess so! 7.5/10.

UINTA ANNIVERSARY 2004 - A friend claimed this as his fave from the night before; I was less bowled over but it did the job. I mean, they are from Salt Lake City, right? I found it a little too sweet. Looks like this might be bottled as well, so shut my mouth. 6/10.

MAD RIVER JOHN BARLEYCORN 2006 - Wow - this one was outstanding as well, really full of flavor and with a deep, malty taste. No wonder they call it a "winter warmer". I have to start paying attention to this brewer. 8/10.

FULL CIRCLE OLD CALIFORNIOS - Really the only one I can say wasn't that special; sort of a strange, off-balance taste that was too thin to boot. Not awful by any means, but probably suffered a bit following the winners above as I headed out the door. 5.5/10.

So if these were that good, I wonder what the quote-unquote winners were like? I know that trying these was, for me, the tipping point when it comes to barleywine, a style I loathed when I first tried it in the early 90s, and which I now love. Join me for the Friday night campout on Haight Street before the doors open on Toronado Barleywine Fest 2008, OK?

ST. BERNARDUS PRIOR 8 AND THEIR HAPPY 'LIL MONK

Gave the ST. BERNARDUS PRIOR 8 the good old college try last week with mixed results. This Belgian dubbel has been brewed in the mother country (Belgium) since long before I was born if you can believe it (since the 1700s or somethin'). It doesn't officially have the "trappist" designation, but whatever. I guess only a few of them do. I had it recommended to me as a good dubbel, because I'm on a kick to find a few of those, and the happy monk on the bottle sure got my hopes up, because he sure seems to dig his whopping gobletful. This one was OK - a real warm feeling with every sip, and a lot more hops in this dark brown ale that I'd reckoned. Very sweet at times, somewhat balanced by tartness and maybe a cherry or even apricot-ish taste. I think I was hoping for a little more. I kind of had the same reaction to the ST. BERNARDUS ABT 12 last year as well, but I'm giving this one a 6.5/10, a whole half-point improvement. So - what's your favorite Belgian dubbel? I love the style & am a total greenhorn & need you to school me a little.

ROGUE GETS A NEW IPA IN THE FAMILY

The long-revered ROGUE BREWING now have dozens of beers in their stable, and they also have a small line of brewpubs on the west coast that brew their own lineup of interesting, sometimes experimental beers. One of their “sub-brands” is the EUGENE CITY BREWERY in Eugene, Oregon. By the looks of things, the brewmaster there is able to run wild & create his own concoctions, and offer them up to the greater Rogue family; the same appears to be true at the Issaquah, WA outpost for Rogue. All these drinks come together at San Francisco’s ROGUE PUBLIC HOUSE, which doesn’t actually brew its own beer but serves up those brewed at all the other Rogue locations such as the Eugene City Brewery. Hopefully you’re following me so far, partner.

Last week I tried out something called the 100 METER IPA, a strong and, uh, “zesty” IPA that the barkeep recommended to us. This one’s from the Eugene location, and here’s what they have to say about it:

100 Meter Ale is an anniversary brew celebrating the 100th batch of beer by Trevor Howard. Combining two of his award winning recipes, Natty Red and and Track Town IPA, this ale features the best of both. Rich aroma, mildly floral and big with a smooth finish! 100 Meter is made from Pale, Munich, Crystal, Chocolate and Carastan malts, with Chinnok, Simcoe, Centennial, Palisade, and Cascade hops, with a dry-hopping of Amarillo hops. Available on draft only.

Those are all my favorite hop varietals! Wow! And they even use Carastan malts! Actually I have no idea what I’m talking about. I just know that this 100 METER stuff is a very good addition to their lineup, and tasted more malty, less hoppy, and less fruity that most 21st century IPAs. And I dug it. 7/10 – and I’ll bet this has a good chance of making it to bottles in the near future.

ALL HAIL THE MICROBREW WINOS

I snapped this picture on my walk into work this morning – proof positive that quality microbrew continues to penetrate the mainstream, and has now reached “downmarket” into the party-near-the-garbage-can demographic. These Lagunitas IPA bottles, both fully consumed, were sitting next to a public garbage can in downtown San Francisco, and various & sundry wrappers and foodstuffs were strewn about just out of the frame. I’d like to think that the beer blogs have had something to do with opening up this new market segment. Next step is to get inside the two-beers-cans-in-a-hat-with-straws crowd, and try working to understand their psychographic profiles enough so that they’ll soon be replacing those Coors Light cans w/ 21st Amendment IPA and Dale’s Pale Ale.......

FULL SAIL JOINS THE DOUBLE IPA WARS

Looks like FULL SAIL, the venerable Oregon brewery long known for their well-distributed Pale Ale and Amber beers, is joining Double IPA mania with their new SLIPKNOT double IPA. I had some on tap the other day and was pretty impressed. Not sure what you think about Full Sail but I’ve kinda always lumped them toward the bottom half of bottled microbrews; their stuff is all very serviceable but never all that notable. This one’s different. Slipknot is really “bold”, a front-forward, quite hoppy (and at times bitter) IPA yet missing some of the sweetness you’ll find in IPAs we love like Ballast Point’s or Stone’s. It’s not something you’d probably want to pound one after the other, if you know what I mean – a good one for drinking in a pint, at a bar, and then experimenting somewhere else. I like it. 7.5/10.

TWO MORE PORTS IN THE STORM

(Thanks to the now-defunct For The Love of Beer for the image)

Even though their beers are barely distributed north of Los Angeles, I keep on finding ways to drink the offerings of PORT BREWING here in Northern California. Why? Because they’re fantastic. All the awards they’ve won, all the cheering going on for their new spin-off line of LOST ABBEY beers – believe the hype. Two more pieces of evidence recently came into play to back this up. The first was a bottle of their WIPEOUT IPA that I found at the CITY BEER store. I enjoyed an entire 22-oz bottle one evening as I would a fine bottle of wine with a special lady friend – except I was by myself, watchin’ the tube. No mind, the mood was where I wanted it to be, and this just made it that much better. Wipeout IPA is a clean, fruitful and classy IPA, truly something you can envision being served in a great restaurant. It’s not dry in the least, and it’s not over-hopped. Smelled like pine needles & grapefruit, at least that’s what I thought at the time. A “big” taste for sure. It might have a tad too much carbonation for my taste (or at least enough to keep it from being a world-class IPA), but I still thought it was a big cut above the norm. 8/10.

I also found Port Brewing’s SHARKBITE RED on tap at that beer hotel in LA that I told you about two weeks ago. (so yeah, I guess that’s not really in Northern CA, is it?). It was a very dry, very hopped-out red ale, more bitter than I expected by a mile, but I still liked it quite a bit. Hard to say much about red ales – they can actually be pretty boring, and are fairly low in alcohol (this one’s 5.5%), but I’d be surprised if they are many much better than this (if you count ANDERSON VALLEY BOONT AMBER as a red, OK, there’s one head & shoulders better than this – but that’s an “amber”, right?). I give it a 7.5/10. These Port/Pizza Port/Lost Abbey folks are among the greatest in the game right about now.

I HAD MY FIRST WESTMALLE TRIPEL

My plan to conquer every Belgian beer in 2007 has gotten off to a slow start. There’s all those beers left in the “cellar” (i.e. the garage), then there’s just the sheer amount of incredible American beers that float by me every week that demand my attention. I need to get going on the Belgian thing. I recently had my first WESTMALLE TRIPEL, one of the famous flagship Trappist/abbey beers, and a huge favorite of many an enlightened beer drinker. It comes in 12-oz. bottles and is one of the Belgians that is easiest to find in the US and no doubt around the world. It was the beer that turned a friend of mine into the beer dork he is today – now that’s something to speak of. (Mine was RED HOOK if you can believe it). It gets off to a great start with a hazy, glowing pale orange color in the glass (my “Belgian chalice” glass, of course), and a delicious honey/citrus taste mixed with high alcohol content. Maybe a little “spicy”, if you know what I mean. Damn good. My only downer on this one was that it was a little more bitter than I’d hoped for, maybe just too much tang or something that kept this from the dizzying heights reached by beers like TRAPPISTES ROCHEFORT 8. But a 7.5/10 is nothing to sneeze at, right? I checked my blog from nearly a year ago and that’s the rating I bestowed upon their WESTMALLE DUBBEL as well. I wonder if it tastes even better when standing upon European shores?

AN INTERVIEW WITH BRIAN HUNT of MOONLIGHT BREWING

MOONLIGHT BREWING mania reaches its apex this week over at Hedonist Beer Jive with the securing of the following email interview with BRIAN HUNT, the one-man show behind this incredible Sonoma County, California “farmhouse brewer”. We previously wrote about him and his beer here and here. (Other good articles can be found both here and here)

HEDONIST BEER JIVE: What do you look for in a good beer, and what do you do to your own beers to make them turn out so spectacularly?

BRIAN HUNT: I look for everything about a beer to come together and work synergistically. I am so saddened by beers that have many flavors that are each tasty but don't come together to form one great organaleptic pleasure. It doesn't matter so much what style or characteristics a beer has, if it comes together, I like it, if not, I am disappointed. When I first started experimenting tasting Belgian beers, my thoughts were often, '"This is nasty, but I like it." These beers came together perfectly, even though they possessed characteristics I couldn't yet appreciate...I knew some day I would because they were so cohesive and complete. As for what makes my beers turn out, I'd say it is less about the ingredients or processes; most it is the need to make something I want to drink, and the pesky details of malt, hops, etc, follow along and fall into their appropriate places. It reminds me of what I've heard stone sculptors say, that they just chip away anything that isn't what they want. I can't say I completely understand that, but it is something like that for me in that I don't calculate ingredients, I just do what seems right for the taste I desire.

HBJ: It’s been said that you deliberately work with fairly old brewing equipment that’s been cobbled together from various sources. Is this reflective of anything more than to “make do with what you have” and/or to save money?

BH: In the beginning of Moonlight, I only had one new piece of equipment: a pump. I once counted equipment from 32 breweries, besides the kegs. This was necessary because I had absolutely no money. It was possible because I understood how to make beer from rather crude equipment, besides, I am rather stubborn. Today my copper kettle (plus one fermenter) is about the only used equipment I use. I love it and have no desire to upgrade it more than I already have. It came from Thomas Kemper in Poulsbo, Washington, before that from Hart in Kalama, Washington. I don't mind spending money for equipment that will make better beer-a brewing industry rare luxury where the brewer can also write checks for his own toys.

HBJ: Where do you find inspiration for the beers that you make? From other brewers? From Belgium? From within?

BH: It varies. Death & Taxes was created from a flavor I had in my mind. It was influenced by all the people that told me they assumed dark beers were always strong; and I was tired of having to answer that they are not all strong, so I made an example of a very dark beer at 5% alcohol that wasn't like a meal in a glass. No doubt that my trip to the Czech Republic inspired my Reality Czeck. I can't say I tried to copy a Czech beer, but I wanted to relive the delicate deliciousness that I experienced there. Belgium beers have definitely inspired me. Mostly the inspiration hasn't shown itself yet as individual beers, more instead as an appreciation of what a huge spectrum beers can cover...to break my even West Coast ideas of potential flavors and methods. I will make some more Belgian-inspired beers in the future. Often a flavor profile just shows up in my brain, and I want to make it. Luckily there is no corporate office I have to clear it with!

HBJ: If it’s true that one person’s personality can be reflected in the beer they make, how would you say the Moonlight beers reflect yours?

BH: Am I that bitter? Certainly I prefer more subtle that brash beers, and that may reflect my advanced age. I have heard it said that brewers tend to use fewer hops as they get older...does this apply to drinkers as they age, too?

HBJ: Have you got a particular beer style that you’ve wanted to tackle, but don’t feel like you’re able to conquer, or have you made just about everything you’ve wanted to try?

BH: That is one great part of not having to copy existing beer styles, I am not limited by what Michael Jackson has already written about. I could probably come up with new ideas forever. Beers such as the original Rodenbach and the Duchesse de Bourgogne fascinate me, and I am not experienced enough to make a version of this. Someday, I likely will.

HBJ: On the Beer Advocate website, there’s a picture of your Death and Taxes black beer in a bottle. Was this some sort of home brew/one-off thing, or have you actually bottled this in the past?

BH: This was a person who bought a 5 gallon keg and bottled it himself so he could share Sonoma County draught-only beers with others around the country...a very generous man!

HBJ: Tell us a little bit about your distribution methods. Is it truly just you and your daughter driving the beer to places in the Bay Area that request it?

BH: My daughters usually give me "the look" after I ask them to make a delivery for me. Then I still have to pay them. It is only a last resort struggle. Basically, it is just myself. Between a beefed-up '00 Nissan Frontier and a '96 Doge 3500 van, I travel 6 Bay Area counties. SF and the East Bay is Wednesdays and Fridays. There seem to be many other people driving out there, too.

HBJ: I had your TOAST “slight burned malt liquor” a month or so ago, and thought it was one of the greatest beers I’ve ever tasted. Please tell us some more about this particular beer.

BH: I wanted a beer that tasted like toast. Maybe I just like puns. It seemed a perfect beer for New Years. At 6.0% alcohol, I fill it with all kinds of toasted malts, fermented with a lager yeast. The hops are subtle as it is all about the malt flavors.

HBJ: For those folks now incredibly interested in where to go to drink Moonlight beers, could you perhaps give us at least a partial list of establishments that have your beer on tap?

BH: Ack! There are about 60 places in SF, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin Napa, and Sonoma Counties. There are two more in Fort Bragg, CA and one in Lakeport. Look up the usual suspects of good beer bars for best luck. The Toronado in SF and Barclay's or Lanesplitter in the East Bay are the most popular spots.

HBJ: Finally, what are some of the other great American brewers and/or beers out there that you’d recommend – those that perhaps come from the same philosophical place that you do?

BH: I have always loved everything from Victory Brewing. Unfortunately, it isn't available much here. I have never had anything from Brooklyn, but I agree with Garrett Oliver's philosophy as much as I have heard-especially the concept that a beer is only really good, if you still enjoy the end of the third pint and want another. Hair of the Dog in Portland probably has a similar philosophy, yet they tend to make stronger beers than I do. Thank god they don't follow rules. Alpine in San Diego County makes tasty, hoppy brews and is small like myself. Any brewery that isn't spending their time tooting their horn is likely instead focusing on making delicious beer, and I toast every blessed one of them. The bigger and more "profit-motivated" a brewery gets, the more they tend to make beer that is "good enough." I don't think "good enough" is enough.

21ST AMENDMENT’S “DOUBLE TRIPEL”

Not a bad name for a beer – hard to believe it wasn’t already trademarked. Hey, did you know that February is “strong beer month”? Neither did I, until the emails started flying about it – a good marketing angle to play in these rainy months that cry for high-alcohol, limited-batch elixirs. The 21st AMENDMENT BREWERY in San Francisco teamed up with MAGNOLIA PUB & BREWERY to make several new barrels of unique beers for this month only. On my visit to 21st Amendment last week, I noticed that they even replaced all but two of the beers they normally have on tap with SIX new ones; they even took away their ever-popular Watermelon Wheat in favor of these 9%+ bombs – now that’s bold. The DOUBLE TRIPEL is a straight-up winner, I’m happy to say. It’s Belgian-style strong ale, with a robust 80 IBUs and very strong hops that cloud up the glass. Seriously, even a weak palate like mine could probably taste this blindfolded and say, “I really think it tastes like an American brewer working hard to combine a modern double IPA with a Belgian triple, and hitting it remarkably well”. Smooth but bitter in the way a strong Belgian ale should be, and very opaque, drinkable and juicy the way an IPA should be. I’d easily buy it again. Maybe this one can become part of the regular stable of 21st Amendement beers? What do you say, guys? 8/10.

THE UNSUNG & RARELY-PRAISED BEERS OF GORDON BIERSCH

I was in the Los Angeles airport last week with some time to kill, and found a small GORDON BIERSCH restaurant in the Southwest terminal. The more I enjoy this chain restaurant/pub’s beers, the more I reckon that they don’t get half the respect they deserve. They happen to make one of the only pilsners worth gulping (as reviewed by me here last year), and at LAX they served me a GORDON BIERSCH HEFEWEIZEN that really got the job done. I’m convinced if this beer was served up to a given beer snob dressed in a Dogfish Head or Russian River label, you’d be hearing about it a lot more. It was significantly less carbonated than many hefes, and had a very understated, mild quality to it but yet tons of delicious wheat/hops flavor. I really dug it. I wouldn’t have given it an 8/10 if I hadn’t. I then tried the GORDON BIERSCH BLONDE BOCK, which they also say on their menu is not really a bock but is instead a “Helles Lager”. I found it to be a crisp, amber/gold beer with more complexity and flavor than, say, the HACKER PSHORR MUNICH EDELHELL I reviewed last week, and as surprising as that is, I guess I’m not really that surprised. Even Gordon Biersch’s MARZEN beer, the one you can buy at all the local ballparks, is damn good. I’ll go with 6.5/10. These guys have got the formula down – lighter, lower-alcohol beers that allow the non-beer snob crowd to enjoy a walk on the wild side, and yet beers great enough to please discerning dorks like me. And the Garlic Chicken pizza was great too. Count me in as a big fan of their “model”.

YEAH-HUP FOR MOONLIGHT BREWING, OUR NEW HEROES

(Note – I wrote this post last week but am just publishing it now….Mr Hunt graciously accepted my interview request yesterday. Look for that in the coming week or two).

I’m still waiting for Brian Hunt from MOONLIGHT BREWING to respond to my groveling request for an interview. I’m sure a cranky, iconoclastic American farmhouse brewer would like nothing more than to answer a series of emailed questions from a blogger with a daily readership of just under 60, and I hope I’m right. He must just be really, really busy, don’t you think? I hope he’s busy making more DEATH & TAXES black beer, because quite frankly, that beer’s a total knockout. I remember trying it years ago at the Toronado in San Francisco, and there it was on tap at PARK CHOW in the Sunset district the other day and I simply had to order one up with my pizza. I feel terrible for those of you who can’t find this brewery’s beers – they are only available on draft in & around the SF Bay Area, anywhere where Brian and his daughter can drive the kegs to from their farm/brewery in northern Sonoma County. (though if you look at the link above that goes to the Beer Advocate site, you’ll see a picture of this in a bottle. What’s up with that??). I feel lucky the way folks like my pal TA from Ghent, Belgium must feel when he sees Americans frothing about all the incredible beer from Belgium that they’ll never taste. Death & Taxes is a smooth, blacker-than-Alaska-at-3am beer that nonetheless has a robust character & taste that just delights the tongue. My wife, hardly a beer snob, had only this to say after tasting it – “Oh my god”. My son, who’s three years old, said, “that’s daddy’s beer” – as he so often does. And he was right. Daddy’s never rated a Moonlight beer lower than 9/10, and he’s not about to start now. 9/10!!

THAT HOODWINKED FEELING

I had a rough week last week. All sorts of sh** was going down on all fronts, and yet I found myself in Los Angeles for two afternoons attending a conference for work mid-week. Normally I’d gather my LA pals and paint the town, maybe do a few hours’ worth of record shopping at Amoeba and then stay up til the witching hour (11pm!!!) drinking in some seedy Hollywood or Fullerton or Eagle Rock dive. But I was wiped. I’d heard about this hotel near the LA airport called the FOUR POINTS SHERATON that had an amazing beer bar, so much so that they even dubbed themselves “the beer hotel”. I certainly liked the sound of that, so I booked myself for an evening, and decided the wildest thing I’d do in LA this time around after work is sit in said bar and try out some new beers. Well, turns out that their bar, “T.J. BREWSTERS” (no, really) is exceptionally low on atmosphere but is long on selection. They had 6 fantastic choices on draft, as well as a large selection of dozens on Belgians, British and American micros in bottle. I was going on about 4 hours’ worth of sleep the night before, and reckoned the best medicine for me was to order up a few and then stare at the hockey highlights on Sports Center for an hour or two while I nursed them.

My fave of the night was getting a nice glass of CHIMAY CINQ CENTS (aka Chimay White) on draft to start the evening. I then moved on to a Port Brewing item I will reveal in a future post, and finished my exploration with the VICTORY BREWING STORM KING STOUT, a beer I’ve heard wonderful things about from East Coast bloggers and the Beer Advocate community. I couldn’t believe it was sitting there in a Southern California bar for my purchase –but there it was. I was jazzed. It felt special, like finding AVERY BREWING’s amazing THE REVEREND in San Diego a couple of months ago. The magic didn’t last long. Once I got a taste of this extremely strong, bitter ale, I was already thinking about all the other things I could have ordered instead. Storm King Stout does not taste like your smooth traditional UK stout, no sir – this one’s pumped up with tons of hops, and carries a deep espresso flavor that might be its only saving grace. Very high alcohol (9.1%), and unlike excellent beers like the aforementioned The Reverend and Port Brewing’s OLD VISCOSITY, it totally shows. I sincerely hope this trend of beer-that-tastes-like-whiskey ends soon; there are obviously ways to make great high-ABV beer that don’t have to taste like rubbing alcohol, but this one’s not one of them. I gave it a 4.5/10, which means I’m certainly not trying it again. Any of my peeps out there have a similar experience?

THE LOWDOWN ON THE GLOSSY BEER MAGS

When I decided early last year to school myself at a deeper level in the world of craft brewing & beer, I headed for the magazine racks to see what publications would be available to guide me in my journey. Sure, I’d been picking up THE CELEBRATOR for well over a decade, and I think I bought a homebrew magazine once by mistake, thinking it was about publicly-available microbrews rather than filtration tips & hop varietals. Turns out that last year there was really only one nationally-available glossy that fit my description: ALL ABOUT BEER magazine. So I subscribed. A year later, I guess I’d have to say I’ve learned a few things from it, but that I’m overall only moderately impressed. What I like about it is that it will often spend multiple pages on an obscure corner of the beer world; say, the tiny farmhouse breweries of rural Belgium, or the introduction of chocolate into modern strong ales, or an article last issue about mead, of all things, that I found really enlightening. The people behind the magazine, which is based out of North Carolina, are on a righteous crusade to bring great beer to the masses, and every issue aims to hit somewhere between the beer snobs and the beer neophytes. I think that’s the right approach, and in general, they do it well. My beefs with the magazine center around how generally milquetoast the writing is. Rarely does someone stray off the reservation of cheerleading for everything & anything craft beer related; a bad review, or calling some lame-ass brewery on their swill, just doesn’t seem to exist here. They have this panel gimmick where 3-4 well-known beer writers (Garrett Oliver, the often incomprehensible Michael Jackson, etc.) review a given new beer, and the harshest thing you’ll ever hear anyone say is that they like another of the brewery’s beers better. Scathing! I wish this magazine went out on a limb a little more and gave the discriminating beer geek a better roadmap beyond “craft beer good, Budweiser not-so-good”.

Enter BEER ADVOCATE magazine. As I’m sure you’re aware, Beer Advocate has the strongest “brand” in the online beer dork world, and deservedly so. Their web site is easily the best of its kind on the web, and they foster the sort of opinionated, daring, experimentally-tinged beer drinking & writing mentality that I believe this chosen micro-scene needs more of. They’ve done so well online that they recently started up a monthly magazine offline. I volunteered to be a charter subscriber, and I got the first issue just after New Year’s. For the most part I was quite impressed. The writing is a large notch better than All About Beer’s, reflecting a slightly younger target demographic and the attitude to match. Like the online site, the magazine is disproportionately taken with the “big beer”/strong ale/high-alcohol phenomenon, something that I think is great for the craft but which will ultimately be a blip on the radar – since so many of these beers flat-out suck. They have their eye on the under-the-radar trends that will evolve this industry/hobby, though, and the writers appear to be immersed in it so deeply that I’ve no doubt that if it’s interesting, and something you/I should try, it’ll get written about here. My complaint is simply that the layout had enormous font sizes and graphics that took up half a page, so that an article that should’ve been 2 pages max ended up being 4 wasteful and strange-looking pages. I’m guessing they’ll find their feet here – the first issue of anything is an experiment, and in total these fellas have come up with the US’s best beer magazine ever to my knowledge. If you’re as far-gone as I am with this obsession, I’d recommend subscribing to both, as their both worthy and subscriptions to each are $19.95 for the year. Then pick up your local free rag (Ale Street News, Northwest Brewing News, The Celebrator etc.), surf the links you see on this site to your right, and then you’ll know far more than you need to know about this strange, off-putting, relationship-wrecking obsession.

HACKER-PSCHORR MUNICH EDELHELL

When we last checked in with a HACKER-PSCHORR beer, we were drinking their incredible DUNKLE WEISS beer and calling it one of the finest beers we'd ever tasted. That's no lie. I had one of those in New York last year and I was almost giddy whilst drinking it, proclaiming it to be sheer 10/10 perfection. So naturally when I saw one of their MUNICH EDELHELL beers on the shelf I decided to throw down some cash. This one's a "Munich Helles Lager" - a style you don't encounter all that often. Last time I had one of these I had to look it up on Beer Advocate, so here's how they define the style:

When the golden and clean lagers of Plzen (Bohemia) became all the rage in the mid-1800's, München brewers feared that Germans would start drinking the Czech beer vs. their own. Munich Helles Lager was their answer to meet the demand. A bit more malty, they often share the same spicy hop characters of Czech Pils, but are a bit more subdued and in balance with malts. "Helles" is German for "bright."

The strange thing is that I found this beer to be very reminiscient of an ale, rather than a lager. Its sweet, clean taste was simliar to a pilsner, but it might be that extra malt kick that reminded me almost of a more tangy & (again) sweet pale ale. That said, it didn't do a whole lot for me. Too crisp, too clean, too German for me to get very excited. I gave it a 6/10. Anyone know if that DUNKEL WEISS is imported into the US year-round? I'd love to get my hands on some more.....

LAGUNITAS "FREAK OUT" REDUX

After Rick from Pacific Brew News warned us all in the interview I did with him that we shouldn't "cellar" light-colored beers for too long, I sorta panicked and put all the IPAs and pale ales that were sitting in the garage into the fridge, and lined them up for drinking (and naturally, reviewing) ASAP. Last October I told you how much I loved LAGUNITAS BREWING's Frank Zappa/Mothers-inspired "FREAK OUT" ALE, and today I'm here to tell you again that I still love it, and that I want you to drink some. This is a beautiful India Pale Ale, "big" and hoppy and full of flavor. It is a deep sunburst orange color, and just begs you to get going from the first drop in the glass - also a big foamy, hoppy head invigorated with a grapefruit-ish smell. Fantastic beer across the board, whether you find it on draft or in a bottle - I've had it both ways, and figure it deserves no less than a 9/10. I'd better go get some more to cellar for no more than a month or two.

FIRESTONE WALKER'S 10 - AN AMAZING BEER THAT BEATS THE ODDS

There are folks that will tell you that Paso Robles, CA's FIRESTONE WALKER FINE ALES are one of the top brewers in the country. Beer point-of-reference #1 Men's Journal, for one. Me, I don't know - I had a very mediocre one from them last year & that's it, but when I heard the buzz on their anniversary ale, this crazy combination of ten different "lots" of beer with several different styles mixed together called FIRESTONE WALKER "10", I figured I'd need to do some ingestive research on it. This thing was packed in its own special commerative box, with some "liner notes" if you can believe it that explain the whole process behind it - which are reprinted by beer columnist William Brand here. I found it on a featured shelf at Whole Foods, sitting by itself like a rare commerative boxed set of Electric Eels demos, and if I'm not mistaken it was priced like wine, something around $8.99 (believe me, I'm not complainin') .

Knowing that this one packed a 12% (!!) alcohol-by-volume punch, I had to invite a pal over to revel in it with me - and we were half-expecting it to be a dimwit "extreme" beer like Stone's Oaked Arrogant Bastard or something lame-o like that. No way. This one's fantastic. A super-dark, obviously barrel-aged beer, steeped in alcohol and yet not in any defined by it. Which is great, because I was beginning to wonder if I was a high-ABV wimp & if I'd end up drinking pale ales the rest of my drinking career; nope, turns out a 12% monster can be just fine by me if it's got the right fine tuning. I felt like I was drinking a malty, robust bowl of stewed fruit that just happened to have been fermenting in barrels of barleywine for the past half-century. I guess it's not that far from the truth, right? This beer is one where you can just taste the craft that went into it. The chefs behind this one truly deserve a hearty slap on the back, because this is pure Chez Panisse in a bottle, baby. 9/10, and please get yours before they're totally gone.

ROLLING THE DICE & COMING UP MIDDLIN’

As mentioned previously, I ventured to New York City last week and was able to get a couple beers down the pipes. My favorite beer bar out there – favorite in the sense that I only have been to 2 or 3 in town – is the GINGER MAN, out in Midtown Manhattan somewhere. This was my 3rd or 4th time there, and every time it’s a crazy-quilt grab bag of wild-ass east coast beers, Belgians, Germans, and some of my faves from back home on the west coast. This time I decided to go local, and since I was feeling in a lower-alcohol frame of mind (tough night the night before, an evening that included ingestion of 3 different high-alcohol, “dark strong ales”. More on those later), I chose the SOUTHAMPTON DOUBLE WHITE beer. This one’s from Long Island, out in the fabled Hamptons, and I know these guys are heavy hitters on the east coast beer scene. This particular one was serviceable – a light-bodied, herbal hop, not very crisp, and generally just interesting enough to be interesting. I do enjoy the Belgian white style quite a bit, yet this one was a little more sour than I guess I’d counted on. At the end of the day it was inconclusive. The score I usually reserve for those is 6/10, so that’s what it is!

ALESMITH'S YULESMITH MAKES THE GRADE

A lot of enthusiasm swirls around this fine concoction - one perusal through the beer review sites and you'll find there aren't many (any?) naysayers around ALESMITH BREWING's holiday beer, YULESMITH. I searched for it a bit during a recent trip to San Diego - from whence it springs - to no avail, only to have my local happy grinnin' beer grocer Craig from CITY BEER STORE bring a whole truckload of Alesmith products into the store. He warned they'd be gone within a few days with no backup trip to SD planned, so I hightailed it over and gave him my money in a hurry. I won't go into one of my unpatented I-wish-I-hadn't-gotten-so-excited-because-this-was-something-of-a-letdown routines, because this beer was just fine, maybe nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to grade-A holiday beers, but something I'd easily drink again. You can see that the light amber color in the photo, and taste-wise it was a medium-ish body, with spices and deep, rich malts. Definitely some funny business going on with the balancing here, just enough to make it very intersting and keep the hopheads guessing for days. Me, I don't have enough of a nose for this stuff, nor the patience. I'll call it a very satisfying 7/10 and maybe give it another whirl next winter if I can.

DRINKING IN OLDE NEW YORK, OR TWO NEW TOP BEERS

My new job sent me & a couple co-workers packing for a quick trip to New York City this week, and that meant a little Atlantic beer spelunking in the very few hours of free time provided us. One wag back at home recommended a tavern in the West Village called the PECULIER PUB, so we followed his siren song and into a cab that took us there. Inside, we found a very old, very classically New York bar, this one devoted solely to beer. My favorite beverage. While the staff could’ve maybe been a little nicer (why do women always give you that look when you say, “Smile, baby”?), their beer selection was out of this world. On tap it was a lot of the microbrew perennials and several to get the non-beer snob market to pony up (Heineken, Sam Adams, Bass), but several wild-looking ones that I’d never heard of. Despite the name and the tie-died artwork on the tap handle, I rolled the dice on something called HAZED & INFUSED, not knowing who made it. What a daring gamble! What if it was made by Coors? By Miller? Turned out it’s a product of Colorado’s BOULDER BEER COMPANY. We had their MOJO IPA in NY some time back, and thought it was quite fine. Well, this one was simply delicious – a beer you must try if you ever get the chance. This dark golden/orange ale looked like a classic pale ale (which is what it is) but tasted like an IPA – a smooth but malty IPA, albeit one that might have some wild card ingredient that I couldn’t put my finger on. Kind of like the HUMBOLDT HEMP ALE that’s so surprisingly drinkable. Well, I dialed it up, and it's unfitered and "dry hopped". Whatever you say. 9/10 – a truly world-class beer.

Next we went to the bottle menu, and that’s where this bar really shines. I don’t know the exact count, but I’d reckon there were at least 100-150 different bottles to choose from if not more. I said “when in Rome” and ordered the much-praised DOGFISH HEAD PUNKIN ALE. I’m a comfortable-with-my-masculinity-kinda-guy who won’t shy away from a pumpkin beer, and count myself a big cheerleader for BUFFALO BILL’S PUMPKIN ALE, and this was easily in that league. Rather than overwhelming with sweetness, Dogfish Head unsurprisingly took the more complex path of firing this one up with a variety of malts and spices to keep it interesting. It totally worked (I’ll go with 8/10), and only my extreme lack of sleep the night before kept me from going deeper into the beer menu and later into the night. By all means, put the Peculier Pub on your agenda next time you’re in “the Big Easy”, as I like to call New York, and remember two things: order the beers I did, and don’t overlook their bottled beer menu as we beer hounds often do.

WHEN BELGIUM CAME CALLING: URTHEL HOP-IT

It makes this American beer junkie stand up with pride and tears in his eyes when I hear that Belgian brewers such as DE LEYERTH BROUWERIJEN are now incorporating “American” brewing styles into their repertoire. The popular pick over there seems to be the heavily-hopped American IPA or Double IPA – which is quite possibly my personal favorite style of beer. For years our country was a backwater of watered-down pilsners and uninteresting lagers, while the Belgians continued drawing from centuries of brewing tradition to create fantastic, robust, well-bodied ales. Nice to see that in really only 30 years or so, the US has got enough brewing panache to actually teach some Belgians a thing or two.

A couple of weeks ago, Hildegard and Bas Van Ostasden from De Leyerth Brouwerijen came to the San Francisco Bay Area to pair some of their beers with the excellent cooking of Bruce Paton for one of his near-monthly beer dinners. I didn’t go to this one, but word got out quickly that they were leaving some draft beer behind at The Toronado, San Francisco’s beer snob gathering place. Last week I visited the bar and immediately ordered up an URTHEL HOP-IT, the Van Ostaden’s Belgian interpretation of an American IPA. When drinking it, I tasted a somewhat muted but still highly hopped beer that was quite pleasing. It had almost none of the citrusy aroma or taste than many IPAs have, and was more bitter than what I’m used to, but not in a bad way, just different. Hop-It definitely could shift some units in the US if they decide to start importing it for real, as it’s got a lot of what the US beer cognoscenti goes for but with its own spin on the form, enough to make it stand out. I gave it a 7.5/10 & hopes that this importing scenario comes to pass.

WHO IS MOONLIGHT BREWING?

I've been seeing the beers of MOONLIGHT BREWING on tap at San Francisco's Toronado bar for well over a decade now - Death & Taxes, Reality Czech, Twist of Fate - and always wondered why I'd never heard of any trips to their brewery, or never saw these fine beverages in bottles. Then this past holiday ale season I had their incredible seasonal "dark strong ale" SANTA'S TIPPLE, which was among the best beers I drank all year, and I started to get more curious. The clincher was the pint of 2005 TOAST MALT LIQUOR that I had on tap at the aforementioned Toronado last week, quite frankly a total mindblower of a beer that has little if nothing to do with what the words "malt liquor" inevitably conjure up in your mind. I asked the question - just who is Moonlight Brewing?

Turns out Moonlight's a one-man shop in Windsor, CA - about 90 minutes north of me - by the name of Brian Hunt. Rather than re-tell his tale his here, I'd like to instead point you to this excellent article from 2003 that reveals the iconoclast behind the beer. I guess you could say I've got a new hero, and a brewery that I'm now going to be honking the horn for in 2007 (expect more reviews of their wares in these pages coming soon). Hunt sounds like the sort of brewing throwback we should be lionizing, and I hope the Beer Advocate crew & their ilk get wiser to him this year (I'll try to do my part). Anyway, this 2005 TOAST beer was something special. The whole "malt liquor" thing's got to be a joke - to me it tasted more like a deep, dark, rich amber/barleywine mix, with the sort of roasted, uh, "toast" taste to it that was just the bomb if you know what I mean. Less harsh/complex than your average Belgian dubbel for sure, but easily in that league. The company I was keeping that evening was going bananas for it as well. I wondered if giving it a 10/10 was too much, given that I just did the same for AVERY'S THE REVEREND a couple weeks ago, and then I said "whatever". 10/10! Come see us in the Bay Area and get you-self some!

BALLAST POINT BIG EYE IPA – TIME TO DRINK GREAT IPAs AGAIN

I’ve got a pal who looks out for me, and he knows that if something interesting & “rare” comes on the market, especially if that something interesting is liquid and comes in a 22-oz. bottle, then he’d better snap one up for me. I might even pay him back. So this fella found me a 22-oz. bomber of BALLAST POINT BREWING’s “award-winning” BIG EYE IPA at Ledger’s in Berkeley, CA. It’s a beer that’s only available near their San Diego home, unless someone drives a few boxes up the I-5, which I imagine to have been the case here. It was really nice to get back into a clean, crisp, citrus-infused IPA again after so many dark and malty holiday beers. I thought the Big Eye IPA was truly special, a real classic example of a bold, intensely flavorful IPA. It poured a very deep amber gold, and it was sorta like this delicious orange- and lemon-crazed IPA, but toned down by an intense burst of hops. If you’re thinking that is sounds like a righteous, classic West Coast IPA – well, you’re right. Outstanding beer! 8.5/10.

THEY’RE NOT WORTHY

At first I thought it was me. All the hype on the Beer Advocate message boards and on the beer blogs was about these rare & amazing STONE BREWING elixirs that were coming out over the holidays, and oh man oh man you gotta rush out and buy them immediately if not sooner, jesus christ these beers are amazing! Being a guy who likes a good beer, I complied, and went out and purchased bottles of the much-touted DOUBLE BASTARD ALE, the STONE 10TH ANNIVERSARY ALE, and the OAKED ARROGANT BASTARD ALE. I chortled at the whole “you’re not worthy” ad copy on the bottles themselves – preposterous pablum that positioned these beers as Satanic grog only fit for the manliest of men, and proceeded to drink away. As recounted in this forum, I thought the first two were pretty lame – “extreme” beers that crossed a precipice of taste and went into something totally experimental and moderately undrinkable. Now we can add OAKED ARROGANT BASTARD to the hall of shame. This is a version of the eminently drinkable (and then some) ARROGANT BASTARD ALE that’s been seeped in oak chips and aged like bourbon. It was unleashed in late 2006 and bottled into exorbitantly-priced 6-packs.

Of course the chorus of hosannas from the beer cognoscenti has been predictable – “it whipped my ass”, “oh, beat me, Stone, beat me” – that sort of thing. Now I see what this is all about. This is the same sort of dynamic that goes on in all subcultures, where the more “out” and “wild” you try to be, the more gullible believers you tend to pull in with you. Beat it into their heads enough that they are too weak to understand you, the more folks you get who want to prove how strong they are. Think free jazz. Think Thomas Pynchon. Think improvised noise music. Think Stone Brewing’s seasonals. Oaked AB is a dark, malty, heavy clove/toffee-ish beer that reeks of alcohol and your dad’s backyard deck after a heavy rain. It’s drinkable in the sense that I finished it – that’s it. It has a market that is limited only to those who pretend that it’s something it’s not, and would be classified as mediocre by even certain microbrew drinkers, and as swill by just about everyone else. I give it a 4.5/10, and plan to stick with the brewery’s winning main line-up from now on.

LOST ABBEY'S AVANT GARDE - EXHIBIT A FOR THE TAP VS. BOTTLE WAR

One of the modern craft beer drinking connundrums is reconciling how some beers can taste so incredible on draft/tap and yet so mediocre or sub-standard in bottles. Or vice-versa - as I found the first time I tried 21ST AMENDEMENT BREWING's Holiday Spiced Ale this year on tap (7/10) after being wowed by how amazing it was in a bottle (9.5/10). Sure, most times great beer is great beer (MOYLAN'S Hopsickle is stunning no matter how it's served up), and one has to guard against judging an "aged" bottle - one you kept in your garage for months upon months - too harshly against its draft equivalent. Often, due to the way bottle-conditioned beers age over time, that bottle you bought 12 months ago is a totally different brew than it would have been had you consumed it right away. As Rick Sellers from Pacific Brew News pointed out in last week's interview, lighter beers (pale ales and whatnot) also don't age as well as, say, stouts, porters and Belgian dubbels.

This intro is my lead-in to the disappointing revelation that LOST ABBEY's incredible AVANT-GARDE bier de garde was a decided step down as a beer in a bottle than the knockout it was out of a keg several months ago. At the Port Brewing/Lost Abbey beer chef dinner I attended in October I drank several fresh glasses of this and was blown away by its crisp, light but robust hoppiness, and just how smooth and fruity it was. Total nirvana. I gave it a 10. I also rushed to City Beer to buy a bottle the next day since I'd heard he had some in stock from the Pizza Port gang's trip to Northern California, and the bottle I opened up this past weekend was the one I'd been "aging" (!) for the past three month. Hey gang- was that too long? I still liked this one but it tasted really different....out of the bottle I got a much more intense flavor that wasn't all pleasure like the last one; this time around the alcohol was more present, and it wasn't hops I was tasting, it was malts - which is all well & good - but wasn't the incredible world-changer the tap version was. It’s a drop-off from being one of the best beers I’ve had in my entire life to a merely very good, interesting, above-average beer. I'd drink this again anytime, especially to see how it fares a third time, and at the end of the day, it's just a goddamn beer, right? 7.5/10.

AN INTERVIEW WITH RICK SELLERS OF PACIFIC BREW NEWS

I wrote earlier about my dabbling in the various beer-related podcasts available online, & how one show just stood out head & shoulders from the rest in terms of being engaging, knowledgeable, and actually fun to listen to. PACIFIC BREW NEWS is a bi-weekly (give or take) must for the beer geek, as Rick, Mark and Mike – and their frequent guests – are just a veritable fountain of beer knowledge, and they come off as the sort of fellas you’d actually like to school you on arcane styles & tell you what you should be drinking. I only started downloading these a few months ago but I’ve already learned a ton, and feel like these smart-drinking hombres are my brothers. I hope to break bread and gulp grog with them one day. Rick Sellers, one of the hosts, was kind enough to agree to be interviewed by HBJ & share his thoughts and perspective on craft/microbrewed beer in 2007, as well as insights into what goes into making a podcast work as well as his does. Check them out on the web by clicking here. Here’s what Rick had to say to our probing queries:

HEDONIST BEER JIVE: Getting a podcast off the ground, and actually making an entertaining one about BEER, no less, is not exactly an easy proposition. What drove you guys to put the Pacific Brew News podcast together, and why does this one seem to work so well?

Rick Sellers: A lot of factors that led to a 'perfect storm' of sorts. To begin I'll have to give my dues to Jeff and Greg at Craft Beer Radio. I first found their show when I was introduced to podcasts and immediately enjoyed their content and format. However, in the beginning, I found that most of the beers they sampled I had never heard of. Mike, Mark and myself had been beer drinking buddies for years and had formed the SOBER group to sample beers together. I figured we had such a good time drinking and being nerdy together, maybe a show for west coast beers would be fun.

Why does it work? I have to say that we're just comfortable with each other. Our show format is really freaking close to our SOBER meeting formats - except we don't do blind tasting on the show. Mark and Mike have great history and I have known Mark long enough to know that we are very different in personality. Bringing Mike on was our biggest hit though. He's quiet and all, but if you meet the guy you'll understand how profound he really is. So, in essence, we're just buds sharing beer. Who wouldn't like that?

HBJ: Do you have any sort of mission for the podcast - and the site? What sort of response have you received so far? Where are your listeners based?

Rick: Mission was simple - Promote West Coast Beer. I really didn't think anyone would listen who didn't live in our area and I figured we'd get a lot of criticism for being 'NPR-ish'. I also had aspirations related to the BJCP and I thought this show would help with that. Listeners are from everywhere - really. I have had the pleasure of meeting several people who found our show when I travel and it just amazes me that people even have that interest. Just over the holidays I have had the pleasure of meeting people in Portland and BC - that rocks.The mission has changed in practice a bit. I have found that my passion for beer has grown exponentially and I feel more strongly the need to 'help' brewers whenever I can. In fact I am hoping to put together a services package for brewers that helps get their word out. We'll see.

HBJ: What is the state of the craft/micro beer industry in the US in 2007, particularly on the west coast? Any strong trends you’re seeing?

Rick: Wow. The West Coast beer scene is really broken up into four distinct regions: San Diego, Bay Area, Portland and Washington. San Diego is leading the pack in pushing the boundaries when it comes to hopping American-styled beers. I look to that area to begin introducing beers that really change how we perceive the styles of IPA and DIPA. The Bay Area brewers are world class in so many ways, and I really think have the best variety of beer on the West Coast - driven by Russian River in many ways. Portland, dare I say, is peaking I think. I go there and enjoy the beers, but find that there is little up there that is truly outstanding in any way. I know the sheer number of brewers up there is impressive and a lot of them make great beer - but I don't see Portland making a name for themselves when it comes to distinction. Washington is shockingly behind and I see them making up a lot of ground in the years to come, and I think they have all the ingredients to make something great. They have the cooler weather, they have the hop fields, and they're close to some wonderful grain farms. I see them really making big wonderful beers in the near future. For now I think much of the NW perception of beer is just perception - but I think Washington will take off while Oregon stagnates.

I probably just lost all credibility.

HBJ: Are you based in Sacramento, California itself, or nearby? Would you say that the area distinguishes itself in any way as a “beer region”? I know there seem to be a lot of beer runs to Sonoma and Marin counties for you guys....

Rick: Beer regions are huge. We're north a bit in Placer County. Beers vary a bunch depending on where they're brewed, I think, because brewers inadvertently emulate what has worked in their area. For instance, Stone in SD really began a hop craze some years ago and found a market for it. Now you have Pizza Port, Alpine and Green Flash all in the area making some of the most wonderfully hopped beers. Washington has good browns and porters, but not really a lot of aggressively hopped beers. Same is true for Portland, although many brewers in that region seem to be making Imperial Reds - not common in California. Southern Oregon brewers all make a decent Kolsch, believe it or not. So, yes, I think where you're situated geographically has a big impact on what works for the brewery. Please don't think I am putting any of this on the brewers - instead I think consumers in a region define their palates based on what they're 'first love' is.

HBJ: Do each of you guys have a particular favorite beer style that trumps all the others, and if so, what’s the best example in that style for each of you?

Rick: We're all hopheads, Mike to the extreme. I personally love sour beers above all else, but that may be a novelty factor there. Mark probably has the broadest appreciation for styles.

HBJ: You’re all able to talk about taste characteristics of beers in a pretty educated manner, without coming off as pompous or preachy. Where & how did you learn to “taste” beer?

Rick: Beermann's on the dock after work on Fridays. That's where it all started. Mark started by bringing in beers in brown paper bags to see if we could guess what style of beer he had picked up in the store - and this was before we really knew what 'styles' were. We also had a wonderful old bar called Owl Club that really sought to provide the best beers he could get. In the crowds we were in coming across pretentious would be a death nail, as the crowds were made up of real blue collar types - rough, gruff and a lot of fun. Sadly the Owl Club has gone to pot with new owners and Beermann's has become really freaking popular, so a bit harder to gather like we once did.

On top of this, Mark and I both went through the BJCP course and passed the test. We judge as much as we can - last year I officially judged 9 competitions.

HBJ: You guys seem like you’re working on expanding your beer education empire in coming months, well beyond just the podcast. What are your next moves?

Rick: HA! You'll never know! Oh, wait....

Services is a big dream of mine. I want to imitate what the wine industry did in the early 90's that made wine a) acceptable b) fashionable c) popular. My vision is to work with restaurant managers, pub owners and brewers to develop sales techniques designed to sell good beer. My frustration is always pushed when I go to a nice restaurant with pages of good/expensive wine and crap beer. I almost always demand to speak to a manager and demand they give me a jug of Ernest and Julio Gallo Blush or Franzia Box Wine. They insist they don't carry it, they only have fine wines. I tell them that these wines are the most popular in the US by sales volume, but they come back with the 'we only sell fine wines'. So then I hit them with a "so why the hell do you only have crappy beer?" Most will begin to say that is what customers want, but I cut them off and point out that customers also 'want' cheap wine - if you're looking at sales. I go on to tell them that they don't have good beer because they're too freaking lazy to actually sell good beer, and that is the truth. Beer is so easy to sell to people and I have proved this time and again with restaurants that allow me to make a point. I have worked with restaurants taking food orders with a server - when the food order is placed I simply ask if they'd like to compliment that meal with a [fill in the appropriate beer], usually followed with the most basic description of the beer (color, aroma, taste). It's too easy and the wine people have perfected this practice.

Other items include flyers/pamphlets and cards that generally introduce patrons to beer. Starbucks and other coffee places do this with their bean varieties, explaining the color, aroma, flavor and origin of the bean. They do this with great success, but I have only ever seen one beer bar even try to do this.I want beer to become socially acceptable, trendy, and popular. I hope that through PBN I can help facilitate this.

HBJ: How are you able to get people to mail you large quantities of beer for tastings? What’s the best beer you’ve received in this manner?

Rick: This is just one of the odd things in life. People want to send us their favorites to try. I think people perceive us as experts - and in some respects we try to be - and are looking for validation that they really do drink good beer. Who really knows? Best beer? Man....I think there was an Imperial Stout we tried a few months ago that rocked my world.

HBJ: Finally, because we love lists at HBJ, what are 5-10 amazing beers that our readers need to seek out and try if they get the chance?

Rick:

1. Russian River Temptation - a sour belgian style beer that is not for the faint of heart

2. Moylan's Hopsickle - the most agressive and out of balance beer I know. If ever barley wine met imperial IPA, this would be it. Again, it'll offend your good senses.

3. Rubicon Wheat Wine - A one of a kind beer you'll only ever find at the brewery in Sacramento.

4. Bear Republic Hop Rod Rye - Many people have already figured out that this beer is unique and wonderful.

5. Walking Man Homo Erectus, Knuckle Dragger - Available in several good Portland pubs, these beers are the best of the northwest in my opinion. The brewery is Stevenson Washington also tops my list of NW best brewers.

6. Russian River Pliny the Elder - this is what a double IPA should be. Light in color and body, big in hop aroma, flavor and topped with a fantastic lingering bitterness that isn't overwhelming.

To expand a bit I'd like to recommend to people the best place to find the best beers on tap. San Diego has O'Briens; San Francisco has Toronado; Portland has Horse Brass. You can go to these places any day of the week and find some of the region's best beers - as well as the world if you're at Toronado.

Also, understand your palate and seasonal aspects. If you like brown ales you'll probably be ok with porters, then maybe stouts, and then RIS. If you like pale ale, try some IPAs before wrecking your palate with DIPAs. If you like lighter beers, find a good kolsch or hefe or pilsner - each is pretty easy to find in your area (tip: get lighter beers as close to your home as possible, they just don't age or ship well at all). If it's hot out, nothing quenches like the light beers. In the cold of winter you'll be pleased with the richness and complexity of the Barley Wines and Russian Imperial's in the store - and big Double IPAs are wonderful this time of year too. Don't drink beer that is too cold. Cellar a beer or two for a year or two (big beers only). Play with beer and always look for something you haven't tried before. On the west coast of the US there are more than 500 craft brewers who make thousands of beers - there is no reason to get stuck in a rut.

(Thanks to Rick, and check out our earlier interview with Craig Wathen of San Francisco’s CITY BEER store as well)

THE POST-CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY BEER THAT GOT AWAY

Went down to San Jose for another Sharks game last week, and as always, paid a pregame visit to the TIED HOUSE to see what they were pourin’. As I’ve written before, I don’t think these guys have written the book on great beer or anything – or even have a single chapter in the book – but they continually seem to hit the mark for solid, moderately impressive microbrews crafted with care and at least some attention to flavor. December 25th didn’t mark the end of their seasonal holiday ale, nope, right there on the chalkboard outside it said “Come in and drink some of our MULL TIED holiday ale”. So I did. Like the two beers of theirs I reviewed a couple of months ago, it was surprisingly good; I mean, Tied House is one of those places like BJ’S or GORDON BIERSCH or ROCK BOTTOM that’s all about the party, the chicken wings, and the big-screen TV, with the beer seeming to be – if not an afterthought, then just another link in the chain. But this particular beer was a very, veeerrry smooth and with a real bite of cinnamon and cloves, tastes that offset a somewhat watery complexion and made Mull Tied stand up with some reasonable and earned pride. I give it a 7/10, right in the middle of the pack in a year that had some outstanding holiday beers.

HOT KNIVES TAKES ON STONE BREWING

If you haven’t read the LA Alternative’s HOT KNIVES column and their related blog, I encourage you to do so & get ready for a laff. Yesterday I read their post on a road trip that took down to STONE BREWING in Escondido, CA – one of every discerning beer geek’s valhallas – and I reckoned that you needed to read it too. So here it is!

PIZZA PORT'S OLD VISCOSITY - A BIG STEP UP FROM MOTOR OIL

This was another gem found on my recent trip through San Diego - PIZZA PORT Brewing's OLD VISCOSITY. Nope, my bottle didn't look like the one pictured here, but it's the best I could find online. This "American Strong Ale" (if you believe everything you read) is really, really rich and bold - and darker than Africa at 1am, baby. Very enormous head of foam right off the bat, which then evaporated quickly, leaving me with this really good raisin/toffee-ish mix of flavors, punctuated of course with 10% alcohol - which, unlike THE REVEREND I reviewed Monday, was ever-present and not especially downplayed in this one. That's cool, though, because it really worked here - I wish it had in Stone's DOUBLE BASTARD or 10TH ANNIVERSARY ales. This guy Tomme Arthur brewing up the beer at Pizza Port and Lost Abbey - he's onto something special for sure. It's something to be discovering a real standout brewer just as he's starting to peak, and I reckon that 2007 is going to be the year that his brews bust out all over the US. Until then, look for this one where you can - 7.5/10.

IN CELEBRATION: AVERY BREWING'S "THE REVEREND"

Just got back from 4 days in San Diego with the in-laws. In San Diego they have some pretty fine breweries you might be familiar with: STONE, ALESMITH, LOST ABBEY / PIZZA PORT, BALLAST POINT, and more. The big fish I was trying to catch down there was the "Yulesmith" holiday ale from ALESMITH, since the Alesmith stuff isn't distributed in Northern California where I reside - nor are any of the others I mentioned save for Stone. But familial obligations being what they are, the best I could do for hardcore beer spelunking was hitting the local BevMo and Whole Foods markets. They didn't have that Yulesmith I was pining for, but they did have something else "on my list" - AVERY BREWING's THE REVEREND, a Belgian-Style Quadrupel Ale if you can believe it.

Now, this one's not even from San Diego proper - nope, it's from Boulder, Colorado, and for some reason they either haven't or don't want to find a Northern CA distributor. Whatever. But when I took my "beer class" that I wrote about in HBJ's very first post, the instructor/guru poured a glass of this for me and for everyone else in the class, and man, were we dazzled. Here's what the folks at Avery have to say about it, words that I'll second with glee:

"....this beer is strong willed, assertive, and pure of heart, a heart of candy sugar. It contains as many authentic imported Belgian specialty malts as the brewers could cram into our mash tun, and lots of Belgian dark candy sugar stirred into the brew kettle. A divinely complex and beautifully layered beer with hints of dark cherries, currants, and molasses, complimented by an underlying spiciness. Sinfully smooth considering the high alcohol content."

In fact this time around, it was truly like drinking something that hovered more in the 5-6% alcohol range, considering how smooth and refreshing it was. You might get the picture that it was one of those sickening-sweet Belgian beers that take too much getting used to, but no sir. The sweetness was, as they say, "layered" with the taste of deep malts and very subtle hops. In a word, perfect. Yeah - perfect. I can't think of any reason to knock points off for anything, giving us the year's first 10/10 and a beer worth flying at least an hour and 10 minutes for!

FINAL 2006 HOLIDAY BEER RANKINGS

I’ve cleaned out all 2006 holiday beers from the fridge and the garage and poured each of them down my throat, and documented the results here. No more are left, and I have no plans to go to any bars the rest of 2006 that might serve some wild stray I haven’t tried yet. Thus, without further adieu, here are the final, highly scientific rankings for the holiday beers we tried in 2006. Please note that he ones we tried at the Pacific Coast Brewery holiday beer fest a few weeks ago have been re-graded on the HBJ scale of 1-10; others that have been consumed multiple times had their rankings adjusted depending on my mood. The results are:

1. DESCHUTES JUBELALE - 9/10
1. MOONLIGHT SANTA'S TIPPLE - 9/10
1. 21ST AMENDMENT HOLIDAY SPICED ALE – 9/10

4. MOYLAN’S WHITE CHRISTMAS BELGIAN-STYLE WIT - 8.5/10
4. MARIN BREWING HOPPY HOLIDAZE - 8.5/10
4. PAUL'S DIRTY SCARECROW - 8.5/10
7. AFFLIGEM NOEL - 8/10
7. BRIDGEPORT EBENEZER ALE - 8/10
9. LOST COAST WINTERBRAUN - 7.5/10
9. GOUDEN CAROLUS NOEL – 7.5/10
9. NEW BELGIUM 2 BELOW WINTER ALE – 7.5/10
12. ANCHOR STEAM "OUR SPECIAL ALE" 2006 – 7/10
12. ANDERSON VALLEY WINTER SOLSTICE ALE – 7/10
12. NORTH COAST OLD STOCK 2006 – 7/10
12. N'ICE CHOUFFE – 7/10
12. PACIFIC COAST HOLIDAY DOUBLE IPA – 7/10
12. LAGUNITAS BROWN SHUGGA – 7/10
12. SIERRA NEVADA CELEBRATION - 7/10
12. SAMUEL ADAMS WINTER LAGER – 7/10
12. BIG SKY POWDER HOUND - 7/10
21. ALASKAN BREWING 2006 WINTER ALE - 6.5/10
21. DRAKE'S JOLLY ROGER 2006 – 6.5/10
23. He'BREW MONUMENTAL JEWBELATION – 6/10
24. FULL SAIL VESUVIOUS - 4.5/10
25. SAMUEL ADAMS OLD FEZZIWIG ALE - 4.5/10