Beer for the Super Bowl

The American football spectacular known as the “Super Bowl” is a marketing paradise. In the beginning, when there was an American Football League and the National Football League and the Super Bowl actually meant something, brewing companies were the major advertisers.

Television commercial advertising was as much a part of the spectacle as the actual sporting event. I seem to remember Miller “Lite” and Budweiser both featuring advertisements for their respective beers.

Watching one of the first few Super Bowl games inspired me to explore the tasty treat known as Super Bowl dip. It consisted of melting a bar of Velveeta cheese in a bowl, adding a jar of tomato salsa and mixing the two until it was of putty-like consistency. The use of toasted corn chips conveyed this mixture from the bowl to the mouth. This was immediately followed by the consumption of at least three six ounce gulps of ice cold malt flavored fizzy straw-colored beverage. (Or Coca-Cola or Dr. Pepper if you are from the South.) The entire concept was “beer mandatory”.

The upstart A.F.L. versus the tradition bound N.F.L. would soon merge and later become a financial megalopolis. However, during that first decade the “Super Bowl” was quite simply a good excuse to party.

As the preponderance of viewers were male, beer consumption was considered mandatory, and hot spiced foods, fatty salty creations from every ethnic culinary source, found a day to be celebrated. Buffalo wings, pizza, every kind of chilly in existence, and peppers of every kind prepared in every way were always the fodder fed to the football fanatics from the very first.

What kind of beer goes with this feed?

Popular priced mass-produced American beer!

This multi-hour extravaganza has gone from the honest enthusiasm of Frank Gifford, Howard Cosell and “Dandy” Don Meredith served up at a time when the country was engaged in an unpopular armed conflict in Southeast Asia, to an orchestrated multimedia cotillion of corporate overindulgence and marketing extravaganza, served up with a side of financial slippage.

What kind of beer is called for?

This is not a beer tasting event. This is the time for mass consumption for effect not flavor. Purely for sentimental reasons my nomination goes to Pabst Blue Ribbon beer from the can. That’s the beer I’m going to have with my buffalo wings… enjoy the game!

2011 Beer Weeks Coming or Going?

The last three years have seen the growth of “beer weeks” in Philadelphia, and New York. These events started out as organized “pub crawls”, an effort to build closer relationships between restaurants, pubs, bars and taverns with distributors and brewers. It has also introduced many “mainstream” beer drinkers to brews that they may not have tried otherwise.

The do-it-yourself format resulted in the development of the concept of the beer “passport” a printed booklet that allowed the consumer to seek out special brews at particular restaurants, pubs, bars and taverns that featured those brews for the week. Of course these “passports” also serve as guidebooks for locals and tourists interested in finding good beers in cities they might not be familiar with. It also allowed restaurants, pubs, bars and taverns to present their “beer friendly” lists to consumers that might not have stopped in.

The founder of the New York City Beer Week, Josh Schaffner, explains… “The first one was developed in about four months and it was relatively small in scope. It didn’t have any events. It was organized into different neighborhood pub crawls.

The notion being, if we can bring some excitement to beer for one week of the year, and by extension bring excitement to the places that serve that beer, we would have a mission accomplished. It’s been going fantastically since then, especially with the inclusion of events.” Schaffner notes that since the first year the Passport concept has been an essential addition to the program. “A large part of that is a production of the passport. The passport allows people to appreciate beers at different venues on their own during the week. The passport is something we think is very important. It allows people to have a long-standing connection not just with the beer week. When people come to visit they will bring their passports and use it as a resource guide to find of the best places to drink beer in that city. This year there were parts of the passport that were actually available for use year-round. Next year we hope to have even more of that.”

What is Schaffner looking forward to regarding the 2011 “Beer Week”?

Schaffner confidently notes, “I’m really looking forward to having better connection with the other beer weeks. We’ve been at it for three years, Philadelphia’s been at it for three years, and San Francisco’s going into their third in February. San Diego’s going into their third. We are all getting together during the Craft Brewers Conference and comparing our different weeks, hearing about some of the more successful events, hopefully being able to have a more cohesiveness among the beer weeks so that regardless of where people are coming from expectations for the individual beer weeks can be met. At the very least it will be a chance to insure we will be able to run our beer weeks in a more effective and efficient manner based on experiences from the other cities.”

Gnomegang and a Deal With the Duvel

The folks at mybeerbuzz.com today posted the following quote attributed to Larry Bennett of Ommegang; “Duvel will again brew some Ommegang beer for us in 2011… We're preparing for continuing growth and brewing more fantastic (and some new) beers. Including a Chouffe collaboration beer, tentatively named Gnomegang, coming out in April”.

http://mybeerbuzz.blogspot.com/2011/01/ommegang-dachouffegnomegang.html?spref=fb

Fritz and Fade

“We’re all friends in fermentation.”

The above quote, spoken by Fritz Maytag, at a beer tasting event at Windows on The World, has been a motto of mine for years. And so it has been no surprise to me that a good many food and beverage pundits have focused a flood of tasty comments on the particular enjoyment of a piece of good cheese and a glass of good beer.

This brings a philosophical focus to the discussion. What are a good beer, good cheese, and good food? I am called a heretic by many of my beer loving friends for insisting that Budweiser is well-made beer. I am not saying it is a tasty beer. I am saying it is well made.

Another example tests the “well-made” against the “good” is the above illustration. Basically is simply gives you an idea of what a piece of Fritz Maytag’s blue cheese looks like and the bottle of a particular beer that I chose to drink. I can tell you that both the beer and the piece of cheese were no more than 50°F as presented.

To appreciate the rest of these notes you’ll simply have to trust me, my subjective sense of smell and taste, and ability to express those in an understandable way.

Tasting notes:

The cheese was rich and creamy, with a pungent flavor that was slightly metallic. In that aspirational moment before a sip of beer, there was a sharp spike of flavor that was slightly saline.

The cool beverage immediately featured the flavor of deeply roasted malt followed by a caramel and prune flavor.

When the two flavor profiles came together the creaminess of the cheese and the deep roasted flavors of the brew balanced each other in a sensational way. The slightly metallic flavor of the cheese combined with the caramel and prune flavor smoothing each of the flavors into one palate cleansing sensation that kept the creaminess from becoming cloying.

The range of flavors brought to the table by both the beer and the cheese was impressive. However, the balance of flavors resulted in not in confusion but with satisfaction.

Believe it or not!

A taste of… Long Trail Centennial Red

Long Trail Brewing Company
5520 U.S. 4
Bridgewater Corners, VT 05035
(802) 672-5011

Preface: This pint was purchased at 1335 hours of 5 December 2010 at The Waterfront Alehouse in Brooklyn, NY for $6.50 (US) These notes have not been influenced by reading promotional material or any other review of this brew. I am including this preface to inform the reader of any and all circumstances that might be conceived of a creating a biased review or a conflict of interest regarding the choice of words used in the following review. I could go on and on with semi-legal jargon but I guess you will just have to trust me eh?

The following are my tasting notes:

Appearance: A deep amber colored brew topped with a solid, dense thin light brown creamy head.

Aroma: The first impression is a but of bubblegum that builds from a caramel base. The second visit adds more caramel notes. The third impression, and the moment between sip and lip, included no surprise flavors or aromatics.

Mouth feel: The chill, sturdy carbonation and slight carbolic acid spike added to the mouth feel.

Flavor: A sharp burnt sugar tang develops into a slight bubblegum note that slides into a bitter impression that has more than a bit of a floral hint. The second taste, as the brew warms up, has more of a caramel accent that pushes the bubblegum out of the way and lets the floral hints speak up. The third sip let the caramel and bitter notes get better acquainted in a good way.

Finish: The finish is more of an olfactory echo than the expected flavor impressions.

Comments: This is a roasted food beer... beef, potatoes and Brussels Sprouts...

The Brewery: http://www.longtrail.com/

What others say:

BeerAdvocate: http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/94/63343

RateBeer: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/long-trail-brewmaster-series-centennial-red/131307/

The Gift of Beer

Greetings,

It is the holiday season... the time for gift giving. Choosing a particular gift can be difficult, in particular, that special something for friends and family. Should you have the reputation of being a beer aficionado you can get away with the gift of the beer. In fact it is often anticipated.

While there is a great deal of consideration placed on the selection of the beer and the food, might I suggest that pairing the person to the beer is much more important.

I offer the following suggestions:

Your brother-in-law the beer geek: I would suggest all holiday ale, in the largest sized bottle you can find, perhaps a growler... signed with a sharpie by the Brewer.

Your brother-in-law's wife not a beer geek: This is perhaps the easiest one... a 250 mL bottle of the Belgian Kriek beer. Suggest that she serve it in champagne flutes and guests will be wondering what the wonderful wine that they are serving is called.

Your husband: India Pale Ale is just the right thing for this gift. It tells him that he has a sense of adventure, knows what a good beer tastes like, and carries with it the image of the real he-man.

Your wife: This choice involves more quantity than quality. The object of this gift is that it is a four pack rather than a six pack or a large bottle. this shows that you truly care which are not trying to get her drunk.

Your in-laws: If they are teetotalers, a bottle of non-alcoholic cider. If they have been known to indulge, at 250 mL bottle of a Russian Imperial Stout, or a barley wine. Tell them that it is not for immediate consumption, rather it is to be saved and savored at another time. There are affirmative a psychological reasons for offering it that way. Believe me...

Good friends: If you are a homebrewer there's no question it should be a bottle or two of that beer you have been saving for a special occasion. If you're not, should they be beer geeks, you have already heard of at least one brewery that they appreciate particularly. If they are not beer geeks, a mixed six pack of some of the best known a "craft Brewers" might turn them into beer geeks.

For yourself: Visit your favorite watering hole, order your favorite beer, and then order one for the person sitting next to you and wish them a happy holiday!

Cheers!

Salmon Won Ton and 2010 Anchor Our Special Ale