Putting final touches on CCB logo

The brewery itself is fairly small, brewing on a 15 bbl system mostly for the Tampa market.  Many of their beers are named after elements of the local Tampa culture and are highly desired by craft beer fans in Florida and worldwide.  Although most of their production is consumed locally, the good folks at SKI Beer Distributers have managed to bring Cigar City to Gotham City.  Initially, the folks of Nueva York were treated to a selection of their bottled products, like Bolita Brown, Warmer Winter Winter Warmer, and Improvisación Oatmeal Rye India Brown Ale, but on a recent Wednesday, Manhattan’s Rattle N Hum Bar played host to the largest lineup of Cigar City Brewing products ever assembled in one place with twenty different CCB beers being poured.  This included two of the Ratebeer Top 50 beers, Hunahpu’s Imperial Stout and Bourbon Barrel-aged Hunahpu’s Imperial Stout, as well as the GABF Gold-medal winner Humidor Series Jai Alai IPA.

Tap Handle Selection

One of the fun parts of a brewery like Cigar City is the ability to see how subtle changes in the way a particular base beer has been treated has a profound effect on the final product.  This approach to subtly tweaking their recipes was very much on display at this event.  The first flight of beer I sampled consisted entirely of Imperial Stouts.  The base beer was Marshal Zhukov Imperial Stout.  This beer was then aged on either bourbon barrels, cedar wood, or a mixture of pasillo and ancho chiles before being also aged in a bourbon barrel.  Every treatment had a profound effect on the base beer and the ability to try them all side-by-side was really instrumental in being able to appreciate the effect of each one on the final product.  This same sort of approach was also demonstrated in their IPA series, in which the base beer of Jai Alai IPA was aged on mango or papaya (both in casks), as well as versions aged on cedar wood or a mixture of both cedar wood and juniper berries.  As with the Imperial Stout series, the ability of a small tweak to change a recipe was really an eye-opener.

Wayne Wambles (CCB), Alex Hall (Gotham Imbiber), and Joey Redner (CCB)

As an added bonus, I had a chance to talk to Cigar City founder, Joey Redner and head brewer Wayne Wambles about the ups and downs of success and the future of Cigar City Brewing.  I was curious about the fairly unique approach to brewing that Cigar City has taken.  According to Redner, “This is old-fashioned market research.  We’ve applied a bunch of different treatments to our base beers to see what works.  This has always been a part of the plan to develop some of our products.  As a former homebrewer, that sense of experimentation is part of the fun that drew me into brewing.”  But how many different things can you do to a given beer?  ”We have done enough things at this point to have a pretty good idea of what will be successful and what won’t.  When we try these out at the brewery, we encourage people to let us know what they think.  The good thing is that people are usually willing to tell us when something sucks!”  How often does that happen though?  ”We’ve had a few that were so bad, we wouldn’t even serve them”, Redner said with a chuckle.

BA Hunahpus, Marshal Zhukov and Humidor Series Marshal Zhukov

The ability to start pulling back on the experimental treatments has opened up tank space to let Wayne really start to have some fun.  According to Wambles, “My favorite part of this job is coming up with a new recipe and actually brewing it”.  To that end, we were fortunate to see a recently created brew, their Double Cream Ale.  This was intended to be an amped up version of that Pre-Prohibition standard, the Cream Ale.  Containing 12% corn in the mash, assertively hopped with Hallertauer Mittelfruh,  Tradition, and Czech Saaz and brewed to about 8.5% ABV using a colder fermentation (58°F) and their house yeast, the beer itself has a fairly fruity/spicy hop nose along with a light honeyed sweetness.  In true Cigar City fashion, this latest creation has already received a number of different treatments, having been aged on peaches, tangerines and pomegranates.

Joey chatting with Beer Fans

Given that they are brewing at capacity for their local market, I was curious about why they decided to branch out and move into the NYC market.  ”We didn’t have any plans to expand beyond Tampa initially.  When SKI called us to see about bringing us into New York, we said ‘no’.  But Mike was very professional and addressed every concern we had.  It was definitely a case of the squeaky wheel getting the grease.  In the end, they made it so easy for us that we couldn’t keep saying no.”

So how about expansion plans?  The brewery has just purchased a number of 60 bbl tanks which should increase capacity by over 100%.  The plan is to pull back a little bit on the experimentation and really start to focus on the experiments that have been deemed a success and get them into bottles.  ”We’re hoping to concentrate more on bottle distribution, in order to get our beer to more people who want it”, said Redner.

It would be tough to ask for much more than that.

As a New Yorker, we have two local breweries for whom special releases are highly anticipated events.  Everyone I know from this area looks forward to the release of anything new from Captain Lawrence Brewing.  Scott Vacarro’s sour ales in particular are world-class and their reputation is well deserved (Rosso e Marone was the Gold-medal winner in the American-style Sour Ale category at the 2009 GABF and his Cuvee de Castleton has won the same category in previous years).  Likewise, people from the area often plan long train and/or car rides from the city out to Southampton Brewing on Long Island, where their Double Ice Bock and Berliner Weiss have been perennial favourites (and GABF winners as well).  These special releases are fun… loads of people show up, chat about craft beer, share craft beer with one another and generally vibe off of being at the site of production of the beers that they enjoy so much.

Increasingly though, these events have become less fun.  They have become less about community and more about queueing up, waiting, purchasing, and leaving with your booty, in order to quickly run back to Ratebeer and Beeradvocate to hawk your newly acquired trade bait for everything you can get your hands on.  Even worse is the dubious practice of hiring people on Craigslist to serve as proxies for you… either to ensure access to a beer and a location you wouldn’t be able to get to or to simply increase the number of bottles/growlers of precious liquid that you can get.  The last few releases at both of these breweries seem to become victim to this type of mentality in contrast to the previous releases I’ve been a part of.

I’m not here to judge the breweries… their goal is simple, to produce beer that their fans enjoy and to sell it at a profit.  Special releases are fun for brewers and (used to be) fun for beer geeks.  I’m happy for all the success that these breweries have and especially for their general professionalism when things go awry (Vinnie Cilurzo’s recent response to the unanticipated demand on Pliny the Younger release day was truly classy) but at the same time it does irritate me to see people gaming the system in place for their own benefit.  While I’m glad to see that craft beer is growing and that these special releases continue to generate buzz and profit for the breweries in particular, I can’t help but feel that something is getting lost in the process.

Starting with a wave of German immigration in the mid-19th century, the Bronx was home to a large number of small breweries including the Hupfel Brewery and the Schott Brewery next door to the much larger Ebling Brewery, the Haffen’s brewery at Melrose Ave between current day 151st and 152nd St., Bruckner’s Brewery at E. 161st St and Elton Ave., Kolb’s Brewery on 3rd Ave at 169th St., and a myriad of others.

This history recently came to light with the discovery of some long forgotten lagering caves, originally built and owned by the Ebling Brewing Company.  The Ebling Brewing Company was located at the corner of St. Anns Avenue and  156th St.  and stopped production after the owners pled guilty on charges of producing real beer in 1925 during Prohibition (this story alone is fascinating and can be read about in a few New York Times articles from that time  here and here).  After the shut down, the brewery complex suffered through a series of fires before eventually being razed.  The site sat undisturbed until the recent excavation that uncoved the long forgotten caves.

Ebling Brewery

Fast forward about a hundred years to 2010 and we have the very exciting emergence of a new Bronx-based brewery.  The Bronx Brewery is the brain-child of three people, Stephen O’Sullivan, Niall Henry and brewmaster Damian Brown.  The three are currently raising investment funds for the construction of a new brewing company to be based in the Bronx.  I recently had a chance to chat with Damian about his love of craft beer, the trio’s plans for the brewery and the state of craft beer in general.

The Interview

JM – Damian, thanks for doing this.  I’m just wondering what your background is in the brewing industry?

DB – Yeah, I went to Davis and attended the master brewer’s program there… finished that this year.  Then I got the Diploma in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling.  Then I received that diploma in August or September of last year.  So in addition to that I worked for about a year and a half as an assistant brewer at Shanendoah Brewing Co in Virginia.  I’ve also been homebrewing since I turned 21.

JM – And homebrewing was always an interest of yours?

DB – Beer has probably always held a very special place in my heart.  I think it has such a great story and I think one of the things we’re looking to do here with the brewery is to share some of that, some of the art, the science and the history and tradition of beer.

JM – I saw that you, I think on your website, that you spent some time in the UK as well, is that right?

DB – That was more of a joke that I think Steve had sort of made that quote to someone.  Yeah, I spent a few weeks travelling around there… I’m a real ale and pale ale fan so I was basically going around to pubs and breweries and doing lots of tastings. Nothing professionally in terms of doing brewing or anything like that.

JM – Ok, but I imagine lots of sampling took place?

DB – Oh yeah, always lots of sampling whereever I go.  I think the most interesting thing I’ve had has been some chicha in the mountains of Honduras out of an old bleach bottle.

JM – Oh wow!  How was that.  I’ve never had real chicha.

DB – It was interesting… very cidery almost.  Extremely cloudy and it was made in, it was strained with a laundry basket… it was just extremely primative.  Made in a tiny little town, but it was good.  It was a little sour, a little tart – cidery, but it was good.

JM – Yeah, I had some weird sorghum product that my wife brought back from Africa and it was sort of like that as well.  Interesting though.  Cool, so that’s your background, I guess you guys are still in the process of looking for a brewery and scouting out locations.  How is that process going?

DB – Basically, where we’re at is that we have our business plan and everything is lined up.  We have a management team put together.  We’ve put together a marketing and branding officer on board, we have an architect on board, lawyers all of that stuff is lined up.  We’re scheduling meetings with investors as we speak.  We have our first one next week and we have a bunch lined up.  We’re looking to raise anywhere from 700K to a million in start-up capital.  We’re going to be some type of tight budget to do something in New York, but we have as one of our partners Dad’s owns a construction company here in New York and we’ll be relying on them heavily for building renovations and stuff like that.  We think we have a great business plan and we’ve been getting a lot of interest from all sorts of people in New York and in the Bronx.  Non-profits like the Bronx works, some artistic groups, and all sorts of bars and restaurants to do some preliminary tasting and sampling.  We’re just trying to build as much interest as we can in what we’re doing.  We have a concept, we have a business plan and we’re ready to go once we’ve raised enough start-up capital.

JM – Are you guys planning to do direct distribution or will you be working with a distribution company?

DB – Yeah, we’ll be self-distributing.  You can self-distribute in New York up to about 60 000 barrels of production, so we’re going to be self-distributing within New York City at least for the first year or two to build our customer base.  We’d be doing that anyway in order to capture the margins that self-distribution would provide.

JM – Self-distribution is pretty important.

DB – Yeah, when you’re small you don’t have much leverage to do anything and once you get locked into a distribution deals, the franchise rules are pretty tight and pretty cumbersome.  You would also, being a small account to a distributer who also has other accounts in their portfolio, you would be out there without a sales force, regardless.  Being small, we’re going to undertake that logistical exercise.  We think, just having control of delivery and customer service in house we’ll be able to build up enough of a customer base where we’d feel we’ll have some leverage with wholesalers.

JM – You said that you have a branding officer.  What is your positioning statement or how do you plan to brand yourselves?

DB – Yeah, obviously, the Bronx is going to be our main branding element and it’s sort of interesting.  We face this juxtaposition, if you will, of craft beer being what it is and the Bronx being what it is… at least most people’s perception of it and we’re trying to bring that tough, edgy, kind of feel to what we’re doing.  So, we’re building the brand around the concepts and notions of the people of the Bronx and trying to introduce a very local but high-quality brewery to the community.  There’s a pretty tremendous brewing history in the Bronx itself.  That’s the idea… we want to be a brewery that the Bronx can call it’s own and participate in it locally.

JM – It worked for Brooklyn.

DB – Yeah, absolutely.  To their credit, they’ve created a hugely successful company.  My two partners, Steve and Niall when they first contacted me, they were looking at doing a contract-brewing type company, where the Bronx Brewing company would be just a sales and marketing company.  Obviously that is how Brooklyn Brewery got it’s start for a number of years before they actually, physically started brewing in Brooklyn.  We just decided that if we were going to rely on the borough and it’s people to brand our company and buy our beer, we want to actually be there.  We want to be an active participating member of the community.  So we opted not to go that route.

JM – It works certainly.  Schmaltz has made a good go of it so it can be done.

DB – Absolutely, it can be done.  Just in naming ourselves the Bronx Brewery, if we were not in the Bronx we would have a tough time justifying that decision to anybody.

JM – Are you guys looking at any specific neighborhood to locate the brewery?

DB – Yeah, we’ve partnered with a group called SoBro, that’s South Bronx, Development Corporation who basically manage a number of state and local incentive programs for neighborhoods in the South Bronx, like Hunts Point, Port Morris, Mott Haven that basically fall under their jurisdiction.  Any of those neighborhoods would work.  We’ve identified a number of sites that we would be happy with.  The BankNote Building, my two partners have assured me, is high on the list.  It’s strictly a matter of getting funding in place where we can sign a lease.

JM – I guess you guys will be draught only?

DB – Yeah, we’ll be kegs and casks for the first few years and then we’ll see about investments into a bottling line and facility further down the road.

JM – Do you guys plan to have a tasting room on site, where you could visit the brewery?

DB – Yeah, we’re going to have a small tasting room on-site.  Obviously a lot of that is going ot depend on where we locate the business as far as retail potential goes.  Whether we’ll have a bar or just a simple tasting room where you could sample the brews.  We’re absolutely planning on doing that and there are a few other things we want to do, potentially, is have a brew-on-premise facility where our customers could come in and brew their own beer on a 10-15 gallon sized equipment.  That will depend on the space, and the regulatory environment for doing so, but we’re working on that.  That sort of gap in the laws is being addressed, hopefully.  We hope to bring that sort of business to New York City in order to help build a greater beer culture.

JM – Is that in conjunction with the brewery itself, or would that be a side project.

DB – No, absolutely that would be a part of the brewery itself.  We have an architect building that into the plans.  He’s allocating space for the brew on premise equipment in the drawings.

JM – I know that there is a big brewer culture in Southern California, where the brewery really go out of their way to help each other, has that been the case here?

DB – Yeah, absolutely.  We’ve had great feedback from Keegan, Captain Lawrence and others.  It’s definitely a strong community.  We’ve been reaching out to homebrewers as well.  Part of what we want to do with that BOP capability is to create a sense of kinship among homebrewers in New York City where there’s a brewery that is supporting their effort.  We’re going to present at the New York City Homebrewer’s Guild. We’ve got relationships with a few other homebrewers and homebrewing clubs.

JM – Cool.  I guess that’s been helpful for you guys in terms of getting the buzz out there in the craft-beer community?

DB – It’s been a sort of viral-marketing campaign.  We’re trying to pull in a circle of friends who we can count on when making brewing decisions.  We think that it’s important to not only foster relationships with brewers, but also to let other people know how great it is to brew beer and to be able to give them a facility and a means to do so.

JM – Very cool, I’m wondering about the decision to start the company in the middle of a recession.  Was that a conscious decision, to be looking for space when hopefully rents are depressed, or was that just the way it turned out?

DB – That’s just sort of how it worked out.  It was simply a matter of timing when Steve and Niall decided to start up.  Thought it was a great idea and we wanted to see what we could do with it right away.  We’ve been impressed.  We’ve come a very long way in the last three months.

JM – It seems like you’ve made a lot of movement very quickly, so that’s always good.  I guess that’s the business side of things but I’m wondering about the beer.  What are you plans for styles, types of beer, that sort of thing.

DB – At this point, we’re going to purchase some small-scale, pilot brewing equipment strictly for tasting and sampling.  We’ll have an Irish-style Dry Stout, which we’re calling Hip-Hop Stout.  We’re going to have a south German Hefeweizen that we’re going to be calling, Mother ‘heffen Bronx, and an American Pale Ale, which we’re going to call the Bronx Brewery Riverd’Ale. So we’re obviously, those are going to be our first three beers that we’re planning on making on a pre-operations, marketing standpoint.  I think we’re also going to have five or six year-round beers and then a class of seasonal and specialty beers.  We want to have the brewery introduce some more indigenous types of styles to people here in New York in the US.  We’re planning to do things like traditional-brewed chicha, or sahti or things like that.  Those are some of those styles that I think have extremely interesting stories and that are extremely tasty as well.  We want to do things that you can’t really find here.

JM – Have you tried many of those types of styles?

DB – Yeah, I have actually.  I think that one of the things that we’d like to do is help sponsor cultural festivals where we would reach out to cultural New York groups and elect to make a traditional style beers for their festivals and indie events and things like that.

JM – Cool… I mean we’re beer geeks and we tend to geek out on weird, hard to find stuff, and unusual styles, so it seems like you’re on the same page as far as that goes.

DB – It’s sort of baby steps as far as the company goes and although there is a strong beer culture here, we do feel that there are gaps in the Bronx itself that we can fill.  So as a brewery, they are sort of mainstream beer styles that we need to do as well.

JM – Hey, you’ve gotta pay your bills.

DB – Yeah, we hope to have our flagship beer out there but also have the flexibility to do a few more interesting things as well.  We’re also planning on putting things out in casks and reaching out to bars that have cask equipment.

JM – Cask beer seems to have become huge here in the last few years.  When I moved here nobody had this stuff here and now it’s really popping up everywhere.  Not only in places that you think of as destination craft beer bars, but even places that just serve quality food they want to have cask beer on.

DB – Yeah, it’s almost a thing where to qualify as a beer bar here in New York, I’m happily learning that many have one or two casks available at all times.

JM – Have you guys started doing any test batches yet or are you still on the planning side?

DB – Yeah, this weekend, I’m actually brewing the Riverd’Ale, so by the end of next month, we should have beers to sample.

JM – Very cool.  I’d love to come up and try some of your stuff.  What does the Riverd’Ale look like on paper?

DB – It’s going to be a Centennial and Cascade hopped American Pale ale.  We’re going for traditional American hops which are personally my favourite and what I tend to drink in large quantities.  It’ll be dry-hopped and unfiltered.  We’re not going to be pasteurizing anything.  We want to keep things fresh.

JM – That sounds great… I want to thank you for your time and I’d love to write an update once you’ve got a few things to taste and we can see how things are progressing for you guys.  I really wish you guys all the best and I look forward to seeing your offerings on tap around the city soon.

At the time, I purchased a few bottles of their semi-dry sparkling cider and enjoyed them later that evening with a meal of braised pork and roasted potatoes and the meal was simply perfect. Recently, the memory of this made me revisit the ciders themselves as well as their producer – Stephen Wood. Stephen is a passionate man and passionate about his apples and the drink they produce. I recently interviewed Mr. Hill about the state of cider production today and the work he’s doing at Farnum Hill.

The interview

JM – What inspired you to begin making artisanal cider and why did you choose Lebanon, NH as your base of operations?

SW – We don’t make ‘artisanal’ cider. We just make cider. We started grafting trials here in the early ‘80s, of several hundred ‘heirloom’ and cider varieties, thinking that we might start a small sideline to our wholesale/retail apple business. About ten years later, our final selection of varieties from those trials just about coincided with the collapse of the wholesale New England apple industry. We decided to grow cider apples and make cider because what we had always done had ceased to make sense. I’ve been working at this orchard since 1965, so it slightly made sense to grow and make the cider here.

JM – I had no idea that you have been doing this for so long… that is a pretty amazing feat in terms of longevity.

SW – I’ve been doing some of ‘this’ for a fair while, i.e. growing apples on this piece of dirt. The cider is more recent. I first visited Hereford and Somerset cider orchards in 1984, and grafted the first cider trials here in the next year. We planted our first cider orchard (1000 +/- trees) in 1989. We’d made goofy hard cider in whisky barrels before that, but it was only after we got our first apples from cider grafts that we started doing it in earnest. I think the first round of a dozen or so carboys of proper cider fruit was in 1990. The cider was all disgusting, though we forced some of it down. We learned a few things, and got bonded in 1995, with commercial production of about 350 gallons. Now we make about 10,000, and remain tiny in the big picture.

JM – Poverty Lane Orchards (a beautiful spot by the way) sells both hard and sweet cider as well as apples for eating/cooking. How large is the orchard here and how much of that production goes into your different products?

SW – We make very little sweet cider anymore — 2-3,000 gallons. We used to make more, but regulations forbidding wholesale of unpasteurized sweet cider have changed that. We only make what we sell at the orchard retail stand in the fall (we don’t pasteurize, and don’t intend to). The orchard (including young preproductive trees) wavers around 80-90 acres, depending on what we’re taking out and what we’re planting. About half the total acreage is devoted to (hard) cider fruit.

The process

JM – Briefly, describe the process of cider-making.

SW – I’ll describe the process at Poverty Lane — it varies a bit from operation to operation, and our press is small by comparison to those at most other commercial operations. The physical principals are pretty much the same anywhere, though.
Apples are dumped from the bins (into which they were picked) into a hopper, from which they ride up an elevator to a hammermill. There, they are smashed up into a mash, called pomace, which falls from the mill into another hopper. The pomace is pumped from that hopper to the press, where a person stands building the ‘cheese.’ The cheese consists of a stack of alternating square wooden slatted racks, and layers of cloth-wrapped pomace. When the cheese is made, it is moved along rails to the pressing station of the press, which consists of a hydraulic piston-driven plate below the cheese that compresses the cheese very slowly against a top plate. The juice is expressed through the cloths, and the dried-out pomace remains behind. While one cheese is being pressed, another is being made. The juice falls from the press into a catch tank, then is usually first pumped into plastic holding tanks.

There, depending on the acidity and condition of the fruit, we usually lightly sulfite it. Within a few days, the juice moves to the stainless tanks, or wooden barrels or puncheons in which it will be fermented. At this stage, we pitch yeast, and usually pump the juice over a bit to encourage the yeast to wake up and get working. We sometimes add yeast nutrients, shortly after pitching. After a few days, the cider starts to work furiously. After a few more, it settles down to happy gentle bubbling, at which time we add an airlock to the vessel. The cider takes anywhere from two weeks to two months to ferment to dryness. Sometime thereafter (with occasional exceptions), the cider is racked off its lees into the barrels, puncheons, or tanks in which it will mature. Then we turn our backs. We let it mature (again, occasional exceptions) for anywhere between 8 and 16 months before we blend it (or not) and bottle or keg it.

JM – Many of us have had a fairly simple hard cider at one time or another from one of the larger cider companies. What is different about your product compared to those produced by larger cideries?

SW – I’m not sure the difference has as much to do with size as with market. If you mean the ‘six-pack’ hard ciders, sold in the beer cooler, the chief differences are fruit and time. Fruit: in this country, no six-pack hard cider manufacturer can afford the cost of proper cider fruit. In fact, I only know of one who uses 100% ‘single-strength’ (i.e. actual fresh apple juice), and that manufacturer buys the very cheapest juice it can. Almost all six-pack hard ciders are made largely of concentrate.

In the UK, more real cider fruit is used in mass-produced hard ciders than in the US, because more cider apples are grown there (chiefly in Hereford, Worcestershire, Somerset, and Devon), but almost all of the apples are made into concentrate (for ease and economy of storage) before it is fermented. Time: six-pack hard cider makers can’t afford to tie up their tanks in extended maturation. The longest I’ve ever heard of one of them taking, from apple (or concentrate barrel) to bottle or keg is 10 weeks. In addition to fruit and time, the other differences have to do with stabilization (pasteurizing, filtration, chemicals, etc.) — this varies from operation to operation — and levels of sweetness and carbonation. Some of those ciders are sweetened to 30+ ppm sugar; our sweetest cider is about 7.5 ppm. Please understand that I’m not denigrating any of these beverages — for what they are, many of them are very well made. Most of them just aren’t real cider, any more than wine coolers are real wine.

Growing cider

JM – We all know that cider starts from apples, but what is the main difference between an eating apple and a cider apple? What qualities do you look for in a cider apple and what types of apples make good cider?

SW – This is a big question, and the answer is highly subjective. In my view, very few apple varieties have all of the qualities, in proper balance, to make a really good cider. And, of those that do, many are made even better by blending. One element we seek, and grow certain varieties for, is tannin. The tannins from these bittersweet and bittersharp varieties provide the bitterness and astringency we like in the background of cider, and a sort of structural undergirding. But phenols are complicated — not all tannins are the same, nor are the tannin complexes in all tannic apples the same. Some of these varieties have a hard, harsh bitterness and astringency; in others those elements are softer and rounder. I can’t easily explain how I’ve chosen which of these varieties to grow (I’ve made plenty of mistakes), or how exactly I decide which go together in a fermentation batch, but we are looking for a blend that will have sufficient structure, and pleasant (whatever that is) bitterness and astringency.

Most bittersweet and bittersharp apples are practically inedible, except to the insanely curious. Another important quality we seek, usually from other (usually edible and sometimes delicious) varieties, is acidity. We’re all fond of acid here, as a balance to bitterness, astringency, and sweetness, and as a palate-cleanser in the finish. Acid’s also necessary for a clean fermentation — we want more acid in our fermenting ciders than most bittersweets can provide. The other characteristics we seek have to do with fruitiness, and with floral and other aromatic elements. These are the things that change the most in fermentation — what you taste and smell in a fresh apple or its juice can be very different from what you find three months later. The last thing we’re looking for is plenty of fermentable sugar — we ferment all of our ciders to dryness, so the sugar in the apple only contributes to the alcoholic strength of the cider.

JM – Many of your ciders have what I’ve always considered to be a slightly “wild” taste. Do natural yeasts contribute to the fermentation of the finished product, or is that flavour a consequence of the types of apples used?

SW – It’s all in the fruit.

An American product

JM – Do you consider your ciders to be made in more of the French (Norman) tradition, the English or are you doing something uniquely American?

SW – When we first started, we were hoping to make our ciders in various European/UK styles — this drove our early plantings of English and French bittersweets. Our first ciders reflected this hope — we were particularly trying to make a sort of softer version of the bittersweet-based farm ciders of Somerset and Devon. But, a few years into actually making cider to sell, we had a happy moment, on which those of us who tasted together realized that we were regularly encountering aromas and other characteristics in our ciders that we’d never encountered in France or England, and we began to ask each other why, here in New Hampshire, we felt compelled or even inclined to follow any cider tradition at all. Practically on that moment, we decided to just try to grow good cider fruit on our very best ground, and make delicious ciders by our own lights. I think our style, such as it is, was sort of born on that day. Anyway our ciders are American, New Hampshire, Lebanon, Poverty Lane/Farnum Hill. We try to make delicious cider in the regional Farnum Hill style!

JM – Where did all of the different apples here come from? Are you an apple collector as well as a cider-maker?

SW – We aren’t exactly apple collectors, but we’ve grafted hundreds of varieties here over the years, to discover how they will behave in our climate and soils. The varieties came from all over the world. The scionwood came from various sources in the US and UK. The latter was a slight nuisance because of import restrictions, quarantine requirements, etc. But, fortunately, an enormous number of varieties has been imported to the US over the years, and most of the ones we have wanted to test have been available domestically. Meanwhile, all of our cider and heirloom trees are made from scionwood grown here at Poverty Lane — we want to be absolutely certain that the tree we plant is genetically identical to the variety we liked in the grafting trial.

JM – You produce a number of different products, including several blends based on sweetness and a single varietal apple cider (the very tasty Kingston Black)… do you have any plans to create other singal varietal ciders?

SW – Not in any organized way. We’ve released a couple of Ashmead’s Kernel ciders (2003 and 2008), in very small numbers. There are a few others that we like well enough on their own to consider an occasional single-variety bottling. But, as I said before, the most delicious of them can usually be improved by blending. In any event, all of the single-variety ciders that we’ll ever release will be pretty acidic.

JM – Cider is very much an agricultural product, do you produce cider seasonally or can you store the apples and continue to crush all season long?

SW – All of our cider is made of extremely ripe fruit, which doesn’t store very well. We even let many of the varieties rest on the grass for a time before we pick them up, to achieve the last degree of ripeness, and to dry out a little. I think the best cider (like wine) is made from juice pressed during the harvest, or shortly after, from the ripest possible fruit.

JM – I’m familiar with aging beer and wine, but does cider age well? How does it change over time?

SW – Aging is always a tradeoff, even with the most ageworthy wines. I haven’t yet met a cider that will compensate for what is lost in the process of bottle aging. The ‘high fruits’ (tropical aromas, citrus, etc.) and floral aromas diminish over time in bottle, while the heavier aromas are enhanced. Sometimes the tannins and acids round off a bit. Maturation in tanks and barrels before bottling is important; thereafter the cider may get more interesting (to some), but not more delicious (to me). But I hope I still have many ciders to meet, and my mind may be changed by one of them.

The future

JM – There is a very strong sense of community within the craft beer community, whereby new brewers can often draw on some of the experiences of older more established brewers. Do you see the same type of thing in the cider community?

SW – I dream of a real cider community, but it’s not here yet. There are various cider associations springing up, but the atmosphere everywhere is somewhat guarded. And the country is full of new expert cidermakers who’ve sprung from the ground over the past decade or so, and are already asserting that their own cider represents a regional style, or the true nectar of the gods, or whatever. I wish more folks would pay attention to their land and climate, and to growing and fermenting the right sort of fruit (rather than whatever is available on their first day). And I wish more would be willing to accept that none of us (including ourselves) has been at this long enough to assert real expertise. Still, there are a few of us (scattered across the US) who are trying to grow good cider fruit, and who are happy to taste one another’s ciders, and speak frankly about them among ourselves without fear of giving offense, in the interest of mutual improvement. There will be more of us, by and by.

JM – Thank you very much for your time, Stephen – I really appreciate it.

Tasting Farnum Hill Cider

In preparation for writing this article, I invited a few fellow cider aficionados to sample a lineup of Farnum Hill ciders.  These ciders are pretty well-distributed throughout New England and New York at fine wine stores.  You can check their availability here: http://www.farnumhillciders.com/Where_main.html

The ciders in our lineup included Farnum Hill Extra-Dry Sparkling, Farnum Hill Semi-Dry Sparkling, and Farnum Hill Farmhouse Ciders.

The Farnum Hill Extra Dry cider was first.  Unlike beer, which is normally tasted from lightest to darkest, we elected to try these in reverse order, since we reasoned that the residual sweetness in the lower ABV ciders would actually contribute a bit of complexity.  At 7.4% ABV it was the strongest of the ciders we tasted.  It pours with a pale golden colour and just a touch of light carbonation.  The aroma was quite simple with a fairly straight-forward apple aroma.  Some tasters got a touch of lemon as well.  Although it starts out with a bit of light sweet fruitiness on the front of the palate on the finish this cider is bone dry.  There is a touch of rustiness in this bottle as well.  Simple but nice.

Next on deck is the Sparkling Semi-Dry cider.  In appearance, there is little to distinguish it from the extra-dry… a lightly carbonated, pale golden pour.  The aroma is quite a bit sweeter than the extra-dry and there is a bit less tartness as well.  A bit funky with a touch of band-aid/phenolic flavour and some Granny Smith character.  All of the tasters agreed that this cider was substantially sweeter, although still quite dry.

The final Farnum Hill cider was the Farmhouse cider.  The nose on this was quite appley and substantially sweeter with more apple skin funkiness than the previous two ciders. Fairly clean finish with a bit of lingering minerally character and a little bit of a light floral note.  Another, simple tasty cider from the folks at Farnum Hill.

In general, all of the ciders had a similar apple profile with the main changes being in residual sweetness and the level of funky wildness.  They are fairly simple tasting, but their clean flavour profiles would really make them a wonderful match with food.

I hope that I’ve managed to convince you that the world of cider is one that is well-worth exploring.  As with beer, there is a lot of stuff to explore out there and I would encourage you to do so… you won’t be disappointed.

Temperature and taste

There has been a substantial amount of research on the effect of temperature on taste.  In one set of experiments, scientists at the Monell Taste Center in Philadelphia cooled both the tongue and the test solution and examined the ability of subjects to taste the sweetness of a sucrose solution, the saltiness of a salt solution, the bitterness of caffeine, and the sourness of citric acid.  Interestingly, they noted that the ability to detect both sweetness and bitterness was markedly reduced, while saltiness and sourness were both unaffected.

In a separate study that seems to confirm this qualitative data, another group looked at the effect of temperature on the rate of firing of neurons specific for each type of taste receptor.  Interestingly, they noted that at temperature below 10C, the neurons for sweet perception were virtually non-responsive, showing that the ability to detect sweetness is drastically reduced when the temperature is reduced.  The ability to detect citric acid (sour) however, was also unaffected in this study.  This indicates that although temperature affects our ability to taste, it doesn’t do so equally for all flavours – this means that as temperature drops, the dominant taste in a given beer may change.  More broadly, it provides scientific proof of what we already knew… bringing a cold beer up to room temperature makes it seem substantially sweeter and often less bitter.

In addition to the five senses (umami was recently added to the better-known sweet, salty, bitter and sour) the tongue is also capable of detecting astringency in both beers and wines. Many people describe astringency as bitterness, although there are completely different processes involved in the perception of these compounds.  In beers, astringency comes from components of the barley husk and they can contribute to the body of the brew.  These components are collectively referred to as polyphenols/tannins.  In excess, they are considered a serious brewing fault and this can usually be avoided by sparging at a temperature low enough to prevent tannin extraction.  In some beers, the presence of polyphenols leads to precipitation of other proteins in the beer leading to chill-haze at lower temperature and therefore, they can affect the stability of the finished beer.  If you’ve ever seen an old dusty bottle of pale lager with a thin film at the bottom of the bottle, you’ve seen the effect that time has on phenolic compounds in beer.  It is likely that this time-dependent precipitation of phenolic compounds is a major contributor to the increased smoothness that is observed when some beers are aged.  Polyphenols are fairly interesting chemically and their flavour can be attributed to the same property they have in beer, namely they can bind to and cause proteins to precipitate out of solution – when this happens to salivary proteins on the tongue, it is perceived as a mouth-puckering dryness or astringency.

Temperature and smell

Taste however, is only about 10% of what we call flavour.  The rest comes from aroma components in the glass, and unsurprisingly temperature has a profound effect on our ability to detect smells.  The sense of smell occurs when molecules present in the liquid become vapour and are drawn into specific receptors at the back of our noses.  Since this sense by definition requires compounds to vapourize into the air, increasing the temperature of a given liquid (beer in our case) greatly enhances the ability to perceive different smells.  Different compounds also have different levels of volatility, which will affect how intensely they are perceived.  A fairly simple measure of volatility is the boiling point of the individual compound.  For example, aroma components of hop oils and esters produced by yeast during fermentation tend to have very low boiling points, thereby making it easier for them to leave surface of the beer and enter the air just above it.  Some examples:

yeast-produced esters/phenolics:  ethyl acetate (apple/pear aroma) – 77°C; isobutyl acetate (apple/pear/pineapple aroma) – 115°C; iso-amyl acetate (banana aroma) – 142°C; ethyl caproate (pineapple/banana) – 167°C; 4-vinyl-guaiacol (clove aroma) – 224°C; ethyl phenyl acetate (honey/floral aroma) – 227°C;

hop aroma components:  α-pinene (pine aroma) – 155°C; β-myrcene (pungent herbal aroma) – 165°C; limonene (citrus/grapefruity aroma) – 176°C; linalool (floral/spicy aroma) – 198°C; geraniol (rose/citrus aroma) – 229°C;  geranyl isobutyrate (floral/citrusy aroma) – 240°C; β-carophyllene (woody/spicy aroma) 250°C; β-damascenone (floral aroma) – 274°C;  humulene epoxide (spicy aroma) – 282°C.

Grain-derived aroma components:  maltol (caramel/butterscotch aroma) – 85°C; 2, 5 dimethyl pyrazine (chocolate aroma) – 155°C; furfuryl alcohol (burnt sugar aroma) – 170°C; 5-methyl furfural (caramel/coffee aroma) – 187°C; furaneol (burnt fruit aroma) – 2 acetylthiophene (burnt onion aroma) – 217°C; 2-acetyl-2-thiazoline (toasted popcorn) – 223°C; 2-furoic acid (heavy fruity aroma) – 230°C; ethyl furaneol (caramel/coffee aroma) -248°C; benzopyrene (roast/tarry aroma) – 495°C;

Examples

So, with all of this information in mind, lets imagine a series of hypothetical beers.  The first is a German Hefeweizen.  This style tends to be yeast dominated, with a large amount of ethyl acetate and isoamyl acetate from the yeast fermentation.  Straight out of the refrigerator this pronounced fruitiness will be immediately noticeable.  As the temperature rises, the intensity of these esters will rise and you may start to notice another clove-like aroma.  This comes from a yeast-derived phenolic called 4-vinyl guaiacol that is typically produced by the yeast strains used for hefeweizen fermentation.  It has a higher boiling point than the lighter esters which is why it only becomes apparent as the temperature rises.  As it starts to warm you’ll also start to taste the malt derived sweetness due to the sensitivity of sweet receptors on the tongue to temperatures over 10°C.

The next is a classic… Guinness stout.  It provides a good case in point since it can often be found in bars served at two different temperatures.  The regular tap serves at around 12°C while the Guinness Extra Cold tap serves at a near-freezing 2°C.  As with the hefeweizen, when it’s out of the cold tap, very little in flavour will be notable.  Unlike the hefeweizen though, the yeast used to ferment Guinness doesn’t tend to produce a whole lot of esters.  This means that at cold temperatures, the beer is almost odorless and flavourless (something I know from experience).  Stouts in general tend to be dominated by dark malt components, which as pointed out above have higher boiling points than esters and need to be drunk at a higher temperature in order to be able to smell them.

Finally, we’ll look at a typical American IPA.  These beers also tend to evolve substantially as the temperature increases.  Initially, the hop bitterness will be quite pronounced due to the inability to taste balancing sweetness.  Even cool though, some of the lighter hop aromatics can usually be smelled.  What does change markedly though is that depending on the hop variety used different aromas will be smelled as the temperature changes.  Cool, we tend to smell pine and citrus while woodier/spicier character becomes more pronounced as the temperature comes up.  This is mostly due to the different boiling temperatures of the components that give these smells off.  The lighter malt sweetness will also become apparent once it warms up a bit.  In general, beers like this improve greatly with a little bit of warming.

Serving temperature recommendations

So where does this leave us?  I hope I’ve managed to convince you of the importance of serving temperature on what you actually taste and smell in a pint of beer.  Temperature affects both the ability of aroma compounds to actually leave the beer as well as our ability to smell them once they get to our nose.  The sense of taste is even more profoundly affected by temperature with receptors for sweet sensation being nearly completely inactive below a certain threshold temperature.  Balancing the contribution of each of these can be accomplished by changing the temperature.

Cold temperatures are usually not really good for much of anything.  Below 4°C (40°F) we don’t detect much of anything on the palate and aromatic compounds have a tough time getting out of the beers.  Very light lager styles like helles, heller bock or koelsch (I know it’s not really a lager, but it works) can be appreciated at this temperature since they tend to not have very much in the way of esters, but even these styles can benefit from a little bit of warming in order to appreciate the light malt character and any hops aroma that may have been used.  For macro-style lager, drinking it cold will certainly make the beer seems refreshing, but you won’t taste or smell very much… which might be the point anyway.

Cool temperatures (7-10°C or 42-52°F) are suited for detecting yeast derived aroma of fruit and spice in beers where toasted/roasted malts don’t make much of a contribution.  That makes it work well lighter-style Belgian pale ale, Abbey Tripel, Saison, Witbiers, as well as German Hefeweizen.  Many lager styles also work well at this temperature, particularly hoppy ones like pilsners.

A little warmer is probably where most beers taste the best.  The cool side of the cellar temperature range (9-13°C or 50-58°F) is ideal for a wide variety of styles including (but not limited to) UK-style bitters, mild ales, brown ales and ESB, India pale ale and American pale ale.  Of course, the Brits have known this for years, and most cask ale is served around these temperature which lets you taste them in all of their elegant complexity.  Darker Belgian and German style ales work well at this temperature letting the dark malts and the fruity/spicy esters make their presence known.  A large number of darker lagers are also perfect at this temperature.  With little yeast contribution, the slight warming lets the toasty malt character of viennas, marzen, dunkel and doppelbock really shine through.

For the darkest and most flavourful ales and lagers, these are best enjoyed even warmer (12-16°C or 54-61°F).  Think of your porters, stouts and imperial stouts at this temperature where the heavier dark roasted flavour from the malts and the malt-derived sweetness can be best appreciated.  Although barleywine doesn’t typically have roasted components, they often have contributions of malt, yeast and hops in them and the warmer temperature allows you to appreciate the balance of all of these in the finished product.

The bottom line

Although I’ve offered guidelines here for serving temperature that I consider the best, the best way to figure these things out is to try it yourself.  It is truly amazing how much the aroma and flavour of a beer will change coming from the typical 38-40°F of the refrigerator all the way up to room temperature.  I encourage you try this yourself with a number of styles of beer and see what works for you.  In the end, preferences are personal and you should always see what works best for you… if nothing else you’ll learn exactly what you like and why you like it… and that is kind of the point, isn’t it?

Most of the guidelines begin at one of two points, either looking to group based on the historical understanding of beer styles in a particular region or grouping beers based on similarities in the actual product.  Examples of the former include “Prost: the story of German beer“, a wonderful treatise by Horst Dornbusch on the origin of beer styles in Germany, particular lagers that were developed in that region.  Similarly, Martyn Cornell has an excellent publication, “Amber, Gold & Black“, describing the origin and history of British Beer Styles (although I recognize the controversial nature of British brewing history).  Conversely, the defining style guide for homebrewers is the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP).  This organization groups beer in styles that are generally similar in appearance, aroma and flavour profiles.  Although they do take geography into consideration the guide is generally descriptive, providing information on how a beer that calls itself “porter”, “IPA”, or “German hefeweizen” should look, smell, and taste like.  It is principally used by professional beer judges as a means of judging the quality of beers in homebrew competitions.  The BJCP guidelines are arguably the most influential guidelines in the craft beer world.

In general the historical approach is useful for describing beers that hew closely to the historical styles.  It is a relatively straightforward approach to identify and categorize a German hefeweizen, Vienna lager, or rauchbier.  It is substantially more difficult to categorize a highly hopped, 8% ABV pale weizenbock that is completely unlike anything that has been seen before.  Even in the BJCP style guide there is a category known as “specialty beer” that is nothing more than a landing pad for all the beer that doesn’t fit into any other category.  The BJCP website lists more than a dozen “minor styles” that represent either styles that are too new or too ill-defined to warrant a separate style of their own.

In addition to these sources, we have websites for providing beer guidelines.  The big players in this scene are Ratebeer.com and Beeradvocate.com.  Both websites have a great deal of overlap in terms of styles they cover, although there is a distinct difference in philosophy.  Taxonomists (people who study the evolutionary relationships among animals often describe themselves as “lumpers” or “splitters”.  The meaning of these words is implied in their names, but briefly “lumpers” tend to be more likely to group similar things together, overlooking minor deviations in the history of a given species.  Conversely, “splitters” tend to see new species everywhere they look.  Even small changes in the evolutionary history will be seen as a reason to describe a new species.

This same approach can be seen in beer style descriptions between Ratebeer.com and Beeradvocate.com.  Whereas Ratebeer tends to group all variations of a style under a single style (barleywine, India pale ale or brown ale), Beeradvocate tends to prefer splitting beers into both New World and Old World variations (English and American barleywine, Belgian, English and American IPA or English and American Brown Ale).  In addition, whereas Ratebeer makes extensive use of catchall categories like “Specialty Grain” or “Spice/Herb/Vegetable” the folks over at Beeradvocate have Roggenbier, Rye beer, wheatwine, hopposhu (a fairly recent Japanese category in which a large percentage of fermentables are not grain), or kvass that could all comfortably be lumped into the specialty grain category (or others) and specific divisions created for chile beer, pumpkin beer, gose, and even Scottish gruit ale that Ratebeer would normally split into different categories.

So which is better?  I think that the answer really depends on who you are and what type of information you are looking for from a style description.  The historical divisions make sense in the context that they developed, but in many ways they are rendered almost useless by current trends in brewing.  Whereas it used to be that the only place you could get an authentic koelsch or Dortmunder was in their city of origin, that is certainly no longer the case (EU origin labels ignored for the moment).  Furthermore due to style drift, many of these pale lager styles overlap markedly with one another.  So if I present you with a beer I’ve brewed and call it an American pale lager but you think it tastes exactly like a helles, what does that beer become?  Is the intention of the brewer the only thing that we should take into account when deciding what something is?  Ditto a hoppy porter that I’ve brewed that rings in at 8.5% ABV.  Is that an Imperial Porter, a black IPA, or a strong brown porter?  What if I said it was supposed to be an Imperial stout, but I missed my target gravity?

It should be noted that the BJCP is designed specifically to answer questions like this.  Every style they present is clearly defined by colour, strength, types of malt used and even the presence/absence of certain esters from the fermentation.  They are exquisitely sensitive to matters of process and any brewing faults/flaws will be noted and heavily penalized in a competition.  They are the ultimate arbiters of what a style is and these guidelines are constantly tweaked in order to reflect current trends in the brewing world as well as the historical realities of a particular style’s provenance.

At Beeradvocate.com, the website encourages people to rate to style.  That means that a reviewer should have some sense in mind of what the beer in their glass should taste like and then compare the beer in the glass to that hypothetical beer.  I think that this awareness of style is what leads to the greater number of styles at their site than we have at Ratebeer.com.  The site tends to follow trends quite closely and it reflects recent developments in the craft beer world.  Belgian IPA, Imperial Pilsner, and wheatwine are just a few categories that barely existed ten years ago yet all have their own category over at Beeradvocate.com.

At Ratebeer.com we generally have a different goal in mind.  As with both the BJCP and Beeradvocate.com, we want people to understand what is in their glass and to have some awareness of style, but ultimately we want people to have a good time, to enjoy the beer and to offer a simple assessment… “Do I like this or not”?  This hedonistic scale certainly tends to introduce a big beer bias into our Top 50 lists (a controversy that I do not want to wade into at this time) but it also attempts (sometimes unsuccessfully) to have people simply rate a beer as they see fit.  What do they like about it and what do they not like about it?  Thus, the site tends to be lumpers with several distinct types of beer listed in a single style category.  It isn’t necessary to know beforehand whether a beer used an English, American or Belgian yeast strain to ferment it nor to know the relative concentrations of wheat to barley used in the mash tun during the brewing process.  The site tends to follow brewing trends with a suspicious eye and usually waits until a style is both well-established and has considerable longevity before calling it a style.

Regardless of which group you place yourself in: lumper, splitter or somewhere in between, an understanding of beer styles will always improve your understanding of what is in your glass and the process that went into it.  It isn’t necessary to have the BJCP categories memorized in order to decide whether or not something is worth drinking, but those categories might be useful to you if you’re trying to figure out why you like it.  There is plenty of room in the craft beer pool for all of these philosophies and none of them are mutually exclusive anyway.  Although discussions of style can often lead to many fun and impassioned arguments, the one thing I think we can agree on is that brewing styles will continue to evolve as they have for the last 500 years and that as craft beer fans, we are still in for some exciting times ahead.

According to the Brewer’s Association, although growth in the craft beer segment of the market has been vastly outpacing that of the macros, it still only represents about 4% of the total by volume produced and 6.3% of the total sold in dollars.  Furthermore, the actual number of breweries operating in the United States (currently over 1500) is larger than at any point in the last 100 years.  These numbers demonstrate the great strength of the craft beer industry, but they also demonstrate just how hard it is for any individual brewer to make inroads.  In order to compete in this type of market, it is usually desirable for a given brewer to find some way of distinguishing themselves in the marketplace.  This can take the form of producing beer that appeals to local sensibilities (i.e.  producing only organic products, producing a vertical series or special anniversary brews that can be collected) in order to open up a niche in the local market that you can then build on.  You could also take the more aggressive approach by brewing high-strength/high-ABV beers and trumpeting that loudly.  This has worked very well for Stone Brewing (You’re Not Worthy) or for Dogfish Head (Off-centered Ales for Off-centered people) but they were pioneers ten years ago.  This type of marketing can only take you so far nowadays because you still have to run up against the guys and girls who started the trend.  Until you’ve built up a bit of following, it can be tough to convince people that your special release, high-gravity beer, is worth anything (even the big guys are producing seasonal beers, although I haven’t seen anything to indicate that they’ve been terribly successful at it).

So where does this leave the craft brewer?  You have a very competitive market and a need to distinguish your product and (hopefully) garner a bit of buzz.  How about brewing something and calling it the “World’s Strongest Beer“, the “World’s Hoppiest Beer“, or the “World’s Lightest Beer” (Okay, so that last one is really only a target that the macros are going after in their seeemingly never-ending race to the bottom of the proverbial barrel, but the point is the same).  Having a product that you can call the “Anything-est” cuts through a lot of marketing BS and gives people something that is easy to remember and hopefully translates into a curiosity for your other, less expensive (and usually substantially more profitable) offerings.

The obvious question remains, “Does it work?” and I think it will take some time to sort that out.  As I mentioned above, both Dogfish Head and Stone have been very successful brewing beers that were considered aggressive only a few years ago.  In terms of “extremeness” I think it’s safe to say that many of their offerings have been leapfrogged in terms of strength, ABV, and uniqueness and yet they continue to succeed.  The reason for this is fairly simple, but it often gets lost in all of the hype around the special release debates… they make beer that people want to drink… end of story.  It’s one thing to win in a contest to produce a single very high-gravity, highly hopped beer, but it is quite another to produce stuff that people want to drink over and over again.  Even though Brewdog produced a very interesting beer in Tactical Nuclear Penguin, sales of that product aren’t going to keep them in the black any more than will sales of the current title-holder of World’s Strongest Beer, Schorschbräu Schorschbock 40% will for them.  The same goes for the World’s Hoppiest Beer… when is the last time anyone reading this ever bought a six-pack of Mikkeller X Hop Juice (ignoring the impossibility of getting 2007 IBUs of alpha acid to actually dissolve in a given beer)?  I applaud these brewers for making all of these crazy, off-the-wall brews and for giving us nerds lots of stuff to argue about, but at the end of the day, the true measure of success is whether or not you can open your doors for business again tomorrow and hold your head high knowing that you make beer that people love… hopefully we’ll see even more of that kind of success moving forward in 2010.

The first, and perhaps best, is an old standby – Duvel.  This crystal clear, pale straw coloured brew pours with a bright appearance and a big thick, rocky white head.  The nose is very delicate with a perfumed pear and lemon citrus quality.  When fresh, this beer has a soft herbal hoppiness on the finish that complements the spicy phenolics and light pear fruitiness.  It is very dry and quite refreshing in a way that draws many parallels with the more traditional champagne.  It has the added benefit of being commonly available in both 750 ml and magnum-sized bottles, suitable for sharing.

Another beer that has been marketed as a champagne beer is Deus Brut des Flandres from Bosteels Brewery.  Sold in a corked and caged bottle similar to that used for many champagnes, the beer is even produced using the methode champagnoise.  In this technique, while the beer is bottle conditioning, the bottles are placed in a rack that allows them to be turned daily, thereby depositing the yeast on one side of the bottle.  As the beer conditions, the bottle is slowly inverted, a few degrees a day.  This eventually results in the bottle being completely inverted and the plug of yeast is deposited on the bottom of the cork.  The neck of the beer is then submerged in a sub-zero temperature bath, thereby freezing the beer in the neck of the bottle.  The cork within the bottle is then removed and the plug of yeast is removed with it.  The actual removal of the cork and yeast plug is a process called “degorgement”.  A fresh cork is then fitted and the cage is applied.  This technique allows the brewer to produce a clear beer without using filtration.  The beer itself is very complex and tasty.  A very creamy palate with a lovely complex aroma of stewed apples, peach and apricot with a flinty minerally character and a very dry finish.  Lots of floral notes are present in here that really demonstrates an incredible amount of complexity.  As with many champagne beers, this beer should be served quite cold because that encourages a perception of dryness on the palate.

Malheur has made two beers suitable for seasonal toasting.  The first of these is the paler Malheur Biere Brut.  Pouring with a pale golden colour topped by a massive rocky white head.  This is another dry strong Belgian pale ale.  In some ways similar to the Duvel, this beer has a more peppery alcoholic flavour that results in a much dryer finish.  Some light fruitiness and a bit of soft peppery spice on the finish.  The beer has a soft, creamy texture and a lingering dry finish.  Taking a slightly different tack, the brewery also makes their Dark Brut.  This beer has a thick, sticky tan head over a deep chestnut-coloured beer.  It is similar in texture to the pale version with a fluffy, creamy texture, it is fairly notable for the contribution of dark malts giving a touch of plum and raisiny fruitiness as well as a bit of molasses sweetness on the finish.  It is a tasty brew and an interesting twist on the champagne beer concept.

Although the Belgians excel at this type of beer, there are a few American versions as well, one of which is Brooklyn Brewery’s Local 1.  One of the few bottled beers that are actually solely produced at their Brooklyn location, this beer is a pale golden Belgian Strong Ale.  The yeast used contributes a lovely minty character in addition to the soft apple and pear esters.  A little bit spicy and a little bit spritzy, as with all of the other beers I’ve described (and champagne itself for that matter) this beer has an unusual affinity for food, and will work well with many rich or spicy dishes.

No matter what your drink of choice is as we welcome a new decade this New Year’s Eve, whether one of the beers described here, champagne, cider, or even sparkling juice, the most important thing is to do it with joy and with people who you care about.  Cheers to 2010 and may it bring another year of good times, good friends, and good beer.  À votre santé!

Cider, unsurprisingly, is produced from the fermentation of apples.  Although Ratebeer.com has only divided the world of ciders into two categories… ice cider and regular cider, the world of cider is substantially broader than that division would suggest.  The first cider most people have with cider is usually cider of the draft variety.  These are usually made from surplus dessert apples (apples are generally divided into three categories; in decreasing order of sweetness these are dessert, cooking, and cider apples) that have been fermented, pasteurized or sterile filtered, then artificially sweetened with some acid added to balance the sweetness.  There is nothing inherently wrong with these products – they are widely available, they are crisp and clean and they make a refreshing drink.  It is helpful to think of ciders like this as an aperitif… just a simple drink to get the appetite going before you sit down to eat at the holiday table.

Draft cider, English-style cider, ice cider

The history of English cider is a long and distinguished one and the product made reflects that history.  Produced primarily from cider apple varieties with interesting names like Dabinett, Kingston Black, Ribston Pippen, or the seasonally appropriate Christmas Pearmain, these ciders are defined by their rusticity.  They have a lightly spicy nose, a subtle wild funkiness and an inherent dryness.  They can be either spontaneously fermented, using wild yeasts present on the skin of the apples, or they can use a commercial cider yeast.  Often there will be a contribution from both types of yeast and this complexity during the fermentation gives the finished cider a dry but complex flavour.  This dryness in particular makes these ciders pair wonderfully with food and, in general, they can be treated like white wine and they make a fine addition to the dinner table, pairing very well with the traditional turkey and trimmings that define the seasonal meal.  Although this style of cider originated in England, there is a fairly robust movement in the United States and elsewhere to apply this artisanal approach to cider making. This is reflected in the fact that there is a wide variety of craft ciders that are widely available throughout North America.

Dessert presents a great time to try some of the wonderful dessert ciders that are out there.  When the subject of dessert ciders comes up the first thing that comes to mind is ice cider.  This cider originated in Quebec in the early 1990s as an attempt to make a product that would resemble ice wine, which was then gaining a great deal of attention in nearby Ontario.  Ice wine is produced when outside temperatures drop to the point that the grapes freeze on the vine.  These grapes are harvested while still frozen and the concentrated juice they contain is squeezed out. The result is a juice in which the concentration of sugars is very high and it produces a sweet, fruity dessert wine with a lot of complexity.

Ice cider can be made in two different manners termed cryoconcentration or cryoextraction.  Cryoextraction is the analogous process to the making of ice wine, in which the apples freeze on the tree and are collected and pressed while frozen.  Ciders produced by this process are quite rare, for the simple reason that, unlike grapes, apple trees tend to drop their fruit as the season progresses, leaving very few apples remaining on the tree into weather where the temperature is low enough to freeze the fruit solid.  Cryoextraction begins like regular cider making where the fresh cider is extracted from the fruit.  The unfermented cider is then chilled until it begins to freeze.  The ice, which contains more water than sugar, is removed leaving the remaining cider more concentrated in sugar and other flavour components.  This cider is then fermented, resulting is a sweet but very aromatic and flavourful dessert cider.  If you are new to the world of ice cider, I encourage you to give it a try.  The product is completely unlike anything else out there and I have yet to meet anyone who is not impressed by their first taste.  It is unsurprising – given their origin in Quebec – that the best ice ciders continue to be made there, but commercial examples are available from New York, New England, the Midwestern states and the Pacific Northwest.

Although there will always be a place for beer at the holiday table, I hope that I’ve managed to pique your interest in the world of quality artisanal cider.  It makes a fantastic change of pace from beer and it can open up a whole new brewing culture at your table.  Happy Holidays everyone!

Bells Expedition Stout – Thick, black, unctuous, sweet and succulent with a fantastic balance of rich savoury elements and sweet chocolatey notes, this beer all but defines the Imperial Stout category. First introduced in 1989, this beer is one of the granddaddies of American Imperial Stouts and it’s reputation as one of the world’s best is undiminished by the length of time since it was introduced.

Ayinger Celebrator Doppelbock – For many of us, this beer is the first doppelbock we’ve experienced.  It’s common and it can be found anywhere from dive bars to supermarkets and in spite of it’s ease of availability and accessible pricepoint, it is still one of the best.  Clean, rich and malty with a lovely kiss of herbal cocoa and some nice dark fruit.  It’s a classic and it’s worth picking one up from time to time to compare it to any other doppelbock you may be enjoying; I guarantee this beer will still surprise you with it’s depth of flavour and complexity.

Orval – Mountains of ink (okay, not literal ink, but the digital pixellated version) have been spilled over this beer.  People have discussed aging it, pairing it with food, the best vintages, the best temperatures and for some people, they still don’t get all of the fuss… I’m not one of those people.  This beer is still one that surprises me every time I try it.  Whether drunk fresh with a bright crackery maltiness and a floral spicy hoppiness or when it’s got a few years on it and it has evolved into a Brettanomyces-laden funk-fest, this is one beer that will continue to delight craft beer drinkers whether they are new to the world of craft beer or have been doing this for many years.  It’s my all-time favourite… try it and I hope it will be one of yours too.

Alesmith Speedway Stout – This brewery outside of San Diego has made so many terrific beers that it was tough to pick just one of them for this classic list, but this is the beer that I think, defines this brewery.  Big, bold, and full of flavour, this coffee-flavoured imperial stout has both a massive contribution from the coffee used as well as the rich milk chocolate maltiness and assertive hopping on the back.  Since the FDA has decided that caffeine and alcohol are a potent and dangerous mixture (more information on that load of crap are available in a story by Josh Oakes) it’s not clear what will become of beers like this one, so be sure to find out why this beer is a classic as soon as possible.

Rochefort 10 – You’ve got to hand it to the folks at Rochefort, they don’t let their large output affect the very high quality of their product.  This is a big, luxurious malt bomb with lots of rich dried fruit.  Figs, dates, plums and prunes are all evident against a rich sweet chocolatey base.  Lots of other estery/spicy notes come out as the beer warms from cellar temperature.  This is another beer that is widely available so you shouldn’t really have any trouble finding it… if it’s been awhile since you’ve tried it, it’s worth picking up the next time you see it.

Tripel Karmeliet – I picked up a few bottles of this recently because I just couldn’t decide on what else I wanted.  It had been over two years since I’d had it and although I’d had a lot of tripels in the intervening time, none of them had really excited me (especially the plethora of truly awful American-brewed interpretations of the style… but that’s a story for another time).  This beer however, excited me.  Rich and spicy with loads of complex yeasty esters over a bone dry, lean malt base.  The spicy/peppery flavour blends very nicely with a creamy champagne-like effervescence.  This is one beer that is now in my routine rotation and it would make a fine addition to any holiday dinner table.

Bells Two Hearted Ale – Mmmm, mmmm, hoppy goodness.  This beer is an ode to the hop.  Bright, juicy citrus with tropical pineapple and mango flavour over a nice lean maltiness it is a classic in the IPA category.  Cheap and widely available, you would do yourself a favour to try it again.  As always with IPAs, freshness is key… fortunately Bells has batch numbers on all of their products to assure that you are getting a fresh product.  When a six-pack won’t do, this beer is also available in 5L mini-kegs.

New Glarus Belgian Tart – Although this beer isn’t terribly widely available, it is terribly good.  Loaded with bright, fresh Wisconsin cherries and a kiss of spiciness from the cherry pits, this beers just drips with fruity goodness.  Sweet base malts with a touch of cocoa and sweet lightly toasted malts, this beer is like drinking cherry pie.  A light bracing acidity on the back cleanses the palate and prepares it for the next mouthful.  Another great addition to a celebratory meal.

Victory Prima Pils – Although most of the beer on this list are higher-gravity ales, the folks at Victory have been brewing delicious, high-quality pilsner for over ten years.  Although I’m pointing out Prima Pils here, Victory also seasonally produces a seasonal pilsner called Braumeister Pils… I highly recommend that if you haven’t had one of these recently you do so.  Bright, juicy and zesty with loads of lemony/herbal hops over a soft sweet, crackery pale malt, these beers are delicious, balanced and easy to drink, either with food or without.  I highly recommend trying these beers again if it’s been awhile since you’ve had it.

St. Bernardus Christmas Ale – With Christmas coming up in the next few weeks, it seemed only appropriate to include at least one seasonal beer in this roundup.  St. Bernardus Christmas Ale is similar to the regular St. Bernardus Abt, but with a touch more fruitiness and spiciness.  Although it hasn’t been brewed for a terribly long time, this beer is already a classic.  Rich and plummy with a lot of sweet chewy malts, this beer is a delicious and festive drink for the holiday season.

Although there is always reason to get excited about all of the new beers and developments in the craft beer world, I encourage folks to revisit these and other highly regarded beers and rediscover just why they deserve their reputation as classics.