A few days worth of drinking, caught on camera
OK…the Guldenberg and the Jolly Pumpkin are definitely not mass produced, and you could probably convince me that a couple others aren’t…but these are mostly mass produced beers. We chuckled about the claim on Anchor’s label that it was one of the smallest breweries in the world.
This mass craft exploration happened because we didn’t want to drive all the way across town to the one place we knew to have Kulmbacher Edelherb (my favorite mass produced craft beer). Instead, we went to the local liquor store. They had no decent pils beers in 6-packs. We couldn’t even get a 6er of Paulaner Pils…unless we bought it loose…so we made a mixed 6 with some things we either hadn’t tried, or hadn’t tried in a long time. Then, two days later, I did the same thing again at the local super grocery.
The results were interesting…kind of. Not much on that counter will be purchased again if I have a choice. The Paulaner was probably one of the better beers. The Left Hand Polestar Pils was good…tasting like blueberries, which I’m not sure was intended or normal, but was nice. The Shiner bock was OK, the biggest surprise of the group I think. The Sierra Nevada Kellerweiss was very nice.
There were two really bad beers. Each one got dumped for different, yet similar reasons. One I expected: Redhook Sunrye. I took a chance because I’ve been homebrewing some light rye lagers and have really enjoyed them. I thought maybe Redhook could handle it. I can’t really describe the taste. There wasn’t much there. Fizzy and watery…I did get a hint of rye, but then the finish made me nearly gag. I’m not sure what they did for hops on this, but I don’t think there were any there…just a taste that reminded me of adjunct filled lagers…Dumped. Save the liver.
The surprise was a beer from a real craft brewery that I had pulled from my cellar. Midnight Sun Sockeye IPA. I seem to recall liking this when I sampled it at the brewery back in January, and I was looking forward to trying it again. My initial reaction was that it had a very similar character to a marijuana beer I had brewed early this year. The weed gave the beer a very peppery, earthy bitterness…almost like dirt in a way. It was subtle in mine. In the Sockeye, it was all I could taste. Overpowering harsh, dirty bitterness. American hops at their worst. I couldn’t get through my glass, not to mention the 22oz bottle. Dumped. Save the liver.
I’m so glad I have a visual record of all the work and dedication I’ve given to this blog since Tuesday. I hope you are happy, blog. I drank beer and took pictures for you!
I’m excited to try the SN kellerweiss, unfortunately is hasn’t showed up in these parts. The whole open fermentation thing is very intruiging to me. Do you have any thoughts on the impact open fermentation has on franconian lagers? General quality correlation with the breweries you visited?
Knowing that Sierra Nevada has all the air quality controlled very rigorously, and I believe even regulates the air pressure, I’m not sure what the difference would be…the argument would be more like the thing with Chimay that people talk about…how they went from open squares, to tall skinny conicals with fermentation under pressure. I guess that is the biggest thing: surface area and pressure. I might even go so far as to say that Sierra Nevada is just using this as a gimmick and there isn’t anything inherently superior about it than if they made the beer any other way.
Some of the places in Franconia don’t use open fermentation, some do…and some have more ambient influence than others, especially in some of the kellerbiers that are put in kellers “unbunged”. That’s basically open “conditioning”
The biggest factor in the quality is the brewer.
I did notice that there was quite a bit of sediment, which I think is the biggest factor for the wheat beers (or any beer): unfiltered. No way to tell if Sierra is filtering, and then adding back something afterwards though…some breweries do that, and I haven’t noticed much sediment in the other Sierra beers lately, I don’t think.
It does seem a lot cooler, though. Have you seen the pics I took in the fermentation room at Westvleteren? Pretty nifty seeing those beers fermenting in the open like that. It certainly is possible that Sierra Nevada’s Weiss is different and maybe better because they are using the open fermenters, but I don’t think that means there is a general rule for that. Mainly, what you want is people making beers in traditional ways, and understanding the quality and character of the beer…but that doesn’t require an open fermenter.
That being said, if I were in a situation where I could build my own brewery…I’d include at least a couple open fermenters.
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