The craft beer facade

The beer brewing industry is made up of three major segments: large domestics, imports and craft. The post prohibition dominance of conglomerated domestic breweries has since homogenized most of the world’s beer into cold yellow fizz. For decades now, U.S. craft breweries have fought back, reinventing flavorful lagers and ales and steadily educating a consumer base for their products. Although still relatively small, the success of craft brewed beer is beginning to weigh on the other segments, forcing major adjustments in the world of brewing.

All beer is made from four natural ingredients: barley, wheat and/or rye malts, hops, water and yeast. Mega breweries, like Anheuser-Busch, Coors and Labatt supplement the malt portion of their recipes with corn and rice (known as adjuncts) to lighten and cheapen their products. Craft breweries typically use more expensive versions of these ingredients and brew their products relatively inefficiently while large scale breweries use cheaper ingredients and but much more efficient methods. By the numbers, the Brewers Association defines a craft brewery as producing less than 2,000,000 barrels a year and large breweries more than that amount. This results in $10-$15 retail priced 12 oz. six-packs of craft and $6-$8 six-packs for large domestics. However, like cheap gas, cheap beer is a thing of the past. As barley and hop farmers continually opt for the more profitable subsidized corn, soy and biofuel crops, no brewery is safe from rising ingredient costs. This agricultural change, along with the lessening value of the U.S. dollar and increased global climate change, exasperates production expenses and forces brewers and beer drinkers alike into a new world of challenges where things are no longer quite what they seem.

The large domestic brewing industry segment is dependant on sales growth, not mere sustainability, which has been difficult to achieve with costs perpetually increasing. Yet there’s another problem for the big breweries: the craft beer segment just keeps growing, 12% in 2007 as compared to non-craft’s static 1.4%, hence cutting into their profits. Even though breweries at the top of the U.S. beer market are still growing, the increase isn’t happening fast enough. These challenges are stressing the current shape of the beer industry and cracks are starting to show. In response, large breweries like A-B and Coors are brewing products which resemble craft beer in an attempt to move into the growing market. This confuses both the definition of craft beer and the people trying to buy it. At the other end of the business, Belgian beer conglomerate InBev (Beck’s, Bass, Stella Artois) is attempting a takeover of A-B, the last “American Owned” mega-brewery, furthering homogenization of what the world understands as “beer”.

One may wonder how a large brewery like A-B could even make a craft segment product, and the fact that they do calls into question the definition of “craft” itself. The Brewers Association distinguishes using production volume, Dogfish’s Sam Calagione adds that a craft brewery must be independently owned and utilize expensive and flavorful ingredients. Craft beer brewers and drinkers understand what Calagione is saying, but the concept is still a little ambiguous, especially when one considers all breweries must turn a profit. Just like the big boys, the business is to turn beer into money.

However, domestic and craft brewed beer is different not only in formulation but also in conception. Domestic producers take these differences with them as they pry into the craft market, driven by their crazed need to constantly secure new markets for future sales growth. Although not all craft breweries are guiltless in this policy, many of them do realize not every gas station in every state, not to mention across the globe, needs to have a cooler full of their product. Or do they?

Such circumstances enculture mirrored phenomena within the brewing industry segments. While A-B, Coors and the rest try to sell craft-like products to increasingly educated beer drinkers, craft breweries continually look to grow and disseminate their products to more and more markets. While the business models may be similar in theory (increase profits), large domestics and craft breweries obviously have differing approaches selling to craft beer segment consumers: large breweries imitate craft products while craft breweries attempt to convert domestic beer drinkers. Both sides take it personal.

Here’s what you’re going to get from large domestics: consistent, light body, light flavor, easy drinking, large budget, colored and flavored lagers and wheat beers. A-B’s “Sundog Amber Wheat” (I thought New Holland made Sundog?), “Stone Mill Pale Ale”, “Wild Blue Blueberry Lager”, “Michelob Marzen”, “Shock Top Belgian White” and Coor’s “Blue Moon” are all designed to dupe the consumer into believing he or she has just purchased a small hand- crafted beer, possibly even made locally from the finest and freshest ingredients available. Craft brewers vehemently oppose both the actual beverage in the trendy bottle and the attempt to pass them off as being independently brewed. They argue these products are tenuous imitations of true craft quality products. Less harsh and concerned critics may just find they like these beers, no matter their lack of brewing integrity, helping level the playing field in the craft brew arena.

What you’re going to get from craft brewed beer is largely determined by the individual brewery. It’s well known craft does not necessarily imply quality; however, most successful and many not-so-well known craft breweries produce high quality historic and experimental styles of beer. True iconoclastic renegades, such as Jolly Pumpkin, Dogfish Head, Founders, Three Floyd’s and Surly breweries (note the vast disparity in production volumes) seem to actually brew what they want as opposed to what is wanted. However, the current grass roots and online network of support for these and other ultra hot breweries seems to have created a special environment in which successful growth feels imminent.

As far as craft brewer’s complaints against “culture vulture” duplication attempts, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. One-dimensional, commercially hyped proxy craft beers may eventually earn themselves a small niche, probably right next to Pete’s Wicked “Strawberry Blond.” Not likely will craft beer consumers confuse a Jolly Pumpkin “Madrugada Obscura” with an A-B “Wild Hop Lager.” Come on guys, I think you can handle them. But if you are new to craft beer, read the small print!

recoilmag.com volume 8 issue 7 july 50

Raw Milk...in a Pasteurized World

A dive into the world of Raw Milk is vertiginous. With just a little questioning, our basic health and diet concepts, which we naively assume to be given truths, start to melt apart like good mild cheddar. As Americans, we’re supposed to eat less fat, and lower our cholesterol. Whole grains, veggie snacks, skim milk, fat free chocolates; these are a parent’s weapons with which to help their family fight obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer. So how come they’re not working? Could the way we process our milk and dairy products be part of our nation’s health problems?

In the debate between conventional dairy wisdom (mandated pasteurization and homogenization, grain fed “super-cows”, large scale farming) and the Raw Milk campaign (no pasteurization, grass pasture fed cows, organic and smaller farming practices), personal education is most likely the path to wisdom and a useful understanding of the subject. One the one hand, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, representing convention, informs us: “The pasteurization process uses heat to destroy harmful bacteria without significantly changing milk's nutritional value or flavor. In addition to killing disease-causing bacteria, pasteurization destroys bacteria that cause spoilage, extending the shelf life of milk.” Raw Milk advocates argue, “Pasteurization destroys enzymes, diminishes vitamin content, denatures fragile milk proteins, destroys vitamins C, B12 and B6, kills beneficial bacteria, promotes pathogens and is associated with allergies, increased tooth decay, colic in infants, growth problems in children, osteoporosis, arthritis, heart disease and cancer.”

To summarize the positions, the largely funded pasteurization proponents argue that the vitamins and flavors lost during the processing of milk are acceptable collateral damage considering the total health benefits of eradicating human pathogens, and they have financed the research to prove it. The less funded opponents feel pasteurization is not only unnecessary, but symptomatic of a society dangerously disconnected with the food it eats.

Since its institution over one hundred years past, pasteurization has greatly reduced human suffering and increased mortality. Today it’s the law, with its particulars mandated separately by each state. If we were only to weigh the greater good afforded to dairy consumers over the past century by the practice of heating milk before imbibing there would be no valid argument against its practice. So what gives? Conventional “proven” wisdom is not often taken to task. Generally, American consumers do not question what the scientists and policy makers at the U.S. FDA tell us. It’s a very confusing world and we must trust to their wisdom. However, the core of the Raw Milk position is not based on falsifying the FDA’s testimony, rather in exposing what it has no interest in addressing: blatant problems, alternatives and natural, holistic betterments. The negative effects created by pasteurization are little known, under-researched and, arguably, no longer even necessary. For whom then is the sustentation of pasteurization good for, the consumer or the dairy industry?

Raw Milk advocates will tell you that a combination of better dairy practices and modern refrigeration neutralizes the necessity of pasteurization, arguing the disease causing organisms which occur in pre pasteurized milk are simply a result of a haphazardly managed, inorganic, “we’ll clean it up at the end with heat” philosophy. ww.Realmilk.com, the website for the Campaign for Real Milk, funded by the Weston A. Price Foundation, will tell you that modern dairy farms do not operate in the cleanest, healthiest, and most ecologically concerned manners, and why should they? Pasteurizing the dirty pathogen laden milk before packaging should clean up the mess. The campaign critically evaluates our modern dairy farming practices waving pasteurization as its black flag and shaming homogenization, standardization of fat percentages, fat free fetishes and other ultra modern practices, exposing them for what they truly are: the cheapest and easiest way for the dairy industry to get their products to market.

According to critics of institutionalized pasteurization, heating milk physically destroys nutrients, healthy bacteria, and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which is touted to have anticancer properties, along with those pesky human pathogens. The FDA’s own research has yet to prove similar results. Along with applying heat, Homogenization is employed to standardize and control the fat content in milk. This is done by force filtering milk through tiny holes, breaking down the milk solids and inhibiting the rich cream to rise to the top, completely altering the physical and chemical properties of milk.

Raw Milk, being unheated with its milk solids intact, contains higher amounts of fats and cholesterol than its processed and homogenized counterpart. In our processed and preserved diets, fat and cholesterol are supposed to be the bad guys. Unfortunately, too few of us currently understand that there are many different kinds of fats and cholesterol, some bad, but many necessary for survival. In general, these two chemical substances affect our circulatory systems. According to www.raw-milk-facts.com, “Overeating sugar or white flour products causes a spike in insulin, the hormone which, besides controlling blood sugar, also triggers the formation of fats destined for storage. The fats in raw milk aren't the problem. It's the half a bag of chocolate chip cookies you're dunking in it.” Raw Milk’s cholesterol is similarly healthy in that it combats levels of clogging plaque cooked animal cholesterols found in many of our diets.

So where does this leave low fat milks and the highly revered skim milk? Since such a large portion of milk is water, and homogenization and other separating procedures are used to remove and reprocess the rich top cream and buttermilk, the dairy industry has a large excess of extremely low fat content “milk”. Even they have little to say about the benefits of skim milk beyond its low level of fat, and the Weston A. Price Foundation for Wise Traditions is calling them out: “When children are denied the high-fat and cholesterol-rich foods they need to develop normally, the result is behavior problems ranging from autistic withdrawal to uncontrolled consumption of processed food.” The short piece, titled “Food Puritanism” published last fall, concludes that tasteless plain grain, skim milk, low fat diets encourage fits of “food pornography” – binge eating of candy, processed sweets and sodas – and an unhealthy diet pattern of extremes.

Is the FDA then a puppet of the powerful “got milk?” dairy industry, conspiring to deprive Americans of health and well being? In learning about the benefits and concerns of Raw Milk and pasteurization, a complex paradigm in which the individual, family and community confront the machinery of bureaucratic industrial progress is exposed. Pasteurization and homogenization simply works better for the dairy industry, its regulatory agency, and the total infrastructure for production and distribution of dairy goods. But what’s good for the system isn’t necessarily good for you.

Is Raw Milk then the answer to our society’s dietary woes? The Raw Milk renaissance itself, like home beer brewers, wood burners, clothe makers, small self sufficient farmers, and other self empowered pioneers, is symptomatic of a much wider collective movement which began in the 1960’s after one unofficial and two official wars, of closing the gap between us humans and the natural world. Like home wine, vinegar, maple syrup and cheese makers, Raw Milk drinkers and producers are not in the business of replacing the current infrastructure: they simply attempt to bypass it.

Even if legalized, a Raw Milk industry would not work on a large scale. For one, many of the benefits of unpasteurized dairy products are determined by the cow, goat, sheep, water buffalo, yak or moose’s diet. The dairy industry is currently grain based and Raw Milk yields the most health benefits when the cows, Jersey instead of Holstein, are fed on green grass pastures. Cows are ruminants, natural grass eaters, and do not do well living on grain, soy and alfalfa diets. Breeding and drugs keep the modern dairy cow going and increases the milk production but ultimately shortens their life span. The cow’s overused teats and udders react by filling with white pus which must eventually be centrifuged away from the milk. The conventional attitude towards this: no worries if a little pus gets in the milk, pasteurization will take care of it! Therefore, today’s dairy farming practices make pasteurization absolutely necessary.

Any hope for change in sight? On a large scale, no change will happen until consumers shift their support away from large industrial dairy producers and begin to seek out healthy alternatives. How about trying to buy your milk from a local dairy farmer? If this isn’t possible, at least inquire about where your milk comes from and how it is processed.

The Raw Milk debate should help remove a little bit of our nation’s naivety concerning our diets. Milk fat and cholesterol are not the enemies – processed, refined, additive laden, artificially preserved sugars, vegetable oils and flours are. It cannot be stressed enough: not all Raw Milk is the same. If it’s not produced in a sanitary manner, it could prove deadly! However, disconnecting ourselves completely from this sweet, nutritious and life giving fluid may also prove to be yet another small step towards our civilization’s demise.

Interview with Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head craft brewery

Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head Brewery talks about his sense of purpose

In 1993 Sam Calagione, owner of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery based in Milton, Delaware, home brewed his first batch of beer out on the East Coast. The local craft beer scene at the time was limited and underground; Calagione was about to change that. He took a look around, checked to see which way the mass beer trends were flowing, and decided to swim upstream. No light lagers for Dogfish; instead, Calagione opted for candied fruits, old world spices, continuous hopping regiments and parameter shattering abv’s to distinguish his creations. Two years after his first batch, Calagione opened Dogfish Head Brewings and Eats. Back then he brewed ten gallons batches, now he puts up 100 barrels each brew session.

This spring Dogfish invaded California with this mighty three beer line-up: 90 Minute IPA (9% abv), a continuously hopped Imperial I.P.A., Midas Touch (9% abv), an anciently inspired honey, saffron, Muscat grape and barley based elixir designed to please both beer geeks and Chardonnay drinkers alike, and Palo Santo Marron (12% abv), a strong Brown Ale aged in massive and moneyed Paraguayan wooden vats. Currently he’s been touring the nation speaking about his latest of three books: He Said Beer, She Said Wine. As you’ll find out below, Calagione’s Yankee ingenuity and rugged individualism epitomizes America’s artisan food and craft brewing culture.

Wes Eaton: Would you give us some back story to your experimentation with non-traditional ingredients with some culinary insight?

Sam Calagione: Sure. When we opened in 1995 we were the smallest commercial brewery in America. At that time there were 800 US breweries. I researched what I wanted to do, I was just kind of a manically obsessed home brewer and back in my apartment in Manhattan I was creating beers while I was writing my business plan. I was always trying to make beers like nothing that was out there. Then, just as now, the domestic beer landscape was dominated my three breweries: Miller, Coors and Bud, and they’re all essentially making very slight variations of the exact same product: a light lager beer. So I knew from the get-go I had no interest in brewing those kinds of beers. That’s when the concept of off-centered ales for off-centered people came about. Basically, we’re never going to appeal to the majority of people out there, so let’s just have fun and brew for ourselves, and hopefully there’ll be a growing community of hard-core beer folk that want to explore the outer-limit of what beer can be. We opened our restaurant with a tiny, inefficient, ten gallon brewery, and we had to brew two, three times a day, that small scale allowed me to experiment without too much risk. I’d go into the kitchen of the restaurant and take some coffee or raisons or licorice root and incorporate them into that day’s brew. Our reputation for brewing exotic brews came from those humble beginnings.

Eaton: Talk about the relationship between wine and beer. What do you want people new to this cross roads in alcoholic beverages to understand?

Calagione: Wine culture is further evolved than beer culture in America. The average consumer understands that an amazing bottle of Merlot can justifiably cost three times as much as a crappy bottle. That same consumer is just now beginning to understand that an amazing four-pack of wood-aged, 12% abv beer fermented with organic brown sugar, as is the case with Palo Santo Marron, can still be a great value at three times the price of a six-pack of generic lager. The West Coast is recognized as the premier wine region in America and the average consumer in that region is more open to the idea of approaching beer with the same respect.

Eaton: How do you think your distinct beers will be accepted here in California?

Calagione: It actually helps us that the wine culture is so evolved on the West Coast because our beers are very wine like in their flavor profiles, alcohol content and their food compatibility.

Eaton: You’re known to many as a poet, builder, brewer, filmmaker and writer – was brewing the key to the actualization of your passions? How do you define yourself?

Calagione: I’m the brewer first; the rest of the stuff is just hobbies. I mean for me they all kind of augment the making and the selling of beer. I write the books as educational programs and components which teach people how to brew and get comfortable with drinking beers that have non-traditional ingredients. I try to teach people just what Dogfish is, that’s sort of what the first book is about (Brewing Up a Business), and then He Said Beer She Said Wine is all about making wine people comfortable appreciating and understanding good beer in the context of food and beer people understand wine in the context of food.

Eaton: I read Raison D’Etre was designed as a beverage that would be the ultimate complement to a steak dinner. Is food pairing always this important at Dogfish?

Calagione: Yeah. Right from the beginning we knew that we were going to be brewing beers that were a lot closer to wine in alcohol content, complexity and food compatibility. The best way to highlight that was to pay careful attention to what foods we recommended pairing with each of these beers. Since we opened as a restaurant brewery, we also had the ability to feature on our menu the idea that for every great food item there is a perfect beer match. A lot of times, like in the case of the Raison D’Etre, we were actually designing beers backwards from what would be the ideal partner in the food world.

Eaton: Beyond beer, Dogfish distills distinct spirits which stress the definition even of “Extreme Beer.” Are these natural evolutions of continued fermentation exploration or intentional directions for Dogfish?

Calagione: We use our mission statement as a dynamic compass. If you pull out the word “ale” and put in “distilled spirits” it still rings true. We’re not doing what the big distilleries do; we’re following our own path as we do in our brewery. In the case of a distillery product like our Brown Honey Rum, (which is) aged on honey while it sits in oak, which is very unique, it’s perfectly in keeping with our vision. Our distillery is 1/1000th the size of our brewery, but it’s still a fun little project that we think adds vibrancy to what Dogfish Head is all about.

Eaton: Dogfish is also known for its historical and ancient ales like Midas Touch and Chateau Jiahu, talk about these experiences and recipes.

Calagione: Certainly the majority of our recipes come from our own inspiration, we think about which unique ingredients will work in a beer that have never been used before. But we sort of stumbled into being this specialty brewery for ancient beverages, and that’s right up our alley. (Ancient recipe beers) are like liquid time capsules. They allow people to come face-to-face with the history of civilization, not just the history of fermented beverages. In the case of our Chateau Jiahu, it’s got a 9,000 year pedigree and is recognized as the oldest know fermented beverage. This also silences the naysayers about the validity of “extreme brewing” because it shows that at the beginning of civilization people were making really exotic, multi-fermentation sugar source beverages to celebrate special occasions. Therefore, Chateau Jiahu has sake yeast, sake rice, and hawthorn fruit. Midas Touch has honey, grapes and saffron. We’re doing another ancient ale with the oldest known chocolate discovered in Central America. Before humans were eating chocolate they were drinking it as a fermented beverage. The beer (called Theo Broma) therefore has Chilean cocoa nibs, cocoa powder and tree seeds and is coming out in August.

Eaton: There is a culture clash within the brewing and drinking community over the ambiguously termed "Extreme Beers". Talk about your role in formulating these out-of-bounds beers. When you began brewing high gravity, sugar and spiced infused exotic brews did you know you were taking part in the next movement of the American Craft Beer Revolution?

Sam Calagione: I don’t think it was anything that conscious. Our motto of off-centered ales for off-centered people wasn’t really derivative of anything of the mid-nineties. Nobody was focused on strong, exotic beers when we started. We were considered sort of side-show freaks and black sheep, like what we were doing was novelty. But again, as beer culture started to evolve and expand, this niche within the greater craft brewing niche became extreme brewing. While we didn’t come up with that term for it, (extreme brewing) was all that Dogfish did since the day we opened. Our brewery was recognized as a pioneer within that niche.

I don’t think there’s that much backlash (against extreme beer.) There are a few isolated brewers who don’t like the term, but at the end of the day it’s not really up to us to give it a name, it’s up to the consumer. It’s sort of an elitist position to rebuff extreme brewing because the people have spoken and they want these kinds of beers. Look at the growth of breweries like Dogfish, Russian River, or Allagash, who brew these exciting and unique beers which people really enjoy. Beer is subjective. No brewer should be so elitist as to determine for people what they should be drinking.

Eaton: Nine years ago the storied “Beer Hunter” Michael Jackson and you spent a day together. Raisin D’Etre, Chicory, Shelter Pale and Immort Ale were already on your menu and a new 30 bbl brew house was being constructed. Talk about the changes you have seen in our beer culture since then and your contribution to this dynamic enclave.

Calagione: In that era Immort Ale was among the first wood aged beers since craft breweries came about and was (also) exotic, incorporating maple syrup, peat-smoked barley and vanilla beans. Frankly, we could barely give it away. Nobody was willing to pay $13.00 for a six-pack of beer, so we had a real tough time. We started as the smallest brewery, today we’re one of the fastest growing breweries, and I think the 35th biggest brewery in the country out of 1400. While I’m proud of all that growth, what I’m most proud of is that we never discounted or dumbed-down our beers in order to achieve growth. That shows that while we’ve been very lucky to be able to stick to our original mission and achieve this incredible growth, it’s really indicative of how far the average beer consumer’s I.Q., experimentation and interest level has come.

Eaton: As you and Dogfish Head redefine the term “beer”, do you find the conventional terminology frustrating or do you see it as a necessary challenge?

Calagione: Frustrating. Not because of a few people who take shots at extreme beer and want things to be like they were 100 years ago, but because our government is very restrictive in the licensing process. When we go to get a beer label approved or new beer brand that has a non-traditional ingredient they make you go through a million steps. They’ve very subjective on their definitions. For instance, they will not let us call the Theo Broma an ale, even though it’s fermented with ale yeast. Because of all the special ingredients we need to call it a “malt beverage”. That undermines what we’re doing. “Malt beverage” sounds very generic compared to “ale”. The bureaucratic hoops that we have to jump through just to present these unique beers are stifling.

Eaton: What really makes a craft beer craft beer?

Calagione: Three things: craft beer comes from an independent brewery with no ownership from a big brewery and is made by a traditional brewery which uses barley or exotic, more expensive and flavorful sugars and not the cheap rice and corn that the big breweries use. Also it has to come from a small brewery, defined by the Brewer’s Association as less than two million barrels (annual production). The consumer wants to know where their beer is made in the same way that they want to support their local coffee roaster, local baking company and to buy locally. The big breweries are seeing the small craft breweries growth and that that’s where the excitement in the beer industry is. They’re trying to co-opt that growth and in essence act as culture vultures and try to confuse the consumer as to what real craft beer is.

Palo Santo Marron is an example of what Dogfish Head is all about. There’s no precedent for it. All other breweries are aging beers on oak, kind of the go-to wood of the beverage industry for malt whiskey, wine or beer. We do some beers in oak, but we found this really exotic wood from Paraguay. A high-end flooring salesman brought us some samples and we did a test batch and aged some beer on it. It has really high resin content and the alcohol, which acts as a solvent, strips the natural oils from the wood and we found that it imparted this amazing, unparalleled, caramel, vanilla character to the beer. So we went for it, went all out, and built the biggest wooden brewing vessel made in America since before prohibition out of this exotic wood. Each tank that we built cost $110,000. The return on the investment in this tank in measured in decades not even years, but we’re a private company we don’t give a shit. We’re not being held to invertors to make more profits every quarter. This is a labor of love. While this is a very expensive project, it’s one that we believe enhances what our company is all about. Will it ever sell as well as 60 Minute I.P.A. or Raison D’Etre? Probably not, but we don’t care; it’s just another beer that we’re excited to drink and we’re glad people are excited to try it as well.

Eaton: I’m excited; I’ll be drinking that one tonight.

Beer, Maple Syrup and Balsamic Vinegar

Experiencing the multitude of styles and flavors found in beer, from sour Belgians to bitter German Pilsners, opens new culinary worlds. Each of the world’s beers at one time accompanied a cooking style and culinary tradition. Sipping on Belgian and German ales in particular inspires me to try chewy baked pretzels, heavy brown sauces and tangy fermented vegetables. When I’m not brewing at home, I’m trying out everything from beer-can chicken to Saison reduction sauces and stout Balsamic Vinegar glazes. The excitement and satisfaction I get now from exploring new and different foods is a direct extension of my earlier exploration of the beer styles of the world. A growing comprehension of the basic mechanics and chemistry used in making the foods I cook and eat and the beers and wines, meads and ciders I serve along side contributes a wholesome and rewarding feeling to the daily deeds of my life. A connectedness is being created where once indifference and even frustration accompanied the thought of cooking dinner seven days a week. With this in mind, maple syrup and balsamic vinegar, my new favorite food interests, succinctly embody both my culinary and brewing sensibility. Here’s a little bit about my experiences making and enjoying these exquisite liquid foods.

Heading to our family’s cabin early each spring to tap Sugar Maple trees and make pure maple syrup has become an annual tradition. The process is similar to boiling up a batch of homebrew, only much less complex. Sap is collected from the maple trees and evaporated down to syrup; in concept, it’s that simple. In Michigan, Sugar Maples are abundant and sap flows twice a year, in late fall and early spring. Using a brace bit and plastic tapping spiles our small group taps 50 to 60 Sugar Maples three feet up on the southeast side of the tree trunks near Big Rapids a couple weeks before the snow begins to melt. Hoses are run from the taps to three gallon covered buckets tucked in the snow against the trunk of the trees. Once the weather balances around 40 degree days and 20 degree nights, the sap begins to flow and much celebration takes place. While the sap is being collected, our makeshift evaporator, consisting of a large shallow pan and two burners, is constructed. To make Grade A, lick-out-the-pan quality maple syrup, all you have to do is boil. Sap is approximately two to four percent sugar, so to get it to the required consistency of 65 percent sugar, a lot of sap, time, and fuel is required. Forty gallons sap, 14 hours and 30 pounds of propane gas later, you’ll get something like a gallon. We have plans to upgrade our operation, but for now, I still flinch when someone asks for a little bit more on their pancakes. Our family’s virgin batch from four years past is still the most superb; the intense, clean, low viscosity, honey-like sugariness surpassed my expectations, an experience similar to my first experience with Italian Balsamic Vinegar.

As a home winemaker I’ve learned to keep my wines away from air, less they turn to vinegar – surely a dour mishap; and ever since I have had no interest in the liquid handed to Christ in place of water. That was until last fall’s trip to Zingerman’s Deli in Ann Arbor, where I was treated to an ordered tasting of aged Balsamic Vinegars. That’s right: they poured the vinegar into small cups and we sipped! Beginning with three-year and up to 30-year aged samples, the flavors grew from sharp acid and blackberry juice to heavily fruited Lambic with an intense, palate-coating tactile acidic sheen. I had no idea vinegar could be a delicacy! I left with a new appreciation, a small and expensive bottle, and a basic conception of its creation.

World class Balsamic is made in Italy from the juice of the red Trebbiano grape and is graded and certified by an exclusive Italian governing board. To make, the grape juice is allowed first to ferment, like wine, into alcohol, and is then stored in large wooden vats and barrels. These age-old vessels (some up to 500 years) are air porous, allowing the fresh wine to slowly breathe and evaporate. Acetobacteria, the secret agent for all vinegar-making, has steadily built up in the walls of the wood. This bacterium, which is naturally found in the air we breathe, slowly digests the alcohol into something new: Balsamic Vinegar. The longer the vinegar ages, the more evaporation that occurs and the more concentrated, and valuable, it becomes. Vinegar can be made at home and I’m looking into it.

These new food discoveries, derived from my passion for beer, have all helped to reshape the way I approach time in the kitchen. Cooking, which was once a dreary chore, is now my favorite part of the day.

Epicurean Delight

The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus (341 – 270 B.C.) said, "We cannot live pleasurably without living prudently, gracefully, and justly; and we cannot live prudently gracefully, and justly, without living pleasurably." Interestingly enough, the man was talking about food and drink. His philosophy, Epicureanism, sought to admonish the pain accompanying a mortal life with pleasure and happiness derived from sensory experiences and friendships. He also talked about abstaining from sex, but that has sort of fallen from the record in my book. Modern Epicureans are simply people who enjoy good food, wine and beer. However, culturing an appreciative palate involves more than just the appreciation of creative eating and sipping; for as Epicurus himself noted, pleasurable partaking is inseparably intertwined with the ideals of justice, grace and prudence.

Quite contrary to those ideals, what we Americans actually consume is such a confusing mess evenfood experts such as author Michael Pollan can’t trace how modern meals make it to our plates. Like many, I was weaned on dry, bland burgers, Kraft Mac & Cheese, fountain soda pops and eventually yellow, fizzy beers and legless Chardonnays, completely unaware of how the food and drink our family purchased was raised, grown, produced or transported to the local grocery store we bought it from. There’s something grossly wrong with not only the eating and drinking choices manyof us make, but also with how our food in general is produced, distributed, advertised and prepared. How imprudent!

Some personal life experiences helped start a change in my eating ideals: heart illnesses and lactose intolerance in my family, Ebola and e coli in the news, nationwide rampant obesity and the constant rise of food and fuel costs dissolved my temperate ignorance of not only my meal choices but also our culture’s collective diet. You are what you eat, even if you don’t know what it is you’re eating. We are now slowly waking up from this Blue Light Special, fast food, toxin-induced slumber while everything around still says to chill out and eat another double cheeseburger. But hey, it’s a capitalist economy, you know? Big fish eats the little one. Budweiser has budgeted $35 million alone to advertise for the forthcoming Bud Lite Lime! How could we resist? Profit has been the purpose, not the production of healthy and ecologically sustainable products, and certainly not prudent, just, or graceful food. However, as the Epicurean awakes in more and more of us eaters and drinkers, things are beginning to change. Unhealthy and downright dangerous foods are increasingly under the wide eye of discriminative consumers and, as always, we’re ready for next new and better thing.

We are dynamic beings. Our taste changes and preferences shift. For most of us lucky Americans, there’s a lot to choose from when it comes to quenching our thirst and satisfying our hunger. Unlike my dog, who rolls and shakes with pleasure every morning for the same cup of Eukanuba, I scratch my head and rub my belly thinking, "bacon, oatmeal, venison tenderloin and onions, rice and raisons, or Carnation Instant Breakfast…" Lots to consider there, but eventually we all decide and eat. Economics plays a big part in this decision. To be an epicurean today is to base the decision of who and what to support with our daily purchases on more than just self satisfaction and personal pleasure. An Epicurean recognizes that personal health, sustainable food and beverage production and the enjoyment of intriguing and well-prepared food and drinks are all things interconnected in the local and national economy. Do I want to stop at the local bakery this morning, or try the new Wendy’s breakfast chicken biscuit? Did I know there was a local bakery? Can I resist the billboard staring at me through the window? We all hold dear our personal freedom of choice and individual preference, but making decisions of this sort is kind of like casting a vote. Who is getting my money and what are they going to do with it? Actually, my mouth probably wouldn’t mind the breakfast biscuit, the flavor of saturated fat and high fructose corn syrup has been ingrained in my psyche since childhood. That is, were it not for my knowing that those birds were pumped with antibiotics I can’t pronounce and caged so tight they couldn’t turn around. Feeling good about which businesses you support really makes life taste better. Unfortunately, learning about where our food comes from can lead to disillusionment. Still, it’s a petty tradeoff for enlightenment.

The success of the organic, green, local and slow food revolutions coupled with the rise of independent and innovative craft breweries, wineries and distilleries shows we eaters and drinkers are seeking new sources for nourishment and enjoyment. And we are supporting them with our purchases. Such cultural movements attempt to succeed not only economically but also idealistically. This is viable because consumers continually patronize businesses, growers, producers and retailers who offer products which match the consumer’s personal values and budgets. This culmination is the crux by which Epicureanism is spreading from the privileged few to the middle-class many. In general, higher ethical and ecological morals invariably tend towards higher quality food and drink across all economic planes. This is not to say that every environmentally and socially conscious eatery serves first-rate food and that every craft brewery makes excellent beer. Not without talent, ambition, creativity and a sense of higher purpose can fine victuals and glorious ales be produced. Good ingredients, however, never hurt.

The Epicurean then demands a lot of the food they eat and the beverages they imbibe. Don’t be afraid to join our ranks; we’re not snobs, elitists, or princesses. We eat and drink pleasurably as a celebration of daily life. We purchase consciously and patronize purposefully. Taste is subjective, and many factors determine what each of us likes and dislikes flavor-wise. There is no static standard by which food can be judged against. A flavor can only be labeled good, bad, indifferent or confusing by the individual partaking. The more experienced of us know too that even those perceptions shift and evolve. Discovering what it is you desire is a big leap down the Epicurean path. Many of us eaters, however, have relegated eating to a mere daily chore which gives no joy and endows no inspiration. Few can eat brilliant and outstanding dishes three times a day, but we can all start to pay attention to what our bodies and mouths are telling us about or choices.

Big IPA Season

(Dave and Mike of Founders with Christina)

Lots of big IPAs on the shelves of West Michigan beer stores right now and on tap at breweries.


These beers are of a style soon to be temporarily extinct: over-hopped, inefficient, wasteful and glorious. Hops are now fast becoming scarce and expensive. Many breweries are opting not to brew these kinds of beers in the future in order to save hops and stretch them out over several batches. 2009 will prove to be even worse as far as hops go. But take heart; you could drink one today!

Founder's Devil Dancer (Grand Rapids, MI) - The most potent out there. I liken it to sipping congealing jello and hop juice. Nothing like it. Pretty sure Diamond brewed most of this year's batch.

Dark Horse Double Crooked Tree (Marshall, MI) - Very limited stuff. Waxed top. Very piny, sappy, wet hop tasting stuff. Sweet and tangy malt. Almost tastes like unfermented wort when it warms.

Bell's Hopslam (Kalamazoo, MI) Somehow this beer is very drinkable. A lot of people get in trouble with this, I know from experience. The most balanced of all these doubles.

Livery Double Paw (Bent0n Harbor, MI) Dark amber. Lots of hop flavor and aroma, balanced bitterness. On tap at brewery ans Hop Cat (Grand Rapids, MI)

Arcadia Hop Mouth (Battle Creek, MI) Distinct English take on an American Style

Arcadia Hop Rocket (Battle Creek, MI) Even more distinct. Particular spicy hop profile, sweet malt.

Stone Ruination (San Diego, CA) On the lighter side of the others listed here. Strong bitterness, easy drink-ability.

HE'BREW Lenny's Rye (Saratoga Springs, NY) Bittersweet, strong malt ans hop aromatics. Rye spiciness

Bitter Tony's Rye Bitter (Ann Arbor, MI) is flavorful session beer brewed with rye malt and lots of American Hops. (taken from website)

2008 MBG Winter Beer Festival

(Photos by Celia Kubiak except the top one which I took)

This past Saturday Feb 23rd the Michigan Brewer's Guild held their 3rd annual Winter Beer Festival at 5/3 Ballpark in Grand Rapids. Quite a bit different from the last two, which took place in one very large tent in Old Town Lansing, this year's event spanned the upper and lower decks of the ballpark, the concourse and pavilion. The spacious layout still managed to conjure up crowds, however, there were no crammed corners like at last year's event.

Beerfests are a lot of fun, in an intense, concentrated way. Here's how it went for me: I went to bed Friday night, woke up Saturday, had some breakfast, went to the beerfest, went home, ate dinner and the day was over. I woke up Sunday wondering where the weekend had gone. Before my coffee was finished perking in the pot Sunday morning I had already read some negative reviews posted by BA members on the beeradvocate website and I say "Boo hoo". It was icy, It was cold, the restrooms were crowded. These things I expected, possibly why they did not bother me. For one, it was very cold until the sun came out after 2pm or so. This, however, encouraged me to start drinking bigger beers earlier than I may have had it been warmer. So after the obvious quick samples of Night Tripper from New Holland, Curmudgeon Old Ale from Founders and Rich's Ice Rye from Short's, I got down to business.

Rochester Mill's Batch 1000 Barleywine snapped the chill from my toes and properly adjusted my mentality. Much ice was below my feet, snow was on the baseball field and the sun was shining on the numerous tiered tents. Crowds ebbed and flowed, green horns and pundits scowled and delighted, beer fans crossed their legs and danced while in line to the ubiquitiously lacking porta-johns. I introduced myself to someone I already knew and made a small fool of myself babbling to a brewer I admire. This is what the thing is all about.

It was very nice to see many of the faces I have meet over the course of my brewery travels. Friends from Bellaire, Warren, Marshall, Hastings, Detroit, Ann Arbor and Webberville. I recognized it was a long day for these out-of-towners. Getting there early and setting up the booths, not to mention organizing the event at this venue, cheers to all the work, time, and sleep given up to make this event such a success! Thinking about this made me both a little sleepy and hungry. I needed a quick one-two punch to get back in the drinking game: enter Sam Sherwood's (Walldorff) Smoked Ale and Kuhnhenn's Lambic, neither of which were listed in the handout. Bam! Mouth was cleared out, wife was happily sipping, and hunger cured.

Beyond the beer geeks and hop heads that usually patronize such a gathering, all other kinds of folks showed up to the sold out event, plenty of who knew not what they were getting into. Anyone with the ability to embrace the unexpected, however, probably had a great time. I overheard many people say "Mai Bock", "Barleywine", "Kolsch" and "Dunkel Weisse" for what sounded like the first time. The good thing was, a smile accompanied most every virgin sip