Past Newsletters
Vol. 5 No. 12
| Brewery | Beers Featured |
| Catamount Brewing Company | Catamount Pale Ale |
| Catamount Brewing Company | Catamount Oatmeal Stout |
| Ten Springs Brewing Company | Saratoga Classic Pilsner |
| Brooklyn Brewing Company | Brooklyn East India Pale Ale |
Catamount Brewing Company
Ever wanted to use the classic British pub line, "A pint of bitter, please. And one for the Queen as well."? Ever ask yourself just what the hell a Bitter is anyway? If so, we’re here to enlighten you. Included in this month's featured beers is Catamount Pale Ale, a fine representation of an English Bitter. Bitters are the most popular English beer style and the hallmark of English brewing. They are similar to pale ales, with the exception that pale ales have been bottled and bitters are usually dispensed on draft and by definition have slightly lower alcoholic content.
Since its release in 1995, Catamount Pale Ale has already taken the Silver at the World Beer Championships. Included in the judges comments on the beer were that it was well-balanced, clean, "bloody" smooth, and a stunning example of a bitter. As a product of Vermont's first commercial microbrewery since 1893, Catamount's win held special meaning for Brewmaster Stephen Mason.
You’ll also get a chance to try Catamount's Oatmeal Stout this month which was first brewed in 1996 as part of their Limited Edition Draught Series. It is now available in bottles and kegs as a spring seasonal. Stouts are Irish ales that trace their beginning to Dublin in the late 1700's. Irish "Porter" style beer was dubbed a "stout porter" by brewer Arthur Guinness. It was, in fact, a stronger beer than English porters were. The nickname stuck and Guinness' stout quickly became Ireland's drink of choice. A hundred years later, Guinness brewed nothing else but Irish stout. His brewery was the largest in the world at the time.
Stephen Mason is the Brewmaster and President of Catamount Brewing Company in Windsor, Vermont. Catamount Brewing Company was created in 1984 through a combination of public and private initiative, including private investments and loans from Vermont National Bank, Vermont Economic Development Agency, and the Small Business Administration. Within three years, Catamount was producing its first bottled microbrews. The company has steadily grown, and last year its expansion included a brewpub and restaurant. The craft brewery is located in Windsor Vermont in Windsor Industrial Park, which showcases handcrafted products from the state.
For more information about the brewery and scheduled tours, call (802) 674-6700 or check out their web site at www.harpoonbrewery.com.
Serving Temperature: 45-50° F
Original Gravity: 12.3° Plato
Final Gravity: N/A
Int'l Bittering Units: 38.0
Alcohol by Volume: 4.8%
Catamount Pale Ale is a medium-bodied English Special Bitter (ESB) brewed with a combination of two-row Pale, crystal and caramel malts. Look for good head retention in this deep, brilliant bronze-colored ale. Immediately note a slightly fruity floral nose with a slight maltiness evident. Look for a medium-bodied, rich, malty sweet flavor in the body. Catamount’s Pale Ale is hopped with English Kent Goldings hops which contribute to its clean and pleasantly dry finish. Note a distinctive hop bitterness in the finish as well as a trace of caramel aftertaste. Overall, an excellent, clean and flavorful ESB. This beer pairs nicely with smoked salmon, duck, lamb, bagels and lox, or a roasted vegetable pizza.
Serving Temperature: 45-50° F
Original Gravity: 13.5° Plato
Final Gravity: N/A
Int'l Bittering Units: 28.0
Alcohol by Volume: 4.8%
Catamount’s Oatmeal stout is brewed with a complex combination of two row pale, caramel, black patent, and roasted barley malts as well as Vermont-grown organic, rolled oats. True to style, the brewery uses only cluster hops at the beginning of the 90 min. boil so that the smooth roasted notes are not masked by an aggressive hop profile. Immediately note a very pleasant, dark roasted character in this stout’s nose. Look for great head retention in this medium-bodied, clear, dark-brown brew. Note a chocolate-malt sweetness balanced nicely with a lingering roasted dryness that finishes with hints of coffee. The oatmeal lends a distinctively smooth, silky body and a thick, creamy head to this classic style. Overall, a very flavorful & rich stout with enough sweetness to provide a balanced profile. Perfect after a meal!
Ten Springs Brewing Company
Based in the heart of Saratoga Springs in upstate New York, the Ten Springs Brewing Company was built in the picturesque Valley of the Ten Springs. The springs themselves are named for the underground aquifer that has been acclaimed for its pure and effervescent waters. According to legend, the waters found there were the providence of the Great Spirit. An Iroquois chief prayed for healing waters, which were used to treat the sick. The springs also supported abundant animal life. The animal life attracted to the springs included deer, moose and black bear, and the area became prized for hunting.
Eventually word of the springs reached early American settlers. The Iroquois shared the secret with Americans who came to drink and bathe in the waters from the Valley of the Ten Springs. Much later these same grounds became basis for the now famous Saratoga Springs Resort.
The boys at the Ten Springs Brewing Co. had some ideas of their own as to how best to make use of the spring water and you’re going to get a chance to savor the fruits of their efforts this month. In early 1998 Ten Springs Brewery created a 125-barrel brewhouse equipped to produce up to 100,000 barrels of beer annually under strict controls. Other beers produced at the Ten Springs brewery include Whiteface Pale Ale and Fat Bear Stout. All of Ten Spring's beers are brewed with water from the ancient springs.
For more information about the brewery and scheduled tours, call (518) 581-0492.
Serving Temperature: 40-45° F
Original Gravity: 12.5° Plato
Final Gravity: N/A
Int'l Bittering Units: N/A
Alcohol by Volume: 5.0%
Saratoga Classic Pilsner is brewed with a blend of imported German and domestic malts including two-row pale and caramel malts. Ten Springs hops this authentic German Pils primarily with spicy Bohemian Czechoslovakian Saaz hops. Note a clean maltiness up front balanced nicely with a spicy hop nose. Look for a full-flavored, medium-bodied, classic German-style Pilsner offering a crisp body and dry hop finish. Overall, true to style and very well done.
Brooklyn Brewing Company
From its founding in 1987 by a former foreign correspondent and a former banker in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, The Brooklyn Brewery has been a leader in the introduction and marketing of good beer to the New York metropolitan area. The company's new 25-barrel brewery, opened May 1996 by Mayor Rudy Giuliani, is one of the largest in the East and Brooklyn's first commercial brewery in 20 years. The copper-banded, stainless steel brewhouse and fermentation/aging tanks are set in a 1860s-era former steel foundry in Brooklyn's Williamsburg section, a Mecca for thousands of New York artists, and site of many new art galleries and restaurants. Williamsburg was once home to dozens of pre-Prohibition breweries, including the famous Brewers' Row, a 10-block area containing 11 breweries. The Brooklyn Brewery's 50,000-square-foot brewery/warehouse complex includes the Tasting Room, a 300-person party room that will be hosting many community events and will serve as a gallery for local art works; and the Brooklyn Brewery Company Store.
The brewery is open Saturdays from noon to 4 p.m. EST for guided tours and beer tastings. The Tasting Room can be rented for private functions, catered by the highly rated Brooklyn chef Michael Ayoub of Cucina and Mike 'n Tony's. Our panel liked all of the beers sampled by the brewery, but felt that the IPA you’ll try this month really stood out. It’s BIG. We’re talking serious Original Gravity here and big full taste. It started out as one of the brewery’s seasonals but the public demanded that it be brewed all damn year! We know you’re gonna like it. Cheers!
For more information about the brewery and scheduled tours, call (718) 486-7422 or check out their web site at www.brooklynbrewery.com.
Serving Temperature: 45-50° F
Original Gravity: 17.0° Plato
Final Gravity: N/A
Int'l Bittering Units: 40.0
Alcohol by Volume: 6.9%
Brooklyn’s IPA is brewed with a combination two-row pale and two-row English pilsen malts as well as malted wheat. It’s hopped with English Kent Goldings, Cascade and Willamette hops. Not a big floral, fruity hop nose in this deep golden ale. We found the body to be full flavorful, offering lots of big maltiness balanced well with a huge hop bitterness and plenty of alcohol content. It’ll warm ya up. Note a clean, dry, hop finish leaving you wanting more immediately. Overall, we really liked it. It’s what an IPA should taste like.
Ask Murl
Dear Murl,
I am a lay person just discovering the wild Microbrew Frontier! You may have covered this in a past issue of The Brew Harvest Review, but I did not see it as I am a new subscriber. Would you please explain "Original Gravity" and "Int’l Bittering Units" to me? Thank you in advance. You are welcome to my house any time for a lobster dinner, but be sure and bring your own bowl!
Best regards,
Bill Marsh
Tewksbury, MA.
Oh Billy, Billy, Billy...
Caddyshack. Ted Knight. Remember? "Oh Billy, Billy, Billy"... Man, I crack me up sometimes. Before I get into answering your question, let me just clarify a thing or two here, William. Are we talking East or West Coast crustaceans (I like the claws, though they’re tough to eat with paws) and as you’ve suggested it to be a B.Y.O.Bowl affair, am I to assume that I’ll be asked to eat on the floor as well? Let us hope not. Original Gravity refers how much the earth pulled you toward it before you started drinking beer as opposed to how much more it pulls you now. No wait... come to think of it, it refers to the amount of sugars in the bittersweet liquid solution (called wort) obtained by mashing the malted barley and boiling-in hops before it is fermented into beer. What it tells you is potentially how high and full-bodied the alcohol content and body might be for that beer. Generally speaking, the higher the Original Gravity, the higher the alcohol content and the more full-bodied the beer. International Bittering Units (IBUs) are a measure of the amount of bittering alpha acids in your beer. At one end of the spectrum, you might find and American Standard Lager such as a Budweiser in the range of 5-20 IBUs. Samuel Adam’s Boston Lager might fall in the middle somewhere in the range of 20-40 IBUs and a heavily hopped IPA like the one we sent you last month, came in at a whopping 70 IBUs. Consider yourself enlightened Billy ma boy.
Woof!
Murl.
Food For Thought...
Catamount Stout Ice Cream
Don’t discount this one until you’ve tried it! The well-roasted malt barley used to make stout beers imparts a rich flavor that is a perfect marriage with many desserts. In addition to ice cream, stout beers have traditionally been used to accentuate spice cakes, honey breads, and it was born to complement chocolate mousse!
- 8 eggs, separated
- 1 cup superfine sugar
- 1 cup Catamount Stout
- 1 ½ cups light cream whipped w/ 1 ½ cups heavy cream
Whisk yolks, sugar and stout together until thick and mixture forms ribbons when whisk is lifted. Fold in whipped creams. Whisk egg whites until stiff and carefully fold into mixture. Pour into container and freeze, or use ice-cream maker. Serves 8 adults, four children, or your mom.
Source: The Great American Beer Cookbook, Candy Schermerhorn, Brewers Publications, Boulder, CO.
Norm's Corner...
As spoken by Cheers' Norm
Woody: Would you like a beer, Mr. Peterson?
Norm: No Wood, I’d like a dead cat in a glass.
True Brew Facts
THE CELEBRATOR BEER NEWS - It wasn’t until 1982 that the Premier of Ontario announced that the sale of beer at Blue Jay baseball games at Toronto’s Exhibition Stadium would be permitted. However, Larry Grossman, the government’s consumer minister at the time,was against the idea, saying he didn’t want some drunk sitting behind him in the stands "puking" on his kids. Despite is objections, chugging suds at the ballpark became part of the game in Toronto. In 1987, Gretchen Drummie of the Toronto Sun wrote a story about ballpark beer. The article began, "It’s been five years and nobody’s puked on Larry Grossman’s kids during a Blue Jays game." Go Gretch-Baby Go!
THE REAL BEER PAGE - To avoid potential dehydration, runner Jim McDonough once reportedly drank 36 bottles of beer the night before the qualifying race in the Pan-American Games. He qualified while many others dropped out, thus creating a legend and a standard that may not be equaled. And Jaba the Hut chugged 51 cases of Guinness before watching the Pod Race in The Phantom Menace!
365 BEER TIME STORIES - In front of Crazy Art’s Beer Emporium in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, "Bullet" Bob Oldham used to give demonstrations of what he did best. Mr. Oldham was adept at opening beer bottles with his eyebrows. Although Bullet Bob often squirted himself in the eye while doing so.
Commander McBrew
And Millipede Stew
First impressions of Guangzhou, China? People. Lots of People. The train station was packed, everyone shouting, waving and generally overwhelming me and Wortly, my faithful companion in consumption. We got out into the streets for some air to find them every bit, if not more congested than the train station. Another rumor validated. There ARE a shit-load of people in China!
As Wortly and I are both devout lovers of Chinese food, we anxiously awaited to taste the fruits of the mainland. Immediately, we became suspicious after not being able to find a restaurant that looked any cleaner than the train station. We settled on the best we could find. As I glanced over at the group of people seated next to us, I was revolted to see a petit young girl spit a big fish bone out of her mouth and between her legs on to the floor. Nice... closer inspection revealed this to be common practice among all the patrons. Piles of fish and chicken bones as well as gristle and other undesirable goodies littered the entire floor of the restaurant. We ordered a chicken noodle deal assuming it to be relatively safe. What arrived was a tangled mass of undercooked noodles, chicken skin, tendons, cartilage and bones with a few tiny morsels of actual meat. What we're talking about here, is the crap that your cat rejects when you think you're doing him a big favor. Had we worked up enough nerve to place any real amount of this entree into our mouths, restaurant protocol would have mandated we yak it back up on the floor anyway. Needless to say, large amounts of the local brew, Cannon 10,000, were required to choke down any given meal. It wasn’t exceptionally tasty, kind of an American malt liquor of with an equivalent flavor profile of King Cobra, but its high alcohol content of 9.2 % helped numb our taste buds into thinking they were actually eating food.
On our 3rd day in Guangzhou, we ran across unquestionably the most bizarre food market that we would encounter in the context of our travels. Although the thought of eating any of the items we identified was absolutely nauseating, the fact that someone else did made the experience hilarious. First stop. The dried bug stand. I had an imaginary conversation with the merchant.
"Hello Missa McBrew. How are you today?", he starts, smiling with no teeth.
"Why I'm fine today, Ming. What's on special?"
"How about some nice sun-dried millipedes. For you, twenty Yuans for this nice stack here." He had bundles of eight inch, dried, red millipedes for sale.
"No, I had millipede stew last night. What are ya gettin' for a scoop of the giant black flies?"
"Oh, very good. My grandmother makes an excellent Black Fly Pie. They are in season now too. Fifteen Yuans for one scoop, twenty-five for two." A burlap sack, easily the size of a pillow case, was filled with these giant, dried black flies. Seriously.
"Humm...That's mighty tempting, Ming, but you know, I think I'm gonna go with the usual today."
"You got it Commander. One box of seasoned dried scorpions. That'll be twenty Yuans please." Another bag, as big as the fly bag, contained small, dried up scorpions. They had some kind of orange and black spice sprinkled on them.
Further down, Wortly lucked into some dried elephant ears. Those are hard to come by too! This vendor also stocked a wide variety of pre-coiled, dried snakes. Some were as large as a frisbee while others were no bigger than a quarter. He somehow conveyed to me that the smaller ones were used to make tea. Yum, Yum. Dried mini-snake tea!
Before leaving the market we identified dried fish fins, colossal black mushrooms, dried caterpillar chips, and a bag of live grubs. I used to think that Frito Lay had the creative snack food market cornered, but now I'm not so sure. What made the entire episode even more entertaining and real was observing the shoppers as they inspected these nasty products for imperfections! I think I could look though a bag of grubs all day without finding the right one to make a sandwich with!
After our trip to the market, we could no longer fathom the idea of eating in Guangzhou's restaurants simply assisted with a Cannon 10,000. We now knew what seasoned the dishwater soup. Rather than attempt to mask the foods of this bizarre culture with malt liquor, Wortly and I opted to make use of what we do best and brew our own nectar to pair with these delicacies. Barley, water and yeast were all easy enough to find, however hops proved scarce so we were forced to improvise. Reasoning that the brew should truly be reflective of the environment, we decided to hop the beer with a combination of dried black flies, scorpions, and the giant red millipedes. Our brew, christened Entomology Ale, was of course,dry-hopped with the notorious pre-coiled dried mini-snakes. Its aggressive malt profile was no match for our Chinese Hops which mysteriously dominated the flavor profile. All in all, pretty damn good bug juice. The task complete and brew consumed quickly over the course of the next three days, we opted to head back to Hong Kong to find a Pizza Hut.
About the author: Commander McBrew has devoted his very existence to the exploration of foreign cultures and their malt beverages. He has traveled in over 109 countries, single-handedly saved himself and entire civilizations in at least 73 documented occurrences, and has consumed no less than 4,450 gallons of 2,156 different beers. He offers The Brew Harvest Review a dimension of worldliness through his varied and slightly exaggerated beer tales from abroad.
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