Past Newsletters
Vol. 5 No. 9
| Brewery | Beers Featured |
| Allagash Brewing Company | Allagash White Beer |
| The River Horse Brewing Company | River Horse Roebling Bock |
| Blind Man Ales | Blind Man India Brown Ale |
Allagash Brewing Company
Founded in the state known for Moose, Lobster Rolls, and colorful characters coining phrases like, "Where'd ya git yer license, Sears & Roebuck?" and "You can't git there from he-ya...", the Allagash Brewery produces a wicked good line up of brews including a Trappist-style Belgian ale, a spiced winter ale and the Belgian White Beer you'll sample this month. Located in Portland, Maine, Allagash's 15-barrel brewing system was designed in house, to emphasize a hands-on approach to brewing. This system, along with the use of first-rate ingredients including soft Lake Sebago water and a Belgian strain of yeast, results in beers with a distinctive character.
Owner and brewmaster, Rob Todd, a 30-year-old geology major from Middlebury College in Vermont, studied brewing at the Siebel Institute in Chicago. "I was alone when I started the brewery," Todd said. "I wanted to make just one beer, and concentrate on it till I got it right, to make sure the quality was there." He chose to start with a white beer, he said, for a few reasons. He loved the surprise of its unique taste, "flavorful yet very refreshing," and realized that few brewers were making them.
Whereas most beers are made with barley, white beers, also known as wheat beers, are made with a substantial portion of wheat, which gives them their refreshing flavor. Most brewers find it difficult to work with wheat. Because it does not have a husk, it easily clogs the mashing vessel. "It's a hard beer to brew," said Todd, "delicate and balanced, and no one in this part of the country was doing it and I saw a niche I could fill. It's a unique beer, and for most people it's an educational process. White beer looks different and tastes different, it has a different aroma, and for some people it's a big surprise."
"We recommend pouring about three quarters of the bottle into a glass," Todd says, "then stopping. You should then swirl the bottle to arouse the sediments, and pour what's left into the glass. The sediments add a distinctive flavor. That's why we include pouring instructions on the side of the bottle. If you filter a beer you remove proteins and yeast."
Allagash White took the gold medal in 1998 at the World Beer Cup and our panel thought it to be a real winner as well. We know you'll enjoy it. Allagash beers are currently distributed only in Maine, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut.
For more information about the brewery and scheduled tours, call (207) 878-5385 or check out their web site at www.allagash.com.
Serving Temperature: 48-53° F
Original Gravity: 12.0° Plato
Final Gravity: N/A
Int'l Bittering Units: 20.0
Alcohol by Volume: 5.5%
This Belgian wheat beer is brewed with a combination of three grains: two-row pale malt, malted wheat, and oats. Three hops varieties are used during the boil including Perle, Tettnanger, and Saaz and this unique unfiltered ale is spiced with coriander seed and dried Curacao orange peel. We can't praise the brewery enough for producing such an excellent example of a style that is very difficult to brew. Immediately note the coriander and orange citrus in this clean, prominent nose. Color is pale-straw and slightly cloudy (bottle conditioned) which is appropriate to style. Look for a complex, delicate flavor profile in this beer, one that's spicy, citrusy, and fruity. Also note a dry finish in this medium-bodied ale. Overall, a superb effort at a Belgian White Ale and although it's not Belgian, we'd enthusiastically sample it again just to make sure we got it right for Microbrewed Beer of the Month Club!
The River Horse Brewing Company
The River Horse Brewing Co., located in Lambertville, New Jersey, is housed in an old brick building that once was an oyster-cracker factory. Located alongside the bank of the Delaware River, the brewery is one of New Jersey's oldest and fastest growing. Incidentally, "River horse" is a nickname for the hippopotamus. "So what", you say? The ancient Egyptians believed in the beer god, Seth, who appeared in the image of a hippopotamus. Pretty neato, huh?
The brewery began production in 1996 with its first significant account being Waterfront Park, home of the Trenton Thunder, the city's minor league baseball team. The team, an AA affiliate of the Boston Red Sox, draws some 7,000 fans a game. The brewery now has a capacity of 5,000 barrels a year and as we speak, the brewery is going public which will make it the only publicly owned brewery in New Jersey. In addition to the Bock featured this month, the brewery makes four other beers: a Special Ale, which is brewed with caramel malt and three hop varieties; a Cream Ale, brewed with a touch of wheat malt and a low hopped bitterness; a Lager, which is fermented and conditioned with German brewing techniques, and a Dark Harvest Ale, a robust dark ale.
For more information about the brewery and scheduled tours, call (609) 397-7776 or check out their web site at www.riverhorse.com.
Serving Temperature: 42-46° F
Original Gravity: 16.0° Plato
Final Gravity: N/A
Int'l Bittering Units: 26.0
Alcohol by Volume: 6.0%
River Horse Roebling is a Bock style lager brewed with a significant quantity of barley malt which results in a fuller bodied beer with a higher content of alcohol. Roebling Bock is brewed with a combination of three barley malts including Two-Row Pale, Munich, and Carapils, as well as three hops: Cluster, Hallertauer, and Saaz. Immediately note a big malty rich nose with traces of floral hopiness evident. Look for a sweet, rich malty body and a slight hop bitterness in the body, true to style. We found the finish sweet and rich. Overall, a full, rich, tasty interpretation of one of our favorite styles.
Blind Man Ales
Owner Bob Tibbs founded Blind Man Ales in Athens, Georgia, in 1995 when he introduced his flagship beer which you will have the opportunity to sample this month. Since then, he has added a number of delicious beers to his line of ales, including a righteously hoppy American Pale Ale and the well-famed Espresso Stout.
And don't be alarmed by what you find at the bottom of the bottle of your Blind Man Ale. As all of the brewery's products are unfiltered and naturally carbonated, you'll find a layer of yeast sediment in the bottom of each bottle. Some beer drinkers prefer to decant the ales before drinking; other drinkers may enjoy swirling the yeast, as is done with some wheat beers. You may also notice subtle variations in each bottle's carbonation level which is a good thang as these beers are naturally carbonated! In the production of most commercial beers, the yeast and proteins are filtered out following the secondary fermentation, and the beer is force-carbonated in bright tanks. This commercial method of carbonation increases a beer's clarity and assures consistency, but it also removes a great deal of its flavor and character.
Serving Temperature: 40-45° F
Original Gravity: 13.5° Plato
Final Gravity: N/A
Int'l Bittering Units: 65.0
Alcohol by Volume: 5.5%
Blind Man is one of those beers, as its name would imply, that doesn't neatly fit into a defined beer style category. A hybrid born of a Brown Ale-India Pale Ale marriage, this truly unique beer is brewed with a combination of Two Row Pale, Munich, Caramel malts and roasted barley. Look for a sweet malty nose packed with hop aroma derived from a combination of no less than 6 hop varieties including: Chinook, Cascade, Mt. Hood, Liberty, Tettnanger, and Columbus. We found the flavor of this dark brown beauty to be full, rich and satisfying. Note a definite bitter hop character in the body and finish. Overall, a damn tasty tribute to American creativity!
Ask Murl
Dear Murl,
I used to collect beer cans in the 70's and have 600 or so cans in my mother's attic and it got me wondering how that compares with the biggest collection. Also, do you happen to know how much beer cans are going for these days? Think I might get a month's rent out of this thing?
Tom Schnitzel
Bobcaygeon, Canada
Yo Thomas!
You too! I thought I was the only dweeb with cans collecting dust in my mother's attic! I'm quite convinced that any male teenaged person with a pulse in the 70's rooted around vacant lots, dumpsters and flea markets thinking he was putting together a collection that would fund his college tuition. Problem with that is that the cans that you and I have in our collection were also collected by all those other pre-pubescent weenies and therefore none of them are worth much more than the chuckle I still get when I gander at the rotund lass in the skimpy bathing suit on my Old Frothenslosh cans. To answer your question, the most renowned collection of tin and aluminum belongs to William B Christiensen in Madison, N.J. who has over 75,000 different cans representing 125 countries, colonies and territories. His ma must have a big muther of an attic. The most valued can wasn't my Iron City Pittsburgh Steelers Championship Superbowl commemorative can, but rather a Rosalie Pilsner can sold for $6,000 in April, 1981. Might have actually covered the cost of my textbooks at college. Hope you're enlightened Tommy Boy.
Woof!
Murl.
Food For Thought...
Beer and Bean Soup
- 1 lb dried navy beans
- ½ cup diced bacon
- ½ cup diced smoked ham
- ½ cup diced leeks
- 1 cup diced onions
- 1 cup diced carrots
- 1 cup diced celery
- 2 qt water
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tsp thyme
- 1 tbsp minced fresh garlic
- 1 tbsp salt
- 1 tbsp black pepper
- 1 14-oz (398 mL) can tomatoes,hand-crushed
- 12 oz brown ale
- 2 tbsp sugar
Soak the beans overnight in enough water to cover. In a large pot, sauté the bacon and ham over medium heat until the fat is rendered from the bacon (do not cook the bacon to crispness). Reduce heat to low and add the vegetables, cooking them until almost tender. Add the water, bay leaf, thyme, garlic, salt and pepper, and bring to a boil. Add the drained beans. Cover the pot and simmer the soup until the beans are tender. Expect this to take 1-2 hours. When the beans begin to break apart, add the tomatoes, beer and sugar and simmer for a further 15 minutes. Be careful not to boil the soup at this point. Discard bay leaf. Adjust seasonings to taste and serve. Makes (8) 1 Cup servings.
Source: A Taste for Beer, Stephen Beaumont; Story Publishing, 1995.
Norm's Corner...
As spoken by Cheers' Norm
Woody: Hey, Mr. Peterson, there's a cold one waiting for you.
Norm: I know, and if she calls, I'm not here.
True Brew Facts
365 BEER TIME STORIES - Pat Murphy worked a the local brewery. One day while stirring a vat of beer he lost his balance and fell in. Pat's wife was called to the brewery and given the awful news of his drowning. After regaining her composure, she commented that his death was probably merciful and quick. The foreman shook his head, saying: "I don't know about that Mrs. Murphy. He got out twice to go to the bathroom." Ba Da Bum!
CELEBRATOR BEER NEWS - New York Giants Manager John J. McGraw guided his baseball team to two consecutive World Series victories over the Yankees in 1921 and 1922. At one point, McGraw told his ballplayers that it was a sign of good luck if they could spot a beer wagon before going to the game. McGraw then hired a driver to haul a wagon outside the ballpark when he knew his players would be arriving for an important game in the World Series. His team won. McGraw then hired the driver for the rest of the series and the Giants won very game. Known as "Little Napoleon", McGraw managed the Giants to ten major league pennant victories from 1904-1924. And the post game celebrations were always damn good!
YANKEE BREW NEWS - The greatest collection of different British beer labels is 27,845. Keith Osborne is the proud collector and his oldest label is from D.B. Walker & Co., Warrington. The beer label was printed around 1846. Ya figure he soaked all 27 thousand bottles in the same sink?!
THE REAL BEER PAGE - In her former role as wife of Canada's ambassador to the U.S,, Sondra Gotlieb often related tales of woe about being a Canadian in Washington. She said Americans know Canada for its three M's- Mounties, mountains and Molson's. And their zany senses of humor, eh?
BEER: THE MAGAZINE - The Norwegian captain of a Dutch whaler that capsized as it was trying to pull aboard a giant whale went down with his ship while holding a beer in his hands, survivors reported. The 42-member crew of the 543 ton factory ship Tonna, landed at Funchal, Madeira, after being picked up by a Greek freighter when the whaler floundered about 220 miles off the Portuguese coast. The crew said the last thing they saw before the ship went down was Captain Vesprhein, 52, clinging to his bridge with a beer to his lips. They implored him to abandon ship but he refused. Good story. Stupid man.
365 BEER TIME STORIES - Little Simon Barwell, of Carlton, England, planted a sunflower but it just wouldn't grow no matter how much he watered it. The youngster then poured some of his father's home-brewed beer on the plant out of sheer desperation. The plant grew to a height of more than 12 feet. They promptly cut the sucker down, crammed it into a juicer, drank the bugger and received no buzz whatsoever.
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The Fine Print: Members giving gift memberships do not qualify for referral credits and you can't give yourself a gift to qualify! This Program is mutually exclusive of any other promotions.
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