Craft Beer Blog from The Beer of the Month Club

Celebrating Sunday with one of the World’s Best Gueuzes… Cantillon does not disappoint

April 11, 2016 by Kris Calef

I’m getting better at doing nothing. This last Sunday, I did just that for a glorious 3 hours. Just listened to some Cajun music in the sun while enjoying what many consider to be one of, if not the best, lambics the world has to offer, Cantillon’s Classic Gueuze 100% Lambic. This one’s a rare bird to be sure which I’m fairly confident contributed to the whole experience. Only about 50 cases enter the US each year and we were able to score a few from one of our favorite importers, Shelton Brothers.

It was pretty hazy with a golden, tangerine hue. Very tart and funky. I enjoyed it even more once it warmed up. The oak was there with hints of barrel contributions (vanilla/tannins). In the end, I dug it very much and decided to selfishly set aside a few more bottles for later as Ken suggests in our tasting notes.

I think I’m going to work on doing nothing more often.

Prost!
Kris

Another Chance to Name a Rare Beer Club Exclusive Beer crafted by Upright Brewing

March 31, 2016 by Kris Calef

So we just closed out our last beer naming contest with Jolly Pumpkin and we know your brain is tired from the effort that went into coming up with so many killer names, but we need your help again! We had so much fun allowing our members and the beer community at large to name several of last year’s Rare Beer Club® exclusives that we’ve decided to ramp up our game this year and have no less than three beer naming contests in the queue this year. And since the beers we’re naming will be featured in July, August and September, we’re going to be running back to back contests for the next two months. All in all, you’ll have 3 chances to name one of our up and coming beers and win a 6-month, 2-bottle membership to The Rare Beer Club. How cool is that?

This time we’re working with Upright Brewing up in Portland, OR. I’m a big fan of Alex’s work. I want to say they launched in 2009, about 3 years before we featured them for the first time, and I’ve been rattling his cage ever since to work with us again. He’s a busy cat. Straight up, one of the biggest challenges we face is planning far out enough to be able to feature the world’s best breweries. Makes sense if you think about it. They make the best beer. Everyone wants it. Supply and demand baby. Supply and demand. Anyway, we finally have liftoff Houston and it’s gonna be worth the wait.

Alex makes some of the best saisons in the country so we’re thinking it’s best to let him run wild with that and have some fun with hops and brett! Here’s what he had to say about the project, “The more I think about it, I keep going back to a hoppy saison for an August feature. We have Five, which is kind of a pale ale crossed with European hopping and a somewhat clean “French-style” fermentation, but I’m thinking something way different, more like a Belgian IPA with some brettanomyces added at bottling, so it will start clean but get slightly earthy and a bit more tart over time.”

You know the drill by now, but just the same, here are the vital bits that you need to know about the contest:

You can submit up to three names by 2 pm PDT on Thursday, April 14^th. Three finalists will be announced on Friday, April 15^th at which time contest entrants, club members and the general public will be allowed to vote for their favorite choices. Contest winners will be announced on Friday, April 22^nd. If your beer name is used, we’ll hook you up with a 6-month, 2-bottle membership to The Rare Beer Club.

To receive this RBC exclusive beer, you’ll need to be an active member of The Rare Beer Club in August of 2016 when it will be featured.

Alex’s only request on the name is to keep it short so that it works with his current label design…Like real short, preferably 10 characters or less so you’re gonna have to really get creative this time. Have fun!

Prost!
Kris

And we have a winner for the Jolly Pumpkin Beer Naming Contest!

March 29, 2016 by Kris Calef

The people have spoken and we do in fact have a winner! There were over 1200 name submissions so it was pretty easy to find three finalists that I really dug and I’m quite pleased with the winner. The beer will be called “Rosie del Barrio” or Rosie from the hood which was submitted by Joshua Robinson. Congratulations Joshua! Well done. It’s really quite fitting. Rosie was definitely a neighborhood cat, always wandering into my neighbors open doors and windows, making himself at home. It was not unusual for someone to find him curled up on a couch or chair when they came home from work. He even set off my neighbor’s burglar alarm once when they were on vacation. Cops showed up, pistolas drawn, only to see an orange bolt of fur booking for the door when they arrived!

I’m a big fan of Jolly Pumpkin’s label art and I can’t wait to see the artwork on the label.

If you didn’t win this time, we’ve got two more contests coming right up. In fact we’ll be launching the next one in a couple days which will feature another Rare Beer Club® exclusive, this time crafted by Upright Brewing in Portland, OR. That beer will be featured in the club in August. After we name Upright’s beer, we’re going to need your help with our annual joint project with Pints for Prostates, an organization that promotes the importance of prostate screening though the beer community. This year we’ll be working with Elevation brewing and that beer will be featured in the club in September.

Thanks so much for all your help naming Rosie del Barrio everyone!

Prost!
Kris

It’s Time to Name Rosie’s Beer

March 23, 2016 by Kris Calef

Primaries, shmimaries. Finally, an opportunity to vote for a beer name to celebrate a really cool candidate (cat) that everyone loved!

We got a truly amazing, heartfelt response to The Rare Beer Club® beer naming contest for our upcoming exclusive beer from Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales. I personally reviewed over 1200 submissions and have to tell you, I welled up more than once as so many were very sweet and really captured the essence honoring my good friend and companion Rosie, my 19 year old Maine Coon that died a few months back. Thank you all so much for making this such a fun project.

It was really hard to distill it down to my top ten and then even further to our top 3 picks for you all to vote on, but the time has arrived and now you and your friends will ultimately pick the winner!

Cast your vote here and make sure to do it before the contest ends on 3-29-16 at 10 am Pacific.

Prost!
Kris

Big Beers in Big Sur!

March 19, 2016 by Kris Calef

I don’t know what it is about Big Sur that makes me want to imbibe really well-crafted beers. Okay, truth be told, it’s not just Big Sur. It’s pretty much wherever I happen to be at any given time. Be that as it may, I generally break into my cellar to find a few coveted gems to bring up the coast with me when we make our annual trek to what Henry Miller summed up nicely as, “The greatest meeting of land and sea in the world.”

Now I love my extended family as much as any man could, but I cherish our family vacations where it’s just the four of us…No not me, my aged Russian imperial stout, whiskey barrel aged barley wine and my oaked, blended, funky brett forward saison… my nuclear family! My wife Ursula and I have been going up to Big Sur for 17 years now and our six year old daughters are in their prime for exploring all that wild coastline has to offer. This trip we stayed in one of our favorite places, Ripplewood Cabins, in a rustic cabin down by the Big Sur River, nestled in a redwood grove.

One of the absolute best things about owning a beer club is that generally speaking, outstanding breweries are sending me their best stuff all year. And not just a bottle or two mind you, but usually 4 or 5 outstanding beers. Recently The Nebraska Brewing Company hooked us up with a number of barrel aged beers from their Reserve Series. We love, love, loved Mélange a Trois and that was the panel’s pick for one of our two April 2016 featured beers, but every last other beer that they sent us was outstanding as well. I took Fathead up with me to Big Sur and coveted every sip while getting my ass kicked by the girls in a hard-fought game of Sorry. The beer originated as a Strong Scotch Ale but morphed into a Barleywine over the years. It was perfect for the occasion: Big caramel and molasses notes, plenty of Cascade and Centennial hops to balance the huge malt bill, well pronounced bourbon and oak contributions, and most importantly, at 12.1%, getting pummeled in Sorry seemed that much more entertaining.

I highly recommend pairing Fathead with Big Sur. You won’t regret a moment of it.

Prost!
Kris

Beyond the Bottle: Got Great Gruit?

March 15, 2016 by Ken Weaver

Jopen Koyt is admittedly pretty far up there as far as gruits go. But if you’re looking for non-hoppy options, there are still a bunch of really excellent examples to be found, showcasing as wide a range of herb additions as you may imagine. Locally we’ve got Brian Hunt over at the world-class Moonlight Brewing Company creating a variety of herbs-not-hops beers, such as Working for Tips (brewed with redwood tips for bitterness) and Legal Tender (with yarrow, wild rosemary and redwood branches). Check the local folks for an occasional gruit attempt.

Upright Brewing’s Special Herbs is their Reggae Junkie gruit aged in Old Tom gin casks, and the result is an effervescent, lemon-lime-forward nectar that’s wholly its own thing. One can track it down as an occasional bottled offering, with modest distribution. There’s also a 13th Century Grut Bier that’s making its rounds in the States, made with bay leaves, ginger, anise, caraway, rosemary and gentian. (Zero clue what gentian is.) Most interesting-seeming include Cigar City’s cedar-aged Humidor Series Gruit and a beer named Fleur Desay from De Garde Brewing in Tillamook, OR: sour farmhouse gruit aged in Chardonnay oak barrels, of course.

For the truly gruit grateful, International Gruit Day will be here again on February 1st. Since 2013 it’s been pretty much the best time of year to go gruit gathering. Join in via #GruitDay.

Who wants to name Jolly Pumpkin’s next Rare Beer Club exclusive beer?

March 4, 2016 by Kris Calef

That’s right cats and kittens, it’s been awhile, but we’re announcing the first of 3 beer naming contests we’ve got slotted this year and another chance for you to win a 6-month, 2 bottle membership to The Rare Beer Club®.

So here’s how this one got started. My 19 year old Maine Coon, Rosie, died last October. He was a real piece of work. Yeah, that’s right…HIS name was Rosie! His story is a bit like Johnny Cash’s “Boy named Sue”…you had to be tough to own that name and he was. Rosie was a huge personality in the hood, entered neighbors’ homes at will, was generally as adventurous as they come and into everything, and survived several coyote and raccoon attacks. Lived pretty much outdoors backing up to a canyon with plenty-o-predators for the majority of his life.

So I got to thinking that a cat that was that cool deserved to have a beer named after him. I’ve got a bottle of Jolly Pumpkin’s La Roja on my desk because the artwork featuring this wild, swashbuckling red pirate cat always reminded me of Rosie. Seemed a no brainer to reach out to Ron and see if he had any interest in the project. Lucky for me he’s owned cats and dogs, had owned a coon himself at one point, and could relate to the loss of a good buddy. So Ron’s in. Sweet.

The beer will be based on Jolly Pumpkin’s La Roja, an amber ale brewed in the Flanders tradition offering earthy caramel, spice, and sour fruit notes developed through naturally occurring brettanomyces and lactobacillus from barrel aging. It will be unfiltered, unpasteurized and blended from barrels ranging in age from two to ten months. Ron intends to bump the ABV slightly and modify La Roja’s recipe to make the beer’s flavor profile even more assertive and bold to match Rosie’s personality. In short, a wild red ale to celebrate a wild red cat.

“I’m in, Kris. How do I play,” you say? Here are the vitals you need to know about the contest:

You can submit up to three names by 2 pm PST on Wednesday, March 16th. Three finalists will be announced on Friday, March 18th at which time contest entrants, club members and the general public will be allowed to vote for their favorite choices. Contest winners will be announced on Friday, March 25th. If your beer name is used, we’ll hook you up with a 6-month membership to The Rare Beer Club (two bottles per month club).

To receive this RBC exclusive beer, you’ll need to be an active member of The Rare Beer Club in July of 2016 when it will be featured.

Have fun. I’m really looking forward to seeing what you all come up with this time. I’ve never been disappointed in the final beer name of any contest we’ve run in the past.

Prost!
Kris