Summit Silver Anniversary Ale

As you can see from the picture above, I'm drinking Summit's Silver Anniversary Ale. The brewery has now been around for 25 years, which is quite a feat. To celebrate, they've brewed (to my knowledge) their first anniversary beer. It's an IPA I've heard described as double Summit Pale Ale. I would not agree with this assessment, but it is quite delicious. This is the bottle version. I have also tried a pint of it on tap, which for some reason seemed much more harshly bitter and less hoppy and aromatic. Perhaps it was an off keg.

Either way, the bottle version is very nice. It's got very little malt going on, and even less of that earthy grassy hop sort of thing that the Pale Ale has which is just fine. This is a straight away IPA and the Extra Pale Ale is a great pale ale. I have to wonder if they brewed this beer to finally satisfy people who asked and/or critisized Summit for not having a generic and highly hopped IPA: here it is.

I am generally not very excited about hoppy, citrusy IPAs. They've been done to death and there are dozens available everywhere if you want one. That being said, I do enjoy a classic American IPA from time to time and I can understand the appeal. They're gaudy, uncomplicated, and the American versions are unmistakenly American versions. Sometimes that's what you want, and this is a good one.

Tastes and smells, you ask? Lots of pine and herbal hop notes right up front. Some citrus aromas and flavors slide in gracefully afterward and a merry bitterness follows quickly in three part harmonies. There is a bit of body and slick malt as an after thought, but virtually no sweetness (a gift in this type of beer). Not reinventing the wheel by any means, but it's a pretty nice wheel at that.

The importance of regionality

More video today

There are a couple nice things going on in that video. When Mr Stutrud says:

"Some people say that hops are the soul of beer. I couldn't disagree more... you can tell being out here that we're in barley country"

Firstly, that's a little dig at Sam Adams's slightly over simplified "hops are the soul of beer" ads, which I can appreciate. Secondly, it's just nice to actually hear someone talk about flavors other than hops in craft beer. Until now, American craft beer has been hops obsessed, largely due to the west coast brewers who got in the game early. Their hop-focussed beers make some sense being brewed very near to the largest hop growing region in the country, but here in the Midwest which, in addition to being one of (if not the) biggest supplier of grain and malt, was also historically the largest brewing region in the nation. This brewing output of course consisted mostly of lager and other beers which would have been mild in flavor (relative to the craft beer of today). Those tastes are still obviously alive and well if you look at some of the largest regional brewers (and their biggest brands): New Glarus (Spotted Cow a light farmhouse ale) Goose Island (312 Urban Wheat) and Summit (whose biggest brand I believe is Extra Pale Ale followed closely by hefeweizen which I have been told is produced year round for sale in Chicago, which drinks massive amounts of it).

So cheers to that and cheers to regionality. Craft beer continues to grow, and it's certainly matured to the point where nuance and regional tastes can have a place in the market. After all, regionality is truly the soul of beer.


Thanks to Appellation Beer on which I saw this video

Summit - [new] Gold Sovereign [and improved] Maibock

"Spring is in the air"

...is what I might say if I lived below the 44th parallel. Since I don't, it is still very much winter as I write this on the 15th of March. As such, the weekend excursion to the Muddy Pig was a hair-raising ordeal across 6 blocks of completely ice-coated sidewalks. The wind is still blowing, wearing multiple layers is required, and snow banks are still waist-high. Once there, I was rewarded, though. Summit's new releases put me in a snow-melt state of mind. The Maibock is out a couple months early, as usual. Their seasonals always seem to come out a bit before you might expect, but I don't mind at all. It's become a tradition of wishful thinking. Early-summer beers in March, Oktoberfest in August, etc. I quite enjoyed the Maibock.

The star of the show on Friday night, though, was the newest release in the Unchained series, Gold Sovereign. The beer is apparently based on a Victorian-era recipe. Damian McConn, the brewer behind Sovereign Gold was on hand most of the night to talk about his beer and he described some of the trouble in getting the top-cropping strain of British yeast to clear. The beer is unfiltered and does pour a hazey, light, golden color. Gold Sovereign utilizes Boadicea, Sovereign, Pilgrim, and First Gold hops. It really is a showcase for British hops and it doesn't go easy on them. This is a bitter, hop-forward drinking experience for sure. There is a dominating, lemony, grassy punch right at the beginning of the first sip that lingers for a while and eventually fades into a mild saltine-like maltiness at the finish. I expected something malty, sweet, or warming based on the description, but this is a drinking-beer. For a something that's in the 6% abv range, it is extremely quenching and easy to drink. I'm not the only one who thought so, either. Two hours after the tapping, the cask was empty and by Sunday when I stopped in for another drink, the keg was also completely gone. I wondered previously if the beer's obscure origin and style might affect its popularity, but that certainly wasn't the case during the release weekend. It will hopefully be available on tap shortly, and the bottles are set to release the week of March 21.

Stats:
OG 1.060
Organic Westminster Malt
Boadicea, Sovereign, Pilgrim, First Gold hops


Summit's Maibock is much improved over previous years. I have found it disappointing or lackluster in the past. No longer. For 2011, Summit is using a new Moravian Pilsner malt as the base. Their Moravian malt is made from a barley variety originating in the Czech Republic. It's grown in North Dakota (allegedly by some of Summit-owner, Mark Stutrud's family) and is under modified* when malted which is a more traditional method of production. The end result is amazing. Summit has tweaked their Maibock in years past and it tended toward the sweet side in the style of most American Maibocks. This version is sublime. It rises right to the top of my list. If anyone can think of a better American Maibock, well, I'd be interested in trying them side by side. Summit Maibock 2011 is easy-drinking and complex. The holy grail of beer, as far as I'm concerned. Each sip is like a new experience. Soft, smooth malt flavors dance with nuanced hops. Balance is the word of the day. You first sink into gentle, creamy malt like an overstuffed sofa only to be greeted by your good friend hops. "Hello hops!".  Further sips reveal spicy, floral, grassy (artichoke leaves?), and a slight piney-ness all accompanied by that classic well-made-lager malt component.Great lagers are sorely missing from the American craft brewing community (and not without reason - they are difficult and more expensive to produce) so this is a welcome improvement in my book. The only shame is that it's a seasonal. I hope Summit brings it back without change next year.

Stats:
OG 1.060
abv: 6.5%
IBU: 40
Moravian Pilsner malt, Munich malt
Czech Saaz, Mt Hood hops






*under modification refers to the a lower level of starches and proteins which are converted and readily available after the malting process. Under modified malts hence require additional processing by the brewer but yield a different or better flavor.

The Session 49: Regular Beer

Stan over at Appellation Beer is hosting this month's session for the topic of regular beer.

"Regular beer" could mean quite a few different things. I think dictionary.com has 29 definitions for the word "regular", so we could easily jump down the rabbit hole. A beer I drink regularly, in my thinking, is by definition going to be a regular beer, so that's what I'll go with. When I think of these beers, they're frequently the same beers I think of when I talk about comfort beer: beers that you can find comfort in without being pummeled with strong and extreme flavors. Largely, this is the antithesis of craft beer in this country, since light lager has almost ruthlessly defined what "regular beer" that doesn't impose itself is. So "regular" is not a word many of us use to describe beer we're passionate about.  It's a word I hear most commonly used by people who dislike craft beer, and flavorful beer. It's a word used to describe something in contrast to craft beer. As in, "reg'lar beer". I recall sitting around campfires with Coors Light drinking friends who handed down the decision that oatmeal stout was, in fact, not regular beer and may in fact be hippy beer, or kind of weird. More recently I was at a local beer bar (it's not so much a beer bar as a music venue with about 10 taps or so of mostly decent beer although the shortest pours in town) when I saw a member of a band who was playing that night order a couple of Goose Island's Bourbon County Stout. To my amazement, since these were on the house, they poured two full pints of BBC, only to have both pints returned minutes later because the gentleman ordering them thought that they were gonna be "regular" and hence he did not like them. I watched in horror as they were dumped down the drain. It would have been easy for a beer snob to step in and say something, but that's a bit prickish, so I kept my thoughts to myself. In matters of personal taste, no one needs unsolicited advice. Inside, though, I felt a bit like Willem Dafoe in that famous scene from Platoon. It's instances like these that make it easy for some of us to write off "regular beer", but regular does not necessarily mean plain, ordinary, or bland just because that's what it means to light-lager drinkers. My regular, most commonly, is Summit Pale Ale. Something you can find almost everywhere in the Twin Cities. If you open Michael Jackson's Beer Companion or Great Beer Guide you can see Summit Extra Pale Ale right there, too. To my disappointment, it's occasionally panned by local beer geeks who take it for granted. It's not the most explosive and obnoxious beer, but its supremely sessionable quality is sandwiched between spicy floral hops in the tradition of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, and crunchy, biscuity malt in a more Midwestern tradition. The result is something that's interesting and drinkable, but easy to overlook in the world of 8% abv double-imperial-everythings. Many a local beer geek was weaned on Summit Extra Pale Ale (just a "Summit" if you're ever ordering one anywhere in Minnesota) only to forget its pleasure. Not I. So let's hear not for crappy, middling, or bland beer, but regular beer.