Bridgeport Brewing Company's Hop Czar

Oregon might be discovering something Montana has known for quite a while. Mainly that there are a lot of West Coast IPAs out there, and finding your place in the mix means being just a little different.

Bridgeport Brewing Company’s Hop Czar Imperial IPA impressed me for it’s rich and deep malt backbone, which provided a really nice ladder on which to stack the copious amounts of chinook, nugget, cascade and centennial hops. In a way, it has a more British feel to it than a lot of the overly hop balanced West Coasters.

But malt comes with a price. The hop profiles don’t sing quite as much, and the beer definitely has a heavier feel to it. You don’t get that oily, hop resin presence you get with West Coasters, and which can actually make a big IPA feel a little lighter than it is.

But I know that this style of beer does appeal to a lot of people who don’t go for the ginormously hopped West Coast IPAs.

The only thing I really don’t like about this beer is the designation as an Imperial IPA. At 7.5 percent abv, it doesn’t ring in with an Imperial feel, and I don’t like when beer companies used terms like Imperial as marketing gimmicks.

Who knows, Bridgeport may feel that this qualifies as an Imperial, what with it’s big, rocking malt body and triple-hopped status, and that fact that it’s brewed from their original IPA recipe, but the term used loosely in marketing still bothers me.

I enjoyed this beer immensely, because I love that it represents the ever-changing whims of brewers who are trying to gauge the differing tastes of the beer-loving public every day. To that end, I thought the plan of going to a much bigger malt backbone really paid off. This beer is a nicely balanced IPA that might appeal to people who don’t mind big beers but who’d rather not have something dripping with hop bitterness in every taste. It is a much more balanced beer in some ways.

And yet you still get the beautiful citrus and fruitiness from those now famous Northwest hops.

And Bridgeport earns even more points for their bottle conditioning. They put a lot of effort into packaging, and I tend to notice their standout bottles in the beer aisles.

You can find Bridgeport Brewing Company’s Hop Czar at Worden’s Market.

Prost,

GG

Share on Facebook

Brewdog's Rip Tide Twisted Merciless Stout

I’m not going to spend a lot of time lamenting the limitations on getting fine craft beers from around the world here in Montana. Mostly because you can actually get fine craft beers from around the world right here in Montana. Take Brewdog’s Rip Tide Twister Merciless Stout. OK, so it’s not Tactile Nuclear Penguin or Sink The Bizmarck, but it is a fine example of what this brewery can do, and I think it destroys the notion that this little brewery on Scotland’s rugged northeast coast is nothing more than a marketing gimmick.

I tried this beer without reading the description online, and I’m glad I didn’t. It had characteristics of a Baltic Imperial Porter or a Russian Imperial Stout, but it had a mellow middle ground that I couldn’t really put my finger on. Richly roasted malts lend a characteristic edge to this fine stout, but there are myriad flavors just beneath and above the malt backbone that defy one particular style classification.

I won’t go into a lot of description here, because the video at the end of this post does a much better job of explaining the profile.

But let me say that what I liked about this beer is the bigness that holds so much in one sip. You’ll hardly notice the 8 percent ABV, because you’ve got all these amazing tastes going on. Hints of smoke and licorice give way to some serious dark chocolate with a hint of cocao bitterness, and the description on the Brewdog’s Web site about the warming aspects are totally right on. This is a phenomenal hybrid stout that is of Scottish persuasion and at the same time a tribute to the big Russian and Baltic Imperials.

Well done.

Get yourself some at Warden’s Market.

Prost,

GG

Share on Facebook

Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout X

If pressed, I’ll usually tell people my favorite single beer that I return to time and time again is North Coast Brewing Company’s Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout.

For several years, my best friend and I would get up at 6 a.m. on Sunday mornings and prepare a huge breakfast for 60 + people. We’d peel potatoes, brew coffee, slice up breakfasts steaks or unpack bacon and sausage. Then we’d load everything up in a big trailer and head down to the Marion Street Bridge in Salem, Oregon. We’d unpack several large camp stoves and some big boilers and start making breakfast as a bunch of hungry homeless guys stood nearby and warmed there hands over frying bacon.

It started as a mere curiosity, a question really. Can you feed 60 + homeless guys every week on a portion of the tips you make serving at a bar? My best friend since childhood asked himself that question and decided to challenge himself to the task. But it was no ordinary breakfast. Just a block away from the bridge, the Union Gospel Mission feeds sober men a diet rich in sweet carbohydrates if they’ll sit and listen to a sermon first. The breakfast Jason created, “Sunday Morning Breakfast,” would feature proteins, specifically in the form of eggs, bacon, sausage, and when we could afford it, breakfast steak. And there was no sermon. As Jason put it, “food is a basic right. You can’t dangle it as a carrot for other things.” And to Jason, good food was more than a right, it was an expression of care that gave value to people that society considers trash.

Jason roped me in early, and we combined our tips to buy large, inexpensive roasts that we cut up on the slicer at the brew pub we both worked at during those years. Our main goal was to give these guys something special, something many probably hadn’t had in years. And over the course of our two-year experiment, we saw that number rise from 60 to close to 200. People would come from as far as Los Angeles and tell us they’d heard about “The Sunday Morning Breakfast.”

Our combined tips were about $60 to $70 at the time. As our needs grew, people would pitch in a new stove or a big boiler, a few bucks here and there, maybe a box of onions from their farm. In two years we never had to reach much deeper than our original $30 each. The needs were always met, and we made fast friends with a bunch of guys, including women and children, who the world would normally cast off.

It would be easy to say the reward in our labors was the smile on their faces and the huge grins when a toothless man would look longingly at a breakfast steak, and Jason’s wife, Erika, would cut it up into tiny pieces he could gnaw on. Of course those were the rewards, how could they not be?

But every Sunday, we’d drive the dirty pots and pans back to Jason’s house and spread them out on the front lawn, where we’d set up an impromptu dish washing station. And as we finished and let the big pots dry in the sun, we’d crack open a bottle of Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout and sit down with our legs in the grass and talk about what the world would be like if everyone knew how easy an economical it was to help others and give them value. It was over those big, roasted malts and that tangy, dry hopped bitterness in that huge beer that we formed some of the thoughts that would drive us both to go to college in our late 20s and early 30s to pursue degrees that we felt could help inform the world about social injustice. Jason studied art and now runs his own design studio, and I pursued journalism and communication. But our conversations over beer in a veritable outdoor kitchen drying on the lawn before us really shaped who we’d eventually become.

We both went our separate ways, he to Portland, Oregon and bigger challenges with a huge homeless population and I to Montana and a whole different notion of  wealth and poverty.

Sadly, when we tried to get a few others to take over “Sunday Morning Breakfast,” we found no takers. Despite the $60-a-week cost, no one wanted to take on the vision Jason had several years before. And so we disbanded it, and the men and woman under the Marion Street Bridge are eating day-old donuts and crusty bread leftover from bakeries and listening to sermons to get a hot cup of soup on a cold afternoon again.

Occasionally Jason and I will get together and pick up a few Old Rasputins and relive the “Sunday Morning Breakfast.”

There are a few beers out there that are permanently stuck to memories for me. Old Rasputin brings back one of my favorite memories.

And today, when I saw that Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout X Anniversary Edition scored 100 on www.ratebeer.com, it brought back a flood of memories.

That means that I need to go in search of one of these anniversary beers, set up a video chat with Jason and plan the next version of “Sunday Morning Breakfast.”

Prost,

GG

Share on Facebook

Here’s the skinny:

Winter BREWFEST

SNOW BUS FUND RAISING EVENT

SATURDAY, March 6, 1:00-5:00 PM

IN THE WHITEFISH MOUNTAIN RESORT VILLAGE

WHITEFISH, MONTANA

FEATURING LIVE MUSIC

FEATURING THE LIVE MUSIC OF

JOHN FLORIDIS 1 TO 3PM

&

THE GOOD WOOD BAND 3 TO 5PM

, A HEATED BEER GARDEN, AND PLETHORA OF MICROBREWS

At 4:00 Come and watch the 2^nd Annual Dummy Derby, drink great brews and watch home made rafts ‘explode’ as they are sent over an enormous custom built jump. It’s the most fun you can have in one day!!!

TICKETS

**Tickets required for Brewfest, Watching the Dummy Derby is FREE**

ADULTS $15 IN ADVANCE-$20 AT THE DOOR

MUST PRESENT ID

UNDER 21 & DESIGNATED DRIVERS $5 WATER & SOFT DRINKS

TICKETS MAY BE PURCHASED AT:

WHITEFISH MTN RESORT INFO CENTER: 406-862-2900

WHITEFISH CHAMBER OF COMMERCE: 406-862-3501

Breweries

Bayern Brewery

Big sky Brewery

Bitterroot Brewery

Blackfoot Brewery

Deschutes Brewing Company

Madison river Brewing Company

New Belgium Brewing Company

Tamarack Brewery

Sierra Nevada Brewing Company

Great Northern Brewing Company

THE S.N.O.W. BUS SHUTTLE WILL PROVIDE FREE RIDES DURING THE EVENTat 12pm & 12:30PM from the Mountain Mall with returns down the mountain at 4:30pm, 5:20pm, &6pm

Sponsors:Coke, Rossignol, Kalispell Toyota Scion, Sportsman Skihaus, Rejuvenate Massage and Bodyworks, DaKine, Giro, Great Northern Brewery, Montana Coffee Traders, Smith, 2^nd Street Pizza, Wrap and Roll, Snow Ghost Outfitters,

Prost,

GG

Share on Facebook

Exotic is another word for home sweet home

I’ve drank a Fiji Bitter during a nasty cyclone in Fiji. I drank a malty devil on a hot July day in Havana, Cuba. I sipped a big Pilsner in a 1500-year-old castle in the north of Albania, as American war planes flew overhead on their way to bomb Serbian positions in Kosovo. Two-days-later, I enjoyed a Sarajevsko Pivo in a shelled-out cafe in downtown Sarajevo. I’ve always considered those to be exotic beer drinking experiences. Whether it was enjoying my first Steinlager on a boat out in Auckland harbor during the 2000 America’s Cup finally or slaking my thirst after a long, hot Latvian sauna outside of Riga, my memories of these exotic locals will forever be imprinted with the beer I was enjoying at the time.

One person’s exotic is another person’s mundane

But something struck me the other day, as I overheard a German couple in a taproom talk about how wonderful it was to be having such good beer in Montana. Our friendly mountain community might not seem like exotic local to those of use who live here day to day, but neither do those places I mentioned seem like anything out of the ordinary for the folks who live there.

Exotic is defined by mindset of the person who is visiting a place. And it’s not always tall mountains, sandy beaches or dense forests that stick in the mind. Often it’s the smallest, most fundamental things that make a place exotic in our minds. Lord knows my Latvian friends get tired of the long winters and fearsome Baltic storms every year, in spite of a healthy supply of great beer and hot saunas.

Beer is the common denominator

Alcoholic beverages are often served in places with bad drinking water, so the likelihood of arriving at your destination and ordering a tall, cold one after your trip is pretty good. And more often than not, I bet we remember how sharing a beer with a new friend in a new place actually stays with us many years later, or how the taste of something not tasted in many years can take you back to that place. I did this recently when I was able to try a bottle of Fiji Bitter many years after I traveled to those islands. The taste instantly brought me back to Nandi town and the dry northern days and the heat that settled in after the cyclone passed by. I could taste the reminder of those friendships I formed with my island friends and the sweet smell of a cold beer after a hard day of work fixing the grass shacks obliterated by the high winds of the storm. It made me remember dark night staring up at the Southern Cross as if I’d never seen it before. And I hadn’t.

Prost,

GG

Share on Facebook

I am the jealous one, of course, after having read that Stone Brewing Company is doing a collaboration beer with the renowned brewers from Victory Brewing Company and Dogfish Head Brewing Company.

The fact that this brewery has the time to collaborate on so many other breweries is awesome, but one little thing at the end of the announcement caught my attention. “Remember, an essential part of collaboration is sharing, so feel free to bring a homebrew or two to share with everyone and we’ll waive the corkage fees!”

There are days when I wish I lived in Southern California and days that I’m glad I do not. This is one of the days I wish I lived in Southern California or that I could at least visit.

Stone’s collaboration efforts remind me of what craft beer is all about. Yes, they are making money hand over fist, but they also believe in the bigger picture, which is that craft beer is a conversation, it’s so far beyond just the beer. This is what the Big Three forgot or never figured out in the first place.

You can sell a lot of people a lot of beer, but if they don’t have a connection with the beer, it will be easily put aside for another brand.

Stone is a big brewery doing big things, but it’s the little things by which it will be remembered today and into the future.

Prost,

GG

Share on Facebook

Mikkeller Frelser

Monks of medieval Europe often brewed a beer called Salvator, a strong beer, to survive the fasting of Lent. While it’s difficult to know how strong it was, it was likely a big-bodied beer that would later influence the brewing of Bocks and Doppelbocks.

In the spirit of those old monk brewers, Denmark’s Mikkeller has brewed a Trippelbock that is supposed to actually make it stateside this year, according to a recent post on BeerNews.org.

The Trippelbock is called Frelser, which means savior in Danish, and is reported to be 11 percent ABV.

Share on Facebook

Enjoy the latest installment of Stone Brewing Company’s Stone Skips Across the Pond series.

Stone Skips Across the Pond | Full version from stonebrew on Vimeo.

Prost,

GG

Share on Facebook

Leafer Madness from Beer Valley Brewing Co.

Beer buddy Jon brought this beautiful beer to a birthday party last night, and we couldn’t resist popping it open early, because the birthday boy was busy playing board games. Sorry Ryan. I noticed the name first, Leafer Madness, then I noticed the brewery, Beer Valley Brewing Company in Ontario, Oregon. What? Ontario was always sort of a joke to those of us who lived in Western Oregon. Occasionally our schools played each other in sports, and we’d drive clear across the state to play the tiny boarder town. Usually they travelled to our side of the state. And I’ve driven through the town dozens of times on my way to Boicraftse or points east.

At any rate, I was extremely pleased to see that they have a thriving little brewery to join other eastern Oregon breweries like Barley Browns and Terminal Gravity. These breweries are intensely local and dedicated to the art and craft of being community breweries.

Leafer Madness is billed as an imperial Pale Ale, and I was happy to find that it fit the style, if such a style there is. The main characteristic here is that the beer does not have a super heavy malt presence. The malt was light and poppy, like a good pale ale would be. But the alcohol and hops were definitely at a level that you could call Imperial for this style. This beer isn’t a gimmick. With a floral hop nose that leads into an amazing spicy, almost ginger-like taste on the palate with hints of white pepper, the brewers of this beer certainly put together what turned out to be a really good imperial pale ale.

The bad news is that you’ll have to travel to Spokane to find this beer at this point. However, it’s good enough that I’d like to think our renowned beer stores will likely pick it up soon.

Prost,

GG

Share on Facebook

Cherry beers seem to show up like blossoms on the Flathead this time of year, and so it shouldn’t be too difficult to find one to enjoy on V-Day. Big Sky Brewing Co.’s new Kreik (cherry) is a whopper of a fruit beer, with amazing cherry, cocoa and wood characteristics that I guarantee your significant other will appreciate.

Rogue Chocolate Stout

Chocolate beers are a dime-a-dozen, but a really nice Venezuelan single-designation dark chocolate with a bottle of Rogue Brewing Co.’s Chocolate Stout might be the perfect after-dinner treat you’ll find.

And if you’re really sappy and want to do the whole “romance” thing right, you can always head down to Bitterroot Brewing. Here’s what they have planned:

Lady and the Tramp Valentine’s Dinner

Treat your loved one…and yourself to a Lady and the Tramp spaghetti and meatball dinner for two.  House made spaghetti with two freshly made LARGE meatballs, garlic toast and Caesar salad.  Sorry, no violins!

What other craft-beer related events are going on out there? And what are some great craft beer ideas for him or her? Let me know, I’ll post them.

Prost,

GG

Share on Facebook