Butcher Brew: 2014

Beer and Whisky Updates and Changes

It is time to start specializing. Pick your favorite beer style and whisky style and start focusing your drinking and studying and become specialists. This will help you grow your knowledge and excitement from a strong foundation.

Beer Changes

· Upslope White ThaIPA has changed to Avery White Rascal

· Avery Reverend has changed to New Belgium Abbey

· Glider Cider has changed to Julian Hard Cider

New Beer Descriptions

Avery White Rascal, 5.6%ABV Belgian Witbier

A: Light lemony yellow with small white head and cloudy appearance.

S- Lemony brightness with bready yeasts, and slight bubble gum smell.

T- Coriander and bubble gum from yeast flavors stand out. Light citrus/lemon taste.

M- Medium-bodied, smooth, light mouth coating after swallow. Wakes up the palate.

O- Very nice ... heavier than true Belgian Wits (true to stereotypes, Americans make everything bigger and higher in alcohol). Great for patio pounding, pairing with cheeses, fruits, light dishes, and veal. Enhances sweetness as well as bittering fruits like lime and lemon.

New Belgium Abbey Ale 7.0%ABV

Belgian Dubbel

A: Pours a clear, roasty amber color with lively carbonation, and a light tan head.

S: dark roasted malts, dark dried fruits, Belgian candi sugar, and notable Belgian yeast spiciness.

T: caramel, toffee, dark fruits and roasted malts, with signature Belgian yeast characteristics

M: medium body, with medium carbonation and a spicy dry finish

Pairings: This beer is perfect to pair with the Wagyu beef, Chocolate masala mouse or the Whisky cake

Julian Harvest Apple Hard Cider 7.0%ABV

A: Julian Hard Cider pours a crystal clear, nearly colorless, uber light green straw color with no notable head.

S: Tart apple aroma with hints of white flowers, a touch of minerality and a really restrained sweetness.

T: Tart and dry with a touch of minerality and subtle apple flavors. Great for the Dry English Cider drinkers

M: light- medium bodied for cider, moderate carbonation and a tart, dry finish.

Pairings: This could go with so many foods, try it with the roasted summer squash, rosemary ham, red endive salad, cheese, boudin blanc

Whisky Changes

Macallan 18 has changed to Macallan 14 due to supply issues; the menu and computer should reflect the changes.

Colorado Beer Festivals & Events Calendar  

Dave Butler, author of FERMENTEDLY CHALLENGED, kindly allowed me to share this epic list of Colorado beer events this summer with you. Please use this list to get involved in our amazing local beer community, and please bring your friends along. ALSO, checkout
FERMENTEDLY CHALLENGED

for a great source of Colorado Beer News and Home Brewing Information.
Thank you Dave Butler
Summer 2014

 June signals the real beginning of the summer beer festival season. You can expect to have anywhere between 1 to 4 different festivals each week as the popularity of beer festivals in this state continues to grow. So get out your favorite hat, put on your sun block and head outdoors for some of the best beer fests in the country.

Thinking about Pairing

Complement: When one item from a craft beer or food complements the other during pairing.

Counter/Contrast: When elements interact and either heighten or calm each other’s intensities. Malty sweetness counters the sugar sweet of a food and lessens the sweetness.

English beer styles

Bitter

Bitter is a broad term applied to a well-hopped pale ale, from about 3.5% to 7% in strength and pale gold to dark mahogany in colour. British brewers have several loose names for variations in beer strength, such as best bitter, special bitter, extra special bitter, and premium bitter. There is no agreed and defined difference between an ordinary and a best bitter other than one particular brewery's best bitter will usually be stronger than its ordinary. Two groups of drinkers may mark differently the point at which a best bitter then becomes a premium bitter. Hop levels will vary within each sub group, though there is a tendency for the hops in the session bitter group to be more noticeable. Bitter is dispensed in most formats — hand-pulled from the cask, on draught from the keg, smoothflow or bottled. Drinkers tend to loosely group the beers into:

Session or ordinary bitter Strength up to 4.1% abv. The majority of British beers with the name IPA will be found in this group, such as Greene King IPA, Flowers IPA, Wadworth Henrys Original IPA, etc. These session bitters are not as strong and hoppy as the18th and 19^th century IPAs (or as an India Pale Ale would be in the USA) although IPAs with modest gravities (below 1040º) have been brewed in Britain since at least the 1920s. This is the most common strength of bitter sold in British pubs. It accounts for 16.9% of pub sales.

Best bitter. Strength between 3.8% and 4.7% abv. In the United Kingdom, Bitter above 4.2% abv accounts for just 2.9% of pub sales. The disappearance of weaker bitters from some brewer's rosters means "best" bitter is actually the weakest in the range.

Premium bitter Strength of 4.8% abv and over. Also known as extra special bitter, for instance Fuller's ESB.

Golden ale Golden or summer ales were developed in the late 20th century by breweries to compete with the pale lager market. A typical golden ale has an appearance and profile similar to that of a pale lager. Malt character is subdued and the hop profile ranges from spicy to citrus; common hop additions include Styrian Golding and Cascade. Alcohol is in the 4% to 5% range ABV. The style was marketed in 1989 by John Gilbert, a former brewer at Watney in Mortlake, London, who had opened his own operation, the Hop Back Brewery, in Salisbury, England. His aim was to develop a pale ale that could be as refreshing as lager. The result was a drier and hoppier pale ale he called "Summer Lightning", after a novel by PG Wodehouse; it won several awards and inspired numerous imitators.

India Pale Ale It is often said that India Pale Ale, a strong and well-hopped beer was designed to "survive the sea voyage to India", but some modern authorities consider this to be a myth. Twentieth century IPAs were equivalent to a typical bitter, although there has been a recent tendency to return to 18th century strengths (5.5% upwards) and hop rates, e.g. Thornbridge Brewery's Jaipur IPA and Fuller, Smith and Turner's Bengal Lancer. As can be seen from the examples, such "true" IPAs tend to emphasize the Indian connection in their branding.

Brown ale

English brown ales range from beers such as Manns Original Brown Ale, which is quite sweet and low in alcohol, to North Eastern brown ale such as Newcastle Brown Ale, Double Maxim and Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale.

Mild

Mild ale in modern times is generally considered to be a low-gravity beer with a low hop rate and predominantly malty palate. Historically, mild ales were of standard strength for the time (and rather strong by modern standards). Modern mild ales are mainly dark colored with an abv of 3% to 3.6%, though there are lighter hued examples, as well as stronger more traditional examples reaching 6% abv and higher. The term 'mild' originally had nothing to do with strength or level of hop bitterness, but rather as a label for beers that were not "vatted" (aged) and hence did not have some of the tart and even slightly sour flavor of ales that were subject to long aging, which was considered a desirable attribute of premium ales. The dark color characteristic of modern day milds can come from either the use of roast malt or caramelized sugars, or more commonly, both. These ingredients lead to differences in flavor characteristics.

Mild is often thought to be partly a survival of the older style of hop-less brewing (hops were introduced in the 16th century), partly as a cheaper alternative to bitter (for a long time mild was a penny a pot, and bitter beer tuppence), and partly a sustaining but relatively unintoxicating beverage suitable for lunchtime drinking by manual workers. But in reality, mild was probably not hopped differently than other beers of the day, since the term 'mild' referred primarily to a lack of the sour tang contributed by age, and not a lack of hop character or alcoholic strength,

Once sold in every pub, mild experienced a catastrophic fall in popularity after the 1960s and was in danger of completely disappearing from many parts of the United Kingdom. However, in recent years the explosion of microbreweries has led to a partial recovery, and an increasing number of mild (sometimes labeled 'Dark') brands are now being brewed. Most of these are in the more modern interpretation of 'mild'...a sweeter brew with lower alcoholic strength.

Light mild is generally similar, but pale in color, for instance Harveys Brewery Knots of May. There is some overlap between the weakest styles of bitter and light mild, with the term AK being used to refer to both. The designation of such beers as "bitter" or "mild" has tended to change with fashion. A good example is McMullen's AK, which was re-badged as a bitter after decades as a light mild. AK (a very common beer name in the 19th century) was often referred to as a "mild bitter beer" interpreting "mild" as "unaged".

Some breweries have revived the traditional high-gravity strong mild, with alcohol content of 6% or so, the classic example being Sarah Hughes Ruby, brewed to a Victorian recipe.

Old ales

Old ale is a term applied to dark, malty beers above 4.5% abv, also sometimes called Winter Warmers. Many have "old" in the name, such as Theakston's Old Peculier, Marston's Owd Roger, Robinson's Old Tom. Many brewers make high abv old ales for bottling, some of which are bottle-conditioned and can mature for several years. Some of these stronger versions are known as barley wine. Stock ale is a strong beer which is used for blending with weaker beers at the brewery and not sold directly. The upper limit on strength for this style is about 11%-12% ABV.

Porter and Stout

Porter is a historically significant style developed in 18th century London, which is the ancestor of stout, a style now considered typically Irish. English Porters and stouts are generally as dark or darker than old ales, and significantly more bitter. They differ from dark milds and old ales in the use of roast grains, which adds to the bitterness, and lends flavors of toast, biscuit or coffee.

Variations on the style include oatmeal stout, oyster stout, the sweet milk stout, and the very strong imperial stout, all of which are generally available in bottles only. These speciality beers have a tiny proportion of the market, but are of interest to connoisseurs worldwide.

London porter differs from stout in having generally lower gravity and lighter body, closer to bitter. Porter as distinct from stout virtually disappeared during the mid-20th century, but has had a modest revival since the 1980s (e.g. Dark Star Original, Fuller's London Porter).

Archaic styles

Mum, a strong wheat beer with herbal flavoring.

Small beer was a low-strength beer that was consumed throughout the day by all ages. From the Middle Ages to about the 18th century, there was a tendency to avoid drinking water since it was often contaminated. The boiling stage of brewing (it was often made in the home) would have sterilised it, although the actual microbiology was not understood at the time. A later survival of small beer were the low-gravity light ale and boys bitter.

Stingo or spingo was strong or old ale. The name possible comes from the sharp, or "stinging" flavour of a well-matured beer. The Blue Anchor, Helston calls it beers "spingo". The term "stingo" has associations with Yorkshire.

How to Taste Beer

There are a lot of ways to taste/drink beer, but the focus here is to be able to look at multiple characteristics of a beer, quickly and with very little effort.

A few basics, then a short explanation and you will be tasting beer on a whole other level in no time.

First, when tasting, always look at a few main characteristics of the beer, then consider 3 aspects of each group of characteristics. So when tasting a beer note:

Appearance of the beer in terms of: