The Great Minnesota Beer Get Together

As you may or may not know, the 2010 National Homebrewers Conference was in Minneapolis (technically Bloomington) last month. Homebrewing wasn't really on my radar when tickets went on sale for all the events so the seminars and everything else really didn't mean too much to me.

What did mean a ton to me though, was that a lot of my out-of-town friends were going to be in the Twin Cities for the conference and I was going to get to meet some of them for the first time.

Twitter was something that started slow for me, something I did just to see what it was all about. It also coincided with the explosion of my craft beer hobby and I soon found out that the two went hand in hand. I tweet about plenty more than beer but the majority of my interaction is about beer and most of it is with friends I met because of beer.

My biggest problem about social media is that too many people use it as a substitute for real friends. "I have 258 friends on Facebook" "Oh yeah? How many would meet you at the bar for a beer?" "Ummmmmm" Exactly.

I understand it's not always feasible to have a beer with a Twitter (or Facebook or whatever) "friend" when you live in Minneapolis and said friend lives in Texas. But that's what made last week so cool, I got to meet several Twitter friends in person for the first time and got to drink beer with them and friends that I met on Twitter but have had the fortune to hang out with before.

Here's the quick recap. Melanie from Atlanta (aka @mstrachan on the Twitter) was the first in town, she arrived with her friend Eric on Sunday night. I had volleyball league that night though so we didn't meet up till Monday night when we had a few beers at Town Hall. Josh (aka @joshareed on the Twitter) and his wife Elizabeth joined Melanie, Eric, Allison, Marie and me for a pretty fun get-to-know-ya Monday night.

Wednesday afternoon is when it all took off. Brett (aka @BrettGlenna on the Twitter) got tickets for a bunch of us to go to the Twins game that night and I decided to invite everybody over to Isenberg's Neighborhood Bar that afternoon so I could showcase some of Minnesota's finest beers before the game.

Josh was first to show up and eventually the rest of the crew showed up - Brett with Frank (@fnbarrett on the Twitter), Maggie (@SudsyMaggie on the Twitter) and Norm (@NormskiBrewer on the Twitter) in tow and Allison with Melanie and Eric. Norm and Maggie are from Washington and Frank is from Iowa (but don't hold that against him).

I spent the days leading up to Wednesday assembling as many Minnesota beers as I could find and the final count ended up being around forty available for us to try. We got through just over two dozen of them (give or take) before it was time to leave for the Twins game. Everybody got a taste of beer ranging from Schell's to Brau Brothers to Summit to Surly to Lake Superior to Lift Bridge. Not everybody tried every beer, but everybody got their fair share of a taste of Minnesota.

It was also the largest gathering of "Getting Tanked with Frank" panel members in history. OK, it was the first gathering in the short history of the hottest new podcast on the internet but that's what made it so significant. I had met Frank once before and Brett several times but this was our first group gathering (minus Mar, Ben & Laz).

The Getting Tanked with Frank logo was also born that day:

Allison and I met up with Frank and his wife and kids and with Brett and his wife and Maggie down at Target Field where we got to hang with Norm for a bit too. It was a beautiful evening and we got to see a fantastic game from Scott Baker, 12 strikeouts in a 2-1 Twins victory.

The next night, I got off work and stopped by home to grab some of the beers that we didn't get to the night before and headed down to Bloomington were the gang was hanging out (sans Frank & family and Melanie & Friend who headed home).

I brought some of the beers that we didn't get time to try from the night before including Surly Furious, Surly Abrasive Ale and a growler of Town Hall's Masala Mama. Didn't get a chance to stay too long since everybody had to return to the fun of the conference.

The next night Allison and I again headed down to the hotel after work, this time with a growler of Barley John's Wild Brunette and the just-released-that-very-day Lift Bridge Minnesota Tan and Brau Brothers Rubus (an imperial blackberry porter). Also included for the west coasters was a bottle of Bells Hopslam, past its prime but still worth trying for those who never have before.

After having dinner at the hotel with the gang, Allison and I left them to their fun again and headed back home since we were leaving for New Ulm the next morning.

While I was in New Ulm, I wanted to try a Schell's Hefeweizen on tap since it was in season and I had a hot tip that it was at the B&L Bar downtown. I ordered a hefe for me and a Schell's Stout for Allison and posted on Twitter that we were there. Not long after, I felt a pat on my back and saw yet another Twitter connection sit down on the barstool next to me. It was David Berg from Schell's (aka @schellbrewer on the Twitter).

Dave and I have been conversing on Twitter for awhile and I've wanted to meet up with him for awhile so it was great to finally have the chance to get to do that. We had a couple beers and shot the shit for awhile and had a great time. If my parents weren't waiting for their Happy Joe's chicken, I have the feeling we could have had a few more than we did. At least we finally got to have that first one and I look forward to having more in the near future.

The next morning after making a Father's Day breakfast for my parents, we took off for the Cities to pick up Norm & Maggie from the hotel so we could head to the St Paul Summer Beer Festival. Allison dropped us off and we soon met up with the rest of the crew and began sampling.

I was a little disappointed that some breweries only showed up with one or two beers and that some only showed up with regular stuff that I could drink whenever I wanted but I did find enough to sample about 24 different beers.

I was surprised that I didn't run into more people that I knew but I did run into a couple of very important cogs in the Twin Cities beer community, Dan and Bryan from the Four Firkins. Always good to see those guys, especially outside of work.

Eventually the day was wrapping up and Maggie, Norm and I had to figure out what we wanted for our last beer before Allison picked us up so that we could get Maggie and Norm to the airport on time.

We decided that it was fitting to end the day with a Surly. I hadn't been there all day since the program only listed beers that were already in my fridge at home. Maggie went up to grab a sample for both of us because I was busy BS'ing again and returned with the surprise of the day - Surly Brown Eye. Oops, I meant Surly IMPERIAL Brown Eye (sorry Todd!). I forgot the exact style that it was but it was a great way to end the day because it was easily my favorite beer of the day.

Thus ended an epic week of beer drinking with awesome people. Epic is a term that gets tossed around too much these days but I can't think of a word to better describe it. I was sad to see Norm and Maggie go, I had such a great time hanging out with them. I felt a lot better though because I knew we'd get to drink again hopefully very soon!

*Editor's note - Yeah, I'm a couple weeks late posting this son of a bitch. Sorry about that. I got writer's block for the events of the last day. OK, that's a lie. I just got lazy and then forgot about it. But better late then never. Now go drink a beer that was made close to where sleep at night.

Beer Club, Volume Eight - Saisons!

Well, it appears that spring has finally sprung in Minnesota. About damn time. I thought it was time to start introducing the group to some beers that go down well in the summer so that they don't try drinking an imperial stout when mowing the lawn and accidentally revert back to Miller Lite.

Wheat beers/witbiers/hefeweizens were all on my radar but I decided to start with my personal favorite of the summer styles, saisons. Admittedly, I needed to brush up on some good examples myself as I had tried less than ten different ones before April's Beer Club meeting.

I knew that I wanted to do Lift Bridge's Farm Girl and Surly's CynicAle, both because of the local angle and because they're damn good beers. Another one that was a personal favorite had to make the cut so Goose Island's Sofie was on my short list. A visit to the Four Firkins helped round out the lineup with Alvey's help. He recommended Ommegang's Hennepin (I felt silly for forgetting that one) and also Saison Dupont which he said was the classic example of the style. A couple new arrivals, Victory Helios and Great Divide's Colette rounded out the list.

I had tried five of the seven beers on the list and I usually like to try most of them before Beer Club so I bought a 375ml bottle of the Saison Dupont and drank it on Sunday. I was a bit leery when I saw it came in a green bottle and pretty disappointed when I popped the top and smelled some skunky aromas. Luckily though, the smell faded quickly and it turned out to be a pretty good beer.

After October's meeting, I realized how devastating it can be to have an awesome beer in the middle of the lineup followed by a less-than-awesome beer. I hadn't had Sofie since last year and had only tried it twice but I was confident enough in my tastes to move the Dupont from the end of the lineup. To cover my ass though, I put Hennepin at the end with Sofie second to last because I knew I liked Hennepin and I knew it was another renowned example of the style. My fear was that the skunky aroma in the beginning would turn the guys off a bit to it and I didn't want to finish the night on that kind of note.

Beer Club Monday rolled around and we were a little light compared to the full capacity Trappist month in March but that was OK with me, I love good attendance but I think about six people is the perfect number and that's exactly what we had. We started off locally with the Farm Girl and the Cynic which both surprisingly had some mixed reviews.

The new litmus test that I started using is "Would you drink this beer over Miller Lite (or whatever your favorite macro was) if they were the only two beers in a bar?" and also "Would you drink this over Summit (or whatever your go to easily accessible standard craft beer is) if they were the only two beers in a bar?" For the most part, everybody picked the saison in question over the macro with a couple exceptions but they didn't necessarily beat out the go to craft beers for as many people.

Note - I don't use Summit in that second question as a slam to Summit at all. On the contrary, I use it as my example because for about a decade now, I've walked into every shit bar just hoping they have Summit because they've done such a good job getting into bars in Minnesota that they're my oasis in an otherwise bad lineup of taps.

We moved on to the Colette which for some odd reason was Great Divide’s first appearance in Beer Club. They make some incredible beers (Yeti, Hibernation Ale, Titan, Hercules) and I’m glad the group finally got exposed to them. The Colette seemed to be one of the middle of the road, everybody liked it enough that they’d drink it again but there was no raving about it. I had it at right in the middle myself but will seek it out to drink more.

Then came the Helios. Oh my, I wasn’t ready for this one. Or should I say, the group wasn’t ready for this yet. My first experience with “da funk” came from Saison Brett from Boulevard last year. It’s kind of hard to describe other than using the term funky. Well, Helios has it too. Now don’t get me wrong, I personally didn’t think it was a bad thing and neither did Brett but we’ve come across it before.

Convincing the rest of the group was a whole other thing. My question was and remains, how do you tell someone who’s getting into beer that aromas of “barnyard funk” and “horse blanket” not only not bad but sought after? The Helios wasn’t too overpowering but for Pat, Phil and Paul L, it was shit. Literally.

Pat's reaction to da funk

Brett and I liked it and Paul U was on board for the most part but the other guys were less than enthused and choked down their samples. I’m thinking we could have some issues for certain styles in Beer Club’s future. But we’ll cross that bridge to the barnyard when we get to it.

Next up was Saison Dupont, considered by many to be the epitome of the saison style of beer and was once named by Men’s Journal as the best beer in the world. It went over very well. It did have a bit of the skunky aroma which I learned from Brett is actually more of a sulfur aroma, or DMS (dimethyl sulfide) in the very geeky section of the beer world. The thing about it with this beer was that it luckily faded quickly after the initial pungent punch to the nose and the beer ended up being very enjoyable. It did spark a good discussion about aromas and the difference between skunky and DMS notes.

Brett popping his (former) favorite saison

Next on the list was Sofie. Up until this point, this was my favorite saison and it remained in the top slot after going up against the others as well. It was the winner of the night in a landslide and even prompted Brett to change his mind on his favorite saison. If this stuff keeps happening, I might start to think I know something about beer!

Beer of the Night

The final saison of the night was Ommegang's Hennepin. It went over well but also a bit uneventful. I should have trusted my instincts and moved Sofie to the end but at least Hennepin was liked by most and wasn't a bad beer to end the nig ht on.

We finished the night with a few random beers including Matt Schiller's "Double Broken Tap" Imperial IPA (142 IBU 8.4 ABV). Matt's another home brewer that I met via Twitter. He brought me a couple bombers of his beer one night after work and after we drank one together, I grudgingly decided to save the other to split with Beer Club. It's a damn good beer and everybody loved it. Can't wait to drink more of it one day.

Matt's Double Broken Tap IIPA

Thus ended another successful Beer Club. I'm not sure that saisons went over real well for the whole group, but at least we were all exposed to something new and will hopefully continue to try more of this unique style of beer.

***Note - One thing that I wanted to mention was the perception of price in regards to packaging. The main reason I picked Helios to add to the lineup was because I thought it would be good to have a very affordable option and since it was only $3.99 a bomber, it really fit the bill.

One comment I always hear about Surly is how they're so expensive because $10-12 for a four pack of cans isn't what people are accustomed to paying. Well, the "cheap" bomber of Helios comes out to about 18 cents an ounce and the "expensive" CynicAle comes out to about 16 cents an ounce. All perception.

I'm not trying to knock Helios or say that Surly is the new cheap beer on the block, I just wanted to mention it so that you're always aware of what you're actually paying for a beer. The Hennepin was another good lesson in paying attention. If you buy a 750ml of cork and caged Hennepin you'll pay about $8 for it. If you buy a 4 pack of 12 oz bottles you'll pay about $10-11 for it. The 750ml costs about 32 cents per ounce, the 4 pack costs about 22 cents an ounce.

Bottom line is do the math, figure out the best value for your dollar and be able to afford more good beer.

Some non-Surly ratings from last weekend

As I mentioned last post, I swung into the Liquor Barrel Friday night after work to order my next keg. I decided on Grainbelt Premium to placate my yellow fizzy beer fan friends instead of the Two-Hearted that I really wanted because the last thing I need is to be pouring a glass of nectar like that and having them bitch about how awful it is while paying 3-4 times as much for it. Why do I care what they like? Hmmmm, good question.

Anyway, after filling in the Oktoberfest hole still left in Beer Club's lineup (it really is coming, trust me) I noticed they had Sierra Nevada Anniversary Ale and I was curious enough to give it a try. After I got home, drank and rated the Surly CynicAle that I also bought (see the Surlyfest post for that) I poured myself a Sierra Nevada. It was definitely unique, there were plenty of flavors and aromas that I couldn't put my finger (or nose or taste buds) on. Looking forward to another shot at it to see if I can pick anything else specifically out. It got a 3.6 from me and these comments:
Deep golden color, thick foamy white head. Sharp pungent hops aroma, touch of citrus with a hint of pine. Mild hops in the flavor with a bit of pine, finish is sharp like the aroma, bitter from the hops. Solid, unique IPA.

Sunday I got my first chance to sit down in front of my own TV to watch my beloved Vikes and I plopped down with a Lift Bridge Farm Girl Belgian Saison. I've heard about these guys for awhile and have been anxious to try this one of their offerings in particular. It was a very solid Saison and I can tell that I've been drinking awesome beer because when I looked back to see what rating this one got from me and saw 3.1, I wondered why I was so hard on it. Then it hit me that 3.1 is nothing to be ashamed of. Anyway, some notes:
Yellow pour, very fizzy/carbonated. Not much of a head. Not a very strong aroma, some yeast/wheat and slight citrus. Wheat flavor with the spicyness coming through faintly, clean smooth finish.

I followed that up with a Stone IPA, a Magic Hat #9 and split a Little Sumpin' Extra with my buddy Noe. Football and beer, nothing better.

Later that night for Sunday night football I decided to try a couple other new offerings, starting with Two Brothers Cane and Ebel. I don't remember where I read about this but I do remember reading good things, good enough to make me buy it without further research. This beer stands out very well in a sea of very good beers that I've been trying. It took unique to a whole new level with the fantastic rye flavor. It got 4.1 from me.
Deep brown color, thick white foam. Heavy rye aroma with a hint of the sugar coming through and slight hops as well. Rye is very prominent in the flavor, sweet and bitter also. Very nice combo of flavors.

To close out the night I went with a Rogue Half-E-Weizen (MoM Hefeweizen). I was very disappointed in this one. It just had nothing of note to mention, just a very boring beer that only got a 2.3 from me.
Cloudy orange pour, white foamy head. Wheat/yeast aroma with slight sulfur. Not very flavorful, slight yeast, bit of lemon, not much mouthfeel or finish.

I might as well throw my after work beer rating in this entry in case I get behind again. I've had several of the Summit Horizon Red Ale and each time it has grown on me. It falls into that unique category because it's a red ale but has some wonderful IPA qualities to it, namely in the aroma department. The flavor isn't quite as good as the aroma but it's still very good and has its own unique taste to it, no doubt due to some help from that smell. It sounds like they're planning on keeping this around all year round now and I'm very happy with that decision. Summit EPA has always been one of my go to beers not because it's the best out there but because it's often the only decent beer in a flood of otherwise boring macrobrews. Hopefully the Horizon Red will catch on like this and give me a better hops option when I'm out and about. I gave it a 3.9 and said:
Deep red color, light brown foamy head. Sweet hoppy aroma with floral notes. Slightly bitter hops flavor without the floral that’s in the aroma. Medium mouthfeel with a bitter finish.