Winner....Winner...MaiBock Dinner!!

Last week in Chicago two of our flagship beers brought home medals from the World Beer Cup. This is and prestigious event where 642 breweries from 44 countries and 47 U.S. states vie for awards with 3,330 beers entered in 90 beer style categories.

Gordon Biersch Marzen won a Silver Medal which was an extra sweet victory for our slightly sweet malty mainstay and biggest seller, as it had never won a medal in the WBC or GABF competitions. Making it even sweeter than babies playing with kittens in cotton candy for me was that this particular batch was made by Luke Erdody, our brilliant new brewer in Miami, where let’s just say we have had some unique challenges over the years.

Conversely, Pete Velez in our Myrtle Beach brewery has been a rock star since we opened there two years ago, and his Gordon Biersch Golden Export captured another Bronze Medal to go with his GABF medal won with the same light or Helles lager last fall, and this time up against the finest German and Austrian breweries, whose beers define the genre.

We know our lagers are every bit as great or greater than any beer made back on “The Continent,” but it is always nice to have that objectively acknowledged by the “Experts.”

My Rite of Spring

Ah Spring, a time of renewal and rebirth when, as Tennyson wrote, “… a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of love.” And nothing facilitates reciprocation of those thoughts by a young woman like a little Maibock.

As the crocuses thrust through the recently frozen terra firma, all 33 of our breweries from Hawaii to Maryland mash a massive amount of malt to fill their tanks with this elegant elixir of love. Unlike its darker and stronger close cousin Winter Bock, with its roasted almost mocha character, the Maibock has a more delicate fulvous or tawny tangerine hue, and is eminently more quaffable. It is less of an “Extreme” beer, it is just extremely delicious.

Mai is the German word for the lusty month of May, as in “Thank you very much, may I please have another magnificent Maibock.” This luscious lager style originated way back in the 14th century in the Northern German city of Einbeck, which with the dialect sounded like “ein pock” and evolved into simply Bock.

We will go through over a thousand barrels or two thousand kegs of Maibock. That is nearly a quarter million special sleek and sexy glasses. We can’t wait for Mai, so we tap it in early April, which is German for April.

See you on the patio.

Beer…it’s what’s for dessert.

Yes, this was as delicious as it looks, and the Golden Export was the perfect pour to wash it down, although frankly the Hefeweizen worked just as well.

I’ve preached about beer with dessert, or even as dessert, until the color of my face could get me a staring role in a James Cameron film. But usually I’m proselytizing that whatever chocolate creation is best consumed with Schwarzbier or Stout rather than coffee and port.

So I had a bit of a dilemma in pairing the beer for the delectable dessert that our immensely talented Chef Russell Hiner and Sous Chef Steve Reeb concocted last night for our Chef/Brewer’s Dinner. It was a Strawberry Shortcake Terrine topped with sweet banana cream. Kind of sounds like a lyric from a psychedelic sixties song, and it was indeed Yummy…Yummy…Yummy.

It was far better than the strawberry shortcake I remember making at the Dairy Queen back in high school, oh yeah I made Hot Fudge Brownie Delights long before I brewed beer, and yes I did set aside all the whip cream canisters for when I would empty the trash and clean the parking lot at the end of the night.

But I digress; this Strawberry Shortcake was delicately subtle and sublime. The cake was light as a wispy cirrus cloud and the smooth banana cream soothed the sharpness of the berry. A beer with much hop or roasted malt bitterness would have obnoxiously overwhelmed such a dream on a plate. The Golden Export foot the bill best as it too is light and subtle, the carbonation lifted the cream off your tongue, while the slight maltiness supported its sweetness. Then again, the banana and clove esters of the Hefeweizen combined for a complex compliment of flavors also.

I guess if deciding which wonderful beer to pair with such a dessert is the biggest problem I face in a day, I am living a pretty charmed life.

Thanks Cooky, for such a demandingly delectable dilemma.

Vegas is a Silly Place

I should hate Las Vegas, I don't like gambling or strip clubs and it's a struggle to find great craft beer. Luckily we make it there, so I still have as much fun visiting as I did 30 years ago at 13, spending all my mom's money playing video games at the Circus Circus.


At 43, I have come to terms with the reality that I will never be a rock star or astronaut. Still, a trip to Vegas affords the chance "...to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before..." or at least pretend you did.


Which was why "The Hangover" was such a success, because even if you don't wake up to a tiger in your bathroom it doesn't seem out of the realm of possibilities when you're there. And the moral of the tale? Never bring a camera, and smash them as soon as you see a flash.

Actually, I never do anything too crazy in Vegas, it's enough for me to stay up all night engaged in enhanced enlightened conversation, and watching the ridiculous parade proceed.

I have made the Sin City sojourn over a dozen times, but unlike the gambling moths looking to strike it rich, but I prefer to hang out with the Riches. Rich Lovelady is our "Hoss" of a brewer at GBLV and probably the most genuine gentleman I know. And Rich Johnson, who used to have my job as Director of Brewing, and is my evil doppelganger who operates Sin City Brewing and their string of bars and retail outlets.

Along with DV the GM of LV they are two of my favorite to have a beer with. Lovelady is like the angel on my shoulder, a hard working honest and respectable family man who leads his life as I aspire to: coaching his kids little league and reading more books in a week than I do in a year. While Johnson is also a good family supplant the wings for a pitchfork, our evenings together usually don't end until shortly before sunrise when we solve all the worlds problems and my eyes lose there ability to focus. Funny how much more clear things are then.

I look up to RJ, after all he is 6 foot 4. I love it when brewers rail on him about no longer being in the exclusive club of active brewers (as we produce his beer) but he instead makes his living selling Sin City Brewing thong panties with the catch line "I Have Sinned." He smiles that Chesire Cat grin as they realize there is something cooler than brewing, and Rich has found it.

Raise your glass and some cash.

Our Brewer's Select tapping parties are happening this week, as all over the country we celebrate pouring a myriad of concoctions as unique as they are delicious. And while that sounds self aggrandizing we will also be donating thousands of dollars to a plethora of wonderfully worthy causes.


Who would have thought that the regulars at my brewery in Broomfield would enjoy drinking my Imperial Pilsner? I did...that's who. It is a monster of a beer, especially by our standards, which are relatively mild compared to what is going on in the Craft Brewing cosmos. With fifty percent more malt and hops than our regular award winning Czech Pils it is an incredibly complex and satiating blend of flavors. And with an alcohol content of 8% one guest while, waiting for his growler to be filled, called it "home beer."


The Tapping Party was a huge success not only because we brought our new big baby into the world, but more so because we raised nearly $900 for the local chapter of the Autism Society. This means everything to me because my actual big baby boy, who is now 15 and about my size, has autism, and it was Autism Awareness Week. Thus, while everyone attending had a great time socializing, they also helped aid those who have such a difficult time with that very activity of human interaction.


Meanwhile, similar scenarios played out at our brewery restaurants from Honolulu to Washington, DC where we are poured some great new beer for great causes. I don't know that it will change the world, but it sure made it a nicer place to be in for one night.

Save the Brewer...Save the World.

Craft Brewers have a bad habit of slamming the big "formerly" American breweries. I avoid doing that because I have good friends that work for the South Africans that own Coors, and those beers certainly have their place, like at a baseball game on a sweltering July afternoon. Still, the best place to be at Coors Field is not behind home plate but rather in "the cellar" of the stadium's Blue Moon Brewery drinking the incredible liquid creations that Tom and John have won so many medals for that if you melted them down you could build another brewery with them.

I do however have a favorite big brewery slamming joke, the classic: "Drinking Coors is like making love in canoe....fucking close to water." Light beer is after all, a watered down version of their regular beers, which in turn are watered down versions of classic European lager styles that we make.

Fact of the matter is that all beer is mostly water and that brings me, finally, to the point of this post. Not only does drinking beer directly at the brewery guarantee you the highest quality beverage, as Augie Busch himself said in a Budweiser commercial, "The best beer is in the Bright Tank..." nothing good happens to beer after it leaves the love and care of the brewers (kind of like sending your daughter off to college.) But because water is so heavy, and even with recycling, packaging is so environmentally unfriendly, if you truly love the planet you should drink beer at it's source.

The math is pretty straight forward: it takes about 25 pounds of malt and hops to make one keg, or seven cases , of beer that weighs 160 pounds. A pallet of malt translates to ten pallets of kegs or 15 pallets of cases that will be shipped out all over the country requiring that many times the amount of fossil fuels. Moreover, kegs then need to be returned for cleaning and refilling. Bottles and cans are even worse as they require natural resources, on top of energy for shipping, to generate them and the labels, six packs, and cartons that contain them. Just like refilling a bottle of water makes more sense than spending a fortune and filling landfills, and our breweries use the water out of the pipes but with filtration better than Brita.

And its not just energy and natural resources you save by drinking better beer at the brewery, you might just save the health if not the life of your brewer. When I was a strong spry twenty-something cellar rat, I never thought twice about humping one of those 160 pound kegs up a flight of stairs, or stacking them three high on top of each other in tight coolers. But by the time I turned 40, as with most of my craft brewing colleagues, my back was shot and I eventually had to have my right ankle fused with 8 titanium screws and cadaverous bone marrow (which would be a great zombie movie device.)

If a craft brewer is responsible for 1,000 bbls of production in a year, that means he has moved approximately 50,000 pounds of malt, and 100,000+ pounds spend grain at the end of the brewing process. If the beer is simply going into a serving tank, other than humping hoses for cleaning and taking kegs to festivals the worst of the damage is done. But if the same sad sap is in a production plant, he is having to haul probably an extra 400,000 pounds of kegs and cases.

So drink at the brewery, and foil this Chiropractor's Conspiracy!

Beer, it's what's for dinner.

What beer goes best with food? The simple answer is, "yes." Though there is a ton of talk lately about pairing different exotic dishes with specific styles of quality beer, which is something we have been doing for 20 years, what you prefer is what's best.

The enthusiasm to elevate beer to the erudite plateau of wine is best illustrated by the unfortunately monikered phenomenon of the "Gastropub," a dining concept that sounds more like an intestinal disease. Are we going too far? I worry we risk losing touch with the simple reality that beer is food, and therefore provides the perfect compliment.



Pizza and beer, need I say more? They are both born of grain and nothing washes down the dough like the bright bubbles of beer, cleansing your pallet and leaving you ready for more. Whether the basic Margarita, or a gourmet goat cheese with pate and truffle oil pie, there is nothing better than beer to sip at its side.

Just about any beer compliments pizza, but other pairings can be more complicated. The basic rule of thumb is light with light, for example Golden Export or Southern Flyer with salads and chicken. Bigger beers go better with heartier fair, such as Marzen or Vienna with Meat Loaf or Gorgonzola Bone-In Ribeye. And it always seems to come as a surprise how well the dark roasted coffee finish of a Schwarzbier compliments a Double Chocolate Fudge Cake.

But if you prefer a Hefeweizen with your Mushroom Swiss Burger, or a Iron Horse Stout with your Grilled Chicken Cashew Salad, then good on you. The only rules you have to follow are your own.

If you feel adventurous check out http://www.craftbrewing.com/ for a gastronomical guide to the delights of beer and food.

Prost!