There was a record 3,500 different beers judged at the Great American Beer Festival this last week and we want to congratulate our medal winners.

Dan Satterthwaite (San Jose) won a bronze medal for his Rauch Bier and Rich Lovelady (Vegas) took a silver for his Eisbock.

It is an extremely tough competition and we are tremendously proud of all who entered.

For more information and a complete list of winners of this most massive festival go to www.greatamericanbeerfestival.com

Two Hundred Years of Beers.

It’s the bicentennial of beer and bratwurst served up by damsels in dirndls and lads in lederhosen. The Munich Oktoberfest commemorates the 1810 nuptials of Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese and is far and away the biggest beer fest in the world.

The Great American Beer Festival brags about pouring one ounce samples of 2,200 different beers to 49,000 visitors over 3 days in Denver, meanwhile the tents of Oktoberfest will welcome 6 million people over 16 days, and pour nearly 7 million liters of lager…that’s 236 million ounces.

Beer plays a principal part in German culture, they consume 42% more per capita than we do in the USA and Oktoberfest celebrations have become the St. Patrick’s or Columbus Days for Americans who claim German ancestry, even if just for a day. Although the Irish and Italians make more noise about it, many more of us hale from Deutschland, a full 15% or 50 million, that’s three times the number of Italian Americans. Snooki make way for Schnükie...pumping a beer filled boot or stiefel in the air.

The liquid in that bierstiefel has changed over the last two centuries. Initially the beers of Oktoberfest were dark amber or auburn hued with a distinctive malty sweetness, such as the GB Marzen. While deliciously smooth this style can get a little cloying, so the modern versions in Munich have morphed into dryer, lighter colored lagers with more pronounced hop character to balance the sweetness.

Our pale bronze Festbier is a keller or unfiltered lager style which brings forth the bountiful breadiness of the imported Weyermann Munich malts that are balanced by heavy handfuls of Hersbrucker hops. This makes for an impeccably balanced and easy drinking beer and is the perfect pairing partner for the magnificent menu that we offer this season. Nothing washes down the succulent sausage platter like a luscious liter of our Oktoberfest or Festbier.

Share a quiet beer with 15,000 of your closest friends.

There is something about beer that brings people together; it is a staple of stadium sporting events with many of them named after breweries including Coors Field, Miller Park and Busch Stadium.

Usually beer is simply the side bar social lubricant for such gatherings, but there are thousands of events around the world each year where imbibing fermented malt beverages is the center attraction and sole focus: The Beer Festival.

I have kind of a love/hate relationship with Brewer’s Festivals, though my affection for beer goes without saying as I have thrown my life away brewing, sharing my life’s passion in an “arses and elbows” frat party with tens of thousands is not really my idea of a good time. Often while everyone else is in relaxation or vacation mode we have to work, humping 160 pound kegs through drunken crowds. If only I had a dollar for every tipsy witticism like, “You can just put that in the back of my pickup right outside, it’s the yellow Chevy.” Definitely avoid these comments if you are wearing sandals as my hand truck rolls by.

I have far fonder memories of taking beer to one of my first festivals however. It was 21 years ago that my boss had me trek kegs up to the Beaver Creek ski area from our downtown Denver brewpub to pour at a beer and jazz fest. He also sent along a beautiful waitress with me to help, it’s all about marketing you know. That five hour ride in my brothers broken down station wagon that barely made it up the mountain, and afternoon serving beer on the summer ski slopes led to fantastic friendship, a whirlwind romance, a marriage of nineteen years, and two incredible kids. Now that’s a festival!

Romance is usually not the modus operandi for festival goers though, and while they can simply be an excuse to whoop it up with like minded imbibers, they serve a serious function for the craft brewing connoisseur and industry alike. It is a chance for the unheard of small breweries as well as their bigger brethren to show case boutique beers whose exposure might only be the very small local market inside the four walls of the brewery itself.

The Great American Beer Festival or GABF affords the ultimate opportunity for anyone interested in experiencing sheer volume of variety. It is held in my home town of Denver every fall, and as I write this in mid August has already completely sold out all the nearly 50,000 tickets for these three evenings and one day of debauchery. With 2,238 different beers from 462 breweries there is something to placate every palate.

I usually try to focus on one particular style at a time to see how it is being interpreted by the bevy of brewers, beginning with the subtle lighter styles such as Czech Pilsners for the first hour. Then I might move onto something more pungent like sour Belgian beers or hyper hoppy India Pale Ales, and by the end of the evening evolve to the big Bourbon barrel aged beers as the crowded convention center devolves into a massive mess. Beer may be the “beverage of moderation” but when the event costs $60 a ticket for as many one ounce samples as one can slurp, it pretty much becomes a high end “drown night.”

That is not to say that “pay as you go” beer festivals are tantamount to temperance, but it is a more relaxed environment at the Oregon or Colorado Brewer’s festivals where you pay for each full or half mug of a particular beer, and can sit down and socialize while sipping your suds. In addition there is usually great live music and food creating more of a real festival feel. There may only be 40 different breweries represented with 80 brands, but that should satiate responsible beer lover. Like the British say about their early pub closing time, “If you can’t get enough to drink by 11:00pm than you’re not really trying.”

Chaotic crowds are referred to as “zoos” so it is only natural that every city in America has a Brew at the Zoo festival. Since the beer is usually donated or sold at low cost the organizers of these events can generate copious amounts of cash.
This is the biggest reason why I am so proud of the festival that our company puts on every August in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The Southern Brewer’s Festival brings together all of the best aspects I have mentioned while raising over $100,000, not for the brewers, but rather for a very cool children’s charity called Kid’s On The Block.

The 16th annual Southern Brewer’s Festival on Saturday August 29th features 32 breweries pouring 90 different beers. It is a family friendly affair that features fabulous food and incredible entertainment with Big Head Todd and the Monsters headlining the list of bands. (They sell out Red Rocks here in Denver every year at $40 a ticket.) Admission is only $20 which gets you your souvenir mug as well as your first beer free, additional beer tokens are only $3.
Be there, or be thirsty.

www.beerfestivals.org
www.southernbrewersfestival.com
www.greatamericanbeerfestival.com
www.oregonbrewfest.com

Our Beers of Summer: The Irony and the Ecstasy

The kids are out of school, the lawn mower is out of the garage, and the brewery is pumping out Hefeweizen and Kolsch… must be summer.

As the mercury reaches for the triple digits, we reach for the thirst quenching coolness of Summer Wheat and SommerBrau. Both are light and refreshingly effervescent with mysteriously deceptive hints of fruit bestowed by their imported German regional yeast strains. These fantastic fermented malt beverages define the concept of “lawnmower beer.”

The irony is that usually when you think of light and refreshing it’s lagers like the Golden Export or Southern Flyer that come to mind. Yet both of our beers of summer are made with special top fermenting yeast at warmer temperatures, not unlike the common craft brewing work horse yeast strains that start with “A” and rhyme with nail, principally producing IPA, and Stout and whose strong esters are not suited to subtlety.

We don’t filter out the yeast in the straw colored Summer Wheat. In fact, the hefe in Hefeweizen actually means yeast, while weizen is German for wheat, so it is literally “yeast-wheat.” We use over 50% malted wheat in the Hefeweizen or Summer Wheat , and 20% in the Kolsch or SommerBrau. The wheat has a distinctive flavor but is also high in protein which creates rich creamy foam. It is a head that holds the billowing bouquet of banana and cloves in the Hefeweizen, generated by the Bavarian yeast from Weihenstephan. When the Summer Wheat is fermenting the brewery smells like a banana truck rolled over on a Nicaraguan highway.

Our golden hued SommerBrau, is not quite so specific in it its delicately fruity aroma from a yeast that was smuggled out of a small brewery in Cologne, the home of the Kolsch style. When it is fermenting the brewery has the aromatic appeal of a cereal factory predominately responsible for fabricating “Fruit Loops.”

We serve the our Kolsch in the traditional straight sided glass called a “Stange,” which is German for rod or pole, albeit ours is on steroids being nearly 3 times the size of the Stange used in Cologne. Hefeweizen is also served in its own uniquely tall and narrow vessel that widens at the top to hold its incredible head.

These beers are the perfect compliments to our Caribbean themed spicy, salsa, and fruit filled fare of the summer menu, available from June 22nd to August 1st. And though they would never do it in Germany because the beer speaks for itself, this is America, so we will happily apply a lemon or orange to the side of the glass as an accoutrement. But we brewers tend to feel that anyone who orders fruit on the side of a beer would be the type of foppish dandy to use the word accoutrement.

Prost!

Bad Things Happen to Good Breweries

Last weekend Nashville, Tennessee was soaked by a record breaking 13 inches of rain. That’s as much water falling from the skies in two days as my city of Denver gets in a year, including all the two foot snow falls and crazy summer thunderstorms.

Tragically, there were 29 deaths in the region, with 10 in Nashville alone, and over 1.5 billion dollars in damage. The Cumberland River crested at 12 feet above flood levels and inundated downtown along with our Big River Grille and Brewery. Our thoughts and prayers go out to those who lost loved ones, as well as to the over 2,000 people whose homes were destroyed.

While the restaurant area itself did not sustain major damage, the basement flooded completely, which is where we grind the malt for brewing and then age and serve the finished delicious elixir out of the tanks that you see laying disheveled in the destroyed cooler.

We are still waiting for power to be restored which we will need to pump out the drains and all the beer that will sadly go into them. Then we will begin the arduous process of cleaning up the mess, replacing damaged equipment and refilling those tanks.

Perhaps we should rebuild in an Ark, because this will be the second time this has happened to Big River Nashville this year. Back in January a water main break flooded the basement, but luckily then it was only a few feet and the water was so cold that we did not have to destroy the liquid that we all love inside the tanks.

This is a major disaster for the brewery, but I am incredibly relieved and grateful that Brad Mortensen is our brewer in Music City. His immense skill in concocting the creations of our craft come from his keen intellect and even keeled demeanor, which is what you want in a crisis situation. Suffice to say, I would be freaking out, but he stayed calm as a cucumber while the Cumberland destroyed his cellar.

I am also thankful for the outpouring of offers from others brewers, and even suppliers, to help in whatever way they can to get Big River pouring great beer again, “…come hell and high water!”

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.