Pic(k) of the Week: Avonator Doppelbock

Small beer?

USA Today recently selected the small city of Avondale Estates, Georgia, as comprising “the nation's best small-town beer scene for 2021” (the nation being the USA). The town (population: est. 3,093) defeated nineteen others for the honor.

The charming town of Avondale Estates, just east of Decatur, Georgia, has a small downtown area packed with unique food and beverage offerings. For beer lovers, there’s Wild Heaven Beer (brewery), The Lost Druid Brewery, The Beer Growler & Pint Haus, and (soon) Little Cottage Brewery. ^*

— USA Today 10 Best
26 March 2021

Pictured above is a beer enjoyed at one of those emporia in that winning beer scene: to wit, Avonator Doppelbock, on draught, in the beer-garden at Lost Druid Brewery, on 9 April 2021.


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But how did the beer taste?

Bock is a traditional, strong, malty Bavarian lager. ... Dopplebock is a strong [bock] beer with a typical alcohol content beyond 7% ABV. The style originated in the Bavarian capital of Munich, Germany, and was for a fairly long time synonymous with the Salvator beer brewed by Paulaner. Other breweries indicate the style by amending “-ator” to the beer's name. While they can be brewed to any color and made by different methods, doppelbocks are usually reddish-brown bottom-fermented lagers, and generally show a toffee-like, bready aroma and rich malty palate with notable residual sweetness. Hops are usually robust enough to offer some balance, but rarely about 25 IBU.

— The Oxford Companion to Beer (Oxford University Press, 2012).

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Yes, but how did the beer taste?

Nose of plum, dark bread, and black olives. Flavor follows suit. Medium-sweet body and medium-full mouthfeel; off-dry finish. Tasty and sipping strong. (The brewery provides little online description although the label on a take-out can certified alcohol by volume to be 9.6%.)

Many latter day American 'craft' breweries tend to eschew 'traditional' European beer-styles (although there may be a guerilla return). So, it was refreshing (pun intended) to find one and enjoy it, close to home and, indeed, during bock season.

A series of occasional reviews of beer (and wine and spirits).
No scores; only descriptions.

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Wine Enthusiast lists Top Breweries, Top Wine Restaurants

Lists —Top 10, Best of, Best Buys— love' em or hate 'em, they're ubiquitous.

Crowd-sourced beer lists, such as RateBeer or BeerAdvocate, tend to skew results by favoring strength over flavor —more alcohol, more bittering, more 'extreme' (extremities?). There's another, inherent, but often unacknowledged, flaw with beer lists, especially those in the US. Freshness, a sine qua non of good beer flavor, is ignored: bottled beers are selected over fresh brewpub beers. It's a convenience thing: bottles are more readily available, and more easily shipped.

That being said, the 'best beer' lists at Wine Enthusiast magazine, of all places (!), are well thought out and useful.

In the current issue (July/August 2011), Lauren Buzzeo offers a strategy to help 'de-intimidate' a shopper's task when facing big and burgeoning "artisinal selections" of beers. She suggests breweries, rather than individual brands, to look for. If not an exhaustive 'best of,' it's a good 'try the beers of these breweries if you haven't already, or haven't in awhile' list. Brewpubs excluded.

THE BIGGEST LITTLE GIANTS
Of the 20 largest breweries in the US, 5 are mentioned, including Boston Beer and Dogfish Head.

TEN RELIABLE NAMES
This category includes Bell's, Stone, Brooklyn, and Victory.

THE WILD SIDE
Allagash, Jolly Pumpkin, and Russian River are among the selections here.

Eleven Allagash beers, some rare, were on tap at Rustico Restaurant, Arlington, Virginia, 12 July 2011. Pictured: Naomi Neville —Allagash National Sales Manager— with Thomas Cizauskas. More: here.

INTERNATIONAL WAVE MAKERS
Baladin, BrewDog, and Unibroue are three of the recommendations.

FOR THE CRAFT BEER HUNTER
Three suggestions are Avery, Founders, and Smuttynose. Read the entire piece, Seas of Suds, with all of the suggestions: here.

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In this same issue, the editors of Wine Enthusiast identify their Top 100 'Wine Restaurants' in the US.

With parochial concern, I noticed that no Virginia restaurants were chosen (no Inn at Little Washington?). Maryland scored one: Tony Foreman and Cindy Wolf's Charleston, in Baltimore. What really caught my attention was the anointed trio in Washington, D.C.: Art and Soul, CityZen, and ... Birch & Barley.

Birch & Barley and its upstairs bar partner, Churchkey, have a good wine list (designed by past CityZen-er Julianna Santos), but the restaurant is better known, and celebrated, for its beer list: 50 taps, 500 bottles, 5 casks. The beer menu is ingeniously designed to sort beers by flavor and weight, rather than alphabetical order or style.



The beer is overseen by Greg Engert, who last year was honored by Food & Wine Magazine as one of the nation's top seven sommeliers, "because he's bringing the same seriousness to beer that other sommeliers bring to wine." Birch & Barley is the only beer-centric restaurant chosen in this Top 100. See the entire list at the Wine Enthusiast: here.

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Caveat lector: As a representative for Select Wines, Inc. —a wine and beer wholesaler in northern Virgina— I sell the beers of Allagash and Brooklyn.

DC/MD/VA brewers vs. the world

The World Beer Cup is the global flip-side of the Great American Beer Festival. The GABF occurs once every year, in Denver. The WBC is conducted bi-annually, with no real festival, but the results are announced at the conclusion of that year's US Craft Brewers Conference, which itself is held in a different US city every year. The US-based Brewers Association produces both competitions. This year, Chicago, Illinois, was the site, 7-10 April.

Breweries had the choice of 90 (!) categories in which to enter a beer, for a bronze, silver, or gold medal in each. Out of 270 possible awards, 268 were awarded at at a gala beer dinner on Saturday night. The judges declined to award top honors in the categories of Foreign-Style Stout and the clumsily-named American-Belgo-Style Ale.

a record crowd of 2,000 people attended the awards dinner for the World Beer Cup. It is believed to have been the world’s largest beer dinner, and the five course meal was created and prepared by [beer writer] Randy Mosher and Sean Paxton, the Homebrew Chef.

World Beer Cup Awards 2010
by Jay Brooks
April 10, 2010
Brookston Beer Bulletin

The list of winners: here.

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As I'm a charter member of C.R.A.B.B. (Chesapeake Region Alliance of Beer Bloggers), it's time now for me to be a proud hometown blogger.

Out of those 268 awards, 14 went to 8 breweries in Virginia and Maryland (but, unfortunately, none to the three brewpubs in the District of Columbia). One of those Virginia breweries, Devils Backbone, and its brewer, Jason Oliver, were honored as the Brewers Association World Beer Cup 2010 Champion Small Brewpub and Brewmaster .

MARYLAND

• English-Style India Pale Ale (category #53)
  Silver Medal: Brewer's Alley India Pale Ale
  Brewer's Alley Restaurant and Brewery: Frederick, MD
  brewer: Tom Flores
  PERSPECTIVE: Tom began his mid-Atlantic brewing career as the original head brewer for Clipper City Brewing Company in 1995. He joined Brewers Alley in 1998. His IPA recently won bronze at the 2009 GABF.


• Aged Beer (category #19)
  Silver Medal: Gonzo Imperial Porter Vintage 2007
  Flying Dog Brewery: Frederick, MD
  brewer: Bob Malone
  PERSPECTIVE: Flying Dog is the reining Mid Size U.S. Brewery of the Year, winning that honor at the 2009 GABF.


• Classic English-Style Pale Ale (category #52)
  Bronze Medal: Heavy Seas Pale Ale
  Heavy Seas Brewing Co.: Baltimore, MD
  (formerly known as Clipper City Brewing)
  brewer: Ernesto Igot
  PERSPECTIVE: Mr. Igot (pronounced "EEE go") was the brewmaster for San Miguel, in Manilla, Phillipines, for 25 years. He retired, moved his family to the US, and joined Clipper City in 1999.


• Golden or Blonde Ale (category #79)
  Gold Medal: Heavy Seas Gold Ale
  Heavy Seas Brewing Co.: Baltimore, MD
  


• Vienna-Style Lager (category #27)
  Bronze Medal: Heavy Seas Märzen (formerly know as Balto MärzHon)
  Heavy Seas Brewing Co.: Baltimore, MD
  PERSPECTIVE: This beer has medaled 5 years in a row: 4 times at the GABF.


• Scottish-Style Ale (category #57)
  Gold Medal: Highland Courage
  Rock Bottom Brewery: Bethesda, MD
  brewer: Geoff Lively
  PERSPECTIVE: Brewer Geoff Lively has accumulated a plenitude of awards for his beers. Click on the brewery link for his resume.

VIRGINIA

• American-Style Wheat Beer (category #2)
  Silver Medal: Rockfish Wheat
  Blue Mountain Brewery: Afton, VA.
  brewer: Taylor Smack
  PERSPECTIVE: Blue Mountain was the first brewery in the mid-Atlantic to package its beers in cans.


• Baltic-Style Porter (category #40)
  Gold Medal: Danzig
  Devils Backbone Brewing Co.: Roseland, VA
  brewer: Jason Oliver
  PERSPECTIVE: Devils Backbone has been in operation for less than two years. At the 2009 GABF, it garnered four medals. Now, a few months later, Devils Backbone and its brewer, Jason Oliver, have won four medals in this global competition and have been honored as the World Beer Cup 2010 Champion Small Brewpub and Brewmaster. For several years prior, Jason was the brewer for the Gordon-Biersch brewpub in Washington, D.C.


• Coffee Flavored Beer (category #7)
  Bronze Medal: Morning Bear
  Devils Backbone Brewing Co.: Roseland, VA
  German-Style Schwarzbier (category #30)


• Bronze Medal: Schwartz Bier (category #30)
  Devils Backbone Brewing Co.: Roseland, VA


• Traditional German-Style Bock (category #31)
  Bronze Medal: Kollaborator
  Devils Backbone Brewing Co.: Roseland, VA


• Traditional German-Style Bock (category #31)
  Silver Medal: Sidewinder Bock
  Great American Restaurants: Centreville, VA
  (also known as Sweetwater Tavern)
  Brewer: Nick Funnell
  PERSPECTIVE: A degreed British brewmaster, Nick Funnell has won many awards over his nearly 15 year career at Sweetwater. Most recently at the 2009 GABF, his beers garnered two awards. A chef at another of the restaurant/brewery's three locations was a contestant on Gordon Ramsey's 'reality' cooking competition, Hells' Kitchen.


• Coffee Flavored Beer (category #7)
  Gold Medal: Dude! Where's My Vespa?
  Rock Bottom Brewery: Arlington, VA
  brewer: Dave Warwick
  PERSPECTIVE: Originally formulated by long-time past head brewer Chris Rafferty, this beer, brewed with locally roasted coffee beans, took an earlier gold at the 2009 GABF.


• Rye Beer (category #4)
  Gold: Harvest Moon Rye
  Rock Bottom Brewery: Arlington, VA

Support your local brewery. The Mid-Atlantic has award-winning breweries and beers right here at home.

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Caveat lector: As an employee of northern Virginia wine/beer wholesaler Select Wines, inc., I sell the beer of Heavy Seas in northern Virginia.

15 + 1 for MD & VA at GABF

Yesterday afternoon, I was furiously re-Tweeting DC/MD/VA results from the Great American Beer Festival (GABF), as they were being announced. The live Twitter feed provided by the GABF failed part-way into the roll call, so I relied instead on Beernews.org who somehow managed to keep up, typing in names and awards, as they were announced, without advance notice.



So, how did the region fare? Out of 78 categories: 15 medals and one major award.

David Turley, my Virginia compatriot in C.R.A.B.B. (the Chesapeake Region Alliance of Beer Bloggers) has tabulated the results. Here, from his website —Musings Over a Pint:

Virginia

• Devils Backbone Brewing Co. : Gold Leaf Lager : Gold : International-Style Pilsener
• Devils Backbone Brewing Co. : Natural Born Keller : Silver : Kellerbier/Zwickelbier
• Devils Backbone Brewing Co. : Danzig : Silver : Baltic-Style Porter
• Devils Backbone Brewing Co. : Vienna Lager : Silver : Vienna Style Lager
• Great American Restaurants (Sweetwater Tavern) : Crazy Jackass Ale : Gold : Rye Beer
• Great American Restaurants (Sweetwater Tavern) : Wit's End : Bronze : Belgian-Style Witbier
• Rock Bottom Brewery - Arlington : Dude! Where's My Vespa? : Gold : Coffee Flavored Beer
• Starr Hill Brewery : Dark Starr Stout : Gold : Classic Irish Style Dry Stout

Maryland

• Brewer's Alley Restaurant and Brewery : Brewer's Alley India Pale Ale : Bronze : English-Style India Pale Ale
• Clipper City Brewing Co. : Clipper City MärzHon : Bronze : Vienna Style Lager
• DOG Brewing Co. : Pub Dog Black Dog Stout : Bronze : Classic Irish Style Dry Stout
• Flying Dog Brewery : Horn Dog Vintage 2007 : Gold : Aged Beer
• Flying Dog Brewery : Dogtoberfest : Gold : German Style Märzen
• Flying Dog Brewery : Gonzo Imperial Porter : Gold : Imperial Stout
• Flying Dog Brewery : Barrel Aged Gonzo : Silver : Wood- and Barrel-Aged Strong Beer

Flying Dog Brewery of Frederick, Md. and its head brewer Robert Malone, were recognized for a stellar performance, receiving the award for Mid-Size Brewing Company and Mid-Size Brewing Company Brewer of the Year. Putting it another way: of all the breweries in the United states, producing between 15,000 and 2,000,000 barrels of beer per year, Flying Dog has been recognized as the most proficient ... until next year, that is. The brewery's Dogtoberfest —its Märzen lager— won gold for the second year in a row.

Clipper City Brewing of Baltimore, Md has now had its MärzHon win a medal for four consecutive years in the Vienna lager category: one gold, one silver, two bronze. Congratulations to head brewer Ernesto Igot and staff.

Clipper City Brewers Chris Farley (l) and Chris Mallon (r) flank Charlie Papazian (c) of the Brewers Association.
Photo courtesy of www.BrookstonBeerBulletin.com.

Just late last year, Jason Oliver commenced brewing operations at new Devils Backbone Brewpub in Wintergreen, Va. Now, only a few months later, he has received four medals. That's a remarkable achievement for a new brewery. It's a testament to his brewing skills, as much as to the categories themselves, all lagers, more difficult, generally speaking, to brew well than ales. His showing pushed the state of Virginia's medal count to eight, compared to only one in 2008 and two in 2007. (analysis by BeerNews.org). Maryland received 7 medals.

Congratulations as well to Chris Rafferty —brewer at Rock Bottom in Ballston, Va., to Tom Flores and Maggie Lenz —brewers at Brewer's Alley in Frederick, Md., to Mark Thompson and his crew at Starr Hill in Crozet, Va., and to DOG Brewing of Westminster, Md.

• A list of all the winners here.
  
• A description of all 78beer style categories here. (pdf file)
  
• My apology is offered to Flying Dog's brewmaster Robert Malone. I bolloxed his name in my Twitter feed.
• Caveat lector: As a representative for northern Virginia wholesaler Select Wines, I sell the beers of Clipper City and Flying Dog.

James 'Beer-d' Award recipient

This following was said as part of a keynote speech at a Craft Brewers Conference in the mid 1990s:

Beer brings together the Apollonian and the Dionysian.

I was there; I was struck that anyone could make such a classical allusion at a beer conference.

Who was the speaker?

Fritz Maytag —owner of the Anchor Brewing Company, and 2008 recipient of a James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 1965 Fritz Maytag acquired the Anchor Brewing Company of San Francisco and became a pioneer of American microbrewing. Since then, he has not only preserved the tradition of Anchor Steam Beer, but he has also made Anchor a national brand without ever compromising his high standards. In the 1980s and 1990s, due in part to Maytag’s example, more than one thousand small breweries sprouted up all over the country. <...>

In 1993 Maytag launched the Anchor Distilling Company whose Old Potrero Rye Whiskey and Junipero Gin quickly became models for a burgeoning artisanal distilling movement in America and around the world.

<...> since the 1960s Maytag has steered his family’s Maytag Dairy Farms in Newton, Iowa. Maytag Blue cheese, produced since 1941, was a creation of Fritz’s father, and the company has been a leader in the American artisanal cheese renaissance. <...>

Maytag is also the owner of York Creek Vineyards in the Spring Mountain District above St. Helena, where he grows more than a dozen grape varieties, and last year celebrated his 39th harvest.<...>

And, he is a classical scholar.

Congratulations to you, Mr. Maytag.

Established in 1990, the James Beard Foundation Awards are a program of the non-profit James Beard Foundation, whose mission is to celebrate, nurture, and preserve America’s culinary heritage and diversity...

• 2008 James Beard Foundation Awards Winners
• I toured Anchor in 2001.
• I was alerted to this story at MaureenOgle.com.