Drinking, Again: 8 beers in quick review

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

Eight —brief— beer reviews.

• Essential Pale Ale from Port City Brewing Company of Alexandria, Virginia. Pale ale, deep golden (darker than the first draft run). Hint of orange peel and talcum powder in nose. Tastes of grapefruit, orange, and hint of melon. Mix of shortbread and tannic bitterness in finish. Good stuff ... especially after waiting 95 years for beer to return to Alexandria! Tasted, poured from a bottle. More...
  
  
• Maibock from Legend Brewing Company of Richmond, Virginia. Light copper color; good head retention. Sweet food spice and graham-cracker aroma and flavor. Juicy body (!). Long finish. Seasonal. 6.4% abv. Tasted, poured from a bottle.More...
  
  
• AARSH 'Imperial Irish Red' Ale from Heavy Seas Brewing, of Baltimore, Maryland. Sweet dark caramel malt character dried in finish by hint of roastiness. Good head retention and conditioning. Scant haze. Seasonal. 8% abv. Tasted, pulled from a firkin. More...
  
  
• Scotch Ale, from Mad Fox Brewing Company, of Falls Church, Virginia. Deep brown/red and malty: flavors of toffee, caramel, some roast and plummy fruit. 8% abv sneaks up on you. Tasted, pulled from a firkin. More...
  
  
• Corp Mort Barleywine (The name can be translated as "Dead Body."), from Quebec brewery A L'Abri De La Tempête. slightly turbid reddish/brown. Sweet malt middle, hint of peat-like smokiness, dry finish. 9% abv. Tasted, on draft. More...
  
  
• Les Deux Brasseurs, a collaboration between breweries Allagash —U.S. based— and DeProef —Belgian based— collaborated to produce this beer (meaning 'the two brewers'), each using their own house strains of brettanomyces yeast, known for its 'wild' barnyardy character. Hazy, deep golden. Sharp, quick finish. Tasted, on draft. More...
  
  
  
• Bitter American from 21st Amendment Brewery of San Francisco, California. Light amber, brilliant clarity, good head retention. Citrusy nose. At 4.4% abv, a fine example of a bitter: using a relatively small amount of hops to achieve an apparent level of bitterness equivalent to that of a much higher alcohol beer (such as a double IPA). Tasted, poured from a can. More...
  
  
• Black Cannon from Heavy Seas Brewing of Baltimore, Maryland. The brewery designates it as a 'Black IPA'. The Great American Beer Festival calls the style "American-style India Black Ale." I call it a delicious, dark, hoppy strong ale. Pours nearly black, with beige head. Characters of baker's chocolate, toasted bread, melon fruit, citrus: 7.25% abv. late winter seasonal. Tasted, poured from a bottle. More...

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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 Heavy Seas and Allagash.
  
• Drinking Again is a series of occasional reviews of beer (and wine and spirits).
  
• The graphic for Drinking Again was created by Mike Licht at NotionsCapital.

Clamps & Gaskets: News Roundup for Weeks 13/14, 2011.

A non-comprehensive roundup of two weeks'
news of beer and other things.

Weeks 13/14
27 March 2011 - 9 April 2011

• 2011.04.09
  Pierre Celis, the father of modern Belgian Witbier, has passed away. Via Brookston.
• 2011.04.09
  WAMU's Kojo Nnamdi interviews brewers Jeff Hancock of DC Brau and Ben Matz of Chocolate City Brewing, Washington D.C.'s newest production breweries.


• 2011.04.09
  Congratulations to Brad Klipner —the creator of BeerInBaltimore.com. He has been named Market Manager for Coastal Brewing.
• 2011.04.09
  Kevin Zraly honored with 2011 James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award, for his achievements in wine education, including his influential Windows on the World book and course.
  
  
  
  
• 2011.04.09
  Heavy Seas Brewing Company of Baltimore, Maryland, has introduced its new National Sales Manager: Joe Gold, founder of Baltimore Beer Week. Via Beer In Baltimore.com.


• 2011.04.08
  Lost Rhino Brewery in Ashburn, Virginia, receives its Federal Brewing License. Plans to begin brewing immediately.
  
• 2011.04.08
  How lax alcoholic beverage import regulations have made Washington, D.C., a 'craft' beer haven. Via Lagerheads at Washington City Paper.
  
• 2011.04.07
  Today, on 7 April in 1933, beer —or at least a small version thereof— became legal again in the USA.
  
• 2011.04.03
  A brief historical look at the development of light-bodied, light-hued, filtered, and artificially carbonated bottled beer, in Britain in 1906.
  
• 2011.04.03
  30th Birthday of the Portable Computer.
  
• 2011.04.02
  Maryland wine corkage bills die in Senate and House of Delegates. Via Baltimore Business Journal.
  
• 2011.04.01
  Production beer to return to Washington, D.C., after 55 years: DC Brau.
  
• 2011.03.30
  The known, and speculated, historical origins of beer. Via Scientific American.
  
• 2011.03.30
  The environmental skinny on wines labeled natural, organic, and biodynamic. Via Washington Post.
  
• 2011.03.29
  Maryland House and Senate approve winery direct-to-consumer bill.
  
• 2011.03.29
  Why the Anheuser Busch InBev purchase of Goose Island Brewing is good for 'craft' beer. Via Beer Scribe.
  
• 2011.03.29
  Amazon has launched a Cloud Music Player, challenging iTunes, and before Google's planned launch. Via Mashable.
  
• 2011.03.28
  The sales of IPAs are up 38% in 2010, and up 45% in the last 13 weeks. "The hottest thing in last 6 years." Via Benj Steinman of Beer Marketer's Insights.
  
• 2011.03.28
  A definition of 'craft beer', rather than 'craft brewery.' Via Jeff Alworth at Beervana.
  
• 2011.03.27
  Birthday in Beer: Michael Jackson (1942-2007)
  
• 2011.03.27
  Maryland Senate passes license change. Evolution Brewery may expand from Delaware to Salisbury, Maryland.
  
• 2011.03.27
  Maryland Senate bill allows growler sales at soon-to-open Burley Oak Brewery in Berlin, Maryland.
  

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• Clamps and Gaskets is a weekly wrap-up of stories  not posted at Yours For Good Fermentables.com. Most deal with beer (or wine, or whisky); some do not. But all are brief, and many are re-posts from my Twitter account: twitter.com/cizauskas.
• The Clamps and Gaskets graphic was created by Mike Licht at NotionsCapital.

Pierre Celis & his Witbier stand tall in beer history.

Pierre Celis, the father of modern Belgian White Ale, died yesterday at the age of 86. Diminutive in stature, ebullient in nature, a milkman by original profession, Celis' profound legacy of beer stands tall.

In 1988, this is how the late beer writer Michael Jackson, described Pierre Celis' White Ale:

Fruity, pale Wheat Beers in a variety of local versions were once widespread in the east of Brabant [Belgium]. There were more than 30 White Beer brewers in the valley around the small town of Hoegarden [pronounced "Who garden"] during the 1700s, but the last closed in 1954. A dozen years later, an enthusiast, Pierre Celis, salvaged an old brew-house, and set about restoring the style. His brewery De Kluis ("The Cloister" or "The Hermitage") and his Hoegarden White Beer captured the imagination of young drinkers. The beer became very fashionable. <...>

The old Hoegarden beers had a pronounced lactic character, like that of Berliner Weisse. Today's product is not so obviously lactic, but is distinctive enough. <...> [In Flemish, it is] identified as a Witbier. In French, it is described as a Biere Blanche. <...>

Oud Hoegards is brewed from 45 per cent wheat. It contains also oats, to a proportion of five per cent. The wheat and oats are raw, and the remainder of the mash is malted barley. <...> More significant is the spicing of the beer with Curaçao orange peels, coriander, and a third "secret" ingredient. Cumin seeds, perhaps?

Celis' brewery would suffer a devastating fire. Needing cash to rebuild, Celis entered a Faustian bargain with Interbrew, now AB InBev, to whom he would eventually lose control of the brewery.

In 1992, he moved to the US, to Texas, at a time when more US craft breweries were still closer to the two coasts. His White Ale and other brands achieved "cult following." Celis would chuckle that he had settled in Texas because he could understand Texans: they drawled s-l-o-w-l-y.

For assistance in marketing, Celis turned to Miller, but the brewing behemoth would prove clueless in promoting craft beer. Celis would move back to Belgium at the turn of the millennium. Then in his mid-70s, he, indefatigably, would begin new brewing ventures.

I met Mr. Celis on three occasions. Each time, he was gracious to me, and infectiously exuberant. The first two occasions were tastings in his honor at the renowned Brickskeller in Washington, D.C.



Then, in 1995, I met Celis at his brewery, while I was attending the Craft Brewers Conference in Austin, Texas. I asked about a large, partially crumpled tank I had noticed in the brewery. A twinkle in his eye, he bandied about a 'Texas' tall tale in explanation. That would help to soften the blow for me, when, a few years later, I would partially implode the dome of a brewery's hot liquor tank.

As Stan Heironymous wrote, at Appellation Beer:

[Celis was] an otherwise extraordinarily engaging gentleman whose influence cannot be overstated.

He was 40 years old, delivered milk for a living and had little brewing experience when he produced his first official batch of Oud Hoegaards Bier in 1966. <...> Just over 5 feet tall, from the beginning he described himself as a “small brewer.”

As Philadelphia beer and food writer Rich Pawluk eulogized:

RIP legendary brewer Pierre Celis. 86 yrs old. Such a joyous man to be around.

As Jackson observed:

In Belgium, passionate beer-lovers knew of Celis, and admired his achievements. In the United States, they deemed him a hero.

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• Beer writer John White has an on-line biography of Pierre Celis.
  
• Beervana puts into perspective the witbier style that Celis re-created.

Pic(k) of the Week: Grape Hyacinths

Are they purple? Are they blue? Grape hyacinths bloom in early April in northern Virginia.

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Pic(k) of the Week: one in a weekly series of personal photos, often posted on Saturdays, and often, but not always, with a good fermentable as a subject.

Pic(k) of the Week: Pints-a-deux

The interplay of light and shadow in this photo caught my attention: a still-life dance between two pints of real ale. Note the creamy head on the beers —formed naturally without artificial nitrogen or added CO2— an indication of well-conditioned cask ale.

Taken at Public House No. 7, in 7 Corners, Virginia, on 30 March 2011.

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Pic(k) of the Week: one in a weekly series of personal photos, often posted on Saturdays, and often, but not always, with a good fermentable as a subject.