Eleven Days of Pleasant Living: It's Baltimore Beer Week, hon!

Baltimore Beer Week begins tomorrow, Thursday, 6 October. When it concludes eleven (!) days later, Sunday 16 October, the Land of Pleasant Living will have celebrated its beer heritage, past and present, at 327 events (give or take).

The organizers have appropriately lifted the slogan "The Land of Pleasant Living" from the labels of bottles (and cans) of National Bohemian, the beer that was once the proud provenance of the city and region. Honoring that, the organizers have included events, not only in Maryland's largest city, but, as well, in the areas surrounding Baltimore.

Many events are free; some require a fee; many are beer tastings or pay-as-you-go meet-and-greets; some are festivals and dinners. With such a wealth, it would be difficult, and non-inclusive, to pick the best of the best. But, here are a few to consider:

• Baltimore Beer Week begins with a Star-Spangled Banger Parade [spelling intentional!], beer tour and pub crawl with the organizers of Baltimore Beer Week. It begins, tomorrow, 6 October, at noon at Fort McHenry [a battle there inspired the writing of the Star Spangled Banner, the national anthem] "whereupon the fabled Star-Spangled Banger mallet [video] will weave its way through some of Baltimore’s storied neighborhoods, visit various landmarks and taverns, and ultimately end at Rams Head Live for the Opening Tap Celebration."


• The official 2011 Baltimore Beer Week Opening Tap Celebration occurs tomorrow night, Thursday, 6 October, at Rams' Head Live, in the Inner Harbor, beginning at 6pm with the ceremonial tapping of the First Firkin, brewed by Heavy Seas Brewery. Details and tickets: here.


• Saturday morning, 8 October, there's a rare tour of the historic Wiessner/ American Brewery building, "perhaps one of the most iconic jewels of Baltimore's brewing and architectural history and landscape," now 're-habbed' with a substantial amount of the long-closed brewery's memorabilia and architectural fixtures retained. Details from Baltimore beer blogger (and one of Baltimore Beer Week's oganizers) Alexander D. Mitchell IV: here.


• The first of two 'bookend' beer festivals: The 9TH Annual Maryland Brewer’s Oktoberfest at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium, including over 80 beers from fifteen local breweries, an assortment of food, live bands, and oompah bands, and the Maryland Brewer’s Homebrew Competition and the announcement of the winners of the 2011 Governor's Cup for Maryland's best beers. The festival is organized not by a third party promoter, but by the breweries of Maryland themselves, through their guild, the Brewer's Association of Maryland. [Despite the spelling, there is more than one brewery in Maryland, sixteen of which are members of the association.]


• Pints for Poe Fundraiser. The Baltimore City Council has cut funding to the Edgar Allan Poe House, located in West Baltimore on Amity Street. A fundraiser has been organized to help save this home of one of America's greatest poets and authors. it's Tuesday evening, 11 October, from 6 to 9pm, at the Creative Alliance at the Patterson. Details available on Facebook, or at the Week's website.


• The other 'bookend:' The 8th annual Chesapeake Real Ale Festival, sponsored by the Baltimore branch of the Society for the Preservation of Beer from the Wood, Saturday, 15 October, 1-5pm, at the Pratt Street Alehouse. Details and tickets: here. Prior to the festival, there will be an hour-long panel discussion on real ale. Details: here.
  

And, anything at Max's Taphouse, Pratt Street Alehouse, Brewer's Art, Mahaffey's, and Metropolitan. The non-mention of many other Baltimore pubs and locations is not meant as a slight to them, but is simply a matter of bandwidth limitation. Check your local listings: the rest is up to you, doen'cha knoe, hon!

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• The Baltimore Sun has a story on the Week's genesis: here.
• The Week itself has a list of several articles on Baltimore's beer history: here.
• Learn more at the Baltimore Beer Week website at www.baltimorebeerweek.com; follow on Facebook at facebook.com/BaltBeerWeek; follow on Twitter at @BaltBeerWeek and hashtag #BBW11 [that's NOT #BBW, which leads to 'non-family' material!); see photos on Flickr at flickr.com/photos/baltimorebeerweek.
• One event not officially sanctioned by Baltimore Beer Week is also worth consideration: Science on Tap at the Maryland Science Center, Thursday, 6 October, 7-9pm. Details from the Center's website: "The Maryland Science Center’s popular science of adult beverages series focuses on beer in October with Jim Wagner, Brewmaster of DuClaw. Explore various ingredients and the different roles ingredients play in the brewing process. The evening includes sampling of various DuClaw specialties including Venom Pale Ale and Black Lightning." Reservations required: here.

It's Cask Ale Week... over there.

All this week, many in the U.K. are participating in National Cask Ale Week. Also known as 'real ale' and 'cask-conditioned ale,' cask ale is fresh, unfiltered beer that is served from the cask in which it undergoes a secondary, carbonation-producing, fermentation. Many beer drinkers —including me!— consider cask ale to have more fully developed flavor than kegged or bottled beer, due to live yeast in the cask, its ultimate freshness, and the gentle method of serving the beer.

The 'week' began on Saturday, 1 October, and will continue through Sunday 9 October 2011 (besting The Beatles' Eight Days a Week). Cask Marque —a 'real ale' quality assurance program in the UK— is the organizer, assisted by CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale), a UK-based consumer cask ale organization.

Over 7,500 pubs in Britain are said to be participating, billed as the "World's Biggest Ale Trail."

Timed to coincide with the launch of Cask Ale Week, Cask Marque are launching the new Ale Trail section of their app. Available for iPhone and Android "The World's Biggest Ale Trail" offers customers the chance to use their phone's camera to scan QR codes placed on Cask Marque certificates in each of their 7,500 accredited pubs. When they reach certain numbers of pubs scanned then prizes are won.

The app allows participants to find nearby Cask Marque-accredited pubs, to search for similar cask ales in other pubs, to rate beers in a communal database (akin to the Untappd smartphone app or web-based BeerAdvocate and RateBeer), and to access other 'beer-ticking' functions.

National Cask Ale Week also corresponds with the annual release of the Cask Report, a state-of-the-UK-industry analysis written by beer author Pete Brown.

But NOT here in the U.S.

Although cask ale growth is empirically obvious in the U.S., there is no American analogue to Cask Ale Week, or, really, to CAMRA. The Brewers Association —the trade association for small breweries in the U.S.— neither maintains a database on cask ale nor compiles statistics from its member breweries. Its recently concluded 30th annual Great American Beer Festival offered no national competition for 'real ale.' Ray Daniels, of Cicerone —the beer server education program— once organized a national Real Ale Festival, but that competition is no more.

There are several smaller regional festivals. Two examples would be NERAX (the New England Real Ale eXposition) and this month's Chesapeake Real Ale Festival, in Baltimore, Maryland. It's organized by the only US-based branch of the SPBW (Society for the Preservation of Beer from the Wood) —another consumer advocacy group for real ale, based in the UK, though less politically active than CAMRA. Cask ale guru Alex Hall —British born but New York-based— maintains a a database of restaurants and pubs that regularly serve cask ale, at Cask Beer Finder.

Maybe, just maybe, it's time to push for a Cask Ale Week —or a Cask Ale Day, to start with— here in the U.S.A., in 2012. Anyone with me?

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• Follow National Cask Ale Week on Twitter @caskaleweek
• On Facebook, at caskaleweek.
• At the home website itself: caskaleweek.co.uk.
• More on cask ale in the US: Alex Hall's website and at Cask Ale USA.

Winners at the 2011 GABF

The awards at the 2011 Great American Beer Festival have been announced.

This was the 30th iteration of the GABF, organized annually in Denver, Colorado, by the Brewers Association —a trade association for small American breweries. Think of the competition as the Oscars of American beer, and the winners, as among the best in their profession.

Three medals —gold, silver, bronze— were awarded in 83 'styles.' In addition, overall recognition was given in the categories of Small Brewery, Medium Size Brewery, Large Brewery, Small Brewpub, Large Brewpub, and Brewpub Group. Awards were also given in a Pro-Am Competition.

From the festival press release:

The 2011 Great American Beer Festival® (GABF) competition drew an impressive field of competitors, with 2011 topping last year's entries by 11 percent. GABF remains the largest commercial beer competition in the world, with 3,930 beers vying for medals (compared to 3,523 entries in 2010). Competition entries were received from 526 breweries from 48 states plus Puerto Rico.

The DMV
YFGF —this blog— is mid-Atlantic-based. So, first, I'll offer felicitations to the seven DMV winning breweries at the 2011 Great American Beer Festival: that is, those in the Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia area.

In Maryland, three medals were won by three breweries: one Gold, two Bronze. In Virginia, eight medals were won by four breweries: three Gold, four Silver, and one Bronze. D.C.? Next year! Local overall bragging rights go to Mark Thompson at Starr Hill, in Crozet, Virginia. Congratulations!

• GOLD
  • Category #25: Kellerbier or Zwickelbier
    Mad Fox Brewing Company (Falls Church, Virginia)
    brewmaster: Bill Madden
    Kolsch Kellerbier
  • Category #34: Vienna-Style Lager
    Starr Hill Brewery (Crozet, Virginia)
    brewmaster: Mark Thompson
    Jomo Lager
  • Category #45: English Style Summer Ale
    Blue Mountain Brewery (Afton, Virginia)
    brewmaster: Taylor Smack
    Summer Lovin'
  • Category #83: Barley Wine-Style Ale
    Flying Dog Brewery (Frederick, Maryland)
    brewmaster: Matt Brophy
    Horn Dog Barleywine
• SILVER
  • Category #15: Indigenous Beer
    Starr Hill Brewing Company (Crozet, Virginia)
    brewmaster: Mark Thompson
    Monticello Reserve Ale
  • Category #17: American-Belgo-Style Ale
    Blue Mountain Brewery (Afton, Virginia)
    brewmaster: Taylor Smack
    Blue Reserve
  • Category 26: Smoke Beer
    Starr Hill Brewing Company (Crozet, Virginia)
    brewmaster: Mark Thompson
    Smoke Out
  • Category #31: Dortmunder or German-Style Oktoberfest
    Devils Backbone Brewing Company (Roseland, Virginia)
    brewmaster: Jason Oliver
    Tommy Two Fists
• BRONZE
  • Category #45: English-style Summer Ale
    Mad Fox Brewing Company (Falls Church, Virginia)
    brewmaster: Bill Madden
    English Summer Ale
  • Category #58: Scottish-Style Ale
    Rock Bottom Brewery (Bethesda, Maryland)
    brewer: Geoff Lively
    Brown Bear Brown
  • Category #64: German-Style Sour Ale
    Gordon-Biersch (Rockville, Maryland)
    brewer: Kevin Blodger
    Gose

National winners

Congratulations, of course, to all the winners! Breweries competed within 83 styles divided among Ales, Lagers, and so-called 'Hybrid' styles. The Ales were further divided into 41 subcategories, the Lagers into 18, and the 'Hybrids' into 26, Prius' excluded. That's a total of 168 style designations. The full list of styles can be viewed here, and as a downloadable pdf file here.

Three medals were awarded in each parent category only — Bronze, Silver, and Gold— thus for a total of 248 medals, plus 3 in a Pro-Am competition, in which a brewery and a homebrewer cooperate. (If the math doesn't quite add up, it's because there was no Gold awarded in Category #29, Bohemian-style Pilsener.)

Best-of show honors were awarded to six breweries based on some sort of algorithm combining brewery size, total medals won, number of competitors in those medals, and the strength of the medals (i.e, Gold being best):

• Small Brewing Company / Small Brewing Company Brewer of the Year
  Chuckanut Brewery (Bellingham, Washington) / Will Kemper
• Mid-Size Brewing Company / Mid-Size Brewing Company Brewer of the Year
  Firestone Walker Brewing Company (Paso Robles, California) / Matthew Brynildson
• Large Brewing Company / Large Brewing Company Brewer of the Year
  Pabst Brewing Company (Woodridge, Illinois) / Bob Newman
• Small Brewpub / Small Brewpub Brewer of the Year
  Pizza Port Ocean Beach (San Diego, California) / Yiga Miyashiro
• Large Brewpub / Large Brewpub Brewer of the Year
  Pizza Port Carlsbad (Carlsbad, California) / Pizza Port Brew Guys
• Brewpub Group / Brewpub Group Brewer of the Year
  TAPS Fish House & Brewery (Brea, California) / Victor Novak

In Conclusion

One hundred and sixty-eight style designations? To borrow from another sport: "You can't be serious!" YFGF is not alone is dismissing this creeping style inflation (and consequent dilution). As only one datum: What exactly is an International-Style Pale Ale?

Since there are only 3 awards given in each category, without numerical scores determined, many deserving beers (and deserving breweries) are slighted. I see no reason not to publish scores. The point of the GABF is to celebrate and to promote American breweries. Ignoring all those non-top-three beers — many of which would be potentially high-scoring— is a disservice to those beers, and more importantly, to the industry, which the Brewers Association, the sponsoring association, ostensibly represents.

It's not merely quality of a beer or skill in brewing that's rewarded. It's cleverness in gaming the system —not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that. Though any one brewery might win, the odds favor those breweries that enter as many categories as possible, that brew beers to match judges' style expectations, and that enter beers in categories that are ill-defined or that have fewer participants.

Be that as it may be, an award at the Great American Beer Festival does indeed give a brewery bragging rights as tops in its field (at least for a year) and indicates a level of brewing acumen, acknowledged by the judgement of its peers. For all the rest: wait till next year!

Finally, congratulations must be offered to the Brewers Association, and all the volunteers involved. The logistics of running such a mammoth celebration and competition are staggering. And special recognition must be offered to Charlie Papazian, the founder of the Brewers Association, the American Homebrewers Association, and the Great American Beer Festival. Thirty years ago, he had a crazy dream, and made it real.

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• An interactive list of all winners can be viewed at the GABF website: here.
• A downloadable pdf file: here.
• A simpler list, published by BeerNews.org: here.
• Some additional metrics, complied by Jay Brooks: here
• The 2012 GABF has been scheduled for 11-13 October, in Denver, Colorado, of course.

Whither Virginia wine 2011?

There was this tidbit in the Washington Post's Reliable Source column on Wednesday.

Steve Case —ex of AOL— and his wife, Jean, have applied to purchase the Sweely Estate Winery, in Madison, Virginia. Good for them, and good for the winery, which has been struggling financially.

What really caught my attention, however, was a seemingly throwaway comment in the penultimate sentence:

owners at Virginia's 200 wineries are struggling with a dismal rainy harvest.

The spring started off wet. Then, during July, the temperatures went above 90 degrees every day. Adding greater insult to injury, in August and September, there came the torrential rains. In fact, that 2-month period was the wettest on record in the region.

That is good news for fungi fanciers.

Mushrooms are sprouting in beds across forest floors up and down the East Coast. <...> “The mushrooms loved Irene,” says Ray Lasala, president of the Mycological Assocation of Washington. “Mushrooms are 90 percent water, and they appear a few days after the rain. They’re like compressed little sponges that develop in the ground and tree logs and pop when they’re hit with enough moisture.”

The Georgetowner
22 September 2011
(with recipes from Chef Ris Lacoste)

But for Virginia (and Maryland) vegetable and fruit farmers, these conditions —especially the extended deluge, coming as it did at the end of the growing season— did not bode well. At local vineyards, for example, should winemakers wait for their grapes to achieve physiological ripeness, and risk mold contamination, or should they harvest early, and risk under-ripe grapes.

For an answer, I turned to Virginia wine blogger Dezel Quillen, of My Vine Spot, who was more sanguine in his forecast.

The early reports I've heard from some have been surprisingly satisfactory to good for early ripening varieties. The verdict is still out on later-ripening grapes.

Harvest and crush are ongoing.

Now: the good wine news: On Thursday, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell announced that Virginia wine sales are now at an all-time high. From the Virginia Wine Marketing Office:

462,112 cases of wine were sold in fiscal 2011. That's up 11.4 percent from the 414,785 cases sold in fiscal 2010 [which was 13% over 2009]. The state collected almost $1.8 million in wine liter tax revenue, up from about $1.6 million in fiscal 2010. [The Virginia wine liter tax is applied at a rate of $3.60 per case of wine.] McDonnell says the increases in sales and tax revenue show that more consumers domestically and internationally are choosing Virginia wines. Virginia has nearly 200 wineries, the fifth largest number in the nation.

As he did in 2010, the Governor has again declared October to be Virginia Wine Month.

With activity that belies the current conservative credo that minimal government is better government, McDonnell, a Republican party governor (who is said to be in the running for the vice-presidential nomination), is actively promoting Virginia's wine industry, and that's a good thing, even if you're a teetotaler.

Promotion of the Virginia wine industry both domestically and internationally is one of Governor McDonnell's many economic development and jobs creation initiatives. During the last two sessions, the McDonnell administration has worked with the General Assembly to establish a reimbursable tax credit program for the establishment or expansion of vineyards and wineries and to more than the double amount of funds from the wine liter tax placed in the Virginia Wine Promotion Fund for research, education, and marketing programs.

Governor McDonnell also has promoted the sale of Virginia wines during trade and marketing missions to the United Kingdom, Japan, China and South Korea. In addition, First Lady Maureen McDonnell has made the promotion of Virginia wines and winery tourism a key component of her First Lady's Initiative Team Effort (FLITE). .

Virginia Wine Month events continue unabated throughout the month. Find an event, or a winery near you, at Virginia Wine.com. As part of the festivities, the winery winner of the 2011 Virginia Governor's Cup will be announced on Wednesday 5 October.

Follow also on Twitter at @VAwine, and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/vawine. For more information about the Virginia wine industry, visit www.virginiawine.org, or contact, in that 'old-school' manner, Annette Ringwood Boyd at (804) 344-8200.

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• Be very careful with wild mushrooms. Many are very poisonous and potentially lethal. Rather than personally harvesting, rely on farmers and markets. As the Georgetowneer states: "This newspaper does not condone the picking and eating of wild mushrooms unless you are a fungal expert. So I, for one, adhere to Thoreau’s assessment of these exotic sprouts: 'The value … is not in the mere possession or eating of them, but in the sight and enjoyment of them.' ”
• It's wonderful —and economy-boosting— that the state of Virginia is promoting the business of wine. Witness this brochure (pdf file) of Virginia wineries. But, then, why not beer, and spirits? Virginia Brewers Guild: lobby and petition!

Pic(k) of the Week: Guilty!

Still holding the shoe she's purloined, Ethel Mae the beagle plots her escape.

Ms. Mae was not quite two when she stole this shoe. Now, five years older, she's not quite as svelte, but she's still mischievous ... when she's not snoozing, that is.

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Pic(k) of the Week: one in a weekly series of personal photos, posted on Saturdays, and often, but not always, with a good fermentable as subject. Commercial use requires explicit permission, as per Creative Commons.