Yesterday I made the 40-minute walk from my house to Castle Macadam. It is not, as it’s name suggests, a castle. It is a beer store, a genuine, mouth-watering (at least for a beer geek like myself) bottle shop. It is exactly the sort of place I’ve been looking for since arriving in Dunedin, the sort of place I am used to frequenting in the states.
Castle Macadam has been mentioned several times in my search for a beer store, but given my disappointment with the other stores recommended in the same sentence, I was hesitant to make the trek. It was only after the topic of beer stores came up in my conversation with Chris O’Leary, and after he gave his approval of the place, that my hesitancy turned to reserved optimism.
Entering the store brought me a feeling of comfort. It sounds silly, but it is nice to find a store where the staff (one man in this case) really know what they are talking about, where you can go, even with no intention of buying anything, just because it is an enjoyable environment.
I will hopefully be posting more about Castle Macadam as I plan on returning not only as a customer, but also to learn a bit more about the retail aspect of the beverage industry. I bought a bottle of Rodenbach Grand Cru, which will be the subject for the remainder of this post.
If I had to name the major weaknesses in my experience as a beer drinker I would name one broad geographical problem, and several style specific issues. Geographically speaking, I find that I rarely buy beer produced outside The United States. This is simply because it does not make sense to spend the extra money on foreign beer, when there is a brewery in the states making a similar product. While this is a nice problem to have, it means that when it comes to Belgian style beer, I have very little experience with actual Belgian beers, or at least not as much experience as I would like to have.
On a more micro level, I just simply haven’t consumed a lot of sour beer: Lambics, Guezes, Krieks, Flanders Red and Bruin. Rodenbach Grand Cru, as a Flanders Red, falls squarely in the center of both the geographic and stylistic black holes in my palate experience.
My research into Rodenbach Grand Cru revealed that the sour complexity of the beer is achieved through the use of five yeast strains. Grand Cru in particular uses yeast, and a barrel-conditioning period of 18 months to achieve a ridiculous level of sour fruity complexity. I have posted my review below.
Rodenbach Grand Cru 6%
750 ml bottle poured into a wine glass.
A: Pours a dark reddish brown with a fizzy tan head
S: Wow. I don't have much experience with any of the sour beer styles so that is probably why I was blown away by the smell and taste: Vinegar like sourness mixes with sweet cherry and vanilla. There is some oak as well from the aging process.
T: Again this was an eye opener. Tartness and sweetness that I can only describe as cherry-like are followed by some earthiness/mustiness from the oak and from the yeast. There may be some malt and hops somewhere in this beer but they are hard to pick out.
M: Fizzy Champaign-like carbonation cuts the medium body and acts in opposition to the tongue coating quality of the beer. Finishes pretty clean.
D: Amazingly complex beer which makes it a pleasure to consume.
Notes: If I didn't know better, I would be sure that this was brewed with cherries. It’s crazy that they achieve that level of fruitiness just through using various strains of yeast.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Emerson's, Bottling Part II, and Beervana
I would like to begin by welcoming anyone who happened upon my blog as a result of Real Beer NZ ( the online craft beer community for new zealand) which is now graciously listing my blog on their site. If an you you are in Dunedin and would like to grab a drink or trade some beer or thoughts on beer in New Zealand, let me know.
So I just got back form an awesome visit to Emerson's. Got a tour of the facility from production manager Chris O'Leary. It's quite an impressive production facility. Also had a lengthy chat with Chris about beer culture in New Zealand, distribution difficulties, beer philosophy and a whole number of other topics. Then I met Richard Emerson who graciously led me through a tasting of pretty much all of their beers. I was particularly blown away by their Smoked Porter (I think it's a brewer's reserve), which had an amazing ripe fruit hop aroma, a subtle roasted bitterness, and a gentle smokiness towards the back of the tongue. I look forward to tasting their line-up in bottled form, for reviewing purposes, and hopefully getting the opportunity to volunteer for them in the future.
Earlier in the day I helped out at Green Man, bottling Best Bitter and Stout. While I had previously stated I enjoyed the bottling process, today's experience was much more stressful. Whereas I had previously been removed from the more mechanized portions of the process, today I was in the thick of things. Besides the pressure to perform my task rapidly enough to not cause a complete breakdown in the whole bottling line, several bottle exploded a foot from my face when the ancient capping machine applied pressure where it shouldn't have to the smaller 330 ml bottled used by Green Man for some of their beer. Anyways, it was a tiresome stressful morning.
In other exciting news, I think I am going to be a volunteer at the national craft brew festival in New Zealand called Beervana. So to all the kiwi beer enthusiasts now hopefully reading my blog, I will see you there.
So I just got back form an awesome visit to Emerson's. Got a tour of the facility from production manager Chris O'Leary. It's quite an impressive production facility. Also had a lengthy chat with Chris about beer culture in New Zealand, distribution difficulties, beer philosophy and a whole number of other topics. Then I met Richard Emerson who graciously led me through a tasting of pretty much all of their beers. I was particularly blown away by their Smoked Porter (I think it's a brewer's reserve), which had an amazing ripe fruit hop aroma, a subtle roasted bitterness, and a gentle smokiness towards the back of the tongue. I look forward to tasting their line-up in bottled form, for reviewing purposes, and hopefully getting the opportunity to volunteer for them in the future.
Earlier in the day I helped out at Green Man, bottling Best Bitter and Stout. While I had previously stated I enjoyed the bottling process, today's experience was much more stressful. Whereas I had previously been removed from the more mechanized portions of the process, today I was in the thick of things. Besides the pressure to perform my task rapidly enough to not cause a complete breakdown in the whole bottling line, several bottle exploded a foot from my face when the ancient capping machine applied pressure where it shouldn't have to the smaller 330 ml bottled used by Green Man for some of their beer. Anyways, it was a tiresome stressful morning.
In other exciting news, I think I am going to be a volunteer at the national craft brew festival in New Zealand called Beervana. So to all the kiwi beer enthusiasts now hopefully reading my blog, I will see you there.
Farmhouse Lager?
Moa Brewing Company is doing an interesting thing up in Marlborough (The epicenter of New Zealand's wine culture). It was founded by the son of a wine making family, who was himself full of wine making knowledge. Moa bottle conditions their beer (adds sugar and yeast to the beer before putting it in bottles, thus allowing carbonation to build in the sealed bottles), but they bottle condition with wine yeast. What this does to their beers is quite interesting. Their three flagship beers, Original, Noir, and Blanc all have a yeasty funkiness to them. This is something common in belgian beers, which are all bottle conditioned, but the Moa funk is quite unique.
It is my expert opinion that this interesting use of bottle conditioning with wine yeast in their Original means they have created a new style of beer. I call it Farmhouse Lager, as the beer is made like a lager but demonstrates a lot of the belgian farmhouse qualities that I mentioned in my review of the Original. I will post my beeradvocate reviews of the Blanc and Noir bellow. Again, the complexity of the beer has lent itself to rather lengthy reviews so they are posted as written on the site:
Moa Noir:
375 ml bottle poured into a glass mug.
A: Deep mahogany with a one and a half inch tan head. Leaves lacing down the glass.
S: Sour funk takes a back seat on this one. Darker malts take the lead, lending both a roasted coffee like quality to the nose, and a sweet dark fruit and vanilla quality.
T: Again sourdough yeast is there but not upfront. Roasted bitterness and malty sweetness dominate. Coffee comes through as well. Yeast is there but only around the edges.
M: Medium body with crisp carbonation. Finish is clean but not as dry as the original and blanc.
D: The carbonation on these beers makes them awesomely drinkable.
Moa Blanc:
375 ml bottle poured into a glass mug.
A: Pours a hazy straw with one and a half inch white head and lots of carbonation rising from the bottom of the glass. Leaves some lacing down the glass.
S: Starts out with a lot of sour funk from the yeast. Followed by some fresh cut grass hay like notes. As the beer warms banana and coriander come through.
T: Raw grain, spicy hops, sour yeast. Finishes with a but of sweetness.
M: Crisp carbonation punctuates a lightish body. Wheat definitely comes through on the mouthfeel, lending to a dry finish.
D: Very nice. I like the house wine yeast funk that the two moa beers I have had so far feature quite prominently. The blanc was a bit less complex and lighter than the original but that almost makes it more drinkable.
It is my expert opinion that this interesting use of bottle conditioning with wine yeast in their Original means they have created a new style of beer. I call it Farmhouse Lager, as the beer is made like a lager but demonstrates a lot of the belgian farmhouse qualities that I mentioned in my review of the Original. I will post my beeradvocate reviews of the Blanc and Noir bellow. Again, the complexity of the beer has lent itself to rather lengthy reviews so they are posted as written on the site:
Moa Noir:
375 ml bottle poured into a glass mug.
A: Deep mahogany with a one and a half inch tan head. Leaves lacing down the glass.
S: Sour funk takes a back seat on this one. Darker malts take the lead, lending both a roasted coffee like quality to the nose, and a sweet dark fruit and vanilla quality.
T: Again sourdough yeast is there but not upfront. Roasted bitterness and malty sweetness dominate. Coffee comes through as well. Yeast is there but only around the edges.
M: Medium body with crisp carbonation. Finish is clean but not as dry as the original and blanc.
D: The carbonation on these beers makes them awesomely drinkable.
Moa Blanc:
375 ml bottle poured into a glass mug.
A: Pours a hazy straw with one and a half inch white head and lots of carbonation rising from the bottom of the glass. Leaves some lacing down the glass.
S: Starts out with a lot of sour funk from the yeast. Followed by some fresh cut grass hay like notes. As the beer warms banana and coriander come through.
T: Raw grain, spicy hops, sour yeast. Finishes with a but of sweetness.
M: Crisp carbonation punctuates a lightish body. Wheat definitely comes through on the mouthfeel, lending to a dry finish.
D: Very nice. I like the house wine yeast funk that the two moa beers I have had so far feature quite prominently. The blanc was a bit less complex and lighter than the original but that almost makes it more drinkable.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
In the land of giants (thoughts on being a midget)
Someone should have told me that New Zealanders are giant people. I may have not gone on this adventure if I knew that my pride would be damaged every time i left the house. But seriously, people here are really tall. Guys are tall, girls are tall, children are tall, old men and women are tall. It is to such an extreme that the other day when I was going shoe shopping (for a pair of leather boots) I was told, in reference to a pair of boots that were much too big on me, "those are the smallest size in the country, we couldn't even order a pair that would fit you". Shortly thereafter i did manage to find a pair of sweet boots that fit me, but they were the smallest size that store had available.
Shoveling
I don't know why I haven't posted about this activity yet, but it is something I have done twice at the brewery and which I quite enjoy. The activity is shoveling spent grain from the lauter tun (vessel where sugar is rinsed from the barley which has just come from a process called mashing. A process in which long chain starches are reduced by several enzymes into sugar) into bins to be collected by a farmer to feed to his pigs.
What this entails is putting on rubber boots, climbing into a big metal vat and shoveling the spent grain with a large shovel. The process takes about thirty minutes.
Why? you might be asking yourself, would a college graduate enjoy work so menial. For three reasons. First and foremost it is warm, and in a country where a lot of the buildings (my house) are not insulated and don't have central heating (my house again) and where (in dunedin at least) the cold is a nasty penetrating damp sort of cold, being warm, genuinely warm, is a rare thing. Secondly, it smells amazing. Maybe it is some baser part of my brain, the part that instinctually yearns for carbs, but the smell of baked bread and cooked oatmeal which rises off the warm bed of grains is pretty awesome. And finally, it is good exercise and makes me feel useful.
Anyways, this is probably something I will do frequently and i look forward to it.
What this entails is putting on rubber boots, climbing into a big metal vat and shoveling the spent grain with a large shovel. The process takes about thirty minutes.
Why? you might be asking yourself, would a college graduate enjoy work so menial. For three reasons. First and foremost it is warm, and in a country where a lot of the buildings (my house) are not insulated and don't have central heating (my house again) and where (in dunedin at least) the cold is a nasty penetrating damp sort of cold, being warm, genuinely warm, is a rare thing. Secondly, it smells amazing. Maybe it is some baser part of my brain, the part that instinctually yearns for carbs, but the smell of baked bread and cooked oatmeal which rises off the warm bed of grains is pretty awesome. And finally, it is good exercise and makes me feel useful.
Anyways, this is probably something I will do frequently and i look forward to it.
Moa Original
I should probably reveal now that I review all of the beers I have been drinking three times. First in he journal I am keeping, then on the website beeradvocate, then on my blog. Usual my beeradvocate reviews are aimed more at precision and thus not verbose enough to warrant a blog post. However today I tried a beer which inspired me to write a beeradvocate lengthy enough to post here. So here it is:
I would like to preface this review by saying that this beer in a lot of respects reminds me more of a saison than a pils. I am sure the ingredients and process are consistent with that of a pilsner but the bottle conditioning and resulting residual yeast give it a nose and taste more consistent with a saison.
A: Pours an appealing semi-clear gold with a massive fluffy white head and lots of bubbling from the bottom of the glass. Leaves nices lacing down the glass.
S: This is where the saison thing starts happening. Spicy hops and fresh cut grass are the first thing I noticed. Underlying that first layer is a lemon citrus bite. There was also a decent dose of yeasty sourness, an unexpected but pleasant surprise. On final whiff, as the beer warms, there is a bit of coriander.
T: Hop bitterness and spice are most predominant flavor balanced by a raw grain backbone and some sourdough yeast (particularly after I emptied the bottle)
M: Medium to light body with crisp carbonation and clean finish.
D: This would be perfect for a hot summer day BUT even on this cold, late-fall (in new zealand) night it was an easy drink.
Nice palate cleanser after a dinner of frittata and toast.
I would like to preface this review by saying that this beer in a lot of respects reminds me more of a saison than a pils. I am sure the ingredients and process are consistent with that of a pilsner but the bottle conditioning and resulting residual yeast give it a nose and taste more consistent with a saison.
A: Pours an appealing semi-clear gold with a massive fluffy white head and lots of bubbling from the bottom of the glass. Leaves nices lacing down the glass.
S: This is where the saison thing starts happening. Spicy hops and fresh cut grass are the first thing I noticed. Underlying that first layer is a lemon citrus bite. There was also a decent dose of yeasty sourness, an unexpected but pleasant surprise. On final whiff, as the beer warms, there is a bit of coriander.
T: Hop bitterness and spice are most predominant flavor balanced by a raw grain backbone and some sourdough yeast (particularly after I emptied the bottle)
M: Medium to light body with crisp carbonation and clean finish.
D: This would be perfect for a hot summer day BUT even on this cold, late-fall (in new zealand) night it was an easy drink.
Nice palate cleanser after a dinner of frittata and toast.
Nature
I went on a nature excursion on sunday. It was exciting to go on my first outdoors adventure in this country known for its outdoor experiences. Day was a bit overcast but a drastic improvement over the constant rain of the two previous days. After a pleasant twenty minute van ride from the visitor's center, where I was picked up by the tour company, through the otago peninsula, we arrived at the albatross center. While most of us did not pay the extra money to go on the albatross viewing extension, we almost immediately saw two albatross fly across the sky.
Then we headed to the beach where we were to see penguins, sea lions, and seals. It was quite interesting to be so close to wild animals I had only ever seen in a zoo. Sea lions it turns out have absolutely no fear of anything on land, a fact which lead to there extinction on new zealand after Maori hunters easily killed off the population, and a fact which makes it possible to get within feet of them. We also happened upon a female sea lion (one of only twenty in the country) on a beach that usually has no females on it.
All and all it was worth the money to get so up close to animals that most people will only know, at best, through the looking glass of a zoo.
Then we headed to the beach where we were to see penguins, sea lions, and seals. It was quite interesting to be so close to wild animals I had only ever seen in a zoo. Sea lions it turns out have absolutely no fear of anything on land, a fact which lead to there extinction on new zealand after Maori hunters easily killed off the population, and a fact which makes it possible to get within feet of them. We also happened upon a female sea lion (one of only twenty in the country) on a beach that usually has no females on it.
All and all it was worth the money to get so up close to animals that most people will only know, at best, through the looking glass of a zoo.
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