Give Prohibition the finger

Dec. 7, 2012 

In 1919, under pressure from lobbyists, the temperance movement and general buzz-killers, the U.S. Congress passed the 18th Amendment, outlawing the manufacture, sale and distribution of alcoholic beverages in the United States. The “Noble Experiment,” as it was called, lasted until the full ratification of the 21^st Amendment on Dec. 5, 1933. This week, we celebrate the repeal of Prohibition and our right to consume our favorite brews, but in order to fully appreciate our freedom to guzzle, we need to acknowledge the dastardly deeds done by Prohibition, specifically in the area of brewing.

At the dawn of the 20^th century, consumers were actually migrating toward drinking more beer and fewer spirits. When Prohibition was shoved down the collective American gullet in 1919, organized crime came to the rescue, keeping booze in the hands of the proletariat, but because beer was more difficult to produce than moonshine and, therefore, less profitable, brewing declined significantly during the Prohibition era. The “Oxford Companion to Beer” states that of the 1,392 breweries in operation before Prohibition, only 164 remained after its repeal.

Individual states began passing laws prohibiting alcohol as early as 1855, and Colorado jumped on the state legislation bandwagon in 1916, three years before the 18th Amendment outlawed alcohol nationwide. One of the breweries that managed to survive the beer massacre was Coors. According to literature from Miller-Coors, when Colorado put the kibosh on brewing, Coors stopped producing beer and focused on a successful porcelain business and producing malted milk and near beer (less than 0.5 percent alcohol, which was still legal) to get by.

Despite limping through Prohibition with near beer and illegal production, and marginal success stories from Coors and some of its compatriots, brewing in the United States was destined to take another hit. Oxford points out that an entire generation raised during this time was accustomed to the sweet flavors of soft drinks and, therefore, rejected the more bitter Bavarian styles of beer. Lighter American beer was created post-Prohibition to cater to the demands of this new populace, and bolder, hoppier beers effectively died out in America for decades.

By 1979, smaller breweries were disappearing as industry consolidation occurred. The bigger breweries were cranking out mass-produced lager beer, some of which was so awful that the standing joke, according to one writer at All About Beer magazine, was that the brewing process included a horse. That year, a federal transportation law went into effect that included a rider amendment pertaining to home brewing. Due to an administrative oversight during the repeal of Prohibition, home brewing was still federally illegal. The amendment allowed for an individual to brew as much as 100 gallons of beer per year for personal consumption, 200 if the household contained two or more adults.

Bolstered by this official acknowledgment, home brewing boomed, spawning the advent of new small breweries and brewpubs to fill the niche vacated by their predecessors and jumpstarting the craft beer movement. So as you study the bottom of your next pint glass, consider how Prohibition severely altered and almost extinguished brewing in America and be thankful that most of you have never known the pain of going months or even years without a beer.

>> From the Fridge: Coors Batch 19

As one of the few breweries that survived the wreckage of Prohibition, Coors claims a long and storied history, and through serendipity and a dedication to the past, the big brewery in Golden has resurrected its roots and a taste of pre-Prohibition beer with its newest creation, Batch 19.

“In 2004, there was a flood in the Coors brewery and one of the brew masters rescued this archive book, this log book of recipes,” said Katie Cowan, brand manager for Batch 19. “As he was looking through, he said, ‘These recipes could have been lost forever. I want to look at it and play with it and see what these recipes are all about.’”

That brewer was Keith Villa, better known as the founder of the Blue Moon Brewing Co., also under the Coors umbrella. Villa took a look at one recipe in particular, and that was the foundation for Batch 19, Cowan said.

“We wanted to see what beer was like before Prohibition,” Cowan said. “The thing that inspired him was that we had this hidden gem that was lost, forgotten and rediscovered.”

Pre-Prohibition beer was bolder in flavor and higher in alcohol content than mainstream beers today, Cowan said. Villa tried to match the original recipe as closely as he could with modern ingredients when he created Batch 19. The beer is still sessionable, with some herbal and black currant notes and a slightly higher ABV at 5.5 percent.

So grab a bottle of Batch 19 and celebrate the repeal of Prohibition this week with a ghost of beers past.

Krista Driscoll

Hophead

Vail Daily Weekly

Drink your way through Opening Day

Nov. 16, 2012

Vail opens for the winter season this week, which means two things: battling hundreds of other people to ski the three available routes down the mountain and battling hundreds of people to belly up to the bar for après when your unconditioned ski legs give out after a handful of turns. Because the ratio of après hours to on-mountain hours can be pretty lopsided in the early season, here’s a brief rundown of some places to hit to keep your taste buds from getting bored.

Both gondolas at Vail will be running on Opening Day, but neither will lead you to skiable terrain and only one will get your hands on a beer. Gondola One, Vail’s newest feat of engineering, will do novelty laps that bring you within yards of the expansive, green-marble bar at The 10^th and its taunting selection of frosty beverages. The restaurant opens for après and dinner service on Dec. 12. The Eagle Bahn, on the other hand, will deposit you at the cafeteria at Eagle’s Nest for a Shocktop and those snowy views of the Gore Range you’ve been jonesing for. 

Once your legs start turning into Jell-o, head down to Lionshead to kick off your après adventure. Mine always used to start with a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and a veggie pizza at Mezzaluna in the Lion Square Lodge at the base of the gondola, but the restaurant has been gutted and renovated to make room for a new Latin-inspired dining experience, El Sabor, which is slated to open in early December. Undaunted by this setback, the next obvious choice is Garfinkel’s. Grab a pint or, if you are a member of the mug club, a mug of Deschutes’ new Chain Breaker white IPA, and lounge on the huge, sunny deck to watch the last of the gapers maneuver across the skier bridge.

Once the sun goes down, the deck gets chilly — time to head over to the Blue Moose for a slice and another brew. Try Lindsey Vonn’s signature pizza, The Vonnderfull, with grilled chicken, artichokes, goat cheese, sun-dried tomatoes and pesto, and chase it with a glass of Crazy Mountain Hookiebob IPA or Bonfire Awry Pale Ale. It’s now fully dark, and this is where many Opening Day après swashbucklers call it a night. But you’re really selling yourself short if you don’t get a nightcap, and the best place to do that is The George. Climb onto the in-town bus for the short trip over to Vail Village and a dirt-cheap Miller High Life — yes, I said High Life, the champagne of beers — before grabbing a sober ride home to dream of your next dust-on-crust escapade.

>> From the Fridge: Magic Hat No. 9

The first time I tried No. 9 was on a brief sojourn to Boston about six years ago. That trip also gets credit for my first beer at Fenway Park, my first taste of blueberry beer and my first craft brewery tour at Harpoon’s shop on the ocean. Unfortunately, at that time, Magic Hat had not started distributing in Colorado and it kind of fell off my radar. So imagine my joy when, about a month ago, I wandered into Beaver Liquors in Avon and was greeted with a display of No. 9. I celebrated by buying a case.

 

No. 9 is touted as a “not quite pale ale” brewed with English ale yeast and Cascade and Apollo hops. At 20 IBUs, this beer is pretty low on the bittering scale for a pale ale, and it has a slightly sweet finish that’s hard to place. Magic Hat likes to keep a bit of mystery around this brew, not divulging what creates its unique flavor profile, but if I had to make a guess, I’d say they throw a smidge of apricot into it to create that tiny saccharine hit. Or maybe my palate has been thrown off by drinking too much Apricot Ale from Magic Hat’s sister company, Pyramid.

Regardless, that bit of sweetness pairs well with a variety of dishes, from spicy chili to shrimp Creole. If you’re feeling adventurous, try cooking up one of the recipes at http://www.magichat.net/recipes/number_9 to create a meal out of this new arrival from the East.

Krista Driscoll

Hophead

Vail Daily Weekly

How big is too big to be a brewpub?

May 18, 2012

In Colorado, brewpubs operate under a different set of rules than their big-name manufacturing counterparts. What applies to Miller-Coors does not apply to Twisted Pine and vice versa. But a handful of Colorado’s microbreweries aren’t so micro any more, and they are struggling with legislation that prohibits them from occupying a new niche in the state beer industry.

Guzzling seasonal brews at the Breckenridge
Brewery brewpub. Photo by Devin Schow.

According to the Denver Business Journal, the Colorado legislature recently dropped House Bill 12-1347, a proposal that would have increased the production cap for brewpubs. The bill was allowed to die due to opposition from industries along the pipeline, from beer birthing to distribution to retail, all of which complained that increasing the cap would give brewpubs an unfair advantage in the overall beer market.

So pending the passage of some revision of the dead bill, these breweries are faced with a choice: shut down their brewpubs and switch over to manufacturing licenses, thus avoiding the production cap, or build new breweries outside of the state to increase production. These guys don’t want to abandon their freedom to conduct research and development at the consumer level through their brewpubs — they don’t want to eliminate that personal connection between those who brew the beer and those who drink it — so a lot of growing breweries are looking at option No. 2.

Both New Belgium and Oskar Blues in the past few months have announced plans to propagate their operations in North Carolina. But Breckenridge Brewery is the only brewpub currently teetering on the edge of making too much beer for its place in the Colorado rulebooks.

Breck Brewery public relations maven Terry Usry said that brewery is still looking at ways to stay within Colorado, and the option of building out of state is just that — an option. Breck is still dedicated to its Colorado roots and the culture of craft brewing. She said that though Breck beers can now be found in 33 states, the company is still rolling out a small-batch line that allow its brewers to be creative and give consumers options that range from mainstream brews such as Avalanche Ale to its numbered-bottle, barrel-aged series.

So though it’s disappointing that the Colorado legislature failed to enact a provision that would allow our beloved craft brewpubs to grow and prosper right here in the state, brewers are creative, and Breckenridge, and other brewpubs that follow, will figure out new ways to expand and thrive and keep doling out the tasty brews we crave.

 

From the Fridge: Breckenridge Brewery 471 Small Batch

I have a couple of Breckenridge Brewery beers in my fridge at the moment, but in the vein of celebrating this little-big time brewpub’s continued dedication to its small-batch roots, I decided to drill brewmaster Todd Usry about his 471 Small Batch IPA.

“We just wanted something that was big and hoppy, high in alcohol but balanced,” Todd Usry said of the beer, which was first released in 2006. “We have a wide variety of styles, but we stay true to balance as much as possible. I was inspired by Russian River’s Pliny the Elder and Avery’s Maharajah. I wasn’t necessarily trying to emulate them but create something that had that kind of balance and flavor.”

The big, piney-citrus hop flavor comes from a blend of Chinook, Centennial, Simcoe and Fuggles hops, with an enormous malty wash on the back side that works well with the hoppiness up front, creating a great finish for every sip, Todd Usry said.

“A lot of double IPAs are over the top one way or the other or they’re overly boozy,” Todd Usry said. “You get that alcohol burn on them.”

Breck douses that after burn with cold conditioning. The beer is held at 34 degrees for five weeks to scrub out the harsh alcohol volatiles found in other imperial or double beers. The result is a potent 9.2 percent alcohol by volume beer that’s still very drinkable.

So what’s next off the line at Breckenridge Brewery? Todd Usry said to look for a re-release of the 72 Imperial Chocolate Cream Stout and a new collaboration with Stranahan’s on the heels of the Well Built ESB. This time, Breck will be whiskey barrel-aging and bottling its main line Vanilla Porter.

Krista Driscoll

Hophead
Vail Daily Weekly