If you have been out and about lately, you may have noticed a new ”Star-Studded” tap handle behind the bar. Starr Hill is a small craft brewery from just outside of Charlottesville Virginia. The brewery opened as a brew pub in downtown Charlottesville in 1999 but in recent years has expanded into full-scale regional microbrewery selling into eight states; and now West Virginia. The great thing about Starr Hill is that was founded and is run by its award winning brewmaster Mark Thompson, so the place has been built slowly and deliberately on good beer. I have tasted two of the beers offered here in the Charleston area; Jomo Lager and Star-Hill Pale Ale and they are both pretty good.

Jomo Lager is my fave of the two, not because the Pale Ale is inferior but more to the fact that Jomo is a pretty good Vienna style Lager and we need more good full-flavored lagers out there! Though based on the Austrian classic, Jomo’s hop aroma and flavor never lets you forget that it’s an American Craft beer. Jomo will be appearing on tap and in bottles at the better beer venues around town. Lola’s in South Hills is supposed to be getting Jomo in bottles and I suggest one with your next Lola’s pizza. (more…)

The folks at the Boston Beer Company are dead serious when they discuss the importance of the Home-Brewing movement as a driving force behind America’s Craft beer industry. So much so that in 2006, BBC’s founder and President Jim Koch announced very unique annual competition to pay homage to all of us garage brewing alchemists. It’s called the Samuel Adam’s Longshot competition. This competition opens up the opportunity for two home brewers and one Boston Beer Company employee to have their winning beer entries scaled-up and brewed in an industrial size batch then promoted and sold in the special release “Longshot mix six-pack” Brewers are also paid a $5000.00 royalty and flown out to The Great American Beer Festival for the awards ceremony.

Last weekend I had the opportunity to participate as a judge in the 2009 Sam Adam’s Longshot Competition, which is broken into three regional judging areas in the U.S. I judged at the Boston regional. The competition is sanctioned and organized just like a normal AHA/BJCP sanctioned home brewing competition except entry into the contest is free of charge as to encourage more brewers to enter.

This year’s competition featured over 1500 entries broken down into the 23 BJCP style categories. Our group at the Boston Regional judged 653 entries in one day! (split into three rounds). This was something in way of a logistical miracle, but good organization, great stewards and qualified judges make a world of difference.

Sam Adam’s picked up the hotel room for the volunteers as well as buying us dinner after a long day of judging. The hotel bar had several Sam Adam’s beers at special prices but we were all pretty much “Beered-out” by dinner time, so they could have been free (and were during dinner) and it would have made no difference. It was off to bed early and up very early for my flight home.

The regional finalists are then sent on to Boston Beer Company where a group of BBC’s brewers and other beer industry VIP’s will select the winners. Winners will be announced in September at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver.

Where else would a beer geek on business in Cincinnati go to celebrate Cinco de Mayo? To the biergarten at the Hofbräuhaus of course! I mean really, who wants to sit with a bunch of rowdies drinking Corona from the bottle when I can sit in a biergarten drinking damn good German lager with a great view of the Cincinnati skyline? The weather was perfect and my neighbor (and regular BTY taste panel dude) Charles decided he would make the trip with me (retirement must be nice).

Our first Cinco de Mayo stop was at Nicholson’s, a Scottish themed poser bar in downtown Cincy. Nicholson’s usually makes up for its “Poser-ness” by serving a few good pints of English ale and carries one helluva selection of Scotch whiskey and Bourbon. Whiskey was not on our menu that evening. Charles and I decided on a half-pint of Fuller’s London Pride to start things off only after we were given a little taste of the Fuller’s ESB (even though we know the beer all too well, you can’t let on or Ye won’t get yer free taste from the man in the kilt!) The ESB’s beer lines or keg was foul, reeking of buttery diacetyl.

Our curiosities were piqued by the presence of that new fangled Guinness anniversary beer called “Guinness 250”; a beer released to celebrate the world renowned brewery’s 250^th anniversary. I asked “fer a wee nip” and then ordered a pint. Guinness” two-fitty” is going to do well for them in the US Market if they can get skeptics to take that first “wee nip”. The draft version is poured using pure C02 versus a nitrogen/C02 mix, is a bit stronger at 5% and is maltier than standard Guinness Draught. You would assume then that it would be a heavier, less drinkable beer. On the contrary, the higher carbonation along with an obvious absence of the Guinness “soured mash” flavor makes this beer very easy to drink. We could have stayed for another but the place was dead. I guess all of the posers must have been over at the cantina down the street. We moseyed over to Rock Bottom brewery for a quick one before winding up at our “Cinco de Mayo” destination, The Hofbäuhaus in Newport Kentucky; just over the bridge from downtown Cincy.

HB’s biergarten is much smaller than its typical München counterparts. The ground is covered in fine gravel and is adorned with several locust trees providing ambience, shade and a place hang the string-lighting. The long picnic style tables support a pretty large drinking party and opens up the possibility that you can share a beer with a stranger, though less likely here in states as our culture seems to eschew such spontaneity. The beer is good; I would even go as far as saying great, though it’s not as interesting as American craft styles. Don’t expect to find an IPA or Imperial stout here; just delicious, well brewed lagers. All beers are brewed on premises, except for the Dunkle, which is brewed in Germany. HB always seems to have a traditional seasonal beer available; appropriately offering a maibock for the month of May.

The food at HB bears a reasonable resemblance to real German food, though any beer hall in Munich has this place easily beaten. My schnitzel dish was nowhere near as good as what I have had in München, but hey this place is only three hours away from my door step! When the weather isn’t cooperating, HB has a fairly large indoor beer hall complete with oom-pah band. Everyone should try this place if they want to experience close to what it’s like to drink beer in a German beer garden.

Here is a simple dish that features the wonderful taste and texture of oyster mushrooms. I found the recipe after harvesting a goodly amount of wild grey oyster mushrooms a couple of weeks ago. This is a mild dish by Thai standards, with garlic being the main source of spice. A dish like this calls for a nice Asian lager and one of the best in class is Singha; an all-malt lager from Thailand. Asian lagers tend to be very light and crisp making them ideal for the hot and sticky summer weather. It also means that these beers which are relatively low in bitterness, pair well with both mild Asian cuisine but are refreshingly good with spicier Asian fare. 

Ingredients:

¾ Pound of oyster mushrooms, torn or cut to bite size (if dried, follow directions on package)

1 lb medium shrimp (peeled and deveined)

1 lb of asparagus (with tender sections cut diagonally to 1 ½” pieces)

8 crushed or minced garlic cloves

Oyster sauce

Fish sauce

Peanut oil

Ground white pepper

(Serve dish over white Jasmine Rice) 

 Cooking Directions: Heat 2-3 tablespoons of oil in Wok, high heat. Add garlic and stir to prevent burning. Add shrimp and stir until they start to turn pink. Add asparagus and continue to stir for about a minute. Add oyster mushrooms, enough oyster sauce to lightly coat, and fish sauce to taste. Continue to stir-fry until the asparagus is crisp but cooked. Add some ground white pepper and serve over white jasmine rice. Pair it with a cold Singha lager in a glass.

The critical (yet objective) “Beers to You” tasting panel took a shot at two seasonal brews from the Magician’s at Magic Hat Brewing Company of Vermont. This year the “The Great Ballantine” must have been the guy on stage, because they really failed to pull a rabbit out of the hat for “Summer 09″.

 The first beer is called “Wacko” which is billed as a very light summer ale, is dosed with a bit of raw beet sugar to lighten the taste. No one on the BTY taste panel could come up with anything good to say about Wacko. The beer pours with a slightly beet-red color with the head fading quickly. The beer has virtually no aroma and a seemingly high carbonation level.  The beer is hopped with the Columbus variety, but at a very low rate, making the hop variety unimportant. The most interesting thing about the beer is the very high levels of DMS (dimethyl sulfide) in the finish. This usually “taboo” beer characteristic tastes like cooked corn and is only desirable in a few beer styles in very small amounts. This beer’s concentrations were so high the beer could have been used to train tasters for DMS detection. I would rather drink Coor’s light than Wacko; and that is saying a lot!

The second Magic Hat seasonal is named “A Belgian Blonde”. They describe it as a summer “Odd Notion” and not a seasonal beer and I can’t explain why. The beer is pretty good and at just under 6%abv, it’s a moderately strong beer with a definite Belgian character all the way through. The beer tends toward the “malty side” but has been dry-hopped for some “snap”. The beer is well balanced but it doesn’t strike me as a summer “porch sipper” because it’s a bit strong, though not thick; in fact it finishes dry and somewhat light.  I would much rather see this beer on tap as opposed to Wacko, which will be going on tap at a few local venues pretty soon.

The BTY panel could not proclaim either of these beers as “Magic” and Wacko was downright “Not pleasant to drink”. Magic Hat’s  “A Belgian Blonde” was Just Okay, but I know they can do better! I hope they find some new potions for their “odd notions” before next year’s seasonals are released!