Summer 2013 Beer Preview: Looking Ahead to the Perfect Brews for the Season

New Glarus Raspberry Tart on Labor Day Weekend 2012 on Lake Waramaug, CT

With just one day left in April and the weather finally on a positive mend, we're already well on our way to summer. In anticipation of many hot sunny days spent BBQing in the back yard, rocking on the front porch, and reading on the beach, this beer preview looks ahead to some of the most seasonally appropriate brews for summer - namely, those that are highly refreshing and sessionable (low alcohol content), as well as those that feature sour, fruit, or wheat tastes.

My first summer beer-love (see above) was New Glarus Raspberry Tart (4% ABV). Way back before I was even interested in beer, I came across a highly descriptive suite of reviews on The Beverage Tasting Institute's website. One of the foremost there was Raspberry Tart, which their staff described accordingly: "Deep scarlet mahogany color. Aromas of toasted raspberry pastry and oily roasted nuts with a tangy, fruity-yet-dry medium-full body and a suede, Meyer lemon, and grassy earth accented finish. Fantastically flavorful." As a less-savvy beer consumer at the time, I was amazed that anything that qualified as beer could also be so clearly fruit-flavor-driven. I enthusiastically began a search to obtain a bottle, but quickly found that Raspberry Tart, like all of the brews from the world-class New Glarus Brewery, were only available for purchase in their home state of Wisconsin. This might have proved a challenge, were it not for the fact that I luckily lived in Chicago at the time. On the way up to a friend's house on Lake Geneva that summer, I dropped into Bruno's Liquors (524 Broad Street, Lake Geneva, WI - 262 248 6407) and picked up two bottles of Raspberry Tart and two of New Glarus' Belgian Red (4% ABV), their famed cherry beer (both $10/25 oz bottle). Over the course of that summer, and for every summer since, I've cut the colored wax seal on a couple of these lovely bottles - mauve for Raspberry Tart and fire-engine red for Belgian Red.

Gone Home to Chicago (Part 2): A Visit to Hopleaf, Chicago's Legendary Beer Bar

Part 1 can be found here.

While home in Chicago earlier this month, I had the chance to drop into Michael and Louise's Hopleaf Bar, the legendary Chicago beer spot located in the Uptown neighborhood of the city. Why legendary? Well:

1. Informal conversations with friends knowledgeable about the Chicago beer scene have repeatedly resulted in the proffering of voluminous praise for Hopleaf's always excellent tap list.
2. Google search after Google search turned up Hopleaf in list after list of the best beer places in the city (and even the country). Chicago Magazine went so far as to call it "The Archetype" for all of Chicago beer-dom.
3. Everyone loves it - Hopleaf has managed to maintain a 4+ star Yelp average with a staggering 1,300 reviews on the books - more than double the number of the next closest beer bar with a similar score.

I walked in excited; I saw my all-time-favorite beer Zombie Dust on tap and nearly fainted:

After my gamely-accompanying friends shook me out of dazed reverie, I ordered a pint of Zombie Dust (my first time having it on tap), a B. Nektar Meadery Zombie Killer (to continue the theme), and a Stillwater Cellar Door (sorry, there just wasn't a third sonambulist-themed beverage). 

Gone Home to Chicago (Part 1): Three Floyds, Pipeworks, Half Acre, and Revolution

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I recently had the good fortune to return home for a long weekend to Chicago. Past the normal (and excellent) aspects about visiting - spending quality with family and friends, walking down old familiar streets, eating myself silly - there came another, more hop-and-malt centric benefit: Chicago beer distribution.

Though I love New York City and its beer scene, there are certain breweries whose product you just can't get here. This is one of the eternal challenges of being a beer nerd: your home base limits the brews that you can readily access. Vermont is blessed with Hill Farmstead, Minnesota with Surly, Wisconsin with New Glarus. Barring clever trading, inside connections, or rare events, it can be difficult to get ahold of a desired beer.

Ergo, traveling to another part of the country always carries with it the added bonus excitement of exposure to a whole new suite of available breweries. In the case of coming home to Chicago, this meant having access to beer from world-class operations such as Three Floyds, Pipeworks, Half Acre, and Revolution. Even that subset merely limits the available bounty to a handful of Chicago area breweries that only have local distribution - other non-Chicago breweries such as Lost Abbey, New Belgium, and Boulevard distribute outside of their home states, including to Illinois, but don't ship to New York.

Put simply, I stepped into Binny's Beverage Depot in Lakeview (3000 N. Clark, Chicago, IL - 773 935 9400) and my jaw hit the floor at the staggering array of new choices on the shelves. I took a languorous half-hour rolling up and down the aisles appraising the incredible variety. The first thing I asked one of the staffers about was Three Floyds, my favorite brewery. As fate would have it, the shipment had come in three hours earlier, and the eager public had already beating me in scooping it up.  Given the fortune that I've had in the past with tasting Three Floyds beer, I had no reason to be upset, but I nevertheless vowed to keep my eyes open and ears perked on the odd chance that somewhere else in town got some in.

Beer Review: Surly Bender and Surly Coffee Bender

I've made no secret of my love for Surly Brewing's excellent beers. It's less than surprising, then, that I plunked down another week of my lunch money to have two more of theirs shipped to NYC - Surly Bender (5.1% ABV) and Surly Coffee Bender (5.1% ABV).

The interesting part of this tasting, then, was that it was to be an uphill battle against one of my stylistic prejudice. Most of the Brown Ales that I'd tried so far had been disappointingly bland, wielding mild flavors in inoffensive but unsatisfying ways. I figured if there was any brewery that could change my mind on this style, it would be Omar Ansari and Todd Haugh's.

As a bit of context, Surly's story started with Omar's home-brewing hobby. With each successive tasty victory, he built his confidence and skills. After a decade of hop and malt fueled DIY, he got a fancy-pants beer education, and decided in 2004 that he would throw his hat into the ring officially with a full-scale commercial brewery. Following this decision, Omar met Todd at the 2004 Craft Brewer's Conference in San Diego (which is the industry's CES / Detroit Auto Show / Davos equivalent). There, he pitched the then-head-brewer from Rock Bottom in Minneapolis on the idea of joining up to form their own brewery. A year and many logistical hurdles later (shipping, engineering, and even legislative), Omar and Todd had converted Omar's family's old industrial abrasives manufacturing facility into what would become one of the most well-regarded breweries on earth.

Surly! Credit to beermaniacs.com

A great backstory is one thing; great beer can be quite another. I cracked open a can each of Bender and Coffee Bender, and poured them out for the tasting:

Beer Adventures Coming Soon: Chicago, Three Floyds, Hopleaf, Pipeworks, Russian River, and More Surly

To all you readers, my apologies for the recent dearth of new posts. I spent a long Easter weekend back home in Chicago with my family. In addition to all the great time with them, I also had the opportunity to run around town like a mad raider, hunting down all of the beers with Chicago-only distribution. The results were amazing - four kinds of Three Floyds, two from Pipeworks, two from Revolution, some Half Acre, Boulevard, Metropolitan, and more. Here's most of that weekend's haul:

In addition to this coup, I also doubled down on my Surly shipper from Minnesota to score some Bender and Coffee Bender. I'll be reviewing those head to head shortly.

Finally, I was able to track down a shipper in California that had Russian River and Lost Abbey brews in stock. This fact is why I'll soon have the chance to break out some Pliny the Elder, one of the top 3 brews on Earth, to compare to other recent Imperial IPAs that I've tasted, and why I'll be able to put one of Russian River's sours, Supplication, up against one of Lost Abbey's, Saint's Devotion.

All in all, it's been one hell of a couple of weeks in beer on this end. As I taste, compare, and enjoy these many brews, I'll be sure to post reviews and impressions. Check back for updates!