The Low Cal Craze

There have been a bundle of fads in beer. We all remember such enduring sensations as "dry", "red" & "draft". Usually, one version of these fads endures and the rest fade away. The problem with fads is that it is hard to tell what to think of them while they are happening. Light beer was a fad that stuck. The malternative beverage fad is certainly lingering longer than most of us had hoped. (At least Zima faded.) The hardest one to call in a long time is the "Ultra" fad. Many years ago several brewers tried to make "super lights". Olympia made Oly Gold that had about 1 calorie and even less flavor. If memory serves Coors also had such a product. It wasn't until Michelob Ultra that it really caught on as a fad. We even had to start carrying the stuff in our Irish Pub.
Before I start to sound bitter or negative I must say that I often drink the stuff. Sometimes when I really should be drinking water, I will pick one up as a delicious water alternative. Unlike other bottled water, I know this has been boiled. I got really excited when Ultra Amber hit the shelves. The distributor brought me a couple samples and I was sold. Light and tasty. "I am probably using more calories opening this than it contains," I thought. Guess again. The damn thing has 114 calories. I don't know what the Ultra part stands for. Many beers have under 100 calories and many others are close to it. Even many stouts aren't much more.
I'm sure any true beer guzzler doesn't drink many beers based on the calorie count. A beer guzzler's diet should really be based on an overall number of calories per day. Simply subtract the number of calories you want to stick to per day and subtract the beer calories. That gives you the amount of calories left for food. If you intend to drink all your calories, just make sure you throw in a couple oatmeal stouts for nutrition.
I suppose there is no real revelation here. If you want to look like me or David Beckham you will have to join your Ultra Amber on the exercise bike plain and simple.

The Season of Cider

It's hard to tell who should be writing about cider. There are certainly more publications and articles about wine, and far more writers. I have to admit to not reading all that much wine literature, but I do scan the magazines enough to know that hard cider is very rarely a focus. I have read a cider article or two in the beer mags, but they seem afraid to do much more than a quick story.
The biggest reason for all this is surely the lack of cider quality and diversity. There are a few good commercial examples of cider, but they don't seem to be terribly popular. It is hard to say why. I would guess a new drinker takes down a few Woodchucks and wonders why they would ever drink another cider. Given the fact that most hard ciders have the flavor and sugar content of a green Jolly Ranchers, this is easy to understand.
Look for a cider with nothing but apples and yeast and I think you will have a different opinion. We were recently asked by a local cider maker to ferment some delicious juice. It was the first time I had cider with nothing but apples and I am sold. You can drink them all night. No stomach ache or diabetic shock. Just great apples.
Make it your goal as a guzzler this fall to find some great ciders. They are out there and they are worth the hunt.

RETRO?

I recently read a wonderful article in "All About Beer" magazine. It talked about the "Retro" beer movement. The article made the point that many younger people like to drink old canned brands in order to make a statement for or against something. They drink the beer to have something in common with a dad or grandpa and to give a big middle finger to snobs.
I am here to tell you there is no such thing as a retro beer movement.
There is a beer cycle that has been going on since I can remember, and I would have to guess it happened long before that.
I graduated from high school in 1992. My first can of beer was Pabst Blue Ribbon. It was the only brand of beer my cool friends would drink and it was a couple years before 1992. (Sorry Mom)
They drank only Pabst because it was better than Bud Light dammit and coincidentally less expense. Almost 20 years later the exact same thing is still happening. 20 years may be a flash if you are a mountain or rock, but it is a bit too long to be considered anything other than permanent in pop culture.
There is absolutely nothing for Freud to figure out here. I drank Pabst and many other "Retro" beers then and now because I don't like to drink the same thing everyone else drinks. I want people to come up to me and say, "Aw Jesus, you drink that!" So I can smile and say, "You're damn right."
I drink it so I can pour some in a Bud Light drinkers glass and laugh when they don't notice the difference.
During the last 20 years I have also learned a lot about the history of all the old brands and decided to make my living as a brewer and connoisseur, but that doesn't mean the 16 year-old rebel doesn't still get thirsty from time to time. When that happens I need a can of something obscure. Or, I guess, retro.

Sipping Beer

As a true beer guzzler I find something to appreciate in most every beer. You will find everything from NA to monsters in my frig. There really is a time and place for almost any beer. That said, I still have my favorites. I have always found the most to appreciate in a delicately balanced beer that can be consumed in fairly large quantities without instant liver damage. I have had a great time tasting some of the crazy brews. I even went so far as to make a pilgrimage to The Stone Brewery in San Diego where alcohol contents below 9% are rare. I just could never figure out where they fit in to social events. Am I supposed to bring them to a party after work and be known as the drunk guy who couldn’t drink two beers. I don’t know a bartender in their right mind who would want a bunch of customers slugging back 10% beers all night, much less the janitor. I had to appreciate them from a distance.
That all changed when the nice fellows at Boulevard in Kansas City invited me down to visit the brewery. Mike Utz showed me around his new, amazing facility and kindly ushered me into the tasting area at the end of our talk. I was greeted by the head brewer and several other brewery workers who guided me through several new beers they were brewing for what became their “Smokestack Series.” In the tasting area all the beers were on tap. I tried several and began to get a very warm comfortable sensation that told me I wouldn’t be driving for awhile. I enjoyed all the beers, but had the same old feeling of “What would I do with these?”
A couple months later I was invited to join the fellows again for the release party for the new series. Once I saw how it was packaged and displayed I finally got it.
These aren’t “extreme” beers, they are sipping beers. I had been thinking of this thing wrong the whole time. I had pictured some 30 year-old guy who had fried brain cells and taste buds to the point he had to drink 10% beer with two pounds of hops per pint just to get started. Boulevard and several others taught me that these beers are on purpose. It is not just a brewer who got sick of having poorly stored beer go bad and decided to pickle it with alcohol and hops, it is balance and art.
This new wave of products has even encouraged me to change my guzzling. I can sit with the fellows after a hard day at the brewery and patiently drink one of these in twice the time as a session beer because there is so much to enjoy. As a matter of fact, they even changed the way we brew. Every commercial batch we make now loses its first 15 gallons to our “reserve” batch that gets heavily hopped and is naturally higher in gravity.
In case you are still a bit afraid to take this to your next party, there is an easy solution. Just bring one 750ml bottle and offer it to several friends. You can talk about what a trendsetter you are and with an empty glass that used to contain 10% alcohol your friends will agree. After that, get back to the tried and true and you will be a hero. There is a wonderful world of new flavors out there, we just need to learn how to use them.