Nebraska Brews

Kiki and I are in the Cornhusker state visiting my folks so we decided to check out a local watering hole.  Lincoln is a college town and has over a 100 bars within a mile radius in downtown.  But Brewsky's is a block away so it was a convenient place to grab a drink. 

The first beer I had was a local Lincoln beer made by Lazlo's Brewery and Grill.  Lazlo's was started in 1991 and people in Lincoln and Omaha are obsessed with it.  I had eaten there in high school but never tried their beers.  Brewsky's had Lazlo's Luna Sea ESB on tap so it seemed like a good time to try it out.  The beer is technically Lazlo's, but it is made by Empyrean Brewing Co.

At least Lazlo's has the restaurant thing going for them because the beer sucked.  Considering they've been around for 20 years you think they could perfect a decent beer.  It tasted like someone added hops to sparkling water.  For being 6.3% ABV its a pretty light drinking beer, which I guess is what all the yuppies and college students that populate Lincoln want to drink.  For me it tasted really watery, not much body, and just a very light hop aftertaste.

There are over a million people in the Omaha-Lincoln metro areas and Empyrean is really the closest thing to a craft/micro/regional brewery serving all these people.  And it sucks.  Eastern Nebraska is aching for someone to make some decent local beer.

The Luna beer was a whole lot better than the second beer I tried.  Brewsky's "makes" their own American Pale Ale.  Its not really made by them, but made by SchillingBridge Winery and Microbrewery exclusively for them.  Schilling is in Pawnee City, Nebraska (pop. 1,033), which is a good hour and a half southeast of Lincoln.  Which puts it near where I used to hunt, which you don't care about.  Anyway, this APA tastes like water, has a little bit of a hop taste, but then the taste drops off and there really is no aftertaste.  Even the hop taste that is there tastes a little weird, so they're not exactly picking the best hops to get the best flavor. All in all, not a very memorable beer.

Lesson: Nebraska beer not so good (although I'd rather drink it than Bud Light).  But at least it was only $3 a glass, so they've got that going for them.

Sierra Nevada -- Sierra 30: Jack and Ken's Ale

I've been eying the Sierra 30 for a while but wasn't sure if I wanted to pay ten bucks for it (the glories of being a poor student).  Luckily I have an awesome wife who surprised me a couple weeks ago with a bottle.

I have to say I was intrigued by the champagne style cork.  This is obviously no ordinary brew.  This beer holds itself out as a "collaboration" of pioneering brewers.  Sierra Nevada is 30 years old this year, and so Ken Grossman, the founder, decided to get some of craft brewing's big names together to make a special beer.  Sierra 30 actually has four different beers, one with each pioneer, and then a brewer's reserve.  Each beer donates money to a different non-profit. 

Jack and Ken's Ale is thus with Jack McAuliffe, and Jack decided to donate money to Texas Public Radio.  Jack was in the Navy and then when he came back to the US he couldn't get heavier beers so he decided to home brew.  He then started "New Albion Brewing Co." in Sonoma, CA in 1976, but it closed in 1982.  Jack was the one that inspired Ken to brew.  He showed Ken that a home brewer could become a commercial brewer.  Jack says, "Before the craft brewing movement people didn't know what hops were.  They thought it was a grain." 

You'll notice that Jack and Ken's ale is really dark.  Jack's New Albion Brewing had a beer called "Old Toe Sucker" which was really strong and was said to make toes look attractive.  Was it a porter?  A barleywine?   A black porter?  Even the guy that made it can't qualify it.  With Jack and Ken's Ale they decided to use ingredients that were found in the 1970s; there weren't a lot of bulk ingredients back then.  So in some ways they recreated this mysterious beer.  Cluster hops were the most common, specifically cascade hops.  Single roast pale malt and caramel malt were used.  Ken says that there are no wine ingredients but its reminiscent of ports and sherries. Jack says, "Farmers make wine, and engineers and physicists make beer."

So how is it you ask?  At 10.2% alcohol this beer has some kick.  Its thick and has very little head.  At first it goes down smooth like a very malty beer, but interestingly it has aftertaste like a barleywine.   It has some sweet flavor almost like chocolate.  I was trying to think of what to pair this beer with, but it is 1) very filling and 2) it is sweet, which makes me think this would just be beset on its own like a desert.  This is a very tasty beer but unfortunately it won't be around as a permanent staple.

Now I want to try out the other three beers of the Sierra 30.  Cheers to celebrating craft brewing!


http://www.sierra30.com/#/home

Sierra Nevada Brewery Tour

At the end of July, shortly after returning from our honeymoon, Kiki and I got up at 4:00 am and drove up to Chico to make it in time for a brewery tour that started at 2:30.  We were a little delirious when we got there but we made it.

Its a pretty good size operation they have going on.  The tour guide told us that in terms of craft breweries they're only second in size to Boston Brewing Company.  As much as I love Sierra Nevada I have to say I was a little disappointed in the tour.  Our guide seemed to know what she was talking about but it felt like she was just reading a script in her mind.  You don't get to be up close to everything like you do on a Stone Brewery tour (more on that in a later entry).  They have you go to this upstairs level where she talks about the steps of brewing shows you some ingredients and has a short video to show.  Then she walked us down a hall where you can see some of the different steps through a window.  At one point you can go on a walkway and see a mash tun from above.

One thing I didn't know, and really respect Sierra Nevada for, is that they only produce 2% waste of everything they bring in.  All the wet grains get fed to cattle at Cal State Chico.  Then the cattle get served in Sierra Nevada's Tap Room restaurant.  They have a huge array of solar panels and their own water wells so they're pretty much off the grid which is really impressive for such a big operation.  Solar panels are above the parking lot and above fields of hops.  The hops, by the way, are only for their harvest beer; they can't grow enough hops for the amount of beer they brew so they mostly come from Oregon.  They also designed a lot of the pipework themselves to make things more efficient.  For example, somehow they figured out how to use co2 given off of the fermenting process for some other part of the brewing process.

After the tour, Kiki and I wondered around and took a few more pictures.

Kiki modeling for a future Sierra Nevada ad.

They even had their logo inlaid in the granite on the stairs. 

I got spoiled going to Stone Brewing Co. where they give you free samples at the end of the free tour.  Sierra Nevada doesn't do that.  We checked out the taproom and I paid something like $14 for their sampler, but you get a LOT of beer.  I didn't realize that they had so many other types besides Pale Ale, Torpedo, Celebration, and a couple others.  The flights of beer come with 16 different beers.  Sorry the picture sucks but I didnt' think to take one until part way through it.

I brought my Stone Growlers hoping I could get them filled, but I was informed they don't do that.  They claim its California "law" that they can only fill their own growlers.  Law students get free access to LexisNexis and WestLaw so I need to do some research and figure out if they were pulling my leg.  Anyway, I reluctantly bought one, got it filled, and we drank it at our second wedding reception we had a couple days later.  I let my father in law keep the growler because I figure he's more likely to end up in Chico since he's only a couple hours away.

If you're ever in the Chico area the tour is free so you can't beat the price.  Sierra Nevada makes some great beers and they're environmentally friendly too!

Samuel Smith's Winter Welcome Ale

I've been thinking about beer blogging for a while.  With third year law school finals approaching and time running short now seemed like an appropriate time to procrastinate.  To be upfront I don't like America's stereotypical beer.  Bland, boring, and low quality beers like Budweiser and Coors didn't dominate what people thought beer was until regional brewers got bought up and put out of business in the 1950s.  Quality beer is like wine in the sense that color, smell, taste, flavor, etc all play a part in the experience.

For my first review I chose Samuel Smith's Winter Welcome Ale from Tadcaster, England.  It claims to be "Yorkshire's oldest brewery."  Where is this Yorkshire place?  Yorkshire is in northern England and is the largest county in the UK.  It's the home of Captain James Cook, Def Leppard, Scary Spice, and Joe Cocker among others.  Samuel Smith's Brewery was founded in 1758.  Today it still uses oak casks and gets its water from the original well.

Winter Welcome Ale is a seasonal brew with 6.0% alcohol and brewed with Fuggle and Golding hops.  It's copper in color and has a smooth malty flavor with a light aftertaste.  This beer reminded me of a marzen because of its slight sweetness.  It goes down easy and is filling like a winter beer should be.  At $4 for 550ml bottle its at a good price for a beer that traveled half way across the world.  It's good and definitely worth trying but its not something I would drink everyday because its not as hoppy as my favorite beers.  Check it out.  Cheers!