Beer I've Been Drinking

Gloomy weather not only time to enjoy porters

This past week - the one before my deadline, when Sioux Falls put on its best Pacific Northwest costume and rained on everyone’s parades for several days in a row - was as gloomy a June as any I can remember, save that one late June when I was in England, or that one early June when we drove to Idaho and had to turn back because there was an avalanche warning. June is typically the peak of summer - the time when I’d be writing about delicious yard beers and camping and summer on the back porch with a hot lawn mower and a cold beer.

This June is not one of those Junes.

So while by the time you read this it will be warmer and sunny - like June’s supposed to be - I’m going to show the few weeks who’s boss. I’m going to treat these last few weeks like what they were: an extended cool spring, perfect for those last gasps of winter darkness and tailor made for stout’s confusing cousin, the porter.

What’s the difference between porters and stouts? Ask anyone and you’ll get a different answer. Some think porters are dryer and hoppier (I am in this camp). Some think roasting is more prominent, or that they’re simply lighter. There are American stouts and porters, descendants of the English and Irish versions of the same, but even then the difference is disputed. Some cynically think the names are interchangeable depending on marketing or contest entry.

Beer Advocate says for the American porter: “Whether it is highly hopping the brew, using smoked malts, or adding coffee or chocolate to complement the burnt flavor associated with this style. Some are even barrel aged in Bourbon or whiskey barrels. The hop bitterness range is quite wide but most are balanced.” It would be convincing, except that it’s the exact thing they say about the American stout, to the word.

In other words, the terminology fails us. Let’s just drink some.

That many connect the porter with colder weather is actually too bad. Typically dryer and thinner than a stout, porters serve as one of the best summertime beers for dark beer fanatics, providing a fuller experience than the summer ales and shandies trotted out as thirst quenchers.

Look at it this way: if porters are such a cold-weather beer, why do most breweries keep their porter as a year-round selection? As if to make a point, two of my favorite porter-brewing breweries - Great Lakes Brewing and Deschutes Brewery - recently combined to celebrate a shared 25th anniversary with their Class of ‘88 collaboration Imperial Smoked Porter. Shandies be damned - this thing is rich and smoky and chocolatey and while it’s certainly not for everyone, it’s decent and worth a try.

I spent most of the time trying to figure out where Deschutes ended (looking for notes of Black Butte Porter) and Great Lakes began (searching for hints of Edmund Fitzgerald Porter), until I realized that, taken alone, I wasn’t completely confident I could tell which was which. I like porters. I like them a lot. But my porter consumption has been spaced out enough that I don’t know the subtleties of the style.

Which means it was time for a blind taste test!

I gathered the usual crew - Neighbor Amy, Wife Kerrie and Writer Myself - and set out the gauntlet: the aforementioned Deschutes Black Butte Porter and Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald Porter, along with Odell Brewing’s Cutthroat Porter and Summit’s Great Northern Porter. All four are created in the style of the American Porter (hence the exclusion of any British breweries or Boulevard’s Bully Porter.)

Summit’s porter paled in comparison to the heavy hitters, tasting astringent and thin. Summit is a good brewery that always tends to make beers that are one step from being wonderful, and this is one of those cases. Odell’s Cutthroat Porter tries to bridge the gap between porters and stouts, with its roastiness less of a feature and more of a backbone. It tastes more bitter, and it’s as thin as Summit’s porter, but it’s better in nearly every case.

The real battle came down to Great Lakes vs. Deschutes, as we thought it might, and though the Edmund Fitzgerald was my favorite - boozier and sweeter, almost to the point of tasting like an imperial porter - the room outvoted me two to one in favor of Black Butte Porter, which as Deschutes’ flagship beer is a wonderful representation of both the brewery and the style. It’s smooth and sweet with a perfect roastiness. There are probably better porters out there, but as a commercially accessible porter Black Butte Porter is the best.

Now that the fog has lifted and the rain has subsided, don’t be afraid to go off style. Seasons may dictate some decisions around beer drinking, but they don’t need to be the only factor. Save the yard beer for your post-yardwork break, and as the night cools and the firepit crackles, let a little roasted malt into your life.

Minneapolis/St. Paul - The New Beer Capital of the World

I’ve been to San Diego. Which is to say I’ve been to the epicenter of craft beer. Which is to say I’ve been to paradise and back and tasted the sweet nectar of craft beer’s past and future.

San Diego is rightfully held in high esteem, its climate and pace creating a perfect incubator for experimental and quality-driven craft beers. The pedigree - Stone Brewing, AleSmith - has produced a movement, with nearly every brewery standing as an offshoot of the original. It’s a decades-long family tree that also happens to taste very delicious.

Here’s the thing, though.

We have our own San Diego. Just four hours northeast.

There, in the dusty dual villages of Minneapolis/St. Paul, a beer renaissance is underway. And it’s happening quickly.

It’s ultimately rooted in two old standbys - the now craft-centric Schell’s Brewing (not technically Twin Cities, but close) and old standby Summit Brewing. While the two are now some of the most ubiquitous varieties of Minnesota beer, they haven’t rested on their laurels. They are responsible, in some way, for everything that came after, paving the way for the new brewery explosion, but refusing to be meek. Summit keeps it real with their new Union series, while Schell’s has been saving and testing some nearly forgotten German recipes.

For all that Schell’s and Summit provided as a foundation, the recent renaissance really started when Surly burst onto the scene. Their gradual expansion - and the pull-back that occurred when they became popular - has made their beers as sought after as ever. Surly’s success tempered the region’s need for great beer, and the next generation of breweries followed suit.

For example, let’s champion the fellas in charge of Fulton Brewing, a small and fantastic brewery in the shadow of the new Target Field. The taproom is basic and the food is brought in via food truck, but the atmosphere is one of an afternoon in the garage with your pot boiling and your wort filling the air. Their blonde ale is one of the best, and everyone seems to love their IPA, Sweet Child of Vine.

Now, northeast Minneapolis is getting into the game, with both Indeed Brewing Company and Dangerous Man Brewing Co. bookending a mile-long stretch that seems to be transforming into a new youthful neighborhood. Indeed sells bottles and routinely dry-hops their kegs to the point that you’re never sure which beer you’ll get during a visit. Dangerous Man is growler- and taproom-only, and their Belgian Strong Ale is a thing of beauty.

And these are just the breweries! There’s The Four Firkins for buying, and there’s The Happy Gnome for drinking, and there’s Butcher & The Boar for meat-ing, and there’s so much great Minnesota beer that I have made a pact with the Twin Cities: when I am in MPLS/St. Paul, I will only drink Minnesotan.

So save a few dollars and make your beer pilgrimage closer to home. (Even easier in a few years, when Surly builds their destination brewery.) Make it a weekend. Take in a Twins game. Play mini-golf at the Sculpture Garden. And knock back some of the best beer in the world.

Dive Into a Dive Bar

Sometimes I fear I’ve forgotten my roots. My evenings of tipping back a dark Belgian strong ale or waxing poetic on the newest fancy-pants offerings from Shell’s have blurred my memories of my true beer awakening: the dive bar, where the floors are sticky and the beers can be summed up by their initials.

Last week, I found myself at Little Coalinga, a bar that’s just down the block from another old hangout, Phil’s Pub. That I had never been to Little Coalinga said more about me than it did about the bar: Little Coalinga is everything you expect from a great dive bar. Cheap beer. Cheap food - sorry, let me rephrase that - GOOD food. A handful of locals, a bartender who already knows you after the first few drinks, and an inescapable urge to visit again.

The dive bar experience is all about aesthetic and affordability. There’s no pretense - just the promise of some friends and some beer without the unsightly preening of a sports bar. The walls are adorned with promotional posts, the taps are largely domestic, and the popcorn is nearly always free. They could be attached to a bowling alley. They could be a block or two off of downtown proper. They are in large cities and small towns. And, outside of the wary glances of a few bar flies, they are 100% welcoming.

For years, my dive bar of choice was the Top Hat. It was the bar of my generation - post-college-aged punkers and Sioux Falls’ version of Brooklyn hipsters, except without all of the pretension and annoyance. Good people, surly bartenders, and ridiculous PBR prices. It was a happening every Friday and Saturday night. That’s where you went to find your friends in the days before everyone started checking in to every aspect of their life.

Yet, even the traditional dive bars have been upping their game lately. As fans of the old Ed Salear’s before it went through its unfortunate gentleman’s club days, it can be unsettling to see what has become of the place now that it’s reemerged as the venerable Tommyjack’s. The new bar. The bright televisions. The craft beer on tap. It’s no longer a dive, yet Tommyjack’s makes up for this newness by keeping elements of the old dive bar aesthetic - dark and ominous, outfitted with wood paneled walls and low lacquered tables. The balance is something to marvel - Tommyjack’s still holds a few relics from the old Ed Salear’s days while being more accessible for today’s picky bar patron.

As each new generation of beer drinkers asks for more and more variety, smaller bars have been forced to accommodate their tastes. Even the Top Hat consistently offers New Belgium’s Ranger on tap. It’s for the better - you never know when a beer snob with a column might wander in - but I’m always hard pressed to order anything more complex than a Grain Belt.

The beer is better at the nicer beer bars. The parking might be a little more accessible. You’ll probably be able to get a grilled chicken salad, or a glass of wine. Yet, even as we get older - even for those of us who have stopped going to places like Little Coalinga because we have kids and respectable jobs and other transparent excuses - we must keep these small dives in mind. They’re filled with history - not just the scraps of paper and fishing jokes along the bar mirror, but our own history of nights and weekends spent under the transfixing gaze of adjunct American lagers.

They’re awesome. They don’t have a dark Belgian strong ale, but they’ve got a richness in character and a deep history that’s just as sweet.

A Beer Infusion/Steeping Glossary

Last week was American Craft Beer Week, and, more than ever, it seemed to also be American Steep Your Beers In Other Things Week. In addition to a handful of rare brewery-supplied beers and cost-saving specials, nearly every decent beer hall in town had SOMETHING that was firkin’d, foss’d, infused or hop-rocketed.

Which got me thinking: what does the average person DO with terms like “firkin,” “foss,” “infusion” and “hop-rocket?”

Nothing, probably. The terms are hard to decipher and they often overlap. You can firkin in a Foss, and you can infuse with a hop-rocket, and seriously these are terms you need to learn to be a beer reviewer ON TOP OF the impossibility of defining mouthfeel, bitterness and general aroma notes.

Don’t worry, though. Because I’m a seasoned professional and because I genuinely care about your beer intake, I want to de-mystify these words for you.

Because you’re the best readers in the world.

(And, because you NEED to understand the significance of a grapefruit-infused Crooked Tree IPA from Dark Horse, if you ever get the chance to try one.)

The Putting Beer In Things (And Putting Things In Beer) Glossary

Barreling

There’s putting stuff in beer. And then there’s putting beer in stuff. Take a discarded bourbon or whisky barrel - or, in the case of something like Odell’s Brewing Amuste, an old oak wine barrel - and you’ve got the crucial ingredient for higher-priced and boozy-tasting (read: probably delicious) barrel-infused beer.

The key: a beer soaks up the residual awesomeness of the liquor that came before it. The classic example is Goose Island’s Bourbon County Stout - a beer that’s not only rare, but splintered (try the Bourbon County Coffee Stout, or the Cherry Rye Bourbon County Stout, for example) and sought after more than any other major beer outside of California. For good reason - a good year rates 100 or more. A bad year drops down to a measly 98.

Then, there’s the wine-barreled beers, which take on a musky red-flavor that’s surprisingly refreshing. I’m no wine fan, but I get it. At least, I get it when it’s mixed with beer.

Dry-Hopped

When we say “dry-hopping,” we mean “dry-hopping at the tap,” which is often done via firkin infusion or hop-rocket. Case in point: you can throw a pile of Citra hops - one of the more recent of super-popular and probably overrated hops (but don’t tell my taste buds about it, because they CRAVE Citra at all points of every day) - into a pile of delicious beer and suddenly your west-coast IPA or milk stout or whatever-it-is now takes on the subtle tropical-ity of Citra.

Taylor’s Pantry has started hop-rocketing Odell IPA with Citra hops. I haven’t tried it, but I can only imagine it’s fantastic.

Firkin

A “firkin” is a measure of volume - according to journalistic stalwart Wikipedia, it’s a a quarter of an ale or beer barrel - but more recently it has become a vessel for cask beers. If you ever hear of a bar “tapping a firkin at three o’clock,” you can be assured that you’re going to get a cask version of a beer you’ve already tried, but infused with some kind of fruit or vegetable.

It might sound gross. It’s not. It’s delightful, in the right situation (a chili-infused firkin of a stout or porter might be the epitome of veggie/beer pairing). It’s also all the rage. Look for a visiting brewer, a sales rep with some hats to give away, and an eager bar filled with beer nerds.

Fass

Until Thursday’s Schell’s Takeover at Monk’s, I had never heard of a Fass. I can’t even find it on the INTERNET, you guys. I can tell you this, though: it’s a beer container. Except plastic. I think. I dunno. My Foss’d Schell’s Pilsner was the highlight of the night, and that’s even when it was followed by a glass of Schell’s Firebrick, one of the best Vienna Lagers ever created.

HopRocket

This is the act of passing a beer through a machine called a HopRocket. It is a blast of fresh hops without the risk of an overtly vegetable taste - as if you let your beer rest on a batch of beets for too long. HopRocketing can be awesome. Or, it can be masked by the already strong hops in a beer.

Best done in a beer that’s not too-hop forward, but horrible in a beer that’s not supposed to be hopped in the first place. (Please, in the name of St. Bernardus, never hop-rocket a Belgian ale or Oktoberfest. PLEASE.)

Infused

You put something in a keg, and it infuses into the beer. Grapefruit in an IPA. Plums in a Belgian quad. Dry hops in pretty much anything. Infuse it, and it’s probably decent, because most brewers aren’t likely to RUIN their beer by putting stupid things in it.

No hot-dog-infused porters. No chili-pepper-infused hefeweizens. No grass-infused Grain Belt, unless you just mowed your lawn and caught a few strays.

What Else?

These are the terms I kept hearing over the past week. There are more. If you can help shed light to the weird foreign glossary we encounter as craft beer connoisseurs, list them in the comments below. And, add your own altered definition to these above. The language of beer in the past decade is a language that’s evolving. Your dry-hopping is another’s infusion; your firkin is another’s pin.

Let’s progress this language. Let’s make it clear for the rest of the world.

Celebrate American Craft Beer Week By Trying Something Different

To some, craft beer is a kind of art. The focus is on the artisanship of brewing - on locally sourced materials and hand-crafted small batches. To others, craft beer is a fight against monopolization, where the only enemy is the Tri-Headed Dragon of Bud-Miller-Coors. To most, craft beer is about taste - better beers, better ingredients, better flavor.

I don’t believe we can call one beer “better” than another. I don’t believe the monopolization of beer leads brewers to “fight back.” I don’t even believe artisanship is crucial - I know a lot of people who make good beer out of spare parts and laziness.

To me, craft beer is about choice.

It’s American Craft Beer Week. And it’s time to celebrate our choices.

On any given week, I might never try the same beer twice. It’s a testament not only to the variety present in craft beer, but to an availability that even those of us in the middle of the midwest take for granted. We have access to an awful lot of great beers here in Sioux Falls. We have more choice now than we’ve ever had in the past. It’s our duty as beer fans to take advantage.

This embarrassment of riches - hundreds of breweries lining our liquor store shelves, competing for our attention - gives us an opportunity we might not otherwise have: perfecting our taste.

I’m not here to tell you that one beer is better than another. That’s impossible. There’s no such thing as a bad beer - just beers that don’t meet our own sensibilities. Taste defines preference, and our tastes are all different. It’s that dedication to differing tastes that has helped the craft beer world explode - the idea that we each like different things, and chances are there’s a market for every style imaginable.

My challenge to you, as a celebration of American Craft Beer Week, is to explore the choices we have in front of us. Let’s take to the racks and grab something new. Grab something weird. Grab something you’re afraid you might hate. Admit you hate it. Revel in the fact that you hate it, because now you KNOW you hate it and you can try another style.

Make a point to try some of the local breweries sprouting up around our state. Grab a few beers from relatively unknown breweries. Buy something with a horrendous label, or with a silly name, or with whatever else it is that’s kept you from trying it in the first place.

Most of all, remember that beer is made by people. American Craft Beer Week isn’t about beer - it’s about the breweries and people who make beer for us. It’s about a group of people who, through their own hard work and persistance, have decided that they’d rather spend their working hours - or their spare time - helping to provide us with an extra level of choice.

Craft brewers rarely get into the business because they want to be rich. They get into the business because they want to give something back. They do it because they love the process, the experimentation, and the results.

Go ahead. Put back the 12-pack of whatever it is you usually get. Grab something a little different. Start walking the path. Celebrate the choices we have before us, and move forward with appreciation of the time, talent and dedication American craft brewers put into each batch - for their fans, their families, and for us.

Happy American Craft Beer Week, everyone.

Tasting Witbiers in a Vacuum: A Comparison of the Style

In a vacuum, nearly any beer can have its strong points. This is the struggle of beer reviewing - we can only make judgement within our own experience, using our own situation, within the vacuum that is our own life.

This past weekend, I encountered this vacuum firsthand. The beer was an White Rascal, a Belgian wit (aka: Witbier) from Avery Brewing. The situation was that it was delicious. The struggle was that I couldn’t figure out if the beer actually was delicious or if I was simply excited to be a few step closer to summer and the beers that make it great.

Was this beer from Avery - a hard-to-find brewery in our area, given their recent pull from Minnesota shelves - as good as I thought? Or would I be just as happy with a Blue Moon? Was I satisfied with the beer itself or the opportunity to try the style again after a weird and horrible winter?

Let’s do a tasting.

I gathered Neighbor Amy and Wife Kerrie and settled down with a handful of witbiers - those coriander-spiced and orange peel adorned beers that have been made famous by Coors Brewing’s Blue Moon franchise. From cheap to expensive, American to Belgium, well known to relatively obscure, we sampled up and down the tasting board and came to one conclusion:

Beers are hard to judge. And witbiers all begin to taste the same after a while.

The lineup: * Blue Moon (Coors Brewing) * White Rascal (Avery Brewing) * White (Lakefront Brewing) * White Label (Wasatch Brewing) * Witbier (St. Bernardus)

Tasting was done blindly, and we all had differing tastes, but it was clear to all of us from the beginning which of the five was Blue Moon - a darker beer that slid too far to the wheat side of things and offered a one-note, flat flavor. Blue Moon is exactly what it’s supposed to be: a Belgian wit for the BMC faithfuls - an introduction to the style, but not a great example. Blue Moon ranked last on all of our lists.

The space between Blue Moon and the rest wasn’t as wide as one might think, however. Kerrie and Amy had trouble with the St. Bernardus - the highest rated beer of our group, according to BeerAdvocate - for its lack of sweetness compared to the other witbiers. It was nutty and dry, closer to what we’d think of a standard wheat beer, with its spices muted and a crazy champagne-like carbonation.

Why did this high-rated beer fall so flat on our group? No idea. Perhaps the traditional witbiers has been bastardized by us Americans - in other words, maybe THIS was the standard taste and all others were TOO spiced. Maybe we got a bad bottle. Maybe we don’t know anything at all. Heck, maybe it was the weather.

None of it matters. St. Bernardus ranked poorly in our house on that day. Sorry, monks.

We’ll skip over Lakefront’s White, which was tart and sour and not very great - and jump to our two favorites: Avery’s White Rascal and Wasatch’s White Label.

I’ve talked about White Label before, but this time I suggest you go grab some. In comparison to the rest of the Belgian wits we tried, Wasatch was more complex and flavorful - refreshing after a long day and surely wonderful as a dinner beer. Avery’s White Rascal was delicious - and it came in a can! - but you can’t get it anywhere close to here so you’ll just have to trust me on this one.

In the end, we ranked Avery and Wasatch at the top and Blue Moon clearly on the bottom, but these rankings fall into that weird vacuum. Even comparing the beers to their brothers and sisters, we had issues with judgement. What does the genuine style consist of? What would the rankings be like if Kerrie’s favorite witbier - [Boulevard Zon] - was available? Are my tastes off because, when it comes down to it, I’m not the biggest witbier fan?

There are only two answers.

Taste is relative. And it doesn’t matter - as long as you’re enjoying the beer you have in front of you.

Spent Grains: Beer’s Most Resourceful Byproduct

The art of brewing is an art that’s mostly free from waste. Hops dissolve and are filtered out into a mush that can easily be composted, while nearly every ounce of water and malt is used and transformed by the yeast. In the end, the only things that are wasted from your brew recipe are the energy needed to brew - heat, movement, time - and certain containing vessels.

Breweries like New Belgium in Colorado have taken great pains to lower their environmental output, harnessing their spent energy to help fuel future batches of delicious beer. Even in the case of the packaging, resourceful homebrewers and old-school breweries keep track of returnable bottles to use for future beers.

Still, at the end of a recent brewing session, I realized that after the hops were composted and the water was settled and the yeast had started to work, I had one thing remaining - a pile of spent grains, steeped at the start of the brewing process and left to dry out on our counter.

Spent grain is essentially a combination of husks, starch and some residual wort - rich in nutrients and full of fiber. I could compost them. But, those spent grains are easily the most usable byproducts of the brewing process. Here’s a few examples of what can be done with spent steeping grains.

Animal Food

The most common use of spent grains in the commercial world is as livestock feed. According to a paper by Merryn Dineley, spent grains are suitable for cattle, pigs and goats, and in Neolithic Britain they may have been one of the only consistent grains available year-round.

Its use as cattle feed continues today. In fact, Odell Brewing has been sending its spent grain down the road with a local farmer - Lugene Sas - for nearly twenty years, where it is mixed with alfalfa and consumed by dozens of dairy cows. It’s so much a part of the process that they named their new chocolate milk chocolate stout after him.

Got chickens in the backyard? That spent grain is perfect. But, it doesn’t need to be farm-based, either. There are tons of sites that provide recipes for making dog biscuits out of spent grains, including this one from Brew Your Own.

Human Food

Then again, why should the animals have all of the fun? Spent grains are automatically instilled with that malty wort goodness that comes with 20-minutes of hot steeping, and the smell is enough to make even the most restrained baker go crazy with the possibilities.

You can use it for bread. You can use it for cookies. Nearly everything that can be baked with flour can be baked with spent grains - even down to spent grain oven-fried chicken. Don’t believe me? Pick up the newest issue of Brew Your Own, which includes recipes for spent grain baked eggs and granola.

You’re welcome.

Brooklyn Brew Shop has a great blog called Spent Grain Chef that lists a whole pile of awesome ideas. It doesn’t end with food, though. Stone Brewing has started making spent grain soap, while several breweries have started using their spent grain as energy. Their beer is literally making beer.

Bacteria Food

Finally, yes, if you’re too lazy to own chickens or bake your own bread, your spent grains might be best put to work helping your garden grow via the warm and dynamic process of composting.

Spent grain - and the nitrogen within - is a natural fit with that bacteria-charged pile of leaves and vegetable matter in your backyard. All you need to do is dump it in and wait. It breaks down quickly into fluffy compost, and your garden will love you forever and ever.

Two words of warning. Everyone seems to think that spent grains start to STINK VERY QUICKLY AND HORRIBLY, and (no surprise here) animals love it, so keep that compost bin locked and shut tight. And plug your nose when you open it. You’ve been warned.

Regardless of the use, homebrewers have hundreds of options for their spent grains, making the entire brewing process a nearly zero-sum game.

Except for all that leftover beer, though I doubt you’ll have any trouble figuring out a way to get rid of that.

New Glarus, a Wisconsin-only beer, is worth seeking out

Because craft brewing is (aside from a few heavy-hitters) a small operation, craft beer tends to be a regional affair. One state’s local favorite is another state’s rarely-seen import. Legends are built upon the voices of a brewery’s most fevered fans, and word of certain beers carries farther than their distribution numbers can handle.

These regional beers are treasures to a craft beer fan; unless you’re lucky enough to live within their small footprint, they require a combination of travel, adventure and luck. Being in the right state isn’t enough - sometimes, you need to find the right bar, or the right liquor store, and sometimes you need to travel a little bit out of the way, or push your way into experiences you might not otherwise encounter.

The classic example of this is Russian River, a California-based brewery that reaches its fingers only a few states east of the Pacific (and, for some reason, Philadelphia). Its Pliny the Elder - a beer that constantly reaches best-in-the-world status - is a sought-after prize for any beer fan visiting California, and offshoot Pliny the Younger is a legend that few have ever seen in real life. Here in South Dakota we may be spoiled by our slow trickle of Minnesota’s Surly Brewing, but that shouldn’t take away its adventurous status - Surly is the beer that other brewmaster’s seek out, trading their big bottles amongst themselves in a rush to grab a few imported cans of Abrasive Ale or Darkness.

And then there’s New Glarus Brewing.

New Glarus - the brewery made a little more famous by owner Deb Carey’s visit with President Obama - is a Wisconsin-only brewery, selling classic beer styles wrapped in unassuming labels. Rather than fight for the top of the charts with bigger and bolder beers, New Glarus does their own thing - Wisconsin proud - and in doing so has created a lineup of solid, revered beers.

If you’re lucky, you live in Wisconsin and you can have it any time. If you’re like me, you pine after it until, finally, a 12-pack sampler finds its way to your house.

While New Glarus’ standard lineup has been enhanced with a selection of sours, fruit beers and adventurus IPAs, their bread and butter seems to be somewhere between a history book and solidly German influence. The standard New Glarus sampler is akin to your typical Schell’s sampler - a few staples and a seasonal. It doesn’t represent the high-end limits of the brewery’s ability, but instead serves as a comfortable introduction to a hard-working brewery. These aren’t the sours and black IPAs they’re lauded for - instead, these are the cream ales and pilsners you could probably find on tap in any beer bar in Madison or Milwaukee.

If it sounds like I’m selling them short, I assure you I’m not. My utter devotion to breweries like Schell’s and Great Lakes has taught me that not every beer in a brewery’s lineup needs to be a quadruple IPA or imperial cherry bock rocket. There’s a place for a well-made pilsner or amber, for a light-bodied craft beer like Spotted Cow, and for something that might otherwise be overlooked among the rows of Belgians and stouts.

Spotted Cow - the flagship cream ale that attempts to replicate the entire Wisconsin agricultural ecosystem in one bottle - is light and smooth, good enough to knock back after a battle with an unruly lawn but not so weak that it’s resigned to chili and brat-fodder. Two Sisters is a pilsner that’s malty and decidedly German. And Moon Man is an IPA in the west-coast style, sessionable, malty and good enough that I almost forgot that it’s name instantly brings to mind the MTV Music Awards.

And then there’s Cabin Fever, a beer that looks like a maibock - paler and lighter in body than the traditional bock - but still maintains the caramel flavors that I’ve grown to adore. There’s a balance that extends bock’s seasonality beyond winter. Cabin Fever lives up to its name - a nod to those pre-Spring months where we balance the existing snow and cold with the promise of lighter times.

Breweries expand. They change. They shift from one state to the next, and with this movement they are exposed to more people - and more palates. Yet, some hold back, keeping a tight grasp on their own regional pride and relative exclusivity. The beers are good. The hometown ties make them great.

Destination: Beer

I don’t want to brag, but I spent several days last year holed up in a beautiful South African winery - The Spier, just a few miles outside of Cape Town and several thousand miles away from anything I had ever experienced before.

In addition to a bunch of adorable hotel rooms and a sprawling grounds, The Spier provided cheap wine, delicious meat buffets and all the South African sun you could handle. It was a dream: delicious booze, good friends, and a pillow to drool on once you finally made it back to your room.

There’s just one problem.

It was a winery.

Now, I’m not going to start the beer vs. wine battle in this column, because the two are different enough that they don’t warrant comparison. Still, I’m no wine person. I’m a beer person. And my need for a destination booze vacation is just as important as the folks who spend tens of thousands each year touring Sonoma County and Napa Valley and wherever else they mentioned in that movie about wine.

(Sideways. I had to look it up. All I remember is Sandra Oh smashing a helmet into the face of that guy from Wings.)

Destination breweries seem like some kind of fever dream - a hazy vision that’s always just out of reach. They’re straight out of the future like Rosie the Robot or self-tying shoes or even Marty McFly’s poofy vest.

But the future will be here faster than we might think, thanks to two of the nation’s most revered - and destination-worthy - breweries.

It began in California, where the braintrust at Stone Brewing - lamenting the lack of worthwhile accommodations in the San Diego suburb of Escondido - began cooking up plans for a Stone Brewing Hotel. It will feature 40-50 guest rooms, two acres of outdoor space, a barrel aging room and - according to rumors from our Stone tour guide - a beer tap in every room. A BEER TAP IN EVERY ROOM, YOU GUYS.

Then, the dream moved to the midwest, where Surly’s fight against out-dated beer laws both led to a sudden sprouting of tap rooms and great small breweries and paved the way for Surly’s ultimate goal: the creation of what I’m hoping they’ll call SurlyWorld, a destination brewery filled with super-hopped beers and top shelf attitude.

Stone’s destination brewery has been in the works for a few years, while Surly has just laid claim to a prime plot of industrial wasteland of their own. Both represent the new movement in craft beer: an acknowledgement that beer can be just as complex and travel-worthy as its vine-ripened counterparts, and that vacations can be planned around blossoming regions of craft excellence - the new Napa Valley is sure to be San Diego, while the next Sonoma might be the cold banks of Minnesota/St. Paul.

As someone who takes a weekend each year to tour a brewery and attend Minneapolis’ Autumn Brew Review, I get it. A multi-day trip beginning in New Ulm and spreading through Minneapolis breweries young and old is a beer-cation that any red-blooded American can enjoy. And when things get too cold, it’s not hard to find reasons to visit the Pacific Ocean, though the best reason might be to “sleep at Stone Brewing, where there’s a tap in each room.”

We have a year or so to wait, so let’s not get TOO excited. But if there’s anything that signifies the new weight that craft beer swings around, these hotels - and the idea that anyone might stay in these hotels to begin with - might be all the clout the industry needs.

The Rye Bite: Beer’s Hidden Grain

Here’s a little secret: my palate is a disaster. I know what I like. I know what I don’t like. I can compare and contrast beers that are similar in style, but typically only if they’re presented side-by-side. But there are very few things I could put my finger on and describe. This is a huge part of the reason I don’t go neck deep into Craft Beer’s Little Descriptors - I simply don’t think of beer in that way.

Flavors are flavors, and I can’t dissect them. So I talk about the experiences around the beer itself.

That’s changing, though - little by little. I may have beer’s newest cool grain to thank.

A little over a year ago, I had my first rye beer - a Ruthless Rye IPA from Sierra Nevada - and I remember thinking that it was certainly different and certainly very good. There was a bite to it that I liked - a bite that unsurprisingly reminded me of pumpernickel bread, creating a beer that might go well with a Reuben and a plate of fries.

Awesome. Different. And then I forgot about it.

Until later that summer, when Schell’s released their newest year-round offering, Emerald Rye. Suddenly, there it was again. That bite. That rye. That pumpernickel kick that just so happens to go perfectly with strong hops and high alcohol.

Then, rye was everywhere I looked, and it became an obsession. Good timing, because every brewery seems to be throwing the shackles of traditional grains and diving head first into the rye bandwagon. Then, the obsession became a love affair at last year’s Autumn Brew Review, where I tried the fantastic Rye of the Tiger and fell head over heels.

This is a real love, though - not a “three hours into a beer festival” love, but a “picky first-hour attendee” love - Rye of the Tiger, brewed out of Cleveland by Great Lakes Brewing Company (home of Edmund Fitzgerald Porter and Elliot Ness Amber, two of my favorites of their respective styles) balances the rye bite with a brash hop flavor that reminds me of the opening notes of a Crass cover band. It’s a beautiful glass of beer that fits any occasion - like any great beer should.

Rye beers are, unfortunately, not universally available. You can’t get Great Lakes here in Sioux Falls - I lucked into a six-pack through serendipity, probably. Additionally, with the exception of Emerald Rye from Schell’s, most of them are seasonal or corked. Thankfully, there’s always SOMEONE who’s brewing new rye beers, and while it’s not totally easy to get your hands on Rye of the Tiger, you can always expect some warm rye bite in Sierra Nevada’s Ruthless Rye, which is still in season and available nearly everywhere.

Or, you could go big: Boulevard has produced a 12% ABV rye beer aged in Templeton Rye barrels called - fittingly - Rye on Rye.

Or, you could hope that there are still six-packs of Summit’s pretty decent Old 152 from their Unchained series.

Or, you could just wait until this fall and go weird: One of my favorite beers from Surly is SurlyFest, a bastardized version of an Oktoberfest that’s more often classified as a rye beer.

Or, as you might expect, you can just try whatever you can find. It’s rare to fall in love with a grain as quickly as I did, but that’s the point - you won’t fall in love unless you try. You’ll never know what flavors might knock you out.