POURsuasion: Dress For the Job You Want

We always hear that you have to dress for the job you want while you're at work, but has the beer industry started dressing for the job they want?

Most brewers dress like the manliest men around- lumberjacks. Nothing is more manly than a big beard, long hair and red flannel. This gives the industry a distinct image that I think the community has done well to embrace. Brewing has been part of the menaissance, the rebirth of the manly men of our grandfather's generation. Its one of those jobs where you have to use your hands, and really get dirty. Its not for metro men of the early 2000s or well dressed club hoppers of the 90s. Even with this new distinct personal image, beer geeks are constantly telling people that beer is just as high end as wine. If craft beer really wants to start competing with wine in fine dinning restaurants is it necessary to clean up the image?

At a beer writers conference in Lexington, Garrett Oliver from Brooklyn Brewery told a story at a about the owner of a winery who showed up dressed to the nines every time he was in public. When asked why he dressed so well he said "If you want people to believe your wines are delicious maybe you should look delicious."

No matter what job we're doing, no matter who we are around, we are always selling ourselves. Does the beer community do a good job of selling themselves to the public? If we don't feel obligated to sell ourselves to the average Joe, then how can we expect to gain market share?

This doesn't mean that I'm saying all the brewers of Indiana need to shave and buy a suit. I get it, they didn't go into banking, they went into brewing. Believe me, there are days when I'm jealous. Craft beer is more laid back and it's important that the brewers represent their culture, but at the same point a comb and some clean (unbrewed in) clothes would go a long way when making public appearances. Michael and Shane from Daredevil always look professional and well put together. Nick from the up and coming Scarlet Lane Brewing Co. explained that he tries to dress to his audience. Not every day can be a tee shirt and hoodie kind of a day, and right now I don't think all the brewers see it that way.

On some level it's sad to say that appearance changes the way people think about not just you, but your brewery and your beer, but it's true. Normally, though, it's a change for the better. It's not about people being overly snobbish or judgemental, it's just the way we process things. We like to create categories and then use them to organize our experiences with people, places, and things. It's human nature.

If it were up to you to present craft beer to brand new audience, how would you present it, and would you be conscious of the way you were dressed while doing it?

Pilgrimage: Country Boy

Country Boy Brewing Company in Lexington, KY just had their second birthday in February. We missed it by a couple of weeks, but we still had a pretty great time with some awesome brews. We went on a Friday night pretty early, around 7 pm, and the place was packed.

Since the brewery is right off UK's campus, the throngs of college coeds shouldn't have surprised me, but I'm just not used to seeing it in a brewery. As you'd expect from a place with a name like Country Boy, right from the get go you feel at home. Everyone in the bar is friendly and the bartenders really know their beer. You get to taste some really cool and unique things, all served with a heaping pile of southern hospitality.


The inside looks like a country bar and a barn had a love child in a college town. It has a great rustic vibe with the bar and tables all made out of beautiful reclaimed wood. Two huge chalkboards flank the bar and they are full of different options. When we were there, they had over 18 of their own beers on tap and a few guest taps. Beers ranged from Russian imperial stouts to smoked porters to IPAs and all sorts of fun creations in between. There are two TVs directly behind the bar that patrons can check out, but for the most part everyone was at tables talking with friends. We met our friends from Brewmanity and had a couple pints. They don't serve food but we were able to bring pizza in with us and we saw a lot of people taking advantage of the food truck parked outside. The room is a little bit dark, but that just makes it a perfectly intimate place to have a drink and good conversation.

My favorite regular beer they had on tap was Shotgun Wedding. It's a big malty brown ale that's been aged on vanilla beans just long enough to get a subtle flavor. It's a very dark brown beer with an off-white head. The beer has a medium to medium-heavy body. The beer smells like vanilla and baker's chocolate. The flavor follows that nicely with big chocolate flavor followed up by a really smooth nuttiness. The vanilla beans compliment this in a way that almost makes the beer take on the taste of cake or other delicious baked goods. This brew is so good, I can barely believe it's a standard offering. So many brewers focus on IPAs, so it was great to see someone focus on something malty with a little twist. I give it an enthusiastic 4. We tried more than a half dozen of their beers and were impressed by almost everything.

This is a little off topic, but seeing how cool Country Boy's atmosphere was made me think about one of my biggest gripes about the Indy craft beer scene, which is the lack of brewery bars. I'm a big fan of the beer by Bier and Sun King, but I wish there was a place we could sit down and drink it. I love Flat 12 but their "pub" is lack luster when you can't use their wonderful outdoor space.

The good thing is, a lot of our newer breweries are doing a good job addressing this problem. Tow Yard, Outliers, Indiana City and Union have all brought us great hang out spots to drink their beer. I hope we keep up with the trend, and if the guys at Sun King are reading this, I would love to be able to get a pint when I do my growler fills, wink wink.

Walking into a brewery called Country Boy you have certain expectations. You expect a relaxed and comfortable environment, friendly people and traditional beer styles. Country Boy delivered on all of this. The Lexington craft beer scene is just a bit newer than Indy's and its awesome to see it taking off so well.

Three Floyd's Man-O-Awe Review

It appears another Three Floyd's limited offering has trickled into central Indiana... Man-O-Awe, an American pale ale clocking in at 6.0% ABV.

Like a lot of FFF labels there's not much relevant info to be gleaned from the beer description, but it does tell us that the beer is brewed exclusively with Michigan hops. Other than that I'm supposed to be in awe and go listen to some metal whiled drinking this (okay it doesn't say that, but it's implied with any FFF beer).

Well, time to drink the mystery beer.

It pours a deep copper with gold highlights topped with a two finger, off-white head. The aroma is pleasant with melon, tangerine, and bread. The taste is... well interesting to put it nicely. Heavy (sourdough?) bread malt and a dose of floral, musty, perfumey notes. There's some bitterness in there, but all the weirdness going on makes you forget about it. The body is light, bordering on watery, with middling carbonation and a slightly oily mouthfeel; then finishes somewhat dry.

I am in awe... of how bad this beer is. This is the worst Three Floyd's beer I've had and I actually drain poured what was left in the bottle. I don't care for the notes of tangy bread and heavily perfumed hops at all. I really hope this isn't indicative of Michigan hops, because if so, something ain't right. Three Floyd's has a track record of excellence so they're allowed a mulligan every once in awhile... not everything can be Zombie Dusts and Dark Lords. Resist your "Limited FFF Beer!" urge and leave this on the shelf.  0.5/5 (Yeah I think it's that bad)

The Big Guy: Whoa whoa whoa!!! I love ya buddy but you missed the boat on this one. Maybe I'm just a fan of sourdough bread, I don't know. The malts were light but sweet with a little bit of biscuit and bread crust. The hops come in with an awesome mango and melon flavor. Think really subtle tropical fruit flavors hiding just behind the sweetness of the malts and I thought it blended together nicely.

There is a slight resiny, pine flavor and earthy hop quality to the finish that closes it off nicely. I think this is a unique beer and its even better knowing some of the hops came from right here in the Midwest. There was just a bit of bitterness at the end and that's OK. Remember this is only a pale ale, a regular pale ale- not an IPA or a DIPA- just an everyday pale. A lot of us have come to expect intense hops every time we hear that Three Floyd's is making a beer. I was thrilled to see that this one didn't have that heavy handed hop flavor. I even picked up another bottle because I liked it so much. Thanks for leaving that one on the shelf Russ. I give it a 4.

Beer at the State Fair?

What beer pairs best with a deep-fried Snickers?

Apparently we Hoosiers are going to have the opportunity to find out for ourselves. Many of you have probably heard about the bill Governor Pence signed that allows the sale of beer on the state fairgrounds during the event.

Wait, they don't do that already? Nope. I haven't been to the state fair in a few years to be honest, so this was something I apparently took for granted. I think I've been to any state fair three times total. I grew up near Chicago in Illinois and I never went growing up. Most of my state fair experiences have involved a complete lack of understanding of all things livestock related, eating too much, an checking out the rides. 

So now there's something else to add to my list of things to do. Somewhere between the Tilt-A-Whirl, ice cream and that one ride that has the scantily clad Viking women and the mountains that always seems to be playing Iron Maiden, I'm going to have some craft beer. I'm excited to see what Indiana craft breweries bring to the table and also what comes from nearby states, since legally there can't be a restriction making it only Indiana beers.

One of the primary concerns I think a lot of people have is that the sale of beer will somehow turn the state fair into a dirty frat party. There's definitely going to be that opportunity to overindulge, so be respectful and be responsible. If you've never tried Uber, maybe this would be a good time to test out their service or just plan on having a designated driver in your group. No one wants to see beer only make it one year because people couldn't handle themselves appropriately. Don't be that guy.

That gets me to another thing that I've been thinking about as a result of this bill being passed. The craft beer community is great for so many reasons. People are welcoming and there's an almost instant sense of camaraderie. We've said that before and chances are if you're reading this blog you've experienced this first hand as well.

Having beer available at the state fair puts us in the position to act as ambassadors for craft beer. This is a good thing! You might be at the fair with a friend who's a die-hard Miller Lit guy. Why not encourage him to try something new since it's right there. You may not convert him with just one beer, but it opens the conversation.

I love watching the craft beer community expand, and offer more people the chance to experience all the great brews that are out there. It's easy to forget that some really great beer comes from right in our own backyard. Really in my mind that's what the state fair is about- celebrating the creativity and ingenuity that comes out of Indiana across a variety of industries.

Additional Articles:
IBJ Article: http://www.ibj.com/pence-signs-bill-allowing-state-fair-alcohol-sales/PARAMS/article/46693
Indiana Beer Blog Post: http://indianabeer.blogspot.com/2014/03/pence-signs-bill-allowing-state-fair.html

Mimi's Tabernacle

We haven't highlighted Indiana City before on the blog, and that's probably our bad, but we really haven't heard much from the community about these guys.

As a sucker for anything barrel aged, when they released their Crimson Bombshell I had to go down and give it a try. It was pretty good, but it was a barrel aged imperial red. Reds aren't what I normally think of when I'm looking for a barrel aged beer. 

Crimson Bombshell was good, but Mimi's Tabernacle is great. It's a big 8% stout with oatmeal, maple syrup and Dutch chocolate. This is the perfect beer to put in a barrel. I had to have it.



Indiana City calls Mimi's Tabernacle is a "breakfast stout." We will not be doing a BREWniversity style guideline on this anytime soon, because it's really not an official style. When most people hear breakfast stout they think of the beer by Founders. In fact if you google "breakfast stout" it takes a page or so before you find anything that doesn't reference Founders. Since Mimi's Tabernacle is a stout brewed with a ton of breakfast ingredients, I get where they were going, but it did make me think they were trying to do some sort of Founders clone. The beer is probably somewhere between a sweet stout an oatmeal stout and an RIS.

First thing's first, this is not a Founders Breakfast Stout clone. This beer has a ton of unique flavors. The beer pours out a beautiful oily black color with a nice sized tan head that fell off pretty quickly into sticky lace. The aroma was mostly oak and chocolaty roast malts, as you might expect. What really impressed me was the flavor. The second thing you must consider is this is a sweet beer. If you like your stouts drier, go somewhere else. From the first sip you can tell Mimi's Tabernacle was brewed to have big sweet flavor. Up front you get big cocoa and coffee notes almost like a Starbucks mocha latte and then you get a really nice hit of the maple syrup flavor. The bourbon barrel aged flavor helps finish it all out with smooth vanilla and oak. It's sort of like an entire breakfast including the shot of bourbon... wait you don't drink a shot of bourbon with breakfast? My bad.

This is an excellent beer. I picked up an extra to let it sit for a little while to see how it ages. My only real criticism is from calling it a breakfast stout. I get that the name can be descriptive, but everyone I've mentioned it to has asked if it's basically a Founders clone. Its hard for a new brewery to get going, but playing off another beer doesn't help you out much around beer geeks.

I give this beer a hearty 4. Its perfect for this cold winter we've had.

At What Point does a Special Release Just Become "Special"

I love a nicely done coffee beer, or even a beer with cocoa nibs added into the boil. There are some outstanding special releases out there that have unique combinations, but as the community grows brewers are doing crazier and crazier stuff. This leaves me wondering at what point have we gone too far?

In the 1500's the Germans created Reinheitsgebot, the German beer purity law. It dictated that beer could only contain water, malt and hops. At this time they didn't know about the existence of yeast, so that wasn't included to the rules until much later. This may sounds silly, but we have similar laws here in America defining Bourbon Whiskey. Just like with the American Bourbon specifications, the law was made to help regulate beer, its quality and its price throughout Germany. A lot of brewers believe that the Reinheitsgebot still have a big place in our craft beer culture, but the spirit of American individualism is all about pushing the envelope. At the other end of the spectrum are brewers have thrown the rules out the window and set the book on fire.

I love a lot of the beers with adjunct flavors. Some of my favorite beers that have added flavors are part of the Bourbon County series by Goose Island. They've added everything from coffee to coconuts and the beer tastes outstanding. One of the key points with this experimental beer is that the base beer is excellent. Goose Island took a lot of time creating a great beer, and then they thought about the flavors that would go well with the base beer and added them. Likewise, some of the variants at Flat 12's anniversary party were outstanding and followed that same model of building on a solid foundation of an excellent brew.

For every home-run, there are bound to be a few that strike out. Creating "extreme" beer has almost become more important than creating good beer and many breweries jump right into the crazy variants before they've mastered the basics of a great beer. If you've ever watched the show "Brew Dogs," they do some of the most ridiculous things to make a beer. One of the beers was made on a boat with flavoring herbs they picked on the shore. Sometimes the reactions from the crowd are good, sometimes not so good; but the beers never sound like something you want to drink over and over again. I know that Brew Dog makes some excellent beers and I would never claim that they don't know what they're doing, but they are making things for the sake of making them. It seems like we're pushing the boundaries for the sake of pushing boundaries.

Flat 12 just put a suggestion box in the brewery for people to submit ideas for unique beers. I have to be honest here, the idea of the general public creating flavor combinations scares the living shit out of me. I know the brewers will be able to veto really bad ideas etc., but to give that much power to people that aren't trained and are probably pretty drunk seems like a bad call. In contrast, Cartel Brewing Co on the west side has set up a "Customer Tap." This is one beer that will be available regularly that is chosen by the patrons of the brewery. It will give the people power but so far it has been limited to style choices on a survey put out through social media. We know they are planning on doing some creative beers, but so far they've made sure the general populace can't get too carried away.

When we look at things like crayfish beer, bacon maple doughnut beer and beer soured by men bathing in it we have to wonder where the line is. I know that if we don't push the boundaries we may never find the next great flavor. I just hope that brewers remember that their main job is to make a tasty product without unintended flavors and constant quality issues.

I love some of the unique combinations out there but as we continue to create the most extreme beers my question to the community is "what is too far?" Leave us a comment to let us know what you think.

Rhinegeist Saber Tooth Tiger Tapping and Review

Last September when I was still trading beer, I ran across someone offering up growlers of some imperial IPA named "Saber Tooth Tiger" from Rhinegeist, a brewery I had no idea existed. Loving the name because of its geology connections and reading very positive reviews of it I was determined to get some STT. For some reason that escapes my memory, I couldn't work out a deal with the guy, so I figured why not just drive to Cincinnati and visit Rhinegeist hoping to get some STT. That next weekend I jumped in the car and did some other errands in Cincy before landing at Rhinegeist. Unfortunately they had just blown the last keg of STT- strike 1. I did see that they had awesome STT shirts... But not in my size- strike 2. All was not lost as I grabbed some nice glassware and took home a Mosiac single hop APA that I enjoyed very much. Still feeling I had failed in my mission to get STT, I emailed the brewery to inquire when it (and shirts) would be available again: "next spring" was the response. 

After many emails/tweets/Facebook posts to Rhinegeist (when is it coming back???) and several months later it's almost spring and STT is here. This past weekend Andrew, Steve, and myself traveled down to Cincy to visit Rhinegeist again and finally try this beer... It was worth it. Thankfully everyone liked it, because Andrew claims that I've constantly talked about the pending STT release ever since he's known me, and it would've been a major bummer had the beer disappointed. 

The Big Guy: When we rolled up to the brewery we knew we had to find Jim Matt, but none of us knew what we looked like. We did what any good beer geek would do and went straight to the beer. We found a fit unassuming guy in a Saber Tooth Tiger shirt checking on all the tanks. He was doing a great job ignoring the noise of the budding party around him and focusing on the whats important, the beer. At this point we were pretty sure we had found Jim Matt, the head brewer at Rhinegeist, and the man who was making all this happen. A friend of the blog had set us up with an interview, so we got down to it. Jim took us back "behind the scenes" if anything can be considered behind the scenes at Rhinegeist. All of their brewing tanks are right out in the open, so the whole world can see the quality that they put out. 

I was really excited to talk with him because he was once a member of the Sun King team here in Indy and its always great to see awesome new projects from people that used to be here in the local scene. I've been incredibly impressed with how fast Rhinegeist has gone from not existing to being a full production brewery with a ton of great offerings in about nine months. They were at the point they thought they'd be in three years after about six months. Right now Jim is doing between six and ten brews every week. This means Jim and his team are stuck doing double brew days on a regular basis just to keep up with demand, and demand is high.

One of my favorite beers they do is Truth, IPA. Interestingly enough, Jim started Truth as a homebrew clone of Sculpin, by Ballast Point. Like with any good homebrew clone, it never stays the same. The brewer always puts his own spin on it to make it reflect his tastes even more. Whats better than your favorite beer? Your favorite beer with even more of your favorite stuff in it. Truth is a big West Coast style IPA. Jim says that "Malt is an afterthought with Truth." Its dry, hoppy and delicious. 

Rhinegeist has chosen to go with cans for their packaging. They have an in-house canning line that allows them to maintain outstanding quality. One of Jim's key responsibilities at Sun King was quality control. He's done a great job of making sure everything goes well with the canning process. Jim also started off by homebrewing with the guys from Daredevil brewing here in IN. He was part of their club.

There is a ton of history in Cinci and Rhinegeist has really stayed true to the area's roots. They've done a great job keeping some of the character of their brewery, while still making a super modern space. Community is really important to Jim and the other owners. They host yoga and beer on Sundays and even have a wiffel ball league that plays right in their brewery. 

REVIEWS

A good portion of the group got a crack at this beer and has their opinions so let's get started. 

Russ- STT pours bright copper with golden orange highlights and an off-white 1 finger head. Lacing is sparse. Has a strong perfumey aroma, but citrus and mango are the most distinct. Lots of different notes in the taste: tangerine, mango, grapefruit, sharp citrus peel bitterness and a light malt profile. The medium body is lighter than what I expected, but that's not a bad thing; carbonation is light, but prickly. Mouthfeel is somewhat oily, and it finishes mildly dry. STT is not going to be a tropical cocktail like the DIPAs that have captured the tongues of beer geeks nowadays, but fruit-forward hops still dominate. The balance of fruity hops, bitterness, and drinkability make this a DIPA worth seeking out. 5/5

The Big Guy: Saber Tooth Tiger pours out orange with beautiful copper highlights with short white head. It has a big tropical fruit aroma with tons of mango papaya and citrus fruits with a really light bitterness. The flavor follows the nose nicely. There are huge tropical and citrus fruit flavors, with a nice crisp sweetness. This is followed up by a sharp bitterness that accentuates everything. the malt body is incredibly light, and that leads to a nice light mouth feel. This is a double IPA that really doesn't have the thick syrupy feel that you may have become accustomed to. At 8.5 abv the bitterness does a great job to hide the alcohol. This is probably one of the most balanced DIPAs that I've tasted. Seriously a great beer I give it a 5

El Duque: If beer trees existed, this would be its fruit.  Nice, slick mouthfeel added to the well balanced an tropically flavored DIPA.  It's wonderful to be able to drink a beer by a new brewery of this quality.  I could drink this for days on days.  Great DIPA for those that shy way at the hop filled promise of such a complex brew.

Professor Beer:  Saber Tooth Tiger has strong tropical fruit flavors.  I found it to be extremely well balanced; there is a a hoppy bitterness, but it is not palate-wrecking.  I definitely recommend trying Saber Tooth Tiger if you get the chance.  One of the best DIPAs that I've had, I give it a 5.

Fat Heads Hop Juju

I am a big fan of Fat Heads Brewing.  Head Hunter IPA is absolutely one of my favorite IPA's on the market.  So when I heard about Hop Juju, their double ipa, I expected great things.  I first learned of the beers greatness while watching the live stream of the Great American Beer Festival awards ceremony.  Hop Juju won the gold medal over Three Floyds Permanent Funeral.  Having had Permanent Funeral last year at Dark Lord Day and being quite impressed with it, I was eager to try Hop Juju.  So when it was bottled, I made a trade for it, and boom....here we go.

Let me preface by saying this review is a culmination of 3 separate drinking occasions.  To be perfectly honest, the first I consumed this beer I drank a different beer prior to pouring the Juju.  I was also cooking a fragrant meal for my family.  The second time drinking this I was home alone.  Nothing going on.  The third time was at a recent bottle share where I shared my last 2 bottles with drinking buddies.

The beer pours a slightly dark orange color and is crystal clear.  Poured into a tulip glass.  The first thing that goes wrong for me here is the nose.  It's weak.  I expected this beer to deliver a face smacking aroma that I would feel in my spine...it did not.  In fact, until the third time I drank it I really didn't get much out of the nose.  The taster pour I had at the bottle share provided me with light tropical fruit aromas with a touch of pine and citrus.  So it's got a lot going on, just not overpowering in any way.  Which is fine.

Taste is a really nice mix of all of those hop flavors.  Pineapple, Mango, grapefruit, and pine bitterness are all evident.  Well blended and incredibly easy to drink.  Smooth.  The mouthfeel is perfectly full as any good DIPA should be.  Has pretty strong resin to it and has that "will chip away at the enamel of your teeth" kind of quality.  Nice lacing on the glass as well.

All in all, I give it a 4/5.  I understand why it won Gold at the GABF.  It's incredibly true to style.  GABF is about the truest beers to style.  To me, Permanent Funeral is a lot more aggressive than Juju but Juju has all the elements of winner in a contest.  That being said I liked PF better.  Truth to style doesn't always mean that the beer is incredible.  There wasn't any one particular thing about Juju to me that was mind blowing or life changing...other than how true to style it is.

Additionally, just because I wouldn't put it in a top 10 of DIPA's doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it.  It's a really good beer.  In fact I recently traded for more!  Definitely worth a buy.

The Big Guy: I don't have a lot more to say that Kevin hasn't already put out there. After having Head Hunter I was not expecting the extreme resiny quality of this beer. It went far enough into the piney resiny spectrum that it could be considered dank with its big piney and earthy hop profiles. Along with all this dank goodness there was an impressive amount of tropical fruit hops to help brighten it up and a nice subtle sweet malt character. It ended with a great bitter slap in the face that really closed it out well. I thought it was well balanced and a beautiful IPA all in, but I agree with Kevin that it's a 4

Be on the look out because my local liquor store guy told me we should be expecting a limited supply of this hoppy treat to hit Indy in the next few weeks.

Cooking Under the Influence: Ring of Dingle Cupcakes

This time of year there are a ton of recipes floating around the internet (which in this case is code for Pinterest) for Guinness cupcakes. I wanted to use something a little unique to Indiana, so I modified the recipe to use Sun King's Ring of Dingle. Part of the recipe is for Bailey's frosting. You're welcome in advance.

Cupcake Ingredients
1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup Ring of Dingle stout
2/3 cup cocoa powder
1 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon table salt
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup white sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
2 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream


Frosting Ingredients
1/2 cup unsalted butter
4 cups confectioners sugar
1 pinch table salt
3 tablespoons Irish cream
1 tablespoon milk

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease 24-30 cupcake liners, or fill with paper liners.

In a saucepan, heat the butter needed for the cupcakes, Ring of Dingle, cocoa and brown sugar, whisking often, until the butter is melted and the mixture is smooth. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature.

Into a large mixing bowl, sift together salt, flour, white sugar, and baking soda. Add the cooled Ring of Dingle mixture and beat on medium for 1 minute. Add eggs and sour cream and beat on medium for 2 minutes or until smooth.

Divide the batter evenly among the cupcake cups. Bake 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Cool in pan 20 minutes, then remove and transfer to a cooling rack until completely cooled.


While cupcakes are baking/cooling, cream butter for frosting in a large mixing bowl until very light and fluffy. Add salt, and slowly add confectioners sugar, slow speed will prevent the sugar from spraying all over your kitchen. Add a couple of spoonfuls at a time until it has all been absorbed into the butter. Add Irish cream and milk until spreadable consistency is achieved.

The original recipe as posted on food.com can be found here.

BREWniversity: Style Guidelines- Dry Irish Stout

The first style in our BREWniversity series is inspired by Monday's holiday. That's right, it's time for St. Patrick's Day again. No, we're not going to put green food coloring in a Miller Lite and call it a style. We'll get to Miller Lite, but not today. Instead, we're going to take a look at Dry Irish Stouts.

Appearance: Very dark, almost black in color. Thick head, creamy in texture and light tan to brown in color, which will last while drinking the beer. (Think of the mustache you get while drinking a Guinness.)

Aroma: Roasted malt and barley lend a coffee like character to the aroma. You may get a hint of cocoa, but that's not necessary. European hop aroma at very low levels, also ok if not perceived at all.

Flavor: Like the aroma, there will be very low to no European hop flavor. Light caramel flavor is common. The finish will be dry and roasty due to the roasted barley. The bitterness comes more from the roasted character than the hops used.

Mouthfeel: Body should be somewhere between medium-light and medium full- much lighter than the color and head would lead you to believe if you've never had it before. It should be very smooth, with low carbonation.

Examples: Guinness, Murphy's, Sun King Ring of Dingle, Brooklyn Dry Stout

In order to get a better idea for the style, and not be too biased in my representation, I looked at a few sets of guidelines. Links are below in case you're interested in delving in a bit more.

• BCJP Style Guidelines: http://www.bjcp.org/stylecenter.php
• Beer Advocate: http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/style/162/
• Brewers Association: http://www.brewersassociation.org/pages/business-tools/publications/beer-style-guidelines
• GABF Style Guidelines: http://www.greatamericanbeerfestival.com/the-competition/beer-styles/

Cheers!

Barons Craft Beer Dream Jobs: Beer Educator

Chances are if you're a beer geek, you've thought of working in the industry as a brewer, bottle shop owner, rare beer taster, etc. Being that I'm in the market for a new job and am waiting anxiously to hear back about a couple of opportunities, I've spent a lot of time contemplating my future and what my options are. This has led my mind to wander to the "what if" of what my craft beer dream job would be. Over the next few weeks some of the Beer Barons will talk about what they would want to do, if given the opportunity.

Since my dream job doesn't necessarily exist (at least locally), I want to demonstrate its need by providing an analogy.

Imagine that you're a kid again and you've never been to the library (maybe the latter isn't too hard to imagine). Up until now you've only "read" picture books, but one of your friends says there's all these books filled with awesome stories, characters, places, and knowledge; the catch is that you have to go to this library to check them out (literally). So you go to this place and you're immediately overwhelmed by all the books. Being new to this you have no clue what authors or genres you like, so you start picking things off the shelf randomly because the covers and blurb on the back look and sound interesting. You take them home, read them a bit, and discover you don't like them, so you go back. Again you sift through all the books blindly. Luckily this time another patron walks by and notices your perplexed look and offers some reading recommendations. While this is helpful, they can't tell you why they liked those books, they "just do." With no other options you take them home, but again the books aren't doing it for you and you're tempted to go back to picture books. You start to think "wouldn't it be great if the librarian, book publishers, or even the authors were around to help educate me on the different genres, writing styles, and authors I might like?"

To the uninitiated, this is what entering the craft beer world can be like. There's a lot to take in and without guidance it can be too much. If you haven't figured it out yet the library is the bar, bottle shop, etc.; the books are beers; the librarian is your server or clerk; the publisher are your local distributors; and finally the authors are the breweries.

In a lot of craft beer communities the librarians, publishers, and authors are in the "libraries" constantly educating people, but in my opinion this is an area where the Indy craft beer industry needs work. I've felt for awhile that education is one of the keys to growing a healthy craft beer community. Outside of the great events our friends at Girl's Pint Out do and the handful of obscure events that happen locally, I struggle to recall any regularly scheduled "beer education" events. There's a wealth of expertise in this community, but it largely stays locked in those individual's brains or internally with the organization they represent. If you're lucky you'll get to hear some of it during a tour or at a homebrew class. If you look around the country, breweries and bars regularly put on events educating about beer styles, pairing foods with beer, glassware, and a whole host of other topics. People that are educated on something are less likely to be scared of it, more likely to be engaged with the community, and will explore more. My point is that the local industry needs to be more involved with the local community's craft beer education.

I'd love to be that person that helps coordinate, develop, and deliver beer education. Not only is my craft beer dream job something I'd enjoy doing, it's something I'm qualified to do (you listening industry professionals?). I've done science education research and training for the last 8-9 years, so why not switch out the "science" for "beer"? What I would like to do is help find out what the local community knows and doesn't know (research and assessment!), what they want to know (or should know), and figure out the best and most exciting ways to deliver the education. There's a lot that can be done in that space and I think this community really needs it.

So if there's anyone out there that wants to hire me as a "beer education/outreach specialist" I'm your guy!

Live a Rich Life and Breweries Giving Back

I'm always impressed by the heart and soul of the craft beer community. This year we lost a brewer from Stone; Mathew Cartwright was killed by a fork-truck. Stone released a beer celebrating his life called Matt's Burning Rosids. When a friend passes, brewers have the incredible ability to honor their friends by creating something named after them that may stand the test of time.

In 2011 Three Floyds lost a good friend and so they released a beer in tribute to him. The beer is Live a Rich Life, named after Rich Sheppard. Live a Rich Life is a Belgian style IPA from Three Floyds and De Struise. This beer was formerly sold on draft as Shark Pants. When it was released as Live the Rich Life, proceeds from the sale of the beer went to the surviving family of Rich Sheppard.

No matter what the circumstances are it's always amazing to see how the craft beer community supports one of their own. We could all take a hint from these breweries and do more to support each other.

The beer pours out a wonderful, bright copper-orange color. There is an inch of fluffy off-white head sitting on top of the beer that flows into beautiful lacing all along the glass. The aroma is like an all out battle between Belgium and the West Coast. Huge pine and tropical hop notes with a big phenolic kick in the pants from the Belgian style yeast. They marry well together to create a great and unique aroma.

Although this looks like it might be malt heavy from the dark color, the beer is surprisingly light and crisp. The malt provides a nice, clean toffee and biscuit backbone to a huge hopfest. The hops are obviously the star of this beer. They are full of big tropical fruit flavors with some nice citrusy tangerine flavors and a really nice resiny bitter finish. Although not the star of this beer, the Belgian yeast flavor is no backup singer. The yeast character blends so well with the hops. You get a wonderful peppery spice that accentuates and boosts the big hop flavors. There is a little bit of boozy heat at the finish of this one, but that's totally acceptable form an 8.7% ABV beer.

I obviously never knew Rich, but his name lives on in this amazing beer. If you're bored with basic DIPAs then you really need to check this brew out. Its unique flavors will dance across your tongue in their own hop mosh pit. This was an excellent beer, I give it a 4.

Our hearts go out to the friends and family of both Rich Sheppard and Mathew Cartwright.

The Instagram Beer Community

Yesterday, Andrew talked about creating your craft beer network, which is very valuable for a lot of reasons. For example, a good network can you help with:

• Keeping up-to-date with new releases/breweries/events
• Meeting people to hang out with
• Setting up trades
• General knowledge 

One of the "tools" out there for expanding and leveraging your network is social media. Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ all have have significant craft beer communities whether it's breweries disseminating news, individuals discussing topics, or groups setting up events. One that you may not be thinking about or have altogether ignored is Instagram (for those of you that don't know what Instagram is, it's an online social media network that is based off of sharing photos and videos; you can "like" people's photos, make comments, follow people, and so on). I know a lot of people have stayed away from Instagram because you think "it's for hipsters" or full of people taking self-aggrandizing #selfie photos... and well you're right, but there's actually a very vibrant #craftbeer community on there. To be honest I'm not sure how I figured out that there was a huge craft beer community on Instagram... it just kind of happened.

Instagram's visual platform is perfect for a craft beer community since so much about beer is visual: the beer itself, label artwork, glassware, bars, breweries, etc. It let's people share and discuss all these elements easily. Plus you can see what's hitting the market ("oh look 'x' must've been released since my #@$#!! feed is full of 'x' pics) and get informal opinions on beers. 

I think one of the best things about Instagram is that the community is less intimidating than some of the other beer focused ones like beeradvocate.com. In my experiences people are friendlier and fairer when it comes to trades. 

The biggest thing I've gotten from Instagram? My current Indy beer friends. The majority of the people I hang out with I met through Instagram. 

So you want to be an Instagram beer star? Slow down there tiger. With any network it's going to take some time and effort to build; people are not going to just start liking your photos, following you, or conversing with you when you're new. Getting started on Instagram is a lot like getting started on twitter. The best way to get started is by using #hashtags to search the vast cluttered rabbit hole that is Instagram. Doing this will lead you to people you may want to follow. To get you started there are some pretty standard hashtags that the beer community uses:

#craftbeer
#beergeek (and other variations)
#properglassware
#(insert name of brewery/beer)
#craftbeerporn
#alehaul
#beermail

I would recommend looking at the other media on their profile before "committing" to follow someone as you'll find that your feed (the media that the people you follow post) can quickly get cluttered with things you don't care about... you may have seen their one beer picture in a land of poo (literally). I know some people, like Andrew, have a "minimum beer photo percentage" threshold someone must pass before he'll follow, and I generally have some guidelines as well.

Once you follow someone hopefully they'll follow you back (liking and commenting on their pictures usually helps). The other thing you can do is figure out which of your beer buddies are already on Instagram. Chances are they take photos of beer and follow other like-minded folk, so you look at who they follow and do the same; If they're really nice they'll give you a shout out. I picked up over a 100 followers one day because an individual with a ton of followers reposted a picture of mine. Just be patient. It took me a really long time to get people following me.

As with any community there's some bad things. It's pretty common that when posting a rare beer picture you'll get slammed with trade requests. If you're all about trading then it's not an issue, but unsolicited requests can get tiresome. Also, the beer giveaway (aka trying to get followers) meme is driving me nuts at the moment.

Take your time, see what's out there, and figure out what works best for you. As with everything craft beer related, it's about having fun and finding people to share the experience. You can look for us on Instagram while you're there:

Russ- therussb
Andrew- TheEmptyCan
Brie- brie3981
El Duque- lukelofland
Kevin- beerdaddyblog
Owen- theillumin8tor
Steve- profbeer

Creating Your Craft Beer Network

We've all been told that in your professional life networking is everything. As a sales guy, my whole world revolves around knowing the right people and making as many friends as possible. It's obvious in business. Not as obvious when it comes to beer. We all have friends locally that we drink with, and probably have some college or high school friends that we see a couple times a year when we travel, but a lot of new guys to the scene haven't started creating beer contacts.

Particularly when you are getting into craft beer, there is good reason to invest the time into building a craft beer network. Like in business, make sure you're using the right tools to help strengthen your network.

First, talk to people you know. If your best friend from college is in St. Louis, make sure he knows you love beer. If you're interested in breweries in his area tell him. That way if you go out to hang, he will be more understanding when you drag him to Schlafly (or whatever brewery is in the area). Also, if a beer you're interested in drops make sure he knows it's coming. It may shock you but a lot of your friends are willing to pick up a beer and hold on to it for you. Consider it held ransom for fun.

Second, use technology. I recently got back from a really cool symposium about craft beer writing in Lexington, Kentucky. Since I knew I was heading that way, I went out to twitter and instagram to ask for hot spots to check out. This is a tactic I take almost every time I travel. No one knows the best spots better than locals, and as you develop a social network you will be surprised at how many people have already traveled wherever you're going, and most craft beer geeks are willing to tell you where to go and some may even meet you there for a pint. I learned about some good breweries to check out, great bars to hit up, ands a few totally unique liquor stores that helped make my trip awesome. Beer Advocate and Rate Beer also have forums that do a great job of connecting people. Another resource is seekabrew.com, where you can research distribution footprints to find what breweries are available in the state you are visiting that you might not have access to in your state.

Third, check out local blogs. Not to toot my own horn but blogs can be a solid resource for what's going on in an area. We keep local events and beer releases up on our Facebook page and have regular posts about them. A quick Google search for "Craft beer (insert state)" or "(insert state) beer blog" will give you a ton of results. If you can't find what you need on their page, send the bloggers an email. There's nothing we like better than trying to help people navigate the Indiana craft beer scene.

People regularly talk about craft beer as a community, and that's because traditionally we want to help other craft beer lovers. We're all on the same team trying to push good beer forward whenever we can. Use your network, use the community, and go out and try some new beers!

Pilgramage: Rhinegeist Brewing Co.

After Winterfest, I had basically fallen in love with Truth, an IPA by Rhinegeist, so on our way back from Lexington, the Little Lady and I decided to make a stop in Cincinnati, OH to check out the brewery in person.

The brewery is located in an area that used to be called "Over the Rhine" which was host to much of Cincinnati's German immigrant population, at one point getting over 43,000 people strong. People spoke German, ate German and most importantly drank German. Rhinegeist is a nod to the German heritage of the area. The name translates Ghost of the Rhine, remembering the people that came before and really helped bring that rich brewing tradition to the Midwest.

Rhinegeist pulls from the area's incredible German heritage and is obviously one of many businesses that seem to be helping to gentrify the beautiful old buildings in this part of Cincinnati. So often, when you go to a brewery downtown you're stuck with street parking, but Rhinegeist hooks it up with a lot across the street from their building.

Rhinegeist is housed in a beautiful old brick building that housed a bottling facility at the end of the 1800's. When we went through the door, I was surprised to see a set of stairs in front of me. There wasn't a lot of indication that the brewery was upstairs, but there really weren't any other options, so I started walking up. When I got to the next floor, I was surprised to see that there was no door on this floor, but there were more stairs. Up I went for three floors before finally finding the brewery, but when I did I was in awe of how amazing the space was.

The brewery occupies the top floor of this beautiful old building. The room is an easy thirty feet tall with huge windows all around and skylights that let tons of natural light into the room. There are hand made picnic tables made out of pipes and reclaimed wood. This created a bright contrast to all the old brick and concrete that form the rest of the building. Tanks and brewing equipment were right there in the middle of the open tap house space. The tables were all huge, which encouraged you to sit with someone you may not know and have a chat. This really is one of the biggest things that I think we're missing in Indy. All of our breweries that do pint sales have intimate drinking spaces. There are small tables that don't encourage any interaction. This place looked a lot like an old school German beer hall.

The bar had a great industrial vibe to it and about ten beers on tap. They had their three staple beers and some outstanding seasonals on the chalk board menu. Beers were being served in tasters, pint glasses and snifters, giving Rhinegeist options for any beer that they're bringing to the table.

I was pretty disappointed that they didn't have any cans available. There weren't even coolers that would say that cans would be there in soon. Since they just started canning a few weeks ago, I will give them the pass for now.

I got their Gramps, American Barleywine. It came in at 8.8 ABV and had a wonderful bitter American hop profile. It poured out a red orange color with a thin layer of off white head on top. There was a big hop aroma right up front, and the hops continued nicely into the flavor. The beer had a huge sweet candy malt flavor but was cut nicely with the strong citrus flavor of the American hops. This brew was missing some of the big dark fruits and sherry notes that I look for in a barleywine, but that could be because it was fresh. I prefer most of my barelywines aged at least a year or so. All this flavor did an awesome job hiding the taste from the big alcohol. This was a wonderfully balanced brew and if it wasn't so boozy and it hadn't been noon I probably would have had a few more.

It's exciting stuff because these guys have just started selling cans at the end of January to their local market. They started with two styles: Cougar Golden Ale an easy drinking, very accessible beer and Truth IPA. Truth IPA is a big, flavorful, hopped beer that I fell in love with at the first sip.

I'm really impressed because these guys just came to the market in June of 2013. That means in just about eight months they've gone from not existing to canning beers and the cans look awesome. If they keep up the quality, these guys are going to be a driving force here in the Midwest. I can't wait for them to add Indiana to their distribution foot print. 

If you have time to make the drive this Friday, Rhinegeist is releasing their Saber Tooth Tiger Double IPA. It should be a great beer and a great party! Cheers.