Beer-Topia Read online

  Gadget: Randall the Enamel Animal

  What it Does: This $300 device is less “gadget” than “lifestyle decision”—it’s a beer infuser that makes adding flavors to your brew as simple as packing a couple of chambers.

  Gadget: Bottoms Up

  What it Does: While pouring beer isn’t exactly difficult, doing it correctly is the kind of thing that requires a little bit of patience, knowledge, and dexterity. But what if you could pour beer into your glass from the bottom? Bottoms Up Beer has developed technology that relies on a magnet system to temporarily unlock a hole in the bottom of the glass and deliver a perfect pour. And although the company’s systems are all pretty pricey, with the cheapest model starting at $1,500, they’re easily incredible enough to justify the cost. And they aren’t even finished: The Bottoms Up line is expanding to include an easy chair with beer-filling technology built into the seat.

  Gadget: Drop Shots

  What it Does: There are a handful of cocktails out there—okay, we can only think of two, the Boilermaker and the Irish Car Bomb—that involve plunging a shotglass of a spirit into a pint of beer. One is meant to drink the whole thing bottoms up, but when bottoms are up, the shot glass has a tendency to fall out onto the drinker’s face. The solution: Drop Shots. It’s a pint and shotglass set, and the shotglass stays put inside the pint glass with…magnets.

  83 FUNNY CRAFT BEER NAMES

  Peter Cotton Ale

  Dead Guy Ale

  Hoptimus Prime

  Yippie Rye Aye

  Audrey Hopburn

  Josef Bierbitzch (“get me a Bierbitzch”)

  Stop, Hop and Roll

  Monty Python’s Holy Ale

  Over Hopulation

  Polygamy Porter

  Fermentation Without Representation

  Alimony Ale (“the bitterest beer in America”)

  Java the Nut

  Delerium Tremens

  Old Leghumper

  Honey Boo Brew

  The Big Lebrewski

  Me, My Spelt, and Rye

  Brew Free or Die IPA

  Peter Piper’s Pickled Pepper Purple Peated Pale Ale

  Pumpkin Brewster

  Smooth Hoperator

  Moose Drool

  He’Brew: The Chosen Beer

  Genghis Pecan

  For Those About to Bock

  Blithering Idiot

  Vergina

  Old Engine Oil

  Spleen Cleaver

  Ill-Tempered Gnome

  Men’s Room Red

  Spicy Fish Wife

  Buckin’ Monk

  Dog’s Bollocks

  Kilt Lifter

  Irish Death

  Arrogant Bastard Ale

  Face Plant

  Yeastus Christ

  Moo Thunder Stout

  Porkslap Pale Ale

  Buttface Amber Ale

  Yellow Snow

  Soft Dookie

  Bishop’s Finger

  Ryan and the Beaster Bunny

  Tactical Nuclear Penguin

  Judas Yeast

  Santa’s Butt Porter

  Seriously Bad Elf

  I’ll Have What the Gentleman on the Floor Is Having

  Screaming Ape Porter

  Black Metal

  Apocalypse Cow

  Vas Deferens

  Wreck the Halls

  Farmer’s Tan

  Mama’s Little

  Yellow Pils

  400 Pound Monkey

  Panty Peeler

  Rigor Mortis

  Meat Whistle

  Human Blockhead

  Wake Up Dead

  Mash of the Titans

  Doctor Morton’s Clown Poison

  Gandhi-Bot

  Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’

  Hoppy Ending

  Overrated

  West Coast IPA

  Ninja vs. Unicorn

  Sweaty Betty

  Scotland Charred

  Big Falcon Deal

  Those Candies Your

  Granny Loves

  Brown Ale

  Vampire Blood

  Hell or High

  Watermelon

  Pandora’s Bock

  Nonethewizer

  You Will Fail Ale

  Larry Bird’s Haircut

  Standard Issue IPA

  A GUIDE TO LAGERS

  Pilsner. It arrived on the scene relatively late, first appearing in 1842, but pilsner has made up for lost time, quickly rising to enjoy worldwide beer supremacy (at least in terms of market share). It isn’t hard to understand why: With its clean, simple flavor and low bitterness, pilsner is a refreshing, easy drink that goes well with just about everything. Like Xerox or Band-Aids, “Pilsner” started out as the name of a specific brew, Pilsner Urquell, before being unfurled as a global umbrella that covers everything from its assorted Czech and German varieties to American pale lagers like Budweiser, Coors, and Rolling Rock.

  Bock. A stronger lager, bock tends to be darker and maltier than its cousins. Traditionally smooth with lower carbonation and negligible hop flavor, it’s also brewed in the lighter, hoppier malbock or helles bock style, as well as the stronger doppelbock, which bears the distinction of being the original “liquid bread”—a drink used for sustenance by fasting friars. Finally, there’s the eisbock, which is sort of the Bud Ice of traditional German beer: a doppelbock that’s partially frozen during the brewing process, and emerges as a more flavorful (and alcoholic) brew after the ice is scooped out. This style’s name (and the goat that appears on some labels) comes from its origins as an ale brewed in Einbeck during the 14th century. When the recipe was adapted as a lager by Munich brewers hundreds of years later, they pronounced Einbeck as “ein bock,” or “a billy goat.”

  Märzen. This is a style with its roots in Bavaria, where, starting in the 16th century, brewers could only make beer between September and April. Barrels of Märzen—described in its original incarnation as “dark brown, full-bodied, and bitter”—were stored in cellars throughout the rest of the year, with leftover barrels served during the traditional Oktoberfest celebration (hence Märzen’s current interchangeable status with “Oktoberfest”-style brews). The modern Märzen varies in color, although the Austrian varieties tend to be lighter and sweeter than their German counterparts.

  Dunkel. Sort of the lager version of a porter, the dunkel is championed by the German Beer Institute as “the world’s first true beer style”; the merits of this claim may be debatable, but the dunkel’s appeal as a full-bodied dark brew with a clean lager finish is hard to dispute. The dunkel family also includes dunkelweizen, a dark wheat beer.

  SOMETHING IN THE WATER

  Beer snobs talk a lot about which types of hops were used to make a brew, or what kind of malt went into it. But many of us don’t really think about the water—even though it makes up 90 percent of any given beer. But with so many craft brews being produced across the nation, where the quality and makeup of water resources vary greatly, it’s got to account for something. It’s important to recognize how crucial H2O really is to the flavor (and more) of a beer.

  Like everything else in brewing, there’s a science to water and beer. The profile of the water used—taking into account the variety and amounts of minerals, as well as its pH—can have a major impact. The main components a brewer looks at are carbonate, sodium, chloride, sulfate, calcium, and magnesium.

  As for home brewing, those who take it seriously get a local water analysis before they begin the process. Among the cities with water that has a good balance of those minerals, and a near-perfect pH: Antwerp, Belgium; Munich, Germany; and Denver, Colorado. It’s no coincidence that those three places are among the most renowned and celebrated beer capitals. And if the water in your city rates poorly, your brew supply store sells plenty of tools to get your water more in line with optimum brewing conditions. Sometimes it’s as easy as simple additives like salt, gypsum, or baking soda.

  All of this might sound a little daunting if you
’re just starting out and trying to sort your wort from your mash, but don’t worry. Even if your local water doesn’t have the mystical qualities imparted to your favorite craft brew, it has plenty of other stuff all its own. Just like the hops, malt, and yeast, it’s a unique ingredient, and one that, over time, the savvy brewer learns to use to his or her advantage.

  THE BEER BELLY: FACT OR FICTION?

  Of all the stereotypes that go along with beer drinkers, the beer belly might be the most widespread. Think of a prototypical beer drinker. Did you think of Norm from Cheers? You probably did. But has beer been given a bad rap as the cause of male belly fat?

  Well, yes and no. While it’s true that beer has a moderate to high amount of calories, there’s nothing about this particular beverage that sends those calories straight to your gut. Just like doing sit-ups won’t magically make your belly fat disappear, beer won’t head straight for your spare tire. The caloric content in beer varies widely, but the average is somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 calories per 12 ounces. If you watch your diet at all, you’ll be able to see what that means for you in terms of your daily allowance, and how quickly those numbers add up.

  But it isn’t just the calories that work against your svelte figure. It’s also the alcohol, which jumps to the front of the line when it hits your metabolic system. While your liver is tied up purging it, any food you’ve recently eaten has to wait to be broken down, and it ends up being stored as fat…generally in the belly area.

  Lifestyle is also a factor. Moderate drinkers are apt to be more diet-conscious and adjust their caloric intake (or exercise) to offset their imbibing. Heavy beer drinkers, on the other hand, tend to be more sedentary, and to have less healthy habits in general. In short, beer is more of symptom than a cause.

  And if you don’t drink a lot or eat a lot of junk, but still find yourself getting soft in the middle, that might be due to age and genetics. Most of us acquire some extra padding as we get older, and we all add our padding differently. It could be that your “beer belly” has more to do with DNA than IPA.

  BEER UNDER PROHIBITION

  President Herbert Hoover called it “a noble experiment,” but today, most Americans remember Prohibition (1920–1933) as a failed experiment. In an effort to enforce temperance by criminalizing the manufacture, sale, and transport of “intoxicating liquor,” the government ended up sparking a huge increase in illegal activity instead, notably the rise of organized crime in the United States.

  Breweries shed thousands of jobs during Prohibition, but surprisingly, they didn’t die out entirely. They branched out into other areas. Yuengling and Anheuser-Busch delved into ice cream as a way to utilize their expensive fleets of refrigerated trucks. Yuengling’s ice cream proved so popular, in fact, that the company kept on producing it into the 1980s. Coors, meanwhile, expanded its pottery and glassworks divisions (really) and produced a line of family dinnerware.

  The big breweries made near beer, too. “Popular” brands included Pablo by Pabst, Famo by Schlitz, Vivo by Miller, Lux-O by Stroh, and Bevo by Anheuser-Busch, but consumers wanted stronger stuff. The industry was still happy to oblige, by implicitly encouraging homebrewing through the sale of malt extract.

  It was advertised as a baking aid, but this was a ruse and everyone knew it; as Prohibition agent A.W. McDaniel wrote sarcastically at the time, “There is an enormous amount of baking done, according to the amount of extracts being sold.” The government initially tried to stop the production of malt extract, but brewers successfully lobbied to have it classified as food, and it stayed on the market, where it did increasingly well; in 1927, for example, 450 million pounds of the stuff were produced. Sales of near beer subsequently plummeted. By 1929, homebrewers were churning out 700 million gallons annually.

  That’s an impressive figure, but the brews themselves were generally pretty dismal. Forced to do it all on the sly, homebrewers were often left with sludgy beer that was preferable only to no beer at all. Muddy, sour, and occasionally combustible, they were dismissed by the secretary of the U.S. Brewers Association as a “poor imitation of old-fashioned stock ales.”

  Once drinkers could get the real thing, on the other hand, they were just as willing to abandon homebrewing. In fact, it quickly dropped out of vogue after Prohibition’s repeal and didn’t even officially become legal in the U.S. until 1979.

  HOW TO OPEN A BEER WITHOUT A BOTTLE OPENER

  We are not responsible if you hurt yourself, but please be careful anyway.

  With a dollar bill. Fold a dollar bill in half, and then roll it up incredibly tight to where it’s about half an inch wide. Fold this very stiff wedge of paper money and jam it under the lid, with the rolled part of the bill held between your thumb and index finger. Hold onto the neck of the bottle with your other hand, and push up and against the folded dollar. The cap should come off.

  With a lighter. Take a disposable, flat-bottomed plastic lighter, flip it over, and place the edge of the bottom just under the beer cap’s ridge. Hold the neck of the bottle tightly and push it up against the lighter. Continue doing this around the cap, five or six times, until it pops off.

  With a key. Hold the neck of the beer bottle with your nondominant hand, and place any regular door key under the ridge of the cap with your other hand. Use the key to pry up the cap in a few spots until you’ve created a gap big enough to shove in the key. Finish the job by popping the cap off.

  With another beer. A sharp or rigid piece of metal seems to be perfect for prying off a beer bottle cap, which is itself a sharp or rigid piece of metal. That means you can use one beer bottle to open another beer bottle. Take the cap of a sealed bottle and place it just under the ridge of the other bottle’s cap. Jerk down on the topmost bottle and the cap should pop off.

  With a wooden spoon. Wrap your hand around the neck, leaving just a hint of space between your hand and the ridge of the cap. Take the back end of the spoon and hook it just under the cap and pry it off. (This method keeps the cap from being bent, so use this one if you’re a cap collector.)

  A TOAST TO ANDRE THE GIANT

  “As far as great drunkards go, there is Andre the Giant, and then there is everyone else,” wrote Richard English in Modern Drunkard about the professional wrestler and actor. He was a beer enthusiast whose bottomless thirst only had a little to do with his 7'4", 500-pound frame—consuming as much beer as possible was partially a party trick, and partially a way to numb the physical pain from his wrestling career.

  • His favorite beer was the unpretentious Molson Canadian. (There’s a widely circulated picture of Andre palming a can of it.) He drank an average of about two cases every day—that’s 48 beers. Half of those he’d drink before wrestling matches.

  • On a night out drinking in Manhattan in 1977, Andre drank 75 beers. His friends couldn’t convince him to take a taxi to his hotel, which he hated because he didn’t like squeezing himself into them…so they stole a horse carriage. Andre safely returned to his hotel…bar, where he drank a gallon or so of brandy.

  • He once drained 119 bottles of beer in a six-hour drinking session, then passed out in a hotel hallway. His friends couldn’t move him, so they placed a piano cover over him while he slept it off.

  • Wrestling cohort Harley Race claims to have once gone out with Andre for a night of drinking in New Orleans, where he says Andre put away 127 beers.

  • Wrestlers Mike Graham, Dusty Rhodes, and Michael Hayes swear that they once witnessed Andre drink 156 bottles of beer in a row.

  • Andre’s beer tab at his hotel when The Princess Bride finished filming: $40,000.

  44 HOPS VARIETIES WITH COOL NAMES

  Hops give beer character, and their names reflect that.

  Zeus

  Vanguard

  Topaz

  Super Pride

  Challenger

  Fuggle

  Magnum

  Northdown

  El Dorado

  Sorachi Ace

  Warrio
r

  Pacific Jade

  Super Galena

  Liberty

  Crystal

  Herkules

  Orbit

  Tomahawk

  San Juan Ruby Red

  Pride of Ringwood

  Green Bullet

  Taurus

  Southern Cross

  Phoenix

  Summit

  Mosaic

  Super Alpha

  Calypso

  Sovereign

  Brewer’s Gold

  Feux-Coeur Francais

  Galaxy

  Palisade

  Millennium

  Golding

  Nugget

  Sterling

  Ultra

  Glacier

  Cluster

  Sun

  Bravo

  Olympic

  Zythos

  THE WORLD’S MOST EXPENSIVE BEERS

  Beer: The End of History

  Price: $765

  Story: Dreamed up at Scotland’s BrewDog, this blond Belgian ale packs an eye-watering wallop: At 55% ABV, it’s one of the strongest beers on the planet. Its bottle also functions as a conversation piece, albeit a gross one: Each EOH bottle is placed inside the body of a taxidermied roadkill victim. The pricetag is justified by its scarcity—only a dozen 330 mL bottles were produced. Whether it’s worth the investment is up to you, but it does boast an impressive 88 out of 100 at RateBeer.com…as well as an odor that reminded one drinker of “dog biscuit, soy, leather, Asian mushrooms, beef, and sweet chocolate,” and a taste that, according to another, bears hints of “mushrooms, soy sauce, beef, leather, cherry, and tobacco.”