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  Beer: Space Barley

  Price: $110

  Story: This beer from Sapporo is exactly what it sounds like: beer made from barley that was grown in space. Announced in 2008 and sold through a special lottery system in Japan the following year, this exceedingly limited edition produced only 250 six-packs, each of which went for more than the equivalent of a hundred bucks. That’s a hefty price tag for a beer that probably didn’t end up tasting all that different from one whose ingredients were harvested here on Earth, but Sapporo at least donated Space Barley profits to Okayama University to subsidize and encourage science education.

  Beer: Crown Ambassador Reserve

  Price: $90

  Story: Down Under, well-heeled drinkers indulge in Crown Ambassador Reserve, a 10.2% ABV doppelbock that’s periodically issued in special 8,000-bottle batches. Everything about this beer is supposed to scream “class,” from its year-long aging process in French oak barrels to the bottle, which is shaped and packaged to look like champagne. At that price for each 750 ml, it definitely isn’t the kind of thing you want to be mindlessly guzzling during the game.

  Beer: Tutankhamun Ale

  Price: $7,600 (or $200)

  Story: Dreamed up after an archaeologist unearthed brewing chambers used during Egyptian queen Nefertiti’s reign, and brewed using a recipe extrapolated from ancient beer residue inside the chambers, Tutankhamun Ale made its debut with a 1,000-bottle run, the first of which fetched an absurd $7,686. Even at those prices, the brewery couldn’t manage to stay in business, and today you can periodically find Tutankhamun on auction sites for under $200.

  For some more beers we hope you can someday afford, turn to page 133.

  WHO OWNS WHAT

  Even though American beer fans can enjoy a vast array of craft beers, the market is still controlled by a small handful of major corporations.

  AB InBev. In 2008 Belgium’s InBev purchased Anheuser-Busch for $52 billion, creating AB InBev. InBev itself was formed when Brazilian brewer Companhia de Bebidas merged with Belgium’s Interbrew in 2004. Interbrew came about in 1987 when Brasseries Artois (brewer of Stella Artois) and Piedboeuf (maker of Jupiler) joined together. Anheuser-Busch, meanwhile, started out in St. Louis in 1860, eventually growing to dominate the American market with its line of Budweiser beers. The end result is not only the leading global brewer, but one of the world’s most powerful consumer brands.

  Other AB InBev brands: Hoegaarden, Leffe, Skol, Kokanee, Labatt, Beck’s, Löwenbräu, Spaten, St. Pauli Girl, Bass, Boddingtons, Busch, Goose Island, Michelob, Land Shark, Natural, Rolling Rock, Shock Top, and Corona. AB InBev also has ownership stakes in many popular craft brewers, including 10 Barrel, Red Hook, Omission, Kona, and Widmer Brothers.

  Carlsberg. In the United States, Carlsberg is little known, but in Europe, it’s a powerhouse. In Russia, its Baltika controls 40 percent of the beer market. Elsewhere, their flagship Carlsberg brew is a favorite for many drinkers, and they’re also heavily active throughout western, northern, and eastern Europe, as well as China, where their major stake in Chongqing Brewery gives them a foothold against the hugely popular CR Snow. In all, the Danish company produces more than 350 different beer brands.

  Other Carlsberg brands: Kronenbourg, Somersby, Jacobsen, Semper Ardens, Falcon, Ringnes, Holsten, Lübzer, Feldschlosschen, Cardinal, Super Bock, Warteck, Birrificio Angelo, Grimbergen, and Euro Beer.

  Heineken. Heineken dates to 1864, when Gerard Adriaan Heineken purchased a tottering Amsterdam brewery called the Haystack. It’s risen to span the globe as one of the few truly internationally recognizable beer brands. While Europe accounts for roughly half of its sales, Heineken drinkers (and Heineken ad campaigns) are everywhere, and the company owns more than 100 breweries in over 70 countries.

  Other Heineken brands: Amstel, Furstenberg, Tecate, Newcastle, Sol, Kingfisher, Murphy’s, Dos Equis, Strongbow, and Bohemia.

  SABMiller. SABMiller was formed in 2002, when South African Breweries gobbled up the Miller Brewing Company, which at the time enjoyed the second-largest market share in the U.S. The resulting partnership bridged hundreds of years of mass-market brewing tradition across either side of the Atlantic: SAB got its start in 1895 when a Swedish brewer created Castle Lager to capture the market of European miners working in Johannesburg. Miller got its start in the 1850s in Milwaukee. The chain got even more complicated in 2008, when Miller bought Molson Coors (already a merger of two famous brands) to create MillerCoors.

  Other SABMiller brands: All Coors, Miller, and Molson styles (of course), Molson Killian’s, Blue Moon, Pilsner Urquell, Carling, Peroni, Snow, Grolsch, Batch 19, Keystone, Henry Weinhard, Leinenkugel, Hamm’s, Icehouse, Keystone, Mickey’s, Milwaukee’s Best, Olde English, Red Dog, Steel Reserve, and Foster’s.

  HAIR OF THE DOG

  The world’s scientists have yet to provide a foolproof way of curing the hangover.

  Until then: folk remedies.

  Fried canary. Pliny the Elder may or may not have discovered hops, which may or may not make him the grandfather of beer. His knack for throwing together a hangover cure wasn’t anywhere near as sharp as his botanical aptitude—he recommended eating a fried canary to get over those morning-after blues.

  Pickled herring. Woe to those who overindulge in Germany, because there’s a distinct possibility that some well-meaning friend will serve them a plate of katerfrühstück, which is as harsh and intimidating as it sounds. It translates to “hangover breakfast,” and for some reason, the Germans believe that means raw, pickled herring with pickle and onion bits on the side.

  Hair of the dog. There’s some legitimate science behind the idea of a morning-after Bloody Mary. Because your hangover is at its worst about 12 hours after you started drinking—or when your blood-alcohol content dips back down around zero—a low-alcohol beverage can act as a buffer.

  Lemon armpit. We’re going to tell you right up front that there seems to be little more than anecdotal evidence to suggest that anyone has actually done this. Apparently it’s a custom in Puerto Rico to kick off a night of drinking by stuffing a lemon wedge in one’s armpit, said to ward off dehydration.

  Rabbit poop. In the Wild West, cowboys had to make do with what they had on hand, which explains two things: 1) why they were often forced to indulge in rotgut booze that would just as soon kill you as make you drunk; and 2) why they tended to cope with the pain that came with the morning after by brewing up a tea steeped with rabbit droppings.

  Pickle juice. There’s a lot of pickled stuff on this list, and for good reason: All those spices and salt and pickled ingredients pack a big load of the electrolytes that can help you get back on the good foot when your head is pounding and your mouth feels like it’s been stuffed full of cotton.

  Bull penis. Sicilians know how to party, apparently—one of their favorite time-tested hangover remedies is to sit and gnaw for a while on dried bull’s genitals. We can’t imagine that it actually helps soothe the pain, but it at least gives you something extra-pungent to remember the next time you think about having a potentially disastrous “one last drink.”

  Tomato juice and eyeballs. On second thought, dried bull penis sounds pretty fantastic compared to the foul cocktail Mongolians throw together when they want to dry out: tomato juice and pickled sheep’s eyes.

  BETTER LIVING THROUGH PACKAGING

  In the Olden Days, beer drinkers had to lug their suds home in growler buckets or refillable bottles made out of stoneware. Prefilled cans and bottles are comparatively miraculous, but we might not yet have reached the pinnacle of beer container technology. Here are a few recent innovations.

  PET bottles. For years, cans were the cooler, newer alternative to bottles—and then for years after that, they were seen as the bottle’s trashy cousin. These days, there’s a lively debate over whether beer tastes better from a bottle or a can, but before long, we could get another alternative: PET bottles, which, despite their name, are unfortunately not containers shaped like d
ogs or cats. PET (polyethylene terephthalate) is a recyclable plastic that’s lighter than glass, making it eco-friendly on both legs of its journey to and from consumers. It also uses “gas-barrier technology” to give the beer inside a six-month shelf life. Economically and environmentally, PET bottles could be a boon for brewers, but the true test will be with consumers; after years of being conditioned to believe beer should stay far away from plastic, convincing drinkers of its benefits will likely be an uphill battle.

  Topless cans. Not a variation on the NSFW packaging used by Nude Beer (see page 27), but an idea introduced by Pennsylvania craft brewery Sly Fox, which uses a pull tab connected to a lid that lifts right off the beer. Cleverly engineered to prevent sharp edges, it gives the drinker the full-flavor, aromatic experience you’d get out of a glass, but eliminates the need to pour it anywhere but straight down your gullet. The topless can hasn’t exactly taken the beer industry by storm since being introduced in 2013; as of this writing, Sly Fox is the only brewer using it.

  “Cold-activated” packaging. MillerCoors is quite proud of its Innovation department, although projects like the pour-enhancing “Vortex bottle” bear the distinct odor of empty hype. One area where we have to hand it to them, however, is their line of “cold-activated” beer, which comes in packaging that changes appearance when the beer reaches optimal drinking temperature. With the cold-activated window pack, you can tell whether your case of Coors Light is sufficiently chilled; with individually cold-activated bottles and cans, you can just wait for the Rockies on the label to turn blue. With the newer two-stage cold activation packaging, the label sports a “Super Cold” activation bar.

  The “Ignite” bottle. If you’re the type of drinker who pines for a Jetsons-style future in which every last component of our lives is somehow “interactive,” you’ll enjoy Heineken’s prototype “Ignite” bottle. Loaded with accelerometers and with WiFi capability, the bottle is programmed to give drinkers a light show when they take a swig, say “cheers,” or happen to be sitting in a venue where the DJ has been handed the digital keys to make everyone’s Heineken join the party. The presumably high price tag (and, frankly, the annoyance of a light-up beer bottle) seems likely to keep this in the concept stage for a while, but it may not be long before you see the “Ignite” at special bar events.

  Grolsch’s Mason jar. Grolsch, which has made a name for itself with its resealable hinged bottles, recently test-marketed the “Borcanul” container in Romania. It’s a sealed jar with a handle on it.

  Bottlecap movie tickets. Also courtesy of Grolsch, this rather odd (yet ultimately fairly useful) idea tucks a Bluetooth sensor onto the underside of your bottlecap, which turns on after being opened and unlocks access to consumer content. Initially used in conjunction with a service called Movie Unlocker (which does pretty much exactly what it sounds like), the technology would seem to have widespread implications, particularly for promotional tie-ins allowing brewers to lure drinkers with promises of free stuff.

  THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE

  Or how to ask for a “beer” all around the world.

  Afrikaans: Bier

  Spanish: Cerveza

  Basque: Garagardoa

  Filipino: Serbesa

  Esperanto: Biero

  Danish: Øl

  Cantonese: Pear zao

  Mandarin: Pi jiu

  Amharic: Bira

  Hungarian: Sör

  Armenian: Garejure

  Khmer: Dughck

  Somalian: Khamri

  Welsh: Cwrw

  Gaelic: Leann

  Estonian: Kesvamärjuke

  Belarusian: Piva

  Czech: Pivo

  Finnish: Olut

  Manx: Lhuner

  Luganda: Bbiya

  Navajo: Hólóní

  Greenlandic: Immaaraq

  Tamil: Madhubaanam

  Japanese: Biiru

  Latin: Fermentum

  Farsi: Ab’jo

  Polish: Piwo

  Korean: Mek-ju

  Lakota: M’nee-pee-gah

  Punjabi: Bir sharab

  Lithuanian: Alu

  Nepali: Jad

  Arabic: Beereh

  Icelandic: Bjór

  Xhosa: Ibhiye

  Romanian: Bere

  Zulu: Utshwala

  BEER TREATS

  What beer drinkers eat when they’re not drinking beer.

  Beer-flavored coffee. Even if you’re the type of coffee drinker who thinks Starbucks overcharges for sugary, burned coffee drinks, you’d probably be interested in its Dark Barrel Latte, a drink the chain test-marketed in 2014. It consists of espresso, whipped cream, caramel, and chocolate stout-flavored syrup. It reportedly tastes a lot like a Guinness.

  Beer jelly beans. David Klein, the founder of Jelly Belly, broke the flavor game wide open for jelly beans. His company now offers hundreds of flavors, including beer. In 2014, it debuted a Draft Beer bean. Inspired by hefeweizen and brought to market after three years of tinkering and research, it promises an “effervescent and crisp” (and alcohol-free) munching experience. Jelly Belly even published instructions for making beer jelly bean “cocktails.” Apple Cider Shandy is two parts Draft Beer, one part Red Apple, and Michelada is two parts Draft Beer, one part Lemon-Lime, and one part Tabasco.

  Beer and pretzel caramels. Some insane flavor wizard found a way to not only combine the incredibly complementary tastes of beer and pretzels into a single item, but also turn them into a delicious, gooey caramel snack. Even better, the beer in question comes from Brooklyn Brewery, whose Brown Ale and East India IPA goes into these Liddabit caramels.

  Beer brittle. Beer and nuts go together like hops and malt. Just ask Annette’s Chocolates in Napa, California, where they’ve concocted a fabulous line of beer brittle that includes a microbrew recipe (Spanish peanuts, ale, brittle, and salt) as well as a “fiery” option that includes hot peppers.

  Beer candy. At Beercandy.com, shoppers can choose from three options: Beercandy caramels (made with stout, IPA, and lager), Beertaffy (IPA and stout), or Hopdrops (“a surprising marriage of bitter and sweet”).

  Beer potato chips. Kettle-cooked and beer-flavored. Goodness gracious, people, what more do you want in a potato chip? Made by Sprecher, these are only available in the Milwaukee area (or online).

  Beer ice cream. Frozen Pints’ beer-flavored ice creams do provide a bit of a buzz, and it comes in a variety of beer flavors, including Honey IPA, Vanilla Bock, and Pumpkin Ale. It’s frozen, so you can’t order online. You can only get a scoop at a Frozen Pints store in Georgia. (Make a beer pilgrimage out of it—there’s a store just down the road from the Billy Carter Museum in Plains.)

  THE UNITED STATES OF BEER, PART 1

  Alabama: Craft brewing exploded in the Yellowhammer State in 2009, when the Gourmet Beer Bill went into effect, allowing the legal alcohol volume limit in local beer to increase from 6 percent to 13.9 percent. One of the biggest breweries to emerge from Alabama is Good People Brewing Company. Known for using a seven-barrel brewing system, GP produces a robust lineup that includes a brown ale, pale ale, several IPAs, a chocolate oatmeal stout, and its Snake Handler Double IPA.

  Alaska: Alaskan Brewing Company is one of the nation’s oldest craft brewers. Founded in 1986, it’s the first brewer to set up in Juneau since Prohibition. That pioneering opened the door to competition like Midnight Sun Brewing Company, whose lineup includes Monk’s Mistress Belgian Strong Dark Ale, a hefty brew weighing in at 11.5% ABV.

  Arizona: In 2014, users at RateBeer.com voted Gilbert-based Arizona Wilderness Brewing Company the top new brewery in the world. Its evolving lineup includes everything from sour wheat ale to porter and IPA options, and a cockeyed sense of humor evident in the slogan “handcrafted beer, facecrafted beards.”

  Arkansas: In 2010, there were only four craft breweries in Arkansas. Today, there are 20, impressive considering most are outgrowths of part-time garage-brewing hobbyists, and also because alcohol is illegal in half of the state�
��s counties. A standout: Core Brewing in Springdale, and its flagship ESB.

  California: A beer lover could easily take a two-week beer tour of California, where craft brewers give the state’s famous wineries some real competition. But if we had to settle on just one brewery to visit in the entire state, it’d have to be the place where the craft brewing explosion really started: San Francisco’s Anchor Brewing Company. Founded in 1896 but tottering on the verge of closure by the 1960s, Anchor Steam was purchased for a few thousand dollars by Frederick Louis “Fritz” Maytag III, who came to brewing with the passion of a novice and the money to turn the company around. Purveyors of California common beer, made by brewing lager yeasts at higher temperatures, Anchor Steam left its lineup substantially unchanged for decades, but in recent years, they’ve introduced a number of new additions, including a brown ale, a straight lager, a barrel ale, and an IPA.

  Colorado: The Centennial State is a craft brewing powerhouse, with places like Breckenridge Brewing, Great Divide, Left Hand, and the Oskar Blues Brewery, which helped make canned beer cool again. And then there’s New Belgium Brewing Company, founded in Fort Collins in 1991. The company’s flagship beer is its Fat Tire amber ale, but booming sales have helped fuel a bustling, eclectic lineup that includes Belgian-style ales to wheat beer, their Shift pale lager (“when your work is done, you’ll want one”), and the intriguing Lips of Faith series, which makes room for brews that use all kinds of left-field ingredients such as coconut, peppers, and pluot juice. Save us a Salted Belgian Chocolate Stout.

  Connecticut: Stratford’s Two Roads Brewing Company set up shop in a century-old building and poured $18 million into turning it into a state-of-the-art beermaking facility. There’s also Plainville’s Relic Brewing Company, where brewmaster Mark Sigman promotes a “small, experimental” aesthetic. To whit: the brewery’s Belgian IPA brewed with orange blossom honey, amarillo, and mosaic hops.