travel

I've been overthinking beer festivals lately; mulling over the idea of developing a taxonomy of beer events, then abandoning the idea as Not Useful. But some questions stick in my mind: when is a beer festival a 'festival' and when is it an 'event' (in the 'Facebook event' sense)? Is something the scale of Philly Beer Week too big to be a festival? Is Seattle Beer Week's Celebration of Women in Beer its own festival, nested within a larger one? Has something like GABF become too 'corporate' to be festive? Is our local progressive Oktoberfest^* a festival? Or is the Cask Bitter Festival held by Machine House, one of my favorite local brewers, really too small to warrant the name? Can they 'take over' their own taps in a single-style tap takeover?  I'd argue that their branding worked - there may have only been 4-5 beers featured in the 'festival,' but it certainly got me there.

It's odd to think that cask bitters are now so rare on the US beer nerd scene that they need to have a whole weekend dedicated to them; back when I began attending beer festivals in the late 1990s, bitters, brown ales and stouts were typical fare - now they are nearly as novel as this month's most popular resurrected-and-tweaked forgotten sour historical style, and they are probably not considered as 'accessible' as everyone's standard-offering 7% IPA.  Indeed, most beer festivals I enjoy tend to be somewhat smaller in scale. I no doubt 'imprinted' to some extent on the first beer festival I attended more than once: namely, the Mountain View Small Brewers Festival. Back in the late 1990s/early 2000s, in the heady days of the dot-com boom and bust in Silicon Valley, this pleasant annual event was largely a Local Festival for Local People. As I lived a short walk away in a terrible, expensive 1-bed apartment (and this was in a pre-Google Mountain View), it was doubly so for me. It was my first introduction to beers from Firestone Walker, Mendocino Brewing and Widmer Bros, long before they were even regional powerhouses, but I had a special fondness for Wizard Brewing, whose hand-carved, Tolkienesque tap handles were a crowd-pleaser to their nerd-dominated audience; we were people who knew our way around a D20 (though some of us were beard-free). The beers tended to be British-influenced, and anything 'sour' or 'wild' was almost certainly not so purposefully crafted, and such terms were entirely absent. Rogue and Sierra Nevada brought their IPAs, but they were something of an exception; especially bitter and/or hoppy beers were practically confrontational (at least according to Rogue's/Stone's marketing materials). But Michael Jackson himself recommended the festival every year, so it had to be good.

Festivals - at least, festivals I attended - began to get bigger, more expensive and slightly weirder in the early-to-mid 2000s; the event that evolved from The Book at the Cook at the UPenn Museum in Philadelphia became the Annual Michael Jackson Beer Tasting, with beers from Dogfish Head, Yards, Troegs and Victory (plus some international oddities), and the man himself in person. He was incredibly generous about signing books for tipsy, effusive fans (ahem), and happy to talk tasting notes and the history of the local and international scene. It was a unique chance to sample some of Dogfish Head's Ancient Ales before they were commercially available (though we got to do this at the brewpub in Rehoboth Beach not infrequently as well), and I've never been to a more wonderfully-appointed salon for a festival - being surrounded by ancient Chinese and Egyptian art is a far cry from tents in a field or booths in a convention center under flickering lights, though I cannot imagine the museum's insurers signing off on it now. This and similar local festivals seemed to be a chance for brewers to showcase their standard lineup - maybe bring a small keg of a one-off beer, or a special collaboration with another brewer at the festival, but in most cases, that was the exception; it seems quite the opposite now, when brewers seem to compete to bring their most oddball beer to each festival.

This is no doubt driven by drinkers, at least those polled during market research, who claim to seek novelty, and while novelty itself is no bad thing, it can become repetitive in its own way. Gilbert & Sullivan wrote, 'when everyone is somebody, then no-one's anybody,' and that rings true at some festivals now. If everyone has brought their 'tequila-barrel aged Mexican lager brewed with lime,' it's easy to skip those booths, but it can't be cheap for the brewers to continually churn out specialty beers for the huge number of festivals that now appear on the calendar. I had a candid chat with some of the higher-ups at Victory Brewing a few years ago - I was interviewing for a job I didn't get, though they were lovely about the whole process - and they were quite open about how Philly Beer Week was tough for their staff: locals wanted to see something special or otherwise hard-to-find, while those who were visiting for the express purpose of trying all the local beers wanted a mix of the standard line-up and a few of those 'white whales.'  Getting that festival lineup wrong would be expensive for a larger, established brewery, but potentially ruinous for a smaller one. However, given that these are businesses, one assumes that there's a strategy involved with going to (or not) individual festivals, whether those are local or far-flung - if the intent is to keep it small and impress your existing base, make a weird one-off; if you are working toward your regional, national or even global reputation, bring a well-made flagship beer - it's entirely possible that your amazing mild or schwarzbier will seem exotic among the fruit-infused, barrel-aged novelty beers. There's probably a very dry business school case study in here somewhere, but I digress.

So, what do I really want from festivals now?  I cannot speak highly enough of the recent Oregon Brewers Festival, which celebrated its 30^th year when we attended this past summer; as a multi-day festival with no admission fee, family-friendly options for the kids and in easy walking distance of our Portland hotel (not to mention many of Portland's justifiably-lauded breweries), it was absolutely ideal, if still beardy. There wasn't the (usually self-induced) pressure of needing to try all ALL THE THINGS in the 2-3 hours of a pricey, one-day festival; it was pleasant to wander in, try 2-3 samples, then wander back out to see other sights.  Having been to another 'kid-friendly' beer festival that was simply more trouble than it was worth (few activities, not enough food, hard to get to, questionable beer quality, etc.), I had relatively low expectations, but Portland has it figured out. I do still enjoy many of the adults-only events, but they need to have a very specific focus and/or attendees to get me to shell out my babysitting dollars.

And I would be remiss if I did not mention a 'beer festival' I came across when we were in the UK a few years ago; it was simply a series of rotating casks from a handful of specially-chosen breweries, highlighting the seasons - more or less just the normal offerings for this particular free house. No lines, no hype, no tickets, no tokens - just a beer you might not normally have, available with or without excellent food.  The novelty factor was still there in that the beers were only  available in limited quantities, but they were simply (mostly) excellent pale ales, bitters and stouts - old school. It would be too low-key to be considered a 'festival' by most American standards, but if this is the future of festivals, I, for one, welcome our laid-back, throwback beer overlords.

^*For those whose reading of the world 'progressive' now defaults to the political, thanks to The Current State of the World, this is a literally progressive Oktoberfest - it moves from brewery to brewery over the course of the afternoon, accompanied by an oompah band. Specialty merchandise - t-shirts, hats, drinking boots - are part of the fun. Protip: beat the crowds by always staying one stop ahead!

I have long had a fondness for ‘brown’ beers of many descriptions: dark milds, schwarzbiers, porters, dunkels, and, of course, your better-than-average brown ale (either theoretically British or American – I know I should like a good Oud Bruin, but it’s just not my thing in quantity). And, once upon a time, brown ales loomed large on the beer horizon. Newcastle Brown Ale was widely available, and Pete’s Wicked Ale was the go-to American version of the style.  Cast your mind back to a differently-benighted America in the early 1990s; while there were a few interesting regional beers, nationally-available ‘microbrews’ (as we used to call them) were few and far between. If you weren’t a lager fan – and you might have over-corrected in your dislike of the macro-brewed ‘lager’ offerings to ignore Sam Adams – your options were relatively limited. Your ‘import’ choices tended to be pretty straightforward British beers: Newcastle Brown, Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout and the like.  These were presumed (at least by me, in my inexperience) to be vastly superior offerings – they had color! Flavor! Exciting times.

Moving to the UK in the mid-’90s quickly taught me that while there were certainly good things about British music and television, there was just as much that was terrible as there was in the US; it was just that the worst (and some of the best) never made it abroad. This rule applied equally to beer – I discovered that ‘the good stuff’ was often simply from a local family brewery, and they didn’t always make enough to export. But I loved my go-to beers, even if they weren’t ‘fancy’ – a pint of Theakston’s Best, Brains Dark, Moorehouses’s Black Cat, Lancaster Bomber (the version from the 1990s, not the current iteration, which seems much changed). I tended to go for beers on a chestnut-to-dark-brown continuum, and while I do go for more variety today, overall, that pattern still seems to hold.

Even back in the US in the dead-end of the millennium, the Mountain View Small Brewers’ Fest featured a wide variety of copper-to-black beers of varying quality, not infrequently named after less-renowned Tolkien characters, though this is to be expected when software engineers have side projects. Shortly thereafter, the American beer scene exploded – microbrews became ‘craft beer’ and bitters, stouts and porters began to play second fiddle (or perhaps eighth oboe) to IPAs. ‘Boring’ brown beers began to disappear – milk stouts were booted for coffee stouts, and everything else on the amber-to-brown spectrum seemed to end up aging in or on oak. Fortunately, though, the pendulum for extremes seems to have shifted slightly – sure, it’s nice to have some of the more extreme stuff from time to time, but on the whole, it’s lovely to have beer that tastes like beer.

Of late, there are few things I enjoy more than a toasty, biscuity ESB or a roasty – but not too roasty – mild, but they are relatively few and far between in the Pacific Northwest; granted, we have great IPAs, but the ubiquity of great IPAs also means we are awash in mediocre ones, since nearly everyone feels they need to make one to compete for tap space, even if they aren’t particularly successful at it (and they are probably correct). There are a few local standouts that do fit the bill for this discussion, however – Lower Case Brewing’s ESB is very fine indeed, and I recently had an excellent, straight-up brown ale called Betsy’s Mountain Brown at Naked City Brewery a few neighborhoods over from ours. Perhaps because they grew out of the 1990s microbrew tradition that was more influenced by British pubs than (often wonderful) Belgian oddities, Seattle’s brewpubs tend to have a much wider variety of the sort of solidly-made, eminently quaffable ESBs, porters and stouts than many of the more buzzed-about small breweries – or maybe they simply assume a fairly large percentage of their clientele will be there for a meal with the family, and a tap list of 12% tequila-barrel-aged strong ales doesn’t suit all palates or occasions. So, with little fanfare, many are consistently turning out great coppery altbiers, dark caramel ESBs, deep ruby-brown porters and nearly-burnt-toast dunkels.

Long may they continue – and here’s hoping more of the ‘edgy’ breweries also opt to show off their skills with a few subtle brown beers.

And thanks to Joe Tindall for hosting The Session this month; I’ll be raising a glass of something coppery to you for prompting me to get back to regular-ish beer writing.

This month’s Session – or, Beer Blogging Friday – asks us to identify those under-the-radar locations that are about to become the next big thing on the beer scene. This presents an ideal opportunity to finally blog about our trip to Copenhagen in 2013; yes, this blog post is nearly two years late, but better late than never, and a wider audience should be aware of the wonders of the Danish capital’s beer scene, both old and new.

When considering Copenhagen, most beer nerds immediately think of Mikkeller, and with good reason – Mikkel Borg Bjergsø’s steady march to beer omnipresence, with bars and tasting rooms from San Francisco to Bangkok, and a global distribution network that some brewers with a permanent facility can only image, has been remarkable. And their original Copenhagen locations do not disappoint: especially at Mikkeller & Friends, in the Nørrebro neighborhood, you’ll find a warm welcome, and an ever-changing lineup for 40 taps. I would love to see more American breweries follow their ˜and Friends’ approach, which they take very seriously, highlighting not only Mikkeller beers, but also those of like-minded breweries from near and far. When we visited, we enjoyed having the opportunity to sample the wares of To Øl, Herslev Bryghus and Bryggeriet Refsvindinge, among others. And, this being Denmark, having a well-behaved child in tow was not frowned upon; quite the contrary. The bottle shop attached to the bar had an enormous crate of Westvleteren XII sitting in the corner – as you do – and a very interesting selection beyond that. Nørrebro is also home to Nørrebro Bryghus, whose beers are available across Copenhagen, from restaurants to tourist attractions. It was an especially welcome discovery at the National Aquarium of Denmark, Den Blå Planet: you can enjoy a beer or two while taking in the view of the Øresund. Amager Bryghus beers are also widely available around the city, and Brewpub København was worth a quick visit.

No list of Copenhagen tourist attractions would be complete without a mention of Tivoli Gardens, which we found a most pleasant surprise. Having previously only visited rather uninspiring to downright filthy theme parks in the US and UK, I admit I didn’t expect much, but it was in every way delightful – and it has its own small brewery, Bryggeriet Apollo, in the park. While the beer in general is nothing earth-shattering, nor did it have any reason to be, it was certainly well-crafted and offered at a not-unreasonable price, given the surroundings (and the fact that food and drink in Denmark is quite expensive, compared to other major European countries). Modern amusement parks could learn a lot from their 19th century forebear – good food and drink, lovely gardens, fun rides without long lines, and Tycho Brahe as a mascot, rather than cartoon characters – all well worth the price of admission.

Returning to bottle shops, Ølbutikken is a can’t-miss stop; Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø and his staff have a well-curated collection of beers from around the world, though obviously with an emphasis on the owner’s Evil Twin Brewing.  And for those wondering whether the purported feud between the rival nomadic-brewer twins is A Real Thing, I can only offer this: Mikkeller & Friends had a number of interesting Evil Twin beers on tap, and Ølbutikken carried a good variety of Mikkeller beers. A little public friction is no doubt good for business, or it may be that Danish practicality overrides any present animosity; one presumes the truth is somewhere in the middle.

But brewing in Copenhagen isn’t just about nomadic brewers and tiny breweries – there’s a good case to be made for saying that this is where modern industrial brewing was born, and that isn’t necessarily a Bad Thing. Emil Hansen first began to culture yeast for Carlsberg in the 1880s, laying the groundwork for brewing as we know it today. And the Carlsberg tour is absolutely a highlight for anyone interested in brewing history, and in considering how huge, multinational brewers can still make ‘good beer.’ Again, children are made to feel very welcome – the tour starts in the stables (or in the shop, depending on your point of view), and petting the Jutland horses, who have been carrying Carlsberg beer for more than 165 years, is encouraged. From there, it’s a whistle-stop tour though the old brewhouse, complete with beautiful tilework and copper kettles galore, to the famous Carlsberg Elephant Gates (with their 1901 swastikas fully explained, for the benefit of any children, or adults who might have missed some art history lessons) and sculpture gardens. And the tour concludes with a mix of old and new, in the Jacobsen Brewhouse, named for J.C. Jacobsen, the founder of Carlsberg. Since 2005, Carlberg has been brewing a range of high-quality beers under the Jacobsen label, and mixing and matching Carlsberg and Jacobsen beers in your post-tour samples is encouraged. There’s no ‘craft vs crafty‘ issue here – Jacobsen is very clearly part of the Carlsberg family, and a well-respected one at that – it’s just a great example of how a large brewer can respond to market demand for more flavorful, complex beers, all while keeping their flagship brands in the public consciousness.

There is, of course, much to do in Denmark beyond beer – visiting the Gundestrup Cauldron at the National Museum of Denmark was the achievement of a major life goal for me (this comes of having too many archaeology degrees), and the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde is also a must-see (though it is worth noting that both sites have some of the above-mentioned beers available in their shops and cafes). There are ample opportunities to visit a number of bog bodies across the country, and if you’re traveling with children, your itinerary will almost certainly include a visit to Legoland – which, like Tivoli, albeit with much more plastic, is surprisingly diverting for adults as well.

But if you seek a great beer destination that hasn’t quite been discovered by the hipster masses, head to Copenhagen; its mix of young, independent breweries and historic heft is hard to beat.

While on our recent trip to the UK we did the usual touristy things - took in a play the Globe as groundlings, went dowsing at Avebury, flew the TARDIS (well, one of us did, and yes, it was bigger on the inside) - we also kept a watchful eye out for interesting (mostly) cask ales that do not usually travel to our shores.

Places and beers we particularly enjoyed include:

The Wilmington Arms
69 Rosebery Avenue, Clerkenwell, London
We went for a very jet-lagged lunch, and it was practically empty, but we were very pleased to find great service, a nice selection of cask ales, all of which we were invited to sample before choosing, and a fantastic jukebox (which was not unlike playing one of my larger Spotify playlists - I cannot complain). The food was good as well.
Best beer enjoyed there: Elgood's Cambridge Bitter

The Fox and Anchor
115 Charterhouse Street, Islington, London
This was expensive even by London standards, but it was very laid-back and quiet for dinner, with outstanding food. We had a number of beers from smaller brewers in somewhat twee-but-fun tankards) and some other smaller producers. It was nice to find a London pub (well, gastropub) that didn't take itself too seriously, and - equally if not more importantly - did not feel that accommodating a well-behaved child was somehow below them (redacted West End pubs, this means you).
Best beer enjoyed here: Colchester Red Diesel

Holborn Whippet
25-29 Sicilian Avenue, Holborn, London
Certainly a destination for the beer nerd set, but not in a snobbish or pedantic way. In addition to a fantastic taplist, it boats friendly barstaff and quite reasonable prices, given its location. There was a nice mix of unusual and harder-to-find beers, like the refreshing unique Black Isle Blond, along with more traditional fare, and we thoroughly enjoyed it.
Best beer enjoyed here: Buxton Brewery Moor Top

Nicholson's Pubs
The Cross Keys
34 Goodramgate, York
The Punch Bowl
7 Stonegate, York
Somehow I never ran across this chain when I lived in the UK (why was I going to Wetherspoons instead?), but they will certainly be on my radar going forward - not only did they have an excellent selection of guest ales on cask at each of the locations we tried, but they had very reasonable prices, fine food options and were very child-friendly. They also have their own combination pub crawl/ghost walk in York, which is essentially my ideal night out.  We will certainly be seeking them out around the UK on future visits.
Best beer enjoyed here: Thwaites Sunshine and Lollihops

The House of the Trembling Madness
48 Stonegate, York
Another must-visit for beer geeks of all stripes, this bottle shop-cum-medieval pub lives up to its hype. Everything on tap and on cask was outstanding, and the bottled selection was well worth exploring. It would have been easy to spend a whole day here, given the variety and the pleasant surroundings - we started off with Rudgate's Ruby Mild and Durham Brewery's Evensong, and moved on to some very 'American' IPAs from London's Kernal Brewery (and quite tasty they were, too). The food is also tremendous and featured some of the best breads and cheeses I've had (and I am a bread and cheese nerd, in addition to being a beer nerd). Given that I could happily live on good beer and good bread, this ticked every possible box. Also, if you are 7, the fact that the decor includes swords is a bonus point.
Best beer enjoyed here: Ampleforth Abbey Dubbel

Other travel notes: Thwaites brought back Lancaster Bomber, and it's still great! One thing I never noticed when actually living in the UK is that tattoo parlors close well before the pubs do – surely a more symbiotic relationship would improve business?

Over the holidays, we had the opportunity to get a behind-the-scenes tour of the New York Distilling Company, and it's well worth a trip into the hipster wilds of Williamsburg to get to know this new microdistillery.  For those who have not been paying attention, microdistilling is the Next Big Thing, and if they're all nearly this good, I believe it - but more on that later.  The distillery is the brainchild of Tom Potter (of ex-Brooklyn Brewery fame) and his son Bill; we got the full Potter Family treatment on our visit, as our good friends are their former neighbours (this is one of many, many reasons I often miss living in Brooklyn, but I digress).  Even the many and various children we had with us enjoyed the tour (again, many thanks to Gail Flanery for keeping them occupied!), even if they didn't get to sample the wares at the end like we lucky adults did.

You enter through The Shanty, an industrial-cozy bar (yes, such a thing exists) with gin-inspired light fixtures and a view into the distillery, which at present is essentially a large, industrial space that would certainly be familiar, though not identical, to anyone who has been on a brewery tour.  The difference, of course, is the sparkling new still, custom-made in Germany.  Eventually, rye whiskey will begin here, but in the meantime, there are two varieties of really rather wonderful gin being produced: Perry's Tot and Dorothy Parker.  The former, were it made in Plymouth, would carry that town's name, while the latter is a more 'American' gin, with a few unusual botanicals like hibiscus in the mix (and isn’t it nice to see a drink named after a woman famous for her wit, rather than her other attributes?).  After touring the distilling operation, we repaired back to the bar, where we got to sample both to fine effect, both alone and in some of the unique cocktails developed by the team there. While I'm normally just a beer drinker, gin is one of the few spirits I do enjoy from time to time, and it was certainly a pleasing experience to taste two that really had a definite (and very distinct) flavor and character (especially on the 'botanicals' front).

Future plans include some collaborations with the Brooklyn Brewery (at least insofar as using some of their barrels for aging projects), and the long-term goal, as mentioned above, is whiskey. The gin is certainly much more than a stopgap measure, and while The Shanty is no 30-tap beer bar, it does reserve the beer taps for the good stuff; on our visit, there was a Brooklyn Brewery special release as well as a one-off from a smaller Long Island brewery.

You should most definitely get on the small batch distilling train now, so you can say you liked everything before it went mainstream – and if you’re a cocktail bar, you should be ordering the gin now – it’s tremendous.

After previous highly-successful visits to their sister restaurant, Rustico, in Alexandria, VA, we finally managed to fit in a visit to ChurchKey, which opened last year to great acclaim.   Unlike some revered beer destinations that don't quite live up to perhaps unrealistic hype, ChurchKey exceeded all expectations.  The interior is laid-back in design, yet sleek, with tables by the window and cozy raised booths near the fifty-plus tap bar, which is clearly the focal point.

And it's a thoroughly-impressive tap list, helpfully laid out in categories that are equally approachable by hardcore beer geeks as well as the uninitiated (one minor complaint – that list could be updated more frequently on their website).  Information for each beer includes the brewer, style, origin, ABV, ideal serving temperature and usual serving glass, although each item was also available as a 4oz taster (even the five cask ales) - something our party made much use of.   But the bottle list is not to be overlooked - it contains well-curated rarities from around the world as well as traditional favorites; you know it's good when it comes in a binder, and you don't have to go to your fourth pick to actually get something that's in stock.   Given the weather in DC in summer, finding Professor Fritz Briem 1809 Berliner Weisse on tap was certainly welcome; having a waiter who understood 'and I'd like the woodruff on the side' was even better; indeed, the service was outstanding throughout our visit (something that isn't always true when you bring a small child with you, even at a quiet lunchtime).

The food is also very tasty and should not be overlooked, but you're no doubt wondering which beers were top of the list on this visit.  Schlafly Pumpkin Ale offered a spicy fall preview, while Ommegang Cup O Kyndnes was an unusual combination of heather, malty and peaty goodness.  Although we tried a wide variety (thanks, again to the handy 4 oz tasters), one of my favorites was Brewster's Brewery Mata Hari - something that will be receiving its own review in the near future.

So while there is not a terribly convenient Metro stop by ChurchKey, you should still seek it out if you happen to be in the District; there's something for every palate or mood, and the friendly, well-trained staff make a visit even more pleasant - it's all rather tremendous.

ChurchKey
1337 14th Street Northwest
Washington, DC 20005-3610

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