Beer

The First Four: Wild Acre Brewing

Wild Acre Soul Pleasure
| Paul

Dallas Craft Beer Examiner

Wild Acre Brewing CompanyOpening this past summer, it’s already apparent Wild Acre Brewing came loaded for bear. They seem to not be fazed by typical brewery start-up woes, and unhesitatingly plunged into the growing craft beer market of North Texas behind many but already ahead of a few.

However, such boldness is not surprising when you look at this dream-team of a brewery staff. The owner and founder is John Pritchett, former general manager of Ben E. Keith for the past dozen or so years, and one would be hard-pressed to find someone more knowledgeable about the business of craft beer in North Texas. For his brewer, Pritchett hired Mike Kraft, also a North Texas craft beer veteran with decades of experience originally with the local TwoRows Restaurant & Brewery locations and more recently from California’s Lagunitas Brewing.

Introducing breweries new to North Texas with their first four beers to market

Wild Acre Brewing boldly took over the long-iconic Ranch Style Beans building overlooking the lower part of downtown Fort Worth and have already outfitted a 5000-square-foot taproom in addition to their production space.  They are letting no grass grow under their brewhouse and have hit the market with fully formed, developed and balanced products, and slick with marketing polish. Cans should be on shelves soon, if not already.

Overall, their initial portfolio might not look impressive to today’s mature craft beer consumer but, back in the day, this layout would be fairly standard for microbreweries at open. (Only very recently have craft brewers been producing somewhat daring or experimental styles within their first years of operation.) Still, these beers all exhibit solid quality and intent, and each has just enough personality as to not be forgettable amid the crush of new products found on local taps. More importantly, they all have strong character as repeat purchases.

Soul Pleasure. Not long ago, North Texas brewers were called out for abandoning traditional stouts in favor of the strong, flavored or barrel-aged varieties, and happily we now have one worth drinking again and again. Labeled as a “Southern Stout,” this beer pours a dark, opaque brown/black and has a rich, full-bodied flavor that is toasty but not heavy. Hints of bitter dark chocolate and sorghum are smoothed out by a tiny addition of oats. Easy to drink with no alcohol heat at all (6% ABV), its flavor very much reminds me of Rogue’s Shakespeare Stout.

Tarantula Hawk. Wild Acre bypassed the obligatory IPA that every brewery seems to bank on and instead released this “India Red Ale,” a 6.5% ABV hoppy version of a traditional Irish red. It pours an amber brown color with good clarity and a firm, foamy head; the taste is roasty, dry and moderately hopped with a light, almost raw (but not off-putting) grainy flavor. This beer will not go head-to-head with American craft IPAs and may not silence an obsessive hophead, but it is solid and satisfying.

Billy Jenkins. Named with a nod to Fort Worth’s military namesake, this “Session Bock” is a slightly lighter version of the traditional German style. At only 5.2% ABV, the beer has a nice caramel flavor with a moderate roast, and is obviously a lager from its cleaner nature with faint elements of dark fruits and brown sugar but with a dry finish. Long has Texas desperately needed a year-round bock from craft brewers who, like the stout, seem to overlook this naturally very Lone Star style.

Moonlight Shine. Their only beer without an enhanced style designation, this wheat ale (technically, more a blonde krystalweizen) has striking clarity with a clean, smooth wheat flavor and easy body, low on the acidity. The barest hint of vanilla is added along with orange zest—just a touch—edging it in the direction of an unspiced witbier but staying true to the identity of an American wheat. A tad heavy to be sessionable at 5.7% ABV, it should be a great addition to lighter summer drinking during Texas’ hot weather.

Four hits, no strikes. This will be a brewery to watch. SD

COOP Ale Works brings The Big Friendly to Texas

COOP The Big Friendly's Trail to Texas
| Paul

Dallas Craft Beer Examiner

COOP Ale Works

Texas is the center of the beer universe — well, our universe, at least for those of us who live here. Texans acknowledge that our adjoining sister states have breweries but we rarely give any thought to the more mainstream beer operations just over our state borders. (We also don’t acknowledge Colorado as a genuinely separate state and still claim it as “Far North Texas,” but that’s another discussion.)

Louisiana’s Abita Brewing enjoys the most notoriety from Texas consumers by virtue of wide distribution but, although just a few hundred miles distant, offerings from Arkansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico rarely get our attention or any significant tap space. Tulsa’s Prairie Artisan Ales has probably had the most success recently with some of their more original farmhouse products, but we living under the Lone Star know more about Oklahoma’s infamous “3.2 laws” than about any of their breweries.

COOP The Big Friendly’s Trail to Texas
Style: Berlinerweisse with peaches
Rating: 3/5

That is about to change as COOP Ale Works of Oklahoma City recently rolled into North Texas with planned events all over the Metroplex leading up to a prominent spot at Fort Worth’s Untapped Fest last week. They brought with them The Big Friendly, a modified school bus that is now a pub-on-wheels and rolling ambassador for the brand, parking at several Dallas and Fort Worth locations as they served beer samples and introduced the company to Texans.

COOP Ale Works began in 2009, part of the same fast-evolving craft beer movement taking place here and around the country. They went through a major facilities upgrade in 2014 that has allowed them to begin expanding into neighboring states, with North Texas their first market south of the Red River. Now one of the largest breweries operating in Oklahoma, their estimated output of 15,000 barrels this year puts them just behind Rahr & Sons Brewing in size and capacity. (Unrelated but at the same time, Rahr & Sons has just begun distribution out of state to Oklahoma.)

In celebration of their arrival, COOP brings with them a special release named The Big Friendly’s Trail to Texas, a peach-infused berlinerweisse style limited to only 3000 bottles. It is a kettle- soured beer, meaning a touch of Lactobacillus was added to the wort ahead of the yeast to begin developing some desired sour elements before primary fermentation, and then 10 bushels of fresh peaches were blended in for the finished corked-and-caged product.

Trail to Texas is a mild 4% ABV that pours a hazy light gold with a thin head that disappears too quickly and a very light sour nose with apparent but indistinct fruit, maybe mild citrus or melon. The flavor profile is very much a classic berlinerweisse, a light and refreshing wheat flavor with a touch of tartness. A faint peach element does emerge in the back of the swallow, subtle, just enough to let you know it’s there. I would have preferred a little more carbonation to give it more life on the palate but such is the nature sometimes with bottle conditioning.

Of course, COOP arrives in DFW with a half dozen or so of the more popular beers in their portfolio, including beers such as Alpha Hive, a double IPA with orange blossom honey, and several special twists on their standard DNR Belgian dark ale. With North Texas now COOP’s largest market outside of their home state, make sure they notice how thirsty Texans can be.

Availability: Trail to Texas may be difficult to find with such limited quantities, but COOP beers should now begin to appear on shelves and taps throughout North Texas.

Cheers!

Originally published June 21, 2016, at Examiner.com. 

North Texas brewers need to step up their stout game

Dallas
| Paul

Dallas Craft Beer Examiner

Today is November 5th, recognized as International Stout Day. Celebrate with a fresh craft stout from one of our local North Texas breweries, a refreshing beer such as… um…

Crickets chirping. That’s what you find when you go looking for a good, sessionable DFW stout. And as robust as our current craft beer scene is, that’s a downright shame.

Looking at local shelves and tap handles, it may appear that locally made stouts are plentiful. True, there are some prime examples out there of Russian imperial stouts, oatmeal stouts, sweet stouts, coffee stouts, barrel-aged stouts, and even stouts infused with chocolate, honey, vanilla beans, mint or raspberries. But if you look closer, these all skew strongly toward the heavy end of both the flavor and gravity spectrum, all clocking in at 8% ABV or much, much higher.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with these hefty, delicious stouts except that they are, well, pretty strong both in alcoholic kick and weighty calorie-laden, palate-crushing tastes. In their rush to the highest ground, North Texas craft brewers seem to have overlooked the other end of the stout spectrum that consists of richly flavored yet pleasingly drinkable stouts such as the dry (Irish) stout and its slightly hoppier cousin, the American stout.

The best-known example of the dry stout is Guinness, the archetypal Irish stout produced by a corporate giant that has near universal market saturation with a modest 4.2% ABV. For an American stout, you will have to reach out to breweries to our south (the seasonal Saint Arnold Winter Stout, 5.6%) or to beers brought in from out of state like Sierra Nevada Stout (5.8%) or North Coast Old No. 38 Stout (5.4%).

The Dallas/Fort Worth area just does not produce anything comparable. The closest we have in this category would be a couple of foreign export stouts, a slightly stronger style originally brewed for dedicated sales outside the country of origin such as Mother’s Little Fracker from Revolver Brewing (7.5%) or Braindead’s Export Stout (6.6%). Shannon Brewing makes a fine Chocolate Stout (5.7%) and Cobra Brewing has an award- winning “brownie stout” named Best Mistake (6.5%), both with ample cocoa natures. Martin House has There Will Be Stout (6.5%), a unique stout brewed with crushed sourdough pretzels that imparts a good salty quality. FireWheel’s Midnight Ninja started out close (6.5%) but has since drifted up to 8% ABV, and even that will not be around any longer as FireWheel Brewing announced they would close later this month.

North Texas craft brewers have shown they are not afraid to take on any beer style, even the rare, obscure and historical. We have available to us black ales, black lagers, dark IPAs and even black saisons, and we have plenty of all shades of porter. Brewers seem to embrace the low-end, hoppy session beers but few have tackled just a plain, enjoyable stout.

Here is a gap in the present market that one of our fresh, new breweries should grab as soon as they can. If I’ve overlooked any local sessionable stouts, please send me a note so I can go drink a lot of it.

Cheers!

Originally published November 5, 2015, at Examiner.com. 

What happened to the price of my beer?

Dallas
| Paul

Dallas Craft Beer Examiner

Anno Domini 2014, that’s what happened. The new year brought with it some new tax laws, so bear with us as we attempt an explanation. I promise to make this as painless as possible, which means a minimum of math for you.

To begin, some basics of the industry. First, bars, pubs and restaurants operate under two different types of licenses in Texas with two different tax rates. There are places that serve only beer and wine (no liquor) with one license, and others that serve a full bar with beer, wine and mixed drinks under another license.

Second, these two different licenses have two different tax rates for on-premise sales. Beer-and- wine-only licensed sales are subject to state/local sales tax (currently 8.25%) but mixed beverage permits were not. Full-bar licenses had a separate excise tax of 14% on all alcoholic beverages — beer, wine and liquor — reported simply as a combined “gross receipts” of sales in their accounting. (This is an important detail.)

Third, taxes required by the state are usually built into the pricing of the beverage. (Ever wonder why drink prices are often whole dollar amounts?) This is the retailer adding in the tax to their own costs and rounding off pricing for ease of the transaction. You, the consumer, never saw this amount itemized on a tab but it has always been there.

Now for the 2014 changes: In an effort to increase transparency and equity in taxation, mixed beverage licenses are now subject to state/local sales tax as well with the excise tax being reduced from 14% to 6.7%. This new calculation yields about the same level of taxation as before (6.7 + 8.25 = 14.95%) and now you will see that sales tax appear itemized on your final bill going forward.

All this accounting really is the concern of the retailer but this is where the changes start appearing for you, the consumer. The retailer is required to pay the new taxes as described here but has the option of how to adjust their own pricing in response. Some places will continue to subsume the taxes in the final customer prices to maintain sales. Most are simply passing along the new sales tax directly to the consumer on the final bill, using last year’s final beverage prices. This is why your $5, 2013 pint of beer is now a $5.41 pint in 2014.

Note this change is only to the mixed beverage license, and includes all sales. Even beer or wine purchased at a full bar will be subject to the new rate (remember, “gross receipts”), which is a little inequitable for beer consumers but just part of doing business with the tax man. Beer/wine-only establishments should not see pricing changes — however, a few have now added explicit sales tax on the bill for reasons yet unclear.

Barely a week into the new year and new tax model, pricing is still in flux everywhere as retailers work to grasp the complicated details of the changes and adjust their prices verses costs accordingly. I would expect craft beer prices to float and shift for a month or two as owners and managers sort things out.

(Of course, I’m neither a tax officer nor an accountant, so anyone with authority or clarifications please step in and correct me where necessary.)

Cheers!

Originally published January 10, 2014, at Examiner.com

Black IPA and What Makes a Beer Style

| Paul

A rising trend in modern craft brewing today is toward an ill-defined beer known as the black IPA, which breaks down into an American-style IPA brewed with darker malts not out of place in porters and stouts. Beginning with a disclaimer, I am not a fan of this trend as the citrusy, pine-resin bite of domestic hops does not sit well on my palate with the dark-roasted malts used in these beers.

However, many do enjoy this flavor combination, which is why brewers are so keen to rush into this brand-new beer style. But this only begs the question: Is black IPA truly a new style or just a variant of an existing category? What, if anything, defines a craft beer “style” as distinct and official? Can such discrete lines be drawn, or are beer styles a squishy continuum that can accommodate most anything used in a brew kettle?

The categorization of beer styles comes down to just two elements, those being ingredients and tradition. Note that prevalence nor popularity is mentioned at this point; neither should be considered in defining a beer style, especially a brand new one. A new style is a new style, whether brewed by one brewer or adopted across the country. The science of grouping beers into styles should be approached as objectively as the senses can allow.

A beer’s ingredients may seem to be the simple part of this formula, but this element is deceptively complicated. It is easy to enumerate the constituents of a craft beer, and not much more difficult to quantify each in turn. However, modern beer styles have been fairly complete and well-defined for decades now—some for centuries—and wedging a new style into the grid is (and should be) a struggle. If defining new styles were an easy task, we would be left with thousands instead of the hundred or so recognized today.

For example, the black IPA has ingredients that are distinct from the American IPA as well as ingredients that are separate from the robust porter, but does that meet the threshold of a new style? Does the flavor profile of the black IPA reside within one of these other styles? Might it be considered a hoppy porter instead, or an off-style mistake that is too dark to judge within the existing IPA guidelines? If “dark” makes a new IPA style, does “light” do the same if using pale pilsner malts? This latter equivalence should hold for both or neither.

More important than the actual ingredients is the tradition surrounding the beer itself. In this sense, popularity does matter but not in the same way as in modern beer-rating website status. Instead, tradition implies a regional origin and prevalence, something identifiable with a particular locale either for cultural or societal reasons. Does a beer have a unique backstory, or does it exist due to some exceptional local demand from consumers? Does the beer stand the test of time, or will the black IPA fade out of our consciousness in a few years?

This last criterion is probably the most critical, and what will ultimately determine if the nascent black IPA style is to be formally recognized. Like adopting words into the English lexicon or scientists evaluating new species, these professionals must make sure that new changes have some true and meaningful persistence, and not minor blips that fade into obscurity within a few years. If it does just this, the black IPA will be remembered as merely a twist on an existing beer style, not something distinct unto itself.

Without splitting hairs to the degree of substyles, varietals and the unending permutations that can be achieved with both classic and modern beer recipes, we must conclude that the black IPA is not a new and distinct beer style—at least, not yet. This subcategory of beer styles will have to be debated by both the brewing and consuming communities, and only years from now can the stylistic determination be made.

Update: Just this past January, the Brewers Association updated their 2011 guidelines to include the American-style Black Ale, but this has not yet been universally adopted.

Originally published March 27, 2011, at craftbeerusa.blogspot.com.

Writing About Beer

| Paul

A few recent comments and feedback received through this website have made accusations about me hiding behind the anonymity of the Internet for my unsupportable attacks against innocent craft brewers. Of course, I find such comments almost comical as I have never made any attempts to hide my identity or contact information, which are both easily available through some competent navigation of this page.

However, these objections do raise a somewhat valid point about beer-related content that is published online. With the advent of free blogs, blogging software and online social media, we find ourselves now saturated with craft beer content on all levels—the good and the bad, the interesting and the tedious and the ignorant, those we agree with and those we rail against. How should craft beer consumers choose whose efforts to spend time reading?

The first and primary requirement should not be about the brewing-centric content at all but about the quality of the writing. Craft beer consumers are quick to discount beers brewed with obvious flaws, or even those they simply consider mundane, yet week after week eagerly follow some absolutely horrible compositions that get posted online. The written language may be a dying art in our modern age, but it is still a skill to be practiced and perfected. Demand at least the same level of proficiency from your reading material as you would your own food and drink.

Another requirement of online substance should be originality. This online medium has made it too easy to repost and link to other meta-content rather than working to create one’s own. Too many beer blogs are not blogs at all but rather collections of connections to other material online, some news items and some of other beer blogs, and some not related to the brewing industry at all. A proper publication (even those online) should have a focus, and should be more than rambling content. If you demand original and distinctive in your craft beer choices, demand the same in your craft beer reading.

Naturally, those writing about craft beer should have at least some working knowledge of the brewing process, some knowledge of the industry and relevant ordinances, and some knowledge of how to properly evaluate the final product. Experts and amateurs alike find voices in online outlets, and both coexist on a stage that levels the grounds for the known and the unknown. Just as some extremely learned professional brewers are unable to compose a simple thesis, you also have talented amateurs that may never have entered a homebrew shop.

Perhaps the most problematic requirement regarding writing about beer is in its evaluation, as this seems the most widely prevalent theme chosen while being the most resistant to objective quantification. Many websites have sprouted that allow even casual users to compose a few lines about particular beers, and many participants choose to go beyond this and construct diaries online to journal their tasting notes. And when everyone’s palate and preferences are wide-ranging, how does one evaluate the evaluators?

Independent style guidelines do exist that are written and moderated by experienced committees both amateur and professional, and these are good as a starting point and as references. Ultimately, the value of someone’s craft beer review lies in their ability to adequately identify the ingredients, convey the flavors they can detect and support their impressions of said beer. A good evaluation should be less about whether you concur with the assessment and more about whether the author has effectively analyzed the beverage and effectually communicated that impression to the reader.

Whatever you choose to read online, regard it as intellectual consumption the same as popping a cap on a craft beer bottle is gastronomic consumption. The goal should not be to always read substance you agree with but instead authors that make you think and extend your opinion, understanding and appreciation of the world that is craft beer. And if you happen to learn something along the way, you are so much the better for it.

Originally published January 23, 2011, at craftbeerusa.blogspot.com.

Is Stone Brewing Still Worthy?

Image | | Paul

If you are like thousands of other craft beer fans, your tastes will likely have passed through the revelation of Stone Brewing’s beers along the way to forming your beer identity. You most likely remember your first taste of Stone’s Arrogant Bastard Ale—possibly your first exposure to beer beyond the light lagers of the majors—and its reckless use of hops and strength as they assaulted your palate onto the next level.

Stone entered the nascent craft beer movement with a big splash in 1996 with their rebellious image, the omnipresent gargoyle icon filled with disdain and a chant of “You’re Not Worthy” emblazoned on every bottle. They made their mark mocking the “fizzy yellow beers” by shunning adjuncts and making some style-defying products, most of which pushed the boundaries of flavors with a newfound brashness in brewing and earned for them legions of eager craft beer fans.

Now almost fifteen years forward, look back on their works of the past decade and a half. Their core products are still among the best-reviewed and most-favored in the craft beer world. Beers like the Stone Pale Ale, IPA and Ruination, the Smoked Porter, Imperial Russian Stout and Old Guardian Barley Wine stand out as excellent representatives of each of their respective styles. Of these listed here, I am still a huge fan and regular consumer.

However, look across at some of their “edgy” product ideas such as the Vertical Epic series, which has met with only lukewarm critical response. Designed as a dozen-beer series to be collected, aged and enjoyed at the end of those twelve years, some have been quality stand-outs but with many of these not nearly as good as anticipated, bordering on mediocre. This latter group certainly will not improve with time, much less age well enough to make the end of the series as intended.

Even some of their “new” products are not truly new, much less innovative. Arrogant Bastard has been oaked. The Double Bastard Ale is almost by definition merely a doubling of the original Arrogant Bastard recipe. Stone Ruination is nothing more than a re-issue of their Fifth Anniversary Ale, formulated as a year-round product. Even their newest releases of the Stone Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale and the Stone Cali-Belgique IPA are reworks of their Eleventh Anniversary Ale and one of the Vertical Epic editions, respectively. Just about the only original standout of the past decade has been the Stone Levitation, a mild amber ale.

The latest sign of trouble comes just recently with an announcement of their “Odd Beers for Odd Years” series. Stone plans to vary the yeast in two solid flagship products, the Old Guardian Barley Wine and Russian Imperial Stout, releasing specialized versions of each in odd-numbered years going forward. Although in some cases such experimentation can be viewed as innovative and progressive, a move such as this that displaces two highly in-demand beers comes across as almost desperate—especially in light of the lack of other original ideas.

More than facing problems simply with the origins of new beers, Stone suffers from a tremendous house flavor. Breweries often become accustomed to using the same ingredients from the same suppliers, and many maintain a particular favored yeast strain used as a base for most if not all of their products. If not careful with recipe formulations, breweries can inadvertently develop the same flavors throughout their product lines no matter the individual style of beer.

Unfortunately, Stone has fallen into the trap of house flavor not only with brewing but also with their thinking and business practices. Their rebellious new beers come across with flavors not innovative and desirable but that are yawningly familiar variations upon an often-abused theme of “extreme brewing” while searching for some sort of style identity. All I am able to taste recently are tinkering experiments with the Arrogant Bastard base recipe that are wholly uninspired and unoriginal.

Stone may have been “extreme” early in their history but as the rest of the craft beer industry has caught up (if not passed them by), Stone has remained static while resting on the same business formula with which they started years ago. Their image has become dated and self-mocking, and their talents have become a creative shadow of the bad boys of brewing they once claimed to be.

Originally published December 12, 2010, at craftbeerusa.blogspot.com.