Boozin’ Blog

In all honesty, this is just another meaningless beer competition. But, these are still fun to watch, aren’t they?

The Beer Madness competition is put on by The Washington Post. They ask they readers to apply to join the beer tasters panel. This means the judges are generally lay-people, not beer professionals. That’s certainly an interesting spin; after all beer is the democratic drink. Beer lovers don’t really need assholes like me telling them what they like. They can figure it out for themselves.

At this point in the game, the panel has assembled. Beers have been tasted, reviews written and judgment passed. The paper is publishing the results once a week with a bracket style rundown keeping track of the winners and losers.

Some interesting results came out of the first round:
Guinness got knocked out by Monteith’s Black Beer
Pilsner Urquell beat Heineken
Stella Artois won over Tsingtao

There are some odd competitions, though. Boston Brown Ale was put up against Xingu. One’s an ale and one’s a lager. How can these two compete? The judges aren’t really picking the superior beer here, they’re picking the beer style they prefer. The same could be said for Schneider Weisse Hefe-Weizen vs. Hitachino Nest White Ale and Chimay Red vs. Smithwick’s Irish Ale.

But, like I said, this contest really doesn’t matter; it’s just fun to watch.

Oh, and the paper is soliciting reader’s votes, too. If you want to weigh in on your favorites do it here.

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Summer is when lagers shine. They are generally more refreshing, have a higher level of carbonation and a more subtle flavor profile - all qualities that make a cold lager on a hot day a lovely thing indeed.

But don’t turn your back on ales during the dog days! There are some great ale varieties that are both refreshing and flavorful. Here are a few of my favorites:

Pale ale - the old classic is great during the summer. Featuring a fuller body and more flavor than a lager it might seem that pale ale would be too much to make a refreshing summer beverage. Au contraire! Many pale ales are great in the summer, especially American brewed pale ales. Americans use bright, citrusy hops - and more of them than some of the more classic British pale ales. This gives them a nice snappy flavor that’s perfect for the end of a hot summer day.

IPA - Pale ale’s hoppier cousin is a nice summertime treat. With generally more malt flavor, more alcohol and more hops this style will ask you to slow down a little and savor it but isn’t that what you’d want out of a beer?

American Wheat - This ale is a best seller during the summer months. It features a big, chewy body and a bit of spice and sweetness in the flavor. With typically lower alcohol it’s a great beer to enjoy one after another at a barbeque. It’s also great in a shandy.

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Moving on from whiskey/whisky, I’m going to address a basic beer distinction in today’s installment of my occasional series “What’s In a Name.”

Ale and lager are terms that are often used interchangeably with beer. I see this most often in print press publications that aren’t primarily concerned with food and drink. Using these terms this way is a mistake and it blurs the line of one of the most basic distinctions of beer.

All beer is either ale or lager. Whether a beer is an ale or a lager is determined by the type of yeast used to ferment it. Without getting too science-y here, ale yeast is active at warmer temperatures and tends to gather at the top of the fermenting vessel. Lager yeast tends to prefer cooler temperatures and gather at the bottom of the fermentor. So ales are often called “top-fermented” and lagers “bottom-fermented.”

Lager yeast is also a more thorough fermenter which means that it tends to convert more sugars to alcohol than ale yeast does. The cooler temperatures also work to make more material precipitate out of the brew. These two characteristics of lagers tend to make them cleaner, crisper beers than ales. As more of the potential flavoring agents are converted to alcohol or simply fall out of the beer before it is pumped out of the fermentor, lagers tend to have less overall flavor.

Conversely, ales retain most of these flavoring agents and the yeast converts less of them to alcohol. Therefore, ales tend to have more flavor, color, aroma and are sometimes even cloudier than lagers. They also have lower alcohol than they would if they had been fermented with lager yeast.

Some of these tendencies seem to evaporate when you consider all of the different styles of beer. There are dark, opaque lagers and crystal clear ales. But the differences in quality of flavor remain true. Ales are fuller flavored with rich malt notes and often lots of balancing hop bitterness while lagers are lighter in flavor and crisper.

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I first heard of Stella Artois only about a year ago. If you follow the beer industry this fact should tell you where I live.

Stella - after a sixer you’re on a first name basis with this beer - is a premium lager brewed in Belgium. Coming from a country with a brewing tradition of rich, full bodied, complex ales, this beer is a bit of a surprise. It’s a light bodied lager. It’s got plenty of character and all but just seems a little out of place among other rich and powerful Belgian brews.

It showed up in the US last year when Anheuser-Busch signed a deal to distribute InBev’s beers in the US. InBev owns Stella and so, quite suddenly, a new Belgian lager was showing up on beer store shelves across the country. Beer geeks like me took one look at the golden stuff and grabbed it. Inside we found a smooth, full-flavored beer with a delightful aroma. But it’s not relegated to the beer geek crowd. Stella has taken its rightful place alongside other beers such as Heineken, Bitburger, and Warsteiner who have the image, deserved or not, of being classy alternatives to Bud. When Bud lovers want to celebrate a special occasion and are willing to pay a few dollars more for their beer, these are the beers that they are likely to grab.

I had heard of Stella a few months before I actually tried it when I read Three Sheets to the Wind by Pete Brown. (Check out my beer book review.) Brown is a British beer writer and has been on a first name basis with Stella for a lot longer than I have. Stella has quite a different image in England. It has been widely available since the eighties so any mystique it might have had has long since evaporated. It is also slightly higher in alcohol than many British ales although it is served in the same big British pint. Being smooth and very drinkable it quickly gets to the business of getting its drinker pissed, as they say. In the UK, Stella is the beer you drink to get drunk. It has even garnered the delightful nickname “wife-beater.”

It’s fascinating how important a beer’s image is. It shouldn’t be. Beer is a product meant to be enjoyed and consumed. The only relationship that should matter is that between the beer and its drinker. It is ludicrous to think that a beer’s image among the society at large would change the drinker’s enjoyment. But it really does. While marketers in England try to figure out how to lift Stella above its wife-beater image, drinkers here in the US see the exact same beer as an elegant and refined brew. In fact neither image is entirely correct. It is, quite simply, a very respectable mass marketed lager.

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Below is a press release from our friends at Coors.  If Coors is your favorite beer then there are some cold times ahead for you.  They’ve developed a tap that’s so cold that ice actually condensces around it!  And the new Thermochromatic bottles actually change color when the beer is cold enough to drink.  In short, Coors is doing everything that that can to make sure that you never drink a warm beer again.  It’s going to be a chilly summer.

GOLDEN, Colo., April 11, 2007– As temperatures rise and summer approaches, Coors Brewing Company is announcing its latest product innovations designed to meet adult consumers’ desire for cold, refreshing beer. Super Cold Draft and the Cold Activated Bottle are just two in a long line of Coors Light product innovations, and are designed to deliver Coors Light in the coldest, most refreshing way across a variety of beer drinking occasions.

These innovations work for multiple types of retail environments as well as the way in which adult consumers choose to enjoy a Coors Light. Whether it’s the Cold Activated Bottle for a summer barbecue or an ice cold beer served from a Coors Light Super Cold Draft system, Coors Light will keep adult consumers refreshed all summer long.

“Coors Light is the world’s most refreshing beer and this round of innovations deliver on our Rocky Mountain heritage while addressing consumers’ desire for the coldest, most refreshing beer,” said Andy England, chief marketing officer, Coors Brewing Company. “Our latest innovations continue to raise the bar by delivering on our promise to provide the world’s most refreshing beer no matter where our consumers decide to enjoy a cold Coors Light.”

Cold is one of the most important considerations when consumers order a premium light beer. To provide the coldest, most refreshing draft beer, the Coors Light Super Cold Draft system will be available nationwide this year. The first pouring system of its kind in the United States, Super Cold Draft pours Coors Light at a temperature below freezing. Coors Light Super Cold Draft is dispensed from a unique bar top presence – a mountain draft tower that forms an outer layer of real ice.

According to Coors Light research, consumers want to know when their beer is cold enough to drink. To meet that need, Coors Light is introducing the Cold Activated Bottle, which features mountains on the label in Thermochromatic ink that turns blue when Coors Light has been chilled to the perfect temperature for ice cold refreshment. The Cold Activated Bottle will be available on all 12-ounce Coors Light and Coors bottles at participating bars, restaurants, grocery, convenience stores and liquor stores this May.

In addition to these innovations, Coors Light is highlighting three of its most popular packaging enhancements – the Coors Light Plastic Bottle Cooler Box, the industry’s first ice-ready bottle package, and the Frost Brew Liner with the Wide Mouth Can. The Wide Mouth Can ensures a smoother drinking experience from Coors Light and Coors cans. In addition, every Coors Light and Coors can features a Frost Brew Liner, tinted blue so consumers know it’s locking in that refreshing Frost Brewed taste.

Coors Light will support these innovations and packaging enhancements with a series of television ads that show adult consumers enjoying the benefits of these new products in a humorous way. They will also be supported with a full marketing campaign, including online, radio and out-of-home throughout the summer.

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About Coors Brewing Company

Coors Brewing Company is a subsidiary of Molson Coors Brewing Company, (NYSE, TSX - TAP). It is the third largest brewer in the U.S. The company’s U.S. brands include Coors Light, Molson Canadian, Coors, Killian’s Irish Red, Keystone, Blue Moon, Coors NA and Zima. For more information on Coors, visit the company’s Web site, www.coors.com.

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