Beer a Fall Time Favorite, Is About to Harvest More Fun Than a Hula-Hoop
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Grab your friends, your cooler, your camp chairs and make it official: HOPTOBER is back! Yes, the five hops and four malts that made this beer a fall time favorite, is about to harvest more fun than a hula-hoop. If we miss you at the campfire, meet up with us here: facebook.com/newbelgium 10514NBBHoptoberMag.indd 1 8/31/10 5:36:13 PM Now what? Okay, you’ve got your glass, you’re through the doors and you’re staring at a couple hundred beers. Now what? With a festival this ecumenical, you really can’t lose in your selection of a WORLD BEER FESTIVAL STAFF strategy. The only way you can go wrong is by sticking with old favorites for the night. Safe, but missing the whole point of the fest You need a strategy. PRODUCER Daniel Bradford First things first. Get to the closest booth with the shortest line and ask EVENT DIRECTOR for whatever the person behind the booth likes best, and then, ask them Bill Steigerwald why. Break the ice. There—you’re at the fest and you have a great beer. BEER ACQUISITION MANAGER Now, give the next few hours of your life some careful thought. You’re in a Angela Campbell room with a few hundred beers and, no, you can’t taste them all. Not an option. However, there are strategies to employ that will maximize your ALL ABOUT BEER MAGAZINE EDITOR enjoyment—really simple strategies—and at least one of them will be and EDUCATION COORDINATOR just right for you. Julie Johnson ACCOUNT MANAGER Let’s assume you have a favorite beer. Check this Beer Guide and Amy Dalton find your brand or one like it, and note its style. Page through the Guide, looking for beers in the same style, check the booth num- ALL ABOUT BEER MAGAZINE ber and start your hunt. Not too shabby, and everyone will be MANAGING EDITOR impressed that you’re on a mission. Greg Barbera Of course, the opposite is equally fun. Seek out beers in styles ALL ABOUT BEER MAGAZINE that you’re not familiar with. For example, if you’re a hop head, CIRCULATION MANAGER then try brown ales and porters for a change. Or you might Andrea Harris check out the wide variety in the wheat beer category. FESTIVAL PHOTOGRAPHER Kinsley Dey, Dey Photography Yet a third strategy would be to follow a favorite flavor. Enjoy the sweetness of a malty beer, or the bitterness of pale and India pale ales, ART DIRECTOR or the tartness of a fruit beer? Look in the style directory for other Don Shannon, Image Navigators styles in that vein and check out the beer list for beers in those styles. BREW CREW MANAGER Back and forth through the Beer Guide and you’ll end up with some Keith Klemp wonderful beers to get on your next trip to the store. Frankly, I’m a fan of big malt and look to those styles. I tend to hang around with hop heads VOLUNTEER COORDINATORS Abdul Woods and Adam Lindstaedt however, and they’re great at bird-dogging the IPAs and double IPAs. If this is all too structured for you, consider my favorite strategy for maxi- mizing my festival pleasure. I’m not such a fan of crowds and extremely curious about beers I haven’t had. I tend to stay away from the crowded booths and visit booths representing breweries I’ve not met or it’s been awhile. Once there, I will go up their beer ladder from lightest bodied to heaviest. So, go forward and conquer. In your hands is your map and in front of you is the great unknown, beyond which lie monsters. ALL ABOUT BEER MAGAZINE Chautauqua Inc. 501 Washington St., Suite H Durham, NC 27701 tel: 919.530.8150 Daniel Bradford fax: 919.530.8160 Producer, World Beer Festival Publisher, All About Beer Magazine www.allaboutbeer.com World Beer Festival Durham 1 BEER EDUCATION The Renaissance in Beer he world of beer has changed dramatically. Thirty The Revolution Goes On years ago, virtually every beer sold in the world Craft brewing itself has changed over the past thirty years, as T belonged to a single category: the international craft brewers rebelled first against the reigning brewing para- light lager style, a pale, highly carbonated, clean and deli- digm but then went on to innovate new styles all their own. cately flavored beer that is served very cold. Rival beers English-style ales, the original beers on these shores— could be differentiated by their marketing, but rarely by George Washington was especially fond of porter—were their taste. supplanted in the nineteenth century by lager beers from After nearly a century of consolidation, only 15 percent the brewing traditions of Germany, Austria and the Czech of the 2,300 American breweries of the nineteenth century Republic. It was the sparkling, pale beer of Bohemian that were still operating. The statistics were no different in inspired brewery owners called Pabst, Schlitz, Busch or Europe. Local and regional breweries were being swallowed Schmidt to build their empires. by national brands and the decline in beer diversity and So, in the earliest days of the “beer revolution,” craft character was accelerating. brewers reacted against the “mainstream” lager tradition of Then the renaissance began. As has happened with wine, Central Europe, and embraced the ale-brewing heritage of cheese, bread, coffee, chocolate and numerous other foods, Britain. Pale ale, India pale ale, porter and stout are still traditional, locally-produced alternatives began to capture prominent in the style rotation at any brewpub. the beer drinking public’s imagination. In country after The next wave brought wheat beers—refreshing, fruit- country, grass roots organizations moved to protect their infused, and thought to appeal especially to female drinkers. favorite breweries and beers. American-style wheat beers reinvented the authentic In the United States, beginning in the 1960s, antiquarian German-styled originals, with their characteristic banana, Fritz Maytag took over the failing Anchor Brewery in San clove and bubblegum notes. American wheat beer was craft Francisco, reviving nineteenth century styles. A few years beer, but it was safe. later, merchant marine Jack McAullife, who missed the ales As American brewers made traditional styles their own, he had encountered in Scotland, started the first new ale their tendency was to increase the intensity of every trait: in brewery in a century, also in California. Hop salesman Burt particular, escalating hop bitterness and high alcohol came Grant, tired of the timid hop flavors, opened the first mod- to characterize the boldest U.S. offerings—sometimes at the ern brewpub, featuring the hoppiest beers brewed in the expense of balance. The double or imperial India pale ale States. Two physicists in Boulder, CO began the Boulder was born, followed shortly by the “imperialization” of a Brewery to make the British-style ales that they had enjoyed range of other styles. Alcohol content records were—and in England. continue to be—broken by so-called “extreme” beers. And that was just the beginning. Homebrewers-turned- Meanwhile, the brewing styles of another great brewing entrepreneurs decided that “going pro” with their home- nation, Belgium, moved into prominence. A few U.S. brew- made beer wasn’t such an outlandish idea. The giants (rela- eries—New Belgium, Allagash, Ommegang—committed to tively speaking) of today’s craft beer world—breweries brewing entirely in the Belgian vein, but it’s a rare micro- including Samuel Adams, Sierra Nevada, New Belgium, and brewery or brewpub that doesn’t offer a witbier, dubbel or Rogue—were all launched during the era of the hobbyist, saison, all thanks to the Belgians. when beer enthusiasts walked away from on-going careers Two new trends vie for dominance at the cutting edge of to brew professionally. American brewing today: barrel aged beers, that take flavor Today, U.S. cities boast a diversity of beer, both domestic from wooden casks already used to house wine or spirits; and imported, unmatched anywhere else in the world. From and deliberately soured beers, which offer a completely dif- an all-time low of 41 in 1981, this country now boasts over ferent palate from almost any other convention. Both styles 1,500 breweries of all sizes. With a cry of “Drink local!” are gaining in popularity. microbrewers and pubbrewers produced over nine million On decade into the new millennium, the American barrels of handcrafted beer last year, permanently changing brewing community is diverse, professional, adventurous— the beer landscape. Light lagers still dominate our shelves, and an accepted part of the landscape. Specialty beers are but our brewers are crafting more than 70 other beer styles, no longer an oddity: even beer drinkers who stick to the some traditional, others entirely new creations, each with its mainstream styles realize that their choices are much wider. own distinctive character and profile. With convenience stores and gas stations including pale ales and Belgian-style wit beers in their coolers, there’s no going back on beer diversity. 2 World Beer Festival Durham ONE YEAR. 4 FESTIVALS. THE WHOLE WORLD OF 4 Cities! Make your 2011 plans! BEER!Put these FOUR fantastic festivals on your calender for 2011: COLUMBIA, SC January 22, 2011 RALEIGH, NC April 9, 2011 RICHMOND, VA June 11, 2011 DURHAM, NC October 1, 2011 World Beer Festival Tickets Check our web site for the on-sale date and ticket outlet locations. www.allaboutbeer.com Some Past Participating Breweries: Abita Brewing Co. • Ace Cider Co. • Allagash Brewing Co. • Anheuser-Busch • APIS Meadery • Arcobräu Brauhaus • Asahi Beer • Asheville Brewing Co.