Krausen Rising

This past Friday, my all-beer band, Beercraft, played a company BBQ at Studio 880 (Beercraft guitarist Blackout is an employee), along with the B-Sides (an excellent 70s butt rock cover band) and a funk band the name of which I didn’t catch. We thought we were playing around 8:00, but ended up playing more like 11:00. There was no shortage of crappy beer, and a nice fat jug of bourbon, as well as some good and some great tequila, but Beercraft needs good beer to fuel our amplifiers and stiffen our drumsticks, so The Mug (drums) bought a pony keg of Boont. By 11:00, we had each consumed well over our share of beer, and adding to that was the venue - a recording studio with excellent equipment to play on and a state-of-the-art booth to properly mix the sound and clarify all our drunken mistakes.

But Beercraft cannot be destroyed so easily with much beer and crisp sound! No, one of the essential questions to ask when writing a Beercraft song is “can I play this smashed?” If the answer is no, fix it! Are there six riffs in the song? Drop two! Too many key changes? Any key change? Make it all one key! Is the drummer playing in 13:8 while everyone else plays 3:4? Okay, that’d never happen regardless (actually, I think that did happen at one point during the set, but it wasn’t done on purpose). Really, though, we haven’t had to think about it that much - simple and fun is pretty simple and fun to write.

We played our set. I was pretty pleased, despite a couple mistakes. Nobody fell over, though Blackout was threatening to play leaning against the wall, and Amber Cascades (guitars) swears she fucked up all over the place. I don’t know, I didn’t hear it. Honestly, I couldn’t hear much, but it was a fun set. Hopefully we’ll have some more public gigs in the near future.

After the “Five Guys and a Barrel” beer dinner April 20th, which was too epic, incredible, and over-the-top to begin to describe, particularly since it’s long gone, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to handle another of the Beer Chef’s extravaganzas. Fortunately, Mr. Paton gave us a couple months to recover. The Schooners beer dinner was announced somewhat late, and that coupled with the relative obscurity of the small Antioch-based brewery, meant there were a total of 20 people at dinner, including chef Bruce Paton and Craig Cauwels (Schooners’ head brewer). I’m sure the low attendance wasn’t good for profits, but it meant more beer and a much more intimate setting for those of us lucky enough to attend.

The snack selection was great - gazpacho soup with bay shrimp, barbecue chicken sliders, rack of lamb, awesome tiny cheese sandwiches, and deviled eggs (the one snack from which I abstained). All of those were served with the Schooners IPA, a nicely hopped West Coast style IPA, and a Belgian-style Whit, another solid beer, somewhat spice fragrant and very refreshing. I mostly limited myself to one of each, though Jen grabbed an extra cheese sandwich that we split, and I did the same with a slider.

The meal itself was only three courses, a huge relief after the incredibly rich and weighty meal served last April. Up first was a caprese salad with fresh mozarella (may have been homemade) and peaches instead of tomatos. On the side was olive oil with some herbs and a sour cherry vinagrette. I wasn’t sure about the peaches until I tried them, and they were great. The thing about that course, though, was the Vindecation, Schooners’ dry stout supplemented with sour cherries then aged with brettanomyces and some other bugs (I believe pediococcus and a couple others). According to Cauwels, lab analysis put the ABV at 11%(!!), up from the standard 5% of the original dry stout. The Vindecation was my favorite of the night. I don’t think I’ve had a better beer in a long time. I honestly think it gives some of the Russian River sour beers a run for their money. Cauwels said they’ll be bottling the stuff at some point, and to check their website for updates. Which I’ll be doing. This is also where the small group made for such a great night. Each beer arrived in a five gallon keg, so there was far more than enough to go around. I think I had two refills, then drank a good portion of Jen’s when she was done. So good!

Then there was some pork, very nice, with barbecue sauce and something they called a potato risotto, also good. That was served with the dry stout, a solid beer that unfortunately couldn’t hold a candle to its heir, Vindecation.

Last was a bread pudding with butterscotch. It went very well with the barleywine, which had been aged to the point that it wasn’t syrupy or cloying at all (it was a 2006 barleywine). Another delightful brew, it couldn’t beat out Vindecation, but I loved it.

Cauwels was very friendly and willing discuss his beers and brewing in general. He is an avid homebrewer, and came in to brewing from biotech (maybe he was a chemist - I forget). He described his job as “yeast farmer, with beer as a side product” (or words to that effect). I also spoke with Brian Yaeger, who was also very friendly and happy to discuss his new book (Red, White, and Brew), beer, and his experiences interviewing people like Fritz Maytag for said book.

It was an excellent beer dinner, and very good after what had turned into an exhausting and stressful Saturday. We didn’t get any pictures (we forgot our camera), but you can find some at The Brookston Beer Bulletin.

Okay, man, it’s been a long time since I wrote anything here. I haven’t been less beery, though, just less inspired to write. Also, brewing’s been on hold due to a horrible case of procrastination. I’ve got five gallons of smoked Imperial Stout sitting in secondary, and I keep not wanting to bottle it. Since it’ll happily sit there for months, even a year, before it’s be ready to drink, I find it hard to prep for that most hated of brewing tasks - bottling. Yet I desparately want to brew some saison, or maybe give the smoked strong dark a second try. This blog reminds me of my procrastination, so I haven’t been here. But stuff’s been happening. Beer dinners, Beercraft shows, awesome nights at the Trappist, Russian River’s Anniversary Party (we left before it started, but the right side of the board was entirely full, and we took advantage). On top of that, another Beercraft member started brewing (that makes three of five), and I had the privilege of tasting some of the best homebrew I’ve ever had, brewed by my friend Nate - a double IPA that’s been getting Best in Show at homebrew competitions.

I just haven’t been writing about it.

Assuming I manage to kickstart this thing back to life, I plan to start a new series, on beer hikes. Jen and I have been taking beer hikes for a couple years, now. It started when we went hiking in Black Diamond Regional Park and needed some food afterward. We found a decent little pub in Clayton with a respectable beer selection and pub food. After that, we started planning hikes based on nearby breweries and pubs. The hikes are pretty much entirely confined to the greater Bay Area, but if we ever manage to get out of town together for a vacation, we’ll have more to add, I’m sure.

On the Beercraft front, we just played open mic night at The Bistro in Hayward, a small bar with a small but well-chosen tap selection and a good list of Belgian bottles to choose from. I’m hoping it worked as a kind of audition, as we hope to eventually play shows there, or better yet, a festival or two (Barrel-Aged beerfest!). From the audience reaction, I think it worked. Some of the people there seemed put off by the racket, but I think the under 35 set was into it. There was a lot of clapping, a good amount of cheering, and demand for an encore that didn’t come entirely from the people who were there specifically to support us. Even our friends seem pleasantly surprised when they hear us. I’ve heard it more than once, “not that I thought you’d suck, I just wasn’t expecting that.” Not sure exactly what people expect, but I think the amount of “joyful” in the noise may be the surprise. It’s hard not to make happy music when you are writing songs exclusively about beer.