Krausen Rising

We went to Triple Rock last Wednesday to see Brian Yaeger talk about and read from his book, Red, White, and Brew. There, I first discovered that I’m suddenly really into Triple Rock’s Stonehenge Stout, an export stout at about 7% ABV. I left behind stouts (other than massive Imperial Stouts, the siren call of which sometimes lure me away from the safe seas of Reason onto the dehydrated rocks of Massive Headache) a while ago, on to hoppier or belgianier beers, but lately I’ve found a couple great ones. Firestone Walker’s is the other, in case you’re curious. So, yeah, I had that, and Jen grabbed herself a Kolsch. Jen was on camera duty, and is not a shirker. Here are our beers:
   

Yaeger was there with representatives from one of the P* bookstores (Pegasus or Pendragon, I forget which). It was a good talk. I’d heard a bit about his book at the Beer Chef’s Schooners dinner, and I’d thought his choice of breweries to check out was strange - mostly not the big and/or weirdstuff popular with us kids (Russian River, Port, Bear Republic, and Allagash, to name a few). After hearing him speak for a few minutes about his choices, the book started sounding more interesting (and nerdy). I didn’t take any notes, so anything I say here is hazed up from the stout and over a week spent fermenting in my brain, so take it with a grain of salt, but it seems to me Yaeger is documenting the rise of… real? craft? beer in the US as it grew up in the wastelands created by Prohibition. Some are small breweries that toughed out Prohibition making soda or even opening creameries on the side, and some are breweries that sprang up in the aftermath of Carter’s legalization of homebrewing. And of course there’s Anchor. This is the kind of history it’s good to have on the books, a reminder of the grim days of the light beer wars to keep us humble and stoked to be living in times of plenty.

He read from the book, a chapter about a brewer in Bisbee, a strategic chapter to read for sales - it’s got coccaine, federal prison, drunk driving, corrupt cops… with a murder and John Goodman, it’d be a decent Coen Brothers movie.

So, Yaeger talked for a while, there was the dreaded post-reading Q&A, I bought a book, and Jen, being a good fangirl from way back when, got the book signed for me. Now I have to get going to The Trappist to try some Guido (a tribute to New Jersey?), about which I will hopefully post within the week.