h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2013/05/ask-a-cicerone-best-session-beer-low-alcohol-beer-favorites-from-beer-experts-slideshow.html#show-323044

Read this and thought of you. Most of these are inaccessible to me (thankfully, in a few cases), but I enjoyed playing 'who would I most like to share a beer with' (a tie between 7 and 22), and sort-of interested to know your thoughts if you'd tasted any of these.

Recommend subscribing to Serious Eats' newsletter, by the way, if you haven't already.

B

Interesting. No, I don't get the newsletter but I browse the stories once or twice a week. Maybe the newsletter would be a good idea.

Let's make that 30 Cicerones, because I'm a certified Cicerone Beer Server. It's nothing special really - an online exam that anyone who's been a bartender for more than six months and takes an interest in what they're doing beyond the paycheque they get at the end of the week should be able to pass. The next level - Certified Cicerone is much, much harder and requires a deep knowledge of beer as well as a discerning palate. And then there's Master Cicerone. I think the number of those in existence is still in single digits. I would have had a chance to have a crack at the second level if I'd stayed at the Drafthouse, paid for by the Drafthouse (around $500 I think), but I don't think my palate is refined enough for some of the taste tests

We don't get a lot of those beers here in Texas either, but I'm glad to see more than one Berliner Weisse listed, and to see Justin at the Meddlesome Moth in Dallas (no.2) pick Jester King's Le Petit Prince. That's one of my favourite summer beers and definitely a favourite session beer. It's slightly tart, slightly citrusy and quite dry. They brew it with a French saison yeast, and I wish they'd make a Brettanomyces-finished version to get even more dryness out of it.

True session beers (under 4%) are pretty hard to find around here so you have to stretch the definition a bit. Jester King make two regular - Petit Prince table beer and Commercial Suicide dark English mild, and one seasonal - Bonnie the Rare Berliner Weisse. The Suicide hasn't fared well as JK have moved from English ale yeast to French saison for all their beers (and their own wild yeasts harvested by leaving beer out overnight, for some). Das Wunderkind sour saison is 4.5% so that's borderline session I guess, and it's seriously good.

1. We don't get that one in Texas.
2. See above.
3. We just started getting the Aecht Schlenkerla beers here but I haven't see the helles on any shelves yet.
4. We don't get Pintail, but we started getting Ballast Point a few months ago. I haven't tried that one.
5. Firestone Walker is another brewery we got within the past few months. I met David Walker at one of the launch events - he's English, hence the lion on the logo. I forget where from exactly. Nice bloke. I don't know if Pale 31 is one of the FW beers we get.
6. We don't get Eagle Rock beers, but English milds are becoming more popular now.
7. We don't get those either, but cask is getting to be easier to find, if you live in a beer town, and I just saw this yesterday http://news.yahoo.com/forget-warm-and-flat--cask-ale-production-on-the-upswing-in-the-u-s--094154846.html
8. Bloody hipsters' beer. Nuff said.
9. Never had that particular Kona beer. Their beers are generally pretty ho-hum.
10. Don't get those here, although if you ever see any Green Flash Rayon Vert on the shelf I recommend it highly.
11. Ah, session IPAs - the new craft beer fad du jour. Try telling the average US craft beer drinker that the original IPAs were neither mouth-puckeringly hoppy or insanely high in ABV and they won't believe you. Or don't want to believe you.
12. Do you reckon there's a discernible difference between northern and southern English brown ale? Enough to warrant two beer styles? I'm dubious. As for the BJCP, the less said about them, the better.
13. Guinness... a session beer at 5%?
14. Don't know that one.
15. Me and almost every other decent beer drinker in Texas wish we could get Bells beers here. Another Berliner Weisse, although at 4% it's pushing it a bit.
16. Is he throwing a gang sign?
17. Avery is one my favourite breweries but I don't drink Joe's Pilsner. No need when we have a most excellent Czech pilsner brewed in Austin - Live Oak Pilz. All lagers are not crap, which makes me very annoyed when I see this http://twitter.com/NorthernWrites/status/354138058058252288/photo/1/large
18. A bit vague, but Kolsch is a very nice summer beer.
19. Guinness again.
20. Pillock.
21. See above, PBR.
22. We lost Allagash a few years ago when they realised they couldn't keep up with demand and had to pull out of a few states. They make some seriously good beers, although White wasn't one of my favourites. I'm not keen on either witbiers or hefeweizens. They've started making lambics though, and up until five months ago that would have made me quite envious, but then Jester King got themselves a koehlschip and started brewing their own lambics. I can hardly wait the four or five years it'll take for them produce a gueuze from that wort, but maybe we'll get some young unblended lambic before then.
23. Stone Levitation is damn good beer, although at 4.4% it's more of an American session beer than a British one.
24. "My favorite session beer is the next one". Sigh. Someone always has to trot that one out, but I'll give him credit for mentioning Gose.
25. Good man.
26. It's a good beer, but I don't like hefeweizens. If you do, you should come here and try Live Oak HefeWeizen. It's supposed to be one of the best in the world, and straight from the fermenter it's quite magical. So I'm told. Too much banana, clove and bubblegum for me.
27. I love dunkel lagers. Even Heineken Dark isn't bad. Dunkels don't get the recognition they should. They pair well with so many foods.
28. Ska is a bit like Kona - they mostly make average beers.
29. Anchor Steam is an American classic and one that you can probably get in the UK quite easily, I would think.

Yeah, we can get Anchor Steam along with Sam Adams and a couple of other American beers (I'm quite partial to the Peruvian Cusquena which is having a bit of a big hit at the minute and is legitimately imported, rather than knocked up in a laboratory in Basingstoke).

I'm quite interested in the Americans' daft slant on IPAs, especially given that I come down along the IPA/wheat beer axis. And generally the American beer-drinker's obsession with classifying everything.

Having said that, yes: I think they are probably right to classify Northern and Southern British brown ales. If you think of Hobgoblin (probably the best of the Southern ilk these days, despite the franchise), it's light and quite hoppy. The proper Northern brown ales (most Sam Smiths and Black Sheep brews being quite the example) are toastier, slightly sweeter and chewier. It's really as simple as hops vs malt.

B

I take your point about Sam Smiths vs something like Hobgoblin, or even Manns Brown. I used to drink the hell out of that stuff in my early drinking career. And the odd bottle of TruBrown.

As far as American IPAs are concerned, I reckon what happened was that someone read about IPA being brewed with extra hops and higher ABV and just ran with it, then applied the 'imperial' principle, having already known about Russian imperial stout, and after that it was a race to see who could cram more IBUs into their DIPA. Things have calmed down a bit now, although top ten lists are still full of American IPAs and double IPAs.

I remember a thread somewhere about who brewed the first recognised DIPA but that conversation has long since slipped its moorings from my memory. It was someone on the west coast, possibly Stone. Long before then, Ballantine in New Jersey used to brew a highly regarded IPA, aged for a year in the wood. Some of it was added to their Burton Ale which was aged for anything up to 20 years before being blended and bottled. Man, I would love to get me some of that. Bottles show up on eBay from time to time, even though the last bottling was in the 60s.

I think the obsession with classification comes from a) not having such a long and continuous beer history, therefore not being used to or comfortable with relatively broad classifications, and b) having a much, much wider range of beer styles available than I ever remember seeing in the UK, and therefore needing some guidance.

The BJCP promotes its classifications as being for beer judges to learn what look for and brewers to know what to make, but it can be constrictive because almost every brewer wants to win medals at the GABF and the World Beer Cup, where their beer will be judged by people who have passed beer judging exams based on the BJCP or Brewers Association guidelines, so there can be a tendency to brew beers to fit strict guidelines rather than to go with a broader interpretation of a style.

This sounds more like a dance competition than beer-drinking now...

B

I'm still doing my best to persuade one of the local brewers to make a) a vatted London porter or b) an English stock ale aged in wood at warm temperatures, just like the original Hodgsons beers that went out to India and became the blueprint for old school IPAs like Allsops. Bearing in mind that they went across the equator - twice - on unrefrigerated ships we've got the perfect climate in Texas for that kind of ageing.

They must have a very influential Texas correspondent http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2013/07/ask-a-cicerone-craft-brewing-trends-breweries-usa-beer-next-popular-style.html

The Dog and Duck is one of my favourite haunts.