Tasteless Beer Drinking
Drinking for a good cause, the furriest IPA, and my least favorite beer style is a sham
First, a PSA: Covid-19 breakthrough cases are becoming increasingly common lately. While some cases among the vaccinated result in no symptoms at all, there’s a symptom that’s quite closely associated with Covid that puts fear in the minds of beer drinkers, foodies, or just people who take joy in eating: the temporary loss of the senses of taste and smell. As someone who experienced this firsthand, I can assure you, it is deeply un-fun. I take joy in cooking at home, ordering takeout, sipping that first cup of coffee each morning, and tasting new beers. Virtually all of that joy is stripped from you when you can’t smell or taste anything. It’s really difficult to find anything to fill that hole in your heart when you lose your ability to savor an everyday joy. My senses recovered quite quickly and without noticeable long-term impacts. But others have not been so lucky, with more than a quarter of Covid patients waiting a month or longer to recover their senses.
So please, if you enjoying tasting what you’re drinking, please get vaccinated and wear a mask in crowded spaces.
Beers for Good Causes
Here’s some updates on ways to drink NYC-brewed beer and make a positive impact in the process.
I’ve mentioned Back Home Beer before. It’s a project from Zahra Tabatabai, a daughter of Iranian immigrants who lives in the city and is launching her own beer brand with ingredients from and inspired by her ancestral home. Those beers are approaching completion, and with the first beers coming soon, she’s holding an auction for those very first beers off the production line to raise money for Afghan refugees. Those first beers, the Persian Style Lager with Blue Sea Salt and Cured Sumac Gose with Blue Salt and Tart Cherries, will each be auctioned off to the highest bidder, with 100% of the proceeds going to the Afghan Women's Mission and the Revolutionary Association Women of Afghanistan. You can place a bid here — bids close on Tuesday, September 7th.
Staten Island’s Flagship Brewing Co. is releasing their new Bravest Tunnel to Towers Golden Ale on Friday in their taproom at 6pm. It’s a 4.9% ABV Golden Ale with Huell Melon and Cascade hops. Fifty percent of all profits from the beer will go to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, the organization that honors the life of Stephen Stiller, an FDNY firefighter who lost his life on 9/11.
Meanwhile, Torch and Crown Brewing is showing receipts — they announced yesterday that their Rainbows Everywhere IPA released during Pride Month resulted in over $10,000 in donations to three organizations: Knit the Rainbow, The Okra Project, and The Trevor Project.
Mailbag!
Renee asks a fun question:
As we wandered by 49th State in Anchorage, I immediately was curious how many breweries are named for their state order? I can think of 14th Star Brewing - Vermont, of course! Are there others?
I love being challenged with questions like this, because it makes me ponder: what other trends have I not noticed among the 7,000+ breweries in the US I have yet to visit?
Well, Renee, I did the homework. I started, naturally, with the first state — and yes, there’s First State Brewing Company in Middletown, Delaware. Second State Brewing exists, but it’s in Iowa, our 29th state (its name refers to its location at the intersection of Second and State Streets in Cedar Falls). Great, we’ve already got our first misdirection. Third State Brewing is in Burlington, New Jersey, our third state. Connecticut has a Fifth State Distillery, but alas, no brewery. Even though Sixth State and Seventh Star sound like great alliterative brewery names, they don’t exist in Massachusetts or Maryland. The Eighth State Brewing Company brews in Greenville, South Carolina, and Stripe Nine Brewing Co. serves up beer and food in Somersworth, New Hampshire.
Once you get past the aforementioned 14th Star in Vermont, it’s a pair of failures: 17th State Brewing Co. was an Ohio contract brand that shuttered in 2018, and 38 State Brewing Company, which I visited in Littleton, Colorado in 2014, but closed in 2019. So the next one is State 48 Brewery in Surprise, Arizona, just before 49th State in Anchorage, Alaska. There’s no 50th State Brewing in Hawaii, but there is 51st State Brewing Co. in Kingsford, Michigan — a fun play on how Michigan’s Upper Peninsula seems a world away from the rest of the state.
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Brewery Tracker
Total brewery count: 2,341
New breweries in 2021: 267
Breweries visited in Ohio: 42
Breweries visited in Cleveland: 18
Brewery Visit of the Week
Brewery #2338, Noble Beast Brewing Co., Cleveland, Ohio (Visited 29-Aug-2021)
Word of mouth is how I find out about a lot of breweries in cities that I visit. It’s often how I find the hidden gems, or the places that make great beer but have a small or non-existent distribution footprint. Everyone whose opinions I trust on both beer and all things Cleveland suggested Noble Beast. And they were right to suggest it.
They’re not subtle about what they’ve accomplished in the four years they’ve been open: instead of simply hanging their beer competition medals on a wall, they’ve made banners celebrating their success. They’ve medaled twice at GABF for their Murder Ballads Baltic Porter. Their Evil Motives IPA has medaled four times in local competition. That may seem braggy, but the service here isn’t, and the beer is as good as advertised. That Evil Motives might be the gold-standard for IPAs in Cleveland these days. The 2020 vintage of their Peacemaker Imperial Stout was a delight, and a year and a half took any alcohol burn off the beer and let the cacao nibs, coffee, and Madagascar Vanilla shine through. The Teutonic Destruction German-Style Pils was clean and classic.
I truly enjoyed everything I had at Noble Beast, and the leafy taproom with a large skylight helped brighten the mood on what was a dreary Sunday in Cleveland. I’d make it a must-stop next time you find yourself in town.
Social Media Post of the Week
Beer of the Week
Furriest Five
Kings County Brewers Collective (Brooklyn, NY)
West Coast-Style IPA
6.9% ABV
Last year’s Fast and the Furriest West Coast-Style IPA was one of my favorite beers of lockdown when I’d walk over the KCBC. Then came 2 Fast 2 Furriest, the post-lockdown summer blockbuster that was as potent as it was enjoyable. Those beers were so memorable that I didn’t waste a second when I saw this year’s sequel on the menu at their taproom this week. It’s clean and bitter like this genre of IPA should be, it’s got a noticeable malt backbone, and it’s got a boatload of flashy, flavorful hops: Cashmere, Mosaic, Centennial, Chinook, and Idaho 7 cryo.
These sequels seem to get better with time. You might have your own opinions about the film series that’s referenced in these beer names, but I can’t wait for the next beer in this ongoing saga.
A side note: KCBC is celebrating its 5th anniversary next weekend, if you’re looking to celebrate with them.
Long Read of the Week
Irish Red Ale is my least favorite style of beer. There’s something odd about how that style’s typical blend of malts hits my tongue — it’s cloyingly sweet and I can’t get over it. So it’s relieving to learn that the entire style is a farce: it barely has any ties to Ireland, and the gold-standard example — George Killian — was first brewed in France as “Bière Rousse,” was named after a guy who never went by “George Killian,” and was bastardized even further by Coors Brewing before taking off as a beer style in the U.S. Martyn Cornell has the full story.
One More Thing
It looks increasingly like 2021 will be the first year in many that I don’t make it to Europe. I’m bummed, especially since the world was starting to open up and the opportunities for me to finally visit some uniquely historic beer cities like Bamberg or Cologne were on the horizon. Here’s hoping those plans can materialize again in 2022.
Cheers,
Chris
What was the first beer you chose to try once you felt the sense coming back??