Time to Stop Firkin Around
Back Home Beer arrives, virtual beer schooling, and I wax nostalgic for brewery #4
Last Wednesday night, I was sitting at the bar at Beer Karma in Williamsburg when someone came in and asked if they had any Back Home Beer left.
“No, we sold out in like an hour,” the staff replied. “But we should be getting more Friday.”
I heard that answer five more times in the two hours I was there. Beer Karma is now on their third shipment as I write this and it’s probably pointless for me to tell you to go out and get some, since this won’t be in your inbox until tomorrow morning and that beer will be in other people’s fridges.
So yeah, the word is out about Back Home, created by Zahra Tabatabai, a daughter of Iranian immigrants who lives in the city and is brewing beers with ingredients from and inspired by her ancestral home. The first beer, a Sumac Gose, is made with sour cherry, cured sumac, and blue salt, and it’s been in high demand around the city. You can follow the Instagram account to see where the beer will land next — and where Back Home’s next beer, the Persian Blue Lager, will be stocked when it’s out in November.
Nerd out about beer, virtually
Look, beer is a lot of fun. But as a beverage that’s been around for five thousand years, give or take, the history and culture around beer has many facets to explore. There are two upcoming virtual events that can help you better understand beer culture and enlighten yourself over a screen and a couple brews.
The National Museum of Women in the Arts is hosting a virtual seminar series called Brews and Views starting today. It’s a monthly happy hour series hosted by Harlem Brewery founder Celeste Beatty, hosted virtually on the Museum’s website. Beatty’s first guest this month is Dr. J Jackson-Beckham, executive director of Craft X EDU and principal at Crafted for All. The two will discuss equity and inclusion in the beer industry in a virtual session that gets underway at 5:30pm. Next month’s speaker is Kendra Woods of Sylvia’s Restaurant. You can register for the Zoom in advance here.
Then, in early November, the Chicago Brewseum will host their annual Beer Culture Summit virtually over three days, November 5th through 7th. For $25, you can purchase a one-day pass that offers access to seminars hosted on a variety of topics from beer movers and shakers. Among the topics: Beer and Medieval Reenactment, American Women in Prohibition, Jews in Beer, Beer and Taxes, South Asians in Beer, Beer and Social Justice, Beer and Feminism, and many more. The full lineup is available here.
Blue Point’s Cask Fest returns
A long-revered beer tradition on Long Island is re-emerging from its pandemic pause. Blue Point Brewing will host their 2021 Cask Ales Festival in Patchogue, Long Island on Saturday, November 6th. It’s a four-hour celebration of real ale that’s been hosted by Blue Point since the early aughts.
The event will feature casks from over fifty breweries from around the country, as well as Blue Point’s own cask creations. While many cask ales will be served in traditional style — the beer can stand on its own in a cask — plenty of breweries have been known to make bizarre creations for this fest, adding unique ingredients to the beer for a one-of-a-kind experience. [Beer traditionalists, please feel free to move on to the next paragraph and skip this next sentence.] Among Blue Point’s own offerings will be a Rainbow Cookie Porter, Pear Milkshake Dry Hopped Spectral Haze, Paloma Sour with Tequila Oak, and Tropical Hoptical Illusion with Mango, Pineapple, and Guava.
Tickets for the fest this year are $70 via Eventbrite. Proof of full vaccination or a negative Covid test within 72 hours of the event is required for entry.
Brewery Tracker
Total brewery count: 2,416
New breweries in 2021: 342
Breweries visited in Vermont: 18
Number of times I’ve been scolded about my low brewery count in Vermont: too many times to count
Brewery Visit of the Week
Brewery #4, Magic Hat Brewing Company, South Burlington, Vermont (Visited 20-Nov-2004)
This brewery is no longer, but it still holds a very special place in my heart. In my formative beer-drinking years, #9, an amber-hued apricot-spiked ale, was one of my go-to beers. When I moved to Vermont, their smaller-batch beers broadened my beer horizons: Fat Angel introduced me to hoppy beers, Ravell brought me appreciation for Porters, Jinx opened my eyes to Scotch Ales. Living in a small town like Burlington, I befriended several brewery employees who often slipped me extra free samples at the taproom and invited me to keg parties – and taught me that playing beer pong with high-gravity beer is not a particularly responsible choice. While the brewery was sold off by founder Alan Newman by 2010 and its reputation among uber beer geeks soured over the years as it struggled to innovate and match a changing national palate, I still have an appreciation for the place that made some of my gateway beers.
By the time I moved to Burlington in 2004, Magic Hat was a hit in Vermont. It, along with the likes Long Trail, Otter Creek, and Harpoon, made the state an early destination for beer tourists at a time when the phrase hadn’t been uttered in the US. Smaller outfits were making a mark on the Green Mountain State’s scene, too. Vermont Pub & Brewery (where the late Greg Noonan brewed pioneering craft beer), The Shed (where Hill Farmstead’s Shaun Hill got his start), and The Alchemist (where cult status was still years away) were favorite stops after a day on Lake Champlain or a day in the mountains. But out of sheer convenience, free samples, $6 growler fills, and a taproom that embodied the offbeat, imaginative brand, I kept coming back to Magic Hat.
On my last visit in 2015, I felt right at home again when I visited the “Artifactory.” I got my last chance to enjoy the Feast of Fools Raspberry Stout and the Single Chair Ale at the taproom, though I didn’t know it at the time. But I looked around me as I saw other visitors and wondered: had they just come from Fiddlehead or Switchback down the road? Were they visiting for nostalgia’s sake like me? Things hadn’t changed much inside the brewery, but a lot had changed outside of it, and that was a part of the reason that the South Burlington brewery closed for good in 2020, leaving a $6 growler-sized hole in my heart.
Social Post of the Week
Beer of the Week
One and Only: Strata Wet Hop
Fishweir Brewing Company (Jacksonville, Florida)
Wet Hop New England IPA
5.8% ABV
After spending a weekend in Washington State at the end of September, I figured my days of drinking this year’s crop of wet hop IPAs were over. Then, I went to… Florida, of all places, and found an absolute gem.
Fishweir was my first stop upon landing in Jacksonville, and I did a double-take when I saw One and Only labeled as a Wet Hop IPA. But sure enough, the brewery flew the hops across the country overnight from Crosby Hop Farms in Oregon and popped ‘em right in the boil. The result was a super dank IPA that was absolutely bursting with citrus and berry.
Fishweir was one of my best stops of my weekend in Florida — a weekend that included a visit to the GABF Brewery of the Year in the 251-500 barrel category (which was also quite excellent).
Long Reads of the Week
If you haven’t been paying attention to the reckoning that the craft beer industry is facing after countless allegations of widespread sexism and racism, Beth Demmon has a very comprehensive piece in Civil Eats this week to get you up to speed. The article touches on the fallout from accusations made against Mikkeller earlier this year that resulted in dozens of breweries (including the three in New York City that had initially pledged to participate) backing out of their annual festival in Copenhagen this month — something that you can read more about in Kate Bernot’s latest missive on Good Beer Hunting.
One More Thing
Finally, a shout out to Fifth Hammer Brewing Company in Long Island City, who celebrated their fourth anniversary last weekend. Founder/brewer Chris Cuzme says to expect him to pull out all the stops for Fifth Hammer’s Fifth, so clear your calendar next October.
Cheers,
Chris
The Magic Hat taproom still remains as likely my most wtf is this place??? Taproom Experiences ever.