Many Venture Cafe guests have inquired at the bar as to how we choose the beers on tap and how we procure them.  It’s not always a straight-forward process, so I thought I’d enlighten guests on the byzantine world of craft beer keg retail.

In order to choose beers, we need to know first what our options are.  Thus, we pursue many avenues of education so that we learn about local breweries and what they are producing.  For example, the Craft Beer Fest – coming up soon the weekend of June 3 – has in the past introduced us to new breweries and brews.  Additionally, Beer Advocate, the magazine and the website, produces helpful articles and lists identifying what’s good and what’s new.  The website includes member ratings on beers that may influence us as to whether to buy a keg and what size to buy.  The local breweries themselves also have websites that keep us updated on their seasonal beers and events going on locally.  Finally, some local bars boast wonderful beer menus and are a great place to sample beers.  These include but are not limited to Bukowski’s, Sunset Grill and Tap, Publick House, Lord Hobo, MeadHall and the Lower Depths.  It’s a tough job to romp around Boston sampling beer, but it’s all in the name of research for the public good.

Once we know what’s out there, we can make the selection for the week.  In selecting beers, we try to balance a few factors.  We consider which state the beer is from, which brewery makes it, its alcohol content, and whether it is light or dark.  Variety is key and the goal is to ensure there is a beer for everyone’s taste, and to support the local breweries. Before I make my requests for the week, I check with the Massachusetts Beverage Business catalogue to see whether the beer I want is available in a keg size that will fit in our bar, and whether the beer is distributed by a company that works with our retailer, Downtown Wine and Spirits in Somerville.

The next step is to talk to our friends at Downtown.  They have been quite patient with my beer whims and are kind enough to deliver our kegs every week.  Downtown also knows its beer – knows it well – and always has good recommendations when I am at a loss.  Ordering from them often requires negotiation, however, because sometimes the local brewery is not producing what we want, or is temporarily out of the keg size we want, or forgets to send the beer to Downtown.  So, Downtown has to do a lot of talking with the distributors and breweries, and I have to do a lot of talking with Downtown about what backup beers would work if the ones we want are unavailable.  In the end, I get to learn a lot about different beers and channels of distribution, and Downtown gets the experience of working with a very unique client.  Obviously, I get the good end of the deal!

Downtown then delivers the beer on Thursday before the cafe, and picks up the empty kegs from the previous week to be reused.  Each tap has a line-up of kegs planned for it, so we arrange the kegs in the bar so that they will be easy to move around to tap and untap.

Finally, the kegs are tapped, and the beer flows into your cup.

It’s as simple as that.

-Gregg Berman, Founder of Clown Shoes

The founders of Clown Shoes originally submitted the name to a Beer Advocate contest to name a new brew in celebration of the 2010 Extreme Beer Fest.  After the submission didn’t crack the top 5 finalists, the wound festered until the founders realized that they could make their own Clown Shoes beer.  Thus inspired, they made one batch of beer, and when people liked it, they continued with their new brand, brewing from Ipswich, Massachusetts.  To Gregg Berman, Founder of Clown Shoes, the name reminds him “about humility and to find humor in life.”  He says that the brewery’s mission is to “produce beer without pretension while being free and a little crazy.”  In the cafe, we recently poured Tramp Stamp IPA, and coming this week are Clementine and Hoppy Feet.

The Clown Shoes website explains that like its namesake, Tramp Stamp IPA is “about not so subtle seduction.”  The beer pours a cloudy auburn color and smells of a wheat beer, with wafts of grassy hops and a little sweetness.  The taste follows with cloves, banana and yeast notes, along with hops, grass, and citrus bitters.  These characteristics put the beer firmly on the “Belgian” side of the Belgian-American spectrum of IPAs.

Clementine also follows the Belgian style, but as a white ale.  It pours a hazy yellowish color, and smells of ripe banana and orange zest, with a very faint hint of hops.  To the tongue, the malt taste comes through first, along with a good dose of wheat twang and just a hint of grain. Afterwards comes a flavour of coriander and strong orange peel.  The finish involves more orange and a hint of grapefruit from bitter American hops.

Hoppy Feet, of course, is all about the hops.  It combines Premium malt with Amarillo and Columbus hops.  The beer pours black, with a 2-finger brown head that leaves nice foamy lacing on the glass.  The smell is quite delicious, with roasted, chocolately malt and citrus American hops, with a strong grapefruit kick.  Hoppy Feet tastes of burnt coffee and bitter hops, with a hint of citrus, feeling very smooth to the mouth.

Now that you know about some of the beers, feel free to stop by the cafe to try them out… as long as you are feeling unpretentious, free and a little crazy.

At Venture Cafe, we take pride in serving local craft beers.  After repeating the phrase “local craft beers” many, many times, I realized that a lot of people had no idea what the phrase meant.  In our case, local may be in the eye of the beholder, but “Craft Beer” is actually a term of art and has a specific, though changing, meaning.

A craft brewery, according to the Brewers’ Association website, is small, independent, and traditional.

• Small means that the brewery produces 6 million barrels or fewer (the website uses the term less, but that is incorrect).  This 6 million figure is new and triples the previous 2 million cap that was set in 1976.  While new resources and technology make it reasonable to increase the cap, this change happens to coincide with the Boston Beer Company’s approach to the 2 million barrel mark.  Boston Beer Company is the largest craft beer producer in the US, with Sierra Nevada trailing at just under 800,000 barrels.
• Independent means that less than 25% of the brewery is owned or controlled by an alcoholic beverage industry member that is not itself a craft brewer.
• Traditional means that the brewer’s flagship beer is made from all malts, or has at least 50% of its volume in either all malt beers, or in beers which use unmalted grains (adjuncts) to enhance rather than lighten the flavour of the beverage.

Craft brewers have distinctive characteristics.  While they use traditional ingredients like malted grains, they have a reputation for being innovative and for interpreting historical styles with a new twist.  Craft brewers also tend to be involved in their local communities through donations, philanthropy and volunteering.  Many of these small breweries have a loyal following and maintain distinctive strategies to attract and maintain customers.

American Craft Beer week is next month, May 16 – 22, and the American Craft Beer Fest will be in Boston in early June.  These and other events have raised awareness of these unique breweries and hopefully will go a long way to keep these small businesses producing the beer we’ve grown to love.

Judging from the snow that fell on March 21, spring has not yet arrived outside … but it has arrived in Venture Cafe.  Local breweries are releasing their spring seasonal beers and we are trying to catch them before they run out of hops (pun(s) intended).

This week you have the opportunity to taste the Mayflower Spring Hop beer.  Mayflower Brewery is located in Plymouth MA and this is its very first spring seasonal brew!  Spring Hop is a hoppy red ale with a strong aroma, created by four varieties of American aroma hops.  It pours a dark copper, amber color with a dense foam on top that retreats into a bubbled lace pattern on the glass as you drink.  Putting the glass to your nose, the brew smells fresh, with a notion of citrus hitting first, followed by grassy and floral hops, and then a bit of malt sweetness.  The taste follows the smell, although it’s more balanced with the hop bitterness and caramel malt sweetness followed by a more citrusy note at the end.  The beer is smooth with medium body and carbonation.  All in all, the beer is fresh and makes for very easy drinking.

Also joining us in the cafe is Berkshire Brewing Company’s Maibock Lager, released each year to celebrate the return of spring.  This Maibock Lager is made with Noble hops and its richness lies in its simultaneously sweet and spicy malt flavour.  The lager pours a classic pale amber maibock color, with a healthy dose of fine white foam on top.  To the nose, the beer hints at malt sweetness, toasty grain, and fruit.  To the tongue, the Maibock Lager introduces a light hop flavour, with hints of fruit and spice, finished off with soft bitterness and a warm alcohol taste.  The beer is medium to full bodied, with average carbonation.  This beer is a balanced but full-flavored beer.

Spring beers are a great remedy for the winter blues.  So come (too embarrassed to write “hop”) on over to Venture Cafe to lift your spirits!

I’ve run into a few people recently who are starting their own beer cellars.  To be honest, the idea is a bit intimidating to me, because “beer cellaring” sounds fancy and complicated to my ears.  After a bit of research, however, I found that it’s not so hard, and even a bit of an adventure.  If you have some patience and enjoy a little experimentation, you might give it a try!  Below I’ve outlined the basics to get you started.

Why store beer:

Beer enthusiasts store beer because they are curious and like to experiment, and probably have a preference for the flavors that come out after storage.  A lot of what happens during storage comes from esters in the beer. Esters are a by-product of ale yeast fermentation (lagers do not have esters).  As the beer sits in your cellar, esters break down, with help from yeasts, and their flavors begin to dissipate.  Hop flavors also tend to break down quickly.  As a result of these and other reactions that occur in the bottle, aged beer tends to be smoother and creamier in comparison to beer that has not been stored. Common flavors in cellared beer include chocolate, coffee, toffee and spice.

What to store: Most beers have a shelf life of three to six months, so only certain types of beers benefit from maturation – those that can be set aside for at least a year or two to develop complexities in aroma, flavor and mouthfeel.  Beers that have higher than 8% alcohol content tend to benefit most from storage  These beers include old ales, Belgian strong beers, lambics, imperial stouts, barleywines, and maybe even a big IPA.  When you go to the store, buy two of your chosen brew, because you will want to compare its characteristics before and after storage.

Where to store:

The best place to store beer is a cool, dark place.  A basement is a good option.  A refrigerator could work, but might provide an environment too dry for some beer corks – so be sure to check on humidity conditions.

Step one: Block sunlight. Glass bottles allow UV rays to come into contact with the beer, causing chemicals called isohumulones – which make beer bitter – to decompose and form compounds found in skunks’ spray. This is why beer exposed to light is called “skunked beer.”

Step two: Make sure the temperature is stable, ideally between 50-55 degrees Fahrenheit.  Colder temperatures will produce a hazy appearance and kill carbonation, flavor and aroma, while warmer temperatures shorten the lifespan of the beer.  Avoid temperature fluctuations of greater than 20 degrees.  A good rule of thumb is that beers with higher alcohol content can withstand higher temperatures while beers with lower alcohol content can be stored at lower temperatures.

Step three: Keep track of humidity.  Too little humidity will dry out the cork (more on that below), and too much humidity will produce black mold in your stored bottle.  You can use an air purifier along with a humidifier or de-humidifier depending on where you live to keep the humidity between 50-70 percent.

How to store:

Aficionados argue whether beer should be stored upright, or on its side like wine.  If stored upright, it is argued, the sediment in the beer bottle will settle to the bottom, but the cork will dry out.  Dry corks are bad because they tend to be looser in the neck and allow more air to be exchanged between the bottle and the outside climate; plus no one likes it when a cork crumbles to pieces into their beverage.  Beer stored on its side, however, could form a yeast ring in the bottle that will not settle, and constant contact with the cork can impart cork flavors on the beer.  Check out Beer Advocate for an article supporting upright storage.

When to liberate beer from storage:

There is no set time for beer storage.  Most say that beers may be stored anywhere from a couple of years to 10 years, but may deteriorate after 5 years.  Experimentation is part of the fun, so you can become the expert in the types of beers that you like.

For more information, check out:

http://lovegoodbeer.com/2009/01/the-beer-cellar-how-to-cellar-beer-and-why/

http://www.imbibemagazine.com/Cellaring-Beer

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/101/store

Last week, many of you commented positively on the Ipswich Original Ale, which was on tap at Venture Cafe for the first time.  Ipswich is a “North Shore Classic” so obviously it finds favour with the locals.  In fact, after 56 pours, the keg is almost empty so get to Venture Cafe early on Thursday if you want to catch it before it runs out!

Ipswich was originally brewed by Ipswich Brewing Company, until Rob Martin – Ipswich’s Director of Operations – bought the brewery and expanded it to become Mercury Brewing and Distribution Company.  He continued production of Ipswich Ale, but added Stone Cat Ales and Lagers, Mercury Premium Sodas, and a few contract brewing agreements to Mercury’s empire. They are @IpswitchAleBrew on the Twitters.

For those of you who missed Ipswich Original Ale, Ipswich Ale is “a medium-bodied, unfiltered English style pale ale with subtle hoppiness and a smooth malty flavour,” according to Mercury.  It pours a hazy amber/chestnut color with some head that disappears quickly.  The aroma is very bready, with wafts of floral hops and caramel malts.  Ispwich’s taste starts a bit sweet with those caramel malts, but then the taste turns towards the bready side before the big and slightly bitter hop finish.  All in all, the flavour is well-balanced, and the beer offers easy drinkability with a silky mouth-feel.

This brew is definitely worth a taste – so try it out, whether you find yourself on the North Shore or in Venture Cafe!

Prior to a recent business trip to London, I asked a friend for recommendations of British beers to sample.  He mentioned a few different names, and then advised me against cask ales, unless I enjoyed “warm, yeasty beers.”  Ever curious, I did sample a few cask ales on that trip, and enjoyed them enough to investigate further.

Cask ale, also called “Real Ale,” is an unfiltered and unpasteurised beer.  Cask ale starts off the same as any other beer, with traditional ingredients and a primary fermentation.  It is different from other beer because it undergoes a secondary fermentation conditioning and is served from a cask without additional nitrogen or carbon dioxide pressure.

After the primary fermentation, instead of being filtered or pasteurised, a cask ale is poured into the cask in its natural state, leaving behind most of the yeast except a small amount which is carried over in suspension to continue its work in the cask.  Finings – substances like egg white or milk – are added to the cask to drop the yeast and clarify the beer.  Additionally, priming sugars (for enhanced fermentation) or extra dry hops (for flavour) might be added to the brew.  Then, the beer “conditions” for some amount of time: shorter periods of days to weeks for lighter beers, longer periods like months for stronger beers.

After arrival at a pub, a cask must be left alone to clarify for 24-48 hours at temperature of 55-55 degrees.  Once the beer is settled, a soft spile is knocked into the shive (a small hole) in the cask.  A spile is a wooden peg that allows carbon dioxide to escape while controlling flow of air into the cask.  Once the bubbling around the spile, which indicates escaped carbon dioxide, has subsided, the soft spile is replaced by a hard one that does not allow air exchange, and the cask is allowed to settle once again.  This work with the spiles requires some skill to bring the beer to an appropriate level of carbonation.

Later, the pub will tap the cask.  The beer must be siphoned from the cellar by means of a “beer engine” or hand pump.  The pump is an airtight piston chamber; when the bartender pulls down on the handle, it raises the piston which drags up the beer.

Brewing cask ale can be a delicate process that is very sensitive to temperature changes and handling.  However, I found that cask ale offers a distinctive, well-rounded taste – particularly in the winter months.  Additionally, cask ale is fresh, natural and local, making it one of the more friendly beers to sample.

Newly reinstated in snowy Boston after a week in Paris, and avoiding stepping into the outside tundra, I decided now would be the perfect time to investigate French beer from the comfort of my couch.  I realize that France is better known for its other alcoholic beverages, but thought that it must boast some beer talent, with its close proximity to beer powerhouses like Germany and Belgium.

My hypothesis proved correct, and conveniently one type of beer is more influenced by German brewing while the other borrows from Belgian traditions.  These two major types of beer in France are bière d’Alsace and bière de garde.

Bière d’Alsace, not surprisingly, comes from the Alsace region of France (that would be northeastern France for those geographically challenged) right along that German border.  Most French beer is produced in Alsace, including Fischer and Kronenbourg.  These beers are mostly pale with some pilsner characteristics.  I tried Kronenbourg at a lovely sidewalk café one afternoon.  It poured a golden yellow with respectable lacing and smelled sweetly grainy and a bit hoppy.  It felt crisp and light in my mouth, and the taste revealed a nice balance of malts and hops, with some grassy notes.  I would describe it as a traditional European pale lager.

Perhaps more interesting and certainly more complex is the bière de Garde (in English, “keeping beer”), which originates from French Flanders, Picardy and the Pas de Calais in northern France.  Bière de garde was traditionally brewed from February to March and enjoyed during the summer.  This copper- to golden-coloured brew’s main characteristics are its malt accent and ale-like fruitiness, but it also has earthy and caramel notes.  The beer is spicy and strong enough to be passed off as a Belgian ale.  One very tasty bière de garde that I have sampled is called 3 Monts from the Brasserie De Saint-Sylvestre.  It comes corked and pours a bright straw color and is very clear.  It smells of yeast – earthy and spicy – and tastes of hoppy bitterness.  The taste is also earthy and maybe a little nutty, with notes of cinnamon, clove and white pepper.  This beer is very drinkable – dangerous with the high alcohol content – even though the high carbonation will make your mouth “fizzle”.

Next time you dine at a French bistro or brasserie, whether in Europe or in the Boston tundra, why not forego the predictable wine selection and investigate whether the restaurant offers these tasty beers?  You might be surprised by how well they pair with the French food!  Salut!

When it started to get cold back in November, and we were past the time appropriate for “oktoberfests,” I decided it was time to get some “winter beers” into the café.  The problem was that I didn’t really know what a “winter beer” was.  It turned out that no one really knew what defined a winter beer – although the most common characteristics include malty taste, complexity and high alcohol content.  In addition to these characteristics, some winter beers have strong fruity or spicy overtones.  Others are flavored with vanilla or chocolate.  In short, these beers tend to make one feel “cozier.”

So far, we’ve served Brooklyn Winter Ale, Wachusett Winter Ale, and Peak Organic Winter Session Ale.  Brooklyn Winter (@brooklynbrewery) is a smooth and creamy Scottish ale that hits somewhat malty and bready on the nose, and pours a clear bright amber with a small head. It has a reasonable mixture of hops to balance the sweet malty flavor. Other flavors include chocolate and caramel as well as hints of butterscotch.

Wachusett Winter (@wachusettbrew) pours a nice amber color with a white foamy head.  Wachusett Winter is also a Scottish ale, made with crystal, Munich, smoked and special malts.  The beer has a ruby color and a malty aroma.  The malts come out in the taste as well, with notes of caramel, roasted nuts and a light fruitiness.  Wachusett Brewery asserts that no spices are needed for this rich flavored brew!

Peak Organic Winter Session Ale (@peakbrewing) is a winter wheat beer that uses dark malting to produce subtle toasty flavors.  Peak Organic single-hops the beer but then also dry-hops the beer with Citra hops from a friend’s farm.  The Citra hops give the beer pineapple overtones that contrast with the toastiness of the flavor.  Winter Session pours a darkened amber color, but the brew is very clear.  The aroma contains wheat, citrus, bananas, dark malts and a good amount of hops.  The taste begins crisp and hoppy, and then rounds out with dark roasted malts and hints of caramel and roasted malts.  Thus the beginning sweetness becomes moderately bitter in the finish.

We’ll be trying out more “winter beers” in the café over the coming winter months.  What’s your winter preference?  Are you a Scottish Ale type?  A dark wheat connoisseur?  Or do you like it spicy?  Come to the café and find out!

Your friendly bartender,

Amy

For something a little different this week, I decided to go with Black Hops.  Blue Hills Brewery has created a hybrid lager-ale, based on the German Schwarzbier.  The brewery uses hops as the bittering agent rather than roasted malts used in related darker style beers like stouts and porters.   Black Hops is a hybrid because Blue Hills uses its house ale yeast to obtain full flavour, but once fermented, the ale  is “lagered” or cold-stored.  This lagering tones down the aroma produced in top fermentation.

The beer pours dark brown in color with some reddish hues, and a cream-colored head.  Before you taste the beer, note its malty and roasty aroma with hints of coffee and toffee.  The toffee and coffee come out fully in the flavour, accompanied by citrusy hops, finishing in a dry mild bitterness.  Blue Hills promises that Black Hops will delight the ale or lager customer alike, and it did receive positive critical acclaim at its Venture Cafe debut last night!  Come try it next week.

Your friendly bartender,

Amy