961 Beer

When one finds themselves running for safety from incoming rocket explosions and mortar attacks, your first thought is not usually “I should start a brewery.”  Yet this seems to be precisely the experience of Mazen Hajjar, founder of Lebanon’s 961 Brewery, during the July 2006 Lebanon War.

Hajjar, who was recently interviewed by the Washington Post’s Greg Kitsock, describes the scene: “The electricity was off; I was sitting on my balcony reading the first chapter of Beer School by Steve Hindy and Tom Potter.  That’s when I thought, ‘Eureka!’”  Now several years later, this eureka moment has been transformed into a fledgling brewery that has exported its beer to 14 countries, including 12 U.S. states.

I was curious about Hajjar’s brews as my own experience with Middle-Eastern beer – Almaza (Lebanese pilsner) and Efes (Turkish pilsner) – was not impressive.*  Yet 961’s five brews (Lebanese pale ale, golden lager, red ale, witbier, and porter) appeared to be a departure from the standard Mid-East pilsners which had so disappointed.

So off I went to track the five down, which was much easier than expected; a quick stop at Total Wine and I was set.  I enjoyed all five over the course of this past weekend, jotting down a few notes after my first or second sip.  Here, in the order I drank them, are my thoughts on each:

- Lebanese Pale Ale: earthy and bitter, slightly hoppy, with a dry and malty finish; 961’s flagship beer and the most interesting of their varieties.

- Red Ale: medium bodied, lightly sweet and mellow; an excellent ale.

- Lager: dry and light-medium bodied; crisp, but not overly so.

- Witbier: light and sweet, champagne colored; lighter than other wits, but lacking complexity as well.

- Porter: evenly bitter and medium bodied and goes down easily; a good representation of the porter style of beer.  If you’ve never had a porter, this would be a great introduction.

In terms of variety alone, 961 is ahead of other regional brewers by leaps and bounds.  In terms of quality too, they have several wonderful brews that should find success in the crowded international market of beer.  Their Red Ale and Lager are both fine tasting beers and their Lebanese Pale Ale, while an acquired taste, will likely begin appearing on the menus of kabob houses and Mid-East cuisine restaurants alike.

I was surprised by the quality, but also somewhat disappointed. The witbier lacked body and complexity as compared to others I’ve tried.  Yet here I’ll give 961 a pass on this point, as I was most excited about the wit as that style is one of my favorites and likely set my expectations too high.

961 is a welcome addition to the otherwise ordinary choices from that region. One can hope they are the first of many to come.

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* Admittedly, I do have fond memories of drinking Efes while smoking hookah during my time in Iraq, however strictly speaking, it is fairly unremarkable brew.  That said, it was perfectly fine at the time – pickings were slim and any beer was better than none.

Global Beer Competitio​n

Much was written a few weeks ago on the U.S. Department of Justice’s move to block the potential merger between global beer giants AB Inbev and Grupo Modelo.  I, too, considered writing on the situation, but just wasn’t able to find an angle from which to comment.  The story largely fell from the news cycle, and I moved on in search of another topic better suited to The Hip Flask’s appreciation of drinking culture.

National Public Radio’s Caitlin Kenney got me thinking about the story again, this time in an entirely new manner.  Kenney’s article centers upon a great world map showing the various brands owned by the world’s top two beer conglomerates, the aforementioned AB Inbev and Grupo Modelo.  When combined, their brands total 210 in 42 countries.  Below the map appears a listing of the various brands owned by each company (separately identified by color) and alphabetized by country.

Both the map and list are helpful, but in different ways.  As I wrote previously, “developing world” (i.e., second and third world) beer sales are skyrocketing, a fact the map clearly highlights.  Although “the fastest growing beer market in the world right now is China, and several South American markets are growing rapidly as well,” the high concentration of SABMiller brands in Africa and Central America further reiterates my earlier point.

While the geographic depiction is interesting for its own sake – I love looking at maps, most any maps – more interesting to note are the countries in which the two conglomerates do not own many brands, namely Germany and Belgium.

Germany and Belgium are important to this discussion for two reasons: first, they are the top two producers of beer brands;* second, the two only account for a combined 20 of AB Inbev and MillerCoors brands (<10%). Logically, this means the vast majority of brands in the two countries are independently owned or owned by smaller corporations (other than the aforementioned super-conglomerates).  Unfortunately, independent/non-conglomerate ownership tends to translate into difficulty in finding those brands here in the states.  Therefore many German and Belgian brews – likely some of their best – are not easily procured.

While some may find the map and corresponding list of brands helpful as a starting off point for exploring beers from around the world, others may prefer to use it for the opposite purpose – as a pocket “do not buy” list to help them avoid mass produced beer in favor of beer produced by smaller breweries.  It might be more work and cost a few dollars extra, but you might find a new favorite, and perhaps have another excuse to take a vacation to visit an ages-old brewery.

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* There isn’t a clear answer when attempting to determine the exact number of beer brands produced in Belgium and Germany.  Numbers vary between sources and oftentimes the terms “brand” and “brewery” are confused.  Most sources agree, however, that Germany and Belgium are the top two producing nations, with the Czech Republic or Austria rounding out the top three.

Graphic credit: Caitlin Kenney and Lam Thuy Vo / NPR

The Mad History of American Brewing

The Anheuser-Busch brewery in its early years,
St. Louis, Missouri

Tom Dibblee’s self-professed (and entirely perplexing*) love of Bud Light Lime was the initial draw to his Los Angeles Review of Books article on William Knoedelseder’s Bitter Brew: The Rise and Fall of Anheuser-Busch and America’s King of Beer.

Granted, Dibblee answers that question – eloquently and honestly, in fact – but that’s not what I took away from the article.  Rather, it was the ancillary facts, the words forming the context, history, and personality of the men at the center of America’s early brewing empire.  What I learned from the article was this: since its inception, American mass-produced beer has never been good, even to those producing it.

While Dibblee decided to review Knoedelseder’s book because of his “loyalty to Bud Light Lime,” I decided to discuss Dibblee’s article based on the hilarity (intentional or not) of various quotations regarding the quality of American beer for much of the last century.

Consider the following from Dibblee’s review:

[Eberhard] Anheuser had been making a bad beer, a beer that ‘was so foul tasting that tavern owners were accustomed to patrons spitting it back across the bar at them.’

Schlitz collapsed thanks to an additive they’d used to speed up fermentation, a chemical that led to the build-up of a mucus-like substance in a can of Schlitz that sat too long on the shelves.

The litany of AB novelty drinks: ‘Chelada Bud, Michelob Ultra Lime Catcus, and Michelob Ultra Tuscan Orange Grapefruit, and — yes — Bud Light Lime.’

Miller Lite’s first tagline: ‘All you ever wanted in a beer.  And less.’

On Anheuser-Busch’s executives: ‘Nobody there even wanted to make light beer to begin with, and August III…didn’t even like how Bud Light tasted.’

While hilarious, these quotations point to a larger question: when has American mass-produced beer ever been good?  From what I can tell, the story can be summarized as such: start with a bad product; cut corners to produce a worse product; lower the bar in order to beat competitors; produce lousy substitutes or alternatives; then, when your product is inexplicably successful, don’t believe in it.  All of which points to: no – American mass market beer has never been good.

Fortunately, American microbrewers came along, and fed up with decades of swill, decided to focus on quality, not quantity, thereby transforming the landscape of American beer.  Which adds a bit of irony to this history, as it was quality Adolphus Busch was likely seeking when he “went out and bought ‘the recipe for a beer that for years had been produced by monks in a small Bohemian village named Budweis.’”

What I call quality, Dibblee calls authenticity and soul.  Those of us who truly drink beer for beer’s sake (and not drinking’s sake) indeed recognize these characteristics.  Which includes Dibblee too, who when summarizing Knoedelseder, even concedes it applies to his beloved Bud Light Lime:

“But there’s nothing time-honored and cozy about a product like Bud Light Lime, and Knoedelseder implies that Anheuser-Busch let itself slip somewhere along the way into what the average sophisticate will recognize as soulessness.”

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* I have tried Bud Light Lime only once, when it was purchased for me at a ballgame.  I thought it better to accept, rather than offend, and I couldn’t finish it.  Calling it “beer-light” is generous.  So my first impluse was to judge Mr. Dibblee on his love of such putridity.  Yet, his explanation is admirable and worth repeating.  He explains:

“I wrote earlier that I like BLL [Bud Light Lime] because it helps me shed the burden of sophistication.  What I meant by that was, with a BLL in hand, I am free to say out loud that I like the singer Adele.  And that I think high-end cheese makes for a boring topic of conversation.  And that I can see the problem everyone has with Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close…I know some writers who I think are hemmed in by their sense of sophistication, by the fact that they know they shouldn’t like Adele, or Foer, or Bud Light Lime, and who, as a consequence, write in a frightened, soul-stunted way.”

I commend Dibblee’s bravery in admitting he enjoys something he knows he shouldn’t.  And yet his enjoyment remains perplexing.

Not the Swedish Chef

As much as the fumbling language, big hair, and overwhelming gesticulations would have you believe, it’s not the Swedish Chef (of Muppets fame) hawking Old Milwaukee beer on Swedish television, it’s Will Farrell.

Hollywood stars hawking products overseas isn’t anything new, but the combination of factors– Farrell’s 1970s-style mustache (straight of out Semi-Pro, a real stinker) and Lonely Island’s “I’m on a Boat”-like setting, sans T-Pain – make these commercials nonsensically hilarious.

According to Esquire (linking from Slate.com), “Ferrell rattles off a few lines in Swedish — translation: ‘This is my boat. This is my woman. And this is my beer. Old Milwaukee. It’s all right.’”

After a bit more research, I learned that Ferrell has also cut several other commercials for Old Milwaukee broadcasted in limited areas only, specifically North Platte, Nebraska, Terre Haute, Indiana, and Devenport, Iowa.  These domestic-market ads are thankfully, no less ridiculous.

MSN.com, on the other hand, apparently doesn’t find the humor of Farrell’s love of cheap American beer: “Ever wonder what celebrities get up to in their spare time? Making cringe-worthy TV ads to be aired in other countries, probably. In fact, we’re wondering if there’s an entire ‘Lost in Translation’-like backstory to this Will Ferrell ad for Old Milwaukee, which was broadcast only in Sweden and shows a sunburned, mustachioed Ferrell jumping around with a can of beer.”

I only have one question: Does Old Milwaukee truly intend to expand sales into Scandinavia, or was this simply a gimmick to increase sales here in the states?  Vi kommer förmodligen aldrig veta.

Bananaweiz​en

What’s to say about the often overlooked beer cocktail after the dog days of summer’s end?  Admittedly, not much.  Unless you’re discussing a shandy during the hottest days of the year, most drinkers are probably uninterested or more disappointingly, unadventurous.

Yet you, dear reader, are neither: you are always looking for new drinking experiences, a novel cocktail or brew to educate and delight your company and companions, one that demonstrates your knowledge of the world of drinking to friends and colleagues alike; because you pride yourself on your drinking wisdom, and rightfully so.

Let us consider then a beer cocktail from Germany, aptly named the Bananaweizen.  Its ingredients are simple: any hefeweizen or hefeweizen-style wheat beer and a banana juice, also called banana nectar.  Mix in a soda/pint glass, and there you have it.  Simple enough, no?

Seeking to stay true to heritage, I bought a bottle of Hacker-Pschorr Hefe Weisse and a bottle of Paulaner Hefe Weizen to use as the cocktail’s base.  And I was able to find a can of Goya Banana Nectar in the “international” aisle of a local grocery.  (If that doesn’t work, try the juice/soda aisle – I’ve found it there, too.)

When it comes to proportions of bananaweizen components I tried both a 4-1 and 5-1 beer to juice ratio mix and much preferred the 4-1: if you really enjoy overpoweringly sweet drinks – I’m thinking here of Riesling-level sweetness, another fine German product – you’ll likely want to avoid the 5-1 ratio.

Unless you’re very secure in your masculinity or are willing to endure some moderate mockery from friends, I’d stick to enjoying this cocktail before lunchtime.  Consider it a clever way to enjoy a beer for breakfast.  Otherwise, you’re putting your man card at risk of revocation.