The Muse of
Brews
August/September 2007 Column
Congratulations Rick Skains for winning “Homebrewer of the Year” at the recent American Homebrewer Association’s National Homebrew Competition. He won best of show with an alder-smoked Bock with chipotle peppers in the Specialty Beer category. Skains, in addition to being a homebrewer and music teacher in the Cleveland schools, is the assistant brewer at Rocky River Brewing Company.
While we’re talking about RRBC, here’s what’s planned for the near future. HopGoblin is back due to popular demand. This California-influenced IPA is packed full of Simcoe, Centennial, Cascade and Warrior hops. Also planned are the Subchaser, a Bavarian hefeweizen with complex clove, vanilla and banana flavors and Hilter Kilter, a Scottish export with a caramelized malty flavor from an extended boil.
Brewer Matt Cole is preparing the following for entry into the Great American Beer Festival this year: Smokestack Porter (Silver 2006), brewed with home-smoked alder malt; Zwickel Kellerbier, a Franconian specialty beer with a full body and about 45 IBUS; Ancho Momma, a smoked porter infused with Ancho and Chipotle peppers; Neptune's Nemesis, a three-time award winner with dried fruit, roast, smoke and licorice complexity; and the Titan Triple, brewed to a whopping 8% ABV, but is light-bodied from generous additions of corn and candi sugar. Whew! That’s quite a list. I look for a few more medals!
At the BrewKettle in Strongsville, their expansion plans for the brew-on-premise are well underway, and scheduled to be up and running in early October. They are increasing capacity in their production brewery as well, and will eventually be distributing the Ringneck brand throughout Ohio. Watch for them at Madison, Wisconsin's Great Taste of the Midwest on August 12, and sign up now to participate in the 11th Annual Golfers Against Bad Beer on August 24.
Writing this in 90-plus degree heat makes me wish I could be at Kelleys Island Brewery. Located on the shore of Kelleys Island, a popular place for boaters, bicyclers, and other tourists, they are hosting their Fifth Annual Kelleys Island Daze on August 18. There will be live music, art, food, and, of course, beer! Then on September 15, they will have their annual Soup Tasting Event where you get to help decide which soups will go on next year’s menu. In addition to their regular brews: Dawg Bizkit Brown, Island Devil, Angler's Ale, and Lake Erie Lager, they now have a new Gale Force Ale.
Upcoming beers at Willoughby Brewing Company will be the Rapier Wit, Wolfgang Vienna Lager, and in September, the Abby Road Tripel. There will be a limited release in a 22-ounce bottle of the Daisy Cutter IPA as well as certain seasonals, available in the pub only, starting this fall.
At the Hoppin' Frog Brewery, they’ve added a sixth beer, the Mean Manalishi, a super-hoppy American Double IPA. It uses three times the hops of their IPA and is mash-hopped, as well as dry-hopped. Currently, five great American hops are used to make it, but as with their IPA they will take advantage of the best available hops for the season and year. It is 8.2% ABV and claims to have 168 IBUs! The Wild Frog Wheat has been so popular that he may continue brewing it into the fall. It is the smoothest of all their beers and tastes very much like a traditional German hefeweizen. These beers are now available in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and soon in West Virginia and Wisconsin.
Ohio Brewing Company reports they have started construction at their downtown Akron location and hope to open later this year.
I’ve been doing a bit of traveling lately, from two weeks in Belgium to checking out the three Belgian beer pubs in Philadelphia. While sitting in the best known of those, Monk’s Café, I picked up a copy of the June Beer Advocate magazine. There, in a list of top 50 breweries in the nation was Great Lakes Brewing Company at number 25. Further on, there was an article titled “Nine Great Beer Towns You Didn’t Know Were Great Beer Towns.” Cleveland was listed as number eight, mentioning such places as Great Lakes Brewing, Rock Bottom, the Chophouse, Winking Lizard, Der Braumeister, and Flying Monkey Pub. All great places, to be sure, but we’ve also got McNulty’s Bier Markt and the Boneyard. Then there are numerous others in nearby suburbs. We DO have a lot of choices when we want to find good beer. Especially when compared to some of the other places I’ve been traveling lately. Makes me appreciate Ohio!
A recent visit to the Buckeye Beer Engine in Lakewood found Cantillon Geueze on tap. Having just returned from a visit to Cantillon Brewery in Brussels, it was a welcome surprise. They now have Cantillon Grand Cru on tap. This is the first I’ve seen these beers on tap anywhere! Even at the brewery they were serving from the bottle. Cantillon is one of the few remaining breweries in Belgium that still uses spontaneous fermentation. They can only brew in the winter, and because of global warming, those times they can brew are getting fewer and fewer. Bet you didn’t know global warming could affect the making of beer, did you?