Good Beer 3rd Anniversary

Interview with David of Good Beer (Flash version)

Non-Flash podcast   

Good Beer celebrated its third anniversary on Nov. 9, with complimentary pours of Single Cut 19-33 Queenslagerrr! on draught. We did a very limited post on Good Beer in June of 2011, when first discovering the shop, which has become a near daily ritual. Since the summer of 2011, in addition to the already then established Bierkraft, Whole Foods and New Beer, we're seen an explosion of bottle shops/growler filling stations in NYC. Alphabet City Beer Company, Top Hops, Beer Boutique, Breukelen Beer Merchants, City Swiggers, The Jeffery -- the list goes on, and continues to grow.

David with a rich pour.

Good Beer stands out for their extremely carefully curated selection and fair prices. Their stock is about 80% American craft beer and 20% from countries with established brewing traditions, such as Germany, Belgium, the UK and Scandinavia. Patrons are welcome to purchase both bottles and growlers to go. But only sample sized glasses and pints may be enjoyed on premise, along with light snacks, as a condition set by the Community Board in approving their request for a liquor license. Their food menu consists of organic, local or heritage chorizo, kielbasa, vegan sausage, pretzels, jerky and hot dogs.

Good Beer has also become known for their fantastic events and tap take-overs: Founders, Perennial, Allagash, Dogfish Head, etc. Most of their events take place on Tuesdays during after work hours. They're very vigilant about keeping their BeerMenus listings updated, and you can keep up to date on their events and specials via their Facebook page. In this installment of the podcast, we speak to owner David, as well as some regulars who we know from the Black Top Street Hockey adult rec league, which plays in near-by Tompkins Sq. Park during the warmer months.

A surprised André.

A sign of good beer.

Allagash Rarities At Good Beer

  Allagash Rarities At Good Beer podcast on WFMU

Good Beer in the East Village hosted an "Allagash Rarities" event on Tuesday June 11, 2013, which was a busy night -- also that evening there was an Allagash/Ommegang event at Mile House, a Canadian beer tasting at Top Hops, and the one-night-only screening of The Beer Hunter, followed by an after-party at Jimmy's No. 43. I only managed the Good Beer and Jimmy's events, though B.R. made it to those and the Anthology Film Archives for the screening.

The four "rarities" of the six on tap that we tried were all sour, high in alcohol, barrel aged and a few were heavy on the Brett. We tried the Interlude first, which was the lightest in color and in flavor profile. It's saying something that a very sour, 9.5% ABV, Brettanomyces fermented beer is the lightest one in your flight! It gets a primary fermentation, before the Brett is added, from a Belgian farmhouse ale yeast. A portion of the batch is aged in French Merlot and Sirah oak barrels and, I'm assuming, blended back into rest.

Bob, B.R., and Dave of Allagash.

We found the 10.3% ABV James Bean interesting, it being a pale colored coffee flavored beer. The coffee aroma was very apparent, as was the coffee flavor. It was nicely sour, and also had some bitter bite. But we found those three main components kind of stood on their own and didn't quite meld. Still, a very interesting and tasty sour ale.

Our favorites were the Avancé (B.R.'s fave) and Midnight Brett (Bob's). Avancé is a sour pale colored ale aged with strawberries for three years in bourbon barrels! This 10.8% ABV ale was probably the most complex we tried, with a really nice sweet fruit finish. The Midnight Brett at, I'm guessing, the 10-11% ABV range employs the same Allagash Tripel ale as used in the Curieux, except that the beer is aged in dark wine barrels, which impart a smooth, enticing cherry/plum aged dark fruit characteristic. The beer is stout-black in color, from the wine barrels, and has a refreshing sourness.

 

Though we were disappointed that they didn't have the Allagash BAT tequila barrel aged beer, we really can't complain about the fantastic, extremely rare beers that were offered!
 

BAM!

UPDATE:  A few days after the event, I dropped by Good Beer and saw that the BAM, the Allagash/Beer Advocate collaboration, was still on tap -- it was one of the six that we didn't have -- so I gave it a try. And, boy, was I glad that I did! I think that it was my favorite! The BAM is a 9% ABV amber ale brewed with honey and rye malt and aged for three months in two different mead barrels, one from Artesano of VT and one from Maine Mead Works, and then blended. It was very well rounded, with its delicate, subtle complexities of honey notes, fruitiness and oak playing in concert with its mild sourness (mild compared to the others on tap, at least). This is one that you don't want to miss!

  [link to podcast page]

Weisse Weisse Baby

Review of Westbrook's Weisse Weisse Baby podcast
  [link to podcast page]

Westbrook Brewing released their Weisse Weisse Baby Berliner Weisse style beer last month, and it has finally made its way to New York. We picked up a 750ml bottle of WWB at Good Beer ($9.99 retail) this week and gave it a try.

Berliner Weisse is not a very common style, but we've had the opportunity to enjoy a number of them, both in Germany and in the U.S., both commercial beers and homebrews. Two of our all time favorites were a Strawberry Berliner Weisse at Dieu Du Ciel brewpub many years ago, and one we helped brew in the the Brooklyn backyard of our beer pal Bill "Salty Dog" Coleman ages ago. I think that's when he coined the name Brooklyner Weisse well in advance of another better known brewery from that borough!

Westbrook's 4% a.b.v. version of the style was assertively tart, refreshingly sour, and brightly effervescent, with ticklish, prickly carbonation. It poured out with a rich white foamy head that dissolved quickly into the beer, leaving only a meager residual head. Its color was a medium straw hue, expectedly hazy.

Weisse Weisse had a slight lactic note in the nose, with a hint of fruitiness and a slight cider quality, with some wheat malt notes as well. The flavor achieved a level of sourness that was deliciously balanced, melding with the somewhat cereal-like wheat malt flavor, and only a hint of hop flavor and bitterness, if that. This will definitely be found in our fridge on a regular basis once we enter that long stretch of 80+ degree weather known as summer in the city!

A difficult style to master, Berliner Weisse is at once both mild in all beer characteristics and tart/sour. Berliner Weisse is made with wheat malt (about 50% of the mash), and the wort is never brought to a boil. Since the bittering agents in hops aren't fully activated in sub-boiling temperatures, there are other ways one can get some bitterness out of the hops: one is to add hops to the mash -- useful when doing a decoction mash; another is to add the hops in a separate boil kettle, used when doing an infusion mash.

The sourness in the beer comes from lactic acid. Lactic bacteria is generally among the wild organisms naturally existing on the grain husks. Since the wort isn't boiled, many of those organisms (bacteria and wild yeast) can survive the brewing process, and, thus, figure into the fermentation, and can radically influence the characteristics of the beer. Berliner Weisse is not entirely spontaneously fermented, like lambic -- ale yeast is pitched into the cooled wort to ferment the beer, though it may be competing with some wild cousins.

The Bruery At Good Beer

[link to podcast page]

The Bruery At Good Beer podcast

Every Tuesday Good Beer on E. 9th Street in the East Village hosts a craft beer event, usually featuring a number of beers from one particular brewery. On April 16, 2013, The Bruery of Orange Country, CA was the guest of honor, with six of their unique barrel aged beers on tap. 

The Bruery (named for owners the Rue family) was founded in 2008, and is one of the largest producers of barrel aged craft beer in America. Having so many of their beers on tap in one place at one time is very special -- most associate them with their bottle conditioned offerings.

Good Beer was packed at 6:30pm on a Tuesday with people thirsty for a taste of the often hard to find and generally expensive American sours. Those lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time also got a taste of bottle conditioned Papier, the Bruery's 1-year anniversary brew. Four years down the road, it was dark, rich, deep, complex, nicely oxidized, and was a welcome additional surprise! Thanks to Mike of Union and David of Good Beer for sharing!

Full house on a Tuesday!

Pumpkin Podcast 1

[link to podcast page]
WFMU's Beer Hear! with Bob W. and B.R. from 10/22/2012

The leaves are changing color, the air is getting brisker and we're starting to get hit with Christmas ads. That must mean that it's almost Halloween! It's the time of year for that popular seasonal drink, the pumpkin beer.

Pumpkins were used to make beer by early Americans in lieu of malted barley, which wasn't as easy to get as the bountiful native orange fruit. And while most people connect the flavors of cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg as pumpkin flavor, the actual flesh of the fruit doesn't impart any of those flavors. When using pumpkin meat in a mash, it's safe to say that most of the actual flavor and aroma of the fruit will be lost in the mashing and boiling of the wort.

It's pumpkin pie flavors that usually dominate the seasonal pumpkin beers, and some are subtle, some are heavily over spiced, and some get it just right.
We'll taste and review seven different pumpkin beers -- all ales -- in a two-segment Pumpkin Podcast. For the first installment, we taste Captain Lawrence Pumpkin Ale (5.5% abv), Blue Point Pumpkin Ale (6% abv) and Carton Brewing's Pumpkin Cream Ale (9% abv).

What's Bob Drinking Now?

This is a new feature that we're trying out. Maybe we can get a "What's B.R. Drinking Now?" version created, too!

So, for a long, long time, Smuttynose Star Island Single would be the beer you'd see on this page. And it still does show up in the fridge on a regular basis.


But right now it's the Southampton Abbot 12 that I can't get enough of! After cleaning out the shelves at Good Beer, I took two off of the shelves at New Beer tonight (and sampled the Mikkeller Elliot Brew, a collaboration with Struise of Belgium, which was on tap tonight).

The Abbot 12 won a Gold Medal at the 2005 Great American Beer Festival and is described by the brewery as: "A strong, dark ale with notes of raisins, figs, and caramel, and a pronounced “dark rum” character. Deceptively smooth at 10.5% alcohol, this strong ale is ideal as an after-dinner sipping brew."

This bottle listed a 9.9% abv with an original gravity of 22.5 plato, and poured out with a generous lingering tan head. The dark aged fruit aromas wafted up and brought to mind rich brown malts, mixing with some background yeast spiciness. The flavor was candi-sugar sweet, with the slightest hint of cocoa/dark chocolate, a little alcohol as it warmed brought to mind rum, sweetly blanketing the mouth with its rich, thick body. This beer reminds me of Westvleteren, and that's not a comparison made often, if at all.

This beer is the perfect accompaniment to a crisp, cool fall evening, sipped slowly along with a snack of nutty, sharp, aged Holland gouda. I think that I'm going to need a case of this beer to survive the coming winter.