ABV magazine Fall 2017

BAR0NESS OF BOOZE /// THE BOOKSHELF
THE LITTLE BOOK OF
CRAFT BEER
By Melissa Cole (Hardie Grant Books)
A Statistical Breakdown
Total number
of beers
featured in the
book
Of those,
number of
beers from the
United States
Number of
beers from
California
Number of
beers from
the Bay Area
100
...13
.....7
.....4
THOUGHTS ON BREWDOG
They gave the UK brewing industry a
boot up the bum, and they invest in
training their staff well in their retail
outlets.
LAST TIME YOU HAD A BEER THAT
GAVE YOU A HOLY SH*T MOMENT
I had a number at the recent
Beavertown Extravaganza (held in
London): Burning Sky Cuvée 13 was
one of those beers where you just
stop talking and breath in its elegance,
same with Wild Beer’s barrel-aged
Ninkasi. Mikkeller San Diego’s fruited
coffee Berliner Raspberry Blush just
scrambled my brain because it was so
wrong but so right, same with Garage
Project’s Wabi Sabi’s — it tasted like it
had a 3.5% ABV and was actually more
Iike 7.5%; Lost & Grounded’s Running
with Sceptres, Lervig’s Cucumber Lager
and Bagby Beer’s Sweet Ride Kolsch
were all blessed clean reliefs between
bonkers beers, and a whole can of
Beavertown Neck Oil at the end was
just perfect. I could go on just about the
beers at that festival over one weekend.
HOW A BREWER CAN GRAB HER
ATTENTION NEXT TIME MELISSA
COLE JUDGE’S YOUR BEER
Brew clean, that’s the starting point for
any judging. It’s a slightly depressing
way to have to approach beer but
we are always looking for the faults
first, then flavor balance and then
drinkability.
Even with extreme beers, if the phrase,
“It’s nice but I wouldn’t want more than
a mouthful,” comes from more than
two judges on the table, it’s unlikely to
advance to medals.
POINTERS: if you’re entering a specific
style category, brew to style and don’t
try and cheat the judges; it just pisses
us off when we get an IPA in the pale
ale category for example.
Second, if you are entering a category
where a description is requested …
give the damn description! You’ve
spent all that money on making the
beer, possibly putting it in barrel,
having it sit around wasting space and
capital, paid the money to enter it, but
you can’t take one minute to type one
sentence like: “Barrel-aged with Brett
on apricots and rosemary,” or whatever
the hell it is?
You may notice the last one really
annoys me...
THREE THINGS MOST BREWERIES
AND TAP ROOMS GET WRONG
Training, training, training — if you
don’t train your staff you won’t
keep them, they won’t be good
ambassadors, and they won’t care, and
that will transmit to your customers.
If I am standing in a tap room and asking
about a beer on the list and the staff
can’t tell me, it’s not their fault, it’s the
owner’s — that’s where the buck stops.
DO THE TOP 100 BEERS FEATURED IN
HER BOOK STILL STAND?
Yes and no! The no because I’ve tried
another 100 amazing beers since then
but the yes is that these things are
never perfect, they are subjective and
there are some stunning world classics
in there that never go out of style!
SIERRA NEVADA TORPEDO EXTRA
IPA: BEST SONG TO LISTEN TO WHILE
ENJOYING A PINT?
The Eagles’ “Take It Easy.”That’s what
you should do with that fabulous but
dangerous beer!
24 Fall 2017