FERMENTED TABLES: North America

By: MJ

In my mission statement there was the clause “experiencing what comes to life’s fermented table”. Undoubtedly this topic will be saturated with the ancient elixir we know as beer, but anything that ferments is fair game. This list and the PHOTOS: Beer and Brewing North America gallery will be added to as we travel through what remains of the region. There will be a new post and gallery for each new region. Share any responses, advice, tips or insights in the comments section below!

I have been home brewing since about the Fall/Autumn of 2012, on the advice of my wife and being immersed in an accessible culture of brewing. The closest brewery to home was 400m away and the hub of the town’s home brewing club. Not to drop or prop any names, but the Weiz Guys Hombrewing Club have got their act together. Got a day of brew education and first batch assist from a workmate’s husband who had bought the 10 gallon brew system from the couple we knew who were preparing to depart on a world trip. Long story in one sentence right there. Many batches later I am still a home brewer – less of a hack than an apprentice perhaps.

(In making recommendations the site owner may receive a commission if a purchase is made on any of the following links. Unfortunately beer is not a commission in this case.)

About six months prior to departing on this trip while in our local library, I stumbled across a book titled “The United States of Beer”, by Dane Huckelbridge. As a homebrewer, I suspected it would answer some questions I didn’t have at the time, and some that I did.

The book traces the history of how beer moved around and influenced the growing nation and the politics and infrastructure of the US. It provided great topical leads to investigate on this adventure, and nourished a greater appreciation of how we arrived at our current craft beer scene in the US. The author wrote very frankly and freely about the topic which was both appreciated and suitable.

This post will contain a list of breweries and beers and beer related experiences had in the North American region of the trip. It is quite an informal list, and one that serves to both prompt and preserve memories.`

1. Stella Artois: The beer we cracked in deciding to stay across the street on departure day. This beer was about stopping, taking a last evening with friends, and getting a more relaxed start on day two.
2. A Coffee Porter: I think it was Deschutes or Sierra Nevada, but can’t find it online  nor remember. Camping on the last night in Colorado we were ditching some duplicate gear. Two German guys were just across the road camping so I took the gear to them and they took the extra stuff – tea towels, squirt bottles, camelback, and something else I can’t recall. As I turned to go they told me to wait, and asked if I would accept a beer in exchange. Damn right. We had not brought any and it had been a long driving day. Paired well with the campfire and fading light.
3. Moab Brewery, UT: Stopped for lunch on the way out and to do a bit of organizing. Tasted two each. Notably all around 4-5% ABV, but this is Utah (appreciate history and social context), and suitable for the heat and activity in the area.
4. Long Beach, CA: Laguinitas is the beer of choice around here as it was encountered it quite frequently. Notably their IPA which I have not verified as the best selling IPA in the world. Am familiar with them having a friend who is rabid about Lil’ Sumthin’ Sumthin.
5. Ballast Point Brewery (CA gathering): Worked through their selection of lighter beers which hit the spot and settled on something mid range that I repeated to end the session. Need to write these things down at the time it seems.
6. Firestone Walker Brewing (Cambria area): Being familiar with their distributed beers, I went with the rotating taps. A no brainer really. Had the Schwarzbier as I had brewed a good one serially over the last few years. Of the four tasted I’d recommend a pint of the Luponic Distortion IPA.

   

7. First home brew of the trip was by a friend in San Francisco –  Foster’s IPA brewed on a small system in few gallon size due to space constraints. Easy to down sessionable beer while talking a bit on dry hopping a home brew.
8. Anchor Steam (Jack’s at the Cannery): A bittersweet beer at first – unable to get to visit the Anchor Steam Brewery on other side of town due to time constraints, but lightened by a return to a familiar place from 2003 visit to this area. Again this turned into a golden moment with the good vibe and timing perfect to stay awhile.
9. Russian River Brewing (Santa Rosa): A visit to the source of Pliny the Elder, where that is all they have in the bar fridge despite having plenty of their brews on tap. Had lunch there also. The Elder is even great a bit warm, straight from the bottle once at campsite.
10. Castello di Amorosa (the castle winery) in Napa: Too late for an official tour we walked ourselves around a few areas. Tasted five of their red wines as part of the ticket. Bought two bottles for the road. Feels like a real castle but modernized, speaking from some experience as a child being dragged to cathedrals in England. Take ‘hard’ out of cathedrals and you have castle. 
11. Daryl house beers were a mix of local Portland and Oregon beers via kegerator and 22oz samples. All tasty and rewarding after a long drive. A little disappointed I didn’t get time to see a hop farm on way there, nor actually sit in at a local or explore the scene in the short time there. 
12. Fire Mountain Grill: After a day at Mt St Helens, a red ale of the Bigfoot kind being in Bigfoot country.
13. North Sound Brewery near house in Anacortes: I picked up two crowlers. One an imperial red… a style that I am quite partial to. Which is an understatement. Small but open feeling bar on a hot day and would like to have stayed a bit longer, but it had been a long day. Asked if they gave any AHA discounts, and owner was drinking with friends so barmaid asked him. He said that since my name was beer related he’d give me 10% off. Not much AHA recognition or bonus outside Colorado it seems – I wonder if these are business > brewer originated or driven.
14. Hops Museum at Toppenish in WA: Nothing to drink, but plenty to read and look at. Quiet and an interesting mix of machinery, photographs, merchandise, history video, murals and literature. Odd thing is that driving through the Yakima Valley I could not spot one hops bine, but only fruit groves, from the highway. 
15. Spinnakers at Victoria: A time and place to catch up with family over some tasters and an early dinner. A good selection. Again… need to write them down or take a photo! Which I did of the entrance where we stood waiting.

    

16. Elk brewery, Banff. One of those beers that it didn’t matter what it was because it was at the perfect time. FYI Canadian long weekends are dry weekends at campsites in Canadian National Parks. 
17. Huckleberry Larger: in Glacier NP. We had been playing hard for a week and it was raining inconsistently all day. We went a bit past our campsite on our way back from the East side of Glacier Park to get something from the McDonald Lake store. What we got and finished was a six pack of huckleberry larger… which kept us talking until we were game enough to dash for the wet tent.
18. 14 Lakes Brewery, MN. We had a bit of a problem getting a kayak organized for the day, and it so happened that this brewery was about a mile from the rental place and we had two hours to kill. So we sat and played some outdoor games and had some tasters with a snack lunch.
19. Cuyuna Brewery, Crosby MN. So after the kayak trip we returned to Crosby to try what this brewery had. We had actually walked in the day before, but had neither the time nor means to stop and taste and decide on a growler (no crowlers at this location at that time). So we arrived at our guests sans beer and after some tense moments in the car trying to navigate in an unfamiliar town and state to resolve the dilemma.
20. Third Space Brewing: As we started to look around the Mars Cheese Castle, we came across a table with beer samples being handed out. We instantly figured that Wisconsin was onto something. There were three to sample, so we tried and compared one each. Their Java Blanca (Coffee Cream Ale) was outstanding. So we asked about where to buy it, which we did and took to camp that night. Treat yo self.
21. A long hot day, but not a long drive compared to others, landed us at Catawba Brewing. We tasted a flight, then a pint being Wall-eyePA since we were there a while. Then family toured us around the area, before ending local prior to big day at Cedar Point. Local being with Kevin who had on hand a 5th generation rye beer he brews with family as tradition with a nice label of something like Charles Ryehart Wilson, which was the only obscure yet regal real person (actor 70 yrs ago?) they could find with rye in the name. I probably got that name wrong so don’t bother looking it up.
22. LargerHeads in Medina has some quite good beers to style but display no awards. This is like most other breweries I have scoured the walls of since leaving Colorado. So they are either medal heavy in Colorado, or elsewhere they simply don’t have or display any for whatever reason. But what of the GABF?! Enter your beers!
23. Masthead Brewing on a dank CLE afternoon. They had a pizza kitchen within the large tap room. A lot of space. I’d call it a huge taproom. For whatever reason the vibe was more of a ‘create your own’ scenario than a particular given vibe. Which I agree is an unusual assessment, but maybe a product of it being quiet there at the time in such a large space.
24. On Tap Medina: This is one of those places where you come with lesser expectations of the beer than the list of beers. But the beauty is that if you read carefully you can dig through the list and find a gem. That day the gem was the Mosaic Shake from Rhinegeist Brewery: a milkshake IPA (unofficial style) that deserves a shot at on the next brew day. I’ll hunt some down to get a better sense of the style. 
25. Ohio Beer Week – Athens Last Call Festival. Well what did we stumble upon here? A street festival to end Ohio Beer Week! The college and Halloween famed town hosted a brick lined Court Street festival complete with early evening rain shower to cool things down. We hit it lightly before and after a wedding reception we were attending.
26. Little Fish Brewing: On the advice of the bride, we found this location to check out the family oriented events, their Rugrat Ginger Ale… and actual beers. We had a lively discussion with the bartenders about travel and brewing and the AHA etc, before heading back to our campsite.

    

27. Crafted Drafts: This small but bountiful store has a few taps to test select beers on, and a whole assortment of craft beers in 4-6 packs and single bottles. Good to see a bit of Colorado represented in Avery, Left Hand, and New Belgium. Quite a few European beers and many Belgian and farmhouse style ales. I picked up a coffee red 6 pack and a single dessert mint stout.
28. Nashville: This great city got a pass on being judged on beer. If you come here looking for beer, you may be looking for the wrong thing. There was a limited and more commercial list of beer available in the places we happened to visit, and we did not seek out any breweries. There are plenty it seems, and I regret that I did not get to visit the Honky Tonk Brewing Company, because that is an awesome name. We did have a six pack of a fruity IPA called the Luau from Terrapin Beer Co. based in Georgia – this we picked up at a gas station not far from our Nashville campsite.
29. Asheville in North Carolina is a bit of a beer friendly area. We stopped at UpCountry Brewing to burn some time before our New Belgium tour later in the afternoon. We did that tour (just to get 2/2 tours for that company and a different slide experience). The next day we came across the beautiful and expansive Sierra Nevada Brewery – another east coast second location brewery like New Belgium. Copper kettles are quite something.
30. Roanoke, Virginia: We met some family at Big Lick Brewing, which reminded us of a Loveland brewery in name, but it had quite a different style. 
31. Hershey is known for something besides beer. But it also relies on fermentation of the cocoa bean. Everything you need to know about that if you click here .
32. At The MET in New York there was a quite amazing ancient Egypt section, which included models (from the period 2009-1998 BC!) of a bakery and brewery. The first line of the description says “An overseer with a baton sits inside the door.” Keepin’ it real I guess.
33. Virginia: Second time around we had time to visit some local breweries with family as we settled in to prepare to head internationally. We spent some time at South St Brewery, Starr Hill Brewery, and Blue Mountain Brewery. The scene in Virginia is solid – you’d need to be there all summer because there’s also a ton of wineries.
34. Monticello (see the back of the US nickel) was Thomas Jefferson’s estate and since he had lived in France as US Ambassador he was quite partial to wine. He only imported it in glass flasks because he did not tolerate how barrels had wine siphoned off and then topped up with water by any number of middlemen on the transit from France. He also had beer, brewed on site using wheat or corn, not barley. He didn’t care much for brewing recipes as he had duly noted (he was the scientific kind) that there was too much variability. He did have a ratio for hops:grains, being 3/4 pound hops for every bushel (21-27kg or 48-60Lb) of grain. Martha brewed 15 gallons every two weeks for him… or the estate anyhow.

35. The beer side of things in North America ended with a local beer from Starr Hill – a maple brown ale called Last Leaf. Suitable title given we exited in September. Then as a transition of style, and something that leaned to the bottom fermentation side of things to come, a Lucky Buddha (China) in the Houston airport between connecting flights. Suitable name, methinks.

North America does well with beer. But let’s not forget wine and chocolate and bread!