Generik's Tap: Beer Events

Michigan Brewing Co featured at The Map Room Beer School

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 17:38:34 GMT

This past Saturday was Beer School at the Map Room in Chicago and was originally going to be based on beers from Michigan breweries. My dad was planning on collecting cases of beer from a variety of Michigan breweries and wound up with 10 from Michigan Brewing Co. So for the first time ever, Beer School at the Map Room was dedicated to one single brewery. Most people are not going to be familiar with Michigan Brewing as they have a pretty limited distribution network currently for their own branded beers. But some of you may be at least familiar with the Celis line that I have reviewed earlier. Those at least are getting outside of Michigan to a few markets.

The event went off very nicely started with 3 beers from the Celis line-up and then moving to 7 of Michigan Brewing Co's own line. The Celis beers were probably the best received overall, but there were some notable beers from the standard line-up as well. To start their wheat beer was one of the very best American wheats I have ever had. I generally tend to be very critical on the American wheat style, finding it very bland and a pale mockery of the German hefeweizen it is trying to emulate. This beer though was very crisp and refreshing with a nice amount of citrus and some hints of spice similar to what you would expect in a Belgian wit. The India Pale Ale was also very well done. A very well crafted hop profile that was more citrusy paired a fairly sweet malt backbone made it a treat to sample.

Supposedly Michigan Brewing beers will be available at all Meijer stores in the near future, so hopefully if you live near a Meijer's you will have access to these beers soon. After Beer School we went to the Goose Island brewpub for a nightcap. I specifically wanted to get back as there is a good possibility that the brewpub will be closing at the end of the year. Apparently the lease is coming due and the owner has raised the rent drastically. So after 20 years this landmark brewpub may be closing it's doors for good. There is a glimmer of hope that a late deal can be struck and this whole mess can be avoided. So hopefully they work it out and the brewpub stays operational for many more years to come. Anyway, while there I tried their 20th Anniversary Ale, which I am told was an ESB. It was amazing to say the least. A ton of flavors and one I wish was readily available in bottle. They did bottle it as part of their 20th Anniversary Collection and I kind of want to kick myself for not trying to buy a bottle. I also tried their Harvest Ale which was very good and nicely hopped. And I got to take a sip of someone's Beerhunter Brown Porter (Dedicated to Michael Jackson R.I.P) which was outstanding. If it had been more in the fall or winter months I would have had a pint of it.

All in all, a very fun weekend spent up in Chitown.

The great swill weekend

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 18:43:30 GMT

This past weekend (yes, I am late to post on this) was partially spent at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Thankfully I didn't go to the abomination that the Allstate 400 turned out to be, but I did go there on Saturday for qualifications. My buddy Bill hooked me up with a ticket to get in as well as a pass to the Miller Lite Party Pavilion. So what does one get in the Miller Lite Party Pavilion? Swill.

Once you were admitted in you were strapped with a bracelet that had 3 stubs for a free beer attached that you could redeem at one of the many beer stations. Your choices were Miller Lite or MGD. This was being held in the courtyard behind the Pagoda at the track and had a large outdoor area as well as a spacious indoor area. Indoors was where the options got a little better. First off there was decent food. Fried chicken, fired biscuits and apple butter, cole slaw and green beans, all very good. Around the room was a plethora of different beer that was being sampled. Miller Chill, MGD 64, Peroni, Leinenkugel's (more on that in a bit), Pilsner Urquel and Sparks Energy. You could pretty much drink as much of these beers as you wanted, just in small sample sizes. From my perspective most were not worth drinking at all. Chill tastes like what I remember Zima tasting like, MGD 64 is almost carbonated water and Peroni is just horrible. I didn't bother with the Sparks but did spend some time at the Leinenkugel booth.

Now I have been known to talk about how I think Leinenkugel makes a pretty respectable product given the price point they sell at. But I was somewhat dumbstruck by what I saw them doing at this event. They had 4 beers available to sample, Sunset Wheat, Berry Weisse, Honey Weisse and Summer Shandy. You can probably already see that the selection is very fruity.. something Miller had campaigned against not too long ago interestingly enough. But the insanity started when the girls working the booth started asking us if we had ever had a 'honey bear' or various other names.. basically made up drinks using different Leinies beers mixed together. Such as Honey Weisse and Berry Weisse together. I would say I was disappointed by this marketing tactic to say the least.

We went out later that night to the Staging Lanes bar in Clermont to see a band that Bill's friend was a drummer for. Staging Lanes is a total dive bar and I wound up drink Coors' Banquet all night for $2 a bottle. It's a bad sign when that was the best I could come up with to avoid drinking mixed drinks. We had fun at least and the band totally rocked with a great mix of cover songs.

Indiana Microbrewer's Festival 2008

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:08:06 GMT

This is the first year I have been able to attend the Indiana Microbrewer's Festival, and I am kicking myself for having missed the previous 12. I had this grandiose idea of bringing a notebook and recording a list of everything I sampled with a simple thumbs up or down indicator next to each. But in the end I decided that I really didn't want to be burdened with keeping track of unlimited samples and fumbling around with a handful of stuff.

We arrived to the Opti-Park area closer to 3 then I originally wanted to, more like 2:45, and still hadn't parked. We got really fortunate though and parked along the street that would make up the back wall of the event and only had a short one block walk to get to the entrance. The line of people waiting to get in was enormous and having been to multiple beer festivals elsewhere, we were wondering why nobody was allowed in prior to 3. They could have easily gotten this massive amount of people off the street and onto the grounds, then at the appointed time signaled that beer could be poured and avoided some of the hassle. It's a minor complaint as that line was jet fast once it opened, but it could have been even smoother if they had opened the gates at say 2:30 and allowed people to at least enter the park.

The first beer the Womanizer and myself had when we walked in was Darkhorse Double Crooked Tree IPA, a 13.6% beast of a DIPA that goes for about $14 / 4 pack at the liquor store. To be honest I was utterly shocked to see something like that pouring and that is just a testament to how great the beer selection was. I would say I easily sampled over 75 beers and there was only two I didn't like. One of those I went so far as to actually dump out, I found it that horrible, but being from one of the smaller Indiana breweries I am going to leave them anonymous. The other beer I hated.. Three Floyd's Darklord.

I waited in line about half an hour with my dad and I had my wife's glass while she took a breather and sat for a bit. The anticipation was great knowing that we were going to be able to try this top rated beer for the first time. Then we got our samples. I waited to get back to my wife and we all took a drink and looked at each other with a somewhat pained look on our face. My wife's sample got added to my glass when I made a run to the restroom, so I had a double helping and was struggling with the decision of what to do with it. I was seriously about to dump a full glass of Darklord out when Matt from Hoosier Beer Geek walked over and I traded my glass for his Brooklyn Weisse. So thanks to Matt I avoided committing what would have probably been the ultimate beer sin to many of you.

All in all, there was just a fantastic variety of beer to sample and I will try to give a brief list of some of the highlights in my mind:

New Albanian Hoptimus as well as their Cherry Imperial Stout which was mind blowingly good even on a hot day.
Lafayette Brewing Co's Big Boris Barleywine from 1997 which was aged in wine casks was amazing. Again, not the ideal day for that style, but it was great. Kind of wish now that I had made it back to try the 1998 variety as well.
Brass Monkey in Kokomo made a believer out of me with their See No Evil Belgian IPA and the Green Tea Pale Ale.
Sierra Nevada brought a keg of their Anniversary Ale which is one of my very favorites now, and I am happy to hear that they brew this yearly as a seasonal, as I was under the impression that it was a one time thing originally.
The Womanizer was a big fan of the Darkhorse offerings, as was I. And you can never go wrong stopping at the Founder's or Stone booth either.

Anyway, here is a bunch of photos from the event.

Quite an evening to remember

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:31:57 GMT

I got a call yesterday from my buddy Action Jackson asking what I had planned for the evening and being told that he had a surprise for me. So without further ado I agreed to meet over at his place with the idea that we would probably head out to MacNiven's as well. Only knowing that the surprise was some kind of beer, I set off after work to his place. And was greeted by a case of Three Floyd's Fantabulous Resplendence XI Anniversary Ale. I had no idea the Fantabulous Resplendence was going to become a yearly offering, but I can tell you, this is definitely worth seeking out. We both agreed that this is probably a different recipe then the X Anniversary Ale I reviewed a while back. We both drank a bomber of that and then he pulled out another surprise, a couple bottles of Bell's Batch 8000, an imperial wit beer. Somehow this beer had eluded me until last night and I was floored with how good it was. In fact the whole time I was drinking it I couldn't help but think of how much it reminded me of the many great beers I had drank in Belgium last year. Really really amazing with about a year of age on it.

After that, we set off for MacNiven's with the knowledge that they had Victory Prima Pils on tap and both of us wanted to try it. It was also rumored to have Oaken Barrel's Superfly IPA on draft and we were happy to see both of these fine beers listed on their chalk boards behind the bar when we walked in. Prima Pils is great from the bottle, and I would seriously say it could be in the running for one of the very best pilsners in the world. On draft, served in tall pilsner glasses adorned with the Victory Prima Pils logo, there isn't another pilsner served in Naptown that can touch it. After that we both had a pint of the Superfly IPA. At the Hops for Pops festival a few weeks ago I all but begged the Oaken Barrel guys to start bottling this. A very liberal amount of hops and rich mouthfeel make Superfly a total winner in my book.

Not content with the stupefying list of beers at MacNiven's, I suggested we head to J. Gumbo's to see what they had going on. And we were rewarded for the effort by getting to sample some 1999 and 2005 aged Gale's Prize Old Ale. That '99 was one of the most amazing beers I had ever tasted and did edge the '05. I think I am going to have to seek some of this beer out and cellar it myself. That was followed up by the last two bottles of 2005 Stone Double Arrogant Bastard they had. I had never been able to find the Double Arrogant Bastard, so getting an opportunity to try some that had been aged was too irresistible. We also got a nice opportunity to chat with Mike DeWeese, the owner of J. Gumbo's. Action Jackson also got a Three Floyd's Dreadnaught from the hand-pull that was nice to try side by side with the Stone. We finished the evening off with a run to the Waffle House for some late night grub. The only drawback of the evening.. staying out till 1am on a school night doesn't agree we me so much anymore. Was not enjoyable getting up this morning.

Hops for Pops - The weekend that was

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:13:41 GMT

As I mentioned on Friday, I volunteered to help out at the inaugural Hops for Pops charity beer tasting event. I was dropped off in the parking lot of Hotshotz around noon on Saturday and I could see a number of the Hoosier Beer Geeks already getting things setup. I noticed Hans from Hotshotz walking towards everyone as I got out of the car and as joined the group he was apologizing for not being able to help out much for the event. It was then that I learned that Hotshotz had experienced a fire early that morning that gutted the kitchen and caused at least smoke and water damage in the main dining / bar area. Crazy, as I had eaten there the night before with my wife and son and enjoyed amazing ribs and great beer. Hopefully repairs can be made quickly they can get back on their feet.

With that somber news, the rest of us got to work setting things up for the beer fest. Moving tables into place was easy enough, but hanging signs in high winds seemed to pose a challenge for a while. All in all though, things went very smooth with the setup and we got to a point where we were just waiting for the beer to show up. Thankfully the distributors and breweries that attended somewhat staggered their entrance. As it turned out, one truck or SUV would show up and we would just be getting done helping them unload their beer and grabbing bags of ice for them when the next would arrive. I had a great time meeting the participants and getting the opportunity to talk to some of the local brewmasters and distributors.

Of particular note, I enjoyed discussing beers with Matt, the owner of Cavalier Distributing. Also Dave, the FOB (Founder Owner Brewer) of Warbird Brewing. I also tried to convince the brewer from Oaken Barrel that Superfly IPA needs to come out in bottles. He indicated if they get setup for 22oz bottling that it may happen then. At the end of the day, I was sore from all the ice carried back and forth and the 6 hours of continuous standing and walking, but had a great time helping out.

Afterwards, I went to my friend Mike's party and we ate well and drank plenty of beer from the keg. Unfortunately it was Miller Lite, but after about 3 22oz cups, the taste doesn't seem to matter so much.

Hops for Pops and the rest of the weekend

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:56:07 GMT

Tomorrow is the first Hops for Pops charitable beer tasting event. I have been mildly involved with helping in planning this event, which is a polite way to say I attended a few meetings and gave out a few suggestions while more qualified people did the brunt of the real work. But it was still a real pleasure to at least get involved from the start and I will finally be able to pull a bit more of my weight tomorrow as I am going to be helping with the setup process. Should be a good time as it is always enjoyable to get together in person with some of the people you converse with on the various Indy beer blogs. Speaking of, Hoosier Beer Geek has the 'as close to final as it gets' list of beers that will be at the tasting tomorrow, so go check it out! And be sure to go buy some tickets today as the price goes up at the door. You are going, right?

Unfortunately I won't be able to attend the full tasting. Tomorrow evening my buddy Mike is throwing his annual (except for last year) summer bash. This is usually the one time a year I get to see a number of my old college friends, so it is a "can't miss event". I should be able to stick around for about an hour of the Hops for Pops though, and I am hoping to get to try a few of the rarer beers, such as the offering from New Albanian or that Count Hopula from Barley Island.

Tonight I think we are going to eat dinner at Hot Shotz. It was the Womanizer's birthday this past Monday and I have a coupon for a buy one get one free entree as well as two $15 gift cards. According to their website, Fridays are $1 off selected 20oz craft beers, so tonight should be fun and reasonably cheap.