By now many of you know that Peak Organic Brewing — a local Portland, Maine brewing company which contract brews certified organic beer at the Shipyard facilities — has released a new spring beer: Maple Oat Ale. The three other year-round beers from Peak don’t do too much for me (they’re not bad by any stretch, just not overly exciting) but I really enjoyed this one.

Available in either 12oz 4-packs or 22oz bombers, Peak’s Maple Oat Ale is a light copper-colored ale brewed with Maine-grown organic oats from granola company GrandyOats and Vermont-produced organic maple syrup from Butternut Mountain Farms in Morrisville, Vermont.

This beer pours a dark golden/light copper color with very little head retention (probably due to the high amounts of maple syrup in the boil). The Maple Oat Ale has a sweet malt taste and a smoother-than-normal mouthfeel — thanks largely to the oats — while it finishes with a distinct (but not overpowering) maple syrup sweetness.

I would definitely consider this my favorite of the Peak family and I hope they choose to keep it around for awhile (right now it’s only slated for the spring season). It is one of the easier drinking beers I’ve had in a long time; my 22oz bomber was gone not long after I realized I had even opened it. but, at a modest 5.2% ABV, that wasn’t a problem and there was certainly room left for more. But I think that Geoff Masland, Peak Organic Partnership Maestro, summed up the best part of this beer quite nicely in the company’s official press release which accompanied the beer’s release:

“We’ve collaborated with great folks to produce more than just a delicious craft beer, but also a positive experience from start to finish, farm to glass.”

For more on Peak Organic Brewing, read my interview with its founder Jon Cadoux from September ‘07.

[tags]beer, organic, Peak Organic, Maine, Vermont[/tags]

I don’t usually repost this sort of thing but I happened to see that icanhascheezburger had this evening what I think is the best LOLcat ever created:

’nuff said.

[tags]Beer, LOLcats[/tags]

This is part six, the final post of a six-part series (click here for part one, part two, part three, part four & part five) on improving your beer drinking experience. While the series is written for Better Beer newcomers, it is advice that is beneficial to even the most seasoned beer drinkers out there. Cheers.

image by Diana Nevermind

I had the topic for part-six planned since, well, 6 days ago but it was the only one I hadn’t written yet. So I found it a tad ironic when I woke this morning to see an article in my RSS reader from today’s Washington Post entitled “Thinking Outside the Wine List” all about pairing beer and food together.

The concept of pairing beer and food is a relatively new one, or at least its popularity is. But Julia Herz, craft beer program director for the Brewers Association, said to The Post,

“We believe that tying beer to food is the way to keep craft beer sales growing.”

Or, as Garrett Oliver – the Brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewing Co. – says in his book, The Brewmaster’s Table,

I love wine and frequently enjoy it with my meals. But I’ve never enjoyed wine with all the types of food that I actually eat every day. A roast rack of lamb? Sure, I’d love to have a bottle of Burgundy (though I know beers that will match the lamb just as well). But how about Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Middle Eastern, Indian, and Cajun cuisine, and American barbecue? I love this stuff too, and I don’t want wine with it. Yes, I’ve had all the wines that will supposedly match these foods. Guess what? They are a poor substitute for traditional beer. Why? Because spices distort wine flavors, turning white wines hot and red wines bitter. Because wine doesn’t refresh the palate the way beer does. Because wine has no caramelized or roasted flavors to match those in our favorite dishes. And because, even according to wine experts, there are many foods that are simply no good with wine.

But, if you’re new to pairing beer & food with one another, where should you begin?

• Match strength with strength. Obviously delicate dishes work best with delicate beers, and vice versa; strong foods call for strong beers.
• Find harmonies. Combinations often work best when they share some common flavor or aroma elements. For instance. the nutty taste of a brown ale accents cheddar cheese perfectly. While the dark, strong, roasted flavors of an imperial stout go hand-in-hand with chocolate truffles. The rich flavors of caramel malt in an Oktoberfest accent a roasted pork, and so on.
• Consider sweetness, bitterness, carbonation, spice and richness. The characteristics of food and beer interact with each other in predictable ways. Put a little thought into what’s on the plate in front of you – taking advantage of these interactions ensures that the food and beer will balance each other, each giving you a desire for a taste of the other.
• Consider seasonality. Like light food and beer in the warm summer months or heavier beer in the winter, the beers and foods of a given season pair very naturally and suit the mood as well.

The truth is that practice makes perfect. You won’t get a pairing to be 100% accuracte on your first try but, before you know it, you’ll have the practice of pairing beer and food down to a science. The long and the short of it – don’t be afraid to try things out and seek new possibilities; the best pairings have yet to be discovered. As the Brewer’s Association reminds us,

All beer and food combinations should involve both of these principles. Some pairings will be more dependent on the contrasts, others on complementary flavors, but all should strive for some kind of balance. The chart at the left shows the important contrasting elements.

For more on pairing beer and food: read the list of basic food and beer style pairings from the Brewer’s Association’s website or their list of craft beer and food pairings specially designed for the holidays.

Also check out The Best of American Beer and Food, a book by Lucy Saunders, which covers both pairing food and beer and cooking with beer; The Brewmaster’s Table by Brooklyn Brewery’s Garrett Oliver, which has been called “The best and most important book ever written on the subject of pairing food and beer.”; Beer & Food: An American History, by Bob Skilnik is “The first book that gives a historical look at why beer and food are truly partners in today’s kitchens”; and He Said Beer, She Said Wine:Impassioned Food Pairings to Debate and Enjoy — From Burgers to Brie and Beyond, by Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head fame, is the first fully illustrated book on the market to give in-depth instruction on how to successfully pair both beer and wine with a wide variety of foods.

All of these and more are available from Amazon.com, so get started with your beer & food pairing education today!

Well, that does it for “How to Drink Better Beer”, I hope you enjoyed all six posts. Don’t want to miss out on any more of the great offerings from Blog About Beer? Subscribe to the RSS feed now!

[tags]beer, food, food & beer pairing, wine, Brewers Association[/tags]

I’ve been waiting to make this announcement until the website was (mostly) finished but today that happened, so here it goes: Last week, over good friends, good food and great beer — as all good ideas are born — the formation of the Maine Beer Writers’ Guild was hashed out.

The Guild’s goals are simple: “to promote better beer writing and celebrate Maine’s craft brew culture”. Membership is open to any writer of beer-related content (electronic or print) who resides in Maine.

Our next (and I guess first “official”) meeting is going to be Wednesday April 2nd and Gritty McDuff’s on Fore Street in Portland. Meetings will then occur monthly at different watering holes around the city.

Where do things go from here? Who knows, but it’s fun to be part of something! If you live in Maine and write about beer (in any form) and would like to join the Maine Beer Writers’ Guild, please use the contact form on the website. For more info or to see the blogs of the other members, visit www.mainebeerwriters.org

This is part five of a six-part series (click here for part one, part two, part three, part four, part five & part six) on improving your beer drinking experience. While the series is written for Better Beer newcomers, it is advice that is beneficial to even the most seasoned beer drinkers out there. Cheers.

I’m the first to admit that there’s nothing as refreshing as an ice cold brew on a hot summer day at the ball park. But when enjoying a well crafted beer with character, make sure that you serve the beer between 45-50F (not 35-40F where most American’s set their refrigerators).

These lower temperatures may add to refreshment on a warm day, but the cold temperatures essentially numb the tongue, making it harder to perceive the flavors and aromas of the beer. Allowing a beer to warm up a little before you drink it will go a long way to releasing the true flavors locked inside.

Be sure and check back tomorrow for Part 6 of “How to Drink Better Beer”. Be sure and subscribe to the RSS feed so you don’t miss another moment of BAB!

(image by badangus5)
[tags]beer, temperature, ice cold beer[/tags]