Excluded from this list was any beer I tried prior to 2011. So, as much as I love Pliny the Elder and Founders KBS as the next guy, they were eliminated from the nominations since I’ve had them before. Without further ado, here’s the compilation:

10. Voodoo Black Magick – Smooth and full of bourbon, this Imperial Stout packed a decadent and boozy flavor.

9. Cigar City Hunahpu’s Imperial Stout – Chilies, chocolate, vanilla beans, cinnamon? Yep, all here balanced beautifully.

8. Round Guys BerlinerWeisster-WeissterBerliner – Tart, light, crisp and refreshing – this is one to look out for from this up-and-coming brewery.

7. The Bruery Black Tuesday – Even at its massive 18+% ABV, this bourbon barrel aged Imperial Stout drinks so easily and has tons of complexity to go with it.

6. The Alchemist Heady Topper – Probably the best Double IPA you’ll find in a can. With their cannery up and running, there’s plenty hoppy, resiny goodness to go around.

5. Goose Island Rare Bourbon County Stout – Complex bourbon, wood, chocolate and dark fruits lead this one-time brewed Imperial Stout aged in Pappy Van Winkle barrels into the Top 5.

4. Samuel Adams Utopias – At 27% ABV, this drinks more like a fine spirit than anything. Sweet maple syrup and rich malts along with plenty of heat (and the price tag!) make this a special occasion “beer.”

3. Firestone Walker Abacus – The outstanding rich, malty and fruity base of this beer was perfect for bourbon barrels, and what an outstanding beer it became.

2. Dark Horse Barrel-Aged Plead the 5th – My favorite barrel aged Imperial Stout so far. Bursting with overwhelming bourbon notes, wood and plenty of chocolate, this beer is easily a top-notch selection if you can find it.

1. Kern River Citra DIPA – Juicy citrus fruits, oranges, mango, pineapple and the like are seemingly bursting from this beer. Hoppy, bitter, fruity and so drinkable – it was my favorite beer of the year. Once the glass was finished, it was a sad, sad moment.

I wasn’t surprised to see a majority of the selections were Imperial Stouts, as they are one of my favorite styles. All I can say is that I hope 2012 brings as much fantastic beer as 2011 did. And thank you to all who’ve shared or been part of partaking in these fine beers with me. Cheers!

Spring and summer seasonals are difficult to come by in the winter months, so you have two choices: stock up or go with a year-round option. A lot of breweries sell white beers, light pale ales, and lighter lagers all year so these shouldn’t be too difficult to come by. The actual “only released in warm months” seasonals will probably have to be saved in the back of your fridge.

So why do I do this, and think you should too? Being able to enjoy any beer at any time is great, and I do try and not discriminate. If I’m at a bar in January and see a wheat beer that I haven’t tried before I won’t dismiss it simply because it is January. There are also times where a lighter refreshing beer is good in the winter, like when you come back from the gym, or after a long day at work. Save the warming stuff for when you come inside from shoveling snow, I probably wouldn’t be drinking a wheat beer then.

This turned into more of a PSA than I planned, but I wanted to get the message out. Don’t ignore quality beers because they don’t match the season. You may find that in some odd way a Witbier or Hefeweizen are great beers to have in the winter, if only to remind you that warmer months aren’t that far away.

Title photo from: Flickr

While sampling this latest release I sat down with Bill Butcher, the owner of Port City, and asked him a few questions about his brewery, the craft beer business, and some general craft beer topics. The audio I recorded was clean enough that we are releasing it as a podcast. Crack open a fresh beer, sit back, and enjoy.

1. Do some research

What kind of beer does your friend like? Which ones have they already had, and which would they try again? You could ask directly but if the tasting is a surprise some more research may be required. If you have enough time, take note of what they drink when out or what they have in their fridge. Also, if they use a service like Untappd check that as well.

2. Set a budget

Beer can be expensive, so set a realistic budget. Budgets can also vary depending on how many different beers will be included in the tasting. You can also raid your own beer cellar or fridge to contribute to the tasting. Not all of the beer has to be expensive either — a few cheaper go-to beers can add some variety for a smaller amount of money.

3. Select a variety

Even if your friend is a fan of a particular style be sure to select a variety. A tasting of a single style can get boring and redundant, so throw in a few wild cards while still catering to the recipient’s tastes. Remember that you may select a beer not everybody will enjoy but that is unavoidable, so don’t let it dissuade you.

4. Remember it isn’t for you

You may have to set aside your personal preferences and tastes when gathering beer for the tasting. This may also require you to do more research as you may not have knowledge of a style that you don’t particularly care for. Also, view it as an opportunity to perhaps try something new.

5. Don’t forget glassware

Will you be using tasting glasses, pint glasses, or the “correct” glassware for each style? Be sure to have enough glassware for all those participating, even if it may seem like a no-brainer.

6. Get it to the proper temperature

Imagine this scenario: “Hey buddy, we are doing a beer tasting for your birthday! Here is all the beer! Now we have to wait an hour or two for it to cool down in the fridge to the right temperature.” Not fun for anyone. Do this prep work ahead of time so you can get to the fun stuff as soon as possible.

Beer tastings are always fun and with a bit of forethought make a great present. Hopefully with these tips your tasting will be a hit.

I believe that the stigma stems from the commercial relationship that most people have with beer. They see commercials for Bud Light (Here we go!) and other light lagers, and that is what the have in their heads when you say “I enjoy beer.” The image of a beer lover is a slightly overweight male drinking out of an aluminum can, not somebody relaxing and enjoying a craft beer. The image of a wine drinker on the other hand is somebody in upper class society drinking an early 1900’s Bordeaux poured from a gaudy antique decanter into a specific wine glass for the style. I’m not trying to turn this into a debate about wine vs beer, I actually love wine, but from my observations that is how the public perceives beer and wine drinkers.

So how do we go about changing this stigma? Do we simply class up the joint? Talk with weird accents? Wear monocles (though that could be fun)? I don’t think trying to make beer more exclusive will serve the craft beer movement well, one of the great things about craft beer is how accessible it is. What needs to be done is not make the beverage more classy, but show that those who enjoy it are more than drunk guys at a bar. We will never get Budweiser or Miller Coors to change their advertising style, so the best way is with a pure grassroots movement.

When you discuss beer in circles where it may not be as “accepted,” do not shy away from the discussion. Be sure to concentrate on the styles and flavor elements of craft beer. It may not be a good idea to discuss alcohol content because, while important to flavor and style, a novice may take it as “oh you just want to get drunk faster.” Try to hit on the accessibility of craft beer and how easy it is to get into it and start sampling new brews. Mention the welcoming community of bloggers and enthusiasts as well. Every enthusiast can be an ambassador for craft beer.

It will take time to break the stigma attached to coming out and saying “I love craft beer,” especially without the help of advertising. As the movement grows there is hope. It is up to us to keep craft beer from being considered low class, and those who enjoy it nothing more than glorified frat guys. I’m taking full ownership of my love for craft beer, no social circle is safe from hearing about the awesome stout or IPA that I sampled the night before.

Please share your feelings, inputs, and experiences in the comments below.

Title photo from: Flickr

I arrived in Stuttgart, Germany at 9:00am local time on a Saturday. I had flown through the night and slept on the plane so the time change didn’t effect me much. After retrieving my bag and finding a cab I was off to the suburb of Vaihingen. Dropping my bags off at the hotel and grabbing a map of the town I was out the door and exploring by 10:45. Mission 1: Food and beer.

Walking along the main street of Vaihingen I knew exactly what I was looking for; a restaurant/bar with outdoor seating full of old German men drinking. By 11:00 I had found just the place, old men drinking large beers and a bartender/waitress who spoke almost no English. I grabbed a seat and ordered a bratwurst, a pretzel and a beer. The beer was a pilsner  from Schwabenbräu, the largest brewery in Baden-Württemberg, a pilsner that was classically good and hit the spot (especially when combined with the pretzel). Over the next few days I would sample many more offerings from Schwabenbräu.

Paulaner Dunkelweiss

My experience at this restaurant exposed me to two things I didn’t see in my last trip to Germany. The first was that the bratwrust, which was two links, that came in a bowl of hot water. The idea behind this is that you take the two links out, slice one off, and put the other back in the water to keep it hot wile you eat. The other innovation was the writing of each person’s tab on their coaster. I saw this several times during my visit so it wasn’t just this place. Each time you order a beer, food, or mixed drink and you are seated at a table or the bar the waitress writes the price on the coaster. When it comes time to pay each person has their own individual tab (no need to divide checks!) and you pay the waitress at your table and they make change from a purse right there. I can only see one thing wrong with this: what happens when you spill your beer?

Later on Saturday night I experienced a revolution in awesome food; I got my first Doner Kebab. Like a gyro, but better. They are hugely popular in Germany (annual sales of $4.61 billion according to Wikipedia) and were brought into the country and adapted thanks to the large Turkish population. You can walk down the street, see a Doner shop and by the time it is out of you field of view you can spot another one. Veal, veggies, sauces, and some spice powder all wrapped up in a pita. What more could you want after a few beers? I had three of these during my four days in Germany.

I also managed to sample some other beers on Saturday night. The first was Das Weizen from Schwabenbräu. This hefewizen was spot on for the weather. A nice frothy lingering head, good citrus elements, malty and a good breadyness. I also sampled the Dunkel Hefe from Alpirsbacher. I was always a fan of this style and I rarely get it in the states. The final beer was a Schwarzbier, Das Schwarze, from Schwabenbräu. Good sweet malt flavors, but not roasty, with caramel notes and some slight bitterness.

Stuttgart Main Square

Sunday myself and my colleagues took the train into Stuttgart to do some exploring and look at some old buildings. The trains in Germany are fast,  quiet, and clean. Even during off peak hours they arrive more often than the Metro trains in DC and easily put SEPTA to shame. My main observation of the day is that people watching seems to be a sport in Europe. Every cafe in an open area has tables outside, and every chair faces out towards the square. The other observation of the day was more of an aroma: the butcher shops, wow. When you walk by and the automatic doors open you get this wonderful blast of pork goodness laden air. When this happens, stop in for samples. You will not be disappointed.

Schwabia Plate

Being a business trip I had to work on Monday and Tuesday. Monday night we had dinner at an Italian restaurant where I had another Schwabenbräu weizen. Tuesday, the last full day of the trip, was the big dinner. Eating outside drinking beer, and people watching at Gaststatte zum Paulaner was the perfect ending to the trip. For dinner I had the Swabia plate, which is all local versions of classic German dishes. My plate, pictured right, had pork, a potato dumpling, a mushroom cream sauce, fried potatoes, and Spätzle. All of the beers were Paulaner offerings. I had the hefeweizen and then, as my last beer in Germany, a giant mug of Pilsner.

Being a beer blog I want to wrap this up with a synopsis of beer and drinking culture in Germany. All of the beers that I had in Germany were good examples of classic styles. I was never disappointed with a single beer that I got. There wasn’t much evidence of a craft beer scene, probably due to the lingering effects of the Reinheitsgebot. Regional breweries are also a big thing in Germany, every area or town has their local brew. This is why I had so much Schwabenbräu. You don’t too often see beer from one region on tap in another, bottles however are a little more frequent. Germans appear to be loyal to their local beer.

Last Beer

Beer is so ingrained into the German culture. Everybody seemed to go out for a beer after work and have one with lunch. There isn’t a focus on drinking beer to get drunk, the focus is to enjoy the beer but not to excess. If you sit down for dinner and order only a coke, and no beer, the waitress gives you a questioning look, an almost “how could you NOT want to enjoy a beer” look. This type of positive beer culture is more and more starting to take hold in the US, especially in the craft beer world.

I left Germany on Wednesday morning, though not willingly. I enjoyed my time there, even with having to work. The beer, food, and people were awesome. I learned a lot about how Germans live and enjoy beer, from a non touristy perspective. Any beer fanatic should make the time to go to Germany and experience as much as they can.

The story went something like this: Greg Hall and friends were enjoying a night out at Bangers & Lace, when towards the end of the night Hall proceeded to urinate into two beer glass at the bar. Bartender at the time, Matty Eggleston, offered a few choice words with Hall after having to clean up the liquid left behind. Hall later apologized in a variety of ways: non-returned phone calls from Bangers & Lace directly, private Facebook message and even sent a case of Big John to the establishment. Eggleston, however, refuses to accept the apology.

While I don’t think anyone in their right mind would flat out condone Hall’s behavior, it was vile and disgusting, I think a more subjective look needs to be taken. The 45-year old brewer should, first and foremost, know better. As a rather public figure in the craft beer scene, Hall’s actions were a big taint to his image. Also, Matt Eisler, one of the owners of Bangers & Lace, said they (the bar) wanted to take “the high road.” Well, if that’s the case, running to the media doesn’t seem like the best course of action if those intentions were sincere.

On the one hand, we have Greg, admittedly drunk doing something that someone drunk may do. While the act in and of itself, urinating, isn’t necessarily bad, the choice of where was. Although, in the grand scheme of things, I have to wonder if having someone urinate into two glass, not all over the floor and walls, is the worst this bartender has experienced — if so, he hasn’t seen anything. I’ve spoken with bartenders on this subject that have seen far worse: vomit all over the bar, on patrons, etc. Again, what he did was disgusting and unnecessary but I feel this is being blown completely out of proportion because of who he is.

The other side, we could argue for and against Eggleston, the bartender. Yes it was disgusting, though think about this: you work at a bar, serving patrons alcohol and after “several hours at the bar,” you can’t expect someone not to be intoxicated, can you? It is, in part, the job of the bartender to flag or cut off patrons when they appear intoxicated, no? And while it was Hall’s actions ultimately, I think this bad light being put on him is somewhat deserved and somewhat not. If this were a regular patron, I doubt Bangers & Lace would have run to the media because let’s face it — stuff like this happens in bars.

In wanting to take “the high road” it is bothersome to read that Hall’s apologies are not being accepted. He has publicly taken full responsibility for his actions and admitted it was a stupid thing to do – though, there comes a point where everyone needs to move on. I will say that in addition to all the apologies Hall has done, he should have marched his sober-self down to Bangers & Lace to offer a formal in-person apology, something which he may or may not have done yet to this date. Accidents happen, stupid behavior happens, it was his birthday – while I’m not condoning this behavior – I think with the perfect combination of events, some of us can at the very least understand things like this could happen.

What are your thoughts on the situation, how Hall handled the aftermath and the reaction from Bangers & Lace?

Leave it in the comments below!

Title photo from: Flickr

The Trappist beers, perhaps commonly associated with The Chimay Brewery (Bières de Chimay) or Rochefort Brewery (Brasserie de Rochefort), refer to the actual monks that create the beer. The Trappist monks follow Roman Catholicism that follow the Rule of St. Benedict. Under the Rule, they are able to sell goods to provide income to the monastery. Among the 171 orders of Trappist monks, only seven currently produce beer.

Abbey breweries (Leffe, a famous example) used to be brewed in Abbeys. However, that started to shift due to the French Revolution. These Abbeys have since stopped producing beer as in the past and have moved over to commercial breweries. Don’t let that be an immediate deterrent, as the monks still have strict control over the brewing process. With that said, many of the larger macrobreweries (InBev) have leveraged the monasteries. Leffe as many know is owned by InBev, the parent company of Annheuser-Busch.

The Trappists were concerned that many of the commercialized breweries would take advantage of their reputation, so they created the International Trappists Association. Again, it consists of the only seven monasteries that still brew. While not everyone may care about the history or origin of the beer they drink, it’s an aspect of the beer culture that should be explored.

What are your thoughts — do you drink Abbey beers, despite being owned by a commerical brewery?

Craft brewers and drinkers are already a fairly tightly knit group. We see meet-ups, collaboration brews, homebrew clubs, and large events. Given this, it should come as no surprise that the people talking about these things would also be a good community. On a local level you see things such as PhillyBeer, BrewYork, and DCBrews — local grassroots communities of bloggers, Twitter users, and readers. You never see somebody who writes for one blog lashing out at another. It would damage the community and look bad for all involved.

We are all enthusiasts with a common interest. One website hitting it big is good for everyone, it only serves to bring more people into the fold of craft beer. Because I write for Passion Beer I would never consider myself to be in direct competition for page views, readers, or advertising revenue with any other blog. Sure, some may argue that we are in fact in competition, we just don’t acknowledge it. But when examined as a community — all of us working together, posting comments on each others sites, pointing people towards other blogs — the community grows exponentially.

For me what all this boils down to is creating an informal network of enthusiasts supporting each other and further expanding the network. For example, when somebody discovers craft beer they may perform a search for a website about it and may find Passion Beer, which links to another website, which links to a Twitter account, and so on. All of a sudden everybody has another reader rather than just that first website. Being community driven creates a more friendly, inviting environment that competition doesn’t allow.

I’ll wrap this up by saying as we grow and some blogs or websites become true titans I hope that we don’t lose the sense of community. Craft beer is always under threat, from lawmakers, environmental issues such as hop shortages, and of course large breweries. Without a strong sense community it could all collapse in on itself. Never let go of the community and always be willing to raise a glass with the “competition.”

Title photo courtesy of: Stephen Lyford

Port City’s flagship beers consist of the Optimal Wit, Essential Pale Ale, Monumental IPA, and a Porter. Currently only the Optimal Wit and Essential Pale Ale are kegged and out the door (and in the tasting room). The IPA and Porter will be ready in a few weeks. Being the first batch I won’t be doing a full review of their beer, there is still some dialing in to do, but I will provide a short preview.

The Optimal Wit is a straight shooting Witbier, the color and lacing are spot on. The aroma is creamy and bready with notes of  orange zest and coriander. The flavors were bready to start with some sweetness folding in. This is followed by the spices and citrus flavors, with orange being the most prominent. The Essential Pale Ale pours a clear almost orange, golden color. The aromas were a good mixture of malt and hops, a little sweet and citrus with some spices. The flavor profile was clean and crisp, but not bitter. There were some hints of roast, a bit of citrus, and a slight sweetness. Both beers were great, I ended up getting a growler of the Optimal Wit.

The tasting room is spacious and clean. There are four taps at the bar, behind which there is a wall of growlers. There is also some merchandise for sale (t-shirts, hats, glasses, etc) and plans to have an area to get bottles once the bottling line starts up. While finishing my glass of the Essential Pale Ale, founder Bill Butcher asks if anybody would like a tour. I, of course, jumped at the opportunity.

The brewing system was designed and built by JV Northwest in Oregon and shipped to the Alexandria brewery and assembled on site. The 30 barrel brewing system shows that no expense was spared when designing the brewery. This carries over to the ingredients, only the best malt and barley is present at the brewery. In the middle of the brewery sits the bottling line, once belonging to the now expanding Southern Tier Brewing Company. There is also a “semi automatic” ie: manual (Bill’s words, not mine) kegging area. Rolling around is a custom built “Hop Cannon” that was used to dry hop the IPA by shooting pressurized hops directly into the fermenter. Yeah, I want one. All told there are 5 brewing vessels, 4 fermentation vessels, and 2 bright tanks. There are pictures of the entire operation on the Port City construction blog.

There is obviously room for expansion in the large brewing area, plenty of room for more brewing vessels and fermenters along with upgraded bottling and kegging operations. I overheard talk of brewing an Octoberfest in the not too distant future, so there are plans for more beers. It was fun to see a brand new brewery during the first week of operation, and to me it looks as though Port City has a bright future. If you are in the area be sure to stop by and sample some beer and maybe take a tour.

Thanks to Bill and everybody else at Port City. I will be back for more.

Title photo from: Port City Facebook