minipost: anchor brewing company sold!

top headline of the paper version of sf chronicle this morning: fritz maytag (maytag washing machine co. heir) sells the company that started the craft brewing movement.   the new owners are Keith Greggor and Tony Foglio--big names in the spirits industry. one woman predicts that those hard-to-get whiskeys will soon become more widely available on the market. a new era for a gold-rush beer.

bgm: "we're in the money" from the gold diggers of 1933 - the original bling!

Lagunitas: IPA - Of Beer and Greatness

Lagunitas IPA. Love.

Oh, oops. One Woman recently wrote a piece about that already. Today's post won't be about love, but an equally perplexing thought that comes out of a loving relationship with beer--greatness.


Since late February, One Woman had been saving this great beer for the perfect occasion for it (seriously, I love this beer almost as much as the Brooklyn Lager). A late Sunday afternoon BBQ with a friendly posse after a serious scholarly grill-session seemed to be that day (okay, it wasn't that scholastic or serious). Catching the last rays of the sun for the day, sitting around an ancient picnic table, and waiting for farmers market fresh asparagus spears, green garlic, foil baked garlic, haloumi cheese, turkey burgers, rosemary lamb sausage, and Beef BEER Brats (!!) on the grill... it was quite the joyful affair, fit for this happy beer.

Lagunitas IPA: Brewed in Lagunitas CA, the IPA is their flagship beer. 46 IBUs, and 5.7% ABV. Hoppy, a hint of grapefruit zest, and orangish in color. For an IPA, it's on the not-too-sweet side of things, and well balanced to enough for the gently toasted malted flavor to still have a meaningful presence. Sipping on this cool, zippy Lagunitas IPA, One Woman decided that this was a great beer.

But wait. It's not the beer that critics declare a "great" beer. It's a kind of B+ student in the beer world. That basically means, really drinkable, pretty good, but nothing extraordinary. In other words, it's not brewed by monks, or super small batches, or claims to use ancient techniques, a super rare type of difficult to manage yeast, and it's not a strong beer. This last point is quite silly. Bigger, stronger, better... really? To Lagunitas' greatness cred, they actually do mention on their website that they use "43 kinds of hops and 65 various malts." Wow.

But what makes a beer great?

A "great" Elizabethan author writes about greatness: Men in great place are thrice servants: servants of the sovereign or state; servants of fame; and servants of business (Francis Bacon). Poor great men :( But not of much use to One Woman trying to write about beer and greatness. 

Is an imperial IPA better than a regular IPA because it's imperial?

What makes Budweiser the "great American Lager"? Their status as "No. 1 brewer in social responsibility in FORTUNE Magazine's “World's Most Admired” beverage companies' list."? Oh wait. They also just held the "world's largest pool party" in Vegas. Duh.

And then there was that caustic debate between LA times film critic Kenneth Turan and director James Cameron about what made (or didn't make) Titanic a great film. In This One Guy's words, the debate basically comes down to something like, "is McDonald's a great restaurant because it's succeeded in reaching so many parts of the world"?

And this whole post was inspired by an esteemed composer asking me, "Is Beethoven's Fifth a great piece?"

Here's my problem with these kinds of identifications of greatness, whether it's an aesthetic criteria, or number of IBUs (international bitterness units): they all seem to come at the cost of excluding certain kinds of music, or beer, or films based on some set of criteria that defines greatness, or a canon, or an anti-canon (aka the avant-garde, and you know what happens to those guys). Worse, these sets of criteria --which are actually, no more and no less than values held by some legitimating authority--allow critics to write about stuff as if they were absolutes.

But the fact is, a cool bottle of Lagunitas IPA delights the senses. It doesn't inspire a list of metaphors or even subtleties of a million flavors masterfully crafted together, but it inspires a feeling. At the right moment, at least. This is why awesome is such a great  wonderful word. Even though it's not often appreciated for its awesomeness, which means something that inspires a sense of awe. Unlike "greatness," it's not about status or power. (No rulers were called Alexander the Awesome--maybe the closest thing to that would be Thorfinn Einarsson, 7th Viking Earl of Orkney, who was popularly known as Skull Splitter).

(Oh shit. now One Woman isn't going to be able to write about a great beer next time she comes across one.)

Anyway, have a great day, everyone.

Musical Pairing: Symphony No. 5 by Ludwig van Beethoven. Ba-na-na-naaaaaa. Ba, na, na, naaaaaaaa~ (click on the link to hear a great work conducted by the great Herbert von Karajan).

minipost: these are a few of my favorite things

http://www.thoroughbreadandpastry.com/

an evening of beer and pastry?? "little known fact: beer pairs beautifully with pastry"??!!
perhaps a little known fact, but one woman has no doubt. thanks to ms (soon to be dr.) jl for sharing!

the musical pairing would be "my favorite things," of course. here's the supremes' version (click and listen). 

Anchor Summer Beer (because it's almost summer)

One Woman doesn't want to complain about the weather. We (in the US) have it much better than the folks stuck at European airports for days and days.

Besides, the state of California could always use some rain. Still in this rainy-sunny-windy-cloudy season of schizophrenic weather, I couldn't really wait for the summer for too much longer, so with or without the sun hat (more like, rain boots), the beer of the evening was Anchor Summer Beer.

One Woman's wishes for summer became true for a moment of sun 

before the Earth moved on to let the sun shine on other places in the world...

One Woman wants to think of the Anchor Summer Beer as a lighthearted American wheat beer. Crispy, crispy, crispy and clear with a slight orange tinted yellow color, it tastes subtly of malt balls, hay, and homemade sandwich bread. Maybe the tiniest drop of lemonade too. Even though it's not as crazy as that Lucky Hand Cali Common, the head is big, fluffy, and energetically airy, rushing up the glass and fading quickly. It's the kind of beer you could drink all afternoon at the park on a Sunday afternoon. Food pairing -- anything, really, if you consider it a malted sparkling water, but I bet it would go well with some crunchy, lightly battered tempura, or a maybe meal of assorted crazy fruit and veg sushi rolls like avocado and pomegranate?!

Musical pairing: "Helelyos" by Zia on the compilation, Pomegranates: Persian Pop, Funk, Folk and Psych of the 60s and 70s (click on the link above to listen). This is the good funk (like sushi) finding many glorious manifestations around the world. Plus I'm a sucker for comps from the 1960s and 70s.

minipost: bacon beer caramel (sf underground market)

one woman was whisked away to the sf underground market madness by a certain accordion player who has been known to woo the finest members of the culinary world with her sweet michael jackson covers. highlights from the market include el porteño empanadas, christopher david macarons (also available at sandbox bakery), and ahram namu oyster kimichi. but the first ever lady and the beer genius award goes to:

Maggie May’s Bacon Sweets Bacon Pecan Praline & Bacon Beer Caramels!

--made with the fine dogfish head 90 minute imperial ipa.

 keep your eye out for her next batch:

musical pairing: yeah yeah yeahs, "zero" from their 2009 release,  
it's blitz. epic, catchy, fun with shimmery bits of the wildly glamorous. 
bacon beer caramels.

Lucky Hand Cali Common

Cali Common is the fresh, home-baked version of San Francisco's famous craft beer, Anchor steam. The Lucky Hand interpretation of this type of California lager is kind of like the big, steamy, odd-shaped home baked breakfast scone that's otherwise delicious. For the record, Anchor Steam and the Cali Common are both California steam beers (sneak preview: more on this topic/controversy forthcoming in a post that will seek to disambiguate steam beer vs. Steam Beer vs. California steam beer. Confusing!! I'm waiting for journals from 1898 to arrive in my inbox to better clarify this topic).
 

Touch/taste/smell--toasty, bready, or even donuty, mildly carbonated, with a nice hoppiness. In contrast to the soft, cloudy, strawberry blond / grapefruit color, the foam is hilariously giant and bright white. That kind of adds to the charm, but be warned--this is what happens if you don't pour it SUPER slowly:

For a steam beer it's pretty robust. A fun blend of organic malt, hops and yeast, it can be complex if you want it to be, but never in a way that interferes with your ability to enjoy your food or company. My favorite part of this beer is the wonderful fresh-baked bread smell. Or maybe it's the hops. It has a pleasant bitterness to it and a really great sweet grassy finish that's short, but bold. Cali Common would be a great dinner beer for hearty vegetable dishes, pastas, beans, or big salads with whole grains. One Woman paired it with a meal of cauliflower and roasted garlic pasta with capers and anchovies tangled in spelt pasta, with an orange fennel salad with cured olives. Joined by two Friends in Culinary Crime.

The word on Lucky Hand Brewing--Based in San Rafael, CA, founded by Jesse Edwin Evans, Samuel Evans, and William A. Jablon. Their beers are crafted by Linden Street Brewery in Oakland by brewmaster Adam Lamoreaux. They're both brand new (Linden Street started releasing their brews to the world in early September 2009; Lucky Hand first officially became a product in December 2009). One Woman wishes them many more brews and great success!!

Musical Pairing: Herbie Hancock, Maiden Voyage (which is part of this ridiculously genius video), but you can hear Herbie playing it if you click on the song name. The sus chords of the vamp feel like anticipation and a sense of you-could-go-anywhere embodied literally in harmonic language. (This song always makes me think of an ancient-to-the-future ship with a unicorn flag floating on a sea of pink velvety clouds. Right, everyone, right????)

minipost: beer or bail

workers strike for unrestricted freedom to unlimited drinking.
um... is this really worth a strike???

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jx1cUk_pJMsQUQzVpXQ1SRlfnOtAD9EV2N5G2

Spaten Optimator--Brownie Interpellation

When Chef Dre says that you should bake a beer brownie, her call is hard to resist. In fact, it's not really about resistance. It's suddenly as if that's what you had intended to do in the first place. And if a half-finished Spaten Optimator (dark and very malty -- perfect for brownie baking!) sat in the fridge as that very moment, surely, it was meant to be, right? Fate?

Drop everything. Bake brownie.

As it turns out, One Woman changed the recipe by claire thomas of the Huffington Post in order to fulfill two fantasies at once: recreating the copycat Momofuku cornflake, chocolate chip and marshmallow cookie, and beer brownie.

The result: Soft, super moist, and fudgy, with crazy molten marshmallow bits. Dreams come true. And then there's the chewy, salty weirdness that seems so wrong but feels so good (Warning: the caramelized cornflakes play a very different role here than they do in the Momofuku cookie). Or was it, seems so good, but feels so wrong, which makes it even more desirable? There's definitely something of the uncanny at work here.

What about the beer, you ask? Well, as This One Guy would say, that was just a canard.


One Woman's Oh-my-god I think I've finally lost it brownies
(adapted from the Kitchy Kitchen and Momofuku for 2)

Ingredients:
3.5 oz dark chocolate (chopped)
8 tablespoons of butter 
4 eggs, at room temp 
2/3 cup white sugar 
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup flour 
Big pinch kosher salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup malty beer at room temperature (dark porters are good too, but Spaten Optimator is both dark and malty. And aromatic)
2/3 cup caramelized cornflakes (click on link for how to make these)
2/3 cup dark chocolate disks
1 handful small marshmallows. And then another small one. 

Preheat oven to 350ºF and butter and flour a 9 x 13 inch pan. 

Melt the butter and chopped chocolate in a double boiler, then stir in the beer. Set aside and let cool.

While that's going on, sift together the cocoa powder, flour and salt in one bowl. In another bowl, beat the hell out of eggs and sugar until it's slick and shiny with an electric blender. Alternate adding the flour/cocoa mixture and the chocolate beer sauce, continuing to beat the mixture on the low setting of the blender. Stir in vanilla.

Fold in the chocolate disks, caramelized cornflakes, and marshmallows and pour into the baking dish. 

For good karma, toss another handful of marshmallows on top as you recite a prayer. 

Bake for 30 minutes; ready when you are. 

*     *     *

Musical Pairings: "Whip it" by Devo 2.0 -- Disney magically transforms S&M overtones to a song about baking (click on the link to listen).

Momotaro (Modern Jazz Version) (Thanks to Wasabi T-Fab and Dr. K.U. for this one) -- The video is an old Japanese fairy tale about Momotaro aka "Peach-Boy" narrated through your favorite modern jazz hits. The clip is from a 1980s Japanese TV show featuring the comedian Tamori. Genius.

Destinations: Anchor Brewing Co. and Steam Beer in the Making (Part I)

A perfect day in San Francisco. (Photo by RG)

Two months ago, I called to make a reservation for a tour of the Anchor Brewing Company. Making this reservation was a process that literally took years. So it was a big day when This One Guy and One Woman FINALLY made it to the historic brewery. Here's the report on part one of the tour in pictures. You'll have to imagine the toasty, tangy smell of malts that permeates the building.

There's beer in them there hills. Or at least, in the making. SF tap water, malted barley and/or wheat are mashed to make a sugary liquid called wort. The wort is then transferred to a second kettle where it gets boiled and blended with hops to create flavor. Hops also add bitterness. At Anchor, different stages of the liquid travel in the pipes over floors and through walls. (Photo by RG)

The Goods: Hops waiting to be added to the copper kettle.

Chillin' at 60ºF in special shallow tanks in a climate controlled room. The foam that you see covering these huge pans is a sign of the yeast doing its job. (Note: The secret to steam beer has to do with this stage of the beer making process. Details forthcoming!) (Photo by RG)

The "hop room" stocks different varieties of brilliantly pungent buds. These buds, in addition to malt, play an important part in shaping the character of different beers. In case you were wondering, hops (humulus lupulus) are, indeed, related to cannabissativa -- both belong to the Cannabaceae family (thanks, wikipedia). Hops can also be added in sacks during the resting period - this method is called "dry hopping." Dry hopping doesn't add bitterness--just more flavor and aroma.

*           *          *

The remainder of the tour was no-camera territory, but it ended with an hour-long tasting session in the beer museum/tasting room area. Stay tuned for the part two of the report on Anchor Brewing for tasting notes and the word on steam beer (is it a lager or an ale???)!

Musical pairing for the first part of this tour: "Vesti la giubba"- an aria from Rugello Leoncavallo's opera Pagliacci recorded by Enrico Caruso (click on the link to listen). The opera was composed in 1892, a few years before the founding of Anchor Brewing Co., and Caruso's recording in 1904 made him the first million-record-selling gramophone star.

minipost: only in san francisco (city beer)

city beer store, sf. one woman observed the following: a super sour odonata rosa, a spice bomb called six rivers chili ale, and 2 out of 6 clients on their ipads!!?? and it hasn't even been a week since the ipad was released.

musical pairing: "get ready" (sublime), thanks to that dude with the guitar and the pot belly in dolores park.

one woman
(sent from my pad)

Sour Beer #2: Rodenbach

The Easter Bunny left One Woman a Rodenbach. 

Rodenbach is a Flanders Red Ale from Belgium. It's a beer brewed in a very special way that involves cherry essence and oak vats. It's on the lighter side in terms of alcohol content (5.2%), but it packs so much flavor!

Here's what the all-star cast of The Other Woman and This One Guy visiting from NYC came up with to describe this cherry-tainted delight:

Color: Reddish Chestnut--the color of a Sorel horse! (- The Other Woman)
           A well-blended Manhattan (-This One Guy)
Smell: Delicious smell wafts across the room, a hint of malt, and just a tiny tiny pinch of hops.
Taste: Not as sweet as the last Monk's Café Flemish Sour Ale, the Rodenbach has a mellow oak taste, as well as a cherry bon bon flavor. It has a little bitterness, but it's of the round, friendly kind--"Like the Agostino bitters," says This One Guy. One Woman compared it to the taste of candied grapefruit zest.  The flavors go by one at a time, but really quickly. This made me think of what musicians who work with digital/electronic sound call an "envelope" to talk about changing character of a sound over time. That's more detailed than the term "finish" that tasters often use, and it really gets at this idea of a continuous change in character over time. The Rodenbach then, has a very short but rich taste envelope. We paired this beauty with a buttery Rogue Creamery Caveman Blue and a juicy salad of mixed baby lettuces with lemon shallot vinaigrette. Yum!

Musical Pairing: Vortex Temporum, by Gerard Grisey (click to hear the first part of the piece). A French composer of spectral music, Grisey took what he learned by analyzing the physical properties of sound using all kinds of sound analysis technology, and used that to write acoustic music. Vortex Temporum is an at times giddy, other times contemplative exploration of sound that explodes normal conceptions of linear temporality. And envelopes.

BONUS pics:
First harvest of One Woman's baby lettuce growing experiment! So succulent and sweet. And edible!

"hello, world!"

minipost: secret beer tour in portland, oregon

one woman is planning a secret (or not so secret) weekend beer (and more) trip to portland, oregon next month. i'm soliciting tips and favorite places in p-town! hair of the dog, stumptown... where else to go in the beautiful city of roses??

with love,

from one woman looking forward to the lovely month of may

ps. song of the moment: robert schumann, im wunder schönen monat mai (click to listen, and see an awesome video)