The Link Between Our Obsession With Spies and Beer

I'm out of town today, so this post was written back before the Great Taste - I'll get some Great Taste stuff up on Wednesday for you.

Maybe it's a rogue James-Bondian thing, but we (Americans) seem to enjoy not only our beer, but have some strange fascination with spies, and to put the two together, well, Bob's your uncle.

I ran across this Reuters article the other day and then BoingBoing ran a piece about it as well. It's about a bar in Berlin called "Stasi Bar." The bar is located near the old headquarters of the Ministry of State Security, the secret police of East Germany. Of his idea to have people sit and drink beer amongst the chotchkes and relics and reminders of a Kafka-esque iron fist, the owner of Stasi Bar says "We mean it in a satirical but serious way." But, hey, if you become a "Stasi Informant" you can get discounts. I'll take that kind of repression any day.

Anyway. My point isn't about some obscure bar in the middle of Berlin that caters to tourists, but rather, I'm reminded of a spy bar in the middle of Milwaukee that caters to tourists: The Safe House.

The Safe House is a fun, ridiculous, place where you need a code word to get in the door and the website makes me promise not tell where the bar is actually located. No, I'm not going to tell it to you (but if you Google "Safe House Milwaukee, WI" they will gladly give you a map; or you can go the Safe House's website and they give up the goods for free). I was last there, geez, must have six years ago, at least. I was living in Chicago and a college friend and I drove up to Milwaukee to visit another college friend who was there on business. He knew about The Safe House.

Once you give your secret password and gain entrance through a not-entirely-obvious doorway, the place is covered in spy memorabilia and knick-knacks. There are secret passages and hidden dining rooms. It has "gambling" (you get fake money and can win more fake money that you can use to get discounts on beer and what-not). Just for giggles you should tell them it's your birthday, because the sheer manic awesomeness of the Rube Goldbergian Celebration is well worth the time and effort. Though, admittedly, it seems the entire city of Milwaukee goes there for their birthday, and by the fourth one you will have had enough. You can giggle at the cluelessness of your fellow diners via the in-house t.v. system that spies on the lost and confused.

Quite frankly, I'm amazed the place still exists, but apparently it's been in the same location since 1966. It seemed gimicky and strange at the time. And for a place that makes you give a password or face public ridicule, and makes you promise not to tell anyone else where it is ... well ... let's just say, I'm amazed the place still exists.

Now, among the many interesting things about The Safe House, the most interesting, in my opinion, is that they have their own beer called "Code Beer." I think it is brewed for them by Sprecher. And, it wasn't very good. In fact, after about the sixth (or was it seventh?) one I had a splitting headache. There's no mention or review of it on BeerAdvocate (or did "they" have it removed?). My recollection of it, such that it is, was of a light lager, something along the lines of a PBR. But, it must not have been too bad because I still have a mug (a "mason jar" with handle) with the secret password written right on the side of it.

Here's another good review of The Safe House.

But there's a funny story that goes along with this evening, and I'll try to be brief because it's not really relevant to anything. As I mentioned above, my friend and I were from Chicago and had never really visited Milwaukee before. So, he drove up, we met my other friend at his hotel, and we walked to The Safe House. At the end of the evening we got in the car to drive home and got on 94. Now, he had consumed less than me (remember, I had a splitting headache), but still had had enough to be "confused." Anyway, apparently we got on 94 going the wrong way. We didn't realize this until we got to about one-third of the way to Madison. So, we pulled off the highway, and called my then girlfriend (now fiancee), who I had just started dating and asked where we were (she's from Wisconsin, so my logic was, of course she has memorized the transportation grid of the entire state, right?).

This is, I kid you not, the conversation as I remember it. Remember, it is now about 2:00am - I woke her up.

"Hi ____. Where am I? I think we got turned around and we're still in Wisconsin. I think. Do you know where we are?"
"I have no idea. Where are you?"
"Target."
"Jeff, you'll have to be a little more specific than that."
"Behind Target. John is pissing on a dumpster."
"Ugh. What town are you in?"
"I have no idea."
"Then how can I help you?"
"You're from Wisconsin. How do we get back to Chicago?"
"How did you get to where you are?"
"I think we are still on 94. But we think we might have gone the wrong direction. We were wondering if there was an easier way than just turning around and driving all the way back to Milwaukee."
"There might be. But I need to know where you are."
(an aside to John, who had finished peeing at this point) "Hey! What did the last exit sign say?"
"I don't know. I think it started with an O. Ah.Coe.Moe?"
(back to my phone)
"I don't know. Something like Ah-Coe-Wacka-Wacka? Ah-Com-Wacka-Macka? Ah-Com..."
"I have no idea where that is. I don't think you're pronouncing it right."
"I don't think so either."
"I think you just need to get back on 94 and drive back through Milwaukee."

So, we did. After stopping on the side of the road to release the evening's dinner from my inner guts back the direction from whence it came, we finally got back to Chicago around 4:30am or so.

For what it's worth to you future intrepid travelers, it's pronounced: U-Con-O-Moe-Wok. And, yes, the easiest thing to do is turn around and go back through Milwaukee.

Long Time Listener, First Time Caller - Session #18

It must be something about the weather that's gotten under us Midwesterners skins. I see this is the first time that the folks over at Hoosier Beer Geek have chosen to participate in The Session, too.

What is The Session? The session is when on the first Friday of every month beer bloggers, and beer fans alike, around the world write about the same topic. This is the the brain child of Stan Hieronymus, who is the author of Brew Like a Monk, and author of the beer blog: Appellation Beer. (Apologies to HBG for basically lifting those few sentences, but it's a good little intro piece).

This month the topic is "Happy Anniversary" and it is hosted by The Barley Blog. So, I'm supposed to write about:

Use this as an excuse to celebrate. Open a limited release anniversary beer from your favorite brewer. Enjoy that special beer you normally only open on your wedding anniversary or birthday. Either way, tell us about it. Why is it a beer you may only drink once a year? Why is that brewery’s annual release the one you selected?

But, I'm not exactly going to write about that.

Instead, I want to talk about an idea that I think is really cool that maybe some brewers looking to scrounge a little change from under the couch cusions might want to consider: custom brewing or white-labeling beer.

As I think I've mentioned before on this site, I'm going to be married soon. So, in figuring out what I want to do for beer for the wedding I started looking around at the Wisconsin brewers to see what would be good. Now, one of the best things about holding a wedding on a farm in the middle of nowhere is that we are not beholden to either distributors or some venue ripping us off for a keg of beer (e.g., The Memorial Union's awesome deal of $225 for a half-barrel - full keg - of f-ing Pabst Blue Ribbon. What?! Yeah. A keg of Pabst f-ing Blue Ribbon for $225!!! That same keg is $69.95 at Riley's - and don't even get me started on the $18.95 bottle of Yellow Tail Shiraz). And alcohol is pretty important to us: not only do I write a blog about beer for goodness sakes, but I have clients who are breweries, my family likes to have a drink or six, and my fiancee's family doesn't mind a couple every now and then either. So, paying $225 for one keg of PBR (let alone the 2.5 kegs that we think we are actually going to need) is not going to cut it.

So, instead my fiancee and I sat down and made a wish list. At the top of the list for me is the Oktoberfest made by Rowland's Calumet Brewery up in Chilton. At the top of my fiance's list: Fallen Apple by Furthermore. Not only was the Oktoberfest style invented for a wedding, but Rowland's is one of the best I've ever had and pretty close to my favorite beer on the planet (much like bands and music, it's hard to have a favorite, but the top 5 are all pretty much the same). Then, it turns out Fallen Apple was originally created by Furthermore's head brewer Aran Madden to use as the champagne toast at his own wedding.

So, you see, creating beers for wedding celebrations has a long history. And we still needed another half-keg of beer. So, I called up a local brewer and asked a favor: How would you like to brew a beer for my wedding? To my delight he agreed and he gave me some ideas for styles based on some different sorts of beers that he's brewed in the past. I picked one (a maple syrup bier de garde) and we've tweaked it a little for our purposes. In this case, I'll get to be around when he's brewing it. It'll be brewed on his test-batch system and go into 5-gallon corny kegs.

But there's no reason other, local, brewers can't offer this as a regular feature. First, it's a service that simply cannot be replicated by the bigger breweries - it is a service that would not scale much beyond local microbreweries and brewpubs. But, it offers an extremely customized, personal interaction with your customers - and it is a great opportunity to create lifetime customers. The service, of course, would bring a premium price. The breweries could offer custom bottling, if feasible. We'll leave aside the (rather glaring) legal issues for now. I can hear the complaints: I don't want to tie up a whole fermenter and aging barrels with one special beer. But, to this I have a couple of ideas: 1) most of these smaller breweries have small test-batch systems that are in the 5-10 gallon range (perfect for a few 5-gallon corny kegs); 2) you could limit choice to a couple of different types of beer that are only available as these special releases and white-label them ("white labeling" is the practice of putting someone else's label on your own product - it is quite common in the clothing industry, for example); 3) if someone wants to pay for a full production of it, what do you care; 4) put a few orders together that are similar enough to be brewed together (or only offer style choices that are based on beers that you are already regularly brewing) but only require minor post-fermentation differences.

Would it be "worth" it? I don't know. These brewers are all very busy. But for the right price could they find some time for the occassional fun, one-off brewing? The bigger question is: what's the right price?

Celebration beer indeed!

Some Random Thoughts

Today's column is inspired by the all of the real-life journalists who can't be bothered to write real columns so they just list a bunch of random things and expect that to be sufficient. Except, these are legitimate questions that you can take seriously.

Why doesn't Wisconsin have beer from Stone Brewing Company, Lost Abbey, AleSmith, Brooklyn, or Alaskan Brewing? These are some of the top breweries in the world and constitute most of the top 10 in American brewing, but our distributors can't be bothered to get them here. Thankfully this is being rectified in some measure by the impending arrival of Stone. While all of my sources say June 23^rd is the day, I will note that they didn't say 2008. I've been told that kegs and bottles will roll out on the same day. From the sounds of things it's all coming together pretty quickly – which means it can all fall apart pretty quickly, too. So, like many, many others I'll believe it when I see it. It's not yet known which brands we will be receiving. I'll hopefully have more about this next week.

But the point still holds. Why can't we get the others? It's not like they are secretly stashed away in their respective locales (admittedly, Lost Abbey and AleSmith are a little less distributed, but I've seen bottles of these for sale here in the Midwest). These are brands that have pretty deep penetration into the United States. We just don't have them here, in Wisconsin. Having these brands not only brings great beer to our state, but it might just jump start some of the creativity here as well as it seems the Wisconsin craft brewing industry is desperately searching for some inspiration.

Speaking of lack of inspiration. The Belgian Triple is the new IPA. Everybody has a Belgian Triple now. You know the drill, light bodied, high alcohol, low hopping, sugary sweet, moderate carbonation. Rinse, repeat. I have no problem with Belgian Triples. My favorite beer in the entire universe is a Belgian Triple. Much like the IPA, it is a very easy beer to brew, but a very difficult beer to brew correctly. The key to the Triple, and to the IPA, is balance. Nobody wants to suck on a sugar packet. There needs to be some malt backbone, and at least enough hopping to provide some damn closure. And, I know, I don't like picking on Capital, but it's very frustrating to go out East and have Brooklyn's Local 1, then have to come home and drink the Prairie Gold. Which isn't really fair to Capital. To be honest the Prairie Gold is a good, quenching, sweet summery beer. If you haven't had one, you should go out of your way to get one, or, heck, by a six. It's truly good stuff.

And, not to nitpick, but has anyone seen Capital's Baltic Porter on tap here in Madison or in Milwaukee? I've seen it on tap. In freaking Chicago.

Although talking about trying to find inspiration. I can't wait for Tyranena's Imperial Black Weizen. To quote Brewer Rob: "I am not at all sure what [the] beer style is exactly supposed to taste like. Now I thoroughly enjoy our Hefeweizen... the clove and banana flavors... but a Black Hefeweizen would have those flavors masked by the darker malts... and an Imperial would limit the ability to consume multiple glasses that is so easy with the lighter Hefeweizen." I'm a big fan of Dunkel Weizens.

This is what the BJCP (Class 15B) has to say about Dunkels: Low to moderately strong banana and clove flavor. The balance and intensity of the phenol and ester components can vary but the best examples are reasonably balanced and fairly prominent. Optionally, a very light to moderate vanilla character and/or low bubblegum notes can accentuate the banana flavor, sweetness and roundness; neither should be dominant if present. The soft, somewhat bready or grainy flavor of wheat is complementary, as is a richer caramel and/or melanoidin character from Munich and/or Vienna malt. The malty richness can be low to medium-high, but shouldn't overpower the yeast character. A roasted malt character is inappropriate. Hop flavor is very low to none, and hop bitterness is very low to low. A tart, citrusy character from yeast and high carbonation is sometimes present, but typically muted. Well rounded, flavorful, often somewhat sweet palate with a relatively dry finish. … By German law, at least 50% of the grist must be malted wheat, although some versions use up to 70%; the remainder is usually Munich and/or Vienna malt. A traditional decoction mash gives the appropriate body without cloying sweetness. Weizen ale yeasts produce the typical spicy and fruity character, although extreme fermentation temperatures can affect the balance and produce off-flavors. A small amount of noble hops are used only for bitterness.

We can see then that some phenol and ester-y components (often associated with higher ABV imperial beers, but also a by-product of some ale yeasts) can be appropriate. The trick will be ramping up the ABV without overpowering the complexities inherent in the style, particularly since you can't rely on roasted malts. I don't know whether Tyranena is setup to do a decoction mash (a process that New Glarus uses frequently, and most recently on their Bourbon Barrel Bock) but it's a neat trick that adds body and ABV without making the grain bill in ridiculous proportions.

Allagash may be leaving Wisconsin, so pick up the 750s and bombers while you can. It's a frustrating move because Allagash makes excellent, excellent beer. The Allagash White is a great beer to take home to your girlfriend or fiancée or wife or lady friend and serve with grilled chicken dinner instead of white wine.

Oh. Rodenbach may be going away for a little while, too.

The last poll results are down. Your favorite Spring style was the Maibock. Tied for second were the Bock and Weizen. A close third was the Irish Red. Picking up the pack was the Irish Stout. No Guinness or Three Feet Deep love, eh? Ah well. Next poll is up. Vote for the best Wisconsin brewing region! I'll be very curious to see who wins. The Northwoods is overshadowed by Leinie's, but has some excellent small, local breweries and brewpubs. The Central region is really starting to get a lot of respect with Central Waters, the new O'So, Stevens Point, Calumet, and a host of new brewpubs in the Appleton/OshKosh area. The SouthEast, of course has all of the great Milwaukee-area breweries and brewpubs. From Lakefront to Silver Creek. Meanwhile the South and SouthWest has the twin 500 pound gorillas of Capital and New Glarus, with brewpub kings The Great Dane and The Grumpy Troll along with newcomers like Ale Asylum and Furthermore. So, get your votes in!!

Finally. A nasty little rumor about a new brewery possibly starting to brew next year up in Wilson, Wisconsin. Rumor has it that the brewery, run by Minnesotan brewing veteran David Anderson, is on a hop and grain farm and that the beer will be made entirely from hops and grains grown on that farm. Possibly even a maltings on the farm to malt their own grains and windmills on location to provide power; the water will come from a local well. If anyone knows anything about this (David Anderson?), please, please get in touch with me. This could be a very, very awesome thing.

Audience Participation - Random Beer

I'm going to keep at this until we actually get some audience participation here.

So, what's the best or worst random beer you've had? A beer that you've ended up getting at the store because the retail help recommended it and was right or very very wrong. Or, beer that someone brought because they know you like beer that either hit the spot or completely missed the mark.

My interest was piqued on the first grilling day of the year yesterday. We went to Brennan's to pick up some stuff to throw on the grill and while there we got some beer. While I was at the car, the other person came out with a beer that the beer guy had told her was a "good brunch beer." What qualified that for a grilled steak dinner is beyond me, but it was under his recommendation.

It was the El Toro William Jones Wheat Ale. (BA. RB.) It was actually all right - not about to make me give up hope for the recommendations at Brennan's. A run-of-the-mill American Wheat Ale. Unfortunately, we're kind of spoiled in Wisconsin, and the wheat ales available from our own in-state breweries outshine this every day of the week.

So, what's the best, or worst, random beer you've had?