Beer-Topia

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  Delaware: If you’ve done any kind of craft beer drinking, you know about the magic that is Delaware’s Dogfish Head, a favorite among discerning beerhounds since the mid-1990s and a reliable source of unusual and high-ABV brews. Delaware’s first brewpub, Dogfish Head has made a habit of pushing the beer envelope, bottling everything from its vaunted IPA line to more unusual stuff like Namaste (a Belgian-style beer brewed with orange slices, coriander, and lemongrass) and its Ancient Ales line, which lives up to its name by using centuries-old brewing techniques—and even ingredients—culled from archaeological digs.

  Florida: Cigar City Brewing in Tampa has only been brewing since 2009, but already boasts an award-winning line of beers that includes a flagship Imperial Stout as well as a host of intriguing brews like Right Side Up Pineapple Cake Lager, Guava Grove Sour Ale, and Chicory Dickory Choc Brown Ale. Who needs Disney World?

  For part 2 of “The United States of Beer,” turn to page 161.

  BILLY BEER

  Billy Beer initially seemed poised for success. It was, after all, endorsed by Billy Carter, the former gas station owner who rose to national fame in the late ’70s by virtue of being the affable, boozy redneck brother of President Jimmy Carter. Whether you loved, hated, or were indifferent to Carter’s politics, the idea of guzzling a brew named after his family’s black sheep had a certain delicious appeal, and every can came emblazoned with Billy’s wryly funny promise: “I had this beer brewed just for me. It’s the best beer I’ve ever tasted. And I’ve tasted a lot.”

  Unfortunately for Falls City Brewing, the Louisville brewer behind Billy Beer, few consumers shared that effusive opinion—not even Carter himself, who had a habit of telling reporters that he was still a Pabst Blue Ribbon man.

  Less than a year after debuting the beer, Falls City was out of business, and although unopened cans have periodically enjoyed surges in value on the collector’s market, Billy Beer’s chief value over the last few decades has been as a definitive 1970s reference and punch line.

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  9 REAL BAR NAMES

  1. The 13th Step

  2. Club Foot

  3. Burp Castle

  4. Ugly Toona Saloona

  5. Bar Bar Black Sheep Chicago

  6. High Dive

  7. He’s Not Here

  8. Third Base (“the last stop before home”)

  9. Warm Beer and Lousy Food

  THE WISDOM OF BILLY CARTER

  “There is no such thing as a bad beer. It’s that some taste better than others.”

  “I’m a real Southern boy. I got a red neck, white socks, and Blue Ribbon beer.”

  “But that won’t give me a free hand to hold the beer.” (While learning a two-handed backhand during a tennis lesson.)

  “Marijuana is like Coors beer. If you could buy the damn stuff at a Georgia filling station, you’d decide you wouldn’t want it.”

  “Paintings are like a beer, only beer tastes good and it’s hard to stop drinking beer.”

  “Beer is not a good cocktail-party drink, especially in a home where you don’t know where the bathroom is.”

  MAKE YOUR OWN BEER IN TWO HOURS

  Drinking beer is obviously a lot of fun, but brewing it can be a blast, too. The process can seem fairly daunting to anyone who’s never done it, but it’s really pretty painless and quick.

  WHAT YOU NEED

  Start off with a starter brewing kit. A good one will include everything (or nearly everything) you need to get started. At any rate, you’ll need a fermenting bucket with a lid, or a glass fermenter with an airlock cap, a glass thermometer, a racking cane, tubing, a tubing clamp, and sanitizer. You’ll also need a large stockpot (around five gallons), a funnel, a strainer, 12-ounce bottles, and mesh bags. Hopefully, your town has a brewing supply store; if not, you can always turn to sites like homebrew.org.

  GET CLEAN

  Even if your gear is new, it still needs to be cleaned—thoroughly—because a little unwelcome bacteria can ruin your entire brew. Fill your fermenting bucket or stockpot with five gallons of water, throw in all your new brewing tools, and add a few ounces of brewing sanitizer (Star San is the most used brand), put the lid on, and shake it up until the sanitizer has been properly spread. Wash and sanitize your hands with the same stuff, and rinse and dry your equipment.

  THE YEAST OF YOUR WORRIES

  In addition to equipment, you’ll need the beer ingredients themselves, such as yeast. The grains and hops you’ll use will vary, but yeast is more straightforward. We recommend you use liquid yeast packs (made by manufacturers such as Wyeast), which contain an activator pouch that’s released into the mix after you thwack the pouch against a hard surface like the palm of your hand. Smack it, shake it up, and watch the pouch inflate—but don’t break the bag.

  GET TO BREWING

  Add two to three gallons of water to your clean, empty, and dry five-gallon pot and bring it to a boil. It’s at this point that you take one of your mesh bags and pour in some flavoring grains, like roasted barley; the bag steeps in the water until it reaches 170°F, which generally takes about half an hour. If you hit 170 before 30 minutes have passed, remove the pot from the heat and let the grains steep until the full half-hour has elapsed.

  After you’ve steeped your grains, remove the bag and turn off your heat. Here’s where you’ll want to add your malt extract (we’d recommend using the liquid variety to start), stirring it to make sure none of it sticks to the bottom of the pot. Now you’ve got wort, and it’s time to boil it, watching carefully; when foam starts to rise, blow on it or turn down the heat until the foam drops to avoid boilovers, then bring it back up until you’ve got a good boil going.

  Now it’s time to start thinking about hops. Depending on what type of brew you’re making and which extracts you’re using, your process will vary. Essentially, that foaming stage you reached while boiling the wort is called a “hot break,” and once you reach it, you’re doing what’s called boiling for additions—following the instructions for whatever hops are called for in your brew. If you’re adding flavoring or aroma hops in addition to hopped extract, then your boiling process will take about half an hour; if you’re using hopped extract and not adding extra hops, that drops to about 15 minutes. Either way, you’re adding flavor to your beer here, so make sure you show those hops some love as you’re adding them.

  When your boil is in the home stretch (about five minutes left), it’s time to add whatever finishing agents you’re going to drop in to encourage proteins to drop out; many brewers use Whirlfloc, a commercial blend that uses Irish moss and purified carrageenan.

  Once your boil is finished, it’s time to cool your wort. If you’re using a five-gallon kettle, you can do this in the sink or bathtub by using cold tap water or an ice bath (this is called a “partial boil”); if you’re using a larger kettle (“full boil”), you can use a wort chiller, which wraps metal coils around the kettle for an immersion cooling that you achieve by hooking the chiller up to a tap. Either way, the faster you get your wort down to what’s called yeast pitching temperature (65–90°F), the better it is for your brew. Be careful to keep the lid on your kettle during this process to prevent any contaminants from working their way in.

  While your kettle is cooling, dump the sanitizing solution out of your fermenting bucket. If you’re using a five-gallon kettle, add two gallons of cold water and/or ice to the bucket, and remember—the cleaner, the better. Filtered water and store-bought ice will go a long way toward preventing odd flavors from popping up in your brew later on, so go the extra mile by running your tap water through a carbon filter and refraining from using those old ice cubes tucked away in the back of your freezer.

  Once your wort has cooled, it’s time to transfer. This process will vary depending on whether you’ve gone the full-boil or partial-boil route, but either way, here’s where you’ll pitch your yeast into the fermenting vessel, then add your wort. That adding process can be as simple as pouring the contents of you
r kettle into the bucket (this is the only stage of the brewing process where exposing your brew, however briefly, to the open air is a good thing), or as fancy as using a full-boil kettle that transfers its contents to the fermenting vessel with a spigot.

  Once you’ve done all that, put your vessel in a spot where it’ll stay undisturbed (and at around 65–70°F) for the next 14 days.

  It definitely bears mentioning that this doesn’t take into account the rest of the process—like, say, bottling, which requires its own set of instructions—and we’ve really just skimmed the surface of brewing, which involves a lot of variables and can be as complicated as you want it to be. What we hope we’ve made clear here, though, is that brewing can be pretty quick and easy; if you’ve got a little extra money for equipment and ingredients, and a couple of hours for running through these basic steps, your own beer is closer than you might think.

  MORE STRANGE BEER FLAVORS

  Oysters. Have you ever wondered what the rich, coffee-and-chocolate flavor profile of a stout would taste like with just the faintest hint of seafood? Of course you haven’t. But the Oysterhead Stout from Magnolia Brewing, brewed with dozens of pounds of oyster shells, is worth a try.

  Sriracha. Sriracha is that suddenly omnipresent condiment made from chili peppers, vinegar, and garlic. It’s pretty hot stuff, which makes for the challenging Sriracha from Rogue Brewery.

  Ghost peppers. Even hotter is Palmetto Brewing’s Ghost Rider. It’s an American pale ale, but hardly pedestrian…or refreshing. It’s spiced with smoked ghost peppers, among the spiciest peppers on earth. Palmetto recommends pairing it with smoked meats, and, understandably, a glass of milk.

  VERY OLD DRINKING GAMES

  The Puzzle Jug. Modern drinking games tend to be a vulgar macho display more than a true test of skill. In the 14th century, drinkers devised something far more devilish: the Puzzle Jug, a hilarious test of mental acuity that was both shamelessly wasteful and definitely fun. Here’s how it worked: A jug was designed with a series of holes that needed to be covered in a certain way in order to prevent the drinker from spilling the contents all over his shirt…a task that obviously grew more difficult as more beers were consumed. To add insult to injury, the jugs also tended to be inscribed with challenges, which the chagrined party had plenty of time to read while wringing out his shirt and mopping up the floor.

  Kottabos. Centuries before college students invented Beer Pong, the ancient Greeks tested their inebriated aim during rounds of kottabos, a game that involved hucking the yeast deposits at the bottoms of their glasses at a target in the middle of the room. It wasn’t quite as raucous as it sounds; kottabos was a fairly regimented game, requiring players to remain in the Greek drinker’s customary reclined position and use only his right arm to send the glass flying without splitting apart.

  Nagelspielen. Combining a number of seemingly disparate ingredients—alcohol, axes, and nails—Nagelspielen (roughly “playing with nails” in German) dates back at least as far as the original Oktoberfest in 1810. The rules are simple: Each player tries to drive a nail into a stump, one swing of the axe at a time, with the winner claiming a free drink. It isn’t quite as easy as it might sound; for starters, players have to use the sharp end of the axe, and the presence of rowdy bar patrons jeering you as the nail inevitably bends, requiring the expenditure of precious turns to try to straighten it out, adds up to all kinds of fun frustration. These days, the game is generally played as Hammerschlagen—which has contestants play with the wedge end of a three-pound blacksmith’s hammer rather than an axe—but the end result remains the same: drunk people swinging heavy objects in a crowded room.

  Buffalo Club. Many drinking games rely on props of some sort, but to be a member of the Buffalo Club, all you need are two hands and some booze. The general idea, which allegedly dates back to the Wild West custom of keeping one’s dominant hand free during recreational activities so as to be ready for a quick-draw shootout at any time, is that players must always drink with their nondominant hand. If another Buffalo Club member spots you breaking the rule, he or she yells “Buffalo!” to signal that you have to pound your drink as quickly as possible (not as easy as it might seem when you’re surrounded by a room full of people screaming “Buffalo!” in your face). If you call “Buffalo!” and you’re wrong about the other player’s dominant hand, however, you have to pound your own drink.

  Buffalo Club’s main twist is that it’s a lifetime game, and one that members tend to take fairly seriously; in the U.S., you can even join the American Buffalo Club Association, which has chapters in most states.

  Beer Runs. In an effort to purge the previous weekend’s hangover with a little hair of the dog, British colonists in what is now Malaysia would gather on Monday evenings for a “paper chase.” A runner designated the “hare” would lead the pack by laying down a trail of paper bits or chalk marks, and at the finish line, everyone would celebrate with a few rounds. There’s also the Kastenlauf, a German walking race of three to seven miles whose participants, united in teams of two, work to carry and consume a crate of beer before crossing the finish line. An American variant of this is The Beer Mile, in which participants run laps equating a mile, pausing after a lap to drink a can or pint of beer.

  BEERS NAMED AFTER GREAT WRITERS AND ARTISTS

  Shakespeare Stout. An oatmeal stout by any other name would taste as sweet, as Juliet from Romeo and Juliet might say. But regardless of whether the Bard’s writing really has anything to do with Shakespeare Stout from Oregon’s Rogue Ales, it’s still a tasty (and award-winning) tribute.

  Walt Wit. The Walt Whitman Bridge runs between Philadelphia and Gloucester City in New Jersey and traverses the Delaware River. That was where Whitman once sat and watched the “approaching sunset of unusual splendor, a broad tumble of clouds, with much golden haze and profusion of beaming shaft and dazzle” that he later described in “Only a New Ferry Boat.” Thus inspired, the Philadelphia Brewing Company developed Walt Wit, a cleverly named Belgian witbier whose recipe boasts a tumble of natural flavors appropriate for the poet who wrote Leaves of Grass. (Walt Wit contains no leaves or grass.)

  Oscar Wilde. Given the rather awful circumstances of his later life and death (imprisoned for homosexuality and worked to death at a labor camp), one might expect an Oscar Wilde beer to be loaded up with the bitterest of hops. The UK’s Mighty Oak Brewing Company took the opposite approach, opting for a recipe with the sparkling lightness of the legendarily insouciant wit that led the younger Wilde to come up with quotes like the one emblazoned on the beer that bears his name: “Work is the curse of the drinking class.”

  Longfellow Winter Ale. If Maine had an official brewery, it’d probably be Shipyard, and if the state had an official poet, he’d probably be Henry Wadsworth Longfellow—and since both of them were born in Portland, it’s only fitting that Shipyard should honor the 19th-century superstar of verse with its Longfellow Winter Ale. In his 1855 poem “My Lost Youth,” Longfellow recalled the “black wharves and the ships, and the sea tides tossing free” of his youth. Shipyard’s brew does what it can to bottle those memories with a dark, bittersweet beer, good for downing on rocky shorelines while looking out at lighthouses on stormy coasts.

  Thomas Hardy’s Ale. Originally brewed by Eldridge Pope Brewery in 1968 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Thomas Hardy’s death, Thomas Hardy’s Ale was inspired by a passage from his 1880 novel The Trumpet Major, describing a beer that had “the most beautiful colour an artist could possibly desire, as bright as an autumn sunset.” Produced once a year in limited quantities, Thomas Hardy’s Ale became an annual event for beer connoisseurs, many of whom were devastated when the company closed its doors in 2003. Like Hardy’s works, however, the beer that bears his name lives on; it was resurrected by O’Hanlons Brewery, which stopped bottling it in 2008, and then again in 2013, when a company called Brew Invest announced plans to bring it back a second time.

  Pliny the Elder. One of the forefathers of
botany, Pliny the Elder lived in Italy during the first century AD. Among his many accomplishments before being killed by a volcano: He’s alleged to have discovered hops—and although that’s impossible to verify, it was enough for the Russian River Brewing Company to name their double IPA after him. Believed by many experts to be the best beer bottled in the U.S., Pliny the Elder is highly sought after, especially in markets outside Russian River’s West Coast distribution range.

  Grünewald Porter and Goya Stout. Nobody knows how to get messed up like an artist, right? That may have been the thinking at Santa Fe’s Duel Brewing when they named beers after painters Matthias Grünewald and Francisco Goya. Both beers boast an ABV north of 11 percent—which may have you seeing (or hearing or tasting) colors.

  MORE OF THE WORLD’S MOST EXPENSIVE BEERS

  Another round of the bottle shock that began on page 90.

  Beer: Antarctic Nail Nale

  Price: $800

  Story: Brewed using water melted from a chunk of Antarctic iceberg, this 10% ABV pale ale is mostly a gimmick, and an expensive one at that; the abbreviated 30-bottle run made its debut at an auction, where the first bottle went for $800. But unlike brewers who’ve prowled to the ends of the earth to dig up rare ingredients mostly for shock value, the folks at Nail Brewing did it all for a good cause: 100% of the profits from Antarctic Nail Ale were donated to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

  Beer: Schorschbock 57