Showing posts with label Port City Brewing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Port City Brewing. Show all posts
Friday, June 27, 2014
Ballparks & Brews: Potomac Nationals
Friday, May 9, 2014
It's #SAVOR Day - Ready to sample over 150 craft beers
Today is one of my favorite days of the year - Savor: An American Craft Beer & Food Experience. Back again in DC and sponsored by the Brewers Association, the Experience features two beers from 76 breweries and paired with food created by Chef Adam Dulye of The Monk’s Kettle in San Francisco in collaboration with Occasions Caterers. The 2014 SAVOR collaboration beer is the Hydra Cuveé brought to us by Firestone Walker Brewing Co. and Flying Dog Brewery. This beer is a blend of four different beers—two barrel-aged beers, a robust imperial porter and a black rye IPA. In keeping with Greek mythology, the hydra represents three distinct parts—the lion, the bear (both from Firestone Walker’s insignia) and the Flying Dog. I will be attending the Bottle Conditioning 101 Salon featuring
Jason Perkins, Allagash Brewing Company; Garrett Oliver, Brooklyn Brewery; Steven Pauwels, Boulevard Brewing Company; and Brian O'Reilly, Sly Fox Brewing Co. 
There are several local DC, Maryland, and Virginia breweries that won a space from the lottery. Port City Brewing Company (Optimal Wit & Colossal One); Bluejacket Brewery (Forbidden Planet & Bourbon Barrel-Aged Burning Bush); Atlas Brew Works (District Common & Rowdy); Evolution Craft Brewing Co (Lucky 7 & Lot # 6); Flying Dog Brewery (Dead Rise & The Truth); Heavy Seas Beer (Loose Cannon & Riptide); Lickinghole Creek Craft Brewery (Magic Beaver & Three Chopt Tripel); Strangeways Brewing (Martian Spring & WHAP! Sorachi Sour); Devils Backbone Brewing Company (Danzig & Pear Lager); and Hardywood Park Craft Brewery (Gingerbread Stout & The Great Return). I will also be spending time with New York's Saranac Brewery (Saranac Legacy IPA & Saranac Tramonay Rogue), Chicago's Revolution Brewing (A Little Crazy & Straight Jacket) and Nebraska Brewing (Apricot Au Poivre & Sexy Betty). Plus there's a certain amount of anticipation to finding new beers that will I'll be posting on Twitter (@winecompass) and follow along with the #Savor hashtag. And if any attendees want to visit the area breweries beforehand, theCompass mobile application can help. Cheers.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Wit Beer - A Toast to Pierre Celis
Ever since Port City Brewing Company opened this year we have become converts to their flagship beer, the Belgium wheat beer Optimal Wit, and have been sampling versions from craft breweries throughout the U.S. At the same time, we have been constant evangelists spreading the word on the virtues of this beer style. Sadly, at the time of our conversion, the modern day "founder" of Wit beer, Pierre Celis, passed away. And it seems, many Wit beer drinkers are unfamiliar with the roll Celis played in reviving this style.We recommend reading the entire article by Roger Protz, Pierre Celis, Maestro of White Beer.
It was Pierre who saved and revived a noble beer style: the spiced wheat or "white" beers of East Brabant. The region has rich, dark soil ideal for growing barley, oats and wheat. Brewing in the area has been traced back to 1318, when it was in the hands of farmers and monks. By the 1500s Hoegaarden had a brewers' guild and in the 19th century there were some 30 breweries in the small town. Right: Pierre and his wife, Juliette.
The special character of the white beers of Brabant was due to the use not only of wheat and oats alongside barley malt but also exotic spices and fruits brought to the Low Countries by Dutch and Flemish traders. Spiced white beers from Hoegaarden were widely distributed throughout Brabant and the neighbouring province of Liege.
But in the 20th century the breweries started to close, unable to compete with the mass-marketed Pilsner lagers produced in the city of Leuven, home of Stella Artois.
The last brewery in Hoegaarden, Tomsin, pulled down the shutters in the late 1950s. It was mourned by many in the town, including Pierre Celis, who had done some part-time work there as a schoolboy.
Pierre's father ran a dairy and Pierre delivered milk. He was drinking in a bar with some friends one evening and they began to reminisce about the much-missed beers of Hoegaarden. Encouraged by his friends, who jokingly said he should move from one cloudy white drink to another, Pierre said he would attempt to brew some beer. He made a batch in his wife's copper in the family home alongside the dairy. There was no written-down recipe from Tomsin's, but Pierre remembered the ingredients from his work there. Grain and hops were easily available and he added milled coriander seeds and Curacao orange peel.
His beer was so well received that he decided to make it commercially. In 1966, he bought a small 25-hectolitre plant from a brewery in Limburg and installed it in the stables next to the house. The kit is still there today, but the success of the beer forced him to move to a derelict lemonade factory in the town to cope with demand.
The cloudy, unfiltered beer had taken Leuven by storm, where university students considered it to be more natural than lager. Pierre broke into the important Antwerp market and then into the Netherlands and France. The beer's fortunes were aided by the unique eight-sided glass: by chance, Pierre had found the Italian prototype in a local shop (shown below, right).
Production grew rapidly to 300,000 hectos a year by 1985. Pierre had just started to export to the United States when fire devastated the brewery. He was seriously under-insured.
"I needed 280 million Belgian francs to rebuild but I only got 40 million from the insurers," he says. "The banks wouldn't help but then Stella Artois offered to invest in return for 45 per cent of the shares."
At first the relationship with Stella was a good one. But things changed dramatically in 1988 when Stella merged with Piedboeuf of Jupille near Liege.
Interbrew was born and, according to Pierre, "the bankers took over". The fact that they were French-speaking bankers probably didn't help.
"People came from Jupille, looked around the brewery and told me how to make my beer cheaper. They said they used high-gravity brewing at Jupille to reduce costs and I should do the same," he says.
Pierre refused. High-gravity brewing means making one strong wort and watering it down to make different beers. Pierre, who had added to the range at Hoegaarden, said it would give his beers different aromas and flavours. He declared he would stick to his old recipes and ways of brewing.
As the pressure mounted, and Interbrew began to close breweries in Belgium to concentrate production at Leuven and Jupille, Pierre decided to retire at 65, selling the company to the Belgian giant.
But that wasn't the end of the story. American interest in Hoegaarden prompted him to build a brewery in Austin, Texas. Celis White was an overnight success and sales boomed. But Pierre found that his American backers wanted a quick return on their investment and, in order to buy them out, he signed another Faustian pact, this time with Miller, America's second-biggest brewer.
"I'd been brewing 22,000 barrels a year," he says, "but that rapidly fell to 15,000 barrels when Miller arrived. They spent a fortune on administration and we lost money and production. They cheapened the beer and cut out imported Czech hops."
Pierre sold his share of the company and came home to the family house in Hoegaarden with his wife Juliette. Miller eventually closed the Austin brewery and now Pierre finds that InBev, the successor to Interbrew and the world's biggest brewer, plans to close the Hoegaarden plant in October.
The special character of the white beers of Brabant was due to the use not only of wheat and oats alongside barley malt but also exotic spices and fruits brought to the Low Countries by Dutch and Flemish traders. Spiced white beers from Hoegaarden were widely distributed throughout Brabant and the neighbouring province of Liege.
But in the 20th century the breweries started to close, unable to compete with the mass-marketed Pilsner lagers produced in the city of Leuven, home of Stella Artois.
The last brewery in Hoegaarden, Tomsin, pulled down the shutters in the late 1950s. It was mourned by many in the town, including Pierre Celis, who had done some part-time work there as a schoolboy.
Pierre's father ran a dairy and Pierre delivered milk. He was drinking in a bar with some friends one evening and they began to reminisce about the much-missed beers of Hoegaarden. Encouraged by his friends, who jokingly said he should move from one cloudy white drink to another, Pierre said he would attempt to brew some beer. He made a batch in his wife's copper in the family home alongside the dairy. There was no written-down recipe from Tomsin's, but Pierre remembered the ingredients from his work there. Grain and hops were easily available and he added milled coriander seeds and Curacao orange peel.
His beer was so well received that he decided to make it commercially. In 1966, he bought a small 25-hectolitre plant from a brewery in Limburg and installed it in the stables next to the house. The kit is still there today, but the success of the beer forced him to move to a derelict lemonade factory in the town to cope with demand.
The cloudy, unfiltered beer had taken Leuven by storm, where university students considered it to be more natural than lager. Pierre broke into the important Antwerp market and then into the Netherlands and France. The beer's fortunes were aided by the unique eight-sided glass: by chance, Pierre had found the Italian prototype in a local shop (shown below, right).
Production grew rapidly to 300,000 hectos a year by 1985. Pierre had just started to export to the United States when fire devastated the brewery. He was seriously under-insured.
"I needed 280 million Belgian francs to rebuild but I only got 40 million from the insurers," he says. "The banks wouldn't help but then Stella Artois offered to invest in return for 45 per cent of the shares."
At first the relationship with Stella was a good one. But things changed dramatically in 1988 when Stella merged with Piedboeuf of Jupille near Liege.
Interbrew was born and, according to Pierre, "the bankers took over". The fact that they were French-speaking bankers probably didn't help.
"People came from Jupille, looked around the brewery and told me how to make my beer cheaper. They said they used high-gravity brewing at Jupille to reduce costs and I should do the same," he says.
Pierre refused. High-gravity brewing means making one strong wort and watering it down to make different beers. Pierre, who had added to the range at Hoegaarden, said it would give his beers different aromas and flavours. He declared he would stick to his old recipes and ways of brewing.
As the pressure mounted, and Interbrew began to close breweries in Belgium to concentrate production at Leuven and Jupille, Pierre decided to retire at 65, selling the company to the Belgian giant.
But that wasn't the end of the story. American interest in Hoegaarden prompted him to build a brewery in Austin, Texas. Celis White was an overnight success and sales boomed. But Pierre found that his American backers wanted a quick return on their investment and, in order to buy them out, he signed another Faustian pact, this time with Miller, America's second-biggest brewer.
"I'd been brewing 22,000 barrels a year," he says, "but that rapidly fell to 15,000 barrels when Miller arrived. They spent a fortune on administration and we lost money and production. They cheapened the beer and cut out imported Czech hops."
Pierre sold his share of the company and came home to the family house in Hoegaarden with his wife Juliette. Miller eventually closed the Austin brewery and now Pierre finds that InBev, the successor to Interbrew and the world's biggest brewer, plans to close the Hoegaarden plant in October.
Now for the rest of the story....
- In 1995, the Coors Brewing Company launched a Belgium Wit called Blue Moon.
- In 2002, Miller Brewing sold the recipe and naming rights for the Celis brand to the Michigan Brewing Company.
- In 2007, Miller Brewing reunited with a Wit brand when the company merged with Coors.
- In 2009, InBev, the successor to Interbrew merged with Anheuser-Busch opening the U.S. market to Hoegaarden beer.
For a Father's day cookout, I decided to sample several Wit styles which included the Michigan Brewing Company Celis White, the Port City Brewing Company Optimal Wit, the Victory Brewing Whirlwind Wit, and the Flying Dog Brewery Woody Creek White. This wasn't a blind tasting to determine a favorite - just a day to celebrate the style. Yet the Celis White seemed to have the strongest profile of the style - the wheat flavors balanced with coriander and orange peel. The most unexpected result was after 5 or 6 beers, I became fatigued with the style and craved a beer with a hoppier finish. Variety in style does matter - at least for this palette.
But as summer moves along, grab a Wit, and raise a toast to Pierre Celis - a modern day pioneer.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
American Craft Beer Week Feature: Port City Brewing
We started a little Wednesday tradition at the day job, sort of a team building exercise, by sharing a growler of craft beer. Our first brew was crafted locally in nearby Alexandria by Port City Brewing Company; the unfiltered Belgian Wit Bier: Optimal Wit. This beer is brewed with raw wheat and oats, and steeped with coriander, orange peel and grains of paradise. This is a classic Wit, refreshing with loads of mouthfeel and a nice balanced finished. Nice to see good beer produced immediately from a start-up.For Port City is an infant, opening Super Bowl weekend of this year. And yet its
presence is felt throughout the year thanks to owner, Bill Butcher's , contacts within the distribution system. Before opening Port City Bill was managing sales and distribution for Robert Mondavi Winery and Folio Fine Wine Partner. He leveraged contacts made from those endehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifavors to have Port City brews available throughout the Washington D.C. Metro area. Now its up to brewer, Johnathan Reeves formerly of Sweetwater Tavern), to keep the distribution in place based on the beers' quality - not from old contacts. Besides the Wit, he crafts an Essential Pale Ale, Monumental IPA, and Porter. The last is actually my favorite from the portfolio, smooth with toffee flavors and a slight bitter finish. Very nice.Port City is open Fri
day nights and weekends for tours so plan a visit during American Craft Beer Week. On these occasions, Bill or a staff member guides visitors on a brewery tour and possibly a tasting from one of the fermenting tanks. Be sure to see the proprietary Hop Blaster that sends hops flying into the fermenting tanks whenever dry hopping is required.
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