Mitch Steele was recently hired as Stone Brewing’s master brewer about two years ago. He quit his job as an assistant brewer for Anheuser-Busch’s Michelob department to join Stone’s crew. Stone Brewing Company is known for there distinctively arrogant beers. This caused quite a stir among the industry and beer geeks. Many were concerned whether a macro-brewer would have a negative effect on Stone’s bold and independent image.

Zach Rosen: When did you first get interested in brewing?

Mitch Steele: I would probably say my second year in college. I had kind of fallen into wine making as a major. I went to Cal Davis [UCD]. As I was starting to get into that I found there was also a brewing science program. So that kind of sealed the deal. I went to Davis with the expectation of doing some kind of science major. I just didn’t know what. I wanted it to be something applicable to some sort of career. The wine making thing really was very attractive to me; I kind of fell into that my first year when I had to take an elective class. I had to find something to take and someone recommended an intro to wine making class, as I progressed on with that and found there was brewing available as well, that kind of just grabbed me.

Zach Rosen: Oh yeah, so did you ever do any wine work?

Mitch Steele: Yeah I did, I actually spent eight years making wine when I got out of school. There weren’t many jobs in the brewing industry back then, and I ended up working eight years in the wine business.

Zach Rosen: What winery?

Mitch Steele: It was a company called Almaden. They were really big back in the mid-eighties and kind of have been bought up and partitioned out the brand still exists but the winery doesn’t exist.

Zach Rosen: Now your major, were you viticulture or brewing science?

Mitch Steele: The major was fermentation science so I was not able to study viticulture, which is grape growing. I’m not a farmer and I realized that kind of quickly. I took one viticulture class and said, “Oh that’s not for me.” So…but the major was fermentation science and it involved both winemaking, brewing science, a lot of industrial fermentation science, like waste water treatment and that kind of stuff. You know a lot of microbiology and food science type stuff.

Zach Rosen: How’d you feel your education prepare you?

Mitch Steele: Pretty well, at the time, Davis was the only school that offered any kind of brewing science program in the United States. I don’t think I could have learned nearly as much as I did, you know, anywhere else. It was, I thought it was a pretty good background for going into brewing.

Zach Rosen: How did you go from winery to brewery?

Mitch Steele: Well I was working in the winery and I always kind of had it in the back of my mind that the brewing thing was going to be something I wanted to try at some point, and in the hometown where I was living there was a guy in the process of opening up a pub-brewery; that was in Hollister, California. And I got in on the ground floor with that and helped him to open up the brewery. It was a little brewery. He was making around seven hundred to one thousand barrels a year, which, with the system he had broke down to about one to two brews a week. So I was able to come in and brew on my days off or in the evening or something and help him out. I moonlighted as a brewer when I was working in the wine business, and decided fairly quickly that I like brewing a lot more, and that’s what I wanted to do.

Where did you go from the brew-pub?

Mitch Steele: I spent four years there and then went to Anheuser-Busch.

Zach Rosen: So what did you start off as at Busch?

Mitch Steele: The position at the time was called a brewing supervisor, now its called a brewing group manager. And basically it’s a shift supervisor, a frontline supervisor, for the union, you’re a manager working shift work. Doing weekends, evenings, overnight shifts, whatever, and you’re basically coordinating the shift activities for a department in the brewery such as a brew house, fermenting department, or the finishing department.

Zach Rosen: Was it a big switch going from, well, wine to beer, or even Busch to Stone? Well, Michelob to Stone?

Mitch Steele: Going from what I was doing to Busch was a huge adjustment, because Anheuser-Busch is a huge corporation. It was the biggest company I’d ever worked for, and everything there is very structured. There are a lot of resources there that you don’t have in other situations. A lot of science, a lot of research going on in the company, a huge engineering department that knew how to build breweries and use really high-tech kind of equipment, instrumentation and such; which I had never had any exposure to at all prior to going there. Going from Anheuser-Busch to Stone, surprisingly the day to day job duties that I deal with are pretty similar, even though, the difference I would say is more cultural. The company is a lot more different in their approach, how we do things. The other thing is that we don’t have the resources, obviously, as a company like Anheuser-Busch as, so we don’t have people that I can just pick up the phone and call to talk about instruments and how to best a accomplish a process, or anything like that we kind of have to figure it out on our own.

Zach Rosen: So then, what are your day to day jobs right now?

Mitch Steele: Well I’m the headbrewer, I’m also the production manager, and so my job, primarily, is to coordinate the, make sure we’re doing day to day what we need to be doing. You know, we’re brewing the right things, we’re getting as much brewed as we can brew. We are supplying the bottling line with all the beer they need. Making sure the bottling line is bottling what they need. That kind of thing from a production management standpoint, I also work on some longer term things like where are we going to be in a year or two years. What kind of equipment are we going to need? What kind of tanks are we going to need? We’re growing very fast and that takes a lot of active to manage our growth, and make sure we’re prepared for it. It’s a lot of looking at projections, sales projections, and what we’re going to need to do to meet those. So as far as having enough fermentors, having a big enough brewery, enough ingredients, all that kind of thing.

Zach Rosen: Now, so, working for two pretty big breweries, you know Anheuser-Busch, size wise, and then Stone has quite a reputation right now. Do you feel like you’ve made any significant contribution to the brewing industry?

Mitch Steele: Yeah I think so. I’ve had some pretty good opportunities. When I was at Anheuser-Busch, I got to do new product management for them, for just over three years. And a lot of our efforts were to try and make people realize that Anheuser-Busch had a talented staff of brewers and we could brew whatever we wanted to if we put our mind to it. And I think we accomplished that to a certain degree. I think there is a lot more respect from craft brewers for what Busch does as far as brewing and skill then there used to be, and I think a lot of that, not directly maybe, but a lot of that came from the work I was doing. And that was definitely the goal of what we were trying to prove. You know I got to do some neat things with Busch and I’ve done some neat things here at Stone as well. Its been a great experience, and you know I know a lot of people in the brewing business, I’ve got a lot of friends, and its been pretty fun.

Zach Rosen: I was going to ask that too. How important is communication between in the whole brewing industry? Do you communicate a lot with other brewers, both foreign and domestic?

Mitch Steele: I think it happens a lot more on the craft scale than it does on the big brewers scale. At Anheuser-Busch you don’t really need to rely on other brewers for help, you’ve got a whole company is staffed with people who’ve seen everything in the brewing business, almost. Where as in the craft brewing business, on this side, you tend to bounce things off people a lot more frequently. I know I do, and there is a lot more comradery than there is on the big brewer’s side. You know for instance, you know, if I know someone in a small brewery or a regional brewery, that could be considered a competitor, it’s a lot easier to pick up a phone and talk to them, then it would be being at Anheuser and picking up a phone to talk to someone like say, Miller. That just isn’t done. So I think, I think from that stand point it’s important and it’s a little bit easier on the craft side.

Zach Rosen: Working on the craft side, do you have more control over say working on new recipes or development in the actual beer itself?

Mitch Steele: Yeah I do, here; in the larger companies you have a lot more chefs in the kitchen. We still do it all as a team here. We’ve got a lot of people who have come up with a lot of good ideas and stuff, but yeah it’s a little more active involvement, and I think that’s a good thing. We all have suggestions, and I think we have a great staff of brewers here. So the suggestions are all valid.

Zach Rosen: Do you have any personal philosophy; some people like to emphasize stuff when they look at a beer, or any personal philosophy with what you do?

Mitch Steele: Yeah, you know, yeah, that’s a good question. I don’t know if I can verbalize it. I, I always think beer should needs to be exciting, you know and I think its important that, you know, if youre going to make something new you’ve got to really, really got to be something special. Theres a lot of good beer out there so you’ve got to put that extra effort in to make it something that really stands out. And I think that, that’s important when you know we’re doing something like special releases. You know something that we only do once or only release once a year. It’s got to be something that’s really going to be great, and you know I think the ingredients; you need to use ingredients that are really going to stand out and are going to complement each other real well. And you know, I’m not, I’m not a strict style person. You know there’s a lot of guidelines out there for beer styles and what needs to go in them, and I don’t really follow that, and I don’t think anyone at Stone here does. Follow those things religiously. I know there are brewers out there who brew strictly to style because they want to win awards, and things like that, and that’s really not what we’re about. You know we’re about brewing great beer, and if it fits into a style or not that is kind of after the fact. You know if we can fit it into a style great, and if it doesn’t that’s fine too.

Yeah, personally talking, the Stone 11, the 11^th anniversary, that was, you guys did a really good job on that.

Mitch Steele: Oh thanks.

Really, just a different beer.

Mitch Steele: Oh that’s a perfect example. That’s one of those ones where we try to do something really special.

Zach Rosen: Yeah I know a lot of people are calling it the black IPA almost. It’s real…it’s something else. Let’s see, do you have any influences, mentors, or role models?

Mitch Steele: Gosh there is so many. You know, I think anywhere you look in this business, you’ve got people, umm specific mentors, probably, probably not. Role models, yeah there’s people that I think are doing some really great things. I think as a brewer, this is such an exciting time to be a brewer. There’s people who are really pushing the envelope and I think you kind of take your cues from them, and you try and do something better. That’s what its all about; it’s competitive but it is friendly you know. It is like, “Wow, they just did that, we could do that!” Or we can do something even better, or take it to the next level, or whatever. I think everybody is always happy, or I’m always happy to see when a brewer comes out with something really cool, because I think it’s good for the business. And so you be aware of whatever everybody else is doing. And you know, that’s great, and then it gets your mind turning, what can we do? That kind of thing.

Zach Rosen: Are you currently in any societies or guilds, I know there is like American Society of Brewing Chemists.

Mitch Steele: Yeah I’m a member of the San Diego Brewers guild, but I’m not very active. I’m not a member of the Society of Brewing Chemists, but that’s more of a lab oriented society. I think they do really great things, but it really doesn’t apply to what I do in my job. I have been an active member of the Master Brewers Association of America for a long time. I kind of let my membership lapse, because southern California doesn’t have an active district. Although I’m seeing that they are trying to start that back up. So I’ll probably get involved back with that group, that’s a good group too. The Brewers Association is another group I’m fairly active in as well.

Zach Rosen: Now just over the years have there been any significant lessons that you’ve learned?

Mitch Steele: Yeah never compromise quality, probably the biggest one you know. If the beer is not up to snuff you don’t send it out. That’s probably the biggest lesson I’ve learned. Do whatever it takes to get the quality that you need, even if means getting people angry, or offending people, whatever, you got make sure the beer is what it needs to be. The other one is don’t dumb down your beer for the masses. That’s something I’ve really liked about Stone when I came here. They brew, this company brews beers that they want, and then they get everyone else on board. They don’t try and dumb it down for some guy who is going to pick it up on a whim and not used to drinking these kinds of beers.

Zach Rosen: As a master brewer, you mentioned consistency; do you have a big role in that? In Busch you might have had other people for that, but at Stone at least?

Mitch Steele: Yeah we are. We’re growing into that and it’s a big thing. I think any time in an environment that’s not a brewpub, where you can have some variation from batch to batch, but if you’re putting beer out in a bottle. It’s got to be the same and that’s something that I think. It require a couple of things, it requires a good palette, you need to be able to taste your beer and be able to identify when things are changing, and then also you need to have some analytical data on the beer and that can come from lab work. It can come from instrumentation out in the brewery measuring the process. I think you need to look at all of that, and I think we do a good job of that here at Stone. I mean we taste beer everyday; we taste all the beer that gets packaged everyday. Everybody who tastes has a good feel for what our beer is supposed to taste like. So if it drifts one way or the other, we are on it. With Anheuser, it was incredibly important, because with the beers being real light in character, it was something they cannot withstand any sort of variation in the process or ingredients or whatever. Our beers here at Stone are a little more forgiving, but that doesn’t make it any less important. We need to identify when anything isn’t going right in the process or if they’re not consistent in the process and try and get that fixed. We do put a lot of effort into that.

Zach Rosen: Let’s see just a couple last questions. Are you a home brewer or any other hobbies?

Mitch Steele: Yeah I belonged to a home brewing club when I worked at Anheuser-Busch. I’ve kind of gotten away from it because I’m making beers that kind of, fulfill that need. To put it mildly I guess. I don’t know how else to word that. But I don’t really homebrew much here, I just don’t have the time we’re doing some really good beers here at Stone. You know some really interesting beers here and all that kind of thing anyways. I’m getting to know a lot of the home brewers here in Southern California, and it’s a cool hobby. And I play music too so that’s kind of fun.

Zach Rosen: What instrument?

Mitch Steele: Guitar.

Zach Rosen: Oh fun, fun. Then of course, do you have a favorite style or one particular beer you really like?

Mitch Steele: Well, it depends on when you’re really asking me. I would say, an IPA, in general would be something that I seek out all the time. I always like something that’s got a real nice fresh hop character. I really like Belgian tripels, and I like Oktoberfest beers. I would say those are probably the three that I really enjoy. I like a really good European pilsner, in the summer I think that’s great. But I could be drinking barley wines, and saying that I love barley wines, it depends.

Zach Rosen: Definitely time and place for everything.

Mitch Steele: Yeah.

Zach Rosen: Well thank you!

After talking to Mitch, there is clear evidence that brewers no matter where they work, or on what scale, are interested in one thing: good beer. Regardless of taste, the impressive consistency that Anheuser is able to achieve reflects the quality of their brewers. The brewers, whom unfortunately, at big companies like Busch, can’t express their artistic side in order to please the executives; it’s fortunate, and makes me happy to know though that a brewer like Mitch is now at Stone, and has the skill to keep their big heads afloat.

A Different Glass of Class: Orval

So its the morning of my birthday... which means time to celebrate! Champagne seemed proper, but common, and I want something special. I'm making it sound like this was decided this morning, but I've actually been aging a specific beer a year for this day. Orval.

Trappist beer...only seven breweries in the world can label their beers as such. Chimay (most well known), Westmalle, Westvleteren (say that three times fast), Achel, La Trappe (a.k.a. Koningshoeven), Rochefort, and the outlier in a group of outliers: Orval. All of the abbeys are located in Belgium, except for La Trappe, which is in the Netherlands. The name Orval is a perversion of Val D'Or, the golden valley, and I couldn't think of a better suiting name for this beer. There's actually a longer myth behind this name, but we'll save that one for my next birthday. Orval is different from the other Trappist breweries. The are no doubles or triples (styles of abbey beers), it comercially produces only one beer. The brewery was first established in 1931 as a means of employing lay people in the abbey's area. Some of these first employees were not monks of the abbey, and had traveled to the region for various reasons. In result, the original recipe incorporated techniques and styles from several different brewing nations. Orval is the only Trappist beer to be dry hopped (English origin), and fermented with the infamous wild yeast, Brettanomyces (Bretts). These both allow the beer to be aged for long periods of time (over ten years if you can save it that long); actually most Trappist beers can be aged for up to about ten years. However the Bretts will manipulate the character of Orval much more than the Saccharomyces (traditional beer yeasts) used in other Trappist beers. Orval devotees usually claim three years as the ideal age. The Brett-effect will not be noticeable until 6 months into the beer's life, and is usually associated with a tart, leather, horse-like flavor (trust me you know what horse-like is when you taste it). I realize this probably sounds horrible, but...I've never really had anybody dislike a Bretts beer. People are usually either just confused by it...or fall in love with it.http://www.straubs.net/images/belgian/orval.jpgWhile not the most proper glass, I poured the beer into champagne flutes. If you can, try and get an Orval glass (resembles a champagne coupe), they're one of my favorites and the design has changed little over the years. The beer filled the flute with a deep, opaque gold, and is topped with a pasty white head, which slowly dissipates. The receding foam leaves a lustrous lace draping the sides of the glass (Belgian lace is the term for this bubble decoration). The beer features a dense, active effervescence, which projects a sweet lemon and floral perfume with an underlying leather note. Taking a sip, flavors of honey biscuits and tart lemons dance around my tongue, partnered with a wet, toasted wood and bitter finish. It features the elegant finesse of a champagne, while still bitter and hearty enough to let you know its a beer. Well worth the price ($6/bottle...eek!) and however much time you allow it to age.

Scotch in the Skies: The Macallan 1851 Inspiration

The Macallan 1851 Inspiration is a single malt scotch (single malt means that the blend was made from scotches of a single distillery, in this case: The Macallan) that is blended to replicate the tasting notes from a sampling of the first scotch produced by The Macallan in the year...well figure it out. It goes for about 150 bucks a bottle, and strange as it sounds...is a steal at that price. I found mine for about 85...DO NOT underestimate the power of duty free shopping (c'mon what the hell else you gonna do while you wait there at the airport). The Macallan 12 year old was the first scotch I ever tried so this distillery has a special place with me. Not to mention they only produce elegant blends of the utmost quality.

Written in situ (on site, yay for random latin) June 14 at the apartment:

As I sit here lazily drinking down my scotch, I look out and watch the clouds. The clouds, like scotch, all look the same at a glance...but, if you take the time to look closer...you find that each one is wonderfully unique. The Macallan 1851 Inspiration. Looking closer, I see an orange-gold glow emanating from the glass, warming my eyes, as the rich decadent aromas of honey and mulled oranges drift up and kindle my nostrils. Slowly I hover, breathing above the horizon of my glass, and just let time pass. I draw away and am only left with the fragrance of citrus trees fluttering through my head. The scotch slowly swirls in the glass. A thin glossy coat descends the side, like a shooting star in the sky. The delicate, lustrous legs are the only tail left from the stars' passage through the heavens. I lift up the glass and drink. A fine syrup glides down my tongue, sweetly spicing my mouth. Once again the star begins its journey. The scotch leaves a honey sweet burn, letting me know where it has traveled. And when the celestial liquid has soared away...the taste of an empty oak barrel is all that I'm left with. It brings forth the impression of...drinking a honey liqueur on an old wooden porch. Leisurely looking out at the sky over a sunny orange grove.

An Exciting Epic: Stone Vertical Epic 6.6.6

It's bound to happen sooner or later...I've hit a slump the past month or two. Right now I have tasting notes on about 400 beers (trust me-- drops in a bucket) Its been a bit since I've had a beer that's really shooken me up and excited me. Leave it to Stone Brewing. For the uninitiated, Stone's beers are best described by the title of their flagship beer: Arrogant Bastard. Their wittingly bold beers are perfectly balanced, wonderfully brewed, and easily justify Stone's egotism. Stone IPA has a special place in my heart, because I consider it the first beer I've ever had. The first beer to violently grab my attention and shake me up. The Stone Vertical Epic series was first released on 02/02/02, then next year on 03/03/03, and so on and so on.

This week I've gotten to try the 06 release twice, and each one under their own unique conditions. The first was refrigerated for a year and than aged for a year in my beer cellar (sure others might call it my hallway closet...but what do they know) and the second had been refrigerated for its entire life. Aging beer is tricky and one would not want to drink a five year old beer to have it taste like--well...five year old beer. Ideally aged beers should be stored in a cool dark spot around refrigerator (a little too cold) to cellar temperature (about 55 oF) Colder temperatures slow down the yeast, so they can eat their food slower and enjoy life a little longer. If the yeast do drink themselves to death, their bodies begin to decompose and the compound released from their bodies begin to cause new reactions altering mouthfeel and taste characteristics. This process is called autolysis-- and mastering its effects are crucial for Champagne's quality and aging--that's Champagne...this is beer. Autolysis in beer will quickly mutate it into this repulsive pint-- tasting of wet cardboad and pungent, stale bread. Enough said.

Fortunately...both these bottles were good. The first one poured a cola color with a medium-sized, light brown mousse (tasting term for a head made of small, densely-packed bubbles). That is fairly clear, if you ignore the few floaties in the glass. It's aromas bursting forth even as I pour the beer. Mexican cocoa, anise (black licorice), and cloves. They all hit my nose at once and their potency reveals the beer's strength. The mouthfeel was what really grabbed my attention. The beer was thin, but somehow still viscous, and seemed to gradually lull and roll downward as a single droplet. The Epic '06 is fermented with WLP 500, the yeast often associated (not officially) with Chimay brewery. And it certainly does have a spiciness similar to Chimay Bleue (cloves, anise, cinnamon) and hints of the pit-fruit flavors (apricot, cherries) of Chimay Rouge. The Epic '06 roasted quality is what distinguishes it from Chimay, and gives the beer a light mocha flavor. The combination of flavors remind me of...black forest cake and coffee. The second beer was less developed as the first. The yeast had barely touched their food-- leaving the beer to consist largely of sweet malt and immature yeast flavors. Lesson learned. If I'm going to drink a beer under three years old, I'm going to keep it out of the refrigerator for a while (atleast a month or two), and make sure the yeasts have been awake long enough for them to get their fill of food. These bottles fetch about thirty bucks (I did NOT pay that much) a piece on Ebay, and the sellers are always proclaiming that the vaue is in the "collectable container, not the contents" You know what...bullshit. That beer is worth evey penny of whatever you paid. That collectable container...well if its worth so much, than someone can go collect it out of my trash container.

Gift from the Heavens: Angel City IPA

IPA--India Pale Ale--the wide, imprecise style of beer from the 18th century. There are two main subclasses (American and English) and some debate on which of the two are more authentic. British brewers created the style for rough and tough adventurers, setting out to sea in search of India and its treasures (mmm...and what treasures those spices are). Normal beer would spoil over the long journey, so brewers came up with the idea of concentrating the beer and adding more hops. The higher alcohol content would keep all the germs out (unfortunately bugs can't handle their booze) and the extra hops (one of the reasons for adding hops) help preserve the beer. There is more to this story but...ehh, if you want more, go read your history book (I have PLENTY of book suggestions). So the resulting concentrated beer has a rich, fruitful hoppiness and is dripping in caramel malts: overall drinkable, but decadently strong. This description is more of American IPAs (AIPA) than English IPAs (EIPA); The latter are vaguely different, slightly hoppier offerings than ordinary bitters (Even that is probably giving more distinction between ordinary bitters and EIPAs). Until fairly recently AIPAs were considered more authentic (minus the American ingredients) and EIPAs were considered a style that had lost its identity and fallen out of popularity (CAMRA--just google it if you don't know who they are-- and American efforts have rekindled some interest in the UK) A recent Beer Advocate article argued for EIPA's accuracy because the concentrated beer was then watered down when sailors arrived to their destination. What is my opinion? (Who cares?) If you consider, that the sailors were dipping into the beer along the voyage (what the hell else is there to drink?), than I argue it's probably a mix of both. So...why not make an IPA that has a mix of both.

Angel City Brewing is a Torrance-based brewery. I had briefly heard of it, but not enough to look too much into it. The Angel City IPA poured a pale orange gold with a petite white head. The thin aromas of oak and spiced fruit (Pears, maybe a hint of apples and oranges) took a little while to wake up and crawl out of the glass. The beer had a soft, chalky body that was barely carbonated with large full bubbles. The mouthfeel miraculously melds in the mind with the tastes; giving in overall impression of smooth, silky wood and spicy floral hops with marshmallows and caramel-biscuit malts softening the bitterness. I have not tasted an IPA this balanced in a long time. I admit it could be a little stronger, however the gentleness of this beer contributes to its drinkability (I understand not everybody likes 80 IBUs in their brews). This beer features all the strengths of English ingredients at the strength of an AIPA. And in my opinion...a beautiful mix of both.

No place like home: Fullers ESB

Being home again immediately brings forth memories of my last summer. Last summer was simple. Wake up, work on car, cook dinner and drink beer, sleep. Like I said...simple. But hey-- sometimes the simple things of life are the most enjoyable. Over that summer I tried almost 150 different beers, just me and my dad, tasting and talking about each one. I had discovered a small liquor store, Park Lane Liquor, on my scrounging of the internet. http://www.ratebeer.com/Place/california/lancaster/park-lane-liquor/7034.htm
It had overall good reviews from several sources on the internet. Lancaster might have been the #1 fastest growing city in the U.S. several years ago, but it still lacks...sophisitcation... (we're slowly getting better though) So a local place that carries good beers was an exciting find. I map quested its address, and headed over there. A slow smile creeped onto my face as I honed in on its location. It turns out, it was this small indiscreet liquor store---right next to my favorite Thai food restaurant. I just had never thought of going in there. I took a step through the door and then took a step back in awe. This evasive lil' store has about 20 sq ft of what you would expect: chips, sodas, cigarettes, gum, etc... But then...from floor to roof, wall to wall, of exotic beers, liquors, wines, champagnes, proper drinking glasses---And at decent prices!!! Since then I've gotten to know the owner better, and since he doesn't really know anything about alcohol, he tries to stock it all. So this was my source and my slice of heaven.

Now to get onto the actual post (did not intend for that long of an intro)

I got back yesterday evening, and naturally, my dad had gone to our store and bought some new beers for us to try. The highlights (Because trust me, there was plenty more drunken last night) in the lineup were: Fullers ESB, Angel City IPA, and Stone Vertical 6/6/6. First off, --Fullers. (I'll cover the IPA and Vertical in a later post) The ESB (extra special bitter) is one of the most popular of their offerings, which can also be interpreted as one of England's favorites since Fullers London Pride (LP) is UK's leading beer-- LP had a nice little product placement in the London car chase of National Treasure 2. I had gotten stuck in North Hollywood for five hours coming home on the Greyhound, so needless to say that when I did get home...I needed a drink. I can't think of a more fitting beer for my first round, than the ESB . The beer filled the glass with shades of amber and chestnut, and a thin, light tan head. Caramel and a distinctly English fruit aroma slowly emanated from the ridge of my glass. For those who have not dranken a lot of English beers, ''distinctly English fruit aroma" is best described as breathing deeply in a substantial and exotic fruit bowl. You never quite get a single fruit, just a little bit of everything: apricots, oranges, berries, pears, apples, dates, it goes on and on. The ESB focuses mostly on apricots, oranges, and maybe a berry or two. It had a slightly-thick body and a light soft carbonation, that went down smoothly. The tongue is then dominated by a bitterness, that soon starts to soften, allowing roasted nuts and caramel flavors to come forth. These are soon followed by an orange and raisin fruitiness, which diminish, and leave a bitter sweet citrus aftertaste. The thing I love about English beers, is that they are inoffensive and polite. An English beer looks proper in the hands of a dandy or a hooligan; it can be both tough and sophisticated. Even an ESB that comes in at 5.9% ABV and a fairly bitter bite, is still easy-drinking and delivers its blow in an almost compassionate way, compared to some of the American or Belgium beers.

(Photos from last summer, in our front yard)

Theres no time like your first time....

The first post. This is long overdue, but this has been a long year. I tried starting a beer club, The Beer Necessities, on campus but it got pulled by the bureaucracy. This, ofcourse, happened right around the time more important, and pressing issues, arose (more important than a beer club? impossible!). So I attempted to fight it best I could, but after running into wall after wall, my head started to hurt. And I decided it was best to wise up and stop running head first into walls. During this time I have continued to interview brewers, mingle, and learn as much as I can; I hope to get some of those interviews typed up and posted by the end of this week.

And now... my first day back in my home town. I finally have a chance to take a breather and accomplish some of those less vital tasks that have been pushed aside as I pushed through my finals. Like say...start a blog or finally type up those interviews, who's recordings have been sitting on my computer's desktop, keeping the dustbunnies entertained. So this blog will have to be my hub, I think it'll be a little less red tape than trying to keep The Beer Necessities running through the school. So keep an eye out, and in the future I'll be posting meeting dates, special events, and more interviews through here.