Alcohol Content in Beer

ROUND ROCK, Texas (KXAN) – It’s Friday, and that means a lot of people will be heading out after work for a beer.

Turns out more people are choosing a craft brew, and now, a Round Rock home brewer will have his beer distributed by Sam Adams.

“I’ve been brewing for 17 years now, and coincidentally, I’ve been married 17 years. So my wife says she drove me to it,” said Martin.

It was actually his time in the Air Force that got him interested.

He joined the brewing club the Austin Zealots and won enough medals to make a professional athlete jealous.

“I make pretty much every style out there. I haven’t met a beer I don’t like,” said Martin.

His brewing lab is in the back of his Round Rock home.

Martin brews three different beers a month, storing one in a refrigerator in his office.  There’s also seven additional refrigerators in his garage.

“Yeah, I have a very understanding wife,” said Martin.

She became even more understanding after he entered Sam Adams’ home brewing competition.

“I’ve entered for three years now, granted this is the best year I’ve ever had,” said Martin.

That’s because his beer won.

“I made a Munich Dunkel, which is between a bock and a schwarzbier, which is a German dark beer,” said Martin. “It’s got my face on the bottle — not sure if that’s a good marketing strategy for them or not.”

Whether it’s the bottle or the beer, it will certainly be a standout from the rest.

Corey’s beer will be sold in a Sam Adams’ six-pack varietals sometime in February or March.

As for what he does with all of the beer he brews during the year, he said he has a lot of good friends.

Pete Vander Meer Jr., of Le Mars, explains the brewing process he uses to make homemade beer from malted barley using ingredients including hops, which he grows in his backyard. He recently won a grand champion award at a contest in Schleswig, Iowa, for one of his home-brews.

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Pete Vander Meer Jr. started brewing beer more than 50 years ago to see if he could do it.

Last month the Le Mars man won a grand champion award for his English Barley Wine, a type of beer, at the 36th Annual Schleswig Bier Contest.

The homebrew wine and beer contest included 18 wine classes and 28 beer classes plus subdivisions and was sponsored by the Schleswig Wine and Bier Club, in Crawford County.

Pete Vander Meer Jr., of Le Mars, is the grand champion winner of the Schleswig Bier Contest for his home brewed dark ale, which he said took about a year to age.

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Vander Meer competed with other amateur beer and wine makers for the top award.

“It’s always a surprise, and it feels really good,” he said of his win.

Vander Meer said his English Barley Wine is a heavy ale, which is a type of beer brewed from malted barley using warm fermentation with brewer’s yeast.

“The stronger beers take longer to age,” he said. “This one took about a year to age.”

Along with earning the Grand Champion Bier award for his ale, Vander Meer also took home the Grand Champion Bier traveling trophy.

The trophy mimics a large walking stick with a tin beer mug hanging from it that lists names of past contest winners.

He will keep the trophy for a year and then next year’s contest winner will get the pleasure of having it, Vander Meer said.

He’s no stranger to winning the Schleswig Bier Contest, coming in as grand champion in 2007 for a different kind of beer, Vander Meer said.

When he started brewing beer some 50 years ago, ingredients were limited to hop-flavored extract, which was used as a flavoring and stability agent in beer.

“You took hops and added sugar and water and wheat yeast and you made beer,” Vander Meer explained. “Now you can buy hundreds of ingredients from all over the world.”

He also grows his own hops, commonly called seed cones, which grow from the ground on an about 20-foot-long vine every year.

“You can grow it on a high trellis or along a fence,” Vander Meer said. “It actually grows wild in the countryside.”

He said hops is a preservative and it contains a specific amount of acid that gives off a bitter, tangy flavor that varies — depending on when it is added to the beer boiling process.

For example, hops may be put in after 60 minutes of boiling for bittering or at two minutes to create an aroma, Vander Meer explained.

Even though he grows his own hops, the amateur brewer said he also buys different kinds of hops depending on the beer he wants to make.

“That’s why this is so fun because the sky’s the limit,” Vander Meer said. “There’s all different ingredients and what times of the process you put them (hops) in there.”

He explained his home-brew is made from malted barley and that different types are available again depending on the type of beer he wants to make.

“I like dark ale better than light,” Vander Meer said. “It has more intense of a flavor to it.”

But lately he’s decided to try his hand at making a lighter beer such as the batch he intended to make earlier this week.

“I’m going to do a cream ale. I’ve not made one before,” he said. “I just want to try cream ale and use my own hops to do it.”

He usually turns out 10 to 15 1-gallon batches or 40-50 bottles of beer a year most of which he brews in November because he and his wife, Laura, like to travel.

“I do all bottles,” Vander Meer explained. “I keep it simple.”

He doesn’t keg his beer as some home brewers do because it requires specialized equipment and refrigeration while ale can be created at average 60-70-degree temperatures.

In the realm of keeping it simple, Vander Meer said he makes only ale as opposed to lager, which is brewed from malted barley but is stored at low temperatures requiring refrigeration.

Vander Meer said he gives a lot of the beer he makes away and also shares it with his fellow Rascals Beer Club buddies.

He explained that Rascals stands for Rowdy Articulate Sioux City Ale and Lager Society.

“We meet once a month and we taste beers. There’s about 40 members,” Vander Meer said.

Club members taste both home brews and commercial beers so they can compare the two, he added.

“You’re tasting beer with people, who like to brew, so it’s a lot of fun,” he said.

Along with brewing beer, Vander Meer said years ago he also made homemade wines.

“I have 35-year-old wine in my basement that I still drink,” he said. “I like making beer better. It’s fun for me because I’ve been in a business that was similar.”

He explained that baking also uses yeasts and grains to try to arrive at a certain flavor or taste.

Vander Meer advises beginner beer brewers to start using a kit, which contains directions and all the ingredients, but not the equipment.

“If you buy a kit, it tells you every step to take,” he said. “There’s unlimited kits these days.”

Vander Meer said he passed his beer brewing hobby onto all three of his sons and noted that his brother, in Ankeny, also brews beer.

The Le Mars man agreed that creating beer flavors and consistencies is partially a trial and error process he’s learned throughout the years and continues to diversify.

“I usually end up with a beer I can drink. Some of it’s not very good,” Vander Meer said with a chuckle. “It’s just a challenge what different flavors you can get out of it.”

Updated at 4:30. Photos added at bottom of post.

Congratulations to Airways Brewing. The Airways Brewing Beer & Bistro opens for business today at 11:00 a.m. It has been a long time coming and a lot of work. The owners of Airways Brewing, Alex and Dione Dittmar, did not want to make a big deal out of the opening. That’s why they waited until today to make the official announcement. Seriously, Kent is a city so starved for good beer that they could get crushed if they aren’t careful.

In addition to offering a lineup of Airways’ beers, the Beer & Bistro will offer a number of beers from other breweries. There are twelve taps in all, with one dedicated to cider. The current list of beer is included in the press release below.

We should have pictures for you soon.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Airways Brewing Beer & Bistro Opens in Downtown Kent Historic District

Kent, WA (11/01/11) – Airways Brewing Company, Kent’s Brewerysm, today opens the Airways Brewing Beer & Bistro – a new location in the Downtown Kent Historic District.

The Bistro is located at 320 W. Harrison Street, offers seating for 35 guests, and features a menu of pizzas, artisan sandwiches, soups and salads. Twelve taps pour only Washington produced products: Airways Brewing’s signature and seasonal beers, guest brews from other small and medium-sized breweries, and a dedicated Washington cider tap.

“We’re excited to finally be open in downtown Kent,” said Alex Dittmar, the company’s founder and head brewer. “It took a little longer than we had planned, and we still have some finishing touches, such as artwork and signage to put up, but we think we’ve got a great local pub that people will really enjoy.”

“Our goal with the Bistro is to be able to offer delicious food to go alongside beers and wines produced right here in this great state. Our menu is based on fresh produce and high quality meats for a healthier take on pub food. We plan to rotate selections frequently to take advantage of seasonal flavors,” said Dittmar.

“We think people will really enjoy the location, as well as what we’ll have to offer. It’s convenient to the ShoWare Center, the Sounder Rail Line, and Kent Station.”

In addition to Airways signature beers, and some special “one-off” creations, opening week beers include selections from M.T. Head Brewing in Graham, Valhöll Brewing & Slippery Pig Brewing from Poulsbo, Soos Creek Brewing in Covington, and Two Beers Brewing in Seattle.

The Bistro will be open for both lunch and dinner, Tuesday-Saturdays, starting at 11:00 a.m.
Founded in spring of 2010, Airways Brewing Company is located in Kent, Washington. The brewery has two locations – a production facility and tap room in the Kent Industrial area, and a Restaurant/Bistro in the Downtown Kent Historical District. Airways distributes its beer to microbrew specialty bars and taverns in the greater Seattle/Tacoma area.

Tuesday, November 1st: Opening Night Beer List

• Airways Jet City ESB 5.5% ABV 35 IBU
• Airways First Class IPA 5.5% ABV 44 IBU
• Airways Sky Hag IPA 7.8% ABV 99+ IBU
• Airways Über Hag IPA 8.0% ABV 99+ IBU
• Airways Rauchbier 6.0% ABV 29 IBU
• MT Head Brewing Bonehead Brown Ale 4.7% ABV (Graham, Washington)
• Valhöll Brewing Stouty Oatmeal Stout 7.0% ABV (Poulsbo, Washington)
• Slippery Pig Brewery Damndeleven Bitter 11% ABV (Poulsbo, Washington)
• Chuckanut Brewing 2011 Festbier 5% ABV (Bellingham, Washington)
• Soos Creek Brewing Rua Beoir Irish Red 5.6% ABV (Covington, Washington)
• Two Beers Brewing Persnickity Pale Ale 5.7% ABV (Seattle, Washington)
• Tieton Cider Works Cherry Cider 6.4% ABV (Tieton, Washington)

Upcoming Beers Include:

• Two Beers Heart of Darkness Imperial CDA
• Valhöll Brewing Poulsbo Abbey Wit
• Snoqualmie Brewing Avalanche Winter Warmer
• M.T. Head Dark Marc Black IPA
• Pike Brewing Naughty Nellie Golden Ale

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Ty Cacek for The New York Times

Tasting beer and wine at Perennial Artisan Ales, one of the city’s new craft breweries, which opened last month.

IN the late 1800s, St. Louisans flocked to brewery gardens to drink, play and socialize. Most were immigrants accustomed to beer as part of daily life, as vital as bread. Out of this enthusiasm arose Anheuser-Busch, perhaps the best-known large-scale brewery in the country. No matter its size, locals have remained loyal to the hometown company.

In 2008, InBev, the international beer company, bought A-B, as Anheuser-Busch is known locally. When that year started there were only three other beer companies within the city limits, each one tiny in comparison. Yet today the city’s craft brew options are expanding quickly: by the end of 2011, A-B can expect to have 11 competitors in the city plus another dozen in the surrounding area.

So is there a limit to the number of craft brewers that locals are willing to support?

“Seriously? It’s beer,” answered Dylan Mosley, the head brewer for the Civil Life Brewing Company in south St. Louis. “You know how many people drink beer? If I opened a hamburger joint, nobody’s going to be, like, ’Hey, you know how many hamburger joints there are?’ They’d be like, ’Sweet! Another hamburger joint!’ ”

Last month Mr. Mosley and Jake Hafner, the brewery owner, opened The Civil Life (3714 Holt Avenue; no phone; www.thecivillifebrewingcompany.com) in south St. Louis. Inside the brew house they built a two-level pub with nooks meant to facilitate conversation among neighbors. The Civil Life specializes in “session beers” of lower strength, meant for drinking in quantity without derailing said conversation. Offerings include a British-style bitter and a rye pale ale ($5 each).

Further south, in the South Carondelet neighborhood, a former Coca-Coca plant is now home to Perennial Artisan Ales (8125 Michigan Avenue; 314-631-7300; perennialbeer.com). It opened in September and has a tasting pub where visitors can sample the recipes of its brewer, Phil Wymore, including the dry-hopped Hommel Bier pale ale ($5), inspired by Belgian farmhouse ales.

A short walk from Busch Stadium, 4 Hands (1220 South Eighth Street; 4handsbrewery.com) is scheduled to open on Nov. 11, with a rye India pale ale and an oatmeal brown among the offerings. The tasting bar is made from the wood of a 107-year-old rural Missouri barn.

But the local craft quake’s center has been Midtown Alley, just west of downtown, with three breweries within walking distance of one another.

Buffalo (3100 Olive Street; 314-534-2337; buffalobrewingstl.com) is the geezer of the trio, opened way back in 2008. The brewpub’s citrus-hopped Rye IPA ($4.50) is a favorite among local beer geeks. Those tired of waiting in line for barbecue from wildly popular Pappy’s next door can opt instead for the Buffalo’s burgers and mussels.

Six Row (3690 Forest Park Avenue; 314-531-5600; sixrowbrewco.com) opened at the end of 2009. The brewery recently completed an expansion that nearly quadrupled its capacity. Besides standbys that include the Honey Weizen ($4.50), brewed with Missouri honey, are occasional cult favorites like the Bacon Porter, in which a slab of cooked bacon soaks in the cask.

The latest Midtown addition, Urban Chestnut (3229 Washington Avenue; 314-222-0143; urbanchestnut.com), opened in January. Florian Kuplent, a former A-B brewer, specializes in a mix of traditional European styles and more experimental attempts. Fifteen different beers flowed on a recent visit, including the crisply hopped Zwickel lager and the chestnuts-laced Winged Nut ale (each $5).

In front of the pub is a small garden with long, sturdy tables; Mr. Kuplent had them shipped from his native Germany. “It is a beer town and I think there’s a history there of people that enjoy themselves sitting in beer gardens,” he said. “And I think that gene, or whatever it is, didn’t go away.”

So you want to start brewing beer in your apartment, but are too lazy to go to an actual class on it? Good news! The Brooklyn Brew Shop (which is devoted to, you guessed it, brewing your own beer) has gone and written a whole new book on the topic. We’d say it was like Homebrewing for Dummies, but, well, turns out that already exists.

And we aren’t just talking about one recipe: the Brooklyn Brew Shop’s Beer Making Book boasts 52 beer recipes (including four gluten-free beers!), bottling instructions and an equipment guide and a whole section on topics like cooking with beer and how to grow your own hops. If you are looking to get into the brew your own scene we’d probably still start with a class, but buying a book certainly isn’t going to hurt your beers. The book, which lists for $19.99, hits a bookstore near you on November 1.

And here’s a helpful video from the Brew Shop that goes over the basics of brewing your own:

What a great idea — if only I had thought of it: take a trip to Madison, Wis.; stay in a cozy bed- and-breakfast; get around by bike; test out burgers, brats, cheese curds and microbrews; and look for some booze to bring back home.

Two weeks ago, I left my travel plans up to a reader vote that just as easily could have had me staying at a chain motel in Nashville and touring city parks by public bus. But Madison and food and drink and bikes won, and I spent last weekend reveling in a cyclist-friendly city of 230,000 with a restaurant and bar scene that punches well above its demographic weight.

Because I was planning this trip at the last minute, there were a couple of hitches: the cheapest flight to Madison from New York was $800, more than twice as much as I’ve ever spent on a domestic flight in this job. And the lowest-priced bed-and-breakfast with available rooms in Madison was $150 a night, way above my budget.

So I scrambled for alternatives, booking a US Airways flight to Milwaukee via Charlotte on Thursday ($149.90) and a direct Frontier Airlines flight back from Milwaukee on Sunday ($186.20). Milwaukee to Madison would be by Badger Bus, for $41 round trip.

The only bed-and-breakfast I could find in my price range was the Parsonage in McFarland, a suburb about 10 miles out of town that had a small room for a single traveler for $74 a night. That meant adding 20 extra miles to my daily bike routine. Good for burning cheese curd calories, but could I ride safely at night? And what if it rained?

Seth Kugel for The New York TimesFree samples of cheese curds at the Dane County Farmers Market.

Turned out I could, and it didn’t (much).

Madison is the only gold-certified Bicycle Friendly Community east of the Mississippi, so perhaps I shouldn’t have been amazed that almost my entire route to and from the Parsonage was on bike trails or roads with separate cycling lanes. The friendly sales staff at Machinery Row Bicycles rented me a solid, Wisconsin-made Trek hybrid for $20 a day and sold me a nifty, two-sided red and white flashing light to attach to my helmet for night riding. And though my commute took me past some dreary commercial real estate, I got a chuckle every time I passed the unmanned, self-service pumpkin sale along Marsh Road in McFarland where the sign read “PUT MONEY IN COFFIN.” (A small coffin was available for deposits.) Getting around the city itself was really easy: half the time I was on beautiful bike paths (like the Capital City Trail), and there were bike lanes and bike racks everywhere.

My days started and ended at the Parsonage, an 111-year-old house that for decades was a home to ministers of the nearby Lutheran church. It’s not chic : I don’t know what the thread count was on my sheets and I’m betting the owners, Craig and Cathy Wrobel, don’t either. But rooms are cozy, the dogs are friendly, and Craig puts together a homemade, never-the-same-twice breakfast, from soufflés with white Cheddar to a pumpkin and cream cheese kringle (a filled pastry of Scandinavian origin).

Despite filling breakfasts, my mission was to get out and eat and drink, and then eat and drink some more. Armed with an impossibly long list of restaurants and bars to try, I crisscrossed Madison from the University of Wisconsin campus on the west side (which is also home to the Babcock Hall Dairy, makers of my first Madison “meal,” an excellent cone of orange custard chocolate chip), across the isthmus splitting Lakes Mendota and Monona that serves as the center (and location of the State Capitol, home to a fantastic farmers’ market on Saturdays) and as far east as the Ale Asylum, a brewery that serves up a generously portioned sampler of 10 beers for $20.

The drinking options alone were staggering. It’s almost impossible to find a beer on tap that’s not made in Wisconsin. The bustling Old-Fashioned, a popular bar and restaurant across from the Capitol, serves more than 50 beers on tap, all from Wisconsin, and more than 100 in cans or bottles, with just one that is not: Grainbelt from Minnesota, which is pointedly listed under “Imports.” And people here know beer. I’m usually happy to argue that New York City is the height of sophistication, but I could only cringe as I compared Wisconsin’s vast beer choices with the Amstel Lights and Stellas at many New York bars.

I quickly gained a soft spot for New Glarus beers, for two reasons. One, its Moon Man pale ale is crisp and clean and redolent of grapefruit; it even tasted to me as if it had a refreshing splash of gin in it. (It didn’t.) Two, New Glarus prohibits sales anywhere outside the state. It seemed the obvious choice to fulfill the readers’ mandate that I bring home an alcoholic beverage as a memento, but then I realized: whatever I bought, I’d have to lug around on my bike.

So I decided to go counterintuitive: in an amazing beer city, I’d bring home liquor from the Old Sugar Factory, a new distillery named after the decaying factory on Madison’s east side that processed local sugar beets in the early 20th century. The distillery runs an on-site bar, where bartenders mix beautiful cocktails ($6-$7) like a sazerac made from the company’s sorghum whiskey and dole out tastes of unsweetened rum, ouzo and dry honey liqueur. I bought a bottle of that liqueur, a perfect (and perfectly transportable) way to fulfill my take-home booze obligation.

There was a lot of eating with all that drinking, of course. Though I had imagined myself eating bratwurst, Cheddar and cheese curds the whole weekend, Madison turned to be as much a burger town as anything else. I tried the famed Plaza burger, staple of campus post-boozing life, and found it excellent in a greasy spoon kind of a way. And the cheeseburger at the Laurel Tavern on the west side was a $5 masterpiece. But my favorite was the black and blue burger (with bacon and hot sauce), $7.29 at Dotty Dumpling’s Dowry. Stand-out sharp flavors, and not so much burger to fit in your mouth, important if you’re trying not to stuff yourself before a bike ride.

The one ballyhooed burger I didn’t much care for was Bob’s Bad Breath Burger at the Weary Traveler Freehouse (fantastic organic meat, perfectly medium rare, but loaded with cream cheese, not my thing), but I did love the place: old-fashioned phones on the tables, Lao Tzu quotes on the wall, and bathrooms wallpapered with old maps. (Botswana used to be called Bechuanaland? Who knew?) The late-afternoon company was friendly too in a let’s-dress-hipsterish-and-talk-about-our-kids’- kindergarten-teachers way. And I perked up when someone handed Pepper, the bartender, a bag of raw chicken hearts. To me, chicken hearts are Brazilian barbecue food, and I said as much to Pepper. Turns out he lived for more than a decade in the Amazon and married a Brazilian. I wondered how she tolerated the harsh Madison winters. “Every inch of snow,” he said, “I’m a little closer to being divorced.”

My best meal was not a burger at all, but a Laotian dinner at Lao Laan-Xang, near the Weary Traveler at 1146 Willy Street. I hadn’t given much thought to local immigrant cuisine, but after seeing several Laotian spots around, I called an audible. And though it was packed on the night I was there, the blond (i.e., non-Laotian) waitress sat down with me to explain the menu. If I liked kimchi (the spicy fermented Korean cabbage dish), she said, I should get the fried chicken with thum som, an unripe papaya salad. Weirdly, she was right: savory, spicy shreds of fruit somehow gave off a kimchi vibe.

I have a very forgiving stomach but even so, I had to stop eating occasionally and visit a few Madison cultural attractions. Every single one was free, unless you count the 25 cents I dropped on a map of the grounds of the Olbrich Botanical Gardens. The gardens were shockingly lovely, a colorful, calm escape from a city that there’s not much need to escape from. I also took a nice walk out to Picnic Point around Lake Mendota (which included a stop by a Friday afternoon campfire for a complimentary swig of whiskey from a guy named Jay), did the requisite tour of the State Capitol with a peppy guide named Catie, strolled through the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, and watched mesmerized as Cosmo-Joe, a street artist outside the museum, created art using spray paints and all kinds of quirky doodads. I also happened to be in town for the opening of a brand new wing of the university’s impressive Chazen Museum of Art.

This is more a football town than an art town, though, and the big event of the weekend was the Wisconsin Badgers game at Michigan State. I settled into State Street Brats (packed with students and families clad in Badger red) to have a $4.50 sausage, drink a pint of Leinenkugel beer (from Wisconsin, obviously) and watch the first half, and then biked back downtown to catch the rest of the game (and close out my weekend of drinking) at the Great Dane, yet another brew pub. I ordered one of the cask ales, called Bold and Old Mild, and settled in: Wisconsin lost a heart-breaking, headline-making game via instant-replay in the very last second.

Somehow, the next day, the town was back up on its feet, serving me more beers and burgers and cheese curds before I dropped my bike off and left town. But I guess it’s easier to take a tough loss when you have so much good food to do it with. And plus, the Packers game was starting soon.