Brewers procuring beer from other brewers (26USC5413)

As is typical with our spontaneous planning, we managed to schedule our trip to the Pacific Northwest during a time when we might have enjoyed staying near home: the opening weekend of San Diego Beer Week. Unfortunately, the vacation did not serendipitously coordinate with similar beer weeks in that region either; Seattle Beer Week and Vancouver Craft Beer Week both are in May.

Then, I unknowingly committed us to a social function during the closing weekend of San Diego Beer Week. Incidentally, that occasion involved much beer (see below), but nonetheless, I felt I should make an effort to get us to at least one event for the actual Beer Week, so I enrolled us in Beer University: Intro to San Diego Craft Beer, hosted by Stone Brewing Co.

The evening was hosted by Ken Wright, who taught us -- tongue fully in cheek -- how to participate in a high-class beer tasting, which he said can require more focus than a wine tasting, because the fermentation process of making beer produces 400 to 800 esters, or chemical compounds, each of which can contribute to the overall impact of the brew. This more than doubles the typical 200 to 300 esters created during the fermentation of wine.

Nonetheless, the majority of the tasting process is similar. You consider the style to make comparisons with previous samples you might have sipped. Before you taste, you identify the color and inhale the aroma as an indication of what kind of flavors might be included. While you taste, you try to distinguish a mouth feel from the carbonation and the sweet or savory hints from all those esters. Of course, the end of the tasting diverges: You never ever chuck the remains into a bucket; you either chug that backwash or share it with a chum. I can tell you, I followed his advice to a T, never leaving a fallen soldier as I evaluated the eight craft beers with his criteria. I even learned some interesting information as I swilled:

Mission Brewery Blonde

Style: Kölsch (Ale)

Color: Traditional yellow

Aroma: Nothing distinct

Carbonation: Champagne-like bubbles

Taste: Tart with very little hops

Lesson: A Kölsch beer is named after Köln, or Cologne, in the south of Germany; its rival brew is Altbier, produced primarily in the northern German city of Düsseldorf.

Mother Earth Brew California Creamin'

Style: Cream Ale

Color: Copper

Aroma: Vanilla

Carbonation: Flat cream soda

Taste: Frosted Flakes

Lesson: A true cream ale must include maize as one of its ingredients; brewing with grain other than barley and hops is challenging because the mash can become dense, making the fermentation process more difficult.

Pizza Port Carlsbad Cow Stout

Style: Milk Stout (Ale)

Color: Dark brown

Aroma: Sour milk

Carbonation: Only an edge of foam

Taste: Bite of whey

Lesson: Milk is one of the ingredients, so this beer is not tolerated well by the lactose-intolerant.

Black Market Brewing Rye IPA

Style: India Pale Ale

Color: Almost amber

Aroma: Nose-clearing hops

Carbonation: Very foamy with lots of bubbles

Taste: Fruity mousse

Lesson: The "India" part of this type of ale refers to where it was shipped; the variety began with a British brewer whose beer was found to improve after the long journey to the colony.

Iron Fist Martial Law

Style: Belgian Strong Dark Ale

Color: Nearly black

Aroma: Berries

Carbonation: Nearly foamless

Taste: Brandy-like Kriek

Lesson: When tasting beers, you should never spit, like with wine, because some of the complex flavors, like the sour of the cherries in this beer, will never be detected by the taste buds at the back of the tongue if you don't swallow.

Manzanita Brewing Chaotic Double IPA

Style: Imperial India Pale Ale

Color: Copper

Aroma: Soap

Carbonation: Big head that faded fast

Taste: More bitter and tart than fruity

Lesson: The double of this style of beer refers to double the amount of hops and sugars being included in the brew, resulting in double the ABV (alcohol by volume); this one topped out at 10.1%.

Hess Brewing Ex Umbris Stout

Style: Imperial Stout

Color: Thick brown

Aroma: Smoky

Carbonation: Tan foam

Taste: Rye bread

Lesson: Hess is a nanobrewery, which means its entire system capacity is 3.5 barrels, as opposed to a microbrewery, which means it produces less than 15,000 barrels a year.

Stone Brewing 11.11.11. Vertical Epic Ale

Style: Belgian Ale

Color: Burgundy

Aroma: Spicy market

Carbonation: Few bubbles but tingly on the lip

Taste: Wine with chile

Lesson: This series of beer is designed to be drunk after aging; like wine, beer should be stored in a dry, dark, and cool place, but unlike wine, it should be stored vertically, unless you want to lick it off the floor after it explodes.

We concluded San Diego Beer Week with our own form of Beer University: a reunion of Bobcats from Ohio University, ranked this year as the number one party school in the United States, according to a survey by The Princeton Review. The co-presidents of Bobcats in LA organize an annual attempt to replicate the Court Street Shuffle, and we shuttled off to Hermosa Beach to join in the scuttlebutt.

Our bar-crawl itinerary consisted of six stops, the highlight of which probably was the fourth, The Poop Deck (above left), where quite a few pitchers were sacrificed to somewhat pitiful rounds of flip cup (above right). The follow-up bar was Fat Face Fenner's Fishack (below), where the organizers had arranged for $3 Sam Adams drafts; they were no 25-cent drafts, but then again, Sam Adams is lots better than Natty Light.

The draft deal was worth retreating to after we were refused admission to the final stop, a sure sign of the shuffle's authenticity if ever there was one. Of course, by this time, participants were beginning to literally crawl, and they started slinking out into the night without saying goodbyes. TJ and I had a long walk to our hotel, even further than to South Green, so we stopped off at The Mermaid to fortify ourselves with fatty foods. Credit is probably due to the distance from Hermosa Beach to Redondo Beach, where we stayed, for my hangover-free morning. And when it comes to our self-styled beer week, that was definitely something I hadn't planned on.