Newton's 3rd Law of Beer

As Sir Isaac Newton states in his 3rd Law of Motion, "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." Little did I know that this would become the theme for the evening this past Friday.
For the past few months, I had been eagerly anticipating Avery Brewing Company's release of the 6th beer in their small batch Barrel-Aged Series, Margarete. Avery Margarete is a stout, brewed with sour cherries, and aged in bourbon barrels, clocking in at a hefty 15.43% abv. They were scheduled to release just 59 cases of the beer at 6PM on Friday, January 28th, at the brewery. Sounds pretty awesome, no? Well, that's what I was expecting. I had attended the release of the 4th in the series, QuinQuePartite, and was operating based on my experiences there. I thought that if we made it to the brewery by 8, I would be able to get my hands on two bottles of Margarete. So, as I was getting ready to leave my apartment at 7, I got a text from my friend Cedric that sent my heart into the pit of my stomach:

"They just ran out..."

More than a little concerned, I gave him a ring. "Yeah, they just ran out. They even pulled out extra cases... I guess some people were lined up at 4:30 yesterday. I saw people walking out with cases full of it though, and asked the guy selling them if there was a bottle limit, and he said no..." Aaaand no Margarete for me. He, his wife, and his dad were meeting my girlfriend and I at Avery to celebrate his dad's birthday. I suggested that if he wanted us to meet them somewhere less crowded, I'd be all for it. [Edit: I called Avery the following Sunday, they said that there was a 6-bottle per person limit for the beer] On our way up, Cedric notified us to meet him at Lefthand Brewing. We arrived 30 minutes before last call, and my eyes were greeted with several treats on the tap list, including Fade to Black no. 2, Wake Up Dead Imperial Stout, Wake Up Dead on nitro, and oak barrel aged Wake Up Dead.

After finding our friends, and finding out that Cedric and his dad were drinking Wake Up Dead on nitro, I knew what I had to do. I walked up to the bar and ordered the oak barrel aged variety of Wake Up Dead. After warming up to proper drinking temperature, it was delicious. It had great oaky, vanilla tones over a good, slightly roasty, chocolate base.  As we sat and drank our beer, I talked with Cedric's dad about homebrewing.

Cedric's dad, John, had an "issue" with his latest batch of beer. He brewed an Imperial Brown Ale, which showed signs of promise in early bottling. As time went on, a maple flavor made its presence known, but John hadn't used maple in the brewing process. When I opened one of the bottles I had, I noticed a faint ring of residue at the waterline on the neck. The carbonation was very lively, but the beer wasn't overly foamy, and didn't foam up when I opened it. Talking to John, he thought he might have narrowed down the cause. Currently, he homebrews in "sections." He only has a 3-gallon carboy and a 6 gallon bottling bucket. He brews half a batch, then when it's done in the primary, puts it in the bottling bucket. Then he brews another half batch, and does the same. This adds up to a full 5-gallon batch. However, he uses a full pitch of yeast for each half batch. usually when he bottles, he marks the bottles that come in at the end, so that he can keep track of where the bottles with the most trub are. With his Imperial Brown, he didn't mark the bottles, so he doesn't know which bottles have more sediment than the others. He supposes that I got a couple of the bottles that have the most sediment, and that I just hold em tight for a while, and hopefully they'll turn into a pretty darn tasty brew in a few months. I've got my fingers crossed, I guess we'll see!

Like I said, we arrived at Lefthand 30 minutes before they closed, and by the time this conversation - and my beer - were finished, it was time to move on. We were mulling over options, when, with much vigor and fortitude, John proclaimed, "Let's go to the Pumphouse!" It had been decided, and we departed. We showed up at Pumphouse (a popular and long-running Longmont brewpub and restaurant) 30 minutes before the restaurant side closed. At least it can be said that we were consistent.

The draft list held promise; all of the standards, plus a few gems. We got a table, ordered some appetizers, and I started out with their Imperial Stout. Tasty, albeit standard, but definitely drinkable. Cedric got the Red Alert (American Amber), Cedric's wife Becky got a delicious berry mead from Redstone Meadery, and John got their 4-Alarm Copper Ale. I ordered a taste of one of their special brews, "Sour Barrel-Aged Springtime Saison." This small taste, it came to pass, deserved much deliberation. The aroma I picked up was of old, earthy, dry wood. Cedric noted blueberry, with a subtle hint of strawberry. Upon tasting, there was a delicious flash of tartness, similar to what you might find in a fresh, wild raspberry. This was followed by flavors of blueberry, currant, strawberry, and clove, or as John put it, "graham cracker."

After taking a taste of the beer, John posed a question: "Grapes are to wine as what is to beer?"
"Hops?"
"Malt?"
"Yeast?"
Yes, yeast. He concluded that, because yeast is responsible for an amazing amount of flavor in beer, it could be said that the varieties of yeast are to beer as the varieties of grapes are to wine. Now, this certainly warrants some discussion. For many styles, such as hefeweizen, pilsener, lager, certainly belgian ales, and wild fermented styles such as lambics, the yeast carries as much weight, if not more, than the rest of the ingredients. I would suggest the same could apply to non-blended varieties of wine such as cabernet sauvignon, syrah, riesling, chardonnay, etc. I'll leave the rest of the discussion up to those who want to comment.

Not only is yeast an extremely important factor in the overall flavor of a beer, it's also one of a brewer's best tools for consistency. It's fairly easy to acquire the same hops, grains, and other ingredients, and on a large scale, breweries usually start taking control of their water chemistry too. With yeast, they have to make sure to keep the same culture and use it on every batch of the same beer. That's where the consistency comes in. If they were to switch the yeast for whatever reason, there would be a noticeable shift in the flavor of the beer, which could potentially be bad for business. Amazing how much effect those little yeastie beasties have on beer, eh?

The consistency with which they brew some of their beers can also be what affords them the ability to explore new styles and recipes, too. That's the glory of one-off and special-release beers. There's no expectation of consistency, since the beer is probably only going to be brewed once, so the brewers can really go all out and explore different realms of style than they normally do. Perhaps trying a wild-fermented or sour ale, perhaps a crazy stout brewed with sour cherries and aged in bourbon barrels, which nobody will get to try... Alas, Newton's 3rd Law of Beer had been satisfied. I missed out on Margarete, but I got to taste not only a very well done oak aged imperial stout at Lefthand, but a true gem of a sour at Pumphouse Brewery in their Sour Barrel-Aged Springtime Saison.

Thanks for reading, and until next time, cheers!