The Session 31: Summer Beers

The Session is a monthly project where a bunch of beer bloggers all blog about the same topic. You can read more about the project here. This month's host is Peter Estaniel of the Better Beer Blog, and the topic he has chosen is Summer Beers, a meditation on the brews of summer.

As a concept, summer is rather redundant here in Houston. Generally lasting from March to October, the Bayou City's hot months really hit their stride in July an August—a period that could fairly be referred to as "Summer²" or "Holy Shit, It's Hot!" With such an aggressive climate, we require a lot of quenchers here, making summer seasonal beers very welcome additions to our shelves.

With that in mind, I've gathered a group of five different summer-themed beers. Represented are breweries from all three coasts, along with both ales and lagers. Some I have tried before, and some I have not—but this is the first time for any of them to be reviewed here on PintLog. Hopefully, I'll find a new favorite summer refresher. Here's the lineup:

First up, Brooklyn Summer Ale,what Brooklyn describe as a modern interpretation of the now obsolete English Light Dinner Ale style that died off about 70 years ago. Essentially an English-style Pale Ale, Summer Ale is a tasty and straightforward beer that refreshes nicely without being too bland. You can read my full Brooklyn Sumer Ale review here.

Next, we have Harpoon Summer Beer, a Kölsch-style beer from the boys in Boston. This year marks the beer's ten year birthday of Summer Beer, so they must be doing something right. It's a crisp, Pilsener-like, and easy-drinking brew that really fits the bill on a hot afternoon. Not terribly exciting, but sometimes that's not a problem. You can read my full Harpoon Summer Beer review here.

From Oregon comes Rogue Somer Orange Honey Ale, which is an unfiltered wheat beer brewed with (you guessed it) oranges and honey. Unfortunately, it's lacking some clarity (pun not intended) in the flavor department, but it's still a sold beer that's a welcome company during the dog days of summer. You can read my full Rogue Somer Orange Honey Ale review here.

Playing the part as local favorite today is Saint Arnold Summer Pils, a Czech Pilsener with a solid German malt base. A nice hybrid of the the two Pilsener styles, Summer Pils is highly drinkable and a great showcase for noble hops. This tie-dyed local favorite is almost as good to enjoy after mowing the lawn as the brewery's Fancy Lawnmower. You can read my full Saint Arnold Summer Pils review here.

Lastly, we have Sierra Nevada Summerfest Lager, which happens to be the only lager in the Sierra Nevada lineup. Also a Czech Pilsener, this is a crisp and refreshing beer that you can easily drink all day. A great beer for barbecues and the like, Summerfest is a craft-brew that anyone can enjoy. You can read my full Sierra Nevada Summerfest Lager review here.

With such a diverse group of Summer seasonals, how do they stack up against each other?

• In fifth place, Harpoon Summer Beer—tasty enough and very appropriate for the season, but just a little too forgettable.

• In fourth place, Rogue Somer Orange Honey Ale—great on paper, a little plain in the glass.


• In third place, Brooklyn Summer Ale—a nice alternative to all of the Lagers crowding the shelves and a rather good quencher, though not quite good enough to top the list.


• In second place, Sierra Nevada Summerfest—a masterfully hopped and satisfying brew, this is one of my favorite American lagers.
  


• In first place, today's winner (by a very narrow margin) is Saint Arnold Summer Pils—at the end of the day, this is the beer I'd be reaching for on a muggy Houston summer afternoon.
  

Well, they shook out into two distinct and very narrow clusters. The ales all received a "B" grade, while the two lagers both garnered an "A-." It may be tempting to arrive at the conclusion that I prefer lager-style beers for summer, I don't necessarily think that's the case here. While I think the style is perfect for the season, I think that the two I happened to pick for this comparison were just better constructed beers than their ale counterparts.

The Session 27: Beyond The Black & Tan

The Session is a monthly project where a bunch of beer bloggers all blog about the same topic. You can read more about the project here. This is PintLog's second time contributing to the project (I wasn't able to source a beer for the 26th session in time). This month's hosts are Joe Ruvel & Jasmine Smith (the good people behind Beer At Joe's), and the topic they have chosen is Beyond the Black & Tan, a meditation on beer cocktails.

Ah, the beer cocktail. Loved by many, hated by just as many; they're always a conversation starter. Some people think they're a great way to experience beers in a new way, others think it's a sacrilegious waste of good beer. I guess I'm kind of in the middle on this one.

While I haven't tried that many different mixes, the ones I have range from outright nasty to pretty decent. It's very rare that I finish a beer cocktail and think, "Wow, that really offered something enjoyable over just enjoying those beers back-to-back." Most of the time, I'm just left a little confused.

You can find plenty of lists of beer cocktails online, just google "beer cocktails." When deciding what to make for this article I read through list after list, looking for something that sounded interesting. I ended up picking a cocktail that I have a lot of experience with for a baseline and one composed of two beers that sounded truly awesome together.

On a logistical sidenote, to help make an attractive and properly separated beer cocktail, I like to use the Brutool Turtle. Much easier than a bent spoon, this thing works so well that even my bulldog could pour a decent Black & Tan.

Let's check out the two recipes I decided to make for this exercise, and how they turned out, shall we?

First up, the control for this experiment. No matter how cliché, I just had to include the beer that started it all, the Classic Black & Tan. While any mixture of Stout and Pale Ale is considered a Black & Tan, Guinness Draught and Bass Pale Ale are the beers used in the "classic" version. Both beers are solid enough traditional British session beers with distinct, yet complimentary flavor profiles, so the match is a bit of a no-brainer.

It starts off as a more caramel-and-hops tinged version of Stout, and by the bottom of the pint becomes a more roasty and dry English Pale Ale. Each phase is interesting and the flavors always mesh well. While not the most exciting pint in the world, it's easy to see why Black & Tans are by far the most popular beer cocktail out there. You can read my full Classic Black & Tan Review here.

Next up, the Chocolate Truffle, a mixture of Young's Double Chocolate Stout over Lindemans Framboise. I was quite excited to try this mix as I'm a fan of both beers and think the combination sounds like a match made in heaven.

Unfortunately, the reality isn't quite so heavenly. For the first half of the pint, the flavors are very muddled and just don't mesh like I was hoping they would. Once the Stout is almost gone, it livens up a bit and the tart raspberry flavors start to cut through the mess, but it still offers nothing better than the Framboise by itself. You can read my full Chocolate Truffle review here.

So, after reviewing two very different beer cocktails, did I learn anything? Well, the thing that really stuck out to me was that there's a lot more to matching two different beers than two different Jelly Belly jelly beans.

While some matches sound good on paper, beer is such a complex thing that the reality doesn't always follow your expectations. Chocolate Stout and Framboise just sounded like a wonderful match, but ended up muddy. Guinness and Bass sounds like an old boring couple, but each beer was able to compliment the other, making something actually worth the time to mix.

I have to say, after this exercise, I'm still rather indifferent on beer cocktails. To me, most just seem like an excuse to "cleverly" mash up their names, rather than real attempts to pair two complimentary beers. Besides the occasional Black & Tan, I don't see myself becoming much of a beer mixologist. Unless anyone has some good suggestions...

The Session 25: Love Lager, A Meditation On The American Adjunct Light Lager

The Session is a monthly project where a bunch of beer bloggers all blog about the same topic. You can read more about the project here. This is PintLog's first time contributing to the project. This month's host is John Duffy (A.K.A. The Beer Nut), and the topic he has chosen is Love Lager, a meditation on the style that most people associate with the word beer.

When thinking about the typical American Lager, three brands immediately spring to mind: Budweiser, Miller, and Coors (collectively known in some beer circles as BMC). These brands account for the majority of American beer produced each year. Differentiated more by marketing than any tangible product attributes, each brews their own version of the American Adjunct Lager.

Designed with the lowest common denominator in mind, the style is light-bodied, pale yellow in color, fizzy, and lacking in any strong hop or malt flavors. Due to the expense of brewing all-malt beers, and the fact that their customer's palates allow them to, adjunct cereal grains (mostly corn and rice) are used to reduce the amount of malted barley required.*

As if the typical American Adjunct Lager wasn't bland enough already, most Americans actually prefer to buy the "light" version of the style. Made popular by Miller in the 70s with Miller Lite, the Light American Adjunct Light Lager is lower in calories, carbohydrates, and (typically) alcohol content. Unfortunately, they're also lighter in flavor.

So the question to be asked is do these beers offer anything but a cheap and quick way to get drunk? To help answer that question, I decided to do my best to objectively review the three best selling American Adjunct Light Lagers: Bud Light, Miller Lite, and Coors Light (they're also three of the four best selling beers in America regardless of style). And just to keep things interesting, I also reviewed the light version of a local favorite: Lone Star, known as the "National Beer of Texas." We Texans are a funny bunch.

I decided to do this the right way, so I headed across the street to the gas station to pick up my review material. Lone Star Light was only available in six-packs, and ran me around $3.50. That's quite possibly the cheapest six-pack I've ever bought. All three nationwide beers were available in handy 24 ounce tall boy cans, for around two dollars. As a bonus, all three were wrapped by the cashier in individual brown paper bags. Let's unwrap these bad boys and dig in.

First up, Bud Light, the big boy on the block and the best selling beer in the world (according to Anheuser-Busch). "Drinkability" is the latest Bud Light campaign, and seems to be based on the idea that you don't want pesky things like flavor to get in the way of your drinking. With a fuller mouthfeel than usual for this style and a relatively pronounced (if still grainy) body, Bud Light is not the "most drinkable" here. Which is certainly not a bad thing. You can read my full Bud Light review here.

Next, the beer that started it all, Miller Lite. Now the third best selling beer in America (behind Bud Light and Budweiser), Miller Lite positions itself as the light beer that's just too light for a "GH" in the name. Seriously. A new, unintentionally hilarious, campaign touts the beer as a great way to "Get Hip to the Hops." The beer itself is the same fizzy, yellow stuff as the others, but plagued with a nasty chemical taste. You can read my full Miller Lite review here.

Number four on the American sales charts is Coors Light, the "Silver Bullet." Coors markets the beer almost exclusively around the concept of coldness, which I suppose is rather telling. Without a doubt the most gimmicky delivery device here, its can has a vented mouth, a "Frost Brew Liner," and a "Cold Activated" mountain scene on the side. The beer itself has a better flavor profile than most beers in this style, but almost no nose whatsoever. You can read my full Coors Light review here.

In order to keep things a bit interesting, I felt compelled to add a local favorite. Here in Texas, Lone Star is the local Lager for most people. Because it wouldn't be fair to compare three light Lagers to a regular Lager, I've opted for Lone Star Light, a beer that I'd never actually tried before now. Unfortunately, it's just as bland and soulless as the national fare. On the plus side, it does have some awesome pictogram puzzles under the bottlecap. You can read my full Lone Star Light review here.

So, after tasting them all, how do they rank?

• In fourth place, Miller Lite - the chemical taste just killed it.
• In third place, Lone Star Light - much blander than the "National Beer of Texas" should be.
• In second place, Bud Light - a fuller body than the previous two beers, but just too grainy to win.
• And our winner today, a total surprise to me, is Coors Light - hardly a full-flavored beer, but the best taste profile of the group.
  

So, after my best attempt at objectively reviewing the three big American Adjunct Light Lagers and a local wildcard, has my low opinion changed? Not at all. Viewed alone in a vacuum these beers are not necessarily bad (aside from an occasional chemical taste); but when compared to the rest of the beer world, they're just not good. They don't taste like horse piss or even cat piss. If I'm offered one of these beers at a party, am I going turn up my nose and refuse, citing the superiority of craft-brewed beer? Of course not.

Remember, just because someone likes these beers, that doesn't make them some sort uncultured philistine. Think how much money they're saving over saps like me!

*Reader Mike, who clearly know a lot more about brewing than me, wrote in to dispute the assertion that brewing with adjuncts is cheaper than with all-malt. Here's how Mike puts it:

Adjuncts used in adjunct lager brewing are not significantly cheaper than barley malt. They were historically used to lower the protein content and astringency of North American 6 row barley prior to the successful Canadian 2 row barley breeding programs of the 70's and 80's for growing dry land barley. Low cost factored into their use more in the past more than today, but an all malt beer before the successful breeding of North American 2 row malt was astringent and tended to be hazy at low serving temperatures. Their use now is about light flavour. Brewing with corn and rice increases energy use and brewhouse cycle times. In the case of high maltose corn syrup cycle times reduce and plant efficiency goes up. This comes at a cost. Corn syrup is generally more expensive than malt lately.

All malt is used in craft circles because it is actually cheaper and markets better due to the difference. The plant required for using adjuncts is usually prohibitive and is more complicated to use.

Many thanks to Mike for the info.