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Belgian Beer Refresher Course

Brian Stechschulte| 17 May 2013|

I’ve had an awkward relationship with Belgian beer over the last couple months. When I go to a bar or scan the bottle shop shelves I avoid them. Maybe I’ve had a few bad encounters or certain yeast strains are producing esters and phenols that don’t agree with a changing palate.

I decided that the best way to confront this problem is to conduct my own Belgian beer refresher course. So I went out and bought a six-pack. I can’t even remember when I last had these classic beers, but it will be good to refresh my memory.

I plan on doing this a lot more often in the future. Buying beer in groups by style, region or country, to taste in succession. Not all in one sitting by the way, or I may even invite a few people over.

They’re so many choices on the shelf and the stock keeps getting rotated and refreshed. Like many people who enjoy beer, I’m a serial taster. I almost never drink the same beer twice and I’m always jumping from one new beer to the next. It’s time to slow down every once and awhile and concentrate on the fundamental beers.

Brew Day with Phil Cutti of Southpaw BBQ

Brian Stechschulte| 25 Apr 2013|

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Phil was brewing a Rye Maibock that will later be infused with coffee. He has a great name for it: Grounds for Divorce.

All Shapes & Sizes

Brian Stechschulte| 22 Apr 2013|

I’ve visited breweries that come in all different shapes and sizes. The largest I’ve traipsed through was Lagunitas Brewing. The size and scope is mind boggling, especially knowing where they’ve come from just 5 years ago. It’s not Anheuser Busch big, but walking through their tanks feels like walking down the nave of a cathedral.

On the flipside, the smallest brewery I’ve ever stepped into is pictured above. No, it’s not some homebrewers 20-gallon system tucked into the corner of a kitchen. It’s the brewing system operated by Cerveceria de MateVeza in San Francisco. Co-owners Jim Woods and Matt Coelho made over 50 experimental batches on this pilot system inside their small tasting room in less than a year, while their larger MateVeza brands are made up in Mendocino under contract.

This space isn’t nearly as big as the photo suggests. That’s the illusion created by my wide-angle lens and the spatial depth that’s accentuated by the ceramic tile lines, which created a nice little charming box. It’s one of my favorite brewery photos.

Despite the cramped quarters, they make it work and yield great beers.

This Bear Floats in Beer

Brian Stechschulte| 18 Mar 2013|

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Like most people these days I use my phone more for taking pictures then actually talking to people. The subject matter varies widely, but of course includes beer from time to time. I treat most of the images as rough drafts or only consider them suitable for social media sharing, until now.

In the last couple years, phone camera technology and mobile editing apps have gotten better and better. There are still a lot of limitations, but some images I’ve taken recently with my new phone, like the one above, are worthy of being added to my portfolio, which is a first.

I bought a six-pack of Anchor Brewing’s new California Lager and was surprised to find the bear featured on the label, also underneath the cap. I thought the cap floating on foam was a fun juxtaposition.

Zambo and the Refractometer

Brian Stechschulte| 22 Feb 2013|

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Last November I spent an entire brew day at 21st Amendment Brewery in San Francisco with head brewer Zambo. After I became executive director of the San Francisco Brewers Guild in September 2012, I decided it would be a good idea to spend a full day with each brewer while they’re working. It’s an opportunity for me to learn about their beer, process and I take a bunch of photos for promotional purposes. They can also put me to work or I’ll just try and stay out of way.

In the photo above Zambo is using a refractometer to measure the level of sugar in beer wort. It can also be used to track fermentation.

Picking Hayward Hops

Brian Stechschulte| 08 Oct 2012|

Back in August a friend of mine, and fellow Bay Area Beer Blogger, Matt Amaral, invited a small group over to his parent’s farm in Hayward, CA. If you’re not familiar with Hayward, it’s a huge suburban enclave caught between Oakland and San Jose. The city’s rich agrarian history is long gone. So I was pretty surprised to find an old chicken farm with a huge garden tucked against some railroad tracks at the end of a sleepy street. Amaral convinced his father to plant a row of five different hop plants two years ago and he needed help with the harvest.

I’ve handled hops here and there, but I’ve never sized them up on a tall vine. An afternoon of picking hops, supplemented with beer, was an opportunity I couldn’t resist. I threw on some shorts, eager to escape San Francisco’s fog, grabbed my camera and bought a six-pack of Brew Free or Die IPA by 21^st Amendment Brewery.

Here are a few things I learned:

1. Prolonged hop picking yields a sticky and filthy hop hand.

2. Don’t ever wear shorts to pick hops in a pile of vines. My legs (and arms) were sliced and diced by fine barbs on the hop vine.

3. Picking hops by hand can be demoralizing. You can pick the same spot for 20 minutes and feel like your not making any progress. There were so many hops!

We didn’t even come close to clearing the five vines, but it was good fun. Homebrewers took home a stash of fresh hops, while I brought home some photos.

Best Craft Beer Package Design of 2011

Brian Stechschulte| 28 Nov 2011|

Yes, this is a bold declaration, but feel I’m on solid ground. The minute I laid eyes on the four pack of Allies Win the War, a collaboration beer by 21^stAmendment Brewery and Ninkasi, I thought it was a brilliant concept and design. Distinct, memorable and unique are just a few words that come to mind. It’s easily the best craft beer packaging design I’ve seen in 2011.

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