This being March, and the weekend before the St. Patrick’s Day parade, you’re probably figuring the subject is stout. You’d be right, but since Guinness spends enough money buying exclusive rights to St. Pat’s, they don’t need our help plugging their Irish stout. Instead, we’re gonna taste a variety of stouts that share the common theme of not being Irish.

Oatmeal stout, imperial stout, maybe even an oyster stout if we’re lucky, and other styles show that this black beer has a far greater stylistic range than the homogenous stuff brewed on the Emerald Isle. Come join us at 7:30 pm and taste for yourself what stout can truly be.

By Mark Tichenor & Bruce Lish

Anyone who’s taken a Marketing 101 course can relate the stories of famous industry blunders: The Chevy Nova flopping in Mexico because the name means “it doesn’t go” in Spanish, or the phonetic pronunciation of “Coca Cola” translating to “bite the wax tadpole” in Mandarin.

Amusing as stories like these are, they make us laugh because they’re such colossally boneheaded obvious blunders that executives should have staved off with a little diligence.

Sometimes, the corporate decisions that damage a brand are subtler. On occasion, the effort to keep a brand fresh and updated in the consumer’s mind can backfire.

Such was the case for J.W. Dundee Honey Brown, a favorite on college campuses nationwide and a staple product of the Genesee Brewery since 1994. The first beer to bear the Dundee moniker, it’s success prompted the creation of the line of affordable super premium beers that dominate mixed craft pack sales in cities as distant as Phoenix, Arizona.

A couple of years ago, faced with increasing competition for fickle consumer attention in every market, the Dundee line got a makeover, with a consistent brand image across the product range, soft, muted colors and whimsical graphics that evoked both tradition and modernity. The update also repositioned Dundee as a serious competitor for the dollars of drinkers thirsty for something out of the mainstream.

Problem was, people suddenly had a hard time finding Honey Brown in stores, not because it was out of stock but because they’d grown familiar with the original packaging design. The new look confused people. Was this the same Dundee Honey Brown?

“We’ve been brewing Honey Brown the same way since 1994. That’s never changed,” says Jason Drewniak, Brand Manager for Dundee “The new look should be familiar to customers from the past.”

Drewniak can state that with confidence, since Honey brown’s new packaging is, well, the old packaging. Instead of commissioning an additional redesign, Genesee has simply reverted back to the beer’s old look.

The other key decision was to lower the price point. Honey Brown may be a favorite alternative to megabrewed American lagers, but it was never intended to be the type of artisan brew that, 16 years after its introduction, we would call a craft beer.

The new price better reflects Honey Brown’s market niche as an affordable beer that offers a unique flavor alternative to drinkers without the premium cost.

So expect to see a lot more of Honey Brown in the future. Genesee committed to growing the brand with on-premise support promotions in markets where it does really well, like Cleveland and Atlanta.

As Drewniak says, “It’s a diamond in the rough, so we’re very excited to get it back in front of customers.”

In other beers

The newest brewery to open in the Rochester area is truly a step backward, at least 200 years backward.

The Genesee Country Museum will open a replica 19^th century brewery this June. Museum visitors will see firsthand the traditional methods and equipment used to make beer in America before the Women’s Temperance Movement ruined it for all of us.

The museum teamed up with Custom Brewcrafters to develop a beer, which presumably will be brewed repeatedly. And, like any other beer this one needs a name. So the museum is holding a naming contest with cool prizes. You can enter online at www.gcv.org

Bruce is a certified beer judge and commercial brewer. Mark owns a laptop and likes beer. For more on beer, check out the beercraft blog, updated regularly, at http://www.beercraftsite.com. Find us on Twitter @beercraft. Send your questions, suggestions, or comments to beercraft@rochester.rr.com.

Don’t get me wrong, the meal was excellent, and so was the scotch, but even the lightest Highland dew overpowered most of the meal. Fortunately, I had a fine, cask-conditioned Tröegs Nugget Nectar to keep me company during most bites.

I think I’ll save my single malts for an after-dinner treat.

-Mark

The first one is tomorrow night at 6:30 at their Ogden location, and it’s hosted by beer guru Steve Hodos, a man who definitely deserves recognition as Western New York’s version of Michael Jackson (no, the other one).

This premier event is sold out, so if you want to go I’d suggest asking nicely at the door. At any rate, the series is ongoing, and will be held the last Thursday of every month. More info can be found at www.rohrbachs.com

-Mark

Traditional oyster stout, you see, is made with oysters. A quantity of the labiesque little mollusks (or whatever they are) get thrown into the barrel to suffuse the beer with their essence. The result is, well, pretty much what I just described above, and it goes extremely well with a quantity of those little buggers on the half shell.

In a sec, they’re gonna whip some out and shuck them. Let’s see how greedy I can be.

Well, actually this sounds more techie than it is. There won’t be any audio or video. Really I’ll just be doing a blog entry while sipping this highly anticipated beer and scarfing free oysters, looking like a complete dork in the process.Anyway, the Tap and Mallet’s event pairs the brand new  Harpoon Oyster Stout with a bunch of delicious yummy oysters. I love oysters. And what better place to consume an aphrodisiac food then while getting tipsy in the company of a bunch of rotund, hygene-challenged beer lovers?

I know, that’s just a stereotype. Tune in at 4pm for more of them.

-Mark

Hops, noble and otherwise

By Mark Tichenor & Bruce Lish

Behold the hop. Compact, bright green like an immature pine cone, maybe a bit sticky to the touch, The female flower of the Humulus plant is what makes the diversity of beer possible. And the humble hop, cherished by brewers and drinkers since the Middle Ages, is equally prized by people who love beer today.

The oils and resin in hops make beer bitter. They also emit powerful, awesome smells. The amount of bitterness and aroma varies between hop species. When making beer, a brewer picks the hop varieties that work for his intended final beverage and regulates factors such as the amount of hops added, length of hop boil, and addition point in the overall brewing process.

The selection and use of hops is one of the aspects of brewing that make it more than just boiling stuff and waiting. It’s a skill vital to anyone who makes beer, be it the head brewer at a major indie beer company or the homebrewer who wants to be able to share with her friends without making them barf.

Some hops definitely impart more of a presence on beer than others, and right now, in the USA bitter is king, so a lot of craft beer uses hop varieties grown in the pacific Northwest (such as Cascade) that have high alpha acid content. On the other hand, a centuries-old German brewery might make a beer using a Noble hop, one of the four central European Species prized for their low bitterness and high aromatic character.

Most beers contain a mix of hop varieties, with different types used in the bittering and aromatic stages of brewing, and many beers benefit from a combination of traditional species and types developed and cultivated only recently.

Because brewers like to measure stuff, there’s a measurement for bitterness: the international bitterness unit (IBU). Whereas the aforementioned German beer, let’s say it’s a Helles, might rate at 30 IBU, a big double IPA could hit 75.

Super bitter styles like American IPA take some getting used to but can be a pleasant kick to the palate. Since bitterness is one of the most distinctive traits of American craft beer, it’s not uncommon for beer newbies to gravitate toward the bitterest beer they can find, neglecting many delicious possibilities for something that makes them feel sophisticated, yet safe.

So we see brewers designing and marketing incredibly bitter (and often comically strong) beers. The taste buds can only discern up to around 90 IBUS, so the scale effectively stops there, but that doesn’t prevent our nation’s craft brewers from pushing the physical reactions of hops in boiling wort to the limit of their technical capability.

“The hoppiest beer? It’s a fairly idiotic pursuit, like a chef saying, ‘This is the saltiest dish.’ Anyone can toss hops in a pot, but can you make it beautiful?” This statement, by the iconic Garrett Oliver, brewmaster at the Brooklyn Brewery, reminds us that there is more to beer than bitterness, and more to hops than alpha acids.

When we speak of balance in a beer, we primarily mean an intangible ratio of bite to body, that the beer does not possess all bitterness and thin flavor.  Usually it’s assumed that bitter is balanced by malt, but since such a large percentage of flavor perception comes through the nose, a beer’s aroma has much to do with balance as well.

Hops supply much of what we smell in our brew. Floral notes, wafts of citrus, a hint of evergreen needles, these beloved traits do much to give iconic hoppy beers distinctive character. Double IPAs like Dogfish Head 120 minute and Bell’s Oracle envelop your head in aroma before the glass reaches your lips, and frankly we think it’s kinda pleasant to just hang out there, nose over liquid, breathing deeply before that anticipated first sip.

Bruce is a certified beer judge and commercial brewer. Mark owns a laptop and likes beer. For more on beer, check out the beercraft blog, updated regularly, at http://www.beercraftsite.com. Find us on Twitter @beercraft. Send your questions, suggestions, or comments to beercraft@rochester.rr.com.

Lager can be clean and crisp or dark and complex. It can be as bitter as IPA or as sweet as dessert.And we, my friends, are gonna run the Gamut.

Corey from Sly Fox Brewingof Phoenixville, PA will be on hand to do some guest presenting. Show starts at 7:30 at Monty’s Korner in Rochester, NY. $5 gets you a fun evening.

-Mark

He mentioned we’d be seeing more Harpoon beer in Rochester, which is a good thing (especially when it’s the upcoming Harpoon Oyster Stout).  But a glance up at the at the taps begged the question, ‘where are you going to put this beer?’

No pub worth its suds leaves lines open, just hanging there, waiting for the perfect keg to roll itself up the handicapped-accessible ramp. Casual customers may not always notice the procession of sales representatives from distributors and breweries that prevent proprietors from enjoying leisurely games of solitaire during the earler hours of the day, and convincing bar management to allocate tap space is one of those beer rep responsibilities that resembles actual work.

This is tough for the America’s big beers, who fight over a stagnant market share. A Budweiser tap can stay a Bud tap for years, whereas pubs that stake their reputations on craft beer will rotate their taplines frequeently, ensuring that customers get variety and many breweries get a point of sale.

But the craft beer industry now commands 6% of the total beer market. The stakes are higher, and the competitors more moneyed, than ever before. Suddenly, when the rep from a brewery such as Harpoon wants to push up his volume in a market, he’s not facing a couple local companies selling beer out of a conversion van. He gets to push his way in among Stone, Victory, Dogfish Head,  the best of the best, nationwide.

At this point in time, screwing on those big name indie brewers’ taphandles does more than sell some pints to enthusiasts. Those names, those signs in the window, solidify a pub’s reputation as a place to get great beer. And there are a fair amount of big name breweries now.

Are we reaching a saturation point, now that every megacraft brewer, from every corner of the country, so frequently rubs up against all its competitors? Are we getting to a point where the venture capital firms funding some of these ventures see a business case for buying each other up?

I don’t like things to go this way, but everything I see points to a consolidation of the indie beer industry. It’s hard to definitively say that the customer would suffer, should that take place, since most of the large indie brewers passionately focus on high product quality, but it would definitely make the American beer landscape a bit less diverse.

-Mark