Microbrewed Adventures (9 page)

T
OM NICKEL
is the brewmaster of Oggi's Pizza and Brewing Company's Left Coast Brewery. His birthday is August 13, the same day as my wife's and also of lifelong friend Whitey Jensen, so I have some insight into the Leo the Lion personality behind the passion for taste, adventure and discovery. I've never studied astrology, nor do I know what the books say about Leos, but I do know what an adventure it is to hang out with them.

I'm glad I made the effort to spend a day with Tom in July 2004, visiting the brewery where he has created world-class award-winning ales. To say that Tom is passionate about beer is an understatement. Beer springs forth from every pore of his body and soul. When he is around beer, the guy is all about the planet Microbrew!

Tom Nickel

Tom's beers are notable for their stylistic balance of flavors, while venturing to the edge of creativity, forging new territories. He is an extraordinary brewer and an extraordinary teacher. While discussing beer and brewing with Rick Smets, Tom's assistant
brewer, it became quite obvious why the beer was so excellent. With a glass of vat-fresh pale ale, Rick explains, “I get up every day in the morning and come to work and am so thankful to have this job as a brewer. I love being a brewer. I couldn't ask for better work. Some beers are more work than others, but that's part of the job and I don't mind the extra hassle and work, because I know that the beer is going to be extra good. My grandmother was a Belgian brewer and my uncle turned me on to making beer when I was 16 years old. I love making beer.” Rick was smiling during every bit of the conversation.

Rick Smets, Andy Schwartz and Tom Nickel

Both Rick and Tom explained the “secrets” about their pioneering Double India Pale Ale, a style that one might safely say originated in Southern California.

Using three to four pounds of hops per barrel (that's about 10 ounces per 5 gallons, or a 20-liter batch of homebrew!), the hops are dosed throughout the process to emphasize hop flavors and aromas. They are added to the malt mash, to the kettle boiling, during the lautering process, to the fermenters and even into the “bright tanks” just before kegging. What one ends up with is infused pale ale bursting with vibrantly fresh hop character.

There's excitement in Rick's conversation as he adds details. Later he points out how Tom has encouraged him to learn about everything that he has access to, especially by tasting the beer throughout its journey from malt and hops to finished product. He notes that tasting the beer at all points of the process really helps a brewer to become a master. I agree, as I, too, find myself tasting ingredients, tasting unfermented wort, fermentation and finished beer before bottling and noting how beer flavors evolve with time and patience.

Oggi
is the Italian word for “today.” All three of us are enjoying today's still-fermenting India pale ale fresh out of the vat, while knowledgeably imagining what tomorrow holds for the glass of beer in our hand. We are microbrewers.

 

THERE ARE SEVERAL
“location” brewmasters working at other Oggi's Pizza breweries. We visited brewmaster Jeff Bagby, award-winning brewer at Oggi's in Vista, California. Jeff offered us a quick taste of a smooth, velvety imperial stout and a new fermenting barley wine sort of ale. As bubbles rose in our glasses from ongoing fermentation, Jeff, Tom and I all agreed that the future was huge for this smooth, hard-to-characterize ale with a unique balanced blend of hops. Little did Jeff know that 68 days after my visit he would be awarded a Gold Medal in the Imperial/Double Red Ale category at the 2004 Great American Beer Festival.

New Frontiers on the Edge of a Continent
Stone Brewing Company, San Diego

The preceding is part of the statement you will behold when reading the label of Arrogant Bastard Ale. It may be quite true: you are not worthy of this beer unless, as they continue to say, you like big, flavorful brews that are not hyped by multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns that convince you that yellow fizzy beer makes you more sexy. This statement at first struck me as quite confrontational, but I wasn't convinced that this was all there was to the attitude of the brewers and makers of a wide variety of beers at the San Diego area's Stone Brewing Company.

Steve Wagner and Greg Koch (not related to Boston Beer's Jim Koch) are the figurative “bastards” who with their attitude co-founded Stone Brewing in 1998. They were homebrewers and beer enthusiasts before starting what is now Southern California's most successful microbrewer turned craft brewer.

Arrogant Bastard is their hugely big-humongous-grand-colossal red ale loaded with malt, hops and flavor. In a way it has been their affrontal mascot, but it represents only one of the most distinctively named of their growing list of explosively complex beers: Stone Pale Ale, Stone Levitation Ale, Stone Smoked Porter, Stone India Pale Ale, Stone Ruination IPA and Arrogant Bastard Ale, along with Stone Limited Special Releases such as Stone Old Guardian Barley Wine, Double Bastard Ale, Stone Imperial Russian Stout and the Stone Vertical Epic series.

Arrogant Bastard courtesy Stone Brewing Co.

I made a pilgrimage to the brewery in July 2004 in an effort to understand where these beers were coming from and discover the people and spirit behind the brew. Some guy with shockingly bright blue hair
greeted me at the door. “Hi Charlie, I'm Steve; we've met before. Welcome to our brewery,” welcomed the company president. It was “blue do” time at the brewery. All staff members had been encouraged to dye their hair blue for a charity fundraiser and the brewery's upcoming eighth anniversary.

The brewery was a beehive of activity, brewing, bottling, shipping and receiving, and it was obvious why an expansive new brewery on the other side of town was being built.

I've known Greg Koch, chairman and CEO, for several years and have watched and tasted his beers throughout Stone Brewing's six-year history. “What's the ‘arrogant' all about, Greg?” I ask. He smiles and says it represents a viewpoint: “It's about what we think a great beer is all about.” Greg and I resolve that not all Stone's beers are malty and hugely hoppy. I'm wondering whether perhaps the attitude is about making interesting, flavorful beers that are always complex. I came away from that conversation still wondering, “What is the Stone style?” Giving it my best shot, I might conclude what Greg hinted at when he said, “We don't like to paint ourselves into a box.”

Did he mean “We don't like to paint ourselves into a corner?” or “We don't like to put ourselves into a box?” I suppose mixed metaphors are not in anyone's box or corner. As Humpty Dumpty said, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” To which Alice replied, “The question is, whether you can make words mean so many different things.” Humpty concluded the discussion from his precarious perch on the wall: “The question is, which is to be the master—that is all.”

Greg had just opened a preview bottle of Stone Brewing's Eighth Anniversary Ale, and I felt as though I was playing Humpty Dumpty with him. Or perhaps it was the beer playing games and being the “master.”

It was all becoming clear for me when Greg explained the style of Anniversary Ale: “Hmmmm. Maybe it's an imperial mild?” If you looked carefully, you'd notice a grin on his face.

Imperial—implying big, bold, strong beers. Mild—implying low-alcohol, easy-drinking, mild-tasting brown ale. Who was the master, Greg or the beer? It all seemed quite logical at first, but then contrarian.

Don't ever attempt to figure out the beers of Stone Brewing and why they do what they do. They are all complex and a mirrored vision of only themselves. Expect the unexpected. Anticipate excitement and what is next. It's as though every “box” you want to put them in, they'll punch themselves out of, and then you realize that they weren't in a box to begin with!

Greg Koch, Stone Brewing Co., San Diego, Calif.

A visit to Stone Brewing's website will introduce you to the passion behind their beers and their spirited support for those who homebrew. For example, here's Stone Brewing Company on the making of beer:

On fizzy yellow beer:

…if a can of carbonated emptiness falls in the trash and no one hears it, is it a waste?

Apples in a Big Beer
New Glarus Brewing Company

I
N A REMOTE STRETCH
of southern Wisconsin, a half hour southwest of Madison, lies the small community of New Glarus. As we left the vibrant, beer-savvy college town and approached our destination, it seemed that we had been transported to the rolling foothills of the Swiss Alps: green pastures, forests, cows, farmland and a brewery.