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>>Julie: I'm Julie Westcurkin from The Author's Team in Santa Monica. Today we are very excited
to welcome The Beer Chicks: Christina Perozzi, and Hallie Beaune.
[audience cheers and applauds]
They are coming to do a beer tasting for us and to talk about their book, "The Naked Pint:
An Unadulterated Guide to Craft Beer". Christina was named "Best Beer Sommelier" in Los Angeles
by Los Angeles Times Magazine in 2008.
[audience cheers and applauds]
She managed The Original Father's Office here in Santa Monica, which I think a few of you
have been to.
[clapping]
Um, and she seeing the need for beer education everywhere, she founded the popular website:
beerforchicks.com and started working as a consultant, a beer educator, a writer, and
beer sommelier in 2006. And Hallie is also a beer sommelier and the resident beer expert
on the hit cable foodie show After Hours with Daniel Boulud. She met Christina working at
Father's Office and started the popular FO Beer School there. So, please join me in welcoming
Hallie and Christina.
[clapping]
>>Christina: Thanks guys
>>Hallie: Hi
>>Christina: Well, the reason I quit corporate America was because you couldn't drink beer
at work and now I see that it has changed in a couple of years.
>>Hallie: Thank God.
[laughing]
>>Christina: Anyway, thank you so much for coming; and thank you so much for having us.
Um, when we started this beer journey, we never ever imagined in a million years that
we would be standing some place like this talking about beer, or talking about our book.
But, um, we decided that the best way to talk about our book since the book is about beer
is just to talk about beer and you can read the book later.
[laugh]
>>Hallie: And drink it
>>Christina: Yeah, and we wanted it to be fun; we want beer, beer is supposed to be
fun. I mean you can evaluate it, you can appreciate it; um, you can differentiate flavors and
tastes etc. But it shouldn't be so snooty, it should be inclusive.
>>Hallie: Yeah, it kind of sets itself from the wine world in that way. There aren't as
many rules and at the end of the day it is just supposed to be fun. So we always try
to drink our way through any speech, any events, anything we are doing, lucky for all of us.
So hahaha.
>>Christina: Yah the reason actually why we did this was so that we could drink and call
it work.
>>Hallie: Yeah.
>>Christina: So it is very important if any, we are looking for any interns if anyone is
interested, I'm just saying. Um, let's start with the first beer and then we can start
talking about what beer actually is. The first beer we want you guys to drink is a wonderful
lager.
>>Hallie: You may have heard of it, it's got a red label
>>Christina: --It's from my home town ah, from a little place called St. Louis, Missouri,
called Budweiser. If you haven't heard of it, I don't know?
[giggling]
>>Hallie: So there's uh, little purple openers somewhere on your table, so crack that open
>>Christina: And pour this much, pour about this much you guys.
>>Hallie: By the time you get to the end, you will definitely feel the beer because
the alcohol percentage will rise in each beer.
>>Christina: Yes.
>>Hallie: So, don't feel like you're getting cheated. We're looking out for ya.
>>Christina: We wanted you guys to start with this one because we want to give you a frame
of reference. This is the beer that most people in America are drinking. This is the style
of beer and it is made in a way, they call it mass produced industrialized beer. And
this is about 95 --
[inaudible voice from the audience]
>>Christina: What?
>>Male 1: Why?
[laughter]
>>Christina: Why do we call it that, I don't know -- because they made 500 billion trillion
barrels of it a year. Um, it does have its purpose. It is truly consistent beer; um,
but it is one style of beer and this style of beer, it makes up 95% of what we Americans
drink as beer.
>>Hallie: And, that is, that is a light lager, so a light lager is what you are generally
used to. Your Coronas, your Heinekens, your Budweisers, your Coors, this is all one style.
So , you know we try to tell people, you know, if you if you haven't gotten into craft beer,
you've probably only had one style of beer, a lager or a light pilsner, which is which
is also a lager; and that would be like having one kind of wine for the rest of your life.
So it's like --
>>Christina: --I'll have a white zinfandel please.
>>Hallie: Yeah, and that is it. Just like saying, l'll, I'll just have white zinfandel
for the rest of my life. That is it, done. Doesn't matter what I'm eating, doesn't matter
what I'm in the mood for; so, we're, we're trying you know to show you as we go through
this beer journey together. Um, we'll show you that there is so many different flavors
in beer and so you can have more variety and that's what excites us about craft beer. That's
why we wrote the book. That's why we got into it. There's such a great vast variety of flavors
in beer.
>>Christina: You know we get all the time, "I'm not a beer drinker....I don't drink beer.....I'm
not a beer drinker" and we call those people, we say that they are in denial....
[audience laughter]
>>Christina: because there, there is a beer out there for everyone, so maybe some people
just haven't found it yet. Because like Hallie said there are 150 different styles of beer.
This beer can taste like chocolate, it can taste like fruit, it can taste like citrus,
it can taste toasty, nutty, it, it runs the gamut as far as flavor profile is concerned.
And, it it goes to show if, if you have tried 95% of the beers that are out there. If you've
tried Beks, you've tried Heineken, you've tried Coors, you've tried Budweiser, not that
these are bad breweries; I am just saying if you've tried all of those beers and you
don't like a pilsner style lager, you are going to deduce that you don't like beer because
you've tried everything that is out there and you don't like it. You know we get a lot
of women all the time that, I don't like beer, I don't want to drink beer. Well it is because
they're --
[inaudible comment from the audience]
>>Hallie: that was a pretty mean, uh --
>>Christina: I had one person in mind; I had one person in mind. Um, but a lot of times
you know women don't like hoppy, bitter beer. Sometimes they do. I happen to and I know
you do too Hallie; but a lot of times women don't like that bitter flavor in beer and
all the pilsners have that little bitter flavor and so a lot of women then deduce that they
don't like beer.
So we are starting out with the Budweiser.
>>Hallie: So open your Budweisers. Have you poured your two ounces you guys --
>>Christina: Have you already drank them?
>>Hallie: you're slacking, you guys are slacking in the front there, come on pick it up, pick
it up. So, uh, you wanna evaluate beer just like wine. So, uh, a lot of time we actually
use wine glasses. We don't have those today, but we will use a glass that you would use
just, just for a Pinot Noir, whatever. So, just swirl the glass, get your nose down in
there, like way down in there to get familiar with your beer. See what you pick up on your
nose. If it is not pretty that is ok because you know, this is a particular kind of beer;
so maybe you don't like what you smell. And then take a sip and kinda let it, you know,
move around in your mouth, let a little air in just you would when you are tasting wine.
Get, get your initial flavors, Yeah, make that sound, that weird sound and that weird
face that Christina is making right now um and then take a second sip, see what the secondary
flavors are and this is how you will evaluate the beer; so it is not about pounding beers.
>>Christina: No.
>>Haille: It is not about drinking it from the bottom of the can like we all did. It
is just about drinking it or maybe that was me...
[laughter]
>>Hallie: um, it is just about about high school? Anyone? No.
[laughter]
>>Hallie: Um, you know just drink it just like a wine, if you get a craft beer and it
comes in a nice glass, it's supposed to come in a nice glass because you want to get all
the flavors, you wanna get all the aromatics in there.
>>Christina: Um, and also you know with wine when you're when people are evaluating wine
they already have, there is a certain set of descriptors that are already defined. You
know there's a wheel that tobacco and spice and you know fruity and dark cherries; but
in beer there isn't that yet. It, it can be completely subjective, if you smell band aids,
you smell band aids, if you smell asphalt, you smell asphalt and I'm not necessarily
saying these are bad things in beer; but have your, make sure your mind is open to these
flavors in beer. And really with beer it is just a matter of paying attention. Because
people don't pay attention to beer, people pound beer. You know we've all done a keg
stand. I hope, do it once, put it on your bucket list if you haven't --
>>Hallie: you could, you could see what we, we both grew up on...
[laughter]
>>Hallie: we've both mentioned, like pounding beers and keg stands.
>>Christina: so anyway so we're gonna go into really quickly what the uh, ingredients of
beer. Most people have no idea what beer even is. I still don't know what Diet Coke is
>>Haille: No one does. It's scary.
[laughter]
>>Christina: Um, but basically beer consists of four ingredients. Obviously there is water,
which makes up about 95% of beer; there is an ingredient called malts, which are grains
and that is what provides the fermentable sugars in beer. Um, there is yeast, which
is a single cell organism which eats the sugars and malts and creates alcohol and CO2 and
then there is hops, which provide a bitterness and balance in beer.
>>Hallie: So the way that these work together and make a very happy beverage is that the
yeast eats the malts and creates the alcohol and CO2. So that's, the that's the science
behind beer, that's what we call the birds and the bees of beer. So, now that you know
those two things, the ingredients and how beer is made, you know more than like 90%
of the population, which is sad. But is true, like people if you ask someone on the street
"What is in beer?" They are like "I don't know."
They might say barley because you hear that word but you know people just aren't familiar
with how it's made --
>>Christina: and each one of the ingredients parts many different permutations of flavors
in beer. For instance there are 100s of different varietals of hops: there are hops that are
grassy; there are hops that are really bitter; there are hops that are urbascious; there
are hops that are citrusy. Um, with malts uh, the malts are the grains, so there's rye,
there's oats, there's wheat, there's rice, um, and all of these and many other grains
and all these grains can be roasted to varying levels. They can be roasted really dark where
they take on chocolaty, toasty, nutty qualities and they can be dried very quickly where they
are very pale and have kind of biscuity, bready qualities. Um . . . also water plays a difference.
You have very hard water with a lot of minerals and those kinds of waters are better for stronger
flavored beers, more bitter beers. You can have very soft water like in Munich, is a
good example of very soft water and beers that come from there are very light, pilsner,
Czech style you know light lagers. Things like that, and am I missing, oh and yah then
there is yeast.
>>Hallie: Yeast.
>>Christina: --which the next you're going to have is going to be a good example of what
yeast can do; so open the Franziskaner the Hefeweizen.
>>Hallie: And you can dump your um, beers in the sand castle bucket, um, you don't have
to finish. You, you may not like all the beers. It's ok, you don't have to pretend like you
like them.
[audience chatting going on the background]
>>Hallie: So, uh, so with those four ingredients there's a also um obviously there are many
different ways you could put these together. So you could have you could have a yeast that
brings out a lot of fruit and a dark chocolaty malt so you're having a combination of some,
some fruity coffee flavors or you could have something that is a little lighter, a little
biscuit; so you can see there are a plethora of flavors in beer. You will never run out
of new combinations between the hops, the malt, and the yeast so we will never run out
of, of a new variety of craft beer which is what makes it kind of exciting.
So get your nose in there again, make sure you are not just thowin' it down, thowin'
back. Smell it. You smell a difference?
>>Christina: So, this is a good example of yeast what yeast can do in beer. So, there
are also many hundreds of different hybrids of yeast, some are proprietary, some people
have developed their own specific hybrid of yeast that has specific flavors that they
want for their beer. Uh, this is a good example because this German beer has to uh, falls
under the law called Reinheitsgebot.
>>Hallie: I'm so glad you say that because I don't know how to say that.
>>Christina: It's a hard word, Reinheitsgebot ,which is the German purity law, which means
that you can only have four ingredients in beer; you can't add anything else other than
water, yeast, malt, and hops.
>>Hallie: So, what do you guys smell? Just yell somethin' out, no wrong answers.
[pause]
[inaudible audience comment] >>Hallie: What? Citrus?
>>Christina: Who said --
>>Hallie: Someone said banana? Yeah.
>>Christina: Yes.
[inaudible audience chatter]
>>Hallie: Yes, so this is a Hefeweizen pronounced Hefeweizen by the way. A lot of people say
Hefeweizer.
>>Christina: No Hefenweizen, no Hefeweizer.
>>Christina: We don't know why
>>Hallie: No Hefeweizen.
>>Christina: There is no "r" at the end.
[Hallie and Christina laughing]
>>Christina: Hefe, if you don't know for sure.
>>Hallie: Um, so yes banana and clove are very traditional uh, uh tastes, flavors, aromatics
of this style of Hefeweizen and definitely a little citrus there too. Every Hefeweizen
is slightly different but the banana and clove is a very traditional uh, smell that you should
get and flavor --
>>Christina: --and that is coming specifically from the yeast flavor that they are using.
There are no bananas added, there is no clove added in the boil. It is coming from that
specific Hefeweizen yeast that they are using in the beer. So a lot, go ahead --
[inaudible question from the audience]
>>Christina: it just means that Canadians are cooler than we are.
[laughing]
>>Christina: Um --
>>Hallie: Well there's, you know there is not all I would say we have a lot of strong
beers here. Um, so that is the alcohol percentage, A-B-V, um, and that can be connected to the
malt. The amount of, you know, we said that the yeast eats the sugar, creates the alcohol
and CO2 so --
[inaudible question from the audience]
>>Hallie: Oh, ok. So, the question was, "why is it when you go to Canada the exact same
brand will be stronger in alcohol than here?"
>>Christina: It is just honestly, it's just laws. Um, for a long time, uh I don't know
if you guys know uh, of a beer style called malt liquor um.
[laughing]
>>Hallie: You have seen pictures --
>>Christina: --Anyone, anyone? Um, I don't know that beer came about because of government
regulations. It was a beer that was high in alcohol. Originally, it was a pretty decent
beer that was high in alcohol because it was too high in alcohol to be called a beer according
to our government standards it was called a malt liquor. And so that is basically why
it comes from the tradition of them being able to make a higher a higher percentage
beer to send to Canada and now they don't want to change it, they don't want to do the
New Coke thing. You know, they don't wanna, Budweiser is not gonna change their you know
recipe. They are not going to add more alcohol and call it Budweiser and have you know 50
million Americans…
>>Hallie: It is like 3-2 beer in Utah and I know they have that rule. There were wider
spread rules, you know, a while back.
[inaudible audience question]
>>Christina: OK, so the way you get more alcohol in beer is the malt to yeast ratio. The more
malt you have, the more yeast you have; the more yeast eats the malt, and the more CO2,
and the more alcohol you are going to have.
>>Hallie: Right, so it is just adding that into that chemical equation basically.
>>Christina: So we were talking about Hefeweizen, we were talking about the yeast and the yeast
strain. Um, there are lots of, did we talk about how there is a yeast strain for almost
every different kind of beer? There is a yeast strain for pale ale; there is a yeast strain
for I-P-A; and there is also you know people combine all these yeasts, they combine all
these different kinds of hops. They combine all these different kinds of malts to make
as Hallie said, an endless endless, I'm going to use permutation. How many times can I use
permutation? Is that --
>>Hallie: As many times as you want.
>>Christina: I'm at Google -- I feel like I should.
>>Hallie: We have like five words we love and you are going to hear them a million times
and one of them is tasty, one is delicious, and we just repeat it.
>>Christina: --Amazing.
>>Hallie: So, this is a good time also to tell you the difference between an ale and
a lager. Uh, so the first beer we had was a lager. Have you guys heard these terms?
So everyone has heard of ale and lager, but we find that people don't necessarily know
what that means because they will come up and ask us, I think I want an ale, but they,
they really don't know where they are coming from.
>>Christina: I don't want something too aley.
>>Hallie: Yah, we don't know what that means
[laughing]
>>Hallie: And here's why, this is why, be, so all beer can be separated into two categories:
ale or lager. So, um, the reason they fall under one or the other is the process. So,
there are ale yeasts and there are lager yeasts. If a beer is a lager it uses a lager yeast,
it is brewed at a lower temperature, and that actually means that it, it is brewed at the
bottom so you will see that that fermentation happening at the bottom of the barrel or whatever
you are brewing it in.
>>Christina: It is a bottom fermenting yeast.
>>Hallie: Bottom fermenting, um, at a lower temperature for a longer amount of time. That
is kind of how I remember lager, lower temperature, longer, lager. Um, an ale yeast will brew
at a higher temperature at the top, for a shorter amount of time. So, it is a process.
And then underneath ale and lager are all the styles you have heard of. So, pilsner
is a lager; um, a porter is an ale; uh, you know, so that's, those are like the two big
categories and underneath are all the small ones. So, you don't really want to ask for
beer, you know just "I'll have an ale" or "I'll have a lager." You wanna get a little
more specific. It is kinda like saying "I'll have a red wine" or "I'll have a white wine".
You know, it doesn't really tell you what the beer is going to taste like.
>>Christina: So, one of the misconceptions that people have about uh, beer, number one
misconception is that a beer that is dark in color is bitter and heavy. Uh, the only
thing that the color of a beer tells you is to what degree the malt has been roasted that
was used in the making of the beer. You can have very dark beer that is light in body
and light in alcohol content. Hops are the only thing that provides the bitterness in
beer and they are completely invisible in beer. So, you know, a color of beer tells
you nothing about how bitter it is, it tells you nothing about how much alcohol content
it is cuz that has to do with the amount of malt versus yeast. So, that is uh, misconception
number one.
>>Hallie: Very important.
>>Christina: Very important...the second misconception is that a Hefeweizen is lemony and you should
have a piece of citrus in it. We have a little saying that is called N-F-L...can we swear?
>>Hallie: No
>>Christina: Can we swear?
>>Hallie: No, we won't.
[Christina laughing]
>>Hallie: You can u . . use the "f" the "f-ing" lemon
>>Christina: No - don't put it in the beer. You can apply that to lime --
[laughing]
>>Christina: And the reason we do that is because smell this beer - right? You have
the banana; you have the clove; there is a little bit of citrus sour in it but not enough
to put a lemon in it. It would ruin the balance of a very finely made beer and these brewers
that are brewing a craft beer and, and are and are artists. They are craftsman and they
take their work very seriously. And sometimes there are traditions that have gone on for
hundreds of years and a yeast they've propagated for hundreds of years. So, when you squeeze
a lemon into it not only are you ruining the balance of the beer but you are also destroying
the head of the beer. The citric acid destroys the head of the beer and that is where you
get all of the aromatics. Um . . . if you don't get aromatics you are not going to taste
the beer. Aromatics are 80% of what we perceive as flavor, and so -
>>Hallie: --So, you know if a German comes up to us and says they want a Hefeweizen and
we put a lemon in it, they might have a heart attack.
[laughing]
>>Hallie: And pretty much anyone from Europe if they ask us for a Hefeweizen, we put a
lemon they are like "what are you doing?"
[laughing]
>>Hallie: So you know those that has really become popular for the more mass produced
wheat beers in America. And those beers are a different style basically and they often
don't have the esters, which is the smell from the yeast where you are getting the banana
and clove. They don't have that. So, they are saying you know, it is really more of
a, a body that they have that the wheat comes through because these are wheat beers so then
you know then you are throwing a lemon in there because you don't have a lot of other
flavors that you are going to destroy. So, that is how that became popular.
[inaudible question from the audience]
>>Christina: Yeah.
>>Hallie: Uh ha - uh ha, good question.
>>Christina: Hefeweisen --
>>Hallie: So the question is uh, with the esters from the Hefeweizen the banana and
clove, what would we eat with a Hefeweizen?
>>Christina: A banana
[laughing]
>>Hallie: A banana and a clove --
[laughing]
>>Hallie: OK, scene.
>>Christina: Scene.
>>Christina: No, you know I would do something you know you could do something like a tropical
dish like a seafood with some papayas or a chutney or something like that. Uh, there
are a couple of ways that we pair food with beer and one is to kind of think of the beer
as the sauce in a way and to incorporate the beer into the food so that the beer enhances
the food and the food enhances the beer. So, it is just a matter of thinking about the
spices that are in it. You can even have this with dessert.
>>Hallie: Oh yeah.
>>Christina: I mean you could have this with banana cake even. We've tried that it was
pretty good.
>>Hallie: Yeah, we've tried beer with everything we eat so um but you can also use beer as
an ingredient so another way you could use this is would be like in a vinaigrette. Sometimes
people use a Hefeweizen in vinaigrette and you can tell how that would work really well.
So, just think about you know, just break down what your smelling and what you are tasting
and associate it with food the way you would you know a spice rack or any ingredient. And
it is kind of fun. I mean that is the crazy thing about what we love about beer is you
can you can use it with food and such and you know such interesting ways.
>>Christina: The other thing we love about beer is drinking it.
>>Hallie: Oh yeah. Let's open the next one --
>>Christina: Open the next one and move quickly.
>>Hallie:-- Open to the next one.
>>Christina: So the next one is a Hitachino White. It is another German beer. But this
time we are going to Belgium for German, for German, this time we are going to Belgium
for the wheat beer. Um, so they said before German, in Germany there is a rule where you
can only have four ingredients and in Belgium, there is no such rule so you can add anything
you want to, to the beer.
[inaudible audience question]
>>Hallie: Yes, and there is a little owl on the front? Little bottle? Cutest bottle ever,
it is from Japan. It is from Japan. Yes ,it is a Belgian, Wit Bier from Japan, so whoa.
This is the other awesome thing about beer, you can have a very um, tasty traditional
Hefeweizen or porter or, you know, Wit Bier or whatever made in a variety of countries,
a variety of places because you can have all the ingredients brought to you basically.
You know, you can make a really authentic Saison, which we are going to taste later.
Here in the states it doesn't have to be in uh, Belgium, so this made in Japan --
>>Hallie: In a saki brewery --
>>Christina: and uh, in a place that was a saki brewery--
>>Hallie: throw it in there, saki brewery--
>>Christina: Yeah, so really smell it, I see some of you throwing it back, smell it first.
>>Audience 2: Get the primary --
>>Christina: Get the primary aromatics, take a moment, get the secondary aromatics--
>>Hallie: Different than the last one? Yes? Get anything you want to yell out?
>>Audience 3: Sour--
>>Hallie: Sour, mmhmm.
>>Christina: Sour.
>>Audience 4: Orange
>>Hallie: Orange
>>Christina: So this is a Wit Bier or a while ale. This beer is traditionally brewed with
coriander and with bitter orange peel. Um, it should be more citrus. It is called a white
ale because it is unfiltered, it is a little bit lighter in color, it uses pale malts.
Um, when people think of wheat beer you know traditionally they think of very citrusy because
they are thinking of that lemon. This style is a little bit closer to that citrus kind
of flavor that a lot of people are looking for in wheat beers. Hallie had mentioned that
there are American styles of wheat beer too that have a more citrus quality like Pyramid
and uh, Widmer and uh, those uh, we call those America style wheat beers and this is a Belgian
style wheat beer.
>>Hallie: So uh we uh, should we tell them the secret?
>>Hallie: Yeah, ok I guess we have to now I said that in microphone so um, this, this
beer actually is not, not, not usually this sour. So, sometimes um, this is the other
interesting thing about craft beer is it's a it's a living thing a lot of times, craft
beer, the smaller produced beer with the true ingredients. We are not talking about the
big pasteurized beers. So you know each batch can be slightly different. So, this beer traditionally
for us has a lot of pear to it and some nice spice. This is a little more sour than usual,
so it is this batch, so when we tasted it, we were like oh, this is different --
>>Christina: very, it is a lot more lemony than it usually is.
[audience comment/question inaudible]
>>Christina: I'll pour it in, it is total personal preference. Like for instance you'll
see this beer it is unfiltered. It means the yeast is still in the beer and there is still
some proteins in the beer, which is fine. It won't hurt you.
>>Hallie: It won't kill you.
>>Christina: It won't kill you. There is nothing dangerous about it. Really, it is just a personal
preference in flavor. I tend to like a courser mouth feel and I like the taste of these so
I'll pour it and then I'll swirl it and I'll pour the rest of it in. Some people, Mark
from Craftsman, the owner of Craftsman Brewing Company says not to do that. He doesn't do
it. We've had arguments about it.
>>Hallie: Sometimes, sometimes it can add a touch of funky earthy sour to it, so if
you like that which we both do actually we kind of like earthy flavors, so we, we kind
of swirl it up and pour it in; but you will you will definitely see that sediment, sometimes
you will see it in the, the bottle cap, you might see it in the cap actually if you look
at the cap of this one. You might see some goopy stuff and that is the yeast and it is
ok.
>>Christina: It is fine.
>>Hallie: There is nothing wrong there.
[Christina and Hallie giggle]
>>Hallie: Ok, so you can move on to your next beer, your fol, it's in the, by the way your
list is right there.
>>Christina: Yeah, the list, the order that we are.
>>Christina: Going in is here if you guys want to.
>>Hallie: Yeah.
>>Christina: Make notes on them.
>>Hallie: It's the Saison, right?
>>Christina: Yes, the next beer is the Saison Dupont...
>>Hallie: mmmmmmmm
>>Christina: which is another Belgian. This isn't a true Belgian. You can have, if a beer
is a Belgian in style but not from Belgium, you have to call it a Belgian style.
>>Hallie: Yeah.
[inaudible audience response]
>>Christina: Please do not aim....it at your eye.
>>Christina: Don't open it at, Yeah, be careful but it's got a lovely sound. Yes, hear that
pop.
[popping sound from opening a bottle]
>>Hallie: Yeah, Whew!
>>Christina: Yeah.
[Christina laughing]
>>Christina: Best sound in the world.
[another bottle popping sound]
>>Hallie: Yeah.
>>Christina: So, Saison is another style of beer. It is a style of ale and once again
it is a little bit lighter in color. It's unfiltered. it does have some wheat in the
beer. A lot of people assume that wheat beers are made with 100% wheat malt and they can
be made with any percentage of wheat malt from 30 to 70% it just really depends on the
style and depends on the brewer. This is made with a little less wheat than a Wit Beir or
a Hefeweizen.
>>Hallie: So the, I won't tell you the notes, I was going to tell you the notes of Saison
but do you guys get a really different smell here? From the last one?
[audience chatter]
>>Hallie: What did you get? Leather?
>>Christina: That is good because she says leather, that is really good because --
>>Hallie: There is no wrong answers.
>>Christina: That is a very earth...this is a very earthy beer.
>>Hallie: Yeah, so that is true --
>>Christina: Unless you are also smelling your shoe at the same time.
[laughing]
>>Hallie: So, that is true. So, this, I mean, for us you know we taste a lot more of that
earthiness, which is kind of where you are getting that leather from than the last one,
not as bright and fruity, more earthy. They call this often a ,a farmhouse ale and it
kind of recalls those flavors of like hay and dirt and....
>>Christina: --horses
>>Hallie: --barnyard, flannel --
>>Christina: --horses, I don't know, I never lived on a farm. And this often has a citrus
element to it...a little pepper.
>>Hallie: We love this beer with food. This is great with food. You can only imagine with
some seafood and it is nice and dry on the end, a little earthy, and that dryness again
comes from the hops. So, when you are getting that, that hops actually have tannin in them,
just like grape skins in wine. So, hops are sometimes used to balance the sweetness of
a beer and all beer has hops, pretty much, and if it didn't it would be really sweet.
It would be like a syrupy, sweet beer so sometimes it is used to balance the sweetness and sometimes
they put it in there to make a really bitter, slap you in the face, beer and we will get
to that later.
[laughing]
>>Hallie: We are going to slap you in the face later.
[laughing]
[Inaudible question from the audience]
>>Christina: Yes, yes
>>Christina: It can be a lot. He was saying that um, Belgian beers have a very distinct
flavor and he is trying to figure out what it is, is it in the hops or the yeast. Yep,
in the doubles and the triples which are bigger beers, so we are going to be trying later,
those are Belgian styles, they typically use a Belgian candy sugar in addition to the malts
to pump up that malt level to get a higher alcohol content. And so you are also going
to get what's call residual sugar in the beer. So that sweetness, kinda like a port quality,
almost like a brandyish kind of quality, you get some heat in the exhaust. Most of the
time it comes from either that, or it comes from the yeast, the specific yeast strain
that they are using, the esters.
>>Hallie: And also we find that the hops that a lot of people use in American styles, the
bigger sort of west coast pale ales, are, are a different kind of hops and so they can
give you some of that piney citrus that we are going to taste later. And sometimes the
Belgians, they are using hops more too to try to dry out the end and it can be a funkier
kind of dry hop. So, it is going to give it a really different balance, a different um,
profile, flavor profile than the American styles. That might be what you are tasting
as well. They are kind of going for different things in the same way that you know a true
burgundy is going for something different than a Pinot Noir in California. So, you know,
they have a different idea of how to use all of the ingredients so that, that's part of
it. Ok, so moving on.
>>Christina: Let's move on, let's get hoppy.
>>Hallie: Terrible, I can't believe you just said that.
>>Christina: I know, that's bad, I apologize for that that. I should have apologized in
advance.
>>Hallie: Although our our title for this chapter was "A Hoppy Ending", --
>>Christina: Hoppy ending.
>>Hallie: So really, you could see what level we are working at.
[laughing]
>>Hallie: You could see at the bottom there we gave you a reference for the book if you
want to follow along.
>>Christina: Yeah, each one of these styles we put a page for the book or Hallie did actually.
Put a page for the book with each one. But we are going to deal with the Racer 5 I-P-A,
which stands for India Pale Ale.
>>Hallie: Anybody have this? Nice!
>>Christina: Yeah.
>>Hallie: Very California beer here. This is our favorite I-P-A. I'm just speaking for
both of us.
>>Christina: Let's have some, so --
>>Hallie: Yeah, speaking of that --
>>Christina: Can I have some?
>>Hallie: We love Stone actually too, but this, I just love this beer.
>>Christina: This is from Healdsburg, California, very public. Oh, nice.
[laughing]
>>Hallie: That's why we picked you to pour it.
>>Christina: Um, so a lot of people at India Pale Ale obviously, this style of ale.
>>Hallie: Yeah, you tell them, I'll tell the Russian -
>>Christina: So, India Pale Ale is a style of beer and it is a very interesting style
of beer. It was invented in the early 1800s when uh, the English were colonizing India.
And these are the days before the Suez Canal, these were the days before refrigeration,
these were the days before stainless steel. And in order to get beer to their colonist
and to their soldiers, they put beer in wooden barrels and put them on ships. And sailed
them down around the horn of Africa past the equator and back up past the equator. And
by the time the beer was getting to uh, India it was going bad. And so, what they discovered
in England, was that they already knew actually that alcohol had a preservative quality and
they discovered that hops, which put the bitterness in beer and dryness in beer, have a preservative
quality as well and so they added more hops and added more malt which gave more alcohol
and the beer ended up making the journey. So, the India became a very popular style
and then the Brits really fell in love with this style as well.
We should tell you that the British I-P-A version is a lot less hoppy and a lot less
dry and a lot less alcoholic than the American versions because we Americans do things bigger
and better ?
>>Hallie: Louder
>>Christina: Than anyone could possibly imagine.
>>Hallie: We call American I-P-A is like the hair band of I-P-A. It is like turn it up,
slam down your uh, guitar, get some reverb. I don't know, I don't play guitar, but you
know something like that. You know the drum solo? That is what you think of when you think
of hoppy American. It is very....so if a British person asks us for an I-P-A, we don't even
go this hoppy because we know that in their country it's just gonna hit them in the face.
This is a slap --
>>Christina: We are gonna slap you in the face.
>>Hallie: You feel slapped a little bit?
Christina>>Just a little bit--
>>Hallie: Taste it, smell it
>>Christina: So, smell it make sure you get, so, to finish up an I-P-A will always have
more alcohol content and will always be hoppier or more bitter and dry than a pale ale. So,
that's when people are asking what is the difference between a pale ale and an I-P-A
that is what it is.
>>Hallie: And a lot of the names for the styles come from these you know these stories from
history and just the way it came about. So it is kinda another cool thing about beer
is it, it, you know, you go back to these old stories and over time these names just
stick. But a lot of people that we find they say I-P-A but they don't know why is it India
and so it is kind of a cool -
[audience inaudible question or comment]
>>Christina: I think they then eventually did
[Christina laughs]
They figured it out, but over land was a longer journey than sailing at the time.
[audience inaudible question or comment]
>>Christina: Yeah, yeah, no refrigeration.
>>Hallie: Well, also, what are they going to drink on the ship if they don't?
[laughing]
>>Hallie: I mean long journey I'm just saying; but you know back in those days a lot of beer
did go bad, it did go sour and obviously you probably know that beer needs to be kept at
a pretty good temperature. It should be in a dark glass, if you see a beer and it has
a clear bottle--
>>Christina: Dark glass bottle--
Yeah, dark glass bottle, sorry, than you know that is not good for beer. It is just like
wine so it, it should be kept at a constant temperature, not a lot of heat and then a
lot of freezing. You don't wanna, that's gonna, you know, get in the way of the flavors and
could make the beer go bad.
>>Christina: But you also notice that we are not serving these beers ice cold. You know
you hear all those commercials "Ice Cold!" and the label turns a color when it's cold
you know like that's not necessarily good for beer. That is good for bad beer because--
[laughing]
>>Christina: Well, it is because cold inhibits flavor. If you have something really cold
you are not going to taste a lot of it. Also if you can't smell the flavor once again,
you are not going to taste very much of it, which is why some of these mass produce companies
say, "drink this beer ice cold out of the bottle." You can't smell it, you can't taste
it....isn't that great! It quenches your thirst...it's awesome.
But we are not you know we're about actually being able to evaluate and being able to taste
the beer, which is why, generally, you want beer warmer. You want it around we found kind
of an average temperature around about around 51 degrees, which is, we say take it out of
the frig and let it sit about 2-3 minutes--
>>Hallie: And it is going to warm up in your hands while you are drinking a beer and you
can notice the change from the first sip to the last and that is ok. I mean it is going
to bring out a little more of the malt, maybe a little less of the bitterness and that that
is a cool journey -- you are supposed to kinda taste different things.
[inaudible audience question/comment]
>>Hallie: No, you can do that--
Christina>>I mean don't warm it up to 100 degrees and then put it in the freezer.
>>Hallie: Extreme temperatures are bad.
>>Christina: But you know, you can be going from room temperature and back into the frig
and vice versa. That happens all the time in shipping.
>>Hallie: Uh ha
>>Christina: Refrigerated trucks to unrefrigerated trucks, ok the thing that will cause a beer
to go off or taste skunky, you hear skunky, you hear that born on date a lot which is
also, you know --
>>Hallie: BS
[laughing]
>>Hallie: BS, BS, I gonna say it
>>Christina: Um, the thing that will really affect your beer more than anything is uh,
when it is light struck and that what causes it to go skunky. It is not the age, it is
not oxidation, that is something different. What it is, is when light hits it and it's
when light hits the chemicals that hops have put in the beer so all those beers that you
see in the light colored bottles that Hallie was talking about in clear bottles, when the
light hits them that is what reduces, it is almost a, it's a chemical compound that mimics
what a skunk smells like, truly.
>>Hallie: Same compound which is really interesting.
[inaudible question from the audience]
>>Christina: Oxygen is a different thing and you can have oxidization from uh, the cap
uh, going bad, which is why generally when you have beer we talk about aging beer sometimes.
You can age beers that generally have a higher alcohol content than, a lot of them have corks
now corks and caps so you don't have the rust or that oxidation issue. Um, but some beers
with caps, you know, I've tasted beers that have aged 10 years with you know a cap and
it was fine but that is the risk that you run a little bit with older beers and aging
beers that have the cap, brown cap on it. But you know the born on date, this is from
the brewery last week I mean that is not going to make it.
>>Hallie: No, don't be reading that, like, don't be reading that like you would your
milk carton, please. Um, so what do you guys think of this beer? Anybody like it? Yeah?
So this is sometimes the, the flavors in this, the bitterness like I think Christina said
earlier sometimes people new to beer are kind of turned off by that but uh, and that is
fine...whatever, you know; but we do find that you know when I started drinking craft
beer I was kinda like ewe that bitterness freaks me out; but now I crave it. So your
palate will change, your palate will absolutely change. Whatever you like now, let's all get
together again in about 6 months and see. You will feel differently about every single
one of these beers and that is pretty cool. Your palate grows. Because you, once you understand
what the ingredients are and what these styles are supposed to taste like, it changes you
know all the sort of programming that we have had about beer in this country, which is you
know it is all supposed to be light and flavorless. But why would that be? So, this you know if
you drink this with like a big nice burger, like a burger at Father's Office, something
that has a lot of fat and cheese, this, this, the crispness of this hops are gonna cut right
through that and it's gonna pair so well with that food. So, you can see how the different
styles work better with different meals and different situations. Situation.
>>Christina: Alright let's move on, um, let's go to the porter. So we gave you the IPA and
it was named because of where it was going to. This beer is named after who was drinking
it. It was the porters on the shipyards of uh England that were doing all the
>>Hallie: Portering--
>>Christina: moving and shaking and they drank this beer for breakfast, they drank it for
lunch, they drank it for dinner. This was the style of beer before lighter styles. The
porters and the stouts, and a stout was named a stout because it was supposed to be a darker,
stouter porter.
>>Hallie: But now the stouts and the porters when the brewer makes one, they kinda pick
whether they want to call it a stout or a porter. They're pretty much the same so there
is not, not a lot of difference between the two because uh, Guinness was actually Guinness
stout porter initially.
Yes
[inaudible question/comment room the audience]
Hallie>>No, no, the question was do porters have more alcohol than stouts, No. A stout
can have more it is really it's really um, it's been--
[inaudible audience comment]
They're not, they're not necessarily strong. We are going to get to a Russian imperial
stout, which will more alcohol, someone over here is very excited about that, um , yeah.
But, but no--
>>Christina: Be curious in a minute. This is child's play.
>>Hallie: Actually when you guys, you know, we've said that you should not judge a beer
by its color, please do not look at the glass and say, "wow, this a meal and I already ate
and I can't handle this" yah know; taste this beer, smell this beer. This beer is actually
lighter in a way than the last beer you had. It is lighter in alcohol for sure. So, the
other beer was lighter in color but this is this is lighter in alcohol. So you can't,
you can't just look at beer and say this is stronger because it uses a darker malt. So
again, the malt is just roasted to a darker color.
>>Christina: Yeah this beer is going to feel lighter on your tongue, it is going to be
less astringent, it is going to be less hoppy, it is going to be less bitter and you know
many people would put those characteristics into a beer that looks like this.
>>Hallie: Sorry, I'm, I'm getting some, a little behind, a little behind.
>>Christina: Actually if you put your nose into it, you get those kind of coffee, chocolaty.
Anyone else, any other flavors you're picking up?
>>Audience 4: Molasses
>>Christina and Hallie: Molasses
>>Christina: Yes, it comes from the malt and the residual sugar and a little bit of it
comes from the actual gross level of the malt. You'll be able to you know when you say you
can't judge a beer by its color you can't judge the bitterness and you can't judge the
alcohol content but you can do some judging based on the color.
[audience inaudible comment]
I like it, that is like hipster cool, I get vinyl, I only get vinyl
[laughing]
>>Hallie: I get tapered jeans out of this, um, and a pork pie hat.
>>Christina: It's like an analogue to me ya know,
>>Hallie: Yeah, I know, I mean, ya know, you like, we said like there is no wrong answer
with your palate and your nose what you are getting. Especially you also have to think
when we are tasting through beers what you had last is going to influence what you smell
in this beer. So, you know, if you are going from an I-P-A there some of those flavors
might come out in comparison to that, so that's
[inaudible audience comment/question]
>>Christina: Well, ya know, sometimes the yeast will drop out, sometimes they'll change
the temperature so that the yeast stops being active.
>>Hallie: It can only eat so much.
>>Christina: And sometimes the time...ya know they'll be...we're just gonna ferment this
for five days and then they will stop the process so that--
>>Hallie: Wow--
>>Christina: And they also eat each other.
>>Hallie: Yeah, they're cannibals and that is when you start getting into all flavors.
They want to stop before any of that starts. You can get all flavors from dead yeast you
can get all flavors from cannibalistic yeast as well.
>>Hallie: So, you want some of that sugar for the flavor too sometimes. But part of
the reason you taste, you know there is malt and sugar in the last beer but probably the
reason you taste it more in this one is because this doesn't have as many hops. So, if this
beer if we if this beer had as many hops as the last one, it would be a totally different
situation, right? So, so you know, sometimes it's the preserved sweetness it is not necessarily
more malt because it is not more alcohol but, you know, fewer hops are going to make it
taste sweeter.
>>Christina: Yeah, that is a good point too that she brought up about preserved sweetness
and preserved dryness. When we are drinking these and we saying oh this is very dry because
there are a lot of hops in it, it is not that it actually is dry because dryness in beverages
and wine and beer really means an absence of sugar and obviously there is a lot of sugar
in here. What we are talking about is a preserved dryness that the tannins and the hops. And
sometimes there is tannins in the husks of the grains as well. There is a preserved dryness
that it will give us to balance out the sweetness that is always there.
>>Hallie: We'd also like to take this moment to tell you that beer does not have more calories
than every beverage.
>>Christina: No
>>Hallie: Um, a lot of people say like, "oh, I can't drink beer I'm watching what I'm drinking."
But they'll go have a margarita, so I don't get it. They're like but it's Cinco de Mayo
and then I'll have five more margaritas but I can't have a stout. So, a margarita has
way more calories than what you are drinking now--
>>Christina: 450
>>Hallie: 450
>>Christina: I'm just saying.
>>Hallie: Think about it, think about it, so you know. Yes some, light beers you know
have fewer calories but that is all they are going for by the way is just, not flavor,
but fewer calories.
[audience inaudible comment]
>>Hallie: A regular margarita, a regular margarita.
>>Christina: Well the same, the 16 oz of, it is not 16 ounces, 12 ounces maybe 16 ounces
of margarita vs. a 12 ounce beer generally a beer is about 250 calories that is not light.
>>Hallie: You know or people will drink a, um, you know, a Jack and Coke, I mean how
many calories are in Coke? Why would that be fewer than a beer you know it doesn't,
it is just again, just like the market thing.Anything that tells you like beer or beer bellies and
all of that, you know that is just not, just not fair.
>>Christina: OK, let's move on. Chimay people, open the Chimay.
[audience chatter]
>>Christina: It's the style. Ok, he said, "what is it that makes a beer a porter or
a stout?"
>>Christina: So--
>>Hallie: Yeah watch out.
[laugh]
>>Christina: It's uh, you know it's a style, it's the style. So, it's a certain, so he
asked a good question actually and we haven't explained this yet like what makes a style
a style. So every beer is either an ale or a lager and then there are all these different
styles underneath it. And uh, really it is a parameters. There are color parameters,
um, the type of malt used parameters, uh, bittering units. They are called I-B-Us, International
Bittering Units parameters, alcohol content parameters and so they are kinda set. Like
a porter will be you know 5 to 7 to 7 1/2 % alcohol, it will be dark to this kind of
color. It will be this certain percentage of bitter. It will have toasty, roasty, nutty
characteristics. I mean it is not cut and dry.
>>Hallie: Very general because, you know, you'll find some people are making porters
will vanilla beans in them or they are smoking the malt and making a smoked porter. So, you
know, there is a huge variety within the style profile but it is the general style profile.
[inaudible audience question]
>>Hallie: Well, I mean porter isn't an ale. So, the styles will be either an ale or a
lager; but um,
>>Christina: You are saying it is not as easy to differentiate a porter, between a porter
and a stout.
[inaudible comment]
>>Christina: Right, no, it is not. That is when you start getting into the little technicalities.
What kind of hops did we use? When did we add them? How bitter is it? Did we add, you
know, how aromatically hoppy is it? How high in alcohol? How sweet is it? And that is when
you will start getting into that evaluating. It is definitely you know it is very...it's
a nuance process at that point. The style, I mean some are just very quintessential,
like the Saison you guys had is a quintessential Saison. Like, that is the style that other
styles move from. Um, this anchor porter, I think, is a very quintessential American
style porter. >>Hallie: And you all know Anchor Brewing
from San Francisco.
>>Christina: It just got sold yesterday; I'm just saying.
>>Hallie: and we were upset.
>>Christina: Yeah, we were kinda sad.
>>Hallie: Um
[audience chatter]
>>Hallie: Griff something. Like a big company
>>Christina: We'll see, we'll see
>>Hallie: Ok, so you've got your Chimay? Everyone got their Chimay?
>>Christina: Chimay!
>>Hallie: Sniff this one. Now, really try to, this is you know again this is a darker
in color beer so you know they are using a darker roasted malt but totally different
flavor profile, we think.
>>Christina: So we talked about before how you can't say a beer is a Belgian beer if
it doesn't come from Belgian; you call it a Belgian style like the Hitachino Belgian
style white ale. Um, and then we had a Belgian beer with a Saison Dupont. There are also
Abbey Ales and Trappist Ales. You may have heard of that.
Abby Ales are beers that were made, used to be made maybe back in the day by monks in
Abbeys but now they are no longer controlled by monks. They are, you know they are either
secular people in the same buildings or maybe they sold proprietary rights, their yeast,
and their recipe and somebody else is brewing it for them in that same kind of tradition
and style.
But there are also traps breweries and there are only seven Trappist breweries in the world
and Chimay happens to be one of them. And Trappist breweries are ones that are still
controlled by monks and Trappist breweries, in theory, should only be brewing the beer
really to sustain themselves as a monastery. They should be monks first and brewers second.
And it is, you know, kind of the way they made bread or they made cheese or made chocolate
and sold it to the public and then they could raise money to live as monks.
>>Hallie: Yeah, and a lot of times they brewed this beer to sustain themselves while they
were fasting which we think is interesting.
[laughing]
>>Hallie: I don't know if you have ever gone three days with just drinking beer but, um,
we've come pretty close actually I'd have to say, but uh--
[laughing]
>>Christina: We think that is the reason for fasting actually is like, let's just drink
beer.
>>Hallie: We also think that is the reason for keeping the doors closed to the outer
public because you know they are taking off those robes and dancing on the tables, I'm
just sayin'--
[laughing]
>>Audience 5: Yeah, every day is a toga party.
>>Hallie: What is that?
>>Audience comment5: Every day is a toga party.
>>Christina: Yeah, let's just wear togas all the time.
>>Hallie: yeah, yeah
[laugh]
>>Hallie: I think they are hiding some beers under those robes.
>>Christina: Nip of this; nip of that.
>>Hallie: But they also make you know cheese; and they make bread; and they make all these
things, wonderful things, to sustain the birds, whatever the monastery. I'm like, the birds.
>>Christina: The way we remember there are 7 Trappist breweries and the way we remember
them is --
>>Hallie: Oh, I love this. Wow, what a rack.
>>Christina: Mnemonic device, wow what a rack.
>>Hallie: Will you forget that?
>>Hallie: Never.
>>Christina: So, there is wow there is Westmalle or Westvleteren and then what a and rack,
Rochefort, Achel, Chimay and Koningshoeven.
>>Hallie: Whew!
>>Christina: That is in the book too. Wow, are you impressed?
[clapping]
>>Hallie: We have to thank our friend Charlie Farrell, who is a dear friend of ours, who
is really good at mnemonic device so you will never forget that now. So, those are the only
ones where the beer is made by monks in a monastery, so that is how it sets apart. And
it is pretty cool because a lot of these recipes are very old and like Christina said they
might have their own proprietary yeast which is a secret, you know a secret yeast, secret
recipe.
>>Christina: Almost, actually all of them do.
>>Hallie: Yeah, yeah.
>>Christina: The traps
>>Hallie: Right
>>Christina: And in addition to that, they you know there is one Velmala which we've
only had once or twice that actually isn't even sold in the United States. Because the
Trappist community is you know it's like A-L-C like with the wine in France, except even
more strict. And they keep very tight tabs on each other and, for instance, Chimay is
the biggest. You see Chimay all over the place and Chimay, you know, some people are starting
to be like how could you possibly be making that much beer if you are concentrating on
like being a monk, you know? So, you know there is some kind of people who are looking
into that. They've moved to an abstract form base recipe which is kinda also dicey in the
traps world you know but they have to do that because of the space that they have. You are
not allowed to have a traps brewery that has a plant and you know Sheboygan.
>>Hallie: Right.
>>Christina: You have to have your own, you know, you have to be everything has to be
under control of the monastery. You can have a couple of secular people working for you;
but everything really has to be very tightly under the monastic control.
>>Hallie: So, what do you guys get from this one?
[inaudible audience comments]
>>Hallie: Different fruit, like dark fruit perhaps?
>>Christina: Figs?
>>Hallie: Plums?
>>Christina: Anyone?
>>Hallie: A little spice?
>>Christina: Old world, fruit…
>>Hallie: Cork?
>>Christina: Raisin, very good.
>>Hallie: A little earthiness there, yeah a little wood. I get some anise when I drink
this.
>>Christina: Careful--
>>Hallie: Like some of that licorice comes through for me.
[laughing]
>>Hallie: I'm just sharing, um but again this is very different from the last style, right?
I mean you can definitely tell this is higher alcohol content also. Um, and it, this is
good because it opened next beer. We have the St. Bernardus. So the St. Bernardustriple.
This was um--
>>Christina: Let's talk about the double.
>>Hallie: Double triple, right.
>>Christina: So, open the next beer and we will get started on that and we will tell
you the difference between doubles and triples.
>>Hallie: And it is counter intuitive, you guys got that open? The St. Bernardus triple?
It's the large bottle. I know,it gets a lot harder towards the end, it gets warmer and
it gets a lot harder to follow
>>Christina: OK, so a double and triple, these are both um
[audience chatter]
Guys, these are both styles that were rooted in the monastic tradition of brewing beer.
Um, actually the monks themselves brew "single." They don't call it a "single" but it is their
table ale, like a table beer and that is the beer that they drink themselves, lower alcohol
content than what we are having. Then they go through another fermentation generally
and make a stronger darker, higher alcohol content called the double and the double is
a style. It is a style of beer. It has parameters, it has color parameters, flavor parameters,
bittering parameters, um, and it can mean a couple of different things.
>>Hallie: So, it is not necessarily double the alcohol, it is not necessarily double
the ingredients which is a little confusing; but doubles typically typically tend to be
darker in color and have a little more of that dark fruit and spice like we just had
in the Chimay . They tend to be fairly high in alcohol, sometimes around 6, 7, to 8%.
But again it is a style parameter so it doesn't necessarily mean double some original ale.
Sometimes it can; but, but typically it is a darker color and spice and then you pour
this triple and sort of counter intuitively the triple is, thank you, a lighter in color,
right? So triples tend to have a malt that has not been roasted as dark, so it is a lighter
colored malt. Um, and have a different sometimes biscuity, sometimes some fruit and spice but
not so much your plums and figs, maybe a little citrus/orange rind.
>>Christina: Also strangely enough, with the fermentation process uh, beers get lighter
with each fermentation process. So, you know like she said before a triple can mean a lot
of different things. It could mean that it was triple the strength of the pale ale that
they meant. It could mean that it was fermented three times. It could mean a lot of things;
but what it does definitely mean is that it is pretty light color, it's high alcohol content,
it's got flavors of lemon and pepper and, and it can have a little bit of sourness and
you know it is really the parameters; but it is an interesting style. It's one that
has been duplicated all over Belgian that was started at these monasteries, these doubles
and triples styles.
[inaudible audience talk]
>>Christina: So he is saying "how do you get such high alcohol content um . . . when alcohol
is actually toxic and can kill the yeast in the beer?" Well, they just add more sugar
and add more yeast. So, they also add a candy sugar that we had talked about before that
speeds that process up so that the yeast can do their thing before it gets to the point
that,
>>Hallie: Yeah, so there is a lot of different ways that they could accomplish that. Sometimes
different yeasts can handle more sugar and that is called what you were saying, a secondary
fermentation. So, sometimes you will see that beers were fermented in the bottle, so they
will add some of that sugar um, for the yeast to create more alcohol in the bottle. Add
some sugar maybe, sometimes add some yeast and then you have another fermentation happening
in the bottle.
>>Christina: And those are more robusty strength.
[inaudible audience comment or question]
>>Christina: Yes?
>>Hallie: Open the last beer while we are talking about this....
>>Christina: Alright, open them all up.
[laughing]
>>Hallie: I also can't count.
>>Christina: Right
>>Hallie: Ok, yeah, open all the beers, yeah and let's move through them.
>>Christina: I keep this prize underneath the Lambic.
>>Hallie: Well, I'll....you want me to go first?
>>Christina: Yeah, you go first, favorite beer for Hallie.
>>Hallie: Ok, here, here is what I like. I like really earthy, funky, sour, dirty flavors,
I know that sounds gross; but if someone says I have a beer and it tastes like dirty socks,
I will order that beer. So, one of my favorites is Orval, which is a Trappist beer so it is
a Belgian beer made by monks in a monastery. It is really earthy, really dry, very complex,
not super high in alcohol, 6.9 so I can drink several of them and um, the complexity is
so good that I could definitely desert island that beer. That would be my answer.
>>Christina: Did you get yours open already?
[audience voice] I passed it around - yeah
>>Hallie: Now don't mix the last three,
>>Christina: Yeah, don't mix them.
>>Hallie: Just try them. That would be a beer cocktail, which we will get into another time.
Christina, your favorite beer?
>>Christina: If I had to, you know, I would say that my favorite beer is not the one that
I would take on a desert island with me because my favorite beer would kill my palate and
I can't, I wouldn't be able to have it a lot. Do you know what I mean? Um, I'm a big fan
of the session beer which is one that is a little more nuance. It doesn't kill your palate.
You can have 2 or 3 and not loose…it's called a session because you can actually have a
conversation, you know, it doesn't necessarily break your train of thought. Um, I really
love this E-S-B from AleSmith in San Diego. It is really delicious. E-S-B means Extra
Special Bitter. It is a style. It is not especially bitter; it is just a style of beer. It is
more bitter than like the porter or the sweeter porters and stouts. And also a white ale,
like the Hitachino that we tried, you know that is the same style that Hoegaarden is,
blue moon is, that you know um, Lost Coast Great White. That is a great beer. It is fermented
with lemongrass. I'd take that with me on a desert island.
>>Hallie: Christina wants like, eight beers then.
>>Christina: I actually wrote an article, what would you, you know, when you say take
five beers on a desert island and it was twenty beers that I ended up with. I said that I
actually had to have a Kegerater system and some kind of electric generation.
>>Hallie: She really doesn't want to go to a desert island.
[laugh]
>>Hallie: Ok, so you guys have the Palm, are you drinking the Palm? What are you drinking?
I'm drinking half and half ha half Palm, half--
>>Christina: Who is drinking the fruit beer, it smells like apples?
>>Hallie: Now, you know we have a combination right now. Let's just go over the apple right
now.
>>Christina: So we are going to go through the fruit beers and apple beer. Someone had
mentioned before about sour beers. This is also Belgian beer. This is called a Lambic
and a lot of times in America we think of Lambic as super sweet, fruity beers, which
is what this beer is. This is made for us Americans because the Belgians don't think
that we are sophisticated enough to understand a sour beer, which is true.
[laugh]
But we are starting to be able to understand it. A Lambic is a beer that is fermented.
It is wild fermented, which means that they don't add yeast to the beer artificially.
They just open up the top of the vat, literally, and let whatever yeast and anything else that
exists in the air fall into the beer. We are talking bugs--
>>Hallie: We are talking bugs, dirt, spiders, cobwebs. Some hair from the guy making the
beer, whatever, let it all in, it is very earthy.
>>Christina: But it makes a really, really delicious beer, super but super sour and funky.
Yeah, Winter Wheat has something--
>>Hallie: Well, yeah that is the yeast. Yeah, the yeast that is naturally occurring in the
air uh, you know changes from region to region. It is kind of like if you think of sour dough
bread from San Francisco it is the yeast that in the air that kinda got into that bread
and made it sour. Same thing happens to beer. So, there are beers that are intentionally
a sour and earthy flavor and people often when they taste it are like this is gross;
but it is meant to be that way. Yeah.
[inaudible audience question]
>>Hallie: They are
>>Christina: Yeah
>>Hallie: So, this is beer then it is a Lambic that is then blended with apple, some apples
and they have different varieties so there is a peach flavor of this beer and so they'll,
Lambics they will combine with cherries or peach or apples --
Christina>>like if you heard of a Creek beer, that is combine with cherries. If you heard
of a Framboise, that is combined with raspberry; um, this one is combined with apple. And this
is a beer that is supposed to be really, really sour and tart and then they add the fruit
so that it is palatable. So, fruit beer isn't necessarily a bad thing and if you had a true
Lambic beer in Belgium it would be both very, very sour and both very sweet.
>>Hallie: It is really about the ingredients. If you are using real apples, if you are using
real cherries it is just like fruit juice, it has a sour element if you eat a cherry
it has a sour element. It is not just sugar. So when you have a sour ale if it is using
those true ingredients it is going to have that full body. So, uh, next beer.
>>Christina: Well, it is a whole thing they do a lot of combining they do have a negociant
the same way that Champaign does to figure out how much fruit to add. They'll add a little
bit of the batch that they made before or maybe the batch they made three years ago
to kind of to make sure that the consistency is there.
>>Hallie: So, you guys the, the Lambics, I would swirl it out maybe with uh, a little
water or something and dump it cause it is uh, going to get into your next beer and then
pour the next Russian Imperial stout, right?
Christina>>Whose having what?
>>Hallie: So, pour the Russian imperial stout for those of you who don't have it and some
of you are going backwards. Ok, whatever, that is cool.
>>Christina: The Russian Imperial stout is uh, um, a stout that is even bigger and stronger
than a stout and so it has a similar uh, story as the I-P-A;
>>Hallie: So it is the same thing when they went to Russia with the stouts they have the
same problem. They went sour, they went bad so they are like we are going to add we're
gonna make it a higher alcohol; we're going to add some more hops. So, they ended up with
the Russian imperial stout and uh, the Russians liked it. And apparently uh, Catherine the
Great was a great fan of this beer, which we love because a lot of women say, "I don't
like big, dark beers!" But Catherine, if it is good enough for Catherine the Great, I'm
sorry people.
>>Christina: We call her the first beer chick, Catherine the Great.
>>Hallie: Yeah there is actually a, a Russian Imperial stout from Portsmith Brewery called
Kate the Great. It's delicious!
>>Christina: Really good, It's really good.
>>Hallie: So, uh…
[inaudible comment from the audience]
>>Christina: What? Yeah, that's why.
>>Hallie: That's why, cause Germans will drink beer. Yeah, so, you know, smell this, think
about how it is different than the porter we had.
>>Christina: This is also about 10.2 or is it less?
>>Hallie: 9 I think, 9 or 10% alcohol.
>>Christina: So this is big alcohol, this tastes like coffee, tastes like espresso,
it tastes sweet, it tastes malty it is huge!
>>Hallie: If you pour this over vanilla gelato, you will be very happy!
>>Christina: A little off lagato action.
>>Hallie: So we like to do beers at the end of a meal sort of in place of an expresso
or in place of a bourbon, which you will see in the next beer. It is fun to play with beer
with desserts. You can have this with a chocolate flowerless chocolate cake. You know, beer
does much better with desserts and cheese plates than wine because you know it has more
of those, some beers can have more of those expresso chocolate elements. You can have
a chocolate stout, you can have a beer aged in bourbon. These are things that you know
you can't necessarily do with wine. So, it opens it up to all these flavors, or you could
have that that Lambic with cheesecake.
>>Christina: Lambic with a cheesecake
>>Hallie: I mean think about how awesome this would be. You guys like this? Anyone? Yeah,
it is strong, yeah, it'll definitely uh, it'll hit you, in a good, good way.
>>Christina: Sooner or later, Ok, so last beer is one of our very, very favorites. It
is called the Allagash Cru. It is from Portland, Maine. A good friend of ours, Rob Todd is
the brewer. Great guy.
>>Hallie: You might've had his Allagash White.
>>Christina: Which is the same style as the Hitachino white that we had here. Um, this
beer is different. It's a triple in style. It's a Belgian style triple and then it is
aged in Bourbon barrels. It's aged in Jim Beam barrels and that is kind of a trend right
now with craft beer. You can get a lot of different styles, especially ones with high
alcohol content. They are being aged in Pinot Noir barrel, bourbon barrels, whiskey barrels,
scotch barrels and it really imparts a couple interesting things. It imparts the woodiness,
the dryness from the tannins in the wood, and it also just imparts awesome whiskey notes
and you can really feel it in the exhaust. I used to call it the air in my mouth until
somebody told me it was called the exhaust.
[laugh]
But you can really get some nice whiskey aromatics comin in and goin out.
>>Hallie: It adds a really nice dimension; it adds a really nice dimension to beer. So,
this again instead of having your Jim Bean or having any bourbon at the end of a meal,
you have this with your dessert or after your meal. I mean you could imagine it is delicious,
high alcohol, I think it is 11, is that right?
>>Christina: Yeah, it's 11.2%, I think.
>>Hallie: OK, so, the alcohol, so mimics having some liquor at the end of a meal. This is
a very popular....but it also has you know the barrels can also impart some vanilla notes.
Again, if you put some vanilla gelato with this, which we've had, obviously we've done
a lot of beer and dessert mixing and uh, haha, it is delicious.
>>Christina: Cheese, cheese is really good too.
>>Hallie: We have a recipe in the book using this with a chocolate cake
>>Christina: Almost all these beers are in the book. Definitely all the styles are in
the book. Uh, it goes into much more detail and much more detail about the ingredients
in beer and all of that. It will be much more understandable than the two of us swilling
away, trying to explain it.
[laughing]
>>Christina: But thank you so much for coming and listening to us and....
[clapping and audience chatter]
>>Hallie: Thanks guys!
>>Christina: Beer is good!
>>Hallie: Keep drinking beer! Yeah and if you have any questions, we are happy to answer
anything and uh, you can check us out uh, thebeerchicks.com. Thebeerchicks.com is where
we blog about beer and food and you know. We have a beer chick here.
>>Christina: Cheers
[Audience cheering Whew]
>>Hallie: We got a beer chick over here. And cheers. Cheers! I need some beer though. Otherwise
it is not real...I'll take whatever.