Types of Absinthe

Not a lot of people even understand what absinthe is.  So of course, even fewer understand the different styles.  For the purpose of this post, I'm going to go over four styles of absinthe: French, Swiss, Czech, and "fake."

French style absinthe is the green absinthe, or absinthe verte, that most people think of when they think of absinthe.  In addition to the wormwood and anise, these absinthes are flavored with a variety of other botanicals.  After being distilled, they also are macerated again with herbs and botanicals, which gives the bottled spirit a green color, and causes the louched product to also be a cloudy green color.  Their flavor, while having a heavy licorice flavor from the anise, and also quite bitter from the wormwood, is more complex and balanced due to the heavy presence of other botanicals.

Swiss style absinthe is the clear (in the bottle) absinthe which louches a cloudy blueish white color.  These tend to be produced with a mix of botanicals that is heavier on the wormwood and anise, rather than the variety of other botanicals.  They also are not re-macerated, which is why they remain clear, rather than being bottled green.  The lack of the coloring stage also means that the flavors tend to be cleaner, and more focused on licorice and bitterness.

Czech or Bohemian style absinthe is really more like a wormwood bitters than anything else.  There is no anise or other botanicals, it is just a high proof spirit flavored with wormwood.  It is very bitter, which might explain why in the 1990s "Czech style" absinthe service, where the sugar cube is soaked in absinthe and lit on fire, was created, to caramelize the sugar, burn off some of the alcohol, and dilute the absinthe at the same time.

"Fake" absinthes are absinthes without wormwood.  I hesitate to call them fake, because some of them are still great products, but they are not true absinthes.  This category includes all brands of Pastis, Absente, Herbsaint, and others.  They are often a lower alcohol percentage than true absinthes as well.  These were mostly created in France, as well as New Orleans (Herbsaint) during the 100ish years when true absinthe was only legal in Spain, Holland, the Czech Republic, and Australia. By the time that absinthe was banned, it was an integral part of several cocktails, so people created this type of spirit in order to contribute the same flavor profile and coloring/clouding effects to a cocktail, without breaking the law.

What is rhum?

Wow, first post of the New Year, and in months!  I need to post more often.

I thought I'd take a minute to go over one of the most confusing classifications of spirits, and use a spelling difference to do so.

People see "rhum" on a menu, and often wonder if it is a typo, something entirely different, or just a different way of spelling rum.

Well, rum is one of the most difficult spirit categories to categorize, as its traditional origins (the Caribbean) is made up of so many countries.  Which means, unlike other spirits, there has been very little in the way of central regulation and definition when it comes to rums.

Another effect of the Caribbean origins of rum is that it is made in countries which speak different languages, due to the diverse colonial histories in the Caribbean.  So, unlike defining a term like "Scotch" or "Bourbon" or "cognac," what follows are general guidelines, and not necessarily hard and fast laws or rules which always prove true.

That being said, rum can generally be split into three categories, based on the language of the island where it is made.  Those categories are English, Spanish, and French.

For our purposes today, we will focus on French rum, or Rhum.  In general, French rums are made in the agricole style.  What that means is that while English and Spanish style rums are generally "industrial" style rum, made with molasses (a byproduct of the sugar refining process), French agricole rhums are made with raw sugar cane.

The biggest effect of making rhums with raw sugar cane is that there is a unique flavor which raw sugar cane lends to the finished product.  Many describe this as earthy, grassy, or funky.  It also lends a certain bitter bite, especially to the finish, despite the rhum still being pretty sweet.  To me, the funky, bitter bite is very similar to that found in tequila or white whiskey.

Hopefully this helps clarify what "rhum" is.

Wheat Beers

It's summertime, so I would imagine a lot of people out there are looking for a light, refreshing beer to sip on, but one that still has a little more flavor than a mass produced lager.

Enter wheat beers, the perfect summer sippers.  Wheat adds a little bit of weight to the body, especially if the beer is served unfiltered (most are), but also adds some refreshingly juicy citrus and fruit flavors.

Below is a little break down of some of the more popular wheat beer styles.

Hefeweizen is a German beer style, kind of the classic wheat beer.  Hefeweizen literally means yeast and wheat.  As far as wheat beers go, they are actually pretty full bodied, but their refreshing banana, citrus, and clove flavors make them still very drinkable, and a great summer beer.  Hefeweizens are traditionally unfiltered, meaning there is a haze from the yeast left from brewing, and if served in a bottle, there may actually be a sediment left at the bottom of the bottle.  Although hefeweizen is one of a handful of styles with exemptions to the (in)famous German beer purity laws, the exception allows them to be made with wheat, but not other additives.  So all of those delicious orange, banana and clove flavors are actually coming from the combination of the wheat in the mash and the particular yeast strains used.  There isn't actually any fruit or other extra flavorings added!

Wit Bier is a Belgian style wheat beer.  Wit bier actually translates to white beer, not wheat beer as many people assume.  Wit beers tend to be pretty light bodied, with orange, coriander, and sometimes even anise flavors.  They are also served unfiltered, but because of the higher proportion of wheat, and the particular yeast strains used, they are usually a very pale off-white to straw color, as opposed to the bright orange to dark brown color of a hefeweizen.  Unlike the Germans, the Belgians are not bound by law or tradition to limit what they brew with, so many wit beers are actually brewed with orange peel, coriander, star anise, or other adjuncts to add flavor.

Berliner Weisse is a sour wheat beer originally from Berlin.  They are very low in alcohol, and have tart, lemony flavors.  They are traditionally served with a sweet syrup from either raspberries or woodruff.  If you don't mind a very tart flavor, these are great summer beers as their low alcohol and crisp acidity make them super refreshing (and you can have a few).  Traditional berliners are not brewed with any fruit, so the tartness comes from the particular yeast strains used to ferment the beer.

American Wheat is kind of a catch-all phrase.  It can either mean a wheat beer in any of the styles above (or any other style, for that matter), which is brewed in America, or it can mean a unique wheat beer (again, brewed in America), which doesn't really fit into a traditional European style box.  Some tend to be hoppier than the traditional styles, but again, there are no hard and fast rules.

Hopefully this helped you understand the world of wheat beers.  Now get out there and refresh yourself with one.  As always, please feel free to leave questions or feedback in the comments, or let me know if there is a specific topic you'd like me to cover!

Dry Hopping, Wet Hopping, Fresh Hopping?!?!

Just thought I would take a minute to clarify some potentially confusing terminology.  Dry hopping and wet or fresh hopping are both actually pretty easy concepts.

The most important thing to understand is that in this case, wet and dry are not opposites, and in fact don't even refer to the same part of the process!

So let's start with dry hopping.

DRY HOPPING is when hops are added after the boil, usually either during or after fermentation.  These hops can be fresh, dried, or pellet hops.  Dry hopping eliminates a lot of the loss of hop aroma.  That means that dry hopped beers tend to have very fresh, often floral (although depending on the variety, it could also resinous, citric, earthy, or any other hop-derived aroma) smells to them when you pour a glass or crack open a bottle or can.  Dry hopping allows less time, however, for the hops' alpha acids to incorporate in the beer (and does it without the added element of heat), meaning that some of the hop flavors (especially the bitterness) don't necessarily carry over.  It also means that if a dry hopped beer is left to sit for too long (especially after being opened or poured), the aroma is likely to seep out of the beer faster than hops added during the boil.

WET HOPPING is actually the same thing as FRESH HOPPING.  Wet hopping can occur at any stage of brewing (so yes, you can wet/dry hop a beer!!!).  Wet hopping refers to the fact that fresh hops, right off the vine, are used, without being dried or turned into pellets or oils.  So these beers tend to be seasonally available, shortly after the hop harvest in the breweries' area.  The hops can still be added in the boil, or can be used for dry hopping to give really fresh, floral aromas to the beer, or both.  Like dry hopping, these beers are best enjoyed fresh, as without drying or processing, fresh/wet hops will love their flavors and aromas quickly.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you all found this informative.  If you did, like it, share it comment on it!  Also, please feel free to leave questions or suggestions in the comments for any drink-related topics you'd like me to cover!

Tasting Notes: Cuvee des Jacobins Rouge

This is one of the most well known Flanders reds, a personal favorite style of mine.

Appearance:  Pours a slightly brownish, slightly transparent red.  Effervescent, with lots of small bubbles, but a very thin head, although it does retain that slight head fairly well.

Aroma:  Mostly tart.  I get tart cherries with a hint of sweet vanilla as well.

Mouthfeel:  Pretty thin on the palate, and the effervescence really shows.  You feel the bubbles across the tongue, and the beer doesn't really linger for long.

Flavors:  Definitely tart up front.  Get a little bit of vanilla and oak in the mid pallate, with a lingering dry, tart, finish.  The tart at the beginning of the palate to me was more fruit-driven, especially cherry, while the finish is an almost vinegar-like acidity.

Overall:  I really enjoyed this one, but I am a huge fan of sours.  This is a great example of the Flemish red style, but if someone didn't know better, and thought they were getting a non-sour beer, it would be quite the shocker.

Sour Beers

So I thought I'd write a bit about one of my favorite "styles" of beer, if it can really be called that, as well as what is certainly one of the most interesting beer styles out there.

There's a lot of confusion as to exactly what a sour beer, or wild ale, is, so I figured I'd run through the way I like to think of sours.  In my mind, three things contribute to the making of, or identification of, a sour beer, also called a wild ale: flavor, technique, and the organisms used to make the beer.

Flavor
Sour beers, believe it or not, come in a variety of flavors.  I like to think of two main "types" of flavor you can expect to find.  On one end of the spectrum, you incredibly acidic and tart notes.  This can come in the form of a tart, citric flavor, a tartness similar to a tart apple or berry, or even a vinegar-like acidity.  On the other end you have funk.  These are the flavors and aromas that wine geeks would call "barnyard, haystack, horse blanket," etc.  Both are important parts of sour beers, and can be present on their own, or combined with each other.

On the extreme tart end, you'll find traditional berlinerweiss, as well as many fruit beers. The tartness can come from the fermentation and brewing process, or from the addition of fruit, which can be added specifically to add tartness, or to feed the microorganisms which create tart flavors in sour beers.

On the other end, you have funky wild ales.  Think the funky, earthy, flavors of a saison, but on steroids.

Most sours fall somewhere in between the two extremes, with perhaps the best example of both types of wild flavors complementing each other being the Flanders sours, both red and brown.

Technique
Traditionally, sour, or wild ales, were created using spontaneous fermentation.  That means a wort was created, and then left to be fermented by the yeast and bacteria that was in its natural environment.  While these included some yeasts related to our modern brewing yeasts, which eat sugar and create alcohol and carbon dioxide, they also included all kinds of other things which added their own, unique flavors.

This spontaneous fermentation could come in the primary fermentation (when you're actually making beer out of malt), or could come in the form of a secondary fermentation, where a beer is aged either in an un-sterile oak barrel, or out in the open, allowing wild yeasts and bacteria to eat up any residual sugars.  Often, fruit is added after the initial fermentation both to flavor the beer, and to provide more food for these wild yeasts.

The Microorganisms at work
The most important factor is the actual yeast and bacteria involved, especially in modern brewing.  In fact, most brewers no longer use truly spontaneous fermentation.  Instead, we generally add the same types of yeast which traditionally were responsible for spontaneous fermentation on purpose.  One of the things that makes sour beers so interesting is that the three main types of yeast used for this purpose, brettanomyces, lactobacillus, and pediococcus, are traditionally though of as causing flaws in both brewing and wine making.  In fact, they are three of the main yeasts that traditional brewers and winemakers struggle to keep out of their tanks.

This explains in large part why these beers aren't really spontaneously fermented any more.  First of all, in order to get those yeast strains into a beer, and keep other more harmful beers out, you'd have to find the perfect environment.  Second, that environment would pose a huge risk to any non-sour beers you had brewing in the same brewery.

So, instead, these three, and perhaps other, "wild" yeast strains are added by the brewer to the beer (before, during, or after primary fermentation), in order to make sure they wind up where they are supposed to be.  These yeasts, however, unlike most modern brewer yeasts, are still unpredictable.  They can die unexpectedly, or can go truly wild, turning a good beer into vinegar.  Sour beer production requires constant monitoring by brewers and technicians, both to make sure the souring microorganisms are well fed and healthy, and to make sure that the end result is both safe and enjoyable.

Essentially, much like blue cheeses, sour beers may seem scary to some.  What is really happening is that a brewer is deliberately spoiling their product in order to achieve a unique and interesting product.  Then again, all alcohol and cheese production is essentially the deliberate spoilage of the base ingredients.  Blue cheese and sour beers just take it to the extreme, both in process and in flavor.

I Want to Learn More About Wine, What Should I Do?

Someone recently asked me this question, and I thought it was a really good question.  Working in the bar and restaurant industry for over a decade, I guess most of my beer, wine, and spirit knowledge just kind of came to me.  Or I learned of opportunities to pursue that knowledge through work, vendors, or conversations with coworkers.

So, my advice to someone looking to learn about wine.  First, buy The Wine Bible.  This book is incredibly overwhelming and challenging, even for people that know a fair amount about wine, to read cover to cover.  But as you read through it, and learn more about wine, you can learn a lot from it, and it will make a lot more sense.  It is also a great reference point.

Second, have fun with it.  When you talk about wine, or beer, or spirits, you're talking about something that engages all of your senses.  Sitting in a class, or reading a book, on its own, first of all, will just not be as fun as having a few glasses.  Second of all, unless you learn by engaging all of your senses, you won't really learn in a useful way.

My advice is to do one, or all, of three things.

1)  Taste with a friend that knows more about wine than you do.  You, as the aspiring learner, should express what you see, smell, and taste first.  Let them fill in the gaps or help you find the words you're looking for.

2)  Print out, or have someone print out, tasting notes, either from the winemaker, or from the internet.  Don't read the notes.  Taste the wine you want to try, write down your own tasting notes, and then compare them.

3)  Taste with another friend who doesn't know a lot about wine.  Make sure you're taking turns "going first," or each of you write down your own tasting notes while you taste, then compare, and revisit the wine after comparing.

The keys to all three of these things are:
1)  Actually taste the wine.
2)  Taste it blind to the opinions of others.  See what you experience first.  This is the only way to truly learn wine, or to truly enjoy wine.  The power of suggestion can be deceptive.  If I tell you a wine is grassy, that is the first thing you will taste, or, if it's not, you will be so busy tasting for grass you miss the other fun flavors in the wine.
3)  Use your friends, printed wine notes, books, or other resources, to help you find flavors and aromas you might not be as sensitive to.  Everyone's senses work differently, and you may either not be as perceptive to a particular smell or flavor, or you may perceive it differently than someone else.
4)  Use a knowledgeable friend, the label, wine notes, etc. to both learn "wine words" and to help you identify what you are tasting.  Sometimes you will know exactly what you're tasting, but not be able to find the word, identify the flavor exactly, or connect it to something else.  Hearing or seeing it right after tasting it will help you make those connections.


Hope this is helpful for anyone looking to learn more about wine.  Luckily, in the last 5-10 years, I think largely because craft beer has popped up as serious competition, the wine world has become a little more casual.  People are less and less concerned about "proper" training or using the right words, and more concerned about making wine, and the way we talk about it, approachable and something people can relate to.  So remember, when you're tasting wine, it's okay to say what it reminds you of, even if it seems silly.  After all, "cat piss" is an acceptable (and even desirable) way to describe some wines.