Hop Talk

This is a guest article by Jasmine.

The other night I was out at a brewpub with a large group of friends. After the waitress had delivered our beer, the guy sitting across from me offered his wife a sip of his beer.

“No way,” she said. “I don’t like dark beer.”

This was a woman who, until now, had shown good taste in beer, joyfully trying a new Belgian beer on tap. I wanted to stand on my chair and shout, “Really? ALL dark beers?”

Isn’t that like declaring you don’t like green food? No broccoli, beans, kiwifruit, or rosemary? You’ve tried every single green food in the world and declared it lacking? Somehow, I don’t believe you.

I understand dark beer can be scary. They appear heavy and hard to drink. There’s a chance that it’s bitter, at least to a degree, and a better chance that it has enough alcohol in it to knock you off your barstool.

But I have two words for you: coffee and chocolate. If you like either of those, there is a dark beer out there for you. Dark beer comes in as many styles as light beer, and can be even lighter tasting than some of their yellow counterparts.

Point in case: Lagunitas’ Cappuccino Stout. It has the same creamy taste and feel as a cappuccino, with just a hint of espresso bitterness. It pours black like coffee (yes, in this case there is actually coffee in it), but has that malty caramel smell and even nut and chocolate flavors in the taste. With 7.99% alcohol, it borders on knock-down strong.

But even that might be too bitter for some non-coffee drinkers (there are some of you left out there?). In that case, try Firestone-Walker’s Reserve Porter. It’s far sweeter, with a strong chocolate taste. I once made an ice cream float out of this (not kidding) and it was amazing. It really brought out the chocolate flavors, almost like chocolate syrup.

Then, of course, there is the classic: Guinness. If anyone tries to serve it to you warm, or knowingly tells you it SHOULD be warm, roll your eyes and walk away. Guinness only has around 200 calories a glass (an often-quoted figure recently, since that’s less than a Bud Light) for those who feel like dark beer is too heavy. A pint draught of Guinness averages only 4.2% alcohol, too, so you can drink it all night. It doesn’t have a lot of carbonation, giving it that smooth and creamy taste.

Of course, not all dark beers are like dessert. I’d caution the casual drinker against Bison Brewery’s Chocolate Stout. Fiercely bitter, like unsweetened baking chocolate, it’s hard to drink a lot of and hard to pair with food. They actually put cocoa powder right in the mash. If you’re the kind of person who takes your morning caffeine as a tiny cup of espresso instead of watery coffee, however, or if you get annoyed by all that wheaty-hoppy-honey junk, this could be your beer. It doesn’t mess around.

To find these favorite of mine, I had to try a lot of beer that didn’t work for me first. At the last Great American Beer Festival, for example, Moylan’s took home a gold medal for their Dry Irish Stout. When I tried it, I couldn’t even finish a tiny sampler glass. Far too bitter for me, it made me feel like the saliva in my mouth was being stripped away. But because of the medal, I assume it’s not the beer. Someone, actually many someones, out there must love it. This might lead me to declare that I don’t like Dry Irish Stouts, but I would never declare that. Not until I’ve tried every single one.

Jasmine is half of the writing team at Beer at Joe’s (RSS feed)

Read Hop Talk’s interview of Jasmine

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Jasmine

What is your name?
Jasmine Smith

What is your location?
San Francisco, California. I’ve been here for about a year and a half, and it’s nearly impossible not to get excited about craft brewing here. I was born and raised in Wisconsin, though, and spent several years in New York City.

What is your blog?
http://www.beeratjoes.com/
At Beer at Joe’s, we like to make a lot of beer videos as well as writing about it. It’s a fun way to be able to see the color of the beer we’re drinking or the atmosphere of the event we’re attending. It also helps us to give our readers (or viewers) information without resorting to standard lists of alcohol content and ingredients. You can get that information anywhere.

Do you have a favorite style of beer? What is it?
I consider myself fairly new to the world of craft beer, and that means that my favorites are changing constantly. It used to be wheat beer, which I still love. Now I’ve discovered that my favorite “everyday” kind of drinking beer is usually an amber or brown ale. Recently I tried a few kinds of Scottish ale and loved them, but it’s not a style I’m familiar with so I’m going to have to try a few more before I declare it a favorite!

How did you come to write a blog about beer?
Here in the Bay Area, there are all kinds of microbreweries doing really neat things. The tipping point, though, was when Joe and I attended one of Chef Bruce Patton’s (known as the “Beer Chef”) beer dinners. We had so much fun, took so many pictures, and learned so many things in just that first night that we wanted to be able to share it with other people. We also realized that night how many really passionate and interesting people are involved in the beer world. Our blog is a great way to connect with them.

What prejudices have you had to overcome?
I’m not sure I’ve encountered a lot of prejudice, at least not openly. Sometimes I think being very young is a more difficult obstacle to overcome than being a woman. I’ve been to more than one beer event where I am the youngest (or close to it) person in the room. You tend to not be taken seriously when talking about beer or your blog when that happens. The toughest part for me about being a female beer drinker is the size of the glasses. When I find a place that will serve their beer in half-pints or as a bunch of 3 or 4 ounce samplers, that place automatically gets on my “favorite places to drink” list. I think this is one of the biggest barriers to bringing a lot of women over to the beer side. One pint and I’m full, so it’s tough to learn about a lot of different kinds of beer when it’s hard to taste a lot of different ones.

Any other passions?
Writing in general. It was easy step for me to write about beer, since I tend to want to write about everything. I write fiction and also run a blog about short stories (with a focus on women, go figure).

Any parting thoughts?
Recently, the world of wine has been trying to make good wine accessible to everyday drinkers, and I’ve found that a lot of the advice coming out of that movement applies perfectly in the movement towards good craft beer. Drink widely to develop your taste buds. Drink what you like, not what the so-called experts tell you to like. It’s okay to sometimes drink a large amount of cheap, watery beer (or boxed wine) just because you feel like it. Don’t feel like you have to be able to discuss the beer at hand, just drink it.

Jasmine is half of the writing team at Beer at Joe’s (RSS feed)

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