I Got Younger and Younger

Turns out I blogged too soon, and with another attempt at it, I ended up with a whistle wet with Pliny the Younger after all. The sublime Blind Lady Ale House in San Diego--which exists in the brilliantly named neighborhood Normal Heights (that's a goal for life if anything is)--pre-sells their Pliny allotment. Through Brown Paper Tickets, which doesn't charge too much extra and gives a bit of that back to charity, too. That's where BLAH's profits went also (oh, and they call themselves BLAH even if they're anything but), to a literacy group called Room to Read. So it was all win-win.

Especially when at 6 pm the Friday night the tickets went on sale my purchase sailed (saled?) through flawlessly. That meant we had to be at BLAH Sunday, March 10 between 11 am and 12 noon, get checked off the list, and get our tickets for a .25L glass of Pliny the Younger and a .25L glass of Pliny the Elder. People really seem to be into the mini-flight presentation of Pliny this year. I like people. You can see our tickets at this entry's heading.

We did have a tiny bit of a problem, end-of-the-alphabeters that we are. They really wanted to be sure no one bought multiple drinks for him or herself (it was about 65% guy/35% gal if you were wondering--the cult of hops definitely leans male), so I went back in and changed the name of my wife's ticket to be under her own name. And it seems Y-o, coming after Y-a, also pushed her off the list onto a new page...they forgot to print. So we had a teeny-tiny "don't tell me this is going to go wrong" moment, but they let us both in and BLAH owner Lee Chase himself very kindly helped sort stuff out. As you can tell from the photo, all's well that ends with beer.

Is Younger worth all the fuss? It is a sublime beer (it's on the right, Elder on the left). Stick your nose over your glass and it seems like you have walked into a pine forest, that much lovely resiny hops hit you. I almost would be happy just sniffing the stuff all day. The taste is the same, rounded with floral notes. Russian River manages the balance impeccably, though, especially for a beer at 11% ABV. It seems nowhere that strong, lacking any alcohol spank at the back of the throat like some double and triple IPAs. Instead, its flavor lingers for a good thirty seconds like a fine wine. I drank it first, the Elder second, and it took the Elder about half the glass to assert itself as the brilliant beer it is; it's kind of like, "Yeah, Kelly Hogan, you sing great, but you need to back-up Neko Case, ok?"

So, is it worth the fuss? Depends upon how much fuss you want in your life, I guess. It's certainly cheaper and easier to get (if you don't mind a drive and some planning) than landing some Screaming Eagle Cab, say.

Even better, in addition to getting the original beer for your $15, you got a raffle ticket. You could buy more tickets for $5, so of course we did (for literacy!). Then they started pulling numbers, and each time the digits got close my Pliny-loving-heart skipped a beat. Keep pulling glasses, I thought. And they did, and did, and perhaps the fifth to last one was one of my tickets. So I got to have it all again.

The food's mighty good at BLAH, too, thick cut Belgian style frites with three excellent dipping sauces (all ketchup needs curry, evidently) are particularly useful for soaking up beer. And the pizzas are delightful, very thin crust yet crust with taste, and toppings like Bordeaux spinach. Plus the regular beer list always rocks, too--a Craftsman Cave Art managed to seamlessly blend a smoked beer and a sour, and that was mighty new and delicious.

You're Not Getting Any Younger

So I've got this friend who has lived such a wonderful life that because of that very life (that included the high years--hint hint--of the '60s - '80s) he can't remember much of it in detail. Consider it lost in a fog of sorts. Well, this friend, he sort of casually let slip that he had once slept with Faye Dunaway. As a huge fan of Chinatown, Bonnie & Clyde, Network, and ridiculously gorgeous women, I replied, "And?" My friend generally isn't bashful, more likely to try to say something to shock than, well, say anything at all. He said he didn't remember. That is, he admitted he didn't remember this:

 
Now, comparing a lovely woman to a beer might be a massive error in scale, but I'm going to take that risk. I'm pretty sure I've had a Pliny the Younger. Those of you in the hophead-know know that Younger is one of the most sought after beers in the world, often topping Beer Advocate's list of the best brews around the globe. Russian River in Santa Rosa releases just a tiny bit of it each February, mostly at its own brewpub, but some to its best accounts.

But a timeline here is important. Russian River started brewing Younger (it also brews the rare but not Holy Grail-esque Pliny the Elder) in 2005; Beer Advocate's high-hosanna praise made it the Honus Wagner baseball card of beer in 2010. So for five years in between, it was just a damn good brew. I think I had it then, not knowing it would "grow up" to become something like saying you saw the Beatles in Hamburg and Stu Sutcliffe sweat on you. I've had a lot of good beers in my good life, and I keep having them, so it's hard to be transformed by one pint (or half pint, as Younger is generally sold now, so the keg can get to 248 servings). I mean if we only talk double and triple IPAs, there's Pliny the Elder to start, 90 Minute and 120 Minute Dogfish Head, Avery's Maharaja, Green Flash's Imperial (even better, my wife's favorite beer), Green Flash's Palate Wrecker, Alpine's Pure Hoppiness and Exponential Hoppiness, Ballast Point's Dorado Double, Oskar Blues' Gubna, Port's Mongo and Hop 15, Bear Republic's Racer X, and then locally Firestone's Double Jack, Figueroa Mountain's Hurricane Deck, and Hollister's Hip Hop. That's enough drinking to numb your tongue--and perhaps your memory--for a couple of decades.

So that's why I figured 2013 was the year I got Younger. For sure. I even set up a Google Alert to try to track it, not that doing so kept me from searching too (and a good thing, as my alert was merely for news--if you want to learn anything, these days, follow the blogs). Timing just kept not quite working out, but we decided a road trip to Haven Gastropub in Pasadena on Presidents' Day might work, especially as it was already a day off. We couldn't get a super early start, but figured hitting the road from SB at 8:30ish for an 11 o'clock event kickoff might work.

I bet you thought this would be a story of LA traffic and 202 minutes on the 101. But that wasn't the issue--the first real line we hit...was the one outside Haven. That photo at the top (no, keep going past the Dunaway picture, and I know you lingered) is the mere first turn in the line that snaked down McConnell Alley and then turned left again to where we stood at 10:20 am, and most probably too late. But after that, you wait, cause you never know. There was at least one baby in the line in front of us, so that was one person not drinking. Oh, and for Gaucho pride, the first two guys (yep, the line was mostly guys, mostly in their 20s and 30s) in line were wearing UCSB sweatshirts and got there at 6 am. Clearly we weren't devoted/crazy/young enough for this.

The line started forward at 11. And stopped. Every ten minutes it would proceed another 12 feet or so, but it was only 11:40 when the word came out--the keg of Pliny the Younger was done. At first everyone just stood there, afraid it was a trick to shake the trustworthy out of the line. But then the word came out even stronger. Up to 45 people in front of us still didn't get in, so we weren't really close. I was prepared for this eventuality, storing away the title for a blog entry just like this one (look above, oh, there she is again...).

The day got more refusatory (ok, that's not a word, but I like it) as we walked the couple of blocks to Lucky Baldwin's, figuring we could drown our sorrows in their Belgian Beer Fest. We got a table, sat, waited. Tried not to breathe too much--it didn't smell the best in there, as we were close to a clean-the-plate dump and then there's years of spilled beer and someone with too much perfume. One server said she'd get to us, but then didn't for another 5 minutes. We bailed. After all, we were supposed to be enjoying hoppy beer, not malty yeasty beer.

We were headed across the street (Pasadena aside--is it good to have so many bars in a town that allows for diagonal street crossing? Discuss) thinking let's try Umami Burger, as we never have. At this point it was lunch time, too. There we saw the two guys from behind us on the failed Younger line, and they suggested Congregation Ale House (thanks, guys whose names we don't know!). Turns out the place wasn't too crowded and does the Father's Office style, order at the bar, get it delivered to your seat kind of thing. Five minutes, and we had ordered and sat, with beers. The place was already better than anywhere else we'd been.

It's one more of the LA places that figured it out you can do tasty sausages, even vegan ones, on the cheap. For $7 we each got a sausage (a vegan apple sage for Chryss, a duck bacon for me) draped with perfectly cooked onions and peppers on a non-pockety pita and spread with stone ground mustard. Plus fries, Belgian for her, sweet potato (with a bit too much sugar as well as salt--they are ALREADY sweet potatoes, folks) for me, with chipotle mayo and Sriracha ketchup. As for beers, we got to try three we'd never had before, and what more could one want form a beer hunt (of 90 miles or more)--a Birrificio del Ducato Nuova Mattina (which is Italian for a mild and pleasing saison rarely on tap in the U.S.), an Epic Hopulent DIPA (it must make the Mormons of SLC wild), and a Victory Ranch R Double IPA. Add two more DIPAs to the hops happily drunk by this pops list up above.

There was some walking. An independent bookstore. Buying of a book about my favorite indy band. More walking and back to Haven, figuring we needed to see the inside, needed to have Elder, at least. The beer board still teased us with Younger, but isn't that the young for you.

I was hoping, a bit, to hate Haven as it turned me away before I could even ask it for a date, as it were. The place was quite nice, though, the bartender busy as heck but on top of his game (anyone who offers you a taster wins in my bag), and Pliny the Elder, you know, is a mighty fine beer--no double IPA seems so balanced, so full, so in control but still threatening. Haven brews, too, and their 100 Rubles Imperial Russian Stout warmed my Ukrainian heart, or is that liver, oaky and pungent and willing to spank your nose with every bit of its 14% ABV.

My Lines Have Sour Grapes

This is how (not that you asked) my mind works. A friend sent this article from Slate--"Brewing the Best: Pliny the Younger is supposedly the best beer in the world. What does that even mean?"--and so I began considering the differences between the culture of beer and that of wine. How it's easier to be a wine snob, partially due to the money (as with everything, the best almost always costs the most and therefore excludes), partially due to America's wines still fighting newcomer status (even all these years after the 1976 Judgment of Paris) and therefore leaving us provincial, opening the door to snobbery, partially due to beer making you burp, and it's hard to hold your nose high mid-belch.

I also wanted to agree with Brian Palmer's claim that there seems to be less of a mystery in the making of beer as opposed to wine. I've known many a homebrewer (pleased to meet me), but very few home winemakers. Plus even the process seems more straightforwardly work-person-like: you boil your beer, it's just like cooking, and then when you add the yeast stuff happens in the carboy--you get to see it a-swirling and a-foaming, and sometimes even get to clean it up if it blows the bubbler. Wine seems to involve sitting and waiting and hoping--those barrels don't permit us to see much, and then some evaporates and that gets called the angel's share, as if you need the gods on your side to do it proper.

But I knew people did make wine at home, and how that happened piqued my curiosity. So I Googled, and ended up at the Artful Winemaker, and they kindly offered me a video about how the magic (art?) happens. You really need to go watch, or else my critique won't make much sense. You're still reading, go watch. I mean it. OK, thanks.

First, it appears only white folks can make wine at home. Second, when you're selling a plastic device to make wine, be sure to put it amidst as many real wine-signifying sets as possible--roll out those barrels and shoot amidst the vines. Third, get somebody who looks like Mitt Romney to be your pitchman, as that's about all someone who looks like Mitt is good for.

This video also offers a textbook of wine-talk for dummies, starting with the woman describing that Cab-Shiraz blend as "spicy, warm"--just like my Mexican hot chocolate. Later wine expert Dave LaRocque (I looked him up and he has had a long career, mostly in the wine industry of Niagara--good grapes, now with more honeymooners!)* claims you can make "approachable wine that is soft, fruit-forward, and easy to drink," which, beyond sounding like a personal ad from the Key West Blade, certainly sounds better than saying "you might as well slurp this plonk down for there's nothing to taste or savor."

But back to our Mitt-a-like, let's not ignore how he describes the process of winemaking. We know he's no snob, for he says, "I especially like white wine, so I ordered the Chardonnay," which is sort of like saying, "I especially like movies, so I watch Titanic weekly...oh, my blue-lipped Leo." If you're waiting for how the wine gets its, oh, let's call it grapiness, you have to wait till 1:40 into the video, after we hear about "everything you need" (labels are held up) and after, for that Chardonnay, there's "oak for that oaky, buttery flavor many people love in the best Chardonnays." The acorn doesn't fall far from the vine, I guess. If you like mangling language as much as you like making wine at home, this is the kit for you; after two weeks you get to add "a stabilizer and clarifier to make sure the wine completes the fermentation process." That certainly makes things clear to me, especially since I've thrown my dictionary away.

Best of all, you can be an Artful Winemaker, no muss no fuss. Our expert pal Dave LaRocque shrewdly points out, "You don't have to do the crushing of the grapes with your own feet." So, evidently in the Niagara wine region, they still make wine like this. LaRocque sums things up by claiming the Artful Winemaker is "even for those people who don't know anything about wine." The good news is I can fix that sentence for him. All he needs to do is edit out the "even."

Think I'll go drink me a beer.

*Yes, I am a California wine snob.