If offered a choice between beer and wine, I will always choose wine.
In fact, I can only remember two times in my life when I was excited to gulp down a cold one.
In graduate school, I frequently hiked up the steep hill that is Richwood Avenue in Morgantown, West Virginia just to order a fishbowl of Miller Lite at Mario’s. I know I’m horribly disappointing my pro-microbrewery friends, but something about cheap, light and frothy beer served in a frosty goblet (usually the size of my face) tastes so good to me. It also helped that at the time Mario’s only served mainstream beer and Mad Dog; hence, my decision to drink Miller Lite. And I’m quite sure this emotional attachment to Miller Lite has more to do with my memories of great friends and times at Mario’s and less to do with the taste. Seriously, after three fishbowls, it’s difficult to remember much or even care about the taste.
What I would call “my first flavor memory of beer” happened only several months ago. My husband Dan, an avid beer collector and enthusiast, was invited to read poetry in Kalamazoo, Michigan, home of Bell’s Brewery. Of course, we visited Bell’s with our gracious hosts, Kim and Adam Clay. Adam homebrews and cellars microbrewed beers. There was no getting out of drinking a few samples of beer and discussing each in depth. I was afraid my lack of knowledge about beer would put me at a disadvantage. How was I supposed to find language to talk about flavors I’m not familiar with? What terms was I supposed to use? I was actually nervous before the tasting, but then I realized I use the same language for beer as I do for anything else I’m tasting: mouth feel, textures, alcohol ratios, etc. When we set down the wooden tasting trays, handcrafted in the shape of both Michigan peninsulas, my nerves turned into excitement. After my first couple of tastes, I started finding flavors I was drawn to; rye was the stand out. Quite frankly, I was tempted to buy a six-pack of this red rye ale I don’t remember the name of; I just couldn’t get enough of it. That’s a big step for me.
After the tasting at Bell’s I no longer roll my eyes when Dan geeks out about a beer. I listen and learn because I realized his enthusiasm about beer is quite similar to my enthusiasm about food. To celebrate the wonderful world of beer, several beer enthusiasts joined From Plate to Palate this month. Frank Cucciarre shares tasting tips and recommendations for his favorite brew, the IPA. Homebrewers Adam Clay and Jennifer McVey included a recipe for Farmhouse Ale, a thirst-quenching beer perfect for hot summer days. In a lyrical essay, F. Daniel Rzicznek links memories with beer, and Cal Freeman’s unflinching mediation on a beer label will satisfy your beer craving and your intellect. Before you read this month of From Plate to Palate, crack open a cold one and kick your feet up.
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Frank Cucciarre is a graphic designer living in Newark, Delaware. He is a beer enthusiast and organized a small group of fellow enthusiasts that travel around the east coast seeking brew pubs for tastings and good food.
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For the Love of Hops by Frank Cucciarre
I’m no beer expert. I would classify myself as a beer enthusiast. Like many of my friends, the pure enjoyment of trying microbrews is a reason to get together frequently and drive around our area looking for the next great beer.
I’m particularly a fan of the India Pale Ales (IPA). An IPA is a style of beer that falls under pale ales, in part, to their light color. The IPA goes back to the British Empire and was created to travel to the farthest reaches of the Empire (India), thus its name. The pale color is in reference to the pale malt used to brew it. It was also less smoky than other beers, giving both the malts and barleys a paler color. Hops are the flowering seed cones of a viney plant that almost look like an undeveloped pinecone. There is a refreshing complexity about them that I find most enjoyable. It’s all about the hops for these beers and as I’ve tried many, those hops are the characters that make or break an IPA for me. There are many out there; every brewery does one (or two), and each one has characteristics that, even from taster to taster, offer flavor, aroma and texture to each sip.
At first glance of a poured IPA, the colors range from a light golden amber to a darker amber or nearly caramel color but most of the time are very clear and lightly carbonated. To fully enjoy any craft or microbrewed beer, it’s important to pour it into a glass. IPA’s are best enjoyed served around 45-50 degrees. This allows the aroma and flavor to come out. Stick your nose into the glass and breathe in the aroma, and you will smell the pine scent. As the first taste enters your mouth, find the flavors of the malts. But the best part of experiencing an IPA for me comes with the flavors from the hops. At times, those flavors run from a hint of fruit or citrus to pine. It’s not overly fruity, but it’s always a surprise for me to get that unexpected flavor from out of nowhere after I taste an IPA.
Some of my absolute favorite IPAs are as follows:
Hop Devil (Victory Brewing): I ALWAYS have Hop Devil on hand.
Wild Devil (Victory Brewing): A seasonal beer that is like having dessert!
Loose Cannon (Heavy Seas Brewing)
Hoptimum (Sierra Nevada Brewing): Brand new and REALLY delightful.
Nugget Nectar (Troegs Brewing): It’s a seasonal Imperial Ale, but oh sOOOO good.
Get out, go find a brewery, have a beer that was created and not mass produced. You’ll never order a Budwiser again!
CHEERS!
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Adam Clay lives in Michigan.
Jennifer McVey works as a system administrator in the intellectual property field in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Jennifer starting homebrewing in 2008 and is a member of the Kalamazoo Libation Organization of Brewers (klob.org).----------
Farmhouse Ale by Adam Clay and Jennifer McVey
As with most first-time brewers, Jennifer and I started off using recipe kits. The recipe below was our first attempt at designing a recipe from scratch; we usually brew this each spring in anticipation of summer, as it's perfect for a humid summer afternoon.
In order to preserve the artistic arrangement of the writing, this piece has been created with Print2Flash Flashpaper.
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F. Daniel Rzicznek’s books of poetry include Divination Machine (Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press 2009) and Neck of the World (Utah State University Press 2007). Co-editor of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry: Contemporary Poets in Discussion and Practice (Rose Metal Press, 2010), Rzicznek is the recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award for 2010. He lives and teaches in Bowling Green, Ohio.----------
Occasions by F. Daniel Rzicznek
August 1998: I’m a few days shy of nineteen. A slightly dirty but not unpleasant fellow is pushing a cooler on a skateboard, periodically hollering: “Ice cold Sammy Smith—two bucks!” into the constant flow of the crowd. I’m at Phish’s Lemonwheel Festival outside of Limestone, Maine, and nothing seems like a better idea than sipping a large bottle of Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout now that the final, breath-taking night of music is over and the prospect of camping through several Canadian provinces looms in the days ahead. My sister and I have been on the road for half the week, settling into the flexibility, patience, and positive attitude required to effectively live out of a green Volkswagen Golf. I flag the beer peddler down and purchase one of the last bottles in his cooler. Opening the beer with the bottom edge of a cigarette lighter, I make my way back to the campsite. The stars are the brightest I’ve ever seen, before or since.
~
November 2008: I’ve been hunting with a friend this morning not far inland from the waters of Sandusky Bay on Lake Erie and we have a single Canada goose to show for our efforts. It’s been a chilly, rainy morning and the first things on our minds upon arriving at my house are whiskey and beer. There’s something peculiarly toothsome and heartening about Newcastle Brown Ale on a raw fall day. We tie in to several bottles (and a few slugs of Canadian Club) and at some point my black Labrador, Bleu, manages to topple a beer bottle and then lick greedily at the resulting spill. My laughter startled him. Trusted sources have since informed me that beer is not at all good for dogs, which adds to my fascination with Bleu’s obsession. I ponder that he doesn’t have a better nose for food (and beer) than ducks.
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April 2009: I’m perch fishing with my father, brother, and nephew, and the action is good. All morning we’ve been drifting the same shallow, sandy flat behind a small wooded island on Mosquito Lake in northeast Ohio, and all morning we’ve been boating 10-15 yellow perch per drift. It’s their spawning season and the males squirt milky jets of semen as they’re pulled from the water. Down at the other end of the boat, my father lands a double (a fish on each line) and not a second later, my nephew hooks a double of his own. Watching the action, I feel my ultra-light go electric. I set the hook and reel in a fat little perch, maybe my largest of the day. I can think of no better way to commemorate this particular drift than an ice-cold can of Pabst Blue Ribbon, which I happen to have on hand.
~
January 2011: Rumbling down the basement steps of a friend’s home in Kalamazoo, he tells me: “Yeah, I have some beer.” I’m confronted with a tall cabinet thick with boxes and bottles of beer (and a little wine) in various stages of maturation. After tasting a few, I’m struck dumb with the notion that my beer experience has been missing something immense and perhaps mystical: the patience to cellar and age appropriate varieties of beer. We open a positively wicked 2009 Bell’s Eccentric Ale and the proof is on the tongue. I begin cellaring upon returning home to Ohio. Two months later my family doctor tells me he believes I have celiac disease. Wary of gluten (and fearing for my bowels), I pour the majority of my cellared beers for dear friends when they come to visit and find that the only thing more pleasurable than enjoying a beautifully made craft beer myself is watching someone else experience it. Sometimes the palate wants imagination, not reality.
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February 2003: Through the window of the third story apartment, I’m watching bare trees gesture above the rooftops and streetlights of Morgantown, West Virginia. The entire city has been snowed-in for two days now. My soulmate and future wife is asleep in the next room and I’ve stayed up to read a few pages of poetry and sip some beer. Eight years later, writing this, I have no idea what I was reading, and for that matter, I have no idea what I was drinking (although Samuel Adams Double Bock makes a fine guess)—neither is of any importance. This is a case where context overwhelms details: I would hope that the poems I read moved me, but I don’t really know if they did. I would hope that the last sip of beer served as a physical, temporal reminder of the positivity and joyfulness that life requires us to seek out, but I can’t say it did that night, although it certainly has in the past. I know that I slept well and woke feeling thoroughly content to be human at the edge of the future.
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Cal Freeman was born and raised in West Detroit. He received his BA in Literature from University of Detroit Mercy and his MFA in poetry writing from Bowling Green State University. In 2004 Terrance Hayes selected him for the Devine Poetry Fellowship. His poems have appeared in such journals as Nimrod, Ninth Letter, Folio, Commonweal, The Journal, Drunken Boat, among others. He currently lives in Dearborn, MI with his wife, Sarah, and his stepson, Ethan. He teaches poetry and creative writing at Oakland University.-----------
While Looking at de L’Isle’s Map of Michigan on a Beer Label by Cal Freeman
Three cracked bells
on a mustard yellow rectangle,
an anchor and line, star of a compass,
eight points,
directional letters in French script.
I am on a back deck in Ludington, drinking,
drying shoes in the sun.
Yesterday I washed them in the waves
at the big lake. Blue running shoes
that have seen mostly walking,
never a run of more than five miles.
Paddles, a muskie, a black triangle of ink,
poor emblem of the blue spruce.
Sailboat, snow shoes
partially over-
laid, a sugar maple leaf,
a famous suspension bridge
between peninsulas,
a water skier about whom
I can imagine nothing.
My drinking, a state.
My drinking of the state,
the state, and I think
of the crisp glacier taste
of the well water I had
in Suttons Bay—
my uncle’s tap water
came from an underground stream
that ran beneath the Leelenau
Peninsula to the Grand Traverse Bay.
Once I drank a case of beer
while camping in Cadillac
and was drunk enough
during a massive thunderstorm
not to mind the lightning strikes
and gale force winds,
to admire the outline
of the birch, oak, maple
forest, the second-growth
trees like young horses
testing their legs with wind
on their backs, each time
the lightning came.
(I am guilty of conflating trees and
horses.)
I drank twelve Labbatts’
with a bear guide/taxidermist
in Ontonagon who managed
the house I rented.
He told me he wasn’t supposed
to drink on the job.
I said no one would know and we talked
about his daughter’s upcoming wedding,
the lack of need for taxidermists
in the upper peninsula.
No one had money, he said,
so did their own shoddy work.
He gave me his number in case
anyone I knew needed a bear guide.
The warbler that bent
the small sugar maple bough
as we shook hands
near the cabin door knew more
than I ever would, which was fine.
I said fine to myself, staggering
back inside. I thought of Gary Snyder’s
bear spirit reverie, how he woke
to realize he couldn’t hit a bear
in the ass with a handful
of berries,
then how Kevin Cantwell (or was it Cantwell
telling a story about Larry Levis?) couldn’t
hit a mill pond with a
handful of gravel.
Poets off the mark,
on another.
In the Porcupine Mountains
on my way back from a waterfall,
I pissed off
to the side of the trail
(a two-track clean on my way there)
when I saw fresh bear scat,
no bear,
but a pile of newly-digested berries
in the July sun.
I walked the half mile to my car
glancing back into the woods.
I grew up drinking chlorinated water
in Detroit and Stroh’s beer from cans,
a gold lion on the label.
The sound of cicadas in Northern
Michigan is the same
as the sound of streetlights
(I couldn’t hit a parked railroad car
with a stone from a distance
of five feet) in Detroit.
The Stroh’s emblem is gold on red;
it should bring to mind a city
stricken by Stroh’s, Vernors, General Motors,
Ford factories, Lear industrial
design centers leaving, white
residents (unrelated to riots
or other historical renderings
that blame black people for white
flight) leaving with their money, schools closing,
and still I have had many cases
of Stroh’s beer in that city
because my father used a red
and yellow cardboard case,
red and yellow like an oxeye
daisy, to store
his assortment of pipe wrenches
and screwdrivers, simple tools
with which he built our cat, Boccaccio,
a scratching post, with which he built
a desk where at three I swore
I had seen the Lord reading a book.
Small red ovals on either of my father’s shins
mark the mountainside in Italy
where he fell while bike riding
and looking at the moon,
the small oval of the Stroh’s lion
on the can (my father would allow me
a sip as a boy), my father
with his strange way of looking up
while riding, of giving cats inflated Roman names.
Do bears bark and bray terrifyingly?
I couldn’t hit a bear in the ass
with a handful of berries.
I couldn’t tell a white-breasted warbler
from a woodpecker outside of books.
The Lager of the Lakes label
is centered by an eighteenth century
French map titled “Lacs du Canada.”
The lower peninsula is an alligator’s
head and not a mitten, Lake Michigan
a little finger of beer.
This map is the beginning
of the state, long before it was
my state, or my father’s state,
long before it was my parents’ or my
uncle’s state. Before these French names
that signify extinction
and approximate points
on the backs of our left hands
began to tell us where we are.