Bring On The Beer!

Beer is stepping out. It has been a homebody for too long. These days, beer is dressing up, putting on the style, being seen in all the right places. Even in California--especially in California--tine beer is sharing the stage with wine. Wineries press their grapes cheek by jowl with new little breweries grinding their malt and scattering their hop blossoms in their copper kettles. San Francisco's stately Stanford Court Hotel is switching to wineglasses for beer service, and its list of wines by the glass features beers, too. In the Napa Valley, the Calistoga Inn is brewing its own beer. It is one of 25 or 30 new brew pubs in the state. Wine bottles are even used to package the beer made by some boutique breweries.

Not all the hopheads are in California. At The Great American Beer Festival in Denver this past June, brew pubs such as Sieben's Brewing Company and the Tap & Growler in Chicago won medals alongside such famous names as Coors Extra Gold, Stroh Signature and Anheuser-Busch's Busch and Michelob Classic Dark.

From Chinook Alaskan Amber to Abita Porter in Louisiana, beer is on the move. For anyone who wants to stay hip about hops, on this and the following spread is the connoisseur's news on brews.

Stouthearted!

When the rising stars of London's financial district meet for an informal lunch, they go to Sweetings' Oyster Bar in Queen Victoria Street and savor the succulent bivalves with a tankard of black velvet. Sweetings' always serves its black velvet in silver tankards and makes the magical beverage from equal parts of French brut champagne (Goulet) and Irish dry stout (Guinness). What is it about oysters? The London food critic Fay Maschler wondered why they were considered to be an aphrodisiac. "Is it," she asked rhetorically, "because they remind a young man of his first encounter with a woman?" No food protects itself more stubbornly than the oyster, nor is any revealed to be more sensuous, elusive and delicate. What is it about stout? It is dark, handsome, mysterious and profound and reveals itself to be the most tangy, intense and luxurious of beers. Is the oyster just too delicate, the stout overpoweringly intense? No, it is a marriage made in heaven. The roasty sweetness of the malted barley, the almost herbal floweriness of the hop blossom and the citric fruitiness of the yeast are present in every beer, but each classic style has its own balance of those components.

With the lightly spicy foods of China and Thailand, there is nothing better than a flowery, aromatic pale lager, such as Singha, Sam Adams or Asahi Super Dry. With chicken, pork or Mexican food, look for Dos Equis or a German Oktoberfest beer. With heavier pasta dishes or Italian sausage, go for a really dark beer. Michelob Classic Dark is one of the gentlest. With a rib of beef, a room-temperature English ale has the fruitiness of a cabernet sauvignon. Bass, Samuel Smith's Pale Ale and Young's Special London are three to try. With cheese such as stilton, try a strong MacAndrew's Scotch Ale. Or with munster or port salut, try a Belgian Trappist beer, such as Chimay. Just don't make the mistake of requesting the wine list to announce yourself a sophisticate. You won't be needing one, thank you. Not today.

True Brews

The sexiest beers come from Belgium, where a good brew is seen as a sensuous pleasure. When an importer in Texas sought to introduce Forbidden Fruit (pictured below), the Federal authorities raised an eyebrow. "The picture on the label is one of Europe's greatest paintings," the importer explained. "Adam and Eve... painted in the 16th Century by Rubens." "OK," said the Feds at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. "Put the apple back in Eve's hand, remove the beer glasses and we will accept it as art." The importer was tempted, but he declined. The beer, a strong, dark spiced ale from one of Belgium's most respected breweries, is not being imported to date.

Nepoleon's occupying forces decided that they had discovered "the champagne of the north" in Berlin. What they had found was a tart, acidic, sparklingly refreshing style of beer made with wheat as well as the normal barley malt. Berliner Weisse is hard (though not impossible) to find in the States. Wheat beers from Bavaria, such as Spaten Club-Weissbier, are more easily available.

Bass was the first famous "pale" English ale. Scottish ales are sweeter and maltier to go with the whiskies on a cold night. A descendant of Bonnie Prince Charlie makes a strong ale in his castle at Traquair. Look for Traquair House Ale--and expect to pay several dollars a bottle.

Check the small print on the label of many famous beers and you will see the legend Pilsner or Pilsener. All beer was dark until the first golden lager was created in the brewery at Pilsen, in Bohemia, in 1842. Now the entire world makes golden beers and often describes them as Pilsners. If you would like to try the original, look for Pilsner Urquell, which has a flowery aroma, a soft palate and an appetizingly dry finish.

The Beer Facts

Largest-selling beer in the U.S.: Budweiser (more than 50,000,000 barrels last year)

Biggest superpremium: Michelob

Biggest light beer: Miller Lite

Fastest-growing import: Corona Extra

Largest-selling German import: Beck's

Campus favorites: Whether on campus or in nearby student bars, every college student consumes ample amounts of Budweiser and Miller Lite. Coors is big, too, wherever it's available. Here are some other local favorites:

Samuel Adams Boston lager is a favorite with Harvard students at the local Boat-house bar.

Augsburger is a favorite at the campus Rathskeller at the University of Wisconsin.

Molson and Mexican beers, such as Sol, Carta Blanca and Chihuahua, are big with students at West Virginia University.

Moosehead and St.Pauli Girl are among the favorites at Florida state. cheers!