BGS returns for a historic season Series 12 entitled 'Noteworthy Niche'. Featuring Heliophile from Strangebird in Rochester, NY. A brewery with a combination of great backgrounds coming together as its' brewers came from Dogfish Head and New Belgium respectively.
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Jason:
The Buffalo Brews Podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, you are listening to Barely Getting Started on the Buffalo Brews Podcast. This is series 12, noteworthy niche.
Craig:
Noteworthy niche, noteworthy series, because I think throughout this series, we're going to hit another milestone.
Jason:
Yes. So, yeah, 12 times four plus two. So that's going to be 50.
That's going to put us at the end of the set, 50 episodes.
Craig:
50 episodes.
Jason:
I feel like that's a big deal. We should probably drink a beer to it. We should do that.
Craig:
Or at least four.
Jason:
But right now, this is episode 46 of Barely Getting Started, series 12.1. And we're going to be, in this episode, talking about beer. Yes. Yes.
Craig:
As always, and hopefully we don't go on too many tangents, because we're always just barely getting started. But yeah, as I've said in the start of many other series, it gets difficult, even with all the beer that is available here at Magic Beer, and obviously everywhere, there are endless options when it comes to styles in general. I mean, IPAs alone, you can just go to Other Half Brewing, and they've got 50, 60 in the last two, three weeks.
So shout out to Other Half.
Jason:
Yeah.
Craig:
I mean, but when it comes to certain styles, you don't see often a ton of offerings from different breweries. Or if you do, it's a one-off, and then it never comes back. So they're very niche.
And when I was looking over the shelf for what good episodes can we do, and I try to put together four in my head, because it goes nicely with the season. And it's like, all right, well, these beers... And sometimes I grab a beer I want to talk about, but then I'm like, no, this would be better if we put it in a series like this.
And then I was able to come across four beers that are like, all right, these are niche styles that also give me something to talk about, right? We've talked plenty about Belgian monks and German this, and the SRM, and things that keep popping up season over the season, or we'll do callbacks. But then there are certain things that, hey, this is something that I have not been able to discuss, that I know a little something about, and it's mainly because it's such a niche style, or what goes on in that style is very niche.
Jason:
If everybody is keeping notes with the home game, they've really come along here in the 11 full series that we've done, and got some good notes as we can bring in just about any style now, and really relate.
Craig:
Yes. I mean, for as many beers, or as many styles as I've had, there's a new style that pops up from historical reference that I've never heard of, or never have had, and I'm like, what? And I have to go look it up, and I'm like, all right, if I haven't had it, I'm going to try and, if I see it, I'm definitely going to try it.
But it's one of those, okay, I got to Google this, or I got to jump on the BJCP compendium, and try and see if I can't get some more information. So the first noteworthy niche beer is, it could be many styles. So it's more of the serving style, or the way that the beer is produced that is going to be more of a niche style, and was much more prevalent historically, but now it's much more niche.
You don't see a ton of it, but a bunch of breweries trying it. So first off, it's called Heliophile. So Helio, meaning of the sun, and phile, I think it just means someone that likes the sun.
So phile, you have an affinity for it. So you're a sun liker? Yes.
The seeker of the sun. So it is a Keller Kolsch. So Kolsch has, I think, gained tons of popularity, a lot of people like Kolsch, I think it's a fun word to say.
People are like, oh, Kolsch, I like Kolsch, and do you have any Kolschs? And I'm like, there's not a lot of just straight up Kolschs. So I carry a couple on the shelf that I can get my hands on.
I think the main reason is the Genesee Ruby Red Kolsch. I think that came around, and people just think, oh, I like that, it's grapefruit, it's light, it's this, it's that, and it's very approachable, Kolsch, that is. It's also an Appalachian, technically, you know, in Germany, you can only brew and serve and call it Kolsch if you're from Cologne, Germany, but this is just a Kolsch style.
It's an American brewery, so we can just call it a Kolsch, because it's just the style, it's not a true Kolsch from Cologne. And then Keller. Keller.
Keller is kind of what we're going to be talking about is the notably niche aspect of it, because usually it's just called like a Keller beer. So Keller beer, and let's talk about the brewery first. So Heliophile is from Strangebird, an award-winning brewery that's been open four, five-ish years now in the heart of downtown Rochester, and we'll go more into them, because there is plenty to talk about with what these guys are doing.
Jason:
Oh, yeah.
Craig:
But I'll talk a little bit about Keller. Keller is German, basically translates to cellar. So Keller beer is a cellar beer, meaning that the beer was drinking or drunk fresh and young, so to speak, didn't have as much time to lager, because a Kolsch is actually a hybrid ale, but most German beers were lagers, and they would lager for a while.
Lager means to rest or to basically sit, and that would allow for, like, the flavor to kind of meld and mellow out. You'd have all of the yeast components kind of drop out, and any residual esters or phenolics kind of get eaten up by any residual yeast. Yeast kind of just reconsumes all of that, so you end up with a nice, clean, crisp lager.
Kolsch is a hybrid ale, one of two main hybrid ales, Kolsch and Altbier. Kolsch, obviously from Cologne, Altbier is from Dusseldorf, Germany, I believe, and they are ale yeasts, so technically ales, but brewed like a lager. Now, Altbier translates to old beer, or beer brewed the old way, and basically meaning, hey, we're going to use an ale yeast, because lager yeast basically came out after ale yeast.
It was almost a, not almost, it was a mutation of an ale yeast, just because the Germans were, they just realized storing the beer in cold mountains kept it cleaner, crisp, and less of those yeast flavors, and more just the pure malt and hop flavors that they wanted from those noble hops. What they didn't realize is that they were, you know, forcing this yeast to survive, it kind of mutated, and it became the lager yeast, right? Saccharomyces is the yeast, and then the ale version is Saravassai, that's how I've always pronounced it, but, you know, I'm sure I'm saying it wrong, but then Pasteranus is the lager version of Saccharomyces.
So those are basically your two main brewers, yeast makes ales, makes lagers. So Keller, and Keller beer, would basically say, hey, you know, this beer that we normally store for a long time, that'll end up, you know, almost getting filtered, we're going to serve it to you fresher, younger, straight from the Keller, the cellar, the basement. It's kind of like if I were hanging out with you, and you're like, hey, Craig, I got this mead kind of going.
It's not quite where I want it to be, but it's still tasting good, and you kind of want to try some now and try some later, and, you know, we just open up and we pour ourselves a little bit from your batch that's not fully, you know, matured or ready to go, but still well worth enjoying. So what ends up happening is you end up with, you know, almost two or multiple styles of beer from the same beer. Hey, this is a beer that we're going to release later, but we're going to drink some now, and it tastes different.
So same beer, same process, same everything, but drink some now, straight from the fermentation vessel. So a lot of times that was just in a barrel. So they were tapping that barrel, and a lot of times they would just run the line or whatever they were using, you know, if it was a gravity keg, and they were just tapping it and letting it go, it just, you know, tasted a little bit, you know, fresher.
Nothing like bread dough or like not fully lagered beer. It just, the malt had less time to mellow out, so you got these maltier flavors. So it did just have a little bit more sweetness to it.
And the hops didn't mellow as much, so it come across a little hoppier, and, you know, there might be a hint of those floral or estuary, fruity kind of yeast notes, as well as maybe a hint of some spice, and it depends on, you know, the strain of yeast that they were using, but it was kind of more of a nuanced version of the final offering by serving it from the cellar, and it would always be a little bit more cloudy, you know, like the original hazy.
So they weren't making IPAs, but a little bit hazy because I think it was called a natrube or natrtrube, so just the natural trube, and trube is kind of like, hey, the particles that fall out, whether it's dead yeast, whether it's leftover particles from the hops when it was dry hopped, or any of that stuff, basically the solids within the beer, that will fall and drop due to gravity over time, but since they didn't give it as much time, that keller aspect of it would then kind of just leave it roused up in the beer, kind of like when you would have some Belgian styles, and, you know, people tell you to swirl it a little bit at the end, and I think I've talked about that, maybe with the hefeweizen, hefeweizens were never filtered beers, so they were always bottled condition where the yeast was left inside the bottle, so you can end up, I mean, that's why a lot of times German hefeweizens are very cloudy and opaque, it's because they got a lot of stuff still in there, not to the point where you should be chewing on your beer, but enough where it's a different experience.
So this is their version of a Kolsch, and it's a keller Kolsch, let's see if they put any good notes on it, it has some lyrics, I know a lot of their titles are song titles, but it's basically crisp German malt, clean German yeast, so they're obviously probably just not allowing this to mature as long as they normally would, hence the keller aspect, so when we pour this, I'm going to kind of look for a little bit of cloudiness, you know, I'm not looking for anything opaque, but a good Kolsch, and it should pour looking pretty much like a lager, not crystal clear, but it's going to have a clean, crisp taste, but just a little bit more subtle, fruity, estuary flavors from that ale yeast. Lightly hazed yellow.
Yeah, so while I crack this open and start pouring, I don't know if there's anything you want to add.
Jason:
Well, I was bringing up, going back to Strange Bird out of Rochester, some of the things that I had pulled up because Micah Kruchinski, who's the founder and brewer over there, his education, his background is microbiology and biochemistry, that's the kind of guy you want to work in brewing, and then like you said, he was from Dogfish Head, which is Delaware, right?
Craig:
Yes.
Jason:
Also has the, he also did a lot of work with the District Chophouse Brewery in Washington D.C., and then during graduate school, now this part I'm reading here, he said he knew he wanted to become a brewer, and after grad school, got a job at Capital City Brewing Company of Washington D.C., and then left Cap City to attend the Master Brewery Program at UC Davis, recruited to work at Dogfish Head in Milton, oh here it is, Milton, Delaware, while at UC Davis, and then he was a brewer there for five years.
So he comes with a great background, anybody who's been to Strange Bird, it is a, it's a great little, it's an urban location, but with a residential neighborhood around it.
Craig:
Yeah, the only knock I've ever heard on it is that it's almost too nice. It's a very, very nice place, very well thought out, I had the pleasure of being on a collaboration team with Strange Bird a few years back, and sat down with Micah, or Mika, as well as another gentleman with a great pedigree that's on the team is this Derek Salazar, and he came from New Belgium Brewing, so I think, and you know, this is one of the ones that might need to be fact checked, but I think they're brother-in-laws, because they married a pair of sisters, and I think those sisters are from Rochester, and I think that they were telling me after a few beers that like, they were both doing their things, they're in the brewing world, hey you've got two brothers, you know, your brother-in-law's now where it's not like, well I home brew, and it's like yeah, well you know, I work for one of the top breweries in the country, and it's like both of them have a lot of pedigree, and have a lot of, you know, respect on their names, and Derek was one of the, he's in charge of I think their cellar program, and their barreling, and all of their barrel age stuff, and that's what he was doing a lot at New Belgium Brewing, I think he was instrumental in kind of doing like their wild fermentation, so any of that type of stuff, that's where I think Derek really lends a hand, then I think they paired up with another business partner that was kind of food related, I don't know as much about that part of it, that's what I heard at one point, so it was like, okay, we know we're going to make good beer, and we want to be able to make good food, but I don't think that either of those gentlemen were really in the food business as they were in the beer business, so they went out to have somebody, and you know, they've got fantastic pizzas, they do great specials, but it's one of those things, it's going to come out, it's going to look good, it's going to taste good, and then you're going to have good beer with it, and the place looks good, so you're just like, okay, I like to be here, and I like to drink their beer, and I think the first year that they opened, they took enough awards at the New York State Brewers Association competition that they were named the best brewery in New York State, whether best, either best new brewery, or I think they got best brewery because they just had enough beers placed in that, when they first came out.
Jason:
Yeah, again, with the pedigree between Dogfish Head and New Belgium, if you were to create, in my opinion, if you were to create a list of 20 breweries in the US that were must visits, I think both of those would be on that list, especially Dogfish Head.
Craig:
They're definitely both on my bucket list. I was planning on going to Dogfish Head during the pandemic, and then Delaware finally got put on the no-go list, and so we decided we'll get there eventually, but yeah, Dogfish Head has been making, both of those breweries have been making beers that have pushed the boundaries of what beer making is for a long period of time, and when you have wives that are like, listen, we've been doing what you guys want to do, you should open a brewery together, we can open it in Rochester, and it seems like they made the right decision, because I mean, no matter what, there's a couple other good breweries in Rochester, but I feel like everyone kind of realizes, like, all right, Strange Bird is-
Jason:
It's a destination.
Craig:
Yeah, it's a destination. It's a flagship, and Big Ditch here, I think, is the same, but it definitely doesn't have the pedigree behind it, where Strange Bird, to me, is a nationally recognized, and let's not, you know, poo-poo Big Ditch, because they're nationally recognized, just because they sell a lot of beer. They sell a ton of beer, and it's widely distributed, but when you talk about accolades, Big Ditch has plenty as well.
Jason:
Yeah. In Strange Bird, again, aesthetically pleasing, beautiful space to go into, and they make an incredible variety of beer. I feel like they've tried everything under the spectrum when it comes to style, and you're always able to find something there that you can have.
Craig:
Yeah, they came out of the gate, I think they had like three different types of saisons, you know, a lot of Belgian influence, but then, you know, their lager program is very, you know, here we are drinking a Keller Kolsch, but yeah, I mean, they pull from traditional beer cultures, the Belgian and the German. I don't see a ton of English, and then they do crazy barrel-aged stuff, you know, they're using wine barrels, I got a barrel-aged Creme Ale on the shelf from them, this whale herder, and then they also do a lot of just canned conditioning, where it's, you know, so when you crack the beer, it's almost at peak freshness versus, hey, if it was sitting around for a while, it might have lost a thing or two.
But, all right, before, we'll take a quick look at it, and then we'll make sure we do our cheers, and then we'll do our, you know, natural progression of smell, sip, and revisit all those. So, as we take a look, like I said, you know, it's definitely, it's this nice golden, kind of like, yellow, it's sunny, right, it's a very, I mean, and I didn't even plan that for a heliophile, this is a very sunny, golden, kind of, makes you just feel like there's a brightness to it, when you hold it up to the light, you know, it is a yellowish gold, but definitely just a golden, golden beer, and you can see through it, like I can see my finger on the other side, but definitely a little bit of haze in there, but again, not opaque, nothing where you're like, oh, what's that swimming around in there, it just, it's got some decent head retention, or head has gone down, but I still have a nice little white foam going on the top, so, do a little cheers, a little sniff, and then I'm gonna take a sniff, or a sip, so nice malty, just cereal grain, you know, kind of got just that brew house aroma, kind of on the nose, that's what I got, light grain, light malt, tasty, so, I like a nice Kolsch, yeah, I mean, one of those that, again, lager, Kolsch, albeit,
Jason:
you know, a hybrid ale, right, and one that didn't have flavor thrown into it, I feel like everybody feels the need to throw flavor into their Kolsch all the time, like, let's just, let's just have a Kolsch, I'm just gonna hold this close, it's got, it's got the quintessential
Craig:
beer vibe to it, right, like if you're looking for beer flavored beer, this is a good example, some people, I feel, when it comes to Belgian beers, they know that, and it's either I like it, or I don't, and, or I can take it, or, you know, it's not my preference, but it's still a good beer, but it just makes Belgian beers and Belgianies so unique, whereas the German pilsners and lagers, and since that gave birth to the American lager, which is, you know, just worldwide, the number one selling style is just a pale, light lager, you know, when you drink this, in my brain, I'm like, oh yeah, that is what beer is, ding, like I'm, I am drinking a golden beer, but it has a little bit more of like, I get like a slight grassiness to it, yeah, a little bready, yeah, definitely, definitely has got that little bit extra malt flavor that I'm not usually used to in a Kolsch, I don't want to say full-bodied, but it's got like a full-bodied flavor, still rests light on the palate, but this is one of those, it tastes like a four-ingredient German pilsner or lager, and it's got all of those distinctive check mark beer flavors, right, nice grain, cereal, light, crispy, crackery, malt, we'll have another sip here, I'm with you there, and then just a little bit of this balancing bite of like a noble hop to it, so I feel like, you know, some Hallertau, Mittelfrüh, or some of the Sazer hop, but usually the German hops are the Hallertau, Mittelfrüh, the Tettner, Tettinger, Tettnang, your Spalt and your Saz, but the German hops always have like a little bit more of a spice, little perfumey, kind of a nice little vibe to them, and you get that here, it's like a little bit of like a spicy note, not so much, like the American hops are much more citrusy, piney, you don't get anything like that, I feel like the English hops can get a little bit more herbal, and these guys just have that nice, like I said, like a little bit of a grassy note, and then that you know, it's a good, that's a good word. Yeah, it just, you know, it does finish with a little bit of bitterness, you know, some IBUs, I think it only had, it had it on the can, but what was it, I think it was, yeah, 15 IBUs, that's a very, very low, to put that in perspective, usually your IPAs are around, you know, depending on Hazy and West Coast, is it 40 to 60 IBUs, you know, with some double IPAs getting higher up there, you're right, but 15 IBUs is basically like, hey, there's going to be some bitterness, but it's not, you're not going to be puckering up, or you know, your tongue's not going to buckle.
Jason:
I think the, I think Stone Hopageddon, I think, was the hoppiest one I've ever encountered, was like 100 IBUs.
Craig:
Yeah, there was, there was a few breweries out there that were trying to, trying to breach the three-digit IBU.
Jason:
Now, if you're trying to play with flavor in Kolsch, like I was, like I was saying, you know, it tends, like people make a Kolsch and go, let's put flavor in it, what, what are you leaning toward when it comes to flavor? Like what I would add to this beer, or just if I have a flavored Kolsch? If you had a Kolsch and you, that you wanted to make that you like, a nice flavored Kolsch.
Craig:
So I think, you know, the lightning in the bottle that was caught, which is the Genesee Ruby Red Kolsch, I mean, citrus goes with these beers very well, to the point where, you know, if you go to hot weather locations, like the Corona's got a lime. Certain places, like I've been to Costa Rica, and they were squeezing lemon. It just yearns for some citrus, in my opinion, because you have these light, crisp notes, and then citrus, you know, just like a squeeze of lemon, or squeeze a lime over your taco, squeeze a lemon over some fish, it doesn't dominate, just adds a nice little note, almost like salt, right?
You know, you're sprinkling some salt, helps make the other flavors pop, versus, you know, if you smother something in barbecue sauce. Now, to me, Ruby Red Kolsch went a little too much. It kind of leans towards, like, soda pop, and I think some people really like that.
It does give it this crushability.
Jason:
It does have a little fresco feel to it.
Craig:
Yeah, it's very, very refreshing, but I'm also sitting there going, like, you know, it's almost a shandy, in my opinion. Okay. I used to like it, I hope it comes back, but they had their color beer, the Cranberry Orange color beer.
That was good. Yeah, that was their fall offering, and to me, that was citrus, again, with the orange, but not as, like, dominant as the grapefruit, and that cranberry was enough, like, just berry fruity note, where, to me, that was, like, a perfect fall beer. Just enough tartness to balance it out.
And that one was almost like, we were like, okay, if that was the grapefruit, was the squirt, or what is this, and that was more like a Hawaiian punch, and then they just, seems like they weren't hiding things anymore, because they came out with their, one offering was the Black Cherry Vanilla, or the Dr. Pepper beer, and I'm like, that was a miss, that one came and went, and I don't think it'll ever be back. No.
But, yeah, to me, citrus is always very much welcome in a Kolsch, trying to think of any other Kolsch's I've seen with crazy flavors, and usually they are just, like, a citrus addition, or to me, I do like floral, so anything floral added, like a little touch of lavender, or a little, you know, botanical of some sort, I think that that would go well, just playing off of the little hint of floral and the estuary notes that sometimes a Kolsch will
Jason:
give you. I play to the opposite side of that spectrum, because I like more of a sweet aspect than a citrusy, so I have a tendency to lean toward honey with a Kolsch, something like, so Mo Money, Mo Kolsch from Myers Creek, that's one that, when I can get a hold of it, it always goes in my fridge, so I like some, plus I love the fact that they have an apiary right there on their property, and that's where they get all their honey from.
Craig:
They do nice stuff with that Myers Creek, and I think Beltline, right down the road from us, they almost always have a rotational honey Kolsch. I actually did a honey Kolsch, I think with Enko Fermentations, we did a honey Kolsch, it's nice, because honey does add similar flavors without, so it adds a sweetness, but it's not like, all right, we're adding molasses, or we're adding some sort of syrup that totally transcends the beer. It basically adds some sweetness, and then those sweet cereal grains, it's almost like drizzling some honey on your cornflakes, or you know.
That's kind of why I like it. Yeah, and that honey and malt kind of vibe go together, where you know, honey is still on the lighter side of things, versus really just taking the malt to a darker level.
Jason:
Nice, nice. Well, I like to start to this series here already, because we're talking about, we're talking about noteworthy niche beers that are out there, and this is a great first start here with Heliophile from Strange Bird out of Rochester.
Craig:
And you can have color with any real base style. It's basically like, hey, we're going to drink this beer earlier than we normally would, not so early that it ruins it, but it's, that's just what makes it a color. And then you might see another style called Zwickle beer, and some people say that they're interchangeable, some people say it's two different styles, and you know, you can ask a hundred brewers and get a hundred different answers.
And, but Zwickle was actually like, it's the name of the tap that's usually on the fermentation vessel, so it'd be drinking straight from the Zwickle. So that's what people kind of say, you're still drinking from the cellar, drinking straight from the fermentation vessel. But I did do a little research, because I was like, are they the same like?
And in a lot of what I go by with judging and stuff, it's basically, it's so splitting hairs that they're basically interchangeable, but if you're a diehard, you want to get notably noteworthy niche and get just even more in depth. The Zwickle beer typically has a little bit more carbonation, and you might have a little bit more hop profile, because they're saying that you have that even earlier than you would a color beer. It's like, okay, we just put it in the fermentation vessel, it just started really getting some fermentation, and it's bubbling really good, and then you're trying some from there.
So you might get, you know, a different, a different vibe from a Zwickle than you would a color. But basically what it boils down to is, you're drinking a younger, less matured, or less lagered beer that should kick up a little bit more flavor profile than the final version of it.
Jason:
Well, as soon as we finish with this here and I hit the stop button, I'm gonna have to put Zwickle in my new dictionary of beer words, because it's the first time I've ever heard that word.
Craig:
That's why, you know, we could talk about color beers, Zwickle beer, we could talk about all sorts of stuff, and it's always nice to, I don't know if we've done a strange brew before, but they're definitely a noteworthy brewery.
Jason:
Definitely, noteworthy beer, noteworthy brewery, and a noteworthy episode to start off the series 12, barely getting started, noteworthy niche, and I am Jason Ettinger with the Buffalo Brews Podcast, and you're sitting here with the great Craig Altabella. I would just say Craig, good old Craig, so yes. Craig is gonna give you, he's gonna give you the knowledge, because it's what they do here at Magic Beer, it's education through beer, and happy to be able to do this series for as long as we have, and be able to share some of this with you, the listeners, and you know, tune in with us here in a couple of weeks, because we got another one, another fine one on tap, part of the fun.
Another noteworthy, so we'll leave that as a little cliffhanger. All right. Cheers, my friend.
Cheers.
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