Back To Beer Basics

Drinking beer without knowing a little bit about the brewing process is like watching football without understanding the rules. You might be able to tell the winners from the losers, but you won’t know why.

And like a hyperactive sportscaster, we tend to toss around technical terms in this column that fans new to the microbrew game might not understand.

So in the spirit of a new football season not to mention a new school year we offer the following primer on some brewing basics to boost your appreciation of the art. More advanced pupils may move directly to an independent study project: Compare and contrast the malt character of the Oktoberfest offerings from area brewpubs (more on that later).

Ale: British-style beer made with yeast that works at warmer temperatures and results in fruity, complex flavors. Ales (including porters and stouts) are the most common American microbrewery beers, partly because they only take a couple of weeks or so to produce.

Lager: German-style beer made with yeast that works at cooler temperatures and results in rounder, cleaner flavors; the best are left to mature for a month or more.

American industrial beers like Budweiser, Miller and Coors are lagers, although they have little malt or hop character compared to the classic versions. Casey’s in Post Falls is one of the rare brewpubs specializing in lagers.

Alt: A hybrid beer of German origin, fermented at warmer temperatures, like an ale, and conditioned at colder temperatures, like a lager. The popular Alaskan Amber is an alt-style beer, as are Fort Spokane’s products.

Malty: Refers to the sweet, sometimes toasty flavor of malted barley, which breaks down during the brewing process to provide the sugars that yeast turns into alcohol and carbon dioxide. (Industrial brewers often use cheaper rice or corn along with malted barley, which makes for a less flavorful beer.) Malty beers can be mellow, such as Alaskan Amber or Hale’s Amber, or more aggressive, such as Pike’s Kilt Lifter and other strong, Scotch-style ales.

Hoppy: Hoppy beers feature the floral, citrusy, spicy and earthy flavors and aromas that dried hop flowers add to beer. Hops also give beer its bitterness when used early in the brewing process; beers can have a hoppy character without being overly bitter, although the two often go hand in hand. India pale ales are probably the prime examples.

Dry hopping: Adding hops to already-brewed beer as it matures to increase its aroma (but not its bitterness). Regional examples include Pend Oreille’s Idaho Pale Ale, The Bayou’s Meltdown and Mac and Jack’s African Amber, a Seattle-area beer which is increasingly available around here on draft.

Cask conditioned: Draft beer that undergoes a final fermentation in its cask or keg, which creates a mellow, natural carbonation. It’s served through a special hand pump, not a carbon dioxide tap, typically at somewhat warmer temperatures. Capone’s and Moon Time in Coeur d’Alene and The Elk in Spokane offer cask-conditioned beers as specialties.

Bottle conditioned: Beer that has yeast or young, unfermented beer added during bottling, which enhances flavor and helps keep the beer fresh. Deschutes, Hale’s and Sierra Nevada beers are bottleconditioned, as are BridgePort’s bottled India pale ale and porter.

OK, that’s enough class for today. It’s almost time to go have a pint or two of homework. But if anyone out there still has questions, let us know at the address below; we’d be happy to define more brewing jargon in future columns.

Fest of times

As we mentioned previously, area brewpubs are starting to tap their Oktoberfest beers. Those traditionally are malty, slightly strong dark lagers also called Marzen, from the days when Germans would brew them in March and store them in cool caves over the summer.

The Ram and C.I. Shenanigan’s, which have a Marzen-style lager on tap year-round, will release a true Marzen - which has been aging since March for extra smoothness - for Oktoberfest at month’s end. In the meantime, look for a hoppy Harvest Ale brewed with a touch of rye.

Elsewhere in Spokane, a traditional Oktoberfest lager is due at the end of this week at Solicitor’s Corner. Next week will bring a revised alt recipe at Fort Spokane, with more body and hop character than in previous years, and a smooth, somewhat lower-alcohol ale version at the Bayou.

Coeur d’Alene Brewing’s Red Oktober, out now, kept its darker color from last year but is more mellow. The brewery also has produced a Pullman Porter that’s available in draft and will eventually be bottled.

An easy-drinking Oktoberfest is being poured at Sandpoint’s Pend Oreille Brewing, while Casey’s is rolling out its “Rocktoberfest” for the pub’s third anniversary celebration Sept. 26.

Bottled offerings include the mellow, lighter-bodied Widmer rendition; a rich, earthy Full Sail interpretation; the spicy Big Fat Tuba from Thomas Kemper and a malty Uncle Otto’s from Portland Brewing.

Beer bid-ness

Several Northwest beers will be poured at the Octobrewfest beer/wine tasting and auction Oct. 2 at the Fore Seasons Sports Dome, 7115 E. Cataldo (Interstate 90 at Broadway).

Tickets, including a commemorative mug and four drink tokens, are $12 in advance or $14 at the door. Proceeds benefit the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. For tickets or information, call (509) 482-2022 or (800) 325-SEAT.

Giving us Hale’s

Finally, an alert reader correctly took issue with our statement last month that Coeur d’Alene Brewing was “the region’s first micro when it opened in 1987.”

It’s true that the former T.W. Fisher’s was the first brewpub - a brewery that sells most of its beer at its own pub - in the Inland Northwest. But the first microbrewery was Hale’s Ales, which started in Colville in 1983.

A microbrewery, by the way, technically is a distribution brewery that produces less than 15,000 barrels (465,000 gallons) of beer a year. Because many “micros” have grown much bigger than that, the term “craft brewery” was coined.

Enough lecturing, now. It’s homework time.