Mrs. C In EID

Nicole of awesome foodie blog Eat It Detroit, formerly known as Dining In Detroit, dropped in on Annette at the store Saturday, one thing led to another, and... check out the nice story and pix here.

Nice article about Detroit's "women-in-beer"

This posting deserves much more than just a link to this Metromode article that came out today (I'd love to share some stories about Kristy & Gail and talk about what great women they are- I don't really know Sarah), but I'm here, at Merchant's, with a delivery of 93 cases of beer coming in the door as I write this! So, simply put, it's great to be a part of the craft beer industry, especially here in Michigan, and it's wonderful to be a woman-in-beer! Cheers to Kristy, Gail & Sarah. And to Amy who wrote the article!

2010 AHA Recognition Award Winner - Randy Mosher

For those who haven't heard yet, Randy Mosher was awarded the 2010 AHA GC Recognition Award. Congrats Randy!!!! Ray Daniels gave the introduction and the Award.

"As chairperson to the AHA Governing Committee, it was my honor this past Saturday evening to present the 2010 American Homebrewers Association Governing Committee Recognition Award to Randy Mosher. However, I was even more delighted to have his dear friend and recipient to the 2009 Recognition Award join me on stage to share his words on what Randy Mosher has meant to our homebrewing community. These were Ray's words to his friend..."

"I met this year's winner within a few months of when I started homebrewing in 1989 and we've spent 20 years collaborating on a wide range of activities related to beer. Certainly I know that my own career has been enhanced by the many projects we have worked on together.


The key to understanding this person's contributions is to understand that he truly is a Renaissance man, a modern polymath who is just as familiar with the nuances of color balance in graphic design as he is with the sounds produced by alternative electronic amplification circuits. And like any true Renaissance talent, he views knowledge and technical mastery as just the first step in exploring any field. For once skills and knowledge are gained, they can be used as tools to create new things unimagined by others. Things like the Buckapound brewery—a complete stainless steel homebrewing system that he has designed and built himself from scavenged stainless steel parts; like his homebuilt boom-boxes with a sort of steam punk design and silky smooth sound quality; like his fascinatingly tasty beers and equally wonderful food creations—not to mention his voluminous contributions to the visual presentation of beer and beer events. For nearly everyone
who knows him, this individual has become the "go-to" guy for any creative endeavor whether the finished product was to be paper, stainless steel or electrons.

Now, if these things were all this individual had contributed to the beer world it would truly be a good thing and he would be fully deserving of the honor we bestow on him tonight. But Randy's greatest gift to the American beer scene has not come from the things that he does while slaving over a hot brew kettle, a steel-melting TIG torch or quad-core Mac Pro. His greatest gift to beer has been the generosity he personifies in his every meeting he has with fellow brewers—no matter whether they be recent converts to homebrewing, masterful craft brewers or salaryman big brewers. Unlike those who sometimes hold back knowledge to make themselves more important, Randy has always shared his knowledge freely and copiously with the spirit of a true pioneer who is all too happy to have others share what he has found. This willingness to put the sharing of ideas above personal ego and community above self are key reasons why the American homebrewing scene
has blossomed and thrived. Thus the contributions Randy has made through books, lectures and countless conversations have enriched our community in immeasurable ways—ways that affected not only the knowledge of individuals but indeed the spirit of the community. This generosity also extends to his valuable service on governing boards for the Chicago Beer Society, American Homebrewers Association and the Brewers Association as well.

When you look at Randy's activities as a craftsman, an author, a teacher and indeed a leader, I cannot help but think of Benjamin Franklin—a man who was also widely talented and endless engaged in learning, sharing and shaping the world around him. So I will frame that as my summary and hope that Randy will find it sufficient—and that Franklin himself would have considered it flattering.

And with that, I give you tonight's recipient of this year's recognition award, Randy Mosher, the Benjamin Franklin of American Homebrewing!"

Sincerely,
Crispy Frey
AHA Governing Committee - Chairperson
Brewers Association - Board Member
Ann Arbor Brewers Guild - Treasurer & Mouth
Fermental Order of Renaissance Draughtsmen - Member
AHA Lifetime Member & Evang-ALE-ist

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Blogger Family Tree

Is fashion sense a heritable trait? Here is a photo of my little bro, taken at the MBG Summer Festival:

And here is a picture of our dad:

Hm.

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Schultze Gets The Blues...(or how I love to spend an evening)

One of my favourite things to do is combining four of my favourite things (well, five if I count Mike)- beer, food, MOVIES and dressing up. So -starting again in some sort of order that makes sense- this means watching a movie (at home), cooking the foods that pertain to that movie- and obviously having beers that fit in as well- and wearing outfits that also fit the theme.

Here are some of the memorable ones:


TAMPOPO An insane Japanese movie about noodles, squishy peaches and "how NOT to eat spaghetti". It's also where I first discovered the delights of a Japanese rice omelet.

MEAL Udon noodle bowls with pork, rice omelet, quail eggs, oshinko (Japanese pickled vegetables), eel.

BEERS Hitachino Red Rice Ale, Kikusakari Kurakagami Daiginjo sake.

OUTFIT Kimono from Japan, given to me by Toshiyuki Kiuchi, maker of Hitachino Nest beers. Strange Japanese wooden shoes that almost made me fall over. Various and sundry bits in my hair.


SOUND OF MUSIC "How do you solve a problem like Maria?"

MEAL Weisswurst, home-made spaetzl (so simple if one has the magic spaetzl maker),braised red cabbage.

BEERS Einbecker Ur-bock Dunkel, Schneider Weisse, Schlenkerla Rauchbier Marzen

OUTFIT Why, lederhosen of course (purchased for $10 on E-Bay).


BABETTE'S FEAST

MEAL Turtle soup (of course!). (One can buy frozen turtle meat at Eastern Market Seafood) Sauteed frogs legs. Roasted Cornish hens.

BEERS I'm having trouble remembering exactly. It's a Danish movie with the menu being classic French. I doubt we drank Carlsberg, and if memory serves me correctly I think we drank Belgian beer and champagne.


YES NURSE, NO NURSE (JA ZUSTER, NEE ZUSTER)

Be warned- only watch this movie if you love extremely insane movie experiences and singing.

FOOD Hate to be boring, but due to the lack of any recognizable Dutch dishes, we opted for the German theme again. One can never get enough weisswurst and spaetzl.

OUTFIT Okay, efforts to obtain Dutch clogs and this hat failed, so I opted for the NURSE thing. And, as a side note, I really had a hard time finding a nurse uniform! Nurses wear scrubs mostly, and I wanted to be "authentic" in white dress and nurse's hat. I found one in a costume shop eventually.


ESCANABA IN DA MOONLIGHT

FOOD Why, Cornish pasties of course, home-made, with lots of rutabaga. Mike says they are the best he’s ever had. (And no, we didn't eat a buck, because we didn't have one. Got some in the freezer right now though, and need to make something good with it.)

BEER Anything/everything from Bell’s, and homebrew.

OUTFIT Mike’s turn to shine in his hand-made Remnar shirt.


(The titular) SCHULTZE GETS THE BLUES

FOOD, BEER & OUTFIT- a repeat of Sound of Music, although this time we drank Mike's rauchbier. Mmmm. This movie is a little sad, but fabulous!


SOUTH PACIFIC "I'm gonna wash that man right outta my hair"

FOOD Coconut shrimp, fish, fish and more fish, salad greens with ginger dressing. Coconut mango ice cream.

BEERS Hitachino Red Rice Ale, Hitachino White Ale, Mike's helles.

OUTFIT A great vintage Hawaiian mu-mu and a headpiece I made that has a bird in it.


CHANG: A DRAMA OF THE WILDERNESS

This was one of the strangest, yet most wonderful movies I have ever seen. I was lucky enough to see this at the Detroit Film Theatre with live accompaniment by Boston’s Alloy Orchestra. I went alone, and simply had to repeat the movie experience for Mike, accompanied by food and beer of course.

FOOD Tom Kha Gai, pad Thai with fried tofu, chicken in red curry. There’s an Asian grocery store in Dearborn Heights that has many necessary things for Asian cooking, whether it’s Chinese, Japanese, Thai or Korean. I love this store!

BEER Chang Lager from Thailand just because, but we quickly switched to Mike’s pils and some commercial saison.

OUFIT Thai sarong (found a great green and gold one at the thrift store) with various hair decorations. Efforts to find a traditional Thai “chada” headdress failed (but I’m not done looking yet).

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Nuptials, April 3, 2004

Where would two people who love beer as much as we do be wed? Our first choice would have been in our yard with everyone toasting us with a glass of Mike’s homebrew, but due to our house’s inability to comfortably fit more than about 10 people, we were wed in one of our favourite bars, the singular Delilah’s on Lincoln Ave, Chicago. Not only were we wed in the bar, the incomparable owner of Delilah’s, Mike Miller, was the officiant. The Rev wore zebra-striped shoes, and the ceremony brought tears to everyone’s eyes, and included these wonderful and apt sentiments...

”I kiss her, Her lips open, And I am drunk without a beer”
“Do you agree to always share your favourite beverages?” (We do!)
“I would rather have a crust of bread and a tent With You than be queen of all the world.”
“I would rather have a Bud Light and a tent With You than be king of all the world.”

And so we were wed, and our family and closest friends toasted us with Bosteels Deus. Mike and I toasted each other with Lindeman’s Cuvee Rene Gueuze, 1994 vintage. Mmmmm.

After a few beers at Delilah’s while everyone admired the artwork, (Delilah’s is host to local art exhibits, and this is what was on show the day of our wedding...Loverly!!) Art#1, Art#2, Art#3, we headed over to Mike & Louise’s Hopleaf in Andersonville for our wedding repast. We feasted on mussels and frites for appetizers, and our entrée selections were gourmet sandwiches- Smoked duck breast with greens, tomato-ginger jam & herb aioli on gilled sourdough, BLT with Nueskie bacon on grilled bread, and Nueskie ham with gruyere and apple-tarragon coleslaw on pumpernickel. Aragula salad and more frites complemented the sandwiches. Dessert was a rich bread pudding. The accompanying beverages were Etienne Dupont Normandie Cidre, De Ranke XX Bitter, Dogfish Head Au Courant (first version) and Bell’s Double Cream Stout. The evening ended at Tuman’s Tavern with pints of Bell’s porter amongst other beers.

Late next morning we reconvened at Goose Island, Clybourn, for brunch and a beer before we all headed back home to Michigan, but not before one last stop at Old Hat in Lawton, MI, where we had a couple of pints and listened to the Cats In The Hat bring the house down. A memorable weekend!

We honeymooned in New Orleans, and certainly had our fair share of great food and beers at Crescent City Brewery, Coops, Cooter Brown’s and DBA, and on our last night I ate more than I’ve ever eaten before at Jacques-Imo Café, a fine institution that luckily survived the hurricane and is still going strong. It was one of the most decadent meals we’ve ever eaten, still to this day, and included a rich crawfish cheesecake as an appetizer before a host of other mudbug dishes. We groaned our way back to the hotel, and our plans to paint the town red on our last night were thwarted by our inability to keep our pants zipped without wincing in pain.

This gustatory (and romantic) tale ends a couple of months later when summer was in full force. We had a post-wedding party in our yard and invited a host of people that didn’t attend our small and intimate wedding. Our grill was put to good use, and many fine beers were drunk including our special wedding beer, a Belgian-style strong ale that our friend Steve brewed for us. We still have some bottles and it’s still delectable. This party spawned the famous “ Allen Park burning Porta-potti incident”, and is the reason we are now black-listed from every portable toilet company in the vicinity. Honestly, we still have no real explanation as to how the Porta-potti caught fire 48 hours after the party ended. Photo of carnage

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How I Got Here

Dignified? Hmmm, nice compliment, but I bet Mike must have forgotten about this. Anyway, about me...

I came to beer very (very!) late, being the offspring of old-world European Jewish parents who drank Cherry Advokaat, and more importantly, growing up in Australia, the land of “how many tinnies can a bloke skul”, enough to deter any self-respecting female from exploring beer. It was during the 60’s, and my teenage years in the early 70’s were fraught with the chants of “be sure to wear some flowers in your hair” as well as “Hare Krishna, Hare Rama” which meant that I was never much of a drinker, much preferring the other type of high. I was, and still am to some degree, what the Aussies call a “two pot screamer”.

So, there I was, in my mid 30’s, living in Chicago, still not much of a drinker (though long given up on that other high I mentioned earlier), single and unemployed, having vowed to never don scrubs, nor set foot in another hospital again (I went to college for nursing). Hmm, how to earn a living? “Methinks I’ll be a bartender” says I, who occasionally drank margaritas and rum & coke and who had ne’er really tasted a beer outside of Castlemaine XXXX or Bud Light. “It looks like fun”. So I got me a fine bartending job in a beer and shot bar in a Hispanic neighbourhood in Chicago, and I worked there for a couple of months until the owner suggested I wear a bikini during my shift. I did learn how to make a mean Tequila Sunrise and pour draft MGD, invaluable experience!

A friend was dating a bar owner who was looking for a bartender, and I was hired based upon my astounding ability to pour cheap draft beer and shots, and probably because I had a cute accent, a potential crowd-pleaser. Luckily for me, this bar (the now defunct Puffer’s in Bridgeport, Chicago), was one of the first bars around to pour craft beer, interesting imports and Belgian beer (it was 1995), and there lies my “key to the door”. I quickly discovered that selling good (and costly) beers generated bigger tips, plus I discovered I actually liked the different flavours! I remember my first hefeweizen on a hot afternoon after I’d just finished my shift; I had been pouring them all afternoon for customers. It was both a surprise and a treat. Not so pleasant was my first taste of pale ale, though. It was Whitbread, the real deal from England, on tap, and I thought it was horrible. But not for long! Chimay Red was the breakthrough, though; I loved it, and decided that this was the type of beer I was going to drink, and explore, from now on. I loved that job, and eventually left when I was offered a bartending job at Chicago’s famed Map Room, thanks to an introduction from my dear friend John Freyer. And the rest is history... I became the bar manager, beer buyer, draft system maintainer, cellarman (The Map Room was, I believe, the first bar in Chicago to have real ale), and in general the “I can’t get enough of all of this” beer sheila. I tried Stille Nacht, Schlenkerla rauchbier, Hanssen’s gueuze, Berliner weisse, schwarzbier, IPA, marzen, pilsner and Guinness and loved them all. I even traded my Christmas bonus one year for the chance to go to Siebel Institute to do a week-long draft skills workshop. I befriended many a homebrewer, although I had never actually brewed, started attending Chicago Beer Society functions and other beery events around the city, and spent much time devoted to the pursuit, and study of great beers, both local and imported.

In 2001 I was offered a sales position with B.United International, importers of some of the finest beers, cask conditioned ale, ciders, meads and sakes available anywhere. After a short stint bartending at Goose Island Clybourn (all the best people have worked there), and selling Three Floyds beers (nobody would ever believe these days how many doors were “slammed in my face” back then) I started working for the venerable Matthias Neidhart. My knowledge (and sales skills) soared, and I spent a little over 4 happy years working for Matthias, selling the portfolio in a bunch of Midwestern states and simultaneously exploring many of the USA’s best beer bars.
In 2003, at the National Homebrewers Conference in Chicago, I gave a “beer and cheese pairing” seminar to about 150 people. (My seminar immediately followed one given by Garrett Oliver. The same 150 people had just been hypnotized both by Garrett’s majestic presence, and his knowledge and presentation skills. It was a hard act to follow. Oh- but I had food!). More importantly though, it was at this conference that I met my husband Mike, and I moved to Michigan shortly after and we were wed. I stayed on with B. United for one more year, and left to take on my current position as Beer Department Manager at Merchant’s Fine Wine, Dearborn MI. It’s a fine store; and the beer department is huge. It’s 10 minutes from my house (invaluable!!), I have weekends off, and I spend my work days buying beer, selling beer, stocking beer, stacking beer, pricing beer, rearranging beer, organizing beer, talking about beer, researching beer, sending e-mails about beer, and keeping people happy.

The Cicerone Certification came about because it’s just what I do every day. It’s the accumulation of 14 years experience combined with my delight in actually drinking beer, and my love of cooking which is something I’ve always been passionate about, well before I became passionate about beer. (I once spent three days making and decorating one chocolate/hazelnut cake. Now I spend three days making a cassoulet. Nothing has changed. Except now I drink beer while I cook.) The real joy comes in sharing all of this with my husband, our friends and family, and all the beer and food lovers out there. L’Chaim!

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What's All This, Then, Long Version

We love to eat and drink well, and go to (not unreasonable) lengths to see that we do. The point of this blog is to help others do the same. We are a married, middle-aged couple with multiple ties to the world of beer. We are also both certified Cicerones, which is the beer analog to a Sommelier. More info on Ciceronery is at Cicerone.org

I've been an amateur brewer since 1989. Over the past 20 years and countless beers, I've made many, many beery friends in the US and beyond, and even managed to acquire a beer-expert-wife in 2004. I have followed the arc of development from 'ignorant of all I didn't know' through 'overwhelmed by all there is to know,' followed closely by 'measury-controlly-gadgety-worrier,' settling into the long, slow, gradual curve of 'relaxed, worrying only where necessary.' I have spread the homebrew bug to many a new brewer, and helped ease many more past the worrying stage into the relaxation zone. I am committed to helping reliable, quality information on beer and brewing into the hands of those who need it, while dispelling the many myths, fallacies, and wives tales that persist. Like that thing about bock beer being from 'the bottom of the vats when they clean them once a year.' Jeez.

To this end, I recently attained, along with my wife Annette, the aforementioned Cicerone certification. We have a strong interest in beer in cuisine, and occasionally conduct public food and beer pairings. We also have killer parties. I have been an active member of the Downriver Brewers Guild since 1995. In May 2009, I will have a party to mark my 300th batch of homebrew.

Annette is an actual professional beer nerd, who, having previously managed the Map Room in Chicago, and sold beer for importer B. United International, is now the beer department manager at the best damn beer store in the Detroit area, Merchants Fine Wines in Dearborn.

There are 4 refrigeration units in our basement dedicated to beer: two chest freezers with temperature controls, one for fermentation and one for lagering, and two upright fridges, one for bottled beers and the other fitted with four taps and a drip tray.

Maybe we're just easily amused, but few things make us happier than when good beer and good food come together. And most of the other things are none of your damn business....

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