It's about time to write about beer.  It's been a long while since I've done it so I may be a little out of practice.  That being the case, I'll start with what should be an easy beer, Full Sail's Session Lager.

It's a cute bottle, which is one of the reasons I like it.  It's only eleven ounces, but it comes in a twelve pack and the cost is approximately $10.  That seemed like a decent deal.  You're only getting eleven bottles, sure, even though it's a twelve pack (you know, because each bottle is missing a traditional ounce, so twelve bottles multiplied by one ounce equals twelve ounces missing) but it's not really noticeable.  Out here in Arizona some good craft beers, like Dogfish Head and Samuel Adams Imperial series to name a couple of examples, go for $10 or more for a four-pack.  So, suffice to say, I'm happy with eleven beers for ten dollars.

On to the beer.  I poured it straight down the center of a pilsner glass and it yielded a nice head.  It was very white and foamy.  The head leaves a good amount of lace on the glass.  The white collar makes a beautiful contrast with the light golden color of the body.  The bubbles frantically tried to escape the glass. 





Speaking of the body, I'd say it was light to medium.  It does have some weight on the tongue and the taste of malt.  Other Full Sail brews I've had contained a good deal of hops, but I didn't notice them in this beer.  It's a 5.1% alcohol content, which is about average.   
The brewery states that it wants to bring back pre-Prohibition beer, an easy to drink lager that is not character-compromised.  Session Lager is incredibly easy to drink, the proverbial 'lawnmower' beer (or, in my case this weekend, the 'help your brother in law take the engine out of one of the sisters in law's car' beer).  It can be consumed quickly, without thinking too much about it, and no guilt - it's not a soulless beer from one of the big beer corporations.  It's what a Budweiser type of beer should be.

Yes, the next beer will be the Stella in the picture above.

Bottled Llama Brewing's contribution to The Session:

I hope this fits the spirit of this Session, focusing on beer and places.

Coors Extra Dry.  I drank this in New Mexico when I was young, though I find it difficult and humiliating to admit.  I stress that I was young, then, and I knew not what I was imbibing.  This is the libation that those around me preferred and consumed and their opinions were imprinted upon me.  Thus I was introduced to the social aspect of beer.  It is a drink meant to be drunk with friends.  Their influence can be good or bad.  Alas, my youthful experience was, in the hindsight of craft beer goggles, bad.  These people were all rural, cowboy hat wearing types.  I must go cleanse myself now.

Boiler Room Red Lager and various homebrews.  The Boiler Room is a local-ish brewpub.  I live in Kingman, AZ and the Boiler Room is in Laughlin, NV, a mere forty-five minutes away.  Circa 1997, the brewer there produced an award-winning and tasty beer called Red Lager.  It was the brewery's flagship beer and an integral part of the signature dish.  This dish was affectionately called the Sweet 16; it was a 16 ounce T-bone steak, fries and a pint of Red.  This dinner and that place produced many fond memories of good friends and live bands.  I had a young family at the time, was making my own beer, playing in a band.  I thought things were going well in my world.  With the help of a couple of friends many legendary homebrews were also produced in this era.  And, yes, beer snobbery began.  I thought I knew what "real" beer was and did not tire of telling it to others.  Again the socialism of beer comes into play.  Good beer was enjoyed with good friends.  This time it really was good beer.  And did I just admit to being a beer socialist?

AmberBock.  The dark years.  Children grew older, responsibilities grew heavier, time moved faster, homebrew diminished along with funds.  The band fell apart.  I began to realize that I was just another loser on this big train of life.  These were the Years of Pretending, wherein I drank AmberBock.  It was mass produced, sure, but it tasted like a craft beer.  It was some kind of sick hybrid that allowed me to feel good about myself.  It's like the nicotine patch or something.  That bridge between what was and what is. 

Mothership Wit.  Then came 2007.  The Great American Beer Festival.  One of the sessions was cheese tasting with a variety of beers.  The first beer was Mothership Wit.  Now, I'd had wit beers prior to this, I knew the style, I'd been drinking craft beers for several years.  But something about Mothership just made things click in my brain.  I finally understood what beer could be.  A social drink, to be sure, here I was amidst thousands of people I didn't know, united by love of beer.  It could be a refined, sophisticated thing, too, allowing a person to experience the joy of friends and food.  My Beer Enlightenment began.  Schlitz and Miller and other beers of that nature were also at the GABF and one of them even won an award!  There was room for all at the Big Bar!  Yes, snobbery needed to be ousted, co-existence embraced.  I knew my place, my beer and many others knew theirs, too. 

I finished reading the book at around the six o'clock hour. I was sitting at my patio table enjoying the lessened heat of the desert and drinking a slightly cool beer. A porter, to be exact. Road Dog Porter from Flying Dog Brewery, to be precise. It was a good porter even if it was a little to creamy for my taste. But it was a pure porter, roasted malts and good Cascade hops. Bernard DeVoto, the author of The Hour: A Cocktail Manifesto - the book I was on about just a couple of lines up - might have approved. Sure, it wasn't a martini or a slug of good whiskey, but it was pure, classic, and not soiled by that most heinous of cocktail affronts - fruit.

To be annoyed or to just enjoy, such was the question I constantly came back to as I read his manifesto. I'm still not certain but lean toward the 'enjoy' it side. The book oscillates between sounding like a polemic and a sermon - preached loudly and obnoxiously. But, that's the point, right? According to the American Heritage dictionary a manifesto is 'a public declaration of principles, policies, or intentions, especially of a political nature.' The Hour dwells on cocktail principles and Devoto is a cocktail purist. In his ardor to evangelize this purity he expresses his views with an acerbic sarcasm.

A little about the author: he was an historian, journalist, critic, novelist, conservationist. He was born in 1897 and during the 30s and 40s worked as an editor and writer for the Saturday Review of Literature and Harper's. He became an expert on the life of Mark Twain and served as the curator of the Mark Twain papers from 1938 to 1946. I really don't know much about any of that but perhaps there are others out there who do and will find it interesting. Of course, Twain was a social critic, too, with an outstanding wit. How much influence did his work have on DeVoto?

The Hour is a slim book, one hundred thirty-six pages, and was originally published in 1948. It's been reprinted and really is worth a read. I think the cocktails of the modern world would drive DeVoto absolutely mad. There are quite a few that contain fruit - including one I'll soon be writing about, forgive me, please, Mr. DeVoto. He hates fruit and finds no decent place for it in cocktails. Cocktails should only be dry martini's or a slug of good whiskey. Yes, he explains at length what a good whiskey is and it isn't Scotch. Additionally, he really doesn't like rum. Before I shut off my satellite TV service I saw a lot of commercials about rum. I'm sure Johnny Depp's portrayal of Captain Jack Sparrow encouraged people to try out rum. Well, if you are a rum drinker, just stay away from this book. It will aggravate you. DeVoto doesn't just disparage it once or twice, it's a continuous assault.

He would have made a good blogger. He's got lists, repeats what he does and doesn't like and generally “goes off.” It's entertaining. Some of his tirades seem to veer off course but I think if you really take time to understand him – and if you understand the mindset of the 40s – they are probably somehow on target. His illustrations of Chuck and Mable and their scatterbrained unsophistication is hilarious. Using this inane couple he completely reams people who have no respect for alcohol and no social savvy. And as he does so he reveals a sublime spiritual sensibility in his principles. For example, behold the beauty of this quote from page 109: "But, brethren, give them one moment of compassion - so little aware of liquor, so little worthy of it, that they must make it coy and cute and leering, of such small personal resources that it can free them to no well being of their own. They do not like the goodness of good liquor, for they kill its taste with disgusting things." It reads nearly like scripture.

The Hour is a sharply written book that will leave you with an opinion whether you like it or not. Enjoy it with 'an honest drink in a plain glass in your hand.' An honest drink is one with no fruit and no rum. Don't forget that.

Today, May 4, was thoroughly enjoyable.  First of all, I was able to take the day off of work and spend it with my wife; we had some fun around the house and even got a couple of things accomplished.  The second reason was our trip to Kingman's Industrial Park.  Why would our visit to the industrial park be of interest?  Well, there's now a distillery in Kingman and it's located at 4875 Olympic Way - in the park. 

Micro-distilleries are popping up all over the country, apparently.  I'd heard about plans for one in Kingman last year and then kind of lost track of it.  The Kingman Daily Miner ran an article on it again just recently (read more here) so it seemed time to go check out Desert Diamond Distillery.  It's a noticeable read building on Olympic.  As we drove up we noticed a handwritten note on the door.  It was a phone number to call for tours and tastings.  I thought that perhaps D3 wasn't open yet.  However, as I walked up to the door to better read the sign (and with hopes that maybe somebody inside would see me and have pity on a homebrewer), John Patt opened the door.  I introduced myself as a homebrewer and told him I just wanted to stop by and check the place out.

He was gracious enough to give me a tour.  He'd just finished up with a batch and the smell of molasses filled the building.  He showed me first the brewhouse and copperplated still.  It was sparkling.  I'm just a plain old brewer and don't know a great deal about distilling and so he explained it to me as best he could.  After that, he took me over to see a few Jack Daniel's bourbon barrels he's planning to age his rum in.  He's going to leave some in the barrels for at least two years before trying them out.  Sounds like an open invitation to come back. 

Patt was good enough to also give me a taste of his rum and vodka.  I'm not a big rum fan, but have to admit his molasses based spirit has a good, sweet finish that lingers just enough.  However, I was more impressed with the vodka.  It's also based on molasses and is much less harsh than I expected.  It's got a sweet character, too, and decent body.  Very good drinks and I plan on returning to Desert Diamond Distillery.

His bar is very open, clean and inviting.  I encourage anyone who reads this to go visit the distillery.  He's still in the process of working on distribution, so his sales are done on site.  Go visit and support your local distillery!

So, how many out there think that the downtown area in Kingman will be a decent spot for a homebrew shop and a brewery?  Originally, many years ago when this brewery idea first entered our heads, downtown's where we wanted to go.  Then, we started considering a spot on Airway or Stockton Hill and ... well, it's just too expensive.  And we're cheap.

There are some cool buildings for sale downtown.  If I remember the city's General Plan correctly they are targeting downtown for growth.  This being a tourist destination (well, that's what they want, at least), it makes sense on some level to develop that quaint and rustic section of our desert city.  I'm hearing vague rumors that people are actually patronizing shops and possibly enjoying themselves.  Well, I guess we'll head that way and see if we can operate under the aegis of the tourists and everyone else. 

Lest anyone think this is another false hope, I want you to know that a business plan is underway and contact has been made with brewing ingredients suppliers.  If the Lost Cause doesn't take off, it won't be for a lack of effort this time. 

While you wait for good beer, please stop by this blog to catch up on our progress and seek out good beer links and stories.  I'll start you off with this:  Fritz Maytag has sold Anchor Brewing.  I had to do a double take on that headline; but after reading the story I was a little mollified.  A little.  It's still unfortunate and I have some apprehension about the guys who Anchor was sold to.  However, as the article states:  "Fritz Maytag is revered in the craft beer world. He fathered the whole culture of the movement."  The man knows how to make good choices.  I hope this works out, too.

Go have an Anchor Steam.  Now. 

This is the official blog of the Lost Cause Homebrew Shop and Brewery. You never know what you might find here, so check back whenever you can. We will have updates, podcasts, and "other stuff".

Thank you for visiting and thank you for supporting the Lost Cause.