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Dieting and Beer

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The first thing that a dieter needs to know about beer is: beer is food. It is not a beverage you can guzzle down and not feel the caloric content of. Darker beers are, naturally, higher in caloric content than lighter beers. So if you are trying to lose some weight, start by lightening your brews – and limiting them. Mixing dieting and beer drinking is simply a question of where you put your priorities. Suddenly, a hamburger and a pint aren’t going to mix anymore.

Let’s look at the hard facts – your average beer has about 148 calories per twelve ounces. Assuming your average daily caloric intake is 2,ooo calories, this means that a couple of beers already counts as one of your meals for the day. I recommend skipping dinner.

If you are drinking darker beers, you may be in even more trouble. Some stouts rank as high as 220 calories. Compared to a light beer’s caloric content of 70-99. Surprisingly, Guinness is one exception to the dark calorie rule. Guinness ranks at a moderate 125 calories for a 12 ounce pub draught, whereas many stouts and porters are around 210. If you are not sure about how your favorite beer ranks, you can contact them and find out. Sadly, this is one area where microbrews are outperformed by the bigger brewing companies. Those microbrews just have so much flavor – and it shows in their caloric breakdown.

Now for a word about dieting. Dieting, as most people consider it, is not the healthiest way to lose weight. Suddenly changing your eating (& drinking) routine, then reverting back to the old ways a couple weeks, or a month later, is not as effective as permanent and slight changes to your routine. These changes become your permanent diet – not your two-week miracle diet. They are changes you can live with – for good. Rules are made to be broken. Most people are more likely to listen to suggestions to themselves than follow rules they make for themselves.

There are a lot of “beer diet” books going around right now. I dare say that many of these books are using the word beer just to get people to buy them. Beer has carbs, it has calories, and must be considered carefully if it is to be taken during a period of effective dieting. While beer is nutritious, it would be ludicrous to assume in any way that a beer only diet could be healthy or effective. One of the biggest difficulties facing the dieting beer drinker is just knowing which beers are high in calories, and just how much starch and carbohydrates are in each variety of beer. Fortunately, there are many calorie counter websites and books out there, and if you are unsure about the nutritional information of the beer you are drinking, it is advised to call the brewery during business hours and find out.

Being well informed is the best weapon you have in your arsenal if you want to drink beer and diet to lose weight. Adjusting your beer diet towards lighter beers with less body is an important step. Realizing that beer is food is another important step in configuring your diet. Moderation and daily routine changes are key to becoming who you want to be.

Beer Trends in 2007: a summary

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Beer Trends

2007 has been an exciting time for beer. With a public increasingly interested in craft brewing, we have seen a greater variety and tendency towards experimentation from brewers. Even big brewers are now desperately trying to get a piece of the quality beer market. At a time when craft brewers are upgrading to micro-breweries, and some micro-breweries are selling so well that they can’t be called “micro” any more, the abundance these brewers are enjoying is sparking a creativity in brewing that is at an all-time high.

One unforeseen benefit of this golden age of microbrews is the revival of older, or even ancient traditions of brewing, such as cask-conditioned ales. Cask ales have increasingly come to the fore in increasingly craft-brew oriented bars from coast to coast. According to the New York Times in their article Power in the Cask: New Beers, Old Ways, one beer distributor, Union Beer Distributors, has had their accounts more than triple for cask ale sales in 2007. UBD is the leading cask ale distributor for the New York metropolitan area.

In addition to cask ales, recipes for ancient beers have been re-surfacing in the commercial market as a trend. While some varieties have been on sale for many years, such as the Trappist Ales from the monasteries of Belgium and the Netherlands, each year we are seeing more and more ancient recipes on the shelf. Fraoch, the Gruit-style Heather Ale of Scotland was perhaps the first of these ancient recipes to be re-born in a commercial venue. One of the most ancient recipes being re-created recently is Dogfish Head Breweries’ Midas Touch Golden Elixir. This beer is made from the oldest as-of-yet discovered beer of the ancients. According to the Dogfish Head website, their Midas Touch Golden Elixir contains:

“…the known ingredients of barley, white Muscat grapes, honey & saffron found in the drinking vessels in King Midas’ tomb! Somewhere between a beer, wine and mead…”

Both of these ales exemplify a distinct brewing trend apart from that of ancient beers re-incarnated, and that is hop-less ale. Hops have dominated the brewers arsenal for about 700 years, and it is only now that we are seeing the return of un-hopped ales. Before hops took over the scene, the most popular herbs used in beer were part of a concoction known as Gruit. Gruit was outlawed during the 16th to 18th centuries throughout most of Europe, but may see a resurgence, despite its euphoric, aphrodisiacal, and cerebrally stimulating properties.

Gluten-free ale is another innovation which is satisfying a niche market the world round. From Belgium comes Green’s, a brewing company that specializes in such ales in many varieties and flavors. In 2007, Green’s gluten-free ales hit the U.S. market with their blend of sorghum, rice, and millet replacing malted barley in their ales.

With all of these innovations in beer, and the new market that is popping up as a result, we are seeing even big brewing conglomerates attempting to jump on the band wagon. But big brewing companies are in a tight bind when trying to enter the high quality beer arena that has traditionally been the domain of micro breweries. Some are trying to market the same old rice padded malt beverage as a micro brew with some tricks: like adding blue food coloring to ale to try and sell their “blueberry” ale. Others are increasing their malt content for their “select” line of beers – but the slow degradation of mass produced beers has reached such a point that many people (myself included) simply cannot believe that these big corporations are capable of putting out a decent beer. One rule of thumb I have always followed is this: any beer that claims to be “best”, or a “premium” beer most certainly ISN’T. It is especially amusing to me when malt liquor is advertised as “premium”. The big brewing corporations that put out such beer have lost all credibility in the eyes of many beer fans.

It will be interesting to see how these trends develop in 2008. Will big beer corporations be able to get in on the beer-of-quality market? Will more ancient beer recipes be commercially available? Will gluten-free beer technology usurp barley? Will Gruit return to the world? All I can say is, our intentions create the world we live in.

Cooking with Beer Gaining Popularity Among Chefs

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Cooking With Beer

Cooking with wine is a commonly known culinary technique, but cooking with beer is rapidly overtaking this field. While cooking with beer is traditional in many countries – Ireland, Belgium, Germany – it has just started becoming popular in the U.S within the last generation. This is a likely result of the many new varieties and flavors of beer now available in this country. In this golden age of microbrews, where more and more innovative and flavorful beers are being made commercially available, it is easy to see that cooking with beer is a growing field of the culinary arts.

My father taught me how to cook – and taught me well. I can remember the day we had sauerkraut and polish sausages for dinner. This was the first time that he showed me how beer can be used to enhance a meal, by pouring half a bottle of Pale Ale into the sausage pan and covering it. The sizzling smell of sudden maltiness added to the savory aroma of a fine quality organic sausage was – almost – intoxicating. Actually, that was probably all of the alcohol evaporating within the first 2 seconds of being poured into the hot cast iron pan.

Cooking with beer is a concept that is getting more attention. Recently, on NPR.org, Brian Miller expounded upon the use of beers of quality for cooking purposes:

“The point of adding beer is to flavor the surface and the sauces or cooking liquids (as in a stew): the stronger the beer, the more flavorful the liquid. For example, adding a Budweiser would be like pouring in tap water.”

I agree with Brian’s basic principle, but I have found, through my experience, that even a fairly light beer adds considerably more flavor than tap water.

Case in point: it was thanksgiving, and, being the predominant meat eater in our household, I took it upon myself to provide an alternative to the tofurky the vegetarians demanded for the holiday. My good friend Oops the Clown took sympathy on my plight after giving me a ride in the pouring rain after my early morning tofurky mission, and bought us a turkey on Thanksgiving day (I don’t know where she found one!). Thawing was a bit of a rush job, but turned out fine – the real problem was during cooking that I had a pan but no cover for the bird. Some of you turkey rosters may know that this is a recipe for a dry as heck bird, especially considering that I was barbequing the mother.

Fortunately, Chris the tattooed man came over with Katzen the Tiger Lady and their son Felix, and Chris always brings a 12-pack to the party (did I mention that I work in the circus sideshow?). So, religiously, every ½ hour, as the bird was cooking, I opened up a Tecate that Chris brought over and poured it over the Turkey. After 4 hours, the bird had drunk more than anyone else had, and as a result was moist and flavorful even without a cover to keep the juices in. Even a light beer can add body and flavor to a dish, and in this case, beer truly saved the day.

While beer is primarily used to flavor meat dishes, it can also be used as a glaze over grilled veggies, as an admixture to BBQ sauce or to stew. For more ideas about cooking with beer, you might want to peruse Jay Harlow’s Beer Cuisine (1991 Harlow & Ratner), Stephen Beaumont’s Brewpub Cookbook (1998 Siris), or The Brewmaster’s Table – Discovering the Pleasures of Real Beer With Real Food (2003 HarperCollins).

The Color of Beer

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The Color of Beer

The color of beer is a vital sign of the quality of the brew. As most of us know, Beer comes in a rainbow variety of earth tones, from the blackest brown to perfect amber to pale gold. It is the color of precisely controlled levels of malting, roasting, and infusion. For centuries, to keep beer clear and pristine, brewers have developed their own special admixtures which help keep their beer free of sediment. All this invention and experimentation has produced a technology that is not only inebriating, but also flavorful, exact, and beautiful to behold in light bright or dim. The color of beer is, for many, the first indication of what it may taste like.

Many new and different beers are hitting the market, we are seeing a whole new section of the color spectrum pouring forth. With this change, a change in the way brewers judge beer color is also going to have to change. The modern brewing technique for producing the desired color of beer is called the SRM, or Standard Reference Method. This method assigns degrees of darkness varying from 2 degrees for Pale Lager to 70 degrees for Imperial Stout, and is comparable to the older Lovibond degree system. These systems measure the darkness of the ale, but not the color spectrum. Most color charts using this technique show a spectrum from black-brown through pale yellow. With the many variations modern beers offer the adventurous beer fan, the SRM is likely to be challenged by redder beers, dyed with goji or raspberries, and even Blueberry-infused ales, such as BluCreek (from Maine), Blueberry Ale from Atlantic Brewing Company (Maine), and even Sea Dog’s Blueberry Wheat.

In order for beer brewers and breweries to maintain consistent results, color management systems and formulas are going to have to change with the times. Right now, a decisive system has not been developed for measuring colors outside the normal beer spectrum, but I’m sure we can count on this happening soon – and I’m sure it is already happening in the laboratories of the breweries that are producing ales with non-traditional colors.

Dark beers are known around the globe for their rich, indeed, nutritious taste. Popular for drinking during the colder months and in colder climes, stout, porter, and barley wine aficionados carry amongst themselves the remark of “the darker the better”. The quality of the head also makes a difference to the discerning beer fan, especially in darker beers. The trick of perfect carbonation and pouring can really bring out the head in a beer. The perfect match for a dark beer is a cream colored head, approximately 1/4 – 3/8 of an inch thick. Also, the texture of the head should lean towards creamier rather than foamier. A Porter carries a SRM degree of 57, and stouts vary from 69-70. Barley Wines are usually, but not always, on the darkest side, from 57-70.

The next stage of lightness is the brown or nut brown ale. These beers are good for those who like dark beers but cannot abide by the dense nature of stouts and porters. Brown ales are part of a long standing tradition in England, where Samuel Smith’s brewery has been producing such ales since 1758, with a verifiable trademark yeast culture since 1900. Brown ales have a broad range of middlin’ color tones, SMR 23 – 39.

Lagers, Pale Ales, IPAs, and ESBs rank among the lowest degrees of SRM, from 20 down to 2 degrees.

With advances in beer brewing technology, we are entering into a stage where lighter beers are able to have more body. We are seeing very malty versions of SRM 8-25 beers, most notably the infamous Arrogant Bastard ale, and even Stone Breweries Barley Wine, Old Guardian, which usually has an SMR of around 38. As beer technologies advance even further, we are sure to see even more variety in the beer spectrum in the coming years.