Gentrified

Creativity can come from anywhere. Many people will try a myriad of things to find it and usually, it will find you when you least expect. My muse seems to be beer because for the past two years, I have mixed beers together in order to make an even better beer. August 13th seems to be a kind of singularity. As I previously wrote about the Michelada and other beer cocktails, but those usually involve mixing beer with a non-beer beverage, such as a radler with beer and fruit juice.

The Black and Tan is a common drink that could be found at any self-respecting Irish pub. Typically, it is made by pouring a Guinness over a spoon into a half glass of lager.  The same goes for the Snakebite where you mix equal parts cider with either a lager or a stout. I noticed that neither were readily available since I moved from the East Coast to Portland. I would ask if people knew how to make this rudimentary concoction, but most places I went to didn't even have a spoon!

It was a warm day in August of 2016 when I was sitting on a bar stool at my local craft beer tap room. A friend of mine was there with me and we were talking about a bar we frequented named O'Lacy's in Batavia, New York. In fact, I was able to recall that a black & tan was my first legal beer. Looking at the available options, the concept of making a traditional Black & Tan went out the window. What I had was a black currant cider, peanut butter porter and gumption.

The "Rowsdower" was born! It had the flavor profile of a peanut butter sandwich, just like mom used to make! You may be asking, where did this name come from? Zap Rowsdower was a denim-clad hero in a low-budgeted Canadian film. Strong and bold, I think this drink encapsulated the spirit of Rowsdower. I enjoyed a few more of these drinks and even bought the glass the first Rowsdower was made in.

Mixing beers are usually met with consternation. Unlike the mixing of spirits and blends of grapes to make an enjoyable drink, mixing beers is generally not done. Beer culture has come along way from the post Prohibition era of mega breweries with the development of smaller craft breweries. Consumers tend to take the view that craft brewers labor tirelessly to create the totality of a drink. While they work hard at what they do, sometimes a drink falls short of what it could be. I am not a cicerone, or a certified professional who pays a lot of money to learn information already available on the internet but hey, I've had a few beers in my lifetime and I know what I like.

Hazy New England India pale ales are kind of the rage right now. I'll drink any kind of beer really, I've even branched out to Berliner Weiss and sour beers. Although, I tend to stick with pale ales and India pale ales. My girlfriend, however, has fallen in love with the NE India pale ales. Nothing will ever be good enough unless it is hazy with a fruitier hop profile. Creativity struck again and on the anniversary of the Rowsdower, I sat at the bar with my girlfriend at one of our new favorite places to drink, Chill 'N' Fill on Lombard Avenue in North Portland. We enjoy Steve, the weekend bartender there. Before going, we say that we're only going to have a few rounds, but it is really easy to spend an entire afternoon there! The beer selection very good, covers most of the genres of beer. However, when you seek out new brews, it's very easy to attenuate and have every beer in a newly created category of beers.

We ended up mixing a few beers. In the first picture, to the left we made #36 mixing two Matchless products. It was the Son of a Voss pale ale and the Hop Nectar hazy double IPA. I think that the Son of A Voss had a better hop profile with a little more bite than the double IPA which is counter intuitive. It was named #36 at first because the Son of a Voss was #16 on the menu and Hop Nectar was #20...hence the name. The second beer we made was mixing the #36 along with the Boneyard Maine Squeeze making the quintessential New England India pale ale! It really took off! We certainly had a few and even took a Chill 'N' Fill of it home with us. We named it "Gentrified" as many of the neighborhoods are changing to a more posh and urban quarters.

Beers are becoming gentrified. At the core, you have a backbone of beers. Lagers, ales and stouts are the downtown corridor. As beers evolve, they move into areas that were once considered not inhabitable. Coming from the Northeast, I have never come across a New England India pale ale but I'm glad someone came up with it.  It reminds me of a soccer player kicking a ball around, bouncing it up and down and then scoring a perfect goal. Both beer and soccer are an art and both require creativity to find flavors and spaces that didn't exist before. We know that creativity is key and it's breaking beyond the misconception that you can't mix beers that leads to new beers and pushing out into the hinterlands of flavor.