An out-of-state friend of mine IMed me the other day asking about some suggestions as he was about to go beer shopping.  Unfortunately, I had to tell him that since I didn’t know what his state did and did not get, it makes it a bit difficult to make suggestions.  I found out later that he went to the store and picked up Buffalo Bill’s Orange Blossom Cream Ale.  Ouch.

I’m sure we’ve all made this mistake in our early beer days.  We walk into a store, overwhelmed by the choices presented to us, and so we begin to just look over the labels and box art to determine our choice.  I made this same mistake with Buffalo Bill’s about 4 years ago in Chicago.  So, how can you keep from making this mistakes in the future while also expandaing your beer horizon?  Here are a couple of hints I’ve picked up over my short beer drinking career:

Know Your Favorite Styles

Big fan of Bocks? Love Lambics?  Enjoy English Bitters?  Then I’m sure you have specific go-to beers that you always reach for, but maybe there is another brewery putting out a similar style that you may also enjoy?  This will help you not only try new breweries, but also to become familiar with the differences from one beer to another even if they’re the same style.  This may be one of the easiest options if you run into a store for a quick beer pick-up.

Know Your Breweries

If you have a go-to beer that you pick up over and over again, try some of the other beers available from that brewery.  Sure not every beer from every brewery will always beer an A+ beer, but if they’re making one beer consistently well, it’s a good chance they make they make a couple of really solid beers.

Learn About New Styles

This option will probably require more research.  Let’s say you’re interested in learning about Russian Imperial Stouts, well how are you going to know which ones are good and which ones are bad?  This is where the internet really helps, using sites like RateBeer or BeerAdvocate will help you see some of the top rated and most popular beers in each style.  Now, just because they’re highly rated or very popular doesn’t mean they’re available in Missouri.  So make sure to have a list of 4 or 5 beers from the style available when you visit your local store.

Ask For Help!

Us beer nerds get a bad rap (though sometimes deserved) for being snobby.  But I honestly think that for the most part, beer enthusiasts are some of the most infectious and excitable people when it comes to talking about beer.  If you need help or advice for getting into new beer, ask for help.  We have a lot of people here and on the forums that are always willing to lend out plenty of advice.  If you’re in a store selling great beer, it’s an excellent possibility that the person picking it out knows a thing or two about beer, be certain to chat them up for advice.

Do you have any advice for the new beer drinker?  What would you suggest?

First of all, let me just say that I hate holiday traffic. What’s normally a 15-20 minute trip from my house to the Loop took almost 40 minutes.  Not cool.  So when I arrived to my first class at Cicero’s Beer School I was shocked to see a completely packed house.  Where are you people and why aren’t you on STL Hops?  You obviously love beer!

But I digress, the class was pretty much what I expected, with the exception of the size of the class.   It was a brewery representative discussing information about their beer.  It’s like a unique combination of advertising and education.  For those of you that are pretty hardcore into beer, it may be a bit of a let down.  But if you’re just getting your feet wet, it’s a good opportunity to learn a bit about beer.

The one very interesting thing I gleaned out of the whole class was the fact that according to Mike Walters of Left Hand Brewery mentioned that we will soon be seeing some of their Big Mo’ series Imperial beers on draught around St. Louis. So we’ll hopefully see those in early 2009.

Now that I’ve finally got the last bit of mud off of my caked shoes, I’m finally able to sit down and pen my thoughts about this year’s festival. Long story short, I had a lot of fun. Yes, it was crowded in the tents because people couldn’t mingle in the mud, but you could still easily get a beer after you shoved your way past the people just standing in front of the servers (something I was even guilty of at times.) I’ve read some other thoughts at BeerAdvocate and even in the comments in this forum and everyone has some very good suggestions. Now here’s a couple of my thoughts:

Grass vs As(phalt)

My biggest complaint, which seems to be the majority opinion, was the complete destruction and mess of the festival field. It made getting around terrible, it made everything and everyone messy and it crowded the tents as people had no place else to go. A few people have suggested that for the sake of festivals to come maybe it should be moved to a parking lot. The argument for the asphalt is that no mess, no fuss and people less likely to trip and fall. The argument against the lot is that it would change the feel of the festival and to a certain extent I agree. I personally enjoy the natural aspect of the festival, but I don’t enjoy being crowded and messy. A better option may be to move the festival to Mid-May rather than early May to avoid some of the late spring rain.

Three Tents Are Better Than Two

I thought the addition of the third beer tent was a welcome addition to the festival as it allowed more beers to be showcased in a large environment. I found that the beers were pretty well spread out and provided a bit more elbow room. I will say I was thrown for a bit when I went into the Ale tent and didn’t see some of the Belgian Style beers, but saw Schlafly’s Imperial Stout and Barleywine in the Ale tent. But I guess “Specialty Beer” is in the eye of the beholder.

From what I’ve been told the homebrewers were supposed to be featured in the third tent as well, but unfortunately got relegated to B-Team status due to the weather. Hopefully next year the weather will let up and people will find out just how amazing some of the homebrewers around this area are.

More Cask Beers!

The best beer of the entire festival was the cask Rye Pale Ale. So floral and wonderful, I had two or three glasses of it. I know it’s a complete pain to bring these firkins out to the festival, but I think it would be nice to showcase more Real Ale at the festival next year. It would be a nice addition to the “Specialty Beer” tent.

New Festival Beer

It’s time for a new beer.  I don’t have the taste memory to remember last year’s Dark Lager so it personally doesn’t make much sense to me to see the same beer year after year.  It’s time to have the breweries try something different and then see just how different the take on the beer is.

More Education

This festival, in my mind, is first and foremost about showing St. Louis’ brewing talent, but one of the first things I heard walking into the festival was “I’m going to get your sister loaded too!” Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some beer drinking prude that doesn’t believe beer should get you drunk. I was feeling just fine after the festival, but that wasn’t why I walked into the festival. I’d like to think there are more people interested in learning about beer and the differences in styles. Maybe included in the Friday Afternoon session (which sounded a bit light) should be a “tour guide” who walks people around talking about beer and sampling them.

Overall it’s a great event and I think it’s only going to get better as adjustments are made after years of tweaking.  I look forward to seeing how different it is in the years to come.

As I mentioned in the last Round-Up, last Friday was my girlfriend Irene’s birthday. We celebrated by going to an amazing restaurant that we had heard excellent things about. When we had arrived I was not at all surprised by the lack of a beer menu or even the inclusion of a beer list in the wine menu, that’s pretty par for the course.

I asked my server what beer choices they offered and after the obligatory St. Louis selection he then began listing their craft selection. New Belgium, Boulevard, Schlafly, and a couple of the standard Belgian choices. I was completely deflated. Here I was in one of the best restaurants in St. Louis and these were their choices for beer? It felt like the beer choices were an afterthought and not something chosen to compliment the cuisine.

Bill and I have had the wine/beer debate for quite some time and for the most part I agree with him. Wine still has the perception of being a more upscale drink than beer, which is normally viewed as the beverage of the working man. Wine can be sold for a much higher profit margin, especially when sold by the glass, than beer which makes it more attractive to restaurateurs.

Some of the things in beer’s favor is that it has less of a footprint and therefore requires less storage space than wine. You’re usually only opening one 12oz bottle at a time so there is no need for quality control concerns (unless the beer isn’t selling.) Not to mention that draught beer also provides a mighty mark-up if you have the space and the equipment to do so.

So given some of it’s upsides why is it that restaurateurs and chefs don’t put more effort in choosing the beers that they offer in their restaurant? If you were to visit a world class restaurant and ordered a cup of coffee, would you be unhappy if they served you Folgers? If you ordered a mixed drink would you be OK with them using Popov? Of course not, you expect more out of a restaurant like this. So why is it OK for beer to get the shaft?

I fully understand that (especially in St. Louis) you’re never going to get away from serving beers from the big boys. People love their light lager and when they order a beer, they better have their go-to. I also understand that there is always going to be limited shelf space because of the smaller mark-up that beer has compared to it’s cousin wine. But if you’re going to offer a selection of beer, why can’t the beers that aren’t from the big boys be something that offers your customers some intriguing flavors and aromas that will help to compliment your food? Why should the beer choices be so blasé?

If it’s just a matter of education all you need to do is find a local beer nerd, we’ll be more than happy to talk your ear off about beer and help put together a beer menu to be proud of. If it’s a concern that the beer won’t sell then maybe it’s a matter of educating your staff or even providing a beer menu! There is no reason that you have to have the same old beer choices as everyone else, you just have to take the first step and make it right.

_{(If you haven’t figure it out by now I’m being very ambiguous about the restaurant we went to on Friday night. I really liked the place and don’t really want to trash it. But this post is really directed at all restaurants who want to hold their food and wine selections to a very high caliber but don’t do the same for beer. )}