My last visit, chronicled here, turned into a quest to find Ambar Cerveza Oscura, the darker-hued sibling to the ubiquitous Presidente, the flagship beer of the sole brewery in the DR, the Cervecería Nacional Dominicana. With no more nights to spare on that trip, I was finally successful.

So this time I thought I’d get my order in early, so to speak, shortly after arriving at the Casa de Campo resort. At a cocktail party for our arriving group of golf writers, I already had a Presidente in hand when I met the resort’s general manager, Daniel Hernández Quiñones, and expressed the hope that he might be able to track down an Ambar for me.

As it turned out, he was not able, but he didn’t let me down, either.

Nor did anything else about the resort. I’ve been writing about Pete Dye’s Teeth of the Dog course for years–without ever seeing it–because one can’t write about golf in the Caribbean without mentioning it.

The Dye Fore Chavón nine

Ever since it opened in 1971, preceding the opening of Casa de Campo in 1975, Dye’s course has routinely been considered one of the best in the world. (Number 47 in GOLF Magazine’s current Top 100 Courses in the World list.) Its seven holes right on the water (four on the front side, three incoming) have become something of a Caribbean template.

The first seaside hole, number five, is an iconic eye-opening par-3 that starts putting the teeth into the course, which is showing no signs of wear. Dye has returned twice to polish the Teeth, which he still calls one of his favorites.

Others enjoy the Links course (undergoing work during our visit), and some have gone so far as to call the Dye Fore course their favorite. It was mainly to see nine new Dye holes that our group was invited, a nine that will become part of a 27-hole Dye Fore layout.

With the former front nine of Dye Fore (the Marina nine) also undergoing work, we began on the former back nine, now called the Chavón nine since it plays high above the Chavón River in spectacular fashion. In hopes of doing something completely different for the new nine, Dye went to small and sometimes tabletop greens in a links-style nine.

Eric Lillibridge, director of instruction at the resort’s Jim McLean Golf School gives a brief intro here:

Just as we were finishing up our round at Dye Fore some nasty looking clouds rolled impressively in, and the ensuing storm was a dozy.

Mostly the weather was drippingly hot, and under the circumstances Presidente sure began to seem like the beer of choice.There are others–Cervecería Nacional Dominicana also makes a Presidente Light and another cerveza tipo Pilsner, Bohemia and Bohemia Light. But the call of “beer” in these parts provokes the smiling response of “Presidente” to any local I spoke to, almost a point of national pride.

Presidente is a totally unremarkable pale lager, made with sugar and corn grits adjuncts, the kind of beer I pretty much stopped drinking years ago. So I was a little surprised by how much I was looking forward to one, or several, after coming off the golf course.

Golf writer Art Stricklin lines up a shot

Or after a round of shooting clays, one of the many non-golf activities available at the 7,000-acre resort. The shooting center is spread out on 245 acres, with 300 different stations available. Our group headed over, put on a protective vest, were handed a box of 25 shells and earplugs, and were soon merrily blasting away.

I expected to hit absolutely nothing. True, I was a sharpshooter with an M-16 back in my army days, but I think I’ve fired a rifle exactly once since the early 70’s. More surprise, when I had 17 hits, tops in our crew. But it was hot and sweaty work–time for another Presidente.

The weather wasn’t all that was hot. The Zimmerman Agency had arranged the trip and the two capable reps they had on the Casa case, Kerry Anne Watson and Jennifer Gillespie, also happen to be stunners. And one of the invitees, Renee Knorr, is the fashion and beauty director for The 19th Hole Magazine.

Left to right, Jennifer Gillespie, Renee Knorr, Kerry Anne Watson

Golf press trips rarely have a pulchritude level this high. Renee has, unsurprisingly, modeled and done film work, and she wore one killer outfit after another on and off the golf course, though if that dress above looks good from the front, its absence in the back was also tough to beat (eyes right).

The emphasis on fashion is something of a tradition here, if one recalls that the 1971 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue used Teeth of the Dog as a backdrop.

The resort was owned in the early days by Gulf+Western, which owned Paramount Pictures, and a few movies were filmed on location here as well. (Dip back into “Apocalypse Now” and check out the river scenes, filmed on the Chavón River, pre-Dye Fore days.)

A Paramount set designer created Altos de Chavón, an artist gallery and shopping area near the Dye Fore course, made to look like a Mediterranean village. I took a stroll through one morning and it seemed like a fashion shoot was going on around every bend.

The cameras were firing the last night of our visit as well, as we’d all been asked to dress in white for a dinner at the Beach Club by Le Cirque.

White Night at the Beach Club by Le Cirque--Canadian golf writer Brian Kendall didn't get the memo.

Daniel Hernández Quiñones was at the dinner and he turned a little white himself when I mentioned that the Ambar beer had never shown up. As I soon discovered, he then set the wheels to turning, turning to executive chef Luca Banfi, something of a beer nut himself after over a decade of work in craft beer-crazy San Diego.

I’d spoken to Luca earlier in the trip and found out he’d been at beer-food pairing at a San Diego Beer Weekend event in June, 2010 that I had attended. Sure enough, when I returned home I spotted him in a photo I’d taken then–small world, getting smaller all the time.

Before long a Erdinger Dunkelweiss was sitting on the table and a Köstritzer Schwarzbier in the ice chest. I was a happy man, but still, I wondered aloud, no Ambar? Daniel pulled out his phone, and an acquaintance told him he didn’t believe it was being made anymore.

This I later confirmed–Cervecería Nacional Dominicana ceased production of Ambar in February. Descansa en paz.

I was a happy man as well when I asked Jennifer Gillespie to strike a pose and my misbehaving camera caught her at just the right moment. I think we have a chance to turn Jennifer into the Farrah Fawcett poster girl of the 21st century–if anyone reading is old enough to know what I mean by that.

Name: Presidente
Brewer: Cervecería Nacional Dominicana
Style: Pale lager
ABV: 5%
Availability: Ubiquitous in the Dominican Republic; 15 states east of the Mississippi and Washington, D.C.
For More Information: www.cnd.com.do

Church Brew Works, Pittsburgh

The Steelers may have lost Super Bowl XLV, but Pittsburgh wins my favor in the beer contest, for the simple reason that I was able to get some decent beer from the Steel City.

To give Green Bay its due, the Hinterland Brewery was probably a little busy to worry about a peon like me–it had just received an order for three cases of beer to be served at the White House Super Bowl party–one each of its Pale Ale, Amber Ale and Luna Stout.

And a Pittsburgh beer? None on order, though owner Scott Smith of the East End Brewing Company mounted a spirited social media campaign to try and get some of his beers onto the White House playing field.

In the end, Pennsylvania was represented by Yuengling Lager and Light from–Pottsville. To use an oft-uttered Washingtonian phrase: no comment.

Photo by Pete Souza/White House

Truth be told, the bottle I would have been have knocking people over to get my hands on was the White House Honey Ale, homebrewed at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue by a team of the staff chefs, using honey from the White House bee hive.

Talk about a collectible! But rumor has it that of about 100 bottles on hand at the party, not a one was left by evening’s end. Must have been a raucous evening.

The President is turning out to be one of our greatest Chief Executive hopheads, a matter that may bear a further post. Yes, history notes that the founding fathers enjoyed their homebrew. (Actually, I also noted it, here.)

The President and First Lady mug for the camera (Photo by Samantha Appleton/White House)

But the Obamas are the first to have presided over homebrewing in the White House. However, as the lively White House food site Obama Foodorama notes, it was widely misreported that the President did the brewing himself, which he did not. Give him time.

I’m no big football fan. Actually, I actively dislike the sport and wish the Super Bowl would dry up and blow away. I just can’t take the hype. But if it gives me an excuse to try a new beer, then bring on #XLVI!

It’s not likely I would have run into the goods from the Church Brew Works on my own, as the beer is distributed only in western Pennsylvania, radiating out of the Pittsburgh brewery and restaurant in the Lawrenceville area.

Radiate is the word. Housed in the former Diocese of Pittsburgh church, St. John’s The Baptist, the Church Brew Works may be one of the loveliest breweries this side of Rochefort. Built in 1902 as a church, school and convent, St. John’s ministered to the local community until 1993, when the Diocese deconsecrated it.

Sean Casey, president of the company, purchased the building directly from the Diocese in 1996, and the reconstruction project was soon underway. From the start, the goal was to keep the sanctuary space intact, use the original pews for seating, maintain the stained glass windows, and install the brewhouse on the former alter.

The Church Brew Works opened in August of 1996, and it has been wowing people ever since. A lively menu and good beer help, of course, but the ambiance is clearly unique, achieving a Historic Landmark status from the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation in 2001. The effect looks pretty breath-taking in photos. Next time I make it to Pittsburgh, there’s at least one must-do on the list.

There’s a nice range of regular beers and specialties at the Church, a few bottled for wider distribution, but perhaps in a nod to Lawrenceville’s historically heavy German population, its best-seller is its Pious Monk Dunkel, a Munich-style dark lager–not the most common style at U.S. breweries. I would have liked a touch more malt sweetness in this one, which rolls in at about 4.3% ABV, putting it on the light side for the style. But a fine and drinkable brew nonetheless.

I leaned more toward the Celestial Gold, a north German-style pilsner (at 4.1% ABV) that I thought had an appealingly grainy aroma and flavor, delivered cleanly and crisply, with a spicy hoppy bite.

The Millennium Trippel is also called the 2000 Trippel, and was first brewed then, though there are only four bottles left from that vintage. It’s conditioned in a 750-ml bottle, which the brewery suggests can be safely aged, although it’s the first beer label I’ve seen that recommends long-term storage of the bottle on its side.

The beer is hazy orange, with a short-lived head and little Belgian lace. At first there was a somewhat tinny aroma, a sense of slight oxidation, but that blew off and the Belgian yeastiness came forward with a wave of fruity esters–peach and pear.

The quite-pleasant flavor had a touch of green apples, a distant funk, and a dangerously absent sense of alcoholic power. The peppery finish is a strong hint, however, and should help keep matters on a reverent level.

So, the Super Bowl. Pittsburgh wins, right?

Name: 2000 Trippel
Brewer: Church Brew Works Lawrenceville Brewery, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Style: Belgian Trippel
ABV: 9%
Availability: Eleven counties in western Pennsylvania; heading to eastern Ohio this summer
For More Information: churchbrew.com

No, the main problem revolved around the night before–what to wear to a cocktail party at Oscar de la Renta’s house? If ever there was a chance for a disastrous fashion faux pas, this was it. The famous designer is a major investor in Corales even though he doesn’t play golf, as is singer Julio Iglesias, who does. Both live in the developing Corales neighborhood (along with that other famous golfer, Mikhail Baryshnikov) which gives access to the course, although guests at the de la Renta-designed Tortuga Bay villas and the PUNTACANA hotel can also corral some tee times.

In the end I settled on a print shirt, while Oscar went with a collarless white guayabera number. He didn’t seem too put out by my choice.

Hanging out with Oscar de la Renta

Various of de la Renta’s fashionable friends had shown up for the event (the Givenchys I was told, though I never stumbled across them), as had course designer Tom Fazio and his entourage (meaning his family), and the prime mover and shaker behind PUNTACANA, the president and CEO Frank Rainieri.

(In an editor’s nightmare, it’s always PUNTACANA, all caps, when referring to the resort, but Punta Cana when referring to the area.)

After the warm-up at Oscar’s, we all went off to the resort’s La Yola restaurant, perched right on the Caribbean Sea, where we tucked into a little snack. Those are actually giant prawns on the plate, not lobster.

But note at the top of the photo a glimpse of a bottle of Presidente beer, and the stem of a proper pilsner glass. The Cervecería Nacional Dominicana calls its flagship beer a Cerveza Tipo Pilsener, and indeed it is a type of pilsner as all pale lagers are a type of pilsner, no matter how far removed from the appealing attributes of an actual pilsner.

Presidente is made with corn grits and sugar, and so it has much in common with any other common mass market lager, some of which are also made and marketed by the sole brewery in the country. Nonetheless, Presidente is pretty much the only beer game in town.

I had done some homework before coming down, though, and so I knew that the company had introduced a new amber beer named–in a flash of inspiration, no doubt–Ambar. My job, other than to attend and report on the Corales inauguration, was to find it. This would prove difficult.

[Now it's impossible--see an update of sorts here on a 2011 trip to the DR.]

Less difficult perhaps, then it once was to even get to the area. The resort is celebrating its 40^th anniversary, but in the beginning, said Rainieri, “This land was all bush, cactus, sea grapes, accessible only by helicopter.” Or a four-hour drive from the Santo Domingo airport to an area sparsely populated, with no infrastructure.

Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernández (left) and PUNTACANA CEO Frank Rainieri. The guy in the middle wouldn't identify himself.

It was New York labor mediator Ted Kheel and a group of investors who initially acquired about 30 square miles for $200,000, the land for what would ultimately become the 15,000-acre resort. This includes the real engine of the local economy, the Punta Cana airport, the world’s first privately-owned international airport, which extracts a fee from every visitor, and there are plenty of us.

Rainieri and local investors came on board later, and he, Kheel, de la Renta and Iglesias are now the main owners of GRUPO PUNTACANA. They look like wizards of investment as Corales debuts, a third runway is under construction at the airport, and a third golf course is also under construction, Hacienda.

P.B. Dye’s La Cana Golf Course debuted here in 2001, and P.B. (Pete Dye’s son) and his wife were so enraptured with the area that they now live here. Both attended the Corales ribbon-cutting and revealed no trace of jealously over Fazio’s work, and why should they? P.B. is designing the Hacienda course, scheduled to open late next year, although he cautioned that time was an abstract concept in the DR.

Tom Fazio at the Corales opening

The President gave evidence of this, as he showed up about an hour late for the ceremonies. This gave me a chance to chat with Tom Fazio, who had his own perspective on time: “I don’t like to think how many courses I’ve done because it makes me feel old. I just like saying I’ve been doing this for 44 to 45 years. I still like bending over a blueprint, but I’m not as keen on the day to day stuff.”

Such details he leaves to his son, Logan, now the president of the family firm, and also in attendance with his mother, Sue. “And this will be a go-to place for my family,” said the paterfamilias during the ceremonial speeches, although he admitted to a mixed strain of feelings: “What makes a golf course great? It’s the people who are involved…the team that makes things happen…. So this is a little sad for us in a way, in that the work is over.”

The work will live on for quite awhile, as the Fazio team has created a design as fashionable as a de la Renta ensemble, with six holes skirting the Caribbean Sea, a variety of dramatic forced carries required, particularly at the home hole–which calls for the right shot over the rocky limestone coral of the Bay of Corales.

Logan, Sue and Tom Fazio at Corales opening

Otherwise there are broad and shapely fairways, and two holes (the third and the fifteenth) with double greens. Not shared greens, but two greens per hole. What was the thinking there?

Golf on the rocks--the ninth hole at Corales

Corales director of golf Jay Overton, who came out of what he thought was retirement after five years at Pinehurst and 32 at Innisbrook Resort, said, “What’s the number one course in the world? Pine Valley, where the eighth hole has two greens. So Frank Rainieri said to Tom, ‘If we’re going to be the number one course in the world we’d better have two holes with two greens.’ And so we do.”

There was no Ambar beer to be found at the course, however, nor at the La Cana Clubhouse where we had dinner that night, or at the Playa Blanca restaurant on my last night. Hand-rolled cigars, yes, plenty of pork, yes, but no Ambar.

Not that that last evening was over. The Dominicans like to party, and as it was the birthday of one of Rainieri’s daughters, the feast moved on, and in a bar adjacent to where the party was being held, I made the score at last: an Ambar Cerveza Oscura, which hardly anyone among the local crowd had even heard of.

So there was a lot of show and tell about what was, all in all, more a curiosity than a brewing triumph. It’s a mildly caramel sweet beer, amber to be sure, with slightly more kick but certainly more character than Presidente.

I figured I might not pass this way again, in a number of ways, so I kept the Ambars coming. The details of the evening became a little obscura after a time, but not the pleasure of another successful beer quest.

Name: Ambar Cerveza Oscura
Brewer: Cervecería Nacional Dominicana
Style: Amber lager
ABV: 5.5%
Availability: Tough to find even in the Dominican Republic
For More Information: www.cnd.com.do

[Corales was included in a piece I did for Celebrated Living magazine, available here.]

Tim and Amy Brady hold the tastings every Saturday evening in the cozy pub of their 12-guest B&B, where they usually have two beers on tap and others in bottles.  Since most guests are from out of town, the couple rightly emphasizes Vermont beers, but they’re more concerned with serving up seven different styles for a one-hour crash course in beer diversity.

Amy and Tim Brady

The thirty-something young couple left their professional lives in New Jersey to take over the B&B at the end of 2007, and they’re energetic converts to and boosters of the charms of southern Vermont.  But they’re also beer nuts and evangelists for the best in the brewing arts.  They’ll travel just about anywhere to try an unfamiliar brew, and then they’ll post a video about it at their blogsite, Here for the Beer.  (I wound up in one, “Tim and Tom Talk Trappist,” a riveting essay on monastic ales.)

They’re also key players in the first Brattleboro Brewers Festival, which will roll into town in late May, with two evening pub crawls on Friday and Saturday nights, May 21 and 22, the festival itself playing out from 1 to 5 pm on Saturday.

There were ten of us for the tasting this past Saturday, four couples staying at the B&B–three from Massachusetts just visiting for a getaway, and one from New Jersey, newlyweds as of the previous evening.

We started off with a hefe-weizen  and rolled right through to an oatmeal stout, five Vermont beers, two German, a nice trip. I’d had all the beers before, but hadn’t sampled the Pinkus in a long time.  It was a pleasant reacquaintance.

There are a few novelties surrounding the beer.  The brewery, founded in 1816, is the only one of 150 breweries left in Munster, still family-run to the sixth generation.  It was the first to go all-organic, beginning in 1980, and is one of the few with a female brewmaster, Barbara Müller, at the helm.

And you don’t see an unfiltered pilsner every day, either, since cloudy beers still give some drinkers the willies.  But it may be the beer’s visual resemblance to a hefe-weizen that lends a zesty quality to the brew, not to mention the snap of the Tettnanger hops.  There’s a surprisingly fruity nose to the beer, redolent of apricots, and the overall impression is of a sturdy, filling and yet refreshing beer, suitable for any tankard.

Name: Pinkus Organic Ur Pils
Brewer: Pinkus-Müller Brewery, Munster, Germany
Style: Pilsner
ABV: 5.2%
Availability: Year-round, in all but five states (AL, MS, NH, SD, WY)
For More Information: merchantduvin.com

Tim talks beer at Forty Putney Road