Despite outing my anti-football stance in this rant, careful readers will have noted I’m pretty much okay with gambling. And since nothing brings out that instinct (it does seem like an instinct, doesn’t it?) more vigorously than the Super Bowl, here we are again.

Last year we wandered from Pittsburgh to Green Bay by way of the White House (and the homebrewing activities going on there, all mentioned here).

But for Super Bowl XLVI we’re sticking to the east coast, and hitching our star to a wager already in the works, between Brooklyn Brewery and Harpoon Brewery. Seems that the old pros at the helm of each brewery are chums and couldn’t pass up the chance to tweak the other should their home team win.

The deal is that should the Patriots win, Steve Hindy will dispense a keg of Harpoon IPA at the Brooklyn brewery. Likewise, should the Giants win, Harpoon’s Rich Doyle and Dan Kenary will dispense a keg of Brooklyn Lager in the Boston tasting room.

Gauging by the amount of coverage the wager has already received, the publicity will presumably help salve the wounds of the defeated, and I’m willing enough to lard on some more.

For the two breweries, this is actually Super Bowl Wager II, since the same terms were put forth for Super Bowl XLII in 2008, and even non-fans like me know the Giants dusted off the previously undefeated Patriots 17-14, a stunning upset. As this video shows, the bet was paid off, and Hindy made a prescient comment about the two teams meeting again in the playoffs:

Hindy, who obviously has a gambling problem, threw down a similar wager with Anchor Brewing in San Francisco before the Giants-49ers tilt for the NFC title. Anchor president John Dannerbeck not only agreed to pour Brooklyn’s Sorachi Ace beer from this Monday to tomorrow, but outfit tour guides in Giants jerseys:

At the Anchor Brewing tasting room, pouring Brooklyn's Sorachi Ale while wearing a Giants' jersey

I’m going to throw in my two cents here. I’ll select one of the specialty beers of whichever brewery wins on Sunday–so to speak–and make it my next TAP Beer of the Week. To the victor goes the laurel. To me goes the beer.

As far as this week’s two beers go, as a lager and an ale they aren’t really competitive; it’s apples and oranges. But there are some similarities in that both beers are the best-selling flagship brew in each company’s portfolio. Both are now being canned as well as bottled (both canned at the F.X. Matt Brewery in Utica, New York).

And both companies have now been around for a long time, by craft brewery standards. (See “Related Posts” below for a little more on each brewery’s history and beers.) Harpoon released its first beer, Harpoon Ale, in 1987. Brooklyn Lager was that brewery’s first offering in 1988. From small and none-too-certain beginnings, both companies have come a very long way: Harpoon was ranked ninth in U.S. craft brewery sales in 2010 (16^th in overall brewery sales), while Brooklyn was 16^th (25^th overall).

The two beers in question were mildly radical for the time and place of their introduction. As they enter adulthood they’ve more or less settled down into mainstream respectability, considering the wild experimentation going on around them. Neither will knock your socks off; nor will they let you down.

Brooklyn Lager harkens back to pre-Prohibition brewing days in the borough, when almost 50 breweries plied their trade, with a Vienna Lager-style recipe formulated by William Moeller, a fourth-generation brewer who went back into the notebooks. The Milton Glaser-designed logo harkens back to the Brooklyn Dodgers. (Talk about festering wounds!)

It’s a lightly amber beer with a nice sudsy head, an appealingly grainy nose with a touch of lemon zest probably from the (somewhat unusual) dry-hopping during lagering. (Hallertauer Mittelfrueh, Vanguard and Cascade in the hop mix.) The bottles I had from a recent variety pack were just past their freshness date with no apparent harm done. The palate is lightly malty, suitably crisp, with a bittersweet finish.

I hadn’t had a Brooklyn Lager for awhile. When I cracked one open a few days ago I had a bit of a flashback, on first sip, of the old New Amsterdam Amber, which both Brooklyn Lager and Sam Adams Boston Lager are the immediate descendants of from back in the mid-80’s. But that’s a bit of history for another time.

Interestingly, though, Brooklyn Lager is brewed at the Matt Brewing Company, as was New Amsterdam, Sam Adams and Harpoon for a time. However, the expansion of the company’s Williamsburg brewery is expected to double capacity in 2012 and again in 2013, so that may change.

The Harpoon IPA was introduced in 1993 as a summer seasonal beer, but sales went off the charts and the company quickly made it a year-round offering. Now it’s the number one house brand.

I suspect its very ubiquity makes beer geeks take it for granted. But I know I’m happy to call on it as a go-to beer when choices are otherwise suspect or limited. It’s not a west coast in-your-face IPA, but a solid Cascade hop-accented IPA with a fruity nose, a toasty malt character and a good bit of hop zing in the finish. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am, I’ll have another.

There, now wasn’t that more fun than talking about football?

Name: Brooklyn Lager
Brewer: Brooklyn Brewery, New York
Style: American Amber
ABV: 5.2%
Availability: Year-round, 25 states and D.C.
For More Information: www.brooklynbrewery.com

Name: Harpoon IPA
Brewer: Harpoon Brewery, Boston, Massachusetts and Windsor, Vermont
Style: IPA
ABV: 5.9%
Availability: Year-round, 26 states
For More Information: www.harpoonbrewery.com

Related Posts:
TAP Beer(s) of the Week: Harpoon 100-Barrel Island Creek Oyster Stout and Single Hop ESB
TAP Beer of the Week: Brooklyn Local 2
TAP Beer(s) of the Week: Summertime Brews
Super Bowl XLV

Jim McLean

Here at The A Position we’re given a topic to address (or not) each month for The A List feature, in a neat 150 words or so. The January challenge was pretty much the same as last year’s–to make fearless predictions about the golf year ahead. Click here to see just how far off the tracks The A Position writers careened then.

This year we enlisted the prognosticating skills of Jimmy Roberts of NBC Sports to lend the expertise gleaned from his many interviews with the game’s top players, surely adding more gravitas to our wild imaginings keen and insightful looks ahead. For the full collection of 2012 crystal ball gazings, click here.

I went for cheap laughs in 2011, but played it straight this time. I recently interviewed Jim McLean for a piece that will appear next month in the spring issue of Celebrated Living, on some of the top instructors in golf. He qualifies six ways to Sunday, and with a couple of his star pupils lately prominent in the news, I felt emboldened in putting the following prophecy on the record.

***

This should be a pretty good year for Jim McLean, not that 2011 was too shabby, marking the 20^th year of the first Jim McLean Golf School at the Doral Golf Resort in Miami, and the opening of the newest in November at SunRidge Canyon outside Scottsdale.

His eleventh book (with Tom McCarthy) appears next month, The Complete Hogan: A Shot-by-Shot Analysis of Golf’s Greatest Swing.

But the man who estimates he’s given 12,000 private lessons in his time now has two pupils succeeding at the highest levels of the game. The talents of Keegan Bradley and Alexis Thompson burst like bombshells at the end of last season and inject needed vitality into the 2012 PGA Tour and LPGA schedules.

Look for more excitement to come. McLean says, “Alexis is such a sweetheart, but she has no fear. As for Keegan, I’m going to go play Augusta National with him in March.”

Lexi Thompson

Keegan Bradley with the PGA Championship Wanamaker Trophy

My wife gave me the t-shirt for Christmas (and took the picture). I think she might be on to me. But Happy New Year all, and here’s to a fun road ahead for 2012.

Scott Willis demonstrating the power of yoga (courtesy of Timothy Thrasher, Thrasher Graphics)

In the year of his grieving, 2001, Scott Willis would hop in his car and just drive south from Brattleboro, Vermont, on Route 5, the back road through Guilford, into Bernardston, Massachusetts, Greenfield, Deerfield, as far as he needed to go until his equilibrium returned. Then he’d turn around and head home. His father, Ed, had died that June, and then the shock of 9/11 just compounded the dislocation.

Golf had been a big part of Scott’s childhood in Walpole and Keene, New Hampshire. He would caddy for his dad and mom, he and his dad would play together occasionally, and the pair would frequently watch golf on television together. For a time hardly a spring or summer day went by when Scott and his friends weren’t playing or caddying out at the nine-hole Hooper Golf Course in Walpole. But he essentially quit the game after ninth grade, to concentrate on baseball, music, girls.

By 2001, he had barely played a half dozen times in 35 years. Then one day, motoring between Bernardston and Greenfield, he decided to stop at Sammy K’s driving range and hit out a few balls. Another day he veered over to the Northfield Golf Club, went to the practice green in a medium to pouring rain and just stayed out there, putting. “It felt good,” he recalled recently. “I liked it.”

He played a few times at Northfield in 2002, then joined in August. The next year he signed up at the Brattleboro Country Club, where he is still a member. “Not long after I resumed playing I realized it wasn’t a big step from there to putting my two loves together.”

The other love is yoga. After a varied career path as a musician and academic counselor, Willis took his first yoga class in 1987, when he was 35, “And it all immediately felt so good, physically and emotionally.”

It still does. The way Willis puts it to his students–he has now taught yoga since moving to Brattleboro in 1992–is that, “Yoga is like a well I can always go to to get water. And for me, golf is yoga outside.”

Be the Ball

From the Sanskrit root, yuj–to bind, or unite–yoga is the ancient means to unite mind, body and spirit. How this is done can be interpreted in a bewildering number of ways, not a few of which Willis has studied. “Yoga is about postures, breath work, meditation and philosophy. I think of it as a practice of three things: gratitude, loving kindness and forgiveness, mindfulness in daily life. There is a spiritual component to it; I encourage people to connect to whatever that means to their deeper selves. “

Be the Ball

But his classes–particularly his Golf Yoga classes–are laid-back and easy-going, conducted with a sense of humor, urging students to go at their own paces, to the comfortable edge of a stretch or yoga pose.

“I tell students yoga is an oasis of time where they’re not responsible to or for anyone else, with no need to impress anyone in class or the instructor. Pretty much like a round of golf.” Willis finds golf such an opportunity to really focus that he has occasionally put together “Meditation in motion” foursomes that play for nine holes in relative silence.

He doesn’t teach golf technique. The Golf Yoga classes he conducted over the last four years consist of six dynamic stretches and nine static stretches–some classic yoga postures like Warrior, Dance, Willow with golf club in hand–all at a relaxed pace. In place of meditations that might begin and end typical yoga classes, Willis plays taped excerpts from the likes of golf psychologist Dr. Bob Rotella, and might wrap up a session with a Jim McLean video.

Scott holding the coveted Be the Ball Scramble trophy

Ten weekly sessions culminate just about the time the golf season opens in Vermont–and then it’s time for the Be the Ball Scramble for all current and former students.

Does it help? “Using myself as an example,” he said, “I was a 24 handicap when I started playing again. I’m a nine now.”

But he’s not stopping there. He suspended the class in 2010 in favor of giving private lessons, going a little deeper into the sports psychology angle, but he’s taking them up again early in 2012.

“The idea is to maximize the enjoyment of the game. It’s like Bagger Vance says (in Steven Pressfield’s novel)–through focusing one can experience levels of awareness deeper than usual.” If we play to the level that our subconscious lets us play, then we need to convince the subconscious to let us play better. And to that end Willis has created methods for players to become more factually aware of their games, and affirmations that help them visualize playing better.

In his own case, he’s created a precise scenario that has him shooting a 68 on October 15, 2013, thereby lowering his handicap to four. He won’t promise this will happen, but for now he’ll admit no doubt about it, either, merely commenting: “Check back with me then.”

———————–

More information on Scott Willis and his Golf Yoga classes can be found at www.Solarhillyoga.com; he can be reached at Scott-willis@comcast.net, or (802) 257-1926.

The Yoga Center at Solar Hill studio, Brattleboro, Vermont

How golf and yoga went down in the desert during the Golf Road Warriors Scottsdale trip, “The Golf Yoga Connection” here.

So it’s no great surprise that a compact Marc Sleen Museum stands alone in Brussels across the street from the more expansive museum holdings of the Belgian Comic Strip Center, one of the major tourist stops in the city.

Belgians love their comics, and their Art Nouveau, which makes the Center a perfect fit, housed in a 1906 Art Nouveau masterpiece designed by Victor Horta.

The animating spirit of Belgian comic art, Tintin, is now animated (well, in 3-D motion-capture animation at any rate) in the Peter Jackson-produced and Steven Spielberg-directed “The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn.” Spielberg was on hand for the premiere in Brussels on October 22, preceding the widespread U.S. debut now on hand:

Tintin and his creator, the late Hergé, are Belgian icons. Hergé was born Georges Remi in 1907 in Brussels, but signed his drawings Hergé for his initials in reverse (RG). Tintin came along in 1929, Hergé did 23 books of his adventures up to his death in 1983, and then there were no more–as he had directed in his will.

About the time of Hergé’s death the Horta building was looking for a stay of execution. The former textile warehouse, empty for twenty years except for squatters was in ruins, on the verge of destruction, about to become a parking lot.

Some 200,000 visitors now stream through the site annually to see the happier ending that ensued.

Nero striding at entrance to the Marc Sleen Museum

Sleen, meanwhile, is still very much alive as he approaches his 90^th birthday on December 30. He’s reportedly delighted with the museum in his name, and with the beer named after his best-loved character.

In the very first Nero strip Sleen drew in 1947, a criminal is uncovered using beer to brainwash Belgians into doing his bidding; in a subsequent adventure Nero discovers a beer tree in Rwanda which makes him rich.

There’s no beer tree at the Marc Sleen Museum, but there is the beer, available only there or in the café at the Comic Strip Center. It was brewed as a one-off by the De Proef Brouwerij in Locristi, but proved popular enough that larger production is being considered. I was lucky enough to sample some there in early May and bring a bottle safely home as well.

Willem De Graeve, director of the Belgian Comic Strip Center, pours a glass of Nero Bier

It’s a cloudy amber ale that is quite hoppy by Belgian standards, verging on an IPA, with a deep hop nose. It’s floral and fruity, the Nelson Sauvin hop throwing off notes of pineapple and mango. There’s a hearty malt character, but not overly sweet, with a brisk finish.

I just finished off the bottle fairly briskly as well in the spirit of it all–not only movie premieres, but the fact that the country finally has a new government.

We talk about gridlock in this country, but we have nothing on Belgium which, like Sleen, also set a record–the longest period in peacetime without an official government. Since the last general elections in June, 2010, the regions of the country–Flemish-speaking Flanders to the north, French-speaking Wallonia to the south (with a sliver of Germanic influence to the east)–were unable to agree on a ruling coalition.

Think René Magritte, and Belgium’s surrealistic side may suggest the political imbroglio, only just settled after 541 days. Having historically been invaded by everyone from the Vikings and Romans to the Spanish, Dutch, French and Germans, the Belgians can perhaps be forgiven a slightly oblique world view.

When the record was broken last February many Belgians, typically enough, partied. In Ghent in the north citizens stripped in public. In Louvain-la-Neuve in the south, free beer was given away. Not Nero, though it surely would have worked as well.

Name: Nero Bier
Brewer: De Proef Brouwerij, Lochristi, Belgium
Style: Belgian ale
ABV: 6.5%
Availability: Only in Brussels at the Marc Sleen Museum and the Belgian Comic Strip Center
For More Information: About Marc Sleen: www.marc-sleen.be
About De Proef: www.sbs-imports.com/deproef.php

But I behaved myself this trip, since I was really out Christmas shopping, and had actually stopped in hope of finding some gift beers.

The Wassail was a gift to myself. I hadn’t had any Full Sail beers since I got on the bus in Portland, Oregon, as part of the 2011 Beer Bloggers Conference in mid-August. We were heading for the Goschie Farms hop fields right in the middle of harvest season. The trip from Portland to Silverton in the Willamette Valley should have taken about an hour, but late on a Friday afternoon in good weather, we wound up trapped on the bus for well over two hours.

Trapped, in this case, wasn’t so terrible, since representatives from the Full Sail, Widmers, Rogue and Ninkasi breweries were on hand to introduce and pour their beers. A picnic and the smell of fresh hops was awaiting us at the end of the journey and there was a working bathroom on board, so all was well.

Full Sail will soon hit its quarter-century mark, a ripe old age for a microbrewery. It began in an old fruit-pressing factory overlooking the Columbia River Gorge and in 1989 became the first craft brewery in Oregon to bottle its beer, the Full Sail Amber. What’s lost now is that an amber beer was rather startling at the time, and so was the name. The Amber is still the company’s flagship beer, but it puts out a full range of year-round, seasonal and specialty brews.

At its twelve-year mark in 1999 the brewery became employee-owned, and it still bandies the number of the owner/employee workforce on each bottle (47 currently).

Executive brewmaster James Emmerson of Full Sail Brewing, on the bus

Full Sail's brewing supervisor Barney Brennan

Two of them were on the bus, brewing supervisor Barney Brennan and executive brewmaster James Emmerson. They poured three beers for us, marching upwards in ABV.

The first came from the throwback session lager series–Session–meant as a tribute to the way beers used to be pre-Prohibition, including the squat 11-ounce bottles. We had the Session Black, indeed as black as night, but a 5.4% ABV lager that was crisp and appealing, with a bare hint of roast.

We followed that up with one of the lagers in the rotating LTD series, meaning limited edition, although Emmerson said it also meant “Living the Dream,” which apparently all of the Full Sail employee owners are doing.

The LTD 03 lager, also on the bus

We had the LTD 03, a Pilsner-style lager at 5.6% ABV, that had a spot of wheat in the grain bill, and all Sterling hops. It was also a crisp, bright beer with a nice hop bite at the finish.

From the year-round beers we had the IPA, which for a northwest beer was not overwhelmingly hoppy, brewed more to the English-style, but still with a sturdy 6% ABV.

Like the Celebration Ale from Sierra Nevada I drank last week, and despite its name, there are no spices or additives other than malt, water, hops and yeast in the Wassail; its inveigling character derives solely from the four ingredients.

And not that the Celebration needs any kind of corrective, but non-hop heads might find it with the Wassail, and the two beers make for an interesting contrast.

Freshly harvested hops at the Goschie Farms in Silverton, Oregon

Brewed since 1988, the Wassail is a deep mahogany brew that, though it still has a considerable hop character, is skewed toward malt. The nose is sweet, fruity, with a touch of dark cherry. The palate is spicy, woody and toffee sweet, and the finish is subtly bracing rather than aggressive. It’s a mouthful, all in all.

Full Sail actually puts out three holiday or winter beers. The Wassail is the most potent, followed by Wreck the Halls from the Brewmaster Reserve Series (6.5%). A newer entry is the Fest Lager in the Session series (6.2%).

It would have been nice to try all three, but maybe that’s something for next year’s Christmas list.

Name: Full Sail Wassail
Brewer: Full Sail Brewing, Hood River, Oregon
Style: Winter Warmer
ABV: 7%
Availability: September-December, 29 states
For More Information: www.fullsailbrewing.com

Rarely has a beer been so aptly named as this holiday offering from Sierra Nevada. Mental fireworks blossom each November when I run across it on market shelves.

Although following the lead of Anchor Brewing, which first produced its annual holiday ale in 1975, Sierra Nevada was pioneering as well in annually producing a special winter beer since 1981, long before it became a brewing commonplace–and virtually a requirement for a brewery these days.

Unlike the product shot on the right, each bottle of the Celebration ale is dated with its vintage year. But this doesn’t mean that each year is different and that collectors should be laying down bottles for vertical tastings.

I once labored under just that impression, with the further thought that Celebration was a platform for trying out new hop varieties from year to year.

Apparently I was misinformed. Last year Dan Becker of The Full Pint website approached the always approachable Bill Manley of Sierra Nevada to ask him about certain myths that have grown up around Celebration Ale. The post is still up here but the gist of Bill’s remarks was that the recipe for Celebration has been unchanged since 1983. The only difference between batches would be due to the usual vagaries in hop crops.

The ale is bittered with Chinook, finished and dry-hopped with Cascade and Centennial hops, and despite any tasting impressions, has no added spices or flavorings.

But there are plenty of impressions to be found in a bottle. One is just how moreish Celebration is; it’s so delicious that the temptation is to drink it by the gallon. This would not be a great idea, since at 6.8% ABV it’s no shrinking violet of a beer.

Ken Grossman ponders the bottling machine in Sierra Nevada's early days

A bright amber in the glass, it is wildly floral, however, as well as fruity in the nose–citrus to be sure, some spiciness, a hop lover’s dream bouquet.

For those whose memories aren’t quite as long as mine, I have to report what a revelation this beer was when it first starting showing up on the east coast back in the day. There was simply nothing else like it around, or nothing that could be easily found in any case. Well, Sierra Nevada itself wasn’t that easily found back in the early ‘80s.

“Balance” is a term bandied about as a desirable goal in brewing, meaning the malt sweetness and hop bitterness have reached some grail of equilibrium. I’ll buy it in this case (and by the case). Celebration Ale is the epitome of poise, with its rousing malt opening followed by a quenching hop bitterness.

It’s a beer to be reckoned with, and I reckon I’ll have another one.

Name: Celebration Ale
Brewer: Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, Chico, California
Style: American IPA
ABV: 6.8%
Availability: Nationwide, winter seasonal
More Information: www.sierranevada.com

Related Posts:

TAP Beer(s) of the Week 49: Oh, Bring Us Some Clootie Dumpling…

TAP Beer of the Week 46: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale

TAP Beer(s) of the Week 37: Fall Classics

TAP Beer of the Week 7: Sierra Nevada Glissade

TAP Beer of the Week 2: Life and Limb

Invoke Cave Creek in these parts and people seem to roll their eyes a bit, as if you’ve mentioned an eccentric uncle who is a lot of fun, even if he asks you to pull his finger from time to time.

Cave Creek’s bent rears toward a wild west heritage, with a heavy streak of pigskin fanaticism woven in. Though Buffalo Chip began life in 1951 as a feed and bait shop, it has evolved into an ample western dance hall and saloon, complete with bull-riding.

Not mechanical bull-riding, the real thing. And on Wednesday nights, which this was, it’s amateur night. Anyone with sufficient balls and lack of sense enough to sign a waiver can mount up and try to hang on to a 1,800-pound manically lurching bull for eight seconds. The evidence (and amateurs) on the ground suggested this was nearly impossible, and no one in our group was about to chance it.

I felt at sufficient risk asking the bartender if she had any good craft beer available. Her disdain was like a pointed cowgirl boot to my crotch. But actually they did have Widmer Hefeweizen on tap, which went pretty well with the pulled pork, grilled sausage, biscuit, beans and coleslaw I larded onto my plate.

The Buffalo Chip is also known as a Green Bay Packers bar. Walk a little ways across a large parking lot, which a few of us did, and you come to Harold’s Corral, which I was told is the largest Pittsburgh Steelers bar in the U.S. (And therefore, presumably, in the world.)

I neglected to ask how that was measured, precisely, or where Cardinal fans go. But in 2009 over 4,200 fans jammed into huge tents set up on the property to watch the Steelers beat Arizona in Super Bowl XLIII, 27 to 23, and then doubtless went crazy on beer.

I wasn’t crazy about the selection at Harold’s, but across the street we struck paydirt. The Cave Creek Tap Haus is a new kid on the block, opened only a few weeks, but for good beer fans it’s the mother lode, offering over 50 craft beers on tap, and claiming to have the largest local selection in the state.

By this time our entourage had been whittled down to me and Jerry Rose of Communication Links. As this post suggests, Jerry and I have been spending most of our time together of late atop barstools. We can deal with it.

We took our time deciding on our pints because bartender Pam Porter (perfect name for a beer bar), kept giving us samples so we could make up our minds.

Fifty taps at the Cave Creek Tap Haus can make selection a little tricky

I wanted to keep it local, and so settled happily on an Old World Brewery Eclipse Black IPA, a not overly hoppy but fairly rich and slightly roasty dark ale that seemed more like a porter than anything. Fine by me.

I can’t say I know much about the Phoenix-based brewery beyond what’s on its website and Facebook page, noting that the lineup of regularly distributed beers include an Old World Wit, a Nitro Blonde, a 4Leaf Irish Red Ale, a Dark Knight Porter and seasonals like the Eclipse, which is probably eclipsed by now. The brewery and a taproom is located at the old Capital Station Post Office at 334 North 25^th Avenue in Phoenix.

I sort of lost track of the beer because we were soon chatting and taking pictures with Pam and assistant bar manager Carrol Douglass, before one of them pointed out that Robbie Knievel was sitting at the bar right alongside us.

Knievel, who turns 50 in May, was eight when he first performed on a motorcycle with his legendary dad, Evel Knievel. Robbie carries on the family stuntman daredevil ways as Kaptain Robbie Knievel, having made over 250 jumps himself, sometimes replicating the feats of his late father, often surpassing them.

Robbie has jumped over a 228-foot span of the Grand Canyon, broken all sorts of records for leaping over cars and buses, and hopes someday to cap his career with a jump of the Snake River Canyon in Idaho–the feat he father attempted in vain in 1974.

Golf Road Warrior Tom Bedell and Road Warrior Robbie Knievel (right)

Robbie has had his own share of wipeouts, surely enough to sympathize with the amateur bull riders over at Buffalo Chip. But this night, he had the old man on his mind. Evel Knievel was 69 when he died on the way to a hospital on November 30, 2007.

“I haven’t had a drop of hard liquor in quite some time,” said Robbie. “But it’s exactly four years ago today that my dad passed away. So I’ve been thinking about him. I thought I’d have a drink in his memory.”

That sounded like a good idea to us. So we clinked glasses, and joined in on the memories.

Name: Eclipse Black IPA
Brewer: Old World Brewing Company, Phoenix, Arizona
Style: Black IPA
ABV: 7.3%
Availability: Seasonally, Arizona
For More Information: www.oldworldbrewery.com

The beer list at Talavera and the resort’s Onyx Bar Lounge is limited, but it does have some of the stars of the craft brewing show–Anchor Steam, Fat Tire, Dogfish 60 Minute IPA, and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

Even better, they have a local list that includes Four Peaks 8^th Street Pale Ale and Kilt Lifter, Oak Creek Amber and Nut Brown, a canned Lumberyard Red Ale, and Nimbus A-1 Pilsner and Pale Ale.

I made it a Nimbus night, trying both beers from the Tucson brewery (there’s also a bistro outlet in East Tucson). I don’t know a lot about the brewery other than that it began in 1996 and was originally owned by Nimbus Cousin. Cousin–for some reason unknown to the Nimbus bartender I spoke to on the phone–opted for a simian theme for the brewery.

When James Counts took over the brewery in 2000, he decided to keep the monkey around–now part of the brewery logo, with the key phrase, “It’s a natural selection.” A monkey is also on most of the labels, often placed in quasi-religious artwork context.

An exception is the one lager made by the company, the Nimbus A-1. It is a re-creation of an old Phoenix beer from the Arizona Brewing Company, with an attendant old timey label. I liked the label more than the beer.

But the Nimbus Pale Ale turned out to be a keeper. It’s amber, a bit cloudy, with a decent but hardly overpowering hop aroma, more evident as the beer warms a bit. (Unfortunately, they seem to be big on frozen glassware in Arizona.) The flavor is tilted toward sweet rather than hoppy, with not a lot of middle to the profile. But with four additions of Cascade, Chinook and Columbus hops, the finish is bracingly bitter.

Name: Nimbus Pale Ale
Brewer: Nimbus Brewing Company, Tucson, Arizona
Style: Pale Ale
ABV: 5.5%
Availability: Arizona
For More Information: www.nimbusbeer.com

But considering the trepidation I had this morning about my back, I was all in for the post-round Golf Yoga session at the Movement Studio in the Spa at Four Seasons Resort Scottsdale at Troon North. Though five of us were signed up to attend, only Jeff Wallach and I summoned the courage to go to the mats.

Well, our videographer colleague Jamie McWilliams was there, but he was merely skulking about trying to take shots of Jeff and me in distress, as at right. (Guess I was taking a break, though, since I took the photo.)

But we were in good hands. Dodie Mazzuca is not only a certified yoga instructor, but a former LPGA Tour player. Clearly in great shape herself, she works out of the Four Seasons and her own GolfPROformance enterprise to take players through a threefold approach–body awareness, technical skills, and a mental state of peak performance.

This being the Four Seasons, yoga is but one item on a vast menu of fitness options for visitors–golfers, tennis players, joggers or otherwise, including mat Pilates, spinning or zumba classes.

In our abbreviated session we stuck with classic yoga poses as Dodie explained how they could apply to our games, while making sure I avoided those that might strain my back.

We weren’t unfamiliar–both Jeff and I have done yoga before, in my case in specific yoga for golfers classes that culminate in an annual Be the Ball tournament back at the Brattleboro Country Club in Vermont.

It eventually occurred to me–after a check of the records–that Dodie and I had probably crossed paths once before, clearly unknowingly, back in Vermont in 1999. Dodie was in her third year of the FUTURES tour then, and she played at the SmartSpikes FUTURES Classic at the Green Mountain National Golf Course in Killington.

I played in the pro-am event for the tournament. No time machine available, alas, to see if I spilled a beer on her at lunch, whether we spoke or even came within fifty yards of one another. But I do know she finished in a four-way tie for 15th that year, taking away a whopping $798 for the accomplishment.

She was back in 2000, her best on the FUTURES tour, winning the Capital Region FUTURES Classic in Guilderland, New York, making 18 out of 18 cuts, reaching third on the money list and gaining exempt status for the LPGA, where she played in 2001 and 2002.

She eventually headed west and did well on mini tours before turning more toward yoga and teaching.

After putting Jeff and I through our paces, we decided she would be the ideal player to fill in some of the empty tee slots we had for later in the week. Her dance card had some openings, so it’s probably a date.

More on the day’s round in the preceding post, “Meet and Beat” here.

More on yoga and golf as practiced in Vermont, “The Yoga Oasis” here.

Jerry Rose, a vice president at the Communication Links public relations firm, picked us up. The last time I saw Jerry was atop a barstool at a Yard House near Miami, so this wasn’t hard service for him.

He took us to the Four Peaks Brewery in Tempe, which I had heard was a favorite hangout for Arizona State University students, but the immediate world actually seemed to be here; it was a Monday night, and the place was packed inside and out. (And since Four Peaks can serve roughly 350 at capacity, my guess is that about 349 people were there.)

The brewery has been in existence since 1996, housed in a brick building dating from 1892, home of the Pacific Creamery, the first functioning dairy on the west coast, according to manager Matt McCormack. There’s a second location in North Scottsdale. McCormack also quickly delivered the bad news: the brewpub had plowed through 51 kegs of its popular Pumpkin Porter seasonal by Thanksgiving, and there was no more to be had, nowhere, no how.

Well, revise, adapt and improvise. We made do with a sampler tray, and we pretty much went through this entire list:

Matt McCormack

The Kilt Lifter is the flagship beer, a Scottish-style ale, though thanks to reverse osmosis tanks and clever water chemistry, Four Peaks mimics foreign styles pretty well. They also cultivate their own yeast cultures, and the big news, according to McCormack, was that a lease had been recently signed for a 16,000 square foot new production facility in Tempe.

Doing three brews daily six days a week in its 40-barrel brewhouse (all boldly on display in the brewpub), isn’t quite enough for Four Peaks to expand distribution beyond its 300 accounts in Arizona. But the new 60-barrel brewhouse will enable it to brew, bottle and can even more fine suds (over the current 10,000 barrels annually).

Kilt Lifter was suitably malty, with a bare hint of smokiness, and perhaps even less hop character as befits the style, coming in at 6.0% ABV. It’s a solid beer, and the wink and a nod name undoubtedly adds to its popularity. “My marketing guy tells me it’s the number one selling craft beer in Arizona,” said McCormack.

When we finally arrived at the Four Seasons Resorts Scottsdale I had another bottle to wrap up the night. But I can’t say it was my favorite beer of the evening. I was taken by the bold attempt to brew two different IPAs, the Raj and the Hop Knot.

The Raj is an attempt at an English-style IPA, though at a hefty 6.9% ABV, with Magnum, Fuggles and Golding hops, while the Hop Knot is the New World version, an American-style IPA at 6.7% with Cascade, Glacier, Magnum, Liberty and Simcoe hops. The latter is a hop bomb, and it suited me quite well.

Name: Kilt Lifter
Brewer: Four Peaks Grill and Tap, Tempe, Arizona
Style: Scottish Ale
ABV: 6.0%
Availability: Year round in Arizona
For More Information: www.fourpeaks.com

Kolbee Feese at the taps at Four Peaks

I’m like the absent-minded professor who buttered his dog and patted his pancakes. I’m sure I’ve lost days of my life in search for lost keys, missing wallets, vanished cell phones–all of which usually turn up, if in some unlikely outreach of the house: atop a bookshelf, out on a deck railing, in an upstairs bathroom, under a pile of newspapers.

Since nothing concentrates the mind like a trip to the gallows, deadlines are useful in keeping me on target. Fear in general works well.

So does order, which is why my wife long ago tacked up a key rack, so I’ll always know where my keys are. (If I remember to hang them there, that is.)

It’s also the reason Lynn rightly says, “You don’t like change.” It’s not true about everything; there are plenty of things I’d like to see changed in the running of the country. I always say I’m liberal in politics, conservative in baseball.

But when it comes to routines–how I do things or where things are, it’s true, because order helps. Hence I’ve become rather fastidious about packing and moving through airports. I’ve had some close calls–almost forgetting to pick up my car keys after going through screening, or the time I had to dash back from a gate to a distant bathroom, where I was lucky to find my datebook and passport folder still resting atop a toilet paper holder.

All by way of saying when two new suitcases arrived from Travelpro, I could see the applecart was about to go flying.

When last packing, in my first Long Haul post, I speculated that the sturdy Travelpro T-Pro Bold 30” Drop Bottom Rolling Duffel was perhaps a bit too large for my typical golf travel situations, if dandy for transporting beer.

Travelpro came to the rescue with a 26” Expandable Rollaboard Suiter, and a Walkabout Lite4 20” Expandable Business Plus Rollaboard, both in black.

I won’t need a suit on the Golf Road Warriors trip–all resort casual–but one could be neatly folded between pressboards in the larger suitcase, which in all other respects seems ideal for my checked luggage piece. I easily packed all my necessary gear for this week’s trip, which will include warm days and cold nights.

The knotty problem came with the carry-on bag. My usual routine is to take along a L.L. Bean knapsack (monogrammed, by the by) that has a padded sleeve for my laptop, and ample zippered pockets to fling all kinds of stuff into. Which is naturally what I did.

But the Business Plus Rollaboard eliminated the need for the knapsack. It also has a neat laptop pocket, one that would clearly make removing the laptop easier at airport security. It also had the boon of getting a heavy knapsack off my back, and the goods onto the ground on wheels.

I don’t like change; nonetheless, I began emptying the knapsack and finding equivalent or better locations for the stuff in the Travelpro bag. About halfway through I realized I’d probably actually need the knapsack on the ground, heading from golf course to golf course. Problem solved: I packed the knapsack in the Travelpro.

I’m writing this in the air, enroute to my Dallas connection to Scottsdale, and all is going well. I may not quite be over the mental hurdle, as I had some uneasy moments this morning driving to the airport. I knew my passport and boarding printouts weren’t in the knapsack, and I had a spasm of panic because I couldn’t visualize where they were.

And my mental rehearsal of going to the ticket counter, taking the knapsack off my back to pull out all the necessary documents and debit card wasn’t going to happen either, I realized; actually, it should be easier.

And, gentle reader, it was.

Fellow Golf Road Warrior Jeff Wallach can attest to a third category I shine in (making me a Triple Crown winner?), Things I’ve Lost or Forgotten on Golf Trips. At the drop of a hat, or pants, he’ll happily tell the story of a time I actually forgot my pants (the official version of which I hope to post soon).

But we’ll tally it all up at the end of the week and see if Travelpro helps dreamers as well as Road Warriors.

The MSRP for the Walkabout Lite4 20” Expandable Business Plus Rollaboard is $300, and the 26” Expandable Rollaboard Suiter, $400. Both retail for about half of that.

I’m hoping to pull off a TAP Beer of the Day throughout the week, because there will be beer. But no promises, because the days will be long and hard and loaded with (mostly golf) activity. I foresee much nodding off at night, while looming over the laptop.

After landing tomorrow I’m heading straight to the Four Peaks Brewing Company in Tempe (there’s a second location in North Scottsdale). Whether they’ll have any of their touted Pumpkin Porter left on tap will be promptly answered, preferably in the affirmative.

I’ll take what comes the rest of the way; a mini-pub crawl is in the works for Wednesday night in Cave Creek and who knows what by Saturday night. Stay tuned.

A similar tip of the golf cap goes out to sportswriters Neil Hayes and Brian Murphy, who collaborated on The Last Putt: Two Teams, One Dream, and a Freshman Named Tiger (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010, $26), about the 1995 NCAA Men’s Golf Championship.

There may be a Sooner who doesn’t know that Oklahoma State won the title that year, besting Stanford in the first playoff in the tournament’s then 98-year history. Although I doubt it. (Oklahoma State prevailed again in the only other playoff, in 2000, over Georgia Tech.)

The authors set up the narrative with the final showdown in sight, and then take a leap back for the long buildup over the season to the final payoff. One would think any sense of momentum would be derailed by constant backing up for more back story–profiles of coaches, the players, even the players’ parents and grandparents. Yet all those back stories are so thoroughly researched, fleshed out with detail and compellingly alive, that one just keeps marching through the pages.

One does tend to glaze over the endless list of tournaments and individual scores that fly by, but secure in the knowledge that Hayes and Murphy will soon be serving up more intriguing anecdotes.

And what a cast of characters and contrasts!–the intense, critical yet always supportive coach Mike Holder of Oklahoma State (shepherding such players as Alan Bratton, Chris Tidland, Trip Kuehne and Kris Cox), versus the laid-back and easy-going Wally Goodwin of Stanford, defending its 1994 title.

Stanford’s formidable 1995 squad included seniors Notah Begay and Casey Martin, as well as that already famous freshman named Tiger Woods. Considering all that has befallen Woods since, for good and ill, the book certainly looks back to a more innocent time in his life, although he was one of the few participants who did not cooperate in the authors’ exhaustive research.

No matter, the authors nonetheless make a strong and riveting case for what they call “the greatest NCAA Championship in the history of the sport,” one that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.

***

I’ve drawn up a rap sheet against Zachary Michael Jack’s Let There Be Pebble: A Middle-Handicapper’s Year in America’s Garden of Golf (University of Nebraska Press, 2011, $24.95), beginning with the fact that he spent a year living near Pebble Beach and I didn’t.

It was an inspired idea, no question, Jack’s year in Carmel-by-the-Sea, covering a variety of tournaments leading up to the 2010 U.S. Open, turning into an investigation of what makes playing Pebble Beach the nearly mystical experience that many believe it to be.

When not on deep research sabbaticals Jack teaches literary sports writing and seminars in sports sciences at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois, but I would have handed this one back to him heavily marked. His attempt to commit art here is frequently strained, repetitive and too long, although he unaccountably refers to only one round of his own play at Pebble.

The publisher’s proofreaders and fact checkers were complicitous, too; there are a raft of typos and careless errors–Stuart Cink instead of Stewart, Pat Moriatory instead of Morita, Jean Harlot instead of Harlow, although perhaps this one is more understandable.

Still, these are mostly misdemeanors, irritants, in what is otherwise a fairly rollicking account of Jack’s time in the sun, which brings him cheek-by-jowl with a parade of pros enraptured by the course (including Tom Watson, Johnny Miller and Notah Begay), with actor Bill Murray, with Golf in the Kingdom author Michael Murphy, with billionaire Charles Schwab and former Carmel mayor Clint Eastwood.

Jack’s woeful love life is an appealing background running joke, while his relationship (golfing and otherwise) with his ailing father injects a poignant note into this mid-life crisis odyssey to what Robert Louis Stevenson termed, “the most felicitous meeting of land and sea in creation.”

***

The University of Nebraska Press proofreaders were apparently more alert in going over Bill Kilpatrick’s Brassies, Mashies, & Bootleg Scotch (2011, $16.95), perhaps because the manuscript was smaller, its 164 pages feeling lightweight next to Pebble’s 331.

Yet compared to Jack’s fervid prose, the pace is languid in this genial memoir by a former general features writer, columnist and golf writer for the Fort Myers News-Press in Florida.

Kilpatrick’s father, Bill Sr., was a native Scotsman reared in St. Andrews who turned to greenkeeping and made his way to the United States in 1908 to practice the trade at private New York clubs.

So the young Kilpatrick passed his youth at the Sunningdale Country Club in Scarsdale, the Maidstone Club in East Hampton, and particularly at the National Golf Links of America in Southampton up to World War II, hence the book’s subtitle, “Growing Up on America’s First Heroic Golf Course.”

The book should certainly appeal to fans of Charles Blair Macdonald’s 1911 masterwork, and I count myself among them. I’ve played National but once, yet it remains firmly ensconced in my top five all-time favorites. (Naturally, I was playing well that day.)

There’s not really a firm narrative drive at work here as much as an amiably anecdotal approach in describing the members Kilpatrick sometimes caddied for, workers he occasionally assisted, pros and chums that passed through his boyhood days.

I grew up right next to a golf course, and was more than once chased off the grounds by the superintendent and his dog who, unfounded rumor had it (probably started by the super), liked to bite children.

But I also saw some of the vanishing old methods, lovingly documented here, once used to care for golf course turf. This included the lugging of fire engine-sized hoses to power the fairway sprinklers, an endeavor that turns Kilpatrick into the lyric bard of greenkeeping:

“The sprinklers covered a circle as much as a hundred yards in diameter. Their spray majestic, launched into the air at a high angle and spewing out in a graceful arc, they were all power, and under a bright full moon the spray seemed almost ethereal.”

Speak, memory!

This piece first appeared, in slightly different form, in the October-November 2011 issue of Golf Oklahoma.

Now virtually every brewery in the land, and worldwide for that matter, puts out some kind of holiday ale or winter warmer, usually a strong or spiced or in some way out of the ordinary brew. I went on about this in a piece last year, noting a few others as well as Anchor’s.

But back in 1975 when Anchor brewed its first Our Special Ale, there was virtually nothing similar on the landscape. Fritz Maytag and his crew look positively visionary in retrospect.

Anchor continued the custom annually, supposedly varying the recipe each year, though keeping the brewing details close to the vest. One early version became part of the regular portfolio, however, as Liberty Ale (day-to-day one of my favorite beers).

The company definitely varied the label from year to year with some kind of tree–either stylized or actual. For the arborists in the audience, this year’s specimen is the Bristlecone Pine, and that’s Pinus longaeva for the sophomores in the crowd.

The company produced a nice little video about the whole magilla this year, so why not trot it right out?:

The beer is in its 37th iteration, and I can’t say that I’ve had them all. I barely knew Anchor existed in 1975. But I’ve had most at least since 1988, the first Our Special Ale bottle in my collection.

The beer is always a welcome sight when it appears in stores each November, and not buying at least a six-pack is virtually unthinkable.

Though the brewers won’t say what’s in it, I’ve suspected some kind of spruce adjunct for quite awhile now, or maybe even spruce tips. In any case, the ale is a spicy concoction with clove and nutmeg notes, and its piney aroma in a complex weave of hops, spice and malt all streaming out of the glass.

The beer is nearly opaque, with mahogany hues when held to the light. The flavor delivers all that the bouquet promises–sweet, tangy, full, well-bittered.

The spruce character seems somewhat less aggressive to me than in years’ past, which I think is a good thing. The beer has tended to taste as though it’s straight from the forest, maybe a stand of Bristlecone Pine. It still tends to summon the image of a Christmas tree. And, since ‘tis the season, all is well.

Name: Our Special Ale 2011
Brewer: Anchor Brewing Co., San Francisco
Style: Spice/Herb/Specialty Beer
ABV: 5.5%
Availability: Nov-Feb, nationwide
For More Information: www.anchorbrewing.com

Johnny Bench

Here at The A Position we’re given a topic to address (or not) each month for The A List feature, in a neat 150 words or so. The November challenge was to offer our assistance to Presidents Cup captains Fred Couples and Greg Norman in naming celebrity co-captains that might really get the boys going this week in Melbourne. We even enlisted the guest services of baseball Hall-of-Famer Johnny Bench in taking a swing at the question.

Click here to see whom Johnny and my colleagues put forward–not all of them actually living, mind you. My contribution follows, and naturally I’d be willing to tee it up with my picks anytime, anywhere.

***

I’d go with Cate Blanchett for the Internationals and Cameron Diaz for the U.S. squad. And it’s even possible (if not entirely probable) to look beyond the usual sexist reasons, though there’s no denying that both are babes.

Blanchett is an Aussie, which will lend her beaming smile home-court wattage in Melbourne. And it’s not like she’s never had a club in her hand: In her role as Katherine Hepburn in “The Aviator,” Blanchett did her actorly training for a golf scene with Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes, not that we ever quite detect her swinging the club:

As for Diaz, she’s been quoted as saying that golf is more addictive than crack cocaine. True, not a slogan Fred will want to sew onto the team blazers, yet indicative of her magnetic zeal. But should boyfriend A-Rod (shown with her, left) join her down under, Fred should keep him away from the practice range: Last big swing A-Rod took was a whiff.

Cameron Diaz and A-Rod at home on the range

Bonus question (for which I have no answer): Anyone recognize the course/resort the beautiful couple is practicing at?

Nice of Stone to release their Veterans’ Day Vertical Epic Ale 11.11.11 a few days earlier than the label date. That meant I actually found a few bottles on the Brattleboro Food Co-op shelves today. And since I’m a vet, my path seemed clear.

It also seemed apt that the chilies in the beer–yes, chiles–came from the Hatch Valley in New Mexico, since I was mainly stationed in New Mexico back in my army days. (I was an MP, but you’ll have to get me pretty liquored up before I start dishing army stories.)

Dr. Fabian Garcia

Let’s talk about Dr. Fabian Garcia instead. A member of the first graduating class in 1894 of the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts (later to become NMSU), Garcia eventually returned to serve as a professor of horticulture for more than 40 years.

And it was his work in breeding cultivars that led to the New Mexico No. 9 chile in 1913–also known as the Anaheim or long green–and the main deal in Hatch, where the annual Hatch Valley Chile Festival is held in early September.

As I said in my review of the 09.09.09 beer on 10.10.10, the brewery’s Vertical Epic series began on 02.02.02, continuing on 03.03.03, 04.04.04 and so on, the next brew always appearing a year, a month and a day after its predecessor. Though all are strong beers made with Belgian ale yeasts, each recipe is different (in more ways than one), and so the notion of an actual vertical tasting of the eleven ultimate releases is a bit of a misnomer.

No matter–should be a lot of fun on 12.12.12 anyway, when those who have managed to annually horde bottles begin sharing their stashes.

For the record, I have a bottle each of the 09-11 releases. So far. I was quite fond of the 09.09.09 Imperial Belgian Porter, less enamored of the 10.10.10, which added wine grapes and chamomile to the mix.

I’d say Stone has nailed it again. The 11.11.11 is a reddish amber ale with all sorts of intriguing and appealing aromatics swirling together–banana esters from the Flanders Golden ale yeast, touches of clove, cedar, cinnamon, and a suggestion of chile peeking through.

This is all apparent in the flavor as well, though the chile rises immediately to the foreground. Not in flamethrower fashion–the chiles used are mild green Anaheim chilies, and they add more zest than real heat, although it’s there, and lingers through the finish. The light addition of cinnamon is at play as well.

At a hefty 9.4% ABV, the beer has plenty of sweet malt character at work as well, and the interplay of all the varied elements add up to a complex, compelling, and quite delicious beer.

I’m thinking I may have to go buy a few more, so I was happy to see the bomber bottle coming in at well under $10. (All the $15 to $25 bottles of beer I’ve been running across lately are becoming vexing.)

Bring me the chiles of Fabian Garcia!

Name: 11.11.11 Vertical Epic Ale
Brewer: Stone Brewing Co., San Diego, California
Style: Belgian spiced ale
ABV: 9.4%
Availability: Nationwide, but usually doesn’t last long.
For More Information: stonebrew.com

All this because ‘tis the season for pumpkin ales, which I suspect are now outselling Oktoberfest beers as far as fall seasonals go. I was going to bypass them this year but as I was just on a whirlwind trip to Cape Breton, where the fall colors were still vibrant, it’s only a week from Halloween and a Propeller Pumpkin Ale came to hand–so be it.

This isn’t my first acquaintance with the Propeller Brewing Company, as my book group buddy, Mary Lou Treat, brought me a six-pack of the Propeller IPA after her last visit to her Nova Scotia summer home.

And it was a treat. The less assertive hop character might have put this more in line with an English IPA than a west coast U.S. IPA, but it does come on strong at 6.5% ABV. And in any case, there are plenty of hops to keep all but the most rabid satisfied.

Our ride to Cape Breton

So I thought I was lucky then. But then the offer came to visit Nova Scotia, specifically Cape Breton, and visit it in style, aboard a privately chartered eight-seater Citation Sovereign jet. The point of the trip wasn’t to drink Propeller Pumpkin Ale–except as a further incidental exhibit of Nova Scotian talents. The point was to visit and play at the new Cabot Links golf course in Inverness, as well as a classic Cape Breton course, Highland Links.

And this we did–we being a group of eight golf travel writers, editors and publishers–taking off from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey and landing in Port Hawkesbury, where we boarded a comfortable bus well-equipped with beers from Nova Scotian micros (Propeller and Garrison) as well home-baked cookies and scones courtesy of Katherine MacDonald’s mom. (Katherine is the director of marketing for Golf Cape Breton.)

The golf I’ll go into in greater detail in another venue. But briefly, there’s going to be plenty to celebrate in terms of golf up this way, both in the full scale opening of Cabot Links in early July, and in the continuing work at Highland Links, not to mention the other four courses that make up the Golf Cape Breton association.

Highland Links

Highland Links was our first stop, a more than 70-year-old Stanley Thompson design that makes full use of the bold contours and backdrops of its locale within the Cape Breton Highlands National Park. The course has been tinkered with over the years but is in the throes of a restoration.

David Baum, publisher of Golf Odyssey and Golf Vacation Insider, in the throes of the lobster feed

Playing partner Vic Williams and I tried an Alexander Keith’s IPA out on the course. It had no bold contours; it was like any pale lagerish Canadian ale, with no hop character to speak of at all.

We had better luck that evening at the Castle Rock Inn in Ingonish Ferry where we stayed, and where we had a traditional Cape Breton lobster feed, which involves tossing lobsters onto a table covered in newspapers, the heck with the plates, and then digging in atavistically.

We had a choice to wash down the lobster (and a killer chowder) with Keith’s Red Amber Ale, a Clancy’s Amber Ale (from Moosehead), and a Rickard’s Dark (made by Molson). As a passable porter the Rickard’s was actually the most interesting of the bunch, save for the Propeller.

Okay, so, John Patch did not invent the Archimedes Screw. (Nor did Mrs. Archimedes.) The term is a colloquialism for a marine screw propeller, as Archimedes used a rotating screw as a mention of lifting water for irrigation. The principle was turned toward shipping in the early 1800’s, and one of the first demonstrations came in 1833 with an invention by Patch, a Yarmouth sea captain.

John Patch

But the SS Archimedes launched as the first steam-driven screw propeller vessel (with a design by Francis Pettit Smith) in England in 1835, and any credit Patch was due was already evaporating. He was never able to patent his design, and he eventually died in poverty in Yarmouth.

John Allen ran across the Patch history when seeking a name for the microbrewery he was starting. Since Allen was a props man himself in the TV and film industry, it all seemed to fit, and the Propeller Brewing Company took off in Halifax in 1997.

PBC has a few seasonals and seven year-round beers. “We’re big on keeping it classic and represent the beers to style the best way we can,” said sales and marketing director Andrew Cooper.

The Pumpkin Ale first appeared 2004. “It was a logical fall seasonal,” said Cooper. “It’s become legendary in Halifax. We do send some across Canada, but it flies off the shelves as fast as it can be stocked. It’s a good representation of the style, but quite accessible, not too over the top.”

It’s an apt assessment–though there are the usual pumpkin pie spices at play, the beer is skewed more toward ale than dessert, with a nice hop finish.

Maybe the pumpkins have something to do with it. The brewery uses the world’s largest pumpkin variety, Dill’s Atlantic Giant.

Seems the late Howard Dill, a farmer from Windsor, Nova Scotia, was obsessed with growing giant pumpkins, to the point of endless experimentation with genetic crossbreeding. He was successful beyond words, and was able to trademark his seed varieties–which have spawned giant pumpkin competitions worldwide ever since.

For the record, the current record is a 1818.5 pound behemoth grown by Jim and Kelsey Bryson of Ormstown, Quebec. Or rather, was, since the pumpkin was then shipped off to the New York Botanical Gardens where master pumpkin carver Ray Villafane turned it into a aptly gruesome part of this year’s Haunted Pumpkin Garden. Here’s a video of Ray at work on the Bryson’s great pumpkin:

The Dill farm and Howard Dill Enterprises, now run by his son and daughter, is a major tourist stop in Nova Scotia. The Propeller Brewing Company is good for tours, too, and heading there is not a bad idea, since the beers are not available in the U.S. unless a friend transports some south.

Once in Halifax, it’s only about a three and a half hour drive to Cape Breton. And now that Cabot Links is built and set to officially open July 1, people will come.

They’re coming already, of course–Cape Breton was named the Best Island Destination in the continental U.S. and Canada in a 2011 Travel & Leisure poll, and it wasn’t hard to see why as we roamed over the Cabot Trail on our way to the golf course. The 298 kilometer (185 mile) roadway loops over the northern tip of the island, and the consistently scenic splendor backs up the current marketing slogans, “There’s no wrong turn,” or “Where the mountains meet the sea.”

Cabot Links is in Inverness, and the course wends from the town to the sea in classic links golf style. Ten holes opened for play this July, and we were privileged to be the first journalists to sample the full 18, if with still fairly shaggy greens on the newer holes. So tireless tweeter Stephanie Wei was fully justified in claiming the women’s course record when she shot a 79 on our second day of play on this coastal joy.

The course is designed by Ron Whitman, surely his masterwork to date. Whitman was involved pretty much from the beginning with managing partner Ben Cowan-Dewar–who eventually enticed Mike Keiser into becoming involved. When Keiser brought his Bandon Dunes playbook along, success was virtually assured, although it’s been a long road since Cowan-Dewer and Whitman first walked the land in 2005 and began acquiring 13 separate land parcels.

Cabot Links ninth hole

Like the courses at Bandon, Cabot Links will be walking only, but a mesmerizing stroll it is. It broke my heart to drop out of the second round due a back condition which has been bedeviling me for a few months, but it was pleasure enough just to be on the grounds, so attractive is the pull of sea and links land here. And heading back to the airport for our flight home a reprise of the Propeller Pumpkin Ale was succor at least.

Meat darts? About what it sounds like, according to Katherine. For a $5 or $10 entry fee at the legion hall or local bar on meat dart nights, players can compete for prizes that range from lowly bologna to more desirable moose steaks or loin of veal.

You can’t do everything in 48 hours, so no one took home any meaty prizes. But having seen Cabot Links once, there’s little choice in wanting to return as soon as possible. Next time, meat darts and more Propeller beer for sure.

Name: Propeller Pumpkin Ale
Brewer: Propeller Brewing Co. (John Allen Brewing Company Ltd.)
Style: Pumpkin Ale
ABV: 5%
Availability: You might find some through October, mainly in Nova Scotia.
For More Information: www.drinkpropeller.ca

Cabot Links

Tom Doak

Here at The A Position we’re given a topic to address (or not) each month for The A List feature, in a neat 150 words or so. The October challenge was inspired by Halloween, and we were asked to come up with treats or tricks–things we’re enamored with in our relationship with the game, or the mean-spirited opposite. We asked golf architect Tom Doak to chime in, and he offered a little of each.

Click here to see what Tom Doak and my colleagues put into the sack–or if they pulled out the can of shaving cream and let fly.

My contribution follows, if more about golf travel than the play itself.

***

What’s better than a massage? I’m like the Will Rogers of massages: Having been through a worldwide menu of spa treatments, I’ve never met one I didn’t like.

A treatment room at the Sense Spa at CordeValle

I should start ranking them like golf courses. For me the Pine Valley of massages was one I had a few years back at the CordeValle Resort in California—before it starting raining hot dogs on Tiger Woods out on the Robert Trent Jones Jr. golf course. It’s still on the Sense Spa menu, the two-hour Rain Room Rejuvenation.

What was essentially a steam bath followed by a horizontal shower—as close as one can come to being in a human car wash—was followed by an exfoliating scrub and deep-tissue massage. I’m not sure if it was more rejuvenating or stupefying, but I’m still looking for the treatment to top it.

[See a longer post about the CordeValle Resort here.]

What’s this heresy? I could go on and on why I think football is less of a healthy pastime in this country and more of a disease, but why bother? I know I’m in the minority, so I’ll just try to keep my head when all about me are losing theirs, painting them two colors, or stuffing them in over-sized foam hats.

But basically, I can’t see what all the excitement is about, unless it’s the betting. (That I can understand.) The games themselves are dreadful time-sucking bores on television. They speak to American excess however, in that the games are overly wrapped in wasteful packaging, with precious little meat on the bone.

To speak of the games being boring may sound strange from someone who would far rather watch baseball or golf. Football adrenaline junkies no doubt find these sports somnambulistic.

But baseball and golf are more individualized thinking man’s (or woman’s) games. Yes, baseball is a team sport, but when a batter is at the plate it’s one against nine. To win a golf tournament a player has to overcome a virtual horde.

Football, despite all the playbooks and specialists and endless X and O diagrams, is still basically about getting clobbered. It’s a militaristic advance and retreat that can’t help but appeal to the aggressive natures in players and spectators.  Good old George Carlin always had it right, when he said football was about “advancing deep into enemy territory,” while baseball is about, “going home.”

But then I said I wasn’t going to say anything. So I should move onto the beer. But even that bothers me in a football context, since many viewing party-goers or tailgaters drink too much beer, and too much lousy beer, and none of it works out well in the end.

If it weren’t for the boorish behavior, I could get behind tailgating, though, since it has potential for good communal fun, with grilled meats.

The San Diego-based TailGate Beer company launched its Blacktop Blonde in January, and followed up with its Hefeweizen about the time the football season kicked off. The name bespeaks the market the company has in mind, with a goal to bridge the gap between canned craft beers and canned mainstream beers.

Other than the obvious difference that both TailGate beers are ales, and not mass market bellywash lagers, neither is pushing any brewing envelope. That may be astute marketing, since pounding mainstream drinkers with a heavily hopped beer might not work out well. (The tide does seem to be turning in the direction of more flavorful beers even among the masses, but it’s still a big ocean.)

The Blacktop Blonde, said to be named with the help of Jay DiEugenio (otherwise known as Jay the Tailgate Guy), does have some Magnum and Cascade hops in the mix to lend a lightly spicy character. But this is an easy-drinking light ale. It’s a bit hazy in the glass–and yes, drinkers are encouraged to pour canned as well as bottled beers into a glass. There’s a distinct aroma of pineapple and a bit of pineapple tang in the flavor as well.

The Hefeweizen, too, has a bit of a canned pineapple juice aroma, along with a touch of sulphur, perhaps the barest hint of a clove character. But this slightly hazy golden brew seems to be in a limbo unlikely to appeal to too many tailgaters or craft brew fans. It reminds me of the old Rodney Dangerfield (not Carlin) joke: “I said to my wife, ‘Honey, was that good for you?’ and she said, ‘I don’t think that was good for anyone.’”

The TailGate beers, like the canned beers from San Francisco’s 21st Amendment Brewery, are contract-brewed in Minnesota at the Cold Spring Brewery. As mentioned in this post, Cold Spring is perhaps best known for having produced the infamous Billy Beer, back in the day.

If he were still alive and drinking it might be interesting to know what Billy Carter would favor these days. He might venture a spin on the blacktop, or even be downing some Georgia micros. The odds are he’d still be out in the mainstream mid-ocean, but at least unlikely to paint his face blue and gold.

Name: Blacktop Blonde and Hefeweizen
Brewer: TailGate Beer, San Diego, California
Style: Blonde ale and Hefeweizen
ABV: 5.0% and 4.9%
Availability: Year-round, four states: CA, MN, ND, PA.
For More Information: www. tailgatebeer.com

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

Click here to see what golf shibboleths Duffy and my colleagues decided needed toppling. My contribution follows, with the only further thought that I wouldn’t mind teeing it up with Duffy, either.

***

“Hi, Tom, it’s Mark Steinberg. I have a slot open for you to play a round with Tiger Woods and wonder if you can make it?”

Okay, Tiger’s agent isn’t going to be calling me any time soon, but you know what, Steiny? The answer is no thanks, anyway, because I’m certain there’d be precious little in the way of authentic invitation behind such an offer, yet a storehouse of calculation.

I’ve played with Ernie Els, David Duval, Loren Roberts, Matt Gogel, 2005 U.S. Women’s Open champion Birdie Kim and other pros. And, in what remains my greatest thrill in golf, I lucked into a full 18 at Bay Hill with Arnold Palmer, and tipped beers with him in the locker room, too. So I’ve had my share of rubbing shoulders.

But do I want to play with the greatest golfer of them all? Sure, if Nicklaus calls, I’m ready.

[Click here to see a review of "The Swinger" and here for a piece about Tiger during the scandal.]

Well, they’re juicy, for one thing. But in the hands of Sports Illustrated writers Michael Bamberger and Alan Shipnuck, they become suspenseful, comic and poignant by turns.

The Swinger (Simon & Schuster, 2011, $25) it should be noted, is neither an instructional book nor one you’ll want to let the kids get their hands on. The co-authors have not left the X-rated stuff out of this roman á clef, and readers will be forgiven for trying to figure out how many of the shenanigans depicted actually occurred. Isn’t that the appeal of the genre?

[Click here for a piece about Tiger during the scandal and here for a piece about playing with Tiger.]

The French literary term roman á clef literally means novel with a key. Though actual names and events are altered, if you figure out the key, you presumably unlock the passageway between fiction and truth.

With The Swinger a reader doesn’t really need the key; the door pretty much swings wide open: Tree Tremont is Tiger Woods, Will Martinsen is Phil Mickelson, Belinda DeCarlo is Elin Nordegren, Andrew Finkelman of the IGM agency is Mark Steinberg, formerly of the IMG agency–and so on and so on.

Sure, Belinda is Italian, not Swedish. The yacht is called Off Course instead of Privacy. Tree’s mother is from Chicago, not Thailand. But when Tree utters such press conferences Tigerisms as, “Family is everything to me,” or, “Welcome to my world,” we know what world we’re in.

I confess that I wasn’t really expecting much from The Swinger. Most books in the roman á clef genre tend to be fairly trashy, with Harold Robbins’ The Carpetbaggers (said to be based on Howard Hughes and Jean Harlow) as one dubiously classic example. Alternately, one could point to Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men as an example that ascends to literature (his Willie Stark modeled after Huey Long).

Shipnuck and Bamberger aren’t aiming that high, and there’s plenty of trashy behavior in the book, but they have good story-telling instincts, and they’ve invested the character of Tree with enough complexity and the events with enough public complicity that the story rises above mere ripped-from-the-headlines retelling.

Warren used Jack Burden, a political reporter hired by Willie Stark and working through his own troubles, as the insider narrator. The Swinger supplies Josh Dutra, a sports reporter with an ex-wife and mounting debts, newly hired by the Tree Corp to help contain certain cracks beginning to appear in Tree’s carefully constructed public persona.

The story is basically told in three acts–before the fall, after the sexual allegations hit the proverbial fan (all told with mounting anticness), and then Tree’s month-long stint in a recovery facility–before gliding to a close.

Dutra, who had written about Tremont early in his career, characterizes him thusly:

[His] parents…hadn’t worked in years. Tree was their job. He was an only child, homeschooled by his mother and coached exclusively and secretly by his father until Tree entered, at age nineteen, the first tournament of his life, a U.S. Open where he finished ninth. Since then he had become not just the most dominant golfer of all time but also the richest, most powerful, and most popular athlete in the world. He was modest and handsome with perfect Hollywood teeth and the family to go with them: the beautiful wife, the adorable twins. Everybody wanted a piece of the action, and before long Tree Tremont became the first celebrity ever to have endorsement deals with Coke and Pepsi.

Dutra knows that Tree is a consummate actor, and that his squeaky clean image is just that, that the façade conceals a highly profane individual, prone to cheapness, probably drug dependent, and increasingly inattentive to details that suggest he is indeed “stepping out.”

But even as Dutra slides deeper into covering up Tremont’s, well, mounting indiscretions, he can’t rid himself of his ambivalence because of the man’s undeniable charm, his unworldly skills on a golf course, and his depth of knowledge about the game’s history–golf being, besides his children, Tremont’s purest abiding love.

Once the sexual revelations begin to hit the internet, the tabloids, the talk shows–and once Belinda hits Tree with a fireplace poker (instead of a five iron), leaving him with the face that launches a thousand quips–the story loses a little narrative steam in having to cover the sexting transcriptions, legal wranglings, allegations of homosexuality and steroid use.

Alan Shipnuck (Photo by Meredith Evans)

Michael Bamberger (Photo by Erick W. Rasco)

But the third act takes place at the Walden Pond Wellness Center in Mississippi, and includes perhaps the funniest set piece in the whole book, as Tree literally counts up and describes for Belinda each of his sexual encounters. Not to give too much away, but there are quite a few.

And it’s here where the authors, after serving up two hundred pages of reprehensible behavior on Tremont’s part, somehow manage to make him seem sympathetic, in many ways a victim himself, of his own and others’ unrealistic expectations for him, and possibly, possibly, now trying to make things right.

The Tiger Woods story is still unfolding in unpredictable ways–his firing of his long-time caddy Steve Williams, his lingering injury that has scuttled this season for him while making his pursuit of the Jack Nicklaus majors record increasingly uncertain.

But it’s still not giving too much away to say that The Swinger ends on a sweet and upbeat note, with most of the characters pairing off as neatly as in a Shakespeare comedy, and a new major title in the bag for Tree Tremont.

Tiger Woods should be so lucky.

***

This piece first appeared, in slightly different form, in the August-September 2011 issue of Golf Oklahoma.

G. A. Smith

You never know, but this isn’t my old man, who enjoyed a glass of beer now and again, but was more of a vodka man. This is Tom Green, a comedian in Brighton, England, who appeared in several silent films by G.A. Smith, this one dating from 1897–the earliest days of British cinema.

Indeed, according to an article by Frank Gray on the Who’s Who of Victorian Cinema website, George Albert Smith was lauded late in his life (1864-1959) as “the father of the British Film Industry,” and was made a Fellow of the British Film Academy in 1955.

Such early films were usually limited to about 75 feet of film running through the camera, and hence were rarely titled. This one was alternately called “Comic Face” or “Man Drinking.”  It may be YouTube that also decided Tom Green looked old and slapped that title on it.  Certainly, Tom is no poster child for Drinking Responsibly, getting pretty silly in the space of four sips and forty seconds.

The clip comes from the British Film Institute archives, which can be  accessed at its own YouTube channel.

The big question remains–what beer is Tom Green drinking? I can’t make out the label, but it’s a pretty dark beer that would have been available in a bottle in Brighton in 1897. Let the nominations begin.

Jefferson Davis in Scotland, 1869

In the summer of 1869, Jefferson Davis, former President of the Confederate States of America, went to St. Andrews in Scotland. He did not have a tee time.

Davis was not in the best frame of mind when he went to Scotland. He was not long removed from a two-year imprisonment following his capture at the close of the Civil War. And while he was relieved to hear of the Christmas Day pardon from President Andrew Johnson in 1868, clearing him of the charge of treason, he was still puzzling how to provide for his family and make his way in the world after the war.

As he put it in an 1875 speech, “My first visit to Scotland was when the clouds of adversity had gathered over me, of the darkest hue, and when my heart constantly and sorrowfully turned back to my own distressed country.”

Davis never really referred to the war as the Civil War, of course, since he held that the war was between two sovereign nations, and therefore couldn’t be called a civil war. He always called it The War Between the States, and certainly characterized it as the War of Northern Aggression.

But the visit to Scotland, if it didn’t measurably improve his fortunes, at least gladdened his heart. He was charmed by the countryside, the weather, the people.

St. Andrews Cross (Flag of Scotland)

Confederate flag

A harebell, or Scottish Bluebell

Several times he wrote to his wife, Varina, then in London, enclosing local flowers. One was a harebell from St. Andrews. The flower, he said in his letter, was plucked from the “ground dedicated to the ‘Royal Game of Golf.’”

Davis used the same phraseology in the address he delivered in Memphis six years later–ten years after the close of the war–on St. Andrew’s Day and to the local St. Andrews Society.

In what was a general encomium to the country, he singled out the home of golf: “In this town of St. Andrews, though the ruins of the ancient Abbey alone remain, one of the ancient sports is still preserved–the royal game of golf. That is the place where golf is played above all others. There they not only play golf in fair weather, but they play it when the mist is falling, so that it is said it won’t wet a Scotsman, but it will wet an Englishman to the bone. (Laughter.) And when the weather is so very bad that they cannot go afield, the ardent lovers of the game study topographical maps in their houses, on which is delineated the bunkers, the gorse, and all the accidents of the ground which may affect the success of the player. The characteristic, it may be said, of the Scotch people is activity and earnestness. When they go to sport they go at it with zest, when they go upon an excursion they leave all business behind, and themselves to enjoyment; but when they come back to work their labour is as intense as their sport had been joyous….”

The Old and New courses, St. Andrews

Davis went on long enough that the talk was printed up in a small booklet by the Glasgow publisher Anderson & Mackay in 1876. A local reporter presumably put in the editorial asides, including the reaction to the stem-winding finish: “The speaker took his seat amid thunders of applause, [which] continued for several minutes.”

Davis died in 1889 at the age of 81. He never lost his blind spot regarding the status of blacks in society, nor his conviction that the South had a right to secede in 1861. But he did come to some sense of peace.

As William J. Cooper, Jr. notes in his thorough and readable (if occasionally overzealously detailed) biography, Jefferson Davis, American (Vintage Civil War Library, 2000, $19.95), the former CSA President gave his last public address in 1888 to a gathering of young men in Mississippi City, and he exhorted them to look to the future:

“Let me beseech you to lay aside all rancor, all bitter sectional feelings, and to make your places in the ranks of those who will bring about a consummation devoutly to be wished–a reunited country.”

Varina Davis ultimately moved north, to New York City, where she wrote for the New York World newspaper. Entirely coincidentally, while on a vacation to Cranston’s Hotel on the Hudson River in 1893, she met Julia Dent Grant, the widow of the Union general and U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant.

The two women liked each other. They began a noted friendship, and one that lasted, as they continued to correspond with each other, right into the twentieth century.

A post card of the now defunct Cranton's Hotel (on right) on the Hudson River

Steve assisted Kris Tschetter with her book,  Mr. Hogan, The Man I Knew, which I recently reviewed here. I noted that Hogan may have been one of the first to talk about the notion of a repeatable swing, and there are certainly plenty of repetitions on display here.

I’m not sure what Hogan, Stevie Ray Vaughn or Jimi Hendrix would think of the clip (Vaughn is covering Hendrix’s “Voodoo Child”). I’m not sure what they’d make of YouTube, either. But it is fun to see Hogan actually at work according to his famous phrase, “in the dirt.”

It’s also curious to note that in a few of the frames here of Hogan on the range, he’s puffing on a cigarette, plumes of smoke appearing a few times along with that famous follow-through.  Maybe it was a drill–to see if he actually breathed-in on his takeaway?

I included the Pike XXXXX stout, so I had every intention of downing one (at least) at the brewery. But with a late arrival from the east I remained in the outlier district near Sea-Tac airport my first night in town, venturing no further than Sharp’s RoastHouse, a busy BBQ joint within walking distance.

Sharp’s sported a respectable 26 taps of mostly northwest brews, 23 more than I could handle in one sensible night.

While passing the time with other transients bellied up to the bar I soon acquainted myself agreeably with Fremont Interurban IPA (6.2% ABV, and belonging to that slim genre of beers named after outdoor sculptures), Maritime Pacific’s Nightwatch Dark Ale (listed as 7% ABV on the Sharp’s menu, but 5.5% on the brewery website) and a Flyers Pacemaker Porter (5.5%).

Fremont's Waiting for the Interurban

The latter brewery hews to an aviation theme in naming its beers, which seemed apt as I was talking to two commercial pilots at the time. Phil Spencer of Delta, who lives in Honolulu, was in town for an annual golf jaunt with friends, this year to the Sunriver Resort in Oregon.

I didn’t even bring my sticks on this trip, even though SIP’s editorial director, George Fuller, and I go way back more in terms of golf than spirits. But we restricted our exercise on this trip to elbow-bending, meeting up yesterday to grab lunch at Pike.

We had hoped to run into Charles and/or Rose Ann Finkel, but as they were busily getting ready for an imminent trip to Africa, we had to content ourselves with Naughty Nellie, a 4.7% blonde ale that seemed well-enough behaved to us.

George and I took a lengthy break to tour the Pike Place Market and along with the rest of the tourists watch a fish or two go flying. But in a few hours we were back in the same booth at Pike’s Brewing with SIP writer Jacqueline Pruner and designer Randi Karabin, swapping mostly Pike beers from different samplers. This included the XXXXX Extra Stout, a regular in the portfolio after an on-again off-again history, not unlike that of the Finkels.

Step one, grab fish. Step two, toss.

It’s tough to overestimate the impact of the couple on the contemporary beer scene; they had a major hand in getting it all rolling in the first place, that place being the late 1970’s, through their seminal beer importing company Merchant du Vin, begun in 1978.

I have a bit of that history here. Not only were the Finkels helping to revive nearly lost styles, they were doing much to educate U.S. palates. Eventually, they decided to do it themselves–enter the brewing company in 1989.

Broadly curious and eager to try their hands at new endeavors, the couple sold both companies in 1997. But after wandering in the wilderness for a few years, the old yearning returned, and they reacquired Pike Brewing in 2006. It looks like they’re now here for the duration, as is the XXXXX Extra Stout, which floats above the brewery/restaurant action in a giant inflatable bottle.

The XXXXX is a no-frills stout’s stout, black as night, suffused with roasted malt aromas, chocolate, licorice and coffee flavors. It’s all balanced well with Chinook, Willamette and Goldings hops, for a smooth, chewy and filling pint. Well, it was after I drained the insufficient sample glass and ordered a pint to dive into, as the beer deserves.

Lining 'em up at the SIP Northwest launch (Photo by Nityia Design)

The launch party was held at the Wine World Warehouse, and the emphasis was indeed on wine, varietals served up from Barnard Griffin, Cooper Wine, Swiftwater Cellars, Terra Blanca, Gordon Brothers, sparkling wine from Treveri, cocktails from two different Maker’s Mark blends, chocolate from Forté and other goodies.

Daniel Lee of the Odin Brewing Company

But Daniel Lee of Seattle’s Odin Brewing Company was there as well, saving the day for beer nuts with a Kölsch-style Freya’s Gold (4.5%) and the juniper berry laced Odin’s Gift, a 5.4% ruby ale.

It was a grand event, but we weren’t finished yet, as most of the SIP folks present went off for a late bite to eat at Murphy’s, said to be the first Irish pub in Seattle. Naturally, there was Murphy’s and Guinness on tap. But I went with the cask-conditioned Diamond Knot IPA (6.2%), since I’d already had my stout for the day.

Name: XXXXX Stout
Brewer: Pike Brewing Company, Seattle, Washington
Style: Stout
ABV: 7%
Availability: Year-round in WA, OR, ID and MT, sometimes AK, and in select Total Wines stores on the East Coast.
For More Information: www.pikebrewing.com

The chalk board at Murphy's

That was the tasting of the 2009 bottling, with a little history on Samuel Smith and its stone Yorkshire squares, beer writer Michael Jackson and his influence on the early days of beer’s rebirth in the U.S., all thrown into the brewkettle.

This is only the third release of the beer in the U.S., as usual on August 1, Yorkshire Day in England. Well, here too, if one so celebrates. And taking note of the celebration with a Yorkshire Stingo would only be appropriate, not to mention satisfying.

This year’s version, brewed in 2010, comes in at 8% ABV, a tad lower than last year. It has prune-like aromas swimming in a sea of oak. The taste is sweet, smooth, rich, oaky, almost like a port, slightly less tannic than last year. Though news releases from the U.S. importer Merchant du Vin suggest a soft oak note, it seems pronounced to me, but blending nicely in the overall complexity of the brew.

I’m not going to make last year’s mistake, when a mere bottle crossed my lips, and leaving me with nothing to vividly compare to this year’s vintage. I’ll pick up a few more this year to cellar, and a few more just to savor now. That is, if I can find it. Fewer than 24,000 bottles were produced, so don’t dawdle should you find one on the shelves.

The White Rose, symbol of Yorkshire

As last year, Stingo remains a beer you can linger with over an hour or two, if one has such patience. It was easily done this year as I had opened the bottle before sudden dinner plans materialized, so I enjoyed as a pre- and post-prandial treat, right up to the time I began dozing on the couch. Naturally, praising Yorkshire all the while.

Name: Yorkshire Stingo
Brewer: Samuel Smith, Tadcaster, England
Style: English Strong Ale
ABV: 8%
Availability: Nationwide as long as the supply lasts
For More Information: merchantduvin.com

Hogan standing next to what remains of his car after the February 1949 accident.

No extended piece about Ben Hogan can go on for long without mentioning the car wreck in February of 1949 that nearly ended his life, but surely elevated the rest of his career into the stuff of legend.

Not that the Dublin, Texas native hadn’t already begun burnishing the Hogan Mystique with his play before the accident. (And has the word “mystique” ever been applied to any other golfer with such accurate regularity?)

As author David Barrett makes clear in Miracle at Merion: The Inspiring Story of Ben Hogan’s Amazing Comeback and Victory at the 1950 U.S. Open (Skyhorse Publishing, 2010, $24.95), once past his early troubles with a persistent duck hook, Hogan served notice on the tour with his first individual victory in 1940. (He had won a two-man event in 1938 with Vic Ghezzi.) He then went on to win the next two tournaments and finished the year as the leading money winner.

He took time off from the Tour in Tulsa in 1943 and 1944 as a member of the Army Air Guard, eased back into playing in 1945, and then began an astounding run of success. As Barrett puts it:

From 1946 through 1948, Hogan won 30 tournaments. If you throw in the five events he won after getting out of the Army in 1945, it adds up to a remarkable 35 wins in three-and-a-half years. Some perspective: Tom Watson and Gene Sarazen, two of the greats of the game, each won 39 events in their entire careers on the tour.

The compact golfer who became known as Bantam Ben had one of the most repeatable swings in the game’s history–and may have been, Barrett suggests, the first to talk about the notion of a repeatable swing. But part of his legend is how hard he worked at it.

“There’s no such thing as a natural golf swing,” Hogan was quoted in a Time magazine article cover story from January, 1949, an article that portrayed him as a fierce competitor with unmatched focus and desire to win, and one who unnerved his fellow players so that they were thrown off their games. (Sound like any recent model we can think of?)

The article appeared 23 days before the accident on Highway 80 in Texas, when it became apparent that a bus attempting to pass a truck in foggy weather was going to crash into their car, and Hogan threw himself across to the passenger side to protect his wife, Valerie.

It probably saved both their lives, but Hogan’s lower body was injured. But as Barrett makes clear, it was subsequent blood clots and the resultant vascular surgery that led to Hogan’s later physical ailments, rather than the broken bones themselves.

It all made Hogan’s march to victory at the 1950 Open the stuff of Hollywood, and indeed Hollywood obliged, with Glenn Ford playing him in “Follow the Sun,” what some say is one of the worst golf movies ever made (but which I have yet to see, so judgment reserved).

Barrett, at any rate, goes on to accomplish no mean feat–creating some suspense leading up the climax of an event we know the details of. But he finds more details to savor, including a brief portrait of Hy Peskin.

Who’s Hy Peskin? He was the photographer who took what may be one of the most famous sports photos of all time, but surely the most famous golf photo, of Hogan’s one-iron to the green on the 72^nd hole at Merion in 1950, appropriately on the cover of the book.

***

There’s also a rather remarkable photo in Mr. Hogan, The Man I Knew (Gotham Books, 2010, $22.50) by Kris Tschetter with Steve Eubanks. Tschetter is an LPGA player who came to know Hogan long after his career was over but hers was just forming.

She was attending Texas Christian University and as a talented amateur became a member at Hogan’s club, Shady Oaks in Fort Worth. One day she broke the club’s standing rule–don’t bother Mr. Hogan–and said hello as he walked by. He returned the greeting, moved on, but when he returned later and saw that Tschetter was still practicing said, “You’re still here? Keep working at it.”

For a man who practiced more than anyone before or since (until Vijay Singh came along), Hogan had an eye for stick-to-itiveness, and he became a friend and mentor to Tschetter, who went on to a fine career (one win on the LPGA Tour, and 72^nd place on the all-time money list).

Her portrait is the anodyne to stories about the caustic Hogan, the Hogan with the basilisk stare, and the palpable if silent disapproval. Oh, she has some funny anecdotes about how Hogan could make anyone squirm–like pro Tom Byrum who was tardy to the range one day and had to undergo a placidly lethal interrogation from Hogan.

But mainly this is a paean to a Hogan with a quick wit, a softy at heart, and a gentleman at all times. Set in his ways, perhaps, but ways that were far more benign than those usually consigned to the legendary Wee Ice Mon.

The photo comes from a video Hogan allowed Tschetter to take of his swing in 1989, which she speculates is the last time it was so captured. The final frame of the sequence is of Hogan’s follow-through, and what’s remarkable is how similar it looks held next to the Peskin photo.

Sure, he’s not as high on his right toe, he’s not as wiry as in 1950, there’s not quite the same arch in the back. But taken about 40 years apart, the two photographs are living testimony to the repeatable swing!

***

Hogan made himself into a good putter, although that skill faded as his career went on. He often differentiated golf and putting as two different games, yet it needed to be practiced as well.

One of Hogan’s oft-repeated observations was that, “There isn’t enough daylight in any day to practice all the shots you need to.” Another: “Every day you miss practicing, it takes one day longer to be good.” What’s an amateur to make of such daunting comments?

Hogan reportedly told one enquirer that the secret to golf could only be found “in the dirt,” meaning through endless practice. In his 2009 tome, Ben Hogan’s Magical Device: The Real Secret to Hogan’s Swing Finally Revealed, Ted Hunt attempted to describe what that secret really was, and he’s back with a sequel of sorts: Ben Hogan’s Short Game Simplified: The Secret to Hogan’s Game From 120 Yards and In (Skyhorse Publishing, 2010, $16.95).

Hunt is an amateur, and he goes to some lengths to defend an amateur’s writing of a golf instruction book, but he doth protest too much. For those who respond well to instruction books (I confess that I usually don’t), this covers all the bases–actually starting from the putting surface and moving to 120 yards out–with specialty shots, problem shots and plenty of Hogan anecdotes and photos to sweeten the pot.

This piece first appeared, in slightly different form, in the June-July 2011 issue of Golf Oklahoma.

So it goes in Belgium, where beer and food trump golf. I never did see a course on a recent trip to Flanders, but toured five breweries and ate numerous meals cooked with beer or paired with beers.

Belgium is an inspirational mecca for brewers and beer lovers and there’s nothing like a visit there to try specialty house beers in restaurants and bars. (www.visitflanders.us) But many of the best are readily available at better beer outlets in the U.S.:

Poperings Hommel Ale (Brewery Van Eecke, Watou, 7.5% ABV) www.brouwerijvaneecke.be

Unlike the U.S., in Belgium highly hopped beers are the exception rather than the rule. This is a distinctive exception, brewed near the hop fields of Poperinge, where a festival in praise of hops is held every three years. (And this is the year.) The beer is a golden ale with a suitably sharp finish.

Kwak (Brewery Bosteels, Buggenhout, 8.1% ABV) www.bestbelgianspecialbeers.be

All Belgian beers have their own special glass, but the round-bottomed Kwak glass requires a wooden holder to keep it upright. If you want to remain upright, drink this amber ale carefully, since its fruity, spicy, malty mix goes down easy.

Westmalle Tripel (Westmalle Trappist Brewery, 9.5% ABV) www.trappistwestmalle.be

There are six monastic breweries in Belgium (and one in the Netherlands) under the direct control of Trappist monks. Westmalle more or less invented the Tripel style of strong golden ales, and the beer remains a complex wonder, a reverent pour.

Duvel (Brewery Moortgat, Puurs, 8.5% ABV) www.duvel.be

On the other shoulder, the devil (duvel) is in the details of this most beguiling golden ale, which looks as innocuous as a light lager, but which packs a punch in strength and in its fruity, pear-like flavors.

Rodenbach (Rodenbach Brewery, Roeselare, 6% ABV) www.palm.be/en/rodenbach.php

The late beer writer Michael Jackson once called Rodenbach, “The most refreshing beer in the world,” and it’s tart, cherry-like character is certainly a palate cleanser. There’s no fruit in the brown ale; it’s character comes solely from the special yeast, fermentation techniques, aging in oak casks (for up to two years) and blending of different vintages. An acquired taste, but worth acquiring.

In somewhat different form, this piece was originally featured in the July-August 2011 Fairways + Greens Magazine, courtesy Madavor Media. To read the latest digital edition, click here.

Whatever you call it or no matter how you calculate it, the Golf Boys video has already been sincerely flattered by imitation. Four players from the Ladies European Tour–Sophie Giquel, Sophie Sandolo, Jade Schaeffer and Cassandra Kirkland–have basically copied “Oh Oh Oh”–albeit with a Continental accent:

It seems somewhat regrettable that there’s no chest-baring in this version.  Though the video was shot about 15 miles west of Paris, this is apparently not the place in France where the naked ladies dance.  It was shot at the Golf de Saint-Nom-la-Bretéche club, an exclusive 36 holes melded into a composite course for competitions.

It will be the site of the 2011 Vivendi Trophy match in mid-September this year, the second running of the tournament between (male) players of Continental Europe against Great Britain and Ireland, in alternate years from the Ryder Cup. In May, the cup was renamed, and players will now vie for the Vivendi Seve Trophy.

Getting back to the girls, Sophie Giguel, Jade Schaeffer and Cassandra Kirkland are French; Sophie Sandolo is Italian, although French-born. She went to UCLA and played on the golf team there; Kirkland was a standout at the University of Arizona.

All are exempt players on the tour, all have websites, but only Schaeffer and Giguel have the ever-elusive victories, one each. Giguel is tenth on this year’s money-list to date.

Personally, I think it’s pretty hilarious, and as good a way as any for today’s touring pros to puncture their uptight image.

For anyone who suggests that the new breed of player is colorless compared to the linksman of yore, well, try to image Arnie, Jack or Gary romping around like this. Better yet–Ben Hogan!

(Well, there is the famous shot of Arnie dancing with a bewigged Nicklaus in Palm Springs during some Bob Hope Classic. Palmer, who is leading, looks like he’s having a great time while Jack appears to be nuzzling him in the ear.)

The video debuted on The Golf Channel on June 14, and I’m sure there will be those who say if Ben Crane, Hunter Mahan, Rickie Fowler and Bubba Watson weren’t jumping around like lunatics in a music video they might have mounted more of a challenge to Rory McIlroy in the U.S. Open.

But we’ll consign those to the screw-you-if-can’t-take-a-joke category.

Crane is the driving (so to speak) force behind the Golf Boys video and other comedy bits that have been making their way around the web. He drummed up backing money from one of his sponsors, Farmers Insurance, and the company is donating $1,000 to charity for every 100,000 views. Good enough reason to click on the Golf Boys again. And again….

This, I thought, is the death knell of Megasuds Bellywash. With superior choices now available in non-breakable cans, golfers need to assert themselves and demand that the cart girl pack in better brews! Slake a thirst and strike a blow for quality!

So we’ve gone all cool aluminum with these suggestions for the warmer months–and mostly wheat beers at that, just because they’re so darn refreshing.

Mama’s Little Yellow Pils (Oskar Blues Brewery, Longmont, Colorado, 5.3% ABV; www.oskarblues.com): But let’s first give a nod to Oskar Blues, the brewery that put its Dale’s Pale Ale in a can in 2002, revving up the craft brew in a can movement. This one is an all-malt Czech-style pilsner, mildly hopped, and if it works for Mama it sure works for us.  (Click here for an entry on Gubna from Oskar Blues.)

Sunshine Wheat (New Belgium Brewing, Fort Collins, Colorado, 4.8% ABV; www.newbelgium.com): Another Colorado offering by way of a Belgium wit beer style–malty, spicy and fruity, with orange peel and coriander leading to a citric tartness that will scour away any thirst.

Royal Weisse (Sly Fox Brewing Co., Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, 5.6% ABV; www.slyfoxbeer.com): East of the Mississippi, this regional favorite is an unfiltered Bavarian-style wheat beer, the special yeast strain lending a bready malt and clove character. The aptly named Scott Summers, general manager of the brewery brewpub, said, “It’s a good morning beer.” We’ll consider that.

Nude Beach Summer Wheat (Stevens Point Brewery, Wisconsin, 5.17% ABV; www.pointbeer.com): Forget a collared golf shirt, this is a clothing-optional unfiltered brew with what the brewery claims are all “au natural” ingredients, including raw and red wheat. Light, crisp, nothing hidden. Remember the sun block.

Hell or High Watermelon Wheat (21^st Amendment Brewery, San Francisco, California, 4.9% ABV; www.21st-amendment.com): I would have picked this just for the name, but make no mistake, it tastes like watermelon. Melonheads will want to try it at least once, or have some on hand to whip out at a barbecue for the novelty value, which includes the instructions on the can to agitate before opening. Another plus–it’s seedless. (Click here for more on the 21^st Amendment Brewery.)

Sorta fits the theme, right?

Paulaner Hefe-Weizen (Paulaner Brauerei, Germany, 5.5% ABV; www.paulaner.de): A classic Bavarian style unfiltered wheat beer (“hefe” means yeast) with banana esters and a strong clove character. The canned version of the Munich brewery’s best-selling beer will debut in the U.S. at the end of May. Prosit!

In somewhat different form, this piece was originally featured in the May-June 2011 Fairways + Greens Magazine, courtesy Madavor Media. To read the latest digital edition, click here.

One thing Vermont has over Oklahoma is a long off season, which gives me more couch time with golf books in my hands. But if I had one hundred years in front of me with nothing to do but read I’d still never reach the other shore on the ocean of golf books.

Naturally, there’s some garbage floating around. But greatness, too. When I began thinking about what ten titles would constitute a solid desert island golf library, about five came immediately to mind. Then I put it out on the social media to friends and colleagues–if limited to one golf book to take to the proverbial desert island, what would it be?

The results mostly proved that great minds think alike, since we agreed on many titles. But extra points for thinking ahead to golf blogger David Rowell, who said he would take Dream On by John Richardson, along with his sand wedge.

Still, presuming there wouldn’t be much chance to play on a desert island, it would be cruel to list any instructional books. So I haven’t, concentrating on stocking the raft with good reads to see us all through, until rescued by the beginning of the season.

The Golf Omnibus by P.G. Wodehouse (Gramercy, 1996): I suspect even non-golfers would be seduced by this collection of 31 stories by the creator of Wooster and Jeeves. The rest of us will be helpless. Even the preface is hilarious, but the master unfurls a parade of hapless lovers, obsessed duffers, dastards due a comeuppance, most in tales narrated by that clubhouse fixture, the Oldest Member. Love, and golf, usually triumph.

Golf Dreams by John Updike (Knopf, 1996): The late Updike, renaissance literary man, was also a devoted mid-handicapper. He was besotted by the game and wrote about it often with his usual élan, on sustaining display here in stories, essays, and novel excerpts. (Yes, Rabbit Angstrom plays through.) My father and I once spent the better part of a dinner laughing over the title essay, about those impossible golf shots we face in our dreams. Worth the price of admission, and that’s just the first hole.

My Usual Game by David Owen (Main Street Books, 1996): Like Updike a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, Owen was a mid-life golf recidivist. Having once forsworn the game, he fell hard upon his return, and in one comically entertaining essay after another about golf schools, Myrtle Beach, playing in Scotland and Ireland and inventing excuses to play golf that wives will buy, he speaks directly to the addict in us all.

Following Through: Herbert Warren Wind on Golf (Ticknor & Fields, 1985): You’ll probably have to search the net or used book stores for this superb collection of pieces by the stylist the U.S.G.A annual book award is named after. Wind preceded both Updike and Owen at The New Yorker and it always amazed me how his pieces on major tournaments long over could be spellbinding cliffhangers. His paean to the Highlands, “North to the Links of Dornoch,” will unleash a yearning that can be satisfied in only one way.

The Golf Courses of the British Isles by Bernard Darwin (Nabu Press, 2010): The grandson of Charles Darwin published his first and some say greatest work in 1910, surveying the great courses of the Realm, and in the process setting the bar awfully high for his successors. This reproduction volume includes the equally alluring illustrations by Harry Rowntree.

Blasted Heaths and Blessed Greens by James Finegan (Simon & Schuster, 1996): He’s nowhere near the stylist of the other writers on this list, but Finegan’s enthusiasm and love for Scottish links courses, and an amiable anecdotal approach make this an essential carry-on for any traveling golfer, and the same can be said for his companion volumes Emerald Fairways and Foam-Flecked Seas (Ireland) and All Courses Great and Small (England and Wales).

Doctor Golf by Richard Price Fox (Crane Hill Publishers, 2001): Next to the Wodehouse trove, this 1963 work remains one of the funniest golf books ever written, a wholly imagined epistolary collection. Head of the Eagle-Ho Sanctuary in Arkansas, where caddie flogging is still in vogue, Doctor Golf answers Dear Abby-like queries from the golf perplexed–players who slice even when off the course, a wife who thinks there’s something wrong when her husband sleeps with his clubs (Doctor Golf fails to see this as a problem), all the while flacking dubious gadgets, such as the Doctor Golf Eagle-Ho Swing-Speed Whistle Control or the Eagle-Ho water-filled-head putter.

Golf in the Year 2000 by J. McCullough (Rutledge Hill Press, 1998), Golf in the Year 2100 by Bob Labbance (TowleHouse Publishing, 2003): Okay, cheated a little here, but this is an ideal pairing of novels, the first written in 1892, and yet prescient in visualizing such wonders to come as television, digital watches, bullet trains, remote-controlled golf carts and Ryder Cup-like matches. In Labbance’s sequel of sorts, golf nut Martin Grant awakens from a century-long cryogenic snooze, and is soon teeing it up at the seventh Bandon Dunes course–at 9,384 yards long “short by modern standards.” At long last, we learn, golf balls send out locating signals, scorecards speak, there are aerial hazards, magnetized bunker sand, and something called Altered Element Golf. Luckily, as Grant puts it, “beer was still beer.”

The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield (Avon Books, 1996): From the Mystic Golf School of writing, with talk of The Field and The Authentic Swing, not to mention a time shifting battle sequence that sure wasn’t in the movie. Heavy, man, but leavened by the great 1931 fictional match between protagonist Rannulph Junah, Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen.

Missing Links by Rick Reilly (Broadway Books, 1997): Sportswriter Reilly presumably needs no introduction, but for those who know him mostly for his often comic nonfiction, welcome to the world of the Ponkoquogue Municipal Golf Links and Deli, presumably the world’s worst municipal links, and right next door to the posh and ultra-private Mayflower Club. This is essentially a When-Worlds-Collide farce, the flawed heroes and craven villains clear, but the soundtrack filled with laughs and plenty of flavorful golf. What the heck, slip the sequel in, too–Shanks for Nothing.

This piece first appeared, in slightly different form, in the inaugural April-May 2011 issue of Golf Oklahoma.

My greatest wish, I thought, was that someday I might get a chance to play golf with President Barack Obama, the golf nut. Now I realize that what I’d really like to do is have a beer with President Barack Obama, the beer geek.

Okay, technically, I suppose what I’d really like to do is play golf with the President and then have a beer with the guy. But if only one of these dreams could come true, I’d happily settle for lifting a pint with the man who has to be one of our greatest beer-drinking Presidents.

I’m not talking quantity here. I’m talking panache, a man who likes a good beer and isn’t ashamed to show it. I’ve written about this before (most recently here), but the President reaffirmed the fact today with a triumphal visit to Ireland. He included a stop at Moneygall, home of his great great great grandfather, Falmouth Kearney, and where he lifted a pint of Guinness with (among many others) Henry Healy, his eighth cousin.

Now, I recommended that the President do this as long ago as February 2010 (see My Breakfast With the President), and it pleases me to see that he’s taking close note of my counsel.

I guess he couldn’t work out a golf game in Ireland, or even spend a night there; he had scheduled a stay in Dublin, but Iceland’s spewing volcano scuttled that plan. Barack did run into Padraig Harrington however, waiting backstage after the President’s speech to a crowd of about 25,000 in Dublin.

During the speech, the President said, “I’m Barack Obama, from the Moneygall Obamas, and I’ve come home to find the apostrophe that we lost somewhere along the way.”

President O’Bama met with Irish President Mary McAleese in Dublin, and like President John F. Kennedy before him, planted a tree in a garden at the rear of the presidential home.

More impressively, back in the Ollie Hayes pub in Moneygall, Obama had downed his pint of Guinness in four gulps. (Take that, Tim Pawlenty!) An AP report quoted government clerical worker Christy O’Sullivan as marveling at the feat: “”The president actually killed his pint! He gets my vote. He’s the first president I’ve actually seen drink the black stuff like he’s not ashamed of something.”

Indeed, the President waited for the pour to settle, as did the First Lady, who downed a half-pint, and later moved behind the bar to try her hand at pulling a few pints. No word on whether she added the shamrock flourish or not. (If it came to it, I’d happily settle for having a beer with Michelle. Just for the record.)

There are only about 300 souls populating Moneygall, but there’s a good chance Obama shook hands or hugged every one of them. Only about 35 to 40 made it into the pub, but spirits were clearly high as the lifting of the pint moment arrived.

According to the always entertaining Obama Foodorama, the Beer Drinker-in-Chief also laid some money on the bar and said, “I just want you to know the President pays his bar tab.”

Another good reason for drinking with him!

While maybe not quite as gruesome as the company’s 55% ABV The End of History, surely the first confluence of beer and taxidermy, Royal Virility Performance is surely the first professional blending of beer and Viagra. (Amateurs have been doing it ad hoc for quite some time now.)

The news began gushing forth yesterday from the BrewDog blog, announcing a limited edition of 1,000 bottles of the beer to be made available only on the company website, going for £10 per bottle, on April 28, the day before the much-ballyhooed wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

One complimentary bottle was sent off to Prince William; according to BrewDog partner James Watt, “We put a bottle in a jiffy bag marked ‘Prince Willy, Buckingham Palace.’ We sent it by Royal Mail as we presume they are most likely to know where he lives. As the bottle says, this is about consummation, not commemoration, so we hope he gets it.”

Whether Watt really meant the bottle or the joke is, well, hard to say. The label says the 7.5% ABV India Pale Ale is brewed with such well-known aphrodisiacs as Viagra, chocolate, Horny Goat Weed and ‘a healthy dose of sarcasm.’ The suspicion is that the dose of sarcasm has been substituted for the Viagra (which is not, strictly speaking, an aphrodisiac), and that the blogsite photo of the little blue pill being added to a brewing vessel is more artifice than evidence. No confirmation along these lines has yet been, uh, nailed.

Maybe it’s really in there, a tankard of tumescence. We can think of about 1,000 lawsuits that would come raining down on the brewery from every direction if such a brewing attempt were made in the U.S.A. Squadrons of lawyers streaming forth from the Feds and Pfizer would be just the beginning. Once consumers got their fists around a few of these 330ml bottles one can only imagine the creative clamor for damages that would, um, arise.

The brewers may have covered their tracks somewhat by offering 20% of all profits to Centrepoint, a U.K. charity for homeless youth that the late Diana, Princess of Wales served as patron; her son, Prince William, became the patron in 2005.

The dose of sarcasm also extends to the many commemorative brews that are being produced in the onrush of the wedding, brews variously named I Will, Windsor Knot, Something Blue, Kiss Me Kate, Better Half. So why not Arise Prince Willy, as the RVP is nicknamed?

In go the little blue pills....

According to the blogsite: “With this beer we want to take the wheels off the royal wedding bandwagon being jumped on by dozens of breweries; The Royal Virility Performance is the perfect antidote to all the hype. A beer should be brewed with a purpose, not just because some toffs are getting married, so we created something at our brewery that will undermine those special edition beers and other assorted seaside tat, whilst at the same time actually give the happy couple something extra on their big day.”

Beer has itself sometimes been called an aphrodisiac, although Shakespeare wisely noted in “Macbeth” that drink “provokes the desire but it takes away the performance.” These cheeky brewers may have put a spike in the old saying, while provoking a different kind of Scottish play altogether.

It helps to have a sense of humor on April Fools’ Day, especially for those at the receiving end of pranks–a place golfers often feel they visit year-round. To help put it all in light-hearted perspective, we’ve corralled a few brews that don’t take themselves too seriously–except when it comes to flavor. These taste splendid, not funny, but they pair well with jokes. Did you hear the one about the blonde who asked the bartender for a double entendre? He gave it to her.

Clown Shoes Hoppy Feet (Mercury Brewing Co., Ipswich, MA, 7% ABV): Speaking of clowns, this one puts its big feet down in black IPA territory, a relatively new beer world category people can’t quite agree on (others call the style Cascadian Black Ales, and which the Brewers Association recently termed an American-Style Black Ale). As you’d expect with an India Pale Ale, this is loaded with hops; as you wouldn’t expect, it’s black. What we’d like to see–like those old clown cars–is an endless stream of bottles pouring out of the refrigerator. (clownshoesbeer.com)

Wilco Tango Foxtrot (Lagunitas Brewing Co., Petaluma, CA, 7.8% ABV): If it weren’t a brewery Lagunitas might be a stand-up comic with expert timing. Being the first under the wire with a WTF beer in a WTF zeitgeist is no mean feat. The seasonal was first brewed in 2010 (as a “Malty, Robust, Jobless Recovery Ale”) as a riposte to the 2009 Correction Ale, when no economic correction seemed to be happening. Luckily, this brown ale happens big time. (lagunitas.com)

Delirium Tremens (Huyghe Brewery, Belgium, 8.5% ABV): Make a strong beer, name it after the severe effects of acute alcohol withdrawal, and then festoon the label with dancing pink elephants. That takes some ballsy whimsy, and this heady golden ale has been such a hit since its introduction in 1989 that it has spawned two sequels, a dark Delirium Nocturnum (9% ABV) and a Christmas beer, Delirium Noel (10% ABV). (delirium.be)

Old Leghumper (Thirsty Dog Brewing Co., Akron, OH, 5.8% ABV): As the label puts it, “So many legs…so little time,” a notion that has made this robust porter the flagship beer of the Ohio brewery, which names all its beers doggy style. With spring here, officially anyway, a bock wouldn’t be stylistically out of order, so there’s always the Maibark alternative. (thirstydog.com)

Monty Python Holy Grail Ale (Black Sheep Brewery, Masham, England, 4.7% ABV): This is the beer for those familiar with the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow, and those who eat ham and jam and Spam a lot. It’s actually a fairly straightforward but study pale ale, and despite what the label says, no witches were burned during production. (blacksheepbrewery.com)

And here’s one for the road: A skeleton walks into a bar and says to the bartender, “I’d like a beer–and a mop.”

In somewhat different form, this piece was originally featured in the March-April 2011 Fairways + Greens Magazine, courtesy Madavor Media. To read the latest digital edition, click here.

CHICAGO, IL, April 1–Hot on the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court’s action in striking down the city’s ban on handguns, the Chicago Golf Club has announced that it will supply its course rangers with revolvers in an effort to speed up play. Established by legendary architect Charles Blair Macdonald as the nation’s oldest eighteen-hole course in 1893 (though redesigned by Macdonald disciple Seth Raynor in 1923), the Wheaton course has recently been plagued by long waits for those stuck behind some of the older members.

“We feel we’ve always been on the cutting edge,” said Frieda Stones, club manager. “After all, we admitted our first African-American member in 1993, and our first full female member in 2001, so we like to think we look forward as well as back.”

Charles Blair Macdonald

But referring to the club’s traditions, Mrs. Stones observed, “Charles Blair Macdonald was of an age when rounds were speedy affairs, and caddy flogging was still in vogue. We think he would have been appalled at the lethargic pace some of our members have adopted out on the course, and would applaud our proactive solution.”

While the exact firearms policy is still to be worked out, Stones assured members that rangers will not be encouraged to shoot to kill, at least at first. “We expect that firing a few divot-raising rounds at players’ feet should get the message across.”

# # #

GOLF JOURNALIST SHUNNED BY COLLEAGUES AFTER ACTUALLY PAYING FOR ROUND

WESTFIELD, MA, April 1–Daniel Carter, a freelance golf journalist who plunked down a mere $15 to play an early season round at the East Mountain Country Club in Massachusetts, is discovering just how costly that round has become.

“I’ve basically been shunned by all my golf writing ‘friends’ for going against the code and paying for a round of golf,” said Carter.

Syrus Cophant, membership director for the Golf Writers Association of America, said, “I just don’t know what Danny was thinking when he put his hand in his pocket. True, it may be an unspoken rule, but actually laying money on the counter for a round of golf is a pretty serious breech of protocol.”

Carter, a member of the GWAA, the Met Golf Writers Association and the International Network of Golf, says he’s playing solo these days: “Every time I call someone to try and arrange a round they all say the same thing: ‘Sorry, our threesome is full.’”

While no official records are kept, one ING official who asked to remain anonymous said he thought Carter’s transaction was the first time a golf journalist had paid for a round in 27 years.

# # #

Here at The A Position we’re given a topic to address (or not) each month for The A List feature, and last year around this time–same day, actually–some truth stretchers were called for. Click here to see what my colleagues came up with, or here to check this year’s version.

I didn’t do one for 2011, as I was in Washington consulting with President Obama, discussing possible ways to provoke legislation outlawing cart path only golf courses, while drinking all the homebrew he’s been making lately.

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

Try as I might, I haven’t yet had a beer in every town the world over. So I’ve called on an extensive network of beer mavens to help pick one prominent brew in the tournament locales, and a likely place to drink it. Those lucky enough to attend the tournament can also attend the bar. Those of us watching on TV can hope the beer finds its way to a nearby distributor. Play away:

1. The Masters (April 7-10, Augusta National, Georgia): Recent Augusta State University grad and beer writer Lonnie Best says no place in town treats beer with more respect and the care it deserves than Rooster’s Beak Bar & Kitchen (feedyourbeak.com). And as the azaleas bloom over at Amen Corner, the flowery aromas of Terrapin Brewing’s Hopsecutioner IPA should sharpen the drama. (terrapinbeer.com)

For more great stories on Augusta and the Masters by TheAPosition.com writers, click here.

2. U.S. Open (June 16-19, Congressional Country Club, Bethesda, Maryland): Former brewer, now wine and beer salesman Tom Cizauskas gives the nod to the Scottish-tinged Royal Mile Pub (royalmilepub.com) in Wheaton, seven miles from Congressional. There are ample Scottish ales available, but don’t miss the Heavy Seas Loose Cannon on tap, also called Hop³ for its exponential hop aroma. (hsbeer.com)

3. U.S. Women’s Open (July 7-10, The Broadmoor, Colorado Springs): Writer Eli Shayotovich, the local “Mad Man of Beer,” is partial to the Phantom Canyon Brewing Company, owned by the state’s new Governor, John Hickenlooper. But he also suggests keeping the Scottish theme going at The Blue Star (thebluestar.net); among the many offerings is the Bristol Brewing Company’s Laughing Lab Scottish Ale. (bristolbrewing.com)

Approach to the fifth hole, Royal St. George's

4. British Open Championship (July 14-17, Royal St. George’s, Sandwich, England): Bit of a quandary here, old chap. Jim Green, CAMRA Branch Secretary for the Sandwich area, recommends The Red Cow (no website) for a good pint of real ale, but the pub isn’t pumping any Wantsum Brewery’s beers. Considering the name, who wouldn’t want some? (Try the Bell Hotel, where the golfers may well be staying.) But Gadds’ No. 5, a traditional Kentish Best Bitter from the Ramsgate Brewery, should be worth a Cow tipple. (ramsgatebrewery.co.uk)

5. PGA Championship (August 11-14, Atlanta Athletic Club, Johns Creek, Georgia): It’s back to Georgia to round out the men’s majors, so Matt Simpson, a/k/a The Beer Sommelier, recommends pulling up a stool at Taco Mac (tacomac.com) in nearby Alpharetta, where there are 90 draft and 200 bottled beers. A nutty, malty Sweetwater Georgia Brown should pair nicely with Glory’s Last Shot. (sweetwaterbrew.com)

In somewhat different form, this piece was originally featured in the January-February 2011 Fairways + Greens Magazine, courtesy Madavor Media. To read the latest digital edition, click here.

See more stories by The A Position on the PGA Championship at: http://theaposition.com/Partner/pga-championship

Dustin Johnson (Photo by Andy Lyon/Getty Images)

So now we know that Rickie Fowler will win a major this year, along with Dustin Johnson and Nick Watney. And in the non-golf world, one of our scribes went way out on a limb to predict that the Phillies will win the World Series.  Click here for the full list of fearless predictions.

I went with a fairly standard guess based on scientific research and anecdotal experience out on the course.

***

Though the number of golfers and golf rounds will remain static, or even slightly decline, the golf industry will remain the nation’s leader in measurable obscenity, again surpassing the perennial runner-up, the U.S. penal system.

The Institute of Lingua Franca, which created the rating in recognition of the worldwide use of dirty talk, gave a round of golf a soaring 92.5 MO rating in 2010, which easily surpassed the 82.7 MO of a normal day in the life of an incarcerated felon.

This was no surprise considering that some golfers score a perfect 100% rating–an obscenity uttered after every single shot in a five-hour round.  (There was no way to calibrate those who swear more than once–or more or less continuously–after a single shot.)

The Institute characterizes an obscenity as any word still frowned upon in normal human intercourse, recognizing that such words can now be counted on one #@!ing hand.

The point being, what does this have to do with Banana Bread Beer?

Charles Wells

It’s a closer connection than might be expected. The man banging the iconic gong is Billy Wells, better known as Bombardier Billy Wells, famed as a British heavyweight boxing champion, but also a descendant of Charles Wells, who founded the Charles Wells Family Brewery in Bedford, England in 1876, all for love.

Wells was a merchant seaman, but he fell in love with a local lass, Josephine Grimbley, whose father forbade the pair to marry if Wells was going to be constantly away at sea.

So Wells bought a property on the banks of the River Ouse that included a coal depot, a brew house, and 35 local pubs, and set about creating a brewery and a family. Five generations later, both are still going strong, and still using the water from a well the founder sunk in 1902.  The brewery has moved from the original site, but is still in Bedford.

Three Wells family members are still involved in the enterprise, which is now called Wells and Young’s, after the 2006 merger with Young’s and Co. And the following year the company also took over the Courage line.

Wells Bombardier Bitter is the flagship brand, and according to head brewer Jim Robertson, “The beer is a tribute to the British Royal Artillery, which the Wells family has a history of service in. But it was really named after Bombardier Billy Wells, and as film buffs know, Billy was the man who banged the gong at the beginning of the Rank Organization films.”

I’m not too sure that many film buffs really do know this. Especially since there were actually four men who greased up for the Rank films logo sequence. Wells was the second who swung the hammer, but a further bit of history suggests the gong was never actually struck, since it was made of papier-mâché. The sound was dubbed in by a percussionist named James Blades. No known beers named after him.

The brewery introduced its Banana Bread Beer in 2002, but I only recently heard about it. Now that I have, there seems to be a growing amount of buzz about it of late, and it’s certainly an attention-getter, beginning with the label that shows a glowing glass emerging from peeled banana skins.

There’s an inviting–one is tempted to say cake-like–amber color to the beer. A mild but sturdy head gives rise to the unmistakable and inescapable aroma of banana bread.  I’m a banana bread fan, so no worries for me there.  Those less keen on banana bread, or bananas at all, should stand clear.

My wife picked up some licorice aromas and as the beer warmed I began to think of (and crave) those old circus peanut candies–which had nothing to do with either circuses or peanuts, other than that the marshmallows were molded to look like large orange peanuts, and then artificially flavored with banana.

Indeed, while this particular beer is brewed with bananas (and Fair Trade Bananas at that), banana flavor is also added, and that’s probably where a majority of the aroma comes from.

The pleasant surprise is that the beer is really quite tasty, certainly sweet, but not overly so, and mainly from malt, not fruit.  The beer doesn’t try to be any more wacky than what it is, an English ale brewed with bananas and some banana flavoring. There’s some mild hop bite at the finish (Challenger and Goldings hops), and it’s all in all quite agreeable–if you like bananas. Or circus peanuts.

One of my Twitter friends–and I’m not sure she knew that the brewery produced both the Wells and Young’s portfolios–has suggested that it might be interesting to blend the Wells Banana Bread Beer with the Young’s Double Chocolate Stout.  Well, now, it might, mightn’t it?

Name: Well’s Banana Bread Beer
Brewer: Wells and Young’s Brewing Co., Bedford, England
Style: Specialty Ale
ABV: 5.2%
Availability: Nationwide
For More Information: wellsandyoungs.co.uk or belukus.net

Twenty-six new governors are taking up the reins of power this year, and the excitement arrived here in Vermont this week. On Wednesday the Governor-elect, Peter Shumlin, came to Brattleboro for a home county celebration; he took the oath of office at the State House in Montpelier on Thursday and it was party time again on Friday at the inaugural ball.

Sam Brownback

No Vermont brewer had the wisdom to stir up a special batch for the 81^st Governor of the fourteenth state, like the Blind Tiger Brewery of Topeka did for incoming Kansas Governor Sam Brownback. Kansas is the wheat state, so brewmaster John Dean (hmm), created a brown Brownback Wheat Beer.

Out in Colorado, new Governor John Hickenlooper used to own the Wynkoop Brewing Company in Denver, and it seized the day by producing Inaugurale. The 6.8% ABV beer fell somewhere between a strong brown ale and a winter warmer. According to the brewery blog, it was “a reach-across-the-aisle creation.”

Another Colorado brewery, Oskar Blues, was the first to put craft beer in cans with its Dale’s Pale Ale in 2002, but more recently it produced Gubna Imperial IPA, which is a strong, highly hopped beer it bluntly calls a “hop grenade in a can.”

So without a beer to call his own, I decided my mission was to get a can of Gubna into Governor Shumlin’s hands. I would have two opportunities, as Lynn and I were going to both the Wednesday and Friday events.

We’ve been Shumlin supporters for quite some time, regularly returning him to the statehouse in the 90’s, where he eventually became President pro-tempore of the Senate.

Something strange happened in Vermont in 2002, when Republicans won the races for Governor and Lieutenant Governor. Shumlin’s loss to Lieutenant Governor Brian Dubie was, he thought, the end of his political career, and he was prepared to turn back to private life. That lasted until he returned to the Senate in 2006, when he was again selected to serve as the President pro-tempore.

Lynn, who served as the chair of the Windham County Democratic Committee in that period, kept pestering Shumlin to run for Governor. When he finally did, so did four other strong Democratic candidates. So first we sweated through a primary campaign (which ended in a Shumlin victory, but with the vote close enough to prompt a recount, which I took part in). Then Shumlin went up against Brian Dubie again, this time for the top spot.

The race was too close to call until the morning after election day, when Dubie conceded, and relief mixed with celebration.

Shumlin speaking at the Brattleboro Museum

It was all smiles and celebration Wednesday night at the Brattleboro Museum. Shumlin spoke briefly, mainly by way of saying thanks to his local supporters, and then he spent hours pressing the flesh and posing for pictures.

I finally had my chance, and held out the can of Gubna to him: “I’m going to present you with your first ethical dilemma, as to whether you can accept this gift or not.”

I also invoked Hickenlooper’s name–Shumlin had recently run into him at what he called “Baby Governors’ school,” a weekend seminar for Governor-elects led by their predecessors.

“Interesting guy,” said Shumlin. Then, having a laugh at the beer’s name, “Oh, I’ll absolutely take it.”

“It’s a strong one, so drink it carefully.”

I probably sounded more worried about how he would treat the beer than about how he would run the state government. Which I have no worries about at all.

It’s almost not fair to say that Gubna has a mammoth hop nose, since a prominent proboscis is one of Gov. Shumlin’s most quickly evident features–one he once actually employed as a silhouette on a campaign poster in 2002.

During the campaign last year Shumlin joked about a radio broadcaster who said he had won the primary by a nose: “If I’d won by my nose it would have been by a hell of a lot more than 197 votes.”

Nonetheless, the Gubna aroma is immense, citrusy, with a touch of sweet hay. Others might call this onion. The beer is made entirely with Summit hops; cruising the interwebs in search of information about the hop produces the usual mishmash of fact, fancy, misinformation and strongly held opinions, but it’s safe to say that many perceive an onion component when the hop is used too late in the boil. Others have suggested Gubna smells like garlic, marijuana, an unfinished pine dresser, nail polish, or a tropical fruit bowl.

A more berry like fruit aroma does come through as the beer warms a bit. If it never does warm up, you’re drinking it too fast for a 10% ABV brew. Pour this one into a snifter and take some time with it.

(Who’s working on the study that says 12 ounces of microbrewed beer in a can is polished off more quickly than the same beer poured from a bottle?)

One might expect the palate to be astringent, but it’s surprisingly caramel sweet, though a high-pitched hop bite lurks around the corner and lingers on with a wash of alcohol.

There was a new Governor but no Gubna at the Inaugural Ball Friday night, at the Sugarbush ski resort in Warren. It was all-Vermont night as it should have been, with Vermont beers, foods, and members from various groups around the state forged into the Vermont All-Star Band.

Gov. Shumlin dancing with his daughter, Olivia, at his Inaugural Ball

They earned the title–Dave Grippo, Brian McCarthy, Russ Lawton, Ray Paczowski, Bob Wagner, Lowell Thompson, D Davis and Jon Rogone were rocking and the dancing went on for hours. The covers were heavy on tunes by The Band and Bob Dylan, which suited us just fine.

The new Governor may be forced to do some budget cutting this year, which won’t be easy. But he demonstrated out on the dance floor that he sure can cut a rug. I may never find out if he liked the Gubna. Then again, this being Vermont, I just might.

But along with all the other celebrants at the ball, we knew the answer when the chorus of “Like a Rolling Stone” came around. How did it feel? It felt great.

Name: Gubna Imperial IPA
Brewer: Oskar Blues Brewery, Longmont, Colorado
Style: Double IPA
ABV: 10%
Availability: Year-round, 25 states
For More Information: oskarblues.com

Maybe he didn’t say that. I might be mixing it all up with Groucho Marx never taking his cigar out of his mouth.

Anyway, with a new year about to unfold, it would be a near miracle not to hear at least one rendition of “Auld Lang Syne.” But who would want to miss it? It’s hard to imagine a more apt and achingly bittersweet song for a time when we simultaneously say farewell and welcome. Cynics are free to disagree, others can enjoy the version we’ve cued up here, which also makes evident that the song shouldn’t be limited to a New Year’s Eve anthem.

Beethoven actually made a lively arrangement of the tune, and I was tempted, but this excerpt is from the October, 2004 dedication of the new Scottish Parliament building. The Queen spoke, Sean Connery attended, as did the novelist Alexander McCall Smith, all briefly glimpsed in the video.

We’ll eschew a scholarly treatise of the song here. Most think it wholly the creation of Robbie Burns, but he actually breathed further life into even older fragments of Scottish verse. He put a different tune to the song, which singer-songwriter Eddi Reader begins with here, before coercing the assemblage into joining her with the more familiar melody.

Robbie Burns

Through the centuries of iterations, the lyrics may now be a linguistic puzzle, but it doesn’t seem to matter in lachrymose terms. It’s a little like golf. The origins may be a bit obscure, but the current manifestation seems perfect in its affectiveness.

Here are the two most well-known verses:

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and days of auld lang syne?

CHORUS:

For auld lang syne, my jo,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere !
and gie’s a hand o’ thine !
And we’ll tak a right gude-willy waught,
for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

Brewery Ommegang

This is the third Ommegang beer we’ve recommended this year, from the seasonal Zuur to the year-round Abbey Ale, where we went into the Belgian connections of the Cooperstown, New York brewery. And in the post on the Belgian Scotch Silly we pondered how the Scots influenced Belgian brewing after World War I. But it’s on the Cup O Kyndnes label, too.

So now we have a seasonal Belgian-American Scotch Ale brewed with some heather tips and a touch of smoked malt and roasted barley. The result is a deep amber beer with pear-like aromas in a well of malt. But it’s a bit spicy rather than overly sweet on the palate.

As the beer warms a faint peaty, soapy touch reveals itself, and it all finishes in a lightly hopped wisp.

However this year finishes for you, friends, thanks for joining in. Let’s take a cup of this right gude-willy waught for auld lang syne, and look ahead to the journey into 2011. Cheers!

Name: Cup O Kyndnes
Brewer: Brewery Ommegang, Cooperstown, New York
Style: Belgian Scotch Ale
ABV: 6.6%
Availability: Seasonal, 40-plus states
For More Information: ommegang.com

However, in news I first read in Stephen Beaumont’s essential Blogging at World of Beer site back in late October, an Austrian Trappist abbey is attempting to join the fold. The Stift Engelszell abbey hopes a brewery will help raise money for some capital improvements and that would make eight, if Stift Engelszell brews according to the criteria for an “Authentic Trappist Product.” The rules are laid out by the International Trappist Association, which understandably protects the appellation religiously:

1. Products which carry this label are produced within the walls of the monastery or in the vicinity of the monastery.

2. The monastic community determines the policies and provides the means of production. The whole process of production must clearly evidence the indisputable bond of subsidiarity, with the monastery benefiting from the production, and must be in accordance with the business practices proper to a monastic way of life.

3. The profits are primarily intended to provide for the needs of the community or for social services.

In other words, Trappist beers are pretty much a nonprofit product, with all earnings beyond production costs going to the monastery or its missions.

Will there be nine, come March, when the Sierra Nevada Brewing Company releases Ovila, a beer made in partnership with the Trappist-Cistercian Abbey of New Clairvaux in Vina, California?

The answer, according to Bill Manley, Sierra Nevada’s communications coordinator, is no. “What we’re doing is an homage to those great Trappist beers, and using an authentic Trappist yeast, but not strictly speaking a Trappist beer. However, they will be the only authentic Trappist-style Abbey ales in America.”

Manley used the plural because Sierra Nevada will release three of these Abbey beers next year, a Dubbel in March, a Saison in July, and a Quadrupel in time for next year’s holidays, suggesting that the brewery’s encore to its spectacular 30th Anniversary releases is very promising. But more of all this next year.

I visited all seven of the brewing Trappist monasteries a number of years ago, perhaps the best journey I’ve ever been on in my life, and will resurrect the piece I did about it before too long (I hope). At 130 years old next year, the Koningshoeven abbey is one of the younger communities among the flock.

But then as now, it seemed to be one of the most open to visitors and tastings. I well recall Brother Samuel, who was fond of donning a helmet and riding around in the abbey’s fire truck. Then about 84, Brother Samuel gave my wife and me and a few other visitors a tour, and I was intrigued to find that the monks had access to a television. It seemed a bit incongruous with their life of study, prayer and near silence. “It’s there so that we can keep up on the news,” said Brother Samuel. “But we do sneak a few peeks at the Tour de France when it’s running.”

Not long after our visit La Trappe lost its “Authentic Trappist Product” status for awhile when the commercial Bavaria group became involved with the brewery. But some kind of agreement was reached about five years ago, the label is back on the La Trappe bottles, and some interesting new products have hit the market, including a Trappist Witte, a Bockbier, and some oak-aged Quadrupel. These days a part of the profits of La Trappe go to monasteries Koningshoeven set up in Indonesia and Uganda.

Three years after the abbey was established in the Netherlands, the head abbot, Nivardus Schweykart, thought a brewery might support the monastery better than farming–perhaps because his father was a brewer. So he dispatched Brother Isidorus Laaber off to Munich, there to learn the brewing process.

Last year marked the 125th anniversary of the friar’s initial efforts. When a commemorative beer was created to recognize the milestone, it seemed clear that it should be named for the first brewmaster. Hence, Isid’or.

At 7.5% ABV it’s a heady tribute, but then most Trappist ales pack a punch. Less potent versions are often brewed for the monks themselves, although Brother Samuel admitted that some nights (during heated Tour de France moments?) the younger monks were sent over to the brewery to pick up some stronger bottles. Trappist beer run!

If a Trappist beer can be called typical, Isid’or has the heady, fruity, yeasty aromas associated with strong Belgian ales, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It pours out a hazy orange. The flavor is a bit cidery, with a medium malt body, some spicy fruitiness, with a gradually puckering finish. It didn’t blow me away as many Trappist beers do. But then I’m not sure one bottle is going to suffice to fully assess this one. An additional donation to the Ugandan monastery may well be in order.

Name: La Trappe Isid’or
Brewer: Trappist Brewery Koningshoeven, Tilburg, The Netherlands
Style: Belgian Specialty Ale
ABV: 7.5%
Availability: About 38 states
For More Information: ArtisanalImports.com or latrappe.nl

After my pleasing reacquaintance with Pinkus-Müller in February I was happy to recently find what appeared to be a new beer from the brewery, and thought it might be a holiday seasonal. I also thought maybe it had something to do with Mozart’s Exsultate, Jubilate (K. 165), a 15-minute motet for soprano that pops up fairly frequently at Christmas time.

I thought wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong.

But at least the beer was a good choice. It is considered a celebratory beer (and hence makes the cut for this month), albeit one that’s been around since 1966, when the brewery proudly took note of its 150^th anniversary by harkening back to darker German lagers of the early 19^th century. It has been available in the U.S. since 2008.

Mozart

Mozart never entered the picture. Nor is Exsultate, Jubilate a Christmas motet, per se. It’s simply celebratory, too, and is loaded with alleluias, and hence seems appropriate to the season.

Venanzio Rauzzini

Nor was Mozart’s work, written when he was not quite 17, intended for a soprano. It was written for the Italian castratro Venanzio Rauzzini, who had performed in Mozart’s early two Italian operas. Given the contemporary paucity of applicants for the position of castrati, the part is a staple in soprano portfolios, thanks in part to a wow finish.

Might as well include a sample here. I don’t think there are too many beer reviews with Mozart arias included in them, but we try to appeal to all the fine tastes of our readers here. Beethoven’s 240^th birthday is Thursday, but I don’t think he’ll take offence. (Mozart’s birthday is January 27.)

This is only the concluding Alleluia section here, and the sound and image are a little out of sync, but the lovely Cecilia Bartoli overcomes all.

Speaking of synchronicity, it might be timely to crack open a bottle of Jubilate while listening. Imported by Merchant du Vin, the beer comes in a hearty 16.9-ounce bottle.

Pinkus Jubilate is called a dark lager, but it’s more of a chestnut hue. The beer has a beguiling nose, a grassy, herbal, yeasty swirl with light notes of toffee and chocolate. I realized, taking a whiff of this one, that it had been a while since I’d had a good malty lager. I was seduced pretty easily just by sticking my nose in the glass.

The palate is predominately a kiss of caramel malt, more friendly than amorous, as the Hallertau and Tettnang hops kick in brightly for a crisp, clean and lightly spicy finish. It’s not a beer that will knock you off your feet, but it should leave you smiling contentedly.

The Munster brewery was founded in 1816 by Johannes Müller and his wife Frederika Cramer. Barbara Müller is the current brewmaster, and with her husband, Friedhelm Langfeld, represents the seventh generation to run the brewery and its brewpub restaurant. Barbara’s father, Hans, made the decision to go organic in 1980, and the brewery believes it was the first to do so.

The great grandson of Johannes and Frederika, Carl Pinkus Müller, ran the brewery in the 1930’s and 1940’s and it still bears his name. He was known as the “Singing Brewer,” though no word on whether he ever tackled Exsultate, Jubilate.

Name: Jubilate
Brewer: Pinkus-Müller Brewery, Munster, Germany
Style: Dunkel lager, organic
ABV: 5.1
Availability: Year-round, in all but four states (AL, MS, NH, SD)
For More Information: merchantduvin.com

In the middle of May, 1659, the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony issued the following order:

For preventing disorders, arising in several places within this jurisdiction by reason of some still observing such festivals as were superstitiously kept in other communities, to the great dishonor of God and offense of others: it is therefore ordered by this court and the authority thereof that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way, upon any such account as aforesaid, every such person so offending shall pay for every such offence five shilling as a fine to the county.

The Puritans were concerned that the more bacchanalian aspects of medieval winter solstice celebrations were besmirching the Lord’s birthday, and it would be best to nip it all in the bud. The specter of the motherland, where Christmas revelers were wassailing–drinking spiced ales, mulled ciders and the like–wouldn’t do in the New World.

Luckily, it didn’t work, although the order amazingly stayed in effect until 1681. (If the law of the land today the sheer volume of five shilling fines would handily take care of our national debt problem.)

Whether the solstice, Christmas, Chanukah or New Year’s, we like to celebrate, and the beer world is ready to oblige. The proliferating number of holiday ales and winter warmers is up to the task of keeping everyone’s nose as red as a cherry.

Santa is not partial only to cookies and milk. In his tasty little volume, Christmas Beers (Universe Publishing, $19.95), author Don Russell unearths a 1959 letter to the big man found in the Rutland, Vermont Santa Claus mailbox: “Dear Santa: I’ll leave you a glass of ginger ale, and if you’re still thirsty, I could leave you two quarts of beer. Remember, my house is the one with the beer. Love, Cindy.”

Cindy may now be old enough to be collecting Social Security, but I hope Santa was good to her over the years. If she’s a beer fan, no worries. As Russell points out, what was once a trickle of holiday ales has become a virtual flood, all the more reason for merriment. And if ever a Christmas season gift seems to come pre-wrapped, brightly labeled big bottles of holiday beer are the ideal specimens. I’ve never known such an offering to be poorly received. I know (hint alert) I never tire of them.

Naturally, the joy of the season needn’t be confined to Christmas celebrants. The Shmaltz Brewing company’s annual Chanukah beer, Jewbulation, is from all accounts a powerhouse of an offering, but I haven’t been able to light one up yet.

Nor have I found the beer modeled after a Scottish suet fruit pudding from the Orkney Brewery, Clootie Dumpling. But there’s always next year.

We’ll consider a few festive brews over the next few weeks, with this six-pack for starters:

1. Our Special Ale (Anchor Brewing Co., San Francisco, CA, 5.5% ABV): In the U.S., Anchor revived the custom of brewing special holiday beers in 1975, annually varying the recipe and label. And now you can buy ‘em by the magnum. (anchorbrewing.com)

2. Santa’s Private Reserve (Rogue Brewing, Newport, OR, 6.3% ABV): One of the few beer bottles of use if the weather knocks the power out, thanks to glow-in-the-dark labels. There’s plenty of flavorful wattage inside, too, brewed with five different malts, three different hops, and a partridge in a pear tree. (rogue.com)

3. Fuller’s Vintage Ale 2010 (England; 8.5% ABV): The active yeasts in bottle-conditioned ales like the Fuller’s Vintage permits cellaring for five years or more, for those who can wait that long. Better plan, buy enough to chart the changes in the maturing beer from year to year. (fullers.co.uk)

4. Infinium (10.3% ABV): Fill the glass flutes with this collaboration between the Boston Beer Co. (of Samuel Adams fame) and Germany’s venerable Weihenstephan Brewery, which was ready for uncorking last month. It’s a beer, but the golden, fruity, spicy concoction is New Year’s Eve-worthy in its champagne-like character. (samadams.com)

5. Malheur Brut (Brouwerij De Landtsheer, Belgium; 11.0% ABV): The champagne of bottled beers is Miller Genuine Draft only in ad copy. This Belgian sparkler claims to have been the first real méthode champenoise beer in 2001. Put it on ice and power into the new year with its slightly stronger sibling, Malheur Dark Brut. (belukus.net)

6. Our Brewers Reserve Grand Cru (Sierra Nevada Brewing, Chico, CA; 9.2% ABV): This is the final offering in the year-long celebration of the brewery’s 30^th anniversary, and it is both a fond look back and a bold step forward. I’d say it is one beautiful beer, but it’s actually a blend of the flagship Pale Ale, the annual Celebration Ale, and some oak-aged Bigfoot Barleywine-Style Ale. Let the fireworks begin.

In shorter form, this piece was originally featured in the December 2010 Fairways + Greens Magazine, courtesy Madavor Media. To read the latest digital edition, click here.

Sure, I wish I’d been in Chico, California on Monday night, at the 30^th Anniversary Party Sierra Nevada Brewing was throwing in one of its warehouses–especially since the company had gone into the vaults for some of the 30 beers being offered, many never released to the public.*

But I’m at the Fairmount Turnberry Isle resort in Aventura, just north of Miami, the weather is perfect, I’ve already played two rounds of golf (albeit badly), on the Miller Course yesterday and the Soffit Course today, after the rigors of a Golf Performance Massage at the resort’s Willow Stream Spa.

So let’s be clear I’m not complaining.

The reason for the trip, besides beating myself up on the two courses, was to check out the resort’s new integrated fitness and instruction programs, aimed at making it a magnet for golfers looking to improve their bodies and their games. I’ll be writing this up for a magazine article a few months down the road so I can’t spill all the beans here, but I can say it looks like a pretty good bet.

Pete Bommarito analyzing a client

The resort has enlisted Pete Bommarito and Dr. Matthew Cooper and given them the playground of a gleaming 3,650-square-foot Willow Stream Spa fitness center. A huge list of professional athletes use Bommarito Performance Systems in their training, and Cooper’s USA Sports Therapy utilizes enzyme therapy to give visitors nutrition advice.

“We’re about performance,” said Bommarito, and as far as golf goes, “our goal is to help players reach their genetic maximum.”

Once one’s biomechanics are diagnosed and understood, the information can be trotted out to the new THEgolfacademy at Fairmont Turnberry Isle, where GOLF Magazine Top 100 Instructor Bill Forrest and his team have a full menu of game improvement offerings.

Christina Trammell

One team member is Christina Trammell. Someone tipped me off that Christina, once named a PGA of America Teacher of the Year, summers in Vermont. We quickly established that she’s then only about 40 minutes up the road from the center of my universe, at one of Vermont’s finest (if private) courses, the Ekwanok Country Club in Manchester. So naturally she also knows the Ekwanok assistant pro Zack Moore, who used to live right across the street from me.

Hiro Suzuki (left) and assistant golf pro Kevin Lamprich

Another serendipitous meeting was with resident golf professional Hiro Suzuki, who used to be the golf director for Robert Trent Jones, Sr. That meant he’s well acquainted with Roger Rulewich, long RTJ’s senior designer. In October I played in a tournament foursome with Roger at the Crumpin-Fox Club in Bernardston, Massachusetts, where the Rulewich & Fleury Golf Design firm is headquartered.

Rulewich was on hand when the two 18s were originally built here by the Jones firm back in the early ‘70s, when the property was known as the Turnberry Isle Yacht & Country Club. So the two tracks were pushing 35 when golfer/designer Raymond Floyd was given a $45 million budget to revamp them. The old South course was reopened as the Soffer Course in 2006 (named after the original developer of the property, Donald Soffer), and the North as the Miller course in 2007.

Aventura is thick with high-rise condominiums, yet Turnberry Isle somehow manages to create an air of splendid isolation within its 300 acres. Many of the holes of the two courses often play toward the distant edifices, but there’s a feeling of spaciousness and quiet broken only at regular daily intervals by crows fleeing or returning to the rookeries.

But I digress. To return to the subject in hand, I’d thought about making a local Florida brew the week’s spotlighted beer. The resort serves two, both made by the Florida Beer Company in Melbourne. Despite its name, the Hurricane Reef Caribbean Style Pilsner didn’t rock my boat. While it’s a decent all-malt lager with faint Hallautau hopping, a beer aspiring to taste like a Caribbean pilsner isn’t aiming real high.

At a nice sampler lunch at the Cascada Grille, which also serves as the 19^th hole for golfers, I had the Key West Sunset Ale, a mild amber lager that was a step up, but not a big one.

So I went back to the plan of choosing Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, the company’s flagship beer, the very first bottle of which made its way through the rudimentary brewhouse on November 15, 1980.

The story goes that the brewery founders, Ken Grossman and Paul Camusi, weren’t wildly satisfied with the first batch, however, and they tossed it out. Then the second.  Then the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth.  The beer finally went to market in 1981, and the company has since thrived, with Grossman still at the helm (Camusi bowed out in 1998) and as inventive as ever, as the special 30^th anniversary releases have shown.

My wife and I were married only two months before that first bottle came off the line. The wedding I remember well, but I can’t recall when I had my first Sierra Nevada Pale Ale–it was years before the beer made its way to the east coast. But there’s little doubt that I was blown away by its rich malt character and its intense Cascade hoppiness. When and if there’s ever a Beer Hall of Fame, the Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is a shoo-in, first ballot, unanimous. Its importance in modern beer history, along with Anchor Steam Beer, cannot be overstated. The company may have started out shaky with no certain success in sight, but it gradually became a beacon other craft brewers followed, a foundation that others built upon.

But there’s nothing institutional about the beer. It’s still poetry in a pint glass, now the single highest-selling craft beer in the U.S., racking up $50,426,000 in sales in 2009.

So it was something of a shock to walk into the resort’s swanky Michael Mina Bourbon Steak restaurant last night and not find any Sierra Nevada on the beer menu! I was forced to quickly improvise with four Chimay Whites and a mouth-watering filet mignon.

Not to worry. Tonight a few of us wandered over to the nearby Village at Gulfstream Park, a trendy collection of shops, restaurants and nightclubs that opened in February, and grabbed a table at Yard House.

A chain that began in California in 1996, Yard House has now moved into ten states; there are two other Florida locations in Coral Gables and Palm Beach Gardens. They all have huge oval bars with over 120 beer taps (over 220 in some locations). And while they may not be offering barrel samples from the latest oak-aged sour hidden in the cellar, there’s pretty much something for every beer taste here, with a mild regional bias.

The bar at Yard House

Indeed, I had my eye on a Cigar City Maduro Oatmeal Brown from the Tampa brewery I’ve been hearing about. But first things first. I ordered up a pint of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and saluted accordingly, looking west, and across the years.

Name: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
Brewer: Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, Chico, California
Style: American Pale Ale
ABV: 5.6%
Availability: Nationwide, year-round
For More Information: sierranevada.com

*According to the company website, this was the full list of beers being poured at the 30^th anniversary party:
2009 Bigfoot
2010 Bigfoot
20th Street Ale
Almond Marzen
Barrel Aged Life & Limb
Beer Camp #6 (Russian Imperial Stout)
Belgian Trippel
Best Bitter
Celebration Ale
Draft Pale Ale
Estate Homegrown Ale
Hell Raiser
Hopsichord
Hoptimum
Kellerweis
Knightro
Kolsch
Northern Hemisphere Harvest Ale
Old Chico Crystal Wheat
Pilsner
Porter
Pro-Am Audition
Saison Versa
Saison Vice
Sierra 30 – Charlie, Fred and Ken’s Bock
Sierra 30 – Fritz and Ken’s Ale
Sierra 30 – Jack and Ken’s Ale
Sierra 30 – Our Brewers Reserve
Stein Altbier
Stout
Torpedo
Tumbler
Westnatte Lupulus
Wood Aged Porter
Writer’s Block

The Yorkshire flag

August 1 is Yorkshire Day in England, a day to celebrate all things Yorkshire. The Samuel Smith Old Brewery in Tadcaster both qualifies for and certifies the day, by releasing its Yorkshire Stingo on August 1, after the beer has been brewed and matured for a year in the company’s century-old (if occasionally repaired) oak casks.

(Click here for a newer post on the 2010 bottling of Stingo.)

Fewer than 2,000 cases of the 2009 vintage made it across the pond, landing in shops by late August or early September, but bottles sometimes linger through to spring, and certainly the beer is worth looking for.

Michael Jackson at work

Another thing Yorkshire was beer bard Michael Jackson, who had something of a special relationship with the brewery. One of his first regular tipples was Samuel Smith, back when Jackson began his newspaper career as a 16-year-old reporter in the ‘50s.

It was Jackson’s ground-breaking World Guide to Beer in 1977 that gave Charles Finkel, founder of Merchant du Vin in 1978 (the U.S. importer of the Samuel Smith portfolio) the idea to have the brewery revive some fading beer styles, beginning with an oatmeal stout in 1980.

According to beer writer Stan Hieronymus, Finkel had come across an old label for such a beer and asked Jackson what it would have tasted like. Finkel told Hieronymus, “He didn’t know. He’d never tasted one.” But Jackson puzzled out some educated guesses and then Finkel went back to the brewery to see what they could come up with.

Hieronymus, a sort of amanuensis to Jackson later in his career, unearthed a 1990 quote from Jackson about Samuel Smith’s reaction to Finkel: “They said, ‘Well don’t be ridiculous–nobody has made oatmeal stout for years, nobody remembers how to make it, nobody in America would even consider drinking it. They all drink Schlitz out there anyway.’”

Nonetheless, they made an oatmeal stout, and for many curious but naïve beer drinkers back then, like me, this was a first time encounter, as was the Smith Taddy Porter, or the Smith Imperial Stout. It’s hard to believe now, so common are these styles, but so it was. And I have to admit that I’m pretty sure I was still drinking Schlitz in 1980!

Styles often crop up as a topic in beer blogs like Stan’s Appellation Beer, Martyn Cornell’s Zythophile or others. Indeed, Cornell recently took up the whole notion of beer styles being largely the late Jackson’s doing.

Jackson also alerted the world to brewing styles–such as the Yorkshire stone squares still used by Samuel Smith and, it would appear, now only by Samuel Smith. The system is basically open fermentation in square slate vessels, in which slow-acting yeast is frequently skimmed off and stirred back into the fermenting wort.

Yorkshire stone square fermenter

This year’s offering was bottled at 9% ABV, but it’s a bottle-conditioned beer that should ferment out a bit more over time, which won’t hurt it. The ideal approach would be to store a few (or more) bottles to taste over the next few years.

I found the aroma and flavors of the beer shifting around in emphasis in just one night, but then I managed to stretch the drinking of this Victorian pint bottle (550 ml; 18.7 ounces) to three hours–before, right through dinner, and as a post-prandial treat. The Merchant du Vin website recommends pairing Stingo “with beef, wild game, or demanding deeply-flavored foods like pickled fish or strong aromatic cheeses,” but it went pretty well with a meatless wheat pasta with broccoli, walnuts and ricotta cheese.

It has a fruity, spicy nose–apples topped with raisins and brown sugar and a whiff of cinnamon, though there are no spices in it. The entrance is toffee thick and sweet in a pleasing way, but gives way quickly to a tannic teeth-coating, oaky and puckering finish.

All in all it was a nice three hours, and certainly the first good reason I’ve had to look forward to next August.

Name: Yorkshire Stingo
Brewer: Samuel Smith, Tadcaster, England
Style: English Strong Ale
ABV: 9%
Availability: Nationwide as long as the supply lasts
For More Information: merchantduvin.com

Whatever one’s political leanings, there is no joy among Texas Rangers fans today, as the Giants polished off the American League champs 3-1 last night to win the 106^th World Series four games to one.

The news isn’t great in the beer world, either. I was hoping to spotlight a Texas beer this week–preferably something from Rahr & Sons of Fort Worth–but nothing rolled up to the door and I just couldn’t find any other Texas beers in time. So I’m going with another brew from the World Series champs’ town, made by the 21^st Amendment Brewery, which is within walking distance of the Giants’ home field.

Actually, Rahr is going to have to perform further obeisance than merely giving way at the TAP Beer of the Week stand. Two days before the Series began Shaun O’Sullivan, co-owner of the San Francisco brewpub, was contacted by Fritz Rahr, owner of the Texas brewery, and the two made a suitably professional wager on the games.

Sullivan, on the company’s blogsite, said that in the unlikely event that Texas won the Series, he would wear a Texas Ranger’s shirt while drinking a Rahr & Sons beer outside of San Francisco’s AT&T Park. But should the Giants win, “Fritz will be wearing a Giants shirt and drinking a 21st Amendment canned craft beer outside of Arlington Field.”

Other than the attendant shame and humiliation, it doesn’t sound like there’s a real loser in this proposition. No word yet when the bet will be paid off, but maybe the principals will get back to us.

Meanwhile, I do happen to have a few cans of 21^st Amendment on hand. Along with the Brew Free or Die IPA (which resonates well in New England, where the official state motto of New Hampshire, “Live Free or Die,” is reinforced daily on every license plate), I have the Back in Black and–with one of the great beer names of recent note–Hell or High Watermelon Wheat Beer.

More and more craft breweries are putting their beers in cans these days, as the old stigma that any beer in a can is, ipso facto, no good, steadily fades away. That strong, good-tasting beers can actually come out of a can may not be great news for the megabrewers of bellywash. Craft brews were once nowhere to be found at golf courses except (sometimes) in the clubhouse, since bottles weren’t permitted out on the course or in most beverage carts. The only thing holding them back now are the continuing bad tastes of some golfers.

The Brew Free or Die tastes pretty good. It’s a loaded can, that’s for sure, at 7% ABV, and heavily hopped–Warrior for bittering, Columbus and Cascade in the finish, and then dry-hopped with Amarillo, Simcoe and Ahtanum. I’m not that familiar with the latter, but it appears to have citrus and floral aromas, both quite evident here. The flavor is heavy on the hoppy grapefruit, but with a pleasing malt profile to round it heartily out. A solid beer, the best-seller at the brewpub, and no surprise there.

I have to admit that it felt a little weird pouring a beer out of a can into a glass, but I could get used to it. This one pours a bit hazy with an orange hue, which certainly seems appropriate under the current baseball situation.

Truth be told, the 21^st Amendment’s canned beers are made out in Minnesota, at the new-old Cold Spring Brewery, which has seen its ups and downs. Cold Spring Export beer was a hard-to-find but touted brew for awhile, since it had been formulated in the late ’70s to meet Rheinheitsgebot standards by Charles Finkel, to be distributed by his Merchant du Vin company.  (Quite possibly the nation’s first contract brew.)  Sought after for a time, but the time and the beer have passed on.

[Update: TailGate beers canned at Cold Spring are aimed more at football fans. Click here for story.]

So has the most notorious beer ever canned at Cold Spring–Billy Beer, named for President Jimmy Carter’s late brother Billy. (Billy wasn’t devoid of beer sense, if this quote attributed to him is to be believed: “Marijuana is like Coors beer. If you could buy the damn stuff at a Georgia filling station, you’d decide you wouldn’t want it.”)

One thing to be said for Cold Spring–it survived Prohibition. Hence the name of our brewery in question, which pays tribute to the constitutional amendment which ended The Great Experiment. That’s always worth a drink, and so is a tribute tipple to the Giants, winning their first World Series since 1954, when they were still in New York. They fell short in the Series of 1962, 1989 and 2002. But that page is turned, and San Francisco has its first World Series flag.

Name: Brew Free or Die IPA
Brewer: 21^st Amendment Brewery, San Francisco, California
Style: IPA
ABV: 7%
Availability: 14 states and D.C.
For More Information: 21st-amendment.com