Weaning ourselves off the bottle: craft beer goes can

By Greg 'Swig' Johnson

Chances are if you frequent Siciliano's Market or any other quality beer store you've noticed the slow but steady influx of craft beer varieties packaged in aluminum cans. Over the past several years, the use of aluminum has been adopted by around 100 craft breweries in North America, with more breweries steadily signing up. In Michigan, Keweenaw Brewing in Houghton leads the canned beer revolution. It seems appropriate that a brewery from the UP -- the land of hunting, fishing, and other outdoor can-friendly activities -- would race to the forefront of this up-and-coming packaging format. Other breweries aren't far behind, however. Arcadia, Shorts, and Vivant all have plans to can in the near future.

Not to be outdone by their west-side brethren, a number of east-side breweries have already made the move to aluminum. MillKing It! Productions in Royal Oak, Those Guys Beer in Lake Orion, and Rochester Mills Brewing all offer their beer in cans. Out of state breweries with canned beer for sale in Michigan include Big Sky of Montana, Breckenridge of Colorado, Shiner of Texas, Brooklyn of New York, and Cucapa from Mexico, just to name a few. It is also worth noting that, in addition to what you already find on Siciliano's shelves, more quality imported canned beers are becoming available all the time.

Some might question the wisdom of packaging beers in aluminum cans. Won't the beer taste like metal, or worse? Well, the answer is simple: no. Modern aluminum cans with a neutral lining are being considered throughout the industry as a better package than the long-preferred glass bottles. The advantage of aluminum is complete protection from light and oxidation. Glass bottles, no matter how dark, will allow some light to get in. Even if it's only small percentage of UV light, a small percentage over a long enough time will still result in beer being "light-struck" (skunked). Since no light penetrates aluminum, you could theoretically leave a beer in the middle of the Sahara Desert for a year and it will not develop any characteristics of being light-stuck (though it might not be much good from the heat).

The other significant benefit of aluminum cans is that they are 100% enclosed with no seals that can experience degradation. With glass bottles, the cap and the occasional cork present a weakness for ensuring the stability of a beer by protecting it against oxidation. Cap seals can degrade over time allowing oxygen to slowly seep into the beer, creating papery, wet-cardboard, or sherry-like off-flavors in the beer. Degradation of the cap seal can be accelerated through repeated warming and cooling of bottles and intensified by wildly fluctuating temperatures.

Aside from better protection for your beer, cans also offer some fringe benefits. They are lighter and more compact than bottles which decreases freight costs and lessens oil consumption during transport. With regard to recycling, cans are the superior choice because the process for recycling aluminum is more efficient than it is for recycling glass. Some reports also indicate people are more likely to recycle cans than they are glass. Cans are also more break-resistant; whereas glass will often shatter when dropped, cans will just bounce or dent. Moreover, there are the recreational conveniences rendered by cans -- they cool more quickly than bottles and can be taken places where you can't take glass.

It might be difficult for some people to overcome their psychosomatic responses to canned beer and alter their affinity for glass containers. For those individuals, I invite them to perform a blind tasting of cans versus bottles with a beer that is available in both formats (such as some Big Sky, Shiner, and Brooklyn). Evaluate the appearance, aroma, flavor, mouthfeel, then provide overall impression of and preference between the two beers. The results could be surprising.

As canned beer becomes more prevalent in the craft beer world, embrace its presence and the beery goodness that lies within. The next time you're tubing down a river, dropping a line in the pond, catching some rays on the beach, or find yourself in a place where glass bottles might not be welcomed, grab up some cans of good craft beer, hold them high above the generic swill surrounding you, and enjoy.

Additional Reading:

• Bottles vs Cans - An article about the benefits of canned beer
• CraftCans.com - An independent website dedicated to the news and reviews of canned craft beer.
• beernews.org/category/beer-cans/ - Beernews.org is a website dedicated to providing the latest beer information. This is specifically a link to all postings related to craft beer in cans.

Siciliano's staffer Greg Johnson has a real can-do attitude. He lives and brews on the west side of Grand Rapids, MI, where everything is aluminated.

A personal history of bread and baking

By Chris Siciliano

Roseburg sourdough

The first time I baked bread was in early September, 2008. Gena and I had just moved into a house in the Rosewood neighborhood of Columbia, South Carolina. Cola-town, South Cackalacky. The official home of boiled peanuts (awesome) and Palmetto Bugs (not so awesome). This was our first place together and already we were less than enamored of our landlord. Not a bad guy, just more enthusiastic in his landlording than we were used to, stopping by often and without warning. It was our first place together and we knew already that, despite our landlord, we had made the right decision. Gena planted tomatoes and zucchini beside the garage out back. I watched the backyard pecan tree with anticipation, waiting for the nuts to fall, not yet knowing how well they would complement golden raisins in the rustic French farm loaves I later taught myself to bake.

The first time I baked bread I was just beginning my last year in graduate school (English), working on my thesis, taking two classes, and teaching another. I spent most of my day at the computer, pecking out page upon page of lesson plans, essay analyses, essay responses, emails to students, professors, classmates, family, friends, etc, etc, etc. Only occasionally did the tap, tap, tapping of the keyboard taper off into oblivion, and if that awful keyboard-silence marked the end of something, it was more likely the end of my rope than it was the end of my daily workload. I've heard it said that graduate school is not like real life, that real life exists only outside the boundaries of the University. Real life or not, in graduate school the work is difficult and unending and it often turns your brain the consistency of bread dough. Now that it’s over, I find I sometimes miss it badly.

Whole wheat pecan golden raisin

The first time I baked bread I needed distance from the essay I was writing. Pacing the house from room to room, I was looking for a way to divert my attention: a worn-out baseball glove and tennis ball; a guitar played poorly; recurrent visits to the ever-tempting bounty of the refrigerator—almost anything would do, even the glossy pictures in an old cookbook. Two weeks earlier, a friend had gifted Gena a book about bread, an outdated relic from the 1970’s and something I’d totally ignored until then. In it though were wonderful full-color photographs of obscure (to me) breads and pastries, pretzels, bagels, and flatbreads. Captivated by those delicious-looking photos, I decided to try a recipe, the first and supposedly easiest in the book: basic Italian white bread. Who knew that from just one loaf full-blown obsessiveness would emerge.

The first time I baked bread I used too much flour. I didn’t know how to measure correctly and, when the recipe called for three cups, I packed them so tight it took damn near an act of congress to get the flour loose again. Not surprising then that the dough was far too stiff to knead easily and ultimately made for an overly-dense, too-dry bread, much like an aromatic paving stone. But man alive did that stone taste wonderful! Gena likened it to the rustic, crusty loaves she ate while studying years ago in Malta. I noticed similarities, albeit distant, to the perfect bread of my memory, the bread my grandparents made—and still make, five loaves at a time—for us grandkids on holidays, get-togethers, and weekends up-North. The golden crust. The creamy white crumb. And the smell. The slightly nutty, slightly sweet aroma of, well, fresh-baked bread. There's simply no better way to say it.

Roseburg sourdough crumb

Big eared bread

Humans and cereal grain and even yeast must have co-evolved, adapted over millennia to work together perfectly, a team on which each member does its part to improve upon the whole—grain to provide the sustenance, yeast to make it more palatable and to preserve it, humans to organize and endlessly replicate the dance. A triangle so beautiful even Pythagoras would blush. For my money, beer is evidence enough of this symbiosis. But if you’ve ever smelled a kitchen during bake-day, you’ll notice something elemental seeping phantom-like through your neural pathways, a scent to call up the shadowy specter of early civilization, even times before. If Ben Franklin was right and beer is proof that God loves us, then fresh-baked bread is proof that heaven exists—what else could smell so good?

And this is why, on some level, my first homemade loaf of bread left me feeling troubled. When I pulled it from the oven, I was absolutely astonished to find that the recipe had worked, that I had made bread—bread!—in my own kitchen, with no special equipment, and with only four, readily available ingredients: flour, water, yeast, salt. No factory necessary. No machinery. No chemicals. Until then I didn’t think it any more possible to make bread at home than I thought it possible to build my own car, or refine my own oil, or compose my own symphony or…well, you get the idea. The problem though is that bread is so easy. Flour, water, yeast, salt. Mix, knead, rise, bake. That’s it. That’s all there is to it. There are nuances, sure, and ways to complicate the process. But there is no mystery. Why is it then I believed that producing bread, the very staff of life, was beyond my ability, that like a new pair of socks, bread could only come from (a) my grandmother or (b) the supermarket. This disconnect bothers me still. And not just a little. It makes me wonder what else I can do. It makes me wonder why the disconnect at all.

The first time I baked bread was an experience nothing short of revelatory. I was proud of my inaugural loaf to an absurd degree, misshapen and dry though it was. A more recent attempt produced not one but three loaves, and not your basic white bread either, but rich-tasting five-grain sourdough with flax and sunflower seeds. These were much better tasting than that first historic paving stone, and better looking too. Anyway, I’m hooked now, thoroughly addicted to the pursuit (and defense) of good bread. It sounds crazy I’m sure, but to me, when I really think about it, there are few things more important. It’s the staff of life, for crying out loud. What could be more vital?

Five-grain sourdough

Unabashed breadhead Chris Siciliano is a writer, teacher, and the managing editor of The Buzz. He lives and bakes in Grand Rapids, MI, where there's always something rising. A version of the above post appeared last year on Chris' now-defunct blog, The Bread Defender. Reprinted with permission.

Brewgled

If you're anything like us, you can't resist the urge to Google yourself from time to time. Here's the results of our latest search, a well-produced piece by video-blogger Josh Leo. Though it was made in 2007, it will still give the uninitiated a good sense of what Siciliano's is and strives to be. Nice too to see a pair of Sicliano alums back when they manned the registers. If we had a Siciliano's Hall-of-Fame, Amadeus Scott and Matt Blodgett would both be in it.

Where are they now? Amadeus teaches art at Washtenaw Community College over on the east side of the state. As for Matt, last we heard he was battling intergalactic space yeast on the third moon of Bavarium. Needless to say, we're very proud of them both. [Update: turns out Matt is actually brewing down at Founders. Our bad.]

To watch the video, please click here.

New England style cider: the slow road to good drink

Buzz contributor Wes Eaton explains the process of making “New England” style cider, in his words, "a golden drink with a strong acid backbone yet pleasant apple flavor achieved through a slow, 'stressed' fermentation process".

By Wes Eaton

In days gone by, farmers would press their apple bounty into large, barn-stored wine barrels, allowing the raw cider to ferment slowly and naturally, making a strong but sweet beverage for consumption over the winter and cool spring months. Dried fruit was added for sweetness and strength, but this played a dual role as its presence also helped clear the beverage. I like to emulate this process in my home cider brewing, especially the cold fermentation stage, which is key to coaxing raw cider into a balanced and full-bodied elixir rather than an alcoholic, tepid and flabby mouthwash, so often the product of hot, vigorous fermentations. To put it more straight forward, here’s how I go about making my cider.

Attack of the giant carboy!

Once home with your cider--five or six gallons makes a worthwhile batch--sanitize your brewing pail and fill it to just beyond your target volume, say five and a gallons, leaving room enough for the yeast to rise. The extra volume is necessary as you'll lose some cider after fermentation when you siphon it from the primary bucket into the air tight glass carboy for its conditioning phase. Take a reading with your hydrometer next and note the specific gravity and potential alcohol in your record book. With no additives, my batch this year came in at 1.050 S.G., with a potential alcohol of 7%, meaning that if all sugars are converted, I’ll have a decently warming beverage. Like wine, cider “finishes dry”, meaning that all of the available sugars in solution will be eaten by the yeast, yielding a final gravity reading of below 1.000, the gravity of water.

When your fermentor is full and gravity reading recorded, your must is ready for inoculation with yeast. There are other steps that many cider makers take at this stage--testing the pH, testing the acid and making adjustments, or adding sulfites to sanitize your must from wild yeasts. Let’s leave those steps for more advanced, future batches and move straight ahead to adding the yeast. Knowing the quality of the source of your cider is key to this step [see note below], as is a little faith that good-tasting raw cider will yield great-tasting hard cider. There are many yeast options available, but I suggest a dry American or English ale yeast such as those offered by Safale. If you are a beer brewer or wine maker, it's here you would snip and sprinkle in the entire package. Not so with cider, not with New England-style cider anyway, and here's why.

Look closely: you can almost see the raisins.

Adding the standard, full-size shot of yeast (typically one package) induces a quick, healthy fermentation where the sugar is converted into alcohol over the period of days and the resulting drink must be moved quickly off the spent yeast cake. This standard fermentation, while perfectly functional, drastically changes the flavor of the raw cider, dissolving the taste of apples and accentuating to taste of alcohol. To slow this down, there are two things the old farmers figured out long ago: add only a little yeast, say a 1/4 tsp per five gallons (if any at all) and ferment your cider in a cool place, preferably between 46-56F. Simply sprinkle your yeast on the surface and attach your lid and airlock. Next, look for a cold spot in your home, like a back stairwell, cellar, three-season porch or closet on an outside wall. If the temperature temporarily drops, that’s okay; your yeast is hardy! [Editors note: both the author and Siciliano's recommend keeping your cider at room temp (68 degrees) for a day or two after pitching the yeast and before moving it to your "cellar" location; this allows the yeast to gain a necessary, if tenuous foothold.]

By this process you achieve a “stressed” fermentation -- metabolization (yeast multiplication) and alcohol conversion happen slowly, gradually, over an entire season as opposed to a number of days, thereby preserving the flavors of your carefully blended apples and providing the perception of sweetness and body despite a technically dry-finishing beverage. Let this happen in a brew pail or, if you’d rather see the colors move from leather to copper to gold, let your cider ferment in a glass carboy. You’ll know when it's time to transfer by noting this color change. As the cider begins to clear, sometime around late winter or early spring, slowly siphon the must off the now-dormant yeast cake and into a clean carboy, making sure that the carboy is topped-up to prevent oxidation from contact with air. Your cider has now undergone its long, slow primary fermentation and has been moved into a secondary vessel; it's time now to add a final ingredient: raisins.

Orange: fruit & hue.

As noted, the tannins found on raisins contribute to the desired translucence and also add both body and sweetness. Since your remaining yeast is now dormant, stressed into submission from their uphill battle against the cold, sweet wort, the concentrated sugars found on the raisins add delicate and complex flavors of plumbs and figs, ultimately enhancing the perception of apples. Specifically, I use organic white raisins. Whatever you use, be careful to choose raisins not coated with vegetable oil, a common additive. Add about a half-pound, then top up the vessel, attach your airlock and let age as long as you can, at least one month.

Your cider can then be packaged either still (non-carbonated) in bottles or racked into a home kegging set-up. To make your bottled batch sparkling, you’ll need to add fresh yeast along with 1/4 cup of corn sugar boiled and cooled in a cup of water before bottling. The result is a sparkling, golden elixir, the hue of honey, with the aroma of a summer apple orchard and taste of a crisp Fuji on a hot, summer afternoon. While this is only one way to approach making cider, this is my favorite, and I hope you too enjoy this patient and rewarding method.

Black & white for dramatic effect

*Regarding ingredients: Hard cider starts with sweet or raw cider, which is called ‘must’ or ‘wort’ by brewers, as is any unfermented fruit- or barley-based liquid. Preferably, your cider will come from an orchard and mill close to your home, one which blends the juice from a variety of acidic (tart) apples, such as Jonagold, Golden Delicious and Ida Red, with those of the sweet, sugary sort, such as Macintosh. My source is Hill Bros. Orchards & Cider Mill northwest of Grand Rapids. Winner of multiple awards for the raw stuff, Hill Bros. accommodates the amateur cider maker like no other, offering to fill buckets or even bourbon barrels with their continually-tested blend of four or five varietals, sold below three bucks a gallon well into the new year. While theirs is highly-prized cider, most any fresh, local cider will do, as long as it has not been pasteurized (UV pasteurization is fine).

Enough to Face the Sun - Chapter 1

Not to be outdone by his brother Mark, whose cartoons will appear regularly on The Buzz, Steve Siciliano today makes this offering, an excerpt from his novel-in-progress “Enough to Face the Sun.” Steve’s first novel, “Putting Butterfly Wings on The Thinker”, will be published in April, 2011, by Siclianos Market Press.


“Christ, it’s hotter than hell out there.”

When Charlie Reynolds’ voice shattered the late afternoon quiet I looked up from my crossword and saw Paul, the bartender, wince. Charlie sat down on the corner stool, slapped his palms on the bar, looked over at me and nodded, then brought his hands together and cracked his knuckles.

“How’s it going today, Pauly?”

“Just fucking wonderful,” Paul said. “Making people happy.” He put his newspaper down and began pouring Charlie a draft.

“Whoa there, buddy. Don’t want a beer.”

Paul took a deep breath then dumped a half glass of beer down the drain.

“Gin and tonic, barkeep. Lots of ice.”

“What kind of gin?” Paul held the empty beer glass in his hand while Charlie passed a thick finger across his cell phone. “What kind of gin, sport?”

“Uh, that new one I told you to get in. Anyone know how Detroit did today?”

“Lost three to two,” I said when Paul didn’t tell Charlie the score.

“Fuck! Lost another one. How’d the Cubbies do?”

I was about to answer but when Charlie started texting I went back to my crossword. Paul put the gin and tonic in front of Charlie then walked back to the middle of the bar and picked up his newspaper. Charlie put his phone down and took a sip of the drink. “Damn, this is good gin. Selling a lot of this, Pauly?”

“Nope.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. It’s popular as hell at the club.”

“That’s nice,” Paul said.

“Guy at the club turned me on to it.”

“That’s nice.”

“I can’t believe you’re not selling it.”

“That’s nice,” Paul said.

Two men in suits came in and Charlie swiveled his stool and watched them hang their coats on the high hooks on the side of a booth. Paul slowly put his newspaper back together then glanced up at the sports scores running across the bottom of the muted television screen before walking to their table.

“How’s the crossword?” Charlie asked me after he swiveled back around.

“Hard,” I said. “Fridays are always hard.”

“Never got into them. My old man did them all the time. Hell, he probably still does.”

“It passes the time,” I said without looking up.

“How’s business?” Charlie asked. “Cigar shop, right?”

"It's getting better," I said.

Charlie’s phone rang and I worked on the crossword while I heard about his round of golf in the morning, how hot it was on the golf course, about the lunch at his club with the “docs”, how he had impressed the docs, how he bought a new pair of shoes, about a new set of clubs that he looked at but didn’t buy, about how the Caddy was still making a noise, how he ran into Fred Peterson at DeMario’s, that he forgot to pick up “your god damn shampoo”, that DeMario asked him to go to Vegas, that Fred asked him to go fishing Sunday, and that they would have to take the kids to the “damn water park” some other day. With that, Charlie put the phone done, the conversation over. “So you’ve been open what, about a year now, right?”

I nodded.

He picked up his phone again then set it back on the bar next to his drink. “Most new businesses fail within the first year. It’s a fact.”

“I’ve heard that,” I said.

“Has the smoking ban hurt?”

“Probably a little.”

“God damn government keeps taking away our rights. It should be up to business owners to decide if people can smoke in their own joints. Right Pauly?” Paul was restocking liquor and didn’t say anything. Charlie looked at his phone again. “What are you drinking?”

“Beer.”

“I can see it’s beer, chief. What kind of beer?’

“IPA,” I said.

“Tried an IPA once. Too bitter.”

“IPA’s are hoppy.”

“Nothing like the Silver Bullet.”

“Well, to each his own.”

“Can I buy you another one?”

“No,” I said. “I have to get going.”

Charlie’s phone rang again. He went over to a pool table and caromed the cue ball off the bumpers while he talked. Paul put his newspaper down and walked up to me. “Going to have another?”

“No, I’ve got to go.”

“How was it today?”

“Slow,” I said. “About two hundred when I left.”

Paul nodded. “I was slow too. No one wants to go out in this heat.”

“Well, Charlie’s here,” I said.

“Fuck him. How’s your new guy working out?”

“Good, he knows his shit.”

“Well that’s got to help.”

I took a five out from my shirt pocket and laid it on the bar.

“This one’s on me,” Paul said.

“Come on, Paul. I can afford to buy a beer.”

“I know you can,” Paul said.

I noticed one of the men in the booth looking over at us. “I think those guys want another.”

Paul walked away and while he was mixing the drinks Charlie walked back pumping a clenched fist over his head. After he sat down he clapped his hands together then snapped his fingers.

“Just landed me a huge account.”

“Congratulations,” I said.

“Hey Pauly I want to buy the bar a drink.” Charlie swiveled in his stool, “this one’s on me fellas,” then swiveled back. “How about you?”

“No thanks.”

“Damn, I feel like a cigar. Did you get those Opus X’s in yet?”

“I told you they won’t sell them to new shops.”

“They’re great fucking smokes. Ever have an Opus X, Pauly?”

“Thanks for the drink,” one of the men called out.

Charlie swiveled and raised up his glass. “My pleasure. Cheers. What do you fellas do?”

“‘Lawyers.”

Charlie chuckled. “I’ve got a shit ton of lawyer jokes.”

“I bet you do.”

“I sell drugs,” Charlie said.

“Thanks again.”

“You guys ever have an Opus X?”

“No.”

“How about a Cuban? Cubans are awesome. Remember that Cuban I gave you Paul?”

“It was shit,” Paul said. “Counterfeit.”

“No fucking way!” said Charlie.

The man glanced at his watch and looked at Charlie. “I don’t smoke.”

“Really? Not even on the golf course?”

“No,” the man said. “I love the smoking ban.”

Charlie moved his drink and phone to the high top table next to the booth and argued about Michigan’s new smoking law with the lawyer. One of the neighborhood bums came in and when Paul refused to serve him he told Paul to get fucked. After the bum went back outside he pounded on the front window and gave Paul the finger. I finished my beer and put the empty pint glass on the inside edge of the bar. Paul walked up, took a deep breath, and picked up the glass.

“Some people are hell, Matthew,” he said.



Steve Siciliano is a merchant, philosopher, and writer. He lives in Grand Rapids, MI with his wife and two dogs.

Head Cheese, Volume 1

We here at The Buzz are proud to introduce Head Cheese, a new cartoon series written and drawn by the "funny" uncle, Mark Siciliano. Uncle Mark has agreed to lend us his current and forthcoming booze-related cartoons. In return, we've agreed to stop charging him double for cigars. It's a real win-win situation as far as this editor (and nephew) is concerned. So, without further ado, we give you...

Head Cheese

by 

Mark Siciliano

Like what you see here? You can ensure the hilarity continues by voting for Mark in the American Idol-like contest over at thecartooniststudio.com. Vote early and often -- help make Mark the Kelly Clarkson of cartoonists.

Michigan Winter Beer Fest 2011

Attention Buzz readers!

Below are links to several excellent posts and articles regarding this year's Michigan Winter Beer Festival. In fact, there are so many good write-ups already out there, we thought it best to contribute something a little different to the conversation. Rather than post reviews of specific beers and breweries or our own take on the festival in general, we give you this: a video of the Siciliano's crew doing what we do best, expressing our enthusiasm and love for craft beer in a language that absolutely everyone can understand. Enjoy!

If you didn't attend (or can't remember attending), here are four five links worth checking out.

• The fine people over at Michigan Microbrews offer up a video of their own, a collage of sorts which reveals the true spirit of the Winter Beer Festival and its revelers.
• Rachael Recker from the GR Press gives us this story highlighting, among other things, the unique draft systems employed by several breweries in attendance.
• This post over on Detroit Moxie suggests that even casual beer fans can enjoy the MIWBF.
• And finally, to keep us all from resting on our laurels, the Great Lakes Guru contends that both the summer and winter beer festivals can--and should--be even better than they are now.
• Late edition: Here's an entertaining write-up from All the Brews Fit to Pint. Definitely worth the read.

Have a link you want to share? Feel free to post it in the comments section. No doubt we (unintentionally) overlooked some good ones.

Cheers!