Texas’ proud Spoetzl Brewery, home of Shiner Bock, celebrated 100 years in 2009. But its back story reveals a hard-wrought survival.

Beer for Chaps Episode 2 from Jennifer Litz on Vimeo.

Estrella Damm Inedit is, supposedly, the world’s first beer specifically designed to be consumed with food. That’s a lofty claim, since people have been drinking beer with food for centuries. But hey, if El Bulli’s Ferran Adria develops a beer that he says will go perfectly with your food, I’m in to at least try it. As you’ll see from our video, we find that Estrella Damm Inedit isn’t really beer at all, but more like a malt beverage that falls in the non-beer category. At least, it tastes that way–the Web site says it’s brewed with barley malt, water, hops, and yeast, so the usual suspects are all there. But I swear I tasted no hops, and I’m not the only one.

*Note: I believe in misspoke in this episode, claiming Ferran Adria to be the man behind the molecular gastronomy movement. He’s probably its most recognizable practitioner alive (though the inventor of food foam doesn’t label his food molecular gastronomy), but Herve This, a chemist, wrote the definitive book on the science of food and helped coin the phrase.

So I’ve been doing these videos for Nuvo for a while, and here is some self-constructive cristicism:

Louder!! You never know how loud those video interns will crank up the quirky background music that they inevitably prefer to your ramblings anyway.

One, maybe two drinks are always prerequisites to being on camera. If it’s early in the morning, that’s why God created The Screwdriver.

Should allow myself to be funnier (may come naturally with the pre-boozin’). Or maybe just let people in on the table jokes. What you don’t see in this episode: MyINDY-TV’s Scott Something-or-other was along for the tour, and he asked Chef Brad Gates and our waitress to be in a picture with him and “The Face” (he’s the “Face of MyINDY-TV,” but I doubt anyone gets that reference beyond thinking he’s either hilariously self-confident or referring to himself in the third person). That bodily part reference snowballed into a joke about Scott asking the overly obliging waitress if he could get a picture of her feet.

The following transcript was meant to run in the Indianapolis alt-weekly dining section in lieu of my usual restaurant critique. My editor killed it, saying we should save it for the October dining guide. He reasons (I’m reasoning) that this is more of a state-of-the-local-dining-scene piece, which just goes to show how out of touch traditional media can be about the power of blogging. To me, the move regarded food blogging as a fad or hallmark of 2009, when it is neither of those. Try as they might to be “interactive,” print media does not want to unclutch their slipping grasp on agenda setting.

Anyway, as you’ll read, the piece was about a popular local food blogger who recently went M.I.A.—and just last week announced the reasons for her two-month hiatus. (She’s since blogged twice. Publicity stunt, perhaps?)

The whole episode, in my opinion, highlights a local food scene crossroads that’s reflected in other markets as well. With the recent explosion of food shows and blogs that breaks down the barriers between paid journalists, professional chefs and home cooks (which, by the way, have been on the rise during the current recession), the snootiness once reserved for food critics has been liberalized in the blogosphere and beyond.

Case in point: The Indianapolis blogger in question takes for granted that there could be such a thing as universal good taste in demanding food bloggers demand better from local restaurants. This viewpoint irks me. The fact that this albeit worthy writer of good taste has raved about the sushi I found cloying at a new downtown Asian lounge should illustrate why: there’s no such thing as universal good taste. (In my published review, I was purposely tacit about the food, praising the drinks and scene instead.)

But then, so does the fact that my magazine higher-ups somewhat refuse to recognize that food bloggers can be at least as knowledgeable as people who get paid to print their thoughts. (There is other stuff I’m not yet mentioning here.)

“A Food Scene for the Blogs”

You know times are hard when the people who write about food for the sheer joy of it start throwing in the towel, or even turning against the local scene.

Indianapolis has long had a healthy food blogging community, but as long as the economy limps along on life support, monies to sample the dining scene run thinner. The Hungry Hoosier’s Scott Hutcheson, co-author of “Home Grown Indiana,” says he is “eating out less than [he] once was,” accounting for the lack of posts in his well-regarded blog about Indiana farms and food joints.

Renee Wilmeth has also put her popular fine dining and chef-centric Feed Me/Drink Me blog on a diet. She has different reasons, though: She was tired of being hounded by PR people and those from the blogosphere to review and link to everything under the sun. She made no bones about being generally disappointed in the local fine dining scene, farmers markets and food writers. Generally, she says, we are not being hard enough on local restaurateurs, and not demanding enough from specialty catering shops. Her commenting readers, generally food bloggers themselves, generally consented to her opinion. One of them chattered on how any “fat-headed” person could write a dining blog. Oh, the irony.

Is the Indy dining scene that dire? Are there really precious few good dining options at a time when eating out is no small investment? Do people in Indy just have bad taste buds? I’m not so sure about all of that.

First of all, there’s no such thing as a universally good-tasting food, or restaurant, for that matter. Many, many things go into our food preferences, from our own personal background and experiences to our physiology. The science of taste is still something we don’t totally grasp, but we do know that people do not taste things the same way (it’s not just our taste buds, but the way our brains process the sensation). Add to that the fact that there are many, many acquired tastes in the world—many of them revered by self-proclaimed “foodies.” Take the Chinese century egg, which is proclaimed a delicacy after weeks-long preservation in ash, lime, salt, and other curing materials turns the whites into a gelatinous brown substance and the yolk smelling of sulfur.

To me, then, taste can be largely relative. The goal is to identify the kinds of things that you like, so that others with similar backgrounds and sensibilities know if and when to follow suit.

We live in an age where information abounds, and there is still no shortage of that in the local food community. There are many quality local food blogs still, each with its own little niche and spin. Let’s not let any more of them go by the wayside. Visit. Participate.

Tonight I made my boyfriend a chipotle chicken sandwich with bacon, cheese, tomatoes and chipotle mayo. And no, the last ingredient didn’t come from a squeeze bottle.

Making mayo is really easy; so is flavoring it. This sauce can be used for sandwiches with smokey, spicy or Southwestern components; as wing sauce; or slathered around homemade pomme frites.

Ingredients
1 cup canola oil
1 clove garlic
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 tsp mustard
1/2 lime, juiced
salt to taste
1 5 oz. can chipotle peppers in adobo sauce

Whirl the eggs, salt and mustard in a food processor. Then leave it running, and slowly, slowly pour the canola oil down the side until incorporated. Put in the lime juice and chipotle, and leave everything running until smooth. Taste for seasoning. Store in non-reactive container and refrigerate for up to a week.

Makes about 2 cups.

Tips for the rest of the sandwich:

-Use some of the chipotle as a marinade for the chicken

-Brush some good artisan bread with olive oil and grill for 6 or so minutes

I can’t give away the whole story, which will run in Beer Magazine’s Sept./Oct. issue. But here are a few things about Wagyu and Berkshire pork you should know:

*It’s called “Kobe” beef because this is the capital of the small Hyogo prefecture in Japan where the first Japanese Wagyu (“Japanese beef”) were used to help in rice cultivation before the natives figured out how tasty they were/started eating more meat. (There are some alternate theories as well, such as that it was raised in a cult-like manner for its meat in the mid-1800s.) Now, most Kobe, which is an amalgamation of several Japanese (not all of them native) breeds, comes from several Japanese prefectures, so the name is something of a misnomer today.

… Especially when you’re eating what might be listed on a menu as “Kobe-style,” “American Kobe,” or “grass-fed Wagyu beef,” all of which would likely be raised in America. Most Wagyu raised in America is cross-bred with Black Angus. The easiest way to tell what you’re eating? If it’s $150 or so for 6 ounces, it should be Japanese Kobe. American-raised Wagyu usually goes for about half the price.

Part of Wagyu’s lure is that it supposedly leads a very stress-free life, massaged and fed beer. This NEVER happens in America; it’s too expensive, and many of the smaller farms that raise the cattle won’t confine them the way they do in Japan, which negates the need for the appetite spur. (Japanese Wagyu importer Jim Geller says he doesn’t like the term “confined” [naturally]; he says the “corralled” Japanese Wagyu are taken for walks, and fed hand-chopped veggies.) In Japan, beer is fed to the cattle to stimulate their appetites, which can lag due to heat and lack of activity: That intramuscular marbling doesn’t happen by itself, and the snowflake-like fat lacing is what draws the big bucks for this fatty, melt-in-you-mouth beef.

*As for Kurobuta pork, it didn’t originate in Japan. “Kurobuta” simply means “black hog,” which they labeled the Berkshire pork when they got it. As for how the breed arrived in Japan: You’ll read stories on the Internet about English diplomats gifting the Japanese emperor with the pigs in the 1800s. Walsh hired a professional researcher to find a record of the gift in the National Archives at Kew (all royal gifts and receptions were documented). He turned up nothing. Still, there are only a few hundred Berkshire pigs left in England, and the ones in Japan are supposedly fanatically DNA tested to ensure their lineage.

Kurobuta is said to be fed beer and massaged with sake to make the meat tender. If it’s American-raised, you can bet this doesn’t happen. Walsh says it often doesn’t happen in Japan, either. These pigs are naturally fattier, and they taste completely different from any pork you’ve ever tasted—especially the way pork is bred to be extremely lean these days. Some places that sell American-raised Berkshire include Greenwood Farms and Snake River Farms.

Sources:

Jim Geller of Geller International is one of the very few importers of true Japanese Wagyu. Drop him a line.

Craig Walsh raises Kurobuta and Wagyu at his Lucies Farm in Worcester, England. I’ve found him to be an especially knowledgeable source, who researches the lore of his animals independently. He is one of the only producers I know that ACTUALLY feeds his pigs and cattle beer, even though the story of beer-fed pork is largely fantastical elsewhere. Check out the article he posted from University of Queensland Press on The History of Kobe here.

Some places that serve authentic Kurobuta and Wagyu include Michael Mina group restaurants, and, of course, the French Laundry. Good luck getting the latter on the horn for longer than 2 minutes. Michael Mina corporate chef Anthony Carron, however, was very helpful.

If you want to get Japanese Kurobuta pork or Kobe beef, 1-800-Kobe Beef is a good source. Notice the marbling on those steaks—it’s more “pinpoint” or ubiquitous than American Wagyu, which tends to be, in Geller’s parlance, “streaky.”

Keep in mind, many of these go for both sexes, but they’re definitely written from a woman’s perspective.

1. Don’t start out with the hoppiest, highest ABV, most flavorful beers and then peter out to lagers and cream ales. You won’t be able to taste much.

2. Try not to eat Chipotle or anything else heavy right before. There’s nothing worse than having a BM in a Port-O-Potty.

3. Please, wear lots of deodorant.

4. If you’re not going to stay the whole time, go an hour or so after the start, when all the special stuff starts to be tapped, but before people start packin’ up.

5. Don’t wear a shirt with anything that will give drunken guys even more of an excuse to talk to you.

6. Don’t wear big clunky heels, especially if it’s outside. I continue to do this.

7. If you’re at a beer fest that gives you a finite amount of tickets for tastes, you’re at a lame festival. Luckily, most pourers are beer lovers, and think that idea is dumb. Don’t give a ticket for a pour unless held at gunpoint.

8. These things are generally full of happy, new-age hippies. There won’t be a riot if you cut in line.

9. Prepare to be crop-dusted. Often.

10. Make your own damn pretzel necklace. It’s cheap and quick. (Be creative: Big nuts like pecans work nicely, too, and go well with porters and stouts)

Dark Lord 2009 Tasting from Jennifer Litz on Vimeo.

Three Floyds Dark Lord is the holy grail of Russian imperial stouts. Dark Lord Day is the holy grail of special release beer festivals.

I had the privilege of experiencing both, and without standing in line for hours like everyone else. Beer Magazine commissioned me to write an article on beers worth waiting in line for: Special releases whose commemorative events have reached cult status thanks to the breakneck speed beer news now travels on the Internet. Head brewer Nick Floyd said there were only about 50 people at the first DLD a mere four or so years ago. Now hundreds fly in from other states and countries for the privilege of standing in line for hours to buy these bottles. Check out the July/Aug Beer Mag issue for more on the day of debauchery.

I would have had to stand in line myself, but my wonderful pregnant friend Tamre had a serendipitous twist in the trajectory of hers, which delivered bottles of Dark Lord in under 15 minutes. (No, she wasn’t drinking, but she’s a big enough fan to plan ahead for non-pregnant times.) We bought ours off her so we could spend our time cavorting and bothering inebriated strangers for half-coherent quotes.

We cracked it open to taste for you here (see video). I tasted a 2008 DL on Good Beer Show back in April. That one was a lot thicker and sweeter, and truly lived up to the bottle’s promise of “motor oil consistency.” I’m not sure if it was due in part to its year of aging, but that one was much more intense than the more modern progeny. Dark Lord 2009 has licorice, chocolate and coffee flavors, but in much more muted fashion than before. I perceived a bit more carbonation on the tongue tip this time around, and a hop bitterness that shone through the quiet, still lagoon.

Note on the video: A writer and photographer I am. A videographer, I am not. Watch it if you dare. It’s a silly take on some of the stuffier, snobby beer tasting vlogs out there.

Do women just not like the taste of beer? Only about 31 to 35 percent of women drink beer in America, according to 2007 Morgan Stanley stats, and I’ve seen other unattributed numbers that skew lower.

There just isn’t a lot of evidence to answer why. Is there something inherent to a woman’s palate that makes beer taste like death on her tongue? That can’t be it, because there are plenty of female beer aficionados. In fact, brewers like Tonya Cornett of Bend Brewing Co.—who won a gold medal at the 2007 Great American Beer Festival and was the only US representative at the United Kingdom’s International Real Ale Festival—clearly appreciate the libation.

Is it possible, then, that beer is simply more palatable to men initially? That it’s an even more acquired taste for women? Consider the science: Linda Bartoshuk’s ‘90s Yale studies uncovered the phenomenon of “supertasters,” which are exactly as they sound. Many of these abnormally intense tasters are women–about 35 percent of all women compared to 15 percent of men. Though the latest research from the Human Genome Project complicated previously held ideas about taste and flavor (like that each person’s sense of taste can be radically different from another’s, due in part to how their brains interpret a transmitted taste), this idea still seems to hold true.

Ironically, since women seem to be the better tasters, they may have a harder time acclimating to strong hoppiness, an initially foreign and abrasive flavor. Maybe women seem to like maltier beers and men to like hoppy beers because women taste tend to taste (and smell) things so much more intensely [and our tongues have more bitter-interpreting receptors than sweet ones].

But many of life’s joys are acquired ones, so therein, possibly, lies the other end of the problem: beer advertising and marketing is overwhelmingly male-oriented.

And most beer bars are way more male friendly. It’s not that I necessarily consciously object to 20-year-old psychology majors in butt-skimming skirts and pigtails serving me beer. But what does their prevalence say? Boys’ club.

I don’t mind the prevelance of meatheads and beefcakes in beer–as long as they make themselves useful. Reel me in with some shorty-shorted male servers with tight-fitting jerseys—maybe throw in a brawny burlesque show whenever a girl’s birthday or wedding is announced (ring the bell!)—and you’ll have not only me at your great taps lineup, you’ll have all my non-drinking beer friends, too.

There was a beacon in the dark. Namely, Carousel Winery out of Bedford, Indiana. Though I don’t see the full lineup of what we tried on their Web site–such as a lovely, light pinot gris with a hint of acidic sweetness and a quick, elegant finish–there wasn’t a single thing I tried at this station that I didn’t enjoy. Even the slightly awkward anglianico, a somewhat obscure grape that is supposed to be aged for a few years to get over its pubescent awkwardness, was heady, peppery and interesting.

I also really liked Huber’s Orchard & Winery’s vignoles, a semi-dry white with lots of body and a hint of carbonation wanting to come out.

My suggestion for next year: Hike up the price a bit and include food tastings at each station (and sure, leave the vendors–people will still buy). And how about including some wine from other regions? (After all, the Indiana Microbrewers Festival includes breweries from New Orleans’s Abita to New York’s Ommegang, and it still promotes Midwestern beer.) That way, you can actually compare regions and terrior. And isn’t that the point of wine?