Meeting the Guys from Summit

Five beers were available for tasting at the tent.

• Summit Scandia Ale (Belgian Wheat, a bit like Blue Moon but sharper)
• Summit Pilsener (didn’t try it)
• Summit Extra Pale Ale (good, real good)
• Summit India Pale Ale (more hops, more bitter, heavier and tasty like EPA. Would not enjoy an entire pint of it, however. dry.)
• Summit Great Northern Porter (one of my favorite beers)

I walk up to the beer tasting tent and notice a few guys wearing Summit shirts. So I ask them if they are pretty big beer guys or just serving it up. The first guy responds by pointing to the second guy and informing me that he is the VP for Summit. I congratulate the man for such a fine brewing company. I proceed to ask how they got into beers, and developed their palettes. The VP tells me that he spent his money buying beer, six-packs and trying out everything he had never seen before. From there he began doing a bit of home brewing and experimenting until he could find a mixture that was decent enough to brew. The two were also very informative and could answer any questions I might have about beer. To begin, dark beer is not necessarily heavier than light beer. In fact, Guinness only has 10 calories or so more than Budweiser. Not bad. I wish I had taken notes but I was told the differences between EPA and IPA. Porter and Stout. Most differences have to do with the time the wheat was roasted for. In porters you can taste the dark roast, a hint of the burnt flavoring. I told the VP about our theory that a porter will have a nutty flavor while a stout could tend towards more of a chocolate taste. He figured that was a good place to start, but it is not a rule for the two styles of beer and not always true.

Christine was asking all the right questions. She got the guys to open up about what flavors she should be looking for and why that was the case.

Finally the guys offered for us to come take a tour of the brewery sometime. I noticed on the website that Summit offers free tours on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. I am all for it. I think the more we learn about the process of beer creation, and how different companies have different approaches, we will be able to learn the nuances in taste and categorization. I also have a little brochure about Summit along with a few business cards.

Updated: I moved on to the Anheuser-Busch table to catch a sample of a Belgian Wheat by the name of Shocktop. Very citrusy. In fact, if you swig it and gulp, it tastes a lot like pulp-free orange juice. Good, but not something you want to drink a six-pack of in a short period of time. I asked the server if this was an Anheuser-Busch recipe, or a microbrew that they had bought and were distributing for. He confirmed that AB was in the market of buying a few microbrews but that this was an original AB recipe. He then asked if that scared me away from the beer, having the large company attached with it. I replied that it didn’t matter to me who made it, if it was a good beer and that I just wasn’t expecting AB to be in the market. One observation both Christine and I made was a comparison between Shocktop, Summits belgian Scandia Ale, and Blue Moon. Christine did not care for Summit, but felt that Shocktop had a good flavor, and perhaps Summit added a bit too much zing. We also noted the similarity of Shocktop to Blue Moon. I have to guess that AB wanted to get in on this finer beer market and target and replicated the most popular, which I assume to be Blue Moon. While Summit is also in the same market, their goal isn’t to become the same as the other top beers but have a distinct flavor of their own. So while Shocktop is good, i suspect it is trying to be a Blue Moon and take some of the market.

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