Much of my excitement for homebrew derives from drawing inspiration from my surroundings. Fall in Minnesota is one of my favorite experiences, and sadly, Fall will be coming to a close in the coming weeks. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate its passing with a beer.

Wild Rice in Minnesota is a grain typically harvested in September. Truth be told, Wild Rice is not actually rice but a water-grass seed.¹ The techniques for harvesting wild rice have remained unchanged for centuries. Two people will occupy a canoe in which one, the “poler”, pushes the canoe through the wild rice bed of a lake, and the other, the “knocker”, uses cedar sticks to bend the wild rice stalks over the side of the canoe and taps the kernels off the stalk.² In Minnesota, the celebrated grain finds its way into many food dishes like salads, soups, and Thanksgiving stuffing. Even Fitger’s Brewhouse in Duluth made a vegetarian wild rice burger. So, when looking for a Minnesota native ingredient to infuse in a Fall-seasonal beer, it is only sensible to make one with wild rice.

How Will This Be Used

Wild rice has to be considered in your homebrew recipe much differently than American white rice. Though there are exceptions, white rice will contribute little pronounced flavor to your recipe and can be used to give your beer a lighter mouthfeel. Wild rice, on the other hand, can contribute a nutty flavor as well as color. In the summer of 2010, August Schell Brewing Co. of New Ulm, Minnesota released their Wild Rice Farmhouse Ale. The Schell’s ale married the nutty characteristics of the wild rice with the yeast to create a self-described “dry and quenching”³ beer.

My intent in using wild rice was to experiment with the Minnesota-native grain and find a late-fall seasonal beer recipe that I could continue to share and revisit each year. From what I had read I would want to focus on allowing the nutty, earthy flavors and aromas from the wild rice to shine through. I had a basic idea of what I wanted and knew that I would use wild rice. But there is so much more to a beer recipe that needs to properly come together before you have a worthwhile product.

Let’s Get Into It

I am a fan of using Kölsch yeast in my homebrew. I thought that perhaps a lower temperature fermentation with time could lead to a clean finishing beer. However, I feared that whatever unique flavors Kölsch yeast brings along may distract from the raw flavors in the wild rice. I opted, instead, to play it safe by utilizing Wyeast 1056, American Ale yeast — a relatively neutral choice. The direction I took with my beer was instead in the form of an amber or brown ale. When the snow hits the ground, I want my beers to be a little darker. An ale with the malty backbone of something like a nut brown resonated well.

As I said I wanted the wild rice to shine, but I would need some malt character. Nuttiness and chocolate would be the aim. It wasn’t hard for me to imagine a beer like New Belgium’s Fat Tire to slip into place nicely as a base beer.

The Recipe

Fermentables

• 5.0 lbs Extra Light Dry Malt Extract (DME)
• 0.25 lbs Crystal 20? L
• 0.25 lbs Crystal 60? L
• 0.5 lbs Carared Malt
• 0.5 lbs Biscuit Malt
• 0.5 lbs Chocolate Malt
• 1.0 lbs Minnesota Wild Rice (more about preparation later)

Hops Schedule — (90 minute boil)

• 1.0 oz. Willammette (4.5%) @ 90 minutes
• 1.0 oz. Fuggle (4.0%) @ 60 minutes

Yeast

• 1 packet Wyeast 1056 – American Ale, pitched from a starter

Specifications

• Batch Size: 5 gal
• Original Gravity: 1.066
• Final Gravity: 1.029
• ABV: 4.9%
• Bitterness: 26.9 IBU
• Color: 17 SRM

Preparing Your Wild Rice

I think there are a few ways wild rice can be prepared for your homebrew successfully, but I followed the direct advice of Schell’s David Berg. He recommended that I boil the wild rice and add it directly in to my mash. For now I am an extract brewer, and I treated the wild rice much as I would specialty grains.

For my 5 gallon recipe, I started with one pound of hand harvested wild rice. Most recommendations have you consider using wild rice for about 5-10% of your grain bill to bring through the desired nutty characteristics. I rinsed it first in the sink and then soaked the wild rice overnight for about 8 hours in cold water. I wanted the wild rice to absorb the water in an attempt to soften the husks. Once I had strike water, I placed the wild rice in a strainer inside of the boil kettle. With that, I slowly raised the temperature of the water to boiling. I boiled the rice for about an hour before rinsing and removing the husks. I re-used the water I had been boiling the wild rice in and pitched it into my wort and began my regular extract brewing process. At this point I had both the wild rice and specialty grains in their own straining bags in my brew kettle.

The Results

When I was transferring the beer from carboy to keg, I was amazed by the intense nutty-aroma coming from the wild rice. However, somewhere between that transfer and the serving glass, most of the aroma was lost. When I was pouring the beer for Jimmy Carter Happy Hour in Des Moines, the reaction towards the wild rice was mostly because of its curiosity. It allowed me to start many conversations with other homebrewers and beer drinks that were not familiar with the ingredient. It definitely struck a chord with a number of the attendees. I think the resulting beer allowed the wild rice adjunct to stand alone, but I didn’t support it enough with the rest of the beer. I know that during my brew day that I had a bit of panic during the morning hours and felt more hops were needed. Again I was seeking a balance between making the beer right and not distracting from the characteristics of the wild rice. You will notice that I did a 90 minute boil, and that was a last minute decision to raise the bitterness of the beer by using the hops I had already added. As a result, whatever aroma the hops were meant to add was quickly boiled away. I will also add that the finishing gravity wasn’t as low as I had expected, but I was initially successful in hitting my target original gravity. To sum it up, there were definitely fans of the beer, but I felt that the flavors were a bit muddled and not as complementary as hoped.

I will be trying this beer again because I know that it could be awesome. I didn’t dislike my first trial, but I know it can be stronger and it will have its fans. I encourage anyone who has read this far to research using wild rice as an ingredient in recipes of their own. With some more trials we can create a unique and flavorful beer.

I have to admit that I have missed our conversations through the microphone but we are at it again. Our scheduled programming returns this week with an exploration of some delicious sour beers. We delve into a comparison of a homebrew sour versus a commercial sour beer.

Long overdue, Shawn and I share a bottle of homebrew blonde ale from project friend Peter Kennedy. The beer was aged on New Jersey sour cherries. Peter has written a post or two about this beer on his blog Simply Beer.

Our second beer up for discussion is from Avery Brewing Company. Quinquepartite is No. 5 in Avery’s Barrel-Aged series. It is an an American Wild ale with an ABV of 9.91%. The beer was split into five parts and aged in several different types of wine barrels. The breakdown is such: 37% Ale aged in Cabernet Savignon barrels, 25% Ale aged in Chardonnay barrels, 21% Ale aged in Port barrels and 17% Ale aged in Zinfandel barrels.

The Beer Genome Project #32 Show Notes Runtime: 59:41

Update: We received a message back from Peter Kennedy regarding his blonde ale

@MikeBGP @ShawnBGP enjoyed the podcast.It was my 1st sour, no barrel, used carbtabs (mistake) glad you enjoyed it.

— Peter Kennedy (@SimplyBeer) December 13, 2011

It was at about this time last year that I started putting together my ideas for what a pumpkin ale should taste like. Granted, I was not sure if I would actually be able to deliver on the vision, but I was willing to give it a go. My pumpkin ale in 2010 was my first recipe from scratch; meaning, for the first time I was not brewing my beer from a kit, but instead with a crazy concoction of extracts and grains that I felt would generate the right flavors and characteristics. A year has passed and I have used each new homebrew since then as a chance to hone skills and further develop my process.

The New Brew

I created a Pumpkin Stout last Fall. This year I decided I could not make the same beer again, but instead I would make two new beers. I could have reused and followed my recipe from last year but I will tell you why I did not. First, I have not brewed all too many beers in the past year. I like to keep things interesting and once I really feel comfortable with my technique then I will try the same beer again and look for improvements. Secondly, I actually still have a few bottles of last year’s Pumpkin and it is drinking very well. So I did not see much need to try making the same beer again, yet. Instead my fervor for creating a pumpkin ale this year really came down to reading a few reviews and press releases of what other breweries were doing. The release that excited me most for the season was Oak Jacked Imperial Wood Aged Pumpkin Ale by Uinta Brewing Company.

Jacked is brewed with fresh pumpkin and fall spices and has been aging in Oak barrels for 6 months. The oak barrels add subtle nuances of toasted vanilla and bourbon notes. With an ABV of 10.31% (a play on the date of Halloween), Jacked is a big, unique pumpkin ale.

My mouth could not stop watering. I have not tried this beer and I doubt I will, sadly. But it gave me the Brewer’s Itch™ and I knew I had to recreate this beer for what my mind thought it should be. Again, though, today’s story is not about my take on this beer. That idea will become pumpkin beer number two for the season. It did however fuel the flames and lead us to today, where I present the story of a desire for an Oktoberfest, but with pumpkin.

Septoberfest

I love a traditional, German Oktoberfest. My favorites have a rich, malty backbone. If one were to look at the grain bill for one of these beers, I would venture a guess that very few different grains are used. Last year I decided on brewing something of an Irish ale, with dark malts and an Irish ale yeast. This year I wanted a lighter colored beer, but still the rich body.

Pumpkin ale and Oktoberfests are the two popular seasonal beers available at this time of year, but they can be quite different. A pumpkin ale can choose to embrace its unique flavor and delve into the world of sweet and spicy by mimicking the flavors of pumpkin pie. Other brewers instead choose to make their pumpkin ales using the fruit as a way to add a bit more earthiness and body to what is usually an Amber lager. These are two different interpretations (and there are more) of the seasonal beer, and I think both can be great.

The other idea floating around was to make a traditional Oktoberfest. This presented a number of problems for me as well. I don’t have the proper lagering facilities. I cannot control the temperature of my fermenting beer enough to really get it in the range that lager yeast do their work, roughly 45 to 55 degrees Fahrenheit. The other problem in my mind is that I believe Oktoberfests to be a fairly simple grain bill and probably more appropriate to be brewed using all-grain methods as opposed to extract. I did not rule out the idea, however, and decided to conduct some unofficial research by sampling whatever Oktoberfests I could find at the local store. It was in the Victory Festbier and Hacker-Pschorr Oktoberfest that I found my answers. These wonderfully malty, and nutty beers were the flavors I craved. I would recreate them, but I would not be creating an Oktoberfest. I would instead use their recipes and inspiration and brew an ale with pumpkin.

Putting It All Together

Maybe I was making an Oktoberfest. By any traditional means, and especially by the reinheitsgebot, this was no Oktoberfest. But the flavors I tasted in the Hacker-Pschorr and Victory cemented in my mind that I needed to use a simple grain bill to build out that malty backbone. I lacked the proper fermenting temperatures to lager the beer, or did I?

Wyeast 2112 California Lager ferments in the range of 58 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit, and will help me retain some of the lager characteristics I seek if I can keep the temperatures just a little bit lower. This was my answer going forward. In choosing my yeast it was important to try and find something that wouldn’t necessarily impart a lot of flavor but at the same time perform respectably at these early Fall temperatures. I had also considered using Wyeast 1338 European Ale but it gets very active and likes a bit higher gravity than what I was aiming for, I believe. Even when I first started conceptualizing the beer I had considered a Scottish Ale yeast. Rich and malty? You bet. It’s homebrew and it’s pumpkin; why not be crazy?

In researching the Oktoberfest beers I scrounged for clone recipes and tidbits residing on brewers’ websites. It became evident that one of my main grains would be Munich. Fortunately it seems that Northern Brewer, a local homebrew shop, recently added Munich Malt Syrup to their inventory. This would become my “base malt”. In keeping true to the idea of a simple grain bill, I didn’t stray far from the German malts and included a small amount of Vienna as well.

The Recipe

Fermentables

• 6.0 lbs Munich Malt Extract
• 0.5 lbs Dark Dry Malt Extract (DME)
• 0.5 lbs German Dark Munich
• 0.5 lbs German CaraMunich II
• 0.5 lbs Vienna
• 45 oz. Canned Pumpkin @ 15 min left in boil — pre-baked for one hour in oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit

Hops

• 1 oz. Cluster (6.8%) @ Sparge
• 1 oz. German Tettnang (3.7%) @ 60 minutes

Other

• 1 tsp Nutmeg @ 15 minutes
• 1 tsp Cinnamon @ 15 minutes

Yeast

• 1 packet Wyeast 2112 – California Lager, pitched from a starter

Proposed Specifications

• Batch Size: 5 gal
• Original Gravity: 1.054
• Final Gravity: 1.013
• ABV: 5.5%
• Bitterness: 24.4 IBU
• Color: 10.9 SRM

Introduction

I have never brewed a cider before, but it’s always been in the back of my mind. With the autumn season quickly approaching, I have actually begun to pick up whatever interesting ciders I find at the store. Ciders are a great beverage that act as a substitute or complement to beer. It’s flavorful, crisp, alcoholic, but also very light. I’m sure there are enough sugars and whatnot to make the caloric intake very similar to a beer, but a cider always feels light. Anyway, with all my home brewing recently, a cider is another concoction that can be easily shared with friends — particularly if they are not beer fans to begin with.

I’m in St. Paul now, home to many of my beer brewing friends. I don’t have my own equipment with me in the North yet, but I will be joining Shawn during his brewing adventures. Apparently his wife’s boss has an apple orchard and picked about 30 pounds of as yet to be identified type of apple and lent Shawn’s family a juicer as well. So our plan for this evening was to throw them in the juicer, and hopefully end up with about 3 gallons of apple cider. And then we are going to ferment it.

The Plan

Shawn stopped at Northern Brewer today and asked of their advice when picking up the necessary ingredients for the cider. He was initially only expecting to get Saccharomyces bayanus, a champagne yeast. As I stated earlier, we are using a basket of apples which will be juiced and poured into a carboy. With that information given, we should have concern for potential “wild” and off-flavors. We are using the Lalvin EC-1118, which according to the manufacturer works well over a wide range of temperatures, and has a high alcohol tolerance. It should also compete well against the wild yeasts that will be present in our cider. However, we will want a little something extra to take out the wild bacteria. For this task we have also decided to use Campden Tablets (Potassium Metabisulphite). It will help kill off the wild bacteria and hopefully gives us a little more control in the final flavor. So we have stocked up on Star San and sanitizing it all so it is prepped and ready for some juice.

The Juice

The best guess is that we had one bushel of apples at our disposal. We were also equipped with a Jack LaLanne Power Juicer Pro, which looks remarkable. The machine comes apart at all seams for easy cleaning. At the top is a cylinder that feeds the fruit, grinds, and filters through a mesh grate. We had it on loan, but if I plan on making more ciders in the future, this is the machine to get.

I would guess that we only yielded about 2 gallons of cider from our roughly 30 pounds of apples, but still, I think it was a great yield. I remember trying to make orange juice in the past with press and it was miserable. We are going to keep a watch on how much cider we can actually extract from the carboy. The apple juice in our carboy is quite pulpy, which I like, but it is going to need some time to settle out.

Looking Forward

The current plan is to let the cider ferment for two to three weeks. At the moment, the juice is in the carboy with two Campden tablets. It is supposed to give off a bit of CO₂. After about 24 hours, the next step is to pitch pectic enzyme, to help with our yield by preventing some of the haze caused by the skin of the apple. A yeast nutrient (food grade urea and diammonium phosphate) will be added to our dry yeast to help increase the culture before pitching. Since our original juice yield was lower than expected, we are hoping to juice an additional two bushels of apples. This yield will then be added to the same carboy.

In recent months, Shawn and I have been trying to learn about homebrewing with our friends and via the web. I must say that Twitter has been awesome to do some quick crowd-sourcing to get some different perspectives on a question I had. One source of help has been homebrewer and gent Stephen Freshnock, a.k.a. @slovakbrewer on Twitter.

Shawn was able to meet up with Stephen when he made his trip to Chicago earlier this year. Then, sometime this fall, Shawn was also able to score a few bottles of Stephen’s homebrew. This week we’re releasing a Happy Hour episode in which Shawn and I were able to get together and share one of those homebrews: an Imperial Brown Ale. I asked Stephen to share a little back story on his beer to offer context for myself, Shawn and you (the reader/listener). Feel free to read his commentary now, but definitely make sure to come back after you hear the show. Thanks Stephen for letting us try your homebrew and discuss it here on our show; I look forward to future tastings and learning more as both Shawn and I begin our foray into homebrewing.

From Stephen:

Like many recipes this one came to me while in a drinking session. I was at a local pub enjoying the Imperial version of the Brown Ale. It was much drier and had cascade as the featured hop. I often think about what I would change not to improve the beer but to make it my own. In the winter I enjoy the thick tongue depressor beers like “Expedition”, “Darkness” etc.. I wanted to bring out those flavors without breaching the session-ability of the brown ale style. Being a home brewer gives me license to batter styles, so I hopped it like an IPA with Columbus. This gives it a resiny piney aroma that is so inviting and then you get his with a mouth full of malt to sits hand and hand with the hop flavor. It think the bitterness helps push the maltiness through and guide you to your next sip. The deep dark color is due to my process. Before I rinsing the grain bed, I do an extended recirculation of wort to improve clarity and set the grain bed. This means I am running wort through wort which darkens the color. I am willing to sacrifice color in order to improve the quality/stability of my beer. I also reduce the first gallon wort to 1/2 a gallon. This creates a super sweet unfermentable base to the beer. This also deepens the color further. This wort reduction also impacts flavor tremendously. The rich caramel and toffee flavors are a result of this. I layered a two different types of chocolate malt and 3 different low lovibond caramel malts to add complexity. There is a small bitterness charge at 90 minutes, a small flavor charge at 30. Then I pack in 3 ounces of Columbus in the last 15 minutes. There are 2 ounces at 1 minute, this results in the big hoppy aroma. This beer is meant to have more malt flavor and more hop aroma.

The Beer Genome Project Happy Hour #9 Show Notes

0:00-1:49 - Introduction 1:49-16:05 – American Brown Ale from @SlovakBrewer 16:05-17:46 – Conclusion

La Folie by New Belgium Brewing – This barrel-aged sour was the second American sour I had ever tried, (the first being Avery’s Brabant), coincidentally at the same bar (The Muddy Pig, Saint Paul). Albeit I enjoyed these two brews on different occasions, this Fort Collins, Colorado brew delivered an amazingly flavorful and tart beast of a spontaneous beer. Vinegar and cherry nose followed by tart woody notes with pleasant residual funk. A superb, sessionable sour.     –    4.5/5

Nor’Easter by Captain Lawrence Brewing- I hadn’t heard of these guys until the weekend of Darkness Day, when I met up with fabled beer traders Uncle Jedi and Purple Hat Joan, of Huntsville, Alabama. After enjoying dinner with these two, Leslie and I visited their hotel room, where I was fortunate to sample this barrel-aged winter warmer, complete with prominent fruity notes from the elderberries used in the beer. This was definitely a winter “warmer” ringing in at 12% ABV, with the sweet bourbon notes present in the mouthfeel.    -   4.5/5

Pumking by Southern Tier Brewing - A dark amber color with a potent spicy nose that fills the room with pumpkin pie aroma quickly. I am a pumpkin pie fiend, so this aptly-named “imperial pumpkin ale” delivers a punch of flavor and body. Yet, even though it rang in a 9% ABV, the creamy smooth mouthfeel is my definition of what a pumpkin ale should be. Yes, Southern Tier does have a few extremely gimmicky beers (think: Crème Brûlée) but this beer was definitely one I had to seek out and buy a few other bombers. Just so happened to be across the border.   -   4.5/5

Petunia Ale by Minneapolis Town Hall Brewery - Yet another beer I sampled Darkness Day weekend, I decided it was important Mike finally get the chance to experience Town Hall. This fall seasonal had great body, but was very well-balanced with spice. Unlike other pumpkin ales which use two prominent spices (cinnamon and nutmeg), this brew had at least four or five, rounding out the flavor palette. The creamy finish was definitely a plus, and it was a great draft beer.    –   4/5

Monk’s Blood by 21st Amendment Brewery - I waited nearly two years to have my first 21A beer, and I was fortunate to participate in the release parties (yes, more than one) in Minneapolis the weekend of the 21st of November (suiting, right?). Although all the beers Sully and his crew had available were phenomenal, this Belgian dark ale really fit the brisk late fall weather. The mission figs, vanilla, and Belgian candi sugar in its composition, completed by a barrel-aging to meld the flavors, really helped to yield a big-bodied, Belgian-style beauty.    –    4.25/5

“Sour” Rye Saison homebrew by Stephen Freshnock – I was able to meet Stephen Freshnock, founding member and regular participant of The Fellowship of Gentlemanly Gentlemen (known on the Twitterverse as the #gents) this August. I was able to acquire a few bottles of his homebrew when a friend visited Chicago for a weekend in late October. One of the two bombers of his rye saison I gave to BGP fellow Tom Hill; the other Leslie and I shared shortly after its arrival from Chicago. It was tart, with slight tangy pepper notes, the body reminiscent of a great Ommegang brew: Ommegeddon. For a beer of any origin, it was fantastic, let alone a beer made in a single, five gallon batch. Look for Stephen, a.k.a. @SlovakBrewer‘s beer in a brewpub someday soon.    -   4.5/5

The real winner for me this season was the La Folie from New Belgium. I can’t seem to get enough barrel-aged sour beers. It’s really too bad my sentiment is shared by only but a few über beer nerds the world over. Perhaps someday the BGP will have to acquire some used barrels for experimentation…

This is the audio for Episode 10. Stay tuned to the website, as we will have the video posted in the near future.

This week’s episode is a bit out of the ordinary. Prepare yourself for four hosts, discussing four beers. Mike, Shawn and Jason are joined by homebrewer friend Tommy this week for a video edition of The Beer Genome Project. To celebrate this occasion, we have taken it upon ourselves to set out four Brown ales, to be reviewed in a blind taste test. After we reveal the names of the beers, our hosts have a discussion about getting into homebrewing, and how homebrew beers can be enjoyed just as much as commercial beers.

The Beer Genome Project #10 Show Notes

0:00-0:55 – Introduction 0:55-2:37 – Explanation of the Blind Taste Test 2:37-4:31 – Mystery Beer #1 4:31-6:14 – Mystery Beer #2 6:14-8:11 – Mystery Beer #3 8:11-9:48 – Mystery Beer #4 9:48-11:34 – Resampling the Beers 11:34-21:36 – The Reveal 21:36-39:45 – The BGP Discusses Homebrew

• 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.