"joshuabernstein" news and stories

Joshua M. Bernstein has written about brews, bars and booze for New York Magazine, Time Out New York, ForbesTraveler.com and The New York Times.

While cool, blustery fall weather stirs longings for steaming cups of apple cider, beer lovers have a reason to drink to the season: fresh-hop beer, a libation that's as fleeting as it is delicate.

August and September signal harvest season for hops, the flower cones that provide beers' bitter flavors. Generally, plucked hops are dried and sent into storage, losing aromatic oils and resins in the process. But a small portion of fresh hops are hustled to breweries in a race against time -- like grass clippings, the hops quickly degrade and decompose.

"Our hops come in by truck, typically in the middle of the night, and we begin brewing within an hour of arrival," says Bill Manley, communications coordinator for Sierra Nevada. "We don't stop brewing until all of the hops are gone, 24 hours a day -- our kettles actually begin to warp toward the end of the week from the constant heat."

But the potential destruction is worth the payoff: Harvest Wet Hop Ale, now in its 13th year of altering drinkers' perception. "Wet-hopped beers can sometimes take a first-time drinker by surprise," Manley says.

Hottenroth Berliner Weisse. Photo: Jenene Chesbrough

Joshua M. Bernstein, Gourmet.com's beer columnist, has written about brews, bars and booze for New York Magazine, Time Out New York, ForbesTraveler.com and the New York Times.

We adore our double IPAs and super-charged Russian imperial stouts as much as the next craft-beer geek, but sometimes we like drinking a microbrew that doesn't hit us as hard as a right hook in Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!

So in lieu of quaffing another deliciously inebriating 18-percent ale like Dogfish Head's 120 Minute IPA, we instead look to the lower end of the alcoholic spectrum. Allow us to introduce the Berliner Weisse, a wheat beer that's barely boozier than water.

Sacrificing ABV need not mean sacrificing flavor. The Berliner -- which was, duh, born in Berlin -- is typically tart and straw-hued, with the lactobacillus culture providing a sour, citric edge that's as invigorating as just-squeezed lemonade. "The Berliner weisse is such a low-alcohol beer that it can appeal to the most hardcore beer geeks and to those who don't like beer," says Patrick Rue, head brewer and owner of Placenta, California's the Bruery.

While the Bruery specializes in unfiltered, Belgian-style ales such as the rustic, earthy Saison Rue and spiced Orchard White witbier, it channels Germany for its 3.1 percent ABV Hottenroth Berliner Weisse. It goes into the goblet a pale, hazy yellow, with rapid bubbles and a fast-diminishing head. The nose is all citrus, wheat and barnyard funk, while the Hottenroth drinks prickly and crisp -- if the tartness is too much, you can sweeten the beer with raspberry or woodruff syrup.

This is one beer you won't sour on too soon.

Do you like a nice Berliner Weisse? Come on, drop your thoughts in the comments.

Photo: Joshua M. Bernstein.

Joshua M. Bernstein, Gourmet.com's beer columnist, has written about brews, bars and booze for New York Magazine, Time Out New York, ForbesTraveler.com and the New York Times.

It takes a strong man to wear pink. It takes an even stronger man to heft a frothy pint of pink beer, like the rare-burger-hued Rosée d'Hibiscus, from the genre-busting Canadian brewers at Dieu du Ciel! ("god of the sky").

Since 1998, these mad fermentationists have crafted head-scratching, tummy-pleasing beers like the Equinoxe du Printemps, a strong Scotch ale made with maple syrup, and the Clef des Champs, a floral rye ale flavored with heather and mugwort. Naturally, there was no way that Dieu du Ciel would make a conventional wheat beer.

One day, head brewer Jean-François Gravel was watching a TV documentary on western Africa, which included a discussion of bissap -- a tea made from an infusion of hibiscus flowers and sugar. Gravel re-created the drink at home, realizing the flower's floral profile and acidity would complement a tangy blanche (a wheat bear).

Photo: Joshua M. Bernstein

Joshua M. Bernstein, Gourmet.com's beer columnist, has written about brews, bars and booze for New York Magazine, Time Out New York, ForbesTraveler.com and The New York Times.

Too often, fruit-based beers are cloyingly sweet abominations, the beer world's equivalent of Bartles & James wine coolers. The fruits -- be they blueberries or apricots -- whip the malts into meek submission, creating little more than watery, carbonated beer smoothies.

So how do you tastefully infuse a beer with a fruit's delicious flavors? Dan Kahn had a serendipitous solution. Back in the 1990s, Kahn toiled at Riverside Brewing in Riverside, Calif., a SoCal city famous for its orange groves.

In honor of Riverside's Orange Blossom Festival, the town official contacted asked Kahn to brew a special beer. He plucked a few fistfuls of aromatic blossoms (an ingredient common to desserts and Middle-Eastern cuisine), then steeped them like tea and incorporated the concoction into a brew batch: "It wasn't like a fruit beer, where the fruit clashes with hops," Kahn says. "It added an extra characteristic that other beers just don't have."

Photo: Jenene Chesbrough

Joshua M. Bernstein, Gourmet.com's beer columnist, has written about brews, bars and booze for New York Magazine, Time Out New York, ForbesTraveler.com and The New York Times.

Classically, wheat beers are as cloudy as a late-March afternoon, with a tart, yeasty edge that lends itself well to a squeeze of lemon. These easy drinkers are ideal for sipping by the pool or beneath a leafy canopy, as summertime sweat trickles down your cheek.

Unsurprisingly, Munster, Indiana's Three Floyds Brewing didn't get the message. Since 1996, these rule-breaking brewers have attracted a ferocious following with gonzo beers like the mango-y Dreadnaught IPA and the culty Dark Lord, a monstrous Russian imperial stout brewed with honey, molasses and coffee. (It's only sold once a year at the brewery, bringing out crowds before dawn).

Naturally, Three Floyds dared not design a wimpy wheat. Summer seasonal Gumballhead is crafted with gobs of red wheat, then infused with oodles of Amarillo hops, creating an intoxicating nose that recalls strolling through a grove of grapefruit and lemon trees. And though the scent is more in line with a mouth-puckering IPA, Gumballhead hardly drinks like a hop monster.