March Best Sellers

Posted on April 9th, 2013

We missed a couple months of best sellers @ Bier Cellar, but thought we would bounce back with March. March was a damn hoppy month, as you will see a pretty obvious trend with the best sellers:

Founders All Day IPA
Stone Enjoy By 4.1.13 IPA
Marshall Wharf Can’t Dog
Maine Beer Company Lunch
Prairie Artisanal Prairie Hop
Rising Tide Phobos & Demos
Lagunitas Sucks
Lagunitas Little Sumpin Sumpin
Ommegang Game of Thrones
Prairie Artisanal Prairie Ale

So as you can see, IPA’s and hoopy beers took up all but two of the spots on the top 10. Apparently you were thirsty for some lupulin last month.

It will be interesting to see if that trend continutes into April.

Why I Don’t Sell BMC

Posted on January 30th, 2013

First, let’s start with a definition. BMC is a term that is big on the forums of Beer Advocate and RateBeer, it can stand for two things. First is Bud/Miller/Coors, the other is Beers of Mass Consumption. These are the typical light flavored American adjunct lagers that make up 93% of the American beer market. But I believe the idea behind the term BMC can translate to the industrial wines or watered down ciders of the world. Any industrial food stuff (I’m looking at you Wonder Bread) could fit into the bland, industrial world of BMC.

I believe that once you get the taste for something good – whether that be beer, wine, music, cheese or even artisanal pickles, that you find the soul in it. Once you taste something that someone has put their heart and soul into making, I believe you can taste the difference. I believe that is 100% true of the products we carry. I want our customers to taste that too. I want our customers to venture out, to trust our judgement and feel safe picking anything up off the shelf and know that we stand behind it. I couldn’t do that if I carried BMC beer.

My beer buying philosophy is this: if I can get my hands on it, and I want to drink it, I will carry it. BMC beer fails that test. There are non BMC beers that fail that test too. I understand that a lot of this is personal preference, but since I am the one recommending the products, then it really has to be my personality behind the choices. This is why you don’t find Shipyard Pumpkinhead in my store. I respect what Shipyard has done for the beer scene in Maine, but I don’t respect that beer, so you won’t see it at our store. Same with Woodchuck Cider. I don’t mean to pick on these brands, but rather to use them as examples of products I don’t feel fit into what I am trying to do. I want to be able to answer every time someone picks up a bottle in my store “how’s this beer/wine/cider/mead” with a honest “it’s really good, here’s why”.

I am not trying to be a beer snob, I don’t think we are better than these brands. I just think that the experience we are trying to cultivate requires that we bring in products that we are genuinely excited about, that we can stand behind. Personally, I can’t stand behind the BMC brands. I can stand behind the hard working men and women that slave over the products that we carry.

I believe in the Craft Beer movement and I firmly believe that as a retailer/bar owner you can’t have one foot in both worlds. I don’t believe you can be firmly believe in Craft Beer but hedge your bets by carrying BMC. You either believe in this, or you don’t. You’re either in, or you’re out. And we are firmly in.

That’s why we don’t sell BMC.

Smoked Beer

Posted on January 16th, 2013

We recently asked our fans on Facebook what they would like to see for tastings. One topic that was mentioned multiple times was a smoked beer tasting. So you asked, we listened, and tomorrow night, January 17th from 6-8pm we will be tasting through five different smoked beers that we think give a good representation of the style.

Smoked beers go back awhile because prior to the modern method of drying barley in a kiln, you either dried it by leaving it in the sun, or by putting the malt above a fire which imparted a smoked flavor. The most famous of these smoked beers would the the German Rauchbier, traditionally made in Bamberg, Germany. The beer paired very well with the local smoked ham, and the tradition has continued to the modern era. We will be tasting two different German Rauchbiers, both from the Schlenkerla brewery in Bamberg. The first will be the Urbock, which is a full bodied smoked bock. This is the big daddy of the Schlenkerla smoked beers, with a big malty backbone, and the smoke plays a balancing role. You do get notes of smoked meat, and some would say bacon on these beers.

The other Schlenkerla beer we will be tasting tomorrow night will be the Helles. The Helles is a light colored lager, which is actually made with no smoked malt, but is made on the same equipment, and fermented with the same yeast as the rest of the Schlenkerla beers, so you still get a delicious smoked note, but to a much more restrained level. A good intro smoked beer and a good candidate for pairing with lighter dishes where smoke will make sense.

Leaving the traditional smoked beers, we arrive at Evil Twin Cowboy. I was listening to an interview with brewer/owner Jeppe and he was talking about the genesis of this beer. Apparently he was discussing with a friend what beers cowboys drink, and they decided the answer was, using his words, “shitty lager”. So Jeppe decided to make a quality pilsner, and added some smoked malt to add some complexity. Definitely on the lighter end of the smoked spectrum, the smoke actually makes the beer even more refreshing.

Now for the other end of the smoked spectrum, smoked stouts. The first of two smoked stouts we will be tasting is the Perfect Crime Smoking Gun. Perfect Crime is a collaboration project between Evil Twin and Stillwater Artisanal. Smoking Gun is a smoked imperial stout, features a huge body of roasted malts and touches of dark fruits and sweet malt. Then there is the smoke. The smoke is a really nice layer in this beer, not dominating, but adding complexity.

The final beer we will be tasting is Clown Shoes Porcine Unidragon. A modified version of Clown Shoes Blaecorn Unidragon Imperial Stout, Porcine Unidragon is made by adding some beechwood smoked malt and aging the entire thing in bourbon barrels. This is the biggest, meanest beer of the night. 12.5% abv, huge notes of roasted coffee, espresso and smoked malt. Delicious and formidable.

So those are the five beers we will work through at our smoked beer tasting. Should be a fun time. Again, completely free, 6-8pm on Thursday, January 17th. Join us.

Welcome to 2013

Posted on January 9th, 2013

I have been lax about posting to our blog in the recent months. I have several excuses, the first being the birth of our first child, our son Liam. Liam joined us around Thanksgiving, which also happened to coincide with the busiest part of the year for a small retailer like ourselves. So life has been pretty hectic, but as we get into the quieter portion of the year, I hope to be able to post more and keep all of you updated on goings ons here at Bier Cellar.

Anyone who has visited our store on Sundays has noticed there is a new face at Bier Cellar. We hired our first employee, Adam Callaghan. Please say hi to Adam if you stop by on Sundays or attend one of our tastings.

Speaking of tastings, we have been lax on those as well during the holiday season. That will change in January. The State of Maine allows us three tastings a month by law, so the last three Thursdays of January will feature beer tastings. Thursday, January 17th will be Smoked Beers, January 24th will be barleywines and finally January 31st will be session beers, just in time for Super Bowl Sunday.

I am also honored to be named to the 2013 Portland Beer Week committee. This year’s Portland Beer Week was alot of fun, and hopefully we can make 2013 even better.
Finally, since alot of you ask about it, here are December’s best sellers by dollar sales. Not only am I blown away at how great your palates are, I am very happy to see Maine beers take 6 of the top 10:

Marshall Wharf Can’t Dog
Maine Beer Company Mo
Fantome Noel/Pissenlit
Rising Tide Tempest
Allagash Interlude
Maine Beer Company Peeper
Dupont Avec Les Bons Voeux
Drie Fonteinen Oude Gueze
Goose Island Cherry Rye
Maine Beer Company Mean Old Tom

Thanks for all of your support in 2012, and we hope to become a better artisanal fermented beverage store in 2013.

Wine for Beer Geeks

Posted on December 8th, 2012

Coming of drinking age in Maine and existing in the beer geek world, I always assumed wine was made for old rich people. I saw marketing material from the wine world of big, beautiful chateaus in Bordeaux or beautiful people wearing beautiful clothes drinking Napa Cab. Beer was the drink of the blue collar working man, much more approachable and understandable. Wine was complex, with labels in French or Italian, expensive and foreign. So I delved deeper and deeper into beer, ignoring the world of wine.

When we decided to offer wine at Bier Cellar, I dove head first into research and tasting. I quickly realized how very little I knew about the world of wine. But I also learned how much the world of natural wine has in common with the world of craft beer.

While the industrial wine maker favors quantity over quality, cranking out doctored up wine for dirt cheap prices, there is a segment of the wine making world risking everything to create a quality product that they can be proud of. Natural winemakers shun pesticides and chemical fertilizers in the vineyard and sulfur in the fermentation process. Yes, there are the Kendall Jacksons and Two Buck Chucks, but in the world of beer we have Budweiser, Miller and Coors, so who are we to talk? Wine geeks get upset when hearing of wine makers using oak dust in wines to doctor up a vintage, just like beer geeks abhor the use of rice or corn in place of barley, and hop extracts rather than hops. Both worlds have those who are cutting corners.

My point is this: it is time for beer geeks to give wine a chance. The parallels between the worlds are numerous, and both worlds have a lot to teach each other. Every day more brewers are using wine barrels to add flavor and complexity to beers. While brewers are building coolships to add a historical element to their sour beers, wine makers have gone back to making wine in clay amphoras. Beer brewers use hops or roasted barley to balance the sugar in beer, wine makers use acidity and tannins.

Wine offers elements that beer never can. Acidity, which plays well with many cuisines, is incredibly rare in all but sour beers. Beer offers elements that wine never can. But they both have their place. And to have a closed mind about one or the other runs counter to everything the craft beer industry stands for, which is flavor ahead of marketing, substance above talk.

That being said, we have a great opportunity for beer geeks to give some natural wines a chance. A great importer out of Brooklyn, Zev Rovine, will be conducting a free tasting in our store on Tuesday, December 11 from 5-7:30pm. He is an importer of some of the best natural wine in the world, including Jean Pierre Robinot and Frank Cornelissen. We will be tasting wines that taste of their terroir, not built to please some sort of focus group. This is the first time alot of these wines will be available in the State of Maine. So join us, it costs you nothing, and I promise these bottles will change the way you think of wine.

Beer of the Month Club

Posted on November 27th, 2012

We are happy to announce the details of our Beer of the Month Club just in time for Christmas shopping. The goal of the Beer of the Month Club is to give members access to some hard to find beers, as well as some seasonal beers that we think are classics. With each package we will also include tasting notes and information about each beer.

We are offering two levels, a “Session” level and an “Imperial” level. The Imperial level includes all the beers in the Session level, plus a few more goodies for hard core beer geek.

Anyone who participates in either level will be invited to a private tasting one every six months for Beer of the Month Club members only. We will open some bottles that we have procured along the way from our own personal cellars.

Most months we won’t be releasing the list of beers before pickup, but we wanted people to have an idea what goodies they are getting into with our new club. Pricing is as follows, with discounts for signing up for multiple months ahead of time. All packages must be prepaid:

Session Level

1 month – $34.99/month (+ tax)

3 months – $32.49/month (+ tax)

6 months – $29.99/month (+ tax)

Imperial Level

1 month – $54.99/month (+ tax)

3 months – $52.49/month (+ tax)

6 months – $49.99/month (+ tax)

December’s Beer of the Month Club Package

Session Level

De La Senne Schieven IPA- This beer is a collaboration between Belgian masters De La Senne as well as legendary breweries Pizza Port and Lost Abbey. Belgian aromas, great citrusy American hop aromas. Delicious, balanced.

Dupont Avec Les Bons Voeux – Holiday saison by the brewers of the classic Saison Dupont. One of my favorite holiday beers, and one of my favorite saisons period. Funky, spicy, highly carbonated. Who needs champagne in the holiday season when you can roll in with a bottle of this delicious farmhouse beer.

Freigeist Ottekolong Kolsch – Sometimes you need a break from all of those dark, syrupy holiday beers. The solution, a delicious and refreshing German Kolsch from Freigeist. Unfiltered, with the classic Kolsch grassy hop character, grainy maltiness and a touch of fruitiness. Supremely drinkable and delicious.

Adnams Tally-Ho – Remember before when we were talking about sweet holiday beers? This English barleywine/winter warmer has a great rummy, caramel malt note. Smooth, toasty, creamy and delicious. Great beer to sample in front of the fire around the holidays.

Dieu Du Ciel Rosee D’hibiscus – Another beer meant to balance out that holiday heaviness. Brewed with a significant amount of wheat, as well as Hibiscus flowers, this release from Montreal brewery Dieu Du Ciel has an amazing floral/fruity aroma, but finishes bone dry and refreshing. Complex and delicious.

Sierra Nevada Celebration – One of the reasons beer geeks get happy when the weather turns cold. Dry hopped to give the beer a delicious spiciness that just makes sense this time of year. A hop heads Xmas beer, absolutely delicious and balanced.

Anchor Christmas Ale – In its 38th year, Anchor Christmas Ale is brewed with a different recipe every year. Malty, spicy and floral, you can’t help but think of holiday spices while drinking this American craft beer classic.

Imperial Level

You get all of the “Session” level beers, plus:

To Ol Snowball Saison – From Danish brewer To Ol, this holiday saison is meant to counteract the heavy foods of the season. Fermented with wild yeasts and dry hopped, this saison is crisp and bone dry. Delicious and hard to find, this beer is delicious and worth the effort.

Amager Hr Frederiksen – Also hailing from Denmark, Hr Frederiksen is an Imperial Stout that is not to be trifled with. Intense notes of roasted barley that comes across as espresso, big bursts of chocolate and vanilla. Thick, dark and delicious. This beer will definitely help you get through family get togethers. Absolutely delicious.

Please email, call or stop by if you are interested in participating. As the months go on, we will strive to challenge, fascinate and above all, satiate your desire for interesting and delicious beers.

September Best Sellers

Posted on October 10th, 2012

Back for another installment of best sellers. Interesting month last month, we saw the release of Rogue’s Voodoo Donut as well as Lagunitas Little Sumpin Wild, both limited releases and both quick sellers. It also saw the release of Baxter’s Fall seasonal, Hayride, which sold briskly. So this month I will start with the quantity best sellers, so these are the most bottles/cans that left the store:

Maine Beer Company Lunch
Maine Beer Company Mo
Maine Beer Company Peeper
Lagunitas Little Sumpin Sumpin (Single Bottle)
Lagunitas Little Sumpin Wild
Baxter Hayride (Single Can)
Rogue Voodoo Donut
Maine Beer Company Zoe
Dogfish Punkin (Single Bottle)
Maine Beer Company Mean Old Tom

Obviously some Fall seasonal beers there with Hayride and Dogfish Punkin in the top ten. On the dollar sales top ten, things look a bit differently:

Rogue Voodoo Donut
Maine Beer Company Lunch
Maine Beer Company Mo
Lagunitas Little Sumpin Wild
Maine Beer Company Peeper
Baxter Hayride (Six Pack)
Tilquin Gueze (750ml)
Maine Beer Company Zoe
Evil Twin Femme Fatale Brett
Green Flash West Coast IPA (4 Pack)

This is the interesting one to me. A sour beer (Tilquin Gueze) and an Imperial IPA fermented with brettanomyces. Nice work Bier Cellar customers, nice work on your drinking in September. In October we expect to see some Maine Beer Company King Titus and Founders Breakfast Stout in that top ten as the weather turns colder and the beer turns darker.

August Best Sellers

Posted on September 1st, 2012

It was an interesting August at Bier Cellar. More people are getting turned onto our store, which I have to attribute to you guys, our customers, as our meager advertising has meant most of the people coming our way are sent here through word of mouth from customers, and friends (thanks Novare Res, Rising Tide, Allagash, Oxbow, Thirsty Pig and whoever else has sent us customers).

Despite this increase in business, the trend of which beers sell the best has pretty much held steady. The big difference is Rising Tide Zephyr. Released in August (get a damn bottle if you haven’t already slowpoke), the interest around Rising Tide’s tasty IPA helped make it the number one seller in terms of dollars. Here is the top ten in dollar sales for August:

Rising Tide Zephyr
Maine Beer Company Mo
Maine Beer Company Peeper
Lagunitas Little Sumpin Sumpin (6 Pack)
Maine Beer Company Zoe
Lagunitas Hop Stoopid
Rising Tide Daymark
Maine Beer Company Mean Old Tom
1809 Berliner Weisse
Schneider 2007 Vintage Aventinus

What does this list mean? First of all, our customers have really good taste, congrats. Second, we have incredible local breweries. Six out of the top ten on this list are brewed in the City of Portland. That’s amazing. I love the fact that two esoteric German beers made it in as well, a Berliner Weisse and a vintage Aventinus.

On the quantity side, the story is roughly the same, here is the top ten in quantity sales:

Maine Beer Company Mo
Maine Beer Company Peeper
Rising Tide Zephyr
Lagunitas Little Sumpin Sumpin (Bottle)
Maine Beer Company Zoe
Dogfish Festina Peche (Bottle)
Lagunitas Hop Stoopid
Lagunitas Maximus
Ayinger Oktoberfest
1809 Berliner Weisse

Again, local brewery domination, some Lagunitas, and some German beers.

This list makes me incredibly proud of the palates of our customers. Keep drinking good beer.

S&*t I’m Into Tastings

Posted on August 12th, 2012

Under Maine State Law we are allowed to do three tastings per month, for a total of 36 tastings each year. So far, we have done our tastings with breweries (Allagash) or distributors (Wicked, Central and Devenish). In the coming two weeks we will be hosting a tasting on Thursday, August 16 with our friends at Rising Tide Brewing from 5-7pm. The following week we will be hosting a tasting with newcomers to Maine Lagunitas Brewing on Wednesday, August 22nd from 5:30-7:30pm. You can always keep up to date on these on the events page of our website.

Starting on September 6, we will host the first of our “S*&T I’m Into Tastings”. This is our opportunity to showcase some products that we have brought in that we are particularly excited about. It might be beer, it might be wine, cider or mead. They might be new products, or old favorites that get overlooked. But it will definitely be a way for our customers to sample some exciting products. So help us spread the word, because the more people attend tastings, the more crazy and tasty products we get to bring in.

Until that day, make sure you get to our next two tastings. Remember, Rising Tide on Thursday, August 16 and Lagunitas on Wednesday, August 22nd.

Favorite Alternative Summer Beers

Posted on July 31st, 2012

With our seemingly two month respite from Winter here in Maine about half over, I wanted to talk a bit about summer beers. No, not watered down American wheat beer with the summer moniker splashed all over it. But beers that some people might not think of on a scorching 90 degree day in Maine dripping with humidity.

We are going to eschew the obvious and delicious summer favorites like German hefeweizens, German Helles and Pilsner and Belgian Witbiers (although I do love a Ayinger Brau Weisse or an Allagash White on a hot day). Today I will focus on Berliner Weisse, Saisons and some American beers that don’t fit neatly into a style.

The first one is a beer style I can’t get enough of lately, Berliner Weisse. Traditionally Berliner Weisse is a low alcohol wheat beer made by allowing the lactobacillus that naturally exists on the grain to flourish in the mash tun, and then not boiling and killing the little critters. Don’t worry, they won’t hurt you, they just make the beer tart and a touch sour, like a unsweetened lemonade.

My favorite version of the style that we carry is Dr Fritz Briem 1809 Berliner Weisse. Although not really true to the Berliner Weisse style strenth wise (the ABV is too high at 5%), this beer has a really nice lacto tartness/sourness up front, but manages to finish with the flavors of a Belgian blond ale. Amazing beer on a hot day, just leave the traditional flavored syrups out of mine thanks.

In the similar sort-of Berliner Weisse theme is Dogfish Festina Peche and White Birch’s Berliner Weisse. Dogfish’s version is classified as a neo-Berliner Weisse and has peach juice added to the finished product. Again, great tart notes but the peach juice is nice and refreshing in the finish. The White Birch version has no added flavorings, but again is too high of an ABV to be true to style. Still a delicious beer, and very refreshing.

Another beer I think has a rightful place on a hot summer day is Stillwater Premium. The impetus for this beer was brewer Brian Strumke’s desire to make a good beer with corn and rice, a sort of beer geek Pabst Blue Ribbon. So he took that base recipe, fermented it with saison yeast, and two strains of the wild yeast Brettanomyces. What popped out was the ultimate beer geek lawnmower beer. Complex, dry and delicious, and only 4.5% alcohol.

Some of my favorite beers in the summer is the Bam series from Jolly Pumpkin. With the Brettanomyces present in all of his beers, brewer Ron Jefferies puts out some dry, dry beers. All three of the Bam series we have in the store clock in around 4.5% ABV, and all three have a ton of flavor. Bam Biere is a dry, funky farhmouse beer, Weizen Bam is a tart, dry take on a weizen beer and finally ES Bam is a ESB done the Jolly Pumpkin way.

Finally, the Belgian Saison category. This one isn’t truly an alternative summer beer, since the name Saison means season, and is meant to be drank during a particular season, summer. Our favorites in the store right now are the bone dry and slightly funky Fantome Hiver, Saison D’ere Mere and Blaugies Saison D’epeautre. The folktale behind the development of the saison style is that farms would produce saisons during the winter months for consumption by farm workers as they worked the fields in the summer months. Whether or not the story is true, it is certainly believable as the dry, spicy nature of the saison make it a great way to refresh on a hot day.