Flying Through Columbia

You can tell the end of July is approaching in VelkyAl world because I am invariably in Columbia, South Carolina, on the way back from a beach week in Florida. Rather than drive 12 hours to central Virginia, Mrs V and I take a few days at the in-laws' place, and this year I decided to be like a beer tourist and actually get round to a few taprooms rather than just picking up cans of local stuff at Bottles. 

Being at the in-laws' place also gives us built in babysitters so Mrs V and I can engage in shocking behaviour like having a few hours social life sans enfants. So we went to Savage Craft Ale Works on Saturday night. We had originally planned to go there way back in spring when we were last here, I don't remember why we changed our minds, but I was glad to finally get out to the fantastically renovated space in West Columbia.

Looking up their website before we headed out, I saw those wonderful, magical words that mean so much in my world, yes you know the ones "German pilsner", and then looking at the name of it "Purge Under Pilsner" a bell began to ring. It struck me that purely by change I had picked up a four pack of their pilsner at Bottles, largely because the can mentions decoction mashing. Yes, I am predictable, I know.

Given that I was out on one of the rare occasions my wife and I manage to get away for some adult time, I wasn't taking details notes, but Purge Under Pilsner is a lovely German style pils. Nicely bitter, good cereal malt character, and a clean finish that is long as midsummers in Iceland, just the kind of beer I love. I tried their American style pale ale too, and it hit all the right notes. Maybe next time I am in Columbia I'd get round and try more of their range, but suffice to say that Savage Craft is a welcome addition to the city's improving beer scene.

Notes were however very much part of my plan for the following afternoon. While Mrs V and the twins swam in the pool, I ventured off to hunt out some of the taprooms of Columbia's breweries that I hadn't visited before. I mentioned I am a terrible beer tourist, right?

First up on my list of places to go to was Hunter Gatherer, a brewery I have written about before, and one I have a very large soft spot for. Their brewpub, aka "the Alehouse", in the centre of Columbia is one of my favourite places to drink, it has the perfect old school craft brewpub vibe, but I had not got to their production brewery before.

The newer venue is known as the Hangar, and is, somewhat unsurprisingly, located in an old airport hangar. Known as the Curtiss-Wright Hangar, the building was erected in 1929 as part of Columbia's original airport, known in the area as Owens Field. Finding myself a seat at the bar, I ordered my first flight of the day...

The four beers I chose were:

• Lager 29 - 5% copper lager
• Golden Ale - 4.5% blonde ale
• Pale Ale - 4.7% English Pale Ale
• ESB - 5.2% Extra Special Bitter

Rather than bore you all to tears with my tasting notes, I will say that all four beers were very good, clearly well made by proficient brewers, and I would happily drink any of them, but in plumping for a pint I went for the Pale Ale. At 4.7% it really is in the best bitter world, but US drinkers seem to have an aversion to the concept of "bitter" and hence you end up with English Pale Ale, Pub Ale, or some other moniker that avoids the concept of bitterness. Pouring a dark gold, with flashes of orange, and a decent white head, it actually looks somewhat like Timothy Taylor Landlord or Harviestoun Bitter & Twisted. The aroma was mostly cookie dough, laced with spicy hops and a hint of stone fruits in the background. Tastewise, the cookie dough became more like digestive biscuits (is there a better biccy in the world?), and again the spicy English hops shone through, and the light stone fruit flavours were present as well. It's a really nice beer, and if I hadn't been planning to get to at least a couple more breweries, I'd have done my usual and thrown the plan out the window.

The next brewery on my list was River Rat, another brewery whose products I have had and enjoyed either in Columbia itself or brought back home to central Virginia - indeed they have made the Fuggled Review of the Year a couple of times. It was stinkingly hot on Sunday in South Carolina, so I was very relieved to find a parking place completely shaded by trees, even after a mere 5 minute drive from Hunter Gatherer. Again I found myself a seat at the bar and ordered a flight, this time a set of 6 rather than 4, oh and my second pint of water for the afternoon - hydration is important folks.

Included in my wheel of beer this time were:

• Luminescent Lager - 4% American Light Lager
• Dry Hopped Pilsner - 4.9 American Pilsner
• Broad River Red Ale - 5.3% American Amber
• American Kölsch Story - 5% Kölsch
• Hazelnut Brown Ale - 5.4% Brown
• My Morning Stout - 6% Stout

This time round my selections were much more of a mixed bag. Nothing was terrible, or to be honest even bad, but the first four in my flight left me underwhelmed. The Luminescent was thin and watery, and I get that American Light lagers are, in the words of the old joke, like making love in a canoe, but experience has taught me they really do not have to be. I have had some wonderful light lagers brewed with corn in the last year or so, whether at Black Narrows in Virginia or TRVE Brewing in Denver. I felt the pilsner had a rough, vegetal bitterness that did nothing for me, and the Kölsch and Red were decent. However, the Hazelnut Brown Ale was a delight, maybe it had been sitting in the heat for just long enough to reach cellar temperature, but the lovely nutty character coupled with a subtle, earthy hop note was delightful, even at 95° Fahrenheit. The stout was also very nice, striking the ideal balance of milk chocolate, unsweetened cocoa, and espresso. I decided not to have a pint of anything, being a vaguely responsible human being from time to time, and I had one more brewery that I wanted to get to, but it was shut. I am clearly illiterate as I had checked Google before heading out and missed the fact that "Opens at 2pm" means something entirely different when you remember to read the "on Monday" part of the sentence.

So I went to Steel Hands Brewing instead, winding my way from West Columbia to Cayce, over some railway tracks, down by a steel mill, and parking in the the glaring sun. There was a band just winding up their set as I arrived, major kudos to them for playing outside in that heat. Before the baking heat could weld the soles of my sandals to the pavement I made my way inside and ordered my third and final flight of the day.

My choices for this particular foursome were:

• Lager - 4.7% pale lager
• Run for the Pils - 5% German style Pilsner
• German Amber Lager - 5.3% Düsseldorf Altbier
• Dunkel - 5.5% Munich Dunkel

Fun fact, I had been led to believe at River Rat that Steel Hands was the kind of brewery I am not wildly fond of, specialising in beers with lots of silly shit chucked in. To be frank I am glad that I applied a hermeneutic of suspicion and checked out their website to confirm I could get some brews in styles I am a fan of. All four of my chosen samples were well executed examples of the styles, which is saying something for altbier in particular as US breweries have a tendency to use crystal malts for sweetness rather than Munich and it just tastes wrong. Given the flight was just a foursome rather than 6 I decided to have one last pint before heading back to the family, and plumped for the Dunkel.

It pours lightish brown, with some red highlights, definitely paler than many a dunkel I have had in the US, but well within the norms in Germany. The nose was slightly toasty with a bit of unsweetened cocoa, and a pleasant herbal hop aroma. As you would expect with a Munich style dunkel, the taste was dominated by that lovely bready character that you get with German malts, lightly toasty and with a subtle earthiness rounding everything off nicely. All in all it was a fine way to round of an afternoon brewery hopping.

I had been hoping that Bierkeller Columbia would be open in time for my annual late summer sojourn in Columbia, but alas it was not to be. They will hopefully be fully operational by the time I next head south for Thanksgiving. 

When I think back to my early days of living in the US, Columbia was something of a good beer desert, so it is fantastic to see it improving, even if my go-to pub from those days is no more, and a couple of breweries have also gone under. A metropolitan area the size of Columbia, with a population of nearly 900,000 should be well able to support a good beer scene, and with these four breweries, and Columbia Craft, already operating, there is definitely a far greater choice of locally brewed beer than in 2009, and that makes me one happy camper.

Czeching out Cola Town

Since the demise of the Flying Saucer I have been somewhat bereft of places to drink when I am in Columbia, SC visiting Mrs V's family. Having recently discovered the delights of the Cock n Bull, and with Bierkeller Columbia opening up their beer garden this autumn, things are decidedly looking up. One thing though that I have neglected when we go south is discovering the local breweries, beyond buying the occasional six pack at the shop. With summer holiday time winding down this past weekend, I resolved to put that right.

First stop on my planned itinerary was Columbia Craft Brewing, which from Google Maps would seem to be at the heart of an area with plenty of breweries to visit, including the package brewery for Columbia's oldest brewery, and a personal favourite of mine, Hunter Gatherer. I walked through the door, surveilled the situation, it was actually pretty packed outside, but relatively quiet inside, so I grabbed a seat and did something I very rarely do, ordered a flight.

Flights are not something I often do mainly because I am not convinced that you can really judge a beer's merits based on a few ounces of liquid. With my plan to visit a couple of other breweries though, I figured that a flight and a pint would be the way to go. My 4 choices then at Columbia Craft were:

• Columbia Craft Lager - a 4.8% Munich style helles
• Carolinian - a 4.7% American blonde ale
• Pull - a 4.5% Czech style pale lager
• Pint - a 5.6% English style "pub ale" - basically an ESB

I made the mistake of starting from the lowest abv beer...the 4.5% Czech style pale lager, which makes me assume it had a starting gravity of 10° Plato, a desítka. It was a mistake, because one mouthful in, I knew my plans to hit another couple of breweries that afternoon were in danger of being curtailed to perhaps one other brewery.

The other beers in the flight were all very good, but the pull of the Czech pale lager was too great, so I had a half litre, poured from a Lukr tap, and served in a Tübinger glass...

The first thing that hit me was unlikely many a US brewed pilsner poured on a Lukr tap, Pull didn't have a craggy head that towered over the rim of the glass. The head was nicely wet foam that sat on top of the liquid for the duration of the drinking, which to be honest wasn't particularly long, maybe 5 mouthfuls at best.

The star of the show though for me was the masses of delightfully spicy Saaz character bursting through the foam, both as aroma and flavour. With just a single decoction as part of the brewing, there were enough Maillard characteristics to fill out the body, making this anything but watery. This is a seriously, seriously nice beer.

Needless to say I didn't make it to any other brewery on Saturday afternoon and got myself a couple of crowlers of Pull to nurse through the evening. The next time I make it to Columbia, I expect that Bierkeller's beer garden will be open, this delight on tap, and with the Cock n Bull in which to watch footie, I will have plenty of options for places, and beers, to enjoy.

Get Ye To The Keller

As has been traditional since moving to the US in 2009, Mrs V and spent most of Thanksgiving week in her home town of Columbia, South Carolina. For a few years now, I have been aware of the presence of a brewery called Bierkeller Columbia, but for some reason I had never been able to time a trip to Colatown to coincide with acquiring their beer. Prior to the pandemic, at least as far as I am aware, their main business was brewing and doing pop-up beer gardens in Columbia, and as I say, we never seemed to be in town when they were having one of their events. With the pandemic though, they have started to sell their beer in crowlers, available at Swamp Cabbage brewing on a Thursday evening for a couple of hours. Given that we were going to be in town from the Tuesday, and pickup had been moved to Wednesday for obvious reasons, I finally made sure to put in an order...

According to the Bierkeller website, founder Scott Burgess lived in Bamberg for a decade, and seriously what better town in Germany would you want to live in and have world class beers on tap literally everywhere? As their website says, the aim of Bierkeller Columbia is to produce and serve German style beers that emphasise:

"authenticity, freshness, hyper-locality, and consistency".

Bold claims, but claims I have long wanted to test. As such, I availed myself of their ordering system, a very handy Google Docs setup, and got myself three crowlers of kellerbier and one each of braunbier and leichtbier. Had Mrs V and boys not been in the car when I went to collect my order, I fear I would have stood around for hours geeking out about German beer, Bamberg, and, after a generous sample from the lagering tank, all things rauchbier. Scott even more generously chucked in a crowler of their steinbier, more of which later.

Now, I almost kick myself that I didn't take notes, and in the case of the braunbier and leichtbier I didn't take notes because here is some excellent beer. The leichtbier is brewed in the style of a Czech 10° pale lager, and it hits every high note perfectly and if we lived in Columbia, I'd be buying vast amounts of this beer every week. Yes, it is that good. So, great start, nailing a style I love. With a litre of desítka sloshing around, I went next for the braunbier, and to quote the website:

"Braunbier is an auburn-brown lager that has a slightly toasty maltiness, balanced by a sweet breadiness and earthy, floral German noble hops."

Wow, this stuff was likewise gorgeous, and was gone in far too few mouthfuls, it is that moreish. I was enjoying myself, the boys had gone to bed, and whatever was on the tele was eminently worth ignoring. I could happily have sat and drunk all 6 crowlers, but it hit me that I didn't have anything lined up for Turkey Day. Unsure if anywhere would be open to stock up, I put a hiatus on my drinking. Turns out Piggly Wiggly is open on Thanksgiving and had a sale on Sierra Nevada Oktoberfest, so it was Black Friday before I came back to the Bierkeller crowlers. With just kellerbier and steinbier left, and a disinclination to take notes, but I did take pictures this time, I started with the kellerbier.

The beer itself is not quite as dark as the picture would suggest, but is cloudy orange, topped with a fluffy white head. When I stuck my nose in the glass the first thing to come to mind was Mahr's Bräu aU, and it reminded me of that most venerable brew in the drinking too. A fantastically delicate balance of malt and clean, slightly spicy hops. I could easily imagine myself sat outside a gästhaus in Franconia, bike propped up against a wall as an endless stream of this beer flowed my way. Naturally I would have to walk the bike home, or come back tomorrow to collect it, or maybe the day after as I repeat the happy scene.

Steinbier is something I had only ever read about. Taking hot rocks and dropping them in wort to boil the liquid seems a rather laborious way of producing beer, but heck if you get something like this from doing so, more steinbier please! Scott and co heat up granite to put into the wort and then add the rocks to the fermenter so the caramelised wort on the rocks dissolves into the beer itself. It is really difficult to describe the flavour that this creates, kind of an umami sweetness, if that makes any sense whatsoever. It's like taking the difference in sweetness between Munich malt and crystal malt and intensifying it 5 fold. A stunning beer.

I mentioned earlier that Scott gave me a very generous sample of the rauchbier they have available from this week. Bear in mind that Scott lived in Bamberg for ten years, so here is someone who gets rauchbier, and it shows. The aroma was solid beech smoke and lots of it, lots of it, maybe not as intense as Schlenkerla, but front and centre. Flavourwise it reminded me more of Spezial's divine Lagerbier. As good a rauchbier as is being made in the US right now. My only concern is how to get myself a stash to Virginia for Christmas - Mrs V's parents may have to be sent to the industrial realms of Columbia to mule some up...

Being hyper local, Bierkeller's brews are only available at one of their pop-up beer gardens on the Riverfront in Columbia, or at their weekly crowler pick ups on Thursday nights at Swamp Cabbage Brewing. Also, did I mention that a crowler is just $5? Yeah, you read that right, $5 for a litre of seriously good beer, it's almost as though someone remembered the price control part of Reinheitsgebot as well as the ingredient bit.

I really hope that future trips to Columbia will involve more Bierkeller lagers, and if you live in the area but have yet to try them, seriously get on it, you will not be disappointed.

Prost!

The Pub

Pubs. It is fair to say that I love the places.

There are few places in the world I would rather spend an entire day in, tucked up in a dark corner, or sat at the end of the bar, preferably with my back to a wall so I can glance up from my book or newspaper from time to time and simply people watch. My mind wanders back to Mrs V and I's trip to Oxford in 2008, I spent inordinate amounts of time in the city's pubs while she was at a conference. In one day sat in Far From the Madding Crowd (a more perfect name for my kind of pub simply doesn't exist) I read about 80% of the Iain Banks book I had bought in a bookstore just minutes before opening time.

A few months later and Mrs V and I were again on our travels, this time to Ireland to visit Tale of the Ale's Reuben and wife, though in his pre-Tale days. Sadly the pub in which we sat and watched Ireland play New Zealand in the rugby is no longer in business as far as I know. Sheridan's On The Docks was everything you could possibly want from an Irish pub, a peat fire, an excellent selection of beer, including the delightful Galway Hooker, and it was there that I had my first Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. In many ways it was like being in your own living room, with the benefit of a bar.

On our various travels, whether it be Berlin, Paris, Columbia or Charlottesville, Mrs V and I have found pubs in which to spend time and just relax over pints. I am convinced that regardless of whether a country has a vibrant, overwhelming beer culture or just a few major brands doing nothing weird and wonderful, pubs are almost universally the kind of places I like to be in.

Pubs Are Great

As I am sure you are aware, last week was Thanksgiving, and Mrs V and I jumped in the car on Tuesday afternoon and went to Columbia, SC, to spend the holiday with her family. The day after Thanksgiving is known as Black Friday and the shops have insane sales which encourage slaves to consumerism to unleash their base natures in random acts of violence. I went to the pub instead, and walked seven and a half miles into the bargain, for which I got an over fizzy pint of Boston Lager, a St Bernardus Abt which smelt distinctly of caramelised bananas, and Left Hand's wonderful Sawtooth utterly abominated by the use of nitro. Oh, I almost forgot, I got a bloody huge blister as well. At least the bratwurst in a bun was top notch.

Despite the less than stellar drinking experience, my few hours sat in the Flying Saucer in Columbia, reminded me of why I love going to the pub. I was sat in a comfy, battered old armchair with my book, lost in the world of the Scots language with barely a care in the world. The Saucer wasn't wildly busy, there were a few people in watching the American Football, the service was efficient and in the midst of it all I could shut everything and everyone out for a wee while.

On Saturday night we met up with friends at Hunter Gatherer, Columbia's only brewpub and quite possibly my favourite place to go for a drink in the city. Again it was everything a pub should be, a laid back atmosphere, efficient staff and good food and booze - their ESB is fast becoming a favourite of mine, and their seasonal stout was a good solid offering. Thankfully one of the things that gets right up my nose didn't happen. There have been occasions when the service in a pub has been abysmal when they discover you won't be ordering food straight off the bat.

Both these trips to the pub got me thinking that there is so much more to a good pub than just an impressive selection of taps. A proper pub is place where you can socialise with your friends or bury yourself in the corner with a book and really doesn't matter because you get well treated either way.