In Philadelphia, Russell is Joe Sixpack, a man who turned beer into a full time job: reason enough to admire him. He has also rather brazenly declared his hometown “America’s Best Beer Drinking City,” and slapped that tagline on a 10-day beer festival he helped organize called Philly Beer Week.

Mr. Sixpack’s boast doesn’t sit well in Portland, Seattle and San Francisco. At the Brewer’s Association in Boulder, CO, officials stopped short of censuring him, saying only that Russell ought to be prepared to defend his claim over a place like, say, Denver or Boulder or Fort Collins. In a column that ran in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette a day before the festival started, fellow beer writer Bob Batz Jr. wasn’t so sure that Philly was even the best beer drinking city in Pennsylvania.

Before we go on and I’m exposed, I ought to confess that I like Russell a lot. I wrote about him for another magazine and, afterward, took him up on an invitation to let him convince me about Philly. After four days with friends hoisting glasses in the South Philly Taproom, the Pub on Passyunk East (POPE), Capone’s, the Old Eagle Tavern, Monk’s, the Standard Tap, Azure, the Royal Tavern and, for good measure, a last Racer 5 again at POPE, I was in no shape to disagree with him.

Now, before you reach for your bung starter, realize that Mr. Sixpack has done us all a big favor. He has helped stir a national discussion about what makes a beer city good or great or even the best. We’ve had these debates from the time someone took note that there was more than one microbrewery in a city or that a neighborhood had suddenly sprouted several bars with exotic tap handles. Admit it. We love to fight over the best places to drink beer.

People used to pester Michael Jackson all the time for his favorite places. In 2000, he wrote that there were exactly seven great beer cities in America: Austin, Boston, Denver, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco and Seattle. Baltimore, Chicago and New York might be contenders, he said at the time.

Just two years ago, Celebrator Beer News declared that not only did it know that there were 10 great beer cities but knew what order they came in: Portland, followed by San Francisco, Denver, Seattle, Philadelphia, San Diego, Washington, D.C./Baltimore, Boston and a tie between Chicago and New York. The Web is choked with Top 10 lists.

Some of this is just spreadsheet work: numbers of microbreweries, brewpubs, good beers bars and homebrew clubs, population ratios and all that. But if it were merely a matter of mathematics, all of the lists would be exactly the same.

What is missing from all of the calculating is what Paul Gatza, the director of the Brewers Association, calls “the mystical experiences that people talk about.” It’s that heady feeling, impossible to quantify, that you are in a place among people who care as passionately about beer as you do. It is by this giddily subjective standard that Don Russell can claim Philadelphia’s supremacy. “Other towns, you sit in a bar, you could be anywhere in the United States,” Russell wrote in one of his recent columns. “You can’t drink beer in this city and not feel Philadelphia.”

And so, it is by Russell’s standard that I have been liberated to create my own, altogether different, list of beer cities. Without getting out the calculator, they are cities that have reached a certain critical mass in the availability of good beer. Unlike those Top 10 cities, they are not often recognized outside of their regions. Some are established stalwarts. Some are audacious upstarts. But they are all capable of making the argument that beer is an intrinsic part of their culture.

So as to ensure hurt feelings, I deliberately left off this list some fine beer cities: Milwaukee, my hometown, where I’ve probably had as much good beer as any one place in my lifetime; Baltimore, with its bewitching combination of locale, ethnicity and old and new brewers; St. Louis, where a certain brewing behemoth overshadows a vibrant craft brewing scene; and Austin, the city where my wife, Susan, and I have raised our children and where a major microbrewery (Celis) and a core of brewpubs have closed since the city made Michael Jackson’s list. While well known for beer, none of these has the same dynamism and momentum of the cities on my list. “Beauty,” as Gatza says, “is in the eye of the beerholder.”

They told us about a special place—a land of lager and lederhosen, where the Dunkel flows like the Danube. Of Munich and monasteries. Of Rauchbiers made of smoke and gardens filled with beer. This is Bavaria—the alpine home of Bock and Beethoven. Of hops and Hallertau. Of killer Kellerbier, shnappes and Stammtisch….and so much more.

Our correspondents have all filed their reports. So, if you’re ready, the bus is now boarding…)

In Quest of Beer Paradise

by Horst Dornbusch

Every religion and mythology seems to have a place in which everything is in a state of perfection…call it paradise, nirvana, Mount Olympus, Valhalla, utopia, or the Holy Grail. For beer lovers, no doubt, this place is Bavaria!

No other area has spawned a greater variety of beer styles. Where else could you get an authentic taste of a potent but gentle doppelbock, a turbid and rich kellerbier, a velvet hammer called an eisbock, a smoke bomb called a rauchbier, a black and alluring schwarzbier, a malty and satisfying dunkel, a complex and spicy-spritzy weissbier (hefeweizen) and a dainty, delicate helles—all within easy walking distance? The Bavarians even distill a clear, easy drinking schnapps from beer.

Other brewing superlatives in Bavaria include the oldest and most famous brew university (Weihenstephen, near Munich), which also happens to be the oldest continuously operating brewery in the world. It has been making beer since 1040. A decade later, the Benedictine friars at Weltenburg got their brewing license, making this cloister the oldest still-operating monastery brewery. The world’s oldest malting plant (built in 180 A.D.) is in Regensburg along the Danube. Franconia in northern Bavaria has the greatest density of breweries anywhere—some 100 of them within a 50-mile radius around Bamberg. Kulmbach has the world’s longest uninterrupted brewing tradition, as evidenced by a 2,800-year old Celtic beer fermenter found nearby. And, of course, there is always the Oktoberfest, the largest beer party in the world, and the Hofbräuhaus, the Mecca of all beer halls, smack in downtown Munich. Bavaria is the ultimate beer reality show!

So, when the Bavarian Brewers Federation and the Bavarian Department of Agriculture beckoned about a dozen leading North American beer journalists coming over for a look-see, everyone heeded the call. It was my privilege to take them around, and here are some of their impressions…

Goose Island was an outstanding brewery before Brynildson arrived, and continued to be after he left. SLO Brewing also pulled in awards before, during and after Brynildson’s tenure. For Firestone Walker, however, and the Nectar Ales it brews for Humboldt Brewing Co., Byrnildson has been the head brewer during a white-hot run of medals.

He holds the unique record for winning Brewer of the Year awards from the Association of Brewers’ competitions for his service to three different brewing companies: SLO in 2001, Nectar Ales in 2003, and Firestone Walker in 2004.

“Guess it’s my lucky rabbit’s foot,” laughs Brynildson. Sure, maybe it’s a good luck charm at work, or maybe Brynildson, himself, is the good luck charm.

His winning streak raises the possibility that the brewing awards presented each year are chapters in a longer story. Certainly, a single medal in any of these competitions is a source of pride. But when a beer takes prizes year after year, or a brewery medals in multiple styles, or the records show a large number of wins in a small span of years, these are all signs pointing, among other things, to an excellent brewer.

We were curious about the attributes of top-notch brewers and what qualities they bring to their jobs. But there is no easy way to examine the long-term track record of individual brewers. Ask beer lovers their opinions, and you’ll hear about the current darlings of the brewhouse, but without context. So instead, we trawled through the awards given over the years by four different competitions, looking for indications of excellence (see The Medal Works).

Seventy American breweries stood out in the medal stakes. All had earned at least ten awards over the years; some had earned several times that number. Some showed periods of concentrated activity. And every brewery on the list had to have a really good brewer somewhere in the building.

Of course, medals only tell part of the story: the story of the beers that are entered in competitions. But it’s clear that those who compete and win repeatedly have something to say about the art of brewing.

Origins

A popular attitude has grown up among some craft beer drinkers that the big guys simply can’t brew, and that micro drinkers have turned their back on “bad” beer. A glance at the background of some of the most award-winning microbrewers shows they owe a lot to the skills of the mainstream brewers of the previous generation.

Dan Carey, brew master at New Glarus Brewing Co. in Wisconsin, is heavily credentialed. After studying at the University of California at Davis and the Siebel Institute in Chicago, and sitting the Institute of Brewing Master Brewing Examination, he worked in brewery construction.

“I got a little turned off by the whole microbrewery movement for a while: there were a lot of people opportunistically thinking they’d make a lot of money,” says Carey. “I worked for Anheuser-Busch as a supervisor, where I really learned a lot. But I also learned I’m not a corporate guy.”

Firestone Walker’s Brynildson, a later Siebel graduate, credits Rudy Held, a former brewmaster from Stroh’s, and Klaus Zastrow, upper brewmaster from A-B, for some of his most rigorous training.

“Rather than learn from microbrewers per se, I was learning from brewers with decades of experience,” he recalls. “There I was, drinking Larry Bell’s beers by night, some of the most experimental microbrews, and taking Beer 101 from the masters at Siebel. They’d warn us ‘What’s going on at Larry Bell’s place doesn’t usually go on at the big breweries.’”

Other winning brewers have gone the route of the homebrewer-turned-pro, abandoning early career choices for the move into professional brewing. Geoff Larson, founder of Alaskan Brewing Co., worked in gold mining, then the pharmaceutical industry. John Maier, the prolific brewer of Rogue Ales, moved from a job at Hughes Aircraft into his first brewing job at the newly-opened Alaskan Brewing Co. via a three-month Siebel course. And Fredrick Bensch and Kevin McNerney discovered a shared love of brewing at the University of Colorado, and prepared for the eventual opening of Sweetwater Brewing Co. in Atlanta with a series of jobs in West Coast breweries.

In an article called “The Cult of the Brewer,” Dick Cantwell, formerly of Big Time in Seattle and now head brewer and partner at Elysian Brewing Co., describes many converts to brewing as “ill-suited and unfulfilled (and in many cases simply unsuccessful) in whatever pursuits we served before Saccharomyces got under our skins.”

The Brewer’s Role

Many who opt for a career in brewing find that the brewpub sector offers an opportunity for creative independence.

“We own the whole company, so we don’t have to answer to anyone else. Our only investors are friends and family, so no one else influences the decision-making process,” says Fredrick Bensch of Sweetwater.

Bensch and McNerney took on a challenge that wouldn’t have stood the test of a conventional business plan: producing aggressive, West Coast-style beers for a supposedly conservative Southern audience. Despite their success, Bensch says their brewing awards take on special significance because of their location. “We’re in an oasis here in the South where there aren’t a lot of breweries, so it means a lot.”

As a brewing business becomes larger, the role of the brewer changes. When Mark Edelson opened the first Iron Hill with partners Kevin Finn and Kevin Davies in 1996, Edelson was the brewer. Now, each of the five Iron Hill branches has its own brewer and serves six house brands (plus two, usually seasonal, beers of the brewer’s choice).

As head of brewing operations, Edelson now has ultimate responsibility for the quality and consistency of the chain’s beers. Key to that effort are the regular blind tastings of Iron Hill beers he conducts for the staff of the various branches. The panel compares the same house beer as brewed by the brewers at the different branches, looking for variations or flaws.

“We’ve been working on consistency since we were small,” he explains. “As we grew, we emphasized strict procedures and protocol—a lot of overkill when it comes to cleaning and sterilizing.”

As his focus has shifted from recipe formulation to quality control, is Edelson still The Brewer? Ultimately, yes.

Dick Cantwell at Elysian oversees brewing at two Seattle sites, one centrally located, with a 20 barrel system, and the second “neighborhood bar” with a 3 barrel system. “The recipes are mostly mine, “ says Cantwell, “but since I’m pulled away a lot for meetings, writing or something, I’m not the one who sees the day’s work completed.”

“After eight years, we have a long list of beers we’ve made at some point, and there’s always a contingent asking us to bring a beer back, or make one year-round. But the schedule is pretty tight: with the 20-barrel system, there’s not much freedom to fool around. That’s why the small brewery is nice; with a small batch, I can play a lot.”

At New Glarus, Dan Carey has been the brewing force since the company opened in 1993. “I have to emphasize that I am not the founder,” he says. “My wife [Deb Carey] is the entrepreneur. An entrepreneur has a vision and can anticipate what’s around the next corner. When things are hot and heavy, when the bank’s mad and the pressure’s on, she knows the direction we have to go. My strength lies in my ability to mind details, so we’re a good team. I’m literally an employee of the brewery. As it grows, I’m the one on the technical end.”

So, is Jim Koch a brewer? The founder and president of Boston Beer Co., the biggest of the small breweries, is as far as you can get from the hands-on, small-batch brewing of Bensch and McNerney, or other award-winning small-scale brewers like Tomme Arthur (Pizza Port) or Vinnie Cilurzo (Russian River). But in the essential roles common to breweries small and large—concept, consistency and quality—he is as engaged as any other brewer.

“I still taste every batch of every beer we brew. It’s about setting a standard of perfection and trying to reach it. At the other end of the process, when it comes to new brands, I’m in on the conception and on ‘OK, how do we do this?’ And I go to Europe every year and select from each farmer each lot of hops that goes into out beer. There are hundreds and hundreds to check.”

Greatness

Ask what makes the difference between a good beer and a great beer, and these disparate brewers sound more similar than their differences. The importance of staying true to a greater goal looms large, as does an old-fashioned insistence on the value of hard work. As Dan Carey put it, “I take personal responsibility for every ounce of beer that goes out, and if something’s not right, it hurts. The beer is number one: not profits, not leaving early on Friday.”

Geoff Larson recalls the late Bert Grant’s defiant assertion, “I don’t care if people like my beer. I’m brewing this beer for myself.” Geoff continues “I’m not saying it with that same edge, but it’s true that you have to brew something that you like, not something to please everyone. If you try hard to create a beer that isn’t objectionable…well, that’s not what we do.”

Jim Koch applies a rigorous standard to the decision to launch any new beer. “We don’t want to bring out a beer unless it’s the best of that style available to American beer drinkers. Take steam beer. We could try a steam beer, but I don’t honestly think we could make a better steam beer than Fritz Maytag. So why would I do that? If I do, I’ve added nothing to the quality of choice for American beer drinkers.”

Or, most succinctly, from Fredrick Bensch: “Be true to your self, and your company. Don’t weenie out: trust your taste buds, care for the beer and keep it fresh.”

Teamwork and Community

The mystery brewer, who single-handedly brings glory to any brand he or she touches, is more a creation of the beer enthusiast’s imagination than a reality in the brewhouse. The effort required to bring a beer to consumers in peak condition is a team project: the larger the brewery, the bigger the team.

Gary Fish, president of Deschutes Brewing Co., who does not style himself as an owner-brewer, is adamant: “I know it’s conventional to pay lip service to the team work involved in making a beer, but it’s really true. Things may be different at a smaller facility, but here it’s important to recognize everyone, from the brewers to the cellarmen, to the packaging people, who make this possible.”

Geoff Larson emphasized flexibility from the very earliest days of Alaskan Brewing Co. “We had others brewing right from the start, almost as a point of philosophy,” he says. “We do a lot of cross-training at the brewery: I don’t believe in a strict separation between the different functions. It’s all about getting the best beer to people. If our sales people are out there addressing line cleanliness, they are making sure we deliver great beer, just as sure as the person who selects our hops or stirs the mash.”

Ultimately, the brewer can shine only if the brewery’s beer is treated with respect at every stage until it reaches the consumer. Medals for brewing excellence are only proxies for the most valuable recognition of all: the beer lover who comes back for more.

Writing about beer and food is nothing new. Chronicling life in ancient Egypt, the Greek historian Herodotus wrote in the fifth century BC, “They eat loaves of bread of coarse grain which they call cyllestis. They make their beverage from barley, for they have no vines in their country. They eat fish raw, sun dried or preserved in salt brine.” And, when the European crusaders invaded Jerusalem to spread the gospel, they found tables spread with pineapples, figs, citrus, coconuts, lentils and sugar. Mustard, saffron, cloves, cinnamon, lavender and rosemary—all unknown in the West—spiced the diet and sparked the imagination. What to drink? Beer, of course, and in myriad styles!

Modern Beer Missionaries

Beer and spices were introduced to the West through the European monasteries by the crusaders returning from the holy land. About 700 years later, with two dozen salespeople, I led a pilgrimage to the holy land of beer—Belgium, where more styles of beer are brewed than perhaps in any other nation. Our first stop was Orval abbey and its brewery, an example of cleanliness next to godliness.

My beer missionaries joined our Trappist brothers for heavenly hash—organic vegetable soup, freshly baked multigrain bread, spit-roasted rabbit, abbey cheese, and a special bottling of Orval Trappist Ale diluted 50 percent with their famous Mathilda spring water: all grown, made, foraged or hunted locally.

Doing most of the talking, we supped with men of few words at ancient tables, hand-hewn from trees felled in the local woods. The half-strength Orval is reserved for them. It is a simple beer, dry and refreshing. At home, we relish the intensely hoppy, yeast-laden Orval as an aperitif with salted almonds and olives.

The dinner was a metaphor for the work of the monastery—harmony and balance. We learned that revenues from the brewery are used to feed the hungry.

That a beverage brewed from only malt, hops, yeast, water, and occasionally sugar and spices, can be so complex and satisfying is a miracle no less exciting than converting water to wine. No wonder the arcane ale alchemy practiced in this diminutive nation in the center of Europe evolved from Orval and other monasteries.