Calibration Beers
Last week, on a normal Portland evening (as I write this on Sunday afternoon at 3pm, it’s 111 degrees), Sally and I went to a restaurant with an eclectic beer list. I was happy to see Barley Brown Pallet Jack IPA was in the mix. A decade old, it was one of the key IPAs in directing the evolution of the Northwest’s palate. After development batches in 2011, the brewery released it in its final, and current, form in March 2012. It hasn’t changed since. Owner Tyler Brown confirmed that there have been “no significant changes from when first brewed it. Most of the minor changes were made when we changed a specialty malt supplier, others are when hop crop years changed.”
I was confirming that was true, because it tasted as I remembered—but often memories lie. I recall talking to Full Sail’s Jamie Emmerson some years back. In the early days, Amber Ale was the brewery’s flagship, and it introduced thousands of people to craft beer. People thus introduced found Amber intensely bitter. As their journey into craft beer continued, they grew to appreciate more intense flavors. As their own preferences changed, they would return to Amber and find it milder than they remembered. Jamie said drinkers constantly accused him of “dumbing it down.” Like Brown, though, he didn’t change the recipe except to account for changes in raw ingredients. Indeed, any change was to ensure the beer looked, smelled, and tasted the same year after year. The change happened to the drinkers, not the beer.
This is why “calibration beers” like Pallet Jack are so useful. They remind us of what beer actually used to taste like. This is important for a number of reasons. These beers are examples of living history, both in terms of flavor and characteristics, as well as process. Pallet Jack was an important beer when it debuted, illustrating how intense flavor and aromas could enhance sharp, bell-like kettle bittering. It also used techniques and ingredients typical of the time—another reason it stands as a bit of history. Tyler wrote, “We’ve always double dry-hopped it, and it’s always been a 21 day+ beer, from kettle to keg.”
Tyler had a chance to see what a Pallet Jack born in 2020 might look like last year when he collaborated with Breakside and he commented on what those differences would look like.
Eli [Dickison] and I brewed a collaboration with Ben at Breakside: WanderJack IPA. From memory, Ben’s idea was to envision what Pallet Jack would be if we brewed it in “modern times,” meaning that we (he) would would add new techniques such as “cool pooling” [cooling the wort 20-30 degrees before adding whirlpool hops], earlier dry hop additions (biotransformation), and new hop varieties (Strata). He still applied our double dry-hop routine, similar grain bill, and our go-to Simcoe hops. That beer came out awesome, and they just re-released it in the past few days.”
Beers like Pallet Jack are also important in recalibrating—or brightening—memory. The bitterness, while sharp, wasn’t too sharp. And, in fact, that’s why I typically order Pallet Jack whenever I see it on a menu. The balance is exquisite, and the bitterness is fun and intense without stinging or overwhelming. I love the deft use of crystal malt in Pallet Jack, too—just a hint—which sweetens the classic grapefruit/pine without coming across as overtly caramelly. If my mind wonders when Oregonians abandoned the heavy crystal malt beers (see below), Pallet Jack tells me it was at least by 2012.
1. Palate (n): a person's appreciation of taste and flavor, especially when sophisticated and discriminating.
1. Pallet (n): a portable platform for handling, storing, or moving materials and packages (as in warehouses, factories, or vehicles)
1. Palette (n): a rigid, flat surface on which a painter arranges and mixes paints
As beer fans, it’s important to consider what we’ve lost in our quest for novelty. Hoppy American ales have gone through a generation-long evolution, and most of brewers’ discoveries have made them better. Yet not everything old is dated, nor have all of the old techniques and ingredients been surpassed. Sometimes, and Pallet Jack attests to this, calibration beers refute our tendency to assume new is always better. Brewers are often scared to put any pop of bitterness in their IPAs now, and it’s a loss. The use of crystal malt, too, can create a depth of flavor I miss (when used sparingly!).
If you don’t live in Oregon and want a more universal example, the obvious choice is Sierra Nevada Pale. Now 41 years old, it is an artifact of a past time. Few breweries make a pale like this anymore. They might use Cascade hops, but not just Cascades. Most pales are dry-hopped (Pale only uses whirlpool hops). Modern brewers often eschew Sierra’s famously neutral ale strain these days, though it was ubiquitous until a decade ago. And of course that crystal malt, which Sierra uses in abundance. Unless they were self-consciously offering an homage to SNPA, most brewers today would dial the caramel way back—or ditch it altogether.
There are other great examples out there. Bell’s Two Hearted, Russian River Pliny the Elder, Harpoon IPA all continue to impress and please me when I encounter them. (Others, like Sam Adam’s Boston Lager or New Belgium Amber, seem somehow pallid or listless.) Many if you will know local examples as well.
Imported beers once performed this function for Americans. We looked to Germany, Britain, and Belgium to understand how classic styles should taste. As our own tradition deepens and grows into middle age, these older beers perform a similar function—emissaries from a time rather than a place. Evolution is good. But to really appreciate where we are, it’s useful to remind ourselves where we’ve been.