Ladies, I guess everybody drinks beer (I don't!) for one reason or another!
Oldcatman
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****Vail Valley Women Gather For Love Of Beer
(12 Women Holds Biweekly Meetings For The Purpose Of Beer.)
VAIL, Colo. -- A dozen women stand around a folding table in a concrete warehouse. One woman holds aloft a clear, plastic cup full of grains, explaining the different colored layers. The other women listen intently, each clutching their own cups of magical, mystical brew. This week, it's stout.
Welcome to Females and Ales, a biweekly meeting of women who have one important thing in common: a love of good beer. Females and Ales is the brainchild of Tracey Kling, brewery sales representative of Crazy Mountain Brewing Co. But it's not just limited to Crazy Mountain beers.
"I want our club to provide the women of the Vail Valley that have similar interests (craft beer) an opportunity to meet," Kling said in an email.
The group launched on March 1 and has slowly grown since. The first meeting explored the differences between ales and lagers and featured Xingu (a black lager from Brazil) and Steamworks Colorado Kolsh Ale (a German-style ale). The second meeting delved into stouts. There's something about a robust, flavorful stout that reminds the drinker of a decadent dessert:
"It's the foam," said Kim Brussow, of Edwards, after trying O'Hara's Irish Stout. "It's like the whipped cream on top of your beer."
The evening started with sampling Guinness, the most common stout to members of the group, and then moved on to lesser-known, more boldly flavored offerings, from O'Hara's to Belhaven's Scottish-style stout to the more saccharine varieties: Left Hand's Milk Stout and Fort Collins Brewery's Double Chocolate Stout.
"It's a little bit sweeter than a Guinness," said Katherine Smith, as she sampled Left Hand's signature milk stout.
"That's why I like it."
That sweetness comes from the addition of lactose sugar, Kling said.
American brewers have taken the traditional Irish and English stouts and thrown in their own twists, Kling said. This could be anything from adding flavors, such as chocolate, to barrel aging the beer or adding unfermentable sugars, such as lactose, which give the beer sweetness without amping up the alcohol content, Kling said.
"The unfermentable sugars give the beer body," she said.
Glasses swirled around the room as women inhaled the aromas and tasted the subtle differences between the stouts, each slightly different in texture and body according to the brewers' interpretations of this class of beer.
Kathryn Bevin held up a glass of Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout and gazed into the thick, opaque liquid.
"It's dark, that's for sure," Bevin said, taking a sip. "It's so thick and rich."
That color comes from using roasted malt, but it only requires about 10 percent of the entire grain profile of the beer to be the darker stuff to make it go from tawny to sable, Kling said, holding up the layered cup again and pointing to the small fraction of dark-colored grains sitting on top.
The women compared the different beers, tasting hints of flavors from chocolate to toasted sesame. Conversations sprouted up: What makes this beer taste different from this other one? What food would pair well with this? Why haven't I tried this beer before? It's amazing!
"I want the meetings to serve as a comfortable environment for inquiries and as an open forum of discussion surrounding the various aspects of microbrew beer, while dispelling many of the stigmas, myths and stereotypes," Kling said.
However, Kling said, the main purpose is to have fun. Looking around the room, it's apparent that she's succeeded.
Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press.
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