Where There's Smoke, There's Fire(-ass Syrah)
This installment is a funny one. It showcases my favorite subcategory of wine, and my least favorite subcategory of beer: Syrah and smoked beer, respectively.
The thing that ties these two styles together is nuance - and for one of them: not having any. Syrah is a mysterious, ever-evolving and adaptable grape; one that is hard to grow and harder to maintain, but when executed well is… transcendent. And, admittedly, when smoked beers are executed well, they too can be very good - but these examples seem to be fewer and farther between than great Syrah.
The thing that ties these two styles together is nuance - and for one of them: not having any. Syrah is a mysterious, ever-evolving and adaptable grape; one that is hard to grow and harder to maintain, but when executed well is… transcendent. And, admittedly, when smoked beers are executed well, they too can be very good - but these examples seem to be fewer and farther between than great Syrah.
Scalpels and Sledgehammers
Picture a scalpel and a sledgehammer. If you want to remove a brain tumor, you could technically use either of these tools to do it. But why pick the sledgehammer?
Most smoked beer or Syrah that you grab from your chain grocery store shelf are going to be sledgehammers. Guaranteed. “You want blueberry flavors out of your Syrah? Motherfucker, I’ll make you sneeze blueberries.” The smoked beers taste Biblical - like coal on your lips. These examples have depth only in the most spatial sense. They’ll cave a skull, sure, but they’re not extracting a tumor.
In my opinion, the most beautiful examples of Syrah are the ones that showcase all of the grape’s natural flavors - not just its more approachable fruit characteristics. In France, specifically in the Northern Rhone Valley, Syrah is a cool-climate grape and as such, it has tons of acid. It’s slow to ripen, so it develops entire universes of flavor and texture. In Santa Barbara or Sonoma, California, Syrah gets a similar cool-climate treatment thanks to ocean currents and the mountain air. Australia does have cool-climate Syrah (called “Shiraz” there), but it’s greatly outnumbered by the sweet, bombastic, high alcohol examples of Shiraz on the market. They’re sledgehammers, mate.
Most smoked beer or Syrah that you grab from your chain grocery store shelf are going to be sledgehammers. Guaranteed. “You want blueberry flavors out of your Syrah? Motherfucker, I’ll make you sneeze blueberries.” The smoked beers taste Biblical - like coal on your lips. These examples have depth only in the most spatial sense. They’ll cave a skull, sure, but they’re not extracting a tumor.
In my opinion, the most beautiful examples of Syrah are the ones that showcase all of the grape’s natural flavors - not just its more approachable fruit characteristics. In France, specifically in the Northern Rhone Valley, Syrah is a cool-climate grape and as such, it has tons of acid. It’s slow to ripen, so it develops entire universes of flavor and texture. In Santa Barbara or Sonoma, California, Syrah gets a similar cool-climate treatment thanks to ocean currents and the mountain air. Australia does have cool-climate Syrah (called “Shiraz” there), but it’s greatly outnumbered by the sweet, bombastic, high alcohol examples of Shiraz on the market. They’re sledgehammers, mate.
What Is Good Syrah?
For this installment, I used examples of Syrah from Clusel-Roch from the Northern Rhone Valley in France, Piedrasassi from Santa Barbara, California, and Gramercy Cellars from Columbia Valley, Washington. These three wines are made similarly: there is no-or little- use of “new oak” on the wines, they all have stem inclusion (as opposed to being “destemmed”), and they all age similarly long in barrel: about a year (Piedrasassi being a tad less, and Gramercy’s Lower East being 16 months).
I got the chance to talk with Greg Harrington, Founder/Winemaker of Gramercy Cellars, about his process and it was enlightening. He said a few things in particular that I found fascinating, and that actually helped me to understand what I dislike about so much large-market Syrah. He explained that most producers in California taste their grapes for sweetness as a marker of when to harvest. This, Greg says, is totally incongruent with traditional methods of winemaking in Europe. “With Syrah, if the grape tastes ‘good,’ it is overripe and makes a blueberry-dominated, fruity, uninteresting wine.”
Greg claims that truly ripe Syrah will have no taste at all. “In Europe, they say ‘it’s ready.’ When you press them on the statement, they talk about seed ripeness, skin tannins, green flavors, etc. It’s never ‘the grape tastes like dessert.’” Greg also talks about the importance of stem inclusion in Syrah: in addition to adding the sort of green, vegetal, pepper notes that stems are known for, stem inclusion literally adds to the head space of the fermenter and drops the temperature - extending the fermentation and adding complexity.
So it follows, then, that Syrah grown in warm climates without much shade would over ripen earlier, giving the wines that overwhelming blueberry and black-fruited quality that I so often associate with poor quality Syrah.
I got the chance to talk with Greg Harrington, Founder/Winemaker of Gramercy Cellars, about his process and it was enlightening. He said a few things in particular that I found fascinating, and that actually helped me to understand what I dislike about so much large-market Syrah. He explained that most producers in California taste their grapes for sweetness as a marker of when to harvest. This, Greg says, is totally incongruent with traditional methods of winemaking in Europe. “With Syrah, if the grape tastes ‘good,’ it is overripe and makes a blueberry-dominated, fruity, uninteresting wine.”
Greg claims that truly ripe Syrah will have no taste at all. “In Europe, they say ‘it’s ready.’ When you press them on the statement, they talk about seed ripeness, skin tannins, green flavors, etc. It’s never ‘the grape tastes like dessert.’” Greg also talks about the importance of stem inclusion in Syrah: in addition to adding the sort of green, vegetal, pepper notes that stems are known for, stem inclusion literally adds to the head space of the fermenter and drops the temperature - extending the fermentation and adding complexity.
So it follows, then, that Syrah grown in warm climates without much shade would over ripen earlier, giving the wines that overwhelming blueberry and black-fruited quality that I so often associate with poor quality Syrah.
What Makes Good Smoked Beer... Good?
Poor quality smoked beers, however, are much more egregious. Winemaking incorporates dozens of different variables and calculations, but brewing is (in simplest terms) following a recipe. Now, anyone who has ever made a cake knows that following a recipe isn’t always easy. That gorgeous, airy bundt cake that you saw on Instagram may be hockey-puck-dense when you try your hand at it; But if you’ve made 100 bundt cakes, you can probably make a bundt cake that’s edible. That’s why it’s astounding when breweries that make excellent beer try their hand at smoke beers and fail so fucking hard.
To rewind a bit: “smoked beers” (or “Rauchbier” in its native tongue) aren’t themselves smoked. They’re beers that are brewed normally, but a large percentage of their grist bill (the percentage breakdown of grains) is made up of malt that’s been smoked. It’d be easy to assume that that’s all the issue is: “if a smoked beer is too much of a sledgehammer, just dial back the percentage of smoked malt in the beer.” Which makes sense, except that some of the most famous good examples of smoked beers (Schlenkerla and Freigeist, for this example) are made of nearly all smoked malt.
The problem, like the problem with bad Syrah, lies in poor production. Making a truly good smoked beer begins with making good beer. Jeffrey Stuffings, founder of Jester King Brewery - arguably one of the greatest breweries of all time - is a personal fan of smoked beer. In fact, he makes a point to always have one on draft at the brewery’s taproom. In an article by Matt Osgood at VinePair, Stuffings says of the style, “Once upon a time, all malts were smoked, and beers fermented with yeast floating in the air. They were likely smoky and tart given the malting process and mixed culture fermentation.” In my opinion, this mindset is what produces great smoked beers. As simple as it may seem, for a smoked beer to be a great beer, it must first be a great beer: smoked or not.
I used some great smoked beers for this installment: Kickin’ It! smoked porter from Free Range Brewery here in Charlotte, Freigeist “Abraxxxas”, Calmecac from Cerveceria Hercules, and Porcini by Pohjala. They were all certainly smoky. Personally, I enjoyed the Free Range Brewery offering the most: its balance of dark, baking cocoa-esque malt flavors paired perfectly with the smoke - reminiscent of dark chocolate covered espresso beans. The other beers just didn’t quite scratch the itch - although it was hard to tell with the Pohjala, because it was oxidized and the yeast had autolyzed (died, leaving behind a sort of soy sauce-ness that I just couldn’t get past). But really, even the worst of the bunch weren’t as bad as I had assumed. In fact, I was actually surprised that I didn’t mind drinking 4 smoked beers back-to-back.
To rewind a bit: “smoked beers” (or “Rauchbier” in its native tongue) aren’t themselves smoked. They’re beers that are brewed normally, but a large percentage of their grist bill (the percentage breakdown of grains) is made up of malt that’s been smoked. It’d be easy to assume that that’s all the issue is: “if a smoked beer is too much of a sledgehammer, just dial back the percentage of smoked malt in the beer.” Which makes sense, except that some of the most famous good examples of smoked beers (Schlenkerla and Freigeist, for this example) are made of nearly all smoked malt.
The problem, like the problem with bad Syrah, lies in poor production. Making a truly good smoked beer begins with making good beer. Jeffrey Stuffings, founder of Jester King Brewery - arguably one of the greatest breweries of all time - is a personal fan of smoked beer. In fact, he makes a point to always have one on draft at the brewery’s taproom. In an article by Matt Osgood at VinePair, Stuffings says of the style, “Once upon a time, all malts were smoked, and beers fermented with yeast floating in the air. They were likely smoky and tart given the malting process and mixed culture fermentation.” In my opinion, this mindset is what produces great smoked beers. As simple as it may seem, for a smoked beer to be a great beer, it must first be a great beer: smoked or not.
I used some great smoked beers for this installment: Kickin’ It! smoked porter from Free Range Brewery here in Charlotte, Freigeist “Abraxxxas”, Calmecac from Cerveceria Hercules, and Porcini by Pohjala. They were all certainly smoky. Personally, I enjoyed the Free Range Brewery offering the most: its balance of dark, baking cocoa-esque malt flavors paired perfectly with the smoke - reminiscent of dark chocolate covered espresso beans. The other beers just didn’t quite scratch the itch - although it was hard to tell with the Pohjala, because it was oxidized and the yeast had autolyzed (died, leaving behind a sort of soy sauce-ness that I just couldn’t get past). But really, even the worst of the bunch weren’t as bad as I had assumed. In fact, I was actually surprised that I didn’t mind drinking 4 smoked beers back-to-back.
Not Too Much Punishment for a Glutton
For anyone lucky (or maybe unlucky) enough to watch the smoked beer and Syrah live stream, I kept harping on the same notes - probably to the point of annoyance. Greatness lies in subtlety and complexity: and that’s not a paradox. Just because you can make a Syrah taste like Blue Raspberry Kool-Aid, it doesn’t mean that you should; just because you can make a beer taste like cigarette ash, it truly doesn’t mean you should. At the end of the day, what keeps me coming back to wine and beer is its multifaceted nature. Every sip should be slightly different; the glass should be alive in your hands. Don’t come at me with that weak, single note bullshit!
Luckily, there are stellar examples out there of both - some of which I got to try on the live stream. And there’s nothing but hope for the future. As wine returns to its roots, and more producers are conscious of farming and low-intervention production methods, there is a mainstream shift towards cool-climate Syrah. Syrah may finally be getting (or perhaps regaining) the mainstream attention it deserves, and smoked beers… well… they’ll make it.
Now, go drink some damn Syrah!
Luckily, there are stellar examples out there of both - some of which I got to try on the live stream. And there’s nothing but hope for the future. As wine returns to its roots, and more producers are conscious of farming and low-intervention production methods, there is a mainstream shift towards cool-climate Syrah. Syrah may finally be getting (or perhaps regaining) the mainstream attention it deserves, and smoked beers… well… they’ll make it.
Now, go drink some damn Syrah!