To Make His Ale, He Borrows Breweries

Beer: An itinerant brewer with a taste beyond categories

By Greg Kitsock
Special to The Washington Post
Friday, November 19, 2010; 8:16 PM

Brian Strumke is the modern equivalent of the minstrels who crisscrossed Europe during the Middle Ages. He does have a musical background, but these days his preferred instruments are barley and hops.

Strumke is the founder of Stillwater Artisanal Ales, maker of Belgian-inspired beers that defy pigeonholing into specific styles. He calls Baltimore home, but you won't find a storefront with his name stenciled on the window. A self-described "gypsy brewer," he has made beer in seven breweries in three countries over the past year.

Much like Paul Rinehart, whose Rockville nanobrewery Baying Hound Aleworks I profiled in last month's column, Strumke is a self-taught home-brewer who went pro. After six years of brewing 10 gallons at a time, he scaled up to 30-barrel batches. But there's more than one path to the big leagues.

Contract brewing - renting another company's tanks to brew beer - has its risks: Because you can't be at the host brewery 24-7, you must trust a stranger to nursemaid your beer through fermentation and conditioning. On the other hand, Strumke reflects, "I don't have to pay off a $2 million building loan, so I can take risks, like making a beer with flowers."

Love & Regret, which Strumke brewed at the 't Hofbrouwerijke brewery in Beerzel, Belgium, in February, is a saison (farmhouse-style ale) spiced with heather, chamomile, lavender and dandelion. It accompanied the first course of a beer dinner at Pizzeria Paradiso two weeks ago. (Stillwater is expanding its market to encompass 18 cities nationwide, and I caught up with Strumke in the midst of a road trip that had already taken him to Vermont, Boston and New York City.)

None of the unusual ingredients stands out by itself, but Love & Regret has a delightful floral perfume that wafts up the back of one's throat and fills the sinuses. It measures 7.2 percent alcohol by volume (reasonable by the standards of today's high-octane "imperial" beers) and offers a crisp aftertaste that perks up the appetite.

Complexity, subtlety, moderate alcohol and a dry finish are the hallmarks of Strumke's beers.

The closest he comes to having a home base is the DOG Brewing Co. in Westminster, Md., a 45-minute drive from his home. He brews his Stateside series of beers in a 15-barrel brew house there and uses a cramp-inducing manual eight-head bottler to package them in 750-milliliter bottles.

DOG Brewing devotes most of its output to a line of American- and English-style ales for the Pub Dog Pizza & Drafthouse restaurants in Baltimore and Columbia. "It's like a charter fishing boat," brewery president George Humbert says of his relationship with Strumke. "He's the fisherman, and we own the boat.

"He's got an amazing sense of taste and knows just what he wants to do," Humbert said. "I've learned a lot about Belgian beers from him."

Most Beer 101 books peg saison as a specific beer style, but Strumke sees it as more of a concept. "Almost every farmhouse in Belgium had a brewery attached to it. When they weren't farming, they were brewing. And every farm had a different style. They used whatever ingredients they had. If they had a lot of wheat or spelt or oats, they used that. If they had no hops, they used spices."

He views his own beers as "pieces of art; they don't follow style guidelines."

Stateside Saison, his first commercial beer and Stillwater's flagship brand, pours a hazy orange with a billowy white head. It has a peppery finish that Strumke attributes to the yeast; he says no spices are added. He uses Belgian biscuit and aromatic malts for added body and flavor, and Nelson Sauvin hops, a New Zealand variety with a gentle, fruity flavor sometimes likened to that of white wine.

Autumnal, a cross between a Belgian saison and a German-style altbier, is the brew Strumke recommends for pairing with your Thanksgiving turkey. It's soft and malty, with a Juicy Fruit sort of flavor that would do justice to the succulent meat. (Alternatively, if you're serving a sage-based stuffing, you might opt for Cellar Door, a light-on-the-palate offering brewed with one-third wheat and spiced with white sage.)

Strumke says his Love & Regret has tapped out, but in December he'll introduce A Saison Darkly, a black ale flavored with hibiscus and rose hips that he brewed at the Huisbrouwerij Sint Canarus in Deinze-Gottem, Belgium.

In December he'll also premiere a new year-round beer, Existent. It's hoppy but not to the same degree as the Cascadian dark ales (also called black IPAs) now in vogue. It has the bittersweet-chocolate and black-coffee flavors of a stout, but a dash of caramel malt balances the roast, like the cream in your coffee.

Existent might be unique among beers in having a picture of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche on the label, along with a Nietzschean quote: "And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

Strumke explains that it's kind of an existentialist commentary on a brewer imposing his own view on the beer universe.

"I leave it to the imbiber to decide what style it is."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/19/AR2010111906134.html

Rethinking Tree Planting In Israel

Forest fire fuels review of Israel's tree-planting traditions

By Joel Greenberg
Special to the Washington Post
Monday, December 27, 2010; A09

BEIT OREN, ISRAEL - Among the charred trees and layers of ash in Israel's scorched Carmel National Park, a stone marker near a blackened stand of pines honors American Jewish donors who gave money to plant the trees.

A radio advertisement before the hourly news exhorts Israelis to donate to restore the burned forest, urging them to "bring the green back to the Carmel!"

This month's forest fire in northern Israel, which destroyed nearly 8,000 acres of woodlands in the Mount Carmel range, burned homes and killed more than 40 people, was the biggest conflagration in the country's 62-year history. But the flames also struck at a central Zionist ethos that has been part of Israeli lore since the days of its early pioneers: greening the bare hills by planting thousands upon thousands of pine trees.

In the wind-whipped fire, the flammable pines, both native and planted, fueled the flames that raced across the wooded ridge, consuming a bus full of prison guards on their way to evacuate a jail, ravaging homes in adjacent communities and laying waste to nearly a third of a precious natural preserve.

The devastation has raised questions about the place and management of forests in a drought-plagued Middle Eastern country in an age of global warming. And it has forced a reassessment of traditional tree-planting efforts long seen by Israelis and Jewish contributors abroad as part of a national mission to "make the wasteland bloom."

"The fire was a catalyst, a trigger for rethinking which was already going on but needed a push," said Israel Tauber, director of forest management at the Jewish National Fund, a land-development agency that acts as Israel's forest service. "It's no longer an instinct that wherever the forest is burned, we rush out and plant."

In Israel's early days, the country's founders, who came from forested Europe, set a goal of covering the bare, rocky hills of their new homeland with trees, replacing natural woods and scrub that had been cut down for centuries for fuel and construction.

"They saw it as a declaration of ownership, a change of landscape that makes the country more similar to Eastern Europe, and they thought that the timber had economic potential - a naive Zionist dream," said Avi Perevolotsky, an ecologist and forest expert at the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture's research center.

Inadequate rain and soil conditions prevented the production of commercial-grade timber. The pines, chosen for their ability to grow rapidly and survive in a dry and sunny climate, did indeed spread over the hills, dramatically altering the landscape. But since they were densely planted and all of the same age and type, they were susceptible to the spread of disease, which killed numerous trees in subsequent decades.

The Jewish National Fund shifted its forestry policy in the 1990s, thinning out the pines to allow for growth under the trees, including native species such as oak and pistacia, which were also planted to produce a mixed, less-vulnerable forest.

But the traditional ethos of tree planting persisted. Jewish National Fund forests, some planted over the ruins of Palestinian villages emptied during Israel's war of independence, became popular picnic and recreation areas, providing shade and greenery in a sun-baked land. In an annual ritual on Tu Bishvat, the Jewish Arbor Day, Israeli schoolchildren trooped out to plant trees in the hills. Their counterparts in Jewish schools in the United States, and their parents, donated money to plant a tree in Israel, and Jewish visitors to the country were taken to tree-planting centers to put a sapling in the earth with their own hands.

This month's fire delivered a jolt, confronting Israeli foresters with the challenge of managing the rehabilitation of the Carmel in a way that will prevent another large-scale blaze. Long-ignored recommendations by experts to create firebreaks, thin out the forests, and use animal grazing to prevent the buildup of shrubs that fuel fires, are now getting renewed attention.

And the cherished value of planting more trees is also coming into question. On the floor of the Carmel forest, millions of seeds released by pine cones during the fire have settled into the earth and ash, and some fresh grass and flowers have already appeared after a first burst of winter rains.

Perevolotsky, who serves on a government-appointed committee on rehabilitating the Carmel, says there is general agreement that the forest should be allowed to regenerate naturally, a process that will take decades.

"There's an absolute consensus that nothing needs to be done" now, he said, adding that the pine seeds would naturally produce an abundance of new seedlings. "In another few years we will have to thin out, not plant, and take measures to prevent the next fires."

Tauber, who is helping write Israel's first forestry guidelines, said that "after the fire we understood that the first thing to do is let nature take its course. You don't have to plant."

Next month, during the tree holiday of Tu Bishvat, there may be ceremonial plantings on the Carmel by Israeli leaders, but these will be symbolic, Tauber said.

Yagil Osem, a forest ecologist who is also serving on an expert committee, said that the focus now would be on sustainable management of the forest in way that would enable it to regenerate with a variety of trees and survive in Israel's dry climate - and under heavy public use. The burned areas will serve as a living lab.

"We're starting to put into practice forest management based on natural processes," Osem said. "Planting was always the symbol and will always be an element, but its part in the story is getting smaller."

Greenberg is a special correspondent.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/26/AR2010122602235.html

Another Island Bites The Dust

An island's dizzying, troubling growth

By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, December 27, 2010; A08

WANNING, CHINA - One year ago, China's ruling State Council laid out a plan to transform its southernmost province into an international tourism destination, or the "Hawaii of the East," as Hainan Island was dubbed.

The result has been a 12-month frenzy of construction - lavish resorts, seaside villas, spas and a helicopter landing pad, still being built, for well-heeled visitors with no time to waste.

And then there are golf courses - plenty of them. By one local estimate, as many as 300 golf courses are being planned for the tropical island, which is about the size of Belgium. Twenty-six are complete, and 70 are under construction. They include the Mission Hills resort, which will boast 10 courses and 162 holes, spread over more than six square miles.

"Nearly every city and county is engaged in development of a golf course," said Liu Futang, 63, a former chief of Hainan's Forest Fire Prevention Bureau. "No golf course has actually earned money. Few of them have people coming to play."

The dizzying pace of construction has forced thousands of indigenous farmers off their land, driven property prices up tenfold and higher, and led many residents to ask how much development is too much.

"Hainan is a real-life example of that film 'Avatar,' " said Liu, who moved here 22 years ago to work in the island province's forestry ministry. "Except in Avatar, they could organize together to fight back." On Hainan, he said, "I don't have much hope - nothing can stop this change."

Exposed to nature's fury

Hainan residents and environmentalists say the rapid development is damaging the island's ecosystem, and they are concerned mostly about the destruction of the coastal forests, which for centuries have served as a natural bulwark against typhoons, tsunamis and soil erosion. They are particularly worried about the mangroves of Australian pine and rare indigenous Vatica mangachapoi, which has been a protected resource since the Qing dynasty.

"They never cut these trees down because they protect the people from typhoons," said Chen Zuming, 63, who grew up in the coastal forests in Shimei village on Hainan's east coast.

Chen, a farmer from the indigenous ethnic Li minority, recalls how these mangrove forests also played a role in China's recent history, providing a redoubt for guerrillas battling the Japanese occupation during World War II and later for China's Communist forces fighting the Nationalists.

Huge tracts of the mangroves have been chopped down to make way for seaside hotels and apartments and the paved highways to connect them. Three thousand villagers, including Chen, have been told that they have to relocate to a town more than 18 miles away, giving up their homes, their farmland, even the burial grounds of their ancestors. As farmers and fishermen, they worry that they won't be able to make a living in the town.

Chen becomes animated, and visibly emotional, when talking about the trees he has been working to protect since 1970. "I grew up on this land, and my father, and my grandfather," he said. "They are destroying the area and turning it into roads."

The Beijing office of the environmental group Greenpeace has warned of an increase in natural calamities because of the destruction of the mangrove forests. Of Hainan's 950 miles of coastline, Greenpeace forest campaigner Yi Lan said, more than 621 are being developed.

"Development and conversion of forest to real estate projects will damage the coastal forest and increase the region's vulnerability to natural disasters," Yi said. "They are turning this island into a tourist destination for rich people and foreigners, not for local people. They are not benefiting from it."

Frenetic development

The rich and famous have started coming. In late October, Mission Hills, which has four of its 10 courses open, hosted a celebrity golf tournament featuring actors Matthew McConaughey, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Hugh Grant teeing off alongside golfing greats such as Nick Faldo and Greg Norman.

The development has come at a price, islanders said. Floods from heavy rains in early October destroyed thousands of acres of farmland, washed out roads and caused the temporary evacuation of more than 400,000 people across Hainan. Shimei residents said the destruction of the forests exacerbated the flooding.

The same story is unfolding all over the island. In Haikou, on the northern coast, Chen Rendong, 78, a former chief of Hainan's forest protection stations, recalled how he helped plant mangrove trees on the coast in the early 1990s. Now, the sandy area is largely barren of trees, and resorts have popped up.

The coastal town of Sanya in the south is rapidly emerging as a combination of Waikiki and Miami Beach, perhaps with a dash of Las Vegas thrown in.

A 36-year-old hiker and nature enthusiast, who requested that his name not be used, described his shock at going to an area in Sanya where he used to camp, the Yalong Bay mangrove nature reserve, and finding it transformed into a virtual construction site, for a resort due to open next year.

The hiker wrote about this on an Internet discussion forum, under the name Tiger Sowing Through the Forest, and attracted hundreds of supportive comments.

"Foreign countries protect nature to attract tourists, but the Chinese government has a different idea," he said, staring out over the white sandy beaches at construction cranes. "Now if we want to go camping in Hainan, we'll have to pitch a tent on the roof of our apartments."

Staff researcher Wang Juan contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/26/AR2010122602262.html