Answers to Your Frequently Asked
Questions
Is this beer any good?
Yes. If it wasn't, we wouldn't soil our lines with it.
What's your favorite beer?
There's too many variables to categorize that simply. We have to take
in
account the weather, season, mood, and our intended continued functionality for the
remainder of the day. Here's a few you'd find on our shelves that we'd
consider for the title depending on the current web of conditions we might face (filtered through Ron's
taste buds and categorized by region.) Welcome
to our world beer tour.
Australia
No, not Fosters but Cooper’s Sparkling and Vintage Ales are Australia’s
best-kept secret.
Austria
For years it was made in Switzerland, but now Samichlaus beer is made in
Austria. It is only brewed one day
a year on December 6th and aged 10 months before bottling.
When it is gone, it is gone. A
good one to buy and lay down for a few years.
ABV 14%
Belgium
Where to start? Belgium produces
some of the wildest beers brewed on the planet. Chimay is the best known of the monastery breweries.
Chimay Blue is rich and full-bodied, the Red is a little lighter but
still malty sweet and the White or Cinq Cents which is usually available on
draft is dry and refreshing. The Rochefort 6, 8 and 10 are all personal favorites and are
truly world-class beers. All the
Trappist beers are worth trying.
Real Lambics are truly a beer that you must have a taste for.
Lindemans is very popular for their raspberry “Framboise”, which
is really just a training wheel lambic that sells.
Lambics from Boon, Cantillon and Drie Fonteinen all get the nod for being
authentic lambics that are full of flavors and aromas that are often categorized
as tart, sour and even might have a horse blanket aroma.
While not as large or well known, Papago stocks a number of other Belgium
beers from small breweries that are often literally one-person operations.
DeDolle, Fantome, Urthel and Caracole are all examples of small breweries
that produce some wonderful and really unique beers.
Canada
No not Elsinore beer made famous in the beer classic movie “Strange Brew”,
but Unibroue, which makes some wonderful Belgian Style beers.
Trois Pistoles, Maudite and La Fin Du Mond are the three flagships of
this great brewery from the Great White North.
Take off Hoser…
Czech
Blame it on Pilsner Urquell for creating the beer style that is now the
world’s most popular beer style and from which thousands of people in the
advertising business earn their livings off of.
Pilsner Urquell unlike the mass marketed beers still makes beer without
any rice or corn, on tap it is great, in the bottle, even they fell victim to
the marketing people who favor green bottles.
England
While England has been consumed like the rest of the world by lager mania,
most of the brews made there are still in fact ales.
Young’s Double Chocolate Stout and Mackeson’s Cream Stout get the nod
on the dark side while J.W. Lees with their oak barrel aged beers are very
unique and rare. Boddington’s is a classic example of a British Bitter.
Fullers makes some fine tasting beers like the 1845 but the crème de la
crème has to be Thomas Hardy with their vintage aged ales.
France
Nuff said. Seriously though, the
beers from the Alsace region, Kronenbourg and Fischer are both decent beers due
to their German influence and the breweries that are near Belgium such as
Jenlain are very good. . . believe it or not.
Germany
In Germany we must start with the world’s oldest brewery, Weihenstephan.
While mostly known for their outstanding wheat beers, which pretty much
set the standards for the style, they also make a very good Dopplebock called
Korbinian. Like Belgium, there are
really too many outstanding beers to list here.
Most of the beers from Germany come from Bavaria.
Ayinger, Spaten, Hacker Pschoor, Schneider, Franzikaner, Erdinger and
Paulaner are amongst these. It is a
tough call picking one over any other but I tend to favor the beers from
Paulaner and Ayinger. The Aventinus
Eisbock from Schneider is quite strong (12% ABV) and unique.
German beer styles are very regionalized and are not usually widely
distributed. In Berlin, they make a
sour beer that you add red or green syrup to that we carry called Berliner Kindl
Weiss. Cologne is famous for their
Kolsch beer, which is a light colored dry beer such as Reissdorf Kolsch while
just down the river a few miles in Dusseldorf they make a brown, slightly roasty
but still dry beer called Alt. Zum
Uerige gets my vote for being the best alt but Diebels isn’t too far behind.
One of the most unusual beer styles comes from Bamberg with their
Rauchbier, or smoked beer which some people refer to as bacon beer.
It isn’t for those that want a light tasting beer but Schenkerla makes
some fine examples of Rauchbier.
Japan
Japan has one brewery that makes some incredible world class beers.
The brewery is Kiuchi, but you wouldn’t know that by looking at the
label as the name Hitachino Nest stands out.
The White ale is a Belgian style wit beer that has won many international
awards.
Mexico
Only one beer makes the list here, Negro Modelo.
Negro Modelo is a fine example of a Vienna style beer.
Ole!
Poland
While, it may be hard to pronounce their names. Poland has a surprising number of fine beers coming to us.
Most are stronger in alcohol than other beers you’ll find, Zyweic
Porter as an examples is 9.5% Alc. Zyweic
and Okocim are two that I think are worthy of trying.
Scotland
Skullsplitter has long been a favorite even though it is somewhat hard to
categorize, sometimes it is listed as a barleywine and other times as a strong
ale. It is good no matter what
style you may think it is. McEwans
Scotch ale is great for those looking for a lighter smoked taste than the German
Rauchbiers have. Above all though,
Traquair House has a true classic Strong Ale flavor even though it is only 7.2%
ABV but it is well aged and has notes of oak and sherry.
United States
Now this is going to be impossible to list ALL the good ones or to describe
them. Let me start by saying, that
pretty much anything you get from the following breweries are going to be good
and will most likely be exceptional. For
small breweries, Dogfish Head, Avery, Allagash, Great Divide, Alesmith, Green
Flash, Ska, Bear Republic, Pizza Port and even though some bias may be evident,
Papago Brewing. For larger
breweries I would include Stone, Rogue, Anchor, Deschutes and New Belgium as my
top American Breweries.
Trying to break it down by a few popular styles might be easier.
I’ll list only a couple in each style, because in some categories, there
are just too many good beers to list.
The above listed beers are only a small part of the many fine
beers we try to bring to you at Papago. We
try to bring you the widest selection of bottled beers that we can along with
our constantly rotating taps.
Tell me about the Papago House beers?
Hopfather- Douple IPA, Alc 8% IBU’s
100+
El Robusto- Baltic Porter Alc
7.5%
Churchill Wheatwine- Wheatwine Alc 9.6%
Orange Blossom Hefeweiss- Fruit Alc
5%
Ryan’s Red Ale- Irish Red- Alc 5%
Oh Brother- Belgian Strong Dark Ale Alc
12.5%
Why are you guys so into beer?
Aren't you? We owe our very survival to beer. Its only in recent history that advances in microbiology have explained why untreated water caused pestilence and death to sweep our lands. Our forefathers weren't stupid. They might not have known why, but they figured out that water killed while beer did not. Breweries were the water treatment plants throughout much of our history. In early America, colonists erected breweries right after their churches. While early colonial houses rarely had separate bedrooms, most had a room attached specifically for brewing. The Mayflower pulled into Portsmouth because they were low on beer. The Jonestown colony almost failed because they lost their brewer. Beer was also a means to store their perishable grains.
Throughout this history, beer has been influenced by religions, cultures, regional crops, seasons, and other factors far too many to mention. Brewing a great beer is a complicated art. Science can make a digestible macro beer with rice and corn but only true artists can create something wonderful and different using the same basic ingredients of; Barley, Wheat, Water, Hops and Yeast.
It REALLY bothers us to see people limit their experience of beer to the "fizzy yellow stuff." Much of America has no memory of their beer history and have never experienced the beverage's rich diversity. Instead of sitting around and bitching about it, we thought we'd actually do something about it.
That and we just plain like it!!!
Who would drink beer out of a can?
We would!!! Beer is a perishable commodity that is sensitive to environmental conditions such as light and heat. The hop oils in your beer are especially reactive to UV light. That's why we store our beer cold behind special UV resistant glass doors. Cans actually provide better protection against UV light than glass. A few craft breweries have recently taken advantage of this benefit. Green glass provides the least protection. That's why beers in those green bottles can sometimes taste skunky. We understand that you might have had some bad experiences with canned beer in your past. Crap tastes like crap whether it comes in a can or a glass. Give craft brew in a can a chance. At the very least, you'll be styling on the lake, golf course, or other places where glass is not allowed. Wittekerke, Dale's Pale Ale, and Old Chub are fine examples of great beers coming in a can.
What's with your name. . .Papago?
The name refers to a local native tribe which are also known as Tohono O'Odham. Papago means "bean people," from the Uto-Aztecan words paphh, "beans," and óotam, "people." They are part of the Piman branch of the Uto-Aztecan. Historically, they were a peaceful, agronomic tribe, but one of the fiercest when riled to battle. They were also the first brewers in the region. Our name pays homage to this fact. They brewed a "corn beer" called Tesquino in weaved baskets of which they are still famous for today. We hope to continue and expand on the service these "Original Brewers" (OBs) provided our neighborhood.