Beer review - November! (slightly late...)

The latest rogue's gallery... plus one you've seen before...

Welcome back! Or rather, welcome me back, since you haven't gone anywhere, but I've been absent from the BCBB. I started working on this review just before the holidays hit, and never quite finished it, or several others. I'm going to try to knock them all down in short order. I apologize if this means that the reviews are somewhat abbreviated.

Sierra Nevada Kellerweis

Sierra Nevada, founded in 1979, was one of the first microbreweries, and they were pioneers in "West Coast" style beers (very hoppy, particularly in their use of Cascade hops). For a while, their line of bottled offerings was pretty small - their flagship pale ale, porter, stout, and Celebration holiday IPA. But in more recent years, they became leaders in things like growing their own ingredients and sustainable power, and they've expanded their lines of beers as well.

The Kellerweis is one of their more recent beers. It's a hefeweizen, meaning a wheat beer with the yeast residue left in. And it's open-fermented, meaning that rather than being fermented in a closed tank, its fermenter is open to the air - not in the funky way that, say, Belgian saisons are, allowing wild yeasts and whatever else is born on the wind to fall in and influence the fermentation - but it does make it more of a living, breathing thing than a closed-up science experiment.

I'm not a great fan of wheat beers, but of the ones I've had, this is a pretty good specimen - spicy and fruity, with a nice body. If you like a good wheat beer - or if you're looking for a gateway beer that's not too heavy and doesn't look to dark - I'd recommend it.

4.8% ABV, 15 IBU.

Brasserie Trois Dames Sauvageonne

Oops! Turns out I've already reviewed it! :-) Moving on...

Bear Republic Racer X Double IPA

Bear Republic's Racer V IPA is a classic California (they're in Healdsburg, just north of Santa Rosa in the Sonoma Valley, a place full of great beer, even though it's wine country) IPA - full bodied (7.0% ABV) and hoppy (75 IBUs, with the Big C's - Cascade, Chinook, Centennial, and Columbus. Every October, though, they do a special release that's a real treat for the hop-heads, their Racer X Double IPA (available only in 20 oz "bombers").

"Double" is a bit of a misnomer, since you'd literally expect it to be 14% ABV and 150 IBUs. The former would make it damned near impossible to get through a glass and still be able to stand up off your barstool; the latter would overload the palate. "Double IPAs" are stronger (7-9% ABV, vs. 5-7%), and usually max out on the IBUs (100+), with a strong malt "backbone" to counter the bitterness of the hops. Whether they emphasize the bitter or floral characteristics of the hops varies.

Racer X (8.3% ABV, 100+ IBU) is pretty middle of the road on the bitterness v. aroma, with a slight emphasis on the bitter. If you're looking for that double IPA experience, and don't have anywhere to be for a couple of hours, and it's October, go get some.

Gordon Biersch Weizen Eisbock

I'm no great fan of Gordon Biersch or their beers. They're pretty venerable (1988), but for the longest time their line was pretty small and consisted mostly of lagers (with the exceptions of their hefeweizen and Sommerbrau Kölsch), and not particularly memorable ones, although I have to give them credit for their amber Marzen--a lager that's not yellow, wow!--which I like. But then, their brewpub chain became a fixture of upscale yuppie strip malls--35 locations, in AZ, CA (the one in SF recently closed), CO, DC, FL, GA, HI, IN, KS, LA, MD, MO, NV, NY (yes, Dr. P, Syracuse and Buffalo!), OH, SC, TX, VA, and WA--and that doesn't sit well with me, since I'm a fan of local food and local beer.

On a recent trip to the grocery store, however, I spotted something that intrigued me: two big swing-top bombers labelled "Braumeister Select," Weizen Eisbock and Zwickel Bock. I'm a sucker for "experimental" and "limited-release" beers, so I picked them up. I was particularly intrigued by the eisbock, since I'd never seen an eisbier before. These are beers that are fortified by bringing them down to a temperature where the water freezes, but the alcohol does not, and removing said water ice. So, what you have is basically a concentrated hefeweizen.

(This is actually, technically, a method of distilling, albeit not to a very strong ABV; I don't know of any other beers--or, perhaps, "beers"--that do this, which is reinforced by the fact that GB says it's "the first of its kind in the US." As a historical note, this is also how "apple jack," a brandy made from hard apple cider, was made in early America. Unfortunately, unlike distilling in a column still where the methanol comes out before the ethanol and the higher order alcohols come out later, can both be discarded, ice distilling concentrates methanol and higher alcohols in situ, and could lead to methanol poisoning, commonly called "apple palsy.") 

The results were... interesting. Gordon Biersch's hefeweizen isn't the funky cloudy banana/clove hefe that, say, the Kellerweis is. It's much cleaner (what's sometimes called an "American" hefeweizen), so concentrating it didn't make the esthers or phenols (what create the banana-y and clove-y flavors) overpowering. It was rich, a little sweet, slightly syrup, and 10% ABV packed quite a punch, like a doppelbock. At 30 IBUs it wasn't bitter at all; rather, I think any bitterness went into not making it too sweat, like banana bread made with too much sugar. I don't think I'd buy it again, but it was a novel experience. (FWIW, I still haven't drunk the Zwickel Bock.

Almanac Honey Saison

I've talked about both Almanac and saisons elsewhere. At the risk of giving them short shrift, this is an excellent example, with a rich honey sweetness that perfectly balances the slightly sour funk of the saison.

Ninkasi Total Domination IPA

Ninkasi is a fairly new (2006) brewery in Eugene OR that's already made a pretty good name for themselves on the West Coast. Their first and flagship beer is their Total Domination IPA (6.7% ABV, 65 IBUs). It's an examplary West Coast IPA, balanced, but on the bitter side. Not quite as aggressive as, say, Racer 5, but a good IPA to add to your staple rotation.

Beer review - Super deluxe and super fresh

October holds a special place in the brewing calendar, and not (just) because of Oktoberfest. October is also the time when brewers release their "fresh hop" or "wet hop" beers, something that's become increasingly popular the last few years.

Normally, hop flowers are dried to preserve them, and in the process lose some of their more volatile aromatic essences. Typically, brewers would capture as much of these as they could by dry-hopping their beer, which is basically adding hops to the fermented beer, to flavor it while it ages (as opposed to adding them to the boiling wort before the beer has been fermented, which is how hops are used for bittering).

Wet-hopping beer is the same as dry-hopping, but using freshly-picked hops that have even more of their volatile aromatics intact than dried hops do. The beer can pick up all sorts of interesting flavors this way, but of course you're limited in doing it to when hops can be picked fresh, typically September in the Northern Hemisphere.

 

Chasin' Freshies, Deschutes Brewing

All of this is by way of introducing our next review, Chasin' Freshies from Deschutes Brewery in Bend, OR. Deschutes has been the powerhouse of brewing in Oregon, starting up in 1988, and is currently the 5th-largest craft brewery, and 11th-largest brewery overall, in the US, probably most known for their Black Butte porter and Mirror Pond pale ale.

Fresh-hop ales are typically brewed as West Coast pale ales or IPAs, since these styles showcase the hops, and Chasin' Freshies is no exception. It's fairly light-bodied and colored, however, using pilsner malt and oats, which prevent it from overpowering the delicate floral notes of the wet hops, in this case Cascades, which have a citrusy-to-piney character. It's a nicely balanced beer, light and refreshing, with just a hint of alcohol strength, and not too much bitterness to turn off those who don't like bitter beer.

Chasin' Freshies: 7.4% ABV, 60 IBUs of yum!

Fruet, The Bruery

A few years ago, when I was down in the OC visiting family, I naturally thought to see if there was any good local craft beer available. I had my doubts, SoCal being the land of chains, strip-malls, and homogenized culture. But a Google search uncovered The Bruery, a craft brewery in Placentia, a small suburban town in inland OC known for, well, not much of anything really, but it happened to be on my way to visit my dad, so I decided I'd stop by. Turned out that it was in the back of an industrial park just off the 57 freeway, with a storefront virtually indistinguishable from the nearby storage unit, air conditioning repair, and autobody places.

Going inside, however, I was in for a shock. Their space was filled floor to ceiling with racks of barrels. Yes, almost everything they brew is barrel aged, mostly Belgian styles, and plenty of sours. They had a small bar with about 20 of their beers on tap, with a couple of empty barrels to serve as tables with a few stools. Their beers ranged from awesome to amazing.

The Fruet was their fourth anniversary beer, an English style Old Ale fermented with their house strain of Belgian yeast and aged in bourbon barrels. It's BIG, robust, dark, fruity, caramelly, toffeeey, oakey, bourboneyyyyy. Given that it's a limited release, good luck finding it, but Bruery beers are pretty widely distributed across the US, and I can't recommend them enough.

Fruet: 14.5% ABV, 45 IBUs.

Seduction, Brewery Ommegang 

Last summer, while we were visiting Dr. P's family, in central New York, we made a very special pilgrimage, to Cooperstown. Not, of course for that museum about that game with the sticks and the gloves and the leather ball. Instead, we visited one of the wonders of the craft brewing world, Brewery Ommegang.

Ommegang was purpose built in 1997 to make Belgian ales, beginning with their flagship abbey ale, and indeed they've probably done more than any other American craft brewery to popularize Belgian beers of all styles, including their Hennepin, the first American-brewed saison. 

Dr. P. spotted Ommegang's Seduction on a trip to City Beer Store (who'll be getting their own review soon, I promise!). It's a dark Belgian ale brewed with Callebaut chocolate, and with a touch of Liefmans kriek, sour beer aged on tart cherries and berries. Seduction is like drinking the world's most decadent candy, dark, silky, smooth, chewy. Much like coffee, chocolate is a difficult ingredient to work with in beer, due to its high oil and fat content (I haven't even attempted it). But this is just masterful. It's a Valentine in a beer bottle.

Seduction: 6.8% ABV, IBUs very low, want some candy little girl?

Meadowlark IPA, Pretty Things

Eric the cicerone at The Jug Shop (who'll be getting his own review soon, I promise!) first turned me on to the beers from the Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project in Cambridge, MA, at a tasting that featured not one, not two, but eight of their beers, as well as five from Jester King in Austin, TX. Needless to say, these are great events, but given the state I'm in when I stagger home afterwards... let's just say it's not conducive to writing a cogent review.

Pretty Things are a husband-and wife team gypsy brewers, he a dreamer and she a scientist (sound familiar?), who met at a beer festival, moved to Yorkshire (where she's from) then moved back to New England (where he's from). Their flagship Jack D'Or is a saison, and their beers tend to be a mix of Belgian, English, and, what might be best termed eclectic (such as the Lovely St. Winefride Brown Lager).

Meadowlark IPA, then, is an anomaly for them, an American style IPA. It's a good beer, gold-amber in color, well-balanced in hoppiness, with a little more to the bitter side than the floral. It's a very tasty beer, and I have to say that of the nine Pretty Things beers I've tried, I found four (Once Upon a Time X Ale, Lovely St. Winefride, Our Finest Regards barleywine, and Babayaga Sylvan Stout) were all exceptionally good, so I recommend them if you can find them. 

Meadowlark IPA: 7.0% ABV, 85 IBUs.

Beer review - Norway to NorCal, via Switzerland

I don't normally think of either Norway or Switzerland as being among the world's great brewing cultures, but today we have excellent sour beers from each, as well as a very, very native beer from Northern California, which most definitely is. 

HaandBryggeriet Sur Megge

Romantic that I am, I still imagine Norwegians as mead-swilling Vikings. The only Scandinavian beer most folks know of is Danish Carlsberg, which is your basic generic pilsner.

So, I was surprised to learn that, besides their own crap pilsners, Norwegians in the past decade have started a couple of excellent craft brewers: Nøgne Ø and HaandBryggeriet ("Hand Brewery"), the latter of which is 4 guys in a 200 year-old farmhouse, many of them fermented with wild yeast and barrel aged.

I got my hands on their Sur Megge (Sour Bitch) at The Jug Shop, which is a marvelous barrel-aged  sour ale, coming in at 8% ABV. Great notes of summer fruit, orange-gold color, and delightfully tart. I'll definitely have to keep an eye out for their other beers!

Brasserie de Franches-Montagnes Abbaye de Saint Bon-Chien 

The next beer comes from the region of Switzerland bordering France, again two countries I don't think of when I think beer. France of course being (thanks to the Romans) a wine country, and Switzerland absinthe. So I was very surprised when the proprietor at Little Vine told me he had a sour beer from Switzerland, and naturally I had to try it.

The Brasserie de Franches-Montagnes (BFM, "Brewery of the French Mountains") has actually been around for about 15 years, making very small batches of a wide variety of traditional beer styles, most of them with a twist. I was lucky enough to get a bottle of their Abbaye de Saint Bon-Chien (named, apparently, in honor of the much-beloved brewery cat), which is a bière de garde, a Belgian-style ale with copper to brown color, maltiness, and moderate strength (6-8% ABV).

The Bon-Chien, however, is quite a bit strong, clocking in around 11% ABV. Not only that, it's barrel aged, the exact barrel depending on the vintage - Merlot, whisky, and grappa have been used. This gives is a delicious sourness, as well as character from whatever was aged in the barrel previously.

The Bon-Chien was a truly outstanding sour beer, very strong yet well balanced between strength, sweet, and sour, with outstanding sour cherry, red wine, and vinegar flavors. A real treat if you can find it, just be sure to drink it sitting down!

Almanac Extra Pale 

Last but certainly not least, Almanac brewing is a couple of San Francisco homebrewers who made the jump to commercial brewing two years ago. Their initial focus was on brewing seasonal beers that showcased local Northern California produce (as well as hops and even some malts), including blackberries, plums, oranges, fennel, and honey, usually paired with lighter-bodied Belgian style ales.

Beginning this summer, however, they've also begun producing two year-round brews (which they call "table" beers, although at around $3 a bottle, they're not exactly everyday beers), their Extra Pale (6% ABV) and Honey Saison (4.8% ABV). The former is brewed with local Mandarin oranges and generously dry-hopped, to produce a really excellent West Coast pale ale, slightly tart and with a pronounced citrus flavor from both the hops and the oranges. It's quite excellent, and I can't wait to review the saison!

Beer review - Mikkeller madness!

Spontankoppi, Coffee IPA, and Spontankriek.

Frequent readers of the BCBB will know that I've got quite a thing going on for the beers of Danish gypsy brewers Mikkeller. On a recent trip to The Jug Shop I picked up some more of their beers. Two of them interested me because they went with a "wild" yeast fermentation, and two because they had coffee in them. I love coffee.

Now, most brewers are very cautious about the yeast they let into their beer, and with good reason. While the behavior and flavor profile of good ol' S. cerevisiae is predictable, there are around 1,500 known species of yeast. They're all over the map, and a lot of them will spoil beer (and food), and a few are down right dangerous.

Probably the tamest "wild" yeasts are the Brettanomyces (affectionately known as "Brett" among brewers), which are what make sour beers sour. But even Brett is a tricky beast. It produces flavors that can be described as "metallic," "leather," or "barnyard," which can easily overpower a beer. It also has a much slower metabolism than S. cerevisiae, so beers with Brett typically require longer aging. And, they can metabolize sugars that S. cerevisiae can't, meaning that Brett fermentations will go on long after the S. cerevisiae are done - which can mean they take much longer to be finished, or, if you bottle them too early, they can build up too much CO2 in the bottle. And, finally, they can be damned difficult to kill off, so if they get into your brewery, and you don't want them there, you may be out of luck. You'll either have to switch to brewing sours, or get a new set of equipment. Consequently, very few homebrewers ever make sour beers, and they have to be very cautious when they do.

It's possible to buy commercial strains of Brett and pitch them into your beer. The more traditional method is to go with a "spontaneous" fermentation, where you let your beer into contact with the natural yeast in the environment. (This is also how traditional sourdough starter is made.) One way to do this is to ferment your beer in used wine barrels. Wine is usually fermented naturally using the yeast that's already accumulated in the fruit themselves, and a certain amount of that will be Brett, which builds up over time in the barrels. Another traditional method, used to make Belgian lambics, is to open the rafters of the brewery to the winds, and allow airborn yeast to accumulate in the spiderwebs and cobwebs, which then fall into the fermentation tanks...

Coffee, meanwhile, is an interesting and challenging ingredient for brewers to work with. A number of styles of beer, particularly porters and stouts, would seem to lend themselves to the addition of coffee, since they share similar flavors. But coffee (and similarly, cocoa) contain oils, most notably caffeol (which is primarily responsible for coffee's aroma and flavor), the oxidation of which can cause them to go rancid. (I've haven't myself used coffee in beer, but it's something I'd like to try, if I can find a good method.)

Spontankriek

Kriek is lambic with cherries added. The beer itself is usually a Belgian lambic, which is a fairly light-colored and flavored beer. In some cases, kriek is made by adding a cherry syrup to a lambic, which can be a bit cloying. The more traditional method is to add cherries, with their attendant load of wild yeast, to the fermenter.

Spontankriek is clearly the latter sort. It's puckery tart, the sour cherry flavor mixing seemlessly with the sour beer. If you like sour cherries or sour beer, you're going to love this. 7.7% ABV.

Spontankoppi

Having thoroughly enjoyed the Spontankriek I was really looking forward to the Spontankoppi. But I have to say, I think the first word out of my mouth was... "ouch." I don't know how they got the coffee into the beer, but it was extremely strong and bitter, like the strongest cup of black coffee you've ever had, and then some. (Admittedly, I like my coffee strong, like barely fit for human consumption, but with lots of milk and sugar.) The sour beer was reduced to almost a footnote. If you get off on really strong black coffee, you might enjoy this, but I didn't. 5.3% ABV.

Coffee IPA

After the Spontankoppi, I had some trepidation about the Coffee IPA. Particularly since it came in a wine sized 750 ml bottle, so good or bad, I was going to be drinking a lot of it (Dr. P doesn't care for hoppy beers).

Fortunately, it was everything that I'd hoped the Spontankoppi would be, and more. The IPA base wasn't agressively hoppy, focusing on the citrusy and fruity notes, with a good malt backbone. The hand of the coffee was much lighter, not bitter, with toffee notes that matched the malt, and fruity notes that matched the hops, with just a hint of coffee bitterness on the finish. This was definitely the hop-head's coffee beer. 6.9% ABV.

Beer review - Belgo-Danish farmhouse IPA barrel super-mashup!

Time once again for some beer reviews! As the title suggests, it's sort of a mash-up of Belgian-style, farm-house style, IPAs, barrel-aged, and Danish gypsy-brewed beers, where each beer has at least one, and possibly several, boxes checked from that list.

Fantôme Printemps Saison

 

Fantome is a little outfit an old farmhouse in the dinky town of Soy, Belgium. They basically make one beer, a saison, on which they make variations using herbs, fruits, and spices. The Printemps is their flagship - at 8% ABV, is strong for the style, and has a lot of fruity flavor going on. Quite nice! I picked this up at Little Vine, and they seem to carry it regularly.

Evil Twin Disco Beer

This one (and the remainder in this review) all came from The Jug Shop, who will get their own review one of these days. Suffice to say, they're awesome. They frequently do beer tastings on Friday nights, and this one, along with the Aphotic Baltic Porter and Invasion Farmhouse IPA, were part of a tasting of barrel-aged beers.

Evil Twin is a Danish outfit of gypsy brewers, along the lines of Mikkeller. They're just as wacky in their experimentation, and perhaps even more so in their naming, with beers like Grünerløkka Hipster Ale, DEVFFC,MQAL9,.8, Christmas Eve at a New York City Hotel Room, Without You I'm Nothing, and Been Smoking Too Long.

Disco Beer is an IPA aged in chardonnay barrels. It's quite strong (10.5% ABV), but fairly mellow on the hops. It has a smooth, thick, velvety character. It's almost a dessert beer along the lines of a stout, but hoppier and without the chocolate/coffee/toffee malt profile.

Victory V12 Belgian-inspired 

 

Victory is from Downington, PA, outside of Philadelphia. Their flagship beers are their Hop Devil IPA and Storm King stout, and a lot of their beers tend to follow a West Coast ethic of a strong hops profile.

The V-12, however, is a pretty straightforward Belgian trippel, clocking in at a massive 12% ABV. It's pretty true to the style - golden, sweet, and fruity. I'm not a big fan of this style of beer (I think I mistakenly bought it because I thought it was barrel aged; if it was, those characteristics didn't really come through), but if you do, it's a pretty solid representative.

High Water Aphotic Baltic Porter

Across the continent, in Chico, home of one of the first and largest craft brewers, there is also High Water. They're a little closer to a boutique brewery - they have a couple of beers like their Hop Riot IPA that they sell all the time, but often they'll brew a small batch of something, and once it's gone, they may not brew it again for a good long while.

Such was the case with their Aphotic Baltic porter, which they had one trip to The Jug Shop but not the next. It's a strong beer, as Baltic-style porters are, at 9.3% ABV. It's aged in bourbon and brandy barrels, which gives is a complex character, and there was a hint of sourness there that balanced the sweet, chocolate character well. I recommend it, if you can find it!

Mikkeller Invasion Farmhouse IPA

 

Finally, another by our favorite Danish gypsy brewers.  Start with a moderately strong (8.0% ABV), moderately hoppy IPA, and now inoculate it with Brettanomyces, the wild yeast strain that gives sour beers their puckery, sometimes barn-yardy flavor. This brings out some of the great summer fruit flavors from the hops, and a great interplay between the sweetness of a strong beer, bitterness of IPA, and sourness from the Bret. A great transition for you hop-heads looking to get into sour beers.

Beer Review - Two pretentious girls, three good beers

 ... and we're back! Sorry for the hiatus, but I've actually had work to do during blogging hours. Very inconvenient!

Social Kitchen Ramsgate Rye Pale Ale

This was the second growler that I picked up from Social Kitchen, but it took me a little while to get 'round to reviewing it. Rye is an interesting but sometimes difficult grain to work with. It adds a lightness of body like wheat, with a certain spiciness. Unfortunately for the homebrewer, however, like wheat it has much less hull than barley, so it can be tricky and sticky in the mash. And beyond that, it has to be handled carefully. It's typically used in pale ales and IPAs to lighten the color and body, and add an extra dimension of flavor.

I can only guess at the reference in the name. Ramsgate is a little seaside resort town in Kent that has a yearly beer festival, and a couple of beers with rye were served there, so perhaps SK's new brewer enjoyed one? I'll ask him if I meet him.

In any event, Ramsgate the beer is a nice summery session beer, with a straw color and slightly tart but not overpowering hops aroma and flavor. The rye does its job quite nicely.

Social Kitchen Rapscallion Strong Golden Belgian

 

One of the players in our Sunday RPG group brought this as his contribution to the beer selection. He said it was the 2nd strongest beer SK was serving (they wouldn't sell him a growler of the strongest, presumably the 8.8% ABV Anniversary Brune, but that's hardly unusual since brewpubs tend to charge a flat price for growler fills, but stronger beers are move expensive). He said the beer was called "Two Pretentious Girls With Cellos," apparently a reference to a music group called "Rasputin." This puzzled me; I assumed they couldn't call it "Rasputin" since there's a well-established beer of that name. However, SK's website showed no beer of either name. I emailed brewmaster Kim Sturdavant, and while he agreed that it was a great name for a beer, he had no idea what I was talking about, either.

A little googling revealed that the band's actual name was Rasputina, and a little reasoning brought me to the conclusion that the beer was actually SK's Rapscallion.

Rapscallion is billed as a "strong golden Belgian," and was one of the beers brewed by SK's original brewmaster, Rich Higgins. It's similar to a tripel - golden color, thick body, slightly sweet, lightly hopped - but not quite as strong (though still strong enough). Not quite a session beer, but very drinkable.

Firestone Walker Double DBA Imperial Special Bitter

 

As I've mentioned before, I'm not a big fan of FW's regular beers, but I do love their reserve releases, and Double Double Barrel is no exception.

Bitter (and its cousins special bitter and extra special bitter, AKA ESB) is bascially old school English session beer, the ale equivalent of pisswater lager. (Admittedly, 15-20 years ago, before it was bought by the Great Imperialist Brewing Satan, Redhook ESB was a gateway to craft beers for a lot of folks, myself included). It's not really bitter, that is, hoppy, except perhaps in comparison to porters, stouts, and milds, although the term "bitter" was originally used interchangeably with "pale ale;" English style pale ales tend to be less hoppy than American ones. (Also, bitter should not be confused with bitters, the alcoholic extracts of herbs, spices, etc. that are used in flavoring cocktails.)

FW's normal Double Barrel Ale (DBA) is pretty much in the standard English "special bitter" style, light caramel color, only slightly bitter. Despite being aged in oak barrels, I find very little of the oak character in it. Double Double Barrel Imperial Special Bitter is a doubly-strong version, very much like a barleywine, aged in bourbon barrels. It's like drinking candy, with luscious toffee and caramel notes, overlaid with the wood and vanilla of the bourbon barrels. It's a delicious treat, so grab it while you can for dessert!


Social Kitchen, Ramsgate Rye Pale Ale. 4.9% ABV, 45 IBU.
Social Kitchen, Rapscallion Strong Golden Belgian. 7.2% ABV, 23 IBU.
Firestone Walker, Double Double Barrel Imperial Special Bitter. 12% ABV, IBU want some candy little girl...?

Beer reviews - International flair

Most of the styles of beer brewed today originated in Europe - Czech pilsner, German bock, Flemish sours, British pale ales, porters, and stouts. In many respects, however, American craft brewers have surpassed their European antecedents. There's virtually not a single style of beer that isn't brewed by some American craft brewer, and indeed Americans have resurrected many beers that had gone extinct (or nearly so) in their native lands. In addition, Americans love to tinker, and many have taken traditional beer styles as their starting point and been wildly inventive with them, experimenting with new techniques and ingredients.

Today's review, however is dedicated to the spirit of internationalism, wherein we have an American brewer who's taken a less well-known European style and made something all their own with it, and Swiss and Danish brewers inspired by American craft brewers to make, in one case, an exceptional beer from another European culture, and in the other, a rather new invention that's taken America by storm (at least, on the tiny scale that craft brewers can).

(Thanks again to my friend Andrew for bringing these to last week's RPG session, and to the good gents at The Jug Shop for recommending them to him!)

Jolly Pumpkin, Baudelaire beer iO saison

Our first beer comes from the exotic land of... Dexter MI, and the good folks at Jolly Pumpkin (you may remember that we picked up a bottle of their La Roja oak-aged amber at Little Vine last week - that was a quite good sour). Jolly Pumpkin has a large repettoire of excellent beers, many of them barrel aged. Their Baudelaire series (which currently comprises only two beers, the iO Saison and the Ale Absurd Rye Trippel) are intended to be even more "artistic" beers, and the iO Saison certainly lives up to the author's dark, romantic reputation on that account.

They started with a saison, or Belgian farmhouse ale, which is one of my favorite style of beers. (I'll discuss it at greater length when I do my posting on "gateway beers.") It's light, kinda fizzily, kinda fruity, kinda funky. Traditionally, it's sometimes enhanced with spices like coriander, dried orange peel, or peppery grains of paradise. For the iO, JP used hibscus flowers, rose petals, and rose hips, which give it a slightly citrusy, slightly floral perfume, an almost dreamy quality. It's really quite wonderful.

Biere Trois Dames, Sauvageonne

In contrast, we have the Sauvageonne, literally "wild girl," from Biere Trois Dames, a Swiss homebrewer who loved the hobby so much he bought a nano-brewery, spent a year visiting breweries in the US and Canada, and then went home and went commercial, making primarily styles popular in North America, like Northwest pale ale, IPA, and stout.

With the Sauvageonne, however, he seems to have gone a little crazy, and this mouth-shrivellingly sour amber truly lives up to its name. Imagine the most tart nectarine you've ever bitten into, and now multiply that by about 10, and that will give you an idea of what you're in for. It's full of delicious fruit tones, while avoiding some of the nastier "barnyard" aromas that can come out of a sour beer fermentation. If you like sour beers, this one's for you!

Mikkeller, Beer Geek Brunch

And now, the piece de resistance, which is an odd phrase to use since these fellows are Danish rather than French. But whatever. Mikkeller (AKA Mikkel Bjergsø and Kristian Keller) are a team of gypsy brewers who broke onto the craft brewing scene six years ago when they presented their beer at the Danish Beer Festival, including their coffee/oatmeal stout, the Beer Geek Breakfast. Their success got the attention of American distributors, and now they export to 40 countries and Mikkel is recognized as one of the world's most innovative craft brewers (Keller went on to other endeavours).

Beer Geek Brunch is similar to the Breakfast, but with a couple of notable exceptions. First, it's brewed with the famous (or perhaps infamous, or if you prefer, just plain disgusting) Vietnamese ca phe chon coffee or Kopa Luwak, some say the world's most expensive (at $160/lb, that's more expensive even than your damned Keurig), which is the coffee that's roast after it passes through the digestive tract of an Asian Palm civet. (Needless to say, I won't be feeding my cats coffee beans in an attempt to do this at home. I'm DIY, but not that DIY.) Then, the finished beer is aged in Calvados barrels, the Normandy apple brandy that's taken with coffee (among other ways) as the traditional morning wake-up jolt. I've tried this, and can't say I'm too fond of it, but the combination in the Beer Geek Brunch is absolutely wonderful, although a bit on the bitter side from the combination of the barrel wood tannins, coffee, and dark roast malts. The apple from the Calvados plays well off the fruit tones in the coffee, however (civet poop or no), and overall it's a truly remarkable beer.

Jolly Pumpkin, Baudelaire Beer iO Saison. 6.8% ABV, IBU rose by any other name...
Biere Trois Dames, Sauvageonne. 6% ABV, IBU who cares, pucker up!
Mikkeller, Beer Geek Brunch. 10.9% ABV, IBU only the civet knows for sure...

Beer review - Long live the emperors!

One of my favorite beer styles is imperial stout. Now, these days, craft brewers are making "imperial" versions of just about every style of beer - I've seen, imperial IPAs, porters, ambers, reds, even pilsners. I don't think there's an official rule as to what constitutes an "imperial" beer - it's usually just a stronger version of an existing style, typically 7% ABV or stronger. I wasn't aware of imperial versions of any lager style other than pilsner, although a quick google revealed imperial marzens and bock. So, I guess, name a beer, and someone will want to make it stronger - and pretty much somebody has been, since the beginning of brewing.

The name "imperial" originally came from the Thrale's brewery in 18th century London, which brewed "Russian imperial stout" or "imperial Russian stout" for export to, you guessed it, Russia, then ruled by Catherine the Great. The style had more or less died out, but was resurrected by North Coast Brewing in Ft. Bragg with their Old Rasputin.

As it turned out, two of the beers that The Jug Shop had in their Kiwi tasting were imperial stouts, and as it happened, at out most recent tabletop RPG session, my friend Andrew, who knows my fondness for the style, brought both of them, as well as 3 other varieties, so I can give you a truly imperial review.

Note: You may notice is that the IBU for these beers (when I could find them) are rather high. These beers tend to have a lot of residual sweetness, so they require a lot of bittering to balance them out. Generally, however, most of their flavor profile comes from the grain, not the hops.

Moa Imperial Stout

 

My least favorite of the bunch, although it again started at a disadvantage by being in the damned green bottle. It was the least complex of the bunch and a little on the dry side for my taste, although still pretty good.

8 Wired iStout

 

I really liked this one. The flavor was much more assertive than the Moa, sweet, although maybe a tad on the syrupy side, but it was really delicious. One odd thing about the 8 Wired beers, though, is that they come in pint bottles (16 oz). Just sayin'.

Firestone Walker Parabola 

 

With Parabola, we get into the realm of specialty beers - beers that craft brewers don't brew all the time, or only in limited amounts as "premium" beers. I'm not a big fan of Firestone Walker's "everyday" beers - their I find their Double Barrel pale kinda bland, and their Union Jack is a passable IPA. But they make some good seasonals, like their Velvet Merlin (originally called "Velvet Merkin"); and holy crap, do they make some good limited release beers!Their Double Jack double IPA is excellent, as is their Wookie Jack black rye IPA. The barrel-aged Parabola, first released this year, is an outstanding imperial stout, rich and complex. It comes in a 20-oz bottle, though, and at 13% ABV, be prepared either to share or to surrender the day to the couch.

Fifty/Fifty Eclipse

 

Fifty/Fifty is a newer brewery and brewpub in Truckee CA, a little mountain town up near Lake Tahoe. But, despite their small size, they're a serious contender for my heart, or at least my stomach, as they have a whole pallet of outstanding beers, among them Eclipse; which, like the Parabola, is aged in barrels, in this case used whiskey barrels, which is a delicious trend among craft beer makers. (I myself fake it for my Zwarte Piet holiday imperial stout, with oak chips and rotgut bourbon.) This adds lucious woody and vanilla notes to an already complex and delicious beer. In fact, I was so busy enjoying it, that I didn't realize that they actually have multiple releases of this beer each year, aged in barrels of different whiskeys. This year there have been 7 in all, including Elijah Craig 12- and 20-year, a rye, and a brandy barrel. I don't know which one we had (the bottle having gone to the great recycling center in the sky), but whichever you try, it's sure to be wonderful.

North Coast Old Rasputin Barrel Aged XIV

 

Old Rasputin, probably one of (if not the) first commercially-produced imperial stouts in the US beginning nearly 20 years ago, is still one of my favorite beers. They've been selling it aged in bourbon bottles for several years now, and it's one of the first bourbon-barrel aged beers I ever had. Like its bretheren, this is a wonderful treat, although in comparison (having had the Parabola, Eclipse, and Old Rasputin on the same day), I actually like the younger upstarts better. The OR was just a little too dry, and maybe too woody, compared to the richer flavors of the other two. Of course, I also like really intense flavors - coffee that can peel paint, food spicy enough to make me sweat, IPAs that I can feel eroding the enamel on my teeth - so you might find this one a little more balanced.


Moa Imperial Stout. 10.2% ABV, IBU ?
8 Wired iStout. 10% ABV. 70 IBU.
Firestone Walker Parabola 3. 13% ABV, IBU 60.
Fifty/Fifty Eclipse. 9.5% ABV. IBU ?
North Coast Old Rasputin Barrel Aged XIV. 11.2% ABV. IBU ?

Beer Review - Triple (including a tripel) review!

Welcome back! I had a very beer oriented weekend, to the point where I have a brewpub, a festival, and over a dozen beers to review. So without further ado...

Moa Brewing, St Josephus Tripel

 

This is the second New Zealand beer I'm reviewing. I have to admit that it had one strike against it before I even opened the bottle, because of... the bottle. It's green. Yes, there's actually a reason why most craft beer comes in brown bottles, namely, to block UV light from spoiling it. Specifically, it converts the iso-alpha-acids (which make beer bitter) into 3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol, the smelly chemical that animals like skunks use to defend themselves. Yes, "skunky" beer really is skunky. So, while that green bottle, or golden beer inside a clear bottle, may look pretty, it's an olfactory time bomb.

For those unfamiliar with the style, tripels are Belgian beers that tend to be quite strong in alcohol, but light in body and color, and slightly sweet. They can knock you on your ass, because they're pleasant and easy to drink (if a little cloying), but pack a wallop.

Moa's St Josephus is no exception, and is a good example of the style. at 9.5% ABV, it's twice as strong as commercial pilsners.It's sweet but clean, avoiding the fruity esters, clovey phenolics, and firey fusel alcohols  that can result from fermenting big beers. I personally don't think that tripels have a whole lot of character, but you may like them, and they're certainly an easy introduction to Belgian beers (if you don't stand up too quickly after drinking one). My only real complaint is that, after I drank it, Dr. P complained that my breath smelled like stale beer. So, if you have to kiss a beer connoisseur, you may want to keep that in mind...

Cooper's Extra Strong Vintage Ale

 

On a recent visit to the Church Key, they happened to have this on tap, and since I was on the lookout for beers from this Australian craft brewer, I figured I'd have a glass. It was a tasty, though not terribly remarkable, strong ale, with a copper-brown color, toffee nose, and malty taste. It left me wanting something with a little more character...

Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA

 

On the same trip to the Key, I was looking for something for my friend Tom, who had earlier in the evening enjoyed a bottle of my Duper Cooper oaked-double pale ale, and liked it better than the Cooper's we'd both tried, so I bought us a round of Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA.

Now, anyone who spent much time around me in the fall of 2010 knows that I have an intense hatred of Sam Calagione, the founder of Dogfish Head. It's not that he's an evil man, and I admire that, beginning as a homebrewer, he's built a very successful little craft brewing empire, pushed the industry in new directions, and even helped make some significant contributions to our understanding of the history of beer in different cultures around the world.

But, there's just something about him that sets me off. I got a whiff of it when I read his book, but it became really apparent when he got his own TV show. Basically, he reminded me of all the smarmy, preppy frat boy types I knew in high school and college. People with egos like his automatically irritate me (of course, people tell me all the time to my face that I'm an arrogant bastard, so I don't exactly have a lot of ground to stand on here), and because of this I must begrudge him his success and all the good he may have done. (I used to have a similar opinion of Sam Adams' Jim Koch, but no longer do, as I will explain in a future post.)

Fortunately, I'm man enough not to let any of that affect my opinion of his beer. The 120 min is a pretty extreme beer, more of a cross between a barleywine and an IPA. It's pumpkin orange, almost syrupy in its mouthfeel. The huge amount of hops is counterbalanced by a huge amount of sweetness, to the point that your mouth almost doesn't know what to do with it. At its worst moments, it's both cloying and pungent. Frankly, I think there are better beers out there for a super-hop experience; 120 min is sort of hop-head dessert. But, if you're looking for an gateway into extremely hoppy beers, it's probably a good place to start.

Moa Brewing, St Josephys Tripel. ABV 9.5%. IBU low.
Cooper's Extra Strong Vintage Ale. ABV 7.5%. IBU low.
Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA. ABV 15-20%. IBU 120.

Beer Review - Brewdog Sink the Bismark

When my partner, Dr. P, saw that I was reviewing beers, she told me that I had to review Brewdog's Sink the Bismark. Now, my rule has sort of been that I review beers as I drink them, so that I can give you a current impression. I'll make an exception with Sink the Bismark, though, because a) it's an exceptional beverage, b) it made quite a lasting impression, and, most importantly, c) you never, EVER want to cross Dr. P...

(Also, it's International IPA Day, w00t!)

Anyway... Brewdog is a Scottish outfit, known for brewing rather "punk" beers to start with. They made the news a couple of months ago when they forced a public apology out of Diageo, the international brewing conglomerate that owns (among many other things) Guinness, when the latter forced the British Institute of Innkeeping (BII) Scotland to give them their Bar Operator of the Year award (Brewdog had actually won it), or they'd pull their sponsorship of future BII events.



Now, I've had the pleasure of knowing quite a few Scottish people over the years, and while I thoroughly enjoy their company, there's something deeply, deeply disturbed about all of them. I mean, after all, their nation began when they took Mel Gibson as their leader, painted themselves blue, and mooned the English king.




And so it was that one night, when Dr. P and I were at our local, the Church Key, flipping through the bottle menu, we stumbled across Sink the Bismark, listed as an IPA with 41% ABV! Not only that, but the 12oz bottle was $110! At first, I thought it must be a typo, but apparently not. They start with their Hardcore imperial IPA, itself a monster at 9.2% ABV and 150 IBUs (the measure of hops bitterness; I've heard it said that the human palate tops out at 100 IBUs). Then, they distill it by freezing the water out of it (the same process used to turn hard cider into apple jack, a potent brandy; unfortunately, this process doesn't separate out the methanol, like vapor distillation, but rather concentrates it, leading frequent apple jack drinkers to nervous system damage called apple palsey).

Naturally, I had to try it :-) Fortunately, the Key had a bottle open and was selling 1 oz. shots for $10. Dr. P (who doesn't normally like hoppy beers, but agreed to share the experience) and I decided to split one (which meant she'd take a sip and I'd finish the rest).

So here was this little cordial glass filled with beautiful, shining bronze liquid that you could almost see the vapors rising from. Raise it to my nose, and it filled me with the fire of a thousand suns, if those suns had been comprised entirely of hops that had condensed from a light-years wide disc of interstellar matter, compressed and ignited by the force of gravity into the mighty Promethean fires of fusion. I sure hope this wasn't a mistake... The sip was pure concentrated distillate of lupulin (the resin that gives hops their flavor and aroma, and the boiling of which makes beer bitter), combined with the sweet, grainy alcohol of raw whiskey. It was at once the most intense hop experience imaginable, and a moment of sheer terror, as though one might burst into flames just from drinking the stuff, or exhaling too close to a lighted flame, electrical device, or someone rubbing a balloon against their hair.

In the end, that one ounce shot was more than enough for me and Dr. P. It was a marvelous, awe-inspiring experience, but I'd never buy a bottle of the stuff, as it'd take me months if not years to go through it. It does, however, make me want to find a shot of their distilled imperial stout, the Tactical Nuclear Penguin...

Brewdog Sink the Bismark distilled imperial IPA. ABV 41%, IBUs holy mother of god find me some woad I must paint my face FREEEEDOOOOM!

Beer Review - Epic Brewing, Armageddon IPA

When I think of the world's great brewing cultures, New Zealand isn't normally in the first, or even the second tier. I don't know, in fact, that I'd ever given them much thought. I just assumed that they made pisswater lager like the few Australian beers that make it here (although I've since been told that Australia does have a good craft brewer, Cooper's, so I'll have to check them out).

That's why I was rather shocked to hear that The Jug Shop was hosting a tasting of beers from no less than three Kiwi brewers: 8 Wired, Moa, and Epic. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the tasting, but Eric the cicerone was kind enough to open the cases of beer early and sell me bottles of about half the beers - Moa Imperial Stout and St Joseph's triple; 8 Wired iStout, Fresh Hopwired, and The Big Smoke; and Epic Armageddon IPA.

Armageddon, as you might guess from the name, is much more aggressively hopped than The Smell. The focus, surprisingly, is US hops, which tend towards citrus/grapefruit characteristics. It's moderately puckery and not too bitter for such a hoppy IPA. The color is golden-coppery, and I think it could do with a little thicker mouthfeel and residual sweetness to balance the hops; instead, it feels a bit on the week and watery side for the strength of the hops. But still, if you like a really hoppy IPA, it's not bad.

Armageddon IPA, from Epic Brewing. Unknown IBU, ABV 6.66%.

Beer Review - Social Kitchen, The Smell IPA

I have a soft spot for the Social Kitchen brewpub, even though I don't go there all that often. The location seems perfect, right in the heart of the Inner Sunset and perhaps dangerously close to the N-Judah MUNI line, and yet over the years it seemed to have been cursed. 6 brewpubs have tried to make a go of the space, beginning with Golden Gate Brewing back in the mid-90s, then Eldos, and Wunder (and one that never even opened its doors). I heard horror stories about the people who owned the building. But with Social, they seem to be making a decent go of the place - every time I go, it's moderately busy, the food is a decent pub-grub menu, the beer is good, and they seem to be building a dedicated following. Rich Higgins, the original brewer, was a very nice guy, and one of the founders of the San Francisco Brewers Guild, which I think has done a lot to build the community of craft brewers, home brewers, and beer afficianados. Hopefully the new brewer Kim Sturdavan, who started in May after working at Marin Brewing, will continue the tradition.

Since I happened to be in the neighborhood this past Sunday, and am now there a couple of times a month thanks to my RPG group, I decided to break down for a couple of growlers. Which is how they come to be my first review, for their The Smell IPA. (I also picked up their Ramsgate Rye pale ale, but I haven't cracked that yet.)

Now, I'll warn you all up front that I'm a real hop-head - I like IPAs that make lips pucker and teeth squeak as you run your tongue over the resin that sticks to the enamel. My currently favorite is probably Green Flash Palate Wrecker. I realize, though, that that's a little much for most folks, so I will try to give a considered review.

The Smell is a fine, well-balanced IPA. It's got a nice coppery color, and strikes a middle ground between bitterness and aroma. The nose is more citrus than grass or pine, and it's not overpowering. It's got a good body, solid without being syrupy. At 7.2% ABV, it's mildly warming without knocking you over the head (remember, though, that I'm a 6'2", 200 lbs, seasoned beer drinker). It's not outstanding in any particular category, but it's a good beer.

(Note: I decided that I'm not going to do any kind of numerical rating system, since beers are just too subjective, and an imperial IPA or Flemish red that makes me swoon might make you gag. So, I'm just going to describe my experience, and you can decide if that sounds good to you.)

The Smell IPA, from Social Kitchen. 60 IBU, ABV 7.2%.