Beer bLoNg

The Lost Abbey (Port Brewing): Judgment Day – A nearly Perfect Beer before God’s Eternal Judgment

2012-04-12T09:33:00.000-07:00

Out of all the beers I’ve managed to review on this blog, The Lost Abbey brews are perhaps the most fun to spill some ink over, so to speak. Not only are these brews so pleasurable and oftentimes eventful to drink, but The Lost Abbey’s sometimes apocalyptic and post-modern themes about heaven and hell and challenging boundaries are testimony to a brewery that completely appreciates the value and joy of not just a beer’s taste and aromatics, but the fun one gets from artful packaging that’s both holistic and thematically-connected. In each of the three samples I’ve reviewed here (10 Commandments, Avant Garde, and Judgment day), the bottle’s labels border on the realm of mesmerizing and make for wonderful conversation while sharing its contents. The value added from The Lost Abbey’s packaging is akin to the value added by purchasing a music album, with its easily accessible artwork and text, versus the bland act of simply downloading the album (legally of course). In short, while packaging will never turn a bad beer into a good one, it will make the pleasure of drinking a good beer all the more pleasurable. And this was precisely my experience with The Lost Abbey Judgment Day.

The Brewery

Founded in 2006, The Lost Abbey or Port Brewing is located San Marcos, California – a medium-sized city located about 20 miles (32 km) north of San Diego. The brewery offers about six regular beers, another six seasonal variants, and four of what they refer to as “non-denominational ales” – i.e. ones that don’t comport with any well-established beer style. Hence, not only does The Lost Abbey clearly value a good sense of humor, but their product line appears to reflect a blend of conventionalism and innovation, or perhaps “reformation” (see my 10 Commandments review for a somewhat quirky elaboration on this point).

The Bottle

Judgment Day, along with other Lost Abbey brews, are some of the most eye-catching products. The packaging, with a towering, almost gothic-like bottle affixed with a cork and well-designed artwork, really does speak volumes to The Lost Abbey’s sometimes-apocalyptic brewing theme. In the case of Judgment Day, the theme is the coming of the apocalypse, where according to the Lost Abbey’s website presentation for JudgmentDay, “the sunny blue pastoral skies turn sickly black revealing the imminent demise of every soul caught between heaven and hell”. Then come the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, who are depicted on the bottle’s purple and black label and collectively symbolize conquest, war, famine, and death. Indeed, God’s eternal judgment has arrived, and The Lost Abbey’s page wraps up with the appropriate sales pitch: “Challenge yourself to embrace passion, persistence and a motivated way of life. So that when Judgment Day arrives from nowhere, you’ll go out knowing full well that you’ve lived your life on your terms and they can’t take that away from you”.

The Beer

Without a doubt, The Lost Abbey products I’ve sampled are tributes to “passion, persistence and a motivated way of life”, and Judgment Day is no different. Brewed with raisins, this 10.5 percent ABV abbey quad is a fine representation of this style and, in some ways, it’s in a class of its own. Grabbing the bottle and forcefully pulling off the cork immediately releases a brief hiss and then a pop, just as any beer in this price range should do. When pouring Judgment Day into a glass, the translucent, super dark brown body and well-retained, two-finger beige head yields a fair lacing matrix. Aroma? Well, Judgment Day is anything but apocalyptic! The smell of raisins is definitely forward, as is the sweet malts and a distinct candy-like note, all or which blend well with the barely noticeable alcohol tone. Faint woody and perhaps vanilla notes are also present. Overall, the nose is seriously powerful, complex, and predicts a very sweet brew.

The mouthfeel is pleasant, with a somewhat syrupy feel and a moderate amount of carbonation. Judgment Day’s flavor is remarkably similar to the aroma. Again, raisins and malts clearly dominate, and if you close your eyes, it almost feels like drinking some sort of syrupy raisin juice (although I must admit to never trying that). This beast is all sweetness, and perhaps a just a tad too candy sweet for my palate. But, while the alcohol note is surprisingly well restrained (especially when compared to the roughness of The Lost Abbey’s 10 Commandments), the alcohol’s warming sensation plays out nicely with the sweetness. And, while the hop references gain just a bit of prominence in the finish, I suspect that a hoppier finish may have helped to balance out that sweetness.

All in all, The Lost Abbey Judgment Day is an amazingly sweet and complex beer, and pairing raisins with this particular beer style is well thought through. And, if the Four Horsemen were to descend on all of us today, I would indeed be happy to have Judgment Day around as one of my final beers before God’s eternal judgment.

Image credits

Middle image: http://thefullpint.com/

Mikkeller: Beer Geek Brunch Weasel – Civet droppings never tasted so good

2012-04-08T09:40:00.002-07:00

Setting expectations is always risky, especially when applying them to beer. On the one hand, spending time anticipating a beer’s quality is part of the joy behind letting the beer cellar for a few months and routinely peeking at the bottle as it sits patiently maturing. On the other hand, expectations can really be a letdown when the beer fails to live up to the hype. Fortunately for me, and for my close friend and partner in beer, Mikkeller’s Beer Geek Brunch Weasel not only lived up to our expectations, but actually shattered them by being nearly everything expected and more.

Indeed, we did everything humanly possible to raise our expectations and savor the process of anticipation. Upon purchasing Beer Geek Brunch back in early October, I immediately placed it in the cellar and would occasionally take a peek at it as the bottle sat on the self. I read and watched some reviews of it, showed the bottle off to some of my neighbors while talking a bit about how it was brewed, and then finally set a date to share it with my friend. For his part, he spent some quality time sipping away on Mikkeller’s other notable stout, namely the Beer Geek Breakfast, and admiring it’s powerful coffee profile. All in all, the stakes were considerably high when the Weasel climax – or what might have otherwise been an anti-climax of epic proportions – unfolded in the night of the actual session. As an added bonus, my friend coincidentally had a vinyl release of Weasels Ripped my Flesh by The Mothers of Invention, and we thought this was an appropriate music selection for our Beer Geek Brunch Weasel experience. And so the session begins.

The Brewer

While Mikkeller officially hails from Copenhagen, Mikkel Borg Bjergsø, Mikkeller’s brewmaster, manager, and the ‘mother of invention’ behind Beer Geek Brunch, brews beer in a variety of locations throughout Europe and the United States. Mikkeller’s Beer Geek Brunch, along with the Beer Geek Breakfast, is brewed at Nøgne Ø, which lies in Grimstad – a small rural community along the southern coast of Norway. Both Mikkeller and Nøgne Ø brew some of the finest products in Scandinavia, and I cannot think of more logical collaboration of sorts or a collaboration where expectations are a relatively safe bet to place.

The Animal

Mikkeller’s Beer Geek Brunch Weasel feels quite a bit like Mikkeller’s Beer Geek Breakfast. Indeed, both are oatmeal stouts, and both are brewed with gourmet coffee. However, the former rounds out with a whopping 10.9 percent ABV while the latter stands at a 7.5 percent ABV. More interesting still, Beer Geek Brunch has a more robust coffee and dark chocolate synthesis, and based on the title of my previous Beer Geek Breakfast post, that says a lot about the amazing quality of Beer Geek Brunch. Without a doubt, part of this robustness is connected to the feature ingredient used in Beer Geek Brunch – namely the Vietnamese cà phê chồn, or what English speakers refer to as weasel coffee.

So, what’s this cà phê chồn all about? Well, for starters, the term cà phê chồn does implicate coffee, but it does not really have much to do with weasels. Instead, the animal in question is the civet, or the asian palm civet to be exact, which is a member of the Viverridae family rather than the weasel’s Mustelidae family. Perhaps the more well-known English term for the civet is toddycat (see Wikipedia).

What makes the civet so important for coffee and for beer is its diet and what is done with the byproducts of that diet. For starters, civets eat a variety of berries, including coffee berries, and the animal selects only the finest and most mature coffee beans and then excretes them a day or so later. Afterwards, workers gather the partially digested coffee beans from the civet’s dropping (See About.com). The beans are then thoroughly washed, sun dried, and lightly roasted (See Wikipedia), and are ultimately used to brew some of the world’s most expensive coffees and to brew this fine Mikkeller oatmeal stout. Yes, when drinking Beer Geek Brunch, you are also consuming the remnants of partially digested coffee beans! Yummy, right? Well, yes it is in fact.

The resulting product from “civet coffee beans” is sometimes referred to as civet coffee, or kopi luwak in Indonesia. In Vietnam, which is where Mikkeller’s civet beans originate, civet coffee is sometimes referred to as fox-dung coffee, where the alteration in the bean’s protein structure brought on by the digestive process is hypothesized as the reason for why the resulting coffee is richer, full-bodied, and somewhat syrupy (See Wikipedia). To be sure, this richness is plainly evident in Mikkeller’s Beer Geek Brunch.

The Beer

Now back to our session. Popping the cap and pouring it into a glass reveals the unmistakable stout signatures: The body appears with a super dark brown color and a dense, medium-sized brown head that settles comfortably into a thin brown foam. As an added aesthetics, a faint burgundy color appears at the point where the beer kisses the side of the glass. While still tight and sticky, the lacing of Beer Geek Brunch is a bit more timid than what is found in the Beer Geek Breakfast, although that can be expected with a higher ABV brew. In terms of the nose, Beer Geek Brunch is perhaps the most aromatic stout we’ve ever come across: In a word, it was so amazingly climatic not because of its complexity per se, but in the way the aromas blended together in a powerful and seamless presentation. The show kicks off with a generous blast of bitter, dark chocolate and then seamlessly transitions into a powerful roasted coffee nose. At the same time, semi-sweet malts and light licorice tones dance around in the background. After about three seconds of an uninterrupted sniff, the aromas come together in what really struck me as a sort of smoked, blackstrap molasses.

What was perhaps the most amazing was the almost perfect match between the nose and the taste. Taking a generous mouthful comes with a mild amount of carbonation, a creamy mouthfeel, and an instant explosion of dark chocolate, with a rapid transition to roasted coffee and a smoked-like blackstrap molasses synthesis in the finish. At the same time, a faint licorice reference appears, disappears, and then reappears throughout the show. Aside from a warming sensation during the finish, when Beer Geek Brunch is served at its proper temperature, an edgy and somewhat distracting alcohol tone is virtually absent. While a few other stouts out there may have a wider spectrum of flavors, Beer Geek Brunch presents the flavors in a way that, in our view, is simply unrivaled. And for me personally, presentation is an important part of the beer experience.

Without a doubt, placing and raising our expectations on Mikkeller’s Beer Geek Brunch paid enormous dividends. When considering the time we spent anticipating its aromas and flavors, and then having those expectations exceeded by leaps and bounds, Beer Geek Brunch has perhaps been one of the most enjoyable beer experiences we’ve ever come across. In our view, this is a nearly flawless brew, and one that is surely a risk worth taking.

Links

Mikkeller Beer Geek Brunch Weasel on Ratebeer

MikkellerBeer Geek Brunch Weasel on BeerAdvocate

The Lost Abbey (Port Brewing): Avant Garde or Bière de Garde

2012-04-05T12:07:00.000-07:00

Avant Garde is what The Lost Abbey refers to as a “farmhouse-styled ale”, although their website, like their apparent brewing philosophy generally, shuns the notion of classifying this brew. In their words, “some might want to label this as a beer brewed in the Bière de Garde tradition of Northern France. We would prefer to say it was brewed in the Avant Garde [italics my own] style of beers that will reward all those who seek the not so ordinary”. These are fine words, but does their brew really live up to this aspiration?

Well, for starters, modernists like me just love our classification schemas, and indeed to a fault in some respects. So, be it Bière de Garde or avant-garde, things become clearer – or so it seems – when the world around us comports with the known. And the folks over at Ratebeer and BeerAdvocate both describe Avant Garde as exemplar of the well-known Bière de Garde tradition. From Northern France historically, these “farmhouse ales” are generally top-fermented, and to avoid the sometimes-funky behavior of yeast in the warmer summer-month temperatures, this style was traditionally brewed in farmhouses during the cooler winter and spring months (see Wikipedia). Still, farmhouse ales are intended for consumption during the summer and autumn, and hence any respectable Bière de Garde should be a refreshing summertime treat (see bieredegarde.com). And Lost Abbey’s Avant Garde is certainly one of those treats.

Grabbing the bottle and forcefully pulling off the cork immediately releases a brief hiss and then a pop, just as any beer in this price range should do. When pouring the Avant Garde into a glass, the hazy, medium-amber body and two-finger white head are signs of what’s to come: an enticingly sweet beverage with lots to offer its drinker. Swirling the glass a bit reveals a decent amount of lacing, but perhaps a tad less than what I expected. Aroma? Well, Avant Garde is not all that powerful, but spending some time nurturing it in the glass indeed pays dividends: Think fresh sweet bread, a bit of grains and grass, and a sort of well-aged feel. Fruity notes, or berries perhaps, are also discernable, as is a slight nutty tone. However, the caramel note was not as forthcoming as expected.

The mouthfeel is simply outstanding, where the full and effervescent body, along with the multiplicity of subtle flavors, coalesces into an absolutely refreshing, but eventful beer. When compared to the aroma, Avant Garde’s flavor is far more fruity and reminiscent of thoroughly ripe yellow apples and berries. A bready flavor lurks in the background and is much more timid when compared to its pointed presentation in the nose. Hop references are virtually absent, just as it should be for this particular style of beer. And while the spicy note is subtle, it becomes a bit more focuses toward the dry and largely sweet finish.

The Lost Abbey would probably like us to avoid reviewing Avant Garde up against a well-known traditional beer style – namely Bière de Garde, and instead review it as a style of its own or up against its supposed avant-garde nature. Either way, we’re dealing with classes, and aside from the focused spicy note in the finish, Avant Garde does not clearly cross the boundaries into the avant-garde per se and is instead an excellent representation of the Bière de Garde tradition. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Links

The Lost Abbey Avant Garde on Ratebeer

TheLost Abbey Avant Garde on BeerAdvocate

More information on Bière de Garde

Oettinger Pils, Hefeweizen, Export, and Super Forte – Living life on the cheap

2012-04-03T07:23:00.000-07:00

While the goal of this blog is to review beers from the finer side of life (yes, call me a beer snob if you want), I sometimes like to describe the beer availability I encounter during my travels. At times, this inevitably means reviewing cheaper beer, and this is certainly the case from my close encounters with four different Oettinger brews during my recent trip to Tenerife (please visit the Tacoa 1 and Tacoa 2 posts for additional details on other beer encounters in Tenerife). While these four were probably the lowest priced German beer that ever crossed my palate, three of them at least were reasonably decent concoctions, and if you are travelling on a budget (like my glorious days as a poverty-stricken student), or if you’d simply like to spend less coin on beer, then Oettinger’s brews will certainly offer you an excellent value.

The Brewery

Having five different breweries scattered throughout Germany—in Bayern, Gotha, Schwerin, Mönchengladbach, and Braunschweig, Oettinger, or Oetti as it is widely called, is one of Germany’s larger brewers. In fact, in terms of output, Oettinger is Germany’s bestselling beer brand largely because of its reputation for producing lower-priced, widely-available, supermarket beer varieties. And since Oettinger brews 14 different beer varieties all according to the “Reinheitsgebot” (Germany’s purity laws), I’m solidly sure that even the most discriminating palate will manage to find at least one that’s not…well…too bad anyway.

The Beer

When visiting a local supermarket in Tenerife, you’ll immediately notice the predominance of cheaply-presented canned beer: Dorada, Sofiero, Cruzcampo (with 10% gratis, by the way), and Tropical, to name a few, although Paulaner, Guinness, and Franziskaner are also widely found. Nestled among these, you’ll also find shelves of four different Oettinger offerings.

Oettinger Pils (4.7% ABV): In terms of its aspirations as a German-style pilsner, Oettinger Pils more or less gets the basics right, although the overall weakness in flavor does not do justice to what is otherwise an excellent beer style. Life in the glass begins with a transparent, light-golden color and a two-finger white head that quickly runs and hides and imparts a rather sparse lacing matrix. In terms of appearance, Oettinger Pils misses the mark completely. Still, appearance matters not if you’re looking for budget beer.

The aroma is rather weak, but definitely malt forward, as evident in the obvious grainy note. Along with the malt, a light florally and spicy aroma is clearly indicative of a German-style pilsner. While the sweet and yeasty dough note is perhaps a bit too forward for this style, and the faint metallic tone in the nose is a tad bit astringent, the aroma profile is not a bad blend really.

Taking a generous sip reveals a medium-bodied brew and a considerable amount of carbonation – almost ideal for Tenerife’s warm and sunny climate. The taste is definitely bland and far less flavorful than some of the better quality pilsners out there. But, when juxtaposed with a moderately sweet and grainy taste and a decently spiced up and bitter finish, Oettinger Pils comes off as a reasonably refreshing brew and fair pilsner representation. Still, the slightly metallic aftertaste does detract a bit from the beer’s enjoyability.

While Oettinger Pils is nothing special, it’s still fairly well-balanced and delivers a nice zesty bitter finish that’s loyal to the pilsner style. And the price makes Oettinger Pils a very solid choice if you’re drinking on a tight budget and looking for a lower ABV alternative to a pale lager.

Oettinger Hefeweizen (4.9% ABV): In terms of its style aspirations, Oettinger’s Hefeweizen performs somewhat better than the Pils and, in my view, is significantly more enjoyable to drink. Emptying the can’s contents into a glass (the small on in the picture is all I had at the time) reveals a bright and translucent golden color and a relatively tall and well-retained head that imparts a respectable lacing matrix. So far, it feels like any other robust hefeweizen.

The aroma is definitely potent, with banana as the feature flavor, and is supported by bready and spicy notes. While the aroma profile is pleasant to be sure, it’s still a far cry from the more complex blends found in a Paulaner or a Weihenstephaner and speaks to Oettinger’s lower price-point offering.

Taking a generous sip comes with a medium and somewhat creamy-bodied brew and a high amount of carbonation. Oettinger’s Hefeweizen is very tasty and an excellent choice if you happen to be in Tenerife, or elsewhere for that matter, and tired of blander lagers. The banana note clearly dominates, but is accompanied by some citrusy and spicy notes. Still, it’s lack of complexity makes it significantly inferior to many other similarly-styled beers I’ve tried: It delivers just the basics and, when considering the price, that’s about all one should really expect anyway.

Oettinger Export (5.4% ABV): Oettinger’s Export aspires to embody the soft and rounded Dortmund style, but is instead a tad on the rough side, where it’s less than pleasing aspects seem to stand out more sharply when compared to the Pils or the Hefeweizen. The pour reveals a clear, slightly dark-golden color and a small white head that vanishes in about the same amount of time it took to open up the can and fill the glass. Lacing? Well, forget about that! In only one instance did I manage to find a discernable lacing trail clinging to the side of the glass (again, that crappy glass is all I had at the time).

So, what about the aroma? Well, it comes off as a decent balance between the grainy side of the malt and the grassy side of the hops. Citrus notes also permeate the profile, and like the Pils, Oettinger’s Export produces a metallic note that makes the aroma a tad bit astringent, although the note in the Export is considerably stronger than what was found in the Pils.

A medium-body and a generous amount of carbonation characterizes the mouthfeel. In terms of taste, Oettinger’s Export favors the sweeter side, with a substantial bready and grainy feel, coupled with hints of vegetables and, again, a rather unsavory metallic taste. Equally unpleasant, the malt flavors come off as flat – kind of like stale bread that’s been left out overnight on the cutting board. The finish is bitter and does not feel fundamentally different than the Pils. Overall, I found very little to really appreciate about Oettinger’s Export, and if you are looking for something on the bitter side, I recommend going for the Pils instead.

Oettinger Super Forte (8.9% ABV): Out of all four Oettinger brews reviewed here, I found their Super Forte to be the most robust in appearance, although the Hefeweizen has to be mentioned as the most flavorful. Emptying the can’s contents into a glass reveals a clear golden-colored body and a towering and well-retained white head. The lacing is a bit timid but considerably better than what is found in the Export or the Pils.

The aroma heavily favors the malty side and comes off as dry hey, like the smell you get when entering a poorly ventilated barn. A bready note and maybe a nutty note are also present in the nose. Giving the glass a few good swirls releases the smells of super-sweet sugar: Think of cotton candy at the fair and that about captures the nose here.

A medium-body and soft carbonation characterizes the mouthfeel, and the taste is seriously sweet and sugary, almost too much for my palate. While the alcohol note is present, it’s certainly not overpowering and provides a nice warming sensation in the finish. Unfortunately, the intensely sugary feel really undermines the ability to find much more in the way of flavor.

All in all, Oettinger’s Super Forte is very robust in its appearance, but the taste is wildly out of balance and highly simplistic, especially for an 8.9% ABV product. If you like cotton candy, however, then this one should be a real treat for the palate. And the price makes it all the sweeter for an empty wallet.

Links

Oettinger Pils on Ratebeer

OettingerPils on BeerAdvocate

Oettinger Hefeweizen on Ratebeer

OettingerHefeweizen on BeerAdvocate

Oettinger Export on Ratebeer

OettingerExport on BeerAdvocate

Oettinger Super Forte on Ratebeer

Oettinger’sOfficial website

Tacoa Brewery and Restaurant: Just one more reason to vacation in Tenerife

2012-03-22T13:36:00.000-07:00

Just for a minute, close your eyes and imagine yourself soaking up the bright sunlight and the tropical or near tropical heat while listening to the sound of the surf washing across a sandy beach, and let’s not forget the palm trees swishing in the gentle coastal breeze. What style of beer comes to mind with that image? Well, if you’re like most beer drinkers, then the obvious answer simple: pale lagers—perhaps a San Miguel, a Tiger, or maybe a Singha. After all, some of these beers offer up well-carbonated, thin-bodied alternatives that are easily refreshing enough amid the blazing sun and heat.

Still, if you’re like me, downing a dozen or so pale lagers over a couple of days in a row becomes rather tiring, and the search for alternative beers begins. If you happen to visit Tenerife, the largest island in what constitutes Spain’s mildly-climated Canary Islands, then you’re in luck. Not only are there a bounty of thirst-quenching pale lagers—and some good ones to be sure, on the northern side of the island, there’s also a small craft brewery that offers five different draft varieties of first-class brews that markedly contrast against the widely available lagers. In fact, if you’re looking to vacation in a spot with predictably warm and dry weather, but also want the option to savor the finer sides of beer, then Tacoa brewery and restaurant makes Tenerife a surely rewarding vacation spot.

The Brewery

With a population of about 8,300, El Sauzal is quiet coastal town located in the heart of Tenerife’s wine country, which lies about 20 kilometers (32 miles) to the west of Santa Cruz, the island’s capital. El Sauzal is also home to Tacoa’s brewery and restaurant. Even if you happen to stay in the popular beach resort towns like Las Americas and Los Cristianos, both of which are located on the opposite side of Tenerife, Tacoa is still barely more than a one-hour drive away via the highway or a three hour’s drive via the majestic roads leading over El Teide, the island’s infamous volcanic mountain that today is reminiscent of a Martian-like landscape. As you might see from my earlier post, I absolutely recommend renting a car and taking the ladder route. The scenery is out of this world!

Tacoa is easy enough to find when pairing the address below with Google Maps, just as we did when driving from Las Americas. Parking at Tacoa is even easier, and your arrival there will be met with a golden-colored façade on the outside of the brewery, along with the off-white tiled floors and golden-colored walls on the inside, thus giving the restaurant a very warm Spanish-like feel. Tucked in to the left of the restaurant area are two sizable black fermentation tanks, confirming that indeed you are in the right place. The door to in the back, left-hand side will expose you to a spacious terrace, along with generous amounts of sun as well as umbrellas for shade. All in all, the atmosphere of Tacoa’s restaurant and a bar is all aces.

Tacoa is a perfect lunch destination, offering a variety of dishes that, in their entirety, resemble an amalgamation of traditional Spanish and German cuisine, and I personally recommend trying the plethora of flavors that come with the German sausage sampler. Tacoa also boasts a wide selection of wines and a refrigerator stocked full of bottled beers, including Chimay Grand Reserve, Franziskaner Hefe-Weissbier, and Guiness Special Export, that are perfect for stocking up your own hotel refrigerator.

But the feature flavors, and indeed the justifications for our journey, are found at the bar in the centrally-located taps. Although Tacoa boast five house beers on tap—Clara, Cobre, Negra, Trigo, and Light, the Light was not available during our visit; so we were only able to sample the first four. But these four, after all, are by far the most important ones.

The Beer

While each beer is top fermented at 18 degrees Celsius (64 f.), each beer also boasts its own unique flavor profile. Nevertheless, a word of advice is in order. Folks in Tenerife, and in many places for that matter, generally serve beer at rather cold temperatures and with frosty mugs. Yet, the volitization responsible for releasing the beer’s flavors generally takes place at higher temperatures. So, be sure to let Tacoa’s beers warm for about 10 minutes before passing judgment on them. Trust me! As the descriptions below testify to, it’s worth the wait.

Clara (4.5 percent ABV): When confronted with Clara, my first instinct was to classify it as a Belgian pale ale of sorts. However, after a few more sips at warmer temperatures, Clara reveals her bitterness that’s reminiscent of a fine pilsner and a fruity and funky character that makes it feel like the a distant and lighter cousin to an Orval. Life in the glass begins with a dark golden color and a towering, frothy white head. Taking a few sips exposes the side of glass, unearthing a field of densely packed lacing. Overall, Clara’s presentation is simply excellent. The aroma is a bit on the timid side at first, but some potency enters the fray as the beer warms up. Cracker notes—saltiness or soda crackers for example—pepper the nose through and through. In what at times feels like an Orval of sorts, a mild fruitiness and a distinct barnyard note also enter the scene. Fruity notes are also prominent in the taste, followed by a bready and a slight barnyard feel. Clara finishes with a rather subtle yet lingering bitterness, but one that seemed to be a bit less than the way it was described on the menu. In fact, I found Cobre to be a bit more bitter. Clara comes with a medium body and generous amounts of carbonation. All in all, with a 4.5 percent ABV, Clara is a rather refreshing and well-balanced session beer, although it was probably my least favorite out of Tacoa’s four sudsy treats.

Cobre (4.5 percent ABV): Like Clara, I had a rather difficult time when trying to classify Cobre. Perhaps it fit best as a British premium bitter, but that’s not really it at all. But in contrast to Clara, Tacoa's Cobre is a bit more aggressive in the aroma and taste. For all tense and purposes, the head, the lacing, and the mouthfeel are at the same standards as Clara, but this time we are graced with a copper or amber-colored body. Giving it a whiff reveals some of the same tones found in Clara, most notably an ever so mild and brief horse blanket note that also comes off as well-aged sour cream. There is a slight fruity note, along with the predominance of wet hey. But the taste is where Cobre is most interesting and, in my view, superior to Clara. The centerpiece of the flavor is a very focused, but hard to identify spicy note. It's sort of gingery, but then again not really. For me, it was a bit reminiscent of a spiced-up Christmas beer that leaves a warm and tingly feeling on the tongue. Both my wife and I concluded that the spice most closely resembled clove. Personally, I found Cobre to be a tad more hoppy than Clara, although my wife and I differed a bit on this. All in all, the Cobre is a remarkably flavorful and palate-pleasing beer, especially considering its rather conservative 4.5 percent ABV.

Trigo (4.5 percent ABV): As Tacoa's take on a Hefeweizen, Trigo is a heaven sent 4.5 percent ABV mug of candy, making it radically different from both Clara and Cobre. Coming straight out of the tap, the head simply defies the laws of gravity and imparts a think and dense head that looks so inviting when juxtaposed on a bright and hazy golden body. The aroma is a blast of banana, or banana flavored bubblegum to be precise. References to bread are also evident in both the taste and the flavor. However, the focus taste closely resembles banana flavored bubblegum, although the bubblegum note supports the more dominant banana flavor – just as it should in a Hefeweizen. Trigo's mouthfeel comes with a medium body and a high amount of carbonation. Overall, Trigo is loaded with aroma and taste and is a super-sweet, candy like treat, and I’m sure you’ll love it.

Negra (6.5 percent ABV): Finally, we come to Negra, Tacoa’s 6.5 percent ABV take on what really appears and feels like a bock, although as a top-fermented beer, it is clearly a brown ale of sorts. And out of all four varieties we sampled, this one was probably my favorite, although Trigo comes in with a close second. Negra starts out with a dark brown color, culminating in a medium-sized, well-retained off-white head. The lacing is perhaps a bit more timid than the other three, but is still impressive nonetheless. Aroma? Well, try imagining the freshness of the sun-filled spring air just after a light rain shower. That pretty much captures Negra's background aroma, which is then peppered with dark fruit notes, especially raisins. The aroma and the taste are malty and nearly identical to one another, although I did miss some of the caramel flavor that often comes with beers of this character. The finish is ever so slightly bitter, and the mouthfeel comes with a medium body and average amounts of carbonation. Overall, this beer alone made the trip worthwhile.

You might now be asking, so…how can I try all four if I have to then drive a car back to my hotel, which might be up to an hour or so away? Well, you have a few options. First, Tacoa beers come in two sizes, and if you drink two smaller-sized samples of their 4.5 percent varieties, eat a generous amount of food, and relax on the terrace for about an hour or so after finishing your beer, you should be okay to drive. You can then pay a bottle deposit and have the friendly Tacoa staff fill up several flip-top bottles with whatever you were unable to sample. In fact, you should just do this anyway, since their draft beers hold remarkably well for several days in a well-sealed bottle. Second, you can do what I did: talk my wife into being the designated driver, and then take away a bottle of each just so your generous driver is not excluded from the fun.

After sampling four different Tacoa brews fresh from the tap, and in light of amalgamation of German and Spanish atmospheres and dishes, I can do nothing else other than recommend taking a visit to Tacoa during your next trip to Tenerife. In fact, Tacoa really gives you another reason to make your next vacation a trip to Tenerife, as if you really needed another reason to vacation there.

Please note: I must give special thanks to Colin Kirby. Without her excellent 2010 article on Tacoa, I might have visited Tenerife without ever knowing about Tacoa.

Additional information

Address: Carretera General del Norte 122, 38360 El Sauzal

Telephone: (0034) 922564173

Website: http://www.tacoa.com/

Live from Tenerife - The journey to Tacoa brewery and restaurant

2012-03-16T11:40:00.002-07:00

Quality beer is not simply a want that one adds to a wish list alongside trivial things like a television, computer, or jewelry, but a basic necessity of life similar to the need for food, shelter, and clothing that when unfulfilled, leads to desperation and a sense doubt about life and the moralities of humankind. Luckily, Tacoa brewery and restaurant, one of Tenerife’s only – perhaps the only – brew pubs has been able to fulfill this need, and hence restore my confidence in life and faith in humankind.

On board a rather stiffly-suspended Ford Focus, our journey to Tacoa begins from Las Americas, one of Tenerife’s southern beach and resort towns. The journey then extends through the windy roads leading to the summit of Teide – the Island’s infamous volcanic mountain that today is reminiscent of a Martian-like landscape. I’ll let the pictures below do the talking.

Descending from Teide brings us to Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife’s main fishing village and a rather large town for the standards here. With another 15 minutes of driving, we come to the town of El Sauzal and finally Tacoa. Yes, it was an adventurous journey through alien worlds on board a vessel that jarred with every small surface irregularity. But our thirst for fine quality craft beer made any challenge seem like a walk in the proverbial park. And the prospects of exploring new beers made it all the more adventurous.

Tacoa is a small brew pub with an excellent selection of food, consisting of a mixture of traditional German and Spanish cuisine, along with a selection of five beer varieties – Clara, Cobre, Negra, Trigo, and Light, just enough to quench our thirst and hunger. Since Tacoa was out of the Light, we were only able to sample the first four, which were by far the most important ones. In a later blog post, I will write a bit more about each beer. Suffice it to say here that all four were absolutely wonderful. But the Trigo, an incredibly candy-like hefeweizen, and the Negra, a bock with an abundance of dark fruit notes, were by themselves enough to justify the long drive from Las Americas to El Sauzal, via Teide.

Also in a later post from home, I’ll say a bit more about the pub. Again, it’s worth mentioning that at the pub, you can put a deposit on one-liter sized swing top bottles and then have them filled. This of course was part of our plan. However, it did not quite work out that way, as the pub only managed to conjure up one rubber seal for the swing top caps. So, we filled the only legitimate glass bottle with the Negra, and after some hesitation and questions about the effects from the plastic, we decided to use empty 1.5 liter water jugs for the remaining three varieties (see picture below). A day later, I can say that the water jugs worked well, although the one containing the Clara did leak a bit of air and liquid.

At this point, we only have a few days left on our trip, but lots of beer to drink. With my confidence in life and faith in humankind now regained, I’m looking forward to writing more extensive reviews on Tacoa’s brews, and a bit more about the brew pub. Until then, bottoms up!

Live From Tenerife - Learning to love pale lagers

2012-03-13T11:28:00.001-07:00

Sun, sand, and warmth - just what the doctor ordered for a sun-deprived couple living under the mother nature's assault in Bergen, Norway. And Las Americas, Tenerife is the perfect medicine. Mild, sunny, and not a hint of rain, I feel like a damn fool for not simply moving here years ago.

While the craft beer scene in Tenerife is...well..it isn't really, I'm learning to like some of the usual suspects for this part of the world, most notably San Miguel. But other varieties are widely available, and some of them are quite good for winding down in the cool evening breeze on the apartment terrace. See the picture below for tonight's lineup.

Plus, and thankfully so, there are a couple of Belgian beer pubs in the beach area. So, when you had enough of the watery lagers, a the generous flavors from a Duvel or a Westmalle are not far away. I'll be sure to map some of these places in a later blog post.

On Thursday, we'll be traveling to the Island's only craft brewery. I'll be sure to report back afterwards.

Kinn: Bøvelen – 5th Place! Congratulations Kinn!

2012-03-09T05:55:00.001-08:00

Recently, the Norwegian Beer Friends Association (NORØL) released the results of their 6th annual vote on, among other things, Norway’s best beers and breweries. The results confirm what quite a lot have been saying for some time now: Kinn Brewery – based in Florø, Norway – is one of the country’s leading craft breweries and produces some of the county’s most robust brews. Out of the more than 100,000 NORØL members that had the opportunity to vote, Kinn came out in 2^nd place, with 21.3 percent of the votes. And Kinn’s Bøvelen – the beer under review here – was ranked number 5 out of a total of 87 candidates. Congratulations Kinn!

The Brewery

The word Kinn (literally cheek) is the name given to one of the outermost islands that buffers Florø from the open sea, although it was also the name of an earlier municipality that was eventually merged into the surrounding municipalities. I can only speculate that the place name “Kinn” might be attributed to the fact that area forms the westernmost point, or “cheek”, of Norway’s coastline, although this again is only speculation on my part.

Kinn brewery makes about six different beers – all of which are remarkably wonderful concoctions (see my review of the Vestkyst IPA, for another example). Kinn takes a rather traditional approach to beer-making by using open fermentation tanks and an English handpump to tap the beer. Brew master Espen Lothe also bares his grounded philosophy to brewing when commenting that “my job is not to makebeer, but to help the yeast cells to produce beer”. Lothe’s approach and philosophy are undoubtedly causes for Kinn’s remarkable brewing success and their commendable performance in NORØL’s ratings.

The Beer

With a 9.5 percent ABV, Bøvelen strives to be one of the sweeter abbey tripels out there. As for the name, Bøvelen is a word for devil, but the word is from a local dialect primarily found in western Norway (thanks Beer Sagas for pointing this out because I had a ‘hell’ of a time trying to find the word in the dictionary). With a picture of a bearded farmer with horns and holding a trident, the label is certainly consistent with Beer Saga’s interpretation.

My sample was shared with a friend back in November of 2011, but I managed to take quite detailed tasting notes. Its hazy golden-colored body and fluffy and rocky white head are clear signs of an excellent abbey tripel. Giving the glass a generous swirl yields a tight and sticky, web-like lacing matrix. Aroma? Think typical Belgian yeast, banana, zesty pineapple, and some unidentified spicy notes.

Bøvelen’s mouthfeel is pleasant and pretty faithful to this particular style – smooth and moderately carbonated; a medium to full body; and a somewhat sticky sensation. Taking a generous mouthful brings out a wonderful array of intensely sweet flavors, like apples and candy, juxtaposed on a rich honey background. An alcohol taste clearly lingers in the background, but gains prominence as Bøvelen warms. The finish is slightly bitter at first, but then transitions back into an intensely sweet aftertaste.

All-in-all, Bøvelen – like their Vestkyst IPA – testifies to Kinn’s attention to quality, perfection, and ability to make beers that rival many of the brews from the more ‘matured’ breweries around – quite remarkable for such a young brewery. Personally, however, I found Bøvelen to be just a tad too sweet – and I emphasize the word tad. Yet, the alcohol note, while perhaps a bit too strong at warmer temperatures, manages to somehow balance a bit against that sweetness, as does the mild bitter finish. Even with these small caveats, Bøvelen is an excellent representation of an abbey tripel and easily deserving of its outstanding NORØL ranking. If you like the sweetness of honey with some other nuances tossed in, then I can do nothing else other than recommend trying Kinn’s take on an abbey tripel.

Links

Kinn’s Bøvelenon Ratebeer.com

Kinn’s Bøvelenon Beer Norway

Image credits

Kvitre.no

Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales: Collababeire Special Holiday Ale – Powerful and innovative, all around

2012-03-04T08:04:00.000-08:00

Collababeire Special Holiday Ale is, without a doubt, one of the most powerful and innovative ales to come across my palate in the past few months (for others, see for example my reviews of Mikkeller Stella 2, Xbeeriment Black Force One, LostAbbey 10 Commandments). Brewed by Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales, which is located in Dexter, Michigan, Collababeire Special Holiday Ale is a collaborative brew crafted by Jolly Pumpkin and two other first-class breweries: Stone Brewing Company, from Escondido, California, and Nøgne Ø, from Grimstad, Norway. Collababeire Special Holiday Ale is the finale to a three-part series of this ale, each of which included the same ingredients, but varying aging practices were used in each version. Each version was also brewed and bottled by one of the three collaborators – the first by Stone, the second by Nøgne Ø, and the third by Jolly Pumpkin. While I’ve sampled a wide variety of brews crafted by the first two breweries, this is my first encounter with Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales, who brews five year-round products and ten seasonal varieties. And based on Collababeire’s excellence, I will certainly be looking to sample more of Jolly Pumpkin’s craftsmanship.

While classified by Ratebeer as a spice, herb, or vegetable beer, Collababeire Special Holiday Ale is also a wild ale of sorts, where the brewer deliberately introduces a Brettanomyces yeast to impart a rather funky, sour taste, which in most ales would be seen as an undesirable quality produced by an undesirable and pesky (and potentially costly) contaminant. For those of you familiar with different beer brands and styles, but less familiar with yeast strains, Brettanomyces, or “Brett” as it is sometimes called, is commonly found in Lambics, and features in other tasty treats like Orval, Liefmans Brown Ale, and Rodenbach Grand Cru. Aside from the rather unique qualities imparted by Brett, Collababeire is aged in oak barrels for two years and brewed with chestnuts, juniper, sage, and caraway – all the makings for a delightful beer experience.

While the label’s drab, dark-gray background makes it easy to overlook when sitting on the store’s shelf alongside other, more colorful labels, once the bottle is picked up for closer inspection, one is instantly captivated by the creative amalgamation of the various symbols adopted by each of the three breweries. The red and green bat-like wings reference Stone’s devil-like winged creature, while the pumpkin head that sits upon the wings and looks to be blowing out a candle clearly references the symbol adopted by Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales. What’s most interesting is the placement of Nøgne’s tell-tale “Ø”, which is sits on the face of the candle; hence it is dead center on the label, just like the positioning of the bolder “Ø” on all of Nøgne Ø’s beer labels. My hats off to the label’s artist!

Moving on to the beer itself, popping off the cap comes with a crisp hiss, followed by a light gush of foam, and an aroma that is quite eager to greet the olfactory system. When poured into a goblet, Collababeire Special Holiday Ale presents itself as a dark reddish-brown ale and culminates in a one-finger high, beige head that quickly recedes to a thin film of densely-pack bubbles. The lacing is sparse, but is completely consistent with a beer of this style. Being easy to detect even at 20 cm away, the nose is immensely powerful to say the least. In fact, the Orval goblet I used to sample Collababeire was left unrinsed overnight in the kitchen, and the smell throughout the entire kitchen the next morning was a vivid reminder of my Collababeire experience the night before.

Indeed, on the first whiff, the nose sort of comes off as a cross between a grand reserve and a lambic. Generous smells of raisins, plums, and oak are obvious, as well as a sort of grape note that comes off as sour when mixed with the undeniable Brett funkiness. At the same, the aromas from the other additives are, at the very least, not plainly evident. The juniper note, for example, is only detectable after some effort. The same can be said about the caraway, while I still failed to find the chestnut and sage aromas.

Taking a mouth full reveals a medium body and a modest amount of carbonation. Initially dominated by Brett’s sour delivery and references to dark fruits, the taste closely resembles the aroma: It sort of reminds me of a cross between a grand reserve and a lambic. The spiciness is obvious, but without knowing the ingredients, I would have never guessed sage and caraway. The juniper and oak notes are evident, but only after some effort and determination to find them. The finish comes with a dry and bitter punch, and the alcohol warming is a perfect match to that punch.

Overall, Collababeire Special Holiday Ale is unbelievably aromatic, tasty, and complex – a testament to the outstanding craftsmanship of all three collaborators. Objectively speaking, it’s well balanced and well blended, especially in the way the alcohol gently warms the finish. To this I must add two minor caveats – one about the beer’s ability to match its aspirations and one about the beer’s match with my personal preferences. In terms of the former, I was a bit disappointed that some of the additives – most notably the sage – were not as forthcoming in my sample, although I see other reviewers found these flavors quite easily. In terms of the latter, I was ever so slightly disappointed that the sourness in some sense seemed to steal the show, thus giving Collababeire a rather rough feel all around. Yes, I know this is a sour ale; but unlike some of the other sour ales (see my Mikkeller, Stella 2 rating, for example), the drama that unfolded in Collababeire felt more like a lambic, where the sourness took center stage or defined the broader context rather than emerging as one particular “actor” or “event” within a play about the matrix of all the wonderful additives that constitutes Collababeire. Of course, this reflects my preference, and is no reason passing negative judgment. In fact, the sourness completely and harmoniously engaged with the other flavors, especially the fruit flavors, to produce an enjoyable cidery feel. Indeed, if you truly like the funky side of sour ales, or if you’re a lambic enthusiast, then Collababeire is certainly an excellent choice, and one that I have no regrets on making.

Links

Collababeire Special Holiday Ale on Ratebeer.com

Collababeire Special Holiday Ale on BeerAdvocate

Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales

Stone Brewing Company

Nøgne Ø

Image credits

Cardinal Pub & Bar

Dogfish Head: Indian Brown Ale – What’s not to like about this?

2012-03-01T11:12:00.001-08:00

Since its opening back in 1995, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery has grown to become synonymous with the remarkable growth of America’s vibrant craft beer culture and the proliferation of some of the world’s most cutting-edge brews. Today, the company boasts 7 year-round brews, along with about 30 seasonal, occasional, and collaborative brews, and nearly 70 “brewpub exclusives” over the years. Dogfish Head’s Indian Brown Ale – the ale under review here – is one of the brewery’s seven year-round products.

Founded by Sam Calagoine, Dogfish Head Brewery is nestled in a small Delaware town called Milton. Named after John Milton, an English poet and ardent republican under Oliver Cromwell’s controversial rule, the town of Milton in the past prospered as a shipbuilding center, and today it is known for its revitalized Victorian and colonial architecture and of course its world famous brewery.

The name Dogfish Head, however, is another story, and one that has nothing to do with America’s first state or 17th century English poets for that matter. Instead, the name Dogfish Head is connected to a place in Maine, America’s 23rd state. Located in Sheepscot Bay – about 70 km (44 miles) up the coast from Portland, Dogfish Head is a remote coastal place where Sam spent his summers as a child. According to the brewery’s website, the place name comes from Maine’s lobstermen who ended up catching more dogfish here than actual lobsters, hence the name Dogfish Head. As a side note, their website also mentions a few of the other names that, out of confusion, is sometimes bestowed upon the brewery, including “Dog Head Fish,” “Fish Head Beer,” and “Dog Head Brewery”.

So, now on to the beer. Dogfish Head’s Indian Brown Ale is one of the 15 beers that I legally brought back to Norway with me during an autumn trip to the US. While I consumed my fair share of this ale during the trip, this particular review is based on the bottle I drank in the comfort of my own home here in Norway. As the name suggests, the Indian Brown Ale is a hybrid of a Scotch Ale, an India Pale Ale, and an American Brown Ale, and the hybridity of the brew really comes through nicely in both the aroma and taste. Brewed with brown sugar and dry-hopped like Dogfish Head’s more famous 60 and 90 minute IPAs, their Indian Brown Ale is a notably hoppy, 7.2 percent ABV brown ale with a bounty of well-balanced flavors.

Popping the cap and pouring it into a glass reveals a semi-transparent, dark-brown color, accompanied by a distinct dark-red hue where the liquid kisses the side of the glass. Beige, but somewhat small, the head has a decent amount of retention and yields generous bits of lacing. Whatever might be lacking in the head’s altitude is certainly compensated for in the nose. While the aroma is not all that powerful, it’s loaded with a variety of delightful and subtle odors: The sweet roasted malt notes, along with hints of toffee, coffee, and brown sugar, dominate ever so slightly over the more timid, yet spicy hop references.

The mouth feel comes with a medium body and generous amounts of carbonation. Like the aroma, the flavor of Dogfish Head’s Indian Brown Ale is the undeniable mark of a well-crafted hybrid. With its malt-forward profile, the more intense tastes of toffee, coffee, and honey are nicely juxtaposed on a moderate hop presence. However, the hops manage to make their way to center stage in the relatively dry and lasting bitter finish.

All in all, Dogfish Head’s Indian Brown Ale is a well-balance beer load with a variety of subtle flavors. With the predominance of a malt sweetness that is clearly consistent with what one would expect from a brown ale style, but with the added hop bitterness in the finish, its hybridity shines through without betraying its brown ale aspirations. It’s well crafted, widely available, and reasonably priced – what’s not to like about that?

Links

Dogfish Head's Indian Brown Ale on Ratebeer.com

Dogfish Head's Indian Brown Ale on BeerAdvocate

Image credits

The Beverage Baron

Xbeeriment: Black Force One (Bourbon Barrel Edition) – A lesson in expectations

2012-02-26T01:57:00.000-08:00

Xbeeriment is the name of a series of fine beers brewed by two Danish fellows, Anders Østergaard and Thomas Noelgaard, who have been craft brewing since 2005 and 2002, respectively. Xbeeriment does not have a physical plant, but instead Anders and Thomas brew their beers mostly at Amager Brewery near Copenhagen.

Black Force One is a hybrid imperial stout. At 10.4 percent ABV and thoroughly dry hopped with the Cascade variety, this one promises to be both potent and bittersweet. The version reviewed here is the Bourbon Barrel Edition, which was matured in a Bourbon cask for several months before finally being released in late May of 2011. Xbeeriment brewed a sparse 374 bottles of this edition, and mine was number 118.

Black Force One pours with a pitch-black color, accompanied by a distinct mahogany hue where the liquid kisses the side of the glass. Beige, fluffy, and about a finger high, the well-retained head is characteristic of an imperial stout, as is the reasonable amount of lacing. Black Force One has a rich nose that, on the first whiff at least, reminds me of a cross between a stout and an IPA: Chocolate and roasted malts clearly dominate, but are nicely supported by a slight citrus smell, undoubtedly from generous use of Cascade hops. But, upon additional whiffs, this first impression soon confronts a complexity of other aromas, including the subtle bourbonesque tones of oak and vanilla, along with the less-than subtle alcohol note. Liquorice and coffee also linger in the background, but it takes a bit of effort to find them.

Taking a mouth full reveals a full and creamy body and a surprisingly lively amount of carbonation – a bit too much for a stout in my view. Dominated by chocolate and roasted malts, the taste closely resembles the aroma, although I failed to find those citrusy notes that were so obvious in the nose. Moreover, the bourbon taste is surprisingly and disappointingly weak, although the vanilla and oak flavors do manage to make an appearance about halfway through before succumbing to the intensely bittersweet chocolate and coffee finish. The surprisingly strong alcohol note, even for a 10.4 percenter, somewhat detracts from the overall flavor harmony.

In short, I expected a bit more from Black Force One, and the price and exclusivity of the beer certainly raised my expectations of it. Lesson learned: Don’t let price and exclusivity dictate your expectations. This is not to say that Black Force One failed in its attempt to produce a variety of remarkable flavors: In fact, Black Force One did exceedingly well in that regard. Instead, the predominance of the alcohol note – on the whole – disrupted what would have otherwise been a harmonious flavor complex, although this is perhaps more of a preference issue on my part. More objectively, the almost fizzy mouthfeel was a stark and less than welcomed contrast with the heavy, creamy body, and was certainly a bit too fizzy for a stout. That said, the bourbonesque tones – even with their timidity – made Black Force One Bourbon Barrel Edition a genuine treat. No regrets here, and my hats off to Xbeeriment for brewing it! I’m glad to have tried it and look forward to reviewing the next Xbeeriment – Barack.

Links

Xbeeriment Black Force One on Ratebeer

Xbeeriment's website

Victory: Prima Pils – Creativity meets discipline and maturity

2012-02-25T00:03:00.000-08:00

Located in Downingtown, Pennsylvania – about a 30 minute drive to the west of Philadelphia, Victory Brewing Company has about a dozen regular beers, another ten or so seasonal beers, and an often active and busy brewpub that I look forward to revisiting the next time I’m in the area. If you happen to be a classic movie fan, it’s worth noting that, aside from being home to Victory and their outstanding brews, Downingtown’s claim to fame is its host to the diner scene in the 1958 sci-fi horror movie entitled The Blob, which was largely filmed in the surrounding area. The diner today, named Chef Mcjon’s Downingtown Diner, still stands, and for reasons of nostalgia, it is worth the visit.

Victory was first opened back in 1996 by two life-long friends – Ron Barchet and Bill Covalski, both of whom are well-trained and thoroughly experienced brewers: Ron studied at the Technical University of Munich at Weihesnstepan and worked at the Baltimore Brewing Company and the Old Dominion Brewing Company in Virginia, and Bill studied at the Doemens Institute in Munich and also worked at the Baltimore Brewing Company. And their expertise and experience certainly shows in Victory’s Prima Pils – a decidedly fine, year-round, 5.3 percent ABV representation of the best traditions of the pilsner style, but with stronger bitter character that gives Prima Pils some distinctiveness.

Life outside the bottle begins with a transparent, light-golden or straw color, culminating in a medium-sized and relatively resilient white head. The average amount of lacing artfully and lastingly decorates the side of the glass. The nose of Prima Pils is a rich mixture of standard pilsner notes, including the assertive Saaz hop presence. Bready and earthy, the background aroma is accompanied by more focused citrusy and flowery notes – all definite marks of a good pilsner.

Taking a mouth full reveals a medium-light body and generous amounts of carbonation, making this a very refreshing summertime treat. Like the aroma, the flavor of Prima Pils is the undeniable mark of an excellent pilsner, although it’s a bit more bitter than most Continental varieties. With its grainy texture, the moderate malt presence provides a nice backbone for the more intense citrusy flavor from the hops. With a bitterness that begins about halfway between the start and finish, Prima Pils rounds out by delivering a mildly dry and bitter punch, and then slowly fades away over the course of another minute or two.

All in all, Prima Pils is a fine, yet distinct representation of the pilsner style. While I found the head to be a bit timid both in size and resiliency (emphasis on the bit), the aroma and flavor hit their marks precisely. The hop forward notes are delicately and harmoniously supported by the maltier side of life, and the timing of the hop bitterness is spot on. While some brewers concoct more experimental varieties under the pilsner name, but then fail to catch the essence of the style, with Prima Pils, Victory in my humble view shows the creativity it takes to craft a beer that slightly challenges the boundaries of the style; but they also show the discipline and maturity is takes to capture the more traditional representations of the pilsner style.

Links

Victory Prima Pils on Ratebeer

Victory Prima Pils on BeerAdvocate

Victory Prima Pils

Image credits

Beer a Day

Kinn: Vestkyst IPA – Remarkably accessible and harmonious

2012-02-15T10:54:00.000-08:00

As Norway’s westernmost town, Florø’s coastal setting and lively atmosphere makes it one of most attractive places to visit in western Norway. With a population that barely breaches 10,000, Florø is the home to fish processing, shipbuilding, petroleum, and, with the 2009 opening of Kinn, brewing can now be added to that list. Congratulations Florø, for Vestkyst IPA is testament to Kinn’s attention to quality and perfection, and their ability to make beers that rival many of the brews from the more ‘matured’ breweries around.

The word Kinn (literally cheek) is the name given to one of the outermost islands that buffers Florø from the open sea (see map to the right), although it was also the name of an earlier municipality that was eventually merged into the surrounding municipalities. I can only speculate that the place name “Kinn” might be attributed to the fact that area forms the westernmost point, or “cheek”, of Norway’s coastline, although this again is only speculation on my part.

Kinn brewery makes about six different beers – all of which are remarkably wonderful concoctions. Kinn takes a rather traditional approach to beer-making by using open fermentation tanks and an English handpump to tap the beer. Brew master Espen Lothe also bares his grounded philosophy to brewing when commenting that “my job is not to make beer, but to help the yeast cells to produce beer” (Dagbladet). Lothe’s approach and philosophy are undoubtedly causes for Kinn’s remarkable brewing success.

Vestkyst (literally west coast) IPA is simply amazing, and is a must try for IPA lovers. Popping the cork immediately releases the sweet smells of a well-hopped ale that’s ambitious to please its drinker. Pouring Vestkyst into a glass reveals a hazy amber-colored body and fluffy off-white head, although I expected it to tower a bit more than what it did. Giving the glass a generous swirl yields a tight and sticky, web-like lacing matrix. Aroma? Think pineapple and resin, but with distinct tones from the malt, most notably caramel.

Vestkyst’s mouthfeel is pleasant and pretty faithful to this particular style – smooth, well carbonated with a medium-light body. Taking a generous mouthful brings out a wonderful array of flavors, including the more prominent tastes of grapefruit, pine, and the deliciousness of mango. The malt support, especially the caramel flavor, is perhaps a bit too forward for an IPA, but it blends rather harmoniously with the surrounding flavors, giving is a level of accessibility that is surprisingly high for an IPA. But, not to be let down, Vestkyst delivers a powerfully dry and punchy bitter finish that speaks volumes to the quality of this IPA.

All-in-all, Vestkyst testifies to Kinn’s attention to quality and perfection, and their ability to make beers that rival some many of the brews from the more ‘matured’ breweries around – quite remarkable for such a young brewery. While the malt flavors are perhaps a bit too forward for an IPA, the complexity of flavors blends together with a remarkable level of harmony and accessibility. In fact, if I wanted to turn someone on to IPAs, Kinn’s Vestkyst might very well be the one I’d choose to use.

Links

Kinn Vestkyst on Ratebeer.com

Image credits

Kvitre.no

Nøgne Ø: Two Captains – Still Defying the Laws of Gravity

2012-02-12T06:17:00.000-08:00

If you’ve read some of my previous posts here, you might remember coming across a rather brief review of Two Captains, an outstanding double IPA brewed by Nøgne Ø. After recently drinking a bottle that’s been cellaring for some time, I realized that my previous post really failed to do justice to Nøgne Ø’s Two Captains. So, typed up a new and more detailed review about the product as a whole. Indeed, Nøgne Ø’s Two Captains definitely falls within my top-ten list of favorite double IPAs, and if you try it, I think you will understand why.

The typical first encounter with Nøgne Ø’s Two Captains will immediately confront the distinctiveness of the company’s bold orange “Ø” surrounded by a white label attached to a half-liter brown bottle. Stamped with the same “Ø”, the cap is as distinctive as the label. For those of you unfamiliar with Scandinavian languages, the “ø” or “slashed o” as it is sometimes called, is a letter reserved for the Norwegian and Danish alphabets. Ø is used to represent close-mid front rounded sounds (the closest English comes to this is the vowel sound in bird, although that ‘s still pretty far off).

Compared to the raw simplicity and austerity of Nøgne Ø’s other labels, the “Ø” on the Two Captain’s label is juxtaposed over a late 1940s to early 50s American piston engine fighter plane – the F-82 Twin Mustang. At first glance, it looks like two planes, but as shown in the picture to the right, the F-82 is actually two P-51 Mustangs joined together in a rather successful effort to build a long-range escort fighter at the end of World War II. One might think that “Two Captains” is a reference to the twin boom plane illustrated on the label. However, both the name and the label are references to Jan Halvor Fjeld, an SAS captain who originally concocted this brew, and Kjetil Jikiun, Nøgne Ø’s head brewer as well as a captain for SAS – hence not just one, but two Captains.

In my opinion, Nøgne Ø probably brews Norway’s most exiting line of products, although Ægir and Kinn are close rivals. Hailing from Gimstad, which is a coastal town on the southeastern tip of Norway, Nøgne Ø produces about 17 year-round products, including Two Captains. Adding to this another dozen or so seasonal and specialty beers, each with a ceaseless array of well-balanced subtle and aggressive qualities, yields a rather long list of top-notch brews. And Nøgne Ø Two Captains is emblematic of the brewery’s attention to both subtly and aggressiveness, with the balance in favor of the aggressive side of beer.

Life in the glass begins with the aggressive head that just keeps defying the laws of gravity, and a wonderful copper-colored appearance so characteristic of robust double IPAs. The three-finger head is fluffy, rocky, and well retained, giving way to a tight and sticky lacing matrix. Two Captain’s aroma is complex and – aside from the florally and hoppy scents – sort of hard to pin down at first. Faint earthy smells accompany the scents of orange and maybe peach. The aggressive scents of pine and grapefruit predict the rather bitter taste to come. In short, Nøgne Ø brewed some serious nose candy with this one.

With an 8.5 percent ABV, the taste of Two Captains continues to show this ale’s aggressiveness, revealing a mixture of flavors that closely match the aroma. Tropical fruits, especially lemon and grapefruit, are prominent and nicely supported by sweet malt and caramel. The faint alcohol taste is more prominent as the temperature warms a bit. This thing is hop heaven and, at 100 IBU’s, it’s amazingly bitter. That said, Two Captains has a bitterness that lacks the burning sensation that one gets from other similarly styled ales: The bitterness here is smoother and more elegant.

Overall, Two Captains is as aggressive as the two Rolls-Royce Merlin V-12 engines that powered the some of the earlier F-82s. While the malt presence is perhaps a bit too forward for a double IPA, the malt clearly adds to the beer’s smoothness and complexity, making it one of the most tasty double IPAs around.

Links
Nøgne Ø, Two Captains on Ratebeer.com
Nøgne Ø, Two Captains on Beeradvocate
Nøgne Ø, Two Captains official site

Image credits
Cardinal Pub
Wikipedia
Kjempetorskens Øl Blogg

Kilimanjaro Premium Lager – Predictably stable, refreshing, and boring

2012-02-11T09:20:00.000-08:00

Every country – or region of the world at least – has their own unique beer culture, some of which is driven by well-financed macro-breweries and standardized pale lagers and some of which is driven by more artful breweries and their crafty beverages. My recent trip to Tanzania unearthed the former: A country seemingly devoid of a craft-beer milieu, yet a country that still manages to boast a decent variety of fairly tasty lagers that are perfect for the warmth brought on by the equatorial sun.

This was not my first trip to Tanzania or the East African region for that matter. In some sense, I consider Dar es Salaam to be my third home, next to Norway and the United States. However, this was my first trip where I actually paid close attention to the beer availability with the intent of reviewing some of them on this blog.

Over the coming weeks, I will be writing out my tasting notes on what I consider to be some of the more notable beers available in Tanzania: Safari Lager, Kilimanjaro Lager, Serengeti Lager, Serengeti’s Pilsner, Ndovu Special Malt, Castle Lager, Castle Milk Stout, Tusker Lager, Tusker Malt Lager, and Windhoek Lager. My previous post covered Safari Lager, and this second post covers Kilimanjaro Premium Lager, which is produced by Tanzania Breweries – a wholly state-owned company during Tanzania’s single-party era, but has been partially acquired by SABMiller during partial privatization in 1993. As a joint venture between the government of Tanzania, SABMiller, and a variety of shareholders, the company today operates four breweries scattered throughout the country – Dar es Salaam, Mwanza, Arusha, and Moshi – and manufactures a wide variety of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages.

Next to Safari Lager, Kilimanjaro Premium Lager is one of the country’s most popular brews. In my view, it’s consistency in aroma and taste makes it a safer choice when compared to Safari Lager. At 4.5 percent ABV, Kilimanjaro is a rather light and refreshing late afternoon beer. However, when compared to Safari Lager, Kilimanjaro’s consistency makes it considerably more boring, especially in the context of Tanzania’s limited beer variety.

When properly chilled, Kilimanjaro yields a pretty nice two-finger head, but one that vanished rather quickly. The lacing is distinct insofar as it has virtually none. The body appears as a translucent golden color – exactly what one would expect from a premium lager.

Kilimanjaro’s aroma is relatively weak. Malt notes are evident, as are the grassy notes from the hops. A distinct adjunct note is also detectable in the nose. As for the taste, when served cold, Kilimanjaro Premium Lager is quite refreshing in the context of the sometimes unbearable equatorial heat. If you’ve had adjunct lagers before, which I’m sure you have, then there’s nothing surprising to report here. Sweet malts dominate the taste, except for the mildly bitter finish. There’s nothing offensive to report, but not too terribly exciting either.

All-in-all, Kilimanjaro Premium Lager is very refreshing when served at the appropriate temperature, although depending on where you are in Tanzania, this might not be possible. Don’t expect much from the taste, but the crisp and watery mouthfeel is well-suited for the Tanzanian heat.

Links

Kilimanjaro Premium Lager on Ratebeer

Safari Lager – Consistently inconsistent

2012-02-11T08:21:00.000-08:00

Over the coming weeks, I will be writing out my tasting notes on what I consider to be some of the more notable beers available in Tanzania: Safari Lager, Kilimanjaro Lager, Serengeti Lager, Serengeti’s Pilsner, Ndovu Special Malt, Castle Lager, Castle Milk Stout, Tusker Lager, Tusker Malt Lager, and Windhoek Lager. This post will cover Safari Lager, by Tanzania Breweries, which was wholly state-owned during Tanzania’s single-party era, but was partially acquired by SABMiller during partial privatization in 1993. As a joint venture between the government of Tanzania, SABMiller, and a variety of shareholders, the company today operates four breweries scattered throughout the country – Dar es Salaam, Mwanza, Arusha, and Moshi – and manufactures a wide variety of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages.

Safari Lager was launched in 1977, and today is one of the country’s most popular and, in my view at least, best beers. At 5.5 percent ABV, Safari Lager is highly gendered brew, being successfully branded by the company as the country’s “masculine” beer compared to some of the weaker, and presumably “feminine” brews commonly available. I’ve probably consumed about a scillion Safari Lagers over the years, and if there is one thing consistent among them, it’s the inconsistency between them: Some are obviously contaminated, but still somewhat tasty; some are more akin to an okay-quality pilsner; some have banana-like Belgian wit qualities. While the lack of consistency, and the sometimes deviant flavors that come from what is essentially a pale lager should earn Safari some rather low marks, the inconsistency does allow for some surprises and variations to the otherwise bland selection of beers available in the East African region.

The one consistency I’ve found is that Safari Lager is never flat when served at appropriate temperatures, although depending on where you are in Tanzania, this might be an insurmountable challenge. When properly chilled, the pour yields a very nice two- to three-finger, decently retained white head. When served at temperatures above 5 degrees (41 F) or so, the head vanishes in about 30 seconds. The lacing is not much to speak off: It’s quite shy and runny. The body appears as a light straw color – exactly what one would expect from a pale lager.

Safari’s aroma is highly variable from bottle to bottle, ranging from a generous hop note that reminds me of a decent pilsner, to fruitier notes – banana for example – that remind me of a Belgian wit. Definite paper notes are present in some of the less savory samples, and on occasion, I’ve been confronted with the tell-tale funkiness that comes with contamination.

As for the taste, I should preface by stating that, when served properly, I’ve never had a Safari Lager that I failed to enjoy – even the contaminated ones. The majority of the cases, Safari Lager tastes rather bland up front, but culminates in a surprisingly powerful bitter finish. That said, it’s quite refreshing in the sometimes unbearable equatorial heat. At other times, Safari Lager is incredibly sweet, where bananas make an appearance before the bitter finish. Once again, on a few occasions, I’ve found the initial blandness to be followed by a slight sour note imparted by a contaminant. In most cases, the bitterness is accompanies by a slight metallic note that somewhat detracts from the smoothness.

All-in-all, Safari Lager is full of surprises. But it’s always drinkable and largely refreshing, no matter which variant you might happen to stumble upon. Perhaps this is the reason for the Safari name: As a product, Safari has “traversed” or “travelled across” a plethora of different flavors, each of which is reminiscent of a variety of different beer styles.

Links

Safari Lager on Ratebeer

Haandbryggeriet: Haandbic - Flavorful, aromatic and daring

2012-01-18T12:18:00.000-08:00

Haandbic is Haandbryggeriet’s daring shot at making a lambic-styled beer, in this case an unblended (I suppose) fruit lambic. Haandbic, however, is not quite a lambic per se insofar as it is not produced through spontaneous fermentation. As Beer Chef Blog points out, Haandbic is instead a “wild” ale, “which means the brewers have intentionally introduced [italics my own] rogue bacteria into the beer…” – most likely from yeasts like Saccharomyces, Brettanomyces, Pediococcus, and/or Lactobacillus.

Haandbic’s unique flavors clearly come from being aged in oak barrels for nearly 18 months and being brewed with red currents and lingonberry (otherwise known as cowberry). These berries impart a rather tart taste, which blends well with the sourness that comes from wild yeasts. Overall, Haandbryggeriet’s Haandbic is a relatively flavorful and aromatic wild ale, although cellaring it for a few more years would probably give it a better balance and greater complexity.

Hailing from Drammen, Norway – about a half-hour drive to the south of Oslo, Haandbryggeriet is run by four guys that, according to their website, are “enthusiastic about beer”. Indeed, they have to be: Their brewery is essentially run in their spare time and on a volunteer basis. This enthusiasm shows in the rather long list of 24 different brews they make. While some of their products have not been big hits with me personally, Haandbryggeriet demonstrates a tremendous interest in experimentation, as exemplified by Haandbic’s daring side.

Haandbic starts off with a rather timid head in that it had virtually none – a characteristic that is not necessarily a bad thing for unblended lambics or wild ales. Hence, it should be no surprise when finding the side of the glass almost completely devoid of lacing. With a translucent reddish-orange color in the context of a dimly lit room, Haandbic’s body to me did not look fundamentally different than red wine.

The aroma is potent and relatively complex, characterized by the predominance of oak accompanied by the smells of berries, vinegar, and a touch of vanilla perhaps. When compared to all the other qualities had by Haandbic, the aroma is definitely the most enjoyable, although the berry note was not as prominent as what I would have expected from a fruit lambic. While we differ a bit on the various smells, Beer Chef Blog’s description is very thorough: “The aroma reminds me of a hospital…autoclaved this and that mixed with some antiseptic and rubbery notes all swirled into [the] smells of peaches, wet wood, damp forest and black peppercorn spiciness”. Well said!

The aroma accurately predicts the taste. It starts off with a strong, but brief semi-sweet berry flavor that quickly descends into the more familiar wild ale flavors. However, the strong oak and smoky flavors seem to moderate the sourness a bit. Vinegar notes are present, along with the tell-tale funk from the Brettanomyces yeast. Again, flavors from the berries – which should have been a feature flavor – were a bit weak on my palate at least. The finish is relatively tart and dry, and the mouthfeel is medium with little to no carbonation – again, it feels a bit like wine really.

All in all, I expected more berries on the nose and the palate. That said, the oak note is obvious and interesting when juxtaposed on the tart and moderately funky background. The appearance is nothing exciting, although consistent with what might be expected from some unblended lambics or wild ales. I certainly recommend trying Haandbryggeriet’s Haandbic if for no other reason than to experience its originality and daring side.

Links

Haandbryggeriet Haandbic on Beer Chef Blog

Haandbic at Haandbryggeriet

Haandbryggeriet Haandbic on BeerAdvocate

Haandbryggeriet Haandbic on Ratebeer.com

Image credits

Bernt Rostad

Mikkeller: USAlive – An even more sensational synthesis

2012-01-15T08:32:00.000-08:00

After raving to my friends and writing a blog post about the “sensational synthesis” of Chouffe’s Dobbelen IPA Tripel, quite a few folks recommended Mikkeller’s USAlive as an even better synthesis of the finest traditions of Belgian strong ales and the intensity of American-styled IPA. To those of you who recommended USAlive, your recommendations were spot on: Mikkeller’s USAlive is without a doubt an even better synthesis and one of the best beers I’ve had over the past few months.

While Mikkeller officially hails from Copenhagen, Mikkel Borg Bjergsø, Mikkeller’s brewmaster, manager, et al., brews beer in a variety of locations throughout Europe and the United States. Mikkeller’s USAlive is brewed at De Proefbrouwerij, which lies in a small rural village just a few kilometers northeast of Ghent. What makes USAlive most interesting is Mikkeller’s choice of using Brettanomyces yeast, which imparts a bit of a funky or rough taste. For those of you familiar with different beer brands and styles, but less familiar with yeast strains, Brettanomyces, or “Brett” as it is sometimes called, is commonly found in lambics, and features in other tasty treats like Orval, Liefmans Brown Ale, and Rodenbach Grand Cru.

When tapping USAlive into a glass, the hazy copper color, medium-sized and resilient creamy off-white head, and incredibly dense and sticky lacing are signs of the remarkable level of quality that’s about to come. The aroma has a rather light footprint, but is well-balanced and relatively complex. It’s pretty much what one would expect from a Trappist and an IPA: The piney and slightly florally hop notes from the IPA style and the fruity-sweet notes from the Trappist style battle it out for the drinker’s attention. However, the faint horse blanket note from Brettanomyces delivers a decisive victory for the Trappist style.

USAlive’s aroma more or less predicts the range of tastes to come. It starts out on the sweet side, where the fruity tastes of the Trappist genre play out. Brett makes its appearance about halfway through by bringing in a hint of barnyard funkiness accompanied by a strong grapefruit taste undoubtedly from the hops. The finish is distinctly IPA: intensely bitter and dry, although in this case the bitterness is not nearly as biting as I expected. The mouthfeel is medium and comes with an average amount of carbonation.

Overall, this is a complex and well-balanced synthesis. The various flavors battle it out, but in a way that brings a lot of harmony to the aroma and flavor structure. Both styles – Trappist and IPA – are well represented, with the overall balance favoring the Belgian tradition. Mikkeller’s USAlive certainly reflects Mikkel’s ceaseless capacity to make some of the most interesting, innovative, and complex brews around.

Links

Mikkeller USAlive on Ratebeer

Mikkeller USAlive on BeerAdvocate

Image credits

http://www.jarngler.is/

Ringnes: Julebokk 9% - There, I've said it!

2012-01-14T10:41:00.000-08:00

Finally! By the middle of January, 2012, I am finally getting around to writing a review on what I consider to be a very tasty 9 percent julebokk (Christmas Bock) brewed by Ringnes – the largest brewery operating in Norway. So there, I’ve said it! I am quite fond of a beer that is produced by a macro-brewery – one owned by Carlsberg no less. I know that might be taboo for some, but reviewing beer is just that: trying to, as objectively as possible, write a few words on how the beer lives up to its style aspirations and, as subjectively as possible, write a few words about how the beer suited one’s particular tastes. I’ll leave the politics of macro- versus micro-breweries and craft versus industrial brewing to other blog posts.

Let me start with a bit of background. Ringnes brewery is located in Oslo, Norway’s capital and largest city. Bought out by the Carlsberg Group starting in 1997, Ringnes manufactures and bottles products like beer, soda, and bottled water, including well-known names like Solo, Farris, Pepsi, and 7Up, along with a variety of different beer consisting of a wide range of quality levels. Ringnes also partially or fully owns a number of other breweries, including Arendals in Arendal and Dahls in Trondheim, and produces beer under the Frydenlund label.

Now let me say a few words about Ringnes Julebokk 9 percent. For starters, Julebokk’s appearance is very impressive: The light-brown head is robust and resilient, the lacing is reasonably dense and sticky, and the body is a super-dark brown surrounded by medium-brown edges. As for the nose, a slightly burned coffee aroma is definitely prominent, but it leaves space for caramel, raisins, and a hint of booze. On a slightly negative note, the burned aromatics are unsuitable for what is essentially a doppelbock.

The mouthfeel is pleasant and pretty faithful to this particular style – smooth, medium, and only moderately carbonated. Taking a generous mouthful reveals a wonderful array of flavors, including, raisins, caramel, and malt. Once again, burned coffee is prominent, making it very tasty, but a bit off the mark for a doppelbock. The finish is slightly bitter and delivers a reasonably strong alcohol punch, especially at higher temperatures.

All-in-all, I find Ringnes Julebokk to be a wonderful tasting beer with some very noble qualities. I look forward to buying up a few of these brews next year. That said, it’s burned aromatics and flavor is a bit off the mark for this particular style, although it is a Christmas beer, so considerable latitude should be given. On a similar note, there’s nothing truly Christmassy about this julebokk. While the label lays claim to some spices, none were detectable in the aroma or the taste. But Ringnes Julebokk is still great treat during the holiday season.

Links

Ringnes Julebokk 9% on Ratebeer.com

Ringnes Julebokk 9% StoreMys Lille Øl-Blogg (Norwegian only)

Image Credits

BA

Mikkeller: Festival Special Edition 2011 (Stella 2) – A festival of funk

2012-01-13T06:31:00.000-08:00

While Mikkeller officially hails from Copenhagen, Mikkel Borg Bjergsø, Mikkeller’s brewmaster, manager, et al., brews beer in a variety of locations throughout Europe and the United States. Mikkeller’s 2011 Festival Special Edition, AKA Stella 2, is brewed at De Proefbrouwerij, which lies in a small rural village just a few kilometers northeast of Ghent. The 2011 version of Festival is a sour, or wild ale, where Mikkeller deliberately introduces a Brettanomyces yeast to impart a rather funky, sour taste, which in most ales would be seen as an undesirable quality produced by an undesirable and pesky (and potentially costly) contaminant. For those of you familiar with different beer brands and styles, but less familiar with yeast strains, Brettanomyces, or “Brett” as it is sometimes called, is commonly found in Lambics, and features in other tasty treats like Orval, Liefmans Brown Ale, and Rodenbach Grand Cru. Aside from the rather unique qualities imparted by Brett, Mikkeller brews their 2011 Festival Special Edition by using cranberries and conditioning it in white-wine casks, all of which make the ale a very well-balanced and complex treat.

My particular encounter with the 2011 Festival Special Edition was shared among a group well-versed beer connoisseurs who convened at Henrik in Bergen, Norway. Indeed, going solo with Festival is probably not a rational option for most folks: At 600 Norwegian crowns (about 100 USD) per bottle, Festival 2011 is a lot of money for a peasant like myself to spend on a bottle of beer regardless of the beer’s quality and scarcity. And at 1.75 liters a bottle, Festival just the right volume for sharing among a group of six or so friends. Okay, enough with the context; what about the sample?

Let me start with a brief caveat: While I did not find Festival to be particularly appealing, largely because of my slight aversion to many white wines, the 2011 Festival Special Edition is a wild ale with outstanding qualities. The body appears as a hazy copper color with a medium-sized and resilient creamy white head. The lacing is a bit thin and runny, which seems to be the case with most wild ales I’ve tried. The aroma is very potent, but well-balanced and relatively complex: It’s largely a barnyard funk that’s reminiscent of, although strikingly different from, notes commonly found in lambics. The funk is accompanied by a distinct white-wine nose, and a subtle berry note lingers in the background – undoubtedly from the cranberries.

Festival’s aroma accurately predicts the “festival” of tastes to come. It starts out with a sweet berry complex, but quickly moves on to other business. Brett makes its appearance about halfway through the show by bringing in the signature sourness and barnyard funkiness that one would expect to find in any worthy wild ale. The climax, in my view, comes with the dry and potent white-wine taste that characterizes the finish. Again, the white wine was a bit too much for me, but that by no means undermines Festival’s superior qualities. The mouthfeel is medium and comes with a low to average amount of carbonation.

Overall, this is a complex and well-balanced wild ale. The various flavors cooperate with a reasonable amount of harmony, although a slightly weaker white wine reference would perhaps make it more palatable for some. Mikkeller’s 2011 Festival Special Edition certainly reflects Mikkel’s ceaseless capacity to make some of the most interesting, innovative, and complex brews around.

Image credits

Ratebeer.com

Bernt Rostad

Links

Mikkeller's Festival Special Edition 2011 on Ratebeer.com

Mikkeller's Festival Special Edition 2011 on Beer Advocate

Mikkeller

Nørrebro: New York Lager – Would really love to like it. Maybe next time

2012-01-09T12:34:00.000-08:00

Nørrebro is one of the 10 districts that constitute the city of Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital and largest urban center. Nørrebro is also the name of a brewery and restaurant located within that district in what seems to be an almost one-block long and somewhat statist looking red brick building on Ryesgade (Ryes street). Since the brewery first opened in 2003, they have turned out some 28 different beer varieties covering an impressive assortment of different tastes (see Nørrebro's website).

Nørrebro’s New York Lager is a beer that I would really love to like, but find it hard to actually do so. For starters, the timidity of its slightly off-white head was rather disappointing, although it was still well-retained. The translucent copper color is gives Nørrebro’s New York Lager an inviting and refreshing look. The lacing, however, was a bit weak, although sufficient enough to paint the inside of the glass with some sticky suds.

This particular sample is the second time I’ve tried Nørrebro’s New York Lager, and as I remember it, the first sample (taken approximately a year ago) was substantially more aromatic, tasty, and well-balanced. In this second round, the aroma is somewhat weak, but spending a bit of time sniffing it does pay off. Grassy and malty tones are definitely there, along some citrus references most likely from the Cascade hops.

The overall taste is much like the nose, with hints of malt, vegetables, and citrus fruits, although the malt note should have been a bit more focused for what is essentially a Vienna lager. The mouth feel is watery, and the carbonation is mild. What I found most interesting was that Nørrebro was thoughtful enough to use a Cascade hop, but disciplined enough to use it in moderation. The Cascade’s aromas and flavors were there, but way in the background. Vienna lagers should not have the hoppy bite that sometimes comes with an overly ambitious use of Cascade hops.

However, the finish is way off the mark. What I expected was a sweet malty character that dried out into a soft bitter finish. What I got instead was a weaker than expected malt character that transitioned into a strange, somewhat tangy acidic finish. Given the timidity of its appearance, the rather weak malt character, and the less than appealing finish, I found this particular sample of Nørrebro’s New York Lager to be a bit of a disappointment. That said, I will not suggest avoiding it. I’ve had Nørrebro’s products before and found them to be respectable, including their New York Lager. In fact, I look forward to reviewing it again and hope it performs better than this particular sample.

Links

Nørrebro New York Lager on Ratebeer.com

Image credits

http://kjempetorsken.com/

The Lost Abbey (Port Brewing): 10 Commandments – God versus Satan, or Conventionalism versus Reformation?

2012-01-08T11:14:00.000-08:00

Founded in 2006, The Lost Abbey or Port Brewing is located San Marcos, California – a medium-sized city located about 20 miles (32 km) north of San Diego. The brewery offers about six regular beers, another six seasonal variants, and four of what they refer to as “non-denominational ales” since they do not comport with any known beer style. Hence, not only does The Lost Abbey clearly value a good sense of humor, but their product line appears to reflect a blend of conventionalism and innovation, or perhaps “reformation” of conventional beer styles (see my reviews of Avant Garde and Judgment Day for examples of this point).

The 10 Commandments certainly reflects a duality of conventionalism on one hand and reformation on the other, along with some of the tribulations that come with being innovative. The Lost Abbey brews 10 Commandments by using raisins and sets its sights on producing a Belgian Strong Ale – something akin to Chimay’s Grand Réserve, and The Lost Abbey certainly hits the mark pretty closely with this aspiration. Popping the cork immediately releases the sweet smell of dark fruit. When pouring 10 Commandments into a glass, the dark and slightly reddish-brown body and fluffy beige head are signs of what’s to come: an enticingly sweet beverage with lots to offer its “disciple”. Swirling the glass a bit reveals a decent amount of lacing, but lacing that is slightly less sticky than a Chimay blue. Aroma? Think raisins, plums, spices, booze (lots of it in fact), and maybe a hint of coffee.

The mouthfeel is pleasant and pretty faithful to this particular style – medium and fairly well-carbonated. Taking a generous mouthful reveals a wonderful array of flavors, ranging from raisins, plums, and spices. Once again, I’m finding a slight coffee reference here, but I’m not sure if my palate is really being truthful with this reference. Part of the deceit is perhaps due to the relatively strong alcohol note, which is a bit distracting and somewhat diminishes the overall harmony of the flavors. This is especially true as 10 Commandments warms up, in which case I placed the bottle back in the refrigerator just to tame the devilish alcohol taste a bit. The finish is slightly bitter and really delivers a punch of alcohol, almost like taking a shot of something strong (I rarely do this, so don’t ask me what that something is).

All-in-all, the Chimay Grand Réserve is a decidedly better beer largely because its strong alcohol note blends harmonious with the overall flavor milieu. With the 10 Commandments, it’s kind of like Satan himself is using alcohol to mess with what is otherwise God’s beautiful and harmonious plan for what Belgian strong ales are all about. Indeed, with a 9 percent ABV, I am surprised to find that 10 Commandments is considerably more boozy than The Lost Abbey's 10.4 percent ABV Judgment Day.

That said, The Lost Abbey’s 10 Commandments is still an excellent beer, and considering how young The Lost Abbey is, this ale is absolutely impressive and certainly worth exploring. It’s flavorful, complex, potent, and while the alcohol finish is indeed punchy, it’s also warming and rather enjoyable at lower temperatures. In an alternative to the God versus Satan analogy, the 10 Commandments is perhaps a slight reformation of what Belgian strong ales are all about – a shift from conventional sweetness and complexity into a more aggressive, but still enjoyable alcohol punch at the expense of some harmony.

Links

The Lost Abbey’s 10 Commandments on Ratebeer.com

The Lost Abbey

Image Credits

http://www.prweb.com/

Anchor: Humming Ale - Nothing else like it, really

2012-01-08T09:07:00.000-08:00

Established in San Francisco, Anchor has a long history of beer making, where its name was received as early as 1886 during the heart of California’s legendary Gold Rush. After years of financial hardships and shutdowns during the 1950s and 60s in the face of the large market for light lagers, today Anchor leads the way as one of America’s – and perhaps the world’s – benchmarks for first-class craft brew production (see for example my previous post on Anchor's 2011 Christmas Ale).

In the distant past, the term “humming” was used to describe strong, active ale, and was sometimes attributed to ales using freshly harvested hops. Since humming is a term that describes sounds made by bees or “humming” birds, the use of the word is most likely a reference to the hissing or fizzling sound that the froth may sometimes give off.

Humming ale is effectively based in Anchor’s Liberty Ale, but with some notable differences in the hops. According to Anchor, the Humming Ale’s distinctive flavor comes from New Zealand’s Nelson Sauvin hop, which is known for imparting an intense fruit flavor. And a fruity and distinctive ale this is. But it’s distinctiveness seems to come from the yeast rather than the hops, although it could be from the combination of the two.

Life in the glass begins with a pale golden color, producing a solid standing and an amazingly well-retained “humming” white head and a dense and sticky lacing matrix. The nose of Anchor’s Humming Ale is certainly fruity, but juxtaposed on a background aroma that took some time to place. I eventually concluded with the nose of well-aged cheese – something like Port Salut. Indeed, no other beer I’ve had produces a nose quite like this one – kind of rough, slightly pungent, but just so wonderfully curious at the same time. Other aromas include grapefruit, lemon, spruce, as well as some florally notes as the Humming Ale warms a bit.

Like the nose, the taste again reveals both potency and complexity. On the palate, that aged-cheese background feels a bit more like a bready background perhaps, peppered with citrus fruits, herbs, and spruce. Humming has plenty of carbonation and a medium body. The surprise comes with the finish, which delivers a respectable dry and bitter “in your face” punch.

Overall, Anchor’s Humming Ale is well-balanced, complex, potent, and seriously dynamic from start to finish. As a bonus, I must say that I have yet to have a beer that smells and tastes quite like this one. To simply recommend the Hummer Ale sells it short; this one is a must try!

Links

Anchor’s Humming Ale on Ratebeer

Anchor Brewing, Humming Ale

Image credits

http://www.selectism.com/

Brasserie d’Achouffe: Houblon Dobbelen IPA Tripel – A sensational synthesis

2012-01-08T03:32:00.000-08:00

Founded in 1982, Brasserie Achouffe is located in a small Walloon village also called Achouffe, which lies some 10 kilometers from the Luxembourg border. The brewery offers about eight regular beers, and if you’re a fan of Belgian tripels, then the Houblon Dobbelen IPA Tripel will taste somewhat familiar to you, but with a well-hopped and dry finish. The particular sample I had was in draft form at Baran Café in Bergen, Norway.

When tapping Achouffe’s Houblon into a glass, the semi-translucent gold body and huge rocky white head are signs of what’s to come: an enticingly sweet and slightly thick beverage with lots to offer its client. Tilting the glass slightly reveals the impressively dense and long-lasting lacing. Aroma? Think sweet ripe bananas that smells a bit more like bubble gum as the temperature warms a bit. Milder aromas are also present: Think sweet malts and citrus notes accompanied by an unidentifiable (at least by me) spice. BeerAvocate’s TheBeerAlmanac mentions “clove” and, when juxtaposed with the other aromas, perhaps that accounts for the very subtle spice

Houblon’s mouth feel and taste(s) are just as sensational as the aroma and appearance. The texture is somewhat thick, with very active carbonation. Taking a generous mouthful reveals a sensational flavor matrix, starting with ripe bananas that transitions into what seems to be more of a candyish flavor as the temperature of the beer rises, which also comes with a more distinct boozy finish. Again, citrus and spicy notes are also present in Houblon’s taste. Malty tastes are clearly present, along with flavors from yeast and hops. The finish delivers a dry and powerful bitter punch that reminded me that this is far from a normal Belgian tripel.

All-in-all, Achouffe’s Houblon Dobbelen IPA Tripel is a very well balanced brew, but probably too much malt and not enough hops in the aroma for DIPA. That said, this ale is sensational synthesis and brings some additional aroma and taste combinations into the Belgian Tripel and/or DIPA genres – indeed, I have no idea how to classify this one, but it’s definitely balanced more toward the former. Moreover, while Achouffe is a relatively new addition to the Belgium brewing scene, Houblon demonstrates the brewery’s ability to make a fine tripel on par with some of the country’s oldest establishments. Indeed, Houblon embodies big time flavors from a small town brewery, just as so many of the world’s craft brews do. I will certainly be looking to sample more of their other products (see my previous rating for Achouffe’s N’Ice Chouffe).

Links

Achouffe Houblon on Ratebeer.com

Achouffe Houblon on BeerAdvocate

Brasserie Achouffe

Image credits

COED Magazine

My own very crappy picture taken at Baran. Can you see the Hansa glass?

Christmas gifts worth drinking

2012-01-06T10:48:00.000-08:00

Finally, after several weeks in the mail, including an unusually long stint in customs in Oslo, the Christmas package from my parents has arrived. And full of holiday cheer it was! Mom’s homemade Christmas cookies (which truly are the world’s best), some of America’s best junk food – e.g. Twizzlers and an assortment of other goodnes), some warm cloths (aka survival gear for the Norwegian winter), and last but not least, beer and beer paraphernalia (which is survival gear of other sorts, I suppose).

First up is the rather intimidating 2 liter growler from Bullfrog Brewery in Williamsport PA that my Dad picked up a few weeks ago while on a holiday. This thing is, by itself, a wonderful addition to my collection of beer-related glassware. But, it might be nice to have some beer in it! If any of my Norwegian readers knows of any relatively nearby breweries – e.g. Kinn, Ægir, Nøgne, Lervig, Haandbryggeriet – that can fill growlers, please drop me a comment.

Second up were four Founders brews that are all just amazing (see my earlier posts on the Founders Porter and the Centennial IPA). The two others are Founders Dirty Bastard Scotch ale and Red Rye pale ale. The rest of the variety pack awaits me in back in the States – that’s another 20 that I so much look forward to. Thanks Dad! And that packing job was serious stuff! Thanks Mom!

So, first up for tonight will be that Founders Porter. Bottoms up!