I have been in love with fermentation since I brewed my first batch of hard cider in a dorm room closet.  For years I have half-joked about having a 10-year plan to open a winery, but it’s been a long time and that plan was still always ten years out.

That all changed when a cousin mentioned that he was going to open the first production brewery in Tacoma since 1979, and that he and his partners were looking for a relatively small amount of capital to get themselves up and running.  It didn’t really take much convincing of me (or my wife) to jump at the opportunity.

In the beginning

My cousin Ken started brewing beer with his college roommates.  After graduation, it wasn’t long before one of those beer-loving friends pointed out that the beer was very good, their beloved city of Tacoma was suffering from a noticeable lack of good local beer, and that they could all lead more fulfilling lives if they could find a way to turn their beer-making hobby into something that could pay the rent.  After what I suspect was relatively little discussion, a nameless brewery began to take shape.

The power of a name

For those who don’t know, Tacoma is the blue collar sibling to Seattle’s white collar technology hub.  Historically, the commercial heart of the city revolved around shipping, pulp mills, and two rather large military installations.  Honestly, not much about that has changed to today.  Ken and his friends wanted to pay homage to Tacoma’s history, and the brewery started to take shape.

It wasn’t long before family histories stepped in to wash away any remaining doubts about the brewery’s future.  Ken’s grandfather was a painter, and though unable to find much time for his art while he was in the service during WWII, he was able to express himself through nose art, those iconic paintings on the sides of military aircraft.  With images of his grandfather’s art in his head combining with a shared desire among the other founders to honor the service of so many of their family members, Wingman Brewers was born.

Don’t worry, the “wingman” pun wasn’t lost on them, either.

It only took one taste

I was never much of a beer fan.  I didn’t dislike it, but I rarely went out of my way to drink it, either.  That changed with my third sip of sour Belgian beer (it really does take 3), and suddenly a new horizon of beer flavors was opened up to me and I now proudly admitted to being a “beer lover”.  But I still didn’t like hops.  Or bitter.  Or so I thought.

When I first tasted what is now called Pocket Aces 2x IPA, I was being polite to my “kid cousin” who assured me that his beer would make me develop an appreciation for those little green flowers that can make beer as complex as the finest wine.  He wasn’t kidding, and I was hooked.

That’s why, when Ken approached me about needing some help raising money to buy equipment for his fledgling brewery, I decided to throw my lot in with him and the three other Wingman founders.  I didn’t really need to know that their business plan was sound, with a long term marketing strategy and half a dozen potential customers finding them via word of mouth before they had even started filing incorporation paperwork.  My wife did, but I already knew the secret:  Ken’s beer really is that good.

The early days

Starting the brewery has actually gone quite smoothly after some early troubles finding a landlord.  We even landed a location attached to the same well that provided water to the Heidelberg Brewery, Tacoma’s last production brewery, which has been closed since 1979.  Water is extremely important to beer, and I like to think that this connection to the past is a good omen.

Ken and the other founders were able to secure the services of ROTATOR Creative and Lance Kagey, a well-known local artist and designer, to design and build the brewery’s brand.  I must admit that it was difficult to stand on the sidelines and let the founders figure these things on their own, but I was blown away by the final product.

After a couple of emails with Lance and Jay from ROTATOR, I was able to put their ideas to HTML and the Wingman Brewers website was born.  It’s actually just a temporary placeholder, but I’m still pretty proud of the work from all of us involved.

The only thing left to do was wait.

The long wait

And wait.  It turns out that the longest process in starting a brewery is waiting for the US Government.  Our early (and apparently quite misguided) goal was to celebrate the brewery’s grand opening before Christmas in 2010, but maybe we can make it by St. Patrick’s Day of 2011.  We’re almost there — just a few more signatures.

The worst part?  The most interesting thing we’re allowed to do with our shiny new brewery is boil water.  I want to be able to taste that beer again.

What next?

Here are a few links for those of you who want to keep up to date on brewery news:

• Wingman Brewers
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• Boulevard Brewing
• Beer Advocate
• RateBeer
• UPC:  726959902911

Our doppelbock bids a fond aufwiedersehen to tradition, charting a flight path into bold new territory. Medium amber in color, it offers a heady, estery banana aroma. Rich maltiness predominates, with cedar aging lending just a hint of spice to the finish.

Aroma: 8/12

Caramel and something that stings my nose like excess carbonation. There is no mistaking the smell of cedar, although it’s sharper than I would expect. The smell reminds me of cedar oil more than cedar wood. I don’t get any of the banana aromas the brewer suggests. Inhaling deeply leaves me with a fairly strong whiff of alcohol alongside of the other aromas.

Appearance: 3/3

Beautiful deep amber-red color. Light tan head dissipates via large bubbles until a thin but dense film covers most of the top of the beer. A quick swirl brings back a nice, thick head.

Flavor: 18/20

Surprising complexity for a German style beer. A nice sweet caramel profile up front quickly transforms into vanilla-cedar with just a suggestion of smoke. Subtle notes of oxidized/dried fruit hide under the surface throughout. It finishes with a bitter note that tastes like it comes as much from cedar as it does from hops. There’s just something not quite pleasant about the way that the bitter flavor sticks around. The suggestion of cedar does reappear after the bitter fades away, which is a nice way to end things and almost makes up for that lingering bitter.

Mouthfeel: 4/5

Smooth with just enough viscosity to coat my tongue and then wash away almost completely clean. Unfortunately, just enough lingers on the back of my tongue to carry the bitter finish a bit further than it should.

Overall: 9/10

This is a good beer but something about the cedar flavor profile pulls it out of balance enough to prevent it from being a great beer. Despite this, it is still an extremely drinkable beer and the cedar flavor adds a fair amount of complexity that makes it stand out quite a bit from other beers of the style.

Would I buy it again? 42/50

Probably not, unless I get curious to compare a future vintage to this tasting. I just can’t get over the sharp bitterness that hits the end. Maybe I’ve just grown too used to hops.

I bought this beer specifically because of the cedar — a flavor I’ve recently become fairly curious about in the context of my own brewing. It delivers the cedar fairly well, and I am curious about how they go about aging this beer, and how changes to that technique would alter the shape and strength of the cedar flavor.

• Dogfish Head
• Beer Advocate
• RateBeer
• UPC:  638489000671

Burton Baton is a blend of an English-style Old Ale and an Imperial IPA.  After fementating the separate beers in our stainless tanks, the two are transferred and blended together in one of our large oak tanks. Burton Baton sits on the wood for about a month.

Aroma: 10/12

Hops fading into caramel. After a swirl, caramel and oak with just a touch of grain. Only a hint of alcohol underneath belies the hefty 10% ABV. Unfortunately, the hops flavor dissipates fairly quickly, which is a sign of the length of time required to get the beer up to this much alcohol, but leaves me wanting more from something identifying itself as an IPA. I suspect that adjusting time and duration of dry hopping could help extend the hop aroma a bit further, but perhaps Sam wanted to emphasize the caramel and oak more than the hops.

Appearance: 3/3

Gorgeous clear deep amber. Off-white head is of average consistency, and dissipates quickly to a thin film with just a hint of lacing. Average to light carbonation indicative of heavier IPAs. Perfect.

Flavor: 18/20

Strong taste of crystal malts typical of Dogfish Head IPAs, but pleasantly dry in comparison to other of their high gravity beers (e.g. 90 Minute IPA). Nice bitter of a strong IPA is up front but doesn’t linger for more than a minute or two, keeping the aftertaste of the beer from getting unpleasant. The oak flavor is extremely subtle, and I doubt I would be able to pick it out as such if it wasn’t called out on the label. Though it blends nicely with the caramel flavors of the malt to add just a hint vanilla to smooth out the edges of the overall flavor of the beer, I would have liked to taste just a bit more from the oak.

Having been aged, it’s difficult to identify any specific variety of hops (which I usually try to do more by aroma than flavor). The fruitiness and a hint of grapefruit around the edges make me want to say Cascade and Centennial, but that could just be because they’re two of my favorites lately and I seem to taste them in everything with Northwest hops. I suspect (and other descriptions concur) that there are several other varieties involved.

Mouthfeel: 5/5

Body is on the heavier side of medium, with carbonation on the lighter side of average. Both are perfect for the style, especially considering the amount of sugar it takes to make a 10% ABV beer.

Overall: 9/10

This is a great beer.  It is almost perfectly balanced, and has a wonderful hop profile.  The real win about this beer is that it manages to be dry at the same time that it carries a heavy caramel note.  My only nitpick is that the oak could be a bit more pronounced (e.g. newer wood, longer aging, maybe just a touch of American instead of French oak).  I would like to have tasted one of the early batches of this brew.

Would I buy it again? 45/50

At $4/bottle, this beer is definitely not an everyday purchase.  I like it quite a bit more than 90 Minute IPA, which I find to be a bit to heavy on the caramel, and it might be worth the splurge when I’m in the mood for a heavier IPA with a bit more character than average.

• Abbaye Rochefort
• Beer Advocate
• RateBeer
• UPC:  085725165036

Abbaye Rochefort produces three beers: 6, 8, and 10. The 10 is the strongest, and is often described as a Quadrupel (though it differs so much from what I associate with the style that I appreciate the flexibility in Belgian styles). Regardless of labels, it is a very strong dark beer, and is produced by one of the few remaining Trappist breweries.

Aroma: 11/12

Very faint until I was able to drink enough to get my nose further into the glass. The aroma is still fairly light, and smells of dark caramel and a yeasty fruitiness that I can’t quite put a name to beyond its source. Despite the high alcohol content, there is almost no hint of it the aroma.

Appearance: 3/3

Very dark brown to the point of being opaque. The head is a medium tan that dissipates quickly to a very thin lace around the edges. Can see small flecks of yeast sediment once I drink enough to see through (I didn’t take much care when pouring).

Flavor: 19/20

Dry with an overwhelming combination of dark candi sugar and coffee flavor. A hint of dried fruit floats underneath the main flavors, providing a suggestion of sweetness to balance out the overall dryness. The finish has a small kick of alcohol that feels slightly out of balance.

Mouthfeel: 5/5

Full body that coats your tongue as you drink, but washes away clean when you swallow. Can’t get any better than this.

Overall: 10/10

What can I say?  This is a near-perfect beer.  While so many other high gravity Belgian ales end up on the sweet side, or present you with an overly complex flavor profile, this one leaves you dry and simple, but executed so well that you will always want more.

Would I buy it again? 48/50

This is a pretty expensive beer (around $7.50 for the 11.2oz bottle), so it won’t be something I keep on hand, but this is an incredible beer and I will definitely be buying it again. If you can find it for $10/glass at a pub, no beer lover will fault you the expense.

• Het Anker Brewery
• Beer Advocate
• RateBeer
• UPC:  608782501854

Brewed in August, the beer rests a few months to reach an optimal balance. Three kinds of hops and six different kinds of herbs and spices define the rich taste of this Christmas beer.

Aroma:  8/12

A spice blend that comes together as mix of allspice and anise.  Just a hint of banana at the end from the yeast.  Overall aroma is relatively low for a Belgian beer until it has had a chance to sit for awhile, but even then it takes a bit of a swirl to get much out of it.  The best thing about this aroma is that it completely hides any hint of the 10.5% ABV.

Appearance:  3/3

Light tan head that dissipates quickly into a thin lingering lace around the edges.  The beer itself is a gorgeous dark red-brown perfect for the style.

Flavor: 14/20

The spice blend comes to the forefront of the flavor as well, blending very well with the fruitiness of the yeast and a strong characteristic of Special B malt.  There are hints of acidity and alcohol hiding below the surface that add to the overall pleasantness of flavor.  I normally love the flavor of anise, but it’s overpowering in this blend.  Combined with the sweetness of candi syrup, the flavor is a bit cloying.

Mouthfeel: 3/5

The general mouthfeel is pleasant, but the sweetness of this beer makes for an unclean finish that sticks to your throat and the back of your tongue.

Overall: 7/10

I generally like Gouden Carolus beers, but this one misses the mark.  The description claims that three kinds of hops were used, but they are completely covered up by the spices.  It’s still a good beer, but the anise needs something besides pure sweetness to balance it out (in my experience, anise goes better with beers like stouts and porters that use darker malts rather than candi sugar for their color and heaviness).

Would I buy it again?  35/50

Probably not.  It’s a good beer, but there are other Belgian (and Belgian style) holiday beers in the same price range that are both easier to find and have a better balance.  Het Anker’s more famous Cuvee van de Keizer Blauw is a much better beer with a very balanced spice profile (and plenty of spice to hold up to any Christmas beer), and I’d take that one first if ever given the choice.

• Ommegang Brewery
• Beer Advocate
• RateBeer
• UPC:  649440020096

“Ommegang Adoration, brewed in the authentic style of Belgian winter, or noel beer, is dark, strong, malty and assertively spiced.”

Aroma:  12/12

Very balanced bubblegum that leans toward banana.  Hints of caramelized sugar and sweet malt.  Only a slight amount of alcohol, despite the high ABV.

Appearance:  3/3

Pours a dark red-amber with a thick foamy head that lingers for a couple of minutes before dissipating to lacing around the edge.  A quick swirl brings back a thin coat across the top of the brew.

Flavor:   18/20

Strong flavors of candi sugar and belgian yeast, with fairly prominent orange flavor underneath.  All sitting on top of well-balanced fruity belgian malt with perhaps just a hint of corn sugar.  A larger sip reveals fairly prominent taste of alcohol that dissipates into just a hint of hoppy bitter.

Aftertaste of lees despite a clean pour is the main reason this doesn’t score higher for flavor.

Tastes a lot like a Quadrupel, but with the fruitiness coming as much from spices and malt as the yeast (which is not as prominent as in most quadrupels).

Mouthfeel:   4/5

Generally clean — about the same as a good dubbel, but leaves just a hint of coating on the sides of the tongue that linger just a bit longer than they should.

Overall:   9/10

This is one of the best beers that I have tasted from Ommegang.  It’s extremely well balanced, and fits the style perfectly.

Would I buy it again?  45/50

Without a doubt.  It’s worth the $10-12 I paid in the store (lost the receipt, so I don’t remember exactly what I paid).  Ommegang is one of my favorite breweries, and this is one of the best beers that I’ve had from them.  It’s also well worth the $8-10 per glass that you might pay at a pub.

The technique for plus addressing is simple:  add a plus and a word after the username portion of your email address.  For example, exnerd@example.com would become exnerd+shopping@example.com.  This way, you can create a custom email address for certain types of transactions, or even for every company you do business with online.  The format is well-documented and supported by my favorite free email provider.  It works great, too, until you run into a company that knows very little about technology.  Like all of my credit card companies.

Seriously.

Even without the feature of using the plus to create an ignored portion of the email address, the plus character has been valid for use in email addresses since RFC 822, which was written in 1982!  That RFC has been replaced a few times (the current is RFC 5322), but support for the plus character hasn’t changed.

In conclusion, I would highly recommend using plus addressing to sort and track your incoming mail.  I would also recommend that whenever you run into a so-called technologically-adept company like one of my credit card providers to ask them why they are violating an email standard that is almost 30 years old.

The beer pours with a nice white head that dissipates after a minute or so.  It smells lightly of caramel malt flavor along with what I can only guess is the Centennial hops (I just haven’t had enough exposure to hop varieties to distinguish them — but it’s the only particularly aromatic variety listed on their website).

The flavor is a fairly straightforward american style IPA.  It does’t try to be a particularly complex beer, and it does a decent job.  I taste mostly malt, but with a decent amount of barley flavor coming through and only a hint of the caramel promised in the aroma.  The flavor finishes with barley and caramel, along with the bitterness you expect out of the style.  If I had a critique it would be that the bitter lingers just a little bit too long.

• Would I buy this beer again?  Probably not.
• Would I pay restaurant prices for this beer?  Not really.

I have to add a caveat to my review.  I live in one of the best regions of the world for IPAs.  Stone’s beer is actually pretty good, but it’s no better than a variety of local beers that I have at my fingertips and given the choice I almost always choose the local beer.  Thankfully, I don’t taste any floral aspects of the hops (unlike New Belgium’s Ranger, one of my least favorites), so I would still recommend this to anyone in other parts of the world, and certainly if you live down by Stone Brew itself.

It pours with a relatively short light tan head that dissipates after a few minutes into a thin film that will last for as long as it takes you to finish the glass.  There is relatively little nose on this beer — what does come through hints of coffee and caramel.  On first taste, this is just a traditional stout, reminiscent of something like Sam Smith’s oatmeal stout, though with a thicker body and mouthfeel more like a cream stout (I’d really love to try this on nitro, but that would be difficult to do along with the bottle fermentation and traditional carbonation technique used on this beer).

On further examination you will discover that the beer has a very nice coffee flavor from the variety of roasted malts used in its production.  I actually think that this well-balanced roast flavor is what cements this beer as a true stout.  The caramel flavor that comes through alongside this is most definitely Belgian candi sugar rather than the caramelized malts used to sweeten more traditional stouts.  I appreciate the slight difference in flavor from the candied sucrose, which I think plays heavily into this beer’s Belgian heritage — maybe more even than the yeast.  Despite what the description on their website says, I don’t taste much chocolate in this beer.  I don’t consider this a bad thing — though I love chocolate stouts and consider Young’s Double Chocolate as one of my favorites — but the coffee and caramel flavors play so well off of each other that I don’t think it needs anything more.

Once you are past the flavors of the roast, which eventually smooth out so you can taste the barley itself, the beer finishes with just a hint of fruit that blurs the line between cherry, plum, and fig, along with a nice bitter that is a blend of hops and roasted barley.

Unlike more traditional Belgian beers that highlight the fruity/spicy yeasts, this beer takes advantage of the flavors imparted by the yeasts without letting them take center stage.  If you know what to look for, you will find hints of cinnamon and nutmeg throughout the entire flavor profile of the beer, which I am almost certain comes from the yeast, and which contributes heavily to the wonderful caramelized coffee flavor of the beer.  There are also notes of fruity yeast, which I am hesitant to call “banana” even though I know the flavors are related, though much more subtle unless you let the beer wash over your entire tongue to let every type of taste bud share in the flavor.

If there was anything I had to critique about the beer, it’s that I would like to see that plum/cherry/fig finish enhanced by slightly raising the amount of Belgian specialty grains used.  Knowing from experience that this is more easily said than done, especially so as not to throw off the balance of one of my favorite beers, I can’t say that it’s a very strong critique.

• Would I buy this beer again?  My beer fridge is lonely without it.
• Would I pay restaurant prices for this beer?  Yes.

For what it’s worth, this is one of my favorite beers.  The time I spent analyzing it for this post confirms that and makes it even more interesting to me.  I try to keep a bottle or two on hand for when the mood strikes me (that and it’s one of the few beers I’ve ever heard my mother describe as “good”, and I like to keep her happy when she visits).

I’m sure that Jessica will be writing something more food-related about this on one or both of her blogs, so I’ll just say that Chatelaine Chocolat from Bozeman, MT once again put forth some amazing truffles (see the picture to the left), and newcomer Missionary Chocolates from Portland, OR, with their coconut-milk-based vegan truffles was a great find.  I can recommend both of them.

I would also like to recommend the Chipotle Caramels from Forte Chocolates, though both years in a row they have been one of the least informative exhibitors.  I was somewhat taken aback by their claim of secrecy when I asked what kind of chiles were used in their version of a chile-infused bar.  Most chocolatiers use the varietal of chile as a selling point, and claiming that it was a secret blend sort of rubbed me the wrong way, especially at an event where most exhibitors are even willing to discuss techniques and full recipes.  I still appreciate Intrigue Chocolates sharing the rum infusion technique they use for their Jamaican Hot Chocolate truffles, which are still the best example chile-infused chocolate I’ve ever tasted.

The biggest disappointment of the entire event was its apparent lack of a target demographic.  This results in an event where some chocolatiers discuss recipes and techniques with visitors like they would at a professional conference, while large retail corporations like  Sees stand nearby.  I suppose that it’s a sign of the times that bloggers were probably the most prevalent group attendees, and I find it somewhat frightening to think that an entire conference could be crafted solely for the purpose of drawing pseudo-journalists to write poorly-informed reviews (yes, I do admit that there are more than a few good bloggers, but they’re in the minority).  I realize this makes me sound a bit like a hypocrite, but I wasn’t the one running around with pen and paper asking silly questions that anyone who spends a few hours watching FoodTV would know by heart.  I was just there to taste some good chocolate and talk to the people who make it.  In fact, the only reason I’m writing this is to show off one of the cool pictures I was able to take, and to encourage my wife to write in her in blog.