Fermented Adventures

Two recent articles talk about craft beer in cans. First, in The Pour, Eric Asimov talks about wine in a box (something I’ve talked about here) and compares it to craft beer in cans, mentioning Oskar Blues Brewery. Then, this article in the Chicago Tribune also talks about craft beer in cans, highlighting its advantages, including protection from light and a tighter seal against air. They also highlight Oskar Blues along with Ska and Big Sky, two breweries I hadn’t heard of.

I’ve quite been enjoying drinking beer from a can. There’s a certain old school charm in it. I’ve only had the Gordon from Oskar Blues, which I can remember liking, though I need to try it again. I’ve tried more from 21st Amendment Brewery. I’ve tried their Hell or High Watermelon (a nice, light Watermelon beer), Brew Free! or Die IPA (a solid IPA), and, most recently at our beer club meeting, Monk’s Blood, an easy drinking Belgian style brewed with figs (I’m going to have to get more of this) .

It’s a good reminder that while the rituals of of drinking - whether wine or beer - can be comforting and enjoyable, they shouldn’t be absolute. And ultimately, the packaging shouldn’t matter whether it’s a can or a box.

A bit of an old link, but Eric Asimov of the New York Times last week wrote about a tasting of Belgian Golden Ales that he did. To accompany him were the owner of Resto, a Belgian restaurant in NY that highlights beer and the owner of Bierkraft, a beer and specialty store in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Results can be found here.

I’m not surprised to see the Jolly Pumpkin on top. I was impressed with the other of their beers I tried and the brewery has a great reputation.

I think I’ll need to do my own parallel taste test to see how they did. Thoughts?

Last Thursday, February 18, Barcade hosted Midwest Beer Night, featuring a slew of beers from the middle of the country. Barcade events are a no-brainer for me as I love the bar, and it’s easy for me to get to (and home from).

The night made me realize that while I am familiar with a lot of the east coast and west coast breweries, I’m a little lacking in knowledge on those in the interior.

To start out with, I had the Goose Island Imperial Brown in an effort to escape the gravity of my penchant for IPAs. The Brown was a solid choice as far as the style goes, with a hefty amount of alcohol (9%), but the malty licorice taste wasn’t really what I wanted. I should have expected it, I suppose, but I was looking for more of a nutty, bready taste I think.

Because of that disappointment I moved on the to Kuhnhenn Double Rice IPA which was on cask. This was even stronger than the Goose Island (10.5%), but went down far easier. Like most cask ales I’ve had at Barcade it maintained a nice carbonation, and the rice made it feel somehow lighter and creamier. The aroma was really intense - floral, hoppy, piny but with something a little different from the usual Double IPAs.  I’d like to try this again. It was a nice surprise.

Last drink of the evening was the Arcadia Hop Mouth Double IPA, a double IPA that drinks like it’s not a double. It was a decent solid beer, but probably not something to follow up with Double Rice IPA with. At 8% alcohol it tasted far lighter despite the medium to full body and the flavor was fairly weak, though it’s quite possible that was due to the previous beer.  Definitely more of a balanced double IPA than I’ve been drinking lately. I’d like to try it on its own.

Up tomorrow night, Sixpoint Night at Barcade. Should be fun.

Despite my previous pledge to try and expand my tastes, I have to say that I’ve been finding myself sticking to IPAs when I’m out at bars. The other night I was at Rattle N Hum where they still had beers from the King of Kings County event they had (where they declared Sixpoint the winner). I regretted not tasting the Brooklyn Blast when I was there, part of the Brooklyn Brewery’s Brewmaster Reserve series, so I ended up trying it. I have to say that while it was a solid IPA, I was a little disappointed. I suppose I was expecting more from something labeled as Brewmaster’s Reserve, especially from the renowned Garrett Oliver. It was crips, hoppy and full-bodied, but there wasn’t anything there to distinguish it from others of the type.

Later in the evening I met up with some friends at Three of Cups in the East Village and I had a Sixpoint Bengali Tiger there. The Sixpoint is a classic example of the style, and despite it being a little less powerful than the Blast, it had a bit more character. Thinner in body, it was plenty hoppy and with a floral quality that was somehow lost in the Blast. I’ve always enjoyed Bengali Tiger, but it’s been a while since I have had it. It was nice to be reminded how good it was. I tend to the Righteous Rye when given a choice of the standard Sixpoint output. I think that’s about to change.

One of the challenges I face in drinking beer and, perhaps to a lesser extent, wine, is changing tastes. I’ve already talked here about how my general tastes have changed from stouts and porters to IPAs.  And I find these days that I’m more interested in at least decently hopped beers rather than those that are predominantly malty and sweet. But there’s also the challenge of changing tastes over the short term whether it’s what you’re eating or maybe just in what shape your palate is in.

Case in point, last night I stopped by Rattle N Hum for what they called The King of Kings County featuring beers brewed in Brooklyn, from Sixpoint, Brooklyn Brewery, and Kelso. I stopped in for just one beer, Sixpoint’s Express, a beer I’ve had a couple of times before and one that I’ve mentioned here as one of my favorites. It was, frankly, disappointing, lighter in body than I remember, without the more rounded, complex notes that I was expecting from my memory. I found myself wondering what had happened? Was it the fact that I had been chewing gum a few hours earlier and my palate was still recovering? Had I just inflated its qualities in my mind? Was it just that I’m so used to big IPAs that I’m too keyed into those flavors?  Or was it just that one keg, which maybe wasn’t quite up to the quality of its fellows?

I suppose it’s a good reminder not to get stuck in ruts, not to always stick to the old standbys and to try new things. I have been predominantly landing on one side of the beer spectrum and I wonder if that’s such a good thing. We like what we like, of course, but I’m starting to think it’s time to start broadening my approach, see if my tastes change again.

Anyone else out there have any similar experiences?

This past Thursday was the aforementioned Smuttynose event at Barcade. I showed up and met some friends there for the evening, sampling three beers during the night. I started with the Big A IPA, which I’ve already mentioned here in the previous post. Sadly, Barcade didn’t have the oak-aged version, so I stuck with the regular one and liked it as well as I usually do.

After that I decided to try a couple of new (to me) beers. One was the Smuttynose Wheat Wine which was, as expected, very much like a Barleywine. As far as I could tell, the wheat didn’t add much to the flavor. A decent beer for the style, only I realized that despite liking barleywines and wheat wines in the past, I think I’m over the style at the present. There was nothing wrong with the beer - it was sweet and strong and fruity - but it just wasn’t what I wanted. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been leaning more heavily toward hops lately and the lack of a hop presence in the beer left me feeling that I’d made the wrong choice.

By that time I was feeling both beers  and decided to go a little lighter and ended up with the Woodward Ale on the recommendation of one of the brewers from Smuttynose. This was light and crisp with the hint of orange in the taste. Unfortunately, my palate was already suffering from the first two beers and this one probably suffered because of it. Not that it was bad, it just was swallowed up in the overall experience. I would like to try this again on its own, or as a first beer.

The DIPA trend continued into the weekend. Before meeting some friends on Saturday night, I stopped by a new discovery for me - Cask Bar & Kitchen on 33rd and 2nd. A nice place - not too crowded, a little dark, welcoming. They had Southern Tier’s Unearthly DIPA on tap and so I ended up having that both before and after dinner (we returned there after eating). Ah, Double/Imperial IPAs, I wish I knew how to quit you. On second thought, no I don’t.

Without looking back too closely at 2009, it marked the year where my beer tastes changed, moving from strong, dark stouts and porters to strong IPAs instead. Prior to last year I had never really considered myself a huge fan of the IPA, but I also hadn’t done much exploration in the category. That changed last year.

I enjoyed a number of Imperial or Double IPAs last year, some of which I’ve mentioned here already (like the Otter Creek), but I neglected to mention two specimens that I discovered toward the end of last year.

The first of these was Avery’s duganA IPA. I’m already a fan of Avery’s Maharaja Imp. IPA. duganA checks in with a little less alcohol and a little less bitterness. It still has the same resiny, hoppy, floral, malty aroma and taste combination, but is a little easier to drink. The duganA seems to lean more in the bitter direction than the Maharaja (which seems to me to be a bit sweeter), but it’s a nice new standby to keep around for when the mood strikes.

The other was Smuttynose’s Big A IPA. This was probably one of my top discoveries from last year. I first had it at Rattle N Hum on a whim. Same big Imperial IPA flavors, but crisp and creamy and with a remarkable light quality that distinguishes it from other Imp. IPAs that can be heavy.

Speaking of Smuttynose, they are being featured tonight at one of my favorite places, Barcade. They are supposed to have oak-aged Big A IPA on tap as well as their wheatwine which I also plan to try.

More on that to come.

Last month, Sixpoint Craft Ales had a special event at Daniel Boulud’s DBGB, highlighting two of their rare limited edition beers in rare bottle form. Since I love Sixpoint and I have a healthy appreciation of DBGB, I had no choice but to stop by.

The bartenders were pouring a lot of the two beers from the look of it. And since they were both potent, I sat down and sampled a bit of their delicious sausage to help prevent myself from floating away.

The first up was the Sixpoint Grand Crue. It had very Belgian flavors and was fruity and bready - like the soft nutty interior of a good crusty French bread. Aroma was of raisins and dried fruit. A bit of welcome hops up front, but very complex and malty. The Belgian notes increased as it warmed and more dried fruit flavors came out. I drank it with DBGB’s Viennoise Emmenthaler sausage which brought out the fruitiness even more. But the levels of both matched very well. The smoothness of the sauerkraut and the cheese matched the smoothness of the beer. I actually had two glasses of this - one when I first came into the bar, and another when I sat down to eat since it was listed alongside the sausage.

After eating, I moved on to the Bolshoi, a Russian Imperial Stout. Very smooth and dry with a nice foamy head. Chocolatey with lots of roasted flavors. Did I mention it was very smooth and very dry? A hint of coffee flavors came out as well.

It seems like these are both hard to find and that DBGB gobbled up a lot of the remaining stock of both. I doubt there’s any remaining, but I suppose it’s worth a look.

We’re a week into the new year, and I’m looking forward to doing some more updating here on the old blog. As mentioned, I’m intending to spend a little bit more time posting here and perhaps work a few special projects into the mix.

First up, though, will be a few posts from last year talking about some of the beer (and possibly wine) that I discovered during the holiday season.

I hope you’ll stick around this year to help participate in the discussions.

And Happy New Year to everyone.

Like every year, it seems I am only just complaining about how early they’re playing Xmas music when I blink and the holidays are upon me.

As mentioned before, this year I decided to try some holiday beer choices. Handy in that regard was the Styles Session on holiday beers (the 13th in the series) run by Maggie of Beer Ethos and Will of Beer Menus. I believe I’ve mentioned these events here before - every 1-2 months they do a roughly 8-beer tasting of different styles at Rattle N Hum. Holiday beers aren’t really a style, but it was a good enough grouping to assemble some beer.

My goal was to find something I liked at least nearly as much as the He’brew Jewbelation (either one), but unfortunately I came up short in that department. While none of the beers was particularly bad, they just didn’t wow me too much. I don’t have the list handy to go through, but I will highlight that the best of the bunch, in my opinion, was the Elysian Bifrost, probably because of all the beers we tried, most of which were malty and boozy, the Bifrost had the most hop character of any of them.  I’d be willing to try it again.

The highlight of the night, though, was the beer I had before the tasting, the Smuttynose Big A IPA - hoppy, fruity, lots of taste and character, with enough malt to balance it out. Imperial IPAs have been some of my favorites recently and this one didn’t disappoint. I picked up a bottle the other day to have at home.

Tonight, I’ll continue my tour of winter beers by attending Barcade’s Winter Beer Night.  I’m particularly looking forward to trying the Hoppy Holidays from the Chelsea Brewery (there’s my hop bias again) as well as sampling the He’brew Jewbelation 13 on draft again.

More to come later.