A TRIP TO THE COLLINS PUB – SEATTLE, WA

After I enjoyed a MAC & JACK’S AFRICAN AMBER in Bellevue, WA (which I posted about on Friday) and got in the car to head back to my hotel near the airport, I had a choice to make: Would I dart into one of the many, many Seattle beer establishments I’ve read about over the years in search of a new beer to slay, or would I wuss out and go back to the hotel & go to sleep? My brain and body were screaming for me to make the latter choice, so I chose what I like to call a “third way” – go to a Seattle pub off of the freeway, get in, and then get out. THEN go to sleep.

For years I’ve heard about THE COLLINS PUB, just outside of Pioneer Square, not far from the ballparks. It wasn’t around when I lived here, but then again, that was a decade ago. I decided to park myself there for 30 minutes, tops. Once inside, rather than being greeted with the typically sports pub/clinking classes/brew doggie type of place I was expecting, I found a moderately-upscale, dimly lit pub with zoned-out trance music playing in the background. They have an a-mazing beer selection, full of Northwest obscurities from the likes of Boundary Bay, Ninkasi, Roslyn, Big Al – and non-NW brewers like Avery, Left Hand, Oskar Blues and many more. They are generally weird rarities too, not just pale ales and stouts, but dopplebocks and tripels and whatnot. I had just read a copy of NORTHWEST BREWING NEWS on the plane earlier that day, so I was “hopped-up”, if you will, to try some unheard-of Northwest brew that I’d never see again.

I chose BIG AL ABBEY WHEAT. I had actually read about it earlier in the day. This is a new, small-scale Seattle brewer, and I’ve since learned that ABBEY WHEAT is BIG AL BREWING’s flagship ale. Their opinion is that this beer is “A hybrid ale combining the smooth, refreshing, drinkable characters of an Wheat beer with the fruit and spice flavors of Belgian ales. This beer is easy to drink, full of subtle flavors creating a sessionable beer that's never boring”. I guess I can hang with that description. It’s a dark amber ale with a medium head, with some faint spicy tripel characteristics. Very thin-bodied – if I close my eyes, it’s a thin tripel with not much yeast action, maybe just a straight-up hefeweizen. It sure goes down easy, and leaves a nice aftertaste. Nothing very distinctive – sort of like the sum being something less than its parts, but hey, serious big ups to BIG AL for giving this hybrid a go. 6/10.

GOING BACK IN TIME WITH “MAC & JACK’S AFRICAN AMBER”

By the time I moved to Seattle in 1997 for two years of grad school, I was already well in the sinuous clutches of craft beer – or “microbrew”, as we called it then – fever. New breweries were exploding, and by that time, many were imploding as well. Being in Seattle, generally thought at the time (quite rightly) to be one of the oases of great beer in America, was something pretty special for a beer drinker such as myself. The big favorites I latched onto at the time, when they were pretty new & something I’d never seen back in San Francisco, were DESCHUTES BLACK BUTTE PORTER and ALASKAN AMBER. These two were everywhere, and they still pretty much are.

Running a distant third to these two heavyweights in terms of both availability, drinkability, and frequency of my consumption was MAC & JACK’S AFRICAN AMBER, a beer almost entirely unknown outside of the Northwest, and yet almost totally ubiquitous within it. It is a really good, straight-up amber ale. I had my first one since the 1990s on Wednesday night while on yet another business trip, this time in Bellevue, Washington. I’m not sure if I’ve even heard of another beer from them – up there, it’s all about the amber. (there are others – check them out here). AFRICAN AMBER is a malty, slightly syrupy amber than nevertheless has a great clean, refreshing feel right off the bat. It’s much cleaner than, say, ANDERSON VALLEY BOONT AMBER – and that’s achieved by significantly reducing the hops, or at least the taste of hops. Me, I like a little hops in my amber ale – you? Throw a few more in this one and we are in business, but that said, this is a beer that could be consumed by the pitcher-full, as it no doubt is during the nine months of rain & gray that Seattle typically endures. Definitely brought back some good 1990s mojo for this old fella. 7/10.

SOUTHERN TIER’S “BIG RED”

Before I quaffed this one two nights ago, I’d been under the mistaken impression that I’d had more experience with the SOUTHERN TIER BREWING lineup than I actually had, and that my impressions were almost entirely over-the-top, wildly enthusiastic. Guess it wasn’t totally the case; before taking their BIG RED imperial amber beer into account, my experience with this New York-based brewery breaks down accordingly (all scored on the HBJ scientific ten-point scale):

Heavy Weizen – 9/10
Cherry Saison – 8.5/10
Raspberry Porter – 7.5/10
Phin & Matt’s Extraordinary Ale – 6.5/10

I reckon that because I loved the first beers I had from them so much (HEAVY WEIZEN and CHERRY SAISON) that everything was going to be great. Well, ya win some and lose some, as they say. BIG RED is one where they’ve shaved off a little bit of that hard-earned respect, though by no means is it an awful or even a bad beer. BIG RED is an “imperial amber”, a new, hopped-up, high ABV style of amber ale best represented by LAGUNITAS IMPERIAL RED (by a friggin’ mile). Southern Tier’s BIG RED, which I happily received in a beer trade with a New Yorker along with three other (!!!) Southern Tier brews, has a pronounced spicy hop profile, along with deep grapefruit flavor – yes, that’s right, just like a good double IPA. That said, it has this sort of off-putting “grainy” taste that I didn’t cotton too, along with a faint hint of something metallic. Some tastes of brown sugar and caramel malt, but probably not enough, along with those oily hops. I don’t know, I can’t help but think this fellas could have done more with this thing. Lagunitas sure can. 6/10 on this one.

GREEN FLASH MAKES A KILLER BARLEYWINE, TOO

What does one do when the wife and the kid are out of town and the house is totally, wholly yours? If you’re like me, and it’s a “work night”, there’s not much you can do to turn it loose, but there’s no harm in trying a big-ass 10% alcohol beer in the comfort of your own home, is there? Particularly when the creator of said beer is San Diego’s GREEN FLASH BREWING? You see where I’m going with this. I unloaded a big bottle of the GREEN FLASH BARLEYWINE over the holidays and I was a far better man afterward than beforehand. This caramel-coated, hophead’s dream was just what the winter season ordered, and I think it might be tied with their SAISON for best Green Flash beer ever.

You can certainly taste the candy sugar (or “candi sugar” as the beer dorks say – you think they put little hearts over the i as well?), and though it is absolutely overflowing with bitter hops, it is by no means astringent or even the least bit eye-watering. Nay, it’s a perfect sipper. I loved the toffee & caramel “notes”, and I kept wondering why it took me so long to seek this one out. The $4.99/bottle price tag certainly didn’t hurt – seriously! Go forth and partake, my friends. 9/10.

MY VEGAS BEERCATION

....was not much of a beercation at all, given the fact that I was actually visiting for work (attending and working the Consumer Electronics Show), and barely snuck in a couple of cold ones at the end of the 2 days I was there. Last year I was brand-new to Las Vegas beer drinking, and filed three dispatches (here, here and here) about my discoveries. This time I revisited two of those locales again, however briefly. The STONE ARROGANT BASTARD you see to your left here was enjoyed at the New York, New York casino's POUR 24 bar, a tiny outpost smack in the middle of their shopping/bar/walkway area, right down the hall from the "Coyote Ugly" bar. The 'Bastard was outstanding at the end of a long day on my feet. You know & love this beer already, so I shall say no more. 8/10.

The picture over here to your right is THE ABYSS from DESCHUTES on tap at Burger Bar in the Mandalay Bay hotel - seriously! That was a huge surprise, and even the bartender told me how lucky I was to find this magic elixhir on tap. It was even better than in the bottle, so much so that I'm gonna bump my score up to 10/10 on this incredible beer. I finished off my Vegas visit with a STONE RUINATION, and then headed for the airport, upon which I promptly fell asleep, cursing this horrid town while thanking it for opening up a handful of quality drinking establishments the past couple years.

SOUTHAMPTON CUVEE DES FLEURS

“CUVEE DES FLEURS” - to be said with your pinky held high in the air. This is what it’s come to, folks. Hey, I’m not complaining. This corked and wrapped bottle arrived in the mother of all beer trades from a great American in New York. I sent him some west coast treats, and after a time, he did the same for me from his coast – Southern Tier stuff, Captain Lawrence, and this bad boy. SOUTHAMPTON BREWING is one I’ve only had limited experience with, most recently with their excellent tap-only FRENCH COUNTRY CHRISTMAS ALE. Their CUVEE DES FLEURS is definitely marketed (and most assuredly priced, though I wouldn’t know) as a limited-edition, “big boy beer”. It’s close to 8 percent alcohol-wise, and you can taste it – maybe even a bit more than you’d like (I was thinking 9-10% whilst ingesting it on new year’s eve with all my rowdy wild-ass friends with kids, all of whom were no doubt in bed by midnight).

That said, I dug it. It is a flowery, sweet saison, a little musky, a little earthy, and definitely a well-crafted ale. CUVEE DES FLEURS has almost a perfume-like redolence to it, and a strong honey taste comes through as well. Highly carbonated as well, with a pretty tangy yeast aftertaste. Yum. If there were such thing as an “imperial saison”, this might be it. 7/10.

BEER AND EXERCISE - HOW'S THAT GOIN'?

Over a year ago I wrote a post called "BEER, MY HEALTH, AND MY BELLY" that catalogued my rising dismay with my rising belly, and pooh-poohed the recent spate of "beer is SO good for you" articles I'd been spying. Beer, let me just put it to ya straight, is not good for you. Beer is at worst negligible, and if you can stay fit as a fiddle and maintain the sort of weight and health of a twentysomething man/woman while in your 40s - and still drink large amounts of craft beer - well, I want to talk to you. Ever since I took up the beer jones in earnest - about 2005 - I've put on about 10-12 pounds and love handles that even my son makes fun of. Now that may not be a lot to you but I'm a small-framed, pretty skinny (if a little doughy at times) guy who's been 165-170 pounds for the past twenty years. I've liked being that way. The only lifestyle change that happened between 2005 and 2008 is the every-other-day beer: Belgians, high-ABV stouts, Double IPA's etc. It's the beer, I'm sure of it. Well, that and the morning bagel. I made a promise to myself that I'm going to hold on to the beer, the blog and the lifestyle - but the weight can't stay.

So the bagel is out. The beer is staying. I'm under no delusion that drinking it is prolonging my life, providing me with vitamins I wouldn't otherwise be getting elsewhere, or helping my heart to pump blood better. I just don't buy it. The best I can say for myself is I'm not a drunk, and I know when to stop. A night with more than 3 beers is a BIG night for me, and I can count such nights on one hand each year. Hangovers average out to about one every three years, with zero in 2008 (thank god - trust me youngsters, they're even worse in your late thirties/early forties).

The bargain I'm making is that the running that I've been half-assedly pursuing the past eighteen months is going to be stepped up in a big way. I love running, actually. I get that total endorphine exercise buzz, which, while nowhere near as buzz-worthy as a big bottle of LOST ABBEY beer thrown down on a Friday night, at least helps "trim the middle". I don't listen to music while charging up & down the minor hills of San Francisco - instead, I plot what I'll now allow myself to do since I'm running for an hour every other day. Like drink beers like THE ABYSS, you know what I mean? So here's where I'm stepping it up. Marathons. That's right, something I once considered to be solely the provenance of superhumans and workout nuts is now going to be my own holy grail. I'm competing in (well, running in) the San Francisco Marathon, 7/26/09. I'm gonna train hard for this and drink all the amazing beer I want. See you back at 165 pounds. Or something.

THAT RAFTMAN IS ONE BAAAAD - SHUT YOUR MOUTH

Have you ever heard of UNIBROUE'S RAFTMAN? Neither had I, until I picked up Unibroue's 4-bottle holiday gift pack in December so I could try it. I'm guessing they sold more than a few gift packs that way. In addition to top beers Don De Dieu, Ephemere and Chambly Noire (which I have never tried either, and is sitting in my fridge begging me to get going), RAFTMAN completes the quartet from Montreal heavyweights UNIBROUE, and it was all at a pretty good price as well, less than ten bucks for the four of 'em. No bonus glassware, but hey, I've got what I need around the house.

RAFTMAN has actually been brewed since 1995 - we just don't see it much around these parts. It's brewed with smoked whiskey malt, and yet is a low 5.5% ABV - which is cool. Strong hops. yeasty like many of the Unibroues, and tasting every bit like the deep reddish-brown it is. Very "dubbel"-like, with light spices. I'm not sure if it's available anywhere outside of this gift pack, though this link seems to indicate that it makes it onto taps sometimes. I give it a solid and well-deserved 7/10.

DESCHUTES' "THE ABYSS": THE STOUT THAT MADE A MAN OUTTA ME

To start this review I'm going to have a steal a section from a post written by Aaron Goldfarb, who writes an excellent, hijinks-filled beer blog called THE VICE BLOG:

Brewers, if you want me to buy your product, here’s a few simple and cheap things you can do to dupe me into purchasing it:

1. Cork the beer and add one of those cheap metal caps and twisty things.
2. Cover the cap and neck in that cheap Reese’s peanut butter cup-like foil.
3. Put the bottle in a cheap cardboard box.
4. Call it a limited bottling and perhaps even add numbers to the label or aforementioned box. It doesn’t even matter if it is that truly of limited of bottling.

And one more expensive thing you can do to dupe me is to barrel your beer in something else.

Aaron and I - and I suspect many of you - are cut from the same cloth. This is much the same approach that I took to record collecting during my most insane, over the top purchasing years of 1987-91, and it's kind of where I'm at beer-wise twenty years later. I know it's wrong, but more often than not this sort of who-cares-what-it-costs purchasing ethos yields some incredible beers. "Price as a cue for quality", we called it in business school.

DESCHUTES' newest whopper, THE ABYSS, is one of these kind of beers. It's not numbered nor is it in a box, but it not only has beer dorks far & wide rushing across the west coast to find it, it has even inspired "one only per customer, PLEASE" signs at various retailing establishments. At least that's what the guy at Whole Foods told me on Friday when I bought it. He was proud because his store is willing to sell more than one to a customer at any given time. "That's the Whole Foods difference".

The worst part of this beer was trying to get the wax seal off of it. I know - the wax seal! We used fire to burn it off. That did the trick. Then it was time to get down with The Abyss. On the pour, it filled the glass with utter blackness. See that picture above, taken with a camera phone? Nice work, hunh? That's the beer I drank. First whiff - whew, licorice and chocolate! First drink - wow, bourbon and, and, and molasses! This beer positively coats the tongue in rich, thick molasses. It's smooth and amazingly delicious. At 11% it's not at all for the meek, but I had just returned from the longest run I'd ever done, and I was in no mood to skimp, be healthy nor to practice temperance. The alcohol is in the aftertaste, but not in a strong, eye-watering way. It is a rich, chewy, chocolate bourbon beer bomb. The stout that made me a man.

I absolutely loved THE ABYSS. Totally met the hype and then some. My wife said she'd start regularly drinking beer with me again if they all tasted like this. Unfortunately, they don't. 9/10.

SCENE REPORT: PACIFIC COAST BREWING’S 2008 HOLIDAY BEER BLOWOUT

I’ve been taking my time getting the details filed on the annual PACIFIC COAST BREWING HOLIDAY BEER TASTING – my sincere apologies. There’s a lot of ground to cover. This event took place on Saturday 12/13 at the brewpub in downtown Oakland, CA. It was my second time participating, with a year skipped (2007) due to my concern that I would not be able to hold my stomach this time after my Boonville boondoggle earlier in the year. Well, a year’s rest worked this time – even though just about every holiday ale they threw at us in ’08 was in the upper stratosphere alcohol-wise. When they announced that just about everything was going to be over 9% ABV, there was an audible groan from the crowd, covering up what I thought might be more than a few quiet cheers. Lushes, all of you. Seek some help.

This young man above this text is enjoying a SCHMALTZ BREWING JEWBILIATION 12. It was one of his favorites of the day, and just missed being my “top dog”. It was a pretty great lineup of dark ales from around the globe, most of which fit the “winter warmer” or Xmas theme. Pacific Coast has been doing this for 20 years now, and the altacockers at the table next to us had come every single year. In fact, the crowd itself was far longer in the tooth that I’d have expected – the medium age was probably around 50 or so – which come to think of it is pretty cool. These guys (and they were almost all guys) have a good decade on me - and are slamming down 15 samples of high-octane beer in a single sitting, without starting fistfights or making derogatory 60s-era comments about the barmaidens. The four hours we spent here just roared right by, to be honest. Wait, it’s time to go home already? Can’t I have just one more?

Here’s what we drank. We were all encouraged to keep score, so you’ll see my converted-to-the-HBJ-scale scores after the beers themselves:

1. ANCHOR “OUR SPECIAL ALE 2008” – 7/10
2. SIERRA NEVADA HARVEST CHICO ESTATE WET HOP ALE – 7/10 (my notes say “oily, hoppy, resin-y”. Then I stopped taking notes and started enjoying life instead)
3. PACIFIC COAST 20th ANNIVERSARY ALE – 6/10
4. PACIFIC COAST HOLIDAY XX – 4/10
5. GREEN FLASH GRAND CRU – 8.5/10 (I am loving Green Flash beers right about now)
6. GOUDEN CAROLUS NOEL – 8.5/10
7. PIZZA PORT BELGIAN QUADRUPEL – 5.5/10 (this beer is pictured to your right – the very glass I consumed! Disappointing, though, considering this brewer’s mighty feats elsewhere)
8. ST. BERNARDUS CHRISTMAS ALE – 9.5/10 (Our winner! Outstanding beer, even better than last year’s version)
9. STONE ANNIVERSARY BITTER CHOCOLATE OATMEAL STOUT – 7.5/10
10. FIRESTONE WALKER VELVET MERKIN – 9/10 (The most-anticipated beer of the day, because no one knew what it was and because Firestone makes some killer high-ABV ales. This was one of the best, I just can’t remember why)
11. HARVIESTON OLD DUBH SPECIAL 30 RESERVE – 6/10
12. HAIR OF THE DOG DOGGIE CLAWS – 6/10
13. SCHMALTZ JEWBILATION 12 – 9/10
14. NORTH COAST OLD STOCK 2007 – 8.5/10 (Excellent beer – the 2004 version was our winner at the 2006 Pacific Coast holiday beer tasting)
15. SAMICHLAUS HELLES BARLEYWINE – 8.5/10 (Really dug this 14% alcohol beer! Or maybe it was that 14% alcohol that was doing the talking)

Pacific Coast Brewing did a great job laying out food and making sure its customers were happy and satisfied, and even came back with a “bonus pour” of whichever beer was your favorite. Everyone got one, so I proclaimed the ST. BERNARDUS CHRISTMAS ALE my 2008 champion, then “walked” back to the BART train for the muddled ride home. Woke up feeling like a hero the next morning, and thus decided I’d do this again next year. Prost! And hey, happy new year, folks!

MCAUSLAN ST.-AMBROISE APRICOT WHEAT ALE

Outside of UNIBROUE; the stuff I drank on my trip to Toronto last year; and the beers that got smuggled into the US by my shadowy Canadian friend, I don’t know a whole lot about Canadian craft beer. I suppose that’s because very few of them make it across the border, don’t ya think? Some that do come from Montreal’s BRASSERIE McAUSLAN, who export a few of their wares into the US under the subsidiary ST.-AMBROISE brand name. I picked one up the other day – the bottle looked nice or something, or maybe I just wanted to see what was going on in the great white north. I sprung for a ST.-AMBROISE APRICOT WHEAT ALE. This is a mildly tart, opaque orange-brown ale with a nice light haze to it. It has very little head, unlike the beer in this promotional picture, and all bubbles were gone the moment it settled in the glass. That said, it’s highly carbonated. It has a clean taste, with a strong malt backbone and a whisp of apricot flavor. It’s exceptionally decent, but no biggie, I have to say. I could have it again in the proper context. 6.5/10. Anyone have anything to say about their other ales?

A TRIP TO THE TAP ROOM, SAN DIEGO

Aside from the weather, which is universally acknowledged as being perfect (it is), I'm not a big fan of San Diego, California. There have been times in my life where the notion of moving there has loomed, either due to job prospects or proximity to my wife's parents - and every time we've reluctantly concluded that San Diego is a cultureless, semi-moronic, food-challenged, bible-thumping, lowest-common-denominator, mall-ified, Jimmy Buffet-ized beach & party town that would drive us absolutely batty. All apologies to San Diegans whom I know and respect. It's just not my scene. I know that there are many who feel my hometown of San Francisco is a modern-day mammon full of fruits, nuts and nut-clustered flakes. Now the fact that San Diego is a great beer town has gotten me a little more excited about our twice-yearly visits to the in-laws, but aside from a few trips to the La Jolla Beverages & More, I've never actually had a true "beer experience" in San Diego. Until Sunday night. This is the story of that night.

I'd read about THE TAP ROOM on the always-great Summer of Beer blog. He pointed out that they have this amazing keg-tracker that not only tells you what's on tap each and every day, but how close each beer is to running out (!!). I reckoned that any place that cottoned to that level of beer dorkery was my kind of place; it's also in the Pacific Beach neighborhood, a mere 5 or so miles from the in-laws. I corralled my brother-in-law and off we went. Upon entering, it was clear that this place was unfortunately going to conform to every negative stereotype I have about the town, to my surprise. I was hoping for a nice quiet place where a beer enthusiast could rest his frame and talk about barrel aging, hop varieties & limited-edition bombers with fellow dorkified travelers - alas, no.

THE TAP ROOM, at least this evening, featured thumping dance music at subhuman volumes, all the better to block out the multiple "whoooooo"s from the deeply tanned, twentysomething beach girl/beach dude crowd. Every bartender had a San Diego Chargers jersey on. Lame. ESPN blared from multiple TVs - all NFL football, all the time. All of the beers - Pliny The Elder, weird-ass barleywines, Stone Arrogant Bastard, you name it - were served in Miller Lite pint glasses. I will say they had a great tap list going for them, and that's it. This place is San Diego central casting, and exactly why we'll never live there.

I decided to go with the strangest local concoctions I could manage, San Diego being a "beer mecca" and all. I decided to go big early, and ordered the BALLAST POINT THREE SHEETS BARLEYWINE. I could not accept it in a Miller Lite pint glass with a Chargers logo on the side - I just couldn't. I instead made the young lass behind the bar tap it into one of their few Chimay glasses, which she seemed really perplexed about ("um, hello, you're not going to get as much beer this way, mm, hello-o"). Then I go on and taste this barleywine, and I'm just not that into it. Oh sure, it was drinkable enough, but for my first barleywine in nearly 10 months I was hoping for a nice kick in the tuchus. Thin, faily lifeless, bourbon/whiskey-soaked but still kind of a big "meh". Not enough flavor to really wet the proverbial whistle. 5.5/10. I moved on.

My brother-and-law and I got into it over two very important subjects - the chances of the San Francisco Giants and their amazing pitching staff to compete in the NL West next year, and the future legacy of the outgoing President Bush. This called for a bold beer choice. This called for ALESMITH LIL' DEVIL. Now, I actually don't know all that much about the ALESMITH beers. I've had a couple (here, here and here) and they've generally been pretty good, yet nothing close to the hosannas rained down upon them by the Beer Advocate crowd. This one's no different - in fact, like my previous beer, it made me question my judgment in "going local" when Russian River Blind Pig IPA and Dogfish Head 90-Minute IPA were on tap. But I'm a beer reporter, and I need to help let you folks know "what's what". Anyway, this one was similar to a Belgian witbier crossed with some mediocre pale ale. Light, a little fruity (apples?), somewhat yeasty and pretty thin in general. I was hoping for something closer to a tripel. I didn't get it. So I went home, and decided to make my brother-in-law take me further south to the new Toronado next time. 6/10.

C'EST MAGNIFIQUE! UNIBROUE'S EXCELLENT "QUATRE-CENTIEME"

Quebec's UNIBROUE continues to shock and amaze, even with a new, limited-edition, this-year-only beer that most people have been saying is below their standard. I say au contrere. Brewed to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Quebec City, a place that's in my Top 10 unvisited (by me) North American cities, QUATRE-CENTIEME is a fantastic, effervescent, yeasty ale by the masters of same. If you love La Fin Du Monde as I do, you'll find this to be a worthy sibling.

QUATRE-CENTIEME is available only in 22-ounce bottles, and then just barely. I'd read about it in a few places, but couldn't find it until I stumbled upon it at Ledgers' Liquors in Berkeley, CA. I quaffed it with a friend that very evening. It is a light, fruity, oh-so-Belgian ale, with peppery notes and deep banana creaminess being the dominant flavors. Yeast is really, really active in this one - it coats the tongue and perhaps gives it that "effervescence" I'm so friggin' fond of. Lively and zesty, and damn good. Don't believe the haters and the mediocre-raters, HBJ's got your back on this one. 8.5/10.

ROGER, WILCO – ROLL OUT THE PORT BREWING PANZER

The past year has given rise to a new beer style, one borne of the relative successes of the Imperial/Double IPA and the Imperial Hefeweizen: the “Imperial Pilsner”. It’s really just the ticket to get the ale freaks excited about the pilsners they forsook long ago; pump it up with hops and strange malt varieties, jack up the alcohol, slap on an “imperial” label on it and there it is. I’m one of those who was brought into the fold this way, though I’m more excited about a good pilsner (Moonlight Reality Czech, Gorden Biersch Pilsner) now than I’ve been in a good while. Now the superstars at PORT BREWING have thrown their hat into the imperial pilsner ring with PANZER. PANZER!!!! This is indeed a big beer, stepping onto the scales at 9.5% alcohol, with an intense sweetness and hoppy bite to it. A pilsner? OK, if you say so. Pours a deep golden yellow, as you’d expect. The candied sugar is very pronounced, and given the proximity taste-wise to traditional Belgian beer, you’re likely to stylistically fool a lot of amateur judges when you plop this in front of them. Grassy and piney as well, with a little bit of alcohol burn. Hmm.

PORT BREWING PANZER goes into the “glad I drank it” category, but is likely to never set foot in the “I’ll buy it again” category. You know what I’m talking about. 6.5/10.

THE BRUERY MADE ME A BELIEVER

A few weeks ago I tried my first beer from Orange County’s THE BRUERY, a young brewer who decided to tackle strange, experimental beers right out of the gate, rather than grow from the typical pale ale/amber/IPA beginnings. No, these guys throw yams into one of their beers – the AUTUMN MAPLE we reviewed earlier. That one might not have been a total slam dunk, but it was definitely “interesting”, and I gave them some major bonus points for thinking out of the proverbial box. Now they’ve come along with a beer that not only justifies the hype, it cements it. These guys are good. THE BRUERY ORCHARD WHITE is what it’s called, and it’s remarkable. A beautiful, yeasty, Belgian-style tripel ale (at least that’s what it tastes like to me) – ORCHARD WHITE is marked by its exceptionally creamy mouthfeel and its totally spicy end-of-swallow bite. It’s not harsh at all, and is leavened by a nice bready feel (that’s what gives it this intense creaminess that’s really unusual for the style). Like the “yam beer”, this one’s advertising a couple of curveballs that I can’t taste – namely oats and lavender (!). No, I’m getting pepper and lemon, no lavender to speak of. Smooth as hell and rich with fresh, intense flavors, ORCHARD WHITE is a total knockout. 9/10.

2 HOLIDAY PERENNIALS BRING THE NOISE

I’ve probably been drinking PYRAMID SNOW CAP once a year during the holiday season for a good fifteen years now, and DESCHUTES JUBELALE for at least 10. They are two of the most consistently solid Christmas ales on the market, and I’m reminded of such every November/December when I get to drinking ‘em again. Unlike SNOW CAP, DESCHUTES JUBELALE doesn’t tend to stay in one place. Their formulation is a bit different every year, and has even been known to go a bit cockeyed, much as ANCHOR “OUR SPECIAL ALE” occasionally does. That’s cool – it’s the price of innovation, and we at HBJ are down with that.

This year the JUBELALE 2008 stays the course. It’s a wonderfully malty, crisp and caramel-rich dark brown ale, with a very low head. Smooth, still and silently delicious. It’s accented by flavors of toffee and gingerbread, so it’s pretty much right in my holiday beer wheelhouse. As usual, it’s got some gorgeous artwork on the bottle that you can see above these words here. (The beer I consumed is also pictured to your right). An excellent holiday ale – one of the greats. 8/10. PYRAMID SNOW CAP also stays the course; but then, they always do. Also rich and malty and with a mild “roasted” taste. The spicing is redolent of nutmeg and cinnamon. It’s even easier to drink than the Jubel Ale, and could be dangerous at the office after-work social. I brought a 6-pack to a similar event and had to restrain myself from not sucking the entire thing down myself. A big 7/10 on this one. This Saturday I’ll be at the Pacific Coast Brewing Holiday Beer tasting/blow-out/overdose, and will have a report on some slightly more obscure brews afterward.

CASTELAIN BLONDE BIER DE GARDE

Last year I recall reading a piece in The Celebrator all about French farmhouse ales, and in particular a rundown of the best bier de gardes that were being imported into America. I made a note to try some of these, and sadly I’ve barely even made a dent. One on my list off the top of my head is JENLAIN BLONDE; I’ve seen it a few times and it’s always really friggin’ expensive. Recently I espied a $6.99 bottle of CASTELAIN BLONDE BIER DE GARDE, and since that was the other one on my list that I could pull from memory, I reckoned somehow that 7 bucks sounded about right for an exotic, highly-touted French country ale loved by beer dorks worldwide. Trouble was, it just didn’t have that je ne sais quoi for me, and I guess that’s a little embarrassing considering my enthusiasm for American knock-offs like LOST ABBEY GIFT OF THE MAGI or RUSSIAN RIVER PERDITION.

It is what it is, right? CASTELAIN BLONDE BIER DE GARDE is a grassy, lager-reminiscent yellow/pale ale, nice and fresh for sure, and with some tart, mild funkiness. It feels pretty light, almost like a white wine. That said, I found it off-putting – its “earthiness” and “grassiness” didn’t necessarily translate into something particularly enjoyable; in fact even this small bottle felt like something I needed to finish for the sake of this blog than for its own sake. Drinking alcohol in order to write about it. Something tell me Carry Nation would not be proud. 5/10.

TWO BROTHERS KNOCK ANOTHER ONE OVER THE WALL

For a guy who’d never heard of TWO BROTHERS BREWING a month ago (that is, until I tasted their HOP JUICE), I have to say, I’m getting to be a pretty big fan. (The brothers themsleves are pictured here). I have now had 2 beers from this Illinois-based brewer at New York City’s GINGER MAN, the most recent being DOMAIN DU PAGE, a “French-style country ale”, or as Beer Advocate classifies it, a biere de garde. Not knowing that, my notes (pecked into a cell phone, as always) say, “What is it – a wheat wine – don’t know”. Check this out – I also typed “high ABV”, but it’s only a mere 6% alcohol by volume. How about that? It just goes to show, as some of the commenters in my most recent post have opined, “(I) need to have my taste buds recalibrated”. Perhaps so, my friends. Perhaps so.

Yet I’m gonna say that TWO BROTHERS DOMAIN DU PAGE is still a fantastic beer. Smooth, no carbonation, with a sweet aroma and light spicing of unknown origin. Perhaps some slight bittering and funkiness, but way off in the far distance somewhere. The hopping was light as well, with a sort of perfumy and biscuity quality to the thing overall. Smooth as shinola, and a real beautiful, fresh-tasting ale. I’m thinking that Two Brothers need to get their stuff out onto the west coast as well. Who’s with me?? 8.5/10.

A TALE OF TWO BAAAAD IPA’S

I’m not sure HBJ’s ever been accused of being too “positive” in its reviews, but I’ve taken myself to task for excessive positivity at times – with the caveat that when you buy beer from renown brewers or that others are raving about, you’ll tend to drink some pretty excellent beer. This is not one of those excessively positive reviews. On the contrary – recently we’ve encountered two utterly foul India Pale Ales that we thought it made sense to steer you away from. After all, 5 bucks is 5 bucks (except when it’s 7 bucks), and if you could be drinking something delicious with that hard-earned coin rather than some gross mockery of an IPA, you’d damn well wanna thank the fella that helped you do so.

The first IPA to disappoint to so thoroughly is from HAIR OF THE DOG in Portland, Oregon. Now we’ve told you before that we think Hair of the Dog’s beers are sub-par, but after reading a few reviews of their BLUE DOT Double IPA I thought, “well – maybe these guys can at least do an IPA”. They are from the Northwest and all. Alas, HAIR OF THE DOG BLUE DOT is kind of a boozy mess. Its enormous head of foam just kept bubbling up for minutes after it was poured – maybe not their fault – but it took forever to dissipate; once it finally did & I could dig in, it was – ugh – way too bitter. Piney, biting hops, just totally raw and intense, with no citrus aroma or balance of any kind in sight. It’s like they just half-heartedly ground up a bunch of virgin hops and sprinkled them into the mash and said “good enough”, then pumped up the alcohol to eye-watering levels (though it’s only 7%, it totally tastes like 10%). Tastes like an amateur homebrewer’s idea of a Double IPA by the numbers. I’ll never trust Hair of The Dog again. 4/10.

There’s also this brewer in Marina, CA called ENGLISH ALES whose wares we’ve sampled before; they’re not bad. Their DRAGON SLAYER IPA, on the other hand, is. This has the exact opposite problem that BLUE DOT has; this IPA is clear, pale, yellow and very weak. It’s thin and watery with very low hopping, and its head was flat and lifeless. I saw a couple of bubbles struggling to the top, but that’s about it. The flavor is a mild, distant fruitiness that has to be strained at to even notice. Woe be to the beerpub crawler who spends his/her hard-earned cash on this gruel when a robust and hearty macro-micro is on tap next to it. Another 4/10 here.

For IPAs to truly reckon with & do brave battle with, try clicking here, here and here.

2008 SIERRA NEVADA CELEBRATION ALE IS HERE

…..and this time, we’re not waiting to discover its glory in January at a Golden State Warriors game. My second holiday beer of the season we’re currently in is the 2008 SIERRA NEVADA CELEBRATION, which is truly one of the great beers of our time. What’s funny about this ale is that the only thing really “holiday” about it is the label. It is a flowery, dry, intensely hoppy India Pale Ale, and it’s one of the best around. You smell it (it being rich, aromatic hops, woodsy pine needles, orange zest & flowers) way before the first gulp – this is a beer where you’ll probably want to hide in a corner and give it a big whiff with your pinky finger extended. Just don’t let any girls see ya. I drank mine on tap at San Francisco’s Revolution Café and immediately demanded a second pint upon finishing my first – but they’d already tapped the keg, brah. So I went out the next day and bought a couple of bottles. I suggest you do the same. This intense, juicy IPA is truly deserving of all the praise rained down upon it, and while it’s about as “holiday” as a glass of pale ale, it’s the thought that counts, right? 9/10.

LAGER, BEGONE: LEFT HAND’S “RYE BOCK LAGER”

I was in the Kansas City area a few weeks back and got to a local liquor store on my way out, hoping to pick up a few regional specialties to bring back home. Since I already had tried the BOULEVARD SMOKESTACK SERIES, I skipped those and somewhat randomly picked a bottle from a Colorado brewer that we can’t get in California called LEFT HAND BREWING. I’ve heard some positive hosannas thrown in their general direction. The one I picked up was a seasonal called LEFT HAND RYE BOCK LAGER; I like rye, I like bock beer – let’s see what happens. As it turns out it wasn’t quite the slam dunkel I was hoping for. I found it exceptionally ordinary – bready and very lager-like, with some faint nods to rye and toasted grain. I looked for some affirmation on the world wide web and came up with this from our friends at YEAR OF BEER:

The aroma of this beer is slightly spicy and grainy. The color is brown with plenty of haze. He head pours very thick, to the point of over carbonated, but has only mild retention. The taste is grainy, with rye spice flavors. The rye spice flavor is very predominate tasting a little akin to the rye seeds in rye bread. There is a bit of sweetness that balances against the spiciness. The mouthfeel is over carbonated and stingy not the normal smooth taste of a rye. The finish is a little spicy.

I wish I could be so generous. I tasted none of these things. After it was ingested I said a few curse words about lager beers and reckoned that I still wasn’t ready to see the goodness in most lagers (though I’m starting to enjoy high-end pilsners quite a bit). Then I moved on to splitting a bottle of LOST ABBEY INFERNO ALE with my guest, which I already captured here. Now that’s the real thing. This one, not so much. 5.5/10.

A TRIP TO SPUYTEN DUYVIL, BROOKLYN, NY

This is part two of an epic two-part series detailing my beer consumption adventures in Brooklyn, New York last week. In one night I visited two bars and tried four new beers – isn’t that something worth reading about? Well, read on, my friends. When we last left the plotline, I was being talked into – well, that’s not quite fair, I was agitating strongly for – continuing from BARCADE and checking out the legendary SPUYTEN DUYVIL beer bar in Williamsburg. I’ve heard much about this place for a couple of years, but had never broached the doorway until last Tuesday. Now take a look at that doorway, will ya? (both pictures courtesy of Mark Schwartz). There’s no sign announcing the place – you just have to “know”. Once inside, we were greeted with a gaggle of beer enthusiasts in every corner of this tiny bar, drinking from Belgian-style chalices and all manner of appropriate stemware for the beer styles they were ingesting. Sign of quality. I was in.

Mark & Elisa told me that on the east coast, what we call a “beer dork” on the west coast is typically represented here by a beard and a tight sweater wrapped around an expanding, pear-shaped frame. Hunh. The beard thing kind of threw me. On the west coast, our beer dorks seem to have sort of an aging fraternity-brother vibe about them: baggy shorts, backward baseball cap, t-shirts etc. Anyway, we couldn't find any extent examples of the east coast variety at SPUYTEN DUYVIL, but then I was too busy getting flustered looking at all the beer choices. This is a true beer enthusiast’s bar, the kind of place catering to the high-end ale drinker who knows his/her sh*t and is ready to try whatever’s newest, freshest and most obscure. It’s an underground insider’s punk rock dive, just cleaned up and with better furniture & top-shelf glassware. Have to say it was even better than I expected for the 45 minutes I spent there. Beer? Oh, did you want to know what I tried? Well, I only had one of the greatest revelations of the past year. Let me explain.

The revelation in question was CAPTAIN LAWRENCE CAPTAIN’S RESERVE IMPERIAL IPA, served up in a 10-ounce, wine-like glass. This double/imperial IPA was smooth as silk and loaded with hops, but rather than being “zesty” or “citrusy”, this big IPA was restrained, muted, still, and with all the rough edges rounded off. A real “big boy drink”. Balanced like you wouldn’t believe. After having so many hop bombs in my time, and enjoying most of them but being none too impressed with their sameness, this knockout from Captain Lawrence was (can I say it again?) revelatory. Not to get too far ahead of myself, but I had it again the next night in Manhattan, and it was just as amazing. 10/10. Welcome to the Hedonist Beer Jive 65, Captain Lawrence Captain’s Reserve Imperial IPA!

The final pour of the evening was also outstanding – and no, it wasn’t just the beer talking, I was choosing well, OK? In all the excitement I drank something I’d already had before – whoops – but that something now gets an upgrade in its score to a big 9/10. AVERY FIFTEEN is Avery Brewing’s Fifteenth anniversary ale, and it was a pretty controversial one last summer. This funky tripel with figs & spices arose a lot of passions – I had at least two people tell me that thought it was a “pour out”, also known as a “drain pour” – I think you get the picture – but I don’t quite understand that. It’s a remarkable beer, a true representation of the modern brewer’s art. Again, 9/10. What did I say last time I had it? Here:

….AVERY FIFTEEN tastes like it just arrived on the early boat from Belgium along with the fondue pots. A distinct floral smell, and immediate taste of hibiscus (yeah, seriously!). A little mild, tart funk, much like you’d find in a classic Trappist tripel like the WESTMALLE. Complex and big, and an almost light orange in color. They say it’s supposed to taste of figs. I don’t taste any, but I don’t care. This is a unique beer that’s highly drinkable for the amount of experimentation going on inside of it…..

NOW it was time to stumble to the subway for the quick ride back to Manhattan. In sum, I’d go back to SPUYTEN DUYVIL anytime – maybe earlier in the evening, before the hoards arrive – and since BARCADE is essentially “down the block” from there, why not hit ‘em both up. Good times, good people, great spelunking. I came home two days later and boycotted beer for (gasp!) several days…..!

A TALE OF 2 BARS AND 4 BEERS IN BROOKLYN, NY – PART 1

If you get as rambunctious about trying new beers as I do – and the fact that you actually read a friggin’ beer blog tells me that you do – then you’ll no doubt understand how exciting the prospect of beer-bar-hopping in Brooklyn, NY last Tuesday night was for me. As I floated on clouds for six hours on my way from San Francisco into JFK international airport, I completely cast aside the fact that I was traveling for my job, and instead focused all of my mental space on the evening ahead. I was going to need to stay focused. My friend Elisa & Mark told me to meet ‘em at a bar in Williamsburg called BARCADE, and knowing that they are lovers of the good things in life, chief among them beer, I knew they were to be trusted in full.

I arrived at BARCADE at the anointed hour. This is a somewhat dingy, cement-floor kind of place, livened up with all manner of chirping video games from the 1980s (Ms. Pac-Man, Frogger, Defender – that sort of thing) and some “flair” on the walls. The biggest flair, however, is on the board behind the bar, where over 25 craft beers compete for one’s thirst. I had done a little pre-flight snooping on their web site, and knew that I wasn’t going to escape Brooklyn without downing a glass of something from SOUTHERN TIER, who make some of the finest ales on the east coast. I had barely stumbled into the joint when I started waving a ten-spot at the barkeep while barking, “SOUTHERN TIER RASPBERRY PORTER, please! Southern Tier, over here, please!”. SOUTHERN TIER RASPBERRY PORTER apparently combines the brewery’s famous Porter with the brewery’s famous Raspberry Wheat. That’s almost exactly what it tasted like, too. Very fizzy and carbonated, yet still rich and robust enough to warm a cold man’s heart. (And it was 26 degrees outside). The raspberry smell and taste is actually quite fleeting, and therefore one can taste the hops & porter-like malts quite well. I wasn’t exactly clubbed over the head with its greatness, but then, I was just getting started. 7.5/10.

The next beer at Barcade was even better. I chose SOUTHAMPTON FRENCH COUNTRY CHRISTMAS ALE. Word has it that this bier de garde is also known as, you guessed it, BIER DE GARDE, and is sold in 750ml bottles around the New York area, but this year they’re calling it this other thing. Loved it! Opaque and smooth as glass, it’s got a great baked-apple taste that’s muted and in the background, along with some spicing and mild, malty sweetness. I’d only had one other beer from Southampton – the vaunted DOUBLE WHITE ALE – and enjoyed this one exponentially more. 9/10!! Well, when Elisa & Mark next floated the idea of walking down the street to the SPUYTEN DUYVIL, a beer bar as famous as any American beer bar there is, I could have just called it a night and taken the subway to my hotel. But I didn’t. More in Part Two, coming to ya tomorrow.

THE BRUERY GETS ITS YAM ON

Lots of talk in influential places about new Orange County, California brewer THE BRUERY. Take Summer of Beer, for instance. THE BRUERY’s just one of his many haunts in his endless summer of beer-drinking, but Steve’s descriptions of their oddball Belgian-styled ales really got me curious to check them out. A big batch made its way to San Francisco recently, and I decided to give some Bruery products a try. First out of the gate was AUTUMN MAPLE, a fall seasonal with yams (yams!) added to the batch in lieu of the normal pumpkin. Well, yams is pretty much another way of sayin’ “sweet potato”, and I once read an article saying that sweet potatoes were the healthiest single food in the entire known world. So let’s do this!

THE BRUERY AUTUMN MAPLE is 100% completely still upon pouring – I mean no head at all, and let me to wonder whether this fresh bottle had already gone flat. But it didn’t taste flat, so I persevered. Interesting beer. “Uh oh”, you’re saying. No, I actually liked this one. Despite a bonzai 10% ABV, AUTUMN MAPLE is not that overpowering. You don’t really taste the alcohol, and quite honestly, there’s not a whole lot of yam/sweet potato taste in their either – and when you think about it, isn’t that just as well? It’s really a maple syrup play for these guys. That’s the predominant flavor, and it’s not sticky-sweet and syrupy, just sweet-ish and a little bit syrupy. It would probably be best served in a small pour, say something on the order of 8 ounces, and probably with dessert as well. I salute them for reaching for the stars – my heroes over at HOT KNIVES did not quite agree – and am proud to bestow upon this beer a quite respectable 7/10.

THANK YOU, JESUS – ANCHOR XMAS 2008

An annual tradition in my house and in many other houses in the “unveiling of the Anchor Christmas ale”, or as they like to call it, OUR SPECIAL ALE. This spicy yuletide concoction changes every year, and even if it’s not the best holiday beer each year, it’s always exceptionally cockle-warming – and ain’t that what it’s all about? I don’t know, I could give a rat’s ass about Christmas, but this is one seasonal manifestation that I always look forward to. Sniffing at this year’s, the ANCHOR OUR SPECIAL ALE 2008, I immediately received big smells of spice and molasses. My wife claimed that there were apricots in there. Who knows what the secret recipe is this annum? Dark brown, with a medium head that dissipated pretty quickly. The spicing this year is really showing itself in the aftertaste, rather than up front, and overall the beer is quite smooth with a slight bite as it goes down. I’m getting some maple taste and that bready molasses I smelled at the start. I like it, once again, forever and always. Right now it’s the holiday beer to beat in 2008. 7/10.

RACER X ON ATTACK

I swore upon my mother’s honor after trying my first glass of BEAR REPUBLIC’s RACER X that, alas, “I’d try it again”, and that day arrived last week. RACER X is their intense, “barleywine-style” Double IPA, and it’s a friggin’ doozy. It's only available on draft, and only in Northern California, I believe (I've since been corrected in the comments section below). It’s related to the much-heralded RACER 5 only in the sense that it’s “hoppy”. Like ten times more hoppy. The bitterness is just omnipresent – you can smell the hops, you can taste the pine needles, and this time my take on the beer could be boiled down to one word: HARSH. As in “it totally harshed on my mellow”. It’s something that I started getting a little more used to as I drank it, but overall I had to admit it just wasn’t that enjoyable. I’m downgrading this one from my previous 7/10 to a more average – and below-average for craft beer – 5.5/10. Approach with caution, unlike this young lass.

UNIBROUE’S “TERRIBLE” SORTA TRANSCENDS THE NAME

We’re big fans of Quebec’s UNIBROUE here at HBJ. Let’s do a quick check of the score to see just HOW big of a fan we are:

LA FIN DU MONDE 10/10
MAUDITE 9/10
TRADER JOE’S VINTAGE ALE 2006 8.5/10
EAU BENITE 8/10
EPHEMERE 8/10
BLANCHE DE CHAMBLY 7.5/10
UNIBROUE 17 7/10
DON DE DIEU 6/10
TROIS PISTOLES 5.5/10

Pretty solid, with only a couple of outliers. LA FIN DU MONDE is one of the great beers of all time, and I try to have one at least once a quarter if I can. With the cloying enthusiasm of an annoying fanboy and the bat-out-of-hell persistence of a man in need of a drink, I bought a bottle of TERRIBLE recently and proceeded to drink it accordingly. TERRIBLE is dark brown “abbey ale” which the brewery says “may be drunk as an aperitif or as an after dinner digestive”. What about if you wanna gulp it down WITH your dinner? Any harm in that? Let’s find out.

At 10.5% alcohol, this is one to go slowly with. As mentioned before, very dark brown and exceptionally aromatic. I’m getting cherries in my whiffs, what about you? Tastes of prunes and chestnuts, and a distinct warming effect that’s no doubt part & parcel of that high ABV. Extremely Belgian in both form & function. Mild hops, mild malts, and a bit clingy on the tongue, which I don’t really like – that syrupy thing that sort of ruins the vibe. Can’t help but feel a little disappointed by this one, and I’m thinking that I’d rather have served it a small snifter or something, like a real fancy-pants. But since I’d never do such a thing, I’ll just move on to other parts of their lineup. Not Terrible, just 6/10.

FIRE, BRIMSTONE & LOST ABBEY’S “INFERNO ALE”

(Thanks to the JustBeer blog for the photos)

It has been absolutely paydirt city recently with regard to the beers of LOST ABBEY. My m.o. with their stuff is “don’t look at the price tag”, just grab anything and everything you can by them, particularly if you haven’t seen it before. You can count your change later. Usually a new beer from them means a beer that won’t be seen again soon. Recently a bottle of INFERNO ALE showed up on the shelves of Ledger’s Liquors in Berkeley, CA, and naturally I pounced. A week later, it was fully consumed. Its bark is far more threatening than its bite. There may be hideous hellfire and demons from the deepest circles of Beelzebub’s garden of terror on the label – but what I drank was a delicious, earthy saison-like ale that others have pegged as a Belgian pale or strong ale. An rich, nearly glowing yellowish-orange color, it looks like a harvest moon during smog season. Beautiful, that is (everyone knows air pollution is the best thing to ever happen to the sunset). Tastes of clove and lemon, and lots of bitter yeast. Coriander, perhaps? Medium carbonation. You sure this isn’t a saison or some souped-up witbier? How do I put this – these guys just can’t seem to fail. Everything’s worth 10 bucks or more per bottle – and it’s a good thing, too, because that’s what they cost! 8/10.

RUSSIAN RIVER’S SANCTIFICATION – A WILD, WILD ALE

A “beer alert” was sent out across the greater San Francisco Bay Area last Thursday that RUSSIAN RIVER BREWING’s bacteria-laden SANCTIFICATION had hit the tap lines at City Beer Store in SF. A crowd gathered at the store, small at first, then swelling to dozens upon dozens of frenzied beer dorks, ready to gulp untold glasses of this 100% Brettanomyces yeast-infested “wild ale”. I myself was one of those dorks. I don’t believe I’ve ever had this beer before – a search of my own site indicates that I haven’t. SANCTIFICATION is cloudy, blondish-orange ale brewed in the hardcore Belgian style. Very, very fresh on draft – so when you get that intense yeasty/clove taste, & that sharp, tangy lemon bite, you LIKE it and want more. (Well, I sure did). That big sharp bite mellows and lingers as you get used to the beer, and each swallow stays on the tongue for quite a while. I can imagine – though I am a “food pairing skeptic” – that this would go well with a barbequed chicken. And yeah, it’s a sour one, and as unique as it gets. We like it, and hope to try it on a quarterly basis at least. 8/10.

BUCKBEAN’S PROMO TRAIN ROLLS THROUGH HBJ HEADQUARTERS

(Thanks to The Beerocrat for the image)

Seems like every beer blogger on the west coast got a package from Reno, Nevada’s BUCKBEAN BREWING this past month or two. This brand-new brewer is really working it, and kudos to them for doing so. That’s the way to make a splash in 2008; so when they asked me if I’d take a mailing with a couple cans (cans!) of their wares, I of course answered in the affirmative. I’ve actually never been sent a beer for review before from the brewers themselves. Well, BUCKBEAN BREWING have two beers going right now, a lager called BLACK NODDY (review coming once we try it), and the one we’re going to be discussing today, ORIGINAL ORANGE BLOSSOM ALE. This comes packaged in a “tall boy” – a 16-ounce can – and pours an unsurprising orange color. It is a very smooth ale, light and zesty and flowery, with medium hopping and a restrained but ever-present orange taste. Like if you dropped in some peel and left the pulp in the trash can. Dry finish. It’s a beer that doesn’t really do a lot to wow you, but is impressive enough. I’d drink it again someday. 6.5/10.

NEW YORK CITY'S GINGER MAN - THE RETURN

I may have mentioned a couple of weeks ago that my work recently brought me to New York City for a brief visit. Naturally I attempted to maximize all beer consumption possibilities, though given the constrainsts of my, uh, exceptionally busy schedule, I kinda played it minute to minute. There was this night, you may remember it, because it was the night the Tampa Bay Rays almost blew their series against Boston by going up 7-0, only to lose 8-7 in Game Five. I'd totally wanted to watch that game with a pint in my hand, but I was working at a night event on 36th & Broadway from 7-10pm. Wait a minute....36th Avenue in Manhattan....isn't THE GINGER MAN on 36th???!? And so it was that I spent a couple of hours and three glasses of beer watching the end of said game, and taking in the finest ales the east coast had to offer me.

We've written about THE GINGER MAN before. I used to take work trips to NYC all the time, and this was my default beer joint. We've subsequently discovered the wonders to be had in Brooklyn and in the West Village, but I was very glad for a repeat visit. Incredible beer selection from all the eastern seaboard heavyweights: Southern Tier, Captain Lawrence, Smuttynose, Southhampton etc etc. Great atmosphere as long as it's not too packed and as long as you can stomach a $6 minimum charge for each beer. (In the right circumstances, like this one, I most certainly can). I felt like getting started with a bang, and noticed that the bar had a "house ale" - brewed by CAPTAIN LAWRENCE! Hot damn. GINGER MAN ALE is a Belgian-style amber ale that's fairly light (5.5% abv) and therefore a great way to get the party started, in a 20-ounce pint no less. Malty, medium-bodied, and deceptively hoppy. It's brewed with ginger - oh, haw haw! I get it. Really a nice beer, much like the Imperial Red from Lagunitas that we're always raving about, just not quite on that exalted level. 7/10. Next!

Well, next one was somewhat unremarkable, though I had pretty high hopes. It was the FISHERMAN'S PUMPKIN STOUT from Gloucester, MA's CAPE ANN BREWING. This was a total roll of the dice, and initially I was pretty impressed. Black as night, with the immediate whammo of pumpkin pie, right there in your friggin' face, take it or leave it. Almost no "stout" taste as all. Quite thin-bodied. Close your eyes, and you could've been drinking a yellow-colored ale. Weird, hunh? I thought I liked it, then I didn't, and then I scored it a 6.5/10.

Last of the night was the big winner. It's not even an east coast beer, though I didn't know that when I ordered. It's from Warrenville, IL's TWO BROTHERS BREWING, and it's called HOP JUICE. Can you perhaps guess which style of ale it might be? Yeah, this double IPA was actually listed as a "pale ale" by the Ginger Man, but there is no mistaking its ultra hoppiness. But hey - these are muted in a beautiful fashion - totally well-rounded, smooth, and very juicy. Grapefruit, green apples, and heavy carbonation. Fantastic. Another one to renew my faith in the IPA. 9/10!!

IN THE CLUTCHES OF MOONLIGHT'S "BONY FINGERS"

You've probably heard a thing or two about a new beer establishment called the HOPMONK TAVERN if you've been north of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge recently. This is a new beer garden-slash-live music venue located in the happy hippie town of Sebastopol, California, in what is probably of the 2-3 most picturesque counties in the USA, Sonoma. We get up to Sebastopol a bunch because we have some good friends there w/ a daughter who's my son's age, and every time my pal Jay kindly takes me to some beer place or another; Russian River, Sebastopol Brewing, etc.

Turns out HOPMONK took over the SEBASTOPOL BREWING location when the latter couldn't make a go of it. The new place was founded and is run by Dean Biersch, who made his name and his relative fortune having founded the GORDON-BIERSCH mini-empire of brewpubs & the (generally underrated) beers of the same name. Jay took me there a couple Sundays ago while the ladies and the kids were off doing who knows what. I'm here to tell you I'm glad he did. It's an inviting space, especially outside, where the Indian summer sun beat down through plastic covering amidst a panopoly of flora & fauna. Beer selection was "totally ace", as they say. It was a hard one, but then I saw their pours were 20-ounce pints, not those sissy 16-ouncers you get elsewhere. I thought a new MOONLIGHT BREWING beer I'd never heard of might help get me through the afternoon, particularly in that larger vessel. I thought correctly.

This new MOONLIGHT BONY FINGERS is billed as a straight-up "black lager", but those with discriminating smellers and taste buds can call it for what it is. This is a schwarzbier, a true-blue smoky, charcoal/chocolate schwarzbier in the German style. Like everything the brewing magician Brian Hunt touches, this one's not quite what you'd expect. It seemed to me to have very high carbonation, and of course a generous dose of hops. Fluffy and still thick. Much "sharper" than their famous DEATH & TAXES lager. I dug it. 7.5/10.

I wish I could end the story there but I'll leave you with one more aside. We both ordered up a big-ass pint of LAGUNITAS IMPERIAL RED, and I decided once and for all on this, my second try of the beer, that it belonged in the Hedonist Beer Jive 65. It's amazing. Look - look here, it's #57! Great day, great drinkin', good times.

THE LAUGHING BUDDHA HAS A LOT TO BE MIRTHFUL ABOUT

A little over a month ago I tasted my first product from Seattle’s east-meet-west fusion brewer LAUGHING BUDDHA, a beer called MANGO WEIZEN. We thought it was excellent, and an superb example of American 21st century brewing ingenuity. Since I can’t get their stuff in Northern California, I had to trade for that one, and was on the ball enough to ask for two bottles of Laughing Buddha wares in my trade. The other night I busted out their GINGER PALE ALE and went to town. LAUGHING BUDDHA GINGER PALE ALE is much more of a “mandarin orange ale” to my taste buds, and to that end, it’s really, really good. I honestly could barely taste the ginger, save for a mild astringent character that was downplayed in favor of rich, full-bodied yeasts and a superlative “fresh” taste. It’s medium-to-high in carbonation, and has an underlying backbone of classic “US pale ale” too it, with low hopping and again, that flavorful, juicy mandarin orange taste throughout. These guys are a big two-4-two in my book. 7.5/10.