MY FIRST BEER TRADE

I opportunistically offered up my address to anyone who wanted to send me beer to review about a month ago, and while I had no takers (which is fine), Kevin over at the KEVBREWS blog proposed that we do a little beer tradin’, something I’d never embarked upon nor seriously considered. I had heard about how expensive the shipping was, but then after doing the math, it only equated to an appx $2.50 surcharge on each beer sent. That compared very favorably to the price that I’ll pay at a bar (with tip) for a pint of good ale – roughly $5. So what the hell? We decided to trade.

Kevin happens to live in Ohio, and thus has access to a number of brewers I often read about but never get to try: THREE FLOYDS, BELL’S, FOUNDERS, DOGFISH HEAD and others. Me, I live on the west coast, and we’ve got a number of brewers Kevin’s beer salivating for (BEAR REPUBLIC, LOST COAST, DESCHUTES, FIRESTONE WALKER, etc.). We compared wants, offered suggestions, went shopping, and made it happen. A few things I learned:

1. Never, never ship via the postal service. FedEx and UPS only. You’ll rot in jail for years otherwise.
2. Don’t tell them you’re shipping beer. It’s glassware. (play the eBay card).
3. Wrap extremely well – bubble wrap, soft packing materials, etc.
4. Clear the list of what you’re sending and receiving first. You don’t want to pay to receive something you can get at the Safeway down the street.

I’ve now got 7 incredible-sounding beers from the upper Midwest and east coast – well 6, because I enjoyed BELL’S HOPSLAM last night (more on that another time). I also noticed recently that Beer Advocate allow you, once logged in, to click on “Got” or “Want” for every beer on their site, and build a list of trades that way. Dorky? Of course it is. But such is the way of the beer outlaw in 2007, where interstate shipping is still highly regulated and/or impossible, and where tiny, regional beers often only get distributed at the breweries themselves or within a 20 mile radius. Now that I’ve done this once, it’s not hard to imagine future trades. That rogue, clued-in, outlaw-ish feeling actually makes it that much more interesting, much like trading punk rock 45s did for me in the 1980s.

A HUGE QUADRUPEL FROM URTHEL

What is it about the “quadruple” style that’s so goddamn appealing? Is it the ridiculous alcohol level – nearly 12% in the case of URTHEL SAMARANTH? It is the sweetness combined with heavy malts that makes it work so well when done right? I can’t say that I have much experience with this style, but after trying & embracing this winner, AVERY’s THE REVEREND, and the TRAPPISTES ROCHEFORT 10, I’m going to step up my Quadrupel game in a big way. URTHEL SAMARANTH QUADRIUM is from Belgian brewers BREWERY DE LEYERTH, part of a new clan of Belgians who are experimenting with American styles & combining them with their own expertise to create exceptionally unique beers. I reviewed their HOP-IT a month or two ago right here. Anyway, this one doesn’t have a shred of Yankee in it, just a beautiful, deep golden/orange beer with an incredible deep body, one that contains layers upon layers of fruit & yeasty flavors. I tasted something along the lines of apricot; one website I saw noted marzipan & nuts. Such is the prerogative of the novice beer snob! A mark of a special beer is one that can go into double digits in alcohol (11.5%, for instance) and not make you notice or even stop to think about it, and SAMARANTH is one of those special beers. (that’s one of my huge pet peeves, that hot & flushed alcohol taste, and one reason why I’m kinda down on my local SPEAKEASY beers). I’m going with 8.5/10. Looks like URTHEL’s got five beers in total, three of which are being imported to the US, so that’s two down, one to go, and two to save for my trip to Belgium.

ONE BAD-ASS CHERRY: RUSSIAN RIVER’S “SUPPLICATION”

A great example of the scientific experimentation in wild yeasts and bold flavors going on at RUSSIAN RIVER BREWING in Santa Rosa (where I’ll be making my first-ever pilgrimage to next week – report forthcoming), one of the American masters of craft brewing. Your enthusiasm for this beer will highly depend upon your enthusiasm for off-beat, funky flavors, and your willingness to go deep & to go extreme. Me, I’m somewhere on the fence on SUPPLICATION. This barrel-aged-for-15-months “wild ale” has “craft” written all over it, as you can just taste how much thought & care went into hand-delivering a beer that balances the untamed with the tried-&-true. It’s a total sipper, one that brings forth a massive burst of tart, sour cherries, and a whole host of strange & complex bacterias (no! the good kind!) and yeasts. My wife called it a “dessert beer” that should be served in shot glasses; I beg to differ – it holds its own in a full glass, but to even think of slamming this down would be sacrilege. It would also be exceptionally masochistic – this beer has an extremely strong taste, very yeasty, acidic and sour, and is very far from even your standard IPA or pale ale. It does not have an overwhelming alcohol taste, which is great & which allows you a chance to really absorb the crazy flavors going on in this thing. As “wild” as I’m probably making this sound, SUPPLICATION is indeed a beer lover’s beer, and is not so far off the beaten path that it’s unconquerable for others. I’m just not at all prepared to call it a masterpiece as I have so many other of Russian River’s beers. 7/10.

THE MANLY MUSK OF A BOYSENBERRY WHEAT ALE

I’ve always had a softer spot in my beer-drinker’s heart than most fellas for fruit- and spice-flavored beers. Hell, I remember drinking a raspberry wheat ale at some great microbrewery in Chicago in the early 1990s that totally blew me away, and from then on I decided that sweet fruits and good beer could indeed coexist, and coexist well. Well, the judges behind the BOSTON BEER/SAMUEL ADAMS corporation agree with me, as their recent “Longshot” homebrewers competition results attest. As I understand it, the Sam Adams folks held a national contest whereby American homebrewers submitted their best concoctions to a panel of judges. The winners got to not only have their beers mass-produced and packaged by Sam Adams, but they also got their pictures on the front of the bottles – with their beers inside. Very cool. Uli and Jeff, you know what you need to do next year.

The 2006 LONGSHOT SERIES, which had three winners and which was released to the public last month, is packaged is 6-packs with two 12-oz. bottles each of the winners. I was able to buy single bottles of the Dortmunder-Style Export and the BOYSENBERRY WHEAT, the latter of which I tasted a couple weeks ago. This one was actually the product of a Sam Adams employee named Ken Smith, who got his beer packaged with those of the two homebrewers (the other one is an Old Ale that I haven’t tried yet). Anyway, Ken’s brew is not too shabby, just not something I’d probably jump for again. His blind spot was in carbonating the hell out of this thing, making it a fizzy fruit bomb that overwhelms many of its best characteristics – which are there, you just have to sniff around for them. I liked how the malts blended in a manner that almost made this taste like a Belgian pale ale, and the hops for this one were noticeably absent (which is fine, all the more to get the flavor of the fruit out there). But in sum it was just OK. Still, if I could home-brew a beer even this respectable I’d be damn proud, as Mr. Ken Smith ought to be. 6/10.

MARIN BREWING’S SEASONAL “TRIPEL DIPSEA”

I may be an outlier here in terms of my enthusiasm for this one, but this is flat-out one of the single best American “Belgian-style” beers I’ve ever had. I’ve got this pal Holly who’s been telling me about the TRIPEL DIPSEA for well over a year, well she went & ponied up and got me a couple bottles of this limited-run seasonal when it popped up, just so I could see what all the (her) fuss was about. Wow! We executed a complex fridge-to-fridge-to-fridge transaction that got the 22oz. bottles safely home to my house, whereupon I commenced with the enjoyment of one. This is really quite a beer, the best I’ve had in months. The MARIN BREWING TRIPEL DIPSEA (2007 edition- the one pictured here is the 2006) is a deep, glowing orange ale with a fantastic yeasty taste redolent of the best & sweetest Belgian ales you can imagine. Deep within the liquid contours of this one is candied orange flavor, along with a tangy malt taste and various spices that almost make this close to a holiday beer, but lighter in color and body. I kept drinking this with my critical thnking cap on & couldn’t believe how great it was – but then, these Marin cats are part of the same family as MOYLAN’S, and make some pretty impressive beers themselves, so I shouldn’t be at all surprised. Best news of all is these just hit the market, so they ought to be around for another couple months. Do it! Do it now! 9.5/10!

GET A LOAD OF THIS HOP BOMB

The new HOP SALAD Double IPA from DRAKE’S BREWING is truly a hop fiend’s dream beer (well OK, that’s probably HOPSICKLE, but this doozy is right up there). The first time I tasted it, one swallow off another man’s glass, it was like, wham – total hop overload, but with a real juicy, piney aftertaste that I loved. I resolved to get myself in deep with this one whenever I encountered it next. Luckily that was earlier this week at the Toronado in San Francisco, where they had it on tap (it’s also at Barclay’s in Oakland, CA). Unfortunately it’s not in bottles yet, but let the campaigning for that start right here. This is an almost picture-perfect Double IPA, totally intense like many in the west coast style, and something that might be off-putting for the average beer drinker. Who knows, it’s a lot more than the intense, stinging, taste bud-bristling hoppy bite – HOP SALAD also has a real aromatic smell of pine & grapefruit (REALLY strong grapefruit), and while I wouldn’t say it goes down “easy”, it’s incredibly alive and full of flavor. A great find that you ought to start petitioning for in your neighborhood. 8.5/10.

RATING CHANGE ALERT

Like any true dork worth his (and it’s always his) salt, I keep a tally of the ratings I’ve applied to various beers I’ve tried, just so I can make ridiculous lists like the HEDONIST BEER JIVE 25, and also so I can remember what to recommend to others and even what to buy. Call it a quirk, call it inane, even call it sexy if you want, but that’s just me. Sometimes I even drink certain beers a second time, get a little more wise about ‘em, and then revise my rating. In the interest of keeping you informed and in staying honest, here’s a few examples of that:

MOONLIGHT REALITY CZECK – Up to 10/10 from 9.5/10. I mean, if you drink a pilsner that’s so amazing it blows away every preconceived notion you had about what the style was capable of, shouldn’t that at least merit the full monty? I think so.

DESCHUTES BLACK BUTTE PORTER – Down to 8/10 from 10/10. My memories of drinking this weekly in the 90s clouded my judgment of this still-excellent beer.

LOST ABBEY LOST AND FOUND ALE – Up to 8.5/10 from 7.5/10. See yesterday’s review.

MOONLIGHT DEATH & TAXES – Down to 8/10 from 9/10. My most recent one was great, not off-the-charts great.

NEW BELGIUM 1554 BLACK ALE – Down to 7/10 from 8.5/10. Ironically I enjoyed this in a 2006 bottle far more than I did on tap in 2007. Still good though.

THE LOST ABBEY’S LOST AND FOUND ALE – SMOOTH AS GLASS

After LOST ABBEY mania descended upon San Francisco late last year (you can read a dispatch from the front here), and several bottles washed up into town during the craze, I seized the initiative and spent whatever it took to procure a few of them for myself. The first, a big bottle of AVANT GARDE that I uncorked in January, was delicious and yet still somewhat anticlimactic at the same time. No such issue with this one, the LOST AND FOUND ALE. This superb Belgian-style dubbel comes out of the gate like a brown ale, and looks the part as well. Yet once you start doing all those annoying things that ludicrous beer dorks do – you know, smelling the glass, swishing the beer inside yr mouth like a goddamn wine drinker, well – you realize that this thing goes far beyond the quote-unquote ordinary. It is ripe with the aroma of figs, dates, and other sweet brown things, but has a really, really balanced blend of malts that doesn’t bite or challenge too hard. It is extremely smooth. It also doesn’t taste like an ordinary brown ale – I followed it up with the very solid Lost Coast Downtown Brown, so it made for a nice comparison – as it has some really subtle quirks that scream “Belgian-style”. Really a fantastic beer. 8.5/10.

NONE TOO IMPRESSED WITH THE DOGGIE CLAWS

When Brian Hunt of MOONLIGHT BREWING gave the thumbs-up to Portland, OR’s HAIR OF THE DOG in the interview we did with him, that was all the impetus a couple of us needed to start a deeper exploration of the beers from these mysterious Oregonians. I know their stuff has been around for a while, and where I live you can get a few bottles here & there if you look hard enough. Lately I’ve been noticing that their DOGGIE CLAWS barleywine has been winning some judgments from barleywine lovers as being one of this country’s best. Ergo, that’s the one I purchased and downed first, though I also have bottles of “Fred” and “Adam” sitting at home awaiting consumption. Have to say, I’m like that rogue sheep on the cover of the Minor Threat album on this one, totally out of step with the verdicts of my peers. I didn’t really like DOGGIE CLAWS. I found it way too sweet, and it tasted like a big sticky, candied, alcohol-loaded bomb that was going to do damage on my insides and to my liver if I drank it too fast. The feel in the mouth was one of being coated with candied, liquid fruit, low on carbonation and thus really overpowering. Maybe it would click in the proper setting – maybe by the fire with a bowl of tiramisu or something, I don’t know – but it really kinda disappointed me. I gave it a 5/10. I recommend going with MAD RIVER BREWING’s JOHN BARLEYCORN instead.

ABBAYE DES ROCS GRAND CRU

Right, that’s easy for you to say! Isn’t “grand cru” champagne talk? I just know that that designation has been popping up a number of Belgian and Belgian-style beers I’ve been encountering, and it’s mysterious and highfalutin enough to make me want to figure out what it means. Oh – and this particular example, the GRAND CRU from ABBAYE DES ROCS in Belgium, is really, really good. It broke the Hedonist Beer Jive record for largest head on a single pour – absolutely gushing, and frothing & foaming over the side of the glass. The taste is very carmel-ish and at times sweet, but certainly not sickeningly so. It’s so delicious and subtle, even, that you’ll have a hard time believing that the alcohol level is in the double digits – 10% ABV. This is so good and so full of flavor that I can just see the train wreck of a hangover that would come from a few goblets of these. I know this brewery (or brouwerij) makes a few others on the shelves in the USA, but nothing wrong in starting with this one. We give it an 8/10.

ANOTHER FINE WEST COAST IPA – GETTING CROWDED IN HEAH

Like a lot of Northern Californians, some Berkeley friends of ours are sort of in the beer snob-lite camp; only good, well-distributed craft beers grace the shelves of their fridge: your Red Tail Ale s, your Sierra Nevadas, your Boont Ambers and whatnot. The kind you can get at Safeway. I decided to give them a present the other day when they came over to our crib & presented them with a new beer dork favorite, ALESMITH IPA. Now I actually hadn’t had this one yet, as it’s only available in Southern California, but I got lucky and a few craftily-procured bottles were stocked at my local store. I’m going to go out on a limb and say bravo, another strong product from the folks at Alesmith, one of the west coast’s top up-n-comers. Their IPA is definitely more interesting than the typical offerings on the Safeway shelves for sure – far more sour than even the normal IPA, and full of flavors both citrus-y and bitter. Really carbonated, large head, and again, pretty bold in terms of both hops and that funky-sweet taste that would take some serious getting-used-to for an unravaged palate. My pals told me they liked it, but their slow drainage of their glasses told me otherwise. What that also tells me is that this is one for the beer dorks more than it is for the hoi polloi, with a 92 score on Beer Advocate, no less. Hedonist Beer Jive takes it down a notch but still opines with enthusiasm, “great beer, let’s drink it again, 7.5/10”.

THE SEARING DISAPPOINTMENT OF HOPSICKLE ON CASK

So my grandfather passed away the other day. Yeah, I know. Great long life, filled with loads of Giants baseball games, extensive world travel, not one but two great wives, and thousands upon thousands of mixed drinks. While not a beer guy, he made a rockin’ gin & tonic like no other – about 99% gin, with a “spritz” of tonic on the side of the glass. Delicious. Anyway, coming back from his memorial service the other day in Napa, CA, I came to the conclusion that not only would a beer help numb the pain, but also realized that the MOYLAN’S BREWERY, where I’d never been, was right off the road. I decided to check it out.

You may recall that I believe MOYLAN’S to be one of the US’s great brewers. Their IPA and MOYLANDER DOUBLE IPA are both fantastic, as is their holiday brew. Topping all charts is HOPSICKLE, another ultra-high-IBU India Pale Ale that some, including Moylan’s themselves, have dared to call a “Triple IPA”. I don’t care what they call it, it just might be the greatest beer in America right now, and it’s generated such a rabid following that this intense, ultra-bitter, hopped-to-the-extreme beer has pretty much become their flagship ale in just one year of existence. So here I am at their pub, and they’ve got HOPSICKLE on cask (!). I naturally ordered one up, expecting nirvana, only to find – wow. What the hell happened? The lack of carbonation seemed to suck all the life out of the beer, leaving the bitterness without any restraint to tear your mouth a new one. I actually winced as I drank it down, never a good sign. OH how I wanted to love this one. I guess it comes down to this: the beer was so painstakingly crafted to perfection, and is so “delicately” constructed (which, granted, is a strange thing to say about such a firebreather) that any tinkering with the formula is bound to result in failure. I wish it weren’t the case, but it was. 5.5/10. That said – if you ever see this on the shelf in a 22-oz. bomber, get out your wallet, and put your big boy pants on.

THE MICROBREW WINOS ARE HERE TO STAY

A few weeks ago I picked up on the newfound trend of the microbrew wino, the gutter-bound drunk who chooses obscure and well-crafted microbrew for his nightly push to oblivion, rather than traditional favorites like Ripple, Wild Irish Rose and Thunderbird. Well, I think I’ve got incontrovertible evidence that this is a growing phenomenon. What you see here is a picture I snapped this afternoon on the mean streets of San Francisco. They’re not just going local, they’re going Belgian now! This trend is escalating and is beyond argument. I know a rising tide lifts all boats & all that, but wow, I didn’t expect it to manifest itself this way.....

HERE’S TO YOU, OLD SPECKLED HEN!

CITY BEER in San Francisco is a beer store first and foremost, and would probably love to be a full-blown beer snob bar as well, but due to some archaic alcohol laws, he’s only allowed to pour beer from taps into 8-oz glasses – no pints, no chalices, etc. Sure, you can open up a 22-oz. bottle on the premises (Craig charges a ridiculously low $1 “corkage fee”) and quaff it down, but when you want to drink from his five rotating taps, you need to go small, and then go back often. This works for me, as it’s a great way to try new beers out without having to commit to a full pint. Craig also puts some crazy stuff on tap, only for a week at a time. The other day he even got Russian River’s hallowed PLINY THE YOUNGER, which I’ve never even had, and I couldn’t make it over there in time. The hoards had already descended and pounced.

Last week I sauntered in for my usual bi-weekly beer run, and met a nice fella there who actually reads this here blog. He gave me the good word on an English beer Craig had on tap called OLD SPECKLED HEN. I’ve heard of that one before, not a name you easily forget, but in 8 short ounces I was pretty knocked out by how great it was. It’s an English pale ale, from England even, bottled and canned for the US and international market by the MORLAND BREWERY in the UK. I love how smoothly it went down, and rather than that being its only discernable quality outside of the typical English beer “mm, that’s OK, isn’t it”, OLD SPECKLED HEN rocked me with some interesting front-facing hops, and a refreshing sweetness that mingled well with the bittering agents. Whoa. And then to surf on over to Beer Advocate and see it taking a moderate beating from the beeristocracy – hunh, just what was in the glass I had? Loved it, can’t wait to try it again. 9/10.

ST. ARNOLD'S DIVINE RESERVE #4

This beer is the first I've ever received in the mail, courtesy of a great American named JS who resides in the ST. ARNOLD BREWERY hometown of Houston, Texas.Not only did this beer survive the perilous journey through the desert wilds of Western Texas, New Mexico and Arizona to get to me in Northern California, it tasted like I plucked it off the shelf from the corner store five minutes ago – fresh, clean and full of complex flavors.

A little background: ST. ARNOLD have a pretty stellar reputation right about now as Texas’ premier craft brewer; they’re the first one I’ve heard much noise about since I discovered SHINER BOCK in the early 90s. They’ve got this “Divine Reserve” series that only pops out with a new recipe about once or twice a year; they are bottled in 12-oz. bottles, quickly distributed within the Houston area, and then I guess once they’re gone, they’re gone. JS thought my palate would benefit from exposure to this year’s model, #4, a “Wee Heavy” ale made in the scotch style. Here’s what the brewery has to say about it:

“This is a Wee Heavy that one of our brewers has been working on for a couple of years and the final results are well worth the wait. The color is deep ruby on its way to black with bright clarity (especially considering it is unfiltered) and a thick, tan head. It has a nose of Irish coffee with hints of peat. The body is sweet and creamy--not thin, not heavy. Almost refreshing, if a beer this big can be described as such. Caramel malt, smoke, coffee and orange come in and out of focus several times as the beer moves across the palate, then it finishes with a light spiciness. We again used our St. Arnold yeast which added a nice layer of complexity to this already multifaceted beer....”

I whole-heartedly agree with the deceptively “refreshing” adjective, as the DIVINE RESERVE #4 went down far easier than a beer this dark, malty and fragrant should have. Not knowing much about the wee heavy style, I could have argued that it tasted more like an unfiltered Belgian-style strong dark ale, but whatever they call it, it’s really, really good. 7.5/10. Thanks for the memories, and if you live within striking distance of Houston, get on this one while you still can.

HBJ SHORT TAKES, 3/12/07

A few quick quips and beerly bon mots to start the week off right.....last Thursday I was fortunate enough to enjoy another heaping chalice full of RUSSIAN RIVER DAMNATION, a Belgian-style golden ale that is truly nectar of the gods. I’ve rated it very highly on this site before – just wanted to let you know it still totally rules in 2007 (9.5/10).....another big winner comes to us from our idols at MOONLIGHT BREWING, this one the TWIST OF FATE, which is an English Bitter & which I got to enjoy on cask at San Francisco’s Toronado bar. Twist of Fate could not be more smooth, and even with it pouring down my gullet I got to take the time to enjoy the very fresh “roasted” taste of the beer, along with the very dry feel and floral smell. The pundits say it’s very “authentic", and who am I to argue. Moonlight can apparently do no wrong (8/10).

Went to see a re-fortified ROKY ERICKSON play live a couple weeks back, and the club he played in (he was great, by the way) actually had a new one to me on tap: SAMUEL ADAMS WHITE. Limited release, they said. I’m OK with that. It was a very straightforward white (“wit”) ale, tart in the right places and smooth enough for club-drinkin’, but truly nothing special at all. 6/10......I actually ventured into the rarely-broached world of real English beers last week, twice in the same day. I’ll tell you about OLD SPECKLED HEN in another post (I totally loved it), but my foray into TETLEY’S ENGLISH ALE didn’t go as well. Talk about generic! I found it very by-the-numbers bitter and warm, a real session beer to be sure, but I’d rather do my sessioning with something that tasted far better. 5/10.....Even an American brewer (ROGUE) beat the Tetley’s out at their own game. Rogue’s YOUNGER’S SPECIAL BITTER wasn’t anything to die for, but it had a pretty solid bready/biscuity taste that I liked, maybe just a bit off-balance in a way that I didn’t. I think Rogue’s been experimenting again. 6.5/10.....I know it’s probably sacrilege for some of you, but I have to give another big yeah-hup to BLUE MOON BELGIAN WHITE, a beer that is now manufactured by the Adolph Coors corporation. I can & will drink this excellent witbier anytime, anywhere (and did twice last week) – somehow they’ve gotten the recipe down right, and I swear it tastes like something out of a Brussels café. Not that I’ve been to Brussels. Anyone out there drink this stuff before it was a Coors product, and is there any discernable difference?

Finally, I want to give kudos to the Beer Advocate staff for their outstanding monthly magazine, which is even better than it was when I wrote this review a few weeks ago. BEER ADVOCATE #2 concentrates on “extreme” or “wild” beer, with both pros and cons on this US-centric beer movement. Unlike other beer journalistic outlets, this magazine also takes a stand on beer it reviews, and if it sucks, they’ll say so intelligently. Definitely get yourself a subscription if this beer dork world is something you aspire to, as well it should be. Until next time.....

BEAT OF THE TRAPPISTS

Jeez, I think I've now had at least one beer from each of the official signed-sealed "Trappist" monastic brewers of Belgium, now that I've conquered my first bottle of ORVAL. (I guess that's not really true, since the WESTVLETEREN can't be found in the US). It had been said to me that I'd probably like Orval the least of the trappists, but I don't know - it was pretty solid & then some. As you see from this picture, it's an deep copper/orange color with a smell to match - wow, that smell is something else. Sometimes a beer this rich & complex might only taste that way, but this one smells it as well. Very "floral", very dry, and I think it's hopped a lot stronger than others from across the pond as well. I took it down a notch because there were some bittering agents in there that didn't wear well over the 20 minutes or so I was "exploring" it; in fact I went from rabid enthusiasm to general satisfaction over the course of a glass about the size of the one you see here. Believe it or not, these guys make this beer and this beer only, and have been doing so for about 80 years. Something's working well over there in Belgium. I'll give 'em a 7/10.

RAMSEY'S FAT LIP ALE & THE CASK FROM WHENCE IT POURED

We have this local pub in town called the EDINBURGH CASTLE that I've practically been going to since I was old enough to drink. It's an english/scottish pub with that whole sort of vibe, you know what I mean, and their beer selection's quite good if a little English. Sometimes they’ll throw on a few smalltime American craft beers on tap just to make it interesting; the other night I enjoyed a MOONLIGHT DEATH & TAXES, for instance, and then there was this other unknown mystery beer on the board called FAT LIP (CASK). I asked the fella behind the bar and he erroneously told me it was from some Santa Rosa brewery (Russian River…..riiiight!!) instead of what it really was – a product of the ENGLISH ALES brewery in Marina, CA, a beer officially called RAMSEY’S FAT LIP ALE. It had a decent roasted malt taste to it, and poured a very flat copper with zero head at all (that’s cool – this was the cask version). But in all, I found it a little flat and boring. It didn’t have any bite, nothing to remind me of the great English beers I’ve had in the mother country – just a very tolerable beer made slightly more interesting by the fact that it was on cask rather than “draught”. Let’s go with a 6/10, only because I love an underdog.

"COLLABORATION, NOT LITIGATION"

I guess the story goes that two of our nation's great brewers, RUSSIAN RIVER BREWING from California and AVERY BREWING from Colorado, both had a beer called SALVATION. Ah yes, we know all about Russian River's Salvation here at Hedonist Beer Jive HQ - though when I had it I wasn't too bowled over. So anyway, these fellas decided to combine forces and head off a lawsuit from one or the other - which would have been totally preposterous, and which I in no way believe was ever even a possibility, but it makes for a good story - and created COLLABORATION, NOT LITIGATION ale. This very dark Belgian-style ale is said to truly be a brewed up combination of the best of both beers, and I'm happy to report that it's flat-out fantastic. I've enjoyed it the past couple of weeks both on tap and in the 22-oz. bottle you see pictured here, and if I had one sitting in front of me right now I'd drink that too. Collaboration has got this thick, spicy, heavy-but-nimble thing going on, with a really delicious and lush "mouthfeel" (ouch, there's that word again), and all the great characteristics of a strong Belgian dubbel. I guess I was getting a little black cherry & plum taste out of it, and I'm pretty sure it's also quite full of hops. This is a really special beer, probably exceptionally limited in number, and one I strongly recommend you seek out & maybe even trade for or something if it's not available near ya. 8.5/10.

ABSOLUTELY SHAMELESS

I always hear the fellas from PACIFIC BREW NEWS podcast touting the beers they get sent to them from all over the US for review, brews they can't get in their neck of the woods (which happens also pretty much be my neck of the woods) & which they then consume on air & offer an opinion. Jealous? Hey, not me. But given that craft beer's often one of those regional items that you just can't walk out & procure, listen- if you ever want to send me something cool & unique for review on HBJ, I won't complain. I'm especially intrigued by the beers of the upper midwest & great lakes - and the Atlantic area too, why not, right? Send me an email and we can talk.

21ST AMENDMENT MISSES THE CIGAR

Once I got wind that February 2007 was “strong beer month”, and reconciled that designation with the fact that its chief proponent, 21st AMENDMENT BREWING, are located about a football field’s length away from my office, I had to get in there and try as many of their six February-only offerings as possible. I did OK – a few weeks back you may recall that I reviewed their DOUBLE TRIPEL and thought it was pretty goddamn great. The subsequent two I tried the past couple of weeks – well, not so much. First up was their DOUBLE TROUBLE IMPERIAL IPA, a super-high IBU Double IPA monster that just didn’t do it for me. Harsh, the way some of the Stone Brewing beers are harsh, with just enough citrus flavor to keep it drinkable but really just a miss in terms of something I’d want to willingly try again. 5.5/10. Then right at the close of the “celebration”, I scooted in there to try the LOWER DE BOOM barleywine, and found that to also be something of a miss. They really tarted this one up with a boatload of hops as well (80 IBUs, really high for a barleywine or so I’m told), thus contributing to an astringent and just out-of-whack taste. Having had some incredible barleywines just last week, I feel reasonably confident that this one did not measure up. 5/10.

All that aside, kudos to 21st AMENDMENT for putting virtually their entire beer lineup to the side for the entire month in favor of these experimental, high-alcohol, small-batch brews. They are becoming a true leader in the San Francisco Bay Area brewing scene, even if they didn’t totally nail it with each and every beer they attempted to brew for “strong beer month”.

BEST PILSNER ON THE PLANET?

Sure, we've written a few things about MOONLIGHT BREWING the past few weeks. We'll probably keep doing so until we've tried every beer in the great man's lineup and reported to you on our findings. Latest "casualty", if you will, was the REALITY CZECK PILSNER. Now, this picture to your left is not what we drank, because what we drank has never, will never be bottled - just like all of other Moonlight beers. No, this beer is one that was bottled by a rabid partisan of Moonlight's, who gave them to friends as gifts (as Moonlight's Brian Hunt recounted in our recent email interview with him). The one I delighted in the other night was served on tap at a well-known pub in my hometown. I just knew that this was going to be the pilsner that broke open the whole style for me, a style very often spat/shat upon by the discerning beer geek, who typically loves his ales, and disdains the lagers & especially the pilsners. Hey, I was that guy, more or less. I went to what was then known as Czechoslovakia in 1990, but what I remember most beer-wise was drinking my first DUVEL, and quite a few of them at that, as well as imbibing boatloads of hearty beer in a Prague beer hall for the equivalent of 10 cents a glass. Good times!

REALITY CZECK is by quite a wide margin the highest-rated Czech pilsner on Beer Advocate, including the ones from the mother country. Not sure how fair or representative that is, but it's quite honestly one of the finest beers I've ever had. Unlike other pilsners, this didn't have that crisp, biting, lager-ish taste I'm so familiar with - instead, it was creamy, "deep" and even a little hoppy, and it was just fantastic through and through. Like an ale, kinda. Hard to pin down what it tasted like, really, but it's probably a little dangerously good. I could seriously drink this all night. Hedonist Beer Jive says check your prejudices at the door - 9.5/10!!

THE TORONADO BARLEYWINE FEST, 3 OZ. AT A TIME

I didn't think I was going to make this getting-to-be-nationally-reknown event this year, as I'd heard all the rumors that if you don't go and start drinking from the selection of 80+ different specialty barleywines on the opening weekend, you're going to be high & dry if you show up later in the week. Well, President's Day weekend didn't pan out for me, but there I was last Wednesday night sitting at the TORONADO in San Francisco, my favorite bar in the world for over 15 years, enjoying 5 good-to-great barleywines that I'll likely never get to taste again. Oh, and the pundits were right: you gotta show up early, but even 5 days on, there were still some fantastic drinks left from world-class breweries, just not the "winners" from the opening weekend.

First, you probably should read a couple quick takes on the 2007 festival from others to get your bearings - so please click on the links here, here and here. There. Thanks for that. When I got there on Wednesday, all the winners were gone - the Russian River, the Stone, the Alaskan, the Hair of the Dog, even that Mexican one. Let me tell you what I was able to try, because I had some good 'uns:


MOYLAN'S OLD BLARNEY -- Leave it to MOYLAN'S, maybe the most underrated brewery in California if not the USA, to make a fantastic small-batch barleywine. Very straightforward, full-bodied, and delicious. No messing around - just great high-alcohol beer. (Hey! I just found out this is bottled - right on!) 8/10.

GREEN FLASH BARLEYWINE 2006 - I've heard some good things about this Vista, CA brewer - now I can confirm them. You can really taste the alcohol in this one, which normally I don't like, but my notes say this one was "smooth smooth smooth". I guess so! 7.5/10.

UINTA ANNIVERSARY 2004 - A friend claimed this as his fave from the night before; I was less bowled over but it did the job. I mean, they are from Salt Lake City, right? I found it a little too sweet. Looks like this might be bottled as well, so shut my mouth. 6/10.

MAD RIVER JOHN BARLEYCORN 2006 - Wow - this one was outstanding as well, really full of flavor and with a deep, malty taste. No wonder they call it a "winter warmer". I have to start paying attention to this brewer. 8/10.

FULL CIRCLE OLD CALIFORNIOS - Really the only one I can say wasn't that special; sort of a strange, off-balance taste that was too thin to boot. Not awful by any means, but probably suffered a bit following the winners above as I headed out the door. 5.5/10.

So if these were that good, I wonder what the quote-unquote winners were like? I know that trying these was, for me, the tipping point when it comes to barleywine, a style I loathed when I first tried it in the early 90s, and which I now love. Join me for the Friday night campout on Haight Street before the doors open on Toronado Barleywine Fest 2008, OK?

ST. BERNARDUS PRIOR 8 AND THEIR HAPPY 'LIL MONK

Gave the ST. BERNARDUS PRIOR 8 the good old college try last week with mixed results. This Belgian dubbel has been brewed in the mother country (Belgium) since long before I was born if you can believe it (since the 1700s or somethin'). It doesn't officially have the "trappist" designation, but whatever. I guess only a few of them do. I had it recommended to me as a good dubbel, because I'm on a kick to find a few of those, and the happy monk on the bottle sure got my hopes up, because he sure seems to dig his whopping gobletful. This one was OK - a real warm feeling with every sip, and a lot more hops in this dark brown ale that I'd reckoned. Very sweet at times, somewhat balanced by tartness and maybe a cherry or even apricot-ish taste. I think I was hoping for a little more. I kind of had the same reaction to the ST. BERNARDUS ABT 12 last year as well, but I'm giving this one a 6.5/10, a whole half-point improvement. So - what's your favorite Belgian dubbel? I love the style & am a total greenhorn & need you to school me a little.

ROGUE GETS A NEW IPA IN THE FAMILY

The long-revered ROGUE BREWING now have dozens of beers in their stable, and they also have a small line of brewpubs on the west coast that brew their own lineup of interesting, sometimes experimental beers. One of their “sub-brands” is the EUGENE CITY BREWERY in Eugene, Oregon. By the looks of things, the brewmaster there is able to run wild & create his own concoctions, and offer them up to the greater Rogue family; the same appears to be true at the Issaquah, WA outpost for Rogue. All these drinks come together at San Francisco’s ROGUE PUBLIC HOUSE, which doesn’t actually brew its own beer but serves up those brewed at all the other Rogue locations such as the Eugene City Brewery. Hopefully you’re following me so far, partner.

Last week I tried out something called the 100 METER IPA, a strong and, uh, “zesty” IPA that the barkeep recommended to us. This one’s from the Eugene location, and here’s what they have to say about it:

100 Meter Ale is an anniversary brew celebrating the 100th batch of beer by Trevor Howard. Combining two of his award winning recipes, Natty Red and and Track Town IPA, this ale features the best of both. Rich aroma, mildly floral and big with a smooth finish! 100 Meter is made from Pale, Munich, Crystal, Chocolate and Carastan malts, with Chinnok, Simcoe, Centennial, Palisade, and Cascade hops, with a dry-hopping of Amarillo hops. Available on draft only.

Those are all my favorite hop varietals! Wow! And they even use Carastan malts! Actually I have no idea what I’m talking about. I just know that this 100 METER stuff is a very good addition to their lineup, and tasted more malty, less hoppy, and less fruity that most 21st century IPAs. And I dug it. 7/10 – and I’ll bet this has a good chance of making it to bottles in the near future.

ALL HAIL THE MICROBREW WINOS

I snapped this picture on my walk into work this morning – proof positive that quality microbrew continues to penetrate the mainstream, and has now reached “downmarket” into the party-near-the-garbage-can demographic. These Lagunitas IPA bottles, both fully consumed, were sitting next to a public garbage can in downtown San Francisco, and various & sundry wrappers and foodstuffs were strewn about just out of the frame. I’d like to think that the beer blogs have had something to do with opening up this new market segment. Next step is to get inside the two-beers-cans-in-a-hat-with-straws crowd, and try working to understand their psychographic profiles enough so that they’ll soon be replacing those Coors Light cans w/ 21st Amendment IPA and Dale’s Pale Ale.......

FULL SAIL JOINS THE DOUBLE IPA WARS

Looks like FULL SAIL, the venerable Oregon brewery long known for their well-distributed Pale Ale and Amber beers, is joining Double IPA mania with their new SLIPKNOT double IPA. I had some on tap the other day and was pretty impressed. Not sure what you think about Full Sail but I’ve kinda always lumped them toward the bottom half of bottled microbrews; their stuff is all very serviceable but never all that notable. This one’s different. Slipknot is really “bold”, a front-forward, quite hoppy (and at times bitter) IPA yet missing some of the sweetness you’ll find in IPAs we love like Ballast Point’s or Stone’s. It’s not something you’d probably want to pound one after the other, if you know what I mean – a good one for drinking in a pint, at a bar, and then experimenting somewhere else. I like it. 7.5/10.

TWO MORE PORTS IN THE STORM

(Thanks to the now-defunct For The Love of Beer for the image)

Even though their beers are barely distributed north of Los Angeles, I keep on finding ways to drink the offerings of PORT BREWING here in Northern California. Why? Because they’re fantastic. All the awards they’ve won, all the cheering going on for their new spin-off line of LOST ABBEY beers – believe the hype. Two more pieces of evidence recently came into play to back this up. The first was a bottle of their WIPEOUT IPA that I found at the CITY BEER store. I enjoyed an entire 22-oz bottle one evening as I would a fine bottle of wine with a special lady friend – except I was by myself, watchin’ the tube. No mind, the mood was where I wanted it to be, and this just made it that much better. Wipeout IPA is a clean, fruitful and classy IPA, truly something you can envision being served in a great restaurant. It’s not dry in the least, and it’s not over-hopped. Smelled like pine needles & grapefruit, at least that’s what I thought at the time. A “big” taste for sure. It might have a tad too much carbonation for my taste (or at least enough to keep it from being a world-class IPA), but I still thought it was a big cut above the norm. 8/10.

I also found Port Brewing’s SHARKBITE RED on tap at that beer hotel in LA that I told you about two weeks ago. (so yeah, I guess that’s not really in Northern CA, is it?). It was a very dry, very hopped-out red ale, more bitter than I expected by a mile, but I still liked it quite a bit. Hard to say much about red ales – they can actually be pretty boring, and are fairly low in alcohol (this one’s 5.5%), but I’d be surprised if they are many much better than this (if you count ANDERSON VALLEY BOONT AMBER as a red, OK, there’s one head & shoulders better than this – but that’s an “amber”, right?). I give it a 7.5/10. These Port/Pizza Port/Lost Abbey folks are among the greatest in the game right about now.

I HAD MY FIRST WESTMALLE TRIPEL

My plan to conquer every Belgian beer in 2007 has gotten off to a slow start. There’s all those beers left in the “cellar” (i.e. the garage), then there’s just the sheer amount of incredible American beers that float by me every week that demand my attention. I need to get going on the Belgian thing. I recently had my first WESTMALLE TRIPEL, one of the famous flagship Trappist/abbey beers, and a huge favorite of many an enlightened beer drinker. It comes in 12-oz. bottles and is one of the Belgians that is easiest to find in the US and no doubt around the world. It was the beer that turned a friend of mine into the beer dork he is today – now that’s something to speak of. (Mine was RED HOOK if you can believe it). It gets off to a great start with a hazy, glowing pale orange color in the glass (my “Belgian chalice” glass, of course), and a delicious honey/citrus taste mixed with high alcohol content. Maybe a little “spicy”, if you know what I mean. Damn good. My only downer on this one was that it was a little more bitter than I’d hoped for, maybe just too much tang or something that kept this from the dizzying heights reached by beers like TRAPPISTES ROCHEFORT 8. But a 7.5/10 is nothing to sneeze at, right? I checked my blog from nearly a year ago and that’s the rating I bestowed upon their WESTMALLE DUBBEL as well. I wonder if it tastes even better when standing upon European shores?

AN INTERVIEW WITH BRIAN HUNT of MOONLIGHT BREWING

MOONLIGHT BREWING mania reaches its apex this week over at Hedonist Beer Jive with the securing of the following email interview with BRIAN HUNT, the one-man show behind this incredible Sonoma County, California “farmhouse brewer”. We previously wrote about him and his beer here and here. (Other good articles can be found both here and here)

HEDONIST BEER JIVE: What do you look for in a good beer, and what do you do to your own beers to make them turn out so spectacularly?

BRIAN HUNT: I look for everything about a beer to come together and work synergistically. I am so saddened by beers that have many flavors that are each tasty but don't come together to form one great organaleptic pleasure. It doesn't matter so much what style or characteristics a beer has, if it comes together, I like it, if not, I am disappointed. When I first started experimenting tasting Belgian beers, my thoughts were often, '"This is nasty, but I like it." These beers came together perfectly, even though they possessed characteristics I couldn't yet appreciate...I knew some day I would because they were so cohesive and complete. As for what makes my beers turn out, I'd say it is less about the ingredients or processes; most it is the need to make something I want to drink, and the pesky details of malt, hops, etc, follow along and fall into their appropriate places. It reminds me of what I've heard stone sculptors say, that they just chip away anything that isn't what they want. I can't say I completely understand that, but it is something like that for me in that I don't calculate ingredients, I just do what seems right for the taste I desire.

HBJ: It’s been said that you deliberately work with fairly old brewing equipment that’s been cobbled together from various sources. Is this reflective of anything more than to “make do with what you have” and/or to save money?

BH: In the beginning of Moonlight, I only had one new piece of equipment: a pump. I once counted equipment from 32 breweries, besides the kegs. This was necessary because I had absolutely no money. It was possible because I understood how to make beer from rather crude equipment, besides, I am rather stubborn. Today my copper kettle (plus one fermenter) is about the only used equipment I use. I love it and have no desire to upgrade it more than I already have. It came from Thomas Kemper in Poulsbo, Washington, before that from Hart in Kalama, Washington. I don't mind spending money for equipment that will make better beer-a brewing industry rare luxury where the brewer can also write checks for his own toys.

HBJ: Where do you find inspiration for the beers that you make? From other brewers? From Belgium? From within?

BH: It varies. Death & Taxes was created from a flavor I had in my mind. It was influenced by all the people that told me they assumed dark beers were always strong; and I was tired of having to answer that they are not all strong, so I made an example of a very dark beer at 5% alcohol that wasn't like a meal in a glass. No doubt that my trip to the Czech Republic inspired my Reality Czeck. I can't say I tried to copy a Czech beer, but I wanted to relive the delicate deliciousness that I experienced there. Belgium beers have definitely inspired me. Mostly the inspiration hasn't shown itself yet as individual beers, more instead as an appreciation of what a huge spectrum beers can cover...to break my even West Coast ideas of potential flavors and methods. I will make some more Belgian-inspired beers in the future. Often a flavor profile just shows up in my brain, and I want to make it. Luckily there is no corporate office I have to clear it with!

HBJ: If it’s true that one person’s personality can be reflected in the beer they make, how would you say the Moonlight beers reflect yours?

BH: Am I that bitter? Certainly I prefer more subtle that brash beers, and that may reflect my advanced age. I have heard it said that brewers tend to use fewer hops as they get older...does this apply to drinkers as they age, too?

HBJ: Have you got a particular beer style that you’ve wanted to tackle, but don’t feel like you’re able to conquer, or have you made just about everything you’ve wanted to try?

BH: That is one great part of not having to copy existing beer styles, I am not limited by what Michael Jackson has already written about. I could probably come up with new ideas forever. Beers such as the original Rodenbach and the Duchesse de Bourgogne fascinate me, and I am not experienced enough to make a version of this. Someday, I likely will.

HBJ: On the Beer Advocate website, there’s a picture of your Death and Taxes black beer in a bottle. Was this some sort of home brew/one-off thing, or have you actually bottled this in the past?

BH: This was a person who bought a 5 gallon keg and bottled it himself so he could share Sonoma County draught-only beers with others around the country...a very generous man!

HBJ: Tell us a little bit about your distribution methods. Is it truly just you and your daughter driving the beer to places in the Bay Area that request it?

BH: My daughters usually give me "the look" after I ask them to make a delivery for me. Then I still have to pay them. It is only a last resort struggle. Basically, it is just myself. Between a beefed-up '00 Nissan Frontier and a '96 Doge 3500 van, I travel 6 Bay Area counties. SF and the East Bay is Wednesdays and Fridays. There seem to be many other people driving out there, too.

HBJ: I had your TOAST “slight burned malt liquor” a month or so ago, and thought it was one of the greatest beers I’ve ever tasted. Please tell us some more about this particular beer.

BH: I wanted a beer that tasted like toast. Maybe I just like puns. It seemed a perfect beer for New Years. At 6.0% alcohol, I fill it with all kinds of toasted malts, fermented with a lager yeast. The hops are subtle as it is all about the malt flavors.

HBJ: For those folks now incredibly interested in where to go to drink Moonlight beers, could you perhaps give us at least a partial list of establishments that have your beer on tap?

BH: Ack! There are about 60 places in SF, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin Napa, and Sonoma Counties. There are two more in Fort Bragg, CA and one in Lakeport. Look up the usual suspects of good beer bars for best luck. The Toronado in SF and Barclay's or Lanesplitter in the East Bay are the most popular spots.

HBJ: Finally, what are some of the other great American brewers and/or beers out there that you’d recommend – those that perhaps come from the same philosophical place that you do?

BH: I have always loved everything from Victory Brewing. Unfortunately, it isn't available much here. I have never had anything from Brooklyn, but I agree with Garrett Oliver's philosophy as much as I have heard-especially the concept that a beer is only really good, if you still enjoy the end of the third pint and want another. Hair of the Dog in Portland probably has a similar philosophy, yet they tend to make stronger beers than I do. Thank god they don't follow rules. Alpine in San Diego County makes tasty, hoppy brews and is small like myself. Any brewery that isn't spending their time tooting their horn is likely instead focusing on making delicious beer, and I toast every blessed one of them. The bigger and more "profit-motivated" a brewery gets, the more they tend to make beer that is "good enough." I don't think "good enough" is enough.

21ST AMENDMENT’S “DOUBLE TRIPEL”

Not a bad name for a beer – hard to believe it wasn’t already trademarked. Hey, did you know that February is “strong beer month”? Neither did I, until the emails started flying about it – a good marketing angle to play in these rainy months that cry for high-alcohol, limited-batch elixirs. The 21st AMENDMENT BREWERY in San Francisco teamed up with MAGNOLIA PUB & BREWERY to make several new barrels of unique beers for this month only. On my visit to 21st Amendment last week, I noticed that they even replaced all but two of the beers they normally have on tap with SIX new ones; they even took away their ever-popular Watermelon Wheat in favor of these 9%+ bombs – now that’s bold. The DOUBLE TRIPEL is a straight-up winner, I’m happy to say. It’s Belgian-style strong ale, with a robust 80 IBUs and very strong hops that cloud up the glass. Seriously, even a weak palate like mine could probably taste this blindfolded and say, “I really think it tastes like an American brewer working hard to combine a modern double IPA with a Belgian triple, and hitting it remarkably well”. Smooth but bitter in the way a strong Belgian ale should be, and very opaque, drinkable and juicy the way an IPA should be. I’d easily buy it again. Maybe this one can become part of the regular stable of 21st Amendement beers? What do you say, guys? 8/10.

THE UNSUNG & RARELY-PRAISED BEERS OF GORDON BIERSCH

I was in the Los Angeles airport last week with some time to kill, and found a small GORDON BIERSCH restaurant in the Southwest terminal. The more I enjoy this chain restaurant/pub’s beers, the more I reckon that they don’t get half the respect they deserve. They happen to make one of the only pilsners worth gulping (as reviewed by me here last year), and at LAX they served me a GORDON BIERSCH HEFEWEIZEN that really got the job done. I’m convinced if this beer was served up to a given beer snob dressed in a Dogfish Head or Russian River label, you’d be hearing about it a lot more. It was significantly less carbonated than many hefes, and had a very understated, mild quality to it but yet tons of delicious wheat/hops flavor. I really dug it. I wouldn’t have given it an 8/10 if I hadn’t. I then tried the GORDON BIERSCH BLONDE BOCK, which they also say on their menu is not really a bock but is instead a “Helles Lager”. I found it to be a crisp, amber/gold beer with more complexity and flavor than, say, the HACKER PSHORR MUNICH EDELHELL I reviewed last week, and as surprising as that is, I guess I’m not really that surprised. Even Gordon Biersch’s MARZEN beer, the one you can buy at all the local ballparks, is damn good. I’ll go with 6.5/10. These guys have got the formula down – lighter, lower-alcohol beers that allow the non-beer snob crowd to enjoy a walk on the wild side, and yet beers great enough to please discerning dorks like me. And the Garlic Chicken pizza was great too. Count me in as a big fan of their “model”.

YEAH-HUP FOR MOONLIGHT BREWING, OUR NEW HEROES

(Note – I wrote this post last week but am just publishing it now….Mr Hunt graciously accepted my interview request yesterday. Look for that in the coming week or two).

I’m still waiting for Brian Hunt from MOONLIGHT BREWING to respond to my groveling request for an interview. I’m sure a cranky, iconoclastic American farmhouse brewer would like nothing more than to answer a series of emailed questions from a blogger with a daily readership of just under 60, and I hope I’m right. He must just be really, really busy, don’t you think? I hope he’s busy making more DEATH & TAXES black beer, because quite frankly, that beer’s a total knockout. I remember trying it years ago at the Toronado in San Francisco, and there it was on tap at PARK CHOW in the Sunset district the other day and I simply had to order one up with my pizza. I feel terrible for those of you who can’t find this brewery’s beers – they are only available on draft in & around the SF Bay Area, anywhere where Brian and his daughter can drive the kegs to from their farm/brewery in northern Sonoma County. (though if you look at the link above that goes to the Beer Advocate site, you’ll see a picture of this in a bottle. What’s up with that??). I feel lucky the way folks like my pal TA from Ghent, Belgium must feel when he sees Americans frothing about all the incredible beer from Belgium that they’ll never taste. Death & Taxes is a smooth, blacker-than-Alaska-at-3am beer that nonetheless has a robust character & taste that just delights the tongue. My wife, hardly a beer snob, had only this to say after tasting it – “Oh my god”. My son, who’s three years old, said, “that’s daddy’s beer” – as he so often does. And he was right. Daddy’s never rated a Moonlight beer lower than 9/10, and he’s not about to start now. 9/10!!

THAT HOODWINKED FEELING

I had a rough week last week. All sorts of sh** was going down on all fronts, and yet I found myself in Los Angeles for two afternoons attending a conference for work mid-week. Normally I’d gather my LA pals and paint the town, maybe do a few hours’ worth of record shopping at Amoeba and then stay up til the witching hour (11pm!!!) drinking in some seedy Hollywood or Fullerton or Eagle Rock dive. But I was wiped. I’d heard about this hotel near the LA airport called the FOUR POINTS SHERATON that had an amazing beer bar, so much so that they even dubbed themselves “the beer hotel”. I certainly liked the sound of that, so I booked myself for an evening, and decided the wildest thing I’d do in LA this time around after work is sit in said bar and try out some new beers. Well, turns out that their bar, “T.J. BREWSTERS” (no, really) is exceptionally low on atmosphere but is long on selection. They had 6 fantastic choices on draft, as well as a large selection of dozens on Belgians, British and American micros in bottle. I was going on about 4 hours’ worth of sleep the night before, and reckoned the best medicine for me was to order up a few and then stare at the hockey highlights on Sports Center for an hour or two while I nursed them.

My fave of the night was getting a nice glass of CHIMAY CINQ CENTS (aka Chimay White) on draft to start the evening. I then moved on to a Port Brewing item I will reveal in a future post, and finished my exploration with the VICTORY BREWING STORM KING STOUT, a beer I’ve heard wonderful things about from East Coast bloggers and the Beer Advocate community. I couldn’t believe it was sitting there in a Southern California bar for my purchase –but there it was. I was jazzed. It felt special, like finding AVERY BREWING’s amazing THE REVEREND in San Diego a couple of months ago. The magic didn’t last long. Once I got a taste of this extremely strong, bitter ale, I was already thinking about all the other things I could have ordered instead. Storm King Stout does not taste like your smooth traditional UK stout, no sir – this one’s pumped up with tons of hops, and carries a deep espresso flavor that might be its only saving grace. Very high alcohol (9.1%), and unlike excellent beers like the aforementioned The Reverend and Port Brewing’s OLD VISCOSITY, it totally shows. I sincerely hope this trend of beer-that-tastes-like-whiskey ends soon; there are obviously ways to make great high-ABV beer that don’t have to taste like rubbing alcohol, but this one’s not one of them. I gave it a 4.5/10, which means I’m certainly not trying it again. Any of my peeps out there have a similar experience?

THE LOWDOWN ON THE GLOSSY BEER MAGS

When I decided early last year to school myself at a deeper level in the world of craft brewing & beer, I headed for the magazine racks to see what publications would be available to guide me in my journey. Sure, I’d been picking up THE CELEBRATOR for well over a decade, and I think I bought a homebrew magazine once by mistake, thinking it was about publicly-available microbrews rather than filtration tips & hop varietals. Turns out that last year there was really only one nationally-available glossy that fit my description: ALL ABOUT BEER magazine. So I subscribed. A year later, I guess I’d have to say I’ve learned a few things from it, but that I’m overall only moderately impressed. What I like about it is that it will often spend multiple pages on an obscure corner of the beer world; say, the tiny farmhouse breweries of rural Belgium, or the introduction of chocolate into modern strong ales, or an article last issue about mead, of all things, that I found really enlightening. The people behind the magazine, which is based out of North Carolina, are on a righteous crusade to bring great beer to the masses, and every issue aims to hit somewhere between the beer snobs and the beer neophytes. I think that’s the right approach, and in general, they do it well. My beefs with the magazine center around how generally milquetoast the writing is. Rarely does someone stray off the reservation of cheerleading for everything & anything craft beer related; a bad review, or calling some lame-ass brewery on their swill, just doesn’t seem to exist here. They have this panel gimmick where 3-4 well-known beer writers (Garrett Oliver, the often incomprehensible Michael Jackson, etc.) review a given new beer, and the harshest thing you’ll ever hear anyone say is that they like another of the brewery’s beers better. Scathing! I wish this magazine went out on a limb a little more and gave the discriminating beer geek a better roadmap beyond “craft beer good, Budweiser not-so-good”.

Enter BEER ADVOCATE magazine. As I’m sure you’re aware, Beer Advocate has the strongest “brand” in the online beer dork world, and deservedly so. Their web site is easily the best of its kind on the web, and they foster the sort of opinionated, daring, experimentally-tinged beer drinking & writing mentality that I believe this chosen micro-scene needs more of. They’ve done so well online that they recently started up a monthly magazine offline. I volunteered to be a charter subscriber, and I got the first issue just after New Year’s. For the most part I was quite impressed. The writing is a large notch better than All About Beer’s, reflecting a slightly younger target demographic and the attitude to match. Like the online site, the magazine is disproportionately taken with the “big beer”/strong ale/high-alcohol phenomenon, something that I think is great for the craft but which will ultimately be a blip on the radar – since so many of these beers flat-out suck. They have their eye on the under-the-radar trends that will evolve this industry/hobby, though, and the writers appear to be immersed in it so deeply that I’ve no doubt that if it’s interesting, and something you/I should try, it’ll get written about here. My complaint is simply that the layout had enormous font sizes and graphics that took up half a page, so that an article that should’ve been 2 pages max ended up being 4 wasteful and strange-looking pages. I’m guessing they’ll find their feet here – the first issue of anything is an experiment, and in total these fellas have come up with the US’s best beer magazine ever to my knowledge. If you’re as far-gone as I am with this obsession, I’d recommend subscribing to both, as their both worthy and subscriptions to each are $19.95 for the year. Then pick up your local free rag (Ale Street News, Northwest Brewing News, The Celebrator etc.), surf the links you see on this site to your right, and then you’ll know far more than you need to know about this strange, off-putting, relationship-wrecking obsession.