516. Victory Summer Love

Oh, Victory Summer Love, we’ve only just met, but I know we’ve found something special. You, you’re the edgy working class dance instructor at the summer resort my family frequents, and me, I’m the doe-eyed city girl naive to the ways of the world. We can make it work, though, can’t we Summer Love? I don’t care what my family thinks—I’ll give it all up for you and the soft siren call of your gyrating loins. Dance for me, Summer Love, dance the forbidden dance that will make us forget the foolish social norms that keep us apart. But remember, Summer Love, nobody puts Baby in a corner. Previous illicit summer liaisons with Victory include Headwaters Pale Ale, Yakima Twilight (now Yakima Glory), Saison du Buff (the collabo with Stone and Dogfish Head), plus Prima Pils, Baltic Thunder, HopDevil, and WildDevil.

Summer Love bursts from the bottle in rich cascades of loving clear gold that are capped with a lustrous white head; the nose is redolent with crystal and pilsen malt (although that could just be the Saaz telling me what I want to hear) and earthy and spicy hops—it’s got a faux-lager thing going on for the fresh loving rays to rock out on. The front is slightly sweet—more crystal malt than caramel, but not quite candy bright—with earthy and (this is for Fortney) maybe even some loamy hop flavor. The middle is bitterness; light, clean, and even to balance with the sassy light body still carrying a twang of spiciness, while the finish is where the faux-lager smell struts its stuff in flavor form. Touches of both the earthy and spicy hops continue into the final third of the beer, followed by the well-nigh classic lager finish: a clean, bracing bitterness that is crisp, light, and all summer long. The mouthfeel and medium body points to the actual ale pedigree of the beer; while the carbonation, hop profile, and even malt contribute to the faux-lager feel, the body is not as clean and bright on the tongue as it needs to be, although it is still tasty.Plus, it does say “ale” on the label. Let’s just say that Victory’s dyed its roots for the summer having heard somewhere that for summer makeovers, blondes have more fun. I’m pretty certain that the usual minions will be queuing up to call this a gateway beer made for the average drinker, but I’m gonna have to snap back that this is just how Summer Love tastes in the land of Victory. Can I get an amen? Who don’t?

From the bottle: “All this talk about peanuts and crackerjacks can really make you thirsty. Especially in a town like Philadelphia where we flock to the ballpark like birds coming home from winter vacation. There’s no better place to sip a Victory Summer Love, our refreshing ale brewed in Downington, just outside of Philadelphia, than in the warm summer sun, waiting to catch a glimpse of greatness (or a foul ball). Whether you’re reading this label behind home plate or under a shady tree by the river, we hope that these pale malts and German hops help connect you to the magic that is Summer Love.”

From the Victory website: “With the sublime, earthy familiarity of noble, American and German hops backed up by fresh and clean German malts, Summer Love Ale® ends with a surprising burst of lemony refreshment from fistfuls of American whole flower hops. Love Summer, now.”

ABV: 5.2%

Extra credit for the first person to correctly identify the mixed metaphor in the label description. And no, I’m not referring the gender-shifting I do between the first two paragraphs (you can figure that one out on your own). I’d call this a contest, but as no one has ever bothered to respond to any contest I’ve ever done in the past, we’ll kick that kiss of death to the curb.

(6/6/2012)

426. Left Hand/Terrapin Oxymoron

Ah, the collaboration: creating excitement and giddiness in beer nerds coast to coast. And who doesn’t love the collabo? While I could go with the all-purpose bad guy (that would be Nazis), I’m tempted to create a more appropriate nemesis for the blog. The Amish seem a good choice, what with their hatred of technology and all (although they do love bicycles, so that does give them some bonus points), but that also seems more like beating up your little brother—far too easy. So we’ll just call my search for a new nemesis the latest of my long line of failed contests. You got an idea for an appropriate nemesis besides, well, apathy? Here’s to letting me know. Previous beers from Left Hand include 400 Pound Monkey, Fade to Black and Milk Stout, while our previous beers from Terrapin include Hopsecutioner IPA, Wake ’N’ Bake (which was a bonus beer), and Rye Pale Ale.

Oxymoron pours an orange-ish caramel with a creamy eggshell head that reduces to a thin covering after a minute or so; the nose is a creamy caramel breadiness with a touch of hop spiciness and resin rounding out the aroma. As it warms, a more prevalent lager graininess emerges. Flavors begin with caramel before shifting to an accentuated creamy lager-esque character in the front; the middle has sweetness and a decent amount of bitterness, but less specific hop flavor—there is again some spiciness and resin that almost coalesces into evergreen, but not quite. There is some tacky biscuit dryness that returns in the finish, and a pleasant lingering bitterness that has a bit of the traditional lager bite to it. Oxymoron has a medium to medium heavy body with a chewy clean mouthfeel that is also slightly sticky; the carbonation is medium with some dryness from the hops as well as some creaminess on the back of the mouth. An interesting beer, but one that strikes us a bit too much between styles—it’s not quite an IPA, but not really a lager either. While we laud the experimentation—and the collaboration—the beer is more one-hit wonder than longstanding fan favorite.

From the bottle: “Sometime around midnight in a city nobody can agree on, the idea for Left Hand and Terrapin to brew a collaboration beer was born. Oxymoron is the third in a series of one-time releases between our two breweries. A combination of contradictions embodied in liquid form, Oxymoron is an American-style IPA brewed with three German malts, six German hop varieties, and a lager yeast strain. Obnoxious yet reserved, elevated yet modest, it's the embodiment of blending two brewing philosophies together in order to achieve singularity. Consider it an expression of cruel kindness.”

ABV: 7.2%
IBU: 65
Style: Teutonic India Pale Ale
Malts: Weyermann Pale Ale, Munich I, & CaraAmber
Hops: Magnum, Northern Brewer, Perle, Tradition, Spalter Select, & Hersbrucker
Dry Hops: Tradition, Spalter Select, & Hersbrucker

(11/15/2010)

325. New Belgium Mighty Arrow Pale Ale

This beer gets bonus points from Elli both because it is named after a dog (see below) and it features a dog on the label. One of Elli’s most cherished beliefs is that any album with a dog on the back cover is always good. In making this claim, she is willing and able to cite albums and cover art, rating albums in relation to the dogs adorning the back covers. But I digress; this is our gazzillionth beer from New Belgium; our list includes Ranger, Le Fleur, Misseur?, Transatlantique Kriek, Biere de Mars, Fat Tire, 1554 Enlightened Black Ale and La Folie. In the word of my man MF Doom, New Belgium is in effect like alternate side of the street parking rules.

Mighty Arrow pours a crystal clear golden copper with a creamy white head and a hoppy nose made up of predominantly floral, citrus, and spicy hop aromas. Starting bready with some malt sweetness, Mighty Arrow moves into low levels of hop bitterness in middle along with citrus hop flavor and more sweetness (without the earlier breadiness this time), finishing with a stronger lingering bitterness than in the middle and some spicy hop flavors. Mighty Aroma has a medium body with carbonation that starts soft but then finishes bright and crisp on the palate; it picks up in the second third of the beer, and continues on into the finish. A very well-balanced and clean pale ale, one that would be a nice introduction to beginning pale ale drinkers, but also offers significant rewards for those with a more developed and nuanced palate.

From the bottle: “Mighty Arrow Pale Ale provides lots of pleasurable sniffs from Cascade, Amarillo, and Golding hops with fetching honey malt base. This is our brewed tribute to Arrow, Kim’s Aussie/border collie mix who ran (literally) New Belgium for 12 years. When she wasn’t patrolling the brewery grounds, she was famous for her office visits. She never met a tummy rub she didn’t like. Atta girl Arrow.”

Seasonal availability: February, March, and April. So this one is only slightly late...

ABV: 6.0%

IBU: 35

And in keeping with our tradition of having contests that no even bothers to acknowledge, we’re offering a “Super-Secret”™ prize package to the first person who can correctly identify both albums pictured here. So give it shot, or a go, or something like that.

(5/21/2010)

Vagabond Beer Contest

In honor of two of our more recent beers, Drifter Pale Ale and Grifter IPA, I am instituting our second official contest: the best vagabond-themed beer. After the stunning success of our first contest, which absolutely no one even acknowledged, I am officially declaring Crazy Horse Malt Liquor the Worst Beer Label in the History of the Entire Universe. What, you want to dispute that? Too bad. Maybe you should have spoken up earlier. Thank god they finally stopped making it...

For this contest, we want to hear about your best hobo-inspired beers. Feel free to go as far as you’d like to develop your ideas—you want to offer us the advertising prose that goes with your beer? Please do. You want to construct the label that would present your beer to the world? We’d be happy to see it. To start off the contest, Elli has come up with Sterno Can Stout: “Sterno Can Stout has a dark roasted warming flavor with plenty of antiseptic hops to kill off whatever germs your bottle-mates may be carrying. So feel free to share this one—it’s perfect for handing around the barrel-fire on a cold winter night or keeping you warm huddling under a bridge abutment when fire ain’t an option.”

And yes, Hobo Brewing has already been thought of...where do you think I found the photo above?

Winner gets dinner & beer on me at South Park Tavern on a Monday night—their half-price pizza is keeping with the theme of the contest. And while I encourage entries from far and wide, I’m in for dinner, but not for travel. Sorry—what we’re drinking ain’t paying the bills, if you know what I mean.

The Biggest Loser: Worst Beer Label Ever

A couple of months ago, I provided two examples of some of the worst beer labels in all of existence (included here). To that, I’m certain Elli would add the general leanings towards wine-label-influenced beer labels, which, as she argues, will be the downfall of the brewing industry (see her comments on the label for Deschutes Red Chair IPA), or at least will herald the rise of a level of pretentiousness in beer marketing and consumption that will require all of us who consume such products to collectively kick our own asses.

With that in mind, what other contenders for the worst label of all time are out there? Send me your examples of crappy labels, and tell me why they suck. If we actually get any viable candidates (since I am still under the basic assumption that this blog is really just a fancy version of me talking to myself), we’ll have a vote to determine which one is the crappiest beer label in the history of the universe (the worst examples of inflated beer hyperbole will come later). Otherwise, I’ll just exert my despotic powers and choose which label annoys me the most. So stand up to fascism, and send me something.