Lexington Recap

For the second to last cyclo-cross race of the season, we headed to Lexington. And since Lexington is just far enough away to make driving home after the race a real downer, we decided to get a hotel room, and sample some of the beer offerings about town. After a muddy, muddy race day, we headed to Gratz Park Inn, our domicile for the evening. After some de-mudding, we hit the town.

Our first stop was Country Boy Brewing. Initial web-based research had indicated they had a Gose on tap, so I was especially excited. While I’ll admit I wasn’t surprised when it wasn’t on tap when we got there, I was still disappointed. Enough so that I didn’t take notes on the sampler we had. I just kept thinking how I really wanted to try the Gose. Color me predictable. Anyway, our second stop was West Sixth Brewing Company. Yes, the one that has been in the news as of late. We had a sampler of their beers, including PRHBTN Lemongrass Wheat, Saison, IPA, Double IPA, Smoked Mild, and their Christmas Ale. The best two were the PRHBTN Wheat and the Smoked Mild. PRHBTN Wheat was surprisingly not gummy—it had none of the usual downsides of American Wheat beers—and instead crisp and bright. The lingering lemongrass (as opposed to hop bitterness) was an especially nice touch. Smoked Mild was my favorite: the smoke malt was in the nose and the finish, and the base beer was excellent, with chocolate, cocoa, and hints of toffee to balance the light hints of bacon greasiness from the smoked malt. Well made and delightful. The IPA was solid, but you all know about that. If not, go pick up a six of the cans. Elli did note that it was more subtle when fresh, which, I will note, is a high compliment from her. The Double IPA was more of the same, but bigger. I was disappointed by the saison; it was slightly phenolic without much else in the way of yeast character, followed by under-attenuated candy Pils malt. It had neither the mineral bitterness or juicy dry body you find as the most common splitting point between saisons. Instead, it was just blah and in between with too much body on the tongue. Finally, the Christmas Ale was pretty much a Christmas Ale—big, malty, and sweet with spices—although not an offensive one, which was nice. After these two stops, we headed to the Village Idiot for dinner, followed by a final couple of beers at Lexington Beerworks, both of which were within walking distance of the hotel. I was excited to see Jolly Pumpkin Bam Biere on tap at Lexington Beerworks. Color me served. And afterwards, sleepies.

All in all, a pleasant and enjoyable evening. While we didn’t make it to Blue Stallion Brewing, there is always next time; I’ll try to be more upbeat regarding Country Boy next time as well. And I can tell you when next time will be: while down there, I was excited to find out about Jeff Rice’s upcoming conference on beer writing: Craft Writing: Beer, The Digital, and Craft Culture. You know I’m already registered. So here’s to the next opportunity to try out Lexington’s finest, and hear some damn fine speakers to boot!

(12/8/2013)

555. Hof ten Dormaal Winter 13 & UCI Cyclo-Cross World Championships

We found this in Louisville, which we were visiting to attend the 2013 UCI Cyclo-Cross World Championships. And while this beer is good, the racing was even better. Mud? Check! Evil climbs and tortuous tracks? Check! Beer? Check! Disgruntled Europeans? Double-check! The unexpected elements included snow (although I will admit, I did wish for it, and was happy to get it) a flooding river next to the course, which meant that all the Sunday races got bumped to Saturday. Good thing, too, as the course was flooded on Sunday.

After the racing was over, we made our way to the Louisville Beer Store. If you recall, we’ve been there before. Technically, we had tacos along the way at Taco Punk, but for the purposes of this blogpost, I am glossing that part over to speed things up. The beautiful thing about the Louisville Beer Store: you can sample beers on draft while browsing.
In this case, they had a selection of four To Øl (they’re in Denmark) beers on tap, so we got a sampler of those, which included First Frontier IPA, Final Frontier DIPA, Sans Frontiere Belgian IPA, and Goliat Coffee Imperial Stout. For more on their beers, you can see here. Good beers, and interesting, although the hop presence in the various IPA version was, not surprisingly, below American standards for the style. My favorite was the Sans Frontiere, while Elli’s was the Final Frontier. Anyway, while browsing, we came across Hof ten Dormaal Winter 13, which is described on the label as a “wet-hopped Belgian Farmhouse Ale brewed with fresh hops from the Dormaal Farm.” If you know about my fresh hop fetish, then you know I was sold at “wet-hopped.” Sure, Belgian is great, and Farmhouse is also good—my love of saisons is also well known—but I needed nothing more than the “wet-hopped” descriptor to make this purchase, even with the knowledge that it was most certainly past its prime. I mean, seriously, how hard is it to resist the idea of European fresh hop beer? Wait, don’t answer that question.

Winter 13 pours a hazy burnished gold with a creamy white head that rouses easy and hangs on well. The initial nose is phenolic and slightly plastic-y, but some swirling of the glass bleeds them off, leaving behind grassy and herbal hop aromas followed by bubblegum phenols and candy sweet malt. The Belgian flavors are front and center: candy sweet malt and bubblegum phenols to open, while the middle is slightly gummy with herbal hop flavor leading into a juicy finish that also features a fair amount of dry bitterness. The hops are not as front and center as I would have hoped, but that’s not surprising given that it is February and this is a 2012 wet hop beer (even with the generousness of labeling this a 2013 beer—i.e. following the name of the beer—these are 2012 hops). The carbonation is prickly but not quite spritzy, which balances well with the chewy and gummy mouthfeel. Overall, this is a delicious and fantastic beer; it is not quite up to par for a wet hop beer, as the Belgian yeast character takes over the remaining fresh hop characteristics still hanging around, but the Belgian malt and yeast flavors almost make up for it. As well, the 8.0% ABV does play into muting the potential delicate hop flavors. Nonetheless, I am certainly happy to see that the interest in wet-hopped beers is spreading in the Old World.

Translated from the Wikipedia Hof ten Dormaal page: “Winter 13 (2012), blond beer with an alcohol content of 8%, with the addition of fresh hops from own cultivation (Magnum and Cascade).”

I do so love Google Translate.

ABV: 8.0%

(2/2/2013)

549. Flat 12 Bierworks Nunmoere ABA

Another trip to Indianapolis for cyclo-cross means another trip to Flat 12. This time we packed food in, and spent some time hanging out in the tap room so we could sample more of their beers. Our consensus: Flat 12 beers are clean, dry, and well-attenuated across the board. And also super drinkable. We were going to try the Lacto-Matic Milk Stout and compare, as it seemed like the best candidate to have some residual body, but the keg blew right before we went up to get samples. So it will have to wait until next time. Our last beer from Flat 12 was Half-Cycle IPA, which was delicious.

Nunmoere pours a crystal clear dark chocolate with orange

Run that hill!

highlights; the head is a creamy tan with good retention that re-rouses easily. The nose is a clean mix of pine, herbal, and roast; at first seems like it won’t work, but it quickly starts to grow on you. While clean, it is also surprisingly pungent—Jeff described it as a fig that had been charcoal-roasted to a crisp accompanied by a subtle metallic tang. There is also a touch of roast creaminess amongst the evergreen hop aromas. Flavors start with roasted caramel and chocolate in the front, with pine and evergreen hop flavor helping transition into the bitterness of the middle. There is a subtle biscuit with the caramel as the beer heads into the final third, with resin hop bitterness, chocolate, coffee, and roast the predominant flavors, and a long lingering bitterness—while not especially bright and clean, it is still quite enjoyable. The body is medium, lightly chewy, and rounded—it is uncluttered, but still has a residual maltiness that helps carry the aggressively hopped body, lending support to the roast and bitterness that carries the beer. As well, the charcoal roast and hop bitterness pair especially well in this beer. This is the closest to a well-hopped lighter-bodied stout that we’ve seen in a Black IPA, much more so that Sixpoint’s Diesel—the flavors are brighter and more distinct with an almost aggressive but balanced relationship between the roast and bitterness. Delicious, but not for the faint of heart.

We also tried two of the 12 Beers of Christmas series, the Glazed Ham Porter and the Brandy Walkabout. The Glazed Ham Porter is good, but spiced, which means I am contractually obliged to complain about it. You all know my feelings on spices in beer. I will say that the spices are in balance with the beer, which is tantamount to me saying that I like it. The Brandy Walkabout was interesting: it was their normal Galaxy single hop pale ale aged on brandy-infused oak spirals. The vanilla and oak cut down on the overall hop flavor, and created a more distinctly smooth and creamy mouthfeel. I like the initial hop bite in the Walkabout Pale Ale, but this version does cut down on some of the sweeter malt flavors in the body—honey and caramel—that tend to get in the way. Choosing between the two versions of Walkabout would be hard, though, so I’ll just let my comments stand.

From the Flat 12 website: “Don’t let the color deceive you, this beer is lighter than it looks and packs a big hop punch. Loaded with 5 different American hops, Nunmoere is a complex bland of roasted malts and fragrant hops.”

ABV: 6.5%

IBU: 78

(12/16/2012)