506. New Belgium Prickly Passion Saison

So it finally happened: a New Belgium beer we don’t like. Trust me, we’ve tried our shared, including Vrieden, La Folie Falling Rock Tap House 10th Anniversary, Mighty Arrow Pale Ale, Ranger, Le Fleur, Misseur?, Transatlantique Kriek, Biere de Mars, Fat Tire, 1554 Enlightened Black Ale and La Folie. As well, Prickly Passion is both a saison and from the Lips of Faith series. Dag. Talk about your unexpected turn of events. I don’t think even Negrodamus saw this one coming.

Prickly Passion pours a crystal clear dark gold with moderate head retention. The nose is über-candy sweetness—it comes across as the cloying sweetness found in cheap candy for children—accompanied by floral and fruit notes from both the fruit additions and the yeast, although the fruit aromatics are bordering on over-ripe and spoiled. Since the bottle notes the beer is made with “French saison yeast,” I’m calling 3711, which is why I would ascribe the cloying and over-ripe components to the fruit—I can smell the traditional 3711 esters in conjunction with the others components, so I’m blaming the fruit. Because 3711 would never do this to me. Flavors follow the nose, although they come across in a subtler manner—there is candy and delicate fruit in the front, which I would describe as a mix of apple, pear, and lightly tart fruit, followed by a slight slick creaminess and just a touch of vanilla. The finish starts clean, but gums up quickly; while the bright carbonation tries to clean up the palate sensation, the residual fruit and sugar flavors end up overwhelming everything else. As well, there is a cloying, artificial flavor left in the back of the throat after the final flavors recede—something like the taste and effect that remains when drinking an under-attenuated golden ale (Prickly Passion is 8.5% ABV, which is a bit beyond the 5%-7% range for a saison).There is also absolutely no discernable bitterness in the beer—while I am guessing the decision to minimally hop the beer was intended to preserve the delicate fruit flavors, it also exacerbates the stickier, golden-ale like qualities previously mentioned. This allows the alcohol heat and flavor to fill in the void left by the lack of hop bitterness, which further throws off the balance. Overall, a rather disappointing beer from an otherwise enjoyable brewery—I actually held out on drinking this beer over the last week to savor having a new Lips of Faith beer to try, and because I figured it would be a sure thing. Having finally cracked it, the disappointment hangs palpably in the air. While I applaud the innovation (and I do want to note that Elli does not share these sentiments), I’m not able to applaud this particular beer.

From the bottle: “Peter picked a prickly pear and paired it with a passion fruit. ‘Perfect! Pitch it in!’ he proclaimed. Now we have this pleasing Prickly Passion Saison brewed with fruit juices and French saison yeast to our brewmaster’s picking.”

From the New Belgium website: “Prickly pear and passion fruit mingle together for New Belgium’s return to farmhouse ales. Prickly Passion Saison is truly a beer for Belgian inspiration. The combination of passion fruit and prickly pear juices with the tropical esters of a traditionally earthy Saison yeast create a wonderfully broad and reaching mango-like character. Ostentatiously amber, this Prickly Passion Saison is sure to provoke the palate with a passionate prick, turn that bottle over and take a sip.”

ABV: 8.5%

(1/1/2012)

505. Fremont Brewing Bourbon Abominable 2011

Today’s goals were modest: check out a couple of things in Seattle, go shopping at REI, and then head to Fremont to tour the Fremont Brewery. After all, breweries in Seattle are like Simpsons reruns: ubiquitous and yet silently informing our national consciousness. (Note: I spent 20 minutes trying to come up with an appropriate simile involving Dayton, but I failed miserably. My only consolation: Elli couldn’t come up with one either. Jeffrey and Kevin, the ball is in your court.) Which means that we need to choose carefully. Fremont Brewing is at the top of the list—after I tried the Harvest Ale, they jumped to the front of the line. Damn, that beer was good. Plus, they decided to tap a keg of their Bourbon Abominable Winter Ale today, which is the regular Abominable Winter Ale aged in bourbon barrels. Thank you, beer gods, for always making me feel like a rock star.

Fremont Brewing’s tasting room is located on the edge of the brewery—our table looked down a row of the fermenters. While I chose the Bourbon Abominable (try saying that 10 times fast, by the way), Elli went with Interurban IPA, which was super-fresh and yummy—the hop aroma itself was worth the price of admission, and the rest of the beer followed suit. Bourbon Abominable, or B-Bomb, pours a rich, deep chocolate with a long lasting tan head. The nose is bourbon and chocolate mixed with burnt sugar, vanilla, and a touch of oak. The front features flavors of caramel, burnt sugar, toffee, and vanilla, while the middle exudes creamy bourbon and chocolate. The mouthfeel here is also slightly slick, like you would find in an oatmeal stout, and the finish features a touch of roasted malt with chocolate and coffee, followed by vanilla and oak. The carbonation is light, while the mouthfeel is chewy yet slick—the medium-heavy mouthfeel is simultaneously rounded and smooth while also rich, even, and creamy. There is some alcohol warmth and flavor, but this is still a young beer. The key element to describe this beer is balance—while it is a big beer, it is far smoother and more evenly balanced than many other similar bourbon barrel-aged beers. Part of this might be via the winter ale body, but I think it also has something to do with production—there is bourbon flavor, but only as it complements the beer. A damn fine beer that will only get better.

From the Fremont website: “Lovingly referred to by Fremonters as the B-BOMB, this bourbon barrel-aged edition of our winter ale has a warming spicy aroma and rich carmelly notes of bourbon, wood and vanilla added to dark roasty chocolatey malt flavors and subtle hopping.”

ABV: 9.5%
Malts: Pale, Crystal, Munich, Roast Barley, Chocolate & Carafa
Hops: Centennial, Willamette & Goldings

I also tried the Universal Pale Ale Shandy cask—this beer featured their normal UPA, but had a bag of ginger and lemon zest in the cask. The nose was lemon and lightly hoppy, while the front was a mix of lemon citrus and ginger bite, leading into a gentle bitterness that rolls into the finish—flavors were fresh, clean, and sharp. While there was a slightly astringent note that lingered on the tongue, the beer as a whole was pleasant. The one criticism would be that this beer might not be best served as a cask—it would be better with some brighter, spritzier carbonation. But I was told that this was day 2 on the cask before I got it, so I was given due diligence.

Oh, and I do feel compelled to observe: B-Bomb is just more proof that West Coast breweries invented and perfected the Winter Ale. So suck it.

(12/30/2011)

504. Lost Abbey Red Poppy Ale

It’s been a while since we had a beer from Lost Abbey, so it was nice to come across a bottle of this during our sojourns through various NW beer retailers. Described on the label as a “malt beverage brewed with cherries and aged in oak barrels,” Red Poppy gets added to a list of Lost Abbey beers that include Angel’s Share 2010, Serpent Stout 2009, Carnevale Ale and Avant Garde Ale, making this one lucky number five.

Red Poppy Ale pours a crystal clear reddish brown, which Elli says is burnt sienna. The head is thin and eggshell, hanging around briefly but rousing easily, while the nose is a mix of fruitiness, tartness, mustiness, and cherry. Maybe a touch of funk thrown in for good measure. Flavors start sweet and sharp, with competing tart and vinegar sourness palate sensations—the body is thin and dry like we expected, but also lively on the tongue. There is a fair amount of cherry in the middle, along with a more even sourness and some mineral dryness. Red Poppy finishes dry and musty with the lingering flat cherry flavor common to beers with cherries—slightly acidic in its own right, accompanied by a touch of tongue curling astringency. As noted, the body is bone dry with bright lively carbonation on the tongue. The beer is delicious—hell, it’s from Lost Abbey—but the cherry flavor does limit and impede the traditional complexity we connect with Flanders red, specifically in the middle of the beer—the cherry sweetness covers and minimizes the dry puckering sourness that makes beads of perspiration emerge on my cheeks. Still, we’d happily drink more—we’re just saying that while the overall effect of the cherry on the beer is delightful, it is still slightly overwhelming.

From the Lost Abbey website: “Perhaps no country embraces the use of fruit in beers more so than Belgium. Numerous traditional as well as regional specialty ales are infused with every sort of fruit imaginable. In this way, the flavor of the fruit becomes especially prominent. Red Poppy Ale is a veritable celebration of Sour Cherries in an explosion of aromas and tastes. Brewed from a brown ale base and aged in our oak barrels for over 6 months, this beer is not for the faint of heart.”

ABV: 5.0%

(12/29/2011)

503. Widmer Nelson Imperial IPA

Alright, it is time to get down to brass tacks. We’ve been in Seattle for a week (yes, we’re in Seattle—I know it is so hard to keep track of our incessant shenanigans), and have been lollygagging around. Much like another Lolli I know. Anyway. Widmer. And the Nelson Sauvin hop. It is all the rage with the kids now-a-days. Or something. This beer comes from the 924 Series, which when I searched the Widmer site came back with nothing. So it’s like the Rotator series, but more secret. Again, or something. Surprisingly, only our second beer from Widmer—the last one being Drifter Pale Ale, way back in ’09. How far you going back? Way back. As we go a little something like this...

Nelson Imperial IPA pours a hazy copper, much like a bright shiny penny, with an eggshell colored head that sticks around rather well. The nose is a mix of hop spiciness and caramel malt, with the caramel standing in for the more delicate aromas. A small amount of fruitiness does peek out from behind the caramel, however. Elli describes it as “banana-like fruitiness—not the banana-clove, but the starchy sweet banana aroma of fruit.” I get tropical fruit, but have little to offer besides that. Aromas are more perfume-y as the beer opens up, allowing the tropical fruitiness to come out in the beer. Flavors start with the caramel sweetness and hop spiciness of the nose, although it is still soft on the palate. The tropical fruitiness starts to emerge in the middle, along with a gentle bitterness, leading to the bright floral finish—there are touches of apple and pear, and more of the tropical fruit leading into the concluding bitterness. Nelson Imperial also finishes lightly spritzy; while it starts rather heavy on the palate, it finishes lighter and brighter. There is a good amount of lingering bitterness, albeit of a gentler variety—no sharpness or harshness. A decent beer overall, but it does strike us as rather unbalanced—there is an abundance of caramel malt that covers over the more delicate components of the Nelson Sauvin hop. Or, as Jeffrey would describe it, this is something of a caramel bomb. We’d like to see someone make a light, easy-drinking APA with a boatload of Nelson Sauvin so we can experience the nuanced descriptors ascribed to this hop. Because a caramel-heavy Imperial seems the wrong route to nuance—this beer doesn’t earn its size. Maybe that’s just us. But I doubt it.

From the Widmer website: “Take your taste buds on a journey to the far side of the world. New Zealand’s legendary Nelson Sauvin hop gives us a powerful hoppy character, but none of the heaviness you sometimes find in Imperial IPAs. The result is a big brew with a sweet, malty character that perfectly balances the intense hop aroma and flavor.”

ABV: 8.6%
IBU: 70
Malt: 2-row Pale, Carapils, Caramel 10L
Hops: Alchemy, Nelson Sauvin, Cascade, Willamette
Bottled: August 29, 2011

Didn’t expect the Cockney rhyming slang angle, did you?

(12/26/2011)

502. Prodigal Son Christmas Carol(e)

When you’re on a long road trip, an interesting destination along the way makes the time pass faster. Our destination: Prodigal Son in Pendleton, OR. And since we’ve never been one to let a little thing like 2,147 miles get in our way of fun, off we went! Only one problem: when we got to Prodigal Son, they were featuring a whole slew of guest taps by Terminal Gravity, which is in Enterprise, OR. Foiled again. Or, in the immortal words of Homer Simpson, d’oh! Prodigal Son did, however, have their winter warmer, Christmas Carol(e), on tap, so we started with that, followed by Terminal Gravity IPA.

Christmas Carol(e) was served in an 8 oz. glass (ahem—we did have to drive another 300 hundred miles, thank you very much); the beer was copper brown with a long-lasting tan head. The nose was super-delicious—it was a mix of fruit and esters with a touch of alcohol—and it pretty much embodied the “old ale-like” character Elli pointed to last week in the Ill-Tempered Gnome. Christmas Carol(e) starts with a mix of fruit and bread, specifically fig, pear, and apple, mixed with bread and caramel malt; in the middle, there is a lighter fruit character and a touch of alcohol. There are also hints of malt chewiness, but it tastes a bit too young to come fully through, while the finish is clean with a touch of heat and alcohol lingering on the palate. The mouthfeel has a corresponding light alcohol warmth that fits with the lighter, gentler carbonation. Christmas Carol(e) is good but young; I’d love to see what this turns into next year at this time. A good first impression. I would have loved to try Bruce/Lee Porter (one of the reasons we stopped here), but I guess it wasn’t meant to be. Maybe on the way home.

From the Prodigal Son website: “The Christmas Carol has arrived–A seasonal winter warmer featuring Golden Promise and French Aromatic malts. Dark Crystal and Belgian Candi sugar mingle with herbal Noble Hop bitterness, creating a beer which is ideal for any celebration.”

ABV: 9.0%
IBU: 62

Terminal Gravity IPA came in an imperial pint glass (nice touch, Prodigal Son), and was a hazy caramel—it looked like liquid Werther’s. The head was thin and white, but hung on like the dickens, while the nose was a delicious mix of spicy and resin hop aromas with a touch of floral in the background and clean hop bitterness. This beer was also super fresh and tasty—the hop aroma jumped out of the glass, and flavors really danced on the palate. Flavors started with restrained bread and biscuit malt, along with floral and citrus hop flavors mixed with a slight fruitiness that tasted yeast derived, although we could be wrong. A pleasant clean bitterness also began in the front and continued into the middle, which also contained a faint hint of caramel malt followed by spicy hop flavors. The finish saw a return of the bread flavors before concluding with a lingering clean bitterness. The body was medium as was the carbonation, although it was bright on the palate. The breadiness builds on the palate as the beer warms, as does the hop spiciness, revealing a touch of alcohol warmth. There is also a slight astringent/vegetal note that emerges as the beer warms. Nonetheless, a delicious, approachable, and super-drinkable beer. Too bad we couldn’t stick around for more. But the sweet siren song of the road was calling....

From the Terminal Gravity website: “Terminal Gravity’s ‘India Pale Ale’ is pale copper in color but big in flavor with a heady hop character. It is a true beer drinkers beer and brings a smile to many a face. We use spring water and snow melt from high in the Eagle Cap Wilderness! This is the beer that was named Beer of the Year by the Oregonian.”

ABV: 6.9%
OG: 15.2° P
FG: 3.2° P

Funny side note: all of this photos were shot blind. I broke the viewing screen to our digital camera some time during the first two days of the trip. Color me smooth. Turned out alright, though.

(12/21/2011)

Rockit Cup Alt Brewday

It’s time for more Rockit Cup action. And I’m getting a purposeful head-start on this one, since I’lll be incognito for a couple of weeks traveling for the holidays. Plus, this way, the recipe is posted somewhere. Or at least a partial version, since I came in below the 1.054 OG, and I mashed for 90 minutes instead 60. So sue me. But I blame that on the Post Office, and the damn long lines. Yes, I ran to the Post Office while mashing. It’s called multi-tasking. And at least I’m brewing, dagnabit. You hear me, DRAFT?

107. Rockit Cup Alt
Mash:
10 lbs. Weyerman Dark Munich

Mash @ 149° F for 90 minutes w/ 5 gallons of RO water; collected 3 ¼ gallons @ 1.068; first wort hopped w/ 4 oz. German Hallertau leaf 3.3% AA—added to boil pot before running hot wort from mash into it, and left them there for the entire boil
Batch sparge @ 168° F for 20 minutes w/ 3 gallons RO water; collected 3 ¼ gallons @ 1.022

Collected 6 ½ gallons; brought to a boil (60 minutes) and added:
w/15 to go: 1 tsp. Irish moss

Chilled & racked and pitched Wyeast 1007 German Ale

Brewed: 12/17/2011 @ 68° F; dropped to 62° F by morning
Secondary: ——
Bottled: 2/2/2012 w/ 3.0 oz. table sugar

OG: 1.048
FG: 1.012

Tasting Notes: I wasn’t here for this Rockit Cup, although I passed a six-pack along to Jeffrey for the judging, which came down to Jeffrey and myself. According to the story I heard, Jeffrey had Tim judge the two beers, who dubbed mine to have an off-flavor in the finish. So Jeffrey won. According to Jeffrey. To quote my favorite 1980’s anti-communist propaganda flick, Red Dawn (hello—what else would it be?): “Son, all that hate’s gonna burn you up, kid.” To which our high school commie-killing hero, C. Thomas Howell, replies “No, it keeps me warm.” Now that’s some classic teen angst and ennui, 80’s style. But as per usual, I’ve allowed my love of bad film to distract me from the task at hand. Which is doubting on Jeffrey. Take that, the Freshinator.

Rockit Cup Alt pours a warm copper infused with orange—one might call it an almost luminescent burnt umber, but I wouldn’t—with a thin white head that hangs around in wispish small islands. There are also some inviting garnet highlights that come through the glass on the table. The nose is toast and bread crust with hop bitterness in the background; there are also some beguiling biscuit and malt fruitiness that is quite tantalizing—this wasn’t appropriately lagered, so I do feel compelled to note that the yeast esters are probably “not to style.” But that Dark Munich malt does something fantastic. Flavors start grainy and lightly fruity with plenty of bread dough and biscuit malt flavors before giving way to bitterness and malt sweetness in the middle—it is simultaneously dry and rounded on the mouth. The sweetness drops in the finish, although there is a touch of fruitiness as the lingering bitterness washes over the palate. Dry, clean, and delicious—the body is medium, as is the carbonation, while the bitterness and sweetness are well balanced. I do like the 100% Dark Munich grain bill—the malt complexity in this beer is delightful and delicious, and something I do hope to revisit soon. Go Rockit Cup!

Saison w/ Brett B Brewday

Mostly more of the same, sans dandelion. But might as well stock up while the getting is good. And/or the yeast cake is waiting. I switched up the grain bill a bit, mostly to compare the residual flavors that were left over after the brett worked its magic, and upped the hopping rates, bringing it more in line with both 87 and 93, two versions of funked beers that were dee-licious. So we’ll see. Hope hope.

Monkeys brewing beer? That’s ridiculous!

106. Saison w/ Brett B
Mash:
4 lbs. Muntons Pale Malt (Pearl)
2 lbs. MFB Pilsen
2 lbs. MFB Aromatic
1 lb. Breiss White Wheat
1 lb. Dingemans Cara 20
1 lb. Acidulated Malt
¾ lb. Weyerman Light Munich

Mash @ 150° F for 70 minutes w/ 5 gallons of RO water, 4 g. gypsum added; collected 3 ¼ gallons @ 1.064
Batch sparge @ 168° F for 20 minutes w/ 3 gallons RO water; collected 3 gallons @ 1.028

Collected 6 ¼ gallons; brought to a boil (60 minutes) and added:

w/60 to go: 1 ½ oz. Magnum pellet 10% AA

w/15 to go: 1 tsp. Irish moss

w/10 to go: 1 oz. Simcoe leaf 14.1% AA

w/5 to go: 1 oz. Centennial leaf 11.5% AA

Chilled & racked onto cake of Wyeast 3711 French Saison & Wyeast 5112 Brettanomyces bruxellensis from 102.

Brewed: 12/16/2011 @ 70° F
Secondary:
Bottled:

OG: 1.050
FG:

Tasting Notes: