For my second beer of the night, I had the Berliner Style Weisse from Bayerischer Bahnhof. This was one of the newest beers at Nikki’s. The beer pours a pale cloudy yellow with almost no head. Lots of carbonation quickly shows up and goes away. Beer smells of a tart lemon bread (if lemon bread existed). Taste is similar. It’s slightly tart/sour, a little bready, and kind of sweet all at once. Being an unfiltered wheat beer, it’s no surprise that it is a bit bready in mouthfeel. It’s a good beer. It’d be great on a hot summer afternoon. It’s got a nice palate-cleansing quality to it. I’d buy it again, but I’ll likely wait for summer. I want to compare this to Dogfish Head Festina Pêche, an American take on this old German style.
Archive for February, 2008
Tonight’s beer is Allagash Black. The label calls it a “Belgian Style Stout”. I assume they used Belgian yeast in the brewing of this beer, but here’s my little review.
It pours a black/brown color with a nice 1-2 finger light tan head. Smells immediately of roasted malt and a slight hint of coffee. So far it’s a stout. Tastes like a stout, a nice roasted malt flavor dominates with some coffee flavors as well. There might even be a slight smokiness to it. It’s a nice full bodied beer that tastes just like a stout. It’s a good stout.
Now, the title of this post means something… Beer Advocate calls it a Belgian Strong Dark Ale. Generally, that style has a fruitiness and a little bit of some spice as well. This beer tastes nothing like that. However, my taste buds are shot after the roasted flavors kicked their butt. There could be some of those other qualities in there, and I will admit that as the beer warms, they come out, but so slightly that they’re almost negligible.
Would I buy this beer again? Probably. Susan really liked it, “It’s right up there with Stone Smoked Porter”. That’s her favorite beer. I am not surprised, this has a lot of the same qualities. What I will likely do, since this beer is on the expensive side for a relatively average beer, is buy another bottle and hang onto it for a year. I’d like to see what happens. I have a feeling the other flavors might come out a bit more. Unfortunately, it’s so new that no one has tried aging it yet. I will post on the BA Cellaring forum about it. I’m curious what might happen to it. Worse comes to worse, it may just become more of a stout. I’m hoping some of the “Belgian Style” comes out. It’s about $13 a bottle. I think I’ll pick up another bottle just to age for a year and see what happens. Until then, I rate this beer average for all the hype it got and the price (though it is a good stout, just not a good $13 stout).
As I was doing my regular reading through CNN.com, I found a strange article that caught my attention. The link on the front page said “Man wins right to sun: judge orders trees cut“. I assumed it would be an article about someone pissed off that his flowers weren’t growing and got a judge to order his neighbor cut down a tree. I couldn’t have been wronger. It was actually a case where a man had installed a $70,000 solar system on his house in the shade of his neighbor’s redwood trees and brought his neighbor to court under a CA law that requires that your trees not block the solar panels on your neighbor’s house. I can understand that to a degree. Solar energy is a good form of renewable energy. We should all strive to use it to help offset the power we get from the grid. However, trees are, in my opinion, just as important. They help cool the area around them and absorb harmful gases, like carbon dioxide.
This case gets weirder, though. The guy with the trees planted them before the solar panels were installed. The guy who installed them wants the law to be strengthened and said it protects his $70,000 investment. I don’t know about you, but if I were installing a solar system on my home, I’d be sure that I wasn’t installing it in the shade of any trees.
Renewable energy is very important, but so is protecting our natural environment, and that includes any “nature” we’ve added. I wonder how much of the solar guy’s yard is covered with trees. My guess is not much. Trees are far better for the environment than an open lawn. I’d also be willing to bet that he wastes water to irrigate it and that he puts down lovely chemicals to keep it nice and green.
More on the CA Solar Shade Control Act at UCAN.
Guinness is apparently trying to get the United States to make March 17 a holiday. If you don’t know already, that’s the feast day of St. Patrick. The day bears nothing special to most Americans. It’s not even a Catholic holiday (the only religion that even believes this Patrick guy is something special). I know a bunch of Irish-Americans will write comments or email me or something telling me that I’m ridiculous that it’s a very important holiday, and maybe it is… in Ireland (do we expect other countries to recognize President’s Day, Columbus Day, MLK Day, Labor Day, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Independence Day, etc.?). Guinness just wants to do this as a marketing plow, to sell more of their bland Guinness Draught on nitro-tap or in nitro-cans and bottles. They want this day to turn into a big drunk fest.
St. Patrick’s Day should absolutely not be a national holiday. There is no reason for it. I am not anti-Irish, in fact, if anything I’d be saying that St. Joseph’s Day should be a national holiday for Italian-Americans, but I’m not rooting for that either. If St. Patrick’s Day were to become a national holiday, we would have to make every special day for every culture a national holiday. Pretty soon we’d end up with 3 months of work and every other day would be a holiday. It’s pointless.
If you want to take a vacation day on St. Patrick’s Day because you grew up with a very serious Irish heritage and you’re going to celebrate the life of this Patrick guy, go for it. But simply being Irish does not give you special permission to have the day off so you can eat corned beef and cabbage (which isn’t Irish), drink green beer (again, not Irish), or get drunk (just like being Italian doesn’t give you a special permission to have St. Joseph’s Day off to eat pastries). The only days you should be granted are special religious holidays, such as the Jewish high holidays, which generally grant people days off, the important Christian holy days (such as Good Friday), and other religious holidays (Islam being the other big one).
If Guiness gets their way, it will just be another St. Valentine’s Day (bet you didn’t know Feb. 14 is actually a feast day for a saint, and it’s not even a national holiday, last I checked, I had to work that day), but instead of Hallmark cards, chocolate, and roses, it’ll be beer (and corned beef and cabbage).
And no… everyone is not Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. Flame away…
As the wedding planning draws to an end (the wedding is in June), we are left with the details to deal with. This post is for anyone who knows something about beer I guess. The reception location offers the following for beer:
- Bud
- Bud Light
- Heineken
- Corona
- Sam Adams (I assume Boston Lager)
After meeting with the guy from our reception location, he said he would get anything I wanted. So I began thinking and came up with this plan for beer we’ll offer:
- Narragansett
- Narragansett Light
- Narragansett Bock
- Corona
- Sam Adams Boston Lager
- Trinity IPA
- Newport Storm Blueberry Ale
I would effectively replace all the macro lagers with local equivalents (though Narragansett is brewed in Rochester, NY, it’s a local company and the money is kept in RI). Corona would be left because I know too many people who actually enjoy it (I can’t understand why, though to cut down on the number of beers offered, I might remove that). Bud and Bud Light would be replaced with better equivalents (’Gansett and ‘Gansett Light are the same styles as Bud and Bud Light, respectively). Heineken would be replaced with the Bock (which is a Spring beer anyway, and since the wedding is in Spring… you get the idea). Trinity IPA and Newport Storm Blueberry would be added (though better IPA’s exist, we’re going with a local theme here, and I like Trinity’s IPA just fine, though Stone IPA or Great Divide Titan IPA would also be nice, and I suppose Harpoon IPA would be a more familiar one).
The only thing I’d be missing is a dark beer, like a stout. Given that the meal will be a 4 course meal, I doubt anyone will want to drink a stout anyway. Those looking for the roasted flavors can drink the Bock. This plan is dependent on me being able to do this. I have no idea what they’ll say. Since it’s open bar all night, I’m not worried about people paying for something they didn’t really want. It’s free, get over it. My worry is people wouldn’t be happy because they’d be offered beer that is unfamiliar. To deal with that, I’d have the bartenders instructed to tell the guests what the equivalent beer would be.
I’m curious what my readers think. Leave your thoughts in the comments. I’ll reply when necessary.
As I mentioned previously, I found that Yankee Spirits in Attleboro still had some Stone 11th Anniversary Ale left. Susan and I split (sort of) the bottle tonight. Here are my thoughts.
Stone calls it a “dark IPA”. Well, it’s just that, a dark IPA. The beer pours a brown/black color with a small light colored head. It smells of hops, nothing but hops (a bit citrus and a bit piney). The flavor starts out entirely hops, oily, citrusy, piney. It lacks the aftertaste that most IPA’s have (which is probably why Susan actually likes this one). As it warms, you can taste a slight roasted malt character to it (which is necessary to make it dark in color), but the hops are still there. It’s a very good beer, one of the best “IPA’s” I’ve had (quotes are because it’s not really an IPA, but I don’t know how else I would classify it). I could easily drink this beer all night. It has a similar mouthfeel to a regular IPA, a little bit oily from the hops, but not too heavy and not as heavy as a double IPA (though a bit heavier than a regular IPA). This one is definitely recommended if you can find it. I’m thinking about picking up another bottle for myself.
I spent today in New Hampshire at Ragged Mountain. We drove up in the crazy snow storm last night (took us 5 hours to get from Providence to Concord) and got up early today to hit the slopes. Ragged is only about 45 minutes from Concord, but what a ride. It’s way off in the middle of nowhere, way off the beaten path (though the path there is pretty beat up). The ride is frost heave hell. There’s nothing but frost heaves the entire ride, and the snow storm didn’t help as the road up to the mountain was packed with it and had 2 nice ruts for my tires to bounce around in.
Anyway, we made it to the mountain before the lifts opened. I figured we’d go here to avoid crowds at other mountains, including our beloved Cannon Mountain, which is normally not crowded, but with the school vacation week and the fact that it’s right off 93, I figured even they would be crowded. Ragged, if you don’t know anything about it, is smaller, about the size of Gunstock. They had some financial issues in the past, but were bought up and the new management installed a whole bunch of new snowmaking equipment. The biggest issue they had in the past was not being able to compete with the other mountains because of their lack of snowmaking. I figured they’d get a couple inches of fresh snow last night (which is all they got, about 2-3″). The skiing was great. There were no lift lines, no crowds on the mountain, and even the lodge was pretty empty. While I know the reason is that it’s so far off the main road and kind of small and not as well known, it was good for us. More fresh powder, nice groomed trails and no lift lines. I did just about every blue trail that was open and a couple of the blacks. The skiing was great with only a few patches of ice. There are actually 2 peaks at Ragged with nothing but glades in between. I don’t do glades (or harder blacks), but I was told that’s the reason people go there - for the great tree skiing. Spear Mountain, the western peak, was nice and soft (probably because the snow couldn’t get pushed off with the lift being extremely slow and only having 3 non-glade trails (and tougher trails, so fewer families). The other peak was a little crusty, even into the afternoon after getting some sun. I preferred Spear because the snow was much better and I could easily cruise down without worrying about the ice.
Ragged is a nice little mountain and great for beginner skiers and riders, and it’s probably awesome for families (so long as no one gets carsick easily). The blues aren’t too tough, and even the blacks are reasonable. I am not a huge fan of it because everything flattens out at the end and the trails aren’t terribly interesting (I prefer the nice curves of a classic New England trail, such as those at Cannon, and even Sunday River to extent). It was great day though. I’m glad we chose Ragged, I wasn’t in the mood to deal with crowds.
Last night’s tasting at Nikki’s was English beers. There was a nice selection of a few porters, a strong ale, an IPA, and 3 barleywines.
They started me off with Burton Bridge’s IPA. This was a nice smooth easy drinking IPA, which is something you don’t usually hear about IPA’s, but remember, these are English beers. Super hops flavors aren’t something common in English beers. The guy doing the tasting said this is the original IPA (they were originally brewed a bit stronger and with more hops to make the journey to India and then across the Atlantic). I’ll probably pick up a bottle of this next week.
Next was Old Slug Porter. I like American Porters because they have a lot of flavor. This was pretty weak in flavor if you ask me, but it had a little roasted quality and was very malty and light in body. The same goes for Old Flag porter, which was next, though that one had more flavor to it, but it was still lighter in body than I expected. The last porter was JW Lees Manchester Star strong porter. This one was more like what I expected. Lots of roasted malt character.
After the porters was JW Lees Moonraker Ale, an English Strong Ale. This was much sweeter with a bit of a fruity quality to it. It was very tasty and had a nice body to it.
Now the barleywines. They were all JW Less Harvest Ales (Lagavulin Whisky Cask aged, Calvados Cask aged, and Sherry Cask aged). They all had the same sweetness (after all, it’s the same beer), but they each had a different characteristic lent by the various barrels in which they were aged. The Lagavulin aged one had a slightly smoky flavor to it, the Sherry one had a slightly different taste (I’ve never had Sherry before), and the Calvados (which is an Apple Brandy) had a slight apple flavor to it. They all make great dessert beers and are great as an apertif. I have a bottle of the Lagavulin aged one here that I’ll have to try at some point.
And in true Nikki’s fashion, Mike chilled a bottle of Stone’s Old Guardian Barleywine for us to try. It was good, though hoppier than I expected. I bought a bottle and it’s sitting in my “cellar”. I’ll have to find a night when I want to get drunk because Susan won’t like it. I may just let it sit there until next year when some of the hops have worn down a bit.
I finally tried my can (yes, a can of craft beer) of Oskar Blues’ Ten Fidy Imperial Stout (yes, an Imperial Stout in a can). I have to say that this is one of the best Imperial Stouts I’ve had. It pours a nice thick black with a very small tan head. I don’t know if it was my allergies or not, but I couldn’t detect a whole lot of aroma from it. Maybe a slightly hoppy aroma (which is odd for a stout as that’s all I got). The flavor, however, was awesome. It’s smooth roasted malty goodness, along with a nice bitter coffee/dark chocolate flavor really made this beer an easy drinker. And at 10% ABV, it’s strong, though it drinks like it’s only 5%. I don’t know where the name comes from because it’s not 10.50%, and it doesn’t cost $10.50… I guess I’ll never know. It’s just a great Imperial Stout and something that any stout lover should definitely try. Don’t fear the can (at least not in this case).
As I posted yesterday, I finally got my hands on Tuckerman’s third beer, the 6288 Stout. As with their other beers, I was thoroughly impressed. This is, by far, their best beer. The stout pours a dark black with a small tan head. Aromas of roasted malts and coffee fill your nose. The beer is a nice consistency. It’s not too thin, but not so thick that it’s undrinkable. It has a nice coffee/dark chocolate bitterness to it. The flavors match the scents with lots of roasted malts and dark coffee flavors along with a very slight dark chocolate taste towards the end. There’s just enough of a hint of hops to add a little balance.
This is a superb stout and will likely be one of my regular go-to stouts (when I feel like driving to MA to get my beer). Unfortunately, I’ve heard that Tuckerman Brewing has met such a demand that they need to cut back on some distribution. I’m not surprised because their beers are fabulous. They make only 3 beers, but their all great examples of each style and brewed so well. I have a feeling they’re not going to be expanding a whole lot anytime soon, and I’m perfectly OK with that. I think what they do is great and their beers show it. I picture them as real do-it-yourselfers with a homebrewing mindset.
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