Christmas on the Bayou

OK, after the snooze-fest that was last night's Allstate BCS National Championship Game at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, in New Orleans, I'm a little Louisiana'd out. This after the nail-bitingly close yet also oddly boring Sugar Bowl exactly a week ago featuring my Michigan Wolverines. But this one's for Mr. Drew Brees, who led my fantasy football team to a commanding win (176.32 - 61.30, but who's counting?) over my sophomore year roommate from college and, as a result, won me a handsome virtual trophy.

Sure looks promising, doesn't it?

I've sampled Abita before: even in Ann Arbor, I was able to get a few of their beers. I have enjoyed some of their lineup - their Amber is lovely, as is the Turbodog. But their Christmas Ale did not live up to their potential. Actually (and unfortunately), it kind of did, given the weaknesses of Abita's Purple Haze, and the truly offputting weirdness of the Satsuma.

All that head is trapping some very weird aromas.

I think there were just too many things going on in this beer, really. It poured nicely dark into the glass, settling to the color of its own bottle, and with a head that started out with very large bubbles that formed the basis for a thick creamy off-white foam. The aroma was promising - it had some floral hops and nutmeg along with an intriguing lemon-pepper thing.

Mirrored labels are hard to photograph.

But on the tongue, the lemon-pepper kind of took over and the beer finished sour. I tried to find some maltiness in here, especially with a beer colored this darkly, but it all got overwhelmed. Not Abita's finest outing. The back label reads "Every year the recipe changes. Abita Christmas Ale is a perfect gift. It's always the right color and fits nicely in your hand... we hope it's just what you wanted." The thing is, there's no talk of flavor or aroma or deliciousness. Just color and how it fits in my hand (it did, thank you). Maybe next year, we try working on flavor?

Chunky beer

One of the descriptors I use in writing and talking about beer is that it's "thin," and I thought perhaps that bears some clarification. It could be a function, I suppose, of viscosity, but more than that, it's the way the flavor sits on the tongue. A thin beer washes out and leaves very little taste to savor after it's done. By contrast, a nice complex, deep, and full flavored beer has layers of different flavors to dig through. Sometimes what I want is a thin, uncomplicated beer, like a Sam Adams Light (a review for another time) or even a Budweiser. But I had to go pretty far back in our blog archives to find a thin beer that I actually enjoyed - most of the time, I want something that tastes beery, that tastes of grain and hops and malt and sometimes of vanilla, coffee, or dark chocolate.

This next beer is one that, in truth, I had a tough time with. I've liked Abita Beer ever since being clued in to their existence by a law school friend from New Orleans. What gets exported to up north is often a mystery, but much of what I've had (Amber and Turbodog) are quite nice. Purple Haze, not so much.

Not a bad looking beer, and quite a nicely designed label.

Anyway, they brew a series of Harvest Beers designed to highlight, as they say, "the finest Louisiana-grown ingredients." One of these is a Satsuma Harvest Wit. Satsumas are delicious: they're little mutant oranges with loose skins and amazingly sweet juice. My girlfriend's mother grows them atop a hillside outside of Los Angeles, and they are without a doubt some of the best citrus I have ever tasted. Amazing. So when I saw beer made with Satsumas, I was intrigued.

It poured a very hazy gold color, with not a lot of head. There's an orangy aroma, but lacking in the brightness that differentiates a satsuma from, say, a navel. Definitely also a characteristic sourness on the nose that wheatbeers can sometimes take on.

The first thing I noticed was that it was very highly carbonated, which surprised me, given the lack of head. The second thing I noticed was that the flavor of the citrus didn't come through at all. The aroma was what pushed the flavor into the realm of oranges: without smelling a clearly orange scent, I don't think I would have automatically thought of satsumas while tasting this beer. Otherwise, kind of a middling beer.

OK, that's just gross.

I tend to pour pretty aggressively, and I like a bit of sediment in my beer, as I think there's quite a lot of flavor to be had in spent yeast (just ask the good people at Marmite). But I was unprepared for exactly how "chunky" this beer was. On a lark, I held the beer up to the light. Shocking.