Last Season's Beers

As East Coast points out, I have fallen a bit behind. Just remember these beers the next time that Autumn comes to the bay area.

A beer that I should have talked about several months ago is the Bruery’s Autumn Maple. The Bruery is located in Orange County, CA, and I tried this beer at one of my favorite beer-bars, Pi. I found the Autumn Maple to have a strong roasted yam flavor with notes of alcohol and maple. Despite these sweet flavors the Autumn Maple is well balanced and not at all cloying. I’ll be checking out another Bruery offering soon.

I finally had the pleasure of tasting another one of the Russian River Brewing Company’s beers, this time the Consecration. The Consecration is barrel aged in Cabernet Sauvignon barrels and unsurprisingly pours with a reddish color. I found it both sweet and tart, and tasted lemon cake, minerals and rhubarb with a finish reminiscent of coconuts. I’m not sure why I fixated on those very specific flavors, but I did.

My favorite beer this fall was from Moonlight Brewing Company. Moonlight makes Death and Taxes, what I believe is one of the finest Lagers in California. I absolutely love it, and when the bartender alerted me that she was carrying another one of Moonlight’s beers, the “Homegrown” Fresh Hop Ale I immediately ordered a pint. I was not disappointed. The Homegrown is an exemplary beer, with a nose of apricot and citrus, crisp minerality, and a strong hop profile. The Homegrown is brewed with hops immediately after picking and you can taste it. Definitely worth checking out if you can find some.

Now that I'm back on the horse, look forward to a review of several winter brews later this week, while they're still in stores.

Holidays

So I feel like we've let the blog go to seed a bit, and that's a shame, because if there's one thing the Holiday season lets me do with abandon, it's drink a great variety of fun things.

We started this blog immediately after the California, New York, and Massachusetts bar examinations in July, and between the two of us, we've passed all three and obtained licensure in one. I was sworn into the Massachusetts bar two weeks ago. A classmate of mine was sworn in as well, and we went out for drinks afterward in celebration. Her father generously treated us to a delicious Schramsberg Blanc de Noir to toast our successes, and it was fantastic. There was an underlying sweetness that was brightened by a good hit of tart acid. Really enjoyed it - yay California!

We were joined by my girlfriend at the Publick House, in Brookline, MA, which serves some amazing beers, in addition to some relatively good food (mainly peasant staples, like mussels, long braises, and choucroute). My girlfriend had the Ommegang Adoration Ale. We've been having pretty good luck with Ommegang so far. If you'll recall, we tried the Abbey Ale a while back and we also drank their Three Philosophers over Thanksgiving (post to come), and we have found them all to be quite delicious. The Adoration definitely followed in that same vein - it was punchy and rich, with a lot of malt and citrus, with a molasses base that made the whole thing taste a bit like fruitcake. Unfortunately, it was about as heavy as fruitcake too, and while flavor-wise it was far too easy to drink for 10%, I am glad I only sampled it. A whole glass might have deadened my stomach.

My classmate had the Allagash White, which is a really lovely witbier from Maine. We've had it before, and it's really very milky gold in the glass. However, it has a wonderful citrus quality that lifts the palate and refreshes nicely. I think, however, it wasn't quite the season for it - when the weather gets cold, I prefer something dark and rich. The golden color of this beer made me think of, and long for summer.

Finally, I tried the Berkshire Brewing Company's Holidale. I should mention that this was supposed to be amber in color, but because of the dim lighting in the Publick House, I couldn't properly tell. At 8.5% ABV, this should have been easier on the tongue than the Adoration, but that wasn't the case. Instead, what caramel, citrus, or hops flavors were supposed to be in there were buried by a thick blanket of spicy alcohol, and it left me feeling like I was breathing fire instead of being gently warmed from within. Too bad.

I also want to mention, per the absurdity of the law, that I had the Sam Adams Winter Lager last week. It was a dark orange color, with a lot of spice. First, when cold, the spice was all from the 5.6% alcohol content, but as the beer warmed up, I got more hops, maybe some nutmeg, and definitely caramel. No cinnamon, though, which was odd, because that's the only spice the label promised. The end of the sip tastes like mulling spices, but they were very muddled and would be hard to identify separately.

What got my attention was that the label calls it a Winter Lager. This is fine, as it's a bock, which is a type of lager. However, it then says, in small print, that it is a "malt beverage brewed with spices." I'm always curious about why beer is sometimes also labeled as a malt beverage. Honestly, no idea. Finally, on the side of the label, "Ale in TX." Apparently, Texas throws out the mechanical distinctions of Ale (warm fermentation with a top-fermenting yeast) and Lager (cold fermentation with a bottom-fermenting yeast) to say that anything above 4% ABV is ale. Ridiculous.

Good, Better, Weird.

So I've managed to find a few haunts for really interesting beer. Cambridge Wine & Spirits will even sell me a single, which is great because sometimes I want to try an interesting beer I've heard about (ahem, Dogfish Head Punkin'') but am thrilled not to have the other five sitting in my fridge for the rest of eternity. I also get a chance to find a large variety, ranging from things I've ogled on menus or old favorites I'm always happy to see again.

It's great to find Young's Double Chocolate Stout in a bottle. Usually, I'm accustomed to seeing this in cans, but bottles hold more. I'm already a huge fan of this beer. It's dark and well-roasted, with hints of malt sweetness and a deep, velvety creaminess.
The chocolate flavor came out a lot more in the bottle than in the can, and it's joined by sweet vanilla, raisin, and a curious smoothness (think Guinness, but with a lot more depth). I was reminded of a tootsie roll, and if it weren't getting so cold outside, this might go well with a scoop of vanilla ice cream floated in it.

Mussels, bread, cheese, and beer

Even better was the Ommegang Abbey Ale. We tried this with a giant pot of mussels steamed in white wine and aromatic vegetables. It's delicious, with beautiful depth of fruit, caramel, and a bit of citrus. Ommegang is a seriously strong beer (8.5% ABV), but it's a perfect bottle shared between two. The flavor is unrepentantly alcoholic, but there are a lot of additional layers on top as well: great yeast, malt, plum, and caramel round out a very rich and enjoyable glass. It's pretty aggressively carbonated, which has the effect of drying out each sip to a refreshing finish despite what was surprisingly sugary start to each sip. Ommegang is wonderfully complex, with a healthy buzz to boot. We found it to have gone really well with the celery and parsley notes of the mussels, as well as with the salty and buttery steaming liquid. It was also delicious with sauteed mushrooms and brie slathered on slices of baguette, but was rather wretched with olives. Just so's you know.

Werewolf Beer. Not good, but not bad. Lobster Lovers, to the right, is bad.

Finally, the weird. Werewolf is an offering from Lithuanian brewery Rinkuškiu Alaus Darykla. And it is, along with its sister beer, Lobster Lovers, a total gimmick beer. But given how totally crappy Lobster Lover was, I was really surprised how not-totally-crappy this was. Good really isn't a word for this beer: it's still pretty off. But unlike Lobster Lover, which was basically a 9.5% ABV combination of PBR and vodka (somebody get marketing on the phone!), Werewolf was dark, had an interesting malt flavor and some bitterness as well. It's tough to drink a whole bottle of this (the bottle had an extra neck-hanger advertisement with "8.2%!" emblazoned upon it) but it was surprisingly not crappy. Surprise food pairing: Lipton onion soup dip made with sour cream - the bitterness in the Werewolf cuts through the creaminess of the dip, while the malt accentuates the artificial caramelized sweetness of the onions. I totally bought the Lobster Lover for its ridiculous label (why yes, I read Above The Law), and now this. A quick (and haphazard) perusal of their English website mentions neither of these abominations: apparently they are for idiot Americans only.

I should mention, incidentally, The Daily Beast's list of the 50 least fattening beers. None of these beers is worth drinking. Ever. Ew.