Fall, Part 5 - Weather is Weird

So this past month, we've had 30 degrees and snow and we've had sunny high 60s, so I thought I'd channel that unpredictability with this post.

First, the ridiculous snow we had. Dear winter - go the hell away. Seriously - roads got sloppy, tree branches snapped under the weight of heavy snow, and I lost internet access for a whole two days. Horrible, I tell you, horrible!

Goose Island Mild Winter - another winner.

So we pray for a Mild Winter (see what I did there?). Goose Island's Mild Winter is a delicious malty treat of a beer. It's a nice deep brown with a great sweet aroma wafting up from a nice fluffy head. The first sip was beautifully smooth, with just a touch of bitterness on the back end to balance everything out. I couldn't really smell anything, but that might just have been a stuffed nose on my part. I had a hard time tasting any of the "spicy rye flavors" that Goose Island was touting, but I really enjoyed the beer's overall richness and dark fruit flavors. And Goose Island's got some slight balance issues (their IPA is aggressively hopped and their Bourbon County Stout could kill) but this one settled down nicely.

Sledding is very wintery.

Hockey Skates - also wintery.

I enjoyed the label as well - nice view of the Chicago Hancock tower on one side, and the Willis (née Sears) Tower on the other. I've become a pretty big fan of the city of Chicago over the last decade, and both it and the beer are worth a return visit.

Serving suggestion.

Ps. What's a Willi Glass?

And then there was that two week period of gorgeous late summer days and mild evenings, not even a week after the snow. In celebration, I grabbed a really nice Sierra Nevada Summerfest.

Sierra Nevada has the most scenic labels.

I'm usually pretty enamored of Sierra Nevada. Their Pale Ale is distinctive and delicious with just the right amount of bite for a good all-around beer. I wish I liked the Summerfest as much, I'll be honest.

Not a bad looking pour.

Color was off on the camera though.

I think a lot of the problem was just that I'm not as in love with lager these days. There was some great grassiness hay on the nose, and the pour was the pure bright gold of summer. It had, as it promised, "a crisp, refreshing finish," but I guess I didn't taste any of the "delicate spicy and floral hop flavor" that I was promised.

Overpromise + Underdeliver.

I think Summerfest's greatest strength is in how mild it is - I could put a lot of these back without overwhelming my taste buds, because there wasn't a lot of flavor there.

It did not take me long to finish this beer.

Maybe in the depths of August that's really necessary, but on an Indian Summer day in November, it was nothing more than my pathetic attempt to hold on to the fleeting sunshine.

Beeramisu and other delights

I don't cook with beer enough. Generally speaking, I'll happily crack open a beer while I'm cooking, but it's rare that the beer goes into the pan or pot, instead of into the chef. Chili is one dish that I put beer in. A few weeks ago, I made one with one of the Revolutionary Rye Ales I reviewed previously. My girlfriend thinks my chili looks too much like stew. She is wrong.

Mmm... Chili...

So when I discovered a way to use beer in a dessert, I was psyched to try it out. In launching forward to St. Patrick's Day, Serious Eats published a recipe for beeramisu.

Beeramisu, pre-devouring.

Take a regular tiramisu, swap out coffee for stout, swap out madeira for Bailey's, and you've got yourself a deliciously booze-tinged dessert. Instead of Guinness, which I find a little watery (I mean, hello, it floats on the top of a black and tan), I used Black Hawk Stout. On its own, Black Hawk is creamy, rich, and bitter, with very little carbonation. It's ink-black, with deep caramel and burnt sugar flavors, so I thought it might substitute in well for the coffee. Indeed it did.

It wasn't exactly easy to slice, but the flavors were nice.

The recipe I used from Serious Eats could use some tweaking: I'd cut back on the Bailey's being sprinkled over each layer, and go with more of the stout, as the final product needed a little more bitterness than a six-count dunk provided. This dessert got devoured, and rightly so: it's fantastic.

On a completely different, but just as delicious, note, I happened across three bottles of Coedo beer and was struck by how much these really looked like a Japanese knock-off of Chimay.

Japanese attempt at Chimay?

I drank the Beniaka this past week and was rather stunned by how nice it was. It's not the typical Japanese lager that makes one think fondly of Coors. Instead, it was a nice deep red, and had wonderful layers of caramel malt sweetness.

Apparently, brewed with sweet potato.

According to its website, which I will not send readers to because it is loaded with nonsense music and flash crap (google it if you must), "this premium lager features an aromatic sweetness in its amber tones [and is] a rare combination of high quality malts and 'Beniaka,' the roasted Kintoki sweet potatoes of the Kawagoe region." I'm not sure I tasted sweet potato, but I definitely tasted sweetness, and a depth of flavor I wasn't really expecting. I'm looking forward to trying the other two sometime soon.

Crossing Cultures

We're maybe a month into the Year of the Rabbit, and it's been a good year for beer so far. I wasn't able to find a Chinese beer for my New Year's dinner, but a good Japanese lager did the trick.

Koshihikari Echigo - A golden lager for a prosperous year.

Japanese lagers tend to be pretty light colored - they're the color of pale gold, with a lot of grain and sugar on the nose. This one, Koshihikari Echigo, was no exception - I was hoping it would be a little more bitter, but there was a lot of rice and malt sugar that kind of threw off the balance a little bit. Usually, a sharp beer can cut through the oily finish of a Chinese stirfry and lift the more fresh, vegetal notes of steamed dishes. Without much of a hop presence, Echigo struggled with that second task, but its aggressive carbonation and crisp flavor shone through admirably.

And then, of course, there are the two most American celebrations this side of July 1: the Superbowl, and President's Day. The Superbowl is an event generally marked by its quantity and not its quality - its watchword is excess, and its patron saint just may be Animal House's Bluto. At the Superbowl, I cracked open another one of the Flying Fish Exit Series: Exit 4.

Flying Fish Exit 4. A taste of the turnpike.

Exit 4 is an "American Trippel," whatever that means. What I interpret that to be is a recipe that has its roots in Belgium, but which is then heavily inflated by American excesses. Kind of like rugby vs. football. Oh yes, I went there. As with much of NJ, this beer had two distinct phases: when ice-cold, this was a beautifully balanced beer, with wonderfully complex hop notes competing for prominence while imparting wonderful pops of bitterness and depth. The head was full of the aroma of resin, citrus, and all-around deliciousness. Unfortunately, once it warmed up, Exit 4 became sweaty, odiferous, and pretty nasty. The hops turned from fresh citrus to stale sourness, and what malty sweetness there had been was overwhelmed by an oddly acrid stench. Ladies and gentlemen, New Jersey. Ew.

Finally, President's Day: a day in which we celebrate our Presidents by buying automobiles. Makes sense to me. As good a time as any to break out the Sam Adams "American Originals" variety pack.

American Originals. Sarah Palin nowhere to be found.

From left to right, those are the Irish Red, Scotch Ale, Revolutionary Rye Ale, Noble Pils, Boston Lager, and White Ale. So Irish Red and Scotch Ale are American? Whatever. The ubiquitous Boston Lager hardly deserves a mention, and the White Ale was already a part of the Winter Sampler. For President's Day, I had a nice Revolutionary Rye Ale, which was a good deal redder than I had anticipated (I forgot to take a picture, but trust me). It had lovely orange and rye bread aromas, but I didn't really taste the rye on the tongue. Perhaps it's my proximity to New York and its caraway-studded rye loaves, but I'm a lot pickier about rye flavor than I used to be. I guess I wanted more sweetness, depth, and complexity. I also think I wanted more difference from the standard Sam Adams, and I missed that too. It's not a bad beer, but it's not different enough, I think, to be called Revolutionary.