Celebration

One of my favorite beers, year after year, is the Sierra Nevada Celebration. Unlike Abita's Christmas Ale, the recipe for Celebration doesn't actively change from year to year - Sierra Nevada finds what it likes and sticks to it. Minute changes do occur, I'm sure, and as such, I had high hopes for the 2011 version, after my West Coast partner reviewed the 2010 incarnation and found it a little lacking.

My camera doesn't really like the color red, which is a problem

in photographing a beer that's this copper-colored.

I poured this one into a tall pilsner glass. It poured a really nice ruddy copper color, with the thick head that Sierra Nevada always seems to get right. Because I can't always remember from year to year what this is supposed to smell like, it ends up being new for me each year, and I really liked what I could pick up. A lot of grapefruit and pine resin hops on the nose, for sure.

I've already remarked on the scenic quality of Sierra Nevada's labels.

Nonetheless, it bears repeating. Their graphic designer is awesome.

I've been harping on balance for a while now, as it's one of my complaints about American beer that it tends to be really hop-heavy. Sierra Nevada has been leading the movement (I've just sampled their Estate Ale and hope to write it up soon) with huge quantitities of very intense hops. Their Pale Ale, for instance, is a bitter standard in my mind. However, Sierra Nevada takes time to select the right hops, so while things are definitely bitter, everything just works. I think what I like about Celebration is that it's still got a good malty backbone that balances out some of the hops while the bitterness cuts through the rich food of the winter season and provides a spicy counterpoint to what is otherwise a very heavy couple of months.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. True to the aroma, I got a lot of grapefruit flavor, with some honey and toffee from the malt. It reminds me of wintertime citrus instead of the picturesque snow-covered cabin on its label. I really liked the mouthfeel as well - I didn't find it terribly thin, but I can see what West Coast was thinking when he called the finish "harsh." I disagree - I found it bracing and refreshing, but I could imagine that the astringency might be off-putting as well.

This was lovely, and very easily drinkable.

A bit too easily drinkable...

And one more thing: I'm really glad to find a winter ale that isn't heavily tarted up with "winter flavors." I'll have far too many examples of that particular travesty in the coming weeks. This one is one to celebrate.

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?

Happy New Beer!

I had a wonderful holiday. I got to go home and see my family, and I got to go out West and visit my fiancée's family too. And I had an awful lot of vacation days I needed to use up. As such, I had a lovely chance to try some delicious East and West coast beers. Over the next month, I'll try to get through the whole notebook. This may take some time - there were a lot of beers. Like I said, I had a wonderful holiday.

The holiday season may be over in terms of Advent, Chanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Year's, et al., but Winter seasonals are delicious throughout the cold and dark awfulness that typifies January through March. That is, many of them are delicious. Some of them suck. Today's beer is not one of those: this beer is good.

Fest!

Session Fest is the holiday brew from the good people at Full Sail Brewery, out in Hood River, Oregon. It's a refreshingly light beer in a season traditionally marked by dark brews, which I appreciated. I don't know much about the style (Full Sail invokes a "Czech-style strong lager . . . called polotmavé or literally 'light dark or semi-dark'") but Session Fest is themed by its colors too. They wanted a red beer with a white head and a green label. Not too subtle in terms of symbolism, but they succeeded.

A good amber is tough to photograph

in crappy apartment lighting.

As discussed prior, I'm not sure Session, as a label, fits within the classic definition of a session beer. A session beer should be lower alcohol, under 5% ABV, but needn't be a flavorless affair. At 6.2% ABV, Session Fest isn't really a session - they do get away with it, I suppose, by packaging their beer in an 11 oz bottle? Maybe?

Speaking of packaging, their bottle caps are adorable. Session seems to have replaced the "rock" in their rock-paper-scissors scheme with "fruitcake." I bought Session Fest as a single, so I don't have any other reference points, but I wouldn't mind another purchase to check under more caps. The naughty - nice markings are a nice touch too.

The beer itself pours a nice reddish-amber, and they got their white head in order as well. I got a lot of grassiness and toasty bread on the nose. It's got a surprisingly spicy flavor - the well-toasted malt serves as a nice background to an undeniably peppery finish. It's so different from the other two Session beers that I'm happy to have the trio to choose from. I do wish that they had the balls to make an actual session-style, but a low-alcohol brew is a summer conceit, and I can't really complain from the depths of January. Nice work.

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.