Happy New Beer!

This is a time for celebrations, and some celebrations are tailor-made for a nice drink. Said Napoleon, "Champagne! In victory, one deserves it; in defeat, one needs it." While I'm not as down on champagne as Christopher Hitchens, I don't often reach for champagne when I'm thinking of celebrating. Instead, I'm much more eager for a beer, a cocktail, even a glass of wine. The thin astringency of champagne just isn't my thing, I suppose.

Goose Island Bourbon County Stout

So I'm ringing in 2011 with a few choice beers. Chief among them, the Bourbon County, from Goose Island. Make no doubt, this is a very big beer, with a ton of alcohol flavor. Most of Goose Island's offerings are nicely balanced, but the alcohol brightness (13% ABV) was in the forefront of this one. Backup notes include caramel and creaminess, but the there's a lot of vanilla in each sip (from the oak of the bourbon barrels). Some bitterness at the end (again, alcohol and dark chocolate). Great with dark chocolate. I also tried this with a very salty dark pretzel, and this beer actually intensified the saltiness. After only several sips, this beer warmed from within. Sipping only - this is heavy stuff. Very nice, but pretty tough to drink a lot of.

I'm reminded of a few other days of celebration I've experienced this year. Moving backward through the year, there were a few delightful beers over the Christmas table this year, and while I'm going to review the full Sam Adams Winter Collection later, one stands out particularly celebration-worthy. Old Fezziwig is the beer for which the Winter Sampler is really known – it’s the best of the selection by far, and represents well the jollity and festivity of its Dickensian namesake. Old Fezziwig is redolent of ginger, orange, and caramel malt, maybe some cinnamon and nutmeg as well, which also mirrors the spendthrift attitudes that got Old Mr. Fezziwig into trouble, since those spices would have been rather dear in Dickens’ time. It’s pretty great stuff, since the maltiness provides the backbone that this beer needs. Overall, there’s a good reason folks love this beer – it’s warming and fun without being cloying or muddy.

Brewery Ommegang: Three Philosophers

Further backward still, Thanksgiving was a delicious feast of turkey, stuffing, gravy, and Ommegang's Three Philosophers Quadrupel Ale. This is a wonderful blend of ale and lambic that pours slightly auburn and tastes wonderfully of cherry and raisin. Lots of yeast and some slight alcohol burn. It went beautifully with the roasted turkey and with the cranberry sauce.

And at the start of the fall, on Rosh Hashanah, I tried He'Brew's Jewbelation. Since this is He'Brew's 13th iteration of this annual beer special, the brewery celebrated their own bar mitzvah with this beer. It's pretty heavy on the tongue and in the belly, being very dark and deep. There's a mellow and sweet flavor with lovely roasted malt smoothness, but then halfway through swallowing, the alcohol kicks in and punches hard. Low carbonation in the glass and on the palate, with dull lacing left on the glass, the label says it says it has 13 types of hops and 13 types of malt. In the battle between those hops and malt, the hops definitely lose, sadly overwhelmed by malt sweetness and alcohol bite. It's pretty delicious, but it's candy-sweet and tough to drink a lot of.

So from the Jewish New Year to the Gregorian one, have a great 2011. 2010 was pretty wacky, with Lagunitas releasing its yearly reflection in the form of Wilco Tango Foxtrot. Subtitle: A Malty, Robust, Jobless Recovery Ale. It's punchy, with a lot of alcohol to sweep 2010 out the door. Nevermind that WTF (no kidding) was released in March. It's delicious, with lots of coffee and dark chocolate, with amazingly well-balanced roasted malt notes. So a swift and hearty goodbye to 2010. Raise a glass to 2011. Or several.

Departures

Last Wednesday was my last day at work. I've been working at a really fun firm in Boston for a couple months, and have truly enjoyed learning from them. I was hired over beers, and I departed over beers. And had more than a few drinks with the attorneys after hours, so really, not bad. I'm moving to New Jersey, to take a job in Newark, so this blog will certainly stay bicoastal. That is, if Mr. West Coast gets off his ass. Punk.

The founding partner of the firm is from Vermont, so I picked a Vermont beer on our first outing: Magic Hat #9. It's pretty widely available, and I recommend it. Their own marketing doesn't really help, as they describe it in really stupid terms. Nonetheless, the beer is tasty, with a pretty refreshing bitterness that's balanced nicely with a sweetness that's neither sugary nor malty. It takes a couple of sips to identify, but that's the flavor of apricot, and while I've had bad experiences lately with fruit beers (hello, Sam Adams Blackberry Wibier), #9 has been a perennial choice. Perhaps not a favorite, but not a bad one either.

I should mention that one day, when our computers were down for 30 minutes, my boss invited us to grab a beer and put our feet up. There was a Brooklyn Lager, a Bud Light, and an Anchor Steam. Boss took the Bud Light. So while yes, the bosses like beer, I think that one still drinks like a fratboy. I had the Brooklyn Lager. Delicious as always.

On the last day of work, we had our traditional Monday Morning Meeting (at 5 pm on Wednesday, natch), and we got two sixers. Brooklyn Winter Ale and Dogfish Head 60-minute IPA. The Brooklyn Winter Ale was nice and warm, with a smooth drinkability that was most welcome after a long day's work. It wasn't harsh or spicy at all, just really smooth malts and a deep caramel. As for hops, I know a lot of people tasted some hops, but I didn't. This one was just really nice and smooth.

This Brooklyn Winter was consumed at my girlfriend's house, but it's the same beer.

The 60-minute IPA was delicious too. I've tried Dogfish's 90-minute (amazing) and their 120-minute (far too sweet and weird), so I was excited to get to try the 60. It's hoppy, alright, and for my taste, this is pretty much like eating a pine cone. Basically, this is to Bud Light what the modern gins are to vodka: bright, aggressive, and unabashedly unbalanced. It's not a bad beer, and it was drinkable when ice-cold. As it warmed up, the bitterness really took over, and it got kind of undrinkable.

And then, out at the bar (and after a well-made martini with three olives), I had a nice Shipyard Prelude. I really liked this one. I was a little surprised to find it a little stronger than expected (6.8% ABV), since it didn't feel so on the tongue. It oddly tasted a bit like butterscotch (basic winter-beer caramel flavors plus maybe some unctuous fattier notes layered on top), but I also tasted some banana and raisin as well. It wasn't heavy or cloying, was refreshing without being dry, and was a great last beer to have with friends before heading out into the cold.

Magic Hat Winter Howl - nevermind the fact it's in a Harpoon glass.

Oh wait, we're having dinner? At another bar? Um, OK. Actually, we returned to the same bar (and indeed, the same table) I was at when I was hired. I'm a pretty sentimental person, so I ordered another Magic Hat, this time, the Winter Howl. It was really nice, and not nearly as heavy as might be expected from a beer that color. That said, I got lots of coffee, some dark chocolate, and maybe raisin from each sip. Too bad my steak and ale pie was so watery - the beer was delicious.

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.

Not Beer

Autumn really is a delightful time for drinking. Especially this autumn, which has wavered between ridiculously cold and unseasonably warm. As such, it provides for a wonderful mix of seasons that supports a wide variety of refreshment-delivery options. But of course, perhaps my partner and I have been a little blind to the possibility that there are things out there to drink other than beer. This is, after all, a blog called "Bicoastal Drinking," and not "Bicoastal Beer Drinking." So here it is: a few things that aren't beer, but are still well-worth trying out.

Last Saturday, a very good friend of mine came to town, and having heard not 24-hour prior that we had both passed the New York State Bar Exam, we were both in the mood for a celebratory drink. Thankfully, the Greater Boston Metro area is more than willing to oblige.

The Friendly Toast, near MIT, is pretty new, but it's already made quite an impression on the Cambridge crowd. A lot of folks love its hipster-bohemian decor. Not me. A lot of folks love its amazing vegetarian alternatives to their meat-laden offerings. Not me. A lot of folks love that it has a liquor license and a heavy hand with the alcohol. Bingo.

This is a full pint of bloody mary.

I can't really complain about a restaurant that sees fit to offer a bloody mary on a beautiful saturday morning in a pint glass. Not some 10.5 oz. collins nonsense so packed with ice it's a fight to put the celery back into the drink, but a nice, hefty, and strong pint. It's really spicy, with a wonderful kick of horseradish, thick specks of black pepper you can crunch between your teeth, and two nice, fat pimento olives - one that stays on the toothpick for a mid-drink nibble, and one that slides off into the drink so you have something to look forward to at the end. Plus, the food is amazing.

Now, it was warm enough last month that ice cream wasn't a total pipe dream, and J.P. Licks in Harvard Square is a staple. A lot of folks, myself included, like their black raspberry, and almost every Boston ice cream shop has coffee oreo. But last month, I had their cream stout ice cream. J.P. Licks makes all of its alcohol-flavors with real booze (November's flavor is Wild Turkey Bourbon), and this one had an awfully strong alcohol flavor for an ice cream.

J.P. Licks: Cream Stout & Coffee Ice Creams

Its sharp alcohol bite was balanced by caramel malt sweetness, but I wasn't sure if I was really tasting "stout." It really wasn't bitter enough to be stout (right, like you'd expect bitterness in ice cream?), so it really had more of the character of a stout in which a scoop of vanilla had been floated. Incidentally, that is delicious. The pairing was really a necessity: the coffee ice cream provided the absent bitterness while accentuating the roasted flavors of the "stout."

Finally, it's not really fall in New England until the cider comes out. I've already posted a photo of , but the cider itself becomes the star later in the season. A good, crisp, hard cider can be really refreshing, and my girlfriend and I thought maybe we'd found a winner or two at the store. We might have been wrong.

Is this a urine sample or a bit of hard apple cider?

Sam Smith's Organic Cider was crystal clear and the color of very, very dehydrated urine. It was really dry dry and therefore incredibly refreshing, and furthermore dangerously easy to drink. It had a lot of clean apple flavor but was a little one-dimensional. Lots of apple, not much else. Which I guess is fine if that's all you're looking for. It was, sadly, a little more like a sharp apple juice than a cider.

Hornsby's Amber Draft was like an alcoholic version of Martinelli's sparkling cider, which again, is much more of an apple juice than a cider. My girlfriend described this as a "starter" cider. For kids, I think she was referring. Terrifying. The start and finish to each sip might be called medium-dry, but the heart of the sip was basically an alcoholic jolly rancher. Ew.

Finally, Hornsby's Crisp Apple was even lighter in color, and even lighter in flavor. Gross.

Election Season, et al.

So things are going nuts in the beer world. NUTS, I tells you. Especially here in Massachusetts, where we are taking up a potentially very expensive ballot question next week. Specifically, a yes vote repeals the inclusion of alcohol under the MA state sales tax (which stands currently at 6.5%) if the alcohol in question has already been subjected to the MA state excise tax (which is a little more complicated). The measure was passed in 2009 as a budget-balancing measure, and supporters of the repeal have argued that it encourages drinkers, particularly those within driving distance of the New Hampshire border, to drive there to buy alcohol, since New Hampshire has no sales tax. WBUR recently did a great story that drew me to look closer at the excise tax, which is assessed by volume and alcohol content, rather than retail price. It's really low. Seriously. So I honestly don't have a problem with the sales tax being assessed on top of it, particularly if used to fund programs I don't want to see cut.

NPR just did an interesting story on Mexican Beer Dermatitis, which causes unsightly red splotches, swelling, and pain that lasts for weeks or even months. All because we have been conditioned to put a wedge of lime in our beer, and do so in places that encourage sun exposure and discourage washing the lime juice off of our hands. So basically, this is skin ceviche. Gross. I thought the Men of the Square Table disposed of this a long time ago.

Speaking of American macrolagers of dubious flavor content, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals just rejected an appeal to reinstate the antitrust lawsuit against Anheuser-Busch Inbev for, essentially, being too damn big. Interestingly, the 8th Circuit sits in St. Louis, Missouri, the home of Anheuser-Busch. Nah, it's probably nothing.

Turning to beer packaging, The Lost Abbey Brewery of Southern California has gotten a stern talking-to by the Wiccan community regarding its label for Witch's Wit, a summer Belgian-style wheat beer. The contention, as reported in the New York Times is that the label either glorifies anti-witch imagery, or promotes violence against women. I am dubious of both allegations, but particularly the latter. Wrote one protestor, “Can you imagine them showing a black person being lynched or a Jewish person going to the oven? Such images are simply not tolerated in our society anymore (thank the Goddess) and this one should not be, either.” The last documented lynching occurred in 1946 (unless you believe Clarence Thomas). The holocaust ended with liberation in 1945. Burning fell out of favor as an execution method in the 18th century. Sidenote: it was not until 1878 that it was officially classified as cruel and unusual punishment. See Wilkerson v. Utah, 99 U.S. 130 (1878). So really, I don't see the hubbub. But apparently they're going to change their label. Since I collect beer labels, if anyone out there finds a bottle of this [it's pretty out of date, being a summer beer], please let me know. :)

Finally, a useful link: How to Give Your Beer the Right Glass and a Proper Pour. Great stuff.

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.

Roast Beast

I love Fall. As a New Englander, I was raised on the magic of watching leaves turn fantastic colors and the smell of burning leaf piles across the suburban landscape. What I really love about Fall is that the lower temperatures make it less of a bummer to turn on the oven and roast. Summer grilling is fun and whatnot, but only a hearty hunk of roast beast brings back all of the warmth of home. I apologize for my absence - several large projects intruded onto my time. I won't let it happen again.

I should mention, by the way, that the warmth of home thing is a total fiction - as an Asian-American, the closest my parents got to roasting on a regular basis was, maybe, a turkey at Thanksgiving, and reheating a giant honey-baked ham for Christmas. Dad's steamed fish and a big pile of authentic chow mein - that's comfort food.

But yes, roasting. I've loved roasting things since my time in the UK, where I first made a personal friendship with my butcher and discovered that meat didn't necessarily have to come in flat slices from the supermarket. So when my girlfriend and I figured on dinner options last weekend, we decided a roast would be right to christen the season. And where there is a nice English roast (with Yorkshire pudding, natch), there must be dark English beer.

Fuller's London Porter - A delicious dark beer.

I've always been a fan of Fuller's London Pride - I find incredibly drinkable, and has been a favorite since my time in the UK. This time, I tried Fuller's London Porter, which was deliciously dark. It pours ink-black, with a very shy tan head. It's got a light aroma and a flavor of full bitterness that tastes almost of burnt sugar caramel. Its great malt foundation gives way to coffee and chocolate notes. It went beautifully with sharp cheddar, as it was like a slice of toast in beer form. Most porters are a little too smooth and sweet, but this had a very pleasant and refreshing astringency at the end of each sip. The whole package gets even better when the beer warms slightly and approaches a proper serving temperature.

Roast Dinner, with Nut Brown Ale

Of course, we ended up drinking the London Porter well before the roast itself was done, being as we are gluttons. Thankfully, we had purchased a backup in the form of a Samuel Smith's Nut Brown Ale. This is a prime specimen of an English brown ale, with absolutely fantastic malt flavors and wonderfully subtle bitterness. We could not have been more pleased. The yeasty ale was a perfect match with the delicious Yorkshire pudding, while the malty caramel sweetness worked as a counterpoint to the deliciously salty crust of the beef roast. I could say maybe that the peas and roasted potatoes and onions picked up the herbal grassiness of the beer, but that's total crap - it was just good eating.

Saison du Buff. Paid $3.45. Overpaid.

I should mention also that we tried a the Saison du Buff, a special beer collaboration by Stone (Escondido, CA), Dogfish Head (Rehoboth Beach, DE), and Victory (Downington, PA). A saison beer is generally low-alcohol and very refreshing, to reflect a beer that could be drunk as a mid-day refresher during the Belgian late summer harvest season without completely wrecking the imbiber, but modern Saison beers are generally around 6%, which this one was. "Buff" is an acronym, for "Brewers United for Freedom of Flavor," but for once, I wish that they had exercised some restraint. This is brewed with the haunting combination of parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme, but all I got was the sage. It's a cloudy golden beer, with a light fluffy head and a distinctly floral nose. The herbage comes through at the back of the nose, which is dominated by a musty passionfruit aroma and sweet citrus hop notes. Sadly, the flavor is entirely different, with a lot of sage and bitter hops. Wet sage really dominates, and it's not terribly attractive as a beer flavorant: sage is a wonderful herb, but when it's mistreated, it can smell almost moldy - that's a lot of what I tasted here. The thyme and rosemary disappear, and what's left smells like roses that have been left too long in the vase, or old lady. It's pretty gross, and I don't recommend it.