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.

New Year's Resolution

Blog more and also less sporadically. Starting tomorrow.

...at least I didn't miss December entirely. But this is only true because I'm on the West Coast and I got an extra 3 hours to post.

In that vein, here's something I'll be posting soon.

What a cute stubby bottle.

Also, remember how Session has twist-off caps with rock-paper-scissors underneath? This is what ended up under the Fest, along side two of its non-holiday brethren.

Fruitcake beats scissors. Duh.

Happy New Year, kids.