December 2010 Archives

This is without question a unique brew. I first had this on tap several months ago at Moon River. I was fascinated by the aroma and disappointed by the apparent lack of flavor. I bought a bottle a couple of months ago, and saved it until I could drink it with someone who would appreciate it. So last night Jay and I broke it out. Jay said it was like the Jazz that only Jazz musicians like. This is not your typical mass appeal brew. This is the brew for brewers. It pours with a generous head over a golden blonde body. My first impressions when I had it on tap were a Banana olive spice aroma almost like gum or circus peanuts. It was so complex it was hard to describe. Once it warms up a bit, the flavors come out in the taste as well. Jay said it was like apple pie at Big Boy, a preserved apple character. He agreed that it did have a bit of an olive taste and aroma as well. The hop bouquet is very detectable but hard to place. Unfamiliar hop territory for most of us. According to Brooklyn Brewery's website this is a "collaboration between brewmasters Hans-Peter Dresler of the Schneider Brewery, and Garrett Oliver of The Brooklyn Brewery. Together they bring you a new sensation, a pale weisse-bock fermented with the Schneider yeast, and then robustly dry-hopped with a blend of Amarillo and Palisade hops." This brew is a one of a kind and well worth trying if you get the chance.

Thank you Matt for buying me a bomber of Lion Stout. I had tried it once in the past and had remembered it to be pretty decent. That it is, pouring a nice dark chocolate with a foamy head, it's a great stout. It's flavor profile is rather simple, its aroma posses a bit of an olive character, indicative of its bottle conditioning. A nice medium bodied ale with chocolate and sweet malt taste, this rather inexpensive brew is worth trying.

Looking for the perfect gift for your beer geek who has everything. Try getting them Beer Soap. Made with everything from Anchor Steam Ale to Pilsner Urquell. Featuring 105 varieties, their website boasts "Coconut Oil, Sustainable Palm Oil, Pure Olive Oil, Canola Oil, Castor Oil, Unrefined Shea Butter, Unrefined Cocoa Butter, Stearic acid, and a blend of fragrances and essential oils" as ingredients. 

So I missed a couple of episodes of Brewmasters on Discovery. But I am watching it again tonight. As exciting as I find beer, it cracks me up how much drama and heart racing anticipation they 'impart' to the beer world. Somehow they take yeast, a single celled organism (read the most boring creature you could really hang out with) malt and water and spin it into something normal people might actually watch. Each episode finishes with Sam serving his new ale to a big group of people having never tried it himself. This week he traveled to Egypt grabbed some wild yeast and local herbs for his brew. I find it entertaining and I think he had a funny sense of humor so that goes a long ways. As a married man I have to wonder how his wife feels about these world beer travels. He must have to take her to Bermuda on occasion to make up for the beer travels. Something tells me she makes him close his trap about beer when they're there. Wild yeast is normally a pretty ballsy thing to do. But in this case he sent it to a lab in Belgium for analysis, so this is not exactly the crazy wild thing that it sounds like. If you haven't watched it, it's well worth watching.

The big beers are great. But in the end they pretty much end up as a killer Stout or IPA with an occasional barley wine thrown into the mix. I recently had O'Fallon's Sticke to the Man. It got me wanting a little something different. I love a good German lager. I wish I could get Bayern products in Michigan. Born in the same city as myself, they make a number of great German brews domestically. But since they are not an option, I picked up a Pinkus Munster Alt. The second I popped the cap, a overpowering sweet floral aroma came cascading out of the glass, as it subsided it was replaced by a sweet malty aroma. Slightly cloudy and gold in color, the nice head quickly subsided. Light bodied and dominated by a grainy wheat flavor, I also perceived a slight hop bitterness. While not my favorite German ale, it was well worth sampling.