It looks like 2010 is going to be another great year for beer, full of interesting collaborations, a big anniversary for Sierra Nevada, and whatever else brewers decide to throw in their kettles and serve. Here’s some of the stuff we’re looking to try in the coming year.
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Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
Licorice, Molasses, Imperial Stout
The wax-topped “Reserve Series” of beers by the Deschutes Brewery in Oregon tend to be really good, and the latest release of “The Abyss” is unsurprisingly delicious. Though it sounds overly fancified—brewed with molasses and licorice, barrel-aged, high alcohol content at 11 percent—the beer is surprisingly restrained and balanced. There’s no black licorice slapping you in the face. The finish is dry and, unlike other “imperial” versions of beers that can be way over the top in booziness, this one is scarily easy to drink for a high-ABV beer. It’s best sipped solo, but it does taste pretty good paired with chocolate coins.
Deschutes’ The Abyss, $12.99
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
Coca-Laced Liqueur
Agwa De Bolivia, a new liqueur made from coca leaves is now available for about 40 bucks a bottle. The company’s website says it’ll give you an “AGWABUZZ” like no other by activating the “various coca leaf alkaloids … with lime to mimic the ‘oxygen buzz’ experienced when chewing coca leaves or drinking coca-leaf tea at high altitude in the Andes; it tunes you in.” Yet, all the cocaine alkaloid is removed. From the press release:
“Wild Bolivian coca leaves are hand-picked at 2000 meters in the Andes and shipped under armed guard in 2000 Kilo Bales to Amsterdam to be macerated and de-cocainized. The potent high strength flavor formula is reduced to 60 proof, bottled and then shipped around the world in a more conventional format.”
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
Why Can’t I Find My Favorite Wine?
Consumers tend to imagine wine being produced at a bucolic Napa vineyard by a guy in an apron, but that’s not necessarily so, says the Hungry Beast in “How Wine Became Like Fast Food.” Wine and spirits stores like Total Wine and BevMo! are making and marketing their own private-label wines now. “Such brands are highly lucrative,” writes Keith Wallace, “with profit margins often 20% higher than comparable wines.”
The trend isn’t limited to dedicated booze stores: “Trader Joe’s has its ‘Two Buck Chuck,’ Wal-Mart has its Alcott Ridge, and 7-Eleven has its Thousand Oaks Vineyards.” Retail chains love the private-label wines because Joe Glug-a-bottle starts to associate this wonderful grape beverage with the company that introduced him to it—and is tempted to stop by more often to get more.
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
WhiskyFest Recap, San Francisco
Last week WhiskyFest blew through SF, leaving behind a trail of dead. Joking aside (though seriously, the stuff will slay you after a few hours if you don’t force yourself to dump after tasting), there were more than 200 whiskeys to sample from all over the world, many master distillers on hand to talk about their products, and, well, a lot of those profusely sweating guys who always seem to show up to beer and spirits festivals. I concentrated on the domestic offerings, leaving the many great Scotches and other imports for next time.
Here are a few of the highlights:
Death’s Door Spirits: Out of Wisconsin, this small-batch distiller is named after the passage between Washington Island and the Door County Peninsula. It uses organic grains, and makes a “white” whiskey. The perfectly clear spirit is made by double distilling, resting the booze for three weeks, then popping it in oak barrels for less than 72 hours. It picks up some whiskey flavors, and even has a sweet suggestion of reposado tequila. Would be fun to experiment with in cocktails that call for gin, or to make something odd like a white Manhattan. They were also pouring a very good, creamy, almost buttery gin, with lots of botanicals but no overwhelming juniper bitterness.
High West Distillery: First off, you have to give some props to these people for not only starting a distillery in Utah, but also starting a ski-in distillery and pub. More importantly, they are selling some very good ryes. Since the company is only a few years old, High West’s own stuff is still aging. In the meantime, it’s been blending other distilleries’ booze to great success. I liked the Rendezvous Rye, a blend of a 6-year-old, 95 percent rye and a 16-year-old, 80 percent rye. It’s strong and spicy, with some vanilla in there. It’s not chill-filtered—a process many distillers put their whiskeys through to remove oils that will make the whiskey appear cloudy when it’s cold. Skipping the step leaves a little more texture in the Rendezvous and flavor in the finish.
Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey: Stranahan’s is a great microdistillery in Denver. Its Colorado Whiskey is aged in charred American white oak whiskey barrels, and contains both floral Scotch qualities and some of the brown-sugary spiciness of bourbon, with some hints of smoky, leathery, earthy funk in there too from, well, who knows. Like High West’s Rendezvous Rye, this is not chill-filtered. Don’t be scared off by the 94 proofage—it’s fiery to be sure, but still totally sippable.
Monday, October 5th, 2009
Freaktoberfest in Williamsburg
Shmaltz Brewing, of Coney Island lager fame, debuted its new, blood-red beer at last Saturday’s second annual beer and music festival, Freaktoberfest. A packed crowd of craft beer fans partied at the Public Assembly in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, sampling a range of great mostly local brews.
Shmaltz’s beers are always tasty, and they were being poured in abundance. But a new discovery was the New Hampshire-based Smuttynose’s Farmhouse Ale. A little maltier than I was expecting, it was golden in color and nice and spicy-yeasty. Tasty ’til the last swallow. There’s something great about farmhouse ales and Saisons when the weather turns wet and cool. They’ve got enough body and funk to keep you warm and stand up to heavier foods, but are still fresh and crisp tasting, like the fall air.
Wednesday, September 16th, 2009
The J. Peterman of Beer
An absurdly enthusiastic mass of beer geek dudes practically mobbed Dogfish Head craft brewery’s Sam Calagione as he stepped into the Blind Tiger Ale House in NYC last night. For more than a half hour, the Delaware-based brewer was locked in pivot position, distributing gratis pints from the bar to his many admirers, who pumped his hand and had him pose for pictures. The Dogfish event, which featured 25 (!) of the company’s beers on tap, including some real obscure ones, was one of the most hotly anticipated events of the NY Craft Beer Week festival that kicked off last Sunday.
Calagione, a tanned, rugged guy (he once modeled in some Levi’s ads) with a bro-style friendliness, has become the de facto spokesman for the current craft brewing craze. His beers are easy to market and get excited about, in large part because of their J. Peterman-inspired marketing. Check out some of last night’s pours:
Chateau Jiahu: Developed from a recipe found in 9,000-year-old preserved pottery jars in the Neolithic village of Jiahu, China, using pre-gelatinized rice flakes, wildflower honey, Muscat grapes, hawthorn fruit, chrysanthemum flowers, and sake yeast.
Pangaea: An ale brewed with an ingredient from every single continent, including crystallized ginger from Australia, muscovado sugar from Africa, Antarctic water, Belgian yeast, and exotic grains.
Theobroma: “Based on the chemical analysis of pottery fragments found in Honduras” that contained residue of some boozy chocolate drink enjoyed by 1200 BCE partyers. Containing Aztec coca powder and nibs, honey, chiles, and annatto seeds.
Especially in a recession, there’s something great about the kind of armchair travel you can do from your barstool. Or, as Calagione proclaimed as soon as he had extricated himself from fans to stand on the bar, “The great thing about craft beer, is you can upgrade from the shittiest wine, and for the same price … try the shit from small, independent breweries!” Well said.
Friday, August 28th, 2009
The Most Metal Beer Art Ever?
Attendees of the upcoming Great American Beer Festival in Denver should check out the “Collaborative Evil” event in the Brewers Studio Pavilion, September 24 at 6:30 p.m.
What is Collaborative Evil? Steve Altimari, the brewmaster at Valley Brewing, explains the concept: Nine brewers (mostly friends and acquaintances) have agreed on a style (Belgian golden strong ale) and some basic parameters and limitations they wanted to follow (that “it be not loaded with spices, be fairly dry in finish, and … that each brewer would choose a secret sugar ingredient to differentiate the beers from one another”), and have all made different versions of the beer to pour at the festival.
The whole thing has been put together by Todd Ashman of FiftyFifty Brewing Company, and this is the second year he has organized a collaborative beer for the Festival. In 2008, the Collaborative Evil project only included three breweries, but all of them received A- or better reviews on BeerAdvocate. It will be interesting to see how this year’s batch of brews comes out.
(As well as FiftyFifty and Valley, the other collaborators are: Sacramento Brewing, Fat Head’s Brewery and Saloon, Flossmoor Station, Oakshire Brewing, Silver Peak Brewery, Speakeasy Ales & Lagers, and Lucky Bucket Brewing).
If all that isn’t enough to get you interested, how about the sweet metal-esque label art (pictured). Ashman commissioned it, and is also responsible for the name, an extension of a beer called “Evil” he was brewing. The art covers all your metal basics, and would look pretty awesome painted on the side of a van. “No, we are not all metal heads,” claims Altimari, while Ashman explains that “we’re trying to have fun with this … the beer, the GABF tasting, and working together of course.”
Tuesday, August 18th, 2009
Mmm, Numbing, Fishy Whiskey
From the “interesting weirdness” department comes Cognac.com’s handy list of “10 Asian Liquors Most Likely to Give You the Creeps,” a squeamish look at booze with a little something extra. Like, oh, whiskey with cobra snake (Spirits Review says it has a “fishy, hot taste” and numbs “every part that comes into contact with it”). Scorpion vodka. No, wait, maybe you want to get that good scorpion flavor with a dash of fruit, as in Banana Flavoured Scorpion Liqueur.
There’s a whole raft of this stuff for sale at Thailand Unique, which seems to specialize in products intended to shock the Western palate. Pregnant crickets, anyone?
Monday, August 10th, 2009
Drink Like a Viking
You heard it here first: Norwegian craft brew is going to be HUGE! Well, maybe not, but it’s still really good. Here are two small, experimental breweries that are exporting interesting beer to the United States. Shelton Brothers is distributing both companies’ beer in the States, and you can order it online from Sam’s Wines & Spirits.
HaandBryggeriet: Brewmaster Jens Maudal is trying to revive ancient beer styles from back in the day when brewing was mandated by law in Norway and the beers would have varied from village to village based on the local yeasts, hops, malt, and gruit, spices and herbs that Maudal says might have been used in lieu of hops. (Today he says the country drinks mostly homogeneous pilsners.) The most traditional of HaandBryggeriet’s brews is Norwegian Wood, a smoky ale (“All old beers used to have some smoky taste because they dried the homemade malt over open fire,” explains Maudal) flavored with juniper twigs and berries collected from the woods outside the brewery.
Two others that are soon to be released: Hesjeøl, a smoky harvest ale brewed with three different grains, normally a low-alcohol beer for farm laborers to drink during the harvest but amped up “for today’s not-so-hard-working beer drinkers,” says Maudal; and Wild Thing, a farmhouse fruit ale made with red currants and mountain cranberries, and fermented with Brett yeast to give it a pleasantly barnyardy, sour taste.
Nøgne Ø: Nøgne Ø makes great saison, pale, and amber ales, imperial brown ale, and IPA. It just released Tyttebær (which means lingonberry), a sour fruit beer made with Danish brewery Mikkeller in 2007 that’s been aging in the fermentation vessels and then in the bottles. Nøgne Ø brewer Kjetil Jikiun is also experimenting with extremely high-alcohol beers (17 to 18 percent) made with sake yeast, which can stand up to the higher alcohol levels without dying off. A soon-to-be-released holiday brew called Special Holiday Ale was made as a three-way collaboration with Stone Brewing and Jolly Pumpkin same recipe was brewed at the three individual breweries, with their unique styles. The one brewed at Stone last year is already sold out, but Nøgne Ø’s version will be released this year for the holidays. Jolly Pumpkin is still aging its version, which isn’t slated to come out of barrels until 2010.
