Stinker Alert! Buffalo Bill's Bad Batch! (Sorry)

The Jury’s In.

This year’s batch of Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale is a stinker. At least the Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale that was shipped to the Phoenix, Arizona market is a stinker.

I picked up a single of BBPA at the local Total Wine store on Saturday (not wanting to blow the dough for a full six pack in case my suspicions were confirmed) and on Sunday, I popped the top, and poured the contents to find a sour smelling, floater infested glass of tangy pumpkin ale, not at all in a league with their previous year’s efforts.

So for the 2010 historical record: A six pack of Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale purchased at Cost Plus was found to be sour smelling and tasting with intermittent flaky, paper-like floaters. A random single of Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale purchased at Total Wine was found to be sour smelling and tasting with small speck-like floaters.

Sorry Buffalo Bill. See you next year.

On a Positive Note.

In my quest for a single bottle of BBPA, I snagged a single of Lakefront Brewing’s Pumpkin Lager, remembering how enjoyed their pumpkin offering last year in Denver and a single of Abita Brewing’s Pecan Harvest (and some others) remembering with fondness a bunch of Shiner Holiday Cheer’s that I’ve enjoyed. (You remember that one from Texas that’s brewed with pecans and peaches…ah, delicious.)

I first enjoyed Lake Front’s Pumpkin Lager at a little Mexican restaurant on the west side of Denver almost a year ago exactly. The upside then was that they were having a special on this one and I originally recalled that it was on draft, but the more I think about it, the more I begin to recall that it was served in bottles. My brother-in-law was even coaxed into trying one and enjoyed it, I believe. I enjoyed it so much that when I returned from the Denver trip (last year’s Denver trip, not to be confused with this year’s Denver trip), I eagerly hunted the shelves of the local booze outlets hoping to find more, but to no avail.

Imagine my thrill at finding Lake Front Pumpkin Lager at Total Wine this past weekend. I don’t know if it was simply setting and circumstance, but my notes this time don’t measure up to that initial sampling. Here are the two separate entries.
October 7, 2009
More spice than pumpkin. Very good spiced pumpkin taste. Enjoyed as a prelude to getting my ass kicked at pool
(Did I mention that my brother-in-law is an accomplished pool player?)
October 17, 2010
Cloudy bronze. Weak head. Slightly sour smelling but with noticeable pumpkin smell. Vaguely sour, not especially spicy. Not as good as I recall it from Denver a year ago.

Indeed. I believe the October 2009 sample was all the more tasty because of the pleasant company of my brother-in-law. Setting and circumstance, people.

The notes for Pecan Harvest are certainly more hopeful than for BBPA this year and even as compared to the Lakefront Pumpkin Lager:
Copper colored with a thin head. Good – not like anything I can think of. Nutty roasted tasting – a bit rich and probably not something you’d want to drink a bunch of.

No, not a bunch, but just right if two or three is your goal for an afternoon under a tree in the back yard.

That’s it. I’ve got a busy rest of the week and a busy weekend coming up, then, this time next week I’ll be preparing for a two-day jaunt up to Flagstaff on work-related business and I’m hoping to visit Mogollon Brewing during my free time on Friday. (See them at http://www.mogbrew.com/)

Beer Moment: Mr. Fix-It

I want to be that Papaw who can fix anything. I’m not, but luckily, I’m in the middle of that several year span in my grandchildren’s lives where they seem to think I can fix anything.

Today I returned home from my work as a low-level government functionary where I labor at tasks that rarely result in a satisfactory result and where I seldom seem to fix anything. With an eye to salvaging something of the day, I set to cleaning up the backyard, putting away the toys scattered during this past weekend’s visit. There in the lawn lay the broken end of a small scoop shovel, like the kind kids play with at the beach. I remember seeing it get broken Sunday afternoon and I remember calling Mrs. Beer Rant on her cell phone to ask if she’d please try to find another beach shovel during her shopping trip. True to form, Grandma found not just a replacement toy shovel; she found an indoor/outdoor soccer set and a toy barbecue grill. She’s a terrific grandma.
So here I stood this afternoon with the working end of a broken toy shovel. This, I can fix. I rounded up a short section of plastic irrigation hose and a tiny carriage style bolt with its appropriate little nut. I retired to what passes for a workbench in my garage with a freshly poured glass of Deschutes Obsidian Stout, one of my favorite beers.

In a minute or two the little shovel was serviceable again and with the tool boxes put away and the bench light turned off, I took the remains of my Obsidian Stout and flopped down at the kitchen table to sort the day’s mail, satisfied in a (small) job well done and satisfied in my choice of beer.

Tomorrow morning I’ll get up at 3:30 and head back in to work. I’ll spin my wheels for a ten or eleven hour shift and then head home where I can do some real good. All the while, I’ll know that in just a few days, the grandkids will return and the toy shovels will come back out and we’ll get down to the real business at hand. And I think those little rascals will be tickled pink to see the newly repaired shovel. Grandkids appreciate the little things you do for them.

Iron City. Oh hell yeah!

Hmmm. Let’s see. Were I to suddenly stop drinking any beer produced east of the common border of Colorado and Kansas, and I had to sample one last meaningful example of a beer from the eastern United States, what beer would that be? Hmm. Probably not something as common and low as Iron City.

Uh, too late.

Blatantly bland in it’s blandness.

The label touts this stuff as the official beer of the Pittsburgh Nation. I’ve heard of the Republic of Texas (I love their sheet cakes.) but I’m completely in the dark when it comes to this Pittsburgh Nation. I’m pretty sure it’s a football thing and since I’m more a NASCAR fan most of the time, I’ll stay out of that social milieu. (I said “milieu.”)

But enough! This stuff smells grainy and plastic-like, pours with no discernible head (but with very active and lively beading) and tastes vaguely sour and plastic.

On the plus side, it’s probably an eastern/Midwest/rustbelt version of a retro beer much on the order of a Pabst Blue Ribbon or a Schlitz. Another plus: I think the label is cool.

I actually bought this beer because the label states it’s brewed in Latrobe. Now back in the day, I drank me a few gallons of another Latrobe product known as Rolling Rock (or Rolling Boulder in my circle). Sadly, Rolling Rock has evidently moved out of Latrobe, having been swallowed up by the Bud monster. But alas, all is not lost for the good union working folk of Latrobe, because according to this Wickety Whacked Wikipedia Entry, Iron City has moved in to fill the void left by the Rolling Rock. (I wonder if Iron City now springs forth from those glass-lined tanks that used to produce Rolling Rock?) While I’m happy for the folks who might otherwise have been left jobless by the departure of Rolling Rock, this Iron City ain’t no Rolling Rock; a statement that strikes me as funny, since it’s akin to saying that turd there tastes better’n this turd here. (The departure of Iron City from it’s home in a Pittsburgh suburb to Latrobe apparently wasn’t without some rancor, but I’ll let you Google all that on your own if you’re interested in the dirt.)

But in the end, and in keeping with my philosophy about good and bad beers, I would not turn up my nose at a cold bottle of Iron City proffered by an old friend or a potential new friend. I think when I have another Iron City beer, I’ll likely drink it straight from the bottle and I’ll drink it while watching a sporting event in person or on television, and I’ll plan on having lots of greasy food on hand. Setting and circumstance? You bet!

Here’s the Iron City Brewing website. Maybe I should submit a picture of me drinking this beer for their photo contest. (Maybe I should send them a dry cleaning bill as a result of having violently ejected said beer onto my Sunday church clothes.)

Tick, Tick, Tick

I’ve got about 3 more days until I’ll have to decide about acting on the results of the 2009 year end Gimmick Poll. If trends continue, I’ll likely be limiting my beer blogging to beers brewed in the western United States. Meanwhile I think there may be one or two more “eastern” beers hiding in the garage that I should try to get at before time runs out.

By the way, if I elect to honor the results of the 2009 Gimmick Poll, and should my vast readership of roughly two dozen vote that I’ll only blog beers from the United States’ western region, you can rest assured that I’ll still try beers from the eastern U.S. I just won’t be bragging about it here!

Beer Moment & Closing The Book

Weather has taken a turn for the cool around Beer Rant HQ, Halloween is here and before we know it Thanksgiving will be here. Beer-wise, this is probably my favorite time of year.

Beer Moment: A Beer On The Rim
From recent posts you might gather that I’m something of a traveler but that’s not so; I usually manage one or two decent trips a year either for family fun or work related stuff. This year has been a bit different in that I’ve gotten to Oregon (for the first time) and to Utah and to Colorado but that’s probably going to be it for 2009. Quick on the heels of the Colorado jaunt was a one-day quick trip up to Grand Canyon to meet family members intent on celebrating a birthday by taking a helicopter ride

We did our visiting while strolling around Grand Canyon Village on the South Rim and my nephew, who is something of a beer geek in his own right bought me a glass of beer from Grand Canyon Brewing at the bar in the El Tovar Lodge. He’d gone on at some length about a Grand Canyon Porter or Stout he’d tried the night before at a bar near their hotel in Tusayan. One would have thought that we’d have spent that brief, quiet time comparing notes on all things beer related but we didn’t. We quietly downed our pints with an offhand comment about the bar décor and a brief comparison of the pilsner at hand to the stout my nephew had tried the evening before. It was as if we were meeting for a routine pint after work. I don’t see my nephew or the rest of my extended Colorado family nearly often enough but the ease with which we simply slide into a familiar routine is comforting to me in a way.

Incidently, the beer we tried at El Tovar was a pilsner from Grand Canyon Brewing. It wasn’t all that noteworthy, but the setting and circumstance more than made up for what the beer might have been lacking!

Closing The Book
I filled up my first beer notebook a week or so back. The first entry is dated May 9, 2008 and was written during a visit to the Yardhouse where I noted my first sample of Old Speckled Hen. The final note is dated October 18, 2009 and indicates I was rounding out the notes with a Deschutes 2009 Jubelale. (Excellent beer, as always.)

I’ve debated whether or not to even start a new beer notebook. Frankly it’s a bit of an obstruction to actually enjoying the beer: the sniffing, the sipping, and the rabid jotting of notes. The Brits seem to have a term for folk who do this; they’re called “tickers,” and I’d liken them to those really ate up bird watchers who let their lives go to hell while they’re out looking for yet another bird to add to their life list. I don’t want to become a ticker, but I think I have.

On the other hand, without a notebook, I won’t have any way to document what I’ve done beer-wise and thus, no way to post comments on this blog. To lose the notebook would be to lose the Beer Rant blog, which in life’s large scheme wouldn’t amount to muck (another British term, I think). But I need to write, even if I don’t write all that well, and for now, blogging is writing for me.

So, I have purchased another book for beer notes. It’s the same style Sokkia Engineer’s Field Book that I just finished up with; they’re sturdy, somewhat waterproof, brightly colored so they’re not easily misplaced and they’ve got plenty of room for notes. My dilemma now is to decide what form my notes will take this time around. I don’t believe I’m going to be going into as much detail regarding color, head, smell and taste because doing so seems to slow down my process and usually that information isn’t even used here at Beer Rant anyway. I subtitled Beer Rant as a “beer diary” so, moving forward, I’m going to try to document more of the Beer Moments in this second beer notebook. We’ll have to see how that translates to what appears here at Beer Rant.

Finally, my thanks to those silly few of you who’ve chosen to “follow” Beer Rant. I’m planning to put together a post that acknowledges as many of you as I can, with links to your blogs or websites, but in the meantime, I appreciate your stopping in from time to time and I enjoy seeing your comments posted.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Flying to the Hive and Quick Riffs

Gosh, where have the days gone? It’s still blazing hot here at Beer Rant HQ and the monsoons have brought us nothing save a bit more humidity that throws the whole “dry heat” chestnut on its head. Anyway.

I’m doing more beer drinking and not so much blogging. Beers sampled since the last post include Shiner’s Smokhaus, Breckenridge Summer Bright Ale, and Lagunita’s Lucky 13. I liked them all well enough and I suppose I’ll get ‘round to some notes at some point.

Big news right now is next week’s impending jaunt up to Utah and the area north of Salt Lake City proper. Now of course the purpose is to visit in-laws and kinfolk and to especially get a chance to see my oldest daughter and her daughter (who is grandchild number 3 out of a total of 4). However, there’s always the chance that I’ll break away from the crowd and have an opportunity to sample local beers. I never make hard and fast plans in this regard, because I’ve usually been disappointed with the outcome. Nevertheless, I’ve allowed myself the luxury of looking up the names and addresses of the various microbrew and craft brew outlets in the greater SLC area. One indispensable resource has been Mike Riedel’s terrific blog Utah Beer. Mike’s up on the latest local haps for sure, so I’ve used his list of promising beer purveyors to create a short list of places to visit if “setting and circumstance” permit. (Yeah, I worked in my catch phrase again. I’m done!)

What do I anticipate doing if the beer tour doesn’t pan out? My in-laws have a lovely finished basement with a large TV. I’ve got a stack of great books to read and I’ll take a few of them just in case. (I’m currently reading American Gunfight, which is about an attempt to assassinate President Truman in the 1950s. It’s good. I’ll probably wind up the trip reading Eisenhower’s Lieutenants. Life’s good, if the books are good, even if you can’t find great local beer.)

Okay. A quick riff or two, for old time’s sake, okay?

Shiner Smokehaus Helles Style Lager
Sampled on August 16, 2009
I’d been looking for this thing since it was released back in June. Mrs. Beer Rant tracked it down for me and heaven bless her for it. Pours slightly darker than a Bud/Miller/Coors lager. Smells like liquid smoke – somewhat chemical smelling and tasting. Initially does not taste like beer. Tastes a bit like flavored fruit beers that I’ve had – the added taste just seems a bit strange. I can see how beer drinkers might easily love or hate this. I like it just fine and was glad the missus picked up two six packs. (But just last weekend, I grabbed a six-pack of this, then reluctantly placed it back on the shelf of the local Total Wine outlet. I like it, but not enough to buy it in favor of some other new beer!)


Lagunita’s Lucky 13
Sampled on August 9, 2009
I like this company’s style, though I’m probably not hip enough to run with their kind. This beer labels itself as “a mondo large red ale.” It does pour a dark red color with a robust beige-orange head. This one’s sweet tasting without the alcohol bite I expected, though it has a medium to heavy mouth feel. The sweetness and a high abv percentage preclude this as a good session beer but it’s definitely a flavorful beer. The label includes a phone number (707-769-4495) to call the company. Go ahead, I dare you.

Next post will likely come after we get back from the Beehive State.

What To Serve at the Beer Summit...

Beer Intelligence Briefing

(There is no hidden meaning here, folks. I'm just not that deep.)

While I refuse to delve into the politics of tomorrow’s so-called “Beer Summit” at the White House I’d like to offer my suggestions on what Mr. Obama might serve, based on recent new tasting notes from this here beer notebook of mine.

Full Sail Brewing
Recipe Number 03 Limited Edition Lager
I think it would be nice to knock back a few of these while sitting at a picnic table outside the backdoor of the White Hose. This is a sweet grainy smelling lager with a sweet, very faintly citrus taste. Not too bad and it probably wouldn’t upset the sensibilities of those gathered, who might already be partial to lagers anyway. (I’m just guessing.)

Lost Coast Brewery
Raspberry Brown
This number has a nutty fruit syrup smell and tastes like a raspberry candy bar with a roasted nut component. Surprisingly, the raspberry flavor isn’t overpowering but I don’t know that our White House guests would want to pound a bunch of these during their “Beer Summit.” (Which might be a clever way to dose them up on a single beer and send them quickly on their way so as not to clutter up the Rose Garden and the East Lawn.)

St. Peter's Brewery
Cream Stout
If the host isn’t worried about creating an international incident (ahem, pouring a "foreign" beverage at a beer summit, really), he should consider pouring this beauty. It’s very malty smelling, pours nearly opaque with a beige head and has a nice toffee flavor up front with a faint hint of licorice. Arguably better than the Guinness 250 I sampled earlier this year.

Boulder Beer Company
MoJo Risin’ Double IPA
This distinctly bitter brew might serve as a metaphor for the bitter divide that seems to separate so much of our society but since I’m not looking for metaphors, we’ll skip all that. This beer has a surprisingly thick mouth feel, and while the citrus or pine accents aren’t there initially, the pine notes do begin to come forward as the beer warms in the glass.

I like all these beers enough to offer my unqualified recommendation. Mr. Obama, if you’re reading this (and I’m sure you are), go ahead and offer any one of these fine beers to your guests tomorrow.

End of briefing.

The Macros Were Micros Once, Too.

Let’s face it, beer is an acquired taste. I don’t recall anyone remembering their first stolen beer (c’mon, we all stole our first beer) as, “light, refreshing, with a thin but prominent mouth feel,” or “hoppy with a dry finish.” Only after we season a bit and after we start making a living so we can buy our beer do we somehow begin to think ourselves too good for the Coors and Millers of the world. Frankly, we transform into Beer Knerds or Beer Knazis.

I’ve already noted that the takeaway message I got from the documentary Beer Wars was that we all need to support our local craft brewers. The lesson fairly blared from the screen. But much more subtle and perhaps unintended, was the notion that the likes of Coors and Budweiser, Pabst and Miller all started out as microbreweries with one arm tied behind their back as their immigrant founders struggled to establish their place in the market, all the while trying to strangle the competition with the one free arm.

I helped put Miller Brewing where it is today but I rarely drink Miller these days. I was raised just up the road from Coors brewery in Golden, Colorado and they hold a special place in my heart, but again, I don’t buy as much Coors product as I used to. I rarely buy Budweiser because I never cared for Bud products and I think the current raft of Clydesdale horsey ads are stupid. Nevertheless, I do from time to time have the occasional bottle of macro-brewed product, usually because it’s being offered at a party or it comes at a ridiculously low price. I’m just not so proud that I’ll ever say, “I’ll go without before I drink a Coors, or a Miller, or a Bud.” Besides, under certain circumstances, it doesn’t matter what the beer is; even if it's not great, it’s just good enough.

Working Class is Where You Find It: Steel Toe Stout

For me there is something of a disconnect between a beer that is hard to find or high in price and the notion of a working class guy or gal plunking down their last crumpled up wad of one dollar bills for a six pack. I think on a national scale, this is an unlikely scenario and that folks we think of as working class are probably still supporting the brewing industry by their purchase of Pabst, Bud and Coors…and Miller…oh, and Schlitz. Man, there are a lot of truly working class beers out there when you get right down to it. So, let’s leave cost out of the equation for the purposes of this conversation and deal with the availability angle.

I might consider Ska Brewing Steel Toe Stout to be a working class beer if I’m pulling it off the cooler shelf at a corner market in Durango, Colorado, but I don’t think of it the same way when I’m buying it at a national liquor store chain in Phoenix. This notion figures closely with Stan Hieronymus’s recent piece “The Importance of Drinking Local” in All About Beer magazine. Mr. Hieronymus speaks of the special experience that comes, as a visitor, with stopping by a local establishment to sample locally produced beers. I guess I’m flipping this scenario on its head and pointing out that a working class beer really only caters to the working class of the region in which it is born and that once that beer leaves the neighborhood in the back of a truck, it becomes a different kind of beer for the masses. Not a bad thing, just a distinction, folks. (I don’t include the big brewers like Miller, Coors and so forth in that equation since they are all around a different animal and have been playing both sides of the working class/white collar fence for decades.) I suppose this is another aspect of what I've been referring to as setting and circumstance.

Hard-to-find working class beers probably grow out of the old days when there were more local brewers who catered to the local working folk. I believe that situation is coming back into vogue in places like Oregon and Colorado and perhaps parts of California. Local working men and women latch onto a particular local brand of beer that’s made by the brewpub or microbrewery in town or just down the road. These are truly working class beers in the original sense. I think where the disconnect comes is when a beer leaves it’s neighborhood and receives wider distributorship; it becomes too much of a novelty in the other places where it’s offered. You can’t be working class, rare and quirky at the same time and (though I’d promised to leave price out of this discussion) you definitely can’t be all those things and expensive.

What about the beer, dummy?

I can’t say that I was bowled over by Ska’s entry into the milk stout category; it was good enough I suppose. I'm partial to all stouts and porters anyway. My notes from last Friday state: “Dark coffee color, almost opaque. Quick tan head with medium lacing. Faint coffee taste, slight sour finish then gone.” I suspect that, served on tap in some dimly lit bar in southern Colorado, this stuff is dynamite. I'll buy this again, if the price is right. I also like Ska's website and suddenly wish I could be in Durango today – especially since it’s going to hit 90 degrees here at Beer Rant Headquarters this afternoon! Browsing Ska's other beers, I’m also feeling inclined to go out and find some of their imperial porter!

See you 'round the jobsite!

Too Much Information....


Which brings me to the whole “working class” handle. I wear steel-toed boots every working day of the week. (Those are my clod-hoppers in the picture.) Am I working class? I have a college degree and spend about as much time in an office as I do out in the field. Am I white collar? I was summoned to a state senator’s office to explain a constituent issue a couple years ago; does that make me white collar? I wore steel-toed boots during my visit to the capitol; does that make me working class? During the introductions, when I gave my name, the senator indicated that I was the guy on the hot seat. I looked around the table and then at the senator and said, “I think I’m the lowest paid guy here, so that makes sense.” Does that make me working class, or just stupid?

Beer Reviews Online: How Do You Rate?

Once I found I’d made the decision to begin truly tasting and sampling beers, the next thing that I had to decide was how and if to actually rate the beers I tried. I’ve refrained from giving full-fledged reviews of beers here at Beer Rant. Beer is an acquired taste in itself, and to attempt to rate the myriad styles of beers that are out there would really be far above my skill set. The simple aspects of setting and circumstance can make a beer taste great on one occasion and lousy on another. Here at Beer Rant, I’ve simply acknowledged those beers that I prefer, occasionally adding that I would or would not seek out a particular beer again. The beers I’ve found that I especially like, I’ve usually referred to in multiple posts.

This is not to say that I don’t rate beers, I do, but not here on my blog. Normally, after I’ve made a personal rating for a beer, I check out how it stacks up with other drinkers. I refer to the ratings on Beer Advocate and Rate Beer, and they’re perfectly fine, wonderful sites but good gravy their rating systems boggle the mind with percentages and point scales. Ugh. I just need some place to jot my notes, make my ratings based on a simple scoring range and hopefully network with other beer drinkers of a like mind.

For my purposes, I’ve found a great online beer group called Beer Reviews Online. Sure, the other beer rating and ranking sites on the web are great and each has merit, but so far, I’ve only joined Beer Reviews Online. Why? Mostly because BRO is a simple, straightforward site that doesn’t have a convoluted multi-facet, subset rating system. At BRO, beers are rated 0 to 10 with space for comments. That’s it. In addition to the ratings, there is a member’s forum for sharing commentary and good-natured banter. Members can also connect directly through their profile pages and I’ve wrangled a great Beer Trade with another member of Beer Reviews Online, which is reason enough to jump into the pool. And guess what? If you decide to re-rate a beer, you can go into your ratings and edit the rating to move it up or down on your scale. I think that’s a nod to the vagaries of setting and circumstance, for sure.

So far, membership at Beer Reviews Online is fairly small and seems to include a lot of regional members. I’m an interloper to some extent in that I don’t live in the area where most of the other members live, but I feel more than welcome there and I have no reason to believe that others who visit and join BRO wouldn’t feel just as welcome.

I’m finding that as Christmas approaches, my preferences seem to have ebbed and flowed and it’s been difficult to conclusively choose a favorite – some of this speaks to the whole setting and circumstance thing that I’ve mentioned a time or two since starting this beer diary. Frankly, I’ve been sampling a lot of beer in the past month or so – perhaps too much – which seems to have led to a dumbing down of my palate. Beers that I’d initially enjoyed are not as enjoyable the second time around and beers that I’d normally consider not good based on style (hopped beers for example) are turning out to be surprisingly tasty.

For the purposes of crowning some favorites for the season, I’ve tried to stick with initial impressions and thus, have settled upon Shiner Holiday Cheer, Gordon Biersch Winter Bock and Pyramid Snow Cap as my Christmas and Winter Seasonal favorites.

Merry Christmas, From Texas!
I’ve gone on at length about the Shiner Holiday Cheer. It’s a dunkelweizen, which is a style I tend to like. It pours and presents well. It’s packaged in an old school label, which I tend to like. It’s priced competitively, which I really like. I’ll just point you over to what some others have had to say.

Despite widely mixed reviews, Holiday Cheer scored pretty high over at Beer Advocate.

At least one Unrepentant Beer Snob seems to love Holiday Cheer as well.

The single caution that I might raise regarding Holiday Cheer is that it is not a beer for getting drunk on. As is common with many more flavorful but low alcohol content beers, the intriguing flavor that draws you in is also the element that makes you feel bad if you drink too many. Consider yourself warned, friends.

Down at the Brewpub and In Your Refrigerator!
I think I first got wind of Gordon Biersch’s Winter Bock via an email from their membership services department. I made a point of swinging by their Glendale, Arizona location on December 1st for lunch and a sample. Offered on draft, Winter Bock gives off a pleasant malty smell and had a roasted nut taste with a rather thin mouth feel (despite a robust head on a dark tea colored pour). Mildly bitter with a coffee finish. Winter Bock has a surprisingly strong alcohol by volume percentage that isn’t initially noticeable, so watch yourself.

I enjoyed the Winter Bock enough to buy a growler for the road, which I polished off within the suggested 48 hours. Once it was gone, I’d figured I might be out of luck finding Winter Bock on store shelves – I rarely see GB seasonals offered hereabouts. So, I made a point of dropping in a second time after work for another sample of Winter Bock. Imagine my glee when I stumbled across six-packs of Winter Bock for sale at a nearby BevMo. Well, I don’t always like the selection at BevMo and their prices are not especially competitive, but this time they had a seasonal that I wasn’t likely to find elsewhere so I bought a six-pack to enjoy Christmas Eve! (I should point out that they did not have six-packs of Holiday Cheer, though there was an empty space on the shelf where the Holiday Cheer had once been.)

So far, the worst rating for this beer over at Beer Advocate is a C+. That may not be enough in itself to make honor roll, but when averaged out over several reviews, Winter Bock makes the list. I like Gordon Biersch, not simply for their beer but for their customer service, which I'll delve into after the new year, perhaps.

From the Land of the Snowcapped Pyramids.
This one gives off a quick, hoppy smell in the glass and pours a light coffee color, sporting a cream colored head. The taste hints at licorice with a quick alcohol bite that’s a bit wine like. Mouth feel is medium thick and it finishes with a flavor of coffee and more hints of licorice.

Check out the blurb at Real Beer.

What the hell is Randys.org? Beats me, but they’ve posted a short review of Pyramid Snow Cap.

I often steer away from Pyramid products, suspecting they’re too fruity or too something. I took the jump for this one because it’s listed in Don Russell’s Merry Christmas Beer book. I’m glad I bought his book and I’m glad I bought this beer. We’ll have a six-pack of this at the Beer Rant Headquarters on Christmas Eve.

What others picked…
I was worried that perhaps I’d chosen some favorites too quickly but it seems others have as well.

Here’s a Top 10 list from the folks at Chow.com. I’m pleased and proud to say that I’ve sampled 6 of their top ten so far. I think that’s a good thing. Maybe I drink too much?

Here’s a nifty posting of holiday beers ranked by William Brand on his blog What's On Tap. I’ve sampled about half of the beers appearing on this list, as well. I suspect I’ll not get around to some of the imports; I’ll have my hands full just finding all the local, American made beers.

Still More Work to Do.
I’m still waiting to try the Sam Adams Chocolate Bock and I want to pick up some Hibernation Ale. (Earlier this year I tried a bottle of Hibernation Ale from 2007 and it was terrific!) I’ve also got two big bottles of Trader Joe’s 2006 Vintage Ale that I picked up cheap a couple months ago.

I suppose one of my New Year's resolutions will be to post shorter entries. Merry Christmas!

Colorado Trip: Mocktoberfest

My life is one little bit of irony piled upon another, really. See if you can spot the irony in the following tale. (I’ll try to help.)

My recent visit to Colorado coincided with Denver’s annual Oktoberfest event in the downtown district, near of all places Coors Field (ironic). My sister and brother-in-law obligingly carried my sorry carcass downtown to seek out the event, which frankly turned out to be a big flop. Oktoberfest? More like Oktoberbust. Sorry I missed the mini-marathon they held (ironic lie).

A side street was cordoned off and tents were arrayed along the sidewalks and there was polka music playing someplace. I saw a number of fellows walking around with giant Paulaner steins, but the crowd was thin and the beer offering was limited strictly to Paulaner with Jagermeister as an alternative. Even the food offerings seemed dicey so we ducked in to Mexico City restaurant (ironic) where I sampled a Dos Equis Dark that was served in a Miller High Life glass (ironic). The Dos Equis smelled of lime mostly, since it was served with a slice of lime. The taste was sweet and malty. I’ll seek out and buy Dos Equis Dark again, not simply because the beer is good, but because I rather like their current advertising package featuring “the most interesting man in the world.” (In the coming months, I’ll be pitching a new marketing campaign for Beer Rant: “The least interesting man in the world.”) I won’t serve Dos Equis with a lime though; that’s part of my least interesting man shtick.

Under whelmed by Oktoberfest, we wandered around the downtown district and took in some after dark sights, including Coors Field and El Chapultapec, a hip jazz joint that I admired from the outside, but didn’t enter (remember, “least interesting man…”). Eventually, still a tad hungry despite our Mexican food interlude, we found a seat at The Samba Room (ironic) where I sampled a Xingu Black Beer. I’ve had Xingu before and liked it and my experience in The Samba Room was no different. Xingu is of course very dark – black, in fact – with a brown head and a sweet, malty taste. The pictures I took don’t do it justice.

If my visit to Del Norte Brewing was the beer highlight of my Colorado trip, then Oktoberfest Denver must go down as the low point. However, while Denver’s Oktoberfest may have been a bust, I think our stroll around downtown was very nice.

The Beer Advocates don’t seem to advocate drinking Dos Equis Dark Lager. Fine. I like it.

Here’s the site for Xingu Black Beer. Hmmm. Amazonian beer. I’d never thought of that.

As for El Chapultapec (1962 Market St., Denver), my copy of Colorado: A Liquid History reveals that this bar opened in July 1933 to celebrate the repeal of prohibition. Don’t go here looking for microbrews, though. Bar owner Jerry Krantz is quoted as saying, “…we got places down here now that make their beers right where you can see ‘em. We got places that get their beer from as far away as possible. Most of mine just comes from Golden or Fort Collins.” Fair enough. I’m sorry I didn’t go in. I’ll try to pay a visit if I get back to Denver. (I took that picture above and the one below.)


Up next: Colorado Quick Riffs

Up after that: Some samples from the Washington, DC/Virginia area.
Up after that: Some 3.2% craziness from Utah.

Colorado Trip: Homecoming

Not wanting to show up at my sister’s home empty handed, my first stop after leaving Denver International Airport was a local grocery outlet where I picked up a six pack of Boulder Brewing Single Track Ale and a six pack of Tommyknocker Jack Whacker Wheat Ale, which seems reason enough to start off with a discussion of some beers from Tommyknocker Brewing based in Idaho Springs, Colorado. I spent a few years of my childhood growing up in Idaho Springs, so there’s naturally a soft spot in my heart for anything from there – including Tommyknocker beers, I guess.

I’m not a proponent of gimmicky names, slogans or mascots in the world of brewing. Theme beers are also somewhat annoying to me and Tommyknocker fits into that whole genre of theme beers, with each brew sporting a name that is based on a long-running theme. In the case of Tommy Knocker, it’s a mining theme that is perfectly apt for Colorado and Idaho Springs in particular but I find the cartoon characters and clever names a bit obnoxious in fairly short order. (For example, Tommyknocker’s stable includes beers with names like Pick Axe Pale Ale, Ornery Amber, Butt Head Bock and of course Jack Whacker Wheat Ale. Ughhh. Please.) But in the end, while I may not be a fan of their marketing technique, Tommy Knocker’s beers do measure up for the most part.

I sampled the six-pack of Jack Whacker shortly after settling in at my sister and brother-in-law’s house. My field notes from the sampling describe a surprisingly roasted smell from a golden colored pour with a thick head. The beer poured cloudy and had a strong lemon/citrus flavor with a surprisingly thick mouth feel. Reminded me somewhat of Hoegaarden, though I prefer Jack Whacker to Hoegaarden. (Hoegaarden tastes like sausage.) Jack Whacker is definitely a summer beer and would sit pretty far down on my list of “go-to” summer brews if I actually lived in an area that carried Tommyknocker products.

Later in my visit, I made a point to drive up the canyon into Clear Creek County to visit my childhood stomping ground; always a dicey proposition. In the summer, or fall, with weather that’s cooperative, I tend to get homesick for that area and I have to remind myself that for a good portion of the year, it’s colder than a well digger’s elbow. Add to this the narrow mountain valleys that block the sun for a good part of the day when the winter sun is low and we’re talking cold country.

When I was growing up in Idaho Springs during the late 1960s and early 1970s, the building that now houses the Tommyknocker brewery and pub, was the Placer Inn, which was home to a bowling alley where my mom bowled on a league team that was sponsored by my dad’s Texaco gas station. All this to say that, while I no longer live in Idaho Springs, it’s still very much a part of who I was and who I am.

To see a brewpub in the old Placer Inn is a bittersweet thing. I have a vague memory of the look and sound of the place when I was growing up and to visit there now brings on a bit of the nostalgia, but even as I begin to pine for that bygone time almost 50 years ago, I rejoice in the notion that it’s become a doggone beer brewery for heaven’s sake! Just another reason to wish I was a local and could knock back a pint of fresh beer every afternoon.

Here’s what the Placer Inn looked like about 20 years before I was born (it remained little changed during the 1960s and into the 1970s).

After a tour around town I popped in for a glass of beer before heading back to Denver. There isn’t likely anything inside the Tommyknocker brewpub that even remotely harkens back to its bowling alley days, but the business of brewing is clearly underway, even if the pinsetters have long been forgotten. Taking a spot at the bar I asked if they had anything in the way of a stout and the tap tender pointed out both a stout and a porter on the menu. I opted for the Black Power Stout and watched as it was drawn from the tap right before my eyes. Beautiful.

Black Powder Stout presents a luscious coffee black with a creamy brown head that looks a bit like ice cream. There’s definitely coffee and chocolate in the smell and in the taste. It’s a very good stout, rating high on my list. Pity that it’s only available on draft and by the keg.

Not wanting to leave without a second sample to document, I asked for a sample sized glass of their Ornery Amber and found it to be not quite as hoppy as I expected with a slight alcohol bite. This amber has a bread or grainy finish and while it isn’t as good as the stout in my opinion, I liked it better than the Jack Whacker.

I chatted briefly with a local perched on a neighboring stool – wistfully admitting that I used to live in Idaho Springs, but still sounding and looking like a tourist. As if to confirm the notion, I left with a Tommyknocker t-shirt and can cozy. Who says you can’t go back? How else will you buy souvenirs?

Here's a shot of the Tommyknocker trophy case (so to speak):

Here’s what some other folks had to say about Tommyknocker beers:

Here’s a nifty post about Tommyknocker that appeared on The Beer Hunter. (Talk about nostalgia. This post dates back to 1999. Nice.)

Beer Advocate gives Tommyknocker high marks in general and rates their Black Powder Stout especially high.

Here's a picture of my Black Powder Stout being drawn at the tap (sweet):

Here’s an older post by my buddy over at Lagerheads. He noted a lightness in the alcohol content when he sampled the Jack Whacker and I note that the six pack I tried was less than 3.2% abw, so as usual he’s right on.

Chipper Dave at Fermentedly Challenged sampled the Jack Whacker more recently and seemed to like it.

Stop by the Tommyknocker website.

Cheers to the folks at Tommyknocker and the local pub folk who made even a displaced native feel at home, if just for the time it takes to knock back a glass of stout.

Session. Session? What Session?

Great Divide Hibernation Ale

Never one to keep up with what’s trendy, I’ve managed to miss posting a topic-related post for every installment of The Session since I began my beer blog earlier this year. I always have the best of intentions, but then things come up or I begin to feel that my contribution to the discussion will be trifling and not especially useful, and I fail to post a session-related entry month after month.

The most recent installment of “The Session” dealt with drinking beers out of season. More to the point, I suspect the beer masses mean drinking heavier beers during the summer. I missed posting on the appointed day. That’s no excuse to flop down and wail like a wee baby. I’m a dark beer kind of fellow and I like it even in hot weather and even a belated excuse to sample dark, strong beer is reason enough to do so.

With temperatures pushing over the 110-degree mark here, I moved a bottle of Great Divide Brewing’s Hibernation Ale from the bullpen to the refrigerator and come 3 or 4 in the afternoon, with the day’s temperature pushing its maximum, I popped the top and poured it out.

This beer’s very name conjures up images of dark winter. The label depicts a solitary figure in silhouette trudging through a snowy landscape. Brrrr. Certainly there are animals that hibernate in the Sonoran desert come wintertime – toads and snakes mostly, but hereabouts, the animal life really tends to lay low in the summer, trying in every way to avoid the heat of the day. It’s not so much hibernation but simple self-preservation. You cavort out in the sun and heat for too long, you’re a cooked goose. So, Hibernation Ale is appropriate to our lifestyle here in the desert if one considers staying indoors and in the air-conditioning a form of hibernation.

The Tasting
If I could use just one word, three times to describe Hibernation Ale, it would be “coffee, coffee, coffee.” It pours dark but clear with medium beading. If Starbucks made a beer, they would simply be ripping off the taste of this beer and putting it in coffee cups. And not just “coffee” but coffee with creamer and a touch of sweetener, too, along with a mild liquor bite. This one warms you slightly as you drink it and finishes quite dry.

I enjoyed this beer a lot. I suspect its warming properties will be especially nice come December when I can take a seat on the back patio as the sun sets and there contemplate what Santa might have in store for me - I shudder at the thought. In the meantime, Hibernation Ale sampled nicely in the comfy climate controlled environs of my home, with the blinding heat miasma circling about each window like a rabid wolf.

Here’s the Hibernation Ale page at the brewer’s website:
Great Divide Hibernation Ale
Gosh, a “collectible” beer. Makes me almost wish I hadn’t sampled this one quite yet. I never use or throw away anything that might be of value and to know that I popped the top on a beer that might have some value as a collector’s item, well, I’m a bit sad by that notion.

The folks at Beer Advocate chimed in with a grade of A- for Hibernation Ale. No summer school for this beer; and no hibernating either!

Okay, this installment of The (Late) Session is over.

July 4th Cinder Cone Red

I enjoyed a few delicious Cinder Cone Reds yesterday, while grilling, while enjoying the company of family and while watching the NASCAR race from Daytona. A glorious day!

Grilling: chicken breasts, beef kabobs and salmon. I drizzled a bit of the Cinder Cone Red on the salmon and it glazed slightly - very nice!

What a great country we live in!

I'll be posting a more detailed entry on Deschutes and their beers in the days to come, but I wanted to document what was on the table this Independence Day weekend.

Oak Creek Brewing, Sedona, Arizona

Long Day’s Journey To Cool Climes
With daytime temperatures in the Valley of the Sun threatening the 110 to 115 degree range, this past weekend seemed a wonderful time to make an all too rare jaunt up to the relatively cooler country around Flagstaff. Johnny Southside became a willing accomplice once I told him that on the return trip we could swing through Sedona for beers at Oak Creek Brewing. (Our business in Flagstaff is immaterial, except to say we were on the trail of some 75-year-old remnants of a Depression-era work program known as the Emergency Conservation Works or Civilian Conservation Corps.) I had an additional ulterior motive in that I hoped to purchase one of the nifty ceramic beer steins offered on the Oak Creek Brewing website.

We wound our way into Sedona from Flagstaff, via the back road, stopping only briefly at Mund’s Canyon for a photo and to take in the crazed raving of a hiker sitting outside the pit toilets (evidently I’m not the only one who’s gone crazy as an outhouse mouse from the heat). We barely slowed down as we passed Slide Rock State Park; marveling at the line of cars backed up at the gate waiting to pay their entry fee. Understand, that here in the desert southwest, anyplace with running water is literally a Mecca for city folk, eager to escape the heat. Perhaps a close second would be any place where the beer flows and a drinker can sit in the shade.

There are actually two locations for Oak Creek Brewing in the greater metropolis of Sedona, Arizona: one is (evidently) a brewpub and grill while the other is the brewery proper. Being your typical anti social, I steered us toward the brewery with the hope that there might be fewer folks present.

The Oak Creek Brewing website indicates that the brewery is hard to find (but worth it) and I’d tend to agree. Nevertheless, two determined travelers managed to find their way through the tourist trap of downtown Sedona and in short order we were parked in a nearly empty lot, next to a Sedona Brewing truck circa 1930.

We stepped into the brewery, glad to be out of the glaring sun, and found perhaps 3 or 4 folks sitting at the bar and at the scattered tables. The bartendress greeted us and I dumped my notebook on a table then returned to the bar to peruse the offerings. Two seasonal beers were listed: a Maerzen and a red ale, cleverly named King Crimson, along with the regular brews.

Early on, I committed the cardinal sin of loudly proclaiming my status as an “out of towner” but the folks at the brewery were kind nonetheless and for that I thank them all, including our friendly barmaid who was working her first shift as it turned out. Johnny Southside and I decided to start with a pitcher of the Maerzen seasonal. Maerzen or Marzen gets its name from the fact that it is traditionally brewed in the month of March, with characteristics that help preserve it through the summer brewing season. Dark golden in color, the Oak Creek Brewing Maerzen seasonal had hints of grass in the smell with hints of fruit in the taste. Indeed, not a bad warm weather refresher.

Not wanting to waste an opportunity to sample both Oak Creek seasonals, Johnny Southside and I snacked on popcorn and peanuts, jawboning about every topic under the sun while the pitcher gradually emptied.

The Oak Creek Brewing brewpub is clearly a working operation with vats and machinery to prove it. The whir and thump of the brew vats sounded a workingman’s symphony to accompany our conversation as an eclectic group of people moved in and out of the establishment: biker types, families with kids in tow and individual men slumped over those ceramic mugs.

I asked our first day barmaid about buying a mug and she said she didn’t think there were any to be had. While we drained that first pitcher, she made a phone call and in short order reported that indeed, there were no more of the ceramic mugs available for purchase. That’s a pity. I was disappointed, but I determined not to let it spoil the trip.

The King (Crimson) Has Left The Building
With the Maerzen gone, we then ordered a pitcher of the King Crimson Red Ale, and, to perhaps assuage my disappointment, I ordered a glass of the Red Ale in a nifty Oak Creek Brewing pint glass. Ah, life’s good.

Life’s good and so is that King Crimson, which smelled of caramel with a sweet, dry taste, hinting of coffee. I preferred it to the Maerzen but tend toward darker beers in general. I snapped some sample photos of the beers and our surroundings, then asked the bartendress to draw me a growler of the King Crimson, which she immediately proceeded to do, only to find that, evidently, the shop was on its last keg of King Crimson. Now, I don’t know if I can rightly claim to have walked out with the season’s last growler of seasonal King Crimson, but I know that the nice lady behind the bar made a note in the log book to indicate that the last keg of King Crimson had been sold and she very graciously taped a copy of the BeerRant “business card” to the page, with a note indicating “wants a ceramic mug.” (I suspect that, fermenting in one of those big vats, was more delicious King Crimson, but in years to come, I’ll tell the story my way.)

We settled the tab and ambled back out into the sunlight and heat of the parking lot, facing nothing but the drive back to the Valley – and more heat. I imagine the Oak Creek Brewery is a swell place to sit from about 7 to 11 in the evening and if I lived in or near Sedona, perhaps it’s the sort of place I’d frequent often enough to create trouble with the bride – unless of course she were to join me.

Corporate shill.
Yeah, I bought a pint glass and a swell growler, each with the Oak Creek Brewing log. Here’s the link to their website:
http://www.oakcreekbrew.com/oakcreek/home.php

Here’s a MySpace page for the Brewery (don’t ask me, I’m old and don’t know the first thing about how MySpace works):
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=328347432

Here’s a link to a list of visitor comments about the Oak Creek Brewery. I have to agree with all the positive comments I see here and echo the comments about friendly staff and clientele. This establishment is an asset to the town.
http://www.pubcrawler.com/Template/ReviewWC.cfm/flat/BrewerID=588

For what it’s worth, here’s the Rate Beer page for King Crimson:
http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/oak-creek-king-crimson-imperial-red-ale/83803/


Afterword.
I couldn’t resist popping the cap on the growler of King Crimson shortly after getting home. Mmmm, delicious. I poured the remaining beer from the growler the next day (Father’s Day!) and, while it was a bit flat, I believe the flavor was even more pronounced with a strong taste of coffee. I also poured a dab or two of the leftover King Crimson onto some salmon while it grilled and the result was a nicely brown glazed piece of salmon that tasted terrific.

I'm reasonable enough to know that I can't be a regular at the Oak Creek Brewery - it's too far away - but I will continue to seek out their product in my local stores and look forward to the time when my travels take me north again. I pray it's soon - this heat is a killer!

Sunbru (Dog Days) Kolsch Style Ale

Four Peaks Brewing SunBru Kolsch

Attended a conference at the Hotel Valley Ho in Scottsdale, Arizona this week. The “Ho” is like right out of a movie from the 1960s. I expected to see the Rat Pack lounging round outside in the shade. And, while 99% of our time was devoted to affairs of the convention – presentations, venders, etc., Johnny Southside and I did manage to spend a few minutes at the bar in Café ZuZu.

What I’d thought was a tap handle for Grolsch turned out to be a tap handle for Four Peaks Sunbru Kolsch. I ordered one and Johnny Southside had a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. The Sunbru presented very light in color with a sturdy head of about one finger’s width. Smells like a lager to me with a mild taste of grain and a quick finish. The beer was ice cold and is certainly a nice summer beer, but just too light in color for my tastes. Right or wrong, I’m afraid I equate light color with “weak.” I found myself casting a jealous eye toward the Sierra Nevada that Johnny Southside ordered. (So I ordered one of those for round two.)

The Four Peaks site describes Sunbru thusly: “…a very light golden ale that is malty, sweet, almost honey-like in the nose. This ale has a light to medium body and a very delicate flavor. Easy drinking, it has very low bitterness and a soft dry finish…This style originates from the city of Cologne, Germany where all twenty-eight breweries are dedicated to brewing only Kolsch style ales.”

According to their site, Sunbru was originally called “dog days,” which I prefer to the name “sunbru,” which sounds like a fruit drink or iced tea beverage. I think if all the breweries in Cologne brew this style, it must be a rather boring town as far as beer is concerned.

Beer Advocate’s devotees had this to say:
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/2171/24288

Here’s a picture of the bar in ZuZu’s. If this place weren’t outside my normal area of operation and removed from my usual social milieu, I might be coaxed back for another beer…heck, I might go back anyway.

Here’s my favorite picture of the Rat Pack (I just wish they hadn’t set the drink on the felt!):

Back to work tomorrow. The Valley Ho will move on without me.

D-Day, June 6, 1944

Perhaps, a beer before parting.

I stuck to a tried and true today. No tasting. No notes. No sniffing the bottle or the glass. I sought out the common. It could have been a Schlitz or a Pabst or a Budweiser, but I chose High Life. All I expect today is that the beer I drink be a beer that some American fighting man would have had on a rainy day in England in June 1944.

We'll never know their kind again and that's sad. What's also sad is that the world has forgotten their sacrifice. Sadder still is that many Americans have forgotten their sacrifice. So, if you, or someone you love, was in a place called Normandy this time in 1944, you have my thanks and prayers.

(It wasn't until after I'd posted this that I realized June 6th was also the first Friday of the month and thus, the day that beer bloggers the world throughout, engage in what has come to be called "the session." All the more reason to be thankful for the sacrifices of D-Day and so many other d-days since: America's fighting men and women sacrificing and dying to defend our right to waste the better part of a day rambling and ranting about beer.)

Setting and Circumstance

The first beer’s for tasting, the second beer’s for drinking.
---Ian Postlewaite-Smythe

I suppose professional beer tasters, and beer critics don’t need to consider their surroundings when they taste a new beer. I figure the professionals have a beer laboratory they work in, or they get invited to the tap rooms of the breweries where they sit, tasting notebook in hand to taste and rate the newest creations. Novices, posers and wannabes like me don’t have the luxury of working in a sterile, quiet, unhurried setting, consequently we should consider adding information about the setting and circumstance when we taste and rate or review a new beer.

What do I mean by “setting and circumstance”?

I’ve coined the term “setting and circumstance” and used it here a few times in the past. I’ve included it in many of my reviews in an effort to impart a degree of honesty to what I’m writing. There are so many variables that can alter or impact a beers performance or taste from one sitting to the next. (Indeed, from one setting to the next as well.) As geeky as it sounds, the way a beer is poured can have a marked effect on the way it looks and tastes. Thus, the pour is a feature of setting and circumstance.

Location and atmosphere are part of what I call setting and circumstance, for sure. Was the room crowded and noisy as you worked through the tasting process? Did you actually taste the beer? It’s obvious that there is a difference between drinking and tasting beer. Postlewaite-Smythe said it succinctly enough when he noted that the first beer is tasted, while the rest go a’ drinking. In a crowded room, I’m sometimes too self-conscious to take the beer tasting seriously, fearing that someone will think I’m a beer snob. I try to taste new beers when I have the house, or at least the kitchen, to myself. Sometimes, I’ll buy just a couple bottles of a particular beer solely for the purpose of tasting the stuff and offering comment. Other times I might have the beer laying around and simply be enjoying it – drinking it. Sometimes I like to quickly down a cold one right after mowing the lawn – if I do that, it’s not a beer tasting, but there may be some aspect of the experience that warrants a blog posting here. In some cases, I’ll refer to that setting as a “beer moment” that stands not as a review so much as a remembrance of the beer and the occasion.

To date, all my reviews (I’m refraining from actually rating beers on Beer Rant.) have been done at home but I suppose there will come a day when I’ll venture to a local tavern to sample something and write about it. In that case, my posting will reflect that fact. I have tried thus far to also indicate how a particular beer was poured and if it was poured and tasted twice with different or similar results. I’ll continue to stick to this method since the exercise is as much for my satisfaction as anyone’s.

Will “setting and circumstance” become a standard part of the beer tasting process in the future? Beats me. I think it would be cool if that happened, but in the meantime, I’ll use those criteria when they are appropriate and when they offer something for the reader or for my own personal future reference. Furthermore, if necessary, I’ll explain it all again when I understand it myself.

Thought you ought to know.

Moe Redeems Himself

Moe Shows Up For Work and Proves His Worth



In hindsight, I may have been a bit harsh on Moe and his Backroom Lager. No doubt this beer falls into the realm of the so-called “session” beers or a throw away beer as I like to call them.

After tasting and reviewing Backroom Lager I’ve had occasion to sample the remaining members of that particular six pack and, when employing a slightly more aggressive pour, I wind up with a better looking beer and, if you believe some of what you read on the more upscale beer sites, a different tasting beer. Perhaps more important than pouring and sampling was what I’ll refer to as setting and circumstance.

Here's the skinny: Pulling out of the driveway this morning I realized that we had a pipe leak somewhere in our front yard, between the utility meter box and the house. Not good. I spent the better part of the morning – with the assistance of my son-in-law – digging a trench in the yard attempting to locate the pipe and its leak. I’d placed a call to my plumbing company of choice Parker & Sons (Yeah, I like them, they do great work. Here’s a link to their website: http://www.parkerandsons.com/ ) and when their technician arrived he rather sheepishly explained that they have a system of replacing pipes that doesn’t require trenching. Bottom line: I’d just spent the better part of three hours digging holes that didn’t need to be dug! Whatever.


Good, honest physical labor should earn a fellow a decent lunch. I boiled up a few hot Italian sausages in beer (Miller High Life), with some chopped green pepper and some onion, then transferred the whole lot to the grill for a second bit of cooking. Then, as my son-in-law and I were plating our lunches, I had the difficult task of deciding what beer to have with my sausages. I’ve got little bits of several previously sampled beers stored in the fridge, along with a bottle of Duvel and some Hazed and Infused. In my quest through the fridge, I spied, way in the back, laying on its side, the last bottle of the maligned Moe’s Backroom Lager. Frankly, it looked like forlorn flotsam, washed up at the back of the shelf, dropped in the wake of a double-hulled Depression-era booze running boat. Fine!

Under the circumstances, Moe’s Backroom Lager held up pretty nicely. It was a nice compliment to the sausages and it tasted pretty darned good as a simple thirst quencher. The price is right – still about a buck a bottle on sale. I think I might even be conned into trying Moe’s Amber.

But you’re still not off the hook Moe! I think there’s something of a pretense to you, something unseen and hidden. Your website ( http://www.taproom21.com/ ) touts you as an American craft beer born from the ashes of prohibition. Yet that very same website has but a single page, with little more than a set of links for grocery stores that carry your product. Your label carries the phrase Certified Genuine. Genuine what?!

I’m going to say it, Moe. I don’t think you’re a craft beer. Until I hear otherwise, Moe, you’re a session beer on par with maybe Natural Light or perhaps Miller High Life on a good day. But that’s okay, Moe. Be what you are. Own it. Don’t try to be something you’re not. After all, pour, presentation and mouth feel are only parts of an equation that herein will now also include setting and circumstance.

Beer Moment

Not a great beer, but maybe the best beer he’s ever had.

My son-in-law shipped out for Iraq last August and it seemed a different world last summer when we were packing up my daughter’s household goods to bring she and my granddaughter back to Arizona from Camp Pendleton. A sense of foreboding was certainly there with us as we worked.

Cleaning out the refrigerator was simple enough: anything that wouldn’t make the trip as road food was tossed out or packed for restocking the pantry in Arizona. I considered the lone bottle of Miller Lite that my son-in-law had left behind in the refrigerator. Not knowing what the future would bring but wanting some link to the time, I salvaged that bottle and carted it home in the back of the U-haul truck, explaining that I planned to make my son-in-law drink it upon his safe return from overseas.

The lonely bottle of Lite resided in my refrigerator for a time, was exiled to the garage for a spell, and then rather unceremoniously dumped into a cooler of ice this past weekend following my son-in-laws safe return to the United States. He spent an uneventful few months at a place called Al Asad and came home in one piece. Thank heaven. Now mind you, this bottle of Lite wasn’t the first beer we shared upon his return, but rather the last beer we popped open right before he packed up to head back to Camp Pendleton.

I’ve had warm beer. I’ve had skunky beer. I’ve had stolen beer and beer that was paid for out of my pocket and out of the pocket of others. I’ve had lots of Miller Lite. This particular Miller Lite was nothing to write home about if you consider it solely for it’s taste value, but if you consider the story behind this particular bottle of Miller Lite, I guess you might say that, for one of us at least, regardless of the quality, this beer must rate right up there as a lifetime best.