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.

Kitchen Chemists: Samuel Adams 2008 LongShot Winners!

Boston Beer (the Sam Adams folks, of course) do some terrific stuff to promote craft beer and entrepreneurship in the U.S., which is reason enough to plunk down your bucks now and then to support them. It’s even better when you plunk down your bucks and get some pretty tasty beer! A good example of Samuel Adams’ stewardship of craft brewing excellence is their annual Longshot American Homebrew Contest. The 2009 winners have recently been announced, but before they draw all the oxygen out of the room, let’s spare a moment for the 2008 winners.

The 2008 Longshot American Homebrew Contest winners have hit the market in a nicely packaged boxed six-pack. I snagged one at the local Total Wine last week and just finished the last one this evening. It’s a testament to my recent beer experiences that these three winners are in styles that a year or so ago, I knew absolutely nothing about – least of all if I even like an IPA or a Bock or a Wit. (I’m still not always sure, but I’ve generally figured out that I’m not a huge fan of wits, I like bocks if the alcohol content isn’t too high, and IPA’s are pretty darned good if done right.)

So, in a nutshell, here’s the dope on the 2008 Longshot winners.

Longshot Double IPA (9.0% abv)
Created by Mike McDole of California
From the label: Mike’s Double IPA showcases his appreciation for hops. In fact, he included seven different varieties of American hops, totaling over six pounds of hops per barrel. The hops add an intense floral and citrus aroma to this brew.
Quick, how many times does the word “hops” appear in that blurb?
Here’s how my beer notebook reads: Bottle one. Strong scent of pine/grapefruit. Robust head, golden orange color. Surprisingly roasted taste but extremely bitter. Bottle two. Almost a chemical or medicinal smell. Cloudy bronze-orange color. Thick mouthfeel with a noticeable alcohol bite. More orange tasting than grapefruit.
Here’s some interesting dope from a beer guru at Beer Advocate, regarding why the release of this beer (and it’s winning companions) was delayed.

Longshot Traditional Bock (6.8% abv)
Created by Alex Drobshoff of California
From the label: Alex’s brew is a bright copper colored German inspired bock with a complex, full-bodied mouthfeel. Hints of rich plum and cherry aromas pared with its toasty malt flavor make this a great beer to linger over on a cool evening.

“To linger over on a cool evening?” Really? Rules out most of Arizona this time of year.
Here’s how my beer notebook reads: Bottle one. Nice color – reddish bronze color. Thin head, medium lacing. Malty smelling. Strong malt flavor. Bottle two. Very malty smell after an aggressive pour. Dark bronze. Gives the impression of a higher abv than 6.8%.
Wanna visit Mike's FaceBook page?

Longshot Cranberry Wit (abv not listed)
Created by Carissa Sweigart of Massachusetts
From the label: Inspired by hometown ingredients, Carissa’s Cranberry Wit is spiced with a blend of cinnamon, orange peel, coriander and grains of paradise, and finished with a touch of cranberry.

Cinnamon, orange peel and coriander, oh my. I remember the last time I brewed with cinnamon and orange peel – oh do I remember. It wah nath-tee.
Here’s how my beer notebook reads: Bottle one. Only a faint smell of berry. Cloudy orange color. Medium thick lacing, rather thick mouthfeel. Berry taste is only a mild hinting compliment to this beer’s character. The finish can’t be described. Bottle two. Taste here is very subtle, nearly non-existent, which tends to make this a good hot weather session beer. Surprisingly dry and typically thick like Hoegaarden. Oddly this is the only one of the three that does not have an abv listed anywhere on the packaging.

Click HERE! to vote for Carissa in St. Louis Alive Magazine’s 2009 Sexy and Successful Contest. (You’ll have to scroll down to find Carissa’s entry.) She’s an attractive, successful woman who also knows how to fashion a tasty beer. C’mon, people!

I have a personal philosophy about judging the efforts of others, which can best be summed up in my attitude toward most renditions of the National Anthem (except those done by the odd Hollywood numbskull who intentionally sings it wrong and badly). I figure there’s no way I could ever do a very good job of singing the national anthem so I’m usually very forgiving when it comes to a missed note or a forgotten word now and then. I’ve got a tiny bit more experience in brewing than I do in singing the National Anthem – having brewed two batches of beer at home. One was a red ale that turned out okay and the other was a cinnamon monstrosity that took on the consistency of sewer pipe sludge and didn’t taste much better. So, I’m inclined to give all three of the 2008 winners a rousing hoo-rah. I liked all their beers well enough but I’d say I preferred the Cranberry Wit, perhaps simply because it was the lightest of the three and currently the temperature here is over 110. The Traditional Bock came in second and the Double IPA rated third. The DIPA was just a bit too jazzed up in the abv percentage for my tastes.

Now go out and find one of these nifty little six-packs before they’re all gone – the packaging says “enjoy before September 2009” so hurry…or expect to pick them up at a discount if the Sam Adams folks don’t collect up the past due stock!

And thanks to the folks at Samuel Adams, too!

Longshot? Long post! Gee whiz!

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.

Mentioned in dispatches...

I sent a note to the folks at Midwest & Rocky Mountain Microbrews to let them know about my neighbors at Old World Brewery and they very graciously replied with a thanks and a note that they’d added me to their “links” page. That’s nice. Go visit their pages and see what they’ve got to share.

Weather here continues to be over 100 degrees with monsoon type humidity levels. It’s nasty and I continue to pine for the 40 to 75 degree weather in Colorado. Had a couple Deschutes Obsidian Stouts and a Deschutes Inversion IPA this evening while grilling pork ribs outside in the yard. Life’s not all bad, is it?

Like it or not, I’ve got a date with a broken garbage disposal tomorrow. It doesn’t matter what nice things they may say about you one day because the next day you’ll have your head under the sink, fixing something, right? Probably ought to stop at three beers tonight, huh?

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Soon as I fix this disposal, I can have the grandkids over! (That’s my real reward.)

Hot Weather Ramblings

We had some fun at my nephew’s birthday party yesterday – he’s only a couple years younger than me, but he’s seen a lot more, I’ll wager. For the fun of it, I picked up some Boulder Brewing Never Summer Ale and some Deschutes Inversion IPA. Given that the room was filled with a bunch of displaced Coloradoans, I’m not surprised that the Never Summer Ale went over a bit bigger. Nevertheless, I’m left with a couple and I’m tossing them back as I jot this post.

I am surprised to see this is their version of a winter seasonal…wha’? It’s really good and I think I’ve blogged it before so I won’t go much into it except to say it’s malty, tastes like bread and finishes dry.

I just like the name – Never Summer Ale – because it conjures up images of a past life spent in Colorado, and a failed attempt at a second life there after military service. You can’t go back folks. But you can pine away, living off the false recollection of what a place was and will never be again. What I do know is that it’s hotter than hell here at Beer Rant HQ and it’s significantly cooler up in the high country in a little place called Clear Creek County, Colorado.

On the other hand, come December, some place with a name like “Winterhaven” will seem awfully nice, too. It brings to mind something that a very wise fellow told me when I was in the army: “As a rule, man’s a fool. When it’s hot, he wants it not, when it’s not, he wants it hot.” (That guy rose to the rank of major general. I think he’s pretty smart.)

Cut ‘em Some Slack
I think we give the macro brewers too much grief – they probably don’t notice anyway – but we’re a bit hypocritical when it comes to the standards we set for the Miller/Coors/Bud conglomerates versus what we let some of the small fry get away with. Budweiser was excoriated for calling one of their beers “drinkable” in a recent ad campaign. Well, since the advent of that little goof, and the resulting web explosion, I’ve begun paying more attention to what the so-called micro-and craft-brewers are printing on their labels. I see the same sort of inane glittering generalities on labels from craft brewers as well, including the likes of Dogfish Head, too, folks. They characterize their Indian Brown Ale as “clean,” which I take to mean it’s not brewed with water taken from the Ganges River. (C’mon folks. If we’re going to set a standard, let’s have it apply to everyone or just drop it.)

The Dating Game
Speaking of labels: the last issue of Beer magazine had a rather inept article explaining how to read a beer label. (Thank heaven those nice folks at Coors have come up with those temperature sensitive labels so we know when our beer is cold, and thank heaven for the editors of Beer magazine, who will help us decipher the mysterious world of beer labels.) One of the label characteristics covered in the piece was date stamping or freshness dating. Well, again, I’ve begun paying more attention to beer labels lately and I have to say that freshness dates only work if you (meaning the brewers) actually use them. I recently encountered a label (Lost Coast Brewing Raspberry Brown Ale) whereon none of the months of manufacture were “notched.” What am I to take this to mean? It’s a bit like buying a new car battery and not punching the month and year of sale. (Grease monkeys will know what I’m talking about.) Bottom line: Freshness dating is a joke, in both the macro and micro brewing worlds. If consistency isn’t the be all, end all of brewing and beer drinking, then why the hell do we even care when a beer was “born”? Likewise, if we’re going to have a dating system, then let’s stick to it.

Gosh. I didn’t really intend to go all Beer Jerk in this post. I’m really just cranky because of the heat. All the Never Summer Ale is gone. I’ve had a Deschutes Inversion IPA and a Michelob something-or-other and I’m feeling a little better now.

Happy Birthday Dane!

Beer Magazine: An Amateur’s Appraisal

I’m sort of in the market for a decent beer-related periodical. I want a decent value for my buck and I’m hoping to find something that I’ll enjoy reading – if not cover-to-cover, then nearly cover-to-cover. I pick up the odd copy of beer magazines when I see them. I’ve got the March 2009 issue of All About Beer and the July-August 2008 issue of Draft.

More recently, I picked up the July-August issue of Beer. This is actually my second copy of Beer magazine; I have the September-October 2008 issue sitting on the shelf, too. There may be a couple reasons why I’ve got two issues of Beer when I’ve only got one each of the others: Beer is more widely available and their magazines always sport some hot chick on the cover. (Yeah, I notice these things.)

But frankly, I’m still trying to decide where to send my subscription money and that’s a conversation for another time. Perhaps when I finally decide, I’ll make a post that spells out the reasoning behind my choice.

Meantime, I’d like to touch briefly on the good and the bad in the current issue of Beer magazine. No question, Beer magazine is aimed at a younger demographic that mine. The text is full of references to testicles, tits, and farts. The article format is an odd hybrid of the old USA Today, block section, microwave-cooking style aimed at busy folks with short attention spans. Okay, that’s fine. I’ve got a short attention span but as I’m getting older, I find that an organized, coherent format is always reassuring.

In the current (July-August) issue, I especially liked the Beer Anatomy segment dealing with Rauchbiers, that smoky style of beer that reportedly originated in Bamburg, Germany, centuries ago. I’ve enjoyed every smoked beer I’ve tried so far but my list is fairly short (Aecht Schlenkerla, Alaskan Smoked Porter and Stone Smoked Porter come to mind and the only three I remember trying to date). This article was informative, with really good tips on serving temperatures as well as terrific background on the variations of smoked beers. Noticeably absent from their list of common smoked beers was Alaskan Smoked Porter. I’d be curious to know if a brewer’s advertising history has anything to do with their odds of appearing on such a list.

Other highlights: I always enjoy the advertising because it gives me a notion of what to expect in the way of coming attractions. I really like the Taste Test section because, in addition to rating beers, they’ve gone the extra mile and included maps indicating what beers are available in what states. I like the beer models, too.

Now the downside. (Where I go all Beer Jerk.) I’m not a writer so I’m probably the least qualified person to be giving writing tips or criticisms. On the other hand, I am an experienced reader, which should qualify me to point out pointless dreck when I read it. The article entitled “Beer Worth Waiting For” is a hopeless hash of haphazard hooey. The piece is evidently about special release parties that brewers throw to bring out their limited release beers, but it’s too inside baseball to be of any use to me. I’m probably not hip enough to understand some of the references but I think I’m more in the loop listening to an hour of Howard Stern than I was trying to read this nonsensical piece. I’ll just end it there and assume the author was drunk when she wrote the article, the editor was drunk when he accepted the article and that, in order to preserve the natural order of things, I should have been drunk when I read the article.

That’s it folks. You didn’t ask for it, but there it is. Based on style, content and format, I’d have to say that Beer magazine is not high on the list of beer magazines for which I’d pay to have a subscription, but I’ve yet to fully explore the other options. I’m hoping to get something that’s monthly, inexpensive, reasonably educated but not snooty. I’ll keep looking.

Lagunitas Little Sumpin' sumpin' Ale

I’d planned to save this one for a post in praise of the “manager’s special” but since this is a limited release beer, I figure I may want to make note promptly, lest I lose track of this little gem and never get it done.

I’m also prompted into action by a nifty – and recent – post at Bobs Beer Reviews. (It’s like that feeling you get when you see your neighbor out mowing his lawn; you suddenly feel you should probably be doing the same. For the record, my neighbor’s lawns all look better than mine.)

I stumbled onto this beer amidst a cart full of orphaned singles at the local Sunflower Market. Thankfully, I bought two of them. Having never tried any of Lagunitas’ beers, I figured it best to start out small.

Here’s the dope on this Little Sumpin’ sumpin’Ale:
Smells like an IPA, and pours a gold bronze color with a weak head. Distinctly grapefruit tasting, and to me this is an IPA in taste and style. The rather high abv isn’t too noticeable and I deem this beer to be “very good.” I’ll buy this one again, if I can find it before it’s gone. Odds are, she’ll hop back into that sporty hot rod of hers and be down the road too soon.

Here’s what some other bloggers had to say about this seasonal tramp:

Beer Tastes

Daily Brew HaHa

WTF is Mick Drinking? (WTF, indeed.)

Finally, the Lagunitas website. Their page for Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ doesn’t refer to it as an IPA, but more than a few web references I’ve seen refer to it as an IPA, which is where I place this one on the style meter. (For those of you checking the gages.)

The air conditioning is out here at Beer Rant HQ. Don’t know how long Mrs. Beer Rant and I will remain here if the temperature keeps climbing. Weep for us, and then ask us why the hell we’re still living in the damned desert.