Beer of the Week: Reuben’s Blood Red Orange Rye

By Iron Chef Leftovers

There are very few flavors that I love more than blood orange, but the track record in having beers that included it are spotty. Some have been good (Elysian) and some not so good (also Elysian). I was excited when Reuben’s decided to do one as part of a Seattle Beer Week event – their track record on beers has been outstanding and if anyone was going to do it right, it was going to be them. So I rushed down to the brewery to try the beer.

The beer poured more pink than red, almost the color of pink grapefruit juice. Lots of mild citrus and grapefruit juice dominated the nose, reminding me of something that I could not quite place. The initial taste was slightly tart and sweet with mild fruit character. There were definite notes of blood orange in this beer but it completely overwhelmed the rye, no easy task, to the point of having to really look for it on the finish. The beer lacked balance and integration of flavors making it more like drinking fruit juice than beer as the hops and rye character of the beer were almost completely lost. It was still an interesting enough beer to be worth trying and probably could have used a bit more bittering from hops to balance out the sweetness of the blood orange and to add more depth, but it definitely falls into the miss category for Reuben’s, which was bound to happen at some point.

Maybe my expectations clouded my judgment on this beer, but it could have used more beer character and less fruit character to make it more interesting.

Reuben’s Blood Red Orange Rye peels out of the picture with a disappointing 2 sour oranges out of 5.

Beer of the Week: NW Peaks Silver Pale Ale

By Iron Chef Leftovers

A few months back, the NW Peaks Mountainbeers were both pale ales, brewed with different hop varieties. I was excited for both of them, but especially for the Silver Pale Ale, which included spruce tips in the beer.

From the NW Peaks Website:

The name. The mountain. Like one of the April beers (Tinkham), Silver is off Snoqualmie pass. In fact, it’s juxtaposed to Tinkham just off the PCT and a great place for a good, light summer excursion. The climb is ~ 1,000 feet of a boot path from the PCT. The summit offers great views of the ever popular summits peppering the Snoqualmie area and serves as part of the boundary that surrounds one of Seattle’s 2 major watersheds (the Cedar River watershed).

The Beer. Silver pale is a standard NW style pale, featuring a couple of interesting ingredients, namely the sorachi ace hop variety and spruce tips. It has a medium body with nice hop notes and slightly forward bitterness. However, the sorachi ace imparts a “lemony” and to a lesser extent “dill” aroma which we paired with the (very subtle) spruce tips (and a few other hop varieties to round out the taste). The result was a nice, slightly bitter, NW pale ale.

Malts: Pale, ESB, Rye, crystal. Hops: Sorachi Ace, halertau, chinook. ABV: ~5.0%

The beer pours hazy yellow in color with light hops on the nose coupled with grain and faint raspberry/spruce hints. The beer starts off as a combination of slightly bitter and sweet before transitioning into light grain middle with strong notes of hops and lemon. The beer then pushes to the finish with a slightly sweet notes of grain and significant notes of raspberry and lemon in a very long finish. The beer is interesting, producing pronounced flavors from both the hops and the spruce tips and is one that is definitely not your average Northwest pale ale.

NW Peaks Silver Pale Ale pans the river and comes up with a solid 3 prospectors out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Alaskan Brewing Pilot Series Raspberry Wheat

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Alaskan Brewing makes some pretty solid beers, but where they really excel is with their Pilot Series beers. These beers are small production, big beers which usually rate as outstanding brews and in a bunch of cases, age really well. One of their spring Pilot Series beers over the last few years has been their Raspberry Wheat. This beer clocks in at 6.5% ABV and 20 IBU. The beer is not cheap, with a 22 oz. bottle setting you back $9 at your local bottle shop.

From the Alaskan website:

Alaskan Raspberry Wheat is an American-style Wheat Ale with the lively addition of red raspberries during fermentation.

With nearly one pound of real fruit per gallon, Alaskan Raspberry Wheat has the inviting aroma of fresh-picked raspberries and an enticing red hue. The flavor of the raspberries lends a tartness that balances the full-bodied wheat profile and malt sweetness. Bigger than most traditional fruit beers, Alaskan Raspberry Wheat adds an extra kick to its dry and effervescent finish.

The fruit beer style became popular more than 500 years ago with the lambics of Belgium where they brewed with wild yeast and fruit was added to the beer during secondary fermentation. Alaskan Raspberry Wheat follows an American take on this Old World style, highlighting the bright flavors of raspberries.

Years of local demand as a Rough Draft brew and a Silver medal from the 2008 Great American Beer Festival made Alaskan Raspberry Wheat the perfect beer to launch Alaskan’s Pilot Series of limited edition specialty beers.

This limited edition batch of Alaskan Raspberry Wheat is made from glacier fed water, the finest two-row barley, wheat and specialty malts, premium quality European and Pacific Northwest hop varieties, and more than 3,000 pounds of real raspberries.

The tart, sweet flavors and effervescent finish of Alaskan Raspberry Wheat pair best with light foods and desserts including fruit salads, grilled vegetable dishes, light fruit baked goods, crepes, crumbles and warm summer weather.

Berry picking in Alaska can be a busy pastime. With nearly 50 types of wild berry species across the state fruiting throughout the spring, summer and fall, berries have long been a staple in the Alaskan diet. This is also true of the diet of Alaskan black bears. These omnivores load up on rich raspberries and other berries in the late summer before hibernating for the long winters of Alaska. This beer celebrates the natural bounty and fresh flavors of summer in Alaska.

The beer pours reddish amber in color with an off white head. There are strong notes of raspberry with hints of wheat on the nose. The initial sip yields notes of slightly sweet raspberry before becoming drier with a more subtle raspberry profile complimented with notes of yeast and wheat. The finish is long and raspberry dominant, reminiscent of eating fresh fruit (without the seeds!) with a light tartness that lingers pleasantly. The balance is superb – slightly sweet and slightly tart at various times, with plenty of raspberry character, but not so much that it overpowers the subtle wheat and yeast character that exists in this beer. I wish more fruit based beers showed this balance.

Alaskan Raspberry Wheat picks its way through the bushes with a happy 4 Rubus strigosusout of 5.

Beer of the Week: Reuben’s Rye Saison

By Iron Chef Leftovers

I can really appreciate the complexity of a saison – on the surface it looks like it is going to be a light beer with not much going on, but once you get past the looks, you discover that you are drinking something that can have as much complexity as any other beer on the planet. Saison has been made for hundreds of years and is not a beer that you usually see with much variation in the recipe – you will find very different tasting saisons from brewery to brewery, but they don’t generally deviate in their ingredients too wildly. When Reuben’s decided to do their take on saison by including rye, I had to give the beer a shot.

The beer pour a very un-saison like beautiful brown in color with notes of sugar and malt on the nose with mild fruit and hints of chocolate. Despite the lack of rye on the nose, there is no question that it is in this beer. The beer has roasted rye notes upfront before yielding slowly to a more saison-like back end with notes of grain and citrus in a slightly sweet, subdued finish. There is a very long, slow fade back into rye at the very end of the beer, producing something that just a touch dry at the very end.

I had some major doubts about this beer – saison’s appeal comes from subtlety of character and I was worried that the strong flavors of rye would overpower the beer completely, but Reuben’s did a great job balancing the beer out so that you get the strong rye character while still having enough of the saison character to appreciate the beer for what it is – an amped up version of a saison.

Reuben’s Rye Saison brings you back to the countryside with a stellar 4 farmhouses out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Anderson Valley Hop Ottin’ IPA

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Anderson Valley makes some interesting beers, many of which I definitely like. I happened to be out at Beveridge Place Pub in West Seattle and saw Hop Ottin’ on tap and, never having had it before, I felt compelled to try it.

From the Anderson Valley website:

Hops. They are the cornerstone of India Pale Ales around the world, and our Hop Ottin’ IPA is no exception. Handcrafted with copious amounts of Columbus and Cascade, this beer is a showcase of bright citrusy aromas, bold grapefruit and pine-like flavors, and the resiny bitterness that hop heads crave. With a brilliant, deep amber color and solid malt backbone, hints of citron, roses, and bergamot climax with a dry, herbal finish in this well balanced interpretation of a West Coast IPA.

FOOD PAIRINGS: Garlic fries, curry chicken, mahi fish tacos, carrot cake cookies

CHEESE PAIRINGS: Sharp Cheddar, Gorgonzola

GLASSWARE: Pint Glass

ALC/VOL: 7.0%

BITTERNESS: 78 IBU

MALTS: Pale Two-Row, Crystal (40L), Munich (20L)

HOPS: Columbus, Cascade

AVAILABILITY: Year-Round: Draft, 22oz & 12oz bottles, 12 oz cans

The beer pours pale amber/orange in color with floral hops and grain on the nose. Slightly floral and sugary with the initial sip, the beer yields large amounts of burnt orange peel as the dominant flavor in the beer with hints of slightly astringent hops. It felt really out of balance – not really dominantly bitter, or floral or citrus, but all of those were present and it felt like the beer wasn’t sure where it wanted to go. The balance got slightly better as it warmed, but it was still off-kilter and really didn’t enjoy it.

I think that Hop Ottin’ was the first disappointing Anderson Valley beer that I have come across and it shows with an unspectacular 2 fur trappers out of 5.

Beer of the Week: NW Peaks Lichtenberg Dunkelweiss

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Dunkelweiss is a style that you just don’t see too often in Seattle, so it was a nice surprise when NW peaks decided to brew one as part of their Mountainbeers series.

From the NW Peaks Website:

The name. The mountain. Lichtenberg mountain is situated just off of the PCT overlooking Hwy 2 east of Steven’s pass. Lichtenberg rises from the shores of Lake Valhalla, a deservedly popular day hike or snowshoe destination. The upper slopes above the lake offer some rock climbing routes as well as a few gully scrambles to reach the summit. However, we went up in the winter when accessibility, terrain, and the N ridge were great for skiing. A great place to frolic in any season.

The Beer. The dunkelweiss style is slightly lesser known than its hefeweizen cousin, but has many similar attributes – the most pronounced being a low ABV, light body, and refreshing – with significant notes of banana and cloves. We brewed this German style with the typical amounts of wheat and munich malts, and added a little chocolate malt to give it some color and add some darker essence. We fermented Lichtenberg with the same strain of yeast that weihenstephan uses which produced a nice banana character and some clove notes. The result was a light-bodied, cloudy, dark beer with the nice banana and clove character.

Malts: Wheat and munich with a tad of crystal, chocolate, and flaked. Hops: Hallertau. ABV: ~4.25%

The beer pours amber brown in color with note of roast and caramel appearing first on the nose, followed by copious amounts of malt. A slight sweetness appears on the initial taste, yielding quickly to light roast coupled with some toffee and caramel interspersed. The finish is a bit short by pleasant – hints of malty sweetness that fades quickly. The flavors are more pronounced as the beer warms, 47-50 degrees seeming to be the sweet spot, where you can really appreciate the balance between the stronger roasted flavors and the sweetness of the malt. Overall, a nice beer for a cool, rainy day hanging out with friends and watching some sports on TV around a roaring file.

NW Peaks paints a work of art with the Lichtenberg Dunkelweiss with 4 Crows in the Wheatfield out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Populuxe Beersnob Brown

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Populuxe has made a name for itself by brewing beers that you normally would not find at other breweries and doing them well. Beersnob brown is no exception. Browns are an old English style described as such on Wikipedia:

Brown ale is a style of beer with a dark amber or brown color. The term was first used by London brewers in the late 17th century to describe their products, such as mild ale,[1] though the term had a rather different meaning than it does today. 18th-century brown ales were lightly hopped and brewed from 100% brown malt.[2]

Today there are brown ales made in several regions, most notably England, Belgium and America. Beers termed brown ale include sweet, low alcohol beers such as Manns Original Brown Ale, medium strength amber beers of moderate bitterness such as Newcastle Brown Ale, and malty but hoppy beers such as Sierra Nevada Brown Ale.

The beer clocks in at 5.1 abv.

Beersnob pours mahogany brown in color with pleasant notes of chocolate and roasted malt and very mild coffee notes. The beer starts off with significant malt with building complexity – yeast appears first before moving into the heavier flavors . Initially, roasted malt appears then dark chocolate and toffee before finally finishing off with black coffee without any real bitterness. Layered and complex, the beer has incredible balance and depth without being overly sweet or bitter at any point. Call me a beer snob, but this is as good a brown as I have had anywhere.

Populuxe Beer Snob Brown walks around with its nose in the air gathering a well-deserved 5 cicerones out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Anacortes Mai Oh Maibock

By Iron Chef Leftovers

This is the first Anacortes beer that I ever had, fist trying it way back in the first spring that I lived in Seattle and starting my love affair with Anacortes brewing. Virtually no one in the Northwest makes a Maibock so that was what originally drew me to the beer. It takes guts to make a beer that is the opposite of hoppy in the land of hops, and Anacortes is up to that task.

From the Anacortes website:

Mai Oh Maibock

OG 1.070 / 6.5% ABV / 30 IBU

This golden seasonal version of the classic bock style is malty with a delicate hop character from German Perle, Tettnang and Hallertau varieties. Named in honor of Mariners announcer Dave Niehaus’ classic exclamation.

The beer pours golden yellow in color with light notes of grain and hints of citrus on the background of the nose. Slightly sweet on the initial sip, with a nice long grain and citrus middle and finishing clean and crisp with hints of apple and wheat, making it a great beer to drink on a warm, sunny day on the back deck. As the beer warms, the sweetness dissipates and the citrus and grain becomes more pronounced, making the beer more complex and appealing to those who like hops.

Anacortes knocks it out of the park with a call of 4 Grand Salami’s out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Reuben’s Brews Red Rye Pils

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Reuben’s branches out into the world of pilsner in a collaboration with Airways Brewing, mixing in their signature use of Rye with a style that is known for mild, clean lines and flavors. Curious on what rye would do to pilsner; I had to give this beer a shot. It clocks in at a fairly mild 36 IBU and a light 5.0% ABV.

Golden amber in color with an interesting nose – hints of rye are noticeable but the pilsner yeast notes and grain dominate this beer. Think of this beer as a pilsner with a bite. The beer starts out unremarkably mild before building into something that is unmistakably a pilsner – dry with noticeable grain and a pleasant crispness. Once you move beyond that, the beer gets really interesting – the rye notes slowly replace the pilsner flavor, transforming the beer into something more spicy and deep. The rye notes accentuate the crispness taking it to a much drier place and bringing out just a hint of the hop flavor. The rye finish is long and pleasant and just hints of the pilsner notes hang around with it. This is definitely a different beer – not sure if a pilsner drinker would appreciate it and I am not sure that a hop-head would recognize the mild complexity of the beer, but if you are looking for something different and a touch on the lighter side, this would be a good beer to give a shot.

Beer of the Week: NW Peaks Enchantment Saison

By Iron Chef Leftovers

The September Mountainbeer pair from NW Peaks was fun – a kolsch and a saison, two styles which are gaining in popularity, and two styles that Mrs. Iron Chef happens to like. She was happy when I mentioned to her that our NW Peaks tasting would consist of those 2 beers.

From the NW Peaks website:

The name. The mountain. The enchantments are a string of alpine lakes just outside of Leavenworth. Permits for camping here are arguably the most sought after permits in the area, with good reason. Enchantment Peak is one of the mountains that surround the valley. What sets this mountain apart is obviously the setting, not the climb. As a climb it’s a nice scramble from prussik pass, but atop, it gives a birds eye view of the enchantment basin below.

The beer. Enchantment ale is a saison, a style that is categorized as a ‘farmhouse ale.’ Indeed, there are (musty?) notes of straw and hay reminiscent of walking through a farm. But these styles also have a nice fruity notes (apple and pear), with a slight perception of sweetness. Using a cousin to the Belgian yeasts, these beers ferment dry and somewhat spicy. Enchantment ale is a nice example of the basic style. We started with an average specific gravity but let it ferment very dry resulting in a higher alcohol content than most of our mountainBeers. We also added some grains of paradise adding to the spicy complexity on top of the other defining characteristics. Simply enchanting.

Original gravity: 1.054. Finishing gravity: 1.002. ABV 6.8% – enjoy with some friends over dinner.

The beer pours pale yellow in color with notes of lemon, hay and farmhouse yeast. The beer starts out very light, almost imperceptible, before building in flavor. First comes notes of very mild yeast then a louder grain component before reaching a crescendo with a slightly funky lemon plateau that seems to linger and build upon itself well into the next sip. The funk is more subdued than many saisons, but the beer has a great progression of flavor and character and more balance than most saisons I have tried. The high alcohol is completely unnoticeable in this beer. The beer is light enough to please those who love a mild beer, but complex enough to please an advanced beer drinker.

NW Peaks Enchantment Saison charms the pants off of drinkers with a strong 3 Prince Charming’s out of 5.

On a related note, we enjoyed this on a night where we shared a pot of Belgian Beef Carbonnade with spatzle with AJ Coltrane and Annie S. Somewhere in Europe; many people are turning over in their graves – Belgian style stew over German style pasta served with a French style beer.