By Iron Chef Leftovers
On several fronts actually. From Pearls Before Swine on 11/21:
Tag: beer
Beer of the Week: Reuben’s Brews Imperial Rye IPA
By Blaidd Drwg
A while back, I wrote a post on food memories. Smells and tastes can invoke a powerful emotion and sometimes they can come from an unexpected place. A recent trip to visit my friends at Reuben’s Brews was such an experience. With their extensive and ever changing tap list and usually stellar beers, I am always torn between trying their new stuff and old favorites. A recent trip to the brewery saw the Imperial Rye IPA on their board; a rye based imperial IPA clocking in at 8.4% alcohol and 90+ IBU. This beer is not really for the faint of heart – it is a big, bold hop monster.
The beer pours amber, almost rosy in color. There is lots of citrus on the nose (predominately grapefruit) and rye – you take one whiff of this beer and you have no doubt that this is going to be a big IPA. The beer has a smooth, almost creamy feel on the palate with a slightly sweet hit giving way to a light bitterness with tons of grapefruit. For a beer with that high an IBU, the hops bitterness is incredibly well balanced with the rest of the beer. The Imperial Rye then gets really interesting – the grapefruit gives way to a dramatic rye finish with such a rye hit that it brought back memories of my grandmother making me fresh rye toast from the Jewish bakery in my home town. My only complaint, and this is because of the memories this beer invokes, is that the beer goes from sweet to bitter to citrus to rye too quickly – I really want that rye to linger on the palate for a long time. The reality is that this beer does have a fairly long finish and it is very pleasant and not overpowered with the high alcohol content it possesses. The bitterness does become more pronounced as it warms and I think this beer would be a good candidate for a cask treatment (Note to Adam: Big Hint!)
I did try this beer a second time without my notes from the first tasting handy and compared the two – they were both virtually identical with what I initially wrote. I loved this beer. As Rye IPA’s go, I probably rank this one as my 3rd favorite behind Anacortes and Laughing Dog, but this one has the childhood memory associated with it, so it really does make ranking it a lot harder.
I would have given this beer an easy 4 out of 5 if it weren’t for the memories, but since I do consider emotion as well as price when I come up with my ratings, Reuben’s Imperial Rye IPA invokes a perfect 5 Judicke’s Bakeries (that is where my grandmother usually got the rye bread from – it is still there and has been in operation since 1924) out of 5. Thanks for the trip down memory lane as well as the fantastic beer!
Beer of the Week: Deschutes Brewing Chasin’ Freshies
By Iron Chef Leftovers
If there is one thing that you can count on from Deschutes Brewing out of Bend, Oregon is consistency; there beers are easily a great “fall back” if you’re looking to have a couple and don’t want to break the bank doing it. You can never go wrong cracking open a Black Butte, Mirror Pond, Inversion or Red Chair. They also produce a special series of beers; usually hop monsters, in their limited Bond Street series, which usually border on spectacular. This year, they produced a fresh hop beer, Chasin’ Freshies as part of the series. The beer was available in 22 oz. bottles and ran about $6 at your local bottle shop.
From their website:
Alc. 7.4% | IBUs 60
22 oz servingLike fresh powder, it’s a seize-the-moment thing. At harvest, we rush Goschie Farms’ Cascade hops fresh from vine to kettle. Not any Cascades, mind you, but an heirloom strain, from a single field, restored from the original rhizome. Hope you’re as hopped up as we are.
Malt: Pilsner Malt, Flaked Oats
Hops: Bravo, Fresh Heirloom Cascades
The beer pours a very pale yellow in color, almost surprisingly so – I looks like it could pass itself off as a saison. Any confusion over what you are drinking is eliminated when you smell the beer – the nose is dominated by floral and grassy hops and something that I couldn’t quite idenitfy, which might have been the oats included in the brew process. The initial taste is more malt forward than I was expecting, but it is a brief hit of malt and is followed by a huge punch of citrus with hints of resin and grass in a long and pleasant finish. The beer is not overly bitter and the hops are the star of the show, but still show great balance between the malt, bitterness, alcohol and citrus. Despite its light color, the beer drinks like a much bigger beer and does a fantastic job of displaying exactly what I want in a fresh hop beer and showcasing its pedigree.
This is definitely not a beer that you would want to drink if you did not like hops, but if you do, you should be chasing this one down during its limited run next winter.
Chasin’ Freshies gets run down with a high-speed 5 Smokey and the Bandits out of 5.
Stupid Sexy Flanders
By Iron Chef Leftovers
Today is a 2 for 1 beer post day! Aren’t you all excited.
Anyway, if you are going to Belgianfest (and if you are not, why are you not going to Belgianfest – there are tickets still available) at the Bell Harbor Center on February 2nd, you will get the experience of tasting a beer named for one of my all-time favorite Simpson’s lines and it is made by none other than the fine folks at American Brewing.
The description:
A Brown Ale fermented with our Sour Yeast on locally grown raspberries and aged to perfection in red wine barrels. 8% ABV
I am still surprised no one has used this name, considering Flanders is a style of beer as well as a mustachioed neighborino of Homer J. Simpson.
The full list of beers is here.
Where it comes from:
Beer of the Week: Boulevard Brewing Chocolate Ale (Batch #8)
By Iron Chef Leftovers
Boulevard Brewing out of Kansas City makes some of the more interesting beers out there in their Smokestack Series of beers, especially if you are talking about anything Belgian Style. Their spring seasonal beer in that series is a Chocolate Ale. Being a fan of chocolate beers, I had to give that one a shot. I originally was lucky enough to head into Chuck’s Hop Shop when they had it on tap and liked it so much that I purchased a bottle that day to bring home. The review is for the bottle, a 750 ml one, that cost about $10, and is batch #8 of the Chocolate Ale.
From the Boulevard website:
In developing this beer, Elbow and Boulevard brewmaster Steven Pauwels sought to harmonize the interplay of chocolate and malt, with each supporting and enhancing, but not overwhelming, the other. Just the right chocolate was essential. Elbow recommended a rare variety from the Dominican Republic, prized for its robust flavor and aroma, and a personal favorite. More than a mere flavoring, the chocolate — in the form of nibs, or crushed, roasted beans – was incorporated into the brewing process itself.
Color (EBC) 41
Bitterness (IBUs) 24
Original Gravity (Plato) 20
Terminal Gravity (Plato) 4
Alcohol (ABV) 9.1%
CO2 – Bottles
CO2 – Kegs
The beer pours hazy orange with a cream white head. Slight hints of hops and malt are hidden behind roasted chocolate and cocoa on the nose. Taking the first sip of this beer is like biting into a good dark chocolate bar. There are notes of roast on the front followed by a slightly fruity background and finishing with intense chocolate fades slowly and pleasantly into the night. The beer has a crispness to it and there are slight notes of sugar and malt, but the chocolate is really the star. Unlike most chocolate beers, which are more like drinking a chocolate drink (hot cocoa for example), this beer retains a great deal of the fruity characteristics of the chocolate itself and is more like a liquid chocolate bar. It is well balanced and definitely something that you should try if you are looking for something that has more complexity than just chocolate flavoring in it.
Boulevard produced an outstanding beer here and it will be interesting to see if the next go around keeps with the same recipe or they try something different.
Boulevard Chocolate Ale (batch #8) cruises in with a sweet 4 cacao pods out of 5.
The Beer That Launched a Thousand Breweries
By Iron Chef Leftovers
The title is not really an exaggeration or inaccurate.
Have you ever heard of New Albion Brewing? Chances are you have not, considering the company has been out of business for the last 30 years. New Albion is generally considered to be the first micro-brewery in the U.S. and it, along with Anchor Brewing in San Francisco, are the two breweries that really got the entire craft brewing industry going.
Why is this important? Well, thanks to Jim Koch at Sam Adams, he worked with Jim McAuliffe, founder of New Albion to try to recreate New Albion’s original pale ale recipe. The beer is being released and should be in stores soon.
So next time you are in your local bottle shop, pick up a New Albion Pale Ale and taste the beer that made it possible for you to be drinking just about all of the beers you are currently drinking on a regular basis (and the one that made it possible for me to review something other than Bud, Coors or Miller).
Beer of the Week: Bridgeport Fresh Hop Pilsner
By Iron Chef Leftovers
Bridgeport Brewing, out of Portland, Oregon, makes some very solid and occasionally spectacular beers. You can never go wrong with picking up a Hop Czar or Blue Heron – they won’t blow you away, but they are beers that you will enjoy drinking. In 2012, Bridgeport decided to try a fresh hop beer – a pilsner. I personally thought that was a gutsy move – pilsner is an under-represented style in the Northwest and because it is more delicate, it can be easily overwhelmed by hops if the balance is not just right. Of course, seeing the beer available in 22 oz. bottles, I had to pick one up.
According to their press release, the beer comes in at 8% ABV and 44 IBU. The beer uses Oregon Tettnang and Austrian Aurora hops to give it is complexity.
The beer pours golden yellow in color with a white head, exactly what you would expect from a Pilsner. A complex nose is dominated by lots of grain and sugar with plenty of green hops in the background, a wonderful balance of the two – lets you know you are drinking a pilsner, but this one has some legs to it. The initial taste is very crisp and dry with pleasant grain and a very quick grassy hop finish. The beer is not overly floral and is balanced with a hint of sweetness at the very end that comes out when the beer warms a bit. For an 8% alcohol beer that is on the lighter end of the spectrum, the alcohol is well hidden and I would not have guessed the ABV in that range.
The Fresh Hop Pilsner is not the most hop forward beer that you will ever drink but it had a good balance between grain and hops and would be a pleasant enough to drink it you wanted to experience a fresh hop beer without going toward the pale ale/IPA hop bomb end of the spectrum.
Although not a style I tend to prefer, Fresh Hop was a pleasant drinking experience and I would love to see Bridgeport bring it back in 2013.
Bridgeport Fresh Hop Pilsner crosses over with a respectable 3 suspension bridges out of 5.
Russian River Brewing and the Washington Market
By Iron Chef Leftovers
I think I just lost all respect for Russian River Brewing. I will explain why.
They are pulling out of distribution in Washington State as of December 2012, which means no more Pliny, but more importantly, no more of their really good Belgian style beers. Russian River is not a big brewery, but Pliny created a huge cult following for them, so the demand usually far outstrips supply. Russian River distributed in 5 states – California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado and Pennsylvania, so they weren’t exactly widely available except on the West Coast.
Earlier this year, I found out from talking to someone in the industry that Russian River was cutting back their shipments to Washington, which I thought was rather odd since they had increased them a few months before that. It wasn’t a big deal – it just made getting Pliny a bit harder. Then they dropped the bomb on us a couple of days ago.
They wrote a letter which, in summary basically says they are at capacity at the brewery and, because of the state laws in Washington, have no control over their brand here, so they are pulling out. This to me doesn’t sound like it is the whole story – as far as I know the laws surrounding beer distribution have not changed in several years and they distribute in Pennsylvania, which has some of the most draconian laws involving alcohol in the U.S. I am not sure if we will ever know the real reason for this, but I suspect that the owners of RR aren’t particularly smart about how they are controlling their growth and it is causing problems. As a result, the 2nd biggest craft brew market in the country doesn’t get access to arguably the most in-demand beer in the country.
Whatever the reasons, I will be making a raid on a couple local shops for Damnation and Suplication before they are all gone. As for Pliny, I have 1 bottle at home that I will be cracking open soon with some friends to enjoy.
Beer in Review: Crowning the Best Beer of 2012
By Iron Chef Leftovers
In 2012, I started writing beer reviews on this blog in a semi-regular segment titled “Beer of the Week”. It is a bit of a misnomer since some weeks you got 2 beers of the week (hey, those are good weeks) and some weeks you got none. Anyway, I don’t review every beer I drink and I don’t always post them right after I drink them, so you sometimes end up with beers that are out of season or just not available anymore. What I am most proud of is my 5 point rating system.
In case you haven’t realized, instead of awarding stars or mugs or whatever else, I usually award a rating out of 5 based on something to do with the beer or the brewery. For example, I rated the Diamond Knot Whip Ale 4 out of 5 Silent Lucidities based on the idea that the recipe came from Michael Wilton of Queensryche (get it…Queensryche…Silent Lucidity). Coming up with these can be a challenge sometimes – anything animal or plant related is easy, just use the scientific name. Some are harder and probably not quite as funny. My favorite for the year was when I awarded Firestone Walker Wookey Jack 3 Kashyyyks out of 5. Kashyyyk being the home planet of Chewbacca, Chewy being a Wookie, get it? See how my brain works?
I digress, I reviewed a number of beers this year and several of them score a perfect 5 out of 5 on my rating scale. Several of those were vintage beers, so unless you know someone who happens to be sticking stuff in their cellar for 5 or 6 years (like I do), I figured that I should eliminate them from the running for the beer of the year. That really brought me down to 2 beers for the coveted title: Latona 25th Anniversary Cask by Anacortes and Pumpkin Ale by Reuben’s. It isn’t an easy choice; both breweries are great, both are breweries whose beers I really love and the styles are completely different. I am a shameless hophead and the Anacortes beer really appeals to me, but I also love pumpkin beers, especially ones where you can really taste the pumpkin and Reuben’s really knocked it out of the park with a pumpkin rye, a style which you don’t see too often, giving everything that I love about pumpkin beers with an interesting twist (and if you haven’t tried any of their rye beers, you should, they are fantastic).
So after much debate and locking the judges in a room without food and water until they made a decision (not really, I just spent 15 minutes thinking about who should win), we have a winner.
In a stunning upset, the new kid on the block, Reuben’s Brews wins the coveted Cheapseateats.com beer of the year award for their Pumpkin Ale! I highly encourage you to try this beer when it comes back around next year. It is so good that it is close to replacing Elysian’s Dark of the Moon as my favorite pumpkin beer on the planet, which is no easy feat since I pretty much consider Dark to be the second best beer brewed in Washington, behind Anacortes IPA of course!
Congrats to the wonderful folks from Reuben’s for brewing such delicious beers and keep it up. You will have some stiff competition in 2013 if you want to retain your title.
The Top Beers From Each State
By Iron Chef Leftovers
A website, firstwefeast.com came out with a list of the “best” beers from each state. It is a tough thing to judge since you are going across so many different styles and tastes and then you have to ask are you limiting it by just beers that are bottled, etc. It is interesting to see what they came up with. The full slideshow is here, but here are my comments on a few (after the jump) in case you don’t want any spoilers before you see them all.
FlatbreadGarden 