You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April 2008.
I had planned to post an overview of a few special Alts I’ve enjoyed earlier, but time hasn’t permitted that. Suffice to say I’ve been keeping busy with a host of other non-beer related things called “life.” Well, that and transferring the Belgian Dubbel me and Steve cooked up to secondary fermentation.
Anyway, I had this little review session in mind before I got to try the Uerige Doppelsticke on cask at Capital Ale House, so here goes…
Long Trail Double Bag
A moderately vigorous pour produces roughly a centimeter of brilliant white head that doesn’t stick around for too long before its merely a few colonies of bubbles on top of a completely transparent, copper-amber hued beer. But this one is more than just eye candy. The aroma is complex yet subdued; hints of sugary fruit, butterscotch, caramel converge with a nutty malt backbone. Despite the myriad of estery notes, the beer still retains a clean profile as well.
The well-rounded malt character makes the Double Bag a palate-pleaser up front. Toffee and toasted malt notes are featured at the outset, with a slightly warming alcohol feel toward the middle. At this point, the hops enter the picture, providing ample but restrained bitterness alongside the alcohol, which truly isn’t that noticeable and blends into the background. The finish is immaculately clean, as lagers tend to do, but also leaves a bit of sweetness and hop bitterness lingering for a rather pleasing aftertaste.
Apparently, Long Trail modeled this after the Sticke, or “secret”, Altbiers of Germany, which were intended as special releases for those in the know, making for a well-balanced yet complex secret I’m glad to be in on.
Zum Uerige Sticke Alt
Burgundy and russet hues fill the glass, growing more amber at the bottom when held to light. Just over a finger of tightly-bubbled head forms at the top, leaving a thick web of lace around the sides as it gently recedes. The much-fabled Zum Uerige Sticke Alt is in my glass, and I couldn’t be more excited to try it.
Giving it time to warm up a few degrees, I begin to think of the prestige and weight this beer carries, especially in its home city of Dusseldorf. Breathing in the aromatics, I instantly notice several characteristics that indicate a complicated beer. An earthy hop aroma seems to intertwine with a layer of Pilsner malt, that grainy and bready scent mingling further with toffee, dark fruit, and a hint of licorice perhaps. There was something there that indicated an acidity, which was more like tart berries, in a sense.
Caramel and that grainy Pilsner malt combine for a schizophrenic introduction, but one that provides
immediate balance. This leads to a juicy center where the earthy hop and toasted, toffee-like flavors are left to ease delicately off the palate. There is a drying quality to the finish, as hints of molasses and spice make a brief appearance during the exit. As the beer warms, the malt profile makes itself more apparent, becoming almost chewy and more viscous.
I’m quite surprised at how this beer changes, even over the course of less than five minutes. The drying, Pilsner feel begins to take a backseat to the sweet, malty tones that lie beneath. I can understand why this is a classic, and why some wish to keep it a secret.
Zum Uerige Doppelsticke Alt
Ah, time for the Doppel. This dark beauty pours a flat, hazy mahogany hue, with russet and copper highlights toward the bottom of the glass. One centimeter of white head forms on top and leaves as soon as it came. In the nose, there’s the aroma of figs or dark fruit combined with caramel malt, a hint of earthiness, and, maybe it’s just me, but I still pick up that boozy, Old Ale-esque fragrance.
The tongue reflects the aromatics with one exception; again, just like its sibling, this beer has a hoppier-than-expected side. But that’s not a bad thing by any means. In fact, that unsuspecting bitterness lends character to this beer, and illustrates the beer’s complexity when stacked up against raisiny, fig-like flavors. On cask, the same characteristics come through, only with a more “alive” feeling but at the same time a muted one, like that of a Real Ale.
To me, this sort of takes some of the best elements of other beer styles and conjures up a wholly different taste, and it shows. For some reason, it feels like Alt’s northern German roots, especially when it comes to Sticke, has an element of style influence from other countries, such as Belgium and the United Kingdom. And for some reason, I don’t seem to want to stop drinking it.
Ancient Egyptian symbols? Corny, unconvincing magic trick? No! Pyramid and Magic Hat Breweries plan to merge.
The 7th and 13th largest “craft” breweries in the country, respectively, are strongly considering taking the plunge together. Originally, Vermont’s Magic Hat approached Seattle’s Pyramid with an offer, which now includes the former taking on the latter’s incurred debt as well as $2.75 per share. When all is said and done, it looks to be about a $25 to $30 million operation for Magic Hat.
This maneuver has sparked some interest and debate over at BeerAdvocate. I don’t have any desire to get into the fray, but feel free to peruse some responses if you will.
This weekend I made the trek down to Virginia Beach to visit family and friends, but also to celebrate, since my dad’s birthday is on Tuesday. As usual, there were plenty of things to keep me occupied, but I managed to slip beer in between the important stuff… especially the night before I left.
First came Friday afternoon. End of the work week, and I’m ready to sip something special. As it just so happens, Capital Ale House opened a new location on the Southside of town, in the little village of Midlothian to be exact. The soft opening was Thursday night, and while I was desperate to go check out the newly-built Beer Mecca, I couldn’t make the drive. So I settled for Friday right after work, which was a good way to spend the evening before I left town the next day.
Fearing they had no Ola Dubh 30-year left, which was featured on tap, I made it out there as quickly as possible. My fears were allayed when I was able to start off with a snifter of it, and soak up all the deliciously boozy Scotch notes. Actually, woody Bourbon notes came to mind as well, which makes sense seeing as how single-use Bourbon barrels are normally used for aging Scotch whisky. Once they’re used for aging Scotch, they’re used again and again, and can have a rather extensive lifespan in this capacity, even undergoing repairs over the years.
There was a minimal, almost non-existent, level of carbonation, but a viscous, roasted malt Old Ale quality that made it an absolute treat. The beer itself was as black as night, which makes sense, seeing as how “Ola Dubh” means “Black Oil” in Gaelic. What a privilege it was to be able to try this stuff. I’ve got a few bottles of the 12- and 16-year sitting in my cache, which I’ll have to give a whirl in the future.
Turns out, Friday night was perhaps a more lucrative night to attend. At 6pm, they tapped a firkin of cask-conditioned Uerige Doppelsticke! After a messy attempt to open it up, the staff began pouring, and yours truly was able to get his hands on a glass. The beer poured a nice, hazy dark amber/copper color, and there were noticeable hoppy and boozy notes in the nose. My tasting notes wouldn’t do it proper justice, but suffice to say, the flavor was a bit muted, yet at the same time more naturally appealing. Another beer that I consider an honor just to be able to taste and enjoy.
More on the Alt goodness to come, but for now, I’m gonna kick back with a fresh beer and call it a day.
Spotted this link to a Washington Post article on Knut Albert’s blog regarding barrel-aged beers. One of our area newspapers has highlighted a growing trend in craft brewing, and this is a good omen for beervangelists here in the States. Recently I mentioned Blue Mountain Brewery in Afton, Virginia and their own barrel-aged concoction.
The article also features a couple of regional craft brewers: Ashburn, Virginia’s Old Dominion (now a brand of Coastal Brewing Company) and their deliciously chocolatey Oak Barrel Stout, and Milton, Delaware’s Dogfish Head and their Palo Santo Marron, which I’ve been dying to try. Good to see some regional coverage on this sort of thing!
So while I’ve recently celebrated cooking up my first batch of homebrew, I picked up some troubling news via Stonch. Apparently, following the article on Free the Hops and homebrewing that appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control has come down on Scott Oberman.
His brazen attitude and full disclosure could cost him in the courtroom. It may not get to that point, but it’s still absolutely ludicrous nonetheless. The guy can’t go out and buy a beer over 6% abv, eliminating several excellent options from his reach, so he decides to brew his own and spread the beery goodness. Yet that makes him a criminal.
According to the article at Fermentarium, Anheuser-Busch and Southern Baptists have rallied together on this issue to block the efforts of Free the Hops, while stalled legislation to raise the state’s abv cap to 13.9% gathers dust. So they may slap Oberman with a $2,000 fine and a year in jail, but will most definitely put his homebrewing on hold. All this just for brewing up a batch of beer.
Yesterday I took the plunge. On that day, I jumped head-first into homebrewing.
I’ve sampled some offerings from area homebrewers before and have truly been impressed. Come to think of it, right around Christmas of 2006, I discovered that my upstairs neighbor had brewed a holiday ale with her uncle in New York state, and had brought some back to share. I was blown away at what one afternoon and some cheap supplies could do. So while everybody else was downing Miller Lite, I was nursing some savory homemade beer, enjoying the evening.
Well Sunday was my first go-round with the actual hands-on part of the process, but it helped to have my hands on some beer at the same time, too.
Steve and I met up around mid-day at his house, where he had all the equipment lined up and ready to go. We set out to brew a Belgian-style Dubbel, so naturally we cracked a Collaboration Not Litigation from 2006 
to get things off on the right foot and got straight to work. First came the sanitizing, a crucial first step. He’s brewed before, and told me the horrors of not properly cleaning just one item. This is a story I’ve heard from other homebrewers who’ve also made sure to avoid that mistake with an ounce of prevention.
After we made sure everything was clean and good to go, we got the wort kits ready by softening them up in some hot water on the stove. Then, we poured them into some water and stirred thoroughly for the boil. Following that, we cooled that sucker down in the sink with some ice water.
In the meantime, we sampled some cave-aged Gruyere and French country bread with a Pierre Celis Grotten Bruin. Once the beer had properly cooled, we transferred that sweet nectar into the primary fermenter. As an aside, the place smelled absolutely delicious! I could’ve drank the wort without fermentation and had a blast, but we had to give that fancy yeast an opportunity to do its thing.
So with the proper addition of water, we pitched the yeast, White Labs Abbey Ale yeast to be exact. Then, after sealing the ol’ Ale Pail, there was only one thing to do: Stanley Cup playoffs and some 2006 Pannepøt!
The Red Wings and the Predators were playing in Nashville, which made for an incredible game, despite the extended interruption from tornado coverage by the local NBC news affiliate. The Pannepøt was a great way to cap off a fun day of homebrewing.
So now, to commemorate the homebrewing occasion (which will probably become more than just an occasion in the very near future), I’m cracking a local Virginia beer. This time, it’s this year’s foreboding Dark Hollow by Blue Mountain Brewery.
Dark Hollow is just that, a completely opaque black that produces only a thin layer of small bubbles around the edges where the ominous liquid touches the sides of the glass. This Imperial Stout has had the privilege of resting in oak bourbon barrels, this year’s is Jim Beam to be exact, for 100 days. It certainly shows.
Coming as no surprise, the bouquet is quite woody and boozy, with a light touch of chocolate, which I 
expected to be stronger. The sharpness of the liquor is noticeable, and it’s got me thinking about what the Wild Turkey barrel-aged version will taste like next year.
Sipping the beer, I notice more of a roasted coffee malt profile rather than chocolate, which is great because it tempers the alcoholic kick of the bourbon that lies on top. That slightly parching oak flavor enters toward the middle, and dries out in the finish, leaving an aftertaste that’s closer to Beam than it is beer. This doesn’t bother me, because it clearly and smoothly transitions, so it’s not all bourbon and oak like some barrel-aged offerings.
There was nothing like sampling this at the brewery, with the tanks right in the window behind the bar, and the scenic vistas of Afton all around, but this seems to fit my local outlook today. I’ve been reading more and more about people sticking to their local selections lately, and I thought I might add a little something to the local mix myself. Good to see area brewers going out on a limb with interesting methods like barrel-aging or exotic beer styles.
For a while there were rumblings in the beer world, mostly locally, about the arrival of a British IPA that was unlike many of its kind. After hearing many mixed reviews, I figured that I’d have to try this thing myself and see what all the fuss, or lack thereof, was all about.
A thin layer of soapy bubbles form on top of this hazy, orange and copper-colored beer. Floral hop notes take over the nose, which intertwine with the aroma of sweet, bready malt that displays a soft hint of caramel. The smell alone is absolutely delicious, and if the taste is anything close, I’d say we’ve got a winner.
The well-appointed label mentions that the beer employs “five of the US Pacific Northwest’s most citrus-flavored, aromatic whole cone hops” in addition to English floor malts, implying that this is a hybrid-style India Pale Ale. Although, I’ll say that I’m not getting much of the citrusy flavors here, and I love that. Instead, there is a fruity, floral hop presence that doesn’t slay the palate with bitterness, and it lets the introduction and middle take on a juicy character.
The balance of this one cannot be understated. At just the right moment, the hops enter the picture toward the finish to balance out the sweetness of the malt up front, and never overpower. While I can taste a muted citrus note, it’s way in the background, and to me that’s superb. It’s almost like a wet-hop harvest beer: keep the aromatics and the floral character, but use minimal bitterness for balance. Also, the carbonation doesn’t get in the way, adding an appropriate amount of bubbles but letting the smooth texture take precedence.
As the beer finishes, it washes out cleanly, leaving a calm, delicious aftertaste that fades evenly. To me, this is the benchmark for the word “drinkable.” I doubt hopheads would be a huge fan of this beer, but if you’re anything like me, you’ll love the aforementioned qualities it possesses and will want to grab a second one.
Sitting at my desk at work today, I got a call from someone who needed assistance. Without going into too much detail, my job is to help people with matters of employment. Turns out, he’s on the other side of the country, and he worked for a wine and beer importer. Needless to say, after resolving the issue at hand, we got to talking about all sorts of beer happenings, glassware, and breweries of note.
Talking to strangers on the phone is part of what I do, but rarely does it cross over into my secret obsession with beer. Always a plus when you can combine the two, and it adds some spice to the everyday routine. Also, it’s good to know there are people out there working tirelessly into the night so that we may pop open a Liefmans Kriek or a Meantime London Porter and relax at the end of a long day.
Now if only every workday could be this interesting…
Recent Comments