samer/thoughts

The list of beers reads like a who's who of extreme beers:

1. Weedwacker Wit, Dogfish, 4.5%
2. White Rascal Belgian Ale, Avery, 5.5%
3. Chicory Stout, Dogfish, 5.2%
4. The Czar Imperial Stout, Avery, 11.9%
5. Raison D'eXtra, Dogfish, 20.5%
6. The Beast Grand Cru, Avery, 18.1%
7. 60 Minute IPA, Dogfish, 6%
8. India Pale Ale, Avery, 6%
9. 90 Minute IPA, Dogfish, 9%
10. Eleven Anniversary Ale, Avery, 9%
11. 120 Minute IPA, Dogfish, 20.4%
12. Hog Heaven Barleywine, Avery, 9.2%

That's a beer list that could kill you. And the last four of those beers were served through Randall. The atmosphere was more relaxed than other tastings, with the brewers obviously friends. We got to hear a little bit about the beers and then it was a free for all question time. Lots of very good information about the beers and the breweries.

They started off the evening with the lighter beers, hoping to show that hops can be used in sparing amounts to good effect. Thankfully they started with these beers because placing them elsewhere in the line up would mean not being able to taste them at all.

When the stouts came out, I was thrilled. There are a lot of reasons I like Dogfish, and the Chicory Stout is a really big reason. This is one of my all time favorite beers. Avery's The Czar was a new beer to me, and has managed to claw its way onto my shortlist of Imperial Stouts.

It is at this point that the hop brownies came out. Sam, in his infinite wisdom, had decided to make hop brownies. Sam, who turns out to be unable to control himself in the kitchen just like in the brewery, went overboard with this. Yakima Chief, a hop company, had given Sam a paint can's worth of Tomahawk hop resin extract.

For those of you not quite up on their hops, let me give you a few facts. Firstly, Tomahawk is a "Super Alpha" hop, cultivated mainly for its bittering qualities. It is very very bitter. Secondly, according to Adam, when Coors brews a thousand barrel batch they use three of the paint cans of resin. Three. In one thousand barrels. That's roughly¹ 31,000 gallons of beer. And Sam had an entire paint can's worth for brownies.

What I did not know until this point is that hops in large quantities are toxic to humans. And Sam was planning on using large quantities. According to the MSDS data sheet on the hop resin extract, the threshold for toxicity in humans has not been established because the product is "very bitter at high concentration, therefore unpalatable". Yakima Chief apparently told Sam the toxic level for his brownies is around a full ladle for three cookie sheet pans worth. Sam used half that amount.

At first bite I thought, "Wow, that's some deep chocolate taste." Count about a second and a half and I went, "Oh, my god! What the hell is that?" Bitter and very very green with hints of chocolate woven between. A few bites is all you could have hoped to have from these brownies, but I managed it all because it balanced well with the vanilla ice cream and the less hopped stouts in front of us.

And with that, the extreme part of our night took off. The next two beers, the Raison D'eXtra and the Beast, are billed as the two strongest Belgian-style beers in the world. The D'eXtra is a real treat; a stronger version of the Raison D'etre, brewed with beet sugars, raisins and a host of good things, it tops the scales at 20.5%. This beer has not been brewed since these bottles were filled in December of 2002. Sam says look for this beer again next year sometime.

The Beast is also a big beer at 18.1%. A clean brownish ale, with a spicy malty nose. It has a host of hops including Magnum, Galena, Saaz, Hallertau and Tettnang. Nice and hoppy taste, and the alcohol is just lying in wait for you. After the last case of the D'eXtra is finished (which RFD's Dave owns), this will be the world's strongest Belgian-style beer. Adam was threatening to take that last case and break every last bottle. Hopefully they just drank them instead.

I asked them about their yeasts and how they manage to coax that much work out of them. Most yeasts die around 15% alcohol, which is why it is rare to find such high alcohol non-distilled drinks. The answers surprised me a bit. Sure, they pick hearty strains and try to keep the best performers around, but they also admit it is partly loving care and feeding of the yeast and partly a crap shoot. Sam says they never know what the alcohol content of a beer will be until they get it back from the labs.

The next two beers are what I would call standard IPAs. That's not to say they are not good, for they are. But they fit the IPA label quite well at 6% and a nice 60 or so IBUs. Both beers taste remarkably similar, even prompting Adam to wonder which one was his beer.

The last four beers were high hop, high alcohol ales. The 90 and 120 Minute IPAs from Dogfish are essentially the same beer as the 60 Minute. "Just more concentrated" says Sam. The 120 is constantly hopped throughout the 120 minute boil by a machine that they invented for the purpose called "Sir Hops-a-lot". Did I mention Sam's out of control?

The Eleven and the Hog Heaven were nice, but different beers. The Eleven had a bit of maltiness to it that I don't expect from the hop-happy west coast brewers. The Hog was, on the other hand, both hoppy and alcoholic. Both beers are a treat to have, especially since I can't get them regularly here.

Those beers were all put through Randall. Sam told us that they have made a bunch of Randalls and sent them all over the place. Apparently some home brewers are buying them as well. And there's a good reason for that. The Randallized beers are all more well rounded and floral than their un-Randalled versions. I've had all these beers "clean", as it were, and I prefer the Randallized versions.

Sadly, running a tapped beer through Randall causes a lot of spillage and foaming, and so Dave's stopped doing a lot of it. Sam acknowledged the problem and says he's working on a version that he hopes will solve the problem. He used words like "nitro-cooling", so I think this problem might take a while to solve.

Here's a pint to another great tasting.

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¹ There are a variety of "barrels" established by law or usage. For example, Federal taxes on fermented liquors are based on a barrel of 31 gallons; many State laws fix the "barrel for liquids" as 31-1/2 gallons; one State fixes a 36-gallon barrel for cistern measurement; Federal law recognizes a 40-gallon barrel for "proof spirits"; by custom, 42 gallons comprise a barrel of crude oil or petroleum products for statistical purposes, and this equivalent is recognized "for liquids" by four States. -- Taken from Appendix C, "General Tables of Units of Measurement" from NIST Handbook 44 - 2002 Edition, "Specifications, Tolerances, And Other Technical Requirements for Weighing and Measuring Devices as adopted by the 86th National Conference on Weights and Measures 2001" [So I went with 31 gallons as the "right" number].