January 12, 2005

Second Annual Lupulin Slam

I'm at RFD and getting ready to sample 15 great big hoppy beers. Yes, I do know how geeky it is to be blogging live from a beer tasting. Here's today's beers:

From the west coast:

From the east:

More if I feel like it and am sober enough to type.

Before we got started, Sam Caglione showed a video debunking some of MADD's idiotic attacks on beer (why do you hate America, Sam?). Hysterical and I hope to find a copy for online use.

So, the trash talking has begun...

"We sold the house out so they can drink our beer," from Vinnie Cilurzio of Russian River

The beers are great so far.

Oggi's Hop Juice is getting an 8/10 from me, for a big hoppy nose and taste. The Nodding Head BPA gets a 7, as it is not as hoppy. The Russian River Pliney the Elder, the first Double IPA ever brewed, only gets a 7 from me, cause it is so undrinkably hoppy.

Dogfish get an 8 for their wonderful 60 Minute IPA and Stoudt's gets an 8 for the amazingly tasty Fat Dog Stout. Pizza Port's very hoppy Lou P Lin gets a 7. Bill Madden's excellent Slobberknocker (9.2%) from 2002 has really mellowed out and is more malty than hoppy, though you can certainly feel the hops in there.

Okay, this tasting is kicking my ass. I don't know why, as I've been to bigger beer tastings before.

The west coast brewers got together and blended some of their brews for the Chateau. It is a blend of the Pliney the Younger, the Hop 15 and the Hop Juice. It's nice, but it just does not cut it at 7 out of 10.

Stoudt's comes in with the best beer so far: the Fat Dog Stout. I love this 9% beer and it gets an 8.5 on my scale. The Russian River Pliney the Younger clocks in at 8, and the Founder's Big Al Imperial IPA gets a 9. That's right, it beats the Stout.

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December 01, 2004

Guinness

Guinness.

Two Ns, two Ses. Really isn't that difficult.

Thank you for your understanding.

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November 27, 2004

The Holidays Are Upon Us

How do I know this? Beer.

Everywhere I went out west there were tons of seasonal brews. From Granville Island's Lions Winter Ale to Rogue's Santa's Private Reserve. Last night I went to Dr. Dremo. They had the Anderson Valley Winter Solstice, Clipper City's Winter Storm and Brooklyn's Black Chocolate Stout on tap.

This is pretty much the only reason I enjoy the holidays.

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November 22, 2004

Portland Rocks

Portland is great town. I want to move there. It is a nice small town, with all the amenities of the big places. It does not feel like it is missing anything.

I met up with AB and we went out to McCormick and Schmick's. where they have a special after 9.30 bar menu. $2 gets you hummus or a cheese burger. Apparently they do these deals depending on the location, so I'm going to have to check the local M&S...

One of the most beautiful things about this city is its closeness to amazing natural things. AB took me to Multnomah Falls and then for a drive around Mt. Hood. What a spectacular view. It really is amazing. Pictures are forthcoming, trust me.

It was cool to hang out with her, though she says I should come up there in between semesters when she can spend more time hanging out. Perhaps I will.

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November 14, 2004

Magnolia

One of the great things about traveling is that you get to taste a lot of good stuff that you would not normally have access to. Beer, mostly. Magnolia is a great little brewpub up in the Haight, close to Ashbury. Yeah, that selfsame Haight/Ashubry that was once the mecca of the counter culture but now has a GAP and a brew pub. Go figure.

I stopped into Magnolia after my little walkabout Golden Gate Park on Friday. I was thirsty and hungry. The other good thing about traveling is that you meet the nicest people. The bartender here, just as at Toronado, was most helpful in picking out food and drink.

First up was a nice cask conditioned bitter. This was the first time they had brewed the Pearly Baker's Best Bitter, and it was really nice. Resiny, with a noticeable hop aroma and profile, this dark straw colored beer was very smooth and enjoyable. Quite the thirst quencher.

I followed it up with the Cole Porter, a very dry, quite roasty porter that was very enjoyable after lunch. Lunch was an excellent beef brisket sandwich with horseradish mayonnaise. Another great suggestion from the bartender.

I managed to get Ben the brewer to show me around the very small brewery underground. The pictures, when they get posted, will show you just how tiny the place is. He had just finished wrapping up the third brew that week.

Ben also gave me a taste of the 7% abv Proving Ground. This beer has a 100 IBUs and is pretty well balanced for having so much hops in it. Shame it was only mid-day and I had an entire afternoon and evening ahead of me, as I'd have liked a pint or two of that.

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November 13, 2004

Toronado

Went to Toronado last night. It wasn't what I was expecting, but I'm not sure why not.

A grubby, dive-y kinda place located on the Haight. You enter through the front door, which is split so only the bottom is closed. There's a long bar to the right and a bunch of tables to the left. There's a small seating area in the back.

Immediately you notice all the freaking taps. Holy hell, they have a lot of beer. But they also have tons of taps adorning the walls. To say this place has character would be an understatement: The bartenders are all colorful and very informed. I was quite happy to let them pick the beers for me. All I asked was that they be somewhat local. Of course, that means I missed some great beers, but they have so many it would be hard not to.

First up was the Speakeasy IPA, a nicely hopped strong IPA which really hit the spot. Then I had the Russian River ESB, and that was smooth and really nice. Vinnie, the owner of Russian River, is at RFD for a couple of days, so I'm sad to have missed his beers there. Lastly I got a pint of the El Toro Duce, a very hoppy, flowery double IPA. Quite strong, too.

They don't serve food at Toronado, but there's a sausage place next door that will let you order and take food in there. Zagat says of the Sausage Grill: "They do one thing and they do it perfectly." Who am I to disagree? Their Hungarian smoked was very tasty and wonderfully smoked -- next time, I will try it alongside the Alaskan Smoked Porter which they had on tap. The Italian hot was fantastic. Hot enough to feel it, but not hot enough to overwhelm every other taste.

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August 22, 2004

DuClaw

I went to DuClaw in Arundle Mills last night. The place was nice, and the beers a mixed bag. In January, at the strong ale tasting, I had the chance to try DuClaw's Devil's Milk. For some reason, I didn't write about the beer then, but I do recall really liking it. I was impressed enough to want to go see what else they have to offer.

I got the sampler and proceeded to go through them one by one. I can tell you I was not thrilled with the lighter beers. They were technically sound, but most lacked that "oomph" that I like in a beer. But their porter and IPA were really nice beers.

A rundown of their beers is after the jump...

kangaroo love is the beer you have if you really don't want to drink beer. At 4.5% abv, this is a light beer that won't challenge your friends who don't want to drink anything stronger than an American light lager.

Ravenwoon is a nice Kolsch-style beer, but is also a lighter beer with little challenge to the palate. It is smooth and has a slight hint of malt. 4.7% abv.

Bare Ass Blonde Ale is a golden colored pale ale. Again, a solid beer, but not a lot of taste. 5% abv.

Funk is their seasonal beer. Billed as an American wheat beer, it is 4.8% abv. Straw colored, it has a slight wheat twang, that I appreciate. But again, a much more subtle beer that is better suited for a hot day outside than sitting in an air conditioned bar.

The Misfit Red is a nice beer and starts to show the character that they can brew here. A clean 5.0% abv beer, with a light hoppiness in the finish.

Finally, their two best beers. The IPA, Bad Moon Porter is a fantastic porter, even if it isn't exactly to style. A big bold beer (stands up well to the burger and smoked bacon) and very complex. It has about 40 pounds of coffee in the brew and is very roasty. 5.1% abv.

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July 25, 2004

Hop Along

A little over a week ago I went to another beer tasting at RFD. It was a reprise of the Lupulin Hop Slam from earlier in the year, but this time they called it the East Vs. West Lovefest. And it was, somewhat. The list of brewers was down to two, Adam Avery from Avery Brewing and Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head, but the beers were just a awe inspiring as the last round. Not to mention the hop brownies (more later).

This tasting focusing on hops, it was inevitable that there were four Organoleptic Hops Transducers, better known to some readers as Randall, to have the bigger beers run through.

And these beers were big. Really really big. Four beers over 10% alcohol. Another three at 9%. Most of the beers were highly hopped as well. And the beers that were not so highly hopped served to dull the pain of the hop brownies.

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.

----
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].

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July 20, 2004

Signs I Drink Too Much pt III

So I get this new magazine the other day because it looks nice and well laid out. And because it is about boozing it up in bars, with a London focus. The magazine is SauceMagazine a sister publication to SauceGuides. Okay, that was quick. Apparently the magazine I bought on Sunday is now known as Diffordsguide To Drinking.

Still, that's not the point of this. The point of this is there is a picture to illustrate a story on a possibly hangover cure. The picture is of a gentleman holding his head in his hands, slumped over a table. On his head is a metal bowl. Next to him is a glass of Chimay and a bottle of water. There is no caption.

From that little glimpse, I could tell it was Belgo Centraal in London. I think I might not only drink too much, but drink too much internationally.

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May 20, 2004

An Old Friend

Do you remember Bardo?

It was a quirky place. Descended from Amdo and Roratonga Rodeo, Bardo Rodeo filled a huge gaping hole in the Arlington/DC beer scene. And by gaping, I mean gaping: the place sat 1100 people.

It was inside a car dealership, the old Olmstead Oldsmobile on Wilson Blvd. It was monstrously huge. The beer was great, the food not so much. Stories abound of people ordering pizza delivered to their table. By Dominos.

The quirkiness extended from the location to the decor to the beers themselves. Because it used to be a car dealership, an old car was jut in half. One half was turned into an advertisement for the place, firmly planted in the asphalt outside the entrance. The other half was turned into a juke box.

The beers had quirky names and tastes, as well. James Brown Ale was always a favorite. American Headlight, in keeping with the car theme, was the light beer. Then there was the strong and award winning White Lightnin'! What a great brew. And they had the best happy hour: from 11a until 7p. $2 pints. I spent many a day there.

Well, after that long ramble, I get to the point. Bardo closed down a while back, the brew house having been moved off site. It tried to reopen, and eventually came back as Dr. Dremo.

It tried to be different things. They tried a 24 hour format. A sushi bar. But, most recently and most successfully, it has become what it always was: an excellent beer house.

They have about 36 beers, most of them excellent, on tap. They have no hard liquor. They have a small, but decent menu. And they have the old Bardo beers.

Sometimes, it is good to rediscover an old friend.

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May 12, 2004

Signs I Drink Too Much pt II

So, in the last two weeks or so I've been to my favorite beer bar in DC, RFD, seven times. Last Wednesday, I went with seven colleagues. We got sat in my favorite waitress' section.

She comes bounding around the corner and, upon seeing me, says, "Oh, no! Not you again!"

The sad part is, in the previous four visits, she's not even been there. Cause she was off planning her sister's wedding. Yeah, I know too much about the lives of the people who bring me beer.

Well, after that inauspicious start, she says, "Well, my name is ...," and points to me. With only a mere hesitation, I reply, "... Kardin".

She continues, "the blue menus have our ...," and I finish, "... bottled beers." She adds, "and the pink ones are for ...", "... draught beer."

She then told the group that if they have any questions on the beers, they should just ask me.

So, do I drink too much?

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March 17, 2004

A Full Pint

When I order a pint of beer, I want a full pint. I don't want a 14 ounce glass masquerading as a pint. If you've got it, I'd rather a 20 ounce pint.

But when I order a pint at Capitol City, and you bring me a beer with an inch and a half of foam on the top, I'm going to send it back. Again, and again.

And when I get the manager over, I don't want her accusing me and the two others of drinking from the glass to make our point.

And I really don't want to hear that "stouts are more carbonated" than other beers. Don't try to bullshit me.

I want to hear what she finally offered: a round on the house. I'd have settled for a top up.

Oh, and one more thing: When I order a shepherd's pie, I want a shepherd's pie. I do not want an Irish lamb stew. No matter how good it is.

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February 14, 2004

Lupulin Hop Slam

Okay, I've been trying to review this event for the last couple of weeks, but time has conspired against me. So here it is, finally.

Once again BeerGuyDave has put together an amazing beer tasting. This time to rival the Belgian and Scottish tastings he's done in the past. Some of you might have read about the effects the next day.

This is supposed to be the first of these tastings, and I will say right now: if you don't live in the area, get yourself to DC next year for the second annual. It will be worth it.

So what was it? It was a chance to see if some sample of East and West coast breweries could bring some hugely hoppy beers to RFD, and if they could impress the pants off some of the biggest hopheads on the right coast.

The contestants were, from the West: Tomme Arthur of Pizza Port in Solano Beach, California, Adam Avery from Avery Brewing in Boulder, Colorado, and Tom Nickel from Oggi's in San Diego.

The East coast had crazy Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, Bill Madden of Capitol City Brewing in Arlington, Virginia and Kenny Allen from Old Dominion Brewing Company in Ashburn, Virginia. Michael Morris filled in for Bill Madden for part of the night, as Bill was tending to some pre-wedding plans.

There was one big disappointment for me: One of the scheduled to appear brewers was Larry Bell of Kalamzoo Brewing Company in Kalamzoo, Michigan. Larry got stuck in a snow storm and could not make it, and Jerry Bailey stepped in with his brewer from Old Dominion. Luckily I had made it to the Bell's beer tasting at the Brickskeller not that long ago.

Onto the beers. I went the second night, Jan 29, and the lineup was a little different from the first night. There were twelve big whopping beers:

  1. Imperial Stout from Capitol City
  2. Double IPA from Avery
  3. Second Batch Millennium from Old Dominion
  4. 271 IPA from Oggi's
  5. 75 Minute IPA from Dogfish Head
  6. Swami's IPA from Pizza Port
  7. Slobber Knocker Barleywine from Capitol City
  8. Hog Heaven from Avery
  9. Tupper's Cask Pils from Old Dominion
  10. Ding Ding from Oggi's
  11. 120 Minute IPA from Dogfish Head
  12. Hop 15 from Pizza Port

To say this is an impressive list of beers is to be about as understated as you can get. These are huge beers. Big in taste, alcohol and something else. Oh, yeah. HOPS. Lots of screaming hops.

I thought both entries from Capitol City were good, but did not quite hit the mark for me. The IPA was much hoppier and tastier than the Slobber Knocker, so much so I went looking for it the next day at the brewery. It was a 9% beer that had about 50 pounds of hops added to a 50 barrel batch. The Slobber Knocker was a touch sweeter and less aggressive with the hops, but still weighed in at 11.5% abv.

The Avery dry hopped Double IPA was pretty nice, but the hops were a bit overwhelming to the beer (6% abv). I like a nicely balanced beer, and I think that adding three-quarters of a pound of hops to the keg might have been over doing it. It was almost like chewing on a hop pellet, and that isn't a great thing.

The other Avery beer, the Hog Heaven barleywine, could take the extra hopping. At 9.2% abv and about 100 IBUs, this beer had an added pound of Columbus hops in the keg. It had the green twinge of hops in the taste, but it was well balanced and one of my favorites on the night.

The two Dominion beers were a bit of a disappointment in this setting. The approximately 5.5% Second Batch Millennium was not hoppy enough for this tasting. I did like this beer, it has some interesting character to it, but just not in a hop slam venue. The Tupper's Cask Pils, a fine brew on its own, was just drowned out by the time we got it. No amount of hops could have saved this beer because it could not have been balanced. Without the huge hops, my taste buds were incapable of tasting it.

Pizza Port's beers were nice and hoppy and bitter. The Swami's IPA, around 7.5% abv) was pretty damn hoppy and a little unbalanced for my tastes. The Hop 15 was fantastic. This beer had 15 different hops added, one every 15 minutes. Also not hugely balanced, but by the time I got this beer it did not matter. Another one of my top five.

Oggi's had a spectacular showing. The hugely hoppy 8.3% 271 IPA kicked some unbalanced hop butt. This beer had seven pounds of hops in a seven gallon batch. Let me explain how much hop that is: if I was brewing a nice and hoppy beer, I'd probably use six OUNCES in a five gallon batch. Tom Nickel said that his "checkbook is in balance, not my IPA." This beer was over the top and was my second place choice on the night.

Their Ding Ding was also a fantastic beer. At 10.5% this Imperial IPA could really flourish with all the hops. Tasty and in my top five.

Leaving the best for last, Dogfish Head brought in a mix of their 60 Minute and 90 Minute IPAs and called them 75 Minute IPA. At 7.5% this mix of two damn good IPAs was then dry hopped and the result was quite smooth and nice.

But, the coupe de gras of this tasting was the already phenomenal 120 Minute IPA. How big is this beer? It is 20% alcohol. Twenty. It is 120 IBU. It is boiled for a full 120 minutes. It has 660 calories in a 12 ounce bottle. It is utterly drinkable. This beer is a monster. But is Sam satisfied with that? Hello no.

He went and created this thing he calls "Randal the Enamel Animal". He claims it will add so much hoppiness to the beer that it will strip the enamel off your teeth. It is a steel tube filled with fresh hops through which the 120 Minute IPA flows. It picks up a huge aroma of hops. This was the only beer that got a full 10 out of 10 points on my scale. Phenomenal.

And these are the final results after the judges finished the counting:

  1. Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA
  2. Capitol City Imperial IPA
  3. Oggi's 271 IPA

I highly recommend you make the next one of these tastings. This one rocked.

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January 30, 2004

Green

I went to the RFD Lupulin Slam last night. There were a lot of beers there. Most of them big, all of them with high hop content. Hops are green and earthy and lovely.

But this really was too much. We're talking thousands of IBUs, hundreds of pounds of hops and twelve beers.

This morning, everything smells and tastes like hops. Everything smells and tastes green. Holy hop heads, Batman!

Stay tuned for the full report

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January 25, 2004

Drinking Problem?

I'm standing in line at a diner waiting to be seated. I spotted a familiar looking woman in the line, but could not place her. She waved and said hello.

And then it dawned on me: I know her from RFD. In the year since I've been going there, she's waited on me a couple of times, but every time I am there, she'll stop by and say hello.

So, does being recognized by your favorite bar's staff mean you have a drinking problem?

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January 19, 2004

Strong Beer

On Thursday I went to the Local Strong Beer Tasting. Normally held at the Brickskeller, it was moved to RFD...

Without further ado, here is the beer list:


  1. La Petroleuse from Brewer's Art in Baltimore at 7.8%

  2. Old Ale from Ram's Head Tavern in Annapolis at 6.8%

  3. Dopple Bock from District ChopHouse in DC at 7.0%

  4. Barleywine from Legend in Richmond at 12.1%

  5. Devil's Milk from DuClaw in Bel Air at 10.7%

  6. Old Salty from Heavyweight in Ocean Township, NJ at 11.2%

  7. Bourbon Aged Millennium from Old Dominion in Ashburn at 10%

  8. Imperial Stout from Rock Bottom in Arlington at 8.5%

  9. Imperial Stout from Starr Hill in Charlottesville at 10.5%

  10. Hard Cider from Shenandoah in Alexandria at 7.0%

Right. That's 10 big strong beers. Lucky I remember my damn name.

La Petroleuse is a fantastic beer from Brewer's Art. At 7.8% it was in the middle of the alcohol range for these beers. It is a nice golden blond beer made in the tradition of beers from France. It has a nice spicy taste and hoppy as well. I must say that this was my second favorite beer of the night.

The great thing about Brewer's Art being there was getting to catch up a bit with Volker. He opened the place about 8 years ago. It is amazing to think back that I knew him from before those days on a local internet provider called ClarkNet. It really was cool to see him again, and hope to go up to Baltimore sooner or later for another good meal and drinks there.

My favorite beer of the night was Old Dominion's. The Millennium is a damn good beer on its own, but when you age it in a bourbon cask, watch out. A heady aroma of bourbon, vanilla and sweet maltiness greets you. You sip this beer and you understand the amazing talent that some brewers have.

Mark Thompson from Starr Hill was the most hysterical speaker there. He might even have topped Sam from Dogfish. The two year old Imperial Stout that he brought with him was really nice. Smokey and roasty, it had molasses added during the brewing.

Legend's Barleywine had a different taste than most: a bit of sour apple. The taste was definitely unexpected, but it was quite good.

The Heavyweight Old Salty had a strange mouth feel to me, almost grainy. But again, despite the alcohol content, it was a good smooth drink.

Ram's Head's Old Ale had a nice hoppiness to it, much more bitter than I would have expected in a beer that strong.

I was not too impressed with either the Rock Bottom or the DC Chophouse offerings. The Chophouse Dopple Bock is the nicer of the two beers though. And The brewer there learned to home brew when he was in Antarctica!

The Shenandoah Hard Cider was an interesting beer. That's right, it is technically a beer, not a cider. But because it was brewed with apples (well, juice), it has to be called a cider. Bloody idiotic government bureaucracy. The beer itself was pretty good for a malt extract based, apple beer.

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January 01, 2004

No Champagne

This new year, instead of Champagne, we cracked open a bottle Cuvée René, an excellent geuze beer from Belgium.

Better than Champagne and very dry, it is one of my favorite beers.

We also had some Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale and Anderson Valley Winter Solstice.

Yum.

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December 20, 2003

Rogue

I went to Rogue this afternoon for a bite to eat and a nice little lunch.

It is a nice little pub, nestled in the Pearl section of Portland. 13th and Flanders, for those of you out here.

The food was decent pub burger. The beer was outstanding.

I had the Dopple Mogul, a taste of the Smoke Ale and the Chocolate Stout.

The Mogul was huge. This is their winter beer. 7.1% alcohol, big body, big hop, big taste. Dark and roasty with a wallop of hops on the outside. Roasty, dry and hoppy on the inside. The alcohol is not noticeable at all, and you can drink this fine beer until you fall off your stool.

The Smoke was light and thin in color, but had a nice smoke aroma to it. It tasted mighty smokey, you could almost taste the smoked barley.

The Chocolate is now my favorite chocolate beer. Brewed without a single ounce of chocolate, this beer is dark and tasty. Smells like chocolate, tastes a bit like chocolate, this beer stays with you for hours.

If you are in Portland, stop by Rogue, you'll love it.

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November 01, 2003

Bell's Beer Tasting

Bell's Pale Ale
A week ago Thursday I went to another fine tasting at the Brickskeller. This time, the amazing beers of the Kalamazoo Brewing Co. were on display. Better known to most as "Bell's Beers", if they are known at all, these are some of the finest brews in the country.

Larry Bell did not make the trip to Washington, but sent Production Manager John Mallet. John is a veteran brewer and has been head brewer at Old Dominion.

In addition to being a talented brewer and builder of brewing plants, John happens to tell a great story with a dead-pan delivery that left the audience laughing and informed.

He told us about the new brewhouse he just helped Bell's build. They bought most of the brewing equipment, a fifty barrel Steinecker brewhouse, from Anheuser-Busch. It seems that Wolfgang Puck was opening a brewery/restaurant in Los Angeles. When the riots hit, no one came and the brewery, built at a cost of almost $35 million, closed its doors. Anheuser-Busch bought the equipment and had the German company come back and take it apart and package it for shipping. Then they did nothing with it for 10 years. Mallett could not say enough good things about this brewhouse and the quality of the construction and engineering. And the deal the got it for.

He also told us about how Larry Bell started the brewery. Originally it had been a homebrew supply store opened in 1983. A few years later and not making any money, Larry went to the Michigan state business office and wanted to close shop. Apparently the conversation centered around having to pay a $125 fee to file for bankruptcy, and how if he had the money he wouldn't be closing shop. And he decided, thankfully for us, that he would keep it open instead.

Onto the evening's beer list: We were served Bell's Pale Ale, Winter White, Best Brown, Double Cream Stout, the Java Stout, Two Hearted Ale, Consecrator Dopplebock and something they call Batch 6000.

As you might guess, the beers started off nice and smooth and built up a huge character and higher levels of alcohol as the night continued. My favorites were the Best Brown and the Two Hearted Ale. The Two Hearted is open top fermented and has a really nice hoppy aroma. Very drinkable and tasty.

The one that surprised me the most was the Java Stout. Not a drinker of caffeinated products, I liked this stout immensely. Everything about it screams cup of joe, from the dark color to the intense smell of coffee. The beer has two types of coffee and apparently a 12 oz serving has as much caffeine as a cup of coffee.

The Batch 6000 is a special brew that was meant to be laid down for a year or so. We were the first to taste it, and it was still kind of overpowering, having only been bottled two weeks earlier. This beer is going to get more drinkable with time.

Sadly, Bell's is not distributed in this area. The closest seems to be Philadelphia. Sounds like time for a road trip soon.

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June 19, 2003

Dogfish Head Soul Food Old School Throwdown

Well, that's the name that Beer Guy Dave gave this beer tasting at the most excellent RFD. And the name accurately reflected what we got on Tuesday night. This was an aural treat and a tour de force of big brewing's tastiest beers.

The Dogfish beers are ones I have admired for ages: from the big bold World Wide Stout to the unbelievable India Brown Ale, the Chicory Stout to Raison D'Etre, these guys know how to brew.

They also know how to entertain, as they have a hip hop act they call The Pain Relievaz. No, really. Grandmaster I.B.U.1 is none other than Dogfish owner and president Sam Calagione. DJ Lil Guy is head brewer Bryan Selders. No, really -- even with their unnaturally big beers, I could not have hallucinated the whole thing.

If you've ever been to a Brickskeller beer tasting (also run by the duo of Beer Guy Dave and wife Diane), you know that they tend to be a little silly. As you can probably tell, this blows anything they've ever done at the Brick to a higher level of silliness.

The other thing they do at the Brick is concentrate on the beer. The food that you get as part of a tasting is often an afterthought, except on Belgian beer tasting nights. One of RFD's signatures, though, is the food. Cooked in beer. Cuisine de bier is how the Belgians refer to it. This tasting also concentrated on the food with the beer. All the courses were matched to the beers and the ribs were cooked with the Raison.

While the Pain Relievaz were bringing down the house with such tunes as "I Got Busy with an AB2 Sales Girl" and "Worst Brew Day" with such memorable lines as "... stuck my brewer's hose inside her heat exchanger ..." and "... we get more tail than a labrador retriever ...", we were having our taste buds and brain cells pummeled with their brews and RFD's food.

Here's what I had, in order, and what I thought:

I picked up a pint (14 oz actually, and RFD is good enough to state that up front as opposed to bars that call them pints) of the 60 Minute IPA3 as I waited for my friends to get there. This is a 6% ABV4 beer brewed with Warrior and Amarillo hops5 for about 60 IBU rating. It is light in color with a strong hoppy aroma and very nice bitter aftertaste.

Once my friends got there, we were served the Shelter Pale Ale. A solid pale ale with a nice earthy aroma delivered by the Willamette and Columbus hops. This beer clocks in at 5% ABV and 30 IBUs.

While waiting for the show to start we all ordered a pint of the India Brown Ale. This is one of my favorite recent finds -- I discovered it at Hard Times Cafe a couple of months ago and have had it a half dozen times since then. This is a big beer, a cross of a brown ale and an IPA with a touch of sweetness left over. It is dark brown in color with a nice hoppiness and a roasty taste. With 7.2% ABV and 50 IBUs, this is big bold beer by most brewer's standards. Dogfish are just scratching the surface, though.

After the India Brown, it was kind of difficult to appreciate the more subtle ApriHops. That was brought out with fried green tomatoes, and they did complement each other. The ApriHops was the disappointment of the lot, even though it certainly was a nice beer. 6.6% ABV, 45 IBU and 65 lbs of apricots go into this beer. The apricots add a smoothness to this beer, and that is rather disconcerting after the boldness of the India Brown.

When you think lager, you generally don't think of big beers. Sure, there are bocks and double bocks that can knock your socks off, but they are hugely malty events. The next beer to come out was Dogfish's first lager, Prescription Pils. A fine example of a Pilsner, this is nice and clean with a bit of domestic noble hops. They refer to it as an Imperial Pilsner, and at 9% ABV and 40 IBUs, this is Imperial in every way. Fantastic.

Another of my favorite beers was up next, served with ribs that were cooked with it. The Raison D'Etre is a fantastic concoction brewed with beet sugar,
green raisins, and Belgian yeasts. Did I mention it is fantastic? Don't take my word on this: go buy a six pack and try it. Go ahead. I'll wait.

It was good, wasn't it? I told you. And at 8% ABV and 36 IBUs, it is a damn good thing that you are back home reading this. The ribs were finger licking good, too.

Just when you thought they could not go any further, out comes the 120 Minute IPA. Some stats:

Let me repeat those last two figures: 120 International Bitterness Units -- this is an extreme amount of hop oils. 20% Alcohol By Volume. 20% people. This beer should be nothing more than sugary sweet. While it has quite a bit of residual sugars, it is so well balanced by the massive amount of hops. At one point Sam said, "thank god for sadomasochistic yeast strains!"

This beer was married with a sweet potato pie, and I just cannot describe how well the tastes melded. The sweetness of the beer and honey that was drizzled over the pie complemented each other amazingly well.

That was it for us. Plenty really. More than plenty. But, just for the record, Beer Guy Dave also had available for purchase the Old School Barleywine (15% ABV), Raison D'eXtra (stronger version of D'Etra) and (in bottles) Immort Ale (11% ABV).

That makes 10 of Dogfish's beers in one place, nine of which were on tap. Dave, I salute you for injecting some life into the DC beer scene and for introducing us to some twisted old school beer focused hip-hop.

1 IBU: International Bitterness Units. A measure of the amount of bittering compounds found in the beer. A beer with a 100 IBU rating would be undrinkably bitter if not balanced with malt or other flavors.

2 AB: Anheuser-Busch. The big bad boy of tasteless "beer".

3 IPA: India Pale Ale. A style of beer created by British brewers back in the day when India was a colony. To get their beers to India before they spoiled (a four month journey), they increased the amount of hops used in brewing. The hop oils, in addition to giving many beers their bitterness and aroma, also act as a preservative. The tradition of this beer continues today but without the long journey and rest times, the beers wind up being quite hoppy and tasty.

4 ABV: Alcohol by Volume. This is a measure of how drunk you are going to get. Double this number and you have the "proof". Most beers lie in the 5%-6.5% range.

5 Hops: A plant related to the cannabis plant. Brewers use its flower to add bitterness, flavoring and help preserve their brews. Hops are usually done in two additions, with bittering hops going into the brew kettle early to leach them of their oils so that their acids (see below) can contribute their bitterness and flavoring hops going in late to add their aroma so their oils can contribute flavor and aroma. Some brews are also "dry" hopped by adding the hops to the fermenter.

6 Alpha and beta hop oils acids: Hop oils acids come in various designations, but the most common are the alpha and beta oils acids. Hops high in alpha oils acids produce huge amounts of bitterness in the finished beer. Particularly when tossed into the boil for two hours.

Thanks to Thomas Cizauskas for the corrections.

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June 15, 2003

QotD: Success

Erik asks "If you were to be successful in another profession, what would you want to do?"

Anyone who knows me probably knows the answer: brewer, chef and publican.

I want to open a brewpub in Reykjavik, with a cool techno/electronic/blues/jazz beat, some kick ass ancient brews, food from the small plates of the Mediterranean to the delights of Belgian cuisine fused with Icelandic game and ingredients and cooked in beer.

I even have the design in my head. I'd be a damn good publican -- I'm jovial, I like love beer and food, and I was born to discover Iceland. But I suck at financial things, so getting this off the ground will likely remain a dream.

It is good to dream.

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May 15, 2003

Beer, Glorious Beer

Erik's Question of the Day on favorite alcoholic beverages gives me a chance to wax rhapsodic on my favorite topic of all time: beer.

Beer is my favorite subject and drink. Alcoholic or otherwise.

I've travelled the world, and when I make the plans, the existence of good beer is paramount in my decision making. I've been to Belgium just to go to the 24 Hours of the Special Beers of Belgium Festival. That year they had about fifty vendors with around 3 beers a piece.

Belgium produces more fantastic beers than just about any country on the face of the planet. Yet, oddly, a Belgian beer is not my number one. For that, you have to go to Ireland.

The short list changes over time, so, until the next time, here's the list:

Guinness takes the cake for being such an overall fantastic beer. That's the beer I would take with me if I were to head off to a deserted island.

There are so many beers that could easily fill those top five slots. It is really hard to narrow them down. As long as I have a breath though, I don't plan on slowing down my tasting of them.

Beer Fun Fact: Beer is the base of Scotch and other alcoholic beverages.

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