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Weihenstephaner Festbier

We go once again to Germany for tonight's beer, the land of the dreaded German Purity Law that is both a great source of pride and a straightjacket for commercial brewers. Luckily it is no longer in effect. This beer claims to be a Maerzen or Oktoberfest beer, but it is like none I have ever had.

It pours a straw color with a decent white head and a good amount of carbonation. I was a little too enthusiastic with my pour and ended up with the sediment from the bottle suspended in the glass. Right off, this strikes me as a very odd beer. Oktoberfests are usually a deep amber color, not straw. That's weird. The smell, taste, and texture only make this stranger. It's not nearly the malt showcase that an Oktoberfest is, nor is it as light of body. Instead it's a much creamier, hoppier (well okay, only mildly hoppy), and even has a little touch of citrus to it. It's actually a pretty good beer. It just doesn't make any sense from the style perspective.

So I just don't get it. This is supposed to be the oldest commercial brewery in the world. You'd think they would know how to make a German beer that fits into the style guidelines, especially when they mention the Rheinheitsgebot on the bottle. And German styles are usually pretty strict. Surely even by the loosest interpretations, this is no Oktoberfest. While I did like this beer, I think I would have preferred to get one matching the style even more. Oh well, I guess you can't always get what you want. Bottom line: this beer is worth a try and you may even like it. You will not, however, be getting what's promised on the label.

Anyone want to shed some light on what's going on here?

Buffalo Bill's Orange Blossom Cream Ale

The front of the label says Buffalo Bill's Brewery, the back of the label says Pyramid. That means this beer is contract brewed, which is not in itself a bad thing. That just means one person came up with the recipe and had it brewed using the spare capacity at a larger brewery. From the website, it looks like maybe beers on tap in the restaurant are brewed on site but bottled beers are contract brewed. Nothing wrong with that. I bet lots of places do the same thing. I've sometimes wondered if I should do the same thing, but decided against it because that takes the fun of brewing out and leaves you with all the marketing and business work. Yuck. Anyway, on with the show.

This beer pours a very clear pale yellow in color, with a high degree of carbonation. Not bad looking - definite summer beer potential here. The smell and the taste went together so well that I decided to write about both at once. There's a load of orange, lemon, and other citrus fruits. You get a bit of a light floral feel. That could be from a hop addition or from some adjunct. It's hard for me to tell. The flavor and texture here is most definitely a cream soda. It's very unusual for a beer. Finally you get some hops towards the end though the cream soda overshadows it.

In all this was an interesting, light, refreshing beer. It'd be absolutely perfect for a hot summer day out by the pool. The cream soda idea is kind of strange, but I'm down with it. At the least, this is quite different from anything I've had in these three weeks so far. Sarah picked it out as part of a random six pack for me and was the most interested in trying it. I think she liked it quite a bit.

Smuttynose 2007 Really Old Brown Dog

I bought this bottle of Really Old Brown Dog a couple years ago because I liked the name and put it in my kitchen beer rack to see what it'd end up tasting like. Two years later and having no other new beers in the house, I threw it in the fridge for later. The bottle was so old that it still had dust on it. I hoped the age wouldn't detract but being part of the Big Beer Series, I figured it could do with a little aging.

It poured a nice deep brown color with a good head. I used one of my Starobrno mugs that I brought back from my time in the Czech Republic. At first sniff, I was a little apprehensive as it reminded me of a homebrew experiment gone wrong that I ended up dumping down the drain. David Cantrell will remember that as he got the dubious pleasure of getting to taste my Delerium Tremens clone attempt.

Any apprehension I felt was soon replaced by revulsion as I took a sip. I was smacked in the face with unrelenting malt, caramel, and an overpowering sweetness. The aftertaste contained yet more of the sweetness followed by astringency like what you feel on your tongue from drinking tea. It was so unpleasant that I actually found myself not wanting to take another drink. Several minutes later, I came back and tried again and again I got all the same unpleasant flavors. So, I poured it down the drain. I don't really have much more to say about individual characteristics of the taste as I was busy trying to forget how much I disliked it.

Did the age ruin this bottle? I don't know, but I don't think I want to try. Smuttynose makes a whole lot of beers I enjoy, but this is definitely not one of them.

Three week roundup:

Styles:

• Belgian Pale: 3


• Wheat: 3


• IPA: 2


• Stout: 2


• Bitter: 1


• Brown Ale: 2


• Bock: 1


• Crap Lager: 1


• Flemish Red Ale: 1


• Pale Ale: 1


• Pilsner: 2


• Porter: 1


• Spiced: 1

Country:

• US: 13


• England: 4


• Belgium: 2


• Australia: 1


• Germany: 1

Augustijn Ale

From the people who brought you Gulden Draak and Piraat (yarrr!) comes Augustijn. This is another strong Belgian abbey-style ale, but unlike all those others it's not nearly as sweet. I've had both of those before and while I liked them well enough, they're both awful sweet. Gulden Draak was described to me as "candy", in fact. So I'd say I enjoy them only every once in a while. I was nervous this beer might be more of the same.

Well, it's not. Being in the same family of abbey ales, it's still sweet and strong. Don't get me wrong. However, sweetness is not its primary characteristic. It's a light golden colored beer, highly effervescent, and with the kind of head that could be formed into shapes. This means something. This is important.

The taste is very complex. There's sweet and sour flavors, citrus fruit, miscellaneous spices, perhaps even some honey. I'm terrible about describing flavors as you have noticed by now, and I'm especially horrible at picking out flavors when there are so many to choose from in each mouthful. Suffice it to say you'll have a lot to think about if you try this one out. Strangely enough, I got a distinct corny flavor towards the end. Now I know they wouldn't really use corn in a Belgian beer so I must be wrong about this, or at least be getting the presence of corn from the interaction of other flavors. However, that's what I noticed towards the end.

All in all, a decent beer with an intriguing set of flavors. I enjoyed it more than those candy beers but I don't think I would drink more than one in any given week.

Black Sheep Riggwelter Ale

The second I read "Yorkshire Square Brewing System" on the website, I realized someone on this project had already written about Black Sheep. Sure enough, David Shea drank it way back on day #5. It seems so long ago and so many beers away. His is a pretty good review, and I'd like to echo many of his observations here. I hope we don't have too many overlapping beers. This is the first one, at least. Hopefully we can go another 20 days before we hit the next.

I confirmed this beer to not be black. Brown or copper might be a better description. Perhaps this beer is the black sheep of the brewery's lineup? Perhaps drinking it makes you the black sheep? I also noticed the huge foamy head that faded away fairly quickly and the rather thin mouthfeel (I hate that word so much that this is the first time I've used it in this project - may it be the last).

I noticed more smell than David did, however. I got the distinct aroma of caramel and toffee. The taste started off sweet but also included nutty, toasted flavors. This eventually faded away to the bitterness of the hops, followed by a lingering of roasted malts.

This beer is well made, balanced, and very thirst quenching. Now if only it came in six packs.

And with that, I don't know that I can write another beer review in the same format. I might have to start screwing around with how I present these things. I'm kind of bored of the look/smell/taste paragraphs with a couple amusing observations thrown in. Any suggestions how I can spice this thing up?

Tucher Helles Hefe-Weizen

Tucher Hefeweizen is a rather standard German hefeweizen. It pours a cloudy straw color with a gigantic foamy head that sticks around for quite a while. I made sure to swirl the bottle to get that last bit of yeasty goodness when pouring it into my hefeweizen glass. The smell is typical German wheat beer, too - no detectable hops, fruity, a hint of the wheat and yeast to come. Tasting it, I got minimal amounts of the flavors you would typically expect. There was little in the way of banana or clove and only a bit of yeast flavor. I also noticed a high degree of carbonation in the beer. The aftertaste didn't do all that much for me either.

Bottom line, this was a refreshing but uncomplicated wheat beer. I'd love to get more yeast out of it. And I'd love to really get a good banana flavor, but there was little to be had. So I might pick up one of these again in the future, but I'd reach for a Paulaner (or homebrew) first. The dunkelweizen is probably worth trying out.

With this commit, anaconda began its reign of terror over the installer landscape. Ten years and hundreds of thousands of lines later, we are still working on it. Sure, all of the original authors are gone and most of the original code has been rewritten or removed, but anaconda marches on. So today, say a brief prayer thanking anaconda that your computer got installed upon, and have a drink in its honor.

I, however, have only been working on this thing for 4.5 years. It will be a long time before we're celebrating the ten year anniversary of my first commit. Perhaps I will have moved on myself by then.

Wychwood Wychcraft

This being an English beer, I sampled it in the English way by not letting it reach -45F in the fridge. Instead, I drank it at a much more moderate temperature. Sadly, I did not have a cask of it in the cellar that I hand pumped into my glass. I had to settle for a bottle. I hope my English friends won't report me to CAMRA.

The rather attractive bottle says this is a blonde, but that's not true. This is a bitter through and through. It pours a great straw color with plenty of citrus hops up front and plenty more grassy hops in the aftertaste. The website says it's hopped with Styrian and Fuggles. I guessed Fuggles were involved before even looking at the website. Perhaps all this drinking is starting to pay off with identifying what's in the beer.

It's a pretty standard ale, really, but that doesn't bother me. I do love a good glass of bitter and this certainly was one. Of course there is some malty sweetness present perhaps even with a touch of biscuit malt (again, I figured that out before looking at the website), but the centerpiece of the beer is really the hops. They're not at all overdone which makes this a very pleasant beer. And the relatively low alcohol content makes this something easily drank as part of a session in your favorite bar.

Thanks for a job well done, England.

Brooklyn Lager

Once again and at the suggestion of previous commenters, I returned to Brooklyn Brewery for something new. This was one of the few beers at Nashua Garden I haven't had before and wouldn't mind trying, so it was a pretty easy choice.

I'm having trouble writing about beer tonight, so I'll skip straight to the point. The Brooklyn Lager is an amber colored beer with light floral hop aroma, a medium body, minimal bitterness, and just a touch of honey in the aftertaste. It's a very smooth, creamy beer - more substantial than a Pilsner, but not nearly as malty sweet as something like a bock. Even though I had just one (hey, look at the time I posted this on a work night) I could certainly see how a six pack wouldn't last long between two people. I much preferred this to the Chocolate Stout I had on day #1.

I'm not sure how widely distributed Brooklyn beers are outside of New England and New York, but it's probably worth giving them a try.

Fosters

It's Australian for crap beer.

I suppose tonight's beer choice is a bit lame, but I wanted to review something that wasn't good for a change. Also, I didn't make it to the beer store and Hannaford doesn't have much in the way of singles. It was a six pack of something questionable, or a giant can of something I know I wouldn't like. I went with the latter. And since I decided to drink what the other half drinks, I decided to drink it the way they do, too. That means really cold and right out of the can. No fancy glass for me, no sir.

The 750 mL (that's as big as a bottle of wine!) aluminum can proudly displays its Australianness all over, but the fine print says it was made in either Albany, GA or Fort Worth, TX. So this is an import, right? I'm going to count it as such when I do the weekly tally.

Popping the top let out about 75 pounds of pressure, I think. Once recovering from that shock, I was greeted with the pleasant aroma of corn. Delicious. I took a big swig and got the refreshing flavor of corn, too. That flavor was quickly replaced by the delicate taste of metal, then rapidly faded out to nothing. In the end, I think I was more thirsty afterwards than when I started.

Fosters does not benefit from warming up, so do not allow it to do so. Also never get it in water or keep it up after midnight. If I were to do a blind taste test of Fosters against Pabst and similar beers, I'd be hard pressed to tell which is which. So, I can't imagine why people have any sort of brand loyalty to these beers. I knew what I was getting when I picked up the can in the store. I was expecting a mass-market, low flavor, high liquid, crap beer. And what do you know, that's exactly what I got. Honestly, I can't see what people like out of beers like this. I can find plenty of beers that are just as refreshing and way tastier. And my homebrew is both tastier and cheaper. So I don't get it.

Anyway that was an exciting experiment. I'll have to do better tomorrow night.

Flying Dog Tire Bite Golden Ale

I don't feel like writing a whole lot about beer tonight, so let me jump straight to the point. Tire Bite is a golden colored, light bodied, moderately hopped pale ale. The hops contribute a good amount of bitterness and citrusy flavors. Their website indicates Perle and Hallertauer hops, both of which I have used in my homebrews before. I thought they tasted familiar. This is a very refreshing beer and you could easily enjoy several in a session. It'd be particularly good on a hot day.

This is my first Flying Dog beer and I like it quite a bit. I'll have to search out a mixed pack of theirs and give a couple others a try. I recommend you do the same.

Two weeks down. What have I had?

Styles:

• Stout: 2


• Wheat: 2


• Belgian Pale: 2


• IPA: 2


• Spiced: 1


• Pale Ale: 1


• Porter: 1


• Flemish Red Ale: 1


• Pilsner: 1


• Bock: 1

Country:

• US: 11


• England: 2


• Belgium: 1

Pennichuck Backdraft Chocolate Porter

Two weeks into this experiment, and I'm right back where I started: a chocolate beer. This time, it's from the relatively new and relatively small Pennichuck Brewing Company in Milford, NH. You've probably never even heard of Milford, NH. I guess it's not really an internationally known brewing town. Perhaps future editions of my Designing Great Beers will talk about how to treat your water to match Milford, NH.

I got this bottle at my favorite local bar, Stella Blu, after consuming a glass of sangria and some sort of rye & bitters concoction, so my memory may be a bit off. The bottle has a nice flame design and fireman sillouette on the label, much nicer than some of the rather cheesy labels I've seen from this brewery. Luckily it's what's inside the bottle that counts and this was to be my first beer from Pennichuck.

It poured very dark with a nice thick head. The smell and flavor were heavy on roasted malts and coffee, and a little lighter on the chocolate side. This is clearly a chocolate-as-malt, not chocolate-as-chocolate beer. I can deal with that this time. There's enough other stuff going on in the beer besides the mega assault of roastedness to keep me interested. Hops were not really noticeable either as an aroma or as bitterness. Thank you for not making this an Imperial Chocolate Porter.

I'd tend to call this a robust porter since it's a much thicker, heavier, roastier beer than porters typically are. That's fine with me, though, because I enjoy making robust porters. However it is a little hard to distinguish this beer from a well-made chocolate stout. I don't think I'd be able to do it in a blind taste test. I'd definitely drink one of these beers again and I think I'll track down another beer from this brewery in the future too. For those of you keeping track at home, this is my favorite chocolate beer from the project so far.

Rogue Brutal Bitter

Today's beer was a great example of how American microbrewers interpret traditional European styles: just keep throwing more hops at it until it's "Imperial". I don't really like this trend, since the bigger and hoppier beers seem to get closer and closer to the same result regardless of the initial style.

When I hear something's a "bitter", I expect the traditional English style of bitter. I expect some hops. I also expect something sessionable and decently balanced with malts. Knowing this was a Rogue beer, I tempered my expectations a little bit. They do love to make a really big beer. I got a glass of Brutal Bitter on tap at Nashua Garden (which is the last store on Earth without a website). It came in a regular pint glass and had the typical IPA rapidly vanishing head. I first noticed the grassy, citrusy aroma of hops. Tasting it, I got about one second of malty sweetness before it was overtaken by the bitterness and citrusy flavor of hops. I got a long lasting aftertaste of hops. Hops, hops, hops. This isn't anything like I was expecting for a typical English bitter. There wasn't much in the way of malt character at all, and I wouldn't even think about a session of the Brutal Bitter.

I checked the website for beer and what do you know, it's an Imperial Bitter. Sam Adams sells an Imperial White, so why not right? I'm still trying to figure out what the difference is between an IPA and an Imperial Bitter. Look, I like hops as much as anyone. But if you're going to make an IPA, call it an IPA. Don't just make up a new style and confuse people who are expecting something traditional. I suppose I should have known better.

Duchesse De Bourgogne

Now here is a completely different style from anything I've done in this project so far. The Duchesse is a Flemish Red Ale. This means it's from the Flanders region in Belgium and that it's going to be rather sour. This is an old, old style of beer. And like many of the Belgian beers, it's pretty off the wall. Most people haven't have anything like it before, nor would they likely consider it to be beer. It's also the most expensive beer I've had in this project at about $11 for a 750 mL bottle.

I once again went with the free Ommegang glass that I used the other night. The beer pours a deep red color with a nice head, though it doesn't last very long. Upon finishing the pour, I was struck by the easter egg dye smell. For the seven people in the world who don't know what this is, it means all I could smell was vinegar. I don't think Sarah appreciated my comment since all she could smell or taste afterwards was vinegar. I hate to ruin beer for people, but it was such a natural observation that I just had to blurt it out.

Anyway, I somehow got past the strong aroma and gave the beer a taste. There is a pronounced acidity but it's surprisingly well balanced with some sweetness. What you smell is definitely not what you get in this case. I also taste a little bit of tart apple (like David Shea told me to be on the lookout for), and Sarah tasted some fig. I noticed a little sweet fruit hiding back there after several attempts too. Perhaps that's a fig. I didn't notice any chocolate or passion fruit like the website said I would. Maybe I just don't have a very refined sense of taste. There is not a hop to be found either in the aroma or flavor. Any bitterness there might be is completely hidden by the sourness.

So my final verdict on this beer is... I don't really know. My nose says NO! but my taste buds say YES! I think in this case I'm going to overrule my nose and say that I like this beer quite a bit more than I probably should. If you can get over the aroma, you'll find a light bodied and very refreshing beer. The acidity is pretty intriguing to me. I don't think I would drink this (or any other beer in its style) too often but it's great for a change up. Take a chance and maybe you'll discover you feel the same way I do.

Smuttynose Star Island Single

Star Island Single is Smuttynose Brewery's latest year round beer, replacing Portsmouth Lager in the lineup. That's a little surprising to me, but sounds good. I'm not the world's biggest fan of Pilsners (though I do enjoy one on occasion) so this is an interesting change. The Star Island is billed as more of a sessionable Belgian ale with some spices. Let's see how it stacks up.

The 12 ounce bottle pours a hazy straw color with a decent white head and heavy carbonation. I smell wheat and some indeterminant spice aroma. The website tells me it's coriander (which I kind of hate) but just above the flavor threshold so you can't quite tell what's going on. I can live with that. There's just a hint of some sweetness in the aroma to round it out. This definitely smells like a Belgian. Hops are not detectable.

It's a fairly thin beer, which fits the session label, though I could go with just a bit more body. However, too much would spoil a good thing so I like that they have chosen to err on the side of caution. The spice hinted at in the aroma comes out in the initial flavor even if I still can't tell exactly what it is. It's spicy, but not overly so. Again, this beer strikes a nice balance. Otherwise, the yeast is the star of the flavor show. I'm not picking up much in the way of distinct grains in the flavor profile so it's got to be the product of whatever yeast they're using. The aftertaste goes on and on. Some people don't like that sort of thing, but if it's a good taste then I'm fine with it. This is a good, complex taste. I think I even pick up some hops towards the end. It finishes as dry as the website indicates.

So is this a sessionable Belgian ale? Yes, I think so. It's got all the right Belgian notes - spiciness, higher carbonation, complex yeast flavors, etc. And it's got the lower alcohol and refreshing qualities of a British session beer. I can see having three of these in a night without feeling it too much, and that's what you are looking for in a session beer. It'd be especially great on a hot summer day. As far as I'm concerned, this is another job well done at one of my favorite local breweries.