Beers for the Holidays

The fairy beer godmother allows a 2010 Surly Darkness to be cracked.

This is my favorite time of year. The air is crisp, the skies are either bright or moodily cloudy, dried leaves scatter on the lawns and pavement like discarded confetti. Some people (a.k.a. Mr. NN) find fall a depressing time of year, a time “when everything dies.” I, however, love to throw on a comfy sweater and pour myself a glass of liquid loveliness while I sit in front of the fire. And in autumn, there are some of the best options for intriguing beverages. Summer brought us blondes and “lawn mower beers” (blechhh) and some tasty saisons — everything light and lilty. Late summer/early fall deepens the color and the flavors to mid-range Oktoberfests and pumpkin beers (“meh” on the first, yum on the second), as well as several amber beers. But come late October and through much of winter, the beers get as dark as the night (of which we now have so much more). They are malty and rich, some with an edge and many with deceptively high alcohol content to warm you on a cold night.

Here are some of the beers that have crossed my palate of late:

• Schell’s Snowstorm (2012), 7.5% ABV: Every winter, Schell puts out a seasonal entitled Snowstorm, but each year it is different. When I first tried it in 2001, it was an impressive Cherry Vanilla Porter. Last year they made it a Wee Heavy. This year Snowstorm is a Biére de Noél, a French Christmas beer. Unlike other beers that have the word “Christmas” slapped on their labels, this one is not heavy with adjunct-spices. That’s not to say that it doesn’t have a tingle of spice on the tongue at first sip, but that is an affect of the yeast that is used rather than from added spices. The website describes the flavor as “white pepper and citrus,” which is not far from what I detected. After that up front spice, it mellows into a pleasant mid-range amber-y beer. (Note: I use the term “mid-range” to cover most ambers and browns — they’re in the middle of the scale for maltiness and hoppiness, sometimes color, too.) This is a very palatable beer. Should you run out and buy a sixer? If the description sounds like what you’d like. That is to say that it falls on the mid-range of my recommendation scale, too: Decent for its style, but the style is not something that gets me excited.
• Hinterland’s Bourbon Barrel Doppelbock, 7.5% ABV: Wow! This is one you shouldrun out to get. Conveniently, it comes in a 16 oz. bottle, so you wouldn’t have to share it. A doppelbock is a dark amber German lager, stronger than a regular bock. This one was aged in bourbon barrels for ten months. Caramelly goodness plus bourbon-y zing. Hard to beat, especially if you’re in the midst of watching the Lions giving the Packers a run for their money. (Fortunately, the Packers prevailed! My charm of only drinking Wisconsin beers during Packers games worked to over-power Mr. NN’s mistake of opening a New Holland brew for the game–that’s brewed in Michigan. Hinterland is not just from Wisconsin, it’s brewed in Green Bay.)
  

  Starbartt, the Packer Gnome, grants wishes, but only if you’re drinking Wisconsin beer.

• Smokin’ Jack, 5.7% ABV: This is my new homebrew! It turned out well. Good head and head retention and a pumpkin-y aroma. The pumpkin pie spices are present up front, though not too cloying or overpowering, and then it finishes with a bit of light smokiness, just shy of kielbasa-ness. I think the flavors will meld more as it ages, but it is perfectly quaffable right now, so I’ll be bringing some with me on our Thanksgiving trip to Illinois. I’m curious how it will taste with (unsmoked) pumpkin pie.
• Surly Darkness, (2010 & 2012), 9.8% ABV: An expensive Russian Imperial stout, big and bold. The art on the bottles is all done by local artists and changes every year, though the recipe does not, as far as I know. (Just the opposite of Schell’s Snowstorm.) Yes, paying $18-19 for a bottle of beer seems like a lot, especially when you consider that there are other, cheaper Russian Imperial stouts out there. However, if you consider it like a fine wine, that is not so much to pay AND you’re supporting local businesses. The two-year aged Darkness was divine (we had it on Halloween), with the roasty edge softened. It was still BIG on flavor: toffee, dried fruits, a hint of chocolate. (Note: Unless I say otherwise, these beers do not actually contain those ingredients — they are just descriptors of the flavors.) This year’s Surly does taste “younger,” with a more pronounced kick from the dark malts and some hops peeking through, but it is still an excellent beverage to consume now. If you can still get it, buy two bottles: one for immediate consumption, the other for a year or two down the road.

So with Thanksgiving coming up in just a few days, Mr. NN and I are sifting through our beer cellar to find appropriate beers to share with family and friends. Of course, Smokin’ Jack will be coming with us, but what else? I believe we have a Two Brothers Bare Tree Weiss Wine from 2011. Hmmm….

In other news, if you’re ever in Appleton, Wisconsin, as I was last weekend, check out the Stone Cellar brewpub. It is in the basement of an actual brewery that was built in 1858 (and is presumably now haunted). It’s full of cozy atmosphere and the menu has a wide selection of English, German, and American pub fare. They brew several beers on premises, though be aware that if you go upstairs to wait in the taproom for a table, the taproom does not offer the full range of beers. I ordered the stout and the few sips of it I had were good. Why just sips? I was dealing with a tummy ailment that I later realized was probably salmonella poisoning (contracted a day or two before I went to Appleton, mind you), and beer and food were not so pleasing to my gut. Ah, well. Next time.

This year, let’s all give thanks for family, friends, and being alive in an age of wonderful beer!

The Beers of Fall

Despite the odd 80  degree day now and then, the temperature has started to plummet in Minnesota and the leaves are starting to tumble from the trees (and not just because the drought has dried them up). Now is the time that we pull out the jackets and begin to wear socks on a regular basis. Infrequent now are the salads as dinner and more commonly we turn to hot soups and stews. Beer, too, has seasons and fall is the time for the blonde ales and light “lawnmower beers” to disappear for a while and make room on the shelves for maltier, more flavorful fare.

In mid to late September, the shelves get crammed with Oktoberfest beers. Oktoberfest in September? Yes, that’s historically accurate and NOT another case of manufacturers jumping the season. (For more on the history of Oktoberfest, see my post from last year here.) I’m not a huge fan of the Oktoberfest beer (Märzen style, from the fact that such beers were brewed in March) as I tend to find them a bit sour — not Flanders red sour, but lager-y aftertaste sour, but that first sip of one after a summer of lightness…. It’s crisp and refreshing like that first autumn breeze rustling through the leaves. And you know what? I’ve been finding some of them more enjoyable than I have in the past. Of course, I’m trying out the American versions, not the authentic German varieties, so perhaps these beers have been tweaked for American palates. Here are a few Oktoberfest-style biers I’ve enjoyed this year:

• Out of New York, Schmaltz Brewing’s Coney Island Freaktoberfest. It seems like a gimmick, but it works: 6 malts, 6 hops, 6.66% ABV. And it’s red with pink foam! Because one of the six malts is rye, it has a spicier taste up front, almost grassy, but it does not lack for a solid malt backbone.
  

  Devilishly freaky

• From Illinois, Two Brothers Atom Smasher. This Märzen-style beer comes in at 7.7% ABV. It’s the expected light orange color, but it’s smoother than many Oktoberfests while still being robust. The Two Brothers website is crap, so don’t expect to find any updated info on it.
• Pennsylvania’s Victory Brewing’s Festbier. This beer sticks closer to the authentic Oktoberfest recipe and uses German malts and hops. It is 5.6% ABV, which is standard for the style. What makes it so pleasant to drink? Dunno. It’s just smooth, tasty amber goodness.

But fall is not just about Oktoberfests; there are pumpkin ales and smoked beers of all varieties. (I just brewed a smoked pumpkin ale yesterday, but that’s for another blog post.) Pumpkin beers can be hit or miss, depending on how you feel about pie spices and how the brewer balanced the pumpkin to spice ratio. Here are some worth trying:

• Sam Adams Fat Jack Double Pumpkin. Don’t look for this one in the Sam Adams sample pack; it comes in a bomber only (bomber = 22 oz. bottle). It’s 8.5% ABV, contains a hint of smoke, and the array of spices to amp up the 28 lbs. of pumpkin per barrel. Warming and rich. A good alternative to the King of Pumpkin beer…
• Southern Tier’s Pumking. This is the pumpkin ale by which all pumpkin ales should be judged. That’s why it’s the king. It is an imperial with 8.6% ABV. Have it with your pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving. Have it instead of pumpkin pie. It’s that good.
• Sam Adams Harvest Pumpkin Ale. This is a pretty standard (read: not imperial or smoked or anything else to make it stand out) pumpkin ale, but it has a decent balance between the spice and the pumpkin. Some pumpkin ales are all-spice-no-pumpkin or too subtle to be detectable. This one gets the basic pumpkin ale recipe down pat. By the way, it’s part of the Harvest Collection 12-pack, which is a respectable box to get. The Hazel Brown (actually tastes of hazelnuts!) and the Dunkelweizen are quite good. Sam Adams has been putting out some incredible beers lately, including their barrel-aged series (in barrel-shaped bottles). Well worth a look if you’ve been turning your nose up at the macro-est of breweries to appear in this blog. But heck, they sell Sam Adams at the Ale Jail, so it can hardly be called “macrocrap.”
• A Saint Paul microbrew worth trying, Flat Earth’s Mummy Train Pumpkin Ale. First of all, that’s probably the best name of any of the pumpkin beers. This one, like the Harvest Pumpkin, is a non-imperial, non-smoked regular variety of pumpkin beer. When I first tried it a couple years ago, I thought it was too spicy. The glass of it I had while brewing my own pumpkin beer, however, made me rethink it. It’s good and more balanced tan I remember. Support local brewing.

As a “buy with caution” note: Millstream Brewing’s Great Pumpkin Imperial Stout — I’m drinking it as I type this. I like it. It has flavor. Is it pumpkin-y? Not really. I certainly can’t detect the usual spices. Is it imperial? Doesn’t taste very imperial — not the strong, or even syrupy aspect of imperial stouts. Is it a stout? Hmm… it’s dark, but not really the roasty depth of a stout. Kinda chocolaty, actually. Don’t buy it thinking you’re getting a pumpkin-y treat. Buy it expecting to get a nicely flavored dark ale. It confuses me.

Which beers of the season have you been enjoying?

Happy Anni-beer-sary!

 

Warning: The contents of this bottle are frighteningly good, not to mention expensive.

 

It’s that time of year when Minnesotans anxiously watch their Twitter and Facebook feeds, ready to dash out the door at a moment’s notice. That moment came last week when bottles of Surly Sÿx hit the shelves. I was out of town, but Mr. NN was at the ready and managed to snag five bottles of the stuff from three different liquor stores. The Four Firkins reportedly sold out within two hours. As usual with these hard-to-get Surly releases, if we manage to get two, we open one to share with a friend and cellar the other. With five bottles of the stuff, a couple will probably be sold to friends who weren’t so lucky (no mark-up, of course) and maybe the remaining one will be a gift. If you are fortunate enough to be in the position to buy a bottle of  Sÿx, the question arises: Should you? Is it worth it?

The answer is: Maybe. It depends on your tastes. (How’s that for covering my bases?) Sÿx is an unusual beer, an American Strong Ale, which is not really a defined category. Instead, it refers to a variety of amped-up American beers with intense flavors and ample amounts of malt and/or hops. Surly’s sixth anniversary beer definitely hits those marks with an ABV of 15%, which would be considered high even for most wines. In addition, Sÿx is aged on six different types of wood. Cracking open a bottle with Mr. NN and a beer-loving friend, the first thing we noticed was the aroma. Sun-warmed fruit came to mind, and my friend nailed it when she declared it to be apricot. (Note: Surly did not actually add any apricots or other fruits or fruit extracts to their beer; it’s just a result of different combinations of malt, hops, and yeast.) The flavor was rich and slightly caramelly without being sweet. There was some hop presence to prevent it from being cloying. I thought I could detect the wood essence, though unlike many barrel-aged or wood-involved beers, this aspect was well-balanced. However, my companions either did not detect the woodiness or weren’t sure if what they were tasting was from the wood. This leads me to an important guideline for beer-tasting: Do not eat anything with a strong flavor before or while tasting a beer when you really want to pinpoint the flavor profile. (We were eating mildly spiced veggie bean burgers while watching the opening ceremonies for the Olympics, so depending on how much of the burger one ate or how distracted by the Olympic spectacle one was, the tasting results differed.)

So should you get it? I think so. It’s an unusual beer and a tasty and potent one, at that. Unlike Surly Five, which to me was a decent sour but had nothing to recommend it above cheaper sours, you will not readily find a beer like this on the shelves. Of course, you probably won’t find this beer on the shelves anymore anyway, but you might find someone willing to sell you a bottle on Craigslist. If that fails, the Muddy Pig in St. Paul now has it on tap.

Also celebrating their anniversary is Two Brothers Brewing out of Warrenville, Illinois. This summer they’ve been doing “15 Beers for 15 Years” where they bring back artisan beers that they brewed over the years, some in small batches. The ones I’ve had so far, Pillar of Salt and Dark Mild, were good but not exciting or terribly memorable. The Old 1713 Scotch Ale, however, is a respectable Scotch ale, coming in at 7.8% ABV. Some Scotch ales are brewed with smoked peat, which adds a hint of minerally smokiness that many enjoy. Not all Scotches have

Cheers to 15 years!

that, though, and this is one that goes in a different direction. The flavor has a hint of caramel with enough hop bitterness and medium-weight on the palate to keep it within the general style profile. Mr. NN greatly enjoyed it and found it an easy-drinking beer with enough spice and edge to be interesting on the tongue without coating or pickling it. The price point on this beer is also reasonable (in the $5-7 range), so if you like Scotch ales, it’s a low-risk purchase.

Hmm…. All this writing about anniversaries and beers has set me to thinking about my own anniversary with Mr. NN coming up in less than a month. (Seven years, baby!) I wonder what delicious wonder we will pull out of our beer cellar for the occasion….