No, I’m Not Dead!

I know, I haven’t posted anything in quite some time, but I’ve been traveling or doing something else profession-related every weekend for the past while, so once Thanksgiving is over I’ll be back in the swing of things and writing more reviews. Thanks for your patience!

Goose Island Pere Jacques

Fans of this blog know I really enjoy Goose Island’s beers, and my last special release from their brewery was probably Bourbon County Stout, a beer I absolutely love, so it is with no lack of excitement that I opened a 2008 bottle of Pere Jacques that I’ve had in the fridge forever.

Pere Jacques is a Belgian style “abbey ale,” generally thought of as a “dubbel.” Abbey ales are Belgian beers that are made in the style of the traditional Trappist ales of the Belgian monasteries, but since the brewing is not associated with the monks themselves, they are called “abbey” and not Trappist. It’s sort of the same idea that Champagne is the sparkling wine of the Champagne region of France, while similar sparkling wines are made throughout the world but aren’t technically called champagne.

In the abbey/Trappist styles, the Belgian golden ale is more or less the entry level beer. Dubbels are made with “twice as much” fermentable sugars, tripels with three times as many, quads with four… etc. Doubles and quads are usually darker amber beers while tripels and golden ales are golden and lighter in color. Doubles tend to pair well with food and, in some opinions, really need food to really shine. Because they are fairly strong and malty beers, dubbels tend to pair well with lots of foods, including roasts, grilled food, and even some spicy foods and desserts.

Pere Jacques pours a dark amber color with lots of big yeast bits floating in the beer. At 8% ABV it is no slouch in the alcohol department, and the aroma is that classic Belgian yeast earthiness with lots of caramel and some alcohol.

The flavors are definitely malt forward, bready, and some caramel with no hint of hops or bitterness. The beer has a nice mouthfeel, but I was left with a bit of a goober in the back of my throat from the sweetness, which wasn’t cloying, but was close. I detected some dark fruit early on in the flavor, too, like plums maybe? I think this would be a good beer with a cigar, actually.

Another winner from Goose Island, although for a couple bucks more for the bottle, I’d take Bourbon County anytime!

New Glarus Spotted Cow

I had no idea what to expect from New Glarus’s Spotted Cow “cask conditioned ale” when I picked up a bottle in Wisconsin last month, but I was pleasantly surprised by this tasty little beer. According to New Glarus’s website, Spotted Cow is an homage to traditional cask conditioned ales, with an ABV of only 4.8% and a “fun, fruity and satisfying” flavor profile.

I got no aroma from this beer, but again, I was drinking in little white plastic hotel cups, and I had a bit of a cold, so who knows? The beer is made from Wisconsin-grown barley, malt and even corn, and the flavor profile was definitely sweet with really no hint of hops at all. Despite this lack of hops and bitterness, and even though Spotted Cow tasted sweet to me, it wasn’t cloying or overpowering like a doppelbock usually is to me. I really enjoyed this beer and I think it’d make a great session beer.

The flavor was sweet, kind of fruity, but hard to nail down exactly what kind of fruit. It had a nice, heavy, creamy mouthfeel with low carbonation, so it was really smooth and easy to drink. Between the sweetness and the mouthfeel I almost felt like I was drinking milk! I thoroughly enjoyed Spotted Cow and wish we had it here locally for a nice session beer alternative to our own locally grown Wheat!

Capital Brewery Wild Rice Lager

Another beer review from my Wisconsin trip last month! I was very impressed by Capital Brewery’s Autumnal Fire doppelbock, reviewed previously, and the other beer I tried from them was almost the polar opposite, their Wild Rice lager.

This is one of Capital Brewery’s seasonal beers, produced for the summer of 2009. Previous to ‘09, the beer had not been produced since 2005, but I was glad they resurrected it! I don’t know what I was thinking when I picked this off the shelf… I mean, “wild rice?” An adjunct lager? I was REALLY going to take up a spot in a short bullpen with this? Well, for some reason I did, and it was a good choice!

Rice breaks down into fermentable sugars that can be used to brew beer. Big breweries use rice as an adjunct because of a clean flavor, and it’s cheap and cuts down on the amount of barley needed. Using wild rice, however, is another story altogether. Capital Brewery gets its wild rice from northern Minnesota. Wild rice is technically a grass, and brewing with it causes a pretty sticky mess. Although lightly hopped, the brewers wanted to get most of the flavor of the beer from the wild rice itself, so there is a touch of balance from the hops, but mostly the flavor is a little sweeter and very clean.

I didn’t get much aroma out of my plastic hotel glass, and I think it poured like a pilsner, with a gold color and white head. The aroma was hard for me to pick up, but my nose was working even worse than normal. I found the flavor to be sweet and a little nutty, maybe, but with a nice finish and no cloying sugars giving me goobers in the back of my throat!

I think a little balance came from the hops, and there was a tough of bitterness in the finish, but really it was an extremely easy beer to drink at 5.4% ABV and I remember thinking that this beer would be the perfect “lawnmower beer.” It was incredibly refreshing, clean, smooth and just a joy to drink. I could have used a few more that night!

Beer & Cheese, Part Two

After hitting Lukas (like I need any more beer in my house) and Whole Foods yesterday, I ended up with some decent things to eat and drink. We’ll see how they go down. First off, Shatto was there doing a cheese tasting. I’d had their cheddar cheese curds before, and they’re good, but nothing special other than being yummy. Matt (?) Shatto was at the store giving samples of 6 or 7 of their new cheeses and they were all fantastic. I LOVED the Havarti, which we bought two of, as well as one of the goudas, but the choices were tough. Actually, the Havarti was out of this world and the others were “just” great! A little pricy, but that’s life.

I was in a smoked mood for some reason, so I got a block of smoked gouda and one of smoked black pepper white cheddar, too. My GF picked up a few others.

We also picked up a cheap brie to melt in the oven, some stuff like dried sour cherries and candied pecans, etc. All good pairs for cheese, wine and beer, in my opinion.

For beers, I got a single Old Rasputin for a pittance that will go great with chocolate dessert and I think will pair awesome with the sour cherries, as well as any really hard aged cheese that may be around. I’m going to take an Avery IPA, which is a little more English style, a German Marzen (think Oktoberfest) rauchbier (smoked, which could be overkill or could be AWESOME with the smoked cheeses, we’ll find out in a little while) and I’ll take a couple cans of Moose Drool, as browns and food of almost any type, especially cheese, are usually a match made in heaven. Nothing like freaking people out at a WINE party with some CANNED BEER, too! lol

2nd Annual Wine (Beer) & Cheese Party

Try as I might, getting friends to understand that beer pairs well with food has been tough. I may need to bite the bullet and have an actual beer/food party someday (I loathe the idea of hosting a party at my house), but in the meantime, we have an annual “wine & cheese” party and I always make it a beer & cheese party for myself.

It’s the classic dilemma… marketing has programmed us to think that when “adults” have a party that wine is THE drink, especially if it’s with food, yet the foods being enjoyed (cheese, chocolate, desserts) all pair much better with beer, on average, than wine! But, programmed we are, so while I see the Matrix and know how to break free, my friends will still be trying to pair things that really just don’t go all that well together! Sheesh!

Since good cheese is on the pricy side and I am a seasoned beer buyer, I generally head to Whole Foods first to buy my cheese, then select some beers. It’s so easy with beer it’s almost ridiculous! lol If I can find a nice gouda, which WF often has, I will try to find a good rye or brown. I did Goose Island Nut Brown ale last year and it went great with dang near everything, so hopefully I can try a rye that isn’t Hop Rod Rye (more of an IPA).

The sliceable hard cheeses like cheddar will go with practically anything, so I could take a few bottles and see what strikes me… IPA, any Belgians, doppelbocks and pilsners all pair well with these cheeses.

I’m generally not into smoked beers all that much, but I might try a traditional rauchbier with a gouda, too. I wonder if smoked beer with smoked cheese would be overkill? Probably.

After I’ve done my pairings and enjoyed them, I’ll give a full review of the event and the beers and the cheeses. I really wish I had been able to bring a bottle or two of the New Glarus Tart Raspberry home with me from Wisconsin, though, as that beer would KILL with chocolate!

Central Waters Brewing Company Octoberfest

As it was the end of September when I made my trip to Wisconsin, I thought picking up a couple seasonals would be a good idea, especially an Oktoberfest or two. I chose the Central Waters Brewing Company Octoberfest out of a bunch of their beers that were available at Riley’s World of Wines, but I was unfortunately disappointed by my choice. According to what I read on BeerAdvocate, Central Waters makes some good beers, but this didn’t seem to be one of them, for me.

The Oktoberfest style is a German amber lager that was traditionally brewed in the spring, then cellared or caved during the summer and enjoyed at harvest festivals in the autumn, hence their name. There is a wide variation of Oktoberfest beers, ranging from the golden, pilsner or Helles-like beers to the more amber, fuller flavored export style. American breweries tend to use the Oktoberfest as a fall seasonal beer, and true to tradition, usually brew them bigger and stronger as they would be used as a “fest” beer (think oompa-loompa polka bands, hot German chicks in dresses with low collars and giant steins of fest beer!).

Oktoberfest beers as a whole tend to be rich and malty, but finish a little dry rather than sweet. They are lagers, so they should be clean and without much caramel or hops, but maybe a light toasty flavor.

I was drinking the Central Waters beer out of a plastic hotel cup, so I wasn’t able to enjoy the appearance of the beer. The aroma was relatively clean with plenty of biscuity, malty notes. I was quite disappointed, however, in both the watery mouthfeel of the beer as well as the strange flavor. It was unlike any Oktoberfest I’ve ever had, but not in a good way. There was some sulfur, and maybe some DMS vegetal type of flavors, maybe even some hops, but none of the richness one would expect from this style. I was highly disappointed in the Central Waters Oktoberfest, and wouldn’t luck have it that with a huge cooler full of great beers I picked a loser! On a happy note, though, the beer wasn’t pour-down-the-drain bad by any stretch (although I wouldn’t have looked forward to a second), and out of 13 beers that I drank from Wisconsin, this was the only one that was marginal, with the rest being exceptional. So, that’s not a bad track record in anyone’s book!

Autumnal Fire

Before heading to Wisconsin a few weeks ago, I got a good recommendation from the forum folks at BeerAdvocate about some of the Madison-area beers, and several people told me I just had to pick up some Capital Brewery Autumnal Fire, a legendary mid-Wisconsin seasonal. I scored a bottle at Riley’s World of Wines in Madison, WI, and it was definitely worth it!

Autumnal Fire is a doppelbock, which is a style that just hasn’t grown on me, largely because the over-the-top malt profile seems too sweet to my palate, I think. This beer becomes available in September in the brewery’s distribution area, so my bottle was nice and fresh on the first day of October.

I can definitely say this is the best doppelbock I’ve ever had. It was sweet, malty, bready, but there was a little hops somewhere in that flavor, too, to balance it all out and either the hops, the alcohol, or both, dried out the flavor enough that I didn’t feel like I was sipping straight wort!

I can’t say much about the way it looked as I was drinking it in a hotel plastic cup, but the aroma was bready and malty and the mouthfeel was really rich and nice.

This was a real winner and great recommendation from the friendly Wisconsin folks on BeerAdvocate! I hope I get to go around the same time again next year and get some more of this!

KC Beerfest & Cabaraoke

Hopefully you’re planning on coming out to hang with us at KC Beerfest in a little while. If you need a designated driver, go in style with Cabaraoke! Full-service cab (actually a sweet van!) all set up for karaoke so you can ride and sing, then watch your videos later! I promise you, you’ll have fun in Cabaraoke!

KC Beerfest Tomorrow!

Remember, KC Beerfest is TOMORROW, Saturday Oct. 17 @ the Legends. BE THERE OR BE SQUARE!