Erdinger Weissbrau Weizen Kristall

Wooooo! Beer!  You love it.  I love it.  We both love it.  But I love it better.  I blog love beer.  And one of my favorite kind-a beers, my best go-to beers, is a German Reinheitsgebot compliant weissbrau.  If I see a new one on the shelf at the store, I must have it.  Because I love it, and it loves me.  So lets get to it!

Erdinger Weissbrau Weizen Kristall, 1pint 9 oz, 5.3% ABV, from Erding, Germany.  Straw yellow and foamy for a minute and a half.  It's real pretty.

First it looks good, then the familiar aroma shows up one step ahead of the beautiful cold malty sweet wonder that the Germans deliver so well.  A funny thing happens when you take that first sip; your day gets better.  A good beer can make a crap day, better.

This beer, it isn't special, not particularly.  But it is good.  I don't know how a Kristall is in any way different from a Hefeweizen, and, thankfully, I don't care right now.  I'm just enjoying how this (not particularly special) beer is making my day particularly special.  You know what I mean.  You love beer too.

I don't think I'd buy 6 of these.  Bringing some to a party also seems wrong somehow.  If I hadn't picked up this beer to blog about, I might never have given it anything more than a happy thought for 1 pint and 9oz of my time.  All the same, my experience with this beer is summed up in this blog, and the next time I see this beer at a store, it will take me back to this moment.  This not special but good beer will, for me, remain locked in this blog.  I won't buy it again.  I will see it, remember what it was like to drink it and write about it, smile, and be inspired to try something else new and unfamiliar.  Because, like you, I love beer.

Buffalo Bayou Brewing Co. Black Raz

A few months back, I was at Wright Bros. Brew and Brew killing some time.  They usually have one or two interesting and unique selections on their board, and that day they had a Chai Porter.  Seemed interesting, I gave it a shot.  It blew my feeble mind!  I had at times imagined a chai beer, even tried to brew my own once, but I was unsuccessful at realizing this chimera.  Buffalo Bayou, however (and despite being in Houston), managed to do the improbable.  So, I decided to try one of their other offerings today.  I make a lot of questionable decisions.

Fantastic art and a black wax neck on a 1 pint bottle.  The label yammers politely about raspberries, cherries, vanilla, and dark chocolate.  8% ABV.  Dark brown and mostly opaque.  No head to speak of (so we won't speak of it).

Instead, let us speak of bitter fruits and chocolate.  It is a famous combo and has a lot going for it.  Is it what you might call "beer appropriate", though?  I'm not so sure it is.  I take a sip and taste the ras-cherry.  It is bitter (IPA bitter).  Then the chocolate steps up, mellow and smooth (think Miles Davis).  I dunno if I would choose to drink an IPA while listening to Miles.  I think he deserves a heavy stout or a barrel aged porter.  But, then I take another sip and change my mind.  Suddenly it tastes great pretty good.  Then crap.  Then great.  Then lousy.  And now I'm just confused.

If there was a time for this phrase, now is it: This beer is some tasty shit.  It is seriously either a decent good beer, or mediocre crap.  I think it's both.

I say that, but... I'm almost through with this bottle.  Pouring and drinking.  Sipping and writing.  I guess that I just don't know.  Is this what a challenging beer tastes like?

"I guess that I just don't know."

~V. Underground & J. Dodson

You should go buy a bottle and give it a swill.  Let me know if you think it's decent, because I'm confused.  Is this a good beer?

The bottle is pretty cool, though.  I like the wax, especially.

De Proef Brouwerij Saison Imperiale Belgian Farmhouse Ale

So, I hear this story about how farmhouse saison ales were originally made to give to the field hands as part of their pay.  You know, hot day, long hours, give 'em a bucket of beer, pay 'em, and everyone is happy.  That sounds like a good deal to me.  I wish I got a bucket of beer at the end of my work day.  I do question how much beer farmers had on hand, though.  Even if you're just hiring 5 or 6 folks to slap your rutabagas, it takes a hell of a stash of beer to give out 5 or 6 buckets of it a day, every day, each rutabaga slapping season.  So, maybe the story I heard is kinda bullshit.  Who knows?

Come to think of it, who cares?  Why do I give a rutabaga slap about why this beer was made when I could just be drinking it?

From the Brewmaster Collection, De Proef Brouwerij Saison Imperiale Belgian Farmhouse Ale, from Lochristi, Belgium.  750ml bottle.  8.5% ABV.  Slightly cloudy, darkish brown caramel color, solid head, and bottled up with a hugely obnoxious synthetic cork that does NOT want to exit the bottle.

I like it.  It's rich and flavorful, with lots of sweet malt, honey, some herbalness, and a present (but not excessive) hops.  Most saisons, and most farmhouse ales, are hopped to rat-shit hell.  This one shows restraint.  This one recognizes that not everyone want to have a nettle and beer-salad.

Omar says it is "kinda bland, not real note-worthy" and the head died too quick for his taste.  Omar don't take no shit off'a no beer.

Maybe he's right.  I was looking forward to trashing a farmhouse saison, but,with this one, I can't.  For a traditionally big beer, this is pretty small, so there isn't much to get worked up about.  It's like the beer is teasing me or trying to lure me in.  This beer is a trap!

OK, the movies say that the first step in avoiding a trap is knowing it exists.  I gotta tread carefully with this beer.  First I'll establish trust and diffuse the situation with my smarm.  Wow! What a boffo beer!  I really like it.  It isn't wimpy or a shameful representation of its pedigree at all.  Next, I'll distract it.  Look over there! It's Batman... and he's got a great pair of tits!  Finally, the for the home stretch, I'll make sure it can never trap anyone else ever again.  By drinking it.

That's the funny thing about trying new beers: you're taking a big risk.  Maybe you'll get lucky and have a fantastic new brew to slug down, or maybe the beer will be a depraved bottle of pure evil.  You can't know until you try.

This is why beer-drinking is the greatest and most dangerous of all adventures.  Mountain climbers know how their mountain is shaped and can plan their routes.  Explorers can study maps and encyclopedias for months before ever leaving their living rooms.  Astronauts have teams of great minds planning for every possible problem they might encounter.  But we beer drinkers, we hoppy few, we fans of brewers, we are the only true adventurers left.  What starts out as payment for murdering vegetables can eventually become a deceitful bottle of sweet malty lies.  Could NASA's wizards have foretold that?

Meanwhile, we sober on.  One bottle to the next.  We are adventurers, we are farmers, we are drinkers, one and all.

Strange Land Brewery Atholl Brose Scotch Ale

Well, holy shit, that's a good beer.  It's sweet and malty.  It chews back at you like you were making out with a starving hyena.  It comes in a big damn bottle, so there's plenty more.  Nice friggin' work, whoever-the-hell Strange Land Brewery is!

OK, so look at this picture over here.  Burn the label art into your memory banks, hard drives, cloud servers, and gelatinous meat-brains.  Now go buy some.  Then drink it.

Assuming you followed my instructions, you are now a much happier person.  A happier person who is currently enjoying a bouquet of fancy flavors like fresh bread, sweet honey, caramel, raisins, and fuckin' good beer.

Here are a few fact about this beer and how much I give damn about each of them: my bottle came from batch #2 (I don't give a shit), it is bottle conditioned (more fun than being gassed, but I don't care), it derives its name from a whiskey which derives its name from when the Earl of Atholl poisoned a well (OK, I actually think that is pretty cool, but it has nothing to do with enjoying this beer), it registers a fancy 16 IBUs (part of my brain just hanged itself out of boredom), 8.9% ABV (good to know, but not impressive enough of a number to make me care), and it says it is "hand crafted" (... just fuck that guy, to whoever spawned that bullshit phrase).  I hope you learned something about this beer from those facts, and I hope you learned something about skipping the trivia and just drinking the damn beer, too.  Drinking beer is a good thing, maybe the best of things.

I'm two glasses into this beast of a 22oz bottle, and the going is getting rough.  Sure, I've had four beer earlier today, but not within the last hour.  Yes, I ate a big tasty cheeseburger and fries for dinner.  Certainly I'm feeling shooting pains down my arm.  Dammit, I'm short of breath.  And, of course, I'm dizzy and nauseous.  But, none of that is important right now.  The most important thing right now is to keep drinking my tasty tasty beer. It is a struggle, but I'll stiffen my lip, gird my loins, stand up straight, clutch my chest, and soldier right on down to the bottom of this glass!  It's gonna be a long trip though.

As good as this beer is, and despite my normal position that a good beer should be horded, this would be a great bottle to share with a friend.  You'll both have plenty of tasty drinky-booze but not enough to land you in the cardiac wing.  It would be great shared between two people on a comfy couch watching some baaaaad asssssss blacksploitation cinema or a grainy kung-fu, Shaw Brothers epic.  Try it, you'll see.

This beer has balls, but it also has class.  If you've been jonesing to swallow some classy balls then this is just the thing for you.  So, go on, get out of here.  Have some fun.  Drink too much.  Take a cab to the bedroom and watch the world spin.  Do me a favor, though: when you're drunk and talking too loud, don't turn to a stranger near you and slur loudly, "Atholl Brose".  I like your nose just fine the way it is now.