903 The Land of Milk and Honey

One of the perfect tests of the quality of a beer is how enjoyable it is while playing with your dog.  It is sunny and beautiful out today, I have a new and exciting beer to try, and my dog has a new toy that she loves.

Meet 903 Brewers The Land of Milk and Honey, a golden stout made with lactose and local honey from Sherman, Texas.  I'd never heard of a "golden stout" before, so I was intrigued when I saw this one winking at me from the shelf at my local.  I'd also never heard of 903 Brewers or Sherman, Texas either. 

This guy is mmmmmaaaaaaaalllllty and golden.  Chewy with a sharpness and sweetness you don't expect.  They nailed it with the name, The Land of Milk and Honey.  I've monkey'd around with adding lactose and honey to beers before, and it was a touchy process, easy to get wrong.  903 got it right.  This is a tasty tasty beer.  I'd buy a sixer and kick all my friends out so they couldn't have any.  I'm sold, you're sold, everybody now agrees: this is a solid booze.  You heard it here first, from my can to your eyes.

"Sure, it's a good beer," you say, "but how good is it when you're playing with your dog?"

Best Dog Ever

That's the real question before us today.  I'll address this by breaking the question down into its constituent parts: Does it slow you down?  How's the can feel in your hand while your dog scrabbles at a large hard plastic ball?  Does spilling a bit make you feel worse than playing with a dog makes you feel good?  Is it too hot out to be hopping around drinking a creamy sweet stout?  Why is this dog sooooo much better than every other dog?

I can say with some certainty that drinking this beer while kicking a ball around with my dog does not slow me down in any way.  As an out-and-proud Hobbled-American, I would have a hard time moving any slower than is my standard speed, which is glacial.  With the generous application of beer, however, and the predatory happy eyes of a puppy about to play, I was definitely moving at a far greater clip than normal.  I was emboldened by the booze, and prompted by the puppy.  I flew like a stumbling awkward wind, flitting from left leg to left leg, flopping in a carmagnole of clownish physicality.  So, I got that going for me.  The beer passes the first test.

The can has a good hand-feel.  The aluminum is pliable and firm.  These qualities allowed be to tighten or loosen my grip as needed.  Tighter for when the dog got crafty and tried to run the ball around my feet.  Looser for when I wanted to take a sip of the delicious nectar, tipping it back and up to my face, making me look awesome (like a Diet Coke commercial).  I enjoy this can, it works as a supple skin containing and freeing my sweet sweet beer, shepherding it along its journey to mah belly.  Pass!

As to the third question: I don't spill beer.  Also, by dog makes me infinitely happy.  Pass (by default).

71 degrees and partly cloudy.  The beer came straight from the fridge.  The dog was room temperature.  The ball was cool at first, but later warmed with the sun and doggy drool.  It all worked out just fine. Pass!

Finally, the dog is best because she is Tofu, and she is mighty!

Samuel Adams Honey Queen Braggot

I think we can all agree that Samuel Adams beers have had their day in the sun of craft brewing but are now fully part of the big beer establishment.  That's not say that there is anything wrong with a cold Sammy-A, they're usually just fine, not that I'm gonna grab a cold six any time soon.  So, yeah... I'm kind of surprised to see anything from Sam Adams in this blog.

Here's what happened: I was at the store, minding my own business, slobbering over the beer section at my local, when suddenly I see this weird bee-chick who is either calling me a, or identifying herself as, a "Braggot".  I don't know what I, or she, did to deserve this insult, but I do know that I would have spelled it "braggart".  Being so insulted and misspelled, I purchased this (*gasp*) Samuel Adams beer.  What choice did I have?

The label has all this bee-stuff on it, and a saucy lady giving me a "come hither" look (but she's covered in bees, so that's not gonna happen).  I like the wacky "Honey Queen" name.  The art is fun.  The back of the label has some words in a pleasing font.  All that stuff is pretty great.  So, Sam Adams name aside, I'm thinking this could be a fun beer.

Also, I looked it up, and, according to the internets, a "braggot" isn't an insult or a typo.  Who knew?

You'll never guess what this Honey Queen beer tastes like.  Go on, try.  Wrong! It tastes like honey.  A shit-load of honey.  Somewhere, there must be a field of small eviscerated plastic bears, because, wow, honey.  In fact, if I was the kind of guy who really talked himself up and commented often about my superiority, I might say my better-than-average sense of taste tells me that this stuff is like half beer and half mead.  I might point out how I, and I alone, can pick up on the distinct honey-up-front, beer-at-the-rear combo act of flavor.  That's just the kind of thing a braggot might do.  Lot's of honey, followed by beer, is all I'm sayin'.

It's pretty tasty, too.  A bit candy-sweet for my taste, but not at all bad.  I think I might have preferred just a 12oz bottle.  1 pint 6oz is a long way to the bottom for something this syrupy and rich.  I can see the broader appeal, and I'm sure many people will enjoy the crap out of this, but I think I'm gonna need some tums or something in a bit.  I am, as you know, a delicate flower.  At this moment, I am a delicate flower that is reminded why I prefer malt sugars to honey sugars.  Malt sugars aren't candy-like.  So, while I certainly like this braggot, I would really rather have a stout.

Personal tastes aside, I feel that I owe Samuel Adams, and, by extension, the Samuel Adams Brewery (a.k.a Boston Beer Co.), a nod for taking a risk, and making something that is far more interesting than it is marketable.  Way to go, you corporate beer shills, you really grew a pair with this and took back a cup-full of your Boston pride.  So what if it won't fly off the shelves, or start a new craze, you tried something different.  I'm proud of you.

But, I'm still not going to buy a six pack of your beers or one of your hoighty-toighty glasses.  I've got my pride too.

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.

Les Fleurs Du Mal

Les Fleurs Du Mal (The flowers of Evil)

What a name!  And its got skulls on it, and a scribbly pen kind of text, and crappy flower drawings, and "evil"!   Ooooooh... Stick a fork in me.  Make it a pitchfork.  Taking this guy off the shelf was a no-brainer, it looks way cool.  So, who wants to try a "saur" beer?  

Les Fleurs Du Mal, from New Braunfels Brewing Company.  16.9 oz, 5.74%ABV.  Honey-straw in color with a pleasing but brief head. Hefenweizen? Saur ale?  Saur wheat ale?  I dunno, s'beer I think.

I love the name of this beer.  The design of the label is pretty kick-ass, too.  Tucked up on the left edge of the label it says, "sans cesse a mes cotes s'agite le demon" or, according to Google translate, "always by my side stirs the demon."  Then, like I said, about the skulls and inky pen letters, and half-assed flowers, it is mostly good good stuff.  Even the company logo is pretty spiffy.  But they ruin it with some bull-shit text about good and evil, and why they put lemongrass in the beer.  I read it, and now I am questioning the way I decide to spend my time.  I won't write it out, but it's crap (there is a picture at the bottom, but don't look at it).  Also, it has some weird capitalization choices going on.  I've spent some time looking at it now, and all I can see is that stupid blah-blah crap now.

For context, New Braunfels is a dull town.  Once a year they have an out-of-this-world pork chop on a stick, but the rest of the time, its is just a bathroom-stop on the way somewhere better.  So, I can understand if they were bored and thought no one would notice the vomit-stain of text on part of the label.  Still, though... what a way to ruin an otherwise terrific label.  I'm not trying to insult New Braunfelians, mind you.  Those people know they live in a shit-hole tourist trap.  Power to 'em, I say.  I'll even grant you they have some very accommodating bathrooms located right off the highway.  All the same, making poor decisions about where to live does not excuse polluting an otherwise solid beer label with that crap.  

The beer, though... the beer is surprisingly drinkable.  I'm not usually a fan of the sour beers, but kudos to those guys.  Sip one was a bit of a punch, but this stuff grows on you super quick.  It has this kind of floral sweet/tart thing going.  There is very little of what I usually go for in a beer to be found in this bottle, but, damn, I really like it.  It isn't so much a contemplative beer as it is a fantastic beer for just tasting.  It makes you want to be a snotty-snot and start talking about hints of this and notes of that.  I'm feeling excited to get to glass 2, and I can't even blame the wimpy ABV.  Still, as much as I am enjoying this, I think I might enjoy it more if I was illiterate.  I really hate that stupid text block.  I should keep drinking and see what happens.

Glass 2 and the snotty-snot tasting time.  First the smells: a big sour tinge, just after the sour comes a mildly floral balsamic vinegar, then a bit of that lemongrass they ham-fistedly mentioned.  Now the taste: cool and tingly bubbles become dried apricots and sour cherry, then a wave of vinegar, all while honey sits Fonzie-esque in the back and just hints at its presence.  All of this happens in a field of summer wild flowers while eating a caprese salad.  I know that right now, you and I both kind of want to punch me in the face for saying that, but try the beer.  It could make a lousy poet out of anyone.  The overall effect of a sip of this beer is an electrical storm on a sunny day.  Maybe that is why they throw out all this "evil" and flowers with skulls.  It makes a kind of sense.

I gave this brewery a lot of crap about their label and about being from New Braunfels, but, to be fair, they deserved it.  However, they have made a really good beer.  It is a saur that I could drink a six pack of (if it comes in six packs).  The last time I had a saur beer I would have liked to kill it with fire, also the saur before that, and the one before that too.  Me and this beer, thought, we're friends.  Despite our many faults we like each other and get along great.  Way to brew New Braunfels!  I wonder if they would let me visit the brewery?  I bet their bathroom is great.