Hitachino Espresso Stout

Japan is known for hyper-violent animated porn and genuinely shitty beer.  Very much a land of contradictions.  A friend of mine had a chance to drink his way through a number of craft breweries in Tokyo recently, and assures me that the Japanese are both excellent brewers and world class drinkers.  So, here I sit with an espresso stout from Ibaraki, Japan.  I wonder how it will go.

Hitachino Nest Espresso Stout from Kiuchi Brewery in Ibaraki, Japan.  Mostly dark with minimal head.  11.2 oz bottle.  7% ABV.  There is a psychedelic owl on the label.

The first sip did not go well.  Sure, plenty of solid coffee.  Mucho malty, too.  But thin!  Why did they make it thin?  The obnoxious pricks I aspire to drink like would refer to this thinness as "mouth feel".  They might say that this has wimpy mouth feel.  Because it does.  A bevy of really solid flavors fall sadly flat and seem watered down.  Right now, I am just so upset with Japan that I need a drink.  As luck would have it, I've got a beer right here, and it seems to be helping.  Isn't that strange?  Maybe that acid-trip owl has managed to blend such solid flavors with so decent an ABV, that my standards are being simultaneously lowered and raised.  I feel cheap and used, and I'm strangely comfortable with that.

By glass two, I am drinking coffee that had a beer dipped in it.  This is a good thing.  I like coffee.  I like beer, too.  Suddenly, I'm happy.  Suddenly, I think my friend may have been telling the truth about beer in Japan.  Perhaps they are on to something over there.  Buuuuuut, I wish they would put more oomph into it.  There are those contradictions again.  A great tasting beer that wants to deliver (really really wants to) but is practically designed fall short.

I like this beer.  At some point, I'm sure I'll try many other beers from this brewery.  It really is a shame, though.  The "almost there" factor is so noticeable and unavoidable.  You know how if your ear itches, you could be having the time of your life, but it will be the time of your life with an itchy ear?  It's like that.  I want to move past that thinness and just enjoy the deliciousness, but I can't.  I must take the good with the blah.  Still, there is far more good than blah.  I say you should try this beer, but take it with a grain of salt.

Deus Brut des Flandres

This week's beer was generously donated by Diego, because he thinks that I'm cheap.  I don't think I'm cheap, just low rent.  So, he squandered $34 on a fancy bottle of Deus Brut des Flandres.  It comes with a leaflet collared to its neck, which details in 3 languages how to serve this beer-of-beers.  I wonder if I am fancy enough for a beer like this, or if Diego (and the old gypsy woman) was right.

First, I should tell you about the bottle.  It is a really majestic bottle, no doubt.  Its shape is that of a champagne bottle for reasons to be made clear.  The label is styled to evoke the look of European wine labels.  I guess that may be a very American observation, and, if so, deserves extra credibility because 'Murica!  Fuck, yeah.  As you can see from the pictures, the label does feature many of the stylistic bells and whistles one might expect from an old-world booze label.

The full text of the name is pretty impressive, "Beyond The Best of Deus Brut des Flandres, Cuvee Prestige 2011"  What balls!  Seriously, that's like just hanging a pair of nuts on the bottle.  The back label talks about how it is bottled in Belgium, then shipped to France for the "traditional 'remuage' and 'degorgement'."  I could look those words up, but the internet is difficult and filled with kitties and porn.  Everything about the bottle is designed to ask the shopper, could this bottle be worth $34?

So, Diego bought it for me, I took it home, shoved it in the fridge over night, and pulled it out today to do some drinking.  Before I get to the drinking, though, I had to read the leaflet.  I'd hate to drink it wrong, after all.  The leaflet has two points to make: one, this beer has been very carefully treated like a bottle of old-school champagne, double fermented, bottled, aged, spun daily, de-yeasted, and re-bottled just for me, and, two, serve chilled.  Not just a little chilled, either, chilled like a son of a bitch.  Specifically, 6-12 hours in the fridge, then either 10 minutes in an ice bucket or 20 minutes in the freezer, finally poured "gently" into chilled fluted glasses, with the bottle re-chilled between pours. Now, there it sits, in my chilled, fluted, fancy-pants glass, and here I sit, hoping that with my first sip, I will grow a tweed jacket with elbow patches.

I tasted it.  It is light, sweet, sparkly, yeasty, and pretty fun.  No spontaneous tweed yet, sadly, but not a bad sip of beer.  I still feel more like Xander than Jiles.  That's not such a bad thing, but an auto-Jiles elixir would be pretty awesome.  I could compare it to a cross between champagne and a malt-martini, but that just sounds gross.  Its not gross, its good.  The intent of the brewers was an aperitif or dessert beer.  The sweetness certainly makes that the right direction.

This is the kind of beer that you don't just drink, but sip and stare at in the glass.  You thoughtfully watch the bubbles and try to decide what you think of it.  Part of you kind of just wanted a damn beer and what the hell is this shit, but at the same time, you kind of dig it.  Sure, its different, not what you expected.  Do you like it?  Hate it?  By this point, you are on your second glass, and when the shit did that happen?  You finish that glass and the next, but you still don't know how you feel.  So, there you are, staring at bubbles hurrying up to the top of a straw yellow liquid, trying really hard not to think it looks way too much like urine, wondering if you like this beer or not.  The answer is, yes you like it.  If you didn't spit it out at the first sip, then, yeah, you like it.  Maybe grudgingly, maybe outright, but you do like it.

That is where I fall on this beer.  I like it.  I'm not 100% sure why I like it, but I'm several glasses in with no regrets.  It was fun to be extra fussy about chilling and pouring it.  Also, Diego was the chump that paid for it, so even better.  You'd have to be some kind of chump to pay $34 for this stuff and not even taste it for yourself.  #DiegoRules

I don't know how it got into the glasses, but I'm glad it did.  I think.

Save The World Agnus Dei

When presented with the opportunity, sometimes it is appropriate to Save the World.  Of course, by that, I mean drink a beer.  That's gonna be my contribution.  You're all very welcome.

Save The World Brewing Co., of Marble Falls, TX, Agnus Dei, Witbier Ale.  22 Fl. oz., 5.7% ABV.  Pale yellow and delightfully foamy.

The label: you can look at it.  Its fine.  The backstory: "agnus dei" means "the lamb of god" aaaaaaand, I don't care.  The beer: FUCKS YEAH! I mean it, plural.  I'm diggin' it.

First off, go buy this beer.  Also, drink it once you own it.  Do you like wheat beer?  Good.  Go buy this one a lot.  It has flavors, and tastes, and its pretty, and frothy-frothy, and ooooooooo...  Plus, secondly, I seriously like a solid wheatbeer, or witbeir, or whatever.  I don't care.

Some beers are like that.  Just shut-up-and-enjoy-it kind of beer.  You know what I mean?  Like a sunset or a particularly grand vista that demands you simply enjoy it.  It doesn't have to be rare or even unique, simply of a certain quality.  And, as if you hadn't guessed, this is that.  It has what you want in a wheatbeer.

Contrary to brewery belief, drinking this probably won't save the world, but can you really afford to take the chance?  Seems kind of irresponsible of you.  You will enjoy the beer, though, so, come on, tiger, let's do this.

Yeah, so seriously, go nuts.

That's it.

Fulers Vintage Ale 2013

Some beers deserve a label with lots of flash and scripty fonts, maybe a seal, or even a special box with an insert.  Some beers get those things even if they don't deserve them.  Most beers come in a six-pack.  Personally, I think almost all beer should just come in six-packs.  Not as a reflection of quality or out of a desire to chug numerous bottles, but because beer is good and best when shared.

Fullers Vintage Ale 2013, 1pt. 0.9 fl/oz.  8.5% ABV.  From Fuller Smith & Turner Griffin Brewery, London.  Honey amber with a gentle froth.

I saw this box with this beer selling for about 10 bucks, and I figured, with packaging like that, it must be worth a try.  So, surprisingly, I tried it.  I'm one glass in already, and what I want to decide about this beer is if it deserves all that packaging.  One box with two labels, an insert describing previous vintage ales, a bottle with two labels, and inside all that, a beer.

The beer, so you know, is pretty tasty.  I has a rich metallic-caramel flavor with layers and waves of banana, yeast, malt, and an acidic tinge.  Reading that back, it sounds awful, but, in reality, it is tasty.  Square that with your brain how you can.  I like tasty beer, for obvious reasons, but I have had truly beautiful beer in the past.  This ain't that.

I hope to examine this beer's layers of point-of-sale marketing, judge each element's merit, and ultimately decide where the whole thing falls on a scale of gilded-lily to polished-turd.  With that in mind, lets talk about packaging, pomp-deservedness, and whether pigs have wings.

Starting with the innermost layer, THE BOTTLE:

The brown glass bottle is shaped in what could be regarded as a familiar English style, with its bumpy, quasi-dumbbell body and stubby-fallace neck.  Of course it is.  This makes perfect sense and is even expected from an old British brewery, and is neither a gilded-lily or a polished-turd.

The front label could be described as efficient.  A tall oval with charcoal, pale tans, splashes of Merlot red, and just a few touches of gold foil, gives the drinker all the basic information: what you are drinking, how much of it did the bottle start out with, who made it, and finally, this individual beer's production number.  It is the production number that gives me pause.  I don't plan to keep this beer or even just the bottle.  I have no intention of showing it off to my friends.  It can't be resealed and trotted out at special occasions.  Also, I'm pretty sure it will fail to appreciate in value.  So, why should I care what specific number of this limited edition I am drinking?  Why would anyone care?  Maybe if I let the media know that I am currently drinking No.109166, they will dispatch a news crew, but I doubt it.  To be fair, though, if I were releasing a limited edition of anything, I also might reasonably number the individuals.  Pride?  Practical?  Bragadocio?  Given that this label is already partly gilded, and the numbering only comes off a bit as flash-for-flash-sake, I'll call the front label about 90% gilded-lily.

The back label is a very different story.  In stark contrast to the front label's efficiency, the back label is a mess of text blocks and governmental mandates.  It reminds me of the climax of the movie Titanic, with a small raft covered in something fancy but uninteresting surrounded by ham-fisted warnings about choices and consequences and some banal prattle. I respect the mandate to include many of these bits, but this at least 95% polished-turd.

Finally, the seal and cap deserve a comment.  The cap is pleasantly marked gold on black with the Fuller's gryphon, which is pretty cool.  Sadly, the sticky seal completely obscures it.  The seal just reminds us, again, that this is the 2013 limited edition.  To the seal's credit, it was super fun to open the bottle through the seal.  It felt momentous and was wholly unnecessary, but kind of cool.  We'll call the cap a given (I'm glad it wasn't a cork) and just judge the seal.  This beer in no way needs a seal.  100% polished-turd.

How about THE BOX:

The box is nicely made and tastefully appointed.  It feels good in the hand and invites the eye to read its labels.  Somebody at Fuller's deserves a "kudos" for this box.  A box on a beer shelf has a siren's song for any booze-voyager.  It is a mystery and a gamble, calling us to find out for ourselves what treasures or traps might be hidden inside.  The labels on the box are slightly slicker versions of the labels on the bottle, the fronts are both pleasant, but the back label on the box is a vast improvement on its bottle sister.  But, does this beer deserve such a grand enticement?  No.  The beer may be tasty, but that doesn't really justify the box, does it?  There are lots of excellent beers, even limited edition beers without boxes.  While the box is very well executed, it is also just one more thing to recycle later.  Being kind-of-bullshit and kind-of-tribute, the box is 50% gilded-lily and 50% polished-turd.

Finally that little INSERT:

The insert is a little, four-page, single fold scrap I just happened to notice, like an awful toy at the bottom of my beer-cereal box.  It takes a moment to describe the vintage ale series and the previous iterations going back to 1997.  I started reading it.  I did not finish reading it.  Not only was it very dull, but it is also very pointless.  I cannot go and find these past beers.  Surely no average customer has kept them in anticipation of some future special occasion.  So, why do I care?  In a series of limited edition serieses (probably a real word), shouldn't I expect variations and distinctions?  I don't need to know what they are for any reason I can think of.  All the same, I suppose the maker of the serieses has a right to be proud of the current series and view it in context of its predecessors.  In the end, this is a tasty beer, but no so tasty that I want to break out its family photo album.  99% polished-turd.

CONCLUSION:

Don't pay for one of these beers with your own money.  Don't try to impress others by buying them one of these beers with your own money.  However, if someone buys you one of these, you will enjoy a pretty good beer.  If they start to tell you all about it, give you its individual series number, show you the box, and yammer on about the previous 18 versions, do slowly back away and try not to make eye-contact.  There is way more polished-turd to this beer than gilded-lily.

Rahr & Sons Snowmageddon

Why can't we all celebrate an horrible even with a commemorative beer?  It seems so natural, so perfect... a Falling Off the Lager, I Burned Down the Farmhouse Ale, or maybe a Nuclear Fallout Framboise.  This is a great idea, and, maybe, if all the children of the world join their hands and voices we can create a catastrophe large enough to justify a really really good beer!  Mull it over and get back to me.

Rahr & Sons Snowmageddon, an oatmeal stout.  9% ABV, 55 IBU, 1 pint 6 oz (650 ml).  Brewed in Fort Worth, Texas.  One of the "To Thee Series".  Very dark brown, no head (which is dissapointing, 'cause a big frothy head would be awesome for a beer called Snowmageddon).

I don't know if your beers normally talk to you.  Perhaps they do.  Perhaps they tell you to burn things?  Perhaps you have a psychological problem and should seek professional help.  I, however, am fine.  Beer talks to me because I am special.  It reminds me what an excellent dancer I am, and how well I rock a pair of hot pants (Thomas knows what I'm talking about, he's the king of hot pants).  The 9% ABV of this beer told the squiggly lines on the label to regale me with a story from back at the turn of the decade.  It spins yarns about a mighty snow fall sent by the devil herself!*  It seems this demon powder tried to kill all the beer that year, and collapsed the roof of the brewery.  The mob was incensed and took up pitchfork and torch, fighting back the white mass to drag free the bloody and battered brewerizing metal automatons to relative safety.*  From the wreckage a single baby beer was found, bringing shit-facedness to all the good boys and girls.*  Now, every year, on the anniversary of that she-demon blizzard, Snowmageddon reappears, resplendent in spandex and glitter, to lay a boozy smooch on all who believe in it!*  And that, children, is the story of Snowmageddon (give or take a detail or two).

"Austin, what does this beer taste like?" you ask.  Well, I am getting to that.  Calm down, have a drink and I'll tell you.  This beer tastes good.  Most oatmeal stouts involve something of a gut-punch, but this little fella is smooth and yummy.  I want to dip cookies in it.  I should make cookies.**  There is a creamy smoothness that carries a rich malt and yeastiness.  The light fizz keeps the metallic tinge company through the lips and over the tongue.****

I am distracted.  Simon and Garfunkel are keeping rhythm for me while I write this, but, rather than staying in the background, they are completely setting the mood for this beer.  Between the high ABV and The Boxer, the smooth malt and Mrs. Robinson, the rich creamy texture and The Only Living Boy in New York, I find a shift in my mood from delightfully silly to full-blown karaoke.  Don't even try to tell me that karaoke isn't a feeling.*****

The Snowmageddon is a versatile beer, it would seem.  A great many beers have an ideal setting or situation.  They invoke a narrow gestalt, be it that ideal sunset on the porch with the pooch, or the elbow-to-elbow bar beer.  Not so with this'n.  This'n****** is a nearly any-time beer.  Unless it is Miller-Time, in which case everyone who isn't Venkman can just go shoot themselves in the face.  It is not a surprising beer for some unexpected flavor or gimmick.  What it is, is a well constructed oatmeal stout, the flavors are traditional for a powerful bold stout and the it embraces the chewy character of the oatmeal stout.  It stops short of cudgeling you in the face with dense and boozy beer fists like some imperial stouts might, and remains absolutely drinkable.  Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't cap off a 5k run with one, but generally speaking, f' yeah, pour away.

The guys up at Rahr & Sons, they make a consistently good beer.  I like what they do.  This one however, this little-magic-baby Snowmageddon, they knocked out of the park.  I'm glad their roof caved in and destroyed their brewery; it gave me this glass of beer.  So, it was totally worth it.  Can't wait for next years visit from the Snowmageddon.  Also, if you are still unconvinced, each bottle has an hundred dollar bill in it!*

*Indicates a high likelihood of bullshit on my part, not to be confused with reality.

**I plan to make cookies later.***
***No, you can't have any of my cookies.
****Did you finish it in your head?  I did.
*****Neither is sobriety, it seems.
******Sprinkle this contraction liberally in your conversations for the respect of your peer group.

Smuttynose S'Muttonator Double Bock

A ram and a baby seal walk into a glass... no, wait... I screwed it up.

Rams are funny lookin', baby seals make me want to join a club, and a double bock makes me want to drink.  Combine all three and you have yourself a beer!  OK, just the last one means you have a beer, but the ram and seal don't hurt. Trust me, I've checked.  Plus, the ram has this silly smushed-back face and a tail that looks suspiciously like the artist got away with painting a dick on the label (way to go, that person).  I can't be certain, but the seal looks like he just watched the artist get away with this exposure, too.  That seal knows, man.  He knows.

This week I'm downing a Smuttynose Brewing Company (from Hampton, NH) double bock delightfully called, S'Muttonator!  Dun, dun, dunnnnnnnnn...  It has a hefty 9.5% ABV, and comes in a 1pint 6oz (750ml) bottle.  It is a dark honey amber with not much frothy-froth.  But with an ABV like that, who cares about the froth, or who cares for long?  Go get your lampshade and warm up your Danny Boy, this could get ugly.

The first taste is a slap full of heavy damn malt. Ker-blammers!  This must be some kind of dare.  A case of these might create a singularity if you left it unattended in Hollywood.  It would star Nick Cage and John Belushi's hologram.  But I digress.  But for a good reason: this tastes just like a heavy, malty, German ale.  Seriously, that is it.  No surprises, no frills.  Picture it, tasting it in your mind's drunkard.  Yup, that's it.  It is good, and I like drinking it, but it has nothing unexpected to offer.  Which is not a bad thing.  I'm a beer drinker.  I like beer.  I like it when my beer tastes like beer, and for a reason.  That reason is that I like beer.  So, thumbs up, Smuttynose.  You have crafted a mighty good, mighty heavy, mighty malty beer, that tastes like a beer's beer.

Let me talk about this notion of a beer's beer.  I will talk about it through the lens of my second glass.  There are some things a beer drinker might presume to be present in a beer of this sort: an acidic and malty nose, a mild tartness to the taste of grains, a mellow yeastiness contrasted by a sharp alcohol and caramel after-tastes.  It is a basic and unsurprising description.  It is a description of an ale, golden to amber in color, with a reasonable booze to it. In that way, I say it is a "beer's beer."  Please don't misunderstand me, this is good beer, just not surprising beer.  S'Muttonator represents a solid and well executed double bock.

So, you know, try it, if the mood strikes you.  You can guess what you will get.  You will be right.  And that is not a bad thing.  I like it.  I'd go on, but I think I'm kinda drunkish.

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.