Utopias

Tonight, I had the distinct pleasure and privilege of attending a rare Sam Adams Utopias tasting.
For those of you who don't know, Utopias is a beer from the Boston Beer Company (Sam Adams) that pushes the limits of what a beer is. For instance, Jim Koch (founder of Sam Adams), entered Utopias into a French cognac competition. In the blind taste-test, Sam Adams won. Jim Koch got up to accept the award...and admitted Utopias is beer, not liquor. He was nearly boo'ed off the stage. But that's how American brewers roll; we take your little drink and make it ours. We own it.

I believe the abv is in the ballpark of 27%, making the beer 54-proof. 54 proof beer. Not to be trifled with.

Some of the beer in Utopias has been aged for 13 or more years. Jim has been thinking about Utopias for a long time. What is so awesome about it is that Jim's vision is to provide an after-dinner cognac-style drink that's fermented as a beer instead of distilled like a liquor, and he wanted to provide one of the highest quality. A drink as sought-after as the best of the world's cognacs and ports. And by all means, as evidenced by his cognac award (for beer! ha!!), he has done it. Each Utopias is a new beer blended with previous batches until it achieves the exact flavor profile Koch is after.

This is a rare opportunity indeed. Nation-wide distribution of Utopias is a mere 8,000 bottles (roughly wine or cognac bottle sized). And tonight, Mrs. Smitty and I were among a mere 12 people who got to sample from 2 vintages; 2005 and 2009. The tasting was conducted at Dusty's Tap Room in Meridian Twp. (Haslett/Okemos for the yokels), and also included sampling from the Sam Adams 2007 Triple Bock.
Let's get down to business.

The 2005 Utopias was astounding. I actually lose vocabulary over how amazing this beer is. The first words that come to mind are maple syrup. Huge maple syrup aroma (though, to be fair, not a drop of actual maple syrup is used to make this beer) and taste. Big, thick, syrupy body. Not a single hint of CO2 (way too much alcohol and protein for fizz to survive!). White Oak, sherry and vanilla finish this sticky-sweet beer. This one was Mrs. Smitty's favorite.

A brief note on Mrs. Smitty: all I did at about lunch time was text-message Mrs. Smitty and tell her there were 4 spots still open at Dusty's for tonight's Utopias tasting. An hour later, I got a text back saying that she found a sitter and that I better make sure there were 2 spots still left. Mrs. Smitty wanted to go as bad as I did, and enjoyed it every bit as much, carrying-on an in-depth conversation with the Sam Adams rep about flavor profiles.
I won. The rest of you can go home.

Anyway, Utopias 2009 was a completely different beer. None of the maple syrup was present, and it was a few shades deeper amber than the 2005. This one was grainy on the nose, reminding you more than the 2005 that the 2009's progenitor is still indeed beer. Chocolate, slight coffee and a classic cognac oakiness round-out the 2009. Mrs. Smitty liked it less (and by less, she meant "I like double chocolate chip cookies less than I like double chocolate chocolate chip cookies") than the '05, and I personally liked both for completely different reasons. One is beer that tastes like a wholly different drink and the other is beer that nods towards beer but is still...not beer in its taste and complexity.

The '07 triple bock was equally delicious if not quite as ground-breaking. It still had traditional bock characteristics (grain, chocolate, full body), but was still a step above anything I have ever experienced as a bock. Deep plums, prunes, dried cherries and dark chocolate make this beer into another after-dinner libation. Unlike most bocks and doppelbocks, I don't see monks using this as food during lent lest they sleep for 40 days!

All in all, this is a night to remember. I am thrilled I got to be a part of it and I look forward to future tasting adventures at Dusty's.

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Tony the Tiger Never Knew What Hit Him

The Great American Beer Fest is so much more than a chance to try beers you've never had before; what's the point of a ridiculously-huge beer fest if you just drink what you know? That's like going to Per Se in New York and asking for a burger. No, the GABF also hosts a competition that separates the wheat from the chaff.

One of this year's winners is Michigan-born Cereal Killer. From Arcadia Brewing Company in Battle Creek, Michigan (home of Kellogg's), this huge barleywine promises to go homocidal on your tastebuds.
I'll avoid the temptation of saying that Cereal Killer pours a slight blood-red color, and instead go with this: Cereal Killer pours a hazy red cherry color (harbinger of things to come, perhaps) that deepens to a cloudy brown from the bottom of the glass towards the top. The thin egg-shell head dissipates quickly, yielding effervescent bubbles that form on the surface. This is a beautiful beer.

Sorry, Tony, but Frosted Flakes aren't so Grrrrrrrreat when it comes to the Killer. Sure this beer shares some of Cereal City's trademark roasted grain aroma (it just seems to float in the air in Battle Creek), but beats it and buries it under layers of juicy caramel, unsweetened cocoa powder, a hint of citrus and a heavy, sticky malt. If my breakfast cereal smelled like this, I'd have had trouble making it through school.

Cereal Killer hones-in on the tongue as much as it did the nose. Immediately, the tongue is battered about by a blend of heavy, rich caramel and syrupy-sticky malt. Mixed in to the malty syrup was roasted nuts, dried cherries and even some honey. Funny that something that reminds me of a happy, friendly ice cream sundae would be called cereal killer! At the end, a bit of bitterness peeked out of the cloyingly-sweet body of the beer, not so much from hops but more of a citrusy bitterness. The beer finished with a beautiful milk chocolate note that along with the hint of bitter was like oranges dipped in a fountain of cacao.

Cereal Killer finishes dry, and the moderately-high carbonation cleanses the tongue between sips. Yes, sips. This is no quaffing beer. This is a beer like a thick port or sherry wine; enjoy it among several people after dinner lest the whole bottle tire out your mouth. It is drinkable and enjoyable for a barleywine. I had to resist writing this up using murder euphemisms, because that is apart from the spirit of this beer. Cereal Killer, despite its name, is a sweet after dinner treat. Maybe the hipsters at Arcadia were going for the ironic thing? Perhaps, but whatever their goal in naming the beer, they certainly made a great barleywine, worthy of its recognition on a national stage.

Or perhaps the judges simply feared for their tongues.

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Double The Fun

ATK-occasional Greg happened upon some of Long Trail (Vermont) Brewing Company's Double Bag Ale. He described it as, eloquently, "pretty good!" He passed me a couple of bottles and I am thrilled to give it a shot. It is described as an American Strong Ale, which is essentially a barleywine like I reviewed last week. And I like a good barleywine.

Double Bag poured a beautiful, crystal clear copper with a thin but resilient head, eggshell white, that faded to a lovely lacing across the top of the beer. The thin lace clung to the sides of the glass all the way down to the last drop. I never expected to see a barleywine so beautifully clear, and the high alcohol gives the beer a visible viscosity.

The aroma holds so much enticing promise. Apple cider. Caramel. A whole range of floral aromas. Toffee. And to top it all off, a lovely alcohol ester, heady and spicy. This had all the sticky-sweet aromas of a pastry shop; tiramisu and other boozy sweet surprises.

Big rich chewy malt greets my tongue, toasted grains, all fading to a lingering sweetness. The sweet is tempered by a tangy hop that tips the balance towards bitter. Not quite citrus, not quite earthy, but sharp on the tongue like black tea. The toasty grain and malt flavors hang on throughout the beer with the leafy hops as the fumy alcohol warms the body of the beer along the way. The beer, despite being served cold, is as warm and inviting as my best friend's dinner table.

The beer has body, but isn't syrupy. The alcohol is warming without being solventy, and lightens the body of the beer a bit, helping it be as drinkable as it is. Scrubby bubbles cleanse your tongue between quaffs, but just enough to add to the flavors of the beer. It is just a tad watery for a barleywine, but that's only a small mark against this otherwise very fine beer.

I really enjoyed Double Bag Ale. It was all the appropriate parts grainy, malty, bitter and warm. I can't figure out what the hell the label has to do with the beer, but maybe if I was a Vermont native I'd get it. Regardless of the label, this was a fun ride!

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Turning Barley Into Wine

I have been aging a bottle of Weyerbacher's Blithering Idiot, which is their Barleywine Ale. A Barleywine is the opposite of a Double or Triple IPA; where those are hop bombs, these are typically malt monsters. But like a DIPA or a TIPA has malt to provide a hint of balance, barleywines should have some hop presence for that same suggestion of balance. Funny enough, my mother in law picked this up for me on a trip to Florida recently because she thought the name and the bottle were funny.

I poured the beer into an Imperial pint glass. It was a light muddy brown with ruby red hues when held against the light, with some dusty sediment (perfectly fine and natural for a beer like this) that got stirred-up when I opened it. It poured with a thick, fluffy meringue-like head, but unfortunately it dissipated very quickly to almost nothing but some lacing on the top.

The aroma packed a wallop of massive dark, ripe fruit esters: dates and figs and plums. Another smell yielded chocolate. Yet another: brown sugar. But after a few good whiffs, my head spun from the unmistakably dominant alcohol. The booze in this beer, at over 11%, provided peppery spice and an unfortunate solventy aroma to the beer. It wasn't quite "dark fruit and sugar covered in turpentine, but it was approaching that.

My first quaff stung my tongue with alcohol. My taste buds were assaulted by massive dark fruit backed by a huge alcohol burn. This beer is Darwin's dream: only the strongest and fittest flavors survive the alcohol onslaught. Massive malty sweetness, almost cloyingly so, competes rum, raisins, dates and coffee; no light flavors here. Remember the days of jungle juice at a college party, where all you tasted (if you were lucky) was fruit soaked in booze? That's this beer: big dark fruits soaked in rum and vodka. Carmelized brown sugar pokes through the mess as well. And there, somewhere, was a lonely hop screaming for help, drowning in a sea of maltiness. Not even enough of a hop to add bitterness or balance; just a lonely little hop, as if someone begrudgingly added hops because beer is "supposed to have them." This beer is a malt hammer on the anvil of my tongue.

The beer had a massive, creamy mouthfeel with light carbonation. The heavy malts added lots of body to the beer, and the alcohol, while predominant, was still pleasantly warming all the way down like a shot of scotch.

I should have cellared this for a lot longer, like a year. Perhaps the alcohol would have subsided a bit and some of the bigger flavors would have mellowed. At 11%+, this is a beer that can handle a cellar for a loooong time and maybe even benefit from it. It had qualities that I enjoy in a big malt bomb barleywine, with all the sugars and big fruits, but the alcohol just rode roughshod all over everything. This barley field just got trampled by heavy cavalry. I would have liked more hops to provide the illusion of balance and perhaps they would show more if I aged it. Perhaps not. I will definitely get another bottle, and just store it.

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