Bananarama

My good friend Greg is an enabler; every time he goes on a trip, he returns with several beers for me to try that neither of us have heard of. Some are horrendous (more on that in a future post; "Beers I Have Endured" is a feature I may bring to the blog), most are great and some are simply amazing. Greg is my favorite enabler.

While at his house last night, Greg presented me with a beer that could have been worrisome were it not for the fact that I'll try anything: the UK's Wells Brewery Banana Bread Ale.
(yes, that's the bottle for the pic on a table that includes my own tabletop gaming passion, Warmachine...not all dorks drink Mountain Dew all night; some of us drink beer)

My brain screamed out in terror: another fruit beer! Say it ain't so! From Cerise to Apricot Ale, fruit beers, with a few exceptions, tend to resemble alco-pops and wine spritzers more than fine balances between fruit and beer (Dogfish Head's Aprihop, Magic Hat's #9 and Unibroue's Ephemere are some of my favorite exceptions to that rule; Pyramid's Aprihop, Hilton Head's Blueberry Wheat and AB's Wild Blue Blueberry Lager are the worst adherents). But being of warped mind and tolerant body, I decided to dive in and give it a shot.

I am glad I did.

Wells offering pours like a loaf of homemade banana bread; golden brown, capped in a creamy fluff. Carbonation like the flecks of banana throughout. Lacing down the sides of the glass like the bits of sticky sweetness that hangs on to the pan. Looked tantalizing enough, and thankfully, none of that electric purple color you get in other fruit beers. Subtle like a Brit, this beer.

Blindfold me and I would swear this was a slice of banana bread. Banana taffy, sticky sweet, reaches out of the glass first. The beer bottle claims that organic bananas are used in every batch and I don't doubt it. Right behind that is caramel-toffee from lovely malts and even a walnut aroma from the interplay between malt and yeast. Not much in the way of beery aromas; the bananas dominate. But traditional British-style bready aromas work wonderfully with the bananas to fool any nose into convincing its accompanying palate into expecting bread instead of beer.

And fooled my palate was. Big bold banana taste, slight caramel, roasted nuts and toffee fill out the flavors in this beer. The banana is the star without a doubt. Maybe it's that bananas are more subtle and less powerfully-sweet (like berries or cherries can be), but I found that is wasn't overpowering. Like the aroma, my tongue swore (as it too often does) that this wasn't a beer at all.

My only criticism of this beer is that it is a bit of a one-trick pony; it's all banana bread and very little beer. It lacks the complexity of a truly world-class fruit beer. As a novelty, though, it's really well-done and I'd drink more than one on a night; it's not every day you drink a beer that makes you swear it's something else. If you don't like bananas or banana bread, I sure hoped you stopped reading at the title of the post! But if you want to try a nicely done, unique beer, give Banana Bread Ale a shot. What it lacks in intricacy it makes up for in tastes we all love from grandma's kitchen. In Yorkshire.

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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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Big Hoppy Monster

A beer I can drink all night long is a nicely-done Irish Red Ale. Not that fake Killian's stuff, but a real staple of Irish beer culture. A really great Irish Red is all caramel and roasted malts with just enough hops to separate it from its thicker, sweeter Scottish cousins.

So when I got a bottle of Terrapin Brewing Company's Big Hoppy Monster, billed as an Imperial Red Ale, I was intrigued. The "Imperial" moniker in beer connotes taking a style to its extreme. So while I eagerly anticipated an Imperial Red to be a malt bomb, its name (Big Hoppy Monster) threatened to put me off just a bit. But why anticipate it when I should just get to actually tasting it?

The Monster turned my pint glass a nearly-opaque copper red. The deep copper haze yielded enticing ruby highlights. The cap on this beer was a perfectly-level half inch of off-white foam that clung to the sides of the galss all the way down. Lacing like that screams thick, sweet malt.

The aroma is where I understand the "Big Hoppy Monster" name comes from. But even though hops are much more aggressive in this beer than a standard Red, there is a lovely trio at first: a balance of rich caramel, huge citrusy hops and an alcohol burn. There is also a beautiful roasted malt flavor that hangs out underneath the Big 3, and even the barest hint of pepper. The hops are the star here, mixing a bouquet of flowers with citrus-fruit rinds. But that sticky-sweet caramel strikes a great balance and reminds me of the root of this beer: Irish Red.

This is one of those beers where the aromas set the right stage for the flavors. Nothing is lost between the nose on the tongue with Terrapin's offering; in fact, I think some is gained. Big grapefruit flavors from the hops compete with thick caramel, bread and toasted malt...and in this competition, the hops lose, but not by much! The lovely, spicy alcohol burn enlivens he tongue and heats the throat, enhancing the malt-and-roast flavors typical of a great Red. But again, despite the aggressive hops in this beer, the malts still shine.

Despite the copious malts, BHM is a little lighter-bodied than I would have guessed. But the moderately-high carbonation gives the impression of lighter body.

What I liked most about this beer is how Terrapin Brewing Company enhanced the flavors and boosted the alcohol of a normal Red ale, as well as all those beautiful hops, without destroying the character of the base beer. It's a giant Red ale that I can still tell is a Red ale. With every brewer in the universe taking "extreme" beers to the extreme, it was refreshing to drink an "extreme" beer that remembers where it came from.

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Tommyknocker, Tommyknocker...

My first experience with Tommyknockers was Stephen King'snovel of the same name. Not a fan, really.

My second experience with Tommyknockers came 21 years later. This one come in a brown bottle from Idaho Springs, CO. The back of the bottle tells me that Tommyknockers are "mischievous elves who slipped into mining camps with the Cornish miners in the 1800s." This website spells out the legend.

I'll take the gnome legend; gnomes and beer just seem to fit together. And for this beer selection, the beer gnomes of Tommyknocker Brewery have created Tommyknocker Imperial Nut Brown Ale, brewed with pure maple syrup. Given that my own Michigan Maple Syrup Porter was a ridiculously-popular brew, I'll try anything with an ingredient native to my own home state.

Tommyknocker's Imperial Nut Brown poured a deep dark brown, like the deep brown of a Ghirardi dark chocolate. Lovely caramel brown highlights near the top gave way to a thin cappuccino-foam head. As the head dissipated, it left a thin swirl that remained throughout the beer. I always love how a beer looks; nothing makes me want to dive into a pint more than a beer that just looks enticing. Tommyknocker's beer gnomes, like little American leprechauns, really know how to lure me into their trap.

Big huge aromas played games with my nose, drawing me further into their little game. Chocolate blended with caramel, all on top of a nice cup of mild coffee. A gently roasted nut aroma gave the beer a chocolate mocha feel. Malty sweetness gave way to a slight alcohol burn, which wasn't enough to spoil the rest of the brew. And right at the end, like a reminder, was a slight hint of sugary maple syrup.

With the taste, I fell completely under the spell of the Tommyknockers; whether a trick or a trap, it no longer mattered. Maple syrup met chocolate and bready malt and made enough room for coffee to join in. All of the basic nut brown flavors were there to enjoy, including plums and a malty sweetness. The addition of the maple syrup added a sugary touch, and made the beer "imperial" in nature, complete with dangerous boosts to the normal style's flavors and a solventy alcohol burn. Big flavors to compete with the aromas.

The beer had a much lighter body than I expected from an Imperial brown. It was a little thin and watery, but not unsatisfying. The medium-high carbonation lifted the intense amount of sugars off the tongue to keep Tommyknocker Imperial Nut Brown from being cloyingly sweet.

This is a big beer for malt lovers. Sugary sweet, malty sweet, Tommyknocker gave me a delicious, challenging take on a basic Brit classic. As "Imperial"-style ales go, this is not the typical over-hopped, over-boozed, over-sugared "extreme beer" knock off. A gentle hand created this Imperial ale and allowed me to enjoy the robust flavors without having to fight through it or wear it as a badge of honor.

But at 9% abv, the Tommyknocker mischief certainly sneaks up on you!

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Have A Cow, Man

Another nod to Sopor for sending me some of Mt. Pleasant Brewing Company's Cowcatcher Red Ale (in keeping with the train theme of their beers). An American Amber/Red Ale is an extremely drinkable "session beer" that given its balance between hops and malt, with that scale tipped slightly towards malt, can please a palate beer after beer. Cowcatcher Red Ale does not disappoint, bringing drinkability in spades. I want more of this beer.
Cowcatcher poured a foamy, half-inch clear-white head The beer below it is a beautiful peach-red. It had a slight "fridge haze" from being kept cooler than I should keep it. As it warmed, it became crystal clear and infinitely inviting.

The armoa is exactly as it should be: big biscuity malt aroma up front and dominant along with a yeasty breadiness. Truly a loaf of bread in a glass! To balance, there is a tart and somewhat grassy hop presence throughout the aroma. It ends on a subtle but tasteful grainy note.

And then to the fun part: the drinking! The malt is here all day; this is a beer that despite a definite hop presence absolutely tends toward the malt. Cowcatcher, in that sense, is textbook. There are hops throughout, but in equilibrium with the malts. So many "American-style" beers can get overdone with the hops, but this beer keeps it right where it's supposed to be. Bready malt gives way to a rich caramel flavor. The hops at end end give the beer a citrusy sweetness that doesn't dry out the tongue. In fact, it entices you for more quafs.

Cowcatcher is medium-bodied with a level of carbonation that cleanses between drinks. No astringency, no buttery flavors. Just pure biscuity malt and squeaky-clean hops. Cowcatcher is a real pleasure to drink...one after another ad infinitum.

Thanks again Sopor. Great job on a beer that has been a real crowd-pleaser in the Smitty household.

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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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Tis The Saison...

Last weekend, I had the occasion to attend the World Expo of Beer in Frankenmuth, Michigan. I was supposed to have been attending a dinner with a group of Rotarians at the world-famous Zhender's restaurant. But...there was this big huge blue building. And it had all this beer in it...

My least favorite beer of the evening was an asparagus beer. It tasted like grilled asparagus. And that's it. Glad I tried it, and that's all I'll try.

I will try to intersperse, over the next few weeks, some reviews of some of the newer beers I had there. This week, in honor of Michigan's short burst of summery weather, I'll touch on New Holland Brewing Company's Golden Cap saison. I think I have made the statement before that I really like a good saison, and that as a "summer-time beer" I like saison better than a Belgian Wit or a German Weisse.

The tasting glass passed to me held a lazy, hazy, lightly yellow-straw colored beer with a thin but persistent pure white head. It looked inviting and refreshing, combining the best of summer sun and wheat-laden beer.

Golden cap had aromas filled with acidic and citrusy fruits, funky yeast, and a sweet malt character. Lemons, pears, pineapple, and tart green apples add the sweet-acidic aromas, followed by pepper and corriander to help give the hops a slight balance. It finishes with musty/yeasty notes of a nicely-aged saison.

Drinking the beer yielded the fruit flavors dominating the yeast and slight hop character. The beer is much more acidic and citrusy, with a hint of pepper over it all. Golden Cap is also pleasantly malty, helping cover over some of the funky yeast. As I sampled another (and another) Lemons and grapefruit flavors seemed to gain intensity.

Overall, Golden Cap walk a great line between dry and sweet, like a high-end white wine (for a third of the price!). Its medium body is balanced by a refreshing effervescence and while the citrus dominates, it still has enough malt to give it backbone and sweetness thus keeping it from being too tart. Overall, given the lean of this saison towards fruits and away from funk, I would say that Golden Cap is more approachable to a virgin saison drinker than the historic Saison Dupont. That said, a saison lover certainly won't be disappointed. I know for me, this beer will accompany many dinners this summer!

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A Pale Comparison To The Original

Last week in my beer news roundup, I mentioned Founders Brewing Company has recently released Cerise, a pale ale with loads of Traverse City-grown cherries in every batch. This week, I had the opportunity to try some on tap at my favorite local watering hole, Brannigan Brothers. Cerise is the replacement for the recently discontinued Rubaeus, a raspberry beer, which had a broad following and was a very balanced fruit beer. Rubaeus fans have been grousing, and unfortunately, Cerise doesn't do much to satisfy their concerns. It doesn't help when Cerise is French for Cherry. Are we still pissed at the French?
My lovely waitress handed me a full pint of a hazy, dark pink beer. It appeared quite effervescent but had virtually no head. As I drank, it left lacing, but it did retain that thin foam cap.

The beer's aroma was predominantly sour cherries with hints of malt behind it. It is impossible to mistake this beer for anything other than cherry. A hint of "christmas spices" (think: mulled cider) hang out behind all that cherry.

My problem with the taste is that while I am sure Founders is being honest when they say they use 30 gallons of cherries in every batch, something in the taste just doesn't quite seem natural. It's so cherry that it seems contrived. As the aroma, sour cherry is the dominant flavor. It finished like a cherry pie where someone forgot to add the sugar: pucker-tart. It's very flavorful, but is missing the malt and hop profile to confirm that this is a beer and not an alco-pop. It also finishes with a hint of a lambic-like yeasty funk, which is about the best part of the beer.

Ceris is medium bodied with a syrupy quality. The carbonation separates it from a wine cooler, really.

I have to say I was disappointed in this beer. I love Founders; it's my favorite in-state brewery. But this just left me lacking. I liked (and many other people liked) Rubaeus because while you could taste the raspberry, there was a big malt profile and hop character that reminded you it was a beer. Rubaeus was a marriage between raspberries and a solid ale. Ceris? Cherry juice with alcohol in it. Sure to please people who otherwise won't drink beer, Ceris could be a "gateway" beer for someone looking for an intro to the world beyond mixed drinks and Miller. But for ATK regulars? Stick with a cherry wheat if you must.

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