Russian River Temptation: Complete Vertical Tasting

Last night I enjoyed a complete vertical tasting of Temptation (001 through 004) The 004 was a X5 bottle. Overall batches 002 and 003 were definitely the standouts. 001 didn't have the sourness or funk of 002 and 003. 003 was the most tart of the group with a lot of sourness on the finish which could be attributed to pedio which is explicitly mentioned on the front of the bottle whereas 001 and 002 didn't specify pedio, only sacch and brett. 002 was better balanced than any of the others with good sourness and not the strong tart bite from the pedio which isn't necessarily bad, in fact a some tasters like 003 far more than 002 because of the tartness however in terms of balance 002 nailed it. 004 was a disappointment next to its older brothers, it lacked most of the sourness and complexities of the previous three. I'm hoping some age will bring it around but I'm not entirely confident about that. I've noticed the 002 and 003 batch Russian River beers have been largely better than the latest releases. My recommendation, if you can get a Temptation 002 or 003 go for it, if you're still sitting on an 001 you should probably drink it soon as it was tasting a little old and maybe even a tiny bit oxidized. I'm still sitting on an 001 Supplication I plan on opening as soon as I can one of the newer batches to compare it to.
Also opened last night was Lips of Faith La Folie which in my opinion really gives Supplication a run for its money. It has great sourness and a prominent oak flavor balancing quite nicely. We finished off with a 2009 Angel's Share bourbon barrel next to a 2009 Older Viscosity, I was surprised how much better Viscosity was than AS, it blew it away in every aspect, better bourbon flavor, deeper profile, better balance, AS tasted overly sweet in comparison. Of course they're two different styles but it was an interesting pairing none the less.

Almost forgot about the Westy 12. I grabbed a bunch in Belgium two years ago and I was afraid it may have oxidized some but it was better than ever. Huge cherry flavors, wonderful carbonation and simply a fantastic beer and probably better after the two years.

Beer geek brunch riddle

Teresa's Next Door in Wayne, PA is hosting a beer brunch and instead of listing out the selections they cleverly inserted them in to an absurd story/riddle. Take a look below, I included my interpretation at the bottom of this post. I'd like to see more of these in the future...

Everyone wants to found out what’s for breakfast, eh?
Well Pauwel is coming in with his brother, Jacob and they re-cantilloned to me this story about the brunch…
While walking my large dog with wit and four paws,
I came across an old man with a sightless hog,
who damned me for being tempted to speak,
of what is to come from the river…
Fifteen times will you jump,
lest you wipe out all chance of judgment,
on this day of devotion,
The Hop engines will pour the Back and the Mouth,
A Blue Bird will bear forth woodruff,
to stir into the Bruery’s libation.
As old Nitro Grigori Yefimovich turned and walked past,
I gaffed at his cologne,
exclaiming, take a bath in single witkap and a long nightcap
To which he responded nothing is complete,
without Karmeliet.

***SPOILER ALERT***
Here's my intepretation:

Russian River:
Damnation
Temptation
Blind Pig

Lost Abbey/Port Brewing:
Devotion
Judgement Day
Hop15
Wipeout IPA

Bruery Berliner Weiss
Founders Breakfast Stout
Cantillon something
Old Rasputin
Triple Karmeliet
Witkap Single
Kwak
Troegs Hopback

I'm not sure about the dog with four paws, maybe something from Flying Dog or Thirsty Dog unless its a far interpretation of "wolf" which would lead you to think of lupulus and something hoppy but that's a far stretch. Also I'm guessing the "long nightcap" is alluding to something too but its past me and the "Mouth" on cask I have no idea about. What are your thoughts?

"Can I have more of everything, please?" BCTC 2009

Another BCTC has come and gone and the most fun beer festival keeps its crown. It was mellower this year with the absence of Mecca Bodega (the awesome drum band) and the repeat showings of Across the Universe (which if you haven't seen isn't really a beer party kind of film) and finally the excess of country music. Saturday night especially was the calmest night I've ever seen at BCTC and that's not necessarily a good thing.
Before the brewfest I discovered that NY State was enforcing a law requiring brewers to have a license to vend in NY, this meant a number of brewers who would normally have poured were unable to. This was by far the most disappointing development in the time I've been going to BCTC.
The weekend as a whole was excellent. The best part of BCTC is meeting other people and sharing beer amongst campsites. This was threatened early on when we were greeted with a "No alcohol in campsites" sign upon arrival. To my relief no one obeyed the signs. The VIP dinner was the same a previous years, however with less variety of beer. The fest itself, while lacking in brewers, was high quality. Notable brewers this year were Captain Lawrence, Kelso (being green is great but I wish you bottled, please open a brewery in Philly), and one beer from Empire, Subterranean.  Several tasters disagreed with my subterranean assessment but I stand by it, the beer was something completely unique, not completely balanced but definitely interesting and more so than, perhaps, any, beer at the fest. I read the description of subterranean on BA and I think the beer was different at BCTC. I know it was aged in a second use bourbon barrel and on top of a wit yeast. I'm not sure what the proper name of it should be but it was quite good and I doubt it will be around again.
After every BCTC I can't wait for next year and the same applies this time. If anyone from Ommegang reads this PLEASE BRING BACK MECCA BODEGA and pick a more fun theme next year, Beatles are cool but not nearly as beer-awesome as Lebowski from years yonder or no theme at all which is great too. Bring back the revelry!

Something old, something hopped, something funky

Thinking about what makes great beer brings to mind three very unique and very good beers I've had in the past year, all of which accomplished their superiority in a different way. Lets start with something Old. I posted before about the aged JW Lees cask of calvados harvest ale. The barleywine put in a ~5gal calvados wooden keg for several years (5 about) and from the slow release of O2 through the wood and the flavors from the used whiskey barrel itself emerged one of the most complex beers in memory. It was amazing how time can change a beer made with a single malt into something so complex and delicious.
Then I had Captain Lawrence Xtra Gold. This 10% golden smells and tastes different, and you know what I mean when you drink it. Its not what you expect at all. The strange and very welcome flavor is the result of dry hopping with amarillo. When tasted against the backdrop of the golden ale its a stroke of genius. That one hop adds so much depth and contrast to the beer that brewers using multiple varieties should feel intimidated. The few precious opportunities I've had a chance to try Captain Lawrence beers I've found that there is always something that stands out and always in a good way. Some breweries experiment with crazy woods and techniques to find new experiences, all Captain Lawrence did was add a hop in the right place, to me that is genius.
Finally I need to mention Drie Fontenein Hommage. I had this beer for the first time and it gave me a whole new appreciated for what a mature yeast can do to a beer. I've never tasted anything like it, aroma and flavor of truffles/mushrooms with sourness and tart and ever so slightly sweet. This is what makes Drie Fontenein the best lambic producer in the world today.
These three beers have really stuck in my mind since I've had them, its a great thing to experience how a single ingredient can make a beer truly unique and world class. If you get an opportunity to try these beers don't pass it up.

The best stout in the world

Last year I conducted a blind taste test of imperial stouts. Included were Bell's Expedition, Stormking, Lost Abbey Serpent Stout, Stone RIS, Smuttynose RIS and a handful of others. I have the full results around somewhere which I still need to post but the overall winner was Bell's by a respectable margin (meaning the majority of tasters ranked it in their top tier). Russian Imperial Stouts have been the darlings of beer communities like Beer Advocate. BA's "Best of BA" top 25 beers are half RIS (at the time of this post), most of which are quite rare such as Dark Lord and Kate the Great, both of which are released one day a year and sellout immediately. Its pretty obvious that at least some of these highly acclaimed stouts are fueled primarily by hype. Therefore I acquired one of each of the top stouts (omitted are special versions of standard stouts, for example Vanilla Bean Dark Lord was not included, also coffee stouts were excluded). Without further adieu here's the lineup:

Dark Lord (2007)- Three Floyds
Expedition (2008) - Bell's
Darkness (2008) - Surly
Kate the Great (2009)- Portsmouth
Speedway Stout (2009) - Alesmith
The Abyss (2008) - Deschutes
Stone (2009)
Super Stout (2008) - Homebrew

Bell's is included as the top placing beer form the previous blind tasting. Stone was also a top contender in the previous tasting and is also in the top 25 beers list. As a refresher my blind tastings are performed as such:

A non participant pours a few ounces of each beer and assigns it a random number. Once all beers are poured the tasters move sequentially through the set of beers, taking personal notes then discussing each beer. Finally after all beers are tasted each taster ranks their beers and then the results are revealed. Due to the stature of this particular tasting additional notes and rankings occurred after the blind portion however these results were kept separate from the blind results. All three tasters have been craft beer drinkers for years, two of the tasters are homebrewers. Notes are made in comparison to the entire lineup of beers, all notes are built upon over the course of the tasting.

Before the results it should be mentioned that all beers were excellent and every taster said would drink again gladly (with one exception). Speedway Stout had an infection or something else. It had vegetable flavors and was so off that no one finished their sample. I heard that Alesmith had a bad batch of Speedway and I'm guessing this was part of it. I have since ordered another bottle and will revisit the beer with the same tasters once it arrives.

Taster 1                Taster 2                Taster 3

Abyss                   Expedition             Expedition
Kate                     Homebrew            Homebrew
Dark Lord              Stone                   Stone
Homebrew             Abyss                  Abyss
Darkness               Darkness             Dark Lord
Expedition              Dark Lord            Darkness
Stone                    Kate                    Kate
Speedway              Speedway            Speedway

Blind notes in order of tasting (combined, so you may see contradictions):

Kate the Great: candy cherry covered in chocolate, lots of fruit notes, syrupy, chocolate in back

Dark Lord: toffee, "World Widey" (reference to Dogfish World Wide Stout), flat, coffee after taste, warm, syrupy

Stone: hoppy, very roasty, characteristically stoutish, not nearly as sweet, light body in comparison, big body, warms nicely, cocoa

Expedition: hoppiest, lacking sweet complexities of some others, "Stom King - ish", all the imperial stout you want: roasty, coffee, chocolate, hops

Abyss: cordial flavor like [Kate and Dark Lord] but better balanced with dry chocolate and roastiness, liquor but roasty, bigger body than [Dark Lord], warm sweetness

Homebrew: smooth sweet roasty, acidity, toffee and liquor

Speedway: veg, off!, something went wrong

Darkness: candi sweet, "smile sweetness", "too sweet but nicely chocolately"

I was taster 1 in this, we all found it curious how closely taster 2 and 3 matched up, we were all disappointed by Speedway and as perviously mentioned promise to give it another shot. It should also be mentioned that the only stouts in the lineup which we had had before were Stone and Bells (and I had Kate). My personal notes of 2008 Kate didn't even mention "Fruit", so I'm really curious if Kate is always this different or sometimes the yeast can go a little wild or what. I personally like the candy cherry fruit flavors but others found it a little off-putting. I would say that the candy sweetness of Kate was a little too much after another 5oz or so and the same goes for Dark Lord.

Several times after the results were revealed taster's said that its conclusive now, "Bells is the best stout in the world". My personal preference of the bunch was Abyss, I loved it during the blind tasting and even more as I sipped down most of the bottle but I cannot argue with results, of all the top stouts in the world Bell's rates best in blind tastings. Congratulations Bells! If you're tracking down these rare beers and haven't had Expedition you owe it to yourself to get a few bottles. Additionally if you cannot get a hold of Dark Lord you can get a pretty close idea with Dogfish Head World Wide Stout which is more available. After having all of these I don't plan on going out of my way to get them again, if I have an opportunity to get Abyss I will but for my time and money I can get 90% of the way there with Expedition and the other tasters are even luckier.

Bell's Expedition Stout: "Best stout in the world"

Sour Cherry Belgian Quad

One of my favorite beers is Cuvee de Tomme, originally from Port Brewing, now a product of Lost Abbey. I've only had the pleasure of enjoying it twice (both times at Monk's) and since its unlikely we'll be seeing it here out on the East coast anytime soon I'm going give it a shot myself. I took some guidance from Mike the "Mad Fermentationist", descriptions of the beer from Lost Abbey, and WildBrews by Jeff Sparrow.
First off the maltbill. The first time I ever tried a Pizza Port beer was back in 2005 at Monk's, it was the "Mother of All Beers", a delicious Belgian quad. For years this beer served as the base beer for Cuvee de Tomme, however, if you read the description of Lost Abbey's Judgement Day it claims to be the base beer. So one may conclude that Tomme simply renamed "Mother" and bottles it under the title "Judgement" but alas, according to an employee of Monk's they had bottles of "Mother" as lately as a few months ago. So my guess is that "Judgement" is a close cousin to "Mother" and "Mother" is still brewed as the Cuvee base beer. Of course this is all speculation. Either way both "Judgement" and "Mother" have similar maltbills according to RateBeer and the Lost Abbey website:

"Mother of All Beers" description:
Mother of All Beers is the biggest beer we make at Pizza Port Brewing Company in Solana Beach. This Belgian Style Quadruppel features many Belgian ingredients including dark candi sugar, roasted wheat, and Belgian Chocolate malt.

"Judgement Day" specifics:
OG 1.092   TG 1.014   10.5% ABV
Malts- Two Row, Wheat, Medium and Dark English Crystal, Special B and Chocolate Malt.
Hops- Challenger and East Kent Golding
Yeast- Proprietary Belgian Ale Strain
Adjuncts- Dextrose and Raisins

This is what I derived from my research:

2 row

dark wheat

dark crystal

medium crystal

special b

chocolate

dark candi sugar

0.5lbs caramelized raisins (Sun-Maid raisins chopped then caramelized on a cast iron skillet with a splash of the first runnings)
dark candi sugar

I'm still working out percentages which I'll post later on. The hops will be low, probably under 20 IBU. Raisins will be added about 15min before knock out. Raisins add about 4TBS sugar per 1C raisins, the maltbill will be adjusted to compensate for this. I decided to use White Labs WLP530 (Abbey Yeast) due to its high alcohol tolerance and lower ester profile than other Belgian strains. The plan is to allow primary fermentation to bring it down to a desirable gravity (2-3wks) then rack it onto 10lbs (2lbs per gallon) of fresh sour cherries (which are in season now). Sparrow writes that lambic producers will not add fruit until at least 6mo after brett and other microbes have had a chance to do their work, claiming that the acidity contributed from the fruit may hinder the microbes' progress. I'm ignoring this and racking right onto the cherries and adding the souring agents at the same time. One reason I'm ignoring this is because LA's site claims the beer sits on sour cherries for a year after primary fermentation and I'm guessing LA is not as cautious as the lambic producers. "Tomme" is aged bourbon barrels, to mimick this I'm adding American medium toast oak cubes soaked in bourbon and also an additional splash of bourbon. Finally I need some good souring agents. I cultured the dregs of a Consecration and Carnivale Ale and am considering adding both along with Brett C and B. Its been too long since I've tasted "Tomme" to remember what bugs were likely in it. Another option is to add dregs of an Oerbier Reserve which I think has similar characteristics to "Tomme". So here's the schedule for this beer:

Culture dregs of beers with desired bugs
Sometime around brewday: Pick fresh sour cherries (clean and pit them, freeze if necessary)
Brewday (don't forget the raisins, rack onto primary fermentation sacch only)
2-3wks post brewday rack onto sour cherries, oak, and add bugs
9-12mo post brewday bottle beer and referment in bottle

Other notes:
when refermenting on fruit keep as little headspace as possible to prevent acetic acid and oxidization
oxygen diffusion is desirable during fruit refermentation, cap vessel with cork or oak
the added oak cubes will serve two purposes 1) flavor 2) place for bugs to live and breed

**Update 6/21/2009 - Brew Day**
Boil time was planned for 120min, ended up being about 135 to reach the gravity I wanted however it yielded only 4gal of wort and I was shooting for 5. I think I ended up with a little higher gravity then expected (it seemed to jump at odd rates, I was using a refractometer it may need recalibration) I created a massive starter that brought the overall volume up to a little more than 4.5. Some of the reason for the loss is dregs at the bottom of the pot. I had not properly fitted for filtration and ended up chilling the wort through my Therminator to a plastic fermenter then using a filtered siphon transferring to another plastic bucket. I lost some wort on both transfers. The initial transfer had too much hop and raisin matter and I was afraid it would yield off flavors during fermentation. I also ended up adding an additional 1/2lb of hard candi sugar to bump up the gravity around 60min in. East Kent Goldings and raisins were added 125min in. I'll post the full recipe later on, I'm dead tired. The Therminator started clogging up with raisin matter with 2gal of wort left in the kettle, while I was working to get the last two gallons I missed the flood I was creating and endangering my basement. So between chilling and fermentation there was a 30min gap of sweeping water from the house. The wort was sealed in the fermenter at this time so I'm assuming its fine. My first impressions are that the 4gal it yielded look pretty damn good, the color was spot on, a beautiful red caramel color and there was a noticeable change after adding the caramelized raisins (I caramelized them with port instead of wort). If I were to brew this again (and I may while cherries are still in season) I would up the hop bill a little to help out with the gravity, I ended up adding a total of 2lbs of candi sugar (half syrup half rocks) and I wouldn't want to go anywhere above that. Full recipe coming soon.

Enjoying beer properly in improper places: part I

[caption id="attachment_151" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Penelope"][/caption]

From time to time different events can be enhanced with a good beer, however, now all of the venues of these events are as welcoming of this as one would like (e.g. movie theaters). The first entry in this ongoing series will feature maternity wards. My wife recently gave birth to a new addition to the family and I knew I was in for a few nights in the hospital. Normally hospital visits don't coincide with drinking/joyous occasions but in the event of a birth and knowing friends and family would be stopping by I felt obligated to toast the new baby properly but at the same time a dozen chalice glasses don't put you in favorable light with the nursing staff and I figured the wife would want a good relationship with her caregivers. I use a set of small stackable glasses from Ikea for my blind tasting sessions, these would suffice.
Day I: Baby is born, toasted with champagne in styrofoam cups (I had considered many beers for this toast however all that did justice were beers I didn't want overcome with the moment, they deserved to be tasted with respect or even worse I could be examining the beer characteristics instead of enjoying the moment!)
Day II: Enjoyed a nice maternity room lunch with Damnation followed by a dinner including an Ice Stout homebrew and DeProef Primitive


Day III: Made it out for lunch to discover Ron's Original was filling Pliny the Elder in growlers, looks like the last night in maternity would be a winner.


While spending a few days in a hospital isn't the most desirable location for a short vacation the excellent reason for being there and a few good beers sure make it a great experience. Keep an eye out for future improper locations to drink beer, however, I'm going to find it hard to top a maternity ward.