Bottle Barn and Beers in Review

While vacationing in Windsor during Labor Day Weekend, I stopped by Bottle Barn in Santa Rosa. Bottle Barn, as the name would imply, is a bottle shop. While they may have originally started by focusing on wines, they have since expanded their selection to include most types of alcohol including beer, distilled spirits and mead.

I believe it was Mario from Brewed for Thought who first mentioned Bottle Barn to me. He is always talking about different beers on his website that he picks up from there so I made it a point to stop by when I got back to Santa Rosa. For those of you who have never been, Bottle Barn is located in an industrial area of Santa Rosa near a Kaiser Permanente. It’s basically a huge warehouse space filled with alcohol, kinda like BevMo only not as polished. When you’re part of a chain, like BevMo, you are pretty much shackled to whatever the buyer of the store (or chain of stores) wants. Each BevMo is pretty consistent, which is both good and bad. Being small has it’s advantages and it shows in the selection.

Needless to say, I was pretty impressed with the variety of craft ales they had as well as the Belgian and other imports. I could go on and on with all the different brands I saw that I don’t normally see in any of the local BevMo locations but that would be boring. I’ll just say that I easily dropped $110 that day and when we went back a couple of days later, I dropped another $30.

While I haven’t been able to review even half the beers I purchased, here are four beers that I did manage to review while I was in Windsor.

Monk’s Cafe (Flanders Brown Ale/Oud Bruin), Brouwerij Van Steenburge, 5.5% ABV

As the story goes, there is a Belgian beer bar in Philadelphia called Monk’s Cafe who’s owners love Belgian beer so much, they managed to talk Belgian Brewery Brouwerij Van Steenberge to brew a beer just for their bar. According to this article, the beer is actually Van Steenberge’s own Bios Vlaamse Bourgogne (Flemish Burgundy) resold as a private label.

How bad-ass is that? Your own little beer bar has it’s own beer. Okay, so Van Steenberge isn’t brewing up a new special recipe, just rebranding an existing beer. It’s not uncommon for one business to have a deal in place that will allow them to resell another company’s product as a private label. Trader Joe’s is probably the largest practitioner of this today. Still, I don’t see Trader Joe’s stocking this kind of beer.

Monk’s Cafe pours a bright, clear burgundy color with rich, ruby highlights capped with an off-white head. Tart, lactic sour notes blend with sweet malt aromas that tease your nose. My taste buds, jealous of my nose buds, are rewarded with a rich and complex malt sweetness that has hints of raisins, figs, plums and even a little oak. The finish is almost all mouth-puckering lactic sourness. This is a wet beer, moderately carbonated and medium/medium-low in body.

When I first had this beer, I immediately thought of the very first bottle of Duchess de Bourgogne I ever tried. This beer took me right back to that moment when I was completely blown away by sour beers. Sadly, I’ve yet to find another bottle of Duchess that equaled the first but that’s neither here nor there.

Just in case it wasn’t already apparent, I really love this beer. It fits the style to the letter but most importantly, it’s a mighty fine beverage that I could drink a bottle of every day. Not knowing what we had in mind (it’s almost a crap shoot with imported sour beers, will it be good? will it be bad?), we only purchase one bottle. While nursing my glass, I vowed to revisit Bottle Barn and purchase a few more bottle to enjoy at home. We arrived at Bottle Barn but two days later only to find they had completely sold out. While we did leave $30 lighter and a few bottles heavier, nothing could console the heaviness in my heart caused by leaving without any more Monk’s Cafe.

Belgian Floris Apple (Belgian fruit beer), Brouwerij Huyghe, 3.6% ABV

This is definitely something I have never seen nor tried before. This is also what happens when you let the wife pick out bottles to try (then again, she did pick the Monk’s Cafe so she gets one, free pass). Then again, Brouwerij Huyghe is also the company that brews up Sexy Lager (scroll to the bottom of the page, wtf?!) so it can’t be that bad, can it?

The label makes the claim that this is a “beer brewed with spices and juice of apple”. They weren’t kidding. This beer pours a cloudy, pale yellow with a white head. When I first put this beer to my nose, it smelled like an apple Jolly Rancher. A little deeper, I found honey and a sweet malt/wheat aroma that reminded me of oatmeal. Just as the aromas would suggest, this beer tasted like sweet oatmeal flavored with honey, a slight dash of cinnamon, and lots of apple. It was medium-low in body with a high level of carbonation that was spritzy.

I’m not quite sure what to think of this beer. This is definitely something you would introduce to the ladies who don’t like beer. It’s really sweet, not at all bitter and smells great. There’s a pretty label on the bottle and at only 3.6% ABV, very light and easy to drink. Yeah, I know it sounds sexist of me to recommend this beer to only the ladies but I doubt any American man would get caught drinking this beer. Most men would rather drink some flaccid and flavorless American light lager than this beer. Good thing I’m not just any man as I would drink a bottle of this. Just one bottle though as it really is too sweet for my palette. In fact, splitting it amongst friends would probably be the best way to enjoy this beer.

I’m not saying this is a bad beer by any means, just too sweet for my tastes. But if you like apples and sweet things, give this beer a shot.

The Reverend, Avery Brewing Company, 10% ABV

Okay, now we’re getting onto some serious beer here. Big boy beer. Man Soda. At 10% ABV, this couldn’t be furthest from the last beer I sampled. Yet, because of their Belgian lineage, the Floris and the Reverend are probably closer than I would care to admit. It’s a fine line between being a Hell’s Angel and the lead singer of Judas Priest.

The Reverend is amber in color with an off-white head. I also noticed some particulate matter floating in suspension. Not sure what it was, just drank it. Because of the higher ABV, this beer actually has legs. A quick swirl around the glass releases some spicy, clove-ish phenolics. I can also smell caramel notes amongst the sweet malt aromas. This beer is sweet up front, has some white pepper flavors in the middle, and a slight whiskey-like character in the finish. The Reverend is highly carbonated, medium/medium-full in body with a warming sensation from the alcohol.

I’ve never had any of the Avery beers before and this is quite a beer to be introduced to the company with. Avery’s motto of “small brewery, BIG beers” is certainly on display with this one. Labeled as a quadruple, The Reverend would fall mostly under the Belgian Dark Strong Ale category. The “quadruple” name comes from the alcohol content of the beer as well as the overall intensity of the flavor profile. Just like the Floris, this is probably a beer best shared with a good group of friends with good food and having good conversation. Definitely a sipping beer.

Gulden Drak, Brouwerij Van Steenburge, 10.5% ABV

This is the second Brouwerij Van Steenburge on the list with the first being Monk’s Cafe. True to style, this is a beer that Sammy picked because the thought the bottle was pretty. I’ve seen this often at BevMo but never picked it up. My best friend bought one for the bottle (he collects interesting beer bottles) and told me he didn’t like it. While I don’t quite remember his exact review, the words, “yak”, “piss”, “goat’s” and “ass” was used. Not exactly glowing. Let’s see if I’ll use the same words.

Contrary to its name, this beer pours a dark amber color with ruby highlights, and a lasting, tan head. The alcohol notes are apparent in the aroma but not as much as The Reverend. I purposely didn’t tell Sammy or her friends what the ABV for this beer was as I wanted to see what their reaction would be. Sweet malt aromas with spicy, peppery notes round out the aroma of this beer, although not as peppery as The Reverend. I don’t know what my buddy was smoking but this is an awesome tasting beer! It’s sweet malt and caramel with that characteristic Belgian spicy goodness. When compared to The Reverend, this is a much easier drinking beer and slightly more complex. It is medium-high to full bodied with high carbonation and smooth alcohol warming. I ate this with Jack Links Peppered beer jerky and it went pretty well. Pepper notes in both the beer and beef jerky and the melanoidic quality of the beef jerky complimented the complex malt flavors of the beer.

Sammy and friends were surprised to know Gulden Drak was higher in ABV than The Reverend as they didn’t notice it as much. We were all in agreement that Gulden Drak was a more enjoyable beer and the alcohol warmth smoother. All this time I could’ve been drinking Gulden Drak I bypassed it because of my best friend’s review. Then again, I was still in my infancy when it comes to beers and I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much then as I do now.

It’s been a while since I’ve actually reviewed a beer let alone four of them. I have a stash of beer ready and waiting to be drunk, photographed and reviewed. I’m still catching up from the long weekend’s activities but I’ll try and get more reviews done. Better I drink the crappy stuff so that you don’t have to.

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