Firestone Walker 12 at Toronado Recap
It wasn’t until this afternoon that I took a look at this post again and I completely omitted any mention of me having tried Firestone Walker’s XII. Thanks to Nicole, I was able to sample a little bit of “12″ but I didn’t take any notes because I had bought two bottles. Speaking of bottles, I bought two at $30 a piece! Man… some of the things I do for beer. I have a feeling that most of the money was spent on packaging, the box was pretty nice. Anyway, I was planning on cracking one beer open tonight for dinner and aging the other bottle. Look for the full review on this beer in the near future.
I’ll be the first one to admit that I wasn’t planning on going to Toronado tonight. Even though it’s a mere 50 miles or so away, San Francisco is just a difficult place to drive up to in the middle of the week without a special ocassion. Luckily for me, Firestone Walker was unveiling their XII (aka “12″), their 12th anniversary beer that is a blend of several beers aged in wood.
Sammy and I made the drive up after work. It took us an hour to get to San Francisco because of the traffic. Even in the carpool lane, we were stop and go in certain places. To make matters worse, some shitfuckforbrains in an old ass Lexus (back when they looked like slightly nicer Corollas), kept high beaming us to move over to a lane to let him pass. First of all, we were going above the speed limit and faster than the so-called “fast lane”. Second, the dickweed had plenty of time to pass us if he wanted. When he did, he cut us off and then slowed down to below the fucking speed limit. What the fuck?! I mean seriously? You’re in such a rush to want to pass us and you pull this Mickey Mouse bullshit? At least we were going the speed limit. Mr. PantiesInABunch slowed down to 45 mph to make some sort of point? Hey, I drive a super old version of a high-end brand and I’m in a rush but not so much so I can’t be douche on the freeway.
Sorry, had to get that off my chest. Some people, really.
It didn’t help matters much when we arrived in lower Haight and couldn’t find parking. That’s the thing I hate the most about San Francisco, the lack of parking. Sure, we could’ve taken the train and maybe the buses but we choose not to. As a result, we’re driving around the neighborhood looking for a spot. Thankfully we were able to find a spot about a block away.
In the end, it was all worth it. When we go in Toronado, the first person we saw was Nicole from The Trappist. She quickly informed us that 12 was almost sold out. I made it a point to pick up a pair of bottles while placing our order. It took us a few minutes but at least we got our bottles. Toronado, unsurprisingly, was full but not so much so that you couldn’t get around. I order Firestone Walker’s Big Opal wheat wine to start off while Sammy orders Two Rivers’ organic Pomegranate cider. I’ll list the beers we had and my notes in a little bit.
Surveying the area, we see a lot of familiar faces. As I mentioned before, there was Nicole from The Trappist, Sean Paxton the Homebrew Chef and his father Zane, Rob from Pfiff, The Thirsty Hopster herself, Jessica and her “boss”, Firestone Walker brewmaster Matt Brynildson.
Shame on me for not noticing who Matt was earlier but even if I did, I don’t want to come off as some fanboy who’s all up on his nutsack. I got a chance to talk to Matt for a pretty good amount of time. Maybe it was a good thing that I didn’t know who he was as I was able to just chat the dude up. Matt is a really down-to-earth kind of guy. I found him supremely easy to talk to and friendly. What I found really surprising was that he was just kind of hanging out. Matt is a very accomplished brewer, his Pale 31 won Bronze at this year’s GABF while the Mission Street Pale Ale Firestone Walker brews for Trader Joe’s won Gold in the same category. His Union Jack IPA ended up taking Gold in the IPA category as well. With a resumé like that, you’d expect him to have quite a following.
When compared to Sam Calagione from Dogfish Head brewing, it’s like night and day. Sam is very much a rock star in the brewing world. It seems that he loves the attention and the spotlight. Good thing he is charismatic enough to be able to own his well deserved fame. Trying to talk to Sam during the Dogfish Head unveiling at Toronado proved to be a big more difficult as he was always surrounded by people. Granted, I found Sam to be an excellent host, friendly with a great memory but I could never really connect with him. I’m not saying that Matt and I are now best friends forever or anything but it was nice to have had a conversation with the guy.
In addition to meeting up with some “industry” people, it was good to talk to some of the “locals” as well. Sammy was having an interesting conversation with Todd, who happened to be sitting next to her at the bar. I ended up chatting up with Felice and Michael, a pair of Jessica’s friends. All three were great people to talk to and have actual conversations with. That’s what I love about beer, it brings people together.
Anyway, the experience was great and I am glad I made the effort to come out. The beers (which I’ll be getting to) were good and the company great. Sammy and I finished the night off at Memphis Minnies, a BBQ joint across the street from Toronado. We split a sampler plate consisting of (on the bone) ribs, sweet-smoked pulled pork, brisket, fries and sweet potatoes as our sides. Not sure if it was the beer talking or not but that was some good eats. With Memphis Minnies about to close, we bagged the rest so I could have some lunch tomorrow/later.
Here are the drinks we had with my notes:
Firestone Walker Big Opal, wheat wine, 11% ABV - As the name would imply, Big Opal is a big beer. Weighing in at 9.5%, this is an unfiltered wheat beer made with premium two-row malted barley, wheat, torrified wheat, honey malt, honey and 100% Saaz hops. The resultant beer has a sweet aroma reminiscent of honey and creamed wheat with a white peppery spiciness and noticeable alcohol character. The honey aromas are most likely from the honey malt and not the honey as fermented honey tends to loose a lot of its aromas. This beer is full bodied with medium-low/medium level of carbonation. The flavor is sweet, like syrup with huge wheat character, hints of cinnamon and a peppery finish. This beer reminds me of a maibock on steriods.
Firestone Walker Velvet Merkin - I feel both frustrated and honored to cover this beer. I’ve been trying to find more information about this beer but it’s been scarce. Not even Firestone Walker’s website has any information and for good reason: they’ve stopped brewing it. Here’s what I can tell you: this is an oak-aged oatmeal stout, somewhere in the 5-6% ABV range. In the dim lighting of Toronado, this beer appears dark, opaque. I’m picking up some roasted malt aromas, some bittersweet chocolate notes, some coffee and even vanilla? The flavor of the beer is fantastic. My mouth is enveloped in a rich, creamy, velvety blanket of roasted malt and coffee flavors with strong hints of chocoate and slight oaky undertones. This beer is medium bodied but low/medium-low in carbonation. This beer is on hand pump only and the creamy and velvety texture hides the fact it has a low level of carbonation. This is what Guinness tries to do with their stout on nitro but it’s hard to compete with the real thing. Another interesting thing about the name. I’m sure by now that the “velvet” part of the name comes from it’s texture. The “merkin” part is a bit more infamous. Despite what you may think it is, a merkin is actually a Victorian-age pubic wig. That’s right. Pubic. Wig. I’ll let you absorb that for a moment. Prostitutes used to shave their va-jay-jays clean when they’d get pubic lice. Unfortunately for them, being “so fresh and so clean” was a big turn-off back in the day. In order to get their customers back, they had to resort to the use of pubic wigs. Soo lucky for me this beer doesn’t taste like pube… not that I’d know what pube taste like or anything. Moving on…
Ommegang Rouge, Flemish Sour Red Ale, 5.5% ABV - This is another beer I was having trouble finding information on. It’s not on the Ommegang website but I was able to find tidbits here and there. What I am able to tell you is that this isn’t a pure Ommegang beer, it’s a collaboration between Brewery Ommegang and Brouwerij Bockor of Belgium. “Authentically Belgian”, this beer was the result of spontanous fermentation and 18 months of oak aging. It’s hard to tell what this beer really looks like. Toronado is a horrible place for lighting (then again, full lights means it’s time to go home). The aroma has a noticeable, lactic sourness, more tart than anything. It’s somewhat representational of pickle juice but I think it’s a little bit like ketchup. I also pick up slight brettanomyces funk in this beer. The flavor is mouthwateringly tart, the lactic sourness permeates through all facets. I’m having trouble picking up any of the rich, dark fruit flavors and melanoidic qualities of this beer. Maybe my palette is fatigued, not sure. If you’ve had a bottle of Duchess de Bourgogne or Monk’s Kettle Flemish Red Ale, and you liked it, this beer is definitely for you. My one complaint about this beer, rather this style of beer, is the lack of consistency. The very first bottle of Duchess de Bourgogne I ever tasted was absolutely sublime. Now, it seems like I’m chasing a dream. While very in line with many of the sour beers I’ve tried in the past, I can’t help but miss that very first bottle of Flemish Red Ale with it’s complex malt character and tart finish. Still, this is by no means a bad beer, it’s very good actually. I was just looking for a little bit more.
November 13th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Hey! I was just looking for more info on the FW XII and I happen to come across your blog. My family and I were actually at the table next to you at Memphis Minnie’s, my brother in law was the one that was extremely excited about the FW beers. Found out that City Beer had their FW event tonight and we passed by. They ran out of the XII for sale in bottles but had some available for tasting. We talked to a rep from Firestone and he mentioned that Whole Foods had some bottles available. We booked it on over to Whole Foods out in Oakland and we were told we had to ask for it by name and guess what, they had some. I was expecting to pay the $30 you mentioned but happily found out that they were selling it for $20. Supposedly they weren’t supposed to sell it to me today and that it was supposed to sell next Wed. or Thur.. The sku # actually doesn’t come up in the register. I was originally going to just put some bottles on reserve w/the original guy that helped me there but the person in charge of the beer and wines came out after a couple of minutes and handed me my 2 bottles. They are also going to have a limited supply of Beatification available the same day for about the same price!