BetterBeerBlog

Hopefully everyone had a good weekend. I spent some time with my family and with my in-laws but other than that, it was a very quiet weekend for me. It’s a good and bad thing, mostly bad but I won’t get into that here, it’s not the space for it. Did you get all your Christmas shopping done on Black Friday? I stayed away from all the stores and crap. I don’t particularly like big, rude crowds so I stayed away. I may have missed a few good bargains here and there but since I don’t have my Christmas gift list ready yet, I’m not missing much.

Anyway, the holiday season is a great time for beer. Many breweries large and small are releasing their limited edition beers, many available only during this part of the year. I started off my holiday beer tasting with Scaldis Noël and Dechustes’ Jubelale 2008 and am not following it up with Jenlain Noël.

Jenlain Noël, Brasserie Duyck, 6.8% ABV

I don’t know much about this beer or of the brewery (Brasserie Duyck) that makes it. A quick Google search reveals that the brewery is French and that the beer has been brewed with 3 French-grown malts and 3 types of hops from Alsace. I purchased this beer from Healthy Spirits in San Francisco, a tiny bottle shop that has an exquisite collection of hard-to-find imports located in the Castro district. They had just shelved their Christmas beers and I picked this one up simply because the label looked pretty.

Jenlain Noël pours a bright amber in color that is fairly clear with an off-white head. The aroma is very pleasant, slightly floral with caramel malt and toasty bread character and slight citrus notes. This beer has an interesting flavor profile. It starts off with toasted bread malt flavor with caramel notes and finishes with what I call a “7Up” character, which is spritzy, effervescent with a lemon/lime citrus character. Not as bad as Bud Lime, but interesting nonetheless. I initially thought there was a slight peppery phenolic character to the beer but that turned out to be the alcohol character. At 6.8%, this beer is not a lightweight by any means but it’s not as big as some other winter beers are. Jenlain Noël is medium bodied with a high-level of carbonation. Also worth noting, this beer is bottle conditioned, so if you’re not into drinking yeast, decant this beer gently.

Overall, I find this beer to be a pleasant holiday beer that can be used as an opener for a holiday/winter beer flight. The overall flavor profile is interesting but not as complex as I am looking for with winter beers. I would recommend trying this beer out yourself if you can find it but it would be best if you split a bottle with some friends. As you can probably tell, I’m not 100% sold on the beer but felt it’s worth a tasting.

Mezcal, Oaxcan restaurant

I can’t really do a “Spotlight On” for this place as, truthfully, they have a lousy beer selection. Even worse, they don’t even live up to their namesake. Mezcal only has a 3 bottle selection of mezcal and about seven times that much tequila. Maybe they should rename their place to Tequila instead. On the plus side, the bartender told me that “Mama” was in the kitchen tightening up her Oaxacan recipes. She had flown in from Mexico a few days ago to work out the kinks. Low and behold, when the door to the kitchen opened up, I did see “Mama” hard at work in the kitchen. Bonus points for keeping things authentic.

I stopped for a quick bite to satiate my curiosity more than anything. I tried to order a Negro Modelo but they were out. Instead, I picked up a glass of Dos Equis Amber ale. It was amber/light brown in color with no head. The aroma was leaned toward the slightly toasty malt side with only a hint of any fruit character. The flavor was malty, slightly toasty, slightly nutty but nothing to write home about. I nursed it as I wasn’t buying another glass of anything.

For food, I ended up getting two appetizers. One was a trio of soft tortilla outfitted with a black bean sauce and crumbled Mexican cheese. The other was fried grasshopper. Yes, they actuall sell fried grasshopper. I wish I could remember the names of the dishes but this is all from memory. The flour tortilla dish was very good, I could’ve eaten another three easily. The tortillas were warm and soft while the black bean sauce was tastey and slightly earthy. The cheese wasn’t overpowering and was enough to balance out the dish.

The grasshoppers were very interesting. I am no stranger to eating bugs. While vacationing in Thailand, my buddy and I ate mainly from street vendors. You can’t beat the freshness or the price! One drunken evening, I ordered a serving of deep fried bugs. In my little goodie bag were grasshoppers, cockroaches and worms. I was drunk at the time but I remember them tasting pretty good, not much depth or character, mainly salty.

I can say the grasshoppers at Mezcal were much better. They started off with a light crunch that gave way to a slightly nutty flavor of the insect that finished with a pleasant tartness. The grasshoppers have a similar consistency to edamame (steam soy beans) but aren’t as nutty, nor do they crunch as solidly. I was pleasantly surprised by the layers of flavor from the little buggers and wouldn’t have minded having a bucket full of these instead of popcorn.

The jury is still out on this place as all I ordered were appetizers but I think it’s worth going back for a more in-depth look.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 1st, 2008 at 1:32 am and is filed under Beer in Review, Craft Beer, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.