BetterBeerBlog

As part of the SF Beer Week events, Rose & Crown in Palo Alto is having a brewery night featuring  the beers from Mayfield Brewing Company (MBC). This is an especially rare treat in that MBC does not sell their beer in draught format, only in bottles. So if you’ve never had the opportunity to try MBC beers before, I hope you were able to make it and give them a shot.

Owner/brewmaster John Alderete is the “man” behind the one-man show that is MBC. His beers differ from many other breweries in that all his beers have been aged at least 12 months in wine barrels. If you’d like to pick them up, they are available in many Whole Foods but you can also purchase them from him directly. Currently there are 3 award-winning beers in the MBC Iconoclast series: Aurora, Eclat and Nocturna. Here are my notes.

Aurora – Altbier aged in American Oak California Zinfandel and Cabernet wine barrels

Aurora pours out a light caramel in color with amber highlights. The beer is primarily malty with some roasted notes. Hop flavor and bitterness are low. The aroma echos that of the flavor. Aurora is a medium bodied beer with medium carbonation. Surprisingly, there’s a slight tartness in the finish.

When I first had this beer in the bottle, I wasn’t very impressed with this beer. I found it to be a little underwhelming. I can tell this beer has changed slightly since that very first vintage I’ve tried and it’s for the better. It’s been sometime since I’ve had this beer in the bottle so I can’t really make any comparisons to the draft version.

Nocturna – Imperial Stout aged in French Oak Port Wine barrels

This beer is very dark, nearly black and opaque. The aroma exhibits some oxidation that comes across in the form of soy sauce. The aroma is also sweet. The flavor of the beer is primarily sweet with coffee, chocolate, molasses and syrup notes. Low to no hop character at all. Nocturna is full bodied with medium-low carbonation.

Of all the MBC beers, Nocturna remains my favorite. Darker, higher alcohol beers tend to hold up to barrel again well and Nocturna is no exception. Normally oxidation is considered a flaw in many beers but the type of oxidation exhibited, soy sauce, some sherry, I consider pleasant. The big caveat, of course, is that those oxidized notes are balanced with respect to the beer.

Eclat – India Pale Ale aged in American Oak California Zinfandel and Cabernet wine barrels

Despite being an IPA, the beer’s overall flavor profile is malty. The malt flavor his slightly on the caramel side. The hop flavor and bitterness is lacking for what one would expect for an IPA. The aroma has a slight grassy hop aroma and a low level of fruity esters. Eclat is a medium-low/medium bodied beer with medium low carbonation.

Out of the entire Iconoclast series of MBC beers, Eclat is the most controversial of beers. The main reason for this is because of the lack of expected hop character. Whenever you come across an IPA, you expect the beer to be a showcase for the hops. The aroma should be bursting with hops while the flavor should have a tongue-numbing bitterness. This is distinctly not the case for  Eclat. In the true sense of an IPA, this is where an Eclat fails to meet expectations. Despite this, the resulting beer is interesting on its own merits.

What I can say though is that Eclat’s bitterness is improved from the initial vintage. In speaking with John Alderete, he has told me the hop character of the beer drops off significantly during the barrel aging process. I am a big fan of enjoying a beer in the original manner the brewmaster intends. In the case of Eclat, that includes aging an IPA until the hops have nearly dropped off. What I am curious about though, is trying Eclat before it enters the barrel. I’m interested in seeing just how much the hops drop off while in the barrels.

One thing I will note is that I didn’t pick up the woodsy/oaky notes in these beers that I normally am able to pick up from bottled versions. John did mention that these beers were racked right from the barrels to the keg but maybe some of those woodsy notes were lost in the carbonation process.

Imperial Common Collaboration Beer, San Francisco Brewers Guild

In addition to the MBC beers, I had the opportunity to try the Imperial Common Collaboration beer brewed by the SF Brewers Guild just for SF Beer Week. The Imperial Common pours our a dark brown with amber highlights and a beige head. The aroma has pungent and piney hop notes with the malt character in the background. The flavor is similar, tasting like a more alcoholic Anchor Steam, only slightly less bitter. This is a medium/medium-full bodied beer with medium-high carbonation.

Collaborative beers are the latest thing with breweries. In this instance, the members of the SF Brewers Guild appropriate have teamed up to brew an Imperial Common. Thanks to the efforts of Anchor Steam, the California Common is the indigenous beer of San Francisco and it only made sense that the first collaborative beer would be a California Common.

It was great to see Rose & Crown organizing events for SF Beer Week. There was a lot more participation this year from the south bay breweries Rose & Crown did a fantastic job lining up Brewery nights for almost the entire run of SF Beer Week. I’m looking forward to seeing what they have lined up in the near future and for next year.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 22nd, 2010 at 9:20 pm and is filed under Beer Festivals, Beer Tappings, 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.