BetterBeerBlog

I really enjoy this time of year. I like this time of the year because of the impending holiday season. Some people find being around family to be really stressful but I, generally, like my families (immediate and in-laws). It’s a chance to gather everyone around and just be ourselves.

What I also like about this time of the year are the winter seasonal beers that breweries are releasing. Some beers are only available during the holidays, marking their rarity. Most of the time, winter beers tend to be maltier and higher in alcohol. Today I had the opportunity to visit Wine Affairs in San Jose where I was able to try two winter beers.

Deschutes, Jubelale 2008, 6.7% ABV

You’ll have to forgive my photos. Stopping by Wine Affairs happened to be a last minute, chance decision. As a result, the images I have were taken by camera phone. Anyone know of a compact, yet quality point and shoot digital camera for under $300?

Jubelale pours a dark brown with caramel highlights and a beige head. Sweet malt aromas, like toasty bread crusts, are supported by hints of chocolate, toffee, nuts, dark, dried fruit esters and a subtle spice character. The flavor of Jubelale is of sweet malt not unlike slightly toasted bread crusts with chocolate undertones and slightly nutty finish. Even though they told me on the label this beer was brewed with “bountiful hops”, I found the hop bitterness to be medium/medium-high in character that stays past the finish but is not harsh. The mouthfeel is creamy and smooth with a medium level of carbonation combined with medium/medium-high body. I get a very slight astringency in the finish but nothing harsh.

Overall, I found Deschutes’ Jubelale to be a decent winter warmer with good flavor and balance but somewhat lacking in depth. I let the beer warm up some and I was able to pick up some of the tertiary flavors but I had to work for them a little bit. Still, I would recommend this beer.

Scaldis, Noël, 12% ABV

This beer kept giving me the “sexy eye” from behind the glass refrigerator door like so many of the “working girls” in Amsterdam. Decked out in shiny, blue and red foil with a starry night and a picturesque, sleepy winter town, I heeded it’s call. I would’ve never known about this beer had I not seen it behind the glass; it wasn’t printed on the menu yet. I took a chance and ordered it.

Scaldis Noël is a seasonal winter beer from Brasserie Dubuisson Freres sprl… whatever that means. The descripion on the bottle calls this an amber ale but it’s more Belgian Dark Strong ale. This beer pours a mostly clear, caramel/amber color with a beige head. Sweet, toasted bread-like malt characteristics make up some of the aroma. I can smell what I think is Munich malt. These primary aromas are supported by slight floral and alcohol notes. The flavor of this beer is rich and complex. I am tasting bready malt flavors, dried dark fruit notes like dates, a hint of red apple, candi sugar and toffee. This beer has almost no hop flavor and very low hop bitterness. Noël is full-bodied with medium carbonation that lends to a smooth mouthfeel. Despite being a 12% ABV beer, the alcohol is subtle on the palette.

I am really loving this beer, which is good considering I paid a whopping $12 for an 8 ounce bottle. Yes, I am aware that I probably could’ve picked this up cheaper at a good bottle shop but this is a pretty difficult beer to come by. Imagine how disappointed I would’ve been if this beer sucked but I found this to be a spectacular winter beer. Diane, the owner of Wine Affairs, asked me what I thought about this beer as she bought it sight unseen and untasted. In fact, I think I may have been the very first person to have bought a bottle.

I still think that Wine Affairs is still the best spot in San Jose to grab a good, craft ale. I wish they’d put in some taps but I realize that the sign says, “Wine Affairs” and not “Beer Affairs”. Sammy and I managed to talk to Diane for quite a bit. In addition to being a sommelier, she has an excellent palette and picks some really great beers to carry on bottle. She has a great knowledge of wines, as one would suspect, but she’s also very knowledgeable about beers. I’m not going to say she’s all in-depth with brewing process and things of that nature but by her very trade, she has sharp palette and knows flavors.

Stop by Wine Affairs where the atmosphere is casual, the people friendly and the beers are good.

You would think that after tasting 12 different wood aged beers at the Bistro this weekend I would be tired of them. I thought I would be as well but I’m not. In fact, I have quite a few beers in the personal cellar that are wood aged but today, I will be reviewing Allagash Curieux.

Allagash is, in my opinion, one of the best brewers of Belgian-style ales in the world outside of Belgium. The great part is that they’re here in the United States. The bad part is they’re in Maine. Even though they’re thousands of miles away from where I am, Allagash is widely distributed and I picked up this bottle at my local BevMo.

Curieux is a Belgian-style triple that is aged in Jim Beam Bourbon barrels for 8 weeks in the Allagash cold cellars. After aging, the beer is moved to stainless steel tanks where they add another dose of yeast and candi sugar before bottling. The addition of extra yeast and candi sugars allows the beer to undergo a third fermentation within the bottle, carbonating the beverage naturally.

This beer pours out a cloudy golden color with a white head. Upon first opening, I detected what I thought was a slight brettanomyces funk but that quickly went away and didn’t return. Curieux has some fruit esters, such as pear and apple in the aroma as well as a peppery spiciness to it. Some sweet malt aromas are present as well but they’re buried beneath some wood undertones. As the beer warms, the alcohol becomes more apparent and a distinct bourbon character starts to rise through in the aroma that slowly becomes the dominant aroma. If you didn’t know, you’d swear you were holding a glass of watered down bourbon. Curieux has a slightly biscuity malt flavor with a peppery spiciness and fruit undertones. Slight vanilla flavors slowly creep into the show but the bourbon character from the JB barrels cannot be ignored. This beer has high carbonation and medium-high/high body.

Despite its lighter color, this is an 11% beer and should not be taken lightly. I honestly thought I would be able to get through an entire bottle and review the Firestone Walker 12 as well but, as I write, am still working on the first glass.

The Allagash Curieux sellsheet suggests pairing this beer with cheesecake or creme brulee, which I wholeheartedly agree. I would even go so far as to say this beer would pair well with cigars.

Curieux is as the name suggests; a curious beer. There is a lot going on with this beer on many levels and truth be told, it is not for the brew n00b or the unadventurous. I would suggest this beer to people who have an open mind and a love for distilled spirits. It is hearty, a definite sipping beer, and one to be enjoyed in the company of good friends. If this appeals to you, then go for it. Personally, I think I’ll be picking up another bottle to age for at least a year.

Not everything goes according to plan. Sometimes, you just have to be flexible and roll with the punches. A huge part of hanging out in Colorado for us was spending time with our hosts Bonnie and Mike. I’ve known Mike about 16 years now. We met in Phoenix while attending a trade school together. A huge part of why we get along is because of our common sense of humor. It’s important to find people you can laugh with because when the end of the world is drawing nigh, it’s always good to crack a couple of off-color jokes before it all goes downhill.

Bonnie was kind enough to set up shooting lessons for us to start the day. I have only been shooting once, at a bachelor party. I found it terrifying at first and a little too comfortable towards the end of the session. At the time, I mainly shot hand guns but today we would be shooting a combination of Mike’s shotguns. The night before we prepped all of the equipment. Sammy and I got a crash course on how to hold shotguns as well as how to tear them down for transport. Needless to say, I was excited. Sammy, not-so-much but she was game.

As I said, it helps to be flexible. The guy who would be hosting the shooting lesson (we would be shooting clays) had an unexpected family emergency and called to reschedule. Unfortunately for us, Friday was our only open slot. Had we felt good by the end of our lesson, we would’ve gone pheasant shooting as well. I’ve never had pheasant before and it’d be interesting to have something for dinner that I killed earlier in the day. There is a huge disconnect between people and our food. We stroll down the butcher aisle of our supermarkets and see all this meat neatly packaged in plastic wrap and Styrofoam but we forget that someone had to kill the cow/pig/chicken/fish/squirrel/whatever, process it, and wrap it up nicely for public consumption. While this was a minor setback in our plans, it just accelerated our drinking schedule.

If I were to believe all the promotional commercials and marketing, I would’ve expected Colorado to be a state with no straight roads, everything would be covered in snow and mountains loomed above your head in every direction. Sure, the Rocky Mountains are still there and some peaks are covered in snow. For the most part, metropolitan Colorado is situation a few miles to the east of the Rocky Mountains. There are some rolling hills but for the most part, you are in the plains portion of the United States. Not wanting to disappoint Sammy and myself, Bonnie and Mike took us the long way on our brewery tour. This route took us past Horsetooth Reservoir, up to Estes Park and back down into Longmont. Even though the trip reminded me of my youth when the family would hop into the conversion van and just drive, it was well worth it. The natural rock formations and gorges we saw were awe-inspiring. It’s incredible to think that a tiny stream is capable of gouging the earth in such a dramatic fashion. We were even fortunate enough to run into a small group of bighorn sheep. According to Mike, bighorn sheep sightings are rare. Judging by the amount of people pulled over to the side of the road, I would have to agree. While in Estes Park enjoying the views of the Aspen as they’ve changed color, we managed to see white-tail deer and a herd of elk. Mike brought along a few elk calls and started bugleing in an attempt to get one of the males to respond. If those elk calls are to be believed, I find it humorous to know that an animal as large as a fully mature, bull elk sounds like a kazoo. I’m thinking that Mike should return his elk calls for a refund as we attracted more attention from fellow tourists than from any actual elk.

As beautiful as the scenery and animals are, this is BetterBeerBlog and not BetterBighornRamBlog. So let’s get to the beer!

Estes Park Brewery, 470 Prospect Village Drive, Estes Park, CO

Estes Park Brewing Company is located in the little mountain town of Estes Park. The town itself is more of a summer town with access to nearby Estes Lake and Rocky Mountain National Park. From the outside, Estes Park isn’t anything to write home about. According to their website, Estes Park Brewery is the result of a combining of High Country Brewery and the Event Center. Estes Park Brewery is more of a brew pub as it has a restaurant as well. If you stay down in the brewery store area, you’ll find a small tasting counter. The tastings here are free but I believe they have a few more beers upstairs than they do downstairs. A sign outside said that they have a “beer garden” which got Sammy all excited because she’s into gardening. Apparently having a “beer garden” is the equivalent of a tasting room.

The four of us got to sample a few of their beers. Here are my notes on the beers I liked:

• Wapiti Brown - Aged with oak spirals. Wood notes in aroma and flavor. Sweet, malt flavor. Caramel notes, toasty.
• Pumpkin Ale, 6.4% ABV - Brewed with roasted pumpkin and corriander, allspice and nutmeg. Smooth, creamy texture. Pumpkin notes are subtle but noticeable.

We tried a few other beers in our time there but nothing stood out when compared to those two. If my memory serves me, the Wapiti was their most balanced and flavorful while the Pumpkin Ale was also balanced and had more pumpkin flavor than pumpkin pie spice character. I don’t particularly like my pumpkin ales to taste like pumpkin pie. If I wanted pumpkin pie, I’d buy the damn pie instead of drinking it.

Left Hand Brewery, 1265 Boston Ave., Longmont, CO

As with many other breweries, Left Hand is located in an industrialized part of town. Pulling into their gravel parking lot you can’t help but notice a huge, red silhouette of a left hand. Left Hand also has a beer garden but unlike Estes Park, this is actually outdoors but not very garden-like at all. The place is buzzing. There are more than a few people from GABF in attendance. GABF people are easy to spot because they’re loud and usually yelling things like, “Yeah, we came for GABF” or “We’re going to the Friday night session”. The group to our right ends up being the 21st Amendment crew. I didn’t say “hello” or anything because with the time crunch we were in, I knew striking up a conversation with them would’ve ended up with me in conversation and Mike, Bonnie and Sammy waiting for me to finish.

Their tasting room resembles a small bar. The main feature, of course, is their bar. Mike, Bonnie, Sammy and I stroll up to a few empty seats and stake our claim. We are given a menu and pick out the 6-beer sampler. Sammy and I order our set while Mike and Bonnie order theirs. Here are my tasting notes, quick, dirty and surprisingly not as informative as they should’ve been:

• Haystack Wheat, 5.0% - Wheat malt character, banana and clove phenolics in both the aroma and flavor. Hazy.
• Juju Ginger Ale, 4.0% - An honest to God ginger ale, not that sweet, slightly ginger-ish, fizzy soda you can find next to the tonics. I actually like ginger ale (the soda) but it’s just not worthy of the “ale” designation, but I digress. Brewed with ginger. Slight sour yeastiness and ginger in the aroma. The ginger notes are noticeable with a sweet, Munich and Vienna malt backbone. Tastey but not my cup of tea.
• Milk Stout, 5.2% - The 2008 GABF Silver Medal winner in the Sweet Stout category and object of my brewing intentions. This beer pours black with ruby highlights. Creamy, sweet malt flavors with coffee, roasted grain and chocolate notes. Awesome, creamy body without the use of nitro. This was Bonnie’s favorite and definitely worth the honors.
• Jackman’s APA, 5.2% - Strong citrus (orange) notes. Clean malt flavors with a medium-high level of hop bitterness and flavor. Well balanced for the style (pale ale). Bright, clear amber in color. This was my personal favorite.
• Terra Rye’zed - Not on their website, this is a brewery only beer, maybe. As the name implies, it is a rye beer. Dark brown with cola highlights and an off-white head. Sweet malt aroma, slight roastiness. Definite grain flavor, borderline toasty/roasty with coffee flavors. Medium/medium-high hop bitterness. I am not familiar with rye beers so I have nothing to compare this to. Just tasting as many rye beers as I can to acclimate my palette.
• 400 lb Monkey IPA - Another special brewery-only beer. Pale caramel in color with amber highlights and an off-white head, hazy. Floral, slight spicy and earthy hop aromas. Sweet malt backbone with slight alcohol notes. Medium/medium-high hop bitterness.

Overall, Left Hand Brewery is a great little brewery making some very good beers. I would recommend visiting them if you find yourself in the area.

Pumphouse Brew Pub, 540 Main Street, Longmont, CO

Pumphouse was an unexpected stop in our brewery tour. We all had an early breakfast in anticipation for some clay shooting that morning. We skipped out on lunch, opting instead to drive around and check out the sites. By the time we finished up at Left Hand Brewing, Mike was famished and needed to eat. It wasn’t until I took a seat at the bar that it started hitting me as well.

There’s a front entrance off of Main street but we enter from the back as it’s closer to the parking lot. There’s a long hallway we need to get through to get to the main dining area and bar. All along the wall are shelves of beer bottles. There were hundreds of bottles on the wall, easy. Almost makes me want to break out in song.

Right behind the bar apprears to be the brewing area. It looks like their mash tun and boil kettle are below while a steel, i-beam frame construction holds their conditioning tanks above their kettles. It looks like a 10 BBL system. If I remember correctly, the four owners all used to be firemen and as such, the firehouse/firemen theme is liberally applied to most aspects of the brew pub ranging from the fire hydrant shaped tap handles to the names of the beers themselves.

While there, Sammy and I split one of their burgers. I didn’t take any notes on the thing but I remember that we killed it and the fries. I even ate the pickle and I don’t like pickles. I guess we were hungry. Anyway, we order a 5-beer sampler. Here are my notes:

• Blackberry Wheat - Seasonal brew. Blackberry aromas, sweet, dark, berry aromas. Slightly tart and fruit sweet. Medium-low/medium body with high carbonation.
• 4-Alarm Copper, 4.2% - Supposedly an altbier, Dusseldörf-style. I get a bready malt flavor up front with a medium hop bitterness in the finish. When I compare this to my own altbier, I find that my altbier is pretty damn hoppy. I also like the malt flavor of my altbier a little better, slightly more complex.
• Espresso Porter,  - Another seasonal beer. Noticeable espresso and roasted malt aromas. Really creamy body with robust coffee flavors. I find it hard to believe this is a porter as it tastes a lot like black/espresso coffee, just cold and carbonated.
• Hotshots Harvest Ale - Another seasonal. Smooth and creamy texture. Clean malt profile with medium/medium-high hop bitterness. Fruity (star fruit and guava) fruit esters with an earthy hop aroma. The weather in Colorado is not conducive to growing hops, or many other vegetables and fruits for that matter. The growing season is just too short. To make this harvest ale, they had 40 lbs (per 10 BBL) of Simcoe hops flown in a day after they were picked.
• Igniter Pale Ale, 5.8% - Sweet-ish, slightly grainy and toasted malt flavors with medium/medium-high hop bitterness that lasts into the finish. Flavors seem muddled and not as distinct as the others.

Overall, Pumphouse is reminiscent of many other brew pubs like Gordon Biersch or Rock Bottom. Their beers are pretty standard with some standouts. What I find pretty interesting though is the placement of their brewery. Usually the brewhouse is kept separate from the restaurant and I guess in this case they are separated enough. But, if I wanted to, I could walk right up to either their mash tun or boil kettle to get a really good look, there’s no real separation between customer and brewery other than common sense.

ODell Brewing Company, 800 E. Lincoln Avenue, Fort Collins, CO

Our self-guided tour of Colorado breweries ends back in Fort Collins at O’Dell Brewing. By the time we arrive at O’Dell, the place is packed. There are dozens and dozens of people in the place and finding an empty table is a bit of a challenge. Despite that, the O’Dell tasting room is very nice. The bar is the centerpiece of the place. You place your order at the counter closest to the door and pick up to the left. It keeps the flow of people moving.

One of the things that I find really cool about O’Dell brewing is the labels on their beers. They are all drawn in a similar style but not necessarily templates. There’s an “old world” feel about the artwork, as if they were printed using woodcuts. The type and style of the art also gives the sense of what I would call “Victorian fantasy”. Think along the lines of Lemony Snicket: A Series of Unfortunate Events books with a touch of Harry Potter. They are beautiful and would make amazing posters on their own.

Within the tasting room is their retail store where they sell their O’Dell branded clothing line, glassware and things. Sammy really took a liking to their artwork and picked up shirts for the both of us. I ended up getting the 5 Barrel Pale Ale shirt which is part bamboo. I never thought of bamboo as a plant worthy of being spun into a fiber. The plant itself is tough and I image a whole lot of work went into making the fibers pliable enough to use in clothing. Surprisingly, this is one of the softest and most comfortable shirts I have ever worn.

Here are my tasting notes:

• Easy Street Wheat, 4.6% - Hazy, gold in color with a white head. Wheat malt flavors up front with low hop flavor and bitterness. Medium-low body, high carbonation.
• Levity Amber Ale, 5.1% Brilliantly clear copper with white head. Medium-low/medium body, medium-high/high carbonation level. Creamy texture yet crisp, sweet-ish malt flavor and medium hop bitterness.
• 5 Barrel Pale Ale, 5.2% - Pale amber/copper color with off-white head. Citrus, floral and earthy hop aromas and flavor. Malt flavors are clean and enough to support. Medium hop bitterness that persists into the finish but isn’t harsh.
• 90 Shilling Scottish Ale, 5.3% - Caramel brown, clear with amber highlights and off-white head. Malt forward beer with medium-low hop bitterness and flavor. Medium body, medium-high carbonation. This beer is one of Mike’s favorites and it is pretty tasty for a Scottish Ale.
• India Pale Ale, 7.0% - Pale amber, bright and clear with white head. Citrus, piney, grapefruit, floral hop aromas. Assertive hop bitterness with citrus and piney hop flavors. Malt backbone is sweet and enough to support the hops, very balanced for the style. My favorite so far.
• Cutthroat Porter, 4.8% - Very dark brown with amber/caramel highlights and tan head. Roasty with a sesame seed oil aromatic character. Slight coffee. Seasame seed character continues onto the flavor and I’m finding it to be overwhelming. There are some roasted grain notes as well. Slight nuttiness. Medium-high hop bitterness masked by malt dominant flavors. This is one of their more popular beers but I can’t see why. The sesame seed oil character is a huge distraction for me.
• Hand-Picked Ale, 6.0% - Harvest ale with Colorado grown Cascade, Nugget, Red Vine and Chinook hops. Hazy, pale amber with creamy, white, lasting head. On nitro. Fresh, earthy hop aroma. Sort of bland finish, actually, flavors are kinda muddled.
• Isolation Ale - Bright, clear, caramel color with off-white head. Tastey, bready and biscuity malt aroma. English-style malt character in flavor with American hop flavors and bitterness. Medium-low/medium hop bitterness.
• Cutthroat Porter, 4.8% - On nitro. Same as above, just creamier.
• Cup of Joe, 8.1% - Imperial stout, cask-conditioned, brewed with fair-trade organic decaf. Opaque black with brown highlights (is brown a highlight?) and brown head. Roasted grain with chocolate notes and a touch of sourness underneath in the aroma. Sweet, roasted malt flavor with coffee notes and slight acidic sourness in the finish. Medium-high body, medium-high carbonation with slight acidic finish. Alcohol present in flavor, slight warming.

About halfway though my tastings, a Greyhound-type bus full of people pull in. It seems they’re all part of GABF and they’ve showed up for a beer and food pairing dinner they would be having once the tasting room was closed to the public. Sammy and I finish most of our tasters and we head out. Bonnie and Mike are a bit behind schedule as they’re stuck in traffic. It’s colder than anticipated as we wait outside for them. Sammy and I sneak back into the tasting room planning on staying until Mike and Bonnie show up but we instead get invited to the brewery tour. The tour was meant to be for the folks that are part of the beer and food pairing dinner but they were nice enough to let us tag along.

O’Dell is a has a combination mash/lauter tun with a 50 BBL brew kettle. Their fermentors are about 100 BBL but I believe they may have a few fermentors that can hold more. Some of the people on tour are brewers and owners of breweries themselves and they ask some pretty good questions, at least according to Sammy. I didn’t hear them because I was being a jerk.

At the time of the tour, one of the tour goers strikes up a conversation with me. I think the guy’s name is Steve. Anyway, me and Steve start to chat it up, he’s asking me homebrewing questions and I’m obliging him by answering. What I don’t realize is that I’m actually talking pretty loud. While I didn’t mean to, I’m sure I ended up a distraction for the other people on the tour. Being as dense as I am, I didn’t even note the subtle cues Sammy was giving me to “shut the fuck up”. I really feel bad about my actions as O’Dells was kind enough to let us on the tour even though we weren’t part of the “official” GABF tour. Plus, there were probably some really good questions being asked that I completely missed out on. I have to learn to keep my mouth shut sometimes while imploring Sammy to be less subtle and more overt with her hints.

We end the evening by hopping into Mike’s off road jeep. The thing sits on 37″ tires and has a monstrous V8 engine. We cruise around town and get a few more beers at CooperSmiths before taking a walking tour of downtown Ft. Collins. It was a pretty good way to end what had been a very good day.

Tonight I was able to make to Healthy Spirits bottle shop in San Francisco. I picked up a few Christmas beers and other interesting bottles that I hope to get to review in the coming days. To make room for them in my beer fridge, I had to take some of the older beers out and replace them with these newer ones. Racer 5 IPA was one of those bottles. I don’t think I’ve formally reviewed this beer on this site just yet so I set aside a bottle in order to do so.

The Bud Lime happened to be at a friend’s house on the night of the election. Besides Blue Moon, this was the only thing he had in his fridge. Since I had never tried it before, I thought I’d give it a while. Here are my thoughts for both beers.

Racer 5 IPA, Bear Republic Brewing Company, 7% ABV

The very first time I tried this beer, it was at the Bear Republic brew pub over in Healdsburg, CA. I was in the area to go wine tasting but stopped by Bear Republic for lunch. I ordered a sample platter of all their different beers. At the time, I didn’t think any of their beers were really that notable but when examined in greater detail with a bottle’s worth of beer, you can really get the fully experience. The bottle I have I picked up a few months ago for my Let’s Get Lit beer, food and cigar pairing event.

This beer pours out a slightly pale amber to caramel in color with an off-white head. The beer really isn’t really bright, not is the beer clear. I can clearly see particulate matter in suspension. Reading the label, it would appear this beer is bottle conditioned and I assume the particulate matter is yeast. The aroma is a combination of assertive citrus and floral hops with a clean, sweet-ish, slightly bready malt compliment. Slight alcohol is noticeable at warmer temperatures. The flavor is primarily hop driven; it is assertively hopped with a high level of bitterness that lasts into the finish. Thankfully the malt flavors of the beer are sweet and pronounced enough to balance the hop bitterness. While a great tasting IPA, the flavors seem slightly muted but that may be because I’ve had this bottle for a number of months. I’m almost certain a fresh bottle will taste even better. The beer is medium-high in body with a high level of carbonation.

Bud Lime, Anheuser Busch, ~4.2% ABV

What can I say? I was curious. I had a picture that I took with my friend’s camera that he failed to email to me. In the end, it didn’t matter anyway.

This beer pours a pale gold/gold color, is brilliantly clear and has a white head. This beer smells like 7up but with a little bit more lime character. This beer tastes like 7up. Bud Lime is medium-low/low in body with high carbonation.

I took a couple of sips, enough to get a good idea of this beer. While amazingly easy to drink, this beer (if you can even call it that) reminded me more of lemon-lime soda 7up than it did a beer. That’s why I have a picture of 7up for this beer. I understand that A-B made this beer to compete with the other “malternative” malt-based beverages out there but this is not really a beer. Whatever beer flavor there was is easily overshadowed by a higher than expected level of sweetness and lime character.

So whenever people ask me about this beer, I can say I’ve tried it and it sucks. Unless of course you like your beer like you do your lemon-lime soda, then I would suppose this is good then.

This beer has been 18 months in the making, maybe more. No, I didn’t age this beer. It just took about a year and a half for my Cascade hop plant to bear fruit. Well, to be really technical, they were flowers. I bought the rhizome about 18 months ago from my homebrew shop, two rhizomes actually. If you didn’t know any better, hop rhizomes look like dirty twigs. That’s how Sammy ended up throwing one away. Good thing she kept the other as that’s what bore us cones this year.

It takes about 2 seasons for hops to bear cones and in this second season, my little Cascade plant bore us cones. To say I was “excited” when I saw my hop plant starting to bear cones would be an understatement. They started off as little burrs, then they grew into cones. I’ve read that the first harvest is usually pretty low. My initial yield this year was about 15.9 ounces wet and 7.45 ounces “dry”.

To dry my hops, I pulled a screen off one of my windows and spread the cones around in a layer around 1 hop cone in thickness. The weather had been warm the past few days and the hops dried out fairly quickly. My initial harvest of 11.80 oz ended up being 6.05 oz dry. The second harvest of 4.15 oz ended up being 1.40 oz. I could’ve dried out the hops a bit further but I felt that one day was enough.

I don’t know what I was thinking. Pale ales and IPAs are the styles best suited for showcasing hop qualities. Instead, I end up formulating what could be called an American Amber ale at best, an English Mild at worst. Here’s my harvest ale:

Ingredients

• 6 lbs - Coopers Light DME

Specialty Grains:

• 1 lbs - Bamburg Munich 6L
• 1 lbs - H.B. 80L (I don’t know what H.B. is. My receipt was mislabeled).
• .25 lbs - Belgian Aromatic 20L

Hops

• .5 oz - Magnum (13.1)
• 7.45 oz - Fresh Cascade

Yeast

• English Ale Yeast (WLP002)

Extras

• 1 tablet servomyces
• .5 tsp Irish Moss

Original Gravity: 1.053

Final Gravity: 1.018

ABV: 4.59%

Process

1. Steep grains @ 155° F for 30 minutes, then remove.
2. Boil .5 oz magnum for 60 minutes.
3. Add 6 lbs of DME at the 30 minute mark.
4. Add wort chiller at 40 minute mark.
5. Add Irish Moss at 50 minute mark.
6. Add servomyces at 50 minute mark.
7. Add 7.45 oz of Cascade hops at 58-59 minute mark.
8. Cool beer to 70° F and pitch yeast from yeast starter.
9. Aerate for 5 minutes.

Yeast Starter

I used a yeast starter for the first time with this beer. There are many advantages of using a yeast starter. The biggest advantage is a higher pitch rate. A higher pitch rate means yeast replicate faster and become the dominant microbe in your wort staving off infection. A higher initial yeast count means your beer will ferment faster.

To make my yeast starter, I boiled about 1600 mL of water in a flask. I then mixed in about 8 oz of Coopers DME for the 1600 mL. After cooling, I pitched my vial of yeast. I let this ferment for about 2 days before I stashed it in my fridge until I needed it. That’s it, pretty easy.

Tasting Notes (wort)

Pale, caramel in color with amber highlights. Hazy, with hop particulate in suspension. Sweet wort aroma, slightly green/grassy aromas. Cereal sweet malt flavor, cloying. Bready, toasty malt flavors, full body, still.

Tasting Notes (primary)

Murky caramel in color with amber highlights. Sweet smelling, toasty malt character, bready. Sweet bready and toasty, slightly grainy character in flavor. Hop flavor is moderate. Attenuation seemed a little low, most of the floral, fresh Cascade hop aroma was scrubbed off during fermentation. Disappointing.

Tasting Notes (final)

Surprisingly, a medium/medium-high level of fresh, Cascade hop aroma. Low bready malt aroma. Slightly hazy caramel in color with an off-white head. Medium hop bitterness, smooth, present into the finish. Medium-low/medium body, medium carbonation.

It’s a little hard to categorize this beer. It’s what I would call a mash-up. A mash-up, in my opinion, is a beer that exhibits characteristics of different beers. Think of the Linkin Park and Jay-Z mash-up album, kind of like that. In this instance, this beer has an English malt character with a decidedly American hop profile. Not quite an English Mild, not quite an American Amber ale but all Englican Milber ale.

Despite it’s lack of identity, this beer is all good. I found it to be very tasty and because of its session-level strength, I could drink this all day. Num yummy. I’m thinking of bringing it to a Halloween party this weekend but I fear that there won’t be any left by the time the party is over. I can’t wait until next year. Hopefull there’ll be enough hops next year to do two harvest ales.

As expected, a lot happened in our time here in Colorado. I will do my best to retell the tale in as much detail as necessary but there’s a lot to go through. I only hope my notes were adequate and the photos enough.

Day one of the GABF trip started off very early in the morning. Sammy and I had a 7:30am flight directly to Denver and with the current level of airport security, that means we had to be there at least an hour early. Having gone to bed around 3am the same morning, I already knew we would be tired but that’s why you sleep on the plane.

The last time Sammy and I traveled on airplanes, it was for our honeymoon to Hawaii. I don’t remember having to pay any fees for checking in our luggage but United Airlines makes you pay. $15 for the first parcel and $25 for each additional piece. We ended up checking in two pieces and paid an additional $40. Sonofabitch. Vacations, no matter how well you plan them, will always be a drain on your resources and I felt this was just the beginning of being nickel-and-dimed the whole trip.

While mostly uneventful (all flights should be really), we ran into some turbulence during our decent. Normally I wouldn’t even bat an eyelash towards turbulence. It’s just a little bit of pepper on a bland flight but during our approach run, it’s slightly disconcerting. As you can obviously tell, we landed just fine.

On our way to the rental car shuttle, we happened to run into Steve Donahue, brewmaster for Firehouse Brewery and Grill located in Sunnyvale. We just happened to look up and saw each other. Usually we’d be shooting the breeze talking about beer, beer-related things and the upcoming GABF but he had his entire family with him. It’s one thing to talk to someone when they’re by themselves and quite another when they’re keeping track of their children. Unfortunately, that would be the last time I would see him. We stopped by the Firehouse booth a couple of times during the Saturday afternoon GABF session but he wasn’t there.

For those who are interested in knowing, Sammy and I booked Advantage Rent-a-Car. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate our experiences with them as 7 out of 10. The check-in process took forever. Due to their “low” rates, there was a huge line. Luckily we were on an early shuttle so we managed to get to the front part of the line but all the paperwork was quite a hassel. The guy who helped Sammy out was nice enough to upgrade out vehicle for free because we would’ve had to wait another 20 minutes for our car to be ready. Instead of a Neon, we were upgraded to a Hyundai Santa Fe. This ended up being a very solid vehicle with pretty decent fuel economy. I also didn’t appreciate having to leave a $300 deposit because we were using our debit cards. These things work exactly like credit cards so I don’t really understand it. The good side it that we saved $300 by not having access to it. Lastly, the rental agreement we had forced us to return the car with a full tank. I’m sure we could’ve gotten the other option to return it empty but it was a numbers game. It’s still a pain in the ass to feel nickel-and-dimed with fees, insurance and deposits only to get kicked in balls one last time by having to fill the damn thing up for the company.

In order to maximize our trip, I decided to group the breweries we toured by geography. Knowing ahead of time that we’d be in Boulder for the Gold Medal Dinner at the Kitchen, I planned to visit Redstone Meadery, Avery Brewing Company and Twisted Pine Brewing Company before heading over to the Kitchen.

So we were finally on our way to Boulder. Our bags were stowed and the car was running smoothly. We unpacked our Garmin GPS to get our bearings and directions to Redstone. Having arrived in time, I felt pretty good about getting to Redstone in time to go on their tour. It’s always nice to see how the pros go about doing things when compared to my own homebrewing processes. Please take note because no one told us the following two points:

First, if you are going to be recharging any sort of electronice equipment via cigarette adapter, rent a “smoking” car. In a non-smoking car, the cigarette lighters are disabled. With a dying GPS unit in our hands, this came to bite us in the ass a couple of times.

Second, make sure you carry some cash when driving in Colorado. Programmed to take the fastest route possible, our GPS unit directed us on one of the most immaculate and well-kept freeways I have ever been on. What we didn’t know was this freeway was immaculate and well-kept because it was a toll-enabled freeway. Altogether we had to pay a little less than $8 worth of tolls but had we blown our small wad of cash on breakfast, the trip would’ve been a little more stressful having to look for an ATM.

Redstone Meadery

As with many other breweries and meaderies I’ve been to, Redstone Meadery is located in an industrial building it shares with a few other businesses. When you first walk in, you will be in their tasting room area. Their taps are to the right while their seating is to the left. We walked through a door that led to the guts of the meadery where their production line is. Sammy and I were a few minutes late and we joined the tour that was already in progress. Joe was our tour guide and quickly led us through the meadery. When I say quickly, I mean very quickly. He seemed a knowledgeable guy but somewhat ill suited for the tour. He didn’t project very well and had a tendency to focus on individuals during the tour. It’s not that he was playing favorites, he would just focus on one person and run with it.

Redstone has a variety of products that they sell. It seems they market their meads as “Mountain Wines” or “nectars“. They also have a “Reserve” line for aged products. I really wish they would just call them what they are but I can completely understand why they market their products under various names. Despite being the oldest fermented beverage known to man, mead is the most unknown. Having to educate each and every person you meet on what a mead is can be tedious at best so it’s better to just call your product something that people are already familiar with. That being said, Joe ran us through quite a number of their offerings. Here are my quick notes on their products:

• Traditional Mead - Sweet.
• Juniper - Infused with juniper. Little bit of spice on the nose, some wood in the flavor. Used oak cubes in the fermenter.
• Pyment - Mead made with grapes. Slightly sweet, some green grape notes.
• Pinot Pyment - Caramel color, red wine notes, dry finish.
• Blueberry - “Blush” in color, sweet, slight blueberry flavors.
• Plum - Pale peach color. Sweet, slight tannic character. Plum flavors are subtle.
• Solstice - As the name would suggest, brewed seasonally. Very perfumy, various spice character, made with vanilla beans and cinnamon sticks.
• Necter of the Hops - We ended up buying a bottle of this to share with our hosts Mike and Bonnie. Earthy sweetness in the aroma. Sparkling, slightly sweet, slight hop flavor in the finish. Uses Amarillo and Centennial hops.

Joe really rushed us through the tastings. It was bam, bam, bam; one right after the other in quick succession. I felt like I was being rushed through my tasting notes. Not sure what that was all about though. It was as if he had much better things to do than cater to the few questions of some potential customers. Even though we ended up purchasing a box of their mead-filled chocolates and a bottle of Nectar of the Hops, I was looking to spend more. I had originally heard of Redstone from Basic Brewing Radio beer podcast and thought that if I ever made it to Colorado, I would make it a point to visit them. I have to say it was a disappointment. It really makes me appreciate the quality of service I get from Rabbit’s Foot Meadery in Sunnyvale.

Overall, I have to say that I have mixed feelings about Redstone Meadery. I believe that they make pretty good meads and that with the breadth of their products, they have something for everyone. That being said, their people have to work harder at selling a little known and misunderstood product. I am a big fan of mead but I didn’t feel as if I learned anything new or if they even wanted to teach me. I’m not sure if I’ll be visiting them again. Chances are I probably will but only reluctantly. If you’ve been to Redstone before, I’d love to hear from you and get your take on the place.

While there, Sammy and I made some friends with a couple from Minnesota. Dwayne is a fellow home brewer and mead maker. While we didn’t see them on the Saturday GABF session, we did run into them at Avery Brewing Company right after visiting Redstone Meadery. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t get a chance to write down Angela’s pancake recipe using spent grains. If they’re reading this, send me and email!

Avery Brewing Company

Avery Brewing Company is located a few miles away from Redstone and is tucked away in another industrial park. A huge amount of people were already there by the time we arrived. They were part of a GABF tour that took them to Avery and Oskar Blues amoungst other places. The tasting room was packed and almost standing room only. They had quite a few beers on the board but since we weren’t part of the tour, we were limited to just 5 tastings that were doled out when we exchanged Avery bottle caps for a tasting.

Based upon their website the next brewery tour would be at 4pm. Having finished up at Redstone much earlier than expected, Sammy and I figured that we would have a few hours to kill before then. Luckily for us, the tour worked in our favor as Avery broke their schedule and gave a couple of tours early. While the tasting room was where most of the people were, the actual brewery spanned a few buildings not even connected to the tasting room. Unless you were really paying attention, you might have picked that out. Avery is a 40 BBL system. Our tour guide C.V. explained to us that they’re not nearly operating at full capacity. The current brew team works a 5 day work week from 5am until 1am in a couple of shifts. For them to feel they were running at full bore, they’d have to be working literally 24/7. I would suppose having room to grow is a good position to be in.

Here are my tasting notes from the few beers I did have. What I would later find out is that Avery produces some of the biggest beers throughout Colorado. Running through their entire line would render me drunk. With the Gold Medal Dinner hours away, I thought I should pace myself.

• Uberschweign, 9% - “Super Pig” is their double dry-hopped version of their Hog Heaven barly wine. Since I haven’t had Hog’s Heaven before, I can’t compare the two. Uberschweign’s aroma was reminiscent of how the Instant Ramen Noodle “Oriental” flavor packet smells like. Weird, I know. Besides that, there’s a resinous hop character. Sweet malt flavor balanced by a spicy and earthy hop flavor.
• Volgebekdierden, 10.5%- “Platypus”. Blend of three different small-batch  projects aged in five different oak barrels. Sour notes and dank fruit in the aroma. Sour and tart flavors dominate the taste with some brett (brettanomyces) funk in the finish with moderately-high hop bitterness.
• IPA, 6.5% - Cleaner hop aroma. Citrus hop notes in both the flavor and the aroma. High hop bitterness. What else would you expect from an IPA?
• White Rascal, 5.6%  - Pale straw in color with a white head. Phenolic Belgian yeast notes with hints of vanilla and spices. Slight wheat maltiness and white pepper in the flavor. Light and refreshing.
• Oude Deux, 8.0% - Mohagany in color with amber highlights and beige head. Clean, roasty malt flavors with slight spicy yeast notes. It’s like a Belgian-style stout/porter. This is a one-off small batch of a dark, roasty Belgian Ale; only 2 kegs.

After the GABF tour had left, the Avery tasting room had calmed down quite a bit. Brewmaster and namesake of the place Adam Avery was a few paces from where I was sitting. I wanted to chat him up before the Gold Medal Dinner but didn’t have the opportunity to introduce myself. A caterer showed up with a tray full of BBQ ribs. For a few moments, everyone just stood around looking at the tray wondering if we could get some. I prodded Sammy into getting the first plate and she opened up the flood doors then with everyone else following suit. After all, who’s going to be the jerk to tell the girl she can’t have any ribs?

Overall, I felt that Avery Brewing Company was one of the better breweries I had visited both in the quality of their beers, their people and their establishment. It will be on my “go to” list of breweries next time I am in Colorado.

Twisted Pine Brewing Company

Twisted Pine Brewing Company is located in an industrial park in Boulder, Colorado (Starting to see a pattern, hmm?). Being a production brewery, they have limited hours and open their doors to the public at 3pm. When we arrived, there seemed to be an event going as as there were caterers manning a BBQ grill as well as benches and tables set up near and on the parking lot by Twisted Pine.

Inside Twisted Pine you’ll see a small bar like set-up for their tasting room. Going with the the whole “tree” motif, all their taps have been installed on a log. Behind the bar, you can see the brewery through a glass window.

Having reacquainted myself with my inner hop head, I order the Hoppy Boy IPA. It is caramel color with amber highlights and an off-white head. This beer is aggressively hoppy with an earthy hop aroma and flavor. The hop bitterness lingers long into the finish overshadowing the malt side of the beer. It takes me some time to polish off the pint. By the time I am finished, it’s time to head over to the Gold Medal Dinner.

Sammy ordered their Raspberry Wheat. This beer is gold in color, clear with a white head. The aroma and flavor are of raspberries. Hop flavor and bitterness are low to none with a medium-low level or carbonation.

Honestly, I didn’t give this place a fair enough chance. We just happened to have a few minutes to spare before dinner and I wanted to drop by to at least say I had one of their beers. I should’ve ordered a sampler instead of a full pint. Twisted Branch Brewing Company did win Silver for their Big Shot Espresso Stout at GABF this year and I didn’t get a chance to try some. If there’s one thing I’m learning from my beer adventures, it’s that you can’t judge a beer by it’s label. Case in point, Twisted Pine may not look like much from the outside but they are award-winning brewers.

I’ll cover the Gold Medal Dinner in another post mainly because I think this post is long enough. Also, the Gold Medal Dinner was such a fantastic event that it deserves its own post.

In every city that is worth it’s weight in beer, there is one pub or bar that is the place for beer. In San Francisco, there’s the legendary Toronado. In the Hayward, we have the infamous Bistro. San Diego has it’s own pub who’s philosophy is representative of the craft ales of the area: O’Brien’s Pub, The hoppiest place on Earth.

O’brien’s came highly recommended by more than a few locals. Jeremy, who we met over in Toronado, recommended O’brien’s highly. And often. He said that if he had only two places to visit here in San Diego for beer O’brien’s would be first with Holiday Wine Cellar coming in second, edging out Stone Brewing Company.

O’brien’s is located in a strip mall in what I believe is the Asian part of town. Next door to O’brien’s is a yogurt shop. In the same plaza, you’ll also find a Tapioca Express, Tofu House, Noodle House of Otemoyans amongst other places. So if you pull into the parking lot and feel like you’re in the wrong place, chances are you’re not.

The interior of O’brien’s is unremarkable. The bar is the main focal point of the establishment. Above it is a faux awning/roof thingie where O’brien’s is showcasing their apparel. There are tables scattered throughout the place and the chairs remind me of office chairs on casters. On the ceiling are a number of coasters. The second best part of their decor are the two oversized Belgian ale glasses that double as fishbowls for a pair of betta. The best part of the decor is the line of 20 or so taps, of course.

Alpine Duet IPA, 7% ABV

The first beer I order is Alpine Brewing Company’s Duet IPA. The first time I heard of Alpine Brewing Company was over at Boonville. They happened to be the campsite right next to New Belgium Brewing Company. Since then, I’ve been wanting to drive over to Alpine and pay them a a visit. Unfortunately for us, Alpine was a bit further away than we anticipated and we couldn’t fit them into our schedule. The Duet IPA is a seasonal IPA brewed with Amarillo and Simcoe hops “in perfect harmony”. (On a tangent, I find “language in context” interesting. Here in the Bay Area, and in most parts of the United States, “Amarillo” is pronounced a-ma-rill-low while in San Diego they pronounce it ah-mah-ree-yoh. Meaning “yellow” in Spanish, I prefer the latter pronounciation myself. Anyway…) This beer was served pretty chill. Even so, I could smell the grapefruit-like citrus notes as well as piney and floral characteristics. Pours out a pale amber with burnt gold highlights. The waitress topped me off so there wasn’t any head at all. This beer has a clean yet sweet malt character with a medium/medium-high hop flavor and bitterness. I found this beer to have good balance for the style. It is medium bodied with a medium level of carbonation.

Green Flash West Coast IPA, 7% ABV

Green Flash is another San Diego county brewery that we didn’t get a chance to visit. I was slightly bummed at that but that just gives me another reason to go back. Brewed with Simcoe, Columbus, Centennial and Cascade, this was one hoppy beer! Lots of citrus, floral and piney hop characteristics with some malt aromas underneath. Light brown in color with amber highlights and an off-white head. Aggressively hopped. Anderson Silva vs. Rich Franklin hoppy, with my tongue playing the part of Rich Franklin. The hop bitterness lasts long into the finish. I love me some hops but man, was this one hoppy beer. The West Coast IPA is medium bodied with medium carbonation.

It’s interesting to note how both the Alpine and Green Flash beers are both “West Coast IPAs” but the Alpine is just way more balanced. As a result, I enjoyed drinking the Alpine more. Still, I’m not knocking the Green Flash West Coast IPA, just trying to give you a sense of what to expect.

Food

Having made a stop here right after visiting Balboa Park, Sammy and I decided to order some food as well. We order two dishes: the fish and chips along with the Brewer’s Sampler Plate consisting of crackers, green apple slices, pear slices, sausages, salami and a couple of cheeses. First, the fish and chips. I had heard very good things about O’Brien’s food so I was a bit disappointed when our fish and chips arrived. While the chips portio