Brookeville Beer Farm - "Patterson Footage" sweet potato ale

Well, it's a bit late for a Thanksgiving-themed beer post, but whatever. I'll be quick. Here's an interesting libation from Brookeville Beer Farm, located about twenty miles north of DC in Brookeville, MD. What a fun name for a brewery! I'm imagining that, come harvest time, farmers pulling six packs out of the dirt and holding them up to the light. "Good crop this year, yep," the farmer says as he tosses dirty six packs into his basket for sale at the village market.

I jest. BBF is a farm, though, and they grow much of the ingredients used in their beers. Today's beer is called "Patterson Footage", named after the famous Patterson-Gimlin film, purported to be the most authentic sighting of Bigfoot until it was proven a hoax. Which most of us could probably have told you from the beginning.

This 5.40% ale is made with 200 pounds of sweet potatoes, 100 pounds of toasted pecans, 50 pounds of marshmallows, and 3 gallons of molasses. Wow! It's quite malty, with a moderate sweet potato character. Also, it's somewhat sweet for a beer, reminds me of original Pumking a bit. Might be the marshmallows, there's not much molasses from what I can pick up. Overall a soft, sweet, malty beer and kinda fun. I've had a few sweet potato beers before (one from Ardent and another from Asheville Brewers Alliance as part of the Sierra Nevada Beer Camp series) but this one I think is the most flavorful. Cost-wise, it's $16.99 for four pints. I ended up chatting with a Beer Farm rep one Saturday at the store, and he indicated that this beer was tough for the brewers to make, but they hope to bring it back. I hope they do, too!

Elder Pine Brewing & Blending Co. - "Nordic Brume" IPA

For another entry in the "striking can art" list, enter Elder Pine Brewing & Blending Co., located just outside the Beltway in Gaithersburg, Maryland. I'd never heard of Elder Pine, but we suddenly got a whole stack of their stuff into the store, so gotta try it out.

This beer is called "Nordic Brume" and is a 7.00% ABV IPA made with kveik yeast. Kveik yeast is nothing new to the world - it's just a Norwegian word for "yeast" and in modern contexts refers to a relative-unchanged style of farmhouse yeast untouched by modern cultivation methods. Zach Fowle at Draftmag.com covered it, calling it "the hottest new centuries-old beer yeast you've never heard of." Although a full phylogenetic analysis has yet to be performed, we do know a few notable characteristics of this yeast - it ferments at a super-high temperature, almost 104 degrees F; it ferments in a matter of minutes; the yeast can be reused and dried; and it very quickly drops out of suspension. Because of the high tolerances for heat, some brewers are pushing the limit with this yeast - head beermaker Weedy Wiedenthal, of Tombstone Brewing Co. in Arizona, is quoted in Draftmag saying “I think this yeast is a good candidate for something that will ferment up to 15 or 16 percent ABV."

That's something I'd like to see. Let's crack this open - projects a bright and fresh aroma, lots of zesty citrus.

OK, interesting. From the beer I'm detecting flavors of lime rind, a bunch of fresh citrus zest, passionfruit, and kiwi. Similar to IPAs like Treehouse, but not sugary, though - a critical distinction. I think the biggest thing here is the unusual texture - it's soft, somewhat salty, but at the same time lush. Finish is a bit soft and aftertaste is of passionfruit, thin but present.

I like how it straddles the line between a crisp, West Coast IPA and a full, delicious, hazy New England-style brew. The off-dry texture coupled with the citrus flavors is a nice marriage, and might be nice for someone looking to try a new kind of IPA. Keep an eye out for other breweries that are using this yeast - Väsen Brewing Company out of Richmond has been using Kviek, too.

Southern Tier Brewing Co. - "Pumking Nitro" and "Rum Barrel Aged Pumking"

Well, you almost escaped 2019 without a single pumpkin beer review. I tend to avoid reviewing them because these days, the market is insanely oversaturated and it's almost a cliche. At D'vines, we must have carried almost 20 different pumpkin beers this season. Everyone seems to make one these days, and most are pretty straightforward and without anything to seriously set them apart from the others. However, I'm always on the lookout for new things - or variations on old favorites - so I was excited to see these two from Southern Tier - special riffs on their vaunted "Pumking", the OG of pumpkin beers and the best one on the market in my humble opinion.

First up is their "Pumking Nitro", a 8.60% ABV nitrogenated version of the base beer. For those who may be unaware, "nitro" describes the type of gas used in the carbonation process. Nitrogen can be used in lieu of carbon dioxide to create a creamy, soft texture to the beer. According to John Hall at Craftbeer.com, nitro is most associated with "a certain brewery of Irish heritage hailing from Dublin," aka Guinness, but is being used across the beer world now. It's the same stuff that's in your nitro cold brew coffee.

13.6 fl oz can cracks open with a dramatic hiss, as if under immense pressure. As expected pours super creamy and generates a thick, impenetrable cap of foam.

In terms of flavor - not much different from the base beer. Same moderate pumpkin taste, good backbone of malts and a slightly sweet finish, BUT - the nitro creates a super thick, massively-creamy mouthfeel closer to a pumpkin milkshake than a beer. Nitro doesn't work for all beers, but I think this hit the mark for sure. However, for those uninitiated to nitro beers, this is going to be a surprise.

Now let's take a slightly different take - rum barrel aged! This sixtel keg was sitting in the back for a while, and we finally tapped it on Thanksgiving Day.

Oh wow, this beer has a BIG rum character. It's not super sweet, and in fact, a touch bracing - reminds me of a white rum. The pumpkin is there, a touch of spice, but some of the more nuanced spice notes present in the original have given way to a woody bite and a big white sugar punch. And interestingly, it's not super boozy either. There's a high amount of alcohol, but it's not as heavy and sweet as many other beers in class. I'm always impressed by these super-heavy beers that manage to hide the alcohol, and this is no exception.

Bonus - they even did a cold press version, which I had as well. Much lighter but definitely picking up on the coffee. I hope they do more versions of this next year!

Clos Chapon - 2016 Vouvray chenin blanc

You may have seen today's wine on a menu somewhere and wondered, what the heck is "Vouvray"? Well, Vouvray isn't a grape - it's a village in France, located in the Touraine district near the city of Tours, in the famed Loire Valley. Vourvray enjoys its own AOP, or Appellation d’Origine Protégée. According to WineFolly.com, Appellation d’Origine Protégée  is a system of classification of French wines, first developed in 1936 by Baron Pierre Le Roy who also founded the regulatory board for wine in France (called INAO). AOP is essentially a hierarchical system of rules and regulations that determine where the wines are produced, what they are made of and their level of quality. Apparently, the more specific the region is, the higher the rank.

Vouvray is, however, also a general term used to describe wines made in the vicinity, and like all wines that bear the name, today's wine is of 100% chenin blanc. Chenin blanc is a white grape and rather nice - I've had it many times. It's common in France, but the colonial Dutch were so enamored with it that now it's actually one of the most prolific grapes in South Africa (Indaba makes a tasty bottle, which we sell at D'Vines - 2 for $20.)

So on to the main attraction - today's Vouvray is produced in the Clos Chapon vineyard, a small hilltop plot in Vouvray. Note - this bottle says "sec" - dry, in French - and is the driest of the Vouvrays (Vouvray follows a similar sweetness scale as Champagne, as explained in my August 2018 post.) I grabbed this at Total Wine in Manchester, CT, for $17.99.

Pours a pale gold color, quite pretty. On the nose, I'm getting intense fruit - pear, peaches, nectarines.

Ah, very nice. So what's most striking about this is the full floral flavors - probably the floweriest wine I have had. There's not much minerality at all, and instead presents flavors of white flowers, peach, pear, and a touch of fresh dates (think the kind that come drenched in honey.) There's no oak, no tang, just soft, sweet flavor. The finish is refreshing and lush and the aftertaste is of pulpy peach.

In general, I love wines from the Loire Valley - it's a huge region with lots of different types of wine, including some awesome sauvignon blanc - however, quite the contrast from this Vouvray. We paired this with hot Indian curry, and I felt the sweetness and floral nature of the wine contrasted nicely with the masala. Additionally, this wine would be great for someone who may want to stray away from the oaked Chardonnays and would like a fruitier, more floral wine that won't break the bank.