Stone Brewing Co. - "Drink After 07.04.16" India Pale Ale

It's been a while since I reviewed a beer by Stone Brewing Co. (well, since March of this year at least) and I figured that a beach vacation is the perfect time to dig this out of the cellar. It's Stone's "Drink After 07.04.16", a 7.00% IPA made with Brettanomyces yeast.

Stone's made it a habit of releasing various "Drink Before..." such-and-such a date, mostly fresh-hop IPAs without preservatives, meant to be enjoyed immediately; so you can imagine my surprise when I saw this "Enjoy After" bottle on the shelf during the summer of 2015. I grabbed two with the intent on seeing how they cellared after a year and two. Well, with all the political convention hubbub last year, I forgot to try it. So here were are - the first sampling.

I took care not to seriously disturb the sediment and yeast, and although it wasn't significantly jostled, the 750mL bottle's cork opens with a tremendous POP and spewed a volcanic eruption of foamy beer on the table. Luckily it wasn't too much wasted.

It produces some of the thickest foam I've seen in a beer - I could practically float the bottlecap on that! The honey-colored beer projects a strong aroma of dank yeast, but not much else.

Wow, this is quite unlike a normal IPA. You're probably imagining something super sharp, but it's actually quite tangy - I'd compare it to a brut Champagne: yeasty,  a bit acidic, with a healthy dose of brassy bitterness. The Brett yeast comes through strongly, with lots of funky spice flavors. There's a strong, lingering aftertaste of yeast and salt and some spice flavors. I'm most interested in the dank funky flavors that the Brett yeast produces; and will also report back next year when I have the second. But my hunch is that this beer will only get more tangy and brassy, provided the yeast keeps doing its thing inside the bottle.

To be honest, I should have had one last year and one this year just to see how it was. But the bottle assures me that it can be aged for some time, at the minimum of one year, so I'm not worried that this is gone south or anything. The "Enjoy After" series is released a couple times a year, so be sure to pick this one up if you like Champagne or funky IPAs. I'm not sure if you can find this particular vintage, but research shows that Stone releases stuff like this every so often, so you'll have a chance to pick this up in the future. Prepare to spend around $16 on the bottle.

I.L. Ruffino - 1970 chianti [Italy]

Now, you may be thinking, "awesome, this wine blog guy scored some amazing old wine and he's going to serve with it with a tasty fantastic meal for which he slaved for hours in a hot kitchen, uphill both ways, in the snow, etc." Well, I've got good news and bad news. I did score some old wine, that's for sure - I was able to get my hands on a forty-seven year-old bottle of Chianti, grape blend unknown, produced in 1970 by the I.L. Ruffino concern out of Pontassieve in the Florence province of Tuscany. Its bulbous bottle comes in the iconic wicker basket, called fiaschi, and looks like many other bottles of Chianti produced to this day.

That's the good news. The bad news is, not all old wine is good wine. Not all grapes or vintages are suitable for aging, and just like price is not a good indicator of quality, age is not always suggestive of how great a wine is. Care must be taken when aging wine, as factors such as vintage, grape, environment, light, heat, and proper storage all contribute.

According to my father, my late grandmother bought this bottle because she liked the look of it - not because it was a candidate for spectacular aging. Now, under the right circumstances, i.e. a cool and dusty Italian cantina, certain kinds of Chianti can last for quite some time, so it's not beyond the realm of possibility.  But that assumes both the wine was a good candidate for aging, and that it was kept in proper conditions. I doubt either is the case here. One look at the wine in the light says all I need to know about that - look at that coloring. Yuck.

Nope.

There's one other, more major problem - and probably the most concerning - there seems to be a tiny leak in the cork. Corks do leak from time to time, and while it's not always fatal, it's never good. A leaky cork means that air and microbes can get into the wine and mess with it (technical term.) Any air leakage allows for the wine to evaporate, as well - in this case, it looks like about 20% of the wine's total volume is missing. As I press the top of the waxlike cap with my finger, a little bit of liquid seeps out. Hopes are not high.

Before we can try it, it must first be decanted. This means we have to gently pour it through a filter - today we're using a paper coffee filter, although I would have preferred a gold mesh screen. This is to filter out the sediment and particles. Unlike yeasty Belgian beers, I am very hesitant to eat this sediment.

So here's the wine after it's been decanted. Notice the color - a light hay color, like a whiskey. There's no aroma.

Now the moment of truth - I'm going to try it. Watching this spectacle is my brother Dan, mother Kathy, and aunt Jayne - yet I am the only one foolhardy enough to try it. Bottoms up!

You know what - it's not terrible. Obviously it's not anything close to what it was, nor is it appetizing, but rather than some disgusting brackish liquid, it's just...bland. It reminds me a lot of cheap cream sherry - oxidized, flat, and flavorless. There's a tiny bit of vinegar notes in there, but nothing like the industrial cleaning solvent I was expecting. My brother did end up having some, and remarked that the texture reminded him of an old port.

I had a few more sips and tossed it, and then poured the rest of the wine out into my glass unfiltered. Here's the junk at the bottom:

Gross.

This should be a lesson to all you wine lovers out there to take care of your wine. If you buy a bottle of wine, be very careful to store it properly. Keep it out of direct light, away from a heat source, and on its side. Consult an expert if you're not sure. If you bought a bottle in the store, and you're not sure if you should age it or not, it's better to drink early than to wait. 

Brouwerij Lindemans - "Oude Kriek Cuvee Rene" lambic [Belgium]

You may have seen Brouwerij Lindemans' stuff in the store - they make a very popular line of fruit beers called "lambics" with tan labels and little pictures of fruit on them. Popular "flavors" of this style include peach, cherry, and strawberry. Lambic is a type of fruit beer and unlike most types of beer, lambics are fermented using wild yeast and bacteria. While I've had styles similar to it, I've never given this any kind of analysis here on the blog.

Today's beer is even one step more specialized than a lambic, though - it's a kriek lambic. Kriek is a term in Flemish that means "cherry", and in a beer context, it's usually used to describe beers (like sour beers, lambics, or even stouts) that have been made with whole cherries or cherry parts. Traditionally, these beers were made with a somewhat-uncommon variety of Belgian Morello cherry called Schaarbeekse, although such a variety is not exclusively used today. These aren't simply cherry flavored - cherries have a very active role to play in the entire brewing process.

The example we have today is a 7.00% ABV kriek lambic made with only water, barley malt, wheat, hop flowers, sour cherries and wild yeast. The bottle says it was bottled in February of 2016. So a bit aged, but that's ok. I grabbed this at Putnam Plaza Super Liquors in East Hartford, CT.

It's sealed with a bottlecap, and underneath is a cork, which opens with a pop. It emits a light haze.

Pours very fast out, and fizzy too! Lots of fast-receding foam. Check out that gorgeous red color - a cool neon color when candled!

I first noticed the texture - fizzy and dry, with a strong tartness. There's some acidity in there, but nothing approaching a gose. There's some lactic sourness, as expected, and the cherry flavors do make a late but noticeable appearance to the beer - nothing too overwhelming. Despite the super red coloring and cherry flavors, in my opinion this is more of an old Flanders ale than anything else. Fans of the peach lambics will see quite a difference, as this ale is quite different than its tan-labelled sisters (and stronger, as well!)

I should note that just like goses, this once-archaic style is making a resurgence in the American craft beer market. Breweries like New Belgium, Brooklyn Brewing Co., and New Glarus Brewing and are all making bonafide kriek ales, and Brewery Ommegang has some kriek-like offerings. So if you like cherry, or are a fan of sour and tart ales, give this authentic Belgian beer style a go.

Bedele Brewery - "Special Beer" lager [Ethiopia]

Washington, DC has a huge Ethiopian community - one of the biggest outside of Ethiopia - and as a result, we've got lots of great restaurants here. Aside from injera, delicious curried lamb, kinche, and ayibe, every so often you may see Ethiopian beers on the menu! I can't believe I haven't reviewed one before (although I also haven't yet reviewed tej, an Ethiopian honey wine, which you sometimes might see around and is quite tasty.)

Oromia region. Photo source: advocacy4oromia.wordpress.com

I found this beer on the menu at Quara on 18th St NW in the Adams Morgan neighborhood. It's an export lager called "Special Beer" produced by Bedele Brewery in the town of Bedele, in Oromia region of midwestern Ethiopia. Made in a Dortmunder-style, this brew clocks in at 5.50% ABV; not surprising given the style.

As you can see, it's very carbonated, and produces a foamy white head that clings to the glass. The aromas are faint, but present, and mostly some malty sweetness. I also like the deep golden coloring.

Although it's a light-bodied ale, it's actually stronger and more flavorful than I expected. I guess I was expecting something of the same caliber as other foreign lagers / pilsners, like stuff by Tsingtao or Heineken or maybe United Breweries Group's "Kingfisher", all of which are generally light and fizzy and attenuated. This beer is surprisingly hefty, though, and presents bready, slightly sweet flavors coupled with notes of honey and herbs which hide the carbonation well. Overall, quite refreshing and pairs well with the spicier offerings on the menu. Give this a try next time you order misr wat!

K. Hansotia & Co. - East India Trading "Red Witch" [Nicaragua]

Here's a cigar that caught my eye on the most recent round of cigar auctions I won. Made by the original and historic East India Trading Co., now an imprint of K. Hansotia & Co. (the same folks who brought us the famed Gurkha line of cigars), today's smoke is a 5"x52 robusto called the "Red Witch", named so because of its special rosado Ecuadorian Habano wrapper. This debuted at the 2012 International Cigar and Pipe Tobacco Retailers trade show in Las Vegas.

The cigar is box-pressed, which means it's been pressed into a rectangular shape using a wooden vise. Aside from the fancy wrapper, the innards comprise of Jalapa-sourced Nicaragua longfillers, aged three years, and a Dominican binder. The wrapper is what's most unusual, as in all my years smoking cigars, I've never seen or heard of a rosado wrapper. So I'm curious to give it a try.

The bare cigar smells kinda nice, very gentle aroma. I used a Colibri V-cutter, and discovered that it was a bit dry - the capa cracked a little, with one bit of the wrapper starting to unfurl. I could have used my El Ligador cigar glue to fix it, but figured I'd just hold the end. I guess that's life.

Construction issues aside, it lights up quite nicely, and really catches.

Initial flavors are like an oily maduro; but as the cigar warms up and hits the "sweet spot", the flavor profile evens out and presents some strong yet not overpowering leather / tobacco flavors. These are accompanied by some earthy coffee beans with a hint of sweet spice - reminds me, in a way, of Drew Estate "ACID ONE" with its spice notes (but without the other, sweeter infusion). I wonder if that's a function of the wrapper. The aftertaste has a hint of that dreaded nicotine "sponginess", which can't be avoided probably given the blend, with some tendrils of the spice flavor hanging on.

I'd say this is more medium-full than medium.  The wrapper adds an interesting visual touch, and I liked that the sweet spice holds nicely throughout the smoke. The burn was also very even as well, and the ash held on for about half the cigar before it fell. I think the shorter robusto format is best for this kind of cigar; anything larger (like a Churchill) would probably be a bit too much for me. Otherwise, an interesting excursion into rosado wrapper territory.

DC Brau / Flying Dog / Manor Hill / Waredaca / Vanish - "Family Tree" pale ale

I can't believe I forgot to post this! Today's beer is a special, once-only Belgian Pale Ale made for the Craft Brewers Conference a couple months back. According to the Brewer's Association website, each year they work with the local or state brewer's guild in whichever state will host the Craft Brewers Conference to create the recipe for a special beer, to be given out locally and at the conference.

This year's beer, a 6.0% ABV pale ale, is a five-way collaboration between Flying Dog Brewery; Manor Hill Brewing (based outside Baltimore in Ellicott City, MD); Gaithersburg, MD-based Waredaca Brewing Company; Vanish Farmwoods Brewery in Leesburg, VA; and of course Washington DC's own DC Brau. Just like the fancy tasting glass, this can was part of the swag bag concertgoers received upon check-in.

According to the can:

"The brewmasters of DC Brau, Manor Hill, Vanish and Waredaca all have one thing in common: they got their start at Flying Dog. It's no secret that craft beer is a brethren band of misfits. And this beer, like the industry itself, is a family affair. Family Tree was brewed for the Brewers Association Craft Brewers Conference & BrewExpo America, April 10 - 13, 2017, in Washington DC."

Collaboration beers can be tough, but when there's five breweries in the mix? Not easy at all. In an interview with Brewer's Association, Ben Clark (the head brewer behind Flying Dog Brewery) discussed how brewers from the five participating breweries sat down to figure out this project. According to Clark, they focused on two ideas - one, what kind of beer would they want to drink after a long day of conference-ing; and two, what common experiences do they all share as brewers? 

As I discovered, the conference is a busy whirlwind of beer, people watching, and lectures, so it makes sense these five breweries settled on a Belgian pale ale, influenced heavily by their love for easy-drinking beers (and their enjoyment of previous CBC "Symposium Beers"). After all, who wants a super-heavy stout after a busy day?

So let's crack it open. Pours hazy orange from the pint can into my new Fermentis pilsner short glass (also a swag item at the conference.) There's a nice aroma of light spices and fresh hops.

Surprisingly, it's quite hoppy. The first taste shows some soft Belgian yeasty flavors, but with a nice bite of brassy hops - not quite metallic, but almost. I think the most prominent flavor is orange rind, with a smattering of other, harder-to-place spices. The beer leaves a typical Belgian spice flavor in the mouth after drinking. 

I like the hoppiness here, it adds an interesting dimension you don't see too often to a Belgian pale. Overall, nice and refreshing and would be great for those who like Belgian beer and IPAs.

Another interesting note: both Waredaca and Vanish are farm-breweries, meaning they grow on-site a lot of the ingredients they use to make beer. Another famous example of this is Rogue Brewery, which has a huge farm where they grow a lot of experimental hops and other ingredients. There's some value in this vertically-integrated business, since breweries can control all aspects of their production and can exercise greater (or total) control over the ingredient's quality and sourcing. 

Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., et al - "Beer Camp Across the World" Part 2

And for the second half of the "Beer Camp Across the World" box review, I'm going to take a look at the internationally-sourced "Overseas Collaborators", Vichy jokes notwithstanding.

I went for this one straightaway - it's Danish brewery Mikkeller's "Thai-Style Iced Tea", a 7.20% ABV ale brewed with lactose, tamarind, black tea, orange peel, and star anise.

You may recall three years ago, I reviewed an oatmeal stout by Mikkeller, a gypsy brewery known to make fun and off-the-wall beers, with names like "Peter, Pale, and Mary," "Excuse Me While I Kiss This Guy", "Mastodon Mother Puncher", and "Sap Brah?" They also push the envelope with crazy experimental stuff, including a mind-blogging 1000 IBU beer. So I'm kinda excited to see what they've got in this bottle (birth date is 4/20/17.)

Damn, that black tea is really coming through on the aroma...strong bergamot. Although I was expecting a milkier texture, it's quite thin and presents some nice sweet spice flavors accompanied by a slight bitterness bite not from hops, but from the oils in the black tea. Quite nice, reminds me a lot of last year's Beer Camp box, the "Sweet Summer South" sweet tea-inspired beer.

I was also pleased to see an entry by Kiuchi Brewery out of Japan. Among other things, they make the "Hitachino Nest" which I briefly reviewed about two years ago. This is their "White IPA with Yuzu", a 7.0% ABV white IPA made with yuzu, an Asian fruit which you may have also encountered in Boston Brewing Co.'s "Sam Adams Tropic of Yuzu."

Wow, this is quite tangy, and in a very peculiar way. It's hard to describe. It has much more character than the "Hitachino Nest", albeit with a slightly bitter texture from the added hops. It retains some of the white ale flavors but you can definitely taste the hops in this one. I don't know enough about yuzu to be able to detect the flavor, but I'd be curious to try more.

Now here's an interesting entry - "Atlantic-Style Vintage Ale", an 8.50% ABV ale made by famous English brewery Fuller's.

Unexpectedly, it's very fruity, but not in a sugary way - more like a dank, fermented way. There's some yeast, but it mostly presents an aged, fermented fruit flavor that's actually quite reminiscent of a barleywine in terms of texture and of strength. According to brewer Dick Cantwell's seminal book Barleywine, the modern barleywine style is a throwback to heavy beers of old - "big beers" - that were commonly brewed in the 18th and 19th centuries. These beers, usually pushing 10.00% ABV, were malt-rich and very heavy and high gravity. And so it's no surprise that this vintage ale may have some of the same qualities as an old-timey, proto-barleywine. Fuller's have probably made ales a hundred and fifty years ago that tasted just like this. I should have asked Dick Cantwell when I saw him at the Craft Brewer's Conference what he thinks of Fuller's!

Here's something new; a beer by Garage Project, based in Wellington, New Zealand, which has been called "the hottest brewery you've never heard about" by Draftmag. They're a small brewery but up-and-coming, so I was pleased to try their "Campout Porter", a 7.70% ABV porter.

Drawing on this beer's Kiwi heritage, it's made with vanilla and manuka honey and also smoked over manuka wood. It pours lighter in color than expected; I was expecting black but it's a medium brown. There's some very pleasing smoky flavors mixed with a bit of sweet chocolate. It's quite smooth, not a lot of fizz, and reminds me a LOT of Fremont's "Bonfire", which definitely is a good thing. Soft, dark, and slightly sweet, this porter is something of which I'd love to grab a six-pack and head out to the campsite.

Those of you familiar with Belgian beers will be no stranger to Brouwerij Duvel Moorgat, better known as Duvel. This next beer is Duvel's 8.0% ABV "Hoppy Belgian-Style Golden", made with lemon peel. Duvel is known for their golden ales, so this makes sense.

Pours clear honey, with a bright and wheaty nose. Generates thick white foam, and frankly, looks like every other Duvel beer I have had.

Light and fizzy, it's Belgiany, thin and representative of many similar lagers. Although I am a fan of the genre, I don't find this to be particularly divergent from what one might usually find in a Duvel bottle available at retail establishments. Don't get me wrong - this was tasty - it just was not as "special" as I hoped and doesn't deviate much from the established style. I'm not detecting too much hops or anything, so who knows.

Finally we have 5.70% ABV "Dunkle Weisse" by Bavarian brewery Ayinger Brewery. Reddish-brown in the glass, it's light and slightly sugared - reminiscent of a deep apple cider. They use "Tradition" hops, but it's more for taste than it is for bitterness. If you like malty, bready beers, this is a must-have. While not terribly inventive, it's a very mellow and soft and perfect for some lightly-spiced bratwurst and a shadegrown cigar.