A Pint Half Full

Three of my good friends chipped in to sign me up to three months with the Rare Beer Club.  This privies me to 2 750 ml bottles of "rare" beer a month.  Stuff that I've never heard before brewed with ingredients that I have yet to fully experience in my craft beer journey.  How rare you ask?  Only a few thousand barrels of these beers are brewed and this club has bought half of the stock for its members.  How do I know?  The Club sends a newsletter along with each beer you receive describing, in excruciating detail, everything from the brewery's background, the thought process behind the beer, and tasting notes.  By the way, this newsletter is front and back, single spaced, 12 pt font.  Pretty intense.

I read through the newsletter for De Proef Brouwerij's (it's Belgian) Flemish Primitive Wild Ale 2008 Special Vintage Reserve and quickly became overwhelmed.  This beer was brewed back in 2008, using wild yeast and a mix of your typical beer ingredients (hops and malt) and gruit.  Gruit apparently is a mix of spices that was used in beer before hops were used for its aroma, flavor, and preservative nature.  What was I to expect?  This has been aging for a couple years, wild yeast at work in the bottle, with a strange mix of spices??  I had no idea.  I wasn't ready.  I popped the bottle...

Cherry blossoms are in full bloom here in DC.  They start blooming the end of March and die around the second week of April.  Aside from the flowers, I learned that Capitol City Brewery offers a Cherry Blossom Ale for these couple weeks.  After braving the crowds and viewing the blossoms, had some of it in the downtown location.  It is brewed with a belgian yeast and then allowed to infuse with some cherry puree giving it a unique, silky mouthfeel, and cherry-sugar sweetness balanced with hops.  Smooth, drinkable and light.  Go get some before it's too late!

I was browsing around my Netflix streaming library and saw the movie "Beer Wars" available for streaming.  I thought perhaps this movie was like "Beerfest", a comedy about a beer olympic competition.  Far from it, "Beer Wars" is a documentary about the beer industry in America, attempting to explain why the "Big Three" beer companies dominate the market and how difficult it is for smaller breweries to gain marketshare and bring their products to the masses.  The documentary pretty much demonizes the Anheuser-Busch, Miller, and Coors companies and makes you want to never buy or drink their products again.  It highlights Dogfish Head Brewing as an up and coming brewery trying to make its mark on the beer world and contrasts the passion of one man to the profit-scheming of corporations.   The director, Anat Baron, is pretty annoying as the narrator (see Michael Moore), admits that she is allergic to alcohol, and was the CEO of Mike's Hard Lemonade prior to making this movie (which knocked her credibility down a bit for me - that stuff is weak!).  However, it's a decent documentary, creating this David vs Goliath story and portraying the craft beer world with love and passion.  I did not like the extreme bias against and repeated hatred for the larger brewing companies (we get it!) and the following of one story line which seemed to contradict the agenda the movie was trying to promote.  Read on for more of my thoughts.

Yes folks, I have achieved the impossible - I've become THIRTY years old last week.  I didn't think it'd affect me too much but in fact, when I woke up that fateful morning, it struck me.  I'm no longer "twenty-something"; I now have the privilege of saying I'm THIRTY.  That's a big number.  As odd as it may sound, the distance between a 29 year old and a 31 year old shrinks alot when it becomes the difference between a 30 year old and a 32 year old.

Anyways, I'm over it, as I had time to celebrate over the weekend with friends and revisiting some old haunts from when I first moved down to the Northern Virginia area.  Clarendon (a neighborhood of Arlington) pretty much typifies the NoVa nightlife experience - young professionals, in polos and jeans, gather to listen to 80s/90s cover bands, drink cocktails, and swig Miller Lite.  Not the preferred scene for everyone but fortunately, there are gems in a neighborhood that don't conform to this style and bring unique attitude and most importantly, awesome beers.  Galaxy Hut was the first stop on my birthday night and it was awesome.  The place is small, with a few booths and tables (including a pinball and 80's arcade machine tables).  The main attraction here for me was the beer selection.  They offer a large variety of craft brews on tap as well as bottles that rotate in and out (check their website for latest offerings).  Even with its hipster vibe, you feel welcome in the laid back atmosphere.  I had 4 beers here that I had never tried before and I will try to describe what I can remember here.

In this edition: Tupper's Hop Pocket Ale, Heavy Seas Big DIPA, Russian River/Avery Collaboration Ale, Lagunitas Wilco Tango Foxtrot Brown Ale

Purchased from:
Whole Foods, Fair lakes

ABV%:
11.5%

Type:
Imperial Pale Ale

Color:
Orange amber color with a burnt sugar colored head.

Aroma:
Sweet and bitter, bittersweet.  The aroma clears the sinuses and entices.  Grassy hops and a bit of toffee to balance it out.

Taste:
First some sugary followed with a woosh of flavor and bitterness from the hops finishing dry.  Decent balance considering the DOUBLE dose of hops and malt.  Again, the freshness and boldness of the hops clears the nose.

Overall:
I was walking around my local Whole Foods and guess what, Flying Dog Brewery had a rep there!  They were offering samples from something like 12 of their different beers.  I had to stop by and make my way through their free samples from light flavored to stout.  They had a great mix of flavors with the Belgian IPA and this Double Dog Double Pale Ale sticking out to me.  It was nice to contrast all the flavors from the beers and talk about it with the rep.  I walked away but then returned to purchase a 4 pack of the Double Dog Pale Ale.  Double means they added double the hops and double the malt.  The hops definitely come through with a one-two punch of bitters and hoppy flavor.  Delicious. These flavors are bold and fresh but didn't mask the maltiness that followed it up which was great.  Alcohol levels are high so go easy on this one.  Great to get that big hop fix you're missing.

4.25/5

I haven't delved too deep into dark beers so much on this blog as I think I generally favor hoppier styles.  When I think of Porter-style beers, I think of dark, rich flavors but since I'm a novice at this, I didn't know much beyond that.  I imagined they'd be bitter and syrupy or something, possibly "crunchy" tasting.  After reading about Porter, it looks like it is a close cousin to Stout beer, both using dark malts and emphasizing dark fruit (raisins, cherries), coffee, chocolate, and roasted flavors.  I like all those things so Porter is probably something I'd like.  I've tried two examples in recent days - one being a definitive version of the style, Fuller's London Porter, and a newcomer on the scene, Kona Brewing's Pipeline Porter. 

Purchased from:
Gift from my bestest buddy

ABV%:
7%

Type:
English Strong Ale

Color:
Orange hued, caramel color which a thick, creamy head

Aroma:
Nice hop aroma, flowery fragrance with apples balanced with some toffee sweetness

Taste:
Great mix of the bitterness and flavor of hops.  The bitters and balanced with some nice toffee malt, and shortbread.  Finishes dry and generates saliva in the mouth, giving the beer a 'juicy' texture.

Overall:
I first tried this beer New Year's Eve 2010.  I asked my friend to get me some beers from the New England area and this was one of the special ones.  It was ice cold out of the fridge and poured into my Sam Adams Perfect Pint.  It smelled great but at first sip, the hop presence was harsh and startled me and my friend who was having some with me.  Basically, there was not sweetness to counteract the hop flavor and aroma which Geary's Hampshire Special Ale has a ton of.  As it warmed, all the flavors came together and has since become one of my favorite beers.  Too bad I haven't seen too much of it in the Mid-Atlantic area!

What the HSA brings to the table is big malt profile with some molasses and cookie sweetness  PLUS hop bitterness and hop flavor.  These are all quite distinct in the beer and one can savor all the different flavors.  Some might argue that the beer is unbalanced due to its flavors being a little bit disjointed and on opposite ends of the spectrum but I didn't find this at all and the beer pronounces all the flavors with boldness and clarity.  Tasty beer!

4.25/5