Author's note: I promise my next review will be for a more "normal," less weird beer.
Yesterday I posted my review of Stone Smoked Porter with Vanilla Bean. I ended it by mentioning I had a bottle of their chipotle version that I would drink later that night, which I did.
Beer brewed with peppers is currently a very small niche in the American craft brewing scene. Most seem to be relegated to brewing contests or festivals, where they are released as special one-offs. I have only ever seen four beers in a store brewed with chile peppers, and only tried two of them until now: Great Divide Chocolate Oak-Aged Yeti, which is brewed with chocolate and cayenne (and which was great); and Crazy Ed's Cave Creek Chili Beer, which is brewed and bottled with jalapeno peppers (which was every bit as awful as its reputation). Rare as they are now though, with the continued growth of the Latino population I think we can expect more beers brewed with peppers. I can already think of at least one craft brewery that makes Latin-themed beer.
This one looks almost exactly the same as the vanilla version, which is to say it looks almost the same as the regular version. It is nearly pitch-black (barely transparent) with about two fingers' worth of foam on top. The foam is where this version deviates slightly in appearance. It is several shades darker than the near-white foam that sat atop the vanilla version.
I have had few foods cooked with chipotles, so I had to look up what they are. A chipotle pepper is a jalapeno pepper that has been smoked. So I was not surprised to find that this version was significantly smokier than both the vanilla and spice-less Smoked Porter. The smoke comes across more forcefully in the aroma, bringing suggestions of Tex-Mex and earthy barbecue flavors. When I got around to actually drinking it, which took a while (hey, it smells great!) I found that the beer starts off sweet and smoky but finishes on a pronounced spicy note. It is by no means overpowering, however---and I say this as someone who rarely eats spicy food. The beer as a whole is probably too intense for people just getting used to strong beer, but craft beer veterans wary of overly-spicy beer need not worry. The overall texture of the beer is much the same as its cousins: not as smooth and creamy as most porters, but still very drinkable. No obvious carbonation flaws, and not oily like some stouts.
I wholly expected to like the vanilla version the best, and this one the worst. However, this beer now rivals vintage Old Guardian as my favorite Stone beer. It also makes me want to try more spicy foods, which I generally avoid. Well done!
For more info, see my previous post on the Vanilla version.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Monday, July 23, 2012
Two thoughts (and a lot more words): California and Stone Smoked Porter
Hello again and sorry for my week-long absence; I was on a family vacation in California. To make up for the lost time, I offer you this somewhat long post. The vacation there served as the inspiration for both topics in this post: Stone Smoked Porter with Vanilla Bean, their latest variation on their classic Smoked Porter; and what the beer scene looks like there. I'll start with the second topic.
A beer for all.....or not
In the minds of most beer aficionados, California is huge. Anchor, Sierra Nevada, and Stone, all in the same state? Sounds great! Beer advocates make it up to be some sort of ale Mecca, full of the standard classics from those breweries and many other famous rarities. New upstarts and quickly-expanding breweries like The Bruery, Fifty-Fifty, Lagunitas and Firestone Walker are getting lots of hype and winning awards. On Beer Advocate's list of highest-rate beers of all time, four of the top 20 are from California. This list includes beers from all over the world, both current and retired. On Rate Beer's list of top 50 beers of all time (again, current and retired beers from all over the world), five of the first twenty are from California, and the complete 50 includes an additional six. When you narrow it down just to beers from the U.S., fourteen of Rate Beer's best American beers are from California, and for Beer Advocate's American list, the number is fifteen.
Yet when I was there last week, I was amazed at how few beers I could find relative to back here in Illinois. The tap lists in restaurants and bars were as impressive as Chicagoland at best, and in general they were just a little worse. Liquor stores were pretty much the same, and I didn't see any giant ones either. The retail side in Illinois seems a lot better than in California; I can drive for half an hour in any direction and find a Binny's or similarly-sized specialty liquor store. So what's going on in California?
The answer is simple: wine. Buckets, barrels, and semi-trucks of wine. According to the Brewers Association, there are 245 breweries in California as of 2010, or enough for every 152,000 people living there. Put another way, about 1/7 of all American breweries in 2010 were Californian. Sounds big, but by contrast to the 245 breweries in California, there are over 1200 wineries in California, out of a total of more than 3000 in the United States. When measured by the total amount of gallons produced, California makes 89% of all wine made in the USA. The United States is the fourth-largest producer of wine in the world, but California's wine industry is so huge that if the state decided to secede and form a separate country, California would overtake America's position on that list.
I did not know any of those specifics before this vacation. If I had known, I would not at all have been surprised to find that a typical restaurant in San Francisco or Monterrey County (we stayed in both) would have four or five wine options for every bottle of beer. Seriously, even Mom 'n' Pop places had at least a dozen bottles on hand.
So no, I was unfortunately not able to bring back any limited or regional bottles from Firestone Walker, Stone, Sierra Nevada, Ale Smith or Russian River to share with friends. Sorry. :(
Stone Smoked Porter w/Vanilla
Thankfully, we have easy access to quite a lot of Californian beers right here in Illinois, like this one:
The regular Smoked Porter is one of Stone's most popular offerings. It is a porter (that is, it is almost pitch black) brewed with barley malt that has been smoked. Thousands of years ago, most beers would have been fairly smoky because the only way to dry the malt back then would have been to let it sit over a pile of burning logs, but these beers are a small niche in the modern world. Most are only partly made with smoked malt, and the log of choice is usually beechwood. I have no idea what Stone uses. Actually, I've only tried the regular one once, so I don't know too much about it. For this variation, they took Smoked Porter and added Madagascar vanilla beans to it.
It looks the same as the regular version. Most porters and stouts are pitch-black and opaque, but this one is slightly transparent. The foam that tops it off is rich and over an inch thick, and just a shade darker than white.
When I was a kid, me and a few friends once took a case of Coca Cola and decided to just throw random stuff in it from my neighbor's cooking cabinet. Cinnamon, honey, garlic (that was a weird combination....), whatever we could find. We may have even added bread crumbs, come to think of it.We discovered that adding a certain amount of vanilla extract to a can of Coke made it indistinguishable from certain root beers. I was very pleased by this, as I liked root beer more than Coke anyway.
Drinking and (especially) smelling this ale reminds me of that experience. It smells a bit like someone took a can of Mug Root Beer or Sioux City Sarsaparilla and held if over a grill smoker for a few minutes. Very cola-like or cream soda-esque, with little of the chocolate or coffee character one usually finds in darker beers. The vanilla does not stand out as much as I wish it did, but rather melds into a general smoked-root beer sensation. The smoky flavors are a bit more Scotch-like than I remember the regular version being; perhaps it is peat-smoked. If so, that would likely make this the most widely-available peat smoked beer in the U.S.
This is a very tasty beer overall, and I slightly prefer it over the regular. It has no rough edges, preferring to slowly entice you rather than hit you over the head with vanilla or smoke. I would probably buy this a few times a year if they made it year-round, and I wouldn't mind at all if they decided to stop making the regular Smoked Porter in order to make room for production. That being said, it is not what I was expecting, and I wish the vanilla was more distinct. I also would not recommend either beer as an introduction to smoked beers despite the mild smoked flavors; it's almost too mild for a beginner (you would be very confused indeed if you drank a bottle of this and then tried, say, anything from this company.)
They also just released a version made with chipotle peppers. I will be opening my bottle tonight. More info about both versions can be found here. Cheers!
A beer for all.....or not
In the minds of most beer aficionados, California is huge. Anchor, Sierra Nevada, and Stone, all in the same state? Sounds great! Beer advocates make it up to be some sort of ale Mecca, full of the standard classics from those breweries and many other famous rarities. New upstarts and quickly-expanding breweries like The Bruery, Fifty-Fifty, Lagunitas and Firestone Walker are getting lots of hype and winning awards. On Beer Advocate's list of highest-rate beers of all time, four of the top 20 are from California. This list includes beers from all over the world, both current and retired. On Rate Beer's list of top 50 beers of all time (again, current and retired beers from all over the world), five of the first twenty are from California, and the complete 50 includes an additional six. When you narrow it down just to beers from the U.S., fourteen of Rate Beer's best American beers are from California, and for Beer Advocate's American list, the number is fifteen.
Yet when I was there last week, I was amazed at how few beers I could find relative to back here in Illinois. The tap lists in restaurants and bars were as impressive as Chicagoland at best, and in general they were just a little worse. Liquor stores were pretty much the same, and I didn't see any giant ones either. The retail side in Illinois seems a lot better than in California; I can drive for half an hour in any direction and find a Binny's or similarly-sized specialty liquor store. So what's going on in California?
The answer is simple: wine. Buckets, barrels, and semi-trucks of wine. According to the Brewers Association, there are 245 breweries in California as of 2010, or enough for every 152,000 people living there. Put another way, about 1/7 of all American breweries in 2010 were Californian. Sounds big, but by contrast to the 245 breweries in California, there are over 1200 wineries in California, out of a total of more than 3000 in the United States. When measured by the total amount of gallons produced, California makes 89% of all wine made in the USA. The United States is the fourth-largest producer of wine in the world, but California's wine industry is so huge that if the state decided to secede and form a separate country, California would overtake America's position on that list.
I did not know any of those specifics before this vacation. If I had known, I would not at all have been surprised to find that a typical restaurant in San Francisco or Monterrey County (we stayed in both) would have four or five wine options for every bottle of beer. Seriously, even Mom 'n' Pop places had at least a dozen bottles on hand.
So no, I was unfortunately not able to bring back any limited or regional bottles from Firestone Walker, Stone, Sierra Nevada, Ale Smith or Russian River to share with friends. Sorry. :(
Stone Smoked Porter w/Vanilla
Thankfully, we have easy access to quite a lot of Californian beers right here in Illinois, like this one:
It looks the same as the regular version. Most porters and stouts are pitch-black and opaque, but this one is slightly transparent. The foam that tops it off is rich and over an inch thick, and just a shade darker than white.
When I was a kid, me and a few friends once took a case of Coca Cola and decided to just throw random stuff in it from my neighbor's cooking cabinet. Cinnamon, honey, garlic (that was a weird combination....), whatever we could find. We may have even added bread crumbs, come to think of it.We discovered that adding a certain amount of vanilla extract to a can of Coke made it indistinguishable from certain root beers. I was very pleased by this, as I liked root beer more than Coke anyway.
Drinking and (especially) smelling this ale reminds me of that experience. It smells a bit like someone took a can of Mug Root Beer or Sioux City Sarsaparilla and held if over a grill smoker for a few minutes. Very cola-like or cream soda-esque, with little of the chocolate or coffee character one usually finds in darker beers. The vanilla does not stand out as much as I wish it did, but rather melds into a general smoked-root beer sensation. The smoky flavors are a bit more Scotch-like than I remember the regular version being; perhaps it is peat-smoked. If so, that would likely make this the most widely-available peat smoked beer in the U.S.
This is a very tasty beer overall, and I slightly prefer it over the regular. It has no rough edges, preferring to slowly entice you rather than hit you over the head with vanilla or smoke. I would probably buy this a few times a year if they made it year-round, and I wouldn't mind at all if they decided to stop making the regular Smoked Porter in order to make room for production. That being said, it is not what I was expecting, and I wish the vanilla was more distinct. I also would not recommend either beer as an introduction to smoked beers despite the mild smoked flavors; it's almost too mild for a beginner (you would be very confused indeed if you drank a bottle of this and then tried, say, anything from this company.)
They also just released a version made with chipotle peppers. I will be opening my bottle tonight. More info about both versions can be found here. Cheers!
Friday, July 13, 2012
New Belgium Tart Lychee
Okay, time for a review. I first had this beer June 7, and I've kept going back to it at the store on account of how ridiculously good it is. It is a very strange beer, and surprisingly well-priced for the style (I expected it to be at least 33% more expensive). Tart Lychee is a blend of two beers, one of which is an oak-aged sour ale named Felix and the other of which is an ale brewed with cinnamon and lychee fruit. The ratio is 56% sour ale, 44% ale. At some point, the fruit portion was also fermented with brettanomyces, a genus of wild yeast (much more funky than brewers yeast). The name is apt; the beer is tart, not full-blown sour.
The following review was written on June 25th.
The following review was written on June 25th.
Poured from an undated
22oz Lips of Faith bomber into my ever-handy Duvel tulip glass.
Tart Lychee pours a cloudy and opaque golden orange hue,
similar to a witbier. It is topped by a
single finger of white foam that halves quickly, leaving behind a soap
suds-esque film on top and a bit of lacing.
The aroma of this is incredible. I’m reminded of what Goose Island Fleur
(RIP) tasted like at six months of age, except with more tropical fruit thrown
into the mix. I have no idea what lychee
fruit looks, smells, or tastes like, but my nose tells me it must taste similar
to pineapple. In addition to pineapple,
I get various tart berry aromas, strawberry, and some fruity (not funky)
brettanomyces presence. Extraordinary.
I must seek out some of this lychee fruit at a grocery
store; this beer is delicious. “Tart”
was the proper term to use here; it has a puckering sensation, not
stomach-punishing sourness. Profoundly
fruity with strong notes of berries, pineapple, and even kiwi. The brettanomyces makes itself a bit more known here
with some moderate funk in the background.
They could have used the brettanomyces more aggressively here and let it ferment
through, as the texture of the beer is medium-full: not off-putting, but
definitely thicker than most wild/sour/tart beers.
After drinking through my bottle, I went out the next day
and bought two more. Next time I go to
the store, I might buy six more.
Seriously, I could easily drink a whole bomber of this to myself, any
day of the year. This is just
unbelievably delicious. It could be a
little drier, but otherwise I really like the direction they went with Tart
Lychee. The world of sour/wild beer sure
could use more moderate, tart ales rather than the enamel-shredding acidity
most go for.
See New Belgium's website for more information.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Getting started---what is this blog about?
Hello readers....and future readers. This blog is going to be about beer. It is going to be about beer I like, and it is going to be about beer I do not like. Specifically, it is going to be about craft beer and imported beer, since that is what I tend to drink. If you are a beer enthusiast, you already know what that means. If not, it means in all likelihood I will not be reviewing cans of Keystone.
Those of you who know me might have noticed that I occasionally write down some notes when I try a new beer. Sometimes, I even bring a little notebook into a restaurant. That is because for most of the last three years, I wrote and submitted reviews to www.beeradvocate.com. My reviewing habit started as a trickle and became something of a stream, and by December 2011 I had submitted just under 150 reviews. Then, the site crashed. Then they switched over to a new server. Somewhere between those events, Beer Advocate lost a fair amount of user data, including mine.
I have been waiting for them to figure it out and hopefully restore my account. In the meantime, I have continued trying new beers and writing reviews. Rather than wait for them to resolve the situation, I have decided to start a blog. Writing reviews is not enough; I enjoyed the occasional feedback as well.
Going forward, you can expect most of my posts to be reviews of three types: those I wrote for beeradvocate.com, those I wrote in the interim between Beer Advocate and now, and new reviews. Sadly, I don't think I backed up most of my really old reviews. I have some sixty reviews I've written since then. I won't upload all of them, just the most remarkable ones. I don't often go to a bar or restaurant just for the beer or even mostly for the beer because of how expensive it is to dine and drink out, but I will throw in a post now and then if I find a cool place. The same goes for retail stores, industry trends, or any other beer-related thoughts I have.
There will be an FAQ and an About Me later.
Cheers,
Mike
Those of you who know me might have noticed that I occasionally write down some notes when I try a new beer. Sometimes, I even bring a little notebook into a restaurant. That is because for most of the last three years, I wrote and submitted reviews to www.beeradvocate.com. My reviewing habit started as a trickle and became something of a stream, and by December 2011 I had submitted just under 150 reviews. Then, the site crashed. Then they switched over to a new server. Somewhere between those events, Beer Advocate lost a fair amount of user data, including mine.
I have been waiting for them to figure it out and hopefully restore my account. In the meantime, I have continued trying new beers and writing reviews. Rather than wait for them to resolve the situation, I have decided to start a blog. Writing reviews is not enough; I enjoyed the occasional feedback as well.
Going forward, you can expect most of my posts to be reviews of three types: those I wrote for beeradvocate.com, those I wrote in the interim between Beer Advocate and now, and new reviews. Sadly, I don't think I backed up most of my really old reviews. I have some sixty reviews I've written since then. I won't upload all of them, just the most remarkable ones. I don't often go to a bar or restaurant just for the beer or even mostly for the beer because of how expensive it is to dine and drink out, but I will throw in a post now and then if I find a cool place. The same goes for retail stores, industry trends, or any other beer-related thoughts I have.
There will be an FAQ and an About Me later.
Cheers,
Mike
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