A LIQUID POEM TO THE GLORY OF THE HOP:

STONE’S RUNINATION DOUBLE IPA 2.0

Stone Brewing Ruination Double IPA 2.0        Abv  8.5

We applaud brewers who, in the never-ending struggle to brew a beer that’s different from the brewery across town—or increasingly across the street—get more smarter about brewing actual beer rather than dump in some new ingredient no one could have imagined.  (OK – an exception is tomorrow’s beaver butt beer, that actually worked.)  Stone has tried almost everything to maintain its reputation as an innovator, but it does its best work when it takes a great beer and improves it.

The 2.0 Ruination is a tad stronger in alcohol than the version we first tasted at the Brickskeller in 2002, but the big difference comes in the hopping.   While the new version does continue with the Magnum and Centennial, both rather innovative for their time, it adds Simcoe, Citra and Azacca to bring the profile up to date.  Perhaps more importantly, it employs “hop bursting”—the practice of adding essentially wastefully massive amounts of hops very late in the boil.  The enormous hop load achieves the IBUs that fewer hops with a longer boil could provide, but the bitterness is softer and the flavors of the hops are more evident.  

If Stone were in New England, maybe they’d tinker around a bit more and can it and have a new cult beer, but this one seemed to us to be a bit more polished, though certainly not short on flavor.

Tasting notes:  The very rich malt and a good thing indeed and manages, barely, to more or less support the yuge deeply dank hops wave.  Some citrus peel shows but spicy and earthy notes share the spotlight in a thick, almost syrupy, oily and resiny hop profusion.

Food Pairings:  Stone’s website gives unusually detailed suggestions for its beers.  These guys have fun but take their beer very seriously.   Many of the suggestions point south of the border (mahi-mahi tacos and guacamole, are two of the many suggestions.   We’re most intrigued by the suggestion of Sag Paneer.  This massive and somewhat distant cousin of beers of the British troops in India is a far cry from the tepid Kingfisher that you expect in a Indian Restaurant; we may have to cook the dish at home to get a chance to try the pairing.  Review #0071   20170223

Tomorrow: Beaverbrau?  Castorale? Nope– it’s Olde Mother’s Tainted Love– giving a whole new meaning to “Bottoms Up.” (Strangeways Ape Armegeddon coming soon)

 

Three Notch’d Minuteman IPA: A Gentle Nor’Easter

Three Notch’s Minuteman IPA        Abv 7.0       IBU  20

 Three Notch’d Brewery in Charlottesville, Va. entered the market at a good time, with a good business plan and an exceptionally good brewer.   Naturally they’re expanding this summer.  We’ll post a bigger feature on them later in the year when they’re comfortably into their new digs,

We first encountered them a bit over three years ago and they impressed us from the start. We’ve tasted almost 30 of their beers since and have been impressed but the number of very different kinds of beer they do well.

These days it seems that if you have a small brewery you have to at least try to top Heddy.  We’re pretty sure this style is going to slide into the fad heap before too long, but in the short run the challenge for the brewer is to produce a beer that has enough “dank and juicy” hop flavors to keep people from driving to New England, while still producing beer that looks good enough and tastes good enough for people to enjoy it.

Brewer Dave Warwick threaded the needle well with his Three Notch’d Minuteman IPA, a creamy, softly fruity yeasty IPA that’s quite moreish.  It’s got a haze, but it looks like a proper bottle-conditioned beer rather than the bottom dregs of a fermenting tank.   It has fruity and grassy hops, but it’s not so dank you can’t drink several of them.   Trust us on this one.  If you do attempt this bit of research, however, stay off the roads – at 7% abv, it can sneak up on you.

Tasting notes:  It pours a slightly hazy golden brown with an exceptionally good creamy head.   The hops show in the aroma with fruit, grass and spice and stay inviting as it drinks.   A steady creamy chalkiness smooths and tempers the fruit, though a late bitter tang does sneak through at the end.

Food Pairings:  The soft yeast and hoppiness could temper something spicy, and this would be a great deal better than the thin sharp lagers we used to have to tolerate with Thai food.  Unlike the DIPA palate wreckers, though, this is gentle enough to escort a milder dish such as roast chicken or charcoal grilled fish.  Review #0070  20170222

 

Tomorrow: Strangeways Imperial Stout from Richmond, and don’t miss Friday’s entry:  Beaverbrau?  Castorale? Nope– it’s Olde Mother’s Tainted Love– giving a whole new meaning to “Bottoms Up.”

TRÖEGS MAD ELF: “I COULD SNIFF THIS ALL NIGHT”

TRÖEGS MAD ELF 2016  Abv 11       IBU 15

WE step once more into the tanks at Tröegs brewery in Hershey, Pa.  We’re running it today because it’s such an easy stop after the trip to Elizabethtown featured in our Hopping Around post for the week.      We’ve been featuring TRÖEGS’s Scratch Series, but it’s worth remembering that their big batch seasonals cause a ruckus in the beer world several times a year.  Mad Elf is one of their stop traffic releases.  I think the batches they turned out in Harrisburg might have been a bit more distinctive, but it’s just as likely they didn’t have the competition then that they do now.  Even in this overcrowded spiced and holiday market, however, Mad Elf lifts itself above the crowd.

 

 

Tasting notes:  Mad Elf is just ridiculously smooth for an 11% beer.  A rich malt starts it with lots of sweet cherries and some floral notes in the finish.  It is, however, really sweet, and hop heads aren’t going to swoon over the 15 IBUs.  Tough luck for them   There’s a bit of Ludens as it drinks, but it holds its depth.  I looked over as Ellie began to taste her glass.  She looked up and said “I could sniff this all night.”  She did wind up drinking it, but if I ever am told I can’t drink anymore, there may just have to be smelling sessions with this sort of rich beer.  [tasted from a bottle one day removed from the brewery]

Food Pairings:  Big rich meat dishes.  Spicy vegetarian casseroles.  Cheese, because cheese is almost always a good choice for a beer above 8% and this is way over 8%.   A soft cheese could allow the spices of the ale to show even more clearly.    [review 0067, 20170219]    Tomorrow: Three Notch’d Minuteman IPA, and don’t miss Friday’s entry:  Beaverbrau?  Castorale? Nope– it’s Olde Mother’s Tainted Love– giving a whole new meaning to “Bottoms Up.”

 

 

 

The Alaskan Frontier:  Smoke ‘Em if You Got ‘Em–

49^th State Smoked Märzen        Abv 5.7        IBU 25

               There was a time when smoked beers were pretty common.  It’s easier to dry malt using direct heat than to create a double chamber system that will toast the malt but keep the smoke away from the grain.   As brewing became more commercial and more sophisticated, smoked beers gave way to cleaner flavors—except in isolated spots such as Bamberg, Germany.   [more on Bamberg’s Schlenkerla beer tomorrow.]

On this side of the Atlantic – more properly the Pacific—Alaska has pioneered a revival of smoked beer.   In 1988, Geoff Larson, who with his wife Marcy had opened the Alaskan Brewing Company a couple of years earlier, introduced Alaskan Smoked Porter.  The porter, sporadically available since, became a cult sensation—the Heddy Topper of its day.  A skillful use of smoke gave a complexity to the flavor and served and acted as a preservative, allowing the beer to be cellared for years.

It seems appropriate, therefore, for one of Alaska’s newer breweries, 49^th State, to brew their own version of a smoked beer.   Their choice was a märzen style—the same style that Heller Brewing’s Schlenkerla has popularized around the world.

We had a chance to taste a smoked golden ale recently, and it provided a quick and effective lesson on why darker beers are more suitable for smoke.   The malt and the smoke quibbled and nagged at each other until an outright clash in the aftertaste.   49^th State has avoided such a conflict in its märzen.  It’s quite smoky, but there is a fundamental balance and the smoke is strikingly clean.   We were able to try it at a bottle share; I hope we’ll get a chance to do it justice by drinking it all night if we ever get to Healy, Alaska.

Tasting notes:   A big smoke aroma greets from the start, but no more aggressive than most Schlenkerla beers.   Starts and stays clean and even with a remarkable sustained cleanliness for the style.  Still, it’s all about the smoke.  There a bit of milky malt and even a hint of salt as it drinks, but the clean rich smoke is what makes it so moreish.

Food Pairings:  One of the basic rules of food pairing is “complement or contrast”.   The knee jerk pairing for smoked beers is smoked fish or smoked meats, and that’s OK, though it can be a bit much for some palates.   We prefer to match it with meats that aren’t smoked—there’s almost a gustatory illusion as the actual and expected sources of the smoke are reversed. 

•     * Skip It
•    ** Good Craft Beer
•   *** Well Above Average
•  **** Exceptional
• ***** Top 1%

Rating: ***  Value:   Review #0067; 20170219    Tomorrow:   Schlenkerla Pastenbier