CulturAle Press

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Beer Reviews

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Aging Beers:  Brookeville Beer Farm Clover in the Hills  At  One Year From our “Vault”

Date:  February 17, 2018

The Story— Brookeville Beer Farm is a farm brewery in the outer suburbs of Washington DC.  — not far from a few others that are starting to rain on the beer desert of Montgomery County, Maryland.   If you live it the area it’s worth an excursion.  It looks like an old barn, and it does have old wood, but it’s a new creation.  In good weather outside tables invite drinkers but so do rocks and lots of room for the kids to run around and play.   There’s good pizza and very interesting local cheeses.   They have some very farm-y beers but several styles you’ll recognize as “beer” as well.

We didn’t intend to lay this beer down.   Doing so from a relatively new brewing is either an act of faith or folly.  But we set it aside for a charity tasting that never developed, and pulled it recently at about a year.  The Clover in the Hills is supposed to be an Irish Red Ale, and though I’m not sure about how close to the style they adhere, but it’s a good ale fresh and is probably improved by a bit of cellaring.  It says much for the quality control of the brewery that it show no sign of deterioration in the bottle after a year.

When fresh, it drinks like a beer rather than a tannery.   Roasty and sweet but its a clean malt sweetness.  Some bread and a range of stone, ale and raisin fruits with just a hint of late lemon.   A nice beer to settle into a warm afternoon with the kids and dogs.

The Beer—  At a year – Flowers seem to grow during the year in the bottle.  Bread and malt have receded but it’s quite clean and shows no hint of unwanted guests. Fruits have backed off too.  Mild toast.  Kinda chewy as it drinks.  Bright clean and floral with a bit of lingering sweetness. Ellie’s comments – Fizzy – fruits have cleaned up  It’s a dry but not funky toasty malt.  It’s cleaned itself up well.

Value —  Good to very good.   Buy beer at the brewery and you can decide if you want to risk the cellaring.   We were lucky to blunder into this experiment.

Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.

 In February, we’re digging into our legendary “vault” where we’ve been storing hundreds of bottles of beer waiting for the right time to taste them (or sell them for charity).   The charity market has slowed, so we’re working through them in front of a fire and finding some disappointments, but more very surprising delights.   You can find the full list –eventually– here on this “index post.”

 We’re often asked to share our tasting notes on over 33,000 beers; this blog is in answer to those requests.   Not all our notes, though.  The great beer writer Michael Jackson admirably followed the Thumper Rule, and we’ll try to do the same.  (“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.”)   All the beers we post are from the top half of our ratings and most are from the top quarter.   Of greater value, we think, are the stories behind the beers,   and we try to give you enough about the brewery, the style and the places to find great beer to help you on your own beer journeys.   At CulturAle Press we try to write books and publish posts that will help you “Drink Well and Travel Safely.”

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 At Pub 27 in Pompeii

Aging Beers: De Dolle Oerbier ‘nat en Straf: Wet and strong’    At Twelve Years From our “Vault”

Date:  February 16, 2018

The Story—  De Dolle Brouwers in Esen Belgium:  De Dolle translates to “Mad” as in “kinda nuts” and it kinda fits.   A couple of brothers salvaged a defunct brewery in their hometown and still brew on weekends when they’re not at their day jobs.  In the 80s, Maurice Coja, founder and the owner of the legendary Brickskeller Saloon in Washington, DC, gave us a couple of thousand dollars to find some beers he could import.  We found him Schlenkerla, Cantillon, and DeDolle.  Not a bad collection for the rank amateurs we were at the time.

Chris Herteleer of De Dolle became a frequent guest at the Brickskeller tastings of the 80s and 90s.  He’s funny and smart and incredibly talented.  His day job is an architect and he’s a superb artist.   Look for the De Dolle labels – they’re creative with that so distinctive Belgian humorous edge.  He’s also a brilliant brewer.  Chris was one of our earliest mentors in aging beers.  He took us to his “vault” and tried to show us the value of laying a beer down.  Unfortunately cellaring beers isn’t really a science and many of the bottles he pulled exploded in foam when opened.  He almost gave up, but the last one he pulled — I don’t remember the age but it was several years– was nothing short of magnificent.  He told us that beers sometimes go through a decline — sort of a time in the desert– before rebounding into splendor.   He was using the Rodenbach “yeast” at the time.  The original privately owned Rodenbach brewery was more generous with its unique blend of organisms than the more commercial management of recent years.   This beer, we’re pretty sure, used the Rodenbach yeast and cellared spectacularly.

Chris went through some tough years searching for a replacement for the Rodenbach, but he’s back.  We don’t know what he’s using or how he got it, but the bottles we’ve had recently have the same magnificent Flemish touch of sour without excessive acid.  We assume they’ll age well — we’ll try to let you know in 2030.

The Beer—   At twelve years, the beer has a rich, fruity and meaty aroma.   Lots of Rodenbach-y sweetness to match the rich cherry and darkness.  Almost no acid;  cherry is sweet but nowhere near the soda-like sweet fruit beers.   Exceptionally clean though slightly creamy.  Wowzer — this is the reason Chris puts them down for years.  I’ll admit a bias, but what a gem!  Ellie’s view:  some funky tart, but it’s fruity and a surprising amount of chocolate fudge and cocoa.   Complex and interesting – no extremes (!) Age has probably helped it.

Value —Good.   De Dolle beers are reasonably priced in Belgium when you can find them.   They’re brought to the US in relatively small quantities and the importing adds a good deal to the cost.   A small bottle will set you back more than you’d expect, but it’s a very worthwhile splurge.  We pick up some every year to put in the back of our fridge.

Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.

 In February, we’re digging into our legendary “vault” where we’ve been storing hundreds of bottles of beer waiting for the right time to taste them (or sell them for charity).   The charity market has slowed, so we’re working through them in front of a fire and finding some disappointments, but more very surprising delights.   You can find the full list –eventually– here on this “index post.”

 We’re often asked to share our tasting notes on over 33,000 beers; this blog is in answer to those requests.   Not all our notes, though.  The great beer writer Michael Jackson admirably followed the Thumper Rule, and we’ll try to do the same.  (“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.”)   All the beers we post are from the top half of our ratings and most are from the top quarter.   Of greater value, we think, are the stories behind the beers,   and we try to give you enough about the brewery, the style and the places to find great beer to help you on your own beer journeys.   At CulturAle Press we try to write books and publish posts that will help you “Drink Well and Travel Safely.”

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Aging Beers: Sierra Nevada Fresh Hop IPA– At  Five, Three and Three Years From our “Vault”; Chico, California*

Date:  February 15, 2018

The Story—  We’ve been irrationally fond of Celebration from the first sip in 1984– three years after its first release in California.   A long road trip to New England a year or two later searching for that year’s disappearing cases convinced us that a very hoppy ale appealed to a very big “niche” and led us to create Tuppers’ Hop Pocket Ale.  Find the story  of Celebration and the birth of Hop Pocket at our review of this year’s release here.

*We’re pretty sure they brew the Celebration near the hop fields that can give them the “fresh” hop (but not wet hops) that the beer depends on.  When they brew a version at Mills River with North Carolina hops, we’ll know the East has finally arrived as a hop producer.

The Beer:  Theoretically a fresh hop IPA shouldn’t be laid down, but the gentle trip to older age with this beer has fascinated us for decades.   What’s interesting is how similar they are after some aging.  All have a somewhat gooey hop residue in the aftertaste.  Of the three in this vertical tasting, the 2015 is probably the most tangy and really, it shouldn’t be, but the 2017 is kind of a dud.  We wonder if they tried to do it at Mills River.    It’s obviously fresher, but really no better.  We put Ellie through a blind tasting and she found the 2015  maltier, fruitier, and a bit softer.    The 2013 was  not as deep and a bit sugary with more citrus    Fro her the 2017 was the driest and most bitter with lots of lingering bitter and a quite sharp end.  If someone asked us “which would you order in a bar?” we’d have a tough time answering.  Differences are subtle.  The fresh hops in 2017 gang up on the palate more than most years.   I’d lean toward choosing the 2015.   But the bottom line is that you can pick up a six pack of this beer and have fun with it for years to come.

Value —  Very good to excellent.   This is a classic beer, well suited to setting down (carefully) for a year or five, and available at a close to regular beer price.

Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.

 In February, we’re digging into our legendary “vault” where we’ve been storing hundreds of bottles of beer waiting for the right time to taste them (or sell them for charity).   The charity market has slowed, so we’re working through them in front of a fire and finding some disappointments, but more very surprising delights.   You can find the full list –eventually– here on this “index post.”

 We’re often asked to share our tasting notes on over 33,000 beers; this blog is in answer to those requests.   Not all our notes, though.  The great beer writer Michael Jackson admirably followed the Thumper Rule, and we’ll try to do the same.  (“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.”)   All the beers we post are from the top half of our ratings and most are from the top quarter.   Of greater value, we think, are the stories behind the beers,   and we try to give you enough about the brewery, the style and the places to find great beer to help you on your own beer journeys.   At CulturAle Press we try to write books and publish posts that will help you “Drink Well and Travel Safely.”

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 At Pub 27 in Pompeii

Aging Beers: A Valentine Vault Delight:  Eldridge Pope’s Thomas Hardy’s Ale 1989 in 2018: At  Twenty-Nine Years From our “Vault!”

Date:  February 14, 2018

The Story—  For Valentine’s Day, we offer the ultimate lay down cellar beer and the most valuable gem from our vault:  Eldridge Pope Thomas Hardy’s Ale 1989.   We have earlier versions of this remarkable beer, but the ’89 has held up particularly well.

Eldridge Pope, a regional UK brewery in Dorchester, brewed this beer to celebrate the life of Thomas Hardy in 1968.  It was intended as a one-off, but was so successful, the brewery continued to produce it until it went out of business in 1999.   Our tasting of a six-year-old bottle brewed in 1980 remains our highest ranked beer of the 34,000+ beers we’ve tasted.

It was intended to cellar — up to 25 years!   A friend and I went in together on a couple of cases of it in the 90s.  He moved away and ceded us the rights to the beer and we’ve brought them out for charity tastings for the last decade or so.   The 1989 version came in standard 12 ounce bottles unlike the 9.6 ounce small bottles of earlier vintages.  Good thing.

We’re now reaching — and exceeding 30 years for some of the years we’ve laid down.  We’d say that it is perhaps no longer improving in the bottle — much anyway– but it hasn’t started to decline significantly either.   You can still find bottles of this masterpiece on line and in some exceptional beer stores — it can set you back a C note, though if the store laid down a bunch of it you can find it at half that price.   We paid close to $5 a bottle in the 90s which seemed like a small fortune to us.

The brand has been revived twice and is currently being produced by Meantime in Greenwich, London.   It’s not the same and not as good, but that’s just not a fair standard to try to reach.  Eldridge Pope let us visit their Thomas Hardy storage area — a huge room of small rusty grundy tanks that they couldn’t use for anything else.  So for them it was no sweat to leave the beer to condition for a year – and in some year s to move it into barrels for more conditioning.   No one has that luxury any more.

The Beer—  At 29 years, it leaves the current (good) editions in the spent grain bucket.  Chewy with very dark malt, some dark fruits and dark grape skins.  Very dark caramel.  Oh goodness.   Ellie’s notes – so dark, so rich, so Hardy, so sippy- requiring tiny sips.  A bit of plum pudding and a dash of black rum.

And… if you can find some, try a pairing with a vintage cheddar cheese – The funky cheese softens in contrast to the depths of the Hardy creaminess and the sharp tangy cheddar is the perfect foil.

Value — If you have to ask…    We’d recommend that if you can find a current edition out of Meantime — and the price is high but not exorbitant– you cellar a few and see what happens.

Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.

 In February, we’re digging into our legendary “vault” where we’ve been storing hundreds of bottles of beer waiting for the right time to taste them (or sell them for charity).   The charity market has slowed, so we’re working through them in front of a fire and finding some disappointments, but more very surprising delights.   You can find the full list –eventually– here on this “index post.”

We’re often asked to share our tasting notes on over 33,000 beers; this blog is in answer to those requests.   Not all our notes, though.  The great beer writer Michael Jackson admirably followed the Thumper Rule, and we’ll try to do the same.  (“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.”)   All the beers we post are from the top half of our ratings and most are from the top quarter.   Of greater value, we think, are the stories behind the beers,   and we try to give you enough about the brewery, the style and the places to find great beer to help you on your own beer journeys.   At CulturAle Press we try to write books and publish posts that will help you “Drink Well and Travel Safely.”

 

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Aging Beers: Clown Shoes @ Mercury Rexx Imperial Red Ale    At Three Years From our “Vault” (Mercury Brewing, Ipswich, Mass.)

Date:  February 13, 2018

The Story—  Mercury Brewing in Ipswich, Mass., has brewed a number of beers for a number of contract brewers since it replaced the Ipswich Brewing Company in 1999. The road has not always been a smooth one and sometimes it’s been hard to tell if a misstep is the result planning or brewing.   They’ve brewed with enough success to continue to attract hopeful entrepreneurs, however.

Happily, we’ve found than many of their strong beers cellar very well.   Harpoon acquired Clown Shoes a year and a half ago and we’re guessing they’ll be good for the brand.   But this is an old regime Clown Shoes that has held up surprisingly well.   We thought it was one of Mercury’s best at the time– A huge rich intensely chocolate malt with the bourbon vanilla pounding on the door until it breaks in with a rush of boozy heat.

The Beer—  The diminished head is not unusual even at three years.  It’s big, rich, boozy and woody.  It’s very slightly oxidized, but it isn’t unpleasant and some of that may be just oldish barrel flavors.    Chewy rich and boozy,  the Bourbon Barrels still hold their own.  Some chocolate and toast emerges into the finish.   It really hasn’t changed all that much — maybe a bit more paint thinner to the alcohol.  Boozy then, boozy now.  Ellie’s notes: big bourbon, some chocolate, really hot; so much bourbon so little beer.  a sipper if you frame your brain to bourbon rather than beer.

Value —  Fair.  We paid $17.99 for this three years ago.   It was a nice sipper this month, but for the money, we could have had two other nice sippers.   The Clown Shoes prices varied widely.  Choose carefully and there are bargains to be had.

Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.

 In February, we’re digging into our legendary “vault” where we’ve been storing hundreds of bottles of beer waiting for the right time to taste them (or sell them for charity).   The charity market has slowed, so we’re working through them in front of a fire and finding some disappointments, but more very surprising delights.   You can find the full list –eventually– here on this “index post.”

We’re often asked to share our tasting notes on over 33,000 beers; this blog is in answer to those requests.   Not all our notes, though.  The great beer writer Michael Jackson admirably followed the Thumper Rule, and we’ll try to do the same.  (“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.”)   All the beers we post are from the top half of our ratings and most are from the top quarter.   Of greater value, we think, are the stories behind the beers,   and we try to give you enough about the brewery, the style and the places to find great beer to help you on your own beer journeys.   At CulturAle Press we try to write books and publish posts that will help you “Drink Well and Travel Safely.”

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