The Finer Things In Life

[knightni]

With Your Host: FlaSoxxJim.

 

Take it away Flaxx!

[FlaSoxxJim]

With Your Host: FlaSoxxJim.

 

Take it away Flaxx!

 

Awww. you're the best.

 

It just so happens I have three new beers lined up for the weekend. You are all shocked (SHOCKED!), I know.

 

Currently, I'm just finishing a bottle conditioned English old ale (while I watch the wheels fall off our White Sox in the 5th inning) Called "Stingo" from the Samuel Smith Old Tadcaster Brewery — a longtime favorite brewery of mine. "Stingo" English ale is an 8% abv ale, top-fermented in the famous slate "Yorkshire square" open fermenters that give us the gorgeous Sam Smith Nut Brown Ale and Old Brewery Pale Ale, among others. Then, Stingo is aged for over a year in vintage wood casks before being bottled on lees (i.e., with a dose of live yeast) to bottle-condition. The bottle I poured was a 2008 vintage, 550-ml bottle, chilled to somewhat below 54ºF and allowed to warm over ~ 1 hour session.

 

In all honesty, the beer was not what I anticipated it would be. That's not necessarily a bad thing. I expected a malt-accentuated English old ale with just enough alcohol to hold down the fort and a subdued presence of English hops to balance things out. Instead, I'm tasting a classic beer from the wood. Vinuous, lactic notes that typify Belgian gueze lambics and sour brown ales and French country ales dominate the flavor, with all of the traditional British ale traits present but subdued. I shouldn't be shocked that Tadcaster is a brewery of its word, and when they state they age this one in veteran oak barrels, you can believe it.

 

English ale is a living microbiology lesson from the get-go. Add in wooden aging barrels that may be 100 years old (with coopers replacing individual wood staves as needed), and you have a happy, hoppy, infectious microbial party. Like the Belgian ales it resembles, this beer is the beneficiary of unseen microscopic helping hands — odd cultured and wild yeast strains living in the nooks and crannies of the wood that give character to the maturing beer by virtue of timing (secondary rather than primary fermentation) but not allowed enough of a foothold to risk spoiling the beer.

 

Aww crap. I certainly wouldn't have purposely picked such a left-field beer to start off this "Not Drunk" drinking thread. But that's the way it worked out. Bottom line, re recommending

this beer:

 

• Yes, if you are an open-minded fan of English craft beers, particularly old ales.

• Yes, if you are a fan of Belgian brews on the tart side.

• Yes, if you can stomach dropping $13 on a bottle of beer (ouch)

• No, if lactic or acid notes are at odds with what you expect beer should taste like

 

For me, a good gauge is often the "would I crack another one" test. If I had another one on hand (and at $13 a pop I do not), I would be uncapping and pouring it right now. I know I haven't fully digested all the flavors going on in this one, and it warrants another spin.

 

Slainté

 

Edited August 15, 2009 by FlaSoxxJim

[ThunderBolt]

I had high expectations when I opened this thread. You did not disappoint, Flaxx.

[FlaSoxxJim]

I had high expectations when I opened this thread. You did not disappoint, Flaxx.

 

Ideally, you all will chime in and turn me on to some must-try beers and spirits too.

 

Equally exciting is the idea of several of us sampling the same brew in the same evening and comparing tasting notes. Now that decent nationally distributed beers actually exist, this is certainly possible.

[The Critic]

Im' W asted from2 m anybeerxz n you guysz s uckj!1! wo0T@!

 

Wait....wrong thread?

Oops....so sorry....

 

 

[G&T]

Well I'm not drinking right now, but what the hell.

 

Last night I grabbed a Brown's Brewing Whiskey Porter. Essentially it's an English Porter aged for a few months in Jack Daniels whiskey barrels. Won a silver medal at the World Beer Cup for barrel aged beers. Browns is a small local brewery/brew-pub from down the street in Troy, NY. For such a small place, it's one of the better brew pubs you might come across. They have one of, if not THE best oatmeal stout I've ever had. That includes Samuel Smith.

 

Unfortunately, this one only reinforced my idea that those awards are essentially given to everyone at some point. Now, I wasn't expecting anything similar to the Bourbon County Stout offered by Goose Island, which for me is nearly undrinkable but fantastic all the same, and one of my few forays into barrel aged beers. I was expecting a full bodied complex beer. The Whiskey Porter was a bit watery. A bit of chocolate and some roasty notes. Nothing special.

My fiancee happened to really like it which didn't surprise me. The beer isn't as aggressive as other barrel aged brews, which for some is perfect.

 

Nevertheless, Browns is a nice little brewery in upstate NY which offers a pretty nice selection of entry level beers which are made properly and won't destroy the wallet. There's always something to be said for that.

 

Tonight I'll be heading to a small bar/restaurant near the Vermont border, about 20 minutes away which has some ridiculous amount of beers but specializing in English Ales. I'll be looking for the Stingo.

[FlaSoxxJim]

So many great little brewpubs worth seeking out.

 

The Yorkshire Stingo is limited to 2,000 cases production, and was released August 1st, so hopefully you can come across one. I hope you do to compare notes. The Merchant du Vin product page for the Stingo mentions raisin and dried fruit notes on the flavor profile but doesn't make a point of pointing out barrel aged tartness. Then again, this year's vintage may have some more of that character than hat of previous years. I never had an opportunity to try it before yesterday so I can't say.

 

"Stingo" was also a name given to Watney's Cream Stout on the old get bottle design, but I think they dropped it (I can't it or Mackeson's with any regularity any more which makes me sad). Watney's now does a Stingo Dark old ale (haven't had it) which is more aptly named. Stingo appears to be a Victorian era slang term for old ale or strong ale.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Last night's spotlight tipple was a magnum bottle of Dogfish Head's new limited seasonal, Theobroma. Intended as an homage to pre-Columbian Aztec alcoholic drinks using cocoa as a key ingredient, the label calls this an ale brewed with honey, cocoa, ancho chiles, and a spice called annato.

 

As a disclosure, I adore Dogfish's straight-up hophead offerings—the excellent 60-, 90- and (yumm!) 120-minute IPAs. I usually don't find their more creative offerings like Midas Touch, Raison D'Etre, and Immort Ale to be as thoroughly enjoyable as the similarly complex left-field offerings from other breweries. Must be a a matter of taste and preference, because I know a lot of folks with well-honed beer palates that love these brews. And I give the brewery points for being adventurous in delving into historic beverages.

 

Disclosure two, I'm not a big fan of honey in beer. I love honey as an ingredient in big rum drinks like navy grogs and rum barrels. And I think most well-made meads are terrific — having just yesterday afternoon enjoyed a glass of the outstanding Apis Jadwiga Polish mead courtesy of my pusher shopkeeper at the wine and spirits shop. But in beer, honey usually leaves me wanting. Nearly every beer made with honey to me tastes and feels like someone went and melted a Crayola crayon in an otherwise perfectly good beer. It just dominates the flavor and mouthfeel such that it's just not my cup of tea (something I do like to put honey in. . . go figure).

 

At 9% abv, I was hoping the largeness of the Theobroma would stand up to the honey, and that the other interesting flavoring agents would add some balance as well. And to a degree, that was the case. But, the honey feel and flavor still ends up dominating this one enough that it would never be a personal favorite. Mostly well-balanced and with plenty going on in the flavor profile, but the honey fermenation notes are still a bit too front and center for me.

 

My wife enjoyed this beer more than I did, and she does not share my honey beer aversion although she dislikes honey in rum concoctions. Hopefully some of the beer folks here who are more fond of honey as an ingredient will get a chance to try this on and offer an alternate perspective.

 

A potential watershed beer for me tonight is a magnum of Cantillon kreik lambic that finally started coming into Florida in very limited quantities. The wife is a huge devotee of fruit lambics and so whether we crack this one depends on if she's in a beer mood this evening. If I drank this one without her I'd be in the doghouse for a week.

 

Slainté

[knightni]

I'm not much of a drinker, but I'm liking your blog-style posts. Good read Jim!

[G&T]

Unfortunately, Stingo doesn't appear to be available around here. Nevertheless, my dinner was paired with something I've been meaning to try and just never did: Corsendonk Pater.

 

I'm a huge Belgian beer junky, and the Corsendonk Christmas is not one to be missed (though it is decidedly on the sweet side), so I figured this deserved a go. Nice deep brown color with a fluffy head and great retention. Full of port wine aromas along with chocolate and some cherry and raisins. There's nothing like Belgian yeast. For a darker beer, it sits light on the palate and the carbonation makes the flavors dance. Very nice traditional abbey ale.

 

I'd say the beauty of this one was balance. Plenty of abbey ales can turn out to be overly sweet, but this had just enough hops to keep it from becoming dessert beer. Of course, sweeter is always better to me. Hops don't do much for me (even though I keep trying).

 

The beer that's waiting for me tonight is a bomber of Jolly Pumpkin Bam Biere. Traditional farmhouse ale weighing in at a light 4.5%, as it should. I didn't know that Jolly Pumpkin was even offered here, but I wandered the bottle shop and stumbled on it. Pretty excited about it.

 

 

[FlaSoxxJim]

Unfortunately, Stingo doesn't appear to be available around here. Nevertheless, my dinner was paired with something I've been meaning to try and just never did: Corsendonk Pater.

 

I'm a huge Belgian beer junky, and the Corsendonk Christmas is not one to be missed (though it is decidedly on the sweet side), so I figured this deserved a go. Nice deep brown color with a fluffy head and great retention. Full of port wine aromas along with chocolate and some cherry and raisins. There's nothing like Belgian yeast. For a darker beer, it sits light on the palate and the carbonation makes the flavors dance. Very nice traditional abbey ale.

 

I'd say the beauty of this one was balance. Plenty of abbey ales can turn out to be overly sweet, but this had just enough hops to keep it from becoming dessert beer. Of course, sweeter is always better to me. Hops don't do much for me (even though I keep trying).

 

The beer that's waiting for me tonight is a bomber of Jolly Pumpkin Bam Biere. Traditional farmhouse ale weighing in at a light 4.5%, as it should. I didn't know that Jolly Pumpkin was even offered here, but I wandered the bottle shop and stumbled on it. Pretty excited about it.

 

You're going to really like the Bam Biere I think. I had it a couple of weeks ago and can't wait to do another. Didn't rank up there with the best bière de gardes I've had, but very nice all the same.

 

I don't think I've ever had a Corsendonk beer I didn't like, though unless it's a seasonal or other limited release other Trappist or abbey beers usually end up coming hoe with me instead.

 

Hops can be an acquired taste for sure. I have a friend who is an avid craft beer enthusiast who for years only did the malty side of the beer world. We'd get him to try aggressively hopped beers just to see the icky face he'd make. Over time, though, he matured into a serious hophead.

[G&T]

You're going to really like the Bam Biere I think. I had it a couple of weeks ago and can't wait to do another. Didn't rank up there with the best bière de gardes I've had, but very nice all the same.

 

I don't think I've ever had a Corsendonk beer I didn't like, though unless it's a seasonal or other limited release other Trappist or abbey beers usually end up coming hoe with me instead.

 

Hops can be an acquired taste for sure. I have a friend who is an avid craft beer enthusiast who for years only did the malty side of the beer world. We'd get him to try aggressively hopped beers just to see the icky face he'd make. Over time, though, he matured into a serious hophead.

 

Well my problem with hops is less about the flavor and more about the assault on my stomach. I can handle one hoppy beer and that's about it. Problem is I make the mistake of getting a bomber and feeling awful. That said, Double Simcoe is some pretty good stuff which had enough malt to make it interesting for me. 90 Minute is good too. However, when I tried Alesmith Yulesmith, that didn't feel so great.

[G&T]

Poured the Bam Biere. This is something special. Fruity and funky. Nice tart taste. There's quite a bit going on here and I'm eager for it to warm up.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Poured the Bam Biere. This is something special. Fruity and funky. Nice tart taste. There's quite a bit going on here and I'm eager for it to warm up.

 

Glad you're digging the Punpkin.

 

Sounds like you'd really enjoy gueuze lambics and Flemmish browns and some of the other wonderfully tart styles, yes?

[FlaSoxxJim]

Break in beer talk. . . for rum talk.

 

I have six or eight go-to Caribbean drink recipes that I've pretty much finished tinkering with and consider them locked in. Gombay Smash, Pussers Painkiller, and the like. One of these is a Jamaican rum punch that in my recipe notebook is called "Three of Strong Jamaican Punch". Easy to make as a single serving and also great to scale up for a punch bowl, the ingrediant proportions largely conform to the Caribbean folk recipe rhyme, "One of sour, Two of sweet, Three of strong, Four of week." A nice easy way for pretty much anybody to remember hoe to make a passable run punch when the need arises. This afternoon was a household chore day, so the need arose early.

 

At the heart of my Jamaican punch is the one of a kind, accept no subtitutes, Wray and Nephew white overproof Jamaican rum. Not what you'd call a fine sipper, and rather harsh on first encounter, this is a staple of Caribbean rum punches and it has its own character even if it's somewhat on the unrefined side. I've read articles suggesting that Wray and Nephew Overproof accounts for 90$% of all domestic rum sales in Jamaica. I find that amazing if true, given the other fine Jamaican rums like Appleton, Coruba, Myers etc., that we consume so copiously stateside. But it's cheap, it makes a punch that packs a punch, and the flavor does grow on you.

 

My Three of Strong recipe is as follows:

 

• 1 oz lemon juice

• 1 oz orange juice

• ½ oz passionfruit puree (Finest Call)

• ½ oz Grace Jamaican strawberry syrup

• 1 oz Wray and Nephew Overproof rum

• 1 oz Coruba dark rum

• 1 oz Mount Gay Eclipse rum (or sub Appleton Special if you want to go 100% Jamaican)

• ½ oz homemade pimento dram*

• 4 oz club soda

 

Add the first 8 ingredients to a shaker and shake on ice, pour into glass, top with club soda and stir.

 

* Pimento dram is a Jamaican allspice liqueur that is nearly impossible to find so I've resorted to making my own. cinnamon syrup can be substituted or this can be left out, but it does add some depth to the drink.

 

Note that all ingredients except the splash of pimento dram conform to our nursery rhyme. Lemon juice = 1 oz of sour. orange juice, passionfruit puree and strawberry syrup = 2 oz of sour. Our three rums at one ounce each = 3 of strong. And, the club soda topper = 4 oz of weak. Lots of recipes count ice as the weak ingredient, and others will count orange juice, so there is room for interpretation. In this recipe, the club soda gives some life and lightness to a drink that is otherwise both very boozy and cloyingly sweet. These punches are sometimes referred to by the name "Paradise Overload", and the club soda helps keeping it out of overload territory.

 

Sadly, I used the last of my Wray and Nephew on this one, so for now I can only dream about returning to paradise.

 

 

[G&T]

Glad you're digging the Punpkin.

 

Sounds like you'd really enjoy gueuze lambics and Flemmish browns and some of the other wonderfully tart styles, yes?

 

Yeah I enjoy it. I made the mistake of jumping in with a Cantillon Geuze early on in my beer hunting. That blew out my palette. I got back into it with some less abrasive offerings and now I try to seek out some funk.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Yeah I enjoy it. I made the mistake of jumping in with a Cantillon Geuze early on in my beer hunting. That blew out my palette. I got back into it with some less abrasive offerings and now I try to seek out some funk.

 

Cantillon Gueuze is probably in my top 5 favorite beers, which is saying something. Can't get it here, but I've been able to beg the beer store shopkeeper to stock Lindeman's Gueuze and I can get Boon on the other side of the state.

 

If you ever get to the Monk's Cafe in Philadelphia, you will fall in love with their draft Cantillon Geuze. Cantillon actually sends the owner casks of unblended young and old lambic and he hand blends on site. A couple of those to compliment a pot of their musslels steamed in lambic and shallots and you'd think you were in a cafe in Brussels.

[G&T]

Cantillon Gueuze is probably in my top 5 favorite beers, which is saying something. Can't get it here, but I've been able to beg the beer store shopkeeper to stock Lindeman's Gueuze and I can get Boon on the other side of the state.

 

If you ever get to the Monk's Cafe in Philadelphia, you will fall in love with their draft Cantillon Geuze. Cantillon actually sends the owner casks of unblended young and old lambic and he hand blends on site. A couple of those to compliment a pot of their musslels steamed in lambic and shallots and you'd think you were in a cafe in Brussels.

 

I have to make more beer trips around the northeast because there is some great drinking and eating to be done around here. Philly is a place a few people have told me to get to for some eating.

 

I actually made a Lindeman's Framboise ice cream a few months back. We have the ice cream maker attachment for the Kitchen-Aid mixer. Sounds kinda weird, but it was damn good.

 

Speaking of food and beer, I'll be heading to Bar Harbor, Maine later this week and this weekend. I'm looking forward to reliving one of my favorite eating experiences at Beal's Lobster Pound. There is nothing like fresh caught Maine lobster and a Bar Harbor Real Ale, brewed right on the island. The beer is decent enough, but the lobster is out of this world, and beer matches really nicely.

 

By the way, what else might you put into your top 5?

Edited August 17, 2009 by G&T

[FlaSoxxJim]

The Lindemans ice cream sounds good, actually. Garret Oliver's (Brooklyn Brewing) food and beer book has a framboise sorbet recipe in it that I've done a couple times (Not much of a recipe really. . . freeze the lambic and make it a sorbet!).

 

Never been to Bar Harbar, but the Great Lost Bear in Portland is one of the best beer bar/restaurants I've been to. I quite enjoyed Gritty's in Portland as well.

 

Fresh Maine lobster is tough to beat, that's for sure.

 

After starting down that path, I'm going to have to pass on trying to lock in an actual top 5 — knowing full well it's an impossible task. Well, Guinness is in there, that much I know. A favorite of a lot of folks, but that way for a reason.

 

Heck, if I'm honest I'd probably have a hard time even locking in my five favorite styles. On any given day, that list would likely include British real cask ale, witbier, Belgian tripel, geueze, Guiness, and hop-heavy American pale. Cr@p, that's already six, isn't it. Yeah, a lost cause for sure.

 

Cracked the Cantillon kriek, and just finishing the last of it. Much tarter than I anticipated, lots more than Lindemans or Timmerman's for sure. Very geuze-like, with a vry subdued flavor contribution from the cherries and a slight, not unpleasant bit of sulfur in the nose. Mrs. Flaxx had to go faro on it and add some sugar, and I just savored the earthy-sour-wild combination that only a spontaneous fermentation can produce.

 

On the subject of wild fermentation — the next beer up for a critical tasting here is an Avery Brabant Ale 1, the first release in a newly launched line of barrel-aged beers that the label says is fermented with two strains of wild yeast (Brettanomyces). Looking forward to that one.

 

[G&T]

Frankly I didn't expect you to come up with 5. You clearly have a wider range of styles you gravitate towards than I do at this point. I like to try to get back into some of the styles that I didn't enjoy the first time around as my palette develops.

 

I'm not surprised to read about the Cantillon. "Acquired taste" is an understatement.

 

I think the Avery will be a good one. I haven't had the Brabant but I did have the Avery 15 which was a farmhouse. I'd consider it an underrated beer according to RateBeer. I thought it was pretty solid. In fact, I was swirling the yeast out of it at the end to get more of the funk.

 

 

By the way, someone is gonna have to get into this thread and help me out. Jim's going to get bored here really soon.

Edited August 17, 2009 by G&T

[Steve9347]

I went to Goose Island in Lincoln Park this weekend for lunch and to enjoy their beverages. Red Felt came out as a standout, but every brew I tried was quite good.

[FlaSoxxJim]

I was broken-hearted when I heard the Clybourne location was closing. Yeah, they always do a quality job and they have put out some exceptional seasonals in the past. I particularly remember a saison, Finish sahti, and an imperial stout of theirs being first rate.

 

They hosted a couple of cask ale festivals that I tried and failed to get back for. Are they still doing those?

[hogan873]

In the past few months I was finally able to partake in the food and beverage at Flossmoor Station and Gordon Biersch. I tried the samplers at both (Flossmoor had a 12 beer sampler!) and found both places to have very good brews. The Milky Way Stout at Flossmoor and the Hefeweizen at Gordon Biersch were standouts.

[hogan873]

Does anyone else reviews beers at ratebeer.com?

[FlaSoxxJim]

In the past few months I was finally able to partake in the food and beverage at Flossmoor Station and Gordon Biersch. I tried the samplers at both (Flossmoor had a 12 beer sampler!) and found both places to have very good brews. The Milky Way Stout at Flossmoor and the Hefeweizen at Gordon Biersch were standouts.

 

Haven't had the pleasure of sampling Flossmoor Station yet, but I've been to Gordon Biersch in Vegas and DC and both locations were serving up tasty beers when I visited. Back in the late 1990s Gordon Biersch was one of the few brewpubs I'd been to at that time that focused on lagers and did a quality job with them.