Put me down for the winter

The early winter beer train just keeps on a-rollin', as I picked up some Great Divide Hibernation and Dick's Double Diamond tonight. Haven't gotten into the Dick's yet, but this Hibernation is pretty much exactly the same as it has been in years before: brilliant. We don't want no balance here, we want ridiculous sweet and smooth, chocolate-y and caramel-y malts, and we got 'em. It's rocking the ABV at 8.1%, and the new label's just plain classy. I'd post a pic, but they don't have them up on their website yet, and putting batteries into the camera, then uploading to my computer, then uploading to the internet . . . fah! I'll just drink it instead.

Here's something else I picked up tonight: Harviestoun's Ola Dubh (Gaelic for Black Oil), a Scottish ale aged in Highland Park Scotch casks. (Harviestoun makes the great Old Engine Oil.) There are three varieties, aged in 12, 16 and 30 year old casks. Since I was only going to get one, I went ahead and picked up the 30. It comes in a bloody box, so you know it's classy. Said box describes the beer as "gloopy". (Pardon me while I chortle in gleeful anticipation.) I probably won't be getting into this one tonight, I'll want at least one other serious beer drinker with me for it. I'm admittedly a little burnt out on liquor-barrel aged ales lately, since there's been kind of a glut lately of what used to be a rare thing, but this ought to be something different. Christ, I've never had a 30 year old Scotch, I think the oldest I've ever had was an 18 year, so I'm pretty excited. (I heart Scotch.)

Festivus in October

Been a long time, ladies and gents. I apologize, but I've been having trouble having enthusiasm for blogging after having read the worst blog in the world. I've had some ridiculous beers this year, but we'll get to those in a minute.

Winter beer season has evidently started early this year. I'm used to getting my Jubel fix around Thanksgiving, but hey, early birthday present for this dude, it's already on tap and in stores. Fuck yes. First off, get this out of the way, the label is pretty inoffensive this year, so I won't be writing anything offensive about it this year. More importantly it tastes great, much like last year's model, with some nice and chewy malts.

It doesn't stop there, though; Sierra Nevada's Celebration is in stores, too. Pig in shit, I am. Puppy with two peckers. It's not that hot, unfortunately. Definitely not the flavor explosion it was last year, but it's not terrible, either. I'm not as disgusted as I was by the mediocre effort they put forth two years ago, but it's kinda bland. Hints of some nice malts and hops, but mostly it just tastes like, well, beer. Chuggable, though, and it's good drunk-for-your-buck, which is nice in these times of financial insecurity. I'm topical!

So anyway, what have I been failing to write about over the months? Lagunitas' new Zappa was a delectable little Belgian-style. Ninkasi remains some of my favorite shit on the planet; I think Believer Double Red is one of the best 22's you can buy. I briefly met the brewer at PIBF, and I love his beer so much I felt like I was meeting a rockstar. I was practically struck dumb. "Hi, um, I'm Simon. Ilikeyourbeerthanksbye."

I have to mention Hopworks Urban Brewery, as well. Run by the fella that brewed for Laurelwood when they were good, he of course has an awful nice red, but his IPA (are you surprised that I like the IPA?) is fan-bloody-tastic, especially on cask. They're not exactly news at this point, but goddamn, drink their beer if you haven't already.

I feel like I'm missing some recent gems, but I'll have to get back to you. See you in 2011!

Burton Baton is the best

Burton Baton is the best beer in the world.

XX Black Butte is fantastic.

XX Black Butte is fantastic. God bless Deschutes.

The new Zappa is very

The new Zappa is very nice, a clean wit

Hop Stoopid, huge nose, nice

Hop Stoopid, huge nose, nice balance.

PIBF, muthafucka! 06 Ol' Crusty

PIBF, muthafucka! 06 Ol' Crusty treatin me good.

Bad Winter Beer Roundup: Final Round and Final Thoughts

Man, that shit was so awful last time I couldn't bear to do any more for a while. And by "for a while", I mean until it was the only beer in the house.

One of my last two presumably bad winter beers disappeared, and I can't complain. It was a Fish Tale. 'Nuff said. What's left is Big Sky's Powder Hound. I actually grabbed it more because I was curious than because I really thought it would be bad; I never have a lot of faith in Big Sky, but this is pretty good. My first impression was not favorable, and even at the end there's something a little wrong with it, but it's pretty damn drinkable. Will I buy it again? Probably not, but mostly because the competition's so fierce.

Before I get to that I'll mention another one that I had recently: Rogue's Santa's Private Reserve is pretty bad for the second year in a row. There's a nice spiciness to it, but the malts are disappointing, and it won't be getting a slot in my 'fridge again this year.

So what's good? Great Divide's Hibernation is brilliant, bigger and maltier than ever, if that's possible. Full Sail's Wreck the Halls and Dick's Double Diamond are exactly the same as they are every year: fucking awesome. I like a little change from year to year, even if it means some years are a little weaker, but both those breweries have hit on pretty special recipes, and I can't blame 'em if they don't want to change. Speaking of change, Sierra Nevada have really turned Celebration around, it's as delicious as ever this year. Bitchin' hops, nice kick, I like to drink it..

I've already complained about Jubelale's label, but you know what? I've learned to avoid looking at it, and concentrate on relishing the goddamn spectacular contents. The only maltier beers this year are Hibernation and Double Diamond (unlike Double Diamond, a fork will not stand up straight in a glass of Jubelale, and at least some light manages to pass through it, as opposed Double Diamond, where you pour a glass and the lights go dim in the room), and it's balanced really, really well. Guzzleable as shit.

I think I'll go ahead and call Wreck my favorite, though. It's not only pretty much exactly what I want in a winter beer, it's pretty much what I want in beer. Full stop.

Bad Winter Beer Roundup

Howdy, ladies and gents. You've tuned in to a very special edition of Beer Drunk Blues, where, as implied by the title, we'll be examining five of the worst winter beers I could find. Everyone loves winter beer, but there's a lot of bad ones, so I'm risking my taste buds to find and catalog what everyone should not be drinking this holiday season.

We're starting with something fairly innocent, Full Sail's Wassail, the only one of these five that I've tasted this year; in fact, the only one that I've ever had before. It's not terrible, but it's not very good either. This is odd, because their other winter seasonal, Wreck the Halls, is a perennial favorite of mine. This stuff looks more like root beer than any real beer should. A little unbalanced, it could stand to be either richer or hoppier. Full Sail never seems to put too much effort into their 12oz line, which I'm not sure I really approve of, but their 22oz Brewmaster Reserve line seems to keep getting stronger, so I can't give them too bad of a time. Still, I won't be buying any more of this stuff until next November.

Round 2, 3:08 PM

New Belgium's 2 Below. It smells like shit. Literally, like cow shit. It looks like a good IPA. It tastes strange. Not bad, exactly, and thankfully not at all like cow shit, but I don't really understand why anyone would want to make something that tastes like this. If you can conceive of rotten fruit that is also, somehow, boring, then you've got a pretty good idea how this beer tastes.

3:59 PM

I've identified the rotten fruit. It's pumpkin. Good Lord.

Round 3, 7:06 PM

Took a little break from bad beer, but now I'm back. Anderson Valley's Winter Solstice. Kinda muddy-looking, it tastes like caramel made with Splenda. Ick. Really, really bad. I mean it.

Ugh

Jubelale hit stores today, and let me tell you, this has got the be the ugliest beer label I've ever seen. Seriously? It's so ugly that I've decided to start a new award. It's called the Annual Beer Drunk Blues You're a Homo Award, and this year's ABDBYaHA goes to Deschutes Brewing Company. Seriously.

I haven't tasted it yet, the guy was just putting it out onto the shelves when I was at the store so it's still warm (and maybe I'm not quite ready for beer yet). Let's hope it tastes good.

Speaking of things that taste good, god, there's a bunch of them. First off, Caldera's IPA is the best can of beer you will ever drink. That's right, can. Unfortunately the cans cost something like $1.45 apiece, so it's not exactly cheaper, which is kinda the whole point of cans, but it's worth it just for the novel experience of drinking the last, warm dregs of a can of beer and not wanting to vomit.

Lagunitas has come back with another Zappa tribute brew, Kill Ugly Radio, in honor of the Anniversary of the second Mothers album. And it's delicious, light and citrusy.

Stone's 11th Anniversary ale is something really special. They call it an IPA, but I'm trying to figure out what the P stands for in this one, because it's sure not "pale". It must stand for "pitch-fucking-black", because that's what this is. It doesn't taste very dark and is very hoppy; when I tasted it out of the bottle I thought it was an interesting IPA. Then I poured it and my jaw dropped.

A few others: Samurai Ale from Great Divide is a really clean and drinkable unfiltered rice beer that made me overturn my long-held prejudice (and a well deserved one, I still think) against rice beer. Sierra Nevada's Anniversary ale is really blah, don't bother.

Shee-it

Well, I guess it's time for a beerfest recap. It's not hard to pick a winner, that's for sure.

PIBF

Before I get down to the beers, first off the festival is much nicer in the park blocks, with plenty of shade trees, no stuffy tents. It's never too crowded, and you're never in line very long, except for the entrance line, and even then it's only bad right when they first open. Not as many food choices, but the sausage dude they bring down from Seattle is a wizard, and also Sawasdee, some of the best Thai food downtown.

Beer. I didn't fuck about, I started right off with JW Lee's Harvest, the scotch-barrel-aged barleywine-style ale. It was really sweet, maybe a little too sweet, but man did it taste good. The peat was unmistakable, and the malt flavor was amazing.

Next I had the rum-barrel-aged Sick Duck Imperial Stout from Flyer's. It was really good, I can't say that it tasted particularly rummy, but there was definitely something there, complimenting a very good stout. I met the brewmaster towards the end of the evening, nice guy. They're from Oak Harbor, Washington, and the PIBF was their Oregon debut. Their Flyer Tuck, a Belgian-style strong ale was also particularly nice. The brewmaster said they'll be getting taps at spots around town soon, so keep an eye out for them.

Both of the Walking Man mysteries were very good. #1 was Knuckledragger, which isn't my favorite, but it sure tasted good ice cold on a hot day. Couldn't place #2, but it also pleased me. They're still not my favorite brewery, but they are pretty solid, and I'll drink them over a lot of others.

The Terminal Gravity Tripel was very good, I've never had anything quite like that from them before, but it did have their trademark of big, rich flavors. Big Sky's bourbon-barrel stout was OK, but nothing to write home about. Allagash's bourbon barrel tripel was pretty good, but again, not brilliant. I drank a bunch of other stuff, a lot of Great Divide, a lot of Ninkasi, can't even remember. Came home, drank some more and played dominoes on the porch for the rest of the night. Damned good night.


OBF

Man, last night sucked. Well, not totally, but a lot of it, yeah. Let's talk about the number of different hurdles the OBF puts between me and lots of beer. First off, the entrance line, which is pretty long, but moves along at a reasonable pace, because all that's happening is your ID is getting checked and a bracelet slapped on you. It still kinda sucks, but you're not yet sick of standing in line, so you feel OK. Then, once you're inside, if you came through the entrance I did, you have to mash your way through one of the two filled-to-capacity-plus-20 beer tents before you can even get in line to buy a mug and tokens. This line is the worst line in the world. As you can see from my posts last night, I was in this line for longer than 25 minutes. It was probably more like 35 or 40, because those posts weren't even at the beginning and end of the line. So now I'm thoroughly sick of standing in line, but I'm ready to go get a beer. Here comes the absolute worst part.

You get in line looking at the sign in front telling you what kind of beer you're going to get. Great. It's a long line, but I'm kind of inured to it now, and I'm just ready to drink. The lines are so long that getting only a taste is a sucker's bet, you need to get a full beer. Let's go ahead and set aside the fact that that's a rip-off, cuz it's four tokens a full beer, one for a taste, but a taste is a lot more than a quarter-glass, so you're getting less beer per token with a full glass, and let's focus on the fact that the point of a beer festival is to try lots of different kinds of beer, and this screws that pooch quite effectively. But here's the kicker: when you get up to the front of the line, odds are very good that whatever beer you wanted is out, and you're pretty much stuck with whatever replacement they have, or whatever's just to either side of you, since the staff is pretty accommodating in that sense. Just get into the shortest line, since it's a crap shoot to see what you'll get at the end anyway. That is fucked.

Beers. Let's see, what did I end up with. I got lucky and scored some Great Divide Titan IPA on my first roll of the dice. Good beer, but not exactly unfamiliar to me. Next roll I got a Rogue Imperial Porter, which I hadn't had before and quite enjoyed, actually. And last roll I got a Siletz Imperial Porter, which is well-known to me, and is very delicious.

One thing that was nice to see was that Farmer's Daughter, a good strong ale from my old buddy Max, who recently opened Max's Fanno Creek Brewpub, was an early sell-out. He's talented, go drink his beer.

Anyway, I still had some tokens, but I was sick of that place, so I sold them (at a loss) to some passersby and went to the Oak's Bottom. (Holy shit, I just remembered I have half of one of their amazing Chevre cheeseburgers sitting in the fridge. Hello, breakfast.) There I was finally able to select a beer that I wanted to drink. And I got Ninkasi's double IPA, Tricerahops. And lo, was I ever pleased.

So yeah, PIBF rules hands down, if only for the fact that the OBF is pretty shoddily organized. I really won't ever go back, I don't think, for the reasons illustrated above, but also for the difference in the attendees. PIBF: a more relaxed atmosphere, people who take beer drinking seriously, not just serious drinkers. OBF: The festival of the reluctant, exasperated girlfriend. Flushed and sweaty Bro Magnons unleashed on an unsuspecting populace. The horror...