Tasting Notes: The IPA Spotlight - Indica IPA

Brewery: Lost Coast Brewery
Style: IPA
ABV: 6.5%
Date Poured: July 2008

To continue the series, another west coast IPA, this time from California.

It's a bright but opaque orange in the glass with a rocky eggshell colored head. Nice lacing. sweet cirtusy hops, faint tangerine and grapefruit and some floral hop aromas as well. Faint fruity malt and a hint of kiwi fruit. (?!?!)

Fruity malt with a strident citrusy bitterness. Grapefruit and faint tangerine., orange rind. Long bitter aftertaste very tasty, pale malt backbone but imparts little but body and sweetness.

Easy drinker and damn tasty. A good choice if you find it.


Lost Coast Brewery

65 Days To Go!

Just over two months to go before I set foot in Belgium and as you might imagine, I'm pretty psyched.

A few decisions on the itinerary for Belgium have been made:

Hostels/Campgrounds instead of Hotels/B&B's - I'm not going to Belgium for all the creature comforts of home; I'm going for the beer! I'm hardly a stranger to roughing it on vacations so I'm sure a hostel room, a trekkershut and a tent will be more than adequate. Not to mention, it's a cheaper way to go and I don't anticipate being in my room that much.

Only One Day for Brussels - Part of this decision is based on my travelling partner not getting to Belgium as quickly as we had hoped but really it just came down to robbing a day from Antwerp to spend a second day in Brussels. Antwerp and Brussels are the only cities in Belgium I have been to before and I have to say that as far as the beery experiences go, Antwerp wins hands down. There are better cafes and the prices are cheaper (or at least, they were). Also, Antwerp is a very underrated city for tourism, beer or otherwise. So, it will be parts of two or three days in Antwerp hitting the pubs and sightseeing and one very full day in Brussels seeing Cantillon, Bier Circus, Poechenellekelder and the like.

Renting A Car - This decision was really based on another one: Did we want to get out of the cities on this trip? We decided that we did. We'll be taking the car out to the Ardennes with the Achouffe Brewery as our primary target and do some camping. The car will also be handy to make a trek out to Westvleteren to visit In De Vrede. We won't have the car the whole time but it will make it much easier to hit some out of the way spots during the journey.

Not Buying Beer At Westvleteren! - To clarify, if they have the six-packs in the shop at In De Vrede, I'll pick a couple up. But I decided that to spend the time to make the reservations, wait in line at the brewery, potentially turn our itinerary upside down to get out there on the correct day and tote around a case of beer for the rest of the trip...well, it just isn't worth it to me. We will go to the cafe but no mass quantities of "the world's greatest beer". The American beer geek in me certainly wants to get as much Westvleteren 12 as I can...but there are so many other beers in Belgium that I can't get here in the U.S....can't sacrifice so much time for just one.

Eating on the Cheap - This is probably a big mistake and I will modify this decision once I get over there but eating out three meals a day is an expensive proposition. So I've got to pick my spots. Frites are a cheap foodstuff, supermarkets can provide an inexpensive light lunch and from what I can recall farmer's markets are fairly common for fruit and such. This doesn't mean that I won't be eating a few meals out in restaurants but I want to target food that is A) very good and B) preferably something uniquely Belgian, dishes I could not get here in the U.S.

So the rough itinerary is two days in Antwerp, a day in the Ardennes, two days in Brugge, a day in Gent and a day in Brussels. The trip will be quite slanted to hitting some great cafes but we are hoping to work in a couple of brewery visits (Cantillon, Straffe Hendrik and Achouffe) and hit a couple of Trappist tap houses (Westvleteren and Westmalle).

More to come...

Tasting Notes: The IPA Spotlight - Full Sail IPA

Brewery: Full Sail Brewing Company
Style: IPA
ABV: 6.0%
Date Poured: July 2008

This bottle was part of my Florida haul. Full Sail is based in Portland, Oregon but I have never seen their beers this far east.

Pours crystal clear pale copper with a frothy ivory head. Smells of grassy hops and fresh mown grass.

The mouth is full of quite biting bitter hops, herbal, piney and a bit harsh. Not much malt to back it up and the body feels a bit thin as a result. Long herbal bitterness with a clean finish.

This is just OK, it could be a little better with a boost to the malt profile.







Full Sail Brewing Company

Tasting Notes: The IPA Spotlight - Mikkeller Stateside IPA

Brewer: Mikkeller
Style: IPA
ABV: 7.0%
Date Poured: July 2008

An American style IPA brewed by a Denmark based brewing concern? Yep.

(On a side note, it's interesting to watch the evolution over the years as American craft brewers copied and even saved from extinction many European beer styles and now the American influence is transferring back to the "Old Country"...)

Mikkeller even named their IPA "Stateside IPA" in a tribute to the style (or tastes) of the American brewer. It comes in just at my arbitrary limit ABV for a "single" IPA at 7%. (I am usually not so strict about my styles but I had to pick a dividing line between double IPA and regular IPA for the sake of this series...)

It pours a hazy orange copper with a billowing ivory head that leaves sheeting lace but dissipates to a wispy forth fairly quickly. Lots of hops in the nose. Herbal spicy hops, hints of tangerine and a lightly earthy malt aroma. Very nice!

The combo of hops that make the nose so good make the flavor a bit haphazard. Juicy sweet citrusy hops intermingled with some coarse herbal hops, like amarillo or something of that nature. Quite bitter but there's a decent bready malt backbone to hold it all together.

(edit: after checking the website, they do indeed use amarillo hops, as well as cascade and chinook...)

A sweet grapefruity finish and aftertaste followed by a long lingering bitterness.

Pretty tasty. I wish the bittering hops blended more nicely. If they did, it would be stellar.


Mikkeller

Coaster: Augustiner

These are two sides of the same beer coaster. I picked this up from the Augustiner bierhall in Munich during a trip in 1996. The coaster celebrates 500 years of Reinheitsgebot in Munich but that was 9 years before I visited.

Augustiner had great dunkelweizen and great sauerbraten served in a classic German bierhall complete with bench seating. It was a good time!

Tasting Notes: The IPA Spotlight - Sea Dog IPA

Brewer: Sea Dog Brewing
Style: IPA
ABV: 6.2%
Date Sampled: July 2008

For the second installment of The IPA Spotlight, I picked a beer I was able to lay my hands on in Florida but was an old favorite when I lived in Maine. It's the Sea Dog Old East India Pale Ale. This is clearly an attempt at an English style IPA. It is stated specifically on their website that this ale is a tribute to the ones made in Burton-on-Trent.

Pours a sparkly amber with a half inch of frothy head. The head was persistent and had nice lacing on the glass. Smells of English style hops, perhaps East Kent Goldings. Taste is sweet and malty but quickly gives you a strident balance or herbal hops. I found it well balanced with a medium body. A bit of creaminess in the texture. Aftertaste lingers on the palate for several minutes and is dominated by the hops. Certainly drinkable and truly smooth. A very good product from an under appreciated brewer.



Sea Dog Brewing

Beer Hunting: Southwest Florida

Southwest Florida (well, anywhere in Florida really) is not exactly what one would consider a top notch destination for beer. And it's probably not. But whenever I travel, I try to have at least one beer in mind that I want to get that I cannot get here in metro Atlanta. This time, it was the beers of Saint Somewhere Brewery.

Saint Somewhere has only been producing beer for less than a year and took the unusual strategy of brewing Belgian style beers and only releasing them in 750ml caged and corked bottles. I suppose this wouldn't be too unusual for many microbreweries but Florida breweries are notorious for being "safe" and unimaginative. That's not to say they don't make good beer in Florida, it just tends to be lagers or light ales.

I was going to be staying near Fort Myers with my sister. As this was going to be a family vacation, there wasn't going to be a lot of time for going to the pub so I targeted beer stores instead. The Total Wine in Fort Meyers looked to be my best best.

At Total Wine, I was pleased find beers from Bell's Brewery there and immediately targeted some Two Hearted Ale, one of my all-time favorites. I also picked up a six pack of Penn Pilsner, a tasty but unassuming pilsner from Pennsylvania, as my "utility" beer while in Florida. It was a beer you can enjoy without having to think too much about it.

Other finds included offering from Hawaii's Kona Brewing Company, Oregon's Full Sail, New England Brewing and Lost Coast among others. Various mixed sixers covered it.

That was pretty much it for the beer hunting until we started for home. We were making various stops on the Gulf Coast and had reservations at a hotel in Spring Hill, FL. Imagine my surprise when pulling into the hotel to see a Belgian brewpub across the parking lot from our hotel! Imagine my disappointment when I realized it was out of business!

The St. Sebastiaan Belgian Microbrewery looks to have been closed for about a year now. After some research, I found that it was created by a daughter company of the Sterkens Brewery based in Meer, Belgium. How great would it have been to put the family to bed and go have a couple pints? But now, the grass is overgrown and the outside is in disrepair as the pictures show.



St. Sebastiaan

Instead, I got in the van and decided to try to find some Saint Somewhere beers one last time. We were just north of Tarpon Springs (where the brewery is located) so I headed south to see if I could score some.

The local ABC Liquor store was no help, as I expected. So I headed further south to the Clearwater location of Total Wine. There I found two bottles from Saint Somewhere, the Saison Athene and the Lectio Divina. The Lectio Divina was listed as an amber but at 8% ABV, it certainly isn't an ordinary amber. Mission accomplished...but it was only a bottle of each. So it was onward...

World of Beer is a small store but it has an enormous selection. The owner knows his beer and even keeps the place dimly lit to protect the beer from getting light struck. I found more bottles of Saint Somewhere but there was more. Mikkeller had just come into the market so I grabbed a Stateside IPA and Mikkeller Black, a 17.5% ABV imperial stout. To top it off a La Granja Espresso Stout from Norrebro Bryghus in Denmark. Fantastic.

To complete the trilogy, I headed over to Luekens Big Town Liquors in Dunedin to see what else I could find. There, I found Holy Mackeral Mack in Black from Gordash Brewing Company. Gordash is another new brewing concern in Florida but has their beer contract brewed at this point. Add another mixed sixer that included some old favorites from Maine breweries and my evening was complete.

Tasting Notes: The IPA Spotlight - Jockamo IPA

Brewer: Abita Brewing Company
Style: IPA
ABV: 6.5%
Date Poured: July 2008

In this age of imperial everything in the American craft beer scene, double and even triple IPAs have stolen the spotlight from their forbears. "Single" IPAs have been forgotten. There was a day when IPA's were the ultimate showcase for hops but are now often dismissed as not being hoppy enough!

So I wanted to highlight a few good IPA's over the next couple of weeks. Not Imperial IPA, not Double IPA, just good honest IPAs. They're still out there.

First up is Jockamo IPA, a new beer from Abita Brewing out of New Orleans.

It pours a bright clear amber with a frothy ivory head. Lots of lacing. Copious amounts of herbal hops in the nose with a touch of fruity malt aroma.

Bitingly bitter herbal hops. Quite snappy with a fruity malt backbone. The hops linger long on the tongue in addition to the long herbal hop aftertaste. It's yummy.


Abita Brewing Company

New England, July 2005: Part 4 - Kennebec River Brewery, Quebec City and the Seas Dog

(I kept putting this last installment off because I thought I had pics from this leg of the trip. I guess I was wrong. So here it is...)

We arrived at The Forks, Maine early on Saturday afternoon. Our target was the Northern Outdoors resort where we would be camping out and taking advantage of a fringe benefit; that this resort also has a working brewery/brewpub.

We pitched our tent right at a site within a stone's throw of the Kennebec River and headed up to the lodge for some lunch.

We ordered some burgers and some brews. I had the Penobscot Porter with my burger and it was very tasty. Creamy and roasty, very smooth and sessionable. Did I mention they serve their beers in mason jars?

At the time, they also had a blueberry ale (not bad), a hazelnut brown ale (a tad heavy handed with the hazelnut) and their Magic Hole IPA. Magic Hole is one of the overlooked IPA's in New England. It is hopped exclusively with East Kent Goldings (at least it was at the time) and is just a fine, snappy and tasty IPA. In the age of the Imperial IPA, I guess I can see how many would overlook it.

Over the course of the day and a half we were at the resort, all the beers were sampled. In between the kayaking, the hiking or the hot tub, we found ourselves in the pub drinking beer or at our campsite drinking the beer we got at Oak Pond Brewery the day before. Not a bad way to spend a couple of days. My only regret is I didn't snap a few pictures on this part of the trip!

Sunday morning we decided to take a cannonball trip across the border and go beer hunting in Quebec City. We arrived late in the morning and found a pub to grab a sandwich and a couple beers.

At the Pub St-Alexandre, I enjoyed a Blanche de Bruxelles witbier with my ham and cheese panino and followed that up with the excellent Raftman from Unibroue, a Belgian-style ale made with smoked whiskey malt.

After lunch, we took a stroll around Le Marché du Vieux-Port de Québec, what could best be described as a sort of indoor farmer's market on the St. Lawrence River. We bought some outstanding artisinal cheeses and some Canadian ice wine and started the drive home.

On our way out of town, we stopped off at a Metro grocery store to look for beer. I picked up some Raftman, some Ephemere Cassis and some Irresistible Blonde and Brune, all from Unibroue. Dave picked up some Leffe Brune and we made our way back to Bangor.

On Monday, I had some time to kill before driving back to Logan Airport. I visited one of my favorite places for beer in Bangor, the Sea Dog Brewpub. The beer they serve are always tasty and, more importantly, they always have an offering on cask. Today it was a brown ale called Old Gollywobbler and I had one with lunch. I can't always recommend the food at the Sea Dog but the lobster roll I had that day was pretty good.

Rental car returned and bags checked, I headed to the Harpoon Brewery tap at the terminal to have a couple beers before the plane took off. I started with a Harpoon UFO (an unfiltered wheat which was fair at best) and then realized they had an offering from their 100 Barrel series...Triticus Wheat Wine. The Triticus was very, very good and weighs in at 11.5% ABV. As you might imagine, I was feeling very mellow as I boarded the plane for home.

All in all, a very good trip and quite a nice haul of beer was brought home.

Duvel Moortgat Acquires Liefmans

Duvel has acquired Liefmans! The transaction, including real estate that Duvel had bought earlier in the year, will total 4.5 million euros.

This is very good news. Not only will the Liefmans brands survive, they will be controlled by a brewer I quite respect. Good news. Goudenband lives on!

Coaster: Boston Beer Works

This coaster was picked up during my New England trip in 2004. I went to the location near Fenway Park.

They made a nice IPA but I couldn't get served fast enough to try a second beer. They seemed quite understaffed and the place wasn't even crowded. It would be worth a second trip though.

The Brick Store Pub: 11th Anniversary

I have not been out and about to drink beer in many months due to many different issues going on in my life but with things finally getting back to normal, I was looking for an excuse to get out and enjoy some good beer.

When you are out to enjoy good beer in the Atlanta metro area, the first place that springs to mind is the Brick Store Pub in Decatur. This Saturday kicked off the 11th anniversary celebrations at the Brick Store so I decided to be down there when they tapped the special kegs they brought in for the occasion.

The fact that a place like the Brick Store could survive 11 years in Georgia is amazing in itself. It's even more amazing considering that until 4 years ago, no beer over 6% ABV could be sold in the state. But they did survive and since the ABV cap was lifted in 2004, they have thrived. It is the best beer bar in the state and certainly one of the best on the East Coast.

I got there just after 3 PM and Dave was on the steps giving a speech and thanking everyone for coming out to celebrate and introduce the special kegs for that day. After he was done, I headed upstairs to the "Belgian Bar" and sample the beers.

The first beer was Guido by Brouwerij De Regenboog. Happily, I knew nothing of this beer before I tried it. Had I known in advance that it was brewed with honey and raisins, I may have passed it up.

Guido poured a hazy brownish orange with a frothy but thinnish head. Very sweet fruity smells, raisin and other assorted dark fruit. The flavor is really amazing. Very sweet and fruity, with raisins and dark plum but the noble hops are there too to provide a bit of balance. Lots of spicy, yeast flavors too with a touch of alcohol burn. It's sweet but not cloying. Very unique and very tasty.

The second beer was J.W. Lees Lagavulin vintage 2001. This particular beer is the J.W. Lees Harvest Ale aged in a cask that once held Lagavulin whiskey. The Brick Store got a pin keg and I was lucky to get a glass. I have not been a huge fan of the Harvest Ale in the past but this one was fantastic.

It pours a lightly hazy dark amber with no head to speak of. I could have just smelled this beer and been satisfied. Peaty and earthy, sweet malt and whiskey from the cask. Beautiful. The taste matches the smell. Very boozy and quite sweet but always with that peaty, whisky flavor permeating throughout. Very fruity with hints of toffee and vanilla. Sweetish finish with the whisky flavor lingering.

Both beers are not ones that I would have normally tried but both were fantastic.

I went in by myself but had nice conversation with a couple of guys named Lee. One was the bartender and the other was a guy I had met at a Beer Advocate event late last year.

Normally, the beer menu would suck me in for the better part of an afternoon but I had places to go and people to meet. If you come within 100 miles of Atlanta, you have to get to the Brick Store.

The Brick Store Pub

Out of The Cellar: Cherish Kriek

Brewer: Brouwerij Van Steenberge
Date Cellared: October 2003
Date Sampled: June 2008
Style: Kriek Lambic
ABV: ???

This is one of those inadvertent cellarings. It's a beer I bought for my wife years ago but it has languished in the cellar for over 4 1/2 years. I'm not crazy about the more "commercial" examples of Kriek Lambic but I was curious to see what would happen to it after all this time. I was pretty sure this is a pasteurized beer but did any of the brettanomyces survive? Would there be any added funk or sourness imparted by the age?

Logically, I know the answer is probably not. But what's done is done. Let's check it out.

It pours a a deep copper color with a hint of red and is topped by wispy thin ivory head. Smells of tart cherry and just a slight hint of toffee.

There's a lot of tart cherry flavors with just a twinge of toffee. The body is much thinner. There's sweetness but it's not that sweet. It finishes with a light sticky aftertaste.

Firstly, there was no funky brett character at all. The pasteurization is complete and thorough! Second, the tart fruitiness does seem to be stronger in the flavor profile but I would imagine that is some of the fruity oxidation flavors blending with the cherries.

Chalk it up to experience. An interesting accident but nothing more.


Brouwerij Van Steenberge

Tasting Notes: Foret

Brewer: Brasserie Dupont
Style: Saison
ABV: 7.5%
Date Poured: June 2008

Foret is an amazing beer. I was at the Brick Store Pub in Decatur, Georgia a couple of years ago and was in the mood to have a Saison Dupont on draft. They were out but they had just tapped some Foret and offered me that instead. I took it. How bad could it be? Turns out it was even better than Saison Dupont! But instead of reminiscing, I'll talk about the bottle of Foret I've got right in front of me.

It pours crystal clear. I mean, the clarity in quite dramatic on this beer. Clear copper with a dense creamy ivory head and sheeting lace on the sides of the glass.

Smells of lemon, sweet spice and banana of all things. Light peppery spice also fills the nose.

In the mouth, a strident noble hop character takes over, something I did not detect in the nose. Peppery flavors and yeastiness underneath. A driness in the finish, some bright citrusy fruitiness from the malt. It's lovely. A symphony of flavors in the tongue.

On top of all this, Foret is certified organic by Ecocert. (It goes by Moinette Bio in Europe)

Run, don't walk.


Brasserie Dupont

The Session # 16: Beer Festivals

Beer festivals. I've been to some great ones. I've been to some lousy ones. Now, in my mid-thirties, I've figured out two essential ingredients to knowing what will make a beer festival enjoyable for me.

1) There have to be beers at the festival that I would have difficulty sampling otherwise because of geography, cost or limited availability.

2) There either has to be an early session of the festival or the doors have to open early in the afternoon. If you go early, you tend to miss the drunken louts who show up after dark simply to get loaded.

Thus, my best beer festival experiences have been ones that I have travelled out of state to attend. Lots of new beer to sample in those cases and the festival format allows you to sample much in a limited amount of time.

But my favorite festival that I attended was one in Maine while I was living in that state. It was the Southwest Harbor Oktoberfest and the last one I attended was probably in 2003.

Maine had a lot of craft breweries per capita (at one point it was more per capita than any state in the union but that may have changed since) but some were draft only, brewpubs or a very limited availability. Some breweries literally serviced only a 45 mile radius from the brewery. So even if a brewery was in-state, you might not be able to find the beer. So this was a great chance to sample beers from all over the state and even meet many of the brewers.

Some highlights:

I got to meet Rob Tod of Allagash Brewing. It was my first chance to try beers from Sheepscot Valley Brewing and from the Narrow Gauge Brewpub (Narrow Gauge is gone now but had a great cream ale). The Liberal Cup, Gritty McDuff's and The Bear brewpubs were all there too.

It was outside at a campground and the weather was great. There was the beer tent and another tent with live music and still another for crafts and artists. You could bring the whole family if you wanted to.

If you find yourself near Mt. Desert Island in Maine this fall, you can check it out for yourself.

And if you remember those two rules, you'll probably find any beer festival that meets them worthwhile.

For more entries for this month's The Session, head over to Geistbear Brewing Blog where it's being hosted.

Tasting Notes: Agave Wheat

Brewer: Breckenridge Brewery
Style: American Wheat\Agave Wheat ?
ABV: 4.2%
Date Poured: June 2008

Once I made the move to Georgia several years ago, I learned a new appreciation for wheat beers. It's hot down here and a good witbier or hefeweizen really hits the spot. I particularly dove into exploring German hefes and then, as I am prone to do, started looking for some good examples made by American brewers.

I was sorely disappointed. Beers that claimed to be "hefeweizens" turned out to have none of the characteristics of their German equivalents. Where was that banana/lemon/bubblegum flavor imparted by that typical hefe yeast? Nowhere, it seemed. American witbiers were better but most seemed flabby and lacking, even compared to industrial examples like Hoegaarden. And the ales labeled simply "wheat beer" were crisp but soulless. Little flavor and even less enjoyment.

I believe that American brewers can make great examples of any style in the world but with wheat beers they come up short. I can only think of two stellar examples: Allagash White from Allagash Brewery in Portland, Maine and Gumballhead from Three Floyds Brewery in Munster, Indiana.

But that doesn't stop me from continuing to look. Colorado's Breckenridge Brewery has released a wheat beer flavored with the nectar of the Salmiana Agave. And since I have never heard of a brewery doing such a thing, I had to give it a shot.

It pours a very hazy pale gold (it is unfiltered) with a 1/4 inch snow white head. A pretty typical appearance for an American wheat beer. Sweet wheat malt aromas mixed with aromatics from some sort of lemony fruit. Maybe this is from the agave?

In the mouth, a lightly sweet wheat malt imparts a light crispness. It starts out quite dry in the mouth too. There's a lime-like flavor in there which I am assuming is the agave nectar. It still finishes clean and crisp but with just a hint of stickiness in the aftertaste.

The addition of agave is interesting to be sure and does save this beer from still being just another limp American wheat beer. But it doesn't make it great. Extra credit for trying something different. I wouldn't have thought of agave in a million years. I will say that this is a cut above your average American wheat beer.


Breckenridge Brewery

Tasting Notes: Highland Kashmir IPA

Brewer: Highland Brewing
Style: IPA
ABV: 5.6%
Date Poured: June 2008

Jumping back into the beer tasting, I was really wanting an IPA. I decided starting with an IPA from the southeast US (where I am) would be a good place to start. So, it's the Kashmir IPA from Highland Brewing in Asheville, North Carolina.

It's got a lightly hazy and very pale gold body with a frothy ivory head. Sheets of lace left on the glass. Light herbal hop aromas with a hint of citrus.

Herbal bitterness that builds as you drink it. No sweet citrus here. Lightly sweet pale malt and bitter finish, lightly sticky. Medium bodied with a biting bitter aftertaste.

Not bad. Quite a solid single IPA.


Highland Brewing Company

Tasting Notes: Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout

Brewery: Samuel Smith's Old Brewery

Style: Oatmeal Stout

ABV: 5%

Date Poured: April 2008

Samuel Smith's used to be one of my regulars. At least the Taddy Porter and the Oatmeal Stout. These were two beer that I cut my teeth on when I was getting into "better beer".

There was only one problem. Samuel Smith's insisted on sending their beer across the Atlantic in clear glass bottles. Perhaps this is not a problem in England. Maybe the turnover of stock is better and the stores know better how to treat beer. But over here, it wouldn't take too long before a bottle sitting out in the fluorescent light would get skunked. Nothing worse than dropping good money on beer only to have it tasting off when you got it home.

When I lived in Maine, I had a solution. I knew what day my local co-op got there beer shipments and I could go there on Wednesdays and pick my bottles straight from a sealed box. Down here in Georgia, it wasn't so easy and it was an even chance that I would get a sub-par sample when grabbing the Taddy Porter.

So I stopped buying Samuel Smith's products.

Many months (maybe more than a year now) ago, Samuel Smith's started bottling their beers in brown bottles for consumption on this side of the Atlantic. It took me a long time to give them a try (creature of habit) but I finally picked up a bottle of Oatmeal Stout to sample.

It pours opaque dark brown with a creamy light brown head. Smells of sweet chocolate and a grainy oat. Sweet and milky but lightly bitter aromas.

It fills the mouth with rich and creamy flavors. The oatmeal is there bringing a light bitterness and astringency to a sweet and creamy malt. There's a lightly sticky texture and it is quite full bodied.

It's as good as ever! Time to add these back to my regular rotation.

Samuel Smith's Old Brewery

Beer Travel: 19th Century Style

Since family issues and illness have cut down on my beer drinking/beer travel, I have been doing a bit of reading and have come across some beer related things here.

I found a book called "Europe Viewed Through American Spectacles" by Charles Carroll Fulton. Mr. Fulton was the editor of The Baltimore American and sent many letters home from his 1873 trip to Europe that were published in the American and eventually compiled in book form

Fulton and company were quite shocked by the pervasiveness of beer drinking in European cultures and surprised that in was enjoyed by all classes of people, not just drunken degenerates. He seemingly became a beer loving convert during his travels.

I'll post some selected passages that I find interesting.

Dresden

Beer Drinking

Everybody in Germany drinks beer, it being part of the daily food, as much so as
coffee is in America. Mothers wean their infants on beer, and they are brought
up accustomed to drink it as freely as water. At all the stations on the road an
opportunity is given to the passengers to secure a supply, and it is more easily
obtained than water, and almost as cheap. The Germans attribute the absence of
dyspepsia to beer, and point to the rosy cheeks of their daughters as the result
of this wholesome beverage. Our party are all giving it a fair trial, and hope
to return home with a new lease of life and health. With all due respect to our
American brewers, we do not think that any of them come up to the quality of the
German article, which is of a bright and clear amber color and sparkles under a
heavy froth. The taste for it is an acquired one, and we are all getting quite
accustomed to its use. It seems to be free from all intoxicating effects, and if
it proves a cure for dyspepsia, as is claimed by our German friends, it will do
much more than the doctors have been able to accomplish in most cases of the
kind.

The "Dutch Treat"

The Germans in the United States, and those Americans who afîect a fondness
for lager-beer, don't drink it as it is drunk in Germany. They rush into a
restaurant and gulp down two or three glasses, and move on. Here a German never
thinks of finishing his glass of beer in less than ten minutes, or of drinking
it without eating something at the same time, even if it is only a crust of
brown bread. In fact, a German in the Fatherland is constitutionally opposed to
doing anything in a hurry, and especially to drinking beer with "rapid speed."
The consequence is, that we do not see men here with great, huge paunches, as at
home, capable of swallowing a keg of beer after supper. They never treat one
another, but sit down to the tables, and, though they drink together, each man
pays for what he consumes, whether it be beer or food. This of itself is a great
preventive of excess, as if a half-dozen or dozen were to sit down to drink, ae
with us, each man must treat in turn, and thus six or a dozen 35 glasses would
be guzzled, whether they wanted it or glasses would be guzzled, whether they
wanted it or not. If our temperance friends could institute what is called the
"Dutch treat" into our saloons, each man paying his own reckoning, it would be a
long step towards reform in drinking. In short, beer in Germany is a part of
each man's food. He takes it as a sustenance, and not as a stimulant.

The Session #15: Seeing The Light

For this month's version of The Session, we were asked to write about when we knew we were hooked on beer. I know the exact night it happened. It's not an incredibly exciting story but here it is.

I was visiting one of my college roommates at his parent's place in Wilmington, Delaware. We were preparing for an evening in the basement, shooting pool, watching baseball and drinking beer. We were heading out for a beer run and Tom suggested we go to Total Beverage because they had this great feature where you could "create your own six-pack". This was the early 90's and while I had started drinking "better beer", I really hadn't explored that much. This new concept of a mixed sixer would allow me to do just that.

We went to Total Beverage. I got two mixed sixers. I still remember the beers.

Anchor Steam

Anchor Liberty Ale

Anchor Porter

Sam Adams Boston Lager

Sam Adams Cream Stout

Sam Adams Honey Porter

Orkney Skullsplitter

Rhino Chasers Amber Ale

Rhino Chasers American Ale

Sierra Nevada Stout

Pete's Wicked Ale

Guinness Extra Stout

I had no idea what I was buying. I was just making selections based on what were my favorite beers at the time (Sam Adams Boston Lager and Guinness Draft) and how cool the labels looked. but I lucked into a few really good ones and somewhere in the middle of all those beer that night, I knew I was hooked. It solidified my new found love of stouts and porters, gave me my first tastes of an IPA and introduced me to a whole new style of beer (Wee Heavy).

Outside of Pete's Wicked and Rhino Chasers American Ale, all of those beers became regulars in my drinking rotation and set the stage nicely for the beer journey to come.

All thanks to Tom, a huge corporate beverage entity and Wilmington, DE (one of the ugliest cities you've ever seen).

More entries for The Session can be found here on Boak and Bailey's UK Beer Blog.