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Archive for September, 2010

Moose Drool Brown Ale

Posted in Beer, tagged , , , , on September 30, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Being that it is now officially fall and Oktoberfest is almost officially over, I’ve been on the hunt for brown ales, which has led to the discovery that brown ales are oddly difficult to find on tap (Newcastle being the exception here). This leads me to believe that browns don’t move that fast. It might be because they’re such an innocuous style: people who have gotten into Newcastle will often stick with that, and people who are really into craft beers tend to go for something more extreme or complex: something darker and maltier or something brighter and hoppier or something stronger and Belgian-ier or whatever. At least, that’s my guess.

For my money, however, brown ales are a bloody fantastic thing to be drinking when it’s bright and sunny and only about 60 degrees out. And they’re usually super food-friendly, pairing well with nearly anything that isn’t way spicy.  So drink some, and maybe someday we’ll have wider selections of these lovely, lovely beers.

Now, onto the Moose Drool:

Basic Info:
Name: Moose Drool Brown Ale
Origin: Big Sky Brewing Co., Montana
Style: Brown Ale
ABV: 5.10%
IBU: not given
I drank this: on tap at Barleys, Overland Park, KS

This is one of my favorite beer names of all time. Honestly, how could it not be?

This is a nice clear brown color with a nutty/bready scent and maybe a hint of biscuits. The head disappears really quickly. As I’ve said a few times, head retention isn’t a big thing for me unless the head is something really spectacular (it isn’t here), so I’m happy to see it go. It gets me to the beer faster. It has a medium to light body - i.e., this is not a beer that feels very thick to drink. 

Flavor-wise, this is sweet brown malts with faint caramel overtones. I know there are hops in this because it’s not insulin shot sweet, but the hops really aren’t noticeable beyond making sure the beer isn’t too sticky – this is an excellent beer for the hop-phobic among you. This is common with brown ales: if you’re looking for a beer that will do a good job of showing off its malts it and don’t want hops getting in the way of all that malty goodness, and you’re also not in the mood for a stout, a brown ale is exactly what you want to be drinking.

And so, summed up, that’s pretty much a Moose Drool. My only complaint with Moose Drool is that it’s almost too simple – I don’t miss the hops, but sometimes I wish the malts were slightly more complex/nuttier/breadier or something. It’s a great beer for throwing back when you don’t want to think about the beer itself all that much – it’s fun and thirst-quenching. However, if you’re going out to taste something fun and new and different and you’re planning on spending some time really thinking about the beer, go for a Lost Coast Downtown Brown or a Goose Island Nut Brown instead.

Quick note to Dad: Moose Drool reminds me of the homebrew brown we make – I checked and it’s got roughly the same malt profile and the same Willamette hops. I like our brew better though :P

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Schlafly Special Release Pumpkin Ale

Posted in Beer, tagged , , , , on September 28, 2010 | 3 Comments »

Before we get into the beer here, I’d like to make a quick PSA: GET TO KNOW YOUR SERVER. Or your server’s manager/beer ordering person, if possible. (Tip them well, too – they’re bringing you your drinks!)

The reason? As much as I love Old Chicago, I get frustrated sometimes that the beer doesn’t rotate all that often, so that it feels like the selection is fairly stagnant. Here’s the thing, though: it isn’t. Apparently. It’s just that the really good fun stuff is often not mentioned (um, anywhere), so you’ve got to get to know your server/manager/etc. in order to figure out what they’ve got that isn’t being advertised.

Case in point is this effing fantastic Schlafly Pumpkin, whose existence I was sadly unaware of until Mom and I had been talking beer with a manager (Brian, who was awesome) for a solid 15 minutes on a quiet Sunday afternoon. So folks, they have this beer at Old Chicago at 119th and Metcalf. If you do nothing else this week, GO HAVE SOME. It’ll come in a 10 oz pour because this stuff, baby, it’s strong.

Basic Info:
Name: Special Release Pumpkin Ale
Origin: St. Louis Brewery/Schlafly Tap Room
Style: Pumpkin Ale
ABV: 8.00%
IBU: 16
I drank this: on tap at Old Chicago, Overland Park, KS

I have a love/hate relationship with pumpkin ales. When they’re good, they’re really awesome. When they’re bad, they’re heartbreaking because I was hoping for something good. The bad ones tend not to have any real discernible pumpkin flavor and tend to leave a sort of funky quasi-clove-y aftertaste.

This is one of the good ones. The very, very good ones. This beer is a medium amber color with absolutely zero head. It smells like pumpkin pie – all the warm and nommy fall spices with a very strong underlying pumpkin base. I couldn’t even smell the malts they used – this is all pumpkin pie.

It’s lightly carbonated, initially sharp on the tongue but also creamy – it has a nice clove/allspice/nutmeg/cinnamon spice blend and a strong pumpkin flavor. You know, like pumpkin pie. It’s a sweet beer, but not sugary/sticky sweet. There’s something slightly dry about it in the back, not quite hoppy, but enough to keep me from feeling like I’ve just downed a bunch of sugar.

The end of my notes on this sum up the experience nicely: this stuff is stupid awesome. Just drink it – you won’t be disappointed.

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Left Hand Milk Stout

Posted in Beer, tagged , , , , on September 27, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

And now to review a beer that I promised to review a month ago (sorry it’s taken me so long, Charles!) but am only reviewing now because it’s only now finally beginning to get around to considering being cold enough outside to want to drink it or any of its cousins:

Basic Info:
Name: Milk Stout
Origin: Left Hand Brewing Co., Colorado
Style: Milk/Sweet Stout
ABV: 6.00%
IBU: 25
I drank this: on tap at Barley’s Brewhaus, Overland Park, KS

This is one of the beers that people who don’t like beer usually do like, once they manage to get past the “it’s dark; I’ll hate it and therefore won’t try it” mentality. This makes it a good gateway beer – it’s a great beer to get non-beer-drinkers into, and one that usually makes them willing to try more.

Why does this beer work so well for that purpose? Easy: it tastes kinda like malty chocolate milk. (Not full on “Wow, this really is chocolate milk!” – that would be a Rogue Chocolate Stout or a Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout or a Young’s Double Chocolate Stout.  However, for a Milk Stout that isn’t claiming to be “chocolate” per se, this is a truly chocolate-y beer.)

Sweet tends to gain fans the way bitter tends to drive them off: for those of you who really, really, really *hate* hops, the Left Hand Milk Stout is your beer. It’s a very sweet stout, with a nice dark chocolate/malt nose and an extra sugar hit from the added lactose.* There are some faint nutty notes mixing in with the malts as well, kinda like Nutella or something. The one flavor that’s lacking here that I usually find in this sort of stout is coffee – this, for my taste buds anyway, is an absolutely coffee-free stout (this is mark against it in my book, but some people weirdos prefer it this way).

This beer has a nicely thick, flavorful and foamy head that hangs out for about half the pint. The beer itself is dark, but not black – it goes ruby when held up to light. It’s creamy, but a little thinner than I like for a milk stout – texture-wise, I find this to be closer to dry stout territory than cream stout.

Overall, this is good, but it isn’t my favorite milk/cream stout by any means. If you can find them, go for a Bells Double Cream Stout, a St. Peter’s Cream Stout, or a Lancaster Milk Stout instead. If you can’t find any of those, this is a perfectly good beer to drink when you want something sweet. In my mind, this is a beer to drink for dessert.

* From what I’ve been able to find out, a milk/cream stout is a milk/cream stout because lactose – milk sugar – is added during the brewing process.

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Quick note on the Paulaner Weisn

Posted in Beer, tagged , on September 26, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

First of all: the Old Chicago in Overland Park has it back on tap, but it’ll probably be gone by tomorrow. So if you’re in KC and see this and don’t know what to do for dinner, that’s a suggestion.

Here’s a picture of the lovely beer:
Don't you wish you could drink this now.

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See? Much lighter than most of the Oktoberfest beers we’re seeing around here. And much better.

Also also quite fun, if you click back to my review of the Paulaner Weisn, fabulous reader Martin Lewis has linked to a bunch of Oktoberfest pictures from the festival in Munich – they’re awesome and totally worth checking out. Thanks, Martin!

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Left Hand Chainsaw Ale

Posted in Beer, tagged , , , , , , on September 25, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Presenting an awesome fall beer that *isn’t* an Oktoberfest. YAY!

Basic Info:
Name: Chainsaw Ale
Origin: Left Hand Brewing Co., Colorado
Style: Double ESB / American Strong Ale
ABV: 9.00%
IBU: 58
I drank this: on tap at Barley’s Brewhaus, Overland Park, KS

I’d never had a Double ESB before this beer, and I have to say I like it (surprise, surprise – the only double anything I’ve ever encountered that didn’t win me over immediately was a Double Pilsner). I’ve also labeled this as an American Strong Ale since that’s the classification that beeradvocate has and since that actually makes more sense to me than the brewery’s label of a Double ESB.

The reason I prefer beeradvocate’s classification over the brewery’s own? Hops, quite simply. (Beer style education lesson time:) ESBs (Extra Special Bitters) are beers that are bitter for English-style ales but which, when brewed well, do a great job of balancing maltiness with bitterness: the bitterness will cut the malty sweetness, but the malts will keep the hops in check so that the ESB never truly tastes hoppy. American Strong Ales run over 7% alcohol (so, you know, strong) and have both strong malt and hop flavor components.  The Double/Imperial classification on any style of beer basically means that the brewers punched the hell out of it – a Double/Imperial label is a guarantee that the beer will slap you upside the head with its alcohol content, whether the alcohol comes across as a noticeable flavor or not - that said, I’ve never seen anything classified as a Double/Imperial American Strong Ale since the high alcohol content just comes with the territory of being a strong ale of any variety.

The Left Hand Chainsaw has a more pronounced hop profile than a typical ESB does (as in I noticed the hops as a strong flavor), so based on the above explanation, American Strong Ale makes more sense as a classification to me than a Double ESB, which I would expect to be less overtly hoppy than the Chainsaw is.

Anyway. After that little educational preamble, what does this beer actually taste like? It has a strong caramel malt flavor that balances with a bitter floral/grassy hop bitterness. It has a really thick mouthfeel, almost coating one’s mouth. The hops and malts are both very strong and don’t quite meld together – the malt is *really* sweet, whereas the hops are *really* bitter.  When they’re put together, they’re both quite drinkable, but they almost feel like they could have used another month of aging together before they’d be willing to play together nicely. That said, they do a good job of keeping each other from falling too far out of balance, and working together manage to disguise the alcohol content, so that the only giveaway that this beer has the capability of facepunching one’s sobriety comes from a telltale alcohol burn right in the back of the throat.

All in all, I quite enjoyed this beer and would happily have another (although probably not two in a row, because I don’t hate my liver that much).

Food note: this really kicked ass with the cheddar/bacon/green onion/chipotle* dressing potato skins I was eating. For the most part, however, I prefer my American Strong Ales without food so as better to allow the beer to have its way with me.

Beer Style note: far and away the best American Strong Ale I’ve ever had is a Great Lakes Nosferatu Ale, if you find yourself lucky enough to get ahold of some. Very close secondary honors go to the Stone Double Bastard Ale, of which I have one bottle hanging out in the basement waiting for an appropriate day. Since I can’t buy either in KS, however, the Chainsaw was a decent substitute.

*Seriously, program, get with the trends: the spellcheck is trying to tell me that I misspelled chipotle. I didn’t – it just doesn’t recognize the word yet. I’m dismayed to see they haven’t bothered updating the wordlist since, say, 2003 or so.

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KCBeerFest 2010

Posted in Beer, tagged on September 25, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

I wanted to let everyone in the KC area who might not have heard about it before that the fourth annual KCBeerfest will be on October 16th.  Here’s a linky to the website - it contains the beer list (obviously the most important thing, right?), ticket info, and etc.  The beer will be available from 2-5 at the Legends (the shopping center at I-70/I-435 on the Kansas side of the 435 loop). Tickets are $25 in advance or $30 at the door, and proceeds will be going to benefit a pair of wonderful, deserving causes, the KC Free Health Clinic and the AIDS Service Foundation of Greater Kansas City.  It’s a win-win: try all sorts of yumminess for yourself and help others in the process.

Let me know if you’ll be there – it should be a rollicking good time!

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Free State Octoberfest

Posted in Beer, tagged , , , , on September 23, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

And now for something completely different – an American made Oktoberfest!

Basic Info:
Name: Octoberfest (I see we’ve adopted the Sam Adams spelling here.)
Origin: Free State Brewery, Lawrence, KS
Style: Oktoberfest / Märzen
ABV: not given
IBU: 20
I drank this: on tap at the Flying Saucer, Kansas City, MO

Like the Sam Adams Octoberfest, which shares the same frustratingly Anglicized spelling, this is another one of those Octoberfests which really hallmarks certain flavor profiles of its brewery.  When I had the Sam Adams Octoberfest, I knew right away that it was a Sam Adams beer because something in the malt/hop profile reminded me strongly of the Boston Lager.  With Free State’s version, there’s something here that reminds me strongly of the Ad Astra.

This isn’t to say that I think the Octoberfest is an Ad Astra in disguise, because it definitely isn’t.  But there’s a certain malt profile and a certain sharpness to the hops that makes me think “ah – Free State.” Not my favoritest of favorite beer flavors ever, but it tastes like home.

The Free State Octoberfest is a malty, reddish-hued beer with a sharp hop bite and that Free State flavor.  It has a malty, slightly root beer-ish nose.  Compared to the Ad Astra, it’s almost as malty and a hair or two higher on the sharpness scale.  If we go by IBUs, the Octoberfest is actually slightly less hoppy than the Ad Astra – a 20 to the Ad Astra’s 24 - but the lighter malts on the Octoberfest let the sharpness of the hops shine through more clearly.  The Octoberfest tastes like the hoppier beer to me.  That said, this isn’t at all a hoppy beer. It’s an Octoberfest - the focus is on the amber-colored German malts.

This is a good seasonal beer to get, especially if you’re out at the brewery.  If you are, have it with some artichoke dip. Free State makes the best artichoke dip I’ve ever had. NOM.

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Beck's Oktoberfest

Posted in Beer, tagged , , , , on September 22, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

More Oktoberfests! Tis the season to be sure.

Basic Info:
Name: Beck’s Oktoberfest
Origin: Brauerei Beck & Co.
Style: Oktoberfest / Märzen
ABV: 5.0%
IBU: not given
I drank this: on tap at Old Chicago, OP, KS

Of all of the Germany-originating Oktoberfests I’ve had this fall, this one is far and away my favorite (excepting the Paulaner Weizn Blonde, which is sadly already tapped out everywhere in the area). It’s everything I want in an Oktoberfest without any of the drawbacks.

So what makes a good Oktoberfest?  Medium malts, light hop bite without much bitter flavor, pretty amber/auburn color, pleasant “beer” smell, light carbonation, and a good malty aftertaste.  Beck’s has all of these qualities in spades.

The thing is, after giving that list, there isn’t really much else to say about the Beck’s Oktoberfest.  Flavor-wise, it’s pretty much on par with everyone else’s Oktoberfest offerings.  What makes this the standout Oktoberfest is the aftertaste.  The other Oktoberfests have somehow leaned bitter or sour in the aftertaste, and that aftertaste has lingered for quite a while.  The Beck’s aftertaste is malty biscuits – not sour malty biscuits, not bitter malty biscuits, not burnt malty biscuits… just malty biscuits. Yummy.

If I’m going to have an Oktoberfest, I’m most likely to go American, being that this is where I am and that will make the beer fresher. However, should I find myself wanting a German Oktoberfest, I’ll be hitting the Beck’s. Preferably with a plate of pierogies and onions.

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St. Pauli Girl Special Dark

Posted in Beer, tagged , , , , on September 21, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

So. Let’s talk about advertising for a moment, shall we? Good advertising is simply an ad that makes someone want to buy a product, right? And bad advertising – bad advertising is an ad that makes one embarrassed to have to purchase a product for whatever reason, including noble goals like trying to finish a certain beer mini-tour at a certain bar in pursuit of a t-shirt to wear to the gym.

Why talk about this here and now?  Simple: the St. Pauli’s Girl Oktoberfest ad banner that’s been hanging all over the Old Chicago in Olathe.  Except that it’s not advertising Oktoberfest. It’s advertising OktoBEERfest.  As in O I C WUT U DID THAR. *headdesk*

Subtlety is a lost art, isn’t it.

Basic Info:
Name: Special Dark
Origin: St. Pauli Brauerei
Style: Munich Dunkel Lager
ABV: 4.8%
IBU: not given
I drank this: poured from a bottle at Old Chicago, Olathe, KS

This is a darker brown beer (definitely really brown – no reddish hints) with a light brown, fast-dissapating head that I was glad to see go because it tasted strongly of very sour malt mash.

The beer was served to me at a temperature known as “ice slush starting to form in the beer,” aka “idiotically cold.” This is not the beer’s fault, so I won’t blame it, but I will leave this as a note to Old Chicago to please DON’T FREEZE OUR BOTTLED BEER. Even with the near-frozen state of it, I could still smell it – very sour, very dark malts. This blows my recent theory that I haven’t been able to smell the Oktoberfests because they were too cold, because the St. Pauli Girl Special Dark was served much colder than the beers on tap..  Apparently Oktoberfests really *do* simply “smell like beer.”

Flavor-wise, this was a malty sour bitter beer, with very dark malts and heavy sort of sour yeasty flavor that I associate with a lot of lagers.  It was sharp and fairly heavily carbonated, giving it an unpleasant mouthfeel.

Overall, I have to say that I wasn’t a fan.  I haven’t had a ton of dunkel lagers, but they’re usually better than this. Try one of those, or have an Oktoberfest. A real Oktoberfest is more seasonal anyway.

Final parting note: “dunkel lager” is fun to say. Really. Say it really fast to yourself.

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Spaten Oktoberfestbier

Posted in Beer, tagged , , , , on September 19, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

More from the happy realm of Oktoberfests - can you guys tell I’m working my way through the Oktoberfest minitour at Old Chicago?

Basic Info:
Name: Oktoberfestbier Ur-Märzen
Origin: Spaten-Franziskaner-Bräu
Style: Oktoberfest / Märzen
ABV: 5.9%
IBU: not given
I drank this: on tap at Old Chicago, Olathe, KS

Now that I’ve reviewed a few Oktoberfests, this is a beer that is most easily talked about through comparisons.  It’s darker than the Ayinger, more of a medium copper where the Ayinger was a lighter amber (or the Paulaner was a pale yellow/blonde), but it isn’t as dark as the Beck’s Oktoberfest (review to come soon).  It has absolutely zero head retention, which (as I’ve stated before) is often fine in my world. However, I’ve had some nice heads on some of the other Oktoberfests, so I was sad to see it disappear on this one so quickly – the head was GONE before I made eye contact with my beer.  I never even saw it.

It smells like beer.*  Really – that’s the best I can do here.  As with last time, I’m not sure to what degree this is due to the temperature of the beer (very cold when I got it – colder than it probably needs to be) and to what degree it’s just the beer itself.

Flavor-wise, this is sharp, then malty – I noticed the sensation of the beer before I noticed the actual malt taste, whereas I usually experience this combination in reverse (i.e., malt first, then sharp feeling).  It might be because this beer was fairly thin – not quite watery, but not malty thick like brown ales or bocks.  The malts are mid-range caramel, biscuit and brown types, with a slight hop bite.  The biggest difference between the Spaten Oktoberfestbier and the other Oktoberfests out there is that I noticed a slight smoky hit in the back that lingered into the aftertaste.  It’s the type of light smoke flavor that makes me want to drink this while plowing through a plate of barbecue.

Overall, not bad, but not my favorite.  My favorite Oktoberfest so far this year is still the Boulevard, followed by the Paulaner.  I may have to generate a ranking at the end of the Oktoberfest season, if for no other reason than to allow those of you drinking along at home to get a better sense of how my taste buds and biases compare to your own.

*When I say “it smells like beer,” what I mean is simply that I’m getting a scent of generic malt with a slight hit of generic hop.  It’s exactly what you’d guess.  However, I’ve been using the phrase enough lately that I thought I should give a quick clarification.

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