Review Roundup

Homebrewing is a form of mental illness, of that there is no doubt. My free time is currently being devoured by researching hop filters, attending yeast lectures, and watching time-lapse youtubes of fermentation. An anthropologist from Alpha Centuri would freak out trying to make sense of it all.

In order to restore some normalcy, let's drink some palatable commercial beers and write a blog post, just like the old days.

First up, fresh off of Phillips' increasingly frenetic production line, is the Michael Lewis Pilsner. Phillips' output is of such prolific mediocrity that — I must admit — I do not even get too excited to sample them anymore (do I really need to drink an India Pale Lager to know a. it's gonna make me mad and b. it's not going to be as good as Brooklyn Lager?).

But the MLPilsner is an exception. This beer is based on a recipe designed by the winner of the 2011 CAMRA Amateur Brewing Competition—Michael Lewis—who is a fellow member of Island home brewers club BrewVIC, an all-round nice guy, and a dinner guest at my house tonight. The pilsner has "that Phillips taste" to it, I'm guessing due to their house yeast. It's a decent pilsner with a somewhat green-tea bitterness and the odour of a well-leafed paperback. Pleasant, and all the more so because a mate had a hand in it.

Second is a beer I was very excited to try: La Roja from Jolly Pumpkin. JP are my favourite 'wild' beer specialists if only because of Oro de Calabaza (the "Bam" series are also fantastic). La Roja is an amber ale given the spontaneous fermentation treatment, and it is a success. The beer is a radiant reddish hue, perhaps unexpectedly so given that it is an amber. It tastes characteristically tart and vinegary, but a lot cleaner and less horsey than the Oro. A glimmer of hops manage to shine through the champagne dryness, making this a beautifully refreshing, not-so-challenging sour. Great stuff.

Third is a triptych of newer Driftwood beers. All fantastic, which rids me of the dirty feeling I've had ever since I panned their double IPA. You might argue that Fat Tug is two years old now, but not to my mind. Fat Tug was pretty stellar when it first came out, but there was always something slightly brutish and heavy-in-the-mouth about it that makes the prospect of a bomber seem quite an ordeal.  I often hovered my hand over the 'Tug in the liquor store before choosing something more straightforward — like if someone offers you crazy whips'n'chains sex when all you really feel like is a quickie.

But the last 5–6 bottles of Fat Tug have been different. More refined, richer in aromatic hops, less syrup and orange peel, a dash of melon. It could all come down to perception or fluctuation of ingredient qualities, but I find myself unbuckling at the site of it these days, which can only be good.

Sartori has always been the best fresh-hop IPA we can get. First year was incredible; consensus is that last years' was pretty good; this year's is once again awesome. For the first time, this year's Sartori is brewed solely from local maltster Mike Doehnel's (read this) malt, which is a nice way to round off the local vibe imparted by Christian Sartori's Chilliwack(ish)-born hops. Forthright, smooth and exploding with hop aroma. Wonderful.

Finally, the much-anticipated Bird of Prey series (it's a f***king SERIES!) Flanders Red Ale. I knew this was in the works a year ago. Every time I asked Jason about it he'd make mystical sounds about it being sort of ready but not quite ready. Patience has clearly paid off because this is a lovely, lovely sour ale. Not as sweet as I have come to expect from a Flanders Red (blame Duchesse), the Bird of Prey is actually not a million miles away from La Roja. It is an assertive sour, but not a mouth-gusher. The strength (7.5% apparently) is completely disguised by a beguiling palate of sour cherry, lychee and dry cider. Others have attributed "complex" and "oaky" to it, but I identify with neither description (I am curious as to what it would have tasted like were it not aged in barrels for a year). The biggest charm of this beer is its straightforward refreshment and addictiveness. No palate fatigue whatsoever, which is incredible for the style. My advice: find a falconer and invest in a decent sized aviary. Fast.

Review: Driftwood Twenty Pounder Double IPA

I had only recently finished typing a comment on someone else's blog about how to deal with bad beer experiences as a beer blogger when I found myself — like a character in a Charlie Kaufman movie — intimately enmeshed in the very world I was describing.

I am drinking Twenty Pounder IPA, which is a much-awaited beer from my absolute favourite local brewery. It was released today. It is one of my favourite styles. And I'm not enjoying it at all really.

The blog post I alluded to earlier was one of a series, really. A few British beer bloggers have been tossing back and forth about how to deal with bad beers. Should you be honest? Should you even review them? Is it fair to say bad things about good people who have crafted a beer that you just happen to hate? That sort of thing.

I have no answers to those fundamental questions. I focused on what I consider to be the blogger's duty to his reader(s?). This is my bit:

One overlooked variable in the quandary of how to approach negative criticism is the nature of your blog itself. No one is a mere "blogger" — our blogs are driven by different aims and angles. A blogger identifying as a straight reviewer or appraiser absolutely has the responsibility to be frank about poor experience, whereas the philosopher or geek of beer minutae can dodge even having to think about how to handle it.

Bloggers who consider themselves more generic or personal in their approach are obliged in other ways. You build up a relationship with your reader who — in turn — trusts you and expects things of you. If you have spoken candidly on poor experiences in the past, or made gestures at cutting through the crap, then you would serve your reader best by spilling the beans. But if your tone is overtly sympathetic and your readers view you as a convivial proponent of the whole good beer scene — then you would not be misleading anyone if you were to damn with feint praise now and then…

SO where does that leave me with the Driftwood beer? Well, I've always screamed at the top of my lungs about how much I love them, and I've always been honest. I feel I have no choice.

The beer pours a mid orange, with a chunky head that leaves some persistent, patchy lacing. It is a crystal clear DIPA, which may or may not have something to do with the fact that Driftwood have begun to filter a little.* The aroma is very reminiscent of the Fat Tug IPA, which isn't my favourite Driftwood beer, nor is it my favourite local IPA, but it is a worthy brew that I often order and enjoy.

The nose is powerful, orangey, thick, tropical, somewhat cloying, but pleasant. Initially it tastes like a barley wine: syrupy and luscious, but with fairly sharp hop notes. The hops never really get going for me; they are excessive in no particular direction, lending to a rather characterless effect. Stewed apricots come through, but that's about it. I think that malt-lovers would be disappointed, hop-heads alienated.

Then the worst bit: a brutally astringent, chemically finish with all the grace and élan of a nail varnish jell-o-shot. Bad enough to be called flawed; so much so that I'd chalk this off as a bad bottle had it not only just come off the line. If this is 20lb-er as intended, it definitely falls somewhere between "not-for-me" and plain old "gross".

………

*I don't know why I wrote that Driftwood have begun to filter their beer. I think I got my wires crossed somehow based on the fact they have recently introduced an "unfiltered" sticker to some of their beers. Pure confabulation. AFAIK they do not and never have filtered. 

Review: Pretty Things Fluffy White Rabbits

The gypsy brewery Pretty Things continues to put out lovely beers with lovelier labels. Gypsies like to wander which might explain why PT beers are in such rich supply out here on Vancouver Island. If they all made beer like this I'd make my backyard available as a caravan site.

"Fluffy White Rabbits" is a hoppy tripel. Taking established styles and giving them the North American hop treatment is big at the moment. I scowl at trends but I'm yet to drink an unusually-hoppy beer that hasn't been good.

FWR pours a typical golden-orange colour. The head's not too fluffy. It quickly shears down to a thin but resilient crewcut.

The smell is a bit reserved, with only a mild yeasty aroma and little hop pungency.  I get mown grass, pear, and pencil shavings. The first hit of flavour is very satisfying, with loads of peppery yeast, floral hops, and crackling spice. It's a drier tripel, which I guess is to embrace the hop bitterness rather than counteract with a richer body. I really appreciate the play of the floral hops with the chili profile in the yeast.

The aftertaste doesn't sit entirely well with me. Whether it's hops in the boil or some other source of bitterness, I get a minerally jasmine-like flavour that lingers unflatteringly. At 8.5% it should be a slow drinker, but my lust for the glass-to-lips zing — definitely the strongest aspect of this beer — means I've practically chugged it.

With hoppier tripels in short supply, you should probably get one of these if you can. It's a good indicator of the impact this style has to offer and a good beer in its own right, but it doesn't quite scale the peaks some of the other PT beers have.

Review: Tree Brewing Serendipity no. 2

Serendipity no.2 is the sixth whiskey barrel-aged beer I've had to date. A few of those beers were great. Serendipity joins Innis & Gunn in being merely OK, but mildly baffling as a product.

The term "whiskey barrel" returns 825 beers on Beer Advocate. Spelling it "whisky" gives another 798. So I'd be a curmudgeon to call it a gimmick, but that's how I feel when I put my nose into this nice murky-looking brown ale and get a toasty blast of damp bourbon-cask in my face.

I like whisk(e)y. Uncapping a Laphroaig brings me to a state of physical arousal. I bet there's plenty of beer drinkers who really appreciate the depth of infusion you can achieve by aging beers in various casks. But a generic whiskey-whiff rising off the head of a beer doesn't move me. Maybe I'm damaged in some way.

Port casks are also involved in the aging of this beer, and word has it their next releases in this series may well be exclusively port-casked. I'd be interested to try one, if only to see which barrel is responsible for completely overwhelming the taste of the beer.

The nose is almost pure whiskey, with just a faint apple-ish odour coming through. It tastes like an old brown ale, but with whiskey supplanting the toffee. The aftertaste is dry, a little treacly, and suggestive of the bottom third of a good cigar. Five sips in and the head becomes a memory: flat cola-looking.

Halfway through the bomber I got hungry and exhumed a forgotten piece of brie from the back of the fridge which had grown a luxurious fur-coat. It completely resurrected this beer and I strongly recommend getting some powerful cheese if you find yourself with a whiskey-aged beer you can't quite bring yourself to love. The fat and sweetness meet the whiskey head-on. It stops being a beery experience, but I'm finishing the bottle with a grin and what else do you really want?

For the record, Old Rasputin XII is the best whiskey-aged beer I've had. Don't buy it, it's $30 or something stupid. But take my word for it, it's lovely.

Review: Driftwood Belle Royale

Now and again a beer comes along that sticks in your mind. I'm not talking about the great or the godawful: these are simple to file away. It's the weird ones that haunt you.

Startling new flavours, remarkable brews from crappy beermakers, or dreadful stuff from great ones: these beers can nag at you like an itch, as your once–coherent universe of expectations expands and distorts.

Driftwood's Belle Royale has had that effect on me, prompting me to write a rare review.

I admit Driftwood's new(-ish) Belgian cherry ale was always going to make an impression on me. I'm a bit of a Driftwood cheerleader and I was there as they prepared it for release. But six bottles of this impossibly-red nectar later and I still find myself going "damn" every time I drink (and smell) one.

The beer is a triple golden ale brewed with spicy belgian yeast and masses of sour cherries. As you'd expect, it has a pronounced (though not at all wild) sour tang that waters the mouth. The body is reminiscent of dry sherry or retsina, peppered with raunchy yeast and not as sweet as you'd think. The cherries are mostly about zing, but they also lend an underlying cloying richness, and pleasingly "off" blue notes that make the Belle a mysterious pleasure.

Normally a review starts with the smell, but I've saved it for last. The excoriating sour cherry whiff is spot-on, but beneath it comes a powerful corporeal aroma: to my nose carrion-esque and woody, like the open oak door of a crypt. It took me five bottles to identify this — and it's not a delightful comparison — but the precise odour it reminds me of is the meat-processing plant that hits you as your car emerges on the Liverpool side of the Mersey tunnel in England.

This sounds fatally bad, but I should say it in no way prevents me from loving the beer. There's something entirely appropriate about it (and if it's any consolation, others find it to be more akin to altogether-more-pleasant smoked-salmon). It's a massive beer and you should try one while you still can.

In fact, the vampiric pleasure it gives me ensures I'll be hoovering the Victoria stores for the last remaining Belles lurking darkly on the shelf, beckoning to me...

Oh, and as if it couldn't get more creepy, Belle Royale is also completely headless.

Cheers! Plus: Moylans Moylander Double IPA

The secret to a serving a good beer is to have a two-year-old cast spells over it prior to drinking. Admittedly, I draw that conclusion from a sample of one, but the Moylans Double IPA was very good indeed. Not quite the ordeal of its mammoth-hopped big brother — Hopsickle — but still bitter as a bag of divorced lemons, and richly malty to boot. It took me a while to identify it, but there's a definite black tea flavour playing the bassnotes.

I don't know why I was so reluctant to try Moylans. It might be the pseudo-Celtic bottle designs; they remind me somehow of a ghastly Irish-themed pub. You know, the ones that purchase all their furnishings from "YeOldePubMemoribilia.com" — which is just a guy knocking up cheap Guinness signs and staining them with coffee to make them look old.

My prejudices (like most) were totally unfounded. Moylans haven't put a foot wrong in the four beers I've tried, and I will go back to the double and the Hopsickle again.

Bit of a mish-mash post; wanted to cheers a few people. First, my brother-in-law who came back from Seattle with a slew of beers I can't get in BC (see left). He's not technically my brother-in-law until the wedding in June, but I've promoted him early based on this gift. I've wanted the Avery Maharaja for ages now. Cheers brother-in-law!

To my mate Brayden, who is as stupid about beer as I am, and whom I am pinning my hopes on starting a brewery with if our respective careers go down the toilet. Cheers Brayden!

And to my few readers who leave interesting and kind comments. Now I've got your attention, I need something. $1000 to be precise. No, I'm kidding. I want to know what BC-related writing you'd be interested in. I've done reviews with the two most prominent (and interesting, in my opinion) local breweries (3rd part of Phillips interview coming this weekend.) I can carry on chasing down the rest, or I could do some brewpub interviews, or I could find out about the local homebrew scene, or anything you can think of. I'd appreciate suggestions, and like a dog after a stick, I'll retrieve the beer truth you desire. Cheers readers!

Imperial Stout Chocolate Cake

This is the best chocolate cake I've ever had.

My wife has been making the excellent Nigella Lawson Guinness Chocolate Cake for years now. It recently occurred to us that Nigella only uses Guinness because of its popularity, and maybe other stouts or porters would be even better. As usual, my wife is way ahead of me, and I came home the other day to find a bottle of Howe Sound Pothole Filler Imperial Stout in the fridge.
"Do NOT drink this one," she said, as I lifted the heavy, litre-bottle of tar out of the fridge to inspect it. "It's for a cake."

After three days of my ceaseless pestering, she finally baked it. I could have done it myself, but she's a cake-master, and I didn't want to risk ruining it. The recipe calls for a quarter of a litre of stout, which isn't a bad thing, as drinking a litre of imperial stout in one sitting can be a bit much (all Howe Sound beers come in litre bottles only.)

The Guinness version of the cake has a subtle bitterness that complements the sweet chocolate. The Pothole Filler model blows it out of the water. It certainly adds a heavily bitter twang, but also a complex sweetness. As you'd expect, it brings aniseed, coffee, and molasses to the party, which is perfect for this cake. But because it is an imperial stout, not all the alcohol is lost in the bake, and you still get a bit of heat and boozy-aromatics. As for texture, the cake is as thick and rich as you could ever want, which is typical for this recipe, and the imperial stout certainly doesn't dry it out any.

Of course, I got a chance to drink the stout too. It's a very accomplished RIS, and the texture is thick and hearty. The flavours can become a bit of a muddle, though. I already mentioned the aniseed, which works in the cake, but gets a bit much in the beer, jostling with vanilla, coffee and other warm flavours. I suppose I wish it had just one or two dominant flavours coming through the mix, but some people will enjoy disentangling the complex soup. Any BC stout lover should try it, but perhaps not by the 750ml glassful like I did. Too rich for a session for me,

I strongly recommend you bake the cake, though. I'm already thinking up other stouts that could work (I think barley wines could be good too). Maybe that Stone Smoked Porter would be good, or, if I could bear to sacrifice a bottle, the Peche Mortel from Brasserie Dieu du Ciel would probably be sumptuous, as would be pretty much anything on this page.

Review: Pretty Things Jack D'Or

I picked this out for review because a reader (Swineshead) asked for pretty pictures, and this beer is pretty on multiple levels. It is a "Saison Americain": an American take on the classic Belgian saison, which is a bit of an oxymoron as the five sources I consulted for a definition are contradictory and/or vague. In fact, if you dig into the history of practically any beer-style hoping for a concrete definition, you'll be disappointed. "Saison" means "season", and the beer was traditionally brewed at harvest time as a refreshment for the farmhands, which explains why saisons are also called "farmhouse ales." Anyways, these days it is brewed for 31-year-old dads who drive Honda Civics.

What I expect from saison is a very fresh-tasting, spicy, lively beer with tremendous powers of refreshment that come from the sourish tang these beers usually have. Randy Mosher says the tang is likely due to the use of strains of yeast usually reserved for red wine-making, or even brettanomyces — wild yeast found in oak and on fruit skin. In most beers, the presence of "brett" denotes an undesirable yeast infection which ruins both the flavour, and any romantic plans the beer had that weekend (sorry). But some beers are encouraged to be promiscuous because wilder strains of yeast can — if controlled — produce a funky and mysterious allure.

The Pretty Things website admits to "three strains of yeast", but doesn't name them, despite going into extensive detail about all the other ingredients (oats feature, interestingly.) Whatever the secret ingredients are, Jack D'Or is one tasty beer. It's funkier and spicier than many farmhouse ales I've had: like cajun champagne, but still lemony-fresh and addictive.

The Jack D'Or is one of seven beers brewed by the Pretty Things "Project". That's right, it's not a brewery, but a "gypsy brewery without a permanent brewing home". Dann Paquette and wife Martha — a brewer and a scientist-cum-tea-brewer, respectively — are behind the Massachusetts-based project. Dann used to live in Harrogate, Yorkshire, where he developed his passions for brewing, Lewis Carroll, and the summoning of ethereal beings (I'm serious). Naturally, that spurred him to move to Cambridge, MA, and begin brewing beers to traditional recipes dating back to 1832.

Jack D'Or is great. You could drink a few of these if they weren't $10 a pop. From what I've heard/tasted, the entire range is exceptional also. But I suspect they won't all be available forever in BC, so, to quote one of Swineshead's favourite bands — Belle and Sebastian — "Do something pretty while you can."

Review: Howe Sound Bailout Bitter

Along with my first review must come a caveat: I generally hate beer reviews. Not that a beer review cannot be as lively and mouth-watering as the beer it references. I'm tainted by the BeerAdvocate experience. BA is an excellent source of opinion and discussion which I refer to daily (I only feel comfortable criticizing a small aspect of BA because it is overall my favourite beer web-resource). And I respect the (superior) experience of most BA members — and their forums show what a wealth of knowledge and passion they have.

But the review system prompts you to choose a score of 1-5 for multiple characteristisc: appearance, smell, taste, mouthfeel, drinkability (ASTMD) — each of which are weighted to give a total mark out of 5 which translates to a final letter grade. Reviewers must also offer a written report of the beer. Multiple choice? Written report? Letter grades? IT'S BEER SCHOOL!

The ASTMD system tends to encourage people to stick to these criteria when describing the beer. This results in mostly boring reviews that go like this:

A: quite lovely, a shimmering orange blossom yellow with amber highlights
S: quite heavenly, a blooming blossom of shimmering suds
T: quite stunning, a caressing highlight of shimmering tastefulness
M: quite sensuous, a blossoming shimmer of caring backrubs
D: not bad

The result is you get a fairly helpful overall grade, which at least helps you to sort promising brews from likely stinkers — unless you are cynical enough to believe that the weight of prior "A"s and "A+"s in any way affects subsequent reviewers' grades ("Oh god I didn't like this beer but Beernut9000 and Hoppywaggle_USA both gave it "A"s, there must be something wrong with my mouth!"). But you have to trawl through crappy report cards until you find a gem of writing that draws on experiences outside the ASTMD spectrum to evaluate the drink.

I have my favourite beer reviewers (some of whom even stick to the ASTMD format — but whose opinions are so astute they mirror my own...), but the reviews that really affect me and get me excited about a beer come from friends, or BAs whose writing and charm convince me to try a beer far more than an esoteric list of "flavour notes" wrung from the cultured tongue of a would-be aficionado. I wish they all had blogs instead...

Shit why would I build up expectations like this then post my own beer review? I have much to learn about blog strategy...


(image from Ruth and Dave's photostream. I have no idea if they ripped it off from someone else, but it's a nice picture)

Now and again a beer comes along that you feel you could settle down with for good. Fill a liter-sized sippy cup with Howe Sound's Bailout Bitter and wheel me off to the retirement home, please.

Gimmicky the label is, but it made me chuckle and buy a bottle out of curiosity's sake. And truth be told I've always been attracted to beers that come in vessels bigger than my head. Though Bailout comes with a Grolsch-esque reusable stopper, I've yet to actually use it - and neither will you.

It pours light for a bitter, but my idea of bitter is forever tainted by the murky-brown pints of John Smith's and Webster's ubiquitous to British pubs in the 90s. Bailout is a frosted, honeyed gold, with a lively effervescence as it slides into the pint glass (hehe - I couldn't resist).

The aroma hits with a fresh blast of yeast and hops, zesty and uncomplicated. Upon raising the glass hints of hefeweizen-style citrus burst under your nose.

The beer is immediately refreshing. It is tartly bitter yet clean, with perfectly judged hops for its modest strength. The body is round enough to be pleasing, yet never bold or committal. Its biggest charm is its ability to enliven at every sip and never grow tiresome.

While not a great beer in the sense of having unmistakable character, this is comfort-brewing at its best. For me, cracking one open is like putting Goodfellas into the DVD player, or opening a worn Bukowski novel. A reliably satisfying experience.