November 2015 Archives

About 4 years ago, I waited in line at my first beer release. I have since cycled through degenerate FOMO line-waiting and beer-hunting into a much more relaxed cadence. But it all started with Victory's Dark Intrigue in an event dubbed Dark Wednesday. Releasing something special on the day before Thanksgiving has become something of a tradition for Victory, though for reasons unknown, they never revisited Dark Intrigue (and claim they won't make it again). I loved that beer when fresh, and since I bought a case of the stuff, I've enjoyed checking it out over time. Other releases included Red Thunder and Earth & Flame.

The hype surrounding these releases has died down, but they're definitely worth checking out. Victory has grown considerably since then as well, opening new brewpubs throughout the area and even a new production facility in Parksburg. This year's Thanksgiving Wednesday release was called Java Cask, a bourbon barrel aged imperial stout made with coffee from local restaurant and indie rock venue, Johnny Brenda's. Unlike Dark Intrigue (or indeed, most of Victory's barrel aged efforts), the base beer does not appear to be something in the regular lineup, and the result clocks in at a whopping 14.3% ABV (to my knowledge, the highest they've ever brewed). It was much anticipated locally, but since the release was spread out across several locations, it was all very low key. I rolled up a little after opening, waited about 5 minutes and got myself some bottles. That being said, there wasn't that much left and I'm told it sold out not long after I snagged mine...

I love the local brewing scene, but I have also noticed a distinct lack of great bourbon barrel stouts. With Java Cask, we've now seen two new BBA Imperial Coffee Stouts in the past year alone (the other being Weyerbacher's Sunday Morning Stout). This is nice, but given my legendary aversion towards coffee, I wouldn't mind seeing some non-coffeed versions floating around every now and again. A man can dream. That being said, I feel like I'm gaining a better appreciation of great imperial coffee stouts, so let's get to the main event. Since I'm a glutton for punishment, I rooted around my cellar and found a bottle of Dark Intrigue to commemorate the occasion and compare both Dark Wednesday beers. Totally unfair comparison, but fun nonetheless.

Victory Dark Intrigue 2011 - This is long past its prime, but it's still a worthy pour. Faded piney, resinous hops and oxidation are prominent, but the malt backbone and barrel aging keep things interesting. It felt much better integrated when fresh or within 1-2 years. It's fine now, just very, very different, and the bourbon barrel character has faded. If you have one of these tucked away, it's probably long past time to drink it, but it's still worth checking out. Chalk this one up in the "drink one fresh, save one to age" category... Difficult to rate this one, but if this was my first taste, it'd be somewhere in the low B range.

Beer Nerd Details: 10% ABV bottled (750 ml caged and corked). Drank out of a snifter on 11/25/15. Bottled: Nov 08 2011.

Victory Java Cask - Pours a deep, dark, oily brown, almost black color, thick looking, with half a finger of very short lived light brown head. Smells of coffee, coffee, and more coffee, roast coffee, chocolate coffee, and did I mention coffee? It's got a lot of coffee. Taste is less coffee focused, though it's still playing a lead role. Starts off sweet, with rich caramel, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, roast, and finally that coffee really takes over in the finish. As it warms, it gets more complex and the flavor elements come out more. Mouthfeel is full bodied, rich, and chewy, well carbonated, and plenty of boozy heat. This is a delicious, intense coffee stout, and if I wasn't such a coffee ambivalent fella, this would be full on A material, but I'm not, so you get A-

Beer Nerd Details: 14.3% ABV bottled (750 ml caged and corked). Drank out of a snifter on 11/25/15. Enjoy by: 10 Nov 2016.

It's been a while since I've reviewed a Victory beer, which is weird, since they are one of my most reviewed breweries. This was great, but man, I really want a non-coffee version of this. Fingers crossed that we'll see something like that in the future.

I was going to put a bunch of effort into working a Le Cercle Rouge reference in here, but I figured the tenuous connection (zomg, they both use the French word for Red) and obscurity means I shouldn't bother. Any Jean-Pierre Melville fans in the house? No? Alright then, moving on.

This is yet another in Cascade's long line of sour ales; a blend of red ales that were aged in oak wine barrels and oak foudres for for up to three years. Previous iterations have mentioned that it was a blend of as many as nine lots of beer, which is always an interesting exercise. Sometimes blending can add complexity and balance, other times it just sorta levels out all the spiky bits, covers up imperfections, making for a less complex but more consistent beer. While this is certainly another Cascade win, I'm also betting this trends towards the latter speculation. This is still very good, but it doesn't really stand out if you know what I mean. Or not. I'm not even really sure what I mean by that. Give me a break. Let's take a closer look at this "red blooded" sour and plan some elaborate beer heists:

Cascade Sang Rouge - Pours a clear but very dark amber or ruby color with a finger of fizzy but long lived off-white head. Smells great, vinegar, cherries, musty funk, a little oak and vanilla too. Taste hits those sour notes pretty hard, sweet, tart fruit, cherries, blackberries and the like, some of that oak and vanilla pitching in where it can, then more sourness. Mouthfeel is medium bodied, some oaky richness, well carbonated, plenty of acidity. Overall, a nice little sour number. Could be an A-, but I'm not feeling generous at the moment, so B+

Beer Nerd Details: 8.4% ABV bottled (750 ml caged and corked). Drank out of a flute glass on 11/21/15. Vintage: 2013 Project (2015 Release).

Cascade certainly has their house sour style dialed in, and with a single freak exception, I've enjoyed everything I've had from them. I'm sure this won't be the last we see of them on the blog...

Wherein Allagash cuts out the middle man (you know, those greedy tables) and delivers a fresh fruit sour right to your face. All anthropomorphic jokes aside, I prefer to think of this as a subtle but scathing indictment of the three tier system of alcohol distribution put into place after Prohibition. Viva la fermentación! Well played, Allagash.

It's also a beer! Farm to Face starts life as a lowly Belgian pale ale, fermented with Allagash's standard house yeast. After primary fermentation is complete, they add pediococcus and lactobacillus and age the whole concoction on 6000 pounds of peaches. Bucking the current oaky fashion, the aging is done in stainless steel tanks, but don't let that fool you, this is superb stuff:

Allagash Farm To Face - Pours an almost clear golden yellow color with a finger of fluffy white head that sticks around for a bit. Smells amazing, lots of earthy funk and bright citrus fruit, peaches and the like. Taste hits the same notes as the nose, a very nice lactic sour punch, stone fruit, some earthy funk, and yes, more sourness. Mouthfeel is crisp, light, and refreshing, well carbonated, quite acidic, but still pleasant and balanced with the rest. Overall, this is delicious. A

Beer Nerd Details: 5.7% ABV bottled (375 ml caged and corked). Drank out of a charente glass on 11/20/15. Bottled: July 16, 2015.

Another winning sour from Allagash. I shall have to seek out their more obscure offerings on that front. Someday. Someday...

In Brew Like a Monk, Stan Hieronymus relates an anecdote from Michael Jackson (the beer critic, not the pop star):

In one of the many stories he likes to tell about German, English and Belgian brewers, Michael Jackson first asks a German how beer is made. "Pils malt, Czech hops," the brewer replies. Then Jackson asks the German brewer down the road the same question. "It's the same as Fritz said. That's how you make a Pilsener, that's what we learn in school."

After getting a different answer from a British brewer, Jackson turns to a Belgian brewer. "First of all, you take one ton of bat's droppings. Then you add a black witch," the Belgian answers. "The brewer down the road uses a white witch." Jackson concludes with the lesson: "Belgium is a nation of tremendous individualists."

Enter Sante Adairius' 16e series of one-off beers. It's a nod to Tim Clifford's time as a homebrewer, as he "gained a lot of notoriety" in competitions, especially with beers in BJCP Category 16e, a nubulous "catch-all" category of Belgian beer used to capture all those weird bat dropping and witch based ales and whatnot. Basically, it's Sante Adairius' line of experimental and weird beers that defy categorization.

This particular entry is called Jose Pimiento. I don't know who that is or why they named this beer after him, but Jose presumably enjoys chile peppers, because this is a sour blonde ale aged in barrels with dried chile peppers. This is... not a combo you're likely to see again, and is vaguely terrifying, but it appears they used a gentle touch with the chiles, as it adds complexity and flavor without overwhelming...

Sante Adairius Rustic Ales 16e Jose Pimiento - Pours a very pale, straw yellow color with a finger of white head that sticks around a bit. Smells of vinous fruit and oak, funky but very bright. If you do the equivalent of squinting with your nose, you can maybe, kinda, sorta find the pepper, but it's not really a prominent aroma at all. Taste starts off with those vinous fruit flavors up front, lactic sourness emerging quickly and lasting through the taste, and that spicy chile pepper comes out a bit more here, but it's still shy and introverted (like me!), and as a result, it adds complexity without overwhelming anything. It reminds me of the old Belgian brewing adage of spice - if it's identifiable, you've done it wrong. If I didn't know this involved peppers, I might note something, but I doubt I'd pinpoint it as dried chile peppers. Mouthfeel is well carbonated up front, but quickly falling off into a more sticky finish, some bright acidity here, and yes, faint hints of chile heat. Overall, this is a bit odd, but still another winner from Sante Adairius. A-

Beer Nerd Details: 7% ABV bottled (750 ml). Drank out of a flute glass on 11/13/15.

Another winner from SARA! Many thanks to Jay from BeerSamizdat for sending it my way. Keep them coming, Jay, I need to get my hands on moar SARA!

I'm continually fascinated by the subtleties of barrel aging. It's fun to try and reverse engineer what makes one beer great and another not as successful, though I'll be the first to admit that my SWAGs are just that. I am totally the worst, as has been amply demonstrated in this here blog. There are so many things that could impact the final product (i.e. the base beer recipe, the barrel conditions, the brand of bourbon used, the time in the barrel, and so on) that it's hard to pinpoint causality. But it's still fun, because I'm the worst! So let's look at a couple of cases.

Last year, I was blown away by Stone Fyodor's Classic, a revelatory BBA imperial stout. As such, when this year's vintage rolled around, I was fully on board and went out of my way to procure some. I excitedly popped the cork on the new bottle and quickly found myself underwhelmed. It was fine, but it was not the revelation of the previous year's vintage. Surely this is just subjectivity at work, right? Revelations tend to be one time things and I do kinda hate when people quickly proclaim that this year's batch of this or that hyped beer is not as good as last year's (a perennial complaint about Pliny the Younger and Hopslam, for instance), so I kinda wrote off my reaction as unwarranted. Then I had another underwhelming bottle and noticed something on the back. Because I'm a packrat that saves empty bottles of beer I really liked (I am the worst), I checked last year's bottle and lo:

(click to embiggen)

7 months in the barrel versus 12 months. It appears I was not imagining things (not the worst? Eh, let's reserve judgement on that one.); the extra time in the barrel apparently works wonders! But then, given all the other variables, we can only really apply this conclusion to Stone's IRS. Other beers aged for 7 months or less have still turned out well, so age probably isn't always the operative factor. But it clearly made a difference here, and I have to wonder how many people bought this year's vintage after having heard the praise of the previous year...

In the case of California's Cismontane brewery and their Black's Nocturne, I'm at a disadvantage since I've never had the original vintage. This will not stop me from speculating though, since I am the worst (see? Told you.) The beer actually has a great reputation, and while I enjoyed this new bottle, I don't think it rivals the best of the bourbon barrel aged stouts. It's true that this is a high bar to clear, but after I drank this and looked at the reviews, I was surprised by the discrepancy. So I looked into it, and a few things jumped out at me. This year's vintage is "aged in Markers Mark bourbon barrels for 289 days" and clocks in at 11% ABV. The previous iteration? A 12% ABV beer "aged ... for nearly a year in fresh Heaven Hill Bourbon barrels, which we then blended in an attempt to tame the bourbon beastliness." So there's lots of differences here. First, Heaven Hill versus Maker's Mark should make a difference (and honestly, I'm not a huge fan of Maker's), then you've got the ABV, and finally a blending with fresh beer. All of which is to say, this year's vintage probably does not resemble the previous vintage. I'd be really curious to test out that hypothesis, but I don't think that's in the cards. In the meantime, let's take a closer look at this sucker:

Cismontane Black's Nocturne - Pours a deep black color with a finger of quickly dissolving tan head that nevertheless leaves a little lacing. Smells sweet, lots and lots of vanilla, less in the way of bourbon and oak, hints of caramel and roast but they're not as prominent as expected. Taste has some of that rich caramel, a little bit of roast, hints of liquorish, and a surprisingly clean finish. Mouthfeel is well carbonated, medium bodied, and while it's not dry, it's surprisingly light on its feet. That being said, absolutely no hint of the high-ish ABV here at all, though it's still a sipper. Overall, it's an interesting and tasty beer that I'd certainly try again, but nowhere near top tier BBA stouts. B+

Beer Nerd Details: 11% ABV bottled (500 ml). Drank out of a snifter on 11/13/15. Bottled 150902.

I'd certainly try this again, but I'll be even more curious to try next year's vintage, if I can swing it.

If not for the 10% young lambic blended into this beer (which provides enough lively yeast and fermentables to allow for carbonation in the bottle), it would be something akin to Single Barrel Lambic, an intriguing concept. The other 90% is sourced from a single oak foudre, numbered (you guessed it) 77. This particular cask was originally made in 1907, and while it's survived two world wars and undoubtedly seen other uses during its long history, it's been used by Boon to age three year old lambic for use in their gueuze blends since 1986. Apparently Frank Boon has a particular love for the beer that comes out of this cask, and so when they started this mono-blend series, it was only a matter of time before it was selected for a release. These fine folks even managed to snag a picture of the foudre:

(Click to embiggen)

Of course, these foudres are gigantic (averaging 8,000 liters each), so don't expect to see anything like the Single Barrel Bourbon or Scotch world, where local stores pick a barrel and bottle it, but wouldn't that be neat if beer could pull off something like that? You know someone would take a flier on a Password is Taco barrel or snag a single barrel BCBS, or fly to Belgium and snag a Cantillon barrel. I doubt most breweries would be all that keen on the prospect, but who knows? Maybe one of these big barrel programs will differentiate themselves with this sort of thing (and, you know, do a better job than Retribution). In the meantime we'll have to make due with approximations like this Mono Blend, which was actually a really interesting beer and something I'd like to compare against future releases... Let's take a look at how it's drinking now:

Boon Oude Gueuze A L'ancienne Vat 77 Mono Blend - Pours an almost clear golden color with a finger of fluffy head that lasts for a bit, but not indefinitely. Smells quite funky, lots of earthiness, lots of farmhouse, maybe even some funky cheese character. Taste also goes quite earthy, and frankly doesn't feel all that sour at all, lots of leathery farmhouse character, not as cheesy as the nose would have you believe I guess, but still quite different than I'm used to for a Gueuze. Mouthfeel is well carbonated, medium bodied, only a very slight hint of acidity, much more funky than sour. Overall, this is an interesting beer! I don't quite know what to make of it, actually, as it's really quite nice, but also not your typical Gueuze... B+

Beer Nerd Details: 8.5% ABV bottled (375 ml caged and corked). Drank out of a tumbler on 11/7/15. Brewed 10/26/11 and 10/27/11. Bottled 10/24/13. Best before 10/24/2033.

Next up in the Mono Blend series is Vat 79, which is apparently the oldest cask they have, dating back to 1883. Would love to compare these two next to each other someday. In the meantime, Boon is one of the few Lambic producers who you can actually find, so go out there and snag some of those Marriage Parfaits, they're pretty good too.

According to BeerAdvocate, there are currently 34 different variations of AleSmith's venerable Speedway Stout, ranging from numerous different coffee varieties to different barrel aged treatments to totally wacky shit like Tiramisu or Maple Blueberry Pancake. In general, though, what you see at the store is the original Ryan Bros. Coffee version, which is fantastic, to be sure, but you hear about all these variants and can't help but wonder... The grand majority of this stuff is probably brewery-only distribution, but one can't help but pine for a taste. So I was more than a little surprise when a little birdy told me that a local beeratorium was going to be tapping a keg of Vietnamese Coffee Speedway Stout, a particularly prized variant. Despite my legendary antipathy towards coffee stouts, I rather enjoyed regular Speedway, and still wanted to get a taste of the good stuff.

So what makes this special? First made in 2012, this beer utilizes a blend of four Vietnamese coffees, known in Vietnam as cà phê sa đá, that are then slow roasted at low temperature (a salient point, and perhaps one of the reasons I like this - that treatment supposedly lends a less bitter, less roasty, less burnt flavor, though I'm obviously taking someone's word for this since I'm not a coffee guy) and brewed using traditional Phin-style filter. Looking into this, it seems a bit odd, because the Phin-style filter is a single-cup, gravity driven brewing tool, so did they brew enough for a full batch of beer using single cups? Whatever the case, it worked, because the result is a wonderful beer (erm, not the greatest picture, sorry about that):

AleSmith Vietnamese Coffee Speedway Stout - Yes, it's black with half a finger of tan head that leaves lacing as I drink. Smell has a great vanilla component, but the typical roasty, coffee, dark chocolate notes also make the requisite appearance, seems less intense but more complex. Taste is all rich, dark malts, caramel, vanilla, well balanced hop bitterness, a healthy roastiness, and yes, a very nice mellow coffee, especially in the finish. We all know I'm no coffee fiend, but this is my kind of coffee beer. I had this a second time later in the week and felt that the vanilla component wasn't as prominent, but I'm guessing that was just because I had it after drinking a bunch of other beers. Mouthfeel is full bodied and moderately carbonated, well balanced but a little boozy heat makes itself known, especially as it warms up. Overall, right up at the top of my coffee beer ranking... A-

Beer Nerd Details: 12% ABV on tap (10 ounce pour). Drank out of a tulip glass on 11/7/15.

After getting a small taste of BA Speedway, and now this, I'm thinking I need to get on the ball with AleSmith's special releases!

So we all know about Abbaye De Saint Bon-Chien due to their delicious hybrid beer/wine nature and pricey vintages. Those swanky Swiss brewers make some damn fine beer, but those releases are all big blends of a variety of barrels. However, they do make some individual barrel releases to hone in on a specific character, and those beers are marked with the Grand Cru designation (remember, though, Grand Cru means almost nothing in the world of beer and is never consistently applied between brewers). This particular bottle comes from Rum casks, and is labeled "Megamix Rum Casks Vol 2", which I assume means this is the second time they've done rum casks or something like that. It would be interesting to taste a few different Grand Cru expressions, and I'm sure I could afford the second mortgage it would take to make that happen. We'll just have to live with the single bottle my procurement department scrounged up. Woe is me.

BFM Abbaye De Saint Bon-Chien Grand Cru 2015 (Megamix Rum Casks Vol 2) - Pours a moderate amber color with a cap of off white head. Smells along the lines of regular old Bon-Chien, hints of vinegar, oak, and vanilla, but with less of a vinous feel. I don't really get rum, per say, but it does feel more spirits based than wine based, so that type of barrel character is coming through in the nose. Now the taste, on the other hand, does feature rum rather prominently, along with typically mellow Bon Chien acetic sourness, and some general malt sweetness that plays well with the rum sweetness. Mouthfeel is rich and full bodied, not as sour or acidic as usual, but that's there too. Carbonation a little low, but that might be a general feature of Bon Chien. Overall, this is an interesting twist on the Bon Chien paradigm, tasty and worth checking out, but perhaps not as complex or balanced as regular Bon Chien. B+

Beer Nerd Details: 11% ABV bottled (375 ml). Drank out of a wine glass on 11/6/15. Brewed in 2013. Bottled in 2015 (somewhere around March 2015).

Not too shabby, and I'd have to imagine some barrels would be better for this treatment than others, so I'll certainly be keeping an eye out for more...

The Session, a.k.a. Beer Blogging Friday, is an opportunity once a month for beer bloggers from around the world to get together and write from their own unique perspective on a single topic. Each month, a different beer blogger hosts the Session, chooses a topic and creates a round-up listing all of the participants, along with a short pithy critique of each entry. You can find more information on The Session on Brookston Beer Bulletin.

I've sporadically participated in "The Session" many times over the years, but this is the first time I've hosted. Many thanks to those who took the time to put together a post on this month's chosen topic, a "Double Feature", wherein participants drank two beers, compared and contrasted, and maybe even paired with some form of media for extra credit. Let's check out your responses:

First up, Sara Q. Thompson takes on two Imperial Stouts made with coffee that were aged between 1.5 and 2 years. Coffee is one of those ingredients that tends to fall off over time, so this is certainly an interesting approach. For the media pairing, it Sara points to the Taster's Choice Gold Blend saga, a series of flirtatious coffee commercials (And she's in good company: Stanley Kubrick was apparently fascinated by the storytelling economy in coffee commercials, and would recut them to make them even more concise.)

Next, Sara's husband Mark Lindner went British, pairing two Samuel Smith Organic beers with the last two episodes of Doctor Who Series 2 [reboot, David Tennant]. I have to say, that pale ale doesn't look pale at all, and from the sounds of it, it wasn't particularly fresh, which is a pity. "So the moral, I guess, is old TV shows are OK to visit for either the first time or to revisit, as the case may be, but other than the beers-that-can-be-aged most beers should not be."

The Beer Nut has some choice words for celebrity chefs and their bumbling attempts at beer tie-ins. "It's always mediocre, lowest-common-denominator, beer for people who aren't especially interested in beer." J'accuse! Will Kevin Dundon's pair of beers, brewed "round the back of his posh country house hotel", break down The Beer Nut's cynicism? Or will they be the same bland, uninspired stuff of most celebrity chef fare? Only one way to find out, and along the way, we're treated to some thoughts on beer and food pairing as well.

Gary Gillman over at Beer et seq. busts out "two beers, both lagers, yet different as can be." Unimpressed with each, he takes to blending the two together to see if a more harmonious brew results, always an interesting exercise.

Derrick Peterman at Ramblings of a Beer Runner strains our premise to near its breaking point by drinking a pair of Ciders. Ciders! Actually, I love that he went far afield on this one, and I learned that ciders are more of "a study in subtleties". Plus, Derrick perfectly captures what I was going for when I chose my topic:

Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for crystal ball gazing, thinking deeply on esoteric beer concepts, or waxing philosophical on beer culture. But I love his Session topic harks back to an earlier, simpler time of The Session, where the idea was let's all drink a beer and talk about it. Maybe too many topics only a hard core beer geek could possibly care about, let alone write about, was a big part of why The Session was almost no more.

Tom Bedell recalls previous beer duos and then devises some of the most excellent movie pairings for those beers that I've seen (certainly the best of this Session!) Filmic choices range from Alfred Hitchcock's The Trouble With Harry, to Anchorman, Rocky, and even Sophie's Choice (that last a particularly good choice when rating two great beers). The movie nerd in me adores this post. Well done Tom!

The Brew Site's Jon Abernathy also picks up on my purpose for the topic, noting recent higher-concept sessions and calling this one a homecoming of sorts. To celebrate, Jon picks up two canned, hop-driven session beers, one a hoppy saison, the other a straight up session IPA. Both sound great!

Sean Inman at Beer Search Party surveys a pair of Victory beers, going for a sorta old-school East Coast IPA battle I guess. I like how Headwaters has morphed from an American Pale Ale to a "Quasi-Session IPA" because that's basically what a Session IPA is anyway. While he's at it, he dissects the can designs as well. For the movie pairing, he picks a duo of Steve Jobs bio-picks and laments the lack of available suds at movie theaters (dear Alamo Draft House, if you're reading, please open theaters in LA and Philadelphia, thank you.)

A Good Beer Blog's Alan McLeod has done this. He's done this a lot. Over a decade ago. In fact, he points to a couple of quadruple features and a triple feature before settling on an actual double feature (interesting tidbit, I'm pretty sure that's my buddy Mike correcting the location of Victory brewing on that IPA post, heh). He mentions these exercises were helpful in trying to "figure out my own lexicon of tastes and descriptions", and that's my recollection as well. Bonus: we get another round in Alan's ongoing feud with Oliver Gray. Delicious.

Finally, your humble host contributed a pair of entries of his own. One welcoming Almanac to Pennsylvania, the other a more harmonious combination of beer and movies, a tribute to Wes Craven. And I'm sure I'll continue to play with such things in the future, so stay tuned!

Also of note, Boak and Baily didn't get a chance to put together a post for this session, but as it turns out, they were already embroiled in a series of posts on Bottled Milds that actually seems appropriate. This one even compares a canned mild versus the same beer in a bottle. That is a great double feature, if you ask me!

And that just about covers it. If I missed you or if you want to be a little late to the party, feel free to send your post to me via email at mciocco at gmail dot com or hit me up on twitter @KaedrinBeer (apologies again for the misbehaving comment system I have in this antiquated blog).

Next up for The Session, while not officially announced just yet, appears to be Holiday Beers, hosted by one of the founders of the Session, Jay at Brookston Beer Bulletin.

Update: Added another entry from Beer Search Party...

On the first Friday of every month, there's a beer blog roundup called The Session. Someone picks a topic, and everyone blogs about it. This time around, I'm hosting a discussion on Double Features:

So your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to drink two beers, compare and contrast. No need for slavish tasting notes, but if you want to, that's fine too. The important part is to highlight how the two beers interact with one another during your session (pun intended!) For extra credit, pair your beers with two films to make your own Double Feature. Now, I'm a big tent kinda guy, so feel free to stretch this premise to its breaking point. The possibilities are endless!

This time, we've got a more harmonious double feature, two beers and two movies themed around Wes Craven. Since his passing, I've been catching up with some of his work I hadn't seen before and revisiting his classics. On Halloween, we had a little mini-marathon, starting off with his most famous work, A Nightmare on Elm Street. The premise alone establishes it as one of the purest distillations of horror ever committed to film. Is there anything more inescapable and terrifying than a monster that can get you in your dreams? We could debate some third act issues, but it's still a classic.

To pair with this, we've got a doozy from Colorado, Crooked Stave's Nightmare on Brett, a clear reference to Craven's masterpiece (also paired with some Eclat Chocolate, because why not?) There are a bazillion variants of this beer, but this one was aged in Leopold Bros. Whiskey barrels with cherries. Previous iterations indicate that the base for this was a soured baltic porter, and the aging intervals are usually pretty long (1 year plus). I'm also not sure if the cherries were included in the past, but this one is pretty clear. Clocking in at the cheeky ABV of 9.666% ABV, it was the perfect accompaniment and tribute to Craven and his movie:

Crooked Stave Nightmare On Brett (Leopold Bros. Whiskey Barrel-Aged) - Pours like a stout, a murky black color with a finger of light brown head, quite nice looking. Smells fantastic, an almost chocolate covered cherry aspect that pervades the nose, but also a hint of roast and musty funk. Taste goes in with sweet and sour up front, cherries, actually let's call them rich caramelized cherries, less in the way of chocolate but those dark malts are there and come out more towards the finish, which is also quite sour and a bit funky. Lingers a bit on those sour and funky notes. Mouthfeel is well carbonated, medium to full bodied, with a barrel aged richness cut by moderate acidity. Pretty easy going for the ABV. Overall, this is quite spectacular. A

Beer Nerd Details: 9.666% ABV bottled (375 ml). Drank out of a flute glass on 10/31/15. Bottled September 2015.

Next up, some lesser Craven, a movie called Deadly Blessing. One of the few Craven directed movies I've not actually seen, there's certainly a reason for that, but as with literally everything I've seen from Craven, he has this X-factor, a way of getting under your skin that is usually present in varying levels. It's true, this isn't a tremendous film, but it's got lots going for it, and some really effective sequences that make it worth seeking out for students of the genre. To match, we cracked open a growler of an unsoured baltic porter from Tired Hands called, appropriately, Craven (part of their Horror Auteurs theme for the season - which includes beers named after Carpenter, Argento, Hitchcock, and others!) Just one of the many reasons I love Tired Hands so much. The beer's pretty good too:

Tired Hands Craven - Pours a deep, dark brown color with a finger of tan head. Smells nice, sweet dark malts, hints of roasted marshmallow, baker's chocolate, maybe even coffee (maybe even coffee with sugar and creme). Taste has much more of a roasted character to it, some coffee-like flavors coming through, but also dark chocolate and just a hint of molasses, finishing back on that roasted tip. Mouthfeel is full bodied, well carbonated, and well attenuated (not dry, but not a sugar bomb either), no hints of the booze at all despite the highish ABV of 9.8%. As it warms, it feels a little more rich and chewy, but nothing ridiculous. Tired Hands isn't really known for their darker beers, and this probably won't change that, but it's certainly worthy. Overall, a rock solid baltic porter here, tasty and complex enough to stand apart from the crowd. B+

Beer Nerd Details: 9.8% ABV from a growler (1L swingtop). Drank out of a charente glass on 10/31/15. Growler filled 10/31/15.

It was quite a night. Is it really fair to compare a soured baltic porter with a non-soured baltic porter? Nope! But it was interesting nonetheless, and while it's hard to compare the two against each other, they do work well as contrasts. Anywho, we popped in Scream after Deadly Blessings, though we were still working our way through Craven. It's very much a product of its time, but if you keep that in mind (as you should), it holds up reasonably well.

Big thanks to Kaedrin beverage compatriot Jeff for smuggling the Nightmare on Brett bottle back from Colorado when he went to GABF back in September!

There may be one more Double Feature this week, or maybe not, depending on my mood (it wouldn't be beer anyway, so don't hold your breath), and of course, the roundup will be posted this weekend. I hope you're all toiling over your posts as we speak!

On the first Friday of every month, there's a beer blog roundup called The Session. Someone picks a topic, and everyone blogs about it. This time around, I'm hosting a discussion on Double Features:

So your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to drink two beers, compare and contrast. No need for slavish tasting notes, but if you want to, that's fine too. The important part is to highlight how the two beers interact with one another during your session (pun intended!) For extra credit, pair your beers with two films to make your own Double Feature. Now, I'm a big tent kinda guy, so feel free to stretch this premise to its breaking point. The possibilities are endless!

First up, a double feature of convenience. Longtime readers know I'm a big fan of San Francisco's Almanac Beer Co. and while I've been able to snag a bottle here or there through means, they've just recently started distributing to the Philadelphia area in earnest. As such, every time I go to the store, I find myself drawn to purchase another of their delicious beers I've not had before. A hearty welcome to Pennsylvania from all of us (i.e. me) here at Kaedrin:

Anywho, here are two beers I cracked open this weekend whilst viewing a bunch of horror movies in honor of Halloween (notably Trick 'r Treat and Ghostbusters, neither of which are particularly well suited to the beers I'm drinking except that, well, they're all quite good!) First up is Citra Sour, the first of a new series of single hopped sour beers (up next is Simcoe Sour), an interesting fusion of styles that has never quite caught on, but which might if efforts like this keep things going. Truth be told, I think I prefer the straight up fruited sours moreso than hopped sours, but variety is a good thing, and this is pretty tasty.

Almanac Citra Sour - Pours a cloudy straw yellow with a finger of white head that sticks around for a while. Smells... interesting, that Citra hop character is prominent, floral citrus notes, but an underlying sour twang is there as well. Taste is a good deal more vinous than the nose would suggest, clearly those wine barrels kicking in, and the oak features prominently as well. The Citra hops do kick in about halfway through and persist through the sour finish. Quite puckering, actually, I think the hops only serve to intensify the sourness. Mouthfeel is well carbonated, light, bright, and quite acidic. Overall, I'm still not convinced that high amounts of hops are a great match with sour, but this is still rather nice. B+

Beer Nerd Details: 7% ABV bottled (375 ml). Drank out of a flute glass on 10/30/15. Bottled July 2015.

After letting the palate cool off for a bit, I cracked open Farmer's Reserve Citrus, which I believe is the same base Sour Blond Ale aged in wine barrels, but instead of hops, we've got a melange of citrus fruits, including Buddha's Hand Citron, Blood Orange, and Yuzu. The Farmer's Reserve stuff have been my favorite offerings from Almanac, and this one did not disappoint:

Almanac Farmer's Reserve Citrus - Pours a mostly clear golden yellow color with a finger of short lived white head. Smells more funky, some citrus and sour twang, but some earthy Brett character pitching in here too. Taste again hits with that earthy, musty funk, lots of tart citrus fruit, a little wine barrel, oak and vanilla, and finishing with a nice sour bite. Mouthfeel is slightly less carbonated, still light and bright, the acidity feeling a bit less intense too. Overall, this is not quite as intense, but it is much more balanced than the Citra Sour. A-

Beer Nerd Details: 7% ABV bottled (375 ml). Drank out of a flute glass on 10/30/15. Bottled June 2015.

So there you have it. Next up in the Double Feature realm will be a much more harmonious beer and filmic pairing centered around Wes Craven. Stay tuned! And if you've got a blog, feel free to play along. More details on The Session and how to participate can be read here!