Beer-a-Day #42
Brooklyn Brewery week continues.
Wheat beers are generally hit-or-miss with me. They’re certainly not something I go for with any sort of regularity.
Yellow with just a hint of haze. White head that dissipates quickly. Lots of banana and cloves in the aroma. Nice clean finish.
Beer-a-Day #41
This is the start of six different offerings from Brooklyn Brewery. Brooklyn is one of my favorite brewers and several of their offerings I count among my favorite beers. The next six, though, I’ve never had before.
Nice deep brown with an off-white head. Coffee and green tea in the aroma. More coffee and some cherries in the flavor, with a good malty balance and just enough hop bitterness. I kinda like it.
Beer-a-Day #3
I guess it’s Barley Wine week.
I’ve never had this before, in spite of being a big Brooklyn Brewery fan.
Nice medium-brown color with some slight red highlights. Off-white head that settles into about an eighth of an inch of foam. Bready with a bit of floral spice. Flavor is biscuity and a little harsh, though not unpleasantly so. This one seem like it could do with some time to mellow. I have another bottle that I’ll save at least halfway through the year, but I’ll try to hold off until the end of ’09.
Back in October we tried an Octoberfest bake off (a taste test) and it wasn’t that successful. Nice.. not thrillin’, but nice. So when a different group of my friends suggested a blind IPA taste testing, I wasn’t very optimistic; but of course I was game anyway.
Surprise! Not only was it a great evening, the winners and losers made it all that much more interesting. We scored them differently than I had done previously, not just on an overall impression like the unofficial Hop-Talk rating system is built upon, but rather a much more detailed method using a standard beer judging sheet. It is based on an overall score of 50 points made up of several categories.
Here are the results. I rounded the averages of the four of us playing judge…
My comments after the tasting go like this…
Rogue - Yes, it stood alone at the top.
Stone – One of my favorite IPA’s. My score for it probably would have been higher but I hadn’t just taken a break in tasting for a slice of Buffalo Pizza… probably not the best idea and probably affected the overall result.
Butternut – We were all surprised by this one, but me most of all as I really don’t like Butternut’s other brews. I’m going to have to go back for this one.
Middle Ages – While we all know and love this IPA, none of us expected it to rate so high. Glad to see it up there.
Sam Smith – I nailed the import.
I had a great time doing this… I don’t know if the flavors varied that much greater than the octoberfest styles, or if the method in judging was what made it so much better. In any case, the casual nature and long evening in which we took to do it was one for the books.
Special thanks to our servers, Ellie & Katie, and their scientific strategy to organization assuring accurate test results. (We will excuse the Yuengling Porter incident.)
This edition of The Session is sponsored by Ray and Melissa at Bathtub Brewery.
Announcing Session #20: Beer and Memories
Is there a beer that reminds you of a specific memory?
If you’re thinking, “Huh?” then you might want to craft your response along the lines of “Whenever I drink [insert brew here] it reminds me of that day …” Or perhaps it’s the reverse. Oooooh.
So many possibilities. I’ve been of legal drinking age for half my life, after all, and beer has always been a part of it.
Should I write about the Schaefer I used to get my Dad when I was a kid? Or maybe the Coors Light he and I would have during a break from moving a ton of dirt by hand? Maybe the Budweiser I bought for my first underage purchase? (The statute of limitations has passed, right?) Perhaps the Miller Genuine Draft that my friends and I drank in our “drinking youth”? Or maybe the Red Dog that I had in Section 4G of the parking lot at Giants Stadium before many, but far too few, New York Giants games?
I don’t drink any of those any more, so there’s no opportunity for one to “bring me back”.
There is, however, Brooklyn Brewery Oktoberfest. I don’t usually get to see my best friends but once a year, and the only time it seems we can get together is in October. We’ve been doing it for years and long ago came to refer to our get-together as our own Octoberfest. Wouldn’t you know? We’re getting together next weekend.
One beer we can always count on is Brooklyn’s Oktoberfest. It’s been a favorite of ours since we first tried it I-don’t-know-how-many years ago. My brother loves it so much that he buys at least two cases of it just for himself. As soon as I see it in the store I know that football is starting, the trees are getting ready to show off their foliage, and our get-together will be soon.
Lots of good memories tied up in that malty treat, and plenty more to come.
The kids are asleep.
The wife is out at a class at the community college.
I have a perfectly chilled six-pack of Brooklyn Brewery Oktoberfest.
The Giants beat the Redskins 16-7.
Life is good.
One of my other passions is computers and technology. I can still remember quite distinctly when my family finally got a computer. Was it a Commodore 64? A Texas Instruments TI/99? An Apple ][e? No, it was the ill-fated IBM PCjr. Still, it was a computer. A few days later my father and I startled each other at around 4:00 AM. He had gotten up and was on his way out to work, while I still hadn't gone to bed because I couldn't pull myself away from Wizardry. (The first of many one-nighters.) I am ever thankful that I've been able to parlay my passion and aptitude for computers into a job where I can work indoors in a climate-controlled environment and use my brain, rather than my back.
It's always amusing to me when two of my passions intersect. Case in point: I was catching up on my issues of PC Magazine. There in the June 5, 2007 issue is an article about how the Brooklyn Brewery is using technology to improve the productivity of their remote workers.
Like most small businesses, [founders Steve] Hindy and [Tom] Potter’s enterprise needed simple, reliable systems to help employees do their jobs, not force them to focus on technology. “We are brewers, and we try not to be technology people,” says general manager Eric Ottaway.
But as the Brooklyn Brewery grew, its IT solutions weren’t meeting the company’s needs—especially those of remote sales staff, who had to call office administrators to get data they needed.
The Black Chocolate Stout from Brooklyn Brewery is a long-standing favorite of mine. Since I happened to pick up a six-pack recently, I thought I’d share my thoughts on it.
Here’s what they have to say:
In the last century, British brewers made strong stouts for the Czar’s Court. They were called Imperial Stouts. Our Black Chocolate Stout, brewed once yearly for the winter season, achieves a chocolate aroma and flavor through the artful blending of six varieties of black, chocolate and roasted malts.
Its color is black. I’m not talking a very, very dark brown. Black. Hold it up to the brightest light in the room and you cannot see through it. It forms a nice, creamy head that is itself rather dark and laces nicely on the glass. It’s got a nice, hearty malty taste with some nutty highlights. This is another one of those beers that you have one of, at most two, and savor. Not only is it very rich in flavor, but at 10.6% ABV this is not something to just quaff indiscriminately.
Boy, this is good stuff. I don’t know if Brooklyn has ever made anything I haven’t liked. Recommended.
Long overdue, the results of the Oktoberfest Beer Battle are in. I’m not going to draw this out, the defending champion reigns on – long live the Brooklyn Oktoberfest!
Remember that the Sam Adams was very similar to the Saranac; if I mixed up the glasses; I was very hard pressed to figure out which one was which – even after tasting. It was amazing to see the difference between the Saranac Oktoberfest and the Brooklyn side-by-side. The head on the Brooklyn was thicker and had a notably darker color, almost tan compared the Saranac’s white. The aroma of the Brooklyn was much maltier, too. The Brooklyn blew the Saranac away – and that says a lot because the Saranac and the Sam Adams are very good beers.
Now, the Paulaner was going to be tougher competition. I like to describe the Paulaner as a “river of malt.” It also has a thick head with tan color. The two beers look very much the same, but they taste quite different. The Paulaner has little to no hop character and the Brooklyn has a nice, light, hop presence which balances it well.
Two great beers and it just has to come down to what I like the taste of better. In the end, it is the Brooklyn that I would grab 4 out of 5 times. I look forward to next year to see if there is anyone with the testicular fortitude to take on the boys from Brooklyn.
I love beers from Brooklyn Brewery. We’ve also been reviewing a lot of pilsners here lately. So, while I was picking up some beer in anticipation of the first Sunday of the NFL season, I was delighted to see their Brooklyn Pilsner in the case at a new retailer.
In their words:
Brooklyn Pilsner is a refreshing golden lager beer brewed in the style favored by New York’s pre-Prohibition brewers. In the 1840s, the pilsner style emerged from central Europe to become the world’s most popular style of beer. Like its ancestors, Brooklyn Pilsner is traditionally brewed from the finest European two-row barley malts. German-grown Perle and Hallertauer hops provide a crisp, snappy bitterness and fresh floral aroma. We ferment Brooklyn Pilsner at cool temperatures and then give it a long, gentle maturation (lagering), which results in a beer of superior complexity and smoothness.
It is a very nice golden straw color, and when pouring makes a textbook head, about two fingers thick, with very tight bubbles. The floral aroma is subtle, and the taste is just slightly sweet offset by the hops just right. It is smooth, with a nice mouthfeel.
This is what Budweiser aspires to be.
If you want an American-style pilsner, this is the one to get.
