Weyerbacher "Blasphemy"

Drinking good beer is, ultimately, an act best accomplished with close friends. So this review of Weyerbacher's Blasphemy is brought to you from a gathering with two of my good friends sitting in a kitchen trading stories and teasing each other incessantly. It's nice to be out and see my friend (who's place is quite gorgeous and makes the beer babe envious) and it might be the last time I get to relax for a little while.

This impromptu tasting was brought on by the fact that all of his friends and coworkers have discovered his taste for excellent beer, and whenever they come to his dinner parties they come with a bottle of something special. I like this trend. I think, actually, that this particular bottle - among many beer bottles stored in a wine cabinet at his place - may have come from me bringing it to him at some dinner party past. None the less, the bottle came out for us to taste.

Blasphemy is described on the bottle as an aged Belgian quad. Quadrupel (trappist-inspired) ales are already high in alcohol content because they're fermented longer than their Trippel and Double sister brews. There's usually a lot of wheat, a dark color and mucho alcohol. So, take a quad and AGE it and you bring even more flavor, alcohol and just, well, who does that?! This is as shocking an idea as aging Dogfish Head's 90 minute in their Burton Baton brew that I love so much.

In fact, on the bottle it says:
"When they first said that we should age our QUAD in oak barrels, we said, 'THAT'S BLASPHEMY!' ...and so it is."

When you pour it out, the smell is alcoholic, apply and smoky, with some scotch type smell. You can almost smell the sweetness of the wood from the barrel (not making this up!).

The taste is complicated! There's a smooth beginning, a tart middle where you can get the apple-ish flavor and the alcohol, there's sweetness from the aging and sharpness from the 11.8% ABV. You can also smell and taste some of the smokiness. It was described as having a "beginning, middle, middle, middle and end" by one of my friends. It is certainly true. The little smooth bubbles make every single sip of this interesting. Each time I brought the glass to my lips it revealed another layer. It's very heavy on the alcohol content so I was beginning to feel a little "warmth" after about half a glass of it.

This isn't a beer for the weak of heart, but for someone who is into the quads, it's a different and deep take on your traditional quad. I really like that you can taste some of the woodiness from the aging process, which means that it was done for a while...

I continue to be pretty impressed with what I've had from this brewery. It's really hard to find around here so I'll have to keep looking.

Bag & Kettle brewpub double review!

I happened to go skiing this past weekend (yes, I'm quite aware that its April, but when the snow's still up there in northern Maine, how can you not go?) at Sugarloaf in Carrabasset Valley, Maine. At the base of the slopes is actually a brewpub, that, during the time I went in it was pretty quiet so I figured I'd try two of their flagship beers.

They have a total of 8 beers on tap at "The Bag", most with ski or Maine related names. The Half Pipe porter, Trout Brook Golden Ale, The Alpine Red Raspberry Ale, the Maine Potato Ale, the Brown Dog Ale, the Joe Stout and the two that I tried. (I hear that the potato ale is quite interesting, but I had to pick two, so maybe that's a Maine specialty that I'll have to catch next time I'm up.)

The first was the "Pick Pole Pale Ale" which smelled very hoppy. I was expecting it to be a lot like an IPA from the smell alone, but the taste was very malty and smooth. It kind of tricked my brain, because I kept smelling hops but tasting anything but - it was nuttier, fuller than a pale ale usually is. It's an interesting one, and definitely not short on flavor. I did like how easy it was to drink, not overly dry or carbonated, which I've been growing weary of lately.

The second was the "Brown dog Ale" which I loved! It had a smooth brown ale taste which was very friendly to the tongue (no bitterness that brown ales can sometimes bring) and it actually had a maple finish to it. It was lovely, and I wanted to eat it with some maple glazed ham. Next time I go to a Quebec sugar shack (where everything they feed you is practically drenched in syrup), I'm bringing a growler of this with me.

So, if you're in the neighborhood, Sugarloaf is going to be open for skiing through May 3rd, so in between runs, go check out the Bag & Kettle.

Blue Point Brewing Company - Blueberry

I might be jumping the gun a little bit by reviewing such a summer-oriented beer (a blueberry ale) but it finally went above 60 degrees here today, and I took out my cute tank tops and I'm already in summer mode. I'm certain this will be coming back to haunt me and snow again sometime next week... but that's besides the point.

I've come to the conclusion that making a successful blueberry-flavored beer is pretty much an art. And, despite lots of attempts that come out of the woodwork each summer and spring, very few hold up to being really terrific brews.

Don't misinterpret me, I'm not being a cynic. Blueberry is a strong flavor, can be very sweet, and brings with it a lot of expectations. It is often paired with a light ale or even a hefeweizen and does not always come out balanced, but sometimes is just perfect. When it works, you don't feel like you're drinking a fruity beverage instead of a beer, and you start thinking about swimming pools and fresh green summer lawns. When it doesn't work, you get something that's all fruit, all sweet, or smells like blueberries and tastes like, well, beer.

So, this one is probably not the last blueberry beer I'll be trying this summer, but it isn't the best so far. It smells very heavily blueberry, and is a dark red color. (Not pink at least!) I was expecting something strongly flavored because this had a lot of scent to it. The taste however... disagreed. There is little to no beer flavor left in this beer. The flavor is quick! There, then BAM gone. And it's all sharpness, like the carbonation is erasing some of the taste itself. So you have this brief flash of flavor that's blueberry-ish and cold/carbonated. I felt like I was missing the rest of the beer.

So, I'm unfortunately going to recommend a pass on this one. But hey, with reviewing you have to take the good with the bad, and the good with the fantastic.

But for you blueberry lovers (and people from Maine) I'll keep on the lookout for another good blue on tap.

Dogfish Head - Chateau Jiahu

So, in bringing you this review, I'm a little torn. This beverage, while brewed by one of my favorite breweries, isn't technically beer. But I figured that I'd rather give you an extra review of something that qualifies as a high quality "malt beverage" than skip it all together. Because my readers are diverse... you might just enjoy this one.

Chateau Jiahu is one of Dogfish Head's brews that are based on archaeological evidence. Yes, I said based on archeology. Similar to their Midas Touch beer, recently found pots at archaeological sites were analyzed to formulate what they contained. Dogfish Head took that information and re-created it for both the Midas Touch (in that case, from King Midas' tomb) and Chateau Jihau. Before even tasting it, this beer has conversation value and would make an interesting party topic. Imagine offering your guests an ancient delight in a gorgeous bottle.

"Preserved pottery jars found in the Neolithic village of Jiahu, in Henan province, Northern China, has revealed that a mixed fermented beverage of rice, honey and fruit was being produced that long ago - right around the same time that barley beer and grape wine were beginning to be made in the Middle East!" -Dogfish Head Website.

The brew is made from honey, hawthron fruit, grape concentrate, chrysanthemum flowers and other delightfully antique ingredients.

What's great about this drink is, in addition to being historically reproduced from molecular evidence (a history geek's dream brew) it is sweetened with honey, grapes and has a lovely warm taste which resembles wine, or mead. It's pretty cloudy and smells like sweet grapes, with an amber color and some carbonation that isn't overwhelming but reminds you that it isn't wine. I think this would be a good candidate for aging, and I am hankering to have this on a moonlit summer night for some reason.

It is very smooth, not overly sweet but the honey is a delightful compliment. I feel like I've been transported back to 9,000 years ago in China, and that I'm sipping this wine from a small porcelain vessel in the presence of the emperor.

Excellent.