It's almost Christmas time again! You know what that means... cooking, extended family, shopping, presents, etc.. This year, I've been lucky enough to receive two early Christmas presents: Rock Band 2 for Xbox 360 + $30 for DLC (which I promptly transformed into songs by Boston, No Doubt [old stuff - Spiderwebs,] Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jimmy Buffet [come on, it's necessary] and The Police) and a bottle of Sam Adams Chocolate Bock! I was far beyond content with Rock Band alone, but the beer was an amazing bonus (see its review for details.) I'm really looking forward to heading back home for the Holidays, although I know what awaits me is going to be nothing short of frenetic. I can't complain too much, my life as a graduate student has hardly been difficult (although, as you've no doubt noticed from the title of this post, I've finished with my in-class requirement! Now, all I have to do is finish my masters thesis... a task that's far easier said than done.) Anyways, I know times have been tough this year with the economy as down as it is, but try to do those that you love a favor this year for the holidays, and unless you have something really perfect picked out for them and on the condition that they like/appreciate beer, buy them a bottle of beer you think they might like! Also, if this means buying a 750 mL bottle for a group of people, or a bottle per person, it matters not. The point is just to share the great beer. For example, last Christmas, I introduced my aunt to Spaten Lager and was quite happy to see the results. She had been a long time Heineken drinker and liked something with a bit of carbonation. While Spaten isn't the best beer in the world, it's one of my personal standbys. Anyways, just do it! After all, what could be nicer than sitting around the first on Christmas night with a few good friends/family passing around a snifter of a great stout or tulip of spiced ale to round out the night? Not much... Also, I recently added a quick at-a-glance section for scores on the right of the page and will update these whenever I review something new. Check it out!
FAQ
My question for the week that I'm answering is: "Why is this 'This Week in Beer 4' and not 'This Week in Beer 3' since there was no 'This Week in Beer 1?'"
Answer: I'm a bit of a slacker, and can sometimes lose interest in things really fast. "This Week in Beer 1" actually did exist, just only as a draft that was subsequently deleted. In fact, that post was originally written about a year ago and was supposed to be a review of Bell's Batch 8000. However, at that point in my life I was more concerned with drinking good beer and not appreciating it which, in retrospect, pains me. However, it did lead me to a point of appreciation of beer, which I can't complain too much about. For any of you wondering what I had to say about the Batch 8000, I loved it. I remember it being very heavy and thick on the tongue with a spicy orange peel and coriander (as advertised on the bottle!) taste. I feel like too much time has passed to remember exactly what I thought of it, but I what I remember was all positive, and I probably would have given it an 8 or 8.5 out of a possible 10.
Cooking with Beer: The Beginning... (Newcastle Pot Roast)
So, I'm not a fabulous cook. Honestly, I've never been in a position where I do a lot of cooking so don't know more than the formulas for a few Casseroles and whatnot. This week, I decided to be adventurous and try cooking with beer! Anyone who knows me knows that my brain works in funky ways - for example, I don't like using recipes unless I absolutely have to; I'd prefer to know how ingredients interact together and then use what I know to cook better food or experiment with things. That being said, when learning how things work together, I have to follow recipes. I found a simple Pot Roast recipe on the internet and decided to give it a whirl. It asked that I cut my pot roast into slices and flash fry them on both sides so that they were seared and released a bit of their juices. After that, I caramelized some onions in their grease and then added some flour to make a roux. To the roux I added about a cup of Newcastle and stirred until it thickened. Basically, all that's left to do then is add the beef back in and cook for 2 1/2 hours until extremely tender. Served with asparagus and slightly drizzled the "gravy" over the final product. This recipe was a fairly big success for me, and I'm happy with it. I'm looking forward to trying some different beers with this recipe (and am always open to suggestions either on the cooking end or the beer end, so please leave comments!) and trying other recipes that use beer.
Victory Tasting at the Publick House Provisions
I will mention ahead of time how excited I am to attend this event. I am writing/updating my draft on Thursday morning, enjoying my week off and getting a chance to surf the BeerAdvocate forums and reviews for new suggestions. As such, I've been looking through the BeerSpy calendar for events I wanted to attend, and this immediately jumped out at me. I'm a huge fan of their Storm King RIS and have tried others, such as Scarlet Moon and Hop Devil. I'm really hoping to get a taste of their Old Horizontal Barleywine, as I'm a fan of Barleywines but don't really know much about them but have sampled a few which were to my liking. Aside from that, I don't know whether they'll bring anything cool like an aged Storm King or anything although I heard that the representative from Brooklyn Breweries brought some one year aged Black Chocolate Stout and it was amazing. That being said, damn was I jealous! Damn you Thursday night classes and your interfering with beer tasting agenda! I'll update my post as soon as I get back to follow up on my expectations and whatnot (which I'll leave here, and just add the new stuff in.)
Update: So these beer tastings are really nice. They may not be much in terms of production, or planned speeches or anything, but the employees of the Publick House store are always very knowledgeable and friendly, and the representatives sent always know a good amount about the product and are willing to talk about it. I was also happy because they had a solid showing there (Prima Pils, Hop Devil, Storm King, Old Horizontal [yes!,] and Hop Wallop.) The Old Horizontal, which you know I was excited about, was very very tasty. Clocking in at 11% ABV, this was a nice sweet barleywine that I'll definitely be reviewing soon. I didn't try the IPA style stuff, as I haven't been in a huge hop mood lately. I have to say, I'm a heavy beer guy primarily although I can appreciate a good IPA (despite preferring DIPAs.) The Storm King, as always, was delicious and the Prima Pils was a nice light pils. What I liked about it was its kinda earthy flavor, and that it wasn't overly sweet. I look forward to having another one in late spring/early summer.
Aside from that, ended up doing another mix-a-six with Mere, walked out with a bottle of Old Horizontal, Young's Oatmeal Stout, Sierra Nevada Celebration (heard great things about on the BA forums,) Dogfish Head World Wide Stout (which I'm really excited about,) Stone RIS (which looks awesome,) and Dogfish Head Midas Touch (which looks interesting, one of Mere's picks but I always like spicy/fruity beer.) Hopefully I'll have reviews for those in here next week!
*I like Southern Tier's Backburner as something I can find regularly, although the best Barleywine I ever tried was the Schlafly Reserve Barleywine that Mere brought back from Kentucky. Others sampled included Nantucket's Baggywrinkle [meh,] Smuttynose Wheatwine [really boozy, but good,] Avery's Hog Heaven [pretty good,] and Arcadia's Cereal Killer [also pretty good])
This past Tuesday evening, Pat and I had been invited to a local band showcase over at Harper's Ferry by one of Pat's friends who plays in a band. Beforehand, I asked to stop by Deep Ellum, and I had heard very good things but had never been there. Being at the corner of N. Beacon and Cambridge, it's really close to Harper's Ferry, so that was convenient. The atmosphere is really cool: it's a tiny place maybe 8 tables and 20 bar stools with the longest wall being made of brick and the far wall being covered by a black and white painting. I had heard excellent things about their choices of beer: they have about 20 draft lines that they regularly rotate in and out and also have one beer on cask at all times. I had looked on their website and was excited to get to try a porter on cask, but unfortunately, they had gone through that and were left with a Ridgeway Blue. While a good beer, I was in the mood for some heavier beer (my first beer of the night was an Old Rasputin on nitro.) Pat had the Victory Baltic Thunder (a good choice... I should have gone with one of these second) and Unibroue's La Fin Du Monde. I'd like to come here when I'd have a chance to try some food - Pat and I split a cheese board which was awesome, sporting four hand selected cheeses each with their own accompaniments - but the food everyone was ordering around us looked amazing. That being said, I'd like to get a chance to come back here whenever, it's a really cool, and totally different than I expected (i.e. not a hipster infested trend-hole.) Harper's Ferry, on the other hand, is a bit of a pit. The good thing is that they have some seating and a couple decent size bars, so I don't have to stand up if I want to hear good music. I will say, in terms of music, if anyone is reading this from the Boston area and wants to see some decent younger bands play indie rock, I recommend Neighborhood, Forest Henderson, and High Speed Steal; all fun to see live and play some fun music.
Reviews
After perusing the BeerAdvocate reviews for a while, I stumbled across Unibroue's La Fin Du Monde. It had been lauded as an excellent abbey ale by the Alstrom Brothers, and I'm always down for a good abbey ale. Pat had this over at Deep Ellum, as said above, and it poured an unfiltered apricot with about a 2 or 3 finger golden head. The scent was rather unremarkable: smelled like your typical good abbey or belgian style ale. However, what met my palate was something very very nice. It's an extremely spicy beer! Spicy in the same way Chimay Red is, except magnified greatly. It's nice and thick in the mouth and tastes like the holidays! This beer comes highly recommended to anyone who enjoys a good abbey ale/belgian style ale and wants a little something different from the normal stock belgian experience. I'm hoping they might have a draft line over at the Publick House devoted to this for the holidays - if so, I'm going to have to head over and get one.
My rating: 9/10*
Poured: Abbey Ale Tulip from 12 oz bottle
BeerAdvocate: Link
*I have to note that I did not drink a whole one of these. Rather, I took several sips of the one Pat was drinking and formed an opinion based upon that. We left for the show shortly thereafter, but if we had stuck around for another drink, I would have most certainly had one of these!
I'm a sucker for limited edition beers... or beers with a cool label, fancy cork, foil wrapping, etc. I like when people draw attention to their beers, and perhaps that makes me an easy sell. After all, that's how I became introduced to one of my favorite brews, Southern Tier Gemini; that extremely infuriating gold wax around the cap. That being said, living in the Boston area has allowed me to hear a lot of gossip about the fabled Samuel Adams Utopias and other extreme beers that they brewed. A while back, I had the opportunity to try their Triple Bock; an 18% abv soy sauce kick in the pants that was too strong and very odd. Later, we came to find out that the most recent batch was brewed in 1997, and due to proper storage/cellaring techniques, many of the unopened bottles were skunked. This afternoon, while picking up a bottle of Newcastle for cooking purposes, I came across another Sam Adams "extreme" offering (although I'd prefer to see it stated as "limited edition" rather than "extreme" as the abv is only slightly above 5%,) the Chocolate Bock. It pours a very dark brown/red (you have to hold it up to the light to see through it, but it's a really pleasant and rich ruby color) with about half a finger of head which quickly fizzles down to swirls. Smell is very rich: smells creamy malts, slight chocolate syrup, a hint of vanilla and a hint of coffee. Very light on the tongue, carbonation and hops fizz slightly. Taste is malty, subdued chocolate, but ultimately mimics the smell - very very good brew. Little to no aftertaste minus a slight chocolate-y leftover. All in all, this beer doesn't disappoint, perfect at what it attempts. Chocolate is just the right amount, not overwhelming. I can't say how pleased I am with this beer. Plus, now I get to keep the bottle, and it's really cool. Ultimately, a great early Christmas present!
My rating: 10/10*
Poured: Chimay Chalice (must acquire a new snifter)
BeerAdvocate: Link
* This beer is far from being cheap. At my local beer store (Reservoir Wine and Spirits,) it was around $17 for one bottle. I did, prior to drinking, start a thread on BeerAdvocate asking people for their opinions of this year's batch, to which they all universally stated that the price was too high for such a beer. However, I honestly felt like I got exactly what I paid for, and would gladly pay this again if I wanted more. In fact, it's a shame that this beer doesn't come in a six-pack.
** This beer is usually pretty well received, but there are reviewers out there that feel like this is just "meh" and very overpriced. The only thing I can think of is that this is due to the ABV of the beer. I don't think there necessarily needs to be a correlation between price and ABV, and obviously others don't as well as long as Lindemans Framboise is still selling. This beer was amazing in just about every way.
Also of Note: This beer is not very true to form. It's less of a bock and more of a cream stout or malty porter. I noted this, but was ultimately willing to overlook it because, honestly, I didn't care.
Not much in terms of reviews this week as I've been a bit strapped for cash with the holidays coming and whatnot. I also apologize for how contentious my Chocolate Bock review was, but I felt like I should address all the possible points that people have been making on the forums in order for people reading this to get adequately acquainted with this brew. Additionally, it's likely that my next TWIB will be a very hurried couple of reviews written at home while attempting to dodge the family for 15 minutes. I guess it's going to be a crazy holiday this year with my mom telling me to expect at least 31 people for Christmas dinner. Holy cow! I'm going to need a couple good beers to get me through that evening (and some good strength and energy... I'm always on dish duty during the holidays.) If I don't get around to posting another update next week, which might be a definite possibility, have some great time with the people you love these holidays!
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