Cellar Diving

I had some business down in the crawlspace under my house this weekend.  Since I had to go down there anyway, it was the perfect time to both move some new bottles (MSBC's 3000 & 2013 Arctic Devil) in and to pull some old bottles out of my "deep storage".  I don't cellar a huge amount of beer - my entire collection down there is less than 75 bottles - but even so, it can sometimes be difficult to keep on top of dates to make sure some bottles don't age too long.

This time around, I pulled four bottles to drink: bottles of Alaskan's Barley Wine from the 2007 & 2009 vintages and Deschutes' The Dissident from 2008 and 2010.  I've sampled the first two and my reviews are below.  Look for reviews of the other two bottles next week.



The beer list for The Culmination Beer Festival on 20 April has been finalized.  I posted most of the list back on 1 March, but here are the rest of the brews on offer:

New Belgium Brewing:
Cascara Quad
Fujuia Fruit Tripel
Tar Lychee

Gigantic Brewing Company
Anchorage/Gigantic Collaboration Belgian Imperial stout aged in cognac barrels
Chocolate IPA

Stillwater Artisanal Ales
Lower Dens Hibiscus and Spelt Beer
Folklore Belgian Stout
Cellar Door Wheat Beer with White Sage
Stateside Saison

Hill Farmstead Brewing
Biere de Norma
Convivial Suarez
Civil Disobediance #4

Jackie O's:
Cellar Cuvee
Oil of Aphrodite 

Lost Abbey:
Carnevale
Saints Devotion
Framboise

Port Brewing:
Hop 15 Fresh
Board Meeting Imperial Brown
Santa's Little Helper

The Billy Booth:
Dupont Bons Voeux 2005
St. Feullien Cuvee Noel 2005
Gouden Carolous 2005

Stone Brewing:
Enjoy by 4/20/13 IPA


Cigar City Brewing:
Hunahpu's Imperial Stout
Humidor IPA
Cherry Cordial


Cascade Barrel House:
Strawberry 
Noyaux
Cerise Nouveau

 More news about the festival.  Tickets ARE NOT be on sale via Ticketmaster, since they wanted to charge 22% on top of the $100 face price.  Instead, there is a separate website where you make reservations using a credit card.  Then, when you show up at the door to redeem your reservation, you pay for the ticket in cash.  Your credit card will only get charged if you fail to show up to claim your reserved tickets. Not sure if there will be any seats left by the time this is posted but go to https://www.theculminationfestival.com/ to find out.

Hoo Doo Brewing in Fairbanks has released a Belgian Saison.  they say it's "Locally made, globally inspired."  That sounds pretty good to me!

Glacier BrewHouse will be having a brunch on Easter Sunday, March 31st.  Go the their website to make reservations.

Kenai River Brewing has their Falconer's Flight 7-C's IPA on tap; see below for my review.  They will be open this Sunday from noon until 2 PM for a for mini-St. Patrick's Day potluck, so stop by if you're in town.

I'll be at the Arkose Brewery tomorrow, Friday, at about 2 PM.  I'll be happy to sign copies of my book for any Valley folk, and I will also have copies to sell, if you haven't gotten one yet.  It'll be my first visit to that brewery and I'm looking forward to it.



Next Wednesday, March 20, at 5 PM Midnight Sun Brewing will be having their Bring on the Funk Event, at which they will release their new Sex Machine: James Brown Sour Ale.  If you'll be in Anchorage and like sours, be sure to stop by The Loft to give it a try.  Midnight Sun is also running their 3rd Annual Photo Contest.  The the theme is "Where Can You Go", so start snapping photos of MSBC cans in interesting locations.  Entries are due by April 17.  Check their website for details, rules, and prizes.

I've got four beers to review this time.  First up, as mentioned above, I enjoyed bottles of both the 2007 and 2009 vintages of Alaskan Brewing's Barley Wine.  The physical appearance of both beers was the same (obviously), pouring a deep ruby color with a small, cream-colored head that dissipated rapidly to a collar.  Both had the same, deep, rich malt aroma with a touch of alcohol heat.  On the palate, both had the deep malt complexity of a classic English-style barley wine, with almost zero appreciable hop bitterness.  However, I thought the flavors of the '07 were noticeably deeper and better integrated, more mellow, and with a better finish.  This tracks with my past experience, in that I think this beer peaks at 5 to 6 years in the cellar.  So if you have any 2007 or older bottles in your cellar, I'd advocate you seriously considering drinking them fairly soon; they are ready, IMHO.

I also enjoyed a bottle of Meantime Brewing Company's Scotch Ale, which I had in my cellar for about six months.  While fine to drink fresh, I have found that this brew improves after a few months.  Meantime is a wonderful brewery out of Greenwich in the U.K., and I've never had a bad beer from them.

This one poured a deep but translucent ruby with a nice, persistent cream-colored head.  The aroma was true to style, being  complex full of sweet malt/caramel notes, plus figs, leather, and just a hint of peat smoke.  They mouthfeel was medium, with good carbonation.  The flavor profile was as complex as the nose, with caramel, leather, raisins, figs, brown sugar, and peat all making themselves known.  The finish was nice and long, with no cloying sweetness.  All-in-all, and excellent example of a Scotch Ale, one of my favorite styles.

Finally, I picked up a growler of Kenai River Brewing's Falconer's Flight 7-C's IPA on Saturday and drank it on Sunday.  It poured a slightly cloudy dark honey color, with a nice off-white head that left good lacing on the glass.  The aroma was packed with citrusy American hop elements, as you'd expect from this popular hop blend. On the palate there was good but not excessive bitterness, making for a more drinkable than average IPA, with clean, bright hop flavors that gradually fell away to a nice finish.  A delicious beer! I had no trouble polishing off the growler by myself.

Well, that's about it for this week.  More reviews for next week, and don't forget to reserve those tickets to The Culmination Beer Festival!

Until Next Time, Cheers!

Breaking News! Registration Open for The Culmination Festival!

Folks:

Registration is now open for The Culmination Beer Festival on Saturday,  20 April!  50 spots are already gone!  I got mine, so if you want yours, follow this link:

 https://www.theculminationfestival.com/

And register now, before it's sold out!

 

International Women's Day? I'll Drink to That!

Today is International Women's Day, which gives me a good reason to write a few lines about the growing number of women who are choosing to drink craft beer.  Once upon a time, there weren't too many women drinking craft beer, but these days, they aren't just drinking it, they are brewing it too.

I recently viewed a documentary called The Love of Beer.  It's about women in the business of craft beer, from retailers to brewers.  It talks about the Pink Boots Society, an organization of female brewers.  It's well worth a look; you can buy a DVD via the link above.

I'm also glad to see that there are more and more ladies joining the ranks of those of us writing about beer.  I'm starting to see more and more beer books show up by women, such as The Naked Pint: An Unadulterated Guide to Craft Beer by Christina Perozzi and Hallie Beaune and Let Me Tell You About Beer: A Beginner's Guide to All Things Brewed by Melissa Cole (reviewed 2/15/2013).  Plus plenty of magazine columns and blogs.  There's nothing uniquely male about enjoying good craft beer, even if the advertising for most macrobrews seems aimed squarely at the frat boy crowd...

Moving on to beer news, Silver Gulch Brewing of Fox and the Anchorage Airport, has a new beer on tap: Snow Hook IPA.  Here's how they describe it: "This American IPA pairs a traditional malt base with Pacific Northwest hops, a dry finish with a piney/spicy/earthy aroma that accents a crisp body. 7.0% ABV & 70 IBUs."

As of last Friday, HooDoo Brewing in Fairbanks had four beers on tap: their Mild, their Kolsch, their Barley Wine, and their IPA, at 4.0%, 5.3%, 9.1%, and 7.2% ABV respectively.

Haines Brewing has released Black Oak, a version of their Black Fang Imperial Stout that was aged on black oak chips to give it chocolate and vanilla notes.

Canned versions of Denali Brewing's flagship beers continue to make their way into the local markets.  I picked up a six-pack of their Single Engine Red a few weeks ago at the Soldotna Fred Meyers, and understand that cans of their Twister Creek IPA are now on offer there as well.

Further updates on The Culmination Beer Festival on Saturday, 20 April.  It hasn't been decided yet whether or not there will be individual drink tickets.  Here's the exact response to my query:  "I'm going to try not to, but we might have to. We'll see."  However, we do know what the tasting glass will look like:

The festival also now has a very cool logo:

I'm no cooper, but I believe the hammer shown is used to set the staves or something like that when repairing a barrel

Anchorage Brewing Company also now has their own glass:

I understand it has a laser etching in the bottom to serve as a nucleation point.  They are also getting close to releasing their long-awaited Anadromous Black Sour Ale, brewed with brettanomyces, lactobacillus, and pediococcus.  Here's the label:

Can't wait to give that one a try!

Down at Kodiak Island Brewing, Ben Millstein reports that the "long awaited" Night Watch Porter is back on tap.

Here on the Peninsula, Kenai River Brewing released the next beer in their Single Hop IPA series at noon today: Falconer's Flight 7-C's IPA.  Of course it's technically not a "single hop", since Falconer's Flight is a proprietary blend of several hop varieties from Hopunion, one of the major hop suppliers.  But it's still a great way to showcase the properties of the blend, so if you're a hophead like me, be sure to stop by and grab some.

I don't have any reviews to share this week.  It's not that I didn't drink any beer over the last seven days.  It's just that I either drank my homebrew (excellent, by the way, but I'm not about to subject you to a review of it!) or brews that I've already reviewed, like Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barley Wine and Torpedo Extra IPA, and Traquair House Scotch Ale.  But don't worry, I've got some nice, interesting stuff on deck for this weekend, so I'll eb back with some new reviews next week.

Until Next Time, Cheers!

March Already

Wow, here it is the 1st of March already.  2013 is flying by.  Lots of new and exciting beer news in the last two weeks, so let's get rolling.

Last night, Thursday February 28th, I gave presentation entitled "The American Craft Beer Phenomenon and its Impact on Alaska" as part of the Kenai Peninsula College Showcase series of events.  I spoke for an hour to about fifteen folks, who all seemed to manage to stay awake.  Here are a few photos:

I had a fine time, since the only thing I like more than talking about beer is drinking it!

Glacier BrewHouse had announced that they will close next Tuesday (March 5) and be closed until  4 PM on Thursday, March 21st for some major refurbishment.


Lots of chatter about the new festival being produced by Gabe Fletcher of Anchorage Brewing Company.  We now have a date (20 April), a time (6 to 10 PM), a place (Tikahtnu Ballroom in the Dena'ina Center), and a name (The Culmination).  Tickets will be sold through Ticketmaster and will be $100, plus whatever Ticketmaster charges.  Best of all, the list of brewers and beers on offer keeps growing and getting more and more phenomenal.  Here's the latest list:

Founders Brewing:
Centennial IPA
All Day IPA
Breakfast Stout

The Bruery:
Sour in the Rye
Melange #3
Smoking Wood

The Alchemist:
Heady Topper DIPA

Lawson’s Finest Liquids:
Double Sunshine IPA
Toast Black IPA
Fayston Maple Imperial Stout

Westvleteren
12

Jester King Brewery:
Boxer’s Revenge - Organic Barrel Aged Wild Ale
Funk Metal – Sour Barrel Aged Stout
RU55 - Barrel Aged Sour Red

Sante Adairius Rustic Ales:
West Ashely – Saison aged in French oak Pinot Noir Barrels w/ Apricots.
Maiden Fields – Berliner Weisse
Chavez – Robust Porter

Logsdon Farmhouse Ales:
Seizoen Bretta
Seizoen
Cerasus

Boulevard Brewing:
Love Child #2
Love Child #3

Upright Brewing:
2010 Four Play
Belmont Station 14 Anniversary Beer
Fantasia

Blaugies/Hill Farmstead Collaboration:
Saison

Grassroots/Mikkeller :
Wheat is the new Hops

Cantillon:
Vigneronne
Rose

Prairie Brewing:
Prairie Ale (Saison bottled with Brett)
Prairie Hop

Allagash:
FV13 – Foudre aged sour for 4 years
Vrienden- Collaboration with New Belgium- Sour ale
Curiuex- Barrel aged Triple

The Commons:
Urban Farmhouse Ale (Saison)
Fleur de Ferme – Dark Farmhouse ale brewed with hibiscus, lavender, and chamomile.
Flemish Kiss- Barrel aged pale ale with brett Brux

Three Floyds:
Dark Lord Imperial Stout 2011
Dark Lord Imperial Stout 2012
In The Name of Suffering – Black IPA brewed for the band Eyehategod

Anchorage Brewing Company:
The Experiment Sour
Darkest Hour Belgian Imperial Stout
Hill Farmstead/Anchorage Brewing IPA

Captain Lawrence Brewing:
Extra Gold- American Style Trippel
St. Vincents Dubbel -Belgian Style Abbey Ale
Golden Delicious – Oak Aged American Style Tripple

Jolly Pumpkin Artisanal Ale:
Sobre Humano Palena’ole 2010
Collababiere – Collaboration with Stone/Jolly Pumpkin/Nogne – 2011
La Roja Grand Reserve

Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project:
Surette – Provision Saison
Vieille – Artisanal Saison
Origins – Burgundy Sour

Black Raven Brewing:
Pour Les Oiseaux - Saison

New Belgium Brewing:
Transatlantic Kreik

Gigantic Brewing Company - Beers to come

Stillwater Artisanal Ales – Beers to Come

The Billy Booth???
It will be a Pleasant surprise…

Lost Abbey – Beers to come

Pizza Port Brewing – Beers to come

Hill Farmstead Brewing – Beers to come

I don't know about you, but I definitely plan to be at The Culmination!

Moving on to other news, Kassik's Brewery was featured in a KTVA Channel 11 story.  You can check it out here.



Kenai River Brewing has taken delivery of a new 20-barrel tank and a 3-head automated canning machine.  Check out the video of their test run here. There will be more info on their expansion in my column in next week's Redoubt Reporter.

Now let's move on to some beer reviews.

Alaskan Brewing has now released their Freeride APA in 12 oz. bottles, and it will be available year-round.  This brew has been part of their Rough Draft series for a couple of years, but the Brew Crew in Juneau have finally got it tweaked just right.  It poured a nice, clear gold with a big white head.  The nose is full of bright, citrusy American hops: Citra, Centennial, & Cascades.  There was good carbonation and mouthfeel, with a pleasant but not overwhelming bitterness.  A very nice American Pale Ale, easily pairing with a wide range of food.  O.G is 1047, ABV is 5.3%, and 40 IBUs.  This is the first new, year-round offering from Alaskan since 2009.

I was in Anchorage for a very short time last week, but I stopped by King Street Brewing and got to try their brand new offering, Holy Water Tripel.  This beer is part of this year's seasonal theme: The Year of Good & Evil.  It poured a dark honey color with nice cream-colored head that left good lacing.  The aroma was full of the spicy, earthy notes that I always associate with a Belgian yeast.  On the palate, the beer was smooth and flavorful, with no harsh notes to detract from enjoying it.  There was more spicy notes from the yeast, plus some good hop bitterness.  At 8% ABV, this is a very nice take on this classic Belgian Abbey style; don't miss out on trying it.

Speaking of evil, I sampled the third beer from Crooked Stave that I picked up from La Bodega in January: Nightmare on Brett, a 100% Brett-fermented Baltic Porter aged in bourbon barrels.  That alone sounds totally bad-ass.  It poured opaque with a tan head of dense bubbles.  The aroma was a mixture of brett tartness and bourbon barrel aging that to my nose smelled like sour cherries, though I don't think any fruit was used at all.  Good mouthfeel, lots of brett funky tartness intertwining with the bourbon and wood elements, before dropping off to a long, lingering finish.  This is a complex and challenging beer, which demands your full attention.  The closest thing to it that I've ever had before was The Colonel, a wild porter from the Cambridge Brewing Company that I tasted at the Great American Beer Festival in 2010.  An amazing brew.

Finally, since we're speaking of brett, let's talk about the 2013 Rondy Brew, from Anchorage Brewing Company.  I picked up a growler of it from the La Bodega growler bar, and drank it last weekend.  I reviewed last year's version on 3/7/2012.  This year's version is a White IPA, using Citra hops, I believe. I don't have any more details, since I had it from a growler, rather than a bottle with a label. It's a delicious saison, and I can't wait to grab some more.

Well, that's about it for this week.  I'll be back next week with more news and reviews.  Until then, keep drinking the good stuff!

Until Next Time, Cheers!

Time for Some Reviews

I've fallen behind on reviewing beer books lately, so I have four new ones piled up that I need to tell you about.

First, there's Shakespeare's Pub: A Barstool History of London As Seen Through the Windows of Its Oldest Pub - The George Inn by Pete Brown.  I have reviewed Brown's previous books, most recently his Hops and Glory While that book centered around India Pale Ale, this one focuses on the George Inn, located in the Southwark neighborhood of London, a short walk from the site of the historic Globe theater.  Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens-- they all drank at the George at some point in the last six centuries.    As you'd expect from Brown, it's very well written, though the focus is less on beer than it is on the evolution of the pubs and drinking in general.

At the same time that I ordered Brown's book, I also ordered The Search for the Perfect Pub by Paul Moody and Robin Turner.  The book is a meditation on what makes for a great pub, framed by George Orwell's classic 1949 essay "The Moon Under Water", describing a perfect but -sadly- fictional pub of that name.  The authors travel around Britain, visiting various pubs and interviewing their denizens, trying to establish a composite vision of the "perfect" pub.  It reminded me a great deal of The Longest Crawl by Ian Marchant that I reviewed on 6/28/2012.  Either book is an interesting look at what makes the British pubs so unique and special.

I'm starting to see more and more books on the subject of pairing beer with food.  I think this is wonderful, as until now there was a real paucity of works on that subject.  One of the handsomest books on the subject is Beer, Food, and Flavor: A Guide to Tasting, Pairing, and the Culture of Craft Beer by Schuyler Schultz.  The author is a chef who has designed and prepared many gourmet dinners, pairing delicious dishes with exceptional beers.  The book is a lovely edition, printed on high quality paper and containing numerous photographs and reproductions of brewery logos and beer labels.  If you have an friend who is a serious foodie, whether or not they are into craft beer, this book would make an excellent gift.

Finally, there is Let Me Tell You About Beer: A Beginner's Guide to All Things Brewed . This is another book from Britain, where the author is a leading beer expert and respected international beer judge.  As the title suggests, this book assumes zero beer knowledge on the part of the reader, and does an excellent job of conveying the important concepts involved in enjoying craft beer and pairing it with good food.  It is lavishly illustrated, with colorful pictures, labels, or graphics on almost every page.  I found the writing style to be very approachable, and it was refreshing to see craft beer presented from a female perspective.  Too often, beer books seem to be written from a solely masculine point of view.  Plenty of ladies enjoy craft beer and it's heartening to see more and more of them taking pen in hand to write and blog about it.  If you have got someone you'd like to introduce to the joys of craft beer, this book is a great choice, especially if they are female.

Besides books, I also want to review a beer kit from Midwest Supplies (www.midwestsupplies.com), an online homebrewing supply company.  In the interests of full disclosure, let me state up front that I was contacted by the company and offered a free kit of my choice if I would review it.  I agreed and chose their Partial Mash Mild Brown Ale Kit (SKU 565PD).  When the kit arrived, I checked the contents, which were:

4 lbs Domestic 2-row barley malt
8 oz carapils malt
4 oz chocolate malt
4 oz caramel 60L malt
3.3 lbs Munich malt extract
1 oz Perle hop pellets
1 oz Fuggle hop pellets
packet of priming sugar
1 packet Safale S-04 dry yeast

I brewed it up last weekend.  I found the instructions easy to follow and the ingredients to be of good quality.  Obviously I am still weeks away from being able to tell you how the beer tastes, but if there is any serious problem with it, it would have to be the fault of my brewing technique, not the kit.  The only negative I could see with this kit would be its shipping cost.  The kit itself was priced at $25.99, which is quite reasonable, given what was included.  Unfortunately, the shipping cost via USPS Priority Mail From Minneapolis to Alaska was $31.85.  This is not a criticism of Midwest Supplies, obviously, but just a fact of life for those of us who want to brew on The Last Frontier.

So thanks again to Midwest Supplies for sending me this kit, and I will report in a month or so how the finished product turned out.

Lastly, I have a new glass to review.  There's been a lot of buzz lately about the Dogfish Head-Sierra Nevada-Speiglau IPA glass collaboration project.  I have written about Speiglau glasses before; their stemmed pilsner glass is one of my go-to beer tasting glasses. Why their previous offerings have been in the traditional beer glass shapes, this new glass has been specially designed to accentuate the characteristics of a hoppy American-style IPA.  Supposedly, there were over 50 iterations before they settled on this final design.  It has the following features:

• Thin, round walls to maintain proper temperature longer
• A slender, bowed shape to amplify the hop nose
• Wave-like ridges to aerate the beer on its way in and out of the glass
• A wide mouth, allowing drinkers to comfortably nose the beer
• A laser-etched logo on the bottom of the bowl to act as a nucleation site for good head formation 

I purchased my glass for $9 from Sierra Nevada's webstore, since they were willing to ship it Priority Mail; Dogfish Head insists on shipping 2nd Day Air to Alaska.  Since that was where I bought it, I decided it would be appropriate to test it using a Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA.

In drinking out of the glass, I found it enjoyable, but hardly a quantum leap forward.  It drinks less awkward than it looks, and it does seem to do a good job promoting head formation and retaining hop aromas, but so will a decent red wine glass.  So, if you you like to collect glasses, this one might make a nice addition, but it's nothing you can't live and enjoy good IPAs without.

In other news, Kenai River Brewing has a new release on tap.  Just in time for Valentine's Day, they are offering Pomegranate Lager, a California Lager (I'm thinking that means it's a steam beer), brewed with California pomegranates.  I got to taste a sample Tuesday evening, and found the fruit flavor to be subtle but delicious.  Definitely worth checking out, especially if you or your significant other are partial to fruit beers.

Kassik's Brewery reports they have found 15 cases of their Spiced Cream Ale.  If you want some, head over to the brewery before it's gone!

Up in Anchorage, Midnight Sun has released another new beer, a collaboration between Head Brewer  Lee Ellis and Zoe Oakley of Modern Dwellers Chocolate Lounge; it's called Modern Romance Dark Strong Chocolate Ale.  This beer is brewed with chocolate malt, roasted cacao nibs, cacao powder, brown sugar, maca powder, and Modern Dwellers' Mayan Spice blend.  Draft only, get it while it lasts.  Midnight Sun will be tapping a cask-conditioned firkin of Modern Romance, dosed with vanilla beans and more cacao nibs, at 5 PM on Friday, 22 February, in The Loft to kick off this year's Fur Rondy.

I only have one beer review this week, but it's a big one: Midnight Sun's 3000 Belgian-style Barley Wine.  We were lucky enough to get a few bottles of this monster down here on the Peninsula at Country Liquors in Kenai, so I snagged one last Saturday and drank it on Sunday.  It poured opaque with a nice, tan head that was persistent and left a nice lacing on the glass.  The nose was primarily of oak, from the barrel-aging, with some malt creeping in.  At 13.2% ABV, and 25 IBUS, this beer certainly comes in on the malty end of the malt-hops continuum, but I found it surprisingly dry on the palate, compared to say MSBC's Arctic Devil Barley Wine.  Don't get em wrong, it's still a big, chewy, sweet beer; it just seemed a little less so than some others.  The flavor profile is everything you'd expect from a big, oaked, Belgian quadruple: malt, dark fruits, woody notes, hops purely to balance, and the alcohol barely discernible.  As good as this brew is, I look forward to what several years in the cellar will do for it.  Good luck finding any bottles for sale, but if you can, get as many as you can to cellar and savor.

Well, that's about it for this week.  I may not be able to blog next week, due to some work commitments, but if I can't, I'll be back the following week with twice the news and reviews.

Until Next Time, Cheers!

Someday Spring Will Come...But Not Today

Well, here we are in Alaska in February, dreaming of spring.  People are drinking bock, the classic spring beer, and wondering when it will stop snowing.  We got at least six inches this week, and there's another six forecast for the weekend.  So throw another log on the fire, crack open another bock, and dream of spring...

Bocks were the theme beer of the most recent meeting of the Kenai Peninsula Brewing & Tasting Society, held on Wednesday at Kenai River Brewing.  While I was there, Doug Hogue took me into the brewery to see where they had installed their brand-new 20-bbl conical fermenter.  Doug said they currently had every fermenter full, meaning that they had 110 barrels of beer in production simultaneously, which is pretty cool.  Kenai River expects to receive their new 3-head automated canning machine in a few weeks, which should allow them to can 20 barrels of beer in about 6 hours.  It will also make life easier when they start canning their third beer, Peninsula Brewers Reserve, later this year.

Speaking of the Kenai Peninsula Brewing & Tasting Society, if you haven't renewed your 2013 membership, you're late.  Said membership entitles you to discounts at La Bodega in Anchorage and The Copper Kettle locally.  Plus Tracie Howard has put together a breweries tour for paid-up members.  The tour will be on Saturday, March 23rd, starting at 3:30 at Kenai River Brewing.  Stops will include St. Elias, Kassik's, Country Liquors, and then finishing at the Main Street Bar.  8 beers, pizza, snacks, seats in the van, door prizes, and a safe ride home are all included in the $78 price tag.  If you are interested, you can sign up on the groups Meet-Up page, by clicking here.

Tonight from 6 to 8 PM at Cafe Amsterdam, Alaska Meadery is releasing the second of its unique, high end, barrel-aged meads.  At 17% ABV, Batch #72 is made from 100% raw Tupelo honey from northern Florida and was aged in brandy barrels for six months, the received another year of bottle conditioning before release.

Also in Anchorage, King Street Brewing has expanded their hours.  They are now open Monday thru Friday from 3 to  8 PM, and Saturdays from noon to  8 PM.  They also have their second seasonal for 2013 on tap, La Dolce Vita. They describe it as a coconut chocolate porter, infused with both organic coconut and cocoa nibs to create a smooth velvety chocolate indulgence that is balanced by a subtle roasted coconut aroma and flavor.  I look forward to tasting it myself.

Finally, Country Liquors in Kenai has some bottles of Midnight Sun's 3000 Belgian-style Barley Wine on offer.  This beer won't be around long, either here or in Anchorage, so if you want to try it, this may be your only chance!


OK, let's have some reviews.

St. Elias Brewing Company has their Goat Dope Bock on offer.  I tried a pint of this last Friday.  It poured a deep honey color in the glass, with a small, cream-colored head.  The aroma was full of clean malt notes, just as you'd expect for this style.  The mouthfeel and carbonation were good, and the flavor profile was also full of clean, malty goodness.  If you are a fan of this style of malty lager, you'll find Goat Dope quite delicious.  ABV 7.2%.

Over the weekend I drank a bottle of Cuvee Van De Keizer Blauw from Brouwerij Het Anker in Belgium.  This is an 11% ABV Strong Dark Ale, recommended to me by Pamela Hatzis, the owner of La Bodega.  Just looking at the stunning label design, I knew I was in for something special, and the contents of the beautiful bottle certainly did not disappoint. It poured a deep, semi-translucent ruby color, with a small, cream-colored head.  The nose was exceptional: plums, figs, raisins, and a touch of alcohol.  Excellent mouthfeel, with a rich and highly complex flavor profile, which included sweet notes of all the dark fruits above, plus elements of pepper and spices.  All-in-all, an amazing beer and a real masterwork of the brewer's art.  If you see a bottle of this one, don't hesitate!

 Another beer I picked up from La Bodega was L'Brett d'Or Surreal Golden Sour Ale, from Crooked Stave. In my last couple of blogs, I've talked about how impressed I was by this brewery.  Well, this beer was easily the most impressive of the three from them that I've tried.  It poured a slightly cloudy gold with a small white head.  The aroma was a combination of sour and funky notes, but very bright.  Upon tasting it , the attack is amazingly sour.  The first time I tasted this beer, all I could think to say was "Wow!"  It is shatteringly sour, but still wonderfully drinkable.  After the initial sour attack, woody notes from its wine barrel aging begin to be perceived, then the brett funkiness.  You have to really like sour beers, but if you do, you will find this one to be fascinatingly complex and incredibly well built.  A wonderful beer.

Finally, I picked up a bottle of Medvejie Stout from Baranof Island Brewing at Country Liquors. This Sitka-based brewery has just recently begun bottling and I believe this is the first time its product has made it to the Kenai.  It poured totally opaque with a small but persistent tan head that left nice lacing on the glass.  The aroma was mostly of roasted malt, but there was a touch of sweetness in the background.  A nice roasted malt attack, with good mouthfeel and fine balance, dropping off gradually to a fine finish.  A very nice American Stout, worth seeking out.

Well, that's about it for this week.  I'll be back next week with more news and reviews.  I hope you all have a Happy Mardi Gras and Happy Valentine's Day.

Until Next Time, Cheers!

One Weird Winter

Well, our weird winter weather continues.  The last couple of days, it's been fog, with occasional freezing or ice fog thrown in for variety.  Darwin has been hard at work improving the breed of drivers on the Sterling and Seward Highways, as people who can't grasp that you can't drive 55+ on iced roads are reintroduced to the laws of physics the hard way.

All that makes it a nice time to minimize your road exposure and fort up at home with a nice beer in hand.  And what better beer for that than an American classic, the 2013 edition of Sierra Nevada's Bigfoot Barley Wine?  It's on the shelves at Country Liquors in Kenai, where I picked up two 4-packs last Saturday.  Yes, it now comes in 4-packs rather than 6-packs.  What else is there to say about the beer that pretty much created the American-style barley wine?  Go get yourself some.

Speaking of barley wines,  Midnight Sun has released their 3000 Belgian-style Barley Wine and this year's Arctic Devil Barley Wine, and bottles seem to be flying off the shelves in Anchorage (and straight into beer geeks' cellars or beer traders' "Got" lists), so if you plan to acquire either of these, you'd better act fast.  Midnight Sun also had a very successful beer dinner at Jack Sprats in Girdwood at 6:30 on Wednesday night; judging by the photos I've seen, they had some absolutely fantastic food.

Over at Anchorage Brewing Company, Gabe Fletcher has continued to make news.  In my last blog, I mentioned that he was planning a beer festival for late April.  Well, a date has now been set: Saturday, April 20th, at the Dena'ina Center.  so mark your calendars.  Not sure when tickets will go on-sale, but according to Jim "Dr. Fermento" Robert's latest Anchorage Press column, over 25 breweries have already expressed an interest.  Imagine the chance to sample not-available-in-Alaska beers from the likes of Pizza Port (Southern California), Hill Farmstead Brewery (Greensboro, Vermont), Cascade Barrel House (Portland, Oregon), Jester King (Austin, Texas), Sante Andairius Rustic Ales (Santa Cruz, California), Three Floyds Brewing (Munster, Indiana), Lawson’s Finest Liquids (Warren, Vermont), Jackie O’s Pub and Brewery (Athens, Ohio), Upright Brewing (Portland), Cigar City Brewery (Tampa, Florida), and Founders Brewing Company (Grand Rapids, Michigan).  Oh, and you'll be sampling them from a custom-made glass, shipped in just for the festival.  Cheap at the $100 price.  In fact, my biggest worry is that all 300 tickets might sell out before I get a shot at buying one...

The other news from Anchorage Brewing Company is that perhaps I was closer to the mark than I knew last week when I jokingly suggested that Gabe might have made a deal with the Devil (a la Robert Johnson), for the ability to brew such an amazing beer as his prize-winning 17.3% barley wine.  Apparently, Gabe has announced the official name for it: A Deal with the Devil.  I have to admit I'm more than a little tickled, especially when I think how this beer is going to tear up the competition at Toronado in SF and Hard Liver in Seattle.  Here's to the Devil!

Further afield, Alaskan Brewing is earning tons of good publicity (not to mention saving lots of bucks) with their new spent-grain-fired steam boiler.  Given their isolated location, Alaskan has always had to spend money drying their spent grains and then barging them to the Lower 48, rather than just trucking them off to be used as animal feed, as is done here on the Peninsula and up in Anchorage.  Now they have installed a new boiler that burns the dried spent grain, providing enough heat not only to dry the grain but also to significantly reduce the overall energy usage at the brewery.  Just another example of brewers doing this right on The Last Frontier!

Up north, Silver Gulch Brewing Company has announced the date for this year's Golden Days Beer Festival in Fox.  It will take place on Saturday, July 13th.  I have not yet made it to this particular festival, though I've heard great things.  Perhaps 2013 will be the year.  And I can't remember if I've mentioned that there is now a Silver Gulch outlet at Anchorage International Airport, on Concourse C.  You can even buy a sealed growler to take with you (but not drink) on the plane!  How cool is that?

Silver Gulch also has The Weird Beard, their newest barley wine, on tap. With 9.5% ABV & 90 IBU’s, they describe it as: " An American Barley Wine aged in Zinfandel French oak barrels. Malty sweetness compliments the vanilla flavor from the oak and high hop addition of Galaxy and Pacific Northwest hops."

Also up north, HooDoo Brewing has been doing their part for education, by having a beer tasting last night at The Pub on the campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks.  A great idea and the perfect venue to spread the gospel of good craft beer! 

Closer to home, here on the Peninsula, St. Elias Brewing Company has revised their tap list again.  Cuvee Rouge at 8.85% ABV is now on tap.  I got to taste this barrel-aged Belgian Strong Ale at the GABBF and liked it quite a lot.  The CK Porter has gone the way of all flesh, unfortunately, but it has been replaced by GoatDope Bock, a 7.2% malty lager.  Here's how they describe it: "Traditionally Bock beer is brewed in the fall season when hops and barley are at their best. It would then age throughout the winter season and then be offered up for tasting in the spring. Bock beer has long been associated with the image of a goat and this could simply be due to the fact that the literal translation of the word “Bock” is “Goat”. Goat Dope is a Maibock, Brewed with European malts giving a rich malty character and a deep honey color. Hopped with German hops lending a crisp dry finish."  I haven't tasted it yet myself, but plan to soon.

OK, let's do some beer reviews.

First, while in Anchorage for AK Beer Week, I saw a beer at La Bodega that I had not seen for several years: Leifman's Goudenband, a Flemish Brown Ale.  In fact, it is THE Flemish Brown Ale, the classic beer of this rather rare style.  Young beer (four months old) is blended with beer two or three times that age, bottled and primed with invert sugar, then left to condition in the brewery's cellar.  The result is a classic Belgian beer style.

It poured a deep tawny port color, with a nice nice cream-colored head.  Based on the cork date, this was a 2011 bottling.  The nose was complex with both sour notes and hints of caramel sweetness; very unusual.  Tart attack, suggesting almost sour cherries, followed by some woody notes, malt elements, and a slight metallic taste on the very dry finish.  8.0% ABV. An exceptional example of a classic beer.  I think I'll try to pick up another bottle to cellar for a few years.

Next, I had a bottle of Harviestoun Brewery's Old Engine Oil Engineer's Reserve Blackest Ale.  I've had lighter versions of this beer from this Scottish brewery before, including some aged in Highland Park Whisky barrels.  This time round, they've pulled out all the stops, producing a 9% Old Ale.It poured totally opaque with a nice tan head.  The aroma was certainly full of roast malt elements, plus some chocolate, dark fruits, and perhaps even a hint of smoke; very complex and enticing.  On the palate it was quite chewy, with more chocolate, smoke, and dark fruit.  the alcohol is not apparent at all, making it quite easy drinking for such a big beer.  Toward the close I thought I picked up some earthiness from the Fuggles used.  Another deeply complex brew, demanding plenty of concentration and contemplation from the drinker.

Finally, last week I mentioned Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project had begun to distribute in Alaska.  I had a bottle of their Saison Vielle Artisanal.  It poured a slightly hazy gold with a dense white head, a classic saison in appearance.  However, the nose immediately tells you that Mr. Brett is in the house, with a huge funky, barnyard tartness.  Very appealing if you like brett as much as I do.  On the palate there was great carbonation and a nice effervescent quality.  A refreshing tartness, plus elements of tropical fruit, likely from the yeast.  Quite dry, with a little bit of hop flavor slipping in towards the finish.  Very unusual and masterfully brewed.  I said it last week and I will say it again:  If brett and/or sour beers are your thing, you really need to seek out this brewery!


Well, that's about it for this week.  Gentlemen, don't forget to get your Valentine's Day plans in line; If you're in Anchorage and looking for dining options, I believe both Glacier BrewHouse and Snow Goose will be having special dinners for the holiday.


Until Next Time, Cheers!