Brother Barley lands a prestigious interviewing opportunity with one of the premiere bloggers in the DC Metro area: Wild and Crazy Pearl. We discuss beer basics, the misconceptions about Guinness, and the joys of social networking.*
*Editor’s Note: Brother Barley and Wild and Crazy Pearl mention the blog of a mutual friend, Miss Mango Hands. We erroneously stated that her blog URL is missmangohands.com when it is in fact missmangohands.blogspot.com. Our apologies to our listeners and Miss Mango Hands for the confusion.
Beer ratings can be problematic. On the one hand, they can be a great way to get a general feel for a beer before you shell out cold, hard cash to purchase it. On the other hand, when it comes to beer, everyone has their own tastes and preferences. The Doc is partial to Double IPAs, Slouch loves his dark lagers…I’m a sucker for Belgian-style ales. That’s not to say Aleheads don’t appreciate good beer in all their forms. It’s just that…well…sometimes our personal preferences outweigh the overall collective wisdom of the masses. Read the rest of this entry »
The Commander’s wife (the Commandress?) asked me to put a question in our next Mailbag. I agreed immediately before remembering that we don’t actually have a Mailbag feature. So I decided to just answer her question:
The question: “Where does Oskar Blues Ten FIDY gets its name?”
I’ve heard multiple theories behind the origin of the enigmatic title of Oskar Blues beloved (by the Aleheads at least), and impossibly viscous Imperial Stout. Read the rest of this entry »
Tucking into a bottle of the Beer Advocate rated A plus Kentucky Breakfast Stout with Ripped at his son, Beer Lad’s, 3rd birthday party. Insane notes of coffee, vanilla, and chocolate. It’s all the fun of Kahlua… Without the snide comments from your friends. Sublime. 4 Hops…all the way.
The Pretty Things Beer and Ale Project in Cambridge, MA, is a classic example of ingenuity, love of suds, and a splash of alehead nerd-dom coming together to produce some truly terrific beers. A far cry from the typical style-driven brewery model, brewmaster Dann Paquette finds his inspiration in “times, people, places, and ingredients.” Read the rest of this entry »
For the last tasting note in my week-long “Terrapin Six-Pack”, I’m tackling one of my favorites…the Big Hoppy Monster.
Imperial IPAs are the “brew du jour” in the US today. It seems that Americans simply can’t get enough hops. Much like money, fame, and cheese fries, our cultural instinct is to always want more, more, more…and that apparently goes for hop bitterness too. American breweries have developed Double IPAs, Triple IPAs…hell, there are even a few Quadruple IPAs out there (though personally, I think that’s over the line, Smokey). Some beers are pushing 150 and 200 IBUs these days…and that’s great if you’re into beers that are so bitter your face implodes like a black hole. Read the rest of this entry »
You like soft, subtle, luscious bubbles that meet your lips in an oh so caring manner? Nice balanced malts, a tender kiss of hops that bring home memories of a simpler time? Well, if that’s your idea of beer you may want to steer clear of Avery Brewing out of Boulder, Colorado. You can use words like “Big”, probably “Bold”, maybe even “Extreme” if you want, but that doesn’t begin to describe what you’re getting yourself into with Avery. Read the rest of this entry »
Is there such a thing as a beer that’s “too” well-balanced? The brewer’s goal is to get the proper proportion of hoppy bitterness and malty sweetness (not to mention flavors imparted by the yeast and alcohol) that is most appropriate for the style being created. But occasionally that balance is too careful…too precise…in a word, too boring.
Terrapin‘s Rye Squared is a fairly “extreme” beer. The brewers took the recipe for their award-winning Rye Pale Ale and doubled the malt and hops. The high-gravity brew clocks in at 80 IBUs and 9.5% ABV. There’s no question that this must have been a challenging beer to produce. The talent and dedication that went into the Rye Squared is obvious. So what’s the problem? It’s just too damn smooth. Read the rest of this entry »
You don’t see too many wheatwines on your package store shelves. BeerAdvocate only has 10 wheatwines listed that have been rated by more than 9 people (I generally use 10 ratings as my magic cut-off number when talking about a grade on BA). It’s an under-brewed, under-appreciated style … and that’s a shame.
Wheatwines, as the name implies, are barleywines produced with a large proportion of wheat malt (sometimes half or even two-thirds of the malt comes from wheat). It’s a strong ale, which means high gravity and ABV, but the preponderance of wheat gives the beer a very different mouthfeel than barleywines (softer, lighter, and fluffier). Read the rest of this entry »
Doc Van Drinkale, Slouch Sixpack, Sir Magnus and Brother Barley talk about what makes an “extreme” beer. Plus, the good, the bad, and the ugly of pushing the envelope in the world of brewing.
Many of Terrapin’s more challenging offerings are presented in their Monster Tour beer series. The series includes the Big Hoppy Monster, Gamma Ray, and Wake ‘n’ Bake among others. But while those beers are innovative in their own right, Terrapin occasionally likes to push the envelope even further. That’s where the Side Project series comes in.
Each year, the master brewers in Athens choose a style (or often, a clash of styles) for their Side Project. When I first moved to the Southeast, their Maggie’s Farmhouse Ale was on tap at the J. Clyde’s (my favorite local suds depository) and I loved it. Since then, they’ve brewed a beer combining the best of Oktoberfest and Pumpkin ales (called, fittingly, the Pumpkinfest) and the upcoming offering is a Black India Pale Ale called Capt’n Krunkles. But right now, they’re on Project #9 which is a fascinating brew called The Dark Side. Read the rest of this entry »
Regular Aleheads readers know that I have a predilection for conditioned brews … cask-conditioned, bottle-conditioned, oak-aged, bourbon-barrel aged, etc. I love the mellow, complex notes that conditioning adds to a beer and I’m ecstatic that many breweries now employ cellaring experts who attempt to coax the best flavors out of their beers through the conditioning process.
But sometimes, aging a beer actually has deleterious results. For a case in point, look no further than the Terrapin Wake ‘n’ Bake…the brewery’s Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout. Read the rest of this entry »
Most of my week-long, quickfire, Terrapin Brewing Company tasting notes will focus on their more extreme offerings. But today, we’ll take a look at one of their year-round beauties…the Hopsecutioner.
Regular readers will remember that I put the Hopsecutioner on my list of top beer misnomers. Its 78 IBUs certainly make it a hoppy brew, but it’s such a carefully balanced IPA that the name Hopsecutioner is woefully inaccurate. I can’t really fault the folks at Terrapin for using it…it’s a slick name and admittedly the hops are the star of the show. But as I noted in my previous post, a beer called the Hopsecutioner should drag you out of the bitter bar, throw you in a bitter burlap sack, drive you to the bitter boondocks in a bitter Buick, and bitterly beat you to a bloody, bitter pulp with a bitter baseball bat (made of bitter Birch). Does the Hopsecutioner do all that? Of course not…who drives a Buick these days? Read the rest of this entry »
As I’ve mentioned numerous times, I reside in the oft-maligned corner of the US called the Southeast. Though it has some distinct advantages (like pimento cheese), the ubiquity of craft brews in the area is sorely lacking. The other brewing regions of the country (as poorly defined by me) all have their strong points. The Northeast has a dizzying variety of breweries from the big name craft brewers of Boston, New York, and Philly…to the clever, Belgian-style ale factories in Northern New England and western New York. The Midwest has a circle of highly regarded brewing cities like Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Grand Rapids, and Munster…all surrounding Chicago, one of the beer meccas of America. The Pacific Northwest is rightly heralded as THE beer-producing region of the US…and Portland, Oregon is often called Beertown, USA. The Southwest has California…which is home to some ridiculously good breweries stretching from Sonoma down to San Diego (and one of the most highly regarded breweries in the country, Russian River). Finally, the up-and-coming Mountain West region hosts Colorado, my pick as a dark horse candidate for best beer state in the country. Read the rest of this entry »
In the interest of time, of which I have very little, I’m going to skip most of my dribble about the brewery and move quickly to the tasting note. What you do need to know about AleSmith Brewing Company of San Diego, CA is that they rock. Plain and simple, just an awesome brewery putting out no-nonsense bottle-conditioned Ales (No force carbonation) since 1995. If you can find them, and that’s a big if, don’t hesitate to pick up everything they have. Click below to read the tasting…
With the monstrous success of The Maltercation, we thought it would be a fine idea to poll our listeners on their favorite beer styles. What? You have no idea what The Maltercation is and you’re trying to figure out how to listen to our inane typed out postings? Okay, maybe I shouldn’t use monstrous to describe the success of the Aleheads Podcast. The success is that we actually figured out how to hit record and put something up on the world’s wide webs. The Maltercation is a poorly thought out discussion of an even more poorly thought out topic that generally revolves around something sudsy. Sound good?
So, cast your vote on your favorite beer style and maybe we’ll dedicate a future Maltercation to your efforts. Feel free to leave a comment too if you want to toss some ideas out there or even your favorite examples of the style. Check back often for the next edition of The Maltercation Podcast.
Comments Off | Polls | Permalink Posted by Ripped Van Drinkale
The Aleheads drank heartily last night…in celebration of the Baron’s birthday, of course. The Baron must be a popular dude because there were a surprising number of imbibers out at the taverns for a Wednesday night. Also, apparently green clothing is the “in” thing to wear.
Your fearless beer blogger, Brother Barley, took one for the team and sampled (amongst other tasty brews):
Cask-conditioned Moylan’s Kilt-Lifter
Cask-Conditioned Sprecher IPA
Terrapin The Dark Side Project #9
Sweetwater Dank Tank BSP Quad
Good People BSD
Moylan’s Hopsickle
…and an Irish Car Bomb, it being the Baron’s birthday after all.
And how do I feel this morning? The way all true Aleheads should feel on March 18th.
Just wanted to write a quick post about another frustrating aspect of the Axis of Evil (aka: AB/Miller/Coors). Last night, I caught a commercial where Coors described how their beers were as “cold as the Rockies” and that they had developed “cold-activated” cans, bottles, and glasses that changed colors when your beer was cold enough to drink.
First of all, that cold-activated crap has been around since I was just a little McHops. We had awesome gloves in the 80′s called Freezy Freakies (mine had Spiderman on them) and when you stuck them in snow, the graphics would change (let’s also not forget the Hypercolor T-shirt craze of the early 90s). So Coors billing their “cold-activated” vessels as if this is some sort of pinnacle of human technological achievement is just fucking stupid. Read the rest of this entry »
Sometimes it’s good to step back and remind yourself that the world of craft brewing can be imposing to novices. Aleheads can be a bit snobby and defensive about beer … particularly because the brewing world is dominated by offerings that are simply awful. Take Anheuser-Busch (Please).
My local watering hole (the J. Clyde…an Alehead’s haven) has a ban on all Anheuser-Busch products. It sees these beers as representing all that is soulless and wrong (to paraphrase Office Space) in the beer world. AB’s beers are created to have as little taste, body, or character as possible. The goal of the company is to create brews that are utterly bland and inoffensive…brews that have so little interest or complexity that they’re essentially like drinking beer-flavored water. Read the rest of this entry »
Ah…De Dolle. For Aleheads, the name conjures up warm and fuzzy memories. As makers of some of the finest and most challenging beers that Belgium has to offer (no mean feat, that), De Dolle has earned the respect of beer drinkers the world over.
De Dolle Brouwers translates to “the Mad Brewers” and one look and taste of their award-winning beers will tell you why. Decorated with whimsical, colorful cartoons, a De Dolle brew is immediately recognizable. Even more inimitable are the bold, complex flavors of one of their Oerbiers, Boskeuns, or Dulle Teves (the latter of which translates to the “Mad Bitch”). But perhaps their most famous creation is their Winter seasonal…the remarkable Stille Nacht. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Barley McHops 
