Monthly Archives: June 2010

Longshot Beers Part 2: Old Ben Ale

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Old Ben Ale

Today’s beer is the second one in this series. It is an Old Ale brewed by Michael Robinson named Old Ben Ale. This beer is one of my favorite styles of beer. It is a malty beer of some significant strength. So it is a bit bigger than a brown ale or bitter, but not as big and bold as a barleywine. You can expect these beers to normally be fairly low on the hops scale (at least by the perception of hops. There may be considerable hops to balance the sweetness, but because of age and the amount of grains used, the perception of hop character is normally low to none), but be fairly heavy on malt and alcohol. Normally I enjoy these more in the fall months, and don’t really relish them in summer, but I rarely turn down a good beer. So lets look at this malty bombshell.

Aroma: Nice clear malt profile. Up front you get milky caramel as well as some ripe plums, as the beer warmed it turned a bit more dark brown sugar. A bit deeper I smell something akin to a dry cherry wine. Which, unless you live near a place like the cherry orchards in Door County Wisconsin, you may not be familiar with. Booze soaked almonds also comes to mind in here towards the back-end. The aroma is not as sweet as some other old ales I have had, and it is mostly caramel in here, with the other players taking a supporting role. (9 points)
Appearance:  A rich amber color with some good clarity. I had to pour aggressively to get any head, but that can be expected in a 9% beer. What head I did get disappeared fairly quickly. (3 points)
Flavor: Up front is the flavor of caramel covered sticky buns. The alcohol gives it a boozy play in the adult version of the buns. Very rich caramel character, some minor chocolate flavor.  I also get the booze soaked nuts in the flavor as well, which to be honest is my favorite flavor component of the beer. A few other minor players come to light, such as the plums which also come across as pear at times. There is some hop bitterness in the finish that combined with the nutty flavor and caramel leads to a nice finish. I do have to say though that the guidelines state that beer should finish dry to slightly sweet. I feel this beer finished very sweet, and has a very sweet flavor throughout. A bit too sweet for me. But all in all good flavor that hits most of the major flavor aspects of a traditional old ale. (13 points)
Mouthfeel: very full-bodied with some lingering fullness even after the swallow. It may be a bit too full-bodied. That combined with the alcohol make for a long pint for me. I enjoy it, but couldn’t drink more than one or two. Carbonation is low, as it should be. (4 points)
Overall: A very good old ale representation. The nutty character combined with the alcohol remains my favorite attribute. The caramel character is nice, but combined with the sweetness, gets a little sickening by the end. If I could drink more than one pint at a time, it would be 2 at most. Toning down the sweetness a bit would make this a bit easier beer to down. But maybe that is a good thing, because at 9% things could get out of hand quite quickly if you could down a lot of these. Still, the beers complexity is very interesting, and the beer does taste good. The beer would pair very well with a fudge brownie in my opinion.  (6 points)
In the end I scored this beer a 35, but in competition I would be willing to come up a bit. I may have been a bit too harsh in the sweetness factor, but in the end, this would have been my score. A 35 would be about a B- or C+.

A look at Sam Adams Longshot Beers Part 1: Lemon Pepper Saison

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I get excited each time the longshot six-pack is made available. This April the six-pack with the winners for 2009 was released, but I have not got around to picking it up until last weekend. What I love about this special six-pack, is two-fold. I love the fact that Sam Adams supports homebrewing and is willing to not only run a competition of this size, but also brew the top winners. Second, the fact that the beers in this six-pack started out with a recipe from someone just like myself, inspires me to try some new things. This year in the six pack we have an Old Ale, an American Barleywine, and a Saison. Today I will focus on Jeremy White’s beer, Lemon Pepper Saison.  From my understanding, this beer could be a Fruit Beer with a Saison as the base style if it contains lemons, which it does not. It contains lemon peel. So I will judge it as a straight Saison.

Sam Adams Longshot Beer #1: Lemon Pepper Saison

From the Bottle “Pale in appearance, this ale is light bodied and effervescent with an interesting combination of both fruity and spicy flavors . The initial sweetness of vanilla and citrus notes from the lemon peel is followed by the spiciness from the grains of paradise. the finish is slightly tart, yet refreshing.”

Aroma: The lemon peel aroma is the first thing I notice. There is a mild lemonade-like aroma to the beer. This is followed up by a sweet honey-like malty flavor. The peppery aroma comes through last for me. What I like is that there is not a big muddling of aromas in here. There is a refreshing lemony aroma, a sweet and clean light malt character, and a supporting spicy character. There does seem to be some yeast flavors coming into play, sort of give the beer a slight traditional Belgian Abby feel that I don’t particularly care for. (8 points)

Appearance: The beer is a solid gold with some very good clarity. There is a nice layer of foam that sticks firmly to the glass. Looks very much like a Saison. (3 points)

Flavor: Up front you are welcomed by a refreshing citrus flavor, mostly lemon by there seems to be a touch of bitter orange as well. Maybe its just me. Following up the middle is a soft malt flavor of honey soaked bread. What kills it for me is the immediate followup of the bitterness and grains of paradise combo that kicks in way too soon for my liking. It’s not a bad flavor, it just comes too soon for me. It seems to bash away the bready malty quality too quickly and too aggressively. The lingering finish is nice though and tones down to a soft dry honey flavored finish.  There is a sourness that almost escapes your attention because it is a quality of the lemon trait of the beer. However, this sourness is probably from some part of the brewing process, either a sour mash, yeast/bacteria additive, or even the use of wheat. But it is not from the lemon. This sourness is more subdued and tart leaving a refreshing tasting beer. There are hops in this beer, but it seems to be mostly for bittering. The bitterness is about mid-range for me, but don’t expect much hop flavor here. (15 Point)

Mouthfeel: A bit on the light side for what I am used to for a Saison, but I think it falls within the style. The carbonation is a bit on the low-end of the Saison scale though. Not nearly effervescent enough, even though the label states it is. (3 points)

Overall: Overall I feel this beer does hit the style, regardless of what some people on other review sites seem to state. The Saison style is a very broad style, but mostly you are looking for a beer that is strong enough to stand up to aging, but not so strong as to not be a refreshing and thirst quenching beer. The amount of fruit and spice is acceptable and fairly balanced for what the beer is intended to be. I just feel that sometimes people get one or two commercial examples of a specific beer style in mind, and anything that is not like those beers is not to style. However, if you examine the guidelines, you will see that this beer vary in strength from 5% to 9.5% for stronger versions. The color range can be from pale orange to even a dark copper or brown. Granted the guidelines say that the stronger Saisons should be entered (for competition) in the Belgian Specialty category, but they are still Saisons. The portions of this beer that are traditionally Saison are all there. There is spice, there is a fruity quality, it is refreshing, and it is well hopped. It is not well hopped like how an IPA should be, but well hopped enough to balance the malt. It is not a perfect Saison to me, but it is a Saison and a well made one for me. (8 points)

Overall I give this beer a 37, Which to me would be about a B+.
On last thing to consider with this beer, is that Jeremy White won the Employee portion of the longshot competition. That is not take away from his win, but for those who may think “I entered a better Saison than this.” or “This was one of the best in the Country?” can know that this beer was not a winner from the open public competition, but the one for employees only. Which makes it a bit less of a longshot compared to the public entries, but still I give him respect for winning the thing. Either way, I still like this one for the most part.

Kohler Festival of Beer, well worth the price….

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Wood Lake at Kohler

If you are like me, you may be on a budget, but allow a few splurges when it comes to beer, and beer events. Generally these events run upwards of $30 and up but rarely over $100 for a single event. Heck, I have yet to pay over $60 for a single ticket (however I think this year things are going to change because of price hikes). Kohler runs their event a bit differently. They have several events over 3 day, these events range from a golf tourney to beer and food pairing demos. Each event requires a ticket, excluding the golf tourney these prices range between $25-$65 per event. Or you can opt for a day or weekend pass for a bit less than buying all the tickets. This year I was lucky enough to receive an all access pass for all the events, as well as a ticket to bring a guest to the Homebrew Festival, Cheers to Beers, Blues Brews and BBQ, and Shorts and Chefs. I could not attend the Blues, Brews, and BBQ because of a prior commitment, but I did attend a few events Saturday and Sunday that was well worth a write-up.

The Homebrew Festival (ticket price $25)

3 of us Judged Best of Show, which was 10 beers sent on to BOS.

The Homebrew festival actually starts at 10am, way before the doors open to the event. They host a homebrew contest which at first glance seemed a bit off-putting to some from what I heard in the homebrew community, but once I experienced it, it made total sense. The entry fee was a bit steep however, at $10 per entry. As judges we did end up discussing the cost of entry. One positive side it added to the contest is that the beer sent in was really good. The thought behind it was if you are going to spend $10 to enter a beer, you want to make sure you had a really good beer to send. I don’t know if this was Kohler’s intent, but it was  a theory we came up with on why such a large entry fee for such a small event. Most of the entries were local however. It was clearly stated in the rules that in order to win best of show, you had to be present at the homebrew festival to serve your homebrew. You needed to bring 5 gallons of beer. It did not have to be 5 gallons of the beer you entered, but it did have to be homebrew. Although this limited the entries to mostly local brewers, it also does promote the hobby. I do wish though, that if if they required you to serve up your homebrew, you didn’t have to pay the hefty entry fee. If you break it down, you have $25+ for ingredient cost to bring 5 gallons of beer, plus the $10 entry fee. That comes out to a conservative $35 per entry. Each category received 1st-3rd place award ribbons. The Best of Show had trophy’s awarded for 1st-3rd place in BOS as well. And the trophy’s were not cheap plastic, but a metal and marble, so that was a plus.  The actual event was quite nice. I am not sure how much homebrew there was there, but they had a good turn out ( I estimate 100 people attended this small event, but that is not an official number), and some good beers were served as well.As you can see below in the picture I took as the doors opened, food was included in the ticket cost. The spread was pretty decent as you can see.

Food was included in the $25 ticket price

Cheers To Beers (Ticket Price $50)

Cheers to beers was a lot of fun and the lineup of beers was worth the price, the food was just a bonus. It was held at the Kohler Design Center which houses displays of many bathroom fixtures that are produced at Kohler. This made for an interesting evening when combined with some top-notch beers. For example, the first booth you saw when you walked in was from Mikkeller, and featured the Black Hole Series of beers and the single hop IPA’s. I stuck around here for a while and sampled the same beer, but aged in different types of barrels (port, rum, whiskey, and bourbon) as well as the single hop Amarillo, Simcoe, and Tomahawk beers.

Mikkeller Black hole Imperial Stouts, and Single Hop IPA's

Also present were a wide variety of Belgian Beers, one of my favorites of the night was and Oud Bruin from Brouwerij Bavik called Petrus Aged Pale Grand Reserve. It was pleasantly sour, with hints of cherry and vanilla goodness. All your major players were also there in full strength: Goose Island, New Glarus, Capital Brewery, Dogfish Head, Left Hand, Brouwerij Duvel Moortgat with Maredsous 8 just to name a few. The food here was also provided, this included a full dessert table, which I didn’t have time to sample because I kept heading back to the cheese bar. here are a few pics for your enjoyment before I move on to Shorts and Chefs.

Cheese Bar

Authentic Cask Ale

because it's just not a brewfest without it, and a random drunk guy pic

Yeah, Eiffel Tower baby!

Shorts and Chefs (ticket price $45)

Shorts and Chefs

First I have to make it clear that shorts and chefs is not a food and beer pairing event, which the Kohler Festival of Beer did have, but rather a showcase of the top chefs in the state of Wisconsin. Each chef was paired up with a brewery, but the pairing of the food and particular beer was not intended to be a pairing. You were on your own for finding a good pairing for various foods. With that said, I loved this event and when you see the pics you will see why. Although this event was casual, the cuisine was not. You had everything from ribs and pulled pork, to lamb chops and couscous to choose from. The breweries featured were the same as Saturday nights Cheers to Beers event, so it was not difficult to find some very nice pairings. Again, the food and the beer was all included in your ticket cost, and you could each as much from as many chefs as you wanted. Of my top four favorite dishes, the number one for me was a lamb chop smothered in a yogurt and curry mixture atop some Israeli couscous which I paired up with some more Maredsous 8. It was excellent. My other top three was some type of tiny squash hollowed out and stuffed with a crab meat mixture and garnished with greens and a marinara, a grilled pork belly served with watermelon dipped in a chocolate and balsamic vinegar sauce topped with feta, and an excellent appetizer which was grilled bread cheese (which does not actually contain any bread) on a skewer with a venison brat and served with a date chutney. All four of my favs are pictured below.

Grilled bread cheese topped with a venison brat served with a date chutney

The grilled squash and crab meat dish

Grilled Pork Belly with watermelon dipped in chocolate and balsamic topped with feta

The lamb chop smothered in a yogurt and curry mixture atop Israeli Couscous

In the end, although a bit expensive, if you are a beer lover and a foodie, you will find the Kohler Festival of Beer an event worth the price. I just wish I did not have prior commitments so I could have attended the beer and food pairings and the Blues, Brews, and BBQ event. But from the ones I did attend, I was very very pleased. The beers offered were great and in many cases above the normal beer festival standards, the food was great. And best of all, everything was included in the ticket price. So even if you spent every dime on tickets, you still got to eat.