Beers in Review: Lost and Mad

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In today's BiR, I'll be discussing a Flemish Red from a small California-based brewery, as well as TWO years' varieties of a Christmas beer from a Hershey, PA brewery.

Starting, though, with Lost Abbey, a contract Belgian/Abbey-style brewery that works with San Marcos, California's Port Brewing Company. I had Red Poppy, a Flanders-style Red Ale that is based in their Brown ale that is then aged in oak barrels with sour cherries. The cherries come through as the primary piece of the flavor profile, which also includes just a bit of funkiness at the very end of the drinking experience. Red Poppy comes heavily carbonated, resulting in an effervescent mouthfeel. To me, this was an enjoyable Flanders Red, though not the best I've had.

While in Pennsylvania over the holidays, I had the opportunity to revisit Troegs Independent Brewing for the first time in a few year. For this review, I'll be discussing their Christmas seasonal Mad Elf, which they had in both the current 2016 and year-old 2015 varieties in their tasting room.

The 2016 Mad Elf is a mighty ale brewed with honey and cherries, and it has a massive 11% ABV. Many standard fall and winter spices, including cinnamon, clove, and all spice, are used in this beer along with the honey and cherries, and there's even a little bit of cocoa used in the recipe. You'll find all of those flavors in an intense, boozy, spicy ale that pours a ruby-to-copper color. It is truly a terrific ale, though that boozy note can get a bit overwhelming.

In the 2015 Mad Elf, that boozy note has been cut down significantly (though kicks back up a bit as it warms), turning this into a magnificent tasting experience. The 2015 still brings plenty of cherries, but the cocoa that was used but not that present in the 2016 really comes forward. The fall and winter spices are still present, especially the clove and all spice notes. But that spiciness has also cut down a significant amount. In fact, as great as the 2016 vintage is, the overall mellowness of the 2015 made for a much greater drinking experience for me. I expect that if you are used to a lot of high-gravity, high alcohol beers, the 2016 will be just as terrific.

Both are truly great offerings from Troegs.

Commentary: Pennsylvania Being Dragged into the 21st Century is a Good Thing!

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For decades, the liquor laws of Pennsylvania have been an antiquated joke. As the website Porch Drinking mentions in this article, “If you wanted to purchase a case of beer, a 6-pack, and a bottle of wine, you would have to go to three separate stores.” Beer distributors were only allowed to sell cases and kegs, while smaller packages (six- and twelve-packs) were available in bars, restaurants, and certain stores, but one could only buy 192 ounces at a time at non-distributors. This really made buying beer for those house parties back in college a pain in the neck. An additional restriction in Pennsylvania was limiting the purchase of wine and liquor to state-controlled stores.

Now, Pennsylvania had previously entered roughly the year 1997 by loosening some of its liquor laws, and further reforms passed by the state legislature and signed by the governor will finally bring Pennsylvania close to being in line with many other states. The Porch Drinking article linked above has an excellent summary of the newest reforms, as well as a history of the changes of the past few years. (Despite the date of the article, the latest round of reforms just recently took effect.) The biggest point of contention among these new reforms is the allowing of beer distributors to now sell any quantity of beer they wish. This includes six-packs as well as growlers, whose smaller size and presumed optimal freshness have made them a trendy option to novice and veteran craft beer drinkers.

Critics of this final reform claim that allowing distributors to sell six-packs will drive business to these businesses and away from bottle shops, grocery stores, bars, and others. Many in this latter group may be reliant on beer sales to remain open. If this is truly the case for restaurants and grocery stores, this does not feel like a great business plan. Moreover, beer distributors are not found on every corner, and many places that sell beer now will continue to successfully sell beer because of one major factor: convenience. There are still gas stations with their beer caves and smaller or independent bottle shops that continue to thrive, even when the big alcohol chain rolls into the area.

As someone who once had to navigate the formerly Draconian liquor laws of Pennsylvania, I celebrate the newest liquor reforms coming out of the commonwealth. Legislators, as well as many Pennsylvania citizens, have recognized the needed updating of these. There is more than enough of a market for alcohol that most or all current sellers should be able to continue to survive, regardless of size of the business of volumes of alcohol being sold. Any failures should not be blamed on new laws that greatly deserved to be modernized.

Video Review-Great Lakes Dortmunder Gold

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Without a doubt, one of the greatest breweries I've had the pleasure of visiting is Cleveland's Great Lakes Brewing Company. Sadly, they don't yet distribute to South Carolina, but my parents had some, and I was able to wrestle away a bottle of their flagship lager, Dortmunder Gold--my mother wouldn't part with the Edmund Fitzgerald Porter. Anyway, here's my review of Dort:

 

Coming Saturday, another long-form commentary, this time on the new alcohol laws that have just taken effect in my old home state of Pennsylvania. See you then!

More from Collusion Tap Works

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In last week's Beers in Review post, I talked about a few of the beers I tried at Collusion Tap Works, a relatively new brewery in York, Pennsylvania. I have a handful more to discuss in varying levels of detail before reviewing what I thought was really the best beer of the visit.

I will note that over the course of the roughly couple of hours spent at Collusion, I tried virtually every style of beer, and sampled at least half of their two-dozen offerings. As a result, palate fatigue set in during the back half of this visit, and it came through in my impressions of a couple of the beers.

As an example, I chiefly point to their Alley Session IPA, which, at the time, I described as "just okay"-a descriptor that indicated I didn't note anything wrong with the beer, but I wasn't getting a whole lot out of it. That being said, this came after having multiple normal/non-session IPAs of varying varieties, among other styles of beer. To me, this screams "palate fatigue", so this session IPA is one I would need to give further consideration before judging. The same could be said for What Gose Around. Both of these beers need to be moved to the front of the line on the next visit to Collusion. One sample I had was Bumfuzzle, which is an English Dark Mild beer. To me, it kind of tasted like a cross of ESB and coffee. I didn't have too much, so I can't make much more of a judgment, but it seemed like a nice session option (4.2% ABV) for the stout/porter crowd.

Another which came late in the drinking session (because they initially thought they had run out) was one of two wheat IPAs made in honor of the movie Rogue One. All I could pull out of Light Side were some citrusy hop notes and a mild hop bitterness. I was disappointed I got this one so late, because its twin was one of the first beers I had there, and it was easily my favorite.

Dark Side is a BLACK wheat IPA, and we'll get to the the execution of that combination of words shortly. The beer poured a deep, deep brown, and was 7.5% ABV. The IPA had very little bitterness overall, but did a notable job of threading the needle of the compound style. The start of the tasting experience was grassy and grainy, while the end was citrusy. I also got spicy and herbal notes throughout the experience. The folks at Collusion did a worthwhile job combining the black (body, some of the more subtle flavor notes), wheat (nice grassy, grainy opening), and the IPA (citrus notes) with all three being fairly well-balanced, and no muddled cross flavors. Unfortunately, this seemed to be a limited release. But I found Dark Side to be their best-executed beer. I look forward to trying many more offerings from Collusion Tap Works.

Video Review-Rusty Rail Rail Spike IPA-Dig the Difference!

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In today's video review, I check out the core IPA from Rusty Rail Brewing Company. Check it out!

 

As a side note, I spent some time yesterday making my first video review for February, in anticipation of my observance of Booze Free February. While there will be some scaleback in video reviews for the month (I plan on 2 a week instead of 3), I intend to maintain a fairly constant level of content, even if that includes more news and possibly something like the longer-form piece I did Saturday.

Commentary: How much love should B-Dubs get?

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Earlier this week, my fellow beer reviewer Rod Jones linked an article from the alcohol culture website Vinepair. Now, normally, Vinepair loves their lists, but last Friday, in what was just their second “Craft Beer” post in a month, columnist Kathleen Willcox proclaims that we need to celebrate that great bastion of craft beer culture: national buffalo wing chain Buffalo Wild Wings (which shall be abbreviated “BWW” in this column).
Willcox wants beer nerds across the country to think that “B-Dubs” is going to vast extremes to draw them into their restaurants, proclaiming that, “the bar boasts a sprawling menu of detailed beer choices, which includes the beer’s name, category, and percentage alcohol.” I must be honest: if this is the new wave of Buffalo Wild Wings, it hasn’t hit Columbia, South Carolina yet!
A survey of my local BWW shows your standard selection of macrolagers with a few offerings from the mass producers’ higher end lines or organizations—things like Goose Island IPA, Blue Moon and/or Leinenkugel plus a seasonal, and a Kona or Redhook product. There are also a few of the nationally-distributed ACTUAL craft beers: Samuel Adams, Lagunitas (more on them shortly), and maybe one more, and finally a couple of local notables. In this area, might include ONE ITEM each from Catawba Brewing Company, Highland Brewing Company and Columbia’s own Conquest or River Rat Breweries. I suppose BWW is making an effort, but forgive me if I give them little credit for stocking Kona, Goose Island and other “craft” beers they get off the Budweiser or Coors trucks. At this point, it is also worth remembering that Budweiser is more than willing to openly mock this group of “craft” beers that they want to sell to places like BWW. To Budweiser/A-B InBev, their “High End” group is nothing more than an attempt to recoup market share lost to actual good beer!
And that’s not stunning, given the vast availability of true craft beer, even in a relatively slow-growing craft beer town like Columbia, SC. In fact, within just a few miles of my closest BWW, I can identify multiple bottle shops, bottle bars, and restaurants that are serving high quality craft beer, including a lot of stuff NOT coming off that Budweiser truck! Buffalo Wild Wings claims to want to “[introduce] thousands of Americans who live in rural pockets of the country…to the merits of and differences between, say, fruited sours and bourbon-barrel-aged IPAs”, but they HAVE NOT started doing that yet. I will be happy to change my tune when I see a Westbrook Goze tap at my local restaurant! Until that happens, my local bottle shop will be my destination of choice for a good beer. And, if BWW wants to truly commit to craft beer, they will need to find better partners than Bud and Coors.
Even those attempts to appeal to craft beer drinkers with something special has met with mixed results, at least for THIS craft beer drinker. To their credit, BWW has made strides to pair with breweries to create unique beers for their restaurants. A limited-time collaboration with Redhook was called Game Changer. Now, I may have had it once, and it didn’t really leave an impression on me. But it was obviously successful enough to extend its availability and even create variants of the original. More recently, they teamed with Lagunitas for a hoppy wheat called Fandom Ale. Unfortunately, I found it to be one of the most disappointing craft beer experiences I’ve had in a LONG time. I will mention that I seem to be in the minority, as others, including the previously-mentioned Rod Jones, have had generally positive experiences with the beer. I trust Rod’s judgment, and am completely open to the likelihood that I got a bad keg of the Fandom. Even if that’s the case, delivering and serving great beer is just as important as making great beer in the brewery.
Buffalo Wild Wings IS making some strides to appeal to craft beer drinkers. Without a doubt, there is always something worth drinking. But there aren’t typically a lot of somethings worth drinking, and in that regard, BWW is lapped many times over by venues with far better selections. For us to truly start “[thanking] Buffalo Wild Wings for craft beer”, they must make a much greater commitment to craft beer. There are a number of restaurants which could serve as models—World of Beer or Flying Saucer, in terms of regional chains, though I could name locally-owned restaurants right here in Columbia that could serve as examples of paying due respect to the craft beer world. It’s Buffalo Wild Wings’ choice.

 

Six-Pack of News, Volume 17: I hope you're ready for that Bud Light Cran-ber-ita Keurig pod!

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It's been a month-plus since the last news round-up. But I'm back with a new group of news stories, including a preview of a standalone news and commentary post that will be coming later this week. Let's get to the news.

Multiple sites have reported on A-B Inbev entering into a joint research-and-development agreement with Keurig Green Mountain, makers of the proprietary single-cup hot beverage machines and the accompanying hot coffee, tea, and other beverage pods. Keurig developed a cold-drink system that did not do well in the market, and was discontinued last year. A-B Inbev and Keurig aim to revive the cold-drink technology for development of an in-home alcohol drink system. Brewbound has more details on the agreement.

It's no secret that craft beer sales have taken off like a juggernaut over the last decade or so, but marketing firm IRI Worldwide has noted that industry growth might finally be slowing down, at least in supermarkets. IRI reports that craft dollar sales at U.S. supermarkets grew just 6.9 percent in 2016, the first time in over a decade that this section of the industry failed to reach double digit growth. (Brewbound)

Adding to the concept of flattening craft beer growth is the latest financial news by Motley Fool about Boston Beer Company (aka Sam Adams), which has seen both shipments and sales to distributors decline in 2016, the first year-over-year decline since 2003. I would think that at least a chunk of this decline could be attributed to Boston's Coney Island hard soda brand, as the bubble on the whole hard soda concept seems to have burst after its high a couple of years ago.

One of the great American collegiate rites of passage, or so I've been told, is the concept of the shower beer. Great for pregaming before a night out, or to hair-of-the-dog it the morning after, shower beer is one of those concepts that can be considered both rather juvenile AND rather brilliant. Now, a Swedish brewery and marketing company have come up with perfect beer for just such an occasion. (Tasting Table)

Forgive me, but the back third of this round-up is going to be rather local. Craftbeer.com reports on a nanobrewery that has attached itself to a burger joint in the Old Town district of Bluffton, SC, northeast of Savannah, GA.

And finally, some time ago, I noted the upcoming expansion of Hunter-Gatherer brewpub, which has been a Columbia, SC beer-brewing institution for over 20 years, into a full-fledged production brewery, to be located in a historic airplane hanger at Columbia's Hamilton-Owens Airport. Eva Moore at the alt-weekly Free Times, a Columbia institution in its own right, has all the details on hanger renovations, which must be approved by a committee, due to the historic nature of the hanger.

Now, coming this weekend, I have some things to say about an article from Vinepair that is making out a major national chicken chain to be a craft beer mecca. Is this true or false? Find out this weekend!

Video: Sunday's Livestream, featuring Xocoveza review

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For today's video, I am posting Sunday's livestream, where I did some testing of upgraded A/V equipment, reviewed Stone Brewing's Xocoveza stout, and talked about the short-to-medium-term future of the site.

I also cut out about 6 1/2 minutes of the A/V testing for your convenience, but there are time stamp cues in the description for the various parts of the video. Check it all out here:

Beers in Review: Collusion Tap Works Trio

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As I've mentioned multiple times, I had the opportunity to check out a couple of breweries over the Christmas holiday, including Collusion Tap Works out of York, Pennsylvania. The brewery opened its doors earlier this year in a recently-renovated section of York, and has a nice though fairly typical tap/tasting room set-up: industrially-styled bar area with tables adjacent to the production area, with a small sales area for various apparel, sauces, and a few other items, and a small in-progress food set-up.

The most impressive aspect of Collusion's operation is the sheer quantity of beers they are making. The tap room has 24 taps, each holding a different offering, and we (my parents and I) overheard on the day we visited, a Monday, that they wanted to roll out 6 new beers by Friday. We had the opportunity to try roughly a dozen of their offerings, and with the exception of one non-traditional style, all were drinkable, at minimum, and most were good-to-great.

Enough prefacing. I want to get into some of their beers, starting with that non-traditional one I mentioned above. The beer's name is Kuytie Pie, and that name is a pun which includes the beer style: a kuyt (which you may also see spelled "kuit" or "koyt"). A kuyt is a Dutch-based grainy beer going back to the 15th century. It is somewhat similar to the gruit, in that it has little-to-no hop presence. (For reference, I found this kuyt to be less odd that the single gruit I had earlier this year.) Getting back to the beer itself, it poured a slightly hazy pale gold, and was quite light overall, including in ABV (4.8%). As mentioned before, it was grainy, with a corn note being most prominent to me. This graininess, with just a hint of hop, lead off the tasting experience, while the middle was so mild that I equated it to seltzer water or club soda. That corn note came to me in the back of the drinking experience. It's a mild beer, overall, and while I appreciate trying a new style, I didn't feel the need to try this again or go out pursuing kuyts on a regular basis. The most apt descriptor I found for this beer was "completely inoffensive".

Next up is a fruit-based IPA called Fuzzy Scrumpit. This is officially called a white peach pink guava IPA, and pours a very hazy yellow color. The ale is tangy, invoking plenty of the fruit in the flavor profile. I found a tartness throughout, along with a mild hop bite at the very end, and a little bit of a funky note back there, too. A mild tartness rounded out this solid IPA loaded with tropical fruits.

Finally, Dole, which is an Imperial cherry Berlinerweisse that pours a peachy-gold color. Coming in at 10% ABV, the flavor notes are fairly straight-forward, most notably tart cherry (of course) and lemonade. The beer is fairly dry overall, which, with some of the fruitier notes, helps evoke a feeling of sparkling wine or champange. I enjoyed this, but it was fairly late in the visit, so some palate fatigue was starting to set in. If it's a regular offering, this is one I'd want to check out again early on in a visit.

I still have a couple of Collusion beers to discuss in detail, including the best of my visit, and a few that I'll just talk about briefly. That will be coming later this week.

As a programming note, tomorrow I will be releasing the livestream from Sunday night as the Tuesday video. It does include a beer review of Stone Brewing's excellent Xocoveza stout, but I will discuss more detail about the video when it is released tomorrow. See you then!

Video Review: Westbrook 6th Anniversary (plus a programming note)

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I'm bringing the weekend video review early-I find it tends to be on Sundays. We'll get to the "why" on that in a moment.

First, check out the excellent anniversary offering from Westbrook Brewing Company:

In terms of tomorrow, 1/8/17, I will be doing a livestream to do some audio and video testing of my long-ignored HD camera and my new microphone that I've been using for about a week now. To keep everyone involved, I plan on reviewing Stone Brewing's Xocoveza Stout, discussing some of my lackluster video reviews from earlier in the week, and what will be coming up on the overall review front here at PRB. That will all be tomorrow night, around 8pm Eastern. Maybe a tad later. Check out Twitter and/or Facebook for up-to-date information on this livestream. Hope to see you then!