Beer Club, Volume Seven - Trappists!

We're finally back to another episode of Beer Club that has no rhyme or reason for the month other than that I've really started to like Trappist ales and wanted to expose the rest of the group to them. They have such a cool background and history behind them (for some great info on them, click here).

In a nutshell, Trappist beers are those brewed by or under the control of Trappist monks. There are seven Trappist monasteries in the world that brew beer and they are the only brewers who are allowed by law to use the Authentic Trappist Product Logo.

Of these seven breweries, only six of them are readily available in the United States. The seventh, Westvleteren, does not distribute their beers beyond the monastery. While discussing this brewery with an importer of these beers at the Four Firkins last week I learned that they used impose much lighter restrictions on what they sold at the brewery (used to be ten cases per car) but that led to gray market sales of the beer that they had to change their policy. You are now only able to buy one case per person, per vehicle/license plate, per month and you must call ahead to reserve that case (they will not sell to you if you just drive up without calling). Or you can enjoy it at their cafe as well.

Since I wasn't driving to Belgium any time soon, we had to limit our choices to the six breweries that did distribute their product in the US. With Alvey's help, I picked up an impressive cross section of Trappist beers that showcased not only each of those six breweries but that also represented several of the styles that the Trappists are famous for brewing.

The lineup:
Orval (easy choice, they only make one beer that I could buy)
Westmalle Dubbel (recipe unchanged for almost 150 years!)
Westmalle Tripel (they invented and coined the tripel style of beer)
Achel Blonde (smallest Trappist brewery)
Chimay Blue (my personal favorite)
Rochfort 8 (this beer represents the largest proportion of Rochfort's production)
Koningshoeven Quadruple (the only Dutch Trappist brewery)

I knew this wasn't going to be a cheap month for Beer Club since these bottles are typically $5-6 per bottle and since we were spending extra this month anyway I decided to splurge and got some cheese to go with it. Last month I discovered that Chimay also makes cheese and was able to try two of the varieties of it so I once again went with both of them and also one more recommended by a Surdyk's cheese expert (I forgot to jot the name of it down but I think it was Taleggio). For one month, dues went from $10 to $20 but we got to live the good life and experience some of the finer things in the world.

There was another reason this month was going to be a special month, not only was it the most people we had for a month but we got to welcome two newcomers to the group, Pete and Brett. Pete is a friend of Paul's and we've been working on him to check out a meeting for awhile. Brett is a homebrewer/beer geek/all around good guy that I "met" on Twitter and convinced him to give our event a try.

When Josh joined our group, it was a huge addition for us because his homebrewing experience brought a lot to the table. Brett was no exception and delivered a lot more than a hop grenade, he was dropping knowledge left and right giving us some insight to how these world class beers were crafted.

The big group made it difficult to discuss as many things as I would have liked to because of so many side conversations going but the main things that I got were that even though some of the guys had some apprehension of how they'd like this style, they did find a style or two or three that they indeed liked. Those of us that already knew a bit about the style just reaffirmed how much we liked them. With any luck, a few people will leave a comment or two about their thoughts for the month.

As for me, I was thrilled to get to pull off this edition of Beer Club. Trappists continue to wow me every time I have one and even if I got a few of the group to find one in the lineup that they liked, I feel like my mission was accomplished. As for me, my chalice will be filled on a regular basis from now on while I explore new options and enjoy my already discovered favorites. I'm looking forward to pouring a work of art in my goblet, kicking back and as the monks so eloquently put it, "tasting the silence".

Beer Club, Volume Six - Bocks!

I decided to go with Bocks for this installment of Beer Club in honor of Bockfest at Schell's Brewery in New Ulm. It ended up being doubly important this year because sadly my streak of seven years at Bockfest was broken this year. At least I had a good lineup of beer to help me feel better about it.

Rather than focus on one of the specific bocks like dunkler bocks or doppelbocks or heller bocks, I decided to throw a couple of each in there to give us an idea of the differences between them. Due to illness, vacation, forgetfulness and out of town visitors, we had the smallest group yet but the three of us made the most of it.

The first two beers we did were dunkler bocks, Sam Adams Chocolate Bock and Schell's Bock. I've been sitting on a couple bottles of the Chocolate Bock for awhile now and figured it was as good of a time as any to crack them. Schell's is the bock that always comes to mind for me because it's the one I've drank the most of in my life (even if 95% of it has come on seven specific days!)

The Sam Adams was unique, definitely chocolate chocolate and more chocolate. Not that it was overpowering, but it was definitely the main flavor in the beer. To me it tasted like a coco powder more than the chocolate I've tasted in other beers and I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm wondering if it was because they use coco nibs. I'm not even sure what they are but I know this is the first beer that I've had with them. Guess I'll find out when I finally try the Dogfish Head Theobroma. The Chocolate Bock was a decent beer but I'm not sure I'd run out to search for more of it at $10 a bomber.

The Schell's was as I always remember it, a perfect example of the style. Bocks to me are similar to brown ales and amber ales in that I can sit down with 5 different ones and notice that each one is different but have a hard time describing the exact differences. Another way to put it is that I know what bocks are supposed to taste like and this beer is the standard for me.

Next we moved to the two heller bocks - Sierra Nevada Glissade Golden Bock and Dead Guy Ale from Rogue. I've never had a heller bock before so I wasn't really sure what to expect. Well, technically I had the Glissade at a Sierra Nevada tasting a couple weeks ago and thought it would be a cool change of pace to throw in the line up. It has a light golden color with a nice pillowy white head. Aroma is bready, malty as is the flavor which also has some spicy and hoppy notes. Nice clean finish with a small hops bite.

The Dead Guy was a bit of an anomaly to me. I knew that bocks fell into the lager category but Dead Guy is advertised as Dead Guy Ale, not Dead Guy Lager even though most resources I've seen call it a heller bock. After some research and a few messages back and forth with Rogue, I'm just going to go with it being a hybrid, heller bock style ale. This is one I'd like to drink isolated from Beer Club to get a better handle on what I think of it. I know I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I loved it. I'll update my thoughts on this beer in the comments section.

The last three beers on the list were doppelbocks. For a quick history lesson on these and to find out why so many of them end with -ator, click here.

First up was Ayinger Celebrator Doppelbock. This beer is rated as the number one doppelbock on Rate Beer and it's easy to see why. This is a fantastic beer. Deep brown pour with a big creamy tan head. Sweet & roasted malty aroma and flavor with a sweet caramel finish.

A random entry to the night was Boulevard's Seeyoulator. I stumbled across this beer a couple weekends ago and picked it up because of the cedar aging. It wasn't till I was home that I even realized it was a doppelbock and decided to use it for Beer Club.

It was fantastic. Caramel color, LOTS of lively head, fantastic lacing. I poured the first glass quickly and down the middle like I do for most small samples and got a ton of head. I tried pouring more slowly and off to the side on the next two and still got quite a bit of head. Not a ton of aroma, sweet and malty is what does come through. Flavor is sweet, fruity, malty with a chewy mouthfeel. The cedar does come through in the flavor as well. Very cool beer, pretty unique for a doppelbock.

The last doppelbock was the Sam Adams Imperial Double Bock. It's a nice big chewy beer with a bunch of intense good flavors in it. Very sweet and smooth considering how much is going on in it.

We wrapped up the night with attempt at poking our bocks. You heard me right. If you've never been to Bockfest in New Ulm, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. Well, at Bockfest they have campfires set up to huddle around if you get too cold. They also keep hot pokers in these fires and if you ask, they'll "poke" your bock by sticking one right in the middle of your brew. This caramelizes the sugars in the beer and makes it sweeter and a bit smokey.

I procured a metal rod from Home Depot and we fired up the burner from my turkey fryer and gave it a try. It didn't come out exactly like it does at Bockfest but it was a pretty good attempt for our first try. I'd guess that there's a bit of "seasoning" on the pokers down at Schell's, something like a cast iron skillet acquires after many uses. It definitely had a reaction and gave everybody a good idea of how it works.

I think my favorite of the night would have to be the Celebrator. It's number one for a reason and I can't argue with it. The Seeyoulator was nipping at its heels for me though. I really liked the depth that the cedar seemed to give it.

Over the weekend I also tried some Paulaner Salvator and a bottle of Widmer Brothers' Reserve Cherry Oak Doppelbock. I found the Salvator to be a solid beer but if given the option, I'd go for the much more economical Schell's Bock and enjoy it just as much.

As for the Widmer, it was phenomenal. As I always say, give me any combo that involves imperial stout, bourbon, oak aged or cherry and I'm all in. This stuff was awesome. It bummed me out that I waited so long to try it because I figured it was all gone. I was lucky enough this week to track down a couple more bottles of it before it completely disappeared. I'm going to hold one or both bottles for awhile and see how they age.

I'm already looking forward to next month's Beer Club, I'm leaning towards doing Trappist Ales after discovering that Chimay makes cheese. If you have any advice on Trappists, please let me know. Until then - Cheers!

Winterfest 2010

So I've been all in to the craft beer scene now for less than a year and as of ten days ago I had yet to attend one of the big beer festivals. I've been to Surlyfest and Darkness Day but I'm talking about the kind where you can drink a billion samples of kick ass beer all under the same roof. I barely missed out on Autumn Brew Review last year because by the time I had discovered its existence I had already set up my annual Freedom Fest and couldn't back out.

So needless to say when I saw that the tickets for Winterfest in St Paul were going on sale awhile back I had to jump on it. After asking several people to go it ended up being (my cousin) Paul and (my co-worker) Paul and me. I soon found it it ended up being easiest to just adopt co-worker Paul as "my other cousin Paul". Scratch that last sentence if you didn't see the sit-com in the 80's.

We lined up rides to and from the venue and decided to get dropped off at Great Waters which was around a half mile from the Minnesota History Center. We kicked off with a couple of pitchers and a good meal to get a good base in our stomach before proceeding to drink as many beers as we could in 3 hours. We discussed our plan to hit everything we wanted and try as many "must try" beers without getting totally smashed.

All in all, it was a total success. We had great timing for getting in line because even though we had to wait quite awhile, 90-95% of the crowd was behind us. We were in the first wave to attack which was a good thing because Surly was the first booth there and I knew I wanted to try the One (lager aged in a fresh Bourbon barrel for one year), Two (Oak aged Cranberry Stout) and Three ("Jesus Juice" Brewed with 50% honey and 50% German Dark Munich malt, aged on toasted White Ash and aged in a French oak Pinot Noir barrel) year anniversary beers for sure. Also ended up trying the Four (Double Espresso Milk Stout).

Todd from Surly

After we got those knocked out (before some people even got in) we proceeded up to the second and third levels. Long story short, within the first hour we had tried about everything on my hit list (basically any big stout or IPA or anything with oak-aged, bourbon or cherry in the description) and just took a relaxed approach to the rest of the night.

It was awesome being there with hundreds of people that you knew you had something in common with (I can't imagine a Bud Light drinker dropping $50 on an event like this) and you could walk up to just about anybody and start chatting about beer (and we did).

I didn't take detailed notes because I was there to just see what tasted good and to socialize. But I did keep track of what I tried and here's what was memorable to me:

Schell's Dry Hopped Maifest - The only beer I tried from my hometown because I have the other three sitting in my fridge. It was unique because it was uncarbonated, unfiltered and served from a Bavarian Stich-Fass (not sure exactly what that was). Cool because it was unique and I'm all over unique beers.

Barley John's Unoaked Rosie's Reserve - Basically their Rosie's Old Ale without the bourbon cask aging. I was surprised at how big and tasty it still was. I can't wait for Rosie's to come back again (and to try the Dark Knight for that matter).

Brau Brother's Rainwater Oak-Aged Stout and Brau Brother's Elisha's Old Ale - I've had the Rainwater before but really like it so I figured a quick sample was in order. The Elisha's was pretty good stuff too, I hope it'll be available to me sometime soon. Also got to chat with Dustin Brau again, very cool guy. He invited Beer Club to come out and take a tour of the brewery sometime and hopefully I can get it organized sooner tan later. I figure a swing down to Schell's to make it a 2-for-1 day would work well too.

Cold Spring's John Henry 3 Lick Spiker Ale - I have seen ads for this in my beer magazines several times and thought it sounded like something I should try. I was right. I can't believe I never realized it was from a Minnesota brewery. Looking forward to getting more of this soon.

Fitger's Bourbon Barrel Aged Edmund Imperial Stout - Check out my hit list criteria and you'll see that this covered pretty much every thing (including the cherries that it was racked on). Fitger's sounds like a place I really need to visit. Who can argue with the scenery of the North Shore and beer this good? I'd have to work Lake Superior Brewing in as well.

Flat Earth Grand Design Porter - I would have never tried this if (my cousin) Paul wasn't raving about it. S'more infused anything didn't really sound like my cup of tea but he kept saying how I needed to try the vanilla porter. It was money and we weren't the only one who thought so because it won the Snowshoe award. I went down to get a growler of it this past weekend but sadly, there was none to be had. Hopefully next weekend.

Granite City Batch 1000 - I had it before but I wanted to swing by for a sample just so I could bug them again about putting this on their full time draft list. I like their other stuff but for the most part it's more for people who are dabbling in non-BMC products. This stuff is something I'd seek out and would cause me to make a trip to GC just for the beer.

Great Waters Vulcanus Rex & Great Waters Cherries Dubbelee - The Vulcanus Rex was unique and pretty tasty but a bit too smokey for me. The Cherries Dubbelee was right up my alley. Who wouldn't like a cherry & vanilla flavored Belgian double?

Lift Bridge Belgian Biscotti - They served it with a scoop of ice cream made from the beer just like a root beer float. Goodness gracious it was tasty. I sure hope we can get our paws on this delightful treat come summertime.

McCann's Maple Quadruple - Not sure if I'd drink this on a regular basis but I'd love to get my hands on some and try to make pancakes with it. How could that not taste fantastic?

Rock Bottom Vanilla Oak Infusion Imperial Stout - Doesn't the name say it all for me? I friggin' loved it. Also got to skip the line (not on purpose) because I was just trying to get a rinse but the pitchers were empty and the girl told me to come on up and get beer anyway. Who was I to refuse?

Town Hall Twisted Jim - Barley wine aged in oak from Jim Beam? Predictably delicious.

Surly One - My favorite beer of the night. Tasted almost like a more intense version of Darkness with some beautiful bourbon aging on it. Ridiculous.

Surly Two, Three & Four - Loved 'em all.

It was a night to remember and I can't wait to do it again next year. Hell, I can't even wait for the next festival of this kind. It was like unleashing a kid in a candy store with a dozen Willy Wonkas running the store.

surlyboywonder& MrSpudnik

New friends from Rochester & Alvey from the Four Firkins

Beer Club, Volume Five - Imperial IPA's

(This took me WAY too long to finish but at least I got it in before February's Beer Club!)

Much like most of the meetings so far, January's Beer Club was timed around the release of a specific beer. This month that beer was Hopslam from Bell's Brewery.

As I mentioned in my first ever blog post, Hopslam was a different kind of gateway beer for me. It was the beer that sparked my interest in moving from the more popular craft beers like Summit, Sam Adams and Sierra Nevada into looking into the hoppier side of life and harder to find beers. I owed this beer a featured month in Beer Club.

It wasn't a hard lineup for me to come up with because I had several beers that I wanted to have in a Beer Club lineup besides Hopslam, including Ruination from Stone, 90 Minute IPA from Dogfish Head and Un*Earthly from Southern Tier. I added Hop Stoopid from Lagunita's because I thought it was a great beer at a good price (around $5 for a bomber). When Zipps tweeted to me that I should add Double Trouble from Founders, the lineup was set. It was gonna be an epic month.

One nice part about doing IPA's is that the order of the tasting is pretty easy, just do it from lowest IBU to highest. The problem I had with this last time was that the Founders Harvest Ale really blew a couple of beers out of the water that followed it because it was so good. I was hoping that leading off with the highly acclaimed (but low IBU) Hopslam wouldn't have the same effect. Luckily, it did not.

Another thing that worried me was that the two beers I went to Hudson to get (90 Minute and Ruination) didn't appear to be too fresh. I noticed that the 90 Minute had a bottling date of JULY 2009. Luckily for us, it still tasted just fine (and impressive for being a half year old). But I grabbed a bottle that I had bought a couple months ago and it too was "old" so I'm guessing that there's a good chance that I've never had fresh 90 Minute IPA. I guess I have something to look forward to.

The Ruination didn't fare so well however. I don't know if we got a bad batch of it or what the deal was but it really didn't taste like the Ruination that I love and it was the consensus that it was just bad (and confirmed later by two non-beer club IPA lovers who wouldn't even finish the sample I gave them). I opened a bottle that I bought last fall and it didn't have the fresh IPA taste but was still quite good and was further proof that the most recent six pack was just bad and not just old. Damn it sucks to pour $3 bottles of beer down the drain.

The rest of the lineup was awesome though. As expected, everybody loved the Hopslam and while favorites and reviews were mixed, everybody still really liked the Hop Stoopid and the Double Trouble (although I still think the Double Trouble was very good but can't touch the Founders Harvest Ale).

The Un*Earthly finished the night and I was a bit nervous on how it was going to taste. I've had about 4 bottles of this before Beer Club and it ranged from a decent IPA to one of the best things to ever touch my lips. My only conclusion was that this stuff is just very volatile and should be drank as fresh as possible. Luckily for us, this was one of the fantastic bottles and even at a whopping 153 IBU it was still one of the stars of the show and my favorite beer of the night.


Even though imperial stouts have been creeping in as a contender for my favorite style of beer, the IIPA's defended their territory very well and this group of beers reminded me of why I'm such a hop head and did a good job at convincing everybody else why they should be too.

February's Beer Club - Bockfest!

(see the comments section for Becky's notes on January's Beer Club)

A Return to the Motherland

I was in New Ulm last weekend visiting the parents and it had been almost four years since I've taken a tour of Schell's Brewery so I had yet to enjoy a brew in the new tap room. The agenda was a relaxed one so a Saturday afternoon tour seemed not only doable but mandatory.

I wasn't sure if they'd be doing tours on a 5 below day in January but not only were they doing them, the tour was full. The last tour I did ended up being a private tour because it was only me and the four guys with me who were there and it ended up being awesome because we got to see places that large groups don't get to see due to space constraints and it was our own Q&A session. I didn't expect to get that lucky again but part of me hoped we would.

For the most part, the Schell's tour isn't too technical nor do you get to see any of the actual brewing process. In fact, it's pretty much just a history lesson but luckily Schell's has quite an intriguing history since it's the second oldest brewery in the country, second only to Yuengling.

You'll get to tour the mini museum filled with artifacts from Schell's past, you'll get to hear stories about how the brewery survived the Sioux uprising without a scratch, how they made it through one of the darkest times in our country's history, how they've grown over the years to what they are now.

I've been on several tours at the brewery and even though they've been spaced over the years, I can safely say that that unless you go twice in the same weekend you're never going to get the same tour twice. So even if you have been on the tour before, don't let that deter you from checking it out again.

The worst case scenario is that you pay $3 to get to sit in the tasting room and try samples of about a half dozen different beers and then pick a full glass of one to finish your tour off with. Not a bad deal at all.

One bit of news is that the beer has been chosen to commemorate the brewery's 150th anniversary. After a series of candidates was released, the public chose Hopfenmalz as its pick to represent the historic year. I was very disappointed when our tour guide told us that this beer wouldn't be available until sometime next month but an impromptu stop at Cashwise Liquors proved our tour guide wrong. I sure hope they get the guy correct information so he doesn't mislead any more people who are looking for this beer.

I'll post a review of the beer sometime soon, I did try a bottle on Saturday night but my cold symptoms prevented me from getting a good gauge on it. What I can tell you though is that it was a pretty hoppy beer and very much in the style that you'd expect from Schell's.

I'll leave you with two very strong recommendations. First, make sure you get to New Ulm sooner than later for a tour of this brewery. Its history and the beauty of the grounds definitely make it worth your time. I'd also recommend doing it sometime this year because there seems to be a lot of cool stuff going on for the anniversary. (Just make sure you don't go during the festival-which-shall-not-be-named because it'll be way too damn crowded for you and I'll be sure to tell you all about it after I go anyway). Second, make sure you try a Schell's Snowstorm this winter. They change up the recipe for this seasonal every year and it's a pretty damn good Baltic Porter this year.

Zicke Zacke Zicke Zacke Zicke Zacke Hoi Hoi Hoi!

A Brush with Brewing Immortality

Monday morning I got a message from Shawn from BGP via Twitter asking if I was going to go to Town Hall that night to see Greg Koch from Stone brewing. This was the first that I had heard of it but I was all over it. I had heard that he was talking about coming to MN and was asking where a good place to have a beer in Minneapolis would be but I missed his tweet from the night before about being at Town Hall that night.

Now I'm not in the business in any way, shape or form and didn't really have much to say to him but I've been wanting to go back to Town Hall for awhile now and this was as good of a reason as any. At least I could say I met the founders of two of my top breweries (Omar being the first) and maybe get a quick pic.

It was also cool to meet Shawn and Leslie, Allison and I sat at a table with them and had a few beers before and while Greg was at Town Hall. I tried their Festivus (fantastic, especially if you like coffee beers), their Angel's Abbey and their Masala Mama IPA (from a cask even!).

As expected, I didn't have much to say to Greg but it was cool as hell when he walked up to me, introduced himself and said he liked my shirt. Always good to have an Arrogant Bastard shirt when you need to represent.

He was cool enough to get everyone together for a group shot and he even took a pic of the two of us. He had a few samples of some Stone brews for us which I gladly tried and then I thanked him and called it a night. All in all, I'd say it was well worth the trip. Thanks again to Greg for a memorable night!

2 of my 3 idols down, is a meeting with Sam Calagione next?

The 12 Beers of Christmas Vacation

Before I left town for my 6 days of Christmas vacation, I made sure I brought with me plenty of beer to drink and also made sure that I had plenty of new ones to rate. Here are the results.

The first night I had Flying Dog Horn Dog Barley Wine and Goose Island Pere Jacques.



I haven't had a ton of barleywines but this one seemed to be pretty decent. Big boozy beer with a thick chewy mouthfeel. The Pere Jacques was a 2008 vintage that I found that night. When I poured it there were quite a few chunks in it (yeast I'm guessing?). Strangely though, I didn't notice any of them as I drank the beer. It was another sweet, chewy beer that had some really good dark fruity flavors in it.

I only had one beer on Xmas Eve and drank it and rated it before (Yeti). Christmas day found me with a North Coast Old Stock Ale which was quite delightful on a cold snowy day. Not surprisingly, being a barlywine it tasted very similar to the Horn Dog but I liked this one much better.

Saturday I had a Bells Cherry Stout, a Verhaeghe Duchesse De Bourgogne and a Tyranena Sheep Shagger Scotch Ale. I tried the Bells at a sampling at the Four Firkins (and once from a cask at Stub & Herbs) but it was much better when you got a full bottle of it. Wonderful but subtle cherry and chocolate flavors make this beer amazing.

The Duchesse was my first ever sour beer and the jury is still out on them for me. I did enjoy it but it was such a departure from what I'm used to that it was tough to wrap my taste buds around. Even though it was obviously sour (in a balsamic/malt vinegar kind of way) it was almost like a sweet & sour flavor to me. The Sheep Shagger was a very solid offering, not too unlike the barleywines actually.

For my birthday I had a Traquair House Ale, a Fort Garry Pale Ale, a Dogfish Head Raison D Extra and finished the night off with a Founders Backwoods Bastard (previously tried and rated).

The Traquair was a nice oaky sweet beer with nice fruit notes. It was one of the best beers of the week for me. The Fort Garry was a local beer, much much better than a Labatt! It doesn't hold up to the rest of the lineup but compared to the stuff most Canadians drink this stuff is gold. What can I say about the Raison D'Extra? Just double the goodness of Raison D'Etre with its big raisin/fruit/boozy flavors and you have the D Extra!

My last beer before heading home was Avery The Beast Grand Cru Ale. This stuff compared very well to the D'Extra in its boozy, fruity flavors and the sheer mass of it. Not too often you can take two beers, add their ABV's together and surpass the 30% mark. Very good way to end the trip.

My last two beers are what welcomed me home, Anchor Steam Beer and Samuel Adams Imperial Double Bock. I'm not too familiar with the California Common style of beer so I wasn't the greatest judge of it. It was a decent beer but I'm guessing just not my favorite style. The Sam Adams though was a very pleasant surprise, I loved it. Sweet, malty, caramel, chocolate notes that just brought a smile to my face before I had to return to work the next day.

It was a beautiful way to spend a Christmas vacation and a very thoughtful present to myself!