Daily Loaf

It is known throughout the land – I am flamboyantly enraptured with every single beer produced by Left Hand Brewing. Their Milk Stout is the most excellent session stout ever, JuJu Ginger is the best accompaniment for sushi since wasabi, and Polestar Pilsner is so yummy it makes an ale junkie like me develop insane cravings for lager. But most of all, Left Hand’s seasonal and limited beers conjure intense feelings of euphoria – Oak Aged Imperial Stout, Rye Bock, and the Midnight Project collaborations with Terrapin Brewing. Read the rest of this entry »

With the holidays approaching, the glorious bounty that is winter seasonal beer begins to descend upon the shelves of local bottle shops. One of my favorite seasonal offerings is the Petrus Key to Heaven gift pack, which features 6 unique brews from Belgian brewery Bavik-De Brabandere, many of which have been wood aged for at least two years. Among these fine examples of Belgian brewing are the sour lactobacillus joys Aged Pale and Oud Bruin, and the beefy, malty Dubbel Bruin.

A Blond Ale is also included in this cornucopia of Belgian funkiness. The bottle features a monk resembling pimp Santa on the label, proudly displaying his key to heaven and goblet – no doubt full of high-quality beer. Since Santa is down with snow, the North Pole, reindeer, and all that, Petrus Blond is best served cold, unlike many Belgian ales whose flavor characteristics are at their finest around cellar temperatures. Read the rest of this entry »

Shipyard Pumpkinhead Ale — Brewed in Portland, Maine by Shipyard Brewing Company, Pumpkinhead is easily the mildest, most accessible, and sessionable pumpkin beer. At 4.5% ABV, this institution in pumpkin ales pours a golden hue, emitting aromas of wheat grain with faint traces of baking spices. On the palate, nutmeg dominates; making it very pie like, yet the brew is light bodied and easy drinking. It’s a nice introduction to pumpkin beer, with all the quintessential flavors packed into a thin, light-tasting brew.

Wolaver’s, Dogfish Head, Weyerbacher and Terrapin after the break: Read the rest of this entry »

In the mountain town of Boulder, Colorado, Avery Brewing operates with imagination and a commitment to craft beer. The brewery’s website proudly asserts, “we brew what we like to drink — with utter disregard for what the market demands — and search out fans with equally eccentric palates.” They found me many years ago, and since then I have thoroughly enjoyed my fandom.

I think Adam Avery is the bees knees. Now president and brewmaster, he was once a homebrewer who became ambitious enough to start a commercial venture. And since the beginning, the beer produced by the brewery that bears his name has been consistently excellent, challenging the way I think about how beer should taste, how much alcohol it should have, and how large a dose of hops should be added.

Ellie’s Brown is one of my favorite examples of the brown ale style. The brew takes its name from Adam Avery’s former canine companion, a chocolate lab named Ellie (1992-2002) whose likeness is depicted on the label. Read the rest of this entry »

Boon Gueuze, 6%
Brouwerij Boon, Lembeek, Belgium

In the Senne Valley region of Belgium, there’s a town called Lembeek where wild yeasts blow around in the evening breezes. They drift in through the open windows of local breweries, landing in uncovered vats, magically transforming wheat grain, aged hops, and water into a beer that explodes with delightfully objectionable flavors. This spontaneously fermented ale is called Lambic, a nod to the area where the style originated, and is still predominantly produced.

Some lambic brews receive a flavor injection during fermentation – sweet raspberry, peach, apple, cherry, or banana. In the United States, fruited lambics see infinitely more mainstream visibility than their unfruited derivatives. And that’s a damn shame. Without the fruit addition, lambics are tart and funky, with a ton of assertive character and complexity that leaves you stumbling over descriptors. Flavors so wrong that they’re right.

Gueuze is a blend of several different unfruited lambics of varying age, usually 1, 2, and 3 years. The wild aspect of fermentation and the blending means that batches tend to vary from year to year, making gueuze a really collectable, searchable, geekable variety of beer. The full flavored older lambics radiate sourness, intermingling with the younger, mellow toned ones which contain the fermentable sugars that facilitate one more round of zymurgy magic. Like champagne, gueuze derives its carbonation from secondary fermentation that takes place inside the bottle, so after blending, the bottled gueuze conditions for at least 6 months before being packaged. And then there are the nerds like myself that hoard gueuze and store it for an additional 10 years before finally resigning to the urge to savor it. Just like fine wine, gueuze thrives with age.

A 12 ounce bottle of Boon Gueuze sports a caged cork that pops out releasing a gust of vinegary aromas. The clear orange brew decants into a flute glass with active, carbonation, creating a mountain of clean white head. After being poured, gueuze should rest until the temperature reaches around 60 degrees. By then, carbonation has calmed, the best flavors begin to surface, and any sediment displaced during the pour has settled to the bottom of the glass.

To the nose, the beer has the soft aroma of fresh flowers soaked in vinegar and confectionary green apple juice.

Flavors are extremely sour, dominantly reminiscent of malt vinegar, wheat bread, and tart citrus. The lack of hop character lends to a slightly cidery, champagne-like quality, which is compounded by the sparkly, light mouthfeel. It finishes with a lingering outdoorsy tone – dank, dusty, and natural. And more vinegar, of course.

If you are just becoming accustomed to this kind of brew and want to tone down the delicious sourness, pair gueuze with a soft, buttery cheese like brie. The creamy texture and mild funkiness from the cheese’s rind will offset the gueuze’s intense flurry of sharp flavors and allow the earthier elements of the beer to shine through.

Since I’ve been all over Cigar City Brewing’s happenings over the past few weeks, it seemed appropriate to broaden my local beer love and highlight another hometown superstar in the tiny Scottish heritage town of Dunedin.

With almost 13 years of local beer-making under their kilt, Dunedin Brewery consistently crafts award winning gems. In 2003, one of their flagship brews, Pipers Pale Ale, took top honors as the most stylistically perfect brew commercially produced in Florida at the Best Florida Beer Championships. At the 2009 BFBC, brewers Norman Dixon and Trace Caley did their thing, winning awards for the brewery like it was their job. Redhead American Red Ale was named the top beer in its category, with second place nods going to Pipers Pale Ale, Beach Tale Brown Ale, Nitro Stout, Brewmaster’s Reserve Rye Pale Ale, Brewmaster’s Reserve Belgian Tripel, Brewmaster’s Reserve Barleywine, and the seasonal Biere de Café. Read the rest of this entry »

Cigar City Brewing is relentless; they refuse to stop making ridiculously great beer. RateBeer recognizes their Hunaphus Imperial Stout as one of the world’s ten best Imperial Stouts, and Big Sound Scotch Ale ranks among the top ten of its style. Then there’s Bolita Double Nut Brown Ale, which ranks #1 in the brown ale category on RateBeer – it’s the best brown ale currently produced on the planet as judged by a massive group of very critical beer nerds. Yep, in our own backyard, folks. This is truly beer history in the making.

The side of Bolita bottles reads:

Bolita was a type of lottery popular with the working class citizens of the Ybor City district of Tampa. Bolita means, ‘little ball’ but profits from the illegal (and often rigged) game were anything but little. In the 1920’s Tampa native Charlie Wall was the undisputed kingpin of the Bolita racket.

Our Bolita is a Double Northern English-style brown ale that has a complex malt forward character with notes of chocolate, toffee and hints of roasted nuts in the finish. Bolita pairs well with Baklava, Big Band music, cool evenings and robust cigars.

Sounds great. Now check out this variation — Bourbon Barrel Bolita. It begins with Cigar City’s Bolita Double Nut Brown. After three weeks of fermentation, the brew is transferred to Maker’s Mark barrels. Three months later, it hits the bottling line, where each bottle is filled by hand and then individually numbered. Since this batch of Bourbon Bolita only yielded 221 bottles, it is a pricey beer, but it’s completely worth it. Read the rest of this entry »

What’s the buzz on the latest issues in the Green Community? Check out what you may have missed this past week:

Cool-N-Save: An eco-friendly energy saver for your air conditioning unit (Video): Jennifer Meier writes about how the Cool-n-SaveTM system affixes to the top of most home air conditioning units, resulting in a substantial drop in ambient temperature of up to 30 degrees Fahrenheit. The Cool-N-Save(TM) system has also been rated by the US Department of Energy and EPA as an Energy Star Partner.

Signs of hope: are our environmental efforts making a difference?: Linda Taylor shows us an example of how environmental efforts can make a difference, even if they take years to come to fruition.
Read the rest of this entry »

For the past few years, Pete Slosberg of Pete’s Brewing Company (as in Pete’s Wicked this-and-that) has been teaming up with Alan Shapiro, president of SBS Imports, and Daniel Del Grande from Bison Brewing to craft a limited special release beer that benefits a good cause. The Reunion collaboration was inspired by the late Virginia McLean, a former coworker of Slosberg and Shapiro. The trio worked together when Pete’s Brewing Company was in its early stages, at the forefront of the American craft brewing movement that took place in the mid 1980’s. With 100% of Reunion proceeds benefiting the Institute for Myeloma and Bone Cancer Research, almost $100,000 has been raised as of early 2008.

The Reunion fundraising effort began in 2007 with a 7.5% ABV imperial brown ale brewed with 6 organic malts, hopped and dry hopped with 3 different varieties.

Reunion ‘08 Red Rye Ale is also made from all organic ingredients — barley, flaked rye, hops, caraway seeds, water, and yeast. It is essentially a chemical fertilizer, pesticide, and additive- free version of Pete’s Wicked Red with a rye and caraway seed injection. Read the rest of this entry »

Learning the origin of a particular style of beer often divulges an account of the human past. Sri Lanka doesn’t have a lengthy indigenous beer-making tradition; the inhabitants dabbled more in distilling coconut booze. But colonization by Portugal, Netherlands, and the British Empire, and eventual classification as an overseas British territory brought a unique sort of brew to the South Asian island nation.

Like Otter Creek’s Otter Mon Jamaican Stout, the basic characteristics of Ceylon Brewery’s Lion Stout make it of the foreign/export variety. Brewed with increased strength to survive overseas voyages and tropical climates, it’s sweeter than a typical English, American, or dry Irish stout and more subdued than an imperial stout.

Read the rest of this entry »

Big Sound Scotch Ale, the latest seasonal release from Cigar City Brewing, can be purchased in 25 ounce bottles at Whole Foods, Leukens, Kingdom Liquors, World of Beer Clearwater, and several Total Wine locations. But get it soon; bottles are going fast, and once they’re gone, there’ll be no more until next year.

Luckily enough, I was able to persuade Wayne Wambles, the head brewer and man with the beer plan, to score a bottle that we could split. So we sat down at the Oldsmar Tap House and proceeded to geek the hell out on a really great beer. Read the rest of this entry »

Pairing beer and food has always been a major fascination, but lately I have become preoccupied and unable to focus. All I can think about is a variety of fine brews accompanied by little plates of delectable fare. After much persuading, five of my friends agreed to skip dinner and embark upon a beer and snack paring marathon.

Read the rest of this entry »

Michigan brewery, Jolly Pumpkin Artisanal Ales, has nothing to do with seasonal gourd beers and everything to do with open air fermentation, exotic French and Belgian yeast strains, oak barrel aging, and bottle conditioning. All their beers are funky, spicy, and sour, packed full of Brettanomyces and Lactobacillus goodness.

Maracaibo Especial is a 7.5% ABV Belgian inspired brown ale made from all natural ingredients — barley, wheat, hops, yeast, and water; brewed with cacao and spiced with cinnamon and orange peel. After fermentation, the brew matures in oak barrels for several months, and after bottling, it goes in the cellar for a few more months. The process by which it’s crafted is drastically different from the rapid, highly mechanized assembly line production of mainstream domestic; this type of beer simply has more soul. Read the rest of this entry »

While I really enjoyed Dos Cocoas Chocolate Porter, the 4th installment of the Terrapin Brewing Side Project series, I was distracted by thoughts of what the brew would taste like with higher ABV and a bitter coffee injection. As I drank Dos Cocoas, I couldn’t get Terrapin’s Wake-n-Bake Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout out of my mind. I fully realize that in some circles mixing beer is frowned upon, but my intense curiosity compelled me to swallow the snobbish pride and entertain my inner mad scientist. Read the rest of this entry »

I go crazy for flavorsome brown ales, so I am totally thrilled to finally have access to Smuttynose Brewing Company’s Old Brown Dog Ale, a recent newcomer to the local market. Hailing from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Smuttynose concocts a variety of excellent beers — a delightfully peaty porter, an IPA bursting with Amarillo hops flavor, a big huge quad, a monster Russian imperial stout, and so on. Today, I turn my attention to their delectable brown ale, which won a silver medal at the Great American Beer Fest. Read the rest of this entry »

Every culture has its own customary mixed drink creations; the Germans are famous for combining their pure Reinheitsgebot brews with carbonated sodas or fruit preserves. In Mexico and many other Central/ South American countries, there’s a tradition of mixing light beer and Clamato. In classier circles, this drink is referred to as a Bearded Clam. Thirsty yet? Didn’t think so.

Chelada is a 4.2% ABV blend of Clamato Tomato Cocktail, made by Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages and Anheuser-Busch’s Bud Light. With salt and lime added. Fishy corn tomato salt lime; now that’s what I call beer.

While out on the rounds doing my part in the Tournament of Tacos, a large quantity of Chelada was discovered at Acapulco Grocery. I’ve read reviews on this beer, which usually leave me in tears from laughing, so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to write one of my own. Cheers to Brian and Taylor for moral support and for shelling out the $1.99 so that I could subject myself to this deliberate gross out. As the other food site contributors assessed Acapulco’s taco offerings, I settled down with my 16-ounce can of Chelada and prepared to hold back the sickness. Read the rest of this entry »

Quality of life for insatiable hopheads living in Florida has improved substantially within the last few months. A colossal beer from San Diego’s Stone Brewing has entered the local market, leaving a mass of traumatized taste buds in its wake. Stone’s website describes Ruination IPA as “a liquid poem to the glory of the hop, so called because of the ruinous effect on your palate.” And let me assure you, this is not a clever marketing statement; it’s the honest truth.

Hops are female flowers from the plant Humulus lupulus, which are used in brewing to add aroma and bitterness. Alpha acids in resin secreted by the hops are mostly responsible for the bitter taste and subsequent IBU (International Bitterness Units) rating. On average, most brews rate between 15 and 45 IBUs. Stone Ruination has over 100 IBUs. To achieve this catastrophic bitterness, Ruination IPA is brewed with high alpha acid Columbus and Centennial hops and then finished with a hearty Centennial dry hopping to enhance the brew’s Humulus lupulus smells and add another layer of aggression to the brew’s overall flavor.

Now, let’s talk IPA (India Pale Ale): Read the rest of this entry »

Garrett Oliver is the man; the philosophy reflected in his book, The Brewmaster’s Table: Discovering the Pleasures of Real Beer with Real Food, speaks to my holistic sensibilities and makes my mouth water for fine brews and food prepared in the old school tradition — from scratch with fresh ingredients and no preservatives or other modern food science. But Garrett Oliver doesn’t just write rousing books; he also brews exceptional beer. Since becoming the brewmaster in 1994, he has propelled Brooklyn Brewery to high status among the top 40 breweries in the nation.

I love Brooklyn’s year-round lineup; the seasonal Oktoberfest Marzen is on par with the authenticity of Hacker-Pschorr Oktoberfest and the buttery, peppery Local 1 is the definition of Belgian strong light ale. The Brewmaster’s Reserves and Limited Releases — Black OPS, Blast Imperial IPA, Flemish Gold, Manchester Star, and Savoir Faire — are all crazy delicious. So are the innovative collaborations with Schneider Brewery — the Brooklyner- Schneider Hopfen-Weiss and the Schneider-Brooklyner Hopfen-Weiss.

A new addition to the Brooklyn lineup — Local 2 — is a dark ale crafted from German pilsner malt, English chocolate malt, Belgian dark sugar, New York state raw wildflower honey, citrus peel, Belgian yeast, and hopped with Perle, Aurora, and East Kent Golding hops. After brewing, a secondary fermentation takes place inside the corked, 25 ounce bottle. Read the rest of this entry »

Florida Micro Beverage has been putting in serious work. This local distributor of beer, wine, and soda has picked up a slew of new products for the coolers of local beer bars and shops. Among these exciting brews — extensive lines from North Carolina’s Highland Brewing Company, Fort Collins Brewery out of Colorado, and Erie Brewing Company from Pennsylvania.

Erie Brewing turns out a superb product mix, including Railbender Scottish Ale, Mad Anthony’s American Pale Ale, and Presque Isle Pilsner. The brewery’s product naming celebrates Pennsylvania’s history, particularly the people and places involved. Their current seasonal, Drake’s Crude Oatmeal Imperial Stout, takes its name from Edwin Drake — as in Drake’s Folly for all the history smarty pantses — the first guy to successfully drill oil in Northwest Pennsylvania.

Drake’s Crude Oatmeal Imperial Stout definitely lives up to its gooey industrial nomenclature. As it pours into an American pint glass, the bulky black body supports a frothy cap of khaki head that reduces to a thin layer of diverse sized bubbles. Read the rest of this entry »

Think about the massive amount of performance pressure within an industry such as beer. Certain recipes mark milestones in the evolution of brewing, like Pilsner Urquell,  which defined a new style of beer and took its name from the region where it originated. You’ve got experimental breweries like Dogfish Head, partnering with university archaeology departments to analyze residue found on ancient pottery, crafting a modern brew from these ingredients so that we can appreciate beer as it might have tasted in its more ancient forms. That’s a hard act to follow. How about this — currently operating European commercial breweries date as far back as the year 1040. Serious beer intimidation.

And then there’s Terrapin Beer Company from a tiny college town in Georgia. In 2002 their only beer, a Rye Pale Ale totally unknown except for the few places in the vicinity of Athens, GA where you could find it on tap, took first place in the American Pale Ale category at the Great American Beer Festival. I’d say that’s strong performance in the face of pressure.

Today, Terrapin produces a great number of kick ass beers. Read the rest of this entry »

If you know me on a personal basis and are planning a trip anywhere outside of Florida, prepare to be handed a shopping list and an envelope of cash. There are a few things I will need you to bring back for me. As further compensation, upon your return, we will gather with the expressed purpose of getting bombastic in celebration of beer that can’t be found at local retailers.

This is a story about beer nerds — myself and several friends — getting together with recently obtained out-of-town travel brew, along with some mail-order finds. We sat in my living room with this load of beer joy and giant plates of edam, cheddar, and wheat crackers, and surrendered to a marathon of serious beer business.

Read the rest of this entry »

Harviestoun Ola Dubh Special 16 Reserve
Whiskey barrel aged old ale, 8%
Scotland

Old Engine Oil, produced by the Scottish brewery Harviestoun, is definitely among my top ten favorite beers produced by humans on planet Earth. It looks and tastes like it sounds: dark, slick, and chewy. The body’s density and combination of burnt, bitter, and slightly sour flavors can be too much for the mainstream domestic beer drinker. However, since I am a professional, I pine for a more extreme version of this delightfully acidic, oily sludge of a brew.

Harviestoun Ola Dubh is Old Engine Oil after it has been matured in whiskey casks. Highland Park single malt scotch barrels, to be exact. Harviestoun turns out 12, 16, and 30 year batches. If your beer preferences lean toward light lagers that lack strong flavors, Ola Dubh is not for you. Now, please excuse me while I wipe the drool off my chin because this beer is most definitely for me.

Read the rest of this entry »

Terra-Rye’Zd
Rye Schwarzbier, 6.6%
Left Hand / Terrapin Collaboration

It’s true, I am perpetually harping on the awesomeness of Left Hand Brewing. I’m totally, shamelessly on their jock, and I’m ok with that. When most thought it couldn’t get any worse, Left Hand went and did a limited release collaboration beer with Terrapin Brewing out of Athens, GA. If that wasn’t enough to send me into rare beer frenzy, this collaborative concoction just happened to be the synthesis of two beer styles that make my pulse race with joy: rye grain brews and black lagers. Good lord, are they trying to give me a heart attack?

When poured into a pint glass, Terra Rye’Zd’s Read the rest of this entry »

Nøgne Ø Brown
English Style Brown, 4.5%
Norway

Norway: home of freaky death metal, smoking hot models, and user-friendly light lagers. Who knew they could produce such multidimensional ales? The Nøgne Ø (pronounced non-yay) brewery truly breaks the typical Scandinavian beer mold, turning out a line of big, bold beers, all of which I find thoroughly satisfying. It was hard to pick one brew from Nøgne Ø’s extensive line, but after careful consideration and extended scouring of distributor product lists, I chose the Brown Ale.

The grain recipe combines a little bit of everything: wheat, Maris Otter 2-row barley, chocolate malt, brown malt, amber malt, and caramel malt. Imagine the head brewer sweeping his arm across all the grain-littered counter spaces at the brewery — “let’s just put all this in the mash.” But this mad mixture works, as the sheer maltiness of this brew is pure heaven. Read the rest of this entry »

Petrus Oud Bruin (Old Dark), 5.5% ABV, Belgium

For the salt and vinegar potato chip loving, malt vinegar French fry craving, sour apple candy enthusiasts, imagine a deeper, darker version of that tart, tangy goodness, served in a tulip glass.

Enter Petrus Oud Bruin, an ale crafted in the Flemish tradition by Belgian brewery Bavic de Brabander. Flemish ales are characterized by a mild to extreme sourness attributable to the presence of atypical brewing yeasts or lactic aids from barrel aging. In the case of Petrus Oud Bruin, it’s a little of both. After the initial fermentation process, the brew is aged in oak casks for 20 months, blended in a manner similar to Scotch, and then treated to a secondary fermentation in the bottle.

When poured, the opaque brown body shimmers Read the rest of this entry »

Otter Creek Otter Mon
Jamaican Style Stout
Vermont, ABV ?

I feel compelled to experience all the goodness beer has to offer, from near ethereal to utter schlock. I tend to seek out vintage, extreme, or limited brews; the fleeting moments of beer-making. Enter the Otter Creek World Tour, a series of one time releases from Otter Creek/ Wolaver’s Brewing in Vermont.

According to Otter Creek’s website, “the brewery’s resident Otter travels the world in search of unique, interesting and unusual brewing styles. Whenever he finds something new and exciting, he teams up with Brewmaster Steve Parkes to produce Otter Creek’s interpretation of the world’s best beers” And I thought my job was cool.

Otter Creek’s Otter Mon is a colonial Jamaican delight, fermented with English ale yeast and raw cane sugar, British Goldings and new world Liberty hops, and barley roasted to Jamaican coffee-style perfection. After scouring the internet and making numerous phone calls, I still have no idea what the abv is for this beer. The flavors and sensations suggest the beer falls somewhere within the 7-8% range, but I’ve been fooled before.

Poured into a pint glass, the opaque brown body emits subtle aromas of coffee and bitter chocolate mixed with slight traces of alcohol. A crown of khaki colored head leaves impressive lacing for its diminutive size.

Initial flavors are deliciously bitter espresso with a slightly burnt, almost acidic crispness that adds a smoky tone to the drinking experience. The sugarcane presents itself as a mild boozy warmness, similar to good Jamaican rum, heating my nose, cheeks, and throat.

Since Otter Mon is brewed with cane sugar, I expected a slick, tongue coating mouthfeel, something like a black patent malt cough syrup. To my delightful surprise, the body was rather light, with very little carbonation. It reminds me of those weekend occasions when I put a little splash of dark liquor in my coffee instead of milk and sugar. Cheers!

Left Hand Rye Bock
Rye Doppelbock, 7.6%
Left Hand Brewing, Colorado

Left Hand beer rules. Seriously, everything that emerges from this Colorado brewery’s vats is pure gold. One offering from Left Hand’s seasonal Big Mo’ Series is Rye Bock Lager. It’s a doppelbock, which is a fancy word for a strong beer that uses bottom fermenting yeast and dark malts to create a lager with the appearance and flavor characteristics of an ale.

Facilitating this masquerade, the recipe for Rye Bock combines malted rye with roasted munich and carafa malt. These hearty grains are balanced by the bitter spiciness of northern brewer and perle hops. Translation: this range of ingredients suggests an epic flavor adventure is about to transpire. Read the rest of this entry »