Better Drinking

The saison style is yet another incredible selection that comes from the Disneyland of beer, Belgium. This is typically more of a summer beer but Josh has been bugging me to try this so I finally broke down and bought a bottle. Ok…I'm at least one season late, but I'll be ready for next year.

Saison Dupont comes in a lovely green bottle (my bottle was green) and nice checkerboard label advertising the usual suspects in terms of name, ABV, government-imposed boilerplate, and a blurb about the beer itself. Another fun feature is the cork, as opposed to a cap, making this beer at least equal to wine in terms of presentation. Hey, wine is sold in a box and I've yet to see any beer packaged this way yet. Still, the cork seems to impart some sense of maturity to what is otherwise considered a juvenile beverage.
But...Au contraire...

The Dupont pours a cloudy yellow, hazy and thick, with a very generous white head that decreases throughout the session, but does not fully dissipate.

Sweet malt and tons of spice dominate the nose. A rather complex mix of aromas, though clearly defined pepper smell comes through most clearly. Warming only intensifies this.

The mouthfeel is medium, light, refreshing and extremely effervescent.

Taste is a subdued maltiness up front, then punishes (in a good way) the tongue with a powerful spiciness that dominates through swallow and aftertaste. There is a slight sourness here as well as a dull hop flavor, but are largely drowned out by a peppery taste. The beer improves dramatically in terms of taste and general complexity and in retrospect, I should have let this warm up a little more before starting the review. It was too cold to start with and was really enjoying this by the end of the glass.

An excellent beer, especially for warmer weather. Bring it to a spring picnic and savor the day.

Labels: beer reviews

The following message is from Michael Roth, who recently hosted a good homebrew tasting:

The homebrew tasting went very well last Friday night. We had 13 for the tasting including a new beer appreciator - Sarah Doster!

Food was excellent and in abundance - various wings, dips, chips and humus, pigs in a blanket, stuffed mushrooms, cheese & crackers, Michelle's famous BBQ meatballs, Dorothea's famous pizza dip, Rosemary potatoes, veggies and dip (eat your hearts out).

Yours truly started things off with a beer I had presented fresh at the last tasting and has really mellowed and smoothed over time - our BBS Scottish Ale. Next was our BBS Hazelnut Brown Ale.

Jeff was next presenting two wonderful brews: an Imperial Porter and an Oktoberfest (both were very tasty).

Chuck Greenwald then described and we sampled his Wee Heavy Scotch Ale which has only gotten better with time!

And I finished things off with my two latest: a BBS Choco-Vanilla Stout and BBS clonebrew of Bert Grant's Perfect Porter. (for those of you who aren't aware, BBS = Braselton Beer Snobs) ;-)

We actually had two more beers planned from Josh Cunningham who unfortunately was not able to attend the tasting. Maybe next time!

Our thanks to all those who attended and all who brought their homebrews to sample.

Looking forward to more.

Michael (& Sarina)

I found this at Green's amongst the veritable candy-shop selection of excellent brews they offer. It looked interesting and was modestly priced at $2.99 for a 11.2oz bottle. Ok…modest for me. Yet, this sort of thing is not an every day beer, so I can "afford" to drink like this occasionally. Besides, my homebrew hobby yields much cheaper results that constitute the bulk of my beer intake. But reviewing a session beer is somewhat boring. This sort of thing makes it fun. Ironically, when doing a little more detail research, I found that ratebeer.com had zero reviews and beeradvocate.com only had one review of this exact beer. Bob Townsend did a nice write up in the AJC, but I would say that based on the number of reviews, its fairly rare or at least not widely known.

Ok enough…on to the drinking.

This Belgian Strong Dark Ale comes in a plain looking bottle, adorned with a nice label that contains what looks like a church or abbey. It's probably the latter, as this beer is a commercial version of an abbey ale. It pours a hazy amber color, swirling and cloudy, accompanied by a huge, off-white head that dissipates slowly and steadily. I drank this one from my Duvel tulip glass so as to maximize bouquet and appearance.

Nose is a big Belgian malt aroma, mixed with a combination of spice, earth, and a kind of lactic funkiness.

Mouthfeel is medium to medium-full, bigger as it is warms. Creamy and smooth, yet also grainy.

Taste is initially a big, full sweet malt, balanced by a tickling spiciness. The aroma complements the taste, with elements of wood, earth, a sour hop flavor, and a vague notion of alcohol, yet all very well-balanced and subdued. No one flavor dominates here. As it warms up, the flavors and aromas become more pronounced and the 9.5% ABV is more evident than at start.

Overall, an excellent beer but far too expensive and rare to be enjoying on a regular basis. For a good alternative, try Unibroue's Maudite, which is just as complex, cheaper and more widely available. Go for it.

Labels: beer reviews

Ok, as promised I broke into the vaults and opened a bottle of this very vintage beer, mainly for comparison with the Sinebrychoff. While not perfectly an "apples-to-apples" evaluation, primarily because of the beer's age, it did highlight a few things both about the nature of aging beer in general, and specifically which one I liked better.

A word about aging beer. Aged beer tends to mellow and blend flavors to make somewhat harsh beers much more drinkable. It makes really good beers even better and more complex. This is especially true of many Belgian ales. But it also tends to destroy the carbonation, so if you must drink beer with effervescence, do not attempt what I describe below.

This D. Carnegie comes in a small, rather unadorned bottle and plain yellow label. "Stark" is strong, indicating its baltic origin, Swedish to be exact. This is a 8.82oz bottle, smaller than normal and definitely not enough.

Appearance is a extremely dark brown, just about black but for the edges which allowed a small amount of light to come through. I poured this straight into the glass (no tipping) and while a few bubbles formed, there was virtually no carbonation at all. No hiss when opening and no fizz when pouring. After settling in the glass, what I would describe as a very light lacing formed across the top and down the glass as it was consumed.

The nose is a combination of sweet malt and dark fruits, like plums and/or raisins. As it warms a nice chocolate and very subtle coffee aroma comes through.

No carbonation in the mouthfeel - this beer is flat. But rather than that being bad, it highlights the smooth, velvety, medium body.

Upfront, the taste is a mix of sweet malt, chocolate, and fruit, with a nice malty aftertaste that lingers. No bitterness and no discernable hop character. As I recall from the 2004 vintage bottles I've had, the age seems to have mellowed the very mild hop to nothing at all. Yet this is not disappointing, unless you're a real hop-head or devoted robust porter fan. The smooth chocolate flavor becomes more pronounced as it warms, and coats the tongue and mouth with a silkiness that begs for more than just 8.82 ounces.

Smooth and creamy, this is a great beer to imbibe and at only 5.5% ABV, this could easily be a session beer. However, the word I hear is that the brewer has gone out of business and so what you see on the shelf is what you get. The last time I was down at Green's (Buford Hwy), they still have a few of 1997s and a decent amount of the 2004s. Get it while it lasts.

Labels: beer reviews