Talk about feeling like you're not worthy to purchase, let alone drink, a beer. Brewery Ommegang surely is one intimidating brewery. Their logo is medievil. Their brew names (Hennepin, 3 Philosophers, Rare Vos) are imposing. Go ahead, Google image the brewery and prove us wrong.
So, while we've seen Ommegang on the shelf for years the best we could muster was to turn our head low and divert our eyes from the king - well, we assume they're the king because they're always on the top shelf.
The trusty assistant, out on assignment, finally broke the spell and picked up Hennepin for our palette. Note we pictured it with a red flower to give it an air of comeuppance. Overall, we like it. If we didn't - off with our heads. Hennepin is a Belgian-style saison. According to Ommegang you "[p]our slowly so as to not disturb the yeast sediment, but with enough vigor to create a luxurious head and realease the rustic bouquet." Actually, you have little choice but to pour slowly because the head explodes and takes up much of your pint. If you're not thirsty when you start pouring you will be when you're done.
That said, it is well worth the wait. Ommegang is right about the "rustic bouquet" upon pouring. It's a yeasty almost mealy beer. You could almost call it a bread but the spice is right, which strikes a solid balance with the yeast. By no means heavy, it's crisp and almost refreshing (even if those words are over-used in the beer world). It's body is hazy yellow. Eventually, the head thins out to almost nothing. That might mean something but not to us. We find it rather complex - maybe due to our lack of saison experience - but it's smooth and easy to drink with a spicy aftertaste.
Bonus Points: Hennepin is named for Father Hennepin, the Belgian missionary who discovered Niagara Falls. There is no truth to the rumor that Father Hennepin went over the falls in an old beer barrel.
We've mentioned before our affinity for purchasing a brew simply based on labeling (read a great post by Beer in Baltimore on the art of beer labels). Hoppin' Frog was not one of these impulse buys. In this case we were browsing the "aisles" at D'vines looking for something different. A frog holding a beer is certainly different. No telling what happens when you kiss the frog. Anyway, this is one Bodacious Oatmeal Russian Imperial Stout.
B.O.R.I.S. the Crusher Oatmeal-Imperial Stout is quality. It pours thick like molasses and creates a thick dark brown head. Like any good Imperial stout the body is dark as night. Like others we've tried, including the oak barreled stouts, the aroma kind of kicks you in the teeth (note: Hoppin' Frog offers a barrel-aged version). What sets BORIS apart from other imperial stouts is flavor. Yes, it has the requisite deep roast, full bodied flavor but BORIS has a greater balance of hops than any stout we've tried. It's thick in your mouth and goes down very smooth but doesn't fill you up - which is how we were able to pound the entire pint plus bottle. By the way, it's 9.4 percent ABV so pound at your own risk. It doesn't crush you, as Hoppin' Frog would have you believe, but BORIS reminds you that it could crush you but it chooses not to.
This is the first Hoppin' Frog we've seen inside the beltway and they clearly focus on the brew and not the label art. And that's OK. If nothing else, this brew should serve as a reminder not to judge a beer by it's label. While we search for the next great swill to drink we're going to dig up our Atari 2600 and fire up the Frogger.
Stuff We All Get. Last week, Kona Brewing Company announced via the twitters an effort to reach new FaceBook heights. In return, they offered a small prize package. We were among the first six to "like" Kona and now we really are winners in life. The cubicle is perfectly suited for such contests.
If only we can get the timing down for being the 9th caller on the KLAM morning radio show with Dark Chocolate and the Teej.
"Hey! From the racks and stacks, it's the best on wax! How 'bout another double-golden-oldie-twin-spin-sound-sandwich from K-L-A-M in Portland?"
We just passed the mid-point of August and while it's been a better month than June or July it's still hot, still humid. The NFL preseason is underway. Favre is back (again). The Buffalo Bills annual flake out to Toronto is upon us. All of which reminds us that NHL training camps are just around the corner. To help get us all through the remaining dog days of summer we bring you some fond memories.
Of course, no hockey-related post is worth its salt without the wisdom of Don Cherry.
Dogfish Head gets all the credit for being zany and out there with their brewery and their brews. They may have met their match with Brooklyn's Sixpoint Craft Ales. We asked Founder, Shane C. Welch to answer a few questions. Well, we got answers.
This is the second in our irregular series of interviews with the industry's cutting edge brewers. Grab a beer and enjoy the ride.
Background
DB: How did you get into brewing and how did it become a business idea?
SW: I got into brewing while drinking a stein of beer when I was two years old. Seriously! When I was a kid, I would sometimes nab my father's ceramic stein from the coffee table. It was filled with cold, sweet, delicious beer, and when he had either left the room or fallen asleep the stein was unattended. I knew it had to have something special inside...it was such a fancy glass, and my Dad always seemed to drink out of it and enjoy it. So I hoisted that oversized ceramic container over my head with my little kid hands and chugged it! My parents were shocked and amused by the whole ordeal...so they took a photo of me. Birth of a brewer.
I don't know the exact point when it became a business idea...but I image it was sometime when I was making beer at home at 19 years of age and then decided to drop out of college so I could homebrew full-time and seek the job of professional brewer. Haha.
DB: Can you highlight a few of the unanticipated challenges of starting a brewery?
SW: Where to start? Haha. Let's see...never having enough money, running out of beer, not enough space, can't seem to find out where your kegs went, mechanical failures in the brewery, random complaints at accounts at 1am calling your cell phone, burglaries at the brewery, getting jumped and mugged outside of the brewery at dusk, accidental fire that almost burned the brewery to the ground, you know....the usual.
DB: When you’re not brewing what are you doing with your free time?
SW: Hanging out with my girlfriend, being a total beast and romping around the park with my dog, riding my bike, reading books, drinking tea, kicking back with a cold one, exploring NYC and beyond.
The Brewery
DB: You rather proudly brew “by hand” using your own hand made mash paddle. Given this old school style, is consistency more of a challenge for you than it is for those more apt to rely on aluminum paddles and computers?
SW: You may think that you are stirring the mash with a wooden mash paddle, but you're actually stirring up the raging beast within yourself. Nuff said!
DB: Anything other equipment hand made?
SW: Just about the entire brewhouse is hand made! Everything from the custom control panels, to the vapor condenser, keg grant, CIP system, hard-pipe network, keg racker, etc. Its a big collection of salvage parts from auctions that have been repurposed and engineered to make a bona fide Frankenstein craft brewery.
DB: Can you tell us about the brewery system (number of barrels, who designed and manufactured it, etc)?
SW: Its a Frankenstein system - a collection of tanks, vessels, and apparati from all over the world. Its a 15 bbl system, but we have some 15, 22, and 30 bbl tanks. Much of the recent engineering and overhaul was done by our in-house guru and engineer, David Liatti.
DB: We notice that Brooklyn Brewery is not on your list of “allies”. Do you live in their shadow, peacefully co-exist, or consider them friends and colleagues?
SW: They're definitely an ally, and we peacefully co-exist. We're in the process of renovating the website, and I think that section will be removed altogether. The reason why is the issue of inclusion vs. exclusion. Once you say, "here are our allies" then by default some people think if you did not mention someone, then you're automatically not friends with them. Not true. You simply don't have the space or recollection to name every single person whom you love and respect. Thus, we're going to disable that link.
The Brew
DB: Brewing with lava rocks. Is this legit or a marketing ploy (or a little of both)?
SW: Its totally legit. That movie was put together on a whim and shoestring with an old college roommate and friend of mine. We didn't know what to expect from it, and we were just having fun. No one would have anticipated the viral sensation it became. It actually has a historical connection and significance, and an educational aspect to it. We're happy to share it with the world, and apparently they liked it as well.
DB: We ask this for very selfish reasons but when can we expect to find Sixpoint available in the Washington, DC area?
SW: Yikes. Well, we can't promise anything soon. We have all to do right now to meet the demand in NYC. Once we can take care of our folks here, then we'll maybe consider DC.
DB: Want to tip your hand on upcoming, yet to be announced brews?
SW: We're making our first-ever pumpkin beer next week. Its going to be a collaborative effort among the entire brewing staff at Sixpoint. The dudes are psyched!
Activism
DB: Your love of Brooklyn is unabashed. Do you support local events in and around the community? How does Sixpoint give back?
SW: We support events all the time! We give back with a simple principle - we try to build strong relationships with individuals and the community at large - and be a fountainhead of positive karma.
DB: Many mirco-brewers have a bit of a green bent. Sixpoint lists Mother Nature first on your list of allies. What does Sixpoint do to protect her?
We have company meetings where we get together to discuss how we can be less wasteful as a company. In the past several years, we have designed the brewhouse so that we can effectively curtail the waste from our manufacturing processes to their lowest levels possible. One of the biggest waste streams is actually invisible - that of heat energy loss. Breweries use a ton of energy, but most of this thermodynamic energy is lost. The best thing about this though is the heat can be recovered, repurposed, and redirected back into the throughput cycle. As a result, we have designed and implemented systems to recover the heat energy from different processes of the brewing stages to be redirected back into the system. The result? We cut our natural gas usage by over 30%! Its just one of the things we've done on a small scale to make it more environmentally friendly.
Last Thoughts
DB: Brooklyn is Burning or No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn?
SW: Let me put it to you this way: Brooklyn is the new frontier; Manhattan is yesterday's news.
After last year's successful inaugural week, the good folks at DC Beer Week are back for a second round. This year's festivities kick off on August 20, 2010 with DC Nerd Nite and Rock & Barley Concert at the Rock & Roll Hotel. Of course, there are the standard fare happy hours, brewer meet & greets, and beer dinner pairings through out the week. They've also added some novel events like the Cherry Blossom Craft Beer Cruise on August 22nd.
We've been having trouble viewing the DC Beer Week Web site, which could be do to our IT incompetence. Absent the Web site, you can start planning your week by checking out this Washington CityPaper article. You can also find events information on their Facebook page, twitter feed, or on the DC Beer Events calendar. So basically you have no excuses for not finding something to do between August 20th and 28th.
Hope everybody inside the Beltway is getting thirsty.
Let's be honest in this post. We purchased LagunitasA Little Sumpin' Sumpin' Ale strictly because of our shameless affinity for pinup girls. This is not the first time we've come across Lagunitas but it is the first time we've come across it in our local grocer's beer aisle. Which, by the way, has been painfully boring of late. So, in the end it was part curiosity, part physical attraction, part falling for the new girl in school, and part thirst.
It's been a painfully brutal summer here. The kind that makes you want to skip the month of August. We've been surviving the heat wave with equal parts bitching & moaning and Dale's Pale Ale. You know how it goes - too much of a good thing. Sumpin' Sumpin' is going to get us through what will surely be the roughest part of this already intolerable summer. And really, isn't it fun to say "A little sumpin' sumpin'"? Go ahead, try it.
Sumpin' Sumpin' is a clear, golden, wheat ale that just looks crisp in the glass (how Bud looks in their commercials and how you wish it looked in real life). As you can see, the head is white and fluffy like a soft pillow. The aroma is flowery, hoppy. Sumpin' Sumpin' tastes fresh and as crisp as you expected during the pour. It's good on the hops but there's not an overpowering bitterness. We would call it a bittersweet symphony of smoooth summer drink. It's not overly complex in flavor, which actually makes it the perfect summer ale.
It does have a somewhat dry finish but we think the folks at Lagunitas did that to leave us always thirsting for another. It worked but be careful - you could finish off a six pack while sitting on the porch before you realize this brew carries a punch. It's 7.3 percent ABV will take you for a ride if your not careful.
If you don't believe us check out the Lagunitas virtual taste. We intentionally placed the it at the end because it shames our rubbish.
