Stillwater Artisanal Ales - Of Love and Regret

Well it's been about a year since my last post, although Adam usually has something to say on my behalf. It's been a busy year of drinking and brewing, but I've lacked the motivation and perhaps the inspiration to put fingertips to keys and express my thoughts, but no more! I'm diving back in with Of Love and Regret, the latest offering from Baltimore's Stillwater Artisanal Ales, "A saison brewed with an array of spring botanicals and grassy hops to celebrate the season." It is worth noting that Stillwater Founder/Brewer Brian Strumke went to Belgium to brew this limited release at Sint Canarus.

I've had Stillwater's Stateside Saison, and quite enjoyed it, so I jumped at the chance to try another funky brew from this local (sort of) brewery.

It sits, a hazy, light-copper color in my glass with a substantial, but fleeting, fizzy off-white head. Although the cloudy look is to be expected in a saison, it does subside as the beer warms leaving it mostly clear.

The smell is intense with sage and hay. There is some citrus with light funky notes from the brett. The aroma is layered and complex, while still light and springy. The taste follows suit with fresh herbs up front and all of those wonderful wild saison flavors following up. The finish is a little sweet slowly shifting to a gentle hop bitterness.

It feels light to medium bodied with a very slight sting from the just-right carbonation. As soomeone who often feels the over carbonation can easily get in the way of my fulling gripping the flavors in a beer, i was surprised at how i enjoyed this one bubbling across my tongue.

As I sit drinking the second of the two bottles of this that I bought (being my third time trying the beer) I find myself enjoying it a little more each time. It is hard to drink this without being reminded of Saison du Buff; this summer's 3 part collaboration between Stone, Dogfish Head and Victory. It's really very similar in aroma and taste, but lets the underlying saison shine through far more than du Buff. It is utterly drinkable, as a saison should be, and were it not so limited, I'd most likely pick it up again some time.

A little more on Stillwater before I go: I've already talked about two of their beers; both saisons. They also have Cellar Door (a saison brewed with spices) which will be available year round in bottles. Lastly, Strumke is returning to Belgium to brew another in his Import Series: A Saison Darkly. While Adam and I truly revel in saisons and all the horse blanketey funk that they bring; I'd be very interested to see something else come out of this brewery. The two beers that I have had were well done to say the least, but I'm beginning to wonder if Stillwater has much else to offer.

- Dan

All Grain Brewings

Today Dan and I started our first all grain batch of beer. Well, technically it's not a beer, we decided to make a saison based gruit. A gruit is a medieval version of ale that uses a blend of spices or plants instead of hops.

In order to make our beer, we had to make ourselves a mash tun. To do this, we got a 10 gallon rubbermade cooler, and replaced the spigot with a stainless steel braid hose attached to a ball valve. What this does is allow the liquid through the hose without letting the grain through.

The next step for us was

heating the strike water. We used beersmith to

determine what temperature water we would need at the specif

ic quantity we wanted for our grains. For this recipe we had 12 pounds of grain, and ended up mashing a bit thin with 5 gallons

of water at 149 degrees. After stirring in the grains, we put on the lid and let it sit for about an hour.

Once the time was up, we started recirculating the wort until it started running clear(ish). Once this was completed, we just had to drain the wort into the pot. We ended up with about 2.5 gallons from the initial 5 gallons we put in. In order to make our full volume for the boil, we batch sparged with an additional 3.5 gallons for a total of 6 gallons in the pot.

The initial bittering addition was a half an ounce of wormwood. This was

the only thing in the beer for our hour long boil, and then we followed up with a mixture of sweet gale, chamomile, rose hips, elderflower, and wormwood. It should be interesting to see how this ends up, since not only is this our first all grain beer, it's also our first attempt at doing anything without hops. All in all things went fairly well though.

The one issue we found after cooling was that we really had no way of telling how much wort we actually collected (we suspect we got more than 6 gallons to start), and how much we had in the pot when we were finished. These are going to be important figures that we'll need to determine at some point so we can hit our target gravities without problems. As it was, we ended up 12 points under our target gravity with an expectation of 75% efficiency. However, since we ended up with about half a gallon more than we expected, it looks like we got close to the right efficiency, at 70%, we just didn't boil off as much as we expected. Once we figure out a way of determining how much wort we collect and how much we end up with, we can more accurately estimate the amount of boil off we have in a normal batch. It should be good.

- Adam

Mikkeller Rauch Geek Breakfast

Beer Geek Breakfast is a classic by Mikkeller that is now available in a couple different forms. Beer Geek Brunch, Beer Geek Weasel, and now Rauch Geek Breakfast. This version is made with smoked malt to give it a nice bacon-like aroma.

The beer pours a thick, viscous black with a dark tan head, about a finger and a half thick. It had moderate retention, sticking around for a few minutes before dissipating to a thin foam coating on top. There was definite lacing on the glass as well, in thin streaks.

The aroma initially is overwhelming smoked malt, with a strong meaty, bacon smell. After that subsides a bit, some dark malt comes through with a bit of roast and sweetness. It seems a little nutty and coffee-like as well.

The taste initially has a mild smoked flavor with hints of bacon, followed by a strong coffee bitterness in the back of the mouth. The roast flavor lingers with just a bit of smoke for a while. I feel like I was getting a touch of nut as well right in the middle of my tongue.

The body actually seems fairly moderate, with a decent level of prickling carbonation. I expected this one to be heavier feeling than it is, although it's by no means light. There is some substance to it for sure. There's just a little bit of warmth in the throat as well. It also seemed a little creamy.

Overall, this is an extremely tasty brew, but it's not one to be gulped down by any means. I really wanted to savor this glass. I don't think I'd drink more than one at a time, but it would be a nice way to start off the day.

- Adam

Evolution Exile ESB

One of the (few) really great things about living in Delaware is the many breweries we have in the state despite our relatively small population. Dogfish Head is obviously the most famous, but we also have Stewarts, Iron Hill, Fordham, Twin Lakes, Old Dominion, 16 Mile, Delmar Brewing Co, and Evolution Craft Brewing. Tonight I'm taking a look at Evolution's ESB.

The initial smell is malt dominant, with notes of caramel. There may be a touch of citrus hop aroma, but if so it's well buried, and the impression I get from it is more like the smell of ice tea. The aroma isn't terribly strong, so it's hard to pick much else out.

The beer's appearance is an orangish-copper color, clear, with no head to speak of. Just looking at it it seems very lightly carbonated.

The first flavors apparent in the mouth are a light caramel taste, with a bit of fruitiness. This gives way to a roasted quality and a rather strong bitterness in the back of the mouth. The bitter flavor is a bit dominant, and lingers for quite a while. There's a definite toasted quality to the beer as well. Other than the bitterness, there doesn't seem to be any hop profile to the beer.

In the mouth, the beer has a rather up front prickly carbonation. It seems to have a medium body, with a bit of coating in the mouth. It seems a little bit like hop resin. In any case, the beer definitely seems to have some substance to it.

Overall I found it to be fairly enjoyable, although not the best ESB I've had. As I understand it, the key to an ESB is balance, and the bitterness in this beer seems overly dominant. I'm actually wondering how old the beer is since the bitterness comes through without any hop character to it at all. I think I'd like to try this one again at some point when I know I have a fresh bottle.

- Adam

Epic/Dogfish Head collaboration video

Wow, I've had a pretty serious lack of updates lately. Things are pretty busy around here, and I really just haven't had time to make a lot of posts. Anyway as you can see from some of my most recent posts, a while back I had the opportunity to meet Luke of Epic Brewing at the Dogfish Head brew pub when he was here doing a collaborative brew with Dogfish. The resulting beer was called Portamarillo, and was absolutely delicious. It was a porter made with tamarillo, a tomato-like fruit that grows on trees, and is native to New Zealand. The fruit was smoked over some type of New Zealand wood whose name I can't remember and couldn't pronounce. In any case, it gave the final beer a nice touch of smoked quality to it that I quite enjoy.

Early this morning, Luke tweeted a video of himself sitting down with Sam Calagione of Dogfish, having a beer. They chatted about their brew day this past Sunday in New Zealand, where they made round 2 of the collaboration, and about craft beer as a whole. I really enjoyed watching it, so I wanted to pass it on to you. Also, you can expect to see Luke as one of the featured guests on BREWED, the show Sam will be hosting on the Discovery Channel this fall. Pretty sweet.

Southampton Saison Deluxe

I have been a huge fan of the saison style for a while now. This is especially true for the really funky, loaded down with brett, smells like a barn yard kind of wild beer that a saison sometimes turns out to be. Whenever I get a beer that has that horse-blanket kind of aroma, I get a little bit excited. I don't know what it is that I love so much about these beers, there's just a wild and untamed quality to them that you don't really find anywhere else.

My favorite saison so far has been DuPont's Avec Les Bons Voeux. However, this beer was only rated as the 5th best beer of the style on Beer Advocated, with the Southampton Saison Deluxe rated 4th highest (since the time I got it they have switched positions though). The funny thing was that when I picked up this beer, I didn't even realize that, it was more or less a random choice by Julia. In any case, Avec Les Bons Voeux has been my baseline for comparison for all saisons since, and when I saw the ranking of the Southampton I was definitely curious about how it would stack up.

When I first poured the beer, I knew it was off to a good start. Even though the aroma was a bit faint, I got a nice funky smell right off the bat. It was dominated by grass and hay, with a bit of an earthy quality to it as well. The grass smell lent just a bit of sweetness to it that was quite pleasant.

The beer poured a slightly hazy golden straw color, and supported a big foamy white head, about 3 fingers thick. The head was sturdy with good retention, and left lots of spotty lacing as I progressed through the glass.

The taste had a funky brett character to it as well, along with a touch of sweetness. There was a grassy quality along with a mild bitterness in the back of the mouth. I also noted a slight peppery spiciness to it. In the middle of the mouth I found a bit of apple quality, and a little bit of a tart aftertaste. Really I thought the smell was a pretty good indicator of the beer's actual taste.

In the mouth, the beer had a slightly thicker quality than I expected. I had anticipated that the body would be fairly light, but it was really on the lighter side of medium-bodied. The carbonation levels were good and moderately high, with tingling bubbles. I found that there was just a bit of coating of the mouth as well as a touch of warmth in the throat. The beer was pretty dry, but not the driest I've had, especially from a saison.

Overall, I thought the beer was very good, and decently flavorful. Despite it's 7.4% ABV, it really didn't feel all that strong. It has a decent brett character, but certainly wasn't over the top. It was fairly well balanced, even though I did note that it was a bit sweet. It certainly was easy to drink, and I don't think I would get sick of drinking it. I do still think that the Avec Les Bons Vouex was better though. This beer didn't quite have the completely untamed nature that I just love in a saison.

- Adam

Epic Armageddon IPA

I met Luke, the brewer from Epic Brewing in New Zealand a couple months ago at Dogfish Head. He was there for the collaboration brew they did with Dogfish called Portamarillo, a porter with smoked tamarillo in it. Since I tend to like a lot of the other beers from breweries Dogfish collaborates with, I was very interested in trying out some of the other stuff from Epic. Luke told us that they didn't have very thorough distribution in the United States, so I was a bit surprised when we actually found a couple bottles of Epic beer at State Line Liquors. We decided to pick up the Armageddon IPA for our first Epic beer.

Initially when we opened the bottle, we were greeted with a strong hoppy aroma. There was a citrus quality to it with a hint of pine. Underneath I found that there was a malt background with a biscuit quality to it.

The beer had a clear golden yellow color and a foamy white head. At first there was some lacing left, but everything dissipated after a few minutes.

The taste is where the beer really stands out. A hop presence is quickly apparent with a mix of grassy and citrus flavors and a decent level of bitterness. Even though there isn't a lot of sweetness in the palate, there is some along with a toasted quality. This beer uses a hop variety that I'm not familiar with, Nelson Sauvin, so I'm not sure what its impact on the flavor is. Overall I found it to be extremely flavorful without being overbearing as some IPAs tend to be.

In the mouth the beer had a fairly light body with high levels of carbonation. I found that there was a slick coating in the mouth as well, but not unpleasant. I thought the carbonation level was a bit high for my tastes, but still it wasn't overly distracting.

Overall, I found this to be a very good example of an IPA, and a strong offering from Epic. It was easy to drink, and had a decent amount of flavor. I could certainly see myself drinking this on a regular basis, if it wasn't so pricey. I think we paid somewhere around $11 or $12 for a bit over a pint. While it's not the most expensive beer we've ever gotten, it certainly wasn't cheap. I imagine most of this is due to the cost of importing the beer, but it really is a shame. If I could get it cheaper I'd definitely be drinking it frequently.

- Adam