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November Beer Club

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Tonight was Beer Club, a gathering of beer minded friends from work who get together every month at a local BYOB for libations and fun. This month, we hit up a local BBQ joint, which is always nice. Got me some smoked Chorizo, Brisket, and some fixins which made for a great accompaniment to all the beer. And there was a lot of it this time around. The picture is actually missing a bunch of bottles because we did not account for people showing up later with their own stuff.

beerclub-november13.jpg

(Click for larger version)

So yeah, lots of stuff this month, so these notes are almost certainly useless, but for the sake of posterity, I’m including them anyway. Because I’m a good person, that’s why. Yeah, let’s get to it: in approximate order of drinking (not necessarily pictured):

  • Southern Tier Krampus – An “Imperial Helles” is sorta like a contradiction in terms, but hey, it’s an amped up Helles, and it works well enough. Nice uncommon hop character gives an otherwise clean beer the punch it needs. Really quite nice. B+
  • Ithaca Excelsior! White Gold – Bottle wasn’t quite a gusher, and we managed to not lose any, but it was hugely carbonated and most of us poured a cup of foam that resolved into more normal beerlike appearance in a minute or two. Once we got to it, it was pretty damn good. Nice Belgian yeast character, wheat is there but not as dominant as you might think (slightly reminiscent of something like St. Bernardus Tokyo). This was one of the first beers we tasted, and I liked it a lot, but we revisited it towards the end of the night and damn, it got almost (not quite) sour. Big fruity esters started showing up when it was warm. Again, not quite sour, but it was going in that direction. All in all, I enjoyed this more than the Ithaca Excelsior Rye beer I had recently… B+
  • Victory Root Beer – Yep, it’s a root beer! I’m no expert (hay, there’s no alcohol in this!?), but it’s really good as root beers go.
  • Sprecher Bootlegger’s Bourbon Barrel Hard Root Beer – Not sure I would have pegged this as having anything to do with a bourbon barrel, let alone an alcoholic beverage at all, but perhaps the power of suggestion lead me to believe that there was some bourbon present in the taste. Or something. Ultimately, it drinks like a good root beer, which is nice…
  • Avery White Rascal – A beer I’ve had before and greatly enjoyed, it doesn’t quite fit in with a tasting like this – it is easily overwhelmed by the other brews of the night. Still, I like this as a lawnmower beer on a hot day (alas, it’s pretty cold here these days). B
  • River Horse Double Wit – I don’t know if it’s the 7% ABV or the way this was spiced, but it didn’t really connect with me. It’s not bad at all, and other folks appreciated the different take on spice and booze level, but it never quite hit me where I wanted it to. B-
  • Ken’s Homebrewed Schwarzbier – We need to get on Ken to start entering his beers into untappd or something, because these are getting good. Not my favorite style, but it’s a nice dark lager style beer, clean and crisp, lighter than it looks, and quite flavorful. Toasty but not quite full on roast. Me likey. B+
  • Kaedrin Xmas Dubbel – My homebrewed dubbel, with a slight dose of cinnamon when I was bottling, is actually drinking really well right now. The regular dubbel has really matured and changed a lot over time, getting more and more raisiny, but this one was more subdued (not that there’s anything wrong with that). I’ll leave it at B+
  • Lost Abbey Deliverance – One of my other contributions, and a beer I’ve reviewed before! It’s still great. A-
  • Atwater Vanilla Java Porter – While opening this directly after Deliverance was a supremely bad idea, I still get the impression that this would underwhelm. It does have a nice vanilla character, but it’s a little thinner than I generally want out of a stout and while I’m not a big fan of coffee, it’s nonexistent here. Certainly a drinkable beer and would be welcome change of pace at a macro bar, but it’s not something to really seek out. C+
  • Spring House Big Gruesome Chocolate Peanut Butter Stout – Can I just point you to a review from a couple weeks ago? No? Well too bad, cause that’s what I’m doing. Still a B+ in my book.
  • Smuttynose Old Brown Dog Ale – The younger, weaker, smaller sibling to Really Old Brown Dog is a rather straightforward brown ale, which naturally has its merits (nice toasted malt and some heft to it) but again, should’ve probably opened this earlier in the night. Still glad I tried this, just to give context to Really old Brown Dog if not for its regular solid nature. B
  • Saucony Creek Chocolate Cherry Schnickelfritz – An object lesson in things sounding better than they taste, this seems to be a relatively well made imperial milk stout, but it’s got this artificial feeling cherry aspect that sorta ruined the beer for me. Not an abomination, but not particularly good either. I guess all the beers I bring can’t be winners! C
  • Ommegang Game Of Thrones #2 – Take the Black Stout – These Game of Thrones beers are actually pretty solid introductions to the whole Belgian beer world, and they work well enough for beer dorks too (a neat trick, appealing to the jaded hardcore and mainstream alike). I actually would call this more of a roasty Belgian Strong Dark rather than a full on stout, but to each their own. It’s got a nice Belgian yeast character, spice and light fruit, with a hint of that roasted malt too, but the carbonation (and presumably attenuation) cuts through more than your typical stout. Still, it’s very good, if not my favorite Ommegang beer. B+
  • River Horse Special Ale – No idea why this was opened so late in the night, but it’s such a profoundly average beer that I doubt it would have made that much of an impression earlier in the night. There’s absolutely nothing wrong wit it, and it’s certainly a step up from fizzy yellow stuff light lagers, but its not really something to get excited about. C+
  • Victory Harvest Ale – I totally fell in love with Victory’s Harvest Ale last year (and while I’m not a big Pils guy, the Harvest Pils was pretty good too), but this year’s take fell completely flat to me. Not bad, per say, but something about this is rubbing me the wrong way. Perhaps it was a different hop variety, perhaps they used their Kolsch yeast instead of their normally clean IPA yeast, but whatever the case, it didn’t inspire like last years. Again, it’s pretty good, but it’s disappointing. And I had this a couple weeks ago straight from the source too, so it’s not just palate fatigue talking here! B

Yikes, that was a lot of beers. Luckily there were a lot of people in attendance, so my tastes were limited on most of these (yet another reason to take my notes with a grain of salt), but this was a really fun installment. Here’s to hoping the December one will be just as great!

Forest & Main Palomino

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Last Friday was International Stout Day, so I opened a rare saison, because here at Kaedrin HQ, every day is saison day.

Forest and Main Palomino

Forest & Main Palomino – A saison brewed with local honey and aged in old wine barrels. Pours a hazy straw yellow color with a finger of white head and decent retention. The nose is all funk, all the time. Earthy Brett with a fruity sour note. Taste is more earthy and spicy than the nose, though a slight tart fruit character emerges towards the finish, along with a fair amount of bitterness. Mouthfeel is dry, but highly carbonated and effervescent, crisp, refreshing, with just a hint of lactic acidity. Overall, really solid stuff, better than Solaire Reserve, but perhaps not quite a top tier facemelter. B+ (borderline A- stuff though)

Beer Nerd Details: 5.5% ABV bottled (750 ml capped). Drank out of a flute glass on 11/8/13. Bottle no. 50 of 204. Bottled July 20, 2013.

Back Label

Another solid brew from the local Forest & Main, hopefully many more to come.

Oh, and I did manage to drink a stout on stout day, a fresh bottle of DuClaw Retribution. I didn’t love it much last time, but that was an old bottle. The fresh one was better and certainly enjoyable, but still nowhere near a world beater.

Firestone Walker PNC

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Once upon a time, there were these wonderous drinking establishments called “Public Houses” or, as they’re more commonly known “pubs”. The proprietors of said establishments were known as “publicans”. I’m sure that any British readers would scoff at the notion of American “pubs”, but there are a few of them worth their salt here in the US. Indeed, they’re a growing concern these days. However, it wasn’t that long ago that such establishments were a rarity. True publicans of the day were isolated and lonely. But when American beer bar pioneers like David Keene (of SF’s Toronado) or Tom Peters and Fergus Carey (of Philly’s beloved Monk’s Cafe) found out about each other back in the day, they decided to form a group of publicans (I’m leaving a bunch of them out here, there were several other founding members) that would get together for some libations and maybe even collaborate with breweries to make “outrageous” beers. Thus was born the Publican National Committee, or PNC for short.

This beer is one such collaboration. Apparently “concocted over a copious amount of Orval” one night, this is an Imperial Buckwheat Stout aged in Tequila barrels for 13 months. It was one of the components for Firestone Walker’s XVI Anniversary blend, but has since been bottled all on its own. It didn’t quite get the release of their other component brews and it wasn’t really distributed, but since the aforementioned Tom Peters and Fergus Carey are publicans over at Philadelphia’s own Monk’s Cafe and founding members of the PNC, they got a few bottles, which I manged to snap up (along with some other tasty treats). Let’s see what’s up, shall we:

Firestone Walker PNC

Firestone Walker PNC Imperial Buckwheat Stout – Pours a very dark brown color with half a finger of tan head. Smells of rich caramel, toffee, oak, vanilla, and booze (presumably that tequila coming through, though it’s not a dominant aroma at all, well rounded). Taste follows the nose, rich caramel, toffee, and lots of oak and vanilla. Faint hints of roast show up as it warms. The booze is there too, but it’s not nearly as dominant as I thought it would be (this is a good thing though), and the tequila matches up well with the stout base. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that this involved some other barrels too, like retired Firestone Union barrels or even Bourbon barrels. All of Firestone Walker’s barrel aged brews share a certain profile, and this one is no exception, despite the use of Tequila barrels that give it a unique spin. Mouthfeel is full bodied, rich, and chewy, well carbonated, and this is where that booze really shows itself (again, in a good way). Faint hint of hot booze in the finish and that warming sensation in my belly. Overall, maybe not quite the revelation of Parabola, but still superb in its own right. A-

Beer Nerd Details: 13.7% ABV bottled (22 oz bomber). Drank out of a snifter on 11/2/13. 2013 Vintage. Cases: 450.

Another delicious barrel aged treat from Firestone Walker. Still waiting for Velvet Merkin to show itself in the area. The hunt is on. Stay tuned.

La Cabra Brettophile

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Last year, the Brewers Association estimated that the number of breweries-in-planning had surpassed 1300. I’d wager that a sizeable portion of these are paper tigers that will never actually see the light of day. Others, though, have been building an underground following with their homebrewed beers. One such operation is La Cabra Brewing, out of Malvern, PA (just a hop and skip away from Kaedrin HQ), where brewer Dan Popernack has been busy dialing in his portfolio and building up his fleet of barrels. Since La Cabra is not federally licensed as a brewery, he can’t actually sell his wares, but he does maintain an email list and periodically releases beers for feedback purposes. I have been fortunate enough to procure a couple of these brews. A few weeks ago, Joe Sixpack published an article focusing on a few local breweries-in-planning, including La Cabra, and I hope to have an interview with Dan in the near future, so I’ll leave it at that for now. You’ll be hearing more about La Cabra soon!

In the meantime, let’s check out one of these beers. Brettophile is a golden ale fermented entirely with Brettanomyces and aged in new American oak. My kinda beer, so let’s see how it turned out:

La Cabra Brettophile

La Cabra Brettophile – Pours a very pretty, almost radiant golden orange color with a finger of white head. Smells full of Brett funk, mild barnyard, earthy with a big dollop of fruity esters. Taste starts off with some earthy barnyard funk, a hint of spice, with a noticeable oak character pitching in towards the middle, and a juicy tartness that starts in the middle and intensifies through the finish. The sourness opens up a bit as it warms, lemons and pineapple, but it’s still very well balanced. Mouthfeel is well carbonated, crisp, refreshing, with a pleasant pucker factor from the sourness. Overall, this sucker could compete with the big boys for sure. A-

Beer Nerd Details: 6.8% ABV bottled (750 ml caged and corked). Drank out of a goblet on 11/1/13. Vintage: 2013.

The label sez that this beer “May contain trace amounts of awesome..” which is simply untrue. It’s all awesome! Or maybe I’m just excited by the prospect of another local brewery that has the ambition to do some crazy barrel aged stuff like this. Also, free beer always tastes better. Still, I think this one is a true winner and could really put this brewery on the map when the finally get off the ground.

AleSmith Evil Dead Red

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I’ll swallow your soul! Or maybe just your beer. I’m talking to you, Mr. Alesmith. Once a draft only beer, I was surprised to see this one show up in the area and snapped up what looked like the last bottle. It’s one of them hoppy red ales, the sort of thing Jay of the now defunct Beer Samizdat blog would love, and it was a great beer to accompany my weekend horror movie binging. Groovy.

Alesmith Evil Dead Red

AleSmith Evil Dead Red – Pours a clear but dark amber color, very pretty when held up to the light, with a finger or two of light tan head that leaves some nice lacing and sticks around a while too. Smells sugary sweet, full of crystal malts and citrusy, piney American hops. Taste starts with that crystal malt sweetness, maybe a caramel note, with the citrus and pine hops kicking in when we get to the middle and lasting through the finish, which has a well balanced dry bitterness. Mouthfeel is utterly perfect. Well carbonated, medium bodied yet almost quaffable, thanks partially to a relatively dry finish. Overall, this is a rock solid amber ale. A-

Alesmith has another beer released around Valentine’s day called My Bloody Valentine (another horror movie reference, I love these guys). The describe the two beers as “cousins”, but they both seem to be a hoppy red ale with a plucky 6.66% ABV. Perhaps the hop varieties and/or schedule is different. I guess there’s only one way to find out. If, that is, Alesmith starts distributing Bloody Valentine here. And I need to figure out a way to get ahold of some barrel aged Alesmith. That’s the ticket. Anywho, happy Halloween folks. Stay tuned, lots of interesting stuff in the coming weeks.

Tired Hands Monster Beers

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As previously mentioned, Tired Hands really gets into the spirit of the Halloween season. Last year, they made a series of beers named after classic monsters like Vampire, Zombie (a personal favorite), Ghost, Goblin, and so on. This year’s theme appears to be 80s horror monsters, including some suitably obscure choices that warm this jaded horror movie lover’s heart (if you’re so inclined, check out my generalist blog, where I’ve been marathoning horror movies for about six weeks at this point). As I write this, Tired Hands is hosting their All Hallows’ Eve Supper which features all of these beers and food pairings (not to mention an exclusive, Captain Howdy, which sounds rather great). Alas, I was not very quick on the gun for that, so no supper for me. I’ll have to content myself with the regular awesomeness of their beer. So let’s do this:

Jason

Jason – 6.9% citrus IPA – Awesome juicy ipa, citrus and pine hops, nice bitterness in the finish, just great! I feel like I should have more to say about this since I really enjoyed it, but I’ll just note that Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives is arguably the best of the series (with strong contenders in IV and of course, the original). A-

Pinhead – 5.9% ABV saison with cascade, Simcoe, and Amarillo hops – Nice blend of saison and pale ale attributes, a little sweet saison spice upfront with the hops hitting in the middle and contributing a nice bitterness to the finish. In other news, they’re remaking Hellraiser. Barker is involved, which is promising, and it’s hard to be annoyed by this when there are literally, like, 7 sequels, most pretty terrible. On the other hand, dammit Clive, we need you to finish that third Book of the Art you started writing, oh, 20 years ago (though apparently the manuscript for The Scarlet Gospels, another book he’s been talking about for decades, has been sent to the publisher, so that’s cool)! And now that I’ve spent more time talking about Clive Barker than the beer itself, I’ll stop. B+

Herbert West

Herbert West – 7.6% ABV Coffee IPA Ethiopian Worka beans courtesy of ReAnimator coffee in Philly (hence the name of this beer) – An interesting spin on your typical Tired Hands IPA, juicy hops of course, but the coffee adds something that doesn’t immediately read as coffee. Easy to pick out when you know it’s there, but the character is more earthy and almost chocolaty than your typical coffee. In other news, don’t you think that the severed head from Re-Animator looks an awful lot like John Kerry? A-

This next beer is a sour wheat saison brewed with PA wildflower honey and fermented atop passion fruit, lime, and grapefruit. Jean kept posting pictures of the pellicle on Twitter, but when I looked at it under my electron microscope, I saw this:

Screenshot from The Thing

The Thing – 6% sour wheat fruit saison – Um, wut? Halp, this am so fruity that I can has lolcat speech. For realz, this is very strange and quite pleasant, tropical fruit all over, light tartness that is perfectly balanced, sorta like a bigger, stronger Berliner Weiss, really nice! Also, The Thing holds up pretty damn well. Best damn practical effects ever. A-

Freddy – 8% robust porter – Dark like my nightmares, not your typical porter, lots of complexity, chocolate, coffee, very light roast, hint of caramel, smooth as can be, easy going. Keep picking out new flavors as I drink. Really solid stuff! I know Robert Englund got a little down for a while because he was so well known for this one character, but he’s become this great horror icon, a grand old man in the genre, and he’s raised the profile of a lot of small horror movies in the past decade, so good on him. And Freddy (at least in the first film), is still fantastic. B+

Emerald Skeletons Listening To Your Footsteps – 7.5% IPA – I suppose this is arguably not part of the Monsters series, but it sounds pretty scary, and apparently Emerald Skeletons are gigantic spiders, which are terrifying in themselves, so I’m including it. And yep, another typically great Tired Hands style IPA (at this point, I’m pretty sure I can pick out their IPAs blind), standard citrus and pine, maybe some floral hops too, interesting complexity beyond the hops that’s hard to place, but all is well balanced and it’s really nice stuff. A-

Blonde Zombie – 11.5% imperial honey IPA – This is basically the same beer as last year’s Zombie, but without any of the dark malts. Whoa, this is really nice, citrus, pine, and floral hops in the nose and taste, a little sticky, but it doesn’t feel like 11.5% at all. Dangerously drinkable for such a monster (pun intended!)… I might still prefer the original Zombie, but this is still a great beer. Favorite zombie movie I saw during my horror movie marathon this year: Pontypool. It doesn’t quite stick the ending, but it’s pretty solid (but then, I’m not much of a zombie fanatic, so take this with a grain of salt). A-

Marty Rantzen

Marty Rantzen – 6.8% smoked gourd brown ale – I love the obscurity of this beer name’s reference, and if you haven’t seen Slaughter High, um, well, you’re in for something strange. For instance, during a sex scene, the girl asks the guy for a little mid-coital dirty talk and he responds with “Uhh..tits! Screw! Tits!” He’s a poet, I guess. Also notable, someone is dispatched with… a “poisoned” can of Pabst Blue Ribbon (that or it’s just regular PBR, they never really say). Oh yeah, the beer. It’s a straightforward brown ale base with some added complexity (presumably from the smoked gourds, though I can’t really pick them out), nice toasted malt character, easy drinking. I like. B+

Will the real Marty Rantzen stand up?

So there you have it. A pretty interesting bunch of beers, actually, so kudos to Tired Hands. Moar holiday beer reviews to come later this week.

Cascade Apricot Ale

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Nothing sez Halloween like spooooky… apricots? Alright, that’s a stretch, but I always jump at the chance to try a new Cascade beer. This one appears to be their most popular beer, having garnered the most reviews and yet maintained a pretty great rating. The base for this is apparently a Belgian style tripel (which explains some of that musty character mentioned in the notes below, I think) which is aged in old oak barrels for about a year, then aged on fresh apricots for an additional 8 months. It looks like older vintages of this beer were higher ABV (and varying stays in barrels too), so maybe that tripel has been downgraded a bit, but whatever, this beer still sounds excellent, so let’s dig in:

Cascade Apricot Ale

Cascade Apricot Ale – Pours a hazy yellow color with a couple fingers of fizzy white head that still sticks around a bit. Smells very musty, maybe even some spice like from Belgian yeast, with the fruitiness barely peeking out from behind that sour twang. Taste is quite sour, not as much fruit as you might expect (though it’s there), and did I mention sour? As it warms, I feel like the apricot starts to come through loud and clear, and that sharp sourness softens (or my gumline has just gone numb or something), with some tannic oak tempering things towards the end and lingering into the finish. Mouthfeel is highly carbonated, tannic, a little acidic, but crisp and relatively dry enough to make it approachable. Overall, it’s a very well executed oak-aged sour, more sour and less fruity than expected, but still damn good. A-

Beer Nerd Details: 7.4% ABV bottled (750 ml caged and corked). Drank out of a flute on 10/26/13. Vintage: 2012 Project.

Another winner from Cascade, I’ll have to figure out when and where to pick up some bottles of their more limited releases (anything that starts with “Sang” sounds pretty awesome to me). Or find a mule in a state where they can ship beer (stupid PA liquor laws, and DE and NJ aren’t excused on this one either, as Cascade can’t ship there either). In other news, I’ll have actual Halloween themed beers for you later this week.

Framboise For A Cure

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Every year, the fine folks at Russian River host a month long fundraiser for breast cancer awareness, with the centerpiece being Framboise For A Cure, a sour blonde ale comprised of 80% Temptation and 20% of something called Sonambic, a new beer they’ve been working on using a traditional Coolship (just like them official lambic makers). The blend is then aged in Chardonnay barrels with fresh raspberries. It sounds heavenly, no?

Fortunately for me, the owner of Philly institution Monk’s Cafe, Tom Peters, is good friends with the folks at Russian River and every year, they host a fundraiser of their own. They even release a small amount of bottles, which, alas, I was not able to secure because I’m lazy and didn’t get there until a little after opening. However, I was still fortunate enough to get a taste on tap (and I also picked up another bottle that will no doubt be making an appearance on the blog sometime soon), so let’s get going:

Russian River Framboise For A Cure

Russian River Framboise For A Cure – Bright ruby red color (so many robey tones, you guys), almost no head, though a cap of pinkish hued stuff sticks around so maybe it was just the initial pour or something. Smells of funk, oak, and twangy raspberry. Taste hits that raspberry sweetness up front, oak kicking in towards the middle, with a sourness also coming to the fore in the middle and lasting through the finish, where that raspberry returns and everything ties together. Mouthfeel is well carbonated, crisp and sharp, a little sticky in the finish. Overall, this is a superb, well balanced, complex sour. A

Beer Nerd Details: 6.5% ABV on tap. Drank out of a goblet on 10/19/13.

Because Monk’s is awesome, they were also pouring some other limited gems that I couldn’t resist… it’s for a cure people! And not to go all dudebro on you, but I like breasts. Sue me.

Cantillon Vigneronne

Cantillon Vigneronne – This is a lambic made with hand-picked muscat grapes, and it’s apparently one of the rarer varieties due to the scarcity of grapes (not to mention Cantillon’s general capacity issues). Pours a clear gold color, again with the no head. Smells like a gueuze, taste has a vinous character matched with gueuze-like oak and biting sourness. It is, perhaps, not quite as powerful as a full gueuze, presumably the influence of the grapes. Mouthfeel has a snap to it, well carbonated, just a bit of stickiness in the finish… Overall, I think drinking these two beers back to back pretty much obliterated my palate, but it was totally worth it, and this was clearly another winner from Cantillon. A-

Beer Nerd Details: 5% ABV on tap. Drank out of a goblet on 10/19/13.

Not bad for a lowly Saturday afternoon. I’m going to have to find a way to drag myself out of bed earlier next year and maybe snag a bottle. In any case, I was quite happy to try it on tap and as I mentioned, I managed to snag a bottle of something pretty special, so it was a good day, is what I’m saying.

Ithaca Old Habit

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Ithaca is a brewery that, for some unknown reason, hasn’t garnered much love on this blog. This is more of an oversight than anything else, so don’t grab your torches and pitchforks just yet, as I’m trying to rectify that. Flower Power has steadily built up mindshare in Kaedrin’s crowded go-to IPA category, and just this past summer, whilst on vacation in upstate New York, Ithaca provided me with a savior amongst macros; I sucked down a few Ground Break saisons which were quite nice.

So now I snap into their Excelsior! series of beers, their line of limited run experimental beers. This one is made with four different rye malts, some Centennial and Crystal hops, and is partially fermented/aged in old Rittenhouse Rye barrels. So lets develop some old habits, shall we?

Ithaca Old Habit

Ithaca Old Habit – Pours a murky brown color with half a finger of fizzy off white head that completely disappears after just a few seconds. Smells of dark crystal malts and a sharp rye twang, with hints of that whiskey barrel poking through. Taste has a similar feel to it, very sweet, lots of rich caramelized fruit, some spice coming from the rye, and not a lot in the way of barrel character, though it’s there. The fruit character is interesting, especially in the finish, which isn’t tart or sour or anything, but it has a bite to it that’s hard to place. It very randomly called to mind a soda I used to drink growing up called Frank’s Black Cherry Wishniak (if you grew up in the Philly area at a certain time, you almost certainly know and love this stuff). Of course, I haven’t had that in at least a decade, so take this with a grain of salt, but hey, neurons fire for a reason, and this beer was firing Black Cherry Wishniak neurons. Go figure. Mouthfeel is reasonably well carbonated, on the lower end of full bodied, a little richness, and some stickiness that lingers in the aftertaste. It’s great in small doses, but gets a bit cloying for a whole 750. Reminds me a little of The Bruery Rugbrod. Overall, it’s an interesting beer, definitely got that rye character and it’s a decent drink. B

Beer Nerd Details: 9% ABV bottled (750 ml capped). Drank out of a tulip glass on 10/18/13. Batch # E!045.

Still intrigued by the rest of Ithaca’s Excelsior! series, in particular beers like LeBleu and Brute. Alas, the only other one that appears to be available to me at the moment is White Gold… which may make an appearance at the next beer club…

Fantôme Santé 15!

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The word “Santé” roughly translates to “to your health”, and as such, is often used as a toast, akin to “Cheers” or “Prost” and so on. But in this case, it has a double meaning. Fantôme brewer Danny Prignon brews a new beer every year for a charity that helps those in need of healthcare not provided by standard means, and thus a second meaning of Santé comes into play. That sneaky ghost, always doing the right thing. It’s hard to find much info on these beers, but I gather that the recipes are different every year, though they are always saisons (as befitting Fantôme’s general nature). This particular edition is actually from 2011, and seems to be particularly well regarded, though it is clearly showing its age at this point:

Fantome Sante 15!

Fantôme Santé 15! – Pours a golden yellow color with a finger of bubbly white head that quickly resolves into a ring around the edges that stays around for a while. Smells of earthy, fruity funk, Brett is clearly doing its thing here. Taste is very sweet with a surprising fruity note, almost raisiny, like an aged dubbel or quad, though this is clearly its own thing. That Brett kicks in towards the middle with some tart fruit that intensifies into a full blown sour note in the finish. Mouthfeel is on the upper end of medium bodied, with lower than normal carbonation for Fantôme, but still ample enough to work. A bit of stickiness lingers in the finish as well. Overall, this is yet another interesting offering from Fantôme. It’s showing its age a bit, but it’s really brightening my outlook after a long day at work. B+

Beer Nerd Details: 7% ABV bottled (750 ml capped and corked). Drank out of a goblet on 10/18/13. Bottled July 2011, Released 6&7 August 2011 (charity weekend).

Fantôme continues to fascinate, and I’m always up for trying a bottle of the stuff. You never know what you’re going to get.