Miscellaneous

Adventures in Aging Beer

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I admit it, I buy too much beer. As a result of this, I have a sorta defacto aging program. There have definitely been beers I specifically wanted to lay down for a while, but many beers get aged in my cellar simply because I have a long list of beers I want to try. When all this became clear, I did a little research and laid out my plans in a post about a year and a half ago. So how’s this aging program going? Some general observations:

  • Dark, strong beers seem to work best. Think World Wide Stout, which I loved at 2 years (I have since sampled a fresh pour, and yes, age does good things to this beer). Even just plain dark beers seem to do well with some time on it. I found a year old bottle of Lancaster Milk Stout in my fridge last fall and hot damn, that stuff was absolutely fantastic – smooth and creamy, just perfect (presumably similar results with the likes of other Milk Stouts like Left Hand’s or Coffeehouse Stout).
  • Barrel Aged beers seem to be a mixed bag. One thing that tends to kill me on this is a distinct lack of carbonation that I’m not always sure I can blame on the age. For example, Dock Street’s BA Prince Myshkin RIS and BA Barleywine both had utterly fantastic barrel aged qualities, but they were nearly flat, and that’s a problem for me (some folks seem to be fine with still beer, so good on them). Hoppin Frog’s Barrel Aged B.O.R.I.S. suffered a similar low-carbonation fate. Another thing to consider is hoppy beers, even hoppy stouts. In particular, Victory Dark Intrigue and North Coast Old Rasputin XIV take on a big faded hop character after about a year (still good, but very different from when they were fresh). Speaking of Victory, Oak Horizontal was great when I drank it on the day of release… but got super boozy and unbalanced after just a few months. Not sure if that one will come around… Not all Barrel Aged beers suffered from age. Witness The Bruery’s Coton (which, true, was only 25% bourbon barrel aged), one of the few beers to earn the coveted Kaedrin A+ rating (after a lenghty 2 year stay in my fridge). The difference, I suspect, is the 14.5% ABV.
  • Pumpkin beers don’t seem to work at all. To a lesser extent, spiced beers also seem to fade quickly after a certain point, though they have a good year in them (Anchor’s Christmas Beers are always worth trying after a year). Pumpkin beers, though, do not. Even something like Cape Ann Fisherman’s Imperial Pumpkin Stout, a 10% ABV stout, doesn’t do so well after just one year. The Bruery’s Autumn Maple, while superb when fresh, did not hold up so well to aging. To be fair, perhaps my aging conditions were not ideal for these brews, but I still say drink your Pumpkin beers fresh.
  • Barleywines are a bit of a mixed bag for me. They’re usually good, but extremely hoppy varieties tend to feature a strong faded hop component. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and it works well enough most of the time. English style Barleywines (like this High Water Old And In The Way, which had a year or so on it when I tried it) tend to fare a little better than the American style barleywines, which can be good too, but again, they tend to have a big faded hop component. On the other hand, really high ABV could make up for that. I’d be curious about something like Bolt Cutter, for instance. But I’d drink something like Flying Mouflan (a relatively svelt 9% ABV, and very hoppy too) while fresh.
  • The jury is still out on funky beers and sours for me. I’ve heard that these keep for a really long time, but from what little experience I’ve had, I’m guessing their character changes significantly. Baudelaire iO was fantastic fresh, and still really good with a year on it, but I think I prefer the fresh stuff. I really wish I got to try Broederlijke Liefde when it was fresh, because it felt a bit unruly, but who really knows?

The short story here is that most beers are probably best drunk fresh. Aging is a bit of a crapshoot except when you hit reallly big beers like World Wide Stout or Samichlaus. It’s really cool when aging something does work out, so I feel like it’s worth playing in this realm, but if you just bought a beer that you’ve never had before and are wondering if you should lay it down for a while, I’d probably just crack it open right now. If you like it, pick up another bottle and age that to see what happens. I know, that requires foresight, which is lame. I’m bad at it too.

I’ll have to go through my cellar and catalog some of the stuff I’m intentionally aging (or, uh, unintentionally aging), but I’ll save that for another post.

Voodoo Barrel Room Collection

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Voodoo has a tiny little barrel room and recently held two releases. One out at their brewery in Meadville, PA, and one in the Philly area. The Philly area one was held yesterday, and looky at what I found:

Voodoo Barrel Room Collection

Well hello, my pretties. Gotta love the look of waxed bottles. The three small bottles are Black Magick (big stout somewhere on the order of 15% ABV) variants (one aged in Buffalo Trace barrels, one in Pappy Van Winkle barrels, and one in Laird’s Apple Brandy barrels), the next three bombers are Big Black Voodoo Daddy (one of Voodoo’s staple beers, a still rather large 12.5% stout) aged in the same three barrel types. And lastly, another of Voodoo’s staple beers, Gran Met, a Belgian style tripel aged in Laird’s Apple Brandy barrels. Supposedly, these suckers stayed in the barrels a little longer than planned as Voodoo was opening a brewpub and availability of the packaging line was maxed out.

Anywho, the Philly area release was held at the Blue Dog Tavern in Chalfont, PA (i.e. north of the city). I got there a little over an hour before opening, but while there was a sizable crowd ahead of me, I was there in plenty of time to ensure that I got a bottle of each barrel room beer (some variants only had 72 bottles available at this release). About a half hour before the doors opened, the staff passed out wristbands so that they could do a “deli-style” release – they call your number, and you go to a table to pick up your allotment. Very orderly and convenient, and it allowed me to sit at the bar and try a couple Voodoo rarities, like this beauty:

Voodoo 2 Live Gran Cru Greatest Hits - Vol. 1

They call this stuff 2 Live Gran Cru Greatest Hits – Vol. 1, a blend of Big Black Voodoo Daddy and Black Magick aged in Pappy Van Winkle barrels for 15 months. Don’t mind if I do. Massive bourbon and oak in both the nose and taste, but plenty of malt to balance that out, leading to that great caramel, vanilla, and oak character I love so much. Clocking in at 13% ABV, it’s got a pretty big boozy component too. Big, chewy stuff, smooth with a big boozy bite. Fantastic stuff, and hopefully an omen of what those bottles will taste like. It was a small sample, but I’ll give it an A- for now…

My cellar is getting crowded again, and I’ve even got more stuff coming. It’s going to be a fun summer.

Belgium In A Box

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In a moment of weakness (or strength, depending on your point of view), I finally broke down and ordered some Cantillon (amongst other rarities) direct from the source. I’d heard some good things about Belgium In A Box, and I’m happy to report that they’re everything they’re cracked up to be. As you might expect, shipping from Europe is an expensive proposition, but near as I can tell, Belgium in a Box is very fair about that sort of thing, and the packaging was great. Plus, I got an added bonus:

Cantillon Glassware

Yep, after unpackaging some great beer (and doing the requisite Gollum-like pose while chanting “My precious” for some), I noticed an extra little box, and inside was a very nice Cantillon Gueuze glass, free of charge. This was very generous of the proprietor, Kurt, so I was very grateful (and apparently I’m not alone in singing his praises). All of which is to say, expect things to get Loony (also ghostly and, uh, 3 Fonteineny) in the coming weeks as I work through this box.

Fat Weekend and Pliny Release

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So this past weekend was what we call Fat Weekend, a gathering of portly gentlemen from all over the Northeast (we’re actually not that chubby, but as we like to say, fat is a state of mind). I don’t get to see these guys that often, so it was a fantastic time, but you know, not much in the way of note-taking went on this weekend. I’m not a monster. Although I did unleash my Fat Weekend IPA homebrew on my friends, and it seemed to go over smashingly well (as evidenced by the fact that they drank it all and were asking for more). Again, no notes, so I’ll try to do a more detailed tasting at some point (short story: super dank, piney, resinous, a little on the overcarbonated side, but very good). I did have a ton of different Sam Adams beers throughout the weekend (was pretty happy with the IPL, not so much with Maple Pecan Porter, and there were a bunch of others that I don’t remember), but also some more beer nerdistic stuff like Rye Rebellion (not as whiskey forward as I remember, but still good) and Insanity (still very nice). Victory’s Swing Session Saison was also a solid way to pace myself, considering the weekend-long session…

Another big highlight was the Apple Pie Moonshine, distilled by my buddy up in the boonies of CT. Clocking in at 70 proof, this stuff was dangerously drinkable and tasted just like apple pie. Fortunately/unfortunately (depending on your perspective), we only had one mason jar of the stuff, so I am still alive.

Apple Pie Moonshine

Imitation Solo cups: pure class. Once that was done, we hit up the uncut ‘shine, which was 140 proof and… yeah, not quite as drinkable, though it made a nice additive in mixed drinkland. Speaking of which, this being Fat Weekend, someone also brought a bottle of Bakon… yep, bacon flavored vodka (“Pure. Refreshing. Bacon.”) It was heinous. You’re apparently not supposed to drink it straight up. We speculate that it might work in a Bloody Mary, but were too drunk to go out and buy necessary components. And quite frankly, we didn’t care. It was the thought that counted, you know? Yeah, so a fantastic weekend full of booze and food and laughter (and somewhere in the middle there, a fantasy baseball draft), already looking forward to next year.

I had taken today off to recuperate, but a friend cajoled me into this year’s local Pliny the Younger tapping… It was at the same place I had it last year (and my thoughts on the beer haven’t changed much), but it was a much more annoying event. Last year, they opened at 10 and tapped Pliny at 12. If you got there early, they gave you a ticket and you could grab a seat and a bite to eat. It got crowded a little before they tapped it, but it was otherwise a pretty calm and enjoyable event. This year, they didn’t open early and there was a line outside and once we got in there was basically a clusterfuck of crowds at the bar trying to get their allocation. No one was throwing elbows or anything, and everyone was actually pretty cool, but still. If I wasn’t accompanying someone, I probably wouldn’t have made the effort. On the other hand, I do really enjoy this stuff:

Russian River Pliny the Younger (2013)

Also got myself some more Angel’s Share and Sour in the Rye, which was nice. So a long, good weekend here. Hope yours was too.

The Session #71: Brewers and Drinkers

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session_logo.jpgOn the first Friday of every month, there’s a beer blog roundup called The Session. Someone picks a topic, and everyone blogs about it. John at Homebrew Manual wants to know about everyone’s relationship with beer and how it’s made. He poses a series of questions on the topic:

Do you brew? If so why? If not, why not?

I have dabbled with homebrewing for a few reasons. First, I’m a huge nerd and actually did want to know more about beer and how all of its various characteristics were achieved, etc… But from my perspective, it was more about making something out here in the physical world. I recognized at some point that while I have participated in a lot of creative activities, both personally and professionally, most of what I’ve produced is virtual (i.e. most of my creative endeavors have primarily been done on a computer). There’s nothing wrong with that, per say, but I wanted to make something out here in meatspace. So homebrewing has helped me scratch that itch, and I love beer, so it’s been a really fun process.

How does that affect your enjoyment of drinking beer?

It’s given me more perspective in what I like about beer, and I feel like my palate has become more attuned as a result. It also helps me understand what brewers are talking about, separating actual process from marketing fluff, and so on. In general, I think of all of this as a positive development, and I think I enjoy beer more now than I did a few years ago. I do think there’s a danger in becoming too well versed in this, though I’m not really all that sure either (some of the other questions get into this, so see more below).

Do you need to brew to appreciate beer?

Of course not. In my mind, appreciation and enjoyment are easy. You don’t need to know how something was made in order to appreciate or enjoy it. Indeed, I would say that most people don’t know how the majority of things they use on a day to day basis are made, but that doesn’t stop anyone from appreciating that stuff. Now, perhaps those that brew beer have a greater appreciation… or perhaps not. It’s all very subjective.

Do you enjoy beer more not knowing how it’s made?

This is sorta the flip side of the previous question, and like I said, it’s all very subjective. Life is what you make of it, and enjoyment comes in many flavors. I think knowledge of brewing can be a benefit, or a curse. I recently came across some quotes from Mark Twain’s book Life on the Mississippi, wherein he discusses the details of how he became a steamboat pilot. He learned to read the river, looking for subtle signs on the surface of the water that indicated danger, or where currents were strongest:

The face of the water, in time, became a wonderful book–a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice. And it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell every day.

Sounds pretty cool, right? But then, Twain felt he lost something too:

Now when I had mastered the language of this water and had come to know every trifling feature that bordered the great river as familiarly as I knew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition. But I had lost something, too. I had lost something which could never be restored to me while I lived. All the grace, the beauty, the poetry had gone out of the majestic river!

I think this question of what was gained or lost because of learning a trade wasn’t quite a simple as laid out in the quotes above. In terms of beer, I do think it’s possible to get so wrapped up in the details of the brewing process that some of the majesty of drinking beer goes away, or is at least transmuted into something different than what most of us experience. Is that a good or bad thing? Again, I think it all depends on your perspective. If you’re so inclined, you could feel the loss that Train felt. Or you could see the gain of something else entirely. Or maybe vacillate back and forth. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

If you brew, can you still drink a beer just for fun?

Well, I certainly have no problem doing so. Would someone who has achieved a Twain level of mastery be able to? I would assume so.

Can you brew without being an analytical drinker?

This is a tough one, because I was an analytical drinker even before I brewed anything. I’d like to think that my analysis is better now that I brew, but I think we again come back to the subjective nature of the process. Are there brewers out there who can’t help themselves but to analyze the beer they’re drinking to death, even whilst in a social engagement? Probably. But I suspect most brewers would be able to turn off such analysis in at least some situations, alcohol being a social lubricant and all that. I certainly don’t seem to have any problem doing so.

Do brewers get to the point where they’re more impressed by technical achievements than sensory delight?

I think that’s certainly possible, though I don’t think it’s an inevitable occurrence. In particular, I think a lot of brewers have become obsessed with strange and weird ingredients (I’m looking at you, Dogfish Head!) There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but my favorite beers tend to have a pretty straightforward set of ingredients. Oh, and they taste good. That’s ultimately the bar that needs to be set for a question like this, and I think there are some breweries out there that take the whole experimental angle perhaps a bit too far, I think they’re ultimately doing so in the hopes of opening up new avenues of sensory delight, which I can hardly fault them for. You never know until you try.

Does more knowledge increase your awe in front of a truly excellent beer?

I think it does, and actually, I think more knowledge has expanded the scope of what I’d consider truly excellent beer. There are a number of beer styles or flavor profiles that I’ve found to be an acquired taste, and I think knowledge has helped unlock some of the secrets of such brews. Of course, knowledge comes in many different forms, one being knowledge of other beers, another being how a given beer was made.

Ultimately, I beer is what we want it to be. It can be enjoyed with or without context, and while knowledge may change the ways in which one appreciates beer, it need not prevent enjoyment.

Welcome to 2013

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It’s going to be a good year in beer:

Recent Acquisitions

(Click for a bigger version)

For the record, that’s Bourbon County Brand Coffee Stout, The Bruery Black Tuesday, Fantôme La Dalmatienne, New Glarus Serendipity, Founders Bolt Cutter, and Three Floyds Dark Lord. And that doesn’t include some other recent and exciting acquisitions. 2013 is shaping up to be a good one… at least, in terms of beer.

2012 Year End Musings

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The Earth has once again completed its orbit around the Sun, which for some reason means that we should all take stock of what we did over the past orbital period and post our top 10 whatever. Here at Kaedrin, we like things, so I’m thinking we’ll post our top 40 beers. That sounds like a lot, but it’s been a good year, and I’ve sampled at least 250 different beers, if not more. Plus, I stink at choosing favorites, and with something as varied as beer with all its disparate styles, I need some breathing room.

Before we get to the big list, I thought I’d muse a bit on the themes of the year. This is, of course, more about me than the industry in general. But that’s why you’re here, right?

  • Trading – Yes, I’ve dipped my feet into that most nerdy of pursuits, beer trading. Indeed, at least a few of the top 40 wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for some trades made this year, and I’m betting this will flow into next year as well. I don’t see myself reaching the heights of the true beer nerds out there, but I’m sure I’ll be getting ahold of more and more interesting beers in the coming year. Special thanks to Jay for kickstarting this new phase in my beer dorkery.
  • Sour Beer – Despite experimenting with sours over the past few years, I didn’t fully buy in until this year. Naturally, these are beers that are expensive and harder to find, but I’m sure you’ll be seeing a lot more in the way of sour beer in the next year or so. At the very least, I expect to hunt down some Cantillon and Drie Fonteinen, so it should be a fun year.
  • White Whales – When I first started this blog, I found it frustrating to read all these other blogs about beers that I’d never seen before or that weren’t really available in the area. Well, that’s changed somewhat, but then, so has the definition of “White Whale”. I’m certainly not to the point where I’m going to start creatively misspelling them as .rar walez or anything silly like that, and the stuff that those trading nerds revere as wales will probably never made their way into my greedy paws (not that I’d mind, but still, those seem like tough beers to land). In the meantime, I’ll have to settle for shelf whales and the like, but that’s not a problem or anything. In a year where I got to try DONG (draft only, no growler) whales like Pliny the Younger, or pre-brick Westy 12 (tasted so much rarer back then), or witness the emergence of Tired Hands, I really have no room to complain and heck, I’m starting to feel a little bad about constantly reviewing beers that aren’t that easy to find for the majority of the country. A little. Not that I’m going to stop or anything.
  • Barrel Aged Beer – These continue to be a little obsession of mine, and that partly feeds into my newfound admiration for sours as well. That being said, bourbon barrel aged stouts and barleywines continue to be a favorite, and I’ve got some supposedly spectacular stuff lined up for 2013.
  • Palate – I always feel awkward discussing my palate for this stuff, but I will say that I’ve started to get pickier about certain things. I’ve especially become sensitive to hoppy beer and age/storage issues. It’s not something I recognized much in previous years, but this year it became more obvious that fresh, hoppy beer is really ideal and that such beers need to be refrigerated immediately, etc… I’m also getting to be one of those nerds that can identify certain hop varieties by aroma/taste. I’m not awesome at it, but I can pick out a lot of the usual suspects like Cascade/Simcoe, Centennial, and the like. And I’m getting there with specialty malts too, though I’m certainly far from an expert on either. Most of this is due to my further exploration of:
  • Home Brewing – I actually only made 3 batches of beer in 2012, but two of them were fantastic, and the other is actually conditioning nicely and getting better as we speak. I would have probably made another batch at some point this year, but I was redoing my kitchen, so that didn’t happen. My new stove, however, might help speed up the process. I guess there’s only one way to find out. I’m actually hoping to try some more adventurous stuff in the homebrewing realm this year, so stay tuned.
  • Aging/Cellaring Beer – I’ve mentioned a few times that my eyes are bigger than my liver, so my cellar has grown to be rather large at this point (this might be part of why I’m attracted to trading, but we’ll see how that goes). Some of that stuff is aging intentionally, others will just take a while for me to get to. As mentioned above, I tend to favor drinking hoppy stuff right away at this point, but I’ve got some really interesting beer in the cellar that I want to get to ASAP. Others are things that I really want to age and find out how well they hold up. Only one way to find out, I guess.

It’s been a good year, filled with great beer. So great that, like I said earlier, I’m going to post my top 40 beers, if I can even manage that. Like last year, this list is based solely on what I drank this year. While I drank my fair share of 2012-only limited releases, a lot of these will be old-hat to some of you. To qualify for the list, I had to drink the beer in 2012, and I had to review the beer on this here blog (each beer will be linked to its respective review). They’re all at least an A- on my grading scale, and they’re being listed from best to “worst”, though I should note that this is a pretty fluid list. Stuff could shift around depending on my mood, and there are some A- beers that ended up looming larger on my mind than expected, perhaps even pushing out an A. Go figure. If you’re really curious, check out the archives on the right of the page. Ok, enough disclaimers and equivocation, here’s the list:

  1. The Bruery Coton (Old Ale)
  2. Logsdon Farmhouse Ales Seizoen Bretta (Saison)
  3. Hill Farmstead Abner (Double IPA)
  4. Lost Abbey Red Poppy Ale (Flanders Red Ale)
  5. Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout (Imperial Stout)
  6. Firestone Walker Parabola (Imperial Stout)
  7. Bell’s Hopslam Ale (Double IPA)
  8. Firestone Walker §ucaba (Barleywine)
  9. Hill Farmstead Society and Solitude #2 (American Black Ale)
  10. Russian River Pliny the Younger (Double IPA)
  11. Trappist Westvleteren 12 (Quadrupel)
  12. Firestone Walker XV – Anniversary Ale (American Strong Ale)
  13. Oude Gueuze Tilquin à L’Ancienne (Gueuze)
  14. Jolly Pumpkin Baudelaire iO Saison (Saison)
  15. Weyerbacher Whiskey Barrel Aged (American Brown Ale)
  16. Rodenbach Grand Cru (Flanders Red Ale)
  17. Tired Hands Flavor Aroma (IPA)
  18. The Bruery and Cigar City Collaboration: Marrón Acidifié (Flanders Oud Bruin)
  19. Hill Farmstead Double Citra IPA (Double IPA)
  20. Tired Hands Westy13 (Saison?)
  21. Three Floyds Zombie Dust (American Pale Ale)
  22. Weyerbacher Insanity (Barleywine)
  23. Tired Hands Zombie (American Black Ale)
  24. Russian River Row 2/Hill 56 (American Pale Ale)
  25. Victory Oak Horizontal (Barleywine)
  26. Dieu Du Ciel Équinoxe Du Printemps (Scotch Ale)
  27. Full Pint Rye Rebellion (Imperial Stout)
  28. HaandBryggeriet Bestefar (Winter Warmer)
  29. Bink Grand Cru (Belgian Strong Dark Ale)
  30. Mikkeller Beer Geek Brunch Weasel (Imperial Stout)
  31. Hoppin’ Frog Barrel Aged Naked Evil (Barleywine)
  32. Lagunitas Sucks Holiday Ale (Double IPA)
  33. Port Brewing Older Viscosity (Imperial Stout)
  34. Victory Éclat Cocoa Lager (Dark Lager)
  35. La Trappe Quadrupel Barrique (Oak Aged) – Batch 3 (Quadrupel)
  36. Great Divide Chocolate Oak Aged Yeti (Imperial Stout)
  37. The Bruery Oude Tart (Flanders Red Ale)
  38. Schlafly Reserve Imperial Stout 2008 (Imperial Stout)
  39. Affligem Dubbel (Dubbel)
  40. Tripel Karmeliet (Tripel)

Hot damn, that was much more difficult than I thought it would be. I could have easily made this a top 50 without blinking, and those 10 that I left off could have muscled their way onto the above list if I were in a different mood. And heck, there are some superb beers I just recently had that haven’t been reviewed yet – ¿Impending Descent? could have made the list for sure… but it’ll have to wait til next year, I guess. Speaking of which, I’ll see you then. Have a great new year!

Update: Jay has posted his top beers of 2012 today as well, check it out, his lists are always worth reading…

Second Anniversary

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If you’ll permit some blogtastic navel-gazing, I passed the two year mark of the blog a couple weeks ago (being drunk at the time, I neglected to note said anniversary and kinda forgot about it). To celebrate, I’ve cracked open a homebrewed Earl Grey Bitter, and nerd that I am, compiled some statistics that you should totally read because I know you’re all enraptured by such things:

  • 379 Total Posts, 227 in the past year (this represents a significant increase in posting rate, from about 3 posts a week to a little over 4 a week)
  • 303 Total Comments, not a metric I measured last year, but I get the impression that I’ve had a lot more this year than last year. It should also be noted that a significant number of comments are my responses, though none of this includes other forms of response (emails, tweets, etc…), which have been plentiful this year as well… Much of this interaction is due to certain other awesome bloggers, so thanks guys!
  • 70 posts about IPAs, 43 in the past year, making that the most talked-about style on the blog. Stouts come in second with 51 posts (30 in the past year). This is on par with last year, and it should be noted that I don’t break out double/imperial varieties either (which inflates numbers a bit). Rounding out the top styles are Saison (28 posts), Belgian Strong Dark (25 posts), American Pale Ale (18 posts) and Tripel (18 posts).
  • 28 posts about Victory Brewing, which remains the most talked about brewery on the blog. Tied in a distant second place are Russian River, Mikkeller, Ommegang, and Weyerbacher, each clocking in at 14 posts. Rounding out the most talked about breweries, we’ve got: Dogfish Head (12), Founders (12), Tröegs (12), Stone (11), The Bruery (11), and Lagunitas (10).
  • 183 different breweries have posts. This is not a metric I measured last year, so I don’t know how it really compares, but even after two years, I still find myself consistently adding new breweries to the list.
  • 242 posts about beer from US breweries, which is over 4 times as many posts as the runner up, Belgium (54). The UK comes in at 20 posts (though 10 are from Scotland), and Denmark puts in a strong showing (no doubt fueled by Mikkeller) at 17 posts. Scotland, Canada, and Germany get some love, but probably not enough, coming in at 10,9, and 8 posts respectively.
  • 129 posts featured a beer rated B+, which remains most common rating by a rather large margin. It is, perhaps, a little overused and a bunch of those beers should probably be a B, but whatever, it’s not like I try to drink mediocre beer. Speaking of which, coming in second place is A- with 97 posts, followed by B with 84 posts, and A with 50 posts. Last year, there was a little more parity in that the B and B- ratings pretty neatly paralleled the A- and A ratings respectively, but now the distribution is a little top heavy. Again, I’m going out of my way for good beer, so this is probably a good thing.

Last year, I was a little taken aback by how much beer I’d drank/reviewed. Little did I know that I would significantly outpace myself this year. However, I should note that I think I’ve curtailed drinking overall a bit, despite the increase in posting. In my first year, I was still drinking a fair amount of six packs/cases/duplicate beers (only one of which would be reviewed), but it’s pretty rare for me to drink the same beer twice these days (the grand majority of which are reviewed), and even more rare to put down a full six pack. The one exception to this is probably homebrew, though I tend to give a lot of that away too.

The blog is definitely still focused mainly on beer reviews, though I do try to use the review as an excuse to wax philosophic about style, history, or issues of the day, and I do try to liven things up from time to time with screenplays or even adventure! I’d like to do some more brewery visits to up and coming stars in the future as well. I was pretty good about non-review posts for a portion of the year, but I’ve since fallen out of that habit. Mayhap I can return to that sometime too. I’ve been at this long enough that I should really put together a best posts category, so if you have any favorites, feel free to let me know.

So yeah, it’s been a good year, tons of great beer and a lot of fun. I don’t see myself slowing down anytime soon, so keep your eyes peeled. Some spectacular stuff coming in the near future, if I can manage it. Cheers!

A Victory For Barrel Aging

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Well I just posted about Victory’s Red Thunder, where they age their Baltic porter in red wine barrels, but it appears that Victory isn’t stopping there. Though there’s no press releases about these additional barrel aging projects, their labels have been showing up on BeerPulse, which means that something is going on.

First up, we’ve got Victory Oak Horizontal Bourbon Barrel-aged Barleywine. The name is a play on Victory’s Old Horizontal, a barleywine they actually haven’t made in a couple years due to the large amount of production resources required to brew it. Fortunately, Victory’s opening a new facility nearby which should increase production to the point where they can play around with big beers like this again, and this Bourbon Barrel treatment sounds like a great idea:

Victory Oak Horizontal Label

Next, we’ve got Victory White Monkey White Wine Barrel-aged Tripel. Again, the name is a play on Golden Monkey, one of my longtime favorites from Victory. I’m not a huge white wine guy, but this actually does seem like a good match, and it’s nice to see that breweries are taking chances on things other than Bourbon barrels (even if they still tend to be my favorite)…

Victory White Monkey Label

In short, it’s looking like Victory is getting more adventurous these days, a trend I can certainly get behind. Of course, I have no idea when the above bottles will be released – it could very well be far off, but I’m guessing they’ll show up sometime later this year or early next year. And with the opening of their new facility, I only expect to see more of this barrel-aged stuff start to show up. Not to mention the prospect of getting more Wild Devil (which is basically Brett dosed Hop Devil). And who knows, maybe they’ll start bottling some of them Ranch Double IPA series beers… But for now, I’ll just be happy with the above (and with my cellared Dark Intrigue and Otto in Oak)

Update 12/23/12: Both Red Thunder and Oak Horizontal have been released and reviewed… Cheers!

Red Thunder Is Coming

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So I don’t normally resort to press release bloggery, but this one interests me:

Victory Brewing Company is known for melding traditional styles and unique concepts to produce the highest quality, full flavored beers. Red Thunder does just that. By aging their popular Baltic Thunder in once-used red wine barrels from Wente Vineyards, Victory Brewing Company created Red Thunder. The burnished cocoa creaminess of the Baltic-style porter is accented by the tannic dryness of the wood to produce a rich, fruity final product.

Yessss. It looks like this one will be taking the pre-Thanksgiving release-day slot that was previously owned by Dark Intrigue. That became known as “Dark Wednesday”, so I don’t know what this will be… “Red Wednesday” or “Wednesday Thunder” or perhaps just “Cattle Call”. In all seriousness, I don’t know that I’ll be attending. They say the beer will get a limited distribution in the Northeast (and, uh, Illinois), so I’m sure I’ll be able to get my hands on a few bottles in any case (at least, if other Victory rarities are any indication). But who knows. I think I’ve already established that I’m a weak, weak man when it comes to stuff like this.

Victory Red Thunder Logo

Anywho, kudos to Victory for actually announcing this, rather than just letting a few of them slip into distribution without telling anyone the way they did with Otto in Oak (though I managed to pick up a few extras of that, thankfully). I’m not all that familiar with red wine barrel aging (at least, with respect to non-sour beer, and this one doesn’t sound like it would be swimming with wild bacteria or anything), so I’m really curious to see how this turns out.