Dogfish Head: Sixty One

The most beautiful thing about Dogfish Head brewing and Sam Calagione (Head of Dogfish) is that they don't get bogged down with the industry. Hops are in right now, the top beers on Beer Advocate right now are all double IPAs. So instead of worrying about bottling a brand new year round hop bomb, Sam splintered off in another direction. Apparently inspired by Sam pouring some red wine in his friends round of 60 Minute, Sixty One combines the unique bitterness from wonderful hops with the lively spiciness of the syrah grape, my personal favorite wine grape. I was very excited to try this beer, and it didn't disappoint.

This beer immediately pours a beautiful red tinted pale, with an amazing fruity aroma, both pepper and citrus. The syrah grape must added really works excellently with the bitter hops, giving it a dry fruitiness with a very crisp beer, loads of citrus and bitterness rolling over the tongue. Unlike some of Dogfish Heads previous wine related releases, this beer will be available four times a year in four packs, at around twelve bucks, much better than the fifteen dollars for a 750ml, and much easier to drink when you want it. This is a definitive dinner beer if there ever was one.

Mystic Brewing: Lord Falconer

In medieval times oats were a common ingredient in ale, used to help bitter some beers that were being brewed far too sweet by peasants on farmland. Eventually though, as beer brewing become more precise and they were able to get better efficiency of sugar to alcohol, oats were no longer needed for beer. In The Story of the Pint by Martyn Cornell he mentions that eventually sailors from the era wouldn't even drink an oat ale because it was too bitter. And while a few brewers brewed an stout with oats in it, the style was dead by the 1950's. UNTIL Michael Jackson, the beer hunter, published the first important book on beer, The World Guide to Beer. In that book he mentions a defunct oatmeal stout brewed by Eldridge Pope. This simple chunk of beer history leads Charles Finkel, founder of Merchant du Vin, a very important importer, to commission Samuel Smith to brew an Oatmeal Stout, and a style of beer was resurrected, and Sam Smith's Oatmeal Stout became the standard for the style.


So this was a pretty long intro to get to a new beer released from Mystic Brewing, Lord Falconer Oatmeal Stout. Lord Falconer is the first in what I assume will be a collection of beers in the the Wigglesworth series, based on traditional english recipes. The Wigglesworth family settled in the Mystic Valley in 1631 and became prominent East India traders, bringing beer to the streets on Boston. Now we've got Mystic brewing an interpretation in our backyard for us to drink fresh.

Lord Falconer itself pours a heavy and deep black, and the nose is immediately chocolate and roasted sweetness. The taste is at first sweet with a balance of coffee and that bitter breadyness from the oats. First reaction is simple, this beer is amazing, balanced between sweet and tart, but the smoothest I've had from an oatmeal stout. This starts a battle between the best in the category, with Sam Smith's Oatmeal stout, and Founders Breakfast Stout, and I think a side by side is in order. Bottom line, this beer is so tasty, and at $4 a half liter it's worth buying over and over again.

Boston Beer Works 21st Birthday Dinner

Tuesday March 12th Boston Beer Works had their 21st birthday party at the Fenway location. Finally, it was old enough to drink! To celebrate they threw a nice little 4-course beer dinner, and I was lucky enough to be invite to enjoy. It's the first real beer dinner I've ever attended, and needless to say I was pumped.

I feel like I'm not alone in the group of beer lovers that can forget about Beer Works in a state with a booming craft beer populous, next to Vermont and Maine who are churning out excellent brewers. But it happens at least 5 times a year, whether it's going to a Lowell Spinners game, or wondering around Fenway and finding that the Yard House is way too pretentious to stick around in, I end up sitting in front of some very fresh beer, eating some nachos and watching Hockey, and it's always enjoyable. 

Coming in the experience is immediately great, being given a sample of some of their bottled beer and some excellent appetizers, it already felt like it was going to be a great night. But appetizers and samples of beer are one thing; I was ready to sit down for the good stuff, the meal. 

Beer Works did not mess around with this dinner. To start they served a crepe filled with creamy artichokes topped with cider vinaigrette. It was paired with Baker's Island Blonde, a Munich style golden lager, and while I was expecting a blonde ale, it was an excellent helles bock style beer that opened the meal nice and light, not filling me up too much as there was 3 more courses to go.

The 2nd course was seared sea scallops over vegetable risotto with a hopped gastrique paired with Crimson Clover Irish Red ale. First, the scallops were perfect, cutting like butter and tasting perfect and incredibly fresh. Too bad for the one guy near us that didn't like seafood, but his neighbor got to reap the benefits of extra scallops. The beer was much less hoppy than the red ale I sampled earlier and I actually enjoyed it more, being excellently balanced and not overpowering to the food. 

3rd course was where the amazing stuff happens. Roasted rack of lamb over ratatouille with a balsamic reduction, paired with their soon to be bottled Rosemary Imperial Pale Ale. This is what I imagine a beer dinner is for, an excellent hoppy rosemary ale that compliments a perfectly cooked piece of lamb. The entire accompaniment from the ratatouille to the sweet potato puree dashed on the side made this dish a perfect pair with an herbally spiced beer that really feels like it was made for this. 

And finally, the dessert was a ginger flan with candied citrus and ginger on the side, with a perfect dessert drink, their Irish Cream Stout. The flan was very well done, but really, the beer could be the dessert on itself, silky smooth for a stout with rich roasted chocolate and coffee all the way through. It was an excellent beer to end the night. If Beer Works is going to have more dinners in the future then I highly recommend checking it out, because for the first beer dinner they've done in years, they certainly knew how to make it work, and I'd certainly do it again.

The Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery: First Edition

If you've ever taken a high school biology class studying the brain, you may have seen the image of a duck. You might take a second look and think it actually looks like a rabbit. This ambiguous image can spur simple conversations about how our brains process images based on perspective. Look at it from one direction and it looks like a duck, and the other a rabbit. Apparently though, the image comes from a German humor magazine in 1892, with the concept of, What two animals look most alike? Spurring a hundred years of scientific debate from a joke certainly makes it a unique image. And apparently it also struck brewer Paul Philippon enough that he wanted to tie his brewery to the famous picture, and connected his former life as a philosophy professor to his new venture in brewing. Thus Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewing was born. 
One of the great things about having beer loving friends in other parts of the country are that when they need a place to crash for a weekend, I can have them repay the favor in beer. Their mixed 6 pack contained many gems, but the ones I felt compelled to open up first were two beers made by a brewery that specializes in dark beers. 
One of the reasons I was so pumped was seeing Hoppy Bunny American Black Ale. I had just written a blog post about my favorite schwarzbier and to get another similar style for comparison was very enticing. Hoppy Bunny poured a dark sludge with wonderful hop oils visible on the top and sides of the glass. The taste was just as delicious as the smell, with piney hop freshness and deep chocolate malts in the finish. Just sweet enough to balance wonderfully with the bitter hops. 
One wasn't enough, plus we ran out of heat in the house so it was a bit chilly. Perfect weather for a rich dark beer. Luckily their Porter was just sitting there calling my name. Duck-Rabbit's Porter poured very similar to the last beer but didn't have the hops clinging to the glass as the head crashed into the beer sea. The smell is very minimal, but once it hits the lips it's just full of flavor. And this is one of the creamiest porters I've ever tasted. The beer just swims in chocolate malts and bready goodness. The hop finish is minimal but defiantly helps level out the sweetness. A wonderful porter. 
I really can't wait till I take a trip down to Virginia in a month to drink more Duck-Rabbit and see how great it can be fresh out of the tank. Defiantly worth picking these guys up if you ever get the chance. 

Jack's Abby: Cascadian Schwarzbier

How the hell have I not written about Jack's Abby yet? Hoponius Union is one of my top five favorite beers. I've never been disappointed with any of there beers. I remember getting the first bottle of beer from them. In March of 2012 Jack's Abby released its very first bottled beer in cute little half liter bottles. And what was that release? A Schwarzbier, a German style black lager originating in Thuringia, Germany dating back to the 1500s, and a type beer that just isn't too prevalent in this market. I can probably count on one hand the number of black lagers I see on the shelf. And I can tell you how many are better than Jack's Abby's Cascadian Schwarzbier: Zero. 

Cascadian Schwarzbier is, so far, the best black lager I've ever tasted, and I might be partial to the strong hops in this guy, that smell like a delicious christmas tree mixed with some roasted chocolate and coffee. The beer itself is a deep and black, and the taste itself is much more chocolate than the coffee in the nose, with delicious hop resin sticking to just about everything it can. I highly doubt the original German version of this beer is this hoppy, but I just don't care. It doesn't matter when it’s this delicious.