Let Wine Be Drunk Though the Heavens Fall
A brief note today for this beer made with peach juice from concentrate. I guess Dogfish Head was going for refreshing, but they got unbalanced muck in the end. This pours a very pale yellow, and smells like a light wheat ale. The palate is pretty much equivalent to canned peaches pureed into a basic wheat beer and a high level of acidity/tartness. It’s a simple beer that just didn’t come together well for me.
Fair
$4 / 375ml at Brewery Creek
This Gueze Lambic is from the legendary Fonteinen of Belgium, who have become even more legendary after a warehouse fire destroyed their entire stock about a year ago. As a result, their beer prices shot up and the beers themselves became rare specialty commodities that collectors now prize highly.
Lucky for me, the last time I was in San Francisco, I stopped by Healthy Spirits, an awesome beer store in the Castro district, and found a bottle of this taunting me with its simple beauty. So yes, like any faithful beer geek I picked up a bottle.
I opened this a few months later, and found it to be one of the best Geuze style lambics I have had the fortune to taste. The nose has the classic notes of must, funk, damp cellar, oak, wood, and some dried fruits. This is very expressive aromatically and has crazy nuances that newer Geuzes just don’t reveal.
The palate had citrus, dried apricot, wood, forest, and pine needles all mashed together in a very robust, and yet low alcohol, potion of goodness. The beer was smooth, slightly off-dry and had great complexity. In the end, it confirmed the legend – a rare and singular offering. If you ever see one of these beers pick it up immediately, you will not be disappointed.
Excellent
$15 / 375ml at Healthy Spirits
I’m not sure that I’ve ever written up what is perhaps not only my favourite go to stout, but also one of the best balanced and most ageable stouts out there. Brooklyn’s Black Chocolate Stout is actually not brewed with chocolate, but rather with copious amounts of chocolate malts. One can certainly taste and smell all levels of dark chocolate in this wonderfully made beer. Further, as part of an ongoing debate on twitter about chocolate and wine, I want to come out on my blog to say that in my opinion no alcohol pairs better with chocolate than stouts. The huge range of stouts is versatile and able to pair with the huge range of chocolate styles, which is precisely what I did with this amazing stout that I aged for 3 years before consuming.
The nose on the stout has vanilla, caramel, loads of chocolate and heavy roasted coffee. The palate is ridiculously smooth after 3 years in the bottle, and tasted like cigar, caramel, sugar, wood, dark roasted coffee and bitter cacao. These high alcohol stouts really only show their full potential when stored away for at least a year, many improving well beyond that. For me, big imperial stouts are the perfect dessert drink, much more so than sweet wines. 10% ABV.
Excellent
$2.75/375ml at BCLDB (for the current release 08-09)
British Columbia has recently begun to improve its selection of craft beers, which is nice to see. However, most of them are merely solid but not overly exciting examples of a particular style. Perhaps I was spoiled by spending 5 months embroiled in California’s thriving micro-brew culture, but my exposure to fine beers in the U.S. changed my perception of what is truly great.
This is all the more reason why I think this Belgian ‘prune’ beer is super. It has a level of complexity and experimentation that you rarely find in the BC market, and, well, it’s just really darn tasty. Being a fruit beer, some might expect this to be based on a weisse style or on the lambic style. It’s not really either of those – instead being a hybrid between a belgian strong ale and a wild ale. The nose on this is fantastic: similar to a geueze lambic or a beer made with brettanomyces yeast, this also has a nice wet forest/cellar smell while pushing subtle belgian fruit esters forward. The prune aroma is subtle but present.
Best of all, this beer is not made with added sugar or in a sickly fruity sweet style. You can still taste the prune and the fruit, but the beer actually finishes dry and wonderful. There is a degree of complex malting going on here that is similar to what Allagash or Lost Abbey do with their beers and something you don’t taste very much in BC. This is very full and robust while being light and creamy in the mouth. The 8% ABV is completely unnoticeable. I’m sipping on this right now and thinking “I love this beer”. If you want to taste a real beer in Vancouver, do not pass this by.
Excellent and Highly Recommended Value
$15 / 750ml at Viti
I’ve written about the diversity of lager before, and the unfortunate dominance of mass market beer in the lager department. Shmaltz Brewing is taking the challenge, though, with their Coney Island line of lagers in a myriad of styles. Unfortunately, this particular iteration did not work for me and felt quite unbalanced compared to the basic Coney Island Lager or the Albino Python.
This poured a very dark cloudy reddish-brown with a big 1.5″ head: not at all reminiscent of your standard macro-lager. The nose was perhaps a bit too malty, though, and that sweetness persisted on the palate with cherries, banana, rootbeer, brown sugar and spice. This beer is like an overly-happy person who seems great at first glance but begins to wear on you at an exponential rate. The beer is pretty tasty on the first sip, but loses its charm with a few more. It’s too bad, but I still highly recommend Shmaltz’ other lager offerings.
Fair
$9/22oz @ Brewery Creek
It’s somewhat ironic that this review finally made it up on the site one day after Vancouver’s first major rain storm of the fall/winter doldrums. So, if you’ll excuse my seasonal anachronism I’ll tell you that I was expecting a lot more from this wheat beer from New York.
The nose on this hybrid style was big and hoppy with notes of Belgian fruit esters, and unfortunately a weird cardboard edge. The dry hops continued on the palate, with hints of pine needles. But, the hops really make this beer unbalanced for some reason and the cardboard taste persisted over two bottles, making me wonder if the entire shipment to Vancouver was off. This is simple but not really that summery – which perhaps is appropriate for this tardy review.
Good+
$4/333ml @ Brewery Creek
Made in a Belgian blonde ale style, this very well crafted beer has become my new standby blonde. Pouring with a murky and yeasty colour, this beer has a pleasant deep straw colour and a small but persistent head. The nose has apple, banana, tropical fruits and cream, while the palate is filled with tropical fruits and is rich and full with an opulent creamy texture. This is a flavourful blonde ale with more richness than is standard from Belgium, and some interesting herbal bitterness on the finish. A highly drinkable beer, the Pranqster is food friendly for simple French or Belgian inspired fare.
Very Good
$10 / 4 pack of 333ml bottles at BCLDB (more at private stores)
Lambic is a kind of belgian beer made in a style with which most people are likely to be unfamiliar. Sour and tart on the palate, and often with funky, even bready, flavours, lambics can be an acquired taste for beer drinkers. However, these days sour beers inspired by the traditional Belgian lambics are becoming all the rage in the US microbrewing scene and have precipitated a wave of impressive beers from the likes of Russian River, Lost Abbey, etc.
However, even with all the excellent sours being made in the US, it is nice to go back to the source and try a traditional blended unflavoured geuze lambic (made from aged and young lambic and no added fruit). Further, given BC’s severe lack of microbrews and interesting beers, it is nice to see a properly made (i.e. sour) gueze lambic on the shelves in the province.
This particular lambic had a nose with bread, funk, green apple, dry lager yeast, lemon and spice. The palate is sour, but also balanced with funky earth, must, bread and a ton of yeast flavours (kind of like rising bread smell). While not for all, this is a beer that anyone with an adventurous palate should taste and it is certainly an excellent authentic version of the Belgian lambic. And, as an added bonus, it pairs brilliantly with stilton cheese.
Excellent
$9/375ml at Viti or Brewery Creek
With the recent spate of fall-like weather in Vancouver, a lager may be the last thing on your mind right now. For the beer geek, the lager has become emblematic of big corporate beer and its quest to dominate the realm of flavour with bland swill. Fortunately, both the weather monger and the corporate beer hater have something to appreciate in this micro-brew from New York. Shmaltz brewing, also producers of the HeBrew series, uses the Coney Island label to exclusively release lagers. Contrary to popular belief in the beer geek world, lagers are not de facto flavourless and boring. In fact, lagers constitute quite a large category of beers unto themselves, similarly to ales, and the style should not be written off quickly. Lagers are traditionally made in spring and cold-stored over the summer months and come in various styles including Helles, Bock, Marzen and Pilsner. Further, lager can range from dark and malty, to hoppy, to light and dry, the lattermost being the dominant style in the US macro-brewing market.
This particular lager is on the darker and maltier side of the scale, with a nose of sweet malts, fruit, bread, sugar, banana bread and candy apple. Interestingly, the palate is almost Belgian-like and has an incredibly full bodied texture and really highlights the bready elements of the beer. Despite its massiveness, I also enjoyed some slight floral notes on the palate and its very clean dry finish, which also happens to make it outstanding for pairing with fuller bodied spicy foods. I suggest trying this beer with some East Indian cuisine or a spicy sausage, and I hope that any beer afficionado is willing to give this beer a try in order to revitalize the unfairly demonized world of the lager.
Very Good+
$9 / 22oz at Brewery Creek
With our arcane alcohol importing laws in BC it is an exciting event to see a new brewery on the shelves. Oregon’s Pelican Brewery has recently arrived in Vancouver with 3-4 offerings. I had heard good things when I was living in California but never had the chance to try anything from Pelican, until now.
The colour on this scotch ale is a golden brown, which is metaphorically suggestive of the malty nose with its great notes of honey and walnuts. On the palate this has great balance for a scotch ale (many of which can be too sweet), and has a nice creamy texture for smooth drinking. When sipping I noticed flavours that remind me of lager yeasts along with nuts and honey. Easy drinking and food friendly, but also simple. Enjoyable but not mind blowing.
Very Good
$8 / 22oz Bomber at Brewery Creek
