Twelve Beers of Christmas - Night Two

Oxbow Brewing Sasuga

2016 Vintage

Zippy tartness leads the palate into a floral, grain driven farmhouse funk. Perfect carbonation, silky mouthfeel and great harmony of unripe tropical fruit undertones and rustic earthy fieldgrass notes throughout.

Fuji Apple, lemon zest, mandarin pith, floral jasmine rice,  apricot pits, pineapple cores, mango skin, dusty hay.

Twelve Beers of Christmas - Night Three

Orval

2013 Vintage

Yes, I understand, not a rare cellar beer but then again... isn't that a good thing? I will say the ability to locate these on the shelf has become more and more difficult as most bottle shops do not have space for the classics which in my humble opinion is a damn shame! I asked a decent size liquor shop where their Belgian section was the other day and they pointed to a shelf that had Spencer 4pks and Ommegang As Seen on TV bottles from the US. But somehow they managed to find space for dusty expired old IPA's up and down the aisles. That's when I get disappointed as a beer lover... the amount of beer enthusiasts in this world that have not experienced the full breadth of styles and beers that helped shape the craft of beer making for centuries. Im not saying in order to appreciate beer you need to spend a year abroad traveling from country to country harvesting grains, sampling water sources, learning alpha acid chemistry and analyzing yeast strains under a microscope. But god dammit maybe try a proper german pilsner or hefeweizen next time you make a purchase and while your at it grab a saison dupont, rochefort 10 and please please also grab an Orval!

 Orval pours a deep golden color with fingers and fingers of billowing pillowy laced out foam. The nose is fruity with classic unripe pineapple brettanomyces mingling with rustic malts and dry grassy hay. The palate follows the nose nicely with great mouthfeel from the beers structure and well integrated carbonation. Refreshingly bitter with tons of complexity under the guise of a chuggable delicious beer!

Floral Hay, Unripe Pineapple Cores, Bitter Grass, Bosc Pear, Toffee, Fruit Esters, Herbs.

Twelve Beer of Christmas - Night Four

Le Coq Imperial Extra Double Stout

2003 Vintage

This was another cellar dwellar that made the trip to visit my mother in MA for the family holiday party. I forget exactly when I got this but I know most of its cellar time happened at the importer B. United cellar that is carved into a hillside down in Connecticut. 

Hailing from London this pours a mostly still black umber color with just a trace of dark khaki foam. There is lots of oxidation happening here but somehow it works and transforms the flavors into a Madeira like profile with lots of that classic stout char playing counterpoint to the complex aged components of this beer!

Tar, Soft Caramel, Nutty Sherry, Shoe Polish, Raisin, Old Madeira, Light Tamari and Anise.

Twelve Beers of Christmas - Night Five

Haandbryggeriet Odin's Tipple

Dark Norse Ale

(2013 Vintage)

Ok well I decided to go dark tonight with the Winter Solstice on our doorstep I figured Id reach out to one of my favorite imperial stouts from Norway! You will not find variants of this containing single origin coffee that some weasel shit into the fermentor nor did they decide they needed to add 100# of candy bars or pastries... shit they do not add anything but water, malted barley, hops and yeast. Funny fact is they even use a single strain of wild yeast on this stout and the results are far more complex than 95% of the bourbon barrel aged triple chocolate, donut infused coconut stouts that are piling up all over beer shelves across America.

Anyhow lets talk about the beer experience that is in my glass tonight. Odin's Tipple pours a viscous black burnt umber color with a finger of gaseous khaki foam. The nose is dark bakers cocoa, rich roasted notes dance around with little hints of dark fruits and leather. The palate is bold and full bodied with nice compliments of bitterness to balance the sweet chocolate undertones. The roast level is off the charts and there is the the perfect carbonation to let the flavors ride into the dark space left in the absence of another bottle.

Dark burnt brownie, charred wood, bakers cocoa, licorice, composted coffee ground, dark fruit esters. 

Twelve Beers of Christmas - Night Six

Birrificio del Ducato Brett Peat Daydream

(2015 Vintage)

Coming from Italy and another brewery that I feel every beer they make is worth trying and this one is about as complex and interesting as they get!

Brewers Description:

This beer is a blend of a rauch beer aged in used old Scotch Whisky barrels for a period of over 2 years, blended with another beer fermented in wood with Brettanomyces (aged 1 year) and a young beer brewed with some peated malt. You can say it is all the same beer, with similar recipes : a part aged in whisky barrels and a part fermented in wood with brettanomyces.

Campfire smoked peaches, dusty old funk, wet wood, cured meat, nectarines, salted lemon, caramel, wet straw, horseblanket.

Twelve Beers of Christmas - Night Seven

Brooklyn Monster

(2010 Vintage)

Ok so don't tell Garrett but this one is so nostalgic for me.  I can remember perfectly the first time I sipped this beer and how enjoyable not only the consumption of it was but the entire night was also one to remember.  My memory lane with this one takes me back many years before this bottles vintage, in fact it was December 31, 1998 in New York City. I was there for yet another Phish New Years run and the streets were bustling with people hustlin to get to their party spots for the evenings celebrations. I wandered a block or so from Madison Square Garden and proceeded to grab a 4pk of this beer out of the cooler of a little package store with old timey latching fridges. Back in 1998 my go to sipping was Samuel Smith Taddy Porters & Oatmeal Stouts along with the classic New England "microbrews" of the time; Samuel Adams, Catamount, Magic Hat, Longtrail, Ipswich, Paper City, Harpoon and other blasts from the pasts. That was the true heyday of American beer pioneers! I loved me some stouts and anything new and different but when the first bottle of this sweet 10% plus nectar hit my lips it was true... barley wine was life! I tell you this story not only because I think it gives a glimpse into a world most beer geeks today never have or will experience. Yes Im old get over it, but I also was lucky enough to never be that "typical" college kid who funneled ice house and whatever marketing campaign was being shoved down 20 somethings throats during that time. Anyhow, I can no longer stomach seeing a Phish show, I think my last Phish show was in 2001 but I still hold that part of my life and the friends I shared during those times close to my heart. Its partly that reason why this bottle lasted so long in my cellar... it was around 2011 that Brooklyn brewing co. announced it would no longer be brewing Monster so I decided I should buy a case for my cellar. Now almost 10 years later it is finally time to crack the my last Monster!

Pours a rich sienna color with a finger of fizzy khaki foam. The nose has gotten a little strange initially but after a little swirling it starts opening up those rich toffee notes that are the signature trademark of a good barleywine. The palate is still focused and I think honestly this brew probably could have held up another 3-5 years! The sweetness is present but its not sticky, it has a nice leathery earthy midpalate and the finish dries out nicely with some soft bittneress keeping the palate fresh and wanting another sip after sip after sip.

Burnt toffee, caramel, pecans, gingerbread, leather, vanilla, brown sugar.

Feel free to bring this back from the dead Garrett!!!

Twelve Beers of Christmas - Night Eight

Allagash Coolship Resurgam

(Bottled 8/31/17)

Tonight I decided to reach out to one of my hometown favorites.  Coolship Resurgam is Allagash's own interpretation of a spontaneous fermented beer that is inoculated using wild yeast found in the air right here in our great state of Maine! Until very recently you had to visit the brewery and depending on the limited nature of the release even wait in line to obtain a beer from their coolship series, but this past month for the first time ever it was available at retail locations across Maine and beyond!

On the pour its golden orange color with two fingers of white foam. The funky stonefruit and soft inviting citrus peel aromas waft through the air. On the palate it is focused and full of basement funk throughout. The carbonation is in perfect contrast to the medium mouthfeel and adds great structure from beginning to end.

Nectarine, orange pith, wet wood, basement funk, satsuma mandarin, cobwebs, hay, yellow plum skins, melon rind.

Twelve Beers of Christmas - Night Nine

Firestone Walker Bravo

(2017 Vintage)

Tonight, I decided to reach out to the West Coast and sweeten things up after enjoying a couple pilsners during a tough Patriots loss! Anyhow back to the sweet part of the night brought to my glass from one of my favorite breweries. It was Firestone Walker that was part of my barrel aged beer enlightenment many years ago and they haven't stopped producing delicious beers year in and year out. We were lucky enough to get a short stint of distribution here in Maine just as they changed their format from 22oz barrel aged beers to 12oz bottles and luckily I squirreled away a few bottles of some of those releases and Bravo was a sleeper in the bunch! Billed as an Imperial Brown Ale that checks in at 13.2% abv this beer is not one to be taken lightly!

Bravo pours a deep mahogany color with a finger of gaseous thick eggshell foam. The nose is robust with bourbon soaked caramel malts, vanilla, brown sugar, warm booze and pecan pie.  The palate is silky and has amazing barrel integration from start to finish. The balance between viscous sweet flavors being accentuated by warm alcohol and a touch of bitterness creates harmony and drinkability you rarely find in a beer with this amount of alcohol.

Salted caramel, medjool dates, graham cracker, bourbon soaked vanilla beans, creme brûlée, tootsie rolls, bitter walnut, pecan pie, raisin.

Twelve Beers of Christmas - Night Ten

Hill Farmstead Juicy

(Batch 3/December 2016)

It was only a matter of time before I reached for my Hill Farmstead shelf to crack open something exciting from one of my favorite brewers around! I remember the journey to Hill the first time Juicy was released, it was one of the first times I planned a trip around a bottle release as usually I just would plan the trip and be happy with whatever would end up filling the hatchback on the 6 hour round trip jaunt through the lakes region of maine and over and through the white mountains of New Hampshire to land at the beauty that was, cough cough, is Hill Farmstead. Its funny how over the years getting to try every bottle and worrying about bottle limits and lines have taken the fun out of beer. I still thoroughly enjoy sipping some of the worlds finest beer but have learned to let them come to me and worry a lot less about the trivial aspects of the craft beer game. I remember this and many of my initial journeys to Hill Farmstead in 2011 when it was just Phil on growlers while Shaun was busy crafting brews all while the line of 5-10 people chatted, sampled and pried as much information about the beer and the upcoming release schedules for bottles, that they would be kind enough to share. 

In fact you can find my blog post about the journey to get my first bottle of Juicy HERE !

Luckily though I have not had time to make the journey over the past couple years I still have a decent selection of my favorite bottles to sip when I get the Hill Farmstead itch.

Juicy pours a deep copper orange color with two fingers of thick eggshell foam. The aromas are full of classic Hill farmstead funk mingled together with unripe pineapple spears, hints of rosemary, pine and thyme. The mouthfeel is supple but refreshing with nice balance of bitterness, funk and acidity. The vinous aspects linger with tannic citrus pith and glimpses of citrus and stonefruit linger in the  long unctuous finish! 

Dry hay & fieldgrass, tangerine peel, cherry pits, grapefruit peel, unripe nectarine, juniper, orange wine, citrus pith, golden raspberries, earthy hops, dried pine needles.

Twelve Beers of Christmas - Night Eleven

LoverBeer Nebiulin~a 

(2012-2015 Blend)

Night eleven has arrived and I opened a bottle of LoverBeer, from part of northwest Italy known as the Piedmont region.  After meeting the owner/brewer of LoverBeer, Valter at a B.United event many years ago, I had this selection on my radar and it has been one of my all time favorite beers since I got my hands on some just over 4 years ago or so. This brewery has always made some of the best sour beers I have had the pleasure of drinking and after chatting with Valter the owner/brewer it became clear that his passion for beer wasn't just in the final product but in every ingredient he sourced. Many of his beers contain fruit and when I asked him about the source of the fruit, he lit up with a big smile and started describing in detail the locations of his sources and the varieties that grow there.  Feeling his excitement for native ingredients and having a bit of knowledge in the wine of the Piedmont region, I inquired if he had ever made a beer using the prestigious grape of the region known to wine drinkers as Nebbiolo. Again Valter grinned from ear to ear and explained that he was hoping to release soon his own Geuze style beer that he married with not only Nebbiolo but with Nebbiolo grapes sourced from the highly esteemed region of La Morra, Barolo in Piedmont! 

Ok thats the backstory and a decent segue into the fact that in the future you will be seeing more of my thoughts on the wine sector of my cellar along with other foraged items from ciders, spirits, mead, kombucha, and other mixed fermented beverages of all sorts. 

Back to the beer in the glass.

Nebuilin~a pours a rich copper, rose orange color with a quickly dissipating finger of fizzy eggshell foam.  The nose has a mysterious complexity with hints of cherry skins, wet leaves, field raspberries, violets and wet roses. The palate is racy and focused with great structure and tannins that counterpoint the acidity and soft oxidative malt driven notes of old mushroom soaked lambic.

Burgundian raspberry, pomegranate, vinous cherry, dried raspberry leaf tea, dried woodear mushrooms, cobwebs, old wood, bitter orange peel, rosehips 

Twelve Beers of Christmas - Night Twelve

 

Westvleteren XII

Greetings, its been a minute. I could probably babble on for a couple hours about the downsides to the growing popularity and over saturation of the "craft" beer scene but instead I have chosen to dust off a few classic bottles from the cellar and enjoy the holiday season.

For night number twelve I thought it would be fitting to investigate the progress of my 2012 vintage.

On the pour the aromas of toasted walnuts and burnt sugar begin filling the air as persistent khaki colored gaseous foam bubbles rise to the surface.  Like a fine bordeaux the belgian quadruple emits depth, length and balance on the palate. The classic burnt sugar qualities lure you in and eventually lead into a cacophony of complex counterpoints and nuanced flavors.

Brown sugar, white pepper, soft cocoa powder, kola nut, plum skins, bitter walnut, black tea, anise, ginger bread, vanilla bean, burnt caramel.