Blizzard Beer

Every morning, say 10 am, I tell myself, 'self, tonight is the night you skip the beer and just drink water.' It's only a few hours later that the frustrations of the daily grind on the job force me to cave into the dozens of beers that will be staring me in the face when I arrive at home.

I try, I really do, but I don't feel much guilt over having a drink or two every night; I've gotten more consistent in the last year--no weeknight binge drinking anymore. It's difficult on nights like tonight, when the Gophers lose a winnable road game and I spent two hours trudging through slow traffic and shoveling the heartiest, stickiest snowfall of the season.

And on that note, I wondered, what would be the perfect beer for a blizzard? The initial response, clearly, would be to nurse a deep, warming imperial stout. Something to burn the insides and satisfy the thirsty taste buds. I had several stout options, including Victory's Storm King and Bell's Expedition. But I wasn't in the mood for a stout. Perhaps because I tried my namesake Nils Oscar Imperial Stout Tuesday night and was disappointed. (The second Nils Oscar beer disappointment I've had with no successes). I decided a stout was not the perfect blizzard beer.

I fingered through the basement options: some Surlys, Tyranenas, New Glaruses; nothing that felt right for the moment. Finally, I settled on a mini vertical of Sierra Nevada Bigfoots. I picked up '07 and '08 bottles when I visited Dennis Brothers in Cottage Grove in early January, and had been saving them for no particular reason. A vertical tasting means comparing the same beer from different years to see how the flavors have developed over time. Not all beers should be tasted this way. Don't save your Bud Lights for years to see how the flavors mature. But for a complex, stiff beer such as the Bigfoot can stand up to a few years of aging.

This was the first time I'd had Bigfoot in a bottle; I first had it on tap at the Muddy Pig in early 2008, when I gave it 4.5 stars. I think my love of barleywines peaked in those winter months, because I remember thinking Southern Tier's BackBurner was the best beer I'd ever had, and when I tried it a few months later I thought my initial five-star rating was much too high.

With that said, it's hard to argue with a barleywine during a wintery blizzard. It's a full beer in the mouth, leaving bold flavors behind without completely drying you out, and giving you enough alcohol burn to move you in a promising direction. Most might argue, and I would agree, that it doesn't give you the swig-to-swig satisfaction that an imperial stout does, but the flavors are prominent enough to make it its own course.

As for this blizzard, the Bigfoot delivered. It had a more bitter finish than I remembered, but when I checked my original notes from March 11, 2008, I found: "Alcohol is present, but taste is dominated by bitter, bitter hops."

The 2008: Supremely rich, with as full of a mouthfeel as you're going to get from a beer. I doesn't disappear down your throat, it stays awhile. The taste is nutty, strong and creamy, but with just the right amount of offsetting crispness. The finish is, again, quite bitter and dry. Many people cite this beer as one to cellar and save for a few years, but I, after having this one, think I might find it hard to do so.

The 2007: In fact, better than the 2008. Which leads me to believe that the longer you let this one ride, the better. Has the thick caramel coating that the 2008 had, but the flavor lasts incredibly long. I ate half a raw tomato in between gulps of this one, and I still couldn't shake the massive flavor. The alcohol is more present in the '07, which I don't mind, as it burned my throat quite pleasantly on this most wintery night. The lacing (foam that sticks to the side of the glass) is pronounced. It was nearly crust by the time I finished the brew. Lacing adds another aspect to the enjoyability of a beer, as you get to see the progress you've made from swallow to swallow as you make your way down the glass. Just another reason why it's crucial that beer be consumed from a glass (the correct glass) and not its original container.

Barleywines, as I'm coming to realize, are a style of beer that I like while I'm drinking them, but in the hours after the tasting, the beer settles in, and I realize that they should be judged not only while they're being chugged, but for hours after. These Bigfoots eased the pain of knowing another shovel was on the Friday morning horizon. Maybe I'll make it a tradition: keep a couple Sierra Nevada Bigfoots in the basement, and when radar says 5+ inches of snow, have them at the ready.

Surly Mild

Had this on tap at the Blue Nile Saturday afternoon, the bridge between a weekend binge cleaning session and an extended family birthday gathering at the Mall of America. If you ask me, a beer or two is the least you can do to prepare for the megamall, as they say. Actually, it's probably not enough.

This was the first mild I'd had, though I can't quite be sure, because the style, from what I've gathered, is varied and the flavors many. I may have just broken an English language comma rule in that sentence. Anyway, this type of mild, the English Dark Mild variety, according to beeradvocate, is a British session beer characterized by low hops and low alcohol content. Well, if those are the conditions, Surly Mild qualifies.

To be fair, I dove into this one just after my first taste of a Surly Three, the third anniversary offering from the brewery. Three is classified as a braggot, brewed with 50% honey and 50% Munich malt, and let me be the whateverth person to say that the flavor is potent and delicious. In comparison, Surly Mild didn't stand much of a chance.

Maybe it was too early in the day (4:30ish), or maybe I was a bit too sick (stuffy nose), but I didn't get much aroma at all. Mild indeed. There certainly weren't a great deal of hops to wet my lips.

As for the taste, well, I can't much compare it to any other beer I've had, as it was markedly different. As a beer with 4.2% ABV, it lacked punch, but there was more taste than your average mass appeal 4.2% lager or ale. This is the part of the review where I'm reaching. I don't yet know enough about specific malts or how they taste, but what taste there was, I would surmise was due to the malts used. Al, when you read this, you can correct me. I got a very earthy vibe, not just the grassy hop flavor I get from many Euro beers, but soil and mineral flavors that give it a bit of depth without density.

Did I love this beer? No, certainly not. It's an easy drink, much easier than the palate-challenging beers we all love so dearly. And it doesn't make your face cringe like many low content beers would. It just doesn't have much to write home about. It's a bit plain.

So why does Surly make a beer like this? None of Surly's beers are mass appeal beers, I would argue, so they don't need to worry about pleasing a large sect of people. Mild isn't canned, and thus is available only to those diehards who seek it out. It certainly isn't a beer that would blow the diehards away. And frankly, it's not a beer I see the talented brewers at Surly finding enjoyment in pint after pint. I have one of these and think, OK, now I'd like to have any other Surly beer I've ever had.

Maybe it was a failed attempt. Maybe they wanted to show the Surly fans that they could make a simple, subtle beer. Certainly, not every beer a brewer tries can be better than the previous. And Surly has sort of dug their own grave on this one: why shouldn't a brewery be entitled to a couple duds? Mild isn't even a dud, but by their standards, it's pretty pedestrian. That doesn't change the fact that they've given us more than a handful of amazing beers.

Even so, there's a chance that Mild is a complete success. It's hard to imagine a beer more tightly fitting the name. I couldn't think of a better word for it, and by that standard, Surly Mild is a raging success.

Am I Strong Enough to Like a Bad Beer?

I've struggled with this concept my entire life, really. Some may call it lack of self-confidence or conviction, or a reluctance to openly go against the popular opinions. I guess I call it reassessment; forcing yourself to take another look at your own beliefs after gathering outside opinions to either validate or refute your initial response.

It basically boils down to this: am I comfortable enough with my own opinions to admittedly enjoy a product that has been widely panned? Will the experts write me off as a no-clue, inexperienced judge of quality? Will I be ostracized from the community of those who love and care and rate?

Mostly this happens in the arts; many might call them guilty pleasures, a term probably invented to make it ok for those like me to enjoy such atrocities in a half-joking, half-serious manner. Let's take music for example. I'll admit it: I enjoy listening to Hall & Oates. I sort-of half think I enjoy the spectacle and egocentric glamour of a Barry Manilow ballad. Most of the garbage pop of the 90s I could still regurgitate word for word. I will proudly and openly admit all of these things.

But still, there's a tint of really? in each of those admissions, and I am free at that point to say, "No, I don't really exercise to Michael McDonald's greatest hits, I just get a kick out of how ridiculous he sounds singing those crappy songs." It's an opt out clause.

Many people, including my much more free-of-society's-chains wife, don't have this dilemma. They like what they like, no apologies. To Kristie, there is no difference between a great song and a song she just loves listening to. Any appreciation, whether it be due to the technical wizardry, the bleeding-heart sincerity or the carefree exuberance, it all goes into the same pot of enjoyment. The same goes for movies. I can come out of a movie and say, "That was an amazing movie, but I didn't really enjoy it." I make the distinction, Kristie says why bother.

Let's bring this phenomenon to the world of beer. At this point, I thought I felt pretty comfortable with my own beer judgment, and was confident that my conclusions about any specific beer wouldn't fall far from the general beer nerd assessment. I know that the beer geeks love meaty stouts, layered with depth, and most enjoy the in-your-face hoppiness of an imperial IPA. I've also come to appreciate lambics and traditional Belgian sour ales, and know that while these are more of a polarizing blend, most beer lovers appreciate them.

Beer, like the arts, has its guilty pleasures as well. In my case, my guilty pleasures call back to my college days, when I was too poor to buy anything decent and spent a lot of nights hammering watery beer after watery beer. I have no problem stating my love for Grain Belt Premium, and if I happen to find myself at an Applebees, I'll probably order a Leinie's Honeyweiss. Do I actually like these beers? See, I thought I was at the point where I could say yes and deal with the consequences.

Then along came Chapeau Winter Gueuze. I've had a few lambics, krieks and sour ales, and have basically enjoyed them all. But this was my first real gueuze. Instantly, I could see the difference between this and the other lambics I've enjoyed. The color was unlike any I'd seen, a dark rust that lacked the fizzy bubble that I remember about the other lambics. The gueuze was nowhere near as tart, though it smelled as if it was. There was a massive sweetness that smothered the acidity; it tasted for a second like the sourness wanted to break through, but it couldn't penetrate the sugar forcefield. I didn't mind it. It reminded me a bit of a cider, with a decent amount of tartness, but more about the sugary sweetness. In fact, Kristie, who tries most of my beers and universally hates them, said this was the best beer she'd ever had. Looking back, that admission should have alarmed me. When I had finished the glass, I declared it a good beer and called it an "entirely pleasant experience."

This being my first gueuze, I just assumed that was how they were supposed to taste: sweet and sugary. How was I to know any better. It was nowhere near my favorite sour beer; I much prefer the unbalanced tartness of the more sour offerings. But I liked the beer none the less.

Then I found this. Uh-oh. Could I possibly like a beer rated in the 12th percentile? Let's look at it in reverse. Is it possible that I don't like a highly-rated beer? Sure, and many times I've confirmed this, though I'm too lazy to cite examples now. So maybe it's ok for me to enjoy this beer, no matter what my beer peers think. I guess spelling it out on a computer screen helps me process the quandary. I am comfortable enough to admit that I enjoyed a beer that almost no one has rated highly? Who cares. I mean, it's just a guilty pleasure, right?

The Beer Cruise: Puerto Rico

If I sound a little sharp in this entry, it's probably because I just watched my beloved Golden Gopher basketball team again look completely inept against a very average Michigan team. So there's that. And then there's this: I took in the game at Joe Senser's, a Twin Cities sports bar chain that fits a small, but widespread niche: dozens of wall-sized TVs and sporting events, greasy food and mass appeal beer. Not a favorite destination of mine, but it works well for a guys night out to eat.

Here's my beef. We arrived shortly before happy hour ended, and the $2.50 domestic tap special piqued my interest, only because Grain Belt Premium was on the (unpublished) tap list. After some minor inquiries, the waitress informed me that Premo did not fall under the "domestic" category, though it is brewed less than 100 miles away, in New Ulm, MN. Sure, Golden, Colorado is domestic, but classic Minnesota beer? Sorry. I ordered a Sierra Nevada and didn't bother asking whether the California-brewed cerveza counted as domestic. "That's not on special," the waitress made sure I knew. I nodded. "Yeah, I figured you knew that."

I sense a little beer snob oozing out of me. Most of the places I frequent these days offer coast-to-coast draughts, what one might call 'domestic,' and have a handful (if not more) of across the pond imports as well. Maybe it's too much to ask Senser's to change their happy hour wording from 'domestic' to 'garbage' for clarity's sake. I doubt their clientele demands the distinction.

Which leads me to Puerto Rico. If, hypothetically, a beer bar carried a Puerto Rican beer, would that qualify as domestic? I doubt it. I didn't plan on this segue, and it's a pretty rough one, so I'll end all attempts at a smooth transition here.

We arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico, at about 5 pm of the second night of our cruise. I'd done some very brief research on the number of local beers produced at each of our destinations prior to departure, and wasn't expecting much of any of them. So when the only local beer offered at our first three stops was Medalla Light, I wasn't surprised. Call me crazy, but I gave it slightly higher marks than my peers at RateBeer, calling it "as drinkable, if not more so, than any domestic lite." It's important to note that no matter the integrity of a beer drinker, the circumstances under which a beer is consumed can make a difference. A Medalla Light on a cold February Minneapolis night probably would guarantee a spot on the year-end worst list. A Medalla Light in a courtyard cafe on a beautiful Puerto Rican evening rates a little better. I gave it a star and a half. It's clearly a terrible beer, but it tastes better in 80 degrees.

As we meandered back toward the ship, however, we stumbled upon a local brewery, Old Harbor Brewery. They offered five craft beers; the four staples included a light lager, pilsner, pale ale and stout, and the seasonal "taina" beer was a nut brown. I sampled all five, and when the bartender noticed me jotting down specifics and notes on a napkin, offered to send me home with some literature about the beers and brewery.

The Santo Viejo Pilsner was voted best pilsner of the south at the 2008 United States Beer Tasting Championships, and was quite nice. It was much sweeter than any pilsner I've had, and as one who isn't a huge fan of the typical pilsner hop, I enjoyed the contrast.

The Coqui Golden Lager was obviously their attempt to hit the modest needs of most social beer drinkers and I'm sure would do nicely in that regard.

Their signature beer, the Old Harbor Brew Pale Ale, was my favorite of the five. A delicate beer, one that required focused swigs to pick up the flavors. I do enjoy beers that have in-your-face flavor, but subtlety is almost more impressive when it's pulled off. This beer had a balance of floral fruitiness and mouth-sticking dryness, but didn't knock you over with either. It didn't blow your taste buds away; it required them to work a bit.

The Kolfresi Stout is the highest rated of the four standards on RateBeer, and it's not hard to see why. It has the depth that many serious beer drinkers need, but isn't a test of one's commitment to a task. You can drink a pint of it no problem. It struck me as a pretty standard stout, one you wouldn't necessarily tell stories of to your grandkids, but one I would have no problem drinking consistently.

The seasonal beer had been available for about a week when we visited, and is still unrated on RateBeer...I could be the first, which would be fun. I like nut browns, especially because they aren't easy to find. Yes, there's Newcastle, but the style does not have a lot of mass popularity. Maybe we'll see a boom in them in the next couple years, as craft breweries seem to latch on to the styles that are going unproduced at a particular moment in time. What I especially loved about this one was its smoothness. This was a beer that I think even the most casual beer drinkers could guzzle, because it doesn't overwhelm you with unfamiliar pop and it doesn't kill you on the back end. It isn't as complex as the meatiest brews, but if I wasn't in the mood for a hop bomb or a juicy stout, I think a few creamy nut browns would suffice.

It was a pleasant way to spend an hour in San Juan, and though I'll probably never return, I won't soon forget the experience of trying the best of what Puerto Rico had to offer.

The Beer Cruise: Part 1

I wouldn't necessarily call a cruise the best way to vacation, but after three uninterrupted months of Minnesota winter and a taxing day-to-day job grind, a cruise worked quite nicely. No, it's not exactly the way I like to travel--off the beaten path, eating street food and finding the non-touristy parts of touristy cities. You do get a bit funnelled in to a daily routine and programmed, pre-determined activities and specific, mass appeal cultural scenery. The drinks are a bit spendy, and far from stiff. The entertainment is, well...who am I to judge.

But a cruise is nothing if not relaxing. If you don't mind mingling with 50-somethings (and above--sometimes way way above), aren't too snobby to find enjoyment in an off-key, bad haircutted lounge singer, and can fend for yourself for a few hours in a dirty Caribbean port town, you might enjoy one. And you might be pleasantly surprised in the number of obscure beers you might get to try.

Counting the Minneapolis and Detroit airports, and including the four beers I nabbed during our one day in Fort Lauderdale, I chugged an astounding 22 new beers on this 8.5 day trek. Of course, once we left the continental United States, rarely were any better than average, but the cultural context in which the tastings took place evened up the score a bit.

So, sprinkled between the poolside pina coladas and the five-course dinner Italian wines were these islandy brews. I'll try my best to elaborate on tasting notes (many of which are still scribbled on food- and beer-stained napkins) with some general comments about that day's cruising events.

It must be noted that my trusty beer rating pen exploded on the plane prior to embarkment, and I was forced to use the crappy Costa Cruises pen for my reviews. Thus, many of my notes are brief, and frankly, after you've had a few Caribbean beers, there's not much more that can be said.

Day 1: Embarkment from Fort Lauderdale. The beer: Franziskaner Hefe-Weissbier. We boarded the ship at about 12:30, but couldn't check into our rooms until later that afternoon. What better to do, at that point, then check out the bar? Rhetorical. This would be my first chance to see the beer offerings on the ship. Not surprisingly, they were pretty limited. Mostly Buds and Coors, with a token beer from a few European countries that figured to be represented among the cruise's guests. This was a Costa cruise, an Italian ship that attracts many foreign-language speaking folk because of its multi-lingual entertainment and relaxed smoking policy. Maybe I was the only one who noted the latter, but to a no-smoking-anywhere-in-my-state Minnesotan, it was evident.

I'd had the Italian offering (Peroni--I was hoping for more), wasn't in the mood for something I knew I'd loathe (Beck's and Carlsberg), and didn't want to dive right into the unknown (Kotayk--we'll get to that later), so I took a stab at the weissbier. Without question, this was the best beer I had on the ship all week. I don't love wheat beers, and I have a hard time imagining one that would clearly outshine the rest, but there was no doubting the validity of the Franziskaner. It isn't weissbier weather in Minnesota, but when it's 80 degrees and sunny a wheat beer will do nicely. Let's put it this way: I'd choose a hefe-weissen over anything I've ever been offered in a slowpitch softball parking lot or on a lazy pontoon boat ride. The drinkability is usually high. As in, way higher than the self-proclaimed drinkable Budweiser.

Franziskaner is no different, and I particularly enjoy wheat beers that offer more spice than fruit, the anti-Blue Moon, if you will. This beer had good spice on the nose and lips and snaked down without skunky incident. (If my verbage has broadened, it may be due to the Hopslam I just guzzled.) Did this beer make me delve deep into my beer flavor vocabulary? Not really. Did it convert me to a full-time wheat beer guy? Definitely not. Was it worth the $5...plus 15% gratuity...plus 20% port tax? Because it meant I would be on a cruise for the next seven days, yes. It did, and it was. A solid 3.5 star beer.

January Stats

One month and 34 new beers down. I thought I'd have a harder time finding new beers now that I've knocked off many basics available in the Twin Cities, but new (to me) and seasonal ones keep popping up across the cities. It's easy to ignore a brewery for even a whole year, such as I did last year with Pennsylvania's Victory and am trying my best to do with Wisconsin's Capital. So, even if I'm not excited by what I haven't tried, it's still easy to find new beers. The amount of beers out there astounds me, and the options aren't shrinking. They're, like every other commodity in this country, growing exponentially. I have no doubt that it would be relatively easy to keep a 250-300 new beers a year pace up for a lifetime.

So, without reviewing any new beers in depth, I'll recap some of the highs and lows of my January, and spew out some nuggets for numbers junkies like myself.

Of the 34 new beers:

12 were imports, with Belgium leading the way with five new selections. My Unibroue sampler pack contributed two for Canada, but I'm trying to stretch that pack out over a couple months. One apiece for Australia, Western Europe, Germany, South America and the United Kingdom.

22 domestics: five from Colorado, four each from Wisconsin, Minnesota and California, three from Pennsylvania, and the rest scattered about. No need to get into specifics yet.

Out of five stars, my average beer rating for January beers was 3.13 stars. It must be noted that I had most of the mega-brewery crap last year, and those beers skewed my 2008 average of 2.79 a bit. Thus, an improved 2009 average was expected. Don't fret, I still kept room for a plethora of skunky garbage.

Some of us stat-masters would suggest that median, not average, is a more accurate stat indicator. Fifth-grade math lesson: median represents the middle number of a sequence, thus eliminating potential bottom- or top-heavy average skewers. My median rating for January was a 3.5, which suggests I had more above average beers than I did below average.

My most common rating of the 34 given out was, in fact, four stars, which I gave out ten times. More than a third of the beers I first tried this month I deemed outstanding, which bodes well for the future. We're getting to the point where I've tried most of the cheap stuff, and I'll have to spend a little more coin to get at the untasted. That, I would assume, can only mean I'm having better, more complex beer.

On to some monthly awards. The best beer I had this month: Struiselensis, a Belgian sour beer. I've decided that I love sour beers, lambics and the like. I guess I've always craved for taste-bud-challenging flavors, spicy or sour, and these beers fit the bill. This one has unapologetic tartness up front, like the sourest candy you could find. However, after the initial shock, it became as drinkable as any smooth summer beer. I love the clean flavors, the crisp bite and the lingering sourness. Plus, my wife enjoys them, which is far more than can be said for any other beer variety.

Worst beer of the month: Blue Diamond Lager. Scroll down to read of its unpleasantness.

Pleasant surprise of the month: Samuel Adams Imperial Pilsner. It's almost unfair to classify this as a pilsner, the hop intensity is so far out of control. I generally don't like pilsners, but I guess when you double the hop content, you thereby double my enjoyment.

Biggest disappointment: most of the winter seasonals I tried. Here's a quick list of those that didn't deliver, with some comments from my initial tastings. It must be noted that I fully expected the Leinenkugel's offering to be awful.

Leinenkugel's 1888 Bock. "Utterly horrible. Took my best effort to finish it."

Capital Brewery Winter Skal. "After four strong beers, this one fell way short." Not really even sure what that means anymore. I'm sure it sounded like a clear criticism at the time.

Schell's Snowstorm. "Tastes like every part of the process involved burning and over-cooking." The best beer on this list, just not a flavor I enjoy. It's become quite clear that I have no appreciation for Viennas.

Redhook Winter Hook. "Not very strong, lacking flavor, and a little too nutty." Sometimes you run out of things to say. A phenomenon you'd quickly realize if you frequented beer rating websites. It's kind of like Kate Winslett/Leo DiCaprio red carpet interview questions. Wait, haven't you been following E!'s red carpet coverage like I have? An indictment of marriage.