updates from Beer Butchalandia

hello gente,

i know it’s been awhile. it seems as if we were on an unintentional hiatus. but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been drinking beer and doing our research on things beer-related. now, our own Raqui has been up and down Califas, and back-n-forth across the southwest doing things Butchlalis- and art- related. So props to her for continuing to spread the good Butcha word across the land. I have been busy in my, uh, more “career/academic” pursuits, and have been doing the kind of writing that I hope will give me the job that, in about 10 years from now, will make possible the bar I want to open up some day. Beer, books, butchas, babes, boobies, you name it…I will have it at Mel’s Beer Place. Meantime, I got some major funding, thanks for the Ford Foundation, and am committed to writing my dissertation for the next year or so. I do wanna graduate at some point.  The good news is that beer helps me in the writing process. So I will be drinking and doing the occasional reporting on the most fabulous and worthy beers to cross my palate. I am in the midst of researching a few things, but I want to give a shoutout first to Magnolia Brewery in SF. (www.magnoliapub.com) I had the time of my life there, beautiful memories made, and I will make it a must-beer destination whenever I’m in the Bahia. They have amazing site-brewed beers, specializing in British and Scottish style bitters, ambers, reds, and other special rarities I’ve never tasted anywhere else. The servers were generous in their pours and I was basically allowed to sample anything on their menu with no extra charge.  The guys have been brewin’ underground for over 10 years, they told me, and those beer guys know what they’re doing. Although I didn’t get to meet ‘those beer guys,’ otherwise known as Magnolia brewers Dave McLean (Brewmaster) and Ben Spencer (Head Brewer), I want to meet them next time. Their beer is my new personal standard and I would be proud to someday make beer that is this good. I was especially impressed with their cask ales (caske ales will be the subject of a future blog entry. they’re my favorite.) Any brewpub that offers a cask-pulled ale, let alone 3 or 4, knows what they’re doing with their beer. Magnolia offered other specialties, including Weekpaug Gruit, a non-beer beer. Here’s one of the best stories I’ve heard about beer. Our server tells us that the GRUIT beer actually derives from a style of beer brewed in England in the 1700s that did not include hops. There was a period of about 10 years when beer in England was brewed without hops because the puritanical kingdom thought that hops made people too crazy.  We now know hops to be the heart of beer (without grapes, can’t make wine, so without hops, can’t make beer…so we think…). Hops give us the bitter flavor and–the higher the hops, the higher the alcohol content of a beer (think IPAs)–hops is the cousin of CANNABIS (do your homework), so, yeah, I guess it makes sense that a bunch of puritanical uptight englishmen back in the day were afeared of hops in beer. So for awhile, during this period, breweries had to remove the hops from their beer recipes and substituted roots and other fermentable stuff that still produced a comparable alcohol content. Which makes sense, because when I first sipped this tiny bit o’heaven, I was like “this tastes like root beer!” Gruit, brewed with no hops but other root-like ingredients, has flavors of prune, Dr Pepper/Coke, dry but sweet, like candy beer. I think my sister and her friends would appreciate it. They’ve been known to spike their Diet Dr Peppers with rum. I say, drink a pint of Gruit! (But, to be fair, gruit is not available at your local 7-Eleven…) Anyway, this Weekpaug Gruit was so good and if you come across  a place that makes a Gruit as good as Magnolia, I say try youself a pint. Mmmm!

The other place I wanna give a shout-out to is right here in SoCal, a place called BoHo Gastropub. They deserve their own entry, which I will get to, but I do want to say that their beer list is among the best I’ve seen in LA, thanks to the same guy (Ryan Sweeney) who designed Verdugo Bar’s beer list. It’s worth a stop for sure. More to come…

meantime, keep drinkin your good beer and thanks for reading the butchas’ beer thoughts.

Mel’s birthday brew y mas

I have to hand it to my homie Raqui for helping make UC Irvine cool in the eyes of beer fans. Damn, what a brew list! I’m all excited about the nitrogen working now on that Irish stout and I’m actually inclined to head down there soon to try it out. I have downed many a beer at Pappy’s Pub at UC Berkeley and The Pub at UC San Diego, so it’s nice to know that UC Irvine isn’t so, well, dry.

Yes, my 35th beerthday was certainly not dry. It was all about beer! I enjoyed Taps in Brea and Belmont Brewing Co. in the LBC. I have to say that the beer is a’ight at BBC (their guest beers are better than their own house beers, I think, with the lone exception of their strawberry blonde beer, which is worth buying in growlers), but Taps is way better and, in my eyes, still a standard to emulate when it’s time for me to open my own beer place. But I digress…

My birthday also meant that I was ready to crack open that homebrew I started back in January. My “Mel’s Birthday Brew” was an amber ale, and it was the first time I experimented a little. I added brown sugar during the fermentation process, and while I don’t know what it would have tasted like had I not done that, or if it even made a difference, I’m kinda glad I did because this beer had a pretty rich flavor and I get to say, “maybe it’s the brown sugar?” I wish I had the capacity to brew more than 2 1/2 gallons because this is a beer I’m actually pretty proud of. It was way yummy and it looked so purdy in its nice pilsner glass. Checkitout:

It poured really nicely and had a great head on it. Toasty and smooth and like all bottle-conditioned beer, is unfiltered and so has a little bit of yeasty sediment on the bottom. But that’s okay! It’s supposed to be there. (It’s like next time you get a Hoegaarden beer, look closely and you’ll notice there are pouring instructions to pour about 3/4 of the bottle in a glass, swirl the bottle around a bit to get the yeast and then pour the rest of the beer in the glass. For sure, the best way to enjoy the full flavor of a bottle-conditioned beer.)

So the next step is to upgrade my equipment and start following some of the cool beer recipes I’ve been finding. I have clever names picked out for beers I haven’t even made yet, kinda like when people pick out baby names for kids they’re probably not gonna have for like 10 years. That’s me. Put on this earth to make books and beer. Certainly not babies!

Best Little College Pub in California

Last week my performance ensemble, a little group of handsome butches I like to call Butchlalis de Panochtitlan, had a gig at the lovely University of California, Irvine campus. Wouldn’t you know it that we had arrived an hour before we were granted access to the space where we would be performing “The Barber of East L.A.” (the full-length play penned by yours truly) that evening. So what does a group of three thirsty 30-somethings go to kill a little time? We go to the godsend on campus known otherwise as the Ant Eater Pub with our lovely hosts, Mr. Lilz and her entourage of undergrad organizers!

What's on the Ant Hill Pub News Board

The Anthill Pub and Grille is the only one of its kind in the University of California system and every other campus is dry. I am not 100% sure about Berkeley though but I know there’s a pub at Cal State Fullerton. ANYWAY…

I was besides myself and utterly captivated by the on-tap selection of the most beautiful beers, mostly microbrewed numbers. I felt like that Jay-Z song “Girls, Girls, Girls” but it was for beer. I went up to the counter to order from a young co-ed that had that classic deer-in-the-hop fields look when laying their eyes on a masculine female ordering a Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale. I love that beer because it’s light with just a hint of bitter to anchor its taste proper. I wish we had had more time because I would’ve been all over Lagunitas Brown Suggah like a vampire to blood.

Mari, my Butchlalis collaborator, came up wanting to order a Stella Artois, to which I said no way dude, you can’t order that when there’s all this miracle beer in close proximity. So I suggested she get the Allagash White in the Belgian style beer, brewed in Portland, Maine.

ABV: 5.0%
Original Gravity: 1048
Recommended Serving Temp: 34°F to 50°F

Claudia also got the Allagash. Others in our circle got a strange unenlightened blend of Hefeweizen and Raspberry cider–I wish I liked Abita’s Raspberry offering but I don’t and I feel bad about it because I would gay marry Abita Amber in a second.

There was also this creepy white guy in uniform shorts and jacket that looked like he was just there all afternoon, eyes bloodshot and lip curling in a scary way. Like if he weren’t totally blitzed he might have taken a swing at me or something. He looked like that chubby white guy Howdy Doody-type from the movie O, the modern day adaptation of Othello, the guy that gets shot…anyway.

Currently on tap…

Paulaner Oktoberfest
A great session beer, it isn’t just for Oktoberfest.

Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA
An imperial IPA at 9% alcohol, with hops added continuously during the 90-minute brewing process.

Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA
A favorite California IPA from the Bear Republic brewery up in wine country. 7% alcohol, citrusy with piney hops. It’s good.

Lagunitas Brown Shugga
A delicious barleywine clocking in at 9.9%, hitting the tongue with a hoppy burn followed by a sweet and fruity finish.

Alesmith Nautical Nut Brown Ale
Finally back! Sort of like Newcastle but a million times better.

Mammoth Brewing Co.
Real McCoy Amber joins returning favorites Double Nut Brown and Floating Rock Hefeweizen, on tap later this week.

Moylan’s Dragoon’s Irish Stout
Okay, it isn’t really from Ireland and we’ve actually had it for a while, but the brewmaster has worked out the nitrogen issues and now this amazing beer pours perfectly.

Stone Arrogant Bastard Ale
Stone Pale Ale
Deschutes Black Butte Porter
Allagash White Lagunitas Czech Pils
Craftsman 1903 Pre-Prohibition Lager New Belgium Trippel Mammoth Real McCoy Amber Mammoth Double Nut Brown Mammoth Floating Rock Hefeweizen
Paulaner Hefeweizen
Paulaner Oktoberfest
Great White Wheat
Abita Purple Haze Bear Republic Red Rocket Ale
Bear Republic Racer 5
Big Sky Moose Drool Brown Ale
Dechutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale
Kona Longboard Lager
New Belgium Fat Tire Avery IPA
Guinness Irish Stout

STRONG ALES
Anderson Valley Brother David’s Trippel
Lagunitas Brown Shugga Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA

CIDER
Fox Barrel Apple
Fox Barrel Pear
Wyder’s Raspberry

ASSORTED PREMIUM BOTTLES
Ommegang Three Philosophers
Chimay Blue Hair of the Dog “Adam” Duchesse du Borgogne Flemish Red Unibroue Fin du Monde

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEL!

I’m an American Beer Drinker

There was a time when I would scoff at such a proclamation. That time is basically the last eight years here in the U.S. I am one of those lefty-leaning, Neiman Marxist over-educated types that would gladly drink a $10 half-pint of Affligem Blonde before ever uttering those words. Macro-lager over my dead body. But I have to say now that there is a skip to my step and a feeling of hope in the air since the election of one Barack Hussein Obama to the highest office in the land. And since the InBev has made Budweiser its global submissive we now have Pabst Blue Ribbon as the official holder of the title: the largest American-owned brewer.

I told Mel the gatekeeper to this blog here and some other great friends last night as we drank German, Flemish and Belgian beer over pomme frites and Polish sausage galore that I felt compelled to come out of the closet AGAIN about my secret love for Pabst Blue Ribbon. They laughed at me like they should be laughing. PBR is like Barack Obama–so many good things going for it but at the end of the day you know Obama is going to bomb Pakistan and that can’t bode well for PBR.

PBR is also so easy to make fun of these days for so many different reasons. One of them being that it is the official hipster beer in so called dive bars like Bar 107 in Downtown Los Angeles and Little Joy in Echo Park, as well as a host in other hipster meccas like Austin and Williamsburg, Brooklyn. When did hipster become the new scientology? Why does the term hipster cajole us into our best schoolyard bully stances? When did hipster become code for Animal Collective-listening douchebag? (I love Animal Collective by the way) Well, that’s definitely a blog topic for another blog but it is funny to me that the oldest American macro-lager has become somehow the official beer to all that is tragically hip.

Well, this is where I come in and say no way, hipster. Not today. Today I make the claim for Pabst Blue Ribbon. Except the more I learn of its roots the more I become enamored, yet there’s double edge to this sword my friend (pardon me, I’m functioning here after one too many here)–Pabst has a shady past.

According to a salon.com article on Pabst that came way before I had this cool idea last night after my second Spaten, 

“Pabst Brewing Company will be the last of the famous iconic U.S. brewers to be fully independent and American-owned,” the company gloats on its Web site. “Most of our brands … have been around since the 1800’s.”

In an online survey, Pabst asked customers this question: “Would information about Pabst’s American ownership on packaging, like bottles or cans, impact your decision to purchase our products?”

First, Pabst isn’t even a brewer. It closed its Milwaukee brewery in 1996, and now does business out of an office in suburban Chicago. Second, its beers aren’t made in American-owned breweries. Pabst farms out production of its brands to Miller — which belongs to a South African corporation. AGGGHHH!!!! Super buzzkill.

But Pabst’s “We’re an American Brand” claim may succeed. Since the Bud sale, the only classic American-made beers left are tiny regional brands. They’re the real Great American Lagers, but in most of the country, patriotic macro-brew drinkers can’t find them. And, as a new book points out, Pabst’s emergence as a “trendy” beer (to quote a Chicago bartender) demonstrates both the power of its red-white-and-blue image, and its success at marketing, even when that was achieved by barely marketing at all.”

Ugh, Pabst is breaking my heart though this is definitely not the first time I have been the hypocrite. This article goes on and on to say that Pabst knows who is drinking its marketing-free brand so if you get a wild hair up your ass and need some sponsorship for your bourgeois bohemian-type of event, then hit this brand up! Pabst does not advertise it’s red, white and blue cans in the likes of Maxim or even The Nation but it did lay off tons of workers in Milwaukee to maximize profits in suburban Chicago. Boo to the bad beer. I hate being collateral damage to a brand!

I love this quote from salon.com, it lessens the pain: “…portrays the revivalists as trendy urbanites glomming on to blue-collar symbols. And they are, but not quite in the same way as a graphic designer who wears a Carhartt jacket because it’s “unpretentious.” Hipsters fetishize the lowbrow culture of the ’70s and ’80s. But hipsters also tend to hold down jobs as bar backs and waiters. Sure, there are trust funders among them, but they’re mostly young people with thin wallets… The hipster’s beer of choice is always going to be a cheap one.”

So I’m probably just one of the many duped by the PBR’s ability to front like it is working class because I wear Dickies but damn, who doesn’t have a hot waitress or plumber fantasy in them anyway to be immune to such cheap allure? I’m only human and like Morrissey I need to be loved. But man, Pabst Blue Ribbon is actually kind of delicious and even more so for the fact that you can get it for $2-3 a pint at most bars that have Pixies or the first Public Enemy album on their jukebox.

 

Well, in case Pabst is just too self-referential or utterly ironic for your tastes then maybe you want to hit up some other solid stand-by’s like Lucky Lager (which I don’t know if that is still around but hot damn that was some beer! It’s like Red Stripe but not as cool yet still really cool because it was bottled in those hot stubby bottles with a basic red lettering on cream colored label. Freakin’ classic, man.) All’s I know is that it was the beer to drink during those John Coltrane interstellar nights…

Yuengling is also the cheap delicious beer to drink when visiting friends in Park Slope, Brooklyn. It’s definitely surprises you with how light and robust it is and for 9.99 a 12-pack you can’t go wrong. Plus, it sure is fun to say…whatever you do, you must resist the cute branding that is BROOKLYN LAGER. No matter how cold it is it just does not taste good. I want to be down because every time I go to NYC I want to be supportive of the local breweries but man, it just tastes like ass (no offense to ass).

Take a Beercation to Austin, Tejas

Austin has to be the only place in Texas where it’s normal to find legitimate vegetarian options on restaurant menus all over town. Austin doesn’t really feel like Texas, probably due to its reputation as the “Berkeley of Texas.” I can live with that. Like Berkeley, Austin is home to queers, people of color, white hipsters, (transplanted) Californians, artists, college students and professors, rockers/musicians, poor and homeless people, people who hate Bush, voted for Obama, and eat tofu, and all that good stuff that most people don’t associate with Texas. And Austin likes its beer. Several bars have an impressive offering of both local/regional beers and imports. An amazing selection of over 65 draughts and over 100 bottles can be found at The Ginger Man (www.gingermanpub.com) in downtown Austin. I walked in and just eyed the long line of draught handles and lovely collection of bottled beers from all over the world and the US, including local offerings from Shiner, Real Ale, and Independence. It was packed on a Saturday night, so we only stayed for a drink before heading over to The Duck and Dog Pub (http://www.dogandduckpub.com/), a sister-pub of one in London with the same name. It was also hoppin but it’s not as big as The Ginger Man. It definitely has that cozy pubbish feel, and I’m happy to say that I had my first (and only) properly poured pint of Guinness there. They had a great selection of English, Irish, and Scottish ales, as well as a couple local brews. I couldn’t help myself. After the Guinness, I had a pint of Belhaven and bought a shirt.

I also tasted some good local brews brewed in and around Austin/South Texas, including Shiner Holiday Cheer, Shiner Bohemian Black Lager, Fireman’s #4 Blonde Ale from Real Ale, and Austin Amber and Bootlegger Brown from Independence Brewery. I was most surprised by Shiner’s winter/seasonal beer. Holiday Cheer is brewed with peaches and pecans, and pours with dark blonde and orangey tones. It’s definitely refreshing and reflects Texas’s winter offerings, very much a departure from other heavier, browner, and spicier winter brews. It was good, though, and next time I’d like to try it on tap, along with the Black Lager. The stuff from Independence and Real Breweries was also really good, but I didn’t get enough of a range. Guess I’ll have to go back and drink some more. Austin has so much to offer any beer fan/geek/enthusiast, and I feel like I’ve only just begun my beer adventures there.  –mel.

TAPS, etc.

I’ve aways liked Taps, a seafood restaurant and brewery in Brea, the O.C. I’ve never really liked Orange County, however, so it’s always nice to find a place where I feel safe enough to drink and enjoy a good beer. During 2003-04, when GW Bush started the Iraq War, I would often join the handful of anti-war protesters who dared to occupy a little bit of space at the intersection of Imperial Hwy and Brea Blvd in what we called “The Heart O’the Beast.” Those famed Republican-leaning Orange County-ites would hurl all kinds of viciousness our way, and many times, when I found myself standing in front of TAPS with my “Stop U.S. Imperialism” anti-war signs, I thought, ‘Damn, I really just want a beer right now. I wonder if I should hide my signs…’ Those days (not really) aside, I still make myself at home at the Taps bar, home to some of the best beers, and one of the best happy hours, around. From 4-7pm on weekdays, they offer generous portions of popular appetizers, and their brewed-on-the-premises European-style ales and lagers will please any beer-geek like myself. I love taking growlers home. (Growlers=64oz. jug of beer you can take home from a brewpub.) My favorites include the Irish Red and the Doppelbock. I have yet to meet Vic, their brewmaster, but I will soon. I would be very happy to make beers that taste this good. Next time you’re at Taps, look for Sarah at the bar. I like a girl who knows her beers. Sarah turned me on to their IPA. It’s a lot like the Pliny the Elder’s Double IPA, a beer I really enjoyed and reviewed here. Sarah was very generous with the tastings, and she poured me samples of the IPA, Doppelbock, APA (American Pale Ale), and their cask ale. That’s another thing I like about Taps: they carry a hand-pumped, cask-conditioned beer, something that’s always a treat. It’s only the second place I’ve come across, aside from Pizza Port in Solana Beach, that serves a cask ale, and to me, that’s always a good sign of a place that knows what they’re doing with their beer. At any given time, they offer between 8-10 beers, ranging from the pale lagers to deep Belgian-style ales, all crafted on-site by their master brewer. Next time you find yourself in the Belly O’the Beast, O.C., stop into Taps and order yourself a pint of goodness. It’ll take the edge off. –mel h.

mel’s jingle brews pt. 3/Beer 101

It’s all about keepin’ warm in the winter, however you define winter in your neck of the woods. Either way, ’tis the saison for some really kick-ass brews that only crop up this time of year. I had Full Sail’s Wassail Winter Ale for the past couple years, and I’m always comin’ back for more. It’s a quality winter ale, nice and dark, and never fails to keep you toasty. And while I *heart* Anchor’s Merry Christmas Ale, I have to say that a close 2nd (if not a tie) for my fave winter brew would be Anderson Valley’s Winter Solstice Ale. It’s a gorgeous explosion of seasonal joy. To paraphrase my friend Luisa, “That shit’s like a Christmas tree in your mouth!” And while typically, the experience of having a Christmas tree somehow taking up your mouthspace might be kind of painful and unpleasant, I’m sure she meant it in the most tastiest of ways. You know, the flavors bursting in your mouth, the browns and the greens and the snow and the freshness of it all. I LOVE the Winter Solstice. It’s so…festive! It pours a nice brown color with adequate head, but the best part is the smell and first sip. Toasty canela y nutmeg and a hint of coffee caramel topped off with a spicy tea-latte kind of feel with no funky aftertaste that so many of these seasonal beers leave to linger. My compadre and I polished off nearly a six-pack between the two of us, it’s so tasty. I like the Samuel Smith’s Winter Welcome Ale, but not as much as the Anchor or Anderson Valley winter brews. Samuel Smith’s Winter Welcome Ale pours a deep blonde/golden color and leaves a nice patterned head. Not all winter brews are deep brown/dark amber types, I’m finding. Samuel Smith’s, brewed in Yorkshire, England, looks like a regular ale. Nice fruity nose with a bitterness that to me isn’t typical of winter ales. There’s no warm cinnamon or nutmeg that jumps right out at you. Any of those tones that do come through are pretty subtle, dominated instead by the fruity bitterness that characterizes most ales. If I was blindfolded, I wouldn’t know this was a winter brew. Then again, it could be a style thing; that is, maybe the Brits’ version of winter brew is just different from what many US (more specifically, California/West Coast) breweries do during this time of year. Even something like El Monte’s Skyscraper Winter Warmer gives more of the brown ale feel. When I had my first sip of the Winter Warmer, I really liked it, and my first impulse was to compare it to Anchor’s Merry Christmas ale. Its initial warmth and spice made an impression on me that sadly sorta wore off for me after a full pint. I have to say that I think the Winter Warmer is the best beer in Skyscraper’s lineup of brews. If you like the AmberBock from Michelob (i.e., Anheuser Busch/Budweiser), you’ll really like the Skyscraper winter brew. It’s easy drinking that goes down well, but in the end, it doesn’t really stand up to the boldness of the Winter Solstice or Merry Christmas Ale. Still, I found it to be a great warm-up beer before moving on to others.

I had my first pint of the Skyscraper Winter Warmer at Vinatero wine shop in Whittier last week, before their “Beer 101″ event presented by Dean Green. We tasted the Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse, Skyscrapter Lug Nut Lager, Kostritzer Shwarzbier, Chimay (red label), Bittersweet Lenny’s R.I.P.A., Black Butte Porter, and Deus. This was a great tasting for both newbies and beer-geeks alike. The good folks at Vinatero taught us important stuff, like how beer is made from 4 ingredients (not corn or rice, like Bud/Miller/Coors add to their ‘beers’), and that you can really get the full flavor of a beer by pouring into a glass rather than chuggin it from the bottle. These days, I’m all about pouring a beer in the glass, even if it’s something like Negra Modelo or PBR, because most beers do taste better out of a glass. Granted, beers like Pacifico (or okay, fine, Bud Light) are meant to be chugged from the bottle. But even a Negra Modelo tastes like a whole different beer when it’s allowed to ‘breathe’ and open up, much like how a red wine needs to be decanted or drunk from a wide-mouthed glass. That whole thing about how it allows you, the drinker, to enjoy the nose and fully appreciate the taste of the beer is true. Pour your beer in a glass and savour the flavour. (And yes, I know I spell like I’m in the U.K. For affect/effect, you know.)

Pranqster Ale

Love at first sip...

mel’s winter brews, pt. 2: jingle beers!

I’ve had a bottle of the famous Austrian wintertime bier, Samichlaus, in my fridge for about a month. Ernie at Vinatero stocks it, and that’s where I got mine. A little research (by research here, I mean looking at the label on the bottle and Beeradvocate.com) reveals that Samichlaus is brewed in Hürlimann, Austria. (Hmm…sounds an awful like like “Girly-man.” I bet Arnold the Austrian is really from Girlyman…but I digress.) It’s brewed only once a year, on December 6. Today happens to be December 6, so what better way to ring in the season of Santa by finally cracking open that bottle. So I did. Dayum. Right way, this thing smelled like a meal. A synchronicity of sweet, spicy, and robust aromas poured out of this bottle. Mmm. Reminded me of a lot of those Belgian beers I’m so fond of. I was gettin’ all excited. Then I poured it in my favorite glass and noticed, Hmm, no creamy fluffy head. Not like the Belgians at all! But the color is gorgeous. Deep caramel and amber tones. And this beer has legs! Kinda like wine. The stumpy little legs on this beer nevertheless intrigued me, so I finally had a sip. Whoa! This beer must be sipped, I’m finding out. It reminds me of some of those heavy, almost syrupy-sweet-on-the- verge-of-bitter Belgian ales, or even like a port wine or an aged old-vine zinfandel. If you like sipping on a cognac or brandy, this might also be your bier. This Samichlaus has been aged 10 months and has been in the bottle for an additional 2 years (mine was bottled in 2006), and at a whopping 14% alcohol, does a heckuva job warming you up. I appreciate the ’special-ness’ of this beer and I could see myself enjoying one of these maybe every other year. Maybe once every leap-year…

(stay tuned for pt. 3. when i recover from drinkin this Samichlaus, i’ll hit up the Samuel Smith’s Winter Welcome Ale and Full Sail’s winter offering, the Wassail Ale.)