Big Cranky (the Beer or Me?)

 Beers have gotten big. At a 9.5% ABV, this 16 oz. can of Big Cranky, from Stony Creek Brewery, is more than twice the alcohol content -- almost 2.5 times! -- of a standard 12 oz. Heineken. And this is where buying cans, instead of grabbing a beer at a brewery or bar, really shows how nutzo the price differences can be. I imagine it’d be hard to get more than 12 oz. of this if it was served to me at a bar and around here that’d likely cost at least $10 or $12, or at least $1 an ounce. I got this single can for $3.79, or less than $0.25 an ounce. A 4-pack of this looks like it sells for around $13, which is quite cheap for a big beer like this.

Anyways. Going out for beer is expensive. But you’re not hereto read my gripes about beer prices. Let me crack open this can of three Heinekens...I mean Big Cranky. Turns out it was packaged...yeeks...October of last year. So this is nowhere near a fresh Double IPA. It pours nice though. Golden yellow with a bright white head of large bubbles that quickly dissipates. It smells...oooh...boozy. A little bit of tropical fruit. A little candy. 

It’s predominant taste is bitter. And some cooked fruit. I fear this beer tastes old and not well taken care of. That’s what I get for falling for the “single can in a big shelf of other single cans” trick. But it’s an easy trap to fall for. It’s the same trap I fall for when I try to buy paper towels. I don’t think I’ve ever in my life bought more than two paper towels at once. The larger packs...what...6 or 8 rolls? They won’t fit in the cart, the car, or the apartment. 

The bitterness in this beer is nice. It’s sharp and prominent. And the booziness actually does a good job balancing it out. I imagine it’d be more hoppy/fruity if it were fresh. But I’m a little over freshness. I don’t know if I’m getting old or...cranky....or what. I chased beers down in the past. The Heady Topper craze was intense and not so fun (but that is a good beer). I think I had the most fun tracking down the Bell’s Brewing planet series based off of Gustav Holst’s “The Planets.” I still have one bottle cap of each of those (Mars, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune) in our kitchen. And I remember one of those beers...maybe it was Mercury?...had a distinct hot dog flavor, and I accidentally drank the one I meant to save, so I scrambled around town to find some place that had any left. That was fun and all, but now there are enough beers around that the idea of chasing particular beers doesn’t sound fun anymore.

Oh, and if you want to hear some real crankiness, my brothers recently shared with me some beers that called themselves Lollipop IPAs, filled with fruit (like five fruits) plus coconut or marshmallow or vanilla, and so on. This is beyond the milkshake IPA phase, which I avoid, and into some sort of bizarre state where I find myself wanting to yell “This ain’t beer!” But at this point, there are multiple generations of dull men sipping  a beer and making ugly faces and yelling “This ain’t beer!” to the youngsters of the time.

This beer is pretty good. And I’ve found a trick -- not an original discovery by any means -- that makes a beer last. I crack open the beer and put it into a cozy and pour roughly a fourth into a smaller glass. In this particular case, it’s a Night Shift Brewing cozy and a Heady Topper glass -- and for flavor I’m waiting the MST3K episode “Ring of Terror” -- and I trick my silly monkey-reptile brain into thinking I’m drinking more than one beer. Or, more usefully, multiple rounds of a very fancy beer at a very fancy beer joint.

I don’t have much else to say about Big Cranky. It’s tasty. It’s getting me tipsy. It was cheap. I’m about 2/3rds through. It’s nice to be at home drinking this for less than $4 instead of in a crazy pricy bar somewhere. Maybe I’m old. Maybe I’m cranky. Maybe I’m both?

Blind Tasting Experiments: 1. Victory Hop Devil and Dirt Wolf

Well, it's been nearly seven years. That's not too bad, right? So recently, I've been testing and working on my tasting skills, perhaps someday aiming for some sort of actual certification (http://cicerone.org/ anyone?).

The best way I know to do this is through straight blind tasting. Luckily, in exchange for copious baked goods, my girlfriend will get me random bottles of beer and pour them for me. I then analyze them as best as I can, make a guess for the IBU, SRM, ABV, and style. I've done about two dozen now, and I should reflect on them and see how well I do compared to other people. So here I go.

It's no good to keep the beers 'blind' here. Last night, I had two Victory beers: Hop Devil and Dirt Wolf. Here are my notes.

Victory Hop Devil (actually the beer that first got me into hoppy beers)
Appearance: deep red amber, almost glowing, clingy white foam, SRM guess: 6-7
Aroma: alcohol, hop bitterness, resin and a nose full of hops
Taste:
Alcohol: moderate to high (guess 6 - 7% (actual: 6.7%))
Bitterness: high! strong and crisp (guess 70+ IBU)
Malt: calm, slatey, dry
Hops: spicy, strong and bitter
Other: peppery?
Guesses: 1. Double Pale Ale; 2. IPA. Perhaps Long Trail Double Bag?
Overall Rating: 8/10. "I could get use to this!"

Other Hop Devil Descriptions:
"bold and spicy" "German malts" "grapefruit aromas, spicy with background sweet malts and a faint bready malt aroma"

Victory Dirt Wolf IPA
Appearance: yellow-gold, SRM 4-6, clean thin white head
Aroma: grapefriut, lemon, floral hop notes, wet towel?
Taste:
Alcohol: moderate, 6% ABV? (actual: 8.7%), alcohol mixes well with malts and hops
Bitterness: low bitterness, 30 IBU?
Malt: rolling and sustaining, the heart of this beer, candy
Hops: the coloration (I don't know what I meant!), grapefruit and malt sugar
Other: a grainy, not entirely pleasant taste
Guesses: another IPA, perhaps just a Pale Ale
Overall Rating: 5/10

Other Dirt Wolf Descriptions:
"heavy citrus, fruity aroma...grapefruit, resinous pine, notes of sweet citrus and spice"

All told, a good beer night. Hop Devil is the winner here, hands down.

Skunked Experiments

"This beer's been skunked!" Most of us have heard this, or even exclaimed it ourselves. There is an easy litmus test for determining whether a beer has been skunked. Smell it, and if smells of skunk, it's been skunked. But what causes it? It is intentional? How can I avoid it?

Beers can become skunked, or light-struck, when isomerized alpha-acids (which derive from hops) are exposed to visible or ultraviolet light. There is no other way for a beer to get skunked. Fluctuating temperatures cannot do it, and while some brewers try to produce this skunk aroma and flavor, they don't get there by skunking their beers.

Skunking happens when these acids react with light and sulfur-containing proteins in the beer that creates 3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol, a stinky sulfur chemical that is exactly the same chemical a skunk produces to make it's awful olfactory defense. So to keep your beer from getting skunked, simply ensure that it doesn't get exposed to light. It sounds simple enough. Kegs and cans, being impenetrable to light, offer the only real protection. Brown glass bottles absorb most of this deleterious light, protecting the beer inside adequately well. Green bottles only absorb green light, leaving the rest of the spectrum to penetrate and skunk the beer. White bottles offer virtually no protection, and are by far the worst option for beer.

So why don't brewers eliminate green and clear bottles? Because their customers are accustomed to the existing colors. And who would trust a Heineken in a brown bottle? (See below)

So brewers come up with other methods to hide their skunky beers. Some try to hide the skunkiness, while others alter the chemistry of the beer itself. Just think about all the beers you know that are served in clear bottles. Take Corona, which is typically served ice cold in a clear glass bottle with a lime jammed into the top. The ice cold temperature hides the taste of the beer, and the lime jammed in the bottle prevents the smell from escaping and masks the taste. It's almost as if they don't want you to smell or taste their beer. But, honestly, I've never had a Corona, so you can all be your own judge on that. Another method to avoid skunking is practiced by the Miller Brewing Company. They have replaced hops with tetra-hops, which are chemically different from normal hops and cannot be light-struck.

If you really want to experience the full range of skunkiness, you can try what I did. I purchased a six-pack of Heineken in the trademark green bottles, a six-pack of Heineken in the funky shaped cans, and a six-pack of the Heineken Dark Lager (in those sketchy-looking brown bottles) for good luck. The Heineken bottles were stored at the store in a well-lit case, which almost certainly already initiated the skunking process. I took them home, put five of them in our dark mini-fridge, and one on our window sill to get truly skunked.

Come Friday night, myself and three others are prepared to explore the skunky world of Heineken. We started with the green bottled variety, poured into pilsner glasses to showcase the color. Before sipping, we passed the brews around for each other to smell. When you drink Beer with Ben, that's the type of experience you'll get. Of the four, only one did not have any appreciable amount of skunky aroma. My beer was a typical, slightly skunked, yet still drinkable Heineken. It had both a nice hoppiness and bitterness, but the skunk flavor overwhelmed the other flavors.

We moved on to the canned variety, and one of us commented in surprise, "It's a different drink entirely!" The difference was obvious; the skunk smell and flavor were completely gone. The hops and slight bitterness were now the primary flavors, and while it still is a somewhat restrained pale lager, it was absolutely a step up from the bottled variety.

Before we dared open the window-sill bottle, we tried some of the Heineken Dark Lager. It poured surprisingly dark, and smelled of roasted malts and hops. Most of us in attendance were stout fans, so we all liked this Dark Lager over the previous Heinekens. But if we were faced with almost any other stout or stout-like brew, we would surely choose that over the Heineken Dark Lager.

Finally, we were prepared for the window-sill bottle. I poured it into a pint glass and it looked the same as the other bottled Heinekens, but the skunk smell was immediately apparent. We passed the glass around, hesitantly sniffing with pained looks on our faces. Even the non-beer-drinkers in attendance took a whiff, and were repulsed. Those daring enough to sip it were glad their previous beers weren't stored on our window sill, as the skunk taste really overwhelmed and ruined the beer.

So don't let people tell you that beers are supposed to be skunked. It might be expected in some instances, but people are not naturally attracted to this flavor. If you've developed a taste for skunked beers, then by all means continue drinking them. Just not within smelling range of me and my beers.

Young's Double Chocolate Stout and Peg Leg Imperial Stout

If you like the stouts featured last week, but are looking for more of an extreme experience, there are three stouts that I think are good for you. T tried an Oatmeal Stout, a Sweet Chocolate Stout, an Imperial Stout, and a recreation of a Scottish Seaweed Ale, while not technically a stout, fits in with these others quite nicely.

The oatmeal and chocolate stouts are both creations of Young & Co.'s Brewery in London. The Oatmeal Stout was brewed with oats to give in a nice, smooth feel and a slightly sweetened taste. Coming in at 5.4% ABV, the stout is a good one, but I'd rather have Young's Double Chocolate Stout.

This one clocks in at 5.2% ABV, and has a wonderful smooth and chocolate taste. The additional sugars counter the generally roasted malt character that gives stouts their signature taste, but not enough to eliminate it entirely.

I'll include the Peg Leg Russian Imperial Stout, brewed by Clipper City Brewery in Maryland. Right from the beginning, I could smells the malts and the alcohol. It tastes more smooth and with a more roasted malt flavor, the Peg Leg ends up being a very good stout. A good counterexample of what a stout can be; rather than sweet and chocolaty, it's malty and one can really taste the alcohol.

To wrap things up, I'm going to include a non-stout, but I think it is of the same family. When I saw a Kelpie Seaweed Ale at Beers of the World in Rochester, I knew that I had to try it, simply for the sake that it was made of seaweed. Upon further inspection, I learned that this Scottish Ale was brewed as the ancient Scottish brewed their ales, with their barley grown in seaweed beds. It gives it a distinctive, and hard to define, taste. It had a bitterness that resembled a good dark chocolate, but also some of the smooth and deep roasted malt flavors. Since it clocked in at 4.4% ABV, it is only fitting that it comes in a 500 mL bottle.

On a more pressing note for all microbrewery beer lovers, we will be facing a boost in prices for our microbrewery beers in the next couple of months. It is largely due to the fact that the recent increase in demand for corn ethanol is causing some farmers to grow corn rather than barley or hops, which in turn boosts the prices of these crops.

That means that there are less hops in the market, which means that some breweries may not be able to purchase the hops they have in the past, or at least not at the same prices as they have before. For us, the end result is a boost of about one dollar on a six pack of microbrewery beers. Now, that's not enough to cause massive disruption of our drinking habits. Those of us who like hoppy beers are not going to change our ways with a price boost like this. However, it does show how vulnerable our overall agricultural system is, and how a disruption in one sector has alter the prices and availability in another.

Next time: when skunked is good and when skunked is bad.

Golden Monkey - by Victory Brewers

Bought individually because of the winning beers produced by Victory Brewers (HopDevil and StormKing Stout), I had high hopes for Golden Monkey. I am not disappointed. Very cloudy, golden yellow (like a golden monkey!) with the bottom of the bottle pouring with darker brown sediments. Smells a little malty, more spicy, and not particularly hoppy. Tastes of strong malts, and that same orange peel and coriander that I liked so much about the Magic Hat trial beer. The strong malt flavor completely hides the 9.5% ABV, which is impressive.

It is a Tripel, which gets its name from the fact that they use more than three times the usual amount of malts than usual. Tripels are usually sweet, malty, spicy, and sometimes high in bitterness, although (according to Beer Advocate) the bitterness flavor is often hidden by the malts and hops.

It is a good beer. I will buy it again.

Guinness Extra Stout and Rogue Shakespeare Stout

Most American beers are designed to be thirst quenching, consumed relatively quickly and in large quantities. You see this in the ads and commercials and general drinking habits of most Americans. This is all well and good if you are playing beer-pong or other alcohol oriented games, but the beer styles that are appropriate to this environment pale in comparison to truly worthwhile beers.

And they especially pale in comparison to stouts. Looking at a pint of stout is like looking at a pint of press pot coffee: black with a deep brown foamy head. They generally smell of malts and have a deep and almost burnt grain aroma. And they all have a similar, roasted or burnt taste, due to the use of roasted barley, rather than malted barley. The American stouts can sometimes have a hoppy flavor, or they can echo the bitterness found in good coffees. Many have a deep, hidden chocolate flavor and some actually have chocolate as an ingredient. This week, I'm going to look at two epitomic stouts: Imported Guinness Extra Stout and Rogue Shakespeare Stout. Next week will feature more specialty stouts, and true chocolate stouts.

The Guinness Stouts are brewed in Ireland, and are by far the most popular and most common stouts available. You can find them in almost every bar, pub, or restaurant, bottled or on tap, and can be found at any beer store and at most grocery stores. The Guinness Extra Stout is an Irish Dry Stout, which is lighter than the typical stout, but it retains all of its good qualitie. It comes in a 12 fl. oz. bottle, and looks, smells, and tastes like a stout should: black with a deep brown head and smooth, roasted and slightly bitter. The Guinness Extra Stout is lighter that most stouts, which gives it a high drinkability and increases its popularity. This is why it melds perfectly with the atmosphere of bars, pubs, or festivals. It's a good stout for those of you who haven't tried stouts before, and is an old, reliable beer for almost every occasion, in every setting.

The Rogue Shakespeare Stout, brewed in Oregon by Rogue Ales Brewery, stands at the other end of the stout spectrum. The bottle was almost twice as big as the Guinness bottle (in fact, I’m pretty sure if you could bend space and time you could fit the Guinness bottle inside the Shakespeare Stout bottle). The smell is more intense, with chocolate and malt and that roasted smell that makes stouts so darn good looking.

The head on this Shakespeare Stout was remarkable. It was a deep, chocolate brown with a hint of red, and reminded me exactly of a good cup of press pot coffee. The stout tasted of roasted, almost burnt malts, some alcohol, and a slight flavors of chocolate and hops. The flavor of this stout was so powerful as to require only small sips at a time, the quintessential sipping beer. Coupled with the large bottle size, this beer lasted me all night long.

I want to exemplify by comparison the differences between stouts and the typical college beer. College beers are often consumed in those red plastic cups, and beer presentation plays no part in this environment. Stouts, on the other hand, when poured properly in a pint glass, with proper pouring to accentuate the deep brown head, is an experience in and of itself. As for using stouts in a game of beer pong: blasphemy! The mere thought makes generations of brewers weep.

So I implore you, next time you have a stout, be it the reliable Guinness or a specialty stout, do not drink it out of the bottle. Do not drink it out of plastic cups. Pour it lovingly, and carefully, into a clear pint glass or stein, savoring the beauty of its black body and brown head. So smell it first and sip it slow.

Blue Moon, Full Moon: Why Molson Coors isn't necessarily being deceitful

When I say Blue Moon, what's the first thing that comes to mind? For some, maybe the second full moon in a month, but for most of you, it is the beer served with a slice of orange in a pilsner glass. Labeled as a Belgian-style wheat ale, it is a good example of a witbier (white beer) with its cloudy appearance, orange and coriander taste and smell.

Now, who brews and distributes Blue Moon? The bottle and website (www.blumoonbrewingcompany.com) both claim it is the Blue Moon Brewing Company, but nowhere on the bottle or on the website will you find the name of the true brewer: the Molson Coors Brewing Company.

This isn't an accident, Molson Coors doesn't want you to know that it makes Blue Moon. It's their attempt to cut into the craft beer market, by downplaying the inclusion of their name in anything associated with the beer. Now they're not being deceitful (depending on how you define the word), they're just not providing you with information most of us don't care about.

Similarly, that iconic orange slice that comes with the beer is also a gimmick, not necessarily deceitful, but certainly skirting the edges of honesty. It was the idea of Keith Villa of Moslon Coors that thought people would purchase their beer more if it was advertised and served in bars with a slice of orange. It even says so on the bottle, “Bring out Blue Moon's natural spices by serving it in a Pilsner glass with an orange-slice garnish.”

Citric acid tends to destroy the beer's head, and is not needed to enhance the flavor of the beer. But people associate Blue Moon with a slice of orange, Keith Villa's gimmick worked, and Moslon Coors sold nearly half a million barrels of Blue Moon last year.

Now, I would probably be angrier if I didn't like this beer. It is refreshing, tastes of citrus and coriander with a little hoppy bitterness, and is readily available. Try it if you haven't already, or if there are slim pickings for alternatives. But forget the orange slice.

Luckily for me, Molson Coors gives me a reason to get angry: their Full Moon Winter Ale. “An Abbey ale...brewed with roasted malts and Dark Belgian sugar for a perfectly balanced taste,” they advertise on the bottle. This time, Molson Coors it trying to get a cut of the Belgian beer lover market.

It looked good when I poured it, with a dark red or amber appearance, minimal head, and smelling tantalizingly like malts.

Sadly, it falls far short of being a decent Belgian beer. It smells and tastes slightly malty, increasingly as it warms a little, but does not approach the sweet, malty level of good Belgian beers. I was disappointed, especially since I liked their Blue Moon. It seems that Molson Coors wasn't willing to stretch too far from their mainstream beer roots, and it really shows in this beer. All it really did for me was make me want a real Belgian Beer.

Molson Coors has other seasonal beers, including a Spring Ale with lime, an Autumn Harvest Moon Ale which is flavored with pumpkin, and a Honey Moon Summer Ale. I'd be willing to give them a try, but I'm not going to hold my breath with the knowledge that it's a Molson Coors beer, and when I know that the actual beers they are trying to mimic are out there.

Next week, I'll try out some stouts.