Beer Sherpa Notes, February 10
Listen to this article:
This is a Beervana audioblog. Please forgive my verbal stumbles and fumbles. And when you’re done listening, consider supporting my partners: Guinness Brewing in Dublin, IE and Baltimore, MD, pFriem Family Brewers in HR, OR, and Reuben’s Brews in Seattle, WA. Their support makes this site possible.
I have grown ever more neglectful in talking about beer itself, that wonderful, tasty elixir we all love. For some time I tried to force discipline on the matter by running a series called Beer Sherpa Recommends, but I have fallen down on the job. Time to rectify matters!
Over the course of the year, I hope to broaden my survey to include national and international offerings, but I’m doing most of my drinking close to home now, so expect an Oregon-centric start to things. I’ve got a backlog building up, so today will be a bit longer than future installments. Onward!
A Perfect Stout?
Gigantic Brewing quietly debuted LP Stout as a part of its regular lineup a year or more ago, and as with any 5.7% standard, non-barrel aged stout, it has enjoyed a liminal existence. No one cares about porters and stouts anymore—except, I suppose, geriatric drinkers like me. Well, you’re all missing out. A great stout is a triumph of balance, complexity, and moreishness—objectively one of the best styles in the world. (If you doubt this, note the popularity and longevity of my sponsor, Guinness.)
LP is an exceptional stout. It contains four points of flavor, and they all sing in wonderful harmony: the first flavor to arrive is dark chocolate, slightly bitter but rich, followed quickly by a hit of red fruits, one that persists throughout. Though full-bodied, the beer finishes dryly, which provides the moreishness. Amid the roasty chocolate and fruitiness is a subtle hit of sweet caramel, tucked like a bit of nougat in the center of a truffle. It arrives mid-palate, but really pops with the final swallow. I’ve been clinging to sanity in these Covidy winter months with 500 ml infusions of this pure, black joy.
Tmavé Time
It has only taken the rest of the world fifty years or so to realize it, but the brewers of Czechia make more than pale lager. Their biggest foray beyond the world of svêtlés are dark lagers, variously called tmavé or černé. Or for Americans, Czech dark lager. Early examples in our area included Wayfinder’s Hidden Hand (still the best of the American examples in my experience) and Natalie Baldwin’s tasty version at Breakside. Lately I have tried examples from Matchless, which made a schwarzbier-tasting version, Wheatland Spring (in Virginia), which was more porter-like, and a strange, uncategorizeable beer from Occidental. The style is quite broad, so these notes don’t necessarily count as criticisms. Even in Czechia the style is rareish, so ur-examples are limited mainly to U Fleku, which has a version I’ve never seen attempted. Anyway, I’m a giant fan of this trend. Keep ‘em coming.
Italian Pilsners
While I’m on Wheatland Spring, let me mention their very nice Italian pilsner. Unlike tmavès, this style is not broad. Indeed, it’s based on a single beer. In the US, breweries tend to interpret the meaning as “super-charged with dry hops,” which often produces something like the India pale lagers of old. Yet the original, Italiano’s Tipopils, has a deep, lush, and integrated hoppiness that isn’t on balance particularly intense. I’ve written about how they make it here, if you want to go deeper. Following this prescription, Wheatland Spring has managed a beer with that same integrated hop flavor. No one has yet managed the depth of Tipopils (in my sampling), but this is as close as Americans have come. The brewery was new to me and I thank Phil Runco for sending the beer. It’s one to watch, and not only because the owners hired an Oregon brewer. 🙂
The New IPAs
What I love about IPAs now is how they so often taste like no beer I’ve encountered before. The flavors of the constantly-proliferating varieties of new hops have no map. Every new can may be an adventure. Case in point is this wonderful new IPA from Crux, Bushy Park. Named for the Tasmanian farm where Crux sources the Vic Secret and Galaxy hops, it is entirely novel to my tastebuds. The challenge with these new varieties is finding descriptors that don’t just repeat the same list of tropical fruits every other new variety is supposed to produce.
Bushy Park is in that category of juicy IPA, but I wouldn’t say the flavors are strictly fruity. To me they’re more like tropical flowers—and not necessarily ones I know. If you’ve ever stood in a jungle where the air is heavy and damp and caught the scent of an intense, possibly fuchsia-colored bloom, you’ll know what I mean. Those flowers often smell sweet, but aren’t fruity. That’s what Bushy Park is like. The closest I can come, and it’s not quite right, is plumeria. Go try it and see if you can do better.
Alkoholfrei
Kate Bernot informs me this morning that non-alcoholic beer is never going to be a thing in the US, and I tend to agree with her. Nevertheless, a million* breweries now make them. Many of the products are pretty good, too. They often taste close enough to regular IPAs and pale ales to satisfy regular beer drinkers. (Some, like the apparently women-aimed Partake, need work.) Yet there are standouts, and I would put BrewDog at the top of the heap. Even though I warned them my non-alcoholic posts had come to an end, they sent a batch anyway. Well, if you are among that .5% who drink these beers, give them a look. None were bad, though the IPAs were the best. I enjoy non-alcoholic beers, especially during longer sessions, and BrewDog’s are good.
*Not a million