And so begins Diary II. I’m kinda surprised I lasted a week since the birthday-closing of Diary I. But this was a hell of a way to kick things off; with a big, mad, not-concerned-with-style kinda thing.
The Yeastie Boys are no one-trick ponies; they can make crazy hoppy pale ales, delicious easy milds, and things like this that escape classification and just are what they are. Somewhat reminiscent of Emerson’s too-scarce ‘Taieri George’, this is a dark, smooth beer with oodles of chocolate and spice flavours, which is almost worryingly drinkable for its rather-high strength.
They make a ‘His Majesty’, as well, but this one is dedicated to their wives (and the largely-unsung women of the craft-brewing world in general) and apparently made to their tastes — which also makes this another useful thing to help dynamite silly notions of what is or isn’t a “girly beer”.
Verbatim: Yeastie Boys ‘Her Majesty 2010’ 6/9/10 on tap @MH 7.5%. Welcome to the new book! An anniversary-ish beer seemed appropriate, and so did one that doesn’t respect style guidelines. “Belgian Imperial Porter” or Brown is people’s best bet. But why bother? It is what it is, and it’s good. Big, dark + spicy. Hides its booze worryingly well. Very wintery, almost Eastery with all those spices. Brewed for their wive’s tastes, apparently. Another counter-example to usual silly notions of what might be a “girly beer”, then.
Thanks for the nice words Phil… the notion of knocking down stereotypes is at the forefront of our philosophy (and something we have further plans for in 2011).
As for style… I actually entered this in the catch-all “Other international ale” at BrewNZ, with the following notes:
Base recipe (alcohol, bitterness and colour) is based on “64A. Traditional Strong Scotch Ale” but the use of a Belgian yeast, and it’s resulting fruity esters and spice, push the beer out of this style and close to “49. Belgian-style Dark Strong Ale”.
Somehow it got judged as a “Belgian Dubbel”, which it is far to toasty/roasty for, but it still managed to pull off a bronze.
I have had several people as what spices were used in it. There were none – just malt, sugar, hops and Achouffe/Ardennes yeast. http://www.forum.realbeer.co.nz/forum/topics/1500433:Topic:8?commentId=1500433%3AComment%3A100183
It was probably our sleeping giant of 2010. Nobody went all gah-gah, in a Hopwired or Armageddon kind of way, but several people have told me it was their favourite beer of all time – and so so many have told me that they didn’t like beer but loved it (or introduced people to craft beer with it). Me… I roll between really liking it one day and thinking “meh, I’d like to have another go at it” the next. It certainly worked better for me in the bottle than on tap, which is not unusual at all. And, like His Majesty 2009, it’s getting better and better with age.
I did mean to come back to this and leave a footnote that the spiciness was all from non-spice cleverness arising through the interaction of malt and yeast alone. It does make me wish I knew more about biochemistry, that sort of thing.
We had tremendous success with it as an evangelising-to-doubters beer at work, too. Cracks me up (and makes me slightly sad, at the same time) how people can think they’re “not beer drinkers”, only to be eventually won-over by something as bonkers as this. I guess their lagerhead friends only ever offered them lagers.
I can certainly attest to Her Majesty 2010 ability to turn on ‘non-beer drinkers’ or ‘non-craft brewing’ drinkers. Everyone I’ve poured a glass of this for, from my elderly sherry-drinking mum to a bunch of workmates who consider Steinlager Pure as a bit ‘out there’ all fall for this one on first tasting it.
Which suits me just fine, because it really is my ‘favourite beer of all time’ as well. It’s going to be a real challenge to not drink those I’ve cellared…