All posts by Phil

Twisted Hop ‘Sauvin’ Pilsner (with Hallertau hops)

September 27, 2010 Phil 1 Comment

Well now. This was a rollercoaster ride.

Diary II entry #16.1, Twisted Hop 'Sauvin' Pils on the Hopinator

1) Kegs of Twisted Hop Pils arrive at work, and the people rejoice — I’ve said before that this stuff is a frontrunner candidate for All-Time All-Staff Favourite at work. 2) The Overboss announces his plan to run this through the Hopinator, overlooking at opportunity to just stick it on on a Friday night and likely blam through it in delicious short order — and the people get apprehensive. 3) It goes on, with the Hopinator loaded with Hallertau hops, and I try it shortly after. I certainly didn’t hate it, maybe because it reminded me of my beloved ‘Minimus’. Still, it seemed like it just would’ve been better as-is. Why mess with a Good Thing, especially with the Good Thing is that damn good?

4) I try it again the next day. Which turns out to be enough time for the hops to really stew into the beer. And everything goes to hell, changing my mind about all the “it’s not great but” slightly-positive aspects. Instead, it’s now as if someone has presented you with a tea cosy made from the skin of your dead cat. It just reminds you of the cat, and makes you miss them — and, if push really came to absolute shove, you’d have thought there’d be better uses for a catskin, anyway.

I wondered if something lighter would’ve worked better (maybe white grapes, or the Sauvin hop itself?), but I think anything would have soon over-stewed and presented its own version of the Catskin Problem. Basically, taking a beer that is so remarkable and wonderful and lovely simply because it is such a deft touch of a thing and then ramming it full of some superfluous flavour is simply pants on head retarded.

Diary II entry #16.3, Twisted Hop 'Sauvin' Pils, as is

5) A week later, the next keg goes on, unmolested — and the people rejoice once more. Imagine… imagine if someone resurrected your dead cat. And then, they presented them to you in the morning, so you were still all groggy and confused, and initially assumed that you were just dreaming. But, no… there it is, just like you remember.

Actual Diary entries

Golden Bear ‘Bear Trappe’ 2010

September 27, 2010 Phil Leave a comment

I suspected I’d like this; it was recommended by a few people who are usually good for such things (including Kieran, the Beer Wizard in Residence at Regional). But I was pleasantly surprised to utterly freaking love it.

Golden Bear is a tiny little brewery at the top of the South Island — an area charmingly-sprinkled with such neat little operations; it’s a popular area for people to go to drop out of the rat race and do what they love, instead — and a few such people do exactly that and start brewing. The chap from Golden Bear is Californian (the name comes from a symbol for the state), as is my friend and fellow bartender Halena, so I thought I’d split this with her after a shift (much as we’d done with a similarly-fantastic Sierra Nevada ‘Southern Harvest’). I had it all poured and photographed, and then had a minor freak-out when I remembered that I’d lost my pen that night and that all the spares seemed to be blue. I’m very much a Creature of Habit, to the point it borders on being problematic sometimes, and I was hesitant to give in and muck up the colour scheme of Diary II so early. (Diary I has its share of random-pen entries, so I do manage to sort out my priorities, eventually, but they always felt… odd.)

As you can see, it pours a very appealing hazy dark gold and has a pretty damn luxurious big thick white head that is easily resurrected with a little swirl when you’re further down the glass. And you definitely will be swirling it, because you’ll want absolutely all you can get of the insanely lush and fresh fruity nose — helped in part, no doubt, by the brewer’s clever inclusion of actual peaches in the mix. It is, to quote my notes, “just bloody lovely”; absurdly well balanced, delicious, and just different enough.

Verbatim: Golden Bear ‘Bear Trappe’ 2010 27/9/10 $17 @ Reg. 750ml ÷ 2 with Halena after a Monday shift. (The Californian connection again, after all, like with Sierra Nevada Harvest.) 7.5% Cute punny name, nice big-ass bottle with a nifty re-sealable plastic screwcap thing. Big strong Belgian tripel with actual “black-boy” peaches thrown in, rather than just waiting for the sometimes-peachy note you get. Just bloody lovely. Massive fruity + fresh nose, nice thick white head that’s easily resurrected. Neither too-sweet nor too-tart. And damn, am I glad I had a backup black pen; I was freaking out for a second, there.

Going meta

Hello world!

September 26, 2010 Phil Leave a comment

Ah, Hello World. What a fine tradition you are.

Notwithstanding the time-travelling posts that appear before this one, I felt I should leave this mostly-default post in place, as a token of when the Beer Diary blogthing actually started. As I say in the About whatsit, copies of actual diary entries (wherever they were originally made, though usually in the notebooky diaries themselves) appear on here under their original creation dates.

But this should stand as a monument to t₀, as it were.

Actual Diary entries

Coopers Original Pale Ale

September 23, 2010 Phil 1 Comment

This entry from Diary II is unique (so far), in that it contains absolutely no tasting notes. Coopers bloody-lovely Pale is something I’ve had umpteen times before, but had never given its own entry; the Diaries were never about recommendations for other people, originally, and I knew this well enough that I didn’t need to write about it.

And then, Dr. Tim Cooper himself — the latest heir to take the reins of the brewery — paid our little country, our little town, and our little pub a visit. My first proper bar-tender geek-out was when Richard Emerson — another heir to another eponymous brewery — visited the Malthouse on one of my first few shifts. I’ve had a few such borderline-fanboy reactions to meeting other beer industry folk since, but none as acute as this, for a while.¹

Tim was in town for a bit of a shindig to celebrate the new-ish mass-importing of his beers into the Little Country; we’ve had several kegs of Sparkling, Vintage and Stout on tap already. And he seems to be an utterly lovely chap. A semi-regular customer — a Suit who is occasionally-bothersome, but harmless enough — insisted on shouting a round, and Dr. Cooper elected for a Pale (apparently his favourite go-to of their range), so I joined him, and then revelled in my unashamed nerdery by asking him to sign the bottle.

Verbatim: Coopers Original Pale Ale 23/9/10 at work, bought by the same random occasionally-bothersome suit who shouted the above. (And I do mean ‘shouted’.) This round was precipitated by the appearance of Dr. Tim Cooper himself. There was a bit of a do for the new imports and such. And he seems like an utterly lovely chap. He picked one of these for his in this round, so I joined him, then wrote this, obviously. And just as I was thinking a photo would be lame, I got him to sign my bottle. Now that makes for a photo opportunity. [Heh; no tasting notes.]

1: The pairing is really rather apt. Emerson’s Bookbinder was probably my first proper local microbrew; Coopers Sparkling was my first Australian — and both are members of my All Time Favourites and were therefore written-up together for my contribution to the Malthouse Beer Blog. Coopers & Emerson’s would also have to be acknowledged as leading the proper-brewing trends in their respective countries — though the former takes the gong by a hundred years, and the latter makes up for tardiness by being much more experimental.

Actual Diary entries

Twisted Hop IPA (with mandarins)

September 23, 2010 Phil 2 Comments

People do get confused when they spot our Hopinator gizmo, they really do. Most often, they mistake it for a trophy of some sort, sitting rather-randomly on the bar. You have to sympathise, admittedly. But you do have to wonder what the trophy was for, when they saw it like this.

Twisted Hop’s IPA is bloody lovely. I’ve had a fair amount of it — and have certainly had it to excess, on one memorable occasion — and it definitely has a bitter, fruity snap to it. So hell, why not pile the Hopinator full of mandarins, and bam that up a notch? The result was really interesting; the familiar Cascade hops have a distinct citrussy bitterness, but here’s that flavour coming from actual fruit, too, so you get this nice moment of clarity about how the one really does taste like the other, but also are reminded of how different they are. If that makes any sense. This is a stonking great big beer; it is difficult to continue to make much sense when standing in its blast radius.

Diary II entry #13, Twisted Hop IPA and mandarins

Verbatim: Twisted Hop IPA & Mandarins 23/9/10 Hopinated @ MH on fresh — whole! — mandarins. 6.4%? Seems slightly mad at first, but the Hopinator looks awesome with weirdly-distorted fruit in it, and it does work. The IPA is weighty enough to not be overwhelmed, and the pithy fruity bitterness that is leeched off the fruit nicely highlights the similar flavours that were already in there. Pretty damn full-on, but good.

Actual Diary entries

Harrington’s ‘Saddleback’

September 20, 2010 Phil Leave a comment

Given the nature of the place he runs, our Overboss can be a surprisingly… incurious drinker, sometimes. He’s very-much fond of what he’s fond of (i.e., American Pale Ale), and doesn’t seem to much wander into other fields. But hey, that does leave me (as resident Beer Nerd) with a fairly steady stream of samples to try, so no complaints.

Harrington’s make a broad range of beers, and they make them very well. They don’t often make anything whacked-out and loopy, preferring instead to make simpler, easy-drinking instances of various styles. We were a little weirded-out by the tasting note’s inclusion of a reference to “toffee” flavours, since that’s eerily close to a classic brewing fault — but I didn’t really think such was in there, anyway, except perhaps as a slightly growing sweetness in a beer that is generally crisp and light, with a cidery / winey feel to it. As much as I enjoy some crazypants in my beer sometimes, I also have a lot of time for things like this, and like Mussel Inn’s Golden Goose: simple, clean, quaffable lagers that should be rights be much more popular than the oddly-rank somehow-leading commercial examples.

Verbatim: Harrington’s ‘Saddleback’ Lager 20/9/10 4% sample that Col. didn’t want. 500ml. We were weirded out by the ‘toffee’ note on the label; sounds oddly like a fault. But no matter, I don’t really think it’s in there. More crisp and light, with that borderline cidery / winey feel. Very slight build into a sweetness, maybe. But this happily joins the likes of Golden Goose and such; simple, clean + quaffable

Actual Diary entries

Unibroue ‘Trois Pistoles’

September 18, 2010 Phil 2 Comments

I get mistaken for Canadian, sometimes (I have very idiosyncratic accent — and no idea why I do). I have Canadian relatives, I’ve been to Canada (though I was not of beer-buying age), one of my favourite bands (The Tragically Hip) is Canadian, as are some of my most-beloved TV shows (Wonderfalls, Due South). So, how the hell did I get to Diary II without any Canadian beer, so far? And how the hell did I get this far without this legendary Canadian beer,¹ in particular?

I don’t really have an excuse. But here I am, solving both problems at one delicious time. Because this beer is very much not one of those times where you finally try something much-hyped and are left with a confused look on your face, wondering what everyone elses’ fuss was all about. This deserves the not-insignificant fuss it generates.

It’s a dark, broody looking brown with purply highlights that show up against the light or during a swirl — and which suspiciously-well match the Apocalpytic-looking painting on the bottle. Compared to its big, chewy, Belgian-esque brothers, this one has a fresh, ‘uppy’ and particularly plummy fruitiness that brings a whole smackload of deliciously tart flavour into your face — like a crabapple straight off the tree. I do love the more-typical sticky fruity Belgians like Kwak, but this is just utterly fantastic as itself, and as a comparison.

Verbatim: Unibroue ‘Trois Pistoles’ 18/9/10 9% 355ml $9 from Rumbles. Ticking off another of those embarrassing Never Hads. Very dark brown-with-reddy-purply-highlights-on-the-swirl. Suits the broody Apocalyptic painting on the bottle. The nose is fresh, uppy and plummy, and that nicely tart fruitiness carries on into yer face. Almost crab-apply. Nice to have that side showing up in one of these big Belgian-esque ales — a fresh change from the stickier sweeter ones like Kwak. Old Port wine character, they say, which is fair. (And hey, Three Pistols was always a favourite Tragically Hip track.)

1: The aforementioned favourite band, The Tragically Hip, even did a song (on their 1991 album, Road Apples) called ‘Three Pistols’. I can only assume it’s not directly related — it’s likely that both are named after the Quebec town. I’m a big enough nerd that I made sure I listened to it while drinking the beer — and while writing up this entry, weeks later. These things have to be done, really.

Actual Diary entries

Cucapá ‘Obscura’

September 18, 2010 Phil Leave a comment

The last of my trio of Cucapá beers, and certainly the pick of the bunch. Which is a little surprising, since you might fairly assume that a Mexican brewer would do the Light & Refreshing better than they do the Bigger & Sippier, given climate and whatnot. (The nerds on Ratebeer.com speak even more highly of their Imperial Stout and Barleywine, further compounding that weirdness, but neither of those were available for me to try.)

The bigger-still body does the best at hiding the niggling metallic note, though you can still feel it in there without trying very hard. The dark, mahogany-esque colour rightly hints at the sticky maltiness that is present in the nose and in your face. Both this, and the previous Pale Ale, are strange, in the fullness-of-body department; they taste ‘bigger’ than the Golden Ale, sure, but still manage to have some sips, or even some parts of individual sips, feel aggravatingly ’empty’.

The three beers are certainly acres better than the usual bog-standard Mexican lager. There is an unavoidable element of damning with faint praise inherent in that summary, but there’s no real reason to avoid it; these are better than their peers, but still not great.

Diary II entry #10, Cupaca 'Obscura' Brown Ale

Verbatim: Cucapa ‘Obscura’ Brown Ale 18/9/10 4.8% 355ml also $4 from Reg. Very appealing mahogany-brown, despite the ‘Cerveza Negra’ on the label. Nose is sticky malthness, and there’s a decent amount on the palate, despite the now-familiar thinness and metal. (Though this hides that metal the best so far.) Quite probably the pick of the bunch, but they still don’t manage to totally rehabilitate Mexican beer in my mind — despite all being acres better than others. (Faint Praise Problem.)

Actual Diary entries

Cucapá ‘Chupacabras’

September 18, 2010 Phil Leave a comment

So, goatsucker. Really. That’s what “Chupacabras” literally means. Chupar is “to suck”, and cabra is “goat”. Strange name for a beer, you might think.

Wait; it gets stranger. The Chupacabra is a piece of South American cryptozoology, like an Australian Bunyip, or a North American Bigfoot. But unlike those, this one doesn’t have the ‘virtue’ of being old-timey nonsense; these are a pretty recent popular delusion — quite-possibly wholly derived from the awesomely-awful movie Species, which the original ‘eyewitness’ apparently thought depicted real events taking place in Peurto Rico.

But anyway, the beer. I write about beer, right? Well, first things first, it doesn’t suck (at least, not goats). It’s billed as American Pale Ale, but isn’t a typical one, if it’s one at all. The colour tends to the reddish end, there’s not a whole lot of aroma going on, and the fruity flavours are in the sweeter modes than the usual bitter-citrussy ones. Style aside, though, those factors combine into something not inherently bad and the bigger body does bury some of the familiar Cucapá metal flavour.

Diary II entry #9, Cupaca 'Chupacabras' Pale Ale

Verbatim: Cucapa ‘Chupacabras’ APA 18/9/10 5.8% 355ml $4 from Reg. Very reddish ruddy amber. Attractive, but atypical for style, I’d have thought. Not massively aromatic, and with quite a nice big rounded sweet fruity middle bit. Apricotty, perhaps. Very much like something I’ve had, but I’m struggling to recall. Amelia says there’s a not-in-a-bad-way burnt grass aspect; as if she were a really classy cow. How strange. Hints of the metal, but more buried.

Actual Diary entries

Cucapá ‘Clasica’

September 17, 2010 Phil 2 Comments

Mexican beer does get a bad rap in nerdy circles. But you always have to be skeptical of bad reputations where far-flung places are concerned; it’s usually not the Good Stuff that gets famous elsewhere, first. Think Fosters, think Budweiser — think Steinlager, if it comes to that. And hey, beer’s a pretty accessibly-priced sort of a thing, so I figured I’d take a punt on three beers from the Cervecería Cucapá that showed up randomly at Regional, the dangerously-awesome bottle store down the road from my house.

Not the classically-pale sort of ‘golden’ that someone like me might expect, this does have a pretty nice orangey-ambery hue to it, and is a decently tasty smooth malty sort of a beer. So already it’s a step or seven up from the Usual Mexican Thing You Might Resort To Sticking Fruit In The Neck Of. But there’s a nasty metallic bite to it that does spoil things somewhat.

Diary II entry #8, Cupaca 'Clasica' Golden Ale

Verbatim: Cucapa ‘Clasica’ Golden Ale 17/9/10 355ml $4 from Reg. 4.5% Not that ‘gold’; quite a bit of orange / amber in there. Certainly not terrible, which is a welcome change from most Mexican beer available round here. Yeastie Sam is right on Ratebeer; it’s a bit thin + metallic in the body, but the malt flavour is decent. Just needs to lose the metal

Tastings and ramblings and whatnot