Category Archives: Actual Diary entries

Posts with beer notes — usually handwritten, as per the original Diary’s founding mission

NZ Craft Beer TV ‘Mash Up’

March 24, 2011 Phil 2 Comments

It is basically true that boys will take any excuse for a roadtrip. If the proposition also includes visiting basically every operating craft brewing in the entire country, it becomes quite literally amazing that what became ‘NZ Craft Beer TV’ didn’t exist sooner. But now it does, which is handy. Luke Nicholas (perhaps inspired by his time with Sam from Dogfish Head and his documentary-making crew) hopped in a van with Kelly Ryan (his colleague / returning expat / new hire / underling from his Epic Brewing Company), a Camera Guy and a Sound Guy — and they hit the road.

Proper ‘episodes’ will hopefully be on the interwebs — and perhaps the actual-teevee — soon, but along the way they were also working on a nearly-all-in “collaboration brew”. (Because why not?) We had a big ‘Meet the Brewers’ night at work recently, so Luke and Kelly were in town, and among the goodies brought along on the night was a preview keg of the beer: ‘Mash Up’.¹

Kelly, who was blogging along the way, wrote up the story behind ‘Mash Up’ in a long-form and well-worth-reading post. I had a peculiar pang of paranoia (or perhaps just vanity) when I got to the part wherein he explains why they chose to brew a hoppy pale ale, predicting that the choice would bring charges of one-trick-pony-ness. I’ve accused Luke having a one-trick-pony past — although, ironically, I brought it up because I thought his collaborations (with the aforementioned Sam and with Kelly himself, back when he was at Thornbridge) were lately rescuing him from that. But as he says, pale ale is as good a bet as any since it’s a) a massively popular trend, and b) a great way to show off something we do so very well here in the Little Country — namely that we grow freakin’ gorgeous hops.

But I still think it’s rather too generous to call this a “collaboration”. It isn’t, in any normal sense — and probably couldn’t ever be, realistically. Luke and Kelly have instead kept part of their brain ticking over as they traveled and met umpteen brewers and beer-industry-folk and have made a fair crack at capturing the mood of the local scene as they saw it, with pretty-solid justifications for each of their ingredient choices. Personally, I’d have thought it was a perfect opportunity to keep a running collection of handfuls of each brewer’s favourite malt, or a single pellet / flower of their most-loved hop, or whatever. Those could’ve been biffed into a full-size brew of ‘Mash Up’ as a token-but-real representative from their respective homes — without materially effecting the recipe. Something along those lines could’ve made the “collaboration” aspect more weighty, but after all it’s their show, not mine.

And the result is unarguable, anyway. From the preview keg that we had, I can report that this stuff is delicious. If this is ‘liquid zeitgeist’ for the New Zealand craft beer community, then we are in damn good shape. The appealing pale colour — just look at the thing shine, almost outclassing our beer engine’s freshly-polished brass bits — is an effective advertisement for a simple malt character which leaves plenty of room for the hop flavours to really shine, but which in no way wimps out or falls apart into annoying thinness. Oodles of zesty freshness comes from those hops, but they’re not overdone and don’t seem like they’re fighting in the glass; the flavours of each just nicely mingle together and make for a bloody lovely pint. The whole thing holds together like an enjoyably civilised conversation with three affable chaps in comfortable surroundings. I’m sometimes not a big fan of hop-forward pale ales on handpull, but this went like gangbusters.

Verbatim: NZ Craft Beer TV ‘Mash Up’ 2[4]/3/11 on handpull @ MH. The day after Meet the Brewer night, shout[ed] by some going-back-home whisky nerds. The “collaboration” aspect is a paper-thin veneer; consultation writ loose as they travelled around. And am I being paranoid or vain if I think the “one-trick-pony” comment in the write-up (on them selecting pale ale) might be directed at me? Anyway, this is tasty. Lovely simply malt character, and nicely-done selection of hop notes. Zesty + fresh. Actually really-well-suited to handpull. It’s definitely-not a Time-magazine style averaging,² and they missed a golden opportunity for using a Token Handfull of each brewer’s favourite malt. But hey. We can’t all be Exec. Producers. And this is, all on its own, rather lovely.

1: Depending on how much you know about brewing, it’s possible that the name is funnier than you think. It’s not just a repurposing of the word for a remixing and mucking-about-with that applies to half the pop-culture stuff worth watching on YouTube — mash is also the word for an early stage of the brewing process where the grains are all thrown together in hot water, ready for fermenting. I do love a good punny name, I do.
2: I think this is an instance of my Rubbish Memory, a recurring annoyance which is after all why I started keeping a Beer Diary in the first place. I thought I could recall a recent Time cover with a computer composite ‘average’ face of humanity. But the best I can find is a similar thing they did in 1993, but that wasn’t what I had in mind — which likely means that I’m thinking of the wrong magazine, and that I’m crap at the Google.

Actual Diary entries

Bear Republic ‘Big Bear Black Stout’

March 22, 2011 Phil Leave a comment

I’m at a bit of a loss with the name of this one. Something in it seems superfluous, certainly. It’s those three b-words in a row. I can make it work with any two of them,¹ but all three together just unexpectedly trips me up like an abandoned skateboard in darkened hallway.

The Wellington weather was beginning its turn towards the grey-and-drizzly, providing a nice excuse (as if I really needed one) for staying for another and continuing on my recent run of tasty dark beers. Triple-B was on tap and when something both interesting and imported appears in front of you at Hashigo it’s best to jump in without delay; these things don’t often last long.

After the doubly-peculiar goodness of ‘Black Emperor’ (it being a lager and conspicuously-hopped, both of which set it apart from the majority of dark craft beers it otherwise superficially resembles), ‘Big Bear’ is a bit closer to straight-up-and-down stouty stuff. It’s boozier than usual at 8.1%, and that strength also manifests in a definite sweetness — the taste is as big and full as the overloaded name would imply / require, but the traditional burnt-and-bitter edges are softened right off. This is a friendly animal of the ursine persuasion, for sure. You merely need to keep one eye on your pic-a-nic basket; you don’t have to immediately run for your life — or frantically wrack your brain trying to remember whether you’re supposed to run from a bear or stand your ground or throw some toothpaste to distract it, or whatever-the-hell confusing and forgettable ‘survival advice’ people on the TV keep giving us.

If anything, it’s too friendly. For all its bigness and solidity, I drank mine way too easily; the clumsy name was more of a mouthful than the glass. The obvious solution of going for a bigger vessel would quickly get reckless, given that it’s stronger than the average beer — just to throw in one more Yogi reference before moving on.

Verbatim: Bear Republic ‘Big Bear’ Black Stout 22/3/11 also on tap @ HZ. 8.1% Shitty weather outside (i.e., my type of rainy drizzle) and an Odd Day, so more good beer. It seems like one of the Bs in the name is superfluous, but I’m not sure which. Any 2 seems to work. This is proper serious, but not at all scary. Quite an easy nose, but my previous may have something to do with that. Nicely full, sweet-edged body. Rich, but not burnt + bitter. My only “complaint” isn’t one at all: it’s way too easy to drink.

1: “Big Bear Stout”; “Black Bear Stout”; “Big Black Stout” — they all seem sensible. And they certainly seem sufficient, you’d have to say.

Actual Diary entries

Golden Ticket ‘Black Emperor: NZ’

March 22, 2011 Phil 1 Comment

If you’ll forgive me going all self-referential for a moment,¹ I’ll quote myself from Twitter:

So Golden Ticket ‘Black Emperor: NZ’ is rather good. The phrase “pleasantly surprised” is a double understatement.

I was at Hashigo, and conscious of the usual delay that exists between me writing a Diary entry as I try something and it winding up actually online, here.² I wanted to give this a little plug for its inherent goodness, but also because of the circumstances. I wasn’t kidding when I said “double understatement” — pleasant isn’t a strong enough word for a beer this tasty, and suprised was similarly inadequate; I had hated Golden Ticket’s previous two releases. The entry for their second beer (‘Summer Babe’) is by far the longest in my first Diary, and it’s fairly full-flightedly ranty.³ But a few people had insisted that I should give them a third chance — a rare thing, if ever there was — and I’m glad I did, especially since I had missed the original edition which had preceded this local-hops variant.

At first glance another member of the Unnameable Style of hoppy-but-black / black-but-hoppy, ‘Black Emperor’ throws an interesting curveball in that it’s a black pilsner rather than a hopped-up porter or blackified IPA — so it’s lager, rather than ale; it’s from the parallel universe where the Unnameable beer you’ve started to enjoy but have barely gotten to know yet suddenly shows up sporting a sinister goatee. Beer, in its awesomely sprawling variety, will always confound any sort of broad generalisation about these things, but the Standard Line is that lagers are crisp and short where ales are more rounded and long. As many issues as can be taken with such a distinction, it’s not entirely wrong, at least — and this peculiar beer seems a decent exemplar of it.

So it’s a case of a recent trend for Something Different made An Extra Bit Different Again, which really does make it enough to jettison all worries about style names out the window, so the tearing-your-hair-out which would otherwise ensue doesn’t ruin the enjoyment of your pint — let alone your entire day. It’s simultaneously rich but crisp and refreshingly sharp, and it’s coffee-ish but equally-bristling with hoppy zing. It is, in short, interesting. And I rate interestingness very highly indeed — it just accompanies tastiness so very well, don’t you think? Black Emperor was — as I said — a pleasant surprise in having both. I’m looking forward to seeing what they do next.

Verbatim: Golden Ticket ‘Black Emperor: NZ’ 22/3/11 on tap @ HZ 4.8% An interesting one, for a few reasons. Firstly, I like it. And hated their previous two. This NZ-hopped version is, I’m told, better than the original, so maybe they’re in a steep climb. And after all this Black IPA talk (I wrote up ‘Hop in the Dark’ last night), this is black pilsner. So the Spock-with-goatee lager-alternate-universe brother. Proper black, espresso bubbles. Big rich coffee flavour, nice fresh hoppy zing. It’s an interesting excerside in lager v ale, and the usual line basically holds up: the body is lighter, the finish shorter, the edges sharper.

1: Well, even if you won’t; it’s me that has the keys to this thing.
2: Currently, for recent entries, t≈13 days; I’m writing this up late at night on April 4 (by my reckoning).
3: I really should link to it, I know. But it’s stuck in that increasingly-tragic Not Uploaded Yet grey area that has befallen the latter half of Diary One.

Actual Diary entries

Croucher ‘Patriot’

March 19, 2011 Phil Leave a comment

So here we are again with the ‘Black IPA’, which I’ll just go with calling it for now (the brewery themselves went with ‘American Black Ale’) and which it seems is cementing itself as quite the trend — though to take a stab at for how long would be patently foolish, as always.

I like these hoppy-but-black / black-but-hoppy beers, as I’ve said a few times before. So I was excited to try Croucher’s ‘Patriot’, since I’m usually rather fond of their stuff — their ‘Vicar’s Vice’ is the only counter-example that comes readily to mind; it was just very much Not My Thing, but it seemed pretty well received by plenty of others, so I’ll just chalk that one up to the blessed subjectivity. Oh. Oh, wait — he says, flipping through his Diary a bit — there was also ‘Mrs. Claus’; I didn’t like that at all. But apparently the little memory-management trick I pulled on my future self by sneaking it into a double-whammy entry worked quite well. Which is nice to know. So let’s press on quickly and pretend we didn’t remember, future-future self…

But this. This impressed me pretty quickly. I was sufficiently enamoured of my first try of it — on Saint Patrick’s Day — that I took a quick snap of my taster glass. And I realise that you don’t all have anywhere near the particular kind of odd brain that I do, so please just trust me when I say: that’s rare. I had my first proper full pint — and thereby made a Diary entry — a few days later. Then had two more pints that day. And have had several more since; its differentness doesn’t outstay its welcome. Compared against its siblings in the Unnameable Style, I found it a bit lighter and thought it was deliciously Jaffa-ish,¹ which is probably down to the usually-distinctly-orangey Amarillo hop they used. Really rather delightful, and easily capable of making friends with people ordinarily shy of both the very-dark and the conspicuously-hopped. Which is something of a clever trick, to say the least.

Verbatim: Croucher ‘Patriot’ 19/3/11 5.5% on tap @ MH, shouted by a regular. I am really liking this Black IPA trend, whatever we wind up calling it. This one’s all about the Jaffas, with the very orangey Amarillo hop in abundance. Very smooth; weird but not overwhelming at all. Much better than Croucher’s other recent one-offs, so I hope it joins the roster; which is rumoured. On the name issue, Croucher have gone with “American Black Ale”, which I don’t like because of the breezy “American = hoppy” assumption. This will be a tricky style to name.

Croucher 'Patriot', taster — Croucher 'Patriot', my first taste of

Croucher 'Patriot', tap badge and style name

1: Note for aliens from far-flung lands: I mean the chocolate-and-orange flavour of the eponymous candy, rather than the presumably-just-oranges flavour of the actual orange variety — nor do I mean to imply that the beer somehow tastes like a historic port city in Israel. Damn I love the many and varied things you can learn from a Wikipedia Disambiguation Page — and I positively adore the fact that there exists a page entitled ‘Disambiguation (disambiguation)’.

Actual Diary entries

Dogfish Head ‘60 & 90 Minute’ IPAs

March 11, 2011 Phil 1 Comment

And really, how better to follow a charmingly old-school, relatively-sedate IPA than with a pair of hop-mad ones; two rungs on a ladder of crazypants by the mad geniuses at the Dogfish Head brewery. My flatmate Ollie and I each had a half-glass of their ‘60 Minute’ IPA and ‘90 Minute’ IIPA¹ — the time references how long the brew is boiled for, and they just keep biffing more hops in every minute, on the minute.

There are two others in the range; a stronger, stickier ‘120 Minute’ (way up at 18%) and a ‘75 Minute’, which is a 50-50 blend of the 60 and the 90 which is then barrel aged, with yet more hops. These two are much more readily-available, though — the 90 Minute was the original, but it’s the 60 Minute which is currently their biggest-seller. I’ve had them individually before, and they make for a hell of a side-by-side comparison.

Both are positively a-sploding with classic Northwest-U.S. hop flavours.² 60 Minute is generously described as the ‘sessionable’ one of the set, but that’s probably only true relative to the others; it is still 6% and pretty wonderfully solid, all on its own. The 90 Minute is then instantly recognisable as the same idea, just with the volume turned up considerably — from how you might have it when unselfconsciously dancing around the house on your own, straight to something that’ll instantly annoy the neighbours. But to hell with the neighbours. You just have to crank things up stupidly occasionally. And this beer does that. Maybe you couldn’t have it every day, but maybe you wouldn’t want to. It’s that one day of madness and excess that you enjoy ridiculously, but which you couldn’t indulge in too often — lest you run out of money, liver cells, close friends, or chances at diversion from the criminal justice system (whatever you burn through most readily when you party just a bit too hard).

They’re both bloody marvellous and choosing between them is so agonisingly difficult that I personally just recommend you do as we did, here — better to break the rules with a Gordian Knot kind of move than to wind up like Buridan’s Ass, if I can just crazy with the references for a moment. These are the sort of beers that inspire that enjoyably-geeky sort of rambling and blathering, as you can see from the near-nonsense in my notes.

Verbatim: Dogfish Head ‘60 & 90 Minute’ IPAs 11/3/11 6% + 9% both 12 floz. Ollie and I are having half each, on the occasion of the new job. 60 is happiness all day, every day; 90, one massive hit, once a day. It’s Sophie’s Choice. I love how recognisable the progression is. 90 is just that leap upwards in aroma, sharpness + intensity — and just straight up the nose to the forebrain. 60 is the preacher saying “Can I get a flavour?” and waving his hands. 90 is the response from a thousand-strong congregation.

1: Those links are highly recommended, by the by. Both feature pretty good notes, and nice little videos featuring a bit of backstory about the beers and the brewery — including some high-tech and no-tech gizmos, and the origin of their otherwise-rather-odd name. You can see Sam’s easy and infectious enthusiasm in the videos, too. Despite being one of these new-fangled beer celebrities (what with his documentary series and its collaborations and all), he seems to remain a thoroughly-lovely chap — we briefly worked behind the same bar at the beer festival last year, which truncates the hell out of my Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon (Beer Nerd Edition) paths.
2: The hop varieties are from the Northwest, at least. Dogfish Head itself is in Delaware. But any mention of Delaware just makes me think of Wayne’s World, and thereby proves distracting.

Actual Diary entries

Emerson’s ‘1812’ IPA

March 11, 2011 Phil 4 Comments

My impromptu round of Kegtris was apparently enough to earn me a second pint, this time of the also-just-tapped Emerson’s ‘1812’. The fashion for hop-tastic IPA being what it is, old-school classics like this are often unfairly passed-over. “Old-school” is obviously a fairly relative term, given that ‘1812’ isn’t old in IPA-itself terms — but it’s still pretty grandfatherly in the New Zealand craft brewing sense. It was an early example of local beer getting ‘noticed’ on the international stage, too; Michael Jackson (the beer and whisky writer, not the ‘other’ one, obviously) selected it for his 1998 book Beer (which was about as definitive, in its day, as its maximally-simple title suggests) and it’s even one of the dozen that also make the cover.

There are a few stories about the name. 1812 the year is a bit too early to be anything-much to do with the style itself,¹ so it’s often suggested that there’s some slightly-too-clever reference being made to the beer’s hoppy ‘overtures’ (hur-hur, very punny), but there’s also the odd-and-maybe-related fact that 1-8-1-2 are the last four digits of the brewery’s phone number. All this numerology and allusion-chasing is enough to make me remember just why the fuck I gave up on watching Lost.

But no matter. It’s a catchy, simple name. And a charming beer; a nice counterpart to modern, flashy, boistrous pale ales (as much fun as they no doubt are, when the mood for them strikes). The malty body is delightfully smooth (particularly off the taps, I thought), and there’s a very pleasant, gently-building marmaladey fruit character comfortably mooching around in the glass. Just a bloody marvellous sit-and-sip kind of a pint.

(And no, the bar didn’t get lighter inbetween this and the ‘Rapture’ that preceeded it. Rapture was on the front taps, and I was a little rushed by the General Populace surrounding me, so I didn’t muck about and obsess as much as I ordinarily might. With the 1812 on tap at a much-quieter end of the bar, I set up a proper long exposure shot. Hence the blurry people. I do like my new toy, I really do.)

Verbatim: Emerson’s ‘1812’ IPA 11/3/11 on tap @ MH, also. Further reward! And a chance to show off the camera, since a few stoppers-by were seeing me do some updates + having a tinker. If memory serves, this was a very early notable New Zealander. And it’s very tasty. B[y] current standards, it’s astonishingly mild, of course, but it’s always good to go old-school occasionally. Smooth malt body, nice, almost marmaladey fruitiness in there.

1: At least when it was known by that term. But from the opposite angle, 1812 is quite a bit too late to have much to do with the origins of beers vaguely of this sort (whatever they were called) and/or their export to India.

Actual Diary entries

Yeastie Boys ‘Blondie: Rapture’

March 11, 2011 Phil Leave a comment

As much I was enjoying the relative novelty of a Friday Night Off, I was also having a Bit Of A Day. The Gonzo and the writing helped somewhat, but when I returned to the Malthouse and saw that a few tap beers had run out, necessitating a fridge shuffle, I volunteered to sort it out. A dose of Kegtris — with its unique combination of heavy lifting, organising things into neat piles, and near-zero temperatures — is always good for my Zen, peculiar creature that I undoubtedly am.

Colin (the Overboss) was grateful for the Free Labour, and so offered to make it Slightly Not Free by shouting me a pint of the just-tapped ‘Rapture’ as reward when I finished. And it made for a lovely after-exertion restorative.

Whereas its crisp-and-snappy ‘Europa’ version was brewed with a ‘clean’ German Kölsch yeast, ‘Rapture’ was fermented with a Belgian abbey yeast and its light body of mild malt and understated hops provides a perfect showcase for just exactly what sort of difference that choice entails. It’s very easy-going, but delightfully interesting; the funkiness from the yeast is in no way overbearing or confrontingly odd, it’s just quirky fruity goodness. Flavour-wise, it put me in mind of some sort of halfway-hybrid of Tuatara ‘Ardennes’ and Yeastie Boys’ previous Belgian-esque brew ‘Plan K’, although it has a lighter body than either of those.

‘Europa’ was pretty damn tasty, but if I had to choose between Blondies, I’d go with this. The sheer interestingness of a much-lighter-than-usual Belgian ale — the usual stereotype of Belgian brews being rather hefty isn’t universally accurate, but it’s the stereotype for good reason, nonetheless — earns ‘Rapture’ quite a few points with me.

Verbatim: Yeastie Boys ‘Rapture’ 11/3/11 on tap @ MH, reward for a (necessary) day-off dose of Kegtris. The second of the ‘Blondie’ pair of summer ales, this time with a Belgian abbey yeast. The lightness of the base really lets the unique yeasty flavours dance arond a little. Not all crisp + snappy like its sister, smooth, quirky fruitiness instead. Really rather fun. Massively reminds me of something, but I’m struggling to spot what… Not Ardennes or Plan K — but maybe their bastard daughter? Not overpoweringly funky, just easily so. And I’ve just unexpectedly landed on a nicely odd food match: Vintage Cheddar & Red Onion Kettle Chips (i.e., Purple Chips). The easy-going funkiness is in them, too. I am so fucking low-brow, sometimes.

Yeastie Boys 'Rapture', Hashigo tap badge

Actual Diary entries

Flying Dog ‘Gonzo’

March 11, 2011 Phil 1 Comment

Good people drink good beer.

So sayeth Hunter S. Thompson on the label, and for what it’s worth I concur.¹ I bloody loves this beer. I loves it for its intrinsic goodness and for the circumstances in which I’ve had it — and I’m a mad keen Hunter S. fan,² so I’m sure his appearance(s) on its livery should be included among those, too.

It’s just utterly delicious; black, boozy and bitter. Full of flavour, but in no way overblown or stunt-ish. Just rich and warming and delicious. And inspiring — with the name, the quote, the artwork that has always gone so well with HST’s stuff — how could you not just sit down and get some writing done, if you had your handy-dandy little laptop with you? I couldn’t not, because I did, if you follow. I plonked myself down in the bar and hacked happily away at my keyboard for quite a while, churning out quite a few Diary entries and generally enjoying my Evening Off.

Turning back to more strictly-Beer-Nerdy topics, I couldn’t help but notice that they label this as an Imperial Porter but also proudly trumpet that it’s an award-winning (American Style) Imperial Stout. Which nicely brings up the question of the porter versus stout difference — and my favourite answer: that, basically, there isn’t one. And as nerdy as I ever get about style names and the boundaries inbetween, this is one of those rare and delightful beers that just shut me right the fuck up and slap a stupid grin on my face. And set me to writing.

Verbatim: Flying Dog ‘Gonzo’ Imperial Porter 11/3/11 $12@HZ 12floz 7.8% 85 IBU I can’t remember if I ever diarised this, or if I just piggybacked on Toby’s one. I bloody loves it. For itself, and for its awesome HST referencing. And I’ve just noticed that they firmly deny a stout / porter difference, calling this both, on the label. Such an awesomely huge flavour, big + warm at the front, then smooth + rich to follow. Can’t resist doing some actual writing, with this in front of me.

1: I’m sure that any empirical case I’d try to make here would be drenched in confirmation bias — but still, it seems pretty solid. Certainly if someone sketchy-looking wanders into the bar late at night and starts to wobble the needle on my Muppet Detector, them asking “what’s your cheapest beer?” right out of the gate will start up some horrid-sounding mental alarms.
2: If you are similarly enamoured of HST but the word ‘Transmetropolitan’ means nothing to you, go now to your nearest bookstore / library / internet-shopping-thing. Now. You have your homework; report back. The rest of you — you unfortunate normals — you should check it out too. But let the proper people at it, first.

Actual Diary entries

8 Wired ‘Hopwired’ (Saison yeast)

March 7, 2011 Phil Leave a comment

Just when we got a couple of kegs of the ever-delightful Hopwired back in at work, I heard that Hashigo had a keg of an experimental Saison-yeast variation. Which sounded like a prime opportunity for ‘Science!’. I jokingly suggested to Dave that we should pour some pints, brave the Liquor Ban and meet halfway for a side-by-side tasting. He found the good plan buried in my nonsense, and brought a little-wee-flagon of the Saison-edition in to me at Malthouse. Bloody marvellous.

And what a fine experiment it was. Hopwired is a fantastic show-off of both brewing know-how and flavourful local hop varieties. Here in the Little Country, we’ve made passionfruity Riwaka hops, lemon-limey Moteuka hops, white-wine-grapey Nelson Sauvin hops — just to pick three that you’ll find in Hopwired, nicely heaped into a big bowl of fruit salad and then thrown, with some vigor, into your face. In a surprisingly-enjoyable way.

Saisons are, generally, light-but-complex, summery ales descended from Belgian farmhouse brews — and one of their unifying features is a certain funk brought on by the particular yeast used. It’s a difficult thing to describe; it’s a bit of a “know it when you see it” situation. Think of that distinctly woods-y, barnyard-y, slightly-too-real scent that the outdoors produces on occasion.

In Hopwired, the yeast softens that hurled-fruit-salad aspect off somewhat, and insinuates oodles of that musty, funky character. Perhaps because Hopwired is a good deal oomphier than the bones of a Saison would ordinarily be, that charmingly-freakish side is firmly in check, though; it doesn’t obnoxiously overwhelm things at all. There’s a wineyness in there too, which was vaguely reminscent of that in Dogfish Head’s stupidly-lovely ‘Midas Touch’ — it didn’t really taste like actual wine; more like what I wish wine was. Altogether a worthy beer, very worthy as an experiment, and a fascinating side-by-side. I’d almost always opt for the original ‘vanilla’ Hopwired myself, if it were down to one or the other, but this was cracking good fun.

Verbatim: 8 Wired ‘Hopwired’: Saison yeast 7/3/11 wee flagon gifted from David @ HZ. Experimental batch of the back-on-our-taps-too Hopwired. Smells like Science! Definitely changes the nose; musty + funky, softening off the fruit. Similar things happen in the face. Not scary-funky, just good old-fashioned James Brown funky. Hints of winey / sour flavours, but not too much. Really rather fun, though I would almost always be in the mood for the original.

Actual Diary entries

Deschutes ‘Hop in the Dark’

March 3, 2011 Phil 10 Comments

Beer style names are often rather odd, when you think about them too much. Which I do on occasion, perhaps unsurprisingly. My favourite example of late concerns a recent (delightful) trend in craft brewing circles which has seen the release of several dark-and-hoppy / hoppy-and-dark beers.

If you take the rich black malty base as your starting point, you might see these as hoppy porters and one instance of the broader modern hoppy-x phenomenon. But if you start from the hop focus instead, then these look like IPAs with the malt darkened to the limit.

Both starting points lead to clumsy potential names for the style, as it emerges. “American style porter” carries the unfortunate implication that the United States is synonymous with hoppiness and that sort of lumping is just a bit much like suggesting that “Belgian” equals boozy and “English” equals not-very-bubbly. Even if a nation does do something particularly well, I just can’t shake my discomfort with having their name in the style’s name.¹ The other extreme usually leads to “Black IPA”, which is peculiar for the rather-obvious reason that the ‘P’ in IPA stands for pale and ‘black’ pretty much entirely implies not pale.

I don’t really have a good suggestion for how to fix all this, but I can say that I emphatically reject Deschutes’ attempt here to coin “Cascadian Dark Ale” / “C.D.A.”. That’s just awful. It sounds horrendously smarmy in its full version, and too much like “seedy, eh?” in its abbreviated form. And what about beers that don’t opt for Cascade or generally-Cascadey hops? For what its worth, I vote No on C.D.A., while at the same time voting Hell Yes on another one of the beer itself, please.

I’m loving this style, whatever it winds up being called, and this is a bloody lovely example of it. Huge and rich, and with a many-fronted hoppy component that makes instant nonsense all over again of the one-dimensional name. Even when you know what you’re getting into with these things, the fruity nose is still a pleasant shock — the brain’s connection between this sort of appearance and more-traditional porter / stout is pretty strong yet, I suppose. This one just struck me like a fantastic fruit salad from some parallel universe in which chocolate is also a fruit.

And, enjoyably, this turned out to be a rare exception to the way in which taking photos of your beer tends to get you laughed at — here, it got me laughed with. My Newfoundlander friend Jillian (over here on an extended holiday, part of which she spent working with us at the Malthouse) took the opportunity to show off (or just entirely ad lib and invent; I’m not sure) her light-writing skill by ‘signing’ my glass with my trusty beer-illuminating cigarette lighter. It’s a pretty good result (though, if we’re being entirely honest, there were several hilariously-crap early attempts, which I’ll spare you), and gave me a crash-course in the long-exposure settings on my new camera. Bloody marvellous.

Verbatim: Deschutes ‘Hop in the Dark’ C.D.A. 3/3/11 @ MH from my stash. 1pt 6floz ÷ 2 w/ Peter, after a nice night out @ Hop Garden. The Emerson’s dinner was on, which had a side-effect of letting us hang with a bunch of regulars. This seemed suitably weight[]y. I do love the Black IPA, as much as I resist this silly name. It’s massively dark, with a surprisingly fruit nose. Just what you need. Like fruit salad, if chocolate was a fruit, as well.

1: I’m okay with “American Pale Ale”, though. Which is possibly just old-fashioned inconsistency, though I might defend myself by noting that APA certainly did emerge from the U.S., and that the national adjective pegs to the varieties of hops and their character rather than just the raw notion of their presence and intensity.

Tastings and ramblings and whatnot