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  woolwine 7:03 pm on January 28, 2011 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: blueberry, cherry, Dark Horse ( 2 ), Flying Dog, Lagunitas, local ( 18 ), New Glarus ( 2 ), porter ( 5 ), raspberry, sour ( 2 ), stout ( 11 ), Summit ( 5 ), Surly, Twin Cities ( 10 ), winter ale ( 2 )   

  The back of 2010, the front of 2011 

  Recent beers in roughly ascending order of recentness…

  New Glarus Unplugged Old English Porter: Oh my god, this beer made me do a dance of joy. Thrilled that I have one more bottle, sad that I have ONLY one more bottle. It’s recognizable as a porter, but so sour that a warning sign was posted next to it: “This beer is SOUR!” Flavors that I don’t even ordinarily like throw a party in my mouth: black cherry, wood, kombucha — and I’m dancing despite myself. It’s really kind of like listening to Girl Talk for the first time.

  Surly Furious on cask: Delight. I remembered how good Sam’s was at the Happy Gnome and jumped at the chance to order one at Ngon on the evening of the winter solstice. Grapefruity, endlessly smooth, so great, even Meghan liked it. If my girlfriend likes an IPA, then that IPA is an IPA that everyone should put in their mouth.

  Lagunitas Brown Shugga: Baby’s first Lagunitas. I didn’t chill mine nearly enough the first time I drank it. Candied piney hops? No thanks. But in a frosty mug? Fresher and not too sweet. Yes, actually, I think I will, thank you.

  21st Amendment Fireside Chat: Surprisingly kinda weird! I figured the brewery that knocks watermelon wheat ale out of the park could do no wrong, but I found Fireside Chat bitter and clovey.

  New Glarus Raspberry Tart: Cracked on the occasion of my thirty-first birthday. Oh yum. Like their Belgian Red, sweet and tart but still recognizable as beer. I heart raspberries and the raspberry flavor here is just as real as expected. My only complaint is I’m now spoiled for Lindeman’s Framboise.

  Kasteel Rouge: Wow, and this one is like a Belgian Red spiked with concentrated cherry juice. Good and sour and intensely juicy-sweet. I wasn’t sure about this at first, but it grew on me. Alternated sips with a Bell’s Best Brown Ale, while I was at it.

  Dark Horse Tres Blueberry Stout: I’m into it. I think this has exactly the right amount of blueberry flavor. What I really need to do, FOR SCIENCE!, is make a clafouti or crême brûlée or something to eat alongside it.

  Flying Dog Gonzo Imperial Porter: Very nice indeed, though maybe not quite as sublime out of a bottle as I remember it from a tap at the beer fest last summer. But this is nice and robust, and as it warms I detect a little bit of the sourness I adore in New Glarus’s sour porter. I have a barrel-aged version of this too! Exciting!

  Summit Winter Ale: Number one with a bullet my new Summit favorite! Dark dark dark, thick creamy head, the smell of faraway woodsmoke in cold snowy air up top and creamy vanilla on the bottom with toasty malt sandwiched in between. Nice with ice cream.

  And a discussion question: What do you pair with macaroni and cheese? Common Roots has had a delicious truffle mac&cheese for the past month or two. I’ve tried it with a brown ale, a cream stout, and most recently Finnegan’s Irish Amber. None objectionable, but none perfect either.
   

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  woolwine 12:05 pm on September 13, 2010 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: bock ( 4 ), founders ( 2 ), local ( 18 ), Surly   

  Protip: 

  Get yourself a Surly Bender, pair it with some Goodhue Wash, and thank me later. N.B., mine, also picked up at Surdyk’s, did have crystals in it. Yum. So much synergy, I can’t even tell you where the buttery/chocolate/nutty flavors were coming from.

  Levy won’t believe this, but I’d never had a Shiner Bock till last week! Fixed now. I can see how it’d be an epiphany beer; biscuity, but so easy that I blinked and my glass was empty. After that, a Founder’s Curmudgeon Old Ale redolent of caramel and bananas — and booze! Kind of like bananas Foster before you set it on fire, come to think of it.

  Rachel is discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    Rachel 5:29 pm on September 13, 2010 Permalink | Reply

    Redolent of caramel, bananas and booze indeed! Apt description of that one!

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  woolwine 11:36 am on September 8, 2010 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: ale ( 21 ), Belgian ( 4 ), cask ( 2 ), Flat Earth, hops ( 3 ), kolsch, Lake Superior ( 2 ), Lift Bridge, local ( 18 ), orange, pale ale ( 6 ), porter ( 5 ), Surly, tripel, Twin Cities ( 10 )   

  Drinkin’ beers with mrbeefy 

  That’s right, I had the distinct pleasure the other week of enjoying some adult beverages in the company of a fellow NMDer. The venue was the Happy Gnome and our agenda (read: Sam’s agenda that I copied shamelessly, because yum) was to drink some sour beer. I started out easy, though, with a Lake Superior Kayak Kolsch. This was a happy surprise at the beerfest for me, and it was pretty good on tap too, though best enjoyed while still cold. Sam got to the bar ahead of me and went right for the Surly Furious on cask. My experimental sips of the Furious were a happy surprise too — those, right there! Those are the grapefruit-tasting hops I’ve been hearing about! Whatever kind of hop this is, I’m going hunting for more of it. Racer 5 is already on my list to try.

  Out on the patio, we ordered second beers and a Humboldt Fog cheese plate. My second was a Lift Bridge Minnesota Tan. What’s up with so many beers having names that sell the beer itself short? Tan is more complicated than the name implies: a cloudy yellow-orange ale in the Belgian tripel style that is stuffed full of lingonberries — you know, like you get in the little cup at the Ikea restaurant. It’s strong and tart with a lingonberry kick that is not kidding around, and not sweet either. They filed it under fruity and not sour, but I’m checking this one off as a win in the sour column. Sam, meanwhile, had the only tap beer on the sour list, a Monk’s Cafe Flemish Sour Red. The first whiff was a little bit like vinegar or kombucha, but the flavor was really more like sweet and sour cherry, getting rounder and tastier as the glass warmed. Besides the Humboldt Fog, there was some kind of cherry compote with almonds, a bunch of tiny microgreens, I think a balsamic reduction, and a few fresh berries: all serendipitously great pairings for the Flemish Sour Red, and not half bad with my tripel either. In fact, the flavors on the tasting plate were so interesting that my entree, a gigantic Juicy Lucy made from layers of crispy fried vegetables, couldn’t really compete despite being fantastically executed. Next time it’s kolsch with the sandwich for me — or, even better, a procession of tasting plates and strong beers.

  Dessert was an ice cream cake roll and a Flat Earth orange-infused porter — the Internets tell me that it was in fact a Xanadu Cygnus X-1. See the orange cast to the head in that picture? No joke. I say orange zest with black coffee underneath; Sam says Orange Milanos. I note with interest that this is one of several infused porters Flat Earth released at the end of last month, and one is s’more-infused. A s’more-infused porter. If I can get my hands on some, I’ll tell you all about it.
   
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  woolwine 4:41 pm on June 17, 2010 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: dunkel ( 2 ), lager ( 2 ), local ( 18 ), New Holland ( 2 ), strong ale ( 2 ), Surly, Twin Cities ( 10 )   

  Schadenfreude is delicious! 

  Perhaps you were aware of that. But I’m here to tell you that Schadenfreude, the oak aged dunkel lager, is delicious too. Its oak flavor’s nicely subtle, and I was as happy drinking it with my grilled cheese sandwich as with a little bite of triple chocolate torte: Schadenfreude pairs well with sweet and creamy without having so much sweet or creamy flavor of its own that it tastes like a dessert beer. A little pretzel, a little smoke, a little toasty malt, maybe even a little bit of licoricey cola: a little of many things and not too much of any of them. Also nice is that it stays pleasingly balanced from start to finish: no hops jumping out at me in the bottom half of the glass. I tend to linger over pints and I found the last sip of this one refreshing and genuinely drinkable, just like the first.

  Compare and contrast: New Holland Dragon’s Milk, of which I have a couple in my fridge. This one is a bourbon-barrel-aged strong ale that most certainly does come on strong, and it makes its barrel nature evident right out of the gate. Oak and smoke and sherry and vanilla and really quite a lot of alcohol, like a Christmas pudding with extra hard sauce. That one time when I left the house, I had a few sips of Dragon’s Milk from a tasting glass that circulated the room; more recently I drank a bottle of it lounging on my couch late in the evening. I was surprised, but maybe shouldn’t have been, to find myself a little wobbly and fuzzy-headed when I got up to go to bed. Serious business.
   
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  woolwine 5:20 pm on April 6, 2010 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: local ( 18 ), porter ( 5 ), Surly, Twin Cities ( 10 )   

  Surly Smoke 

  I didn’t realize that Common Roots had tapped some Smoke last week and I was almost going to give it a pass until Nikii offered a sip of hers. Four was plenty smoky for me, like I said, and I was expecting Smoke to taste like sticking my face in a campfire frying bacon. Not so! I liked the sip and I bought one to go with my flourless chocolate cake in strawberry sauce. I’d forgotten: it’s a porter and I seem to like those. The smoke is very nice, front and center but not overpowering. In the background are dark chocolate, sweet-sour fruit (dried cherries, maybe), and a little red-wine astringency with just a whisper of hops.

  Speaking of which, I finally made a hopchart account. You should too! Then you should bring me some more porters.
   
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  woolwine 6:27 pm on March 4, 2010 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: coffee ( 2 ), local ( 18 ), stout ( 11 ), Surly   

  Surly Four 

  

  Yay hooray, another picture taken in candlelight at Common Roots. I actually like that when they tap a special beer, it comes in a cute little stemless wine glass. At first I feel a little grar about paying the same for less beer, but then I get near the bottom and remember that I’m hard put to finish a whole pint of something tasty most nights, especially if dinner and dessert are happening at the same time. Anyway, this is Four, a double espresso milk stout that Surly’s brewed for its fourth anniversary. They’ll be bottling it later this month and I thought I’d try it last night to see if I want to move heaven and earth to secure some bottles. I’m still not sure. It’s a nice beer, desserty and just a little creamy with a sweet yeasty aroma. Smoky. In fact, when I started out drinking it along with my mushroom ravioli, it tasted entirely of woodsmoke, and that was a little much. The macaroon pictured was a much better fit, but if I’d had the means, I’d have paired this with just straight-up chocolate. Obvious, but it really does work best. The coconut half of the macaroon brought out an intense ethanol booziness, which I guess is cool if you’re Sam and you like rubbing alcohol, but I found it not so flattering. The chocolate half gave me the dried fruit notes I was looking for. Date, mostly; nothing too sweet or complicated. I like this beer, but am not sold on driving all over creation to get it. I think stouts and I are on the outs for the next little while; they were a nice gateway, but lately I seem to be heading for less chewy pastures.
   
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  woolwine 1:16 pm on February 25, 2010 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: ale ( 21 ), local ( 18 ), Surly   

  Surly Mild 

  It really is mild! Looks red in the dim candlelight at Common Roots, but in real life is just dark brown. My first impression is that it tastes of pretzels. I had mine with a bowl of broccoli cheddar soup. Not bad. Predictably, I wouldn’t mind pairing it with an actual snack food bender. This is not a life-changer, but is a new contender for hoppiest beer I have enjoyed and not made the bitterface at.
   
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  woolwine 9:18 pm on April 28, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: ale ( 21 ), local ( 18 ), pizza, Surly, Twin Cities ( 10 )   

  Surly Bender, spinach pizza 

  

  Unwinding with some Pizza Luce before heading over to clean out my old apartment. Beer seemed like a good idea. Of course, I don’t like anything that goes with pizza worth a damn. I forged ahead with a Bender anyway. (I had in mind a pleasant memory of finishing off the Coffee Bender from Nikii’s Surly flight at Common Roots the other week, yum. Anyway!) Surly calls it “an oatmeal brown ale that defies traditional categories” and it is a tasty beer even though spicy pizza sauce erases the tastiest part, which is the vanilla-caramel at the end, thereby making the hops taste more explodey. Because I could, also tried it with the after-dinner chocolate mints; I would not do that again, but I would cheerfully drink this beer with a non-minty dessert. For the record, near the bottom of the glass, I made the bitter beer face and had to throw in the towel.

  (Fact: Surly Brewing and Surly bikes are both in the Twin Cities, but are unaffiliated. Opinion: Surly bikes are so goddamn pretty.)

  mrbeefy is discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    mrbeefy 9:30 pm on April 28, 2009 Permalink | Reply

    You make me want beers I probably can’t have. They sound tasty. A hoppy brown ale is my favorite pizza beer so far, but I’ll keep trying other styles.