Thursday, January 15, 2015
Eight Beers That Stood Out at the 2015 Big Beers Festival
It was hard - really hard - to find a bad beer at the Big Beers Belgians & Barleywines Festival in Vail last weekend. Whether it was the slew of barrel-aged stouts, the profusion of tart but not overdone sours or the exciting number of beers that were brewing extremely well with spices, experimentation was alive and well.
But with the advantage of a few days to simmer on the multitude of flavors, a few beers rose to the top of the well-sipped heap at this wonderful event. And these are beers that will be worth looking for all year long - if some of these rarities can even be found.
Altitude Chophouse's Your Royal Chai-Ness
Year in and year out, this small Wyoming brewery brings something that makes you look - and return to their booth - twice. But it exceeded all of its past performances this year with what may have been the best beer of the festival, a chai-infused dunkelweizen that was so mellow in body and so sharply spicy in taste that it resembled a beer-y ginger soda.
Dry Dock Whiskey-barrel Aged Double Hazelnut Brown Ale
No brewery made the statement that malty beers are back quite so well as these Aurora auteurs, who offered up four dark, double barrel-aged beers. Easily the best, however, was this one, presenting a taste that was sweet and creamy and also vanilla and nutty, with the barrel standing out more than the whiskey did.
Goose Island Proprietary Blend
Bourbon County Stout is an awfully well-made beer. But this take on it, which added coconut water and simple syrup, made it not only more complex but dangerously drinkable for something this big.
Casey Brewing & Blending Saison
Troy Casey (seen here pouring for some clever beer writer) brought a lot of impressively bold farmhouse ales re-fermented with fruit like grapes and peaches. But at a festival of big beers, nothing was so palate-catching as his "simple" Saison - a concoction that was oak-barrel aged and wickedly sharp without being acidic.
AC Golden Dark Kriek
It was good to see that Casey left his former brewery in good hands, however. This blend of a golden sour and burgundy sour featured sharp, sharp cherry and a slight grape taste.
Former Future Brewing Black Project #2 - Jumpseat
Completing the dream sour/tart trio was this spectacularly tart spontaneously fermented ale that offered a taste of green apple on top of what could only be described as a gose-like beer made in a Belgian, rather than German, tradition.
Papago Brewing Coconut Joe
The star of Friday night's excellent Papago/Brouwerij Van Steenberge traditional brewmasters' dinner was this surprisingly sessionable (5.5% ABV) but roasty-sweet coconut coffee stout that paired spectacularly well with spiced peanut caramel apples (as the Beer Geekette ably demonstrates here).
Copper Kettle Brewing Mexican Chocolate Stout
This beer is way too well-known to call it a find anymore. But the reason it makes this list is that in a festival where high-gravity, experimentally spiced stouts had a bigger presence than ever, none packed the spicy/cinnamon/taste-bud-jolting punch of this emerging Colorado classic.
It was hard - really hard - to find a bad beer at the Big Beers Belgians & Barleywines Festival in Vail last weekend. Whether it was the slew of barrel-aged stouts, the profusion of tart but not overdone sours or the exciting number of beers that were brewing extremely well with spices, experimentation was alive and well.
But with the advantage of a few days to simmer on the multitude of flavors, a few beers rose to the top of the well-sipped heap at this wonderful event. And these are beers that will be worth looking for all year long - if some of these rarities can even be found.
Altitude Chophouse's Your Royal Chai-Ness
Year in and year out, this small Wyoming brewery brings something that makes you look - and return to their booth - twice. But it exceeded all of its past performances this year with what may have been the best beer of the festival, a chai-infused dunkelweizen that was so mellow in body and so sharply spicy in taste that it resembled a beer-y ginger soda.
Dry Dock Whiskey-barrel Aged Double Hazelnut Brown Ale
No brewery made the statement that malty beers are back quite so well as these Aurora auteurs, who offered up four dark, double barrel-aged beers. Easily the best, however, was this one, presenting a taste that was sweet and creamy and also vanilla and nutty, with the barrel standing out more than the whiskey did.
Goose Island Proprietary Blend
Bourbon County Stout is an awfully well-made beer. But this take on it, which added coconut water and simple syrup, made it not only more complex but dangerously drinkable for something this big.
Casey Brewing & Blending Saison
Troy Casey (seen here pouring for some clever beer writer) brought a lot of impressively bold farmhouse ales re-fermented with fruit like grapes and peaches. But at a festival of big beers, nothing was so palate-catching as his "simple" Saison - a concoction that was oak-barrel aged and wickedly sharp without being acidic.
AC Golden Dark Kriek
It was good to see that Casey left his former brewery in good hands, however. This blend of a golden sour and burgundy sour featured sharp, sharp cherry and a slight grape taste.
Former Future Brewing Black Project #2 - Jumpseat
Completing the dream sour/tart trio was this spectacularly tart spontaneously fermented ale that offered a taste of green apple on top of what could only be described as a gose-like beer made in a Belgian, rather than German, tradition.
Papago Brewing Coconut JoeThe star of Friday night's excellent Papago/Brouwerij Van Steenberge traditional brewmasters' dinner was this surprisingly sessionable (5.5% ABV) but roasty-sweet coconut coffee stout that paired spectacularly well with spiced peanut caramel apples (as the Beer Geekette ably demonstrates here).
Copper Kettle Brewing Mexican Chocolate Stout
This beer is way too well-known to call it a find anymore. But the reason it makes this list is that in a festival where high-gravity, experimentally spiced stouts had a bigger presence than ever, none packed the spicy/cinnamon/taste-bud-jolting punch of this emerging Colorado classic.
Labels: AC Golden, Altitude Chophouse and Brewery, Big Beers, Casey Brewing, Copper Kettle Brewing, Dry Dock Brewing, Festivals, Former Future Brewing, Goose Island, Papago Brewing
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
GABF Wrapup: Best of the FestAfter three days of attempted recovery from the Great American Beer Festival, I can still taste some of the beers I sampled - and in a good way. Sours took on more nuanced and fresher flavors, IPAs seemed to have a more uniform grassy backbone and it seemed you could find a surprise beer around every corner, especially at the pro-am booth.
So, per annual tradition, here is one beer connoisseur's opinion on the very best that America had to offer this year.
Beer of the Festival: Never in 11 years of attendance have I tapped a Colorado brewery for this honor. But Trinity Brewing's Brain of the Turtle - a sour ale aged with cherries, coffee and almonds - defied every known category and blended terrific flavors into a masterpiece. While I was in line at the booth, two separate people told brewer Jason Yester that other brewers recommended they try his beer. The reputation is well earned.
Close Runner-Up: Tiny Captain Lawrence Brewing of New York state opened a lot of eyes with its Rosso e Marrone, an ale fermented in grapes and aged in oak barrels. In a world of increasingly complex beers, this went beyond pucker-worthy and was smooth and almost exotic on the tongue.
Best Lager: It isn't to style in any way, but Danny Wang's Lao Wang Lager, from Denver start-up Caution Brewing, should inspire admirers and copycats with its proprietary blend of Asian spices.
Best Wheat: Tumblewheat, from perpetual festival attention-getter Altitude Chophouse and Brewery of Wyoming, came across like a vanilla cream wheat with an exceptional blend of smoothness and sweetness.
Best Hop Monster: Coloradans got a gift earlier this year when Firestone Walker Brewing of California finally began distributing out here. Anyone IPA fan who doesn't demand their local liquor stores bring in Double Jack, an imperial IPA that blends flowery earth tastes and sweetness artfully, is missing out.
Best Malt Monster: Sun King Brewing of Indianapolis took home a festival-best eight medals, but none were more deserving than the one earned by Pappy Van Muckle, a barrel-aged Scottish ale that is big, sweet and ignites the taste buds with a lightly whiskey-sodden flavor.
Most Interesting Beer: Anyone who failed to wander over to the pro-am booth Saturday missed out on the Indra Kenindra Curry Export Stout submitted by Ballast Point Brewing of San Diego, which had the nose of a south Asian rice bowl and backed it with a dark undertaste that helped it settle smoothly. It makes you excited about the next generation of beers to come in the years ahead.
Labels: Altitude Chophouse and Brewery, Ballast Point Brewing, Captain Lawrence Brewing, Caution Brewing, Firestone Walker Brewing, Great American Beer Festival, Sun King Brewing, Trinity Brewing
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Bigger But - More Importantly - BolderWhen 83 breweries show up to a festival bringing the biggest beers they make, you expect a lot of bourbon barrel-aged stouts, double IPAs and Belgian-style tripels. And, yes, there were plenty of each of those at Saturday's ninth annual Big Beers, Belgians and Barleywines festival.
But what really stuck out this year was not just how outrageously hoppy or malty the beverages gathered in the Vail Marriott Mountain Resort were, but how creative brewers have become in making beers of at least 7 percent alcohol by volume. And thus, the event served as a peek at what the future of beer might be.
"I think 20 years from now, we'll look back and recognize now as the point where the gloves came off and consumers really recognized what beer had to offer," said Dogfish Head maestro Sam Calagione, whose recent New Yorker profile only helped to raise the visibility of big beers.
Standing out among all the giant American experimenters and ageless Belgian masters, for example, was Altitude Chophouse and Brewery of Laramie, Wyo., a brewpub so small that it considered bottling but had to nix the idea because of cost concerns. Yet, it grabbed a lot of the talk at the festival with a Cayenne Cocoa Bock that creatively combined inky, chocolaty darkness with a late-breaking fleck of heat that served as a defibrillator for the tongue.
If it wasn't a peppery bock grabbing attention, then it was one of several Belgian pale ales that brewers were rolling out. Stone Brewing led the way with a Cali-Belgique IPA, first released in August, that artfully blended hoppy floralness with Belgian esters to create something shockingly smooth. But Utah-based Uinta Brewing and Belgium's La Chouffe were among the others who also put their own versions on display, with the Belgian-made entry having significantly less of a hop characteristic.
Big, gutsy saisons also are making their imprint on a style that hasn't been as bold in the past. Several were on display in Vail, including a very sweet and drinkable Saison Rue from California-based The Bruery, a beer that could become the boldest beer of the spring and summer seasons.
And, of course, the continuing fascination with Belgian-style sour ales remains in place. Between Russian River's latest batch of Consecration (which they cracked open at the Great American Beer Festival this year), Cambridge Brewing's Cerise Casee (my personal favorite beer of the GABF) and Deschutes Brewery's Dissident Old Bruin, the best trend in American beer continues to get better.
That said, it's not like the traditional big beers are going away. There were no less than 21 barleywines, 15 tripels, 11 double or imperial IPAs and six bourbon-barrel-aged beers on display. Tasting a hopped masterpiece like Flying Dog's Double Dog Double Pale Ale reassures you the extreme beers that have been the focus of the past 10 years are still evolving art forms.
But now there are tastes for everyone, and more is still to come. At talks over the course of the day, apple and pear beers, huge coffee porters and new experiments with Brettanomyces were all mentioned and may not be far away.
Yes, there truly is a big beer for everyone at this point. Now the trick is finding the time to drink them all.
Labels: Altitude Chophouse and Brewery, Big Beers, Cambridge Brewing, Deschutes Brewing, Flying Dog, Russian River, Stone Brewing, The Bruery, Uinta Brewing
