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The second contender; (here’s the first) Weighing in at an overwhelming 11% alcohol by volume and donning a brilliant amber-red shade this heavyweight unassumingly rose from the hushed farmlands of Eastern North Carolina, from the little town of Farmville! Duck-Rabbit Brewery’s Barleywine Ale.

I think, possibly aided by the fact that i was trying to compare this beer to the Bigfoot Barleywine, my immediate reaction to this beer was particularly smooth and drinkable. The head was golden to tan in color and quickly diminished, but a little stubborn ring stayed with me for the whole glass. The midstream taste whispered honey and caramel, but finished with the bitterness of English hops. In fact in several ways this beer spoke with an Englishman’s accent. I wouldn’t call it a session beer, but I don’t think I could drink just one if I picked up a sixer.

In the bout of the barleywines Duck Rabbit takes it over the Bigfoot. I’d say in about 5 rounds with a KO. The Bigfoot came into the fight and on paper it might have been a crowd favorite, touting unique features and character to spare. But in the end it just seemed schizophrenic beside the Duck-Rabbit. The Duck-Rabbit delivered the knockout punch when after noting how smooth it was compared to the 9.5% Bigfoot I looked down at the label and was informed that I was enjoying an 11% brew… and enjoying a second one of these right now wouldn’t be out of the question.

Sierra Nevada’s Bigfoot Barleywine Style Ale reminds me of Bigfoot himself… For example people without a devoted curiosity about the subject upon running across the misunderstood earth-wooki would turn and hightail it, heading back to the comfort of safety and familiarity. But those with a specific curiosity, perhaps those who are seeking rare and unique wildlife would hang around a bit longer.

I’m not gonna lie to ya, I cringed just a bit when I first sipped this one, it’s the kind of beer my wife would take a swig of and hand to me with a soured look on her face. Sometimes this is a good thing, you know, sometimes I end up with an extra Dogfish 90 or one of my heavy homebrews, then again sometimes I end up with a craft beer experiment gone wrong, but i drink it because, well, I have aleindrainaphobia. Anyway, I’m glad i do, because it forced me to look deeper into the Bigfoot. Like most Barleywine descriptors like “bittersweet”, “heavy”, and “strong alcohol finish” can be applied, but the ways that the Bigfoot stands out are interesting to me. The aroma and the nose of this beer are distinctly Sierra Navada, there is no denying that this beer shares a fermentor with it’s popular cousin, SN Pale Ale, this is likely due to the dry hopping with American power-hops Centennial (aka super-Cascade) and Cascade. The hops in general show up much more strongly in this brew than they do in other barley wines bringing unique character to this barleywine, for that matter, destinctly Amercan characteristic being that these two American hops are aided by bittering and finishing American hop Chinook.

Also, ever since I stumbled and I mean stumbled into the beer and cheese presentation at the world beer festival one year I’ve always enjoyed complementing a little beer tasting with cheese. I went for a toasted hoop cheddar openface on suflower bread for a nice after-work snack.

I encourage you to let your curiosity get the better of you and seek out this mystical unique creature that is Bigfoot, but don’t be surprised if he isn’t as happy to see you.

Ok, so I realize that this is actually a beer that you can’t get at lunchtime on Friday… unless you break into the Big Boss brewery… so if you really want a lunch beer try the Black Raspberry Belgian it’s at the Raleigh Times. But we are here to talk of Monkeys… Surrender Monkeys…. Wooden Surrender Monkeys. So, in case you haven’t heard of the regular Big Boss Surrender Monkey it’s a ~ 8 - 9% ABV (depending on the batch) Belgian Farmhouse Ale that is well balanced and does not hesitate to neatly place you sitting in the gutter singing assorted European national anthems by 10:30 at night if you dare to take on the Surrender Monkey. That’s right, don’t be fooled by the name or the relative balance that makes this beer a fools session ale, it’s not a description of the beer’s backbone… it’s a command. “Surrender, Monkey!” or I will take your self respect, ability to reason, and any chance to figure out which key on your key chain opens your front door and hide them from you until the morning. Ok, you get the point, me and the Monkey, we have a love/hate relationship.

So this beer… this is the Wooden Golden Monkey… which means basically that Big Boss decided that this tempest in a bottle needed a shot of what ever Roger Clemens is tak’n and so they made it even easier to spend an evening with. They’ve taken the Monkey and they oak aged it. Providing a brew with the classic caramel and bready brilliance that imported Belgian malts bring with even more complexity. As you might expect the oak adds hints of vanilla, but I think the general woody taste provided a complement that pulled a hint of toffee to the pallet.

The practice of using oak barrels to age beer has become popular with micro breweries and home brewers. While I don’t know what Big Boss decided to do, the wooden barrel as an “ingredient” is an interesting concept. While there is plenty of info about using barrels in wine making there is still a lot of experimentation and method development in the art of brewing. For instance, barrels can be charred on the inside or previously used for bourbon or wine; and of course where the wood (usually oak) is grown also matters.

So… if you want to join me for this lunch beer meet me at 1249 Wicker Drive (Horniblows Tavern) high noon on Friday… I’ll be the one in the black ski mask holding a crowbar and a keg tap.

It’s odd, and it took some serious meditation and self reflection to come to this, but there is a serious division that exists in how I think about beer. There’s beer and then there is Beer. The previous is the stuff we buy in the can or the bottle with the screw-top cap (noting some exceptions). This is the stuff that we drink at a rock show or watch a NASCAR race with or drink as a LunchBeer when we don’t want to pass out under your desk later. For me this is PBR for others it’s the High Life, a division that demands further exploration, but we’ll save that for later. For most of the American population it’s Bud or Miller. The other, Beer, of course is what we usually discuss here, it’s the stuff you enjoy rolling slowly across your tongue. Now, this is where it get’s interesting, we spend more time with this style of beer than any other and in my experience the same people that know enough to determine a dark lager from a brown ale or a Belgian witte from a Belgian blonde occasionally have a tough time identifying the type of beer that our American macro breweries produce. I am no exception to this rule, for a very long time if I was pushed to give an answer on this question I’d say… oh it’s an American Pilsner, hoping not to get caught. Lately it started to bug me that though it became apparent to me that it is actually an American Golden Lager I didn’t really understand how it fit into the greater world of beer. I thought of it like marshmallows or Vegimite or fruit roll-ups, you know, they kind of are what they are, they have unpronounceable ingredients and are made up mostly of a combination of preservatives, synthetic materials, and sawdust… they don’t really have a category per se. So I offer the following explanation by way of the battle between Luke and Darth Vader from Return of the Jedi:

117 EMPEROR Macrobrew’S TOWER - THRONE ROOM 117

Luke Pilswalker and Golden LagVader are engaged in a man-to-man duel of lightsabers… um, pint glasses. But Pilswalker has grown stronger in the interim, with the passage of the Pop the Cap Bill and now the advantage shifts to him. LagVader is forced back, losing his balance. Luke Pilswalker stands at the top of the stairs, ready to attack.

EMPEROR Macro (laughing)
Good. Use your aggressive feelings and good pallet, boy! Let the hate flow through you like a clean tap.

Luke Pilswalker looks momentarily toward the Emperor, then back to LagVader, and realizes he is using the dark (read - ultra light) side. He steps back, turns off lightsaber…. um, pint glass and relaxes, driving the hate from his being.

LUKE PILSWALKER
I will not fight you, for you are simply another style of beer.

LAGVADER
You are unwise to lower your defenses.

LagVader attacks, with superbowl ads forcing Luke Pilswalker on the defensive. The young Jedi leaps in an amazing reverse flip up to the safety of the catwalk overhead. LagVader stands below him.

LUKE PILSWALKER
I feel the good in you…it’s so light and barely detectable, but I can taste the hops and sweet barley.

LAGVADER
There are little to no carbs here…
It wasn’t long ago I too was a pure style like yourself. We share so much in common. Our malt is the same, only our hops distance our styles.

LagVader stops and senses something. Luke Pilswalker shuts his eyes tightly, in anguish.

LAGVADER
Ah, I see you are trying to deny it, but the only difference between you and I is that your hops are from Eastern Europe, Saaz hops. Mine are cheaper and from Eastern Wissconson. Come Luke, come to the Dark (read ultra-light) side and lend your style’s name to establish the Macro Empire as even more profitable!

LUKE PILSWALKER
Never-r-r!

Luke Pilswalker ignites his lightsaber… um…pint glass and screams in anger, rushes at LagVader with a frenzy. The Dark Lord is knocked to his knees, and as he raises his pint glass to block another onslaught, Luke Pilswalker slashes LagVader’s right hand off at the wrist, causing preservatives and electronic parts to fly from the mechanical stump. LagVader’s pint glass clatters uselessly away, over the edge of the platform and into the bottomless shaft below. Luke Pilswalker moves over LagVader and holds the blade of his pint glass to the Dark Lord’s throat.

LUKE PILSWALKER
I’ll recognize that the American Golden Lager has it’s place. Though technically a Pilsner is a type of Pale or Golden Lager, I will continue to define myself based on the soft water used to make me and my noble hops; floral, but not too bitter.
At least do me the favor of not referring to your beers as “Pilsner Styled”… that really confuses folks.

LAGVADER
Your feeble demands are no match for the power of popular advertising. Hmm, but I think this metaphor has run it’s course. Perhaps we should just call it a day.

Well, in retrospect i’m not sure how informative that really was, but it was fun. If you want to read more about the pilsner story the wikipedia post provides a good frame.

May the Pours be with you!

I don’t know if this Friday Lunch Beer post is going to become a regular thing or not, but i hope it is, mmmm, i hope it is. One of the forums on beerinator.com called out to me earlier this week anouncing that this beer, Brooklyn Brewery’s Extra Brune was on tap at the Raleigh Times… Though on the post it was called Brooklyn’s Extra Bruin, which led me down this road of enlightenment:

There is an Extra Bruin, which perhaps the best example is made by Achel Trappist Brewery and led me to this video blog post. What a great story about the brewery. But the point is this is not what the Times has on tap… they have the Extra Brune. Which is also a Belgian Ale albeit a significantly stronger Belgian Strong Ale at 8.5% ABV as compaired to the Bruin’s 5.5%. I have yet to find out the rest of the story. Is Brune simply an English or alternative spelling of Buin, is the name just a nod to it’s cousin from cross the pond? I totally encourage you to leave any theories you might have.

Oh yes, but how did it taste you ask? First let me apologize for the picture, I was three sips in and well beyond enjoying the beautiful but fizzy golden colored head before i remembered to snap a pic. The bubbles were larger than you might expect from a belgian, but the fragrance was classic Belgian; bready and yeasty. The taste was also initially classic Belgian the imported Belgian dark candi lead the charge onto my pallet, but was immediately replaced by a trasition to hints of vinegar in the finale. Oh but the color, perhaps aided by the strong daylight streaming through Raleigh Times large front windows it was a brilliant caramel red, I could place my hand behind the glass and it glowed with bright red filtered light… like a fire engine… god I love fire engines!

Yay for Lunch Beers!

About Beersipper.com - Welcome to the first public day of Beersipper. I should start by acknowledging that I am no expert on beer… nope. I just like it, I mean I appreciate it. Unlike other beer blogs you won’t find too many long-winded descriptions of the beers that I talk about, but instead I like to tell stories, of the pubs and people, and particularly local (Triangle & NC) beer and breweries. I really just want Beersipper.com to provide a few laughs and maybe let you know what’s on tap around you and what’s worth making a trip to the bar or beer store for and what’s worth skipping.

Right now there are six posts on the site, I hope to provide one to three a week as the blog matures. Thanks for taking the time to drop by, and please leave comments or suggestions.

Have fun,
Les

P.S. I offer a blanket, but sincere apology to the grammarheads that I will surely offend as I am sure to give the English language a good hatchet-job.

Continuing on the Brewpub tour of Asheville… I would have been comfortable staying in the French Broad Brewery’s Brewpub for the afernoon, but you see I have this reoccurring nightmare where I’m at the Durham Beer Festival and I’m trapped in the Tent with only American Golden Lagers, I can see the micro brewed stouts, I can smell the aromas from the Cask Ale Tent, but I can’t find the flap of the tent to get out. Monobrewphobia, peple tell me, horrible i know, but I suppose that’s why i’m motivated to keep moving. We crawl into the hatchback and roll on to the Ashville Brewing Company, which I believe has a couple of locations, we went to the one that has a movie theater attached to it, not a bad concept! The beer wasn’t bad either, though I gravitated toward two worth mentioning; The Ninja Porter & the Shiva IPA

To keep this thing moving I won’t bother telling you the story about how we continued to get lost on our way to the Green Man Brewery’s Brewpub, Dirty Jacks, but we did. Of course the wandering around downtown probably did our sobriety level some good going into the next and final destination. Dirty Jacks, like the French Broad brewpub, had patrons’ tables that basically sat among the shiny towering fermenters. The sampler was served in this great leaf shaped tray, holed out to support 5 of their brews. The ones worth going after would likely be their darker ones, including the Green Man Stout, an export stout so black it had a gravitational pull. Oh, and we were treated to a cask version of it as well, which, with lower carbonation, proved to be even more patatable and revealed the more complex character of the stout.

And that was it… so we stumbled over to Barley’s a local Bar, known for it’s quality pool tables and wide tap selection. Along the way someone had mentioned that they actually had the Foothills Brewery Sexual Chocolate on tap… hmm, can’t quite remember who it was, probably due to the fact we found the higher grav beers to be to our liking and had pints of those after our samplers. Anyway, the point is, we knew they had the sexy stout and we needed it. Upon ordering it the lady barkeeps commented on how some folks have trouble ordering it because that have to utter the word “Sexual” in public. I told them “I’d say ‘vagina’ in public to get this beer!” They responded, “you’d say what?” “VAGINA” I stated proudly. Mrs luv party (my wife), a Vagina Monologes alum would have been so proud. But I digress, we snatched up our $4 beers (felt like a deal) and headed for the pool tables, in order to produce my fondest memory of Asheville. Playing on full size red felt pool tables drinking one of the best beers that has ever crossed my lips!

Usually when mrs. luv party tries to convince me to tag along on one of her weekend work trips I immediately conjure up an extensive list of things I “have” to do around the house and Raleigh. Things that sound important like repairing the flip-switch on the fuel spinner in the K-car, or re-organizing the 583-b papers for the impending tax season. You know, real important stuff [wink]. But then, last week, she suggested I join her on a trip to Asheville, NC and then she apologized about how she was going to have to be in a meeting from 9am to 4pm on Saturday and I would have to find a way to enterain myself. Saliava immediately turned my mouth into a swimming pool. “um, why are you drooling?” she asked. Beer. There are four craft and micro brews in Asheville not to mention the Foothills Brewery in Winston Salem on the way.
Asheville Pizza & Brewing Co.
Highland Brewing
French Broad River Brewing
Green Man Brewing

I hunted down an old friend, Mike, who I knew would be up for the adventure. On Saturday morning we started with brunch and immediately proceeded to get lost looking for Highland Brewing Co. Hidden in the warehouse district we couldn’t find the place. As it turns out Highland doesn’t have a brewpub…. boooo, i know, i know, but this would prove to be our only disappointment. Moving on to French Broad Brewery we arrived a few minutes before it opened. French Broad, a brewery that previously had not really impressed me, but we stumbled into two great darker beers in their sampler. The imperial porter, though at 7.3% ABV this is on the light side of what you may expect from an imperial, was refreshing and avoided the problem of overhopping the finish that IMHO many stouts in this ABV range fall victim to. But the treasure was the Dunkle-Witte. I know, I was confused when i read the name as well… Dunkle… Witte…? Dark & White? Well as it turns out this beer is a combination of a Belgian wheat beer and a German dark wheat. It a great surprise for your lips to expect a dryer brown and instead experience the light coating texture of a wheat beer. Further, I finish the beer and another pint of it then the barkeep tells us it’s their strongest brew at 7.5% ABV. What a treat. Not to ruin the story, but this turned out to be my favorite new find of the day. Oh and the brewpub itself, small and settled in the corner of the brewing house. Rough but comfortable, I would have been perfectly content spending all afternoon there.

To Be Continued…

Ok, so you might think this is crazy, but as it turns my loins got the better of me and I begged Mrs Luv Party to stop in Winston Salem on the way to Asheville in order that I might get a taste of that Sexual Chocolate. She agreed even in the face of the obvious “second woman” metaphor. And for that we should all give her “hurumph”. Hurumph, Hurumph, Hurumph. Truth be told I think she was excited about it too.

We sat at the bar, knowing that there had been a short cask ale of their pilot mountain pale tapped at five. I first asked for a glass of that knowing it wouldn’t last long. “We finished it off 5 minutes ago buddy, sorry” the barkeep responded… it was now about 7:45pm , well he was on my bad list already. I decided I had waited long enough, I’d take the Sexual Chocolate Imperial Stout now, on a fresh pallet. He poured a 10 oz glass for me and I slowly indulged. On first taste I knew I would never judge another imperial stout against a fair standard. I had been worried that the Foothills imperial stout wouldn’t live up to it’s billing. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was very wrong. While having little aroma, potentially this beer’s only shortcoming, upon tasting Chocolate flavors coated my tongue like a figure skater’s leotard, without being overly viscose as with other imperial stouts. It was a simple congealed flavor at first, but instantly became more complex yet distinctly different hopped endtaste to finish the experience reminding me this was no happy accident, but rather a well designed consciously constructed stout. In fact you could tell that by tasting the Brewery’s other stout, the Total Eclipse Stout. Another well constructed stout, the Total Eclipse revealed the extent to which the brewmaster obviously understood stouts, but the masterpiece was surely the Sexual Chocolate. Not unlike how Picasso’s works in realism reveal a deep understanding of the fundamentals, a necessity in expanding into Cubism masterpieces that broke the mold completely. Ok, so that’s probably over dramatic, but what I’m trying to say is I like beer… this good beer!

There is a mysticism about coffee stouts that is appreciated by brewers. In fact it’s easier to get some brewers to talk about embarrassing sexual encounters than to pry a good coffee stout recipe from their recipe box. In particular I’m thinking of the preparation of the coffee itself pre-infusion into the beer. That is, if there is a prevailing division in how to approach coffee stouts it is embodied in the argument to use hot brewed or cold brewed coffee. If there is a third method it would be to add the coffee in with the barley during the actual brewing process, but knowing coffee, I’m pretty sure you’d never be able to get the flavors to stand up to the sweet barley and sharp hops using that method. The hot brewed coffee is easy, and then the brewer is left to try and figure out the coffee bean blend that they should use. But I say “bullocks to that!” In my opinion picking the bean is the least of your worries, picking the bean is like deciding which color toothpick to stick in the sandwhich before sending it off to the table, just use any medium blend. We are in a battle of brash flavors here, a duel to the death, which favor will be left standing? Will it be the Big and Burley Barley with his 25 pound mace of sweet sugars, or perhaps the Sharp and agile Hop Marksman with a quiver full of piercing alpha… No we have to infuse COFFEE into the is fight! Further, this can’t be done by burning it to the point that astringent acidic coffee acids prevail, no, here is how it’s done… I think… I mean this is my plan: Slow and Cold. The Coffee Conquistador must be prepared slowly, ( like this in case you’re curious). The “slow/cold brew” is likely the only way to infuse the coffee to the extent that the flavors stick. The problem of course is while we gain the more complex nutty flavors from the coffee we do not create the “smoky” flavors that are released in a hot brew of the coffee. This is where we reconstruct the smoky flavor by using roasted barley. Now… the only question that remains is how much of the cold brewed coffee should we add to the beer… I’m still working on this one and I have a theory…. but i’m gonna hold onto that one for now. mmm thinking about this has just served to make me thirsty…. I just have to figure out whether I want coffee or beer now… maybe both!

Cheers!