Texas Beer Nerd

I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know much about German beer. As far as imports go, I’m much more knowledgeable about beer from England, Ireland and Scotland. This is interesting because my first real beer drinking experience was in Germany (Berlin and Munich) when I was 18. Oddly enough, I don’t remember much about the beers I drank, though this is probably because I didn’t know anything about beer at the time. Then and now, I’m more experienced with lighter German beers like pilsners. In fact, I think German and German-style pilsners are the best of that type of beer in the world. I have not had very many darker German beers that I can recall. After getting married to my lovely wife earlier this month we took a mini-vacation to Fredericksburg. It’s a town in the beautiful Texas hill country that was originally settled and founded by German immigrants and that heritage is still alive and well today. We went to a German tavern, The Auslander, there a couple times, the type of place that looks sort of like a Disney version of old Bavaria minus any talking animals. It has pretty good food though and a good selection of German beer. I asked the waitress to recommend a darker German beer and she suggested Warsteiner Dunkel, saying it was “popular.” That word definitely doesn’t always mean the best but like I said, I don’t know much about German beer so I took her up on that suggestion. I do know the Warsteiner brand. It’s easy to find all over. I have had their Premium Verum. Their Dunkel proves to be very Shiner Bock like, which is I guess not too surprising, considering Shiner Bock is a German-style beer. Warsteiner Dunkel does have some characteristics though that make it a little more unique. There’s an interesting smoky taste lingering in the background. Otherwise, the beer shares the ever so slightly sweet, malty and lightly-hopped flavors with Shiner Bock. It is perhaps a bit darker but also shares Shiner Bock’s mid-level body as well. Warsteiner Dunkel isn’t a bad beer but I’m still not impressed enough to declare a great love for German beer…yet. But I am at least intrigued enough to keep trying Deutsche bier until I find one I really love, if that ever happens. 

Young’s Chocolate Stout has pretty much been the standard I judge every other chocolate stout I’ve had on. This one from the centuries old brewery in Tadcaster, North Yorkshire, England definitely stands up next to its British cousin Young’s and in many ways exceeds it. The “organic” part in the name is key because this beer is bursting with fresh, all-natural flavor. First of all, the stout base is great. I would expect nothing less though from the land the style was invented in. It’s thick, creamy and has a nice, toasty, roasty, malty flavor. You need a good straight-up beer in the first place before adding any fancy flavors. The chocolate added is definitely of the dark variety, I’m guessing fairly pure cacao. There’s thankfully only a slight sweetness so the beer doesn’t end up tasting like a candy bar or anything. There also appears to be a very strong vanilla flavor as well that at times nearly overpowers the chocolate. I’m not sure though if that’s intentional or just how my taste buds reacted. But even so, the flavors are bold and complex but balanced. If you’re looking for something with more chocolate flavor than Young’s, yet still retains it’s stout-ness, I would definitely suggest Samuel Smith’s Organic Chocolate Stout. 

My parents recently went on a trip to the Grand Canyon (in Arizona for those who don’t know) and they, being craft beer lovers like I am, brought me home a couple cans of Grand Canyon beer. It’s not actually brewed in the park but in Williams, a town close by. Black Iron India Pale Ale is a decent enough IPA but there’s nothing too distinctive about it. There’s nearly as much maltiness as there is hoppiness. The malts come out as doughy, slightly sweet and smooth. The hop flavor is mostly on the pine side of things but there’s a bit of citrus rind mixed in as well. But the hop bitterness is not pronounced enough to win the war against the malt. It’s barely enough to balance the flavors. I guess this beer is hoppy enough to be classified as an IPA but my high brand of hopheadedness prefers greater hop character. 

By and large, I’ve always thought that the “regular” pale ale, with few exceptions (Sierra Nevada is one), is just the India Pale Ale’s wimpy cousin. I had hoped Deep South Pale Ale by Kiln, Mississippi’s Lazy Magnolia Brewing Co. might be another exception but alas it is not. The first flavor that hit my taste buds upon taking a sip was a metallic one. This is not something you want your beer to taste like. I’m reminded of the iron flavor of blood. This doesn’t dissipate either and ends up mixing with a sour flavor to create one unholy palate. There’s some hop bitterness and citrus-ness lurking around the edges but it’s not powerful enough to penetrate the other flavors. This is kind of surprising because on the bottle it says the beer is dry-hopped so even though Deep South is not an IPA I would have expected some more hop-forward aromas at least. But at least the beer is crisp and not overly malty. The malt that is there actually kind of reminds me of a hefeweizen, a style of beer I can barely stand usually. This is the first beer I’ve had from Mississippi and while I don’t really like it I’d try Mississippi beer again for I’m always happy to support Southern craft brewing. 

This is the first Spanish beer I’ve had and I bet that would apply to a lot of Americans. Spain doesn’t have an international reputation for beer making. Wine, sure, but not beer. I’ve read that the powerful wine industry in Spain has not been in support of the burgeoning craft beer industry there but it does seem like the beer brewers are winning that fight at least to the point of being able to market their creations commercially in Spain and abroad. La Soccarada, from the city of Xativa in Valencia, is also the first Spanish beer, to my knowledge, that I’ve seen available at the grocery store. It’s an interesting brew. I can’t say I love it but I can’t say I hate it either. It is definitely on the lighter side, blonde ale-like in a way, which is not exactly to my tastes. I’m usually not into spiced beers either because there’s usually too much spice. But I was curious to taste the addition of rosemary and rosemary honey to beer. The rosemary flavor is actually quite nice. It gives La Soccarada a uniqueness and a certain Mediterranean flare. However, the honey kind of ruins it. The sweetness is cloying and overpowering, kind of like my experience with mead for the first time was. The rosemary flavor does it’s best to balance that but doesn’t succeed. After drinking half the bottle I squeezed a lime in, which I’m sure was a big no-no. It did help to cut the sweetness but also negated the rosemary flavor so the beer ended up tasting a lot like Dos Equis in a way. The fact that I felt I had to add the lime to finish the beer proves this isn’t going to go on my favorites list. But I’m still glad I tried it because the craft beer world is growing into a truly global phenomenon and I want to experience it all.  

Rampant is an appropriate name for this beer because that’s exactly what the hops run. This imperial India Pale Ale is truly a hoplover’s dream come true. While the hop bitterness is actually more understated than many of this style, the hop flavor and aroma fill the gaps nicely. The beer pours a beautiful deep gold color and is bursting with piney hop aroma that extends to the flavor. Drinking this beer is like taking a hike through a coniferous forest in brisk weather. There’s also that nice resin-y quality that all good super hoppy beers have. A bit of grapefruit-like citrus flavor blankets all the pine in a perfectly balanced way. New Belgium, from Ft. Collins, Colorado, has been famous for a long time for Fat Tire, an amber ale, which has definitely been their signature beer. But in the last few years they’ve created IPAs, including this one and the excellent Ranger IPA, that in my opinion easily eclipse Fat Tire. Fat Tire might have put them on the map but New Belgium clearly knows how to make a great IPA and I see that as their future. 

In general, I am not a fan of wheat beers. More often than not, wheat malt tastes weird to me and then there’s the overpowering yeastiness that many have. But I think I might have found one to add to my incredibly small list of those that I actually do like. Having a fiance who’s originally from South Louisiana, I have been exposed to some good eats and drinks from down there by her family and LA-31 Bouchanee Smoked Wheat Ale is one of them. Bayou Teche has created this beer as a tribute to the importance of the cherry tree to Louisiana cuisine, namely in the form of using the wood to smoke meat and using the small berries in the cherries, sugar and bourbon concoction known as cherry bounce. The brewery uses cherrywood to smoke the wheat to make LA-31 Bouchanee. The smoky flavor is easily the best part about this beer and serves as a great balance and, dare I say it, mask for the slightly off taste of wheat malt. The cherrywood smoke also adds a pleasing hint of sweet-tart cherry flavor, which mixes with the other quality many wheat beers have, citrus (though not the hoppy kind), well. The majority of smoked beers I’ve had have been porters and stouts so to drink a lighter smoked beer is a new and interesting experience. And, like I said before, the smoke greatly improves the standard wheat beer formula. 

I enjoy coffee beers a lot because they combine my two favorite beverages.  The key to a good one is balance and Santa Fe Brewing Co.’s Imperial Java Stout nails it as far as that’s concerned. The beer base of course needs to be great and the stout here is appropriately toasty, robustly bodied yet smooth and with a hint of smoke. Being imperial, it also has a nice piney hop bite for contrast. The coffee part really does tastes like coffee, not just a vaporous suggestion of it. It’s a strong coffee flavor too to go with the strong beer flavors. It’s something dark roast and definitely black, with the only “creamer” being the stout itself. I try a lot of beers, more than half of which I do end up liking but it is still kind of rare for me to find a beer for my “go-to” list, one that I wouldn’t get tired of eventually. Santa Fe’s Imperial Java Stout has been added to this list. Three cans into the six pack and it hasn’t lost it’s magic yet, which sometimes happens, which is why I rarely buy full six packs anymore. If Santa Fe Brewing Co. keeps making quality beers like this, that’s just one more reason, next to the food, art, architecture, etc. to consider moving there. 

This is one I’ve been wanting to try for a long time but the price always kept me away. I’ve seen it up to around $14 for one bottle before, which is quite a lot for beer. I’m pretty sure I got it for $9.99 or thereabouts though this time. I like to support local Austin breweries like Jester King but I’m both pleasantly surprised and disappointed with Black Metal Imperial Stout at the same time. With a name like Black Metal and a drawing of a Nathan Explosion-looking dude on the label I was expecting to be kicked in the teeth a bit more by this beer. I hate to say it but the flavor of this is a bit bland. There is the roasted, slightly smoky malt flavor all authentic stouts should have but there’s not much else going on besides a hint of dark chocolate perhaps. There’s an odd wine-like tang and sweetness too that distracts from the overtly stout flavors. Also, the body could be much heavier. Not only would it then live up to the name better but it’d be more stout-like in general. I will say this though, the alcohol content is nothing to sneeze at being over 9 percent and it’s integrated and balanced well so the beer isn’t overly boozy (though it does sneak up on you like a black beast from the depths of hell). The pleasantly surprised part comes from the fact that Black Metal Farmhouse Imperial Stout is so understated for a Jester King beer. They seem to like their wild “farmhouse” yeast and other unconventional ingredients and unique concoctions. I’m glad this beer isn’t too yeasty (unlike their Wytchmaker Rye IPA) or completely unrecognizable from the style it’s supposed to be. But again, there could still be more to it. I mean, Guinness still kicks it’s ass overall as far as I’m concerned, though it’s far from being a bad beer. It’s just not “brootal” enough.

I’ve had a couple beers by Missoula, Montana’s Big Sky Brewing Co. and I’ve liked them but I think their Cowboy Coffee Porter is my favorite yet. It exemplifies the best qualities of American porters. First of all, it has that toasty, malty flavor coupled with a dark, smooth but not too heavy body that all great porters have. The features distinct to this beer, however, make Cowboy Coffee Porter special. There’s a smokiness that certainly fits the label art of a cowboy brewing his coffee over a campfire. The coffee flavor itself is of slightly nutty black coffee and provides a nice bite in response to the maltiness. Nothing about this beer is overdone or understated, all at the same time. Basically, the balance of flavor is near perfect. The only minor complaint I might have is that the body could be a little more robust to give it a bit more “oomph.” Big Sky has crafted an excellent coffee porter that lives up to the standard of the style but also manages to go it’s own way with the aforementioned smokiness, perhaps its most interesting feature.