Beer Nirvana

We started out the weekend Friday night at Sly Fox for the annual Robbie Burns Birthday Bash. In case you failed high school literature, Robbie Burns was a Scottish poet who would have been turning 250 years old. You may know him for Auld Lang Syne, the poem/song we often sing for the New Year’s Eve. While this event may not ordinarily appeal to you, Robbie Burns Bash is also the date Sly Fox releases their Scottish Ale each year. And I couldn’t miss the gaggle of guys dressed in their finest kilts, especially after my shoes with mirrors on the toes just arrived! The specials of the night included Scottish fare like Shephards Pie and Haggis, a traditional meat dish that includes spices, organs (heart, lungs, liver), and beef suet stuffed in a sheep or cow stomach, or casing. Burns poem “To a Haggis” describes the fare as “Great chieftain O’ the puddin’ race” so it’s only fitting it would be on the menu.

Saturday morning began at the annual Belgium Comes to West Chester at Iron Hill Brewery. Last year, we attempted the Stone Soup at General Lafayette’s Inn (think Beer Geeks potluck) and then did BCWC, but even my auxiliary liver couldn’t keep up so we all decided to skip the Stone Soup event and head straight to Iron Hill. I started with Permanent Midnight, a black farmhouse ale brewed at Iron Hill Lancaster. It uses 9 types of grain and 3 special Belgian yeast strains to deliver a delicious spicy, fruity, high gravity brew.

I thought I had had enough Mad Elf, but figured I might as well try the Mad Elf that underwent a third fermentation in pinot noir barrels. The Iron Hill Media Lambic was a perfect blend of wild yeast and bananas, aged in oak barrels for two years. It was unfiltered and refreshingly sour. The Iron Hill Phoenixville brews a decent Honey Saison that I find to “bee” too sweet but went over very well among fellow beer drinkers. The Harpoon Brewery Wild Hibernian was delicious, originally brewed in February 2007 as a Spring seasonal, then racked into an open bourbon barrel and inoculated with B, lambicus, and lactic acid producers to spawn for 10 months. Another interesting offering was the Iron Hill Heywood, a tart Bret beer fermented in oak. Some disappointments include the Philadelphia Brewing Company Walt Whitever and Manayunk Brewing Company’s Trippel Lindy, which smelled like sweaty balls and tasted like gym socks. I am also not a fan of wormwood and wanted nothing to do with PBC’s Fleur de Lehigh although my friend Matt sucked it up like an addict getting his fix. A quick stop for my male companions to go “Cougar Courting” at the Craft Ale House, and then we rounded out the night at Union Jacks with New Holland’s The Poet and Founders Breakfast Stout.

Sunday gave us an opportunity to clean out the beer bonanza in the basement by hosting a blind stout tasting at the house. We started with a sampling of coffee stouts. The bottles were disguised gangsta style (in paper bags) and each person was asked to guess the beer and provide a rating between 1 and 10. The scores were averaged at the end. Here is the lineup from best to worst:

Coffee Stouts

1. Mikkeller Beer Geek Breakfast (1st bottling); Overall score of 7.73
2. Pisgah Valdez; Overall score of 7.5
3. Brasserie Dieu Du Ciel Péché Mortel; Overall score of 7.32
4. Alesmith Speedway Stout; Overall score of 7.08
5. Ithaca Kaffinator; Overall score of 6.7
6. Deschutes Black Butte XX; Overall score of 6.25
7. Mikkeller Black Hole; Overall score of 4.93

The next tasting were Imperial Stouts:

Imperial Stouts

1. Goose Island Bourbon County Stout 2008 ;Overall Score of 9.0
2. Foothills Sexual Chocolate; Overall score of 7.63
3. Amager Bryghus Hr. Frederiksen; Overall score of 7.44
4. (tie) Hoppin’ Frog B.O.R.I.S. The Crusher Oatmeal-Imperial Stout (2007); Overall score of 7.08
5. Pennichuck Pozharnik Whiskey Barrel Aged Brewers Reserve; Overall score of 7.08
6. Three Floyds Dark Lord (2007); Overall score of 7.04
7. (tie) Stone Imperial Russian Stout 2008 Overall score of 7.0
8. Deschutes The Abyss (2006); Overall score of 7.0
9. Stone 12th Anniversary Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout; Overall score of 6.73
   
10. (tie) Stoudt’s Barrel Aged Fat Dog (2008 whiskey); Overall score of 6.54
11. Oskar Blues Ten FIDY; Overall score of 6.54
12. Left Hand Imperial Stout; Overall score of 6.42
13. Highland Imperial Black Mocha Stout; Overall score of 6.23
14. Odell Imperial Stout; Overall score of 6.12
15. Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout (2007); Overall score of 6.08
16. Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout 2008; Overall score of 6.0

In all fairness, not many of those beers would you pour out of your glass, but we did find some of the scores to be surprising. The Pennichuck Pozharnik was acerbic tasting that had us wondering if the yeast had been infected, although some of the tasting group is very fond of a sour beer so it did still receive average marks. The Dark Lord didn’t top the charts like it’s cult following would suggest.  I never cared much for it, although it did develop a better flavor after some aging compared to when I first sampled it over a year ago.  I’m not sure it would qualify as an aphrodisiac, but the “Foot Sex” satisfied most of our group. The Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout, usually a perennial favorite by most people, had a decent initial flavor that just died off shortly after. Hours later when dumping the last of the bottles, I sampled the Bourbon County Stout again and it still had a great roastiness and full body that only solidified why it received the grade it did. It may not have been necessarily the highest rated by some people, but it didn’t receive a single bad mark and many 10’s, making it a decently appreciated stout among all tasters.

We concluded our weekend of fun at our typical Monday night tasting at Sly Fox. We started with a Parkerford Brewing Saison, a Tom Foley homebrew (Batch #130), brewed with Fantôme yeast and grains of paradise. Delicious- I used it to rinse after every consecutive beer! We also tasted the Brasserie à Vapeur “Vapeur En Folie”, The Bruery “Trade Winds Tripel”, Brouwerij De Smedt / Brouwerij Affligem “Affligem Noël” (Vintage 2007), Odell Brewing Company “Cutthroat Porter”, Browar Okocim S.A. (Carlsberg) “Okocim Porter”, and Eel River Brewing Co. “Ravens Eye Imperial Stout”, all very solid beers. I’ll give my liver a few days off after that lineup.