Beer Review:  F2X – The Canadian Muscle

This my weekly column of beer reviews. I’m excited to share some of my favorite beer with you, and to talk about the things that matter. It’s a reflection of my personal thoughts on the things that matter.
This week’s review: MASSIVE HOPS
So what does it say about me that I’d choose to drink a beer made with giant hops? That’s the big question I’m trying to answer with this beer. MASSIVE HOPS is a Golden Ale brewed by Bell’s Brewery.

 

Beer Name:Hofbräu Munich Kriek
ABV 4.50
Style: Munich Helles Lager
Appearance: 4
Aroma: 4
Palate: 4.5
Taste: 4.5
Overall: 4
Reviewer: stokebeer
Review: A: Clear, straw gold with a thin, foamy white head. Good lacing. S: Mosaic and malty, with spice and malt in the background. Some dryness as well. T: Spice and malt take the lead at first. Thigh hot taste is followed by an over-the-top malted malt flavor. Light body and a dry finish follow. M: Medium-thick body, dry finish with a crisp, floral finish despite the massive malted flavor. D: This is a very refreshing, tasty, and drinkable lager. Overall a good example of the style.

 

Beer Name:Lac Du Bay Beer
ABV 5.00
Style: American Brown Ale
Appearance: 4.5
Aroma: 4.5
Palate: 4
Taste: 4
Overall: 4
Reviewer: xylophonica
Review: The beer is a deep brown color with a massive frothy white head. The nose is of caramel malt and grassy hops. The taste is of caramel malt and grassy hops. The rest of the beer is really tasty. This is a coffee brown ale. I know the flavor of the coffee beans would be a lot better, but it doesn’t have to be.

 

Beer Name:Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale
ABV 5.30
Style: Pumpkin Ale
Appearance: 4
Aroma: 4
Palate: 4
Taste: 4.5
Overall: 4
Reviewer: Muddles
Review: The head is huge, but manageable. The head is thin but pours very slowly, and even has a big, lingering look. I really like the bottle, especially since I can always drink the whole bottle. The foam is nice and thick and stays with the beer. The beer is a very crisp beer, not too spicy and not too thin. I do not think I’ll ever have a problem with this beer.

 


note: If you couldn’t tell, this stuff is AI-generated. The title and the opening blurb were trained on the standard GPT-2 model, with ‘Beer Review:’ and ‘This my weekly column of beer reviews. ‘ given as prompts. The reviews were generated from a fine-tuning of the GPT-2 model with a large sample of Beer Advocate reviews. I selected from the saved samples of these and put this post together. I have not yet figured out how to train an algorithm to generate me beer photos.

Beer Review:  Heavenly Belly’s Cooler!

This my weekly column of beer reviews. I’ll be reviewing different beers in this column each week, so make sure you tune in. This week, I’ll be reviewing one of the most interesting beers to come out of the Belgian beer scene in recent memory. Today I’m reviewing La Folie from La Folie Brewing . La Folie was brewed with peaches and is made in conjunction with an online game called Monopoly. This beer was featured in a 2011 issue of The Craft Beer Cellar Magazine and you can read more about it here .

 

Beer Name:Black Fire Ale
ABV 7.50
Style: English Barleywine
Appearance: 4
Aroma: 4.5
Palate: 4.5
Taste: 4.5
Overall: 5
Reviewer: Gavage
Review: The head is a nice light brown color, it has a nice retention and relatively thick, but clean looking ring that lasts through the glass. No lacing, and a nice amount of foam. Dry sweet beer, malty, with a sugary finish. This is pretty darn tasty.

 

Beer Name:Herberholz Spalt
ABV 7.00
Style: American Saison
Appearance: 4
Aroma: 4
Palate: 4
Taste: 4
Overall: 4
Reviewer: dyan
Review: It pours a hazy golden that tops with a nice thick layer of white head that clings to the glass like a few friends. The nose is big and sweet like the taste. It almost tastes like a Hersbrupp brew that is freshly made. There is a sweetness and a touch of alcohol towards the end. The mouthfeel is smooth and the beer is very tasty. This is a very drinkable beer.

 

Beer Name:The Bruery Triple IPA
ABV 11.00
Style: American Double / Imperial IPA
Appearance: 4
Aroma: 4
Palate: 4
Taste: 4
Overall: 4
Reviewer: Necrotic
Review: Poured from a 12oz. brown bottle into a tulip. Commonly known as the Triple IPA, but this one’s a bit more obscure than a typical Double. Pours a hazy gold with a thick, white, white head that expels to a nice film of foam that rivals any beer head that’s ever been seen. The nose has a hint of caramel, hops and some citrus. The taste is pretty much as advertised. Bit more citrus and the alcohol is quite evident in the aftertaste. Mouthfeel is medium (hybrid) with a little bit of a bitter aftertaste. The Triple IPA is a decent beer, certainly worth seeking out. This is a solid great beer, and I’d love to see some good offerings around in the year ahead.

 


note: If you couldn’t tell, this stuff is AI-generated. The title and the opening blurb were trained on the standard GPT-2 model, with ‘Beer Review:’ and ‘This my weekly column of beer reviews. ‘ given as prompts. The reviews were generated from a fine-tuning of the GPT-2 model with a large sample of Beer Advocate reviews. I selected from the saved samples of these and put this post together. I have not yet figured out how to train an algorithm to generate me beer photos.

Beer Review:  Mugwort Finley w/ 1 oz.

This my weekly column of beer reviews. My objective is to try and find the beers that I like, in order to write a review. I will use the new BeerAdvocate database to do the legwork. I will also use the ratings on BeerAdvocate to help me out, because I like being able to look at all of the beers that are being reviewed at once. To help me in this endeavor, I will try to get a lot of reviews of different beers. I will also look at the ratings of the breweries involved in the beer, and try to understand their rationale for putting out what they do.

 

Beer Name:George Dicke’s IPA
ABV 5.50
Style: American IPA
Appearance: 4
Aroma: 4
Palate: 4
Taste: 4.5
Overall: 4
Reviewer: ejorub
Review: 750 ml barrel, poured into a snifter. Poured a hazy light straw with a one finger head that dissipates to a thin ring. Good lace. Nose is malty with roasted malt and malty sweetness. Taste is malty and peachy, but not much aftertaste, but definitely enjoyable. This is one I will need to revisit next time I try it!

 

Beer Name:Einstein Pils
ABV 5.20
Style: German Pilsener
Appearance: 4
Aroma: 4
Palate: 4
Taste: 4
Overall: 4
Reviewer: Redrover
Review: This beer pours a hazy, hazy gold. The head was enormous, and it left a spotty stream of white foam. The nose was strong and flavorful. Fresh lady kolsch, with a note of fruitiness and spice from the hops. The taste was very flavorful and well balanced. The hops were just so nicely integrated in the malt that they were not a nuisance. There was just a nice balance that made this a very tasty beer.

 

Beer Name:Achiel’s Pils
ABV 7.50
Style: German Pilsener
Appearance: 4
Aroma: 3
Palate: 3.5
Taste: 3.5
Overall: 3
Reviewer: smdsgroove
Review: On tap in a local pub. A – Poured a nice straw color with a nice white head that left a pretty thick lace. S – The smell was almost like a watery place. Sorta like a high ABV. T – The taste was a little bit on the lighter side. It was pretty watery and was a bit thin. This didn’t actually make me want to drink a whole pint of this. M – This one was very watered down. The carbonation was pretty low. D – Drinkability was very good and this was the first beer I had had. This beer is difficult to find in New Jersey, but I’m sure there are plenty of others.

 


note: If you couldn’t tell, this stuff is AI-generated. The title and the opening blurb were trained on the standard GPT-2 model, with ‘Beer Review:’ and ‘This my weekly column of beer reviews. ‘ given as prompts. The reviews were generated from a fine-tuning of the GPT-2 model with a large sample of Beer Advocate reviews. I selected from the saved samples of these and put this post together. I have not yet figured out how to train an algorithm to generate me beer photos.

 

Beer Review:  Barnes & Noble’s Three Barrel Beer:  “The Future of Beer”

This my weekly column of beer reviews. Every Friday, I’ll be reviewing a new beer from a brewery that I am aware of, but I haven’t yet reviewed. I’ll be reviewing a “side project” beer from a brewery I am not familiar with. I’ll also be taking a look at a beer from a brewery I am quite familiar with, but which I am not reviewing yet. I will be looking at the beer from the perspective of someone who has never had it before, and in doing so, will hopefully give you a better idea of the beer and the brewery, as well as perhaps giving you some new information that you didn’t know before. To start off, I’ll be reviewing a beer from Ale Syndicate.

 

Beer Name:Arizona Redwood Lager
ABV 5.90
Style: Lager
Appearance: 3
Aroma: 3
Palate: 3
Taste: 3
Overall: 3
Reviewer: jlindros
Review: Had this at an in-patient brewpub for a trip, and could have easily wrong-drank it. I’m glad I had to try it. A: Very dark behind a very murky, partially opaque straw colored brew. A small mainly head spilled a good bit of foam. The head was quite amusing. S: There was a bready malt scent, but I didn’t really get that. There was a mild roasted malt smell.

 

Beer Name:Alka Meche
ABV 11.00
Style: Belgian Strong Pale Ale
Appearance: 4
Aroma: 4
Palate: 4
Taste: 4
Overall: 4
Reviewer: andytook
Review: 12oz. in the Alka Meche tap at the Stouty Grille in Westboro, MA. Poured in a tulip glass. Pours a nice dark mahogany with a slight cloudy hue. Smells pretty awesome. I’ve always had this beer in my fridge, but never had a chance to try it. It just looks really great in the glass. Taste is perfect too. It has a great taste. The initial taste is spicy and fruity. Its right at the forefront in this beer. Any other flavor takes a back seat as the alcohol warms. A bit less on the hoppy side, but still nice. Drinkable.

 

Beer Name:Bitter and Twisted
ABV 10.00
Style: Witbier
Appearance: 4
Aroma: 3
Palate: 3.5
Taste: 2
Overall: 2
Reviewer: NattyBlack
Review: Well I was hoping this beer was a Belgian, but I was shocked to find it was a carbonation light witbier. The alcohol is well hidden and I had to break it up with the hops. What a mess. The beer is about 5% abv and I’m not used to the abv. What the hell, I like it.

 

 


note: If you couldn’t tell, this stuff is AI-generated. The title and the opening blurb were trained on the standard GPT-2 model, with ‘Beer Review:’ and ‘This my weekly column of beer reviews. ‘ given as prompts. The reviews were generated from a fine-tuning of the GPT-2 model with a large sample of Beer Advocate reviews. I selected from the saved samples of these and put this post together. I have not yet figured out how to train an algorithm to generate me beer photos.

Brewery Review: Freight Yard Brewing, Clay, NY

I’m really the type of person to listen and pay attention to the signs out there.  Not street signs, although I pay attention to those too, best as I’m able.

I mean an omen.  A signal, telling me that I should go do something or go someplace.  This is the beer drinkers’ equivalent of Harry Potter drinking the liquid luck and then going to Hagrid’s.  You just have to go where you think you need to go and trust your instincts.

So, when you’re driving around your town, and you see a big fancy new sign on a building, on a stretch of road that is largely otherwise unoccupied, well, that’s a sign right there.

Especially a sign like this baby.

Blockin out the scenery breakin my mind

 

Turns out, as per their web site, this place has been making brews since 2016. Now there’s no way I missed a sign going up four years ago, 15 minutes from my house. No sir! Turns out, the tasting room just opened in the fall.

I finally made my way to this place the other night.  They’re only open on Fridays-Sundays, for now, so it’s a bit tougher to work that into my schedule, but when you get that sign, you follow it!

The building that houses this tasting room, as per a very personable bartender named Joe, has been many different things, as it sits near a train crossing or some other notable junction.  In any event, they’ve got some inventive decor and a real comfortable feel.

Not actually bouncy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let’s move on from the assfeel of those stools to talk about the merch that matters, the brewskis.

While their web site details quite a number of enticing sounding drinks, they had just four of their own beers on tap the night I was there.  The bartender apologized that he didn’t have any of their wheat beers or other varieties to offer me.  I started instead with their signature beer, the Hitch IPA.

This beer, ITBMCBB*, is best described as a “traditional IPA, hop forward, unfiltered.” I found it to be refreshing and hoppy. It’s a 7.2% IPA, which is a happy place for me to get my blur on.

Any local place should be putting their own best IPA forward as the first beer to start with, and the Hitch IPA gets the job done.  This was despite the misgivings of my adjacent stool mate, who after a sample asked if they had “any beers that tasted like beer.”  He was offered a Kolsch which I think he preferred (I thought less of him for saying so).

I moved from the IPA next to their brown ale. As per the bartender, the brewer was attempting to make her own take on a Newcastle. Now, why someone would want to do that is beyond me. Newcastle is some thin, watery slop.  This self described “English style” brown ale, the “Loucastle,” was far more enjoyable. I think, after the fine Brooklyn Brewery Brown Ale, this is probably my second favorite of this type that I’ve enjoyed personally.

This place has much to offer. First, don’t underestimate the value of a friendly and engaging bartender. This guy was on his own impetus offering me samples of the guest taps he enjoyed the most, just as one beer enthusiast sharing his joys with customers. That’s a first for me.

Another thing is that their menu included eight beers from other local craft breweries, including both a couple of known favorites of mine from Buried Acorn as well as some others I had not tried prior.  This is a very welcoming and open brewing community and the best places all seem to enjoy serving each others’ beers.

They also have some complimentary snacks for the drinking set – always a nice perk.  As Ceetar would tell you, a hard crunchy pretzel is the perfect compliment to a cold hoppy beer.

All in all, the Freight Yard Brewery is a choice spot and I’ll be headed back there soon.  I’m looking forward to their soon to be expanded hours (hopefully, later in 2020, to include Wednesdays and Thursdays), and to perhaps plan a running route nearby so that I can add this as a Run, Relax & Refresh spot to add to my list.

So if you’re in the vicinity of Clay, New York, do stop in and check this place out, and better yet, call or text me first and I will meet you there for a brown ale and an IPA.

 

 

Endless Horizon: An Enormously Satisfying Collaboration

“1234” by Feist currently has in excess of 101 million plays on Spotify (generating fistfuls of Canadian bucks in royalties, too, I hope).  It’s a simple song about an innocent love in the rear-view mirror, but it’s hard-coated in the sweetest of pop candy shells.  The song caramelized itself onto the brains of millions of listeners after it appeared in this eminently danceable iPod Nano commercial, and even if you maybe started to hit ‘skip’ on your brand new Nano after about the 40th time hearing it, there was still plenty of nourishing sustenance remaining on the rest of Leslie Feist’s acclaimed 2007 album The Reminder.

Take “The Park”. Set in an outdoor space in snow-covered London (complete with chirping birds filling the arrangement), this is a crushingly sad song about a relationship that couldn’t endure the harsh darkness of winter and it withered and died.  A thematic line could be drawn from “1234” to the “The Park” but the emotions dripping from each song couldn’t be more disparate.  

The album is chock-full of gems, including another fav of mine, “The Limit to Your Love”, a tender piano ballad about unrequited love with an emotionally unavailable partner that got ripped into this dark, soulful jam by James Blake (I love when he sings “like a wat-uh-fall in slow motion!”). So many good songs!  Anyway, it’s no wonder the New York Times’ Kalefa Sanneh named The Reminder the number uno album for all of 2k9.

So when Feist teamed up with my favorite band in the whole goddamn universe, Wilco, on 2009’s “You and I” off of Wilco [the album], well I was beyond ecstatic that two of my beloveds were joining forces, even if it was for just three minutes and twenty-five perfect seconds, to create something that bottled each of their best in one collaborative mini-miracle.  

~~~

Surf days back at Bolsa Chica State Beach used to conclude with lunch at the OG Beachwood BBQ in Seal Beach, and when they opened the larger Beachwood BBQ and Brewing spot in downtown Long Beach, well the best brewery (and fried green tomato sandwich) in town was now just a bicycle ride away from my Belmont Shore apartment.  Countless evenings having pints of Amalgamator IPA, Udder Love Milk Stout, and the James Brown Ale are some of my fondest memories of gritty and gorgeous Long Beach.

So as a native New Mexican who called the LBC home for 16 years but is once again a Burqueño, a collaboration featuring Beachwood Brewing from Long Beach and Albuquerque’s own La Cumbre was, for me, like Wilco and Feist getting together one more time, but to make beer.  I would have let TicketMaster gouge me for $65 bucks plus applicable ‘convenience’ fees to watch these guys brew live and in person.

For me, when I hear “tropical”, it evokes images of palm trees and maybe even Long Beach’s vocal, wild parrots, but a tropical stout is still the dark, roasty stout we know and love, but with a subtle charge of sweet and sometimes fruity esters.  The Endless Horizon tropical stout (to this shitty, novice palate anyway) is mostly the former – shadowy, rich and roasty with coffee on the nose, but I do get a slight nectar on the back end, which triggers “tropical” and evokes memories of those beautiful green parrots making all that racket above the Vons on Ocean Boulevard.

Long Beach’s wild parrots. Photo: lbhomeliving.com

The Endless Horizon poured slow and thick like all the crude (what up, Belmont Brewing) being sucked from the ground by the steady, synchronized Long beach oil derricks bobbing for unrefined black gold.  The head was frothy and thick and conjures a crumbly wave on a blown-out Bolsa Chica afternoon.  This beer is a very drinkable late summer stout but also says to the now arriving autumn, “Hey, where ya been? We’ve been waiting for you.”

New Mexico + Long Beach = AMOR POR VIDA

Endless Horizon is still available in 4-packs at La Cumbre.  Get it before the sun dips and the horizon is no more.

 

You and I, we might be strangers

However close we get sometimes

It’s like we never met

But you and I, I think we can take it

All the good with the bad

Make something that no one else has

~~~

Post-script: I got to see Feist perform “You and I” live with Wilco in LA in June, 2009. I couldn’t find a video of that particular show online, but it was probably something like this minus dear ol’ Dave.

~~~

 

Hoppy Gilmore is a lover of buzzbands and beers.  Engage with him if pics of doggos and hot USL soccer takes are also your thing.

Instagram: @1.21gigawattts 

Twitter: @chingonrecords 

An Imprecise Beer Journey in Europe

Brand IPA, Den Haag

Because I’m as much a sucker for a three-minute punch of guitar rock and harmony as a I am for a cold beer, I occasionally find myself visiting a blog site called Powerpopaholic to discover new music. The guy there ostensibly “reviews” singles and albums in the Power Pop genre on a scale of 10 but because he likes power pop, and the stuff he reviews has already met the conditions of the type of music he likes before he’s listened to it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him give a review of less than 7—it’s all 8s and 9s over there. It’s either really great, or really good.

It’s a Trappe!

I’m guilty of the same with beer. At the urging of a friend several years back I downloaded the Untappd app allowing you to “check in” every time you have a beer, photograph it, indicate where you bought it, who you drank it with, and share that info with your beer-enthusiast followers (and surely some back-end AI delivering data to ad generators and marketed to taverns and brewers). Everything is a social network today. We do things only to get credit for having done it, and wind up with personalized encouragement to do it more. By the way I have only 24 “friends” on that app. For God’s sake please follow me (springer66).

I don’t use Untappd to record every beer I have. Wait, you had 4 Budweisers, in an hour, in your backyard? Not telling. What I think it can be useful for is to track variety—both in the beers I try and the places I try them. That’s the best kind of beer anyway: evocative of the moment you drank it, the places you were, and the good times associated with it. That’s another reason my reviews of them can’t be trusted: If I feel good enough to tell the world, or at least 24 people, that I just drank a particular beer, I probably also liked it.

Super 8 Primus in Brussels

So when my friend Ceetar asked me to write about the beers I had on a recent trip to France, Brussels and the Netherlands on his excellent blog, I was hesitant in the sense that if you want to know anything particularly technical about the beers I had there, you’re following the wrong guy: my reviews are pretty much worthless. According to Untappd, over the 16 days I spent in Europe I had 10 different beers in 10 different cities—which between us is a huge motherf-ing lie—and all of them, according to me, scored a rating between 3.75 and 4.25. They were all good! But to the extent variety, experience and unique places count, I have a story to tell.

France: We Drank Some Beer Here

We (me, my wife and 13-year-old son) left our Brooklyn home on Friday August 16, arriving in Paris the following Saturday afternoon.

Some beer in Paris.

I actually don’t have a lot to say about Paris, beer wise. For one thing, I figured there I’d do what the locals do and drink wine with our meals; for another, I wasn’t much using the phone then and so didn’t actually Untappd the beers I had there. Beyond all that, we discovered France is basically closed for business in August and it was only us tourists there anyway. I’m not joking: most of the shops were closed, and a plumber to fix a malfunctioning toilet in our hotel room wasn’t even available for two days. That’s a good way to thrust oneself into local culture and a foreign tongue: puis-je utiliser vos toilettes?

Get us to Belgium

We had some enjoyable beers there at cafes, though the only brand I remember was the ubiquitous Budweiser of France, Kronenbourg 1664. I can recall being hopeful that this Continental export lager would somehow reveal itself to be something special when consumed locally, as we’d experienced with the impossibly fresh and delicious lagers we drank when we visited Germany five years before, but it wasn’t really the case.

The only other beer I recall having in France, thanks to this photo we took on the luxurious Thalys train, wasn’t a homeland beer, but one originating from our next stop on the trip.

A Great Place to Drink Beer and Pole Vault

Belgium. It’s a totally underrated country. About all I knew about Belgium before we arrived came from war movies where it’s always cold and desolate with Germans shooting at you. I also knew a girl from Belgium once, and she dressed drably–not that I wouldn’t have given her the exact same impression about Americans.

But Belgium in fact was lively, fun, safe and attractive, and the weather was gorgeous: Bright blue skies, never too hot. We also had a ton of delicious beers here that highlighted both Belgium’s great tradition of brewing and also, influences from the craft movement that we hadn’t seen much of in Germany or in France.

L’Ermitage Californication: Terrific post-sightseeing beer that also glows in the dark.
For mussels in Brussels

Brussels is a gorgeous old city, plenty to do and see; not completely overwhelmed with tourists and just large enough to explore by foot. We did a little research to find where we might experience good beer and found a fantastic bar called Moeder Lambic just in time for a sun-soaked happy hour after a long day of sightseeing. Here, I had a super fresh Californication double IPA from Brussels’ L’Emeritage brewery that was dynamite. Afterwards we hiked on a restaurant called In’t Spinnekopke where I asked our waiter to recommend something to accompany our mussels and out came a bottle of Wikap Pater Stimulo, a mellow Belgian pale ale with a very cute logo.

Brewdog: Nice beer but we didn’t need to travel 3,600 miles for it

Just outside of the central train station plaza in Brussels you’ll find a symbol of craft beer’s growing globalization—an outlet of the Brewdog franchise that grew from the Scottish beer bros who established a brand through a reality TV show. Very nice hangout for the after-work crowd, and a convenient meet-up space where our friend Otto trained in and joined us. Long story, but my wife’s parents were friends with Otto’s folks through work and many years ago, she spent a summer babysitting a then-young Otto and his brother in their home in the Netherlands. Grown-up Otto lives in Belgium now and after our happy hour (your standard Brewdog lineup that were just fine but I can I also can now find in my local C-Town supermarket), the four of us hiked to a Brussels restaurant where we ate pork products and enjoyed the less widely-distributed Karmeliet Tripel, a fruity distinct Belgian style ale that really reminded me I was in Europe.

Enjoy with pork products
You heet the Canadian

Inspired by what I’d seen in the movie, we spent the following day “In Bruges” which just as depicted in the film was a fairy-tale like old city inhabited nearly entirely by tourists. Like American elephants we climbed to top of the bell tower where Brendan Gleason had his ultimate misadventure, had one of our better meals, and popped in a pub to down the brightly shining locally brewed Brugse Zot IPA. I spent most of the day quoting the film: “Back off, Shorty.” “You heet the Canadian.” Etc. Good times.

The original microbrewery, now at your local German discounter.

The next day we traveled by train to Lueven to meet Otto at his place there. Lueven is beautiful old college town that you probably know as the home city of the Stella Artois brewery, which has a giant facility along the highway and rail tracks. We checked out surrounding abbeys where for hundreds of years monks were the original microbrewers. One of these abbeys, maybe it the one pictured here but not certain, got out of the beer business some years back when it sold the recipe for its brew to the no-frills German supermarket operator Aldi. Aldi you may know is a vertically integrated retailer famous for its German efficiency– coin-released shopping carts, cashiers who also stock and sweep floors, and low priced, indifferently merchandised but high-standard food. If you buy their abbey-style beer thinking it’s some knockoff, know this: it actually originated here in the 16th century.

Pole-vaulting in Lueven

Lueven’s historic downtown is lined with streetside cafes fronting stunning old buildings on cobblestone streets, lots of students, and a lively town square where, on a Saturday evening, there was a rock-and-roll pole-vaulting contest going on. We grabbed some chairs, and drank strong Belgian ales (the rich, reddish La Trappe Quadrupel) while eating fried food and watching athletes from all over the world launch themselves 20 feet in the air for our amusement. A truly insane and magical evening.

Me, the Boy, Otto and the Wife. Fun times in Lueven.

A Great Place to Drink Beer and Ride Bikes

From Lueven we continued north into the warm, watery and flat Netherlands, and the tiny North Sea beach town of Petten, were Otto’s parents have a summer residence where we set up for most of the next week. Germans love the Netherlands beaches, filling “camping” fields all around with closely-packed caravans along the dikes and on one evening, whooping it up in a town-square festival complete with an Abba cover band and Amstel on tap.

Hertog Jan from the supermarket

In Petten we mainly drank beers from the local supermarkets—Amstel, the lager which you may know is not marketed as “light” beer in its home country, and a pilsner called Hertog Jan. They were okay. We also used Petten as a home base from which we did day trips and stop-ins throughout North Holland—some by train, others by bike, visiting Haarlem, Alkmaar, Amsterdam, Zaandam, Rotterdam, Den Haag, Uitgeest (pronounced OW-kaste), and Den Helder (which is also the name of my new Van Halen cover band), among other places, having at least one beer in all of them. I’ll speed through here as this post is getting pretty lengthy already.

Ride like the wind

I rented a bike, and can’t say enough good things about the cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands. Almost all roads have separate bike lanes, including the highways, and cycle-specific signage that makes it almost impossible to get lost. I can’t ride more than 20 miles here in NYC without constantly consulting a map (and getting doored); in Holland I found my way around the entire country never having been there and without a clue as to the language. The lanes are all flat, proceed through beaches, farmlands and forests, and thanks to the wind, you can go pretty fast. If you like to cycle, go do it in the Netherlands.

Hoop and herring: A winning combination

I made several long rides, catching up once with the family at Zaanse Schans, the historic “old Dutch” neighborhood north of Amsterdam you see in the all tourist films and postcards.  Here I enjoyed the local roadside delicacy—a herring sandwich—and washed it down with a local micro IPA called Hoop Kaper.

Jopen one up in Haarlem.

In Haarlem, we had Jopen beers at lunch and later that afternoon, encountered its brewery—stunningly set in a restored church. That’s my Northsea IPA in the foreground ahead of Wifey’s beer, which I believe was a pilsner (can’t be sure of that), and the ever-present frites. Nice place!

Stunning brewery in an old church.
Cooled off with an ostrich in Amsterdam

In Amsterdam, we hung out with Rembrandt and Van Gogh, and fought off 90-degree heat with this Ijwit wheat beer in a super-cool bottle. The beer endorsed by an ostrich. Refreshing.

In Alkmaar, we visited the famous cheese market, gorging on very good gouda, saw a crazy Beatles museum, and tried this Punt IPA brewed in the far northern town of Groningen.

It’s goed.

Like many of the so-called IPAs we had here (the Hoop Kaper, the Brand we had in Den Haag) this beer wasn’t exactly what you’d consider an IPA here in the U.S., but they’re in the ballpark in the same way you might consider Rainbow’s “Since You Been Gone” a Power Pop song (it is, only one not by a brand-name power pop manufacturer). There are no doubt some Power Pop Cops and Pale Ale Police out there who might disagree, but like I said, it’s all good to me.

We spent our last night in a hotel in Den Haag, where bringing us full circle, the toilet malfunctioned. There was beer, and it was good. But it was time to fly home.

Drinking Away A Lousy Situation

Lousy situations call for stronger beers. You can’t combat dealing with lice with a sessionable lager–break out the good stuff.

So far it looks like we only had the initial signs of an issue, and we’ve all been doused with medication and we washed clothes and towels and all that. Still, after that sort of panic and frantic washing, you can’t get away with sipping a gose, you need something with some heft.

Bring on Terrapin’s Wake-n-Bake.  Specifically Raspberry Truffle W-n-B, an imperial stout with coffee, oatmeal, cacao, and raspberry. Smooooooth. Delicious. There was almost no alcohol or stout burn to this, though it was sweet and thick and lovely.  You could tell it was strong, but it was so full flavored that it was all balanced nicely. What a great stout, what a great way to unwind.

Day 2, everything seems fine but we still have to comb and check and are wary about everything.  It’s still fresh on our mind. My hair still itches out of anxiety. Tequila. Tequila is definitely the way to go.  

I opened up my bottle of Founders Mas Agave, an imperial gose brewed with agave, lime and sea salt. Margarita, clearly. It certainly smelled like it. I’d had a bottle of a similar beer from The Alementary a few months ago called Escape From Oaxaca which was less sweet, and more tequila-flavored than this, but this one was still fun to drink. In fact, it may have been easier to drink, even if I preferred the taste of the other one.

It’s sweet, from the agave, so if sweet isn’t your thing probably avoid both these beers. Apparently my ‘comfort beer’ tastes veer into the trope of single lady downing ice cream after a breakup. Something I think tequila would also be appropriate for, though I have been known to say tequila gose (haha) with everything.

Anyhow, this beer tasted like a margarita, but a sweeter one. One heavy on the lime juice and sweetener. I personally would’ve enjoyed more barrel aging on it, more tequila taste. This was 10% and went down easy. The salt balances the sweetness nicely, keeps it from being cloying, much like it might do in a similar margarita, but really the tequila should be the showpiece in a cocktail, or a cocktail-themed beer.

Drinking beer does not kill lice, but it sure does make a lousy situation more manageable. Until next time, because #kids, cheers!

Game Of Thrones Beer Review: Mother Of Dragons

I need to get this post up before we run out of dragons!

As far as I can tell, Daenerys Stormborn is not the mother of Stuffy, the flightless stuffed dragon from Doc McStuffins

 Inspired by Daenerys Targaryen, this blend of a smoked porter and a Belgian kriek represents the smoke and fire that Daenerys has unleashed on her opponents during her ascent to conquer and rule the seven kingdoms.  The beer will be available nationwide on September 28.

So it was only 7 months or so old when I had it, which shouldn’t have adversely affected it much. I didn’t get the heat from it I was expecting, and I was worried age had played a factor.

I still enjoyed the beer.  I do like smoked beers, I like porters, I like Kriek, so there was really no doubt I would enjoy this one. It’s just more Kriek than smoke. The cherry is present on the nose, with sweet dark malt underneath, and just a hint of that smoke.

There’s some red tinges to this

It tastes great. It was mouth watering cherry flavor, and not in that overly medicinal way. Needs more char. I need to feel like I’m drinking this in the ashes of something the dragons just burned down, but there’s merely a whisper. Dracarys, gimme more heat. This probably could’ve done with a bit of cinnamon or chili to complement the dragon theme.

ITBMCBB* this beer should be as follows.

Mother of Dragons pours a deep ruby-tinted mahogany with a creamy tan head. Aromas of chocolate covered cherries intertwine with subtle smoke and roasted malt. The flavor is rich with tart cherry up front leading to a center palate of semi-sweet chocolate then resolving to subtle smoke and mild sweetness. The mouthfeel is luxuriously creamy and full, and the finish is semi-dry with lingering notes of smoke and cherry sweetness. Mother of Dragons is 6.5% ABV and pairs well with smoked gouda and charcuterie, braised meats, and rich desserts like flourless chocolate cake and cherry cheese cake.

So I guess the subtle nature of the smoke is intentional, but they missed the mark imo. Those pairing make sense though. Does mozzarella and pepperoni in pizza form count among them? I’d say so, even if I wasn’t particularly taking note of how they complemented each other as I consumed them.

Overall this beer was pretty good, and I enjoyed it, but I wanted more from it. You might say the same about these last few episodes of the show as well.

Two Beers, One Lunch: Back to the Hops Spot, Again, Some More

So, it’s been a while since I’ve posted a “Two Beers, One Lunch” post, and there’s actually a good reason for that.

In December of 2018 I changed employers.  My new job is located further from the downtown eateries, and, also, because I am newer and still learning, it’s a tougher situation to drink two beers and then go back for an afternoon at work without risk being branded as “unprofessional.”  Or “a big lush.”

But this past week, after taking my first turn in an on call rotation, I had accumulated enough hours worked to be able to take a half day on Friday, which meant lunch out followed by a trip home to nap.

This meant a prime opportunity to return to the Hops Spot.

You may recall, dear reader, my previous trips to the Hops Spot, saved for posterity here, and then also here, and finally, also here!

Yes, there’s a pattern.  This is my preferred spot to go grab some delicious grub while also having a couple of brews.  I’ve yet to have a bad meal there, and they routinely keep a list of 40+ beers on tap from all over the northeast U.S. of A.

This meal started out with the Fat Orange Cat Brew “All Cats are Gray in the Dark” white stout.  This is a brewing company based out of East Hampton, CT, and they make a fine ass beer right here.

Pictured in the background, in blur, is one of my regular two companions, whom I will refer to as “the Imbiber.”

Yes, you read that right. Stout.

 

I’ve never had a white stout before, but having recently enjoyed a black lager, and after a ringing endorsement of this drink by our server (who swore that if you drank it with your eyes closed you’d never know it wasn’t a dark beer in color), I took the plunge.

Magnificent!

Hints of coffee, chocolate and vanilla, as per the menu, and I could say that I wasn’t really feeling the vanilla, but I was all about the coffee and chocolate flavors here.  My other companion, “the Sampler,” used the word “witchcraft” to describe this concoction, light in color but dark in taste, and I agreed that that was the best way to describe it. You could legitimately close your eyes and imagine it going down as a dark, rich stout.

The meal?  Well, after a number of visits enjoying the classique poutine, this trip I went with the very Indian flavored Chicken Tikka Masala poutine.

This is some shit right here!

 

Made up of fries, chicken tikka masala (Indian spiced) curry style gravy, chicken, cheese curds and fresh cilantro, it scratched me right where I itch. No, not the butthole. What I mean by that is, no one else in my family enjoys Indian food. Therefore, I look for opportunities to indulge in that style of cooking where I can.

Next up, beer number two, and I went with the full pint here.  Because I had the afternoon off and was headed right to bed after this, I figured, why not?

This second beer was the Stoneyard Progressive Adult v1 sour farmhouse IPA.

Big and sour and magical, and featuring “the Sampler” in the background

 

This was another winner! The sour, ITBMCBB*, is described officially as a “juicy, sweet/tart IPA. Brewed with lactose, oats, natural peach and orange flavors, lots and lots of Citra hops, lactic acid. Mmmmmmm.”

I agree with each of these things! Noticed the peach flavor specifically, but honestly, it was just a refreshingly tart and tasty sour beer. I’d buy another one of these, for sure.

So, let’s review. What have we learned here today?

1. This blogger keeps going back to the Hops Spot to try new menu items and also pick fresh choices from an always changing selection of delicious beers!

2. This blogger has two companions, “the Imbiber” and “the Sampler,” who make for pleasant company and co-enjoyment of beers and poutine.

3. I’m just dreaming about Indian food while eating American fare with my family.

4. Sours and stouts are great! (OK, if you’ve read any of my other posts, you knew that already)