Month: December 2012

Profiled by Ken Carman for professorgoodales.net

Let’s make this clear from the start: you cannot buy this beer, at least not yet, unless someone sells you one of the few pre-bought bottles. How sad for you.

Rocky head: not a lot in a small glass. The first pour: none. Second: better. Black as midnight.

Bourbon barrel aroma mixed with roasted barley. A little dark chocolate with a bare hint of smoke. There’s a nice sweet sense that I am guessing is from the barrels.

Mouthfeel: just a hint of slick and, again, smoke. Roasted barley sense provided the roast with also a whisper of higher alcohol, but only as expected if placed in a bourbon barrel. 6.2 abv seems about right. The body seems fuller that it really is: probably the bourbon and the nibs helped with that.

I have enjoyed many a beer from Jackalope and seen them grow from using a Brew Magic system where the pale, to provide one example, was pleasant, yet cloudy and even a bit milky… in looks only, to a brewery with nice clear beers that kept the integrity of the original recipes, and then some. But this has to be the best beer ever out of the partnership of Bailey, Steve and Robyn.

This was aged with bacon in a bourbon barrel. The bourbon taste, and sweetness, are obvious, yet not cloying. The bacon is more background, but murmurs in the background, almost like the gentler ghosts from The Sixth Sense. Cocoa nibs (I’ve seen this spelled “Cocao” nibs too.) provide a slight dark chocolate bitter that compliments all the other additions. The balance for all added, perfect if looking to avoid a sense of “too aggressive.”

A nice nitro push, on tap, at the tasting room, would be a dream come true.

“Tannakin” was named after a legend about a woman born with hog-like features.

This was a special purchase: the first hand bottled, wax sealed with a logo, labelled beer from Jackalope, Nashville, TN. Only 50 bottles and we got three, sold one to a lady who was desperately looking for one for her husband as a surprise. The second bottle is being saved for the summer when I do beer tastings in the Adirondacks.

If they do not brew this again, I’ll see if I can get some of the more unpleasant Sixth Sense ghosts to rattle their chains in the brewery, 24 hours a day, or the spirit of Tannakin herself to possess the wood this fine beer sat on, until they say, “Think we’d better go ahead and brew more: these ghosts have us over a bourbon barrel!”

Welcome to the new PGA rating system: one beer “Don’t bother.” Two: Eh, if someone gives it to you, drink. Three: very good, go ahead and seek it out, but be aware there is at least one problem. Four: seek it out. Five: pretty much “perfecto.” This beer was rated…

                                                     

Mike Kraft

Written by Ken Carman for Professorgoodales.net

   Ken Carman is a BJCP judge; homebrewer since 1979, club member at Escambia Bay Salt City, Salt City and Music City Homebrewers, who has been interviewing professional brewers all over the east coast for over 10 years.

Turtle Anarchy
216 Noah Drive
Franklin, Tennessee 37064
(615)595-8855
Brewer: Mike Kraft

  Mike Kraft facts from a previous Brew Biz interview

 
 Mike’s from Nashville originally, Siebel trained. His first job as a brewer was at Hubcap Brewing in Veil, Colorado, and he spent nine years as the head brewer at Two Rows Brewing, with brewpubs in Allen, Houston and the Dallas area. Like many pro-brewers Mike comes from a ‘mixed’ background where he started out as an electrical engineer, but found his ‘happy’ in brewing.

  
  Once up a time a brewery like Turtle Anarchy wouldn’t expect a lot of visitors. Over the years I have interviewed many a brewer in industrial locations and business parks and, at best, there may have been a tiny tasting room: mostly for the few who would stop by out of curiosity. Tucked away in industrial locations, business parks and other odd places, it was a quieter time where the beer went out a door that few folks, except the brewers, would pass through. Continue reading “Brew Biz: Werts and All”

Written by Jerry Buckley. Buckwheat beer brewed by Jerry Buckley

 As far back as Aristotle, the scientists and philosophers have insisted that our knowledge of the exterior world is limited to and defined by our sensory perceptions; and that that all sensory input can be compartmentalized into five neat packages: sight, sound, touch, hearing, and taste. However, those of us who home brew for a hobby realize that this is an inadequate explanation for what we understand to be a much “bigger picture.”
 Sure, we can feast our eyes on the sensuous ruby hues of CaraRed barley, or the occult darkness of chocolate malt. We can ogle the vibrant color of the orange peel we are “zesting” to add to our boil. Moreover, I don’t know about you, but watching a good krausen orgy in my carboy is far more entertaining than watching most television programs. Continue reading “Come to Your Senses, Man!”