Month: March 2014

I just had my first taste of beer from a relatively new brewer, called Coachella Valley Brewing Company, located in Thousand Palms, California.

Yes, it’s an extremely unlikely location for craft beer. And yes, that area is more famous for its annual indie music festival than anything else. But that might change, if this beer is an indication of the brewery’s efforts.

The Coachella offering I tried was a bottled beer called Desert Swarm. Coachella calls this one a “Double Wit, with honey added”.

Indeed, the cloudy, turbid appearance matches what one would expect of a Wit. The head is sizeable, and long-lasting. The color is bright yellow, and opaque.

The nose is a bit of a surprise, though. The usual bright citrus scents of a Wit are obscured by the honey. The coriander is still slightly in evidence.

On the palate, again the citrus is in the background. Surprisingly, the honey doesn’t dominate, as I believe most of it was fermented out. Instead, more of a dryness like you would expect of a dry mead, is there. The coriander makes a subtle show of itself, and the mouthfeel is full and satisfying due to the yeast.

All in all, not really true to style, but head and shoulders above others that claim this style (Yes, I’m looking at you, Shock Top and Blue Moon). And, when you have a beer this refreshing made by a desert brewer, you can overlook a bit of variance from style standards. Just a nice warm weather quaffer.

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Tom Becham claims to live in Oxnard, CA, but we here at PGA know him to be an escaped leprechaun from that land of the Wee people where he used to live in a Wee Wee tree. (And everyone knows what that was used for.)

NAH, he’s just a great writer, beer lover who has graced the pages of PGA many times.

I recently had the opportunity to buy a bottle of Utopias from Sam Adams. Utopias is currently the strongest beer that is brewed on a regular basis. (Several MUCH stronger ones exist; Google the website for Brew Dog if you ever have some free time and a desire to laugh your ass off at sophomoric Scottish beer-related humor.)

Yes, it is VERY expensive. My solution was to go halves with a friend, and thereafter split the bottle. After all, 24 ounces of 28% alcohol beer isn’t going to be ruined by splitting it two ways!

The 2013 batch of Utopias, according to the bottle (an attractive, copper-finished ceramic number, made to look like a huge mash tun in a modern brewery), was brewed with added maple syrup – much like Sam Adams’ earlier Triple Bock – and aged in bourbon, rum and port barrels.

With a pour on my part that was almost homicidally aggressive, I expected to get at least some small head from Utopias, but succeeded only in producing a few short-lived bubbles. The color was as black as Satan’s heart, and just as dense. This brew also left “legs” inside the glass as viscous as I would expect from the richest of dessert wines.

The port barrel aging was VERY evident in the aroma of this brew. In fact, the friend with whom I shared this bottle used to be something of a port afficionado, and he commented, “If I had five guesses about what this drink was, my first would be that it is port, and the other four would NOT be beer.”

So, yes, strong port on the nose, along with maple sugar, a strong jolt of alcohol, dark fruits, and a tiny bit of bourbon. The rum was nowhere to be observed.

The first taste was both a shock and a revelation. For those who have tasted Sam Adams’ Triple Bock (Utopias is a development of that beer), Utopias is like Triple Bock, but on steroids. The dark fruits and port come through very boldly on the palate. The alcohol bite, while strong, is not nearly what I would expect from the ABV. The maple sugar comes through on an extremely long finish.

One interesting note is the aroma left over in the bottle afterwards. Obviously, with such a lovely, collectible bottle, this one currently resides on a shelf in my work cubicle. And it has an almost overpowering aroma of maple syrup clinging to it.

All in all, a very drinkable, enjoyable brew. It doesn’t come across as beer, but it shows what beer can be stretched to, and for that reason alone, it is worth trying. In fact, this one should be on everyone’s “try before I die” list. Would I buy it again? At the price it fetches now, no. But if someone else is buying…
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Tom Becham lives in Oxnard, California where he raises killer rabbits for fun, profit and as assassins. Nah, he’s just a great writer who has reviewed breweries, beers, brewers and beer related businesses as far away as Hawaii for The Professor . His current location is unknown, though the professor is using his GPS satellite hacking device right now to track him down and reward him for writing many great articles for PGA. Well, at least that’s what we’ll tell the detectives when they come a knocking.

Profiled by Ken Carman for PGA

From their site…

“Originally a failed attempt at our 1997 batch of Olde GnarlyWine Ale resulting in an all-new-beer-style we like to call…Irresponsible.”

ABV: 9.99%

BA rating 90% and 90
97 and 86 at Rate Beer

9.99? You’d never know, and yes, that’s a compliment. But, what’s the noise about? It’s an IPA, and a beautiful one. Maybe a little over the top viscous-wise,: but not much. Since this was sold in March, yet brewed in October, perhaps the distinctiveness of all they did faded: but I doubt it. Compare it to Crustacean Barleywine-ish and you’ll see what I mean. Now that is an over the top Imperial IPA with a hint of Barleywine to it. (At best.)

Where is all the brown sugar go? Fermented out by an aggressive yeast, I suspect.

Great grapefruit in the nose: usual suspects probably Cascade, Amarillo… etc. Essentially American, or spin off of American, hops. Sweet, somewhat unattenuated, nose. No malts noted, but smells fresh, exciting: eager to be tossed into the palate.

Mouthfeel: solid caramel malt with a medium to high side of medium body. Grapefruity hops. Hey, this is simple. It’s a great IPA.

Taste is grapefruity hops up front with a firm body behind it that supports like any decent seas should. This ship sails exactly into American IPA territory.

Appearance foamy/pillow white head with a few big bubbles. SRM is 5-6 bronze. It’s beautiful as the light shines through like gold. Perhaps there’s something to this “old bottle,” thought there’s no cardboard sense or aged hops. The pictures I’ve seen in the glass are almost a deep red. That wasn’t this. Of course there’s always the production line snafu possibility, I suppose.

This is a very simple quaff. No matter what happened here, they wound up with a delicious IPA on the lower side of hops at best. Sierra Nevada upped the ante years ago with their over the top pale, but that only encouraged IPAs into becoming hyper. I like them, but that’s not the point. IPAs shouldn’t be hop race, but a standard one can judge by. I encourage over the top, just do Specialty or Imperial.

4.3

Maria Devan lives in Ithaca, NY and is frequent reviewer of beer and a beer lover deluxe.