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According to historians, beer has existed for at least six millennia and has been savored on every continent (even Antarctica!). With credentials like that, it’s no wonder that brewers have occasionally turned to some highly unusual techniques and ingredients to make their beverages stand out. Here are eight of the oddest.
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This pours a dark brown. It has sumptuous brown hues. Thick and pours out slow like oil. A creamy head of chocolate colored foam reminds me of a milkshake. This beer will show you lace and legs.
Nose is sweet chocolate caramel and cream. Earthy coffee and the bright presence of the pepper. No vanilla. The pepper seemed to fade into the beer as the malts took over. Caramel a bit nutty and a light airy chocolate.
The taste is silken and long. That caramel is luscious alright and lasts on the palate. There’s barley and a grainy roast that does not touch burnt so it’s creamy. There is a cocoa powder so light so provocative that it actually feels like a dusting of cocoa powder on the back of the throat. it is delicate and that is a pleasant paradox. The pepper is earthy and shows you everything gently but no real heat. There is a touch of cream to this flavor that lets you see the depth of that roast but only askance as it finishes full, slightly chewy . The pepper finally flares up just a little in the aftertaste and the beer ends smooth, dry and beyond chocolatey.
4
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Maria Devan lives in Ithaca, NY and is a great beer writer. That’s Maria in the middle. The other two are not, but they are lucky to have her as a friend.
86 on Beer Advocate.
93 and 95 for style at Rate Beer.
What about peanut butter doesn’t these reviewers understand? Are they so nose focused they miss it’s the smell that’s skewing their reviews?
Seems so.
Big light brown foam head that holds a while. The body is a dense black that bright light hardly shines through. The head cascades downward into the quaff. Great presentation
Peanut butter and chocolate mixed perfectly, right up front, on the nose. Darker malts, way in the background, but very muted. The peanut butter and chocolate dominate.
On taste the chocolate is slightly bitter, as if dark chocolate and/or cocoa nibs were used
Very alcoholic. Indeed a tad too much in my opinion: throws the balance off. Not even the luxurious, seemingly heavy, body compensates. My guess is body is actually medium, but chocolate and peanut butter make it seem heavier. Peanut butter a mere hint in the taste. Not sure the abv, but if not high I would think a mild case of higher alcohol.
Nice try. I suggest backing off the high abv or higher alcohols, up malt sense and get more peanut butter into the taste.
3.6
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I began washing and harvesting my own yeast about a year ago. I got excited and harvested 4 jars from 4 batches in the first month, leaving me with 16 jars of 4 different yeasts. Since I usually brew twice per month, I had a ton of yeast just sitting in my fridge. After using some of this stored (aka old) yeast in beers that came out less than perfect, I began tossing it – hours of work, down the drain. Then I had an idea – why can’t I just harvest clean yeast directly from my starter? After trying out a few techniques, here’s the process that seems most efficient:
Step 1: Make a starter (3 days prior to brewing) that is .5 liter larger than you need for your beer. Since the majority of 5 gallon batches require no more than a 1 liter starter, a standard 2000 mL flask or even gallon growler will work great. In the photo below, I needed a 2 L starter for a 10 gallon batch, so I made 2.5 L.
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Red solo cups are fine for backyard barbecues and certain country music artists, but when we’re hosting a dinner party or feeling fancy, we prefer to drink our adult beverages out of slightly more sophisticated vessels. And, as if feeling like a badass holding a martini weren’t enough, there’s scientific reason to be choosy about your glass.
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A couple of weeks ago, Jester King’s head brewer Garrett Crowell made an astonishing proclamation. The brewery has made a decision to switch to green bottles, not in spite of the danger it poses to beer, but because of it.
“My pursuit of the use of green bottles stems mostly from the character of all of my favorite beers. Cuvee de Jonquilles, Blaugies, Thiriez, Fantôme, Cantillon, Dupont, all use green bottles. I’ve had brown bottle versions of some of these beers, and have had them on draft as well and there is an element missing from those versions that the green bottles have…. So many breweries have attempted to mimic the classic Saison Dupont yeast profile, and I feel what is most often missing is the light struck character that is integral to the profile of that beer.… I absolutely like skunky beer, oxidized beer, or “flawed†beer.â€
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