A Place to Gather and Talk
Last time we met I was drinking a Czech Budweiser under the chestnut canopy in the Alsergrund section of the Schweizerhaus. Today we’re going to head to the village-like atmosphere in the north of the city where the Vienna Woods begin. In Part III we’ll swing west to one of the city’s garden districts before capping the evening in a beer garden hidden right in the middle of the historic old town.
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I used to hang out at the old downtown Abita Springs brewery back before they had a big production facility down the road. I have found Abita has been a mixed bag since then: getting better then back to boring. One year they had a Christmas ales to die for at about 14%. But we have found that rare.
This, unfortunately, was on the boring side oif the equation. Word of advice: a 22 oz one off, barrel aged, brew should be exceptional. This was not.
Up front: bourbon nose, a tad sweet, not much else. Maple, if even there, faint. What pecan?
Pillow head that fades fast, very lite brown, hazy, perhaps from pecan oils? Just a guess. Could also be the barrel aging, I suppose. Depends on the barrel, storage temps, tec.
Taste: bourbon up front, wood: a lite brown ale, almost no pecan, close to no maple. Bourbon wood dominates, but that’s not saying much because there’s not much here. Kind of like they took their amber and barrel aged it.
An OK quaff, but boring. Plus, there is a balance issue here. This is a beer that has wood, but probably wouldn’t GIVE wood to anyone.
Bad joke.
It’s like they went for the wood, but missed everything else but a very, very light brown ale. Carbonation light but fine. Just about right. Not a lot of mouthfeel except a slight slickness from bourbon esters, perhaps.
73/83 on RB. 83 on BA.
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This week I went out to find something new in a saison and I did! Today I have a farmhouse wheat ale from Jolly Pumpkin called Weizen Bam. At 4.5% it will hardly put you under unless you try and that is the spirit of the farmhouse ale or the table beer. Gentle wit and graceful hospitality. Jolly pumpkin ferments in wood and that means that the beer is unique with wild yeast.
Happy New American Farmhouse Wheat Beer Sunday!
Soft haze on a pastel yellow beer with a thin white head that fizzed up up and away. Sunlight captured. Almost completely clear even at the last pour. Bubbles on the rise but not in a stream.
The nose is powerful and scintillating. Lemon is fragrant and there is bold earthy spice. A sour or tart scent and then to your delight , lots of breaddy wheat. Sharp grasses, almost needle like. It’s golden and goes on forever and has an earthy sweetness all it’s own. Nose is surprisingly deep and hearty. There is a tartness or sour scent to the nose. it smells like a dry white wine does, with a promise of acidity. The barrel on this nose is but an airy lightness. You can only say wood if you imagine it and there is a touch, just a faint bright touch of vanilla. It too does not jut out too far forward.
Taste is delicate and a bit sour. A good sour to me seems to collapse on the palate at just the right moment and let me tell you what I mean. In this one your tongue explodes with breadiness and texture from the wheat that is kissed golden. It’s not as sweet as in a hefeweizen. Citric fruit and hop herbal marry perfectly in lightness with grasses and spice. Clove and earth abound and while you can’t say it’s funky, it’ really is. Now you begin to notice a faint banana ester. It’s so firm that it’s the peel only and it’s just ripe. Clove is abundant but light and peppers the background where you also find a hint of white pepper . As you begin to swallow all the texture and all that dramatic flavor succumbs as your mouth waters to a deceptively light feeling body that shows you a just a tickle from sweetness as it finishes dry. It’s so quenching, it’s as though the beer has disappeared. You laugh because it has. And it lingers like that sweet but dry and your mouth waters. The banana on this palate is an expression of brightness that is very faint but completely firm and in the background. It drinks also like a bit of tart apple. It’s 
as though the nose is alive and playful and changes gently as the beer warms to show you everything it has. Dynamic wheat, herbal hop with varied sweet grasses, wet dampness, floral nectar, hearty bread, thin honey and abundant clove like spice.
Happy Fourth of July Weekend!
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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.
Vienna, city of music. Home to Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Strauss, and Mahler. Vienna, a showcase of architectural styles from the soaring Gothic-era Stephansdom to the Baroque opulence of the Karlskirche, and from elegant Ringstrasse historicism to the fin-de-siècle modernism of Otto Wagner. Vienna’s pastries rival those of Paris, as does its coffeehouse culture. Chocolate? Plenty of that, too.
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In 1774 the first Continental Congress was convening, America was starting to take shape, and one beer was all the rage in Philadelphia: Mr. Hare’s Porter. To say this beer was popular is an understatement. Many of the attendees of the Continental Congress enjoyed a pint or two of the porter regularly, but George Washington and John Adams were the beer’s biggest fans. Washington was such a fan that during the Revolutionary War he would regularly send for the beer to be shipped to wherever he was at the front. Washington even tried to recreate the brew himself when he retired to Mount Vernon, though he was never able to exactly copy it.
The porter, and Mr. Hare, seemingly came out of nowhere and exploded in popularity at dramatic speed. Thanks to an impending war, and a desire to stop buying English goods, Robert Hare went from brewer to socialite in mere seconds. It’s a quintessential American tale: make a product people demand and follow your product’s rise to riches – that rise might even involve a stint in politics if you’re lucky.
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The concept is simple: if yeast doesn’t provide the necessary tools and environment to conduct a healthy fermentation, the final mead or beer can be riddled with flaws.
In order to combat this problem, mead nutrient additions can be added to yeast during fermentation that will make for a fast, robust fermentation and lessen the chances of developing off-flavors.
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I remember when I first tasted Sofie I had all kinds of quips. “Sofie is a tart.” and “A saison is like a pretty girl. It’s her perfume but watch out because she does bite a little.” Then I started getting this beer fresh and I started not to like it as much . Today I have last years beer and I am back to thinking Sofie is a tart. I’ll try and compare it to Saison Dupont.
Sofie smells lemony sweet at first. Soft haze on a yellow beer topped with a thinner head than Saison Dupont as it also fell faster. ( I ‘ll just say Dupont from now on) There is spice and the malt is crackery and shows itself on the nose. There is funk on this beer and compared to Dupont it is a bit different. So I think we can say the yeast strain may be different? Funky can be mild or strong and is not a flaw either way. In tasting, I think a lot of people who get their first taste of funk think it’s a flaw. Spice backs the lemon in this one with a bit more sweetness than Dupont and smells like a lemon meringue pie with crust. Herbal is behind the funk and it’s peppery. Not peppery like black pepper, but peppery like herbal pepper. There is a sweaty little tartness on the nose but it is not barnyard. It is more mild and a bit different but it’s the same kind character from the yeast.
This beer smells more like the first one I remember, rather than ones I had after that, that were fresher.
Taste is very earthy and has lost the sweetness from the sugar on the palate because the funk has taken over a bit. On the palate it’s more like a tart little bit of lemon. The spice is more mild because of the funk and the sweat I talked about in both Dupont and Sofie is more mild in this beer overall and does not show itself to the palate as much. It’s not barnyard it’s more toward what you would call sweeter earth. Sofie has plenty of sweet grasses and finishes with less of a hops bitter than does Dupont. Sofie has lots of herbal pepper and spice in the finish. She does finish a touch sweeter overall and has a different hop character.
Freshness date says bottled on 18Nov15 . I want one from 2013 please.
Dupont is spice and sweet dryness and Sofie really is a tart with her lemony peppery herbal. Cheers you all and Happy Saison Wednesday
Well this makes it better… NOT-PGA
Budweiser, a beverage that vaguely resembles beer, is attempting to change its name from “Budweiser†to “America†for the summer of 2016.
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