Beer Geek Night and another Beer Geek Night. Oh and the Ouzo effect!

So much to do, and so little time to do it in...

Apologies, Constant Reader! It turns out I've a couple of undocumented beery incidents on my drive, accumulating cyberdust and feeling a bit forlorn.
What with all the brewing and contemplating beery things all day, I've a bunch of beer related events to cover, two of which are  Beer Geek Nights. So, enough of the apologetic preamble already, onward! For science!

Beer Geek Night #3 was a bit of a pot luck afair, with all attendees adding something to the pile of science to be assessed.
First beer of the evening was Vinken Blond:

Turns out fellow Beer Geek Johan's grandfather used to brew this beer back in (ahem) 1866, and apparently, the village of Geistingen thought it time to resurrect it. A beer with a bit of history and family folklore, I like that. However, much as I'd feared, Vinken Blond is a rather generic and interchangeable Belgian blond, which fails to stand out amidst the hectoliters of comparable blond beers available all over the country. Historic or not, Vinken Blond never makes a mark, and fades into the background of easy, commonplace blond flavours. Nice, don't get me wrong, but most of my sympathy vote is derived from the history behind the beer, rather than the organoleptic experience it evokes.

Next up was Tète Noire by Brass. Desprat:

Go ahead.
Google "Cèpes d'Auvergne" and try to think of a beer with that in it.

A mushroom beer then, and my first in this oh-so-easily (and perhaps deservedly) overlooked substyle. Cèpes are also known as porcini, although the latter tends to refer to the mushrooms when they're preserved in oil, whereas this probably contains the dried variety. Not an easy beer to describe, but when everyone involved takes a sniff, frowningly mutters "Hm. Interesting.", after which a bout of collective sniggering ensues, perhaps descriptions are bound to fall way off the mark. Beer Geek Frank, in an unusual display of leniency, described the smell as "rags which have soaked in something unspeakable, and then left to fester for several weeks behind the compost heap" (or something along those lines). I found the smell to be weird and definitely off-putting, unlike any beer I've ever smelled before (in a rather bad not quite as bad you'd think kinda way). In the mouth, the Tète Noire was thin and watery, mildly sour and disappointingly bland. Like an uninspired attempt at a Flanders Old Brown, with a dash of oddball to spruce it up.

Oh and incidentally: guess what Tète Noire translates to?

Only mildly more revolting than the beer, actually.

Onwards to number three: Pochs Summer Ale

Approved by Anubis

I'll share the details of how I came by this artisanal Catalunyan brewery in a later attempt at travelogue blogging, but for now, suffice to say it's a Spanish ale (du-UH-huh) brewed with Cascade and Willamette hops. Also, now's the time to talk about the Ouzo Effect.

--------------------------------INTERLUDIUM--------------------------------

You've all experienced it. You're on holidays in some faraway place. Let's say, for argument's sake, Greece.

The land that Thatcher forgot

You soaked up some rays, went clubbing in all the wrong places, and had that dinner at the shoreline where they served that drink. What's it called again?

Never figured out how to read the label but it certainly wasn't Petoiva

The next day, just before checking in at Krastinapalodopolis Regional Airport, your hungover head still swimming with delight from this unique discovery of local customs and alcoholic escapades, you purchase a bottle at the tax free shop. Hades, you went all out and bought six of them, determined to sip anise-flavoured booze on your porch till well into next spring.

Now, fifteen years later, check the contents of your bar. Look waaaaay in the back. Recognise that bottle?

That is the Ouzo Effect, and it applies to all things experienced abroad, and relived when no longer proverbially in Rome: the magical veneer of being somewhere else just can't withstand the ham-fisted skepsis of the homestead, and back in wherever-your-true-home-is, the whatever-it-was-you-purchased simply doesn't perform as well as it did in wherever-it-was-you-purchased-it.

Scientific fact, empirically verified but as yet unproved.

--------------------------------INTERLUDIUM ends about here--------------------------------

Poch's Summer Ale was such an eye-opener when I first had it in the shadow of Castellfollit's little church, that the Ouzo Effect had no option but to strike deep and hard: while the hops (hops! in a Spanish beer!) were still there, they were less pronounced and, well, refined, than they were back wherever. The ale yeast (ale yeast! in a Spanish beer!) which flocculated so nicely (flocculation! IN A SPAN...oh hell you get the point already) had accumulated as an ungainly muddy clump in the neck of the bottle. And while the beer was still a drastic step up from the Tète Noire, all assembled agreed that its superiority benefited significantly from the relativistic nature of the experiment: it's pretty hard to fail when you're being paired to a mushroom beer named after a chronically blocked sweat gland. By no means a bad beer, this Summer Ale, but it has a lot (and I mean a LOT) of competition from similar hoppy beers the world over. I've some more stashed away, and perhaps it stands up better on its own. 

Last up on this Pot Luck Beer Geek Night was the 5 Golden Rings by the Bruery

Because pine-apple-pimped christmas beer is best enjoyed
on the hottest day of the year

The Bruery are known for their Big-Assed, Bold-Faced, Brass-Balled brews, and this is perhaps the whackiest beer I've had in a long time. A thickly cloying malt base, heavy and dense like a barley wine deluded into believing it's an imperial stout. Pineapple is definitely present, to such an extent as to be close to overpowering. Spices and a boozy punch to the throat, lingering on and on and on, straight into next Christmas. At 11.5% ABV, this is no quaffing brew either, although the alcohol is remarkably restrained.
Not an easy brew at all, and most of the assembled Beer Geeks didn't actually like it, although I daresay some were intimidated by it. I think it was Beer Geek Frank who said something along the lines of "Innovation implies transgression of the established boundaries", and if there's one adjective which the 5 Golden Rings lives up to, it must be transgressive. If you ever get the chance to pick up a bottle of this, don't hesitate. It's one of those beers that's designed to make a single point:

...or rather "this is still beer"

In all, this was a fun, if somewhat bizarre Beer Geek night. Highlight of the evening was definitely the 5 Golden Rings. While not something I'd drink every (or even any) day, it was by far the most skillfully brewed beer of the lot.


Beer Geek Night #4 then, with a dark and stoutish theme.

Beer Geek Frank brought a bottle of Viking Chili Stout (Hornbeer).

Seriously, Google?

Hornbeer is a Danish brewing company, and going by what little I understand of the Danish language, I gather they brew some pretty creative beers. Their Viking Chili Stout is a spin on a thick imperial stout, infused with chocolate, liquorice, vanilla, chocolate and (du-UH-huh) chili. Pours thick and gloopy, just the way I like it, with a filthy richly chocolatey nose. In the mouth, there's a ton of boozy sweetness, laden with coffee flavours and a weird, mildly upsetting chili-afterburn in the throat. The alcohol combines with the chili (which isn't really noticeable in the flavour) to make this a potent, fiery brew.

A Viking Chili Dog?

Me likes, but my esophagus was getting worried by the time we hit the bottom.

Next up was one I'd been meaning to try ever since I acquired it, and since Beer Geek Bert was offering one of his own bottles, I wasn't going to say no to Tokyo Black Horizon.

Free ad space in the back for the initiated

This collaboration brew is a blend of three pretty drastic brews: Brew Dog's Tokyo*, Mikeller's Black and Nogne O's Dark Horizon, none of which I had first hand experience with when I tasted this blend. I'd been told both the Black and Tokyo* are "too much of a good thing": intensely black and overly potent brews which barely categorise as "still beer".

In this blend, you'll find so much it almost becomes impossible to describe what's going on. There's a prominently malty nose, rich and cozy without becoming decadent. Remarkable abscence of anything normally associated with a beer this black: no roast, no coffee or chocolate, but rather a velvet blanket of dark dried fruits and ripe figs and raisins. Smells like an insanely pimped quadruple, without that annoying hint of sugar in it. In the mouth, smoothness is the word again, albeit without that decadent velvety mouthfeel you'll find in many imperial stouts. It's smooth alright, but it's also very pure and honest: nothing is hidden or glossed over by booze or barrels or somesuch. Rich and rewarding, and remarkably balanced: even at 17.5% ABV, this beer is immensely easy and fulfilling, and definitely one of the finest dessert beers I've ever had.

Last up was the Embrasse Peated Oak Aged by De Dochter van de Korenaar.

Gotta love the presentation of this one

I love this brewery, and their basic Embrasse is anything but basic in its own right, but this barrel aged edition couldn't stand up to the preceding onslaught. I'd been told this one was "very peaty" but it turns out we should perhaps have started with this one, rather than keep it until last (peat tends to numb the tastebuds like pretty much nothing else this side of an acid-bleach cocktail). Neither the base beer -which is pretty present and stated under normal conditions- nor the added wood-and-whisky tones did stand out at all. What we did find was elegant and even a bit delicate, but I'm convinced we need to taste this beer again without first rewiring our concept of "balance" with beer like the Tokyo Black Horizon.

That being said: I'm not sure De Dochter has got her barrel aging skills fully under control just yet. I distinctly remember the Bravoure OASE as falling way short of the mark, in spite of what a wonderful beer the basic Bravoure is.

After half the assembly had left the premises, Beer Geek Frank and myself shared a nice Geuze Mariage Parfait by Boon, because all the above had left us a bit thirsty.

And also, of course, for science.

Next Beer Geek Night, we'll try to do a better match up.

Until then,

Greetz

Jo