[A Beer a Day] Vertical Tasting: Divine Reserve 11 vs. Endeavor | St. Arnold Brewing | Houston, TX

St. Arnold is definitely not my preferred Texas brewer.

I find most of their regular rotating inventory as uninspired as the Spoetzl Brewery, and I purchase it on free will about as much as I purchase Shiner products.  There's nothing really wrong with them -- its just that there is nothing really right about them either.

However, there is a GIANT exception to this rule -- and that is when I scramble all over the damn place to find St. Arnold's limited seasonal releases and Divine Reserve Series.  Its a pursuit for sure, as they are a very popular brewer in Texas, and even their most casual of fans are pretty versed on their special release dates, making the competition to wrangle this stuff pretty difficult at times.

When Divine Reserve 11 was released in March of last year (2011), I got a tip from my tip-people that HEB had about 12 cases.  By the time I showed up about an hour later, they were down to three, and dudes were scooping them up by the armful, like desperate contestants on Supermarket Sweep.  One good thing about St. Arnold releases is that local grocers will always get inventory -- an oddity for rare beers to be in the common markets -- and that they have no bottle limitations, which is nice if you have large arms.  Most specialty liquor stores in the US will put a cap on the amount of product you can purchase to limit hording and re-selling on eBay.  I know, right?

So, I grab as many as my arms can carry -- three sixers for me and one for my cousin Ben in El Paso, hop head that he is, because DR 11 was supposed to be a superb Double Indian Pale Ale (DIPA) -- a first for this series, as the Divine Reserve recipe changes styles year-to-year.

Now, anyone who is a beer snob has to be initiated into the DIPA club at some point -- beers with Bitterness Units (IBUs) into the triple digits, usually, and an ABV hovering at-or-above 10%.  These trolls of the beer world were first introduced on the West Coast by brewers not satisfied with the bitter qualities of just any regular ol' IPA.  DIPAs tend to get gnarled in the mouth; spicy, floral, citrusy, with a fine alcohol burn in the back.

Divine Reserve 11 turned out to be such a huge hit for St. Arnold, that 12 months later, they released the same recipe in a bomber bottle and re-packaged it as a perennial called St. Arnold Endeavor; so named for Houston's roots as Space City in relation to the Space Shuttle Endeavor.  I picked one up on its Leap Year release date with anticipation of tasting DR11 and Endeavor side-by-side; brewed and bottled exactly one year apart, as this is the true sport of cellar-aging beers (apart from hoarding and selling on Ebay).

One last note before the tasting:  Ironically, DIPAs, and to a broader extent IPAs in general, are meant to be consumed as fresh as possible -- so the closer to the bottling dates, the better IPAs should taste based on the brewers vision.  This is ironic in the sense that IPAs were originally invented by the British during the colonial empire days as a way to (literally) ship (as in, I'm on a Boat!) beer to India  from the UK without it spoiling during the long voyage.  The natural hop qualities preserved the beer -- and obviously, the more hops you brewed with the beer, the longer it would sustain.  In modern times, IPAs and DIPAs will still preserve in a beer cellar, but are meant to be enjoyed primarily for the hops, not because of their secondary effects.  Aging IPAs will mellow out some of their traditional characteristics, but can still be very interesting as the flavors have had time to congeal and make a nice little picnic.

First, we tried Endeavor, the fresh-as-fresh-gets DIPA.  I had Melissa look up the stats because I'd forgotten over time what the IBUs and ABV was.  Melissa reports back between sips -- because she multi-tasks that way pretty often -- "IBUs: 78, ABV: 8.9%", she says.  I thought that was really tame for a DIPA -- and to be honest, it tasted like my thoughts.  While very nice and fresh and balanced, I expected way more alcohol burn to let me know that this is a special club for people who like to chew their beer.  I took another sip: floral, but not sweet like most DIPAs.  A little piny, but not really getting any citrus either -- rather a tropical, mealy fruitiness.  The usual characteristics a DIPA weren't really presenting itself and for some reason, I remember liking DR11 much more than I was liking this.  But maybe I'm being a bit too rough, since this was still a very outstanding DIPA with enough balance and equilibrium to help me pass any freeway sobriety test thrown my way.

I moved on to the DR11 -- one of the six remaining in my cellar -- the cap said Drink Me.  No really, it did.  So I poured its brains into a tulip.  Brains.

Most of the astringent tropical notes were gone, and instead, I got more of a muddled fruit -- like apricots/peaches?  Fuck, I couldn't tell cos all those fruits kinda taste the same to me.  DR11 was doing its DIPA thing and still being very hoppy, but it was not a palate wrecker.  It tasted like something below an Imperial IPA -- a single, if you will.  It was still delicious, but very obviously different than I remembered.  I will probably drink the rest of these very quickly before the rest of the flavors meld into Lone Star -- well, okay, not Lone Star, but some shitty brew that Red Hook or Widmer Brothers would make.

Overall, DIPAs are an extremely subjective style of beer.  Some people can pick the nuances out of the beer so accurately that really I'm just envisioning their beer as they are describing it.  Melissa is like this.  I'm pretty sure she's a super-taster with a palate containing thousands-more buds than your typical-taster -- thus, I get a lot of influence from her experiences.  She is saying she likes it, but now my ears are ringing because I've just consumed too much high ABV beer too fast.  I want to sing The Strokes out loud.  Stop telling me about DIPAs, woman. 

In the end, I think that St. Arnold Endeavor/DR11 is very, very nearly a world class DIPA, but I feel as though it needed a bit more ambition to reach the levels of Pliny the Elder , Hopslam, or Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA.

See you in the aisles for DR12.

ABV: 8.9%
Acquired: DR11: HEB/ Endeavor: Spec's
★★★★★★★☆☆☆ /  ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆

[A Beer a Day] Voodoo Doughnut Bacon Maple Ale | Rogue Brewing | Newport, OR

This little piggy made me go wee wee.

One would think that the semi-regular colloquialism -- "Beer, its whats for breakfast" -- would pretty much have its origins rooted in the contents of this piglet-colored beer bottle, am I right?

All the essentials of the holy food trinity are represented - ham, doughnuts, syrup - and it goes without mentioning that all of these ingredients are liquefied amber goodness in the form of alcoholic daddy juice.  All the essentials to the start of a fine day, all before removing your PJs.

But I would argue instead that Rogue Voodoo Doughnut Bacon Maple Ale is less a breakfast treat, and more of the late-night drunk street food varietal.  The kind of stuff that has you traipsing the 2AM street-meat crowd for your insatiable savory/sweet/bacon/beer appetite that arouses itself about that time every Friday night.

When Melissa and I decided to do an in-house pub crawl -- where we opened a new bomber at different, but frequently utilized drinking stations around our house -- we saved this beer for the spot that we call our Dive Bar, the dank, dimly lit confines of our garage where we gorge away on cold nights.  Because this was only the second stop on the go-around from our back patio, to the garage, to the side patio, to the front porch; our palates were still very lively -- an intentional effort so that our palates would cull all of the distinct flavors from this beer.

What we found -- well, at least I did -- was very little Applewood-smoked bacon flavor, but an enormous aroma and palatal notes of maple doughnuts, and something more similarly compared to a Chicken-and-Waffles beer than a Bacon-Doughnut beer.  The beer was very sweet, but not obnoxious.  It was STILL trying to be beer, not a meal -- however, it did trigger something in our nuerotransmitters that made Melissa and I absolutely crave sausage links with mustard -- so we talked about that for a while.  Then we talked about other food because this shit was making us hungry.  So, we ordered a delivery pizza.

In case you were wondering about the unlikely connection between Rogue Brewing and Voodoo Doughnuts -- well its not unlikely at all, given that both of these companies are rooted in the Portland, Oregon metro area, and two of the most innovative consumables companies in the PacNW.  In fact, Anthony Bordain covered this in one of the best No Reservations to date, when he toured the doughnut palace with author Chuck Palahniuk.  (Skip to 2:20)

So, would I seek out Rogue's Voodoo Doughnut Bacon Maple Ale again?  Entirely.  I plan to seek it as much as possible, and hopefully aging one to see how the flavors marry over time.  I really did not expect to enjoy it as much as I did, and apparently doing so will cost me the price of a pizza as well.

ABV: 5.6%
Acquired: Spec's
★★★★★★★★☆☆

[A Beer a Day] Aprihop Indian Pale Ale | Dogfish Head Brewing | Milton, DE

Hip- ...  Hip hop- ... Hip hop anonymous?

Time to open the windows and let the air waft in to maintain your IPA at a perfect 45° while the records of Duke Ellington and Kings of Convenience spin on the Stack-o-Matic.

Its very nearly time to store whatever porters and stouts you have left over from the winter season and let the wheats, Belgians, and pale ales breath after a season of meddling in the cellar.  

In Austin, that hoppy arsenal might have come out as soon as last week, when temps started spiking at 85°, pretty ridiculous except for the prospect of the seasonal beer rollover.  

This past Friday, Dogfish Head re-entered my psyche with their sublime twist on a fruit beer -- an apricot infused Indian Pale Ale.  I couldn't scream my car out of the faculty parking lot fast enough -- while avoiding small children -- on my way to the bottle shop to get a four pack of this year's offering.  I was pretty bewitched with this beer last year, but was never able to find it in 12 oz vessels -- only the 16oz version at The Draught House.  I've thought about it a lot since.

For those who have enjoyed Pyramid Brewing's Apricot Ale -- a very VERY solid offering by its own merit -- Aprihop is literally nothing like it.  Instead, of the very overt and bright apricot juice of Pyramid Apricot Ale, we instead have the muddled, over ripened meat of the fruit itself, as if mashed into the wort to sit and stew and infuse.  The apricot notes are extremely subtle, but not at all disguised by the hops.  Its a perfect balance of hopped flavor and fruit suggestion -- which is why a fruit IPA is somewhat of a brilliant stroke by master brewer Sam Calagione, where a modicum of craft had to come about in the recipe's design.  I've said it before, but wheat beers are essentially the vodka of beer, where you can manipulate them to taste however you want.  But a fruit IPAs can be better compared to a craft cocktail, which takes a bit of cleverness and skill in making this something worth drinking.  

Its practically Spring, and I will be on the hunt for fresh Aprihop around the city before the summer months horribly oppress us from the outdoors and make Duke Ellington sound like Maxi Priest .  

ABV: 7.o%
Acquired: Here, but not there
★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 

[A Beer a Day] Matilda Belgian Pale Ale | Goose Island Brewing | Chicago, IL

Oui, bitte.

Very gone are the days when I would immediately bypass the pub menu's AMERICAN CORN BEER fillers, and skip directly to the IMPORTS table of contents.  Then, I would expeditiously order a Newcastle or a St. Pauli Girl, or whatevs.  If it came from Western Europe, it was just better.  Shit, one weekend in New York in the early aughts, I thought Stella was like the Everest of brewing.

I'm certainly not indicating that I am above drinking those beer, no way.  I will happily accept a gifted beer in the form of a green bottle and skunky odor any hour of the day.  I enjoy them from time to time, but not as I would five or six years ago -- and I generally find myself buying less and less from Europe.

The reason being is that in many ways, American brewers have surpassed Western European brewers at their own craft.  Specifically, Americans just make better Pale Ales (Indian, and otherwise) and better Imperial Stouts, the cornerstone of British brewing for the better part of 300 years.  That is older than the United States has even been a nation.

Now, our local and national small-brewers are making a run at those uppity Belgians, renowned the world over as the masters of craft brewing.  Austin itself is in the midst of a Belgian beer revolution, but as a whole, almost every major microbrewer is doing some sort of homage to the Flemish, the Wallons, the Brusselois, and so on.  One of those big dogs is Goose Island from Chicago.

Goose Island's Vintage Series is a collection of singularly-monikered and handsome beers that are high-end tributes to Belgium brewing.  Matilda, in particular, is a Belgian Pale Ale that is yeast-forward in the style of European Pale Ales, which are light on the hops to diminish the citrus and elevate the buttery spiciness of 2-Row and Caramel malts.

We poured it into wine glasses on this occasion -- as a New Years Eve toast because in all of our drunken-intellect, we forgot to get champagne.  No worries because Matilda charmingly fills a wine void.  Colloquially speaking, Matilda is just simply lovely beer.  We found it especially exceptional paired with a nice dessert  -- and this from a ravenous beer-drinker who, in ironic fashion, doesn't prefer drinking beer with his meals.


ABV: 7.o%
Acquired: Tha D
★★★★★★★☆☆☆

[A Beer a Day] Horizontal: Russian Imperial Stouts | Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti / Deep Ellum Darkest Hour | Denver, CO / Dallas, TX

Picture makes me want hear some Black Joe Lewis.

I've never been able to shoot suitable beer pr0n before -- especially with a temperamental phone camera that takes way to long to shutter --  but I think that this particular photo is fap ready.  Like Drexyl Spivey states in one of my favorite movie scenes of all time -- a scene rife with a lifetime of great assertions in the span of four small minutes -- "Now, I know I'm pretty.  But not as pretty as a couple of titties."

These elegant black beauties are of the varietal Russian Imperial Stout.  I am a glutton for RISes the way James Bond was a glutton for women with hilariously suggestive names and thick 70s thighs.

The one of the left is Great Divide Brewery's Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout and the one of the right is Deep Ellum Brewery's Darkest Hour.  The former is an old-guard workhorse on the original brewing hierarchy, and the latter is a promising newborn hot shot  from the brewing dearth of Dallas. 

I talked rigorously about Great Divide's Yeti Series in a previous post, and this is one of the options in that brilliant series.  Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout is a beastly stout, with heaps of roast up front and all the way back -- with the requisite stout-notes of chocolate, vanilla, and coffee.  The brewers used French and American oak chips to infuse a very woodsy finish, and they succeeded entirely.  As demonstrated by my buddy Chuck, an avid Guinness devotee, upon his first sip of Oak Aged Yeti: "That's a fucking beer, bro!"  Those of us who know Chuck just read that in his voice.

ABV: 9.5% 
Acquired: Hopfield's
★★★★★★★☆☆☆

What is exceptionally impressive is that upstart Dallasites, Deep Ellum, are brewing with some extreme confidence, coming right out of the gates with a massive beer that typically takes newcomers a few years to attempt, then fail, then attempt again for public consumption.  These brewers are like all, "fuck that", which is exactly the kind of earnest mindset one needs to have to be involved at any capacity with an RIS.  

At a huge volume of alcohol, Darkest Hour did come off a bit on the boozy side, and not necessarily as complex as the Oak Aged Yeti -- but more in the style of the true RIS -- which, like IPAs were packaged in the UK with enough alcohol to make the long voyage across Europe without spoiling.  I felt like this sucker could make the voyage to the moon in a school bus before the alcohol consumed itself.  It could be the Yeti talking, but Darkest Hour gave me a significant buzz, which is a nice return on my investment.

Overall -- and with future potential in nind -- I think that Deep Ellum made a very impressionable beer that I will certainly go back to often -- maybe even moreso than the Yeti.  They stare it off like Drexyl and Clarence Worley, like he ain't got a muthafuckin'  care in the world.  And who know?  Maybe he don't.

[note: dibs on naming my future Russian Imperial Stout homebrew: Mr. Majestyk.]

ABV: 9.5% 
Acquired: Hopfield's 
★★★★★★★★☆☆