2012 Sam Adams Utopias vs. 2009 BrewDog Tactical Nuclear Penguin

Posted on January 28, 2013 by
2012 Samuel Adams Utopias on display upon our arrival.

2012 Samuel Adams Utopias on display upon our arrival.

In 2009, BrewDog (Scotland) threw down the gauntlet to brew the highest ABV beer on the planet.  They launched the Tactical Nuclear Penguin (32% ABV) to beat out the reigning champion at the time, Sam Adams Utopias (27% ABV).

I won’t get into the ABV arms race that ensued between BrewDog and Schorschbrau, or  the moral debate over whether these “freeze distilled” malt beverages should be even be considered beer. (There is a style of beer called eisbock, so perhaps these are just uber-imperial eisbocks. I’ll let you decide.)

I was privileged enough to come into possession of a bottle of Tactical Nuclear Penguin a couple years ago, and I had been waiting for the right time to open it. When is there ever a “right time” for a 32% beer? (Then again, is there ever not a right time?)

The circumstance was made clear when my friend Jake Grove at the Anderson Independent told me that a bottle of the 2012 Utopias made its way to his house.

It was time for a Utopias vs. Penguin showdown:

Tactical Nuclear Penguin vs. Utopias, to the death.

Tactical Nuclear Penguin vs. Utopias, to the pain.

2009 BrewDog Tactical Nuclear Penguin

First up was the Penguin. The alcohol vapors hit my nose before I was even six inches from the taster. It was hard to get past the massive amount of rubbing alcohol in the aroma to smell anything else.

2009 BrewDog Tactical Nuclear Penguin

2009 BrewDog Tactical Nuclear Penguin

The first thing I noticed when I tasted it was burnt rubber. Then burnt sugar, like when you char a marshmallow over a campfire.

So by now you’re thinking, “Damn, that must be terrible.” I’m not sure it is so terrible, it just isn’t that appetizing. I’ll continue.

Once you get acclimated, or numb, to the heat of the Penguin, other characteristics do start to come out. The beer was aged in scotch barrels, and that lent an earthy, peaty flavor to the beer.

Other than the burnt sugar, alcohol and peat, the malt character lacked complexity. It just sort of smacked me over the head and asked how its ass taste.

The beer was also slightly carbonated, which the Utopias was not, so that may have also contributed to the sensation of heat and prickliness that the beer gave off.

If you enjoy scotch, which I’m still trying to acquire a taste for, I think you might enjoy this beer. And since it was brewed by Scots, I’ll give them credit for that. I think it’s an extremely difficult beer to enjoy, though it makes me wonder if, like scotch, it needs to be aged for 12 years instead of 3.

2012 Samuel Adams Utopias

While the Tactical Nuclear Penguin descended with the grace of a nuclear bomb, Utopias entered the scene with the refinement of the Most Interesting Man in the World, adorned with a beautiful woman in a small black dress on his right arm.

2012 Samuel Adams Utopias

2012 Samuel Adams Utopias

Despite being 29% ABV, only three points lower than the Penguin, there was not nearly the boozy nose.

The slight amount of alcohol on the nose left room on the aroma for sweet malt, maraschino cherries and marshmallows.

The flavor had a layering effect, first with toffee and dark chocolate. It finished with a hazelnut and caramel character that reminded me of Frangelico.

The body of the Utopias was viscous and warming. It’s not conditioned, so it comes across as port or brandy.

As you can tell if you read the back-story, there’s a lot that goes into this beer and it shows. It’s extremely complex and layered. I feel like I’d need to go through at least half the bottle to experience everything it had to offer. And then I would be passed out in a ditch.

The Decision

The winner, by unanimous decision, Samuel Adams Utopias! I feel like the Tactical Nuclear Penguin has potential, but it still needs a good decade or two to develop. If you have a bottle and the patience to wait a while, I would encourage you to do so.

What’s amazing is that Utopias is so smooth for being so young. The cool thing is, it will get better with age.

So how long would you wait to open these?

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Budweiser Black Crown: Everyman’s Golden Amber Lager

Posted on January 17, 2013 by

I don’t often rant on my blog. I prefer to focus on the positive aspects of beer and brewing. There’s enough negativity on the interwebs for all of us 10 times over.

However, an announcement from Anheuser-Busch In-Bev got my goat. It’s about their “Black Crown” release, scheduled for January 21.

Please read this before proceeding to my commentary. It’s a short article.

http://www.thedailymeal.com/anheuser-buschs-hipster-beer-will-make-its-debut-super-bowl-xlvii

Ok, here we go.

<rant>

First of all, it’s called “Black Crown” and it’s a golden amber lager. Shouldn’t it be something dark, like a schwarzbier or a dopplebock? Oh yeah, “amber” is considered dark by the macro crowd. I forgot.

Also, how is a beer golden AND amber? I have no idea, but then again, I’ve been called strawberry blonde, so maybe that makes sense.

Aside from the naming, what really irked me was the quote from Budweiser VP Rob McCarthy, “This brand will appeal to a broad range of beer drinkers, but especially to 21-to-34-year-old, trend-setting-type consumer.” Spoken like a true corporate marketer.

They just don’t get it. And they never will.

The “trend-setting-type consumer” doesn’t want something that will appeal to a broad range of other people. They want something that no one else has had from somewhere no one else has heard of.

Anheuser-Busch In-Bev legitimately does not understand what the craft beer revolution is all about. It’s about the craft of making great beer. It’s not about appealing to a broad range of 21-to-34 year old consumers.

I’m sure AB has all kinds of market research and focus groups that tell them they Black Crown brand is great. The focus groups probably said the same thing about Budweiser Select.

Why do the big beer producers continue to veer from their lane and attempt craft-style beers? Because they’ve seen their mortality. The craft segment is gaining steam, the macro segment is slowly dying.

In 2011, Bud Light sold 39 million barrels. The entire craft segment combined sold 11 million. That’s a lot of Bud Light. The difference between what craft brewers make and what AB makes is like buying a hand-carved oak desk versus buying one at WalMart.

AB simply isn’t geared to make hand-carved oak desks. That’s not their wheelhouse. For some reason, when companies get that big, they lose the flexibility and vision of the smaller guys. Their products may not all taste exactly the same, but you can tell they’re all related.

The big producers see through the lens of market share, sales forecasts and demographics. Craft brewers see the beer they’re making and they see the customer that walks in the door.

Some day, Anheuser-Busch In-Bev will go the way of General Motors, U.S. Steel and Microsoft. They’ll always be around, but their best days are behind them.

The world is a different place than it was 20 years ago. The era of efficient standardization is gone. People want more from their food, wine, beer, architecture and music. They want it personalized to their individual tastes.

A golden amber lager that appeals to a broad range of 21 to 34-year-olds ain’t it.

</rant>

Posted in Beer-related news | Tagged , | 3 Comments

How I Celebrated My 6th Brewing Anniversary

Posted on January 7, 2013 by

Today is the sixth anniversary of my brewing obsession. On January 7, 2007, I brewed my first batch of beer, an extract Red Ale kit I bought from Bet-Mar Liquid Hobby Shop in Columbia, SC. It wasn’t a great beer, or even good, but it wasn’t terrible and showed me that I might be capable of making good beer.

1.088 OG for those scoring at home.

1.088 OG for those scoring at home.

To celebrate my brewing anniversary, I wanted to do something completely new, so I made wine on Saturday! I got a Pinot Noir kit from Midwest Brewing Supply and went to work.

Well, calling it “work” was a stretch. As a brewer, making wine was so ridiculously easy it almost feels like cheating. Literally, it’s a five-step process:

  1. Sanitize a bucket, spoon, thief, and air lock.
  2. Dissolve yeast nutrient in warm water.
  3. Pour in the grape juice concentrate.
  4. Add water up to 6 gallons and take a hydrometer reading.
  5. Pitch yeast and close the lid with an airlock.

It took 30 minutes.

From here, all I have to do is rack to secondary after 5 to 7 days and add sulfates and clarifier. Then after another 10 to 14 days, I bottle. That’s it.

Now, that’s not to say that making great wine is easy and that’s there’s no art to it. While the work of the brewer is in the formulation of a recipe and in the brewing process itself, the labor of the vintner is in the cultivation of the grapes. I just happened to cut all that out.

I’ll write a full review of my first batch once it’s bottled and matured in a couple months. We’ll see if it’s any good!

However, not all was happy and merry on my brewing anniversary weekend. After making my first batch of wine, I went into the basement to take a hydrometer reading of two 10-gallon batches of lagers that I had brewed the Friday before Christmas. I had intended to move the beer into secondary for lagering in my chest freezer for 8 weeks, ready just in time for Spring.

To my horror, fermentation both batches of beer stuck about half way to where I wanted them, at least 20 gravity points off.

My heart was broken as my fears from brew day were realized. It was a brutally cold day, under 40 degrees when I started that morning. I tried to compensate by increasing the strike water temperature, but I didn’t go high enough.

To compound the problem, my digital thermometer was flaking out, so I had to use my old-school analog thermometer, which takes about 5 minutes to get a good reading. Either way, I wasn’t able to get much over 145 degrees, if it even got that high.

It was a fiasco, I felt rushed, and I just crossed my fingers that it would turn out ok. Turns out my conversion didn’t complete and I was unable to get enough fermentable sugar in the wort.

After an hour, I came to grips with the incomplete fermentation. Seeing no way to remedy the situation, I made the difficult choice to put my beer down. It’s the first time in six years I’ve had to dump a batch of beer. I felt like I had just shot Old Yeller.

Tragic.

A brewing tragedy.

(Last year, I wrote about a sour mashed Berliner Weiss that I dumped because it smelled like a dirty diaper. Actually, I couldn’t bring myself to dump it, so I let it sit in secondary for about three months. Lo and behold, the beer turned out ok. It was actually drinkable, though nowhere as tart as I wanted it.)

It’s a tough lesson to learn, but we learn the most through failure. I can’t wait to brew again and get my mojo back. My confidence is shaken, though I will return!

In the mean time, toast a glass to the beer that never was.

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You’ll Always Remember Your First (Marathon)

Posted on December 27, 2012 by

Setting the stage.

My training for the 2012 Kiawah Island Marathon began in August of 2006. While most people need 16 to 20 weeks to train for a marathon, I needed six years and four months.

Back in 2006, I was basking in the glow of my second half-marathon, which was also at Kiawah, in December 2005. I had posted a personal record (PR) 47:02 in the Cooper River Bridge Run 10k that April, so I was feeling good about myself. I’d done two half marathons by that point and was feeling frisky. Let’s go for a full!

I began my training program from the Runner’s World website. Even as an experienced runner of five years, it was not easy. After each long weekend run, it felt like someone took a jackhammer to my legs to break up the concrete of inactivity I’d built up for 30 years.

I continued to trudge through it, and got all the way up to my 20 mile long run five weeks before race day. Despite being the most grueling thing I’ve put myself through up to that point in my life, I felt good. All systems appeared go, no injuries or anything.

However, it all came crashing down the following Tuesday on my short tempo run at Riverfront Park in Columbia. I was about two miles into my run when I felt a shooting pain on the outside of my left knee. I tried to run it off, but it got worse as I went on.

I decided to let discretion be the better part of valor and I called it a day without finishing the workout. I skipped my following workout and tried to run again that Saturday. Same deal. About two or three miles in, shooting pain on the outside of my left knee.

At that time, I was four weeks out from the race. I took the next week off, but I still had the same problem when I tried to run again. After doing some amateur physical therapist research online, I diagnosed myself with Illiotibial Band Syndrome (ITBS).

According to literature (also known as Wikipedia), ITBS is inflammation of the illiotibial band, which is a long stretch of tissue that starts at your pelvis, goes down the outside of your femur, and attaches below the outside of your knee. There are a myriad of potential causes, including weak hip abductor muscles. I’m not even sure I have hip abductor muscles.

Since it can take a month or two for ITBS to heal and the pain was too intense, I felt the best thing to do was to shut it down being so close to race day. Needless to say, after coming so far in my training, I was extremely disappointed.

In the fall of 2008, I got up the courage to try the marathon again. I posted a PR 1:46 in the Kiawah Half Marathon in December 2007 and ran the Virginia Beach Rock ‘n Roll Half Marathon in August 2008. I was on my high horse, ready to bust through some new ground.

I started my program right after the Virginia Beach race. The training was a little easier this time. Apparently, most of the concrete was removed from my leg muscles in 2006, so my long runs weren’t as bad.

During the workout following an 18 mile run, an old, familiar friend showed up. “You’ve got to be kidding me!!!” I exclaimed. There it was again, shooting pain on the outside of my knee, this time on the right leg.

I immediately knew what that meant. I was done. Again.

I began to question my body’s ability to run that kind of distance. Certainly, there was something out of alignment, a weakness or inflexibility somewhere, that was causing this problem.

It took a few years for the memory of my previous two failed marathon attempts to subside enough for me to want to try again. This time, I knew I had to make some adjustments in my training.

I decided that I would run the 2011 Colorado Marathon outside of Ft. Collins on the first weekend of May. It’s an awesome and scenic course. They shuttle you up a mountain 26.2 miles from Ft. Collins and wish you luck as you roll downhill back into town. Sounds perfect! 26 miles downhill (for the most part), how could that get any better?

In preparing for this race, I was doing yoga once a week to increase my flexibility. At the behest of my personal trainer brother-in-law Billy, I also began using a foam roller to soften up my muscle tissue and keep the kinks out.

Once again, the training got easier as I went. I was feeling fantastic, and on a weekend trip to Charleston six weeks before race day, I went out for a 20 mile run on the West Ashley Greenway.

Four miles into the run, I nervously noticed a little tightness on the outside of my left knee. The tightness soon turned into the shooting pain of the ITBS. Knowing that I had to finish that 20 mile run if I had any hope of running the marathon, I decided to hell with it, and kept on running. I was so pissed off, I hobbled the remaining 15 miles on a bad leg.

I’m sure you can guess, but I was done. A third try, another failure. I was at a loss as to what to do. Was I just not built for this? My body seemed fine up to 15 or 16 miles. What happened after that point that caused things to fall apart?

Searching for answers beyond Wikipedia, I checked out Born to Run by Christopher McDougall from the library. It was highly recommended by a couple running friends of mine.

Aside from being a highly entertaining story, the controversial theme of the book is that the human body is naturally designed to run long distances, and then we f*ed it up with running shoes in the 1970s. 10,000 years of evolution and experience, and the founding fathers of Nike decided they could do it better.

Anyway, this is a story of personal triumph, not an essay on running shoes vs. feet. After finishing the book, I bought a pair of Vibram Five Fingers shoes. It took several months to slowly adjust, but I immediately saw an adjustment in my running form.

I was striking the ground with the balls of my feet, not my heels, even when I would switch back to my regular shoes. I felt more upright, lighter on my feet and swifter. Before, I felt like I would slog through my long runs, shuffling along on my heels. Now, I felt like my legs were springs.

Armed with a foam roller, ankle stretches and a new stride, I struck off on my 16 week FIRST marathon training program. The program takes a less-is-more approach, only running three days per week. It relies on speed workouts twice a week and one long run. It allows you to live a somewhat normal life while training for a marathon.

I had a scare in week 10 of the program. After a 16 mile run, I felt a pain in the top of my left knee. The good news was that I could run through it if I wanted to. It also wasn’t the ITBS monster back for vengeance. I decided to take a week off and hope things returned to normal. I missed an 18 mile long run, which may have hurt my performance in the race (more to come later). The good news was that after the time off, the discomfort went away, and I was back on track.

I even made it through my perilous 20-mile run in a shade under three hours. I really felt great, and at that point it was all downhill. I had three weeks to taper and get ready for the race.

The Marathon

After six years of training and three failed attempts, I was finally at the starting line of the Kiawah Island Marathon by 7:40 A.M. on December 8, 2012. It was a great feeling, knowing that no matter what happened over the next four hours, I had made it through the hardest part, 16 weeks of training, and survived.

Brian and Nicole before the start. So happy and hopefully.

Brian and Nicole before the start. So happy and hopeful.

There was a nervous energy in the air before the start. The buzz built up as it only can among a few hundred people that know how good they are, how hard they’ve trained, yet are faced with what they’re up against. A mix of people about to embark on on a 13 or 26 mile odyssey that is more a test of the mind than of the body.

Eight A.M. sharp, and the announcer sounds the start. Runners pour across the line, tapping the start banner as they passed underneath.

As I began, I tried to keep a modest, yet aggressive pace. I couldn’t help but be nervous about the weather conditions. Foggy and 55 degrees at the start with 100% humidity, sunny and warming to 65 degrees by 11 am. While that might make for a great December afternoon of Christmas shopping on King Street in Charleston, it’s not my ideal running conditions. I’d rather it be 40 at the start and warm up to 52 by the end.

While my ultimate goal going into the race was simply to finish, my competitive nature couldn’t help but want to finish in under four hours. I felt pretty good and ran the first nine miles at an average of 8:40 pace, and that’s when the cramping starting. That was the first ominous sign that this may not be a smooth race day.

I got to the halfway point in 1:54. While I was encouraged I was a full six minutes ahead of my four-hour finish pace, I felt like I was already slowing down. I ran my first over-nine-minute mile at mile 15.

Mile 17 took me 9:49. The cramping was getting worse. My legs were feeling tired. Every time I came out of the shade into the sun, I felt like a scorched, withering plant. I wanted to stop running.

That’s when I launched into a Bobby Knight-esque verbal ass kicking of myself. I was not going to be denied. I didn’t come this far to stop. I will continue! Only 8 miles to go! I can run 8 miles IN MY SLEEP! COME ON!!! YOU CAN DO IT!!! (Just intersperse profanity every-other word, and you’ll have a transcript of my inner dialog. I’m sure people thought I was losing it. Then again, I think I was.) I coaxed myself to run mile 18 in 9:06.

The Wall is the mythical point every experienced marathon runner talks about when the reminisce about their first marathon. The stories vary, “My brain wanted to keep moving, but my body wouldn’t let me.” “My legs just locked up.” “I had to sit down for 10 minutes.”

Since most beginner marathon programs only train you up to 20 miles, the final 6.2 miles of a marathon are all about will and determination. There will come a point when your body stops behaving normally and more or less shuts down. It’s just a matter of when.

I hit my Wall during mile 19. I couldn’t keep running. Looking back, it was strange. My muscles weren’t cramping. I could still breathe. Nothing felt injured. I simply couldn’t keep running. I was totally out of gas. The hopeless part about it was that I still had over seven miles to go.

My marathon mile split times. This is what a Wall looks like.

My marathon mile split times. This is what a Wall looks like.

The inner struggle was greater than I thought it would be. I had trained for four months and endured three previous failures to get to this point. Yet in this moment of agony, all I wanted to do was stop. Everything hurt. This 36-year old body that eight months prior rocketed across the Cooper River Bridge Run in a PR 44:47 was completely broken down. I was close to giving it all up.

Despite the despair running through my head, a faint flicker of my competitive fire kept me going. Even though my pride was broken as people from all walks of life and fitness passed me while I walked, I had to finish.

I continued alternating walking and shuffling through the last few miles. I did manage to pull it together somewhat for the final two miles, averaging about 12:30 pace. The onlookers were great, encouraging the runners and telling us we were doing great, even though I’m sure they were secretly aghast as we looked like death.

The home stretch of the course begins as you round a left turn into the final 2/10 of a mile to the finish. I decided I’d summon what little I had to show a final burst of strength for the crowd. After all, I am a showman.

marathon finish

With a final burst of energy, I cross the finish…

As I approached the finish line, I was verklempt and overwhelmed with emotion. I’m not sure if it’s because of the accomplishment or that I realized I could finally stop moving. I crossed the finish line, accepted my participant medal and my space-age-silver-reflective plastic blanket, found a patch of grass and fell to the ground.

It was over. I did it. I finished in 4:26.

The Aftermath

After icing down my knees, Nicole and I went over to the post-race runner’s lunch. The Palmetto Amber that I drank there may have been the best tasting beer I’d ever had.

...and fell to the ground.

…and fall to the ground.

Overall, I was in good shape after the race. Despite my hardships during the run, I appeared to be free of any injuries or conditions that required medical attention. Another win!

Now that I’ve had a couple weeks to recover, more so mentally than physically, and gain some perspective, I still feel like this was the hardest thing I’ve ever accomplished. I don’t remember another time when my body more or less shut down with so much more to go. At that point, it totally becomes a mental battle. Do I continue or do I stop? I never felt such a release of relief when it was over.

With all that said, it was an incredible experience. It taught me a lot about perseverance and not giving up. I often struggle with giving up too easily in other areas of my life. I play it safe. “Better not to start than to risk failing.” If I live my life like that, I’ll never achieve anything great.

In the grand scheme of the world, a marathon may not be the greatest accomplishment of all-time, but I just did something that 0.5% of Americans have done. And if you had gone back and told 23-year-old Brian, after he had just struggled to barely jog 20 minutes, that 13 years from then he’d run a marathon, he would have figured you just did a line of bath salts.

So, after three failed attempts and one miserable race, will I ride off into the sunset or will I do this again?

You’re damn right I’m going to do it again. I’m breaking four hours.

Posted in Motivation, Non-beer | Tagged , | 4 Comments

The Community Tap Craft Beer Festival Tickets On Sale

Posted on December 18, 2012 by

commTap_logo_colorTickets for The Community Tap Craft Beer Festival on April 13, 2013 are now on sale. This is going to be a small, intimate festival with only 400 tickets available.

There are sure to be rarities, seasonals and the best the each brewery has to offer. In addition, the Upstate Brewtopians homebrew club will have representatives (including myself) on hand pouring our beer, so you’re guaranteed to have some one-of-a-kind beer!

Get your tickets now, while you still can!

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Belgian Vertical Tasting with Chimay Blue & Unibroue

Posted on November 20, 2012 by

If you’ve got the money, honey, I’ve got the time. – Willie Nelson

I did my first-ever vertical beer tasting at the Charleston Beer Exchange with Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine in January 2009. After a beer dinner at Ted’s Butcherblock, we were invited back to CBX to partake in some aged beery goodness.

It was one of those seminal moments in my beer education when a layer of scales fell off my eyes. I had never thought about “cellaring” beer and the positive effects of age on higher ABV beers. And as another birthday approaches for me, it’s given me a positive perspective about age on my own body.

Since, I’ve started my own small beer cellar. I’ve put a few beers down for some time, and this year I’ve felt it’s time to crack a few open. A couple of our good friends, Andy and Lori, are huge fans of Belgian beer, so I brought my stash up to Asheville to share a Belgian-inspired beer dinner and tasting.

The three test subjects: Unibroue Maudite, Unibroue Trois Pistoles and Chimay Grande Reserve (Blue Cap). I recently bought a bottle of each so that we might compare my cellared with newer versions. Like an energetic cougar, age did not disappoint.

Unibroue Maudite: April 2008 (4 years, 7 months) vs. July 2011 (1 year, 4 months)

2011 (right) vs. 2009

The first beer in the array was the Maudite, a Belgian amber strong ale by birth. It was the lightest beer in the flight at 8.0% ABV.

The 2011 tasted of fresh fruit: apples and pears. It also had a pronounced clovey, spicy character. Though over a year old, it still tasted fresh.

The 2009 was a different beast. As can happen with aged bottles, this one lost most of its carbonation, so I’m not sure this qualifies as a valid scientific experiment.  It was apparent that after two additional years in the bottle, it lost the fresh fruit flavors in favor of more of a dried fruit character.

The spiciness wasn’t there as it was in the 2011. It was also thinner in body, though I attribute that to the loss of carbonation.

Overall, I favored the 2011. It would have been interesting to try the 2009 from a bottle that kept it’s carbonation, as I felt the 2011 had more life and complexity. The fresh fruit flavors of the newer beer jumped off the palate, while I felt the aged version was listless due to the lack of carbonation.

Unibroue Trois Pistoles: November 2011 (1 year) vs. February 2009 (3 years, 9 months)

2011 (left) vs. 2009

Next up was the Trois Pistoles. For those that don’t speak French, it doesn’t mean “three pistols,” but rather “three coins.” Not as dramatic in my opinion, but you can read about the legend and judge for yourself.

The 2011 version tasted of bananas foster. Burnt sugar, bananas and creme. A remarkable beer.

The 2009 Trois Pistoles aged similar to the Maudite in the dried fruit character, though it held up much better. It had a character of dried prunes and apricots.

In this case, I think each was a great beer, though again, I preferred the younger. I think the 2011 had a fresher, more interesting character.

Chimay Grande Reserve: February 2011 (1 year, 9 months) vs. February 2008 (4 years, 9 months)

2011 (left) vs. 2008

The last beer we got to was the Chimay Grande Reserve. (We also had a couple bottles of Unibroue Terrible, but the ABVs caught up with us.) Often overlooked because it has become the ubiquitous Belgian Strong Ale in the US, it is still one of the best.

We started with the 2011, which had a pronounced caramel malt flavor with a twist of burnt candy sugar. I didn’t get the same fruity phenols from the Chimay that I got from the Unibroue. The 2011 Chimay was more malt-centric.

The 2008 was like drinking a cross between bourbon and port wine. It had a leathery flavor and a mellow creme-like body. The 2008 was boozy, smooth and rich.

This was the only one of the three we tasted where I liked the aged version considerably more than the newer. Though both vintages were great, the 2008 was more complex and enjoyable than the 2011.

This mini-vertical made for a great evening, and I’d recommend to anyone with a little extra shelf space in a cool, dark place to set aside a few bottles and forget about them. It’s amazing what a few years will do to make a great beer… greater.

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Greenville gets a taste of rare beer with two upcoming festivals in 2013

Posted on October 27, 2012 by

Yo Greenville, check your stats:

  • One production brewery, two more on the way
  • One Brewpub
  • Five specialty craft beer stores
  • Two outstanding craft beer bars
  • Three craft beer festivals

If you’re keeping score at home, you might be scratching your head about that last bullet. “Three beer festivals in Greenville? Why haven’t I heard of this???”

With all due respect to the Upstate Beer Festival, which first appeared in Greenville as Top of the Hops in 2010, it doesn’t offer much for the beer geek. It’s well-run, but I attended the first one and I think I already had about 190 of the 200 beers offered.

Two of Greenville’s beer moguls, Barley’s Tap Room and the Community Tap, are each using their magnetic forces of attraction to bring rare and one-off beers to Greenville in 2013.

The Biggest Little Beer Fest, January 20

Barley’s/Trappe Door is putting on the second annual Biggest Little Beer Fest on Sunday, January 20, 2013. I wasn’t able to make it to last year’s inaugural fest. I heard it was jam packed with great beer and food.

All three levels of the the Barley’s/Trappe Door beerplex are dedicated to 80+ vintage and rare beers on tap, 8 casks and 6 randalized specialties. Great food and live music will round out a great atmosphere.

The Community Tap Craft Beer Festival, April 13

Just announced, the Community Tap is putting on their first-ever craft beer festival at Larkin’s Sawmill on Saturday, April 13, 2013. Their aim is to keep the festival smaller and more intimate, with only 30 breweries invited and 400 tickets to be sold.

You can be assured that each brewery is going to bring out its finest: rarities, one-offs, seasonals.

Tickets are not yet on sale for either event, so keep your eyes open when they do go up. Follow each on Twitter @barleygille and @communitytap for updates.

Posted in Beer events | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment