Category: Reviews

So this week, I will try and mix it up a bit.  Since for some of us it feels like spring already, I will try to draw some attention to the second coming of Glibertarians Beer it Forward.  After discussing it with its owner, the gentleman known around here as Nephilium, I decided to turn this into a bit of a contest.  The details of which I will explain later.

This is my review of Grand Canyon Brewery Shaggy Bock.

Williams, AZ is not particularly well known.  Most people drive around it, but for a long time they had to drive through it.  Like many towns in the area there is a cheap draw for tourism but this one isn’t as flimsy or as popular as a town a couple hours to the east.

Route 66 is actually a collection of highways that was renamed as a single highway in 1926. It began in Chicago to the east and ended in Los Angeles to the west and routed through 8 states in total.  It is romanticized in American culture by John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath as the mother road, a show in the 60’s, and a song first sung by Nat King Cole.  Today it is mostly merged with other active highways, notably Interstates-55, 44, 40, 15, 10.  There are a number of towns that lay claim to the highway, such as Winslow, and others like Flagstaff maintain it as part of their municipal roadways.  It is for this reason I can technically scratch off riding a motorcycle down Route 66 off my bucket list, because it runs through Flagstaff.  Another fun fact, there is a restaurant in Flagstaff called the Dog Haus, that claims the entire scene on the corner in Winslow occurred there when it was a Wienerschnitzel.  “Flagstaff” just didn’t roll off the tongue like “Winslow.”  That is their claim, not mine.  If you choose to investigate this yourself, I suggest ordering the chilli dog, they’re pretty damn good.

Where does Williams fall into this?  On June 27, 1985 Williams, AZ was the last locality to officially decommission Route 66 as a highway.  Being first gets you in the history books, but sometimes there is some honor in being last.   Williams is also the starting point of the longest portion of the highway that is still drivable.  Williams didn’t die like other towns because of another attraction:  The Grand Canyon Railroad.

Here you can avoid driving north to the Canyon and avoid what really is a boring drive once you get past the San Francisco Peaks.  It routes north through the mountains and gives you a more scenic ride to the park.  They also convert the train to a Polar Express theme around Christmas and steam up towards a “North Pole,”. They’ll even give your kids a bell as a souvenir.

This isn’t a straightforward bock.  It is light like all lagers and has a smooth malty character.  The twist is this one contains the byproduct of one of our favorite inventions: the woodchipper.  They call it a “flavor bomb” but it’s a bunch of wood chips secured in a bag.  This gives the beer a similar effect to barrel aging without the added expense of storing it in a barrel.  It is quite enjoyable variety in a style that sometimes gets overlooked; Shiner Bock aside.  Grand Canyon Brewery Shaggy Bock: 4.0/5.

Here’s where the contest comes in.  This is a limited release from a local brand that doesn’t have much of a footprint outside AZ. Which makes it perfect for the Glibertarian Beer it Forward coming up this spring.  I have purchased a second bottle and stored it appropriately next to the boiler.  Hopefully, I don’t need to turn it on in the next few weeks.  In an attempt to generate interest for this next BIF, I will be sending this to the Glib member whose name I will be randomly assigned.  So if you think you want this, sign up!  This has the added benefit of at least one of you knowing that I’m not crazy.  Well, at least within a respectable spectrum of crazy.

For the most part our tastes in beer have been established.  Some like balanced to malty beer while a smaller number are somewhat vocal about their taste for hoppy beers.

Others still, throw you entirely for a loop.

A what?  Cream Ale?  That sounds like one of those oddly named east coast numbers–like the egg-cream soda, which contains neither eggs nor cream.

This is my review of Mother Earth Brew Co , Cali Creamin Ale.

An odd thing growing up in Arizona during the 90s was that was the time people from the east coast began to migrate there.  Prior to that it was mostly Cubs and Packers fans, who are large enough in number they actually make a noticeable increase in ticket sales to the local sports venues.   Here is Chase Field for example.  While the Red Sox and Yankees have drawn the largest average crowd size, their numbers are skewed by the limited appearances as they are both AL teams.  In the Yankees case, four of those games were from the 2001 World Series.

At least that is the perception.  The reality, unsurprisingly, is California dominates the in-migrant flow to Arizona.  On page 22 of this report from Arizona State there is a brief discussion on migratory patterns from 2001-2014.    Although smaller in number the east coast migrants still make their presence known.  Yes, particularly in the winter.  Much of this was in the form of local restaurants becoming hang outs for fans of different teams, but also small markets for food that wasn’t previously available out west.  For instance, the aforementioned egg cream soda is made with UBet Chocolate syrup.  It’s been available here since I was a kid.  You could use something else, but its not the same and dare I say improper.  Another example is Scrapple, which I’m not going to eat but Taylor Ham I will.  I will also contend it’s basically an artisanal form of Spam no matter how much it irritates my stepdad.  Many of these things he simply explained as, “an East Coast thing,” as he is a refugee from New Jersey. Which is why he insisted I take the SAT even though I was going to major in a science which meant the ACT would be advantageous for me to take but that was a “west coast thing.”  This brings us to another “East Coast thing:”  the cream ale.

So what is it anyway?

It is no secret that German immigrants moved to America during the 1870s.  A few of these immigrants started brewing lagers.  Many argue these are now better suited for scare quotes, so these are now “lagers.”  Because of this migrant pattern, Americas taste for beer changed.  English style ales fell out of favor for crisp, light, German-immigrant made lager.

“Ale brewers responded to this demand by creating a top-fermented product similar to an American lager. Using ale yeast (or possibly even a combination of lager and ale yeasts, though no concrete evidence exists for the use of lager yeast in the early cream ales), they could produce beer more quickly than the lager brewers could, thereby potentially increasing sales and market share.* It may also have meant that they could use the same worts for both lagers and ales and benefit from economies of scale. These new beers were termed “brilliant,” “sparkling,” or “present use” ales, with the nickname “cream ale” sticking as the common name.”

In other words, a cream ale is the best of both worlds.  It has the light, crispness of a lager but also has the complexity of an ale.  They do this in part by brewing the ale at a colder temperature like a lager.  Few breweries that made these survived prohibition however, or were acquired by others.  A good example that is well known is Genesee.  Which for the record I have been able to locate in Arizona, but only once.

So how is this one?  Disturbingly good.  It is every bit as refreshing as advertised,  it is light, not hoppy at all.  This one has a pleasant vanilla aroma they added in, making it something that is practically begging to be chugged.   I’ll be buying it again, even though the only downer was the price, which the bomber costing about $8.  Mother Earth Brew Co , California Creamin’ Ale: 4.5/5.

Even though I don’t particularly care for this style, perhaps there should be more to this series than what I like.  So recently, I came across this:

Hold up, I have a pair of Under Armour leggings I used to wear when I ran outside in Colorado, let me see if they still fit.

*squeezes into tight pants*

Then this happened.

That’s not a knife, this is a knife!

Then things predictably got out of hand.

*orders knife* 

This is my review of Wessterhuffenphasterphallenhoffeersheissen’s Hefeweissbier.

HT:  DEG, MikeS, Q Continuum  and Hayeksplovises

Hefeweiss is the predominant German style wheat beer.  There are other varieties of course, depending on the region, but for most of us this is the one that comes to mind when the term, “German wheat beer” comes up in conversation.  People like this, apparently.  I am not one of those people.  Why?

It tastes like banana.  I don’t like bananas.  The semi-sugary taste, the texture, the fact that none of my kids can open the damn things and will go through a bunch of them in a day.  This sentiment was developed well before the CHM 235 Organic Chemistry course taught by what I later found out to be a really awesome professor.  Think (((special forces))) awesome, but wouldn’t give anyone a definitive answer. For the lab part of this course, my lab partner and I were given several bananas.  The project was to extract and isolate an organic compound called an ester from the fruit.

Most of it involved smashing up bananas into a paste, then putting the paste into a press.  Then squeezing the liquid out of the paste.  Then vaporizing the liquid multiple times through a distillation column, to extract a weapons grade distillate of Isoamyl Acetate–or Banana Oil in English.  It went fine until my lab partner managed to spill the vial on me.  The grad student in charge of the lab saw the whole thing so I didn’t lose any points for failing a simple distillation.  Not that there was no other way I could prove it was spilled on me.   The bad part was when I went to work immediately after the lab.  At the time I worked the sporting goods counter at the local Wal-Mart.  The clientele was the predictable group of rednecks.

• “Hey kid, why do you smell like a monkey?”
• “Mother of Christ.”
• “Can you write that that mountain lion tag for yesterday?”
• “I’m not gay or anything, but you smell really nice.”
• “We fielded a few complaints.  Were going to go ahead and pay your remaining hours for the day. Go home.”

Predictably, this tastes like every Top.Men-compliant hefeweizen out of Germany:  banana with a twist of lemon.  If you’re into that, have at it. Wessterhuffenphasterphallenhoffeersheissen’s Hefeweissbier 2.0/5

Not to be outdone, others have tried to take this style to new and interesting places. Only one on this list was available in my area:

If you are looking for a traditional Top.Men approved ale, keep looking.  It has significantly less body and you’ll probably say they over hopped it and should apologize to the German people for such an atrocity.  For me, it doesn’t taste so much like banana, so it’s not so bad.  Lagunitas Little Sumpin Ale. 2.2/5

In my family, real estate is sort of a big deal.  Since we all know what happened to the housing market in 2008, we began doing something every year for Christmas:  we drew names.  Ultimately this meant I only had to buy a single gift but it did mean I was also receiving a single gift.  This year, my brother got me and while it really was thoughtful of him to get what he got me–I already had one.  Semper paratus as they say, he had the receipt handy:  Bed, Bath and Beyond.

Shit. At least they sell beer in the “beyond” section.

This is my review of Lindemann’s Kriek Lambic. 

Lambic is among the oldest styles of beer, but do not confuse this to mean these are in any sense of the word, primitive.  On the palate these are as complex as they come, with several diverse sub-styles.  To get a good idea of how old these may be, the painting below titled, Peasant Wedding from around 1567 suggests, people have been enjoying Lambic for centuries.

It’s a style believed to have originated in Belgium around the time of the Roman conquest.  The Germanic tribes viewed the wine made by Mediterranean cultures to be effeminate, which even now seems to be an opinion held by many, though not me personally.  The earliest known account was from Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, while travelling to the region he ordered a pitcher at a local pub.  He took a liking to the lambic and had several servings from the pitcher, and apparently harassed the blonde waitress.  Man of the people, he was.

But like everything else these days, there seem to be conflicting reports.  According to this guy, there is no specific evidence that lambics existed before the 18th century. There is nothing medieval about this beer other than the stoneware Belgians used.  It is a myth perpetuated mostly by lazy beer writers who don’t know what they’re talking about and sure enough, the misconception is the story that stuck.

The commonality between the stories is what I can assume isn’t fake news.  What is common?  Lambics are a type of sour beer that is defined by its spontaneous fermentation.  That is, the brewers will put the casks outside to allow and even siphon wild yeast and bacteria into the wort to do the dirty work. Modern lambics are not made with a biochemist on staff with some GMO yeast strain in a test tube.  It’s as natural as it gets without isolating a strain from a brewmaster’s hipster beard (Rogue), or even a yeast pulled from some lady’s yoo hoo.

No, seriously.  A lab in Poland swabbed and isolated the strain from a Czech model. If I told you they swabbed her, would you drink it?

Much like wine and whiskey (or whisky for your Canadians), lambics are often blended with other lambics to allow for varying levels of complexity.  Charles V himself was likely served a blend with a sweeter variety to make it more palatable. These can be served like champagne, and the sour varieties are great to pair with food because they do well to cleanse the palate.  This one is made with sour cherries, hence the name Kreik.  Others made by Lindemann include strawberry, raspberry (framboise), black currants (cassis), and peaches (peche).  This one is more tart than sour and is very light. If you happen to like cherries, you’ll like this one.  Lindeman’s Kreik Lambic 4.0/5.