Good Beer Friday #8

Normally at this time on Good Friday, I'd be running through the music for the 3:00 services with the St. Andrew Chamber Group. This year, sadly, I'm sidelined with lingering effects from the cold that's kept me from reviewing most of the past three weeks: gravel voice. So I'm going to drink beer and listen to the songs I'd otherwise be singing. Join me: Johnny Cash's version of "Were You There". (putting this up on the day after Good Friday because I didn't get out for a draft till today...)



Omer Traditional Blond, 8.0%

I love the family-owned Belgian breweries. Brouwerij Omer Vander Ghinste has been owned by the Vander Ghinste family for four generations. They mostly make pilsner -- gotta pay the bills -- but they're making a set of traditional ales as well, and Omer is the big blond in the family. A Vander Ghinste named Omer has run the brewery for all four generations; kinda solid. I like that, too.

So what do we have here? Bright yellow beer, clean white foam with tenaciously tight little bubbles. All beers are beautiful, but this one's especially captivating to the eye. Oh, and the nose, too. Sweet clovey candy, orange marmalade, sweet and spicy without being sticky or cloying. It smells interesting, which is what I'm looking for.

Sipping time. First thought: 8%? Really? That's scary. Because this drinks like about 5.5%. Well-attenuated but not thin, and still spicy-sweet without being sticky. The fizzy fine carbonation runs all over my tongue and teeth and roof and cheeks, what a rush! This is more spicy than sweet, and there's no stickiness in the finish at all. That's by God well done, and I'm kinda regretting that I gave half of it to my wife!

Verdict: Good

Goose Island Four Star Pils, 5.1%

Whatever shall I do? Goose Island is owned by ABInBev! I believe I shall taste the beer with an open mind and leave my readers (both of you) to decide what to do with the information. I will say this: Goose has always made refreshing and thirst-quenching beers, and I expect more of the same in this 16 oz. can. Let's crack it.

Hmmm...kind of funky smell like pineapple and sweet cream; not unpleasant, just totally unexpected. Is this some more of these new hop strains brewers have been experimenting with? Still, it looks proper, with a beautiful white bloom of foam. Tastes better: malt, bitter hop, the right body, clean finish.

Something's different, though, and it's not the pineapple. I'm not liking the way the bitter and malt balance, and the hops taste...burnt, or blaring, or harsh. It's just not clean, integrated. I'd maybe have another pint...but I wouldn't buy a case.

Verdict: Okay

A Bunch Of Barleywines, 7.5% and up, draft

First flight

I went down to Tattooed Mom in Philly today for Split Thy Skull XXI, the long-running barleywine/strong beer festival I blogged about Thursday. Hoo-whee, it was a good time. I didn't taste everything, but I had 8 of them, Here are some capsule reviews.
New Crustacean Barleywineish Imperial IPA Sorta -- Way different from the old Old Crustacean. Blonde, not dark; sweet and light and bitter, not bitter and hard and menacing. New age stuff.
Southern Tier Back Burner -- Everything Southern Tier does well: big malt, big hops, big body, and not clogging the pipes. Finesse? Yeah, in 14" naval rifle style.
Alesmith Old Numbskull -- A clearly big beer, but light on its feet, nimble. Orson Welles dancing ballet. Impressive achievement, and one I like...but I like da heavy heavy monsta sound, too.
21st Amendment Lower De Boom -- Only one I finished. Good stuff, big but drinkable, and not overly zealous on the hopping.
DuClaw Devil's Milk -- Fat all around, big in every direction, this is a great example of how Jim Wagner hits the mark every damned time...but never gets the cred. Underrated brewery.
Summit Old Blaggard -- Tasted kind of worty, grainy, but delicious. Sometimes that really, really works, and this is one of them, because it adds a huge note of freshness in a style that benefits from it.
Pizza Boy Wonder Whine -- Always impressive, Pizza Boy delivers again in a beer that was one of the biggest I had all afternoon (12.5%) but the fruitiest and most varied. Fun!
Smuttynose Barley Wine -- Wow. A throwback, not a fossil. One guy at the bar was not impressed, I told him: this is what barleywine tasted like in the 90s. Back when there were fewer of us to please, and brewers brewed for themselves. Hat tip to Smutty for staying on that: heavy malt, big yeasty esters, just enough hop. An unshaven, unapologetic barleywine.

Verdict: Stellar event!

Split Thy Skull XXI in Philly tomorrow!

Back in the day...way back in the day, like in the 1990s, one of the premiere beer events in Philadelphia was Split Thy Skull, a barleywine/strong beer event at Sugar Mom's in Old City, originally put on by Philly's pioneer beer promoter, Jim Anderson. For whatever reason, it was always held on the day before Easter, and -- thank you! -- in the afternoon. We'd crowd in the basement bar, eat sandwiches and red beet eggs, and scarf down glasses of beers that started at 7% and headed north from there. That's where I had my first Yards Old Bart, various iterations of Dock Street's barleywine, draft Kulmbacher G'frorns, and Rogue Old Crustacean. That's also where I first met Nodding Head founder Curt Decker, when both of us were "pretty well banged up," as Tom Peters puts it.

Oddly enough, Split Thy Skull was, in a way, the earliest genesis of the Session Beer Project. I distinctly remember supping a glass of cask-conditioned Young's Old Nick barleywine (at a quaintly mellow 7.3%, which would damned near get it laughed out of today's STS), and thinking -- I could point to the spot where it occurred to me, it's so sharp in my mind -- 'My God, this is so good; I wish it were about 3.5% so I could drink it all day.' The seed of an all-day drinking tasty beer was planted, and would come to fruition years later.

But enough history! Because tomorrow is Split Thy Skull XXI, to be held from 1-6 at Tattooed Mom, 530 South Street, and as always, it's gonna be a doozy. It's PAYG, with singles and flights, from over a dozen big fat beers of all types (and I hope some true barleywines are among 'em!). They don't usually release a list until the actual event, but they slipped me a few names that will be there. Check it: Pizza Boy Wonder Whine (12.5%); Southern Tier Back Burner (10.5%); Alesmith Old Numbskull (11%). Woof!

So...get on your bike, call up Uber or Lyft, take the bus, or get a friend to pick you up when you're done, because if you do this right, you'll be done. Not sure if I can make it this year or not, but if I see you there...Cheers!

Drinking Trappist Beer on Good Friday. Again.

Here I am, looking back four years, and it's so similar...didn't eat (I've got even less in my belly this year; a banana and one cup of coffee), did pheresis this morning, came home and cleaned, and I'm leaving to sing Good Friday services in about half an hour (warm-ups; services are at 3:00, of course)...and I'm drinking La Trappe Dubbel (a sample of the new stuff, provided by importer Artisanal Imports, thanks, Lanny!).

Because it's a fast day, and while I'm not drinking only beer through Lent like some folks (though my hat's off to him), I've built a little tradition around Trappist beers on Good Friday, and big beers tomorrow, before singing at Easter Vigil. The first is my own, the second grew out of the timing of Split Thy Skull, the pioneering Philly big beer event held at Sugar Mom's on Easter Saturday (and yeah, it's on for tomorrow)...well, actually, it grew out of one year when my wife's brother Carl showed up for Easter at the Trenton train station with a shoebox full of Dominion Millennium and we killed two of them on the way home...

Anyway! Here I am, on Good Friday, after the jumpstart I got from Palm Sunday and Holy Thursday masses (and Night Prayer last night...chant, it was marvelous, soothing, and left me floating on a cloud of faith and awe of my God and Savior), ready to go sing till I cry -- Good Friday is tough. And I'm banging through a 750 of La Trappe?

You bet. For one thing...it's really good. Fruit, chocolate, malt, spice, even a little hintsy bit of coffee in there, this is a stuffed suitcase of delicious -- and it's not fat or flabby.

For another? It's tradition. This is how you get through fasts. You don't eat, but you gotta keep going. If I tried getting through a music-heavy service like this -- we're doing selections from Stainer's The Crucifixion in addition to the regular stuff -- without food or big beer, well, you know. Probably nothing would happen. Ha! But I want this beer, this monk-inspired beer, and it's going to work for me. It always has.

Tomorrow? Any big beer will do, and I've got some cued up. Good Friday? Gimme monk beer. I need the spiritual inspiration, the beauty in my mouth and my mind. Off I go. God bless you all.

Tradition! A Fallen Friar at Easter Vigil

For over ten years, I have had a tradition of drinking strong beers before singing at the Easter Vigil services at my church. It began when my brother-in-law Carl arrived at the train station for Easter one Saturday afternoon, oh, years ago, when we still had a Taurus station wagon, when Nora was a baby. We loaded his luggage in the back, and he got in the front with a shoebox. What's that, I asked, and he grinned and opened it up: three bottles of Old Dominion Millennium. ... In later years, I would attend the Split Thy Skull barleywine event at Sugar Mom's on the afternoon in question, and make my way home, and sing. Yes, I did, and beautifully, I'd say; others have said so.

I did not falter this year. This afternoon, while cutting up leftover turkey for a skillet of hash (nice, too, with the Worcestershire sauce tang), I polished off a 22 oz. bottle of BridgePort Brewing's Fallen Friar Triple. It was nice: spicy, not flabby and sweet (just the way I like tripels), with a woody/brett tang to it, almost like someone had mixed a bottle of Chimay White and Orval. Tasty. I followed that with a 12 oz. bottle of the newly re-launched Dundee Pale Bock from Genesee. And that, which I am still finishing off, is just plain good: malty, juicy, authoritative.

Fear not. I'm losing weight, but I'm still big enough to ground that much beer. I'm ready to sing. It is the pinnacle of the Christian year. Christ is risen, risen indeed!

Happy New -- whew, what a beer day!

That's this morning, drinking coffee and eating sticky buns in the kitchen because we had so many people sleeping on the floors we couldn't get at the dining room table. Lots of family over for the holiday!

Didn't get started on beer until about 1:00, but we've caught up fast. So far we've plowed through a big quarter of Pennsylvania brews: Otto's Jolly Roger Impie Stout (not over-hopped, more like that wonderful tarry character of what I think of as classic impies), Voodoo Brewery Wynona's Big Brown Beav -- Brown Ale (quite damned tasty, and a favorite during the Penn State squeaker over LSU in the, um, Capital One Bowl (was that right?)), and a delicious dynamic duo of Weyerbacher QUAD and Fourteen (or XIV, if you prefer, and by the time you're done with one...you'll agree to anything). Woof. Might be time to break out the growler of Angus, the birthing beer for Andrew Maxwell's son (from Rivertowne Pourhouse). And let me tell you: a great day watching the Mummers! Thanks, Comcast!

One Quick Thing: Tripel D

I tweeted this yesterday, so I feel like I should blog, too. So before I get to it in a full-scale post...

I got to try the new Tripel D at Otto's. It's kind of a slightly scaled-up Double D fermented with Chouffe yeast. Wow. It was, as I told Sam Komlenic, like an amusement park ride. What a fun beer! The hops are big, the spicy yeast notes are right up front and explosive, the hops go off in your nose, and it's sweet like good candy. One of the most dangerously drinkable 9+% beers I've ever had. Fantastic stuff, and should be on shortly; Charlie pushed things a bit to get us a sample.

Weyerbacher XIII

Woof.

Just had Weyerbacher XIII last night at the Grey Lodge Pub. In a small glass. Thirteen celebrated the brewery's 13th anniversary (last year), so of course the Grey Lodge had it on Saturday for their own 13th anniversary festivities (it was a good time, wish I could have stayed for more). But I didn't get to that, I was there at the wrong hour...So I made up for it at last night's Gary Bredbenner memorial (very nicely done, some tears, good eats, good beers, good friends).

Briefly? Thirteen kicked big beer ass. It's an imperial stout mashbill (five malts and some oats) with made with the Belgian yeast strain Weyerbacher uses for their Quad and Merry Monks. You've got the chocolate from the dark malts -- without the burnt bitterness that often comes with, that I usually like to find in an impy -- but with the curling spice from the yeast, and a dark pitfruit note, probably from the five malt mix. Wish I would have tried this last year, but damn, it's aging quite gracefully.

Tria and Jose's: a great Friday night

I had an event at Tria last night, and Cathy got to go along. It was a very good evening, lots of fun. We started at Tria Washington West, at 12th and Spruce, where we tasted small samples of five of the featured beers from the class that was to follow: Pennichuck Pozharnik imperial stout, Victory Old Horizontal, De Dolle Stille Nacht, Gouden Carolus Grand Cru, and Aventinus Eisbock. (The class also got Brooklyn Black Ops, Fuller's Vintage Ale 2008, and Samichlaus -- as you can see, it was NOT a SBP-approved evening!) This was a kind of consolation happy hour for the class selling out so quickly. The class went very well -- we were loose, we had fun, and the Tria staff was having fun right with us.

When the class was over at 8:00, we hung around talking for a bit, and then took a great tip from Art "FooBooz" Etchells (who took his own advice and attended the class; great to finally meet you, Art!) and went to Jose Pistolas for dinner. I was real happy to look at the beer list and see Philly Brewing's Joe coffee porter: I've been hoping to get a chance to try that, and it was excellent, one of the better coffee beers I've had. I hope to see that in their regular line-up (and I'd love to see an occasional appearance by the base porter, too).

But what a good chow-down: I decided to have the Sunrise Burrito since I was having a cup of coffee, and it was the best breakfast-type burrito I've ever had, without question, fat, cheesy, solid and grippable. And Cathy's Chili Relleno special was outstanding, the biggest stuffed chili I remember seeing, and chunky with chorizo. Mighty nice!

We headed home, happy to get a night out before Cathy goes back to work on Monday. Thanks to the folks at Tria for extending the opportunity to present a class at the Fermentation School space: always a pleasure!

Cold Enough for you, Philly?

Meet me at Tria (1137 Spruce, the "Tria Wash West" location) this Friday for a beer event to warm up your winter. I'm hosting an open tasting of "bear beers," the big thumping brews that we love to sip in the winter during hibernation. The Tria Fermentation School event I'm doing later in the evening sold out so quickly, the folks at Tria decided that more folks should get a chance at some of these beers in specially priced tasting portions. The event runs from 4-7, I'll be there from 5 to 6...so you know when to catch or avoid me, as the mood suits! I've been letting my beard grow in the spirit of the thing, it's pretty shaggy, too.

The beers at the open tasting: Aventinus Eisbock, Victory Old Horizontal, Pennichuck Pozharnik Imperial Stout, De Dolle Stille Nacht, and Gouden Carolus Grand Cru. At the event, we'll also have Samichlaus, Fuller's Vintage, and Brooklyn Black Ops. I'd love to have some Great Divide Hibernation Ale; does anyone know where there's a case or a couple sixpacks left in the area? If you do, e-mail me please!

You want Bears? I've got Bear Beers for you!

After the talk of bears earlier this week, it seems like a particularly good time to announce my upcoming class at Tria's Fermentation School:

Strong & Soulful
Friday, January 23 • 6:30-8:00 pm -- The holidays are over, and hibernation during the dark winter nights is upon us. Doppelbocks, Eisbocks, Barleywines, Imperial Stouts and big Belgians are in order. Nationally acclaimed Philly-based beer writer Lew Bryson (hey, mom, that's me!) will share his favorite beers for a bear winter. Taste iconic strong Belgian, German and British brews plus new interpretations of these soul-warming styles by contemporary American craft breweries sure to keep you roasty and toasty even on the coldest winter night.

We're trying to pull together some 'bearish' snacks: honey, nuts, berries, and smoked salmon. Should be a fun evening, and some excellent beers. Not sessiony at all, believe me!

Wow. Some folks really like big bear beers: just got a note from Tria that this sold out in a day. Thanks!